Can the Middle Class Be Saved? Political Division, Economic Doom & The Leadership Problem | Andrew Bustamante Pt. 2

Welcome back to Impact Theory! In this powerful continuation, Tom dives deep with former CIA officer Andrew Bustamante to unravel the complex dynamics shaping America’s political and economic landscape. What would it take to restore faith in democracy and secure the future of the middle class? Together, they debate the difference between vision-driven leadership and populist emotion, confront the tough realities of economic uncertainty, and explore how individuals—against overwhelming odds—can build security and opportunity in their own lives. With honesty and urgency, this episode challenges us to think critically about the mechanisms driving society, the moral obligations we hold, and whether true change is even possible. Don’t miss this candid conversation on leadership, wealth, and the future of America. What's up, everybody? It's Tom Bilyeu here: If you want my help... STARTING a business:join me here at ZERO TO FOUNDER https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show: https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show https://tombilyeu.com/zero-to-founder?utm_campaign=Podcast%20Offer&utm_source=podca[%E2%80%A6]d%20end%20of%20show&utm_content=podcast%20ad%20end%20of%20show SCALING a business:see if you qualify here. https://tombilyeu.com/call: https://tombilyeu.com/call Get my battle-tested strategies and insights delivered weekly to your inbox:sign up here. https://tombilyeu.com/: https://tombilyeu.com/ ********************************************************************** If you're serious about leveling up your life, I urge you to check out my new podcast,Tom Bilyeu’s Mindset Playbook https://open.spotify.com/show/47VE90Cittmo6TGGFqg2xf —a goldmine of my most impactful episodes on mindset, business, and health. Trust me, your future self will thank you. ********************************************************************** FOLLOW TOM: Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/tombilyeu/ Tik Tok:https://www.tiktok.com/@tombilyeu?lang=en Twitter:https://twitter.com/tombilyeu YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/@TomBilyeu Pique: 20% off at https://piquelife.com/impact Truemed: Check your eligibility and start saving at https://truemed.com/impact Quo: Try for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months at https://quo.com/impact Netsuite: Right now, get our free business guide, Demystifying AI, at https://NetSuite.com/Theory https://netsuite.com/Theory Quince: Free shipping and 365-day returns at https://quince.com/impactpod PlaudAI: Get 10% off with code IMPACT at https://plaud.ai/impact Whatnot: Download the Whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. ATT Business: Switch to AT&T Business at business.att.com http://business.att.com Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at https://shopify.com/impact Ketone IQ: Visit https://ketone.com/IMPACT for 30% OFF your subscription order See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

  Let's talk about the moment your side hustle becomes a real business. Now, I see way too many founders stay stuck running their business like it's a hobby. And then they wonder why nothing ever feels real. It doesn't feel real because it's not. I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs build real businesses through Impact Theory University. And the first step in the path to building a legit business is registering it. And Taylor Brands will help you do just that in a few clicks. An LLC, a limited liability company, is an official business structure. It's inexpensive to form and very simple to maintain. It's how you open a business bank account. It's how customers know they're dealing with a real company. And Taylor Brands doesn't stop at the filing.

• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Taylor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. Welcome back to part two of this incredible conversation. Without further ado, here we go.

• 1:15Tom Bilyeu?

  It's very clear. Now step into the theoretical for me for a second and assume that people will do the things, but they just need you to tell them what things to do.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:26Tom Bilyeu?

  How would we, with a willing populace, how would we get ourselves out of this mess?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  So there's a midterm election coming up that we would need to see record level voting on, especially because there's been so much political gerrymandering.

• 1:46Tom Bilyeu?

  But what would you point them out? What should they vote for?

• 1:48Speaker 01

  They should vote for the candidate that represents what they want for the future of the United States.

• 1:54Tom Bilyeu?

  But you already laid out the world's most compelling argument for what I'll say is populism. People are thinking emotionally, they're on a team. So if we send them in to vote and just say, "Vote your conscience," as of right now, today, even if they're willing, if they're pointed at, "Just vote for what you think is right," they'll just be split right left and right.

• 2:15Speaker 01

  And that's why I'm not saying, "Vote your conscience."

• 2:17Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 2:17Speaker 01

  I'm saying, "Vote for the vision of the future that you want to see." And I say that because...

• 2:22Tom Bilyeu?

  How's that different?

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Because the only certain politicians...

• 2:27Speaker 01

  Talk about a vision for the future. Most of them talk about what they're dissatisfied with right now. Even if you look at hate ads or attack ads, right? Attack ads are very focused on right now. Look what's happened. This person isn't doing what you promis- isn't doing what they promised and doesn't believe in, you know, freedom or democracy or whatever else. They're anti-immigration, they're pro-whatever-else. Like, the list goes on and on about the here and the now. It's very rare that you come across somebody who is vision casting. Here's where I want us to go. I want us to find a way to work across the aisle. I want us to find a way to reinstate checks and balances. I want to find a way to make the Fed independent again. You don't hear people talk about that. If you find someone who is talking about that,

• 3:11Speaker 01

  it's almost guaranteed that they're not backed by big money. Because the big money essentially forces them to back a certain horse or toe a certain party line. They're trying to pander to the religious voter. They're trying to pander to the social security voter. They're trying to pander to the healthcare voter. They're trying to pander to the LGBTQ voter. And it's very focused on emotion, not focused on issue and vision. So if you just focus on vision casting, 80% of the politicians that are out there are not going to be viable. Because they're not casting a vision. They're just backing a horse. But you have to actually research before you do that.

