#443: McKenzie Collins on Providing For Your Family

McKenzie Collins is the owner of Mack’s Flooring Installations. He is an everyday person who lives in Canada and has discovered Bitcoin over the last few years. This is an amazing episode. You can follow him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mack.the.builder/. In this conversation, we discuss McKenzie’s background, how he discovered Bitcoin, how he thinks of time vs money, why Bitcoin changed his spending habits, and why an everyday person believes so strongly in the digital currency’s future. ======================= LVL is a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times per month for only $9. If you buy or sell more than $500 in Bitcoin on any exchange, you're spending too much on trading fees. Use LVL to save money and trade as many times you want, but only pay $9/month. https://lvl.co/pomp ======================= Coinbase Wallets are adding support for .crypto and .zil domains through their partnership with Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains provides an all-in-one solution for blockchain domains. You can send money using these new domains instead of long Bitcoin wallet addresses, while also storing your domain in Coinbase's collectibles section. Go to unstoppabledomains.com in the dapp browser to register and manage your domains. ======================= Pomp writes a daily letter to over 90,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://www.pompletter.com =======================

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

• 0:00Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Let's kick this thing off. Mackenzie Collins is the owner of Mack's Flooring Installations. He's an everyday person who lives in Canada and has discovered Bitcoin over the last few years. This is an amazing episode. You can follow him on Instagram at @mack.the建 builder. In this conversation, we discuss Mackenzie's background, how he discovered Bitcoin, how he thinks of time versus money, why Bitcoin changed his spending habits, and why an everyday person believes so strongly in the digital currency's future. I really enjoyed this episode. It

• 0:41Anthony Pompliano?

  may be my favorite ever, and I hope you enjoy this. Before we get into the episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is Level, L V L. They're a new crypto investing platform that I'm an investor in. They allow anyone to trade an unlimited number of times every month for free. That's right. You can go to L V L dot C O slash Pomp, and you can buy and sell Bitcoin for free. There's no trading fees, and there's no spreads. It is free. The company makes money through other revenue sources, whether it's deposits, withdrawals, or other financial services like an FDIC insured cash account. But when you're buying and selling Bitcoin, there are zero fees. It's pretty much a no-brainer.

• 1:26Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  It shows up. So now, all of a sudden, you can go buy whatever name you want, .crypto through unstoppable domains and use that as your wallet address instead of having to use that long string of letters and numbers. The domains work just like in the traditional world. Once somebody buys it, nobody else can have it. So if you've got a name, whether it's your name, your company's name, or some other word that you want to own, make sure you go on over to unstoppabledomains.com and buy it today. Once you get it, nobody else can get it. There's digital scarcity. Shocker. So head on over to unstoppabledomains.com and pick up a .crypto or .zill domain today. Unstoppabledomains.com. They're helping bring the decentralized internet to the mainstream. Unstoppabledomains.com. Last up, don't forget

• 2:55Anthony Pompliano?

  that I write a daily letter to over 90,000 investors about business technology and finance. I break down complex topics into easy to understand language while sharing my personal opinion on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at pompletter.com. Again, that's pompletter.com. All right, let's get into this episode with Mackenzie. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano is a partner at Morgan Creek Digital. All opinions expressed by Pomp or his guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Morgan Creek Digital or Morgan Creek Capital Management. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:41Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, guys. Bang, bang. I've got a very, very special episode for you today. Mackenzie is here. I constantly get people who ask me to come on the podcast, who want to hear from kind of an everyday person, not somebody who works in Wall Street or in finance, somebody who doesn't spend all day as a professional investor, but rather somebody Who has come across Bitcoin as part of what they do on a day to day basis. And so I thought it'd be great to have Mackenzie come on and talk about that. So thank you so much for taking the time to do this, sir.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Thanks for having me. This is unbelievable experience for me.

• 4:18Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. So let's start just with a little bit of background on you and your family. So that people kind of understand the perspective that you're coming from. Where were you born and kind of what have you done in your career until today?

