- The YouTubers wanted to hitchhike on a private jet and finally convinced someone to take them on a flight.
- The person who agreed to fly them was a self-made millionaire who made his fortune trading energy commodities.
- He advises aspiring entrepreneurs to find a niche and deliver more value than anyone else.
- He values his happiness over money and puts a price on it.
- The cost to run the plane for a year is about a million dollars.
- He believes we are entering an economic winter and the most prepared and patient people will succeed.
- He doesn't panic about financial losses and focuses on his experiences rather than material possessions.
- He is cheap when it comes to overpriced items and prefers to cook at home.
- He believes that rich people should prioritize their health and surround themselves with helpful and vibrant individuals.

- The speaker discusses key decisions that changed the trajectory of their life, such as joining the Navy and quitting UPS to join the Navy.
- They talk about the importance of spontaneous decisions and taking leaps of faith.
- The speaker shares how getting fired from a job gave them the drive to succeed and compete against a large company.
- They discuss the advantages of owning a private jet and how it allows for more efficient and inspiring travel.
- The speaker talks about the perks of wealth, including the ability to solve problems and have more resources, as well as the social connections it provides.
- They emphasize the importance of building relationships for success, but also mention their own ability to figure things out independently.

- The speaker is a go-getter and introvert who prefers to do things themselves
- They have a sharp mind for perfection and making sure things are done right
- They discuss the perks of being wealthy, including owning a jet
- They believe that happiness comes from making progress and building meaningful relationships
- They regret working too much and not finding the right balance in their life
- They deal with the stress of trading by simulating worst-case scenarios and constantly scanning for potential errors
- They recommend learning from successful individuals like Tony Robbins and Keith Cunningham rather than pursuing traditional academic credentials
- They believe that society needs more risk-taking mentality and focus on local connections and community.

- The speaker emphasizes the importance of getting connected to one's roots and taking control over personal actions instead of focusing on things beyond one's control
- They discuss how trauma and limitations can affect individuals, particularly in navigating the world and achieving success
- The speaker believes that coming together and understanding each other's differences can help fulfill each other's needs and create a more interpersonal economy
- Personal experiences and revelations are shared, including the importance of self-empathy and being kind to oneself
- The benefits of stretching, both physically and mentally, are discussed, including increased patience, relaxation, and improved posture
- The speaker believes that investing in physical health is worth the cost, as it leads to improved overall well-being and emotional experiences
- The connection between physical and mental tension is highlighted, with trauma and stress manifesting in the body and affecting overall health.

- The role of fascia in mapping trauma in the body is being explored
- The next phase of business in the US will involve analyzing the pandemic and fixing issues in the scientific community
- Data and an open repository are needed for this analysis
- The government should not be involved in investigating itself
- Physical health is related to mental health
- Building connections and taking care of each other creates value in society
- GDP is not the only measure of economic activity
- The speaker wants to be part of the solution and encourages getting healthy
- The speaker envisions being more successful in the future and using resources to solve problems
- The goal should not just be to make and keep money, but to solve problems and find fulfillment
- Business can be fulfilling and a spiritual endeavor
- Creating work that aligns with one's lifestyle and living a nice lifestyle with great people is a powerful combination.

- YouTubers hitchhike on a private jet with a self-made millionaire who made his fortune trading energy commodities.
- The millionaire values happiness over money and advises aspiring entrepreneurs to find a niche and deliver more value.
- He believes we are entering an economic winter and emphasizes preparedness and patience for success.
- The speaker discusses key decisions that changed their life trajectory and the importance of spontaneous decisions and taking leaps of faith.
- They discuss the perks of wealth, owning a private jet, and the ability to solve problems and have social connections.
- The speaker emphasizes the importance of building relationships, but also their ability to figure things out independently.
- They discuss the benefits of being wealthy, the importance of physical health, and the connection between physical and mental tension.
- They believe society needs more risk-taking mentality, focus on local connections, and understanding each other's differences.
- Personal experiences, self-empathy, and being kind to oneself are highlighted.
- The speaker envisions being more successful in the future and using resources to solve problems, emphasizing the importance of finding fulfillment and aligning work with lifestyle.

👉 Need help getting started with your own business? Sign up for https://monthly1k.com

In Part 1: I asked private jet billionaires if I can hitchhike with them (check it out) https://youtu.be/coSLSCYhrBw

In Part 2 (this video): I actually hitch a ride on a billionaire's private jet from Austin to Boston and record a fascinating 45-minute interview with him! Enjoy!

