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Why Young People Stopped Believing the Rules Will Pay Off

Episode 77 · 10 June 2026 · 59 min

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Show notes

Delayed Gratification: Why Young People Stopped Believing the Rules Will Pay Off

Delayed gratification only works if you trust that waiting will pay off. Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino revisit the Stanford marshmallow test and a lesser-known follow-up on trust. They then look at the K-shaped economy, housing affordability and influencer culture, and at what young people can still control.

Is delayed gratification still a winning strategy if the rules of the game feel broken?

In this episode of Tales of Abundance, Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg, and Anthony Marino take on one of the most charged questions in today’s economy: why so many younger people feel like they did what they were told—get good grades, go to college, work hard—and still ended up priced out, behind, or disillusioned.

Starting with the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment and the lesser-known follow-up study on trust, the conversation explores a powerful idea: maybe the issue is not just patience or discipline. Maybe it is whether people believe the system will actually reward long-term thinking.

From there, the guys go deep on the K-shaped economy, housing affordability, social media pressure, influencer culture, community breakdown, and the nonstop feeling that life is unfair. They debate whether this generation really has it harder, what previous generations got wrong, and why “just skip the $28 lunch” misses the bigger picture.

Most importantly, they focus on what people can still control in a 2026 economy—thoughts, actions, skills, community, and the decision to build a life on purpose instead of defaulting into victimhood.

If you’ve ever wondered whether delayed gratification still works, how to create abundance in a system that feels stacked against you, or what practical mindset shifts still matter when the world changes fast, this episode is for you.

The Marshmallow Test, the K-Shaped Economy and the Circle of Influence

What you'll discover:

  • Why trust changes the outcome of the marshmallow test
  • What a K-shaped economy is, and why housing affordability is pushing younger people away
  • Influencer culture, social media and who really sets the rules of the game
  • Can delayed gratification be taken too far?
  • The two things you control (thoughts and actions), and the circle of influence vs. the circle of concern
  • In the Abundance Briefing: GLP-1s and biological aging, sodium-ion batteries, and a Google-backed XPRIZE

Timestamps

  • [00:01] The marshmallow test, delayed gratification, and why trust changes the outcome
  • [03:16] What parents may be teaching kids—without realizing it—about money and consumption
  • [04:49] Anthony on why life has always been hard, but feels different now
  • [07:34] What a K-shaped economy is and why it matters
  • [09:04] Housing affordability, home size, and why younger people are pushing back
  • [11:12] Anthony on graduating into inflation, high interest rates, and no jobs in 1978
  • [13:28] Who sets the rules of the game: marketers, media, and distorted expectations
  • [13:59] Influencer culture, OnlyFans, and the illusion of easy success
  • [17:36] Why community feels weaker than it used to
  • [18:29] Is social media the problem, or did traditional media break first?
  • [20:46] Virtual community, online cruelty, and the collapse of real-world consequences
  • [24:30] Why more people are living for today instead of delaying gratification
  • [26:37] Can delayed gratification be taken too far?
  • [27:46] The two things you can control: your thoughts and your actions
  • [29:21] Circle of influence vs. circle of concern
  • [30:19] Victimhood, political incentives, and the appeal of handouts
  • [32:35] Why pain sells in media, politics, and marketing
  • [34:12] Stop trying to solve the whole broken system and focus on your next move
  • [38:15] What can you actually trust in today’s economy?
  • [41:52] Practical advice: invest in yourself, learn useful skills, and build your future deliberately
  • [43:50] Anthony’s Art of War lesson: know your position and act accordingly
  • [46:48] New study: Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs may slow biological aging
  • [47:56] Can healthy people microdose GLP-1s, or is that the wrong takeaway?
  • [49:31] Why newer GLP-1 drugs seem different from earlier versions
  • [50:06] Patents, pharma incentives, and the business side of medical innovation
  • [50:55] Sodium-ion batteries: can salt beat lithium?
  • [52:07] Why cheaper batteries could be a big deal for energy abundance
  • [53:37] The China question and why supply chains still matter
  • [53:58] Google-backed XPrize: can anyone build a real business in 90 days?
  • [56:10] Why incentive prizes may solve problems better than government programs
  • [57:37] California homelessness spending vs. entrepreneurial problem-solving
  • [58:17] What SpaceX shows about private innovation vs. government execution
  • [59:12] Final takeaway: go out and spread a little abundance

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About the hosts

This is a hosts-only episode with no guest: Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino. (Host bios are on the host pages linked below.)

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

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:02] welcome to Tales of Abundance. Let's go back to Stanford University in 1972. A researcher sits a 4-year-old down at a table and places a marshmallow in front of them and says, "You can eat it now, or if you wait until I come back, you can have a second marshmallow. You get two." So, what happened? About 30% of the kids ate the marshmallow right away. About a third of them waited the full 15 minutes and got two marshmallows. Why does any of this matter? Well, Stanford followed these kids for years and years and years and they found that the kids who waited tended to have better outcomes. In particular, they had higher SAT scores on average. They rated more socially competent by their own parents and they had a lower BMI 30 years later. Okay, so pretty good study. Followed them for for 30 years. And this is a story I think a lot of us have heard this before, right? And the the message is obviously delayed gratification predicts success and you will be re you will be rewarded for longtime pre preferences, right? Well then several years later researchers did a different same marshmallow but they had two separate groups this time and they created different trust in the experimentter. So before each experience they gave the one they ran the same test where they they did things and it was reliable and the researcher did what they wanted and in the other group the researcher did something that wasn't reliable and they found out they couldn't trust them and trust the rules of the game. Um basically it was promised better art supplies and some other stuff. But anyway, when they took the marshmallow test again, the reliable group, the people that had evidence that the researcher was good to their word, they waited an average of 12 minutes.

