EPISODE 83: CREATING PERSONAL ABUNDANCE WITH NFTS, CRYPTOCURRENCY, AND WEB 3.0 WITH ERIC NGHIEM
MEET: ERIC NGHIEM
Eric is a serial entrepreneur that has founded and exited businesses in the automotive, retail, insurance, and tax industries. With 10 years in the tax world and 5 in the financial planning world, he is passionate about financial education and helping entrepreneurs scale to create a greater impact on the world.
Eric is also passionate about fostering communities and connecting people. He enjoys building community in masterminds and his own monthly dinners.
Outside of a professional context, he is a single father to a sassy teenager and enjoys camping, riding bikes, and exploring the outdoors with his son.
Website
Takeaways
Today is such a special episode because we have The Cashflow Doctor, Eric Nghiem, in the studio to discuss NFTs, cryptocurrency, and Web 3.0 — and what all this means for the future of our society
I know that many people hear these words and immediately shy away or tune out, but that’s exactly why I’m so glad that Eric stopped by. In our conversation, he starts to demystify these topics and most of all, provides some optimism to those of you who want to learn more about this space and how it can benefit your future.
We also talk about what it means to have a decentralized financial space, how cryptocurrency even works, the benefits of NFTs (especially for historically marginalized groups), and the ethics of the metaverse. Oh, and the big question: What even is money?
Even if you’re leaning towards being anti-cryptocurrency, I think Eric offers a great perspective on why maybe we shouldn’t be too quick to brush the blockchain to the side. It’s truly a great episode, and I can’t wait for you to listen in!
We also explore:
Transcript
Welcome to the fuck saving face podcast we're empowering mental and emotional health for Asian Americans by breaking through taboo topics like may not always be pretty but it is indeed let's make your story beautiful who's been following crypto if you're like me then perhaps you got involved in the markets this last year and I got involved as it was still a Bull Run and that now it's moving into the bear markets and everything you know has been crashing not only that but I was also investing some of my money and sticking it in Celsius which is currently in this hullabaloo of not allowing people to withdraw their money and so that whole adage that has been going around for quite some time about how you should not invest more money than you're willing to lose I am now faced with that reality of it and what's been really interesting for me is that over the last few years since my divorce and getting back and rebuilding I've just been hyper focused on building financial health and I really wish that people would talk more about this that they would talk more about you know the way our systems are how money actually works how fiat currency you know we've been thinking that this whole time anything that's FTI insured FDIC insured is safe is you know potentially not because a friend rested in the traditional markets or even if you're invested in highly risky assets like crypto you really got to understand where your unique situation as so this season the rest of the season I have a few exceptional guests that are really focused on each of these topics one of them is Eric who are gonna be diving into crypto on an F. T. is today one of them is Sean she's an influencer on Instagram and you know has been talking about %HESITATION that really frugal lifestyle two chief fire financial independence retire early she's part of that movement so she's now in her thirties with seven figures in net worth that's another approach and then you know we have another cast Mary who talks about the money mindset and especially if you've come from immigrant parents or Asian parents for that matter and that all of us are wired with different stories different beliefs and one of my favorite things I've heard about recently is that how your story began is not how it is meant to end that you have and are empowered to create a new and different reality for yourself over the weekend I finally got back into the water started surfing again it's been months and months and months and while I was sitting on the beach I felt compelled to write so even though I have a content marketing agency even though you know I'm constantly involved in content strategy and all of these things for different clients me actually writing creatively for myself has kind of been put on the back burner so I'm bringing it back to the forefront and I wanted to share this post that I wrote specifically about money about the trajectory of our lives about resiliency and how you know one of my super powers has always been that I'm willing to be transparent and I'm willing to be honest I feel like there's so much shame and stigma that's the whole reason that I started this podcast was to remove that so people would feel less alone and I have to say that you know as an entrepreneur a lot of people don't share about their missteps and mistakes and failures until they've made it to the other side because there's just still so much feeling attached to it our worthiness based on the results that we create I also wanted to say that I applied for UC Berkeley go bears that's my alma mater %HESITATION the intellectual humility grant I was asking for money to support this podcast and unfortunately I found out that I didn't get it and it was really kind of a blow because I was hoping that doing purposeful work highlighting stories that needed to be shared really amplifying voices that need to be heard and that it would be supported in seen in some way so whether or not the format of this podcast or whatever all of the they said they got two and a half times more applications than they normally do so the competitiveness you know it's Berkley I know how competitive we can be there and I'm really happy for all of the people who did when we don't I didn't find out about any of those details I just found out that we didn't get our grant so it caused me to reevaluate whether or not I want to continue investing my time and my energy into building the podcast because what I initially came to it as you know we're now in season three I even have some episodes banked for season four I'm just being fully transparent that in this long term game in the marathon of achieving different goals it's not the highlight reel it is hall of the daily actions that we take that then become macro movements that macro results and because I'm often interested in multiple different things it's been hard to figure out where should I invest my time and energy especially because I have a daughter him also raising you know and I'm raising her over that this last month I had her three weeks out of the month because her dad was on vacation and so because of that you know single parenting and it really plays into my level of productivity it also is because I'm a divorced parent I really want to make the most of the time that I have with her so I am a hundred and fifty percent applying myself when I'm with her and so it's just a reminder that everybody is approaching things from different circumstances that we are not all just one size fits all that our lives at different stages at different you know pursuits are gonna be different so to come keep comparing ourselves to someone else I don't know if for you you've ever felt like that's not really ever put you on top I feel like that competition has always just made me feel worse about myself even if what other people tell me and how they perceive me is different than how I view myself so I wanted to share this Instagram post with you and then we'll dive in to introducing who Eric is our guest on this episode and playing around a little bit more with kind of different formats for the podcast I've really loved I mean I listen to podcasts all day every day a friend of mine recently said how do you absorb this much information and my partner said well she's like always listening to things like anything else I get washing the dishes you know doing chores driving anywhere even I adopted this ability when I was living in China and working as an editor magazine to be able to kind of truly multi task with like something playing in my ears while I'm writing it really freaks people out and I don't actually know you know how my brain does it and sometimes I do need to shut off all the distractions to focus but because I can do that I can acquire all this information so I've been listening to a lot of different podcasts and a lot of different styles and