“Dont Buy Bitcoin!” Why ‘The Rich’ Are Buying Gold, Diamonds, and Jewelry | TraxNYC

Noble Gold: Get your FREE Gold & Silver Guide at https://noblegoldinvestments.com/iced/ NetSuite: Download the CFO’s Guide to AI for FREE at https://netsuite.com/iced ZipRecruiter: Try ZipRecruiter for FREE at https://ziprecruiter.com/ICH ZocDoc: Go to https://www.zocdoc.com/ICED and download the Zocdoc App for FREE Follow TRAXNYC: On Youtube - / @traxnycdiamondjewelry On Instagram - / traxnyc X - https://x.com/TraxNYC Apply for The Index Membership: https://entertheindex.com/ Add us on Instagram: / jlsselby / gpstephan Official Clips Channel: / @theicedcoffeehourclips For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: [email protected] For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Intro 00:01:08 - Craziest thing Trax made from gold 00:02:51 - Do you always carry gold? 00:03:34 - Why he chose jewelry business 00:07:12 - His "lightbulb moment" in business 00:10:08 - Red flags of theft 00:13:52 - How he ended up in debt 00:15:27 - Sponsor - Noble Gold 00:16:45 - Early spending habits 00:20:33 - What set him apart 00:21:23 - Does jewelry business attract greedy people? 00:22:44 - People faking wealth 00:29:55 - Wealth levels & jewelry taste 00:32:51 - Sponsor - NetSuite 00:35:39 - Buyers who don’t ask price 00:37:56 - Cultural negotiation styles 00:39:21 - Best way to negotiate 00:41:02 - Biggest negotiation mistakes 00:42:36 - Gold as an investment 00:43:47 - His inventory appreciation 00:45:20 - Why people don’t know gold prices 00:58:10 - Where he buys gold 01:01:34 - How to verify real gold 01:02:21 - Taxes & giving away gold 01:03:05 - His most expensive giveaway 01:03:07 - Sponsor - ZipRecruiter 01:03:58 - Sponsor - Zocdoc 01:05:56 - Does strong gold market hurt business? 01:09:13 - Gold price in 5–10 years 01:10:32 - How much gold should you own 01:13:03 - Getting scammed with fake jewelry 01:14:00 - Why watches are getting popular 01:15:30 - Best watches to buy 01:19:13 - Worst watches to buy 01:19:39 - Clone watches 01:20:33 - Overpriced luxury brands 01:21:20 - Lab-made vs real diamonds 01:24:47 - Getting women’s attention right vs wrong 01:31:38 - Immigrant view on America being "hard" 01:33:08 - Next big thing 01:34:25 - People’s Court experience 01:37:55 - Rapid fire questions 01:39:17 - How social media grew his business *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  You have to be competitive and vicious. I'm gonna lose my f***ing mind, so please be careful, bro. You give away a lot of gold on your channel. Yeah, I gave away, I'm gonna give away more. Each one of these ounces is two grand. Let's see if somebody wants it for free. Free sample or track back? Anybody, please?

• 0:44Graham Stephan?

  Why do you think that people on the street are so clueless about the price of gold?

• 0:48Speaker 01

  People should be like angels, but forget about what they should be doing. Money is a game and everybody's responsible for playing it smart.

• 0:54Speaker 03

  I want the gold!

• 0:55Graham Stephan?

  Now, when you were doing your business, how did you end up in debt?

• 0:58Speaker 01

  Credit card fraud and theft. How much debt did you get in? Couple of million. I was a young kid, they took advantage. I didn't know that people could be evil. You know, you look a little skeptical at me, you don't believe my story? I believe your story, it's just surprising. Get the f*** out of here. Gold is about trust. Can you trust the federal government? If you watch the gold price, it's always about what's actually happening. That's when it comes into play, because then you're gonna need a currency system that's backed by something and measured by something. And the question then becomes is not how many dollars you have, is how many grams you have.

• 1:38Graham Stephan?

  Well, I'm curious, what is the craziest thing that you've made out of gold?

• 1:41Speaker 01

  Um, well, I make a lot of crazy figurines, right? You know, like I made the baseball and a bunch of other figures. But right now, I'm trying to make the Indiana Jones, you know, when he's switching that bag of dirt for that big gold head?

• 1:54Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  That, um, is gonna be, though, about 10 kilograms of gold. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit in making crazy things out of gold. Can you curse on this podcast?

• 2:05Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, sure.

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Crazy shit out of gold, you know what I'm saying?

• 2:08Graham Stephan?

  Oh, and also a reminder, if you want to see this episode and future episodes early, completely uncensored, you can join the membership as well. You'll get early access to everything, bonus episodes, and no ads, no sponsorships. But anyway, yeah, check it out.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  So I'm working with one of my friends, Bouillon Trading LLC. And we're, I'm gonna be taking his gold because he trusts me and melting it into crazy things. And the stuff I did is minor. I used my own gold, which is like a quarter of a million dollars for the baseball, or you know, 300 grand, I made the subway card or whatever. I'm just getting started. Coming up with a couple of ideas to market my jewelry business. That's it, man, you know? Trying to get to your level, bro. You could just keep remelting the same thing over and over to different things. There is a little bit of a loss where, you know, where the gold goes and how? And if you're ever in New York, I'll show you the melting process. I know you'd love that. You know what I'm saying? Try to pick up some dust particles on the ground. Yeah, there's some. Don't be sweeping around there.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  There's some gold loss, you know, which is very frustrating and annoying, especially when you cast it and then you polish it. That's really, uh, uh, you know, you're losing, if it's a big object, 20 grams, 30 grams. You know, of, uh, that's an ounce. That's like $3,500. Do you always have gold on you? Um, usually, yeah. I mean, I wear a little bit of gold here and there. Nothing crazy, you know what I'm saying? I got my little eagle. I got my 24 karat pendant right here. Oh, my Star of David, of course. And this is my 24K that from another thing. This is just a regular little pieces to just. How much are those worth? At today's price, altogether, like 15 to 20,000, I think, altogether.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  I mean, this piece right here is 3,000. The chain is, you know, uh, 2 grand. All right, this one is also around 3 to 4. And another chain, 2, 3 grand, you know? Gold price is high. And then the Star of David or whatever. So what attracted you to the jewelry business? Um, well, you know, I was actually like a tech guy. Then I was installing a video game on my friend's computer, Counter-Strike. I'm sure you played that. I was installing Counter-Strike, he got a ton of viruses, you know, whole family used this computer. So many viruses, they clicked on every pop up. Probably LimeWire. Yeah, back in 2000 and, and you know, uh, three or 2004.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  The family clicked on everything, you know, get you're getting some, so the, the, and he was desperate for Counter-Strike, right? The guy was having some issues, he wanted to just stay home and play Counter-Strike, you know, serious issues. Alright, um, uh, so I'm there helping him out. I'm installing Counter-Strike, uninstalling these viruses, and his cousin is, uh, sees me. And he's like, you know, he sees I'm a computer dude and these guys are in the hood, this is not whatever, okay? This is, this is the hood at that time. And they see me solving these problems, and they're like, oh, this guy's a computer dude right here, da-da-da-da. So, he takes me in. And, um, uh, this dude, and he, you know, he's hustling, he's driving, at that point of time, he was buying fake clothing

• 5:13Speaker 01

  from brands, you know, like fake branded clothing from Canal Street, just a Chinatown. Driving it out of state, selling it like it's real, it's just a hustler. And he was also working with some jewelry stores over there, just networking, trying to find how to, whatever. Um, and he put me on, and he got me in, and I became kinda like an intern, uh, for him. And, um, uh, at some point of time, he had me sell, you know, a shirt on eBay. Evisu, you ever heard that brand? No. Yeah, it's like a Japanese brand that used, you know, did denim and it was very big, like handmade denim, whatever. I sell it for a hundred and twenty bucks. And, um, the customer gets it and returns it.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  It's like, I don't want this fake crap, so I'm like, I give back the money, I'm like, yeah, man, my bad, bro, this customer returned it. Doesn't pick up my call, deadened me for a hundred and twenty dollars. I'm like, alright, you wanna dead me for a hundred and twenty bucks? I'm gonna go back to that store that I saw and photograph the jewelry, put it up on eBay. Uh, sell it, buy it, learn it, ship it, uh, get to the manufacturer, start my business.

• 6:17Graham Stephan?

  It's funny, we have a very similar story. So how I got started was taking pictures of fish and coral.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:22Graham Stephan?

  Uh, for a wholesaler, they'd put it online, sell it. Those skills led me to doing lease listings on Craigslist. I'd take pictures of other agents' listings in my office.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:32Graham Stephan?

  Cause I just started, I was 18 years old.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:34Graham Stephan?

  And I take the photos for free.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:36Graham Stephan?

  I offered them the photos, but I said, well, if I lease it from Craigslist, I get the commission for the tenant.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:41Graham Stephan?

  And you lease it and you get a, you get a tenant for your client.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:46Graham Stephan?

  And that's how I got started.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 6:47Graham Stephan?

  Was just taking free pictures and arbitrage.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  You saw an advantage, it was the dawn of the internet, so to speak, right? You saw an advantage and, or you saw an opportunity. Uh, where, uh, other people were blind and for a very, I mean, you know, if I had any actual, you know, I was born in a communist country, business was not in the mentality. So that really held me back. You know, I didn't even know I could start a business. I didn't really believe in my idea because it was just so foreign. Uh, you know, and, uh, maybe a lower self-esteem or whatever. So that held me back, you know, with one foot in, one foot out. But I had to learn the industry for a very long time and I, I got it through the door. Yeah, you know, but at that time, there was low hanging fruit that people grabbed, you know? Some people did a better job.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Some people were in their prime for that, like Jeff Bezos. He wasn't 18 during that time, he was 30 something. And he realized what the opportunity was with the internet and he grabbed it.

• 7:42Graham Stephan?

  Was there a specific moment that it kind of clicked? And then you realized, okay, this, I can turn this into a real, fully fledged business that makes really good money?

• 7:50Speaker 01

  Um, well, I started making money. I was in the top 1% of the eBay people when I was like 19 and they flew me down to DC to lobby in Congress. You know what I'm saying? Um, uh, because they had a lobby, you know, you look a little skeptical of me. You don't believe my story?

• 8:04Graham Stephan?

  I believe your story, it's just surprising. So you were 19 and you went to go lobby Congress?

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Yes, so basically they invited their top 1% sellers to DC. And then at that time, you know, they were gonna try to impose sales tax on eBay, or whatever the hell they were gonna do. And um, they wanted, they opened up a DC office, and they wanted their top sellers to lobby, you know, in, in Congress to tell them this is gonna hurt whatever. Alright, so they'd have us go with the assistant of Chuck Schumer and the assistant of whoever. And it was cool. I got to go to the Capitol Building. I got to go to this and that. And that was a great experience. But I was, to answer the original question, I was in the top 1% making money. I should have raised my prices. But again, I kept my prices too low because I'm like, how can people afford jewelry? It just didn't have the mentality, you know what I'm saying?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I came to America in 1993. You know, and I opened up the business in 2004. Okay, so um, I was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, you know, this was the Soviet Union at that time. This is, people weren't thinking about business, people weren't thinking about nothing. But I knew it could happen here and I was making money and then I um, made a couple of mistakes. You know, lost the control of my business and I had to backtrack for a long time. How do you lose control? I was building a business around my friends. I was an employer, I just hired my friends. And then that ruined the relationship and then they got replaced. And then the people that I had to replace them with um, began to steal and it was credit card fraud and I lost money.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  And then in order to fight that off, I had to do a bunch of other nonsense. And I had another friend from Florida come up and uh, help me out, but by the time we structured the business, I was in debt. So then I had to do this and I had to do that and I had to do this and I had to do that. And people were stealing is really what it was, you know what I'm saying? And I was too naive. How do they steal from you? Too stupid. How do they steal? You know what I'm saying? You picked up this ring uh, for, alright, um, um, alright, or I picked up this ring from you, you're the wholesaler, I'm me. I picked up this ring and I picked up that ring and that ring. And then you billed me for an extra ring and I didn't check the bill. And then I ship it and then the return came and my staff took the item and just pocketed it. You know what I'm saying? They didn't give me to the return.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  It's just they were and I had no awareness that somebody would steal. I didn't know that people could be evil and um, you know, that they wouldn't even forget about fearing God. They were like, yo, this, I'll get the money. I'll this guy over. Who cares? I I didn't think like that, you know what I'm saying? I thought in a different capacity.

• 10:39Graham Stephan?

  Are there any red flags if someone's gonna steal from you that you look for that you see now?

• 10:43Speaker 01

  Now? Yeah. Now a hundred percent. I mean, it's not even about the red flags that you see. It's guilty before proven innocent. If an honest person, you see that there's an honest person there. You know what I'm saying?

