Speaker 1: Welcome the Money in Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey
Speaker 1: is John O'Briant, And this is the Money in Wealth
Speaker 1: podcast series. Built to Fail talk about a well underrated
Speaker 1: topic because you're built to win, because God don't make dirt,
Speaker 1: because you can't fall from the floor, because success is
Speaker 1: going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Because
Speaker 1: rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without
Speaker 1: a storm first. It's actually a scientific fact. Even the
Speaker 1: Bible will suggests you cannot grow without legitimate suffering. And
Speaker 1: so we've misunderstood this thing called failure. We think about
Speaker 1: us and just it's simply the outcome to an experiment.
Speaker 1: I've been built by failure. This is a topic that
Speaker 1: I want to get into as a series on my
Speaker 1: Money and Wealth podcast. I'm going to talk to people
Speaker 1: who've gone through the fires to get to the promised land.
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk to people who've gone through something
Speaker 1: to become somebody. But you're also listening to somebody and
Speaker 1: looking at somebody who teaches because he's been there, who
Speaker 1: instructs because he's seen the path walked the path, experienced
Speaker 1: the path. It is his past. That person is me.
Speaker 1: People will look at me and make a number of
Speaker 1: assumptions and presumptions which are mostly wrong most of the time.
Speaker 1: They see my confidence. They see me walk in a room,
Speaker 1: walked into a convenience eating restaurant earlier tonight, and the
Speaker 1: gentleman behind the counter he saw me looking at the
Speaker 1: folks in line and assessing how long it was going
Speaker 1: to take. And I just didn't say anything. I just
Speaker 1: was prepared to walk out, and he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: come here. I can help you myself. I see you're
Speaker 1: a man on purpose. I don't know who you are.
Speaker 1: You look slightly familiar to me, but you walked in
Speaker 1: with the presence, and I want to know who you are.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to serve you myself. I'm going to
Speaker 1: make the food myself. So I have a moment to
Speaker 1: talk to you. Smart young man, he's going to be
Speaker 1: very successful in his life because he's nosy, he's curious.
Speaker 1: God gave you two ears in one mouth, so you
Speaker 1: listen twice as much as you talk. And he's humble,
Speaker 1: and he's fascinated with success, and I'm fascinated with success.
Speaker 1: But what he saw walk in that restaurant was not
Speaker 1: somebody who was built by seamless, uninterrupted successes. He found
Speaker 1: somebody built by failure, who has been tow up from
Speaker 1: the flow up, who has been over a rounded, through it,
Speaker 1: into it, and so he knows how to get through it.
Speaker 1: Somebody who takes nose for vitamins. I take nose for vitamins.
Speaker 1: I mean, what are you gonna do to me? I
Speaker 1: was homeless for six months in my life when I
Speaker 1: was eighteen years old. I failed one hundred times before
Speaker 1: that point, before I was eighteen, and different business ideas
Speaker 1: that just did not work. I saw murder when I
Speaker 1: was six or seven. I saw my mom and dad divorce.
Speaker 1: Johnny will Smith wanted the Smith. Two amazing human beings
Speaker 1: now helpers in heaven with our Lord. They've been promoted,
Speaker 1: but when they were in this world, in this earth,
Speaker 1: they did the best they could to raise me Donnie
Speaker 1: Dave Harris and my sister Monty Maral Hoskins, and they
Speaker 1: did an incredible job, but they did not see themselves
Speaker 1: as better together. They did not see themselves as a team.
Speaker 1: And even though they were brilliants and hard working it
Speaker 1: wasn't enough anyway, they divorced. The number one cost the divorce,
Speaker 1: as you heard me say time and again, it's money.
Speaker 1: So I saw that death of my family net worth
Speaker 1: and family structure. I've seen the murder of the guy
Speaker 1: who saved my life. Ohc was his nickname. I've seen all.
Speaker 1: This is in my book Financial Literacy for All, which
Speaker 1: if you don't have you need to get. Number one
Speaker 1: bestseller in economics and finance and business, by the way,
Speaker 1: continues to this day, and there is number one. It
Speaker 1: goes from number one and number two. The next time
Speaker 1: I checked it was number one. Pick it up. It
Speaker 1: will change your life. I've seen failures, I've seen successes.
Speaker 1: My best friend, George, was murdered when I was nine
Speaker 1: years old and he was eighteen. And so this is
Speaker 1: not a guy with a silver spoon in his mouth.
Speaker 1: This is not a guy who had a trust fund.
Speaker 1: This is not a guy who nothing wrong with all
Speaker 1: that that's fantastic. I salute anybody who's got those assets
Speaker 1: going into life. That's fantastic. That's not my story. This
Speaker 1: is not a guy who had you know, Ivy league
Speaker 1: college degrees that yes, I've got a chair from Harvard
Speaker 1: in my office. It's because I went to a Harvard
Speaker 1: executive leadership training program for leaders after I had already
Speaker 1: succeeded on some level. And I've got a couple of
Speaker 1: honorary doctorate degrees. I think three, two or three. I
Speaker 1: know at least two. But I had the equivalent of
Speaker 1: a high school education and graduated with a ged was
Speaker 1: Chris rock calls good enough diploma and went to community
Speaker 1: college after that. But I was always just ready to go.
Speaker 1: I was ready to get out in business and do
Speaker 1: things and succeed what to apply myself in life. And
Speaker 1: everybody who works for me, by the way, today has
Speaker 1: a college degree, an advanced degree. I don't hire dummies.
Speaker 1: Everybody who's smarter than me in their expertise area. People
Speaker 1: know more and more about less and less is what
Speaker 1: an expert is. And I like those experts to be
Speaker 1: best in class in their areas. But no one out
Speaker 1: works me, no one out thinks me, no one out
Speaker 1: energizes me, no one out I'm the chief inspiration officer,
Speaker 1: chief visionary officer, chief execution officer, chief get it done officer.
Speaker 1: People may be a PhD, but I'm a PhD and
Speaker 1: I'll get up earlier, work harder, and stay later while
Speaker 1: you're in late long lunch leave early. People make the
Speaker 1: mistake of thinking that being smart enough is enough. It's not.
Speaker 1: Good habits are more important than being smart. Actually, you
Speaker 1: can't be a dummy. Let me make that clear. And
Speaker 1: everybody who can get a college education should get one.
Speaker 1: But let me be clear, you must have good habits
Speaker 1: in order to be successful. I'm going to do an
Speaker 1: entire podcast on having good habits, but at the moment today,
Speaker 1: I want to absolutely remove this stigma about failure. Failure
Speaker 1: does not mean that you are a failure. It means
Speaker 1: you failed at something. It means that there was an
Speaker 1: outcome to experiment that was not successful. It doesn't define
Speaker 1: who you are. Just says this is what I went through.
Speaker 1: It's on the path to where you're going again. Rainbows
Speaker 1: only follow storms. Success, as I said earlier, is going
Speaker 1: from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm over the
Speaker 1: rounded through it. You're going to have to get to it. Success,
Speaker 1: as I keep saying, is going from failure to failure
Speaker 1: without loss of enthusiasm. It doesn't define you. Life is
Speaker 1: ten percent what life does to you in ninety percent
Speaker 1: how you choose to respond to it. What your respond
Speaker 1: is going to be. You don't react to what you
Speaker 1: respond You come right at it, you go, you come
Speaker 1: right at it, not over a round it. You know,
Speaker 1: don't avoid it. You're coming right to face it. Because
Speaker 1: what is a kill you makes you stronger, It makes you,
Speaker 1: It builds resiliency. Why am I telling you this? Why
Speaker 1: is this important podcast on money and wealth? Because every poverty,
Speaker 1: every form of poverty two reasons, by the way, every
Speaker 1: form of poverty three reasons. Beyond sustenance poverty, which is
Speaker 1: a roof over your head, food on the table, and
Speaker 1: reasonable health care. Sustenance poverty poverty, which is to sustain yourself.
Speaker 1: So everybody should have sustenance. Everybody should have a roof
Speaker 1: over your head, reasonable health care, food on the table.
Speaker 1: That should not be something that we beg for society.