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Sure. So yeah, I was born actually in the lower mainland of British Columbia, Surrey, B.C. Most of my family is from around that area. So basically my parents moved to Vancouver Island, which is a small island off the west coast of Canada. And it would have been 89. I was a year old when we moved here. My parents came over for a holiday. My, they fell in love with it right away. My dad's been a career flooring installer. He found work immediately, never went back. And from then, yeah, we, we, we had a lot of family follow us over.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  As far as the work end of things.

• 5:17Speaker 02

  Like I say, my entire family has been in the flooring industry. It's something going through high school, growing up, I never thought I'd be getting into. You know, when you're surrounded by it, you're like, ah, I might want to try something else. But then, once I got married, had kids, I started to realize just how one profitable and, and how good I was at it. I've been installing flooring with my dad since I was 14 years old. That's basically when I started screwing up in school and he made me go to work with him instead of going to the school dance. So yeah, it's, it's been, I've had through my twenties, a lot of different employment opportunities. Got to try a lot of different things.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  Young family, been a father since I was 21 years old. And, but every one of those jobs, it's, it's benefited me in some aspect of what I'm doing now. And yeah, it's been really cool to see those different skillsets all come together to where I am now.

• 6:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And so how old are you now? And then how many children do you have?

• 6:27Speaker 02

  I'm 32 and I have two girls, one four and one 10.

• 6:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. And so when I think about you, you know, I think of you as kind of the quintessential, you know, in America, we would call kind of the American story, right? But, but obviously being in Canada of a hard worker who has a young family and you basically are doing everything that you're supposed to be doing in order to build a great life for your family, for your daughters and kind of accomplish the goals that you set out for yourself. Is that fair to say?

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Absolutely. At least that's what I'm trying to do.

• 7:03Anthony Pompliano?

  I think you're doing just fine, my friend. So one of the things as we were talking beforehand and kind of preparing for this that I found very fascinating is the approach that you take, right? Most of the jobs that you've held have to do with some sort of physical labor and the creation of or the production of something in the, in the physical world. So you're not a software engineer. You're not working at a tech startup, right? You're doing flooring or roofing and kind of more construction driven jobs. But that industry has some amazing people and it has a lot of people who, people have bad experiences with. I think your approach to how you service clients and the people you work with is really unique and will play into the value that you see in Bitcoin. But just talk to me a little bit about kind of the perspective that you have

• 7:48Anthony Pompliano?

  and that you take to work every day in terms of the value and how you work with those clients.

• 7:54Speaker 02

  Absolutely. So my biggest frustration being in the construction industry is going into someone's home and seeing contractors treating the client as if they're doing them some kind of favor. I don't care how busy it is, how, how long you've been in the industry. Or frankly, how the client's treating you, they are doing you a favor. They are hiring you and they are trusting you and your expertise to do the best job possible. So I guess my, my view and how I communicate with my clients.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  I don't, I guess I'm a little more close with them. I, I, I treat them as if they say, they were saying my parents. I don't want them to, I don't want them to feel like I am in there just to make, make my buck and get out. So yeah, a, a, a big thing is I understand how hard a lot of small town people, people all over the place work for their dollar. I know how hard I work for my dollar and I want to give them the best value I possibly can. And it doesn't mean I can't be friendly along the way and especially in a small, I live in

• 9:17Speaker 02

  a town of just under 40,000. Everybody knows everybody. My, I basically don't advertise. Everything's word of mouth. I don't have decals on my truck. I don't do any of that. It's just word of mouth, being conscientious of the client and making sure that, like I say, I'm giving them the best value for their dollar.

• 9:39Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And you specifically mentioned one thing that I think is really important, which is this idea of outside of major metros, there's this understanding and belief that people work hard for their money, right? That these are people who are putting in long hours, hard hours in comparison to a lot of kind of major metros or software type businesses. And therefore, when you go and you perform a service, you essentially are saying, hey, look, I need to provide value equivalent to or over the amount of money that they're giving me because I know they worked hard for it. And so I'm going to work hard for them to then give it to me. Is that kind of a fair way to describe the approach you take?