[01:54] So, with evidence that they could trust the rules of the game, most of them made it to 15 minutes. The unreliable group on average just lasted three minutes. Okay. And why are we talking about this? Recently, Kevin Olirri from Shark Tank, he made a statement. I I think it was on one of the news channels about, you know, kind of the the the typical boomer sentiment. These kids, if they weren't doing $28 lunches and they saved that ETF, they would have money for a new house. And this has created there's a lot of people pissed. Like, young people are mad and they're up in arms. And, you know, I came across this by an article by John Carter. Listeners, we'll put it in the show notes. But, you know, talking about this marshmallow test and what if you can't trust the researchers and what we want to do today, we don't want to get too down in the dumps. We want to make this tales of abundance certainly, but we want to acknowledge that it is tough today, but we want to walk away with solutions. And what can people do, whether they're young or old, what can they do in a 2026 economy? So, gentlemen, I mean, what what is your initial take on this? I mean, what do you you know, we're all of us. We're either, you know, we got one boomer and two Gen X here. So, I mean, what what what's kind of the first thing that jumps out to Anthony, John, to you guys?

[03:16] — Yeah. I mean, look, I you know, my sons both have had conversations with me about this recently, my daughter with some regularity as well. And and part of it, I think, is, you know, my doing. Like, I didn't eat out often at all growing up, and we eat out pretty regularly right now. And so I've set an expectation about consumption and spending that I am starting to get really honest with my kids about right now about, you know, what life was like in my 20s and 30s and what life is like later on and and what choices I made and and then, you know, I was in I was raised as a product of the save a huge amount of your income and kind of, you know, buy a a boomer, my mom. And but then I read a book called Die with Zero that had me rethink that a little bit. And so I think that, you know, I think that that the world is changing. It's moving faster. I think we have to be more nuanced in our education of our children. But here's the real thing out of everything we've just talked about in the last few minutes. We need to be careful about who we let give us the rules of the game. If we let people that are marketing what they want us to buy and we think those are the rules of the game, then we're not really looking at perhaps all of the rules or the real rules of the game in their completeness.

[04:29] We're letting somebody else drive the outcome. And I think that's a big problem. I think that that you know, we control our thoughts and our actions. And when people understand what they can control, what they can't control, even inside of a broken system, there's so much hope to be found because we can understand what we can do about the things, you know, that we can control. And so we we'll talk about that more today, I'm sure. — Super boomer, what's your first take? — You know, I have a I have a fair amount of sympathy for the the generation. I can I understand where they're coming frankly, because I lived it and so didn't my father and so did his father. Life is freaking hard and it has always been hard, but it's probably harder now than ever for a couple of reasons. the 60s and 70s, 80s, even the early 90s. We didn't really know what the hell was going on around us, you know? Yeah, there were millionaires and there were there was, you know, rich guys living on the hill and big boats and stuff like that, but we we didn't really know what what was what was happening. This this generation for the last 20 years, every 10 seconds they're getting hit with some sort of media or some stimuli that is, you know, making them, you know, jealous in a lot of ways of what other people have and and also pushing a narrative that and our politicians are doing this, pushing a narrative that it's unfair. It's really unfair. And we're going to tell you it's unfair every single day. You know, there's a saying, life isn't fair.

[06:04] That wasn't developed in the last 20 years. That was developed decades, years, hundreds of years ago. Everyone knows life isn't fair. You breaks go your go your way, they don't go your way. So to your point, Randy, given that life is hard, has been hard, but it is very different now than it was. There were very clear opportunities and clear paths for people to choose. Now they have a myriad of selections and you know there's a real despondent air about where this generation is and what they're going to do about it. And I think that's what the discussion today is about is okay. Yep, life sucks, then you die. But what are you going to do? what are you going to do about it to make the best of it? Create abundance in your own way, you know? And that's the other thing we we should talk about is abundance today isn't what abundance was necessarily in the 50s after World War II or the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. It's different, you know, and living for today may may be better and a more joyful experience than, you know, socking away 20% of your income in a ETF. Mr. Oly, you know, I think I think too, you know, for for someone kids in my family, for example, who were on the upward part of the K-shaped economy, having to then go experience the lower half of the K-shaped economy, like that's — John, can you explain what the K-shaped economy mean? I'm not sure. In a K-shaped economy, there's a wider separation, like on the letter K, between the halves and the have- nots.

[07:40] And the further out you go, the further the separation becomes between the halves and the have nots. And and the economy seems to be expanding the gap between the halves and the haveotss. And I I think that's problematic. And I think that history has shown us that's problematic. And you know the most uh you know clear example of that in my memory not memory in my thinking is the uh French revolution you know where the price of bread you know went 10x and 10x again and and pretty soon the have nots revolted and overthrew the halves. And so the this oversimplification, I know historians are going to, you know, probably be driven crazy by that. But the reality is that this K-shaped economy is, you know, taking people like my kids who I want them to go earn a living and be productive members of society. You know, they may be moved from the the growing side of the K-shaped economy to the have not side in terms of what they have and don't have. And when I hold that up against people I know that are immigrants, they still see the US as the place to come to start a business. They still see that as a place to come to change their stars as it were and to change their kind of position in the economy. And so I still think we have the greatest opportunity in this country to change someone's position.

[08:53] But I do think there are people coming from the halves part of the world and then launching their career into the have not part of the world. And that's a shock that is real maybe. — Yeah. I you know the thing I keep hearing from these kids are how much more expensive everything is, right? And they're like, well, you know, when when Kevin Oli says take your $28 lunch or your $6 latte and put it into an ETF and you'll be able to buy a house, you know, they're almost certainly going to push back. And the numbers, by the way, in 1980 the median home was 3.5 times the median income. today. While the income has grown, it hasn't grown nearly as fast as the income or as the the home price now, depending on the city, it's it's about double, right? Is but you know, the other thing I think about when I was a kid, and maybe this is more a product of where I grew up, houses weren't nearly as nice as they are. Like, you know, they we didn't have stainless steel appliances and granite countertops and and it's just, you know, the materials that go into build. We still use the same crappy sheetrock and some of that stuff, but generally speaking, — the size of your houses.