Speaker 1: It's something that society provides. It's biblical, by the way.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, every form of poverty is mindset. Whether
Speaker 1: you believe you can, whether you believe you can't, you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. And so my concern is this generation that
Speaker 1: we have today who's grown up seeing a black president.
Speaker 1: You know, who's grown up seeing and experiencing a run
Speaker 1: up on the stock market market, seeing real estate pride
Speaker 1: prices that have been on the rise. They might have missed,
Speaker 1: probably did miss the two thousand and eight real estate crisis.
Speaker 1: And even if they did, it's in the rear view mirror.
Speaker 1: Who's who saw a social justice reckoning on Black America?
Speaker 1: If you're black and brown, if you're African American, are
Speaker 1: African or people of African descent, you've seen this. You've
Speaker 1: seen you saw a positive reaction to the devastating murder
Speaker 1: of George Floyd. And you saw somewhere between sixty billion
Speaker 1: and three hundred billion, depending on how you calculate, invested
Speaker 1: in you. And Wow, there's pushback on that. Now, the
Speaker 1: impression by somebody who's twenty or even thirty years old
Speaker 1: might be that that success for me is preordained. That
Speaker 1: you've got to go to you know, go to college,
Speaker 1: go to school. Maybe you know, maybe don't need school.
Speaker 1: They may think, yes, you do. I need to address well,
Speaker 1: you know, have a nice Instagram handle, have some great
Speaker 1: social media, get some business cards made, you know, Lisa Carr,
Speaker 1: go to some meetings, you know, say the right things.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to be successful. I deserve, I'm entitled
Speaker 1: to success. No, you aren't, and you won't be because
Speaker 1: you aren't prepared to fail. You aren't you have no
Speaker 1: experience with failure. And the things that rattle and shake
Speaker 1: people today absolutely astound me. I tell people all the
Speaker 1: time that what you're going through is, with all due respect,
Speaker 1: high class problems. If you live in the United States
Speaker 1: of America or a developed country you're living in listening
Speaker 1: to this from the UK now Kingdom, You're listening to
Speaker 1: this from some developed country somewhere in the world. Frankly,
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this or washing this, you've got
Speaker 1: some kind of a digital device that's cutting edge, then
Speaker 1: you consider yourself lucky. Certainly, if you're in the United
Speaker 1: States of America and you have a job, you have
Speaker 1: a source of income, you have you know, you have shelter,
Speaker 1: you have food, you have opportunity. When you get up
Speaker 1: in the morning, you've you've been blessed. You have at
Speaker 1: least one parent. And so there are people in this world.
Speaker 1: There's a lady right now trying to get from her
Speaker 1: hut in on the east coast or west coast of Africa,
Speaker 1: trying to get from her hut to the well to
Speaker 1: get some water without being abused. That's her daily challenge
Speaker 1: as a woman in Afghanistan right now, that's trying to
Speaker 1: keep her basic dignity and goes on in a third
Speaker 1: of the world. It appears as at war with itself.
Speaker 1: And so I'm not discounting your problems when I'm saying,
Speaker 1: if you're concerned about your credit card bill or the
Speaker 1: mortgage payment or whatever, that's important. Yes, and yes you
Speaker 1: got too much wanted into your money, but consider yourself
Speaker 1: blessed to have these problems. So I wanted to first
Speaker 1: tell you I've been to where you are. That's why
Speaker 1: i found an operation Hope, because I've had that experience
Speaker 1: with it at nine years old in the classroom when
Speaker 1: that baker came to my classroom and taught me financial literacy,
Speaker 1: and everybody else was throwing paper planes and playing around
Speaker 1: and joking. But again I had by that time, I
Speaker 1: had these experiences where I saw a murder of my
Speaker 1: guy who saved my life. I know experienced. I didn't
Speaker 1: see it firsthand, but of course experience my best friend
Speaker 1: being murdered with my next red neighbor over drugs, And
Speaker 1: I saw my bob dad divorce and family tore apart,
Speaker 1: and my mother hustle to go buy our house, our
Speaker 1: first house in Compton, California, as a single mother. And
Speaker 1: I had taken life seriously by the time I was
Speaker 1: nine years old. And this banker came to my classroom
Speaker 1: in tall financial literacy wome economics class, which doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1: And I asked that banker, what do you do for
Speaker 1: a living? And how'd you get rich legally? And I
Speaker 1: was dead serious, And where'd you get that suit? From? Man?
Speaker 1: Only people I wear. The only white man I saw
Speaker 1: wear a suit in this neighborhood is a detective. And
Speaker 1: it's not a good suit. It's a bad suit. I
Speaker 1: don't mean a bad suit. I mean a bad suit.
Speaker 1: I mean polyester. I mean not a good suit. Why
Speaker 1: tie this dude's suit? That was gorgeous. It was beautiful.
Speaker 1: It was Italian stitching. I could see it today. It
Speaker 1: was dark blue and a white shirt and a red
Speaker 1: tie crisp. He had polo shoes. He had a business card.
Speaker 1: Nobody in my family had a business card. He said,
Speaker 1: the sixteenth floor. There was nothing beyond the I believe
Speaker 1: the six floors of I think he was six floors,
Speaker 1: might have been eight, eight floors or something. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't the skyscraper in Compton. That was a courthouse. Everything
Speaker 1: else was just a couple stories or single story in Compton.
Speaker 1: He was in the sixteenth floor. Man, way you work,
Speaker 1: how do you hear in the middle of the day.
Speaker 1: My mom was an hourly worker. McDonald Dounlard's aircraft became
Speaker 1: bowling aircraft. She had a two fifteen minute breaks in lunch.
Speaker 1: Other than that, she was an hourly worker. She only
Speaker 1: showed up to school if I got in trouble, and
Speaker 1: that wasn't a good thing when I saw her show
Speaker 1: up at school. So how are you showing up any
Speaker 1: time you want during the day. I'm on a salary.
Speaker 1: What's a salary? It's like I was a medium Martian
Speaker 1: man and again he told me, I'm a banker and
Speaker 1: our finance entrepreneurs. I said, sir, I don't know what
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur is, but if you're financing it and it's legal,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be one. Rainbows after storms, I became one.
Speaker 1: Seeing everybody in my neighborhood, which I just toured recently.
Speaker 1: At Compton, California, prison, probation, parole, and death because they
Speaker 1: did not take that banker seriously. They did not have
Speaker 1: good role models that like I had. Even though I
Speaker 1: was in a troubled situation at home, my mom and dad.
Speaker 1: My dad gave me says if yes I can. My
Speaker 1: mother gave me says, y yes I I am. Self
Speaker 1: esteem and self confidence and belief in myself. They didn't
Speaker 1: have those benefits. They were just as smart as me.
Speaker 1: And I was gonna waste the luck of my childhood experience,
Speaker 1: and I was to try to bring as many people
Speaker 1: along with me as I could, which is why when
Speaker 1: I asked that banker whether any more bankers like you,
Speaker 1: and he said, yeah, there's nout tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: bankers in America. And I said, wait a minute, and
Speaker 1: your job is to loan poor people money. Make me
Speaker 1: sure I understand it's properly. We're trying to get a
Speaker 1: loan from Booboo and then Pooky and them and the
Speaker 1: mafia and the gangs we try to get I mean,
Speaker 1: got a loan from a dude and I tried to
Speaker 1: pay him back and he was like, no, this is
Speaker 1: not alone. You pay back man. And he looked at me,
Speaker 1: He's like, you really are naive, aren't you. He's like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do you a favor. Go get get like
Speaker 1: you know, give me my money, and then get out
Speaker 1: of here and never come back. And I never let
Speaker 1: that lesson passed me by. He let me go. He
Speaker 1: could have killed me. He was saying that you are
Speaker 1: mine man. When I make you a loan, you are mine.
Speaker 1: You I own you. The interest and the penalties on
Speaker 1: this situation are such that you don't pay this long back.
Speaker 1: You just you could pay the principal back. You'll never
Speaker 1: pay the interest back. We're in a relationship. And he
Speaker 1: let me go. He saw that I had real potential.
