94. Shahar Abrams Goes All In On Crypto
This week I speak to Shahar Abrams, experienced crypto investor and professional in the blockchain industry, on a mission to improve personal finance education nationally.
Travelling down the data science route, Shahar worked at IBM for a number of years. When he came across Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it put him in a frame of mind to focus more on active investing for himself. Specifically, he wanted to dive deeper into crypto assets, and has been developing his investment strategy through trial and error ever since.
You can checkout more about Shahar and how to work with him at roadtobabylon.org.
Episode Transcript
Jason Butler 0:00
Hello, coming up in this week's episode, could it be easier now for people to build their own homes with help from the government? And are you aware of the new permitted building rights which would enable you to make your home bigger and better when we speak to someone who's trying to change the world, create abundance, and teach everyone about the wonders of crypto.
Hello, and welcome to the real money stories podcast. I'm Jason Butler. And I invite you to join me as I have intimate money conversations with people from all walks of life. Whether you're just starting out on your money journey, or well down the track, there's bound to be something you can learn from these stories about taking more control of your money, so you worry less and enjoy life more. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk for more details. And remember, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.
Now, you might be aware if you're a regular listener of this podcast, but last year, I had a house built in part of my garden, I got a big garden and I had a big detached house built in part of it. Well, I didn't actually build it. Obviously, I had it built. But I oversaw it, I did the project management costings and the oversight of it all right, it's really interesting. And if you want to find out how the bill went, you can go to my YouTube channel, Jason Butler financial wellbeing, or go to my website, and you can access it through there, Jason hyphen, butler.com. And you can watch all 20 episodes of how we built the house from beginning to end. And I learned a lot about house building. And in fact, we use the new modern method of construction, which was structured insulated panels with metal frame and beams, which is great fun. And we've ended up with a really, really nice, gorgeous detached barn style house. And we rent that out as a holiday lead or author, my wife runs that business chain, she runs that business. And we'll be doing a video soon about what we've learned about that. So that you can hopefully get some ideas it might be right for you might be something your friends might consider doing. So we've done two things that we've learned how to build a house from scratch. And we've learned how to run a holiday, let business and we'll be giving, as I say some insights about running that holiday, like what we've learned in a future video and possibly might even get my wife to join me on the podcast. But the reason I'm raising it is the earlier this year, the government announced a new scheme, which will be coming out later this year, called help to build. Now you may be familiar with the Help to Buy scheme, which is where the government sort of stamp up 20% as an equity loan, you borrow 75%, you put a small 5% deposit down? Well, the help to build scheme is is expected to be and we don't know the actual details yet, but is expected to be similar to the Help to Buy scheme, but specifically for people who are either having a house built, or it's a custom build, whether that's part of the biggest state project or an individual project. And the idea is to make it more affordable for people because obviously we're self build is different because you normally have stage payments, because you're building the house now get the land and you build the foundations, and then you get the frame and then you have the finishing touches. So it's a different process to just buying a brand new house that's ready to go. And interestingly, the cost to build a house including buying the land is normally less than the final value, which is a bit different from Help to Buy, because you're buying a new house, that generally will fall in value after you've bought it because obviously it's got the builders premium on it. So custom and self build is I'm really, really enthusiastic about this. And I think it's a potential way of people getting a more affordable home and a home that suits them at a price that they can afford. And hopefully capturing that upside margin themselves. Problem is, is that buying the land is quite expensive to buy building land. And the chances are that you'll have to pay a premium for that. But nevertheless, it means you do get a home that you want, where you want it to be to meet your needs. So the the details, as I say have not yet been announced. But anytime now they're meant to be coming out. And if you the before that what you should do is you should register with your local authority or wherever it is you want to live in potentially build a house to register with the local authority for the area that you want to build a house and say that you know, you want to go on the self bill register. And it's really, really important to do that. And you go to this self build portal.org.uk and from that you can register and you can alert your local council that you want to go on the self building custom build register, it doesn't commit you to building a house or funding or anything, but it just shows that you're interested in they'll keep you informed when they know what's happening with the help to build scheme. So that's the self build portal.org dot UK. And as I say, really, really commend you to think about the potential of building your own house, it's quite common in Scandinavia, but for some reason, it's still very, still very niche here. But the government thinks that between 30 to 40,000 houses a year could be fulfilled with custom and self build people. So they're really getting behind this. And they put in 150 million pounds of equity funding into this, which potentially, with deposits and