really loving them and even thinking about %HESITATION offshoots of this podcast or different angle to take with that where my daughter love stories we read all the time but a lot of the stories that we read she's not clearly accurately represented in them and why not have her be the heroin and why not have our own version of good night stories for rebel girls specifically focused on the Asian American audience or of the magic tree house series that she loves and then having her or a character like her be the heroin and then making that into a podcast so I have all these ideas that I would like to try out and also you know not to confuse the audience in any way but to also understand that I like so many other people are multi passionate entrepreneurs and we're all figuring it out as we go I have to also say that my partner is very much the opposite end he you know works in public school administration and with my friends were teachers there's a clear path towards tenure towards the pension towards all of these things and I love that he is built for that career it brings in a lot of joy he reversed himself as a community service as a public servant and you know I see it firsthand from %HESITATION just seeing how the community response to him in the role that he has and I think it's wonderful so when I brought up that I and so many other people and so many things I read and listen to you are saying that we don't know what it is that we're doing we're just figuring it out as we go even if other people see us on the outside as though we do know we actually don't and I brought that up in conversation with him he's like huh that's true for everyone and so it's been so fascinating to see someone who is very different from me in that regard and how there are parts of me that wish that I were built like that for a world that is built for I think a different way than the way that I show up so I am doing my best at all times to kind of merge who I wanna be who I am at my heart my core my nature with also where the world is now you know meeting people where they are and then helping to move the world forward into one that is true the more diverse more inclusive and more understanding more accepting so hopefully this podcast in future iterations and wherever I move in my life is something that is resonant as I always used to teaching yoga if it fits great keep it if it doesn't fit then just let it float on by you know so here is the Instagram post that I wrote I posted a photo of me at the beach with this sports bra that I had bought %HESITATION awhile back and so here's what I wrote along with image lately I've been looking up memoirs about people who have failed and are willing to share about it because most people don't share those truths until they've quote unquote made it since the guilt and shame failures are too fresh until they're not I bought this black sports bra when I first got back from Taiwan a few weeks earlier I arrived in the US with a suitcase of our clothes a suitcase of her toys and essentials and less than a hundred fifty dollars in my bank account I was terrified I needed the sports bra but weighed that decision saying it is a luxury versus feeding my daughter and the divorce I had to pursue it's taken me over three years to get to a place of mental emotional and physical health I'm not yet ready to talk about it all because I'm not at a point in my life where I feel I'm far enough from it even though I've shared about what unfolded in Hawaii to Texas to Taiwan to San Diego privately with friends who recently reached out to say how inspiring I was at pivotal points in their lives there are certain positions I won't keep for the memories they hold and there are others I will keep to humbly remind myself where I came from because this last year I owe fifty thousand dollars in taxes to the IRS in the state of California the year before that I paid a forty thousand dollars of debt accrued for my marriage I just met with my accountant for projected taxes for twenty twenty two he joked that it must suck every time we meet but the fact that I now owe this much money is remarkable that I've had money to risk in crypto and potentially lose I don't own a house yet I drive a twenty eleven Prius and frankly I wish that more people talked about the ups and downs of money investments bad decisions unexpected wins from financial losses or from initial losses and how money is just one of the fundamental aspects of our lives I have taken my daughter to Utah on a road trip to Arizona and I pay for her health care private school tuition and you get to I have no debt I published a book have a great podcast I have ocean views from my desk and work with clients making a difference in the world I am in love I have held an awesome community I'm blessed some people have so much more a lot of people have so much less I think of all that when I wear this top I got a few really great comments from people in my network %HESITATION I haven't heard from in awhile and just sharing that they've always appreciated my transparency and my honesty and also my ability to balance that out with the private processing so that it's not all in a public forum and I think that that introduction is very relevant to the guests that I have now Eric is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and exited businesses in the automotive retail insurance and tax industries with ten years in the tax world and five in the financial planning world he's passionate about financial education and helping entrepreneurs scale to create a greater impact on the world Eric is also passionate about fostering communities and connecting people he enjoys building community and masterminds and his own monthly dinners and if you're in the southern California area you can follow him and find the dinners that he hosts %HESITATION now that we are in a much more back in person and he's been talking a lot about N. F. T. E.'s crypto in taxes in the space it's it's a very new terrain I'll side of a professional context he's a single father to assess the teenager and enjoys camping riding bikes and exploring the outdoors with his son so I hope that you get a lot out of this we recorded this awhile back and so if if you're not in the crypto industry almost this feeling of all day every day keeping up with everything it's just moving so so quickly but I think that a lot of the things that he shares are still very relevant and just hearing about his experience as an Asian American man he's also as I mentioned a single parent and just all of these things to get him to where he is now you can go to his website the cash flow Dr dot com to learn more about him and see what he's up to he's been speaking at a lot of these huge crypto events recently %HESITATION all around the country and I just invite you to again take what works for you what fits what resonates be critical be evaluative %HESITATION it's one of the skills that I didn't really learn growing up is how to have critical thinking how to just not think that anybody in authority is right for example and for all other things are happening in the world right now with roe versus Wade and just the seemingly great backside as the term has been used it's now more important than ever to be able to apply critical thinking and especially in my own experience with crypto and my investments and the potential rewards and losses I am much more cognizant of how vital it is to ask the questions to do your homework I'm gonna say it here because it was said to me but I did homework I thought and yet didn't dive deep enough you know didn't like see all the opposing views as much as the aligned views to really want to encourage you to do that and just enjoy this episode we are actually as I mentioned playing around we're gonna cut this episode into and just make it a little bit shorter and a little bit more palatable so that you can take all of his in %HESITATION I gotta say the crypto and the N. F. T. space all of that's just so much the expression of like drinking from a firehose so much very much like that and so I want you to have the time to take it in today just a bit and then to move forward with the singing to the other half of the episode and I will continue to move flowing organically evolve this podcast also if you do want to support the podcast I would love to hear from you I would love to hear what you liked what you would like more of what you would like to see less of them I would like to know that if it's made any sort of impact or difference in your life that you know you'll share with me and let me know I am a person at the other end of this