Speaker 1: He saw I was not supposed to be there. And
Speaker 1: I've been visited by grace several times. But grace is
Speaker 1: enhands by hustle and good intentions and the right mindset
Speaker 1: and the right glow in your eyes. And you know,
Speaker 1: luck is in hands by your hard work. God helps
Speaker 1: those that help themselves. Again. Proverb says, to be poors,
Speaker 1: not to not have anything, to be poors not to
Speaker 1: not do anything, and lazy hands make a man poor.
Speaker 1: And so I took that lesson that this guy was
Speaker 1: like this banker's all across America tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: bankers and ten thousand banks at that time, and the
Speaker 1: job was to lend poor people money. So wait a minute,
Speaker 1: all I got to do is prove to you that I
Speaker 1: can pay it back and that yes. So what do
Speaker 1: I'm doing today? What are we doing at scale at
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred locations across the country with Operation Hope just
Speaker 1: one of my entities. I've got five divisions of my
Speaker 1: holding company with four hundred employees. Now the largest, uh,
Speaker 1: the largest enterprise in the country around inclusive economics. I'm
Speaker 1: the biggest. I'm I'm the leading entrepreneur around inclusive economics,
Speaker 1: at least in the United States of America. Hundreds of
Speaker 1: millions of dollars worth of economic activity four billion dollars plus,
Speaker 1: and investments in underserved neighborhoods. You know, raising credit score
Speaker 1: is lowering debt, increasing saviors, getting the bank out of
Speaker 1: the no business, no year declined for loan, getting him
Speaker 1: back in the yes business. The only nonfrog profit allowed
Speaker 1: to operate inside of a bank branch in US history.
Speaker 1: That's right. Ever, the biggest banks in the world have
Speaker 1: us in their branches, this little kid from confidence, south
Speaker 1: central LA. And I'm in major corporations, major banks, in
Speaker 1: the government advice the President of United States of America,
Speaker 1: because of my mindset, because I got my mind right,
Speaker 1: because I never gave up, never gave in. Over around
Speaker 1: that threw it would I mean, and I'm telling you
Speaker 1: that people, they absolutely discounted me, they absolutely disrespected me.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how many times getting this in
Speaker 1: the book Up from Nothing, you can read that it's
Speaker 1: not about my successes, it's about my failures. All the
Speaker 1: people who looked at me and roll their eyes, they
Speaker 1: aren't rolling in their eyes anymore. But they if I
Speaker 1: had believed what they said to me at that point,
Speaker 1: I would have I would have given up. I would
Speaker 1: have thrown my hands up. But let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: Love is the only self renewing asset in the world.
Speaker 1: You love yourself and you know your God's child, You're
Speaker 1: just never gonna give up because you know that that
Speaker 1: failure is a you know, you know the dude, the
Speaker 1: Lucifer is a punk. Failure is lazy, just like Lucifer,
Speaker 1: the Devil's lazy, and failure's lazy. It's waiting for you
Speaker 1: to trip up on some easy stuff. But you just
Speaker 1: got to stay disciplined and focused again good habits, and
Speaker 1: never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever give up. And
Speaker 1: so this generation, I want you to understand that that
Speaker 1: that problems of what you experience, you get up in
Speaker 1: the morning. A challenge is something you get around to
Speaker 1: go through. It's not something they're supposed to stop you.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to think that that somebody's picking
Speaker 1: on you because life didn't work out for you today.
Speaker 1: No one promised your rose guard. Nobody promise your life
Speaker 1: will be good. Life was going to be free of
Speaker 1: grief or pain. Life is tough and so are you.
Speaker 1: And what what challenges are meant to do is to
Speaker 1: build your resiliency, build your self esteem, build your confidence,
Speaker 1: build your belief, build your you so that nobody can
Speaker 1: deny you. Know, one can can can step on you.
Speaker 1: Know it can tell you what you cannot do. What
Speaker 1: did doctor King say? Doctor King said, when he was
Speaker 1: in Memphis, Tennessey, right before he was assassinated with the
Speaker 1: sanitation workers there, they had these signs that I am
Speaker 1: a man in front of them. It was so beautiful,
Speaker 1: And he said no one can ride your back unless
Speaker 1: you're bent over, stand straight up. And by the way,
Speaker 1: doctor King got a C minus in public speaking from
Speaker 1: Krozier's seminary. I'm not kidding. Krozier seminary gave that man
Speaker 1: of C minus in public speaking. One of the professors said,
Speaker 1: if you don't stop talking like that, you'll never amount
Speaker 1: to anything. Thank god he had a sense of a
Speaker 1: focus and passion and distation and belief in himself. I
Speaker 1: got to see minus C plus in math and supposedly
Speaker 1: in the financial literacy success story for in whatever leader
Speaker 1: in the country helped to create federal policy for financial
Speaker 1: literacy in our federal government, inspired that under President Bush
Speaker 1: and President Obama work with President Clinton along these lines.
Speaker 1: Before that, I've worked with successive administrations and no nine
Speaker 1: presidents one. I don't claim and recognized by five. And
Speaker 1: I do my own thing. I get up in the morning,
Speaker 1: I do whatever I want, when I want, how I want, whatever,
Speaker 1: with whomever I want or not. Powers. You know, when
Speaker 1: you got the power, you don't need to use it.
Speaker 1: I don't scream outn't holler why I need to walk
Speaker 1: in that conveniced restaurant and announce who I was. He
Speaker 1: looked at me and knew I was somebody, And so
Speaker 1: will somebody look at you and know the same. When
Speaker 1: you are built to succeed, but you're gonna be built
Speaker 1: by failure. And that's okay. So here's some stories. You've
Speaker 1: heard me gone. You may say okay with this, John,
Speaker 1: You're an outlier, You're you're you. You know who can
Speaker 1: do you know, operation Hopes and turn around and do
Speaker 1: the promise homes company and sell that company for over
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars five years later? And who can
Speaker 1: do this? And who can do that and have two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty million views in part time online? Who
Speaker 1: can do it? You can do it. That's who can
Speaker 1: do it. I'm no different than you. I am you.
Speaker 1: I just believe. Do you believe? Here is what Denzel
Speaker 1: Washington had to say about the power of failure is
Speaker 1: He delivered a commencement address in twenty eleven the University
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania. He said, to fall forward. He emphasized the
Speaker 1: idea that failing is inevitable, but instead of falling backwards
Speaker 1: or being paralyzed by fear, you should fall forward. He
Speaker 1: explained that when you fall forward, you at least make
Speaker 1: progress and learning from your mistakes, moving forward in your goals,
Speaker 1: even if it's difficult. He said number two that you
Speaker 1: should embrace failure. He talks about how failure is part
Speaker 1: of life and that you and that it should not
Speaker 1: be feared. He recalls his own personal experience, including auditioning
Speaker 1: for roles for being and being rejected early in his career.
Speaker 1: These failures didn't stop him. They made him stronger and
Speaker 1: more determined. And let me tell you something about the
Speaker 1: ultimate fear, which is death. You don't know how long
Speaker 1: you're gonna live, but you damn sure know you're gonna die.
Speaker 1: What's the mystery? So make peace with it. Doctor King
Speaker 1: one said, it's not about how long you live. It's
Speaker 1: about how well you live, how good you live your life.
Speaker 1: Don't be afraid of anything. We're not human beings having
Speaker 1: a spiritual experience. Where spiritual beings having a human experience.
Speaker 1: Energy matters, and if you have the right energy, you
Speaker 1: live forever, because people don't. You die even when you die.
