Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John Hobrant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is John Hope Bryant, entrepreneur and host of the
Speaker 1: Black Effect Networks podcasts Money and Wealth with John Hopebriant
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio. And I've been doing a lot of guests
Speaker 1: recently because I believe they've been bringing you best in
Speaker 1: class intel that you need to transform your life. And
Speaker 1: I'm proud of all those guests. When I bring a
Speaker 1: guest to you know that I believe they are the
Speaker 1: best of the best in their space and their field.
Speaker 1: But when I come at you myself, there's something going
Speaker 1: on that I really want to communicate with you directly.
Speaker 1: I believe the time is now, and I believe the
Speaker 1: message is urgent, and such is the case for this moment.
Speaker 1: I believe the economy is essentially strong, but there are
Speaker 1: outside forces that are messing with the economy, messing with
Speaker 1: its stability that I think will create challenges for it
Speaker 1: in the short term. I think long term it's strong,
Speaker 1: but I do believe in the next six to eight months,
Speaker 1: you may need to find a safer place to hide
Speaker 1: and don't do flaky stuff. Don't do silly stuff. Be
Speaker 1: very mature about your decisions. They got me thinking about
Speaker 1: the larger issue of this generation and a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff I see on social media that just it frustrates
Speaker 1: me because I think people are just misguided. I think
Speaker 1: that they are going to harm their own economic futures
Speaker 1: because they think things are simpler, easier than they are.
Speaker 1: And so this is inspired by my book. This podcast
Speaker 1: episode called the Ownership Generation. That's this episode's title. It's
Speaker 1: a special one hour, two part podcast. Tell all your
Speaker 1: friends to put this on repeat, break it down in
Speaker 1: the pieces, and talk about it in barbershops and nel
Speaker 1: salons and hair salons and fraternity and sorority meetings and
Speaker 1: family meetings. And is inspired by my book now bestseller
Speaker 1: Capitalism for All Inclusive Economics in the Future Proving of America,
Speaker 1: which I'm going to get to in subsequent episodes dealing
Speaker 1: with the book itself. But this book, this piece, this
Speaker 1: podcast episode is inspired by the book, but it's not
Speaker 1: about the book. This is about specifically you right now,
Speaker 1: and particularly if the you right now is twenty thirty,
Speaker 1: even forty years of age, and even paying way too
Speaker 1: much attention to Instagram or social media, or what your
Speaker 1: friends are telling you and who maybe broke themselves and
Speaker 1: not realize it. So let me break this down. You
Speaker 1: don't build a life by renting one. There's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of straight talk. I do these straight talk videos.
Speaker 1: There are two or three minutes, and you can almost
Speaker 1: assume this is one hour of continuous straight talk about
Speaker 1: the things that I think matter the most right now.
Speaker 1: And I'm doing this because I love you, Because as
Speaker 1: my T shirt that I'm wearing right now says, actually
Speaker 1: I can you can, Actually you can win. I want
Speaker 1: you to win. And when you want somebody to win,
Speaker 1: you tell them what they need to hear and not
Speaker 1: what they want to hear. I rather you respect me
Speaker 1: and learn to like me, than like me and never
Speaker 1: respect me. So let me drill down on things that
Speaker 1: I think really mad. And it starts with this first
Speaker 1: principle of the ownership generation. You don't build a life
Speaker 1: by renting one, and one gift mean something that you
Speaker 1: have that's part of your life. One gift is not
Speaker 1: enough to build anything worth leaving behind. So part one
Speaker 1: rent a life versus own your life. The false argument
Speaker 1: that's keeping a generation in place, Part two. One thing
Speaker 1: is not enough pretty smart, handsome, educated, credentialed, talented, degreed.
Speaker 1: Why that's only the beginning. It's gonna be a deep episode.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about where we start. I want to
Speaker 1: talk to you today about a decision and you're making
Speaker 1: right now. If you're in that age group that I mentioned,
Speaker 1: or you know somebody you love and care about who's
Speaker 1: in that age group that I mentioned twenty thirty forty,
Speaker 1: maybe you're making decisions even without knowing. You're making them
Speaker 1: every single day. You're either renting your life or you're
Speaker 1: building toward owning it. And most people I talk to
Speaker 1: have convinced themselves that renting is enough, that it's even smart.
Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you that's the most expensive lie
Speaker 1: in the economy. I'm thinking right now about folks who
Speaker 1: show up on business television shows telling poor people and
Speaker 1: working class people and working middle class people not to
Speaker 1: buy a house, not to buy a home, when they
Speaker 1: own one, two, three, four, or five six homes themselves.
Speaker 1: Certainly they own one home. The number one way you
Speaker 1: build wealth in America, everybody who's an investor knows is
Speaker 1: home ownership. It's a lie, but it feeds into a
Speaker 1: narrative that renting and living your best life right now
Speaker 1: is a smart thing to do. I'm going to unpack
Speaker 1: all this now. I'm not just talking about apartments. And
Speaker 1: by the way, I'm a landlord joint venture with CIM Group.
Speaker 1: I sold my last real estate company. I was a
Speaker 1: principal owner. I was the owner and the Promise Homes company.
Speaker 1: I've sold it in twenty twenty one and I have
Speaker 1: a minority stake in that. I'm sure trying to get
Speaker 1: out of that deal right now. But I've partnered with
Speaker 1: CIM Group is incredible organization. They're doing cent to new
Speaker 1: yards here and Atlanta. I'm part of that as well.
Speaker 1: And so I am an investor. I am a landlord.
Speaker 1: I was doing single family, now doing multi family. So
Speaker 1: I'm talking against my own interest, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you not to rent from me long term.
Speaker 1: I want you to be with me short term, but
Speaker 1: I want you to at some point to transition. I
Speaker 1: really want you to go from rent to own with
Speaker 1: me or with somebody else. So I'm not here to
Speaker 1: debate square footage and interest rates people. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about the bigger picture. The idea that renting has
Speaker 1: become a lifestyle, a brand, a vibe, and I want
Speaker 1: to challenge that, not to shame anyone, but to free someone.
Speaker 1: I rented right until I didn't me I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: So here's the false argument. So the cultural narrative is
Speaker 1: owning is overrated, renting is freedom. The financial influence would say,
Speaker 1: you're not throwing money away, you're buying flexibility. The tech
Speaker 1: optimized entrepreneur influencer would say, own nothing, access everything. Here's
Speaker 1: what they don't tell you about renting as a lifestyle.
Speaker 1: The landlord me in this example is always building equity. Always,
Speaker 1: So as you're paying rent, paying two thousand, three thousand,
Speaker 1: four thousand, five thousand a month, six thousand, seven thousand,
Speaker 1: eight thousand, ten thousand a month in New York City,
Speaker 1: that's very common that rental rate. You're paying down that
Speaker 1: mortgage of the investor every month, and you're opening up
Speaker 1: a window and just throwing that money out the window.
Speaker 1: With regard to yourself, now, if you're there for a
Speaker 1: short term job, or if you're in that city because
Speaker 1: you have a career or a job, or renting is
Speaker 1: part of a long term strategy for you to transition
Speaker 1: within one, two, three, four, five years into home ownership fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's a strategic part of your thinking. No different than
Speaker 1: you don't want to work at McDonald's for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. It's a great job at a certain age,
Speaker 1: but unless you're the manager or the general manager, or
Speaker 1: you want to be an owner of McDonald's at some point,
Speaker 1: you want to step up and step out at some point.
Speaker 1: Walmart is one of those rare places where you can
Speaker 1: actually stay with them from cashier to general manager and
Speaker 1: make a half million dollars a year, but that's very rare.
Speaker 1: My friend w Millan literally went from stocking shelves to
Speaker 1: CEO at Walmart. But for most of these places, you
Speaker 1: want to hit it and split it. And same as
Speaker 1: the case with renting versus ownership, the landlord is always
Speaker 1: building equity. Your rent check is writing someone else's wealth
Speaker 1: story freedom. That's a subscription, a very expensive one. But
Speaker 1: this isn't just about housing, which about renting your job
Speaker 1: versus owning your career trajectory. If it's late in late
Speaker 1: long lunch, leave early and you aren't invested in that thing,
Speaker 1: you're just showing up. You're just sort of mailing it in.