borrowing is, you know, it's probably about, it's probably about 100 million pounds worth of houses. So that's quite a lot of houses. So there's gonna be a couple of 1000 people who can take advantage of that. And so why shouldn't it be you? So yeah, check that one out. Now, keeping with the property theme, and also about creating wealth and building abundance, I wanted to talk about the new permitted development rights. Now you probably aware, a few episodes ago, I've mentioned about the ability to put, you know, a do a loft conversion that's normally within permitted building rights, and permitted development rights are your ability to be able to make changes, additions, extensions, to your home, without having to get formal planning permission. And normally, what you do is you get what's called prior approval. So you just write to the local authority and say, This is what I'm intending to do. Can you confirm this is within my permitted development rights, and they're quite clear things that you can and can't do. But as long as you meet those requirements, you don't need to get planning permission. And the idea is that people should be able to build up and out and make their homes bigger, more appropriate and or more usable and more practical. Now, one of the major changes to permitted development rights for people who are householders people live in homes dwellings, is that it's the ability for existing buildings to have additional stories. So you can have the addition of one or two stories to a home. So if it's a single storey house, ground floor in a bungalow, you can have one story to it. And if it's a two storey house, you can live at two storeys. So that's really quite exciting. And obviously, there are some caveats, if you're an expert in a conservation area, or if you've got a listed building, or if you're in an area of outstanding natural beauty, there are certain things that that you are restricted, but most people can make use of this. So think about that, think about putting an extra floor on your house. And with modern methods of construction. Now you can actually buy that whole floor pre built in galvanised steel or other materials, and it gets craned in position. And then, you know, it can be your house can be done in a couple of weeks. This is not months and months. And this is a way of really adding value, but more importantly, having better quality of life. So really worth looking at. A couple of caveats there though, the building has to have been constructed between July 1948 and October 2018. And there's a maximum additional height of 3.5 metres per story. And the ceiling can't be taller than existing ceiling heights. And if it's semi detached, then the extension can't be higher than 3.5 metres taller than the adjoining buildings. So do check it out. If you go to the website, which is in the notes of the pod, I'll put them there, so that you can actually find out about those. But you can normally find out about permitted development rights via your local authority planning hub or the planning portal. That's the planning portal. That's the government centralised information, but well worth looking at it. And in fact, there's been some more changes to permissive development rights this August this this month. And it relates to mixed use properties and offices. Now you probably have heard stories about you know, sort of old horrible industrial units being converted to
residential and it's not being very nice, not enough light, very small, not appropriate. But what this is really saying is that basically, if it's under 1500, square metres, then basically, you have an automatic right, in most situations to be able to convert offices, shops, warehouses, anything like that, that's not not really any good anymore. You can convert that to a dwelling. So think about that, could you club together with some friends and buy a sort of redundant old shop or an old, an old retail unit that's not being used, and perhaps you could turn that into some flats, or you can turn it into a nice home? So So start thinking laterally thinking too, so don't just keep thinking or can't find a house or it's all too expensive? What about doing a conversion, not saying this is for the faint hearted, and perhaps you might want to partner up with someone who's experienced or find a local builder you can trust or a developer. But there are lots of opportunities out there, the high street is changing. The peripherals of villages and towns are changing. And what was, you know, a building that's not being used anymore can now be brought back into life and you saw this when banks started closing And then they became coffee bars and became wine bars and, and places like that. And it's the same. Now you can start creating homes and residential living spaces out of redundant previously commercial buildings. And there's some certain VAT and stamp duty benefits to doing that beyond the scope of today. But yeah, I'll be doing some more stuff on that on the YouTube channel all about commercial conversions, I'll be talking about how you can actually add value and, and really, that's an area that I'm particularly interested in, basically, converting commercial into residential versus an area that I think is ripe for exploitation, but more importantly, is going to create more housing yours for everyone out there. So whether it's their home for us something your family, or you're thinking of a sideline or to make some wealth, or to replace your income from a job really worth looking at. So I'll put the link in the show notes to the appropriate website. So you can check that out for yourself. But it's all there. The government wants you to basically build wealth, it wants you to have a home that you can call your own. It wants you to get ahead. So regardless of what your politics are, the rules are there. Let's make use of them. Okay, that's enough from me. Let's get on to this week's interview.
Gregg Well, thanks for joining me on another edition of real money stories this week. Got an interesting guest for you. But I've always got interesting guests. Shahar Abrams. Hi, Shahar. Thanks for joining us. Thanks. Great to be here. Good. What, obviously, just tell us kind of who you are, what you do, and how you ended up here?