Speaker 1: You died twice. You die physically, and you die the
Speaker 1: last sometimes last time someone mentions your name. And that's
Speaker 1: not about what you give it's about what you get,
Speaker 1: and it's about your energy. It's about your vibes. Is
Speaker 1: it about your It's about how you flow. I'm always
Speaker 1: surprised when people say, John, you're such an inspiration. I
Speaker 1: don't get that. I'm I'm just doing me, I'm just
Speaker 1: being me right. But I've created an energy about myself
Speaker 1: that is my signature. And this is what Denzel Washington
Speaker 1: is saying here. Number three said if you if you
Speaker 1: don't fail, you're not even trying. Washington encourage people to
Speaker 1: take risk and try things that might lead to failure,
Speaker 1: because if you're always playing it safe, you're not pushing
Speaker 1: your limits. And this is gonna be a common theme
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear during today's podcast. By the way, spread
Speaker 1: this on. Tell your friends to subscribe to Money and
Speaker 1: Wealth with John O'Brien on on Black Effect Network on
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio. Tell them to go to Operation Hope
Speaker 1: and sign up to coaching and counseling fifteen hundred officers
Speaker 1: across the country scholarship through one hundred million dollars seventy
Speaker 1: five million dollars annual budget. I've raised me and my friend,
Speaker 1: me and my team at Operation Hope so that it
Speaker 1: doesn't cost you anything to get you ready and prepare
Speaker 1: for life. Get that book Financial Literacy for All as
Speaker 1: your instruction manual and mark it up, write it up
Speaker 1: right right in and underline it. But you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: this theme over and over again. If you don't fail,
Speaker 1: you're not even trying. He states that the Denzel Washington.
Speaker 1: He states that failure means you're at least trying to
Speaker 1: achieve something bigger, in audacious. Without trying, there's no success
Speaker 1: at all. Number four, he said, dream big, but remember
Speaker 1: that dreams without goals are just dreams. He urged graduates
Speaker 1: to dream big, but also to set goals, to move towards,
Speaker 1: to move toward those goals, and accept failure as a
Speaker 1: necessary part of reaching those goals. Again, it's not a
Speaker 1: determination of who you are. It's just simply saying you're
Speaker 1: on a journey and you tripped and fail. It's not
Speaker 1: about tripping and falling. It's getting back up at the rut,
Speaker 1: brushing yourself off again. I take no for vitamins again.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna do to me after I tell
Speaker 1: you I've been a homeless Tell me no I had
Speaker 1: know what I walked in your office. It doesn't bother me,
Speaker 1: it doesn't FaZe me. I'm not focusing on if I
Speaker 1: try one hundred times, I get ninety eight no's, I'm
Speaker 1: not thinking. I'm not I thinking about the ninety eight o's.
Speaker 1: I'm focusing on to two yeses. Can I get an amen?
Speaker 1: Number five? He says. Perseverance over fear. Washington challenges the
Speaker 1: audience to keep moving forward despite the fear of failure.
Speaker 1: He highlights how fear of failure can often prevent people
Speaker 1: from taking meaningful steps toward their ambitions. We're all just
Speaker 1: angels with dirty faces. A saint is a center that
Speaker 1: got up. I mean doctor King was called Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: Martin Luther Kun, Uncle Tom sell out and want to
Speaker 1: be by his so called friends. Would he won the
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize because they were player hating them and
Speaker 1: they were jealous And he died chainedmoking, overweight and depressed. Yes,
Speaker 1: he did because he thought he had failed. And I
Speaker 1: hope in heaven he can see through his consciousness and
Speaker 1: his unconscious spirit that he is enlightened and lit up
Speaker 1: the entire world. Mandela went to prison at forty seven,
Speaker 1: an angry black Man say that twenty seven years found
Speaker 1: his piece created effectively Mandela University, which is what the
Speaker 1: Prison Awards called it in his honor. And when he
Speaker 1: came out he wasn't happy, divorce his wife and married
Speaker 1: the love of his life. And everything that we know
Speaker 1: that he succeeded. He did it in his seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: What can you do with a life that may end
Speaker 1: at seventy or eighty Perseverance over fear again Number five.
Speaker 1: Washington challenged the autists to keep moving forward despite the
Speaker 1: fear of failure, and he had a famous quote. You
Speaker 1: will fail at some point in your life. Accept it.
Speaker 1: You will lose, you will embarrass yourself. You will suck
Speaker 1: at something, maybe many things. I sucked at basketball, football
Speaker 1: was a tackling dummy. I broke my nose running in
Speaker 1: the guy in ways junior high school and playing basketball
Speaker 1: or either that broke either I ran to him or
Speaker 1: he did it intentionally. But I remember I just saw
Speaker 1: nothing but chess. I was pretty good at track, but
Speaker 1: you know, I just was organized sports like that wasn't
Speaker 1: my thing, wasn't my jam. I wasn't gonna get a
Speaker 1: sports scholarship, so I had to be smart then and
Speaker 1: what sport I ultimately found find I found when I
Speaker 1: was fifty years old. I found motorsports, full competitive allo
Speaker 1: racing license to day. And I'm pretty dang on good
Speaker 1: as a race car driver. You can find some of
Speaker 1: my videos online. And I'm not the fastest guy even
Speaker 1: on the track, but I'm very consistent, very smooth most
Speaker 1: of the times. And I, you know, as folks are
Speaker 1: overdoing it, I'm just doing it. And you know, I
Speaker 1: do pretty good typically. And if I make a mistake
Speaker 1: as typically because I'm just too much in my zone anyway,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other thing. But again I made a mistake,
Speaker 1: I wasn't a mistake, and I didn't let anybody, you know,
Speaker 1: tell me anything differently. But motorsports, you don't see a
Speaker 1: lot of people of color out there on racetrack, but
Speaker 1: once you put on the helmet, it's just the only
Speaker 1: race is racing, right. But I love going and doing
Speaker 1: things other people haven't done, are gone and done motorsports
Speaker 1: and sports, real estate and finance and technology, financial literacy, etc.
Speaker 1: In business where these are just not things that people
Speaker 1: of color were going after banking, et cetera. And I
Speaker 1: decided to master not because I focused on that, or
Speaker 1: I didn't pick them because somebody else was doing it.
Speaker 1: I picked them because they were opportunities, and I ignored
Speaker 1: the fact that that supposedly there are barriers. I just
Speaker 1: walked through life consciously oblivious of most things around me
Speaker 1: because it just doesn't matter. But people have opinions and
Speaker 1: their failures. They're tell you have a relationship, they don't
Speaker 1: have one. They'll tell you how that you can't get rich,
Speaker 1: you can't be successful. And they broke, they so poor,
Speaker 1: they can't afford the O are they broke? They so
Speaker 1: broke they can't pay attention. And they tell you what
Speaker 1: you cannot do. I mean, listen to me, now, if
Speaker 1: you hang around nine broke people, you'll be the tenth.
Speaker 1: Watch you hang around, watch your habits. Eagles don't fly impacts.
Speaker 1: Can you tell I love this podcast? This episode conclusion
Speaker 1: from Vitinzel Washington's commencement. Washington's messages that failure is not
Speaker 1: the end, but part of the process of achieving greatness.
Speaker 1: His own life serves as a testimony to this mindset,
Speaker 1: as he dealt with setbacks and rejections before becoming one
Speaker 1: of the most respected and well regarded actors in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: His advice all forward encourages people, which is the same
Speaker 1: advice I give you, by the way, to view failure
Speaker 1: as an opportunity for growth, not as a reason to
Speaker 1: stop trying. And let me tell you some some people
Speaker 1: who you admire and about their stories. Hank Aaron is often.
Speaker 1: I know his wife. I knew Hank Aaron, God rest
Speaker 1: his soul. And I know his wife, Billy Aaron. We
Speaker 1: hang out together, spend time together. She's we vacationed together.
