#312 Steve Tan - The Truth About Luke Belmar

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Guest - Steve Tan
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heystevetan
X: https://x.com/heystevetan

For two years… nobody actually knew what happened between Steve Tan and Luke Belmar.
Just rumors. Screenshots. Half-stories.

So I flew to Kuala Lumpur.
Sat down with Steve.
Turned the cameras on.

And I asked him to walk me through everything…
From the first message…
To the $4.2M run…

What Steve revealed shocked me.
- ⁠How the partnership actually started
- Why he funded the entire operation
- ⁠The moment the business exploded (and when things started to go wrong)

He laid out the full details.

This wasn’t random internet drama. This was a breakdown of what really happened.

This is the first time Steve has ever told the entire story in one place.
Just raw from his seat, and the lessons every entrepreneur needs to hear.
If you want the full picture, not the internet version…

Tune in!

(00:00) Preview 
(00:43) The Origins of the Fallout
(05:08) How Luke Belmar Changed
(09:02) Why the Partnership Was Uneven
(11:21) Investment Strategy Behind Capital Club
(13:27) Were Luke’s Claims to Success Fake?
(15:37) Luke Belmar's Suspicious Behaviour
(18:26) The Real Vision Behind Building Capital Club
(23:45) How Luke Used Narrative Control Internally
(26:13) How Luke Got Involved with Capital Club
(30:22) Inside Steve’s Exit Process (& What Actually Happened)
(45:03) The Controversial $600K Withdrawal Explained
(47:18) “$40M” Revenue Claims
(51:44) Deflecting Tactics
(59:48) When Things Started Falling Apart 
(01:03:54) Real Numbers Behind Capital Club Launch
(01:12:10) What Steve Actually Wants from This Case
(01:22:18) Steve’s Plan to Bounce Back

Chapters

• 0:00 The First Cracks: Lies And Timelines
• 12:56 Ego, Image, And Manufactured Success
• 43:44 Trust Breaks After The Twitter Crisis
• 1:11:52 The Come-Up Story Questioned

Transcript

Steve Tan: 0:00

He lies so much that he forgets the timelines and the numbers. A lot of the things, or if not most of the things that he has shared, it's successes. And everything are all kinda like smoke and mirrors. There are egomaniac tendencies, thinking it's always right, thinking it's the one, like it's gonna be the most famous man, using conspiracy to iron in what he thinks is right. If you use fake successes to sell your success, you're basically lying. And people are looking up to you because you had all the successes. So a lot of people are still kinda blinded, and that's something that I feel extremely sorry about because you're looking up to someone who's not who you think he is. Looking at your future, what do you want to do now?

Darren Lee: 0:43

So when did the trust start to break down between you and Luke?

Steve Tan: 0:46

I think it was the moment that he really got exposed hard last year on Twitter, right? And when we actually was standing beside him, supporting him through this PR crisis on Twitter. And after which we had a meeting about it, right? And by the time, like the whole PR crisis was already kind of resolved, right? And we were kind of like helping him, supporting him, guiding him through this like crisis. And when this whole saga was kind of like behind us, right, we had a meeting, and he was really upset at us because we didn't come up and say, Oh, Luke Belmar's legit, right? And he was blaming it, oh, where were you guys? Like you guys were never there for me, and whatnot. And I was like, oh my god, how ungrateful this person was, right? For all the help. I stayed up overnight, it came up with the PR strategy for him to type through this, right? And that was like action speaks louder than words. But I think he was expecting, as he said, he's like, Oh, you guys didn't post on your IG on your socials that, oh, look, Belmar's legit. I was like, bro, come on, right? You know I was there for you, right? But when this happened, it really questioned like who's the person that I was really working with, right? Because business partners is like your wife or your husband, right? It's someone that you want to spend a lot of time with. And if this person is not grateful or appreciative of what you have done for them, then that's really a big red flag, from what I see. So the moment he said that, me and my brothers like, oh my god, like, is this really someone that we want to spend time together building something, right? So that's kind of when it all got started. What was the root of the PR issue? I think people start realizing like his whole come-up story is bullshit, right? And I think to be honest, we were fed the same lies of his come up. And honestly, I was like very inspired by his story initially, because that that was exactly what I thought it was, right? Like, oh, $300 in a suitcase came over. That was the exact same story. Even when I challenged him, you know, after he got exposed, I was like, bro, like is what you're saying online, is it true? He said, Oh, yeah, that's true. You know, like, oh, my uncle, blah, blah, blah, right? And all that stuff, right? Even when I questioned him, he still stand firm on what he said, right? So that was kind of like what it got started. And and what happened was like just to elaborate a little bit more, right? People were questioning his last name, right? Luke Tice, Luke Belmar, but honestly, like Luke Belmar is also in his family. I think one of his grandfather or his father's name, right? But Tice is also his family name. So that is not a big issue at all, to be honest, right? The people of the celebrities, they have their own, you know, kind of last names or whichever. That's pretty common. I don't think that's a big deal. But I think what people really like was unhappy about was like how he faked his whole come-up story, right? You didn't come from like an extremely poor family, right? Right. And the other thing was like, um, I think he was people start catching the lies that he kind of like, you know, said online. And a lot of kind of like bullshit people start spacing up together. For example, you said, Oh, he he he didn't go to college, but people say, Oh, like people start digging out and researched, oh, you you you went to college, but you you you shouldn't college so much, then why do you go to college? Right. So I think people start to notice like he's not who he preached to be online, right? And I think there's a lot of discrepancies and things are not adding up, his numbers, right? His experience, right? His come up story. All everything that he has said online was intentionally engineered by himself, right? To make himself look extremely good, extremely successful, right? To kind of like paint the picture that, oh wow, hustle. I'm I'm I'm such a hustler, right? You know, I've I've been through such tough times. Sure, you maybe you you might have gone through certain tough moments in your life, right? Not gonna discredit that from him, but I think it's really what about authenticity? Like this guy preaches so much about God, about authenticity, and I think it kind of rubs off the wrong ways with some people, and people start wanting to understand what's really the truth behind what he's sharing online.

Darren Lee: 5:08

Before we move any further, I have one short question to ask you. Have you been enjoying these episodes so far? Because if you have, I would truly appreciate it if you subscribe to the channel to help more business owners grow their online business today. What was it in the beginning when you initially met him in the early stages, the way that you thought he was versus the way that you perceive him to be now? Like, why was why is there such a big delta between the beginning and to now?

Steve Tan: 5:36

I think, you know, to be honest, uh in hindsight right now, right? I think I got I let friendship and trust and got the better of me, right? And I think initially what I saw in him was like an ambitious young man, someone who's who had like clear goals, ambitious, and of course a very charismatic way of like portraying himself and articulating his thoughts, right? So I kind of thought, like, wow, if like initially I would remind myself, like when I got started, it's kind of tough, right? No one's there, there's no online community and all that stuff. I was just thinking, like, whoa, what if when I started, there's someone like me that kind of like you know shared more stuff, you know, help people in some ways. And Luke kind of just came by at the right time, you know, at the point of time. But what changed across the times is like, you know, when you get into a relationship, doesn't matter if it's your boyfriend, your girlfriend, you know, I'm sure everyone has like bad experiences in one at one point in life, right? And it's kind of like I like to use this example. It's like initially you're going through the honeymoon period, right? Everything's great, everyone puts on their best self, like probably inauthentic in some ways, right? But as you start getting closer, right, some guest lights happen, happening, right? Some quarrels, some arguments start happening, some true colors start showing up little by little. And when you start getting on the bed, you start noticing like more problems, more red flags, communication problems, character flaws, right? The way you communicate, right? And the way you try to manipulate or twist facts or or situations starts to show up more and more. But initially, like to be honest, like we're so focused on the vision of Capital Club, like we kind of just turned the blind eye to a lot of things because we just thought, okay, you know, partnerships are hard, right? To be absolutely honest, right? It's just like managing a relationship. It's not easy, especially when it comes to like operations, um, manpower, money, payrolls, and all that stuff. It just gets more complicated, right? So I think as we as our relationship deepen, you know, as we start having more time and as we start noticing more and more all this small inconsistencies with what he said and who he is as a person. That is when we start noticing, like, hey, something's not adding up, right? And honestly, like at my age right now, to be honest, right, Darren, it's why would I want any drama? Like, you know, I I I have like, it's not like I'm desperate for for partnerships, right? People would say, Oh, Steve, you really know his like his uh, you know, like uh his bullshit right from the start. Why would you still partner him and push him so hard? I was like, dude, if I knew that right from the start, why would I risk my reputation? I have almost a pristine reputation in e-commerce, right? And I'm like, I my supporters are or my people that back me up are not people who are just like starting out in the business. They are industry leaders, business owners, people that have done eight figures, nine figures, or probably have a billion dollar company, right? So why would I go risk my reputation or or why would I risk anything to kind of work with someone that I knew if I knew this is gonna happen, right? So I think it's more about just kind of like going through and discovering inconsistencies. And of course, uh when everything kind of like blew up, that was never my intention, to be honest.

Darren Lee: 9:02

When you look at the partnership itself, from the outside, it looks like there was an imbalance from the beginning because you had a much higher financial investment, correct? Yourself and Evan both put up a lot of the investment. Why was that?