and it really is meaningful to me to get feedback and of course if you want to make any financial donations to support listen to the end of the podcast and you can do it that way and as always just thank you so much I hope that you are well during this time and that we are all working together to move the world forward all right I'm so excited for today's guest for the thanksgiving based podcast we are now in season three which is remarkable %HESITATION and also you know with the way that the world is meeting in the things I've personally been interested and I'm really excited to have accuracy because we'll be diving into your energies into crypto entrepreneurial as them you know being a parent being Asian American all of that good stuff but turn it over to Eric who by the way when I asked how would you like to be introduced that %HESITATION I kind of in the wonder Jack all trades and a master of none of which I use a lot of guilt around until I realized that that actually is one of the things that makes people super interesting and so successful is when you have a constant you're asked me that you're always willing to learn an expanded that you because in business for so many of us we were taught your spinach down to be a specialist and like all of this kind of stuff and some of us are just not built that way so you know whether it's your human design your genetic make up your life preference whatever it is %HESITATION I actually encourage people to live kind of the way that you've been living I mean I've been living if it's you %HESITATION which is just to keep seeing what happens so before we got on this interview I was talking to Eric and he was sharing a story about four years ago his life you know did not look the way that it works now and I was sharing a similar story that two years ago I did not look that way than it does now and %HESITATION you know to have people outside of us kind of bouncing off those realities and saying Hey do you remember before this is where you were and I think the pace at which like is moving now so fast that it's %HESITATION it's easy to get lost in that and to not take a moment to reflect I'm Sir before I you know talk anywhere ever dared to share a bit about his story I mean it is it's kind of like a loaded question in terms of like whatever our stories and like what I've come to find is I love how you like kind of like summed it all up right like there I have this like notion of like I'm wandering the world and also the fact that like being a Jack of all trades that the court is like beautiful take a Jack of all trades and master of none but it's better to be a Jack of all trades than just a master of wine I know when I heard that quote us like you know that's actually interesting because for me for a long time I've always felt like an not clinically diagnosed knows for like I had like some sort of ADHD where I'm always looking at different things and like I'm just absorbing learning just eternally curious and so like my whole life has just been revolved around this whole thing of like okay what is really cool what I really want to deal with %HESITATION I enjoyed doing and how do I take advantage of that like I've I'm not the kind of person that is really good at like order in one book from Amazon opening the book up on Amazon finishing it completing and ordering next book like I would order three or four Bucks a time I'd be reading three or four books at time two or three of them might be totally incomplete in terms of my reading and then projects same thing like I have I actually have to have assistance to help me make sure that I can create projects for clients and stuff because I tend to like always be looking at what's new what's innovative and like what what sparked my curiosity and like that's kinda like what I've currently got my life upon and like if you like %HESITATION tell me about your story it's kind of like it a conversation that we would have to have over a bottle of wine and like I think that's I think that's the same for for many of us right many of us that are listening to this podcast or listens interviewer or out there the only challenges is some of us may pigeon hole ourselves into a certain title because that's what society is given to us but the reality is like I think at least for many folks like you and I like we are dynamic individuals dynamic human beings that want to explore new things and try new things and and and see new things and learn new things and for me to put like a title on myself of like this is who I am I think would be like a very short coming of like everything that that I've accomplished all my failures are my success says all the times I fell on my face all the times I'm like this is pretty good also %HESITATION right %HESITATION like I I I don't even know how to like really summed it up other than like you know my my Chadha Vietnamese refugees that came over from the Vietnam %HESITATION if you're a moron Saigon fell came from literally nothing and the typical Asian American stories you got to be a doctor dentist pharmacist attorney kind of thing I did not have those I ended up being an entrepreneur %HESITATION and I've started businesses since I was sixteen forty two now like all different kinds of businesses all different kinds of things I finally came to terms with the fact that like I'm never again I vowed never is not too great let the bastard but I'm not gonna be the the shiny image of the Asian American model success that my parents have wanted in terms of like the comparison of my kids a doctor or my head my son has a title I finally come to terms with that and %HESITATION you know I'm super happy with like where I'm at right now single payer I got a eight year old son so I'm in a really interesting transition point in my life where I used to revolve my life around like this parenting aspect and now he's a young man a young adult now Mike shoot what do I want to do with my life now where do I want to take things so it's like the I think just with with life it's like we're walking up the stairs like one foot at a time and every time you get a new stereo it different elevation of the wrong you're like well this looks different I wanted something different right so it's a scrum where I I'm kind of M. with my journey just exploring and and just you know having a good old time tell me about the cash flow Dr cash flow doctors so I run a full stack accounting company I'm and we focus on helping clients with their finances and we act as fractional CFO as we mostly focus on web three an NFT project founders actually started the business like thirteen years ago it was I got a tax business because my dad was like H. alert about taxes and so I got to the tax business I'm N. and just kind of like grew that business over over the last thirteen years and thirteen year sounds like a long time for personal EDG that I think that is a long time but like the castle doctors actually need that came about a couple years ago that's helping out a client because like my official name is dynamic tax and she's like aren't you you like you see me like you're like a doctor to me in terms of our finances it's like you know we should call you she cried cash flow Dr so I still remember like she giving me this title the cashflow Dr not like you know my dad has always been like and want to go back to school get your doctorate or to become a medical doctor called what that date is like that yet you finally have a doctor in house which is where you talked about on the cash flow doctor is like what is that even a beat like well you know I help clients with their their cash flow nice you know thanks you're there near disease of bad financial habits and stuff is like that doesn't count %HESITATION I loved that you re framing the story you know giving him a call about that this well and the client that you focus on now I think this is a great segue into one of the reasons that I reached out to you when I met because we're both on a founder institute call we were kind of writing feedback for all of these entrepreneurs at different places of business down to all the mentors at different areas of expertise and so one of the things that you had mentioned in your introduction or in how you're introduced to start your day into the NFC space and into the crypto game not right now for me I think it's so interesting because %HESITATION you know traditional finance I'm amazed that you or your dad's all learn about taxes you're like okay because my brain what about like oh my god so you know the traditional finance and learning about that and watching my parents like you know really struggle