• 10:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And I can't even say, I know my experience is in a small town, but I can't say that I wouldn't approach it the same way outside. It's just, it's, it's what I expect from someone when I'm hiring them. I expect them to, to really respect the fact that I am.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  I'm providing you with a living while you're working for me. And to me, that is everything. You know, that's how I support my family. So yeah, absolutely.

• 10:50Anthony Pompliano?

  That makes sense. And so you are probably not very high on the list that most people would think of as somebody who comes across Bitcoin, becomes a believer in Bitcoin, uses Bitcoin, invests in Bitcoin, etc. Let's start with just like, when was the first time you ever heard about Bitcoin? And kind of what did you think when you heard about it?

• 11:10Speaker 02

  Sure. So first time I ever heard about it, I was at my buddy's house. I think they were watching football or something, placing some bets on the game. And one of my buddies who's a software engineer brings up Ethereum and Bitcoin and how I think, I think they were trading Ethereum was around $14 at the time and Bitcoin, maybe a thousand. So I just remember these guys being like, I'm up 15 grand this week. Like, this is insane. So of course, my first inclination is not, what is it? It's how am I going to make money here?

• 11:52Speaker 02

  It's probably the, might be the worst way to go about it. But really, that, that 2017, 2016, 2017 bull run that started, I made a lot of money and at the same time, lost a lot of money. I did, luckily, I was about break even at the end of it, but you see these huge gains really quickly. And it's just like gambling. You don't, you don't register that that is real money. And you think that this is going to go on forever. It's that whole euphoria that everybody talks about and it's so real. So the difference is at the end of the bull run, when everything was said and done,

• 12:35Speaker 02

  I backed away out of the markets for a bit and just went, there's something here. I, you know, let's see, let's see what it was I was really getting myself into. And from there, it's been three or four years of just picking away, trying to understand, understand the sound money.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  Theory and all these different things that that are going to help me keep the money I earn. And yeah, just have more for the future. I've never invested. I've never invested a penny before Bitcoin came along. And it just opened my eyes to a whole, the whole financial realm.

• 13:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And so what's interesting to me about this is, is there's a couple of data points that I think people intuitively believe are true. But hearing them from somebody in your position is really powerful, right? So the first is just the raw honesty from you of like, hey, I came to get rich, right? The price appreciation got my attention and therefore I thought that I could make a bunch of money really fast. I actually think that that is a lot, if not almost everybody who initially comes across Bitcoin specifically in these assets, right? It is this understanding of like, kind of the number goes up, right? But then what ends up happening, whether it's because of a market crash, time spent, you know, curiosity, whatever,

• 14:03Anthony Pompliano?

  is eventually you start to understand more about what is the history of money? What is sound money? Why is it important? How can it protect my wealth? So there's this saying, I think it's my buddy Marty Bent, who first said it, that's like, you come for the money? And then you stay for the money, right? You come to make money, but then you eventually stay for the sound money, right? And it sounds like that was very much kind of your experience. Is that accurate?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely, it is. And the hardest thing to do, once you have that realization, is convince your family that this is the right thing to do, because it is not well understood. Like my parents, I've been talking at them for the last four years about Bitcoin and not really being able to explain it properly. Like I say, I'm a tile setter. I am not a financial advisor. But then I start coming across literature that really helps out. The Bitcoin standard, I mean, that was, that was my foundation, just understanding.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  All of these different monetary systems and why they failed, they failed for the same reason every single time. And, and then you go down further down the path and you're the sovereign individual and the fourth turning. And you try not to get too apocalyptic about everything because, you know, you gotta wake up and get out of bed every day. But it's, uh, like I say, it's just been an unbelievable journey, um, just figuring out step by step, why this is happening. Um, because it is, it's hard to believe, uh, for a lot of people

• 15:51Speaker 02

  that this is, this is the new standard. This is where we're going. And when, I know guys like you and me see it, but, uh, it's so weird to be one of those people when the rest of the world is just catching on.