✉️ Subscribe to My Newsletter (I reply to emails): https://okdork.com/

TIME STAMPS:

00:00 - Recap
02:00 - Interview starts
03:11 - Cost of running the plane
04:40 - Don’t impress people
05:15 - How James thinks about his finances
07:18 - How James handles low markets
07:43 - What James is cheap on
08:48 - Why wealthy people should eat the best food
09:58 - Key decisions that changed James’s life
11:05 - Making f*uck yes spontaneous decisions
12:12 - Getting fired changed his life
13:01 - Big companies aren’t invincible
13:30 - How to have a jet as a business expense
16:05 - How the jet boosts his net worth
17:00 - Why a private airplane is important
18:08 - The perks of being wealthy
19:40 - How to become successful
22:08 - How to use your time effectively
23:05 - How to raise kids with money
23:56 - Does James regret working so much?
25:13 - Everyday he works, he could lose everything
27:05 - How he deals with pressure
27:43 - What he reads
28:24 - The chip on his shoulder
29:01 - What the USA needs more of
30:38 - People limit themselves
31:58 - How the economy is going to shift
32:11 - What James is doing at 50
33:43 - How to reboot health
34:54 - Perfecting his golf swing
35:16 - Noah’s 3 takeaways
35:31 - Order dessert first
36:19 - How James spends his days
37:49 - James spends $2500/day on stretching?!
38:53 - Physical health is mental health
40:51 - Why James let Noah on the plane
41:24 - Creating value in the USA
42:18 - Who James will be when he’s 60
42:51 - The goal isn’t to keep money



🔔 Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF2v8v8te3_u4xhIQ8tGy1g?sub_confirmation=1 
📸 Connect on IG. I reply to DMs.  https://www.instagram.com/noahkagan/

In our last video, I set out on a mission to hitchhike on a private jet.

After getting rejected a bunch of times, I pushed through and met some incredible entrepreneurs.

However, I couldn't convince anyone to take me on a flight with them.

We're YouTubers, our dream is to get a tour of a private jet.

He was apprehensive at first as he was running late for his flight.

He made a ton of money last year and decided he needed a big airplane.

were getting off the plane, exchanging details, to our complete surprise, James said yes for us to fly with him to Boston on his $34 million private jet.

So this is the full interview I recorded with this self-made millionaire who was a former nuclear engineer in the Navy and made his fortune trading energy commodities.

Like how is having this like change your lifestyle?

Time is energy, and so it's a great multiplier.

Were you always doing trading like all along

or was it something you got into more recently?

No, I was in the Navy as a nuclear engineer and I got out and got into finance and then I wanted to learn about money and I learned about my MBA and so I went into the engineering side of things and the finance side of things and so I got into the power market.

I trade the most volatile markets in the world.

They're more volatile than crypto, they're more volatile than any commodity out there.

Electricity is the number 1 most volatile market in the world.

And they're the most reliably predictable because they follow the laws of physics, which is a conundrum, right?

The most predictable and the most volatile.

a jet like this, what would you recommend for them?

Just by trying to solve a problem and help out as much as possible.

Do you recall when you felt like you made it financially?

But I was going to sea half the time, so I couldn't really spend any money so I'd actually put most of it in the stock market which was doubling and tripling at the time.

So I did really well there and gave myself the opportunity to get out of the Navy without having to depend on you know re-enlisting and taking all the extra money they throw at you to stay in.

So I realized very quickly that was the value of my happiness.

You know, they would have offered me a hundred thousand dollar re-enlistment bonus to stay in.

When I realized that I put a value on my happiness and it had a dollar number, I was like, okay, that's the number.

A few years later it might have been a bigger number.

I'd be like, no way, you have to pay me a million dollars to do that again.

Now I'd be like, how much did you have to pay me to do that again?

You'd have to pay me a billion dollars to do that again.

Breakeven costs, I mean, that doesn't include usage, really.

Well, I mean, a million, well, I guess a million bucks does just kind of get you, yeah, I guess, I guess a normal usage would be about a million a year, or light usage.

If we flew at a fair amount, it would be a little bit more than that.

So like this flight to Boston, what does that cost?

It's probably going to be about, direct operating costs are going to be, to me, would be about $17,000.

Before we get into the best part of the interview, I have got to tell you about the course I've relaunched, Monthly1k.com.

I created this course a couple of years ago to help aspiring entrepreneurs like you get started and make their first $1,000 a month.

I'm launching the course at an all-time low price of just 10 bucks.

There's no subscription or anything else there.

I really want everyone who's watching this video to be able to 1 day own a jet just like James.

You can go sign up for yourself at monthly1k.com.

So I like reminding myself and the audience of that.

Just like trying to be a little less judgmental about who we see and what we think they are.

Like, How do you think about your finances?

You said some of the stuff, like crypto hasn't done well.

I guess how have you thought about your money and spending it or doing this kind of trip?

I think of the economy in phases and what cycle I think they're in.

I think we're entering or have been or entering into a winter.

I think wintertime is when the strongest come out and survive.