with managing their finances as immigrant entrepreneurs and all that kind of stuff I had such a sphere around that that I'm around you know whatever I just like when the other end of the spectrum so anal about like checkbooks and like all that stuff but right that was like a limited way I think yelling from what I saw because I don't even know to ask the questions are working you invest money what is money actually do for you like you know I'm how can you cultivate well or you know choose where you spend your money that it's going to be invested in because our company is that you actually believe in those are not anything that I even knew about and as I started to learn and grow in my own evolution I started realizing there's this whole area of like financial health that I didn't understand the speaking of castle Dr and so you know like I started trying to learn about it reading all the traditional books and it was just an overwhelming information I was just like my brain it doesn't my brain like stories my brain likes passionate causes my brain likes you know innovation and it doesn't like you know this the last mass side of things but once I discovered crypto for some reason that seems to be like a different entry point for me to understand all of these other you know pillars are the financial institutions and all that kind of stuff in a way that I actually cared about and that was me because I was coming out it through innovation through decentralizing money so that more people who are marginalized have opportunities to create real change in our lives and so I think because of that it became a whole different wait a different door way to get into all these other things so I would love to hear in your words you know what you feel that crypto is and then we can dive more specifically you know krypton by three like how is it man how is your experience in the pan what drew you to it yes so I I love your story that right like how eight it made the whole finance world more approachable well I think it's really interesting about cryptocurrency and and more relevant now the what we call web three or the energy space is this concept of decentralized finance so right now the traditional way of the way that money is handled the world is it's all controlled typically by a central bank which is you know the US federal reserve or what have you determined Monday monetary flow of monetary action and that the government determines stimulus and tax and all that stuff little centralized so traditionally many of us feel a little bit powerless we're kind of just a cog in this capitalistic system and we work really hard and we do worth staying in and hopefully somebody we were just we get paid and you know eventually we're we're all set but for for years especially as as covert started hitting two years ago a lot of folks started looking at their lives they started looking at their incomes and started looking at what they've been receiving in terms of wages and they're like you know this doesn't make any sense worthy become disenfranchised by the system the cryptocurrency is really interesting because the the essence of it is it's decentralized and it's transparent meaning there's no central person that's controlling this asset whether it's bitcoin or Ethereum right it's decentralized it's this letter spread amongst computers reminders all across the world on top of that as well thank you have this this notion of like its its own by everybody right so you have like the stillness community feel to it so cryptocurrency is really interesting in the way that it operates and then you have like two different kinds of layers you have the big coin layer which a lot of people are familiar with the big one there's almost like that not currently a better store of value in a way in an extreme is kind of like the underlying technology that makes the entire network work so it's really fascinating on that one perspective so when I first looked at crypto currency I came in as many people initially duty I came in from a perspective of like Hey this is maybe my opportunity to make some additional money or this is my way of economically getting to a better place for me and my family in a lot of folks they initially get the crypto currency because of that sure there's a lot of folks take that initially get into it more because they look at the decentralization but the reality is markets move because a lot of folks are getting into it because they want to make money whether it's trading stocks or trading collectibles or something like that so when I first got into it I was like okay I'm gonna make some money on this and you know this is back in twenty seventeen I was buying and selling different coins you know one point my son I we built a mining rig were were mining Ethereum to really just really get a handle on understanding of the space it did really well with that and then in twenty seventeen for those of you who are cryptocurrency investors lost it all right that was the big like run up that December ended that generate the marketed plummeted knights road all its bottom because I was wag me right we're all gonna make a outsider bullish on that and then I was just sitting there like like crap I got to go back to work now so I put it all the way in in that those couple of years this the process and everything was still building or building the technology the layers that revolved around cryptocurrency N. you know I like to say that I was one of the %HESITATION Jeez the space but there's Absalon folks at best prior to that and in so about two years ago when I open it %HESITATION my son I we just got back from traveling and living in Bali and don't cross country went back to it you know got that southern California went back to work in in my body text muses hair do you still have some materials like I have my cold wallet my trezor I have it open that thing up in in years he's like you better log in and see what's going on and I noticed that a theory of the price was was up was a call back I got right so at this point in time like I've kind of moved away from like okay I'm just purely in it for the monetary part of it now I'm like okay I'm really curious about the talk technology what's been built over these last couple of years you know so I started looking to other different queens and what we call cross jeans or layer two solutions these are things that make the cryptocurrency world more usable for average everyday users either faster transactions lower fees and and what have you and it what started happening was in December of last year December of actually twenty twenty I'm and in twenty twenty one was a really interesting transition point for the F. T. space or they called non fungible tokens so what did happen was prior that crypto currency market went up and down and then that the everyone got into trading stocks because of game stop in and see and when that started slowing down people looking for what is the next big wave people start looking at a fees it was really instead of the time was I was introduced and after he's through through mutual friends Mr looking into it was like all these kind of cool yeah I didn't really totally understand until I bought my first one in this is why I like telling folks you know I host like energy meetups in San Diego and Orange County %HESITATION so folks you know if you don't understand and it's easy if you don't understand crypto it's totally cool don't feel like you're being left out but I highly invites you and I highly recommend at least buying one piece line and F. T. or by a little piece of bit coin with a two hundred Bucks a thousand Bucks my little bit of experience and just have it in your wallet and look at it like I'm in the space that's going to compel you to start looking deeper into it so I bought my first and if he was like okay this is kind of cool Mr looking more I started spending more time on discord I started spending more time on Twitter when I used to be a big peaceful person I really go on Facebook now because everything's on Twitter and I started buying another one and then for me I run in almonds tax business so tax season ended April fifteenth of twenty twenty one so this is fairly new and I I ended up buying I was like let me treat myself to something completely ridiculous so I bought myself a leopard print JPEG of an eight which was from a company called aboard a yacht club at the time I paid half an E. for this one so that was about sixteen hundred Bucks and laid out for me I was like this is the most ridiculous thing ever on buying a JPEG sixteen jobs but it's cool whatever I kind of get the