[10:03] — Yeah, they're bigger. I I noticed that a couple years ago. We went on a recruiting trip for Ryland. We were in New York and I was just look I was driving and I was like, "God, these houses are so small." Like I, you know, and you could tell they'd been there for a long time. So, yeah, they're bigger and they're a lot nicer. Which, so I don't know. I don't know exactly how much of that is the system, right? And but I think the other big thing that you hear a lot about, you know, again, if I'm going to I want to argue this side of these, you know, these millennials, boom, you know, Gen Z, whatever. You know, the other thing is they were promised that if you do the right things, you get good grades, you get into a good college, you get a degree, there'd be this job waiting. And then just having kids, having a kid that just graduated college, I could, you know, and going to the graduation, a lot of these kids didn't have jobs and talking to them and and I feel for them. I'm kind of with, you know, I'm with Anthony. It is, it has always been hard. There has always been been the same challenges. But it is a real thing. So, now that we've done that, let's get back into, you know, what else what else can can they do? What advice?

[11:06] And what Anthony, let me go to you. Beforehand, you were talking about how it was hard when you're a kid. And — and none of none of these zoomers want to hear, you know, the the boomer complain about it, but I think it is worth them noting. Tell us some of the challenges when you were growing up. — Well, you know, I'll give you a very specific example. I graduated college in in the in the heart of the Jimmy Carter presidency where inflation was more than double digits where interest rates were over 15% to buy a house credit card interest was you know 29% and there were no jobs there literally were no jobs my first my first job was going doortodoor for the un the US Chamber of Commerce selling memberships to the US Chamber of Commerce. I'd knock on a auto body place and go next door to the gas station and then next door to the liquor store and whatever whatever I had whatever I could do. I couldn't then I had a I graduated with honors and a with a business degree with a minor in marketing and you you couldn't get a job. So, you just had to figure it out. Now eventually I settled into a career and you know blah blah blah and it it it went but it was it was hard today you know it's just as hard if not harder and the social pressure you I didn't have any I wasn't worried about anybody next door I didn't I wasn't worried about you know some Tik Tocker you know making a million dollars a month and as being an influencer and stuff like that I didn't I didn't have that so I had blind blinders on. These guys and gals, they don't have blinders on. There's a They're rooted, you know, they're being taught to be jealous, to be envious, and to want want the easy road. That's what they're conditioned. And I feel for them for that. I really do. I mean, it they they are totally conditioned. I mean, I think we talked about this one time that there's some percentage kids asked, "What do they want to do after college?"

[13:16] Some double-digit percentage. I thought it was 30% maybe maybe higher want to be That's a job to them. How insane is that? Well, that's that's that's the who set the rules, right, that I mentioned earlier. Like when and the marketers that one of the best descriptions I heard of marketing was like everyone wants you to see their front lawn and their beautifully manicured flower bed out front, but they don't take you inside or let you see the backyard and the garage and the reality of the world. And so my hope is what we can do here on this show is like show people the inside of the house and the garage and the backyard that's not that's messy but still show you all the hope in that like that because there really is a lot of hope if that's the thing that people choose to focus on but we really do choose what we focus on. I mean to your point Anthony with with the influencers 10% I just Googled this real quick while we're there. 10% of women 18 to 24 have an Only Fans account. not as a viewer, as a supplier, right? Which is pretty scary. And I also I didn't look this up just now, but I have heard in the past it's something like the top.1% of those make hundreds of thousands, millions a month. Most of them aren't really making that much money, but 10% of them, it's I don't know. That's a scary world. they should be free to do it. But I I don't think that's — Yeah, I they they see that and they they they think that's easy.

[14:44] We we know what how difficult it is to build an audience to get people interested in us and to stay interested in us and to subscribe to our YouTube channel and so on and so forth. It it takes a lot of work. You know, I we probably should have done this research, but I I'd like to go get the the last five years worth of the most popular five years ago. Are they still influencers today? There might be a handful of them, but most of them come and go because it's again, it's it's instant gratification. It's funny or interesting at first and then it's on to something else. And you know that's that's their that's what this group has been living with since they came of age when they when I when a phone was put in their hand or or a laptop or iPad was put in front of them. That's the life that they live. And it's you know to John's point you know who's setting the rules man that that's just that's just scary. That's not you're not and I'm using the word educate. You're not educating yourself on all the real world possibilities in front of you. Doesn't mean you have I'm not talking about your math scores and your reading and writing capabilities. I'm talking about being educated about what the real world is.

[16:01] What's what's what's real and attainable and is is a one step forward. You know, I grew up in a generation where it was always I'm taking this one step because it's getting me towards a particular goal. These kids want to strap a Elon Musk rocket to their back, fire it up, and just get to where they're going. And the world doesn't work that way. It never has. And it and you know, for very few people, it never will. — I'm not sure it even worked for Elon Musk, though. Like, I think even he had some like if you — I'm not talking about Elon. I'm talking about him as his rocket. Elon had a long struggle. I mean, multiple companies and multiple battles and things went wrong and he got fired. Elon Musk got fired. You know, Steve Jobs got fired. I mean, just stop for a second. Think about that. Two of the most brilliant people on earth, most successful people got fired. Did they think driving home that day?

[17:04] Did they think life was easy? — By the by the way, Anthony, I asked instead of asking Dr. John, I asked Dr. Gemini, who are the five biggest influencers 5 years ago and if they're relevant today. So, I did the, you know, thankfully we can do the research quick. Four of the five I've never heard of. Okay, so I'm a little out of the loop, but Charlie Diamo, KB Lame, Mr. Beast, Addison Ray, and Pew Die Pie. — I knew two of those names, by the way. — Addison Ray I've heard of. And Mr. Beast, obviously. — So, I know Mr. Beast well. You know, he's more relevant. But, by the way, still relevant, highly relevant, more relevant than ever. Still relevant and evolved and semi-relevant because they intentionally retired. and another one's pivoted. So, they have actually made whoever they are other than I know Mr. Beast. But, so Anthony, you're talking about this. I think the other thing that's changed is community. And John, I know this is right in your wheelhouse and you talk, you know, you've talked about this, but you know, I think community has is lower now. friendships and you know Republicans and Democrats and different things used to just go to church together, go to dinner, hang out at the park together and I just think that's become because of social media. I think all of that's so I I just think the community is a big part of why that's where people are leaning from.

