The Sheep Don't Question the Shepherd Until It's Too Late || Masterminds Podcast EP62

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The sheep is scared of the wolf. But it's the shepherd who eats the sheep.

In this solo episode of the Masterminds Podcast, Richie Mensah breaks down one of the most important habits a thinking person can develop — the discipline of questioning everything. Not out of paranoia, but out of responsibility. From the DeBeers diamond empire and how they manufactured desire out of thin air, to the banking system quietly investing your money while paying you nothing, to the four colonial tools still shaping African minds today — this episode will make you look at the world you've accepted and ask, for the first time, why. If you are comfortable not knowing, this episode is not for you. But if you are ready to be awakened, stay in.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the human brain resists questioning — and why that instinct is being used against you
• The five questions you must ask every time someone gives you information
• How DeBeers manufactured the diamond engagement ring from scratch — and why nobody questioned it
• How banks make money from your money without you ever noticing
• Why colonization didn't end — it just moved from your land into your mind
• Why the world map you were taught in school is wrong — and what else that means
• Why education, government, religion and media were designed to keep 80% of people poor
• The difference between consumers and producers — and which one you are right now

Chapters

00:00 – Intro: The Sheep and the Shepherd 02:02 – You Have a Duty to Question Everything 03:50 – Why Most People Never Ask Questions 05:04 – Question 1: Who Is Giving Me This Information? 05:53 – Question 2: Why Are They Telling Me This — And Why Now? 06:54 – The Nike Jogging Campaign 07:48 – How DeBeers Made Diamonds Forever 10:29 – Question 3: What Authority Are They Claiming? 11:35 – Question 4: What Do They Want Me to Believe or Do? 12:44 – Question 5: Who Benefits? 15:39 – How Banks Really Make Money From Your Money 18:44 – Colonization Never Ended — It Just Changed Form 19:43 – The World Map Is Wrong. What Else Is? 21:57 – The System Was Designed to Keep 80% Poor 27:26 – Stop Fighting for False Identities 30:37 – Consumers vs Producers: Which One Are You?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to a special episode of Masterminds. As usual, your tour guide on this amazing journey of enlightening your most powerful tool, your mind. So today we're talking about something very interesting, right? I saw a quote somewhere that struck me and made me feel I need to talk about this. The quote goes, Sheep are scared of the wolf, but the shepherd ends up eating them. So this quote just makes you realize that at every point in your life, every decision you make, every information you take, you need to do one thing that most of us are afraid to do, which is you have to question everything. So before we continue with the episode, something interesting just happened in the studio right now. After shooting one of my usual solo episodes, somebody asked me questions, which made me realize that sometimes your questions actually allow me to give better feedback and better information. So let's do this. If you've ever felt like you've wanted to ask me questions or further clarification on anything I've said, you can drop it in the comments and I'll use those questions to do special episodes just to answer you. I may even start out your name so that you understand that I am answering you. And also do me a favor. I see so many people who are watching my episodes who have forgotten to hit the subscribe button. You know, we're trying to grow this community, build masterminds like you and I who can acquire wealth, who can build their mindset and become more wealthy financially, physically, spiritually, and especially when it comes to health. So please do me the favor and subscribe. Now, the point of this episode is not to make you distrust everything. The point of this episode is not to make you think you live in a world that you can't have faith in anything around you. But the point is to make you realize that you have a right, a responsibility, a duty to question everything in your life. Question the information given to you, question the people giving you the information. Is this information serving you? Is it helping you, or is it leading you to your demise without you realizing? Before we go on, let's go back to that saying so you fully understand it. The sheep is scared of the wolf, but it's the shepherd who eats the sheep. You know, most of the time there are certain things that make it feel safe for us. There are certain systems and institutions that we feel are protecting us. But actually, sometimes safety can be a disguise for things that are hurting us, things that mean us harm, but are protecting us long enough to be able to harm us. But we don't notice. And the reason is we don't question anything. The sheep does not question the shepherd. They don't ask the shepherd, where are you taking me to? They don't ask, Why are you taking me on long walks every day? And when the shepherd is taking them to the slaughterhouse, they don't ask where they are going because they trust the shepherd. So instead of trusting blindly in all the things in our lives, today wake up and start questioning. Now let me stop you right here. If you feel you are very comfortable in your life, if you feel you are okay not knowing, and you feel you don't want to um, what's the word? You don't want to open your mind to some of the questions that you need to be asking. Pause this episode. This is not for you. But if you are ready to be awakened, if you are ready to live a life of full knowing, stay with me. It's going to be an entertaining conversation. Now let's go to the reason why most people don't