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Like you see something and it's hard to describe, you know, a fake human being that's overly nice. Like, oh, yeah, I'm, you know, saying like, you start looking, this guy's really, really trying to be nice or trying to be like he's a good person. Might be hiding something, you know? Might be this. So a person is guilty until they prove themselves innocent. Okay. Not like in a court of law where they're innocent until they're proven guilty. In in real life, a person is, I don't trust you. I don't know you. Until you prove yourself to be whatever. But it's in what they say. You know, a person communicates with you and if something just rubs you the wrong way, you know? It it it's in your ears. Like if you're eating a meal

• 11:43Speaker 01

  and it's a funny taste, stop eating it. Something is wrong. Either it's on the floor or something fell in or some dish soap or some that funny taste is not because it's it's it's just it's funny. You know what I'm saying? It's funny taste is something happened that you didn't see. And and same thing with a person. You have to have that sense like, what is this person saying? And why is he acting like? Like he's really for it and you know, why do they disappear? Like I had this nasty person that I had employed. Here's an example. I'm walking up the stairs. I see him walking out of the, you know, in in the building in the diamond district and everyone's got different gem shops. This one, diamonds here, there. I see him walking out of a hallway that I've never seen him before, that I've never even been in.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  So I'm looking and I ask, you know, which, what was going on in there? And they give you an answer, ah, just picking up something and I'm just doing this and I'm just doing that. And I'm like, you know what I'm saying? That doesn't make sense, right? That doesn't add up. If you're in someplace working for my company that I've never been in, you'd say, hey, this is a great place to pick up gems and pick this. It turns out this individual piece of was scheming and using my company to pick up manufacturers and keeping them in their back pocket, thinking that they're gonna build out some amazing dream of theirs. It is what it is. You see it, don't ignore it. You know, somebody's like, ah, eh, eh, this, that, there, uh, watch their eyes.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Watch what they're doing, watch what they're saying, add it up. If you yourself are honest, you'll see that something is out of line. And it's, if it, you know, if something is out of line, then something is hidden. Keep your distance and be aware.

• 13:29Graham Stephan?

  Can I throw out tests, like test your employees, test the people that are close to you like?

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:34Graham Stephan?

  How do you, could you reveal how you do that or maybe a test you've done in the back?

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, um, uh, well, you know, I'm thinking about the individual individuals that are there and um, the different behaviors and activities that I've seen. Obviously, the easiest thing is to leave something around and see if it disappears. That's the easiest test. That's entrapment, so to speak. You know, some people, but you know, there's some people that will come up to you and say, hey, this was over here. And there's some people that will, oh, he didn't notice that this is gone. And they make that betrayal. But the easiest way is just to leave around and look stupid and, and, and let people believe that you have a blind spot that they could exploit. And then eventually, you know, it's a dirty game. It's for, it's a, it's a primitive game for primitive people, man.

• 14:23Graham Stephan?

  Now, when you were doing your business, how did you end up in debt?

• 14:26Speaker 01

  Credit card fraud and theft.

• 14:28Graham Stephan?

  How much debt did you get in?

• 14:29Speaker 01

  Couple of million.

• 14:31Graham Stephan?

  How old were you?

• 14:32Speaker 01

  It was in my twenties, late twenties by that time. I was losing money consecutively for. Ten years.

• 14:39Jack Selby?

  How did you not detect that you, how were you operating a business that was losing money for ten years?

• 14:44Speaker 01

  I was growing it. So I had a bigger sales volume and I was always able to cover something with something. All right, so I, you know, I grew my sales volume to a million dollars a month. So that gave me a floating capital. But you know, I lost some of that capital, so it covered it. So I'm thinking, all right, well, I'll sell more and I'll make it back. But then I make, sell more and then it's not there. So, um, it's just a lot in the fair share. I was a young dude. I was a kid and I was, and I have to admit here on the Graham and Jack iced coffee hour that I was a little retarded. You know what I'm saying? It's a shame, but it's reality.

• 15:21Jack Selby?

  And so it was literally just people saying, oh yeah, I bought seven rings when in actuality they bought six and they were just upcharging your employees and then-

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Employees and vendors, nasty, dirty little crooks that would just, you know, play with the bill. And you know, it's a complicated bill. I'm selling a lot of, I'm running around. I'm like, all right, man, I, I know this guy's not gonna me. I'll trust it and I'll just take care of it and I'll pay it. That was just stupid, bro.

• 15:44Jack Selby?

  What happened to those people? Are they still in business?

• 15:46Speaker 01

  Some of them are. Some of them know what the is the deal with me and they don't play with me. You know what I'm saying? And, um, uh, they're around, man, and they are what they are. What can I tell you, say about that, man?

• 15:58Graham Stephan?

  Although really quick, something that comes up often on the podcast is diversification and more people are beginning to look into gold and silver. With everything going on in the economy, it makes sense. Like the dollar is already down nine percent this year. Well, gold is up 25%. That's a major shift in purchasing power. You might not feel it immediately, but over time it adds up.

• 16:18Jack Selby?

  Plus with potential rate cuts on the horizon, hard assets like gold and silver have historically done really well in that environment. And if you're holding on to too much cash, you could be missing on the upside.

• 16:27Graham Stephan?

  Today's sponsor, Noble Gold Investments, helps people explore those options. You could roll over a part of your IRA or 401k into physical gold or silver or make a direct purchase. Either way, it's a strategic method to hedge outside of the stock market.

• 16:41Jack Selby?

  Their process is focused on education, not pressure. You get a dedicated specialist, upfront pricing and clear answers to your questions. From a US-based team.

• 16:49Graham Stephan?

  And there's a guaranteed buyback program, so there's flexibility if you ever decide to sell down the line.

• 16:54Jack Selby?

  So if you've been thinking about protecting your wealth with some real assets, now could be a great time to learn more before any potential rate changes hit.

• 17:00Graham Stephan?

  Head to noblegoldinvestments.com/iced to get started or to schedule a free consultation. Again, that is noblegoldinvestments.com/iced, or the link is also down below in the description. Thank you so much for sponsoring this episode, and now let's get back to the podcast.

• 17:16Jack Selby?

  During this period of time where you were in debt, but still making good money trying to push that debt over, were you living a luxurious lifestyle? When you were making all this money in your twenties, were you spending it on nice cars, nice dinners, fancy dates?

• 17:28Speaker 01

  In the first one, first I bought a nice car and I had something going for me in the beginning when I started making money. It wasn't the craziest car, but back then for, you know, it was an Audi S5, but the V8.

• 17:42Jack Selby?

  How much were you making at the time?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  I don't know. You know, I was just a kid who just photographed some jewelry, you know what I'm saying? I didn't know what counting. I didn't know how to write a check.

• 17:49Jack Selby?

  You had no idea, though?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  I estimated that I was making 10 grand a month to 20 grand a month. But I didn't have an expense report. I didn't have QuickBooks. I didn't have nothing. I had an eBay store, photographs of jewelry, sold the jewelry, pick it up from these vendors. Now, I could have, I was one of the first jewelers on there. That's why I had all that traction. You know what I'm saying? I could have made millions at that time. All I needed to do was manufacture. But instead, I'm photographing from these pieces of worthless [BLEEP] man. And they're telling me, you know, and they're not like, you know, straight answers, you know what I'm saying? You don't understand the type of people that you're dealing with. They just tell you yes to anything. And then they say, I never said that, you know, straight to your face, like beyond your [BLEEP] wildest comprehension. All right?

• 18:35Speaker 01

  So you're going, you know, this ring can't be sized. So I come up to you, you're the vendor, and I say, listen, I need this ring for my client in a size nine. And you know, can you order it for me? He's like, yeah, it'll take me one week, no problem. Ah, alright, one week later, you come to him, I'm like, listen, the customer's been waiting. I gave you the money, where's the ring? He's like, what? Four weeks to order this? Ah, I'm like, you told me one week, no. And I'm like, you piece of shit. So I'm like, now I have to struggle with the client, tell him some, come back four weeks later. You didn't, I didn't even order it, you didn't even pay me. Then another four weeks go, go by. If it comes in, it's not even the right size.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  I told you size eight, what? Huh? No shame, no nothing.

• 19:24Jack Selby?

  Did they put anything in writing?

• 19:25Speaker 01

  I should have slapped him across his face that, that, that very moment, bro. Then I would have told, what writing, bro? This is a, you know?

• 19:33Jack Selby?

  It's just, just like a, like a.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  I was a young kid.

• 19:36Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  I was a young kid, it was all, they took advantage. I, I, I was a young kid who thought the world worked in a different way. Understand? That's really what it was. This, that, these people, I'm not gonna say derogatory, you know what I'm saying? But you're dealing with people that are just the biggest pieces of shit, bro. And it was my fault, you know what I'm saying? I should have saw it, I should have walked out the door and whatever, but I thought, I, I was just insane.

• 20:02Jack Selby?

  What motivated you to make as much money as possible?

• 20:05Speaker 01

  I mean, you know, you wanna be a successful person, you wanna eat, you wanna be able to take care of your family, you wanna have a beautiful girl, you wanna have one or two of them. You wanna buy an apartment, you wanna have an art collection like Graham, man, what do you mean, what motivates you for the money?

• 20:17Jack Selby?

  But some people don't actualize that, like they, they, they say they want the money and they feel like they want the money, but they don't.

• 20:22Speaker 01

  Saying and actually wanting are two different things. Want is a word. Want is a word. You're not comfortable in where you are, so you have to go. But if you're comfortable where, yeah, you want this, but, but you really wanna roll a blunt, is what you really want, cause that's what you're doing. How can you be doing something, oh baby, I wanna love you and wanna be with you, but you're out with another chick? You know what I'm saying? So you want the other chick, you don't wanna love, or you don't wanna do this. You're doing what you want. You, you know what I'm saying? What you, you're saying you want money, but what you really want is to kick back, be lazy, both smoke up your own because that's what you're doing. So how the hell do you want it?

• 21:05Speaker 01

  What set you apart from all the people who say they want it, they never take action on it? I needed it. I didn't want it. I needed it. There's no point of me living and this and that. I want to be able to order this bottle of wine. I want to be able to impress this chick over here. I want to be able to pull up in this car. I need it. I don't want it. I want to be able to have a good time and really feel uh, and, and experience life for, for its utmost. And you know, I had the, the, the, the necessary IQ points to be able to structure, you know, whatever's in the environment, eBay picture, this and that to, to claw at this. That's it. Do you think you have more street smarts than the average person? Um, at this point I have, yeah, for sure. You know what I'm saying?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Um, uh, whatever that even means, street smarts or wha- or, or whatever it might be. Sure. Do you think the jewelry industry attracts just greedy people? Um, does it attract just greedy people? Not necessarily, you know, it attracts all sorts of people and there's great people doing business over there. Some of them are more disgusting than others. Um, but there's great people doing business there. But yeah, by nature, you have to be competitive and vicious. The product is in the hand. Okay. It's a different environment. There's no sc- uh, scannable barcode. Yeah. Alright, there's no warehouse. You're not selling paper towels. Some people can make things disappear. It costs you money. They could take your client, they could cut your throat, they could do a bunch of stuff.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  So it's a very competitive vicious business, but the people that are in it have been in it for generations. They know the rules and that's that. The, the person that's coming in there and thinking that they're going to make something happen is a different type of, of moron. And there's a lot of those. But um, yeah, you know, a sales guy, you know what I'm saying? Somebody in sales and they see the money and nobody's out there. No matter, the more you pay them, the more they think they're going to be richer on their own. So if you pay them nothing, you know, they're gonna be sitting there scheming. And if you pay them a lot, they're gonna be scheming even more, man. It's not comfortable. You have to judge character. Character. You have to judge character and build a relationship with someone that's fair.

• 23:15Graham Stephan?

  How often do people fake wealth?

• 23:18Speaker 01

  All the time. What do you mean?

• 23:19Graham Stephan?

  Like, what are the ways that you can spot real versus fake wealth? Can you immediately tell if someone's actually wealthy?

• 23:24Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 23:25Graham Stephan?

  But are there tells when someone walks in, talks to you, that you could tell this guy's full of

• 23:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:32Graham Stephan?

  And what are those tells?

• 23:33Speaker 01

  I don't even listen to the words, man. I listen to the energy. It's as soon as I hear speech that's like,

• 23:41Speaker 01

  you know what I'm saying? Somebody come in, "Oh, yeah, man. Oh, I like this and this is the..." And I'm just like, "Just shut the up, bro. Get the out of here." You know what I'm saying? I walked into your home, man. Comment your art. Wait till you see the hallway. It's an informational exchange. You know what I'm saying? The information resonates. All right? It resonates. The vibrations go into the eardrum and into the brain and it's like, "Oh, okay. This makes sense." You know what I'm saying? And, "Oh, this is what you're doing. This is the book I read. This is the book, you know, your Goosebumps collection or whatever. This is your favorite." There's a back and forth exchange that's building a relationship, that's building positivity. If I came in there and said, "I have a better one."

• 24:25Speaker 01

  What would you think, bro?

