Tales of Abundance

Election Fears? Nobody’s Coming to Save You

Election Fears? Nobody's Coming to Save You, Tales of Abundance Episode 99 thumbnail

Episode 99 · November 11, 2026 · 51 min

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Election Fears? Nobody’s Coming to Save You

Half the country feels vindicated. Half feels crushed. Same election.

In Episode 99 of Tales of Abundance, Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg, and Anthony Marino open with George Washington handing over power—and the Winklevoss twins taking Facebook stock instead of all cash after their settlement with Mark Zuckerberg. The real question isn’t who won. It’s what you do when something unexpected lands in your lap.

They get into gratitude as a skill you practice (John started at 19), why a 26-year-old scared of AI and locked out of housing needs mentors more than slogans, and Anthony’s line that sticks: nobody’s coming to save you. Randy follows where the money is going—AI and power—because data-center demand isn’t waiting on the election. Anthony flips the five Fs so finance stops crushing faith, family, fitness, and fun. Randy’s gut-check at the end: would a broke 30-year-old really trade places with a 99-year-old Warren Buffett?

Then, in the Abundance Briefing, the hosts break down Nvidia’s board opening an independent investigation after news about Jensen Huang; NASA naming eight companies in a $10 billion lunar-delivery framework; MORFO drones seeding a hectare near Belém; and three Gen Z stories—Kimi Antonelli as F1’s youngest world champion, Blades Brown as the youngest PGA Tour winner in 95 years, and Lamine Yamal on Spain’s world stage.

What You Control After an Election, Gratitude & the Abundance Briefing

What you’ll discover:

  • Unexpected change, then a clear-headed choice: Washington’s peaceful handoff of power, and why the Winklevoss twins’ decision to take Facebook stock (not all cash) still matters for how you handle a loss
  • Gratitude as a practiced skill: John’s path from age 19, and how to find it when you feel stuck
  • Nobody’s coming to save you: Mentors for a 26-year-old facing AI job fear and locked-out housing—personal responsibility without dismissing real stakes
  • Follow the capital: Why AI, power, and data centers aren’t waiting on election outcomes
  • The other four Fs: Keeping faith, family, fitness, and fun from being crushed by finance
  • Abundance Briefing: Nvidia board review, NASA’s $10B moon-cargo race, Amazon seed-bomb drones, and three Gen Z champions (F1, PGA, soccer)

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Washington, the Winklevoss story & unexpected change
  • [01:31] Anthony's early-90s Arizona job that looked perfect
  • [02:40] John's gratitude skill set
  • [03:37] Election whiplash, grocery bills & outsider votes
  • [06:27] Control what you can—empathy and how you speak
  • [09:10] The 26-year-old, AI job fear & building skill sets
  • [11:44] Finding gratitude when you're stuck
  • [14:29] Mentorship, community & personal responsibility
  • [16:49] What actually changes after an election?
  • [20:18] Follow the capital: AI, power & data centers
  • [22:58] The other four Fs—abundance you still control
  • [26:06] "What if it does go bad?" & human resilience
  • [29:27] Would you trade places with Warren Buffett?
  • [30:20] Closing takeaways before the break
  • [31:18] Sponsor: micro1
  • [33:13] Abundance Briefing: Nvidia, Jensen & the board
  • [40:22] A $10 billion race to haul cargo to the moon
  • [45:00] Drones replanting the Amazon, one seed bomb at a time
  • [46:28] Under 21 and already champions (F1, PGA, soccer)
  • [49:43] Outro—spread a little abundance
  • [50:03] AG1 Sponsor Read

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest. Randy Lorensen is an entrepreneur whose work runs from direct sales to bringing AI into traditional industries, including Premium Cabinets. Dr. John Oberg is a healthcare entrepreneur behind ventures such as Sedera and Precina Health. Anthony Marino spent 30+ years as a C-suite operations executive and grew a Pella distributorship from under $1M to $30M in sales.

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Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Disclaimer: This episode is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, legal, political, or medical advice. Discussions of elections, personal agency, AI, data centers, Nvidia, NASA, sports, and health experiences reflect the hosts’ personal opinions and publicly reported research. The show does not endorse any political party or candidate. Always do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making financial or medical decisions.

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It comes from the final edited episode recording (runtime 50:59; AG1 sponsor read appended after the spoken outro) and includes speaker labels and verified timestamps. Re-verify against the published RSS MP3 after Wed Nov 11 5:00 AM CT launch.

Dr. John Oberg (00:00) I think the world was surprised when George Washington handed over power peacefully in the early part of the United States history. And then we watched several different political battles happen throughout our entire time. Even recently, I think there were people that felt vindicated and upset by the recent election. This is no different than when someone loses a job unexpectedly, or perhaps more classically, when the Winklevoss twins alleged that Mark Zuckerberg had stolen their company and were very upset by this and then won a lawsuit and didn't just take the cash, but against the advice of counsel, decided to ask him for stock in the thing that they were kicked out of.

Dr. John Oberg (00:38) It's an amazing tale of how different people handle change, both expected and unexpected, differently. Randy, Anthony, welcome back to the show today, episode 99. Tell me about a time when you had something very unexpected, good or bad, happen in your life. And then later on when you look back it turned out differently than you ever thought it might.

Anthony Marino (00:59) Good, Randy, you first.

Randy Lorensen (01:01) It looked like you were ready to go. It happens all the time, things sometimes for good or bad. Sometimes we think, Oh, this is the greatest idea. And I have, I've had a lot of business ideas that didn't work or didn't work the way I wanted them to. And, that's part of the process. Changes coming whether we like it or not.

Dr. John Oberg (01:19) Yeah. I think that's the only thing that doesn't change is the fact that change is coming, I said to someone recently, it's never as bad as you think, it's ever as good as you think, and it's going to change. Anthony, what about you?

