The following transcript was created using artificial intelligence. There will be some grammatical errors below. 

00:00:05:09 – 00:00:35:08

Richard Carthon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Crypto Current, your host here, Richard Carthon, and today I have a special guest that’s here to talk about a topic near and dear to my heart, which is financial literacy and different ways that you can start to generate wealth in different ways, that you can creatively do it. But of course, we talk a lot about Cryptocurrency and Blockchain here, but there are multiple ways that you can accomplish that. And we have an expert here that can help you kind of discuss several of those different ways. So, we have Damion with eQRP. How are you doing today? 

00:00:35:25 – 00:00:37:19

Damion Lupo: Hey Rich. It’s good to see you, man. Thanks for having me. 

00:00:38:09 – 00:00:44:09

Richard Carthon: Of course, man. Well, happy to learn more about you. And let’s start off by first learning about a little bit of background on yourself. 

00:00:45:21 – 00:01:29:21

Damion Lupo: Well, I mean, background wise, I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’ve had 50 plus companies, lots of syndications, lots of investment pools and a lot of other things. So, anything from real estate to insurance companies. And then all that entrepreneurial curiosity led me to the Crypto space, which is where I’m spending a lot of time these days, and integrating that into the retirement space, which is where most people have all their money. So, I just spent a lot of time being out there stubbing my toes, bleeding and hurting in the trenches. And it gives me a lot of perspective on the real world, not just in academic theory, like the Fed with their eight hundred PhDs, but actually being out there making stuff happen with real employees, real companies, real losses, real gains and real lessons. And that’s basically what I’ve been doing the last 25 years. 

00:01:30:11 – 00:02:03:11

Richard Carthon: No doubt. So, that means you have a wealth of knowledge and a grand perspective from the start to finish, from starting something from off the ground to being an employee to being an employer. All of that. And one of the things that you regularly talk about is wealth generation and wealth building and how a lot of companies kind of do their employees an injustice on how to do that. And I definitely want to dive into that in a second. But you just said that you kind of started to learn about Cryptocurrency, you’re incorporating that more into that. So, what is your first introduction into the Crypto space and how did that pique your interest into how that could cross into retirement? 

00:02:04:10 – 00:02:25:03

Damion Lupo: Well, it’s kind of funny because my first experience was knowing day in Prague. I was sitting there at a buddy’s Crypto anarchy institute and I wanted a latte and he said, “We don’t take cash, we only take Crypto.” And I said, “Well, how do I do that? So, he had an ATM. I bought some Bitcoin. This is when Bitcoin was about 600 bucks per coin. And bought a coffee and a t-shirt. 

00:02:25:11 – 00:02:48:27

Damion Lupo: And since then, it’s gone up. I mean, now it’s 50X, it was 100X. So, that coffee that was like, 10 bucks in Europe, if you do the math is a $1,000 coffee, but now it’s down to 500. So, my experience was annoying, then it’s interesting, then it started the ball going and now I’m looking at it going, what is the most expensive coffee in history. So, it was just really funny. It was like the guys the 10,000 Bitcoins for the pizza. This is my experience, kind of similar around the way. 

00:03:55:15 – 00:04:17:08

Richard Carthon: So, I find it really interesting that a lot of people in the same regard exchange their time for money, right? So, you go to your employer and you exchange your time so that you can provide for yourself and eventually save up money for retirement. And in a lot of ways I think that’s why you started eQRP. And I’m not going to steal your thunder, but can you kind of explain what it is, how you started it and how it’s helping to transform lives?

00:04:18:02 – 00:04:51:19

Damion Lupo: Yeah. I mean, I started it because I saw a big missing gap. Most people were taking their money and they were throwing it into a 401k. That’s where most people have their money and they think it’s between 401k’s and social security, and that’s going to basically cover their future. And unfortunately, when you wake up at 55 or 60 and you have 1,000,000 or $2,000,000 worth of stocks, which is what most people have, they’re not free, they’re just freaked out. And it’s like, they’re freaked out because they don’t know how they’re going to keep that money and not lose it. They have no training, they have no financial literacy. They just caught a wave and they said, “Oh, look, I got free money because my employer matched it.” 

