Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey Hey,
Speaker 1: it's John O'Brien and this is Money and Wealth on
Speaker 1: a Black Effect Network and iHeartRadio podcast series for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five. This is the kickoff episode. This particular episode
Speaker 1: is called The Transformational You. That's right, The Transformational You
Speaker 1: is a pretty audacious title for a pretty bold time.
Speaker 1: In many ways, I've been preparing to do this podcast
Speaker 1: episode for the last twell thirty years, maybe thirty years plus,
Speaker 1: but certainly since I found it Operation Hope. So let
Speaker 1: me get into this. As you're walking or reflecting, or meditating,
Speaker 1: or making dinner or breakfast, or sure heading to work
Speaker 1: or heading home or on a jog, or do whatever
Speaker 1: it is you're doing while you're listening to your podcast,
Speaker 1: I want to give you something that you can tuck
Speaker 1: away in your spirit and pull out and energize your soul.
Speaker 1: There will be times where you're gonna be tested in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. There's gonna be a year of incredible
Speaker 1: opportunity and incredible challenges. Because rainbow is only follo storms.
Speaker 1: You cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First, it's
Speaker 1: actually a scientific fact. I want you to remember when
Speaker 1: things get tough, that success is going from failure to
Speaker 1: failure without loss of enthusiasm. Never ever, ever, ever, ever
Speaker 1: give up. You were born to win. God made you
Speaker 1: unique and special. There's eight billion some odd people in
Speaker 1: the world and no one just like you. He made
Speaker 1: you absolutely unique. No one has your eyes, no one
Speaker 1: has your finger press. You are completely unique. While would
Speaker 1: you want to be a copy of someone else? You
Speaker 1: want to model good behavior because a lot of success
Speaker 1: is good habits, and I'm going to teach you some
Speaker 1: good habits. I'll give you some cheat sheets from what
Speaker 1: I went through in my life coming up to go
Speaker 1: from the bottom quartile of the worst environments in Compon California,
Speaker 1: in south central Los Angeles, it's so called porous of
Speaker 1: the poor. We were so broke we couldn't pay attention.
Speaker 1: We were so poor we could afford the o R.
Speaker 1: We actually were not sustenance poor. In other words, we
Speaker 1: had a roof on the table, roof over our head,
Speaker 1: food on the table, and reasonable health care. My mother
Speaker 1: worked a job my dad. Mom and dad actually were
Speaker 1: prosperous at one point, but they got a divorce and
Speaker 1: my dad when he died, I ended up taking care
Speaker 1: of him. My mother worked the same job for thirty
Speaker 1: two years. Jannia Smith my dad, Johnny will Smith, both
Speaker 1: had a high school education, but one had the potential
Speaker 1: of becoming a millionaire. One did become a million in there,
Speaker 1: my mother, working an hourly job, became a millionaire before
Speaker 1: she passed away a million dollar net worth, making fifteen
Speaker 1: to eighteen dollars an hour. You can listen to her
Speaker 1: story in a special episode I did last year in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four season of this podcast. Or you can
Speaker 1: also chronicle her story in my book Financial Literacy for All,
Speaker 1: which is now a bestseller. Please pick up your copy.
Speaker 1: I also talk about her and my dad in my
Speaker 1: From Nothing Story that was my fifth book, I Believe,
Speaker 1: which is also a bestseller. But they it's very important
Speaker 1: to recognize that my mom and dad they were broke,
Speaker 1: but they weren't poor. There's a difference between being broken
Speaker 1: being poor. Being broken's economic Being poor is a disabling
Speaker 1: frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit.
Speaker 1: And you must vow never ever ever to be poor again.
Speaker 1: Did you hear me? Please underscore this as my friend,
Speaker 1: God bless your soulways been promoted. Quincy Jones once told me,
Speaker 1: not one ounce of my self esteem depends on your
Speaker 1: acceptance of me. It wasn't a statement of being better
Speaker 1: than it was being equal to. You're not as good
Speaker 1: as your compliments. You're not as bad as your criticism
Speaker 1: as you are who you are, which is to say
Speaker 1: we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. Were spiritual
Speaker 1: beings having a human experience? And energy matters. Please listen
Speaker 1: to me. I want you to look at your environment.
Speaker 1: I want you to look around you and see who
Speaker 1: you hang around. And you've heard me say this before,
Speaker 1: but some things are worth repeating again. A lot of
Speaker 1: success is good habits. If you hang around nine broke people,
Speaker 1: you're going to be the tenth. And the opposite is
Speaker 1: also true. Why do people go to Harvard University or
Speaker 1: Yale or Prince and versus going to the state university
Speaker 1: or the community college? Even is it that the state
Speaker 1: university is so much less than these vaulted named universities
Speaker 1: I mentioned. No, in any cases, you're going to get
Speaker 1: an equivalent education at a state university, maybe even a
Speaker 1: better education. But your networks may be different your network.
Speaker 1: May you know, at Nebraska State or wherever you're having
Speaker 1: to be at Arizona State, you're going to have maybe incredible
Speaker 1: relationship capital in the state of Arizona in this example
Speaker 1: of an Arizona State, and you business with people you know, respect,
Speaker 1: reflect and understand who you have a relationships with. But
Speaker 1: if you go to a nationally known university, maybe even
Speaker 1: globally known, then your relationship capital is going to be
Speaker 1: in this example global as well. And so as they rise,
Speaker 1: if there's a possibility. So to you, it's a club,
Speaker 1: a country club, a golf club, a fraternity, a sorority,
Speaker 1: university graduating class. These are clubs. These are places of association.
Speaker 1: So I want you to watch who you associated with
Speaker 1: and understand that eagles don't fly in packs. You've never
Speaker 1: seen a flock of eagles. Eagles are high altitude birds.
Speaker 1: They don't feel that better than anybody else. They just
Speaker 1: know who they are. And buzzers are low altitude birds.
Speaker 1: Buzzers love packs. They're always player heating, they ever, but
Speaker 1: player congratulating always has something negative to say about somebody,
Speaker 1: and buzzers often shoot at eagles. And then you've got turkeys.
