How A 25 Year Old Dad Built A $300,000 Portfolio From His Phone! | Dontez Akram

1. 0:00 – 2:37

   Intro

   1. DADontez Akram0:00

      So you just keep buying. When it dips, you put a little bit more in. When it's super hot, maybe put a little less in. And every single week, like I said, that's like a rule, every Friday if I get paid, taking a portion of what I make because that's mine to keep, and then I'm gonna go invest it so it can grow and bring back, you know, more money. And that's where people get scared. It's like, "Oh, I don't have enough money to do it." It's not that you don't have enough money, it's that you fear what you don't know, and that is called ignorant. And you're so ignorant to the point where you don't go out there and watch the videos. You got all this downtime when you get off work, when you're laid up at home, when you watching Netflix videos, you have all this downtime and you know you could be doing something better, and you keep telling yourself, "I'll get to it tomorrow." And then that time comes around and that action you said you were gonna do never happens.

   2. CJCalum Johnson0:41

      Today's guest is Dontez Akram, and I told Tez as soon as he walked in, I said, "You're the most repeated guest that we've had on the show." The third time that he's come on, and there's a reason why, because every time that we bring Tez on, he's so open and vulnerable, both with sharing his story, but then everything he's learnt and the game and the knowledge. And so with this episode, I had seen that he was getting more and more passionate and sharing more and more about investing. And for those of you that don't know, Tez has made over $300,000 through investing in the stock market and crypto. He's also made $30,000 in passive income from dividends investing. And so I think one of the interesting things for me, even in preparing for this episode, is that typically when we think about investing or long-term investing, we imagine having to put money into a retirement account or a 401 [k] , and it's gonna take 20, 30 years for you to see the benefit or what you got from investing. In today's world with crypto and with technology and being able to invest in technology stocks, people are getting returns way sooner. And so if you listen to this, you can go from having nothing in the market to having several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the market, even if you're starting with small amounts. One of the interesting things as I was talking to Tez is that he started with making very small consistent investments into the stock market, and now he's made several hundreds of thousands. And so before we get into the episode, I do wanna say that, uh, a little disclaimer, that this is not investment advice. It's so, so important to do your own research, to make sure that you're informed, and we even said that in the episode. But yeah, I'm so excited to share this with you guys, so I'm not gonna talk anymore. Let's just get into it. You're listening to The Calum Johnson Show.

2. 2:37 – 4:55

   Why you MUST invest

   1. CJCalum Johnson2:37

      I'm seeing you on the timeline on Twitter all day-

   2. DADontez Akram2:40

      [laughs]

   3. CJCalum Johnson2:40

      ... talking about investing, what you're learning, your journey, what you've made, all of those things. And so where I wanted to begin is I'm curious to understand what has the value of investing been in your life?

   4. DADontez Akram2:56

      That's a great question, bro.

   5. CJCalum Johnson2:57

      [laughs]

   6. DADontez Akram2:58

      Uh, one thing I can count on is for you to come through with great questions.

   7. CJCalum Johnson3:01

      Thank you [laughs] .

   8. DADontez Akram3:01

      Um, for me, it's a sense of identity, um, that I can now take on as a persona in a sense. So what I mean by that is when it comes to investing, I realized, like, to be completely honest, the only reason I got into investing is 'cause I was scared. I started making a lot of money at a young age, and the first thing that my mom always told me is, "Don't go out making a bunch of money and then end up like these rappers or these athletes." And that used to scare me so much hearing about how Mike Tyson, you know, had hundreds of millions of dollars and lost it, and just even people that I know personally who made a lot of money but were never able to keep it. So for me, when I first started making a lot of money, I didn't really... Like, I had a lot of money management and discipline already instilled in me, but I realized, like, I want my money to grow with me, and the only way that I can do that is by acquiring assets. And for me, I always look five years ahead. I know I talked about that on a couple of the other episodes, but I'm always looking five years ahead because there's a version of me that I am not yet, and I wanna make sure that when I become that version, I can thank the version of me right now for making the decisions, making the sacrifices, taking the time out, making the moves now, even though it may be a sacrifice right now, for me to actually live the way I want to five years from now.

   9. CJCalum Johnson4:17

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DADontez Akram4:17

       So that's the power of investing in my eyes, that my future self will be thankful for what I do today.

   11. CJCalum Johnson4:23

       Yeah. You know what? And, and it's, it's why I always love our conversations. Um, and it's funny because people are even-- they say this in the comments on our videos, is even though, like, you're 25, right?

   12. DADontez Akram4:35

       Yep.

   13. CJCalum Johnson4:36

       There's like a wisdom to the way that you speak, right?

   14. DADontez Akram4:38

       Yeah.

   15. CJCalum Johnson4:38

       Like, there's like, um, there's that phrase that people use sometimes, like you're an old soul.

   16. DADontez Akram4:43

       Yeah [laughs] .

   17. CJCalum Johnson4:43

       Uh, I'm sure that you get that.

   18. DADontez Akram4:44

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CJCalum Johnson4:45

       And it's funny you said that, um, it's almost like your money, like it grew with you, like it, it's grown with you.

   20. DADontez Akram4:51

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CJCalum Johnson4:52

       And that's not the first time I've heard you say that.

3. 4:55 – 8:21

   Ignorance is killing you

   1. CJCalum Johnson4:55

      There's the, the pinned tweet on your Twitter right now.

   2. DADontez Akram4:58

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CJCalum Johnson4:59

      It says, "When my daughter was 9 to 10 months old, we had been sleeping on a twin-sized bed on the floor for almost a year. In this picture, my daughter is 5 and now she has her own room in a gated community with a five-figure net worth. A lot can change in a few years when you sacrifice and hustle for something that's bigger than you." And then you say that line, you said, "She grew with me."

   4. DADontez Akram5:24

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CJCalum Johnson5:25

      And so we're gonna get into investing and how you've made, you know, over $300,000 in the market and passive income and all of this stuff.

   6. DADontez Akram5:35

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CJCalum Johnson5:36

      But to begin, I wanna kind of start in the beginning. When your daughter's 9 to 10 months old, you've been sleeping on a twin mattress for a year. Like, who was Tez at that point? 'Cause I know you're, you, you have a lot of wisdom now-

   8. DADontez Akram5:52

      Yeah

   9. CJCalum Johnson5:52

      ... but at that point, who were you?

   10. DADontez Akram5:54

       I was lost. That's what I was. I was a lost soul. Um, it's crazy because when you go through high school, you go through school You realize that that's not your true identity. That's the identity that was given to you, right? So, and the reason I say that is because in certain classes or certain, you know, um, [tongue click] topics in school, I wasn't really that good at them. And I always thought to myself like, "Man, I'm not good at any of this stuff." I would have friends who were just amazing at math or amazing at science, and I always felt like I was lacking in, in all the areas. Nothing really, like resonated with me as much as it did with my other friends, and it kinda made me feel less than sometimes. So I always felt like I had to go 10 times harder than everyone else because I felt less smart. And I think a lot of that comes from, like, my own level of accountability and how I perceive myself, and I never wanna look at myself as underneath anyone, but I also know when I'm not as smart as I could be.

   11. CJCalum Johnson6:48

       Hmm.

   12. DADontez Akram6:49

       And in the beginning when you're investing and when you're starting to understand about, you know, understand investing, it's not just investing money, it's investing your time and effort into obtaining information, 'cause that's how the doors open up to even know what to buy, when to buy, when to sell. That's how you know is through education. And I feel like my superpower was when I got out of high school and I realized I'm not using any of those subjects anymore, and I can learn sales, I can learn about money, I can learn about investing. And it actually became something that I was fascinated by. So I was like, man. I went down a whole rabbit hole of just YouTube videos that's, like, me sitting there at that age, you know, at 21, 20, with my daughter. I'm watching as many videos as humanly possible because I understood the only difference between the, me and the person who's above me or above me financially is the level of education, and there's a level of ignorance that people are just okay with, and I'm just not okay with that. Like, if I don't know anything about Bitcoin, if I don't know anything about stocks, how is that setting me up and how can I set my family up? Or how can you say, "I wanna make sure my last name is, is wealthy and we have generational wealth"? How can you do that if you don't have the information to pass down? You can pass down assets, but that's why majority of assets when they do get passed down, they're gone by the next generation. So it's like you have to pass wisdom and knowledge down as well in order for the money to be utilized the right way to be passed down again, and that's where information comes in.

   13. CJCalum Johnson8:12

       Yeah. You know, one of the things, um, that's interesting about life, I think, like narratives are important-

   14. DADontez Akram8:18

       Mm

   15. CJCalum Johnson8:18

       ... and also, like our self-narrative.

   16. DADontez Akram8:20

       Yeah.

   17. CJCalum Johnson8:20

       And it's interesting 'cause

4. 8:21 – 12:48

   Let the haters fuel your success

   1. CJCalum Johnson8:21

      you mention, um, [tongue click] you mentioned school. School is kind of the first time we really get exposed to narratives.

   2. DADontez Akram8:27

      Yeah.

   3. CJCalum Johnson8:27

      And so what, what I mean by that, in school you kinda have, like, the jock-

   4. DADontez Akram8:33

      Mm

   5. CJCalum Johnson8:33

      ... or you have the, the kid that's super smart that everyone's like, "He's gonna be really successful when he grows up."

   6. DADontez Akram8:39

      Facts.

   7. CJCalum Johnson8:39

      And even for you, like talking about it, it feels like your narrative when you were growing up was like, "I, like, I have to work 10 times harder to get the same result as someone else."

   8. DADontez Akram8:50

      Yeah.

   9. CJCalum Johnson8:50

      And so I'm curious at w- at such an early age, what gave you the belief leaving school that, like, you could master certain skillsets, or you could learn about investing, or you could obsess on this topic, and you could get a certain result?

   10. DADontez Akram9:09

       Right.

   11. CJCalum Johnson9:09

       Because for a lot of people, if they weren't the kid in school that, like, people were looking at to them as like, "Oh, he's the cool person," or, "He's, like the one that's gonna make a ton of money," they just don't have the confidence-

   12. DADontez Akram9:21

       Right

   13. CJCalum Johnson9:21

       ... to, like, go for it like that after school. So, like, what was giving you that belief?

   14. DADontez Akram9:27

       Hmm. Honestly, I would say, bro, it's people counting me out, and they doubted me, and they talked stuff about me, and I would hear about it, and it would make me self-conscious. I would feel bad about how I looked and, you know, what I dressed or how I wore my clothes or what I wore and, and I just got self-conscious about things. And I think that because people counted me out, I had, I had realized, like, I'm already at the bottom. Like, I got kicked out of my mom's house. I'm already sleeping on the floor, Section 8, like, not making a bunch of money. I have a, a car that has, like, a ticking time bomb in it, you know what I mean? It's, like, literally ticking. And I just told, told myself, like, there is no other option but to go up from here. And I think the thing that made me really want to dial in and get to the next level is the fact that right after high school, I did have a kid on the way, and every single person who found out after prom was like, "Oh man, what are you gonna do?" And then I would hear people talk about, "He's, you know, he got kid early. He not doing nothing in life. He gonna be stuck here. He gonna do X, Y, and Z." And I was just like, "Bro, like y'all don't know me, you know what I mean? Y'all don't know where I'm gonna be at, and what's destined for me is destined for me. No one can change that but God Himself or me." And I realized, man, like, there's so much power in having the information. Like, if you just knew what to do and when to do it, you would probably, maybe, for some people, right? But for me, it's like I don't have anything else to lose, right? Like, the only thing I could lose is my time. I'm already broke. I'm already sleeping on Section 8. Like, what else could I lose outside of my life? And I just realized, like, you know, having a kid, it's all on me. It's, it's my fault, and everything will always be on me to make sure that they're okay.

   15. CJCalum Johnson11:08

       Hmm.

   16. DADontez Akram11:08

       And now I realize, like, at 25, looking at 18-year-old Tez, it's like, "Bro, thank you for going back and doing the research and watching the YouTube videos and becoming obsessed." And I feel like my philosophy was, like, when it came to learning, I wanna have a teacher that I can watch on YouTube that I really, really like, and I'll just stick to all of their videos, and I'll just go down a rabbit hole, 'cause like what else am I gonna do with my time? You know what I mean?

   17. CJCalum Johnson11:32

       Mm-hmm.

   18. DADontez Akram11:32

       Like, there's some people who can go out and kick it, and they can play video games. They can do all those things, and I'm not saying I didn't do those things. I'm just saying that I knew that there was a balance that needed to be made or that needed to be h- uh, had, and that was if I don't do it right now, I'll have to do it when I'm 30. And then the problem at 30 is that I won't have the energy or the time to really do it the way I want to because my responsibilities are higher. So I'd rather get it out of the way early so when I get to 30, I'll probably either be set up or I'll have the guidance and the direction to be set up in the near future, and that's always been my philosophy is, like, I want to obsess over what I'm learning about, so that way, like- I can sit there and binge-watch videos. Like, same way people binge-watch TV shows on Netflix, I binge-watch YouTube videos.