Anthony Marino (01:30) You know, I think back to a time in the early nineties where I was in a pretty good position at a company and it got off and basically double the salary required me to move from the East Coast to Arizona and it was it was a big job and a lot of prestige with it and so forth. And I was young and I didn't look forward enough. I didn't think about well, what's the possible downsides of this? I just looked at the upside, and it turned out to be a really bad decision because it was built on a very weak foundation, and there was to end up having to leave that company.

Anthony Marino (02:11) But because of the prestige associated with that job, I was recruited to Sears for an even bigger role. So in the face of adversity, I had a little time to think through things and but I was sought out. I didn't even though that that bad thing happened, I was sought out by somebody to bring me to a really terrific role that has led to a A lot of good things in my life.

Dr. John Oberg (02:40) So you know, I was talking to kids this weekend and one of them was talking about some of the hardships of being 20 something. And they asked if I had gone through those hardships. And of course, I think most 20 somethings go through tough times. And I reflected on that conversation later in the weekend and thought, for all the things I did, gratitude has been a really important skill set for me to learn about. And I think for me, the gratitude has led to more abundance or at least perception of abundance for me. And that was something that was a skill set that I had to actively seek out.

Dr. John Oberg (03:12) For me it was I read a whole bunch of self improvement books and I went through Tony Robbins courses, which I think very highly of. And but I really tried to figure out what I could do about things and I went and then tried to develop that skill set and looking back on it, I don't think I was always as grateful as I could have been and certainly even today I want to develop more gratitude in my life. But that's been a really big skill set for me that's helped me to develop abundance.

Randy Lorensen (03:37) Yeah, we had a discussion with another group of guys last week about the election. And, I think a couple of days after the election, some people were ecstatic, some people were really down. But regardless, it's a point of change. And I think at the time my attitude and my first impression was more like, well, it's another election, who cares? We can't vote our way out of it. And just move on. Government doesn't have that big of an impact anyway. And as I've thought about it since then, I thought, my God, I'm pretty wrong about really wrong about that. Government has actually had a huge impact in my life, And different things that I played poker for a living and they made it illegal two different times.

Randy Lorensen (04:16) Like primarily when I played on, party poker, all of a sudden party poker was run out of the country. And unsuspected. Nobody saw it coming. It was just something added to port security bill. And then everybody adapted and five years later they made another thing to run even the other companies out. A couple of them went away with a bunch of my money on the site. And I don't know what I could have done about that. Those are examples. But it's something as simple as people are upset right now, and I just I have a lot of empathy for people that Are having troubles going to the grocery store, Or paying rent, or kids that can't buy a house.

Randy Lorensen (04:53) And what I see is that people want change. They see there's a problem. And every election, people are just desperately wanting change. We flip back and forth and they vote for whoever the biggest outsider is. And I really was thinking about this. You go back to Carter, Carter was an outsider. Then Reagan, how much more outsider can you get than a Hollywood actor? And Clinton certainly, with the exception of the Bushes, everybody else, Clinton and Obama and Trump, again, all outsiders. And people just keep voting. And I was even thinking, You know, this isn't a Republican or Democrat thing. Within the Democratic Party, every they thought they were going to elect Hillary, and all of a sudden this guy Obama came along.

Randy Lorensen (05:38) That wasn't the plan. He was the outsider. And then Bernie Sanders was winning and they just had a weird thing that they kind of didn't let Bernie win two times in a row. Like people keep asking for change. Now, I think that's because the money's broken and I know it's shocking to you guys it'll come back to Bitcoin, but we have broken money. We talked about this a few weeks ago, and people don't know what's wrong, but they know that when they go to the grocery store that it's more expensive, and when they get their electric bill and when they pay their medical bill and they get gas.

Randy Lorensen (06:09) And people want change. To me, the big question becomes how do you thrive in that, How do you take that and really take it and turn it into a positive and use the current circumstances to your advantage? Because there are people that will maximize this and take advantage of it.

Anthony Marino (06:27) Well, that's the old adage, you should really only worry about things that you can control. And if if you think about the, why all those wild changes happen, whether it was Roosevelt, Carter, Reagan, Obama and so forth, it really came down to something that we all control. It's the way you communicate with your audience and how you speak to them and being conscious of where they are when you talk to them. In so many cases, with bosses we've had, companies that could have done much better than they did, they didn't communicate with their consumer in a way that resonated with that consumer and where the consumer felt, well, they understand me.

Anthony Marino (07:10) Certainly in this last election, that it's the perfect example of it, as it was in the previous exam election when Biden lost not Biden, when Hillary lost to Trump the first time. Did you know in that election, the Republican vote was exactly the same number of votes, 60 million votes, voted Republican for Trump in 2016 as voted for Bush, as voted for the previous Bush and so forth. Same number voted Republican in the Obama elections. Hillary didn't bring any additional Democrats to the table, and that's why she lost. Why did she why? We all know the way she communicated, entitled, called people, whatever she called them, and so forth.

Anthony Marino (08:01) And this happens in your personal life, where relationships go south, where friendships don't develop. So it's to me, it's all about what you say and how you say it, and have an empathy for the audience. So I think that's something that you control and you can create abundance by handling that correctly.

Dr. John Oberg (08:23) I think that for me at least, gratitude has made it easier to communicate because I'm looking at the world through that lens of gratitude. So I think at least for me, it's like I'm not well, I control my thoughts and my actions. I talk to people about this all the time. That's all you control, your thoughts and your actions. And when I recognize that and then someone, I'm sure this is, hundreds of years old that someone said this, but when I heard it it made so much sense. It's that, grateful people are looking at the things they have and they're appreciative of that. And when you lack gratitude, you generally look at what you don't have and you focus on that.