Speaker 1: You're really hitting your face on their fist. The employer,
Speaker 1: you're wasting your time and not impressing them. They're not
Speaker 1: going to give you a raise and you have an
Speaker 1: earned one. And I'd rather you waste my money than
Speaker 1: waste my time. No one can waste my time but me.
Speaker 1: I'm ruthless about my time. It's very interesting. Poor people,
Speaker 1: struggling people value cash, and wealthy people they value their time.
Speaker 1: And wealth is a mindset. You make money during the day,
Speaker 1: you build wealth in your sleep. Renting your relationships transactional
Speaker 1: versus commitments. A giver and a giver is exotic. That's relationships,
Speaker 1: that's covenant. But then you have giver a taker. That's
Speaker 1: neurotic and truly, I'm assuming in this case you're the
Speaker 1: giver and then you have take her to take her,
Speaker 1: and that's psychotic. You don't want to really be in
Speaker 1: the last two versions of this. Networking is a taking business, right.
Speaker 1: Relationships are a giving business. You want to be a
Speaker 1: giver and engage with a giver. Right, So what are
Speaker 1: your relationships like? What's your relationship capital? Like? Are you
Speaker 1: hanging around people smarter than you, brighter than you? Sharper
Speaker 1: than you, wiser than you, people who can teach you something.
Speaker 1: Are you the smartest person in your group? That's scary.
Speaker 1: I know a person very very, very smart who hangs
Speaker 1: around people smarter than she is, sorry, less intelligent, less ambitious,
Speaker 1: and less intelligent than she is because she wants their approval.
Speaker 1: I guess, and she had a home and decide to
Speaker 1: move from the house, didn't want to deal with a
Speaker 1: renter and decide to sell the house, and now she
Speaker 1: lives in an apartment because she wants to be where
Speaker 1: all the action is. I think she's won the battle
Speaker 1: on the loss of ward twice. But it's not my
Speaker 1: life to live rendering your identity performing for approval versus
Speaker 1: building from values. Let me go back to the person
Speaker 1: who I mentioned didn't want to deal with the lamp,
Speaker 1: with the renters and tenants and owned ownership drama, just
Speaker 1: wanted to live free. Only in the dictionary does the
Speaker 1: word success come before the word work, because it's alphabetical.
Speaker 1: All things that are valuable are work. Whatever you love
Speaker 1: is going to drive you nuts. Your family, your children,
Speaker 1: your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your job,
Speaker 1: your career, your friendships, whatever you love is going to
Speaker 1: be work, so get over it, knock it off. You
Speaker 1: can do it, as I said that, my T shirt says,
Speaker 1: actually you can, but you've got to invest in it.
Speaker 1: Everything's an investment, and if you find a free lunch
Speaker 1: is probably stale. Renting your future outsourcing decisions to algorithms, trends,
Speaker 1: and other people's opinion. I don't love to say it's
Speaker 1: okay if you don't like me. I like me. Not
Speaker 1: one ounce of my self esteem depends on your acceptance
Speaker 1: of me. That's a Quincy Jones quote. God bless his rest,
Speaker 1: his soul, friend of mine. So you've got to understand
Speaker 1: that you're a leader. You are an eagle surrounded by
Speaker 1: buzzers and turkeys. People are not going to understand you.
Speaker 1: So don't rent your future, and certainly don't rent it
Speaker 1: out to somebody else who doesn't have one, and don't
Speaker 1: listen to broke people. You can rent a beautiful apartment
Speaker 1: and still be homeless in your spirit. I see a
Speaker 1: lot of people who've got doorman and fancy rented or
Speaker 1: least cars and clothes they bought on twenty six percent
Speaker 1: credit cards, and apartments that they can't afford trying to
Speaker 1: press people they don't know with money they don't have
Speaker 1: about things that don't matter, and people who don't care
Speaker 1: about them. And for what what is all that for?
Speaker 1: You just rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic, you're
Speaker 1: just stepping in mess versus over it that you're on
Speaker 1: the Titanic. You're just picking drapes that you know you
Speaker 1: just need to get off the ship and find one
Speaker 1: that is not full of holes in false dreams and lies,
Speaker 1: and one that travels and can get you to a destination.