• 16:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And so let's start with, um, you know, you make kind of the initial investment in Bitcoin, price goes up, price goes down. Um, you also, it sounds like Ether and maybe others. Um, and as you kind of go on the education journey, so take away the price for a second, as you go on that education journey, I'm assuming that you're talking about it with your wife, with your parents, like, what are they saying? Are they like, you're absolutely insane and like, stay away from me and stay away from that stuff? Or are they more open minded? Like, what's kind of the reaction as you're going down the rabbit hole?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  Well, four years ago, I was working, uh, doing sales in flooring. I, I thought I'd give that a shot. Not my gig. I found that out pretty quick, but I remember trying to explain it, like with this very basic understanding of what Bitcoin is to my boss at the time. And he's sitting there staring at me and I don't think it was probably the best play. He's like, okay, if this guy doesn't understand that, uh, we want Canadian dollars, not Bitcoin, that might be an issue. So then, then I move on to my parents. Um, and

• 17:15Speaker 02

  It's not that they didn't understand, but they're reaching retirement age and this is, especially then, the very volatile, high-risk asset that maybe they don't want to get into. So, and then, and then other, other family members, I remember being on a family reunion, sitting on a lake in a boat, explaining to my dad's cousin, talking about Bitcoin, and my best friend sitting there. And yeah, it's just, you do your best, but all you, all I can do is direct them to the, the, the different areas where I learned and pass

• 17:58Speaker 02

  that knowledge on to them that way, because I'm not the right guy to be, to be starting. And then as far as my wife goes, she is the best. She is just, she trusts that I know what I'm talking about and that I have the best interest of the family. I tried to get her to listen to the Bitcoin standard and she ended up using it as a meditation to fall asleep.

• 18:21Anthony Pompliano?

  So.

• 18:24Anthony Pompliano?

  That is amazing. So, talk a little bit, and obviously don't disclose kind of numbers and stuff, but when you think of investing in Bitcoin or holding Bitcoin, is this something where you're thinking of it as like a portfolio and you kind of invest and one day want to sell it? Is it something where you say, no, I want to kind of save and use Bitcoin as a savings technology? Like, how do you think about it? And then how do you think about how much Canadian dollars to hold versus Bitcoin versus maybe other assets?

• 18:54Speaker 02

  Sure. Well, at this point, the way the world is right now, it's been really difficult for me not to go all in on Bitcoin, especially in Canada here. This COVID thing has obviously nuked the country. We have had a lot of support and stimulus from the government, which is good and bad. There's different ways of looking at it, but the bottom line is, I believe we spent 57% of our GDP this, this year. And.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  We're getting all of these different benefits, whether it be the C E R B $1,200 every two weeks, or the business loans where you borrow 30,000, 10,000 is forgivable.

• 19:48Speaker 02

  That all needs to get paid from somewhere. And it's, that's why I've personally, I've been fortunate with everybody staying at home. They stare at their walls and want tile on them, apparently. So I can't really, I can't complain in that respect, but.

• 20:09Anthony Pompliano?

  It's funny how that works, right? Everyone sits around at home and say, I actually need some improvements around here. I'm going to sit here all day.

• 20:16Speaker 02

  Absolutely, and it's baffling to me. It's like, and it's the same with interest rates dropping. Our real estate values have shot through the roof. And it's like, is real estate really appreciating that much? Or are people just getting more access to funds that? It's not my place to say whether or not they should be borrowing, but it's there. Tax deferrals, mortgage deferrals, all these different things. It's like, we're just kicking the can down the road. That's all that's happening here. And yeah, it's, it's an intimidating prospect.

• 20:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. And it's pretty crazy too, to think, you know, one of, you take that mentality that you have of like, everyone works hard for their money and therefore I want to provide value. But also too, it sounds like you've got this idea around, but I work hard for my money as well. And I want to protect it, right? And that's kind of when you talk about the national debt and a lot of these issues. It sounds like really for you Bitcoin is much more a way to protect wealth than it is as like a speculative asset or anything like that.