N. F. the thank I put in my wallet went back to work yep do my thing no buying and selling and trading like little ants use here and there but I started seeing offers come in for my board eight got club of twenty thirty and this is this is real money right yeah real money if you know if if you say it was three thousand Bucks a time thirteenth is ninety thousand dollars which is serious money going from like sixteen hundred Bucks ninety thousand Bucks mystery member I put up on Facebook because I because I'm getting these offers on my JPEG what should I do you you know just a curiosity and people like all sell about scams like I don't know I think there's more to it than that semester really understand more about the metaverse I really started studying more and and if he's a really really interesting parallel to how society works rightly people use energy is just like we use luxury goods like a Rolex or Ferrari or whatever it's a social signaling piece %HESITATION to status please we could see him part of an exclusive club this is you know my membership to this club so that's that's how I look at and if he is it's a gateway to a club or as a satellite that status symbol in US telling my son about it because my son's baking a trip that too he day trades and stuff like that things like that it's pretty hilarious you know maybe you should put up for some crazy price and see what happens so I put up for fifty years which at the time fifty times three thousand boxes of a hundred thousand dollars like this is this is crazy I'm going to put up for like shits and giggles and you know just joke with my friends about it with the sleep next morning as many of you will find out or are in the energy world like the things that you typically do when you wake up as you look at your account you look at this court to see what's being updated on Twitter I woke up I looked at my open C. account am I able to con it has it all my god if somebody had asked me what happened because there's a lot of people that you get Hawksley how don't be careful you have to be seen the space and and so I looked at my wallet and there's fifty more Ethernet was like wait a second this thing sold and so I when I went to take a look at who bought it I was like where did this go who bought the state was the chain smokers so the Chainsmokers for for those you may not be where is that pretty popular EDM DJ yeah you know like not as this could be a sign of government Twitter in IDM the Chainsmokers and said Hey you know I don't know if this you guys but I just wanted to know you guys bought leopard print able mine changed my life thank you so much they responded back so yeah we bought it from you we got some questions though and to this day we have we've been having a really good conversation about and then on my pricing on some other projects and it's amazing I've been in the energy space for quite awhile just been buying flipping trading it's created a lot of abundance real life for me and my son and what I find really interesting is to be used there is this like really interesting business economic proposition on the energy side thing of of things for entrepreneurs but there's also this like really interesting abundance peace to it which is maybe really question the capitalistic system as it is right now if I am going out right now not buying selling and trading J. bags and making more in this this effort of buying selling and Shane J. bags and I am in my traditional line of work like what what really is money right what really is this context of finance in the way that we thought it was like N. I've been a financial planner for six years and it I've been in talks world for thirteen years like you would think that I know about money right like those that money's been a financial planner has been at the tax world is this year has really made me question what is money right and it really made me question what is abundance it is also maybe re frame my idea of like how things can be done how can we help empower other artist how can we help empower other businesses to really change the the way dynamically that they do things to provide more but that's for them not to provide more value for the communities that's what's really making me really excited about this space and while I like I try to get as many events like can I speak as at as many events they can activated my tire business just focusing on doing financial support accounting CFO work for web three businesses because I just love the space but it's it's crazy okay stay tuned for part two of this episode.
so you heard Eric share all sorts of things like really questioning what the value of money is what it even means what abundance means how to look at money in a different way you know he said that he was a financial planner he's an accountant you would think that he knows all these things about money but he feels like he doesn't and that we are all learning as we go and as we grow I recently told my partner sometimes it really frustrates me that I don't have my future consciousness right here right now so that I can evaluate my life right now without future with them and be like oh this is the decision you shouldn't be making or you know maybe you should be asking these questions and I think that it's kind of an interesting thing to continue to make peace with is that you don't know what you don't know which is why I always encourage them asking questions especially as an interviewer as a writer you know as someone who's curious about the world keep asking questions and one of the things I hope I'm teaching my daughters to have critical thinking so whatever we're sharing here if it works great if it's the opposite of what you believe great you know if you have thoughts or feedback I always love to hear it you can email me hello at fox saving face dot com we're about to dive into part two of Eric's interview if you haven't yet listen to part one I highly encourage you to go back there this is our opportunity to move into topics such as web three crypto and if teens if you've been following the markets and you know we are in some major tips right now but for all the financial people who I follow the bear market is much shorter than the bull market and that's good news for us and if you see any of those you know memes or posts of people living through all of these very difficult times so I would say the pandemic you know before it would have been the Great Depression or different world wars or things like that as long as you continue to invest and move forward this is not financial advice by any means but according to the data it shows that you will always come out on top and that you know the markets will always recover and I guess the same way that I say that you have made it through every single one of the worst days of your life well so has the world's I guess we have that I want to also share there's been this podcast I've been loving it's called even the rich and I've always been fascinated by everything from let's say a big fight in the loch ness monster to these legacy families like the Getty family you know the JFK junior and Kennedy the Kennedy family excuse me or %HESITATION there is in the podcast I have a listen to Beyonce and Jay Z. you know Marilyn Monroe that was really fascinating %HESITATION and so is that J. F. K. one about Jacqueline Kennedy I don't know all of these things about her and she's a really remarkable woman so it's kind of similar to the other podcast I really loved which was imagine life where you just learned so much from the storytelling aspect of a notable figure who we most of us recognize and their ins and outs of life and you know find out who it is until the very end but the premise of the show to talk about these legacy families and how you know they also go through loss heartbreak %HESITATION just devastation resilience in all these things so it's been interesting to me and the reason I bring it up also is because we're on the topic of money today so it's something that I've been keenly focused on not just the hard facts or the way the markets work or anything like that out of the way crypto is going but also just these different other aspects of money of wealth of impact of %HESITATION you know what are the key indicators to a successful life so I recently wrote a linkedin post if you're not following on linkedin please to find me there Judy T. S. U. E. hi and I wrote about how I had been so ashamed for so long that I'd cobbled you know this life together in the spirit of evaluating everything things we've traditionally held as knowledge that we've known or ways of being I'm gonna redo