Graham Stephan. is Graham Stephan a scam? Or is he legitimate David Jaffee with
BestStockStrategy.com and in this video you're going to learn my opinion
on Graham Stephan now before we start this video I
want to make it clear that I am NOT a hater
in fact I am probably much more wealthy than Graham Stephan people have a
tendency to label someone else who possesses an opinion which is contrary
to their own as a hater in my opinion Graham Stephan is not a fraud he is not
a scam artist I believe that his followers who watch his videos are not
going to derive any benefit and they are also not going to improve their own life
and the reason is very simple Graham led a life which if he tried to
replicate his own success a thousand times he would probably fail 999 Graham
did not go to college no I did not end up going to college he did not get good
grades in high school basically all of my grades were like D my goal in high
school is basically as long as I could just not fail the reality is that if you
want to be successful in life if you want to be wealthy if you want to be
worth 10 to 20 million dollars then you have to stack all of the probabilities
in your favor and someone who does not go to college who works as a real estate
agent who is essentially a product of the YouTube algorithm is not someone
that other people should look up to now on the flip side of that he definitely
does have very redeemable qualities he is an extremely hard worker he is
consistent in posting videos many people who follow in his footsteps and do not
go to college and who end up as a hard-working real estate agent and who
open up a youtube channel are going to find themselves earning about $50,000 a
year Graham Stephan was not overly successful
prior to YouTube he did not start a business he did not make hundreds of
thousands of dollars for millions of dollars in any previous
business instead Graham Stephan success is predicated upon the YouTube algorithm
promoting him and this is the primary reason why he is not someone that you
should look up to the reason is that if you follow in his footsteps the
probability that you are going to realize even one percent of his success
is extremely small people who are the most wealthy and the most successful in
our society tend to go to the best colleges Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg
went to Harvard Jeff Bezos went to Princeton those people realized that you
have to pay the price today and make the necessary sacrifices so that you can pay
any price in the future and set yourself up with the highest probability of
success for an individual who did not go to college who decided to become a real
estate salesperson and who started the YouTube channel in general those people
are going to max out and making anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars
a year however earning a hundred thousand
dollars a year as a real estate agent and by opening up a YouTube channel is
probably only achievable by less than ten percent of the population and this
is the primary reason why I believe that Graham Stephan is not someone that
should be idolized he has no prior history of success none of his previous
businesses that I have been able to find have been successful so essentially he
is a creation of YouTube he is a creation of the YouTube algorithm and I
wish him all the success in the world however it is extremely important for
you to be able to decipher between Locke and something that is replicable because
you are watching this video with the hope of enriching your own life you are
watching this video so that you can take bits and pieces of successful people's
personalities and adopt them as your own however in Graham Stephan's case he does
have some redeemable qualities such as not spending money on
but at the same time if you try to replicate and walk a similar path as him
the odds that you are going to replicate his success and even achieve 5% of the
annual income that he makes is close to zero because Graham Stephan is extremely
fortunate he got lucky he was in the right place at the right
time and right now as long as he continues to make videos and not screw
things up then he will be extremely successful in life
however he is not teaching you any skills that are going to help you live a
more enriched and successful life being a real estate salesperson is not
something that has a very high hurdle rate being a real estate salesperson is
something that virtually 100% of people can do there are very few barriers of
entry to be a real estate salesperson so Graham Stefan is essentially a glorified
real estate salesperson with fantastic verbal communication abilities and he's
combined that into his channel to be incredibly successful on YouTube but if
you try to follow a similar path as Graham Stefan there is an extremely low
probability that you will achieve even 5 or 10% of the success that Graham Stefan
has primarily because he got lucky in fact during high school he was negligent
in the way that he handled his future once I got my driver's license at 16 I
got really bad because then I would start to ditch school by skipping out on
your homework basically stop doing my homework by getting poor grades by