Shahar Abrams 11:34
Yeah, sure. So I travelled around a lot. As a kid, I grew up in Alabama, down south and then went to DC for university and for work. And I was working in tech for IBM for a while. And you know, it's kind of on this data science route for a few years. And I think what all what it all started for me was in 2016, I find I came across the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, the iconic kind of personal finance book by Robert Kiyosaki. And I read, I'd always been interested in finance, I studied it in school, but I didn't want to do banking. But when I read that I didn't have I guess, a framework for my personal finance. When I read that book, it kind of clicked for me, you know, wow, you know, this is a great way to think about personal finance, you know, goal setting, you know, that this is a destination that I can get behind this idea of passive income investing, focusing on assets, you know, the definition of an asset is something that puts money into your pocket, simply right, I love that. So that kind of put me in the frame of mind where I wanted to focus more on personal kind of active investing for myself, I knew I could take risk because you know, as a young guy, and didn't have any dependents, right? So, you know, I spent a while kind of looking fruitlessly for something that, you know, really fit my personality, like as an investment. And in 2017, you know, I'd heard about crypto assets before, specifically, you know, Bitcoin. But I never really took the time. I think like a lot of people back then I never really took the time to dive into it. And 2017 what changed is I got a book, you know, sort of from work, right? You know, I'd heard about blockchain at working for IBM, and I wanted to dive in a little bit more. And so I got a book called the blockchain for business. And I read that book and what it really kind of clicked for me the philosophy and kind of vision behind crypto as a whole. And that made a lot of sense. For me the idea, basically, I think the central idea I realised is that crypto is trust for the internet, right? It's a trust layer for the internet. And that I thought was huge. Because I think, you know, the biggest problems in our online world today are trust and security, right? You don't know where content is coming from, and you don't, you know, and it's hard to interact with third parties is a lot of friction. So I dove into that, right. And I, you know, put a good chunk of money into crypto in mid 2017, which turned out you know, as luck would have it to be pretty good timing. And, you know, my time horizon for that investment, honestly, was several years. Right. And when I made you know, three 400%, in six months, you know, that really caught me by surprise, and I, you know, my inexperience kind of came to the front, I didn't know what to do, I had no concept of market cycles or, you know, this idea of taking profit, you know, along the way. And so, you know, long story short, you If I, you know, became euphoric, I didn't sell anything. And over the next two years 2018 2019 I saw all of my paper profits disappear. Right. And and luckily for me, they were, you know, paper profits. So I did, eventually I did, you know, start eating into principle, but not too much. But, you know, that was actually incredibly motivating to me how much I kind of messed up that cycle. Right. And so I really dove into learning about investment strategies, and, you know, personal finance strategies and crypto some more, right? So every day I was, you know, nine to five at work, and then, you know, six to one, you know, just learning about crypto and going down the rabbit hole, all during the, you know, kind of crypto winter bear market. And I made, you know, kind of, again, a calculated risk decision now, knowing more about personal finance that, you know, it's really hard to make it big, if you don't, you know, kind of really specialise. So, you know, I decided to put most everything I had into crypto industry with the idea that, you know, either my bet pays off, and I can retire early, or, you know, I lose, you know, the first five, six years of my income, which isn't the worst thing because, you know, I can keep working.
So, you know, I made that bet through 18 and 19. And I had the conviction, right, I think what you need to invest in crypto is a lot of conviction is a very volatile, savage market that never closes, and it's 24. Seven. So that I think is the number one thing that that took me through, you know, I remember the Coronavirus crash, my portfolio is down 40% in a day, you know, and I thought, you know, this is the end, right. But I thankfully, I had the conviction to stick to my strategy, right, hold tight. And now, in 2021, I, you know, the beginning of the year, I quit my job to kind of focus more on this industry, learning more about it, because learning about it as a full time job, and also trying to teach and educate, you know, Share, share what I've learned, right, and a lot of what I had to learn the hard way with people in terms of how to approach investing in the space, the right way, and I'm sure we'll get more into this. But you know, the greatest thing about this space and the biggest kind of secret, you know, is the best kept secret is the potential for passive income right in the span. That's one of the things that really sold me on crypto assets. Again, going back to Rich Dad, Poor Dad is the massive potential for passive income that you can get with crypto assets that really just aren't present with other assets unless you're really, really sophisticated.
Jason Butler 17:50
So that's interesting. So you've you've gone through that first, most important learning of, we love the gains, but we hate the losses even worse, right? And that, that euphoria effect thinking you're smart, as opposed to lucky, versus the you've been unlucky when you make the losses as opposed to being stupid. So that's an interesting one. So tell me, what was it that drew you into the crypto space? I mean, you mentioned crypto, but there's a difference between blockchain the underlying technology and I agree with you absolutely. That is a source of a way of taking out friction, a way of increasing trust a way of decentralising, etc. But that's different to crypto, which doesn't actually produce anything, and costs a huge amount of energy to create, which seems to be at odds with sustainability, which are thoughts on that?
