---
title: 'If I Started Investing From $0 Today, Here''s Exactly What I''d Do'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=CpJK9PY3G40'
video_id: 'CpJK9PY3G40'
date: 2026-07-16
duration_sec: 1626
---

# If I Started Investing From $0 Today, Here's Exactly What I'd Do

> Source: [If I Started Investing From $0 Today, Here's Exactly What I'd Do](https://youtube.com/watch?v=CpJK9PY3G40)

## Summary

This video explains the fundamental difference between a consumer mindset and an owner mindset, showing how buying assets like stocks instead of liabilities like iPhones can build wealth. The speaker provides a beginner-friendly guide to stock market investing, including how to buy fractional shares, use ETFs, and adopt a long-term strategy of consistently buying and holding.

### Key Points

- **Wealth comes from owning assets** [00:02] — Wealth is built by owning assets that generate income even when you stop working, not by working a job.
- **Consumer vs. owner mindset example** [00:40] — A $1,000 spent on an iPhone becomes worth $40 in 10 years, while $1,000 invested in Apple stock becomes $13,000.
- **Mistake: chasing hot stocks** [02:10] — Beginners often try to find the next Apple or Amazon without research, which is gambling, not investing.
- **How stocks work** [03:22] — A company is divided into shares; Apple has about 15 billion shares, each around $300. You can buy fractional shares for as little as $1.
- **Public vs. private companies** [05:16] — Publicly traded companies like Apple, Nike, and Tesla can be bought on the stock market; private companies like Briefs Finance cannot.
- **ETFs reduce risk** [07:43] — ETFs are funds that hold a basket of stocks, providing diversification. If one company fails, the loss is balanced by others.
- **Types of ETFs** [09:37] — Examples: VTI (total stock market), VOO (S&P 500), QQQ (NASDAQ 100), SCHD (dividend stocks), VXUS (international), BOTZ (robotics/AI), SMH (semiconductors).
- **Broke cousin Bunty example** [13:31] — Bunty invested $100,000 at the worst times (before Black Monday, dot-com bubble, 2008 crash, 2020 pandemic) but never sold. His investments grew to $550,000, or over $1 million with dividends reinvested.
- **ABB: Always Be Buying** [16:48] — Set up a system to invest regularly regardless of market conditions. The speaker invests every Wednesday.
- **POOP: Panic leads to Overselling leads to Opportunity leads to Profit** [18:50] — Market crashes create buying opportunities for those who stay calm and buy at discounted prices.
- **Invest based on research, not hype** [20:11] — By the time a stock is in the news, the big money has often already been made. Study where money is moving, not headlines.
- **Investing vs. trading** [21:34] — Investing is long-term (years/decades) and builds wealth; trading is short-term, exciting, but most traders lose money.

### Conclusion

The key to wealth is adopting an owner mindset: consistently buy and hold diversified assets like ETFs, ignore market timing, and avoid panic selling. Even the worst market timer can become a millionaire by staying invested.