the linkedin post and then we're gonna dive into the interview and I invite you to tune in next week where I will be doing a little bit more of the story telling that we had in season one %HESITATION I recently met with someone who is this facilitator of course that I'm taking in regards to getting back into newsletter reading building up a subscription base and sub stack all of that kind of good stuff and you know I realized recently that I haven't really been writing for myself I will occasionally refer clients but even then I have a team of writers now so it's more strategy that I work on and so I wanted to get a little bit more back into that but you know one of the things that this facilitator was telling me is that he was so looking forward to our call when I posted in the slack message after signing up for the course he already knew that I would be someone that he wanted to talk to and so we filled up the time and then some exploring all the different facets of the things that I'm passionate about the stories I could tell and so he asked if when I start drafting up more of the story is if I could please send them to him because he loves writers and he's really excited to just kind of dive more into that with me a creative director who I work with also said when you listen to the first season of the podcast and you listen to the personal essays that he could visualize the scenes in his head and he could see it becoming a Netflix series and so I said that you have literally called out to the universe one of my biggest dreams is that I would write a memoir and if we could turn into a screenplay and then it would become a Netflix series so if you're hearing this now you know you can send me all the good juju that that dreamers even something better still comes to fruition and it'll be interesting for me to listen to this episode your son now and see what all unfold it but let me share with you linkedin post I haven't shared this because I felt ashamed about it but I have a full time job and I own a company when I grew up I was taught you shouldn't east down become a master at one thing I wasn't taught that you could have a range or be a multi passionate person and Hodge podge your life together in a way that fits your personal preferences career opportunity three kill it by becoming a C. level executive that's what I thought success was not the freedom to work from home for an introvert this is essential or the ability to drop off and pick up my daughter from school and occasionally volunteer in her classroom or to be able to go search and meditate to reset and host an impactful podcast or get published but here's the thing this paradigm works for me and my daughter because I get epic health insurance and a match four oh one K. I also get an E. S. P. P. I get to do meaningful work and share people stories these are important things as a single to forest parent who is the sole provider of my daughter's health insurance and school tuition for the next couple of years I do not want to be a burden on my daughter she's an only child in as H. I want to do all I can to set myself up so she can have a free and meaningful life of her own accord plus when mother came to our offices a few months back she was so stoked in all of the fancy big new building and the wonderfully kind people I work with they said she's now an honorary team member I also have a company because I'm really amazing at what I do and I love it we not only signed up an extremely incredible D. I. focus client recently but I also have a team of writers were very talented and such good people where in June and freshbooks tells me that we're at six figure revenue net revenue is different than profit I'm tired of feeling badly for working hard to make my life work for me and my daughter there's no one size fits all I want my daughter to learn the resiliency tenacity discipline and innovation to build a life that works for her unique blueprint I want a life tailored to me so that I can shine and this my friends is it I have so much gratitude for where I am now so much I wish for all of us to have permission to thrive and give back in all the ways were designed for to help heal this world so that's what I shared it's gotten almost three thousand impressions and has been performing pretty well linked and but you know I am practicing getting back to core values and storytelling around that and you know just continuing to evolve and grow my life so I hope that you get a lot of this episode I would love to hear what you think of it he's always consider supporting the show by sharing it with all of those you love and if you'd like to make a monetary donation that be awesome to have a wonderful day and see you hear you talk to you not really sure what this item there is next week what have you come to kind of realize at this point in time about money the I don't know anything about it right the concept of of this paper money of that the federal reserve and everything everything right now it's just a bunch of ones and zeros that's kind of really all that it is and then so for for somebody like myself and I you know I've come across folks at me transmit like millions of dollars buying and selling and trading G. bags and stuff like that %HESITATION and if he's it's made me really again question are a concept like we were told and especially for for us as Asian Americans we are told the way to get ahead is you go to school and you grind your face off and then you graduate you go to college you apply you know you play for a great college you find a degree in something not necessary that you're passionate in but something that you can make a lot of money right so that's why some of us get led down the path of being a doctor or dentist or to turn even though we hate that staff because we know economically now make this money and then we go into this this education system that we get inundated with with that we get saddled with debt for that the hope that we end up with a job in a position we graduate we hopefully get a job and then now we have to work for ten fifteen years to pay off the student loan and then hopefully another ten to fifteen years twenty years to finally be able to say that we made it and there are kids repeat that cycle right so that's been the traditional thought process of like how finances are done and then maybe you'll get ahead by putting some money in the stock market maybe you'll get ahead by starting a business and grinding or face off over there and then maybe just by the stroke of luck you'll be defy all the odds and maybe you'll become a millionaire right like that would that's like the traditional way of looking at things and so in the cryptocurrency space and in the web three space things move really quickly where a lot of a lot of his original notions of how things are done don't necessarily operate the same in this space so the web three space you could be a passionate artist that has a great piece you know has great curation of art in rich muny in I can intersect that two together and create a tremendous amount of abundance you could be a business that you have a beautiful idea and you have an MVP or or like a minimal viable product but instead of going in baking at venture capital money vented to VC funds for this money for a year to to try to get money to fund your business you said you got your community go to the audience and say Hey we're launching this cool thing you guys want to comment right like and now it's like it's turning this whole financial model on its head instead of the people that are the wealthiest they're the ones in power and no one's there be able to say we'll find your business will find your business you your woman not we're not gonna find a year year minority that we're not gonna find you not cards automatic thank you to go create a web three products in now market your products and services to the community who will find your product without any real care of gender ethnicity sexual preference all that stock increase like crazy businesses you can even run completely anonymous mon anonymously if you want to just be your profile picture an increase like incredible crazy business or create incredible crazy abundance for yourself so it's like for me in terms of like how money is thought of and how it's been created like it's it's it's really shifted in like this this even without going down the rabbit hole like how the federal reserve treats fractional reserve banking and funds and that yacht system with used to be back with cold like that that's that's a whole different subject but just in terms of like how it operates for us as