Speaker 1: So let me talk about that systemic dimension here, because
Speaker 1: some people are like, I just want to live my
Speaker 1: best life. This whole system is rigged and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And this is from my book Capitalism
Speaker 1: for All, which again which is now a bestseller. Let
Speaker 1: me acknowledge structural realities, not to excuse inaction, but to
Speaker 1: make this message honest and defensible. The argument from Capitalism
Speaker 1: for All for All that ownership gaps are not only behavior,
Speaker 1: they were in part deliberately engineered. I want to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that that's in it. I want to acknowledge that relationships
Speaker 1: are rigged. I mean if you go to not literally,
Speaker 1: but if you go to Harvard. People don't just go
Speaker 1: there because it's better quality education than a university or
Speaker 1: college down the street from Harvard. They go there because
Speaker 1: the relationships you're gonna get at Harvard as you go
Speaker 1: to college there are you're gonna hook each other up
Speaker 1: for the next thirty or forty years. So if you
Speaker 1: hang around nine broke people, you'll be the tenth. The
Speaker 1: opposite is also true. So a system that is designed
Speaker 1: to game you, I want you to game it. If
Speaker 1: you're not working the system, the system is working you.
Speaker 1: We've never mastered financial literacy or capitalism free enterprise for
Speaker 1: most people unless you come from wealth. So it's what
Speaker 1: you don't know that you don't know, but you think
Speaker 1: you know, and the system is set against you. But
Speaker 1: I'm trying to set you free. Let's ungame this system.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to do with capitalism for all.
Speaker 1: And I've told everybody who's read this book. If you
Speaker 1: don't agree by the preface the preface that this book
Speaker 1: is transformational, just send it back to my office with
Speaker 1: your receipt and your cost of postage, and we will
Speaker 1: send you a full refund. I will personally do that
Speaker 1: I've donated the proceeds for Operation Hotel Perache hold my
Speaker 1: financial literacy Philanthropy for the All twenty twenty six for
Speaker 1: my book Capitalism for All, And I'll donated that book
Speaker 1: copy that you sent back to me to a library.
Speaker 1: No one sent it back to me. In fact, if
Speaker 1: you look at the reviews so far as they've been
Speaker 1: all five star. Now I want to be honest with
Speaker 1: you about something. I'm not standing here pretending the playing
Speaker 1: field is level. It is not. The system was not
Speaker 1: designed with everyone in mind to be at the table.
Speaker 1: Red Lining was real, as in real estate red lining,
Speaker 1: discriminatory ending practices was real. And many places probably still
Speaker 1: are communities deliberately cut off from the wealth building machinery
Speaker 1: of this country. That is historical fact, not an excuse.
Speaker 1: But here's what I also know, and this is the
Speaker 1: argument I make in my book Capitalism for All. The
Speaker 1: answer to a system that excludes you is not to
Speaker 1: exclude yourself. Further, to argue with the food bruiser too.
Speaker 1: Even if you're arguing with yourself, the answer is to
Speaker 1: demand a seat. To quote my friend's Deephanie rule, to
Speaker 1: expand the table and add a chair, build the capacity
Speaker 1: and the capital to buy one, as in a seat
Speaker 1: at the table if you have to, and then hold
Speaker 1: the door open for everyone to follow behind you. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do here with this podcast, in
Speaker 1: my straight Talk Live series and my book and the
Speaker 1: work of Operation Hope and the speeches I give, etc.
Speaker 1: Etcam trying to open the door and hold it for
Speaker 1: those behind me. Or to quote James Brown, I like
Speaker 1: the James Brown version of affirmative action. Open the door.
Speaker 1: I'll get it myself. It's a hand up, not a handout.
Speaker 1: The system needs to change, and it is changing by
Speaker 1: the way. But you cannot afford to wait for the
Speaker 1: system to save you. You have to move, and you
Speaker 1: have to move now. AI is coming like a train
Speaker 1: and is going to threaten everybody's sense of entitlement or
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be okay syndrome. You're not gonna be okay.
Speaker 1: Your job's not gonna be replaced. I put this in
Speaker 1: my book Capitalism for All whole chapter by AI. But
Speaker 1: your job may be replaced by somebody who can use AI.