00:04:52:01 – 00:05:31:22

Damion Lupo: So, the idea was we got to find a better way so people aren’t just riding this roller coaster inside of a Wall Street casino of up and down, you know, things go up, they go down. They’re freaking out. They don’t know how to actually do anything because there’s no training. It’s just handing your money over and, you know, giving up any type of control. And so, what I said was, there’s got to be a better way and the better way is where you get to control your assets. And when you control that, you tend to pay attention. And so the eQRP was built for people to have control of their money, their 401k’s, their IRA’s, be able to control it, invest it in real things, things like real estate and gold and Crypto. And it worked for individuals, it works for companies that have 50 employees. 

00:05:32:06 – 00:05:55:13

Damion Lupo: So, like, my firm has a plan and one of the plans that we have is not just the retirement plan, but it’s a plan for all the people here. And it’s a plan based on my commitment to make them financially free within 10 years if they stay and focus and study. And I think a lot of people missed the part of the study, the work. It’s like a four letter word. What I had to work? No, I just want to give my money to Wall Street and, you know, that’s not going to work out very well. 

00:05:55:25 – 00:06:23:15

Damion Lupo: So, it’s really about empowering people with a tool, which is the eQRP, and it’s also changing the narrative and the culture inside of organizations. So, it’s not just, Hey, as an employer, I’m going to hand some money over. It’s free money and then I don’t have to care. I think as an employer, it’s my job to care about people’s future and train them and put a lot of time and energy into them so, that they’re not a slave with modern shackles, which is what I think our monetary system is and financial system is. 

00:06:24:17 – 00:07:12:03

Richard Carthon: And it’s interesting. So, the education piece is something that I think is extremely valuable and I think is an injustice, unfortunately, for a lot of people who are going through the ebbs and flow of their everyday work, of not being able to understand how to amass wealth. So, a lot of people are taught, Hey, you put a certain amount aside for your 401k that’s for retirement is to say when you’re done, but what you do today affects that future money and you could be having strategies and sessions around how do you do that. And usually that’s only for the ultra wealthy, right? Those are for people who can afford to have financial advisors and creative solutions in the traditional sense of knowing different ways and elements to invest your money. So, how is eQRP uniquely positioned to help people to still have that kind of access? 

00:07:13:00 – 00:07:36:27

Damion Lupo: Well, what it does is we’re a relationship and education company. We happen to set up retirement accounts for people. So, what our clients find and what people hear is that we spend an inordinate amount of time educating people, not pitching them mutual funds or telling them how they need to save enough money to get four percent a year when they retire. That’s conventional wisdom, nonsense. And that’s what the systems, the financial advisors from Wall Street tell people. 

00:07:37:06 – 00:08:07:09

Damion Lupo: So, we spend all our time building this educational system where people say, Oh, Okay, you know what? I could actually learn what to do, not just, Hey, here’s a tool and then hope and pray that it’ll actually work out. So, the eQRP is a different system. It’s not set up to where we sell you something and then we take your money and then charge you one or two percent a year for life, which is what the entire system is set to do. The entire system is set up to rape and pillage and harvest the labor of individuals not based on any success, but just based on existing. 

00:08:07:11 – 00:08:42:16

Damion Lupo: So, that one or two percent with your portfolio is up or down. It gets charged every year and people don’t realize that. They don’t realize that over a period of 25 years, the compounding effect for most portfolios, if the stock market has done well, is maybe going to be three or four percent after fees. That’s not going to get you anywhere except broke and that’s really the truth. And unfortunately, people don’t know that until it’s too late. So, this empowers people to be able to do things where they’re actually going to be free, not just because they have money or there’s an account balance, but because they actually understand how they created it. And that’s where all the wealth is. It’s not in what you create, it’s in the knowledge and the experience and the scar tissue of doing it.

00:08:42:18 – 00:09:14:29

Richard Carthon: Right. And knowledge is power, but you also have to be empowered to know what to look for and how to take first steps and to start doing things yourself. And, you know, on that, one of the ways that a lot of people in the Crypto community are trying to figure out is, you know, how can they start to diversify into Crypto. So, some are allowing you to start to put some of your money into like, Bitcoin, some are allowing you to do Ethereum. What are ways that if someone who’s listening to this is interested and it sounds appealing, how could they potentially be able to take some of that money and apply it into the Crypto world as well? 