• 24:27Graham Stephan?

  I'd wanna see a photo of it.

• 24:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, or you'd wanna see a photo of it, or you're this and that. But still, even if I did have a better one, why wouldn't I say something positive? You know what I'm saying? Why play some stupid game, you know? So this is kind of my experience of it. People come up to me all the time. I got a jewelry store. You know what I'm saying? There's no gate to get through. They walk inside and they say, "I have this idea." And I might be wrong. I might be judging people incorrectly. But they might say, "I have this idea," or "this," or "I want that," or "I want this." And I'm just listening to them like, "Yeah, go speak to over there." But if it resonates and someone is saying something that Inside my mind isn't annoying me.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Then I'm starting paying attention and you know, some people lift you up and inspire you and some people put you down. And I'm sensitive to the feeling. I'm not even focusing on the words. I'm sensitive to the.

• 25:21Speaker 00

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• 25:51Speaker 01

  Feeling. That's what it is to me.

• 25:53Jack Selby?

  What about clothing and flexing and watches and stuff like that? Can you, because I've heard that if you eclipse like a real crazy level of wealth, you start wearing like kind of dragged old clothing like.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:06Jack Selby?

  Like Adam Sandler and a lot of like Shia LaBeouf. You stop having to prove anything.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Well, you don't have to prove anything when you've been in a million movies.

• 26:13Jack Selby?

  Okay, sure. Well, what about other people? Do you notice like a correlation at all with like the actual physical appearance of like very wealthy people versus not?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Not often. This one guy that I know, he's got a collection of Ferraris. And um, but he likes to dress with the nice shit and he's wearing Richard Mills and he's doing his thing. You know what I'm saying? And he um, was the CEO of a Sharpie, you know, a marker or brought that to market. You know, made serious money. You're talking about half a billion dollars altogether or something like that. The guy shows money, but he wants to be fit, wants to look good. Take a look at Jeff Bezos. He was doing Amazon, you know, let's get that picture of him in his purple eggplant Halloween costume. But as soon as he made that money, he said, what the am I gonna do at Amazon all day long? And you know, tinkering with this shopping cart button.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  Got himself a yacht, got jacked, got himself a side chick and whatever.

• 27:08Graham Stephan?

  What about Elon though? Cause he still has the tiny home. He doesn't have any fancy cars. He like, what do you think about the difference of someone maybe like?

• 27:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. I mean, a star is a star. The man is, you know, the man is a star, so it doesn't really matter. If the women looked at him like he was a loser, she would put something on, bro. But the knows he's got all the money in the world and she's googly eyed, smiling. Okay, that's how women are. Alright, so that is the name of the game. And if you get the impression of cross, it's way more helpful. Sure, you could be humble, like John the Baptist, you know, eating locusts and dry honey, you know, and in the desert, but um, that's a different dimension.

• 27:56Graham Stephan?

  So it's interesting. When I was working as a real estate agent, I'd host open houses every single Sunday at Beverly Hills.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:02Graham Stephan?

  And I can't tell you the amount of fake people who came in every single Sunday and you could, you could point them out.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:08Graham Stephan?

  They ended up getting really dressed up to go and see an open house.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:12Graham Stephan?

  And they always had a story.

• 28:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 28:14Graham Stephan?

  You mentioned, they would always start talking about themselves. Oh, I sold this business and now I'm looking for this.

• 28:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:20Graham Stephan?

  Uh, my price range is seven million dollars and.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  You nailed it.

• 28:24Graham Stephan?

  But they start going, explaining too much.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:26Graham Stephan?

  And the real people walked in, I noticed.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:29Graham Stephan?

  Really understated.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:30Graham Stephan?

  Would never want to talk to you.

• 28:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:32Graham Stephan?

  When you ask their information, they'd say, oh, you know, I'll sign it.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:36Graham Stephan?

  And that's it. They really just didn't want to be bothered.

• 28:38Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 28:38Graham Stephan?

  But they more walk in and out with a bit of confidence to them. And I also noticed that sometimes the, the poorest dressed people.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:46Graham Stephan?

  Were the richest.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:47Graham Stephan?

  The dude is walking in with, with flip flops, kind of a dirty white t-shirt and sweatpants. He's the one with like 200 million dollars.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Correct. In some cases, but you know, he's flashing money in other places. You know, he's going over there. Everybody got a plan. That person that was muttering nonsense when they walked through there, they thought they're gonna wake up and they're gonna come up and they're gonna tell a story about how they're this and how they're that. And you see that, you know, and it doesn't resonate. You're an open house, you get to the point, it is what it is. You don't know me, I don't know you. I might have a million dollars or trillion dollars or what have you. I don't know. You know, but. This is the house, you're buying it or you're not. It it makes sense. The shit that makes sense, makes sense. The shit that doesn't, doesn't. And people with, but you know, professional scam artists, after they, some people like, oh, I'm embarrassed. I got caught being a fraud and they leave.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Some people like, oh, I know why I got caught. Let me adjust my strategy. I'm gonna come in there on some shit. I know that he's thinking that in his head, that I'll come in there with the flip flops and the shit. And I'll even have my friend come up to you and say, you dropped this and it's some expensive, whatever. A scam, they'll fool you. There's lots of crazy scams out there, man. There's lots of people that if they invest their energy into fraud, they will um uh go past these filters that you're noting.

• 30:04Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. It's interesting too. People would even tie up properties in escrow, I've noticed. They would, they would claim they sent a wire transfer. But then one of the digits was like mixed by mistake.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:14Graham Stephan?

  And it's like, oh, well, I sent this deposit for the, for the down payment on the house. We already have a signed deal. Now I gotta wait to get that back. And then a week goes by, I'm still waiting to get it back. They send it again, something went wrong.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  And what's, what's the advantage of doing all this bullshit?

• 30:29Graham Stephan?

  I've never figured it out.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:31Graham Stephan?

  I, I think it's the feeling of importance. Or they think, maybe I'm gonna hustle this deal over here and like get the money for it, or maybe I could have a friend come. There's gotta be.

• 30:40Jack Selby?

  Make the seller more distressed or something.

• 30:41Graham Stephan?

  But it's happened multiple times.

• 30:43Speaker 01

  There's a reason for it.

• 30:44Graham Stephan?

  No, different people, eh, we, there's never been a scam. It's mostly the people, I think, wanting attention.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Right. They want attention, yeah. I mean, in Beverly Hills and LA, they wanna be a part of that life and a part of that top, but they're not.

• 30:57Jack Selby?

  What about different levels of wealth and how they purchase items from you? For example, if you have someone maybe worth like 200 million, are they buying crazy iced out watches versus someone that's maybe worth like 5 million? Are they buying different sorts of jewelry?

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:10Jack Selby?

  Is there like, like a, a difference in terms of jewelry preferences that you notice?

• 31:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, listen, um, of course, there's a difference in preferences, uh, but for you, you know, you're distinctly asking a person with a couple of million, what their taste is versus a person with vast amounts of money?

• 31:26Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, like, for example, vast amounts of money, maybe they're doing something because they're actually passionate, rather than like getting a crazy iced out.

• 31:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's not much of a passion, you know what I'm saying? You got more money, you're, you wanna show it off, you want, you know, you wanna be at the casino and you wanna do this and you wanna do that. It's mostly for, for women, okay, and signaling wealth or whatever. And it's also for a good look or whatever it might be. Um, but, you know, that depends on, on, on the individual. But they're looking for the status, so whether they have the one million or two, if it's their first watch, they might get a iced out this or a big bezel that. But if it's their, if they've been buying for a long time, they're gonna get that rare piece that's, that says, I know what the I'm doing to protect Philippe, whatever with the moon phase.

• 32:11Graham Stephan?

  How often do people come to you and not able to afford the jewelry? Or they're on a payment plan and they just charge it to a credit card and you know they can't afford this thing?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, the average, uh, the average person, it's, it happens enough. It's not that they can't afford it. You know, they're buying something for fifteen hundred dollars or twenty five hundred dollars. So how can they not afford it? They have a steady job and can make a payments, relatively they can afford it. And what they're buying, they're buying, if they're buying the right piece of jewelry, they're doing the right thing. You know, if you bought a piece of jewelry that was heavy in gold in the year two thousand and four, when I started, even if you paid over price, you know, the gold price was three fifty an ounce, now it's thirty five hundred more or less. So you ten X'd your money.

• 32:52Graham Stephan?

  Hmm.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  And if, and if you overpay double, you five X'd it or whatever. So you can't lose on that. So some people are buying, getting played, man. And some people are not. Some people are, are over, you know, what, what, the question and, and the nature of the question. Of course, some people are over committing themselves on they can't do. Some people are on drugs they can't quit. You know, some people are buying to look like this, some people are buying to look like that. And there is some millionaires that scrounge every dollar or millionaires or whatever and look like bums. But I I never really noticed them and those are people with psychotic issues, really. But still, they they spend their money somewhere.

• 33:29Jack Selby?

  I saw this one video a long time ago of Michael Jackson walking through an antique shop, I think it was.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  I saw that video.

• 33:34Jack Selby?

  And he's like, and I'll take this.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  I'll take that.

• 33:37Jack Selby?

  Uh, yeah, but I just remember watching this video and he just seemed to not care whatsoever about the price. Do you have buyers like that? What is your favorite type of buyer?

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Oh, that's the favorite type of buyer right there.

• 33:47Jack Selby?

  And people do that. They walk into the shop and they're just like, oh, yeah, 10 grand, whatever.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  I had a guy that came in.

• 33:52Graham Stephan?

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• 34:05Jack Selby?

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• 34:34Graham Stephan?

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• 35:03Jack Selby?

  People do that. They walk into the shop and they're just like, oh, yeah, 10 grand, whatever.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  I had a guy that came in, okay? This guy, his father was selling military equipment to Iraq with government contracts from the US. So he was manufacturing in Ukraine before long, in a long, long ago. And that's his father, and he was shipping it over there and just just milking money, whatever. And his father put him on a big allowance, okay? Because something in the family, not gonna get into it, put him on a big allowance. Guy came in. Bought three Rolex's for me, gifted me one and the other one to one other member of my staff and the other member of my staff and then he started giving out gold bars to the other members of my staff.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  So this is a customer that came in, bought three watches from me and gifted them to me. Okay, that's my favorite customer, bro.

• 36:01Jack Selby?

  Where is he now?

• 36:02Speaker 01

  He's chilling, he's chilling somewhere. He hit me up the other day. I mean, the, the, his allowance went down or whatever. You know what I'm saying? He's, he's more normal, more focused, but he was burning through. He was burning through a quarter of a million, half a million dollars a month, just having a good time. Shorties in every state or in every city, you know, buying jewelry for them, going over there, seeing them and just burning through money and just going full tilt.

• 36:27Jack Selby?

  Do you think he was happier back then or happier now?

• 36:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. I mean, he wa- it wasn't particularly happiness. It was just, you know, like the Emperor Nero would be doing or something like that. He was just pushing it to the limit.

• 36:42Jack Selby?

  How often do people?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  I don't know how happy that makes you, man.

• 36:44Jack Selby?

  Walk into the shop and not even ask the price of things and they're just like, yeah, that, I like that a lot. I'll buy that.

• 36:49Speaker 01

  Sometimes, sometimes, you know, but I didn't, I didn't build my business, I didn't build my business around luxury clients. I always, you know, again, and I'm immigrants from Azerbaijan, you know? I didn't grow up around money. I didn't even know people had money. So I had a mentality of value. I had a mentality of, you know, I want to sell this and that was not good to build a jewelry business around. Now I'm going to build a mentality, a jewelry brand around other things and then I'm going to be able to charge and, and push and attract the type of client. In order to do that, I need inventory. I need to be able to capitalize. Right? You know, I got like seven million dollars, eight million dollars worth of inventory. I need to get to 20 million, 25 million, deploy that properly and then I'll have the inventory

• 37:32Speaker 01

  to attract the clients that's going to just buy, buy, buy. Doesn't happen all the time. I have normal clients that buy great jewelry that has a good value with a fair markup. Because that's what I adjusted my business to. The sucking for money is not my style. I'm not going to be like, he's got the money, he's got the watch, he's got this, he's got that. Built a jewelry business and you know what it is out there. The more I am, uh, act the way I'm acting now, the better that business goes. So that's why it encourages this type of behavior. But I don't like to worship money, man. I don't like it. And e- even though I chose this business as a young person,

• 38:10Speaker 01

  the snobs that come in there or the snobbery like they I I never attract that type of customer that they wanna be like I got this or, you know, the guy that Chrome Hearts, he's got, you know, yeah, sure, there's some kid comes in that's spending his parents' money from Beijing. You know what I'm saying? And he's wearing the latest Chrome Hearts shirt. And the latest Chrome Hearts this. And he wants to get the thing to this and that. He's just trying to look for some status and he's playing that game. The game of I'm rich. And I'm a uh, get the out of here is my take. Go deal with my sales guy and let him blow smoke up your. That's the answer.