• 21:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, if I'm being completely honest, it's both for me right now because of where we are in Bitcoin's growth. Yeah, obviously I see the upside of it. But in the same breath, if we were 10, 15 years down the road and Bitcoin was stable and we were in the same position, I'd still be there because. Like I say, this where you sell a house for $450,000 a year ago and now it's worth, you know, $570,000, that's not, that's insane. And that's not, it's the same, you go and buy,

• 22:03Speaker 02

  you know, a case of Coke or something, and that was $4 last year and it's $7.99 this year. It's happening everywhere. So, so I'd be, I'd be a liar if I was saying I'm not here for the price discovery as well. That's a big part of it. But no, the stability, when you can say, "I'm confident in the stability of Bitcoin, even with the volatile price swings that are going on," that's saying something. I'm not against paying taxes or anything like that. I just, I'm very much for not having my money taken when it doesn't need to be.

• 22:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And what's so interesting to me is, you know, I think of this as like, you can be described as a hardworking Canadian who simply wants to provide a life for their family, right? I mean, at the core of it, everyone wants to have enough resources to live the life that they want to live and they want to be happy, right? And I think that what is fascinating to me, and I think that you're not alone in this, is something like Bitcoin can pull so many people in and really open their eyes to kind of the macroeconomic world, to the financial investing world, right? Like, it almost sounds like over the last three or four years, you've gotten a crash course in a lot of different topics that have a very material impact on you, your family,

• 23:28Anthony Pompliano?

  your finances, but aren't necessarily taught in school in a way that people pay attention or learn, correct?

• 23:34Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And that's just the thing. Bitcoin could disappear tomorrow and I would still be better off for it existing for the time it did. Like I say, it just brought so much clarity and no, it's not taught in schools. You know, I'm 30 years old and I went through my twenties not being aware of any of this and you know hindsight's 2020, you can't go back, but you just, you just go, man, some of those choices I made for these small, short-term gains, these short-term happiness could have developed into something so much bigger had I just understood that

• 24:18Speaker 02

  that value proposition for long-term savings.

• 24:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and we haven't talked about this before. So I'm actually curious to your answer, but do you feel like understanding of Bitcoin, the macro environment, inflation, a lot of the kinds of things that we've talked about, has that changed your spending patterns or your saving patterns? Like, I guess there's one part that's like knowledge, the other is behavior change. What, if any, behaviors have changed that you think are noticeable?

• 24:50Speaker 02

  For me in particular, massive changes. Yeah.

• 24:55Anthony Pompliano?

  In what way?

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Well, we uprooted ourselves in probably the biggest way you can, sold our home to pay down all the debt that we possibly could. So basically, we were at net zero and yeah, I mean, I wouldn't have thought of doing that two years ago. You just think that sitting in your home and allowing real estate values to inflate, like that's your retirement at the end of it. And if you can pull some money and maybe get a investment property and build that way, that's one way, but.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  I've worked 19 hour days and done that, you know, just grinding, grinding day after day to make the bills get paid at the end of the month. And when I, with my kids, I'm just like, that is not a way I want to live my life. I have no energy when I get home. I, I, you know, I'm 32 and I don't have energy to play with my kids. What's wrong with that picture? I had this silly idea in my head that if I wasn't stressed and exhausted, I wasn't working hard enough. And that's not true. That is, that is, that is the root of the problem. And it's the same thing with money. You don't have to, you know, if you just let it do its work for you,

• 26:17Speaker 02

  then it takes a lot of the stress away.

• 26:21Anthony Pompliano?

  It is, it is so true, right? In terms of one, kudos to you for learning this stuff. Two, having the courage and conviction to act, right? I mean, you know, I say it all the time, but getting out of debt can be one of the most freeing exercises that you can do. And so being able to do that alone is a big thing. But I think that the third thing you said there that is so true, and frankly, people are taught the opposite, is to put the money to work for you, right? Most people are told, save, save, save. And what they don't realize is based on their income and their expenses, there's just not enough money to save to ever actually kind of get out of the rat race, right? What you gotta do is you gotta be able to have a little bit of money, you know, as a rainy day.

• 27:03Anthony Pompliano?

  But then you gotta be able to invest everything else and grow it and have it grow faster than inflation. So that you're not just having to trade your hours for dollars, right? Instead, you can actually use the investments to help build wealth. And it sounds like you, that kind of really hit home for you and changed your behavior.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And, and I think, again, early 30s with a bad sciatic nerve. I can't do this forever. It's, it's not a long-term play for me. The construction industry and yeah, it's 40, 45, 50, it's not far off. So it's going to come a lot quicker than I know. So yeah, just like I say, getting prepared for that.