## Transcript

wealthy by working a job. It doesn't matter if you are a teacher, a truck driver, a doctor, or an executive. The way you become wealthy is by owning the right assets. That way, now you can get paid even if you stop working. Because
if you stop working at your job, the money stops coming in, but you still got bills to pay. But when you have the right assets, the money keeps coming in even when you stop working. But the question is, what assets do you buy and
I'm going to show you how you can get started with your investing journey, even if you have just $100. That way, you can start building this type of making you money even when you're not working. Let me start by diagramming the
which is what the majority of people are doing right now. This is what we're all taught and bred to do, versus the owner mindset, which is what the minority of people are doing, which is how people become wealthy. Let's assume 10 years
ago that you had $1,000. Now, what the average consumer would do is say, "Oh, I got a new $1,000. Let me go and get myself a brand new iPhone. You take this $1,000, you buy the new Apple iPhone, fast forward to today, 2026, and now
nothing. But I'm going to be generous, and I will say this iPhone is worth $40 later." Now, as the owner mindset, that minority mindset, what you're going to do is you're going to take that same $1,000 that you had, but instead of
buying the iPhone, instead what you did is you're going to buy the Apple stock. just a minute, but you bought a piece of the Apple company. Now, you're getting a share of the Apple profits. You don't have a cell phone to show it off, but
you bought some ownership in this asset, which is the Apple company, the Apple stock. Now, fast forward 10 years later. Your $1,000 is now worth $13,000. So, in this instance, the owner became richer. The consumer became poorer. We
are taught to go out and spend money. Wealthy people are using that money to buy assets which are making them money. This is the way that you become wealthy pocket. Whether you were working, whether you went on a vacation, or
have to go and work at the Apple company. You just bought the right stock. You bought the right investments. And these investments are putting money people, especially beginners, make a big mistake. They say, "Okay, Dusty, this
extra money. How do I find the next Apple? How do I find the next Amazon? want to go out and invest my money into this next hot stock." But that's not the best way to get started, especially if you don't have any research or if you
that research. Because now you're just gambling. You're going on to Reddit, ChachiPT and Claude and just guessing on which stock to buy, unless these things which you'd have to pay for. But without that research, you're just investing
news. And now you're buying and selling based off of what people think is hot. And that's why most people end up buying high, selling low, and losing money. But there's a lot simpler ways to get started with less risk that have the
which I'm going to show you in just a minute. But the first thing you want to understand now is through the stock market, it is the simplest way for you to go out and start buying ownership in companies that make America America.
investing game works without getting into all the complicated stuff. The Apple company sells computers, they sell phones, they sell a whole bunch of other phones, they sell a whole bunch of other stuff. And now this company, Apple, has
been divided up into many small slices called shares. Now today they have approximately 15 billion shares of this company which means the company is divided up into about 15 billion small pieces. When you go out onto the stock
market you can buy one share one small piece of this company for approximately $300 a share. Now today you don't really need $300 to actually buy the Apple
stock. You can start with as little as $1 because so many brokerages out there will let you buy a fractional share. meaning a piece of a share of a stock. share. But if you wanted to buy one full share out of the 15 billion shares there
are, you would need approximately $300. Now the first mistake that people make here is they say, "Oh, $300 is a really expensive stock." But that really doesn't mean anything because the way you think about the stock price is you
take $300, which is about what each share is worth, multiply it by the 15 billion shares there are, and that gives you the valuation of Apple. As of today, at the time of recording this video, Apple is worth something around $4.5
trillion. So, if Apple were to double the amount of shares out there, now each was before, which means now the shares are worth $150 each, assuming that they now have 30 billion shares. That's why the stock
price by itself doesn't tell you if a company is expensive or cheap. It just tells you how many shares there are relative to the actual valuation of the it's okay. It'll all make a lot more sense by the end of this video. But just
understand that when you buy one share of a company, you're buying one piece of that pie. Now, not every company is traded on the stock market. The companies that trade on the stock market are called publicly traded companies.
stock market are called private companies. For example, I own a company called Briefs Finance. We are a private company. You cannot buy a share of it on the stock market. That is just private. But you can buy shares of companies like
But you can buy shares of companies like Apple, Nike, Nvidia, Tesla, SpaceX, Microsoft, McDonald's. All of these companies trade on the stock market. And we are trained to be consumers. We're trained to spend money at Amazon. We're
trained to spend money on Apple. We're trained to spend money at Walmart, but we're never trained on how to actually own those companies. That's what stock market investing is all about. Every time you buy one share, you buy one
to go deeper into how do you actually do the research of finding the right company, I'll put together an entire master class where I'll walk you through the opportunities are today with all the changes in our economy right now, with
all the changes of what's happening with the Federal Reserve Bank, how these are master class of where the opportunities are today. If you want to watch that, market briefs, which is my newsletter for investors. It's completely free. If
to do is sign up. I have that link for you down in the description below. Now, this is where the next big mistake that a lot of people make is they say, "Okay, my money in the stock market. I'm going to invest my money in the next Apple."