Shahar Abrams 18:39
Yeah, great question. I love this topic. So let's dive into that. So what I actually you know, crypto is kind of ESG investing for me. Let me start with that. So blockchain, I worked in blockchain for several years at IBM after I became obsessed to starting in 2018. I was helping lead blockchain projects for IBM. And, you know, I think the difference here when people talk about blockchain, they're generally referring to permission what we call permission. blockchains. Right, which is, you know, every kind of blockchain network that you might have right in a blockchain kind of forms that network because there's no point in having a blockchain just for yourself, right? It's a very cumbersome way to record data. So unless you have lots of parties that need that single source of truth, that is the distributed ledger, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use a blockchain. So blockchains naturally create networks. And in every blockchain network has to think about, you know, who gets to transact on the network and who gets to participate in operating the network. Now in permission blockchain we limit those things, right, we have we answer both of those questions in a specific way, because we're building business networks, right. And if you're Walmart, and you have you know, you're putting all your food data on your network and you're asking your suppliers to do that. You don't need anyone necessarily to see that right. You want that to be permission, you don't want to end up with any Want to be operating that? Right? You want that to be permissioned? So that makes sense. What drew me into the crypto side is because crypto is the idea of public blockchains. So really, you know, these networks are utilities, anyone can transact on them. And anyone can, in fact, participate in operating them. Right, which is called mining, right? about running, you know, validating transactions on the network, through computing power, or steak or whatever it might be. Now, let's, so let's talk about energy, right? I think, you know, a major, let's say, challenge to the narrative, is this idea that it's extremely energy efficient, and it's using tonnes of energy. And it is using tonnes of energy, particularly Bitcoin, right, is using, you know, as much energy as a small country on a day to day basis, right. But I think it's a mistake to think that this is actually exceptionally dirty energy. So the average let's let's look at some data. So the average renewable energy usage in the United States is about 21%. So about 21% of our grid is renewables in Bitcoin and a study done last year by Cambridge, they found that it was actually around 38 39%, renewable. So Bitcoin mining is, in fact, cleaner than the average industry in the US. And there's been a trend actually towards more renewable energy. So the same study done in 2018, there are actually less renewable energy being used, and it's trended towards more renewable energy. And the reason why is because Bitcoin actually does something. And crypto in general, perhaps, actually does something really special and unique, that I think, you know, world governments have been dreaming of, which is, it provides a natural market incentive to find the lowest cost energy, right, because as a miner, validating transactions, your only cost input, besides your capex is energy. That's, that's your entire optics. So the more and it doesn't matter where you are, right, you can locate your computers anywhere, you don't need to be hooked up to the grid, one of the biggest challenges with renewable energies generally, is their ability to get in sync with the grid. Right? It's very hard to store energy, it's very hard to move energy. So if you're using wind or solar, right, you are generating energy when the wind is blowing, or when the sun is shining, that doesn't always line up with the demand of the grid. So it makes renewable energy investing, you know, very difficult, right. And I think crypto is something that could actually make investments in renewable energies a lot more palatable, because of this idea that mining can be kind of the buyer of last resort for your energy. Right? So when the grid isn't demanding your energy, you can actually just put that into something like Bitcoin mining, and make and still make a return. Right. And so that's very powerful. I think that crypto and Bitcoin actually could speed us to renewable energies. Hmm. Interesting. That's
Jason Butler 23:12
an interesting alternative view. I mean, it's not one I've heard before, but no, actually, I've heard bits of that thing about the use of renewables. But one could argue that if they weren't using the renewables in in Bitcoin track or crypto mining, they'd be able to use it in something else anyway, but that's one side. So So this issue about they don't produce anything they mentioned passive income. Now I have, I have done some research on this whole issue of how you might be able to create income from something which actually is a is a greater full thing, you know, someone will pay more for something that doesn't actually produce anything. What's your thoughts? So how do we how do we get around that thing? How do we how do we break that? That myth? Yeah, misunderstand?
Shahar Abrams 23:49
So I also I have a bone to pick with your idea that doesn't produce anything, right? Because it's not my
Jason Butler 23:54
not my idea. This is just the idea that many service sector and Buffett but
Shahar Abrams 24:00
really what it's producing, I think this is important to understand, right? So something like Bitcoin, what it's actually producing is the most secure record of data that's ever been created. There has never been a more secure rate way to record data than the Bitcoin blockchain, because of its decentralisation and collective computing power. So that's something right. And then networks like aetherium, or other smart contract networks, you can actually build code on top of those have, you know, a tonne of applications that do provide value and one of the value adds that they provide is passive income. So the way you earn the essential thing to understand with crypto that's different from other asset classes, right is you can own your crypto, you can actually use your own wallet, right and move your crypto onto that wallet and what we call like self custody. Now, I'm not I don't necessarily recommend doing that because it's hard and people lose money that way. They don't know what they're doing. But the fact that you have that ability of owners of real ownership over the asset not going through a third party means you can demand a return on that asset, which you can't do with a stock, right? If you have a stock, your broker has the stock, Robin Hood has the stock, they monetize the cash flow that that stock can generate, and it does generate cash flow. So it's putting money into their pocket, not yours. crypto can put money into your pocket, because you can control it, you can demand the return. And so what happens is you have these applications, some of them are centralised, some of them are decentralised, and just run on smart contracts, where you can deposit your money. And these applications do the same thing that a bank would do, or a stockbroker would do, which is they rehypothecation your assets, lend them out to other people to generate yield, right? Whether it's, you know, something like a stable coin usdc, which is just crypto version of dollars, there's massive demand for those lending them out like regular dollar dollars, or whether it's crypto that you're lending out, perhaps to hedge funds or other sophisticated market participants. They pay for that. And generally, historically, the depositor, the person who's responsible for generating that yield, doesn't really see any of it. Right? The bank pays you like point 1%. If you're lucky, yeah, in crypto, we get much higher rates. So for instance, on stable coins, the same US dollars, you'd have sitting in your bank just moved and converted the stable coins for free, right? I'm earning eight and a half percent interest per year. Right. And that's with no, there's no minimum amount, there's no lockup, you can move the money instantly, right? Because it's all on crypto rails. So it's really incredible. Even even something like Bitcoin, you know, or aetherium, you can earn a 5%, you know, return depending on how much you have. Right Ethereum, any amount, you can earn 5%. And that's kind of a minimum, there are other more sophisticated things you can do that have a little more risk, where you can earn even more, you know, even even greater passive returns. So crypto is incredibly flexible in that way. And because of the fact that you can own it. The you know, businesses and applications that have sprouted up in the ecosystem, really pay you great yield, right to use your crypto when you give it to them.