Dr. John Oberg (08:55) And so for me that's been really useful, because I look at what I have and I'm grateful for that and then I think about where I want to be and I can work backwards, if I say, Hey, in 10 years I want to have these opportunities, what do I need to be doing today to make that real? And that really helps me to

Anthony Marino (09:10) How does that I hear that it's sweet in a lot of ways and the fact that you're so mature that you can do that. But put yourself in the shoes of that 26 year old that Randy was talking about, who fears losing their job because of AI or can't get an entry level role. John, you know this better than anybody. Your boys are having a difficult time getting even service level jobs, very difficult. Where are they going to reach out and get gratitude?

Dr. John Oberg (09:39) What what I think again, I started this process when I was 19 years old. And so I don't sure I it's true that I do it today, but I started that process at 19 and it's like, okay, well what skill sets do I want to have? And then develop those skillsets? And so it's like if you want to beat a place in 10 years, what skill sets does that job set require? And I encourage people, my family and others too, people I work with, it's like if you think you want to be that direction Maybe you don't know exactly the job you want to have or exactly where you want to be, but you can at least start to identify the gaps between that general direction where you are today and say, What's the thing I can develop today?

Dr. John Oberg (10:14) Where people get in trouble is, trying to be a CEO when they're 19 years old and talking about myself now. It's like I wasn't ready to be a CEO at 19, But I recognize that I needed to learn about something more than just, the job that I was in. I had to learn about finance. I had to learn about other things. And how was I going to gain those skills if I wanted to be a CEO? If I wanted to be great, if I want to be good at pickleball, one of the things I realized now is I do well by taking lessons with people. And then I've sworn off singles pickleball because I just can't make it work, But I want to learn, and pickleball and table tennis work well together.

Dr. John Oberg (10:44) So I've sworn off pedal. I've sworn off racquetball, things that I they're going to get me hurt. For me, And so I think it's about limiting the things I don't want to spend my time and energy on and then developing the skills that I do want to spend my time and energy on. A lot of my contemporaries aren't taking time every single day to learn about AI. I am, because that's the world that I like, I enjoy being in.

Randy Lorensen (11:05) Well

Anthony Marino (11:06) That's good advice. It Makes all the sense. It makes all the sense the world. I put myself in the position, like you said, when I was 19 years old, 22 years old, 27, I wasn't I certainly wasn't thinking in those ways. I was reaching for whatever I was reaching for. And one of the things that had inhibited me was the way I was communicating in those environments.

Anthony Marino (11:28) It wasn't I wasn't thinking about developing mentors and understanding it coming to grips with what my skills really were. It was more about what I wanted. And I think that's a problem. That was a problem for me.

Randy Lorensen (11:43) But I think, the Anthony, back to your original question that I don't know if we really answered, was how does that 26 year old find gratitude, there's gratitude exercises. It could be as simple, John's got a great journal that talks about gratitude. It could be writing it down, it could be thinking about it when you're in the shower. It could be meditating, I love the Tony Robbins priming exercise, is maybe the best thing I've seen from it. There's Tools and things people can do. And I would also argue that right now it's rough for 26 year olds trying to buy a house. I have a kid that just finally got a job.

Randy Lorensen (11:43) It was a fricking trek once he graduated college. Took six months to get a job. And, he was resume after resume and interview after interview. It's tough right now. I get it. But I also think kids naturally are more enthusiastic, more positive, have in a way more gratitude, when they're young. I think that gets beat out of people as they get older and some of the realities of life come. For some people, this election is one of those things. For some people, it's the job they got fired from or, there's or a divorce. There's lots of things that come in. But there's also tried, true, proven.

Randy Lorensen (12:53) I'm sure I forgot 50 different ways that people can build that muscle. Just like going to the gym. If you want to get stronger, you got to build the muscle. And

Anthony Marino (13:03) This may really be a good time. This may be a really good time for those kids because they're battling. I had a boss one time say to me, talking about who to hire, he said, I always look for people who've been touched with a little bit of tragedy.

Anthony Marino (13:19) I don't want the silver spoon kid, they haven't been touched with trash. I want someone who's been touched with something difficult in their life. It doesn't have to be anything specific, but they've battled through something. And what you're talking about with these current kids and your kids, they're fighting hard. This is going to help them in the long run, I think. It's got, it is going to build muscle. It is going to make them tough. It couldn't be rougher. It's very similar to the late seventies when I graduated college. It was a 14% % unemployment rate. I was a rag salesman selling rags to auto body shops.

Anthony Marino (13:53) That was the only job I could get getting out of college with a honors graduate from a good school. That was it.

Dr. John Oberg (13:59) Hold on.

Randy Lorensen (13:59) Hold on, you said you graduated

Dr. John Oberg (14:01) With honors?

Anthony Marino (14:04) Yeah, I did. It was the first honor roll I went to school for 16 years before I went on to graduate school and it was the first honor roll I ever made. Was the day they announced my diploma at Boston University and they said Anthony Marino, cum laude. I thought they were talking about someone else.

Randy Lorensen (14:20) See when they see when people get mad cause AI makes mistakes? Clearly there was a clerical here, here that people just disregarded.

Anthony Marino (14:27) That is not true.

Dr. John Oberg (14:28) I think when I think about the gratitude thing, there's the personal skill of gratitude. And the other thing that we just brushed over was the idea of this mentorship and community. Like people someone said you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Most people spend most of their time at work. And so finding someone who is a good boss to work for, good coworkers to have. And if in the absence of those things, putting yourself into social settings where you do want to be the sum of the five people you spend the most time with is I think very important. And the more deliberate that people can be

Randy Lorensen (15:03) Yeah, I want to go back to Anthony said something earlier about taking personal responsibility and we went a lot of ways from there. And I think that's really important, whether it's these again, anybody any age, but we're talking about the But young twenties kid getting out of college. Nobody's coming to save you. And I think, we're taking it back to the election, a lot of people are voting thinking the government's coming to save them. And I got news. I don't care if it's Republicans or Democrats. They're not coming. You have to do this yourself. And whether it's finding a mentor, it's building AI skills, it's gratitude.