   19. CJCalum Johnson12:14

       Mm.

   20. DADontez Akram12:14

       And that's just fun to me.

   21. CJCalum Johnson12:15

       Yeah.

   22. DADontez Akram12:16

       Yeah.

   23. CJCalum Johnson12:16

       You know, um, you spoke about having that almost, that mentality of, like, nothing to lose.

   24. DADontez Akram12:22

       Mm.

   25. CJCalum Johnson12:23

       And I don't... I think I've been in that position in certain points of my life. It's actually incredibly powerful, like-

   26. DADontez Akram12:30

       Yeah

   27. CJCalum Johnson12:30

       ... way of thinking when you're just like, "Bro, I'm just swinging. Like, I ain't got nothing to lose."

   28. DADontez Akram12:34

       Yeah.

   29. CJCalum Johnson12:35

       And you even, you spoke about that moment of, like, even finding out that you're, uh, you're gonna have a daughter and you're gonna be a dad, and it's funny because, um, I was even telling you about the Andrew

5. 12:48 – 19:44

   Dontez early story (Having a child at 18)

   1. CJCalum Johnson12:48

      Schulz show before.

   2. DADontez Akram12:49

      Yeah.

   3. CJCalum Johnson12:49

      Um, like the comedy show that I went to last week, and he was even talking about, like, being a, like, becoming a dad.

   4. DADontez Akram12:57

      Yeah.

   5. CJCalum Johnson12:57

      And he's like 37, 38, and you'll hear this with first, like, when, um, men are becoming fathers for the first time, the level of fear and anxiety and, like-

   6. DADontez Akram13:06

      Yeah

   7. CJCalum Johnson13:06

      ... responsibility. And so I'm curious for you at that age, you're 19, 20 years old, like, what was even the emotion? Like, take me to that moment of, like, you find out that you're gonna be a dad. Like, what is, what is happening in your life?

   8. DADontez Akram13:24

      Mm.

   9. CJCalum Johnson13:24

      Like, what is the feeling? What is the emotion behind that?

   10. DADontez Akram13:29

       I was scared shitless. [laughs] Um, I think I was more scared because my mom had always told me growing up, "Don't have kids young," because, you know, my mom, her first kid was at 18, and she always felt like she wasn't able to travel the way she wanted to or set herself up or set my sister up, who's older than me, um, the way she wanted to, and she would always stress that to me once I got to around 15 or 16 and, you know, you're at that age where girls are starting to become topics that you start having with your parents or y'all talking about and it's talking about protecting yourself and all these things. And I feel like when I first found out I was having a daughter, I was very disappointed in myself. I thought that I would make the right decision for myself, and it's my fault. You know what I mean? Like, I don't blame anyone else outside of me 'cause I should have protected myself. I shouldn't have let, uh, the idea that a woman would protect me in that scenario where you're protecting yourself and she's protecting herself and y'all are on the same page, I shouldn't have believed that that was the case, even when my mom told me. Um, so I felt very disappointed. I felt, I felt very discouraged. My friends were ... Everyone's going to college, and it's me and one other friend who are the only ones who are staying back, and it was scary. I'm like, "Dang, I can't do what every- everyone else is doing." But then I realized it's like, because the things happened to me that don't happen to everyone, that's why I am who I am, because I went down a road that everyone can't take. God didn't have that ordained for you, but He did have it for me. And although I had a lot of sacrifices and a lot of bad times and all that, it's like now I can look back at it and be grateful because now people ... I read a statistic, like 64% of Americans who are over the age of 28 are moving back in with their parents. And it's like, well, I lived with my mom, you know, after I got kicked out and she let me back in. I lived u- lived with her up until I was about 22, and before I left, I had $250,000 put away before I could even leave the house, so I knew when I leave here, I should not be coming back here unless it's something medical wrong or something family-related wrong that I need to come back. And I wanted to make sure that everything was on my own terms, because if I'm gonna take all this time out and this energy to learn this craft and learn what I'm doing and being a better version of myself, I have to take full accountability for everything that comes with that.

   11. CJCalum Johnson15:47

       Mm-hmm.

   12. DADontez Akram15:47

       And that's the only way you'll be able to truly make it.

   13. CJCalum Johnson15:49

       Yeah. Yeah. Damn. Okay. You know what? Like, you mentioned, uh, the disappointment. I'm curious if you really, if you really pushed deeper into that emotion, what was the most disappointing part about it? Was it like ... Did you just feel like you were reckless?

   14. DADontez Akram16:10

       I felt like ... I wouldn't even say it was reckless. I felt like I brung a kid into this world without being married, you know?

   15. CJCalum Johnson16:19

       Mm.

   16. DADontez Akram16:19

       And, like, it was everything to me to have my f- my child or my children living under the same roof as me. And to know that I created a broken family, it felt ... Like, even to this day, like, I don't talk about it often. You know what I mean? But, like, there's a lot of times where I, I'll just cry, you know what I mean? Like, I'm a man. I'm, I'm okay with, you know, letting people know I have emotions. I'm human as well.

   17. CJCalum Johnson16:43

       Yeah.

   18. DADontez Akram16:43

       But there's a lot of times where I'm very upset with myself, because the money can't suppress that feeling. Like, yes, I've amassed a, a great net worth for myself at 25 and I've done great things for my children, you know, but it's like the fact that the time can't be put in and it's not because of me. It's something I can't control. Yes, I can go be there and I can do as much as I can, but at the end of the day it's still, like, me and this person that we, that I had a kid with, we are never gonna be in agreement to where we can make this work for our child. And you shouldn't necessarily do that for your child, but it was just disappointing to know that, like, I did that and that was my fault. And I don't blame her, you know what I mean? Like, it's all on me. I should have, I should have made sure I was married first and I protected myself and I listened to the advice I got from men and women in my family. And, uh, but it was a blessing in disguise, you know what I mean?

   19. CJCalum Johnson17:33

       Mm-hmm.

   20. DADontez Akram17:33

       Like, she was the reason I went harder. Like, soon as I found out I, I was having her I'm like [inhales] I literally cut off all of my hair. Like, on my, on my Twitter you guys probably see, like, pictures from me back, back when I was younger and I had, like, blonde hair and it was long. It was like the Odell days, like-

   21. CJCalum Johnson17:49

       Yeah

   22. DADontez Akram17:49

       ... when he had his gold hair.

   23. CJCalum Johnson17:50

       [laughs]

   24. DADontez Akram17:51

       And, uh, when I found out I was having a kid I said, "I have to start over." Like, my identity has to completely collapse and I have to build a new one. So I literally cut my hair off. All the old stuff that I was doing, the people I used to hang around, I cut everything off, 'cause I realized, like, my child is more important than all of this stuff. So I gotta make sure I ... And the reason I cut my hair was, like, if I go to a job interview and they look at me just like they look at every other Black man- Then it won't make me too much different, it won't make me stand out and make them wanna hire me. So I cut my hair because I was like, "This is the only way people will be able to look past my appearance," if I just kind of, I wouldn't say blend in, but if I tried to look the cleanest possible, maybe, just maybe they'll give me a chance to actually tell them what I do know. And then they'll realize that I am capable of being a great employee, and then, you know, one day promoting me, and then one day being able to run operations because I am a leader. But they wouldn't know that if they just looked at me, so I needed to make sure that I can change the way they look at me so they can at least hear me. And then once they hear me, now it's like, "Okay, this guy right here, he's the real deal. He's not like 50 other applicants who came in and tried out for the same exact role."

   25. CJCalum Johnson18:58

       Yeah. You know what? First of all, thank you for just sharing that, 'cause I think it's so real. Um, and it's funny as well because there's something in cutting your hair off.

   26. DADontez Akram19:09

       [laughs]

   27. CJCalum Johnson19:09

       Like, just cutting it all down. Like, I know people obviously do that in, like, the military and stuff. Like, they have to-

   28. DADontez Akram19:13

       Yeah

   29. CJCalum Johnson19:13

       ... they do, like, a buzz cut or whatever. Um, even for me last week, I just cut my hair off.

   30. DADontez Akram19:18

       Yeah.
6. 19:44 – 23:30

   The mindset to attract big wins

   1. CJCalum Johnson19:44

      because we go back to where we were, like, right in the beginning of this conversation, that picture of you with the pink durag and you're lying on that bed with your, your daughter, it's like that's almost kind of, that's almost like that rock bottom, like, starting point for you.

   2. DADontez Akram20:00

      Yeah.

   3. CJCalum Johnson20:01

      I'm curious, what was the first moment when you kind of experienced that, that feeling of success, right?

   4. DADontez Akram20:09

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CJCalum Johnson20:09

      Because we have that vivid image of you lying on that twin bed, but what was the moment when it was like, "This is starting to work in my favor." Like, "This is starting to go my way"?

   6. DADontez Akram20:18

      Yeah. I felt like, uh, when things really changed, I felt like there was a perspective change. Like, I just started looking at things different, and it's, it's kind of hard for me to, like, articulate it, but, like, I just perceived the world so much differently. Like, when I started to watch the YouTube videos and I'm sitting there and I'm looking at my situation and I'm getting motivated by these people talking, and I'm-- I would literally, like, watch videos of other people driving the cars I wanted, having the houses that I wanted, living the life that I wanted. And then whenever I was driving, sometimes I'd just sit in my car and I'd just close my eyes and I would just imagine, because I drove an Impala, and I would grab the steering wheel and I would just imagine what it was like driving a Tesla, because Teslas were new and that's what I wanted. I would imagine what it feels like having a Lamborghini or having a Rolls-Royce, and then I, I imagined what that person looks like. Like, if I could become the steering wheel and look back at me, what does he look like? What is he doing? How did he actually get here? And when you be real with yourself, 'cause that's the key thing about this, is like it's a reflection. When you be real with yourself, you realize that all the bullshit that you're doing right now is not going to lead you becoming, lead you to becoming that person that has all the stuff that you want. So I realized, like, you have to be well-groomed in all areas of life, so that's why I never prioritize money over my health, right? Or, um, I never just prioritize my health over my spirituality, you know what I mean? Everything has to be balanced, and the only way you can balance it is by having tons of times that test you in all areas of life and just realizing that you are capable of handling what God gives to you, because He gives His strongest, His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers. And I just, I feel like that really resonates with me. Like, I want to take the hardest route, because most people wouldn't take it. Most people-

   7. CJCalum Johnson22:03

      Mm-hmm

   8. DADontez Akram22:03

      ... would fold. Most people could not walk a mile in my shoes, and it just, like, a certain level of confidence and, like, swag that comes with it. Like, "Yeah, I really did that."

   9. CJCalum Johnson22:11

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DADontez Akram22:11

       You know? Even repeating some of the stuff you're saying to me, it's like, damn, I really was driving a car, driving my car five, six hours a day, dropping off durags and having people repost it and marketing myself. I really was broke. Like, broke, broke.

   11. CJCalum Johnson22:23

       Mm-hmm.

   12. DADontez Akram22:23

       You know, not just saying it, but actually being broke mentally. And I just feel like, you know, when you change your perspective on how you look at things and you start really saying like, "Man," like, "I really want this bad." Like, I just wanted it more than everyone else. I feel like that's the only difference between me and anyone else. Like, I'm blessed with these great looks right now.

   13. CJCalum Johnson22:44

       [laughs]

   14. DADontez Akram22:45

       Like, uh, I think the, the big thing for me is, like, I'm just obsessed over becoming the best version of myself.

   15. CJCalum Johnson22:51

       Mm-hmm.

   16. DADontez Akram22:51

       Like, there's just something about it. Like, obviously I have moments where I slack. I'm not gonna say I don't. You know what I mean? I'm human. But the end goal will always be able to say... Or the end goal is for me to be, be able to look back and be like, "Man, you did, you did have a good life."

   17. CJCalum Johnson23:08

       Mm-hmm.

   18. DADontez Akram23:08

       "You did some really dope shit. You impacted a lot of people, and God won't forget what you did for Him."

   19. CJCalum Johnson23:14

       Yeah.

   20. DADontez Akram23:14

       So.

   21. CJCalum Johnson23:15

       Yeah. You know what, um, is interesting? And obviously, like, you went on to... Like, obviously you sold the durags, and then you obviously, you've built... You're even wearing it right now.

   22. DADontez Akram23:24

       Yeah.

   23. CJCalum Johnson23:24

       You're, like, the, the clothing companies you've built and made multi-millions of dollars doing that.