Jason Butler 27:24
So how can you have that that yield? If you call it or more return? Can you have that paid out to you? So you can physically use that while leaving your principal? Yeah,
Shahar Abrams 27:31
absolutely. So I got my yield payments every week, if I'm using and that's in a centralised application that I use, in the decentralised applications that I use, it accrues every second, right? Because it's all automated. So literally, you know, you can have the experience of sitting down and watching your, you know, passive income tick up, you know, every second, right, and you can withdraw it at any time. It's incredibly flexible. But yeah, and centralised applications, which is where I recommend people start, they generally pay you every week. And once again, you can withdraw at any time you have complete control.
Jason Butler 28:10
So how would you suggest people, particularly younger people are interested in this? You know, I mean, if someone's wealthy already, they've already run the game. They don't need to take any real kind of serious risk, right? I mean, if you've Why do you need more if you've already done it, so wealthy people who've got you know, got the stuff they understand, that's fine, let's put them to one side. But perhaps people are still building wealth and perhaps a saving regularly, I've got so much money, let's just say someone's got 1000 bucks, or euros or pounds a month to save or let's let's just say 1000. I mean, many people would be a lot less than that some of the more but let's just say 1000 bucks. And they were deciding between allocating between savings and stocks and bonds and crypto. How would you think the average person under 30 should be thinking about that, assuming they've got no expensive debt? And they've got a little bit of emergency funds? Just just a very simple framework?
Shahar Abrams 28:57
Yeah. Right, because it's important to kind of, because that's always my first question. I work with people on this, you know, I have a little consulting practice that I do on the side. And I always ask, you know, the questions first, you know, to try and understand the person's life situation, right? Because those things are really important. crypto is a risk asset class, it's it's definitely high risk. Because there's a lot of volatility. You know, there's some uncertainty about the future. I don't think there's much more risk in crypto than equities, especially right now. So I would, you know, recommend someone kind of think about it like equities, and, you know, it fits into their aggressive, you know, bucket of their assets, whatever that might be. And, again, that comes down to your life situation and your personal appetite for risk because some people have a great life situation, but they don't want to be bothered by volatility. If you are if you have those two things, and you're under 30, then you're in a similar position to you know, I was in the past You know, four, four years ago, right? I would, you know, I would overweight it, I'm biassed, but you know, I would, I would put a significant weighting to it with the idea that you can hold that to earn passive income, right. And you can kind of compound on that. Right? So that and that's very, very powerful. Because, you know, if you if you invest, you know, say you have $1,000 to invest, maybe you put 200 300 into, you know, Bitcoin and aetherium, right, as a start, right? You can be compounding that immediately, right, you get immediately deposited into an application, habit, start earning yield. And by the way, the yield that you'll earn in these types of applications, it's in the asset that you deposit. So it's going to be paid in kind, right? If you wanted to, you could sell it every week for a little bit of extra cash. But you can also let it compound for you, right, and every week, you'll earn a little bit more. And that idea is incredibly powerful over the long term, as you know, right? The power of compounding, so even if you don't have much to start with, I would say definitely don't underestimate that get started. And it's also incredibly motivating and powerful to see yourself getting cash flow every week, right? See, like, get that, you know, get that payment every week and see your account growing and see it working. Right that that's incredibly motivating it was for me.