Speaker 1: That requires you to move, to bob, to weave, to flex,
Speaker 1: be flexible, to gain new skills, to not sit as
Speaker 1: a renter of your own life. Now, while the door
Speaker 1: is still open, I want you to slam it open
Speaker 1: further for others and for yourself. In other words, when
Speaker 1: you get out of your own way. The real cost
Speaker 1: of renting a life. The Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer
Speaker 1: Finance in twenty twenty five, along with the Aspen Institute
Speaker 1: and the US SINSUS Girl, have just absolutely compelling statistics.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, the average homeowner has a net
Speaker 1: worth of four hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Had a
Speaker 1: networth of forture and thirty thousand dollars. The average renter
Speaker 1: hold on now same income level, paying the same amount
Speaker 1: of rent on indoor mortage payment in aggurgate dollars dollar amounts,
Speaker 1: the average renter has a net worth had a net
Speaker 1: worth of ten thousand dollars. I'll repeat that in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, the average net worth of a homeowner paying
Speaker 1: the same amount for shelter and making the equivalent and income.
Speaker 1: This is why I keep saying we over index on
Speaker 1: cash dollars money, the bag getting that money, It's irrelevant
Speaker 1: it all the money is an exchange of value. You
Speaker 1: want to build wealth and you build wealth and your sleep.
Speaker 1: That's compounding. So the average homeowner had a net worth
Speaker 1: of forded and thirty thousand dollars. The average renter had
Speaker 1: a net worth of ten thousand dollars. That is a
Speaker 1: forty three to one gap. Again, that's according to the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve data. Now, who do you think this hits
Speaker 1: the worst? Black people who have forty three forty four
Speaker 1: percent home ownership rate compared to their white counterparts. Right,
Speaker 1: so we're not owning homes with chilling. And there are
Speaker 1: other groups too. But I'm we have the lowest credit score,
Speaker 1: the lowest access to prime credit, the lowest home ownership rate,
Speaker 1: and the lowest net worth. And I'm tired of it.
Speaker 1: I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and
Speaker 1: so we have to break this cycle. So I'm giving
Speaker 1: you these and out of their numbers, not because I'm
Speaker 1: an accountant or I love numbers. I like math because
Speaker 1: it doesn't have an opinion, but because numbers tell a
Speaker 1: story that feelings can argue with. So renter versus homeowner
Speaker 1: thirty years two people, same annual household spend, radically different outcomes.
Speaker 1: Two twenty eight year olds same income, same city, same
Speaker 1: starting housing budget of approximately twenty four thousand dollars a
Speaker 1: year two thousand dollars a month. One rents, one buys. Again,
Speaker 1: I want you to take this part, clip it out
Speaker 1: and share it to everybody who says ownership is stupid.
Speaker 1: The median US home price in twenty twenty four four
Speaker 1: to and twenty seven thousand dollars with a ten percent
Speaker 1: down payment forty two thousand, seven hundred dollars. And by
Speaker 1: the way, if you're a person of color, you're a woman,
Speaker 1: you might be able to get down payment assistance of
Speaker 1: about ten percent from an FDIC insured bank. Hello with
Speaker 1: a few times where being a person of color being
Speaker 1: black is an advantage. I'm joking, but I'm serious. And
Speaker 1: if you don't know these programs, you're not ware what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Go to Operation Hope online, the Hope
Speaker 1: in Hand app downloaded on your Android or Apple device,
Speaker 1: iOS device are going on our website at Operation Hope
Speaker 1: dot org or call eight eight eight three eight eight
Speaker 1: hope get a hold of one of my people. I
Speaker 1: suggest you go to the app that way, you're in
Speaker 1: the queue. It is. It's hard to miss it because
Speaker 1: you're in the queue on the app, versus you calling
Speaker 1: somebody and then we just missed the call. My team
Speaker 1: will walk you through this. But okay, ten percent down
Speaker 1: payment and a thirty mortgage that let's say six point
Speaker 1: seventy five percent make this reasonable monthly payments about twenty
Speaker 1: four one hundred and ninety dollars. The home buyer spends
Speaker 1: modestly more in early years. By year aged ten, the
Speaker 1: renter absorbing three percent annual rent increases. It's being the
Speaker 1: same or more per month. Now, I'll also tell you
Speaker 1: that in the thirty year mortgage, twenty to thirty of
Speaker 1: those thirty years are probably the interest. That's not a negative.