• 3:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Can I name a candidate that I think I hear you describing? You tell me if I'm on.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  If I know them, please.

• 4:01Tom Bilyeu?

  Are we talking about JFK? Somebody who's like, "We're gonna go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard and that's not what your country can do for you, but what you can do." Are you talking about that kind of thing?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  So, I don't disagree with that. I think what we're seeing with those kinds of vision casting are, he was already the president and he was getting public support for where he wanted us to go in terms of our public spending.

• 4:28Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't have a good politician that comes to mind that casts a vision right now. And I haven't seen one for a very long time at any level of government. But since we're going into a theoretical conversation, that's where I would say we would have to start. And if we're going, if you're talking about people truly doing their civic duty, then when they don't find a candidate that speaks to the vision that needs to be cast, then they write to the candidate and they ask the candidate what their vision is. It used to be a very common thing for people to write their congressmen, write their senators, write their, their people who were running. They would go to town halls, they would ask questions of the incumbent that were meaningful and important to them. That time has changed.

• 5:12Speaker 01

  Now town halls are more of a political rally than anything else. But we have a chance to go back to that if we're willing to. Democracy was always meant to happen slowly. The fact that we've been able to take such rapid action, like capturing Maduro in January and then killing narco terrorists in Mexico in February, and then attacking Iran in March. The reason we can move so fast is because we've shortcut a lot of those democratic processes. And we have to find our way back to moving slow if we're going to trust democracy. If you don't want to trust democracy, that's fine. Don't trust it, but don't try to say that you trust it or that you believe in it if you're willing to let it be bypassed.

• 5:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so we've got vision casting. So somebody that has a clear vision for the future and can tell us how that we're going to get there. Is there any other sort of major tent pole of how we get out of this?

• 6:08Speaker 01

  What a good question. I'm sure that there have got to be.

• 6:12Tom Bilyeu?

  There is.

• 6:12Speaker 01

  A small handful. I just don't know what they are.

• 6:14Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't know that many people will say the only answer that I think is actually true, and that's you have to fix the economy. And so I just wrote a deep dive on this. Populism is, by my definition, and I don't think anybody will give me a better one, but populism is when people begin reasoning via emotion, which is what humans do anyway. But it ratchets up. So the economy breaks, people become fearful. In the extreme, they're worried about where their next meal comes from. And that forces them to seek safety, safety in numbers. So they join a team. Then they summon forth the strong man who tells them everything is going to be okay, gives them an enemy to focus on, and

• 6:58Tom Bilyeu?

  That sense of safety makes people do murderous things. And the utterly fascinating thing about the most famous rise of that kind is of course Hitler. And Hitler, when he came to power, he ironically, I used to think that he came to power because of the Treaty of Versailles and the loss of World War I, he actually didn't. So he started gaining in popularity during the whatever 1923 hyperinflation. And so he got up to like six percent or six and a half percent of the vote, but he was still like a super fringe character. It wasn't until the Great Depression. So he actually goes up to like six percent, six and a half percent popularity, then falls back down in 1928 to two and a half percent.

• 7:43Tom Bilyeu?

  So it's like, oh, he's kind of this washed up guy, right? And then the Great Depression hits and he goes from two and a half percent popularity to like 37% in five years. Because like, what, 50% of youth was unemployed, one in three Germans were unemployed, full stop. I mean, it was just like complete pandemonium. And so then when you've got a guy who's like, not only do I know how to fix this, I know who the problem is. And so that's populism. So we're in a populist moment and everybody's being very clear. If you're on the left, the right is the problem. If you're on the right, the left is the problem.

• 8:22Tom Bilyeu?

  Right now, 40% of Americans believe that the other side is morally bad. More than 50% of Americans think that their other fellow Americans are a threat to democracy or to the nation itself. I mean, it's like the stats are insane. And so we're in this populist moment.

• 8:48Tom Bilyeu?

  But everybody wants to treat the symptoms and not the cause. And the cause is the economic uncertainty. And even if you go back and look at Mao, same thing. Mao, economic uncertainty, Japan goes in and just completely fucks up China. Mao rises to power by winning the civil war. Everybody's economically uncertain. He's like, don't worry, I got you, proceeds to kill forty five million of them. But they keep following him, partly just because of the sheer tyranny. But he comes to power as a strong man. Same thing with Lenin, same thing with what's his face that followed Lenin. I cannot believe I'm blanking on his name, one of the most evil people to ever walk the earth.

• 9:30Speaker 01

  Stalin?

• 9:30Tom Bilyeu?

  Stalin, thank you. So it's the, first of all, they come in left and right flavors. And so everybody is gonna bang the drum about Trump. And that's understandable because he's in power now. But if what we do is reject Trump and go to a Bernie figure, Mumdani, AOC. It's one, my particular bent is that that is economically even worse. You've got sort of kleptocrats over here, but at least they create an opportunity for you to get rich while they steal from you. You won't take advantage of the opportunity, but it's there. The other side just steals from you. You don't have an opportunity to get ahead, you get breadlines. So, look, they're both bad. I just think one is slightly worse than the other.