individuals this is really changed the way I look at it yeah I think that that's one of the things like yes it's so exciting to get into the space and realize like how much you could generate from getting into the Christmas but then once you start diving a bit deeper and then you know there are so many people that I follow her like you need to figure out what your investing thesis is like why are you doing this what do you what do you care about what are your core values and then from there seeing how the technology can indeed shift a lot of things that we think we know so for example most people are paid every two weeks but the people who are marginalized you know situations and circumstances dot two week stretch is so long to make your money go that far and then when you're in a pain point and you need that money well the banks and all these loans like there are aren't structured to benefit you there section to benefit them so then you get more more deeper in the hole but with you know blockchain technology and like all of the advances that are coming true why can't people get paid at the end of every day immediately with like the lightning network like why can't they get paid and then every single day be able to to use that for what they need to sustain until then so I feel like learning about other aspects you know however controversial all of this stuff is like skiing wait there are some real changes that could very much benefit people who need that change or you know I was watching like a you tube video from someone who is in this space and he was talking about how his band mo account got put on hold for whatever reason there is no clear intent and then he had the cash shop and because the cash app now is using lightning network is like wait there's like another alternative I'm not gonna like you know it's not gonna be subject to again a third party or like and you know the who's gonna tell me yes and no you can't use and I haven't anywhere like I don't even know what the reason was that I was trying to make a payment and then demo put my account on hold and it took forever for it to get off of the holes and then because of that I couldn't use it for all the other transactions that I needed to send someone money for a meal or to like you know whatever it was and it became such a hassle I'm like nope there has to be a better way there has to be another way that is not reliant upon some other entity telling me like you know that I'm qualified are good enough for whatever that bored just by standard procedure the seven to ten days or whatever it is %HESITATION so I think all the things that you're talking about and are encouraging us to just shift our understanding and that's exciting it's exciting for someone who I've been thinking a lot recently about like micro aggressions and just like us being Asian American and like you know and again there's like social hierarchies there's different cultures that have it more challenging from like a general dated a systemic kind of thing so I guess not but I keep thinking back to when I was living in Hawaii how lovely that felt to be part of the majority and how like so much of that was normal and I felt like except in a month %HESITATION Steve this is what it would feel like if I live in a culture or in a society where I felt like I fit in and we're like sh every day there's not some quiet like questioning like when the person's date or like is it's harder for me because of this and like you know as a woman like whatever it is %HESITATION and I don't think we're gonna get you some sort of utopia in our lifetimes on this planet but I think if there are ways that and there's gonna be a learning curve in a process and not all this criticism has been a great I mean there's a couple that just got arrested for like laundering however many billions of dollars billion so you know there's that and I think it's also intimidating but for me also when I was going through my divorce you know just looking at my financial state at the time I'm looking at where I was and thinking about how scared and concerned I words then and I knew that whatever happened I would still have the earning potential and the power to go out and like rebuild whatever it is that I need to build sh that's not the case for a lot of people and then they just get stuck in those circumstances and situations where they cannot read and like it that's not to me just was so heartbreaking and like you know just wrenched my stomach and I was thinking about how the innovations are hopefully coming through with like crypto and money and accessibility and all that could potentially change after someone's life that they could then have ownership that's not you know depending upon anybody else and that they could take that digital wallet and walk away and just be like it's mine all of that you know like I can just walk away and so I think because and for anybody who follows like roll call and like all of the and he was in like hi macro economics finance and seeing how the wealthier just got wealthier he's like this is not right like this is not right the financial institutions are not built for the everyday person to succeed and thrive and so there has to be another way so he's like so bullish into crypto I think just like he's like but it increases access to everyone else you don't need any I mean who doesn't have a smartphone at this point in time or access to the internet yes there's a steep learning curve but once you learn it you're like oh okay like I got it and ordered the fractional ownership and can have a big way like you can buy like you said a hundred dollars a dollar like whatever there's no like minimal amount there is someone who's talking about how whenever we try to read articles online you get that like notification that you have to sign up and subscribe to get this article if you walk yeah exactly and %HESITATION it they were like well think about what you could do with like crypto where fine I'll give you ten cents to read this and I'll just do it right now instantaneously and then instead of having to be like I gotta pay nine ninety seven a month on my credit card I got sold on my credit card to do this how much even that would change like content creation or like the %HESITATION intellectual property that like writers and creators and artists have struggled with for so long and I think that's what super exciting about it so I like everything that you're saying I love it I I think at the end of the day the framework of how the economy works especially in America is we're based on a very consumer society and they keep this economic cog working and to allow the companies of corporations do with the need to do here there's a certain frame or structure that we all are tied with right that's why we have these nine to fives five day week positions right like this is why we have to show up to work as well we have credit card debt student loan debt to keep this cog in this machine like we're we're like these battery packs in the matrix your thing work right we're just effectively like slaves as economic system and so a lot of us in I think could really open up a lot of us for better for worse we started realizing when we work from home or like wait I don't have to be working nine to five I can get my old days were done in three hours right where some folks are seeing other countries moved to work a four day week work model even at three day work week work model in statistically seeing that their productivity was just as good if not greater than the Americans five D. model we're starting to realize that the the story that we've been sold about consumers capitalistic America is not this dream wife that we thought it was right like this story that we've been sold has been driving revenue and profits to big corporations and for us we're just a cog in the machine right and then so crypto I think is really interesting and exciting and bill like they're making a mistake right there are barriers to entry to crypto right now right here's a technology component understanding component there's a safety component that still needs to be addressed but if this is this is changing the paradigm of how we do things now we still have a bit of a ways to go until it becomes like this great solution for everybody but it is really opening up opportunities for for many folks and it's making folks really reestablished like the viability of our existing system and how we could potentially either change that were just complete you know start something fresh yeah absolutely and again you pointed out like it's not a perfect system by any means and I think like