Jason Butler 31:20
And of course, when you're young, your human capital, or your ability to earn income in the future, from selling your time, knowledge, skills or contacts, is very high, right? So if you can't take risks in your 30s 20s, assuming you're being as you say, debt free, got some savings, you know, you've got some cash flows coming in, then when can you use you can't do it when you need to buy a house? Or you've got a kid on the way? Or you're not sure, you know, don't mean all those other things. You know, you need to do that, then yeah. Okay. So, so interesting. So just thinking about the whole thing, how did you get into the into the blockchain technology job at IBM? What was you interested in finance? Or were you interested in technology? Or was it Life Sciences? What was it that drew you? How did you end up doing that kind of work? And then drawing yourself into the whole crypto world? What What took you into that career? Did you have it all mapped out? Or do your parents have it mapped out? Or
Shahar Abrams 32:09
not at all I had, I didn't see it coming at all. You know, like I said, I read a random book that I bought on an aeroplane. And by the time the plane landed, I knew is you know, that this industry is what I wanted to devote myself too. And I think it the reason is, it's, I'm interested in both of those things. Right. Finance and technology are kind of my two biggest interests. And so crypto was kind of the perfect storm of those two things. Right? And a, you know, technology that, you know, for the first time, right, this is you can actually invest in the technology itself, right? Because it's tokenized, right? These these protocols that form the foundation of crypto are tokenized, you can actually buy, you know them directly, like the infrastructure right, that's never been possible before. I thought that was really cool. I thought, you know, some of the, you know, I thought, again, the problems that solves are really, really important and really important to me, particularly trust trust on the internet. So, you know, it was those two things that got me really, really personal, you know, mentally invested, you know, as well as personally invested in it. And I knew I wanted to work in the industry. Again, you know, right after reading that book, it took me about a year to make my way into IBM's practice. IBM was at that time, just kind of standing up there federal blockchain practice, which I was, you know, federal consultant working in DC, all my clients were government. So, you know, I found the guy in charge of public sector blockchain at IBM, and I continually bothered him until he eventually saw I was for real and let me join. And then for the next two years, right, I worked with him and others, you know, as we really were pioneering this technology in the government space, right. There was, meanwhile, there's tonnes of stuff going on in the public, crypto, crypto industry and markets. We were just focused on building, you know, some working systems that governments could use. So probably my biggest project was with the Postal Service, right? And we built a blockchain system for the Postal Service and their partners to use right to track mail. Right, because again, mail, you know, is a perfect use case, because you have assets that are, you know, moving across different parties in a network constantly. And these parties all are keeping their own data sets, right. They all have their own databases for data that's relevant to everyone. Right? So why not put that on a single source of truth, whether it's a blockchain or you know something else, and and have that, you know, advantage with blockchain is again, the high degree of trust all these parties that are competitive business They may not trust each other well, they can trust in the crypto in the crypto cryptographic certainty, right of the blockchain. So that's an example of some of the things we did. I also worked with the Centre for Medicare, Medicaid, I worked with the dia de. And I worked with various private sector counterparts within those networks, right, because there's always a context of the network. So it was, it was a really, you know, great learning experience, it definitely helped me to see some of the shortcomings of the tech. Right. When I first got into it, I was definitely one of those people that was like, oh, blockchain can solve everything, everything's a nail. Right. And I learned, you know, through working the job, right, that that's definitely not the case. And what actually makes a good blockchain use case, what doesn't? What are the major challenges, you know, and all of that stuff. And that definitely helped me. And, you know, my that, that my experience doing, that certainly helped me when I was going into personal investing in the space, because I was able to kind of look at projects through that lens of, you know, I've tried to build this stuff. And I've tried to create networks around this stuff in, you know, and what works and what doesn't?
Jason Butler 36:17
Well, obviously, you may or may not know, when I was a financial advisor, which I did for 25 years, or whatever, lots of wealthy people who sold businesses, we always knew the number. Now the danger when you invest in something which is so stratospherically amazing, that can three, four or 500% is unless you know your number. In other words, how much is enough that you can take off the table to just not not make your everlife variety, but just kind of like know that you're not going to be eating cat food and living in the gutter, right? The danger is when people protect young people who haven't got life experience, and get involved in stuff that is a stratified bit like a pop star, right? Young pop star goes from nowhere to nothing or response flow, right? They've got no reference point, how do you develop? Do you? And do you work to money rules that help you understand how to move your money around and winter sort of not getting involved in things? And also when to get involved in stuff that you've developed? Being obviously a relatively young person?
Shahar Abrams 37:09
Yeah, great, great question. And it's a great topic. So you know, I am a fan of setting kind of personal goals, personal like for yourself kind of at the beginning, rather than trying to, you know, time the market or take cues from what the market might be doing, because the market is, you know, again, it's can be crazy, right can be irrational. So, you know, I think taking your cues from the market day to day, or trying to time, the market, in a big way is very difficult to do both emotionally and practically. So what I try and do is set personal goals. So kind of, like you said, have a number in mind where if I hit this number, you know, this is where I take profit, right? And that's something that I definitely improved upon from 2017 2018, where I didn't do that at all right, or I had a number, but then I just moved it or disregarded it. Right.
Jason Butler 38:12
And that's really an expensive lesson, right? Any market, it's an expensive, less,
Shahar Abrams 38:16
yeah, take it paid my tuition. You know, having that number in mind and writing it down really kind of planning about it, you know, it's going to increase the likelihood that you actually stick to it when you get there and you're feeling euphoric. And, you know, the, as much as you can be objective and take emotion out of it, you know, that always helps you. So, you know, the best investors, they, you know, they one thing they definitely don't do is get emotional, right? And one thing that they definitely do you know, is they kind of continuously check on their thesis, right? So anything you invest in, you'll have a thesis, your thesis may include kind of a price target or target area, where you think is fair value. And what I do is, you know, every month, you know, I take a hard look back at my thesis, in fact, I do that more often. But I try to do it at least, you know, for for the average, you know, investor that may not, you know, that has a full time job and can't spend all their time on this, like I do, I would say at minimum, you know, once a month, or even once a quarter, right, depending on how much you you might have in it and your personality, right to go back revalidate your thesis and see if something's changed, right? And if something's changed, that's when you can change your number. Changing your number because your thesis changes is okay, changing your number because of what's happening in the market is not okay. So that's something that I've learned and,
Jason Butler 39:47
you know, and try to stick to I think it's helped me a lot. A mixture of, you know, always trying to make it rational your decision making as opposed to irrational. Yeah, yeah.
