Why YOU Need To Invest in PSYCHEDELICS | Ask Mr. Wonderful #14 Kevin O'Leary

[Music] All right everybody, back for another episode of "Ask Mr. Wonderful." Here today with my recently acquired 1969 Telecaster. Telecasters are very unforgiving guitars. Not that I want to get sidetracked here, but I just thought maybe a couple of little riffs. They've got that kind of tinny, twangy country sound.

Anyways, let's get to the questions. And as always, international ones are absolutely nuts! I mean, you know, what do you say? This one is from Amber. Let's hear it.

"Hi Mr. Wonderful, my name is Amber, and my husband and I are huge fans of the YouTube channel. But I need your help settling a huge argument that we're having. I've got to ask you; I hope you'll answer this for us: Would you rather hire a dog or a cat to be your company's CEO?"

Amber, what are you, nuts? You know, maybe that—maybe the question isn't that crazy. Would I rather hire a dog or cat to be my company CEO? Well, you know, maybe it's not so nuts. Let me take a stab at it because I want to talk about my experiences with both species.

If I go back in time, my first experience with cats, way back in college in my second year, I got in my first serious relationship. I met this woman in film class; it was a nighttime class. You know, the next thing in all, Jed's a millionaire, and we eventually move in together. It was my first sort of living-together relationship and all that stuff.

When we were moving in, I met for the first time a chocolate point Siamese cat. Now, I didn't think twice about it, but there were two of them: Sasha and Chado. Sasha was the female; Chado was the male. And you know, okay, we're together; it's our first night; we're sleeping together. You know, move—well, first time we were living together, sleeping together.

At about 5:00 in the morning, Chado, the male, sits on my head literally and starts meowing. I'm thinking it's just a nightmare; what—like, what's going on here? So Sandy, that was my girlfriend's name, says to me, "Oh, Chado's hungry; can you go and feed him?" Like, it's 5:00 a.m. I said, "Well, why don't we just leave the stuff in the bowl for him?" "Oh no, no, he'll get too fabulous meeting all the time! What, you gotta get up and feed him?"

So that was my first rude awakening. Chado didn't give a [ __ ] about me; he just wanted to be fed. The cat was an arrogant bastard; it walked around the house doing whatever it wanted. Sasha was a little nicer, but Chado—every morning! And always, like, all of a sudden, I'm the guy feeding the cat. So I'm not loving cats so much, and those are arrogant cats, those Siamese chocolate points. Those of you that are cat lovers probably know what I'm talking about. They are the most selfish animals in the world!

Now, apparently, they were royalty; the ancient Egyptians covered them in some of the carvings and paintings. You see these Siamese chocolate point cats. But anyways, so that was the cat side. On the other side of the equation, when I was young, my dad worked at the United Nations, and we kept moving to different countries. I ended up in Addis Ababa, which is the capital of Ethiopia, for two years. I met Haile Selassie there; he had a very famous collection of lions in his zoo.

That's us, my brother and I, you know, petting these lions. But my whole point was that the foreigners, all the diplomats, lived in the same area of Addis Ababa, sort of a suburb. We’d hire guards, or if the houses were gated. This guard we hired had a dog; it was a mongrel. It was a multi-breed mix. This dog was incredibly intelligent; it could listen to and respond to five languages: the local language, German, French, English, and Italian. It was incredible!

And it would be things like, you know, "lead the car in," "walk the car," and "make sure there's nobody in the backyard." I mean, the dog was like really smart! And I'm thinking, if I have to have a dog as a CEO, that's the dog! But there's a big difference: that dog was working with humans, acting as a guard dog, really intelligent, responsive to commands. In some ways, don't you want that from your CEO? I think so, and certainly, you want them to be cognizant of their surroundings. That dog could!

So when I think about the big debate between cats and dogs in the context of leadership in the corporate environment, if I have to take it seriously, I gotta vote dog. And there's some examples lately of some pretty heavy hitters in the corporate environment. Check this guy out—remember him? Yeah, yeah, he’s sort of the mascot for a multi-billion dollar corporation and not doing too badly.

