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Escape Financial Enslavement | Joe Withrow
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Joe Withrow has two decades of experience in finance. He started his career in corporate banking. Then he became an investment analyst within the largest financial research network on the planet. Joe’s an expert investor, the author of three books, and the founder of the Phoenician League Investment Strategy Group.
Connect with Joe:
Phoenician League: https://phoenicianleague.com/
Hew new podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-phoenician-league/id1890267948
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePhoenicianLeague
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Transcript
00:00:01
Christian Yordanov
Hey, folks, welcome back to the Connected Minds podcast. Kristian Jordinov here. It is with great pleasure that I have Joe Withrow, a returning guest on the podcast.
00:00:12
Christian Yordanov
Joe is a friend. He's actually one of my healthiest clients as well. He is basically he has two decades of experience in finance.
00:00:23
Christian Yordanov
He started his career in corporate banking. He saw how soul-destroying, soul-crushing that is, so he escaped. He became an investment analyst with the largest financial research network on the planet during his tenure there.
00:00:37
Christian Yordanov
He's an expert investor, author of three books, the founder of the Phoenician League Investment Strategy Group, of which I am a member, and we're going to talk a little bit about that. ah Feel free to go back to the previous episode. We'll be talking about different topics today, but that should also be good for you to listen.
00:00:55
Christian Yordanov
And yeah, Joe, welcome back to the show, man.
00:00:58
Joe Withrow
Man, I'm just really thrilled to be here. I love love the work you're doing. And by the way, I'm listening and you you do your your introduction here and you've got like the perfect radio voice, man. Like you could have been, you know, a radio, like back in the days when radio was in its prime, just that that smooth, you know, introduction.
00:01:08
Christian Yordanov
Oh.
00:01:12
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Well, I've always been told I have a face for the radio, so that checks out.
00:01:15
Joe Withrow
So,
00:01:19
Christian Yordanov
checks out 100%.
00:01:22
Joe Withrow
Well, I just think that that just occurred to me because we've we've done one podcast before, but I'm listening. I'm like, man, it sounds like you've been doing this for you know it for forever, for decades.
00:01:32
Christian Yordanov
Well, I noticed um um over 200 episodes on this particular podcast, which is kind of staggering, dude.
00:01:40
Joe Withrow
That's a lot.
00:01:40
Christian Yordanov
Like I've not had any projects in my life to last this long.
00:01:41
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:01:45
Christian Yordanov
Well, I suppose my relationship with my wife we're we're hidden 10 years now in next month, you know, about exactly a month's time. so that's kind of like, yeah, before du before I met her, like everything was like a two, three month hobby, sort of, I get into a thing and then people people all my life have been telling me, you're just like, dude, you got to pick a thing and do that thing.
00:01:53
Joe Withrow
Congratulations.
00:02:05
Christian Yordanov
You're smart enough to, you'll be good at it, but you just keep flip-flopping. And, but, however,
00:02:09
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:02:11
Christian Yordanov
I realized that that's my kind of personality and that that over the years allowed me to accumulate kind of surface level skills that I was then able to synthesize into something of my own now.
00:02:21
Christian Yordanov
So I think it's all good.
00:02:22
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:02:23
Christian Yordanov
And, you know, we.
00:02:24
Joe Withrow
There's a lot to be said for that.
00:02:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, and just even before we start recording, we're talking about like our kids and. the sport and kind of ah ah the importance of allowing a little human to explore the world and, you know, just decide for themselves what they want to pursue as opposed to us sort of trying to guide them for their own good into something that they that might not make them happy and that could could make them like quite miserable later on in life, you know?
00:02:42
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:02:48
Joe Withrow
Yeah, absolutely. and it's um I mean, I remember when I was a kid, like there were expectations and it was like, you know, you just wanted to make somebody proud, like as a kid. And so you're doing things that aren't of your own volition.
00:02:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:02:59
Joe Withrow
And that kind of takes you down, i think, you know, leads you down paths that maybe you weren't meant to walk down. and I, you know, I think about I had a a guy that um that I really learned a lot from in the investment research industry.
00:03:06
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:03:11
Joe Withrow
And he had this saying, there is no teaching, there's only learning. And the principle is, you know, if somebody is not ready or willing to learn something, it doesn't matter what you say, what you do, anything like it's not going to stick. You know, somebody and in fact, somebody also shared with me the word educate stems from the Latin word educo.
00:03:32
Joe Withrow
I think it is educo, which means to draw out. The implication is like you bring it this education out of yourself, like you've got it inside somewhere already.
00:03:42
Christian Yordanov
hey
00:03:43
Joe Withrow
It just needs to be ignited. And I love that kind of that metaphor when it comes to to raising kids, because it's like just light that candle and let them run and, you know, try to keep them within the guardrails for, you know, when they're younger so that, you know, they they you know, you kind of have some responsibilities for, you know, guess more responsibilities when they're younger.
00:03:55
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:04:00
Christian Yordanov
Of course.
00:04:01
Joe Withrow
But let them let them do their thing, man.
00:04:02
Christian Yordanov
Of course, yeah.
00:04:04
Joe Withrow
It's beautiful.
00:04:05
Christian Yordanov
That's it, bro. Like, I noticed, like, my my daughter, she really loves... Like, some days, she's... It's so funny. She's like, Papa, Papa, I want to cut. It's like, I want to cut.
00:04:16
Christian Yordanov
So you have to find her paper, wear the scissors. Again, we lost the scissors. But she just, like, wants to cut patterns out of colored paper.
00:04:21
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:04:22
Christian Yordanov
And now she loves drawing. So we're, like... Even my my ah mother said that because she she's looking after my nephews who and one of them is like ah three years older than her almost.
00:04:33
Christian Yordanov
And she said she says that like my my kiddo at four draws better than him at like six, six and a half. you know so there's certain But he plays amazing piano. He can play like insane stuff.
00:04:43
Joe Withrow
Right.
00:04:44
Christian Yordanov
um So we definitely have these sort of proclivities or kind of things that you can notice a child is more like some are more physical, some are more like thinkers, poets, whatever.
00:04:44
Joe Withrow
Right.
00:04:54
Christian Yordanov
So it's just, it's a beautiful process of kind of seeing what they're good at and what they are engaged with. And then just letting them, you know, creating an environment without again, create that pressure. Because as soon as there's pressure around the thing,
00:05:04
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:05:07
Christian Yordanov
that's when i think even like the the the sort of the newly coalesced ego of a child naturally resists because we want to be free humans at at that kind of level you know yeah yeah but which segway is great into kind of your your expertise so i know a lot of our listeners already know a lot of these things but let's let's kind of dig into some
00:05:15
Joe Withrow
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We were born to be free, man. and That's that and that's that's a great thing.
00:05:33
Joe Withrow
You don't think they want to listen to us talk ah talk about our kids for the next hour?
00:05:37
Christian Yordanov
ah ah No, I think that they'd be thrilled. um ah So let's talk about like maybe how from, and I think we could paint this ah through the, i guess, through the lens of also like, as we're kids, how, how, do how does, is this current financial system, how is it designed to sort of trap us in, not just into being enslaved, but kind of,
00:06:02
Christian Yordanov
almost in the sort of Stockholm syndrome where you just don't know any other way. So you just kind of empathize with the system. It's like, oh, the politicians are doing their best. And just the problem is there's so many problems in the world.
00:06:14
Christian Yordanov
and But otherwise, they're trying their best for us, you know, and and the bankers as well.
00:06:18
Joe Withrow
Yeah. Yeah, so I i can speak you know strictly from an American perspective. And my you know my upbringing was about as mainstream as it could be.
00:06:28
Joe Withrow
I mean, you know they stuck me in government schools, the public school system in the US. And I think kindergarten was like four years old. And from that point, so the next 13 years, I'm immersed in that, you know the government school system.
00:06:42
Joe Withrow
And back then it wasn't as overtly political as it is today. I mean, today they out they outright brainwash the kids with political you know ideology back then that wasn't the case but there was this insidious underlying mechanism that basically you know tries to hammer all kids into the same mold like destroy individual creativity destroy individual curiosity like your entire life is regimented right you got school starts at whatever time it starts that's when you got to be there
00:06:50
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:07:12
Joe Withrow
and they assign you your schedule. You know you don't pick what classes, you know they tell you, okay, you're doing, here's your classes, here's the teachers, here's what time they start. You go to your classes and inevitably, you know people have, there's you know we we would have certain teachers that we thought were pretty good or maybe interesting.
00:07:29
Joe Withrow
But it doesn't matter. That class lasts however long it lasts. Even if you're interested, even if you'd like to spend another hour on the subject matter, you can't. Because when that bell rings, you got to go to the next class.
00:07:37
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:07:39
Joe Withrow
So you drop everything, go to the next class. And what's the goal of that entire system? What was taught to us is like, well, you got to get good grades ah and you got to do what they tell you to do because you got to get into the best college you can.
00:07:53
Joe Withrow
right Because if you can get into the best college you can, then you're going get a good job and make a lot of money and take two weeks vacation and not have to actually work with your hands. right can't do any we do You don't want to do anything with your hands.
00:08:05
Joe Withrow
You don't want to actually fix things or build things. Nothing like that. you know that that that was like...
00:08:10
Christian Yordanov
That's dirty work.
00:08:11
Joe Withrow
correct Yeah, that was synonymous with like a failed life. But the, you know, going through that system and then, you know college university, I went to a relatively large university in the U.S. And it was the same, like the same thing. Like we were led to believe that college was like this fountain of wisdom and knowledge and like, it's going to be so hard and you get there. But what did I learn in the school system? It's just about jumping through these stupid hoops and figuring out how to do what people want you to do and just get by as best you can just to get to the next level.
00:08:41
Joe Withrow
Right. Because it's not about you're actually engaged in something important to you or, you know, something that you're building yourself. You're just jumping through their hoops. I mean, you know, American University, my experience, was the same way. But it all kind of feeds this idea that you are insignificant. You are subordinate to the institution. Your job is just to act in ways that the institution says you should act. And it really, you and that's the whole purpose of homework, too. By the way, I don't if anybody hasn't read John Taylor Gatto,
00:09:10
Joe Withrow
wrote some, um yeah, some really good books on this.
00:09:10
Christian Yordanov
Oh, that lovely stuff. Yeah.
00:09:13
Joe Withrow
But the whole purpose of homework wasn't like to help kids learn. It was to make sure that they couldn't go explore other topics after school. Like, no, you're stuck in the under the school's thumb even when you're not here.