want to question anything. You see, questioning things creates uncertainty. Like when you have to ask questions, it makes you feel uncertain inside on what's going on. And the human brain loves certainty, the human brain loves security and safety. So sometimes, even when we know something isn't true, we still try and believe that it's true. There's so much information, you know. This is a very personal thing for me because on my quest to learn, I've had to do so much on learning that it's been mind-boggling. There's so many things I thought I knew, only to find out that I was completely wrong. I was taught the wrong things intentionally. So it's a very difficult path to be on. But once you are on that path, you begin to start achieving certain things in your life, you attract certain success, you do certain things, you move differently because now you know how things really work. So let's jump into the first few questions that you should ask. The first question for me is who is giving me this information? It's a very important question. You know, anytime you get some news or you hear something interesting and you hear a fact and you're taking it like that, ask, who is giving me this information? Because does the person have the authority, the agenda? Like, who is this person that is telling me this? Especially these days on social media. You pick up your phone, you swipe, then you see somebody is saying that you know, if you eat only grass four times in a day, you will get six uh six pack. Then you say, Oh, nice, let me also start eating grass. Who is this person? Are they authorized to give me this information? What research have they done? Why should I trust whatever this person is saying? Most of the time, we don't question that. We just jump straight to taking the information. The second question is, why are they telling me this now? See, that's two questions in one. The first one is why are they telling me this? And the second is now. Now, everybody in this world has an agenda. So, what agenda does the person have? Why are they giving me this information? Are they looking for followers? Are they looking to educate me? Are they looking to sell a product? Why are they giving me this information now? Let me use an example on this one. So it's a very interesting thing on the fact that one of the co-founders of Nike actually spearheaded a campaign which promoted jogging. It's heavily spear, heavily spearheaded a campaign which promoted jogging worldwide. It spoke about how jogging was very healthy, how jogging was great for your life, and at the same time that he was pushing that jogging campaign, Nike started to build its empire based on being the best shoes for running and jogging. So, whether his information is true or not, the reason he's giving you that information is to get you to buy the Nike. If you start learning marketing, like I've had to do a lot of research on marketing in my field, and when you learn some of the tricks that have been used, some of the tricks even I have used to be able to market products and market brands, you begin to realize that things aren't the way we think they are. Let me give you another example. All these things that I'm saying, please question me. When I talk about this, don't take it on face value. Go do some research and see if what I'm saying is true or not. One of the best marketing campaigns ever done in the world was done by a company called Deber. So Deber are the people who owned the largest quantity of diamonds. I may be wrong, but it's about 80% of the diamonds in the world were owned by Debeer. Now, here they were with a large commodity that the world was not buying in large volumes. So instead of trying to invest in another commodity, they thought, what if we just make diamonds the one thing that everybody wants to buy? So they started campaigns. The first campaign they pushed, which everybody has heard, is diamonds are forever. A diamond will last forever. Just so you know, a lot of minerals, a lot of different natural elements last forever. Gold lasts forever. So many different things last forever. But they were able to successfully push the concept that diamonds last forever, which started to raise the value of diamonds. Then when they got that done, the next step that they went to was ladies, if your man loves you and wants to be with you forever, he will get you a diamond. Why? Because diamonds are forever. That was the second step of the campaign. It went beautifully. So now diamonds started becoming a thing that women wanted. Then they went into the movie industry and entertainment industry and started paying producers and scriptwriters and actors to propose on camera, in movies, at red carpets and stuff, to propose with a diamond ring, which started to create a need for people to buy diamonds to propose. Then the next step that they went to was they created an unspoken law on the fact that the diamond ring for your engagement needs to be two or three times the salary of the man, which also now became a new rule in the world. So instead of just marketing what they were selling, they actually sold us that's their commodity which they controlled mostly was more valuable than everything else. So that's what I mean by why now. Yes, diamonds last forever, but why are they telling me this now? Who benefits from what they are telling me? So they turned a beautiful marketing pitch into a worldwide dominance for a commodity that they owned 80% of. And that's because none of us questioned anything. The next question: what authority are they claiming? You know, this is similar to when I asked who is giving me this information. A lot of people are putting out information, but they don't even back it up with any authority. Let's say somebody tells you that I am I am a dentist, and because I'm a dentist, you need to brush your teeth this way, that way, that way to get this done. But we