My Story, and Why I Invest in Cryptocurrency

Hey, my name is James Pelton and just wanted to do a video here today. And this video is going to be a little bit more of a personal nature, rather than a specific crypto strategy. I want to talk a little bit about why I invest in crypto. And I was, you know, as I've been putting together this YouTube channel, I have no idea. People just been asking me what I'm doing in the crypto space. And I thought I might making these videos. I might as well throw them up in YouTube. And at least one good thing has come from this YouTube channel is I got a haircut. I kept seeing down in the corner my hair and it bothered me every day. And so, you know, when you don't go out much, you don't realize that your hair is bad. So I got a haircut. So thank you to Irina for giving me a haircut yesterday. So if nothing else comes out of this YouTube channel, at least I got a haircut. But I've had all these people reaching out about, hey, what are you doing in the crypto world? And then as I started putting these videos out, more and more people, people I haven't talked to in years are reaching out and just saying, hey, I want to get involved with cryptocurrency. And it just got me to think a little bit about I would just be really disappointed if people interacted with me and they left with the thought that I am the crypto guy or I'm the finance guy or I'm the investing guy or anything like that. I do enjoy those things. I love fitness. I love finance. I love investing. I love cryptocurrency. But there's things that are way more important to me. Crypto and investing is just a means to an end for me. And I just want to talk just for a minute about that. You know, as we part of wisdom is as you get older, you start to look at the bigger picture of things. Right. I know this is I have three kids. I have a nine year old, a seven year old and a four year old. Or maybe just turn five, nine year old, seven year old, five year old. And when you're a kid, you don't look at the big picture. Right. You look just at a small point in time. So that's why kids, they're not super interested in investing or the future at all. Right. Kids are just like, hey, I want to have fun right now. As you get older, you start to realize that there's a bigger future in store for you than just the next moment. And so as you get older, you know, you're a teenager. You start preparing for college. You have a little bit of bigger picture. And then they tell you when you're lower, you know, you're young 20s. You should start looking to retirement in your picture. I'm trying to keep my hands in this little circle. I should have done a full screen. That would have made more sense. But you start looking bigger picture as you get older. And that's wisdom. You know, you get really old. Like, I'm 34 now. I'm super old. But you start thinking about, OK, you know, we put together a will. We put together an estate and a trust for the kids and those types of things. And we think that's OK. That's the epitome of wisdom is I've looked at my whole life. But I want you to know, like how I think of it as a Christian is I want you to think even bigger picture than that. It's great to think about your 70 or 80 years or 90 years that you have here on this earth. But the investing that I do, I want to look at an even bigger picture. And that's eternity. So I believe that I believe the Bible is true. And I believe that we're all sinners and that there's a penalty for our sin. But Jesus Christ came to earth and he lived a perfect life. So he didn't deserve any penalty. But then he died on the cross for us. And if you believe that, then you spend eternity with him. So then I'm devoting my life to basically investing for that eternity. My hands in the circle investing for that eternity. So I try to think of the money that I accumulate here in this earth is not something that's for me in this time. But I try to think about how can I turn these temporal rewards that when I die, they're going to be gone. How can I turn those into eternal rewards? So that's a big part of why I invest. Just so you know, my my story a little bit. I started a company back in 2011. I kind of started as a side project and kind of grew it, hired a bunch of my friends and family, which they say don't do, but I did it, hired all friends and family, grew the company to seven figures and then sold it in 2020. And then I was just sitting on a big, big pile of cash, didn't know what to do with it. So I put it in an index fund in the market and thought, OK, that 7% return you get there is about the best that you the best that you can do. And then I actually was directed to Justin Donald's book, The Lifestyle Investor. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. It's a it's a great book. And I joined up with Justin Donald's. I joined up with his investor group and I started seeing all these deals come through where, hey, you 7% in the stock market. There's better things that you can do out there. Started investing in some of those things. And then actually my friend Christian pointed me to cryptocurrency and I was actually pretty skeptical at first. But just as I started diving into things, I saw, hey, I can make an even better return than the 10, 12, 16, 20% that I'm getting in these other deals through cryptocurrency. But again, my purpose was never let's just accumulate as much wealth as we can. That's a temptation for sure. You hear about somebody who put $1,000 into Shiba Inu in January and then they were worth a billion dollars in October. There's parts of my heart that say, oh, I want that. I want that type of wealth, right? Turn $1,000 into a billion dollars. But again, I'm here out. I'm in behind me here. Let me go to the smaller. I'm in First Timothy, Chapter six, where it talks about those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge men into ruin and destruction. So if I believe that the Bible is true, and I've seen this from experience, wanting to get rich can ruin you. It plunges men into ruin and destruction for the love of money, not money, but the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil. And some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. So flee the love of money, flee wanting to get rich. And again, pursue like I was talking about before, pursue those things that have eternal benefit, righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. So I wrestle with that in my heart. There's times where, oh, I want to get rich. And then I come back to God's word and I see, oh, wait, wanting to get rich can plunge me into ruin and destruction. There's a parable in the Bible about a man who he builds a barn. He makes a lot of money. He builds a barn. He's like, what do I do now? Well, I'm going to build another barn, fill that with my money. You know, money back then was grain or something like that. And then he's like, okay, I'll build another barn. And then he dies and says, you fool, don't you know that today your soul is required of you? So I want to have wealth that outlives me. And I don't necessarily want to leave it to my kids. I've seen how, sorry, kids, if you watch this. But Shaq said the other day, Shaquille O'Neal, he told one of his kids in an interview, he said, we're not rich, I'm rich. And I actually really like that because you give money to a kid, you can really ruin people by giving them a big chunk of money. So I don't want to leave a lot to my kids. I want to take the money I make here and turn it into eternal dividends, mostly by giving it to people, helping people, showing people love through money. There's a lot of people that are in need in this world, and I want to help them. That's what 1 Timothy verse 17 says, instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited, because it's easy to fall into that you start making a lot of money and you start thinking, wow, I'm better than other people. I have money, they don't. So he says, instruct those who are rich now, don't be conceited. And don't fix your hope in the uncertainty of riches, because they are uncertain. You can have a lot and then you can lose a lot. And you'll get really stressed out in crypto. Looking at the markets even today, you can get really stressed out in crypto. If your hope is in crypto. Okay, it's all green now. So earlier today, it was all red. There you go. That's the uncertainty of it. Earlier today, all my cryptocurrency was down. It was all in the red for today. But still, there's some planet finance. I have a lot invested in planet finance. And over the last 30 days, it's down 50%. Okay, so if my hope was in my finances, that'd be what Timothy Paul says here to Timothy, he says that would be uncertain. But you can fix your hope on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. So what should you do with your riches? Do good, be rich in good works, be generous, ready to share. And when you do that, you store up a good, a treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that you can take hold of that which is life indeed. So that's why I'm involved with cryptocurrency. And I just want to challenge you to think about if you were, I'm not going to guarantee you this is not financial advice. You always have to put that disclaimer so I don't get sued someday. But I think if you get involved with cryptocurrency, you will make money. That's my opinion. And I just want you to think about what are you going to do with those finances? What are you going to do with the extra money? If you start, if you set up a strong note and start making an extra $3,000 a month, what are you planning to do with that $3,000 a month? Are you thinking like now I can go on an extra vacation each month? There's not necessarily anything wrong with that. But I want you to be thinking about how can you turn those temporal rewards into eternal rewards. So again, I'm sorry this was not a crypto strategy today. But I just, again, if people left me thinking he's the crypto guy, that's true. I do enjoy crypto. I spend a lot of time researching it. But I want you to know that there's something more important to me than that. And I'd like you to leave away thinking he's the Jesus guy who does cryptocurrency to store up eternal rewards. So thank you for listening. If you don't like this, feel free to unsubscribe or dislike it or whatever. But I appreciate you listening. Thank you.