Steve Tan: 9:18

I wouldn't say we put up a lot more. I think what what uh we did initially was kind of like pretty pretty equal, then subsequently, like you know, because the company went into cash flow problems, right, right from the beginning. It's a cash flow business, right? Because technically there's no income, right? Because while we're building like the courses, while we're building like all this production, while we're building his personal brand, you know, while one while what uh when we're doing all this distribution, all of these things cost money, right? So we quickly ran into cash flow deficit, right, before we even launch, right? And I think it was just kind of part in my nature to kind of like be really uh being a really supportive partner. And I just kind of dumb in an 100k. Then when 100k rents out, I'll dumb in on 150k, right? So, but of course I extended this all as part of a loan to the company, right? Into the company, which I do expect to get paid later on, right? But when I had when I had a call with like our financial, like uh third party financial advisors, they were like, Oh my god, like Steve, like what why do you do that? I said, Yeah, because I pride myself as a good business partner, right? And when I just brought it up to look, hey, like, you know, we ran into cash flow problems, right? I I put in this money, he just kind of brushed off. Like, I just like it feels a little bit weird because any any normal person would really appreciate your partner for doing that, right? And I think he I think he read too much of the book, the what 43 powers of like what's that book for by Rodia Lowe's of her, yeah, which by Robert Green, right? I think he read too much of that, and he tried to use that on me, like he doesn't want to show like he's happy or whichever. So I think as as the relationship progresses, I realized he's changed a lot, right? It's kind of like in a in a um boyfriend, girlfriend relationship, man. Like it's so yeah, like it's initially they worked so hard to kind of hook you in, right? When you start knowing them better, like you know, all this all this mass starts revealing truly for who they are.

Darren Lee: 11:21

When you looked at the actual investment and the amount of team that was required and everything, when you tie that back to as you mentioned before, Luke claimed he's made between 20 and 40 million online. I still struggle to understand why not a lot of that investment came from his side. Because you would you would think that if you're in that range that you would put up a lot of investment on your side. Now I don't know the facts, right? But that's sort of just from an observation perspective, which is like part of a partnership. That's who would put in the money.

Steve Tan: 11:51

I think um I just want to be absolutely clear that a lot of the investment comes from the cash flow from the company, right? So it was reinvested. So we don't really need to fork out a lot more cash flow from either of the partners itself, right? So I think the biggest red flag that we see now, right, given that everything's kind of blowing up right now, is the numbers starts to not make sense. Especially, I think, when his working really hard to control the narrative of that he has done those numbers, right? So I just want to be absolutely clear. Luke Belmar came to me in the middle of 2018. When he first came to me, he hasn't even started e-commerce, zero. Doesn't even know drop shipping, doesn't even know anything. All he knows was social media marketing, right? Basically trying to pitch, hey Steve, I can help build your personal brand. Right. And of course, I got sucked in with his like uh charismatic way of like pitching and and oh, like, you know, I've done all these brands for personal brands. Let's make you the so-and-so of the e-commerce industry. I got sold, right? I got sold by his sales talk, right? And naturally we started talking. And this guy initially was all about providing value, providing value to me because I I wasn't really uh I don't really know as much as I know now for personal branding, right? For social media marketing. And I realized at a point of time, after a long time ago, like the followers of my account are not US based, it's all some random third third world country. So basically bought it, right? They bought he bought it my followers, but show oh, we can grow so fast and whatnot.

Darren Lee: 13:27

How was that backed up? Like, how is that verified, right? Because did you see that behind social blade or other?

Steve Tan: 13:35

Yes, no, I think uh as as because last time he was trying to help me manage all that, right? So I only knew I thought okay, I just want 100,000. I I just want to grow to 100,000 followers, right? So I think he also knew that I don't know anything, and he just kind of capitalized on like that. And eventually, as like you know, we start working with more more um probably better agencies, and they start noticing, hey, like why are all your followers from like you know, Kazakhstan or somewhere else? So that that that was kind of like uh funny, but um, but initially when when when we started working together with the agency side of things that he claims, and we realized, hey, like when we saw his numbers right now that he's claiming, right? I think probably because like I was posting a lot nowadays, and I was kind of calling him out, like, hey, what where's your 20 million? Show us the numbers, right? Show us the numbers of you doing 20 million dollars, show us the numbers of you doing 40 million dollars, and now he's claiming he's claiming that he has a nine-figure business, right? So I think 40 million comes from like what he claims, like we have all the videos and proof for that. Like he's claiming 40 million of sales and drop shipping since 2017, but I know better than anyone, you know, like he didn't claim that like a long time ago, but he starts claiming it now because like you know, he lies so much that he forgets the timelines and the numbers. That's where it gets complicated, right? Because like he doesn't even know what numbers he has done, or like he he just probably got himself convinced. But the the the funny thing was, you know, when I started exposing him online, a lot of people start coming up forward, you know, his ex-partners, people that worked with him, some context, shape, or form, and there's so much like insider details that I got to discover that made it like you know, made me so certain that a lot of the things, or if not most of the things that he has shared, his successes and everything are all kind of like smoke and mirrors.

Darren Lee: 15:37

If someone in that instance is like a pathological lawyer and they have soda entire lifetime of lies, like what is happening there under the surface personally?

Steve Tan: 15:52

I would say he's very insecure as a person, extremely insecure, because if you want to puff up so much, it's because you're insecure. And I noticed firsthand when he was invited to my brother's wedding, where most of my friends are like high net worth individuals of multi-nine figures, of course, eight figures to nine figures, you know, we have a very strong like inner circle of friends who are really tight friends, very humble, very successful, and have amazing businesses, right? And when Luke and his brother and his wife was invited to our my brother's wedding in Singapore, the next day, my brother held like a really tight circle of like you know, only close friends only. And when and when Luke was there, I think he's trying extremely hard to puff himself up. And that wasn't what I noticed. It was noticed by all my friends. So immediately after the meeting, uh sorry, not meeting, the gathering, three of my best friends sent me an essay. Yeah. An essay like, hey, like be really careful of working with this person. And I was like, he's like, he they were telling me like, um, there are egomaniac tendencies, you know, thinking he's always right, thinking he's the he's the one, like he's gonna be the most famous man, and using conspiracy to kind of like, you know, um kind of like iron in his like what he thinks is right, right? Name dropping people, and it's all like uh I think one of my best friends is extremely grounded person, and we're just kind of looking back, you know, with my with my best friend, I was like, fuck bro, like I I should have listened to you, right? I think you're so fucking on point, you know, like so on point. Everything that he said was so on point, and in hindsight, like I was telling him, like, why did I still not listen? I think I was kind of like blinded by the trust and the amount of years that I've known Luke Bellmar, right? I've known him since 2018, right? So that's kind of like uh a little over five years before we decided to even want to work together. He's been pitching me all these years, but I was like, nah, bro, like no time, no time. Pitching you Capital Club, Capital Club, yeah. It's been pitching me all this. Well, I I started with Tim Capital Club when there's not even a logo. Sure, he might have read he have already re registered a company, but I I still have like, you know, right from day one. There's no logo, there's no company, there's nothing at all.

Darren Lee: 18:26

And sorry, what was the initial idea and mission? Like what was the actual goal?

Steve Tan: 18:31

I think the vision that really sold me was building the world's largest entrepreneur network, you know, like being being a center of impact, right? A center of like um community and influence for people around the world, especially entrepreneurs. And I thought that was a really cool idea because what I've built in the past was a hundred thousand people or Facebook group, but just in dropshipping or e-commerce, right? So I think that's kind of like a little bit more niche, right? E-commerce, right? So when he came to me, he was like, oh bro, let's let's do something that includes everything, right? There's so many ways of making money online. E-commerce is just one of them, right? And which is why he wanted to partner around, because like he knows I have influence, you know, in the e-commerce space. Well, I try to be incognito because I don't really want to be the face anymore, right? So I think the vision really sold me because I really wanted to build something that's beyond myself, like bigger than myself, right? I think something that like we could have an amazing impact on, you know, aspiring entrepreneurs or people who's like, you know, really in the game, wanting to kind of network, get connected with people all building, all people in the space, right? Because it it I I mean, let's face it, like entrepreneurship is like extremely lonely, right? You want to be uh surrounded by people of this like-minded like uh mindset. You want to be surrounded by people who's like really doing their absolute best and grinding and building the businesses, right? So that's kind of like what we kind of like set out to build.

Darren Lee: 19:59

Are you an agency owner, coach, or consultant looking to scale your online business? At Vogue, we help business owners scale their online business with content. We help them specifically build a high-ticket offer, create content that turns into clients, and also help them with the sales process to make sure every single call that's booked in your calendar turns into a client. If you want to see more about exactly how we do this, hit the first link down below and watch a full free training on how smart entrepreneurs are building a business in 2025. I think that was achieved though. Like whatever's happening now is whatever's happening now. But you know, he he and you has have helped hundreds of thousands of people start and get that first leg up and learn. So, like whatever's happening now is happening now. But I mean, there still has been huge lessons that have that have you know that have provided so much value for people, so have people like Tate, right? The pendulum swings on Tate, left, right, and center, depending on what day it is, what the weather is, but he still has helped a lot of people start their first business and make money online. One of them was like even me, like I watched some Tate videos, I'm like, fucking hell, I gotta do something else. And it's like I wouldn't credit absolutely my entire life to it, but what I'm trying to say is like it's this subconscious things. Now I know that you said the mission has kind of drifted ever so light, so slightly, but I would give yourself a bit more credit in terms of like what was achieved in that period of time still.

Steve Tan: 21:22

I think honestly, I think Capital Club is still great, to be honest. The people within it is great, the community is great, it's awesome. But um, the reason why we wanted to part ways is like we're not aligned anymore because I cannot be aligned with someone who who doesn't it who is not who he is as a person. So if you if you if you use fake successes to sell your success, you're basically like uh lying, yeah, right? And people are looking up to you because you had all the successes. So a lot of people are still kind of blinded, right? And that's something that I I feel I I feel extremely sorry about because like you're looking up to someone who's not who you think his he is, right? For example, you look up to him probably because oh, he did 40 million in sales, but he didn't do 40 million in sales, right? He you you look up to him probably because oh he he crushed pancake swap, right? Probably he didn't have a fraction of how much pancake swap he has, right? So, like in reality, for me to look up to someone, this guy better has like real real substance, right? Not someone who kind of like just use fake stuff and just kind of like you know smoke them mirrors, and I think that's something that I cannot accept personally, right? I wouldn't I would never ever follow someone who doesn't have like uh who isn't who he claims to be, and that's very important to me because like that means that means the people that you're following are selling you or sharing their values of things that they don't think they don't believe themselves, and that to me is a hypocrite, and things that they haven't done themselves, exactly.