Shahar Abrams 39:57
And I mean, it's a continuous journey to I should say like I, you know, I'm always learning, you know, in that regard as well. And I think, you know, we even even the best investors, you know, admit that they, you know, still learn, you know, sometimes in that area.
Jason Butler 40:13
And in that vein, what have you learned about yourself in your relationship with money over these last few years, or whether it's the crypto where it's your job in hustling yourself to get into IBM, even though it didn't need anyone? And, and this kind of humbling that you had of the money was given and taken away? And now we've come through peaks and troughs, and Coronavirus, what have you learned about yourself and your relationship with money?
Shahar Abrams 40:35
Yeah. I think I've learned that money, you know, I haven't, I made more money than I ever thought I would. And but I haven't gotten that much. I've always been kind of frugal, and I, you know, was obsessive about keeping a budget and you know, recording, like everything I spent. And so that hasn't changed, I may be splurge a little bit more at the grocery store. I may be, you know, take an extra flight to see friends sometimes. But, you know, by and large, you know, I think the most important thing about money is kind of what it subtracts from your life, it subtracts a lot of kind of stress and worry, and it subtracts, you know, the obligation to do certain things, right. So it's been able to, I think the best part about it has just been, you know, the ability to stop worrying as much and not be compelled, you know, to, to work for things. And you know, and you're never really you're never compelled to do something you don't necessarily want to do. And that's a realisation that I wish I had come to earlier, this idea of, you know, only working on projects that I want to work on, for instance, because once I kind of shifted my mindset towards that, it started to happen a lot more for me, and it had nothing actually to do with money, it took making a lot of money, for me to start thinking that way, because I was always really obsessed with having enough. And, you know, and, you know, making ends meet, so to speak. So I think, you know, that's been the biggest thing for me is, you know, I still, you know, don't think about it that much differently. I'm kind of, but I'm, you know, I'm trying to be a lot more selective, you know, now and what I work on what I spend my time on, so it helps me kind of value my time. A little bit better personally, for myself. But I, again, I think these are things that you actually don't need money to start doing. It might make it easier, but the benefits you can get from doing those kinds of things, you don't necessarily need the money to start doing that.
Jason Butler 42:55
Well, it's interesting what you say, because obviously, I've interviewed must be 1500 people in 30 years, right? So a lot of people about their money. And one of the one of the characteristics that I find from people who are wealthy in every sense of the word, but they obviously do have a fair amount of money. And that's relative to everyone's view, but let's just say they have more than enough, and enough is enough, right? They, they do think differently to people who are not wealthy. And in other words, whether you have the money or you don't have the money. It doesn't necessarily follow that having the money means you think willfully or that you thinking wealthy means that you will have money, but but thinking wealthy is probably you probably do need to have that avoids thinking that you're worthy of it, that it will provide what what you would do with it if you had it, respecting it, but not covered in it. But also having a game plan for kind of what do I do if this happens, and that happens. So it's that kind of thinking it through? And I'm just wondering if, if the cart before the horse concept of how does one develop a healthy or a wealthy mindset, that it's not an obsessive? I've got to be rich mindset with money.
Shahar Abrams 44:05
Yeah, I think that it's a million dollar question. That's why I'll still try my best to answer it.
Jason Butler 44:10
We don't, we don't let you off lightly here.
Shahar Abrams 44:14
Okay. So you know, for me, I think another book that I read that really helped me from a mindset perspective was another, you know, very well known book, which is called the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.