Speaker 1: Turkeys got wings and can't even fly. All they do
Speaker 1: is profile translation, trying to be something they are not.
Speaker 1: So I want you to watch your circle. I go
Speaker 1: through life consciously oblivious of most things around me because
Speaker 1: it just doesn't matter. I spent a lot of time,
Speaker 1: wasting a lot of time trying to impress people I
Speaker 1: didn't even want to be like when I grew up,
Speaker 1: and when you really thought about it, that four square
Speaker 1: block celebrity in your neighborhood that you're spending so much
Speaker 1: time trying to be like, not trying to be like,
Speaker 1: trying to impress so they like you, trying to get
Speaker 1: their attention, trying to be popular with them. Why do
Speaker 1: they have a job that you want and they have
Speaker 1: a career that you wanted. They're a partnership, a partner
Speaker 1: that you want, that they have an aspirationial life that
Speaker 1: you want, and they traveling the world? Are they whatever
Speaker 1: your definition of success is. Probably not. They may be
Speaker 1: a definition of cool that twenty years later will only
Speaker 1: make them a fool. A lot of people who I
Speaker 1: grew up with, who I thought were cool, who tease me,
Speaker 1: demean me, player hated me. Even it's a phrase from
Speaker 1: the neighborhood twenty thirty years later, trying to get a
Speaker 1: job from me, trying to get a contract from me,
Speaker 1: because the looks will fall away. The coolness does not
Speaker 1: pay a bill, and they didn't have a skill that
Speaker 1: they could rely on for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: I spent my time focusing on that skill, focusing on
Speaker 1: becoming the best version of me possible. I also became,
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to myself, resilient because I ignored the noise. Again,
Speaker 1: it's not what you answered, it's not what you call me.
Speaker 1: It's what I answer to you that's important. And I
Speaker 1: argue with a fool proves there are two. You know.
Speaker 1: Somebody once said, you don't want to be in an
Speaker 1: argument with a fool because the people passing by, who
Speaker 1: may be importantly you don't. I cannot differentiate one from
Speaker 1: the other. So let's now move from what you don't
Speaker 1: want to what you do want. And you really don't
Speaker 1: want the drama, you really don't want the toxicity. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you why you can't afford it either.
Speaker 1: How do I say this, Well, let me do it directly.
Speaker 1: Thirty years ago, when I found an operation Hope as
Speaker 1: the first non fropit social investment banking organization in America.
Speaker 1: I really thought at that time that it was going
Speaker 1: to be transformational. I didn't know how or didn't know why.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was going to be transformational. And
Speaker 1: I had a hunch that even then the color wasn't
Speaker 1: the issue before us in our generation was not going
Speaker 1: to be black or white. Race primarily. Racism is real.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying it's not real, but it won't be
Speaker 1: the primary issue. The issue won't be politics Republican a Democrat.
Speaker 1: I know that's hard to believe in the current environment,
Speaker 1: but that won't be your primary impediment. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be black and white, redder blue. It's going to
Speaker 1: be green economics. This was going to be the defining
Speaker 1: thing of this century issued a century. And if that's true,
Speaker 1: that would mean that things like financial literacy, which was
Speaker 1: something that was pioneered by Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: after the Civil War of eighteen sixty five and signed
Speaker 1: in the law with the Freedman's Bank March third, eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty five. And I'm the only American citizen that ever
Speaker 1: triggered and inspired the renaming of a building on the
Speaker 1: White House campus, a Freedman's Bank building, with my friend
Speaker 1: of Wally Idiyamo and others helped to make real at
Speaker 1: the Treasury Department during the Obama administration and to this
Speaker 1: day is called the Freedman's Bank building. That bank was
Speaker 1: starting to teach free slaves about money, that's financial literacy
Speaker 1: circa eighteen sixty five. So I thought that this unfinished work.
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln was assassinated a month after he signed it
Speaker 1: in the law, and here comes doctor King. So that
Speaker 1: called that the first reconstruction, from the fields of slavery
Speaker 1: to the streets of freedom, the fields of freedom, the factories,
Speaker 1: the job, the opportunity for basically freedom of choice. Then
Speaker 1: the second reconstruction was really from those fields into the
Speaker 1: field of exploration of access literally to the factory jobs
Speaker 1: and to access to public facilities and the voting booth.
Speaker 1: And that was a civil rights movement, a second reconstruction
Speaker 1: which doctor King and my mentor Ambassador Andrew Young, that
Speaker 1: movement they led, and that's what we call civil rights right,
Speaker 1: and that was led centered in government as the central
Speaker 1: element for change, and doctor King dealt with love and
Speaker 1: hate very pointedly. People said they even left it or hated.
Speaker 1: They made it very clear where they stood. Doctor King
Speaker 1: only had twenty percent of the black community support as
Speaker 1: high twenty percent of the white community support at his height,
Speaker 1: and half of the white community for it was Jewish.
Speaker 1: Most people set on their hands, they were indifferent. They said,
Speaker 1: not my problem. And even with that, by the way,
Speaker 1: give you a point of inspiration. Is five percent of
Speaker 1: role models, just five percent of role models. The book
Speaker 1: The Tipping Point Malcolm glad World University of Illinois study.
Speaker 1: The book Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, you should
Speaker 1: read it. The University of Illinois study proved that at
Speaker 1: five percent of all role models, five percent positive role models,
Speaker 1: every community stabilized. Look at the black and brown community.
Speaker 1: It's my podcasts for everybody, but I'm hyper focusing on
Speaker 1: the black community because we're the only ones enslaved in
Speaker 1: American soil. And our self esteem was destroyed and ideal
Speaker 1: with that, with the five pillars of success from a
Speaker 1: book up from nothing, our self esteem was destroyed. Even
Speaker 1: though we had high confidence because we're competent, we had
Speaker 1: low self esteem because people convinced us we were a thing,
Speaker 1: or at least tried to. And we're now repairing that,
Speaker 1: we're healing that. So if I don't like me, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to like you. I don't feel good about me,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to feel good about you. I don't
Speaker 1: respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I
Speaker 1: don't have a purpose in my life, I'll make your
Speaker 1: own life. I'm living in hell. Whatever goes around comes around.