Darren Lee: 23:02

Like you have to have the receipts to back up what you do as small and I'm as minute as it might be, those are the things that are gonna have the biggest influence long term.

Steve Tan: 23:11

Yep, 100%. I think it's scary because like you know, online and socials allow someone, you know, uh to pretend or be an imposter and to claim things that they haven't done before. So easy, especially when they have clout, when they have attention, right? And we all know there's like more more bots than people who kind of see through bullshit, right? So it's very easy to sway like the public, right? Especially when like they have all this like uh followers, they have all this lifestyle, right? And they're really good.

Darren Lee: 23:45

Can you double tap on the narrative control? Because that approach is what a lot of people are trying to do is control the narrative. How have you seen that in the good times, as you said, just portraying a specific story, and then also in the bad times where if things aren't going with you, how do you cover up what's coming out?

Steve Tan: 24:07

I think during the good times is like Luke can be very inspiring. I think that's like um, you know, on that front, I think he's done a really good job to inspire people, right? But you know, if you you're trying to inspire people in a way whereby the motive is not true inspiration, but is to let people kind of look up to you and think that you're really successful. I think the the motive there is kind of like very inconsistent, right? So, for example, when he was starting out, right, with uh with all this content and could try and control narrative. Narrative is controlled, not really controlled, but it's all by the amount of times that people see your content, right? So let's say if you can have the same content going out like a hundred times, if people probably don't really resonate when the first time he sees your content, second time, third time, maybe the fourth content might hit you in some ways or different, like different angle points that you see. Oh shit, it resonates with me, right? Maybe fourth time doesn't work, okay. Six, seven, eight times, all this different content because we have so such a big in-house clipping team, right? I I don't we don't even call it a clippers, right? Like, you know, we we started content distribution. This is before it, right? Yeah, so like we're probably like the second or third people like uh in the whole industry to kind of like really scale this hard. I think definitely Andrew Tate uh led the way, but I just want to be transparent here. This whole content distribution, this whole content game has really been out for like years and years in China.

Darren Lee: 25:35

You told me this. Yeah, so for our first time we had a podcast.

Steve Tan: 25:38

It's nothing new. So like I I like you know I speak Mandarin, and you know I spent significant time in China before, right? So for me to see all these things, I was like, okay, it's nothing new. And I mean, we have scaled massive operations for with dropshipping with our e-commerce, we have managed tens of thousands of accounts for like our e-com, you know, and all that stuff. It's like not that hard for us. So when when we wanted to scale Luke Belmar with content distribution, I was like, okay, right up our alley, right? We can manage, we can manage a lot of accounts for for this, and we can, I mean, content distribution is basically managing a lot of clippers, right?

Darren Lee: 26:13

Can we double tap on that? So the let's take a step back. So you have this idea, you're gonna work with Luke or insert anyone, and then you're gonna scale the shit out of it. You have a narrative, did you put together the narrative, and then did you put together the people? Like, how does how do you get that amount of distribution behind a single mission or vision? Because you know, full transparency, you could win an election with this approach, right?

Steve Tan: 26:35

Oh, for sure. I think the the objective that we have is make Luke one of the most popular men in the whole world. That was our objective within our OKRs within the company. That's the OKR that I set for the company, right? And that was under the impression that everything will be built under Capital Club Holdings, right? Everything, every, every potential deal flows, opportunities will be housed under Capital Capital Club, right? And which is why I've decided to kind of like, you know, share my resources, share my personal branding, share my authority in the space with Luke Belmar, right? Because like, you know, it's easy to say, but he's pretty new in the e-commerce space, right? People who know, they know, right? So for him to like collaborate or work with me and my brother gives him easy access to a lot of like you know, the interviews, like for example, Shopify. I got him the Shopify interviews, I gave him the got him the Paineer interviews, those are all my personal connections uh within those companies on brands, right? And it's it's it's surprising because a lot of the things I found out that he was sharing for people, it was all his connections, not Steve's connections. And he just tries to kind of like twist things that oh, it's all about Luc Belmar, it was never about the partnership, it was never about like people behind him. And you know, totally I'm totally fine with having him take all the spotlight because like there was the choice that I made. But I think when the person that's in front, you know, forgets or um doesn't recognize the team that's working with him behind the scenes so hard, then it starts to muddle like our commitment. Like, why should we work with someone who who's operating like that? You know, like it I think fundamentally, I believe that ego and fame got the better of him.

Darren Lee: 28:25

If you look at all the great like leaders in the past, all the great like empires or anything, it always comes down to this. Isn't it the same factors?

Steve Tan: 28:34

I think it's also god complex, you know. I think I'm not the only one that's saying this. Like, you know, if you do a poll on your podcast, bro, like the amount of people that will come up and share that Luke Bellmar has an incredible god complex. How would you explain that? I definitely think he's always right, you know, he's the chosen one. Like everybody's wrong. Like ever he he like every conspiracy that he shared is always right. Whatever he shared, he doesn't agree because he would he would always talk down on people that's actually right, and put himself up and name drop people to make himself look, oh wow. He always put if you notice the way he's uh sharing things, like it's always quoting somebody from like you know, old times, a philosopher or whichever, oh so and so said this, right? And the fact that he always does this to people like unknowingly, like unless you're very observant, you wouldn't sometimes you wouldn't really pick up. And if you kind of notice, if you start kind of like uh breaking up like how he talks, like it's actually word salad. He's just trying to repeat some stuff to make himself look like whoa, very it sounds smart, right? So recently I've kind of been watching him very closely, right? And the people that's following him, bro, like I've absolutely nothing against people who's following him because like I I'm the fool myself at a point of time, right? I've seen I I've gone through, I've drank the Kool-Aid myself. You know, I've gave him my support, I gave him my resources. As a matter of fact, a lot of the all those interviews within Capital Club, they're all my network, all my people, right? So um it's kind of sad, right? It's kind of sad how things worked out, but uh, I think it's for uh it's for the better.

Darren Lee: 30:22

Can you walk me through what happened when you planned to exit? Like what was that feeling? Because you're a walk away from something you've invested a lot of time into, right? How did you feel in that instance and and what happened then?

Steve Tan: 30:34

Honestly, it was heartbreaking. Like uh it's very sad. I think uh we feel extremely betrayed uh in a lot of ways, right? Um because we know the moment we decide to walk away with how Luke Belmar is operating, I don't think we can ever be friends anymore, right? But you know, it's okay to walk away not as friends, but that's not our intention. Hence why we brought up. We brought up, hey, we want to leave, um, and we got gaslighted. Are you jealous? Are you jealous of my success? And uh, I think I as a matter of fact, I posted that on like my my Twitter post, and I was like, fuck, like they don't even let you they don't even give you the permission to leave. They still want to gaslight you to kind of come back, right? And I think it was really sad, but I think what really pushed us forward was like this is this is too much, like uh it's too toxic. Like the whole collaboration is really, really toxic. Like the the way he communicates, the way he disrespects not only me and my brother, but people within the company. The twisting of words is too much. Like uh, for example, he loves putting like uh he loves to put words in people's mouth, right? For example, if he's upset with me, he wouldn't he wouldn't come to me and tell me, Oh, Steve, like I'm upset at you. He would say, Oh, so and so within the company is really upset at you. So I was like, it will create confusions, right? Because like I I don't know why he does that, but uh it kind of creates a lot of like uh weird situations between me and some of our executive team members because I'll I'll go confront them. I was like, I said, like Luke said that you were really upset at me for not responding to you. I was like, when did I not respond to you? He's like, no, I've never said that, right? And it's like initially I thought, okay, maybe, maybe, maybe this employee or this like uh team member is just lying, right? But as the amount of times just kind of like incidents starts getting more and more, is it just got sounds familiar, yeah, you know? Yeah. So I think part and possible of us wanting to leave is because we're no longer aligned with the vision uh of what we're building here.

Darren Lee: 32:54

You're an investor, and you and your brother have invested in multiple different companies. What made this different in terms of your involvement? Because a lot of times you'll invest in companies and no one will ever see it. You'll write a check and then the rest is in magic. But how come you were so involved in this as a as an investment?

Steve Tan: 33:13

In a way, I think we're very um aligned with the vision initially, right? Uh I think there's a lot of potential. And I think part of the reason why is because I love building, I love to build stuff. And I think with Capital Club, the vision is to build the world's largest entrepreneur network. And we've seen a lot of potential with like a lot of organizations, like you know, uh, entrepreneur organization, EO. We've seen a lot of like Vistach and all these different clubs around the world. And I see there's a lot of tremendous potential, right? Having an of course having an amazing impact and having an amazing business model, right? So we're trying to actually build something like the masterclass of Netflix, right, in some ways, on for entrepreneurs, right? The masterclass for entrepreneurs basically for with Capital Club, which is why we invested so much money into production, we invested so much time, you know, curating like the experts, and of course, working with people who who sees the vision of Capital Club. And I think because when we partner up, I know for a fact that Luke is not gonna be an operator and he's not gonna be able to build this, right? So, which is why it's kind of like the uh and it's kind of the perfect scenario for me because like I don't want to be the face, right? I I want to be more behind the scenes because we enjoy building, we enjoy skilling companies behind the scenes, which is why when Luke said, Okay, Steve, you guys be like the operators, the CEO behind the scenes. I was like, perfect, you want to be the face?

Darren Lee: 34:44

Yeah, and his involvement was purely like dancing on the internet, there was no back-end team support. Like, what was the lines of delineation there?

