The internet turned money advice into extremes, so Jay Schwedelson brought on Braiden Shaw to share the practical middle path. You’ll hear the simple 3-step ladder he uses to build wealth, why paying off your mortgage fast is not always the math win, and the counterintuitive way he grew from 2k to 1M followers by never selling for a year.

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Start with Amplify’s Foundations program (25 dollars) to learn debt payoff, liquidity, and private markets, then explore the Growth Circle to co-invest alongside Braiden Shaw. You can also follow him on Instagram for daily financial tips.

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Best Moments:

(01:10) From 2k to 500k followers in nine months and why sharing beats gatekeeping

(03:03) Three steps to financial freedom simplified into debt, liquidity, then private markets

(06:30) The mortgage vs investing example that flips the pay-it-off-fast advice

(08:38) Post daily for a year without selling and focus only on educate or entertain

(12:14) The first viral hit and how rapid iteration created compounding growth

(16:15) Amplify Foundations for 25 dollars and a path to co-invest alongside Braiden

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Jay Schwedelson: We are back for do this, not that podcast. And we got a smart dude here who's here. We got Braden Shaw. Now Braden, you may know him from Instagram 'cause he has 1.4 million followers. What? He is a financial genius. He won't tell you that, but I will. Let me tell you who he is and then why I've asked him to come on.

Jay Schwedelson: So Braden owns one of the fastest and most successful. Mortgage brokerages in the country, which is Fulcrum Home Loans, but he also is the CEO of this thing called Amplify, LLC, which basically is like, listen, a lot of people need help, not just buying stuff, but learning how to do financial freedom, all this stuff, and they have the best content, resources, webinars.

Jay Schwedelson: How do you do that? We're gonna find out. Braden is here. Thanks for joining the show, man.

Braiden Shaw: Yeah, for sure. Thanks for having me.

Jay Schwedelson: This is gonna be fun. Alright. Let's just jump into it right now, because if you go on Braden's Instagram, I'm gonna put it all in the show notes. You will see, he puts out all these quick tips about how to not screw up your finances.

Jay Schwedelson: Financial freedom, how to save money, do stuff with money. So, so Braden, um, before we get into your quick tips, how, how did you amass this like knowledge.

Braiden Shaw: Um, you just have to know 10% more than the person that you're talking to and you're considered the expert. When I jumped into like financial, there was, there was some thought process there and I'm sure eventually we'll get to the marketing side of it. Like, I enjoy finance, I studied finance, but I know infinitely more today than I did two years ago when I started.

Braiden Shaw: And so really it was learn on the job, kind of continue to educate, jump into as much information as you possibly can. Um, but it's not like you have to start with that and most people don't. You just have to know a little bit more and, and to be considered the expert.

Jay Schwedelson: And to be willing to share it. I think that's the secret sauce of your success is that you just share whatever you learn. Is that, is that a fair statement?

Braiden Shaw: Yeah, I don't, I don't believe in gatekeeping. Like when I jumped in, I was so frustrated with the financial literacy, like content out there. You either have Dave Ramsey never allowed to get a credit card, put 20% down on a 15 year mortgage. That's just not realistic for the everyday person today or. Go drop ship and get a Lambo in a private jet and live in Dubai.

Braiden Shaw: And there was no like middle ground for the everyday person. And so, yeah, I just, I don't believe in gatekeeping. I was along the financial journey as well. Got extremely lucky, um, amassed to wealth early on and just try to share everything I possibly can to help people do it as well.

Jay Schwedelson: Well, we're gonna do that right now. So I'm gonna put you on the spot. I wanna know, 'cause I need all the help. I get three steps to financial freedom. I mean, hit me with it. I wanna know what I gotta do.

Braiden Shaw: Oh geez. Conceptualize it all down to three steps. Um, I mean, step number one is a big one, but you have to get out of debt and balance a budget. And for a lot of people they're like, check, done, move on to step two. But there's a, I mean, the stat is 50% of people are living paycheck to paycheck. And so half of America listening to this.

Braiden Shaw: I mean, that's the first thing you have to do. You can't be in consumer debt, bad debt, I consider anything bad. Debt under nine or over 9%. Anything good debt is below 9%. Um, but you have to get outta debt and balance budget. Step two is you've got to create liquidity through the traditional markets. I have a 401k, um, I have an IRA, I have a high yield savings account.

Braiden Shaw: I have a brokerage account. I have these accounts in the stock market to kind of build that foundational. Foundation of liquidity or foundation of investments that everyone needs to have, and it has to be those accounts. You can't, the average 401k in America returns a four to 6%. That's barely keeping up with inflation.