Randy Lorensen (15:40) I whatever muscles you got to build, you have to build them because they're not building the muscle for you.

Randy Lorensen (15:46) And I think these kids need to hear that because I don't think that's what they've been sold. I think in a lot of this is whether it's our fault or what generation or teachers or society, but it was go to school, get these grades, get into this college, get out, and this amazing job is going to be waiting for you and you can have everything you always wanted.

Randy Lorensen (16:03) And that's just not the system that we have today.

Anthony Marino (16:09) Yeah, times are different. That We live in echo chambers now. In the seventies and early nineties. You were in a lived in a vacuum. You didn't know what the hell was going on around you. It was a one at a time thing. Okay, I'm going to go down, I'm going to this interview. I don't know much about this company. How do I research it? Oh, I got to go to the library and read up Barnet Go pull micro fish to look at the financials and so on and so forth. Now it's like you're standing at the end of a wind tunnel and people are throwing confetti at and you don't even know, going crazy trying to pick off what's important, what is it important, what's real, what's AI.

Anthony Marino (16:42) I couldn't imagine living in having to deal with that as a young kid. I don't know, it would have been too much for me to handle.

Randy Lorensen (16:49) Can we talk about since we started out with the election, And how to deal with it? Again, I don't care if you're excited, you're you think this is the greatest thing that happened or you think this is the worst thing that can happen, what's going to change? What are people afraid is going to change and where's the opportunity in that, Because there's going to be opportunity with whatever. And, what are the abundance blockers? What are the pitfalls? What is there a place you shouldn't put your money, for example, or whatever? I mean, what do you guys think is gonna change? Maybe you guys don't think anything's gonna change.

Randy Lorensen (17:21) Maybe the better question is what are people afraid is gonna change or excited is gonna change?

Anthony Marino (17:24) Well, nothing's going to change overnight. That's the big thing. If there will be changes in place that will take effect later on down the road, okay? Whether it's regulation of some sort, it could be a regulation across lots of different things. There will be change that has an impact down the road. But you don't control it. Some only one time taught me if you're trying if you're dealing with your finances, so let's talk about the first F, the finance F, follow the capital. In other words, where are people investing money? Not your money, but where are banks lending money? Where are people raising money and for what?

Anthony Marino (18:09) If you follow that capital, you will find abundance. The simple example is. In the early 2000s, late 90s and early 2000 when capital went to China. Capital went to China to create manufacturing plants where goods and services could be manufactured at a lower cost to be set back. If with many of my See you next week! College friends and grad school, they did that. They followed the Capitol. One guy went and built buses in China. Another guy did Yeah. Not manufacturing specifically, but a lot of IT work there, engineering IT.

Anthony Marino (18:54) Follow the capital and that's where the riches will be made, if you will. So that would be my financial advice to somebody.

Randy Lorensen (19:03) John?

Dr. John Oberg (19:04) I think the thing to pay attention to today is just the timeline and the speed with which things are happening. And so I think I don't certainly I agree with Anthony, but I think in today's day and age where everything is speeding up and going faster and there's so much more information and so many more vectors of communication. I think having time for relationship is really, really important. And, as an example, we're recording this on a Monday morning and my first call was scheduled a little later today, 10 o 'clock for me. And my wife said, Hey, do you want to grab bagels this morning? And I was like, you know what?

Dr. John Oberg (19:35) Let's do that. She works on the West Coast time zone from the central time zone area. And we just pumped it out for 30 minutes and grabbed the bagel real quick. Very unusual for a Monday morning, but a great way to kind of just slow things down for a minute and not get sucked into the rat race. And so I think having little moments like that. And I recognize we have to work, we have to earn money to pay the bills and all those things. And I get all of that. But for me, I've been sucked into a hundred hour work weeks for a part of my early part of my career.

Dr. John Oberg (20:02) And so taking the time to develop the relationships, I think is the longest longest time, biggest return people can make when investing their time. But understanding how to balance that with the requirements of, adult living is important.

Randy Lorensen (20:17) I love that. I think that's great. I I Anthony's talking about follow the capital, and it makes me think, where is the capital? Right now, that a lot of the capital's going in AI, And now the question is if you live in Texas has had a lot of the data centers and a lot of the growth, the fear is that the new governor is going to stop that. I don't know if she is or she isn't. I think it's too early to tell, and a lot changes when they get in office. But if she stops it. Okay, it goes to another state, probably. There's a way to follow the money, If you're if you're an electrician or you're an investor or whatever, where can you go?

Randy Lorensen (20:51) And if it's enough states, does it go to Canada? Does it go to Mexico? Does it go to Panama? Does it go to China, or Russia? Somewhere there's it's going to go to the power. Like this demand for AI is not going away. My the more I use it, the more I use it. And my token usage just goes up and up and up, and I can't be the only person. And there's still a very small percentage of people. It's interesting. They're worried about the data centers. But we don't have enough chips. We don't have enough power. We don't have enough. And so how do you follow that, I don't know that I have all the answers, but if you know where those are going to be, that's where the opportunity is.

Randy Lorensen (21:30) And if you're following the money. And John's thing about relationships is a much better point, but I do think that's follow the where is that gonna go? Because they're not gonna stop. If they have to go to space or the bottom of the ocean, they're gonna do that. It's just going to keep growing.

Dr. John Oberg (21:47) I think one thing to understand though is that in alt, whether it's the relationships, the money, the friends, the family, all of it, I think in any case you can choose to be deliberate or you can choose to get caught in the current. And not choosing at all is choosing to be swept away with whatever the current happens to take you. And so my guidance to people who I work with is like just recognize that even not making a choice is a choice.