Steve Tan: 34:54

I think his main accountability in the company is like being the front facing like content. His his main KPI is just content, right? But was the team giving him the content? We 50-50, I would say, right? He had like Luke likes to free flow. Like, if you give him a script, it's very hard for him to follow, right? So, which is why it makes it even harder for us to vet his his like whatever he's saying online, right? You know, it he he doesn't play by the books, right?

Darren Lee: 35:22

He's kind of like a wild horse. What's a lesson here, right? Because you are like a charismatic dude, people like you, people love you. It doesn't seem like you needed to do this.

Steve Tan: 35:31

What's the lesson? Wow, great question. I think the biggest lesson is don't be afraid. I think, like, I think I I've done a lot of reflection for this. The part of the reason why I didn't enjoy building my personal brand was probably because I wasn't very authentic online at a point of time. You know, I was trying to kind of go after what's shortcut, right? You know, if you've seen kind of like my old videos, right, I think it's really cringy. Like I really think like some of our old videos, but that's kind of like uh part of impossible of growing, right? So eventually when I don't feel very aligned with whatever I was building online, I wanted to take a step back. I think that was the time where I started reviewing and spending a lot of time with personal development. I think the lesson here is like just be authentic with what you're building. Like, you know, being online and offline, there's no difference, right? And you don't really need to puff yourself up and be inauthentic and trying to like. I think eventually people who are who who preaches kind of fake numbers online, it's gonna all come down. It's all gonna come down because like you're gonna suffer imposter syndrome and you're gonna feel so shitty about yourself and all this bullshit that you're pulling online, you know, preaching something that you're not. I think it's uh the biggest lesson that I've learned seeing this whole process with what Luke went through, what when I was building my personal brand and whatnot.

Darren Lee: 36:53

Yeah. It's interesting, right? Because I've obviously met hundreds of people doing this over the past five years. When we initially met two years ago in Malaysia as well, I couldn't get over but how chill you were. And it's very it's very interesting because even with the content that we were creating, you're very relaxed, and obviously you're super successful, and so on, and you could be like egotistical, but you weren't. And I remember it was something it was a vivid like ex uh experience that I had. I was like, holy shit, like you're super just chill, and that's why it's it's quite interesting to hear you say that you were inauthentic creating content because I would have actually said the opposite initially, and I think I think it's also the hallmark of someone who who knows like thyself is like they're able to sit with themselves and say, Okay, well, when I was younger, I was a bit of a dumbass, and I was saying things that were just a little bit misaligned, because like that was me when I started. You when you it's kind of like when you when you don't have any receipts, you have to puff your chest up, and then when you do have the receipts, you slow down, and then you don't have to basically try as hard.

Steve Tan: 37:56

I think thank you, thanks for that. But um, I think across the years, what I meant by me being inauthentic was like um I was very into materialistic stuff, right? So you you you Yeah, like you know, like I don't have I don't like I have a car right now, but I don't have a super car right now, right? Um, but there was a lot of trying to prove like there was a lot of trying to chase for success or to show people you're successful, right? I think there was a lot of like uh inauthenticity within myself that I'm trying to prove something, right? So I'm trying to prove that I'm successful by being well having entire man, it's so fucking cringe when I see my past videos. Like there, like I have I have a whole wardrobe of shoes I don't even wear right now that's Christian Lubutin, right? Right, and people would remember, oh fuck, Steve was at Earthly World and he has the like the most like crazy shoes ever. And it's like I was like, why do I need those attention? Right. And that I I when I do a lot more personal development, I realize there was probably a lot of a lot to do with my upbringing, right? Kind of my upbringing, probably I'm not a popular kid, you know, kind of nerdy, you know, not popular with girls and all that. And you're trying to grab attention when you're successful, right? So when when when you start to notice all of that infatuation with all this materialistic stuff, and you also attract the wrong kind of crowd for people who follow you because you have all that stuff. Those are not now when I realize please don't fucking follow me because I have all this stuff. You know, I I start to realize and start to see through a lot of like all this metrics or whatever you guys call it, all this bullshit. And like I wear like UniClo right now, like I don't even have like I have like my whole closet are all branded stuff, right? When I see when I see a lot of those gurus nowadays with all this like cringy like videos and whatnot, I kind of see a reflection because like I've gone through that, and but I'm so glad because of like my personal development and the focus on growing internally and also my mindset that made me who I am to kind of like really discover who I truly am, which is why I wasn't really happy doing this kind of content. Oh, here my lumbo, like I'm driving. No, that's kind of bullshit to me. And I think that's really inauthentic of myself, which is why my mind is telling me, like, no, you don't like that. But if you don't dig deeper, you don't really know like why aren't you happy in doing this kind of content? But right now, if you ask me to talk about personal developments, I'll be like fucking happy to talk about it because I feel that's uh that's the message, and that's the kind of people, right, that I want to attract. And that's those are the kind of people that I would love to kind of like share my message and kind of share my worldview and share my kind of my learnings and my kind of like uh lessons and whatnot in life. I think that kind of like really lights me up versus like, oh guys, you know, like I'm successful, look at my Lamborghini, look at like all this stuff. I think that's kind of like really shallow, in my opinion. And I think across all these years, um, it just kind of got clearer and clearer that that's not who I am as a person, and that's not what I want to be recognized or remembered because what I truly want to bring to people is you know positive value and impact, right? I think uh I've gone through so much, and I know life is not easy, right? And I think if like everyone could help make the world a better place in some way, shape, or form, I think you know the world will definitely be better in some way, shape, or form.

Darren Lee: 41:26

And it's interesting because that was your initial core idea for Capital Club. It kind of brings it back to the person development, the wealth side, basically the two of them working side by side.

Steve Tan: 41:36

100%. I think Capital Club's business model is very interesting. I think it's also really nice, to be honest, if we can really stay focused on our vision and not for short-term gains, right? I think it's more about like because part of the reason why I partner up with Luke Belmore is because I truly thought he has 40 million, right? And if you work with someone who has truly 40 million in the bank, his vision is very different. The way he upholds or operates is extremely different. Like you can't expect someone who's 40 million and 400,000 to be operating on the same same way, for example, right? So let me give you an example, right? The reason why I thought Capital Club would be interesting for me and my brother is because I want this to be a 10-year play, like 10 years, right? Like for me to get into a partnership and spending so much effort that's gonna end up like one, two years and we're not doing it, it's definitely not worth my time. If you look, if you if someone is at 40 million, that's that means he's on the 40th floor, right? And someone on the 40th floor seeing the vision or the outlook of the company versus someone who's on maybe the ground floor is extremely different because on the ground floor, this person is only probably like um trying to survive. He needs the money, right? And for people on the 40th floor, all the money that comes in the company would be reinvested in the company to grow the company longer. We're not desperate to do profit sharing or dividends. Honestly, I could care less if we do dividends. I don't even need the one cent, right? So the actual story is like when we did the launch, was which was okay, right? But we also had like a pretty big team, right? We have huge overheads, we have athletes that we have to pay and whatnot. And we wanted to continue scaling the company. But when we started launching, somebody started getting a little bit desperate, right? It's like, oh, let's pull out $1.2 million. I was like, okay, sure. Like, you know, if we can pull out money, like, sure. Like, I mean, let's check, let's, let's check with uh financial advisors first, right? Because you don't want to fuck up the company when it's like we're trying to scale or trying to grow, right? So we checked with the financial advisors and they said, no, um, probably you guys should pull out less. I was like, yeah, I'm sure, no problem. But Luke Baumer said no. He's he wanted to pull out the $600,000 immediately, and he's like insisting and being like kind of like being a little bit throwing his tantrum about pulling out the money. And that kind of got a little bit weird initially, because I was like, bro, in in my mind, I said like it's really playing in my mind, like, bro, like even 40 million, what why are you talking about 600,000? Right? Even if it's six million dollars, like, yeah, it's just like a portion of your portfolio, right? That's like more than if you're if you're talking about six million, sure, it's a different story, right? That's like maybe 12% of your portfolio. But if you're talking about 600,000, that's what 1%, like I wouldn't be able to understand, right? So he pulled out the $600,000, kind of like in in a way that's like a little bit forceful, right? That kind of got and he because he pulled out, which means he told me that you I can't pull out until the next launch, because if I pull out right now, there's gonna be cash flow issues.

Darren Lee: 45:03

Sorry, so he pulled out the six hundred thousand dollars from the without the confirmation agreement of everyone, yeah. Or did you agree? Of course, the lines get muddied, right? Yeah, so but I'm just trying to say is like if you can't take out cash, is there green light, red light system?

Steve Tan: 45:18

Maybe I can ask you this question and let you you let me know what you think.

Darren Lee: 45:21

Firstly, before you ask me that, that analogy of the 40th floor is fucking genius, man. It's just so true. Because it's the different levels, different levels, different devils. Like when you're at the 40th floor, you have a different approach to how you should be playing. And I I completely, completely agree. I think it's an amazing analogy. Thank you, thank you.

Steve Tan: 45:37

So I think with uh six hundred thousand dollars, I questioned him, like, what what why are you? He's oh, I need to buy a house, right? I was like, Yeah, six hundred thousand is not a lot. What kind of house can you buy? Right. I I I kind of I kind of asked him, like, I thought you had a four million dollar house. I think it rubbed him the wrong way, and he kind of immediately got a little bit defensive, like, you know, what what I do with my personal finance is none of your business. I was like, okay, I'm not gonna ask anymore, right? So when he decided to pull that out, that means I can't pull out the money, right? But when like when it comes to dividends, it's always div it's always being distributed same time based on the equity, right? So he went ahead to pull out knowingly that it would I wouldn't be able to pull out, so it would just fuck us. And he said, Oh, you guys can just take the next the next round. Like, obviously, he's not trying to fuck us over. I I don't think I think don't think so, but it's that kind of ego that thinks that he can operate telling me what to do, but I was okay, because honestly, I don't really need a six hundred thousand dollars, you know what I mean? Like it's not I'm not desperate for for distribution, nor do I need the money at the point of time, right? And um that just kind of got us like our rate like starts cut popping. Like, okay, Evan asked me this question, do you think it's 40 million? I say, fuck no. Right. And I mean, you don't need four 40 million to say, oh, I don't need the 600,000. You probably just need like what five million, ten million?