• 27:45Anthony Pompliano?

  For sure. And then so the last thing I want to talk about is is kind of spending habits. Right. So one of the things that I personally have seen is I've started to almost like in my head denominate things in satoshis or in Bitcoin. So, you know, in 2019, I've talked about on the podcast before, in January 2019, my wife, you know, wanted to buy a couch and I was calculating like how many Bitcoin that would be right now is like, no, we don't need a couch.

• 28:10Anthony Pompliano?

  And so, you know, that's kind of like an extreme example, but do you see a kind of changes not only on the investing side, but also in the spending habits as well?

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Um, you know, it's kind of tough in certain ways. Like I look at the position we're in now. Um, the thing, the important things are like, uh, my daughter just started an outdoor, outdoor preschool program. That, for better or worse, that was a stressful thing for me to know that we're spending that extra money every month. Of course, I want that for my kids, but it's still money out the door, which means I'm not home. Um, and so, yeah, that kind of stuff is a lot easier to do. But then the

• 29:00Speaker 02

  the trivial, um, little knick knacky things, it, like you say, your couch, I, we don't need it. We just don't need it right now. Give us, I keep on telling my wife, we're not even looking at houses right now. Give me some time. Let's see where this goes. We, we, we don't need to rush anything. So.

• 29:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. And what's interesting to kind of your perspective, because I don't think a lot of people do this, whether it's because they, they don't get paid hourly, or it's not kind of more manual type work. But you literally are making a connection between if your daughter goes to preschool, it's X dollars, which means you've got to work Y hours. And therefore, you can make a direct kind of connection between a decision you make on the spending side with an, uh, kind of energy output for you, right? Like, like there's a direct link between I'm going to have to work X number of more hours in order to pay for this. And so I think that that's. Direct linkage makes it much actually clearer for you to make those decisions, right? For some people, that's harder for them to do. They actually don't know how much money they get paid per hour

• 30:04Anthony Pompliano?

  because they're on a salary or something like that. For you, that connection being so clear probably makes it a much, at least clearer decision, not necessarily easier, but but just much easier to evaluate.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  It's unbelievably clear to me and and it's something that I've had to explain. It's something my wife and I have discussed because she she's at home with the kids and like I say, every dollar I make is I I equate it, you equate things to Satoshi's, I equate it to a minute spent with with my kids. So, yeah, absolutely. It's I don't look at I don't look at houses. I don't look at trucks. I don't look at any of those those different

• 30:53Speaker 02

  objects in the world as what I'm working towards. It's all about time with my kids. If I can make it to some point, my goal is at some point I can make it to my kids still living at home and me being able to work a four day work week and have three days for them. That's still that's still crazy to me that we spend more time at work than we do with our family, even in the best case. So, yeah, absolutely. That is a that is the value proposition for me.

• 31:22Anthony Pompliano?

  And I don't know if you've ever heard of of this kind of framing in the Bitcoin world, but basically the whole idea is that Bitcoin is time, right? And essentially what you're describing is exactly that, right? Is there's a direct trade off between wealth and time. And the less wealth you have, the more time you have to spend. But the more wealth you have, the less time you have to spend kind of doing things you might not want to do, right? So your point of I love the idea of you having measurable goals, right? I need I know I need to get to X number so then I can spend four days working, three days with my kids. Like, a lot of people, I think, have a dream, right? Which is, hey, I want to spend more time with my kids. Okay, that's great. How are you going to get there? Well, by you setting kind of a measurable goal, right?

• 32:04Anthony Pompliano?

  It's it's pretty trackable and something tells me that that you're a pretty driven guy so that you'll you'll likely get there as well.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I sure hope so. I hope so for the sake of my kids because you only get to see them grow up once. And man, it happens fast. Everybody says it, but it's unbelievable.

• 32:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. All right. Before I let you go, I always ask people the same two questions. For you, what is the most important book that you've ever read?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Okay, so full disclosure, I don't read pomp. I haven't since high school.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Audible is my friend.

