138. Rare Earth Metals and What You Could Be Missing Out On with Louis O'Conner

Hey, welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast, everybody. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni, and today's guest is Louis O'Connor. Louis, I'm super excited to have this conversation with you, especially cuz you are calling in all the way from Ireland right now and here I am in the middle of the Pacific, so huge time difference. I think what, 13 or 11, somewhere between 11 or 13 hours, I think between us right now. Really excited so thanks for joining me today.

Thank you, Mike. A pleasure to be here with you. Yeah, I'm temporary in Ireland and, technology is just great, isn't it?

Technology is great. It's one of the beautiful things that we have right now that, that we can actually have this conversation from thousands and thousands of miles away, absolutely amazing. Louis, I'd like to start this off and ask you the same question I ask everybody that comes on this show. And we wanna know more about you. We wanna know who you are, what you do, why you do what you do. So if you could share with us who is Louis O'Conner'.

So Louis O'Connor is Irish, born in Dublin. Spent some time in Germany, career wise. Lived in Germany for 10 years and then spent about 15 years in Latin America. I worked in property and real estate. Had my own little tour company where I was bringing mostly North Americans, Canadians, U.S., around Panama. Nicaragua and then Columbia later on as well. And I just returned back to Europe, two years ago for this business. We're about to talk about, I first came across it in 2017 from as an investor because as not as a business, but as something I was interested in investing in and liked it so much, I thought I would like to get involved as business partner as well.

Yeah. That's fantastic. Louis you have kind of run the gamut, right? You've lived all over the world. So you went from, you were born in Dublin, moved to Germany, right? You lived there for a while, then you spent 15 years in South America, and while you were there, you said you were doing real estate and you had your own Touro business. So you, were you doing like rental cars or what was that all about?.

It was basically called, Panama Retirement Tours. And it's still gone and I might even get back, and I'm still a resident of Panama. My wife is Mexican, but she grew up in Panama. So we're in Ireland at the moment, but I suppose you could say I'm a bit of a nomad, bit of a libertarian. And I suppose there's no holy grail, Mike. You know yourself as a 20 years in the Navy. You've seen a lot of the world. There's no Shangri La like each country, America has fantastic things going for it. So does Ireland. So does Panama, but there's not one that really tick all the boxes. What I learned is, if you can't find it all in one place, why don't do your banking in where the banking is best and do your business where the business works best and have your residency where so yeah. That's pretty much what I gathered or learned over the years is try and diversify everything you do, your banking, your business, your residencies, your passport, so I guess you're getting to know 'em, a bit of a libertarian.

Yeah. No, that's wonderful. So it's not only diversify what you invest in, but diversify just life in general, right? So you get to experience, the things that you've gotten, that you've been able to experience, right? You're more of like a world citizen, right? Not tied down to any one particular area. You can go do what you wanna do, but you're able to do that, I think, because of the things that you've done in your past by building businesses and investing in different things. So one of the things I wanna talk about is what you're currently doing right now. So I know you were doing real estate. You've got the tour business down in Panama, but now you're focused more on doing something with precious metals, right? And rare earth metals. So I'd like to talk about that a little bit. So what are you doing in that space right now?

Okay it's mostly rare earth metals although we do offer precious metals as well. But what attracted me, if you will, to this opportunity was for the first time I know this is since 2010, but it's still a relatively new asset class. It's only been around for 12 years. So for the first. Private investors you don't not, you don't have to be institutional or you don't have to be accredited. Our minimum investment is $10,000. But private investors can buy rare earth metals and store them. Just same paradigm actually as gold and silver, except the rare earths have a sort of an in intrinsic value, whereas gold and silver has the most part, an extrinsic sort of a perceived value, and that sort of, I got excited about that because, where, let me, So there's one way to explain as well, Mike, is where earths are, a lot of people call them the technology metals or even the green metals because of solar power, wind power. So essentially what they are is they're the raw materials in how we conduct our daily lives. I have my smartphone here. Because of India, one of the metals we offer, you can swipe on a phone, there's about 12 rare earths in one smartphone. They're in the devices we're using right now. They're into speakers, actually. The magnets in the speakers, but they're also, critically needed for. Super magnet powerful magnets in electric cars, in wind turbines, in solar aviation, military applications, shields for nuclear reactors, medical devices semiconductors, computer, you name it, they're in it. But previously investors didn't have an avenue to buy them and store them. And the reason for that is because the only end buyer for these products are industry buyers. So I came across an industry buyer from Germany back in 2017. My first interest was as an ambassador, did my due diligence, went to Germany, went to see the vault where they store them in Frankfurt, and realized that, these guys are in business 30 years. They're a bonafide industry supplier. What we do primarily, like 80% of what we do on a daily basis is we buy these materials mostly from China, because China is the dominant market leader in rare earths, and then we resell them to industry buyers. So we've clients in more than 70 countries that buy these metals. So that's primarily what we do.And if it wasn't for that, we couldn't offer the investment side because we have access to producers and we have access to the buyers. So 12 years ago we bought a vault, it used to be a bunker in World War II in Frankfurt. Two levels below the ground, converted it to a, it's a fully insured, bonded duty free zone with, bank level security and stuff. And since then we've been offering this mostly in Europe it hasn't been exclusive, but you would've, we have about, we already had about 200 US clients before we started to actively market in the us but you would've taken a great deal of effort to find us. So yeah, that's basically it.