Randy Lorensen (22:09) I was just thinking, there was a point where Julie and I were really looking at moving to Panama. And I was, um, disgusted, not by Republicans or Democrats, but just by the system and the broken money. But, and for me it was about freedom. And I really I had internal conflicts. Julie and I, I had discussions with other people. What's more American to stay and fight? For what the Founding Fathers built, or go to a place that's closer to what the Founding Fathers built, and I think both the conclusion I came to it. I respect both. The Founding Fathers came here because they were in search of opportunity and freedom.

Randy Lorensen (22:43) And great. They did what was best for their families. And other people want to stay and fight. And I think, I think both are cool, but you also got to just play the game by the rules Or If you're going to, if you're here, you got to play the rule by these are the current rules.

Anthony Marino (22:58) So I have some good news. That maybe uplift this discussion. So far we've talked about a lot about politics and finances and how does it affect our financial lives and so forth. But we have four other F's. And in the spirit of what I have what I I can control abundance in those other F's without much interference from anybody. Certainly as it relates to fitness, We want to be if you want to be fit, if you want to change your lifestyle, lose weight, run a marathon, walk across the country, or walk across the world like some guy walked 31,000 miles. I don't know how the hell he did it, nonetheless.

Anthony Marino (23:40) You can control that. No nothing really stands in your way. You can eat you can exercise, you can, not sit in front of the TV, you can read a book. To improve your mental fitness. So you have control about that. So I think that's a really positive thing. I don't know, how do you guys feel about that and the other four apps like family and friends and fun. What do you think?

Randy Lorensen (24:02) I'm so proud of you. No, this Anthony is. I love it. I mean I'm I just I can't even believe you're the one routing us here. I'm so proud of really like I'd. I don't know if being a grand grandparent or something has brought this up. So I think that's very wise. Very I mean I think it's great advice, And it comes back to what you were talking about earlier with what can we control. Right? So what do we focus on.

Anthony Marino (24:26) Certainly a family. I know, we're all family people. We love our families. Sometimes we don't like them, but we always love them, because that's who they are. And what's standing in your way? Now take the money out of the equation, but what's standing in your way to developing a relationship with people and having conversations with them about whatever you want to have a conversation about? I had my daughter in law, last time she was here, she said something that really, really was emotional after she said it. I didn't let her see that, of course. But she said, every time I I'm with you, I learned something.

Anthony Marino (25:01) And I think in one way she was being complimentary, in other ways I think she was, I'm saying, Sometimes I learned some things I don't really want to learn. But nonetheless, it's an opportunity to, with family to spend time with them, just talk to them, enjoy their company. Hear where they're coming from, what are they going through. Again, nothing that happened last week, last month, last year, or anything that's going to happen tomorrow can stop you from creating abundance with your family. So

Dr. John Oberg (25:29) Yeah, I think for me I had to really learn about developing relationships because I didn't do it that well for a long time. And so for me the big breakthrough is understanding that I didn't have to like use trial and error. There were ways I could actually deliberately learn about each of the five F's and not have to like just figure it out on my own because that seemed too overwhelming to me. And so once I learned that that I could, there was a shortcut by whether it was reading books or making friends or finding mentors, it was all far more rewarding and less stressful when I kind of leaned into that and didn't try and do it all on my own.

Dr. John Oberg (26:01) That was really helpful to me.

Randy Lorensen (26:06) Yeah, I I think a great question. I think I heard this on Tim Ferriss once It's just asking, what if it does go bad, and and it's really freeing. Look, I don't want a civil war and I have some friends that were getting fitted for bulletproof vests the other day. I thought that was a little over the top, I didn't know you needed to really be fitted, but there's people that are really upset, Just like there were people two years ago and for every election. There's a group of people that are really upset. But it it's just the society doesn't really collapse. If you think about even the places where things have really broken, I talk a lot about Venezuela and Zimbabwe and Argentina and Greece went broke not that long ago.

Randy Lorensen (26:06) And these places, if you go back to the Weimar Republic and having hyperinflation and different places after wars. Life still goes on, The people in Argentina are still there, the power plants are still there, the roads are still there, the cattle still roam the fields.

Randy Lorensen (27:06) And even if the word, even if we did have what I fear from broken money and all that, the thing I probably don't talk about enough is that society goes on, We don't,

Anthony Marino (27:18) Yeah.

Randy Lorensen (27:19) We just farmers still farm. The sun still shines. The rain still rains. We just life still goes on. It's just a little bit harder for awhile. And every for thousands and thousands of years humans have dealt with this. We're resilient as hell. And we'll get through it.

Anthony Marino (27:35) Yeah, I think that's a great point. I have a picture of a scale in my head with, on two sides, and we put so much weight on the finances over here, and it weighs it down. And on the other side of the other four F's, and - we don't think about those enough. We think of them in isolation, as they happen when a holiday comes around, or you get on the scale and you're a couple pounds heavier than you want to be. Every seems like most of our minutes of every day are spent worrying about the financial part and we forget this other part and what we're all about is creating abundance across the board.

Anthony Marino (28:14) And in my opinion, if you're healthy, you've got a good family life, you got a you're working on your friends and you're having a little bit of fun, those things are going to help with the finances. Because you're going to be in the right frame of mind, you're going to be positive, you're going to be social, you're going to run into you're going to meet someone in the gym that's got a new business idea or a friend that you could help achieve something. And so I certainly don't do a really good job in the other four. I'm doing better in my old age than I did.

Anthony Marino (28:48) Sure as hell didn't do it when I was in my twenties, thirties, and forties, that's for sure. It was all about the finances, which was if you got anyone listening has one takeaway, step back. And as a friend Christian says, put yourself above yourself and look down on yourself and recreate the balance. It'll be very, very helpful in terms of how you feel every day when you wake up in the morning and go to bed at night. So

Randy Lorensen (29:16) I think that's a great point. I think to give it perspective, because I think most people when they hear that, they go, Well, that's easy for you to say, and you went to Italy and you're going here and John's going to Antarctica, you're living you're living this life. But, I would ask anybody if you could trade places with, say, Warren Buffett, would you do it? Right. If you're 90 and broke, I'm sure you would change places with Warren Buffett. But if you're 30 years old, how old's Buffett? 95, whatever he is, right?