Speaker 1: That's a positive because the US tax policy in this
Speaker 1: regard as design to support home ownership. So you get
Speaker 1: to write off most of those mortgage payments against your income.
Speaker 1: That's why if you do a detailed tax return, you
Speaker 1: get that back and potentially as a tax refund against
Speaker 1: Talk to your tax people and talk to my people
Speaker 1: that operation. So back to the example, the renter thirty
Speaker 1: years later, total rent paid over thirty years at two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month with three percent annual increases. Hold
Speaker 1: on to your boots approximately one point to million dollars,
Speaker 1: and you have nothing to show for it except for
Speaker 1: doorman who says yes, sir, yes, ma'am, who don't care
Speaker 1: about you either, at getting paid. Equity built from those
Speaker 1: payments zero assets owned at year thirty nothing, average renter
Speaker 1: net worth ten thousand dollars according to AID Institute and
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve. The homeowner thirty years later, mortgage fully
Speaker 1: paid off at year thirty. US median home prices have
Speaker 1: arisen over this period one hundred and eighteen percent after
Speaker 1: inflation since nineteen seventy. This is a Census Bureau, So
Speaker 1: a four hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars home purchase
Speaker 1: today is conservatively worth seven hundred to eight hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in thirty years. And I think that's
Speaker 1: that number is low. Equity built through principal reductions alone
Speaker 1: approximately two hundred thousand dollars in this example. Total acid
Speaker 1: value at year thirty, let's say eight hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: owned free and clear. Average homeowner net worth four hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty thousand dollars according to the Federal Reserve. And
Speaker 1: I think these numbers on the home ownership level are
Speaker 1: very low. I think over thirty years at number is
Speaker 1: easily double that. But I'm just being conservatives for those
Speaker 1: who want to argue, let's just hope for the best,
Speaker 1: expect the worst, and condition your mind for whatever happens.
Speaker 1: I'd rather underestimate and overperform than overestimate and underperform. But
Speaker 1: in this example, same income, same city, roughly the same
Speaker 1: monthly spend on shelter. Thirty years later, one person has
Speaker 1: an eight hundred thousand dollars asset they own outright. The
Speaker 1: other person has ten thousand dollars in net worth and
Speaker 1: a landlorder who just raised the rent again, same money,
Speaker 1: same year, two completely different financial lives. That is not
Speaker 1: an accident. That's a decision, and most people don't even
Speaker 1: know they're making it. They're just living. They don't I'm
Speaker 1: just chillingtting. No, No, you're making a decision every day.
Speaker 1: The wealth gap between homeowners and renders has grown seventy
Speaker 1: percent since nineteen eighty nine, and it's still accelerated. Seventy
Speaker 1: one point five percent of renters say they would rather own,
Speaker 1: but fewer than fifteen percent prefer renting. Again. These the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve numbers twenty twenty five, renters are spending fifty
Speaker 1: eight point five percent more in real terms than renters
Speaker 1: did in nineteen seventy. The rent trap tightens every decade.
Speaker 1: That's according to the US Census, only thirty nine percent
Speaker 1: of renter households earn more than they spend, which is
Speaker 1: why the down payment never materializes. Seventy eight percent of
Speaker 1: homeowners own stock and appreciating assets see becomes ownership becomes
Speaker 1: a habit. Once you own one thing, you want to
Speaker 1: own other things. Only twenty five point seven percent of
Speaker 1: renters participate in the stock market, according to Oxford Academic
Speaker 1: and the Federal Reserve. See what I'm saying culture mindset.
Speaker 1: It's a habit. Success is a habit. Compound interest works
Speaker 1: on both sides of the ledger of people. If you're
Speaker 1: building equity, it works for you. If you're paying a rent,
Speaker 1: it works for your landlord. Every single month, when I
Speaker 1: own those homes, they just kept appreciating in value. I'm
Speaker 1: not a genius. It's just the magic of compound and interest.
Speaker 1: In fact, when I own the homes, seven hundred of them,
Speaker 1: just about an annual income and annual expenses almost equaled out.