getting relatively pedestrian SAT scores you are not setting yourself up for
success if you're interested in a girl and you walk up to her and you look like
crap and you dress poorly the chances that she's going to show interest in you
are close to zero if you go for a job interview and you show up late and you
do not put forth any effort in preparing for that interview the chances
that you receive that job offer are going to be close to zero so in this
situation by not going to college by punting high school by not doing your
homework by getting pedestrian SAT scores by following a path where you're
going to be a real estate salesperson which has virtually zero barriers to
entry your chances of being successful are not that high yes you might make
around fifty thousand dollars a year however if you have goals and
aspirations of making over a million dollars a year you have to stack those
probabilities in your favor to provide yourself with the absolute best chance
of being successful I went to an Ivy League university and graduated with a
3.8 GPA I worked on Wall Street as an investment banker and while I do not
work on Wall Street anymore and I will never go back to the corporate lifestyle
I can tell you that we would never even consider hiring someone who did not go
to college we would never even consider hiring
someone who had a 2.0 GPA in high school my GPA was like a 2 so essentially by
not sacrificing the present to set yourself up for the future you are
limiting your future opportunities and instead relying on luck to achieve your
goals and that's essentially what Graham Stefan has done now is he fantastic at
what he does yes and I wish him all the success in the world because once your
worth around 10 to 20 million dollars if you somehow obtain an incremental 30 or
40 or 50 million dollars it's not going to change your lifestyle in fact the
more things that you own the more those things end up owning you you want to be
extremely nimble and unencumbered by the things that you own however you are
never going to be in a position to amass substantial wealth if you rely upon luck
like Graham Stephan did yes I'm sure that Graham Stephan could have been one
of the best real estate agents and he probably could have maxed out at a
hundred thousand dollars a year real estate
agents do not become incredibly wealthy real estate agents do not earn millions
of dollars a year now I know that you're gonna tell me that he could have bought
a few properties and then rented them out to tenants where is he going to get
the money for that banks are going to be extremely hesitant to loan money to real
estate sales people because they are not on salary
so by earning 50 to $100,000 a year as a real estate salesperson banks might be
hesitant to extend you alone and additionally you might not be able to
build up your real estate portfolio as rapidly as you want
additionally owning real estate is not easy so following Graham Stephan's model
of success is not something that is replicable again the main takeaway from
this video is that you want to put all of the odds in your favor
you want to put all of the probabilities in your favor and by following a similar
path to Graham Stefan where you do not go to college where you get really bad
grades that is not a way of increasing the odds and putting them in your favor
a final thing which is really important which a lot of people do not touch upon
are the psychological implications of what transpires when you get really bad
grades in high school one of the reasons why I'm confident is because I went to
an Ivy League university and I worked on Wall Street however if I had a 2.0 GPA
and I consistently underperformed all of my peers then I might carry forward
those negative thoughts into adulthood I might believe that I am not worthy of
my success because I failed at high school and did not even go to college so
while I do believe overall that college is a scam and that for many educated and
hardworking people who are self-starters that they will be better off by not
going to college I also believe that many people who try to idolize and
follow the footsteps of these fake gurus are only going to be hurting themselves
if you want to be rich you need to learn valuable skills
that you can monetize and by following the path as laid out by Graham Stefan
who in my opinion has gotten extremely lucky by being promoted by the YouTube
algorithm so that he makes one or two million dollars a year that is not
something that you are going to be able to replicate and if you try to replicate
that you are going to be extremely disappointed and you are only going to
be hurting yourself David Jaffee with BestStockStrategy.com if you have any
questions leave a comment below I respond to everyone's comments let me
know your thoughts on Graham Stephan again this is not a hater video I wish
him all the success in the world however I'm looking out for you and what I can
tell you is that if you want to be successful you must focus and be
committed to learning very valuable skills that you can monetize and getting
a 2.0 GPA in high school not going to college and relying upon luck is not the
way that you are going to accomplish your goals and maximize your potential