Speaker 1: So had to repair self esteem. But when you look
Speaker 1: at the third reconstruction, which I believe started with George
Speaker 1: Floyd's murder in the pandemic twenty twenty, and we'll go
Speaker 1: to twenty thirty, give or take. I believe, and I
Speaker 1: think this is social justice to an economic lens. I
Speaker 1: think this is about economic opportunity for all. Believe the
Speaker 1: color is green. There's something else that came along with that, though.
Speaker 1: Really the pulling back the draperies on the real challenge,
Speaker 1: which is class and often race baiting is a placeholder.
Speaker 1: Race diminishing, racism is a placeholder. It's a convenient distraction
Speaker 1: for what people really after, which is class differentiation. And
Speaker 1: I'm better than you in whatever nectar you want to
Speaker 1: describe it puts me if I succeed in the vision
Speaker 1: that puts me further ahead in the line, which allows
Speaker 1: me to get more economic opportunity than you. There's redlining
Speaker 1: and all these things that happen as a result of that.
Speaker 1: I was perceived in one way in a positive light.
Speaker 1: You're perceived another late in less another light, in less
Speaker 1: positive way. Right. So I'll do with all these in
Speaker 1: my masterclass in not twenty twenty five. I'll unpack all
Speaker 1: these things. I'm an unpack what God is here, what's
Speaker 1: holding us back? And how do we move forward in
Speaker 1: a positive way? Right? Because I believe there's enough poverty
Speaker 1: to go around. There's only to argue and compete about
Speaker 1: that of your nonprofit. We should all be working together
Speaker 1: to try to lift everybody up. And there's enough room
Speaker 1: in a success table because you want to expanding the
Speaker 1: table and adding a chair. So nobody should do insecure
Speaker 1: because blacks and browns and Latinos of women, poor whites
Speaker 1: or whoever are succeeding, our middle class people become upper
Speaker 1: class again. I've gone from the bottom court till all
Speaker 1: poverty in this country to the top one percent. As
Speaker 1: I was saying earlier, in one generation and if I
Speaker 1: did that right, did that legally? I brought people up,
Speaker 1: of created employees, of created wealth, of created tax base.
Speaker 1: I've paid my taxes, I employed people. I've created opportunities
Speaker 1: for others as I've come up. I've built a ladder
Speaker 1: that other people can follow. I've done well and done good.
Speaker 1: Good capitalism is where I've benefit and you benefit more.
Speaker 1: Bad capitalism is where I do benefit, where I've benefit
Speaker 1: and you pay a price for it. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: good capitalism. So no one should feel insecure about my
Speaker 1: success or yours. They should applaud it. I've said that
Speaker 1: if blacks succeed legitly in this country, even the racist wins,
Speaker 1: because all boats rise. Let's get back to why I
Speaker 1: had an epiphany thirty two years ago, because if what
Speaker 1: I just said is correct, and if the seas of
Speaker 1: transformational change have shifted, then the issue is primarily not
Speaker 1: lover hate. It's doctor King, dealt with and Andrew Young,
Speaker 1: my mentor doctor Dorothy Heyden cretits got King and all
Speaker 1: these heroes and heroes, and even going back to the
Speaker 1: first reconstruction, that was well, that was class structured primarily,
Speaker 1: but it was it was it was sort of massed
Speaker 1: in love and hate racism. I mean, slavery was about money.
Speaker 1: I do a whole podcast about that. It was it
Speaker 1: was primarily an economic exploitation situation. Okay, it's about money.
Speaker 1: I need get people who work for free, build a
Speaker 1: country for free. So what I'm saying now, though, is
Speaker 1: the issue is not lover hate, it's radical indifference. Please
Speaker 1: hear me, because now minute seventeenth mark of this podcast,
Speaker 1: I'm about to talk about what it's going to take
Speaker 1: for you to become the transformation know you Again, this
Speaker 1: works for anybody, but it's going to really work for
Speaker 1: African Americans and Latinos and people of color because when
Speaker 1: when when Mason America has a headache, Black and Browns
Speaker 1: have pneumonia, Okay they're sick, but we're really sick. It
Speaker 1: could kill us. And I want you to get this
Speaker 1: success format. I want you to understand that initially everybody
Speaker 1: may not see it, or it may not you know,
Speaker 1: they see it. They may not acknowledge them because they're
Speaker 1: insecure about your success and may players hate it, maybe
Speaker 1: challenged or threatened by it. First they will to ignore you.
Speaker 1: Then they will criticize you if you keep at it.
Speaker 1: Then you'll win. First they will ignore you, then they'll
Speaker 1: criticize you, and you keep at it, and then you win.
Speaker 1: Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever give up. But
Speaker 1: if the issue is radical and difference, then somebody does
Speaker 1: not care them about you to hate you. Let me
Speaker 1: give you some signals about this. Private communities, private private security,
Speaker 1: gated gated communities, private clubs, private homesteads, private transportation, private security,
Speaker 1: starting to get it, and they're popping up all across
Speaker 1: this country, popping off all around the world. People just differentiate.
