Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry rid Holds on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.
Speaker 2: John Hope Bryant is a fascinating entrepreneur and philanthropist. He
Speaker 2: is the founder of Operation Hope and one of the
Speaker 2: leading voices for financial literacy in America. He was vice
Speaker 2: chair of President Bush's Council on Financial Literacy and sat
Speaker 2: on a similar council on Financial Capability for President Obama.
Speaker 2: He has written five books with more coming. Really a
Speaker 2: fascinating person who operates in a realm that I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people in finance overlook, and he's really
Speaker 2: moving the needle in terms of having people take control
Speaker 2: of their own financial life in a way that benefits
Speaker 2: not just them, but the entire economy, in all of society.
Speaker 2: I found on our conversation to be just compelling and fascinating,
Speaker 2: and I think you will also so, with no further ado,
Speaker 2: my conversation with Operation Hope's John Hope Bryant.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me and honor to be here.
Speaker 1: By the way, my last book is Up from Nothing.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite one. That's my story of my failures,
Speaker 1: not my successes. I like that.
Speaker 2: I like a tail. We tend to learn more from
Speaker 2: our mistakes than we do from our successes. But we'll
Speaker 2: circle back to that in a bit. Let's start a
Speaker 2: little bit with your background. You tell a story in
Speaker 2: one of your books of a banker who shows up
Speaker 2: at your elementary school class, and that kick started your
Speaker 2: interest in finance.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was a transformational experience to have this banker
Speaker 1: come in my classroom. On several levels. I had an
Speaker 1: economics lesson, I had a life lesson. I had an epiphany.
Speaker 1: I had a race relations lesson. I had a self
Speaker 1: esteem and confidence lesson. Those two things finally came together.
Speaker 1: I had aha about how the world really works. I
Speaker 1: figured out how to keep my friends from getting murdered
Speaker 1: in the streets because when I was nine years old,
Speaker 1: a year before this class, actually the same years as class,
Speaker 1: my best friend George was murdered on a street in
Speaker 1: Compton with my next door neighbor tweet selling drugs. Even
Speaker 1: though he was a student, he hung out with the
Speaker 1: wrong character, the wrong kids. And character is not the
Speaker 1: most important thing in business or whatever. It's the only
Speaker 1: thing really and culture. Culture then informs characters. So culture
Speaker 1: my neighborhood was a thug culture that you were respected
Speaker 1: if you were you know, hard, a tough guy. And
Speaker 1: so my friend, my best friend, who was very, very smart,
Speaker 1: did not have good parents like I had, who told
Speaker 1: me I could do anything I wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: who loved me and told me. My mother she told
Speaker 1: me she loved me every day of my life. So
Speaker 1: there's a difference barrier between being broken being poor. Being
Speaker 1: brokens economic, but being poor as a disabling frame of mind,
Speaker 1: a depressed condition of your spirit. You must vow never
Speaker 1: to be poor again. So because I had this self
Speaker 1: esteem based on my mother, and I had self love,
Speaker 1: just not self confidence. My next door neighbor, oh well,
Speaker 1: my best friend had self confidence but did not have
Speaker 1: self esteem, so he was influenced by those around him.
Speaker 1: He was murdered then when I was seven years old,
Speaker 1: the guy who saved my life because long story short,
Speaker 1: my mother moved away from my father arguments over money,
Speaker 1: domestic abuse involving money. When I was five years old,
Speaker 1: they fought, she moved. We were staying with her relative
Speaker 1: to save some money for her first home. The guy
Speaker 1: who was dating, oh see, dating my mother's cousin saved
Speaker 1: my life on the front porch when I was swallowing
Speaker 1: my tongue, and I just idolized this guy. What I
Speaker 1: didn't realize was he was ashamed to admit that he
Speaker 1: could not afford to float the expenses of his immediate
Speaker 1: family and hours. So he went to go sell drugs,
Speaker 1: also part time, and he was murdered by the drug dealers,
Speaker 1: for whom this was their territory. They came around the
Speaker 1: corner in a truck, Barry. I'm sitting on the porch
Speaker 1: waiting for him to come home. I'm seven years old.
Speaker 1: This is my idol. He saved my life. They hit
Speaker 1: him in the truck on a bicycle. I can see
Speaker 1: it in my mind's eye. Wow. They drag him down
Speaker 1: the street in front of me until he was dead.
Speaker 1: They did it in front of our house to send
Speaker 1: a message. And so here was You know, these are
Speaker 1: two stories, maybe three before I'm nine years old, of
Speaker 1: bad economics, bad culture, and a bad business plan. So
Speaker 1: now I'm nine years old, Berry and this banker comes
Speaker 1: in my classroom. It's home economics class doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: He's white, He has a blue suit, a white shirt
Speaker 1: of red tie, he's six ' to two, and he
Speaker 1: starts talking about money and free enterprise and capitalism and
Speaker 1: ownership and balance sheets and all this stuff. And I'm
Speaker 1: sitting there mesmerized.
Speaker 2: You're nine years old at I'm nine.
Speaker 1: And I'm completely entranced. And I remember probably the second
Speaker 1: or third class, because by the third class I was
Speaker 1: actually wearing a suit, the only suit I had, which
Speaker 1: was my Sunday suit to school, trying to emulate the
Speaker 1: suit that I saw this guy in. By the way,
Speaker 1: this was a crush velvet three p suit with a
Speaker 1: ruffled shirt and a big bow tie. So you can
Speaker 1: imagine I got beat up when I went to school.
Speaker 1: So I raised my hand Barry, and I said, excuse me, sir,
Speaker 1: I had enough courage to ask this question, what do
Speaker 1: you do for a living? And how'd you get rich? Legally?
Speaker 1: And Barry I was dead serious, like I was, just
Speaker 1: completely It was to me it was a common sense
Speaker 1: question because everybody in my neighborhood was a thug, a
Speaker 1: drug dealer, or a criminal. I mean, nobody had legit wealth.
Speaker 2: So this guy's a banker talking to a room full
Speaker 2: of nine and ten years old, Yeah, how does he
Speaker 2: answer the question? What do you do for a living,
Speaker 2: and how do you get rich legally?
Speaker 1: He said, I'm a banker and I finance entrepreneurs. And
Speaker 1: I said, what's an entrepreneur? I never heard that word
Speaker 1: my entire life. French word built something out of nothing,
Speaker 1: create value. What's an entrepreneur? I mean, no one's ever
Speaker 1: taught me that. So I went home to the dictionary.
Speaker 1: For those in the you know, current generation, it's a
Speaker 1: Google search, and I opened the dictionary to the word entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: And my whole life changed. And when I came back
Speaker 1: to school, one more thing, what's a banker? And how
Speaker 1: many of them are you? And you did you say
Speaker 1: one more time that your job is to lend people
Speaker 1: like me to be an entrepreneur money. I said, I
Speaker 1: need to get this whole script straight, because here my
Speaker 1: friends were getting murdered and jailed and shot and all
Speaker 1: this kind of you know, over economics, over some you know,
Speaker 1: trying to sell drugs or sell TV said or whatever
Speaker 1: it is in the hood.
Speaker 2: Hustle up some money instead of launching something that was
Speaker 2: very foreign to that part of the world.
Speaker 1: And so when this guy told me that we're at
Speaker 1: that time ten thousand banks hundreds of thousands of bankers.
Speaker 2: In your neighborhood or were you an unbanked real.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it was, you know, it was. It
Speaker 1: was so few you knew where they were. Put it
Speaker 1: that way, right, And this guy was a banker, to
Speaker 1: be full disclosure, it was a banker for Bank of America.
Speaker 1: So I knew what Bank of America was because my mother.
Speaker 1: It was a big deal to go to the banking
Speaker 1: over to a past book account, or to go there
Speaker 1: with my mother every couple of weeks, you know, and
Speaker 1: have or my dad to make an appointment with the
Speaker 1: local the local branch banker might have been the mayor.
Speaker 1: I mean he was a very important guy back in
Speaker 1: those days. But it was pretty rare occurrence. So one,
Speaker 1: I was shocked that there was an industry that was
Speaker 1: whose job it was to lend a risk taker money. Two,
Speaker 1: I was shocked that it was legal. Three I shocked
Speaker 1: that it was an actual occupation for a guy who
Speaker 1: was a legitimate hessler. And my whole life changed and
Speaker 1: I left there. I went, as I said, open the dictionary.
Speaker 1: I started seeing the muffler shop as a business. By
Speaker 1: the way, the different between an entrepreneur and a business
Speaker 1: man as a or a businesswoman. Those are those things
Speaker 1: are different, different risk tolerance and different business plan. But
Speaker 1: I started seeing the nail salon as a business. I
Speaker 1: started seeing the I think a barbershop. All these things
Speaker 1: were businesses. I never seen it that way before, and
Speaker 1: I went back to school bery, sir, your business card?
Speaker 1: Can I have one? Okay? What's the sixteenth floor thing?
Speaker 1: You know? There's no floor above the sixth floor in
Speaker 1: Compton and that's the courthouse. What's in the sixteen floor?
Speaker 1: And where is that at? And by the way, how
Speaker 1: can you show the coming here in the middle of
Speaker 1: the day. My mother is an hourly job at mcdonaldalla's Aircraft.
Speaker 1: She's got two fifteen minute breaks in lunch. How is
Speaker 1: this you here in the middle of the day. It's
Speaker 1: called a salary. You have a white shirt. My father
Speaker 1: wore a blue shirt. How do you keep the shirt clean? Oh?
Speaker 1: You just do work with mathematics and intellectual activities. You
Speaker 1: don't do any dirty work, you know. And how's it
Speaker 1: that you? What's this car? This in the parking lot.
Speaker 1: It's got plates on it and and a tag and
Speaker 1: it's brand new. Translation is not hot? Right? I mean?
Speaker 1: And it's beautiful. What do you do? And this world
Speaker 1: opened up to me man, and I was done. And
Speaker 1: so mister Mac Max liquor Store six to two and
Speaker 1: also six two black man own Max Liquor store. And
Speaker 1: I realized for the first time, Barry, this was a businessman.
Speaker 1: And I went to mister Mac. First of all, I
Speaker 1: didn't know there was a black businessman in comptence. So congratulations,
Speaker 1: mister Mac. You're selling the wrong kind of candy, he said,
Speaker 1: excuse me, I said, you have a liquor store. You're
Speaker 1: probably good at liquor, but you have a candy rack
Speaker 1: in the liquor store and you're selling wrong kind of candy.
Speaker 1: Go away, a little boy. I've got a college degree,
Speaker 1: that's nice. I've got cavities. You're selling wrong kind of candy.
Speaker 1: I'm nine at that point. That's ten. So he said, look,
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of hootsba. I'll hire you. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna put you at the counter.
Speaker 2: I want you in charge of the candy.
Speaker 1: Right, I said no. I declined the offer. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pay you top dollar for you know, you
Speaker 1: come after school. I'm gonna pay you. You'll be paid
Speaker 1: more than any of your friends. I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it. And by the way, Barry, this is analogous
Speaker 1: today to the basketball player with a contract, to the
Speaker 1: rapper who can sing really well and it's rocking a mic,
Speaker 1: to a baseball player, or anybody who is performing at
Speaker 1: top dollar, but they're cashing the check, they're not writing it.
Speaker 1: And if you are a great performer, no matter what
Speaker 1: your industry is, you'll get paid a lot. You may
Speaker 1: not build wealth, but you'll get a lot of income.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize what I was doing back then, but
Speaker 1: I was making a choice. I was like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a performer. I don't want to be
Speaker 1: your performer. You're the owner and I get to perform.