Yeah, Louis so I was writing some things down as you were talking, and when you think about these rare earth metals, like you said looking at them as like the tech metals, right? I have solar panels on my house, right? I have a smartphone, my laptop that I'm talking to you through right now, the camera, my microphone, my headphones, you don't realize how many rare earth metals you have in these pieces of technology that you use. And when you're talking about the intrinsic value of that versus the extrinsic value of like precious metals, right? Where that's a value that, that basically for those it's what we believe it or perceive it to be. And anything is really valued that way. But when it comes to these metals, These rare earth metals that are used in technology, there's a supply and demand value that comes with that as well. And that's one of the things that, that makes it so much, more of a tangible asset versus some of these other, precious metals that, that people just like it cuz it looks fancy, right? There is, this is something that is tangible, that is used and if you look at the market today, And you look at what's blowing up right now, like the EV market and things like that. They need a lot of these precious metals, I'm sorry these rare earth metals to make these vehicles, to make the batteries to, like you said, the magnets that go into them. So that's huge and when you were talking about how the larger industry had a monopoly on this. There was no, there was nowhere for the little guy, Like the Average Joe, to get involved in something like this. But now you have a business where you're essentially kinda like wholesaling the the rare earth metals to these larger industries and letting the average person get in there and get a piece of this pie as well. So I, that's one of the things I wanted to point out here for, especially for my real estate investors that listen to this. You guys know what wholesaling real estate is? This is it to me looks like a way to wholesale, rare earth metals to these. Industry buyers. So I think that's very interesting. And then also to have that out there in Frankfurt. I've been to Frankfurt before. I flew in there when I was coming back from Iraq. And I know that there's, there was a whole bunch of different bunkers and stuff in that area. So you looks like you were able to lock in a really good spot to, to have as you're, where you're storing everything obviously gonna have a lot of space. So as you're buying these these rare earth metals from China do they get shipped in over there and then you transport them to where you store them? Or do you start distributing it right away to your buyers? Or does it depend on the actual demand?

Yeah, actually you pretty much nailed it there, Mike. That's pretty much what we do. We were able to invite private investors, private citizens for the first time to participate in this industry because we are an industry buyer. Now look, it's a sort of a partnership with us. We make some money, obviously we make a profit as well, but when you probably a bit later, we get into some of the numbers. When you have a look at the returns, you'll see, they're very healthy, But yet our storage facility in Frankfurt now has 200 metric tons of rare Earths, which is over 200,000 kilos. It's the largest inventory of rare earths anywhere in the world outside of China. And everything you mentioned there, all three. For example, if an investor buys metal, let's say this week, we close a deal this week, it'll take about 30 days for their raw materials to come between four to six weeks. Once they come, then we assign them to the vault because the investors, obviously that's where they want to keep them and store them. But in all of that inventory, less than 20% is investor owned. The rest of the, most of the rest of the inventory is ours. That we're selling on a daily basis. Some of it is actually some industry buyers themselves. They don't have a need for all the metals they've ordered right away, and they store them with us because some of them are in metal form, but some of them are oxides, which are a powdered form, and they need certain conditions if they're not stored correctly. Over say long periods of time, they can lose their purity level. The conditions have to be right for that as well. But yeah, just exactly what you said, you pretty much nailed it. Private citizens, private investors can, for the first time and I can say this as well. With certainty, Mike. If I'm stating the fact, I'll give it easy fact. If it's my opinion, I'll tell you. But the fact is right, that at the moment we're the only industry and supplier in the world that actually does this. There's nobody else doing it. And I say that sort of as a cautionary word as well because if I was just sort of a sales and marketing company, this wouldn't work, because I don't have, How do I know I'm getting pure 99.99% Valium, or Gallium, I should say, sorry, or Indium or whatever it is. And how do I have access then to the exit, to the liquidation? So yeah, you must be buying from an authentic metals trader and unless they're providing the exit too, there's no point in doing it,