7. 23:30 – 31:48

   How to adopt winning habits

   1. CJCalum Johnson23:30

      Um, but there's this interesting thing, and I felt it personally, uh, 18 months ago when I quit my job to do the podcast full time, which is you make this decision to take this accountability in your life.

   2. DADontez Akram23:41

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CJCalum Johnson23:42

      And, like, I'm the owner of everything. Like, everything is because of me.

   4. DADontez Akram23:46

      Yeah.

   5. CJCalum Johnson23:47

      And you make this shift, and typically what has to happen, it's, like, two steps back. At the time it feels like 10 steps back-

   6. DADontez Akram23:55

      [laughs] Yeah

   7. CJCalum Johnson23:56

      ... to make, like, 10 steps forward.

   8. DADontez Akram23:59

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CJCalum Johnson24:00

      Um, and I think... I, I heard Alex Hormozi, he called it, like, the lonely chapter.

   10. DADontez Akram24:05

       Yeah.

   11. CJCalum Johnson24:05

       This chapter where, like, you've kind of separated yourself. Like, you've made this decision, and now you're not hanging out with the same friends that you typically were. You're not going to the parties. Uh, on Friday night instead of being at the bar, you're in the gym-

   12. DADontez Akram24:19

       Yeah

   13. CJCalum Johnson24:19

       ... like, alone, and there's no one else there. Um- And there's this, there's this point in the middle where, like, you've kind of started on this new journey-

   14. DADontez Akram24:29

       Mm

   15. CJCalum Johnson24:29

       ... but you're not yet at the new destination. So like, for you, you're not yet driving the Tesla-

   16. DADontez Akram24:35

       Yeah

   17. CJCalum Johnson24:35

       ... or the Rolls-Royce or the Mercedes.

   18. DADontez Akram24:37

       Yeah.

   19. CJCalum Johnson24:37

       Um, but you've put in a ton of work. It's this lonely position in the middle-

   20. DADontez Akram24:43

       Mm

   21. CJCalum Johnson24:43

       ... where you're not where you began, but you're not at the end. And the reason I think so many people, um ... The lonely chapter is, like, where dreams die, to be honest.

   22. DADontez Akram24:55

       Absolutely.

   23. CJCalum Johnson24:55

       Because people turn back.

   24. DADontez Akram24:57

       Mm.

   25. CJCalum Johnson24:57

       They get tempted back by their old life. And so I'm curious for you, was there any moments, any kind of vivid memories of, like, even being tempted back into, like, the old way, like, the old Tez, the old habits, behaviors-

   26. DADontez Akram25:12

       Mm

   27. CJCalum Johnson25:12

       ... that you were doing?

   28. DADontez Akram25:15

       Hmm. I would say yeah. I, I mean, I feel like, like, I like to just be completely transparent. There were definitely times where I felt like I wanted to go back on my bad habits, you know? But that's why they're bad habits. They're easy to go back to.

   29. CJCalum Johnson25:29

       What would you say were the bad habits?

   30. DADontez Akram25:30

       I would just say, like, smoking earlier in the day and then wasting my entire day or, you know, saying that I'm gonna do something and not actually following through with it. Um, you know, hanging out with people where I know for a fact that they're gonna be doing bad things or things that don't align with where I wanna be at and still being around them. And I feel like you just gotta get to the point where you're like, you make a decision for yourself. You know what I mean? Like, it's hard to just go out there and say, "I'm a cold turkey" things, but it's like, that's the satisfying part. When you do the hard shit, later down the line it doesn't become hard. So when someone else starts it and it's hard, but you've already been doing it, you can just tell them, like, "I did it. You can do it, too." And that's how I think of things is, like, no one's different than me. You're just in the space to where you can operate and perform at a certain level, and I'm not in that space yet. And that takes a mental toll on some people when they're in that lonely zone where it's like, "Damn, I'm putting in the work. I'm going to the gym. I'm doing this. I'm not seeing the results I want." And you know, my mom always told me something, 'cause I grew up in a Muslim household. Um, there's a word in Arabic called esper, and it basically means patience. So she would always tell me, "Esper, son. Patience, son. Be patient. Relax. Don't rush it." And I just felt like that's just always been something I think of, is just patience. Everyone else's time may be right now, but God didn't want that for me right now, and that's perfectly fine. I'm, I'm not doing things by my path and doing things for me. I'm doing it for Him-
8. 31:48 – 37:16

   How to start investing with just $100

   1. DADontez Akram31:48

      like for me, like I said, I started making a, a good amount of money at a very young age. You know, once you ... Like, it may not be crazy to anyone else, but, like, for me, I was broke, and then two years later I have, uh, $100,000 in the bank. It's like, it's a, it's life-changing, to be completely honest. Whether it took a year or five years, for anyone, it can feel like, damn, this is life-changing. And for me, like I said, I was just really scared of losing my money. Like, I didn't want it just to be sitting in a bank. And what's crazy is at that young age, I was looking a lot more into banks and how they worked, and I felt like just I've always chased my curiosity. Like, I've always just been, like, curious about stuff. Like, how do banks even make money? If my money's just sitting here, like, how are they making money, right? And obviously they make a ton of money off fees, but, like, how do they make money? And then I, I start watching these YouTube videos, and these people were getting on there, and they would bring out the whiteboard, and they'd be like, "So look, a bank goes in, or you go in the bank, you open up an account, you give them your money, but what they're gonna do is they're gonna give Bob and Sandy your money at a higher percentage than they're gonna pay you out. So they're gonna keep the difference, and then your money's just gonna be there sitting, digitalized, making .5, .4, .1% of it on your money. And they're making 7, 8%, which is 700 times the amount of money that, you know, that you could've been making." And to me it was just fascinating how, like, America really did try to finesse us.

   2. CJCalum Johnson33:08

      Mm-hmm.

   3. DADontez Akram33:08

      You know? And I think that we're in a time right now where, like, that shit's not getting by no more. You know what I mean? And I feel like you have catalyst people who are in the investing world. You got the Master Investor and 19 Keys and, and Aristotle and Chris Johnson. You got all these people who are, who are teaching it at such a, a high level, but simplifying it, because they didn't want us to understand the game at that level. And I felt like I wanted to be a part of that. You know what I mean? So in the beginning it started off with a few hundred dollars, because I did not understand it. And I swear, I feel like I remember exactly, I think it was in like 2020 or 2021 where they started releasing fractional shares. And that right there, because, you know, some people at the time, you know, Amazon's trading at $2,000 a stock or a share. And it's like when you're looking at it you're like, "Man, I ain't got $2,000 to own one share of, of Amazon." But then you start thinking about it, and it's like now that you have fractional shares, you can still expose yourself to ownership in this company without necessarily having enough money to be able to buy a whole share. You might be able to get a 10th, a 25th, uh, an eighth, or a fourth of that share with the money that you have. And when that company grows, your money still grows at the same percentage. It just doesn't have as much money in there, so you're not seeing as big of returns.

   4. CJCalum Johnson34:18

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DADontez Akram34:19

      And once I started, like, learning more about how these companies operate, like ... You know, it was interesting. Like, a lot of the companies we know and we drink and we eat and we use, they own so much more than just the underlying that we kind of hear them for. They own so much more. And there's just a superpower in having ownership of something. So in the beginning I always tell people, man, like, dollar cost averaging is always gonna be your best friend, right? Like, I'm not some genie or some, uh, you know, investor who's been doing this 10, 15 years. I've been doing this for five years, and I've been able to quadruple my net worth from just being patient, letting the money sit, and buying companies that I truly value. If I'm consistently using iPhones, the chances are is that millions or billions of other people are using iPhones. If I love Nike shoes and Nike Techs, there's probably a chance that millions or billions of other people like it as well. So why not just expose myself to having that ownership if I'm already buying it for myself to own the shoes? I might as well own some shares, right? And then when it grows and I buy more shoes, it can come from my profits, from, uh, from me owning it. And it's just, like, a really interesting way when you, when you start thinking about investing. It's like, like I said, it's not just investing money. It's investing time and effort into accumulating knowledge that gives you the confidence to make decisions on investments, and that's where people get scared. It's like, "Oh, I don't have enough money to do it." It's not that you don't have enough money. It's that you fear what you don't know, and you're so ignorant to the point where you don't go out there and watch the videos. You got all this downtime when you get off work, when you're laid up at home, when you watching Netflix videos. You have all this downtime, and you know you could be doing something better, and you keep telling yourself, "I'll get to it tomorrow. I'll get to it next week. I'll get to it on the 1st. I'll get to it on Monday." And then that time comes around, and that, that, that action you said you were gonna do never happens.

   6. CJCalum Johnson36:12

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DADontez Akram36:12

      And now it becomes a consistent cycle. And I just don't wanna be the person who tells myself I'm gonna do something and I don't do it, 'cause now my own inner self doesn't even believe me.

   8. CJCalum Johnson36:19

      Mm-hmm. That's true confidence, when you, you, you can believe the things that you tell yourself.

   9. DADontez Akram36:26

      Mm-hmm.

   10. CJCalum Johnson36:26

       Because you do it.

   11. DADontez Akram36:27

       Exactly.

   12. CJCalum Johnson36:27

       You have true evidence, hard proof.

   13. DADontez Akram36:29

       Mm.

   14. CJCalum Johnson36:30

       Um, you know, there's so much good stuff that you said, and I wanna make sure that we double-click into it. Um, it's funny, we had a guest come on a few weeks ago, and he, he made a lot of his money, um, investing in real estate, like 20, 30 years ago.

   15. DADontez Akram36:43

       Mm.

   16. CJCalum Johnson36:44

       He bought, like, brownstones in Brooklyn for, like, a couple hundred thousand, and now they're worth millions. And he was saying something, he was like, "If I actually wanted to get rich through investing in, like, 2024, even moving into 2025," he's like, "I'm not investing in real estate."

   17. DADontez Akram37:00

       Right.

   18. CJCalum Johnson37:00

       "I'm investing in the future."

   19. DADontez Akram37:03

       Mm.

   20. CJCalum Johnson37:03

       And the way that you invest in the future is technology-

   21. DADontez Akram37:06

       Yeah

   22. CJCalum Johnson37:06

       ... and crypto.

   23. DADontez Akram37:07

       Mm-hmm.

   24. CJCalum Johnson37:08

       And so we're gonna, we're gonna get into, into both of that, because I know that, like, that's something that you're, you're hugely into.

   25. DADontez Akram37:14

       Mm.

   26. CJCalum Johnson37:14

       Um,

9. 37:16 – 42:52

   Framework to beat inflation in the US

   1. CJCalum Johnson37:16

      but I wanna make sure, I wanna make sure people can understand what you're saying, especially when it comes to getting started.

   2. DADontez Akram37:22

      Mm.

   3. CJCalum Johnson37:22

      Can you just explain what is dollar cost averaging?

   4. DADontez Akram37:28

      Yeah. So essentially what dollar cost averaging is, is in my eyes, the way I look at it, is that ... Let's take an apple, for example. Right? Um, not Apple the company, but just an apple. Right? And let's say right now that apple, if I were to go buy it, is $2. Right? But tomorrow the company is having a sale on that apple, and now it's $1. Right? It's technically 50% off, right? And the thing is, what people need to understand about investing is that you're buying the same exact apple, right? Like, the value of that is still there. Nothing has changed. It's the same thing with companies. When the value of the stock goes down or the price of the stock goes down, does not mean that the value of the company has gone down as well. It just means the people who are in there buying it, they decided that the price is at a price where they wanna take profits or they wanna exit their position. And that's perfectly fine. There's always gonna be buyers and sellers when you're investing in stuff, right? And dollar cost averaging is essentially if I buy this apple at $2, right, and it's still the same value of an apple, I can buy it tomorrow at $1. And then if it goes back to $2, I can still buy it at that price because the company or that thing that I'm buying is still the same thing. So what I tell people is, like, it's, I wouldn't say investing is easy, but when you get down the f- the foundation of it, of just buying companies that you really like regardless of the price, and then when price does pull back or when the stock is on sale, now you unload that arsenal of money that's just been sitting around. And now you're just buying quality assets at lower prices, and you're just giving it time.

   5. CJCalum Johnson39:02

      Mm.

   6. DADontez Akram39:03

      And like, you know, I, I have, I've tried trading. You know, I'm still, you know, learning the scopes of it. But I feel like investing was just a really strong topic for me because it was like, I use Shopify, for example, right? And I've made multiple seven figures on Shopify. Why would I not invest into Shopify? It, it literally does not make sense. If I'm up to date on all the updates because I have to be 'cause my brands are on there and I'm running these companies and I have students who are running their companies and I have to be up to date, then what, what makes you think that other people aren't looking at this, this asset as, like, a great opportunity? So I just started buying into it. And then when people thought Shopify was going to shit, when they were buying fulfillment centers and things weren't looking the way they wanted to, people thought, "Oh, Shopify is gonna end." I'm like, there's no way people could possibly think Shopify, one of the number-one e-commerce platforms in the world, is just gonna collapse.