00:09:20
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:09:23
Joe Withrow
So that's a long-winded way of saying I think we are conditioned, at least in my experience, we were conditioned from a very young age to think that we're just supposed to do what they say.
00:09:33
Joe Withrow
And we are not supposed to question the way the system works. you know The institution knows best. The institution is something, you know that a whole idea that you know people need to be so part of something bigger than themselves.
00:09:44
Joe Withrow
Like you as this beautiful individual somehow is not enough.
00:09:44
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:48
Joe Withrow
So you got to you know join a collectivist organization, whatever. But so you you know you segue into that. My experience, my initial first career was in the corporate banking world.
00:09:58
Joe Withrow
That was not a ah choice of mine. I never said, you know what, I want to be ah go into banking. It was just the way that the the system operated. you know you go to i did i did what they told me to do.
00:10:09
Joe Withrow
you know guy And I go to college and I graduate with this finance degree. And they made it sound like that degree is so important. Like if you just get that degree, man, you got it made.
00:10:18
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:10:19
Joe Withrow
Well, then, you know, the way they started telling us, you know, OK, we're going to have job fairs, right, where at various universities, like including ours. And I went to a couple of others, too. Like they they clear out the gymnasium.
00:10:31
Joe Withrow
They'd set up a bunch of booths and they companies would come in and they'd send their middle managers out and they'd hand out you know flyers or whatever for the company and they take resumes. And I guess the premise is like you give them their resume and and maybe they'll call you and offer you a job or something. Well, I probably handed out hundreds of resumes. You know, oh nobody called me except for one, you know, one one company, which was ah basically did you ever see the Vin Diesel movie Boiler Room?
00:10:59
Christian Yordanov
No.
00:10:59
Joe Withrow
Okay, well, it's like this old shady stock brokerage where it's just like dudes on the phones, almost like Wolf of Wall Street, but a generation prior as far as when the movie was made.
00:11:05
Christian Yordanov
Uh-huh.
00:11:08
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah.
00:11:10
Joe Withrow
But ah you know no you know no salary, none of that, just pure commission. But anyway, so... i yeah I kind of you know muddled through that and I started to see, well, hold up. i I thought this degree made me important.
00:11:23
Joe Withrow
you know nobody's Nobody's calling me back until i i got an opportunity in corporate banking
00:11:24
Christian Yordanov
Mm.
00:11:32
Joe Withrow
in the wake of the the mortgage crisis, when that stuff really started to hit the fan. If you remember Wells Fargo got in trouble for robo stamping foreclosure documents in the initial phases of that crisis, where they were just rubber stamping foreclose, foreclose, foreclose. You know, they weren't reading the documents, verifying anything. They were just getting, you know, getting them out the door, kicking people out of their house. Um,
00:11:56
Joe Withrow
And so that when that hit the news, the government came in and said, no, no, no, no no no we can't we can't do this. You gotta stop foreclosing. You need to modify these loans. you got to you know We don't wanna see foreclosures in the news anymore.
00:12:10
Joe Withrow
and they created programs. And this happened within the various government agencies that are part of mortgage origin origination. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and you've got, you know USDA has a mortgage program, VA, those FHA. they So these institutions are these agencies basically created criteria to incentivize the banks to start modifying these mortgages. And the the government would pay them a flat fee for every mortgage they modify.
00:12:39
Joe Withrow
So what did Wells Fargo do? Well, all of a sudden the incentive flipped. They fired everybody in the foreclosure building and they hired, brought in a bunch of mostly young guys like me into the what was called the loss mitigation department.
00:12:52
Joe Withrow
And the reason they wanted young guys like me is because we didn't know any better.
00:12:52
Christian Yordanov
Lost mitigation.
00:12:55
Joe Withrow
We didn't have any experience. We just come in and do what what they said to do. And so it was about sweeping the mess under the rug. But I saw that collusion between the banks and the government. And then I saw you know various ah um underhanded activity within the banking level that really just you know forced me to start questioning you know In fact, I raised my hand in a morning meeting one day and I asked a basic question about loan to value, these modifications, because I saw, you know, we we weren't, the bank was not forgiving any fees.
00:13:26
Joe Withrow
You know, there were massive fees. We were putting thousands, some cases, tens of thousand dollars back on top of the mortgage balance. But property values were plummeting, right? And on average in the U.S., s real estate prices fell 30%.
00:13:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:13:39
Joe Withrow
um after the in the wake of the crisis so we were putting people underwater in their homes and raised the question and kind of asked hey are we tracking loan to value like i felt like somebody should be monitoring this so we can track these things and see if it's successful and you know the the the manager basically you know i mean, scout at me. It was like the most he was just angry that I'd even question this thing. And so anyway, I'll stop rambling there. But I that I saw firsthand that it's you know, it all kind of works together and it's all built towards this idea that these institutions are the primal primal, you know, operators in society.
00:14:17
Joe Withrow
And they try to you know push this idea that we are subordinate. And of course, I think the exact opposite is is true.
00:14:22
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:14:25
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man, it's it's such a... Jeez, what was the name of the book? well I think it was called The Big Short. Yeah, it was The Big Short.
00:14:32
Joe Withrow
Yeah, the big short. Yeah, good movie too.
00:14:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, so i I obviously watched the movie a while back, but I got the audiobook, and I listened to that audiobook quite a lot of times, easily like 10 times, because the movie doesn't really do it justice the way the the book, the dude that wrote the book, man...
00:14:51
Joe Withrow
Yeah, the book is so much more in depth.
00:14:53
Christian Yordanov
So much detail. And um when you kind of see the, but we can just use ah the term corruption, but it's probably, there's a harsher term that needs to be used. But when you see the corruption all the way from the top down,
00:15:10
Christian Yordanov
and across different organizations where you know one is supposed to be a watchdog over the others.
00:15:17
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:15:17
Christian Yordanov
And obviously the government and you know is supposed to be like overseeing all of these things. So for the good of the people, like that's kind of the way it's always, like as we we're kids, it's like what's government? Well, government is there to make sure the roads are built in to protect you from terrorists and, you know, war and and and and make sure everything is dandy and like that you have food on your table. But when you yeah actually look at it, the more you kind of dig deeper into it, it's like a big, big, big mafia.
00:15:49
Christian Yordanov
And they're just doing like gangster shit.
00:15:49
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:15:49
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:15:51
Christian Yordanov
And the the the person that gets it is the little guy, a.k.a.
00:15:52
Joe Withrow
yeah
00:15:57
Christian Yordanov
you know Joe, Christian, s Sally, whatever else. And um I think too many people are still living in under this delusion that you know if you just vote in the right candidates, things will change. But it seems like the system...
00:16:12
Christian Yordanov
was designed from like and I look at it more like in my in my sort of work more from like the medical industrial complex but it's like this is probably an even bigger thing
00:16:21
Joe Withrow
I think that's even more insidious than the banking complex, by the way.
00:16:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, but it looks like they're almost from the get go. They were designed to screw people over, to create debt, to create monetary expansionism and and and inflation, which then erodes your purchasing power. And then at the same time, they're adding taxes. They're adding other kind of nonsense. So you're like getting taxed more over the the last century.
00:16:45
Christian Yordanov
your your your dollar or whatever is worth less and just constantly they're basically it seems like they're trying to create decimate the the middle class and just create the sort of neo-feudalism where there's just basically a surf class and then hopefully for them eventually a lot of them will be replaced yeah with with AI and robots and they won't have to deal with them at all that's kind of um I know that's a little bit dark but
00:17:07
Joe Withrow
Yeah, well, that was the entire I mean that, you know, people have been saying, like, trying to issue warnings about what you just said for over a decade now, for a long, long time ago.
00:17:17
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:17
Joe Withrow
I remember watching a documentary, Freedom freedom to Fascism, which I think came out like in something like that. It was way back then. mean, you know, I know people were, you know, crying in the wilderness even before that, but, you know, they were always, you know, there were people, society was conditioned to consider those people crazy and call them kooks and conspiracy theorists and all that.
00:17:38
Joe Withrow
Well, the mask came off in 2020, not only with all the, you know, the, the COVID, like aggressive attack on humanity, the you know the stuff that they pushed.
00:17:49
Joe Withrow
But you know the World Economic Forum came out with their great reset.
00:17:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:53
Joe Withrow
They had a commercial that they ran with a guy with kind of a dumb grin on his face. And the headline was, you're going to own nothing and be happy. And I went i read through their policy paper.
00:18:00
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:18:02
Joe Withrow
It was a policy paper. They had frameworks.
00:18:04
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:18:04
Joe Withrow
Within there, and they had, you know, different planks of the great reset system and it it is exactly they didn't put it in those terms, but it, you know, it was exactly what you said it was creating this class of stakeholders, which would have total control over virtually everything over the the monetary system over the financial system.
00:18:17
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:18:23
Joe Withrow
over the the economy, over you know political life, everything. And then you'd have you know the the lower class. It really was stakeholder or not stakeholder.
00:18:33
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:18:34
Joe Withrow
And so they they were very honest about that. They were open. What's interesting, what's fascinating to me, and we've been tracking the story in the Phoenician League is i've I've started to see that there are power factions out there. I don't subscribe to this idea that, you know the whole George Carlin thing, I used to.
00:18:50
Joe Withrow
George Carlin idea that's all one big club and you're not in it. um I've started to see there are power factions. And I started to see this actually analyzing what appeared to be the Wall Street banks, the New York Money Center banks, appeared to break ranks from the globalists. And this was in the wake of 2020. And I'm trying to, and I thought they were on the same team. And in fact, they appeared to be on the same team.
00:19:11
Joe Withrow
up to that point. But I'm watching and I'm trying to think, you know, all of a sudden Jamie Dimon's talking, he's calling himself a free market capitalist, CEO of JP Morgan, you know, calling himself a free market capitalist and talking to these things saying, yeah, no, we need to fund oil and gas.
00:19:18
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:19:23
Joe Withrow
And all these things were dirty words for the, you know, the the great reset, the globalist push. And I'm trying to figure this out. And then, it you know, as I'm doing analysis, I started to realize, oh, what, you remember the CBDC push, central bank digital currency?
00:19:37
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. right
00:19:38
Joe Withrow
What would that do to the banking system? If you take all everybody's deposits and you move them into a central bank digital currency that's held within the central bank and that becomes the source of money and the repository of all money, you cut the banks out.
00:19:55
Joe Withrow
right? What what's the what do banks do in that world where it's the central bank that's beholden to the stakeholders? And so it you know it started, I'm very confident in saying basically Wall Street and certain factions, power factions associated with them, basically revolted against the the World Economic Forum.