Yeah. So not only do you have the option to buy with your company, but you also, Yeah, you have that exit as well. When you go to sell. So now somebody that wants to so you said you have what, 20% of what you have stored right now is also investors, right? That are making these purchases. So out of that, so if somebody wanted to buy, let's say some. What was it like Indium? Somebody wanted to buy some Indium, and store it there. Is there like a time limit that you guys will hold it for or can you hold it until they decide they wanna sell? As they're sitting there watching the value and stuff and maybe they're trying to flip it or something like that. Similar to what people do when they buy and hold stocks and they see this really large jump and then they wanna sell it for a profit. Is there a time limit that you guys have that you'll hold the, these these metal.

Yeah, good question. Look, the client, you can hold them indefinitely. You can actually store these materials indefinitely in the right conditions. And we recommend a sort of a medium to long term play. If you really wanna make it worthwhile and make a decent amount of money do a medium, which would be either three to five years or long term, which is 10 years, and I'll tell you bit more about that in a minute. But the truth of it is once those metals arrive to the vault, they're your metals. If you wanna sell them a week later, that's entirely your prerogative. You own them. You can keep them for as little or as long as you like. But I would add one thing to that, which is the vault is a, it's a free trade zone. It's a zolllager, as they say in Germany. Once they arrive if you keep them there for at least a year, there's no VAT. There's no V.A.T. Or there's no import duty. So you can make your purchase and your sale tax free, at least in Europe anyway. Cause I know the US citizens have to do their own reporting outside of that. And I obviously not gonna speak about that. I'm just speaking about Europe, that the purchase and sale can be tax free in Europe. If you've held them for a year but to answer your question, it's up to decline. Last year for example, we had two or three of our metals double in price. So if you'd put in a hundred thousand your portfolio was at 200,000. So it makes sense to liquidate some of them then, if not all of them. The reason that happened was China produced, they doubled the production of electric cars in China last year, so they didn't export as much as usual, so the prices internationally went up. We'll talk a bit more about China in a minute, but China pretty much dominates the production, the refining, the supply, and crucially now the price.

Yeah, that's, that's good to know, especially when you're thinking about like how you're gonna gauge where the market for these metals might go is you wanna pay attention to what's going on in China, right? So you wanna pay attention to example, like you just said. It. What's their electric car production look like, since they, they made that increase, of course there's gonna be less coming out. Tesla even opened a factory out there as well. And when that happened, you're seeing less of the, those raw materials getting exported cuz they're keeping it in house. So that's definitely important to know. So what are your thoughts on that? Like how do you like pay attention to what's going on there. Cause I know sometimes it could be difficult to see what's going on in China, right? Because of the way that they're government is structured. There's a lot of that information's not really gonna get out. So what do you do from your side to try to stay ahead of what's going on and ensure that you're still being able to provide these medals to your investors.

Okay. There's a number of things. The simple thing actually on any what I, one of the greatest tools I found is is to do a Google alert. If you do a Google alert for rare earths. Within about two weeks, you'll get a clear picture of what's happening in whatever, in rare earth, put in whatever industry. But look, a lot of these opportunities are hidden in plain sight, look, we're not, it's not possible, say for me to be savvy on every. Sort of investment in like you're in Hawaii and, it's not possible for me to be say, up to date on real estate in Hawaii would be cause you're there and that's what your business is. China is, hasn't been shy about this, right? If. I, if you look and it's in the open, it's in the public domain, Chinese they call it the future's policy 2025, that clearly states for all the world to see that their goal was by 2025 to be self-sufficient domestically in 10 different technologies. And they're close to reaching that goal if you look at the charts, you'll see in the eighties. The US was the dominant Marty. The US was produced in 60% of the world's rare earths and Chinese were produced in less than maybe 10, 12%. But the premier of China in 1987 made a very telling statement, a very shrewd statement actually, and he said, the standing. On a rare earth mine, he said the Middle East has oil. China has rare earths. That was 1987. Fast forward 30 years later and China now dominates the market. The US only has one. I'm only talking about the US cause your audience is North American. Europe is in the same boat. But the US only has one producing mine at the moment. It's Mountain Pass in California and they still send their raw materials to China to be refined, so at the moment, Europe, the west knows they need to wean their dependence off China. It took a generation for China to take over. Market. It'll take a while for us to gain some traction and get it back, but in the meantime, investors can profit.