Braiden Shaw: Like 401k is almost overused. One, I'm not saying it's terrible, but it's overused. But put 15% of your income in there and build a solid foundation. Step three though is where real wealth is created, and this is where 99% of Americans just don't understand how to do it. And that's, you've gotta get into private market investments.

Braiden Shaw: The everyday American can do it. We think that's for the millionaires, multimillionaires, billionaires, family offices. Those families, they get to do venture capital, private equity, large scale real estate, alternative investments. But the fact is. Everyone listening to this, you can get into those investments.

Braiden Shaw: You just need to know how and to find the network to do it. We actually met in a venture capital firm. I think your son was there shadowing, interning something, and that's how we, we met just a little bit ago. Um, but through that network, you can get into these home run investments and that's where you go earn 20, 30, 40, 50% a year.

Braiden Shaw: And that's what creates generational wealth. So many people are stuck in step one. Or never get to step three. And it's those three steps that turn into generational wealth and, and it's, it's mind blowing. Like pull out a compound interest calculator, go to Google, pull out a compound interest calculator and just play with that return.

Braiden Shaw: Like instead of getting a 4% return or 6% return, 401k. What if you can go get a 12, 15, 18%, you will turn into tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars just by doing the path. That has been proven by all the ultra elite. You just have to get around the right people and network into the right people to be able to get to step three.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright, so before we figure out how to get to step three I I, and we're gonna get to the marketing side of this, I'm just curious about something. At a very basic level, the people that are listening out, they're like, should I lease a car? I have a mortgage, should I pay it off? Interest rates are historically not super high right now.

Jay Schwedelson: Are there any like basics that you're like, listen, this is, you gotta do this to get outta debt. That's just like, is a no brainer.

Braiden Shaw: Yeah. Um. Getting outta debt's not fun. Like I just kind of made fun of Dave Ramsey, but honestly, me and him agree with how to get outta debt once you're outta debt. We have different opinions on how to grow wealth, um, but getting outta debt, you just have to do it like live below your means, pay it off, get outta debt.

Braiden Shaw: It's gonna be a terrible two years, but do everything that you can to, to make it happen. Um, where I disagree is I don't believe that you should pay off your home as fast as you can, and, and I can mathematically, statistically prove that to anyone. Um. You if you, even if you get the same return as your interest rate, if you get a 6% return in the stock market and your interest rate is a 6% interest rate, and you had a $400,000 loan and a $400,000 in the stock market, at the end of 30 years, you will have paid $800,000 in your mortgage.

Braiden Shaw: You would've made $1.7 million in the stock market with the same return because one compounds up. You're compounding up your return, you're compounding down your debt. And so it does not make sense to, to to pay off every debt as fast you can, but you cannot have credit card debt. You cannot have personal loans.

Braiden Shaw: Um, auto loans. It depends if you got a 12% interest rate, get out of it. If you got a 4%, you can stay in it, but you just have to get out of bad debt so that you can start investing and start getting that, that compound return.

Jay Schwedelson: I think that's so valuable because, you know, I'm a big believer that when you hear the word best practices like run, uh uh, just 99% of the time, these best practices that people tell you are outdated and ridiculous, and to your point. People say, pay off your mortgage as fast as humanly possible. And you just say it and then everyone's crushing themselves trying to do that.

Jay Schwedelson: And there's math and there's leaders out there like yourselves are saying That might not be the best plan for you. You know, that doesn't mean you should buy a home that's beyond your means, but don't believe every single thing these people are saying.

Braiden Shaw: a hundred percent.

Jay Schwedelson: So, alright, let's flip the script here for a second.

Jay Schwedelson: Um, I, I wanna talk about the marketing side of this thing. Uh, h how did you go from, okay, I'm gonna help people with their mortgages and financial freedom, be like, I'm going to be a known personality on Instagram, and what were the steps you had to take to actually do that? Because your videos for everyone out there hasn't been to Braden Shaw's.

Jay Schwedelson: Instagram, what he does, he, I might as well call him Braden Listicle Shaw. That might as well be his name because the guy will be like, the three steps of financial freedom, the five things to do to pay off your college debt. The three this, the four this, the five that. So what did you do to grow this, and how did this all happen?

Braiden Shaw: Yeah, so like the ideology behind it, um, I realized that influence was powerful and that I was an entrepreneur and I was a business owner, and I wanted to continue to do that, and I had to get an audience. Um, people hate selling. The ads are the enemy online, yet every single business owner gets up there and tries to sell or push their business or.