Speaker 1: I don't want that. Tell you what I want. Make
Speaker 1: me a box boy. Excuse me, Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: do stocking, he says, the worst job I got. That's
Speaker 1: what I want. I worked there for three weeks and
Speaker 1: quit because then I knew what the wholesale rate was,
Speaker 1: in the retail rate, I knew what the markup was,
Speaker 1: I knew what supplying the man looked like, what things
Speaker 1: were moving, what wasn't. I quit once I knew where
Speaker 1: he bought his inventory. He was on the side of
Speaker 1: the box. I went home, got my mother, sold my
Speaker 1: mother on making a forty dollars investment. She made me
Speaker 1: pay her back by the way, and my new business,
Speaker 1: and went to Smart and Final and Irish food store.
Speaker 1: Was why about his inventory, and got put in business.
Speaker 1: And I actually put him out of the candy business
Speaker 1: not soon after that. I mean, three hundred dollars a
Speaker 1: week on a forty dollars investment.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's amazing. So let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 2: a quote of yours that's very relevant to this. Persistence
Speaker 2: and resilience are more powerful than pedigree and raw intelligence.
Speaker 2: Explain what you mean by that. Although I think I
Speaker 2: have a suspicion as to where that came from.
Speaker 1: I think that ties directly into what I said about
Speaker 1: self esteem and confidence and the difference. It also ties
Speaker 1: into the race relations lesson that I got by meeting
Speaker 1: this white banker who was actually helping me to understand
Speaker 1: the free enterprise system. So my experience with a white
Speaker 1: person was different than the folks growing up. My folks
Speaker 1: growing up, but my friends growing up, they'd get hit
Speaker 1: over the head with by a police officer putting them over.
Speaker 1: It was a negative experience as a result of that.
Speaker 1: They didn't like white people, they didn't trust white people,
Speaker 1: didn't want to talk to white people. My experience was
Speaker 1: this banker who basically opened my head up to a
Speaker 1: whole new world. And so I wasn't intimidated by him.
Speaker 1: I actually found an affinity with him. I didn't want
Speaker 1: to be him, on to be me, but I was
Speaker 1: not both reposed. I was ne either rapost or you know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I wasn't trying to be him, nor was
Speaker 1: I trying to avoid him. I thought he was useful
Speaker 1: and he had a place in my world. So that
Speaker 1: then relates to self esteem. If I don't like me,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like you. If I don't feel good
Speaker 1: about me, I'm not gonna feel good about you. If
Speaker 1: I don't respect me, then how can I ever respect you.
Speaker 1: If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'll
Speaker 1: make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around.
Speaker 1: That's self esteem. Self confidence is confidence put in action.
Speaker 1: So I'm confident and I execute on that, then then
Speaker 1: I have confidence. And that is where my hustle comes from.
Speaker 1: That's where my resiliency comes from that self esteem applied
Speaker 1: through a with a skill in the marketplace. Over time,
Speaker 1: you start taking no for vitamins, you start becoming incredibly resilient.
Speaker 1: Hard to hit. It's hard to hit a moving target,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, And if I don't give up,
Speaker 1: you can't beat me. When you're sleep, I'm working. When
Speaker 1: you get up, I'm already. I'm already prepared for the day.
Speaker 1: When you go to when you were going to children
Speaker 1: in the evening, I'm ready. I'm preparing my next business plan.
Speaker 1: I didn't have compounded capital. I had compounded hustle, and
Speaker 1: and so I had time. I didn't have money, and
Speaker 1: I decided to use that time in a way that
Speaker 1: made me bulletproof or or harder to compete with, because
Speaker 1: I was going to be smarter than anybody else in
Speaker 1: the room, and I was gonna work harder. So I
Speaker 1: think that resiliency piece never giving up, never give again.
Speaker 1: Redefining Barry success as going from failure to failure without
Speaker 1: loss of enthusiasm. Mm hmm, I think that's everything.
Speaker 2: Let's take the reverse of that, because I think this
Speaker 2: other quote is so telling. The most dangerous person in
Speaker 2: the world is the one with no hope. That that's
Speaker 2: the flip side of resiliency and persistency. What is the
Speaker 2: challenge when you encounter either a person or an entire
Speaker 2: region where there's no hope.
Speaker 1: I really wish we had three hours versus thirty minutes
Speaker 1: to talk about this one topic, because it's everything Verry.
Speaker 1: I won't go down this rabbit hole, but at another time,
Speaker 1: and we should talk about why African American experience is
Speaker 1: different in this country from even Afro Caribbean, from those
Speaker 1: from Africa or other dark people from around the world.
Speaker 1: Why is the African American experience different. It was how
Speaker 1: we were treated, and that treatment messed up our head,
Speaker 1: our psyche, which is where real wealth sits.
Speaker 2: So I really like that insight that your psyche is
Speaker 2: where real wealth resides. Yeah, I mean, I've never heard
Speaker 2: it quite phrase that way.
Speaker 1: I'll be even more blunt. Poverty sustenance. Poverty is a
Speaker 1: roof over your head, food on your table, reasonable health,
Speaker 1: It's a sustenance the ability to sustain yourself. All other
Speaker 1: forms of poverty are mindset based. So whether I believe
Speaker 1: I can or whether I believe I can't, I'm right.
Speaker 1: Is the glass half full? Or half empty, depends who's
Speaker 1: looking at the glass. So when you tell people for
Speaker 1: two hundred, when you enslave them for two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy years, you destroy their family structures so they have
Speaker 1: nothing to believe in. You destroy the ability to protect
Speaker 1: their mate from harm, to destroy their self esteem and
Speaker 1: their sense of independent you know, agency, There you go.
Speaker 1: You don't give them education, so they don't know any
Speaker 1: They can't only have a skill set. You don't teach
Speaker 1: them about the free enterprise system. You basically want to
Speaker 1: use their body, in their mind, the body because they're
Speaker 1: agricultural geniuses from Africa. They want them to work that's
Speaker 1: land in the south. But you don't want them thinking,
Speaker 1: and you certainly don't want them believing. And you do
Speaker 1: that for three hundred years plus, really two thirds of
Speaker 1: American experience. It doesn't You can't help but have a
Speaker 1: group of people who have low faith, low confidence, low trust,
Speaker 1: who are cynical, not skeptical, and as a result of that,
Speaker 1: and who have crappy role models. And if you hang
Speaker 1: around nine bro people, you'll be the tenth. So now
Speaker 1: you have a group of people who don't know, who
Speaker 1: are smart, brilliant, amazing. With the rules of published and
Speaker 1: the playing fielder's level, they excel. Think about the arts,
Speaker 1: think about professional sports, think about politics, rules of published
Speaker 1: playing fielders level. African Americans in this example kill it.
Speaker 1: But in capitalism and free enterprise, there is no rule book,
Speaker 1: and we were denied that whole lesson and the best
Speaker 1: we were taught was how to make the dollar, not
Speaker 1: to how to build it. And so this hopelessness you
Speaker 1: talk about comes easily from the population that it has
Speaker 1: that experience, and who has descendants who are now looking
Speaker 1: at parents unsuccessful at commercially or economically, who did not
Speaker 1: get a chance or a shot, whose mother was not
Speaker 1: called missus, who's dad who was called mister or doctor
Speaker 1: or whatever. And so you have these kids who wake
Speaker 1: up on on a scale of one to ten on
Speaker 1: anxiety nine and they're on they're on edge. And you
Speaker 1: do something to that kid, tap them on the shoulder,
Speaker 1: he may swing on you. Now now the kid's in jail, okay,
Speaker 1: And so the energy is used for all the wrong stuff.
Speaker 1: And now you start becoming expert at things are going
Speaker 1: to get you locked up drug dealing and underground. So
Speaker 1: you have genius, you have brilliant. I mean, what's that
Speaker 1: a drug dealer, Barry? If not, I mean it's an illegal,
Speaker 1: unethical entrepreneur, business person. You understand import, exports, finance, marketing, wholesale, retail,
Speaker 1: customer service, security, territory logistics. These are not dumb people.
Speaker 1: They have a dumb business plan. They're an underground economy
Speaker 1: because they don't trust the mainstream economy. So this hopelessness
Speaker 1: that you just mentioned is everything for repressing the human spirit.
Speaker 1: We've got to turn that around. My whole life's work
Speaker 1: is really summarizing one sentence to unleash untapped human potential
Speaker 1: at scale. And you think about if this issue is
Speaker 1: racism real, of course it is.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, but no, no no. But here's
Speaker 1: a twist, and you may probably never heard this, one
Speaker 1: African American, what is race the only issue? No? In fact,
Speaker 1: i'd argue race is not the primary issue today today,
Speaker 1: not one hundred years ago, not fifty years ago. If
Speaker 1: it was Barry, you wouldn't have poor whites, poor whites
Speaker 1: who are segregated from wealthy whites economically. You would not
Speaker 1: have African Caribbeans and Africans from Africa who actually do
Speaker 1: better in some ways than African Americans on ownership issues.
Speaker 1: If she was just race, all whites would be immensely successful,
Speaker 1: all blacks would be immensely repressed. You have the sub
Speaker 1: sectors because mindset has it provided a differentiated path. So
Speaker 1: what I am saying is you can level the playing
Speaker 1: field with a business plan based on Hope.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a little bit about what Operation Hope does.
Speaker 2: But I want to start by asking why don't we
Speaker 2: teach financial literacy in school? Why isn't this a core
Speaker 2: course offering across the entire country.
Speaker 1: A couple of very practical reasons. Number One, a school
Speaker 1: district is a business, and like every business, they want
Speaker 1: revenue and they'd like to have a surplus profit. What
Speaker 1: they don't want is an unfunded mandate. And as well
Speaker 1: meaning as financial literacy is, it's got two problems. One,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have a budget allocation from Congress, and the
Speaker 1: Department of Education does not set curriculum. They're a budget.
Speaker 1: They're a check writing organization. They give you criteria at
Speaker 1: the state and local level, and they give you money.
Speaker 1: They incentivize you with grant payments from the from the
Speaker 1: federal government to meet that criteria. The school. There's no
Speaker 1: there's no funding base for financial literacy. I got President Bush,
Speaker 1: George W. Bush, to make financial literacy the policy of
Speaker 1: the US federal government. I was naive Berry because I
Speaker 1: thought I didn't realize that when he inserted the word
Speaker 1: federal government that just meant government employees, that that meant
Speaker 1: the federal government. I also was naive by thinking that
Speaker 1: if I wrote a letter, which he allowed me to
Speaker 1: do with Charles Schwab, we wrote a letter. He was
Speaker 1: Charles Schwab was chairman, I was vice chairman to every
Speaker 1: one of the fourteen thousand school district superintendents that was
Speaker 1: around in two thousand. I think it was nine or
Speaker 1: ten that they school districts would just see the White
Speaker 1: House letterhead and understand the nobleness of this work, and oh,
Speaker 1: my god, of course crickets I got. We got. We
Speaker 1: got not one response, really, not.
Speaker 2: One recive zero. A letter goes to every school district
Speaker 2: on the.
Speaker 1: White House stationary, signed by the chairman and vice chairman
Speaker 1: of the President's Council of Financial Literacy. Crickets because there
Speaker 1: was an unfunded mandated in their view, and they're like
Speaker 1: they're shaking the paper, going hey.
Speaker 2: Where's the check?
Speaker 1: Is there a check attached to this? And number two?
Speaker 1: And I think that they were like, I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: another note coming after this with a congressional allocation, and
Speaker 1: it never came. Number two. Money is emotional, So money,
Speaker 1: unlike math, money is highly emotional and people want to
Speaker 1: spend money. They don't want to talk about it, including teachers, superintendents,
Speaker 1: school board members, city council people, members of congress. People
Speaker 1: are most people have too much month at the end
Speaker 1: of their money.
Speaker 2: Too much month at the end of their money.