• 10:09Tom Bilyeu?

  But you definitely, if you cannot solve the economic problem, you will simply, in a ever escalating drama, swing from left to right and back again.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  But I would argue that the average person can't fix the economic issues.

• 10:25Tom Bilyeu?

  No, the average person can't fix the economic issues at all.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  So then, yeah, how does that, how does the average person then participate in?

• 10:32Tom Bilyeu?

  You elect Margaret Thatcher. So the only-

• 10:36Speaker 01

  So we're both going back to the root of participating intelligently in the electoral process.

• 10:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Correct. The only thing you can do is get, the obvious thing that people should be banging pots and pans about is Thomas Massey, the only guy wearing a debt clock pin, just got outed by AIPAC. Which, kids, your reputation is so bad. You are getting savaged. It's not like a small handful of people have turned against you. An entire generation or more has turned against you and you go and do that fucking insanity. But anyway, they did it. And so- We have to get candidates who are economically literate and then elect them. And then we have to deal with the fact that we're going to go through what Britain went through

• 11:23Tom Bilyeu?

  when Margaret Thatcher came into office, but she ended up pulling them through getting to the other side and getting things back on track, going from we're the wealthiest nation in the world to begging the IMF for a bailout, only to actually rebuild and reestablish their wealth is, I mean, it's an incredible journey. Now they're not obviously what they used to be, but they got on the other side, at least briefly with Margaret Thatcher. So we would have to go through something like that so that we can start making the economy work for the average person again. But the thing that drives me mad, mad, is that the very thing that people vote for, which is more free stuff or bigger military or whatever it is that they're voting for, that causes deficit spending, it will be stolen from

• 12:08Tom Bilyeu?

  you in the form of inflation. And the fact that people just, it's just a bridge too far. You're never going to get people to understand that. I worry. I really hope I can, but I certainly worry that that's just, people are too busy trying to stay afloat.

• 12:25Tom Bilyeu?

  We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. There's a reason Quince sells cashmere for $60, and it isn't the cashmere. It's real 100% Mongolian cashmere. It's the same stuff luxury labels charge a fortune for. Quince just works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middleman. So there's no need for a markup and no logo tax. The $60 goes to the actual sweater, not the fancy name on the tag. That's why everything they make runs 50 to 80% less. And it's not just the cashmere. I ordered a few things myself, their fleece joggers, a couple of their tees, which I wear obsessively. First thing I noticed was the quality. Soft, well-made, built to

• 13:10Tom Bilyeu?

  hold up. They make down jackets and wool outerwear now too. So upgrade your stuff to things you'll actually wear. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK, too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Impact Theory. It's the best way to support the show. Let's talk about something that genuinely keeps me awake at night. My team at Impact Theory gets hit with phishing scams from bad actors pretending to be me all the time. And they keep getting more sophisticated attacks with details specific enough to look legit.

• 13:54Tom Bilyeu?

  AI has made a lot of things possible, including scams like this. But AI still needs raw material. It gets it from data brokers who sell your name, address, phone number to anyone willing to pay. Incogni goes after that supply. They handle removal requests across 420-plus harmful broker sites. And they keep checking back as brokers constantly try to relist you. On the Unlimited Plan, the Exposure Scanner hunts down your information. Send a link and their privacy experts handle the takedown. Track your progress in the app and get a monthly risk assessment showing exactly where you stand. Go to incogni.com/impact and use code IMPACT for 60% off an annual plan.

• 14:39Tom Bilyeu?

  Incogni is I-N-C-O-G-N-I dot com slash impact. Promo code IMPACT. It's completely risk-free with a 30-day money-back guarantee. You're probably paying two salespeople to do one salesperson's job. That's where today's sponsor, Pipe Drive, comes in. An intelligent, AI-powered sales CRM loved by growing sales teams. Pipe Drive just launched meeting intelligence built right into the CRM. Before every call, it pulls deal history and past conversations into one brief. During the call, it records and takes notes. After it, it drafts your CRM updates to review and approve. So there's less admin and more selling.

• 15:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100

• 15:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Thousand companies already using Pipe Drive. My link gets you an exclusive 30 days free instead of the usual 14 day trial. There's no credit card payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com/impact to get started. Again, that's pipedrive.com/impact and you can be up and running in minutes.

• 15:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  I hesitate to bring this up, in large part because there's cameras on us, right? But also because it's just fraught with people misinterpreting it, right? But I have very seriously considered

• 16:12Speaker 01

  whether or not it's better to just give up on all the people who have already kind of given up on self-improvement, give up on people who've given up on learning, give up on people who it's a bridge too far to understand the impact of inflation.

• 16:26Tom Bilyeu?

  How do you give up? What does it look like?