Darren Lee: 47:18

It's just so interesting to see like that number of 40 million because uh e-com especially, uh it's not that's nowhere near the profit. Exactly. Like arguably, I don't know, you tell me, yep, if it's a supplement brand or something, would you would you say it's 10%?

Steve Tan: 47:34

10% 10 for drop shipping is kind of pretty realistic, to be honest. In the earlier days, we're looking at 20 to 30 percent in the earlier days, but he's nowhere close to the earlier days, you know what I mean? Yeah, that's to say sorry, it's 10%.

Darren Lee: 47:46

Yeah, and let's just say that was 2020. It's five years that four million has to stretch four five years, but when you're buying orms and Rolexes and flying first class, that doesn't last long, right? Because genuinely, it doesn't last, yeah, which is the reason why you constantly like either need uh like like you have your investing in other businesses and so on. Like I know it's a lot of money, but I'm saying when you spend in that way, it's not a lot of money.

Steve Tan: 48:13

But I just want to emphasize that 40 million is not sales, it's what he claims to be his network. Exactly.

Darren Lee: 48:19

But I'm saying even if you did claim that the percentage of the profit of that minus taxes, minus living expenses, it's because that this is interesting, right? Because like you have a cash flow business, I have a cash flow business, um, and I have other businesses, but the money that goes into your pocket is often not the money that goes into your pocket because like other shit that needs to be done. Exactly, exactly.

Steve Tan: 48:39

And the thing here is like uh I think he knows he's very smart, right? Like uh he knows that a per like e-com is just a percentage of that, but the the reason why he got things confused is my belief is he lies so much that he doesn't he forgets what he's talking anywhere on podcasts or whatever, right? Maybe meanwhile, here oh I did 20 million dollars, right? Here I did like 30 million off here. Maybe I'm happy, like I just want to puff myself up more, or 40 million, right? So he forgets is it revenue or is it net worth or like whatever? But I was kind of looking at some of his videos the other day, it's kind of funny. Like he was saying that, oh, he did e-comm, right? He did e-com and he put in all his profits uh into into ETH or whichever, right? And and Pancake Swap and all of that add up, and he 40x his net worth from one million dollars, right? So that's like at 40x from crypto. But I was like, hell no, I I don't believe he 40x your net worth. You're probably 2, 3x your net worth. I'll believe that, right? But to say that you 40x your net worth like and you're still operating like that, it's either you're like you have extremely scarcity mindset, or you're you're just faking things that you don't have because a lot of things are not adding up. His numbers, his success, like the things that he said he's he's done before, right? I can challenge him, like to be honest, even on this podcast, like show us any one successful business that you have built before that has substantial revenue before Capital Club. Nothing. He he claims that he has done all these things. Show us the numbers. You don't even show don't don't even show us the don't you don't have to even show us the the the store. Show us the screenshots, right? Show us the show us some videos of revenues, right? And the funny thing here is like people are coming up to me to tell me like a lot of those screenshots that this posting is not his. I think that's that's the only thing that I discovered recently. I don't even know. I was kind of I was blind. I was like, you know, because he shot me those amazing testimonials like, hey Steve, thank you so much. You know, I wouldn't be who I am today without your help, right? And I was like, oh wow, congrats, so happy for you, you know. Like I'm so glad that my mastermind or my the information that we have been sharing with you, you took action on it, you crushed it, you know. I have a four minute, I have like multiple, like four weeks, four or five different testimonials from Luke Belmar that's sharing about his success, and I have all the timestamps. So, how do you how do you say that you're you started uh your your e-com and you did 40 million since 2017 when you're not even in the space? So that's the thing that I'm not okay with. You know, I see the benefits of people being inspired by him, right? I think that's that's that's great. But if you're inspired by people who use fake numbers or things or numbers or things or materialistic stuff to kind of lure you in and believing he's all almighty, his like, oh, like I'm all successful, I'm all grounded, I'm all humble, you know, I'm man of God.

Darren Lee: 51:44

I think that's really wrong. Do you think that that angle of maybe God religion was taken as an example to almost like masquerade his actual beliefs? 100%.

Steve Tan: 51:59

I think it's very intentional. Like he knows for a fact that using religion is the highest level. Like it's kind of like how like a lot of fake preachers or pastors do it, right? There's definitely good ones, but a lot of people abuse the power of using religion. You know, I uh religion religion is always great, you know. Like I'm a free thinker, like I I don't have a religion, but I believe in God and I believe in uh you know in the universe, right? But I cannot accept anyone for a fact, matter of fact, especially in my ex-business partners, to use that to paint a picture of who who he's not.

Darren Lee: 52:41

It's like um it's like being in a relationship telling people that you're not going after girls because you're in a relationship, but only being in a relationship because you're going after other girls. You know, it's just like it's using something, external thing, as a safety net for deceit. Just in general, when that's used in that in that regard. Um, because I've seen that exact example in this space happen several times. And one of my friends, um, Cardinal, he said it's almost like a cycle. Like fake numbers, fake screenshots, fake Rolexes, rented cars, lost the money. Oh fuck. Actually, I don't believe in money, I've converted, and I'm completely against all of that. And it's like this massive spectrum. Um why though? Like, why? Why do you need to go to that level to do this stuff? Why not do what you did, which is just build a business, get on with it.

Steve Tan: 53:39

I I think it's part of growth journey, like Darren. I think it's part of growth, right? Everyone who'd has success, especially fast success, would be puffed up extremely a lot, right? It's not only in this industry anywhere, right? If someone's young, like very like successful, like in short period of time, you know what happens is usually like catastrophic, right? Because like if they don't rebalance, recalibrate themselves fast enough, ego is the enemy, right? Ego is the metrics, in my opinion, personal opinion, because you're so blinded, you're living inside your your your own ego. You you can't listen to opinions, you can't take feedback, you think you're always right. If you think you're always right, that means you're on the extreme spectrum of like um black and white, right? We all know life is balanced, like you know, black and white, you know, there's there's benefits, there's also drawbacks, equal and opposite of drawbacks, right? So one observation that I have with Luke is extremely polarized, right? And usually when people are extremely polarized, um it's either black or white. That's kind of like a very uh a pretty common trait for bipolar, right? Because they only see things this way in the massive spectrum, right? On things. Yeah. So what I'm trying to say here is if you think you're always right, you wouldn't be able to take any feedback because everybody's wrong except yourself, right? I called him a dictator. I was like, why why why why be in a partnership? Like when everything what whatever you say, you have the final say. I say, hey, we're business partners in this. Like I don't own less shares than you in the company.

Darren Lee: 55:38

Is it true that you were basically locked out of Kappa Club?

Steve Tan: 55:42

I I I was just posting a few screenshots the other day. I tried logging into my email one day, and account is suspended. So what happened was initially, like, I was I was super admin for everything, right? Super admin for everything because, like, you know, the CEO. I'm the CEO, and I handle all the operational stuff, all the heavy lifting and whatnot. So initially, I discovered somebody changed my super admin excess, which the only person that can do it is the other super admin, which is his wife, right? So it was a little bit suspicious because at a point of time we're still negotiating like kind of the buyout, right? And then I realized that my access, like, because we kind of share access, all the all like, for example, we have shared access to like, for example, our domain um name cheap, right? And we both have access to the two FAs and whatnot, so either party can log in anytime at any point. That's kind of like the trust that we kind of build within the company, right? But you wouldn't expect someone uh during the part of negotiation to start locking you out secretly, and because I when I received the email that I was being shifted from super admin to like a normal admin, you receive a notification by email. So I went back and changed it back. I went back and changed it back. So Luke Barr shoot me an email uh message like, What the fuck are you doing? I was like, What do you mean? He said, Oh, you're trying to lock us out. I was like, No, I'm just trying to change back what was originally the settings. So he went on and emailed the lawyers. It's like, oh, trying to kind of like cry wolf, like trying to say, oh, the wolf is coming, you know, like and but in reality, he's the ones that actually doing all these things. And he's telling he he he sent an email to the lawyers like oh, Steve locked us out, like oh, like we're we're uh we aren't able to continue our uh operations, you know, like and trying to act like he's all the victim. I was like, firstly, you don't need super admin to be able to run the company, right? Things are all as it is. And my my message to him was like, bro, let's follow the process, right? The the natural business process was we signed the agreement, we signed the buyout, we transfer everything to you, right? That's part of the agreement, right? And he started calling me names, start calling me Pinocchio, oh you're a liar, like, oh you you you just admit that you lied and everything. Like you said, you're gonna transfer. I was like, no, like because I said the way that you're operating doesn't make me feel safe in transferring things over to you. Because, like, so in good faith, like to be honest, right? You know, after this whole saga, I was doing a lot of healing. Like, I was trying very hard to heal from all this thing, right? So I healed myself, I think, to a portion of like 80, 90 percent. I'm good, I'm feeling good, I'm feeling grateful, I'm feeling loved, you know, all this happens for a reason, blah, blah, blah. You know, I bought a gift to Luke when he came to Singapore, like, hey, bro, like appreciate you. Like, you know, let's just get things wrapped up and everything. So, so my brother was like questioning me my decision, like, oh, like, are you sure? Like, you sure we can trust Luke and transfer things over to him? I said, Yeah, in good faith. I don't think he'll fuck us up, right? So we started transferring like maybe the top the 10 softwares that we use, maybe our payment processor, our uh CRM, our checkout like softwares. Next thing we realized, we're all fucking kicked out of uh even a user. And I was like, bro, like what's going on? He said, Oh, you don't need it. You're leaving, you don't need it. I was like, no, like we haven't even signed anything yet. Like, you know, we did that in good faith. He said, No, oh no, I own the company, like that's supposed to be mine. Kind of like a a tyrant in some ways. So it's very hard to communicate with this guy because he's so egoistic. You know, like I've tried my best to be as like, you know, like avoiding conflicts from time, you know, trying to dodge, dodge his like bullshit, but it just gets too much.

unknown: 59:48

Right.