Speaker 1: They're just saying, look, if you want to tear yourself up,
Speaker 1: if you want to blow yourself up, if you want
Speaker 1: to destroy your own community, I don't care. They're saying
Speaker 1: that that's your business. I'm not saying it's right. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you this as to what when religion falls away,
Speaker 1: when spirituality gets diminished, then people start making the decisions
Speaker 1: that are more transactional and more selfish in nature. And
Speaker 1: we've got to get our spirituality back. But that is
Speaker 1: a fight for another The other day, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make sure that you have the tools you need to
Speaker 1: compete and succeed in the current environment. And I believe
Speaker 1: the current environment political, economic, social, society, cultural, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Your fere this is a future. It's common for you now, Okay,
Speaker 1: I believe the current environment supercharged by an overlay of
Speaker 1: technology and artificial intelligence that will aid in a bet
Speaker 1: progress for progress's sake, it would be progressed at the
Speaker 1: speed of light. As doctor King said, the world's moving
Speaker 1: at as jet like speed. In America is moving at
Speaker 1: horse and buggy pace. When it came to social progress,
Speaker 1: we are at this inflection point again. But back then
Speaker 1: he can make a moral case and people listened. There's
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of reasons for that, and whether the
Speaker 1: moral case worked and all that. We won't get into
Speaker 1: that in this podcast. But for a range of reasons,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that people are increasingly disconnecting from your
Speaker 1: success or your failure. It's not lever hate. It's just
Speaker 1: in difference, just shrugging their shoulders, not my problem. And
Speaker 1: until we can get everybody back on the same page,
Speaker 1: agent realize we're better together. You might be on your
Speaker 1: own for a minute. Okay, Now, there are some benefits
Speaker 1: to being on your own, as you can get yourself right.
Speaker 1: Nobody's coming to say to you as a great wake
Speaker 1: up call. You don't you realize you cannot subcontract your democracy,
Speaker 1: or your freedom or your opportunity. You realize you have
Speaker 1: to vote, and you got to be a stakeholder. Otherwise
Speaker 1: there's no stake in what you're looking for, so you
Speaker 1: tend not to vote. You understand that nobody watches rental cars. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: you got to own something and that starts with owning
Speaker 1: your self. So I want you to become Please write
Speaker 1: this down now. This is the most important I'm going
Speaker 1: to say in the first twenty minutes of this podcast.
Speaker 1: And I'm not getting now, I'm getting to the meat
Speaker 1: of the matter. I want you to become obsessed with
Speaker 1: becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Obsessed. This is
Speaker 1: your primary asset. That's why this is a money and
Speaker 1: wealth podcast. Yes, but you are the product. Okay, please
Speaker 1: hear me. And I want you to become obsessed with
Speaker 1: becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Because when you
Speaker 1: like you, you can love somebody like somebody else. When
Speaker 1: you love you, you can love somebody else. When you're
Speaker 1: comfortable with you, you're comfortable with everybody else. And see
Speaker 1: how that works. And the opposite, unfortunately, is also true.
Speaker 1: Whether you're insecure, you're going to be insecure about others.
Speaker 1: If you hate yourself, you're going to hate other people.
Speaker 1: If you don't like yourself, it's to be hard for
Speaker 1: you don't like somebody else, and you don't love yourself,
Speaker 1: how do you understand how to love somebody else? And
Speaker 1: so on and so forth. The most dangerous person world
Speaker 1: is a person with no hope. So I want you
Speaker 1: to learn to become reasonably comfortable in your own skin.
Speaker 1: I'm going to literally give you a prescription for that
Speaker 1: here in a moment. I want you to heal from
Speaker 1: the hurt of your eighteen year old self. Heal from
Speaker 1: the hurt of your eighteen year old or your fifteen
Speaker 1: year old, or your twelve year old, or your eight
Speaker 1: year old or your five year old self, whatever that
Speaker 1: pain is. I want you to become focused on healing
Speaker 1: from that thing and becoming a new version. I'm a new,
Speaker 1: powerful version of your newfound self. I want you to
Speaker 1: understand that you might be broke, but you're not poor.
Speaker 1: That God made you unique and powerful and special and different,
Speaker 1: and he made you to win. I want you to
Speaker 1: learn to manage all kinds of things coming at you
Speaker 1: in an age of radical indifference. I want you to
Speaker 1: see opportunity everywhere. There's one hundred trillion dollars worth of
Speaker 1: opportunities coming your way. I'll cover this in the future podcast.
Speaker 1: One hundred trillion dollars of economic opportunity coming your way
Speaker 1: and no one's paying attention to it. And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you the roadmap in future episodes of how to
Speaker 1: get at it yourself. It's gonna be easy to go
Speaker 1: after a thirty million dollar opportunity in the next few years,
Speaker 1: the next ten years, sure than it is to going
Speaker 1: after a twenty dollars toller opportunity. Yes, I said that.
Speaker 1: Easier to go after twenty million dollars. That an opportunity
Speaker 1: the way I'm going to tell you how to pursue it,
Speaker 1: then going after a twenty thousand or twoitive thousand dollars
Speaker 1: start up opportunity. But we'll get to that in successive episodes.
Speaker 1: Tell all your friends to follow this episode series for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I want you to become obsessed. This
Speaker 1: is why I became absolutely focused on financial literacy. I
Speaker 1: believe it's a civil rights issue. Of this generation. That's
Speaker 1: why I think it's one of the most radical thing
Speaker 1: I could do was to teach you financial literacy. And
Speaker 1: now I think that financial literacy is a civil rights
Speaker 1: issue of this generation. And I believe that AI literacy,
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence AI literacy is the silvi rights issue of
Speaker 1: this generation. And I want you to go from the
Speaker 1: streets to the suites, from the streets to the business suites.
Speaker 1: I want you to cut deals. I want you to
Speaker 1: be get on that aspiracial ladder. I want you to
Speaker 1: be the aspiration generation that I know you can be.
Speaker 1: But you're gonna have to be obsessively focused on from
Speaker 1: a technical perspective, financial literacy because we live in and
Speaker 1: we live in, an economic democracy, a capitalist democracy. The
Speaker 1: United States of America, the largest economy in the world,
Speaker 1: the sold superpower in the world, is a capitalist democracy,
Speaker 1: a free enterprise democracy. Please hear me. And if you
Speaker 1: don't understand money, Bastard Andrew Young, my mentor Doctor King's
Speaker 1: right arm in the civil rights movement, the guy who
Speaker 1: built the biggest economy in the traditional South, the only
Speaker 1: national city in the South. Only mayor ever mentor by
Speaker 1: doctor Martha King Jr. Said to live in a system
Speaker 1: of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of
Speaker 1: free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. Can
Speaker 1: I give an amen? And what I've said is it's
Speaker 1: what you don't know that you don't know that's killing you,
Speaker 1: but you think you know. Hello, So here we go.
