Category: Webinars Collection

  • 06/04/2026 – Content Growth Engine

    All right. How’s it going everybody? Hope everybody’s having a good day. Good evening. Good evening. Um and uh yeah, where’s everybody calling in from? Still getting ready here on my side. Where’s everybody calling in from? Let’s see here. Okay. Yeah, comment in the chat where you’re calling in from.

    They just got back from Singapore, guys. Um, great little trip. Uh,

    okay.

    All righty.

    Okay, we’ve got Sandra calling in from Gainesville, Florida. K calling in from Washington DC. Ross calling in from Texas. Uh Marseilles calling in from uh North Carolina. Uh calling in from uh Towa, Australia. Nice. Well, good evening to most of you, but good morning to thanks for uh waking up early for this. Uh, well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s not that early, but probably morningish. Um, Ace, what up, man? How’s it going, Ace? How’s it going? Um, Coranne, Wisconsin. Uh, Ace, Houston, Texas. Nice. How do you like Houston, Ace? Heard good things about Houston. James, California. Denanisha from Jacksonville, Florida. Awesome. Teemo, Germany. Hey, thanks for staying up late, Teemo. appreciate you. Mississippi. Um, uh, for notetaker, Sarah, California. Awesome. I’m from California originally. Rosario, Pennsylvania. Uh, Dimmitra, Louisiana. Miles, Kansas. I’ve lived I’ve lived in Kansas for a lot of my life. Spent a lot of time in Kansas. Sean, Thailand. Hey, that’s a that’s a fun place to vacation. My uh partner and I, we go there a lot. We both love it. Uh, actually flew my whole family out there, too. Uh, very, very fun place. Christian, Houston. Um, Michelle, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Amanda, Florida. Uh, Mary, St. Louis, Missouri. Sam Disha, India. Gina, Portland, Oregon. Bradley, Florida. Awesome. Okay, guys. Um,

    next question I have is what is the number one reason that brought you here today? Okay. What is what is the reason why you’re at this live training right now? So, obviously this live training is about YouTube, right? So, it’s about, you know, growing from YouTube. But what what’s the deeper reason that that that brought you here?

    Okay. Need extra income, money. Got you, Sandra and Rachel. Got you, Sean. To make an impact with the YouTube channel. Okay. Got it. Got it. Sandra, extra extra income. Got it. Christopher, need a kick in the pants. Okay. I will be giving you a kick in the pants. I’ll be telling you all the most important things today. Uh, so definitely be giving you that. Dawn,

    adding to retirement fund.

    Uh, Brandon help helping decide a niche. Uh, Keith, I want to use YouTube to build my personal brand. Also, where did you where did you um see originally see me to like like what video was it? Was it a certain video? Uh, comment that video if you remember what it was. Okay. I want to use YouTube to build my personal brand. Got it. Seeing what makes you different than other others teaching YouTube skills. Okay. Got it. Smart man. Smart man. Okay. Notetaker. Denanisha. Uh, making money on social media. Marseilles on SSDI. Trying to start my own business. Got it. Okay. Ross Smith, expanding my skills. Sarah, get out of poverty. Got it. Rosario, side gig to start. Christopher, got ideas, need motivation. Cassandra, new to the podcast. Want to know the best way to grow. Teemo, yes, some extra money. Ace, starting. Ryan, I want to build a YouTube channel. Lynn monetized children’s channel. Sam Disha, I have idea just need good idea to implement. Awesome. Christian, I’m a computer science major and starting masters in computer science. A uh amal a IML at WGU in October. Extra income. Hey, that’s really that’s really good stuff. I I’ve recommended WGU for years. So, that’s really good stuff. Awesome. Um Mary uh Freedom Jay, figure out how to get a channel started. All right, Craig. I want uh to make an impact uh an extra income and something I can take into retirement. Got it, Craig. Penny, just curious. Uh Luis, been trying YouTube for a few years. Need a notch in the right direction. Got it. Bradley, learning how to grow a business. I’m clueless in general. Got it. Amanda, trying to achieve goals. Uh YouTube channel for aging in place. I’ll say if you’re if you’re trying to learn how to do a business, like you’re you’re starting a side hustle and you have ideas of turning it into a business in the future, YouTube is literally like a cheat code. It it makes every aspect of business easier. Um you know, obviously getting customers, right? Like like actually getting clients, getting customers, that kind of thing, it makes that easier. Like both the traffic part as well as the conversion part uh makes the sales process easier. Then when people actually go into your business, they they know, like, and trust you. So, they’re more likely to actually try your products and give it a good try and then they’re more likely to get results and they’re more likely to give you testimonials, right? So, YouTube just makes it all uh significantly easier. Learning how to grow a business. I’m clueless in general. Amanda, trying to achieve goals. YouTube channel for aging in place. Aging by choice. Got it. Step outside my comfort zone and and consider things way outside my wheelhouse. Awesome. I have things to say that I want to make an income. Want to make more and invest money. Awesome. Don’t remember YouTube. Your brother’s video. Have good ideas. Don’t remember but YouTube. Have good ideas but want to make uh make a path to make it worth it. It was the Claude video explaining your workflow. Awesome. Sandra, I first saw you on YouTube doing a side hustle video. Got it. Rachel, I don’t remember exactly, but I was looking for a side gig. Got it. Uh video of my brother. Got it. Um talking about your brother. Okay. Bradley putting top five IT salaries, five most paid jobs or something along those lines. Got it. Jay, saw you on a video about 10 jobs nobody wants to do. Okay, Pete from Sacramento. Starting a business. I used to live in Sacramento. Pete, that’s crazy. Small world. Uh, starting a business and uh business consulting. Starting a business consulting business. Okay, got you. Uh, Alfred, yeah, I used to live crazy. Okay, very random side tangent story. I used to live very close to uh Dorothy Puentes or or actually where she used to live. Not like cuz cuz she was gone by the time I lived there, but uh if you’re from Sacramento, you probably know who that is. Used to live like like across the street from her basically. Alfred to prove I can at this point. Awesome. Raymond retired. Well, look looking for a new gig. Penny top 10 jobs facing severe. Yep. Okay. Um very cool. Very cool. Okay. Awesome, guys. Um, so

    awesome. Awesome. Okay. Really, really good responses, guys. Um, a few too many for me to read all of them. But, uh, next question really quickly while I get everything ready is, uh, what is the number one thing that if you were to try uh, you were to get that thing out of tonight’s training, um, would make it all worth it for you? If you were only to just get one thing out of tonight’s training, that number one thing, the most important thing, what would that thing be? uh that would make it worth it for you.

    Okay, while you guys do that, I’m going to go ahead and get everything ready on this side.

    All righty.

    Okay. How to scale to discover my niche. Uh getting seen settings in YouTube. How to start in a simple way, Ashley says. Jay, how to set uh set up my channel efficiently. Malikica, stuck driving on my phone. Uh Daniel, how to optimize. Yeah, be careful to It’s okay. Don’t don’t be typing on your phone if you’re driving. It’s all good. It’s all good. You can just listen. You can just listen. I do recommend to get to a quieter place if you can, but Daniel, how to optimize my channel. Uh Jason, an aha moment to make everything click. Sonia, profitable niche. Nancy, is my idea really doable? Miles, get launched. Uh, Christopher, extra cash flow by getting started. Sam, how to figure out which niche makes sense for me. Got it. Ronald, get my first 20 subscribers. Clear the uh blockage to start this. Ronald, niche selection. Ray, system roadmap. Dan, YouTube guidelines and plan. Hugo, how to monetize a YouTube channel. Brandon, a clear decision on what I want to do. Shannon, YouTube video template. Coranne, discover my niche and a road map to start. Janna, where to start and how to use it to make money? Ryan, uh, hi Shane, my appointment is tomorrow. Awesome. Okay, all good. Uh, Rain, actionable knowledge. Relle, or Rachel, finding out how to get started. Michael, confidence in possible. Is it possible for normies to do? Keith, uh, learning how to validate demand. Okay, awesome. Okay, well, I’m going to answer all of these questions either directly in the training or if you still have questions on it, I will be answering them uh at the end. But with that being said, let’s go ahead and jump into it. How to grow and make money on YouTube in 2026. You should be seeing this on the screen right now uh without fancy gear, without techy stuff, without spending hours on each video, providing you use this hybrid model and follow one simple rule. So, while you’re here today, guys, go ahead and do the thumbs up thing if you’re excited about one of these things, right? Should be on the bottom right of the screen. So, go ahead and do the thumbs up thing if you’re excited about views. Okay, that’s what you’re excited about getting is views. You want to get more views.

    Okay, I’m seeing a decent amount of people. Okay, a decent amount. But how about this one? How about this one right here? making money. Do the thumbs up thing if you’re excited about making money. All right. Yeah. Lot more people than the views people. Okay. I I can tell I got a smart crowd today. Okay. Because the thing about views, guys, is it’s really not about views. You can get lots of views and not make any money, right? It’s it’s all about getting the right views. Okay? Getting the right views is what you want to do. But how about this third one? This third one might even be more important, which is having an impact. Go ahead and do the thumbs up for that one. Uh, basically creating a business that you can be proud of and help out a lot of people with, right? Okay. Excellent. I think that one’s uh has the most thumbs up out of all of them. Okay, cool. So, yeah, basically uh the great thing about this one right here, having an impact, is if you if you have an impact, right, if you create content that actually gives value, solves people’s problems, that kind of thing, the views and the money will just basically take care of itself, right? That like that’ll just take care of itself downstream. Um, and money is definitely more important than views. So, I’m going to be showing you some examples of channels that don’t get that many views and they make a ridiculous amount of money. Um, you know, I have a client, for instance, that has about a,000 subscribers and she just closed a six-figure contract, right? So, yeah. Uh, and then, you know, it’s not about getting views, it’s about getting the right views. Okay? So, but anyways, uh, you guys want to make an impact, I love to hear that. You guys are the type of people I want to work with. So, that’s awesome. Now, by the way, we’re giving away free stuff at the end of the workshop. Uh at the very end, you’ll walk away with the uh the niche validator pro. Okay? So, this is uh both the chat GPT version as well as the Claude AI version. Um we have it for both of them, depending on which you prefer to use. Um and this is the newest version yet. It’s a massive upgrade over anything we put out before. We’re constantly upgrading it, constantly making it better. And you’ll also get an opportunity for $61,494 worth of bonuses, but only for those who stay until the end offer. So, YouTube just launched a creator consultation across 27 EU countries. This is an entire continent worth of governments sitting down asking creators what they need. They’re calling the creator economy professional, innovative, and important. So, that is not a hobby. That is not a side hustle. That is an industry now. It’s an industry that even the government is getting behind. And here’s why I’m showing you this. When governments start building policy around something, that thing is here to stay, right? So, YouTube isn’t slowing down. It’s getting more serious. It’s getting more legit. Uh it’s getting more powerful to the point where even governments are like, “Hey, we got to we got to, you know, we got to get on top of this thing, right?” And there’s more money flowing in every single year. Now, most people hear crater economy and they panic. They think they need to be the next Mr. beast with millions of subscribers. They need to go viral. Uh they need to be a dancing clown for the algorithm, right? You need to be a court jester, right? Entertaining everybody. No, you don’t need fame. What you need are the right people watching your content, right? You don’t need views. You need the right views. And that’s exactly what I’m going to show you today. How to grow uh and find the right views and make money on YouTube in 2026. Okay? So now, one thing I always like to say is this is a maze. You start here at the top and you finish at the bottom. and your goal is to get to the finish as fast as you can, whatever that goal is. And most creators start with good intentions and then they fall into the maze. They end up burnt out, overthinking, stuck in analysis paralysis with zero views and zero income and then they just give up. But actually, most people don’t even start in the first place. So, if you’re watching this right now, you’re ahead of probably about 90% of people out there. Okay? So, uh you’re ahead of the majority of people for sure just by getting started. Additionally, one thing I like to say about this maze part is anything you’ve heard about YouTube outside of what I teach, uh, chances are it’s probably you entering this maze. Because most people go into the maze, they get lost, they put their hands up, and they’re like, “Mazekeeper, come and get me. I give up.” Right? And getting lost in the maze is focusing on all that stuff that does not matter. Like all the YouTube coaches that have entire channels about reviewing YouTube gear, right? When that makes like 1% of a difference in the success of your channel. And that is the maze. That is the reason why you don’t get results because you’re focusing on all these things that do not matter when in reality you could just focus on the few things that actually matter and actually get you results. But let’s just say hypothetically you go into the maze and you just navigate it perfectly. And let’s say you’re an absolute pro. Here is the fastest way that you could get uh from start to finish just like this. Okay? So you’re navigating it absolutely perfectly. You make zero mistakes. Very unlikely, but let’s just say you do that. This is the fastest way. But actually, it’s not the fastest because there is another way. It’s faster, easier, and safer. You’re basically just going around the maze. Pretty clever, right? But even this isn’t the fastest route. This is because we learned at a young age that the fastest way to go from point A to point B is a straight line. And what if I showed you a way to do just that? Skip the maze entirely and you literally just go from start to finish straight to the results. Well, that is what we’re going to be doing tonight. Okay. Now, one thing I want to uh say about this part right here, a lot of other YouTube advice out there, I don’t think they’re purposely giving you bad advice. Some of them are, if I’m being honest, but but some of them, I don’t think most of them are purposely giving you bad advice. A lot of them give good advice, but they give good advice for a gaming channel or a prank channel or something like that because there’s a bunch of different types of YouTube channels, but I’m going to be talking about the type of YouTube channel that is the easiest to get results with. And it’s the type of YouTube channel that you can pivot to anything else later on down the line. And that is why when it comes to winning on YouTube, I have the straight line for you today so that you can get there the easiest, quickest, safest, and most comfortable way possible. And specifically, you’re going to gain access to the hottest opportunity to exist in the content creation business. Now, these are the newest stats that just came out. And uh before they said that YouTube and the content creator ecosystem in general was going to be worth about $1 trillion by 2034, right? And now they’re saying that it’s going to be worth $1.6 trillion by 2034. This was actually updated 6 months later. So, in a six-month time span, the experts that their their whole job is to forecast this stuff went from it’s going to be worth $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion by 2034. So, it increased by 60% in just a 6-month time period. So, this is growing faster than even the, you know, the biggest experts in the world anticipated it it’s going to grow, right? And even two trillion by 2035. So, it’s growing at an unprecedented rate. And look at this going up and up and up while other things are going down, right? It’s harder than ever to get a job. There’s so many industries that are being disrupted by AI. Meanwhile, content creation is just going up and up and up and that is a sign. And this is one of the biggest opportunities that I want you to get access to when it comes to content creation. And I want you to do it while bypassing all the traps, the gotchas, the limitations, the barriers to entry that otherwise would lock you out, forcing you to stay on the sidelines as you watch generational wealth pass you by. Helpless to do anything about it, right? And you will definitely want to take advantage of what’s happening right now in the creator economy because you are in the perfect place and time to start. And mind you, YouTube pays out billions every year, but it’s not going to lifestyle bloggers and entertainment channels anymore. And today, you’ll be handed the key to unlock that prison cell that’s keeping you trapped and away from the YouTube growth that you’ve been wanting for a very long time. Seriously, we’ve helped online businesses, of course, but also coaches, freelancers, job seekers, stay-at-home parents, nineto-fivers, grandpas, grandmas, agency owners, service providers, digital product sellers, failed YouTubers, YouTubers getting views but struggling with monetization, successful YouTubers who are crushing it but want to crush it even harder. People that own software companies or SAS, location specific businesses, uh people doing paid ads that want to stop doing paid ads, people doing paid ads that want to make their paid marketing two times more effective by having a YouTube presence. uh even physical brick-and-mortar business owners are starting to use YouTube more and more uh to get uh clients and and and customers for their businesses, right? Um like we we’ve seen a lot of, you know, location specific businesses having a ton of success. For instance, uh realtors, uh law firms, um cosmetic dentistries, um financial adviserss, etc., etc. These types of businesses are having a ton of success. Even people with disabilities, we’ve seen them uh be able to do this. We’ll actually give an example of someone who does that later on. Right? So, this works for almost any niche in almost any situation because we designed this type of YouTube channel to be flexible, right? So that you can go in so many different directions. And the good news is you don’t need to be a YouTuber or an influencer to win on YouTube. But to get there, I’m going to be exposing the dark side of YouTube and creators who are now slaves to the platform. So, here’s an example. Uh, Boogie2988, by the way, not trying to make fun of him at all. Actually, respect him a lot for publicly revealing his income, right? He’s being transparent. But he basically has four million subscribers. And most people that see that would assume that he’s making a lot of money. At least like multiple six figures a year at the very least, right? With four million subscribers. You have to be making at least multiple six figures a year. Probably a million a year. Well, no. Unfortunately, he went on a podcast tour and he revealed he was making about $3,700 a month or $44,000 a year, which is less than the average income for an American with 4 million subscribers. and he is one of the hundreds of thousands of creators who are promised success through views, but views do not automatically equal money. Okay. Meanwhile, I work with people who get 500 views per video and they’re making $10 million a year on YouTube, right? But there are also people, you know, um I also uh I I I mentioned uh one one of the clients I work with, she she gets like a hundred views per video. She has about 1,000 subscribers and she closed a six-figure contract already. And she just got started. She was literally just starting on YouTube. She closed a six figure contract. So, she has 1,000 subscribers and she’s making more per year easily than this channel with 4 million subscribers, right? So, this is just a better business model. This is just a better way of doing YouTube in every way, shape, or form, right? Um, and there’s just a lot of people out there that are getting a lot of views, but they don’t make a lot of money because they’re doing things wrong. And seriously, I know there’s a lot of people in this crowd that are frustrated, burnt out, stuck because you were promised a gold mine and yet you found nothing. you’ve been uploading videos or you’re frustrated because you can’t even get started uploading videos because you’ve been told that you need to buy this camera first and that lens and have a great studio and an amazing set and um you know the best editing or you need to get that gear first, you need to be really good at editing and making thumbnails or any of those types of things, right? But you basically found nothing but regret. So, let’s talk about who this is for. This is for you if you’re a total beginner who wants to finally start and not burn out. By the way, go ahead and drop your profession in the chat. I’m curious what all of you do for a living. Is anybody else having issues with the audio? Farhan said, uh, the audio is going in and off. In and off. Is anyone else having issues with the audio or are we all good?

    Okay. Nope. Looks like the audio is good. Okay, cool. Um, okay. Yeah, Farhan, I think it might be on your side. Okay. Uh

    okay.

    Okay. So, teacher, retail, IT support, marketing administrator, accounting clerk, uh realtor, uh educator. Amanda says education. Ray programmer. Rosario. It’s stuttering. Interesting. I think. Okay, most people are saying the audio is fine. James, audio is fine. Travis, IT system analyst. Carrie, audio is good. Ed, MRI tech. Zibbing, no. Ian, senior creative artworker. Albert, uh, cyber security. Gino, actor and server at a restaurant. Uh, Sean, nope. Ivet, nope, you are good. Uh, Julie, retired. Ma, audio is perfect. Bruce, nope, all good. Owen, audio is good. Uh, Dimmitra, botonist. Matthew, nope, it’s good. Jason, technical marketing and sales. SRowan laid off Oracle. Lonnie, audio is fine. Audio is fine. Okay, awesome. Hospice admissions RN for over 20 years from Nancy. Uh, Tammy healthcare. Jacob S. Good. Uh, Ross, real estate agent. Brandon, no. Audio is good. Audio is fine. Uh, audio is good. Uh, Ryan says Milright. Uh, Da says scientists. Uh, Edgar, all good. Currently caregiver for my senior uh, parents. Chris, got it. Uh, fix the audio problem. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Um, okay. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. So, the reason I asked you guys this is because, uh, this works really well for a beginner, right? This, uh, this is for you if you’re a total beginner who wants to finally start, not burn out, or if you’ve already started, uh, you want to actually do it the right way, right? And here’s an example, right? And I’m so confident in this system that I literally used it on my brother who’s in his 50s and who isn’t techsavvy, never made a video in his life. Um, and yeah, he’s he’s in his 50s. He’s not extra charismatic or anything like that. Now, first of all, for context, I use this system to start a new channel every single year. And the reason I do that um uh

    is because I want to make sure that I’m updated on what the algorithm is like for a new channel. Okay. So, uh, last year I decided I’m going to make a channel for my brother instead, right? And the reason I did that is because he basically came to me and he said, “Shane, I’m 50 years old. Uh, I’m, you know, my body is starting to wear out. I’ve been working in the trades for a long time. I need to figure out how to make money without wearing out my body.” Okay? And, uh, he’s in the trades, right? He’s he’s worked in the trades for about 30 years now. He owns his own business. He he owns his own HVAC business in the trades, but it’s a small business, right? So, he thought I was going to recommend a remote job or some type of certification. And I was like, “No, you should just start a YouTube channel.” And he was really surprised. He’s like, “Well, I’m not techsavvy. I’m not good on camera. I’ve never even made a video in my life. I’m in my 50s. No one wants to listen to a 50-year-old.” All these excuses started popping up in his head for why he couldn’t do it. And I just told him, “Just trust me, bro. Just do it. Just do what I tell you. Use our system. It’s going to work for you.” And the very first video that he posted blew up and got 800,000 views. And less than one month later, 29 days later to be exact, he made $214 in a single day. So that’s a $78,000 a year run rate. So yeah, it works for beginners even with no tech experience. And by the way, update on Zach. Uh last time we checked, he made about $520 in a single day. That’s $189,000 year run rate. Um, so yeah, he he basically went from zero to full-time income in 30 days, right? So, plus he’s getting a lot of money from affiliate marketing and stuff like that. So, he’s not just making money from AdSense. And that’s one thing we’re going to talk about. AdSense is not the only monetization method on YouTube. There are lots of other ways where you can make a lot of more uh make more money, right? Sometimes you can make a hundred times more than what you make from AdSense if you make the right type of YouTube channel. So, this is also for and by the way, I just want to just stop here for a moment so you can appreciate this. Um, I literally took a random 50-year-old in my family. I’m so confident in my system. I’m so confident in this particular way of doing YouTube. Right? This is not in any way of doing YouTube. It’s a very specific way of doing YouTube. Uh, and I’m so confident in this very specific way um that I literally took a random 50-year-old in my family and I blew up his channel and made him a full-time income in one month. And this wasn’t somebody who’s like, you know, really techsavvy, really good on camera. I mean, if you watch his first video, you’ll see exactly what I mean, right? So, his first video here, like, if you watch this video, you’ll see exactly what I mean, okay? Like, he is he is not very good on cameras. Like, it’s uh pretty uh monotone, right? In this video, May 26, and then literally 29 days later, June 25th, $214 day, right? So, I just want I just want to put that in perspective just in case you didn’t really like fully catch that how how ridiculous that is. Okay. So, no other YouTube coach is going to be that confident in their system, right? Absolutely not. Like, maybe they’d be able to do it in 6 months or a year, something like that. Nobody’s going to be able to make a full-time income in less than a month for some random person in their family. Like, and that’s why you’ve never seen this before. It’s because they can’t do it. Okay? So, I’m just just to put that in perspective. I’m not trying to like toot my horn or anything. I just want to show you that this opportunity like this particular way of doing YouTube is absolutely like it it’s just it gets results. Okay? And that’s why we’ve been able to get the results that we have. So you’ll you’ll see a bunch of the other ones that uh we’ve been able to do later on here. Uh but here here’s a bunch of other ones. All right. So this is also for you if you’re a faceless creator. You want to use YouTube automation. So this is the hybrid personal brand method. So we do recommend showing your face. However, there’s one way of doing this while staying a faceless creator. This is kind of how you do it right here. So, here’s an example. Uh Whiz was one of our clients. When Whiz first started his YouTube channel, it was a totally faceless channel and he actually scaled his business to seven figures a year just being faceless, right? So, this is what his uh channel looked like right here. So, it was totally faceless. You can see that he has a cartoon character that represents him. And it’s important that you do that because the other person on the other side needs to feel like it’s still a human being on the other side. It’s not AI slop. It’s not some random faceless AI company, okay? They need to feel like there’s another human being on the other side. That is very, very important. That’s key to to making the faceless thing work. That’s part of the hybrid personal brand method, right? So, he’s uh um basically he started with a totally faceless channel. He actually scaled his business to seven figures a year just being faceless. Uh he had an agency and then he did a face reveal and now he’s making multiple seven figures a year. So, eventually he did do a face reveal. This is what he looks like now. and he is making full uh multiple seven figures a year, right? But the point is he said that almost all of his clients watched his YouTube channel and either directly or indirectly got almost all of his clients from YouTube. Now they might have originated from other sources, but then they watched his YouTube channel and that’s what helped the prospects make the decision to buy from him, right? So he runs an agency and he did make the decision to reveal his face later on, but he built his faceless channel uh channel in a very specific way where you can do that, right? You have the option to do that, right? which is what the hybrid personal brand method is all about is giving you more options in the future because again he used the hybrid personal brand method which means you you just have a lot of options you’re and you can evolve your channel can evolve as you evolve as the market evolves etc. And it’s very important that you do this the right way. It’s actually even more important you do this the right way if you’re going to do a faceless channel. Right? If you don’t do it the right way, you’re probably not going to make any money in the first place. Even if you do make money, you’re probably going to get banned. Uh, and even if you do make money and you’re not able to get banned, you’re probably going to have a ceiling in terms of how much money you can make, right? So, you’re also not going to have options in the future as well. Okay? So, there’s a very specific way of doing faceless channels. If you do it the wrong way, YouTube is probably going to either demonetize you or ban you. Um, you’re not going to have options in the future. YouTube does not want AI slop on their platform. If you make AI slop, uh, you are going to get banned. It’s just a matter of time, right? Um, this is also for you if you’re a business owner, freelancer, or a coach who wants inbound clients without paid ads. So, an example of that would be Davis. Uh, Davis’s sales went up by 400%. And after working with me, he’s making $100,000 a month. Now, basically, uh, Davis owned a portfolio of companies, right? So, he’s a CEO and he was spending 20 hours a week on just one of his companies. So, just one YouTube channel and one company and that is obviously not sustainable. But eventually he outsourced everything on his channel to the point where he’s not even recording his videos anymore, right? And he has other people recording the videos. And now he spends zero hours a week. Even though he has multiple channels and for multiple different companies, he’s spending zero hours a week on the channel. So if you’re a business owner, you’re super busy, you have a portfolio, uh you can actually have other people record the videos for you and you can have a system that just takes care of everything. And we help people with that as well. This is also for you if you want to network so that you can land high-paying jobs, find career opportunities, or become an authority in your niche by standing out with your YouTube channel. So, here’s a really good example of networking. So, Josh basically just started making really useful videos uh on his channel for people in the IT and cyber security industry. He talked about how to get better jobs, which certifications are good to take, uh what skills to learn that are valuable in the job market, etc., etc. and he was able to go from making less than $1,000 a month with his channel to actually getting offers from Fortune50 companies, including companies that are a part of fang, so Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. And these are some of the biggest and most prestigious companies in the world, where it’s literally harder to get into a fang company than it is to get into Harvard or Yale. And usually, you have to apply to these jobs, but the companies were reaching out to him. So, he got an offer from several different fang companies, and he ended up going with one of them for his dream job where he got to travel the world. He lived in Japan and he was working a remote job making multiple six figures a year. But then the YouTube channel just kept going. 5,000 a month, 10,000 a month. So now it’s not just a side hustle anymore. He’s making a full-time income from it, right? It’s a full-time business. Then 30,000 a month. Now he’s making more from his YouTube channel than he is from his dream job, which was already super high paying that he actually got with his YouTube channel. And then eventually he scaled his business all the way up to 186,000 in a single month using my strategies. And of course he quit his dream job because it just didn’t make sense for him at that point. And I like his example because it goes over every single stage, right? Just getting started as a beginner, using it to become an authority in his niche for networking to get his dream job, starting a side hustle, making a little bit of money on the side, starting a full-time business, making 10 to 30k per month, and then scaling his business to multiple seven figures a year. But you might be thinking, “But Shane, if it’s easy, then why do most people fail?” Well, it’s because they believe in these myths. One, you need to be an influencer. Two, you have to show your face and have a fancy camera and you have to be super charismatic and you have to have an amazing set and uh have the best lenses and the best lighting and, you know, etc., the best editing, etc., etc., right? Number three, it takes 40 hours to create one video. And number four, you have to endure the process because it takes a long time to succeed on YouTube. Right? Uh these are some of the biggest myths that people believe in that cause them to fail. Right? Now, the last one specifically, the reason that most people think it takes a long time to succeed on YouTube is because they think they need a big channel that has lots of subscribers and lots of views to make money. So, if you choose the right niche, you do not need a big channel. Just as an example, when I started my second channel, Shane Homus, the content growth engine, we actually made over $30,000 in the first month starting the channel. And a lot of that money was made before we even got to 1,000 subscribers as well. And these are the myths that people believe in that stopped them from having success on uh YouTube. But in reality, one of the biggest reasons that you failed is because before today, you lacked the leverage to invade this soontobe trillion dollar opportunity. And I’m going to help you mine this opportunity so that we can grow rich together fast. First though, who am I? My name is Shane. I’m an ex-farmarmacist. I have a 1.5 million subscriber YouTube channel. You can see it down here. Um, I’ve helped over 20 businesses get to 100K per month uh on YouTube from scratch. I’ve helped another countless amount of businesses, like well over 50 at this point that were already profitable. I helped them scale. Um, I’m also industry recognized as an expert on growing and making money uh from YouTube for businesses specifically. I’ve helped countless amount of people, well over a hundred at this point, get to a full-time income from YouTube. Uh so here’s a company that I worked with just as an example on the business side course careers. Um so basically uh they liked working with me so much that I actually got equity in the company because I gave that much value to the company and we were able to help them over 30x the amount of money that they made. Right? With that being said, this is a startup and I usually like to work with individuals and one reasons I like uh one reason I like to work with uh individuals is because you guys remind me of myself. So let me go ahead and get into my story very quickly. This is me working as a pharmacist for 15 hour shifts. Uh but before I became a pharmacist, I came from a very poor background. I lived in section 8 housing. I lived in trailer parks. I was even homeless at one point. Um and I, you know, I was actually living in this exact Salvation Army in Lawrence, Kansas. This exact place right here, uh for about 6 months. And then before that, we we even spent some nights out outside, literally sleeping outside. And because of all that, I did what society told me to do. I went to college. I got a doctorate, so I went to the highest level of college. Uh, and I became a pharmacist, right? And I also had to take out a lot of money in student loan debt. I went over $300,000 in student loan debt to do this. And the thing is, when I was poor, I had a lot of time, but I didn’t have any money. So, I couldn’t really do anything besides play video games or watch movies or whatever, right? But when I became middle class working as a pharmacist, I didn’t have both time or money because I was spending all of my time working and all of my money paying down my student loan debt. So, it’s kind of like an out of the frying pan and into the fryer type moment. So, it was basically a very terrible situation because I started as a pharmacist right before the pandemic hit. And just to emphasize how bad this was, we got robbed three times in a six-month period. Here’s a video of one of them. Um, but yeah, three times in a six-month period. So overall, uh I can’t describe how stressed out, how depressed, how anxious, how burnt out I was in this situation. And then on top of all of it, I was in fear of my physical safety on top of all the other things, right? And like many people out there, I started wondering, wait a minute, is the stuff that society told me to do actually a good idea? Uh maybe I made a mistake. And because of that, I tried just about every side hustle out there to make money, right? Shopify, Amazon FBA, SMMA, coaching, consulting, courses, digital products, real estate, white labeling, SEO, flipping websites, flipping physical products. Uh, here’s one of them that I tried. Uh, it’s called the booty kit. It’s basically an at home workout thing so that you can work out your booty. And I pretty much failed at almost all of them, right? I couldn’t make any of these sustainable, right? This booty kit thing, for instance, I tried selling it on Shopify and Amazon FBA. And, you know, I had a few sales here and there, but I couldn’t make any of it sustainable. And a lot of it has to do with me having ADHD and just always trying a bunch of different things. Um, you know, and shiny object syndrome as well. But as you can see, my bank account was constantly very close to $0. But YouTube was different than all of these other side hustles. See, all the side hustles I tried, they they actually work, but they only work if you have traffic, aka views. And they work especially well if you have the right views, right? But if you don’t have views, it’s kind of like trying to sell something without having a store, right? It’s almost impossible to sell. And so I realized one that I really enjoyed YouTube, but two, I realized that I could make any of these other business models work if I just focused on YouTube and getting views, right? And that would work really well for my personality as well. Because the truth is, I like kind of launching different products and doing different things. And if I had a YouTube channel, that would be like a cheat code for anything that I wanted to do in the future. And because of that, I gave YouTube another shot. And at the time I was, you know, I I was living in a house of seven guys, right? Trying to save money. It was also supposed to be an entrepreneur house as well. And one of the guys I met, his name was Sam. And he started this YouTube channel where he was making about $10 to $20,000 a month from his 10,000 subscriber YouTube channel and his wedding photography business. And he was doing wedding photography in Las Vegas and on the West Coast. And you know, before I’d spent some time in LA. I’d met some influencers, some big YouTubers who had a lot of followers, a lot of subscribers, but they didn’t have any money. They were actually broke, right? So, I was like, “Sam, how are you making so much money from YouTube even though you have a small channel, less than 10,000 subscribers?” And he showed me what a proper monetization method looks like, right? And he showed me how I can monetize a channel without having that many views. And he initially taught me how to make money from a small channel, like 10 or 20,000 subscribers. But I took it to the next level to the point where there are some channels we work with that only have a few thousand subscribers and they’re making seven figures a year because there are some niches out there where you’re talking to an affluent audience and you can get a couple hundred views and make $10,000 from a single video. So this is where I found the secret formula of YouTube success where everyone else was not talking about it, right? Treating YouTube like a business. And so basically I started posting videos. And to put this in perspective, I have gotten lots of views, 6 million, 1.2 2 million, 1.7 million, 4.3 million views. So, I know how to play the views game. I know how to get views on my channel, right? If that’s what worked, I would be doing more of that. But that’s not what works. Let me give you an example. This video right here, the most useless degrees. I posted this one about 6 years ago. It got about $31,000 in its entire lifetime, right? It made about $31,000, right? This video right here, I posted around 6 months ago. Top 10 richest YouTubers in the world. new number one revealed. This video in 6 months made over $48,000, right? And it’s a heck of a lot easier for me to reproduce this video right here and get 8,000 views. 8,000 views is not that hard to get versus getting 4.3 million views. 4.3 million views is very difficult to get, right? It’s way easier for me to reproduce this video than this video. And this video makes way more money. So, of course, that’s what I do. I make videos that get less views but make way more money. Okay. So, that is the smart thing to do. Now, uh just to show you guys proof, here’s how much I made about um 3 years ago. So, this was uh you know, two and a half years ago or so. So, three Septeers ago, uh I made about $288,000. This is literally the money that went into my bank account. Okay? You can you can literally see this is a screenshot of my bank account, right? So, this isn’t some weird revenue trick, right? It’s the money that went into my bank account. Then the year after that, that’s September, I made about 325,000, right? So, it’s going up. And then one September later, the year after that, I made about $1 million uh in revenue, right? So, it just kept going up and up and up. And I’m not trying to say this to make people jealous. I’m just showing you the receipts so that you know that I know what I’m talking about because there’s a lot of YouTube coaches out there that are just coaches, coaching coaches. They’ve never actually started a successful channel themselves. Um, they’re basically cosplaying as successful YouTubers. So, I basically have two different successful businesses that I’ve started on YouTube. One of them was helping people get their their dream remote jobs. And uh we we helped literally over a thousand verified testimonials between my business partners and I over a thousand verified testimonials of people getting their dream jobs. And we helped thousands of other people. They just didn’t give testimonials, right? So I’m very proud of that. I’m very happy with that. But I got that business to multiple seven figures a year uh in the mid seven figures, right? And then a only after I I’d grown a successful business from YouTube did I then start teaching other people how to do YouTube, which is actually very uncommon with a lot of the YouTube coaches. A lot of the YouTube coaches, for some reason, they say it’s it’s uh uh if you can’t do then teach, right? A lot of the YouTube coaches, for some reason, if you actually look at their background, they literally just started on like teaching people how to do YouTube. Like that was their first channel, right? So, I actually started teaching I actually had a lot of success on YouTube before I ever taught anybody else how to do YouTube, right? And this is why I’m able to have other people get such incredible results, right? And the craziest thing is I did all of this while being able to travel the world and only having to work about 4 hours a week as well. So, here’s a picture of me in Tokyo, just as an example, the famous crossing square. Uh here’s a picture of me in Singapore. And here’s a picture of me in um the San Juan Islands orca watching just off of Vancouver, British Columbia. Okay. Now, I choose to work more than 4 hours a week because I genuinely enjoy YouTube and I enjoy helping people with YouTube. So, I do choose to work more than that. But I only have to work 4 hours a week. That’s that’s the that’s the point. That’s the big point. There’s a big difference between choosing to and having to work 4 hours a week. And in many cases, I’ve actually gone as much as 2 months at a time without working at all. There there’s been lots of times where I’ve gone a month without working or several weeks without working or even up to two months at one point without working, right? Spending literally zero hours on my business. So, I have an online business where I don’t have to have any in-person employees or anything like that. I can travel the world. I can do whatever I want and my business just keeps going up and up and up. But something kept bothering me because I got the life that I dreamed of. But once in a while, I would create a video and post it on YouTube just telling people what I was doing because I was seeing YouTube advice online and I would watch it and I’d be like, “Yeah, I don’t really think this worked for most people. Maybe it worked for a gaming channel or a prank channel, but it wouldn’t work for most channels.” Right? And so I decided, you know, hey, once every 6 months, once every year, I would post a video about what I was doing on YouTube that was working for me. And every time I do that, I would get comments, emails, DMs. Everybody would reach out to me being like, hey, can you coach me? Can you help me grow my YouTube channel? and I turned them all down because I was too busy or I just didn’t really want to do coaching, right? Or I thought maybe it works for my niche but it doesn’t work for other people’s niches, right? So, I turned them down but I felt bad about it and I shrugged it off for years until one day I decided, you know what, I’m going to do it. So, um and the thing that made me decide to do it was a good friend of mine uh who was struggling with YouTube actually reached out to me and and was like, “Hey, I’m I’m financially struggling. can you please help me with YouTube? And I was like, you know what? If I’m going to help this friend, I might as well just help all the people at once. And so I basically did a cohort of people, right? And I reached out to a bunch of those people who had reached out to me. And uh I worked with it was a very diverse set of people, right? So there’s a professional truck driver for 28 years, a fresh graduate engineering student, a current engineering student, an Amazon FBA business owner, a coach, a freelancer, a failed YouTuber, a successful YouTuber who was crushing it but wanted to crush it harder. um a content creator for 11 years who wanted to shift over to YouTube, a tech salesperson, a girl in cyber security, a coach, an agency owner, an online service provider, a fitness dude, a finance guy, a physical business owner, etc., etc., just on and on. The point is they were all different. Some had YouTube experience, others had zero knowledge of how YouTube works. And then we applied the exact same format that I found to be working on my YouTube channel. So, the same YouTube format, same proven way of making thumbnails, titles, and intros, same strategy for coming up with winning video ideas, and of course, a little bit of tweaking because every single niche is a little bit different. And you know, there are a lot of underlying principles, but they all do need a little bit of tweaking. And the crazy thing is, every single one of them blew up. And the best part is they all got their version of rich by helping people live better lives. And that’s the thing that made me so happy. And that’s the thing that really made me realize like this is my life purpose. Like that’s the first time in my life, you know, I I I’ve enjoyed a lot of the other things that I did. You know, I enjoyed the aspects of pharmacy where I got to help out my patients. I enjoyed helping people get remote jobs, but this was the first time in my life where I was like, “Okay, this I can do this literally for the rest of my life. I can do this for the rest of my career.” Like 100%. Like this is my purpose, right? because I can only have so much impact with my channel, but I got to help other people have impact with their channels. And so I was basically spreading my impact to so many other people. And then they were able to impact hundreds of millions with their YouTube channels, right? And that’s what made me feel so happy, right? And they all got their version of rich by helping other people live better lives. And the reason for that is because I taught them how to make a very specific type of content, which is educational niche content. And the channels that are winning today are educational niche channels. In fact, educational channels make 10 to 20 times more money. And there are more opportunities for every 1,000 views than any other type of content. In fact, the first month that we launched my second channel, uh they were able to make uh we were able to make about $1,736 per 1,000 views. So, it got about $24,000 views in the first month right off the bat and made me about $42,000. So, it’s about $1,736 per 1,000 views. So to put that in perspective, uh, entertainment channels generally speaking, they make about $1 to $3 per 1,000 views. So if I would have gotten those exact same amount of views and I launched kind of like a Mr. Beast style entertainment channel, I would have made about $24 to $73, you know? So that’s definitely not worth the time and effort, right? Um, but education channels are way better, right? They make about 10 times more money, you know, about $20 per 1,000 views. So, at $20 per 1,000 views, uh, you know, that same 24,000, I would have made about $484. So, definitely better, but still, uh, you know, it’s not a full-time income, right? Then you have niche authority channels or what I like to call niche educational channels, which is my way of doing YouTube. Um, in this particular way of doing YouTube, we got 24,000 views and we ended up making $42,000, which is over $1,736 per 1,000 views. Our goal with this channel was actually just to make $10,000 in the first month and we exceeded our goal uh by over 4.2x. Right? So we we blew past our goal with this channel. And now you can, by the way, you can do mass market education channels and you can properly monetize your content. You can still make a heck of a lot more money um than, you know, $20 per 1,000 views. For instance, this channel right here makes $400 plus dollars per 1,000 views on average. Uh sometimes we even make like 800 plus uh per month on a good month. Um but yeah, it’s typically ranges from about $400 to $800 per 1,000 views on average with this channel. Now, this is more of a mass market channel. I talk about a lot of things on this channel. I think I do a lot of that on purpose to be honest with you. Um I just again I have that shiny object syndrome and sometimes I just want to talk about a subject so I do it right. I talk about what I want to talk about. It’s probably not the best thing for business, but um you know, I’d probably make more money if I just stuck to one topic and only talked about that one topic, right? But with that being said, even with a channel like this where I kind of talk about whatever I want, I’m still making $400 per 1,000 views. But the point is, I started off very niche with this channel, okay? And that is what I recommend that you do as well. You can make way more money if you do niche educational content. It’s way easier to make money if you do niche educational content, right? Starting off niche is the way to go. And that’s what I recommend people start off with, right? Just talking about a very niche subject and doing that first. And I’m going to get into that here in a moment, exactly how to do that, right? Because you don’t always have to stay with a niche subject if you set your channel up with the hybrid personal brand method, which is something that we’ll talk about here in a moment. So, let me give you some examples of niche educational content. So, this is the organic chemistry tutor. He makes about 36 to $100,000 a month on his channel according to view stats. And that is just from AdSense alone. Okay. So, uh if he’s properly monetizing, he’s easily making far more than that. So, let’s just do the $10 to $20 per 1,000 views. Be very conservative here. 10 to $20,000. $10 to $20 per 1,000 views, right? He’s probably making about $136 to uh $250,000 a month from this channel. Okay? If you do that, $10 would be 136,000 and $20 would be 273,000 uh uh per month, right, from this channel. And uh the craziest thing and the the craziest thing is the most interesting thing is look at this right here. He hasn’t posted in 62 days. He has not posted a video in 62 days that he’s making that m that amount of money passively. And that’s a conservative estimate. And that is because he’s been uploading these videos for a long time. And each video is like a little soldier that just goes out and makes him money forever, right? And he he started niche and he stayed niche the whole time, right? And these videos are dead simple, by the way. I mean, the audio is even bad in these videos. I’m not going to lie. They’re very simple videos. The audio is really bad. All he’s doing is just teaching people stuff that he already knew, right? And here’s another one. Scotty Kilmer. He’s in his 70s and he’s making content helping people save money on their cars. Now, one of the great things about him, he is quite entertaining, right? So, when I say make educational content, I’m not saying by any means that you cannot be entertaining. You can definitely be entertaining. Scotty Kilmer is hilarious if you ever watched him, right? But he basically he basically made $24 million from YouTube. And he even said in an interview that he made more money in one month on YouTube than he saved in 40 years as a mechanic, right? And basically what he does is he just helps people pick the right cars, maintain their cars, fix their cars, and he helps them with different car related products, right? That is his whole channel. And basically this stuff is dead simple for him. And that’s one thing I want to point out with the organic chemistry tutor as well. This stuff is dead simple for him, too. He’s just talking about stuff that he was already tutoring people on, and he just did the same exact thing, but he recorded it with a camera and he posted it online, right? Because there is billions of dollars in the boring, right? There is billions of dollars to be made just doing like helping people with boring problems like stuff that you know where they’re where they’re struggling with their car or they’re struggling with how to do chemistry or something like that. There’s billions of dollars to be made in the boring. Here’s another example. This is the craziest story. Physics walla he came from a small village in India and his first videos uh were in his parents’ basement and you can see how bad they are. It’s like blurred face, you know, etc. etc. But it didn’t matter. He started making videos about these standardized tests in India. And the standardized tests are incredibly important for your future. It’s kind of like the ACT and the SAT in the US. And he just made videos about these certifications and these standardized tests. And at first he was just talking about physics, right? And then he expanded to other stuff. So let’s just put this in perspective how specific this is. Physics India standardized tests only. Very specific how he was tutoring people. And he started making these videos. He kept going and then he launched a company that’s now worth 5.2 2 billion called Physics Hala. Now, it’s an educational app and it’s now worth 5.2 billion. And it all started in his parents’ basement just making physics videos. And he is probably richer than Mr. Beast. And that is the power of educational content because you’re solving people’s problems. So now I’m going to hand you the formula for how to do all of this, right? And there is a secret formula. These are the most important things. So if I don’t talk about it, it’s because it’s not important. So, first thing is you need a niche hypothesis statement. Now, generally speaking, there are three niches out there that are the most profitable niches, and that is health, wealth, and relationships. With that being said, there’s a lot of other niches outside of that, and you can make money in all of those niches as well. But generally speaking, if you’re confused about what niche to go into, you should be going into health, wealth, or relationships. And the reason for that is because almost everybody in the entire world has a problem in one or more of those three areas. And then you need to go ahead and make what’s known as a niche hypothesis statement. So what you want to do is you want to pick a niche, right? And by the way, while we’re doing this, go ahead and comment what you think your niche is in the in the comment section. I’ll I’ll scroll down here and uh read it. Okay? So comment what you think your niche is while I’m going through this. And uh I know a lot of I’m actually doing this to illustrate something as well. So comment what your niche is. Now, I know a lot of you are probably going to end up saying one or two word answers when you comment your niche, and I don’t blame you for that, right? So, AI learning, um, let’s see, health, disability services, uh, from Marcy publishing. Uh, Daniel says, uh, it’s moving so fast, guys. Let me let me see if I can slow this thing down. Uh, Daniel says, “Beginner for investments.” Shannon, uh, simplify and standardize estate planning for the masses. Uh, Sarah, food storage. Lynn Homesteading, by the way. I love that uh uh that niche, Shannon. I love that niche. That’s such a good niche. Um Lynn Homesteading Sam uh because I’m in another part of the world. There’s other parts of the world, believe it or not. Lonnie, health, wealth, working with docs, wealth, communication, driving out of debt, gig economy, parenting children with special needs. Anthony, diesel technician. Uh Monique, survive from trauma. Albert security or Mexican soccer. Uh, talks relationship. Shalana goal success. Lonnie woodworking. Can AI beat Vegas? Kidney transplant. Customer service. Assisting 60 plus van travels. Okay, perfect. So, I know a lot of you are probably going to end up saying one or two or three-word answers when you comment your niche, which is what exactly what happened. And I don’t blame you for that, but that is incorrect. And let me show you why. The niche hypothesis statement goes like this. You select a market, a specific market of people, and then you solve a specific problem for that market, right? Because they might have 1 2 3. They might have 30 problems or 300 problems or 3,000 problems, but you’re not going to solve all 3,000 problems for that market. You’re going to select one problem and you’re going to try to select a problem that’s one of their more painful or or annoying problems or one of their bigger ones, right? And then you’re just going to solve that one problem for them. Okay? So, I’m going to give you some examples of this. U, you must pick a specific problem that the that the uh market has because they might have a lot of different problems, but you find a you pick a specific problem and then you find a specific solution for that problem. So, it’s going to look like this. I help X do Y by Z or I help X overcome Y by doing Z. Right? Now, for the purposes of this training, we are going to skip out on the Z. Uh the niche validator we’re going to be giving you guys here in a bit will help you with the Z part. But the solution doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that there is a market of people and they all have the same problem and you are going to help them solve that problem. The solution to the problem doesn’t matter nearly as much. You can figure out the solution. It’s actually you know you can usually figure it out very quickly if you put your mind to it, right? But the solution doesn’t matter as much as the other one. So it what we’re going to focus on is the I help X do Y and I help X overcome Y. Okay. So, uh the important part is you establish that there’s a market of people and they have a problem that isn’t being solved very well and you help them solve that problem. That is the foundation of how markets work and markets are all about solving problems efficiently. And if you want to give value and receive money by giving that value, then you really just want to focus on solving as many problems for people as possible, which is what YouTube allows you to do. So, let me give you a few examples of how to do this. Now, I’m going to use the accounting market specifically because for some reason I’ve worked with so many accountants. So, I’m going to use the accounting market, right? So, I’m going to show you a bunch of different levels, right? And all these people, by the way, are either people that are my clients, I’ve worked with them, or they’re business owners that I’ve met that are crushing it on YouTube. So, at the very first level is just teaching students basic accounting concepts. So, that’s more of a mass market channel, but it’s teaching people basic accounting concepts. So, it’s kind of like the organic chemistry tutor, but for accounting. And this person is making really good money, right? Probably pretty close to seven figures a year. and they’ve been doing it for a long time and they’re making really good money and people who are in this market would be interested in a video like what is a P&L. Now the second level which is accounting specifically for existing accounting students or someone who just graduated with an accounting degree. So they got an accounting degree and they are trying to pass standardized tests or pass certifications. So that would be like physics walla but for accounting right because he was helping people pass standardized tests and certifications in India. uh so physics walla but for accounting and in the US typically right so that’s the second one and I know for a fact that this niche is making multiple seven figures a year right and people in this market would be interested in a video like how to become a CPA or what are the best certifications for accountants who just graduated or something like that right okay third level helping people land their first ever entrylevel accounting job so that’s another business owner that I know uh they’re making multiple seven figures a year uh so who’s in the market there right people who just graduated with an accounting degree degree and they’re trying to get their first ever entry- levelvel uh job. That is the market. So, that’s different than all of these other ones, right? It’s totally different content than all these other ones. People who are trying to refresh their knowledge in accounting do not want to get an accounting job, right? Totally different content. Um, and people in this market would be interested in a video like how to land a bookkeeping job or what are the most important skills for uh a new accountant to learn, what are the most in- demand skills right now for new accountants, right? Something like that. Fourth level, the people who are already accountants and they’re making $50 to $100,000 per year and they want to become what’s known as a financial controller. So, this is one of my clients as well. He helps people who already are accountants making 50 to 100,000 per year become financial controllers who can make 200 or even $300,000 a year. So, totally different types of content when you’re targeting that audience, right? And people who are in this market would be interested in a video like how to become a financial controller. Okay? And then finally, the fifth level. And by the way, I’m just going to say this. We’re just going over five for the sake of purpose of time here, but I could go over 50. I could probably go over 500 different niches just inside of accounting alone, right? Subniches. Okay, so uh but let’s let’s go over this this fifth one first, right? This is basically helping businesses hire accountants. So hiring and placing accountants in businesses. So in that particular case, it’s accounting businesses or big businesses that need accountants and they’re actually trying to hire or place really good accountants in their businesses. So even though you’re talking about accounting topics, it’s still a completely different audience and the type of content you’re going to make is going to be completely different for all of these different ones. So I hope you understand why it’s so important to have a niche hypothesis statement even though it’s the same niche, right? It’s all accounting. Because if I would have asked you if you’re in one of those niches, hey, what’s your niche? You probably say, “Oh, it’s accounting.” Right? Just like all these people, for instance, that commented their niche and they probably said something relatively short like plants education or marriage relationship or teaching, etc. And that’s why you need to have a niche hypothesis statement. If you don’t know your niche hypothesis statement, you have lost from the beginning, right? It’s so important to have a proper niche hypothesis statement. Now, did you find that valuable? Give a thumbs up if you thought it was valuable and if you want the niche validator GPT that we’re going to be giving out in a short while because that is going to help you dial in your niche hypothesis statement. The iHelp X and the IHEL X do uh Y by Z, right? So I help X do Y and also I help it’ll help you dial in the Z too, right? And by the way, people are Okay, awesome. Good stuff, guys. And by the way, people who are in this market would be interested in the video like how to hire the best accountants, right? Okay, so now I’m going to be handing you the blue pill to make you invincible as a creator because once you have your niche down, you’re already way better than most people. But you need more than that. Uh, you need to have what’s known as a hybrid personal brand because you probably know what personal branding is. But when you mix personal branding with the correct niche and our YouTube automation AI system and our, you know, all all of the AIs that we help people with, you have what’s known as a hybrid personal brand, right? So, one thing you need to understand is I just told you that you have to have a niche hypothesis statement, but I’m going to say something that’s probably going to confuse you a little bit, and that is you are the niche, right? So many people get this wrong. They think their niche is what makes them successful as an educational channel content creator. And when you have a hybrid personal brand, you are the niche, right? Uh so yes, you are going to start extremely niche with the IHELX doy niche hypothesis statement. But once you get traction will when you build your channel in the correct way where when you’re building a hybrid personal brand, you can then easily pivot to something else. You can either expand your niche. In some cases, people actually niche down even further or you can even pivot to a different niche. You can literally just pivot to adjacent niches, right? Okay. So you can easily pivot to something else. So let me give you an example of that. Alexi when he first started posting on YouTube about four years ago his niche hypothesis statement was I help gyms do marketing and sales and now he can talk about anything now obviously he’s really well known for his business stuff with all the different uh types of businesses right but now he can talk about his unconventional diet this is why you’re not happy he talks about his book launches he talks about how to stop wasting time and yeah I mean now he can talk about anything that he wants but the point is he started niche and if tried to do that from the beginning, he probably would have he wouldn’t have had nearly as much success as he has right now. But he started off being the king of a puddle. Then he became the king of a small pond. Then he became the king of a lake and then a river and then the sea and then the ocean, right? But you got to start small. You have to start niche. But don’t make your channel in such a way where you can’t expand it. And that’s how we teach people to do it with the hybrid personal brand method. Because when you create a hybrid personal brand, there’s so many different ways that you can monetize your channel. There’s so many different directions that you can go both in terms of the content uh and the topics as well as how you make money uh with your channel as well. AdSense, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, job opportunities, networking, memberships, SAS, becoming an authority in your niche, high ticket offers, you can launch a book from your channel. Alexi basically opened up like an investment fund, right? He has a portfolio of companies. It’s called a family office that he invests in and he gets his deal flow from YouTube, right? This is one of the rarest business models in the world and he’s doing it from YouTube. So he’s making money from eight and nine figure business owners and making millions from each one. So literally any type of business that that you uh want to launch, you can use YouTube to get traffic for that business. So all the way down to doing a SAS that costs a few dollars a month or you can do memberships, you can do courses, digital products, so many other things, even physical products. The point is all of these different business models work when you have a hybrid personal brand traffic and you have distribution people that actually know, like, and trust you in your channel because you built it with the hybrid personal brand method and you’ve helped them solve a bunch of their problems, right? So they see you as an authority and not only that, you can even sell the brand or step down as the face of the brand in some cases.