[18:29] — Yeah, I don't think a social media Randy I agree social media impacts that. I think the real problem came when we allowed media outlets to not have equal time for both sides of an issue so that people could go to an echo chamber. That to me was the real turning point where me where media became about media for the sake of the business of media versus being the fifth the fourth pillar of a community. I think we're going to look back at that historically and see that as a real mistake in in what we did uh from from a regulatory perspective. And I'm, you know me, I'm I'm pretty libertarian in my views. Like I'm pretty, you know, small government hands off. But I I just think that there's a few things you want to keep, you know, pure. And that was a thing I think we really missed on. And I don't know that I think once the genie's out of that bottle, maybe we can't put it back in. But that's been really problematic. — Question I would ask, is it that or is it that you know, if we go back to when we were all kids, you didn't have any choice? like you grew up in an area and you had different people with different beliefs around you and you were all kind of forced to work together, right? And that's one of the things I always loved about sports. You got in a locker room and everybody, you know, you got a football team, you've got people of every belief and you all just learn to work together on the field and you put that to the side, right? But so I think it's TV, but these days nobody watches these news channels anymore, right? It's social media and it's so easy. Like if you had some weird thing that was only one in a thousand people it appealed to.

[19:56] It was hard to find your people back then. Now it's so easy to get put into an echo chamber, right? Cuz you can find thousands of people that agree with you even if it's a really fringe point, right? And doesn't matter if it's good or bad, you know, right or wrong. So — yeah, but the thing but — we are saying the same thing like taking away equal time allows for the polls to become more echoed and you know and more concentrated. And so you know before you had people that that just got more exposure to both sides of an issue and so and I tell people all the time like you know just because someone has an opinion doesn't mean that I need to respect the opinion. I respect opinions that are wellformed, that are strongly convicted, loosely held, that are open to new ideas, you know, and and hopefully wellformed means thought through on both sides of the issue. I don't know if I'm going to agree with you guys on this. You know, there the community that we grew up in was, you know, a physical community, right? you know, you physically made friends at school. you physically or you got on a football team and then you went you hung out at the wherever you the park or the uh youth center or whatever the case might be and you and you had that community and then if you grew up in a small town like some of us did, you know, you knew the politics of the town and it was it was there. Th these guys and gals today have a virtual community and I and I know this, you this is a silly story, but on Saturday I golf with a guy and he had his two kids with him, both pretty good golfers. They were they were brother and sister and they were talking to each other on their on their phones.

[21:48] They're in the same golf cart. Okay. And they were texting each other and talking to each other on their phones. They didn't turn and talk to him. They weren't they were making fun of each other's golf swing and where the ball was going on their phone. So, it's it's it's a reflex for this generation to use the technology to communicate and have their community. We've all heard about, you know, the the the downside of some of the um doxing and and insulting of of young women by other young women, you know, and and guys and so on and so forth. So, it can also be an evil group in that in that community because it's so easy to insult someone electronically. If you insulted if I insulted your girlfriend in 1974 at high that would that would have been a problem for me because a multiple number of people would have had an attitude about that and and taken some action there's no action being taken today right you can just insult somebody and the vitriol is really vicious you know both both there what I as I described but also John to your point in the me in the media now these echo chambers they I mean they are they are really vicious calling people Nazis and FU and you know just really na I mean we're civil society I'm not so sure — yeah I have strong feelings about character assassination too like I think you know the the slander liel stuff is so hard to prosecute but like character assassination should just not be a part of debate at all like I I I believe in vigorous debate I believe in intellectually honest debate, but when we get into character assassination, I mean, that truly is just Yeah. So, — it's interesting Anthony brought this up. I just recently thought about this.

[23:50] I somebody said something and and and there was just no consequences. And it really made me start thinking is all of our being nice and being empathetic and being understanding, it has made people very brave to be asses, right? And to be mean to people. And to Anony's point, there used to be consequences, right? Like people, you know, it's it's, you know, there's the saying, a well-armed society is a polite society. But it used to be that if you said something, you're like you're likely to get punched in the mouth. And now I just don't think most people see that and it makes them in a weird way trying to be more civil and be nicer has made people less civil. It's a weird weird. — We have we have an example of that just last week there. You know, I won't mention the network or the person, but imagine if, you know, in 1985, John, when we're trying to rise through the ranks of our companies, we turned to our boss and told them, "You're destroying this company. This, you know, you don't have any idea what you're doing. This place is falling apart at the seams, and I'm not I can't support what you're doing." And expect not to be fired. I mean, are you kidding me? And so this guy blows up in a meeting, insults his boss and insults everyone in the room, and then he's the poor person who got fired from the job. I mean, are you kidding me? That is It was such a right decision to fire that person. And the fact that people are sympathetic. Oh, you spoke up. You you No, no, that is that is not civil. There are there are proper ways to handle that your your feelings. There are other ways, very legitimate ways to go about it. And we've that's just stopped. Now we just insult. We just insult. It's I hope I I I think I think it's going to get better because it can't get worse.