00:09:15:20 – 00:09:49:25

Damion Lupo: Well, one of the great things about eQRP is it’s the only retirement account in America, period. There are no other ones that allow you to take possession of Crypto in any type of Crypto you want, whether it’s Binance or Chainlink or Bitcoin or Ethereum. And you actually get to hold the coin, it’s not stuck in somebody else’s, you know, as a custodian. It’s not sitting in at Fidelity or PayPal. I, for one, the whole point of Crypto is actually holding it. It’s not just putting it somewhere because then you have a counterparty risk. It’s like having your, you know, if you don’t hold it, you don’t really own it. And with Crypto that’s really, really important. 

00:09:50:03 – 00:10:15:05

Damion Lupo: So, if you actually want to have your assets in your control, there’s only one choice. It’s the EQRP because you’re the trustee, you’re the one in charge. You write the checks and you get to hold the wallet. It’s not like you have to log in and then maybe your Bitcoin or your Chainlink or whatever you’re buying is going to be yours. That, I mean, that can be turned off in a heartbeat. And people don’t realize that these institutions, if they’re never a directive or they just decide that they’re going to keep it. 

00:10:15:07 – 00:10:52:15

Damion Lupo: I mean, you look at places like in, I forget the island off of Malta or wherever it was where they did this. Yeah, well, the one where they had all of the accounts and they said, “We actually need to pull the cash and use it to recapitalize the bank.” And so, they did that and people said, “Wait, how can you do this?” Well, they can. And all banks could do it and all institutions have fine print that allows them to do it. In that case, they didn’t realize that the Russian mob had been investing heavily in that bank and all of a sudden they pissed off the mob. So, that didn’t really work out, they gave the money back. But that kind of stuff can happen and the only way to prevent that is to make sure you actually have control. 

00:10:52:19 – 00:11:11:27

Damion Lupo: So, with Crypto and all these things that people are interested in, whether it’s Bitcoin or the alts or whatever, you really have to ask, how are you controlling it. And if you want your IRA and 401k money to be in something that is not bs, like stocks and mutual funds, then this is a great way to start moving and diversifying into something you actually control that’s going to define the future. 

00:11:12:20 – 00:11:32:23

Richard Carthon: Oh, absolutely. And that’s really unique and I definitely want to learn more about that because that is unique in that One, you get to hold your own and you can put whatever you want. Just a quick follow up question is, so in the traditional sense of like a 401k, typically you have to wait until you’re in your 60s or whatnot. For this, would you have to do the same thing, or is it a little bit more liquid and you can liquidate sooner? Or how does that work? 

00:11:33:04 – 00:12:13:03

Damion Lupo: Yeah. So, the way it’s set up, you actually have the ability to get money in there pretax. You can convert it to post-tax and you could actually take it out at any point, age 30, 40, 50 years old and do it tax free. So, part of what we offer is the strategy around this stuff. And we have teams of accountants and attorneys. And so, you get those ideas. We’re the only ones in the country that I’m aware of that’s building that strategy. So, just imagine going and taking money. You put it 50 or $100,000 into your retirement account or you move it into an eQRP and then you’re able to grow that to millions and take it out tax free and spend it whatever you want to do with it at 30, 40, 50 years old. That’s, I mean, that’s a game changer for people.

00:12:13:05 – 00:12:14:18

Richard Carthon: That’s extremely unique. 

00:12:15:12 – 00:12:16:08

Damion Lupo: That is totally unique, right? 

00:12:16:10 – 00:12:16:25

Richard Carthon: It’s awesome.

00:12:16:27 – 00:12:49:05

Damion Lupo: Because you’re like well, I have to wait until I’m 60 years old. You’re like, wait a second, what if I had a way to build because I see what’s happening and I actually get it. And I took this money and I put it into Crypto seeing where we’re going over the next five years. And I mean, there’s a way to retire. And then you could use staking or DeFi farming. And you can do that kind of stuff inside of Roth accounts to where all that money is tax free and you could spend it. So, for anybody to say, this doesn’t apply to me, I’m like, well, do you love paying taxes? Because then I guess it doesn’t apply to you. But if you don’t like paying taxes or you think you’re a better steward of your money, then this is a really good thing to know about. 