• 16:27Speaker 01

  You just stop trying to educate them. And instead, you focus on the much smaller population, which according to the 80/20 rule is 20% of the population that actually has the capacity, the interest, the, the ability to change their ways. Because if you give up on the 80% and you focus on the 20%, you're essentially accepting that the process of democracy, the majority rules idea, is no longer relevant. And instead, you kind of lean into the reality of the fact that a small group of people carry an outsized impact to the economy and to the world. And I say that because

• 17:11Speaker 01

  like even if you just look at one of the, this is a me problem, not a, not a you problem. Maybe it is a you problem that we've never talked about before. But I would love to educate.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Spy skills that break barriers. The 22 year old who didn't go to college, who's, you know, trying to figure out how to make life work in the same hometown where he went to high school. Just as much as I would like to educate the 35 year old who's already moved twice and who has an advanced degree and who's rising in his company. I would love to help them both, but the problem is they have very different lifestyles. They have very different challenges. They have very different priorities, right? The 22 year old probably doesn't have kids, isn't married, you know, still living in his hometown, doesn't have a perspective even outside of his state. Where the 35 year old who's moved multiple times, might be married, might have their

• 18:05Speaker 01

  first child already, and certainly knows what it's like to kind of suck eggs a little bit to succeed in a career. This person I can exponentially help in a, just a short period of time, where this person takes convincing before I can ever actually help them. So when I choose how to spend my three hours of recording content today, isn't it more efficient for me to focus on this person who I can change more in a shorter period of time, rather than spend part of my, my education and training time on this other person? And I say that in a, in a true place of, of difficulty, because I've always been a public servant.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  When I was in the military, when I was at CIA, our, our job is to protect even the least of us. But now that I've learned a little bit about how the economy actually works and I've been able to break through a financial barrier of my own that nobody in my family could ever break through, I have certainly seen the financial benefit of not focusing on a losing horse, but betting on a winning horse. And if we all did that, though.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  We'd be taken for a ride, right? Like, we would essentially be reinforcing the system that already exists.

• 19:20Tom Bilyeu?

  It it may just be as simple as the civil servant thing, but I thought there was going to be something lurking in there that was bad. So anything that, all the things that you just said do not seem strange to me at all. Now, it may be because people think my lens on the world is so bizarre that I can't see anything. But yeah, that just makes sense. Now, like you, I went on a journey. I used to get made fun of for trying to help everybody. And people were like, you do realize that some people are never going to change. There's nothing you could do. And I really thought I could get good enough that I could string together a magic sequence of words that would somehow reach inside people's soul and get them to change course.

• 20:06Tom Bilyeu?

  And part of the reason I stopped doing mindset content was because I realized 2% of people do something with it. 98% don't, and the 2% will self-select. And so I guess in that sense, I think I'm only ever speaking to the people that are going to make change. However, and maybe this helps you in some way, I think that ultimately all of us have an obligation to build a world that's awesome for the people that are either too busy. They are the backbone of our current society, just fucking hands dirty, putting things together, making it work.

• 20:46Tom Bilyeu?

  I think people at least trying to capture some of the, even if it's the mythological energy and it wasn't real, but the the story we were told about the founding fathers, trying to build something that would last well beyond them, that would be good for the masses, that had this foundation that over time.

• 21:07Tom Bilyeu?

  I mean, for a long time, it's really just curing the ills of society, finally, and slavery and all that. I mean, just like a really incredible foundation that we built on for the last 250 years. And so there is a sense of like, no, I have an obligation to do something that might not be optimized for me, but is going to be good for the masses. And this is why I say my North Star is a thriving middle class. As an orienting mechanism to just be like, it's the the bulk of the bell curve. And so I think you don't get there by spending all of your time on the person that is just not going to change. But I think that with my worldview, you have a moral obligation to think of them, not exclusively,

• 21:48Tom Bilyeu?

  but to put them in in the like pole position of like, who are we trying to optimize for?

• 21:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Now, having said all of that, as I really think through the problem of what we have done, this is a uniquely sort of American thing because of the debt. But we have to get to the point where the people that vote are voting for something that is in the middle class's best interest. And right now, at least on the left, the trend is towards voting for more free shit, which just means stealing from you in another way. And obviously, the right is doing kleptocratic shit right now. So that isn't helping for sure.

• 22:35Tom Bilyeu?

  So if we're going to put something in place that will actually get people to vote for their best interests, you somehow have to align their interests, either by reducing, make everything means tested. So nothing is handed out to people unless it's like, for real, for real. Like this person cannot work. They are not able bodied.

• 22:56Tom Bilyeu?

  Up the age of retirement, I know people are going to hate that. But it's like, well, if we have an aging population, we don't have enough people to take care of them. You can't just deficit spend because you're stealing from everybody, especially the young. And so When you start looking at those solutions, that's where it gets hard. That's where it's like, I'm aware that there are cameras on me and what solutions am I really prepared to put forward? But we have to find a way to get people to vote in a way that is mechanistically, not intentional. Like, I don't care about your intentions. I'm sure a lot of people that vote for communism have good intentions. Mechanistically, it's evil. And so it's one of those, it's documentably evil. Like, you need to show people, this is how it works out every time.

• 23:41Tom Bilyeu?

