All right guys, we are live on the independent investor channel live stream We conduct this live stream every Friday 9 o'clock eastern standard time for you guys that are new to the message I like to welcome you for the first time for the returning visitors and subscribers To the independent investor channel. I'm humbled to have you back Honestly, I couldn't do this without you guys. You are all part of the engine that's firing away toward financial security and I know the investing community is very very vast across social media I'm not one of those folks that approach wealth building in a typical fashion. I really want to earmark those opportunities for people Where they don't think that there is opportunity super super important We did make the half a million dollar threshold and I think you guys are gonna find it somewhat refreshing to get my perspective on this Did I go out in the field and start a fire and dance around it like a naked crazy man? No, I didn't I actually felt a lot more relieved and If I can impart to you within the first couple minutes or so the live stream It was refreshing absolutely When when I or anyone in the community reach a financial threshold whether it be a thousand dollars invested 5,000 10,000 2550 and there's a psychological reason why I do that Identify those those barriers of thresholds goals, right and for a lot of people they are barriers But I'll tell you what guys man Nothing nothing holds a candle to how I felt when I made that first ten thousand dollars and that still is the most monumental Milestone that I've ever met in my financial Career in the evolution as an investor and the sheer reason and I've said this before and I hope that there's investors out There who really really hear me because they're like God dang man This guy just passed over half a million bucks. He should be dancing up and down That's not my honest reaction The reason why the ten thousand threshold was so Incredible is because I knew in my mind that I could never get there So when I did it was that impactful and it was Refreshing yes, it was rewarding. It was proof of concept. It was everything that you would expect when you have yourself Mentally conditioned that you can never get to that first ten thousand dollars of capital put away And I think that applies to the masses All right, did I get to a half a million dollars by being the sharpest tool in the shed? No Did I get there by becoming lucky? No, no Did I get there by knowing more than the next person? No, no, I didn't I'm gonna identify some keys to your success Because for me, I keep this stuff in relative perspective when I talk about the the wealth-building initiative and and where my focus and where my Where my priorities lie? Happy Memorial Day weekend all the vets out there and first responders absolutely hundred percent Happy birthday to my brother who is also a veteran. So you get a double whammy shot out from my too I just so happen to be your older brother, but this is a family affair here guys, right? It's an absolutely beautiful thing, but you are far if you are a vet throw it in v. E. T.   So if you are tuning in to me and You have been with me a while Please understand that the live stream will be with the channel for a long long time This would be something that I would do if I didn't have any visitors. I Really enjoy personal finance, but what I love even more is the challenge to break down personal barriers for people Where I see that money can be somewhat consuming for people, right? It can be one of those things to where it can be stressful It can be Something that it is not intended to be Shout out to Troy fantastic. Thanks for joining nice thumbnail by the way. It's awesome man. Thanks for your service but You guys you guys really got to understand, you know why I do this project it is it is aimed to alleviate some of those barriers and I Told one of my favorite people who's been with the channel since the inception of the channel Was brought to me By by no other circumstance that wouldn't wouldn't have been possible without I2 And She reached out to me and said, you know, Ryan, I need help Help me. You're the one guy that can help and I was like absolutely no problem And you know if we can help in those situations, I would contend that a thousand fold There's people out there who who need to understand that being in command of your money is So much more fulfilling in this life than having your money control you and I think in Multiple capacities even people with money They look at it as as if it's some sort of an excuse for people to Render respect. I don't look at it that way. I don't I just think your financial number is probably indicative of the program that you've Put in place and the discipline that you're willing to deploy. That's all it is It doesn't make me a better father It doesn't make me a better husband Right doesn't make me a better appreciator of money I would tell you that the key to my appreciation for money is the fact that I come from a loving household Right a family that didn't have a whole lot of money growing up and it didn't matter and it doesn't matter to this day But the sheer appreciation that I do have for how hard it is to work for money and earn it is Somewhat where the satisfaction comes for meeting a financial threshold Like the half a million dollar mark for me I'll identify in the goals tonight where we go from here and I think you guys will find that refreshing to understand that You know, it is an incredible milestone. I'm very humbled But there's a lot that Dave Ramsey talks about in his delivery that I do agree with and he speaks along the lines of it's no surprise Right, if you truly want this for yourself and your family maybe to leave a legacy maybe to provide some financial security It's there for the taking Take it stop making excuses and go after it I'm not going to promise you riches into your future But what I can promise you is that you'll probably end up in a place that is better Served for your financial future into your future Then you would be having it had not been for the investing opportunity guys So I want to welcome everybody leave the vet in the comments section I'm going to be given a shot outs all night tonight. We got a jam-packed show for you guys Really appreciate you guys tuning in man. Let's get into it and rock it out for the fastest 60 minutes on YouTube Great to see everybody And Five years ago, I really didn't have to compliment to the YouTube channel independent investor channel This has been a real blessing for me. I feel like I'm doing what I was put here on earth to do But five years ago. He had an account balance of jet on January 1 of 2015 I want to take you guys back for a second and share with you guys the total aggregate amount five years ago Across three accounts came in at eighty six thousand four hundred and twenty five dollars All right, so for a lot of you guys I know there's some seven figure portfolios that are represented in the group and I'm quite certain there's probably some Eight figure portfolios maybe even grander than that again You know, it's a relative when we're talking about money But eighty six four twenty five just five short years ago is kind of what we were working with on an aggregate Okay, those are the three accounts to Roth IRA account self-directed nature because I was Self-directed at that time as well as my TSP Which was about halfway in its inception since 2011 okay since that time total flow of contributions into the account just over 200,000 377 that's an aggregate of starting the brokerage account that I chronicle on the channel all the time That is an aggregate of max funding Roth IRA Contributions that I'm about 99% sure I've done to the maximum capacity times two over the last five years These are all nuggets that you can kind of take not to say that you have to max fund a Roth but to kind of understand and and Really kind of resonate with the roadmap that I've walked to get where I am right now, okay? I got shot out to Bob. Absolutely. Appreciate you guys got look at all these vets. I got Chase in the house. That's fantastic, man Super cool. Thanks for your guys's