Yeah. If you think about it though, you think about the size of China. When you look at the continent of Asia, right? And you look at how much of that is China, right? And you look at how much land they have it's a given that they're gonna have a large amount of these rare earth metals. And of course not all land is the same. Not all land's going to have rare earth metals like this, but when you have so much you're gonna, you're gonna find it.

You're right.

Now I wanted to ask you because that, it's actually been in the media a lot lately about what's going on up in Greenland, right? With the ice that's melting. It's actually exposing a lot of rare earth metals specifically Indium and things like that stuff that's being used for electric cars or Bones and things like that. I saw something the other day where they were talking about, the ice is melting and they're finding these. People are going now to go mine and get these rare earth metals. And some people were saying hey, how does that really help? And. The thing is like a lot of these metals that they're taking is actually going to help, like green technology, like you were saying, right? Maybe help reverse some of this ice melting that's going on. So it's almost taking the unfortunate situation with the ice melting there and turning it into a positive by getting a lot of stuff that's gonna be used for the screen technology that will help reverse some of that. So what are your thoughts on what's going on up there right now? Do you think that this is an opportunity? Do you think that right now you're gonna be able to get stuff at a much better price? Because now there's more of it and then, as it gets mined and it goes away, is this like more of a long term play? What? What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, good point. Despite the name Mike Rare Earths are not all that rare. They can be sort of found in abundance. plenty of them in North America, Australia, Africa, Greenland now is saying they have them Turkey about six months announced they have trillions, but that's not where it's at. I'll tell you where it's at. And most people. I was talking to, there's a guy in the us his name is Jack Lifton. He's in my mind, a foremost authority on rare earths in the world. He lives in Detroit. And he was telling me there's only about 200 people in all of the US that really knows the story where rare earth's, right? And here's the deal, right? They're never found. They're always found that as a byproduct of another raw material, I'll use Gallium as an example. Gallium is always found as a byproduct of mining aluminum. So you can on, it has to be separated. You need, it's Mathematical. It's complicated it's expensive. You need geologists. You need metallurgist. So it's not that you can't find them, It's separating them and separating them well enough that you're not, you're getting enough of them.

That you get a higher purity level.

Exactly. And here's the difference is Europe and the U.S., we don't have the technology. China has China's about 30 years ahead of the rest of the world with metallurgy, which ology specifically relating to rare earths. And so even if you do find a ama, if there is a massive amount there, extracting them, separating them and getting good purity levels China's just way ahead of us.

You even gave that example before with what we're mining here in the states out in California, that we're still sending a majority of that to China to, for them to refine it and send it back to us, and that, that comes with a cost, right? They're not just, Oh! Yeah, we'll do that for free so we're sitting here shipping all of this stuff to them, for them to refine it and then send it back. And it's, Like you said, they've got the technology, they've got this put together where we're like in the infant stages still.