Anthony Marino (29:44) 99.

Dr. John Oberg (29:44) 99?

Randy Lorensen (29:45) Yeah. Okay. Better makes my point better Yeah. If you're 30 years old and broke and Buffett's worth, let's just say a hundred billion, I don't know what he's actually worth, would you trade places with him? And I can't even imagine that anybody's answer would be yes,

Dr. John Oberg (29:59) Well guys, let's wrap this thing up today. So I think, we started with change and how that can lead to fear, but I think we've really talked about how to take a perspective in any circumstance. So Randy, I think we got your big takeaway, but give us just if I was going to leave with one thing that you kind of your big lesson about change. What's the one thing that you do in times of change that makes your life better?

Randy Lorensen (30:20) Going back to what Anthony said at the beginning, it's taking personal responsibility or just understanding nobody's coming to save you. So you better save yourself.

Dr. John Oberg (30:28) Anthony, how about you?

Anthony Marino (30:30) Change is going to happen, whether you like it or not. And sometimes it's going to break your way and sometimes it's going to break another way. Either way, take control as I always say, return the serve as it comes across the net, on your backhand or your forehand, return that serve as best you can and keep trying.

Dr. John Oberg (30:53) And for me I'd say there's looking back on all the trials and tribulations and times of my life that things were never as bad as they seemed looking back and things were never as good as they seemed looking back. And so that just gives me the little perspective moving forward. All right guys, we'll stay tuned here. We're going to take a break. While we're taking a break, go ahead and like, subscribe, share, tell your friends, listen to a message from our sponsor, we'll come right back with the abundance briefing.

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Randy Lorensen (33:12) Welcome back to the abundance briefing. John, you have some interesting takes on NVIDIA and Jensen and all the news going on there. And you've looked way deeper into this than I have. So tell people what you how you see that is abundance and you have some interesting takes on planning and everything else.

Dr. John Oberg (33:32) Yeah, I think it's a little unfair to say that I'm deep into it. I know what everyone else knows about the NVIDIA deal where there's it's come out that Jensen Huang had an affair with a woman who's accused of being a Chinese spy. And I think, from the, if I look at Tales of Abundance and what's going on, there's a lot of things that are being handled well. At least it seems, from the outside looking in, the right questions are being asked. So I think Jensen came out and he took responsibility from a terrible set of decisions. The board said they opened an independent investigation being led by their independent directors and outside counsel, which is the appropriate set of steps to take.

Dr. John Oberg (34:10) There's conversation happening about hey, we understand that succession planning hasn't been handled the right way. How do we now address that? And then it's also pulled the curtain back on, largest company in the world at times having a family like environment where two of Jensen's kids and one of his in -laws. I think it's a son -in -law are kind of senior people at the company. And so I think it's going to show us a story of how abundance has been built. It's going to show us a story of how people have stepped in when they have found problems. It's going to show us a story of at least initially it appears to be personal accountability.

Dr. John Oberg (34:45) I don't know where the consequences are going to lay out. But I think it also shows us that like even the most successful people in the world are imperfect and so I'm disappointed obviously to see what's happened. I think, I personally Uh, hate when marriages have this kind of problem. But at the end of the day, I'm glad to see that people are responding what appears to be in from what I've read in the media rationally, toward a really tough set of circumstances. And they're balancing national security, the fiduciary responsibility for the shareholders value, and then having the right conversations around succession planning and what's happening.

Dr. John Oberg (35:19) I thought that was it's going to be a really interesting case study in governance as we go forward. And as, a guy I sit on, for profit corporate boards, I'm certainly looking for lessons that I can learn as a corporate director. What are things that we pay attention to and then what's going to turn out to have been handled right and what are going to be things we wish we had done differently.

Randy Lorensen (35:40) Mr.

Anthony Marino (35:41) Moreno, it's a lesson to me How flawed humans can be. What else does Jensen need in his life? Why Why would this happen? It's just the human frailty for something like this to occur. And I agree with John that the board is acting appropriately and so forth. But it's it's just a it's just something that it's hard to believe that someone in such a position. Could act this way. But I think it's a lesson we should all pay attention attention attention to because any one of us Yes. Can you make similar mistakes or other mistakes no matter what you have or don't have in your life.

Anthony Marino (36:22) So I don't know. I'm just I'm I'm sad, saddened by it, to be perfectly honest with you.

Randy Lorensen (36:27) Well, there's again we talked about the five F's. There's five things. And just because somebody's good at one of the F's doesn't mean they're good at the other ones. But John, do you think in today's short news cycle and talking about the five F's, if the finance one, if the stock price keeps going up, my guess is everybody will just forget and move on.

Dr. John Oberg (36:47) Yeah, I don't know. I think it's interesting. That When I think about risk as a board director, there's there's risk you didn't see coming and then there's avoidable risk and this is one of those ones I'd put into the bucket of completely avoidable risk, which I think changes the way that people interact with Jensen publicly and probably at the board level and probably his direct reports, including some of his family members. And so I think there's some real tragedy to Anthony's point. But Yeah, so I I'm watching to see how this one turns out.

Anthony Marino (37:21) Well, there'll be a lot of what did people know? When did they know it? Was this really a secret? So we'll see. We'll see what happens. It's a, definitely the opening uh, vignette of a long story

Randy Lorensen (37:33) Go ahead, John.