[25:44] — You know, you really you have to you have to hit bottom. I mean, we have hit these kids have been just beat on and and again, it gets this talk about abundance. This is why they're getting the $26 lunch instead of having, you know, putting it in the ETF. They want to live for today. They don't see a brighter future. This is as good as it's going to get. So, I get paid. I'm going to go I'm going to go out. I'm going to have a good time at my friends. And, you know, I as my old boss Tom Shraken used to say, we'll worry about tomorrow. — Well, there is. And like I you know what you know we as Boomer we gave up a you know we gave up a lot of fun and games and joy to you know get to where we are and we're happy where we are today if I could do it over again. Hm. I wonder — that's delayed gratification, right? That's back that's full circle back to Rainey's opening like like and I think like anything else delayed gratification can probably be taken too far like everything, right? And so what's the right balance? And so again, I I think about like when we talk to people about this, what's the right level of delayed And it's, you know, it's probably not the same for everybody, right? We because if you're the billionaire that never has any fun and never does anything and we we've talked about this on numerous episodes, right? This is one of our, you know, our struggles in abundance is how how do you find that?

[27:11] You know, is that person have a better life than the person that dies broke but they, you know, they took one hell of a ride and they enjoy they took vacations and did things and didn't work as hard, right? I mean that and that's for each person to decide. But John, let's one of the things you do a great job on is talk about what can I control? Okay. So, let's talk about that cuz I think there are people that that are in this, but what what can people control whether they're 18, 22, just getting out of college, or they're 70 years old. What do we have control over? — Yeah. I mean, when I first time I heard this, someone said there's only two things you can control in your life. And I was a control guy. I was like, well, I can't wait to hear this. I control lots of things. And he said, "You get to control your thoughts and your actions, and everything else is not your control. You could influence people. You could try to influence people, but the only thing you control are your thoughts and your actions." And I thought about that, I was like, that is so painfully honest to me as a guy who wants to control more than that. But when I really embraced that, and it took me some time to really embrace that, you know, months of of working through that internally, it really gave me a lot more peace in my life and helped me let go of struggling against some things that I was never going to win.

[28:29] — Let's dig there. Control your thoughts. Tell people what's not controlling your thoughts, what you can't control. Cuz I think people give people an example of this. I mean, if I'm highly reactive in my thinking or if I or if I think I can control your thoughts or I can like control you or control your perception of me, like those are all things that I can attempt to influence, but but I can't control what you do. I can't control what you think. I can't even control my own emotions. Like emotional reactions or reactions to things, but I can I can control my thoughts around those things. I can control my actions around those things, right? So — yeah, I mean I think of it as if something happens, right? If there's a problem, you can complain about the problem, which you can't control, or you can think, oh, how do I turn this problem into an opportunity? Yeah, I can complain about what somebody else is or isn't doing, what they are are or not saying, what they are or not feeling, but at the end of the day, that doesn't necessarily fix a problem, right? And so the question for me is what can I do?

[29:34] And then what do I have to think about to be able to do it right? And then I recognize that some things are out of my control. And so I had to practice like radical acceptance around that. And so you know Steven CVY in his book that I read gosh 30 years ago now or whatever talked about a circle of influence versus a circle of concern. And in a circle of influence are the things you can control and the things are those are your thoughts and your actions. Outside of that are things that concern you. And the book talked about like shrinking your circle of concern so you weren't negatively influenced by things you were concerned about but couldn't do anything about and expanding the circle of things you could do things about by acting and thinking about things more clearly. And I just thought that was really when I really put those two concepts together, I felt liberated. — Yeah. But what resonates with me when you when you talk about your your thoughts and your actions, if you're thoughtful and you're willing to take action, you're not a victim anymore. You know, there's a there the what I think I see out there is this this victimhood or this this counterculture of everyone's a victim. you know, in, you know, not to bore you guys with, you know, history, but in the 60s, you know, the government, the US government, you know, took on a mission that was so that it became readily apparent that it was going to be an abject failure.

[31:02] And yet, they continued to pour billions of dollars into the Vietnam initiative, the Vietnam War. It was poorly planned. It was it was a mission to nowhere. But campuses rose up against it and there were it was a tremendous movement of saying this is not acceptable. And as a result of it, we're going to we're going to protest. We're going to boycott. We're going to we're going to unfortunately take over some buildings, but we're going to be heard about this. And eventually it became politically beneficial to side with the protesters. It wasn't it it was nothing else. Okay. Okay. We got enough money. We're going to keep sending money to these these guys because we're going to want to build up a defense our our military industrial complex. But you know what? Politically makes a lot of sense to listen to these kids. That's what's happening now. It's politically beneficial. Next, they're going to they're going to listen to these guys. listen to these kids and they're going to be politically motivated to serve those those needs. Now, it happens to be not necessarily, in my opinion, the best way about doing things, you know, through socialism and handouts, but that's what's going to happen. That that's how we're going to solve the problem of income inequality and um you know, the unfairness and so on and so forth. We're going to we're going to buy our way out of it, which is going to make us broke and my Bitcoin is going to go to $10 million and so on. So, — from from your mouth to God's ears. But, you know, this is John. This takes me back to just sales stuff, right? We've both spent years training salespeople.

[32:43] And, you know, one of the things you always talk about in marketing and sales is that you lean into the pain points. Pain sells much better than benefits to the average, not everybody, but the average person. the pain is more effective. Well, I don't know if anybody does this better than politicians and I don't even know how conscious it is, but you know, — the media media is even better, — right? If it bleeds, it leads, right? And you never hear the positive stories. And you know, this is this is a challenge for people including me, right? Like I have spent thousands and thousands of hours digging into the problem with fiat currencies and you know why we went off gold and looking at this and and I can get into oh god but you know the solution is buy things that they can't print buy things that are scarce you know I think it's Bitcoin is number one but I'm really happy if people buy anything that the government can't print and they can't control and they can't inflate it creating all these problems you know but it's a challenge right cuz If you're trying to explain this to somebody and it's a complex topic, it's very very hard for 99% of the people to get this if they don't really understand the problem. The problem is in getting them there, it's really hard to get enough time and enough attention to explain the problem.