00:12:49:22 – 00:13:31:12

Richard Carthon: No, absolutely. I mean, I personally want to have a follow up conversation because that is extremely awesome in the sense that there’s a unique way that you could set this up, already have your pre tax phase ready and if you want to take an early retirement, you can, pretty awesome, pretty unique. And thank you for sharing that. Another direction I want to bring this, though, I personally am getting more involved in the real estate game and as everyone listening here right now, there is a real estate boom. It is absolutely a seller’s market and there’s a lot of opportunity in that space. How is it that people are able to diversify using their 401k and everything else to diversify into real estate right now? 

00:13:31:22 – 00:14:03:09

Damion Lupo: Well, what’s really funny is that people think that a 401k and an IRA, but especially 401k’s and all these plans people have at work that the options are mutual funds or bonds or cash. And the reality is that’s what makes Wall Street money. But when these were set up almost 50 years ago in 1973, the IRS and the Congress said, “Here are the things you can’t do.” And there was a small list. Like, you can’t invest in rugs or wine because obviously at 60 years old, you’d just be hung over and broke if it was in wine. So that they said, here’s the things you can’t do. 

00:14:03:11 – 00:14:38:15

Damion Lupo: Well, all the things you can’t do are things like real estate, things like gold, Crypto, all these things. And with real estate, a ton of our clients are investing in houses that they’re flipping. Syndications like apartments, land in Belize and Panama, like, you name it. If it’s got dirt and bricks and sticks, it’s part of somebody’s eQRP. And one of the neat things is that you can do this, you can invest in real estate and people are trying to maneuver real estate and do 10, 31 exchanges and all these fancy things, which can work, but once you actually use a retirement account properly and you use a Roth eQRP, you don’t pay taxes ever again on anything. 

00:14:38:26 – 00:15:10:06

Damion Lupo: So, you can take like, when I first started, I had negative money. I used a credit card to buy my first house in 1999, paid a little down payment with my $600,000 cash advance, and turned that into a 20,000,000 dollar portfolio. If I had used a Roth eQRP, I would have had no tax on anything. And so, I wouldn’t have had the 10, 31, I wouldn’t have had to play the games. So, it’s really interesting for people that are doing real estate and Crypto right now on the options on what you can do. They all work together really well and you can absolutely go to zero tax and take your stuff out of the Wall Street, cause you know. 

00:15:13:00 – 00:15:50:12

Richard Carthon: Yeah. I mean, that is incredible cause a lot of people don’t know that. And what is interesting about what you just said as well is that a lot of people do focus on, like the traditional sense of like, mutual funds, index funds, everything else, but don’t tell you all the other ways that you can legally diversify into. Sure, in some instances, people might consider it more risky or whatnot, but a lot of people don’t even realize that it’s an option. So, it sounds like one of the unique things is that eQRP is able to give you at least all the different options that you have, kind of lay it out there and say, here you go, here’s education, here’s your empowerment. Go do what you want. Is that kind of y’all’s philosophy? 

00:15:50:28 – 00:16:15:29

Damion Lupo: Yeah. It’s really about self responsibility and choice. I mean, the system is set up to give you choices that benefit the system. I’m talking about Wall Street, the financial institutions and advisers, whereas the eQRP is set up to benefit you and your family because you’re in control, you can actually impact the value of things. When you think about investing in Amazon stock, can you do anything to benefit your stock other than clicking buy now, buy now now on Amazon? And that’s going to really do much. 

00:16:16:01 – 00:16:40:23

Damion Lupo: But with real estate, if you said, “Okay, I’m going to go buy this property and I’ve got a vision,” and then you have a bunch of people change the property and then you sell it, you can actually force value creation. So, it’s really a shift into ownership of your life. I’m a big advocate of self responsibility and designing a life versus having a life by default. Wall Street is a life by default. It’s just you hope it all works out, but you don’t have any ability to control it. 

00:16:41:01 – 00:16:54:11

Damion Lupo: And so, this is a different world. So, for a lot of people, that’s scary because we’ve been trained to be slaves. We’ve been trained to hand our money over and just hope like, smoke a bunch of hope and it’ll all work. And that is not how the system works. You’ve got to be willing to work the system. 

