That is Iman Gadzhi,
a 22 year old with a net worth of over $85 million.
This is me, Mark Tilbury, a multimillionaire
from a completely different generation.
And here are eight things that Iman shared with me
that I want to give my perspective on.
And I have to warn all the Iman fans out there,
I don't agree with everything.
- [Iman] I absolutely despise the government.
I think they are the biggest criminal organization on earth.
- Iman believes our politics are controlled
by the rich and powerful.
He often refers to them as the puppet masters
who are pulling the strings behind the scenes.
Hearing this from such a young guy shocked me.
When I was younger, we were told to go to school,
get a job, work hard, and save for retirement,
and everyone believed it.
There just wasn't a way to challenge the status quo
unlike now with the internet.
I remember being so sad about the GameStop fiasco of 2021
after hearing on the news some kid
put his whole life savings into GameStop
all because he felt like it was his only chance
to succeed in the current climate,
resulting in him losing almost everything.
Thinking about it, it's not actually
that surprising that people are waking up.
The younger generation today probably feels
a bit financially cheated.
House prices are outta reach,
and Instagram constantly shows them how the 1% live,
pushing down their throats the widening wealth gap.
The next generations are being born and raised into debt
just so they can become cogs in the system.
Knowing this, it starts to make sense
why so many young people are drowning in student loans
and never taught about personal finance,
and feel like they can barely breathe.
- [Iman] I've got between like,
somewhere between $3.3, $3.4 million worth of watches.
- On my YouTube channel, "Strike it Big",
Iman shared that he believes in the idea
of investing in your status.
Like how having nice watches
will make people more likely to do business with you,
or how it can increase your influence on social media.
I find this one hard
as I didn't have much when I was growing up.
And I vividly remember going over to my mate Paul's house,
his mum would say I was looking pretty hungry,
and honestly I was.
She used to cook me a meal
and it ingrained in me the value of money.
Due to my childhood,
I have found it extremely hard to spend money on myself,
and this extends to expensive watches, cars, and suits
even though I can afford it.
I always think I can find a better way to invest my money.
However, after speaking to Iman, I'm man enough to admit,
my ingrained money mindset might be a little too extreme.
I now see the value of having a nice timepiece
as it can help in many ways
that aren't directly money related, such as networking.
Speaking about investing,
if you wanna get a free stock worth between $3 and $1,000
then I'll leave a link to public.com down below.
- [Iman] I will never be legally married,
especially in a place like you know, the UK.
- Iman believes that courts almost always
favor the side of the woman,
and divorce is a huge financial mistake.
He did, however, state on my podcast
that he would give his partner
over a million dollars every year
into a separate bank account, so that she has security.
He follows a lot of the ideology laid out
in the popular Red Pill movement
and thinks that men lose their passion
and become softer around women.
But from my experience, marriage has bought me a lot of joy.
Joy that couldn't be bought with money.
You know, like the old Beatles song,
♪ Money can't but you love ♪
- [Curtis] Oh, dear.
- In fact, my wife inspired me
to make one of the most important million dollar deals
in my business.
This turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made,
and I didn't make it alone.
She's always there to offer me a free second opinion
even if I don't ask for it.
I understand the reasoning behind Iman's opinion.
However, without marriage, I don't believe
you can have the same amount of trust and love.
After all, what joy is there
having all the money in the world,
if you don't have someone to love and share it with?
- [Iman] Once you have $10 million plus,
you never need to pay tax ever again anyways.
- Iman thinks that people hit the hardest
are those who have no choice
when it comes to paying their taxes
because it gets taken straight from their paychecks,
think doctors, footballers, and CEOs.
This takes me back to when I worked my first job
as a carpenter.
I was shocked to see how much tax
was being deducted from my paycheck.
It felt like someone else had first dibs on my money.
I mentioned to my friend
who owned a multimillion dollar plumbing business
just how big my tax bill actually was.
He told me, "Mark, what you gotta do
is you've gotta earn more money."
I said, "Yeah, but then I'll pay more tax."
He said, "No.
Once you get past a certain threshold
and you become super rich,
that's the point that you can start moving
from paid income to asset wealth,
and they can't as easily take that away from you."
That was an absolute eye opener.
I used to think we needed to decrease taxes on the rich,
but now I've realized it's the middle class
and lower upper class that pay the most in taxes,
the people who just pay tax without looking
into the loopholes.
- [Iman] When you watch football games,
yes, they may be well paid.
Yes, they might make millions of dollars a year.