    So let me give you an example of that. Doug Deir, right? He launched this website called carsandbbits.com. You can see it right there and you can also see it right there. And then he sold the website for $80 million. So he launched the website from his channel, carsandbids.com, and then he sold the website for $80 million. So YouTube is like the golden goose, right? You want to keep that your your hybrid personal brand on YouTube is the golden goose and then you can lay golden eggs and then you can sell the eggs, right? That’s the smartest way to do it. And that’s exactly what Doug Demiro did right here. And the reason he was able to do that is because of the fact that he built his channel with the hybrid personal brand method. And this is the secret way of building your channel that makes it so much easier to do whatever you want to do in the future. Because none of us can predict the future. But what we can do is build a channel that can evolve as things change over time, as we evolve, as the market evolves, as things happen in the world. You can build a channel that can do that so that it has the ultimate advantage, which is it can adapt to changing circumstances, right? Because not only do market uh circumstances change, obviously we all know that, but also you are a growing, breathing, evolving human being that might have certain interests now, but you have different interests 5 years from now. You might be very passionate about something now and you’re not passionate about it anymore 5 years from now. And you want to be able you want your business and your channel to be able to grow and evolve with you, right? That is the ultimate freedom uh in business is to have something like that. And if you think this only applies to big educational channels, well, that’s just wrong. Here’s some examples of our clients. Uh, this worked for Waqen. So, Waqen was 18 years old when we first started working with him. He was a freshman in college. He was making all kinds of random content on study skills, productivity content, all kinds of stuff like that. And he was making content on engineering as well because he was basically a business and engineering double major. And he wasn’t making any money, right? But we basically sat down, we hashed out his niche and it became very clear that he should help foreign exchange students get into elite universities in the US. Why? Because he was a foreign exchange student that got into an elite university in the US. So we really dialed in his offer and the very first month that he launched or very very close to the very first month he made about $80,000. Right? So, he actually got so many client requests that he was oversubscribed and he had to stop making YouTube videos and weightless customers trying to buy his program, right? Because he just had too many people to work with immediately that wanted to work with him immediately. So, that’s a pretty good place to be as an 18-year-old business owner, right? Turning away business, telling people that you you don’t want their money. Um, they cannot give you money. And uh that’s pretty good place to be as a teenager, right? So, we joked around that he was making more money than the president of his university, which he was as a freshman, which is pretty crazy, right? Here’s another example. Richard, we helped him go from making almost no money whatsoever on YouTube and also being one of the busiest clients I’ve ever worked with. Uh, he was a product manager at a Fortune50 company and he was basically working like 60, 80 hours a week, had a new baby, had lots of investments, uh, real estate investment properties, etc., etc., all kinds of different stuff like that. Just a super, super busy guy. and he was basically able to grow his channel to $12,000 in a single month despite the fact that he probably could only work about 2 hours a month. So yeah, I’m very proud of this case study because it was quite difficult to get him results because he could only work a couple hours a month. Here’s another example. Guy, this one’s a really cool story. So he’s actually disabled and his goal before he worked with us was just to make a couple thousand extra dollars a month because he’s close to retirement, right? So he’s disabled. He has what’s known as tenitus, which is constant ringing in the ears. And this is something that a lot of veterans have. My dad has it as well. He’s a veteran. And it’s really debilitating. And so he made this channel where his goal was to just make a couple extra,000 a month in retirement. And that was his version of rich, right? And he made $1,500 a month with less than 500 subscribers. 446 to be exact. And this was a brand deal for $1,500 a month. So uh he’s getting close to like uh 10,000 subscribers now. So he’s crushing it. But before he even got to 500 subscribers, never mind 1,000 subscribers, he was making money just from sponsorships. So if you don’t think you can get sponsorships with a small channel, you can’t. And this was his actual brand deal, which is an ongoing sponsorship. So one simple rule, guys, to make this happen. Um, start simple and scale fast. You do not need a fancy camera, fancy editing, a million-dollar studio, high production quality, uh top tier video editing skills, and you definitely do not need to make highly entertaining content. Uh here’s what you do need. Um these are the most important things by far. Viral video ideas and viral in terms of getting the right views, right? Not just getting any views, but getting the right views. Um this is the most important thing after dialing in your niche, right? Then you need a title and thumbnails that get clicks, right? You need titles and thumbnails that actually communicate the idea that is a winning idea. Then you need an effective intro for video retention. And then you need to just deliver value to your audience, which is a lot easier to do than you think, especially if you use our AI systems, which we’re going to give you a taste of uh here in a little bit. Right now, let’s talk about the most important out of all those things, and that is the viral video ideas. Right? So, I got this from Carl Icon. He’s in the finance industry and basically he would find businesses that were making a ton of money despite being ran terribly and I took that idea from the finance industry because I think some of the smartest people in the world work in finance and I applied it to YouTube. So I was the first person to ever do this and what I did is I found YouTube videos that had a lot of views despite not having that many subscribers. That’s important and it’s important that they don’t have that many subscribers, right? Um because if they have a big channel, they have a big audience and that audience is going to watch anything that they put out, right? So they have a lot of views despite having a small channel and this is the third part which is important despite the video itself being either mediocre or preferably bad. So the thumbnail, the title, the intro, they were either mediocre or bad. So just as an example, this guy right here, uh you can see his face is blurry, the door is in better focus than his face. His audio uh was really bad as well. Um he was drunkenly ranting for 25 minutes about college degrees while while literally drinking beers as well. Um and yet he still got 760,000 views, right? Even though it was an objectively bad video from a tiny channel. Um he still got 760,000 views, right? This was the thumbnail, by the way. This this literally still shot of the video, right? Um so what you do is you find videos like this and you steal the idea of the video and you make a better version of it, right? So, the most worthless college majors. You can change the keyword a little bit or just keep the same keyword. Um, and boom, the most useless degrees. That’s what I did. The point is you just keep the title very similar. Uh, you change it slightly. Uh, make a better video and boom, that’s what happens. So, I made a better video with almost the same title, right? The most useless degrees versus the most worthless car uh college majors. Very similar. So, I made a better thumbnail, a better video, and it blew up and got millions of views. So this is what I’ve been doing for the last 6 years now guys. This is my secret, right? The icon method is the most powerful way to do it. Uh now there’s a bit more to it, but that’s the gist. There’s also different versions of the icon method. There’s the a version of the icon method where you do it just with revenue. So you basically are able to uh predict how much revenue a certain video would make and you do the icon method with that uh revenue prediction instead. Um there’s also versions of it where you do the icon method with content that’s off of YouTube too, right? So there’s there’s more to it, but this is the gist of it. This is essentially what I’m doing. This is like 80% of my successful videos in the last few years have come either directly or indirectly from this. So once you get these down and you join our program, finding video ideas will never be an issue for you ever again. And once you get this down, giving value, especially with our AI systems, uh will never be an issue for you ever again as well because we have these systems where you can basically just talk to it for a little bit and it just makes this these incredible scripts for you, right? and it just helps you with every single step of the YouTube uh video creation process, right? So, you’re going to post your videos and the videos will do all of the work for you. Each video is going to be like a little soldier that just go goes out 24/7. It never takes breaks. It never sleeps. And it makes it gets you views, gets you subscribers, and makes you money uh for the rest of its life. Now, let’s talk about what it takes for you to be a part of this YouTube gold mine with no daily uploads if you don’t want to, no complicated editing, no being on camera if you don’t want to, no expensive gear or software, no burnout or guesswork, no algorithm chasing, no spending months without monetization. Instead, you’ll get an ondemand content plan tailored to you, a hybrid model that works with or without your face, proven video templates, plus AI assisted scripts, automated systems for publishing and repurposing, a one day per month content workflow, and scalable monetization from day one, plus top tier coaching behind sevenigure YouTube brands. Introducing the content growth engine. This is the easiest and fastest way to grow a cash printing YouTube channel, even if you’re not an influencer. So, click the link in the chat to get access to this early because there’s a few bonuses that we’re only giving to people that get this early access to and you’ll have a higher chance of getting the bonuses if you actually book a call now. Or you can type in go.shoot.com/coaching or scan the QR code with your phone. So, here’s what you get access to inside of CG. And by the way, guys, we’re going to go over these bonuses here. You’ll get all of these when you join the program, but some of them you don’t even need to join the program to get. And by the way, who’s booking a call right now? Go ahead and comment in the chat if you’re booking a call because we have a special bonus for you. All right, first we’re going to be uh helping you pick a profitable niche, right? We have a bunch of amazing YouTube coaches with 100K subscriber plaques, the best of the best. I also personally oversee the niche selection process of everybody because it’s that important. And uh they will help you find and pick the best niche. And that niche will be in between being the most profitable one where it’s sustainable, it’s profitable, but also something that you’re passionate about. Okay. So, I see a lot of people are booking. Awesome. Good stuff. Uh, Alexis, come out here to fix the computer. Um, so good stuff there. Um, but yeah, we’re going to help you find a niche that’s both profitable, but it’s also something that you’re passionate about. This is the mindset section, which is next. It’s the core foundations, and it’s the mindset section. So, you might have a hard time starting uh even though you just have to make videos consistently to be successful on YouTube. And I get it. It sounds easy, but it’s hard to put your mind into making videos or having success on YouTube. And you probably would have started YouTube or you would have had success on YouTube already if it was that easy, right? Even business owners face mindset issues. And this module helps with that, right? This helps remove all the overthinking, all the imposttor syndrome and helps you take action fast. And this is actually when I ask people, these first two are usually their favorite modules. the niche selection. People are just obsessed with this. And then also the mindset section. Even though a lot of people don’t really think that they need the core foundations, another thing I’ll say about this module is it’s going to help you understand that if you follow the system uh uh follow our system, success is inevitable. Right? If you follow the system, you will understand that when you go through this on a deep, logical, emotional, almost on a spiritual level that if you follow the system, success is inevitable. For some people, like my brother, it was his very first video that he posted. Okay. For some people it takes 5, 10, 15, 20 videos. But if you follow the system, success is inevitable and you’ll understand that on a logical level when you go through this. Um, so basically, uh, the only way you lose the game is is by if you if you stop posting. That’s it, right? You’re going to understand that when you go through this module, right? All right. Number three, the content genesis system. This shows you how to find viral video ideas in your niche that will have a higher chance of getting views and going viral. And in my opinion, this is my favorite module because I think this is the most valuable one out of all of them. This is where the secret is right here. Finding the right video ideas. Okay? Uh I think this is incredibly valuable. Uh this is this is really the secret sauce because of course the niche is like the body of your channel, but the video ideas are like the cells, like the building blocks of your channel. So the next is the holy trifecta, right? This is where we go over how you can make your thumbnail, your title, and your intro to package the viral video idea to have the highest chances of success for your video to get views. So, all three need to be good and you want to make sure that they’re congruent as well. Next is the script writing alchemy system where we help you write scripts with the help of AI to get your writing time down to less than 1 hour per video or in many cases way less than that. So, just as an example, my brother who got his video to 800,000 views only spent about 15 minutes on the script. In fact, it was less than 15 minutes and we show you the exact same system. Next is the viral video creation system where we actually turn things into a system. This is what makes it possible to only work one or two hours a week on your YouTube channel. In some cases, if you’re a very busy business owner, zero hours a week or a couple hours a month, right? This is done with systems and our own in-house AI that we only allow our clients to use. Right? So, the niche validator that we’re going to be dropping here in a minute is just a fraction of the sample of the power of our AI systems that we give to our clients. And we have systems for almost every problem that you could imagine on YouTube. And lastly is the cash code system. So this is where we actually make money out of the views that you’re getting even if you’re not getting a lot of views. So it’s very very important that you’re actually monetizing correctly. Okay. So that is just a taste of what’s inside of the community. Um you don’t just get one or two tools, you get the entire arsenal, right? Custom GPTs, cloud skills, all built for one thing, growing and monetizing your channel. And the tools that we don’t build ourselves, we tell you exactly which ones are worth your time, right? Gemini, descript pixels, and much more. So whether you run chatp or cloud, there’s a tool sitting there uh ready for you. No guessing, no piecing it together yourself. This is just a taste of what’s waiting inside. Plus, um this is just a sneak peek of our private community. Real wins coming in every single day. One member just hit 10,000 subscribers and 1 million views. uh they grew 5x in just a few months after joining. Another finally landed their first 10 leads straight from YouTube. Another closed a $75,000 year contract inbound straight off the platform. Uh someone else 4xed their subscriber count in a single month. Another one crossed 5,000 subscribers. Uh they got $39,600 views on a channel with just 800 subs. And yeah, they’re crushing it. And this isn’t a course that you buy and forget about. This is a community of people winning together every single day. And these are just a few. Right? So this is what our group looks like on any given day. And this is the exact system that’s responsible for zero to 10K in just 18 days. Right? So here’s an example. Bro, I just hit my first 10K within 18 days of launch. I don’t even have 1K subs yet. This is nuts. Thank you, man. Right? Uh this is the system responsible for these results as well. Right? So this is what a normal graph looks like right here on YouTube. So, typically you you launch your your uh your video and you’ll see a graph like this. And you’ll see there’s this shaded region. You’ll notice there’s no shaded region in this video right here. And the reason for that is because this client had been posting for over 5 years on YouTube and they had never had a single video take off on their channel. This video, which was the first video that they uh they launched with us, got over 180,000 views. So, the shaded region was actually there. It was just so low that it blended in with the bottom line, the x-axis, right? You can’t even see it. It’s so low. Like, so our video versus their typical video, it’s so low. The shaded region, you can’t even see it, right? Uh this client right here, uh $953 just from AdSense alone u immediately after starting. Plus, they were making a lot more money outside of that as well. And on top of that, they got 8,000 subscribers, you know, 350,000 views, etc., etc. Um, so they were making money from other uh monetization methods, too. This client right here literally became number one in their niche. So, they’re the king in their niche. We we are the king makers and the queen makers in different niches. We have over 10 channels that are literally number one in their niche. And we’re not talking about tiny niches. We’re talking about bigger niches, right? So, this is a big niche right here. He’s making over 50,000 a month just from AdSense alone. Uh he’s multiple eight figure a year business getting over 8 million long form views every month, right? Uh this one right here, they closed 80% of their calls. This is a person who is brand new to taking calls. They’ve never taken any sales calls in their life. And they closed over 80% of their calls uh that were coming in uh for their brand new offer. Brand new to sales. Like typically if if you’ve never done sales before, when you first start, you’re probably going to close like 10 or 20%. That’s if you’re lucky, right? So 80% right off the bat. That just shows you the power of YouTube, how people were coming in. They’re basically just pre-sold right off the bat, right? Uh Bill here, uh he got actually to over uh $70,000 in a single month, but he kind of settled out to making about 30,000 a month uh from last I heard from him. And he turned his YouTube channel from a liability sucking up all of his time to a business that works for him while having a full-time job. And he said, “Shane helped me out with his keyword research, titles, and thumbnails, as well as turning my channel into a business.” Sean uh went from uh got to $500,000 a month from YouTube. So, he’s another example of one of the kings. uh we were the kingmaker uh in his niche. We we helped him get all the way to being number one in his niche. So he said Shane knows what he’s doing. He’s not another fake guru. His program goes beyond just tactics, teaching you how to build a personal brand and master the back-end systems that actually drive revenue. Right. Uh another case study, uh Cheryl, she helps people through spiritual awakenings and before joining us, she was stuck under 50 subscribers for years with a great message but no strategy. Uh, we gave her the system, the content strategy, the title and thumbnail frameworks, and the hands-on coaching. And she immediately grew to 9,000 subscribers, and got monetized in months. And one video hit 128,000 views. And now she’s landing brand deals. And this is what happens when you stop guessing and you start following our system. Uh, here’s Jen as well. So Jen is a healthcare professional who recently joined our program. Like we’re talking about like less than two months ago, she joined our program. And this was about four weeks after she first started. You can see 4 weeks after she first started, she already had a video that got 572,000 views, right? And she’s making about 12,000 a month, uh, estimated from Vid IQ, I believe. And her total views is already 1.6 million. So, she’s absolutely crushing it already. Uh, four of her videos have already crossed 100,000 views. And that was just a couple weeks ago. She’s probably got five or six of them now easily. And she built all all of it on what she already knew, which is healthcare navigation, right? So, if you’re a healthcare professional, this could be for you. There’s a lot of niches out there where people just need help navigating the health care system, especially in the US. It’s kind of a mess, right? The healthare system is definitely a mess in the US. And that’s exactly what Nurse Jen helps people do, right? So, this is what happens when you follow our system to a te. So, I know all kinds of different people who work in the YouTube industry. I basically know all the different YouTube coaches and consultants, agencies, etc. And I’ll tell you kind of how this industry works, right? Usually, the highest paid people, the best people work with the work with big corporations. And so they’re going to be doing like seven figure contracts a year. And in many cases, working with these big companies is at least a six-figure contract, right? So the second highest tier of what you can offer is probably what’s called a buildandrelease offer. Now, I have some friends that do this. They’re basically some of the the few people that are really good on YouTube besides myself that really know what they’re doing. And uh I actually hired two of them on my team uh as a side note. But they charge $300,000 to do a build and release offer, right? And so this is basically where they would work with like seven, eight, nine figure companies and they build out their YouTube channel for the first 3 to 6 months. Okay? So they hire everybody for the channel. They build it out. They figure out exactly how the channel works and then they release it to them once everything is working and they’ve hired the team out to them. Right? So of course with build and release offers, you know, you have to charge like $300,000 cuz you can only do a few of them at a time. They’re very time inensive. They’re you’re basically just building the business for the person, right? Extremely time intensive. But what we did is we took almost all of the things that are scalable within the build and release offer. We took all the valuable things and we put it into our offer, which we’re going to talk about here in a moment. And uh our offer, the actual coaching program itself, you can get it down to as little as $1,000 a month. Uh and and the whole thing for the whole duration is about $9,800. There’s also a lot of YouTube masterminds out there that are like $50,000 and it would easily cost you 35,000 mistakes if you were to try to do it on your own, right? So 25,000 is more than a fair investment to make to even get one/5if of the knowledge contained in the content growth engine. And we do actually have different levels that we offer. We do have some done for you things, but we we only work with a very limited amount of people for those, but we’ll talk about those here in a moment and kind of the the price ranges, but a special offer only for this workshop. When you book a call within the next 24 hours, we’re offering something that we’ve never offered before. And we’re going to talk about some bonuses that we’re giving out. And by the way, go.shenhum.com/coaching ashenhummus.com/coaching or click the link in the chat or you can scan this QR code. Bonus one, and this is a big one. You get a onetoone YouTube niche growth session with me personally. Now, let me tell you why this matters. When I was starting out, I had a mentor named Sam. He was doing YouTube for his wedding photography business. And Sam showed me how to actually make money on YouTube, how to treat it like a business, even with a small channel. At the time, I didn’t know anybody else that was doing this. There was basically nobody else out there doing this, right? And that changed everything for me. That is when I started earning big. Not because I got lucky, but because someone who already figured it out showed me the ropes. And that one relationship changed the entire direction of my channel. And that is exactly what this call is all about. Right? Everything that I have learned building a channel to 1.5 million subs and over 1 million in revenue applied directly to your niche, your channel, and your situation. So, this is worth $12,000 easily. But this is only for five of the first people who sign up within the next 24 hours. So go to go.shinhome.com/coaching, scan that QR code or click the link in the chat. So this is what uh uh now now the by the way it’s randomized but the sooner you sign up the higher the chance you get. So it is randomized but if you sign up faster you’ll get a higher chance of getting the call with me, right? Um now this is what the actual coaching looks like and I can already say uh see people signing up as I’m talking. So don’t wait on this one. So go to go.shenhome.com/coaching. Scan that QR code or click the link in the chat. And also, I think we already ran out of spots. So, did did we run out of spots? It It says we only had that many spots and it’s already over that that amount. We open up more. How much how many more? Uh, so it’s we open up 20 plus. Okay. You you open up more spots. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. This is what the actual coaching looks like. I can already see people signed up, guys. Uh, we did run out of spots, but we opened up more. So, go to go.shom.com/coaching. Scan that QR code or click the link in the chat. So, bonus number two is the 30 secondond Title Maker GPT. This is easily worth $8,500. Now, if you sat down to find winning ideas yourself, researching what’s working, checking view counts, studying channels, you’re going to be looking at weeks of trial and error, and most people still pick the wrong ideas, right? So, if you hire somebody to do it, a real content strategist who knows YouTube, you’re going to be paying $7,500 easily, right? So, we built a custom AI tool that finds proven video ideas for your niche in about 30 seconds, right? So, this isn’t some generic AI spitting out random titles. It’s built on the icon method. So, it finds what’s already working and it hands it hands you a better version. The titles, the hooks, the angles, all of it. And you can get it both ways with both chat GBT and Claude. And all of these tools that we talk about, by the way, are available now in both chat GBT and Claude as well, right? Because chat GBT was the best for a long time. Um, and then uh for for most things, Claude was really good for script writing, but Chat GBT was kind of better for almost everything else. And then recently, Claude has been getting just as good, if not better uh than ChatgBT. So, we made all of these different tools uh for Claude as well as ChatGBT. So, whatever AI you already use, you’re covered. This is included as a bonus. So, go to goamas.com/coaching, scan the QR code or click the link in the chat. So, here’s what it actually looks like. Um you give it a video that’s always already performing. It reverse engineers why it works and it hands you five high converting titles and hooks for your channel. No guessing, no staring at a blank screen. The winning ideas are already out there. This tool just finds them for you. So go to go.shanomomas.com/coaching, scan that QR code, or click the link in the chat. So bonus three is the 302 script writer worth $7,000. This is the ultimate content creation tool. You tell it the goal of your video in to inform and to entertain, to sell, and it turns your spoken ideas into a polished, attentiongrabbing YouTube script. It captures your tone, your style, your voice so that it actually sounds like you. And just like that last one, you get it both ways. ChachiT or Claude, whatever you already use. And basically, if you hire a professional content team to do this, like a script writer, a content strategist, uh someone who understands YouTube, you’re going to be paying $300 to $5,000 a month minimum, right? This does it all in seconds. And all you do is you just talk to it. Basically, you just talk to it, you go back and forth. You can type if you want, um, but this is designed for you to just talk to it and just go back and forth and it can make a script very quickly. This is the exact tool that my brother used to make his script. So, this is what it looks like. Uh, you say your script idea out loud and it turns it into a ready to record script. No typing, no clicking. You just talk. And you can even pick your vibe, right? Friendly, high energy, calm, conversational, authority, whatever fits your channel. It matches your tone so that the script sounds like you, not like a robot. So, go to go.shom.com/coaching, scan that QR code or click the link in the chat. So, bonus four is the high converting thumbnail swipe file. This is worth at least $10,000. This took us thousands of hours to AB test these. Uh your thumbnail is the first thing people see before the title, before the hook, before anything. Uh and if your thumbnail doesn’t stop the scroll, nobody clicks, nobody watches, and it doesn’t matter how good your video is. Right now, if you hired a thumbnail designer who actually knows YouTube, you’re going to be paying $1,500 a month easily. That’s $18,000 a year. And they might make a thumbnail that works for gaming but not for educational content, right? So, there is a psychology behind every thumbnail. This is my entire thumbnail system. The guide, the templates, the swipe files, the framework. You get it all as a bonus. So, go to go.trainomomas.com/coaching, scan the QR code or click the link in the chat. So, this is what’s inside. On the left, you get the full guide, the secret of creating viral thumbnails, the psychology behind why certain thumbnails get clicked and others don’t. And on the right is the thumbnail vault. Fully editable templates in Canva. You click file, make a copy, and it’s yours. And you see those annotations. That is me breaking down exactly why each thumbnail works, where the face goes, how big the head is, the rule of thirds, the spacing, all of it explained. So, you’re not just getting templates, you’re learning the framework so that you can build your own. So, go to go.trainomomas.com/coaching, scan the QR code, or click the link in the chat. Bonus 5 is the 2026 Creator Rolodex worth $6,997. So, this is my personal list of recommended editors, tools, and services that we actually use. Uh, not stuff I Googled, not random recommendations, the exact people and tools my team relies on every single day to run a channel with over 1.5 million subscribers, right? We’ve all tested the we’ve tested these guys out. They’re really good, right? So, need an editor, it’s in here. Need a thumbnail designer, it’s in here. Tools for scripting, SEO, analytics, automations, all in here, right? So, most creators waste months and thousands of dollars uh testing the wrong people and the wrong tools before they find ones that actually work. This skips all of that. You get the cheat sheet on day one. So, go to go.chainhome.com/coaching, chainhome.com/coaching. Scan the QR code or click the link in the chat. Bonus 6 is the YouTube niche accelerator 0 to 100K subs step by step uh worth $4,997. This is the full playbook. Everything you need uh from day one to get to 100K subscribers, right? Right? So, how to pick your niche, uh, using cheat codes that actually work, how to build a hybrid personal brand so you’re never stuck in one topic. How to find video ideas using an icon method. How to nail your title, your thumbnail, your intro, what I call the holy trifecta, how to monetize beyond just AdSense, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, digital products, coaching, all of it. Uh, the way you get to 100K subscribers is going to be different than the way you go from like 100K to a million subscribers, right? So, um, this is designed to really just get you started uh in the right direction. Um, and there’s certain things you do with smaller channels that you wouldn’t do with the bigger channel, right? So, most people spend years figuring this stuff out on their own. This lays it all out step by step, so you skip straight to the part where you start making money. And I’m not just telling you what to do. There are video walkthroughs inside uh showing you exactly how to do it. So, go to go.janomomas.com/coaching, scan the QR code, or click the link in the chat. Now, for those who stayed until the end, we made something special for you, and that is the niche profitability maximizer AI. And this one is different than all of the other bonuses. Uh, this is an AI tool that takes your niche and maps out exactly how to make money from it, right? Not just AdSense. We’re talking affiliate deals, digital products, coaching offers, sponsorships, the full picture. Because here’s the thing that most people get wrong. They pick a niche and they hope the money figures itself out later. That is backwards. That’s putting the cart before the horse, right? This tool shows you the money map before you even record your first video. So, you know exactly what you’re building towards from day one. Uh, and like every tool we give, you get it in both chatbt and claude, right? So, whatever you already use. Now, here’s the catch. This bonus is worth $12,000 and you get it just for showing up to the call that you booked. That’s it. You book the call, you show up, and you get it. So, go to go.shom.com/coaching. Scan that QR code or click the link in the chat. Now, the second you show up to the call you booked, you get instant access on the spot. And whether you like chat or claude, you can use this either way. So, this isn’t some watered down freebie. It’s the same tool that we use inside of the content growth engine, and it is yours for life. So, go to go.chainome.com/coaching, scan that QR code, or click the link in the chat. Okay, bonus 8 is the 90-day YouTube Accelerator money back guarantee. This is priceless. You’ve got 90 days. You follow the program, you do the work, you show up, and if it does not work for you, you get your money back, right? We have a very low refund rate and a very high satisfaction rate. We actually did a survey uh for all of our clients that completed the program. 91% of respondents said that they felt that they got an ROI from the program. Okay, 91% of people that is absurdly high uh in the coaching world and the and the you know info product space like absurdly high 90 for 91% of people to say they got an ROI like that’s just unheard of right um I mean in in the info product world 10 usually 10% of people uh even complete the course right in the first place never mind getting an ROI from the course and that’s why we do this hightouch one-on-one coaching um and that’s why we have so many happy people right satisfied customers Okay. So, I’m not asking you to trust me blindly. I’m asking you to test it and see for yourself. Uh, so go to go.chainhome.com/coaching, scan that QR code or click the link in the chat. So, let’s add this up. Eight bonuses, total value, uh, $61,494. Now, remember, bonus one, the one-on-one session with me personally, that is only for five of the first people who sign up today. I just want to make that very clear. It is randomized, but you get a higher chance of being selected if you are uh signing up earlier. And if you’re watching this right now, you’re you’re very early because after we send out the replay for these, we usually get the majority of the signups from that. Okay? So, if you’re watching this right now, you’re very early. So, you sign up right now and you you’re going to have a very high chance of that. Okay. Bonus 7, the niche profitability maximizer. Just making this very, very clear. This is for showing up to your call. Okay. So, uh the uh niche validator, we’re going to be dropping that here in a minute. That’s going to help you find your niche. The niche profitability maximizer is going to help you figure out how to monetize your niche. Okay? So, once you’ve already found the niche, the profitability maximizer is going to help you figure out how to monetize that niche effectively. Okay? And that you get for just showing up to the call. All right? Um and uh everything else is included free when you join the program, right? So, this workshop special is only available for the next 24 hours. After that, these bonuses uh this exact stack of bonuses uh go away. We cannot promise that we’ll ever be giving this away again. Right? So, this exact package at this exact price with all eight bonuses, you will uh we can’t promise we’re going to be giving this away again. Right? And let me clear something up real quick because I get this question every single time. Right? The 24 hours is for booking the call, not for attending it. So, if you book right now and the next open slot on my calendar is 3 days from now or even 5 days from now, that’s totally fine. You’re still locked in. You still get every single one of these bonuses. You just have to schedule the call within the next 24 hours, right? So, if you’ve been going back and forth on this, now is the time to move. So, go to go.janomomas.com/coaching. Scan that QR code right now. Uh, book the free strategy call. Um, we’ll figure out if we’re a good fit to work together together or not, we’ll figure it out. Right? Worst case, you get on the call, you get some clarity on your niche. Uh, you walk away with a plan. No pressure, no hard sell, but if it’s the right fit, we go to work. So, go to go.chainhome.com/coaching, scan that QR code, click the link in the chat. And one last thing, this is important. Once you book, you will get two emails. Okay? One of them uh they’re both going to be called uh one from Calendarly and one from the consultant that you booked with. Right? So, both are titled the CGE MasterClass call. So, check your inbox right now. If you don’t see them, look in your promotions, your spam, your junk, or your all mail folders. Very important you look in those. And it’s very important that you actually, you know, check these and follow the instructions like mark that you’re going to show up to the call, put it on your calendar, etc., etc. Sometimes they hide in there instead of your main inbox, okay? So, move them over to your main inbox. You can actually drag them over. Um, now those emails have your call details. So, find them and open them. And, uh, other than that, guys, um, one one other thing that I’ll say very quickly is we are very selective about who we work with. The reason we have such a good rating, the reason we have such good results is because we don’t just work with anybody, right? So, we’re very selective about who we work with. We want to pick people for one that are picking a good niche, right? So, um we only accept about 18% of people who apply to the program, right? So, we want people who pick a good niche. And that is the thing that we are really looking for more than anything else. If you have a good niche, we know that you’re going to make money from YouTube. We know cuz it’s just it’s like a gold mine. It’s just right there. It’s open to anybody, right? All you got to do is just talk about the problems that people have and there’s tons of people already searching, you know, and and it’s very easy to monetize, right? So, if you pick a good niche, we know that you can make money and we’ll figure out the money situation, right? We can get you started. We have in-house financing. We have 0% APR uh financing inhouse. We we can figure something out, right? And we know that you’re going to be able to pay us back later on, right? So, that’s the biggest thing. We want to make sure that you’re a good fit to work with us and you have a good niche. If those two criteria are met, we’ll figure the money situation out. Okay. Uh with that being said, uh the question that somebody already asked is how much did it cost? I kind of mentioned it earlier, but let me kind of break down all the different things that we offer. And we offer different things at different levels. So it really depends on what you need, right? So when we work with big companies or startups, um typically, uh what they need is just totally different. Just as an example, with course careers, I help them literally build out their entire YouTube affiliate program. uh as well as their their content creation uh in-house content creation and their YouTube affiliate program, right? So, I helped them build out that entire thing. I helped them recruit a bunch of the people for it as well. So, that was a whole ordeal. It’s just totally different than what somebody who’s a beginner at YouTube would want, right? Building out their entire department essentially, right? And so, of course, for that I I needed to get equity in the company, right? So, that equity is is likely worth, you know, six figures or even potentially seven figures, right? Um, so that kind of deal like that that’s going to be like a six seven figure type thing, right? We could potentially discuss equity as well if it’s a startup. Okay. So in the middle uh realm is kind of like multi-6, 7 figure or 8 figureure businesses. We also work with them. A lot of the time they want done for you type stuff done. Okay? So they want us to actually just do the work for them. And in that case, depending on the level of work you want done, it’s going to range all the way from about $12,000 all the way up to about $60,000. Okay? So, that would be for like a six-month period, right? So, they just literally want us to do all the videos for them. That that’s typically going to be the range. All right? So, and then beginners who basically you just want us to teach you how to fish, right? Um that is the beginner program. That’s content growth engine. uh that is going to be uh about $9,800 for the full duration of the program. Um there are some add-ons. For instance, some people sometimes people want us to find video ideas for them. We can do that as an add-on. Okay, that’s going to cost a little bit more because again, it’s us doing the work for you instead of just teaching you how to do the work, right? So, there are some add-ons that can make it a little bit more expensive, but uh $9,800 or you can get started for about $1,000 a month. We can even get the payments lower than that if we think you’re a good fit to work with us, like I said before, right? So, we can get the payments down to very, very low. Uh, get you started for uh extremely low amount in-house financing if we think you’re a good fit to work with us and if we like your niche. Okay? So, when you book the call, it’s going to be valuable whether or not we end up working together or not. Okay? So, it’s going to be super valuable whether we end up working together or not. That is our commitment. We always make sure that any anything that we do is super valuable uh with uh with people that we interact with. So, it will be valuable whether we end up working together or not. So, there’s literally no reason to not book a call. Uh just click that link uh scan the click the link in the um uh uh chat. Uh scan the QR code here um or uh uh let’s see, go to go.chainhomes.com/coaching. So, yeah. All right. Awesome. Let me go ahead and answer some questions. Yes. Uh niche validator. Let’s drop it. Yeah, we should be dropping it. Look out for the uh admin. The admins will be dropping the uh niche validator.