service But the capital gains 1225 95 right so six-figure capital gains over the last five years when the title of this video is the power of stock market investing Okay, and I find it interesting how I'm able to digress and say that my most Impactual moment was meeting that 10,000 in other words the half a million dollar mark really just didn't come as such a big surprise I expected to be here right in here and with my physical application But I gotta tell you a lot of what I do is right here. I know I'll get there and I'll touch on when I Think we'll probably get to the million dollar mark. It's taken me a lifetime to get this far making all kinds of different You know missteps and pitfalls and poor investing decisions, but but we'll get there Over the last five years, we've been able to render a total across those three accounts now It's gone sizably up here in the last two three years for the dividend renderings But total I did an aggregate back five years just to give you an idea of the power of investing 29,000 rendered dividends over the last five years So I was a thought that was a little shy, but that's where the numbers kind of shook out I want to share with you guys three milestones along the way that were really impactful to me Because I look back over the history. I've been with mutual funds. I've been with multiple financial planners four specifically Thrivent financial aal city group out with smith barney at the time Edward Jones times two and now maryl edge. So You count them up But it was the very broker scrutiny that I started to put on that really made a huge Liberating difference for me when I really started to question the behind the scenes Like what's going on and I'm not meaning to impugn the good work of our financial planning institutions However, I think people would be a lot more educated in their decision making if they understood really the totality of the game I mean, is it really too much to ask to maybe even do an amortized schedule to show actually the implication of even as low as a 1 management fee per year I rolled those products out to explain what I mean over the channel, but When I really started to scrutinize and ask is this the best way for me I wanted to have more ownership over my program and it seemed like I was always relinquishing some of that control To the financial planning institutions, right? And it wasn't until I started to really scrutinize And and look at this individual as just an individual. Yes, a very well-dressed individual But really scrutinizing the bottom line. What does this mean for me? It is is the jews worth the squeeze right in other words is the payment being rendered worth the return on my investment To put my stock with the financial planners, okay The next was to fine-tune my focus on The fee reduction piece and the tax protection piece Okay, something that has really stood the test of time for me is the importance of Acknowledging the Roth IRA. Okay now for a lot of folks they should be able to Really take a lot of the capability with the Roth whether it be 6,000 or 12 times two, right and fill up their investing surplus capital to to flow into those Retirement accounts and put that money away and allow it to grow tax protected over time until you're 59 Look, I'm going to be 59 at some point It's the time that you spend from 59 backtracking to when you started the Roth and I started mine Sometime just right before I got into service life Okay, it was one of the best decisions I've made and it's one of those mainstays that have been with me And my spouse throughout the time that I've been associated with my profession As well as my married life, right? So it's always been a times two contribution type of exercise. Okay The third milestone I want to impart to you guys and this is key for anybody who's tuned in into this And I never know who's going to watch but if there's a 15 16 17 18 year old that is just fumbled into the independent investor channel First of all, congratulations because this information is life changing. Okay I would love to see other people talking like me given the goods because this is the goods This is the in the trenches stuff that you really need to know It wasn't until I had what I considered to be the great break The great break was when I moved away from A managed situation and went self directed. Okay The whole niche of the independent investor channel Please understand is about taking control of your own financial future. Okay By taking control of your own money and your own portfolio and your own decision making capability Speaks volumes when you look at how much you could potentially earn into the future By putting liberated dollars to work within that tax protected account. Okay So those are really the three milestones that I earmarked for you guys along this Long and winding road could I earmark one specific event? Hell no that that's not that's not investing in my mind. It's really not And for anybody to come on and declare a number whatever it is 250 500 750 a million I want to really understand how that's going to impact me You being the viewer of said content, right? Other words. It becomes somewhat Braggadocious to come on and say I have this. Yeah. Well, so what Ryan? Tell me how you got there Tell me some of the pitfalls and perils that you had to go through along the way Could you have streamlined it now? Those are the deeper questions that you really need to be asking and if you're serious about wealth building Then you'll ask and seek out those those answers to those questions On your own you absolutely will otherwise you need to question whether or not you really want this gig Because I know there's a lot of people out there that invest And they do lose sleep. They do stress out about it their money does own them And you want to know something I tip my hat to those folks for fighting the battle Even though it's probably somewhat counterproductive in their health They need to get a handle on it As opposed to those people who are dismissive on the investing opportunity altogether, right? So with that guys, I'm going to shelf the keys to success. We'll get to that after the portfolio reviews But I do want to jump in and see how the progress of the portfolio has has has has done over the last week Obviously, it was it was a quad Quadrifecta, I don't know if that's a word or not, but it was it was absolutely fabulous I'll go through this quick and just to clear the numbers to you guys Because there was a lot of changing in the portfolio a lot of add-ons in the portfolio. We'll start with the brokerage account This is one of the accounts that when I mentioned from five years ago the balance And and how we've got to this point over time. We now are working with six accounts total Okay, now I'm not saying you need to start six accounts But as you'll understand my philosophy has a lot of different strategies Built into the portfolio in other words a hundred thousand dollars Five hundred thousand dollars of my money is not just tied up in the smp 500 and I wipe my hands and I call it a day I do dividend passive stock investing with dividend growth. I do passive ETFs Um, I do all kinds of different strategies to grab myself some diversified global exposure I do some speculation in the portfolio I do have some alt investments as well that I won't talk about on the channel But we will be rolling out our newest affiliate through the independent investor channel and that will be with iTrust Capital Very exciting had my meeting with them this week. They're excited to partner partner with me. That's fantastic It works on the channel. It's really good and I'll be starting account with them and chronicling the Exposure to some cryptocurrency probably on a one or two percent clip. I think But it'll be fun to branch out and expose a little bit to that element I'm the most excited about Ethereum actually to be honest with you guys But I will dabble and put a touch in bitcoin, but it will all be within the tax protection of a Roth IRA It will not be with Coinbase. So pretty exciting stuff anyway, but here's how we shook out I I pushed 3m back out to the outside in the brokerage Amazon