  And you can show them the mechanism as to why it's going to work out like that every time you try it, no matter what. It's a mechanism. So how we get there? The only thing I can think is you have to align the voter's selfish interests with what is actually good for the economy. And that is not going to be easy.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  So we've got 10 years before we implode.

• 24:05Tom Bilyeu?

  Unfortunately, nine at this point, I think roughly.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Is there a way to avoid it?

• 24:08Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes. Dude, you could avoid it. What is it? Rand Paul has the dumbest, easiest, most straightforward, he calls it like the six cent rule or something. It's like you reduce the budget by 6% every year for five years. And that's literally all it takes. And you do it across everything. So so that nobody can say anybody's playing political favorites, you literally just the entire budget equally is reduced by 6%.

• 24:38Speaker 01

  So it sounds like there's a mechanism that could work.

• 24:43Tom Bilyeu?

  Don't deficit spend.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  But the only group of people that can execute that are not everyday people. They're the top of the food chain.

• 24:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  And then there's a there's a time constraint, because to get the person that's going to make that decision into office is going to take time.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  I can taste the black on the capsule of this pill that you're going to ask me to imbibe.

• 25:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Thank you.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Do we have the time to find our Margaret Thatcher? Do we have the time to get that person in there? So that they can implement the mechanism so that we can turn it around?

• 25:22Tom Bilyeu?

  It's just will we is the exact question. Now, the great news is when I say that we have nine years, that assumes nothing changes. The good or bad news is Scott Besson understands this so well, he is going to weaken the dollar. I have to imagine they got Kevin Warsh in there because behind the scenes, and I don't know, so I'm not trying to defame him, but I imagine behind the scenes, there's no universe in which they put him in because Besson is so sharp. There's no way they put him in position if he wasn't like, yeah, I get it. I know what the deal is. And I'm going to try to reduce the Fed's balance sheet. But boy, oh, boy, do I understand that if we have to inflate so that the debt is easier to pay back, then that's

• 26:04Tom Bilyeu?

  what we're going to do. So they, will they actually let us implode? Probably not. But if they don't let us implode, it will hasten the K shape. It will make violent revolution that much more likely. And so they'll have to walk a really fine line. Do I think they can pull it off? Maybe. We'll see. There are other options, I guess, is the punchline there. They're not good, and I wish we wouldn't do them. But it isn't a binary choice between elect Thomas Massey as president, or we end up in revolution or defaulting on our debt. We're not going to default on our debt. Certainly, right now, the people in power are so fucking savvy financially. It's just a really shitty solution.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  Your shitty solution is still somehow comforting to what I generally think about because I really very much, I have become hyper focused on just kind of creating the best future for my own kids. And when you talk about

• 27:07Speaker 01

  Man, it was inspiring. And anybody, anybody who heard what you had to say and wasn't inspired is coming from a different planet than I come from, right? But when you talk about protecting the, that working class that makes it all happen, the person with the, with the dirt on their arms, there's construction going on in the road in front of my house. When, when my wife and I moved, we moved last February, this February. And the only complaint that she had about the neighborhood that we were moving into was the road. The road to the neighborhood and then the road through our neighborhood, right by our house was horrible. Like, not like abandoned third world kind of roads, right? But like modern day American roads, this was horrible by all definitions.

• 27:49Speaker 01

  It had the big like waves in it where you could very clearly see like, here's a sewage drain. Because the road goes up and then you pass the sewage drain and the road dips again. And there's huge potholes and cracks and overgrowing on the sides and just a Colorado road in disarray. So maybe four weeks ago, three weeks ago, Colorado Springs comes in and starts tearing up the road. And they're relaying the entire road. They're trying to hit 200 feet a day, but the road itself is probably three quarters of a mile long, right? So every day from seven o'clock in the morning until seven o'clock at night, I see the same 12 ish

• 28:31Speaker 01

  construction workers out there, driving heavy machinery, breaking through asphalt, laying and pushing dirt every day. And I never thought about the life of a construction worker until the assholes were in front of my house every single day, sweating their tails off, filthy, like that's backbreaking work. They might be driving a giant bulldozer, but that's a giant multi-ton vehicle. And they're one small turn away from tearing up a sidewalk or, you know, destroying a car or hurting a person, right? Meanwhile, the whole neighborhood still lives in the neighborhood. So there's keep people walking dogs, kids playing with each other, bicycles going on.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  People are trying to be respectful of the workers, but. I have never put myself in their shoes like I did until I started seeing them every day. And about five or seven days into it, I was like, I feel compelled to bring them pizza for dinner. Like just go buy seven large pizzas and bring, because I know they're going to wrap up at 7pm.

• 29:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Right? But until you stop to realize how fundamentally important that working person really is. And the fact that they're like, not a single one of them is over the age of 50. Because that's backbreaking work, right? But my point with all of that is just when you talked about how there's a moral obligation that we all have to support that fundamental workforce. And you weren't talking about construction workers only, there's, there's accountants and there's teachers and there's a whole slew of trades that are required to build the country. I mean, that was a damned good point.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  That makes me feel like I need to rethink the idea of I just, I need to protect my children by protecting my children. To I need to protect my children by protecting the middle class that makes the future for my children possible.