   7. CJCalum Johnson39:54

      Mm.

   8. DADontez Akram39:54

      Where Fashion Nova, Supreme, uh, Gymshark and all these bigger companies are on their platform, there's no way they could just collapse. So I was just like, oh, if it pull back, then I'm just gonna keep buying more.

   9. CJCalum Johnson40:05

      Mm-hmm.

   10. DADontez Akram40:05

       And then you wait, and then you look up and you're up 70, 80, 150%. And now you're like, damn, if my money was in a bank, I would've probably only made .1% on this.

   11. CJCalum Johnson40:14

       Mm.

   12. DADontez Akram40:14

       Now I made 150% on this. Now it's like, oh, now I get investing. And I feel like for people who are beginning, when you start getting those small gains at 5%, 10%, 15, maybe 50%, you start realizing, like, damn, my money working for me is a way better option than it just sitting around not doing anything. Because inflation is eating it up regardless.

   13. CJCalum Johnson40:35

       Mm.

   14. DADontez Akram40:35

       So I would rather have my money growing and beating inflation, so that way the time and energy that I'm putting into my job or into my business, I can buy other things that will beat inflation in the future. So your goal is essentially to, like, gra- make as much money now, put it into assets now that will outpace inflation and outpace interest rates. And if you think about it like that, it's like you're always getting money now, buying things that will make, make up for the interest or, you know, inflation now, and then your future self will be thankful because things may be higher or may be lower, but you put up money ahead of time.

   15. CJCalum Johnson41:08

       Mm.

   16. DADontez Akram41:09

       And now you're not as stressed as some people would be.

   17. CJCalum Johnson41:11

       Yeah. You know what's, um, [clicks tongue] what's interesting listening to you? 'Cause I feel like we probably started investing at a similar point.

   18. DADontez Akram41:19

       Mm.

   19. CJCalum Johnson41:19

       Because I remember, like, 2019, 2020, I was just starting to hear about, like, Robinhood-

   20. DADontez Akram41:24

       Mm

   21. CJCalum Johnson41:25

       ... and this thing of, like, you could buy, like, fractional shares of stuff.

   22. DADontez Akram41:28

       Mm.

   23. CJCalum Johnson41:28

       And, like, it was starting to become available on Robinhood. And you can literally just download an app on your phone, and now you have access to the stock market.

   24. DADontez Akram41:35

       Mm.

   25. CJCalum Johnson41:35

       And it's interesting because I think you, you mention purchasing assets that are, um, [clicks tongue] they're almost, like, outstripping inflation. Like, they're growing at, they're rising in value faster than inflation.

   26. DADontez Akram41:50

       Yeah.

   27. CJCalum Johnson41:50

       And so much of what we hear, like, we'll even hear this around elections, right? Like, politicians will be like, "Oh, the economy's doing so well. Like, look at the stock market."

   28. DADontez Akram41:58

       Right.

   29. CJCalum Johnson41:58

       And then it's the ... The thing is, is like, well, most people, like, a lot of people aren't in the stock market.

   30. DADontez Akram42:03

       Exactly.
10. 42:52 – 50:00

    The easiest way to identify profitable stocks/coins.

    1. CJCalum Johnson42:52

       in things that you really believe in.

    2. DADontez Akram42:53

       Yes.

    3. CJCalum Johnson42:54

       So you made, you made your wealth through e-commerce and Shopify.

    4. DADontez Akram42:57

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CJCalum Johnson42:58

       You invest in Shopify 'cause you understand that business.

    6. DADontez Akram43:00

       Exactly.

    7. CJCalum Johnson43:01

       And so one of the things that I, I've learned about investors is when an asset that they own, but they believe in it, when it goes through a dip, they see that as they're buying it at a discount.

    8. DADontez Akram43:13

       Yes.

    9. CJCalum Johnson43:14

       They don't see it as a dip, as I'm losing money. Can you kinda just talk about, like, the investor mindset?

    10. DADontez Akram43:22

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CJCalum Johnson43:22

        Because I think a lot of people, the reason that they get disillusioned, maybe they put money in, uh, and then they take it out, or they sell too quickly, um, or they just give up on it, or they never do it to begin with. They don't... There's not an understanding of that investor mindset.

    12. DADontez Akram43:38

        Yeah. I feel like it's really like, uh, like I talked about this in, in a class yesterday that I would do with some students on investing and just money principles and budgeting and things like that. And I feel like everyone has this hat that they're an employee or that they're a current business owner, but you gotta be able to rotate hats, right? And the way that I think about it is, like, if you had a mask on, right? Right now I'm an employee when I'm at work, but when I get off of work, that first minute that I clock out, I'm now back to my, my current version of myself or my normal version. And I think of investing as a new persona that you're taking on. And the investor mindset is obviously, you know, buy when people are fearful and you sell when everyone is greedy, right? Or you buy low, sell high, right? And I think for me, when I really had that shift in mindset and really started thinking about investing, it's like, again, you're, you're putting money up for yourself so it can grow in the future. I, I don't worry about it right now. So, like, when people see a dip, like you said, I see it as things on sale. Like, this is amazing. Home Depot just pulled back 15%. Absolutely, this is a steal. The same way people will go to Balenciaga and they'll see this Balenciaga hoodie that's on sale for 30% off or 20% off or 15% off. That's the same exact way that I look at investing into assets. It's like, oh my God, this is amazing. Thank God. When I see red days, I'm like, oh, what am I about to go scoop off the floor? When I see the whole economy's pulling back and everyone's selling their stocks and crypto, I'm like, this is amazing. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm happy, right? Because you take active income and you buy either passive income or you buy income that can grow over time. And essentially it's like you're always kind of not playing it safe, but you're always like, "Hey, things could be worse or it could be better later. Let me just go ahead and prepare myself now." And it's just like, you know, even when you look at housing, right? You know, there's a shortage of houses, and they talk about this all the time. Like, prices of houses are too high, but then again, there's not enough houses for people that are being born in America and all these things. And it's like, where do, where do people go, like construction workers or people who build homes, where do they go to get their supplies? How do you even build a home? And then you start asking the how. That's the first door to open up the question, right? And then it, it's like, all right, just curiosity, how do they do that? And you start googling it, and then you start realizing, like, wow, all of these people who are building houses, 9 times out of 10, are going through Ace Hardware and Home Depot. So then I'm like, my grandfather, he did construction. Growing up with him, I, I would go to work with him, and I would sit in Home Depot. I'd be like, oh my God, I fucking hate being here.

    13. CJCalum Johnson46:10

        Yeah.

    14. DADontez Akram46:10

        Every day I'd be like, "Bro, I-- Just leave me in the car," right? But then I realized, like, you know, 'cause he built pools and did housing and all that stuff, and I realized, I'm like, man, Home Depot is actually an amazing company because if we're building with this and we know we need more houses, they're gonna keep going to get the supplies from this company who's profiting, and now I can be a part of that profit. I can get a percentage of that profit. And now it's like, now when I go in Home Depot, I'm like, I own a piece of Home Depot.

    15. CJCalum Johnson46:36

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DADontez Akram46:36

        You know what I mean? I know, I know Wall Street Trapper talks about, uh, talks like that a lot, um, and the way that he teaching it really resonated with me, um, so I would give credit to him. But it's like, I own that. You know, I'm wearing Nike shoes right now. I own that.

    17. CJCalum Johnson46:46

        Mm-hmm.

    18. DADontez Akram46:46

        You know what I mean? I own a piece of that. And now it's like that's a part of your identity now, so you don't look at yourself the same way you used to. Because if you don't have any assets right now, you just looking like, man, I'm getting beat up by everything right now. But when you own stuff, it's like, I'll be all right.

    19. CJCalum Johnson47:01

        Mm-hmm.

    20. DADontez Akram47:01

        I own X, Y, and Z. They're doing fine. Oh, they just laid off all these people because AI is gonna step in? Perfect. And now you just have a different way of thinking about money and, and what you're gonna do, and now you can say, "How can I risk a dollar to bring back three more? I'm okay with risking the dollar 'cause I know I have active income. I'm already trading my time for money, so I might as well take the money and trade it to make more money in the future." And that's how you beat out the mindset of like, oh, I'm so scared of everything that's gonna happen. It's like patience.

    21. CJCalum Johnson47:30

        Mm-hmm.

    22. DADontez Akram47:31

        If you're buying something you understand, that's the only reason people are scared. If you don't understand it, you didn't do your due diligence, or you're sitting here DM-ing me and asking me, "Hey, you think I should buy XRP? Hey, you think I should sell it here?" Like, that means you don't understand the utility behind it, and every asset has some form of utility or some form of benefit that someone else values. And if they value it, 9 times out of 10 they're gonna buy it and hold it.

    23. CJCalum Johnson47:51

        Mm-hmm.

    24. DADontez Akram47:51

        So I'm gonna do the same thing.

    25. CJCalum Johnson47:52

        Yeah.

    26. DADontez Akram47:53

        Yeah.

    27. CJCalum Johnson47:53

        You know what I, I love, and you said this right in the beginning. Um, I asked you, I said, "What, what has the, been the value of investing in your life?" And you said it's an identity.

    28. DADontez Akram48:02

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CJCalum Johnson48:02

        And even when you said it, it kinda took me by surprise. I was like, what did he mean by that?

    30. DADontez Akram48:05

        Mm-hmm.
11. 50:00 – 56:06

    Should you buy Bitcoin at 100k?

    1. CJCalum Johnson50:00

       can start that, like the actionable steps.

    2. DADontez Akram50:02

       Mm.

    3. CJCalum Johnson50:02

       But before we do, I just wanted to dispel a few things. Um, I know you're very bullish on crypto and all of that stuff.

    4. DADontez Akram50:11

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CJCalum Johnson50:11

       I think one of the... I'm sure you've heard this piece of pushback or, like, this objection that people have, which is like, am I too late?

    6. DADontez Akram50:20

       Right.

    7. CJCalum Johnson50:20

       Like, is it already finished? Is it like-

    8. DADontez Akram50:22

       [laughs]

    9. CJCalum Johnson50:22

       ... well, Bitcoin's nearly at 100,000, like it's too late now for me to get in.

    10. DADontez Akram50:26

        Right.

    11. CJCalum Johnson50:27

        Um, what is your... I feel like I just saw it on your face, but what, what is your reaction when you hear that, like, pushback?

    12. DADontez Akram50:37

        Honestly, it's not a-- I don't look at them and be like, "Oh, you're fucking stupid."

    13. CJCalum Johnson50:40

        [laughs]

    14. DADontez Akram50:40

        Like, I don't, I don't think that. I think, like, you just don't know yet, and you will, and it's either you're gonna go out and you're gonna willingly go find out what it's about, or you're gonna get forced to know, and that's usually what happens, right? Like, no one was really watching television. Everyone was still watching newpa- news- uh, reading newspapers and listening to radios, and then when it came out, you knew when it came out, and now you're steps behind because the person who looked and seen, what the hell is a television, you know what, let me get curious about it, and then they start doing research and they're like, "Oh, well, this company makes it, so I'm gonna start, you know, buying into this company," and then you realize like, wow, no one's really watching the news anymore. No one... Or no one's listening to the radios anymore. Now there's a shift. So I feel like if you look at just-- You can look at history and help-- Like, looking at history helps determine what you think may happen in the future, and you kind of base it off, hey, this happened during this timeframe. This kinda looks similar to that. There's a possibility that it's there. And all you're doing is, like, you're taking probabilities or chances on investments where it's like this could potentially get here, right? And, and it doesn't-- It won't happen when you want it to. Just know that it'll happen one day.

    15. CJCalum Johnson51:49

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DADontez Akram51:50

        And that's why I like investing so much. It's like I don't know when XRP will hit $10, but I do believe it will. But like I said, you know, when you're buying certain assets, it's like you gotta have a strategy before you go into it. So when people are asking me like, "Is it too late to buy Bitcoin?" and all these things, I'm just thinking to myself like, why did you wanna buy it in the first place? Like, I wanna buy it because I think it's valuable, and I think that in the fiat, in the fiat world, things are changing, right? Like, the, the key part about cryptocurrency is that you can't counterfeit it. You know what I mean? Like, you can't... Like, obviously, you have meme coins, and people can rug pull, and you, you can, you can have all those things and those, you know, crazy stories and stuff like that, but for the main top 20, top 15, um, cr- uh, crypto tokens and, and currencies, you can't, like, create a fake, right? Like how I can take out a dollar right now and you won't even know this, the difference if it was fake or not, right? And the, the key element about this is that transparency is now a- readily available to anyone and everyone. So, like, right now we don't know what's going on with our money when we pay the IRS or when we pay the government. We don't know what the hell is going on. You see them sending billions of dollars to Ukraine. You see all these things, but you don't see all the other stuff that they're doing with it. The blockchain now allows people to say, all right, if I'm gonna put money into this and someone sends a transaction, I can see it. I may not know exactly who sent it, but I can see the wallet address, and now I can say, this person sent this much Bitcoin to this person who has a wallet address, but you don't know their name, right? But it's transparency, and now when you bring a level of transparency into things, now everyone's playing on a, on an even playing field. So now it's not the same where you could get over on someone because you can print a certain amount of money, and then you can make certain, certain things happen, or you can change media and make people think different. Like, nah, I can see exactly what's going on, and now I feel like we're in a world now where, like, you can take out your phone and tap something. What happens when you're able to tap your phone on Do- on Doge and pay for a movie ticket?

    17. CJCalum Johnson53:48

        Mm.

    18. DADontez Akram53:48

        Or you can pay in Bitcoin or something. Now, chances are if someone's gonna spend Bitcoin on something, they probably have loads of it, right? But the, the important part is that I can go to China right now, 'cause if I took out a $20 bill and try to pay, uh, pay someone in China, they're gonna look at me like, "You gotta go change this," right? Now this is a universal currency that I can use. I can go to China and pay in Dogecoin. I can go pay in Bitcoin. I can pay in Ethereum, and I don't have to go out and switch it and all these other fees and all this stuff. I don't have to do none of that. It's literally one tap of a button, one click of a button, and as you look at the world, things are just speeding up.

    19. CJCalum Johnson54:22

        Mm. You know what's, um, [tongue click] crazy? 'Cause we've been talking about the thing of, like, uh, people asking like, am I too late or whatever.

    20. DADontez Akram54:30

        Mm.

    21. CJCalum Johnson54:30

        And when I, in 2019, maybe, yeah, I would say 2019, when I first started considering, like, investing in crypto and blockchain and Ethereum-

    22. DADontez Akram54:39

        Mm

    23. CJCalum Johnson54:39

        ... um, I remember going to this guy who was, like, hugely into it, like he'd put a lot of his money into it.

    24. DADontez Akram54:45

        Yeah.

    25. CJCalum Johnson54:45

        And at the time, I wanna say it was at like- 14, 15,000, which was like high for that time.

    26. DADontez Akram54:52

        Yeah.

    27. CJCalum Johnson54:53

        And I asked him the same question. I'm like, "Is it too late? Is it too late?" And the thing he told me, and I'm so grateful that he told me this, he didn't tell me whether I should buy it or whatever. He was like, "Just watch some videos and study, like, the foundations-

    28. DADontez Akram55:08

        Mm

    29. CJCalum Johnson55:08

        ... and the fundamentals of, like, money."

    30. DADontez Akram55:11

        Yeah.
12. 56:06 – 1:00:19

    How to find valuable information on social media

    1. CJCalum Johnson56:06

       moments with crypto. Like what got you to, to be curious about it in the beginning, and what got you to start investing in that beginning phase?

    2. DADontez Akram56:16

       Twitter.

    3. CJCalum Johnson56:17

       Okay. [laughs]

    4. DADontez Akram56:17

       Twitter is my... I love Twitter.

    5. CJCalum Johnson56:19

       [laughs]

    6. DADontez Akram56:19

       Uh, Elon, if you can endorse me, please.

    7. CJCalum Johnson56:21

       [laughs]

    8. DADontez Akram56:22

       Uh, man, I love Twitter, bro. It- there's so many people, and it depends on what you follow. It's the same thing with social media just in general. When you follow certain things, that's, you're following it because that's what you like to see. And I like to see stuff about money. Like right now on my Twitter feed, I see people who have $11 million invested, $50 million invested. They're making a million dollars today. They're up $300,000 on this company, and that's what I want to see because that's the only thing I care about right now, outside of my family and religion and all that stuff. But essentially for me personally, I think in the beginning when I was looking at crypto, I did not understand what none of it was, for shit. I didn't, I could not understand. And that was before you could tap and pay stuff, and that's when I started realizing as the world is changing, you have to be a chameleon. You gotta be able to change with it. And you have to always be open-minded because think about it, the, the parents that we have who, you know, when cell phones c- first came out, they didn't wanna go learn that. But now they're having a hard time learning it now. So it's like you can be an early adopter. You can be pers- a person who's just, uh, interested enough to just look into it and start reading up on it. So that's exactly what I did. I started seeing a lot of people talk about Bitcoin, um, Ethereum. Um, I started seeing people talk about it when it was at like that 15 to like 20K range. And for the life of me, I still didn't understand, but I was just like, "All right. I'll just put some money in. You know, I'll just, you know, kinda sort it out." And then I started watching more videos, and that's why I always tell people, it's like you have to do your due diligence when you're investing because you can't just take someone's word for it because you don't know their strategy. I tell people this all the time. I know a ton of people who put a lot of money into one asset class. They hold it for maybe five or six months, and then they pull their profits out. But it's like there's a lot of people who don't understand that there's a different perspective on that. You could-- that could be someone's strategy, and then another person's strategy would just tell you, "Buy a Bitcoin at 95. You can buy it at 80. You can buy it at 85. Does not matter the price as long as you hold it five years from now, you'll be thankful." That's what I would tell you. And now it's like I don't have to sit there and hawk-eye a chart. All I have to do is do my research, understand it, like to the point where I can tell somebody else about it because I understand it so much, and then taking the risk and spending the money to buy it and just holding it and not worrying about the dips and just looking at it as a sale. And if you don't have the money to take advantage of that sale right then and there, cool.

    9. CJCalum Johnson58:34

       Mm.

    10. DADontez Akram58:34

        Like you don't walk into the mall and every time there's a sale you just spend money. You don't do that. You're like, "Hey, I don't really have it right now for that." So that's perfectly fine, and I think it's important to understand your expenses, you know, your income, what you actually make. I tell people this all the time, like if you don't-- like we look at balance sheets, um, and, you know, profitability within companies. You should be doing the same thing for yourself. I mean, if you, you make $5,000 a month, but what do you keep every month?

    11. CJCalum Johnson58:57

        Mm.

    12. DADontez Akram58:57

        That's a huge difference. And I tell people this all the time, like, "Yeah, I've made a ton of people a lot of money," but that's why I wanna talk more about investing going into 2025 is 'cause, like, that's how I've been able to preserve my money. Like I made a lot of money from one area, but to be completely honest, like after profits this year and just throughout the last five years of just investing, I've made more money investing than I did doing e-com.

    13. CJCalum Johnson59:21

        Mm.

    14. DADontez Akram59:21

        And that's scary to me 'cause it's like, damn, I'm actually kinda better at this than this, but this is my main identity.

    15. CJCalum Johnson59:27

        Yeah.

    16. DADontez Akram59:27

        And that's where it's like you gotta be able to take that hat off, put the other hat on and say, "All right. I am this person right now, and I'm gonna be in this mindset."

    17. CJCalum Johnson59:34

        Yeah. There's a mindset. It's actually interesting just, uh, sitting in this seat and, like, the interviews that we've done, 'cause we've done over 100 episodes at this point.

    18. DADontez Akram59:42

        Mm.

    19. CJCalum Johnson59:42

        And everyone's been successful, and you start to realize there's a certain mindset and way that they think about money and, like, managing wealth.

    20. DADontez Akram59:51

        Mm.

    21. CJCalum Johnson59:51

        Um, and, like, their inputs, usually there's, um... I think I remember Big Sean saying this in an interview. He was like, "I've met some of the richest people in the world, and they don't even really work that much."

    22. DADontez Akram1:00:06

        Yeah.

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:00:07

        Like their, their inputs, like the, the effort that they're putting in is not that correlated to what they're getting out of it.

    24. DADontez Akram1:00:13

        Mm-hmm.

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:00:13

        They're putting in a few hours and getting a huge amount on the other side.

    26. DADontez Akram1:00:17

        Right.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:00:18

        Um,

13. 1:00:19 – 1:11:56

    Full research process to find profitable coins/stocks.

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:00:19

       you know what? I wanted to read out one of your tweets 'cause you've got, um, some of the i- the returns that you've had through crypto is pretty insane. You said, um, "I bought Bitcoin at $19,000." Uh, at the time we're recording it, Bitcoin's now $96,000.

    2. DADontez Akram1:00:33

       Mm.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:00:34

       You bought Ethereum at, uh, $1,400. It's now at $3,700. Doge at 12 cents. It's now at 41 cents. XRP at 40 cents. It's now at $2.60. Solana at $33, and it's now at $234. I think one of the things that you've mentioned time and time again during our conversation is research and due diligence. Can you just explain to people what does your research process look like? Like, how do you get to the point of you find out about something to I'm now ready to put my money behind it and invest over a long period of time? Like, map out to me that process.

    4. DADontez Akram1:01:16

       That's a great question, bro. I actually love that question.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:01:18

       [laughs]

    6. DADontez Akram1:01:19

       Um, my favorite thing to do is, like, roam Twitter, right? Like, I think the key thing that you can do if you're watching this video is start following the crypto and the stocks and the investing and the budgeting and the money pages on Twitter, and they tweet so much. Like, there's so much game that you can get, right? And the way that I would do it is, like, you go to Twitter, you find one account that you really like and all the tweets and what they're talking about, and then you go to who they're following, and then you start following some of those people. And then now you magically see another person, "Damn, their tweets are really fire. I really like this. Let me go to their following and follow more people." And that's the first way to get curious about stuff is just by seeing it, right? And I always tell people, "You're not just gonna know to invest in Bitcoin. You have to hear about it from someone else first before you get curious enough to actually do it." So the first part is seeing it. The second part is getting curious about it and being curious enough to go look it up, right? So then you start watching those T- you start looking at the Twitter videos or you're reading the tweets and threads, and they're breaking things down in Bitcoin and how the Bit- uh, the blockchain works and all these things. And now you're like, "Hmm, this is really interesting. I wanna learn a little bit more about it." So now you go to YouTube. So you start off at Twitter or Instagram 'cause you follow those pages. It doesn't matter what social media platform as long as they're talking about the thing you wanna learn, right? You start off by getting curious from seeing it, right? Then you g- you are curious, so you look it up. You try to find answers as to why this works this way and how it works, right? And then after that, it's like your next phase is now proof of everything. So now I'm hitting Yahoo Finance. I'm hitting Seeking Alpha. I'm hitting investing.com. Um, I'm watching the top, um [ts] , you know, the, the top reports on YouTube about certain c- companies or s- about certain cryptos. I'll start watching the top YouTube channels that talk about crypto heavily, and they break it down in a way that I like it. And then I start looking and doing my research, and then once I feel like, "Man, this actually is something that's important," that's when I go buy. But you don't just buy based off word, right? Like, if someone asks me, "Should I buy Bitcoin?" My answer is, "Do you understand it? If you don't understand it, not yet." Even though you may miss out on opportunity, even, even though some investors may call me crazy for telling them that, it's like I would rather a person be informed so that way when they make a decision, they don't come back and blame me. They blame themselves because they did the due diligence. They made the decision. Now it's on you to deal with the repercussions. And whether it's positive or negative, it was always your fault.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:03:40

       Mm.

    8. DADontez Akram1:03:41

       So it's like the same way you take accountability for things that go left, you gotta take accountability for things that do go right.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:03:45

       Mm. You know what, um, it's interesting. Back to that same guy that initially, uh, I spoke to about getting into crypto, he said the mistake that people make is they always wanna know when to get in.

    10. DADontez Akram1:03:56

        Yeah.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:03:57

        And you, you mentioned it 'cause you said, like, you would actually advise people that if you do not understand it, then don't invest.

    12. DADontez Akram1:04:03

        Exactly.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:04:04

        And he told me the same thing, and he said the reason why it's not about knowing when to get in, you need to know when to get out.

    14. DADontez Akram1:04:11

        Facts. [laughs]

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:04:11

        And the only way that you know when, when to get out is if you actually fundamentally understand what's going on.

    16. DADontez Akram1:04:17

        Mm-hmm.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:04:17

        Right? Otherwise, you're just looking at what everyone else is doing.

    18. DADontez Akram1:04:20

        Right.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:04:20

        And so if you're following what everyone else is doing, well, when something starts tanking and everyone's leaving or, like, there's a dip and everyone's selling, you're gonna be selling.