00:20:12
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:20:14
Joe Withrow
and i And so you can clearly see now there's this power struggle at play. And I don't know exactly how the Trump administration fits in, but they are part of that it's like this, mo you mentioned mob, you know, thats like mafias.
00:20:28
Joe Withrow
We're seeing a great big mafia war right now between two different power factions. And it's it's fascinating to watch. And that's, you know, i think that's what this Iran war stuff is about too.
00:20:39
Joe Withrow
It looks like they're trying to capture the the maritime choke points. The Strait of Hormuz is the really the last one They've already got like the Strait of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca. There's, I think, one one or two other major ones um that the U.S.
00:20:53
Joe Withrow
military is essentially secured, either directly or indirectly. And so it's like this this this battle taking place.
00:20:57
Christian Yordanov
Interesting.
00:20:59
Joe Withrow
And now all of a sudden you see NATO is fracturing and Europe. you know Europe's like, going to send our coalition to the Strait of Hormuz and we're going to fix it. you know You can't trust the Americans.
00:21:08
Christian Yordanov
We'll blockade your blockade of your blockade of their blockade.
00:21:10
Joe Withrow
it's like And you're looking at this and I'm like, these guys, like in a, if it weren't so evil, like I look it, it's like, this is just humorously childish.
00:21:22
Joe Withrow
It's like fourth graders out there.
00:21:22
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:21:24
Joe Withrow
Like, no, where' you can't blockade. I read like, we're, we're in charge. And, and so, I'm looking at and I do see power factions and right now, you know, it's it's a case, a situation where I think it's a good thing that they're distracted with one another.
00:21:40
Joe Withrow
If this analysis is correct, it certainly buys us some time to you know try to build more resiliency in our own lives and our own communities, those types of things. And I'm fascinated to see you know how it plays out because I think it's up in the air.
00:21:55
Joe Withrow
And if if that idea is correct, then all of a sudden you can go back at other events in history that we're just kind of given the the black and white version of. And you can start to think like, for example, the the American Civil War.
00:22:04
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:22:08
Joe Withrow
You know, as you know, those of us that are on kind of the the libertarian side of the coin, we looked at it and we're like, well, states rights, you know, states rights were enhanced and enshrined in the Constitution. In fact, the U.S., you know, the founding fathers, they seceded from Great Britain.
00:22:23
Joe Withrow
And so, you know, we tend to look at the this you know kind of the southern states and say, oh, they're just exercising their states rights. But if you go back and look at it, there was. there was It looked like there was influence from Britain and France involved as well.
00:22:38
Joe Withrow
And so it doesn't look like it's as clean.
00:22:39
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:22:40
Joe Withrow
And so yeah I start to look like, were there power facts? Like the abolitionists were funded. It wasn't just people who just really, really loved freedom. The abolitionists were like to the modern version of Antifa, who were going around like murdering people who didn't who weren't abolitionists and like causing chaos.
00:22:56
Joe Withrow
And so you start to see, oh, you know what? Maybe history is like a big battle of these mob bosses, like power factions. And so, sorry, that that might be getting us off track, but I think it's very interesting, man.
00:23:05
Christian Yordanov
No, bro. Yeah. i No, I i think that that that that's because it seems like if you just think about it, okay, this is if we just stick to physical human existence and there's no other like, because, you know, like you if you go deep enough, under a sorry deep into enough rabbit holes you you will hear the reptilians the lizard people the fallen angels the nephilim yeah so if if it's just humans doing their thing and let's say we did kind of we were more um or less technologically advanced so if you if you have even like you if you look at
00:23:31
Joe Withrow
Oh, yeah. I've been down those rabbit holes.
00:23:51
Christian Yordanov
Africa or the Amazon, like you have these sort of more indigenous tribes, they will have conflicts between tribes and they they will at times, they they might live in peace, but
00:23:57
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:24:01
Christian Yordanov
they will at times want more land or they'll have a calamity in their area and they'll need to move over, which will cause conflict. So it does make sense then that these sort of, play like in in Europe and and and and China and and Persia and all these places, there was increasingly powerful tribes, and nations, kingdoms, whatever, that eventually...
00:24:29
Christian Yordanov
they got powerful enough where they would kind of consume, you know, like Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, they would consume smaller areas.
00:24:32
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:24:35
Christian Yordanov
And then over time, they would get too big for their boots and they would have like some kind of rupturing and then fragmentation. And then on the cycle continues. But it seems like it would be at least until now, now with the technology, it would I think that's why the big push but and up until now because communication and everything was so so separated it seems difficult to coordinate it all from one place one group if it's just humans doing human stuff um and i know michael tesario he's a great sort of philosopher and researcher and and and and you know just many men of many talents he he has ah he talks a lot about the eastern illuminati so there's like a group there.
00:25:15
Christian Yordanov
He talks about the, ah he has a whole sort of book series on the Irish ah origins of civilization where it was actually Irish that kind of went into Egypt at at a certain point and they created that civilization.
00:25:26
Joe Withrow
Interesting.
00:25:28
Christian Yordanov
So, but it was again, big mafias, let's say big, big organizations that then meet with other big dogs and that creates these sort of, ah you know, pushes to let's get, let's get.
00:25:44
Christian Yordanov
So that's one theory. And then it could, it could be that they were all just playing theater so that it looks like, because at the expense of, of conflict and war is always the little guy.
00:25:45
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:25:50
Joe Withrow
Yeah. The kayfabe idea.
00:25:56
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:25:56
Christian Yordanov
Like even the stuff with the hormones, just stopping that oil. i don't know if what your thought is, but like if the oil isn't getting shipped out for the next month or two, I mean, it won't be an immediate sort of thing felt by us.
00:26:09
Christian Yordanov
But in three, six, 12 months, like the repercussions could be pretty, pretty horrific.
00:26:14
Joe Withrow
It's going to be a massive energy shock. Yeah. Not, I don't think here in the U S because the U S is largely self-sufficient with oil, but Europe for sure. I mean, in China, you know, much of Asia.
00:26:25
Joe Withrow
Yeah. It's going to be a massive energy shock where there's probably going to be shortages, if not, you know, massive higher prices because I mean, they've destroyed a massive amount of productive capacity there in that, in that region.
00:26:31
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:26:37
Joe Withrow
And that stuff can't just come back online.
00:26:39
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:26:39
Joe Withrow
You know, it'll take years, I think, to rebuild that infrastructure. I mean, notice how they're floating the idea that, you know, it's going to be American companies who are going to come in and rebuild. i mean, it it is. It does look like mafia turf wars. Like, no, our guys are going to fix it. American commercial interest. If you notice, like, the initial, when the the the first step, that I guess the the attack on Iran and you had the Strait of Hormuz first started to become kind of a battleground.
00:27:06
Joe Withrow
Lloyd's of London came out and said, no, no, we can't insure, you know, ships and goods traversing the strait if it's going to be a battleground. and of course, Lloyd's of London is a cornerstone of the old world. it was a you know part of the power engine of the British British Empire. And what did the U.S. come out the very next day? it was Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's like, oh, no problem. we'll We'll take care of the insurance.
00:27:27
Joe Withrow
right And it's these are not actions of, I mean, it looks like that's it looks like this it's like the struggle for market share.
00:27:27
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:27:33
Joe Withrow
And like the more market share you capture, the more you know you can you know elevate yourself and to the expense of somebody else. And you know I say that it's interesting from an analytical standpoint, but it's also anathema to what we do in the private realm.
00:27:48
Joe Withrow
And I really, I read a book and I'm reading it to my kids called Economics and the Spiritual Life of Free Men. And it's written by a guy named Spencer Heath. And this, I think he was writing in like the 60s.
00:27:59
Joe Withrow
I don't think he's alive anymore. But he framed it in a perspective. He framed what we've done in the private realm in a perspective that I hadn't considered before. But he talked about, you know, we've basically created an age of abundance by having an economy that allowed the mass division of labor that allowed millions of people to engage in commerce and transact with people they don't know and to work jobs or start businesses that you know they themselves would need other help for. And he talked about how this, what we've done is all fundamentally governed largely by the golden rule.
00:28:36
Joe Withrow
And he said, look, you know, this we've created what Jesus of Nazareth called the kingdom of heaven on earth. Like this, you know, this system where you're not forced to do anything unless the government comes in and forces you. But generally speaking, you know, I was able to go work whatever job or start a business and, you know, you can explore your own interests. And it's all because we've got millions of people that are largely cooperating.
00:28:59
Joe Withrow
with other people they don't know. And they're working on things that are productive and produce, you know ah you know, things that benefit the entire economy. And it's all because of fundamentally cooperation.
00:29:11
Joe Withrow
And it's treating people the way you would like to be treated, even if you're not doing it consciously.
00:29:11
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:29:16
Joe Withrow
You're doing it subconsciously because of the incentives for that system are aligned with your own personal incentives. And what, you know, what's happening at the geopolitical level is the exact opposite of that.
00:29:28
Joe Withrow
And so, i you know, i I spend a lot of time analyzing it because it is important from an investment standpoint. And I kind of produce and write write about this in my newsletter for the Phoenician League. And we've got an investment portfolio where we're making sure that we're aligned with the the macroeconomic trends. But fundamentally, it's when I say, you know, i call it evil and I use to me, the definition of evil is stupid and destructive.
00:29:53
Joe Withrow
You know, it is stupid and destructive. And, you know, we've already got the model. Cooperate with one another, you know, allow, you know, just this beautiful flourishing to occur.
00:29:59
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:30:03
Joe Withrow
And we've done it in the private realm and everything they do is just anathema to that. So I think that's just a really interesting perspective that I'm just starting to to see
00:30:08
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:30:13
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man. And, you know, like the way I kind of am starting starting to see it more and more is there is definitely four different forces in the universe, the world. And we, you know, good, it seems like good is...
00:30:29
Christian Yordanov
nature like when you look at nature nature is is good it's creative right um you know trees grow if you just leave land on its own uh man like stuff will grow out of concrete i've seen i see it as i walk my dog like flowers and and and various weeds growing out of freaking concrete you know and yeah it's amazing so there's this creative force but at the same time
00:30:33
Joe Withrow
Yes.
00:30:44
Joe Withrow
Yeah. It's amazing.