• 38:51Graham Stephan?

  Is there anyone you won't sell to?

• 38:53Speaker 01

  Um, uh, no, I'll sell to anybody who's, you know, um, respectful and who is thoughtful.

• 38:59Graham Stephan?

  Have you noticed any difference in cultures that some negotiate harder than others or some are better negotiators than others?

• 39:04Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 39:05Graham Stephan?

  People who've never negotiated anything.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Listen, I'm half Jewish. If I was full Jewish, I would have been way richer. You know what I'm saying? I'll tell you that much, bro. I got a just enough half to get me, you know, uh, uh, to where I need to be. And if I had a little bit more, I would have had a different character. Sure. But I had more money.

• 39:25Graham Stephan?

  How how uh, do you notice the variance of negotiation strategies amongst different cultures?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, listen, it it the negotiation strategies are going back to ancient Babylon. All right. You go to the diamond district and you're going over there. It's the same lines they used from long, long ago. You know, it's the same game over and over. But um, um, you know, negotiation and strategies is based upon options. Right? And some negotiator might be able to talk somebody in and get a better deal. But, you know, for me. I'll get an offer over here, get an offer over there, and an offer over there. And then you're shopping around. Now, there's some people that are strategic and they could squeeze you without getting that offer, and they have that skill. That's not my particular skill.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  You know, I want to do business simply and plainly in, in long term. I don't want to sit here and bargain with you back and forth. I really don't. I feel like it's a waste of my time. So what are the best ways to negotiate a good deal? What's the best way to negotiate a good deal is say, this is all I have. That's what I, what I do. And say, if somebody, like I was buying a gem at the gem show. You know, it's an emerald. The emeralds guy says nine thousand. I look in my pocket, says, man, I got six thousand five hundred. You want it? He's like, no, it's too low. Oh my God, my bad, my bad, bro. I walk around, I go to the next guy, I look at the emerald over there, I go to the next.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  I walk around, he's like, come, come, let's start something. You know, emerald costs six thousand. He don't want to make just five hundred. That's not worth it. So he's like on some no, no, but then he's like, I'll take the five hundred and I'll get to know this business and I'll start something. So to walk away or to say, this is all I have. If you come in there like, uh, you got all the money and you got this, then people are gonna go whatever. But that works in that particular, uh, instant for me. You know, it's like a little mind game. Well, listen, man, I got six thousand five hundred for you. Ah, man, my bad, bro. You know, then, and then you walk and you shop and you do and you this and you that. They'll take it. They'll take it and they'll make a little bit off of you if they like you.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  Okay. Cause they're like, I'll give this guy. You can't run a business with a, with a, a 10% markup. You know what I'm saying? Your job is to get a hundred percent markup. The other guy's job is to get a 10% markup. You meet each other 50 50, whatever. But they'll take the 10% because 10% is better than nothing, but you have to prove it in their mind that there's that 10% is better than nothing and they don't feel like they're giving you something that you got away with some. What are some of the biggest negotiating mistakes that people make? What would be, well, the biggest mistake I would make is I don't have the knowledge of the price. If you don't have a framework of the price, then you're just spewing numbers out back and forth. You know what I'm saying? But if you know the price and you know, what is a negotiation, man?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  This ring, I'm selling for sixty-five hundred. It cost me four thousand dollars to make. Will I take six thousand? Sure. You know what I'm saying? Will I take five thousand? You know, if my cost is four thousand, why not? Thousand bucks in my pocket, but can I run a business by doing that? Not really. So, you know? Now you have to buy this ring. What are you gonna tell me? What are you gonna do?

• 42:47Graham Stephan?

  How come the price of jewelry is so up in the air between pieces? Like that could be six, another piece could be eight. Visually, they look pretty similar.

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:58Graham Stephan?

  Same with with gold chains or pendants. I feel like I see prices.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  The price depends upon materials, gold, diamonds, and then labor. Okay, so it's labor, materials, and that's pretty much it. You know, the design work, the 3D modeling is as well. Now, this ring might be prettier than the other ring, so you could get that one for the same materials, but it'll just be.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  And this one is this, but it's the romance of the business, you know what I'm saying? Nobody needs any jewelry. You know, you get it because you want to adorn your body before it turns to dust. So, and that's a game you want to play. You know what I'm saying?

• 43:39Graham Stephan?

  What do you think of gold as an investment?

• 43:41Speaker 01

  I think it's a good store of value. It's never really an investment, but it is an investment when they're printing as much money as they are. You know what I'm saying? Because you have to account, you know, it's denominated in dollars. And dollars are being printed on a scale of a trillion extra per year or whatever, right? Interest is a trillion or what have you. So then it becomes an investment to some degree. Especially when you have these nefarious activities going on between China and this. Now, Trump's got the balls to be able to. You know, steady the ship, so to speak, which I'm very impressed through the tariffs, through everything else. When you get a idiot like Joe Biden or whoever, a Casio Cortez in there, you can't give head to lower the deficit, you know what I'm saying? You're gonna have to do a serious

• 44:24Speaker 01

  and um, they don't even have the comprehension to find out what's going on and that will mean that the gold price will go up and then gold will be an investment. It'll be the only way you could get some penicillin if the whole collapses and you have to rummage through the wreckage. You never know what can happen. Or you could just be better off buying the S and P 500, but the good thing about gold is you get to hold it in your hand. Yes, sir.

• 44:50Jack Selby?

  Have you made a lot of money from appreciation of your inventory?

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Yes, it saved the day.

• 44:56Jack Selby?

  What do you mean it saved the day?

• 44:57Speaker 01

  I mean, I've had pieces that I've made that that cost, you know, I I manufactured $300,000 worth of and um, to scrap it shortly after you manufactured it'd be $250, but the gold price went up from 2,000 to 3,500. So now I could scrap it for 300, 300 plus thousand dollars. So the that didn't sell, I scrap and melt and get my money back, which is amazing. You know, man, the people, gold did 10x in the last 20 years. Okay, so if you're running a jewelry store with gold chains, it was the most profitable business you could have had. Cause your inventory, you bought $1 million worth of gold chains.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  If you didn't sell a single gold chain in your store, you had $10 million worth of gold chains. If you did sell them, you took the profit and reinvested, you had more. Not a lot of businesses where you open up a business filled with inventory and you didn't sell a single piece and 20 years later, you're up 10x. You know, so that is, but it's, it's not a business people think about because they're not expecting uh, you know, um, people to rob trillions of dollars on Afghanistan war or whatever. They don't understand, they don't comprehend how.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  These evil forces that are really actually there, the stealing of it and whatever else is actually out there, man.

• 46:23Graham Stephan?

  Why do you think that people on the street are so clueless about the price of gold? Those are my favorite videos when you go up on the street and you ask people how much something is worth.

• 46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:31Graham Stephan?

  And people are clueless. They have no idea what the value of gold is.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  That's not their everyday lives, man.

• 46:36Graham Stephan?

  But should people know at least what the price of gold is per ounce? A rough estimate because it's money.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  People should be like angels, but forget about what they should be doing. It's, you know, what they're knowing. And, um, uh, you know, money is a game and everybody's responsible for playing it smart. You know what you're doing with money. Everything you're doing is thought out and thoughtful. And I watch your videos and you know about this, about that. And, um, uh, I, I, I love it. So, and you play the money game and you give out the, the advice to the money game as well. And if you listen to yourself, well, why don't they watch the Ice Coffee Hour? Why don't they listen to Graham? Why not? Why are they sitting there watching to a Cardi B shaker?

• 47:20Speaker 01

  Why are you sitting here and, you know, going to the strip club and twirling on a pole? Why aren't you studying? I mean, I'll tell you why. Because something's wrong. That's why.

• 47:29Graham Stephan?

  I feel like it should be taught in schools.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Listen, man, a lot of things should be done, man. It should be definitely taught in schools. And we should track down the trillions of dollars that was stolen and we should do this and we should do that. But we're not in the world of what should be. You know, um, uh, we're responsible for our own lives and the lives of our family and the lives of our loved ones. The people, um, and that's that. You know, we don't really quite have a real society. This is not 1954. You know what I'm saying? This is a society where more or less every man for themselves, the government barely functions to me. And the less of it, the better. Um, and you know, in some community, you know, Elon Musk has a school for his kids. And, you know, his neighbors' kids, that's probably exactly what you imagine it to be.

• 48:12Speaker 01

  Why are we using chalkboards? Why can't there be just a touchscreen where the teacher has, uh, uh, you know, lesson plans that are already the best of the best? So engage the children. Why are they sitting at desks that the same ones that were, you know, from 1933? Why aren't their desks have a little basic touchscreens where they could just write notes and they could register their? You know, why not? Because the people that are running the board of education are, um, uh, That's why. If they weren't, they wouldn't be there.

• 48:42Graham Stephan?

  There should be classes about how to use ChatGPT.

• 48:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:45Graham Stephan?

  Classes on how to negotiate and you had the students negotiate against each other.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Here's what should be. Graham should go, run for office and implement what he's thinking. Is that what's gonna happen?

• 48:56Graham Stephan?

  No, no, because I just tell people to watch it on YouTube.

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 49:00Graham Stephan?

  Realistically, YouTube is better.

• 49:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right.

• 49:01Graham Stephan?

  Better resource, so you may as well learn on your own.

• 49:03Speaker 01

  And the real secret is, is that you're responsible for your own, and this, it's an arcane system. Everything you're talking about is just an arcane system and anybody who believes in that they're gonna go to school and go to college and that might work for them, I don't really know. But whether you're going to school or not, if you're not being responsible

• 49:25Speaker 01

  and learning on your own, you are playing yourself. You know what I'm saying? And you're giving your advantage away, and that's that. And, you know, like, if I had the tools, YouTube was barely out when I was a kid. I was just the internet and I did what I could with it. I started a business. But if I had the ChatGPT and I had that and I had the energy I had back then, I would have really loved it because it was really the source of information. Like, this ChatGPT is, it's got millions of dollars in value for anybody, for any given moment, for any given person. I'm extracting that money right now. I had a thing where I was using, I put Grok on one phone, ChatGPT on the other, and I made

• 50:10Speaker 01

  Grok have ChatGPT generate image after image after image. I put them in a shoebox together and I come back. I'm about to drop that video when I edit it, I've just been lazy. I come back and it'll have thirty new pieces of jewelry for me or what have you. You know what I'm saying? And there's two AIs talking to each other, forcing one the one the other AI to generate images. So there's value there. And, you know, and listen, we're all talking about the education systems. It's because people are retarded, Graham. And, and that's gonna change in five years, in six years, you know? And as all these AI guys say, we just, anybody watching this, if they want to better their lives, which is the only thing that we could offer you as three people sitting here,

• 50:56Speaker 01

  they would have to get an advantage on AI for the future, because shit's gonna change, right? Any advice for me?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  In the jewelry business, you're a smart guy. Let's see how good you are at giving advice on your own iced coffee hour.

• 51:11Graham Stephan?

  I would say for the jewelry business, your social media is fantastic.

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:15Graham Stephan?

  I'd say that you could probably teach other people how to do that. I think you could expand your own business quite a bit because of of that. I don't know if you want to get in the retail business. To me, that doesn't sound as exciting of dealing with so many employees and people.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:31Graham Stephan?

  I like the customization aspect of it because you could you could charge a premium. But I also acknowledge that you don't want to spend your time designing one thing for one person.

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:40Graham Stephan?

  I would almost argue, man, that there there's a benefit to like. I I'm seeing less people my own age and younger.

• 51:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:49Graham Stephan?

  Get into jewelry and and watches to some degree, yes. And they're more into like digital assets like Bitcoin and crypto.

• 51:58Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 51:58Graham Stephan?

  So I would argue that maybe Bitcoin over the next 20 to 30 years is going to take some market share away from the people who buy gold as a store of value.

• 52:07Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 52:08Graham Stephan?

  There's always going to be some of it.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 52:10Graham Stephan?

  But I would almost argue like, hey, maybe.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Which is good news.

• 52:12Graham Stephan?

  Maybe take like 10% of your business and just Bitcoin it.

• 52:16Speaker 01

  Right, you love that Bitcoin, huh?

• 52:18Graham Stephan?

  I do. Just but you know what? If it goes to zero, 10% of your business, it's like someone's stealing from you.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:23Graham Stephan?

  Fine. But like if it hits, I think there's such a.

• 52:27Speaker 01

  Well, listen, what do you mean?

• 52:27Graham Stephan?

  Lob sided opportunity. It's like.

• 52:29Speaker 01

  It's a hundred thousand dollars.

• 52:30Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Okay, it's a trillion dollar market capitalization. How much more can it hit? You're gonna put in another.

• 52:37Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, but gold's 20 trillion. You don't think it could hit?

