The New Evidence for Abundance – Episode 221

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[00:03] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, bestselling author, Kim D.H. Butler and No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Prosperity Podcast. This is No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. We’ve got bestselling financial author and president of Partners for Prosperity, Kim Butler with us today. And today we’re going to be talking about a person, a philosophy, I don’t know exactly how to put it, but Kim is actually the one who made the introduction to me to this person and he has been a tremendous asset to really, I think everybody he touches comes away positively and he has his influences in a lot of different ways.

[01:03] But with further ado, Peter Diamandis is the person that we’re talking about and we’re calling this podcast The New Evidence for Abundance. And Kim, I’ll let you kind of just give the particulars of Peter and what you know and how you feel about him. Absolutely. Well, Peter is a fun gentleman to follow and you were right to not be crystal clear on how to introduce him because he certainly is involved in a lot of things and benefits our people really in a lot of different ways. So he has companies, of course, but he sends out a couple different emails every week and you can get on his list and get these directly. If you’ll go to peterdiamandis.com, that’s D-I-A-M-A-N-D-I-S. He’s got a couple books out.

[01:54] There’s one called Abundance, which is my all time favorite. His second book is called Bold. If you have to choose, I’d pick the first one. What’s fun about the email that we’re doing a podcast on today is it’s actually an update of the Abundance book with some brand new like since the beginning of 2017 statistics that are proving that the world is good and that there’s a lot of good going on. And I attend Peter’s Abundance 360 event every January. I absolutely would consider him a mentor of mine. He also attends the 10x strategic coach program that I’m involved in. And so we’ll occasionally cross paths there as well. And I love just listening. He’s got a huge YouTube channel, tons of information there that you can access.

[02:41] I love listening to his thought process because it helps me really be confident that there is good going on the world. And the things that we’re going to talk about on this podcast are specific statistical facts and proofs that there is good going on the world. And I’ve been an anti-news person for a long, long time. I just decided early in my twenties that I just was not going to benefit from the news and I wasn’t going to put any time into it. And I share the idea of going on a news diet often. Peter absolutely believes in that same thing. And he really makes a point of saying, you know, if you watch the news, you’re literally going to think that 90% of what’s going on in the world is bad because that’s what the news shows.

[03:27] You know, the whole negative news leads, et cetera, is a known fact in our society and media just has not gotten on the bandwagon of let’s talk about the good, let’s promote the positive, let’s be identifying where there’s progress, et cetera. Now there’s some exceptions to that. I’m a huge fan of the Christian science monitor. They actually have a particular sections like the centerfold of the magazine called points of progress. And there are other magazines, of course, growing bolder has a good series that they’re always putting out positive things. And I think there’s good news network or something that, you know, there’s other ones out there that are putting out the good and yet we still fall

[04:07] into the mainstream media, which of course is putting out 90% negative information. So Peter in the email that we’ll be chatting about today has, so what, six, I think specific items that he identifies with proof that indicate that there is progress, there is good, and there are specific things that are going on. And one of them, I think is broken up into four or five sections. So let’s dig in and hit the highlights. Yep. I’m not even sure we’ll be able to get through all of them, but we’re going to jump in here and his first section is on the global economy. And he points out that over the last 200 years, the world’s gross domestic product has skyrocketed a hundred fold human kind has never

[04:52] been more prosperous and productive than they are right now. And if you look at this on a curve, it is really like, I mean, like we may have moved an eighth of an inch up to the up from zero to 1900, but I mean, from 1900 to 2017, we’ve blown off the chart from zero GDP to over a hundred trillion. It is not a hockey stick, is it? It’s a, what would you call that thing? It is straight up on that graph. It looks like a laptop. Yeah, there you go. Well said. Well said. Looks like a laptop viewed from the side. So yeah, that’s awesome. We can be super grateful and yet, of course, a lot of us are going to say, okay, well, you know, how does that apply? Like, what do I do with that? And I think the answer is you find a way to be a part of GDP.