don't check. Have you done any research? What authority are you using to give me this information? There are so many things in our lives that we are flowing people blindly without actually knowing whether they did the research, whether they did the work. There are so many products that you buy and you bring into your house, and you don't know any work that was done towards it. You are eating foods right now that you believe are good for you, but you don't know if they are good for you or not because you haven't done the research, and maybe even the person selling it to you hasn't done the research. The next question: what do they want me to believe or to do? Have you ever considered when somebody is giving you information, what are they trying to get me to do because of the information? Let me give you an example. As I'm talking to you right now, do you know what I want you to do? I want you to actually go into your life and question all the decisions and information in your life. When you start asking those questions on the information that they are giving you, what are they trying to get out of me? When they tell me that maybe everybody go and put your money in this one place, you know, everybody get a stable job so that you can do this. What are they trying to get you to do? And that comes to the next question, which is who benefits from what they want me to do with this information? It's so weird that we don't ask this question on who benefits. Now, I'm going to talk about something that's going to shake you a bit, but unfortunately, the world we live in right now is heavily commercialized. You know, the world used to be a place where we cared about each other and we did things for each other. But that's not where we live again. Everything which is done right now is very commercial. So things which should be done out of humanity are done as professions: education, medicine and healthcare, food, water, every single thing in our life is commercialized. Have you ever asked yourself, how does this person benefit from what they are doing for me? To those who own businesses, I'm going to ask you a question. If your business could offer a one-time solution to a customer, would you do it or would you find a way to keep bringing the customer back again and again and again? If you've ever run a business, you know that the way to be profitable is to bring your customer back again and again and again. So a lot of the things that you are doing, a lot of the things that you are supporting, is people who are figuring out ways of bringing you back again and again. They don't give you a one-time solution, not because they can't, but because it doesn't serve them. For my fellow graphic designers and video editors, do you remember a time when if you wanted to use Adobe Premiere or Adobe Photoshop, you paid a one-time fee and that was it? But suddenly it's a subscription. So that you pay every month again and again and again. Because why charge you once when I can keep charging you monthly? Have you noticed that the world has moved from ownership to subscription? We are literally renting everything that we do right now. We rent electricity, we rent the programs that we use, we rent the internet. At least in Africa, it's not as bad. But in the West, they are renting their homes, they are renting their cars, they are renting, look, some are renting TVs, the phone they use, everything is on a subscription model. Because what this does is it keeps you dependent on people. It allows them to keep benefiting, it brings you to them over and over again. So you have to question when they give you that information, or when you are watching TV and they tell you you need to do this. You have to question why are they making you feel you need to do that? Who is benefiting at the end of the day? Let me talk about the banking system, for instance. Sorry, my bank people, but I have to say it. I know a lot of people think about banking and they think the only way banks make money is from the fees that we give them. Like, do you really think banks are so wealthy and luxurious because of the small fee that you pay monthly? The banking system is built in a way that the more money you keep in the bank, the more the bank is able to make. Because what the bank does is they use your money to make money. Every single time you are storing money in the bank, if it's 10,000, 50,000, 100,000, they pile up everybody's money that has come together and invest your money. Make interest on your money that they invested, and then when you need your money, they give you your exact money back. Do you see what a beautiful business model that is? You get to invest unlimited amounts without having to put your own money up. Of course, they're required to keep 10% of that money, but the 90% of the money can be invested. Think about that for a second. So anytime you've made some big money, you've worked hard, you've made 1 million, and you've put the 1 million in your bank account, you've just given 1 million to your bank for them to invest. So let's say they invest your 1 million and they get an investment return of 20%. The bank just made 200,000 off your money, and you're not going to see any part of that. Even when you decide to do investments with a bank, let me break it down to you. The reason why you need financial knowledge. Even when you do investments with a bank, there's a beautiful system that they have where they take a lot of people's investments and they buy the investment together. So let's say a hundred people all want to do treasury bills: 10,000, 5,000, 20,000, 30,000, they put all the people's money together and it becomes a big amount. So when they are going to buy the treasury bill, the treasury bills, based on how much they are investing, they can negotiate a higher interest rate and then they come and pay you the lower interest rate. So if Treasury bills, for