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, they're living from paycheck to paycheck. Seventy percent
Speaker 1: of the US economy has been recently shown. I think
Speaker 1: it was a Bloomberg report, actually that half of all
Speaker 1: people in this country making one hundred thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year paycheck to paycheck to a third of those making
Speaker 1: a quarter million dollars a year living from paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 1: So this is not just poor people, it's not Almost
Speaker 1: everybody is struggling with cash flow. But they want to
Speaker 1: look good, they want to look successful, they want to
Speaker 1: go on a vacation, they want to go shopping. So
Speaker 1: people think, they'd like to think that credit cards are
Speaker 1: cash and they don't want anybody disavowed them. With that belief,
Speaker 1: I can't be broken still have checks left. The one
Speaker 1: was that they want to be able to say yes
Speaker 1: to their children, yes to their wives or spouse. That
Speaker 1: insecurity if you will of wanting to say yes and
Speaker 1: live the life. Conflicts with a budget, conflicts with a limit,
Speaker 1: conflicts with having to sit down and understand if your
Speaker 1: outflow exees your inflow, then your overhead it'll be your downfall.
Speaker 1: This was my dad's problem. My dad thought the cash
Speaker 1: flow was profit. He had a construction company and he'd
Speaker 1: bid a job at a thousand dollars. It costs five hundred,
Speaker 1: but he'd outbid the other guy who's bidding a job
Speaker 1: or fourteen hundred. He thought he was successful. Well, the
Speaker 1: more you if you live that way you make a
Speaker 1: dollar spend a dollar fifty, the more money make the
Speaker 1: broker you get. So by the end of my dad's life,
Speaker 1: I was taking care of a man who had a
Speaker 1: gas station, an eight unit apartment building, our own home
Speaker 1: and nursery business, semien contracting business. I probably missed a
Speaker 1: couple but he lost it all, all of our generational
Speaker 1: wealth because when you don't know better, you can't do better.
Speaker 1: And my dad didn't know what he didn't know. Goes
Speaker 1: back to what I was saying earlier about that slave experience.
Speaker 1: My dad's dad was a sharecropper, probably born in a
Speaker 1: slavery in eighteen seventy one in Mississippi. Was certainly a sharecropper.
Speaker 1: My dad was a businessman. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with financial literacy because I think it's the civil rights
Speaker 1: issue of this generation.
Speaker 2: Say that again, financial literacy is the civil rights issue
Speaker 2: of this generation. That's a fascinating take on that. Go
Speaker 2: into more detail about that, because I've never again I've
Speaker 2: never heard anyone quite hon in just that way.
Speaker 1: Look at where we are right now.
Speaker 2: In the center of one of the wealthiest cities in
Speaker 2: the wealthiest country in the world.
Speaker 1: And in the center of a studio made by an entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: And this whole thing works on money. This whole city
Speaker 1: works on money. It sets public policy in many ways
Speaker 1: in the world because it's the center of money. The
Speaker 1: even slavery, real talk was about money. Of course, everything
Speaker 1: is not about God or love. It's probably about money.
Speaker 1: But do we understand money? What did I say about
Speaker 1: how I mean. Malcolm X said, We've been bamboozled, We've
Speaker 1: been tricked, We've been fooled. You can say, you know
Speaker 1: what Andrew Jung said, who is doctor King's right arm?
Speaker 1: That to live in the system of free enterprise and
Speaker 1: not to understand the rules of free enterprise must be
Speaker 1: the very definition of slavery. So if you're in a
Speaker 1: system and you don't understand how it works, and you
Speaker 1: think the cash flow is profit or getting that bag,
Speaker 1: getting that dollar, getting that money's actually going to advance
Speaker 1: and shoe when in reality inflation is out running your
Speaker 1: ability to even compete on a wage basis. You're not
Speaker 1: going to build wealth. You have a lifestyle, but you
Speaker 1: build wealth in your sleep. In your sleep. That's compounding.
Speaker 1: But forty one percent of black folks own a home,
Speaker 1: seventy five percent of white folks own a home. There's
Speaker 1: a delta thirty five thirty thirty five percent of natural
Speaker 1: home ownership. The black folks are missing. But no one
Speaker 1: taught gave us a memo on money and wealth creation.
Speaker 1: We don't own stocks, we don't own bonds, we're not
Speaker 1: starting businesses with employees and technology ninety six percent of
Speaker 1: black businesses don't have an employee. I mean, and how
Speaker 1: do you build a business in how do you build
Speaker 1: wealth in America business? How do you buil wealth in
Speaker 1: their business? Creation is a primary portost So my Jewish
Speaker 1: friends did it, by the way, it is the level
Speaker 1: of playing field in an unleveled world is it became
Speaker 1: owners and that gave them a different version of social justice.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a model, by the way, for
Speaker 1: African Americans and other groups trying to come up from nothing.
Speaker 1: To me, the color is not white or black, it's
Speaker 1: not red or blue. It's green actually, as in the
Speaker 1: color of US currency. Barry, It's always been green, is
Speaker 1: my point. But we just never got the memo. That's
Speaker 1: my book, the third book, I think.
Speaker 2: So let's keep this at the school level. How do
Speaker 2: we teach financial literacy in schools? How do we get
Speaker 2: that funded? And at what grade should we be starting
Speaker 2: that process?
Speaker 1: We should be starting as early as possible, fifth grade,
Speaker 1: sixth grade, kindergarten. We are yeah, yes, nice thing. Yet
Speaker 1: we have Operation Hope is the official kids accounts manager
Speaker 1: for the Atlanta Public school System, and the Atlanta City
Speaker 1: Council funded us a few million dollars to open kindergarten accounts.
Speaker 2: Meaning what what do kindergarteners get through operation?
Speaker 1: Underprivileged kids in kindergarten will get a bank account, a
Speaker 1: Savors account to start for fifty bucks. We will match
Speaker 1: it for fifty bucks and then rap financial literacy around
Speaker 1: that for every kid in kindergarten all the way through
Speaker 1: middle school. And the reason that this is so important
Speaker 1: is studies have already proven that if a kid has
Speaker 1: a bank account at kindergarten, they're half as likely, sorry
Speaker 1: fifty percent likely to go to college.
Speaker 2: If you have more likely to go to college just
Speaker 2: because you have a bank account, that's right, going and target.
Speaker 2: Is that driven because the family has money or is
Speaker 2: it driven because of a whole philosophical viewpoint that, Oh,
Speaker 2: I understand how the economy works, how the market works,
Speaker 2: and I want to advance myself.
Speaker 1: It's what you said earlier, Barry. It's a difference between
Speaker 1: being broken being poor, difference between sustenance poverty and mindset.
Speaker 1: Now your mindset is connecting the dots between education and aspiration.
Speaker 1: Why am I going to school? What's the point of
Speaker 1: all this? Oh, of a bank account? What's the point
Speaker 1: of the bank account. Oh the bank houn's tied to
Speaker 1: a salary or or okay, now, okay, so this is.
Speaker 2: Oh so it's a financial world that you might not
Speaker 2: known about.
Speaker 1: Otherwise your mind opens up right and so and if
Speaker 1: you and you're two thirds more likely to graduate from
Speaker 1: college if yours money in the account. This is unbelievable.
Speaker 1: It's and it's it's so low ha hanging fruit. It
Speaker 1: changes the endorphins in the right side of your brain
Speaker 1: where hope, well being, faith, confidence, joy and what it's
Speaker 1: slavery rob It robbed hope, It robbed self esteem, and
Speaker 1: robbed belief, It robbed confidence. Now you're gone from a
Speaker 1: surviv from a thriving and a winning mentality to a
Speaker 1: surviving mentality where your life is ready fire aim. And
Speaker 1: now the world's got you distracted with your survival and
Speaker 1: you're surviving. Now you're not competing with the capitalists. And
Speaker 1: what this does is get people at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the wrong competing with the capitalists, which is, by the way,
Speaker 1: what this country needs every one hundred years is a
Speaker 1: new Henry Ford. This country needs a new Steve Jobs,
Speaker 1: or a new Tony wrestler, or a new you know
Speaker 1: whoever your hero, Shiro is this country needs every big
Speaker 1: business wants a small one. Goldman Sachs. There is a
Speaker 1: guy named Goldman and a guy named Sax, like financial services,
Speaker 1: door to door. Where's the black version of that? Where's
Speaker 1: the Latino version of that? Where's the Indian version? Where's
Speaker 1: the poor white version of that? By the way, NASCAR
Speaker 1: came from moonshine runner in the Appalachian Mountains. These guys realize,
Speaker 1: I can't keep running from the police and selling moonshine,
Speaker 1: but I drive really well. That's Nascar. We have to
Speaker 1: legitimize the hustle.
Speaker 2: The ripe business model, not an illegal one.
Speaker 1: That's what happened to me with that banker in my classroom.
Speaker 1: So it has to be you can't just be a
Speaker 1: curriculum barried on your point of how to teach it.
Speaker 1: It has to be a real life exploration of connecting
Speaker 1: education with aspiration. It has to be life experiences that
Speaker 1: the kid and the parents and the family can relate to.
Speaker 1: And you have to have a role model that experiences
Speaker 1: that with that kid in the classroom who looks like
Speaker 1: the person that we're trying to emulate. Right, So you
Speaker 1: need that banker or that entrepreneur or that business person
Speaker 1: or a barrier or John to come in at least,
Speaker 1: you know, three or four times during the coursework, t
Speaker 1: the endorphins in this guy's this kid's male or female's
Speaker 1: head about Wow, by the ways, role modeling, this is
Speaker 1: who I could be because because in you're in my household,
Speaker 1: my guess is there's somebody in the household who we
Speaker 1: could emulate. But most of these kids, seventy percent of
Speaker 1: black households don't have a man at home. So your
Speaker 1: mother is working two jobs, so you don't see her.
Speaker 1: She's trying to keep the lights on. You don't see
Speaker 1: a positive role model who's male. So where's your role
Speaker 1: models in the streets? I mean, it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: So why are you being a rap? Why do you
Speaker 1: want to be a rap star, an athlete or a
Speaker 1: drug dealer in the hood because that's what you see.
Speaker 1: So we've got to give kids dumpling different to see.
Speaker 1: This could literally reset everything. And I believe you do
Speaker 1: this right. In urban black and brown neighborhoods, white poor,
Speaker 1: rural neighborhoods, struggling actually working class neighborhoods, you add two
Speaker 1: to three percent of GDP in five to ten years
Speaker 1: for America as a country. Because the bottom of the
Speaker 1: pyramid gets rehabilitated, you get them back in the game
Speaker 1: of economic value creation. Get the credit score up through
Speaker 1: our coaching at Operation Hope, which is we're raising credit
Speaker 1: scores at Hope fifty four points in six months, one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty points in twenty four months. Nothing changes
Speaker 1: your life more than God or love than moving your
Speaker 1: credit score one hundred and twenty points. We're reducing debt
Speaker 1: by thirty five hundred bucks in a year. We're increasing
Speaker 1: savings five hundred and fifteen hundred dollars in that same
Speaker 1: year for somebody making forty eight thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: This is Operation Hope. This is what you're doing. So
Speaker 2: let's talk about where you operate, how many people you reach.
Speaker 2: Just started in Atlanta?
Speaker 1: No, No, started in south central Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so it started on the west.
Speaker 1: Coast Rodney King Riots nineteen ninety ten.
Speaker 2: That's what that was the initial motivation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the new work started in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Okay, what brought you to Atlanta originally?