    No, that the the niche validator is going to be dropped. Again, I I thought I explained this in great detail. This is the niche profitability maximizer AI. This is for monetizing your niche. That is the one that you have to show up to the call for. I thought I explained this in great detail. Maybe you were not paying attention at that moment. That’s fine, Mark. Well, maybe you took me starting to crush it all. I love it. Love it, Carrie. Um, that’s awesome. All right. Good stuff, Carrie. Okay, Janine. I’m confused. Are the bonuses part of signing up or attending? I explained in great detail. That’s another thing, guys. I I explained the price in great detail. I’m not going to go through that again and explain it again. So, if you missed it, you’ll have to catch it in the replay. Um, but yeah. Uh, yeah. So, um, and then the bonuses, like I I’ I’ve already explained this several times, uh, how the bonuses work. Um, all right. To Rich Blood. Yeah. Hey, Isaac. All good, man. Just, uh, keep enjoying the free content. We’ve had people that have uh you know taken action from the free content and they got results later on uh then they joined the program. So Mark guys if that’s what you want uh love it love to hear it Mark good stuff looking forward to seeing your progress Jay webinars really don’t respect your time. Okay. I I think you guys actually like me doing these for free and answering your questions for free. I think that clearly that is me me respecting your time. Um I I’m I’m not really sure what what that even means. That that just makes literally zero sense. Carrie, this is really great offer. Yep. Appreciate it, Carrie. I’m booked. Awesome. Robin, good stuff. Rosario, booked. Good stuff. Tim, how do you create a video on a niche you don’t have expertise, computer science or best trade jobs? Um, well, one thing you can do, Tim, is you can just be uh I’ve heard this called a synthesizer uh by some people, which is basically where you just take publicly available information, for instance, information available on the BLS, right? Bureau of Labor Statistics, and you just present that information in a convenient way on a video, right? So you can just take publicly available information from the best sources out there. You typically do want to find the best sources, right? And then you just present that information um uh uh publicly. And then first of all, another thing is like who is really an expert on trades jobs? Like there’s really nobody out there who’s an expert. They might be an expert on one trade job, right? But there’s really nobody. There’s no like career where it’s like, hey, I’m a trades jobs expert, right? So what what you do is you you have to do some research, right? you do some research, you find out the best um places um that have the best information and then you present that information um on your video. So, it’s it’s pretty a lot of the time it’s pretty easy. It’s like people prefer to consume information uh in video format, right? There’s tons of information in written format, but people prefer uh information to be presented in video format, right? And so you can just present that information in video format and you’re going to get a ton uh um you’re going to help out a lot of people that that just want to consume it visually, right? Um with a video talks. Hopefully that helps, Tim. Um can I use this YouTube strategy to promote my book specifically written for single moms raising voice? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. For sure. I think uh I think that that um you know that’s a topic there’s there’s a lot of uh people like that in the US. a lot a lot of people in that situation in the US uh and probably across the world as well but um I know the US for sure and uh yeah that’s a topic that a lot of people can relate to and you can definitely use it for um raising the boys and then there’s a lot of different ways to to monetize that once you have a book you know people be reaching out for consulting etc etc etc so there’s a lot of ways to monetize that Ditra do I have to sign up for three different calls no you do not just one call Dimmitra Sam is being a coach or starting a community. Uh oh, Abbott says, “Thank you.” You got it, Abbott. Um Sam, is being a coach or starting a community an essential part of making an income to replace uh full-time employment? Um, no, you don’t have to be a coach or start a community. There’s a lot of different ways to make money. There are certain ways that we recommend, and that’s based on your niche, right? So, based on your niche, there’s different ways that we recommend to monetize. So, there’s some niches, for instance, where you can monetize in about a 100 different ways, right? Like I’ll just give you one example, the finance niche. I mean that you could you could monetize in like just like so many different ways, right? Um so

    um that that is an example of a niche where there’s a lot of different ways to monetize. Um there’s some niches where you are somewhat limited in how you can monetize and uh you kind of have to do it in a certain way, right? So, uh, that’s that’s where we come in and that’s how we help you figure out what the best ways to monetize are. Rosario, thank you. You got it, Rosario. My pleasure. Jerry, when setting up a YouTube channel for monetization, should you use personal Gmail or a dedicated uh, Gmail? Good question. So typically what I recommend is the Gmail that you use to sign up for your YouTube channel should typically be different than the Gmail that you actually have publicly facing. Okay? And the reason for that is because it’s easier to hack you if you use the same Gmail um that you use to sign up uh with your YouTube channel and you put that in your about section so people can contact you in that email. makes it much easier for them to hack you if you do that. So, uh, yeah, that’s typically what I recommend is you is you do different ones. Um, so, so yeah, personal Gmail, dedicated Gmail. I mean, either one doesn’t really matter. Um, I’d say the one that you’re you’re more familiar with. Um, but as long as they’re different. So, your publicly facing Gmail and your and your private one is uh different. The one that you actually use to to make it is different. Carrie, that’s a great question. I too would like to hear the answer. I think I already answered that. Um, PM, thanks for the info. Uh, can’t do this program now. Maybe look up at the end of the summer. God bless. All good. Yeah, we have we have people that, you know, uh, you know, rock in and out and, uh, they end up uh, uh, signing up later on. So, totally fine. Uh, enjoy the free content, enjoy the the free value, the I answer questions here for free and, uh, look looking forward to seeing you in the program later on. Justin, love what you’re doing. Shane, rock on. You got it, Justin. Appreciate it. Thank you. Um, Dr. Ingga, looking forward to my one-on-one call tonight at 10 p.m. Awesome. Doc Ashley, lol. People are so funny. Yeah, I I don’t know. I think I I think Yeah, it’s not not respecting our time. I’m like, I’m giving you so much of my time answering your questions completely free. What are you talking about? Uh, Rachel, thanks Shane. You got it. Rachel or Michelle? Uh, I guess it can go either way. You got it. Uh, Isaac, appreciate it. Shane, awesome, Isaac. Carrie, Shane, I personally appreciate you taking time to do these actually live. Yep, thank you. I appreciate that as well. I appreciate your appreciation. Um, Bruce, you doing this for free is awesome. Thanks, Shane. Yeah, 100%. I know. I know like YouTube can be very confusing. You can ask me literally any questions you want right now. So, just go ahead and ask. John, best thing I’ve done is attend a couple of meetings, then play the recording back to fill in the gaps. If I can do that with AD, it should help. Yeah. Um, you know, one thing that really helps with ADD, guys, I I you know, I know that I have it is, um, if you can somehow get the words and the audio on the screen at the same time. So, if you can, if you can, you know, there’s different ways to do this. Sometimes, you know, the videos will have captions, but if you can get the words like uh on the screen and the audio on the screen at the same time, that helps tremendously if you have ADD. uh helps you uh um uh uh really understand the information a bit better. It’s it’s it’s honestly a game changer. If you have ADHD and you haven’t tried that out yet, uh just just just do it. Like it’s really it’s really awesome. Um so I think Kindle does that for instance. You have you can get the Kindle book and the uh Kindle reader at the same time. So the audio book and the book at the same time if you’re reading a book just as an example. Uh, Idan, uh, this is better spent time than than doom scrolling. Yes, of course. Uh, Julian’s, apologies if I said the name wrong. Thought you guys would advise people on the best niches. Yep. Scroll up, scroll down, you’ll see the uh uh the niche validator. Um, no, we definitely advise people on the best niches 100%. That is one of the main things that we do. Like, we help people pick the best niches all the time. Like that’s one of the main things we do. So a lot of people like we’ll help them dial their niche in within the first week of joining the program and you know a lot of people will say like hey I I spent 10 years trying to figure out what my niche should be and then within like a couple days or a week you guys helped me pick a niche that I’m extremely confident in and I feel like I already got my money’s worth just right off the bat. Right. So yeah, this is uh this is one of the main things we help people with. Tony, I’m willing to try this program provided I can get this in a way that I can afford it. I am booked. Awesome, Tony. Yeah, let’s talk about it. Like I said, uh go over the niche validator. Um try to have an idea of what your niche should be before you start the call and uh we’ll see if we’re a good fit to work together. Colton Shane, I appreciate you doing these webinars and sharing with us success stories and what’s possible with your program. You’re not wasting anyone’s time. People can choose to watch or leave. Absolutely. Definitely. Definitely. I appreciate that, Colon. Thank you. Uh, Francisco Az great webinar signed up and looking forward to talking to someone tomorrow night. Awesome. Looking forward to talking with you as well. Justin, I’m also booked. Thanks, Shane. You got it. Yeah. Who else is booked, guys? Who else booked a call? Go ahead and comment in the chat if you booked a call. Uh, Jacob is is he go over the VIP upgrade at the time of the Zoom. So, the VIP um session will be Tuesday night, one hour before. It’ll be Tuesday night at 6 PM Eastern Standard Time. The VIP session will be Tuesday night, 6:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, guys. So, anybody who signed up for the VIP session, that’ll be Tuesday night, 600 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. And yeah, uh guys, go to go.nomomas.com/coaching, scan that QR code, click the link in the chat. I think we just have a few spots left. Um, did we did we run out of spots?

    Running out. How many left? Like five. Maybe like five. Okay. Let me Let’s take a Let’s take a look here, guys. Let’s take a look here. Um, so, by the way, this is what it’ll look like when you click on that link, guys. So, this is what it’ll look like. Um, but yeah, so we ran out of spots on today, tomorrow, and by the way, this says um this is Thursday night. It says Friday for me cuz I’m across the world from you guys right now. Um, but uh yeah, so we do have some spots that we just opened up over here, but they are next week, guys. So, this is what it’ll look like. And we did open up a few spots just now. So, go ahead and grab those spots while you can. If you couldn’t find a convenient uh uh spot, we we got those spots opened up. Um, but we’re probably only taking a few more, honestly, because we’re, you know, our our people can only take so many calls per day. Okay. Uh Jason, so yeah, guys, click that link in the chat. Um scan the QR code. Uh go to goshmas.com/coaching uh to book your call in.

    Jason, my money is low, but I want to find a way to work with you. I’ve been in business for over 25 years. Looking forward to our call. Yeah, I think we can figure something out, Jason. Uh we’ve worked with a lot of business owners. Um, and they’ve, you know, they’ve had, you know, very good luck having lots of success. Rosario, do you need a detailed prompt? Um, we have pretty detailed prompts. Um, but but we actually cook those into our tools typically, so you don’t even have to use a prompt typically. GJ, uh, if you want to do two separate niches, how do title the two different YouTube channels if you’re trying to create you as the brand? Well, first of all, I don’t recommend doing two separate niches. I think that’s a pretty bad idea.

    I do not recommend that 99% of the time. Um, because there’s a there’s an old saying, if you try to chase two rabbits, you will catch zero rabbits. Okay? So, chase one rabbit at a time, right? Do one niche, get that niche going, and then you can do the other one, right? With that being said, if you insist on doing two niches, um we have a whole section on how to title your channel. Um it goes over so many different examples like on how to title your channel correctly. It is part of the hybrid personal brand method. But if you want an extremely simplified version, just do your first name and then whatever your niche is about. So first name dash whatever your niche is about. So, just as an example, when when I did my second uh channel, it’s Shane Hummus- the content growth engine, right? So, it it’s it’s obviously about growing with content, right? That that was my second channel. And then my first channel is Shane Hummus, right? Uh Rain, maybe it means that these calls, helpful as they are, are directly tied to your income, like a demo before a parent sign up for an ESL class with their child. Um,

    directly tied to my income.

    Okay. Uh, Shannon, book the call. Yes. Uh, Rain, you want them to sign up? Yep, definitely. Ryan, why do you charge so much given how much you make monthly? Why not have a front-end back-end payment option? Well, there there’s a couple reasons. So, there’s we only do hightouch one-on-one coaching. And the reason we do that is because if you know anything about like the course industry, right, nobody gets results from courses unless it’s something very simple like how to use Excel or something like that, right? Nobody gets results from courses. They have like a less than 10% completion rate and almost nobody gets results, right? And so we will not do a course simply because like people just don’t finish it and they just don’t get results from courses. Doesn’t matter how good your course is, people don’t get results, right? If you thought thought back to any time that you’ve gotten really good at something in your life, uh you probably did it, of course, there was some course material, right? Um but you probably had uh you know, a bunch of other people doing the same thing. So you there were people that were a little bit under you, on your level, a little bit above you. And then of course you had people that you could look up to, right? So mentors, coaches, teachers, etc. They were really good at the subject already, right? And there was an environment that allowed you to easily get good at the thing you were trying to get good at. You know, you uh a doctor, for instance, you don’t become a doctor by reading a bunch of medical textbooks, right? I could give you a bunch of medical textbooks. You could read them. That doesn’t make you a doctor, right? The doctor had that environment where they were around a bunch of other people, people that, you know, their peers, other really good doctors. They spent a bunch of time doing it. It was very hands-on. It was one-on-one and that is how they got really good at being a doctor, right? And that is what we have set up with CGE. We have over 15 people on the team. We’ve hired the absolute best of the best. It’s very expensive to run this program. I just did payroll a few days ago. It is very, very, very expensive to run this program. And that is what actually gets people results. We refuse to just do a course because that would cheapen our brand because people would take the course and they wouldn’t get results. and then they would go tell other people, “Oh, Shane stuff isn’t good. It didn’t get me results.” Right? We don’t want that to happen. That is why we only do one thing and one thing only when it comes to teaching other people how to do it and that is a hightouch one-on-one coaching program, right? That is what gets people results. Okay? So, that is the only thing that we are willing to do. So, that is why the program is so expensive. And to be honest with you, it is not expensive for a one-on-one program. I I don’t know what coaching you’ve seen in the past, but $9,800 is not expensive for one-on-one programs. I’ve personally paid like $50,000 for one-on-one programs, right? So, um that that is why it is, you know, we do have to charge that much in order to actually make a profit, right, to make money. Okay, Ryan, how why Yeah. Okay, next one. LL a lot of pressure to present niche well in the call. I need this badly, but yeah, use the niche validator. You’re all good. LL no pressure. No pressure. If it’s not a good fit now, maybe it could be a good fit later on. We’ll see. Isaac, great presentation, Shane. Perhaps I need to talk to Luca to see if there are payment terms available. Yes, we if we think you’re a good fit to work with us, there are payment terms available. Rain. So, it makes sense, but please don’t push free. It’s like the most important bit. What do you mean free? We give away the niche validator for free if that’s what you’re talking about. Niche validator. Like, look, look in the chat. Just scroll up, scroll down. It’s free. Um, Rain, thank you for your presentation. You got a rain. My pleasure. Uh Carrie, download the skill doc. Uh where is that? Sorry, I may have missed it. Um just scroll up and scroll down. We posted it probably several times now. We’re going to post it more. Um and by the way guys, gosh.com/coaching. Scan that QR code, click the link in the chat. Additionally, just for those of you who have made it until the end because there’s only going to be a few more minutes left. We’re probably only going to let you guys sign up for a few more minutes. Only for those of you who uh made it to the end, and this is only for people who request it, okay? only for people who request it. I if if you don’t see this, you you don’t request it. I that that’s fine with me. What we’re going to be doing is we’re making a personalized YouTube playbook for different niches and different verticals. So, we’ve done about 80 of these already. I actually do these personally myself. I’ve done like all 80. I think it’s close to 90 now uh of these personally myself. So, it’s basically a personalized uh YouTube playbook for your niche. So, just as an example, we’ve done this for realtors. We’ve done this for stay-at-home moms. We’ve done this for uh people on the older side that are technologically challenged. We’ve done this for um law firms. We’ve done this for dental cosmetic uh clinics. We’ve done this for um financial advisors. We’ve done it for coaches. We’ve done it for online service providers, for agencies, etc., etc. Right? So, we have these personalized playbooks where cuz like I said, each niche is a little bit different and we make this personalized playbook for your niche. We’ve got about 90 of them already. And whenever we get somebody who requests one of these where we don’t have it, we make a new playbook for them. Okay? So, if you sign up now, go.coaching, scan that QR code, clicking the link in the chat. If you sign up now and then you have to actually tell your coach, you have to request it. Uh, and we don’t already have your personalized playbook because we do have a lot of niches now. We have about 90 different niches, pretty common ones. Um, then we will actually go ahead and create the personalized playbook for you. I do it about once a month. It’s a lot of work. Each one takes me hours. So, I do it about once a month, but I’ll create your personalized playbook for you. Okay? I will do it myself. All right? So, go-sh.com/coaching. Scan that QR code. Click the link in the chat. Uh, you’ve got about five minutes left or so before I leave. Okay. So, uh, Jason says, “Have to go now. Thanks for everything. Looking forward to a call.” Awesome, Jason. Um, Nancy, thank you for this. Shane has helped me see the bigger picture of my thoughts, sharing what I know. Awesome, Nancy. Love it. Uh, Dimmitra, awesome. Thanks. You got it, Dmitra. Chi, I already have an 11-year-old channel with a niche, but it’s not really an education niche. Sounds like I may need a new niche. No, no, we’ve actually helped a lot of people that have more entertainment style channels uh transition to channels where um they’re they’re actually solving people’s problems. So, that’s not a problem. You can actually transition. Luis, uh, hey, the cloud one is a format that I can’t open even after raw extraction. Um, make sure you’re logged into Claude Luis. You got to be logged into it. Mark Stefan Murray and other presenters have their own specialty. Shane hired the best coaches and what their strength areas are, so I wanted thumbnail help. I can work with that person if necessary. This group works unlike any other coaching services. Appreciate you, Mark. Yep. Yep. We spared no expense, guys. Uh, if you want to be the absolute best, you have to hire the absolute best people, and that’s what we do. And we pay them a lot of money, right? We’re paying them very well. Um, so yeah, ll everyone about the dollars it takes dollars to start any business. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Jacob, thanks for the content and skill. Looking forward to the call. Awesome. Jacob, looking forward to it as well. Lonnie, what training do you have to get some uh one to improve their presentation skills on camera? Maybe you mentioned it and I missed. Um, yeah, we definitely train people on that. There’s a lot. We actually have a whole section dedicated to that. There’s so many different ways where you can, you know, people will think you’re like a natural on camera. Um, but the biggest thing is, like to be honest with you, one of the biggest things is one, it actually doesn’t matter nearly as much as you think. And two, you’re going to get better over time, right? It takes it takes practice. It takes practice and you’re going to get better over time. But we definitely have a bunch of uh uh life hacks. So, I’ll just give you one hack just as an example, right? One thing you can do is you can actually have a a one-way mirror where and you put it in front of your camera and then you look at the mirror and so you’re just seeing yourself. So it’s just like you talking in the mirror, but the camera is seeing you. It It’s a one-way mirror. So it goes through the mirror and it sees you perfectly like there’s nothing there. So you see the mirror, but the camera sees you perfectly. So, it just looks like you’re talking to yourself in the mirror, which let’s be honest, we’ve all done that. Getting ready for a presentation or a date or whatever, right? Talk to yourself in the mirror. And um it just makes it really easy, right? Makes it really easy to to seem very charismatic. I did that for a long time on my channel. Um eventually I graduated to the point where I don’t really need it. Um, but yeah, that’s one hack that you can use is just put a one-way mirror in front of your camera and then you’re looking at yourself, but the camera is looking at you, right? So, that’s just one example of like like all the all the different hacks that we give um to uh get better at presenting. Okay. Um, content and skill. Looking forward to our call. Awesome, Jacob. Da da Owen Louise changed the extension to do.zip. Yeah, you can do that as well. Christian, I started making AI short films. Yeah, bash me. Lol. Is that a viable thing? I’ve hit the process to help me through some trauma and getting store room for my head. I’m all for quality. So things not No, I think hey, I think AI short films are great as long as they’re actually good, right? As long as they’re not AI slop, right? So if you, you know, I I totally get it. If you’re making good AI short films, I think that’s great, you know? Um, but most people that are using AI for that stuff, they’re kind of just making slop, right? But if you’re actually making good content, I don’t think anybody cares. Link, I’m a filmmaker. Need to promote my channel. I also uh do films I make. Um, how can I do how can I do both using YouTube? I need separate channels. Yeah. So, we’ve actually had a couple filmmakers come into the program and uh they one of them teaches people their niche is teaching people how to do their first featurelength film. that is their niche. Uh so that’s one of the filmmakers we had come into the program. Um another one is teaching people AI film making. Uh they they came into the program as well. Um so yeah that that is a good niche. We’ve we’ve seen people have a lot of success with that niche as well. Um and uh yeah def definitely something we can talk about. Um we can talk about helping you with that. So I would book a call. Definitely book a call. So yeah guys uh few more minutes left to book a call. Click that link in the chat. Um, go-shing.com/coaching. Scan the QR code. I think we’re going to take one more person uh before we we close things down. We’re just going to take one more person. Um, we’re going to allow one more person to book. Tim, what would you say your specific validated niche statement was when you started posting six or seven years ago? Great question. Um, basically my specific niche statement at that time was I want to help uh people get uh land their dream job uh dream entry like highpaying entry-level jobs without the need for a college degree or previous experience. So that doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t have a college degree, but you don’t need a college degree. So basically my whole thing was I want to help people land careers that you don’t necessarily need to have a college degree in order to land. So that’s kind of what my first thing was and I and I launched a multi-sefigure a year business based on that niche hypothesis statement. So uh I help people land their uh dream it it it did eventually turn into remote job just because most people wanted remote jobs. So I did kind of shift to remote jobs. Um, but it was basically I help people land their dream remote job without the need for a college degree uh or previous experience. Uh, dream high-paying remote job without the need for a college degree. Entry level. Dream entry-level high-paying remote job without the need for a college degree or previous experience. Tim, what would you say your specific value? Yeah. Okay. Uh, Isaac Shane, can you tell us the program will work for Faceless? Yep. I went over example of a Faceless channel in the training. You can watch the replay if you want. Martin, this is a great offer. My niche is helping people get off drugs like meth and opioids. I have no medical degree, just hands-on experience and much research. Yeah. Um I mean, I think that could that could be a good one. Of course, you need to be a little bit careful about how you present that information. Um cuz you know, you got to you know, you you you get in trouble if you present the information in a wrong way. So, just be careful um how you state things in that niche. But I think that that could be really good. Eric, appreciate what you’re doing, Shane. Book for next week. Good night from Hungary. Awesome. Good night, Eric. Thanks for staying up late. Appreciate you. Jeff, thank you very much. I’ve consumed many hours of your training and love it. My phone is old and I’m trying to get a setup, but I need to set up my new uh phone, which takes an hour. I’m ready to go, man. Awesome. Yeah, all you need is a phone. That’s it. In fact, we’ve had a lot of people start with just computers as well, just like their laptop or something. Um, but phone is pretty good, too. Uh, should you use a dedicated laptop? Um, I wouldn’t say dedicated, just, you know, any like a like a MacBook for instance, if you have a MacBook or or just like a laptop that has a uh, you know, webcam. I I think that’s fine. Um, dear Christian, super valuable. Love to hear it. Alfred, thank you for all you do. You got it, Alfred. My pleasure. Guys, one more spot left. Go.coaching. Scan that QR code. Click the link in the chat. We’re going to end it here in a moment. Again, it’s going to be valuable whether we end up working together or not. There is literally no reason to not book a call. Okay? So, book a call right now. Going to be valuable whether we end up working together or not. You only got 23 hours left. The sooner you book the call, the better. You’re going to have a much better chance of getting that one-on-one session with me as well. Um, if you book while like while it’s still on this call, once we send out the replay, a ton of people are going to book as well. Um, you know, so you’re going to have a much lower chance. So yeah, definitely book book while you can. Tammy, thank you. This was great. I have no idea what to do as a niche. Um, I teach, but I’m working in a corporate, so should be able to do as a YouTube channel until I resign. Yeah. Well, that’s one great thing about YouTube, guys, is like I started YouTube when I was working like very, very long hours in pharmacy, right? So, I started YouTube as a side hustle and I was prepared for it to take five or 10 years for my YouTube channel to take off. I had a very long-term mindset. I was like, I’m going to do this for 5 to 10 years. Like, at the end of 10 years, I will allow myself to quit if it doesn’t work, right? So, I had that long-term mindset. Now, it ended up only taking a few months to to make a full-time income. But I actually kept uh doing my YouTube channel for several years while I was still a pharmacist. So I was actually making more money from my YouTube channel than I was as a pharmacist. And I just kept doing it for several years after that. Right? So it’s it really is something that you can do as a side hustle. Most businesses out there, you cannot do them as side hustles. They’re like full-time, right? But YouTube truly is something you can do as a side hustle or you can turn it into a full-time thing. It works either way. That’s what I love about YouTube is it’s so flexible. It’s the most flexible business model that has ever existed, right? There’s so many different directions you can go. You can change niches. Uh you can monetize in so many different ways. You can you can use it in conjunction with almost any other business model. Um it is the most flexible business model in the world. You can push really hard and do and you know start an eight or nine figure business or you can just chillax and have a nice little $30,000 a month business where you’re barely even working. Right? That is the beauty about YouTube. It’s such a flexible business model, which is what I love about it. So, yeah, book a call if that’s something you want to you’re interested in talking about. Again, a lot of the time we actually help people dial in their niche on the call. Um, and so literally on the call itself, we will help people dial in their niche. Um, and in many cases, I’d say probably like 60 to 80% of the time on the on the call itself, someone dials in their niche. So whether or not it ends up we end up working together or not, like it’s going to be valuable for you for sure. Uh Carrie, I have ADHD and I use the captions. That helps so much. When I blank out for a few seconds, I just look at the captions. Yeah, 100%. The captions are so good. It’s it’s really really helpful for people um with especially people with ADHD. Yep. Um Bruce, should I start with a trailer first before launching?

    You can if you want to, Bruce, just kind of explaining what your channel’s all about. It’s not necessary, but you definitely can if you want to. We’ll we’ll take care of all that uh on our side. We’ll tell you exactly what to do on our side if you join us. But yeah, you can if you want to. It’s not necessary, but you can. Grant you take monetization with YouTube over Meta any day. Of course. Yes. Um Yeah. So you you might notice that a lot of the big brands use many different platforms but the truth is they didn’t they usually didn’t start off that way or if they did they they could afford to hire massive teams. Almost everybody who started off from scratch starts off with one platform and one channel right so there and the best platform and channel is YouTube by far. Now what we do is we we tell you to start with YouTube and then you can syndicate your content to the other platforms right so we’ve taken like a single video for instance from YouTube cut cut a tiny little bit out of it and then we sent it over to Instagram and we got millions of views on that video just syndicating the content right and it was almost no work from us with that being said that is not typical okay that is not typical that is that is something that um uh you know uh um yeah we uh we typically recommend people do it in a certain way. Syndicate the content in a certain way. Right, Sonia? Niche validator is already worth it. It helps me so much with brainstorming. Awesome. $6.99. Awesome. I do that. Miss I miss words a lot. Yep. Words and audio at the same time. Yep. I screenshot a lot. I have ADHD. Yep. 100%. Christian, sorry, mistyped some things. I started making short films, but yeah. No, it’s I’m not going to bash you. Is that a viable thing? The process to help me through some trauma. I’m getting stories out of my head. All for quality. Uh, so my thing is no weird AI morphing. What do you think? Yeah, I think that’s totally good, Christian. I I think that’s something that uh can be really good. If you’re just making the films for entertainment purposes, uh, we’re probably not the best program for you. Um, and again, we only select about 18% of the people who try to work with us. We only we only work with about 18% of them who who try to work with us, right? Um, so if you’re not a good fit to work with us, we’re not going to get you into the program, right? It’s it’s just that simple. We’re not going to try to take your money. Okay? So again, book that call, click the link in the chat, book the call. Um, nothing to nothing to lose and and also uh uh it’s going to be valuable. With that being said, Christian, if you are trying to teach other people what you’re learning about AI film making, that is the kind of thing that we do help people with. Okay. So we do help entertainment channels as long as they are solving a problem. So, just as an example, we have one guy who joined who uh is a chess coach, right? He was making zero dollars being a chess coach, and now he’s making a full-time income as a chess coach, right? So, he teaches grownup uh adult learners in chess how to get to a 2,000 online chess rating, right? And he’s now making a full-time income. I think he’s pretty close to six figures a year now. He’s if if he’s not there, he’s like very, very close. Okay? So, adult learners, uh, how to, um, uh, make a full-time income or, how to get to 2,000 rating on, uh, uh, online chess, right? So, um, yeah, like that’s that’s a great example right there of someone who’s in an entertainment niche, but they’re solving people’s problems inside of that entertainment niche. We have a bunch of other people, too. Um, just as an example, a good friend of mine became a multi-millionaire enough to the point where he’s he’s retired now um from uh doing Minecraft servers, right? So, he would build Minecraft servers. Okay? So, that is entertainment, but he’s solving people’s problems. Do you see the difference? Like, he’s not just making entertaining videos. He’s solving people’s problems. And then he was talking about that stuff in videos. And that’s how he would promote his Minecraft servers. Okay, so there’s a big difference between those two things. Marseilles, thank you for your time. I’m going to school in the fall for social media marketing. So hopefully this along with my education, I can become successful. I’m going to use this information to teach my 23 and 13-year-old. Yeah, I love it. Love it, Marcy. Yeah. Yeah. Just get started. Just get started. Yeah, for sure. Get started. All right. Ton of people booked. And honestly, guys, uh went went over time a little bit here. I’m about 10 minutes over time, but it was a total pleasure uh presenting this stuff to you guys this evening and um you know, morning for me, but evening for you guys. It was a total pleasure and uh yeah uh we will drop the niche validator one more time. We’re going to drop the link one more time to sign up. So, I’m going to drop that myself. Okay, so I’m dropping the link one more time to sign up for the call. Um additionally, I want to drop uh two more things which is the um thank you page. Okay, so very quickly I’m going to go over this. Uh we will drop these in the chat if you haven’t seen them. So once you sign up for a call, you’re going to see this thank you page. Okay, so it’s going to it’s going to be one of these two thank you pages. It’s going to have a stop sign or it’s going to be me. Okay, so they’re about uh 28 seconds and a minute and a half. So it is mandatory that you watch this video. You must watch the video. We will know if you don’t watch the video and follow the instructions. Okay, so you must watch the video and you must follow the instructions. And one thing you want to do for instance is open your email and then type and then click I know the sender from the email. Right? And then once you’ve done that, what I want you to do is just go over these case studies, right? We have a ton of case studies and some of these people you will relate to. Okay? you’re going to relate to some of these people on these case studies and I want you know some of them will have a background that’s similar to yours or you know they’re going to be in a similar niche to what niche that you want to do or they’re going to be you know just a similar type situation right so check out these case studies watch them and and enjoy the case studies before you uh book a call with us before or before you get on the call with us check those out okay so follow the instructions in this video it’s a minute and a half and takes almost no time to uh uh open the email. Also, make sure you follow any instructions you get via email. There’s a good chance that we’ll reach out to you via text or call or or email. So, make sure you look out for that as well. And yeah, looking forward to seeing you guys. Hopefully, that is dropped. We’re going to drop that right there. So, admin Steven just dropped it. Additionally, you can save any of these. Okay. So, if for whatever reason you’re driving or something and you haven’t booked a call, you can go ahead and screenshot this or you can just copy the link uh you know or just remember go.nomomas.com/coaching, right? Then you can book a call later on. I will say you have about 23 hours left to lock in all of these. Um but yeah, you can just book a call later on. And then additionally um uh you can uh uh co uh copy the uh thank you pages as well just in case you don’t have that open anymore. You can copy these thank you pages and then also make sure you get the niche validator too. Um I think that was dropped as well just in case you haven’t gotten that. Uh definitely mess around with that niche validator. I don’t see the niche validator. Where where is it? Let’s see where where was it dropped. Okay, there we go. There we go. Okay, admin Stephen just dropped it again. So again, just copy and paste that because I am going to end this call uh here very very shortly. Okay, I’m going to end it with within the next 30 seconds. So make sure you copy and paste that. Um but anyways guys, uh have a great evening. Uh was an absolute pleasure um uh presenting to you guys this evening and answering all your questions. Looking forward to working with a lot of you and so uh thank you so much guys. All right, Aladd, thank you. Steven, thank you. Marcy, thank you. Harrison, thank you. Awesome. Wregistrant, thank you. Awesome. Appreciate it. Chi, Colton, thank you. Awesome. Guys, going to head off now. Hopefully, you’ve got that copied. Have a good one. Cheers. Thanks, guys. Take care.

  • 06/04/2026 – Alliant Webinar – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – Annuities

    Well, we’re going to go ahead and get started. My name is Malcolm Horn and we have Kim Kennedy with us. Also, um again, thank you. Thank you for taking time out of the day to attend our webinar regarding an annuities. Today’s going to be very educational. Uh we’re not going to dig into specific companies, products like that. This is today’s webinar is going to be very educational regarding the you know the pros and cons of annuities, the bad, the good and the ugly. Common question that Kim and I get are, are we employed by Allian Credit Union? And yes, we are. We’re part of the retirement investment services division of the credit union. We are located in Denver, Colorado with offices in Lakewood and DTC. Anybody that’s joining from out of state, we do virtual meetings. Also, of course, if you live in Colorado and you’d rather do a virtual meeting, we’re happy to do so. At the end of today’s webinar, we’re going to answer any questions that you might have. So, make sure to put that in the Q&A and chat box. Also, if there’s anything specific that you want to kind of understand regarding annuities, put that in the chat box, too. And we’ll make sure that hopefully we cover all that. But, you know, again, there’s a lot of moving pieces when it comes to annuities. So, we want to make sure we’re answering those over the next week. We already call everybody just to kind of touch base, make sure your questions were answered. Also, we have some upcoming webinars that we want to make sure that you’re aware of. And that’s going to be on Thursday, June 18th. We’re going to be talking about Irma. Irma has to do with Medicare and the amount of income that you make and your Part B and D premiums may increase depending on your income. So, again, we want to make sure you’re aware of this. more and more people are being affected by this and they’re like, “Why is my Medicare much higher than than what they’re saying it is? It’s because of Irma.” We also are going to be talking about tax planning, you know, ultimately showing you and discussing ways to help you reduce what you pay to the government in regards to taxes. So, again, very educational um but very good. Both these are very good topics we like to talk about and we implement when we work with our members, our clients. Um are we are not the only ones that do webinars. There are other financial consultants that do webinars. You can look at the schedule and feel free to attend any of those. We also produce a podcast on various financial topics. Our website has a lot of financial information if you’re looking to learn more about a specific financial topic. So with that, we’re going to pass it off to Kim and she’s going to jump into annuities. Thank you again for attending. Well, thanks Malcolm and welcome everybody. Appreciate you spending a little bit of time with us. So let’s just dive in and uh talk about annuities. So here’s our overview for today. What is an annuity? What are the different types? But I heard they’re bad. How does the taxes work with annuities? What’s in it for them? Do I get a free meal with that? How do I know if the annuity I have is any good? Can I get out of my existing annuity? And who can benefit from annuities? Well, first the definition of what is an annuity is it is simply a contract between you and an insurance company where you contribute money upfront and then receive payments back over a period of time. And you can choose to have those payments come back in a variety of ways, including a lump sum or an income stream that lasts your whole life. Some of the reasons people buy an annuity is they want principal protection. They want a fixed rate of return. You might want long-term growth or long-term growth with some downside market protection. You may be looking for income for life where you’re kind of creating your own pension. Or if you’ve got money in savings that’s nonretirement, you’re just looking for tax deferred growth.