Speaker 1: Ambassador Andrew Young, who also has experienced failure, by the way,
Speaker 1: he was fired as you and ambassador. Did you know
Speaker 1: that he was the first black UN ambassador in the
Speaker 1: history of America. He was fired as you and Ambassador
Speaker 1: United Nations. You an ambassador. Other failures along his way,
Speaker 1: perceived failures along the way as well. But success has
Speaker 1: a thousand mothers and failure as ambassard child, nobody remembers
Speaker 1: his failures. They like, I was just with him, you
Speaker 1: know yesterday. People like, oh my god, you're an icon,
Speaker 1: You're my hero. All they want to know is can
Speaker 1: take a picture with you. In fact, it's not only
Speaker 1: in spite of his failures, it's because of his resiliency
Speaker 1: through the rain. He was on that balcony when doctor
Speaker 1: King was assassinated, right, I mean, you don't think he
Speaker 1: carries guilt and responsibility on his shoulders seeing his friend
Speaker 1: assassinated right next to him. And he's still alive. And
Speaker 1: the FBI suggested that the instructions for the shooter were
Speaker 1: if if you've missed the dreamer killed the strategists, who
Speaker 1: you think the strategist was Andrew Young And yet he's
Speaker 1: gone on to do incredible things and became mayor, amongst
Speaker 1: other things, of Atlanta and built the only international city
Speaker 1: in the South. Economy it's almost five hundred billion dollars
Speaker 1: in the tenth lards economy in the US, at a
Speaker 1: place that is a symbol for everybody working together, black
Speaker 1: and white, red, brown and yellow. You want to have
Speaker 1: some more green as in economics. Back to Hank Aaron. So,
Speaker 1: Hank Aaron had the record for the most home runs.
Speaker 1: You know, you know that him and Barry Bonds I
Speaker 1: have the most, I believe, But did you know that
Speaker 1: at seven hundred and fifty five home runs, he also
Speaker 1: had thirteen hundred and eighty three strikeouts. And my friend
Speaker 1: Reggie Jackson also has a for an incredible record in
Speaker 1: baseball and is known as mister October. But he had
Speaker 1: twenty five hundred and ninety seven strikeouts. Barry Bonds at
Speaker 1: seven hundred and sixty two home runs and fifteen hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty nine strikeouts roughly ratio you know one point two.
Speaker 1: And Sammy Sosa with six hundred and nine home runs
Speaker 1: with three twenty three hundred and six strikeouts. Mark McGuire
Speaker 1: fired eighty three home runs fifteen hundred and ninety six strikeouts.
Speaker 1: You know, are you seeing something here? You cannot be
Speaker 1: a player. You cannot be a top end performer unless
Speaker 1: you swing at that ball, unless you risk something, unless
Speaker 1: you lean in, unless you are willing to risk it all,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna fail, You're gonna fall down. But no,
Speaker 1: nobody remembers all these strikeouts. The hitters who take big
Speaker 1: swings to generate power tend to strike out more frequently. However,
Speaker 1: this wasn't the case for their wins. In other words,
Speaker 1: the wins are not discounted because they swung more often.
Speaker 1: In fact, is enhanced because they never gave up. They
Speaker 1: were resilient That's really their incredible trait was that they
Speaker 1: were resilient. They just never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever
Speaker 1: ever gave up. Let me tell you about some folks
Speaker 1: that you really admire in sports. I think you admire,
Speaker 1: but you may not know the backstory. Michael Jordan arguably
Speaker 1: the best player in basketball, at least in modern history.
Speaker 1: Did you know he was cut from his high school
Speaker 1: varsity basketball team as a sophomore because the coach believed
Speaker 1: he wasn't tall enough or skilled enough. We know the
Speaker 1: outcome to that story. The fact we're about to operate
Speaker 1: show was about to partner with the family that did
Speaker 1: see his talent, the Rhinestor family, and Chicago has met
Speaker 1: with the family that owns a Buffalo Bills. We're about
Speaker 1: to do some financial literacy work anyway, just thinking about that.
Speaker 1: Because of Michael Jordan, Tom Brady drafted in the sixth round.
Speaker 1: Did you hear that? In the sixth round? One hundred
Speaker 1: and ninety ninth pick overall. Listen to me. Now, you
Speaker 1: guys want to romanticize success and you get a you know,
Speaker 1: a paper cut, or you know, you know, some of
Speaker 1: your credit card gets turned down. My credit card used
Speaker 1: to always get turned down, or you don't get a
Speaker 1: credit line, or you don't get a client you know,
Speaker 1: or you you you blow up presentation, or somebody doesn't
Speaker 1: like you, or somebody doesn't somebody, somebody says something bad
Speaker 1: on comments on your Instagram posts that devastates your self esteem,
Speaker 1: will then you have a self esteem to begin with.
Speaker 1: It's okay if you don't like me. I like me,
Speaker 1: As Quincy Jones once said, not one out of my
Speaker 1: self esteem depends on your acceptance of me. And when
Speaker 1: people say things about me on social media that I
Speaker 1: don't appreciate, I take it as an opportunity to create
Speaker 1: a new post. They say something that it's in most
Speaker 1: cases ignorant and it's uninformed, then I will then gently
Speaker 1: correct them, giving them more respect than they gave me,
Speaker 1: and I'll correct the record. I'll use that an opportunity
Speaker 1: to correct the record out set a whole new stream
Speaker 1: of conversation. And has been often the case that the
Speaker 1: comment that I made to the disrespectful comment made about
Speaker 1: a post that I put up, that that becomes a
Speaker 1: whole nother discussion thread with literally hundreds of comments, views,
Speaker 1: and likes or whatever. At another opportunity to learn. But
Speaker 1: that person doesn't know me that that person's not saying
Speaker 1: about me. That person is not bad. I don't really
Speaker 1: care what that person's opinion is about me. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I'm the one giving free content out. I'm the one
Speaker 1: for giving free games. As jay Z would say in
Speaker 1: his album four four four, I'm giving you a million
Speaker 1: dollars worth a game for nine ninety nine. I'm giving
Speaker 1: you give it see for no ninety nine. You don't
Speaker 1: paying me a thing? So how you dare you come
Speaker 1: on my thread and tell me off? No, just go
Speaker 1: away bye, by Felicia. I'm passionate about it. I'm not
Speaker 1: upset about it. It's humorous to me. You're hitting your
Speaker 1: face with my fists. You're hitting your face against my fists.
Speaker 1: What do you doing to herd me? Not a thing
Speaker 1: because the comments I'm talking about, they're ignorant there and
Speaker 1: they're wrong, which means a person's broke because they're saying
Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't make any sense about a topic that
Speaker 1: I actually know about. There's a lot of things I
Speaker 1: don't know about, but this topic I absolutely do because
Speaker 1: I've lived my truth. Tom Brady again drafted the sixth
Speaker 1: round one hundred ninety nine pick overall of the two
Speaker 1: thousand NFL draft, Considered by many to lack the athleticism
Speaker 1: and arm strength to succeed at the professional level. What
Speaker 1: is Tom Brady today? Regarded as one of the greatest,
Speaker 1: if not the greatest quarterback in NFL history, with seven
Speaker 1: Super Bowl championships and numerous records enough said. Soccer player
Speaker 1: player Lionel Messi, diagnosed with growth hormone deficiencies child many
Speaker 1: believed he wouldn't grow big or strong enough to play
Speaker 1: professional soccer, became one of the greatest soccer players in history.
Speaker 1: Serena Williams grew up in Comfer, California, where I grew
Speaker 1: up and played tennis. Plays tennis. Early in her career,
Speaker 1: Williams faced criticism for her unconventional playing style and was
Speaker 1: often overshadowed by her sister, Venus. Serena became one of
Speaker 1: the most dominant players in tennis history, with twenty three
Speaker 1: Grand Slam single titles and recognition is one of the
Speaker 1: greatest athletes of all times, with a great relationship with
Speaker 1: her sister. I might add, when you got the power,
Speaker 1: you don't need to use it. You know you have
Speaker 1: high self esteem. I did a Forbes Black interview and
Speaker 1: I said, you know, probably the greatest problem in facing
Speaker 1: Black America is low self esteem. Like I said, somebody's
Speaker 1: watching this piece right now, going who's he think he is?