Speaker 1: I'm one, and now tell you why most people will
Speaker 1: never be successful. Now, this is something that I've been
Speaker 1: that I've had in my file since two thousand and four.
Speaker 1: I believe a poem. It's a poem, if you will,
Speaker 1: or a memo to self that's written by a gentleman
Speaker 1: by the name of doctor ben Hardy. Okay, And I
Speaker 1: want you to listen very carefully this because this is
Speaker 1: how I live my life. When I say I wants
Speaker 1: you to become reasonably comfortable in your own skin. When
Speaker 1: I talk about being high frequency, it just a phrase
Speaker 1: that I really first heard from from my wife shape
Speaker 1: for Bryant. But I want you to I didn't living.
Speaker 1: I just didn't know what the phrase was, and I
Speaker 1: describe it. So I'm about to explain this to you.
Speaker 1: Please listen to this, go back, make notes and write
Speaker 1: this down. Listen to this podcast and hit reverse hit
Speaker 1: rewind that's creating my podcast, and go back and listen
Speaker 1: to it again. Talk to your friends about this and
Speaker 1: unpack what I'm about to tell you. Success isn't just
Speaker 1: having lots of money. Money. Many people with lots of
Speaker 1: money have horribly unhappy and radically imbalanced lives. Success is
Speaker 1: continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve,
Speaker 1: how you relate. So why won't most people be successful?
Speaker 1: Why don't most people evolve? The more evolved you become,
Speaker 1: the more focused you must be on those few things
Speaker 1: which matter most. Now I'm a pause here and say,
Speaker 1: and this is me talking, not doctor Hardy. Please remember now,
Speaker 1: I think I really do believe people are dumb on purpose. Yes,
Speaker 1: I said, I think you're stupid and dumb on purpose.
Speaker 1: You have a smartphone in your hand, had more access
Speaker 1: to data and information easily obtainable in your life. And
Speaker 1: before you had a smartphone and AI, you had an
Speaker 1: Internet search, Google Search. The library of the world is
Speaker 1: open to you. I'm nosy about everything, Quincy Jones, how'd
Speaker 1: you get so smart? I'm just nosy as hell. I
Speaker 1: want to know everything about everything. Well, John O'Brien is
Speaker 1: nosy God, I'll give you two ears in one mouth,
Speaker 1: so you listen twice as much as you talk. So
Speaker 1: if you're not successful today, you're well not successful. Sorry,
Speaker 1: it's separate because that is about choice, luck and opportunity
Speaker 1: and a few other things. But if you're dumb today,
Speaker 1: if you're stupid, you're you're stupid on purpose. Unless you're
Speaker 1: a mental illness or something that you can't control, you
Speaker 1: have some kind of a chemical bounce, it's a different thing.
Speaker 1: But if you're a reasonable, sound mind, that's what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. You know what I'm talking about. So what
Speaker 1: am I saying? Love is work? Non love us laziness,
Speaker 1: anti love is evil. Evil exists, but it's very rare.
Speaker 1: Most people are just lazy, intellectually lazy, financially lazy, spiritually lazy,
Speaker 1: emotionally lazy. They don't want to do the work. They
Speaker 1: want somebody else to do it for them. They want
Speaker 1: to subcontract the work. Well, only in the dictionary does
Speaker 1: the word success come before the word work, because it's
Speaker 1: out a better go? Can I get an amen? You've
Speaker 1: got to do the work. There's no excuse for the work,
Speaker 1: there's no way around it. So doing the work's tough.
Speaker 1: Doing the work may be dealing with your pain, your drama,
Speaker 1: the unhealing, dealing with the unhealed nature of your eighteen
Speaker 1: year old self or your twelve year old self. Whenever
Speaker 1: somebody abused or took advantage of you. You've got to
Speaker 1: make peace with that pain and turn it into promise.
Speaker 1: You've got to be comment committed to evolving every day
Speaker 1: and waking up tomorrow better than you were yesterday when
Speaker 1: you went to bed. That is my commitment to myself.
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with it. That's why I love books and learning,
Speaker 1: because once you learn, and you can't no one can
Speaker 1: take that from you. You don't unlearn it, right, and
Speaker 1: once that river vand has expanded it, it never returned
Speaker 1: to its original size. The more involved you become, the
Speaker 1: more focus you must be on those few things which
Speaker 1: matter most. Yeah, as Jim Rohn has said, quote, a
Speaker 1: lot of people don't do well simply because a major
Speaker 1: n minor things end quote. To be successful, you can't
Speaker 1: continue being with low frequency people long periods of time.
Speaker 1: I'm going to repeat that. To be successful, you can't
Speaker 1: continue being around low frequency people for long periods of time.
Speaker 1: I'm not judging anybody, it is what it is. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying somebody's better for worse. I'm saying they're either
Speaker 1: high frequency, low frequency of medium frequency. They're either highly
Speaker 1: evolved and critical thinking and do the work and all
Speaker 1: that stuff, or they just are. You figure out what
Speaker 1: low frequency is. You define it yourself. I think you've
Speaker 1: got good common sense. Look around you, eagles, buzzers, turkeys. Hello,
Speaker 1: you can't continue eating crappy food, regardless of your spouse's
Speaker 1: or colleagues food choices. He's an old Southern SI. No
Speaker 1: matter how much I love you, my son or my daughter,
Speaker 1: if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you
Speaker 1: my own ignorance. Hello, I'll say it again, No matter
Speaker 1: how much I love you my son and my daughter,
Speaker 1: if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you
Speaker 1: my own ignorance. I can only give you what I've got,
Speaker 1: So please listen to me. Now, out of love, we
Speaker 1: pass down bad habits and generation and generation. Out of love.