    20. DADontez Akram1:04:29

        Exactly.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:04:30

        And now you've lost the, the opportunity. Um, [ts] okay, here's where I want to go next, um, 'cause I wanna make it really practical and real for people. And I wanna give the disclaimer, right? Like, this isn't investment advice.

    22. DADontez Akram1:04:47

        Bingo.

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:04:48

        Um-

    24. DADontez Akram1:04:49

        Glad you said that

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:04:49

        ... like, do your, do your own research, but we're, we're sharing your experience.

    26. DADontez Akram1:04:53

        Mm.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:04:54

        What was kind of like the last crypto that you got super bullish about and you invested in it? Like, what was some of the reasons why you got bullish? What was that research process like? Like, what was the last thing that you were like, "Okay, this is something that, um, I just feel good about. I wanna put my money behind it"?

    28. DADontez Akram1:05:15

        [sighs] Man, honestly, I've been doing research on all of them for so long that, like... Like, I understand the difference between, like, meme coins and altcoins and the primary coins that you should be investing in. So there are certain coins like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP. Those are, like, I wouldn't say safe bets, but those are better places for your money to be sitting, and you can have less worry in those. But when you start, you know, investing into the meme coins and things like that, you can see major pullbacks, but you can also see major moves to the upside, right? Um, for me personally, I think that the way that I kind of look at things when it comes to investing and just in general is just, like, I just wanna get things at a really good price. You know what I mean? Like, I just wanna make sure that I'm making a smart decision for me in the future. And when it comes to, like, cryptocurrencies and just buying into them, like I said, you really gotta understand why you're getting it and why... Like, before someone asks, "Should I buy it?" Like I said, you gotta know the why behind it. And I think essentially, like, for any individual who's getting started into investing, like, you gotta really look at it like, "Do I even have the patience to invest?" You know what I mean? Like, do I have the patience to sit here and wait? Because sometimes people put too much money in the market, and then now other things in their current life is taking a downturn, right? Um, so can you repeat your question again? 'Cause I know I just kinda went off on a left, but-

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:06:38

        Yeah. I just like-- And to be honest, what, what you mentioned is actually, um, a really good point is, like, knowing personally-

    30. DADontez Akram1:06:45

        Yes
14. 1:11:56 – 1:18:36

    Should you invest in Safe Coins or Meme Coins (Explained!)

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:11:56

       one of the things, and, and we should actually talk about this, of like the balance that you have to your portfolio.

    2. DADontez Akram1:12:02

       Mm-hmm.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:12:03

       Um, you know what? Let's, let's do this. First, can you kinda give, like, a ... Give an overview of crypto.

    4. DADontez Akram1:12:15

       Mm.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:12:15

       Because I think people, like, when you say crypto, people think of anything from Bitcoin-

    6. DADontez Akram1:12:20

       Mm-hmm

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:12:20

       ... to, like, Dogecoin.

    8. DADontez Akram1:12:22

       Right.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:12:22

       And the- they're very different, right? Like, kind of when I was breaking it down in my research, you have kinda like the established cryptos-

    10. DADontez Akram1:12:31

        Mm

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:12:31

        ... which are, like, your Bitcoin, your Ethereum. You have, like, the mid-level-

    12. DADontez Akram1:12:35

        Mm

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:12:36

        ... like Solana, Cardano. You have meme coins. Like, can you kinda just break down these different, um, almost like categories?

    14. DADontez Akram1:12:45

        Mm.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:12:45

        But then also the risk profile.

    16. DADontez Akram1:12:48

        Right.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:12:49

        Because obviously, like, a Dogecoin is, like, a whole nother level of risk-

    18. DADontez Akram1:12:53

        Exactly

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:12:53

        ... than, like, a Bitcoin.

    20. DADontez Akram1:12:55

        Absolutely.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:12:55

        Can you just kinda give people that overview?

    22. DADontez Akram1:12:58

        Absolutely. So cryptocurrencies in general is a digitalized currency, right? And the goal of cryptocurrency is, again, transparency, but to be able to have quicker transactions across the world, right? And essentially what you want to be able to do is if a country needed to send money to another country, normally what you would have to do is that country would have to change their money, their currency, into the other country's currency, and then send it, and then there's this time period that they have to wait until they receive it, and then that, there's this whole verification process, and there's all these different things.

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:13:29

        Like a, like a Western Union or like these-

    24. DADontez Akram1:13:31

        Exactly.

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:13:32

        Yeah.

    26. DADontez Akram1:13:32

        Yeah, like a Western Union or like a MoneyGram and all these different things. But when you look at cryptocurrency, right, if a country, let's say, just in general, let's just say a country, if a country wanted to send another country money for aid or for cer- certain things, with cryptocurrency, all they have to do is have the actual currency itself, then they can switch it to a different currency to make the transaction in, so it can be a fast transaction, it can be, you know, may have less fees depending on which cryptocurrency it is, and then they can receive it in that cryptocurrency and change it to their own fiat if need be. So there's less hassle going between moving fiat and digitalized moving currencies, right? So it just makes the process of transactions a lot quicker and easier. Um, another big thing is, like you said, those classes, right? That's kinda how I like to look at it. Like, you have the top of the class, right? You got the Bitcoin, the Ethereum, you know, you got all the big, big ones, right? Then you have the middle ones, right? You have like, you know, the Cardano, and then you got Maker, and you got, um, all of these other ones, right? And then you have the meme coins. So essentially, the top of the top, that's why I say it's like a safe. It's like a blue chip company. Like, if you look at stock market, you look at, like, companies like Disney, Nike, Coca-Cola, um, you know, all these bigger companies that we all know and have been using since we were born, right? Um, those companies aren't going anywhere unless there's something that drastically happens with the CEO or the company itself and the foundation. It'll probably collapse or something like that, right? But for the most part, they have tested and proven over time that they are here to stay, right? And that's why companies pay dividends as a, as a, as a way to show people that, hey, we are profitable and we're open to sharing our profits with our investors as a way to bring in more money for them to go out and buy assets and help with the company and do all those things, right? And essentially, if we were to flip it around, when you start looking at altcoins or meme coins, right, essentially the risk is higher, right? So in a sense where you could lose a lot of money, but you could also have way higher multiples, right? So for example, Bitcoin isn't gonna move from 96,000 to 150,000 in two days, right? If it did, something crazy is going on, right?

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:15:32

        Yeah.

    28. DADontez Akram1:15:33

        But a meme coin, like a Dogecoin, right, when it went from, I think, 12 cents to 33 cents or 34 cents or something like that, that happened in the matter of a week. So your exposure to risk is higher, but people like that because if I have the chances of having higher risk, it's kinda like the way people think about betting, right?

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:15:51

        Mm.

    30. DADontez Akram1:15:51

        It's kinda like that gambling mindset where I can, like, buy this really, really low, and it's at, like, .4 of a cent or something like that. I can buy this extremely low, and then if it just randomly hit 50 cents or if it hit 20 cents or if it hit 1 cent, now I'm up X amount of dollars, right? And there's, like, this gambling side to it. Um, but really when you're looking at those altcoins and meme coins, what I look at is obviously utility, right? 'Cause you always wanna make sure that that is something you understand about crypto, but the community that backs it, right? So the most recent, uh, you know, meme coin that really popped off was just the Chill Guy, right? And it's literally a meme that came on TikTok, and then it was adopted by people between the ages of 18 and 27, and these people don't invest. They don't understand what they're investing in. So they're gonna be the ones who are the first ones to go buy it because it's a gamble to them. They see people making money. "Oh, I made $10,000 off buying this and only put $50 in." The first thing they're thinking is, "Let me go buy that," right? As opposed to institutional buyers, right, or these companies where they're working with $100 million, $500 million at a time making investments, they're not looking at that. They don't care about quick returns. They care about, can I get a 1% or 2% move on this company or on this asset so I can actually take the profits, we pay out, we get our percentage, and then we pay out the person who, you know, who we manage this account for? And essentially it's just a risk level. So you just gotta be okay with understanding, like, meme coins, it's okay to invest in them. I have a bunch of, like, Doge and Shiba and all these things, but it's because I was already doing research before.
15. 1:18:36 – 1:26:30

    How to know when to cut your loss or invest more

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:18:36

       said, "I buy things that I understand, and I hold them over a long period of time. Everyone is out here acting like they know everything that's gonna happen in the crypto world." You said, "I don't know everything that's gonna happen." And then you, you also mentioned, um, [lips smack] that you usually have a sense of, like, what's your price target-

    2. DADontez Akram1:18:55

       Mm

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:18:55

       ... and then what is your stop loss.

    4. DADontez Akram1:18:57

       Exactly.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:18:58

       And so can you just explain that to people? 'Cause before you actually said it, I wasn't entirely sure even what that meant.

    6. DADontez Akram1:19:03

       Right.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:19:03

       Like, um, can you explain what that means? Price target, stop loss.

    8. DADontez Akram1:19:10

       Yeah, so it's essentially risk to reward management, right? So how much am I open to risking f- with the chances of having this return, right? And for me personally, like I always tell people, when you're investing, you don't just go balls deep into it. You don't put your whole life savings and every dollar into it, right? Um, you start off slow, because at the end of the day, you still have expenses, you still have lifestyle things that you have to maintain, and things like that, right? And when you start increasing your active income, that's when you start increasing the income that goes into investments, right? So essentially, what most people do is they increase their income, and then they increase their expenses because they're trying to keep up with a lifestyle or a perception that they, you know, look like they have a lot going on. And once you just get to the point where like, I don't give a fuck what no one else thinks or how they feel about what I wear or what I drive, and things like that, I care about what I think, then you start realizing, I should probably just keep my expenses low, keep raising my active income, and all the extra that's on top, that difference, goes towards investments, right? So essentially, when you guys are looking at investing and, and really, like, trying to really take on this thing, it's just a consistent game. Like, that's, that's the only goal for you, is just to stay as consistent as possible, right? So when you're looking at risk to reward ratio, right, it's essentially like if you're gonna ... If, let's say a stop loss, right? A stop loss basically means I am open to losing this much money. I am okay with this. If your stop loss, right, if you don't have a stop loss, you could keep losing and losing and losing and losing, and end up going broke, right? So you have to have a point where you say, "I'm gonna cut my, my losses right here, and if it ends up popping back up or if it goes lower, I'm perfectly fine. This was my rule," right? So, like, I have investing rules. If I'm gonna buy into something, let's say if I'm tra- If I'm buying, um, let's use Shopify for example. Let's say it's trading at $50 a share. Depending on how much money I go in, right? So, like, let's say if you put in $100,000, your risk to reward ratio may be smaller than if you put in, you know, $5,000. Because you're looking for a bigger move to make a substantial amount of money with lower capital. Rather than having a ton of capital, you just need a smaller move to make a big-

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:21:16

       Mm

    10. DADontez Akram1:21:16

        ... amount of capital, 'cause you're using more money, right? So essentially, if you don't have a stop loss, you could just keep losing and losing and losing and losing. So when, before I invest, I know where I wanna get out. If I'm putting in $10,000 and I only wanna risk $2,000, I'm only gonna risk 20%. So once this comes down 20%, cutting my losses, and I'm okay with it, 'cause that's my rule. But when things start hitting your price targets, essentially if Shopify's trading at $50 a share and my goal is to sell it at $65 a share, right? Once it gets to 65, I listen to my rule. However, you don't always, sometimes you don't always just liquidate your entire position, right? So let's say I have $10,000 in, in Shopify, and it moves to $65. I'm not gonna take all of my profits right then and there, because the company could report great news, and it could be looking to the upside and keep going up. So I wanna keep myself attached to that exposure. So what I would do is I'll take a percentage of it. I'll say, "All right. Cool. We hit our first price target, 65. I'll take off 30% of my money." So now you're taking some of that money back out of the market, and you keeping it on the sidelines, or you're keeping it for yourself or whatever. Then it hits your next price target. So now let's say it's $73, because we charted it out on a chart, and we understood that price has memory. And once it returns, once it gets past this price here, 9 times out of 10, it'll return to this price before it retests to go higher, right?

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:22:35

        Mm.

    12. DADontez Akram1:22:36

        And essentially, you can start looking at charts and saying, "Well, based off price and history in the past, it reached this level. And when it broke this level, it kept going up to the upside." So once it broke my first price target, now I can say, "The next price target would be this part, because this candle, these three candles in the past were here, and it rejected once it got there. So the chances of it getting there and rejecting again is very high." So now I'm just gonna keep some of it, let it hit my next price target. Hits my price target, you can either exit the whole position, or you can shave off a percentage of it. And that's just the, the premise of risk to reward. Um, and you, you have to have a risk to reward. Like, you don't wanna be buying... And this is why I tell people, buy stuff you understand and buy high-value companies, right? Companies where you can actually read their balance sheets on Yahoo Finance. Because here's the thing. People invest into the small stuff because it looks like, oh, it's only $2 right now. I could just put $10,000 in, and if it gets to $5, then I'll have $100,000, or something like that, right? That is not how you do it. You buy high-value companies that go cheap, that are cheaper than, you know, the price and the value of that company. You don't go buy companies that are not valuable and hope that one day they become valuable, 'cause the chances are it's not gonna happen, right?