Speaker 1: What is he? Why is he talking? I'm talking because
Speaker 1: I've done something, And why are you committed? Why are
Speaker 1: you doing anything other than commending it? Like why wouldn't
Speaker 1: you just sit there and go, Bravo, there's a brother
Speaker 1: who's done something. You may not like what the way
Speaker 1: I do, my style, how I flow, You may not
Speaker 1: do it the way I do it, by the way
Speaker 1: I really, I really respect me and learned that like
Speaker 1: me that liked me and never respect me anyway. But
Speaker 1: but why wouldn't you just commend it? Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that's fantastic. He's successful, he has succeeded. Let's let me
Speaker 1: maybe there's something some lessons in there for me. Like
Speaker 1: I'm not crazy about Elon Musk. I just saw him
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, and me saw I mean, he
Speaker 1: was at the same meeting I was at. Not that
Speaker 1: I have a relationship with him. I've seen him several
Speaker 1: times up close, but I don't really have a great
Speaker 1: interest in getting to know him because I just don't
Speaker 1: like his personal views. I don't like I don't like
Speaker 1: how he flows in his humanity. But I think he's
Speaker 1: a genius. I think that you cannot discount what he
Speaker 1: did in space, what he's doing in space. I subscribe
Speaker 1: to his Starlink service. I have his portable satellites and
Speaker 1: all of my my my offices and mobile mobile vans
Speaker 1: and whatever. Tesla is a great, great car, by the way,
Speaker 1: I'll give him his genius. I just don't personally care
Speaker 1: for him, but I'm gonna I'm gonna acknowledge your gifts, right,
Speaker 1: I mean this is taken away from me to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that you got it going on, right, and that's it.
Speaker 1: And if somebody's dogging you, hurt people. Hurt people. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So let me move on to the
Speaker 1: positive here so you can get these lessons. Shaquille O'Neil
Speaker 1: Shaq struggled with free throws and was often criticized early
Speaker 1: in his career for unpolished For an unpolished game, O'Neill
Speaker 1: went on to become one of the most dominant players
Speaker 1: in the NBA history, winning four championships and earning MVPA honors,
Speaker 1: and he's a fabulous businessman. Jackie Robinson a keem olajuwon,
Speaker 1: Steve Young. These are other examples. Young struggled in the
Speaker 1: USFL and then as a backup to Joe Montana with
Speaker 1: the San Francisco forty nine Ers. Initially regarded is not
Speaker 1: good enough to lead an NFL team, Young eventually took
Speaker 1: over for Montana, leading the forty nine ers to Super
Speaker 1: Bowl win and earning two inn FL MVP awards, and uh,
Speaker 1: and then you got business. Right. We don't have time
Speaker 1: to go through all of these examples, right, but I'm
Speaker 1: just a getting I just want you to understand that
Speaker 1: you're you're You're not alone, right, You're not You're not
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with you. You just don't love yourself enough.
Speaker 1: You don't believe in yourself enough. And you you take
Speaker 1: other people too seriously, take life seriously, don't take yourself
Speaker 1: too seriously and showing up. Don't take somebody else seriously.
Speaker 1: All they have is an opinion. It's just their opinion.
Speaker 1: Is eight being people in the world. Go talk to
Speaker 1: somebody else. I'm telling you. I can tell you the
Speaker 1: one thing I regret in my life is I took
Speaker 1: I took people who didn't matter. Everybody matters in God's eyes,
Speaker 1: but but in business, in life and whatever. Like I
Speaker 1: took somebody's opinion of me too seriously, which mean I
Speaker 1: didn't have a high enough opinion of myself. Look, I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to leave this and be arrogant
Speaker 1: and obnoxious, because that's and that that's true is a
Speaker 1: sign of insecurity. You're not as bad as your compliment,
Speaker 1: You're not as bad as your criticisms. You're not as
Speaker 1: good as your compliments. You just you are who you are.
Speaker 1: Why why be moved one way or the other. You know,
Speaker 1: if a bachelor young or Bishop td jigs or reverences
Speaker 1: to murray God rest of soul, or my mother or
Speaker 1: my father or my wife shake or somebody who I
Speaker 1: really respect and admire has something critical to say about me,
Speaker 1: I'm paying attention, I'm listening. I'm not saying words. I
Speaker 1: know they have my best interests, and they're smart and
Speaker 1: they're wise, and they know things I don't. But if
Speaker 1: if some fool's coming up to me who clearly is
Speaker 1: hating on me because he's jealous or envious, or unsuccessful
Speaker 1: in his own life, are just angry and upset. What
Speaker 1: I mean, all I have to say is when you
Speaker 1: finish with all that, are you done? You can either
Speaker 1: hear what I have to say, or I can leave,
Speaker 1: or you can leave. But I mean and consider the source.
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs in business. Jobs Will fired from Apple, the
Speaker 1: company he co founded, Fire from his own company in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five after internal conflicts with the board and
Speaker 1: the CEO. Fired from his own company. After being ousted,
Speaker 1: Jobs founded Next, a company called Next and by the way,
Speaker 1: that didn't do very well for ten years. Also and
Speaker 1: bought Pixar, which is a brid move, both of which
Speaker 1: ultimately thrived. He eventually returned to Apple, transforming it into
Speaker 1: one of the most valuable companies in the world with
Speaker 1: products that I used today like the iPhone, the iPad,
Speaker 1: the iPod, the iTunes, you get it. The dude so
Speaker 1: dominant you don't even realize he's a co founder of Apple.
Speaker 1: This Wozniak, who is the genius engineer who is not
Speaker 1: a great marketer. He's a genius engineer who really was
Speaker 1: a backbone of Apple. But that's how that's how amazing
Speaker 1: Steve and Steve jobs. It appears not a very nice
Speaker 1: man didn't really like philanthropy. I'm not sure I would
Speaker 1: have liked them personally, But again, I'm gonna give him
Speaker 1: props for his genius. Giving somebody love and respect it.
Speaker 1: Admiration and credit does not take away from you. It
Speaker 1: says something about you when you do. The person that
Speaker 1: who is succeeding doesn't need your claim, and they appreciate it.
Speaker 1: They've already succeeded. They're doing their they're living their truth.
Speaker 1: It says more about you if you play Hayden Spending.
Speaker 1: All successful people talk about their ideas. People were failing
Speaker 1: talk about other people. Hello Walt Disney, as in the
Speaker 1: Walt Disney Company. Disney was fired from a newspaper job
Speaker 1: for lacking creativity ca this is so funny. It had
Speaker 1: multiple business failures, including his first animation studio, laugh O Graham,
Speaker 1: which went bankrupt. Disney persisted, eventually founding the Walt Disney Company,
Speaker 1: which grew into a global entertainment empire, revolutionizing animation in
Speaker 1: theme parks. Thomas Edison, who you know, the inventor general
Speaker 1: electric et cetera. Edison famously failed thousands of times when
Speaker 1: attempting to invent the electric light bulb. In many of
Speaker 1: his early projects, like the automatic vote recorder, were commercial flops.
Speaker 1: Edison eventually succeeded in creating the incandescent light bulb and
Speaker 1: built an innovative powerhouse in General Election become General Electric,
Speaker 1: the company ge becoming one of the most prolific inventors
Speaker 1: in history. And by the way, Thomas Edison's mintee side
Speaker 1: note was a guy named Tesla. That's right, Elon must
Speaker 1: did not create the name. He just named the car
Speaker 1: after the inventor. But Tesla was a bad boy who
Speaker 1: was also prolific inventor, and when he went to Edison
Speaker 1: with his ideas, Edison ignored him, so he went Tesla
Speaker 1: went off of his own and got his own back.
Speaker 1: Or They were little in competition with each other for
Speaker 1: a while, and of course Edison was a better marketer,
Speaker 1: had bigger backing, and so on and so forth. But again,
Speaker 1: even the understory was part of the American and world
Speaker 1: story today because he never gave up Henry Ford. I
Speaker 1: know Henry Ford to third, He's a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1: Is on my boarded Operation Hope. Henry Ford for it's
Speaker 1: early businesses. This is the founder of Ford, including the
Speaker 1: Detroit Automotive Company, which failed and he was viewed as
Speaker 1: a failure in the auto industry before founding Hello the
Speaker 1: Ford Motor Company with a model T and assembly line production.