Speaker 1: Andrew Young Andrew J. Young, Ambassador Mayor, civil rights icon
Speaker 1: Andrew j. Young, the guy who's on the balcony with
Speaker 1: doctor King when he was assassinated in sixty eight. He
Speaker 1: became a mentor and a role model to me. It
Speaker 1: was the only black man one of two who were
Speaker 1: who was international when I was twenty twenty five years
Speaker 1: old who happened to be black. I was like, I
Speaker 1: want to be an international businessman, the other being Quincy Jones.
Speaker 1: Now this is sad. Here I have. I don't have
Speaker 1: like a you know, in this example, I don't have
Speaker 1: a Bloomberg as my role model who's a businessman, or
Speaker 1: a Tony rest Or whoever you're or Michael Raghetty, whoever
Speaker 1: your you know, mindset is, Henry Cravits or whatever. I had,
Speaker 1: you know, a entertainment uh genius Quincy Jones, and I
Speaker 1: had a civil rights icon Andrew Young. So here here
Speaker 1: you go again. I'm starving role models. I went with
Speaker 1: what I had. But the only two international people I
Speaker 1: knew at that time who were black were these two.
Speaker 2: You could do worse than Quincy Jones and Andrew Young.
Speaker 1: I could do worse.
Speaker 2: Not not not bad role models, just not enough of.
Speaker 1: Them, and maybe and not rightly positioned in capitalism and
Speaker 1: free enterprise, not squarely by the way they would admit it.
Speaker 1: And so I became good friends with Quincy Jones, and
Speaker 1: I became dear, almost family with Andrew Young. Thank god,
Speaker 1: it changed my life. And so I remember Quincy told me,
Speaker 1: if you think you're in the music business and you
Speaker 1: don't own music rights, publishing rights, rights music, you're just
Speaker 1: a temporary performer. And I've already given you a quote
Speaker 1: from Andrew Young, who shows you. I mean, he's built
Speaker 1: the He built the tenth largest economy in the country,
Speaker 1: the only international city in the South, Atlanta, Georgia, on
Speaker 1: the bones of diversity and inclusion as an economic model.
Speaker 1: Uh and and and of course you know we can
Speaker 1: see today that the moral capital in America, which is Atlanta,
Speaker 1: is also the largest economic engine in the South, built
Speaker 1: on like New York, diversity of inclusion and good common sense.
Speaker 1: So I moved to Atlanta for a number of reasons.
Speaker 1: But I remember one conversation in particular, Barry. Uh. There
Speaker 1: was a city of there was a mayor I don't
Speaker 1: mention his name, but there was a mayor in la
Speaker 1: who saw me as a threat by my age, and
Speaker 1: he asked me to schedule a meeting with Andrew Youngs.
Speaker 1: He knew that Andrew Andrew youngs my mentor. I did that.
Speaker 1: There was a meeting in LA and I was sitting
Speaker 1: on the floor because this particular mayor was sending a
Speaker 1: message to me. There was no seat for me, so
Speaker 1: I sat on the floor. Fine with me. I didn't care.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I should say for the audience
Speaker 1: this was so they don't want to try to guess this.
Speaker 1: This was twenty years ago, so nobody thinks it was recent.
Speaker 1: And after the meeting, Andrew Young was at the airport
Speaker 1: and he said to me, you know, you got to
Speaker 1: move out LA. Either they see you as a threat
Speaker 1: and think you want to become mayor, or they're going
Speaker 1: to treat you like a child for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life because you grew up here. And he said, John,
Speaker 1: a prophet is only without honor in his hometown. That's biblical.
Speaker 1: And he said, in Atlanta they called doctor King in
Speaker 1: Atlanta Marty M. L. Michael his original name. They were
Speaker 1: digging at him. That's why staff called him doctor King
Speaker 1: to give him gravitas, and had twenty eight thirty years old.
Speaker 1: It was only five to seven Doctor King was five
Speaker 1: seven hundred sixty pounds, so he was like, we had
Speaker 1: to give him some gravitas. You got to move out
Speaker 1: of this city and come back as an honored citizen.
Speaker 1: Later on he was completely right. And the other thing was,
Speaker 1: you know, history in la is two years old. I
Speaker 1: don't mean the as a diss I mean la is
Speaker 1: a place where you reinvent yourself, constantly reinvention. So it's
Speaker 1: a great for an entrepreneur who's trying to make it. Well,
Speaker 1: I had already made it to a certain degree. What
Speaker 1: I was looking for in now was purpose, and Atlanta
Speaker 1: was steeped in purpose in civil rights history. So I
Speaker 1: went there and created civil rights, from civil rights in
Speaker 1: the streets to civil rights in the c suites. This
Speaker 1: is an extension of doctor King and Andrew Young's unfinished work,
Speaker 1: an extension of what Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were
Speaker 1: doing in the eighteen sixty five with the Freedman's Bank.
Speaker 1: It was. It was an extension from the streets to
Speaker 1: the suites, a discussion about green, free enterprise capitalism and economics,
Speaker 1: ownership in wealth creation at scale to set people free
Speaker 1: using the free enterprise system.
Speaker 2: So let me jump in here. We're talking about Atlanta.
Speaker 2: You set up Operation Hope or you expand Operation Hope
Speaker 2: in Atlanta. How many students are you reaching and how
Speaker 2: large would you like to see this get?
Speaker 1: So the student pieces is cool, but it's almost like
Speaker 1: a pilot project given on our larger work. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's fifty thousand kids in the Atlanta public school system,
Speaker 1: So you can do the math there. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got We've got ten percent of that in the kindergarten
Speaker 1: kids as a target, but a million we taught a
Speaker 1: million kids financial literacy. That's still to be very small
Speaker 1: beings or our target. There are forty million black people
Speaker 1: in this country. There are one hundred million blacks and
Speaker 1: poor whites in this country. You have one hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty million people who are financially bruised in this country,
Speaker 1: including working class, middle class people. My goal is to
Speaker 1: become America's Angel coach. My goal has become the Starbucks
Speaker 1: of financial inclusion, the Walmart of financial literacy at scale,
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve of the hood. I have two hundred
Speaker 1: and forty five locations today. Barry two hundred and forty
Speaker 1: five locations in forty six states, how.
Speaker 2: Many people in total have you worked with through Operation Hume.
Speaker 1: We've had over four million clients and we have two
Speaker 1: hundred and forty five locations in forty six states, where
Speaker 1: the largest financial inclusion and financial literacy coaching organization in
Speaker 1: the country. We are inside also well, we're the only
Speaker 1: nonprofit allowed to operate inside of a bank branch in
Speaker 1: US history. We're the only nonprofit in Fortune five hundred
Speaker 1: companies doing financial coaching for employees, including Delta Airlines all
Speaker 1: ninety thousand of their employees. So much so that Delta
Speaker 1: CEO has given one thousand dollars emergency saviors account to
Speaker 1: everybody goes through our financial coaching work, all of his
Speaker 1: ninety thousand employees. That's how much he believes. I can't
Speaker 1: go to a Delta terminal without people talking about their
Speaker 1: financial coaching in the thousand dollar savings account that they've gotten.
Speaker 1: I can't go through an airport without a TSA agent
Speaker 1: screaming out their credit score, what you've.
Speaker 2: Worked with TSA and all their staff members doing this.
Speaker 1: Just my clients happen to be working at TSA. But
Speaker 1: we are a coach for ups. We are a coach
Speaker 1: for Harley Davidson. We are a coach for the Venetian
Speaker 1: Hotel employees in Las Vegas. We are a coach. I've
Speaker 1: already mentioned Delta Airlines. We have a big I can't
Speaker 1: mention it, but there's a big company day. One of
Speaker 1: the big probably one of the top five employees in
Speaker 1: the country is just signed up with us. So we're
Speaker 1: in banks, whether it's Truest or Wells Fargo or Bank
Speaker 1: of America, and they're ordered over one hundred branches from US.
Speaker 1: You know, that's business. One hundred branches is a business decision,
Speaker 1: not a charity decision. We're getting the bank out of
Speaker 1: the no business barry and back into the yes business.
Speaker 1: In other words, if I can get your criteria sort it,
Speaker 1: get your savings account up, get your debt down, get
Speaker 1: your credit score up, the bank and say yes.
Speaker 2: That's an attractive customer to any Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's why I'm saying this is a business case,
Speaker 1: not a charity case that we're making.
Speaker 2: So let let me focus on the financial literacy side.
Speaker 2: There's been some academic research that shows financial literacy as
Speaker 2: a tendency to fade over time. How do you keep
Speaker 2: this front of mind with people? How do you not
Speaker 2: let the hard won one skills atrophy over time?
Speaker 1: Put your credit score on your phone. Let's start there,
Speaker 1: because it lives. Oh my god. Yes, it is a
Speaker 1: complete living barometer of how you're doing. We have a
Speaker 1: credit score index that's powered by experience as an example,
Speaker 1: their data from experience. I've measured every zip code in
Speaker 1: America by credit score. You tell me your zip code,
Speaker 1: I'll tell you how you.
Speaker 2: Live in the Average credit score within a zip code
Speaker 2: will give you a standard of living for that space.
Speaker 1: For that reason, oh, it'll tell you how long you're
Speaker 1: gonna live.
Speaker 2: Really, that's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1: In a five any credit score neighborhood, you lived at
Speaker 1: sixty one.
Speaker 2: That doesn't sound like very attractive life.
Speaker 1: Social Security at sixty five. Yeah. In a five any
Speaker 1: credit cord neighborhood, you'll have a high school education. Sixty
Speaker 1: one percent of people. I'm sorry, sixty one percent of
Speaker 1: people have a high school education in one parent household.
Speaker 1: These are the averages in a five any credit cocred
Speaker 1: neighborhood and a five atty credits cord neighborhood. The biling
Speaker 1: crimes per thousand is off the charts. The the the
Speaker 1: all the negatives explode. Home ownership level is sub forty percent,
Speaker 1: twenty five percent unemployment, unemployments through the roof. It's all predictable. Right,
Speaker 1: you go into a seven hundred credit score neighborhood of
Speaker 1: any race.
Speaker 2: Now that's good, But then what credits go to?
Speaker 1: Like a twenty Yes, but anything above seven hundred is free?
Speaker 2: Is fine?
Speaker 1: Yeah, banks say yes to you at seven hundred. You
Speaker 1: had to seven hundred bearer you lived at eighty one
Speaker 1: years old? Wow, ten minutes away Chicago. These zip codes
Speaker 1: are ten minutes away in I mean most cities. Manhattan's
Speaker 1: Burroughs is slightly different, but most cities, these zip codes
Speaker 1: are ten minutes away. These realities. So seven hundred credit
Speaker 1: SCRD neighborhood, you live to ninety sorry to eighty one plus,
Speaker 1: you have a high school graduation rate of over ninety percent.
Speaker 1: They're going into college. You have two parent households. Vioding
Speaker 1: crimes are non existent. It's a complete world. So here's
Speaker 1: what you see in a five any credit score neighborhood.
Speaker 1: Right check casher next to a payday loan lender, next
Speaker 1: to a rent to own store, next to a title lender,
Speaker 1: next to a liquor store next to a pawn shop.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Berry, this is not just black
Speaker 1: and brown urban neighborhoods. It's poor, white, rural See you
Speaker 1: got me, You finished the sentence for me.
Speaker 2: I'm very well aware that people seem to be you know,
Speaker 2: whenever we look at entitlement spending, and some people think
Speaker 2: there's a racial component. The biggest consumer of government assistance
Speaker 2: are poor rural whites in America.
Speaker 1: And the number one group dying in America is a
Speaker 1: white high school educated white man dying of essentially opioiddiction depression.
Speaker 1: So what I'm doing is taking the emotion out of
Speaker 1: this conversation. I believe I love math because it doesn't
Speaker 1: have an opinion. That's a melody hops in quote. And
Speaker 1: if I can replace the emotion with a science, with
Speaker 1: a mathematical equation or a credit score, okay, and that
Speaker 1: credit score changes is dynamic, It changes you know, every week,
Speaker 1: that keeps your attention, that keeps you it's an individual scorecard.