    There’s a couple types of annuities. There’s immediate annuities and deferred. So, let’s dig into each of those. An immediate annuity is funded with a single lump sum of money. So, you’re basically handing a pot of money over to the insurance company and in exchange for that, they’re going to give you guaranteed monthly payments. This is an income now strategy. You can choose how to receive that money over a certain time period. Maybe you want it over 5 years or 10 years, 20 years or your lifetime. You can use IRA or nonIRRA money to buy an immediate annuity. There’s also something out there called a QAC. It stands for qualified longevity annuity contract. And this is a way where you can put some of your IRA money into one of these contracts. and it basically defers your required minimum distribution until 85. There’s some catches that go along with that in terms of the growth of the contract and there’s a maximum. The most you can lock away in that type of a contract is 210 grant. Deferred annuities, these are more income oriented as well as accumulation oriented and these come in a couple different flavors. a fixed annuity, fixed indexed, variable, and structured. So, let’s look at these in more detail as well. So, a fixed annuity, think of it kind of like a CD. You’re going to get a guaranteed rate of interest for a specific period of time. Your money is principal protected. The difference between this and a CD is your interest earned is tax deferred until you withdraw the money. Right? If you have a CD at Alliant, you’re getting a $1099 every January and you’re paying tax on the interest that you’re earning on that CD. With a fixed annuity, that’s not the way it works. It’s deferred. There’s no annual fee for a fixed annuity, and you’re able to purchase these with IRA or nonIRRA assets. There may be charges and a tax penalty for early withdrawal. Tax penalty is if you’re pulling money out before 59 and a half, you’re going to get dinged an IRS penalty. And early withdrawal simply means if you bought a five-year fixed annuity and you want to bail after two years, they’re going to charge you a penalty. And just to give you some ideas of rates, I mean, you can see the rate rates of CDs on Alliant website. We’re still under 4%. I’m looking at a three-year fixed annuity, 100 grand or more. We just got some new rates today, 5.05%. A fiveyear is 5.4% and a sevenyear is 5.5%. So all those are $100,000 deposits. So we’ve seen with, you know, the the war causing oil prices to go up and inflation to go up, we’re actually seeing interest rates tick up a little bit. We don’t know how long it’s going to last. Uh, but those are some pretty good rates, especially if you’re a conservative investor for at least some of your money. So, here’s an example. If you just were to say, let’s go all the way down to the bottom on the left, 4%, which is a little low compared to the rates I just told you, but if you put a 100 grand in at 4%, they acrew daily, they compound annually. At the end of the five years, your 100 grand is 121,665. just kind of gives you an idea of uh how it grows. A fixed index annuity, these are usually five, seven, or 10-year contracts. Malcolm and I are generally in the five to sevenyear range. These are also principal protected. So, you are protected from market downturns. You don’t have a stated guaranteed rate of interest like a fixed annuity. You get interest earned based on a market index like the S&P 500. The amount of interest you can earn is capped uh certainly based on the return of the market. So for example, right now the best cap rates we have are 9 and a quarter 9 and a half%. So let’s say you owned it today. They take a snapshot of the S&P 500. You’d wait a whole year on the anniversary. They’ll take a snapshot again. Let’s say the market’s up 12%. You’re capped. You’re only going to get nine and a half or nine and a quarter in my example. Let’s say the second year the market does six. You get six. Let’s say the third year the market’s down 25%. Well, you don’t get any interest that year, but more importantly, you do not lose a penny. So, the concept with a fixed index annuity is you’re willing to accept part of the market gains in exchange for never taking a withdrawal. Same thing. Interest earned is tax deferred. So, you know, if it’s IRA money, obviously it’s always tax deferred. But let’s say you took money out of a savings account or something that was nonretirement. You’re not paying tax on that interest until you withdraw it. No fee on this contract. Unless you decide to add on a special benefit. There are ways where you can turn these type of products into lifetime income streams or you can add an enhanced de death death benefit feature if you’re looking to beef up beef up a death benefit for a beneficiary. Same thing, you can use IRA or nonIRRA money for this type of product. And same thing about, you know, charges, tax penalties, and early withdrawals. That’s kind of consistent. All right, here’s an example of what I just described in the previous slide. Um, so let’s say you can see the market is the dotted line. In year one, the market goes up, you got gains. In year two, the market goes up that you locked in some gains. Year three, the market goes down. You see the dotted line dropping down, but notice your annuity value is staying level. And then at that three-year mark when the market goes down within the fixed index annuity, you do get to reset at that lower index value going into the following year. You don’t have to make it up. You just get to reset, which is really a nice bonus. Uh variable annuities, these are the ones that generate all the bad press and all the negative connotation that annuities are bad. Well, let me tell you why. So the time periods uh 3 to 10 years, I’ve seen some even longer than 10, 12 to 14 years. You do have the ability to invest in multiple stock and bond investments. You do have risk based on the underlying investment that you select. I mean, on the good side, you get all of the upside of whatever those investment options do, but on the downside, you get all of the negative market performance as well. There is a a benefit in there called a death benefit. So, for example, in a variable annuity, if you put in $100,000 and the market tanked and your h 100,000 dropped to 50,000 and you passed away, your beneficiary would get the hundred. So, the way it works is is your beneficiary gets the current value or the original deposit, whatever is greater. And it sounds wonderful, right? But there’s a cost to that. Um, gains are tax deferred until you withdraw. Nothing different there. Several annual fees apply. And those fees apply whether the market’s up or down. And we’re going to talk about fees in a few slides. Again, IRA or nonirra money is fine in this type of a contract. And then there’s something called a structured annuity. Um, and it’s kind of in between. It’s a blend of a fixed index and a variable. These are six-year contracts. You know, the the regulators came in some years ago and standardized a lot of this stuff and uh really focused more on accumulation, but this these are six-year contracts, as I said, a blend of fixed index and variable. You are able to track or invest in market indexes like the S&P 500. So you’re able to get marketlike returns and you do have some downside market risk. However, you can add some protection. Now some of the things now, you know, you might get all of the upside or 90% of the market and 20% protected on the downside. I I’ll show you some examples of that in a minute. Same rules apply. Gains are tax deferred until withdrawn. No fee on this contract either, unless you choose to add an additional benefit such as an income writer or an enhanced death benefit feature, either type of money, IRA or nonIRRA. Okay, so let’s take a look at one of these structured annuities. So they have cap rates just like the fixed index did. Um, so let’s say in example A, the market did eight. So you see that in the teal blue. So you get eight. In example B, let’s say your cap rate is 10. Um, in example B, the market did 12. So you see the blue is above that cap line. Well, you’re going to get credited the cap rate of 10. So you are leaving some of the upside of the market on the table potentially. Now if the market is negative, you may receive a negative uh hit to your account but only when it’s greater than the buffer or the protection level. So let’s look at uh example C. The buffer is in this case let’s say 10%. That means that the insurance company would cover the first 10% in losses before your account had any negative performance. So an example C, let’s say the market was down eight. You see that in blue? Notice you you’re down zero because the account is down less than 8%. So you don’t lose a penny. Now, example D. Let’s say the market’s down 15%. Now the buffer covered the first 10. So in green your account is down five. So a buffer means that the insurance company will cover the first x% in losses. So generally we see those buffers 10 15 20 even 30%. Obviously the more protection on the downside the lower your upside is. There’s also one other strategy within these structured annuities and it’s called participation rate. You know, this slide shows that it’s 130% participation. And what that means is if you pick the six-year option on the S&P at the end of the six years, you’re going to get 100% you’re going to get over 100% of whatever that index does. This slide is saying 130%. Those rates aren’t that high right now. I mean, we’re around 10 105% to 110 depending on the carrier and rates are changing all the time. But in this example, if the index over six years did 60%, so that’s 10% a year, at the end of the six years, you’re actually getting 130% of that. So you would make 78%. So it’s a way to earn more than the index performs. they still have that level of protection, you know, a 10% or 20%. And again, more protection that you choose, the lower the upside is. Also, a lot of these companies now are offering a performance lock feature. Let’s say you purchase this one on the screen and it’s a six-year contract and after five years, the market has just been on fire. or you’ve had a lot of gains, you’re very happy with the performance, you got one more year left. Maybe you’re close to retirement or close to needing the money. You have the ability to lock in those gains and then you can move the money to something that may have a higher downside protection. So, some of these companies allow you to lock once a year, some multiple times a year. There’s one company that offers 24 locks per year. We would never use that many, but it’s nice to know that um you have multiple lock options available. And why is this participation rate strategy important? Well, obviously on the on the positive side, earning more than the index performs is always a good thing, right? We always want more. But what if you’re coming off a negative market? And if you just look at this chart, the top level, if if your account is down 10%, people think, well, I’ll just get 10% the next year and I I’m back to a break even. Well, you actually need 11.2% in that second year to get you back to where you were because you only have you lost 10, so you only have 90% of the money working for you. So, you need 11.2 to break even. And if it’s a big loss, let’s go down to like a 30% loss, you actually need 42.9% the following year just to break even. So it just gives you an idea of how those uh participation rates can be very powerful. So this chart is showing you how annuities fit in with other investments that you may be uh that are more common to you. So starting on the left, lowest risk, cash, money markets, CDs, and then we have fixed annuities and fixed index annuities. And then you see the gray risk line. So any investment to the left of the gray line, your principal or premium deposit is protected. So you don’t have any risk, downside risk to the money that you put in. To the right of the risk line, bonds. bonds have risk. Uh variable annuities, mutual funds, stocks, and if we went further, it would be sector stocks and commodities and crypto and you know, some of the crazy stuff on the far right. What you don’t see on this chart, and I’m going to kind of add it for you, is those structured annuities. And I would say those structured annuities fit between bonds and variable annuities. meaning you have upside you do have some downside risk but there’s that buffer there’s that safety net that you can choose you 10 15 20% so less risk than 100% stocks for sure okay uh I heard annuities are bad right fees that’s usually the most common thing that Malcolm and I hear is well I don’t want to pay all those fees annuities are terrible well Not all annuities have fees. I just gave you several examples of annuities that have no fee. Holding period or the surrender charge, this is the length of time that you need to leave your money in the contract before you can pull it out without a penalty. So, a surrender charge is a penalty if you pull out before the end of the term. And lastly, they’ll keep all the money. Well, that’s not really true. and we’ll we’ll walk through all that. So, let’s take the first one, fees. So, as I mentioned earlier, variable annuities are the ones that give us the bad rap for the fees. So, the first fee you see on on this slide is mortality and expense. We call it the me and fee. Remember that example I told you that variable annuities have this really cool built-in death benefit that you put in 100, the market tanks to 50 and you die and your beneficiary gets 100. Yeah, there’s some built-in insurance there, but it’s not free. You’re paying for that. This says one and a quarter% probably. I would say closer to 1% is what we’re seeing in products today. the subac account fees. Uh I said that you have the ability to invest in multiple stock and bond options. You know, within the same annuity, you might be able to pick a Fidelity fund, a Vanguard fund, a T-roll price fund, and an Invesco fund. So, you’re able to access multiple investments within one platform. Well, that’s not free either. On average, the fee to use those investments is about 1%. Now, an international fund is probably a little higher than 1% and a bond fund is a little lower, but on average, we use 1% for subac account fees. And then writer charges, if you did add the lifetime income or one of those enhanced death benefits, they charge for that, too. So, in this example, the fees could be three and a half% per year. Now, if the market’s up 25% and you only got 22 and a half, right, you’re not going to notice it. But if the market’s down 20 and you’re al now you’re down 23 and a half, you’re going to notice that, right? So, the fee applies whether the market’s up or down.

    The holding period, the surrender charge, it’s it’s actually called a CDSC. It’s called a contingent deferred surrender charge. It’s the amount of time you’re required to stay invested in the product before you can walk away with your money without a penalty. Most of them, well, all of them basically have a declining schedule. Meaning, if you bought a five-year product, this is showing that well, if you bailed in the first year, they ding you a 5% penalty. If you bailed in the second year, they’d hold back four. So, and it kind of declines down and once you meet five years, you move it. Well, you know, Malcolm and I work with this all the time. And when we’re building plans or investment strategies for people, we’re clearly not going to put a 100% of somebody’s money in something like this that if they need it, they’re going to have a penalty, right? So, we need to diversify that out. And generally, when we’re building uh proposals for folks, annuities are not the bucket where you’re going to take your money f from. We’re going to have a liquidity bucket or multiple liquidity buckets where you could get money from. Um, holding period, like I said, ranges from three to 15 years. Malcolm and I are generally between three to seven depending on the type of annuity and the need for the client. And even though these things have surrender charges for three, four, three, five, seven years, almost every single company that we work with allows you to take out 10% of the contract value each contract year penaltyfree. So there is some liquidity um in these types of products,

    but they’ll keep all my money. That’s another thing we hear often and that’s not true. I mean a deferred annuity equals walk away. Whatever you put, whatever the account is worth minus your withdrawals is what you walk away with. It’s also your death benefit, right? Um and then there’s income products that have lifetime income. If it’s your IRA and you have a spouse, you could set up joint lifetime income. even though it’s your IRA, the money can continue to your spouse. You can set it up for a certain number of years. Some of the companies allow um or have level income, you turn it on at a grand a month, you get that forever. Or increasing income, you start lower, maybe 700 a month, and it increases each year as interest is credited back. So the point is is they don’t keep your money. Your money comes back out in a variety of ways. Let’s talk a little bit about taxes. Now, I’m not talking about IAS. Obviously, anything you invest an IRA money in is tax deferred until you take it out. But let’s talk about let’s say money that’s nonirra. Say you took a 100 grand from the from Alliant, right? You buy a CD over there, you’re getting a 1099. You buy any other type of annuity, you are not getting a 1099. In fact, you are getting triple compounding. You’re getting earnings on your principal. You’re getting earnings on your earnings, right? Most of these things um compound annually. So then your earnings earns money. And then you’re also making earnings on the taxes that you’re not paying. So that’s the triple compounding effect. and and let’s say you bought a three-year fixed annuity and at the end of the three years you didn’t really need the money and you don’t really want to pay the taxes on the interest that you’ve earned through the three years. you can move it to another type of annuity and that process is called a 1035 exchange. And if you were to do that, there’s no tax liability. And to illustrate for you, some of you may be may have heard something similar with investment properties called a 1031 exchange where you owned a rental property and you sold it and you don’t want to pay taxes on the gain. So, you take the proceeds and you invest it into another rental property. um that taxable piece of the gains moves forward. Well, this is the same concept relative to annuities. And if you’re somebody that doesn’t want the tax deferral and you just want to pay taxes on the interest or the earnings each year, just take it out, right? You can do that withdrawal up to 10% a year and that will trigger a 1099 to come your way. So, what’s in it for the insurance company? Well, some of the annuities as I as I mentioned have fees. I mean the CDSC that surrender charge all of them have that. So if somebody does bail before the end of the term then they’re going to keep some percentage of that as the penalty. The me fee that’s that mortality and the expense fee that comes with uh variable annuities. The writers if you add the lifetime income or the enhanced death benefit there’s a fee for that. And then the fees that are on the investments again that’s a variable annuity uh fee only. Uh so yeah they can make they clearly will make money on fees uh depending on the type of annuity you purchase. But the main thing they what’s in it for them is your time, right? Let’s say you bought a five-year fixed annuity of 100 grand and you’re getting 5.4% and you’re not taking it out before the end of the five. They didn’t make any money on your fees, but they had your money for five years. So, they take that money that you invest and they go buy some kind of a corporate bond paying more interest than what they’re paying you, right? So, that’s what’s in it for the insurance company. Now, some of you may get postcards in the mail to come have an a dinner at some expensive steak restaurant and they’re pitching can’t lose products, your money doubles in 10 years. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If it doesn’t pass the smell test, there’s a reason. Um, most of those products have high fees. They have longer surrender periods. These are the 10 to 12 13-year type products and they’re usually paying the advisor a high commission. So, you know, don’t don’t get sucked in because of a stake. Okay? Make sure and if you go to one of these and you get some information and it sounds good, call us. Malcolm and I are happy to walk you through what is really being sold to you at these dinner seminars. Excuse me. Okay. You already have an annuity. Now what? Malcolm and I will do a no obligation review of what you have. We’ll explain what you have. We’ll offer recommendations. Annuities have changed a bunch over the last 10 years. all the regulators came in and they’re trying to um revise them and reduce fees and shorten surrender periods with they’re placing a much higher emphasis on accumulation products meaning how do you earn money more than just turn on an income stream. So it’s like maybe safe accumulation, those kinds of things. Fees have been very much reduced and in some cases to zero. And if you have an investment and it has income and you’ve sat on it for 15 years, um you know, maybe it makes sense to turn it on. You know, you’re paying for that income. And we run into people and and some that were our clients that were 15 years ago based on their financial situation, it made sense that they thought they were going to need lifetime income. And then we get 10 years down the road and their job changed or their financial situation changed or they inherited money and they really don’t need that income anymore. And maybe it did make sense to reposition that money out of a product that you’re paying for a benefit that you no longer need. So, but if you do need it, maybe it makes sense to turn it on because you’re paying for it. And depending on what you have, it may be an option for you to move it somewhere else through that 1035 exchange process, not take a tax hit in making the move, and you might be able to reduce the costs and fees, increase the benefits, get a higher rate of return or upside potential, or more protection on the downside. So, it’s really just that costbenefit analysis of does it make sense to keep what I have and kind of do the pros and cons of that versus what’s available in the marketplace today. So, who can benefit from these types of products? Well, are you looking for tax deferral? So, I have have a client that some years ago he uh and his wife were selling a farm and they were going to be in a huge tax bracket year selling the farm. Then the second year they were going to sell the farm equipment. So, another big tax year. And then the third year they were going to sell the crops from the farm. So he was looking for ways to make his income as low as possible for the next handful of years while he went through this transition process. So we put as much as we could in kind of a laddered approach of you know three year, five year, sevenyear so that he could pay tax on that interest down the road when he was in a lower tax bracket. Maybe it’s you’re going to sell a business and you’re going to take a big tax hit. Maybe you’re in your high earning years and if you’ve accumulated a bunch of money at Alliance and the the taxes on the interest you’re earning is is pushing you to a higher tax bracket. Those are some ideas, too. Higher fixed rates, like I said, the credit union CD rates, I think the one-year CD is 3.99. I think it’s right around 4%. I didn’t look it up before the webinar. Sorry about that. But as I said, we have a three-year fixed annuity that’s 505, a fiveyear that’s 5.4, and a seven-year that’s 5.5. So if you believe that interest rates are high because of inflation and increased oil, and you believe they will come down, maybe it makes sense to lock in some of your money at a higher rate for longer. Again, this assumes that you don’t need it or don’t need more than 10% of it per year. Um, growth potential with some downside. Maybe you’re getting close to retirement or you’re transitioning into retirement and you want to be in the market, but you don’t want to be 100% exposed to the downside of the market. This is where those structured annuities can come in where you can say, “Yeah, I might get all the upside of the S&P, but I also have a safety net of about, you know, 10 or 20% depending on the option that you select.” Guaranteed income. If you’re if you need um you know your own personal pension to kind of cover your your needs in retirement or you don’t have that much saved and having a fixed income that comes in for the rest of your life or you and your spouse’s life, maybe that makes sense. Death benefit. Now, this doesn’t come up too often, but a couple situations where it has come up. I had a client that um was diagnosed with a really rare lung disease and he wanted to take some of his money and add the biggest death benefit to it to it he could. His life expectancy was like two to four years. He wanted to ratchet it up so he could pass on as much money as possible to his two daughters. And we did that. We went out and found the one that had the biggest death benefits. and he did pass away in about three years and therefore we passed on um more money to his daughters. The other situation that Malcolm and I see with death benefits is just people are saying I am never going to use this money or all this money and they may take a chunk of money and just try to ratchet up that death benefit for no other purpose than for their beneficiaries. And are you looking to avoid probate? All annuities have beneficiary designations. No different than your 401k, right? You put a beneficiary on the annuities and any account that has a beneficiary on it avoids probate, which is always good. You don’t want to pay the courts and the lawyers to go through all that process. So, is an annuity right for you? We know they’re not right for everybody, but they can be a valuable part of a diversified portfolio. Not only if you need guaranteed income, but think about that. If you’re somebody that does need guaranteed income, how do you know? Well, what if you don’t have a pension? You all you have is social security and that’s not enough to cover your basic living expenses. Wouldn’t it be nice to take a chunk of what you’ve saved and create enough guaranteed income coming in that you could pay all your essential bills and not have to worry about the market going up and down? Also, and this is a question we hear often, um, or a concern I should say, if you think you might live a long time and you could potentially outlive your savings, that might be, um, a concern. All of these companies that we work with that provide lifetime income, once you turn that income on, it generally goes to zero in about 12 to 14 years. But once your account has gone to zero, the insurance company is still on the hook for paying you that check for as long as you live. So if you live to 103 and your account’s been zero for 20 years, they’re still cutting you that check each month. And then lastly, if you want to reduce risk on part of your portfolio or protect fully part of your portfolio, these make sense. There’s ways you can do it with no fee. That also makes sense. Okay. Fact versus fiction. Well, they’re too expensive. Well, I’ve shown you several options that are well, this says low cost, but I’m going to say no cost options available. They have hidden fees. Well, again, the regulators came in and requires fees to be made transparent. Malcolm and I are looking to build relationships with people that are going to last, you know, decades down the road. We’re not going to go sideways over a fee. We’re going to explain all of that. um they have high commissions. Again, most of that has been reduced. Um however, you know, feel free to ask Malcolm and I. We’re happy to share with you what we get paid. But the most important thing that you need to understand about commissions with annuities is they’re not paid out of your money. I mean, if you invest a hundred grand, a hundred grand goes to work. the commission that comes to us or our our back office comes from the insurance company. And you might ask, well, how can they do that? Well, they know that they’re going to have the money for five years and for example, and they also know that so they’re okay in fronting that commission knowing that they’re going to be compensated. And they also know if you bail early, they’re going to res receive a penalty. So, um I can’t touch all that money. Well, as I mentioned, nearly all the annuity companies allow you to withdraw some amount of money during that surrender period, and it’s it’s typically 10% per year penaltyfree. Every now and then, there’s a company that might p a higher rate if it’s 5% or they might p a higher rate if you have to and you might have to wait till the second year before you can take that out. Uh, they’re too confusing. Yes, there’s a lot of things out there, but that’s where Malcolm and I come in and figure out what’s appropriate for your needs. Are you looking for income? Are you looking to just have some of your money at risk and some not? Um, that’s our job. That’s that’s why we’re here to help. So, what we offer folks is we call it a discovery session. It’s basically a complimentary retirement plan or financial plan. And I’m going to run through a quick example with some annuity income to give you an idea of how this works. So this is uh Richard and Deborah. They’re 62. He’s going to work till 67. He’s got some health issues. He thinks he might only live till 85. Deborah wants to retire a little earlier at 65 and she thinks she might live till 95. They each are contributing contributing the maximum to their 401ks. Each of their employers is matching them at 3%. They’re each making about 150 a year. And Richard’s social security, if he turns it on at age 67, is just under 41,000 a year. And Deborah is planning to turn hers on early at 65 in conjunction with when she plans to retire. And you can see it’s a it’s almost 35,000 a year. And Richard has a little pension. So he’s got some money coming from that about 9500 a year. Expenses. So living expenses. These are the basics, right? Food, clothing, gas, utilities, cell phone, internet, uh all the basics to run your household. They want 90 grand a year in their pocket to cover their spending. Food, out to eat, all that. We’re going to put an inflation factor on that. We know everything costs more each year. In addition to that, um we’ve got some health care expenses for them and we’re going to use a different higher rate of inflation for health care. We know those costs go up faster than others. And then travel. They want to do some traveling in the early years of their retirement. Maybe not until they’re, you know, 85 and 95, but they want to frontload their retire retirement with some travel. Uh, our software pulls in the actual IRS tax tables. We can pull in any state taxes and utilize that in your model. So, here’s the cash flow. And basically what you’re looking at, if you see that red line that goes across the screen, those are their expenses that we just went through. And how we’re going to cover those expenses is determined by the color in the bar. So you can see on the far left um they’re at that t teal blue is their salary. So you know for the first three years both of them are working. You can see that the salaries far exceed their planned expenses. After three years Deborah retires. So now we’re down to Richard’s income. But she turns on her social security. That’s the navy blue. Then a couple years later Richard retires. Now there’s no more salary. Social Security is the dark blue. Richard turns on his pension. That’s the mint green. And the yellow means that they need to withdraw money from some of their investments to shore up what they plan on spending. Then you go out about six or seven years and you see some orange and that is required minimum distribution. So our system is calculating that. Uh we help our clients manage that. Um, and if it works exactly like this, and it probably won’t be exact, but if it did, and Deborah made it to age 95, at that point, she would still have about $583,000 left in her portfolio. Now, this is saying that the probability of success is about 74%. So, let’s dig into that. Um, the expense coverage, total expenses are covered at about 49%. essential expenses at 59%. So that’s the basics, right? And we want those to be covered maybe at a higher level just because we don’t want you to pay your energy bill based on what the market does. So what if they repositioned a portion of their assets into an annuity that has lifetime income that would provide a higher certainty of expense coverage. So in this case we move some of the money to annuities and now you can see the probability of overall success has bumped up to 99%. Total expense coverage at 68 but that essential expenses jumped all the way up to 80. So that just gives us a little bit more comfort that uh they’re going to be okay. Okay. Uh, with that, I’m going to give you one more analogy before we start taking your questions. So, I know that was kind of a quick short presentation, but hopefully you’ve got some good questions out of that. So, the the analogy is retirement planning compared to mountain climbing. So, if you’re a mountain climber and you’re prepping for a big hike or climb, what what are you doing? You’re training. You’re learning to um use your gear. You’re you’re working out. You’re doing all those things to get ready to climb the mountain. When you think about retirement, what are we doing? We are saving money in our 401ks and IAS. We’re trying to pay down our debt, pay off our cars, pay off our credit cards, pay off or down our home, get our kids through college, all those things. So when we get to the top of the mountain retirement, we’re we’re in the best shape possible. Well, with mountain climbing, sometimes the trek down can be the most dangerous, meaning you could slip, you could fall, you could, you know, trip. Uh, in fact, I believe the guides that help people go up Mount Everest say more deaths and accidents hurt happen on the way down as opposed to the way up. Now with retirement, what are the things that could hit us during our retirement years?

    So that’s a lot of things, right? I mean, and hopefully not all of those things come our way, but uh we try to kind of stress test the plan and what if those things, you know, what if if you’re married, what if one spouse passes away early? What if you have a long-term care event? Uh what if health care goes up higher than we think? What if you have an unplanned expense or event? We’ve had clients come to me, hey, my daughter’s getting divorced. I need to take out 40 grand to cover a lawyer. my son’s in needs to go to rehab. I need to pay for that. So, some of those spending shocks can can uh hurt you, too. But, you know, we try to model and stress test whatever we can and get you, you know, the strongest uh situation as possible. So, that’s what we have for you today. And I think Malcolm’s going to come back on and uh start a poll and then we’ll take your questions.

    you. There’s the poll. We’re going to call We’re going to reach out to you anyway, but if you want to hear from us sooner than later, say yes and we’ll reach out to you then. So, let’s get some questions. All right. Um, apologies. We we did not record the webinar today for complianc’s purposes. We just don’t uh we will do this again. So if you’d like to attend a later time, please do so. Is there a minimum for setting up of an annuity? Um there are they’re pretty low. It kind of depends on the company and the type of annuity. I mean, some of them have a $10,000 minimum, some of them have a $25,000 minimum. Some can be even lower than that. But depending on what you’re trying to do, I mean, opening an annuity for three grand doesn’t buy you much.

    Once you have an annuity and are collecting it from collecting from it, can you end the annuity and collect the remaining money? Are there penalties to do so? Well, once you complete that surrender charge, that surrender period. Let’s say it’s a let’s say you bought an income annuity. It’s a seven-year surrender. you turned income on in year three. When you get to year seven, if you don’t want that anymore, whatever’s left in the contract, you can absolutely move without a penalty.

    Someone said, “Haha, I like mountain climbing, but not that hardcore.” Yeah, me neither. Yeah. Um, let’s see here. That’s all the questions that we have at the moment really. So, yeah. So, I mean, four over here. Okay, there was four and then two. You got all those looked at? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, kind of good. You know, again, again, we’re going to reach out to everybody and just kind of make sure that if you have additional questions, we answer those. Um, what else do you want to say, Kim? I was just going to say, I mean, that, you know, this is what we do to help our members plan for retirement and put together a, you know, certainly a no obligation plan, um, and no obligation proposal, too. We think we’re doing things right enough and have a good mix of options for people to at least consider that might be a little more diverse than what you’re able to get within your 401k. So, you know, give us a shot. you’re not obligated to do anything with us, but it’s it’s a pretty good process. I think um most of the people I think I saw a couple people on here that are we already work with and I think they would probably agree that the process has been worthwhile. Yeah. Hey, and the other thing that I’ll say is like we we hold ourselves to a fiduciary responsibility. We’re here to build long-term relationships with our members. So, you might run into advisors, but they’ll set up an annuity for you and you’ll they’ll disappear. you’ll never hear from him again. That’s not the case when it comes to us. I mean, I think we come in, we want to build long-term relationships and we’re always doing what’s in your your best interest. Um, there is a question, is there a fee to use your service? We don’t charge a fee for the planning and the analysis of your situation. I mean, we really believe that that’s your opportunity to get to know us a little bit and, you know, make an opinion of whether you think we know what we’re talking about. I mean, if you did decide to become our clients and move forward with any of the investment recommendations that we’ve offered, you know, we talk through those, you know, in terms of, you know, if it’s managed money, how much that cost would be, etc. Are monthly funds received taxed? Well, if it’s an IRA, for sure, right? I mean, if that money hasn’t been taxed, if you take out a monthly income, yes, taxable. But usually we set those up to withhold taxes on the front end and you get a net amount a into your um bank account.

    Um okay. Hey um what if I have a financial advisor would like to meet to discuss what your strategy going forward may help us as members. So, I was kind of question is like, yeah, I’m a financial advisor, but are you willing to kind of Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, we hear that a lot, right? I mean, people want a second opinion. Sometimes we run into people that have had a financial advisor all these accumulation years, but they’re making a switch over to retirement and they’re not sure they’re with the right person. You know, sometimes people advisors are good at just picking investments, but planning and answering questions around social security and taxes and RMDs isn’t it. and people don’t feel comfortable that they have a game plan going into retirement. Yeah, we we do second opinion type meetings all the time. So, we’re happy to do that. Yeah. So, can you turn on lifetime income? Can you have that transferred into a traditional IRA with any tax consequences? So, I think the question is if it’s an IRA, you turn on lifetime income and can you have that income transferred into the to another traditional IRA, I guess. Um, does that make sense? No. Turn on lifetime income and have that transferred into an IRA without a tax consequence. Uh, so I mean you can do a transfer from one IRA to another whether it’s an annuity or not, but I think the income is truly a distribution. I don’t think you set up lifetime income as transfers. I’ve never done that. Have you, Malcolm? I don’t know if the carriers allow that. No. So, so again, annuities have been around forever. Um, and I’ve run into Aliance had a really old annuity where the only way you pulled out that money is you took an income stream over a 10-year period. And so what we did with that annuity was we turned on that income and every year they transferred a certain amount into the client’s IRA and it was considered a a transfer. So that was a one way we unwind one of those old annuities. That’s Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. We’ve run into that with TIAA CF. Um they they have um some of their products, not all of their products. The only way you can get your money out is a 10-year transfer payout annuity. So, we do set those up for people and you’re just turning it on and transferring basically 10% a year from their IRA to another one with and transfers are not taxable as long as you set it up correctly. Yeah, it looks like this person has the Alian 222. Yeah. So, you’re not going to be able to you’re not going to be able to turn the income on until 10 years after purchasing that account. Yeah. The 222 it’s it’s kind of a nice thing in that there’s no fee for that lifetime income, but your fee is you got to wait 10 years before you turn it on. And if you got the time, that’s one thing. Man, I know. I don’t know how long you’ve had it, but they’re they’re they can pay some pretty good bonuses up front, but you got to wait a long time to get it. Yeah, exactly. So, what else? All right. Well, that’s it. I mean, yeah, we got it. We got everybody. So, well, thanks everybody. We appreciate you spending a little time with us and we look forward to talking with you all soon. Thanks so much. Yep. Bye.

  • 06/04/2026 – Alliant Webinar – Roth IRA Conversions – An effective retirement tax strategy for your clients

    Hello, welcome. We’re going to get started in a moment. Um, if you can hear me, can you just respond yes for the the folks on the webinar so far? Uh, so I can know that the audio is working. Appreciate that. Okay, terrific. Got a got a response here. Audio working. Uh, great, great news. So, um, I’ll be back in a moment. We’ll get started. Okay, good afternoon. Uh, welcome everybody. Let’s get started. Uh, thank you so much for joining for our webinar. My name is Christian Chaplua. I’m a financial consultant here at Alliant Retirement and Investment Services. So, we work with members throughout the United States. Uh many of you have joined for multiple webinars. So, really appreciate you kind of checking back in. Um, you know, we we are thrilled to um offer financial planning, help clients reach their goals, talk about investments, uh whether you’re a line credit union member, you work with one of our company partners, um uh in general, we’re just thrilled that you’re here to kind of uh learn more about Roth conversions for today’s agenda and all the other information and webinars uh that we provide on a weekly basis. Just a quick introduction about myself. Uh so I’ve been in wealth management on the personal side uh for 15 years and uh previous to this I was a fixed income research analyst. Um so kind of bring all that experience uh to every client’s personal situation. Uh personal finance it’s very personal. Uh it’s more personal than it is financial in fact. So kind of understanding all the different uh subsets and subcategories of financial planning and uh investments. It’s so important for us to kind of succeed and reach our goals. I mean, the world is just more complicated and quicker than ever and we’re seeing the pace of technology uh just rapidly accelerate and the impact on financial markets and then you know ultimately our retirement accounts if we’re invested our 401ks, IAS and everything else. So, I think you made a great decision uh investing an hour today to learn about Roth conversions. Uh this is one of our most popular uh webinars. So we’ve got a you know huge RSVP list. Uh so yeah, please do uh consider this as an introductory uh webinar to the topic of Roth IRA conversions. It’s not meant to be kind of a do-it-yourself um you know workshop. it uh it’s really supposed to introduce you to the the concept and then if you’d like to learn more you’ll have an opportunity book a meeting with myself uh just uh kind of get into a one-toone discussion if that makes sense talk about financial planning and other ideas as well like I mentioned there’s a lot of information um so I’m going to be going through the slides quickly uh just want to mention this up front so this presentation intended for educational purpose only it’s proprietary We uh have a huge investment in these webinars to uh to get them to you, get the information to you in a kind of clear, concise manner. Um we kindly ask that attendees do not record, reproduce, distribute any part of this presentation, including video, audio, screen capture, AI based tools, etc. So really appreciate your cooperation on that. Two upcoming webinars, tax planning changes, that’s happening Thursday, June the 11th at 2 p.m. our regularly scheduled time. So, just talking about tax planning as it relates to retirement planning and your financial plan, not so much kind of your um you know your W2 and your uh you know 1099s, more about you know financial planning and um and how it relates around your investments investment account. So, if you’re interested in that, please do join us. Estate planning, uh super important topic, six steps to legacy planning. June 18th is when we’re going to be presenting that. So, um we encourage and and try to promote estate planning as much as possible um in just about every financial plan and through these webinars cuz uh you know it’s tough to um you know to pass on our our wealth and and everything else without a good plan. Um we don’t want to make it difficult for our beneficiaries. So um if you need to get your estate planning done, please do join us on Thursday the 18th. In addition to our webinars, we’ve got our Investsavvy podcast. Over 20 episodes available on our website, also through Apple and Google. And then we’ve got our Aerys website and blog. Lots of tools, templates, information, articles, plenty of resources for you get smarter about financial planning. So hopefully you be have a chance to uh log in. That’s the AIS website. Aerys is aligned retirement investment service.

    Here’s how we can help you. So um a couple things to mention. uh financial planning. That’s kind of the the foundation of everything that we do here. So, a basic plan, foundational plan available to everybody. There’s no charge for that. Um I’m going to give you a couple invitations. Take me up on that and get a financial plan done. Uh please do get it done at some point in your life and and get it done now if uh this is the year that you want to get it done. It will help you with retirement planning, getting to all your goals in retirement, uh knowing how to maximize your um your nest egg for retirement, all the above. Uh advanced plan planning is also available. That’s available to clients. Um that includes Roth conversion analysis, tax planning, cash flows, cash management strategies, all the above. Um so the reason that we uh reserve that for clients is because it’s more time inensive the tools everything else that we’re using um kind of more sophisticated. So uh that’s for clients. Uh we really encourage and promote the idea of becoming a client that’s the best way to take advantage of all these strategies. So advanced plan if you’re interested in that do let me know respond yes when I launch the poll a little later on. Estate planning we have a digital estate planning service. Uh I’ll summarize that a little bit later. do you take advantage and then investment management so traditional portfolios um but you know lots of different strategies uh active passive strategies dividend portfolios and then income strategies like annuities and market CDs uh all of the above all available to you uh please do take advantage and and get in contact with me um to kind of learn more about these ideas and see if it can help you with your goals and your financial plan.

    Okay, with that introduction, let’s talk about uh Roth conversion. So, uh a big part of our Roth conversion is uh taxes and you know the the future tax environment. We get lots of information about uh you know the national debt uh thinking about what tax rates might be in the future and uh lots of kind of uh legislative decisions through Congress. Um so it is uncertain. You know, we’ve got a lot to to manage in terms of information flow, budget deficits, entitlements, taxation, Roth IAS, all the above coming at us kind of quite quickly, especially in today’s kind of technology age. Um the national debt today is around $36 trillion. That’s around $100,000 for every single person in America. Uh so quite a big number. Uh something to consider. We’ll see how um the federal government manages that. Um and then also you know how the federal government’s going to be managing budget deficits in the future you know with all the different categories of spend uh in the budget. So defense entitlements Medicare uh etc. So this is a chart kind of going back you know back to 2015 so about 10 years just thinking about the federal deficit. Um they have been rising. We all know that you know the the yeartoday uh year-to-year fluctuation that’s one thing but just in general it’s adding to the national debt. So this is kind of a a concern for retirees, a big concern quite frankly. You know, all the polling that we do, all the, you know, surveys that are done, um, you know, shows that this is a a concern for retirees and for savers because it’s going to impact a lot of different things. It’s going to impact capital markets. Um, it’s going to in impact government spending. It’s going to impact uh, you know, inflation, um, interest rates. The list goes on and on.

    in terms of entitlements. Um, so we’ve got social security, Medicare, Medicaid. Those are the major ones. Um, interest payments on those debts. You know, all of that kind of adds up in terms of, you know, the spending um that that’s provided in terms of all the benefits that we receive. Um, by 2035, you know, that that’s about 10 years from now. Uh it’s estimated that entitlements such as social security, Medicare, Medicaid, and debt interest payments will account for about 100% of government revenue for by 2035. So 10 years from now um we’re going to be uh you know faced with this uh you know increase in spending and you could see from the the chart the crossover around 2035. Um so this is a reality that we all have to deal with uh that the federal government needs to deal with. Um and so hopefully we’ll we’ll see a positive outcome. There are some scenarios that you know can give us a positive outcome and others a not so positive more kind of negative situation. Uh but we’ll see what happens. But in terms of getting prepared for that you know the Roth IRA conversion is one tool to kind of help mitigate uh the concern in terms of you know uh rising debt rising uh payments to all those different categories etc. This is a chart uh for all the or sorry the top income tax rates uh throughout history kind of the last 100 years or so. So you can see kind of in the war war years um you know the top marginal tax rate climbed to 90%. Um for the last 40 years it’s kind of been in between 30 and 40%. Um so uh most of the time status quo remains the same but we all have to be ready for different kind of tax environments as as this 2035 date approaches. Um you know the taxes are high uh no doubt about that. Um many of us are you know thinking about state income taxes. We’re thinking about federal income taxes and you know hopefully that uh you know the budget and the debt will be managed in such a way that these marginal tax rates stay kind of in the same range. But again, this is kind of to be seen and and we’ll see what happens with all those entitlements and everything else. When we think about our uh taxation, you know, when we think about the economic backdrop that uh we just went over, um there’s there’s three basic different kind of tax um tax environments that u our accounts going are going to be exposed to. And so one is the uh kind of taxable uh type of account. So that includes like index funds, stocks, CDs in a in an investment in a brokerage account or maybe it’s um you know interest earned from a savings account. That’s kind of the tax now category. Tax later is our um uh second category. So that’s retirement accounts basically that includes uh IRA, 401ks, annuities. So we’re taxed when we withdraw for those tax later uh types of accounts. And then thirdly there’s the tax never category. Uh so that includes Roth IAS, municipal bonds, HSAs. Uh so money goes in often uh after tax basis. Uh but because of the tax code, uh there’s no uh no tax on the gain. So these are three categories to kind of keep in mind and then uh just understand for your own financial planning, you know, how to kind of optimize and make it work in terms of your goals, your cash flows. Um and because we’re all exposed to these three categories, you know, tax now, tax later, tax never as we move towards retirement, uh we’re going to go through the the Roth conversion strategy, and it’s definitely something to consider. You know, um most of the scenarios that we run are positive. That being said, there’s no guarantee about the, you know, the future of the success of a Roth conversion. You know, tax diversification, account, retirement account diversification, all of that makes sense. But the key point there is diversification. Uh so yeah, you want to be thoughtful about any Roth conversions that you do and kind of sequence them accordingly and go through all the variables situations that we’re going to touch on uh shortly. So again, can be effective strategy to create that kind of after tax uh cash flow in the future. Uh so we’re going to go over the basics. We’re going to go over IRA owners, spousal strategies, and beneficiaries. All of the above needs to be considered in terms of you know a good decision for a Roth conversion.