• 52:40Speaker 01

  I'm not thinking it. I'm not, it's not there to hit. It's not there to hit. It's it's if everything collapses or there's serious problems with the dollar. It's there for that to to spring you to the next move. It's there to keep you safe. That's it. It's not there to hit. It's just there that, you know what I'm saying? You had your money, you saved it. And now, you know, 10 years have passed by and you could buy something. You know, you didn't depreciate your capital and that's that. It's a go between between moves. It's perfect for me because I could stock gold chains if I don't sell them, I win. But for you to have a kilo in the safe, sitting there doing nothing is not the best thing in the world. You're much better off buying Taiwan semiconductor over the course 10 next 10 years or something like that.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  Something that manufactures something. But as far as Bitcoin is concerned, you know, it's not like we're arguing I'm saying gold is better. I couldn't give a less about gold or any of this. You know, for me, it's it's just a game to get where I want, you know? What do we want? What you're doing, a beautiful home, a beautiful life and stability. That's all you really should be shooting for. And you could do that a thousand different ways. Now, granted, it's much better to win, but Bitcoin's got a trillion dollar market capitalization, a hundred thousand dollars. That means you need a whole nother trillion dollars to make it one fifty, right?

• 53:59Graham Stephan?

  Not necessarily. It's whatever the tradable value is right now. So it could be like, you could inject a hundred million into Bitcoin and have it spike the price if if people are not selling.

• 54:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:09Graham Stephan?

  And fewer people are selling. So you don't need actually a trillion dollars to go into Bitcoin. If you had another trillion invested in Bitcoin, that could shoot up the price ten X.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Right, it could shoot it up ten X.

• 54:18Graham Stephan?

  So my thought is that there's an asymmetric reward with Bitcoin that, let's say, buy a hundred thousand. It could go to zero.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:25Graham Stephan?

  There's a chance it goes to nothing.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:27Graham Stephan?

  And you lose a hundred thousand dollars. I'd say there's a higher chance, or even an equal chance, let's just say, of going to a million.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Why?

• 54:34Graham Stephan?

  So you have a fifty fifty, let's say hypothetically, you have a fifty fifty going to zero as you do a million dollars.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:40Graham Stephan?

  So to me, I'd take that bet with a small amount that I'm prepared to lose. Because if it's a fifty fifty, I'm cool losing it.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  But yeah, well, listen, that the way you explain it, sure, you can do that. I'm not into losing personally. I don't want to even take a small bet, you know, on that end. I don't want to take a ten percent or five percent chance then on on any of that. I prefer to buy something like a Warren Buffett style, where it's actually producing something that's in demand and a profitable business. You know, if I'm gonna buy a vending machine for a thousand dollars and people, you know, buy a hundred bucks worth of soda per day. And to restock it costs this much and the soda costs that much and you're making twenty five dollars a day, you know, then I know that that

• 55:29Speaker 01

  vending machine is gonna make me back the money and be profitable after I pay off the thousand dollars with the twenty five dollar profit per day after X amount of days or whatever. That's how I look at it. You know, I'm looking at, if I want to make money right now and I want to I want to be good and I want to ten X, I'm looking at the next Nvidia semiconductor. It could be AMD, they're doing something. You could ask your chat GPT and your research Taiwan semiconductor, they're going over here. Trade wars cooling off, China's backing away in a little bit. That means that, you know, they're not going to do all that Taiwan this and that. Now you could 10x your money nice and safe there, and that's the way I would go about it. If I didn't have a jewelry business to buy a bunch of gold chains with. And the way I explain to people is you buy your Bitcoin and then when you're done in cyberspace,

• 56:14Speaker 01

  you know, rubbing pixie dust, you know what I'm saying? And you want to actually own something, then you buy yourself a watch with your Bitcoin and you buy yourself a gold chain around your neck. Because your neck is real and the chain is real. The Bitcoin is just, uh, uh, you know, out there. It gets you the dollars. You, you get your Bitcoin to get to the dollars so you could buy the or you could spend the Bitcoin on it, whatever. You want the actual that exists. You don't want a computer chugging away somewhere processing.

• 56:44Graham Stephan?

  What I do like it, it's a global store of value.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  It is.

• 56:47Graham Stephan?

  Around the world, people, people attribute a hundred thousand dollars to this Bitcoin.

• 56:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 56:52Graham Stephan?

  And so you could take it with you anywhere, you could transfer it anywhere. And the more people buy into it.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:57Graham Stephan?

  Obviously, the higher the price, you could say that with gold too, or you could say that with stocks.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:00Graham Stephan?

  But I could just see a scenario where Bitcoin captures 25% of the gold market.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:07Graham Stephan?

  Or companies take 10% of their extra cash and just buy Bitcoin with it.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:11Graham Stephan?

  Instead of holding it in dollars.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:13Graham Stephan?

  And I think that's enough to boost the price.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Right, um, yeah.

• 57:16Graham Stephan?

  But it could, but it could also go to zero, a hundred percent.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  No, that could happen.

• 57:19Graham Stephan?

  I don't think so, but.

• 57:21Speaker 01

  That could hap- listen, if gold goes to zero, I'll buy all of it, bro.

• 57:24Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 57:24Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? It's not even a problem, you know, I'll have a gold castle and you could visit it and pay a ticket in Bitcoin to come see it.

• 57:31Graham Stephan?

  You lose 20 grand every time you polish it.

• 57:33Speaker 01

  We don't know what's gonna happen with this Bitcoin and AI. Um, uh, and, uh, that's that. You're a proponent of it, you love it. Why is Bitcoin any better than all the other? Why is Bitcoin any better than Hoc two or coin? Will we see, listen, the, the real question is, will we ever see a day when everyone's rushing for?

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• 58:48Speaker 01

  The door.

• 58:50Speaker 01

  Might not? We might. Because when people are rushing for the door. Let's say people are dumping Amazon. If Amazon is a trillion dollar market cap. You dump Amazon, I'll jump in there. I'll melt, I'll sell my whole business and buy Amazon. Because I know Amazon is Amazon. But if people start rushing for the door at Bitcoin. It might also have that effect. It might be somebody says, I'll buy all of it. And it seems like that because I could have never expected it to be solid at 100K, solid at 100K. So God bless all those people and whatever they're doing and how they're doing it. Now, my estimate is that a new technology is going to come around. This is not, this is not 2011.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  New technologies coming, going to come around and really give Bitcoin a run for its money. And then people might lose out. And if it's me and you and it's 10% to some, and we don't get the next Lambo or whatever. It's not a big deal. But if it's somebody with their life's earnings, they're going to be devastated. So you have to play way smarter. I would suggest a semiconductor stock or even the Teslas. Whoever's making robots, whoever's making semiconductors, that's the ones going to 10x or 50x over the next 10, 15 years. That's my idea. Where do you get your gold from? I get my gold from the casting company when I cast it. I just pay the bill. So they make me the casting.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  Or I get it from Bouillon Trading LLC dot com is a friend of mine. It's uh, Kahane. Uh, or Isaac is his name. Isaac Kahane, or I don't know his last, I think his last name is Kahane. His pops was in the business for a long time. He's down in the basement and he's down in the basement. You know why? Because can't keep all that metal upstairs. Go right through the floor.

• 1:00:40Jack Selby?

  Oh, no way. Is that heavy?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Mad silver, mad gold in a safe. Go down there and he knows what it is. You know what I'm saying? Again, he knows who's playing around, who's not. You know, I pick up my kilos and I uh, cast them and I do my thing.

• 1:00:54Jack Selby?

  What's the cheapest way to buy gold? Like, is it people that bring it into your shop and then you're able to melt it down? And you're able to buy it like even under market price for gold because you isolate the actual gold from like a 14 karat composite.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You buy 10% under.

• 1:01:10Jack Selby?

  What about those commercials that you see like we buy?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  That was a great business that those people on an island right now.

• 1:01:17Jack Selby?

  So I've wanted to buy like a gold chain for a long time, not like anything fancy, but just something like a gold chain. I think I'm more of a gold guy than a silver guy and I think it'd be fun. The problem is I'll go to a jewelry store and I was just in Japan and I was looking at gold necklaces in Japan. And I can't really tell the difference between, you know, a necklace here and a necklace there.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:36Jack Selby?

  And I don't know like how much of a premium I should be paying. Like what would be the best way to just buy like a cheap, standard gold necklace?

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  Uh, let's break down the secret for the educated crowd watching this. Okay. Gold is how much per ounce?

• 1:01:50Jack Selby?

  Thirty-five.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Four. How much is, how many, how many grams in a, in an ounce?

• 1:01:54Jack Selby?

  Thirty-something?

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Thirty-one.

• 1:01:56Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Speaker 01

  Okay. So let's divide. So let's make it easy. Let's pretend gold is thirty-one hundred. And the gold and the thirty-one grams for in an ounce. It's a hundred dollars per gram. Now fourteen karat gold is diluted to what?

• 1:02:11Graham Stephan?

  Sixty?

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Fifty-eight percent. So what's fifty-eight out of a hundred? It's fifty-eight dollars. So that's the cost of the metal. Fifty-eight dollars per gram. Okay, so if someone, you put it on a scale and if they're charging you seventy-five, you say, can I get, this is labor, the guy's gotta make money. Okay? So if it, you know, if it weighs a certain amount, and he's charging you seventy-five per gram, you say, listen, I wanna pay seventy-three, I wanna pay seventy. He would say, you know, I'll go, uh, what's the, you know, fifty, I'll give you sixty-eight dollars a gram and this and that. Or you guys might say, I don't sell per gram, you, you know? Um, uh, but you'll know the value of it. Because per ounce, per gram, then diluted to the carat.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  Um, uh, which is fourteen K was most likely be the case. That will leave you to a certain gram price. And then there's the factory that made it has to charge a labor to the guy who bought, who, uh, the vendor. And the vendor has to make a markup, pay the rent, pay the employees. And, um, uh, you know, buy wifey and whatever, a gift that she might want. So he needs money. And he's gonna, if it's a light chain, it might be a hundred and fifty dollars a gram. If it's a heavy chain, it might be fifty-nine dollars a gram. And that's it. You know, you put it on a scale and you do the math.

• 1:03:33Graham Stephan?

  How do you tell if it's real? Like, let's just say it's tungsten, it's, it's coated in gold.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:40Graham Stephan?

  Like, how often does that come around?

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  Um, uh, not often, man. I mean, that's some bum, you know what I'm saying? If someone plays with you on that, it's rep, business, jewelry business reputation. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's why I do all the shit that I do. I'm, I have to raise these kids that are watching my videos on a reputation that when they think, you know, right, when you think, uh, electronic toy, you might think Mark Rober or something like that, or you think chocolate, who do you think of?

• 1:04:06Graham Stephan?

  Beast.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  You gotta think gold? Gotta come up. That's my job. I gotta raise these kids to reputation so they don't have to worry about tungsten when they come into my shop. Cause why, why go to a shop over there when you're gonna have to worry about tungsten over here?

• 1:04:20Graham Stephan?

  You give away a lot of gold on your channel.

• 1:04:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, I give away, I'm gonna give away more.

• 1:04:24Graham Stephan?

  How do the taxes work with something like that?

• 1:04:27Speaker 01

  Psst, don't ask me.

• 1:04:30Graham Stephan?

  You don't hand out 1099s afterwards?

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  No, I don't. Like, give them the gold, man. I mean, listen, you want to arrest me in Guantanamo Bay because I gave somebody a gold bar? Go ahead. At this point.

• 1:04:40Graham Stephan?

  You don't think the IRS is going to see write offs, though? And is going to say, okay, who received this?

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:04:46Graham Stephan?

  And you say, well, I don't have their...

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  I don't even, you know, maybe I write it off for it's a, it's a marketing expense or something like that. You know what I'm saying? Listen, it is what it is, man. Yo, this country's got trillions of dollars leaking out of its... Let me, when you, once you handle that, come after me and the gold bar I gave on 42nd Street.

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• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Um, the most expensive thing I've given away is just the individual ounces would probably be the most ones that I remember. Or like a gold chain I might have gave away. I still gotta do a Rolex giveaway. The thing is, that's a game. And I want to make my business about something and do the give back and be a human being. You know, going back to the original point, money, money, money. I've got more, I've got more, I've got more. That's not why we're here on planet Earth. That's not why we're living our lives. That's how we're being tested for who we really are. You know, is it, you were gonna take those uh, um, uh, 30 pieces of silver? And say, you know, you know, and betray somebody? Uh, uh, with a kiss or not? You know what I'm

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  saying?

• 1:07:57Graham Stephan?

  Does a strong gold market help your business? Like the higher the price is?