So Amber, you know, after all, maybe you're not an idiot. That was a good question—I liked it! Sometimes, you have to flexibly have to think outside of the box. Amber, good for you! Let's take another question.

Yeah, that was different, that's for sure. All right, what do we got here? Let's have a look. No? Interesting, interesting! All right, let's listen to Alan.

"Hello Mr. Wonderful. Out of the blue, I'm from Ireland, the Netherlands, and yes, my question is I got some debt: 20,000 euro. I feel like slayed by it, you know? I just wanted—just because of some mistakes in my doing business and taking risks, you know? And but I have my own home, and if I sell my own home, then I can make profits, maybe 40,000, then I could pay off my debt and I can use the rest of the money to start all over again in complete freedom and don't make the same mistakes again, where I can invest in my new projects and businesses and pay the rent up front for six months so I have complete peace to work on whatever excites me in the moment. What is your advice? I don't expect you to answer, but okay!"

Alan, a lot of questions in there, and it's an interesting one for all of us to talk about because he's got a lot of issues. He’s 20,000 euros in the hole; that's about 24,000 dollars approximately. He owns a house—probably has a mortgage on it, though—and he's thinking of selling his house to get out of debt.

That's a tough one because, Alan, let's go through a few of these issues. First of all, real estate is not a very liquid asset. So what, if you're gonna sell it, that means you're gonna go through all the brokerage and tax fees associated with the sales. So let's say the brokerage fees are five or six percent, and then you're gonna have to pay tax on the capital gain. Because you say you're in the money, so it's not great, but it is an option.

The twenty thousand—I'm gonna guess you're probably paying seven to ten percent interest on that puppy a year. So like, that’s worst case, two thousand euros just to service the debt. Maybe it's, you know, a thousand euros if it's five percent. But anyways, it's bad because you have to go make that money after tax to pay off that interest, so I don't like that. So I think we gotta get out of debt here.

So there are two options, Alan. You've got two options here. Number one: You have to change your lifestyle dramatically and somehow save over the next 36 months 20,000 euros. I don't know what you're making, but 20,000—if the average salary in the Netherlands is, let’s say, I don’t know, 50,000 euros—it’s really gonna be hard to do that. You’re gonna have to save 20%. It’s not impossible, but it means you stop doing café lattes. You're not going out as much; maybe go out once a week. I mean, you're really cutting back, and you can do it, but you have to set a goal.

You have to basically say, "I'm only gonna suffer like that for 36 months!" That's why you can do it! And you have to stop buying crap. We’ve talked about buying crap. You don’t need to buy crap! You can definitely save 10 percent. 20% is much harder, but in this case, here’s what I’m thinking: and look, there's no perfect answer. You gotta get out of debt. It's gonna be one or two ways: you're gonna cut back on lifestyle, pay it down, or you’re gonna sell this house.

If you sell the house, there’s something called imputed value in a home. In other words, you have to live somewhere. So you either have to pay rent or—even if you don’t have a mortgage—the opportunity loss of that capital, because you can’t be guaranteed that a home is gonna go up in value. Because we’re at the historic low interest rates. In Israel, backup things like real estate tend to not go up in value too much because the cost of servicing it—the mortgage rates go higher! So each month, they have to pay more to maintain it. It’s an inverse relationship, and for the last 20 years, interest rates have gone down.

I’m thinking, Alan, in this case, maybe you want to sell the house, wipe out that debt, save the other 20,000 in the sense—not saving it—you’re going to invest it. And now, instead of paying interest of 5% or a thousand euros a year, you’re going to make a thousand euros a year. You’re gonna have to put it towards rent because you don’t have a home anymore. But home ownership isn’t a panacea; it’s not perfect for everybody.