00:30:53
Christian Yordanov
in nature death feeds life so if you look at all the dead decaying matter on the floor of a wood or a wooded area forest that is then going to turn so as animals and plants die that eventually turns into new life so it's like this constant like almost like a war nature is at war god god is like creating and this destroying at the same time so
00:30:57
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:31:14
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:31:20
Christian Yordanov
to have i suppose that ah To have good, you must have evil. and and even If you're to play this amazing game that God has created, is playing with himself, himself, herself, you you have to accept, I think, that there will be evil. And to play the role of evil, well, you have to be proper evil. like You have to be a heartless psychopath piece of shit. And then, but you have to you have to own that. And these people are, our own it seems like they are owning it, this force is owning it. And then if you have good, if you stand against, if you're not evil, but you're good, you and stand against it, then you have to play your role.
00:32:00
Christian Yordanov
And I think it's just a matter of choosing your team and and kind of playing playing yeah your role as well as you can and and doing what you can for you, of course, for yourself first until your needs are met.
00:32:00
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:32:11
Christian Yordanov
And then if you so choose branching out to the to the wider world and and seeing how you can help. And you know I see that you're doing that yourself because you can very easily just focus on your investments and your family. And you don't have to do shit, bro. You don't have to do anything. I'm sure you will be more than fine. But something inside you is saying, I need to...
00:32:33
Christian Yordanov
do Do something that provides for my family and for myself, but also that is making the world a better place as opposed to just extracting from the others out there, which I think that's a beautiful thing.
00:32:34
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:32:46
Joe Withrow
Absolutely, man. That's it's really just a fundamental concept. It's all a journey. It's all an experience. And it's funny you mentioned that the good versus evil. Like I put out something in my newsletter. It's been a while back.
00:32:58
Joe Withrow
But, it you know, I had a line, something, you know, analyzing some of this stuff. And I think I wrote something to the effect of the dark cannot survive the light. And ah one of our members one of our members wrote me back in an email and said, yeah, you know I like that perspective, but I want to share something with you.
00:33:15
Joe Withrow
And this was somebody who's out in Hawaii and had learned, I forget what they called like the elder person that they learned this from. And I don't remember if they were associated.
00:33:23
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:33:25
Joe Withrow
I don't think they were associated with any specific religion. It was just, you know whatever this elder person. And she said, I just want to share this with you. You know, she taught me this elder. She's writing me. This elder taught me that the dark is in service of the light.
00:33:42
Joe Withrow
And when she said that, I was like, at first, I'm like, no, no. But then I'm like, oh. And it's because of exactly why you said, because if there is no dark, if there is no evil, there can't be good, right?
00:33:53
Joe Withrow
For something to be good, it must be good relative to something evil.
00:33:54
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:33:56
Joe Withrow
And so that does, in a sense, make, I mean, it does make sense to me in that way. And another perspective I really like, I learned this from a guy named Paul Rosenberg, who is just a prolific writer and a wonderful, I mean, just a Renaissance man of sorts, but he' he's kind of fleshed out this idea that really resonates with me. And you look at nature and, you know, the natural state of nature, things tend to veer towards entropy, not directly, but things tend to break down. You know, as you mentioned, the nature breaks things down because that process of breaking things down also feeds new life, but entropy, but there are certain creatures that can reverse entropy.
00:34:37
Joe Withrow
And so, for example, bees, They go around and they basically pollinate plants, pollinate flowers and allow you know they make allow these flowers to grow. But they don't do that because they think, well, I want these flowers to grow. They do it because they're getting the nectar and they're making honey.
00:34:52
Joe Withrow
Then that honey serves as a massive energy source for you know the animal world, whoever the bears get the honey or whoever.
00:34:58
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:34:58
Joe Withrow
Right. And so same thing with earthworms. They fertilize the soil so they can reverse entropy in that one specific way. And there's I'm sure there's other examples. But what Rosenberg really made me aware of, it's like if you look at the human race, we can choose to reverse entropy at will.
00:35:17
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:35:17
Joe Withrow
we aren't We don't have the same limits. We can look at any problem we see and we can say, you know what, I'm gonna figure out how to make that better. And this is kind of what, you know, if you take that back to a spiritual perspective and you think about like the teachings of Jesus, and I like to talk about them from a more of a philosophic perspective, not the religious, because there's so much, you know, stuff with the religious side that has really, you know, muddied the waters.
00:35:34
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:40
Joe Withrow
And I think it's done people a big disservice, but on the the spiritual philosophic side, You know, Jesus said you are you guys are made in the image of likeness of God.
00:35:41
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. yeah
00:35:48
Joe Withrow
You are creators in this world. Right. And in the sense that we can reverse entropy at will, we are. And I think that is, you know, you take that and connect it to Maslow's hierarchy and like the advancement of the human life.
00:36:01
Joe Withrow
spirit, the human journey. It's like the further you get up that ladder, you know, is where you've satisfied your base needs. And then you, you know, reach the the next level and you, the further up, you just want to figure out, well, how can I be a benefit to this world?
00:36:14
Joe Withrow
How can I be a force for good? And that's your human experience.
00:36:17
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:36:18
Joe Withrow
So I think it's a beautiful thing, although it is kind of, It's still in my mind. I'm still i'm not advanced enough where I still sometimes see evil and I'm like, you know, angered by it. And, you know, and I want to like, that needs to stop.
00:36:29
Christian Yordanov
Of course.
00:36:30
Joe Withrow
But but it's.
00:36:31
Christian Yordanov
But that that's that that's because you're playing your role...
00:36:32
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:36:35
Christian Yordanov
really well again it's like it if this especially like the stuff that came out with the epstein files i think many people in the truth community they were they already kind knew that so it didn't um it wasn't traumatizing and and shocking for many of them but you know there was a lot of
00:36:43
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:36:53
Christian Yordanov
Like people in the more mainstream when they found out that there was a lot of people that got angry and I think it's that's that's a healthy reaction to to get angry about horrible things being being perpetrated especially you know on children.
00:37:02
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:37:06
Joe Withrow
Yes. Especially with kids.
00:37:08
Christian Yordanov
So. Yeah, so if you're, um you know, if you're, but again, playing an actor in, let's say, this massive theater, massive sort of game, and if you're going to do evil, they're playing their role really well. So I think...
00:37:25
Christian Yordanov
We have to, if we are on the good side, you know we have to play our our role well. And that that that does require emotions that might not be very pleasant.
00:37:38
Christian Yordanov
But it's it's also like the whole emotional thing.
00:37:38
Joe Withrow
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:37:41
Christian Yordanov
and like I think the New Age movement, that's another thing that they have... degenerated where it's not okay to be angry it's not okay to be frustrated you only only only have to be peaceful that's bullshit like why did god nature why did god give us this diapason of of spectrum of emotions if we're only supposed to be here on the the spectrum that you decided is good because it doesn't rock the boat like we are just like look at
00:38:06
Joe Withrow
Exactly. It makes you a an inactive pawn. And I, but you know, i I had that mindset when I was younger that, you know i don't want to like do anything to cause any, anything like you just like, it makes you an inactive pawn to where you're not on the game.
00:38:20
Joe Withrow
Like you're not doing anything, um you know, important or or whatever you want to put it.
00:38:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:38:25
Joe Withrow
That's a really good insight.
00:38:27
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man. um So I don't even know. How did we get here? i don't know where the hell to go.
00:38:33
Joe Withrow
We're already 40 minutes in.
00:38:34
Christian Yordanov
we're We're like, dude, like we're like philosophers, you're like, fuck here.
00:38:35
Joe Withrow
ah
00:38:38
Christian Yordanov
um So, ah what okay, let's talk about, like so obviously this, it's like, I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit, but you know Kissinger said something along the lines of, you know you control food, you control the people, you control oil, you control nations, and then if you control money,
00:39:02
Christian Yordanov
It controls the entire world. So clearly, right now, one ah one of the major things that's been happening, because you see a lot of, you know, fires and bombings of like ah oil fields, production facilities, and, and you know, this has kind of been going on for a while.
00:39:03
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:39:18
Christian Yordanov
And also also the the food production facilities getting, like, during the COVID years, getting set on fire randomly here and there all over the world.
00:39:25
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:39:26
Christian Yordanov
So clearly there's a ploy.
00:39:28
Joe Withrow
Accidentally, of course.
00:39:29
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, of course. I mean, like, just just coincidence. um but So clearly right now there's a ploy. ploy because we know we know when with the agenda 2030 the wf they're talking about you're gonna fly once every three years you know for whatever uh if you if you have money still so clearly they're trying to disrupt the world's energy supply do you think that is because they're just really trying to accelerate into this agenda 2030 their goals and maybe they're behind on some of them
00:40:01
Joe Withrow
So just my my opinion, and this is all it is, is an opinion and a thought based on the analysis that I've done. If you look at the, like, if you take the my idea that there's power factions at war with one another at that geopolitical level, and if you analyze it and try to assess motivations,
00:40:16
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:40:21
Joe Withrow
The, you know, the power, the World Economic Forum is tied into the old world European power structure that, you know, foundationally created the United Nations and the European Union, which is like a mini model for what they want to do to the world. And it, you know, goes back deeper, much, much deeper than that. Rabbit holes run deep, the Rothschilds banking families. And and I don't even think they're like the big one. Apparently there's like even, it goes even deeper. But anyway, what, if you look at that and you you look at their attacks on energy,
00:40:50
Joe Withrow
and what that would do to the economy. And you look at their their goal, essentially, to create a two-tiered society. What's what's common is in Europe, they they don't produce. the The energy sources they're attacking, is they don't produce in Europe. They don't have you know extensive oil and gas repositories. they They don't have the ability to produce their own energy from those sources.
00:41:15
Joe Withrow
And so part of that, and so if I look at it that way, okay, it's like, well, they can't produce it. So there, you know, nobody else can either. It's you know kind of the the childish sense. And,
00:41:27
Joe Withrow
the The power, you know, the other kind of American based power faction, the New York Money Center banks, all of a sudden are now, you know, included in the Trump administration as well, are incentivizing oil and gas production in the U.S., which is something that had been thwarted for for years with regulatory policy.
00:41:41
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:41:43
Joe Withrow
And they're so they're feeding that energy stuff. They want the more energy, you know, and traditional forms of energy. And so, you know, I'm watching this power struggle play out and it it you know, it's, I can't place a motivation on that side in as much detail as, i mean, the World Economic Forum, it was very clear what that power faction wanted to do. And so I don't know that I have a great opinion on that. It's just more, I'm watching and and learning, but it's it's very clear that, you know I mean, had they successfully killed off traditional forms of energy, we could not live the lifestyles that we're currently living. And you know many people would most likely have to die.