Speaker 1: I can't Here's what's beautiful. If you're an underserved person
Speaker 1: or somebody who's used to being used to racism dogging
Speaker 1: you or sexism dogging you, I can't get in your
Speaker 1: heart and change how you feel about me. I can
Speaker 1: get into my own head and change my credit score.
Speaker 1: It's control of my own destiny. And the credit score
Speaker 1: is a trending indicator for all other things hope, faith, belief, confidence,
Speaker 1: well being, trust. These things you need to access banking,
Speaker 1: financial services of market economy investors. So I believe we
Speaker 1: found a burning bush. You move, I'm gonna say something
Speaker 1: on your podcast that I rarely said to anybody. You
Speaker 1: move credit scores one hundred points in this country. You
Speaker 1: stabilize this country.
Speaker 2: We're talking unemployment, poverty, crime, health, health, and life expectancy
Speaker 2: all tied to credits.
Speaker 1: Plus economic vitality, prosperity, business creation, stable families. I've got
Speaker 1: five pillars of success in my newest book, Up from Nothing.
Speaker 1: Here's the five things you need to succeed. As much
Speaker 1: education as you can shove down your throat. Understanding, financial literacy,
Speaker 1: how the economy works, the math of the matter, family
Speaker 1: structure and resiliency, self esteem and confidence, role models in
Speaker 1: an environment. You have five of those things, you're going
Speaker 1: to be immensely successful. You have four of those things,
Speaker 1: you're going to be very successful. You have three of
Speaker 1: those things, you will pop your head over failure. You
Speaker 1: have less than three of those things, You're stuck. Who
Speaker 1: has less than three of those five things? Poor whites,
Speaker 1: African Americans, Native American Indians.
Speaker 2: So you were recognized by Oprah Winfrey's quote use your
Speaker 2: Life Award and you were also named American Bankers Innovator
Speaker 2: of the Year award. What do these recognitions mean to you?
Speaker 2: Given what you've done in your life to move the
Speaker 2: needle for so many people.
Speaker 1: You combine those recognitions with CEOs of fortune five hundred
Speaker 1: companies today suggesting that I'm a conscience on capitalism, which
Speaker 1: several big time CEOs have said, including the CEO of
Speaker 1: walmart In, Delta, etc. And it says, this is a
Speaker 1: bit of my This is my version of a Nobel
Speaker 1: Peace Prize, which is really a gateway or substitution clause
Speaker 1: for having this conversation with mainstream power structure. When you
Speaker 1: have these recognitions, it allows you, It gives you entree
Speaker 1: into a door or doors in the c suites where
Speaker 1: you can have a conversation as a peer, as an equal.
Speaker 1: So I'm not talking at people anymore. I'm talking with people,
Speaker 1: and they understand they have value, and they have credibility
Speaker 1: and success, but they also value in a different way
Speaker 1: my credibility and success. And I've had enough private sector
Speaker 1: success also in growing and building enterprises. They know I'm
Speaker 1: a legit capitalist. I mean I've clipped a coupon on
Speaker 1: Wall Street. I've done I've run a balance sheet in
Speaker 1: an income statement, etc. Etc. So there's respect in consideration,
Speaker 1: not just for my beliefs, but for what have I
Speaker 1: guess what we have built in how we performed, which
Speaker 1: allows us to have a conversation that's different, that allows
Speaker 1: us to create a coalition of the willing of leaders,
Speaker 1: which we're building now. I mean CEO of Walmart and
Speaker 1: I are co chairing Financial Literacy for All dougriat Millin.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to get eighty percent of the fortune
Speaker 1: five hundred by twenty twenty five to embed financial literacy
Speaker 1: into its business plan, not to its philanthropy plan. It's
Speaker 1: business plan, just like healthcare was forty years ago. So
Speaker 1: our mission in schools is to get financial literacy funded
Speaker 1: by Congress K through college so they answer that question
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier. I'm vice chairman of No Labels now
Speaker 1: as of two months ago, my mission there is to
Speaker 1: be the voice of the underserved and the voice of
Speaker 1: the voice. Let's try to get public, get fifty eight,
Speaker 1: to be very practical, get fifty eight US Senators to
Speaker 1: agree on a bipartisan basis to pass the civil rights
Speaker 1: bill of this generation. Financial literacy. Then that I'll get
Speaker 1: us into schools. And I've got a plan for the
Speaker 1: banking and financial services system. I mentioned that hope inside.
Speaker 1: I've got a plan for workplace, which I've just discussed,
Speaker 1: but hoping with financial literacy for all, it's really about
Speaker 1: building this culture amongst Fortune five hundred companies, which is
Speaker 1: where you spend most of your time working, well living
Speaker 1: if you're you know you spend most of your time
Speaker 1: at work if you're employee, and changing the culture and
Speaker 1: the places that change America.
Speaker 2: So let's talk a little bit about promise homes. Where
Speaker 2: did this idea come from, and what's the company's purpose?
Speaker 2: And to reiterate, this is a for profit company. This
Speaker 2: is not a philanthropy.
Speaker 1: It's a for profit company. And coincidence is God's way.
Speaker 1: Amiting anonymous, I guess I wanted to build wealth for
Speaker 1: myself so that I did not have to continue to
Speaker 1: go begging to philanthropists to help Operation Hope with its growth.
Speaker 1: I want to be able to reach into my own
Speaker 1: pocketbook and to write my own check, which meant I
Speaker 1: needed assets. I needed a business that didn't conflict with
Speaker 1: Operation Hope. So there's a lot of things I couldn't do.
Speaker 1: It couldn't do banking, can do rock Ridge, couldn't do
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Single family residential rentals was a
Speaker 1: business I thought I could be in that had no
Speaker 1: conflict with my philanthropy. It also, oddly enough, Barry was
Speaker 1: a business that Frederick Douglass was in.
Speaker 2: Oh really, uh huh.
Speaker 1: He owned six million dollars worth of real estate rental
Speaker 1: real estate in Baltimore, Maryland that he rented it out
Speaker 1: to work in class blacks. That gave him the financial
Speaker 1: freedom to be a civil rights leader and an abolitionist.
Speaker 1: He woul don't know that story, but he was a capitalist.
Speaker 1: And actually Frederick Douglass ran the Freedman's Bank for Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln in eighteen sixty five that was charted to teach
Speaker 1: free slaves about money. So he was both a financial
Speaker 1: literacy champion, pioneer pioneer, and he was an asset owner
Speaker 1: and in many ways I am literally replicating his business model,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't intentional. This is just sort of tripped
Speaker 1: on to this same narrative.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about this business model a little bit,
Speaker 2: because private equity has moved into the space or lots
Speaker 2: of criticism that big money is pushing out smaller potential
Speaker 2: home buyers. Tell us a little bit about how promise
Speaker 2: homes operate. Where are you operating and how large do
Speaker 2: you want to get this?
Speaker 1: So I think that this can be a game changer.
Speaker 1: And there I mean, some of this criticism is legitimate
Speaker 1: that a lot of folks who are own these homes
Speaker 1: are sitting in office buildings pushing basically a financial formula.
Speaker 1: They're not connecting this to the emotions of somebody's most
Speaker 1: prized asset, which is where they live. They're not connecting
Speaker 1: this to the human experience. And they probably shouldn't be
Speaker 1: in the business of owning homes and low wealth neighborhoods
Speaker 1: unless they are fully committed beyond a balance sheet investment.
Speaker 1: You'll get your return, but but really should you be
Speaker 1: should this be the business that you're in If you
Speaker 1: don't really care, we care, and maybe go back a
Speaker 1: little bit story because the rig Orgon story is a
Speaker 1: little interesting. I went to Tony Wrestler of Arias Management
Speaker 1: and micael Oaghetti had this idea. I had this idea.
Speaker 1: So Michael said he's going to put up a few
Speaker 1: million bucks to partner with me. I went to go
Speaker 1: see Tony about supporting Operation Hope and I get asked
Speaker 1: him for fifty thousand dollars. He said, yah, yah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what's in your other pocket? Excuse me? He said, look,
Speaker 1: you got fifty thousand dollars out of me philanthropically, but
Speaker 1: you're a smart guy. What do you make in the
Speaker 1: other pocket? Because you just took money out of my
Speaker 1: out of my left pocket out here. So I said,
Speaker 1: I got this business idea. He said, I'm in just
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, I'm in.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I shared my vision and three minutes into it,
Speaker 1: he said, that makes sense to me, I'm in. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you can't be in. I've already got a partner. Well,
Speaker 1: who's your partner? Telling him who it was, Well, he
Speaker 1: worked with me, tell him I'm in. About a week later,
Speaker 1: I'm in New York and we're having a conference call.
Speaker 1: He said, I thought about this, Why do three men.
Speaker 1: When you can do thirty million, it's a great idea.
Speaker 1: Why do thirty mini when you can do one hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty men, Let's do one hundred and thirty million.
Speaker 1: And we built this company over five years, from zero
Speaker 1: to one hundred and twenty million. And I paid all
Speaker 1: the bankers off, all the Ferty Max City National Bank,
Speaker 1: these other bank first for a public bank, I paid
Speaker 1: Tony and michaeloff plus their coupon. I was so proud
Speaker 1: to be a black man in America who came from nothing.
Speaker 1: And I paid all of my debts off dollar for
Speaker 1: dollar under agreement, and I owned the company and I
Speaker 1: as teaching and we did this honorably because I was
Speaker 1: doing financial literacy for the residents. Free financial literacy. If
Speaker 1: you major payments on time, re rewarded you. If you
Speaker 1: had a credit score of six hundred or five eighty,
Speaker 1: you had to go into financial counseling and coaching with
Speaker 1: my organization, Operation Hope. If you raise your credit score
Speaker 1: to seven hundred, I would reduce your rent by ten percent.
Speaker 1: And as long as you kept the credit score above
Speaker 1: seven hundred, we made sure that the vendors that did
Speaker 1: the work on maintenance plumbing, heating, lighting, landscaping, roofing, etc.
Speaker 1: That they that we gave a shot to minority in
Speaker 1: women owned businesses. So fifty five percent of all of
Speaker 1: my merchants, my vendors were minority in women. If I
Speaker 1: was not a black guy owning this company, I don't
Speaker 1: think anybody else would have done that. I was sensitive
Speaker 1: to it because of course I am it. And then
Speaker 1: we gave a path to home ownership from rent to
Speaker 1: own for people who said I loved this experience and
Speaker 1: been paying rent on time? Can you help me become
Speaker 1: a homeowner. That caught the attention of the media, and
Speaker 1: so media starts saying, well, is this a model of
Speaker 1: going from rent to own? And can you actually treat
Speaker 1: people like residents and not just renters? And can this
Speaker 1: business be also a catalyst for social justice through living
Speaker 1: wage jobs and contracts? The answer to those questions were
Speaker 1: all yes. That also, those three things allowed me to
Speaker 1: access different kinds of capital pools than Wall Street were
Speaker 1: accessing that were cheaper. So, without getting in a bunch
Speaker 1: of detail, I found another capital stack that was multiples
Speaker 1: less expensive than the hot money on Wall Street. And
Speaker 1: there's two ways to make money. You make more, you
Speaker 1: spend less. I was spending less. That allowed me to
Speaker 1: sell my business at a prime rate. And then I
Speaker 1: then became an advisor to KKR and their Global real
Speaker 1: Estate group because of the philosophy that I had a
Speaker 1: Promise Homes company. And now I've sold that company into
Speaker 1: a partnership. I'm growing that company now with the new
Speaker 1: partners Seawan Horowitz and Clayton Wyatt, We're going to now
Speaker 1: scale this company from seven hundred homes to ten thousand.
Speaker 1: And I want to own all of these affordable housing
Speaker 1: homes that are in the institutional portfolios. I want them
Speaker 1: to sell those homes to me. Let me treat them
Speaker 1: as a priority, as these are the communities that I love,
Speaker 1: and I think you can do well and do good too.
Speaker 1: In fact, I know you can. So here we have
Speaker 1: a philanthropic model with Operation and Hope financial coaching, and
Speaker 1: you have a wealth creation and a job creation and
Speaker 1: home ownership model, affordable choice model with Promise Homes Company.
Speaker 1: And at some point I'll get into access to capital.
Speaker 1: That's another conversation for another day. But this is my
Speaker 1: mechanism to uplift the bottom of the economic pyramid.
Speaker 2: And it's a for profit company. What cities do you
Speaker 2: want to expand into.
Speaker 1: It's national. I'll go every place, but those places that
Speaker 1: are literally unaffordable for rents, I'm not You know, you
Speaker 1: can't do it in Manhattan, but you can do it
Speaker 1: in the the boroughs. You can't do it in La Proper,
Speaker 1: but you can do it in some of the cities
Speaker 1: around that. Beyond that is, almost every place in America
Speaker 1: does have slots for affordable housing. What I want to do,
Speaker 1: I mean is only half. It's about five hundred thousand
Speaker 1: homes that are owned institutionally out of seventeen thousand rental homes.
Speaker 1: So the concept that institutions are wall streets owning main
Speaker 1: street is in and of itself a fallacy. But is
Speaker 1: it true that most of the sales in the last
Speaker 1: few years have been from institutions. That is true in
Speaker 1: these underserved neighborhoods. So what I want to do is
Speaker 1: buy the homes that have less than two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a month rent from these institutions. I want to own them,
Speaker 1: and I want to buy or build homes in other
Speaker 1: neighborhoods that have, you know, sub two thousand dollars rents.
Speaker 2: So let's address both of those. First, are these big
Speaker 2: companies willing sellers? Do they want to sell? I don't
Speaker 2: know where that falls in their range, buttons up two
Speaker 2: thousand is in the top of their range.
Speaker 1: You want to get rid well, frankly, that's how operation hopes. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that's how the Promise Homes company got started.
Speaker 2: The first one thousand or the bottom of the rain.
Speaker 1: And institutions that did not really think this was a
Speaker 1: sweet spot for their portfolio. This was so you had
Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight two thousand and nine economic crisis.
Speaker 1: They had investors come into their funds to buy assets
Speaker 1: in a downtown downturn. Five or seven years later, the
Speaker 1: investor wants out. It's not that they don't like the asset,
Speaker 1: but they're like, we've hit our return, we hit our bogie,
Speaker 1: We're done. I was at the door in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: knocking on the door, saying good timing, and I bought
Speaker 1: some of these assets at a decent rate when they
Speaker 1: were trying to exit. And even if they didn't want
Speaker 1: to exit their whole portfolio, the one part that they
Speaker 1: were willing to get rid of was this bottom section.
Speaker 1: I think we're at that point again, I think with
Speaker 1: where the economy is right now, the next two years,
Speaker 1: there'll be a pruning, a refinement, a tightening of institutions,
Speaker 1: business plans focusing on their sweet spot. The sweet spot,
Speaker 1: to be blunt and Berry, is somebody like you and
Speaker 1: me who has multiples of income over their expenses. They're
Speaker 1: looking for that renter. They don't want a renter who
Speaker 1: has three times rent, which is a low income, low
Speaker 1: wealth renterer. They don't want somebody who's a doctor, doctor,
Speaker 1: a Walmart manager, or the you know, McDonald's manager, or
Speaker 1: the police officer. But I do I want them. I
Speaker 1: want I love these communities. I love these residents as
Speaker 1: my you know, occupants. I love these neighborhoods that are untapped, underserved,
Speaker 1: and unseen. And I think my passion for these neighborhoods
Speaker 1: matches with the strategic interests of institutions who hit their bogie.
Speaker 1: They've hit their number, and the homes are not deferred,
Speaker 1: they've been rehabbed, but it's headline risk maybe for somebody
Speaker 1: to own it other than me. Let me own it,
Speaker 1: do well and do good.
Speaker 2: What about building homes you mentioned you want to start
Speaker 2: doing construction. Is there enough land around. There's lots of
Speaker 2: regulatory restrictions, there's lots of where people don't want lower
Speaker 2: income housing in their neighborhood. How do you operate around that?
Speaker 1: You go into existing inner city neighborhoods and you find
Speaker 1: bum properties. You find property with a tree in the roof,
Speaker 1: or whether it's the what's the worst house or houses
Speaker 1: on the best blocks. They're you know, crime infested or
Speaker 1: they're magnet for problems. Partner with the city and say, hey,
Speaker 1: city council person, Hey, you.
Speaker 2: Know, we want to take this off your hands.
Speaker 1: We want to help you. Can you help us? Oh
Speaker 1: my god? Sure? And you buy it right, you rehabit
Speaker 1: with minority vendors, which is what we're doing, and you
Speaker 1: then either put it back into inventory as affordable rent
Speaker 1: or you sell it to somebody in the neighborhood. We
Speaker 1: have all those relationships, we have the credibility. We've got
Speaker 1: the street cred and the institutional cred to get that done.
Speaker 1: And we're trusted. We're the honest broker in these neighborhoods
Speaker 1: because they know me. They've seen me there for thirty
Speaker 1: plus years. So I'm not selling wolf tickets as they say, And.
Speaker 2: When you say national, is this a city by city
Speaker 2: approach or do you roll it out all at once?
Speaker 1: No, I think it's both you. You when you when
Speaker 1: you if you're buying portfolios, you may find that you
Speaker 1: bought portfolio homes in six cities. So now as long
Speaker 1: as you have enough cities to have property management, that's
Speaker 1: really the key. You want to have centralized property management
Speaker 1: uh in a city so you can so you can
Speaker 1: keep the promises to the residents. I've learned a lot
Speaker 1: in this business. Like one thing I've learned is that
Speaker 1: no one washes rental cars, right, like if you don't
Speaker 1: own it. If you're the property management company, you don't
Speaker 1: own it. So you're not going to have the same
Speaker 1: care for these residents as as I would as the
Speaker 1: owner of the prop of the property. It's myself. And
Speaker 1: so you may let that resident call you six or
Speaker 1: eight or ten times and not go out to them
Speaker 1: you made it. You may overcharge on maintenance because you can,
Speaker 1: so they're the property management company. Is really a key
Speaker 1: part of delivering and keeping the promise to these communities.
Speaker 1: And if you get lucky, you get a great property manager.
Speaker 1: If not, you need to do it yourself, so I
Speaker 1: will roll out in areas. When I've got that, I
Speaker 1: can keep the promise to my communities, in my residents,
Speaker 1: and we have a formula for that.
Speaker 2: So the pandemic seems to have upended housing. People realize
Speaker 2: they don't want to live very far away from where
Speaker 2: they work. They don't want to long commute housing closer
Speaker 2: to employment centers tend to be much pricier. What's the
Speaker 2: impact of the pandemic been on promise homes and how
Speaker 2: you operating in what appears to be a somewhat new environment.
Speaker 1: So you just I'm smiling because you just hit on
Speaker 1: a genius part of America's untapped business plan, and it
Speaker 1: comes from discrimination. Where's the inner city in France? Paris?
Speaker 1: Where is an inner city in the UK? London? You
Speaker 1: can you do all day? Where's an inner city in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles South Central? Fifteen minutes from the port, fifteen
Speaker 1: minutes from the beach to fifteen minutes from downtown, ten
Speaker 1: minutes from jobs. But who lives there? We put inner
Speaker 1: city poor stroming people because because in the fifties and
Speaker 1: sixties and forties, people want to get away from these folks.
Speaker 1: They built suburbs when traffic was not onerous and moved away.
Speaker 1: Now traffic is paying the Kazanga beans, and young people
Speaker 1: are not afraid of minorities. So young people are moving
Speaker 1: into inner cities at low rates, rehabbing these properties, building businesses,
Speaker 1: and creating new neighborhoods and communities. And what I want
Speaker 1: to make sure that happens is, if there's going to
Speaker 1: be gentrifications, let it be diverse and inclusive gentrification the
Speaker 1: folks who actually live in these neighborhoods, and not just
Speaker 1: those who can afford to be in these neighborhoods. So basically,
Speaker 1: you have every inner city in America, with exception of Manhattan,
Speaker 1: is a gold mine waiting to be tapped. Every these
Speaker 1: are all these neighborhoods, Inner City Detroit. I mean, you
Speaker 1: pick one. It's right near jobs and or at least
Speaker 1: economic opportunity and energy waiting to be explored. I see
Speaker 1: opportunity everywhere. It's the guy who went to Africa selling shoes.
Speaker 1: He wired back three weeks later, Boss, please send me home.
Speaker 1: No one here wears shoes. Then they bring Barry and
Speaker 1: John out there and we get lost in the bush,
Speaker 1: and no one hears from us. Because we're exploring the
Speaker 1: culture and all that stuff. And then three weeks later,
Speaker 1: there you go, barry everybody in every shoe. You've got
Speaker 1: No one here wears shoes.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Let's talk about a few of your older
Speaker 2: books before we get to your most recent one, the
Speaker 2: memo five Rules for your Economic Liberation? What are the
Speaker 2: five rules? And I have a feeling I have an
Speaker 2: idea what those five pillars are because you've talked about those.
Speaker 2: But but what are the five rules for economic liberation?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, let's talk a little bit about why
Speaker 1: the book was even necessary. Who didn't get the memo?
Speaker 1: I mean, what is a memo? I mean when you
Speaker 1: think about being in Bloomberg, you know, are we open
Speaker 1: on on on Christmas? Or are we open on you know, Thanksgiving?
Speaker 1: That's a memo that goes around. Everybody's on the same page.
Speaker 1: What happens if no one sends that memo? Do you
Speaker 1: either show up for work or don't know? You know,
Speaker 1: there's no there's no direction of what the leadership wants
Speaker 1: to do or not to do, and so you're sort
Speaker 1: of on your own. So everybody needs a memo, and
Speaker 1: everybody needs a business plan. For their life. And what
Speaker 1: we found is that after slavery, we were told after
Speaker 1: Americans we were free, but nobody gave us a memo
Speaker 1: on the rules of freedom in a free enterprise democracy
Speaker 1: and free enterprise system. And so it's what you don't
Speaker 1: know that you don't know that's killing you and a
Speaker 1: blind tout on one eyed man's king. And when you
Speaker 1: don't know better, you can't do better. So we just
Speaker 1: found that you had to literally go back to the
Speaker 1: drawing board and deliver the business plan for a free
Speaker 1: enterprise success story to successive generations of people who were
Speaker 1: not giving direction or guidance. And my goal at Operation
Speaker 1: Hope was to do that through coaching, but also my
Speaker 1: goal in the books was to provide literal training grounds,
Speaker 1: if you want to call it that, so that there
Speaker 1: was no guess work anymore around success. And each of
Speaker 1: the books are a bit of touch tones and maybe obvious,
Speaker 1: but common sense is not so common.
Speaker 2: So let's go over. Let's start with the five rules.
Speaker 2: What are the five rules that we want to get out?
Speaker 1: Rule number one, you live in a free enterprise system
Speaker 1: embraces So people say, oh, I hate rich people, No,
Speaker 1: you don't, you hate rich people til you become rich.