[34:04] You lose most people before they understand it and they're re and therefore they're never really ready for the solution because they don't see the problem. What I would say about that though is you know I work in healthcare and health care I think most people would have a point of view that part of healthcare at the very least is broken and so my viewpoint with our patients is really clear. Hey, we can argue about how broken it is or we can talk about what's available to you with your set of circumstances inside of the system wherever you happen to be in the system and let's just help you navigate the next one step whatever whatever that next win is the easy win like get your next easy win right and so I think sometimes that's and and I over complicate the problem right I talk about the system and I want to understand it holistically but the reality is that for some people that's not the most important thing the most important thing is like what's next like what and so and that's where I find a lot of hope by the way I think there's a tremendous amount of hope in like what's next because most people can control something maybe not they can't control everything but they can control something that they can do and and not be a victim.

[35:13] — Yeah. So much of the narrative is driven by the coast, you know, the the dense populations on either coast and the noise that comes out of there and the difficulties of living there do expense wise and, you know, so on. You know, you I wonder if we're seeing the forest for the trees. You know, maybe maybe it's not as bad as we think it is. the the three of us have been in our own personal echo chambers and we're we're hearing a lot about oh the kids are upset and so on and so forth but on a on a scale of 1 to 10, you know, a college grad coming out of a university in the center of Massachusetts or on the coast of Boston versus a kid coming out of college with a similar degree and similar skills in Kansas City, Missouri. Where are they on that, you know, anxiousness scale or that that victimhood scale? You know, I wonder I don't have an answer to that. It just, you know, it's always been, you know, the flyover states have always been kind of just put to the side from a narrative perspective, but I I you know, so that's that's one of the reasons why I have hope because there's more of the flyover states than there are of the coastal states. And those — I think the problem is real, Anthony.

[36:27] Like I think the problem is real. — Don't get me wrong. the pro the problem is real and yeah in small town America there have been suicides by you know young girls and overdoses and so I'm not saying it doesn't exist I'm just saying on a scale you know if you're living in New York to afford to live in New York City or to afford to live in the east uh west of the 405 in California which is near the that's a that's an that's an impossibility for all But a very few college grads, you know, to live the lifestyle that they're seeing on TikTok, okay, that, you know, you're talking about sharing apartments, sharing bathrooms, you know, having a whole different lifestyle versus, you know, living in a,400 ft threebedroom, two bath in somewhere in the Midwest, not in a major city. It's a it's a very, very different lifestyle. And I can understand, you know, there's more more people live in those places. That's why there's more fear, right? Just sheer numbers. But u that's why I am hopeful that we've hit bottom and people are going to realize there is a better life out there. You just have to take, you know, what is it? A the method to complete a marathon is one step at a time. You know, one step forward and just keep just keep going and make sure you have goals. And I think circling all the way back to the earlier discussion about living for today, you know, what are your goals?

[38:00] You know, whether you're a boomer or exer or a Gen Z, what what are what do you want? What is it that you actually want? Be be clear about it. You can change it, but have have something that you want that you're working towards. What can you trust? So if you're talking to a kid right now and they're getting out like you know we talked about housing prices are going up and I've talked about it nauseium you can't trust the money because they're printing more of it and you know they were told to get good grades and all that different stuff. So let's flip that. What so what can they trust if you're if you're — I think what they can trust is they're going to continue to print money like that. I think I think when when someone shows you who they are you should believe them. Right. I think you should believe that that media and and marketers have an agenda and you know you talk about it all the time. Follow the money. That'll tell you what the agenda looks like. You know, follow the power, right? And so you can trust that that is influencing the rules. You can trust that you know there's if you own a business or if you learn how to make money in this economy, you're probably going to be okay going forward. And so um you can trust that technology is changing quickly and will continue to change quickly and that if you have a hope about it not doing that that's probably not well biased. So you know I just so I think there are some things you can trust and you can trust that that change is inevitable like like and that's been true for all of human history, right? I also think you can trust that things are never as good as people say they are and they're never as bad as they say they are. Like that's been my experience pretty consistently for decades. And then I think that you know this is something you and I have arm wrestled about. Like for me I think you can trust science but not in the way that science is like the thing. Science is a collection of strongly held beliefs that are hopefully loosely held so you can get new data and improve those beliefs over time. I think you can trust we're going to keep learning as a society and moving forward. And I think you can trust that that there will continue to be halves and have nots which sucks. and but but that people at least in the US have a lot of autonomy about the outcomes in their life if they choose to control that.

[40:12] — Let me ask that — take it a different way. I would I would I I would say that the only thing you can trust you can trust everything John mentioned of course but the only thing you can truly trust is yourself what you want to be where you want to go. There's a line in a Grateful Dead song that says, "I can tell your future. Just look what's in your hand." And so what's in your hand is your are your capabilities, your desires, your your mission in life. You control that. No one can take that away from you. They can try. They can they can try to influence you but they — they they it back to John's very simple statement. They cannot control your thoughts and your actions. So that's what you should trust. And and where that takes you and and I don't like the term have nots. I like I I prefer the term have less because what this society is not leaving people on the street that don't want to be on the street. If you want help and you need help, this society will get it for you. If you if you're truly in need, there's unemployment compensation, disability.

[41:29] There's there's enough out there. There's communities, you know, church communities and so forth that will help people get on get at least get on their feet. Um, so now that not that's not true in every country, in every city. It's not it's not equal in every city either. But if you trust yourself, you you can't take a step forward. You can't guarantee. I realize I didn't ask the best question. I I was looking a little more for practical steps, but I was thinking about it a lot like Anthony, right? You trust yourself, but some of that is working on yourself, investing in yourself. And I would hope that community falls into that that you can trust your community, your friends, your family, your spouse or you know I hope there's that people are one of the things they're working on is building that community but learning skills and we talk a lot here about AI like I think if people re if if people spend an hour a day learning AI right now they put themselves at the top even if it's harder they're giving themselves tremendous benefit and a tremendous advantage. But it doesn't it could be the other end. Go learn a trade. Become there's a electricians and plumbers and all that right now. Right.