    So many of you probably know that there um there is a Roth IRA. A Roth IRA is similar traditional IAS in many ways. Uh but there’s some different differences that make them special. So one of the differences is that you don’t get a tax deduction when you make a Roth IRA contribution. Uh once your money is in a Roth IRA, it grows tax deferred kind of like in a traditional IRA. But the big benefit of a Roth IRA though is that um you know distributions can be taxfree in retirement in the future. Now there’s a couple of rules that you need to remember. There’s a 5-year rule for every contribution and a 5-year rule for every contribution that you do. And as long as you kind of abide by the 5-year rule, uh withdraw your money after 59 and a half, then those gains can be taxfree in that tax never category. Uh so, you know, big picture, that’s how a Roth account works. And there’s a little bit of a difference between a contribution and a conversion. They both begin with the letter C. So, make sure you’re distinguishing between them. Um, but as long as you kind of abide by all the rules that you could take advantage of this uh retirement strategy,

    a few other rules. So, you must have compensation and generally that’s earned income from self-employment or wages, something like that. It cannot be passive income. Um, there are some limits in terms of what you can contribute to your Roth account. So, if you’re under 50, it’s $7,500. If uh you’re 50 and above, you can do a catch-up contribution. Uh that’s $8,600 total. Uh the good news is that there’s no age limit. And um and then but you do have to abide by the income limitations in terms of contributions. Um so, you look at your modified adjusted gross income for it’s kind of a different number for single filers and married uh couples filing jointly. Uh and here the number is basically up to single for single filers up to 168,000 for married couples 252,000. So you can make a Roth IRA contribution if you’re below those uh thresholds and if you are filing accordingly either single or married. So that kind of, you know, gives you a little bit of an intro in terms of, uh, making a contribution. And, uh, especially for young kids, uh, you know, in their 20s, their first job, you know, they’re going to be thinking about these, um, these contributions for early retirement saving. Um, and, you know, as we kind of in our 40s, 50s, if we could take advantage of this strategy, uh, we want to be taking advantage of it as much as possible, maximizing our contributions first and then thinking about, you know, conversions second. There’s also the opportunity to do a spoiler Roth IRA contribution that allows your, you know, the the working spouse to make uh contributions for the non-working spouse in the household. Um, you have to meet all the other requirements, but it’s just another place to to save for retirement. Here’s an example of a Roth IRA conversion. So, I’ll go through this um kind of step by step. Uh, when you do a Roth conversion, remember please that the tax is recognized in the year of the conversion. So, in kind of uh, you know, simple terms, a Roth conversion is when you take it um, out of a traditional IRA and put it into a Roth IRA. You take an account balance um, you take funds from your uh, traditional IRA and move it over to your Roth IRA. You can do that with a a 401k potentially as well, depending on the plan documents, but we’re just going to stick to the uh, the IRA situation for today’s purposes. So when you do that, when you move money from an IRA to a Roth IRA, you’re basically recognizing income because you’re effectively doing a distribution from your IRA. The great part is is that you’re moving it to uh another retirement account, but um you do have to recognize that income on your tax return. So in this case, Jill is going to convert $100,000 from her IRA to a Roth IRA. Um she’ll add that $100,000 to income. Um, that’s a big conversion all in one year, but in our example, Jill’s decided to do that. And then she’s her conversion will be taxed at Jill’s rate. So, she’s going to have income on her tax return an extra $100,000 and then pay taxes accordingly depending on her bracket.

    There’s lots of reasons why you want to do a conversion. Um, and basically the the main one, the one that people think about the most is that you pay Uncle Sam now so that you can own your retirement account free and clear for the rest of your life. Um, and then you have those opportunities for uh future taxfree withdrawals. Everything else remain the same um out of that account. So, if you’re over 59 and a half um and you’ve got that Roth IRA, you’ve had it for more than five years, um then you could start to um you know, pull out that money uh tax and gain uh uh gain uh gains and the initial amount kind of tax-free. And then um again, for conversions, there’s a 5-year clock, a 5-year rule that’s applied for every conversion. So again, as long as you abide by the rules, um you got a nice um uh opportunity for um paying for living expenses and all your other goals in retirement. Let’s talk about who could do a Roth conversion real quick. So um the good news is here there are no restrictions on who can do a Roth IRA conversion. Uh and so doing a conversion again, taking from your Roth from your IRA, moving it to your Roth IRA, um there’s no minimum account. Um there’s no like uh income threshold. Anybody can uh do a conversion. No requirement to be working. Uh no age limits. Um you know, Uncle Sam basically the federal government encourages conversions to a certain extent because um you know, it’s it’s uh tax revenue for the federal government sooner. Uh so uh that’s a big you know reason that people are thinking about it that the federal government kind of tracks it uh but doesn’t mind if you do a conversion and totally allowed in terms of tax code.

    Another thing to remember is that tax cuts and jobs act uh eliminated reccharacterizations for Roth IAS made in 2018 or later. So basically once you do a Roth IRA conversion um you uh it’s a permanent conversion. You’re stuck with it. Um, so there are a few circumstances where people want to kind of unwind it uh because you know their tax situations change, but just remember um it’s irrevocable. Once you do it, you’re kind of uh committed to it. Uh there’s no way to unwind it as of 2018. Another good thing about Roth IAS, um they have no required minimum distributions. So you basically decide when you want to take the distributions. There’s no RMDs to track. Um it allows your account to grow un uninterrupted taxree for life for your lifetime and also uh for your kids’ lifetime um uh part of their lifetime and uh you know can provide a tax-free inheritance to your beneficiaries to your heirs.

    The biggest reason that people want to do a Roth IRA conversion is this hedge against rising taxes in the future. We saw the tax charts previously. So again, nobody has a crystal ball. As much as you might be convinced that you can kind of predict the future, I would strongly advise against that. Um, and that’s where usually diversification helps. But, uh, the main reason that, um, people want to consider a Roth IRA conversion is this hedge against future rising taxes. Um, future tax rates are unknown. Uh there’s lots of things that are unknown for the future, but uh conversions allow you to pay taxes at today’s tax rates. And then again, helping you to manage some other costs that are tied to your income to your modified adjusted gross income, which include Social Security benefits, Medicare Part B premiums.

    So, Social Security, Medicare, touch on that real quickly. So, your IRA income um when you do withdraw money from an IRA through a distribution, whether that’s required or prior to RMDH, 100% of that is going to be taxable. Um it’s also going to be included in provisional income. And then, um also included in Medicare pricing. Your Roth IRA income on the other hand on the right hand side of the chart, not taxable time distribution after you paid the taxes for doing the conversion potentially or you just contributed to the Roth account. um it’s not included in provisional income and it’s not included in your modified adjusted gross income for Medicare pricing. Uh so you know some benefits down the road to kind of be realized um in terms of u you know doing those thinking about those Roth conversions. I’m going to go through a quick example here. So uh again you know the idea is to help you keep more money after taxes have been paid. Uh so this example here looks at uh you know someone over the age of 59 and a half considering a Roth IRA conversion of $10,000. We’re going to assume that the marginal tax rate now is 12%. Tax later rate is going to be 24%. So there’s a delta there’s a big difference between the tax now and tax later. 12% versus 24%. And this is the secret of this conversion and whether or not it becomes a success. It’s the delta the difference in tax rates. So, if this individual uh doesn’t complete a Roth conversion and just continue to let the money kind of pre-tax money grow for another 10 years, maybe at 5%, they would have approximately $16,289. If they take the money out, pay their taxes of 24%, they would have $12,380 left over. So, that’s scenario one. However, if they choose to complete a Roth IRA conversion, they would have to pay uh 12% of the money in taxes and then only $8,800 um uh dollars in the um and have $8,800 in the Roth IRA. So, assuming annual growth of 5%, you know, per year for 10 years, they would have about 14,334 that they can access income tax-free, you know, at the end of that term. So, that’s potentially a almost $2,000 difference or 15% more if they complete the Roth IRA conversion, all other things being equal. Um, and pay the income tax now instead of keeping the money pre-tax in the retirement plan or IRA, you know, paying the income tax later when they withdraw the money. So, this is a great simple inver conversion uh example. $10,000 converted. Uh pay tax now at 12% uh potentially avoiding a 24% tax rate in the future. And the difference between the two kind of all other things being equal um you know is close to $2,000. So $1,954.

    Um so keep this example in mind in terms of um you know whether or not this is something that you want to consider. This chart can also help you understand, you know, how a Roth IRA might help given different tax brackets both now and later. So, as you can see, moving across the top where you find the current marginal tax rate. Let’s say it’s 12%. Now, you move down uh on the left hand side from there, um Roth IRA conversion, kind of a 24% tax rate in the future. And then this is where you end up with 15.8% more uh in terms of benefits. So kind of top axis, left axis, kind of zero in on that 16% number. So this is the basic math about how how a Roth IRA conversion works. Once you have this down, you’re in a much better kind of position to know um you know whether this is something uh that you want to consider. But uh please remember that this is just kind of the starting the starting point. there’s a lot more work and analysis that you need to do and ultimately software really really helps um with the idea of whether or not a Roth conversion will be beneficial for you because again everybody’s financial plan is very personal um it’s different there’s complexity there and you really have to run the numbers uh to get to a good decision we can help you with that so another you know part of today’s discussion is encouraging you to kind of reach out get help get assistance with this Roth IRA conversion Um, and again, there’s no obligation to become a client, but if you do become a client, then we will share everything, all the numbers so that you’re in the best position possible to make that decision. And if you don’t become a client, that’s okay, too, cuz we’re going to offer you all the information for you to kind of uh to help crunch the numbers and then for you to be in a better position to to make a good decision. So, I highly encourage you to kind of book a meeting when I launch the poll a little bit later on. But this is an example of kind of the the numbers and the analysis that we go through in order to decide whether or not whether a Roth conversion makes sense. So, you know, looking at total gross income, federal income tax rates, capital gains taxes, other income taxes, your effective income tax rate, uh was it going to be now versus later, the near-term in the future, your longevity, life expectancy, inflation, you know, uh all the above. So this is a snapshot of some of the variables that we’re going to be using in the analysis, but it kind of gives you a window into what uh the number crunching that goes on. And in our example here, you can see that, you know, there’s a big uh jump in federal income taxes paid up front. Um and then there’s a retirement horizon and then down the road um there’s less income tax paid. And so this is the whole concept. Again, getting back to those kind of previous two charts to um but you, you know, highly encourage you to do your homework to so that you know um you know how much to convert, whether this makes sense for you because not everybody should be doing a conversion. Um it sounds like a good idea, but again, you have to kind of have the right setup and the math has has to make sense for this to be a good uh positive outcome.

    So again, like uh like we described with the the future chart, you’re looking at your future tax situation, today’s situation, and then everything else that’s involved. So income taxes, Medicare premiums, uh investment, income tax rates, um the 3.8% sir charge, uh all of the above needs to be factored in. Let’s talk about um you know the opportunity to uh again reduce those taxes uh in the future uh potentially increasing uh increasing the potential for more money um and go through this you know quick example. So here we see you know how much ordinary income a married couple both over age 65 can absorb in the various tax brackets. um you know $57,50 before moving to the 12% bracket, 130,000 before moving to the 22% tax bracket and 239,000 uh before moving to the 24% tax bracket. So uh this is all about the the opportunity to reduce those taxes uh you know creating the potential for more money again to be paid in uh in retirement expenses or pass along to beneficiaries. And this is, you know, the amount of tax that can be absorbed before moving to the next tax bracket. And this tax bracket management or kind of filling up the bucket, filling up the bracket. Uh there’s lots of different names for this strategy. Um but this, you know, this graphic kind of illustrates it all. You know, you want to fill up your bucket up until the next tax bracket. So this is a very important concept just to understand because it’s going to help you in terms of spreading your conversions over a number of years. And that decision is going to be based on you know what tax bracket you’re in, what tax bracket you need to be getting to um you know and all the other factors that go into your financial plan. So most of the time people are looking to convert up into the 24% tax bracket. Once you jump to 32% your break even for a Roth conversion is much more difficult. You’ve got 10% extra in taxes that you’ve paid that you’ve got to overcome in the future in order to make this conversion work. So again, be you want to analyze your tax brackets before and after the conversion. You know, typically you want to stay in that 10, 12, maybe up to 24% tax bracket when you’re doing it. Uh kind of watering um you know, the bucket uh but filling up the bucket or the bracket as much as possible to take advantage of that uh and not overpaying taxes. So hopefully this uh this this concept, this example illustrates the the idea to you. Uh but if you’d like more information, again, do set up a meeting. Here’s a quick chart on Medicare parts B and D. Uh so if you’re eligible for Medicare, there’s two premiums that you’re going to be paying. Uh Medicare part B and part D. Uh D for prescription drug coverage. Uh and part B is for hospital um or medical services. Your part A is a hospital uh services. uh there’s no charge for that premium, but your part B premium if you’re on Medicare is going to cover those doctor nursing services. So, how much you pay for part B and part D um is going to depend on your income. We actually have a whole webinar on this topic, but this is a good summary chart. Um so, if you’re an individual or if you’re a couple um you’re going to be paying you’re starting at a premium of $22 each per month uh to pay for Medicare Part B and $14 to pay for Part D. Now the bad news is that the more you make the more you pay and once you multiply that you know per month uh per spouse uh each spouse has to pay their own premium the dollars can add up pretty quickly. So, you know, uh, married filing jointly, uh, folks that have a, you know, modified adjusted gross income that’s greater than, you know, $342,000 up to $410,000. You they’re paying $527 each for each spouse. That’s $1,000 just in part B premiums plus $60 each uh, in part D premium. So, you could see where the stats add up. and these Irma brackets, these income related monthly adjustment amounts, this is a big reason why people want to do Roth conversions. So, um again, but you got to do the math. Um good problem to have, no doubt about it. Uh but just another cost for you to consider in terms of the break even u and Medicare parts B and D. One thing we encourage uh for folks um you know in the right situation is be on the hunt, be on the lookout for lowinccome years. And what that means is uh opportunities for you to do a Roth conversion in a low income tax bracket. So again filling up those brackets but filling up those lower brackets maybe 10 12%. So that can be uh you know business owner with low sales one year high expenses uh situation where family has uh you know non-recurring medical bills so their income is low that year or maybe uh in between jobs um kind of disability issues um you know taking a sabbatical uh just taking a couple years off changing careers like all of these are opportunities for low-inccome years but you have to be very thoughtful about it you have to be able to kind to consider, you know, the opportunity for a Roth conversion and kind of get to know this when the um you know, when the uh opportunity presents itself. So, um if you do have that low income year, um uh in the near future, then you want to give this again more more consideration because you have a bigger opportunity there. We’re going to talk about IRA owners. We’re about halfway through the webinar, so bear with us. It’s a long one, but there’s lots of information. Uh so IRA owners required minimum distribution. So remember for um you know traditional IAS for 40 401ks you basically have to start to withdraw from those accounts at age 73 or 75 if you’re not currently taking money out um if you’re currently not doing your um your your RMD. So, if you if you’re not required to take out money uh right now, uh age 73 or 75 will be when you start to uh when you’re required to take money out of that IRA or 401k. There’s penalties if you forget if you don’t take that IRA. Um you might be able to kind of appeal the decision, but it can result in an up to 25% penalty. Uh so, you know, you don’t want to be late. You want to be up to date on your RMD, your RMDs and your IRA balances. Your financial institution will let you know. it’s not going to be a surprise. Um, you found out about it today, so there’s no reason whatsoever to kind of not do your RMD, but again, age 73 to 75, that’s when you want to be on the lookout and start to plan for that. In terms of the percentage of your account balance that you’ be taking out, um, it’s about 4% to start at age 7375. So again, um if you’re the type of person that likes to worry about the decimals, then um you know, it’s 3.78% at age 73. I kind of look at as like 4% when you start. By the time you’re 80, it’s 5%. By the time you’re 90, you’re looking at somewhere around 8%. Uh so, you know, you’re going to be in taking out more uh as time goes on, but again, once you get once you get started, you’ll get used to it. And this and you’ll be an expert, you’ll be a pro at it. But uh just remember that it’s about 4% to start at age 73 to 75

    since the ARM RMD age has increased to 73. Um you know some folks they’re kind of delaying those IRA withdrawals. But you just want to be thoughtful about that too. There’s always a consequence. there’s a domino in terms of uh you know delaying versus taking now um you know your uh your source of withdrawals to pay for expenses whether that’s coming from taxable tax deferred or tax-free accounts. This graph illustrates those, you know, requirement distributions at various ages. And the takeaway from this slide is the idea that, you know, as you have a bigger account balance as it’s growing at some kind of kind of normal rate of return over time, you know, from age 65 and into the future, um, you’re going to have some kind of a RMD uh, that’s payable down the road. So, at 73, depending on your, you know, uh, your account size, you know, you could be of a $56,000 or $150,000 RMD, depending on how much you’re starting with, whether it’s maybe a million or $2 million. It sounds like a big number, but um, you know, with inflation, with rates of return, with a good stock market, um, you know, lots of folks have, uh, IAS that are in these dollar amounts. Uh but even if you’re you know half of this then you still got to be just you know aware of this uh tendency for you know bigger RMDs as you age uh get into age 83 age 93 and above. And um you can see that you know in in this example the biggest number uh age 93 with a $2 million account you’re looking at you know almost $300,000 uh RMDs. And that’s where you’re being impacted by Irma. you’re being impacted by um you know part B higher part B premiums higher social security taxes all of these things again good problem to have but a Roth IRA gives you a chance to mitigate some of this impact this graph illustrates that the increase in RMD when compared to inflation so you’re assuming that the initial IRA balance is $1 million age 73 um inflation rate of 2.5% and then uh if we assume the tax brackets uh um you know deductions are adjusted at the rate of inflation. If the ARM RMD amount is increasing faster than inflation, it could push this taxpayer into a higher tax bracket. And so this is kind of the watch out, you know, again, inflation RMD amounts pushing up into the next tax bracket. Just something to be aware of and the chance for an RMD um you know, reduction and Roth IRA conversion to help with uh this entire thing. Again,

    this is another example snapshot of the software that we kind of used to to go through all these different scenarios. So, looking at your sources of income, uh social security, other income, your RMDs, which are going to be income, uh on your tax return from your investment accounts, looking at your expenses, looking at your goals, everything holistically. And then if you do, you know, the probability of success with a Roth conversion, we want to estimate that as well. you know, is it a low probability, high probability? What are the cumulative taxes that you’re potentially going to be saving? What’s the impact on your total portfolio? Uh that’s going to be contingent on a bunch of different variables. But these are all the things that you want to consider for a Roth IRA conversion. This is kind of a snapshot of the data input. You know, looking at um you know, the um how much we’re going to be convert converting um over what time frame, uh the growth rates inside, etc. uh this is all the analysis that kind of goes into um goes into the data input to give us a good you know uh a good idea whether or not we should consider this this conversion more seriously or whether we should go forward or not. So again another chart illustrating the example in this case um you know after the Roth IRA conversion uh it was a positive impact so that’s good news. uh probability of success is 100%. Uh cumulative taxes went down by 140,000 in this example. Um and then to total portfolio assets actually increased by almost a million up to $5 million. So again, high net worth family. Uh good candidate to consider a Roth IRA conversion, you know, with thoughtful application. Um got a good probability of success and potentially saving money on taxes. Uh certainly nothing to sneeze at. $140,000 savings and then an increase in total portfolio assets for their beneficiaries.

    Going to mention this also um in terms of again Roth IRA conversion and kind of uh you know a survivor strategy. So the whole idea is is that um when there’s uh you know two spouses in a family uh one passes away there’s a survivor because of the differences in um tax uh tax rates because of kind of the the change in income coming into the household it could have a big impact on um you know how much tax is paid to kind of generate the same amount of income. So left and right side of the screen, uh we’ve got Adam and an uh you know when they’re both um both alive, they’ve got, you know, pension income, social security for both of them, uh taxes that they’re paying and then after tax income of $110,000 and that puts them in the marginal tax rate of 12%. So, you know, this is something to be very aware of because, you know, if Adam passes away, Ann is on her own. Um, she’s going to be filing single at that point and then in order to generate that after tax income of $110,000, she’s got to pull out $98,000 in IRA and pension income. So, that’s going to be increase in her IRA withdrawal. Now, she’s also um on a solo social security um cash flow uh or platform. So, she’s only getting social security for herself, not for the both of them. And so, um, you know, unfortunately with this situation, Ann is now going to be looking at, you know, $18,000, uh, almost $19,000 in income taxes, um, in order to kind of have the same after tax income. Uh, so a big increase in how much she’s got to take out of her IRA and just, you know, um, a simple kind of change. You’d think that the the impact wouldn’t be so dramatic, but it is when you just think about, okay, you want to keep that after tax income the same, but you know what actually changes? And the two things that actually change are the amount of income that she needs to pull out and also her tax rate. So, food for thought again to think about that Roth IRA conversion, uh, you know, increase in taxes and, uh, and everything else. So here we have just kind of summarize appropriate Roth IRA conversion before the first death could be a viable strategy to help keep more money uh after income taxes have been paid. This slide demonstrates what it looks like when comparing tax brackets between married filing jointly versus single. Uh so again as you can see the single filer brackets are compressed when compared to married brackets. Um, you know, one reason for this is, um, you know, after the first death, the surviving spouse often retains all the assets and the increasing RMDs. Um, and but they’ll also be at higher tax rates. So again, something to remember, something to consider. Um, as a result, you may want to think about again whether or not this makes sense for your Roth IRA conversion. Uh, just taking advantage of that lower tax rate.

    And then in terms of estate planning, uh beneficiary strategies, um remember that uh when children inherit a IRA, um they need to kind of uh empty that IRA within 10 years. Uh so if they’re the beneficiary personally, so here we have an example of Carrie, age 45. Uh assume she inherited $1 million IRA from her deceased mom. Um she doesn’t need the money. Uh so that’s good. And she doesn’t want to increase her taxable income. So, under the old rule r rules, she could actually stretch this uh IRA um only needs to take $25,000 in RMD in the first year, but there are some new rules. Um with this, uh you know, if she were to withdraw evenly over 10 years, she does have to empty the account. Uh she would take out $123,000. Uh so some some differences in terms of cash flows, taxes paid um you know depends on um you know what this money is earmarked for. And so Carrie, she does need to kind of be thoughtful about her financial plan, whether or not she wants to kind of take out the money sooner, maybe buy a home, uh maybe have it this money to start a business or some other purposes or whe whether she wants to kind of stretch it out over 10 years. Unfortunately, she cannot stretch it out over her lifetime, but um you know depending on her goal, she was to maximize and pay the least amount of tax possible. Uh so again um in this hypothetical example, you know, if uh if there was a a Roth IRA considered kind of could act add to her um after tax income and um you know again she’s single, she’s got taxable income of $9,000 a year without the inherited IRA. um she’s looking at 22% tax bracket. Um but again, her tax bracket’s going to change depending on how much she pulls out that she could jump into a 24 or 30% um tax bracket. So again, she just wants to be thoughtful about this. And this is the point of this whole kind of example. You know, uh understand what your potential taxes are for the future, understand what your goals are, uh and minimize taxes accordingly. Another example here, mom and dad, you know, IRA with son as a beneficiary. Uh they’re in the 12% tax bracket, son’s in a 24% tax bracket. So the uh the opportunity kind of jumps off the screen here in terms of a conversion for mom and dad save money uh on taxes, giving their tax rate and u versus the son kind of uh pulling money out in a taxable uh tax deferred account down the road uh and getting that 12% difference, saving the money on taxes.

    Again, this beneficiary strategy could end up to be, you know, $50 or $100,000 difference. Depends on the size of the account. But, uh, the important thing is do the math. Uh, understand the differences in tax rates and see if there’s a good opportunity for tax planning.

    Okay. And uh you know again we’ve got um you know some things to remember for uh the Roth IRA conversion. So remember uh no income limitations. Um your tax at ordinary income tax rates. Uh another thing that I didn’t mention but uh the deadline is December 31st. Uh so it’s basically a calendar year. You need to do that conversion within the calendar year. You can’t wait till the next year. Um sometimes you can wait till the next year with some other items like RMDs. your first RMD for instance um or doing a contribution but not so with a Roth IRA conversion the deadline is December 31st uh remember that magic number 59 a half uh that’s when you can start to pull out uh the money um taxfree as long as you met all the rules the 5-year rule for contribution from your first contribution or a 5-year rule from each conversion and then also be aware of all those unintended tax consequences that we described. You know, this is not a complete list, but uh kind of gives you insight into the impact on Social Security, Medicare premiums, and uh other things to consider. Goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway. No guarantee that a Roth IRA conversion will achieve intended results. Um the rules might change. Uh hopefully not. Um but, you know, we got to figure out a way to pay for these taxes accordingly. You know, sometimes we have folks that uh clients that have all of their assets uh and it could be a big amount. It could be a, you know, average amount, but all of their assets in in their retirement accounts and u you know, they don’t have money in their savings account to kind of pay for the taxes. So, uh when you take money out of your retirement account, then the break even um analysis, it takes longer to break even if you’re taking out money from your retirement account versus paying for those taxes in a savings account or a brokerage account. So again, all part of the planning process, the mechanics of this to make sure you get it done right. Uh make sure that you understand the numbers and the risks. And again, another kind of summary charts to to drive home the point, you know, add up all your income, think about your RMDs down the future, your portfolio assets, total taxes paid, um etc. Think about your longevity, um you know, do the math, do the number crunching. Let’s use the software to help us get to the right answer. see if we could have a positive income in this case. Again, another positive outcome. Um 116,000 and $250,000 increase in total portfolio assets.

    Okay. Well, that takes us to the end of our presentation. Uh so uh if there are any questions um please start to think about that and kind of uh you know put into the chat, put into the Q&A and I’ll do my best to uh answer your questions. Um but in conclusion um you know again Roth IRA conversion um it’s a great planning strategy definitely worth consideration you know make sure you’re doing your homework make sure you’re you’re utilizing all the tools and technology available to you. you know, do book a meeting with us if you’re seriously interested in this. Um, again, looking at tax diversification, looking at RMD management, um, estate planning strategies and benefits, um, and just again holistically in terms of your overall financial plan. Um, we’re here to help. I keep saying that because it’s worth mentioning. Uh, we want to be your first call in terms of financial planning and investment management. Uh, avoid any mistakes and and things like that. And these are all the ways that we help members, clients, and basically, you know, the whole idea is to increase your confidence. That’s our value ad. Um, you know, you know, we, uh, it’s a full-time job to kind of keep up with all the information, all the changes, whether through tax code or innovations with various strategies and concepts and, you know, active passive strategies and maximizing returns, minimizing fees, all of the above. Uh, so if you’re interested, uh, we’d love to help you with any of these topics. estate planning, your financial plan, uh your your investment management. Uh again, we’ve got lowcost passive strategies. We’ve got uh um separately managed accounts available to you, boutique money managers. Um the list goes on and on. Uh and here as I close up, um you know, this is kind of a summary of the digital estate planning service that we have available to you. So, this is tremendous value just in itself. highly encourage you to take advantage of this. Um, if you’re a client of ours, we can help you get your estate done, uh, no charge. Um, your estate planning done, no charge. Uh, it’s a complimentary benefit uh, for being a client of ours. Um, you know, doing this work with an attorney is $3,000. Uh, and then we can help you uh, get it done uh, no charge uh, through this uh, digital estate planning service. get your living trust done, your uh PA, power of attorney for financial medical done, HIPPA authorization, etc. Everything that kind of a basic estate plan needs. If you’re more complicated, we can help you with that, too. Um, you might need to see an estate planning attorney if you’re, you know, um, more complicated, but that’s okay. The benefits are worth it, but I will take you through the, you know, the things to think about and whether which direction to go. So, again, another great reason to give us a call and set up a meeting. Here’s my contact information. Uh my cell phone 213-320860. That is my direct number. So please do call any time. At this point I’m going to launch the poll um to give you a chance to set up a meeting. So would love to hear from you um and uh and just kind of help you with all your goals or even answer any questions. Uh so do uh please respond and then I see some questions coming up. So, keep those questions coming and um you know, we look forward to uh again helping you with this, you know, this idea of a Roth conversion, but remember, it’s just one thing. Um it’s one part of your plan. And um there’s probably 12 things that you need to consider inside of your financial plan. And I’m sorry it’s so complicated, but you know, with tax code, um, with investment management, with all that’s happening in your personal family, you know, long-term care, estate planning, income planning, tax minimization, fee, uh, minimization, return maximization, like all of these things that you want to consider to get the last dollar out of your uh, financial plan if possible. Okay. Uh, so uh, sorry I talked quickly. Uh I wanted to get through all the material uh for you and uh uh we’re just under an hour or so kind of going to questions so we made good time. Okay, let me get it set up here please. U it’s just me and uh kind of reading through these questions uh and uh I just want to make sure that I understand your question and uh answer it uh and then we could always book a meeting if if uh if helpful for you. Okay, first question. uh what age is recommended to start a conversion? Uh so the recommended part is going to depend on uh your uh your personal financial plan and uh your family situation, your income, um your expenses, your assets, all of the above. So, I can give you a guideline, but the agent to kind of start a conversion or start thinking about um you know, the sooner the better as long as you can kind of be confident in what your future is going might look like. And when I say be confident, you don’t have to know with certainty, but you can start that process in your 40s, you can start it in your 50s, but it’s not too late even in your 60s to do a conversion. the sooner the better. Uh because you get to uh you have more of a time horizon to break even and there’s also um you have control of those assets longer to kind of help your family um to to to follow up with the strategy so that you get to the kind of intended uh destination and have the intended result. So the answer to your question, you know, what age recommended to start a conversion, it all depends, but you could start in your 40s, like late 40s is probably the soonest that people do it. Um, you know, most people that are in their 30s, they’re doing direct contributions. They haven’t built up that IRA or 401k that much yet. Um, you know, people are typically doing that in, you know, later on their career as they increase their salary, as they increase their retirement assets. Um, so, you know, late 40s probably the soonest that I’ve seen. Uh, 50s is kind of the sweet spot sweet spot because you’re you’re really putting time on your side, but 60s totally worth it. as you get into your 70s, um it’s a little more difficult to break even, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be do doing it. It really depends on your goals. Your estate planning strategy becomes more important at that point. Uh so those are all the kind of age brackets to to think about. Another question here, uh can you clarify if one does multiple Roth IRA conversions in one calendar year, doesn’t the 5-year clock start in January of that year? Um, so my understanding is that it starts when you do the conversion, not so much that month. Um, uh, I could look that up and confirm that and, uh, you know, but my understanding is that it’s the 5-year clock from when you do the conversion, not just like January of that year. Um, so um, if you, um, if I find your name, uh, you know, maybe we can kind of revisit that, I can ask a couple of other advisors or we can look that up in terms of, uh, the conversion rules. But my understanding is that you start in July, you got it’s July to you know July 5 years later. That’s kind of the clock that you’re uh you’re faced with um in terms of each conversion. Um it might be all like uh you know most people are not doing multiple conversions in one year but really you know at the end of the day it doesn’t make that much difference either because um you know a few months difference is not going to change the decision making uh for a conversion and you’re just waiting a few more months to kind of get those cash flows out. So uh but we can clarify that uh if that’s helpful. Another question here how do we determine the break even point? Okay great question. So that kind of comes to the the crux of the decision around a Roth conversion and break even is basically when you take your your um withdrawal which becomes taxable income you need to pay taxes on that and then after you’ve paid taxes after um you’ve got a lower u you know um you know total net worth um then you have to kind of factor that into your new account um because you pay taxes upfront But now you’ve got a new Roth IRA uh with the opportunity to start um uh generating returns and then in the future to kind of uh save in taxes. So that’s the break break even math that we’re talking about. You know, it’s all the upfront cost versus the um the down the road future benefits. And at some point, your Roth IRA conversion is going to hopefully uh become profitable because you’ve kind of you’ve made up that uh early um early tax liability payment. Um so your uh account value is larger. You’ve kind of uh made up for that that early payment. You’ve got a bigger account balance in your new Roth IRA. And then your future account balance benefits from um you know, no taxes. So you’re com you’re comparing your basic, you know, after tax um returns uh holding it in that IRA versus your after tax returns uh in the Roth IRA. And that’s the break even math. I hope that simplifies it, but basically there’s a bunch of variables that go into that. Looking at taxes, looking at cash flows, timing, and when you’re going to break even and ultimately be profitable.

    Okay, another question here. Uh I talked about the free service. Um what exactly does that include? Uh so I’ll quickly go back to that um slide. Uh so this is the uh the summary. We use a digital estate planning service called trust and will. Um they’re very well established. Um, you can, uh, once I set you up, uh, on my dashboard, uh, you’re invited to, uh, set up an account, no charge, uh, as a client of ours, and then you can get your, uh, living trust, your will, medical, financial power of attorney completed. Um, you get a binder shipped to you. Uh, you have that notorized, and then it’s, uh, in effect fully legal, uh, throughout the United States. So, that’s how it works mechanically. The only thing that we ask to take advantage of this great benefit is that you become a client of ours. Uh so we make a big investment to have this to offer this uh to our members to our clients. And so we ask you to to kind of uh you know work with us, partner with us so that we can help you uh you know build on all the great information that we’re helping you with today and uh and get your financial plan done. Your estate plan is part of your financial plan. It’s so important. uh you know over the years I’ve been doing this a long time and then unfortunately you know people do pass away prematurely um it could be a crazy accident like a diving uh you know a diving expedition in Hawaii or it could be something else or falling off your roof and you know these things happen you know both younger and after retirement. So having an estate plan if you have younger kids um if you’re a grandparent and your kids have kids and you have grandchildren everybody needs an estate plan uh because you don’t want to leave it to chance. You do not want to leave this to the uh the state that you reside in state of California or anywhere else. Uh you want to have control and you want to leave your estate in good order so that your beneficiaries can benefit. So those are all the things that kind of uh you know play into the estate planning uh process and again uh no charge if you become a client. So hopefully you take advantage of it. Thanks for the question. Another question here. If uh if you pay taxes out of pocket, invest the whole conversion, the gains will make up for the taxes paid tax-free. Yes. Um so that’s that’s kind of the idea. um you’re paying for taxes out of pocket. And what we mean by that is out of your savings account or your taxable investment account. You’re not generally 99% of the time people are paying for their taxes out of their non-retirement accounts. And the reason for that is because they want to keep their retirement account uh as big as possible to realize those gains and those benefits down the road. Because if you’ve taken if you’re paying for taxes out of your traditional IRA, your Roth conversion is going to be smaller. So when your Roth conversion is smaller, it’s got, you know, uh it takes longer and it takes more return in order to get back up to your original balance and then, you know, to build up a nest egg that’s even bigger so that it kind of makes all of this worthwhile. Um, so that’s the whole idea of uh break even math uh for uh Roth conversions. Thanks for the follow-up question. Another question here about estate planning. After the plan is notorized, would you need to get it funded? Uh so the answer is yes. That’s part of the the steps in terms of estate planning. So if you have a a new living trust, for instance, then you might want to retitle your real estate in the name of your uh living trust. uh you have a choice in terms of your taxable accounts whether or not you want them to be titled in the name of your living trust or personally and attach beneficiaries to them. So you can go either way. Uh there’s no wrong answer in terms of that. But yes, you do need to fund your estate plan. And what that means is basically uh make sure all of the titling, all of the beneficiary designations are up to date so that uh you know the right people inherit your money. there’s nobody that’s being disinherited uh from your estate and it’s funded uh you want to fund either your accounts or your trust uh accordingly with your real estate and the reason is because you know on your deed on your title for your real estate there’s no line that said this is the beneficiary you know you know with the county that you reside in so you need a living trust to avoid probate um otherwise the the state that you reside in state of California or elsewhere they’re going to make the decisions and then it goes through the courts It goes through the attorneys and the judges. All of that is extra time, cost, and complexity adds to potential frustration for your beneficiaries. Uh so getting your estate plan done up front. Um it’s just a tremendous value. Makes a world of sense. Uh but the whole idea is to get completed.

    Okay, I think that’s all the questions in the chat. Uh got a couple questions in the Q&A, so let’s keep going. um what software do you utilize for these projections and analysis? So, we use a software called e-money um internally through our broker dealer. It’s called Wealth Vision, but it’s basically the same uh planning software. Um it’s institutional grade. It’s uh probably the, you know, one of the best planning software uh platforms available. Um it again, it’s institutional grade, so it’s fairly expensive, but uh we do all the data input. uh you know we’re very familiar with the software so we can get it done quick. Uh you know the whole process is you send us your statements uh you know we input the data uh we get together have a meeting make sure it’s all correct we do all the number crunching and then share the results and then send you a deck at the end of it all and that’s your financial plan that’s your Roth conversion you know all in a in a very concise and usable format. Um, so the software is super handy because, you know, it’s audited. You can rely on it. And I have some clients, you know, they’re very good at Excel. And what they’ll do is they’ll they’ll do their own financial planning with Excel, but they’ll use, you know, our planning process to confirm all of their numbers. Um, so because we all need checks and balances with Excel because there’s so many calculations and so many variables, uh, because we’re looking at tax rates and tax code and everything else and, um, you know, it just makes more sense to to to use planning software that’s able up, you know, up to the task uh, for a Roth conversion to get us a good answer and whether or not this is worthwhile. Another question here, your complimentary services provide help with setting up a trust. Um yeah, absolutely. So again, it’s on the screen. Um if you contact me, if you become a client, um we will uh for a no cost um service uh help you get your living trust done, your will done, um your power of attorneys completed. Again, you need to get it notorized, but then it’s, you know, in effect legal, executable, and uh and will help your family. So absolutely, uh we just started offering this this year and uh tremendous value. this in itself is worth becoming a client. But I know I’m biased. So, you know, don’t hate me for that or excuse me for that. But, you know, we just try to, you know, provide all the benefits we can to help people uh get value.

    Okay, last question. Uh, should a Roth IRA be invested with more equities u or something else? Uh, good question. So, that’s asset alloc asset allocation. Uh, there’s two parts to that answer. One is yes more equities generally but it depends on your risk tolerance. It depends on your financial plan. It depends on your kind of confidence in the markets your time frame but more equities is generally the rule of thumb and uh you know fixed income kind of more to be avoided. Uh but you want to be balanced. We have fixed income alternatives actually that you should really investigate especially for a Roth conversion because you want a growth strategy. you want to capitalize on that uh that u you know beneficial tax bracket, no tax situation um you know getting you know you know potentially converting at a lower tax bracket and having uh you know savings and and uh extra gains that are not taxed down the road. So uh you know equities are an important part of that having equity allocation and uh and make sure you break even on the tax liability that you had up front. So going back to that break even math. So the answer is yes. uh equities definitely need to be considered but again in terms of you know what type of portfolio whether that should be aggressive growth a dividend portfolio some other growth strategy a balance strategy and the all the asset allocation that goes within each of those port portfolios or the money manager approach. So it can get a little bit of uh you know complicated but you know within like 15 20 minutes of uh you know a good description then you kind of get it entirely and then kind of you know move on to the next uh the next uh part of the process in terms of understanding you know the conversion mathematics

    just mentioned uh great webinar so thank you for saying that. I love uh I love the shout outs and they make me feel good. Um, one more question here. Uh, great response, by the way. Great group. Uh, so you keep the questions come coming. I love that. Um, it says, “When you have a 10-year age difference between spouses, so maybe 60 and 70, the younger one wants to do a conversion married filing jointly, does that affect the Irma for the older spouse?” And um, you know, the answer is yes. And also keep in mind that uh you know your Irma will uh for the younger spouse that Irma calculation will kick in in a couple of years. So uh really all depends in terms of you know what point you want to do the conversion for your your financial plan. But you know whether you’re 60 or 70, you’re kind of in the zone for doing a conversion. Um you know whether or not you have kids that’ll ultimately impact your decision. But, you know, there is a 2-year look back uh in terms of Medicare calculations and looking your at your modified adjusted gross income. Um, you want to factor that into your decision. Uh, the 61y old, you’re going to be eligible for Medicare by the time you’re 65. So, that’s in four years. Um, so again, it’s all going to depend, but um, you know, there will be definitely Irma consequences uh, for both of you. If you’re putting on um, you know, more income onto your income tax return by doing a conversion, that that’s going to impact your Medicare costs because that’s going to impact your modified adjusted gross income. So, um, that’s my best answer for that. Uh, but again, you want to do the planning and kind of talk that through. Okay, with that let’s pause. Uh thank you so much everybody. Uh again here’s my contact information. Uh please do give me a call. Look forward to seeing you at our next webinar and uh that’s on tax planning and then the next one after that uh estate planning. Uh so with that uh thanks again for all your participation. We really appreciate it and look forward to uh seeing you at our next event. Take care.

  • 05/15/2026 – Stop wasting your life – 7 Steps to UNLOCK 97.9% of your Potential

    If you clicked on this video, it’s because you know you have a ton of potential. You’re bright, you’re ambitious, and you know that you are meant for more. And every night when you go to sleep, you have that thought of one day, one day I’m going to achieve everything I have ever wanted. Well, I want to congratulate you because if you pay very close attention to this video, that day will come sooner than you could ever imagine because I’m going to go over the seven things that will unlock 100% of your God-given potential on this earth. This is going to be a tacticalbased video. My goal here is that you walk out of this with real things that you can do and apply straight away. Now, a quick disclaimer. You see, after you watch this video, you’re going to need a target. You have all of this potential all of a sudden. You need somewhere to aim all of this energy towards, for example, starting that online business that you have been putting off. So, in order to accomplish that successfully, I’ve gone ahead and left a link to my most popular YouTube video this year, which breaks down a bunch of business models for beginners, so that way you can find what is most appropriate for you. Once you watch this video and you unlock 100% of your potential, go ahead and click that link in the description and watch that video after. And with that out of the way, let’s get into the seven things that will unlock 100% of your potential. Step number one, you have to kill the boy. You see, the reason that most likely you aren’t achieving your potential is because you are still acting like a child. And for me, the difference between a boy and a man has nothing to do with your age. I had to go from a boy to a man at a very young age. The difference between a boy and a man is responsibility. You become a man when you take full ownership and full responsibility of your life. Most of you are thinking that someone is going to come and rescue you. Most of you want to run away from reality instead of towards reality. You have made a cozy home inside of your head where you think you can escape and you just feel like you’re not failing. Meanwhile, in real life, your problems keep piling up nonstop. I need you to understand that this is the boy. The boy is the version of you who needs to be protected and can’t handle and face reality. And look, I get it. There’s a deep desire to protect that version of yourself. Because a warning for you, the day you go from a boy to a man, aka you stop absolving yourself of responsibility. You start to run towards responsibility, not away from it, it’s very hard to go back. But unfortunately, you have to kill him. It simply doesn’t serve you anymore. Kill the boy and the man will become the only thing that’s left. And once you have done that, you will see a new side of yourself. The side of yourself that gets done ruthlessly. The side of yourself that you needed to be all of these years. Step number two is play the long game. If you’re giving 110% of yourself to short-term games, you are getting micro wins that don’t build up to anything worthwhile in the future. When you shift your mentality to a long-term game, and by the way, just so you understand, I know maybe sometimes I say these things and they can come across a bit abstract in a video like this, but let me just go ahead and zone it in. What playing a long-term game means is that when there’s a dispute with a client or a customer, and even though you know they’re in the wrong, you know that you’re right in that situation. It’s funny, in my life, I’ve had incredible relationships with my team, with business associates, business partners, and generally my wider network because I actually have something factored in. It’s called a get tax. And it’s part of my long-term strategy, which is like, hey, I could sit here and dispute all of these things every single time that I know I’m actually in the right or I’m just going to accept the fact that I’m playing a long-term game. And as a part of a long-term game, there’s going to be certain situations where, you know what, I’ll just take the little L here for the much bigger W in the future. Aka, you don’t need to win every single battle. as long as you win the war. And I think one of the reasons this concept is so important is when you play a long-term game, it’s basically a reassurance to yourself that like you know you’re going to make it. Because when you play a long-term game, it’s basically telling yourself like, hey, this is a long game, I know I’m eventually going to win the game. So rather than focusing on these short-term ups and downs, why don’t I just focus on the grand mission and zone out for a bit? And by the way, this doesn’t even just apply in business. It can apply outside business. So whether that is the way that you carry yourself day-to-day in business or whether that’s the way that you build your relationships, I think a lot of people they don’t think long-term when it comes to relationships, everything’s just so short-term minded. Oh, what can I get out of this person straight away? That’s not how life works. Maybe at some of the lower levels, that’s how it works, but when you get into the upper echelon of society, people can see people that are playing short-term games. And what it looks like to people is a train wreck that they want to avoid at all costs. So, I think truly when you decide to play a short-term game, I actually think it’s quite a deep psychological trigger to yourself that like I’m not confident that I’m going to make it in the future. Like, I’m not confident that I will 100% do and accomplish everything I say in life. Because if you know for a fact that you’re going to accomplish and succeed in these things, well, then you would definitely be eager to move forward, but you’re not going to be desperately in a rush like a lot of people you see out there. And that brings us on to step number three, which is be the youngest and brokeest person in your friend group. Now, that’s not always possible, okay? But you have to try your best. You simply won’t strive for more if you’re hanging around people who idolize you for doing the bare minimum to get yourself out of a terrible situation. Look, I hate to say it, but if you’re making $10,000 a month, that’s amazing. That’s commendable. Like, congratulations. But if you’re hanging around people that think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, of course, you’re never going to get any better. I mean, yeah, for sure it feels good to be looked upon highly, regarded highly, but most people just don’t have the balls to insert themselves into a new group of people where they see you as a beginner. So, I want you to actively try to find people doing better than you and put yourself in a student’s position. And rule number one, don’t try to impress them. Honestly, you can’t. Be honest. Ask for advice. Be the mentee, not the mentor. I’ll be honest, that level of humility is so attractive and appealing to people who are later on in their careers. So, actually weaponize that, use that because it will take you so much further. And I think that takes us perfectly into step number four, which is you have to be a lifelong learner. If I think of every single person I know who has unlocked 100% of their potential, they truly are lifelong learners. And it’s interesting, you can actually be super successful, but at the same time not be unlocking 100% of your potential. And I see it all the time. I see people that become successful and then they get really complacent and then they’re like, “Oh, well, I already know enough.” And it’s like, I mean, yeah, sure, but life’s going to give you a pretty big smack in the face when at a certain point, I don’t believe in this concept of, oh, just treading water. I don’t think that you can just stay in the same position. I think you’re actively either moving forward or moving backwards. And there’s really nothing in between. So, I think the action of not moving forward and not educating yourself is you in the process getting lapped by other people that do. I wish I could sit here and explain how to do it. I’ll always hold my hands up and say like I don’t know how to tangibly give this to you. I think it’s just something that people develop or they have that moment where it clicks or like just I think the only thing I can think of is like being so processorientated and like enjoying the process so much that you don’t care about the result. But truly, if I think about the most successful people I know, they are constantly educating themselves. Now, I want to make it clear, educating themselves doesn’t mean watching podcasts and reading books 24/7, although there’s a place for that stuff. Most of the time their education is in the arena like in the arena of life like that’s education like doing things, trying things, speaking to people, spending 2 weeks just immersing yourself in one specific topic, right? Not like, oh, I’m going to listen to 2 hours of podcast a day and that’s education. I’ll be honest, a lot of times that’s not education. That’s just entertainment. If you spend 2 hours a day specifically listening to really niche podcasts or really niche videos or spending 2 hours with binaural beats on it’s just you and Claude going back and forth sort of as a sparring partner and saying okay cool if you had to make me an expert on this topic in the next 2 hours how would you go about it? So to me that is what I mean when I say educate yourself. Educate yourself by playing in the arena of life or educate yourself by very thoughtful and curated self-education time. Now, step number five is you must be ruthless with your self-accountability. Look, I’m going to be honest with you. You’re the one lying to yourself. Not your partner, not your boss. You. You convinced yourself that watching podcasts counts as working on the business. You convinced yourself that thinking about the offer is the same as building the offer. You convinced yourself that being busy means productive. One of my favorite things to do at the end of the day is look at what my intention was going into the day. And by the way, that’s a topic for another video. Feel free to leave in the comments if you want me to show you how to execute on a successful day. But at the beginning of the day, you should have your intentions for the day. But at the end of the day, I love going back and going, “All right, cool. This is what I said I was going to do today. Here’s what I actually got done.” And that gap is just a reflection of how much you’ve been lying to yourself. And sometimes I even face that problem. But the problem with lying to yourself is that it stops feeling bad after a while. And then it just becomes a norm. And then you start getting in this loop of thinking, “Oh, well, it’s fine if I didn’t hit my non-negotiables for the day or it’s fine if I didn’t execute on my intention for the day.” And look, there’s always anomalies. You’re not going to hit it 100% of the time. But when it becomes the norm for you not to do it compared to doing it, well then now you’ve created a self-fulfilling prophecy for yourself. And I think step number six helps mitigate against all of this, which is you must get your personal life in order before your business life flourishes. You see, your business is a reflection of who you are as a person. I know this might seem ridiculous, but if you can’t even remind yourself to make your bed or brush your teeth, how the do you expect to run a successful enterprise? Look, I don’t want to sit here and pretend as though after a decade I’m perfect, okay? Even me, I’m not sometimes. And I very much notice one for one that when my personal life is out of order, out of whack, as in the way I show up personally for life, then yeah, there’s a very clear reflection of how my business life shows up. Now, I’m very fortunate to be a decade in where I have 100 plus people working for me and there’s systems and protocols and everything’s got a place in an order and whatnot, but still, nonetheless, there’s definitely a business effect and things aren’t moving at the pace they should be. And if I had to put a bow on this entire thing, it would be step number seven, which is to fulfill 100% of your potential, you must act, then become. the issues right now what you’re thinking is I’m going to do these things and then from there once I do these things then I will have this image of myself that’s not how it works basically your brain has a thermostat okay and every time you go against that thermostat and that thermostat is basically your selfidentity every time you go past that selfidentity for yourself what does your brain do it some things up in your life it self-sabotages because it wants you to come back to that thermostat it wants you to come back to that place of homeostasis so let’s reverse them around first you are going to have this image of yourself and it’s with that self-image image that you will then carry out the actions. Now, the beautiful part is when you carry out those actions, it will reaffirm the self-image and then it just becomes this beautiful prosperous cycle. But it all predicates on you first building this image of yourself and then executing on it. Now look, if anything that I mentioned in this video seems harsh, I want you to know that truly from the bottom of my heart, it comes from a good place. As someone who cares about you and wants to see you win, and if you truly take everything I’ve just said to heart, you are going to become unrecognizable. These are all harsh realizations that I’ve had to find out myself the hard way.

  • 05/15/2026 – How to Actually Make Money Online This Year

    Right now, you’re either in one of two buckets. You don’t have a personal brand yet, or you do, but it’s just not making you nearly as much money as it should. So, I’m going to help you fix both. I’ve personally built a brand to over 10 million followers across all platforms, and it’s got me some cool stuff, like getting paid 100K for a single keynote, get on some of the top podcasts in the world, generate over 100 million in revenue for my companies, and most importantly, the thing I’m most proud of is the chance to help millions of people build a business they don’t grow to hate. And I want that for you, too. So, today, I’m going to walk you through the five steps of building a personal brand that brings every opportunity you’ve ever dreamed of into your life. But first, we need to understand what we’re building in the first place. Step one, understand what we’re building. What is a brand? Think about it like this. A brand is nothing more than association. You have an object and you have association. You have Nike and you have athletes. You have Ferrari and you have luxury. A personal brand adds a person into it. So what do people think about when they hear your name? If you think of Elon Musk, you probably think space. You probably think rich. You probably think controversial. You probably think X or Twitter. If you think Mr. Beast, you probably think YouTube, most subscribers, big smile, high energy. Just think about it. What’s the topics that you want to be associated with? When you think of people, who do you want to be associated with? When you think of products or hobbies, what do you want to be associated with? So for me, it’s blue shirt, it’s AI, it’s time, it’s the things that I talk about. The old model was essentially you build a monetization engine first and then you build an audience. You figure out what you want to sell and then you go create ads. That’s gone. That’s not the world we live in. The new model is you build audience, you build community, you build attention, and then you monetize only if you build trust. The audience is the asset. It’s the new oil. That’s why we’re seeing this like proliferation of people doubling down and going pro on their personal brand because the benefit of a personal brand is massive. Back in the day, it used to be who you know and today it’s who knows you. You being talked about in a room that you’re not even in there because you created content to help people. That’s incredible. Mr. Beast was offered a billion dollars for his YouTube channel like 5 years ago. Kylie Jenner used her social media to build a makeup brand that sold for $600 million. When I look at the crazy things in my life, speaking at Tony Robbins, meeting my idols like John Maxwell, doing the top podcasts like Modern Wisdom, Lewis House, all these came on the backside of building a brand. And brand is nothing more than the feeling and association somebody has when they hear your name. So don’t just build a business, build a brand. If you want to be a millionaire, you can build a business. If you want to be a billionaire, you got to build a brand. So, now we understand the concept of a personal brand, but how do we actually build one? Step two, stop talking to everyone. Okay, my friend Jen said it best the other day. She said, “If you don’t have a controversial take or an unpopular opinion when you speak, then you’re not repelling the people you don’t want, and you’re not attracting the people you do want.” Think about it. If you try to talk to everyone, you just end up talking to no one. You sound like vanilla. There’s no spice to your communication. And it’s not about like jumping out there and screaming at the crowd or freaking out or being Mr. Funny Pants. It’s literally having an opinion. It’s about being you. And if you’re quiet and you’re you’re chill and you just want to sit there and bake goods and record yourself doing that, do it. But if you want to like bring the energy and show your lifestyle and be a streamer like some of these people like I show speed, isn’t it crazy that that is some of the attention you can get? But again, association and brand. So the whole point is to talk to a specific person. What are their opinions on life? What do they want to learn about? That is your ideal audience. And if you’re trying to make money at some point, then you should speak to people that have the problem that you can help them with. So if you want to figure out what you can share to really connect with an audience that you want to attract, you have to ask yourself these three questions. The first one is what’s the toughest thing you’ve ever gone through in your life. Because if you can share that, I will tell you the most powerful thing you have is the most challenging thing you’ve gone through. Your job is to help people avoid that pain. That is why people communicate. The bigger the monster, the bigger the hero. Don’t shy away from that. The second is what’s wrong with the world and how do you want to fix it? Where’s the problem? How do you see it? And what do you think the fix is? My buddy Ronnie says it best. What’s a specific, observable, and nuanced challenge that this specific customer has around this problem? And you talk to that, your audience will feel like you’ve got a hidden camera in their office. And number three, what do you like talking about? When I think about the perfect mix, it’s what does the market want to hear? Cuz there’s an audience. And then what do I love to talk about? I just happen to love to talk about AI because I’m a technology guy. I love to talk about buying back your time and people show up. 2.6 million people on YouTube. That’s crazy to me. But it showed up because I chose to talk about the things that I love to talk about. So if you take those three questions, the answers to those should hint as to who you want to help, how you want to help them, the things you want to create, the content you want to help them with. Right? So write down this one sentence. I help insert type of person who is a specific person do get the desired outcome. What do you help them do without the pain is whatever they’re challenged with right now trying to do the thing. The worst things ever happened to you is your mess. And often times your mess is the most powerful message you have. Pain in your world is the perfect teacher. And if you don’t share that emotion, you can’t get people to take motion, right? No emotion, no motion. And if you want people to sign up, you want people to follow, you want people to lean in, leave a comment, they got to feel you. If they think you’re just talking to everybody and you’re very vanilla and you’re plain, don’t be upset if you got no engagement. Now, for those who might already have a brand, but you’re struggling to create good content, I have a gift for you. I have a full content playbook that covers everything. I’m talking how to build your brand voice, the frameworks to make your content go viral. If you want it, just find me on Instagram and DM me the words YouTube content and I’ll send it over. Okay, we’ve built the plan to how to find your audience who you want to serve. But the next question is what’s the first real step to building. Step number three, don’t think. Turn off the frontal lobe. Because sometimes we convince ourselves out of doing something. Just post. Here’s the deal. You’ll never feel ready. So just start. First 100 posts will suck. Accept it. Just learn it. I actually consider it the first 100 throwaways. Why don’t you just run as fast as you can to video, post, video, post, and just ask yourself, what can I improve each time? Slow it down. Speed it up. Be clear. Is there a call to action? Do I make this about them or do I make it for me? It’s all about the reps. The reps. The reps. I sucked at being on camera when I first started. You see Dan today, but you didn’t see Dan 11 years ago. I was nervous. I couldn’t talk to the camera. I got red in the face. But I just knew that if I could learn how to communicate in front of a camera and not make it a big deal, not because there’s a recording little red bleeping thing, it’s just show up and talk that over time I would get better. And I got to a place where I can shoot any video, one take. I know I can stop and think a little bit. And that’s okay. I can breathe and just keep going. And the actions compound. Zig Ziggler said it best. He says, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you do have to start to be great.” So, here’s what we need to do today. Number one, pick a platform. One platform. If you’re asking for my suggestion, go all in on Instagram. Publish twice a day on a reel and just start and post. Start and post. Start and post. Don’t worry about your feed. Second thing, we have to decide on a posting schedule. As I mentioned, if you’re asking me, what does a pro do? Twice a day. But if you could just do one a day, oh my gosh, that would be beautiful. But all you have to do is pick a schedule that makes you slightly uncomfortable, that feels like a bit of a stretch, and just make sure that you’re consistent for a long period of time. I like to think in years, not in months, not in weeks. The third, now pull out your phone, hit record right now. Do it while you’re watching this and just start yapping being like, “Man, I’m watching a video. Dan just said I got to hit record and publish this thing and I don’t know what I’m supposed to be saying, but that’s okay.” He said, “Just shoot. Now I’m going to post it. And if you feel compelled by this video, you should shoot a video and post it too. So now the trick is just publish. That’s 80% of the problem. Just publish. Fourth is learn. Study the content. What worked in the past? Hit it again. What didn’t? Stop doing that. Go find out what other people are doing it. Learn from them. Look at what my videos are doing. Learn from me. So here’s where I’m going to go next level. And I’m going to challenge you. My friend Jen does it every day. She did it for four years straight. I’m going to challenge you to go live. And I want you to go live on whatever platform you want. It could be Facebook or Instagram or Tik Tok for 30 days. I want you to turn your phone on, hit live, and just talk. The cool part is is that you can delete the live as soon as you’re done. Okay? But record yourself on your phone talking to the people sharing an idea. You never know what’s going to work. You just have to commit to the time. So for the next 30 days, go live every day. Talk to your audience, even if there’s two people there, and just practice, practice, practice. So, now you understand the personal brand side. You know how to find your ideal audience and you’ve started posting, right? Right. [  ] yeah. That’s awesome. Cool. Posting isn’t enough. This next part is where a lot of people screw up everything. Step number four, don’t be a [  ] sellout. A lot of people will post and then they get a little bit of views and they want to squeeze every penny out of their community. Okay, that’s being a sellout. That’s being somebody that’s like NASCAR. You’re just like trying to monetize the out of everything you’ve ever done. I see people do this. They’re selling stuff that they don’t even use themselves. They prioritize making money over building the trust with the audience. Then once you lose that trust with the people, nobody’s going to pay you to get in front of them. If you have the trust, people will literally line up begging you to pay you to get in front of them. My inbox is full of companies that want to pay me to promote them. Guess what? Not doing it. For me, it’s not what I do. Trust is the currency that you’re trading when you build an audience. Think Apple. What Apple has in the market is the world trust. And because of that, it’s a trillion dollar company. When people honor you with a follow or your content shows up in their feed, the best thing you could do is honor that trust. Show up and give. Don’t try to monetize too quick. Don’t try to sell stuff too quick. Honestly, just keep giving. A guy know asked me, he’s like, “Hey, man. I know a way that I can monetize my audience even more. And I’m like, bro, do you understand the whole point of leaving money on the table is to leave the money on the table? If you’re the person that sells something to every potential audience every time you talk or open your mouth or post a video that you’re just trying to sell something, I’m just curious how long you can go giving and giving and giving and giving without ever asking for anything. So, here are three rules to not be a sellout. Okay. One, reply to at least five comments every single post. You in there. Somebody comments, reply. Reply. Do anything. Support them. Add value. Answer their questions. But always reply to the comments. Don’t think you’re too [ __ ] cool to reply to comments. Two, reply to every single DM. If somebody follows you and they send you a direct message, always say something. I appreciate you saying hi. The person who showed me the way for this is Gary Vee. Gary has replied to every DM, every email, every SMS. Honestly, I don’t know when he sleeps. He’s been doing this for years. He might not be able to still do this, but if he could, he would. And I’ve just always tried to honor that. Third, give 10 times more free value than you ever asked for. I dare you to give away your best stuff. The thing that you get paid the most money to do for somebody, unpack how you do that, and give it away. Give it away. Give it away. My whole philosophy around content is to die empty. I sit in my office and I go do things that make me tens of millions of dollars. Then I come in here and I go, “Okay, let’s unpack it. Let’s show it.” Just like this video and every other video on my channel. I want to die empty. I have no reason to keep it inside. I give it all to everybody that wants it. The whole playbook’s there. Everything I’ve ever done, I don’t hold back. I don’t gatekeep. If you do this every day, you will build an audience that actually trusts you. They show up to support you. If you have a book come out, they will buy it. It’ll become a bestseller because you’ve poured into them for years without ever asking for anything. Now, everything we’ve done so far will help you build an audience that literally trusts you and will start to beg you to take their money because they trust you to solve problems. But only then do you get to this next step. Step number five, monetize. The cool part is is you don’t need millions of followers to make money. Many people in my life that I’ve taught this to can monetize with less than 10,000 followers. My buddy Mike Brown had 7,800, I think, when he came to me. And I showed him the simple strategy of just messaging the new followers, talking to them. In the first year, he did a million in revenue off of his Instagram alone. He doesn’t have a massive audience, but he talked to them. See, the importance is knowing the ways to make money from your brand and not coming across as a sellout. Monetizing the best way is essentially just solving a bigger problem some of your audience has for people who already trust you. Have you ever just followed somebody and they just every time they talk they just drop bombs and they’re just like so helpful and you buy their book or you read their blog post or their newsletter and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I have a problem today that I know he would have an answer for. I really wish he had a product or a place or a workshop or a seminar or something that I could go spend time to get clarity around my problem.” Those are the best scenarios. I created content for almost a decade before I ever sold my first book. And when it launched in 2023, it sold 20,000 copies in its first two weeks, becoming a number two behind Atomic Habits, Wall Street Journal bestselling book. It only sold because of the trust I built almost a decade of content, the value I poured into my audience without ever asking for anything. I always prioritize trust first. I think it like this, okay? You give away your information as much as you can, your best stuff, and then people pay you for implementation. And there’s only three ways to make money from your personal brand. The first one is ad revenue. Okay? The platform pays you for views. Like YouTube, for example, and now it’s a slow build and it’s unreliable, but over time, the YouTube revenue can cover the cost of your production, your editors, your videos. It’s a wild thing to watch. And that’s just ad dollars that come in because when you publish on a platform, they need to make money to cover their cost. And then all of a sudden, if you do it for long enough and it grows, you can make a lot of money from it. You essentially get a portion of the ads that people spend to run ads on top of your videos. Two is brand deals. And this is where most people make their money where they get paid by a brand to create content to collaborate. Now, it can be wild money. It can be good money, but you do need to align with the right partners. Okay? Most creators do this. The ones that suck at it align with partners and they’re willing to sell their soul for anybody’s money. And the third, and it’s one of my favorite, is you own the product or service that you talk about in your content. It’s got the highest upside because one, you built the product. You’re aligned with the product. You know how the product’s going to get delivered, the audience trusts you, and it’s something that you can invest in over and over and over again. Think about Mr. Beast with Feastables. You think about, you know, Ryan Trey with Joyide, Neelk Boys and Happy Dad, or Logan and Prime. And there’s a ton of them. Now, that is an advanced move. Most content creators are not business operators, so that one’s tougher to do. All I would say is pick one. If it’s ads or brand deals or your own products, but go hard. Go all in. Choose one strategy to monetize. Build the trust with your audience. Introduce that and don’t try to build them all at once. Master one and win. Now, those are the five steps to build a brand, to build trust, to monetize. That’s it. See, most people will watch this and they won’t do anything with it. But not you. You’re here because you’re like, you know what? I resonate with this and I know that I need to grow my business. I got to create content. I got to build my personal brand. I have to do it in a way that gets the right ideal customers and builds trust.

  • 05/15/2026 – 2026 T-Shirt Design Trends + Full Canva Tutorial

    Every time a new season comes around, trend forecasters drop their fancy fashion reports, and they’re always full of phrases like maximalist sportsware energy or handmade collage aesthetics. And look, it sounds cool, right? But then you actually sit down, you open your laptop, and you just stare at the screen because what does maximalist energy actually look like on a t-shirt? That’s exactly what we’re fixing today. Hey everyone, I’m Elizabeth and welcome to our YouTube channel if you’re new here. After digging through some 2026 design trend forecasts, I picked out three of the biggest t-shirt trends of the year and I’m going to show you how to build them from scratch using Canva. No Photoshop, no design degree, no artistic talent. Seriously, I don’t have any, so you don’t need any either. And stick around until the end because I will show you how to upload your designs to real Printful products. Cuz a pretty file in Canva is great and all, but it’s useless if it actually doesn’t look good in a real t-shirt. Let’s just dive right into trend number one. Naive design. Naive design draws from art brute, which is this idea that untrained spontaneous creation is just as valuable as high art. on a t-shirt in 2026. That translates into slightly childish flat doodles with thick wobbly outlines and bold text that looks like handwriting. So, for our naive design attempt, specifically in Canva, I’m going to look for some inspiration first. Canva actually has a lot of these templates. Let’s say you’re just looking for illustration. I like this doodle. I’m going to paste it in here. This is a cute illustration, but it’s a little bit too polished. I feel like when we’re talking about naive design, we’re looking for messy. So, these are just some things that we have as inspo. One of Kim’s bestkept secrets accidentally, I think, is that if you like something, there is a way to find similar stuff to it. One way, if you see an illustration like this, you can click on the three dots that say more. Go down and click on info. You are either going to get to click see more like this which is Canva looking for similar things on purpose or sometimes things are part of collections. The same artists upload a whole collection of images and in this case we have a collection. So I can click here and I can see a bunch of similar style illustrations right in here that I can also utilize. So, let’s say I’m looking for an illustration that has this kind of watch here. Clicking on it, changing its color. It’s going to be super easy. Make it bigger, smaller, flip it, rotate it, do a bunch of stuff to it. But you have a lot of great material on Canva that you should be utilizing. Now, what I want is maybe a particular theme because in this inspo image, we have this homemade bakery thing. I sort of want an illustration with bread in it. So maybe if we go into this elements tab, you click here, search elements, and I’ll write down bread illustration.

    This is actually cute. I’ve taken this cute little doodle of toast. The second major part of naive design is text that is kind of handwritten. So let’s click on text and let’s see what kind of fonts we have in here. What you can do is you can browse this way or you can go into one of these categories at the top. Click through them. I like the handwriting category for this particular choice. Something like that could totally work. And then let’s say I don’t know bread lover. So these are the basics that we want to be designing around. And I want to show you another Canva hack. This text looks great, but I want it to be slightly differently shaped. Now, what people usually do is they click on this and they click on effects and they go into curve and they just make it a very even curve and that’s about it. Which can work, but I feel like if you want more control, you might want slightly different tools. And this is where one of my favorite Canva apps comes in. So, I already have it down here, but if you don’t, you would go into apps on your very left and find it that way. So, if I click on TypCraft and I write in what I want, bread lover, I get to pick a font. And it’s not going to be a one to one of the fonts that you have available in Canva overall and the fonts that you have here, but you can upload your own custom font into TypCraft, which is helpful. So, we have Breadlover in here, and what I’m going to do is warp the text slightly. So, there’s a bunch of different effects here. You can click through them. I want it to be just a little bit warped. Just slightly a little bit uncanny. And you can get this slight warping. If you wanted it to be super warped, you can do this. You could do this. This is actually kind of fun. But I want a slight wave. And I want it to maybe come up like right here. So it looks like handwriting. And then I’ve picked my color, which is just going to be black in this case cuz we’re going to be adding some elements to this later. And then I’ll add this to design. And so you can see the difference here between these two texts. One is a little bit straighter and one is a little bit more curved. What I’m also going to do is instead of bread lover like this, I’m going to separate it into two. It’s all right. Bread. Pick my goi hand font. Pick my warping and slightly adjust it. Add it. Next, I will also duplicate this. Change the text to lover. Maybe slightly adjust the curve and update the element. All right. So, we have two slightly improved pieces of text. And I’m just going to position them where I want them. I want them to curve around the piece of bread. And let’s say this is going to be the base of my design. It is not perfectly centered. It’s not supposed to be. I’m going to actually just make it all bigger. Put it in to here. You can see these purple lines. Those are your Canva guides for where you want things placed. And once I’m happy with the overall composition of things, one of my favorite things uh is drawing on top or underneath whatever illustration you have. So on your left in this bar, you’re going to go into tools and you’re going to pick whatever you’d like. So there’s lines, there’s shapes. I’m just going to click on draw. I like this kind of secondary marker. So this one you can see is transparent which might be a problem for print on demand. And then this one is not transparent. That is what we want. So what you’re going to do is you’re going to find a color that complements your lines. In this case I might go for this like medium brown. See how they look kind of. Yeah. And it’s going to add a little something extra to our design. So let’s make the weight a little bit higher. Up to 40. And what you’re going to do is you’re just going to trace the whole thing, including the text that you created. You could trace it and leave it like this. But what I feel like that creates is a slightly jaggedy edge. We can actually see what it looks like. So you change your draw tool to select tool. Click on this. Move backwards. And you can kind of see that it’s like a little bit jaggedy. Another style that you could create with this type of drawing. Let me close this. Pick the drawing tool and draw lines like this.

    And what that’s going to create, let us actually go into position layer so you can see how many different lines we have here. And I’m going to grab this and I’m going to drag it all the way up. put it on top. And you can see how it looks way goofier immediately. Now, because it’s going to be the background, I’ll actually take all of these lines. You can hold shift and you can select every single line layer. And I’m going to change the color to be maybe lighter. So, this is just one way to make it look more like a drawing than just an illustration. And what I would do, I quite like this color, especially if it’s going to be, let’s see, on a lighter t-shirt. You know, it looks a little bit fun. So, what I’ll do, same thing. I’ll pick the same color. And if you’re not sure which one it was, you can use the eyropper tool and just click here. And so, we have the right color now. And I’ll draw the same way over all of the text as well. And it does not have to be perfect. In fact, the less perfect it is, the better it’s going to look in my opinion. Make it not match. You know, do that on purpose. So, here once again, we go to the very bottom to get our text, move it to the top, and see what that looks like. So, this to me looks as childish as I can get it. This looks messy. And don’t worry if you don’t like some of this. You can erase things, right? But I quite like this. I can also select individual things, maybe move them slightly. That is also very helpful. So, I have my design. And this is naive design. But I’m going to call this one done. And we’re going to move on. Our next trend is collage design, which is kind of an analog rebellion to anything clean and digital. To replicate that feeling, you’ve got to create as much texture as you can. Paper, ripped edges, mixed media, like combining photos and illustrations and all of that with a bunch of layering. So, let’s get into it. So, what we’re going to do is look for stuff like this, paste it in, and then stay on the page and see what else similar comes up. This is a little bit too clean for me still, just because it’s all a collage of images, right? What we want is mixed media if we can get it. Okay, that is a little bit better. It’s a bit more layered with doodles here. I know this is not exactly what we want, but I do like this kind of cutout of a mouth. So, let’s keep that and see if we can create something a bit more punk inspired or I don’t know, 2000’s pop punk maybe. I quite like this graphic. Let me just paste it in. friends bow. Also see what else we can get that is similar. So this is one of those examples where we don’t have a collection, but I can click see more like this and I will see things of a similar style. I quite like these headphones and I’m just going to go through and paste a bunch of stuff in. I really like this. It’s a little bit cringe in the way that 2014 Tumblr is cringe, but it it is it is my era. It is the stuff that I used to really love. So like Canva first tries to create something that’s going to be of a similar style and then it goes into the same subject matter but in a different style. So let’s see what comes up when we click collage in elements. And you can click on see all to just see the graphics. And so these stars are kind of cool but they’re on this letter paper. What I am wondering is if I can change the coloring of this slightly. Okay, that is actually very responsive, which doesn’t always work with all of the photobased images that you can get on camera, but since this one works, let’s keep it. I quite like these exclamation marks as well. I kind of want a cassette tape as well. This one’s a good example because it is a photo. It’s not really an illustration, which is kind of what I’m looking for here. And then what I’m realizing is that I have quite a few of these photo-based elements, but I don’t have enough of these types of illustrations. So, what I’m going to do again, click the three dots, click info, see more like this, and then we can see a bunch of similar stuff. So, I quite like this. I like this star. I also want one of these, which is kind of like a semi-transparent tape corner. Remember that with these kinds of semi-transparent files where you can see stuff through it, you have to make sure that you put it on top of a solid background. So, I can put it here and print it and it’s going to come out okay. But I can’t have no background behind it once I’m exporting. So, let’s just keep this for now and play around with it.

    I like this, but I don’t like the fact that it has this hard cut off edge because if it was a poster, it would be very cool to just put it on here. But since we’re going for t-shirts, I really recommend keeping that outside area of the design a little bit cleaner. So, we’re going to have to find a way for this to poke out of somewhere else.

    Let’s grab this. Use it in the background. Grab the cassette tape and we’re going to make it our center piece. If it’s hard to align it because there’s so many different elements that this is snapping to, click on your element, click on position, and then just use align to page. So, center and middle. And then we have this. Let’s put it somewhere maybe here. have this which I’m going to put right on the cassette tape somewhere right here. Move this out of the way a little bit and put it over top to front. Then I love this tape. Actually going to maybe make it a little bit bigger. So, these headphones are cool and they’re kind of light, so they could go over this part of the cassette tape. All of these illustrations should be smaller so that we can have a little bit of focus on the main thing. And let’s say we’re going to put it on here. Let’s make sure that this tape is in the right spot. You can see there’s a lot of layers. So, you can go in here and just drag things where you want them. Then, of course, our mouth element, which I still really enjoy. And you can see that with something like this, I don’t have the color appearing at the very top, meaning that I can’t really recolor it very easily using the tools. But if I want it to be a bit more red, there is a little hack for that. For these kinds of photo elements, I go into edit and I go into adjust right here. And you just get these adjustments of of photos, right? So, this has already been adjusted as you can see cuz it came from a template. What I’m going to do is I’m going to make it warm and red. You can see that this kind of creates a tint over here. So I like this and even warmer so that we can match it to these colors and the stars. We can also do something similar with this tape. You can see that there are colors at the top and you can switch them but they’re not going to completely recolor everything. So this background, this green background, let me actually zoom in is light. I won’t be able to make it super dark, right? None of this will really make it black. But I can adjust it to fit the colors that I have. So this is quite pink, but maybe a little too pink. So let’s move it here. And maybe make it a bit more orangey. Like that. All right. What else do we have? We have these super silver headphones. Once again, it’s a photo, so I can click on adjust and just make the temperature slightly warmer. Now, it’s still silver, but it’s less aggressively silver. And then we also have this hand. We have to figure out where it’s going to be poking out of. I think I can use this tape that I really liked for that. I just need to figure out where it makes sense to do it. It’s a lot of messing around with these individual elements and finding a way that this is actually going to look good.

    What I like is that we can see the lines at the top of the cassette tape where you know you would normally write down what you recorded on it. What I will do is I will create some fake handwriting on here as well. We’ll click on text. If we want to lean into the cringe energy that I exhibit all the time, we could do angry girl music. Let’s call it that. Change the font. Maybe something kind of like this. And if I bold it, I think it looks like pen writing. So, let’s make sure that it’s multiple lines. And let’s try and fit it in.

    The gap between the lines is a little bit too big. So you could either click on this T with the two arrows to go into advanced settings and make the line spacing a little bit smaller or and this is something that I usually prefer doing is I just make those lines separate elements.

    just because you get a little bit more control in placement and you can really, you know, play around with it. So here, for example,

    let’s zoom in. I’m going to grab this, hold down control so that it stops snapping to everything. Put it right here. I feel like that looks like it makes sense. And then I want this eye to not touch any of the longer letters. So I’m actually going to once again hold down control and put it right here. What we’re going to do is try to make this blend in a little bit more. And you can do several things with it. You can uh use any of the effects that are there, right? But, you know, it’s not something that is really going to create this written feeling, at least in this specific case. So, what I want to do is I want to make it a little bit transparent, just a tiny bit. And then, as far as color goes, I’m going to make it not a true black. I’m looking for a black blue somewhere along these lines. you’re not like really going to see it that well on your screen, but once it’s printed, I feel like that makes a big difference in avoiding just that straight up black look. So, our last thing that we’re going to do is just make sure that all the colors that we want are in here. So, for example, this is a slightly different shade in the back here than this and this. So, I want a bit more more cohesion. I will take this, click on the light color at the top and adjust it to be whatever I would like. So in this case, I think this kind of very light beige is my favorite. You can see the color code here. And if you click on it, you can also copy the color code down here. Going to go in here also change this to the color code I just copied. And I’m going to do the same thing with this as well. Go into the light color. Change the color to something I just copied. Right. So that is all more matchy. And I’ll go in here, pick the red, and make it a little bit less orange. Just maybe here. Yeah. So it matches the tape

    and make it stand out a bit more. just so it balances this tape out because I feel like it’s kind of this very bright bright splotch of color over in in in the corner. Another thing that we can do to counteract that is also edit adjust and then take down uh the vibrance or the saturation of the colors slightly. You know, it’s not going to do a lot, especially when it comes to vibrance, but you could do a lot of damage with saturation. So I’ll just take it down just a touch and then leave the vibrance as is. So I would say that this is my quick attempt at a collage design. You can see that the semi-transparent elements that we have which is this tape and this text are on top of a solid background which is very important when it comes to printing. And it does have this mixed media idea of illustration and photo and paper and texture and tape. So, I actually quite like this. And if it was printed in the middle of this kind of boxy tea, I feel like that is something I would definitely wear. Lastly, we’ve got something called maximalist sport. Over the past couple of years, people have been into wearing distinctly athletic clothes in their everyday looks. We had the long boxing sneakers, big basketball shorts, and frankly me saying that sportsware is trending is like saying water is wet. But this is a more fashiony take on sportsware. It takes the football jerseys, stripes, player numbers, varsity fonts, and crashes it into unexpected colors, tropical florals, and bold patterns. So, for my take for Maximalist Sport, I’ve actually decided to go for something that’s not a standard t-shirt, but an all over print sports jersey t-shirt. I just downloaded the design files that we have, the the print file templates for the all over print unisex sports jersey and imported them into Canva. So, this is what it looks like. It’s just the semi-transparent image with just sections clear. You can see if I change the color, the clear sections is the stuff that is going to be visible and then the white sections is not going to be visible on your final product. So, we’re going to use this front template and a similar looking back template with just a, you know, a different color to create our jersey. So, something that I’ve been seeing a lot is these very bright, vibrant colors and checkerboard patterns. I really like a checkerboard. So, let us just find a checkered pattern. This one is cool just because it’s not symmetrical. So, if you compare it to this one, it has a center and clearly two symmetrical sides versus this one is a little bit less symmetrical looking, especially if we’re going to apply it slightly at a diagonal. So, let’s go for it. Let’s switch it to a bright color. I kind of want to go for a yellowy orange.

    So that’s going to be our base. We don’t want the background to be white. We want something a bit more interesting. So we’re just going to use simple shapes to change the background color uh more easily. You could just, you know, go into position and and find this and change the background color this way. But you can also, and we are going to need simple shapes anyway later, go in to elements, close this search, and then you have a bunch of sections over here. I go into shapes, which is a category, and I pick just a regular basic rectangle. A slight tip, especially if you’re not super new to design tools, you know that there’s always uh different shortcuts for things. If you just press R, it’s going to create a rectangle for you. Similarly, if you want a circle, you can press C and it’s going to create a circle for you. They are going to be uh one by one and then you can change the shape of them later on going forward. So let’s just make a rectangle for first for the bottom part. Just fill in this bottom part and pick a color that is going to be dark like a maybe like a dark brown. Something along these lines like not black but chocolatey. move it to the back and we have a very nice pattern in my opinion. Then I think we can play with the player number idea. Go into text. Just pick any type of text you want. Let’s go for, I don’t know, number 12. I don’t know. Do you have a favorite sports player that is number 12? Let me know. And I’ll actually stick with this light yellow color for now just so I can see what I’m doing and look into something that is going to be more of a varsity font. So you can either go through the categories at the very top right here and look for something that is going to match the idea that we have. There’s the sports section for example. Or you could just type in into the search bar something like varsity and see what comes up and you would get a lot of the same results. But I quite liked the stuff that we had in sport and this actually fits exactly what I’m looking for. There is also this yearbook solid one which is better for this tall long type of number. And then also we have boxing which looks promising. You know what? Let’s stick with this just because it’s not completely straight at the very top and at the very bottom of the one. I like it. I’m going to stick with that. So, we are going to place this in the very center of the page. Once again, if you’re not sure where the center is, look for either the solid purple line or click on position arrange and then make sure that it’s centered on the page. Uh, we are going to be a number 12, which is going to be right here. And I also want some kind of maybe motivational phrasing in here because it’s not going to be a real sports jersey. We can kind of play around with it a bit more. And we should probably go for some extra text. Not necessarily something sports team related, but always picked last could be good. I know this is gigantic. We’re just going to make it way smaller in a second. Or you can just go in here and type up, I don’t know, 70, and it’s going to be way smaller. So, you can see that in the middle there. I just made it all caps immediately. But something that is important to pay attention to is this line right about here. What that indicates is the fold line. So essentially where your torso folds around is going to be right where this dashed line is. So, I would genuinely recommend taking both of these elements and making them smaller and then centering them that way just so you can make sure that it really fits well on the product. I’ll also create a bit more space around that 12 so I can make it a little bigger and, you know, move things around. I don’t like how

    starkly pale all of this is. So, let’s see if I can make it a little bit. So, if I just pick the same yellow and move that yellow shade lighter to see if something like this could actually work. Yeah, that could be cool. Um, I also might want uh an outline on this. So I will go into effects, click outline. It immediately creates an outline. And then you can really play play around with the thickness of it all. Yeah, I think that looks good. And you can also change the color of the outline. I think this is a little bit too dirty of a brown, but I also can’t make it the same dark brown, otherwise it’s going to blend in. So we’re going to move it a little bit up. Kind of like this. I’m also going to pick this outline, choose the same color for it, and then make it thicker just so it’s visible. You can see also the little spikes here, which become way more obvious with the outline. I think those are very cool. Can make this a little bit bigger. And maybe make this three lines. Reduce the line spacing. Just make this larger just so we can really see those spikes as well as possible. Something that you can also do that might be fun is creating uh a fake logo. I’m just going to create a fake smiley face logo, especially with this kind of message. So, we go back into elements right here. We write down smiley face

    and look into graphics and see if there’s anything that matches. And let’s say we want something fairly symmetrical, be along these lines, but also a little bit more interesting. Sad smiley face.

    This is, I think, exactly what I’m looking for. And then I’m going to switch the color to the same color of our text or the same color of our background, whichever I think looks better. I think this is nice. And then match it to our

    entire idea. So that goes in there. Might be a little bit small. We can move things around. We can see where we want everything. You can use these armpit sections here as your guide uh just to see where things are going to be located. So you can imagine that the numbers are going to start right around here. And then we have this smiley face. I want to make it look a little bit more like a logo. So I’m also going to add a circular background behind it. So let me just add a circle. I pressed C just like we talked about before. Make it maybe in this big position. Layers. Move it behind this. Make it yellow perhaps or this kind of same color.

    Make sure that it’s centered with the element. And then also maybe give it an outline.

    Make sure that you’re selecting outline color. Change the color to match. Change the thickness if you want. And then this is basically a little logo that we’ve created for ourselves. I know it’s not a real logo, but good enough. You can also group it, position, arrange, and make sure that it’s centered on the page as well, just like our other elements are. So, let’s say this is the front, but we are not completely done yet. We also have the collar, the back, the two sleeves. The logic is going to be pretty much the same. What I’m just going to do for this section here, use the two colors that we have in the background, which is the yellow and the brown, and create rectangles. If I go into layers, I have this background layer here that is brown. I just copy paste it and move it to where I want it. So in this case, I think I want the outer edge of the collar to be dark and the inner edge to be light. So I’ll leave it here and I’ll copy another line. And then that is going to be our yellow line. We move all of this to the back behind our template but in front of the pattern that we had right here. So, we have an outer part of our collar, an inner part of our collar, and the whole front of the jersey. We are going to fast forward through me creating the back because it’s going to be pretty much the same. I’m just going to keep that number bigger and in the center. And the sleeves are going to be all colored. So, give me a second. So, I’ve created the the front here. And then the back section as well. Just kind of always pick last never first. That kind of idea. And I’ve also created the sleeves in a similar size right here. And they’re exactly the same. This one is the right sleeve. This one is the left sleeve. I’ve just added the logo in here as well. What you’re going to do next is you’re just going to delete all of the guidelines that you have everywhere. And then you’re going to export these files the way that they are and go into the Printful product catalog. So right now I’m in the Printful product catalog on the all over print recycled unisex sports jersey page. I picked my size and I’m just going to click start designing. We’re going to enter the design maker. It’s going to auto select all of the sizes. I just want the large so I deselect everything. And that is it. And we have just the one. You can also have your choice of stitch color, white or a black, depending on what color your design is. Mine is a little bit darker. So, I’m going to go with black thread. And I’m going to add all of our placements that we created. So, upload or drop your designs here. Yes, we understand all the terms of service. Save and close. And then upload. Once all of your files are uploaded, just apply them one by one. So, we have them. I’ve named them front, back, right, and left. Apply the front to the front placement. And you can see how it lines up perfectly and how it looks on the right. We move on to the back placement.

    Apply the back placement. And you can immediately see what it looks like. It might not be perfectly aligned right around the edges, but looks great either way. And you can see that collar worked out as well. And then we go into right sleeve. Apply right.

    Left sleeve apply left. And you can see how there’s going to be the smiley face logo over here and no logo over here. So, as you can see, it’s super easy as long as we did the work beforehand because we designed within a print file template. It all fits perfectly. And you can really see how it paid off. So, this is just a 3D rendering on the right. But if you click on mockups in the top right corner, you can also see what it’s going to look like when it’s all sewn together. I love it. Looks great to me. This is how you upload your designs. You can then save them as templates right here or just push them to your store. And that’s it. Three trends, three designs, and we did the whole thing in Canvas.

  • 05/15/2026 – 55岁退休同样$60,000,账户选择差异造成$1,075月度医保费差距

    提前退休这 5 到 10 年,想成一条很窄的桥。如果一开始就从 IRA、401(k) 这些退休账户走,收入会一下子被抬很高,结果就是医疗补贴会立即掉下去,现金流和成本同时都会被卡住。能真正让你稳稳地走过这段过渡期的,往往不是最省税的那一层,而是中间这一层:应税证券账户。他不追求所谓的免税,他给你的是更重要的东西——控制权。你可以控制每年的收入水平,控制医保的成本,控制花费和退休的节奏,而不是被账户的规则牵着走。

    你好,我是 Sherley,一个喜欢聊投资和退休的老朋友。今天我们要聊一个几乎所有想在 65 岁之前退休的人都会被卡住的问题:医疗保险。常看我的频道的朋友可能会知道,我和我先生都是提前退休,所以这个问题上我们有切身的体会。

    开始之前,我想先提醒一句,大概有 70% 常看我们频道的朋友都忘记订阅。如果你觉得这个内容对你有帮助,欢迎你订阅这个频道。另外,也特别感谢在评论区分享你经验的朋友,你们真实的经历真的能帮到很多正在犹豫却不知道该怎么办的人。

    好,我先问你一个很现实也很直接的问题:如果你提前退休,同样是你、同样的健康状况、甚至同一份医疗保险计划,你是愿意每个月付 1250 块,还是只付 175?一年下来,差多少?12900。重点在于这个差距,并不是因为你更会选保险,也不是因为你的身体更好,而是很多人从一开始就没有完全意识到的一件事:你退休之后是从哪一个账户拿钱来生活?

    我们用一个非常常见也非常现实的情景来说明。假设你 55 岁退休,一年需要 6 万美元来维持生活。大多数人的第一个反应都会是:“那我就从我的 IRA 或者 401(k) 里面拿钱”。但问题恰恰就在这里。如果你从 IRA 或者 401(k) 取出 6 万,这整整的 6 万美元就会被当做普通收入来征税。原因并不复杂,因为这些钱当初是税前存进去的,中间有递延纳税的增长,现在你一旦取出来,政府就会把它当成你又上了一年班。结果就是你的报税表上多了 6 万美元的收入,而这 6 万美元会全部计入你的 MAGI(中文叫做修正调整后总收入),也就是用来判断你的医疗保险补贴是多少的那个数字。

    现在我们把账户换一下,逻辑不变、金额不变。同样一年还是 6 万美元,只是这一次你不是从退休账户取钱,而是从应税的证券账户取钱,也就是在你退休账户以外的投资账户(股票、债券)。你卖出了 6 万美元的投资,比如一个低成本的标普 500 指数的 ETF。关键的差别在于,应税账户里你可以选择卖哪一部分,你可以选择优先卖成本最高、涨幅最小的那一批。只要这些投资已经持有超过一年,你的收益就会被当作长期资本利得,而不是普通收入来征税。而长期资本利得的税率远远的低于普通所得税。

    这就会带来很多人从来都没有认真算过的结果:账面上你卖了 6 万,但真正需要申报为收入的可能只有一万。MAGI 一下子就被拉低了,而且 MAGI 越低,你的 ACA 医保的补贴就越高。

    这里我顺便解释一下,资本利得分为短期和长期。短期是一年以内,税率等同普通收入;长期是一年以上,税率就更低。2026 年,如果你已经已婚联合报税,而且应税收入低于 96700,你的长期资本利得税是零。

    我们来看个例子。住在俄亥俄州的劳里一年需要 6 万美元来生活。他从应税的证券账户里卖出了一部分的 VOO。这笔投资当初的成本是 5 万美元,而且已经超过一年,所以他的长期资本利得是 1 万,而不是 6 万。那么结果是什么呢?只有 1 万美元被计入 MAGI。在做这个规划之前,他算出的医保费是每个月 1250,规划后医保费就变成了每个月 175,一年整整省下 12900。当然,这里的 175 和 1250 是 2025 年案例的数字,每个人最终的数字还是取决于你的年龄、地区和计划的内容会有不同。到了 2026 年,因为增强版的 ACA 补贴到期,很多人的保费都比以前更高了,但是 ACA 还在,补贴还在,所以它背后的逻辑并没有变。

    所以你可以把提前退休这 5 到 10 年想成一条很窄的桥。如果一开始就从 IRA、401(k) 这些退休账户走,收入会一下子被抬很高,结果就是医疗补贴会立即掉下去,现金流和成本同时都会被卡住。能真正让你稳稳地走过这段过渡期的,往往不是最省税的那一层,而是中间这一层——应税证券账户。他不追求所谓的免税,他给你的是更重要的东西:控制权。你可以控制每年的收入水平,控制医保的成本,控制花费和退休的节奏,而不是被账户的规则牵着走。

    说到这里,我必须停下来提醒你一件非常关键也非常容易被忽略的事情。在 ACA 的这个体系下,收入并不是越低越好。如果你的收入低于联邦贫困线 100%,你反而有可能拿不到 ACA 的补贴。但如果你在德州、佛州、乔治亚州或者南卡罗来纳州这样的非扩展州,有可能就会掉进一个非常尴尬但现实中又确实存在的状态:ACA 的补贴进不去,你的 Medicaid 也进不去,最后反而没有任何负担得起的医疗保险。所以重点不是把收入压到最低,而是让它稳稳地待在一个合适可控的区间。

    这个时候你可能会问,那 Roth account 呢?Roth 确实很好,而且取钱免税、不计入 MAGI,对 ACA 的规划也非常的友好。但是 Roth 有个非常现实的限制:2026 年,50 岁以下每年最多只能存 7500,50 岁以上 8600,而且如果你的收入太高,甚至连存的资格都没有。结果就是很多人在真正退休的时候,却发现自己 Roth 账户的余额其实并不大。再加上一个限制,如果你还没满 59 岁半,通常不能没有罚款地取 Roth 的收益。这也是为什么在 55 到 65 这段时间,很多人真正能用的也最灵活的账户,反而是应税证券账户。

    很多朋友听到这里马上就会问我:“那 Sherley,如果我以前存好五年的生活费,是不是以后就花现金?这样我的 MAGI 就可以压低一点。”这个思路是有帮助的,但它不是魔法。如果这笔现金本来就已经在你的银行账户,或者你以前卖资产以后留下来的现金,那么你现在拿来做生活费,通常不会一下子再制造更多新的收入。确实有机会让你当年的 MAGI 比较低,因为 ACA 真正看的不是你花了多少钱,而是你这一年报税表上到底涨出来多少的收入。不过这里我要提醒你一句,现金不是完全没有代价的。比如现金账户里的利息通常还是被算作收入,更加上如果你长期放太多的现金,它增长比较慢,可能会被通胀一点点的吃掉。所以更准确的理解是:不是我留了五年的现金就什么都解决了,而是我先留一部分现金,是为了让自己在 55 到 65 这段过渡期多一点缓冲、多一点选择权,不用每年都被迫把收入拉得太高。

    好,我现在用下面这个表来总结我们今天讲的:

    这第一层就是用你的退休账户 IRA、401(k) 的钱,全额会计入你的收入,全部都算 MAGI,ACA 的医保补贴会被直接地吃掉。不是不能用,而是用得太早,你的代价会太高。

    这第二层就是应税证券账户 Taxable brokerage,它只对增值的部分征税,而且你的可调整收入 MAGI 是可控的,ACA 的医保补贴也是最友好的。这是你 55 到 65 过渡期的缓冲区。

    这第三层就是 Roth IRA,取钱免税,不计入你的可调整收入 MAGI,但是额度有限、年龄受限。

    如果你看到这里,脑子里反复想一个问题:“我是不是也能提前退休?到底行不行?”如果你不确定,或者你想退但又不敢拍板,那么你可以点击下方的链接跟我们联系。我会根据你的情况帮你准备一份只属于你自己的退休规划,不是模板,不是推销,而是把数字摊开,帮你把路看清楚。你不用现在就做决定,但至少你应该知道自己站在什么位置。

    如果你觉得这些内容对你有帮助,记得点赞、订阅、打开小铃铛,我会继续陪你把退休这件事一步一步拆清楚。好,今天就到这里,下期见!

  • 06/04/2026 – True Trading Group – New Record Highs Despite Rising Middle East Tensions

    Hey yo, what’s up everybody? What’s going on folks? Welcome to the True Training Group live stream. First trading day of June. It’s in the books. It’s a great day. Our holy grail trade plan generator had a fantastic day today. Longs all day. Longs all day on the spy. Longs all day on Nvidia. Really, really, really nice day for the our trade plan generator that we have here at True Trading Group. It’s essentially something you just you type in what you want to trade and it will give you a very detailed trading plan. It’ll give you an entry, stop-loss, profit targets, gives you a confidence score. Um it’s something that you know we’ve developed here at TTG with the help of our partners at the NASDAQ, Benzinga, OpenAI, Trading View, DataBento, and Usual Wales. Um, you know, all of our partners have made it possible for us to build out the fintech platform that we have here that is True Trading Group and create the TDG terminal that gives retail traders different tools, data, analytics, resources that help them make better decisions that other retail traders simply just don’t have access to. Um, so it really has been uh an unbelievable ride here, an unbelievable journey as we just continue to to roll out our AI suite of tool of trading tools that really make a big difference, a big impact in our in our members successes. It’s why so many of our members stick with us. Our retention rate at True Trading Group is around 75%. Which is just absolutely incredible. Refund rate less than uh less than 2 and a half% and we’re four and a half out of five star rate on Trust Pilot with almost 3,000 reviews. So truly a global community here at TTG. We got 11,000 members from 114 different countries. Uh we day trade, we swing trade, we cover long-term investing, we scalp, we do stocks, options, crypto, futures. You name it, we do it. We got something here for everybody, guys, inside of True Trading Group. So, welcome to the stream. If you guys are new, make sure you subscribe, smash that like button, show us some love, turn on your notifications, make sure you never miss out on any of these live streams. Um, and we’re going to talk about some stuff here. I went live last night, as I do every Sunday, and I give you guys kind of my outlook for the week. I tell you guys, you know, some of the trade ideas that I’m looking at and some of the things that are on my list. And, uh, a couple of them worked out really, really well so far to start off this week. And there’s a couple of setups that I really have my eyes on that I do not have entries on yet, but I am stalking like a hawk or a lioness in the tall grass because the setups are starting to look pretty juicy. It is a new alltime high in the overall markets today. We got some more news headlines that were coming across the wire today involving Iran and Lebanon and Israel. Um, you know, we had a big gap up in oil. oil cents kind of faded off a little bit, but still a nice big, you know, nice solid big green day for oil and the the equity markets were able to shake it off and actually make that new all-time high. So, we’ll talk about all that as we start to prep and plan for the jobs data that’s going to be coming out that is certainly going to move the market Tuesday. So, tomorrow 80, excuse me, is Jolts job openings. Wednesday’s ADP number. Thursday, jobless claims. Friday, US labor report. They’re all going to be coming out there. prepaying myself for my holy grail trades. Way to go, blessed hot mess. Yep, TE gave you a beautiful long entry at 975. Well done. And then HKAT, the big small cap short squeeze runner on the day that I did not trade, but a lot of our members did did trade HKIT today. And obviously there’s bless mess used our holy grail trade plan generator to trade HKIT and get a really solid plan and a really profitable one there on that. So congratulations. For those you that are not familiar with myself or the channel, my name is Michael Edward. Um, I am the head trader and co-founder at True Trading Group. I didn’t figure this stuff out on my own. I began my career working at T3 Optin Fund in New York City. My first job out of college, I had to go through a training program before the fund let me touch $1 of their money. And then 2008 happened, a great recession, big stock market crash, but the same year that I received one of the firms trader of the year awards. So, fast forward now, I’m the head trader and co-founder of True Trading Group along with my team of seven other professional traders that are full-time mods. We share our screen with you live. We trade in front of you live. We provide our analysis, our commentary. We answer questions. You obviously get all of our trade alerts. And then you guys also get access to the TD terminal, TD suite of all of our AI trading tools, including that holy grail trade plan generator to help you guys make better decisions, improve your consistency, and improve your profitability. The win rate on that tool, the trade plan generator right now is uh just above 70%. It is a phenomenal tool. Uh really truly is. And we have so much more stuff that we can talk about another time, but let’s take things on on here over to the markets and let’s talk about, you know, what’s cooking here with this new alltime high.

    Nice. Nice. Blessed on us for longerterm plays. Any idea why Jeffy is down so much while Jeff Q keeps rising uh in spite of them both paying similar dividend strategies? So So yeah, Junior Junior, it’s it’s because Jeepy is more of an equal weight strategy. Jeepy owns um Jeepy is not tech heavy. Jeep is spread across, you know, different areas of the S&P 500 pretty equally. Jeep Q is the NAS is predominantly tech with the NASDAQ 100. So that is why obviously the move that we’ve seen to the upside has really been very very techheavy based. When you look at the RSP, the equal weight S&P 500, we just recently broke out through the all-time high just last week. When you look at the SPY, which is market cap weighted, we broke that all-time high back in the middle of the beginning to middle of April. So, and if you look at the Q’s, the Q’s broke the all-time high in that beginning middle of April as well and is continuing to push higher. So, anything that is going to be very techheavy is going to be outperforming anything that is more balanced and equal weight. So, that’s the reason why JE Q has been doing better than Jeep E. It’s a matter of the performance of the equities that those covered call ETFs actually hold. Okay. Yes. Yep. So, that’s that’s the reason why. So, um, you know, if you look at like a QQQI or a QYLD, these are tech heavy. You look at a Jeff Q, right? But then you look at a Jeffy, which is more of an equal weighted, you see it’s not doing well. If you look at SPYI, which is going to be just basically the SP500, you can see that’s doing much better. But something that’s more equal weighted is having a tougher time. Okay. All right. Okay. So, we got, like I said, new time. We got some news out there this morning that we had um supposedly we were or we had some news out this morning that Iran was u backing away from communications with their intermediaries which would be Pakistan who’s been trying to negotiate the a deal between the US and Iran that sent oil prices to the upside. Initially, it saw a pullback on equities, but equities very quickly red to green today, pushed back up, went green. And that’s what I mean. Ago trade plan generator was literally just giving longs all day and things were really choppy this morning. I mean really in here there wasn’t much you know in here you could have you know chopped yourself around if you were trying to force things but our holy grail trade planer just kept saying long long long long and long was the right move obviously as we got this nice you know midday rally um right around 12:00 or I’m sorry right around 1:00 or so you got this really nice rally in this breakout and that was also headline driven around um the potential for a Hezbollah Israel ceasefire which was the the culprit for the kind of the breakdown of the back away from Iran communicating with the intermediaries. So once that kind of got taken away, markets just went right back up to the upside and gave you a nice follow through to the new all-time high. Take a look in the peak there on USO. We had the big gap up on that news and you can see the midday pullback as oil prices kind of just, you know, um faded off just a little bit. Okay.

    Right. That is that that is oil. Uh we had a couple of stocks today that are giving you just absolute gang busters here and Hila Packard is one of them guys. Um they expect earnings per share to be between $3.35 versus $345. Analysts were only expecting $242. They expect their revenue to be between 11.5 to 12.1 billion. Um I mean just an absolute monster monster report here. Their earnings uh their revenue came in this quarter at 10.68 billion. Analysts were only expecting 9.78. So this is a top and bottom line beat. This is a massive guidance beat as well. Just a really great report there on Hula Packard. It’s incredible to see stocks that historically are incredibly low volatility stocks. It’s really crazy to see them make the size of the moves that they’re making. Like Hulip Packard is not known to be a big runner, but yet this stock has gone from $24 in April to now $62 here on the first trading day of June. That’s absolutely remarkable.

    It’s absolutely remarkable on what’s being seen. Okay. Um, this is such an insane move here on Jula Packard. You know, reminds you of so a lot of these other stocks that have had these monster gap ups and these runaway earnings. You look at like a snowflake, monster gap up and runaway earnings. Data dog monster gap up and runaway earnings. I mean, these moves are just absolutely insane. Cisco monster gap up and runaway earnings. It just keeps on It just keeps on going. The FOMO is real. The FOMO really is is legit here, man. It’s I I don’t know. I I don’t know the last time that I’ve really seen because I wasn’t around for the do era, you know? I wasn’t trading during that time period. So, I don’t really know the last time that we’ve seen such aggressive price action like this to the upside. Um I still to this day will continue to tell you, I’ve probably said this for the last I don’t know two weeks that we are overbought. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m not like calling tops. I haven’t been shorting, but we are overbought. But just because you’re overbought and market can stay overbought for a long time. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to try to go ahead and try to short this market. Eventually, we’re going to get a real nice real nice sizable pullback that probably takes you back to the 50-day moving average. Um, which is that dark blue line you guys see on my screen right now. But for now, you know, trying to pick a top on this market is foolish.

    You know, the markets eventually will top out. We’ll have a nice pullback. I just think that pullback turns into another buying opportunity. I don’t think it’s a it’s an end of the rally or a break of the of the uptrend. I think it ends up just being a buying opportunity, but I’m not I’m not trying to force it just because I feel like the markets that are overbought. It’s not that I feel it that I feel like the markets are overbought. do feel like they’re overbought, but there’s a laundry list of indicators that show that the market that the S&P is overbought right now, but that has been true for the last like two to three weeks. And over the last two, three weeks, the market has still moved higher. So, just being overbought is not enough of a reason for you guys to go short stuff. It’s not enough of a reason for you to get, you know, turn incredibly bearish, but it just causes me to be a little cautious to the upside rather than being aggressive to the downside. Okay, so we still are overbought. I will continue to remain that way. Things that go to the moon can stay in orbit a long time. But yeah, that’s true. I like that one. Junior says things that go to the moon can stay in orbit a long time before they crash. I like that. It’s true, right? It’s true. I mean, just look at just look at Micron for example, you know, look at that stock. Look at SanDisk. You know, you take a look at some of these and you just you say to yourself,

    you say to yourself, “How much higher can these things really go?” The answer is always higher. Just like when you say, “How much lower can a stock really go?” The answer is always lower. What are my thoughts on meta long here? Why the drop?

    I’m not exactly, you know, I really wasn’t paying attention to Meta today too much. Um it was on my list to see um if previous resistance acted as support. You had this level here.

    So you had this little multi-week consolidation that you broke above last week. You pulled back into it on Friday and and it kind of held support there. You can see resistance. You pulled back in and it held. And then today you just broke right through that level. And once you broke right through like 620s, it just kind of just rolled itself over. I’m not exactly sure why I really stopped paying attention to it. Um,

    but I don’t necessarily I didn’t really focus on it today. So, I’m not sure if there’s a catalyst here for this. It certainly feels like it. You know, down 5% today. It feels like there’s something there that got people a little anxious or nervous. I have to look into this. I haven’t really I didn’t really look at it here today. So, I’d have to take a closer look on why the weakness there on Meta today. Um, you’re asking, do I like it for a long? No. No. Now that it broke this previous resistance, I do not like it for a long. Um, if we held this level, I would have told you yes.

    Okay. If we had held this level, I would have said yes. But obviously, clearly, we broke underneath it. And I’m not looking at that for a long. Okay. Not looking at that for long. Not at this time. No.

    What do I think about NE? Next Era. Next ERA is a really good company. They pay a fantastic dividend. Um I do own Next Era NE. It’s in my dividend portfolio. I think it’s good. You know, I like it. Somewhere in the low 80s. I think you’re good there. Um solid company, great dividend. This is one of those just kind of set it and forget it. just reinvest the dividend and hold on to it for a long time.

    I own it. I have zero intention of selling it.

    So, let’s go through some of the stuff that had worked out today and some of the updates from the live stream from last night to kind of touch on where some of those trade ideas that we discussed where they lie. Um, we just got a bunch of questions here that are coming through. How will OK lowers 1 billion at the money show offering affected share price. Um,

    I haven’t really followed this stock either. I mean, ever since I haven’t followed OK Low really since last year. So, you’re saying how will their last $1 billion at the money share offering affect the share price? I don’t even know when they did when they did this the at the money offering because I haven’t really been paying attention to the stock. Um, at the money offerings are usually pretty bullish. Uh, especially for a really high risk, high volatile stock like an OKLO. Um, it shows that investors are not requiring, you know, a large discount to give the company money. So, typically that would end up being bullish, but I’m not sure when this, you know, when this was announced. When I take a look here at the chart on this, I don’t know to to me, I don’t see a clear long setup. I don’t see a clear short setup. To me, I just see a little bit of a consolidation. And I think one of the mistakes that a lot of traders make is that they always feel like they have to they have to pick a trade or they have to pick a direction on something. They can’t just sit there and say, “Nah, I don’t really necessarily I don’t necessarily see something here. This isn’t a play that I really want to go after.” And this is a trade setup that I just would never take. Like, I don’t see a clear long and I don’t see a clear short. To me, the stock’s just kind of bouncing around trading sideways. That’s that’s what I see. You have support at 65. You had a little resistance around 71. You know, maybe if one of those levels breaks, maybe you can get you can get yourself a trade. But right now, I just think that there are right now I right now I just think there’s better things to trade then was announced on the 13th. Wow. Um,

    yeah, the stock hasn’t moved. I mean, the stock hasn’t moved. I mean, typically typically that’s something that you would like to see a reaction that day and then the you know, one or two days thereafter, but that’s a couple of weeks ago and this stock hasn’t hasn’t budged since the 13th. I just don’t see there being a real trade here for now. You know, it’s not a stock I haven’t really looked at this stock in quite a while. That’s why I didn’t know the day announced this offering because, you know, it’s not something that I’ve traded. I didn’t I haven’t trade o all year. I traded it last year. Uh it was a lot of fun trading it last year like right into the fall when that thing went nuts. That was a lot of fun. Um but I haven’t traded really since then. So I’d say if you get if you get above like 71 you probably have a decent long setup maybe up towards 80. But you know I I really wouldn’t take the short through 65. You got the 50-day moving average there and it looks like the 60 high50s looks like a pretty decent support level. I just think there’s better things to trade. I think there’s better, more clear setups out there. Yo, Mike, if you had extra cash, you want to get invested. Where would you be looking for long-term ads or would you keep it sidelined for a market correction? Where would you look after a correction? So, um, great question. um places that I still like like listen obviously some areas of the market are incredibly extended and I wouldn’t be buying at these levels like I wouldn’t be buying AMD here I wouldn’t be buying Micron here um I wouldn’t be buying Broadcom here but there’s there are other stocks that I actually think are in perfectly fine areas for longs um most of the stuff that I already own I probably wouldn’t be comfortable buying right here right now. But a couple of stocks that I do own that I think are fine right now are some of the nuclear utility names like a VST. You know, I think VST is at a perfectly fine area. CEG is another one. I have um I I own both of these names. I don’t think either one of them is is absurd. I also think that copper also does well. You know, you look at the copper, the US copper fund, CPER, I think looks fine. I think FCX also looks fine with support down there around 53, 52, socks at 67. So, I think this one still looks fine. Um, you know, I I own Honey Well. I don’t think Honeywell is is really all that crazy right now. Um, you get a nice pullback on American Electric. I like American Electric the closer it gets towards like a 110. Um, what else? Yeah, I mean I think that that that’s a Oh, SS. I like SOS like in the 70s if you can get it. Um, so there’s a pretty decent decent names here that I think are still okay for right now, but you know, the the other names like, you know, my larger positions and the stocks that I really truly love are all pretty extended right now. And as far as where would you where would you get back in on a correction? Well, it’s going to be right back against these prior highs. Okay. So, this resistance that you see back here from January and February before the sell off there in March, that level is where you’d want to say, okay, you look for a pullback uh down into this region. And that becomes a buying opportunity. So, pullbacks back into like 710, 720 in here, that becomes a buying opportunity for cash that you have sitting on the sidelines. Um because I don’t necessarily think that that pullback would be very deep. I think the deepest that pullback would probably take you would maybe be like 680 675 if that. I don’t even personally think that we get that low. Um but I think that a pullback from there back into this region here is where you want to start putting some money that you have on the sidelines, putting some of that money to work. I don’t expect a bare market. Um, I I think that pullbacks that we get, and we will get them, but I think they’re going to be regular kind of run-of-the-mill type of pullbacks. I don’t think that you’re going to see like massive selloff or a massive crash or a massive reversal. I think you’re going to see you’re going to see, you know, relatively stable um pullbacks. I do. So, I think that when these pullbacks finally actually finally happen, and eventually they will, when they finally do, you just can’t be scared of them. You got to get because everyone’s going to say, “Oh, the AI bubbles popped when when the market starts to pull back. Oh, recession’s coming.” When they But really, you just got to tune out that noise, take advantage of the levels, and step in and buy some of the stocks that you guys really like.

    Cost a buying opportunity. Um,

    it’s a tough one. I think this will be a buying opportunity, but just not yet. I I do think you’re going to be able to get a better price here. Like right now it’s 850. I do think you’re going to get this into the 800s. The 200 weekly I think is going to be a great area. So anywhere from 850 to 900. I like that area. Um but I just I don’t like the failed new high. you know, you kind of double this. Um, and you have a very similar chart setup there on Walmart as well.

    You see how Walmart double topped it at its all-time high and they both gave you a technical double top with earnings. So, you know, Walmart, you look for Walmart to back up to like 105, 110. I think that’s a decent spot. you can start to nibble. And then Costco, I think you look to to pull back towards like 850 or so. Um maybe, you know, 800 to 850. That’s a spot where maybe you can take some decent nibbles there as well. I do own Costco. I do own Walmart. I own them both.

    Thoughts on the upcoming SpaceX IPO?

    I’m very So, here’s the deal about SpaceX. I am very bullish on SpaceX longterm. However, I am not buying this stock in my long-term portfolio off of this IPO.

    I will eventually be a large holder of SpaceX, but my rule when it comes to IPOs, I do not like I’ll trade the IPO. like I am most likely going to be trading SpaceX the day that it comes out, but I’m not going to buy it in my long-term portfolio. I have rules with IPOs. Um, I wait for the IPOs to come out. I wait for all the hype and excitement around the IPO to settle. I wait for the company to announce a couple of earnings reports as a public company where I can really see their financials and really get a get a hold on what their business is doing. And I let the stock go through price discovery. Um because the the the price that that an IPO trades at, especially one that has so much hype and excitement around it as SpaceX is going to have zero price discovery whatsoever. It’s going to be all speculation, all hype, all momentum, all FOMO, all greed. And I don’t want to participate in that. You’re going to pay an incredibly high premium for SpaceX because of the hype and demand around it. This is the most hyped up and highly anticipated IPO since Facebook. The Facebook IPO went horribly, horribly wrong. The SpaceX IPO got absolutely crushed for the first couple of trading days. And what’s happening with SpaceX, there’s a lot of things that are happening that are very, very, very different. I believe 5% of these shares that are held by 5% of the shares which are going to be held by insiders will have no lock up restriction, meaning they can sell day one. So there’s that, right? There’s that. Then um

    then you have this fasttrack S&P inclusion that is being done where they’re actually changing the typical requirements for an inclusion into the S&P 500. they’re actually changing them for SpaceX, which would allow SpaceX to enter the SP 500 within 6 months um rather than waiting, you know, a year. And

    what Elon Musk is also doing with SpaceX, which is allocating a large portion of shares to retail and not necessarily and not necessarily to institutions. I mean institutions do have the shares also but it’s a little bit different what he’s doing than a traditional IPO what you normally see normally you really don’t see retail participate in the actual IPO normally you see really all the hedge funds all the banks all the institutions get in at the IPO retail gets in on the actual open for the of trade which is oftentimes 15 20 40 50% higher than the IPO price and all the institutions are up money day one and retail buys in at a much higher price that’s typically what you Elon Musk is allocating a nice chunk of shares to Erade, Robin Hood, Charles Schwab, right? So, you’re going to be able to get allocation of shares at the IPO price. Um, those are shares that normally would be in would be institutions that would be getting those. So you might have a situation where when SpaceX IPOs, you might have a really strong institutional bid for the stock because the institutions that were not able to get the allocations they want in the IPO, but then also all of the funds that track the S&P 500 might just assume that you’re going to get an S&P inclusion in a few months and they’re going to go ahead and start to buy shares of the stock because they’re going to have to own a very, very, very large position in SpaceX once it gets added to the S&P 500. Because any fund that tracks or is pegged to the S&P, the S&P is a market cap weighted index. So when you’re talking about a stock that gets included that has a $1 trillion market cap or, you know, $1.5 trillion, $1.8 trillion market with when you’re talking about a market cap of that size, you’re automatically in the top 10 largest positions, largest holdings in the S&P 500. So when you’re sitting here thinking about, okay, SpaceX is going to be coming out here, you know, already being one of the top 10 market caps in the S&P, then that means all these funds that are going to have to that would have to buy SpaceX would have to buy a very large position. You’re not talking about being included in the S&P 500 as the 418th ranked market cap. you’re talking about a stock that’s going to be that’s IPOing that is going to require a massive position for funds that track the S&P 500. So, you’re going to have that institutional bid there as well. So, I I just don’t know how the market’s going to take this IPO. It’s there’s a lot of firsts here. Um it’s very unique scenario. I’ve never seen the rules change for an S&P inclusion. So, you know, you have this immediately when when Facebook when uh SpaceX IPOs, you know, this is going to be in the S&P 500 as soon as possible. You really haven’t been able to say that before for a lot of these IPOs, but now you’re getting Anthropic, Open AI, like these are companies that are going to be added to the index. you know, the the days of the of of companies IPOing while they’re very while they’re still very small in their in their development stage is gone. Companies are staying private so much longer now than they used to. And it’s almost like these companies have already IPOed but just privately. Like when you look at OpenAI, OpenAI’s already raised over hundred billion dollars. So, they’re going to IPO and they’re not even going to raise the the IPO is not even going to be their largest fundraising event. You know, they’re they would have already raised over well over hundred billion dollars. Anthropic is just announcing another raise that they’re doing just before their IPO. Like, you’re talking about companies that have already raised tens of billions, sometimes a hundred billion dollars already in the private markets. So, you already have almost like an IPO. These are companies are so much farther along in their financial development and maturity that, you know, there’s going to be a race for these companies to buy enough shares that would equal the waiting in the S&P. So, it’s it’s going to be unique. I really don’t know how I want to play it. I’m I’m most likely only going to look long on the day of the IPO. I think on the day of the IPO, the institutional bid and the retail speculation and hype, I think that’s going to overwhelm the insider buying, the insider selling that’s going to come from SpaceX employees. I am telling you right now, you’re going to see a massive selloff, not necessarily in the price because I don’t know how the I don’t know how the market’s going to handle the how it’s going to absorb the selling, but you’re going to see a you’re going to see very heavy selling from SpaceX insiders. Let me tell you why. Here’s a fun fact. Of all of the SpaceX employees, 4,000 of them are now millionaires from their stock position that they own being an employee of SpaceX. 4,000 millionaires. And now here’s the craziest part. 400 of their employees are worth now $100 million. So you’re talking about 4,000 people, millionaires, 400 employees, 100 millionaires, and a big portion of insider corporate company shares, employee shares will not have a restriction. So, I have to imagine that a lot of those employees are going to want to ring the cash register. So, get ready for a large chunk, okay? Get ready for a large chunk of that to come out the day of the IPO. Now, is that enough to overwhelm the retail hype and speculation around it? And is it enough to overwhelm the institutional bid that’ll be behind it? I don’t know. I’m going to wait for the stock to open up. And I’m going to I’m going to trade it the day of the IPO, but I am most likely only only going to look long. Um, if the short is the play, I probably just won’t trade it. Um, I will be looking for long setups. If the selling pressure really does not look that heavy and it looks like we have a really strong institutional bid, I will be using our AI system which tracks level three data, I will be using our institutional flow to track institutional order flow to see how much of an institutional buying, how much of an institutional bid the stock actually has. Um, it’s going to be an incredible tool that’s going to really be very helpful the day of that IPO. And it’s it’s one of the things that you guys have access to when you guys become members of true trading group. But these are one of the tools that that you guys can use to track actually institutional order flow. We have a relationship a data partnership agreement with the NASDAQ where we actually get their level three data feed. And that level three data feed is is integrated into all of our all of our tools to to help with the analysis that can actually make a determination between an institutional order and a retail order. So, it’s very helpful for us to know where there are large institutional clusters of buying and selling to help us identify support and resistance demand and supply zones to make our trades off of. I’m absolutely going to be using that to trade SpaceX. I think it’s going to be one of the best tells for me on the day of the SpaceX IPO on where I should be getting in and if I should get in at all is going to be the institutional flow that we’re going to pick up there. Um, the institutional flow that we’re going to pick up there from uh from that tool. So it’s going to be it’s going to be something else. Don’t the insiders have to wait six months to sell shares? How can the employees sell the IP? No. Um so not necessarily. So every so every um so John so every IPO IPOs can be different. You don’t necessar like the general rule of thumb is that insiders wait 6 months before they can sell but they don’t have to follow the same lockup period. So there are a portion of of IPO shares that will be able to be freely traded on day one. It really depends. You can even and you’ve seen a lot with like whether companies do like uh spack mergers, if they do direct listings, they do an IPO. There’s a lot of different ways companies can go public and you can and there can be different um different terms on lockups for specific individuals and specific rounds of investors. Um there’s not necessarily like a locked in set way it has to be done. there are things that you can change that could be on a case- by case basis. So that’s what I mean. There’s a lot of instances of the SpaceX IPO that are kind of first times that I’ve seen stuff like this. So that’s why I’m saying I’m really interested to see how the stock is going to trade, but it is something I will definitely trade um one thing I would definitely trade there. Do you guys sell the level three data? Yeah. So we we do have um people are able to to purchase level three data um as an additional cost when you guys are are part of two trading group. We do have uh level three data feeds with uh with the NASDAQ. Okay. And this is really listen those of you that are not members, you got to understand something. The tools and resources that you have access to on TG’s platform is the reason why so many of our members are successful. As much as I would love to tell you the reason why we have so many successful members, members stay with us at 75% rate is because I’m the world’s greatest trader. I don’t believe that I am. And I’m not. Uh I’m a damn good one. I’ve been doing this now for almost 20 years. 19 and a half years, I believe. Now, I think, you know, August might actually be 20 years or maybe next August is 20 years. I have to do the math. I think next August is 20. Yeah, next August is 20 years. So, I’ve been doing this for 19 years. Next August is 20 years, I believe. Yeah, next August is 20 years. Yeah. Um, but the tools and resources, that’s why so many of our our members have success. And by success, I flat out mean that they actually make money, right? So using these tools that I’m talking about, like I’m going to use this tool, I’m going to have our AI be able to read the institutional order flow and tell me where there are institutional buyers and sellers that can help me identify when it’s time for me to get in or what price I want to get into the SpaceX IPO. I’m absolutely going to rely very heavily on that tool that day. Those of you that are members of True Trading Group, okay, those you that are members, do me a favor. Type the number one inside chat right now if you’re making money and you guys are becoming better traders because of the platform you guys have access to because of true training group. You have to understand something those that are not members. We are not just a chat room with courses and trade alerts. This is an entire fintech platform that gives you tools and resources to help improve your profitability and also improve your consistency. Okay, these are tools that give you a distinct advantage over other retail traders that do not have access to these things. If you’re looking at the chat right now on YouTube, you can see all these people typing number one are members of True Training Group that once were a viewer on a live stream and are now telling you that they’re making money because they have access to this platform. If you’re not a member and you want to try out some of these tools, you can. You don’t have to commit to a year membership to use these tools. We have a trial program that allows people to come onto our platform, try our tools, make money with them, and then decide to become an annual member. Then at that time you can go to trueraininggroup.com990

    that gives you access completely unrestricted full access to our platform and our AI tools for 90 days for just 90 bucks. Okay. So it’s a dollar a day to have access to the entire platform and all the tools. That is how you guys can try out this platform without any rush of like oh I only have seven days or to make this work or I only have 30 days. It’s not it’s not this really short trial that you’re you have all this pressure. We give you a full 90 days. So, there’s no pressure. You can take your time. You can use the tools because we have a lot of stuff here on this platform. You can use them at will and just make money with us for 90 days and then you can say, you know what, I want to become a full-time member. These tools are fantastic. I made a bunch of money with them as a trial and and then you’ll join full-time, right? Bert says also as a member, which Bert is a member, you also get this great analysis throughout the day too. What makes TTG different? Simple. It gives traders education, structure, and community so they can focus on executing a real plan instead of just chasing noise. That’s from Julie, who’s also a member of True Trading Group. So, like I said folks, you guys can just go to truerading.com990

    and then you guys can sign up for 90 days, use everything, get unrestricted access, then decide if this is the place for you. Okay, that is going to be my suggestion to all of you that are on this live that are not yet members. If you have any questions, you can send us a text message to the phone number you see at the bottom of your screen. 1888-621-2127. Again, that is 1888621-2127.