• 30:29Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, that's a dope way to say it. And I mean, you can also just step into being a selfish capitalist and saying, I need a thriving country that has disposable income, that's optimistic and hopeful about their future, that has kids. Uh, I need people to have kids because I'm trying to make children's entertainment. So it's like, I, I need healthy, happy kids with loving families to, um, you know, to create things for that gives me meaning and purpose. And then also just, once you understand the raw mechanisms of the economy, you're like, oh, wow, it's interesting that the economic forces have this constant impulse

• 31:15Tom Bilyeu?

  to, um, create these financialized games so that they can win at the extreme.

• 31:22Tom Bilyeu?

  And at some point, they start losing touch with the Warren Buffett of it all, where it's like, value investing. What are the good companies? What are the people that are really making core products that make this country what it is, or whatever, fill in the country, Peru, China, Japan, whatever. But the people in this country that are trying to build something, that are trying to innovate, that are trying to make their lives better and their kids' lives better, that impulse is awesome. And we want to fuel that with investing. I've said many, many, many times, the stock market is a modern miracle, but you also get into this version where you have these people that are so good at the gambling portion of it. People hate it when I call it that, but I'll stand 10 toes down on that. And so you get that at the extremes. It makes it complicated enough that people get

• 32:07Tom Bilyeu?

  fearful to get in. We don't teach people about how to invest for the long term. And so, once you understand the mechanisms of that whole machinery, you're like, oh, got it. Like, things have to, you, you need real companies selling to real people, innovating for real people. You need the masses to have disposable income. You need velocity of money. Like, there are all these things that are mechanistic, and they require a giant middle class. And when you have that giant middle class, and they're healthy, and they're optimistic, and they're growing, and they've got the ability to go up or down, that's important, because right now, you can go up, you can go down, and then you're stuck. And so, it's like, you don't want people to be able to be rich forever unless

• 32:52Tom Bilyeu?

  they're just that good. Hey, if they're that good, and they're winning all the time, fantastic. But you want mobility, and mobility means that you can't do the socialism for the wealthy. So, if a bank goes under, a bank goes under. It is what it is. If a company goes under, it goes under. It is what it is, man. Like, you've got to let those companies die. So, if you, like, it's almost no matter what angle you come at it. I have a moral responsibility to do it. It's a beautiful thing to protect the people who are going to build the world for my kids. As a capitalist, just filthy capitalist, I need people that are happy and optimistic to sell to. So...

• 33:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Almost no matter what angle you come at it from, unless you are in a purely extractive, short-term mindset, you realize, alright, yeah, yeah, yeah, we, we can't eat the seeds that we're gonna plant next year. We gotta fucking wait. We gotta plant the crops. We've gotta let them grow. And somewhere, we lost that on the right and the left. And so, that's why, like, when I say I'm enraged, when I see Mamdani and AOC and Bernie just doing their best to break the economy, um, yeah, don't love it. And then when I see the wealthy, like, when I hear Donald Trump banging on about, "Bro, but the, the, uh, the stock market's great.

• 34:16Tom Bilyeu?

  What are you guys complaining about? Bitch, 10% of Americans own 93% of the assets. That's what the fuck I'm complaining about." So, it's wild. It's wild. Taking a short break, but there's more Impact Theory after. Stay tuned.

• 34:36Tom Bilyeu?

  Thanks for staying tuned. Now, let's get back to it.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  It's a leadership problem, which is both a good and bad discovery, because, oof, that's a slow problem. That's a slow boat to shift. And we live in a country where the populace, the popul- the, the populace, not the populist, but the populace determines the leadership.

• 35:01Speaker 01

  And now it goes back to what my concern was, is that the vast majority of people are just too ignorant and complacent to change. And now, you're combining a, a time constraint, right? Nine years before implosion, a time constraint with a baseline starting place, and let's just say that my baseline starting place of the majority of Americans are too ignorant and complacent. Let's just say that that's an overstretch. Let's just say I'm only 50% correct. The baseline is still only 50% better.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Ugh. Like, to hear us kind of both agree that there's so little that the average person can do,

• 35:44Speaker 01

  that triggers survival instinct in people. And they have to, they have to decide, if I'm going to put my resources into something, am I going to put my resources into the public? Good or the individual good? Am I going to help the country survive? I'm going to help the family survive? Am I going to take care of my neighbor? Am I going to take care of myself? And once you put people into that position, the paleo, the, the paleo mammalian brain of all of us is like, maybe I'll do both, but I'm, I'm more invested in the self than the group in American culture. It's the opposite in Japanese culture, like you were talking about, right? That collective culture believes that you sacrifice always, but that's not how Americans

• 36:29Speaker 01

  think. That's not how we think anymore for sure. So.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  I love hearing what you have to say. It makes me feel like there is a path forward, but there's these if then statements before the actual path forward is achievable. And I really hope that we can figure out those if then statements.

• 36:51Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah. History says that we will have to suffer a tremendous amount before we do. I take some solace in the fact that Margaret Thatcher comes rapidly to power as they really hit a financial snag. And I think something similar will happen in the U.S. I just really hope it does not follow the following trend.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Didn't you also say Hitler had a rapid rise to power because of a financial issue too?

• 37:15Tom Bilyeu?