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  I think it might change the business and it might help the business. Well, it proves me right. I have said all this shit about gold because I wanted people to buy in, buy in, buy in. Now I'm gonna tell them, well, listen, you know, you could have bought Bitcoin at a percent, you could have bought this, but just buying a gold chain and wearing it and increasing your money is an amazing thing. You bought it. And now you melt it and you get your money back. So, so I did that to establish myself as a person who told you the future in the past.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  And that's that. Now that the gold price is what it is, and if it goes any higher, then gold is gonna be extremely luxury product.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  It used to be fourteen dollars a gram. Now it's a hundred and forty. That's two different numbers, my friend. You know what I'm saying? It's like a Ferrari is a hundred and fifty thousand. Now it's one point five million. You bought a Ferrari in two thousand and four. And now that same Ferrari is, you know, one point four million rather than a hundred forty thousand. It's two different price ranges. It went from supercar to hypercar. And that's what gold is doing. And then, um. It could be a, you know, like I tell people and I tell a lot of people that. How was gold working back in the day? You remember Cortez, you know, he came over. Across, one of the first few people to come over from Spain. Across the Atlantic.

• 1:09:23Speaker 01

  Lands, a whole new civilization is there. Different people, whole alien language, alien people, never heard from, never seen, the most exotic you ever seen. And what did he say? He gets Montezuma and he's like, fill the room with gold and I'll let you go. I don't give a shit about the civilization. Imagine you go to an alien planet right now that you've never seen. See equivalent. A whole new civilization and you're coming over there and you're asking, where's the gold? It's kind of crazy. But he didn't give a shit about the alien civilization and their culture and their technology and nothing. He just wanted to go back to France. Get the gold for the people that financed the. Buy his villa and sit back and relax. And that's how gold used to be. It used to be everything.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  But it's not anymore. And will it be again is the only question that we have to answer in our lives. You know what I'm saying? As far as gold is concerned. It's gonna be a decoration and it's gonna go up in price and I'll sell you some more of it. That's great. It's a beautiful yellow shiny metal. Fantastic. You know what I'm saying? You can hold it in your hands and you could scrap it and you could do this. That's all great. But will it be the. Accounting system for the world of who has and who does not have is a very interesting question. Because it's gold is about trust.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Okay. You, can you trust the federal government? Can't.

• 1:10:45Graham Stephan?

  Uh-uh.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  No, they're in charge of the money. And this is the story of our lives, but the story of our, of the late. Right, the gold reserve went off. Gold-backed dollar went away.

• 1:10:56Graham Stephan?

  Nineteen seventy-one.

• 1:10:58Speaker 01

  Nineteen seventy-one. Yeah, whatever, nineteen seventy-one, nineteen seventies. The story of, uh, the late twentieth century and the early twenty-first century is. Can you trust them not to print and steal?

• 1:11:14Graham Stephan?

  So what do you think this is gonna be doing to the price of gold over the next five to ten years? Do you see gold eventually hitting five thousand and now it's ten thousand?

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  Eventually, yeah, you know what I'm saying? I hope not, man. I, I mean, probably it's gonna sit. It might dip back down to twenty-eight hundred now the, the, the war's over.

• 1:11:30Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Uh, you know? Um, uh, but it's probably gonna sit in that range for another five, ten years, maybe. That all depends, man. If they drop the bomb tomorrow, bro, it's gonna be five thousand tomorrow. It's, if you watch the gold price, it's always about what's actually happening. Because you don't want no gold in the safe that you gotta travel and you wanna wire some money. But when the system is in jeopardy, and it might be. That's when you need the gold, you know what I'm saying? I'm not telling you to get gold. It's like some gold jerk. Ah, get gold, I'm the gold guy, he's the bitcoin guy, he's the real estate guy, we gotta buy what I say. Get the fuck outta here, man. You buy yourself a gold chain, it's gonna pay for itself in time, that's cool. So that's all gold is doing for you, and that's great. However.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  If the wars break out and they steal too greedily. And the shit comes down, that's when it comes into play. Because then you're gonna need a currency system that's backed by something and measured by something. And the question then becomes is not how many dollars you have, is how many grams you have.

• 1:12:32Graham Stephan?

  How much gold should the average person get?

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  How much gold should the average person get? I mean, at least an ounce. You could afford an ounce. But buying it now at three thousand is not really gonna do, you know, much for you. You know what I'm saying? I was saying this shit for a long, long time. Because I knew it was gonna come to this.

• 1:12:52Graham Stephan?

  And why didn't more people listen to you?

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Because I say it in a way that, you know, it's not a popular thing, you know? And I say it in a way that I'm not asking you to go buy gold and. Get it. I'm telling you that when it goes up, you realize what I was saying was right. That's why I'm doing it. I'm not giving people gold in the street. Because you know, I'm saying, I'm like, you don't know how to value what the in front of you. That's the video I'm making. Here, take this gold ounce. Nah, I'd rather go work for like a slave somewhere. All right. It shows, it's so, wake people up.

• 1:13:26Graham Stephan?

  What does that teach you about people? When you see him walk away like that, you're giving them an ounce of gold.

• 1:13:31Speaker 01

  I don't blame them, but they, it's hard for them to think that a person would be walking to them and giving them something.

• 1:13:38Graham Stephan?

  Do they think it's a scam?

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yes. They think it's a scam and they think I'm gonna give it to them and ask for something or play with them or this or that. And I understand that. But you're judging incorrectly in that circumstance. So that's kind of a psychological game I like to play with people. Oh, you didn't buy a gold chain that paid for itself? Well, too late. Now you can wait another 10, 20 years. Sorry, I don't give a, you know what I'm saying? Jewelry, luxury company is not supposed to be built around value. A luxury company is not supposed to be built around anything, but you can't have it. So I'm switching my from, I told you to get it to take care of you, because I did have a heart and I did care about the people and I did want you to do well, but you didn't listen. Now you can't have it.

• 1:14:24Speaker 01

  Sorry. I, I gave you love, you threw it away. Now this is what you got. And now it's a luxury company, real deal. But I'm gonna make manufactured jewelry, engagement rings and so on and so forth. Make my money and do what I gotta do. And I gotta switch my style up on that end and I gotta, you know, flow through it as people get to know me. Because my, my thing is I don't wanna hurt you, I don't, I wanna wake your mind up. That's it. You know, everybody could be aware and awake. I don't know how you, how it happened for you or your parents raised you a certain way or you something. You know what I'm saying? But you're making moves, I'm making moves. You know, whatever.

• 1:15:04Graham Stephan?

  Speaking of scams, what is your worst story with fake jewelry?

• 1:15:08Speaker 01

  I don't really even have that many stories with fake jewelry then. You know what I'm saying? I didn't really, ever been involved in it. No one's ever given it to me. I've never given it to anybody. I've had bank fraud and crazy go down, you know? Somebody took their church's bank account and wired me money and I sent them jewelry, then they froze my and they did this and they did that. And I've been through that and I must've lost a half a million to a million in fraud. Probably a million or more, actually, now that I think about it, you know. I've been in business for 21 years, my friend, and my annual sales are $40 million plus. You're talking about, you know, 20 times 40 is 800. And, you know, in the earlier years it was less, so you average it out 300 to 400 million in sales.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  So I should have had a profit of a gross profit of, you know, 50 million, 60 million, and I only got a 7. You know, so where the rest of it go, bro?

• 1:16:00Graham Stephan?

  Now, switching from that, why have watches gained a lot of popularity over the last few years? And what do you think the best watch is for someone to buy?

• 1:16:09Speaker 01

  People are looking at them, that's why. You know what I'm saying? Women are looking at the watch and they're judging you for it. They're glancing at it 100%. I've asked them, they say it. So it's a status symbol. And women are attracted to wealth and they're attracted to status. It's just the way they are. And for a man, this is the whole, this is nature's little game. You know, nature gets you to, you know, you play Super Mario and what's at the end? At the dungeon after you beat the Bowser? It's the princess. You know what I'm saying? If it was another Nintendo game, you probably would.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  If it was a Pokemon card, you know what I'm saying? You wouldn't be jumping through all those platforms, dodging the fireballs, bro. You're doing it for a reason, for that peach. You know what I'm saying? So this is the game and it is a status symbol that men can use. And now with social media, it's really amplified. Because you had a Patek Philippe before and some bimbo ain't gonna know that's a Patek. She don't know. So she don't look, she needs to see an eye style watch for before she's sitting there thinking, you, you're the man. But now, they know which watch is which and what's worth money and this and that.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  And it turned into a way sexier thing to have.

• 1:17:31Graham Stephan?

  So what's the best watch for someone to buy?

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  Patek Philippe. A Patek is an amazing state. It's Audemars Patek. Rolex is new money is you first got money and you're buying yourself a Rolex. But Audemars and Patek is the one that they're gonna know.

• 1:17:46Graham Stephan?

  What if you're on a budget? Let's go with different tiers. If you have 5,000, 10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000. Each price point, your number one watch.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  5,000, 5,000, 5,000. I'm a... That's a tough one, man, because there's not a lot of... 5,000 dollar watches, basically you're saying, "All I got is 5,000 bucks."

• 1:18:07Graham Stephan?

  I'd say a two-tone Datejust.

• 1:18:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, a used one.

• 1:18:10Graham Stephan?

  Yes.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  An old one.

• 1:18:12Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, I'm talking, just that's your budget. You could buy anything you want.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be good. A two-tone Datejust, a used two-tone Datejust, you know, but you're talking about something from the 90s.

• 1:18:20Graham Stephan?

  Yes.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  And that's a decent watch. There's better watches. This is a question for Roman Scharf. You know who Roman Scharf is? Luxury watches. He knows watches like crazy. And he knows how to get something dope. But if you're getting a status, you're gonna have to get a Rolex for the 5 and a Rolex for the 10.

• 1:18:39Graham Stephan?

  What Rolex do you buy for 10?

• 1:18:40Speaker 01

  It's a newer Datejust. Or, you know, like if you want, once you get out of the 10s and you're 10 to 15 and stuff like that, you're gonna get the Hulk, right? You know, the exclusive one. That's when you're actually a watch connoisseur. Because when you're watching a Hulk, when you're wearing a Hulk or a Pepsi or a Batman, you don't know if that's your Sunday watch or your only watch. You know what I'm saying? So now you're sitting there, because those are like, you know, I'm wearing my Hulk today and my Yachtmaster when I go out. And when I'm wearing a suit, I'm wearing my Steel Patek, whatever, 5980, whatever it might be. So that's the way that kind of game works.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  So those are the watches that are the best status symbols that are really classy.

• 1:19:26Graham Stephan?

  And what about 25,000 dollars now?

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  25,000 dollars now. Let's think about that.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  25,000, that would probably be, you know, something along the lines of a Yachtmaster two-tone. That's a big boy watch, okay? You're dropping 25,000. That means your car is at least 100,000 and your crib is whatever. You know what I'm saying? That's a big boy watch, yeah.

• 1:19:52Graham Stephan?

  50,000.

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  You're in an Audemars, a Steel Audemars blue face type deal. Or you know, a gold one, two tones, you know, those are, those are, yeah, you're a bigger boy. One hundred percent. That's what it says.

• 1:20:04Graham Stephan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Even me, a customer walks through the door and they got the right watch on, I'm like, yes, sir, how can I help you? You know?

• 1:20:10Graham Stephan?

  And what about a hundred thousand dollars?

• 1:20:11Speaker 01

  That would be a gold Audemars, a gold Patek, you know, saying the best, the sickest watch, and another one of my boys, a shout out, he's a YouTuber. Um, uh, Rissa and Kwan, uh, Kwan, you know what I'm saying? He knows how to. This is, they're a couple, they, they're YouTubing, um, uh, they got a couple of million s- subs and they have kids. And they're, you know, a couple, and they're a couple YouTubing, whatever, you know, they go to the best hotel, they do this and they stay there and they make a, a video about that. And he likes the best, so he'll get the two-tone Maybach. His crib will be something really status-like. It's done correct. It's done, it's there. You could see the, the mind that he put into it, you know? And that's what you want for a watch. When you're walking around, when you walk through the, through the door and you met me, I'm like, oh, there's Graham. And you walk into his crib and you're like, oh, there's Graham.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  You know, and that's the experience that you want to communicate. And the skeleton face AP rose gold is what Kwan bought. It was one fifty.

• 1:21:05Graham Stephan?

  Hmm.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Okay, but that skeleton face is exclusive, discontinued, limited. Did his research type.

• 1:21:13Graham Stephan?

  Yeah. What do you think is the worst watch for someone to buy?

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Um, you know? That's a great question, because you know, I'd say kind of like that two-tone old Rolex is. Unless you're in a strip club, you know, in Connecticut. That watch ain't gonna impress nobody, man. So you might as well get yourself some Gucci and put some diamonds in it, or. You know, Apple Watch or some shit, or you could customize some other shit. I really wouldn't want to buy that.

• 1:21:39Graham Stephan?

  How often do you see people flexing with fake watches?

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Not that often, but. Not that few times either, you know what I'm saying? People who have status. It might be, I'm not gonna name their names, but they have a high status, but they can't get the high status watch. So they might wear a fake one, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:21:58Graham Stephan?

  How would you tell? Cause some of the fakes I've seen are so accurate, they're so good. And I love watching those YouTube videos where they break down the real versus fakes.

• 1:22:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's how you do it.

• 1:22:09Graham Stephan?