is still kind of fluctuating here Boeing is a new addition here. Wish is a new addition this week These are all things that I declare up to speed. I can't sell you my instinct unfortunately But I do offer the private group through independent investor group.com right now. We're half price That's all I'll say about it. If you want to click over there and join in on on that deal That's where I declare my real stock moves and these are indeed real Facebook I moved to the outside brokerage account Rendered a fat ass profit within the Roth rolled 10 shares so About two-thirds of the position rolled out to the brokerage account on Facebook And I was okay to do that rendered the profit Tax protected within the Roth on that one Lindy lind is the big position here to chew up some materials Exposure that's a relatively large position bought in two blocks a 10 share block and a five share block 15 total on lind. So very excited about that And then VTI the VTI position very very important in here And then I always declare to you guys the cash and equity relationship here So that's that the first Roth here Is doing well Some positions to note here as I'm scanning through Lockheed Martin added back in I'm very excited to get IPOE Changed over here. I assume that the merger vote went through I didn't even track it guys. Hell. I I was too busy But I I assumed that that vote went through so it'll be nice to see that ticker change And see what they do with the warrants. I'll get those redeemed over and we'll have some really nice Speculative positions in sofi going forward But this portfolio is chugging right along doing really well. You'll notice Some familiar names in here the small cap growth compliments the smp 500 VOO very nicely And then we'll jump into Roth number two This is my account a little bit more speculative in nature. This is passive etf free. This is strictly a stock account now I justify that because I do have exposure through the thrift savings plan. So It really does justify taking This ab v we took into a swing. We entered back into it today. That was a win I was able to grab a point in two days of alpha that stuff adds up over them over the The years that really does if you guys want to know just a secret to my success I don't mind selling dock stock multiple times over for a few few dollars profit CRM sales force was the real winner today Absolutely, and I don't think there was a whole lot of addition to this portfolio here But 120 and then the sparkline every account was up week over week So um can't can't complain Johnson and Johnson's just been on fire As well and then the m1 that I chronicle all the time this if anything if I don't want the audience to misconstrue Because I want you to be crystal clear that This half a million dollars was made through investing. Okay This this was made through mistakes. This was made through trial and error This was made through all of the things legitimate This represents an element of the youtube success. Okay, and i'm also not going to sit here and tell you that the youtube opportunity um Hasn't helped it really hasn't I I love doing this. I really do. I have a passion for this project I really do I expect that people when they tune into the live stream They feel that and they feel impassioned to be part of the message Right in my very measure of success on the channel is with your success specifically I I know where i'm going I I don't need you to try to come and replicate what it is that I do nor do I feel like that's The road to success you want to know what the road to success is for yourself Start to break yourself down and identify your own personal investing profile and align a strategy with that I'll talk about that for keys to success But 16485 if you really want to hold the grudge you can take this off of the 500 Thousand and that'll make you feel better But this goes into the total amount here for those that don't know This was started a couple years back to show people that I could blow down the $10,000 barrier And I did it in about 15 months. Okay, so the whole takeaway there is New people come to the investing opportunity and they're they think like I did I'll never get to that $10,000 mark and I did this to provide that kind of incentive to say look man Here's how I did it. There's there's infinite number of ways that you could do it But here's how I did it and I think that really helps I really think that helps understand the roadmap that I've provided here in one capacity To do it. Here's another capacity here. This is approaching 20,000 Just absolutely every day that goes by I become more of an advocate and a proponent and enjoy investing through m1 finance Now is the lion's share of my wealth with m1? No, no, that's not how I use m1 I think you can appreciate that The way I use m1 is strategically I enjoy it these Abilities to take these 71 holdings and just dollar cost average them Over the course of every two week sessions So I'm dcaing this account up while it's churning and pushing out some dividend income As well as grabbing some capital appreciation. So, you know, baxter elie lily thermo fisher scientific tj max Nike some companies that I don't own in the bigger accounts are Are captured in here Goldman Sachs Some canadian banks bank of Nova Scotia td, right? I do a full breakdown of this on my portfolio reviews, but What you guys are going to understand is that if you're somebody out there who doesn't understand investing These are some of the things that you need to understand at some point You need to understand the account that you start and that that said account needs to be filled with some level of product Okay, and it's that product piece that everybody wants to jump to all the time I have new investors that come up to me and they're like, what do you think a planet plant? Planteer or plant a tear or or or or spice or you know, what do you think about this stock? And it's like have you ever invested before? Well, no Ryan Well, maybe you should do a little bit of research on read up on investing that might help you a little bit So everybody wants to start with that product and jump to that end And I think that's putting a horse before the carriage in a lot of cases All right And the thrift is health healthy above 50. So that's good This has been bumped up to 20 percent a month. So I'm happy to do that very very cool Do you have some pretty nice? Options written now Mostly surrounding highly on mostly on the put side.  I think I've got them right now written at nine. I wrote them when they were at 965 and it's Above 10 now whether or not it hits. I don't know doesn't matter and I do have leaps on highly on as well As well as some long covered calls on sysco and ex on mobile, which I don't think I'll do that again If I'm going to impart to you I don't really like having that overhang for such a long time You write that contract and lo and behold the stocks take off syscos already above my strike And I'm having to backfill because I really didn't want to part with the position if I part with the position I make money. I'm talking sysco right now, but I didn't really want to part with ex on mobile either So both of those uh ex on mobile is approaching in the high 60s I think mid 60s my strike is at 75 80 I I run the risk of of having that called away and I I don't think I'll do that again Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I don't know but good on me for giving it a good Fighters try, but we won't do that again and and and there's the number for sure 502 We we gave I don't know a $4,000 bill back to the stock market gods today that you chewed it up Yeah, but so we we settled out at 502 373 so awesome I really appreciate that. Thanks for allowing me to do the review guys. We'll jump in here. I want to See if I can't highlight some vets here in the group I want to make sure I I get to everybody I saw rebecca in here and I know she's one of those folks one of those Care workers that are just just killing it on the front line man. There she is. She might not have got the vet instructions But she is absolutely a hero there. She is she's society everybody so fantastic Mr. Weaver who's also a