Speaker 1: We do that because what you don't know that you
Speaker 1: don't know is killing you, but you think you know.
Speaker 1: Is what you don't know that you don't know that
Speaker 1: they be killing you, but you think you know so
Speaker 1: somebody can love you and give you bad advice. Hello,
Speaker 1: you can't continue eating crabby food regardless of who's your
Speaker 1: spouse or colleagues whose choices may be what they may be.
Speaker 1: Your day must consistently be spent on high quality activities.
Speaker 1: The more successful you become, which is balancing the few
Speaker 1: essential things princes print, spiritual, relational, financial, physical, and princes. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is balancing the few essential things in your life
Speaker 1: and removing everything else. The less you can justify low quality.
Speaker 1: I'll repeat that, the more successful you become, the less
Speaker 1: you can justify low quality in your life before you evolve.
Speaker 1: By the way, it's so hope, it's another quick I
Speaker 1: just love Quincy Chelsea, he said. Again. He said, the
Speaker 1: only worse than being alone is wishing that you were.
Speaker 1: You can do that all by yourself before you evolve.
Speaker 1: You can. You can reasonably spend time with just about anyone.
Speaker 1: This is called youth young being a young person, growing up,
Speaker 1: having fun before you evolve. As a child, he said,
Speaker 1: you can reasonably spend time and justify spending time with
Speaker 1: about anyone you like. You can reasonably eat anything placed
Speaker 1: in front of you. Again, this is what children often
Speaker 1: do young people who are immature and not evolved. You
Speaker 1: know your body can absorb anything. At a young age,
Speaker 1: it appears you can reasonably justify activities and behaviors that
Speaker 1: are frankly mediocre. As your vision for yourself expands, you
Speaker 1: realize you have to make certain adjustments. You need to
Speaker 1: cut back on spending all of your money and time
Speaker 1: on crap and entertainment. You have to save more hello
Speaker 1: financial literacy and invest more in your education in your future.
Speaker 1: The more successful you become, the less you can justify
Speaker 1: low quality. The more focused you must become, the more
Speaker 1: consistently your daily behaviors must be high quality and increasingly
Speaker 1: higher quality. This isn't about perfection. It's definitely not about
Speaker 1: being busy all the time. Actually, the balance of true
Speaker 1: success involves what Tim Fairs calls many retirements or regular sabbaticals.
Speaker 1: I love this, by the way, and I was doing
Speaker 1: this long before I read this. Just told me I
Speaker 1: was on the right track. Yet, if your daily behaviors
Speaker 1: are consistently low quality, what do you expect your life's
Speaker 1: output to be? And I'm going to go back now
Speaker 1: to these many retirements or regular sabbaticals for a second,
Speaker 1: So I work my tailoff. I work from can't see
Speaker 1: anyone and I can't see at night. I believe an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur works eighteen hours day to keep from getting a job. Frankly, right,
Speaker 1: our middle name is work. But I've learned that my
Speaker 1: body and my brain needs rest. I'm on travel now
Speaker 1: doing this podcast in Las Vegas because my friend at
Speaker 1: Bashi and CEO of Delto invited me and my wife
Speaker 1: to come out to support them as they support their
Speaker 1: as they celebrate their one hundredth anniversary and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth. He's a friend and supported Operatos work,
Speaker 1: and I'm proud of them. So we left our out.
Speaker 1: We left our retreat, but with the family what shape.
Speaker 1: We're on a family retreat which I go on every
Speaker 1: six months to recharge because the world is discharging itself
Speaker 1: on you. Your world is maybe refueling you, but it
Speaker 1: can't re energize you. Okay, because the world because gas
Speaker 1: comes from fuel, right, but you need energy source material
Speaker 1: which you need to step off the field sometimes and
Speaker 1: get quiet on yourself and recharge. I hope this is
Speaker 1: making sense. So I step off the field so I
Speaker 1: can re energize myself read reflect, go through on the
Speaker 1: left side of my brain, analytical and dealing with tactics
Speaker 1: and strategies and doing things and the urgent, and I
Speaker 1: go from the urgent to the important. I switch from
Speaker 1: the left brain to the right brain creativity and hope,
Speaker 1: well being, faith, you know, wellness, inner thought, consciousness exists,
Speaker 1: and I heal myself, and I read books, and I
Speaker 1: sleep long, take long naps and play in the water
Speaker 1: the ocean, and let my body. It's all heal so
Speaker 1: I can go back into the battle, because capitalism is
Speaker 1: a gladiator sport, and I need full force to be
Speaker 1: able to deal with all that. So I step off
Speaker 1: for a retreat, which in this example is called sabbatical.
Speaker 1: But I take many retirements every night when I read
Speaker 1: a book or watch something silly on YouTube for fifteen
Speaker 1: or twenty minutes to grow over the bed. I take
Speaker 1: a many retirement when I've meditated as a stop light
Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes between meetings, and I just go inside
Speaker 1: of myself and become quiet. But in order to do that,
Speaker 1: you've got to love yourself. It's got to be reasonably
Speaker 1: comfortable in your own skin so that you enjoy your
Speaker 1: own company. You don't need everybody around you in order
Speaker 1: to justify who you are or to make you comfortable.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the word, but I don't
Speaker 1: even know what people say when they're bored they don't
Speaker 1: have time. I mean, I've got more things I'm interested
Speaker 1: in that I've got time to allocate to it. And
Speaker 1: I enjoyed my own company, even though I really enjoy
Speaker 1: everybody else's company. So it is example I gave you
Speaker 1: of my friend Ambashi. We were on a retreat. He
Speaker 1: asked to for us the Avitus to company this. So
Speaker 1: we stepped away from our retreat because we felt this
Speaker 1: was important. To come this bene a couple of days
Speaker 1: with him, and then in Las Vegas, and then we're
Speaker 1: out of here. We're too and we're back on a retreat,
Speaker 1: back on schedule, good habits, back into a quiet space
Speaker 1: because I know that once this year gets going, it
Speaker 1: won't stop. The life will come on, it won't go off,
Speaker 1: and the world will use you and till you know
Speaker 1: you say no. There's a lot of love in the world.