Speaker 1: All we're socialists. No, no, no, no. As my friend,
Speaker 1: late the late Shimon Praira has said to me, He said, John,
Speaker 1: even if folks want to distribute money like a socialist,
Speaker 1: they have the first collect money like a capitalist. So
Speaker 1: we're all living in a capitalist system. If you're going
Speaker 1: to work and using your talents to get a paycheck,
Speaker 1: you're using your human capital. So let's stop playing a game.
Speaker 1: Let's understand that our freedoms aren't free, and we live
Speaker 1: in a free enterprise democracy. So that's Number one, is
Speaker 1: you live in a free enterprise system. Embraceist. Let's not
Speaker 1: playing the stupid game that somehow we don't. Number two,
Speaker 1: and are these kids who are railing against capitalism at
Speaker 1: fre enterprises, rich kids who are only able to do
Speaker 1: that on a college campus because their parents are capitalists
Speaker 1: and could send them the best colleges in the World's
Speaker 1: absolutely fascinating to me. Number two. So it's not just
Speaker 1: poor people or under a misnomer, it's rich kids too.
Speaker 1: Number two. Your mind set makes you lose money or
Speaker 1: build wealth, you choose. Number Three, Relationships are investments, build
Speaker 1: relationship capital with yourself first. That's that self esteem. Piece
Speaker 1: Number four, be entrepreneurial. Don't just get a job, maybe
Speaker 1: create one so you can write that check, not just cash.
Speaker 1: And number four spiritual capital is a start of true
Speaker 1: wealth on your power. So I would say that we're
Speaker 1: not living, we're not human beings having a spiritual experience.
Speaker 1: Where spiritual beings having a human experience, energy matters, and
Speaker 1: the most important thing in life probably is becoming reasonably
Speaker 1: comfortable in your own When I met you, instantly I
Speaker 1: could tell that Barry was cool with Barry. Well, if
Speaker 1: you're cool with you, then you'll be cool with me.
Speaker 2: That makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about another
Speaker 2: of your books. I love the title of this and
Speaker 2: I'm really curious as to how this can be done.
Speaker 2: How the poor can save capitalism?
Speaker 1: It always has, he always.
Speaker 2: Has, of course, well us more. And I say this,
Speaker 2: by the way, as someone who grew up pretty hearts gravel,
Speaker 2: you know, always had a job since I was, you know,
Speaker 2: ten twelve years old, put myself through school, never thought
Speaker 2: about capitalism till much later in life, till I was
Speaker 2: out of college. How can the poor save capitalism?
Speaker 1: Like I said, it always has?
Speaker 2: How has it in the past? Give us some examples.
Speaker 1: All of the creators of wealth in this country, legitimate
Speaker 1: wealth came from poverty. In the twentieth century. You think
Speaker 1: about all these vaders who created companies I mentioned earlier.
Speaker 1: Is there's a good example, because it's visual. Here in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: you have a tower that says Goldman Sacks. Well, one
Speaker 1: hundred plus years ago, there was a guy who was
Speaker 1: an immigrant named Goldman and another guy who was the
Speaker 1: imigant name of Sacks, and they literally were walking door
Speaker 1: to door selling financial services out of a briefcase because
Speaker 1: they couldn't get a job in the office towers of
Speaker 1: that day because of discrimination. So they had to go
Speaker 1: create their own job because no one would hire them
Speaker 1: for an existing job. And that created an institution today
Speaker 1: that people think is hotty, toddy and hard to access,
Speaker 1: called Goldman Sacks. But whether it's ups and I think
Speaker 1: his name was Kelly, I think it's his name who
Speaker 1: founded the ups On with the bicycle messenger service, or
Speaker 1: whether it's Coca Cola, which was a pharmacist and his
Speaker 1: son who created that business and they were dead broke
Speaker 1: sold it for five hundred bucks. By the way, so
Speaker 1: the pharmers the pharmacy formula. You can go on and
Speaker 1: on and on. You know, black enterprise was created by
Speaker 1: a heart scrabble black entrepreneur Ebony magazine. The guy bro
Speaker 1: a few books from his mother. So he's black entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: Latino entrepreneurs, white entrepreneurs. It doesn't matter. All legitimate wealth
Speaker 1: came from nothing, who built something into something. And these
Speaker 1: are big companies where once small ones. And uh, that's
Speaker 1: just a historical fact.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about looking forward. Are you suggesting that
Speaker 2: we need the poor to continue this process of entrepreneurship
Speaker 2: and building businesses and creating something from practically nothing.
Speaker 1: Is that I'll go once, I'll go one step further.
Speaker 1: My rich friends need my poor friends in order to
Speaker 1: stay rich. My rich friends eat my poor friends to
Speaker 1: do better.
Speaker 2: Explain this.
Speaker 1: Seventy percent of the US economy is consumer spending. That's
Speaker 1: the guy who's cleaning this office building, paying rent, paying
Speaker 1: a car note, buying some food on the corner, paying
Speaker 1: for a parking ticket, going to a restaurant every now
Speaker 1: and then with his wife. If without this activity, the
Speaker 1: economy comes to a grinding stop. Think about the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Think about what happened in March of twenty twenty, everything
Speaker 1: everything froze because the average human being was not out
Speaker 1: engaging in the economy. So rich people cannot on their
Speaker 1: own sustain the Lard's economy on the planet. We literally
Speaker 1: need each other. So whether you're a consumer or whether
Speaker 1: you're a stakeholder and a builder, you have a role
Speaker 1: to play. And I'll say something else is maybe shocking
Speaker 1: to me, it's common sense. Demographics are destiny. The reason
Speaker 1: I believe in this business plan today that it's about
Speaker 1: mission and money and morals. Today there's not enough college
Speaker 1: educated white men to grow the economy for the next
Speaker 1: thirty or forty years. It's just mathematically impossible. So you
Speaker 1: need minorities, you need women. We need other people to
Speaker 1: grow into the economy in a sustainable way in order
Speaker 1: to keep this thing, this party, in this beautiful story
Speaker 1: of America going, and so that China does not. It
Speaker 1: is way of illegitimately becoming the leader of the world
Speaker 1: by cheating at capitalism and free enterprise with their partner Russia,
Speaker 1: which is by the way, rounding air economically and a
Speaker 1: bunch of thugs who can't do anything illegitimately. But China
Speaker 1: and Russia together want our way of life. They want
Speaker 1: to be us, and they can't do it with a
Speaker 1: fair fight. We if we realize we're better together, probably
Speaker 1: my next book by the way, this topic. If we
Speaker 1: realize we're better together and that two plus two has
Speaker 1: to equal more than four, mean, that's every good marriage.
Speaker 1: Is that two plus two equals six, eight or ten.
Speaker 1: You're better together, then you can realize that you can't
Speaker 1: succeed if there's a hole in my end of our boat.
Speaker 1: We're in the same boat. So we need the bottom
Speaker 1: of the pyramid to be here, rehabilitated and engaged in
Speaker 1: the economy to grow GDP by an extra two to
Speaker 1: three percent sustainably. And black folks are a one point
Speaker 1: five trillion dollars consumer spending for us, Barry, that's one
Speaker 1: of the largest economies in the world. But we don't
Speaker 1: own anything we spend. We've got to move from just
Speaker 1: being a consumer to a wealth creator.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about your most recent book, Up from Nothing,
Speaker 2: The Untold Story of How We All Succeed. Tell us
Speaker 2: a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: It's my failures, it's it's I mean, it's everything, it's
Speaker 1: all my trips, my failings, my fallings, my people who
Speaker 1: laughed at me, people who roll their eyes at me,
Speaker 1: folks who dismiss me. First, the world will ignore you,
Speaker 1: then they'll criticize you, then they'll try to copy you.
Speaker 1: Then you win. That was my message, And I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to get a whole generation of leaders to understand
Speaker 1: that just because somebody the lack of preparation in somebody
Speaker 1: else's life is not constant an emergency in yours. And
Speaker 1: just because you don't respect me doesn't mean I don't
Speaker 1: respect myself. And your interpretation of my value is not
Speaker 1: my reality of my value. And when we start understanding
Speaker 1: that we are unique in this world, and we are
Speaker 1: and we are powerful in that uniqueness, and that egles
Speaker 1: don't fly in packs. Berry, You've never seen a flock
Speaker 1: of eagles, but buzzers love packs, and turkey's got wings
Speaker 1: and can't fly. And if you're not careful, you'll get
Speaker 1: so offended by what turkey, what buzzards say about you,
Speaker 1: or you'll be so distracted by what turkeys are laughing
Speaker 1: at you and saying about you and your family, that
Speaker 1: you will get distracted. Come out, get out of your ego,
Speaker 1: your ego, altitude, and you'll go down to try to
Speaker 1: show that uh, that that bird a lesson, and the
Speaker 1: pig will find you out in the pig pen and
Speaker 1: throw some mud on your wing and get that ego
Speaker 1: down into the mud pit. And now the turkey and
Speaker 1: the buzzard and the pig look at you and say,
Speaker 1: now we got you right where we've always wanted you,
Speaker 1: down here with us. You got to step over messing,
Speaker 1: not in it. You got to stay above the fray.
Speaker 1: You got to understand that that that the philosophy for
Speaker 1: success is talk without being offensive, listen without being defensive,
Speaker 1: and always leave even your adversary with their dignity, because
Speaker 1: if you don't, they'll spend the rest of their life
Speaker 1: trying to make you miserable. It becomes personal. It is
Speaker 1: not their interpretation of you that matters. It is your
Speaker 1: interpretation of you that matters. Not one ounce of my
Speaker 1: self esteem is dependent upon your acceptance of me. It
Speaker 1: just not so. So why am I spending all my
Speaker 1: time trying to impress somebody who I do not know,
Speaker 1: with money I do not have in the places they
Speaker 1: do not want me, with philosophies and things that there
Speaker 1: that don't work. They're broke, they're they're unhappy, they're miserable,
Speaker 1: and I want to be like them. What I want
Speaker 1: to impress them? Why are we spending our time trying
Speaker 1: to impress somebody we actually even don't want to be
Speaker 1: like like all these lessons of wasting time. I don't
Speaker 1: mind wasting money every now and then. I don't want
Speaker 1: you to abuse and waste my time. I'm trying in
Speaker 1: this book to short circuit time wasting and energy wasting
Speaker 1: and depression inducing activity and give you legitimate hope that
Speaker 1: you can come up from nothing in the greatest economy
Speaker 1: and I think the greatest creation of democracy, open source democracy,
Speaker 1: in the world, which is America. We're not perfect, but
Speaker 1: she's a country. She's an idea, not a country. We
Speaker 1: can make her anything we want, and we can be
Speaker 1: part of that remaking process up from nothing. I could
Speaker 1: never be me in Germany or France or China or Japan. Culturally,
Speaker 1: I just would not have gone from the bottom to
Speaker 1: the top.
Speaker 2: So I love the message, but let me push back
Speaker 2: a little bits to say, you know, back when my
Speaker 2: parents were entering the workforce, there was a decent amount
Speaker 2: of social mobility in the United States, forget race or religion,
Speaker 2: just lowest economic strata to the upper economic strata. The
Speaker 2: economic mobility, at least by the most recent measures, as
Speaker 2: well as a geographic mobility, both have hasn't gone away,
Speaker 2: but it's not nearly as broad as it once was.
Speaker 2: What's your response to people who say the American dream
Speaker 2: isn't as robust as.
Speaker 1: It once was because small business starts stalled in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four and they didn't actually pick up again
Speaker 1: until after the pandemic. That's I mean, that's almost twenty years.
Speaker 1: And by the way, what's the largest group starting businesses
Speaker 1: post pandemic?
Speaker 2: Millennials?
Speaker 1: Blacks? Oh really, what's the largest supergroup amongst all other groups?