vet man. Thank you for your service on behalf of the channel and baff of me man Great friend of the channel. I feel the same way about all you guys I I wish I could know you better It's it's awesome sometimes when I get called upon to do a zoom meeting because it's like whoa, man Then I got to put a a face with the name and it's it's one of those kind of Underlying payments for me on the channel to put a face with the name of blue collar bill fantastic man Thank you for your service. It's awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it All right, what's good Ryan and everybody everything's good and the portfolio is dialed in um, you know, I'm probably gearing up for an eventual correction if it happens and I'm getting my mind wrapped around That end if it does end up happening, uh, we'll see we'll see you never know where the market's going I don't talk along those lines Love live streams Talking straight every week That is easy for me And I it's amazing the the meeting I was on that Lady I was my heart went out to to this individual. I don't want to disclose too much, but um, It's easy for me. I'm glad to help It's not a problem if I if I thought I could say that perfect thing to get through to people You know, it's and it's just kind of funny too. The project has evolved In such a way that even me being at the helm Couldn't have have saw But these live streams are where the goods are okay They really are and I know I've got multiple project out there I do collect some income for the affiliate and you know after five years to get a little pay dirt back By throwing down on a very very solid opportunity that I have to provide awareness pieces on promotional content That's another one of the most enjoyable things on the channel And it's the one that I think is the least appreciated on the channel. Um, that will continue It's this is going to run my way And if if you don't like my way, I I fairly well, it's no problem There's no love lost if you wanted to exit the channel because you think somehow I'm selling out by doing promo content or whatever That's just the way it's going to be why? Because I come on and I do this I take away time from my friday every friday And I'm devoting doing that for those people out there that need to hear this stuff. They need to understand Um, what the opportunity calls for make an educated decision for themselves, man Absolutely very cool stuff. All right Go over the keys to success right now for those new investors that I do talk about man the first thing that's super important to understand in this evolution of an investor and This this has happened relatively quick. I just went back five years and showed you I mean the accounts have doubled and the accounts values have five x'd right So It happens very very quickly. That's the power of stock market investing But I've identified six things that I want to talk about the first thing you've got to do is start Okay, you cannot render results That I've just declared to you If you don't justify How to start where to start You you got to start you got to get off the sideline if you think you're going to save your way to riches I just told you in five years. There was a hundred and twenty two thousand Of of capital appreciated dollars that were rendered in the account plus an additional 30 You ain't saving your way to those types of riches and in a savings account And you sure as hell ain't doing it with grandma's piggy bank. It ain't happening.  Well, okay Now you're now you're starting to kind of identify to say I don't know who I am as an investor Is there a product that I can maybe identify with that's aligned with my hesitation? Yeah, there absolutely is and and asking those rhetorical questions of yourself will help you Start to identify and ask the question. What type of investor do I want to be? That's your investor profile. Okay Number three you want to align said profile with a strategy. Okay strategies not rocket science passive investing Easy as pie anybody can buy the s&p 500 Anybody can start an account and anybody can buy the s&p 500 anybody. Okay, how much should I do? I don't know make it up guys. Come on. Use your imagination You want to invest or not invest? Do you have $500 to invest? Do you have $100? I do maybe you have $10,000 I don't know answer that question for yourself. Okay I'm really trying to break this down for you I'll line your profile with your investor strategy If you wanted to take it to the next level and I have this all the time people come to me and they're like I'm a kick-ass investor. Have you ever invested before? No, what's your risk tolerance on a scale of zero to 10? I'm a 10 Ryan. Really? You want to put all your money into bitcoin? I don't know I pose it out there to say look if you lost all of your initial investment next week How would you feel about it? Well, that would suck. I'm not getting involved with investing to lose money Okay, now we need to digress and we probably need to assign a good risk tolerance to this profile and that's where a lot of people are Really off base Uh and in a genuine way when they start investing, right and it's okay Okay, don't don't go into things with the expectation of perfection.  All right. It's okay You'll continually evolve over time anyway, which is one of those keys to success Then when you get the profile and the strategy aligned Then you can talk product. Okay. There's only so many products out there There's 500 stocks in the s and p 500, right? Not there's an infinite number of investments out there and i'm so confused Ryan I have no idea where to start help me The voo is one product that can capture 500 stocks How much easier can I put it to you and that really where is where the masses Should be looking to put some capital to risk.   So very very powerful. All right, if you have alternative ideas, I'd love to hear them But I have yet to identify a wealth-building machine as good as a disciplined passive Diversified program that that pays you a little dividend Now if you heard what I said at the top of the live stream If you can couple that product with the account that renders tax protection and wealth preservation In other words, you invest in voo for 0.03 of an expense You just heard everything you needed to see.  All right That's what I expect Control what you can and trust the rest. Okay, there is going to be some element of letting go We as human beings we always want to just Tinker if something's broken. We got to get in there and we got to jar it around and we got to we got to fix it We got to make it right. Something's not right and we got to do something to make it right We got to fix it. Effie. Give me a tool. I got to fix it Investing's not like that. Okay. It's the only thing in this life You can you can make something up to your wife. You can make something up to your kids, right? You can fix stuff. You can fix the car investing when things are going bad You don't need to jump in and fix it. There's things you can do to help Buffer the situation But if you took an egg and you threw it as hard as you could up into the air When stock is going down, it's like catching that egg as softly as you possibly can It's not catching it Right. You got to just calm down. Okay So build a solid plan with everything that I just talked about tax protection Well, well, preservation good products, boba, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah We fire away at products for you guys. All right But eventually you're going to have to look at your program and you're going to have to trust Become an investor It's okay Let it go Focus on other stuff Please okay, you'll be so much better that you did because if you've done all the deliberation I talked about on the keys to success You'll be fine. Okay. Trust that that money will grow Trust that that s and p Product that I streamlined for you. I want to invest in ivv fine. Go invest in ivv I want to invest in spy. It's so much better than vo Fantastic. Now now you're getting the point knock your socks off with spy. It's the same freaking product. Okay However, understanding the deeper meaning of the power of diversification across the entire market and understanding I heard a statistic that in 2000 the companies that exist now in the broader s and p 500 Half of them don't exist anymore I was like, damn So we have to anticipate that into the future the market is going to look That vastly different to drastically different than it is now, right?   