So I’m liking, sell the house, pay off the debt, and don’t ever get in the hole like that again! Don’t make those mistakes you’re making. You’ve gotta really be fearful of debt. But it’s a really interesting question; Alan brings up questions for all of us. We’re all learning from this one.

I hate that so much because of the servicing costs—that’s the problem. So you know what, Alan? Sell the house; it's cool! You can go back into real estate one day, but being out of debt—it's like you said, you can sleep at night. I mean, a lot of bad things that happen in life, but going bankrupt is horrific! It puts so much pressure; it's unhealthy to be worrying all the time about where your finances are. And debt is a very unhealthy thing. Great question!

Very unforgiving. Kelly! [Music] Little basic chord riff there. All right, another that I gotta work on this guitar—it needs a setup. I'm hearing it rattling a little bit on the low E; it means it's hitting the fret. Let’s go back and do another question here.

All right, what do we got? Okay, one more. Let’s listen to—oh, I think we did Alan already. Hold on, going back for Justin. Justin, ready for Justin?

"Hi Mr. Wonderful, my name is Justin, and I’d like to ask you about your opinions on psychedelics. I've heard that microdosing can be a competitive advantage in the business space. What are your opinions on these naturally occurring psychedelics, such as psilocybin mushrooms? Thank you!"

Justin, microdosing LSD, psilocybin mushrooms—very interesting question! That's what I love about "Ask Mr. Wonderful"; you never know what you’re gonna get! It’s like chocolates, you know that online—you never know what you're gonna get.

Well, Justin brought up something very interesting. I'll tell you why. Full disclosure, I recently invested in a company called MindMed, and it's doing exactly that. It's doing research on microdosing psychedelics to see if it can cure opioid addiction, alcoholism, depression, and even discussions around Alzheimer. Here’s what happened: in the early 60s, when LSD hit the scene, people were basically overdosing on it and hallucinating like crazy, and it became quickly outlawed. It became a Schedule One narcotic and all the research at that time that was being done slowed to a halt. Some of the original samples are still held by universities and institutions.

It was actually invented by Hoffman, I think it was back in the 50s, and it’s recently the 60th or 70th anniversary of the discovery of Hoffman’s LSD, which was discovered in Switzerland. So those original doses are still sitting in Switzerland. So MindMed is actually setting up with scientists to do medicinal research to turn these into pharma—in other words, FDA-approved drugs. They will be microdosing.

I think this is a very interesting area because when you think about the billions of dollars lost from opioid addiction and the tragedy that brings to families—I mean, you get hooked on opioids, and often you die. I mean, it’s a really, really bad outcome! And so alcoholism is horrific for families; depression sometimes ends in suicide. What if microdosing could solve these? And so the only way to find out is to do clinical trials, which is what MindMed is going to do.

So I’m an investor; it’s a new investment for me. But I really—you can probably, you know, go online and look at all the companies that are getting involved in this space. But Justin, that’s a very cool question! And so we should keep an open mind to this. This is not about drugging yourself because microdosing LSD is being done right now— a lot of it on the West Coast with engineers, and they’re getting—you know, I’m not endorsing it because it's illegal, but they’re doing it for a reason! They’re not hallucinating; they’re sharper at work, is what they claim.

And so why not do some research and find out if this actually is true? Oops! [Music] It’s really tough; this is a really tough guitar to get. See, I’m screwing up because I don’t know the neck; it's just a brand new guitar.

[Music] Anyways, a lot of work to do there. Let’s get another question. Here’s Darren.

"Hi Mr. Wonderful, I am currently 15, and in the near future—in a few years—I would like to become a successful entrepreneur. So is there any advice which you can offer me or suggest some things which I should do to work towards the goal of becoming a successful entrepreneur in the future? Thank you!"

Darren, very cool that you would be 15 and wanting to think about a career as an entrepreneur. I do have some advice there, and I think every entrepreneur that enjoyed some success should give back. And you know, it’s the idea of karma. So I’m gonna give you some advice. First of all, it is not an easy road; it’s not like working for someone. And I’ve said this many times; it’s a journey, not a destination. A lot of ups and downs—a lot of volatility in the career.