Speaker 1: Ford revolutionized the automobile industry and became one of the
Speaker 1: most successful industrial industrialists of his time. And he basically
Speaker 1: created the middle class. He paid his workers enough to
Speaker 1: buy the automobiles that they were making and whil a. Now,
Speaker 1: he also was an interesting dude with sketchy some sketchy
Speaker 1: elements and was viewed you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into it, but he had interesting views about certain
Speaker 1: kinds of people and all kind of stuff. And uh again,
Speaker 1: this is not about you know, breaking down somebody I'm
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is that, very much like Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: at Elon Mush, you can have genius and still be
Speaker 1: this imperfect person, but you can still acknowledge somebody for
Speaker 1: the genius that they have because no one's perfect. There
Speaker 1: is no perfect, just like there's nothing wrong with failure. Again,
Speaker 1: a saint is a center that got up. We're all
Speaker 1: angels with dirty faces. Here's how I live my life.
Speaker 1: Talk without being offensive, Listen without being defensive and always
Speaker 1: leave even your adversary with their dignity because if you
Speaker 1: don't to spend the rest of their life work and
Speaker 1: then make you miserable, it becomes personal. So you step
Speaker 1: over mess and not in it. Don't rearrange the deck
Speaker 1: chairs on the Titanic and you're picking drapes and the
Speaker 1: ship is sinking. Like, get on with the purpose and
Speaker 1: a mission in your life. Be about something yourself. It's
Speaker 1: so easy to criticize somebody, right, don't be in the
Speaker 1: don't be the chief chief criticism officer. Don't be in
Speaker 1: the chief rock throwing officer. Like, do something yourself? Are
Speaker 1: you afraid to fail? Is that really what's going on?
Speaker 1: So it's better to bring somebody down to your level.
Speaker 1: In the Rise of Theirs, Hello, can I get an amen?
Speaker 1: Howard Schultz Starbucks. Schultz was rejected by over two hundred
Speaker 1: investors when he was trying to get funding to transform
Speaker 1: Starbucks from a local coffee being retailer into a powerhouse chain.
Speaker 1: Schultz persisted and eventually grew Starbucks into the global coffee
Speaker 1: house giant it is today with thousands of stores worldwide.
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfrey, who I love, know her We're not dear
Speaker 1: friends or anything, but she gave it. I do nowhere
Speaker 1: and we have a good relationship. She gave me my
Speaker 1: Usual Life Award when I was earlier in my career
Speaker 1: and gave me some encouragement. I was so nervous when
Speaker 1: I met her. But anyway, you can put the photo
Speaker 1: of us, her, me and my parents up online. You
Speaker 1: see how young I looked in that picture. Failure for
Speaker 1: Oprah came early. She was early in her career. She
Speaker 1: faced professional setbacks, including being demoted from a TV news
Speaker 1: anchor because she was deemed unfit for television. Can you
Speaker 1: believe that Winfrey went on to become one of the
Speaker 1: most successful and influential media moguls in history, launching The
Speaker 1: Oprah Winfrey Show and building a media empire that includes
Speaker 1: Harpo Productions and the Oprah Winfrey Network owned Today And
Speaker 1: she's a nice person. By the way, most people who
Speaker 1: are truly successful, they're nice people. All success does this
Speaker 1: amplifies who you really are. So if you're a jerk,
Speaker 1: you become successful, you become a really big jerk who's successful.
Speaker 1: If you're a nice person who's successful, become a really
Speaker 1: really nice person who success, which just amplifies who you
Speaker 1: really are. Jeff Bezos, who again, so many people I know.
Speaker 1: I don't know Jeff not well, but I know my
Speaker 1: friend Van Jonzo's a much better He gave jan Fan
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars of his wealth, a man of
Speaker 1: that failure. In his early days, Amazon lost money for
Speaker 1: several years and faced intense skepticism from investors who doubted
Speaker 1: Bezos's vision of an online marketplace for everything. Bezo state
Speaker 1: the Chorus, and Amazon became one of the largest and
Speaker 1: most influential companies in the world. Revolution e commerce, cloud computing,
Speaker 1: and more. My friend Toby Lutke, who is a genius,
Speaker 1: I was just with him a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: founded Shopify, which is sort of the somewhat competitor of Amazon,
Speaker 1: big e commerce giant. They partners who won MBB one
Speaker 1: million Black business initiatives. You know, he originally wanted to
Speaker 1: do some like a not a ski hut, but it
Speaker 1: was basically it was tied to I'm not a skier, right, snowboarding.
Speaker 1: I think it was a snowboarding shop, and that's really
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? He wanted to open
Speaker 1: initially and that didn't work out very well, but he
Speaker 1: ended up tripping over and launching Shopify, and that is
Speaker 1: one of the biggest companies in the world, and certainly
Speaker 1: one of the biggest companies in Canada, which is where
Speaker 1: he's based. And he's got in his headquarters a mock
Speaker 1: up of the snowboarding business that would have been Rainbows
Speaker 1: after Storms. Colonel Sanders Sanders reject was rejected over one
Speaker 1: thousand times while trying to sell his fried chicken recipe
Speaker 1: to restaurant owners in his sixties. In his sixties, after
Speaker 1: a series of business failures on top of that, eventually
Speaker 1: his Kentucky Fried Chicken we call a KFC today took
Speaker 1: off and Sanders became an international brand icon with KF
Speaker 1: KFC expanding globally. Sarah Blakely, who you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know where, but I know her respector Blakely, the founder
Speaker 1: of spanks, failed in her failed her law school interest
Speaker 1: exam multiple times. By the way, I failed the California
Speaker 1: Really Real Estate tests three times. You know how hard
Speaker 1: it is to fail at California real estate test. You
Speaker 1: can breathe in a mirror and walk you can pass
Speaker 1: the test. I failed it three times. If you fail
Speaker 1: at four times, they say you're so stupid that you
Speaker 1: could never take it again. Ever, I passed it the
Speaker 1: fourth time again. This stuff just humors me. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't take stuff personally. I certainly doesn't say aything
Speaker 1: about me other than I was sleepy that day and
Speaker 1: didn't get any rest, and I didn't prepare, and so
Speaker 1: I felt a stupid test. I just went and took
Speaker 1: it again. Big deal. It's just an outcomeing to experiment.
Speaker 1: God willing to creak, dune rise tomorrow will come. You
Speaker 1: take it over again. Resiliency, just keep moving. It's hard
Speaker 1: to hit him moving target. So she failed this law
Speaker 1: schooled entrance exam multiple times, struggled through several sales jobs
Speaker 1: before coming up with the idea of Spanks. After facing
Speaker 1: rejection from manufacturers and industry insiders, she eventually succeeded in
Speaker 1: launching Spanks, building it into a billion dollar company, becoming
Speaker 1: one of the youngest self made female billionaires. Now you know,
Speaker 1: there's Read Hastings, who I know was a dear friend,
Speaker 1: Richard Branson, who I've met but wouldn't say I know
Speaker 1: him well. Actually I don't know him well, but I've
Speaker 1: met him Fred Smith of FedEx. Richard Branson is Virgin Airlines.
Speaker 1: You know FedEx Smith's initial Fred Smith, the founder, initial
Speaker 1: business plan for FedEx was given a C by his
Speaker 1: professor at Yale, and the company struggled to stay afloat
Speaker 1: financially in its early years. Smith revolutionized the logistics industry
Speaker 1: by creating FedEx, which became the largest overnight shipping company
Speaker 1: in the world. And you know the guy who created
Speaker 1: UPS I think his name is Kelly U based here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, and one of our partners, you know, he
Speaker 1: he he was a bicycle messenger company, which is modestly successful.