No problem Okay, always keep your mind open to evolving. Remember how I said over the last five I've doubled up the accounts from three to six I don't know. You don't have to go out and start six accounts. That's not the point of that It's just that I looked at m1 finance I shit-canned it the first time I used it and I took a second look see because I thought, you know what I'm having a lot of people come back to me and say ryan. You're wrong And I was I was wrong and when in the investing community would do we ever admit that we're wrong? Never a lot of people suffer from that disease. All right Get over it. You're going to be wrong a lot of the time Okay evolve and look to deploy multiple strategies. Okay multiple strategies. All right I'm going to quickly go over my goals for the channel acquire property. That's going to be big for me over the coming years long term goals That's going to be big for me. Um, I would share in those goals with you guys if you own property right now Real estate is just absolutely in boy go. So congratulations on that Um, I want to expand my reach On the channel the podcast is you know, some of the projects that I have The live stream is the mainstay the podcast Shopify I'd like to expand promotional content.  Those are kind of my personal goals and then Also, along with that is to acquire some property reach one million dollars Within five years. Is that possible? Okay. So with the rule of 72 I should be on a doubling cycle every seven or so years My doubling frequency is much more advanced than that much more accelerated. Um and For you guys, it should be validation. Absolutely But I don't think it's too far fetched. We'll see It's a goal of mine if we make it we make it if we don't okay It's just a number but I shoot that out there to say man in five years before i'm 50 that that would be awesome I don't I don't come from money. Okay. This has all been generated From scratch and by doing a lot of turn a turn a turn and then chug a chug a chug a I'm gonna expand the channel as quickly as as we can It's nice to see that I have 83 people in the live stream I just did most of the stream with about 50 people. I would do this live stream with 10 people I have no problem with that. Um, I know I deliver a product that's conducive to thousands of viewers So, uh, it's their problem not mine There what can I say they're missing out y'all are the lucky patrons Uh, I I do want to advance at work and then I do want to contribute more which that goal right there I I can actually scratch off the list because I've upped it to 20 percent. All right, so contribute more It's part of that evolve piece. So each and every one of you guys in your households Can kind of look at the inflow and say man, I don't know I thought I was doing a lot and then I watched i2 tonight and it was like man Maybe we can do a little touch more. Maybe we can bump it up 25 50 100 in some cases Maybe we do need to do another budget review Maybe we do need to look at the top three insurance providers out there and take some quotes, right? I'm I'm crazy. I do this stuff guys. I do I don't like giving my money away for free we as americans we Uh dissolve money for free in certain capacities. In other words, nobody renders their entire paycheck And just puts it 100 to efficiency What I find interesting is that there's so many people out there that dissolve away At least 100 percent of their paycheck and in some capacities even more. Okay. How is that possible? Well, most of the us isn't that that's how it's possible, right?   I need more. I need more. Oh, I got it. I got it This is fantastic. Here try this. This is here blow on this for luck. It's fabulous Yeah, I need to calm down on that activity We get to the q&a folks fantastic, man cruise to the top and highlight some of these fantastic folks As a matter of fact, I'm going to roll to the bottom because this is the the area that I don't necessarily get to very very often I see some good ones here. Nothing wrong for get paid for being good at what you do Um, uh, yes and no that that's a really good question, man. Look, I I totally get it Okay, I freaking do when I started the independent investor channel. I thought you know what? I will never do that I will never do it. But the thing about it is I didn't really fully understand What what it entailed and what the ask was Um, it is it is lucrative for me And here's the thing guys adsense has just changed the rules for for youtube revenue making it even harder For channels like myself to get compensated for my time. I don't really care about that stuff But here's here's the thing the older I get the more aggressive I am on going after the money because here's the thing I can come on and I can do like live streams I'll make about six eight bucks to do this. It's totally worth my time I don't do it for the six to eight six to eight dollars Okay, and I think everybody would agree and I can sleep easy knowing that you probably got value Out of knowing that nine o'clock on the dot man.  I don't do it for me It's all up here. All I'm trying to do is share what it is that I do And for me to have the opportunity to sit down and wrap with CEOs of companies And review companies that you know, I wish they'd get off the gold niche That's just where they see the trends. So that's where the bulk of the work is right But I told them I said I don't turn down work. No way I'm hungry. I'm just as hungry now as I was back then Um, I used to catch fish out of the ocean guys to make a paycheck So if you tell me that I get to make content and do a youtube video and get paid x number of dollars to do said video I'm cool with that and if you don't like it again, you're welcome to leave But I appreciate that comment. I really do give some granularity around why the hell I do what I do, right? I've been doing this a long time and quite frankly the bottom line is I've earned the right to do it All right, very cool. Very cool That bends in the house. Nice to see you my brother my brother from the west coast. I love it. I was glad to help the channel Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's got to feel good and I I need to feel like I'm earning that compensation too So it's a two-way street, brother. It really is I I want to make sure that the stuff that we put out Is it has the potential to help people and I do believe that we do I really do All right, let's kind of cruise up here. I know Sean's in the group man. He's one of my vipers It's fantastic. It's a good to know Sean Um, I don't want to ask the question of what in the hell you were doing there on that thumbnail But that is fabulous. All right. Looks pretty awesome Once a marine always a marine fantastic, man. Great to see you my friend. Yep. Thanks for your service Fantastic says highly onto the moon. I yeah, uh, I don't know. It's basing nicely. I'm fine. My position is is done I have not found a need some of these youtube creators are crazy with these highlight on videos I thought, you know what? I'm gonna do a couple just because they're really fun to do for me because I love the company I'm very bullish top to bottom on the company. And yes, it indeed will be a success when it happens I don't know. I don't I don't really care at this point But man alive highly on videos every day. I just like I don't know. I just shake my head and kind of laugh a little bit I they're trying to build their message and that's all good all fair and love and war um I'm super stoked to own the company here for sure and and you know for anybody that does their diligence and takes a Look at this opportunity. They're they're doing some great great things. Um, especially on the hybrid side of the house, right? The sleeping bear is the i uh erx council, right? And those demos are going to roll out later 2021. This is not a race It may race to the moon. I I don't know But uh, just just happy to have been introduced to this fine company and I'm a happy share owner in the company Um, got a big position highly on it's the biggest position in my portfolio. No doubt about it. I'm glad It's um, it's just a matter of time, right? Vo is out overvalued. Yeah, it is by any traditional metrics.  