Braiden Shaw: Their call to action is if you know anyone looking to buy, sell, or refinance, send my way. Like, you are what people hate online. And so I realized really quickly, I could never be a business. I could never sell. I just wanted influence. I wanna trust. And so the way I approached it is I promised myself I'd post every single day for a year, and I would never sell One time, no one would even know what I did for a living.

Braiden Shaw: I just wanted to help as many people as I possibly could, and the way I decided what I was gonna post. Is I went to my closest friends and family, my eight closest people to me, and I said, if you were to come to me for a piece of advice outside of mortgages and real estate, 'cause I'm not allowed to do that because I can't sell, what would you come to me for advice for?

Braiden Shaw: And I just wrote down all their answers and they were all over the board. Okay. Then I went to my eight favorite clients that I've ever had in the mortgage space. I went to their profile, I hit their followers, and I wrote down every blue check mark that any of 'em followed and what that content was about.

Braiden Shaw: So I had a list on one side of my favorite clients, a list on the other of what the people close to me see as an expert. And it was just a Venn diagram. Here are the four things that overlapped. Um, one was golf. Kind of wish I would've done that. That would've been a lot funner. Um, but finance, self-help were the two that I was like, okay, I know enough about finance that will attract the people online that I like working with.

Braiden Shaw: 'cause that's the, that's the content they actually want to consume based on who they're following. And so I'm just gonna begin creating financial content. Give every piece of knowledge I possibly can for a year, and at the end of the year, I'll figure out what to do with the following. Honestly, I thought I'd get 4,000, 5,000 followers.

Braiden Shaw: It'd be a massive success and I'd kind of run with it ended up being a million followers in less than a year and, and, uh, turned into something massive and, and it's been an amazing blessing sense. But I think the way people approach social media is completely wrong. Don't sell, don't go in your industry.

Braiden Shaw: Just give, educate or entertain. Those are the only two reasons anyone ever. Wants to consume information as they want educated or they want entertained. Figure out which one you're good at. I suck at entertaining, so I was like, I gotta educate, and I leaned into it and I just gave every piece of information I possibly could.

Jay Schwedelson: So first of all, you should have another page just about. Social media because I think, again, you can be educating people. That is probably the most tactical, real explanation about growing on social that I think I've ever heard. And I'm curious about those. Something though. So when you started out, you're like, ah, maybe I'll get four or 5,000 people and you start posting these short videos every day, you know, do these three things, whatever, was it like one video took off and you, you blew up overnight?

Jay Schwedelson: Or was it just this like steady stream of just building.

Braiden Shaw: Yeah, so I, I think what a blessing in disguise I didn't know I had is I was a business owner first. Like we had a hundred plus people working for us. We were growing, we were successful. And so, like, I thought like a business owner, um, it's all about a ab iterations. It's about leaning into what works. Try a hundred things, two of 'em work, lean into 'em, magnify 'em.

Braiden Shaw: And so I treated social media that way. And so my first 90 days, like I'd get views, but nothing took off the first 30 days. And it was just my friends and family making fun of me saying, I look like an idiot. Um, but my first one was I posted a video and it was the 10 cars most likely to get to a hundred thousand uh, miles.

Braiden Shaw: And I think I got like 5,000 views on it and I was like, oh, that's sick. Okay. So the next day I had another video already filmed, ready to go, but I scratched it. Went into the studio that morning. It was like the 10 cars least likely get to a hundred thousand miles. And I just started iterating off that and started building little bits of momentum.

Braiden Shaw: Um, and then it started to roll. And like it was a slow, like if you, it was a linear line over the course of a year to a million followers. But to do that, I mean, there's days you're adding five, seven, 8,000 followers a day. To try to get a million people in 300 days. And so it, it went parabolic, but it wasn't like there was one video or one month, it was just a slow and steady ab iteration leaning into what I call like the viral formula, um, to try to get as far as I possibly could.

Jay Schwedelson: So I, I think that's so important for. People to hear that it is totally doable. You weren't some sort of mega brand. I mean, your business is very successful, but it wasn't like, you know, you're out there, oh, I'm Mark Cuban. Now I'm gonna start giving a new channel, which should follow me. You weren't Braden Shaw yet.