But at the end of the day,
someone still tells them where and when to be somewhere.
- Iman argues that true freedom is being able
to be anywhere at any given time.
This is an interesting one to me because I've always built
traditional brick and mortar businesses,
which do tie me down geographically.
I became a millionaire in my twenties,
but I've never really had that level of freedom.
It's definitely attainable
as long as you can earn money from the internet.
I've met some people who do exactly that
and live in exotic places like Thailand,
where they can earn in dollars
and spend in the local currency, Baht,
while scaling their business.
I think this is a big reason
why cryptocurrency became so popular
as one of its main selling points is decentralization.
In other words, freedom.
The crypto and NFT boom was certainly a big multiplier
to Iman's net worth during the pandemic
as he was heavily invested in crypto,
as well as launching his own NFT project
leading to him making over $4 million in just one day.
Speaking of crypto, I've been buying mine on Coinbase,
and if you use my link in the description,
you'll receive five pounds once you sign up
and make a trade.
Just make sure to store your cryptocurrencies
off the exchange in a cold wallet for the most protection.
I think the thing that Iman overlooks
is the fact that footballers love their job
and they're following their passions.
Therefore, having this type of freedom properly
isn't that important to them.
Saying this, I'll definitely recommend
you keep in mind your priorities
before you start a business, not after.
I know a lot of business owners
that aren't actually able to travel.
Simply because instead of working on their business,
they work in their business,
and end up in what is basically a nine to five job
with no holiday pay.
- [Iman] Look, I'm sorry, but to get to $10,000 a month,
it's not hard.
- Iman believes that anyone can become rich
if they put their mind to it.
However, what's interesting is he says
in order to achieve his level of success,
a person needs a certain level of mental illness
to push that far.
I can relate to this as I've worked myself
to the point of serious illness on three separate occasions.
In fact, I made a video about my experience
being hospitalized and having a near death experience.
I look back on that and tell myself
that no amount of money is worth sacrificing my health.
Bearing this in mind,
I think that in order to achieve a crazy level of wealth
there needs to be a voice in the back of your head going,
"Come on, just one more push.
You can do it."
If something is never enough for a person
it might just be their secret to success
as they don't know when to stop.
- [Iman] I really just don't understand
why anyone on earth would want to commit
so much time to a fake world, a fake video game,
when we're living in the coolest video game in existence.
- Just think about it.
Every time you close your eyes to sleep,
someone else is awake and outworking you.
So many young kids get trapped in virtual games
like "World of Warcraft",
designed to trick your brain into thinking
that you're achieving things when you're not.
I've never been much of a gamer or thought of it like this,
but one thing that comes to mind is tinkering.
In video games, people are constantly tinkering
with their characters,
trying to optimize or make them stronger.
I was doing the same thing in my businesses.
I was tightening screws here and there,
adding this thing or that,
trying to refine my systems and processes.
It's never perfect.
The tinkering is a lifelong process.
But as someone who loves to fiddle with my race car engines,
I love the process.
A lot of the problems that come up in my businesses
turn out to be problems that reflect me as a person,
and these are the hardest to overcome.
However, constantly leveling myself up
has helped me understand a lot more about myself.
- [Iman] I have a rule. I spend 20% of everything I make.
- For Iman, this results in more than $2 million
being spent every year.
For him it's important
to fill his life with quality products.
He even told my son he needs to spend more.
- One of my favorite things
is pushing people to spend more money.
You know-
- That's what everyone tells me
to spend more money. - I was about to say.
I think you should spend more money.
- Personally, I've never been much of a spender.
Even when I've traveled the world,
I'd usually have some leftover money at the end of my trips.
I think what money really buys is more comfort.
But when you buy comfort you start getting used to it
and it's no longer special.
The real problem starts
when you no longer have the same amount of income,
but your habits are stuck where they were when you did.
Kind of like when you buy a new set of headphones
the music sounds much better.
But then, when you try going back to the old ones,
the music sounds awful.
I've always tried to spend my money
on things that give me a return, such as my real estate.
Saying this, only buying things that make you money
doesn't always satisfy your desire to be or feel rich.
So spending your money shouldn't be vilified.
However, you should approach it with caution.
The way you view money and your relationship with it
has a lot to do with how you grew up.
And something I've learned is that it's so important
to not let your childhood hold you back.
So I'm gonna leave the next video right up there,
but don't click on it just yet.
Make sure to subscribe if you want to grow your wealth.
Okay. I'll see you over there.