Jason Butler 44:31
COVID Yeah,
Shahar Abrams 44:31
so I really liked that book. And I think the thing I liked the most about it was the mindset idea of focusing on your sphere of influence, what it calls your sphere of influence, which is the things you can control, right, we all have a sphere of influence of what we can control then we have a much bigger sphere of things we can't control that happen, you know, that are relevant to our life, but we can't control them and the more time you spend on the outer sphere, the larger that outer sphere actually grows, the more time you spend on the inner sphere, the larger the inner sphere actually grows. That idea was incredibly powerful to me. And it helped me think always, you know, what can I do? Right? What can I do to get I'm not happy with this or that or not happy about how I, for instance, executed, you know, during the 2017 and 18. market and my strategy there, right. And so what can I do to instead of saying, like, like, we were talking about the beginning of the market did this to me, or, you know, I'm just unluckily, you know, I'll, you know, Better luck next time, thinking like, okay, you know, really self reflecting and be like, how you know, what's in my sphere of influence? And what can I do, and the more you start doing that, it kind of, you know, you know, even doing it a small amount, right compounds over time, you know, these small things that you can do compound to an overwhelming advantage over time, if you do them all the time every day, and try to perhaps do them a bit more every day. So I like the idea of really small, continuous self improvement, right? Not not, I'm not someone that makes a big shift, when it wakes up one day is like, I'm gonna do everything different, you know, people that can do that, I admire them. I don't know how they do it. I'm the kind of guy that's like, Alright, you know, let's set a goal. And let's make incremental progress every day. And whether that's mindset or something more specific to your personal finance, earning passive income, it's something you can kind of implement, again, regardless of how much money you have. And I think the same concept, you know, that you touched on, right, in terms of valuing your time, and having kind of just a high value mindset of yourself and your time, will help you professionally, you know, in work as well as personally, right. So, you know, the number one mistake I see people make in the workplace is just not being their own biggest advocate. Right and not, you know, really being more demanding. A lot of people are good at that a lot of people aren't, but you know, having that mindset of valuing your time highly. Which again, you can do, yeah, I think it becomes easier, because there's certainly a trend, like you mentioned, you know, that wealthier people, you know, think like that more, and I have started started to think like that more. But you know, because it makes it easier to think that way. But you don't need that to at least start thinking that way. And again, if you can kind of compound over time, you know, and kind of move yourself over to that mindset a little bit more every day. Over time, you'll you'll get there and it'll be a massive, you know, be a massive change over time.
Jason Butler 47:51
Very, very wise words, will show here, how can people find out about you and connect with you and see what you're doing and and learn from your knowledge?
Shahar Abrams 48:00
Absolutely. So I have a website. It's called Road to babylon.org. By the way, I named it road to Babylon after another book, really like that is my third favourite book, which is called The Richest Man in Babylon. It's a classic of personal finance. Excellent, excellent book. It's a bit outdated, perhaps,
Jason Butler 48:18
culturally applies equally applies to women as well. Yeah, yeah.
Shahar Abrams 48:22
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. richest richest person in Babylon.
Jason Butler 48:26
Yeah. So it's
Shahar Abrams 48:28
so the website's Road to babylon.org. There are lots of free resources on there, that can help you get started in crypto. Again, I focus more specifically on crypto and I'm not a CFA, I'm not here to give financial advice. I do work with people sometimes kind of as a consultant or advisor, you know, in their personal portfolio, help them get started in the crypto. So if you're interested in that, I have options for that, including free consultation that I offer everyone to start off with, so you can see if it's right for you. I'll also be in the next month or two, hopefully releasing a course an online self paced course, for crypto investing that I want to price very excessively, I think it'll be under $200. And I'll keep adding to it. It'll be over six hours of content and it will cover everything from you know, a lot of the things we talked about, you know, what is crypto? How does it work? What you know, are the narratives that play what's to come as well as you know, investing principles and how we can apply investing principles to investing in crypto assets. And then tonnes of you know, extra stuff tips and tricks for how to earn great passive income on your crypto assets, you know, right away and how to, you know, do a lot of other cool things, you know, in the crypto crypto ecosystem because it is really cool. I didn't get a big chance to nerd out about it too much and it probably wouldn't be right for this audience. But there are amazing things happening in the crypto industry. It is one of the fastest growing industry, one of them in history. And you know, the the market creates a lot of noise. You know, when it's up people are really hyped up about it when it's down like now, you know, people kind of forget about it and, you know, go back to what they were doing. You know, it's a lot of noise, what the the message I want to send people is that there's so much going on behind the curtain, and I'm trying to help pull back that curtain in an accessible way. And so that's what my website's about. And that's what my upcoming course is about. So you'll see you know, a section on the website for the course where you can sign up, you know, to get updates, and get a little something for free. Also, if you're into social media, the only one I really use is Twitter. So I'm on Twitter at Shahar Abrams, and you can find me on there as well.
Jason Butler 50:49
Yeah, well make sure there's links in the show notes. Don't Don't worry about that. Yeah, exciting, scary, but exciting area, and no doubt that there'll be listeners to the show, who will check that out. And also, we're all on our own different journey. And we take different sources of information, but be very open and honest. I know you could nerd out about this for hours and hours and hours. But look, you've opened the door, it sounds to people wherever they want to move into it. We don't know, I don't know whether this is the answer to everyone's problems, or if it's the beginning of of the end of the world. But who knows. But the point is that the point is find out you've got to learn and you've got to be open, open and curious. And that's what it's all about. This show is all about helping people help themselves find their own path. So no, Shahar Abraham, thank you very much for being on the show. It's been it's been great hanging out with you. Awesome. Same to you, Jason. been a lot of fun.
Thanks for listening to real money stories with me, Jason Butler. If you like what you hear, please do tell your friends. And more importantly, please rate us on your preferred podcast app, because it really does help us get the message out there. So until next time, good luck with your money journey. Real Money stories is sponsored by Vanguard, bringing value to 30 million investors worldwide. Visit Vanguard investor.co.uk. For more details, the value of investments can go down as well as up and you may get back less than you invested.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai