WEBVTT - John Hope Bryant on Financial Literacy 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:06.000 This is Master's in Business with Barry rid Holds on 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.240 Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.680 This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.759 John Hope Bryant is a fascinating entrepreneur and philanthropist. He 0:00:17.880 --> 0:00:20.560 is the founder of Operation Hope and one of the 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:25.599 leading voices for financial literacy in America. He was vice 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:29.760 chair of President Bush's Council on Financial Literacy and sat 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:34.800 on a similar council on Financial Capability for President Obama. 0:00:35.120 --> 0:00:38.680 He has written five books with more coming. Really a 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:42.840 fascinating person who operates in a realm that I think 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:47.120 a lot of people in finance overlook, and he's really 0:00:47.200 --> 0:00:51.520 moving the needle in terms of having people take control 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.560 of their own financial life in a way that benefits 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.160 not just them, but the entire economy, in all of society. 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.160 I found on our conversation to be just compelling and fascinating, 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.520 and I think you will also so, with no further ado, 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:11.959 my conversation with Operation Hope's John Hope Bryant. 0:01:12.160 --> 0:01:13.800 Thank you for having me and honor to be here. 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:15.479 By the way, my last book is Up from Nothing. 0:01:15.520 --> 0:01:18.039 That's my favorite one. That's my story of my failures, 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:19.480 not my successes. I like that. 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:22.360 I like a tail. We tend to learn more from 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:25.880 our mistakes than we do from our successes. But we'll 0:01:25.920 --> 0:01:27.679 circle back to that in a bit. Let's start a 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.640 little bit with your background. You tell a story in 0:01:30.720 --> 0:01:33.400 one of your books of a banker who shows up 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.720 at your elementary school class, and that kick started your 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:37.760 interest in finance. 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:42.240 Yes, it was a transformational experience to have this banker 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:45.800 come in my classroom. On several levels. I had an 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.480 economics lesson, I had a life lesson. I had an epiphany. 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.600 I had a race relations lesson. I had a self 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:54.440 esteem and confidence lesson. Those two things finally came together. 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.960 I had aha about how the world really works. I 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.640 figured out how to keep my friends from getting murdered 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:04.440 in the streets because when I was nine years old, 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.880 a year before this class, actually the same years as class, 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:09.560 my best friend George was murdered on a street in 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:13.040 Compton with my next door neighbor tweet selling drugs. Even 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.760 though he was a student, he hung out with the 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:19.960 wrong character, the wrong kids. And character is not the 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.080 most important thing in business or whatever. It's the only 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.280 thing really and culture. Culture then informs characters. So culture 0:02:26.360 --> 0:02:30.119 my neighborhood was a thug culture that you were respected 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:32.640 if you were you know, hard, a tough guy. And 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.240 so my friend, my best friend, who was very, very smart, 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.839 did not have good parents like I had, who told 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.040 me I could do anything I wanted to do, and 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.519 who loved me and told me. My mother she told 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:44.840 me she loved me every day of my life. So 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.280 there's a difference barrier between being broken being poor. Being 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:52.240 brokens economic, but being poor as a disabling frame of mind, 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:55.200 a depressed condition of your spirit. You must vow never 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.160 to be poor again. So because I had this self 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:02.760 esteem based on my mother, and I had self love, 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:07.200 just not self confidence. My next door neighbor, oh well, 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:09.280 my best friend had self confidence but did not have 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.920 self esteem, so he was influenced by those around him. 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.240 He was murdered then when I was seven years old, 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:20.760 the guy who saved my life because long story short, 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.440 my mother moved away from my father arguments over money, 0:03:24.600 --> 0:03:27.120 domestic abuse involving money. When I was five years old, 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:31.600 they fought, she moved. We were staying with her relative 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:34.800 to save some money for her first home. The guy 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:40.680 who was dating, oh see, dating my mother's cousin saved 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:42.800 my life on the front porch when I was swallowing 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:47.400 my tongue, and I just idolized this guy. What I 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.920 didn't realize was he was ashamed to admit that he 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.120 could not afford to float the expenses of his immediate 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.120 family and hours. So he went to go sell drugs, 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:01.360 also part time, and he was murdered by the drug dealers, 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.360 for whom this was their territory. They came around the 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.160 corner in a truck, Barry. I'm sitting on the porch 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:09.680 waiting for him to come home. I'm seven years old. 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.240 This is my idol. He saved my life. They hit 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:16.760 him in the truck on a bicycle. I can see 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:19.479 it in my mind's eye. Wow. They drag him down 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:21.720 the street in front of me until he was dead. 0:04:21.920 --> 0:04:23.400 They did it in front of our house to send 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:26.839 a message. And so here was You know, these are 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.880 two stories, maybe three before I'm nine years old, of 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.480 bad economics, bad culture, and a bad business plan. So 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.560 now I'm nine years old, Berry and this banker comes 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.719 in my classroom. It's home economics class doesn't exist anymore. 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:40.200 Right. 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:44.599 He's white, He has a blue suit, a white shirt 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:48.680 of red tie, he's six ' to two, and he 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.159 starts talking about money and free enterprise and capitalism and 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:56.440 ownership and balance sheets and all this stuff. And I'm 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:57.640 sitting there mesmerized. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.040 You're nine years old at I'm nine. 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:04.760 And I'm completely entranced. And I remember probably the second 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.080 or third class, because by the third class I was 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.200 actually wearing a suit, the only suit I had, which 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:12.200 was my Sunday suit to school, trying to emulate the 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:14.120 suit that I saw this guy in. By the way, 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.600 this was a crush velvet three p suit with a 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:18.120 ruffled shirt and a big bow tie. So you can 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:19.680 imagine I got beat up when I went to school. 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.839 So I raised my hand Barry, and I said, excuse me, sir, 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:27.279 I had enough courage to ask this question, what do 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:30.719 you do for a living? And how'd you get rich? Legally? 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:35.640 And Barry I was dead serious, like I was, just 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.160 completely It was to me it was a common sense 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.960 question because everybody in my neighborhood was a thug, a 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:44.880 drug dealer, or a criminal. I mean, nobody had legit wealth. 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.680 So this guy's a banker talking to a room full 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.240 of nine and ten years old, Yeah, how does he 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:51.960 answer the question? What do you do for a living, 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:53.800 and how do you get rich legally? 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:59.320 He said, I'm a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. And 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:03.240 I said, what's an entrepreneur? I never heard that word 0:06:03.320 --> 0:06:06.279 my entire life. French word built something out of nothing, 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:09.800 create value. What's an entrepreneur? I mean, no one's ever 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:12.240 taught me that. So I went home to the dictionary. 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.440 For those in the you know, current generation, it's a 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.880 Google search, and I opened the dictionary to the word entrepreneur. 0:06:19.880 --> 0:06:22.040 And my whole life changed. And when I came back 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:26.600 to school, one more thing, what's a banker? And how 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:28.560 many of them are you? And you did you say 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:30.560 one more time that your job is to lend people 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.800 like me to be an entrepreneur money. I said, I 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:37.400 need to get this whole script straight, because here my 0:06:37.400 --> 0:06:41.120 friends were getting murdered and jailed and shot and all 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:44.080 this kind of you know, over economics, over some you know, 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:47.920 trying to sell drugs or sell TV said or whatever 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:48.760 it is in the hood. 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:52.479 Hustle up some money instead of launching something that was 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.559 very foreign to that part of the world. 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:56.440 And so when this guy told me that we're at 0:06:56.440 --> 0:07:04.360 that time ten thousand banks hundreds of thousands of bankers. 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.679 In your neighborhood or were you an unbanked real. 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:07.800 Well, I mean it was, you know, it was. It 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:09.760 was so few you knew where they were. Put it 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:11.960 that way, right, And this guy was a banker, to 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.720 be full disclosure, it was a banker for Bank of America. 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.440 So I knew what Bank of America was because my mother. 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:18.760 It was a big deal to go to the banking 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.840 over to a past book account, or to go there 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:22.840 with my mother every couple of weeks, you know, and 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.160 have or my dad to make an appointment with the 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:27.120 local the local branch banker might have been the mayor. 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:28.800 I mean he was a very important guy back in 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.920 those days. But it was pretty rare occurrence. So one, 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:35.520 I was shocked that there was an industry that was 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:39.240 whose job it was to lend a risk taker money. Two, 0:07:39.320 --> 0:07:42.360 I was shocked that it was legal. Three I shocked 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.600 that it was an actual occupation for a guy who 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.480 was a legitimate hessler. And my whole life changed and 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.720 I left there. I went, as I said, open the dictionary. 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.560 I started seeing the muffler shop as a business. By 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:56.560 the way, the different between an entrepreneur and a business 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:58.480 man as a or a businesswoman. Those are those things 0:07:58.520 --> 0:08:01.200 are different, different risk tolerance and different business plan. But 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:03.600 I started seeing the nail salon as a business. I 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.920 started seeing the I think a barbershop. All these things 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:09.400 were businesses. I never seen it that way before, and 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.400 I went back to school bery, sir, your business card? 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.200 Can I have one? Okay? What's the sixteenth floor thing? 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.880 You know? There's no floor above the sixth floor in 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:21.560 Compton and that's the courthouse. What's in the sixteen floor? 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:23.200 And where is that at? And by the way, how 0:08:23.200 --> 0:08:24.360 can you show the coming here in the middle of 0:08:24.400 --> 0:08:28.080 the day. My mother is an hourly job at mcdonaldalla's Aircraft. 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.360 She's got two fifteen minute breaks in lunch. How is 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:31.400 this you here in the middle of the day. It's 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:34.280 called a salary. You have a white shirt. My father 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.720 wore a blue shirt. How do you keep the shirt clean? Oh? 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.240 You just do work with mathematics and intellectual activities. You 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:43.360 don't do any dirty work, you know. And how's it 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.240 that you? What's this car? This in the parking lot. 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.520 It's got plates on it and and a tag and 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:54.360 it's brand new. Translation is not hot? Right? I mean? 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:57.760 And it's beautiful. What do you do? And this world 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:00.840 opened up to me man, and I was done. And 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:05.559 so mister Mac Max liquor Store six to two and 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:09.560 also six two black man own Max Liquor store. And 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:12.239 I realized for the first time, Barry, this was a businessman. 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.840 And I went to mister Mac. First of all, I 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.680 didn't know there was a black businessman in comptence. So congratulations, 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.960 mister Mac. You're selling the wrong kind of candy, he said, 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.760 excuse me, I said, you have a liquor store. You're 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:27.920 probably good at liquor, but you have a candy rack 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:29.960 in the liquor store and you're selling wrong kind of candy. 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:31.560 Go away, a little boy. I've got a college degree, 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.320 that's nice. I've got cavities. You're selling wrong kind of candy. 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:37.240 I'm nine at that point. That's ten. So he said, look, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.400 you've got a lot of hootsba. I'll hire you. I'm 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:41.520 gonna put you at the counter. 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.400 I want you in charge of the candy. 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:47.480 Right, I said no. I declined the offer. He said, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.480 I'm gonna pay you top dollar for you know, you 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:51.320 come after school. I'm gonna pay you. You'll be paid 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:53.400 more than any of your friends. I didn't want to 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.119 do it. And by the way, Barry, this is analogous 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:59.480 today to the basketball player with a contract, to the 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.280 rapper who can sing really well and it's rocking a mic, 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:06.199 to a baseball player, or anybody who is performing at 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.080 top dollar, but they're cashing the check, they're not writing it. 0:10:09.840 --> 0:10:12.040 And if you are a great performer, no matter what 0:10:12.080 --> 0:10:15.000 your industry is, you'll get paid a lot. You may 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:16.960 not build wealth, but you'll get a lot of income. 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:19.560 I didn't realize what I was doing back then, but 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.800 I was making a choice. I was like, I don't 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:24.480 want to be a performer. I don't want to be 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:27.760 your performer. You're the owner and I get to perform. 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.120 I don't want that. Tell you what I want. Make 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:35.120 me a box boy. Excuse me, Yeah, I want to 0:10:35.160 --> 0:10:37.719 do stocking, he says, the worst job I got. That's 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:39.520 what I want. I worked there for three weeks and 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.600 quit because then I knew what the wholesale rate was, 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:44.640 in the retail rate, I knew what the markup was, 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:47.240 I knew what supplying the man looked like, what things 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.360 were moving, what wasn't. I quit once I knew where 0:10:50.360 --> 0:10:51.920 he bought his inventory. He was on the side of 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:55.520 the box. I went home, got my mother, sold my 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.280 mother on making a forty dollars investment. She made me 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:00.440 pay her back by the way, and my new business, 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.559 and went to Smart and Final and Irish food store. 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.720 Was why about his inventory, and got put in business. 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:07.800 And I actually put him out of the candy business 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:09.920 not soon after that. I mean, three hundred dollars a 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:11.360 week on a forty dollars investment. 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:15.200 Wow, that's amazing. So let's talk a little bit about 0:11:15.240 --> 0:11:19.480 a quote of yours that's very relevant to this. Persistence 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:23.280 and resilience are more powerful than pedigree and raw intelligence. 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.440 Explain what you mean by that. Although I think I 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.000 have a suspicion as to where that came from. 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:31.480 I think that ties directly into what I said about 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.959 self esteem and confidence and the difference. It also ties 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:37.560 into the race relations lesson that I got by meeting 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:43.199 this white banker who was actually helping me to understand 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:45.640 the free enterprise system. So my experience with a white 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.040 person was different than the folks growing up. My folks 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.920 growing up, but my friends growing up, they'd get hit 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:54.120 over the head with by a police officer putting them over. 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.600 It was a negative experience as a result of that. 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.120 They didn't like white people, they didn't trust white people, 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.000 didn't want to talk to white people. My experience was 0:12:02.040 --> 0:12:04.640 this banker who basically opened my head up to a 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:07.880 whole new world. And so I wasn't intimidated by him. 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.959 I actually found an affinity with him. I didn't want 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.040 to be him, on to be me, but I was 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:17.760 not both reposed. I was ne either rapost or you know, 0:12:17.840 --> 0:12:20.240 I wasn't. I wasn't trying to be him, nor was 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.280 I trying to avoid him. I thought he was useful 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.240 and he had a place in my world. So that 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.560 then relates to self esteem. If I don't like me, 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:32.720 I'm not gonna like you. If I don't feel good 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:34.600 about me, I'm not gonna feel good about you. If 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:37.400 I don't respect me, then how can I ever respect you. 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:38.880 If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'll 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:41.360 make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around. 0:12:41.600 --> 0:12:46.240 That's self esteem. Self confidence is confidence put in action. 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.240 So I'm confident and I execute on that, then then 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:53.160 I have confidence. And that is where my hustle comes from. 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.800 That's where my resiliency comes from that self esteem applied 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:01.040 through a with a skill in the marketplace. Over time, 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:04.800 you start taking no for vitamins, you start becoming incredibly resilient. 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:07.840 Hard to hit. It's hard to hit a moving target, 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.760 as I said earlier, And if I don't give up, 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:13.560 you can't beat me. When you're sleep, I'm working. When 0:13:13.600 --> 0:13:16.520 you get up, I'm already. I'm already prepared for the day. 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:18.240 When you go to when you were going to children 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:20.920 in the evening, I'm ready. I'm preparing my next business plan. 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:26.160 I didn't have compounded capital. I had compounded hustle, and 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:27.840 and so I had time. I didn't have money, and 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.200 I decided to use that time in a way that 0:13:30.280 --> 0:13:33.480 made me bulletproof or or harder to compete with, because 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:35.079 I was going to be smarter than anybody else in 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.160 the room, and I was gonna work harder. So I 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:42.120 think that resiliency piece never giving up, never give again. 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:46.199 Redefining Barry success as going from failure to failure without 0:13:46.240 --> 0:13:49.840 loss of enthusiasm. Mm hmm, I think that's everything. 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:52.480 Let's take the reverse of that, because I think this 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.319 other quote is so telling. The most dangerous person in 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:59.600 the world is the one with no hope. That that's 0:13:59.600 --> 0:14:05.720 the flip side of resiliency and persistency. What is the 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:10.439 challenge when you encounter either a person or an entire 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:12.120 region where there's no hope. 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.440 I really wish we had three hours versus thirty minutes 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:19.880 to talk about this one topic, because it's everything Verry. 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.800 I won't go down this rabbit hole, but at another time, 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.720 and we should talk about why African American experience is 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:30.400 different in this country from even Afro Caribbean, from those 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.280 from Africa or other dark people from around the world. 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.040 Why is the African American experience different. It was how 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.680 we were treated, and that treatment messed up our head, 0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.560 our psyche, which is where real wealth sits. 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:47.240 So I really like that insight that your psyche is 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:51.280 where real wealth resides. Yeah, I mean, I've never heard 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:52.520 it quite phrase that way. 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.760 I'll be even more blunt. Poverty sustenance. Poverty is a 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.000 roof over your head, food on your table, reasonable health, 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:03.560 It's a sustenance the ability to sustain yourself. All other 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:07.680 forms of poverty are mindset based. So whether I believe 0:15:07.680 --> 0:15:10.440 I can or whether I believe I can't, I'm right. 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.120 Is the glass half full? Or half empty, depends who's 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:16.720 looking at the glass. So when you tell people for 0:15:16.840 --> 0:15:19.440 two hundred, when you enslave them for two hundred and 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:22.560 seventy years, you destroy their family structures so they have 0:15:22.600 --> 0:15:25.120 nothing to believe in. You destroy the ability to protect 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:29.320 their mate from harm, to destroy their self esteem and 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:34.360 their sense of independent you know, agency, There you go. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.080 You don't give them education, so they don't know any 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:38.760 They can't only have a skill set. You don't teach 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:42.280 them about the free enterprise system. You basically want to 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:45.000 use their body, in their mind, the body because they're 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.560 agricultural geniuses from Africa. They want them to work that's 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.240 land in the south. But you don't want them thinking, 0:15:49.480 --> 0:15:52.440 and you certainly don't want them believing. And you do 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.560 that for three hundred years plus, really two thirds of 0:15:55.600 --> 0:16:00.440 American experience. It doesn't You can't help but have a 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:04.680 group of people who have low faith, low confidence, low trust, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.280 who are cynical, not skeptical, and as a result of that, 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.040 and who have crappy role models. And if you hang 0:16:10.080 --> 0:16:12.480 around nine bro people, you'll be the tenth. So now 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.840 you have a group of people who don't know, who 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.960 are smart, brilliant, amazing. With the rules of published and 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:20.800 the playing fielder's level, they excel. Think about the arts, 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:25.200 think about professional sports, think about politics, rules of published 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.800 playing fielders level. African Americans in this example kill it. 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:32.400 But in capitalism and free enterprise, there is no rule book, 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.360 and we were denied that whole lesson and the best 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.720 we were taught was how to make the dollar, not 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:43.000 to how to build it. And so this hopelessness you 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:49.200 talk about comes easily from the population that it has 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.920 that experience, and who has descendants who are now looking 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:56.160 at parents unsuccessful at commercially or economically, who did not 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.520 get a chance or a shot, whose mother was not 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:01.320 called missus, who's dad who was called mister or doctor 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.160 or whatever. And so you have these kids who wake 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:05.800 up on on a scale of one to ten on 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:13.520 anxiety nine and they're on they're on edge. And you 0:17:13.720 --> 0:17:15.800 do something to that kid, tap them on the shoulder, 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.760 he may swing on you. Now now the kid's in jail, okay, 0:17:19.280 --> 0:17:21.600 And so the energy is used for all the wrong stuff. 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.720 And now you start becoming expert at things are going 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:27.480 to get you locked up drug dealing and underground. So 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:29.680 you have genius, you have brilliant. I mean, what's that 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.399 a drug dealer, Barry? If not, I mean it's an illegal, 0:17:33.480 --> 0:17:39.520 unethical entrepreneur, business person. You understand import, exports, finance, marketing, wholesale, retail, 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:43.720 customer service, security, territory logistics. These are not dumb people. 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.600 They have a dumb business plan. They're an underground economy 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:51.119 because they don't trust the mainstream economy. So this hopelessness 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:57.880 that you just mentioned is everything for repressing the human spirit. 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.720 We've got to turn that around. My whole life's work 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:08.399 is really summarizing one sentence to unleash untapped human potential 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.600 at scale. And you think about if this issue is 0:18:12.720 --> 0:18:17.360 racism real, of course it is. 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:15.760 But. 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.000 No, no, no, no, but no, no no. But here's 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:22.000 a twist, and you may probably never heard this, one 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:27.040 African American, what is race the only issue? No? In fact, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.879 i'd argue race is not the primary issue today today, 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.800 not one hundred years ago, not fifty years ago. If 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.840 it was Barry, you wouldn't have poor whites, poor whites 0:18:38.080 --> 0:18:42.199 who are segregated from wealthy whites economically. You would not 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:47.399 have African Caribbeans and Africans from Africa who actually do 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:52.120 better in some ways than African Americans on ownership issues. 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:57.640 If she was just race, all whites would be immensely successful, 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:01.800 all blacks would be immensely repressed. You have the sub 0:19:01.920 --> 0:19:07.159 sectors because mindset has it provided a differentiated path. So 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.080 what I am saying is you can level the playing 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.960 field with a business plan based on Hope. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:17.520 Let's talk a little bit about what Operation Hope does. 0:19:17.600 --> 0:19:20.080 But I want to start by asking why don't we 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:23.080 teach financial literacy in school? Why isn't this a core 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:26.000 course offering across the entire country. 0:19:27.119 --> 0:19:31.160 A couple of very practical reasons. Number One, a school 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:35.680 district is a business, and like every business, they want 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.159 revenue and they'd like to have a surplus profit. What 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.480 they don't want is an unfunded mandate. And as well 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:47.760 meaning as financial literacy is, it's got two problems. One, 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:52.080 it doesn't have a budget allocation from Congress, and the 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.040 Department of Education does not set curriculum. They're a budget. 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:59.359 They're a check writing organization. They give you criteria at 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.399 the state and local level, and they give you money. 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:03.840 They incentivize you with grant payments from the from the 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:07.639 federal government to meet that criteria. The school. There's no 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:11.080 there's no funding base for financial literacy. I got President Bush, 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:14.280 George W. Bush, to make financial literacy the policy of 0:20:14.280 --> 0:20:18.159 the US federal government. I was naive Berry because I 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.080 thought I didn't realize that when he inserted the word 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.920 federal government that just meant government employees, that that meant 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.040 the federal government. I also was naive by thinking that 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:29.800 if I wrote a letter, which he allowed me to 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:31.919 do with Charles Schwab, we wrote a letter. He was 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:34.320 Charles Schwab was chairman, I was vice chairman to every 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.560 one of the fourteen thousand school district superintendents that was 0:20:37.600 --> 0:20:39.639 around in two thousand. I think it was nine or 0:20:39.680 --> 0:20:42.560 ten that they school districts would just see the White 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:46.400 House letterhead and understand the nobleness of this work, and oh, 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:50.280 my god, of course crickets I got. We got. We 0:20:50.400 --> 0:20:52.720 got not one response, really, not. 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.040 One recive zero. A letter goes to every school district 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:55.720 on the. 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:58.640 White House stationary, signed by the chairman and vice chairman 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:02.119 of the President's Council of Financial Literacy. Crickets because there 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.800 was an unfunded mandated in their view, and they're like 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:07.679