00:42:29
Joe Withrow
yeah We cannot support our economy with current technology. And there's reason to believe certain technologies have been suppressed as well. But I mean, it just looked very genocidal in nature, like it's kind of the whole population reduction mechanism.
00:42:36
Christian Yordanov
Of course, of course. Yeah.
00:42:40
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah. because Because also, like, I forgot what the stats were of how much fertilizer is coming from the Middle East through, so you know, some some of which is going through the Strait of Hormuz.
00:42:56
Christian Yordanov
So there's a lot of beyond just the fuel, uh,
00:43:00
Joe Withrow
I mean, I think it's like 30 or 40% of global forward.
00:43:02
Christian Yordanov
It's a lot. I think it's a big number.
00:43:03
Joe Withrow
It's a big number.
00:43:05
Christian Yordanov
And of course, like people are saying, clearly the food that they make without fertilizer is obviously not the kind of food we want to eat because in the West, those of us that have the knowledge and of course the means, which most of us still do, You don't eat the food that's made with that kind of fertilizer to begin with.
00:43:25
Christian Yordanov
But there's a lot of nations where that's all kind of like that's a state, like, for example, corn or wheat or whatever, a few other grains. Like that's a good, I don't know what the numbers are, but it could be like 30, 40 percent of the people's diet, like daily diet could be grains, grain based, you know.
00:43:44
Christian Yordanov
So what's going to happen for them is first prices will increase and then the what the scary part is the actual complete shortage where not enough can go around you know so that i think that definitely speaks so first you disrupt the energy because of course it will destroy at least the the creature comforts the lifestyle sort of stuff we have in the west know flying all the time wherever you want driving all the time but then
00:44:12
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
00:44:14
Christian Yordanov
as they call them the useless eaters you know that don't produce they're gonna get
00:44:17
Joe Withrow
Yeah. And they use that term specifically. Yeah.
00:44:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah, yeah, use the cedars. That's what they that's the term they use the great unwashed. That's another term they love to use. So it's kind of I thought after COVID started, you know, we had the the lockdown and stuff and, you know, things got very very expensive over the next three years. And then the Russia ah Ukraine thing with the oil pipeline there and stopping the, you know, Russian oil exports and stuff. I thought that was scary.
00:44:47
Christian Yordanov
But Kind of the more I look at this, bro, I'm trying not to do much for my own sort of sanity and and and mental health.
00:44:55
Joe Withrow
yeah
00:44:56
Christian Yordanov
But the more I look at it, the more I'm like, holy shit, bro. Like we're in for some ride the next few years.
00:45:02
Joe Withrow
Yeah, I mean, i don I don't see how we can't be. I mean, it's however this plays out, you know there's a grand shift that's happening, whether that's at the power structure or at the economic level. We don't know exactly what it's going to look like, but it's it's not going to look like it has for the last 80 years or whatever.
00:45:24
Joe Withrow
I'm not as big, you know i used to be more on the doom mindset and I've really done a good job of kind of coming out of that and being optimistic because we still have a lot of agency.
00:45:28
Christian Yordanov
Step it
00:45:34
Joe Withrow
And of course I'm speaking from an American perspective and it's easier to say when, you know in certain European cities, you don't have the same access to you know, to energy or farmland or things like that.
00:45:47
Joe Withrow
And so like I'm just optimistic that this is part of the journey and it's our moment to try to, you know, do whatever we can do to make sure that, you know, we can advance our families and our communities as best we can.
00:45:54
Christian Yordanov
ah bit up
00:46:01
Joe Withrow
Because, I mean, I think that's where everything starts. And that's the whole idea of you know, kind of to use the term kingdom of heaven. It doesn't come from the top down. It's not something that's planned out. It's the aggregation of independent activity. you know And it just and i this is, ah I think, a something that I've really been thinking about a lot that I'm reading this book. you know If somebody does, and this is what I've shared with the kids. And so I've shared with my children, like every activity, every action you do is a decision that you make.
00:46:30
Joe Withrow
Everything you say, everything you do, that's a conscious decision that you make. Your goal should be to make sure that that action action is positive. It creates some type of positive impact, even if it's tiny.
00:46:43
Joe Withrow
And your goal should be to avoid negative actions that create a negative impact, even if it's tiny. Because if you say one thing and maybe maybe it's if it hurts it's hurtful to one kid and you're nice to everybody else in the world, but you said something mean to one kid.
00:46:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
00:46:59
Joe Withrow
Okay, well, it's it's one little thing. But if millions of people also... engage in actions that hurt just one person. That's millions of people that have been harmed. And you know and so kind of the converse is true.
00:47:11
Joe Withrow
We've got a multiplying effect. If we just do little small acts, whether it's acts of kindness or it's acts of you know actual, you know whatever production, whatever productivity, whatever help, whatever, you know it all multiplies.
00:47:21
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah
00:47:24
Joe Withrow
And so I don't think we're, I think they've spent a lot of money and a lot of propaganda trying to convince us that we are powerless. you look at that. why Why are they doing that? yeah This is obviously important to them that we feel powerless. And so I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to feel powerless. We're going to win. We're going to do what we have to do. Recognizing that, you know, we can't vote in the right person and it's all going to change and get better. You know, we can't control what the militaries do. We can't control anything at those levels.
00:47:54
Joe Withrow
What we can control is the actions we do. And collectively around this planet, there are billions of us. There are way more of us than there are of them. And we if we all had that mindset that every action should be of positive benefit in some capacity, however big or small, it doesn't matter.
00:48:11
Joe Withrow
Right. That's going to compound and we can write. I'm very I'm still very optimistic that we can create a better future despite you know the headwinds with all the stuff about A.I.
00:48:18
Christian Yordanov
I that.
00:48:21
Joe Withrow
and all the surveillance and the space base, all that stuff. But, you know, this is our journey. So let's let's ride, man. Let's let's not not cower in the corner.
00:48:29
Christian Yordanov
yemen That's it. And I think that's such a healthy inspirational perspective because I had a period that I've talked about it before here, but um after 20, guess around 2021 after COVID and i man, I i got, i was like, dude, I'm like, this is it. This is the end of the world.
00:48:48
Christian Yordanov
I didn't fly anywhere for like years, you know?
00:48:52
Joe Withrow
Yeah, I didn't either.
00:48:52
Christian Yordanov
And yeah, i was like, yeah, I didn't.
00:48:54
Joe Withrow
because it's like that's that that's their That's where they can get you in the airport. That's where the the government agents are.
00:48:58
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I was like, man, like it's kind of at one point i was like, I remember i would see like synchronicities, like sometimes a word or or a phrase would... um would randomly like on a billboard or something.
00:49:15
Christian Yordanov
I just kind of look somewhere passing by and i'll see something. And then I i remember, i don't remember when it was was, I guess three years ago or something, maybe maybe plus minus. I saw um a freaking van and there's a company here
00:49:30
Joe Withrow
okay
00:49:33
Christian Yordanov
that they do, I don't know, is it gardening, is it like renovations, but there's like a few of these vans. And I remember this van, i was throwing out the trash or something and this van passed me by and I just looked at the side of the van and it said, build for life. I think maybe that's their slogan or the company name or whatever, the trade name.
00:49:54
Christian Yordanov
And I saw build for life. So up until that point for the last, you know, two, three years, i was like, just kind of everything I was doing with was with the sort of this negative ah defeatist mindset of, oh, you know, the lizard people are going to like destroy the world and i have to figure out how to survive. And I think that's that's.
00:50:18
Christian Yordanov
When I saw that, even though it's just a synchronicity, it doesn't mean anything. you know It doesn't mean anything. We ascribe meaning to things. and But for me, it was a good thing to see at the time because i was like, you know what? I should be building for life. I should be like, when I'm planning my future and and kind of planning my projects and planning with my family in and and everything, I should be thinking on building things for life, not for death, not for destruction.
00:50:45
Christian Yordanov
Because we are here no matter what the journey entails, whether that's with a lot of suffering, a lot of you know opulence, a lot of riches, a lot of strife, whatever the the journey is for each and every one of us individually, it's a sacred journey you know given to us by god and we have to honor that by living it to the fullest and maybe some of these things out there they are tests tests of do you because there was another great thing by michael tasarian i loved uh he said it i used to listen to his podcast a lot he said um you know if you are constantly living in fear and doubt and sort of you're afraid what will happen to you and stuff like that you are then
00:51:26
Christian Yordanov
clearly clearly not trusting in god and if you're not trusting in god you got a lot of so spiritual work to to work on yourself and that that kind of ah stuck with me it's like why why live in fear and and stuff and and like of what these people are trying to do why not
00:51:31
Joe Withrow
that.
00:51:46
Christian Yordanov
Build the life you want. And if we more of us do that, we like you said, a lot of these positive actions will comp compound and they will integrate with each other along the way, creating thus creating a better world for us in spite of what they're doing.
00:52:00
Joe Withrow
Yeah, I love it, man. I mean, that was my exact same experience too, like the the fear-based mindset. And then you go down all the rabbit holes and you look at all the ways that, you know, they've they've got these powerful things and we don't.
00:52:12
Joe Withrow
and But yeah, I kind of broke out of it in just the same way. It's like, no, I, you know, we gotta, we gotta live. We gotta, you know, go to we're not powerless here.
00:52:22
Joe Withrow
We have agency. Yeah.
00:52:24
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man. I love that. So let's let's talk about some of the stuff. like you As we segue into the Phoenician League, I want to want people to hear more about it because it's such an awesome group you have.
00:52:35
Christian Yordanov
You're doing a lot of amazing work. But before we kind of segue into that, so has anything changed since this stuff started happening now in, you know, started with Venezuela at the start of the year, but with more specifically with Iran. Did that change any of like what you're doing in your own sort of household or in your investment strategy? Did anything change in terms of how you're preparing and and making yourself more resilient to any future potential shocks?
00:53:04
Joe Withrow
No, it it validated our yeah know our approach and our trends because we built you know we built our investment strategy around this idea that the age, and this is my term, the age of paper wealth has ended. you know This age where you can just create massive amounts of fiat currency and credit. And you can, you know, push those into financialized assets and as assets become decoupled from the underlying commodities and the underlying reality and that you can, you know, run your economy this way. Like that's, it's very clear to me that we're at the end of the line for that.