Yeah. You know as well Mike recently, you can Google all this, You'll see there was this in a very rare occurrence of agreement, both President Trump and President Biden signed executive orders, recognizing the U.S. Needs to wean its dependence off China, right? Within about. Four weeks of that happened in the U.S. Department of Defense signed an agreement with Linus Corp in Australia. Linus the second largest producer after China. They're not that big, but they're, after China, their next, and Linus will come from Australia now to the U.S. To refine railroads just for the US military. The Department of Defense got up ahead of everybody else nearly to do this because, for example, the US Army. Has said they're gonna, they're gonna feel an all- electric Non Tactical Feet by 2035 and an all-electric tactical fleet by 2050. And they know they don't have the technology in the U.S. So what you're gonna see over the next 10 years is Europe and the U.S.. We'll try to get more in the game, and they will eventually, but it'll take time. Just graduating metallurgist from college. China's been graduating about 200 a week for the last 30 years. The U.S. And Europe been graduating about 200 a year, so we're way behind on that. What you will see, that's why I jumped on this as an investment and business opportunity is for the next, 12, 15, 20 years. If you own these metals, you're in a very, you're, you look, I'll give you some of the numbers in a minute, but they weigh, outperform gold and silver. Just to give you a quick idea, right? In the last 10 years, gold is up. I don't know why people consider gold a hedge against inflation anymore. It's only gone up 7% in 10 years. That's nothing, right? For the last say five years. Rare Earth's on average, like I'm giving you the average number are up 34.25% a year. That's a very good return. If you put in a hundred thousand five years ago your portfolio would be worth 2 75, and during that time, there was no major geopolitical situation. Go back to the five years before that. In 2010, the Japanese actually and again, you can Google this, you'll see it in the U.S. Newspapers as well. The Japanese detained a, a Chinese fishing, a trawler, a captain of a fishing trawler because he was fishing in disputed water, so they held him right in retaliation. The Chinese restricted the quotas of rare earths to Japan. Within a few months, we saw some of them go up, quintuple five they went up five times as much. So I suppose the point I'm trying to say to you is there are very good investment and at the very minimum, you will get a nice return. But if China decides. We're not going to use these sort of rare earth's, which they've threatened to do again, that's when you could see prices spike.

Yeah, absolutely. Because they do have a very large monopoly of it. And if if they're like the majority refinery, right? And the majority provider of these rare earth metals, If things get a little hairy with them and they decide to scale back, what you already have will go up in value significantly. And that's something that you need to be paying attention to. No matter what you invest in, you always wanna pay attention to a couple things. You wanna pay attention to the market. You also wanna pay attention to the politics, right? What's going on internationally that might affect this? What's going on, nationally like where you live that might affect this. What's going on, geopolitically in those regions that might affect this, right? So if you're paying attention to all that and you're watching all these key indicators you can make some damage, right? You can put a dent in whatever you're trying to do. I think that's very important. And I think what you just stated there with what happened, like that example that you just gave with what happened between Japan and China with that fishing boat and what that, what was the outcome of that from something? So what seems like minuscule and what that turned into for people that already owned these precious metals. But then going back a little bit further with what you were talking about with the actual. Average annual return right now being 34% is huge. You don't even see some of those returns in real estate unless you're getting a really good flip and right now, that's not something you're seeing too much of right now in today's market. This is definitely something to keep an eye on for people that might be interested in this. Right now might be the best time to, to go check. Yeah, Louis. That's awesome, man. Yeah, that's awesome.

Just one thing I'll add, Mike, before we go. You mentioned the thing in Japan, right?

Yeah.

Again, just a little bit of Googling, you'll see, wow, this is real. This happened. The price has spiked. What's happening at the moment that people aren't really aware of, right? Is this Taiwan situation, right? What's really going on there is Taiwan produces 92% of the world's semiconductors. The other 8% are produced in South Korea. The U.S. And China and Europe are dependent upon Taiwan. For these, they're the best. That's the best sort of they make the best ones and they dominate the market. Now, if there was to be a situation with Taiwan and that production was limited or subjected to some sort of disruption that would cost a car industry on something like 200 billion. Right now, there's a little bit of posturing going on. There's a bit of flex in the muscles and stuff, but what's also key to know there is. The key to the key raw materials in semiconductors are both are gallium and germania, which China has control over. If China decided to restrict those quotas as a threat during, just as a, as these trade tensions or these tensions escalate, anyone who's holding. Gallium and germanium is in for a nice, spike. So there's stuff like this going on all the time, right in front of us. But we don't know the, the exactly the background. And as you said, it's important to be, get yourself, if you're interested in a particular industry, get as politically savvy or geopolitically savvy as you can and amazingly it's so easy to do. I mentioned it earlier. Just put in, like if you just do a Google alert, when we finish rare earth's by tomorrow morning, you'll get three newspaper articles from all over the world on rare earths, and you'll within about 10 days, two weeks, you'll know exactly what's going on.