What are you going to do? Are you going to say it's overvalued not to invest? No, I think that's dangerous. Okay But by by any metric I I think stocks have really through education Through investor interest through a lot of sideline money. Remember we're only 11 years removed of the worst financial crisis That that we've seen in our lifetime 2010 2011 with the mortgage back security. That was it was bad Freak and it it got a lot of people that had seven high six figure portfolios chopped in half And it was like damn what did I do wrong to deserve this a bunch of assholes? You know that that couldn't apply Uh proper risk assessment to to to the debt that they were lending, right? um, and I don't think those people have forgotten and I think um I I think probably there's a lot of new money that is flowing into the market because they really understand the opportunity They understand the power and people are willing to pay up. I believe I really do and I think that By saying that the market is is is overvalued. I say yes by traditional metrics I don't know what it's trading at right now. I really don't know. I haven't checked for a while now But the the last time I saw it it was rich It was rich and you're paying up But there's things that you can do to scale your approach if you don't have any skin in the game And you've got 10 000 sitting aside and you're afraid of the market being overvalued Which in my assessment it is okay Take two grand See if that's where you can take your scale and say, you know what? Right what ryan sands making sense, man. Let me buy 10 shares of the s&p 500 It'll cost me 3,800 bucks, man. I can I can live with that. I can own it for the next 20 years It's good to go. I could care less if it's overvalued right now if it chops in half worst-case scenario What is it that i'm supposed to do panic? Fix it heffy get me the tool the s&p is going down. I got to fix it You just invest more that's all you got to do just invest more very simple Don't make this harder than it needs to be but um happy to answer your question Yeah, I I think it's a little a little rich right here Um, that's why i'm preparing mentally for a little hiccup in the game If you think that's the cat, uh, that's the case Uh, certainly do still invest dollar cost average your investment But also consider putting an emergency fund decide if that's what you want to do I do that it's a page out of my own personal playbook And I would encourage everybody to justify doing the same now if the market's down 40 50 percent I will probably be very very cash lean at that point But I can justify being a little more cash rich at this point, right with everything going on its totality Interest rates on the rise real estate at an all-time high Stock market hate to hate to break it to you is also at an all-time high So pretty important. All right, it says Ryan's the man. I am a man. I am I'm very very certain that I am a man as well I'm very certain. I love my wife Very cool Agreed gotta use your hard earned dollars wisely. It's it's interesting you say that show cat I agree. It's those hard earned dollars. That's the hardest And that's why I earmarked that 10 000 is being so important because like I mean, I I couldn't believe the numbers when I pulled them a hundred and twenty two thousand five hundred and ninety five dollars of free money That's capital appreciated dollars over the last five years 30 000 that's just a damn bonus Well the power is stock market investing. It's gambling I lost 50 last year. I'll never invest again You got to get over your own barriers to entry because I'm telling you man If if you for some reason took the wrong advice or you had a bad experience with stock market investing You got to get over that because I had them too.    I don't know you're finally right. It's going to zero Yep, the market's going to zero and all the time I will be buying And as the stock market goes down more people find it conducive to kick themselves out from under those rocks that they hide behind all this time And start being like stock market investing sucks. It's terrible.  I've been through it many many times and Honestly, there is some merit to being an independent investor.  Yeah A smart comment the whole idea there man is to take some of those hard-earned dollars And siphon them out. There's no way I could have been able to go from zero to something Without having the money work for themselves, right? In other words generate capital while I'm doing a live stream Or doing my regular job, right? Or or or doing what it is that I do with my time away from the social media experience, right? It's super important multiple income streams If you came to me and said ryan, is it a good idea to start a youtube channel? Yeah, I would tell you the same thing. I would tell myself five years ago Yes, but you have to be impassioned about your project.  Okay, if it happens Great, invite me to your millionaire parties. It's all good But if it doesn't you're gonna be left with an idea that you really wanted to share with people and you didn't do it Because your goals were misaligned Right. That's one thing that's always been steadfast on this channel, man And since I've become a better youtuber, it's become a lot more fulfilling for me to deliver a message in a way that I know is impactful Go back and watch my first video. You'll understand what I mean. I was a little bit I had to learn this art. Okay. It's a little bit nerve-wracking filming yourself for the first few hundred videos But we're getting there in 10 20 years I might actually be able to deliver deliver this with some level of entertainment. We'll see I'm cruising up here. I got ryan giffin in the house. Absolutely. I like give a proper shot out here And I saw some of the gents in the house. I saw matt money.  Gotta give matt I hope all's well my brother. Yeah It's a pull some the network is part of the success of the channel absolutely and matt and kyle with the gents and You know ryan and dave and and really everybody Jay and everybody who's in here all good and bob, you know to start and eric weaver and Freak I just everybody man. I'm that that was off memory and Yeah, I feel like I we're gonna grow and is this just the beginning. Yeah, I feel like it is man. I do Um be be patient. Um, you don't have to live life all at the same time.  I would have liked to have gotten to the questions a little bit more matt says i'm alive You are alive man. You got it made partner. You're one of those independent entities.  We're not we're not rooting for you because we sure as hell are like i've said many times We don't apologize for success on this in this outfit man for sure and becky's in the house Fantastic is great to see you Fantastic It's one of those just kind people that I would have never got to know if it wasn't for the independent investor opportunity You guys kind of will start to understand the method to my madness as we grow this project as slow Or as fast as you want to grow it because the reach in the direction that i'm taking it is incredible Whether or not I Realize my full reach that's yet to be seen but that's fine We're going to keep pursuing it and i'm going to pursue it with ferocity and trust It's that simple I'm not telling you guys stuff that I don't do my my own personal self Matt and kyle both are in the group here and if they're welcome to throw a link at the bottom to their live stream A lot of fun on fridays guys you get a good dose of financial Financial entertainment in some cases, but some really fabulous Fabulous insight to market news And and all things you know matt and kyle they talk about a lot of things that I talk about And some things that I don't so they're welcome to throw that daisy chain in there You guys can kick over there and help to support them You know just just by nature of you guys making your way in there really really helps And this is a perfect closure comment guys Good evening. Shout out to the vets and thank you for your service with that guys We'll close down the live stream. We will be back next friday 9 o'clock eastern standard time Remember the multiple conduits on the independent investor channel This is a mainstay on the channel. You guys are all part of it Thank you so much for sharing it with me really appreciate you and have a great great weekend Be safe and thank you to all the vets out there You