and you just buy whatever you think is the next Amazon, the next Apple, the next Nvidia. But this is a mistake if you don't know how to research or if you're not subscribing to any research. And the reason why is because a couple
of decades ago, the biggest retailer on the planet was not Walmart. It was not the planet was not Walmart. It was not Amazon. It was Sears. Sears was a powerhouse. They sold everything. Everybody shopped at Sears. Their
were one of the biggest companies in the world. Not just the biggest retailers, but one of the biggest companies in the world. And if you bought shares of Sears today, your shares would not have lost value. They would have gone to zero. you
you're investing in one of the biggest companies of the world. That's why it is so important to understand what you're investing in. Now, there are ways for you to invest your money without taking on all that risk as a beginner investor.
And this is where using funds are very valuable. One of these types of funds are called ETFs. It's just a fancy way of saying a fund that gives you exposure could go out and invest in the Apple company. The way that you invest in
Robin Hood, there's Schwab, there's Erade, there's Interactive Brokers, there. You can find what's right for you. But the idea is you can go out and buy Apple. The way you do that is AAPL. That's the ticker of Apple. I'm not
telling you how it works. But now you're taking on all the risk because if Apple world, you're going to make a lot of money. But if Apple fails and goes your money. The alternative is to invest your money into an ETF. Again, this is
one type of fund. Now, there are funds out there that will give you exposure to a basket of companies. Like, this might have the Apple stock in there. It might also have the McDonald's stock in there. It might also have the Coca-Cola stock
in there. It might also have Elon Musk's Tesla stock in there and hundreds of other companies. And now, when you buy one share of this company, you're McDonald's, Apple, Tesla, and hundreds of other companies. Now, if Apple were
to go bankrupt, well, you don't lose everything because yeah, you have a loser, but it's balanced out by some of the other winners. Plus, if you buy the right funds, what they will do is when Apple starts to struggle, it will kick
Apple out and replace it with a different company and it'll happen completely passively for you. So, you just buy the basket of stocks and then you don't have to worry about doing anything. You just buy the basket and
that basket works to rebalance and change and be fixed when it needs to be fixed and it all happens without you touching anything. Let me go over a of ETFs. That way you can start thinking like an investor. Again, I'm not telling
you different ways that you can actually invest your money. Let's say you wanted to invest your money into something called the total stock market because stock market. you just wanted to invest in the entire United States stock
market. Well, there are funds like VTI which will give you exposure to the total 2,000 some stocks in the stock market. So, the stock market goes up, down, your fund goes down. Then maybe you want to get a little bit more niche.
Maybe you want to invest not into the total stock market, but just the 500 largest companies in the stock market. This is called the S&P 500. And now this is only going to invest in the top 500 companies in the stock market. Right now
Apple is one of the 500 largest companies in the stock market. If Apple were to struggle and they're no longer one of the 500 largest companies, this would kick Apple out and replace it with another company and you don't have to
touch it at all. So one example of this is VO. As a disclosure, I'm personally invested in VO. This gives you exposure to the S&P 500 and that's going to give companies. Let's say you wanted to get a little bit more niche. you wanted to
just invest in the NASDAQ 100. The NASDAQ 100 is a group of the 100 largest companies in the stock market that are not financial. So these are primarily tech companies. That means this is going to be more volatile. It goes more up and
down because tech companies are a lot more volatile. They have a lot more movement in the stock price. When the economy is growing, these stocks go even higher. When the economy is struggling, these stocks crash even more. So,
down movement with this, but this is going to give you exposure to that NASDAQ 100. QQQ gives you exposure to that. Maybe you're like me and you like cash flow. There are certain companies in the stock market that pay you money
brokerage every 3 months. It's called a dividend. This way, you don't have to sell your stocks to actually get paid. You're getting paid while you wait. So profits at the end of the year and instead of taking that profit and
just giving it to you as the shareholders. You can invest in those can get paid while you wait. And yes, this is money that's being deposited are many funds that are going to give you exposure to those dividends. One
example is SCHD disclosure. I personally invested in SCHD, but this is a fund that's going to give you exposure to strong companies that also have seen strong dividend payments and strong dividend growth.
out dividends, but they've been growing their dividends year after year after year. Now, maybe you say, well, Jasp, bit concerned about the American economy. Is there a way for me to get
diversification into international markets? And the answer is yes. Funds like VXUS will give you exposure to the total want to get a little bit more niche internationally. There are funds like Va
will give you exposure just to the developed countries internationally. countries outside of the United States. Or maybe you want to get even more niche. You want to invest in the emerging markets. ETFs like VWO
will give you exposure to those smaller, more emerging markets, higher risk for more higher potential return type of markets. Or maybe you say, "Just pred I really like this AI and technology space. Can I get exposure to robotics
and AI?" And the answer is yes. ETFs like BOTZ will give you exposure to I want to get exposure to semiconductors because I think that's going to be a very hot industry to power all of the AI ETFs like SMH will give you exposure to
those types of semiconductors." Again, this is just a small list of different the idea that you [snorts] as an investor can invest in whatever you invest your money. This is just a starting point for you. The next mistake