00:16:55:01 – 00:16:58:25

Richard Carthon: No doubt. But you have to be willing to work the system, but you have to know how to do it, right? 

00:16:58:29 – 00:16:59:14

Damion Lupo: Yeah.

00:16:59:16 – 00:17:09:11

Richard Carthon: And it’s that mindshift and also being given the tools to then go and do that. So, let’s say someone’s listening to this right now, they’re really excited about this, they want to learn more and they want to potentially start doing next steps like what does that look like? 

00:17:10:11 – 00:17:33:26

Damion Lupo: I mean, like I said in the beginning, we’re an education company, so, the first thing somebody does is they get information so they can digest this fire hose that we’re going through. Like, wait a second, what is he talking about? What’s happening? And so, I wrote a book on this called The QRP Book, and that book is summed up in the QRP report, so, they can get a copy of that. Really simple, just text the word QRP to 72,000. That’s the first step. 

00:17:33:28 – 00:17:53:23

Damion Lupo: Once you do that, you’re going to get enough information to think this is probably something I want to know more. And then you have a conversation. This is not for everybody. I mean, when we have people come in and they’re reckless, like you’re going to go buy a Ferrari with your money. Yeah, we don’t want to do business with you. We don’t do business with victims or people that blame people. It’s just not interesting, it’s actually a terrible experience. 

00:17:54:03 – 00:18:18:12

Damion Lupo: So, if you’re the right fit and you actually want to own your life and you’re willing to do the work, then we build everything, which takes a couple of days. And for people to get money that’s stuck at 401k’s or IRA’s, it’s usually seven to 10 days and all that money sitting in a checking account and literally within 24 hours that could be converted into Bitcoin, Ethereum, it could be a real estate deal. You have power and control and speed all of a sudden. 

00:18:19:10 – 00:18:40:03

Richard Carthon: Yeah. That’s really unique and thanks for setting that up. And we’ll make sure to also have the links in the show notes. But, you know, I kind of want to pivot to another topic just really quickly. And that was you know, you talked about the philosophy of wealth creation and also just understanding like, how do you change the mindset of like, from being a victim to taking responsibility and ownership? 

00:18:41:01 – 00:18:55:07

Richard Carthon: You know, being a serial entrepreneur, seeing multiple journeys throughout your life, how have you been able to craft that mindset towards, you know, being able to take control and be in the driver’s seat of the financial freedom that you created? 

00:18:56:07 – 00:19:24:23

Damion Lupo: I think the key is being willing to test things and know that you’re going to be wrong. And so, when you walk into something, and you say, “I’m going to make a mistake because I don’t know if this is going to work and I’m going I’m going to lose money.” And you do it with things you can afford to screw up. And when you do that, you start realizing these mistakes don’t kill you. When we’re kids, we’re trained that mistakes will eat you. That if you make too many mistakes, you’re going to flunk out of school, you’re not going to go to college, you’re never going to get a job, you’re not going to have a pension, life is over. 

00:19:25:03 – 00:19:48:05

Damion Lupo: So, I mean, like all these things that make us afraid of making mistakes. As an entrepreneur, my job is to make a lot of mistakes. It’s to make mistakes faster than anybody else and learn from them and then compound those into other things. Like, in the real world, if you make 50 percent of whatever you’re doing, if you make 50 percent mistakes and you have 50 percent, whatever it is, success, I’ll be a billionaire. I mean, the reality is you’re going to miss more things than not. 

00:19:48:07 – 00:20:07:17

Damion Lupo: It’s like sales calls, for anybody that’s been in sales. You don’t call 100 people and get 80 percent of them to say, yes, that’s not how it works. It’s like real estate, you don’t look at 100 properties and buy 90 of them. But that’s what they tell you in school. Get 90, you get an A. If you get two or three out of 100, you’re getting an A. And just you think about the stuff school doesn’t apply to the real world at all. 

00:20:07:24 – 00:20:08:09

Richard Carthon: Right.