Hi, my name is Tracy Tejama Espinosa and this is a video on synchronous online learning tools. We'll remind ourselves of the definition of synchronous learning. We'll put this into context. We'll look at some examples and then I want to offer you a framework on how to choose your own tools based on this information. So synchronous learning, as we've mentioned a couple times before, the word cronus basically comes from the Greek god of time. So synchronous means that we're in time together. Now, don't get confused. This has nothing to do with online or offline. Synchronous just means when we are in the same time, not the same space. So it could be that we have synchronous lessons that are on 100% online, for example, or synchronous learning the way that you're used to being in the classroom setting. That's also considered synchronous learning. So I'm going to introduce this framework and we'll revisit this at the very end of the video, but let's think about it in this sense. We have synchronous learning options. This is real time, right? Face-to-face usually encounters. Face-to-face can be through Zoom, for example, or through other video conferencing methods, right? And that is contrasted with asynchronous, which usually means it's self-paced. These are things that students could do on their own outside of the classroom setting. They don't have to be online necessarily and they definitely are not necessarily with the teacher at that same moment. So we have this difference between synchronous and asynchronous, but we also want to look at tools that increase or that are beneficial for social interactions and those things that are really good for teaching content. We know that there's a lot of asynchronous repetition that you could do through something like Khan Academy, for example, which is heavy on content but has very little social interaction. So if we look at this, this is going to give us some examples of the types of things that happen. For example, great use of synchronous time is when you have small group discussions or you have collaborative work where if we're trying to get students to debate and cooperate with each other to problem-solve. Those types of things are wonderful for synchronous learning. We also know that asynchronous things that people need to do in their own time when they need to fill in their own gaps in knowledge can be benefited by things like apps or games-based learning or things like those Khan Academy videos where they can go over them one after another after another. So we see here that there's a very big distinction about how we're going to choose those different activities, the things where we need to be with other people, synchronous, the things that we can do in our own asynchronous. What's also really interesting to look at is that we can do a lot of differentiation when we are looking at synchronous social activities and asynchronous content-based activities. This is where we're differentiating homework. This is where we're taking advantage of the larger group being together. So keep those things in mind as we look at the ways that we can choose which types of activities, which types of methodologies, which types of app or digital technology might support our learning objectives. We also want to call your attention to this decision tree. The number one big idea here is that you can't really choose what kind of activities to do unless you have a really clear objective. But once you have a clear objective, you can begin to make choices. Is this going to be asynchronous or synchronous? For example, if you have an educational objective that you want students to learn to multiply and part of that means memorizing the multiplication tables, well, that could probably be done asynchronously. It doesn't necessarily have to be in front of you that they go over and multiply in their heads and try to memorize the multiplication tables. You might even use an online activity, one of these apps that facilitates that actually makes it fun through a gaming structure. So it's actually very implicit instruction. They don't even know that they're learning it because they're doing this gaming. So you're using this digital technology. That could be one objective. In another case, you might have the objective that you want students to learn to collaborate better and to work as teams and to appreciate teamwork. And so you might choose a synchronous moment when they're face to face in the same classroom. We could be inside the Zoom classroom, for example, and we're divided up into small breakout rooms. And implicitly, you're giving them a problem to resolve together, but what you're really doing is observing their behavior as they interact together. So depending on your objective, you can begin to use this decision tree to come to the best solutions of what choice of activities is most appropriate based on what your learning goals are. So I want to share a couple of tools that come from Top Hat. There's a great webpage that shares a lot of different resources. One of the things that they call out to teachers is that perhaps the biggest challenge we're all facing right now is that when we're online, we don't necessarily associate that with personalization and social-emotional challenges that exist. And we know that a lot of our students might be feeling alone in this process because they're in their own homes and they don't feel like they're able to socialize with others. But we can create that within our online learning structures. We can create these small cohorts of discussion groups, use breakout rooms. We can have collaborative activities. We can involve people in discussions. And we should really take advantage of the fact that there's many structures within video conferencing platforms right now that lend themselves to respond to the social-emotional challenge that we're all facing right now. A second idea would be to limit the tools that we use for communication. Don't invite students to use your personal telephone or email. Set up a structure that might be much more efficient in responding maybe in a quick five-minute face-to-face meeting. You could probably resolve a lot of things that might go on and on and on and on and on in a long drawn-out email exchange. So try to prioritize and think of what things could be best resolved through email and what things are best resolved through face-to-face. This means setting up a structure where you have synchronous online support either through something like office hours or a regular meeting time just before or just after your regular class time in which you invite students to have that live Q&A that might respond to a good majority of the group's questions. Other teachers who feel comfortable using things like Twitter or WhatsApp can set up individual hashtags or things that respond to a specific class so that you're able to quickly on the fly be able to tell what person in what classroom is having what kind of issue. Now be very careful with this because it can grow beyond its utility and become a burden to you. Take a very good conscientious choice about how you're going to have support whether or not it's going to be synchronous in terms of meeting times or whether or not you're going to try to use some of these other on-demand synchronous tools. A third idea is that in organizing these small group discussions either in breakout rooms or by giving students their own space to meet just before or just after class within your own online classroom you're facilitating that exchange between students. You can also do this through asynchronous activities like discussion boards but purposefully