[05:45] You find a way to put your good out there in the world and get paid for it. And whether that’s an entrepreneurial actual company or a little side gig or whatever it is, you find a way to be a part of it. The first thing that he points out under this is banking the unbanked, which this is fascinating because I have been following this for literally 10 years that they’re, you know, what the banks won’t do business with is a significant enough number that if properly organized could be more profitable than the banks that turned them down. And it has now happened unbanked people. These are people who don’t have traditional checking or savings accounts are now being handled through digital transactions and

[06:34] credit cards directly. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s incredible. I mean, somebody saw that market that the other place basically created because they didn’t think there was, they had enough money there to make a profit and somebody is making a ton on it. I think that’s fantastic. Yes, I do too. And what it’s done for economies and how it’s actually going to help these third world countries leapfrog because they do have such a large amount of society that is unbanked, they’re going to create this amazing banking system on the blockchain, which will then leapfrog those countries that are stuck in their old ways, like the United States and Canada and UK and whatnot. And he’s got some examples in there of what countries are working on

[07:21] that already and making it happen. The next area is block chain and government, which I got to admit, I don’t really understand that term, but it, it concerns governments investing aggressively in digitizing themselves. In other words, even a small country that maybe not many people that have heard of can be the leader in a certain market by creating like electronic currency to pay phone bills with or something like that. Um, it’s amazing how when you’re dealing with a digital product, you don’t have to be the largest or the highest tech country to go first. So I’ve actually done some studying on this block chain and of course, listened to Peter quite a bit about it so I can maybe shed some light.

[08:08] And it is what the digital currencies reside on. So the most common digital currency that people are familiar with is Bitcoin. And then of course, Ethereum is coming right behind it. Those are cool and fun. And there will be something in that realm that we choose to go forward with, but what’s more important and more substantial in the ability to solve not only government problems, but this issue of unbanked people is the block chain and the block chain is what’s known as a distributed ledger. So that means it’s distributed available to everybody and it’s a ledger, meaning it keeps track of things. And you could almost think about it like an escrow company in the cloud. So escrow companies are charged with absolutely positively

[08:59] making sure something happens. Escrow companies close real estate deals. An example, escrow companies perform work in the life settlements arena, making sure that the death claim goes to the right people. Escrow companies make sure that trusts follow the rules and that IRAs are handled properly within their custodianship, et cetera. And so that is in the block chain, literally an online event where it’s distributed, so available to everybody. So anybody could check it. It’s time stamped and it’s provable. And so for example, right now we have a situation in these smaller countries. So just like the bank is going to kind of leapfrog, well, the governments are going to too. You’ve got a situation in smaller countries where they need to make

[09:44] available services to people. They’re issuing materials on the block chain that is provable and distributed. I mean, there isn’t a better word. It’s just shared amongst everybody. And so the blockchain is really going to house a lot of the solutions that we have for all of the various problems that are out there that entrepreneurs are coming up with solutions and they’re going to leapfrog the governments because they’re able to do it. Just like Elon Musk is right now for Puerto Rico and providing its power. That’s an example of what can go on with the blockchain supporting it so that it’s for the public good and the public can prove it and the public can know that the money is supposed to go is actually going from where it’s

[10:31] supposed to to where it’s supposed to without ever worrying that somebody else is getting involved that shouldn’t be super our second area that he, we’re going to look at is health. Um, and of course, the first thing you have to think of when you think of health, at least I do is mortality. Uh, and there’s some examples in here, but the one that strikes me the most is that 100 years ago, a child born in India or South Korea was expected to live to age 23 fast forward that today and the life expectancies have tripled. Yeah, that’s so awesome. And it is also in the U S a challenge because people were literally thinking they were going to pass on at 75 and now they’re going to pass on at 95. That’s a long time to spend money and a long time to not earn it.