  It populist leaders, that's exactly how they are born is you have some sort of tremendous economic disruption that causes people to essentially panic. And then they just, like a dazed fighter in the middle of the ring, they grab at the legs of the strong man and just say, keep me safe. So it, yeah, it gets wild really fast. The, the weird position that we're in is half the country hates the other half of the country. And so we have to find some way back to the middle.

• 37:43Tom Bilyeu?

  AI could be that if you want another white pill. AI really is poised to, it will disrupt a lot of jobs, there's no doubt. But the more time I spend with it, the more what it looks like is it's going to follow the trend of every technological revolution that came before it, which follows a pretty fascinating path. So anybody investing, pay attention. So what ends up happening is you bring on this new technology. It has an insane amount of hype around it. It requires a massive economic build out for the infrastructure. You get a wave of investors that go in on the first bit of infrastructure. And then they basically all go broke because the delay between when you have to spend the money

• 38:28Tom Bilyeu?

  usually on debt to build out the infrastructure and when the revenue actually starts coming in, the gap is just too long. And so that first group gets wiped out. And so we're seeing how businesses pull away from AI. Anybody who reads that as AI was just all hype, it's nothing. Just follow the trend. This is what happens every time. And then over time, people get better at using the technology and all that. And then it ends up paying off, but it can take, you know, say five, 10 years longer than the debt was going to last before that blew up in people's faces. So that first wave is likely to get in trouble. Now we're doing the SpaceX IPO. I worry that the normal market is just exit liquidity for that first wave of investors.

• 39:10Tom Bilyeu?

  So we're going to have like a slightly different thing where the, the like 1.5 wave of investors gets mowed over. There's a lot of stuff there that I don't like about how that's playing out, but it is what it is. It's people's own money. If they choose to invest without paying attention, that's on them. But so that's going to happen most likely, but the technology will become what people expect it to become. I mean, I'm seeing it already in my own business. It's extraordinary. It's completely transformational. It's amazing. And so that is going to drive costs down. And while it will disrupt a bunch of jobs, it will create more jobs than it destroys. They're just jobs we can't predict right now. The fact that you've become a millionaire off of.

• 39:53Tom Bilyeu?

  A job description that didn't exist 20 years ago is already wild. And so that kind of thing is really fascinating. So AI is going to do similar things like that. It'll be things that we can anticipate. But it's likely to create more opportunity than it erases. Until at which point you get artificial superintelligence. It's better than us at everything. But at that point, you're probably looking at an age of abundance. And so now it's what Elon calls universal high income. Now, I don't think that will change life very much in terms of the things that stress humans out. We will still play status games. We will still want more than the next person. We will want to be the ones that live on the hill overlooking the ocean.

• 40:37Tom Bilyeu?

  It's like, it's just, that's what humans want. And there's always going to be a limited amount of that. And so people will come up with some new currency like thing that it's like, I have more Pokemon cards, whatever. And so I get to buy the house on the hill overlooking the ocean, whatever. But it will, it has a shot of getting you there. And once you, going back to the mechanisms of the economy, the way the economy works is that you can truly grow your way out of the debt problem. But to do that, you need more efficiencies. And this is why innovation is so important and why anybody that shits on innovation is just going to be number one on my hit list. You want people to innovate so that you can grow past some of these debts.

• 41:18Tom Bilyeu?

  But right now, for every dollar, new dollar that we raise in taxes, we spend an additional dollar fifty eight. So as long as that ratio stays true, you'll never be able to grow out of the problem. And so we have a weird mental setup that people now expect to be taken care of by the state, and that's suicide.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  If we implode in nine years, what are you gonna do?

• 41:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Sips tea.

• 41:49Tom Bilyeu?

  If it really gets dire, I will leave. My number one objective is to protect my wife. So while I really hope it doesn't come to that, and I really hope that I can be some small voice among a hopefully growing cadre of voices that are trying to make the machinery of economics something people can make contact with and do something about. But if I can't pull that off or be useful in that way, then yeah, I'm thankfully wealthy. And so I will pack up and catch that private flight out of Hanoi and be off somewhere nice where no mosquitoes at.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  It makes me feel better. Wow, that's the second thing that makes me feel better about. I have a very similar plan, like bail and bail to a place with no mosquitoes. That's awesome. It's just, it's encouraging to hear you say that because it's where I spend probably 30% of my thoughts right now.

• 42:47Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Is in this whole, do I stay, do I, well, not do I stay, do I go? How and when?

• 42:55Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  Do I go? That's where my brain lives. And in a like shocking twist,

• 43:03Speaker 01

  the capture of Maduro changed the Venezuelan national relationship with the United States, which creates multiple opportunities in my universe that I never thought would have existed. Right? So it almost accelerates the whole plan about how to leave.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  But then, as I look at leaving the United States, especially leaving the United States now that I have more wealth than my family had before me, it becomes a very difficult proposition because there are very real financial implications. Whether you find efficient ways to protect your wealth or not. So it's just.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  It sounds ludicrous to have wealthy people problems. And so few people understand wealthy people problems. And to even talk about wealthy people problems becomes like a, you sound like an asshole doing it, right? But the reality is, the only way to really assure your own future is to become a person who can build wealth. And then the depressing fact is, even when you build the wealth, you just open up a whole new set of problems.