bringing people together to give that opportunity for exchange is really valued by the students and should be incorporated into your program. It's often surprising to teachers that when a small group of students are put together to resolve problems they actually come up with pretty amazing solutions and so giving them the ability in terms of dedicated time within the class where they are encouraged to work together is usually a very good decision. Now depending on the age of your students and the policies within your schools these things can happen synchronously or asynchronously through video calls. Some teachers feel comfortable using WhatsApp because it's an instant messaging and they know where their students are. However there's an issue of boundaries and sometimes you're getting messages at 10.30 at night that you really didn't anticipate and so use WhatsApp messaging sparingly. You might recommend to students that they themselves organize within WhatsApp groups but that you don't necessarily have to participate in those. The fourth recommendation that comes from Top Hat would be that we as teachers become a bit more creative in the tools that are available to us for evaluation so there's other types of evaluation mechanisms that can be leveraged within online that support an even broader diverse range of learners than we might have had in face-to-face contact whereas typically we're used to doing written reports or essays or optional or multiple-choice tests those types of things still exist online but if we're a little bit more creative we might even invite students to run an open webinar on a topic of their presentations or that they could create video content that they could upload or that they can do live performance or demonstrations of chemistry experiments or musical performances and document that. One of the most interesting dynamics that we're seeing now online is that we're able to document evaluation schemes in a way that we never have been able to before thanks to video and thanks to the analytics that are involved in our computers. The key idea of all of these is to create this community of inquiry in which all of the students feel that they're part of a larger community and that they can share back to the community and that it's not unidirectional and receiving information from a teacher in a talking head but rather there's this dynamic exchange and this is primarily enhanced through things like teacher presence, social presence and making sure there's cognitive presence. Not all of this should just be purely entertaining. This has to be something where there's really content and good education occurring. Three other ideas that come from Carleton University are to do things that we might not have typically thought about before for example process teaching, doing those flipped class videos in which you actually work through a problem with your student or leverage things like Khan Academy videos asynchronously where students can see steps in a process and then when you come together in class synchronously to actually apply that. Another idea is to bring in remote guest speakers. These days you can have somebody who is clear across the world be right in your own classroom when we leverage technology in this way. And finally they remind us to let the students help us teach. There's no better way to learn than to teach. So passing up some of those roles to students is really beneficial all around not just to us but also to them. One idea that you could use is just before any quiz you might have or any test you can ask the students well what kind of questions do you think I would ask you about the information we learned last week. Write up three questions that you think would be on a test that I might give and if I use your question you get a bonus point. So the person who does the work is the person who does the learning. So really try to use that student input to not only speed up your own processes but enhance their learning outcomes. Another idea from Angela State University is to think about using synchronous chats within your video conferencing structure. A lot of people find this initially kind of distracting because it seems like a parallel universe where you're encouraging people to pass notes behind the teacher's back because people are chatting while there's something else going on in the discussion of the live class. This is partially true but there are some huge benefits to doing this. Your brain needs both attention and memory to learn and if your attention is distracted because you have a question about something that just passed you really need to get that resolved before you're able to focus on the new information. So using that chat function is actually very beneficial. So you can have some real-time question and answers going on if you have an assistant in the class. If you don't have an assistant, ask students to be sure to chime in and answer each other's questions. We also use the chat function as an initial question in the first five minutes of class to say, okay, tell me one main point about the video that you really liked. Type that in the chat. That also helps me do a quick roll take right there to know who was in class on time. But you can also use it to do troubleshooting or instead of polling, you can do these things within the chat function as well. Or you can get students to offer short summaries, for example, of the small group work. We come back into the large group. We can call on a handful of people but we don't have enough time to call on everybody to see what happened in their small group. So we can ask them to summarize their ideas in the chat. Do use that synchronous chat function. It's an incredibly powerful tool and it also enhances writing abilities of students. So let's return back to this format that we suggested before. Think about some of these tools. Many of you are very, very familiar about using reflection papers or having students watch webinars or videos before they come to class. One of the big things to think about now is to now very conscientiously make a selection of a balanced choice of synchronous and asynchronous learning in which you're able to leverage that synchronous face-to-face time for the best possible outcomes. For example, mainly in discussions or in collaborative work or getting students to share ideas with one another. That is invaluable in synchronous work. It would be a shame, a crime to use the few synchronous moments, those hours that we have with those students online face-to-face just lecturing at them. We could do that in a flipped class video, for example. Why don't we take that and make that asynchronous, offload some of those dates, facts, formulas, things that we might just be sharing with them, offload those skill sets so that when we have our face-to-face time we can really leverage that for the things that are only done well when we're in a group together. So consciously think about your objectives and then decide how you're going to choose your tools. As a last recommendation, we'd like to invite you to watch the 50-minute video on 12 Steps to a Great Online Course that we have uploaded about the way we designed our course at Harvard University so that you can see the integration and the balance of asynchronous and synchronous tools that lead to really powerful student learning outcomes. And then pick and choose and decide which of those kinds of things would be beneficial within your classroom structure. Okay, so I invite you to reflect on that a little bit.  Looking forward to seeing you. If you have any questions before we have our live class, don't hesitate to write. Thanks.


I'm dreaming of a world where we are dismantling systemic racism one prejudice at a time, where all police protect and serve, where mental health care is available. I'm dreaming of a world where everybody loves more than they fear, where violence is rejected, where abundance is recognized and false scarcity exposed, where folks speak their truth and listen to others. I'm dreaming of a world where more people have their feet on the ground, their heads in the game, and their hearts open to possibility.