But to prepare yourself for entrepreneurship, there are some great things you can do that really have been done for generations over in Europe. You know, we’re not that old here—a couple hundred years old in North America. But in Europe, they’ve had these programs since the Middle Ages called apprenticeships. It’s equivalent to an internship, I guess. But let’s just—let me give you an example.

Let’s say you want to be an entrepreneur in the jewelry industry or the watch industry, and you want to start your own company one day. Well, you can go and work from the age of 16 years old for a great maison like Cartier. If you’re talented, they will actually train you for up to 10 years. They’ve got, you know, special houses, maisons, where they take you into the mountains and you go to school at night. And then you might go during the day to be trained in the making—and the craftsmanship of creating one-of-a-kind art pieces of jewelry. I mean, that’s an extreme example!

Nestlé, for example, a food company in Switzerland, they have apprenticeship programs. You go work there for three years; you actually get paid while you're going to school and/or after school, and you work for three years as a low-paid apprentice, and you learn the craft. You’re not an entrepreneur at that point, but you’re learning the ways of business and you’re learning the ways of the industry that interests you.

And so my whole message about this is, if you’re 15 years old, you know the old adage: go set up a lemonade stand—that’s [ __ ]! You have to learn about the ways of business and how it all works! And so it's better to be inside a business and learning. And then once you’ve got your chops, you check out and you start up on your own!

You know what’s really cool about that program and why it works here in North America? It works anywhere! People get to know you, and if they like you, they'll actually maybe fund your startup, buy from your startup, have a relationship with your startup because you came out of that industry.

That’s my advice: find out—the hardest thing to do when you’re 15 is to kind of figure out what is it that I want to do because you don’t know. So if you’re interested in entrepreneurship and business, one good thing is to go into—even in high schools now, in Florida for example, they have business classes in high school, which is great! You learn about financial literacy, about setting up a business, about accounting, bookkeeping.

I really like that! It would be great if you went into college for business because you’re gonna learn a lot; you’re gonna meet a lot of people! But not everybody goes to college, and you don’t—it’s not the representation for success. But certainly, if you’re gonna go to high school and finish that off, take a class in accounting; take something that has anything to do with numbers in business and give yourself an upper—an upper chance.

And then if you—or any—you know, an upper hand or at least a higher probability of success! You know, I come to think of it; it’s at fifteen years old, if you know you want to do that, you’re probably gonna do okay!

And remember this above all: you will have some failures; I guarantee it! You’re gonna have failures, and don’t let that set you back. For every success I’ve had, I probably had two failures. That’s just the nature of entrepreneurship; you only need one big success and you’ll set yourself free!

You know, it’s not about the pursuit of money; it’s not the greed of cash; it’s the pursuit of personal freedom—to sit around and try and learn a new guitar. Whoa! That’s so tinny! I got a lot of work to do here! I like that question!

Anyways, you know, I think about it; you have to have fun, you gotta do this kind of stuff. But the whole idea of “Ask Mr. Wonderful” is the sharing of these ideas. You may not agree with everything I say, but it’s just—I’m giving you my download from my experience and what I’ve learned.

Some of these things are really important, but if you really want to set yourself free, maybe that’s the theme of this week’s episode. Because there's so many questions about businesses and pursuing entrepreneurship. You gotta take risk, and sometimes it’s not comfortable! And if you can’t handle that discomfort, you will fail!

So think about that: you have to be able to sustain the fear of failure. You have to be able to hold that and use it as a motivational force. Because believe me, there will be nights when you think I'm wiped out, I'm dead! But let that be the motivator for you! Take from that and don’t let it take you down; you have to use it as a competitive weapon. Fear of failure can really, really be useful.

Anyways, think about that! And I’ll see you next episode. Take care, my friends!

[Music] That was a you-know-who riff. Remember that? [Music] You [Music] yeah [Music] till next week.