[11:25] Um, of course, in the other countries, you’ve got what was, you know, essentially almost teenagers passing on and now they’re going to live to full adulthood, which is just delightfully beneficial and will contribute to their society and their family and their economies in absolutely unknown ways. Uh, his next proof of this is plummeting teen births, uh, teen births are down an impressive 51% over the last decade. Um, and, and, and again, this is broken down into bands of 15 to 17, 15 to 19 and 18 to 19. Um, and, and, you know, I had to kind of sit and really think about this, but I think the way that, I don’t know, I’m going to choose to understand it is, is that rather than going into a role of motherhood very early and

[12:18] then having to make decisions second, these women are being allowed first of all, and accepted to be educated and do other things before they make the decision of motherhood. So it’s not that our planet is shrinking. It’s certainly not. It’s just that there’s more of a leveling out between the sexes before the starting the family. Let’s say that right. Yeah, absolutely. There there’s all kinds of proof that mothers that have their children when they’re older, have better educated children, have healthier children, and the mother’s life is able to be on more solid foundation than mothers that have their children when they’re younger. So yes, this is a delightful thing. And all of us can be grateful that it is much more uncommon now to

[13:18] hear of teenage pregnancies. And that’s a good thing for our society. Exponential tech impact on health. Wow. I just met with someone who got his new robotics legs within the last 24 hours. And it’s, it’s, it’s downright amazing. It’s downright amazing what these things cost, but it’s amazing what they can do. And that’s one of the things he mentions is robotics, also virtual reality. And then how you’re going to have to help me on this one cause it’s crisper gene editing. Yes. So I’m gonna let you go there. Well, I won’t pretend to have done as much studying on this one as I have blockchain, but essentially it’s using your own genes to provide you personalized medicine and thereby just surpassing a lot of

[14:12] the problems that pharmaceuticals have. And so this gene editing ability, which exists today in some countries, it’s being used to help people with all kinds of issues is absolutely amazing. And we get to hear at Abundance 360 from a couple of the different doctors that are directly involved in that research and in those breakthroughs that are occurring. Um, one of them in the area of longevity, and then one of them specifically in the area of gene editing. So it’s quite amazing. Talk about technology having an impact. I was just reading a little bit about this virtual reality too, about how heart surgeons now, the virtual reality is to the point that it will exactly simulate a very difficult heart surgery so that

[15:01] they in a sense can have a practice run at it. Right. Yep. Pretty cool. All right. Number three is the environment. 30 years ago, the world signed the Montreal protocol to prevent the depletion of the ozone layer. Today, the U S environmental protection agency credits that agreement with preventing an estimated 280 million additional cases of skin cancer, 45 million cataracts, and 1.5 million skin cancer deaths between its signing in 1987 and the year 2050. That’s pretty impressive. Yeah. And so this is just good that’s occurring and it’s just evidence that we need to not pay attention to the news and instead look for proof that there is good going on and that our society is getting better and better and he just is full of examples.

[15:57] Next he wants to talk about drones. Previously animals were counted manually by researchers who had to spot them from a helicopter or a pre-positioned camera. Now a drone captures the footage. The machine learning system counts different types of animals and human volunteers help train the algorithm by verifying the detections. It’s faster, cheaper, easier, and more accurate. That’s a great idea. Absolutely. And those four words I think are really important, faster, easier, cheaper, and more accurate, because a lot of times people are not super clear on what exactly good is going on. Could you, if there was something that you were doing that could be done faster or easier or cheaper or more accurate.

[16:45] So I think those are important terms for us to focus on as we continue to learn about the good that is going on. Next he focuses on energy, which that would be a key measure of economic growth and the first thing that he talks about is who has access to energy and just real simple who has access to electricity in their lives. And it goes from a timeframe of 1990 and in the 1990s, you could see several continents that were at the 12 to 15% range, maybe another one that was at 25, the United States in 1990 was at a hundred percent. We were the only, only country that was at a hundred percent. And now we move forward to 2014 and it’s pretty much a hundred percent across the board. So I think that’s awesome.