Steve Tan: 59:48

So our communication broke down when after he came to Malaysia, we agreed on the buyout number, right? Which is $1.2 million as uh as listed in the lawsuit. Right? 1.2 million for me and my brother's time, full time for two years. Fuck, bro. Like it kind of it couldn't even like pay for my like my living expense. It's not a lot, right? Between two people. Right? Between two people. Before tax. Like, right? Right? And we agreed because I just want to get the fuck out. Like, bro. Like, it's so toxic. Just pay me something. Alright, whatever. Just pay me. Alright. Okay, so we agreed, right? Two weeks later, what happened was we received a term shit from his lawyers. Alright, Steve. Alright, we're gonna buy you a blah blah blah. All the terms. Okay. Here's 250 names. Maybe your name is inside. I'm not sure. 250 names non-compete, bro. He sent me a term sheet with 250 names for non-compete. Plus, Imangazi is all those people are inside. Imangazi, Grand Cardone, all the all the bigger names in the space, right? Um Gary Breca, everyone. Everyone's in there, right? But to do what though? Oh, I can't work with them in any context, shape, or form. Right. Okay, and that's not the biggest thing. The biggest thing was you cannot work with any creator who's below the age of 40. Blanket ban. Oh, you can't do you can't do info, you can't do masterminds, you can't do courses. No, none of that shit. I was like, bro, you're trying what? Like at a school. Yeah. I was like, are you are you crazy? But that's when I noted that's when I discovered this guy's no longer my friend. He's out to fuck me over, especially when I started transferring things over to him. That's when communication broke down, right? That's when we started not talking about it, right? It was pretty sad, to be honest. Like, because there was the time we got fucked the second time, right? The first time was like, you know, in good faith, we started transferring things, right? And then after which like communication broke down for a few months, uh, I think that was around January, right? I think I spoke about this, right?

Darren Lee: 1:02:14

Would you would you have been actively trying to resolve this during that period of time? Because a few months to me I'd I'd pull my hair out.

Steve Tan: 1:02:20

No, not really. Because I I at the point of time I was really like uh trying to loyal up at a point of time because I think this is going nowhere with this person, right? With how he's operating. And yeah, I just like I just pull out one million dollars from my bank account and just park it there. It's ready for illegal, like for legal stuff. Like, because I I felt like I don't really want to put in any more headspace into this this this thing. And I think I've been pretty quiet about this whole like you know, because I I don't think the community needs to like really get tracked into this whole drama because they're innocent, right? The community is still there, like it's still like people are doing well. But the moment, like, like I I've received so much DMs from people, like they were saying, like, Steve, like the moment we discovered you you're missing, like, that's when the whole community starts going downhill.

Darren Lee: 1:03:14

And since then, recently I've seen that there was a post made by Luke in Cabo Club that it's free. That the renewals they're not paying for the renewals. Guess what? What? Because they're gonna charge for a new community, and then that's the breakoff from there. I'm not sure what he's up to, bro. But um Because if you looked at Gem Hunters, wasn't like 80% the claim is that 80% of the attribution of users came from Capital Club.

unknown: 1:03:46

Oh, yeah.

Darren Lee: 1:03:47

And the other mention was roughly 10 to 15 million of revenue generated.

Steve Tan: 1:03:53

Based on how much he's charging, I would assume. Yes, that's kind of like what we're alleging uh in the lawsuit.

Darren Lee: 1:03:59

But if you think about it, you guys, I know you did like a launch of like four million, but do you know roughly well you probably do know the can you disclose the numbers that you roughly you were hitting with Capital Club?

Steve Tan: 1:04:09

I think four million was kind of like when during the initial launch, and subsequently we did uh probably like uh one or two more, like seven-figure launches subsequently. So I think But it's a it's a membership model though, right?

Darren Lee: 1:04:20

So it was month it was month over month.

Steve Tan: 1:04:22

Yes. So uh we only do annual subscriptions, so we don't do like monthly subscriptions, right? That's kind of like uh what we decided to do. So but I think what's uh alarming was he hired a team of like uh sales closers that basically DM'd everybody, like you know, like uh from Capital Club, from the Discord or whatsoever to kind of join Gem Hunters, right? But looking back right now, to be honest, like I was gonna sharing with a friend, like I'm so fucking grateful that we're cut out from Gem Hunters because Gem Hunters right now, like, it's a mess. Like the amount of the amount of DMs that I received from people from the people that joined um from uh gem gem hunters is crazy. Is that legal to give people suggestions of what to buy?

Darren Lee: 1:05:12

I'm not sure. I'm not sure about the legal stuff on that front for me just in general, just in general, like when it comes down to like crypto and so on, or even like I think for crypto it's a little bit Wawa West.

Steve Tan: 1:05:22

Like there's just so many people doing it, dude.

Darren Lee: 1:05:24

It's been going around for so long, right? Right, like but and there there are like regul regulators, or even like Coinbase and shit, like getting on those platforms these days is a lot more difficult than when you were a kid.

Steve Tan: 1:05:35

But I think that that's where got complex comes in because like he thinks he's above the law. He will say something, things like oh fuck the SEC and all that kind of stuff on his Twitter. I was like, okay, sure, I don't want no part in that, you know. So the reason why I say God complex is because like you think you're above the law, you think you're the one, like you think God is always protecting you, like, but the thing here is like, no, that's not true. Like when when when it gets to a point, when it gets to a point whereby you disregard whatever is like true just because you think that you are right, that's like you know, a really big, big, big riff.

Darren Lee: 1:06:16

Like, yeah, uh something that I've seen a lot just in people that are like super narcissistic, is that even when the truth is portrayed to them, like they might have made a mistake, and it's like, no, sorry, man, like actually it's actually like this. They will then become resentful and frustrated at that fact that they were also wrong. So, like they're in their worldview apologies, they're correct, and when you try to correct the behavior, they take more of a negative reaction because their worldview is not correct, even though it's actually like logically legitimately incorrect. So when you're coming up to the sorry, when you're coming up against the SEC or whatever, that's where this becomes uh uh destructive in that regard, right? Because it's not opinion.

Steve Tan: 1:06:59

I think I think it's it's crazy when you're like trying to pitch a meme coin and you associate yourself with fuck the SEC publicly on your ex profile. I think that's really dumb. That's really really dumb. Like, you know, like how how egoistic are you to can like say things like that? Like to kind of publicly tell people like fuck the SEC, oh come on, like SEC's the authority here, right? It's kind of like what keeps the country safe, like with all this regulatory stuff, right? To openly can like challenge that, like we have the screenshots for all that stuff, like probably he tries to delete it, but the internet never forgets, right? And um kind of looking back with all this, as I mentioned to you, for Luke personally, what I honestly believe is like money, fame, and ego corrupted him. I think that's the that's the TLDR, you know, with everything, you know. Like people were asking, do you believe Luke was like that right from the beginning? I I'd probably say I'm not sure. I wouldn't say like um it's not because of like everything that I've discovered is just so fake, right? You know, he could be he could be one site, one site is like, oh I love you, bro. Like, you know, like we're gonna make this work, and behind the scenes starts like stabbing you in the back, you know, like it and and recently when I posted when I before I went to Malbeev's, right? The honestly, I wasn't planning to deal with all this bullshit. I'll I'll swear on my life, I was not even planning to come public about this. You know, like the lawsuit has been filed, it's in progress and whatnot, right? Let me share with you um why we came out, okay. So be on the day that I was going to Maldives that morning, my best friend, my best best friend, sent me a screenshot of Luke Belmar's story because he blocked me. I can't see shit, right? So he was talking about oh, man of God, purity, or being like all that kind of stuff. I'm sure you know that, right? That post triggered the fuck out of me. And I posted something on my story, and that story actually went viral, like in some ways. We got like what 50,000 people seeing it or or so, I'm not sure. Like uh, it's just a lot of people saw that for NIG that's kind of like incognito. I don't really post much these days, right? Suddenly, someone popped up. Guess who? Look Belmar unblocked me from IG, followed me on IG, and sent me, uh tried to love bomb me. It's like, oh, I love you, bro. Like, I wish we didn't have to do this like metrics legal bullshit, you know, text me anytime and uh heart shape emoji. I was like, what the fuck? Why the fuck are you sending me this, right? We're not even talking, right? Sounds cringy, but I think that's what I noticed a lot of narcissists love doing it, right? They they try to love bomb you to show you the to try to get you on the soft side. 30 minutes later, I'm sure you saw, like, uh, I think you saw, like, you were asking me about that screenshot. That came 30 minutes after he sent me that message, like, and he was like, Oh, I'm entering litigation with Steve. Like, it's kind of like trying to portray that he's trying to sue me, right? He's like, Oh, like I'm suing him for like uh wire fraud, I'm suing him for like uh destroying the business or whatever, right? And I was like, Hold on, hold on, hold on. Like, I was thinking, hold the fuck up, right? That's not true. I'm suing you, right? Stop trying to paint the picture that you're entering litigation and trying to destroy the business. No, like if I was trying to destroy business, I would already came out one year ago, right? So he's trying to portray that and he broadcasts it to like the entire CC community. He broadcasts it to like people that attended the mastermind and whatnot. I was like, and a lot of people, I have a lot of people who's on my side, right? Like, even though I've been quiet and all the people, it's like, well, like Steve, like what what's this? Like, it was like doesn't sound right. I was like, oh shit. That's when I decided to post. Like, hey, hold on a minute. I posted on X. Hold on a minute. Here's the lawsuit. I'm suing you. I'm suing you, your wife, and Capital Club. It's not the other way around. If you're suing me, okay, so be it. No, you want to sue me. But he loves to tweet narrative and twist words to believe people to let people believe, oh, Steve is wrong. Right? So that is how everything started. You know, honestly, like Maldus is so beautiful. Um, I was staying at St. Regis, bro. I was there for like six days. There's only one day I spent time with my friends because out of this five days, I was dealing with this bullshit.