Speaker 1: No love is not just yes. Love is also known
Speaker 1: so that you can say yes later to the right things,
Speaker 1: high quality things. If your daily behaviors are consistently low quality.
Speaker 1: What do you expect your life's output to be? Your
Speaker 1: choice is must become a higher quality. Again, there's nothing
Speaker 1: that is about better or worse than somebody else. Everybody's equal,
Speaker 1: everybody's God's child. This is about you making quality choices
Speaker 1: and getting the toxicity at your life. Can I give
Speaker 1: an amen? This is about you said I can do
Speaker 1: bad all by my day on self. If two plus
Speaker 1: two in a relationship is not equal four, then what sorry?
Speaker 1: If two plus two does not equal more than for six,
Speaker 1: eight or ten, then what are you doing? What are
Speaker 1: you doing? You can do bad all by yourself. This
Speaker 1: is not in a relationship. It's not addition is multiplication?
Speaker 1: Two plus two should equal six to eight or ten.
Speaker 1: I've said it before, I've said it now. A giver
Speaker 1: and a giver is exotic, A given or taker is neurotic,
Speaker 1: and a taker and a taker is psychotic. And you
Speaker 1: want to ruin your potential to build income and create wealth,
Speaker 1: hook up with somebody who's a leech, who's a who's
Speaker 1: sapping you and sucking you of energy and taking, taking, taking, taking, taking,
Speaker 1: and a chief criticism officer, a chief negativity officer, Chief
Speaker 1: toxicity officer has nothing to give and nothing to offer.
Speaker 1: How draining can that be? How draining is that? Hello,
Speaker 1: hopefully you're not looking to the left and the right
Speaker 1: of you right now going Your choices must become higher quality.
Speaker 1: Your relationships must become higher quality. Every area of your
Speaker 1: life affects every other area of your life. Please hear me,
Speaker 1: I'm let's say it again. Every area of your life
Speaker 1: affects every other area of your life. Hence the saying
Speaker 1: how you do anything, it's how you do everything. This
Speaker 1: is very high level thinking. It only makes sense for
Speaker 1: people who have removed everything from their lives they hate.
Speaker 1: I will repeat that this only makes sense for people
Speaker 1: who have removed everything from their lives that they hate,
Speaker 1: which includes toxic people too, Which means you may have
Speaker 1: that in you with your family. I'm not saying discard
Speaker 1: your family. I'm saying, separate yourself from them on critical
Speaker 1: decisions and don't let them create a cancer in the
Speaker 1: core of your life. You can love your cousins and
Speaker 1: your family members without letting them overtake your thinking or
Speaker 1: make decisions for you. How can someon make a decision
Speaker 1: for you where they're unqualified to do it. Are they
Speaker 1: successful or do they other relationships you? Again, it goes
Speaker 1: back to trying to model that four square block celebrity
Speaker 1: that you admired and wanted to be thought to be
Speaker 1: cool by. I mean, what is it's cool paying you
Speaker 1: a mortgage your cardinal? Do you know they're no ugly billionaires?
Speaker 1: Don't get me started this kind of thinking. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say again, this high level thinking only makes sense for
Speaker 1: people who have removed every think in their lives that
Speaker 1: they hate to actually live this principle. Your daily in
Speaker 1: normal life can only be filled with those things you
Speaker 1: highly value. I want this to be your aspiration. When
Speaker 1: your days are filled with only those core essentials that
Speaker 1: means the world to you and is valued by you,
Speaker 1: and you're succeeding in those few areas quality over quantity,
Speaker 1: you absolutely will dominate in all areas of your life
Speaker 1: because you're focusing on few areas of your life. Because
Speaker 1: the only things in your life are the things you
Speaker 1: highly value. Everything else has slowly been weeded out. You're
Speaker 1: living intentionally and congruently. You hear, you have momentum and balance.
Speaker 1: You're being who you truly want to be. Every single day.
Speaker 1: To actually do this not only takes time, but it
Speaker 1: is extremely hard to live in practice. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you I'm gonna acknowledge that this is extraordinarily hard. Where
Speaker 1: did I say love is work? Non love is laziest,
Speaker 1: anti love is evil. Whatever you love is gonna drive
Speaker 1: you absolutely crazy. You love your kids, you want to
Speaker 1: strangle with them once if once a month. You love
Speaker 1: your husband wants a divorce one, you know, once a year.
Speaker 1: You love your job, you love you hate you. You
Speaker 1: love your career, you love it to be okay. You
Speaker 1: want to quit you know once once at least once
Speaker 1: a year. Whatever you love is gonna drive you a
Speaker 1: little nuts. It's okay. You love your country. You want
Speaker 1: to strangle your country. You want to divorce from your
Speaker 1: country sometimes, but you can't. You're stuck with it because
Speaker 1: it's all we got. We got to make it work,
Speaker 1: and we will. Because rainbow's only fiable. Storms cannot have
Speaker 1: a rainbow without a storm first. You can't grow accept
Speaker 1: the legitimate suffering any By the way, that's big lokal.
Speaker 1: Saying no to great but irrelevant opportunities is hard, right.
Speaker 1: It's a maybe opportunity, but may not be relevant to you.
Speaker 1: Getting up bad habits is hard. Changing your belief system
Speaker 1: and expanding your vision takes courage. I sit in my
Speaker 1: book Love Leadership. The courage is nothing more than your
Speaker 1: faith reaching through your fear. Displaying it self is action
Speaker 1: in your life. Faith courage is nothing more than your
Speaker 1: faith reaching through your fear. Displaying it self is action
Speaker 1: in your life. Changing your belief system and expanding your
Speaker 1: vision takes courage. It's so easy to revert back to
Speaker 1: small and mediocre thinking. However, as you come closer you're
Speaker 1: living on a daily basis with your values and ideals,
Speaker 1: Amazing things start to happen. You'll feel happier, You'll be
Speaker 1: more present with those you love. I try to be again.