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:23:44

        Mm-hmm.

    14. DADontez Akram1:23:44

        So essentially, that's risk to reward, how you look at it. Um, essentially it's the same thing as if I have a dollar, I wanna risk $1 to bring back $3. If that works out, now I have two extra dollars, so now I can risk another dollar to go bring back five or six or three. Um, and that's just how you have it. And essentially, by knowing these things about investing, and I wanted to kind of say this a little bit earlier, 'cause I know you were saying, like, you wanna break it down in a way where people really understand, right? To me, the way that I understand it, and I think that it'll help the audience really understand, is like you're a warrior, right? Like, being in the United States, you are a warrior. You are always at war. You're at war with yourself. You're at war with media. You're at war with the government. You're at war with everything, right? And a warrior never goes into battle without his weapons, right? So investing, money principles, rules, uh, self-disciplines, uh, you know, all these different things, these are new weapons that you're adding into your arsenal. So now the warrior who understands how to use a bow and arrow when it comes to long range, as opposed to the, uh, as opposed to the, the, the warrior who only knows how to use a ax or only knows how to use a sword, is massively at a disadvantage than the one who doesn't. Right? And that's why it's so important where you, you learn these skill sets, you get the knowledge, because your arsenal of what you can use and how to use it becomes larger, and now you become a more resilient warrior. And now you're able to test, you know, wars and essentially go to war and win these wars because you know more about what's going on with it.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:25:08

        Mm-hmm.

    16. DADontez Akram1:25:08

        And that's- I hope that was a way where, like, let me know in the comments. I don't know, like, let me know if that makes sense. Uh, that's just the way I like to think of it.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:25:14

        Yeah. No, actually that's, that's such a great analogy. And you mentioned something else earlier. You said, um, being like a chameleon-

    18. DADontez Akram1:25:21

        Mm

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:25:22

        ... or like having to wear different hats, and I think we're in, like, this unique point in human history where things are changing so fast-

    20. DADontez Akram1:25:31

        Yeah

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:25:31

        ... and rapidly, and even the way that people are making money, it's happening so rapidly, is like, it's even more important that you have the skill sets-

    22. DADontez Akram1:25:40

        Yes

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:25:40

        ... and all of those things. Like, we haven't even spoken about ... Well, we've spoken a ton about crypto. We haven't even spoken about AI-

    24. DADontez Akram1:25:46

        Right

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:25:46

        ... and all of the, like, the way that things are changing.

    26. DADontez Akram1:25:49

        Mm.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:25:50

        And so I think you're right, like, you need to be adaptable-

    28. DADontez Akram1:25:54

        Yeah

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:25:54

        ... now more than ever.

    30. DADontez Akram1:25:55

        Mm.
16. 1:26:30 – 1:30:40

    The simple way to make profit studying charts.

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:26:30

       to m- make sure you elaborated on this-

    2. DADontez Akram1:26:32

       Mm

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:26:32

       ... 'cause I think it'll be valuable to people. You said price has memory.

    4. DADontez Akram1:26:35

       Mm.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:26:35

       What, what does that mean?

    6. DADontez Akram1:26:37

       So essentially if you go look at the S&P 500, right? And let's say you took the lowest points during the S&P 500 over the last few decades, right? You can essentially see, if you drew a trend line, right, the S&P 500 historically has gone up, right? But there are certain levels that the price comes down to or certain percentages that it comes down to where it says, where investors or people in general come in and they say, "This is too low. We have to buy right here. This is a opportunity for me to come in and buy at a great discount." So buyers step in, right? Same thing on the opposite side. When things are too hot, sellers are looking at it like, "This is the time. I don't think it's gonna get past this roof or this ceiling. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sell right now," right? And essentially people go back and they look at charts and they're able to see based off of what each candlestick did at certain prices to de- it determines whether or not ... Like, it determines what was going through investors' mind at that time, right? So if you're looking at a chart and you see, you know, stock going up, up, and up, and then it reaches this point that it reached two years ago and it just sold off dramatically, right? That means that investors, once it got to that point, it's too hot, right? Or they were- they're just, you know, l- open to taking their profits early, and they're gonna remove their profits and that's when it goes down, right? So essentially, like, price has memory in a sense where if you go back and look, it's pretty much like you can go back and say, "All right. This price of this sh- this stock got to this point nine times out of 10. Because it got to this point three times, it'll probably get there a fourth time or a fifth time." Um, and sometimes, you know, depends on the price. Sometimes if it touches it three times, it could break above it. Sometimes if it touches it three times, it could break below it. So it really just depends on what you're looking at, what, you know, company you're looking at, you know, what, uh, fundamental and technical analysis you've done. So technical analysis is, you know, the, the process of using charts and candles and, um, just different strategies to be able to trade or make investments. Uh, and essentially it's just kinda giving yourself an edge when you're investing in the market. Um, and then, you know, on the opposite side you have, uh, the fundamental analysis, using media, using the news articles and all those things. Um, but I feel like technical analysis is definitely extremely important when you're investing, 'cause if you can't look at a chart and know when the good time to buy is based off of recent times and based off of where the last highs was and where it's at right now, it's gonna be very hard for you to know when you should be buying. But if you're just long-term investing, which I recommend to most people, is you just keep buying.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:29:02

       Yeah.

    8. DADontez Akram1:29:02

       When it dips, you put a little bit more in. When it's super high, maybe put a little less in, but it's in the middle, keep buying. And every single week, like I said, that's like a rule. Every Friday, if you get paid, tax yourself. You know what I mean? [laughs] Like, that's the, that's the best way to think about it. Like, when you get taxed every year, you pay them without thinking about it. So why is it, like, in, in, in the, in the book The Richest Man in Babylon, a portion of all that you make is yours to keep, right? So why not tax yourself so you can keep it for you and put it into something that'll grow? And that's how, like, I think of it. Every Friday if I get paid, taking a portion of what I make because that's mine to keep, and then I'm gonna go invest it so it can grow and bring back, you know, more money.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:29:38

       Yeah. You know, I'm so, I'm so glad that you gave the, the breakdown. Um, and it's interesting, like I, I said it earlier, it's completely true, this conversation could go on for hours.

    10. DADontez Akram1:29:48

        Yeah.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:29:48

        Like, there's so much, uh, when it comes to investing, and even when you were speaking 'cause you were talking about, uh, like price has memory and there's certain points where, like, if you look historically at something, it will get down to a certain price and it will bounce back up.

    12. DADontez Akram1:30:01

        Mm.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:30:01

        I'm assuming the reason why is you have different types of investors, right?

    14. DADontez Akram1:30:05

        Exactly.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:30:06

        Like, uh, a lot of the times we think about, like, retail investors, like everyday people that are on, like, Robinhood or whatever that are, like, uh, putting some money, but the majority of, like, the stock market and increasingly with crypto is now institutional investors-

    16. DADontez Akram1:30:21

        Exactly

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:30:21

        ... which are like these huge funds or pensions or, like, um, people that have billions, like, a ton of money.

    18. DADontez Akram1:30:29

        Mm.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:30:29

        And they're probably doing more of that quantitative analysis of, like, once it gets here, we're getting in, and so that will influence. Um, you know what? Here's

17. 1:30:40 – 1:34:00

    How to avoid loss on stocks.

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:30:40

       where I wanna go next. Um, man, painful lessons when it comes to crypto and investing.

    2. DADontez Akram1:30:47

       Boy, oh, boy, is it. [laughs]

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:30:48

       [laughs] You know what's funny? Um, and he's gonna hate me for mentioning this, but my older brother Um, and I think it happened about a year or two years ago-

    4. DADontez Akram1:30:57

       Mm

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:30:57

       ... a few years ago. Uh, so it's not as painful, but I know it's still painful to him.

    6. DADontez Akram1:31:01

       Mm.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:31:01

       He invested, I wanna say, he invested, um, like a significant amount of money for him-

    8. DADontez Akram1:31:07

       Mm

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:31:08

       ... in Luna.

    10. DADontez Akram1:31:09

        Mm.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:31:10

        And he was super bullish about it, and he was like, "This is it." And like he was, he had such high conviction. And the reason I bring it up, 'cause you mentioned stop losses, and like having that point where like, "If it gets below this number-

    12. DADontez Akram1:31:21

        Mm-hmm

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:31:22

        ... I'm out." And it's funny 'cause he was telling me about this recently. He was like, "It kept going down and down, and I didn't have that number of like when I would get out, and then it went basically to zero, and I lost everything."

    14. DADontez Akram1:31:34

        Exactly.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:31:35

        And so can you just reflect, I don't know what, like when I say painful losses from crypto or investing, like are there certain stories, moments that come to mind of like... 'Cause some of this shit you just have to learn the hard way.

    16. DADontez Akram1:31:48

        Yeah. Um, I'd say the, one of the ones that's the most painful is when, so and this is great 'cause we're talking about crypto, but it was when Coinbase IPO'd, right? And essentially when a company IPOs, they basically go into the stock market and you're now able to buy shares and, you know, do all that stuff, right? And I was so like into crypto, and I'm seeing every- And it's, you know, it's climbing. Bitcoin's getting to 20, 21. All this stuff. And Coinbase releases now to, now there's a platform or a broker that you can now go through, and it's regul- you know, uh, regulated to where now you can go in there and buy it and own it, and it's a US app, right? So I was so bullish on it. I'm like, "Bro, everything's gonna go through the roof," blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. Soon as they came out, put $15,000 in, and when they IPO'd, I think they IPO'd at like maybe $230, $250. And I think that because I never invested when a company IPOs, I learned a really big lesson. I always have to wait like at least a year to a year and a half before I invest into a company that is still fresh and new when they go into the market, um, because you don't know what will happen when it introduces itself to the market, right? So I thought that when I put 250 in, I'm thinking it's instantly going to 400 as soon as it goes live. Wrong, right? There was a bunch of news that came out. You know, their numbers weren't where they needed to be financially, and the market ends up pulling it back. It pulls down, down. Now I'm like, I'm looking, I think it was at like 240, and then in like in a few weeks it was like 130. But I didn't have any stop losses. So now my 15K just turned into basically 7,500, and then I just kept holding and holding and holding. And it's like, "Oh, I think it's gonna come back. I think it's gonna come back." Did not end up coming back. And then I was like, "Man," and I just realized I was like down, I was down like 12,000, which was the majority of the money. I said, "I'm gonna just cut my losses here." And then ho- lo and behold, I should've been holding longer, right?

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:33:33

        Yeah.

    18. DADontez Akram1:33:33

        That's why you gotta understand the companies you buy. If I kept holding it till today, I would probably just now be at break even or something like that, like close.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:33:40

        Yeah.

    20. DADontez Akram1:33:40

        Uh [laughs] but at least I would've had the 15,000 back-

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:33:42

        Yeah

    22. DADontez Akram1:33:42

        ... and I would be great right now. So yeah.

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:33:44

        Yeah. You know what's fu- Like with investing, it, it's weird because it teaches you a lot of stuff about like yourself.

    24. DADontez Akram1:33:51

        Yeah.

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:33:52

        Sometimes you're just like too quick to pull the trigger, or you weren't disciplined enough, you weren't patient enough, and it's like something in you.

18. 1:34:00 – 1:45:12

    How to keep your emotions in check.

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:34:00

       Um, like what's some of the development that you've just seen personally, like you've just felt it like as a man, like just moving through your life, just through like kind of mastering this, like-

    2. DADontez Akram1:34:11

       Yeah

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:34:11

       ... staying on your square with it?

    4. DADontez Akram1:34:13

       I think, bro, honestly, like I just, like you said, like everyone has this voice in their head that talks to them. And I realize like that voice, when I take action on something, it gets sporadic sometimes. Like, "Oh you, but this could happen, and this could happen, and this could happen." And it's like, what I've learned, to be honest, is just like to calm myself. When you make a decision, most people rush to the next thing, or they rush to want results and things. And it's just like, if I'm gonna make a decision, I have to be, I have to have enough due diligence to know why I made the decision in the first place, and to stick with it, and stick to my rules. And I think for me it's like FOMO is a huge thing, right? If you guys don't know what FOMO is, it's fear of missing out, right? And people get it so often. That's why so many people are asking, "Should I buy Bitcoin right now?" Or that's why people buy at the highs, because everyone's talking about it, right? And I had to really learn how to like, it's an urge. Like, "Oh, I wanna just do it. I wanna do what everyone else is doing. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone." Like there's an urge to do it, and I just realized like that urge, nine times out of 10, could possibly be a bad thing, right? And I had to learn how to suppress that and actually do my research to the point where I say, "That is just too high, too high for this. This, the price is just too high. I'll, I'll wait. I'll be patient. I'll... I'm okay with waiting. The asset's gonna be there. It's gonna still be the same exact company. Everything's gonna still be there. I just want it at a better price." And there's nothing wrong with an inve- as an investor to just say, "I'll wait and hold off. Like y'all can buy it right now," right?