that people make is they say, "Well, okay, I'm going to invest my money when the time is right." Oh man, let me introduce you to my broke cousin Bunty. broke, but take a look at broke cousin Bundy because he is the worst investor
of all time. He first made his investment of $10,000 in 1987, the day before Black Monday. The day before we saw the huge stock market crash. The day after he put in $10,000, the stock market fell by 34%, the worst
day in stock market history. Then a few years later, he started to build his 2000, he goes in and says, "You know what? I'm going to invest more money. This time, he invests $20,000.
The day before the dot bubble burst in the year 2000, he invested his money at the market peak after he finally started to build some confidence again. And then to build some confidence again. And then we saw tech stocks fall by over 75%
in one of the worst stock market crashes that we saw since the Great Depression. confidence up again. And then he decided to invest more money in 2007. This time
he invested $30,000 right before the housing market collapsed. And the stock market fell by almost 50% during this great stock market crash. And then he was really shaken up again. But he finally got the
courage to start investing his money again right before the pandemic hit. He invested his money in the peak in 2019 or even the peak in 2020. It doesn't highest point since we saw the fastest
Depression when the pandemic hit. And right before the pandemic hit, he invested $40,000. Well, over these four times, what he did was he invested $100,000 in total. But the one thing that broke
cousin Bunty did right, he invested at the wrong times, but the one thing he did right was he didn't sell his investments. Take a look what happened. This $10,000 investment grew to over $220,000
today. This $20,000 investment right before the great.com bubble burst is worth about $97,000 today. This $30,000 is worth about $143,000 today. And this $40,000 right before the
today. And this $40,000 right before the pandemic is worth about $88,000 today. Which means he invested a total of $100,000 as the worst investor of all time. But because he did not sell, he turned this $100,000 into approximately
$550,000. And this is not factoring in dividends. that some companies pay out a dividend big profits. If he took those dividends
stocks when he was investing because remember in this example he only invested four times. If he reinvested the dividends that he got over these $550,000. He would have over $1 million. Meaning
he 10xed this money despite being the worst investor of all time only because he didn't sell. This is why when I teach investing, it's not about trying to time the market. It's about just owning more of the market always. And I teach
something called ABB. This is not an ETF. AB stands for always be buying. Set up a system where every week or every two weeks or every four weeks more money is going to go into the market or at least be put aside to be
invested. I have a system where every Wednesday, why Wednesday? No reason. every Wednesday, more money is invested into the markets from me. This happens when the markets are booming. It happens when the markets are crashing. It
It happens when the markets are sideways. It happens when there's a when there's a Republican in the White House. It happens if there's a war pandemic happening. It happens if it's sunny. It happens if it's raining. You
get the idea. Always be buying is a first. Always. The mistake that people make is when markets go down, they start to panic and they stop buying. But buying even more aggressively because when markets go down, it creates some of
opportunities because now you can come in and buy more investments at a discounted price. Every dollar that you invest during a market crash buys you more stock. And this brings me to the
next mistake that people make is they panic when markets go down, which causes especially the good investments, at a loss. And the reason why people do that is because now when you start to see the stock market fall by 5%. 10%, 20%, 30%,
stock market fall by 5%. 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, people panic. And now you go into the news and you hear about how the stock market is crashing. Our economy is on the verge of collapse. The dollar is done for. People are leaving the United
States economy. People have lost trust in the United States stock market. And seeing your money go down. Even though you might only be 30, 40, 50, 60 years you for your investments. You're so worried about what's happening today,
tomorrow, next month, and even next year that you start to make rash decisions which are going to affect the rest of your life today. Instead of taking a step back to understand, do you own a good investment? If so, when that panic
happens, you want to come in and buy. In fact, I call that poop. P O P. Now, what is poop? Well, we've seen poop happen in every market crash in history. Whether it's the 2020 pandemic, the 2008 great financial crisis, the 2000.com bubble
every single one of these. What does poop? Panic leads to overselling leads to opportunity leads to profit. When people panic, they sell. And then it
starts to oversell because the media keeps scaring the crap out of you. And then that gives you the ability, the opportunity to come in and profit. P O P. Panic leads to overspending, leads to opportunity, leads to profit for the
financially savvy that have money that can come in and buy the good investments at a discounted price. So the way you buy is ABB. Always be buying when the market downturns happen. Not if, when. We've seen 16 recessions in the last 100
years, which means yes, we average more than one recession per decade. A market crash is coming. It's always coming. Nobody knows when. Instead of trying to time the market, keep owning the market with ABB and then when the market crash
well. Then the next mistake that people make is they invest their money on emotion, on hype instead of research. You start to hear about the next meme now you want to buy this thing because the news keeps talking about it, and
that's what you want to buy. Well, I have some bad news for you. By the time money has often been made. And I'm telling you this because I run a company technology company, but we started off as a research company. Our research
