The SHOCKING Truth About Financial Planning with Bitcoin and AI

**Roy Coughlan** (0:02)
Welcome to The Crypto Podcast. You can find all the references on the cryptopodcast.org.

**Roy Coughlan** (0:07)
You'll find everything about me.

**Roy Coughlan** (0:08)
You scan the QR code, New 586 Podcasts, or go to rycon.com. If you're looking for Virtual Assistants, go to va.wordly, packages from $99. My guest. He founded Exponential Advisors and is an Army Reserve chaplain with nearly 20 years of distinguished service, drawing on his military discipline, faith-based principles and expertise in cutting-edge financial strategies like Bitcoin and AI. He empowers families and organizations to achieve financial security and growth. From Texas, please welcome Joshua Brooks.

**Joshua Brooks** (0:44)
Thanks, Roy.

**Joshua Brooks** (0:45)
Happy to be here, man.

**Joshua Brooks** (0:46)
This is exciting.

**Joshua Brooks** (0:47)
You've got a great podcast, six great podcasts going on.

**Roy Coughlan** (0:53)
I actually, this week, it was 1,600 release that I've done.

**Roy Coughlan** (0:56)
So yeah, it's a lot of episodes.

**Roy Coughlan** (0:59)
Wow.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:00)
Kudos.

**Roy Coughlan** (1:01)
Yeah.

**Roy Coughlan** (1:02)
Well, cheers.

**Roy Coughlan** (1:03)
I suppose let's learn a bit about yourself first because you've been in the military.

**Roy Coughlan** (1:10)
So let's hear your own journey before we get into the crypto journey.

**Roy Coughlan** (1:14)
I just want to get to know Joshua a bit better.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:17)
Yeah.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:17)
Let's talk briefly about my journey. Twenty-one years in the army, now married eight years to Stephanie, four young boys at the house, seven, five, one that just turned four and one.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:29)
And so we have a lot of responsibilities and I launched Exponential Advisors.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:36)
We, our goal, Roy, is to provide transformative financial planning to army veterans, busy mommies, and Christian leaders.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:43)
So keep it simple, ABCs.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:45)
And we do that by providing comprehensive financial planning, integrating digital assets into the process.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:51)
And I truly believe that's a game changer for where we're at in the financial planning space.

**Joshua Brooks** (1:57)
And there's a lot of innovation taking place. And so that's what we do.

**Joshua Brooks** (2:01)
And my background, infantry and chaplain. So you've got, I joke around in the infantry or providing spiritual support. We're sending people to heaven one way or the other.

**Roy Coughlan** (2:16)
I suppose for kids, because it's like chaplain in for the international listeners, even though I've got about 50% in the state, I might explain what a chaplain is.

**Joshua Brooks** (2:25)
Yeah, absolutely.

**Joshua Brooks** (2:26)
To clarify what a chaplain does, and you could be a chaplain in any type of religious tradition by the Department of Defense. So all branches.

**Joshua Brooks** (2:35)
So if you're in the Air Force, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Space Force, Coast Guard, you know, the United States has a lot of military things going on. And you could be Jewish, you could be Wiccan, you could be Buddhist, you could be Protestant, Catholic, etc.

**Joshua Brooks** (2:52)
And your job is to provide spiritual support for those soldiers, airmen, and sailors, and also to advise the commander. Those are your two primary competencies is advising the commander and being a professional religious support provider.

**Roy Coughlan** (3:09)
So let's say you're kind of blockchain journeyed in, because you're mentioning Bitcoin and AI, but when did you figure out about it first?

**Joshua Brooks** (3:18)
Yes, I was working at Fidelity Investments, taking a lot of phone calls as a financial representative, and people in 2015-16, they were selling their houses, they were buying Bitcoin on Coinbase, they were moving to Europe or whatever, and it was growing so fast that I decided to dip my toes in the water. And so in the high of 2017, right before that 50% crash, I was with my in-laws in Missouri and bought $1,000 of BTC. Well, two months later, it dropped 45% or whatever.

**Joshua Brooks** (3:52)
So you get that whole Mike Tyson quote about getting punched in the jaw without a plan.

**Joshua Brooks** (3:57)
And so I sold out. I said, this isn't stocks or bonds. But fast forward, I had another financial advisor, super successful in the independent space, and he orange-pilled me.

**Joshua Brooks** (4:09)
And this was in 21

**Joshua Brooks** (4:11)
And so I started to research the Bitcoin standard and listen to Peter McCormick's old podcast, What Bitcoin Did, out there in Bedford, England. And man, that just got me down the Bitcoin rabbit hole and exploring other cryptocurrency tokens and coins, of course, Ethereum, Solana, and the meme coins.

**Joshua Brooks** (4:33)
And it has been quite a journey, quite a wild ride.

**Roy Coughlan** (4:37)