But, you know, I feel like wintertime is when there's a lot of rebirth, there's a lot of death.

Every time there's death, there's rebirth.

So you look at the depression in the 1930s or any of the worst economic recessions we've ever had, that's typically been when we've had the most innovation coming out of that.

So, it usually is happening as we were going into winter.

We were going into winter because it Seemed to be probably that the old ideas were just weren't working too good anymore.

Yeah, it kind of like kind of burned out Whatever energy that had and we were gonna be shifting into something new, you know these different phases that people are trying to figure out, you know, in our macroeconomic trends, right?

But I think that the people who do the best homework and are the most patient and are the most prepared, meaning they have cash on hand, ready to sweep in, get some good deals, are the ones that always succeed the most.

Because they know that when we're going through attractions there's always gonna be fear.

And Fear always causes fearful thinking, which causes us to think in a scarce mindset instead of abundantly.

Suddenly, everything is worth a lot less than you thought of before.

But like, well not but, you were mentioning that like, you had a crypto thing that went down, like how do you not panic?

How do you still say, okay, I'm gonna make this decision to take the jet out, or instead of like Southwest, you know, wanna get away fair.

I don't get attached to any 1 thing too much.

I could sell this thing tomorrow and fly commercial and be fine.

I like, you know, I'm more about where I'm going and what I'm doing.

My experience is not, I could, you can take this away.

Man, there's sometimes I buy something and they charge you a price.

You're like it's insulting It's like somebody slapped you across the face

I just like I used to work At Subway when I was 19 years old, I made $5.75 an hour.

And if that $5.75 an hour could buy me a certain amount, maybe a meal, I could take a girl out on a date.

How many hours do I have to work to buy a chick a $100 meal?

Because in my opinion, people don't make steaks very good anymore.

It's like I'm getting a half-assed steak out in town for an insane price.

Because again, food's 1 of the most important things, right?

I think the cool thing is, no matter how rich you are, we're all eating the same kinds of things, hopefully, about If you get rich, I think it's imperative that you eat nothing but the best food.

And in fact, it's indicative of our moral decline that the richest people who you could presume, or some could presume, are the best thinkers, are the least healthy people.

They're the most stressed out, they eat the worst fucking food, they hang around with people that are questionable.

With money comes great responsibility, or you could just do whatever the hell you want.

I'm trying to lead it by example by showing that I still want to eat the best foods, I still want to be healthy, I still want to hang around healthy people.

Young, healthy, vibrant minds that know how to solve real problems that contribute.

Can you pinpoint key inflection moments or key decisions that changed the trajectory of your life?

Like 1 I would say is going to the Navy for you.

I guess I'm curious, other moments in your life that you felt like you were lucky, or you met someone, maybe it's Bob Cooley, it sounds like another 1.

What other moments in your life come to you that like really changed trajectories?

Doing a U-turn and after working the night shift, loading trucks on that UPS for the holidays, literally, I was like not happy with life.

I was like 21 years old, college dropout, and I was going nowhere quick.

But I knew I was very smart, I knew I was very driven, and I knew I could do anything I wanted to do.

But when I joined the Navy, it was a leap of faith.

I literally did a U-turn, went and talked to a recruiter, and 7 days later I was in boot camp.

I think some of the most spontaneous decisions I've made sometimes have been the best.

Otherwise why would you get on a plane to come to Boston?

I don't do like, okay kind of things, you know?

What are some of the other fuck yeahs or spontaneous big things?

So it sounds like quitting UPS to go join the Navy was a massive leap of faith U-turn.

Yeah, that really, you know, doing something extremely difficult really gave me the confidence that, oh wow, I could be like considered the best of the best, you know.

It was a very tough school I went through.

So then another thing was getting a good job out of college.

If you just look for gifts, they're there, you know.

Yeah, I'm curious yours, because I think you have some magic ones in there.

Because I demanded that I be paid what I was worth.

I demanded I actually get paid for doing somebody else's job, which I was doing.

And that gave me the initiative and the drive to be like, I'm going to show these people how this is done.

Because I ended up competing against Axial Energy.

And I believe I did things better than they did.

Even though they're a huge Fortune 100 company.

I think when you analyze a lot of the big companies or people that have money or whatever, you pierce the veil of invincibility.

Like, they're just normal people, doing normal fucking things.

Like, I'm pretty sure I could do exactly what you're doing 10 times better, you

How about I just buy your business and that's what you should be doing.

How does someone have a jet as a business expense.

Yeah, in the United States there's lots of tax laws for, depending on your tax status, if you are an entrepreneur, you can take advantage of these tax laws that let you defer capital gains.

Yeah, you defer basically, like say if you bought a plane for a million dollars, you could write off the first year, write off a good chunk of it, almost 50% of the first year.