[42:43] — I think it takes 15 minutes a day, Randy. I think an hour a day would be awesome, but it takes 15 minutes a day. And so I think learning from other people is a hugely important skill that is underestimated for sure. — And yeah, I I just think that that invest in yourself, invest in in your future, figure out what you want. I mean, some of this is the same self-help stuff that's been true forever, right? I mean, we could go back for thousands of years to today. And I, you know, your thoughts, your actions, whatever, being better mentally, psychologically, physically, healthwise, do whatever you can to to compete in this world because AOC and Bernie Sanders and people on the right and the left, they're not going to stop telling you that it's somebody else's fault, right? The pain cells. And you know, one of the things to build yourself is stop listening to those idiots, whether they're Republicans or Democrats. They don't have your best interest in mind. They have their best interest in mind. And figure it out. There's there's opportunity out there from AI to, you know, swinging a hammer and everything in between if you go look for it. So, — you know, there's a lesson in the book The Art of War by Sunzu where he says you you must know your position. If you're in a valley and your enemy is on a hill, you must be must be defensive and prepare for an attack. If you're on a hill and your enem is in a valley, you must attack. So, you have to understand where you are in the equation at any given moment. And after 70 years on this earth, I've been in both places multiple times. I've been on the defensive, I've been on the offensive. Right now, I'm on a nice flat road. So, it's, you know, it's it's pretty good. But you got to know where you are and what you're capable of and then get some thoughts about it and then take an action. Take the appropriate action. But I always I always go back to I always try to think of where I am. It it doesn't work all the time. Sometimes I forget. Sometimes I think I'm on a hill, but I'm actually in the valley. But it's a way to a way to approach I think it's a way to approach life and anything whether it's friends, family, fitness, finance, fun, know where you are. And then that next step is something you can trust because you you're a self-aware which is really really important and is you know it's not it doesn't matter what generation you're from. We all make the mistake of not being self-aware — All right. I think that's a great place to end. Uh or at least go to break. If you're still listening, you love you love us. So, subscribe YouTube, Apple, Spotify, wherever you're listening, hit whatever it has, a thumbs up, a like button, give us a review, all that good stuff. And you find us at And uh gentlemen, we will be right back after the break with the abundance Here at Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our five Fs. For lots of others, taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more time consuming and difficult goals to chase. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. Less than a minute that's formulated with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe. $72 value. Go to jump into the abundance briefing. Uh you're going to be Dr. Elmpic. you know a lot with your practice at at Prina Health. So a new study shows that Elmpic has slows biological aging by 9%.

[46:44] So talk talk us through this. — Yeah, I mean biological aging is really interesting. We don't do biological aging in our practice. I do look at it in my particular set of labs because it's very interesting to me and I want to understand it. The reality is Ozmpic is doing some really cool stuff in the body. It is for the most part helping people feel satisfied from a hunger perspective. And so that's leading to people consuming less food, utilizing energy more effectively in their body. Hopefully they're resistance training so they don't lose muscle. But not just this cool stuff you're seeing about aging. There was 40 papers, posters, and presentations at a recent oncology event just in the last week or two where it seems like maybe this ompic or GLP-1 drugs are also having an impact on cancer that's slowing cancer growth and slowing the development of cancer even precancerous. So I I I haven't read all those 40 papers and I didn't watch all the videos and and we don't work in oncology specifically, but it seems like there's a growing body of evidence that metabolically it's really really good for you. Not that surprising when you understand how GLP1's work in the body.

[47:56] — So does that mean we can all go to a micro dose of this or how do we how do we how does the rank and file how do they absorb this if they don't really need to lose weight and they don't have type 2 diabetes? Yeah, — we haven't done the studies yet on whether or not like we're looking at all these things amongst the general population in the studies that I'm seeing. It it would be reasonable to have a hypothesis that someone who doesn't need a GLP1 is already in that category where it's not the drug itself that's necessarily changing these things. It's the lifestyle itself that is actually having that lower risk profile would be my initial hypothesis, but we just don't have the science long time, right? — Yeah. So why was it never quote unquote discovered that it was this great weight loss thing? We went through a period of obesity where the obesity rates in this country skyrocketed over the last 30 or 40 years. What how come we missed it? — The side Yeah. the side effects were so so ter so difficult to deal with that adherence to using them was just nearly impossible. I think was the the overwhelming thought process.

[49:08] — What changed that the people aren't — new molecules? Yeah. New new molecules, new delivery of the GLP1 that doesn't have the same side effects. — So it it isn't it is your new GLP-1 isn't your old GLP1, — right? Yeah. No, no, none of the terrible side effects from before. — All right. — How do they do that? Oh, go ahead. — I think they're changing the molecule and the delivery mechanism. And so you have these, you know, first generation GLP ones handled things one way and these second GLP1s handle in a different way. And there's some new GLP ones we're expecting to come on the scene in the next year or so that should improve even further is kind of the early evidence. And so — so GLP1 is like an umbrella and it's it's and underneath that are approaches to making a — various Yeah. various synthetics. Yeah. So glucagon like peptides on a specific pathway. Yeah. So let me play the conspiracy theorist here. How much of this is economic because patents were up and Eli Liy or whoever can now has a new patent that they can control and sell and make more money. And by the way, I'm not opposed to them making money. I think that's good that they're incentivized and I believe in the free market. But how much of it is just the incentives changed because they can control it longer or sell it?

[50:33] — Yeah, I mean 100%. They want to update their patents and they want to update the patents on the drug and update the patents on the delivery mechanism. For sure that's a thing. But at some point we're going to see that a generic trapide you know which is you know today Marjaro as an example is going to be available and effective enough but there are going to be people that want the newest thing because it's better for whatever reason the new molecule is All right, let's go to let's go to salt beats lithium. And uh this is pretty interesting. Uh the world's largest battery maker, CL has confirmed sodium ion mass production for 2026. And they're just so the largest sodium order 60 gawatt over 3 years and first delivery systems in September, right? And this is instead of lithium, right, which we are talking about rare earths and we don't have these and China controls them and everything else and how are we going to get all these going, they use sodium. I mean, basically seawater, right? Like instead of having to find lithium, the world has abundant seawater. I think this is pretty big.