powers our technology. We have a team of analysts who all they do is study the stock market because we publish this research for our investor members who want to subscribe to which stocks that we are buying for our portfolio. That's
what my firm does. And what I've learned is that a lot of people like to buy based off of what's exciting and hot, which can be good for a short period of everybody else does, you are not going to get better returns than everybody
else. And the average person is actually not getting the best returns. But when bit differently, what we call based off of research, which is now you're studying where the money is moving, not what the headlines are talking about,
but when you study where the money is moving, because you start to read, you you start to see where money is actually moving, that creates what I call better money is shifting. And if you can understand when money is shifting, that
creates the opportunity for better investment opportunities to make better make money. Again, I break all this down in my master class. That link is for you here is when you start to trade what's hot, now you're gambling. When you're
trading, you're gambling. Investing is investing for the long term. This is more than a year, ideally years, ideally decades. That's where the real wealth is decades. That's where the real wealth is built. Trading is exciting. It's fun,
but most traders lose money. Investing is wanting to own these companies for the long term. You're buying a company. You're buying a business. You're not it that way, well, now you're not so worried about the day-to-day swings.
businesses do you want to own? And how can you own more shares of those down in price, if it's still a good company, how can you come in and buy even more aggressively? That's the way that you win as an investor. When I
management, I avoided using a credit card because I thought the credit cards are bad and evil. And then when I realized that I knew how to spend my I didn't have for credit card perks and points, I realized that I could earn
more cash back. I could earn more perks and points for doing nothing except normally make anyways with a credit card instead of a debit card. And that's why I partnered with my sponsor, Finance Buzz, to put together an article of some
the caveat. If you don't know how to manage your money, don't use a credit credit card, in this article with my sponsor, Finance Buzz, I go over some of my top credit cards based off of different types of tiers. If you have
off faster, I go over some of the top 0% APR credit cards. This will give you an opportunity to attack the credit card debt faster while not acrewing any interest during the 0% APR period. I go over some of my favorite cashback credit
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manage your money and you're comfortable using your credit card, you can see some of my top credit cards right now in the free article that I have for you down in in this video is that the majority of people have a consumer mindset. We are
taught to spend money at places like Apple, Walmart, Amazon, Kroger, Costco. But the minority of people, the owner mindset is thinking, how do I not spend my money? How do I actually own the companies that are selling the stuff?
That is what the minority mindset is all about. Now, instead of taking the $1,000 and buying the Apple product, instead of buying the Apple iPhone, you're buying of a company, you're buying one slice of a company, one piece of a company, and
now you get to share in that company's profits. That's what being an investor You can buy shares of these companies on pretty much any brokerage out there. But instead of just buying the company, you can also buy shares of funds called
ETFs. We went over multiple different type of ETFs. You can invest in ETFs that give you exposure to the total stock market, the S&P 500, the NASDAQ 100, dividend paying companies, international companies, AI companies,
semiconductor companies. There are many different types of ETFs out there. My start thinking like an investor instead of telling you what you need to be the way you become wealthy is by owning the companies because now you can make
money without having to work. The other thing is now you have to figure out what you are going to own. But now how do you actually buy it? You don't want to just buy one time. Instead, this is where I teach ABB. Always be buying. Always keep
putting money into the market because you cannot time the market. But if you are going to put money into the market, the best thing you can do is not panic and sell. We talked about how broke cousin Bundy was the worst
investor of all time. He invested his money at the worst times before the 1987 Black Monday crash. He invests his money before the 2000.com bubble bursting, before the 2008 housing market, the stock market crash, and then before the
2020 pandemic, he invested in the peak and all of these times. But the one thing he did right was not panic selling. And because he did that, he was able to turn his $100,000 investment to over half a million. And if he
reinvested his dividends to over $1 million even though he only invested those four periods of time because he didn't sell. And this is where ABB can to try to time the market. You just want to own the market. Then when those
remember poop. Panic leads to overselling leads to opportunity leads happen with every single downturn, but they create some of the biggest and best buying opportunities. Then we talked about how do you actually find those
shifts? Because while most people are investing based off of what they see in a lot of the real money has been made. And [snorts] this is where investing based off of research is more powerful. And when you invest based off of
money is moving, where money is shifting, because that can create a you. Because long-term investing is where the wealth is built. We're talking about years of ownership, not days or months of ownership. Trading is
exciting. It's gambling though, and most people lose money. Investing is where value out of this video, the best thank you was a referral. So, if you could family member, colleague, or fellow investor, that way we can continue to
Thank you. The United States government is approaching $40 trillion of national debt. And while most people are worried about how much money the government is spending, there's a quiet shift happening with our money that most
people are completely missing. I'll show you. In the past, when the United States didn't have, it would borrow money from countries