Depend on the acceleration schedule you're on, or the depreciation schedule you're on.

And then if you say, okay, well, I'm getting a loan for $800,000, I'm putting $200,000 down, I'm saving, I'm not paying 40-something percent taxes on my $500,000 that I wrote off.

And So if you look at, okay, well, I'm tax flow positive the first year, I'm net positive 200 grand.

But I'm net cash positive the first year.

It probably rolls into the second year too.

You wouldn't actually be paying cash outweigh until year 2.

But if you can say, well hey, my business is booming, I just doubled my business last year, 100% growth.

If you're smart about it, if you're growing, and if you're confident, and you use the machine as a vehicle to success, to further success, you can build a business with these planes, and It happens all the time.

Not possible to create a nationwide business without being able to travel around and meet people.

As much as we think we can be remote and doing this Zoom bullshit, it's not happening.

It's the same thing as electric vehicles.

And then are you able to expense, you can expense trips, so like when you're flying to a business trip in Boston.

Yeah, but I think the IRS changed the expense.

I'm in Puerto Rico, the tax laws are completely different there, So they've changed the expense rules on that quite a bit.

So you have to keep really good records of which trips are work trips, which ones are personal trips, who's on board for what purpose, and that kind of thing.

That's what the aviation management stuff does.

How much do you think of your net worth and like, wealth that's been generated from having the kind of jet?

From being able to go and see people and do the meetings?

I don't know, honestly, because it's like, it kind of keeps me sane, you know, it allows me to be able to do it I don't know.

It kind of gives you the fuel, the air in your lungs to like, OK, I want to do something bigger.

I mean, I never thought I'd fly a jet before.

And it's like, you have all these, you know.

So I was like, lower middle class income family.

I had 2 paper routes when I was 12 years old.

Now my parents would get thrown in jail for that if I was out delivering papers.

I don't know, I think it just kind of gives you this incentive to do bigger things.

And these are obviously, they look like toys, they perform like toys.

I mean, you can have a party in this thing.

You can also have a meeting on this thing.

We can also do a business deal on this thing.

We can also sign a climate accord, or we could actually sign a treaty that decides that we're not going to use nuclear weapons ever again.

We could do it right here right now on this plane.

That's the importance of having an airplane.

That's what the President of the United States has with Air Force 1, you know.

Like even hearing you talk, hearing about where you're going, how you think about things, the problems, like,

You gotta be, I think as an executive, as an entrepreneur executive, you've got to be iron-fisted with your time and be extremely defensive of anybody trying to get any more of your time than you already give because you already work too hard.

So when it comes to travel or whatever, I would be like, no, it makes me, I don't have to waste time at airports and do all that bullshit.

It's gonna make me way more efficient, time efficient, and I'm gonna be more inspired to travel.

So you've worked your ass off, what are some of the perks besides the jet?

Like I think people are always curious, like hey, you've worked super hard, you've earned it.

First of all, being able to relax, knowing that you can solve any problem.

Knowing that you always grow to overcome any obstacle.

And even if it's going to suck and you can see in advance, sometimes we see problems coming like a slow moving train and we know it's not going to be fun, we step in there and start working on it.

I was saying, people are curious if you have houses, what's it like to have this level of wealth?

I think that's what people are curious about.

And what's the advantages or disadvantages of that?

I think the advantage is that I have more resources to fix problems in my life, which are just as meaningful as everybody else's.

Everybody's got the same number of problems.

I got, I promise you, I probably had more problems than you.

But having the patience to know that I can fix things in due time, take my time, get the resources, fix the problem.

But I can also take breaks and I can live my life and be happy doing it in chunks here and there.

Wherever I happen to be, whether I happen to be visiting family or friends, I have friends all over the place.

My ability to connect socially is probably the biggest benefit of all that.

We know that success in any endeavor comes down to your ability to build relationships.

I feel like you seem also you've done a lot of it yourself.

Like you were able to figure out this trading thing, I guess in my impression.

Yeah, I was very much a go-getter and kind of an introvert.

I would be the 1 that would just do it myself because I wouldn't trust that somebody else would do it the way it needed to be done.

I have a very sharp mind for perfecting things and making sure things are right.

Because of my training and some other things too.

Yeah, I just, not sure what the question was.

No, it was just more of perks of being wealthy.

I mean, having, I guess 1, How much does someone need to own a jet, you think?

I mean, that's cool that you're asking these questions.

I don't really think about it that much, but I mean, you know, you just, any amount of money you have, you just kind of adapt to it, right?

If you ever had a job where you had to, if you ever had a situation in your life where you had to take a cut in pay, you know, you don't know how you're going to do it.

You don't know how you're going to do it.

See all Noah Kagan transcripts on Youtube

Asking A Billionaire How To Make $1,000,000