[51:39] Like this could improve energy, change — So, I've not I've not read deeply into this one yet, Randy, but I am so excited on the on the face of it. We talked a few weeks ago about salt that came from desalinization and they're just stacking up the salt and it and it can do like all this environmental harm. If we have a, you know, a a an output of desalinization that can be used then for energy like wow. right? Um, you know, I have solar panels on my roof, but and I produce roughly the energy that I consume, but part of it gets sold back to the grid and I still have to buy my then in turn I have to buy from the grid because it ends up being I I can't store it effectively. I have one battery and I really need three or four is what I actually need. So, and part of it is just batteries are expensive. So, making batteries cheaper and you know, it's got to be better for the environment. And I hadn't even thought about your angle of the salt that you know we start doing — the first thing I thought about but I don't I don't I we I need to dig into this and understand is it you know is it a teaspoon of salt for a battery or is it you know a truckload you know how much salt is would be consumed if every battery maker moved to this type of maybe it doesn't matter though Anthony I think about like there there was some picture we saw of like a salt heap that was I can't remember how tall it was 700 ft tall and the size of multiple football stadium. Like I just think we've got so much of it available right — Yeah. I hope I hope it takes a lot of salt and I hope they can use it and then we can stop this uh shutting down of desalinization plants because of the effect it has in the the surrounding area where they pump the heavily salted waste water back into the ocean.

[53:37] My my fear is it's coming out of China and I just I have a real fear about science coming out of China right now. And is it science or is it what's the other word for it when you — propaganda? Yeah, there you go. — There is a uh there is a little problem there. So, — well, we've never we've never shied away from talking about things we don't understand. So, — there we go. Let's keep it that way. All right. Our our next topic, the X-P prize with the use of Google is putting up the money. They're paying $2 million to prove anyone can build a real business in 90 days. And this goes with our topic earlier, I think. I mean, this is one of the things for people to learn in lean into is if you really want to build something, it's never been it. You got to learn the skills, but it's never been easier. So, 2 million bucks to build a business. uh they already have over 11,000 participants registered in the first few weeks. And there's five categories: education, entrepreneurship, small business, financial access, and professional services. And the top five get to pitch at a live moonshot summit in LA, which is Peter Diamandis' thing.

[54:45] 500 grand to first, and then the other 1.5 million going to, you know, other place finishers. So, what say you? I I think it's we should revisit u you know Diamandis in that in this group and what they're what they're all about. I mean this group of of men and women and leaders in in various industries are really working hard to you know change the world. Ch you know to to in your words to democratize technology and and really level the playing field so that um real change comes in our in our world in terms of medical advances, space energy and so forth. and and they're they're working really really hard and they're putting up their own money and raising money to give people opportunity to uh to change the world. And I think it's a I think this is these are great people and they should be lauded for what they're doing. They're already as rich as they want to be. It's it's not about them making money. It's about them changing the helping to change the world for the good. And this this is truly an abundance effort. um an an abundance enterprise. I just think it's I think it's gives me hope that there are people like this out there that that are doing such things. So I think it's fantastic.

[56:10] — Yeah. I I love the whole X-P prize thing, you know, and I I always go back to, you know, a lot of the things that have been accomplished over the years have been because of X-P prizes. And I I think this is what if our government really wanted to be productive instead of trying to give everybody everything if they would create the right incentives right say hey here's the problem we want to solve and for a fraction of how government would solve the problem or in most cases government makes the problem worse when they throw money at it right seems like the more money we spend on homelessness the more homeless we have because people are incentivized if they would say hey instead said, "We're going to, you know, whatever. We spent10 billion on homelessness last year." Whatever. I'm just making the number up. Here's a billion dollars to solve this problem and they let entrepreneurs do it. My guess is homelessness would go away fairly quickly or at least if it doesn't go away, we would make a big big dent, you know, and we have Allen here in town with a, you know, an unbelievable project, but I think people would come up with solutions right and left.

[57:14] — Yeah. Some of that is happening there, Randy. Like to be to be fair, I think some of that is happening, right? So you have SBI grants, STCTR grants. Like there are things the government's doing to help that. The ARPAH is one that, you know, we're trying to get more involved with. So I I am hopeful the government's trying to do some of that. But to your point, I think they could do more of it and and if they were better publicized so everyone knew about it, the problems would likely get solved better. — Yeah. I mean, the amount of money, okay, I just Googled California has allocated 24 billion specifically toward 24 billion just in California alone, right? And it keeps getting worse. So, you know, clearly the government solution never seems to work. I just wish they would take take 10% of that, take 2.4 billion and say, "Here's incentive. Solve homelessness in our in our state." And I bet we'd have solutions that dwarf what they've come up with because change the incentives, change the outcome, right? But I I agree with Anthony. I think the X-P prize is Well, look at look at again we we we we beat a horse here with Elon. Look at what he's done in space compared to what the government has done in space. I mean, yes, the government got us, you know, to the moon and back, blew up a couple of Challenger SPA, you know, space shuttles and then basically shut Basically shut down. And this guy comes along, I don't know, what has it been 10 years? He's got he's he's about to launch an IPO around it. The largest IPO in history. So, it's an example of just one guy, but you know, private enterprise, private entrepreneurs, they have a better track record than the government at at a lot of things. Not everything. I wouldn't want private enterprise to run our military and all that, but although to some extent they do now with what they're building for the for the um military.

[59:14] wrap. Everybody listening, both spread a little abundance this week and we will talk to you again in about seven days. — Tell your friends next time. Thanks, wherever you get your podcast. Click follow for more content like this or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free tools.