Jay Schwedelson: I mean, you were to some people, but you weren't really yet. And this is very, very doable. So lemme flip the script one more time back to what you said originally. 'cause now I'm curious. So you said, let's get back to financial freedom. You said the third, the third topic. Which was the thing that most people aren't doing, 99% of people aren't doing is tapping into, uh, uh, the, the private equity markets venture, all this stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: And to tell you the truth, I think the average listener out there is like, I can't get involved with private equity. I don't know how to invest in venture capital. I, how does, other than jumping on an amplify, we'll talk about all that. How do you get involved in these opportunities? Is there, like, how do you do it?

Braiden Shaw: Yeah, and that's the hard part is it's historically speaking pre-internet. There was no way for an everyday person to do it. And that's how come the circles, these billionaire circles, the rich got richer. It, it was a self-fulfilling prophecy is just because you had to know the right people. The internet came to be, and that's still the case, but those circles are widening as a result of it.

Braiden Shaw: And so it's still to the point where you have to know the right people. It's all, it's a networking game, but the networking game has completely changed because the internet where now I just have to self-educate myself. I can teach everyone what enough vocab and information in a couple hours so that they know what to look for and what circles they wanna run in to start getting, we call it deal flow or deals across your desk.

Braiden Shaw: Inside these different areas. And, and a lot of people are like, oh, I don't have the time. I don't know how to educate and they're gonna, I'm gonna call 'em out a little bit. There's a little bit of a victim mentality there that it's not for me when, like, I, I help people every single day do exactly this.

Braiden Shaw: All they had was a 4 0 1 KA year ago, and now they're in two venture capital deals, two large scale real estate deals, and they drop their effective tax rate from 30% to 10%. Like it is so doable, but it is a networking ploy. It's not something that you can just like. Log on to Vanguard and hit purchase, like it takes some work, but the, it's a 10 x payoff.

Braiden Shaw: It's the greatest investment in time you will ever do is, is networking and, and educating yourself in it.

Jay Schwedelson: You know, when you talk about investment time, I think that when you go, like the other night where I was at dinner and my wife's like, let's all look at our screen time, how long we were on our phones, whatever. And it's like hours of nonsense, you know? And if. You literally, I know it's people like, oh great, everyone talks about it.

Jay Schwedelson: But if you take one of those hours out and you do, uh, a research and networking, and you're intentional about this, your life will change just by not looking at brain rot online for an hour. So let's talk about how people can get involved with your world. Where do they consume this? How do they, you know, tap into what you're doing?

Jay Schwedelson: Hit 'em with everything.

Braiden Shaw: Yeah, so my world amplify. Basically what Amplify is is it's a, it's a parent company that owns 22 different financial services companies. So I own everything from budgeting apps and consulting services all the way up to private equity, venture capital in large scale real estate. So I own all these companies, but Amplify was exactly that.

Braiden Shaw: I realized as I owned all these companies that people just didn't even know what they didn't know. Um, and so I created, I hate the guru community like that world. But I realized there's a reason it works is because education is shifting away from college to online. And I had to provide a form of education.

Braiden Shaw: And so my first thing I did as I created what a code is called Foundations, and it's exactly that, financial Foundations, uh, it's 25 bucks dirt cheap. Um, and it's a community. There's thousands of people in there, and I that is, there is probably a hundred hours of education. There's really six hours that you need to go through, and that's exactly what I'm telling you about.

Braiden Shaw: I will teach you everything. We started getting outta debt by the end of it. You conceptually understand private markets, self-directed IRAs and cryptocurrency, like it is a masterclass in education. And so 25 bucks, get in there, learn it, do what you need to do. The whole reason I lose money on that community, like I, I don't make, I lose money.

Braiden Shaw: But my goal is to get people educated enough where they can come, invest alongside me, become millionaires with me, and graduate into my inner circle, or my, we call it my growth circle. Um, there's hundreds of people in there and we just invest alongside each other. I'm, I, me and you will become business partners.

Braiden Shaw: I've invested in 127 different companies. I own over a thousand doors of real estate and all of those, I've just co-invested with people that have graduated from this foundations community. And so that's, that's

Jay Schwedelson: is that grow net worth com? Is that where they go?

Braiden Shaw: grow your net worth com is, is kind of the URL where they can start to find that stuff.

Jay Schwedelson: Alright. Everybody out there, check it out. I'm serious. Grow your net worth.com. Um, it, listen, 25 bucks. Come on. That's like three Starbucks or I don't even know what the hell it is, but it's nothing. All right. And find Braden Shaw. We're gonna put in the show notes.

Jay Schwedelson: It's B-R-A-I-D-E-N Shaw. Uh uh. He's on Instagram. He is got a zillion followers. Brandman, thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it.

Braiden Shaw: No, thanks for having me.