  Indistinguishable though, you have to get behind it with like a...

• 1:22:12Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, that, that, that happens, right? That happens, and how do I tell? I don't, but my friend knows. Because they know what the fakes are doing, because they know the fake market, you know? They know that the dial color is off. It's really the colors, you know what I'm saying? Like the color is not really there, or something is not really there. But how do you know? You have experience with it every single day.

• 1:22:33Jack Selby?

  What do you think are some of those overpriced luxury brands? Stuff that people continue to buy, but you don't think it's worth it at all?

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  I mean, all of them are overpriced per se, but that's the whole point of the brand. Is that it's overpriced. You know, I could tell you Chrome Hearts, you know, you bought, you bought a hoodie for a thousand dollars, but that's what you shopped there for. You're saying that if you're wearing a Chrome Hearts hoodie, you're saying to the chick, "I could take you on vacation. We could go, get on a plane, and I'll take you to Mykonos or whatever." That's what you're saying. So it's overpriced. The whole point is it's overpriced. You know what I'm saying? That's the whole point, is to say, "I have money to burn." So the more overpriced it is, but it's the game, you don't wanna be overpriced. But again, thinking from a value perspective on luxury is a mistake. It really is.

• 1:23:20Graham Stephan?

  And what about lab-grown versus real diamonds?

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:24Graham Stephan?

  How do you even tell the difference? For most people, is it never just worth it to get real diamonds? Just go lab-grown?

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  Um, no, I mean, lab-grown, again, is gonna be, listen, uh, these are all lab. But, um, in natural, this ring would be about twenty-five thousand. In lab, it's about six. Okay, because I don't wanna sit here and buy Asher cuts, and I set them upside down for this ring. You know what I'm saying? I really don't. I'll just buy it in lab, and it'll really do the business. And it's, uh, and it's really, really nice. And then I'll move on to the next ring. Because in natural, do you really wanna buy this exact ring for twenty, twenty-five thousand dollars? Not really. Six thousand dollars, seven thousand dollars, it's a pretty beautiful piece of jewelry. Okay, if you have, you know, you're not gonna walk out of here and then another guy's got this ring on. Not gonna happen. Okay?

• 1:24:15Speaker 01

  It's just, nobody makes it, nobody sets stones like this upside down. It's a unique item, and if you want that uniqueness, and you've had it all, you get it. But if you want a natural, sure, I'll make it for you a natural. What's the advantage to going with a natural diamond? I mean, the advantage is that it's still a rare gem. They're both diamonds, but one is a gem, one is not. One is made in a lab and could be an infinite quantity, and the other is made in the ground, right? Let's say the year is 2045, and 3D printers have gotten so advanced that you could get yourself a classic Ferrari, you know, like the old ones, amazing.

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  There's the one that's in Jay Leno's garage, he doesn't have Ferraris, but whatever, you get the idea. There's the one that's in Jay Leno's garage that was manufactured in 1972, and there's the one that's 3D printed yesterday. They're both exactly the same on a molecular level.

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• 1:26:11Speaker 01

  But the one that was built by Ferrari in nineteen seventy-two has something more than the three D printed one.

• 1:26:19Jack Selby?

  Yeah, but let's say you don't have any of like the documents to go along with it. How do you tell if you have two diamonds side by side? One's real, one's lab.

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  It's becoming harder to tell, but um, uh, natural diamonds have a little nitrogen inside of them and other elements that are not present in the lab diamonds. So uh, there's gases like trapped in the natural process versus, so there will be always a difference between what the hell is happening in the earth's mantle to what the hell is happening in a uh, laboratory. But the future of diamonds will always in the end up being industrial, you know? If you had a diamond engine, you can run it to ten million miles.

• 1:27:00Jack Selby?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Cause the frictionless, it doesn't corrode.

• 1:27:02Jack Selby?

  So if someone's getting engaged, do you recommend?

• 1:27:05Speaker 01

  I recommend a gemstone. If that's if you have money, if you, if you have a good girl and she wants to have a big rock and look good, you get yourself a lab ring and you do it like I did it with this ring. You make something beautiful and unique that you can't make any which way and she'll blow everybody away with that. Or you could go get her, if you have the budget, you get her a natural gemstone, a natural diamond that's G I A certified or what have you. But if you spend thirty-five thousand dollars on a ring and then her girl walks in with the three thousand five hundred dollar ring that looks even bigger and better, it's gonna have a problem on the, the market and the experience. So the society is figuring that out right now.

• 1:27:45Jack Selby?

  Speaking of women.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:27:46Jack Selby?

  What have you noticed to be the most effective ways of like getting her attention? Like the right kinds of women? Do you think, like you were saying earlier, how you first kind of courted that one girl?

• 1:27:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:59Jack Selby?

  She went into the store and you were treating her as though she was like a normal person rather than through like this lens of her being a beautiful girl where everyone white glove services her.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:08Jack Selby?

  What are the actual best ways that you can try to, to get that attention?

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Well, it came to that girl, she's been everywhere and done everything, so she's not impressed by money at all, you know? So she was.

• 1:28:18Jack Selby?

  Did you know that going into it? Was it strategy?

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  No, I didn't know. I didn't have no strategy. I just, she started talking and I just, you know, I was like, I'm not letting you sit here and is, a woman might try to dominate a man in the initial conversation, like, hold this for me. out of here. You can't, you know, she's trying to see if you're submissive or dominant. So as soon as she even tests you, you gotta be like, you know, she's waiting for you to to go like this. So that was, that worked in that particular instance, and that will, oh, that will always be the case for me. I don't let any woman dominate me. Because they try, you know, they wanna see. What are other ways they test that? Like, hold this for me. If a woman asks me, hey, hold my purse, I'd be like, yeah, sure, you know? Yeah, well, listen, you could do that, and she might be a good girl, and she might not be trying to dominate nothing, but she usually, I mean, like, you know,

• 1:29:01Speaker 01

  she's doing it for a reason, you know, ignoring her or whatever might be a big deal. Then I had a chick the other day.

• 1:29:09Speaker 01

  She's like, we took a picture together. Then she's swiping through my phone and she sees me, you know, I just met her, I took her out on a date. She's swiping through my phone while I'm driving and she sees me with another girl. And that turns her on. It makes her wanna compete. Because there's a paradox, okay? A woman is testing you for your manhood. Okay, that's what she is. That's what the whole point of a woman is. It's like, you're coming too close, I'm gonna, you know? Or you're standing too far, I'm gonna do this. She's testing you for balance. And that's how their sensory apparatus kinda works, and from my experience. So, um, when it comes to,

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  it's a game, you know what I'm saying? Like, you do this too much, she's gonna be like, oh, this guy's doing that. You do that too little, oh, this guy's doing this. You have to find the balance of being, uh, not holding her, but then opening up the door for her, but then doing this, but not doing that, but then that, not doing this. And eventually she gets swooned. And with enough time, and then she's like, you know, that's, that's the courting, um, um, you know, process. Sounds like a lot of work, like a lot of thought, like, you can't just. Because a woman doesn't gonna wanna go, oh, yeah, you got this? Well, here you go, you know what I'm saying? She don't wanna do that. Then you, uh, uh, you know, and then you, the baby comes out and there's a problem and you're like, oh, I don't know what to do.

• 1:30:35Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? It's genetic. The ones that, if you're the women that chose the wrong guy, their line was done. They want the guy that's not too aggressive, but not too this, not too that, but not too this, and you have to. As a young man, I didn't know this, you know? If you're a practical thinker, you're gonna have a problem because it's not a practical thing. It's a completely different style of thinking. Take a look at Jeff Bezos. You know what I'm saying? This guy's got the richest in the world. And he's got this chick there that's for faces like this. You know what I'm saying? And you could do better than that, Jeff. But you're a logical thinker. That's the problem. You know what I'm saying? You're thinking logically and you're dealing with a woman who's playing a different game.

• 1:31:15Jack Selby?

  So you're saying if he did not think logically, he would get someone who's more attractive?

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  If you turn, you have to turn your brain off and you have to go into a different dimension to, to use a woman. Cause you know, to, to be able to get there. Cause it's a different type of courtship. Yeah, you know that, you know, Jeff Bezos like, well, what's the way, the best way to start an intercompany? Well, I'll start with books because their titles are easy to search. You could buy them for cheap. They're easy to store. They don't, they, they're stolen less frequently and you could ship them easy. So that's a great way to start a business. Well, women's not thinking like that. You know, women's thinking a more emotional sense or in more of this and that. So he's super active in a, one sense and deficient in another. That's why he's got this chick. You know what I'm saying? Where he could have a way better bitch, you know? Or 10 of them, 100 of them.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  But if you're gonna bring them on a yacht and you're gonna talk to them directly and look them in their eyes and answer their questions, they're gonna think you're a sucker. You have to make them compete. Give this one a little bit of tension and then as soon as she gets comfortable, give that one a little bit of tension. And then so you're a smarter girl than that. Oh yeah. And that's what drives them crazy because it's a different dynamic. And if you study it from a logical perspective, you will be able to have the same advantage as you would in Amazon. But if you study it, if I like you and I'd like you to be my girlfriend, forget it.

• 1:32:38Jack Selby?

  I think that's a way to court a girl that's not looking for a life partner.

• 1:32:42Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 1:32:43Jack Selby?

  I think if it's a girl that are, is like, she's long-term oriented and she's a logic brained and she's like, I need to find someone right now and I wanna settle down with them.

• 1:32:50Speaker 01

  That's a wonderful girl you're describing.

• 1:32:52Jack Selby?

  Okay. So you're saying, but like maybe the more Miami type, maybe some New York type, maybe some California, like LA type. That's kind of, you need to be a little more strategic. Play the culture of like the, you know, of the dating market in that area.

• 1:33:03Speaker 01

  If you want a bad. And you wanna sit here and live the Mac life, where you grab her and you have money and you take her on a trip and you're having, your sec- let's, let's call it what it is, sexual fantasies that you've been dreaming of, you're gonna have to play a different game. If you want a life partner, then um, you know, that's a whole different game and it should be straightforward. But even that girl, if you say the wrong things to her, she's gonna get turned off, or whatever. There, it, a, a, a woman is a measurement of manhood, right? A woman doesn't wanna be a man's mommy. Okay? Man is looking for mom, and um, a woman is looking for dad.

• 1:33:45Speaker 01

  She wants somebody who's gonna control her, tell her what to do, and she's confident in that, and protect her and give her that, and she's measuring you for it. And if you're gonna come out her as a young man, and you're gonna be looking for your emotional support that makes you feel good, that you know if you hit your head and you go to your girl and you're gonna, you know, you feel better. She don't wanna provide that. She don't wanna be a provider of that. She would love to play that role, but she don't wanna provide that, man. She doesn't wanna be some shoulder for you to cry on because the world is hard, bro. She wants you to be like, "Oh, this guy handled the world and now, you know, I'm, I'm safe." But you have what you want, she has what, yeah, you know, she wants her and you gotta find a compromise and a happy medium.

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  But on the emotional sense, you have to know how to be able to project uh, what she wants to get her, to even get the chance to get her to know who you are.

• 1:34:36Graham Stephan?

  As an immigrant, how do you feel when people say that it's hard in America?

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  It is hard in America in a sense because it's not hard anywhere and it's not easy anywhere. Because it's all relative to what you experience in the world, you know, but it's obviously not particularly hard in America. But just coming out of that is much, it's, it's just more advantageous. So immigrants come here and they're used to a certain level of stress and strain, and that same stress and strain that they're accustomed to is way more productive in this society. So that that works out real well if you're immigrant coming from there. If you're if you're amazing, you know, at catching food in, you know, the Serengeti, where it's a difficult environment, then or and you're living in that.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  Then when you go to an easy environment, it's going to be more advantageous. But if the people that are used to it, yeah.

• 1:35:29Graham Stephan?

  But does that bother you when you see people who've grown up in America? And they're just like, you know what? It's too hard out there. I can't get ahead.

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  It doesn't bother me because I'm competing against those people and I'm just gonna run ahead of them uh and and be better off. That's on them. You know what I'm saying? And it doesn't happen, didn't happen to you. And it didn't happen to you or whatever it might be. You guys are on track to some. So I'm all that's on them. You know, in some cases, they might be right. It might not be worth breaking your back and sweating for all this. Just sit back and relax, you know, pop a pill.

• 1:36:00Graham Stephan?

  So I think also you were early. Pop a pill. You were early when it came to eBay.

• 1:36:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:06Graham Stephan?

  You saw the vision of that.

• 1:36:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:07Graham Stephan?

  I would say you were early in the jewelry industry overall to go through social media.

• 1:36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:36:12Graham Stephan?

  What do you think is next?

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  AI, man, you know that is. I'm already pulling a hundred, two hundred thousand dollars worth of value out of out of here. And I'll show you right now. And because I know my competitors ain't gonna be watching this podcast, these idiots. You know what I'm saying? And but I'll show you something really cool. And you see this? All right. So maybe the camera could see it a little bit. These are all AI generated pieces.