instance, interest rate is 5%, they can take everybody's money, use that as a bargaining tool to go and negotiate 10%. Then they will come and give you only 5%. Which now means they just made an extra 5% from everybody's money without actually having to work for the money. It's a beautiful business idea. Now, speaking of those who are going to benefit, now let me get a little deeper. You know, most of the things I've spoken about is short-term benefits, is things that are easy to calculate and things that you can easily figure out. Let's go deeper. Let's look at certain things that have benefited people over a long period. Let's talk about something uncomfortable. Let's talk about slavery. Let's talk about colonization. You know, one of the things that they say is Europe ended slavery. They ended colonization. But the truth is, the reason it ended was because they realized they didn't need to colonize us with force anymore. They could just colonize our minds. If you look at the benefits of colonization, what they left over here before leaving our countries, the main things they gave us, which were their governments, their education, their religion, and their media. And these four things control and shape everything about us. And we never question any of them. Let me give you an example. The world map which we are taught in school, the world map that everybody knows and trusts and believes in isn't accurate. Now, as I'm telling you this right now, go on Google and search this for yourself. It is out there. The information is known. But that same wrong world map is taught in schools. The same world map that reduces the size of Africa, the same world map that makes us believe the US and Europe are larger and you know grander than Africa is wrong, and the world knows it. Check this out for yourself. I don't even want to go too deep in it. And then when you start to realize that the world map that you were taught is wrong, then you have to ask yourself the next question: what else was I taught that was wrong? There's so many things I started to learn in recent times that made me wonder why I was never taught this. You see, you're one of the main reasons that a lot of young people right now are watching podcasts. One reason I assume you watch me a lot is the information that I give on finance and money. Have you ever asked yourself why you've never been taught this before? Why it had to take me going to learn from different sources? I've paid for courses, I've paid different people to teach me certain things to be able to come and teach you for you to learn these things. When you paid for school, when you watch TV, you watch the media give you information, why don't they ever give you this right information? Why is it taking independent sources to give the right information? It's because a system was created to keep us locked. A system was created to prevent everybody from becoming rich. If you understand the way money works, if you understand the way the system works, you understand that you see Aretos principle, the 80 20 rule, states that 20% of the public, 20% of people make 80% of the revenue. 20% always brings in the 80%. That means that. Other 80% are hungry and suffering. So at every point in time, the system needs to create it in such a way that those 80% are going to stay down. If you were taught in school from the age of 5 up till 23 how to invest, how to make money, how to definitely make sure you are a millionaire by the age of 40 to 45, then who's going to be poor for the system to take advantage of? Not everyone can be rich. If everyone is rich, that means no one is rich. That means we are all equal. And if we are in an equal world, then the benefits that the few are receiving will be stripped off of them. So they need to keep a system that keeps 80% down. And it's done in four ways: education, government, religion, and media. And it works beautifully because we don't question anything. You were taught from childhood. Go to school, get a degree, pass your exams, get a good job, work hard, retire. That is a good life. How's that going for you? Like honestly, how is that going for you? Is that a good life? How has that served you? Aren't you watching the outliers? Aren't you watching the people who found a different way? Who were creative? The people who decided ownership was the way. Aren't you watching them live better lives? Yet you keep getting fed the same information by the same people, the same system, and you still don't question why they're giving you that information. Even things that we should be able to easily trust, like medicine and food, have all been commercialized so heavily. These days, how many vitamins are you required to take to be healthy? How many checkups do you need to do? You know, every day, don't buy this food, buy this food. Oh, once you get this food, you have to get this medicine, then you have to get this. It's all been commercialized so heavily. Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not here trying to say any system is evil. I'm not here. This is not uh, you know, uh what was the word, conspiracy theory or anything. What I'm trying to let you understand is everybody has an agenda. So they do things that serve their agenda, not your agenda. When you are paying school fees, the school administrator and the owner of the school is not thinking about your child's education. They are thinking about how you can make enough money so that they can take their wife on a vacation. When you are going to eat at a restaurant, I'm sorry, but the owner of the restaurant is not thinking about let me buy the best oil so that my customers are not going to have heart problems in 10 years. They are thinking, how do I buy the most affordable oil so that I can make enough profit to open four new branches so I can take my wife on a vacation? When you're going to the hospital, the doctor has bills. The hospital