Yeah, no, that's, and that's a very key point. And again, you gotta know the market. You gotta know what you're going into. And that's in any investment that you wanna get involved in. Understand the risks, understand the benefits, cause with risk comes. Gain. It's, you have to learn about it too. I talk about this all the time in regards to real estate as well people that wanna get started, get involved. I always talk about you need to educate yourself, right? You need to educate yourself, get a mentor or a coach, right? . Then you need to, to network with other people that are interested in the same things as you and learn from them. And then you need to take action. Cause those other three things mean nothing without action, right? . So yeah, Louis that's awesome. My, I wanna transition this into something that I call the final round. Okay. I think we got some really great information, great content. I know I got some really awesome notes. And when we get off this call, I'm gonna be setting up some Google alerts to see what's going on, to learn a little bit more about this industry myself, because you've definitely peaked my interest. This is this conversation went a different route than I was expecting it to go. Cause I, like I said, I've talked with people, I've had people on before that we've talked precious metals, we've talked rare earth metals. But you've really got me thinking in a different way when it comes to this. That's awesome. So if you're ready to go, we'll get this party started on the final round.

Yes, indeed. I'm ready.

Alright so let's do it. I guess let's keep this tied to what you're doing in precious metal. We'll keep this business related but what's the biggest mistake you've ever made or worst business decision you've ever made?

I think probably going back a while now, and I think I'm a bit better at this nowadays, was I didn't stay the course. I had a good idea. It was actually when I started, I invested in property. The first property I bought, I was like 23 years of age. I was in Germany. And I remember saying to me, and I'll always remember cause I went to the company I was working for, I went to Woodbury, New York for some meetings and there was a gentleman there from New York and I was having a beer with him at the bar, and he of gave me great advice and he, I told him I'd already bought a property. He said, Louis, you should need to make a goal. And buy a property, say every three years for the next, And I'd already was on that track and I just got distracted and I didn't think in some ways, and this is maybe the best or the worst advice you can give, is, if you have a good idea and you know intuitively, it is just keep going forward and, Don't pay any attention to anyone that maybe tries to pull you off that or off track or people, places, or things that might pull you off it, just stay the course. And I'm talking about not every idea that I have or anybody has is a great idea, those little gifts from the universe that come in quietly and more intuitively, those ones that you just come to you. Stay the course, and I didn't, and that's a regret, yeah. In some ways, and I did get back to it later.

You gotta trust your gut. You gotta trust your intuition, right? A lot of times it's gonna tell you it's because there's something in the back of your brain, there's something in your thoughts that's telling you. To do it because, deep down inside it's the right move to make. Yeah. And a lot of times we ignore that little voice. We ignore that Gemini cricket that's on our shoulder and say, Get off, You're bugging me bug . Yeah. Oh, man. Okay. Good. So the next question kind of ties into this, right? And it's what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first got started?

Good question. Yeah. I think it would be there's a sort I suppose it's down to nearly due diligence, but more than that, which is sometimes when something is presented in front of me or to us in general, if we don't know too much about it, we can be dismissive of it. We can be sort. Prejudice before we've even investigated it, and I happened to me again. I remember hearing about Bitcoin back in 2009, 2010. Actually it was in Kuwait, it was a U.S. D.O.D. contractor was telling me about it. He was mined and Bitcoin on a laptop back then. And I went, What do you mean? But contempt before investigation, and I've, I tried to remember nowadays that. Now, whatever I, if something comes in front of me, whether I think it's great or whether I think it's bad, if I don't know much about it, find out, do the investigation, do the due diligence. Find out, are you right? Don't be dismissive, without proper investigation.

Yeah that's a very that's a very good point. That's a very good lesson learned. Don't be dismissive right off the bat. Be open-minded when it comes to something brand new that you don't know about. Yeah. You should go out there and actually learn about, instead of just being dismissive right off the bat. I know. I still don't know enough about crypto or NFTs or any of that stuff, and I do get, sometimes get dismissive of it because I don't know enough, because I have. Done the research on it. Because my focus is elsewhere and I like where I'm headed right now and wanna kind of stick with that. Yeah. You can't do everything right. You can't do everything, but don't be dismissive of it. Hundred percent.

And also we've learned as well, now we, there's such a thing as unconscious bias, right? We have unconscious bias. So our, We are sort of programmed to see something a certain way. And based on what our current point of view is. So it's almost like I need to get outta my comfort zone as much as possible to get another point of view. Just my view is not enough. That's why it's good as well to have mentors and people you trust that will tell you the truth. That won't tell you what you want to hear, but they'll tell you the truth,

Yeah

We can be our own worst enemy and no matter who have those. Conscious and unconscious bias that can, keep us, prevent us from further discovery, further education, further perspective.