00:20:08:11 – 00:20:27:18

Damion Lupo: And so, it’s really about going out there and making mistakes and knowing it’s not going to eat you, unless you grew up in Alaska like me or you went to Africa, where I’ve been on safari. If you make a mistake in those two places, something eats you, but if you’re not in those two places, you’re not getting eaten by mistakes. And people are really afraid of mistakes, which means they’re never going to actually, they’re not going to tap into their potential because they’re going to live in fear. 

00:20:28:08 – 00:20:50:09

Richard Carthon: And I think that’s really valuable and very important. You’ve got to be willing to take the risk, you’ve got to be willing to go for it. And, you know, a lot of our audience is in Crypto and Blockchain, so they already have a pretty good risk tolerance or they’re on the cusp that they want to learn more to start taking that. Even yourself, when you first even learned and started getting a little bit more involved in the Crypto sphere, I mean, in the last decade, so much has happened. It’s become more legitimized. It’s something for the future. 

00:20:50:11 – 00:21:23:26

Richard Carthon: The fact that you can start to actually plan Crypto for your future and put in your retirement shows that there is a lot of belief that is going to be here. We’ve even seen a wave this year in 2021 between all the different things that have happened in the Crypto sphere from, you know, Bitcoin hitting its new, all time highs, Ethereum. At the time of this recording, we’ve seen a pullback, but all the same, it still looks very, very bullish. And where we’re headed, you know, what are some things that you personally are looking out for in the Crypto realm and where you think things are headed in the next couple of years? 

00:21:24:23 – 00:21:55:03

Damion Lupo: Well, I’m looking at all these legacy monsters that think that they’re so powerful and whether it’s the banks or the Amazons or the boxes or Dropbox or it’s just all these different things, I’m more interested in the solutions. So, when somebody sends me some, you know, some crap coin or whatever they want to call them and they say, “This is amazing, it’s going to go up.” And I invested in MILF, I say I invested, I threw a few thousand dollars because I thought it was a funny name. And it went up 600 percent in a day and I thought, I am brilliant. I started spending the money in my head about all the things I was going to do. I was going to buy a new car. 

00:21:55:09 – 00:22:13:21

Damion Lupo: And then I watched it go off a cliff and I was like, Okay, well, what did I just do? I don’t even know what this thing did. I went into a stupid emotional reptilian brain space instead of what I do with most of my portfolio, 99 percent of it. I take the money and I look at things and I say, “What is this solving?” And so, I think it’s really important. 

00:22:13:25 – 00:23:14:12

Damion Lupo: If you want to be part of the future and the solution, you have to look at what the actual protocols are doing. Are they disrupting lending like BlockFi, and Nexo, and Celsius and those types of companies that are making it to where banks are kind of irrelevant? You don’t need that kind of stuff when you can start doing payroll and you do it through Bit Wages or these different things like, and then you could pay people in Bitcoin. I like these protocols that solve problems, I don’t like friction. Our entire system is set up with massive amounts of friction. I like the privacy that’s being built in and so, my suggestion for everybody in what I do is focus on the actual solution, not a carbon copy, you know, photocopied white paper that somebody says, “Here’s my solution,” but something that’s led by smart developers with leadership and something that is really taking from people. I want to figure out ways to empower people and lift people up by teaching them to fish and being a part of the solution. So, that’s my philosophy. I don’t really give two craps about the next thing that’s going to go up 600 percent. That’s not why I’m doing this. 

00:23:14:25 – 00:23:37:27

Richard Carthon: And I agree with that full heartedly. Matter of fact, everyone listening, go rewind that, listen to it again. You need to get into projects that are here for the future. One of the things that I always pride myself on and talk about with everyone that listens to this show is get involved with projects that are building to be here in the next five to 10 years. Don’t get on these get rich quick, let’s see how much money we can make and get rug pulled. 

00:23:37:29 – 00:24:05:18

Richard Carthon: Find out companies that have a plan to be here for the next decade because those are going to be your winners because they’re playing the long game and they know that things take time to build. And when it’s built and this built right, the hockey stick of growth that truly will come and the true value will be there, those are your home run hitters. And so, I really appreciate what you just said. Again, everyone, go back and listen to that again. I think that was really, really, really great words of ways that you can analyze and look at different Crypto opportunities. 