Dr. John Oberg (37:35) Well, I think one of the things we're going to see is that, we're probably going to see that with a product and a company of this importance, that hopefully regardless of what Happen that the company will continue to add value and continue to move forward. I think there's really big questions around succession since, NVIDIA is Jensen Huang. I think I've heard varying reports of him having between 30 and 60 direct reports, which that's a whole different conversation about an abundance of reports that might go beyond what's reasonable. And he micromanages into all of them was what I read over the weekend, so I think, there's going to be a lot of lessons in abundance of lessons that come out of this.

Randy Lorensen (38:16) I haven't gone as deep onto this story, but I got to tell you, I find myself cheering for him because I think he's been the best voice in AI and the most level headed and really provided a lot of leadership over emotion and just I I really I really think he has been in a very important voice and therefore what the future looks like, I would I think He probably needs to stay in that position or keep that, I don't know. I hope this doesn't derail that. And maybe things are a lot worse than I think they are,

Dr. John Oberg (38:49) But. Yeah, I think someone asked that. What could you possibly share with someone that's a national security concern in a romantic relationship when you're in his position and I just rattled off like 10 or 12 things that could be really problematic for national security off the top of my head. It's like you could just give them a description of what the president's personality was behind closed doors and that's a problem. Or you could talk about how the government is doing testing and that's a problem. Or you could any one of, 12 things that I have no insight into whatsoever, but just, guessing as an outsider that could be problematic for national security.

Dr. John Oberg (39:20) And that's not even to speak of shareholder return and the way that someone can manipulate stock. And then, rightfully so, people are now asking, when he was talking about opening markets in China, was that really for the benefit of the shareholder of NVIDIA or was he being manipulated by a Chinese government? So I think there's real questions we're going to have to get answered here.

Anthony Marino (39:39) We're talking about a guy who has security similar to what the President United States has.

Anthony Marino (39:45) There was there are more actors in this play than Jensen.

Randy Lorensen (39:52) Very good point. We'll see. You have to assume she was very good at her job, they didn't send they probably didn't send the C team. Right? I'm sure they were very sophisticated organization that sent the A team, I'm sure.

Dr. John Oberg (40:05) Interesting note, she bought $4.8 billion in chips from him.

Anthony Marino (40:10) So yeah, this is getting nasty.

Randy Lorensen (40:13) That's the that's the

Dr. John Oberg (40:14) Movie.

Randy Lorensen (40:15) So all right. Let's move on. Let's move on But

Anthony Marino (40:18) Yeah, liven it up. To space.

Randy Lorensen (40:22) A $10 billion race to haul cargo to the moon. NASA's going to the moon. This is just a good reminder, We had Artemis, it's going back. They're given, they've already named eight companies for future lunar deliveries.

Randy Lorensen (40:22) We're going to be minding the moon, gentlemen. What says you?

Dr. John Oberg (40:37) I don't know if I shared this with you guys, but I was recently approached by a medical practice that is been approached to put the first medical office on the moon when they go up there. Uh, so they've approached me about advising them on some of the stuff that were

Randy Lorensen (40:50) There. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. What are we doing up there? What's this medical office doing?

Dr. John Oberg (40:54) Well, they're going to be serving all the people that live up there.

Randy Lorensen (40:57) But for real?

Dr. John Oberg (40:58) For real, yeah.

Randy Lorensen (41:00) Well, I was thinking research. Okay.

Dr. John Oberg (41:03) Yeah, it's going to be research as well, but you have if you have humans out there living in a zero gravity environment, there's just a whole lot of things that that go on that need doctors and so

Randy Lorensen (41:12) Are these

Dr. John Oberg (41:12) Going

Randy Lorensen (41:12) To be doctors, robot doctors? What are they?

Dr. John Oberg (41:15) All the above. Yeah. And then, you have everything from telemedicine to robots to humans. And so, I can't get into too many details at this point, but it's I will say that you should expect that all of the latest, greatest medicine and research will be happening in space so we can and this has such great implications for aging research and for zero gravity research. And I just it's really an exciting time and so I think we're going to see the full on kind of the next frontier. Like we're watching kind of the Jetsons meets Star Trek. In our lifetime.

Randy Lorensen (41:46) What is what does healthcare look like on the moon? What are the insurance programs? I'm joking. I'm joking.

Dr. John Oberg (41:51) Okay, Anthony, go

Randy Lorensen (41:51) Ahead.

Anthony Marino (41:51) I don't know, I don't want to pour cold water on it, but you know, I want to juxtapose our efforts with the efforts of China. We're so good at naming a budget and giving a framework and don't worry, it's only up to $10 billion not all $10 billion. The Chinese are doing the same thing and they don't have a budget. It's get to the moon, get start mining, get stuff done. We're going there. So we'll get there. And I'm happy we got all these companies that are ready to do it, but I hope we don't get constrained by what they almost put NASA out of business in the nineties and early two thousands, It wasn't until the lawn came back and Blue Origin came back that they, put a boot up NASA to get them moving and get back at it.

Anthony Marino (42:37) So I hope this is just the beginning. Because It's going to take hundreds of billions of dollars to accomplish what needs to be accomplished on the moon.

Randy Lorensen (42:46) Well, but they're using Blue Origin, Firefly, Intuitive Machines, Lockheed Martin.

Anthony Marino (42:49) Yeah, but cost they money. They've got to pay them. They've got to pay them. It's hundreds of billions. Ten billion dollars is not going to get us on the moon, guys. That doesn't bias a highway from New York to Washington DC.

Randy Lorensen (43:02) Anthony, you're from Boston. What did they have? The Great Dig or whatever that came in way over budget. Don't you know every government program comes in over budget? That's how you get 40 trillion in debt.

Anthony Marino (43:13) Yeah, I get it. I get it. But is this would you go in debt for this?