yeah there's a lot of idealists or the term was used like so hardcore not harbors a bunch of backslash yes %HESITATION and so now like it's not perfect by any means but I'm hoping that like at least it's encouraging people to think about things differently and you know I think about it but the long queue up like all right well I'm at the start of this now but by the time my daughter gets to an age where you know she's going to be spending money like doing all of these things it will be a different like space for her and hopefully I will understand it much better to create kind of like a different existence for what that means I don't know and you know I was taught we were talking before this and other mentors that I've met with the founder is your organization about the part at sh you know they when it comes from like a neuroscience consciousness and viewpoint the metaverse is actually not great like tapping into very like it's going to shut off certain parts of our brain or amplify other parts of our brains that are gonna make history like primal ram hard time connecting with one another empathy compassion like those things are gonna be hard so knowing that yeah that's a good thing to be aware of and %HESITATION I was listening to an interview with the former CEO of Google I think it was on like armchair expert he was just like I really highly encourage that whoever at the powers that be get into a room but the room has to be filled with everyone from an economist's west psychologists to like all people from all different backgrounds to see how our artificial intelligence powering us for it is humanity because if we don't do that we're gonna be in big trouble there's something yeah I mean there's definitely big ethical considerations in the tax side of things that are considered like if your hand is a whole separate injury but if your conspiracy inst if you're chasing a computer science degree in programming languages and all that stuff they're not taking classes on philosophy or humanity humanity is our ethics that's not part of the program so we're starting to see is some of that that most smartest and most genius I computer developers and programmers you're developing things are creating societal change really have no consideration in their coding in terms of the ethics behind it and that's that's a big problem so you bring up a really good point you know like what are the ethics in AI what are the ethics in technology and we're starting to see some social media platforms like Facebook and even Twitter are causing more division because of the algorithm because they're being fed by advertising right they want to push you certain pieces of content is going to cause you to engage more at the platform and that doesn't necessarily mean that the content that they're serving you as good content for your help all the content for you but it just it's just gonna serve that to create more polarity division and that's what Facebook has done and Facebook is a ambiguous profit generating multinational corporation run by mark Zuckerberg like the ethics part of it is kind of a material there he's like okay how many more billions of dollars can I be making on this thing right so there there's definitely a lot of challenges in this space but I think what's really cool is like as more and more of us are starting to get like code for better for worse I know there's different positions on it backs in all these different things I like but for better for worse what Coleman had done is it really shocked the way that we look at things how we look at our governments have a look at our policies how to look at ourselves how we look at our neighbors in need to start really reassessing things reassessing our priorities reassessing our idea of ethics reassessing our ideal lifestyle and I think it's going to be a you know a really interesting force for change in terms of of how things look at Knowsley ethics will play a bigger role in technology yeah I hope so I mean like yeah and as someone who loves the planet like it does like you know I'm fully aware of all of the other impacts and I think that that's a great thing to look at just so you know when you're aware I mean like once you know you can't honor how can you be conscious citizen and be a contributor and ideally this podcast episode just kind of was an opportunity for someone to expand their awareness agree disagree but like at least just to hear from someone else who's like gone into that space at the end of every interview I always like to ask if you could say fuck saving face about something which is in fact in case about you know like at the end of the day when I started realizing was like I used to live my life as a people pleaser for a long time and that our revolves around trying to make my mom and dad we'll get my mom and dad's approval and then there's the spread like cancer across like any other relationship perhaps like I used to always try to save face by you know making sure I made other people happy and I'm like fuck that leg let's see okay so like try to make other people happy like I need to prioritize like what's important to me and and validate myself because if I don't do that like how can I help other people or how can I even even attempt to like try to impress other people like I've maybe it's because I'm now at the age that I am more like look everybody else you know like I don't care about what you think like I'm just gonna build my own thing and I mean I know there's this big span of my life in my twenties were it was all about like you know making other people happy but now I'm I'm at a point now where like I just wanna live my life the way I want to live my life and that's like one of my favorite I guess studies was like regrets of the dying and the number one thing that people would have regrets on on their deathbed as about the passed away as they wished they lived the life that was authentic to them like that they wanted to let as opposed to life that was for others or even to impress work to satisfy others right so let's say in case of like impressing others and like worrying about what other people think just do your own damn thing yeah they're all time enjoy life and like live life to every you know every moment as as as high as best you can I love that so if you want to follow more and like if they're in California and southern California and when it comes to one of your events I know you're going to be speaking at an eat in Denver but and also if anybody doesn't know what we're talking about when we say like the Korean and since all of that yeah you can go look online he does each year H. %HESITATION but you can see all the different coins in the cryptocurrency space right now yeah but what if people want to follow more with you where can they find you yes so there's two places the best find me it's not Instagram and that my Instagram is at the cash flow Dr you know my Twitter you want to see some of the hot takes which aren't always the best but my Twitter is at U. rocky ROC K. ni M. and G. H. I. E. M. that's my last name Iraq via I've always been curious to know your last name when it comes to an Asian last name is not and traditional and it's it's very so %HESITATION Vietnamese my parents are both Vietnamese so that the most common Vietnamese last name is Gaul NGO or we in which is N. G. U. Y. yeah that's like I think the challenge of the Smith the Vietnam nearly is very uncommon so I think it's the disagree it's like less than half a percent Vietnamese have that last name and it's just because it's a regional results even get out interesting okay yeah I didn't realize until I moved to China and had to have my name printed on a business card the people are like %HESITATION your name is just a name like there's no it's not like other words the Chinese language and that I didn't realize like how rare that was that yeah but it's just a name so %HESITATION yeah I appreciate you know different surnames we we are rare birds I think thank you so much for today I can you can do so in crypto if you'd like to send your dollars A. K. fiat currency to me via the cash app which uses a super fast lightning network I can convert it into a big one you can find me on the cash app by typing in a dollar sign Judy it's way T. S. U. more ways you can support the podcasts are they sharing this with your friends family anybody you'd think they'd enjoy this and remember to go get your copy of the little book of Tibetan rites and rituals at Barnes and noble Amazon audible or whatever you'd like to get your make your story beautiful today
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