00:24:06:03 – 00:24:25:14

Richard Carthon: But, you know, as we wrap up here, man, like, you dropped a lot of really good information, but the two fun questions I always like to ask, the first being with all the information that you have right now, if you could take it, and impart two to three pieces of wisdom to yourself when you first got started, when you first got to that first entrepreneurial endeavor, what information, what advice would you share with yourself? 

00:24:26:13 – 00:24:53:00

Damion Lupo: People ask me that, like, what would you do if you were 20 years old again or you were starting out. And I go, well, I mean, I’d probably just tell myself, you’re going to go bald, it’s going to be faster than you think. My hair fell out because of the amount of beatings I took, you know, it was more than anything. It was just when you have a lot of stress with growth and stuff, part of the stress comes from a couple of things. One, you don’t really know what your numbers are, so you’re just shooting from the hip and you’re like hoping you don’t go bankrupt. And I did that for a while. Not smart. 

00:24:53:02 – 00:25:15:15

Damion Lupo: So, you always want to know your numbers and have somebody else doing your numbers. Your job is not to be the bookkeeper or the accountant. Even if you’re good at it, your job is not, it’s to have somebody else bringing it to you saying here’s the truth, the numbers don’t lie. And so, you want to see your numbers all the time, whether you’re an investor or a business owner or both, whatever, and you want to know what you’re burning. Another one that is a really big deal is to always have people that are bald or grayer around you that have been through cycles. 

00:25:15:21 – 00:25:42:06

Damion Lupo: Somebody that’s 60 or 70 years old isn’t necessarily going to say, I get Crypto and I understand it. I’m high tech, really unlikely. But they’ve been through cycles and they’ve been through mass psychology. When they’ve seen cycles with markets and that is really, really relevant. Whenever like, in 2017, I watched a lot of people go crazy in the retail environment and they just thought everything was up. It’s like the number go up crowd. Hey Bitcoin Bitcoin’s going up. That’s all I care about. I’m like, Yeah. 

00:25:42:25 – 00:26:46:10

Damion Lupo: When you have people that have been through cycles and they understand transformational technologies, then they really understand where things are going and they can keep you, whether it’s with Crypto or real estate, it keeps you down to earth instead of just being out because you’re going to get whacked by an airplane coming by you if you’re out in the clouds, like, you’ve got to keep looking around. The mentors will do more. If you become the smartest person in the room, you’re going to get whacked. And that’s one of the reasons that I always have people that are older, wiser, have been through more cycles, can see further into the past than me because, you know, I’m in my forties and I want people, we really haven’t seen, even 2008, it was this great financial thing. But you talk to somebody that was around 100 years ago and they had a 25 year period where it took that long for the stock market to come back and people expect eight or 10 percent a year on everything. I just want perspective, so, I surround myself with people that not only are older and wiser, and balder, but also will challenge my assumptions so that I can say, “Wait, maybe I’m wrong,” because guess what? I’m wrong more than I’m right. 

00:26:46:16 – 00:27:21:16

Damion Lupo: I may never be in doubt, but I am definitely going to be wrong. So, I’m going to figure it out quicker if I have people around me that are willing to say, “Look, you’re being an idiot or you’re missing this thing.” And so, we all need that, I would tell myself, never be the smartest guy, always have the smarter people around you and pay them handsomely because you’ll pay attention to what you pay for. People say, “Oh, I’ve got my friend, I’ve got my cousin, I got my neighbor, my wife or husband.” And I say, “Yeah, they’re not going to tell you the truth and hurt you because they want to keep your relationship.” You have to pay somebody, you’ll pay attention to what they say and you’ll tend to take action faster than if it’s somebody that you’re friendly with. 

00:27:22:22 – 00:27:33:10

Richard Carthon: Yeah. I mean, those are some really good dimes, man. Wise words, I appreciate that. I personally am going to go back and listen to those. And I agree that you can’t be the smartest person in the room, you have to also be humble. 

00:27:33:13 – 00:28:18:22

Richard Carthon: You have to be willing to take feedback and ask for it and be ready to receive it. I feel, unfortunately, a lot of people are asking questions, but don’t necessarily want to hear the truth and when they hear it, they want to tell you why you’re wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with if you have a conviction that someone gave you to challenge it, but to just always not even see that what they’re saying could be right and to challenge your own assumption is a huge crux that a lot of people face. So, I really appreciate the humility and the willingness to always want to have that feedback, not be the smartest person in the room, surround yourself with really smart people who have the wisdom and keep that going. So, thanks for that. And, you know, man, as we wrap up here, you know, I always like to ask, you know, what is a final thought that you want to leave with all of our listeners here today? 