[17:39] Absolutely. Yep. Lots to be grateful for. In the kinds, you know, the, the makeup of the electricity itself is changing too, you know, we’re adding wind, we’re adding water, we’re adding, uh, solar all, all together. So even those that have had electricity, we’re now finding multiple sources, which has brought the cost down supposedly. Right. I know something that we’re working on in our area because we’re still part of an electrical co-op kind of a little behind the times, but, um, they, it’s not that it costs that much necessarily for us to have electricity, but because they are small and we have a lot of trees in this area, we get brown outs and those are actually more dangerous than losing electricity.

[18:24] If we lose electricity, our generator kicks in and we have electricity. But the, but the brown electricity is when lower power than is supposed to goes through all the wires and it’s hugely detrimental, especially to electronics of which we have many in our household because Todd is a electronic tinkerer. And so we’re so excited for the ability to have the capacity that solar will bring here very, very quickly. Um, we’re waiting until batteries and the ability to store that power get to a certain degree, but that ability will make a major transformation and like you said, it’s an and it’s, it’s not like we’re going to necessarily go off grid, but we’ll have the ability to have the power from the electrical company and solar power.

[19:11] Next thing we’re going to look at is food and it says, despite the headlines, we’re making steady progress in the realm of food, scarcity and hunger. Um, and this is a really eye opening chart to look at because we start out in the first year that they look at is 1991 and they’re looking at different cultures and they’re asking what percentage of the population is undernourished because they can’t get enough calories. And if we start out in 91, we’ve got, uh, 8% in the middle East, 15% in Latin America, 20% is the average for the world. Um, it goes all, all the way up to almost 40% for the sub-Saharan African, uh, nations and every single one of those has pretty much been cut in half, so twice as many people are not going hungry in,

[20:21] you know, this 15 years time span of this study. Um, and, and, you know, gosh, in some ways the worlds that we live in here, particularly in the U S and some other countries, it’s hard to even picture that that would have to be a conversation anymore, but it still is. And it still is for a significant number of people. Absolutely. And what a horrible thing. I get cranky just when I’m like a little late for lunch. So I’m grateful that there’s a reduction by half of the amount of people that are not getting the food that they need to eat. Super. And again, he just points out a couple of quick things on here that, uh, uh, some of the things to watch are human free farms. Um, I guess the UK is doing a lot with this where the farms run

[21:10] autonomously 24 hours a day. Yeah. Super cool. And then back to the drones and back to the machine learning. This is all things that are coming together. And that’s what’s so amazing about a lot of what he points out is that one thing by itself is cool. And then this other thing over here by itself is cool. When you combine them together, it makes it even more amazing. And the good that can be done on the forward progress and enlarging type of good. But then also, like I was saying, those four words, the good that can be done in the faster, easier, cheaper, more accurate departments are also quite amazing and also really building on each other, picking up velocity and good from connecting with each other.

[21:55] Super. Well, that about takes care of what we have in this article. Kim, if, could you maybe, um, use your connections to give a, a good way that people, they wanted more information on this, that, uh, I guess give them our contact information for questions and then maybe a way that they could, uh, get additional information from the DiMondis organization. Yeah. As I said earlier, peterdiamondis.com for sure is worth signing up for. But if you want this specific email with absolutely every single one of the things that we talked about sourced, in fact, some of them have two or three sources to really back up the information, then of course, a picture of the graphs as well. Just let us know. And you can do that at hello at partners.

[22:40] The number four prosperity.com. That’s a special email dedicated to our podcast listeners. Again, it is hello at partners number four prosperity.com. Super. Well, Kim, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of the information that you bring to us all the time. And, uh, this is the no BS money guy, Todd Strobel for the prosperity podcast and we look forward to talking to y’all again real soon. Thank you for listening to the prosperity podcast to take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit us at partners for prosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.