00:53:38
Joe Withrow
Now, that doesn't mean it's going to crash. I no longer, at one time, you know, I was kind of in that mindset, but I don't think that's the case today. And that's part of what this big reorganization is about. It's part of what this geopolitical stuff is about. But that that idea, if you recognize that, it you know you can really focus on real assets. yeah I mean, i you'd start with gold and Bitcoin, which are, you know,
00:54:00
Joe Withrow
you know I consider to be savings. i don't really consider those investments. I want to save in gold and Bitcoin. We built a core stock portfolio around certain trends. like I loved the, and I say loved in in a relative way, when they were pushing the like at the height of the the Great Reset push, and they're talking about net zero and all this stuff, as far as carbon like carbon neutral, getting rid of all this. and We invested very heavily in Traditional energy sources we oil and gas, as well as uranium as well for nuclear power, because we you know we looked at and we said this is physically impossible. David Vogelpohl, Either millions of people are going to die or that's not going to happen, and so which is it going to be, and so you know we we did very well with those investments, so we were already positioned on that side.
00:54:47
Christian Yordanov
Interesting.
00:54:47
Joe Withrow
And there's numerous other kind of investment themes that we've been tracking because the the idea is to you know track these big macroeconomic trends. How are things changing?
00:54:57
Joe Withrow
Where is this moving to? And what I think has happened this year is just it has accelerated these trends. And now it's at a point where you know we're we're at an inflection point. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens from here.
00:55:11
Joe Withrow
But nothing with with regards to our investment strategy has changed.
00:55:14
Christian Yordanov
That's awesome. that's That's always great when, you know, world events validate your thesis because um if they don't, it seems like you have to go back to the drawing board and that that it just can kill your confidence.
00:55:25
Joe Withrow
Exactly.
00:55:27
Christian Yordanov
so that's amazing, bro. So tell tell like just for the listeners as well, I think, tell tell tell us more like in case folks haven't heard the previous podcast,
00:55:38
Christian Yordanov
uh that we did together we talked more about the mortgage note side of things so you know folks listening you're gonna love that conversation it's very interesting sort of slightly different type to a type of way investing but tell us just give us a little bit of ah the backstory what sort of got you into creating the phoenician league and what what it's all about and kind of just give us the the nitty-gritty there as much as you can
00:55:59
Joe Withrow
Yeah, yeah. i'll I'll try to be as um concise as possible because I could ramble on about this for a while. So don't let me do that. But
00:56:07
Christian Yordanov
No, no, I want you to ramble, bro. you You're great to listen to.
00:56:11
Joe Withrow
so, you know, as I mentioned earlier, i got my start in the corporate banking world. And I was just horrified by what I saw. And at first I thought it was just Wells Fargo and a mortgage area, loss mitigation. So I got out of that. And you remember we talked about the big short and you kind of mentioned like there's this revolving door between the regulators and the banks.
00:56:30
Joe Withrow
And in one of the scenes, they kind of like they're out partying in Las Vegas. And like, there's a regulator that had just joined like a big job at one of the banks.
00:56:36
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:56:37
Joe Withrow
And then there's some chick who's like trying to smooth somebody at Goldman Sachs to get a better job.
00:56:41
Christian Yordanov
Yes.
00:56:42
Joe Withrow
And it's like, Like they kind of glossed over it. But what I saw when i I was very frustrated and I wanted out at Wells Fargo, there's a massive gossip industry. Like it's, it is a mercenary network. Like everybody that I saw in banking, of course my experience is limited, but speaking from my observation, it's like everybody was just trying to jump from different banks to get a raise and get better bonuses and all that. So at first that's what I did. i was like, I got out of Wells Fargo and I moved into Bank of America, special assets group, got a,
00:57:11
Joe Withrow
like 50% raise now and get bonuses, all that stuff. Like, but I was thinking still,
00:57:14
Christian Yordanov
Nice.
00:57:17
Joe Withrow
Okay, it's just Wells Fargo, that it's just that bank or maybe that department that's bad. Let me go over here. And I was just equally as horrified by what I saw in in Bank of America. And so you know the whole time i i was not only miserable, not only did I not like my job, I didn't like my work, like I felt like I was contributing to immoral activity. like I was a part of the problem. It just ate away at my soul like every Sunday. But the problem was, you know I've got a mortgage to pay, I've got bills to pay, I've still got student loans because they told me to go to this college thing that was of negative value to me. but um
00:57:53
Joe Withrow
So I couldn't just like quit. I mean, I suppose I could have, but logically I'm like, man, I got to figure something out. And so my solution to start with was just getting my financial house in order, like stop spending money on dumb stuff.
00:58:07
Joe Withrow
and free up some savings.
00:58:07
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
00:58:08
Joe Withrow
And then my journey was to learn how to invest that money. Because my thinking was, you know I've got to create some degree of resiliency where at some point I can walk away from this job and do something else.
00:58:22
Joe Withrow
like And i I started a little online business on the side nights and weekends, you know whenever I had the energy to do it. And I was you know kind of learning that. kind kind of I started subscribing to some investment newsletters and I'm learning from those and I'm also watching their business model, all these things.
00:58:38
Joe Withrow
But the core idea was I've got to get my financial house in order because I need to create this foundation, this cushion to where I can make my my move. I can make my break.
00:58:47
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
00:58:48
Joe Withrow
And so i learned, you know, started learning the foundations of investing and I made a ton of mistakes along the way. But that's really the foundation of the Phoenician League.
00:58:58
Joe Withrow
That's where the idea originated was I went through that process and I'm like, you know, what I can put this into a system and, you know, help people kind of walk people through what I learned in this process, because I did get to the point to where I built up an asset base.
00:59:13
Joe Withrow
I was able to to quit my job and at the bank. And in fact, I sold my house in the city. I moved out to five acres up in the mountains of Virginia, which is where where we've been for, I guess, 13 years or so now, I think.
00:59:20
Christian Yordanov
Nice. Yeah.
00:59:25
Christian Yordanov
nice
00:59:26
Joe Withrow
but um But that's the foundation. And then as I got here, I got into the investment industry. And that's in in fact, that's you know that was kind of my my next move. like I needed time. I needed the ability And I needed the right moment to break into that industry. But I couldn't, like I didn't have the energy or the positivity to do it while i was stuck in the banking sector.
00:59:47
Christian Yordanov
yeah
00:59:47
Joe Withrow
But so then I started to learn more advanced investment techniques from there. And so I started, as I'm accumulating this knowledge, you know I'm starting to think, well, i can sit like i can systematize all of this. And so to kind of summarize the Phoenician League, the it's built around this core financial education program.
01:00:07
Joe Withrow
And we've got a massive repository. It is, to the best of my knowledge and ability, every freaking thing that I learned over two decades in banking and in investment industry and all the stuff, all the books I've read, all everything I've learned, all the mistakes I've made and learned not to do again and the things, the successes I've had and learned that, OK, this is a good way to go about it. And so that's kind of the core of the program. And it starts very basic.
01:00:34
Joe Withrow
In fact, it starts you know we start with money in the monetary system because if you don't understand that, you're not gonna be successful with your personal finances.
01:00:38
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:00:43
Joe Withrow
You're not gonna be successful with investing. You've gotta understand what's happening with the money, how the monetary system works. Then we get into some basic personal finance, very basic. And then we get into the foundations of building an asset allocation model, and that's for financial security.
01:00:58
Joe Withrow
And then we start talking about the more advanced investments that you can make, whether that's investing in real estate or mortgage notes or some alternative assets that produce cashflow.
01:01:09
Joe Withrow
And then, as i and I started this, all these things are what I did in my journey and I have done.
01:01:15
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
01:01:16
Joe Withrow
And what I learned is that once you start getting this cash flow, you start making these investments, well, you need to have a tax strategy in place. And so it took me a little time, but I linked up with a great tax advisor.
01:01:27
Joe Withrow
I learned how to wrap all these things into LLCs, how to partition them. And there's some really incredible tax strategies. As much as I despise the idea of the income tax, the U.S. the and the us tax code.
01:01:38
Joe Withrow
And I'm speaking now from an American centric perspective.
01:01:40
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:01:41
Joe Withrow
Every country is different. But the U.S. tax code is built for you not to pay taxes. Like it's 90 some percent of the tax code is about how to not pay the taxes that the other code part of the code says you need to pay.
01:01:54
Joe Withrow
The nuance is you've got you've got to know about them and you've got to have professionals who can you know help you utilize them and implement them. um It's really silly in a sense, but we can...
01:02:05
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Just curious, have you read the tax code?
01:02:05
Joe Withrow
yeah
01:02:07
Christian Yordanov
It must be a massive document, right?
01:02:08
Joe Withrow
Oh, no, it's it's I don't know how many, like 90,000 pages, 70,000.
01:02:13
Christian Yordanov
Dude.
01:02:13
Joe Withrow
I don't know how many exactly. It's massive. But I've read books about it from like there are some guys, some CPAs like are nerds about this.
01:02:15
Christian Yordanov
What the hell, man? Yeah.
01:02:20
Joe Withrow
Like they love the tax code. Like they they read it, they dive into it, they stay updated. So I've read the books like Tax Free Wealth by Tom Wheelwright is a really good one. There's a number of others.
01:02:32
Joe Withrow
But yeah that would be like self-flogging to try to slug through the the tax code.
01:02:32
Christian Yordanov
We alright.
01:02:39
Christian Yordanov
yeah it
01:02:39
Joe Withrow
But anyway, it's you know that's part of the advanced investments. Not only can you build cash flow, but now you can in certain situations, you can start to create what what are pretty substantial tax losses on paper.
01:02:54
Joe Withrow
And this is what the guys like, you know, Donald Trump and Mitt Romney, those guys who run for president and everybody's like got their pitchforks out, like, let's see your tax return. And it's because the the their opposition has told them they're not paying tax.
01:03:06
Joe Withrow
Well, they're this is they're doing all this stuff just on a on a larger scale, because that's how the tax code works.
01:03:08
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:03:11
Christian Yordanov
name
01:03:12
Joe Withrow
And so if you do that, it offsets your passive income. And if you you know certain situations, if you get everything structured correctly, it can also offset your primary source of income from a business or for a job or from whatever.
01:03:25
Joe Withrow
And so potentially you can create larger tax refunds each year, all 100% by the book, all validated. You've got to do your documentation. Like you do have to do some, keep your house in order.
01:03:37
Joe Withrow
But if you do that, you get larger refunds and now you can turn around and make more investments and you can just snowball this thing.
01:03:42
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:03:43
Joe Withrow
And so that's kind of the core of our education program. And then what we've done in the Phoenician League that I don't think anybody else in the investment space does is number one, we talk to people, you know you can book a call with me.
01:03:59
Joe Withrow
We also have we built we've created a network. And this is a network that, you know, I kind of built myself because I needed professional, I needed a tax strategist. I needed guys who understood asset protection, attorneys.
01:04:09
Joe Withrow
I needed insurance specialists. you know You need these different professionals. And so we've kind of built this network. And so now we can get people connected to the various professionals that you need at whatever part of the financial journey you're on.
01:04:25
Joe Withrow
And in addition, I've got an expert in mortgage notes, the guys who taught me how to invest in mortgage notes.
01:04:29
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:04:29
Joe Withrow
Well, he's he's willing to do a call with our guys. He'll chat with you. And he's got you know a decade more experience than I do, if not more. um Same thing, we've got a real estate expert who's plugged into a larger investment network and he'll work with with you one-on-one to help you build out a portfolio.
01:04:46
Joe Withrow
And so we actually help people implement this stuff. We've got a ton of educational material, but then we've got all the people you need to take what you've learned. and help you put it into place. And so I think that's our biggest value.
01:04:59
Joe Withrow
Oh, and then from there, we do monthly calls together. Sometimes I invite you know kind of experts in different areas from my network to to join join us on calls. We had you last year and I hope we can get you again maybe later in the summer or earlier in the summer.
01:05:11
Christian Yordanov
yeah for sure for sure yeah yeah oh yeah it's an investment yeah
01:05:14
Joe Withrow
I can't remember your travel schedule, but we'll get you again soon. So we don't limit it just to finance and investing because health is important. you know And i when I learned about you, And i you know I went through your program.
01:05:25
Joe Withrow
I'm like, man, this is great. I need to share this. like People need to need to meet Christian and learn about this approach. And so so we do that as part of the network.
01:05:31
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:05:33
Joe Withrow
And I write a financial newsletter as well, where but you know i'm I'm writing like 30 some pages a month, just covering everything that I'm seeing, everything I'm learning. And we look at history, too.
01:05:44
Joe Withrow
Like I'll cover a certain part of history. Like this month, I wrote about in 1704, something I didn't know before, but I researched. In 1704, the British Empire seized the Strait of gibra Gibraltar.
01:05:57
Joe Withrow
And it held the Strait of Gibraltar for over 300 years.
01:05:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:06:00
Joe Withrow
And that kind of served as a foundation of its maritime empire. And so I'm learning about that event in history because I'm looking at the Strait of Hormuz thing. And then I'm looking, I'm learning that, you know they've secured other straits. And i'm like, huh, you know, we don't consider these things important today because we've got satellite internet and, you know, space-based communications, all these things. But what it turns out over 80% of global trade still goes by ship.
01:06:24
Joe Withrow
And so if you can control those choke points, it it you know confers a lot of power. So anyway, you know'm I'm fascinated by this stuff and these ties to history.
01:06:29
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:06:32
Joe Withrow
And so we we do a newsletter. I read a newsletter about that every month. um And then it's, you know, the whole goal is just to help people, number one, get, you know, get their mind right about money and finance and what's happening.
01:06:47
Joe Withrow
Number two, build a financial foundation. And then hopefully we can help people build financial independence for themselves and we can help them create extra streams of income and we can provide full support 100% of the way.
01:07:00
Joe Withrow
And so that's my goal and my passion is, is, you know, to have a positive impact.
01:07:03
Christian Yordanov
I can see.
01:07:04
Joe Withrow
And it's really everything that I've learned, it's just like encapsulated in this program. And, you know, instead of having to make all the mistakes and spend, you know, 10 plus years figuring out what works and what doesn't, we've got it all kind of modularized.
01:07:13
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:07:16
Christian Yordanov
That's it, man. Yeah, and I can see the passion when you talk. and I can see it in your eyes, how you smile. I can see the passion you have for this, and it's amazing.
01:07:23
Joe Withrow
Yeah, thanks, man. It is. It's such a, and it's such a blessing to me to have this opportunity because I've been in that position where not only did I not like my job, like I was demoralized by like, I felt like I was a bad person by doing it.
01:07:25
Christian Yordanov
i love it.
01:07:36
Joe Withrow
And so to have the opportunity to work on something that I'm passionate about, I know you're the exact same way.
01:07:37
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:41
Joe Withrow
You've got that, the chance to you know do what you love and to help people to be a benefit, man, it's just such, it's such a great blessing. And so I'm, I'm very appreciative for the opportunity.
01:07:49
Christian Yordanov
It is, dude. Yeah. Yeah, like sometimes on on my support calls with my clients, you know, we do three a week with the folks that need that support, you know. And sometimes I'm there like getting goosebumps talking to people, especially when they're sharing some big improvement or some sort of success story. It's just such an amazing process to to to be a part of people's journey. And, you know, like I go to bed, I'm like,
01:08:15
Christian Yordanov
Thank you. Thank you, God. Just thank you. Thank you. That's all I can say. Thank you for after so many years. I also have been in jobs where maybe morally I didn't feel they weren't like morally bankrupt companies.
01:08:33
Joe Withrow
Right.
01:08:33
Christian Yordanov
Though I have been in some that were not too savory, like in gambling and stuff like that, you know.
01:08:38
Joe Withrow
At least that's voluntary though.
01:08:39
Christian Yordanov
um But at least it's voluntary.
01:08:41
Joe Withrow
Like, you know, people choose to gamble.
01:08:43
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, exactly. ah But just the fact that I'm not doing what I love and I'm kind of just enabling a lifeless corporation entity to, you know, to...
01:08:54
Joe Withrow
Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:57
Christian Yordanov
continue existing it just doesn't it just doesn't give you a warm fuzzy feeling so I know there's a lot of folks out there you know if you're if you're already married if if you found your partner if you're relatively healthy I think then financial stuff will tend to be like bubble up to the top of your priorities whereas you know obviously if you're if you're financially okay you have your partner then maybe your health is a higher priority or if you're younger maybe yeah young healthy you have a job you you're just looking for a partner so depending on where you're at you know fight finance financial resilience will be higher or lower in your priority list so someone i think if someone is in that position where you you know health is decent uh you're doing okay financially but you just want to
01:09:43
Christian Yordanov
create that little bit of extra resilience and maybe potentially you know just go off and become independent after a while and be able to do what you do whether whether it's starting ah your own business or just focusing on whatever traveling the world i think it's such an amazing opportunity to to be able to do that and i think i think bro you have all the tools there for people to be able to to learn how to do that so how does
01:09:58
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:10:07
Christian Yordanov
I know you, i don't from what I understand, you don't enroll people at any time. You have specific sort of cohorts. Is that right? What's what's the process currently?
01:10:15
Joe Withrow
Yeah, we do. And that's because we we offer to do personalized onboarding. And so that's the first thing when somebody joins, they get a welcome email that kind of lays out you know the program, but it also has a link to my calendar.
01:10:26
Joe Withrow
And so they can schedule a strategy session with me and I can, you happy to chat about anything, you know, and everybody's situation's different, but that's one of the first things people get. And I just want to make sure that I'm able to fulfill my commitment.
01:10:39
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:10:39
Joe Withrow
to be that resource. And so, yeah, we we typically open up several times a year. And usually I'll do that by hosting. I'll do an online strategy session or a webinar, whatever you want to call it, where I'll you know walk through a presentation on you know some topic, whatever whatever I happen to be excited about, I guess, at the time.
01:10:57
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:10:57
Joe Withrow
And then I'll you know kind of share what the Phoenician League is and answer any questions. And then we'll open it up. Usually we we'll open it up for about a week at a time. and And that also, you know, I want to it also helps.
01:11:07
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:11:11
Joe Withrow
I want to make sure that we're attracting the right kinds of people to my goal is not to just get as many members as possible, because we do have a tight knit community. We've got our own little Slack channel. We've got our own little forum. We've got people who are meeting each other, working with each other. And so, yeah, i just want to make sure that we maintain kind of that community aspect of the network.
01:11:31
Christian Yordanov
Love that.
01:11:32
Joe Withrow
And I think that's easier to do if you have, if you've got smaller groups of people coming in, opposed to, you know, trying to get as many as possible.
01:11:36
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:11:41
Joe Withrow
So we don't really do any marketing of not any of of mention anyway.
01:11:41
Christian Yordanov
Of course.
01:11:46
Joe Withrow
It's just, you know, mostly it's just going out and talking to people and getting in front of new people is is how we, how we go about it.
01:11:49
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:11:53
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, man. And so when is the next such window? Just in case someone's interested.
01:11:58
Joe Withrow
Yeah, that's, That's a good question. um We haven't scheduled the next one yet. It's gonna be soon. I don't know if it's gonna be, it it'll be over the summer. And I haven't picked out an exact date yet.
01:12:08
Christian Yordanov
OK.
01:12:11
Joe Withrow
But if anybody's interested in this kind of thing, we've got a a wait list at PhoenicianLeague.com. And if you sign up for that, we we send out stuff every week as it is, most every week anyway.
01:12:16
Christian Yordanov
OK.
01:12:22
Joe Withrow
But that's where we'll notify folks of the next online session.
01:12:26
Christian Yordanov
Awesome.
01:12:26
Joe Withrow
And, you know, and I'm also I'm an open book, you know, the emails, anybody on the email list, like I encourage from time to time, like, hey, just hit reply, you know, if you want to chat about anything or have any questions or something's not clear or whatever, like I'm, you know, I'm an open book, I talk with people and happy to.
01:12:43
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, so, okay, so I'll have the link below in case someone listening is interested.
01:12:44
Joe Withrow
says
01:12:47
Christian Yordanov
They can sign up to the wait list and then they'll get on your weight on your email list. you You email about some interesting stuff. You do occasional, like like the webinars around these windows.
01:12:58
Christian Yordanov
So there's a lot of value already there. um Cool, bro. So we have that in there. Really glad I'm a part of this group.
01:13:04
Joe Withrow
Yeah, we've got the podcast now too. And so anybody on the email will get the podcast episodes also.
01:13:06
Christian Yordanov
Oh, yeah. Yes. tell us Tell us about the podcast as well.
01:13:13
Joe Withrow
Yeah, well, i've I've got two episodes under my belt. So the first two episodes, and I don't know if this is a good way to do it or not, but it makes sense to me. that I'm sharing, like for I don't know if it's going four or five or six episodes, but I'm going to walk through kind of my experience.
01:13:30
Joe Withrow
So episode one was my experience at Wells Fargo in the mortgage crisis and more details about what was happening and what I saw.
01:13:30
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:13:35
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:13:38
Joe Withrow
Then episode two that just dropped actually this morning. It's about my experience at Bank of America and the special assets group and what I saw there. you know And then I'll walk through the next couple episodes, two or three more.
01:13:50
Joe Withrow
I'll kind of go into my background as far as, I guess, breaking out of the rat race and then maybe one for what I saw in the investment industry. And that way I just figure, you know, I can always refer back, you know, if, if this thing goes on, I can always say, Hey, if, you know, if you want to learn more about my background or the experiences, you know, podcast episodes one through four, whatever.
01:14:06
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:14:09
Christian Yordanov
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
01:14:09
Joe Withrow
And then after that, we'll just talk about, you know, whatever, whatever's prevalent in the world of, you know, finance economics, you know, we'll comment on to the extent from a certain angle, we'll comment on you know geopolitical stuff.
01:14:21
Joe Withrow
Not, I don't get into the, like the, the, um, Political commentary, it's I'm more looking at it from ah an economic standpoint, from an investment standpoint. So i try you know i try to stay in that lane because that's what i'm you know that's where my experience is. And I know everybody's got their own opinions and you can find whatever opinion about any of this.
01:14:41
Joe Withrow
out there So we try to look at it from more of an objective observer standpoint. And we try to say, okay, here's how this impacts, you know, whether it's the currency system or whether it's a certain investment trend or whatever.
01:14:54
Joe Withrow
that's That's kind of my thought anyway, but we haven't got there yet because we just started.
01:14:58
Christian Yordanov
yeah it's it's an amazing journey like you learn a lot uh just have having to podcast is such a of course you're putting content out not there for people to to enjoy and and learn from but it's it's just an enriching experience for oneself because you have to really organize your thoughts and i'm To be honest with, I'm a little bit of a pantser.
01:15:23
Christian Yordanov
Like i I do a lot of these things by the seat of my pants. So I don't often I don't have like a very laid out plan on what I'm going to talk about.
01:15:27
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:15:32
Christian Yordanov
So I just waffle left, right and center, which I i know it's not optimal.
01:15:36
Joe Withrow
Sometimes those make for the best podcast though.
01:15:38
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. Yeah, it's when you have limited time, you just have to like, but what it I think what it does is it it teaches you to when it's a one and done thing and there's there's not going to be editing, it teaches you to like, you have to really be able to like when I'm walking my dog, like I'll be like thinking, what would I like? How would I say ah convey an idea in a better way to people? Like I'm trying to think of analogies and things like that. and As you do that, you get better of expressing yourself in real time. So then on my calls with my clients,
01:16:14
Christian Yordanov
it allows me to kind of field questions because they're randomly coming at me. I don't know who's going to ask me what about what. And it could be something challenging that came up for a client. So I have to think on my feet. So it's allowed me to like be able to think on my feet and kind of construct coherent sort of sentences and paragraphs, you know, in the real time.
01:16:34
Christian Yordanov
gets' pretty It's pretty, it's an enriching experience in the longer term. So good on you, brother.
01:16:37
Joe Withrow
Yeah, that's a great life skill. I mean, that's that's a valuable skill.
01:16:38
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:16:40
Joe Withrow
And I guess that 200 podcast episodes, man, that's yeah that's that's impressive.
01:16:46
Christian Yordanov
insane yeah insane cool man well this was this was really interesting at any any parting thoughts as we wrap today
01:16:56
Joe Withrow
you know i I don't have any specific parting thoughts other than I just really, i appreciate the work that you do. i thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. yeah I love the yeah the the philosophic stuff.
01:17:07
Joe Withrow
That's what that's what motivates me. you know I'm in the investment in area.
01:17:10
Christian Yordanov
yeah
01:17:12
Joe Withrow
like that's That's my expertise. But at the end of the day, I don't care one bit about money, man. None of this is about money. It's about life. It's about, you know, it's just in the system we live in you need certain degree of financial stability to, you know, enable yourself to have certain life experiences and to kind of help you on this journey. And so I just really, this was a great conversation. I've, I've, I've,
01:17:35
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:17:36
Joe Withrow
ah You know, we we get on here and we don't know what we're going to talk about. We just kick it back and forth.
01:17:40
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:17:42
Joe Withrow
But I feel like we could probably talk for, you know, an hour more if we wanted to. But this was great, man.
01:17:46
Christian Yordanov
It's for sure.
01:17:46
Joe Withrow
I just really, really appreciate you and appreciate you having me on.
01:17:46
Christian Yordanov
Yeah. And, and, Yeah, brother, for sure. And you're always welcome here. And for you know for me, it's what you said, is it really resonates because very early on in my life, I realized that money, having money would give me freedom.
01:18:04
Joe Withrow
Yeah, that's it.
01:18:04
Christian Yordanov
I'll be able to do more things. So I think that's why I was like, even as a young kid, I Probably I didn't learn the the healthiest, most productive money habits because ah I don't know if you you know have you heard of Harv Eker.
01:18:17
Christian Yordanov
the He writes about that secrets of the millionaire mind.
01:18:21
Joe Withrow
It rings a bell, but I can't quite place it.
01:18:24
Christian Yordanov
So he talks in in that book of his, The Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, that we learn some of the the our patterns around money, we learn them as kids.
01:18:34
Christian Yordanov
So um the first kid oftentimes would just mirror the parents' um money monetary habits.
01:18:42
Joe Withrow
Okay.
01:18:44
Christian Yordanov
So you know all of my family were very thrifty, kind of coming up from growing up in communism, living in communism, really poor,
01:18:48
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:18:51
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:18:52
Christian Yordanov
So they were always like telling my sister, you got to say, even like when we get chocolates for like Christmas and birthdays, they'll tell her, you know, save the money, save the chocolates, you know.
01:19:00
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:19:01
Christian Yordanov
And ah but then he said that the younger kids in the family, they will sometimes rebel and kind of do the opposite. So I was always like a spend, like I was just spending money, getting into debt, like over like freaking stickers with soccer players on them and and like lollipops and stuff as a kid, knows it seven years old.
01:19:15
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:19:19
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:19:21
Christian Yordanov
And um anytime I have chocolates, I'd eat everything. And I'm like, oh, shit, um I got nothing. sis, can have some chocolate? so um it's but ah But the reason I was always like attracted and like I took, I suppose, risks to make money was because I knew if I had more of it, I would have more freedom. And at the end of the I think a lot of us, unless...
01:19:44
Christian Yordanov
school and trauma beats it out of us. I think a lot of us, eat like you said already at the start, we are, we know we are at our core essence, we are free.
01:19:55
Christian Yordanov
You know, we are free sovereign beings and we, yeah, we are born to be free, and but we are conditioned to think we're not.
01:19:58
Joe Withrow
Born to be free.
01:20:02
Christian Yordanov
And um like we are, ah at least if we're still in that healthy sort of mind space where you you you desire freedom, I think we just, the the things we do Our motivations are in order to increase our freedom.
01:20:16
Christian Yordanov
And money is just a tool. So I love the fact because there is a lot of guys out there, like if if you go to their YouTube channels or whatever, like there it's everything is just, oh, what something happened, bombing here.
01:20:30
Christian Yordanov
what's the market How's the market going to react? So they're only looking at what's the...
01:20:32
Joe Withrow
Yeah.
01:20:34
Christian Yordanov
impact on my portfolio. where What I love about your sort of approach is like you are you're, you know, I believe first you're a family man. And so you're, yeah it's clear you you want to enjoy life and having sovereignty over your wealth and a nice big cushion and independence.
01:20:52
Christian Yordanov
That's just a tool that facilitates you actually living your life to the fullest. It's not an end goal in and of itself, which I think can become very unhealthy for many people just pursuing more wealth.
01:21:02
Joe Withrow
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
01:21:04
Christian Yordanov
or the number go up sort of mentality.
01:21:07
Joe Withrow
It's just just a tool. That's it. And you know tools aren't good or bad. they're you know It's what you do with them. And that's that makes the you know that that makes the difference, I guess.
01:21:14
Christian Yordanov
Yeah.
01:21:18
Joe Withrow
So, yeah, I mean, that's that's the perfect perspective.
01:21:18
Christian Yordanov
That's it.
01:21:21
Joe Withrow
And it's it's funny, I mean, so much in the investment world, it's always about, you know, you see, like, if you see the marketing, it's always about, oh, this stock's about to go up 100x. And, you know, they might have a picture of like a some luxury car in the back, or they want to dress in suits and ties.
01:21:36
Joe Withrow
And it's like, I'm out here and like I got exposed beams because we put this building up in a day on the property, you know, five years ago. And it's like, I'm wearing my t-shirts. And, you know, it's just, you know, that's and that's part of that is because this is who I am.
01:21:46
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:21:52
Joe Withrow
And I want to make sure that, you know, with with the Phoenician League, you know, there's no unreasonable expectations. You know, we're not promising, you know, that that we've got all the secrets or anything.
01:22:02
Joe Withrow
It's it's you know, it's important, I think, how you how you, you know, kind of your mentality. kind of what's the right word, your mentality, your mindset translates into your life.
01:22:13
Joe Withrow
Like, you know, there's a mirror, what's what's the, there's a book I really like called the instant millionaire by Mark Fisher.
01:22:19
Christian Yordanov
Mm-hmm.
01:22:19
Joe Withrow
And there's a line in there where he he said something like, keep this well in mind, all the events in your life are a mirror image of your thoughts. And when I first read that, I was like 20 years old, and it like blew my mind. And it's but I think as I've gotten older, I see it's true, like, what you think,
01:22:36
Joe Withrow
you know, tends to manifest itself and it tends how you think and your wavelength kind of tends to attract certain people towards you. And maybe it's a signal for other people that, you know, the to stay away.
01:22:47
Joe Withrow
But anyway, that's, that's rambling a little bit, but it's, that's all it is, man.
01:22:48
Christian Yordanov
yeah yeah like that nah bro you're good yeah yeah man i love these kind of conversations and it's not it's not even rambling i think just i love hearing other like-minded perspectives i think we're always we enrich each other by sharing our ideas such a such a beautiful thing so i'm glad that we could share a little bit of time together brother man
01:22:51
Joe Withrow
We're on a journey and we're going the best we can.
01:23:12
Joe Withrow
Yeah, man. Well, this is a blast. I really appreciate it. And well I'll reach back out to you and we'll see if we can get you on, do do a Phoenician League called monthly call with us here coming up around your travel schedule.
01:23:20
Christian Yordanov
Oh, yeah. Would love that. Would love that, brother. Thank you so much again.
01:23:25
Joe Withrow
Cool, man. Well, have a great day and a great week, brother.