Speaker 1: Black women? Interesting, So now you have the group that
Speaker 1: was thought to be left back, left behind, ignored, who
Speaker 1: couldn't get the job, couldn't get the promotion, ignored in
Speaker 1: their corporate suite. Now they're not going to the corporate suite.
Speaker 1: For two years, they were at home. They got some
Speaker 1: stimulus money, which they call venture capital, and now they're saying,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, do I need to go back to
Speaker 1: that job? You know? Do I need to go back
Speaker 1: and be a again and have people coughing on me,
Speaker 1: and I don't have health care, and I'm not getting
Speaker 1: good tips and the owner doesn't really care about me.
Speaker 1: Do I really need to go to that dead edd job?
Speaker 1: Do I need to go to that boss that doesn't care.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll create my be my own boss. Maybe I'll
Speaker 1: create my own way. And so now you have this surge,
Speaker 1: this super surge of the of the thing that made
Speaker 1: America different from Europe in the first place, Barry, which
Speaker 1: was business creation. I mean, the reason we have celebrity
Speaker 1: in America is because it was our answer to bling.
Speaker 1: In Europe had royalty, that was their bling. You didn't
Speaker 1: have royalty, and we didn't want it. But celebrity was
Speaker 1: our desire to has something that sparkled the real marrow
Speaker 1: of this country was the first corporation, sorry, the first
Speaker 1: the first entity creating this country was a corporation. It
Speaker 1: was a trading corporation that then created democracy, not the
Speaker 1: other way around. Municipalities came out of trading corporations. So
Speaker 1: we are in our bones traders, financiers, business people, ar newers, hustlers.
Speaker 1: That is in our DNA and every I think twenty
Speaker 1: thirty to fifty certainly every one hundred years you need
Speaker 1: a generation of strivers who own something, own, create something,
Speaker 1: and by the way, create jobs. So have we become
Speaker 1: over dependent upon less than a thousand companies that employ
Speaker 1: ten thousand people or more fortune five hundred. Yes, you
Speaker 1: have all these folks going through college wanting to go
Speaker 1: work at at Google or whatever the thing is. Who's
Speaker 1: not hiring or will fire you at the moment that
Speaker 1: there is an economic glitch where most of the businesses, sir,
Speaker 1: most of the jobs this country come from employers with
Speaker 1: less than one hundred employees. Most businesses in LA ninety
Speaker 1: five percent of all businesses have less than one hundred employees.
Speaker 1: Let's drive down Manhattan and look at these skyscrapers. That's
Speaker 1: the dentist's office for people. That's an architect, eight people.
Speaker 1: That's a law firm, twenty people. That's a you know,
Speaker 1: an analyst firm. These are small businesses. I called a
Speaker 1: chiropractor yesterday. He's got him and the secretary. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is what's driving the economy is. So you're either
Speaker 1: gonna become the business person or are you going to
Speaker 1: work for that small business owner who probably is going
Speaker 1: to pay you more. You have more social mobility in
Speaker 1: that place than you will in some huge corporation. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I think, don't go work for the big company.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that that's not way to made America.
Speaker 2: So let's jump to our speed rounds. These are the
Speaker 2: questions we ask all our guests and plow through very quickly,
Speaker 2: starting with tell us what you've been streaming these days?
Speaker 2: What's been keeping you entertained?
Speaker 1: Succession used to be billions eighteen twenty eight things? The
Speaker 1: name of the show Yellowstone the latest? I mean, I
Speaker 1: keep watching the Matrix movies, which most people don't listening
Speaker 1: to your show probably won't know. It's a bit of
Speaker 1: a cult film, but I think everybody needs to watch it. Man,
Speaker 1: which supposedly is a martial arts movie, but really it's
Speaker 1: a movie about really moral decision making and ethnical This guy,
Speaker 1: martial arts genius who who trained Bruce Leeb, never wanted
Speaker 1: to fight. You had to force him to fight. Now,
Speaker 1: he'd whip your rear in if you if you if
Speaker 1: you force them, but he never wanted to fight. When
Speaker 1: you have the power, you don't need to use it.
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time late at night on
Speaker 1: a sort of a mental vacation, I will turn on
Speaker 1: something online and have my brain completely fantasized. There's an
Speaker 1: F one. There's a series on Netflix that that that
Speaker 1: drives there you go it unpacks F one Racing, That
Speaker 1: is Genie. My sport is auto racing. Actually I have
Speaker 1: a professional and I'm sorry, a competitive auto racing license.
Speaker 1: So that is my one of my passions. A very
Speaker 1: great movie by Paul Newman that Paul Newman did, uh
Speaker 1: call driving It actually that he was a great actor,
Speaker 1: but his passion was auto racing. He's the only sport
Speaker 1: he was elegant at, he said, So anyway that I
Speaker 1: can sell. I talked about things I would love to
Speaker 1: watch all day and all night.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about your mentors. You mentioned a few
Speaker 2: tell us who helped shape your career.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Uh, you know, in no particular order,
Speaker 1: Astor Andrew Young, Bishop t d JS, Quincy Jones. This
Speaker 1: is the moral side of my life. On the on
Speaker 1: the business side again, you know, in particular order, Michael
Speaker 1: Arraghetty Tony rest Or, Bill Rogers of Truist. I think
Speaker 1: you know, Charlie Sharf at Wells Fargo, would call him
Speaker 1: a mentor, but I tell him an inspired friend Jamie Diamond,
Speaker 1: that we don't spend a lot of time together, but
Speaker 1: I love what he's built. Great guy. I've got so
Speaker 1: many heroes and she ros that have that. I actually
Speaker 1: had to go sort of like find the roadmap because
Speaker 1: it didn't exist for me where I grew up. So
Speaker 1: I had these saragate far and mothers, surrogate family that
Speaker 1: I have literally put around me so I can map
Speaker 1: out what success looked like. I probably have fifty of
Speaker 1: these mentors and mentees, sorry, heroes and she wrotes who
Speaker 1: are mentors that have guided my path forward. A few
Speaker 1: of the names I just share with my mother wanted
Speaker 1: to smith amongst them.
Speaker 2: Really interesting list. Let's talk about books. What are some
Speaker 2: of your favorites? What are you reading currently?
Speaker 1: Mere Christianity is something I read once a year by C. S.
Speaker 1: Lewis is from the nineteen forties. The book The Power
Speaker 1: of Now by Eckart Tole is something I try to
Speaker 1: Some books I read continuously over and over again. The
Speaker 1: Seven Spiritual Laws is Success by Deepak Chopra is something
Speaker 1: I read. It's only seventy pages. Is a great primer.
Speaker 1: It's worth reading over and over again. I'm reading a
Speaker 1: book about green Span right now on capitalism that I
Speaker 1: think is really, really very good. I'd encourage everybody to
Speaker 1: read it. By the way, edn't ask me this, but
Speaker 1: there's a it's a documentary that could be a great
Speaker 1: book called Easy Money that just came out. I believe it.
Speaker 1: Actually it's even a PBS documentary. You can find it
Speaker 1: on Amazon's platform. But it is fascinating and as much
Speaker 1: as I think I understand money, it really unpacked what
Speaker 1: happened in the last twenty years and that I just
Speaker 1: saw that. Sometimes you got to watch things two or
Speaker 1: three times. The Men Who Build America an eight part series.
Speaker 1: Everybody needs to watch that. One problem I have with
Speaker 1: it is there's no blacks or browns or there's just
Speaker 1: a bunch of, you know, industrious white people. And that's
Speaker 1: just a misnomer that only white men built this country.
Speaker 1: That's a whole another podcast for another time. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't get it. You can't get an elevator in
Speaker 1: this building without a black man's invention. Who built the elevator?
Speaker 1: So we all had a place. But these are sources
Speaker 1: of inspiration for me.
Speaker 2: Huh, really interesting list. Last two questions, what sort of
Speaker 2: advice would you give to someone coming out of school
Speaker 2: who was interested in a career in either finance or investment.
Speaker 1: Ignore the noise. There's been a lot of noise around you.
Speaker 1: There will be a lot of people around you who
Speaker 1: are not good role models, who want to party all
Speaker 1: the time, who want to have fun. There's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with having fun. But only in the dictionary does the
Speaker 1: word success come before the word work, because it's alphabetical.
Speaker 1: Egos don't fly in packs. And mentioned that earlier, So
Speaker 1: you know, you can't expect everybody to get you or
Speaker 1: understand your path. So, particularly if you're a person of color,
Speaker 1: in listening to this podcast, you're going to need to
Speaker 1: hyper focus because your white friend with a trust fund
Speaker 1: can make all kind of mistakes and still land on
Speaker 1: their feet. You know, you may have to burn the
Speaker 1: ships behind you and hit that beach and like a
Speaker 1: laser beam and never give up. I am consciously oblivious
Speaker 1: of all things around me that don't matter. I am
Speaker 1: very focused on what I think is super relevant. If
Speaker 1: you're hyper focused, you're resilient, and you never give up.
Speaker 1: You actually don't have to be the smartest guy in
Speaker 1: the room. You just outrun failure, and at some point
Speaker 1: you will succeed because failure is lazy, and the devil's lazy,
Speaker 1: and frosters are lazy, and if you're just not lazy,
Speaker 1: you'll succeed. Be curious, God gave you two ears in
Speaker 1: one mouth, or listen twice as much as you talk.
Speaker 1: Be fascinated, Be super nosy, Be respectful, be kind. You
Speaker 1: never know the toe you step on maybe conect to
Speaker 1: the rear, and you got kiss tomorrow. Just be gracious
Speaker 1: if you want to have a little grace, show a
Speaker 1: little mercy.
Speaker 2: I like that line and our final question, what do
Speaker 2: you know about the world of capitalism, entrepreneurship, and just
Speaker 2: generally the economy today that you wish you knew thirty
Speaker 2: or so years ago when you were really ramping up.
Speaker 1: Everything's about money everything you know, marriage was originally about unions,
Speaker 1: uh you know, different royal houses or whatever. Uh being
Speaker 1: part of the world you're talking about. They were trying
Speaker 1: to protect their economic interests. That's why they got married.
Speaker 1: They didn't even sleep in the same beds or the
Speaker 1: same houses. Back in those days. It was you know,
Speaker 1: families trying to protect each other's interest. Love is important,
Speaker 1: but alignment is also important. Money is in I mean church,
Speaker 1: church needs needs donation. Catholic Church is one of the
Speaker 1: largest owners of land, by the way and financial services
Speaker 1: in the world. This is not a criticism, is a critique.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying my observation is that whatever you want
Speaker 1: requires money and or an understanding of same in order
Speaker 1: to live a life is free. Freedom today is self determination.
Speaker 1: You cannot have self determination unless you unless you have
Speaker 1: some level of economic If all money is his freedom,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. That's all all. So you shouldn't
Speaker 1: pursue money to control other people's freedom slavery, but you
Speaker 1: should understand that if you have money, then no one
Speaker 1: can control yours.
Speaker 2: Huh. That's really quite intriguing. We have been speaking with
Speaker 2: John Hope Bryant, founder of Operation Hope, and a slew
Speaker 2: of other companies. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure
Speaker 2: and check out all of our previous podcasts. You can
Speaker 2: find those at YouTube, iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you find
Speaker 2: your favorite podcasts. Sign up for our daily reading list
Speaker 2: at rituelts dot com. Follow me on Twitter at Ritholtz
Speaker 2: follow all of the Bloomberg Family of podcasts at Podcasts,
Speaker 2: I would be remiss if I did not thank the
Speaker 2: correct team that helps with these conversations together each week.
Speaker 2: Pariswold is my producer. A Teak of Albrun is my
Speaker 2: project manager. Sean Russo is my researcher. My audio engineer
Speaker 2: is Sebastian Escobar. I'm Barry Ritt. Adults, you've been listening
Speaker 2: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.