    You guys can just text that phone number um with any questions, any concerns, if you need help, if you need clarity on anything, text that number. We’ll be happy to answer anything it is that you guys need help with. Okay? again that is 18886212127

    and then the URL to just go sign up directly for the trial is trueraining.com990

    and you guys can join us for a full 90 days. All right. So, yeah. So, really long answer there for the SpaceX IPO, but hopefully now you guys have a pretty good idea of what I’m thinking and what I plan on doing with regards to that IPO that’s going to be coming out.

    We’re getting we’re continuing this little pullback on the spy here after hours as we’re going to head into the futures close here in just a moment. We just fell back underneath

    Friday’s all-time high. We just fell back underneath it. So, we’ll see how far back this little pullback takes us. Um, but let’s talk about some of the stuff that I mentioned to you guys in the live stream last night. So, I’ve been longing this TE for quite a little while now. Um, and I said to everybody that I’ve taken a ton of profit off when this thing got over 11 and I’m right now I’m down to small size. But what I’m looking but I’m still long piece. So what I’m looking for was for 950. I’m looking for that to become support and then I might want to reload and get back to a normal regular size position because right now like I said I’m in I’m in a small position right now at this time. Um, and what you guys can see here is you had this resistance back in January and February, and you had a resistance here in May. Then you broke through it, and then you pulled back down into it today, and you bumped right back into that previous resistance. You bumped right back into that teal blue line, which is the 9 EMA, and it held. It held. That’s the mark. I said to you guys, as long as this stock is above 950, I’m still thinking long. If it breaks underneath 950, nine and a quarter, I’d stop looking long. But as long as it’s above that level, I’m still looking long. And we’re going to try to see does TE, does it give you followthrough? The volume on these last two days has been super light compared to the volume on the big breakout days, which is what you want to see. You want to see low volume on pullbacks into retest previous resistance to see if it’s now support. Got a nice little bottom tail down here. You got the 90 MA support. Let’s see if this thing can pop back up over 11 and eventually push back up over 12. So, I’m I’m in small size right now because I’ve taken a bunch of profit off and we popped over 11 last week. Um I think I sold out like maybe four times. I think I took some profit. So, I’m down to a small piece of the position, but I I am looking for an opportunity to reload. All right. So, we’ll see how that works itself through um over the course of the next couple of days. And then last night I mentioned to you guys Iron Um and I held the level today perfectly. So the level that we had mentioned to you guys in the live yesterday was this 6061 zone on Iran. Okay, that we want to see that hold support. And we held it beautifully, right? You held it beautifully back up to the upside. What you want to see now is this 61 62. You don’t want to see us get back underneath that. Any bit of a pullback, you want to see, you know, bottom tails stick in here.

    All right. Something looks like that

    is what you want to see. And then let this trade line catch up. Let that trade line catch up and let that just kind of let that push let that push I ran higher. Okay. If we break underneath 6061, get the hell out of dodge. Okay. Because that’s that that’s the support level. But I like what I saw today. This is a trade idea that I gave you guys last night. Um, I told you guys that was the support level. If it holds, we’re going to look for that for a possible long. I’m not in the position yet, but I do like the price action that we saw there today. So, we’re going to monitor that one over the course of the next couple of days. Then you have the quantum names I mentioned to you guys last night as well. And these also holding these consolidations. Okay? And I mentioned this to you guys even two weeks ago that or no a week ago and then also yesterday that I’m looking for these stocks to consolidate and then eventually break out of their consolidations and continue higher. They’re still within their consolidations. I am not looking. You don’t have to be early to these trades. I really don’t think you need to be because if you get a breakout on these quantum stocks, they’re heavily shorted. they have, you know, a lot of retail interest on social media. If these things get going and they catch momentum, they will give you follow through. So, you know, rather than trying to be long right inside of the middle of a consolidation, I really don’t think we need to be long inside the middle. I think we can wait for some type of a sign of a breakout of the consolidation to try to catch these things long. But right now, there’s nothing not to like. We are still consolidating the original breakout of the quantum news with the US government. And as long as we sit here in this consolidation 23 24 that’s your support on Regetti and QBTS that support is around 2627. Now QBTS had their investor day today. So that thing was a little bit more volatile there intraday. The CEO was also on CNBC. So that’s you know big move up big pullback and things were kind of just um you know bounced around a lot there today. The breakout point for KBTS is 32. If QBTS gets above 32, it should go to 37. Regetti, the breakout point for RTI is around 28 and then I would say 30 really, but if you get through 30, the stock has room to probably around 35. So, you do have some room here. That’s why I’m talk that’s why I’m saying I don’t know if you really necessarily need to be early to these. I think you can just kind of get yourself in them. um as these consolidations are giving you breakouts. INFQ I think is actually one of the more clean clear setups because you have a nice area of resistance right here, a nice flat top over the last week or so that you’re trying to break above and if you take that level out you can very simply just look for that level to become support. So, you know, if you break above it, you want to look for any pullback back into 18 and a quarter to be support and then just let it let it continue to push from there. So, I think INFQ looks really good, too. This is another one of these names. I think this one looks pretty decent as well. So, these are just trades, trade ideas that I kind of went over with you guys last night. We talked about them today inside of True Trading Group as well. The patterns are setting up. I don’t have positions on them yet, but we’re getting pretty close to a confirmation for me to actually pull the trigger, but we’re just not in them yet. Okay. Yeah, we do have some news here on Alphabet. I think it said Birkshshire Hathway was going to invest $10 billion into into Alphabet. I think I just saw that come through.

    Not sure why that would cause a reaction. Oh, no. I’m sorry. They’re they announced $80 billion equity capital raise to expand AI infrastructure and compute. So, Alphabet is raising $80 billion. They’re doing an equity capital raise. That’s why the stock is falling. So, they’re selling shares. They’re going to sell $80 billion worth of stock to fund and expand their AI infrastructure and compute. And that’s why Alphabet’s pulling back.

    That makes sense.

    And it looks like maybe Birkshshire might be 10 billion of that, but they’re going to be selling stock. So that makes sense. That’s why you’re getting that pullback there on Alphabet, guys. That is the news. Okay, so folks, that’s it. There you go. Um, you know, the new all-time high today. I again, we are overbought. I don’t see clear-cut signals to go short yet, but trust me, I am looking for them. And when I pull the trigger and I get myself short, you guys will know. Um, but just because it’s just because we’re overbought doesn’t mean that the markets can’t continue to go higher. We’ve been overbought for over two weeks now. And over the course of those two weeks, the markets have just continued to make a new all-time high. So being overbought is not a reason in and of itself to just go short. Continue to play the trend, buy pullbacks into support until they don’t work, until proven otherwise. That’s what we’ve been doing inside True Trading Group. That’s what our traders have been doing inside of the futures room. Uh we have moderators that strictly trade futures that are in our futures room trading futures with members that are part of the futures program and it just continue to buy pullbacks into support. Buy pullbacks into support. It’s worked beautifully for the last couple of months and you continue to do that until proven otherwise. Okay. But eventually we’re going to come in here and we’re going to say the markets look like they might have given you a short-term top. You look for a little bit of a 3 to 5% pullback and we’ll we’ll be all over that when that time comes. That time is just not here yet. All right, so that’s it folks. Again, if you’re not a member and you guys want to try out the platform, you guys want to try out the tools, go to trtrading.com/990. You guys can try our stuff for 90 days for just 90 bucks. It’s a dollar a day and then decide if you want to become an annual member. Okay, any questions? Text us 1888-621-2127 if you have any questions at all. We are fully transparent. We are open book. Thanks for tuning in. Subscribe to the channel if you have not done so yet and I’ll see you guys all tomorrow. Take care, folks.

  • 06/03/2026 – How to build a high converting landing page for free

    In this video, I’m going to show you how to build a high converting landing page for free. And by the end of this video, we’ll have a page that looks like this. And I’ll show you everything you need. The free tool to create the page, the free tool to collect leads, and also the hosting to put your page online. Now, I’ll also show a paid option at the end of this video, one that I personally using for over 5 years. Uh, but that one is completely optional for those that like and are interested in a paid solution as well. So, let me share my screen and let me show you how to do this. So, the first tool that we’re going to use, we all know this tool probably is Gemini. You can go to gemini.google.com and you can start a new conversation. Now, important is that you start the conversation on the right foot to get a high converting page. Right? So, what we’re going to do is we’re going to give a prompt here. Let me paste my prompt in here. And in this case, I’m going to tell Gemini, create me a high converting landing page that sells my video thumbnail creation service. Include images as well. I create high converting thumbnails, thumbnails that get the clicks, thumbnails that help your channel grow. Don’t struggle yourself. Let me do it for you. Again, here I say it again. Uh, make sure the landing page is focused on conversions. Now what you need to do in order to see the landing page, you need to click this plus button here. And then you can go here to canvas. You need to select this feature here. And now you can see canvas in here. And then we click on submit. And basically Gemini is creating the full page for us. It’s going to design a fullblown HTML page. Uh it is a high conversion page. But I have a nice trick uh that is going to scan the page that we create and it’s going to give feedback if the page needs modifications. Uh but I’m going to show you that later in the video as well. This takes a little while. So I’ll be back once this is finished. And check this out, guys. Uh Gemini created this full page for us. And actually, let me download it. When you click that download button, you can also open this as a full website here. Check this out. Stop struggling. Get 10 times more clicks on your videos. And this is what it created here. Your video is dead if nobody clicks here. See the magic of high CTR. So you can have the slider here. Level up in five minute. It even created the thumbnail on this page here where they can see the difference. Instant thumbnail concept planner. So you can even create a mockup concept here on this page. Now personally I would not like to have this concept planner on the page. So we can remove it later if we’d like to. And then a pricing table here. Single package offer here or a monthly retention where they can purchase packages need custom quantity. Here you can see the pricing here. Seven thumbnails 280 and you can change the price everything. And then here uh an order form where they can order the thumbnails. For example, here I want to have the full-time pro $7.99 per month and they can send the form. Now this is not working right now because we need to connect this to a web hosting service. We need this form somehow to be sent to us. But what we can do, let me close this window here. Let me go back to Gemini. But if we want to make changes, you can click here on this button here, select and ask. So what I can do here is I can select a certain area and I want to select another area because I do not want to have this part in it. So I’m going to say here uh I’m going to select this part. I’m going to say here I want you to remove the instant AI thumbnail concept planner. So there it is and I’m going to make the change. So now it’s going to recreate the page. It’s going to delete that part from the page. Now, here’s the only downside with a free model like this, uh, that it’s going to rebuild the whole page again. So, you can see here, it’s going to think again, uh, in the code here, when you go to the code section, you can see it’s starting to write the code completely over again. So, if you want to do this fast, you simply go to your preview and you go over your page and think about every change you want to make and then you’re going to write that into the prompt box so that you can make all the changes in one time. Otherwise, it’s going to rebuild the page over and over and over again. Let me show you the finished result. So, here’s the finished result. And I gave it a little bit more modifications. First of all, I wanted the page to look like more like YouTube with red and white. So, I gave it an instruction to have the theme of YouTube. I removed some areas and I also told it to make the price cheaper. So, for example, here uh three premium thumbnails for 75. So, it’s 25 each. And then the growth core, etc. Here you can also see the slider here. So, three thumbnails 25 each. And the more thumbnails they order here like 20, it’s going to become cheaper here. Now you can give instructions about the pricing simply in the prom box here. You go to the prom box, you type the change that you want to make, but this is just to show you how it works. Now we want to use this form as well and we want to receive orders, right? So what you need to do in order to send this is you need to have a service which is called web3 forms. So you go to the website, it’s web3forms.com and you need to sign up for an account. Now, once you sign up for an account, it’s going to create the form for you already. But let’s say you’re logged in, you want to create a new form. You simply go to your manage forms here. And then you’re going to click on create new form. So, I’m going to call this YouTube thumbnail. And the domain name where I want to host this. So, you need to be aware where you want to host this, but in this case, uh I’m just going to do uh local host here. So it says for testing type local host. So I’m going to do localhost here. And then where you want to send the submission to. So on the free plan uh you can send one email. Now the free plan allows you to send 250 forms here per month. So that’s pretty cool. If you have 250 orders per month, uh you can go to a paid service, right? So I’m going to click on create form. And now you can see that I get a form access key. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to copy this key here, and I go back to the landing page that we created, and I’m going to tell Gemini to send all the form submissions to that web 3 form. So, I’m going to say here, send all the form submissions to my web 3 form access key. And then I paste my key in here. So, you get the key here. This is your form access key for this specific form. So when you manage your forms, you open the form, you work with the form, the YouTube thumbnail. You need to have this key and you provide that to Gemini here and you simply hit enter and it’s going to rebuild the code again. It’s going to write it all over again. But that’s the final time once we’re satisfied. So it’s going to add this to your website. And the page is almost ready here. There it is. So the page is ready. We’re going to download the page and we’re going to test it. So, let me click on download here and we open the page and we’re going to test our form. So, I’m going to fill out the details. So, I filled out the details here. I’m going to select the package. So, let’s say we do a full-time pro here, 375 per month, and I’m going to submit order request here. And boom, order request submitted. Thank you for securing your Click Boost. We’ve received your channel details and project brief. Check your email for the design Q invite. Now, when I go to my Gmail, you can see here that I received a new order submission here. Hello, a new form has been submitted on your website details below. Tim, my email, my channel, the package that I’ve selected, uh the niche vibe, and the notes. I’d like you to create a YouTube thumbnails for my review channel. Please reach out to me to discuss. So now you can see that we successfully uh connected web3 forms to our website so that it is sending the form submissions to us. Then the only thing that we need to do is we need to host this website on hosting and that can be done on the following website which is called netlifi.com. Here when you go to this website and I will add the links in the description as well. Uh but sign up for a free account. When you go to pricing here, you can see that they have a free plan forever to build and deploy your websites. So, I’m going to log in and I’m going to show you how you can host your websites. Once you’re logged in here, you need to go to your projects folder and you need to add a new project. And now you need to upload your file. So, what you’re going to do if you’re totally satisfied with your page, you’re going to click here on download. so that it’s downloaded to your computer and then you go back to Netlifi here and you click on browse files to upload. When you do that, you’re able to upload the file that you just downloaded from Gemini. So here you can see this is the latest one. So I’m going to click on open. And now it’s going to give me a warning that it needs to have the name index.html. So the only thing that you need to do is you need to click here on rename and deploy. And once you do that, your website is being uploaded to Netlfi and it’s ready. So you can see here Suburb Mircat and a strange name.netifi.app. But when we click on this, check this out. Our website is online. We can already send traffic to our landing page. And check this out. This is the high converting landing page. And we’re not done yet because I’m going to show you a smart trick as well. Uh but let’s first go back to Netlifi. What you can do here is you can change your domain as well. So when you go here to quick setup, you can change the the subdomain here. So you could say for example thumbnails and now it will be thumbnails.netify.app. Well, this project is not available. Probably someone else used it already. So I’m going to do project 777 just for the purpose this name is available. I can update the name now. So now my name is uh different. It’s the 777. However, if you want to go professional, you can order a domain name. Now, domain names are not free. What I just showed you here, this is the complete free option, right? I showed you how to use a free page building tool, uh how to use a free form submission tool that you connected to your page and how to host them on a subdomain for free. So, when I change this domain name to thumbnail 777.net.app, app. You can see, oh, let me redo that. You can see that your website is now on thumbnail 777.netifi.app. This is completely free. You have not you do not have to pay for it. However, you can also add a domain name you own or you can buy a new domain name. So, if you are not technical, I recommend simply to purchase a domain name on netfi.com. You simply click buy domain name. You fill out the details and you connect your domain name to netlifi.com uh and they will host it for you. You could have thumbnail thumbnailervices.com for example if that’s available and you have your website up and running. Now I told you that I had a smart trick to optimize your website, your landing page even better because we want to have a high conversion landing page, right? So what we’re going to do is the following thing. We’re going to copy our website here. I’m going to click copy. And now we’re going to use the tool. It’s a paid tool, but you can use it for free for 14 days. And it’s called Swipe Pages, which has a AI page builder as well, but it has way more than that. And there’s a link in the description where you can get 14 days free access to Swipe Pages and Swipe Genie. Uh, and I’m also going to have a discount code in the description below for an extra 25% discount if you decide to pick this up through me. Uh, but you can use this for 14 days and we’re just going to use this for uh, the page that we just created. We can use for free for this page to optimize it and then we’re done. Uh, but let me show you how it works. So, let me log in. And once you’re logged in, you will see this screen. Now, this is also an AI page builder similar to Gemini, but it works way easier. What we’re first going to do is we’re going to go to the strategize button here. And then check this out. It has a landing page crow audit. Get specific fixes to increase conversions. We want to have a high conversion landing page, right? So now you can see here, perform a crow audit of landing page URL. What we’re going to do is we’re going to paste our landing page URL in here and give me specific prior uh prioritized recommendations to increase conversions. So, this is the only thing that we have to do. And now it’s going to scan our website. Check this out. It’s going to do an audit on our website. It’s going to take a screenshot of that website and it’s going to give going to give us full feedback about this website. So, you can see here it took five screenshots. It sees my website. It’s going to tell me everything, but I’ll be back once this is finished. And by the way, check this out. It is not finished yet, but check this out. It’s reviewing sources. The best place to hire thumbnail designers, Reddit, social media graphic designers, how to hire YouTube thumbnail designers, uh, reviewing sources like this, efficiency of thumbnail test. So, it’s going to go to external sources to make this page convert better. So, check this out. It’s ready. Here we got a visual report here for our website. So, here it says the first step click boost operates in the competitive mid tired thumbnail market $15 to $25. Well, the problem agitate solution framework is solid. The site faces critical trust deflict. So here you can see the top priority um fishing anxiety move from a netifi subdomain to a custom domain and replace stock lifestyle photography with aggressive real world portfolio assets and this is uh a solid feedback that we’re getting right u of course you want to be if you have a service like this on a real domain name so we need to fix that right and also if we look at the website here oh this is the checklist Ready? If we look at the website here, you can see we need to replace this image, right? It isn’t good enough. So, Swipe Agents gives us a full report. Also, it did the research. So, it’s the competitive landscape. So, what is the pricing? So, currently ClickBoost, we are charging 15 to $25 and the budget providers between two and five, but premium agencies $60. Uh and then the value proposition here anchors uh speed and bulk and here the CTR mastery case studies. I personally have CTR master uh case studies as well. So we can make those modifications on our website as well. Uh stock mockups grid a grid of noise and here datadriven overlays and high priority quick wins. So the URL fix we need to fix that. Kill the unsplash do not have unsplash pictures on your website. So it gives you a full report with changes that you can make here. So you can make those modifications to your website and also here the final implementation checklist. You get a checklist that you can implement to your website to make it a high converting website. Now I’m not going to show you all these steps how to do that but basically you can go back and make the changes here on this page. Just tell Gemini what it needs to change and it will uh be a high conversion page. Now it also comes here with a final report and that will look like this. So it gives you a PDF with all the changes here like the price points that you can do. Also it suggests here in this document for example it says hey you need to uh have a URL which is not netlifi go to a domain name for example clickboost.io. So it’s giving you uh suggestions as well. So here you get the full list of modifications that you can do to your website. Uh and it’s going to make those changes for you and that’s how you create a website completely free a high converting landing page for free. Now the second option I also told you that I wanted to show you a paid option and that is in this same platform. So when I go back here to the start I go to pages here uh you can create a page. When I click on the plus here, instead of going to strategize, and by the way, you can do a lot more here. So, you can also do a competitor analysis, you could do a lead genen funnel strategy with Swipe Genie, uh buyer personas, messaging and positions, landing page copy. You can check that all here in the strategize section. It’s super powerful, but I’m not going to show that in this video because we’re talking about high converting landing page. So, we go to create here and we simply going to type. You can choose between those, a lead genen page, a sales page, a VSSL page. But basically, we’re going to paste the same prompt in here. And as you can see here, it’s going to do all the research again, reviewing sources here, uh, search for benefits, etc. And check this out. It’s ready. It has created all the images for the page as well because I told it to do so. And check this out. This is the new page here. And I’m not totally satisfied yet with this page. It’s just the first draft that is giving me here. Uh but it looks good, right? And again, we can tell this to create a YouTube theme theme as well. But what I want to do here is I don’t like this YouTube thumbnail section here. So when I click on this section here, you can see it selects the portfolio automatically. And now I can ask to make changes to this portfolio section. So I’m going to say I do not like the layout of the portfolio section. Please recreate it where there is a main uh where there is a main thumbnail with a slider that shows the before and after. Also, the image layout should look well aligned. So, I’m going to send this. And now it’s going to make changes to only this part of the page. And there you go. Here it recreated this section. I think it looks way better here. And it created the slider here where I can see the before or the before and the after. And of course, you can replace these images. You just use the page builder to create these images. Of course, you want to have your own thumbnails in here. But the cool thing about Swipe Pages is you can click on this pencil and now you can upload your own images, your own thumbnails that you’ve created here inside this platform. So you can see here it made the changes. I’m going to do one more change here because I don’t like the colors. I want to have the YouTube style. So I’m going to request that as well. So, I’m going to say, I like you to change the theme of this page to a YouTube theme. YouTube is mainly red and white. And I also say here that I want to bring the pricing down so it understands everything I say and it’s going to recreate the page. This is ready in a few minutes. And there you go. Now, it has a black and white theme. It’s looks completely different. But this way you can test and look what looks good because this only is costing you minutes and it’s changing things on the fly for you. You can see the pricing has changed here. People can order here through the form. Uh but you can make modifications so so quickly. Here is another example that I created for another uh YouTube thumbnail services website just to show you different designs that you can create here. So this one is a little bit different. Um but you can see how easily you can make the changes simply type here in swipe pages to make those changes. Now when you want to publish a website on swipe pages you simply click here on publish and then you can uh publish this directly to your own domain. So this is my domain here and I’m going to call this thumbnail services here and I’m going to hit publish. And now my website is published. Boom. Done. And when I make changes, let’s say I remove this this dot here, then I can click on publish again. And now my page is republished after I made a change. And that’s why, yeah, like I said, this solution is way easier. And you can also manage your page. Now, let me show you the page here. You got your website. This is the full website here as you can see. And again, you can do the same thing. You can copy this URL. you can do uh an inspection on your website to hear what changes you need to make. So let’s let’s say we put this through. We say we want to have a crawl audit here of this page as well. Let me fast forward this. And as you can see here, I got a report as well for this website. You can see every every time the design is different, but it mentions different things. So what I also can say here, so it has all different kind of points because I have the chat here. I can also ask write me a prompt that I can send to the AI page builder to implement the changes it needs to make uh to make this a high converting page. So I’m going to send this and now I’m going to use the prompt that it writes and I’m going to send that to swipe pages. So you can see here it comes with a a lot of instructions here. Act as a senior crow specialist. I need you to restructure and rewrite the YouTube thumbnail service page to maximize conversions. And it’s going to do all of that. But what I’m going to do simply, I’m going to paste this. I’m going to copy this here. And I go back to the page builder and simply going to put that in here. And I’m going to send this. And now it can make the changes for me. And there you go. The page has been recreated. This is the end result. Um, I asked it to make it the dark theme because I like the dark theme better and it swapped everything. Uh, but check this out. It applied changes. So I also made changes. So I told it to create another uh before and after. And check this out. I think this looks way better 30 days later here. So you have the slider here, the before thumbnail, the after thumbnail. I also made some changes for this thumbnail. But it applied the changes. And one of the changes that it created here was it added this whole section which is super powerful. Uh because now it says designed by a practioner uh not just a designer. Uh because I’m a YouTuber myself. It knew that information about me and it said, “Hey, you need to use that in your advantage to make this a high converting landing page.” So, it did that. I think it’s pretty cool. So, I added my own picture in here. It generated another person, but I replaced it with my own uh picture here. It changed the pricing here. Check this out. Also, the thumbnail pro guarantee risk-free partnership. So, I think it looks pretty good the way it is right now. Check this out. We have a high converting landing page uh built with swipe pages which was the second option. So guys, I hope you like this video. Uh please if you like it, give it a thumbs up. It helps me to rank my video on YouTube to get views to this video. Subscribe to my YouTube channel if you haven’t done yet. Uh I do more videos like this. I will do more videos like this. I also do a lot of product reviews, marketing related products. Um so yeah, might be interesting to you as well. So, hit the notification bell so you get notified each time I upload a new video. For now, thank you so much for your uh for your attention. And if you have any questions, write them in the comments below. And thanks for watching and see you in my next video. Kiss.

  • 06/03/2026 – Alliant Webinar – The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly – Annuities

    interest rates or inflation was at you know eight or nine%. So if in if if inflation stayed at 8 or 9% and you got a 6% fixed rate, it may not, you know, it may not have been such a great deal over time. And now let’s take a and we don’t know where interest rates are going to go in this case. I think ultimately anonymous I don’t think this is necessarily a bad annuity. The thing is is who knows what the next 10 years are going to bring. If you locked it up for 10 years in 2019, you would have been making about 3 4% and you would have been really bumming today. So that’s why I say don’t lock it up. Usually I say don’t lock it up for more than 7 years because if you locked it up for 7 years, you get s you got 6% for 10 years. Well, and again I’m speculating cuz I don’t know what annuity you got, but if you got a 7-year annuity, you probably would have gotten in the range a couple years ago of five and a half, five and three/4er. So for that extra half or quarter percent, you’re getting three years back on your, you know, god forbid if if rates didn’t go, you know, if rates didn’t go down and they went up, well then, you know, you wouldn’t have been tied up for and you’re only giving up a little bit of your interest. So that’s why it’s riskreward. So, in this case, if you want me to take a look specifically at your the terms, I’m happy to, but um but I mean 6% isn’t that bad. I just don’t I don’t recommend putting it out for 10 years. Um cuz I can I can usually if you give yourself 10 years, there are other ways where you can make more money without, you know, cuz then you have time you have time to make up for it. So, there are other ways to protect your money. Um, but that being said, I’m not saying you got a bad annuity. I’m just saying for me, my usual guidance is I usually don’t like annuities that are more than 7 years. That’s why because I don’t want to lock my money up for too long because in a way it’s too much risk from a time standpoint. That’s why. All right. Hopefully I answered your question, anonymous. Uh, the next question is okay. Um, could you explain more about uh Joe asks could you explain more on the differences between structured annuities and indexed annuities? Okay, indexed annuities, there’s no risk to your principal. The risk is to your interest, not to your principal. The interest is based on what the index does. If it’s the S&P 500, the S&P 500 goes up. you get whatever the index gets up to a certain point. Typically, it’s called the cap rate. Okay? If the market goes up beyond that, well, then you’re not going to get more than that because they’re taking the risk. Now, if the market goes down, you don’t earn any interest that year, but you also don’t lose any of your principal or any of your, you know, any of your earlier interest. your your once it locks in your account can go up. It’ll never go down. It’ll never go down below the amount that it’s at. That’s an indexed annuity. A buffered annuity is essentially you’re getting you’re taking a little bit more risk, but you’re getting a higher ceiling. So, the cap rates are usually higher. Uh sometimes there are no cap rates. You can get whatever the market goes on the upside, but you have some sort of protection on the downside. Now, okay. Well, wait a second. They’re going to give me downside protection, but they’re not charging me a fee. How do they do that? Well, you’re locking up your money for a certain amount of time. So they know that they have enough time to make up for it and they they figure out what their risk is going to be. So they’re going to they manage that risk for you and they know that over time the risk is the more time you give it to them, the less risk there’s going to be for them. And that’s essentially what they do is they’re managing the risk so that you can make a more you know you can make more money but then they can also min minimize their risk as well and they they’re they’re making money. So you know any relationship’s got to be win-win and certainly insurance companies got it dialed in that they’re going to they’re going to work out where usually they don’t lose. It’s our job to make sure that you know you win and you have someone who’s representing you. All right, so hopefully that answered your question, Joe. Um, all right. Uh, Mary asks, um, what about um, what about if I can I get an annuity with me and my spouse? Uh, absolutely. And you can do it where you can do an annuity with just yourself. You can also do it with you and your spouse. You can get one for each of you. It doesn’t matter. You could set it up any way you want. Typically, what’s going to happen is when you if you get it with income, well, then what’ll happen is it’ll go between both of your lifetimes. So, um you know, you it depends on what your situation is. If if your beneficial, you know, if your if your spouse is more than 10 years older than you, I would say for the most part, you know, it get it on get it on whoever’s life is going to pay you more income typically. You know, that’s usually what I would say. Uh that being said, you know, it depends on your personal, but yes, can you get it jointly held? Absolutely you can. So, alrighty. Uh, I don’t see any more questions here. Um, but I’m going to stick on for a few minutes longer if uh if anybody does have questions. Um, I realize that I’m at the hour mark. So, I usually try and cut these to an hour and and and value your time. So, I’d let you get back to whatever you’re doing this evening. Um, guys, I thank you for your uh I thank you for your time. Uh, and hopefully you got some information that you can take action on. So, with that, um, I’m going to be on I’m going to be, uh, I’m going to be on for a few more minutes to see if there are any straggler questions. Come on. I’ll also open it up if anybody wants to say hello. I’ll open it up for that as well. So, other than that though, have a good night everybody. Thank you for Thank you for joining us.

    Okay, let’s see. I’m going to let Oh, if you guys do if you do want to say hello, just um you’re very welcome, Mary Ellen. Uh good to see you. All right. Uh let’s see. And if you do want to say hello, you can basically just hit there’s a there’s a there’s a little menu at the bottom of your screen in the lower leftand corner. There’s a little microphone. You can hit the microphone and it will uh it’ll allow you to talk.

    You’re very welcome, Brandon.

    Yep, I do see it. Kimberly, I I’ll follow up with you and I’ll uh I’ll make an appointment with you.

    By the way, I didn’t say hello to you earlier. Eveina,

    hello. Welcome. Uh, Aura, welcome. R, good to see you again. You’re a regular here. Um, Sue, welcome.

    Anyone else I missed? Welcome. Okay, I didn’t see that. Hey, Sue. Hey. So, yeah, I got distracted. Yeah, I don’t know when I I know I need to talk about um I uh I actually just had a my quarterly thing with my financial advisor and asking what to do about you know uh the person previous to her um who is my person sold me this variable annuity and I and you know anyway it’s I’m not thrilled um and uh we talked about it yesterday and So, I guess I would I’m still not even sure. It’s a a deferred variable annuity anyway. And I I’m well past the period of time that I have to keep it, you know, but um it’s just annoying because I I remember reading through this uh multi-page document trying to figure it out, you know, and I’m I’m college educated, so I understand things, but it was so comp it was so complicated, so complex. I you you need a you need an actuarial degree and a law degree to a lot of times read those contracts. Yeah. Well, I I’m a I’m very good at what I do. I’m a musician. Okay. Well, hey, and I’m but you know, that was like So, yeah. And it’s not exactly uh the most exciting reading in the world. So, thankfully I you know, I do it all the time. So, I translate uh lawyer and actuarial stuff. So, yeah, if you ever want me to take a look, the real one page you everything you need to know about that annuity is typically on one page. Oh, on the front. You mean my statement because I have that, you know. No, it’s the contract page. But from your statement, I could probably get a lot of the information. But if you have a copy of the contract that they originally sent you, there’s a there’s a contract page that’ll give you all the details of your, you know, the surrender schedule, which you said you’re already beyond the SK surrender schedule. Um, the thing you really want to know with a variable annuity is you want to know what the fees are. Yeah, I know the fees are horrible. I’ve looked that up before. And so when you’re doing, I’m going, “Yeah, I got everything. I’ve got the worst possible thing because I know I’ve got tons of fees. Um Okay. And so, you know, that’s the kicker. Um now, what did the what did the new You just met with your advisor yesterday. What did they say about it? Oh, she said, ‘Well, if I don’t need the money right now, um, I’m living off social security and my $1,200 a month from United Airlines from my husband. Um, you know, after the bankruptcy, things didn’t go well. You getting any money. Um, but, you know, my house is paid off. You know, I don’t I pay off all my, you know, I don’t owe anybody anything. Um, so she said, “Well, if you don’t really need the money, you know,” she said, “Leave it in.” She says otherwise if you want you can roll it over into something else. That’s what she said. But she said for now um you know but I am I am curious as to what it really you know she said well there’s so many different products. See she inherited this from Bonnie my the one who the lady who sold it to me who I trusted. We played on a volleyball team for many years together. So, you know, um I didn’t and she knew my kids and anyway, but then I go, “Okay, yeah, she was making money off me on that thing.” Um, so I It’s necessarily a bad thing as long as it’s Listen, nobody works for free, but there’s got to be value. like you got to get something out of it beyond like and and you got to know what you’re getting and know that you’re getting value for what you’re giving up. So, you know, I’m not opposed to fees per se, but they got to be reasonable, one, and two, they got to be able to get you something of value to make sure that you’re getting, you know, cuz otherwise any relationship if if if if I win and you don’t, well, then that’s not, you know, that’s not going to be a relationship that you’re happy with. Yeah. You know, and that’s that’s the thing. any relationship whether it be advisor, client or friends, you know, friendship or family or, you know, whatever, romantic, anything. Whenever you have a relationship, it’s got to be mutually beneficial for both people. Otherwise, it’s not going to work. So, with that, um, yeah, if you ever want to Where are you located? Are you in California? I’m Yeah, I’m in Union City. I’m, you know, okay. Yeah, I’m in I’m just north of the airport. Yeah. Oh, you’re you’re what? I’m local. I’m uh I’m in I’m in San Francisco. So, my airport? You’re technically San Bruno or somewhere else. I am. I’m in South San Francisco. I’m in Oyster Point. Oh, okay. No, that’s because my husband worked there for years. So, I Yeah. Anyway, and we spent many of time like flying Well, not flying, driving there in the middle of the night, as the kids would say, to get on a space available flight. Anyway, yeah, I hear you. Um, so yeah. So, um, being said, if you ever want me to come, I mean, I go down to I go to the East Bay all the time. In fact, uh, ne, uh, next week I got to be in, uh, late next week I got to be down in Castro Valley. So, I go over there all the time, you know. So, if you ever want, you know, if you want to come to me, you’re happy to come to my office. If you want to do Zoom, we can do Zoom. If you want me to come to you, I’m happy to come to you, too. Okay. All right. I got to dig that up. I mean, I know. I read it and I go, I don’t know where it is right now. And um I had some pretty serious spine surgery a year and a half ago. They u I’m 513. Okay. Uh and they I had um with severe scolios, they they basically attached from the nape of my neck all the way down neck all the way down to the tailbone. Um, and so and it’s not that that’s been an issue, but somehow it kicked off arthritis and did all this other stuff and I can’t get my Yeah, usually that’s what happens with things like that. Yeah. Well, yeah. I can’t, you know, I’m working on my quads, but apparently when you’re long and lengthy or long and lengthy, then you know that’s you don’t do as well at that. So, me getting around, I mean, I’m not even driving. I don’t know if I’ll be able to drive again. So, it would have to be you coming to me. I’m telling you. Okay. Yeah, I’m happy to do that. um or or Zoom. And I got to find I’m telling you, I got to find that contracted. And like I say, I’ve got to I have somebody coming in a couple times a week because I cannot reach down. I can’t get things. Um and I think I know what box it’s in. I could, you know, dig it out and you know, but um anyway, um yeah, and it may not happen in the next month because theoretically I’m my kids are dragging me off to Santa Cruz. I don’t know how that’s going to work. Um but how old are your kids? Oh, well, kids. Um, let’s see. 44 and 41. So, you know, with the grand I’ll always be your kids. Well, yeah, I know. But I mean, the point is, you know, the grandkids and all that stuff. I hear you. So, um, anyway, so I have your I have your email and and all that. So, I need to I need to find that because, you know, I I’m the type of person who prepares if I’m going to do it. I don’t want to at least photocopy something. So, you’ve got an idea what it is. Well, if you do have your if you do have your statement, we can call the annuity company. As long as you’re on the line with me, we can get the I I know what questions to ask, get the details we’re looking for. Um, you know, we can easily call them um and get the information to do a review. It doesn’t take very long other than, you know, depending on who what annuity company is it? This is Alons. A L L I Alian. E. Yeah. All right. Aliance is a big company. They’re a They’re a big German insurance company. Oh, German. Uh, a lot of people call us Alian. We’re actually Alliant. Well, no, I hope you are. I know. No, I know. But but I in fact this this same webinar I was, you know, I come on early and let people say hello and do all that. And some people said, “Oh, yeah. I’m I’m new to Alons.” you know, I’m like, well, we’re reliant, but you know, we get it all the time. So, yeah, Alian is there. So, the good news is they’re not some fly by night company that could be, you know, that’s in Florida or Texas that could be gone in, you know, a year or two if you know, if something happens. Aliance is a they’re a very, very large insurance company. So, the good thing is it’s safe. So, you don’t have to worry about that. Um, if you do have a statement, we can, you know, we can do it via Zoom or I can come down and we can just get them on the phone and get, you know, get the information. That’s not going to be a problem. Yeah. Well, I know I’ve got them on the phone before when I was um uh you know, reading through all this stuff and wanting to get it clarified. And I have all these notes and now if I looked at the notes, if I could find them, I won’t even know what they said. So, Anyway, yeah, there’s, you know, Yeah. Okay. I’m happy to help if you ever want to or if you want to do a plan, I’m happy to, you know, we don’t charge. We don’t charge for any of that. So, yeah, I’m here to help. Okay. So, so I’m going to do this. I hear you’re you got a lot of activity over there with other calls and quacks and whatnot. So, I’ll let you go, Sue. And then So, I want I’m just curious. Are you still there? Yeah. So, usually, you know, I hate that alien thing. So, is there a way for me to So, can you You can’t see anybody. That’s how it’s set up. Is that it? What do you mean? I can’t see anybody. So, I can use I can see you, but when they show me like right now when I’m talking, they show that little alien thing because you didn’t put on your camera. You can put on your camera. I don’t see where it is. I usually know it’s at the bottom of the screen. There’s a little uh there’s a little video. No, it’s right next to the mute. Right next to the microphone is video. Click on that. No, it’s not. There’s mute. Raise hand. chat question and answer show captions. More is it more? Nope. No, it’s over from Okay, there’s you see participants. You see the audio? The little microphone that you clicked on. I see a microphone. I clicked on that earlier. Okay. Right next to that microphone should be a video. Well, there isn’t because I usually find it and I know. But it’s okay. Curious if I just didn’t there. No, that’s just telling me what it is. That’s telling me who you are. That’s Nope. All right. Well, anyway, sometimes when you click on more, it’ll let you give you some options as far as that. Yeah, but normally it should be right next to the right next to the audio microphone. There should be a little camera. There usually. No. So, more just gives me captions and translations or disconnect audio. Okay. Nothing there. Anyway, I was just curious because like, well, how come you’re you know? Okay. Well, anyway, um All right. So, uh so you I guess you have my name and email and all that stuff so you know who you’re talking to. So yeah, I’ll uh I’ll shoot you an email if you and uh you’ll have on my email will be a link to so if you you know if you don’t really have the you don’t know what time you want to make right now um I’ll shoot you an email and on the email will be a link to my calendar as well where you could just click on that whenever you’re ready and then just make a time that works for you. Okay. All right. All right. Thank you. I went I came to one of yours before and there was you know I go oh it’s this guy he knows what he’s talking about and you know um and I didn’t start last Tuesday. No no no no you didn’t and and my husband started at United Airlines in 1975. So Whoa. Yeah. So we were when it was United Airlines Credit Union, he would walk in, you know, to the big the Yeah. maintenance base in San Francisco and there’s an actually actual office and you’d get checks and bring the checks home and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I was uh I got here two years after they closed all our branches. I was actually just at the airport on Friday because uh they had the international international flight attendance day. So I was there as a partner because yeah, we started off as United Airline Employees Credit Union back in 1935. So we were we were with a line we were with United since the beginning. Yeah. Um you know but uh after 9/11 they figured hey you know what it may behoove us to serve more than just airline employees. So they changed their name to Alliant and now United Airline Employees is still by far our biggest our biggest market segment. But in addition, we’re also the credit union for Kaiser Permanente, Google, Tesla, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and uh and Susie Orman. So, like all of Susie Orman’s acolytes were also their credit union as well. So, there you go. All right. Well, thank you. I’m gonna call my daughter back. We So, that’s who that was. All right. You’re very welcome, Sue. Thanks for uh thanks for reaching out and uh thanks for attending and I look forward to seeing you soon. Okay. All right. Thanks. Bye. Have a good night.