Randy Lorensen (43:17) Yeah, this is changing the world. Yeah,

Anthony Marino (43:19) I

Randy Lorensen (43:19) Mean we talk about the election and people worried about data centers. Nobody's going to complain about the data centers on the moon, and

Anthony Marino (43:25) And

Randy Lorensen (43:26) Also just mining the materials. Keep in mind the moon used to be the earth. Everything that we have here is there and from what I understand, much easier to mine and get access to. There is a there is an abundance of materials up there for us to mine and send back or send to space stations or the credit Dyson Swarm, whatever we're going to do with it. So yeah, I think that we've we waste money on stuff way worse than this.

Dr. John Oberg (43:50) I can't wait to see how we get it back. Like a big pitching robot, like a big jugs machine shoots it,

Randy Lorensen (43:58) This is what I thought. I thought this is the challenge getting it back. By the way, this is the easiest part. There's something I think it's called a mass driver. It better get fact checked on that. But they literally have had this technology for decades and they claim they can send it like they can ship it back from the moon. They pretty much put it on a track. And shoots it. And because of the lack of gravity, they don't even have to shoot it up. They can just shoot it flat and because of the curvature. And send it back to Earth and drop it on a loading dock.

Randy Lorensen (44:26) I believe right now we have the technology to do that cheaper than you can ship it across the country. I thought this was a big problem and evidently that's the least of the problems. That's been solved for decades.

Dr. John Oberg (44:36) I just hope they don't make sure that

Anthony Marino (44:37) You're

Dr. John Oberg (44:38) Not drunk not drunk at work and turn a little left

Randy Lorensen (44:40) I would hate to have a drop on my head as I'm walking, walking in my backyard or something. I get it, but so let's hope they hit.

Anthony Marino (44:46) Yeah, we'll see. Keep going.

Randy Lorensen (44:48) All right. Anthony doesn't like the moon, but that's okay.

Anthony Marino (44:51) No, I love them. I think this is great. It's going to take a lot of money, man. I just a lot of time and money. I probably won't be here for it, but good luck to the kids.

Randy Lorensen (45:00) They're gone in two years. There's a lot of stuff going. On. Anyway, drones are replanting the Amazon one seed bomb at a time, And we hear about the Amazon, being cut down. But I just think this is a pretty cool use of drones technology, rebuilding it, bringing it back, and can be used. This goes back to what Anthony's talking about. What a robot's really going to be used for, And he doesn't want him washing his dishes and folding his laundry, but this is something that how long would it take a human to do that, so again a 50-hectare, heck, hectares. I don't know why that's so hard for me to say

Dr. John Oberg (45:33) Hectors

Randy Lorensen (45:33) Per day.

Dr. John Oberg (45:34) Hectors.

Randy Lorensen (45:35) Yeah.

Dr. John Oberg (45:35) And he's great. I love this.

Anthony Marino (45:37) Well this has application beyond the Amazon. This this has an applications on any farm anywhere. Particularly in places arid climates that have differing rainfalls. So they can, seed a field in front of an expected rainfall where in the past it might be 200 miles away from the settlement, they can go out into the African desert or South America, wherever, and see the field and then harvest that field by, timing the weather pattern. So this is a tremendous tech. This is a perfect use of robotic technology. Perfect use of it. Love it.

Randy Lorensen (46:17) All right. The robots are very glad to have your approval. All right, Anthony, let's go on. Let's go this is your topic. You the boomer this is the boomer talking about the youngsters. Take it away.

Anthony Marino (46:28) Yeah, everyone's got a criticism of Gen Z. They're stuck on their phone, they're not, they're not sitting in their parents basement playing Call of Duty, yet complaining about not being able to get a job. Well, I've got three stories about gent, three Gen Z kids, a 20 year old named Kimi Antonelli. Nobody knows who that is, very few people, but he became Formula One's youngest ever world champion. In only a second season. Why does this matter? Well, it sure is the kids get raw talent and preparation, but he's driving around in a vehicle that literally costs hundreds of millions of dollars to produce and to get on the road.

Anthony Marino (47:13) This is not just some whippersnapper jumping in a car. He's jumping in one of the most exotic creations man could possibly develop. In a multi -billion dollar industry. And the people that have won this in the past were Grizzly veterans. Lewis Hamilton's in his late thirties, early forties, Others, Verstappen, if I'm saying his name another one in his thirties or early forties. They've been at this for years and years and years before they were able to. Crack the code, get in the right car, and win the Formula One championship. But he has a 20 year old in his second season did it. I think that's fantastic.

Anthony Marino (47:49) Obviously, he wasn't playing Call of Duty. The next one, in 95 years, there has never been a younger winner on the PGA tour than what occurred over the weekend when a young kid named Blades Brown one came from seven shots back and one. A golf tournament, the Ben James Golf Tournament in a playoff. This is a beat Ben James and the tournament was the worldwide technology championship. 19 years old, younger than Tiger. Kids got a future. What it takes to be a professional golfer is it takes unbelievable effort. To win is beyond the pale. So good on you, Blades Brown. That show that Gen Z shown their way.

Anthony Marino (48:37) And lastly, we have Lamine Yamal, an 18 year old that was part of Spain's 26 World Cup run. Unbelievable to have be that young and be part of a world championship team. John, you know a little bit more about this, but it's it's again, another example where the young are winning. And I'm really happy to see that.

Dr. John Oberg (49:00) I mean, he was an anchor player in the 24 Euro Cup team for Spain as well. So as early as 16 years old, he was playing on the world stage and not at the under 19 or under 16 or under 23 level, but at the full open level with, football, which is, such a sorry, soccer, Randy. Such, an incredible talent to be able to do that amongst all the athletes playing worldwide. So

Anthony Marino (49:21) Yeah, in the most populous sport in the world. And the most competitive. I think I just think it's good news. I think it's it's an uplifting news and it should be inspirational to every 18, 16, 19 year old kid, 20 year old kid that things that can be accomplished when you really put your mind to it.

Randy Lorensen (49:42) All right. Listeners, I don't care if you this you think this election was the greatest election ever or the worst election ever. Just go out and spread a little abundance this week until next week.

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