Speaker 1: But when he hooked that connected that with I think
Speaker 1: it was Ford Motor Company and delivery and automobiles came
Speaker 1: together and he never gave up. Boom. Here comes UPS, right,
Speaker 1: which is UH, which is a you know, a globe,
Speaker 1: a global you know, logistics powerhouse. And you know these
Speaker 1: always go on and on and on. You have Robert
Speaker 1: Downey Jr. In Hollywood, who's you know, he had early
Speaker 1: success in the nineteen eighties, but you know, but his
Speaker 1: career was almost derailed by substance abuse in nineteen nineties
Speaker 1: head he faced arrests jail time. But by the way,
Speaker 1: it's interesting how some of my white brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: can rebound from this. But if you're black and get
Speaker 1: to the Saint go through the same stuff, you're just gone, gone, gone,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't come back, which is by the way, again,
Speaker 1: I've taken that out also as a point of distinction
Speaker 1: that I can't afford. If you're born if you're born black,
Speaker 1: you're born on you're born on probation. In America. You know,
Speaker 1: by twice as smart, twice as intelligence, twice as well
Speaker 1: dressed twice, you got to you got to get up earlier,
Speaker 1: stayed later, work harder, stay later, lean in. No, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna get a break. No, you know, no one's
Speaker 1: gonna cut your break. So just you know, be excellent
Speaker 1: all the time. But haters make you better. Because you're not,
Speaker 1: you may not get a second shot. Doctor King was
Speaker 1: a practical jokester, but he wouldn't beating a bit serious
Speaker 1: for fear that he'd be written off or discounted. So
Speaker 1: he was serious all the time. But anyway, Robert Downey Jr.
Speaker 1: Shot you can't decide whether you're born black or white
Speaker 1: or so I'm not blaming Robert Downey Jr. For being
Speaker 1: born privileged, but he took advantage of the fact that
Speaker 1: he could bounced back, and he did. Downy's comeback became
Speaker 1: The Iron Man, which I love. That movie is one
Speaker 1: of my favorites in the world. He revived his career
Speaker 1: and launched the Marble Universe series, making him one of
Speaker 1: the highest paid actors in the world and successful to
Speaker 1: this day. Sylvester Salone was rejected by numerous studios early
Speaker 1: in his career, often told he didn't have the look
Speaker 1: or the talent for leading Rose. His script for Rocky
Speaker 1: was also repeatedly rejected, and when it was finally accepted,
Speaker 1: he was told he couldn't star in it. Stallone insisted
Speaker 1: on starring in Rocky That Was nineteen seventy six, which
Speaker 1: became a massive success and launched his career as an
Speaker 1: A list actor. An action star, Shalish Thorne was struggled
Speaker 1: to get rolls or early on, and was even dropped
Speaker 1: by her agent after he told her she'd never make
Speaker 1: it in the industry. She wouldn't work, she couldn't work,
Speaker 1: she didn't have what it took. After several smaller rows,
Speaker 1: she broke through with her Oscar winning performance in Monster
Speaker 1: That Was two thousand and three, and that established her
Speaker 1: as one of the highest Hollywood stars ever, and she
Speaker 1: continued to kill it succeed proven that she was not
Speaker 1: just a one hit wonder. Harrison Ford he worked as
Speaker 1: a carpenter just like Jesus while trying to break into acting.
Speaker 1: Jesus wasn't trying to break in acting, but it was
Speaker 1: the same profession. He was told by studio executives he
Speaker 1: didn't have what it took to be a leading man.
Speaker 1: In his early career was marked by small, mostly forgettable roles.
Speaker 1: Ford's big break came when George Lucas cast him as
Speaker 1: Hans Solo in Star Wars That Was seventy seven, followed
Speaker 1: by his iconic roles in India as Indiana Jones, making
Speaker 1: him one of the biggest stars in cinematic history. Meryl Streep,
Speaker 1: you know, rejection, rejection, rejection, and then she got She
Speaker 1: was told that she was too ugly for a Roland
Speaker 1: King Kong, and you believe people are that cruel in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: Despite her early criticism, Street went on to become one
Speaker 1: of the most acclaimed actresses in history, winning three Academy
Speaker 1: awards and earning more nominations than any other actor you have.
Speaker 1: Morgan Freeman, Melissa McCarthy, JK. Simmons went on a writer,
Speaker 1: Ben Affleck. These are examples of people who again had
Speaker 1: these failures and and turned it into you know, into
Speaker 1: incredible fortunes and promise, and the stories go on and
Speaker 1: on and on. But my message to you is you
Speaker 1: can do it. Over the rounded, through it, you can
Speaker 1: do it. My message to you is that you're built
Speaker 1: to win. That God gave you unique fingerprints, He made
Speaker 1: you special in this world. There's nobody just like you
Speaker 1: in the world. And whether you believe you can and
Speaker 1: whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right that you are.
Speaker 1: You are whatever and whomever you decide you're going to
Speaker 1: be that The glasses have half full or is half empty.
Speaker 1: It's the same glass, depends who's looking at the glass.
Speaker 1: How do you see yourself? How do you see what's
Speaker 1: going on? Is what's going on going to destroy you
Speaker 1: or is it just going to make you more determined
Speaker 1: to win. I get up every day optimistic, positive, believing
Speaker 1: in myself, believing in my ideas and my dreams, very
Speaker 1: focused on what I want to do people you tell me, oh,
Speaker 1: come hang out with us, can party while you're hanging
Speaker 1: around that sitting around the computer reading the book, you know,
Speaker 1: reading a book. I don't know, because I want to learn.
Speaker 1: The same people who tell me that are failures, not
Speaker 1: all of them, but many of them, including somebody talked
Speaker 1: to last week, want to come work for me now
Speaker 1: because they're they wouldn't have the parties they had the
Speaker 1: fun they you know, they hung out, they went and
Speaker 1: partied and whatever, and for what, you know, that didn't
Speaker 1: lead to anywhere. You're partying in somebody else's club, drinking
Speaker 1: somebody else's overpriced liquor celebrating somebody else's success in business
Speaker 1: with your dollars at their establishment. I'm not saying to
Speaker 1: go out and have fun. But only in the dictionary
Speaker 1: does the word success come before the word work, because
Speaker 1: it's alphabetical. You got to do the work first and
Speaker 1: then you go have fun. And I've always enjoyed the work.
Speaker 1: It's not even work for me. I enjoy the I'm
Speaker 1: passionate about what I do. You can hear it in
Speaker 1: my voice. I hope. I love what I do, and
Speaker 1: I love creating, I love building, and I love, I
Speaker 1: love excelling, I love helping people. I've got a real
Speaker 1: strong vision for what i want to do. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I just say this because I want to.
Speaker 1: There are no ugly billionaires, So you want to really succeed,
Speaker 1: succeed and all the other things will come to you. Look,
Speaker 1: just live your life, live your truth, and understand that
Speaker 1: nobody else has a better idea of your life, and
Speaker 1: you do. Maybe your parents might, right, but if you're rooted,
Speaker 1: if you're grounded in who you are, you probably have
Speaker 1: a pretty good sense for what you can do and
Speaker 1: who you are and what your vision is. And I
Speaker 1: want you to as long as you're again levelheaded, you
Speaker 1: got a good business plan for your life, and you're
Speaker 1: not being irrational, you know, then then pursue it with
Speaker 1: all your passion, all your your your gusto. What's the
Speaker 1: worst could happen? Okay, it didn't work out, you failed,
Speaker 1: but that's just that's just the experiment, that's just what
Speaker 1: happened in this moment. Life is long. You take care
Speaker 1: of yourself. You lived to close to one hundred. How
Speaker 1: many opportunities you're gonna have to take a w and
Speaker 1: and maybe you take an al ten times more. You
Speaker 1: take a w but no one's gonna remember the ale
Speaker 1: as in the loss. People to remember the win, because
Speaker 1: people want to win. This world was made for good.
Speaker 1: We learned bad. It light defines darkness, not the other
Speaker 1: way around. This world. This world's made for love. It's
Speaker 1: made for good energy love. It's made for winning. In
Speaker 1: spite of, If not because of, we don't love because
Speaker 1: of we. If we love because of we wouldn't even
Speaker 1: love ourselves. We love in spite of and in spite
Speaker 1: of our differences, in spite of our insecurities, in spite
Speaker 1: of our shortcomings. Still, God has made us to win.
Speaker 1: And I believe that you're a winner. This is John O'Brien.
Speaker 1: This is Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Network
Speaker 1: podcast series on iHeartRadio. Tell your friends to subscribe, Share
Speaker 1: this podcast with others. Go to Operation Hope and get
Speaker 1: your coaching. Get the book Financial Literacy for All change
Speaker 1: your life. It's all up to you. Money and Wealth
Speaker 1: with John O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect
Speaker 1: Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network,
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