• 32:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, Audible. So you listen to books, don't read them?

• 32:44Speaker 02

  Well, I'm 10 hours a day working by myself, and that's why podcasts, all these different things, that's my knowledge. I get to sit there and just listen and.

• 32:55Anthony Pompliano?

  What's the best one you've listened to recently?

• 32:58Speaker 02

  So recently, I'm gonna say, the only reason I'm not saying the Bitcoin standard is because the fourth turning, everything that's happening right now is blowing my mind. Like, every time I was explaining, we watched The Social Dilemma with my daughter the other day, the 10-year-old, because she's starting to get to that age. And she, I was explaining to her how, as negative as it looks, the fact that we're realizing all this stuff and we're seeing the bad in it, that's good news. I see a turnaround coming, and I can see a world where if we play things right, my daughter

• 33:39Speaker 02

  never will experience that, that draw of social media and all those negative effects, and maybe only benefit from the tools in it. So, yeah, like I say, the fourth turning, I always explain to her how her generation is the hero generation, and they're gonna pull us from all this nonsense online.

• 34:00Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. Second question's more fun. Aliens, are you a believer or non-believer?

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, again, being a listener of the podcast, I got some time to really think about this, and I didn't want to have the same answer as everybody. Base answer is absolutely. The reasoning for that is, I hate to keep bringing up my kids, but. You stare at your kids for long enough and you try and figure out how this person came to be, how this all came into fruition and you go, yeah, I don't have the answer. And I'd be ignorant to say that there isn't life elsewhere. I'm all for believing whatever you want to tell me when it comes to that.

• 34:50Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. The parents usually don't like talking about that, but the idea of like, hey, I made this thing. Every single one of my friends who's had a kid, who's still got a young kid is just, you know, they all go through that. So I don't think that you're alone there.

• 35:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's nuts.

• 35:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome, man. Well, listen, you could ask me one question to finish up. What do you got for me?

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Okay, um, I guess, again, selfish question. I slid into your DMs there out of nowhere. You don't know me. I don't have much of a Twitter presence. I'm purely there to read content and maybe throw a meme or a gif in every once in a while. But why? Why, why did you decide that I was the guy? You say you have so many people bugging you. Why was I the guy?

• 35:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, uh, I don't know, is the short answer. No, so for those that don't have the context, uh, over the last, I don't know, year or so, uh, on numerous occasions, people have reached out to me and been like, hey, uh, you should basically bring on, uh, kind of an everyday Bitcoiner, right? Somebody who doesn't exist in the financial world, uh, doesn't kind of spend all day doing this. Uh, they've got kind of what most people would consider a quote, quote, a normal job. Uh, but they have either fallen down the rabbit hole or something. Uh, and usually they position it as, um, you know, they want to come on the podcast. They want to, uh, discuss, uh, maybe it's a token that they're invested in, or a project that they're really excited about. Like, there's always some angle that they want to capture.

• 36:23Anthony Pompliano?

  I think when you messaged me, it was just like, hey, this is crazy, but like, I'm just a normal dude. Uh, if you want, like, I'll come talk about it. And I had been thinking like, I need to do that at some point. And for whatever reason, when I read your message, I was like, oh, this is somebody who has like no agenda, isn't coming on to like pitch anything or do anything crazy. And the thing that I love is kind of when you articulated like, here's my work history, here's my family, like it was just very, I think, kind of down the fairway of like, I actually think there's more people like you who are into Bitcoin or in the Bitcoin community than people realize. And while I think a lot of like the media attention and all of that is kind of the Robin Hood, you know,

• 37:05Anthony Pompliano?

  trading bros, like everyone's going, you know, YOLO long with 100x, you know, leverage, like, sure, there's people like that. But I think when you look at Bitcoin specifically, your story is very similar, but it's not just people in Canada. It's not just people in the United States. Your story is the same story that can be told, you know, in pretty much every country in the world. And that's kind of the beauty of Bitcoin, right? Is that this is a asset that everyone from, you know, Larry Fink, who's the founder of the largest asset manager, BlackRock in the world, all the way to you, me, and millions of other kind of everyday people, Bitcoin can serve the purpose that we want. And to me, you know, when I just read

• 37:48Anthony Pompliano?

  the message, I was like, all right, I gotta do it. Here's the guy. I told you, send me an email because I had to make sure that you weren't, you know, crazy and gonna come on and say some wild stuff. But then

• 37:58Speaker 02

  I thought you were gonna ask me for a lot more information than you did, if I'm being honest.