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:35:39

       Mm.

    6. DADontez Akram1:35:39

       Like Bitcoin, I'm not putting majority, like I'm waiting for the next pullback, right? Once it hits 85 or 67 or 57, right? I'm waiting, and then that's when I'm putting the majority of my money in. But then there's certain amounts that I invest weekly, so I'm always sticking on top of, you know, my rules to consistently invest. But then when things pull back, that's when the majority of my capital, that's why it's there. It's sitting to the side waiting for the next opportunity for me to buy in. And it's essentially like you're rotating your money. It's like you buy when it's low, right? You're waiting and you're being patient. It gets high. It's too high. You sell, right? Now you have money on the sideline. You be patient. The market pulls back 'cause it always has a correction, right? What goes up must come down, right? And when it r- uh, when it has a correction, you go in and you snatch some up, right? And then you ride it back up, and then you sell, and then you... You know, it's a consistent cycle. Obviously, it's a little bit more complicated than just that, right? There's different stages that, uh, you know, a stock or the market could be in, um, which is why market cycles are so important, so you can go back and look at, you know, during certain quarters of the year, stocks tend to perform like this. Not saying it's gonna always perform like that, but based off of history, this is how it does. And it gives you a little bit, like I said, of an edge of knowing what to do and how you could go about it.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:36:47

       Mm. It gives you like a perspective.

    8. DADontez Akram1:36:48

       Exactly.

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:36:49

       Um, you know what? I, I really wanna, 'cause I think this is actually really powerful, because I've just noticed it, like this is our third conversation.

    10. DADontez Akram1:36:59

        Mm.

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:37:00

        And I think every time that we've spoken- You've had like a certain level of poise and like stoicism. Um, and I know even in previous conversations we've had, we've spoken about like 75 Hard or like, um, I don't even know if you meditate or anything like that.

    12. DADontez Akram1:37:14

        Yeah.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:37:14

        But I'm, I think one of the things that I'm realizing, and I'm 26, one of the most powerful things as a man is being poised, is being stoic, is having like ... being level-headed, being in control of your emotions.

    14. DADontez Akram1:37:26

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:37:27

        Um, and I think you do a great job of that. What are some of the habits, things that you do on a daily basis? 'Cause I don't believe anyone just comes out of the womb and they're just perfectly poised.

    16. DADontez Akram1:37:41

        Right.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:37:42

        It's a result of like their habits, of like their inputs, of what they're doing daily, consistently.

    18. DADontez Akram1:37:47

        Mm-hmm.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:37:48

        And so I'm curious for you, like if someone ... 'Cause I, I feel like people have felt that and I've felt that, of like feeling a bit sporadic-

    20. DADontez Akram1:37:55

        Right

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:37:55

        ... or all over the place in your thoughts and indecisive. And you can really get punished for that. Like that-

    22. DADontez Akram1:38:02

        Yeah

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:38:02

        ... has like real world results when you do that. And so I'm curious for you, like what habits, things that you do consistently allow you to stay poised?

    24. DADontez Akram1:38:12

        [sighs] I think for me personally, I think I view wealth differently. I view wealth as balance in all areas of life. Like, people think of wealthy as in a certain net worth or a certain amount of money. I think of wealth as in am I balanced in certain areas of my life, right? Can they all live and breathe under the same household, right, essentially. And for me personally, like the way that I look at it is like the things that I do is the first thing I do is I get up and I thank God. So my spirit comes first, right? Then, you know, I check up on my family 'cause they're my priority, right? So now that, that's the second thing. And then now there's time that I need to focus on myself, so I might meditate. I might sit down and turn my social media off, turn everything off so I can get time with myself to understand my thoughts and understand my emotions. That's a really hard thing to do as a man. When you grew up as a Black man and everyone always tells you, "Stop crying," don't, don't like, "Don't tell nobody how you feel," da, da, da, all these things, and it just becomes a habit now to where you don't talk about how you feel or you don't tell people how you feel. And there's times where that really fucks us up, like just to be completely honest. There's times where you need an outlet, right? Um, so like I go to the gym consistently. I talk to friends who have, um, or they talk at a higher frequency, right? So I don't ... Like I hate when people call me with negative stuff. Like don't call me with that. I don't ... Like as much as we're friends, I, you gotta take into consideration I have so much stuff going on, I don't wanna hear any negativity. I wanna hear how you're thriving. I wanna be able to, when you call me, I wanna be able to congratulate you on something. 'Cause that's one of my favorite things, like I, I reach out to my friends and I consistently check up on them even though they may not do the same for me. It's just that's just, that's just who I am, right? Or if something good happens to a friend, um, I'm not the type of person to just be like silently clapping for them. I'm like, "Hey, yo, that's my boy. Yo, like he, he killing that shit."

    25. CJCalum Johnson1:39:59

        Yeah.

    26. DADontez Akram1:39:59

        Like, I fuck with this, right? And I think for me it's just like really consistently being humbled in the gym. You know what I mean? Knowing that, you know, I reach certain limits and I'm like, "Fuck, I can't break past this wall," but I can, I just gotta be consistent. That helps with all other areas of my life. Um, I think my relationship with, with my girlfriend as well helps a lot because, um, I realize that there's a certain type of man that I wanna be. Um, and to be that man, it requires me having, um, the knowledge and the, and the patience to have a, a strong woman next to me. 'Cause she's thriving. She's doing her own thing. She's not like most women. She's like a high net worth individual. She's doing a lot of things that, you know, most women just don't do. Um, so it ... Like some men, they get scared of that or they may like get offended by it, and I, I embrace it.

    27. CJCalum Johnson1:40:43

        Like intimidated.

    28. DADontez Akram1:40:43

        Yeah, like they get intimidated by it. I'm like, I love it, you know what I mean?

    29. CJCalum Johnson1:40:46

        Yeah.

    30. DADontez Akram1:40:46

        And that's where just being able to view the world differently, man. Like I have to redefine everything, what is important to me, how do I view wealth, how do I d- view certain key words. So that's why like I feel like when people say, "Well, man, you're a great teacher. You can just explain things in such a simple way," it's just like I understand it in my own perspective and I just feel like if I tell it in my perspective, some people may understand. I don't expect everyone to understand, but at least for the people that I'm trying to help, they may understand it, and I feel like that's my way of giving, giving to people. So you know, consistently hitting the gym, uh, reading, watching a ton of YouTube videos. I've really transitioned to like watching more YouTube videos than just reading now, um, 'cause it's just easier for me to remember it now. Um, and then balance just not being on social media all the time, spending time with family. Um, a- and it's a very difficult thing when you have multiple businesses, employees, and you got a, a bunch of stuff to handle. Uh, but essentially it's something worth understanding and, and going through the trial and error to be able to be really good at it. So I ... It's a worth it trade-off for me.
19. 1:45:12 – 1:50:00

    “Stick to your script!”

    1. CJCalum Johnson1:45:13

       In the beginning of the conversation, I read out a tweet that you had on your account. You said, "When my daughter was 9 to 10 months, we'd been sleeping on a twin-sized bed on the floor for almost a year. In this picture, my daughter is five and now she has her own room in a gated community with a five-figure net worth. A lot can change in a few years when you sacrifice and hustle for something that's bigger than you. She grew with me." And so even me just reading that back out to you, and we've spoken about your journey in investing and your personal journey, everything that you've gone through, what is the meaning to you at this point that you can even write something like that? "She has her own room in a gated community with a five-figure net worth. She grew with me."

    2. DADontez Akram1:46:04

       Mm-hmm. Hmm. I think for me the meaning of it is stick to your script. You know? Like, there's only one lane you can be in at one time, right? At any given moment, you can only be in one lane. And when you stick to what you have ordained for yourself and you, you know, whatever you believe in, higher being, God, Allah, you know, Buddha, whatever it is, right? Um, when you learn how to stick to your script and your storyline, you start realizing that there's so much power in my story. Like, people resonate with me because I have a story, because I did go through sacrifices. I, I w- I did, I wasn't born with money. I was broke at a lot of points in my life and my family didn't have it, and I seen a lot of stuff that most people shouldn't see, right? But that's my story, and there's a superpower when you just take power or take ownership of your story and you build depth. I know we talked about that. Um, but in order to, like, grow on social media and grow in life, you gotta understand that there is levels and depth to you. It's not just the outer layer. There's all these inner layers that define each other, and that's why it grows outward. And I think to me, that whole thing and just looking back at it now at 25 and just realizing this is, like, I did stick to my script.

    3. CJCalum Johnson1:47:22

       Mm-hmm.

    4. DADontez Akram1:47:23

       You know? And it's like, my script isn't over yet, you know? I, I feel like for me, I'm just getting started.

    5. CJCalum Johnson1:47:28

       Yeah.

    6. DADontez Akram1:47:28

       You know what I mean? And it's, it's a, it's a, a lot of fun, but the message that I would give to people is [sighs] never get too high off your highs and never get too low off of your lows. And what I mean by that is, like you said, it's a marathon, right? But you can't expect to always be on a high. You've gotta, like ... In order to know what a high feels like, you have to have been low. So you gotta appreciate every moment, because they're constantly cycling out. And God put us here to test us in all areas of your life. How, how do you balance this? How do you deal with this? When I put you in this situ- situation, how do you deal with it? And I think to me it's like when you stick to your script, and, and the first way you do that is by writing one first, having your goals and how you see yourself and what you want for yourself and how you want your family to view you and how you want your kids to view you, and their kids. When you start understanding that, you have this, this script now, this foundation, and if it doesn't abide by this script, it does not matter to me. And when you stick to your rules and you give yourself rules and y- you're disciplined enough to stick to them, you'll start seeing the fruits of your labor later in, down the line.

    7. CJCalum Johnson1:48:34

       Mm-hmm. Tez, man, my brother, I'm so, uh, I'm grateful that you came on. And, um, [smacks lips] it's cool. We have a little thing going now. Like-

    8. DADontez Akram1:48:43

       Yeah

    9. CJCalum Johnson1:48:44

       ... we, we have these conversations, and I feel like every one, uh, builds on the other one and they, you can feel the development and, like, the growth. Um, and yeah, man, just congrats to you, man, on-

    10. DADontez Akram1:48:55

        Thank you

    11. CJCalum Johnson1:48:55

        ... everything that you're building, everything that you're doing. I'm sure we'll have future conversations.

    12. DADontez Akram1:49:00

        Absolutely.

    13. CJCalum Johnson1:49:01

        Um, but yeah, man, it's just a vibe every time that we link up, so-

    14. DADontez Akram1:49:04

        Absolutely. Yeah

    15. CJCalum Johnson1:49:05

        ... it's been a pleasure.

    16. DADontez Akram1:49:06

        Thank you so much again, bro. And, uh, if you guys haven't already, go hit the subscribe button. He's the best podcast in my personal opinion.

    17. CJCalum Johnson1:49:13

        Thank you.

    18. DADontez Akram1:49:13

        Like, the one that I can literally sit down and watch for hours and hours and hours. And I just wanna tell y'all, like, you are doing a phenomenal job, bro. You know what I mean? And just everything that you're doing and, you know, how you word your questions, the poise, you know, and, like, being able to be patient, you know what I mean? I feel like that's something that's important for anyone in your level, uh, at your level and where you've came from, you know? I think that's an important skill set to have. So I just wanna say thank you for the opportunity. Um, I hope you guys enjoyed the episode and some of the words and knowledge that I put out, and I just pray that y'all watch this video and, and decide to change your perception of how you look at yourself. 'Cause you can always bet on yourself, but the only time that's the bad time to invest in yourself or bet on yourself is when you doubt yourself.

    19. CJCalum Johnson1:49:53

        Mm-hmm.

    20. DADontez Akram1:49:53

        So just don't doubt yourself.

    21. CJCalum Johnson1:49:55

        Powerful, man. Thank you so much, brother.

    22. DADontez Akram1:49:57

        Absolutely. Like-

    23. CJCalum Johnson1:49:57

        Damn, bro. That is crazy. I love that

Episode duration: 1:50:00