Speaker 1: Present at all times is the way they call the
Speaker 1: President of Gift. Yesterday's a memory that is the work
Speaker 1: of the book. The powerful now by echo told his philosophy.
Speaker 1: Yesterday's memory doesn't exist tomorrow. The future hasn't happened. Most
Speaker 1: people will have one footing yesterday one and foot in tomorrow,
Speaker 1: which is why they're not present and which is why
Speaker 1: they're anxiety in their lives. Once you have a presence
Speaker 1: in your life, once you live in the present of
Speaker 1: your life. Peace comes over you and you create more time.
Speaker 1: It's a whole another discussion for another time. You'll be
Speaker 1: more present with those you love. You'll spend more time.
Speaker 1: You'll spend your time better. You'll actually you start investing
Speaker 1: your time versus just spending it. You'll pursue bigger dreams
Speaker 1: and ambitions. You'll be more resilient during challenges. You'll live
Speaker 1: at a higher frequency, and everything around you will reflect that.
Speaker 1: But to repeat Jim Rowne's quote, a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't do well simply because they major in minor things.
Speaker 1: Say it another way, most people are caught in the
Speaker 1: thick of thin things. Hence, most people won't be successful.
Speaker 1: Most people won't evolve and progress. But you will. You
Speaker 1: know it, and you can feel it. You've already begun,
Speaker 1: and every day you're taking one step closer. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: you'll fully commit to being who you know you can be.
Speaker 1: Once you pass that point of no return, nothing will
Speaker 1: stop you. I want you to get up from this
Speaker 1: podcast with a renewed sense of somebodyness. I want you
Speaker 1: to know that you're God's child. I want you to
Speaker 1: know that He made you great. You don't approve to
Speaker 1: anybody else. It's already there. What you got to do
Speaker 1: is become reasonably comfortable in your own skins. Settle down,
Speaker 1: and settle up. Buckle up, because this is going to
Speaker 1: be a ride in your life. People thought they did
Speaker 1: you some disservice by not giving you attention, by ignoring you,
Speaker 1: by being indifferent to you. And what they did was
Speaker 1: set you free, because it's a great thing to be
Speaker 1: underestimated and ignored and no one's paying attention to you.
Speaker 1: People for years didn't pay attention to me. They do
Speaker 1: their nose up at me. They disrespected me. They said, oh,
Speaker 1: John brian that capitalism of financial literacy. I'd go to
Speaker 1: the White House and the White House officials four Honey
Speaker 1: administrations ago. I've known nine presidents, probably six presidents ago.
Speaker 1: Black Man. Even though that's ambassador John Briant, it's an ambassador.
Speaker 1: I've been made at a good will ambassador for Fantasy
Speaker 1: for the United Nations conference treating developer Geneva Switzerland. So
Speaker 1: I was very proud of that. But he called me ambassador.
Speaker 1: In other words, I'm just a ham. I'm just talking.
Speaker 1: It hurt my feelings. It was intended to hurt my feelings.
Speaker 1: That's okay. Haters just make you better again. Rainbow's after storms.
Speaker 1: Do you know that people called doctor Martin U King
Speaker 1: Junior Martin Loser King Martin Luther Kuhn, Uncle Tom sell
Speaker 1: out and want to be and those are his friends talking.
Speaker 1: He ignored the noise, and I'm telling you to ignore
Speaker 1: the noise. I'm telling you that I nor the noise.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie to you. It hurt my feelings.
Speaker 1: I put it in books. I acknowledge it. It hurt
Speaker 1: my feelings. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Speaker 1: And it made me stronger. It made me resilient. I
Speaker 1: rather respect me and learn to like me than like
Speaker 1: me and never respect me. So then when you like me,
Speaker 1: it's great, but it doesn't define who I am. And
Speaker 1: I want you to wake up tomorrow knowing that you
Speaker 1: can do anything you set your mind to. I want
Speaker 1: you to be a giver. I want you to be
Speaker 1: about I want you to about what you have to
Speaker 1: give and I want you have to get. I want
Speaker 1: you to be about relationships and not transactions. I want
Speaker 1: you to wake up and figure out what you have
Speaker 1: to uniquely give and contribute in this world and go
Speaker 1: about doing that thing. And when you do that thing,
Speaker 1: you become the best at it in the world, and
Speaker 1: that will create income and generate brand equity, meaning what
Speaker 1: your name is worth, and that will then create wealth.
Speaker 1: And wealth compounds or is created when you sleep, more education,
Speaker 1: more knowledge, more insight, better you know, compounding stocks, bonds,
Speaker 1: investments of growing organization, more employees, which will then ultimately
Speaker 1: in time, set you free and give your opportunity to
Speaker 1: well have more high frequency conversations like this and get
Speaker 1: out of the urgent and deal with what's important. Don't
Speaker 1: never let the urgent crowd out the importance. It's another
Speaker 1: conversation for another day, but today take your life back.
Speaker 1: This is John ho'brien and this has been my discussion
Speaker 1: to you on becoming a transformation of you in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five so you can live a life of wealth
Speaker 1: from the inside out. Tell all your friends about this podcast.
Speaker 1: Share this with everybody you know. Tell me to go
Speaker 1: get the book Financial Literacy for all my other five
Speaker 1: books with them, Tell them to subscribe to this podcast
Speaker 1: and watch it out Takes on YouTube. Subscribe to my
Speaker 1: YouTube channel, follow me on social media. Certainly subscribe to
Speaker 1: Money and Wealth and the Black Offect Network, other podcasts
Speaker 1: and on iHeartRadio. Support those who are supporting you. Let's
Speaker 1: start a movement. Let's build ourselves from the shoulders up.
Speaker 1: Let's make smart sexy again. We've been making dumb sexy
Speaker 1: for way too long. We've dumbed down and celebrated. It's
Speaker 1: time to make smart sexy again. Love and Light, John O'Brien.
Speaker 1: Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
Speaker 1: the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Speaker 1: Black Effect podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.