Darren Lee: 1:12:10

We were chatting back and forth, and I was like, I'll come see you. And you were like, No, not today, man. You were like, I'll see you. It'll be an amazing, beautiful place. You're like, not at the not this moment. That's kind of how it all got started, you know. What do you want as the solution to this? Like if you were to look at like what's the perfect scenario from here, what would that look like for you?

Steve Tan: 1:12:34

I think he definitely needs to publicly up apologize for everything that he has done to me and the community. I think that I think he owes the the community an apology, to be honest, right? He claims that he was always there for the community. No, he was never there. Like, you know, he was never there. He was all about the money, right? He was all about like he claims that he's not about the money, but he was never showing up for the community that believes in him. He's the face, right? You know, as much as I'm I'm running the show, I'm there, but you know, all this like younger kids, Gen Z people, they don't care about how much like substance you have. They just think, oh, look, Belmar. You know what I mean? They he's like the superstar, right? But people who know, they know. If you know, you know, right? Like, so it's like you know, people who are truly there for learnings, you know, like you I got a lot of DMs, like people telling me, like, hey Steve, you're you're absolutely right. Like, you know, ever since you disappeared from Discord, I was removed. I was removed from Discord, I was removed from Slack, emails, everything. They're just trying to erase me from like I've never existed before, right? So, but people know, people remember, like, because like you know, when I was there, bro, like I do as much as possible to show up for the community, right? In any way, shape, or form, like Discord lives, answering questions. I don't have to because looks the face, he's the one that's supposed to manage the community. But I realized this guy is just so distracted, so distracted with what with like trying to make an extra buck, you know, trading meme coins, you know, trying to like you know, capture deals, deals that are not part of Capital Club, you know, trying to pocket deals that goes to him because of all the fame that Capital Club has built for him, right? Using the money to build his lifestyle. We paid for everything, right? And honestly, I I could care less if we paid for everything, if everything was kind of like uh on a line with the vision for long term, right? If you're still if you're still committing to helping the community and committed to build this out for long term, not trying to launch all this bullshit side communities like Gem Hunters or Ecom Society trying to milk the community. I've worked so hard to build your brand up, and I I just can't I just can't stand that you're trying to milk every single dollar off people on your bullshit. That's kind of what I I really don't stand for. We're we're building it so hard to maintain everything, right? To build the community, to build events, meetups, and whatnot. Then he's using this to funnel people all. It's kind of like, you know, I'm I'm just doing things for free for him, right? That is honestly not the problem. The problem is like you're you're funneling to people to your side projects, which is very poorly ran with bad or like malicious bad intentions, exit liquidity. You know, look at how many people got fucked with gem hunters. Can you walk me through that? And how does that operate for people that want to decide? What I was told, and through my investigations, a lot of people have to pay one ETH to join gem hunters, right? So it's kind of like a like a you know, like a signal, it's kind of like a crypto signal group. Oh, buy this, right? You could make 2x, 3x from 4x, right? Obviously, a lot of people that's joining this loves fast money, right? Who who doesn't love fast money with crypto, right? So, I mean, if you have good deals, right, there's ways to invest without getting wrecked like this, you know, to be honest. Because if you're if you're if you're if if you have such a strong community and you're bringing on really good projects like ICOs, all right, like projects that has like a really good roadmap and not just always pum and dumb, kind of like meme coin shit, right? And a lot of people trust him. So a lot of people join from Capital Club, and what they realized was it was just ran so poorly. Like people that are giving like advice or trade calls, they're all like amateurs, right? People lose their entire portfolios. There's like I have so much proof, I have so much DMs, and which is what made me so much more calm right now. It's like, oh fuck no, like even you if you made like 50 million, I want no fucking part in this because right now, like with what I'm seeing, that's a ticking time bomb, right? A taking time bomb to destroying your entire reputation that you've worked so hard to build, and people are already coming forward. And the thing here is like, I think I'm the vessel, right? I'm the vessel for people who has a lot of grievances, right? People that has no platform, no voice, no authority, they have no IG, they have no socials, but they have been scammed, or they have been ripped off, or they feel scammed, right? They personally feel that they have been ripped off, or they basically felt that they were exit liquidity. So what it probably sometimes might potentially happen was like, Luke, probably, probably, right? I'm I'm just like, but that is how things work because I kind of know, right? So what happens is all these meme coins, they will find people who are influential, like or have a huge following, like for example, Luke Belmar, right? He'll come to look like, hey, look, I'll give you um X amount of tokens or maybe a few percentage of my our entire circulation, right? And people that's running meme coins, they're good ones, there are bad ones. And but I think the bad ones probably has more like more probability than the good ones, right? In in in in a way, what I'm saying is like people probably would care more about like you know, just fast money, right? They don't really care about building the community for long term, they don't really care, right? So they would usually not lock the tokens for long, so like the KOS can actually just dump it immediately. So, what most likely would happen, right, was Luke would go into Gem Hunters, which he has, like uh all these recordings that people have been sending me are kind of like priceless. It's like he'll go in and talk about oh, this token's so good, like why he's investing in it. Here's the little analysis of what's going on. And the people that bought into the one ETH into his community will see this like, oh fuck, this is like a trade call from heaven. We're gonna make 10x from this shit. I'm gonna put in 50k into it. Obviously, people will say, Oh, they it's their responsibility to invest, but you're telling people to buy in. The moment people buy in, you sell your shit.

Darren Lee: 1:19:03

It's consistency bias, they have to buy it, otherwise, they're not congruent with the initial purchase of joining the program.

Steve Tan: 1:19:09

Exactly. So, like, honestly, this is outside my control. Like, you know, I I could not control whatever he says, does, or do outside of Capital Club. Even if even in Capitol Club, I can't control or like uh tell him what to say, right? He's just gonna wall horse. But right now, with with what's happening, honestly, Gem Hunter is none of my business, right? But like the amount of people that's messaging me every single day, right, is just fucking ridiculous. Like how much people are upset with that, you know. Capital club, honestly, I think it's still okay. People were just upset that they paid and there's nothing that happened for one year, which is at the moment that I've left, right? So there was nothing going on the moment I left the company, right? So people were kind of like noticing it. People are kind of like, but people who's kind of speaking up within the community, banned, blocked, even they paid, they're removed, right? So so like the whole community starts to become an echo chamber of only yes men, right?

Darren Lee: 1:20:13

Oh, look, Belmore, yeah, like you know, and but when they start seeing my message, everyone starts standing up, like fuck, bro, like yeah, and the thing with this is like a low-ticket community is tough enough to crack as it is, and you're gonna have a ton of churn, and I guess that's why you're you have annual subscriptions and annual memberships. But forget about paying, just keeping the uh actual equilibrium of the community is already tough enough as it is. But if you don't work on it, like there's gonna be this kind of a pendulum. So as you've got mad attention over the years, that pendulum will swing back and it's gonna really impact. Now, obviously, your brand is really strong, and you've spoken very publicly on your stance and your opinion, but that would usually fuck the owners. It would usually hit them pretty, pretty hard.

Steve Tan: 1:21:05

Yep, I agree. I think what's important here is for people to understand what's going on behind the scenes, right? So people could like people who are smart can naturally interpretate the situation. Like, I'm not here to kind of bash like who's right, who's wrong. I'm not here to kind of like say, oh, we built out uh Luke Belmar or whichever. I'm just here to kind of share my part of the story from my perspective on what's what really was going on behind the scenes, how I was kind of like forced out of the company when I decided to kind of wanted to leave. And the thing here is like I wanted to leave, as I mentioned, was because the vision was no longer aligned because we saw like what he preached was all about Caplo Club. What was for like 10 years, what we're trying to build for the community for 10 years, turns out to be like uh a cash grab, right? A cash grab into his own pockets for all these things. Like, you know, like him taking money into his own things is not exactly the worst part. The worst part is building out shitty products, right? That's not congruent with who you say you are and what you said about entrepreneurship and the community. That's like to me, it's a big no-no.

Darren Lee: 1:22:13

Looking at your future, what do you want to do now?

Steve Tan: 1:22:18

Uh, not sure yet, to be honest, but I'm feeling better than ever, to be honest, because like I've received so much support uh from this uh online drama, and like this whole Maldives trip couldn't be better at the same the right time. Being in a beautiful place, receiving like I received easily thousands of messages from people, right? You know, I was I was like sleeping two hours, three hours every single day because I was just I just want to reply to everybody. I just want to reply to everybody who kind of extended their support, share their grievances, you know, share how they got like cheated and whatnot and all these things. And I just realized that wow, like the industry has my back, you know, like and it's just an affirmation to the high values that I've uh stood up for, you know, like integrity, brotherhood, friendship, loyalty, like kind of like those are like high on my values. And for to see people that I haven't I haven't spoken to, to see industry, like KOL's, like opinions of like what they think of who I am as a person, like really helps re-en re-en-energize me in a really positive way, right? So I feel extremely humbled, extremely grateful for like the things that I've done across the years. 100% I'm not perfect. I'm still human, right? I made mistakes, you know, I get emotional at times, or I make bad decisions and whatnot. But I think I'm still proud of like how I uphold myself as an individual, right? At the end of the day, you know, we come and go, like, you know, no amount of money is like gonna prevent you from dying, right? So I think, you know, just seeing how people speak of me like publicly, because I did a post on X, right? I was like, oh, if you work with me in some way, shape, or form, you know, like uh, or like you you came to my either of my programs or like um whichever, right? Please share what you think about me. Like, I'm not here to ask you to kind of sugarcoat or to just say good things. If I'm if I'm a shitty person, just say I'm a shitty person. It and fuck, I I've the amount of reviews I've read through, like a few hundred of them, like fuck, they're all just like it just blows my mind. Like, I'm just extremely grateful, and I felt like, yeah, like authenticity plays its place, you know. Probably not it's not like I need it at the point of time, but you when you need it and you need a support, people will come, you know? Yeah, so that's kind of like when I felt like extremely, extremely grateful for all the trust that people have in me and how they see the values that I spoke highly of. Yeah.