needs to pay rent. AC is expensive. He has to pay his employees. So when you go to the hospital and you tell the doctor, I have malaria, I'm feeling cold, I have this, I have that, and they say, okay, but first we need to do 10 tests to confirm. Let's test for so many unnecessary things. It's not that the doctor is a bad person, it's not that the hospitals are evil, it's that they have bills to pay, which they can't pay if you are only going to come in and get one test, get only the medicine for that and go away. Then how about all this equipment that they've bought? All this shiny new equipment that they've bought. Look, I run a production company. If a client comes to me right now and they need something done and they can get it shot on their phone and edit it on their phone at home, should I tell them that? Why? Then what's my use? If a client comes and all I need to tell them is install this app on your phone, shoot it with your camera and edit it. Do you think I am smart if I tell them that? No. What I'll need to tell them is, you know, for this particular project, we need to use aperture lights and shoot this and shoot that and shoot that. Then of course, hopefully I deliver so well that the next time they'll want the same thing. But my agenda is for me to make money. When you understand that, that anytime you're making the decision, you know that, okay, this person isn't out for my best interest, they're out for their best interest. So let me get what I need out of it. But I don't want to walk in here thinking I've made a best friend who is looking out for me. You have to question everything. The worst part about not questioning things is we take so many false pieces of news, so much wrong information, we take so much in, and then we make it our identity. That's the worst part of it. Now, not only are you being fed falsehoods, you've also made it your identity. Let me ask you, whoever you are, wherever you are, sitting there watching me right now, if I ask you, who are you? Do you know what you're going to say? Everything you're going to say is some information that has been given to you by someone. You're going to qualify yourself by, of course, your name first, then you're going to mention the country or the city that you live in, the continent that you're on. You're going to mention your religion. Once you start thinking about your accolades, you're going to mention the school that you went to, you're going to mention the job that you have. You've made all these things your identity without ever asking, who are you? Because these are the things that have been given to you in this world. But deep down inside, who are you? Without mentioning your job, your country, and your name, if I asked you, who are you? Do you even have an answer? Or are you just operating every day like an NPC? Who are you? We form identities around these things so much that we will fight to protect the identities. Somebody has told you some information for so long, you have believed it so much that when someone is saying something contrary to it, you will fight them, you will insult them, you will argue, you will pick up a weapon and attack somebody just because of information someone gave you. Just because you were told to hate someone, you hate the person so much that when someone else comes to tell you they may be a good person, you will fight them. Just because your father told you that Chelsea is the best club in the world, and someone else's father told them that Manchester United is the best club in the world, 20 years down the line, you are standing there throwing punches because of Chelsea and Manchester United. When Chelsea and Manchester United are just trying to make money so they can take their wives on vacation. Why have you made that your identity? Why are you spending two hours of your time fighting for a false identity instead of building something for yourself? Why aren't you concentrating on building something that someone else will fight for you? There are two types of people in the world. We have consumers and we have producers. 80% of us are consumers. We are consuming the information, we are consuming the lies, we are consuming everything we have been told without questioning any of them. And the 20% are just producing and giving it to us. Learn, read, question, especially understand the history of things. Like sports is a beautiful distraction. If you understand the origin of sports, if you understand the origin of the gladiator games, when the Romans needed to distract the citizens from all the things that were going wrong, so they created the gladiator games to keep them occupied so that they don't ask questions about the governance and the suffering and everything. They had to keep them distracted. When you understand that, then now look at your life and look at the fact that while your wife is at home waiting for you to make ends meet for them to survive, for your children to be able to get the next meal. You are sneaking away to go and watch a football match. You sit there for three hours because you have to get there an hour ahead to argue with your boys' boys on who's going to win. And after the game, you spend another hour arguing over who won. Are you distracted or are you a producer? Question everything. I'm not saying don't trust anything, but question everything. And once you do your questioning, once you elevate that level, when you know the decisions I am making are my decisions, because I sought out the answers and I was satisfied with what I got and I made an informed decision. Not I was following the crowd, not that everybody said go left, so I went left. If I did decide to go left, it is because I knew what I was getting from the left and I wanted to go left. Once you reach that point, then you will start to become the mastermind I know you are destined to be. My name is Richie Menta, and I'll see you next time.