Welcome to the Elevate With Eli Show — Elias Santiago created this podcast to help & serve the many with meditation, mindset-hacks, business tips, leadership tips, relationship tips, and to help others reach their greatest potential!
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EP. 4 | OWN YOUR ECONOMY — TRAVEL IS NOT A REWARD. IT'S A STRATEGY.
Travel Is Not a Reward. It's a Strategy.
I didn't travel because I made it. I traveled because it made me.
“December 2017 — I'd just gotten out of trouble. Cut my dreadlocks, changed how I dressed, stopped moving with the same crowd, started praying for a direction. And then I got hired as a cameraman on a world financial literacy tour. I was in the back of the room running the camera, watching people's lives change in real time.
Standing in the back of that room, I thought: I need to be up there.
That one trip shifted my trajectory more than any course, any book, or any YouTube video ever could have. The people I met on that tour built the network that eventually became the foundation of my business. You can't replicate that by watching a webinar from your apartment.
Right now I'm heading to Portugal — 5,000 entrepreneurs in one room, from all over the world. The calibration that happens when you're surrounded by builders at that level is something that has to be experienced. Your sense of what's possible expands. Your standards recalibrate. Your network compounds.
And here's what most people miss: the trip is a write-off. The suit I buy for the event — write-off. My wife coming with me — write-off. When you build a business, travel stops being a reward you earn at the end and becomes a tool you use to build faster.”
- From my mentor Jay Awal
Every retreat we run is built around this same principle. It's a content machine. A network event. A funnel accelerator. A lifestyle proof point. All at once. The investment isn't the flight — the investment is who you become when you step into rooms you didn't previously belong in.
The flight is cheap. The room is everything.
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6 Apr 2026
CRYPTO ISN'T THE PLAN. IT'S A LANE
Crypto Isn't the Plan. It's a Lane.
Crypto made people rich. It also wiped people out. The difference between those two outcomes was one thing: whether they had a system, or just a feeling.
Look at the Bitcoin cycle chart. Every major peak — $19K in 2017, $64K in 2021, current highs — came back down to the previous support zone. Every time. Almost exactly one year later. And every time it recovered, it went higher. I call this the "late friend" pattern. If someone is always late, you can bet on them being late. You build that into your planning.
“I started buying $100–$150 a week in 2018 when Bitcoin was at $3,000. Not because I was certain. Because dollar-cost averaging removed my emotion from the equation. It didn't matter if the price was up or down that week — the machine kept running. By 2021, that $20,000 investment hit a quarter million.”
- High level convos with my mentor
“Then I made the mistake. When the numbers started multiplying, I started chasing — high-risk alt-coins, bigger potential returns. I lost $180,000.” The lesson isn't that crypto is dangerous. The lesson is that the moment your identity attaches to the number, the system breaks down. You stop thinking like a builder and start thinking like a gambler.
Right now, we're in what the chart suggests is an accumulation phase — roughly 400 days from the next potential major move. That's not a guarantee. That's a pattern. And the play isn't to bet everything on a pattern. The play is to put 10% of your income into a systematic position, let the machine run, and build the other four lanes of your financial life in the meantime.
Crypto is a lane. Not the plan. Know the difference before you put real money in.
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30 Mar 2026
NERVOUS SYSTEM FIRST MONEY SECOND
Nervous System First, Money Second
Every bad financial decision I've ever watched someone make — including my own — happened while their nervous system was running hot.
In sales, they call it "commission breath." You need the deal too badly. People feel it. You chase the wrong opportunities. You buy at the top because you're excited. You hold too long because your identity is attached to the number. You make decisions from fear or greed, never from clarity.
Here's the anchor story: in the 2021 Bitcoin bull run, I made a quarter million dollars. And then I let it get to my head. Miami. $4,500/month rent. Maserati. Two-bedroom condo. I was performing the life instead of building it.
When the market turned, I made the decision that confused everyone around me. I downsized. Went from the two-bedroom to a one-bedroom. Sold the Maserati, bought a Mazda. My friends thought something was wrong with me. I called it the Art of the Pivot.
“Compare that to another story — a friend from Washington Heights who hit $250K/month at peak. Bought a Lamborghini on a balloon payment. Carried a diamond tester everywhere to check if other people's chains were real. When the income dropped, the identity required the lifestyle to stay. He couldn't pivot. Burned bridges, sold everything, back to under six figures. No stability. No foundation. All of it was temporary because it was always performance, never infrastructure.”
- high level mentorship conversations
The difference between those two outcomes wasn't intelligence. It wasn't work ethic. It was whether the identity was attached to the outputs.
This is why wellness isn't a luxury — float tanks, IV therapy, cold press juicing, nervous system recovery. These are maintenance tools for a high-performance decision-maker. When your body is in fight-or-flight, every financial call gets made from survival mode. Fix the hardware, and the software runs differently.
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