Darren Lee: 1:25:04

Do you think now it's time that you build your brand on the front and you take the front in terms of the next business?

Steve Tan: 1:25:12

So I have a friend from um from uh I'll I I I don't want to share his name because it's kind of private, but uh he owns a billion-dollar, like uh extremely popular exchange. And he just said it in my face without sugar coating. He was like, You're just fucking lazy, Steve. You're just fucking lazy to build your personal brand. That is why you you decided to build somebody else's personal brand, which is kind of true, you know. Like, and I was just kind of digging and reflecting, and I just realized, yeah, fuck yeah. Like, you know, you take accountability for things that you don't want to do, right? And I just went and I said, Oh no, I said I'm not lazy, I just kind of want to chill, right? Like, it's not that I really needed, like, you know, to build more stress, right? And and it was like, he was like, he said, he said something like, No, you're not chill, you're just waiting for the right opportunity to go all in. I was like, okay, well, pretty on point, pretty on point, right? So I I realized this might be just all a blessing in disguise. All these years from behind the scenes is just preparing me for who I truly am as a person, who I want, what kind of message I want to convey, what kind of branding I want to build, you know, right. And I see how these few years of progress and training actually shapes up the clarity that I have now, right? Even though I'm going through all this drama, like it's actually extremely, extremely draining mentally, emotionally, and physically, right? But I'm so surprised that I feel so great like every single day, like for the last week after I got clarity with things that I'm gonna do. And yeah, I think I'm ready to kind of rebuild my personal brand, rebuild in a way whereby I'm ready to come out of my shell, right? I was kind of like in the shell, like a hermit crab, you know, kind of like you know, life's great. Like, to be honest, life's great, not a lot of stress. You know, actually, I love stress in some ways, like kind of like a motherfucker in some ways. Like, I just kind of like want to put in some stress in my life, but yeah, it's kind of like when you get more clarity, I'm just more inspired because I feel like, oh, like, for example, I would love to kind of pick your brains on how do we do my podcasts, you know. Like, I've seen a lot of like people like doing amazing jobs with podcasts, like Diary of a CEO and all these different things. And I feel I would love to put my message out there, right? And the great thing about whatever I want to do is like the priority is not the money. How great is that? Is how how great is doing something when you don't have to fucking worry about money because like money is really taken care of by some other business, and you're just trying to do this because it's it's fun for you, right? Trying to like, you know, when when I see like when I posted my old screenshots, like you know, I received messages like people would tell me, like, Steve, you're you're the inspiration, you're the reason why I started e-com. And there are some people there are like big brands that are doing like eight, nine figures. I was like, hey, bro, like you know, like because of your fucking screenshot back then, like that really got me like you know, like started with everything. And I was like, though those are things that you can't buy with money, you can't buy that kind of like you know, things, and but I think fundamentally you need to be grounded. You cannot like because of people, oh wow, you do that, and you become so egoistic or like not humble anymore.

Darren Lee: 1:28:48

I think that's that's against the point of like having massive impact. It's a full circle moment. It's like you've made the money, you've tried to help other people within the business, and now it's ultimately about you and actually the lessons that you want to leave behind, man. Right? Because like you're got you got to the point now whereby you've been investing in so much other people, you don't need you don't need to do this shit, but that's the reason why it will work. That's the thing. It's like because it's not a need, it's a want, that's when it's gonna have the biggest impact. If you're in this period of time where you're like, oh, I need the money, I need the work, I need to get the payout, no shit, it's not gonna work out, man. You know, no shit. And I think just getting to know like your personality, like your values, it's very clear why people why you've like a magnetic brand brand, it just goes down to like what you want to share, you know.

Steve Tan: 1:29:45

Yeah, definitely 100%. I think you're very on point on this, and I think one of the things that kind of like uh it's kind of like there's a term called Ikigai, right? So it's it's it's when like definitely not running it as a charity because like that you need to be compensated in ways, but you want to. Do things that's you're passionate about, right? And things that can help the world or help people in different ways, yet at the same time, people value your time and things then compensate you kind of goes for a circle circle. So I think I've been trying to find, but I think it's still a journey for me, to be honest. I think now it's kind of a little bit early. I still exactly don't know what I want to do in terms of like the next steps, but I still have my other businesses, right? So I just want to kind of see. I kind of really enjoy having a community, right? I think that's kind of like uh interesting for me, like when I was building out Economy Leads Mastermind many, many years ago, right? But I think things just kind of got busy at the point, and I think we weren't really experienced in running a community, we don't know how much time and whatnot. But I feel like there's two parts to the community. I think um one mass market, right? For people that are that really do not have much to kind of like, you know, start. I think a place to go to will be great. And I think the other one would be like for higher level people, right? Higher people level in terms of okay, minimum doing at least seven figures of revenue at least per year, or whichever to kind of come into the club or whichever. I haven't kind of really identified yet, but I want to build it as how I see would be the most beneficial for my members because like in the past, a lot of the ideas that I've shared with Luke, right? He would just take it and just share with people like it's his idea, which is totally fine because he's the front, right? But I've started to notice that that he may seem extremely smart, but a lot of things that he's preaching online was kind of like either from like uh other people or from like from us, right? For example, he'll be telling people, oh, we're doing a few hundred million views per month. And I was like, but most people say we don't even see Luke Belmar shit anymore online, like especially after after after we left. When we left, the entire distribution team within Capital Cup all quit.

Darren Lee: 1:32:05

That's interesting because I actually haven't seen his content on let's say the discovery feed of Instagram. Exactly, because there's no one running his shit anymore, like us.

Steve Tan: 1:32:14

My brothers, my brother handles entirely his stuff. So when he comes in, takes over everything, you know, like uh with his team members who's highly unqualified for the job, everyone starts quitting. Everyone feels like shit. Like, like one of the things one of my employees told me, I said, Look, why do you want to quit? It's like he said, Why do I want to be on a plane with a pilot that doesn't know how to fly a plane? That that kind of like shocked me. I was like, shit, I didn't see it that way.

Darren Lee: 1:32:45

Leading a company and running a company, you know, is royally misunderstood because a big part about it is being the aspirational leader. Like you need to be that's someone that the visionary people look up to. And it's ironic because running my own company meetings, I'm actually more nervous than running any sort of client meeting or any mastermind, any event, because you need your clan and your team to literally be behind your mission. So if you can't fly the fucking plane, well, no wonder everyone pulls ejector seat. And it's like it's a it's something that's wildly misunderstood, and like that is true leadership, right? Is understanding not only like where are we going, but also like what do people need, right? Because a lot of people will work with you not for the money, exactly, the lessons, the insights, that's a huge component that I just think in this I call it the cowboy coaching industry, like because it's just as you say, Wild West, whether it's crypto or coaching, but it's wildly misunderstood and underestimated because people aren't natural born leaders, therefore they're not trying to lead a team, they're trying to make money, and that's the whole downfall of the industry. Yep.

Steve Tan: 1:33:57

I think I think personally, I feel like there's times that you need to be patient, you know. Good things take time to build, you know, like you know, Rome is not building one day, right? I mean that's kind of like what people have been saying, right? But I think sometimes when you are over or you eagerly want it too much, right? In a sense whereby it gets to a point whereby you will want to take shortcuts rather than building it that right way. I think that's when like the house of cards starts getting wobbly, right? So, which is why it brought me back to the same point. If you're looking at things from a 40th floor and a ground floor, the way you operate, the way you make decisions, the way you uphold yourself, it's definitely very different from someone who who claims to be, which is why it reaffirms my beliefs that a lot of the things that he has shared or portrays to be is not who he is to be, right? But that's that's not my that's not my responsibility for this person because like how he upholds himself is his responsibility. What I'm trying to share here is like I honestly do not want people to experience what I've experienced because it's fucking painful, right? It's it's it it sucks, right? Or to look up to someone to realize that he's not who he is. For example, right? Uh, I know a lot of young kids, especially like in those like crypto or like e-com. And it's funny for me to see because like a lot of them are doing way better than Luke Belmar, but they kind of they worship him like, oh, he's the god, like he's he's the shit, right? So I wonder what happens when the fantasy is broken. Like you looked up to someone who you're already doing better than him, right? But this person acts like you know, he's all like almighty, like, and it's because of manipulation, right? And it's also because of how he speaks, how he he keeps his persona and whatnot. It's just funny to watch. Like, yeah.

Darren Lee: 1:36:11

The irony is you want your students to actually surpass you, you want them to eventually look back and be like, Steve taught me this, and now I've gone off and I've flown on my own wings. That's a beautiful part of it. But yeah, man, I want to say a big thank you. You're a legend. Um, this is super, super valuable for people. So many lessons, dude, just in terms of just general awareness, leadership, responsibility, and kind of backing yourself. I think a big central theme I've seen from this is like you know, you can back yourself a lot more. A lot of people can. You don't need dependencies a lot of times. And um, I often find so I often think sometimes that people don't need business partners, they need better friends. You know, I agree. And uh yeah, man, big thank you.

Steve Tan: 1:36:57

Thanks for having me, Darren. It was a pleasure. Thank you.