• 38:03Anthony Pompliano?

  No, it was just like, look, just, just tell me kind of your story, right? And you put together a great email and it was just like, hey, like, here it is. And again, it wasn't a pitch about anything or whatever. And I said, look, let's do it. And I think that kind of as we've talked today, like, part of why I wanted to do this, and you said a lot of things I didn't know you were gonna say, but I think are important around, you know, The people who work hard, right? And again, it's a physical labor type hard. It's not, oh, I spend a lot of hours, but actual physical labor. This idea of when I get home, I'm tired, right? You are trading your time for dollars. And there's a lot of people who spend their entire lives doing that. And they never realize the things you've learned in the last two years. Right? But as soon as you kind of get your mind open to this stuff,

• 38:48Anthony Pompliano?

  you immediately realize, hey, there's another path, right? I can use where I am today to drive revenue or income for myself. I can then take that income, I can protect it, I can grow it. I can do things so that I can put myself in a position to spend more time with my family and do the things I want to do. And I think that story doesn't get told enough, whether it's in Canada, the United States or elsewhere, of, you know, the knowledge is such a great equalizer, right? You have the same knowledge that somebody sitting in a white collar job inside of an investment firm has. And when you get on that level playing field, the things that you can do are frankly generation defining for you and your family, right? Because if you know this stuff, well, guess what? You're going to teach your daughters this. And if they know, they're going to teach their children.

• 39:33Anthony Pompliano?

  And so what you can literally do is kind of change the inflection point of an entire kind of lineage of a family, all because of knowledge. And I think that's the beauty of kind of your story and many other people like you is that once you have the curiosity and kind of self-starter attitude of like, I want to get this information, you don't got to be a genius, right? You're not a genius, I'm not a genius. There's like five geniuses in the world, right? And they're all billionaires because they're geniuses, right? But for everybody else, like you just work hard and you try to do the things that you think are the right things to do. And when you're armed with the right knowledge, then you end up being successful.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  It's put a light at the end of the tunnel for me. And that's, that's huge. That's everything. I don't know if I heard this somewhere, but I was thinking about it. I'm not trying to take over the world. I'm trying to take care of my family and, and that that's just the bottom line. And I want to be happy and be able to enjoy it while it's happening.

• 40:35Anthony Pompliano?

  I love that. We're going to end on that because that is the most powerful, best quote that might have ever been said on this podcast. Before I let you go, where can we send people? Now, we talked before, for 99% of people who are listening, they are not kind of geographically close to you. So for your business, they're going to be kind of out of reach. But I know that we've got some listeners that are in your neck of the woods in Canada. So just talk a little bit about kind of where people can go find out more about your business and then kind of what areas you service in case anyone listening is in that area.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Sure. So I'm most active on Instagram. It's a great space for contractors to share their work. So my, my contact on there is at Mac, period, the period builder.

• 41:22Anthony Pompliano?

  That's a great name.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  Yeah. Growing up with, again, with kids, having that Bob the Builder thing falling all around all the time. So yeah, it's Mac with a K. Like I say, it's just a great community. Twitter, I'm not, like I say, if you read my, my bio, it says, don't mind me. I don't know anything. And yeah, yeah, I service, I'll service the Vancouver Island, but basically the, the northern Vancouver Island is my home and where I like to try and stay. I've been able to stay busy here. So I'm likely to stick around here.

• 42:05Anthony Pompliano?

  That's awesome, man. So Mac, the Mac dot the dot builder on Instagram.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah.

• 42:11Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, Mackenzie. Listen, thank you so much for doing this. I think people are really going to enjoy this and we'll have to get in the future when, when you kind of keep going.

• 42:19Speaker 02

  Thanks, man. Again, thank you so much. This has been awesome.