Yeah, Louis that's huge. Yeah, Definitely another reason why I think it's important to have a mentor or a coach, right? Somebody that's gonna help you think outside of the box of that, that you normally think of. Awesome, alright so this question kind of ties into all this as well, and that do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to somebody that's just getting started today? Let's say there's somebody. That's a seasoned investor in other areas and they wanna start looking at these rare earth metals, what would you recommend to them? Like a research wise or anything like that?

Yeah, I think proper investigation, like a full investigation and thankfully with technology and stuff, we can do a lot of it ourselves now without costing, a great deal of money. And you mentioned earlier as well, or you go with the gut, pay attention to the gut, Yeah, cause you know, funny enough, I see now when I was speaking with you earlier, Mike, I could see from talking to you have a bit of a natural curiosity and you you were, I can tell you were interested in learning more and I'm not saying that you were excited about where it hurts. You were excited about learning something new. You know what I mean? And I could see that in you, but the usual response I get is not that. I've been doing sales, if you will, a long time, and when I start talking to people about rare earths, usually in about 10 seconds their eyes are glazing over and they're falling asleep, but they don't know what they're missing out on. And that's unconscious bias as well. Now, I'm not saying it's for everybody, it's not, but I owe it to myself and I owe it to you. We owe it to ourselves. To fully investigate whatever it might be, even if it's just a discussion in a bar or about, politics or whatever it is. It's just important to really do I really know what I'm talking about? How much of this have I investigated? How much do I really know? And it's amazing how quickly then, we can become reasonably educated on something. I Again, we were talking about technology, Google and you can just find. Everything if you want, at the touch of a button, so yeah, just, do that investigation.

Yeah. Louis, I love your answer because it ties into the very next question I'm gonna ask, because you're talking about how, you should educate yourself about this stuff first, right? Don't have that unconscious bias. Now, somebody to educate themselves. They would probably wanna look for good resources to learn about this. So do you have a favorite business or investing book or podcast or both that you would recommend to somebody that wants to learn more?

Yeah. Very good., Do you know what I find Megan, is a bit of a philosophical answer maybe is once if you wanna. Like the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, right? Once you get on that road, if I, let's say as you, you're talking about financial freedom and passive income and things like that. If as soon as somebody makes the decision and maybe listen to your podcast and they go, You know something, I wanna learn more about this, what Mike is talking about, I know there's more out there. And as soon as they decide, once you go on that path, what I have experienced is the path will always open up to you. It will always open up for you, but you have to make that step. So I suppose I wouldn't say I have a particular book or podcast because if you stay on the journey, Every week, stuff's go, every day stuff's coming to you. It's been, it's almost been attractive to you. Do you know what I mean? So I would just say, look, just take that first step, whatever that first step is, take it, keep going, and all this stuff will come to you. What's right for you comes to you just certain people who are, our friends and our family were like, is attracted to isn't it? Same thing with this,

Yeah, I love that. Closed doors don't open themselves, right?

Yeah.

You have to take that action and open the door and go look and see what's on the other side. And by doing that, go out there and do the research. Go out there and look this stuff up. So now that you've listened to this episode, you've got this wave top understanding. Of kinda what Louis and I were talking about here. For those that are listening right now, are they wanna learn more about rare earth metals. They wanna learn more about you and your company and how they could maybe possibly even invest with you as well. Where can people find this information? Do you have a website? Any social media profiles you could share with us? Where can people find you Louis?

Sure obviously the website is the first place to maybe to go to, you can download it, a digital prospectus, so that would be strategic metals and best. If anybody wants to, they can email me directly. It's Louis, LOUIS at strategicmetalsinvest.com. And of course we're on I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook and stuff but yeah, email me or go to the website is a good.

There you have it. So Louis, I'll make sure I have those links in the show notes to make it easier for everybody to either just copy and paste or click away. But again, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I think this conversation was awesome. I know I learned a lot. I got a lot of great notes. I'm gonna go set up some Google alerts now and and start learning a little bit more because this is, this was, you definitely peaked my curiosity for sure. So thanks again for coming.

Thank you, Mike. A pleasure. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. And to my listeners that are here with us right now, thank you so much for joining me and our special guest, Louisie O'Connor on the average Joe Finances podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Louis. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.