• 1:36:34Graham Stephan?

  Wow.

• 1:36:34Speaker 01

  I'll be sitting at home. I'll be smoking my vape. And I will be um uh sitting there and I'll be saying, make another, make another, make another, make another. I'll just have hundreds of designs if you prompt it properly. So the amount of design work I was able to pull out of the phone is was ten years ago or five years ago. It'll cost two, three, four, five hundred thousand dollars. And now the AI is gonna make the 3D models. So if if I'm the first one to implement the the AI for my business, I'm where I should be. I could have been a hundred million dollar man right now if I didn't up the eBay from the beginning. I could have did that correct and I did, but I didn't and I had to backtrack.

• 1:37:17Speaker 01

  And then I used the social media to get me back in line. And now the AI to get me where I should have been all along.

• 1:37:23Graham Stephan?

  One thing I want to point out, um, when I was doing research for this, you were on the people's court.

• 1:37:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:37:29Graham Stephan?

  How did that come to be?

• 1:37:30Speaker 01

  Well, you know, um, I had a graphic designer that was doing really good. He was very talented.

• 1:37:38Speaker 01

  But his life was troubled. And um, one time. You know, I came to his house or where he was living in Harlem or whatever. And he's renting this room and I walk inside this place. Decrepit, so python shedding its skin inside a dusty crusty. Aquarium type deal, the opposite of what happened when I went to York or it was essentially. We don't have python. Alright, exactly. You have a fish tank. He, that's why it's the opposite. You know what I'm saying? But it's crusty and like, please. And he's got this one bedroom and his roommate. He tells me is on Xanax, sleepwalking into his room at night. And just like bothering him like, oh, this guy needs some peace and quiet.

• 1:38:23Speaker 01

  And he's got the talent. Let me see what would happen. I had an extra room. You know, I had a nice apartment or whatever. Let me see what happened if I just said this guy, you know, let's take the summer, three months. Get some peace, rent free, just do some design work. And come over and live.

• 1:38:42Speaker 01

  And you know, I like this character where he came, he closed the door, he smoked about a million backwoods in there. You know what I'm saying? And um, and accomplished nothing over the course of that summer. And then I'm like, yeah, man, I gotta throw this guy out of here. He's a nice guy. You know what I'm saying? But I'm like, this is horrible. Man, I got this guy living in my house. I gave you three months until December. It's a human experiment I was running. So he's like, I'll make an app or whatever, but it ended poorly. And you know, it was like a five thousand dollar balance on some app or some. And I'm like. You know, whatever, bro. You, this, this app, you, you stayed in my house for free for six months, bro. I gave you ten grand. I'm not giving you another five or I'm not giving you another whatever. And he sued me, small claims. And then he wanted to pick it up at People's Court.

• 1:39:28Speaker 01

  You know, because it was a, it was a dispute over like, you know, like, you know, man, I did so much for you, bro. And you wasted all that time. Like when I opened up that door after he left. It was like a, a layer of this thick of dirt on the floor. And it stunk like font- fanta or fa- uh, uh, what is it? Fanta is the leaf, the tobac- cousin of the tobacco leaf. It has no nicotine, you know what I'm saying, bro? It was what it was. So I went in there and I'm like, yo, man, this is disgusting. And then, um, um, and then we went to people's court. They're like, yo, they'll, they'll cover the cost if you lose. And, um, uh, he did have kind of like a little contract or whatever. And the judge, you know, they made the, the thing, the, the race game, you know, like, ah, he's gonna win because he's da, da, da, da, da, whatever. And, um, uh, you know, uh, I rocked with it and that's what it was.

• 1:40:12Jack Selby?

  Why do you even get yourself into something like this? Like you, you're living such a good life that just like lock in and focus on what you're good at, rather than being like, yeah, come live with me.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  Because I want the parameters. I want to understand that if a human being is in trouble, yeah, I could take care of myself. I'm gonna go make money. I'm gonna focus on my, I'll brand my business, whatever. But if a person is in trouble that has talent, what does it take for them to have stability and be able to bring themselves to their, to realize their own potential? I want to know. I want to know. What kind of impact can I have in a person's life? I want to know. And if it's six months out of my life to try that out and a little people's court story, it works out perfectly well.

• 1:40:53Jack Selby?

  Okay. What we're gonna do is we're gonna do quick questions and answers, okay?

• 1:40:56Speaker 01

  Whatever you want, bro.

• 1:40:59Jack Selby?

  Real or fake? Most people wearing diamonds in New York City?

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  Uh, most people wearing diamonds in New York City are real.

• 1:41:05Jack Selby?

  Real or fake rapper chains and music videos?

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  Real.

• 1:41:09Jack Selby?

  Who's the broke, rich person you've ever met?

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  Brokest, rich person I ever met, I will not disclose the man's name.

• 1:41:16Jack Selby?

  What's the worst? Well, like, how did you, you don't have to say his name, but like, what was the context of this?

• 1:41:20Speaker 01

  The context of this was that, um, I mean, you know, he's a successful person. He has assets, but he didn't manage his money well. And, um, uh, you know, he's behind on his bills. And people probably stealing from him too.

• 1:41:36Jack Selby?

  Has a celebrity ever tried to scam you?

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:39Jack Selby?

  Which influencer is definitely wearing fake jewelry?

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  I'm not sure, man. I haven't really seen him because you get caught instantly if you're wearing that shit on social media today.

• 1:41:47Jack Selby?

  Have you ever been robbed?

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:41:50Jack Selby?

  How much was it?

• 1:41:51Speaker 01

  It was like a hundred grand.

• 1:41:53Jack Selby?

  Do you have insurance?

• 1:41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:54Jack Selby?

  Are Rolex's overrated?

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:41:56Jack Selby?

  Is buying jewelry ever a smart investment?

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42:00Jack Selby?

  And then this is one word answers. Jewelry or watches?

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  Jewelry for me.

• 1:42:04Jack Selby?

  Cash or gold?

• 1:42:06Speaker 01

  Gold.

• 1:42:07Jack Selby?

  Hustle or talent?

• 1:42:09Speaker 01

  Talent.

• 1:42:10Jack Selby?

  What drives people more, fear or greed?

• 1:42:12Speaker 01

  Can't, I don't know. I'd say fear, but I don't know.

• 1:42:15Jack Selby?

  I'm curious, how much do you think your social media presence has pushed your business?

• 1:42:20Speaker 01

  Um, ninety percent.

• 1:42:21Jack Selby?

  So it's just completely exploded it?

• 1:42:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's turned me into a brand. As long as I got the right product and the right marketing and this and that, I'll be able to secure a brand that'll outlive me after I'm dead.

• 1:42:32Jack Selby?

  And what are the main ways right now that you're trying to catapult your success? Like the main levers you're trying to pull?

• 1:42:39Speaker 01

  AI.

• 1:42:40Jack Selby?

  And that would be with like video?

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  I'm gonna design vast amounts of jewelry that would otherwise cost me five hundred thousand dollars in designing. I'm gonna do it for free.

• 1:42:52Jack Selby?

  I think what would be good is if you had like signature items that you did limited drops of.

• 1:42:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:42:57Jack Selby?

  We're doing, for example, my whole, my whole idea with the chain.

• 1:43:01Graham Stephan?

  I was about to say that too.

• 1:43:02Jack Selby?

  My idea with the chain of like, I don't know how much I'm paying, the chains are different here, the chains are different here. I can't guarantee quality if I'm buying something in Japan. I just have no idea. But I want one and it would be cool, especially as a store of value in terms of gold.

• 1:43:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:14Jack Selby?

  If you did something like, hey, guys, these chains, I promise you, my cost is this.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:19Jack Selby?

  I am only taking fifteen percent profit.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:22Jack Selby?

  And I'm doing a release of one hundred chains. These are signature tracks NYC chains.

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:28Jack Selby?

  You guys can buy them and then sell those out. Those would sell out like this.

• 1:43:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:43:32Jack Selby?

  And then it could be kind of like a staple, like you have one of those signature like tracks NYC, some sort of label for it.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Consider it done. Consider it done. That's what I'm doing.

• 1:43:41Jack Selby?

  And if you're transparent about your numbers, like that would open up doors for people that didn't even know they wanted jewelry just because the obstacle of thinking you're getting scammed is too big to hurdle.

• 1:43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:51Graham Stephan?

  But the, but the flip side to that is you see some people that see the amount of money and don't quantify the overhead. So let's just say there's like three thousand profit margin in it. They'll say, well, you're making three grand. But they're, they're not counting in, you know, the rent and the this and the that.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  You gotta count it all in.

• 1:44:05Graham Stephan?

  Your time.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:06Graham Stephan?

  And then they're gonna be like, well, why can't you just make a thousand on this?

• 1:44:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:10Graham Stephan?

  I don't know. I, I think there's a percentage of people out there who would love that. I love transparent pricing.

• 1:44:15Speaker 01

  The idea is limited drops. You know what I'm saying?

• 1:44:18Graham Stephan?

  Yeah, limited drops regardless, yeah.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  The economics of it have to be worked out. You know what I'm saying? Don't lose money on a limited drop. Just do the math. You know, this cost that, that cost this. You're not charging just for the materials. It's the whole thing.

• 1:44:29Jack Selby?

  I just think that would be good for branding, like to be the guy that like is doing the, the high level limited drops. It would. Differentiate you from from other people.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm with it, man. I'm with it.

• 1:44:41Jack Selby?

  Yeah, in a way, it's cool because it's like your merch. Like, people have hats that they wear, like a shirt, but like, that's your merch.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, the jewelry industry has so many parameters to it, right? Once you go down this rabbit hole, it'll take your whole life. All right, because you could do this, and you could do that, and you could save on materials, or you could scrap this, and you could buy scrap, or you could do this. There's so many different ways. That's what made it a very interesting game. It is, it sucks you in, and you have a million ideas. Some of the businesses that were in the podcast, podcast, buy my t-shirt, buy my hat. Mark Rober does some where he's, you know, makes these little toys, and that's genius, right? You know what I'm saying? Um, the jewelry business has so many different elements of humanity in it that it makes it a very interesting game to play, to win.

• 1:45:29Speaker 01

  And I'm gonna win that with this idea, that idea, a poofier haircut, a double hot dog.

• 1:45:35Jack Selby?

  And a little Bitcoin, and a little Bitcoin man you're there. Guys, I've never explained this. He keeps talking about double hot dog. It's my phone wallpaper. I've had it since I was 18.

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  Two hot dogs in one bun. I don't know, bro.

• 1:45:46Jack Selby?

  Look, all I'm saying is. What does it mean? Do you see anything wrong with that?

• 1:45:49Speaker 01

  Um, it just brings up sexual, you know what I'm saying? I don't know.

• 1:45:54Jack Selby?

  Do you, do you ever see, do you ever get served a really nice dish? And you're like, I want to take a picture of that.

• 1:46:01Jack Selby?

  It's rare. But that happens.

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  It happens, it happens.

• 1:46:03Jack Selby?

  And so this hot dog, it's Hebrew national.

• 1:46:06Speaker 01

  It was by accident?

• 1:46:06Jack Selby?

  You would like this Hebrew national dogs.

• 1:46:08Speaker 01

  Hebrew national.

• 1:46:09Jack Selby?

  And it was in a hoagie bun.

• 1:46:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:11Jack Selby?

  And so I was like, this looks really good. And I was really excited. I cooked it over a fire. I took a bite out of it, and I took a picture, and I'm like.

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  It was that important that you want to see that every day?

• 1:46:20Jack Selby?

  I've had it, I've had it.

• 1:46:21Speaker 01

  I took a picture of this cherry blossoms, bro.

• 1:46:23Jack Selby?

  You want to know about branding?

• 1:46:24Speaker 01

  I got cherry blossoms over here, bro. What you got, man?

• 1:46:26Jack Selby?

  I'm just saying, you're not, I'm not talking about the cherry blossoms.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  What's your phone cover, bro?

• 1:46:29Jack Selby?

  It's a jellyfish.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Oh, let's see it, man. All right, that makes sense. I like the jellyfish. It's a little bland.

• 1:46:34Jack Selby?

  It's branding. People talk about it. You see the double hot dog.

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  It was intriguing. It just scared me a bit, bro. That's all. It just took me aback. Like, you know what I'm saying? What kind of, what am I going with? Where's, am I gonna get double hot dog right now?

• 1:46:47Jack Selby?

  And part, part two of the Ice Coffee Hour, you guys know, will be behind the paywall. We need you for another hour or so.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Jack Selby?

  Send them in! But, yeah. All right.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Oh, God.

• 1:46:58Jack Selby?

  Thanks so much for coming on the show.

• 1:46:59Speaker 01

  Thank you. Thank you. It was an amazing time, boys.

• 1:47:02Jack Selby?

  This has been a blast. Thank you all for watching so, so very much. We wouldn't be able to do what we do without you guys. Honest thank you.