• 44:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 44:15Speaker 01

  And it's something I remember reading about when I was trying to build a business and now I'm there. And it's still just as real as when I read about it.

• 44:23Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I'm really trying to get people to understand is the game of wealth is available to everybody. And I get that it's a scary game. There's a way to play it. That's sort of the basic bitch way. And if you just get in the market for 20, 30, 40 years, you're going to do very well. Caleb Hammer, who's a fascinating voice, if you don't know him yet, definitely look him up. Um, he was on Rogan and he was talking about how if you had invested in like 1990, um, so the average salary was like 20 grand. If you had invested, I forget what percentage, like 10% or something of your salary every time, um, you would now have like two and a half million dollars or something.

• 45:06Tom Bilyeu?

  And so it's like, I get it. That's slow. You know, that's whatever 35, 36 years. But it's like, you'd be a multimillionaire. So, um, and you're only shaving off 10% of your income. So people just have this like mental block. I did for years. My only retirement strategy was to get rich.

• 45:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was my retirement strategy too.

• 45:28Tom Bilyeu?

  People used to make fun of me all the time. And I was like, bro, I do not understand the investing stuff. I don't want to think about the stock market.

• 45:34Speaker 01

  It's too slow. I may not live that long.

• 45:35Tom Bilyeu?

  Too slow.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  I had all those thoughts.

• 45:38Tom Bilyeu?

  So it was just like, well, I'm just gonna get rich and that'll be that. And now that I see, again, just going back to the mechanisms of how this stuff works. It's like, I didn't realize that I was being inflated away. I thought inflation was a law of nature. I didn't realize that it was a thing that doesn't have to happen, that it's completely manmade. So getting people to understand that, join the game of wealth now. Like, if you hear us talking and we sound just like absolute douchebags, come join the douchery.

• 46:06Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 46:07Tom Bilyeu?

  It's much nicer on this side of the fence.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  You have more options, you have problems, but they're different problems. They're somehow more expensive problems, but they're fewer in number.

• 46:16Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, also, once money isn't the driving, like, paranoia in your life, it, it just, there's a level of anxiety that falls away. And for, if anybody's listening to this and you're meeting me for the first time, I have spent much more of my life not wealthy than I've spent wealthy. So I know what it's like intimately on the other side of the fence, having to juggle different bills, pay some some month, some another month. I know that all too well, so.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  It is fascinating because that is 100% a mantra that I am trying to communicate with everyone is, is you can become wealthy. It doesn't, it's not rocket science. It is one of the few things that you can literally start doing today. You don't have to wait until the gym opens tomorrow. You don't have to wait until the paycheck comes in. Like, you can really start taking steps to, to transform your wealth future immediately. And I don't see any way that you can build a more secure future for yourself than if you do it yourself. Cause waiting for a future government leader is gonna take a while. And waiting for a community of people that believe in the middle class is gonna take a while.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  And you're gambling, you're, you're risking your own future on other people's decisions and other people's actions. If you do anything other than start building your wealth right now. Start learning, start practicing, start, oh, spend a hundred and thirteen dollars and get an LLC in Florida. Spend, I think it's eighty-five dollars getting an LLC in Florida, I don't know. There's so many steps that you can take that will literally start building revenue, income for you now that you control. And once you know how to turn that dial, you just turn the dial up. And that's something you'll, your employer will never let you do. Your employer never wants to turn your dial up. They want to-

• 48:11Tom Bilyeu?

  I want to turn your dial up, everybody. Everybody that's here that can hear my voice.

• 48:16Tom Bilyeu?

  No, I know what you mean.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  You're a better boss than me.

• 48:20Tom Bilyeu?

  Dude, this has been a shocking conversation. I did not expect it to take these twists and turns, which is unusual for me. But where can people follow along with you? You are a fascinating voice.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  I appreciate you, brother. You can find me online, anywhere on social media, at Everyday Spy. I have a growing YouTube channel I'm very proud of, Andrew Bustamante. And if you go to EverydaySpy.com, you'll land on my homepage and that's the gateway to my whole universe.

• 48:46Tom Bilyeu?

  I love it. Alright, guys, if you have not already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace. Let's talk about a pattern that is guaranteed to be killing your progress. You know what you need to do. You need consistent nutrition. We all do. You need vitamins, probiotics, greens. We all know that we should be doing more of it. When your morning gets chaotic, you skip it. When you travel, you skip it. When your routine breaks, everything tends to break. And that inconsistency compounds against you every single day. AG1 is designed to solve the execution problem. One scoop, eight ounces of water, and you're done. You're getting 75 plus ingredients, vitamins and minerals, pre and probiotics, nutrient-dense superfoods,

• 49:30Tom Bilyeu?

  everything that used to require six, seven different supplements, and perfect planning now happens in one drink that takes about 30 seconds to make. Right now, AG1 is giving you $87 worth of free gifts with your first subscription. You get a welcome kit, travel packs, vitamin D3 plus K2, and flavor samples. Click the link in the show notes or visit drinkag1.com/impact to claim this offer.