00:28:21:05 – 00:28:48:26

Damion Lupo: You know, I think that there’s something that’s being lost with all of the things that are going on in society, with everybody becoming a victim and identity politics and all this kind of stuff. And the reality is there’s always room for spectacular. So, if you’re going to be part of a solution, you’re going to be part of something spectacular, if you’re willing to hold the vision and stick with something. I see a lot of people bouncing around. I saw my dad do that. He bounced around for 73 years and it was really never going deep into anything. 

00:28:49:15 – 00:29:14:12

Damion Lupo: What’s amazing is that you go deep into something for three to five years and you spend 1,000 or 2,000 hours a year, you really get into it. You become one of the best in the world within a half a decade because most people don’t spend half a week on anything to master the next thing. So, I think it’s incredibly funny to watch people go, I can’t get any traction. It’s nothing’s happening for me. And I’m like, Yeah, but you’ve had 47 careers in the last two years. 

00:29:14:21 – 00:29:42:26

Damion Lupo: And obviously I’m exaggerating, but the reality is Facebook and all these other things keep us chasing shiny nuts like a bunch of drunk squirrels. That doesn’t help anybody. It’s definitely going to keep you exhausted and frazzled. You’re never going to get any depth and you’re never going to get momentum. So, if you want traction, momentum, you’ve got to be willing to stick. Doesn’t mean you stick with the first thing, but pick quickly and then run with it. You can always change later, but it’s amazing if you just stick with something and have a mission involved where your life will go. 

00:29:43:21 – 00:30:16:10

Richard Carthon: Man, that is an exceptional final thought. I was having this conversation with someone else the other day with just the amount of everyone just watching their friend and always thinking like, you know, you’re looking at people’s highlight films all day. So, you’re like, Oh, I need to try that highlight film, oh I need to try this highlight film. I need to go get this one because their life is clearly better than mine. And people don’t just lock in and say, like, I’m going to dominate this thing for the next three to five years, maybe even 10. And like, you know, if it turns out like, Oh, it wasn’t the right direction, at least I figured that out because I gave it time. 

00:30:16:12 – 00:30:48:11

Richard Carthon: A lot of people have such just I need to try this next thing and you become okay at a ton of things, but you don’t become great at anything. And I really, really resonate with that statement, so, I appreciate you saying that. I tell you what, Damion, you dropped a lot of nuggets in here. Everyone, I challenge you to listen to this a couple of times just because there is so much to take out of it. I appreciate your time and what you spent with us today. But for people who want to learn more about you and learn more about eQRP, what are ways that they can connect with you and learn about that? 

00:30:49:08 – 00:31:30:21

Damion Lupo: Best thing to do if you want to learn about the eQRP is to text eQRP to 72,000. So, it’s a text message. The number is 72,000, text the word eQRP and that’ll give you that report, 15 page report to really understand how you can go into the Crypto space, how you can do it tax free forever plus 10. So, the rest of your life plus another 10 beyond your life from the grave, you’re still not paying taxes and neither is your family. So, if that’s appealing and if it’s not, I don’t know why you’re listening to this. But the reality is you and your family are going to do better at your money than the government that’s going to waste and squander it, you know, with corruption and everything. And, you know, if you are to reach out to me, find me on LinkedIn, but don’t bot me. Like, I hate that. 

00:31:31:05 – 00:31:31:20

Richard Carthon: Yeah.

00:31:31:22 – 00:31:43:21

Damion Lupo: Like, when people just send out the same message and it’s like, Hey, let me pitch you on something. Like, send a real message out and I’m here and I love those conversations. It’s a good tip for everybody wanting to connect with random people. Be real because the world needs real people. 

00:31:44:11 – 00:31:51:18

Richard Carthon: Absolutely. Well, thank you for that final thought. Thank you for all the information you dropped with us today. And of course, for everyone listening, Stay Crypto Current.