Speaker 1: What I really benefit from was the appreciation over time.
Speaker 1: That's just the way compounding works. There's something that happens
Speaker 1: to a person when they stop believing they can own
Speaker 1: anything and doesn't stay in the financial column. It bleeds
Speaker 1: into how you carry yourself. The most dangerous person world
Speaker 1: is a person with no hope, and it bleeds into
Speaker 1: the risks you won't take, including on yourself. The table
Speaker 1: you won't sit at because maybe you're intimidated or you
Speaker 1: don't feel like you're worthy the deal. You won't ask
Speaker 1: for what winters cannot pass on, equity assets of family legacy. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not downing renters. I was a renter. I own
Speaker 1: rental property. It's a natural course of life. I just
Speaker 1: want you to have a life plan that transitions you
Speaker 1: out of that in three, five, eight years. Don't stay
Speaker 1: in that for twenty years. Don't just decide I don't
Speaker 1: want to be an owner at all, because you'll be
Speaker 1: broke for life. Your grandchildren will be shaped by the
Speaker 1: decision you make this decade. As an old Southern saying,
Speaker 1: no matter how much I love you, my son or
Speaker 1: my daughter, if I don't have wisdom all I can
Speaker 1: give you is my own ignorance. So out of love
Speaker 1: we pass down bad habits from generation to generation. How
Speaker 1: the poorka Save Capitalism is another book that I have
Speaker 1: and I want you to read that because I talk
Speaker 1: about ownership as community transformation doesn't create renters a right,
Speaker 1: Let's talk about spirituality and identity calls. God doesn't create renters.
Speaker 1: He creates stewards, right. And nobody washes a rental car,
Speaker 1: like nobody rents a car from Hurts or wherever you budget,
Speaker 1: rent a car and texts it through a car wash
Speaker 1: and polishes it up every day. And this is not
Speaker 1: the mindset of people rent You drive it every day
Speaker 1: and you put enough, put gas in it if you
Speaker 1: have to, but you let it get dusty and whatever.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you take it back to the
Speaker 1: owner and let them deal with it, which is Hurts
Speaker 1: or budget, and let them wash the car. That's why
Speaker 1: they have a huge washing bay there. Nobody washes rental cars.
Speaker 1: There's a mindset, right, So God creates stewards. There's a
Speaker 1: difference between being broken being poor, being broken as economic
Speaker 1: being poor is a disabling frame of mind, a depressed
Speaker 1: condition of your spirit. He mu's vow never to be
Speaker 1: broke again. So there's a difference between someone who takes
Speaker 1: care of what belongs to someone else and someone who
Speaker 1: takes ownership of what they've been and trusted to build.
Speaker 1: You can always tell when there's a render in a
Speaker 1: house because the line is up to their eyebrows. Right
Speaker 1: the ownership mindset. What ownership is not not just buying
Speaker 1: a house, not just a class status marker, not available
Speaker 1: only to the ultra already wealthy. Please hear me on that,
Speaker 1: because it starts with a mindset. So who is this for?
Speaker 1: Who's this podcast for the excluded middle and the burgeoning
Speaker 1: working class, those who are strivers. This is the capitalist
Speaker 1: for all argument made personal. This is not the wealthy.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to, not the hopeless, but the people in
Speaker 1: between who are close and don't know it. I'm not
Speaker 1: talking to people who have already made it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess I could they want to reset a reminder,
Speaker 1: but that's not my target market here. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: to the people who are geting up either, because I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to convince you that you should be at
Speaker 1: the table. I can't guarantee that being positives is going
Speaker 1: to make you a success, but I absolutely guarantee you
Speaker 1: that being negative is going to make you fail. I'm
Speaker 1: talking to the people in the middle, the ones who
Speaker 1: are working, the ones who are trying, the ones who
Speaker 1: are one decision, one relationship, one piece of financial knowledge
Speaker 1: away from crossing into a completely different life. That is
Speaker 1: the group nobody talks about or talks to. They try
Speaker 1: to other than try to take advantage of them, separate
Speaker 1: them from their wallet. The financial system was not built
Speaker 1: for these people. The wealth management industry was not built
Speaker 1: for these people. Even a lot of the financial literacy
Speaker 1: conversation was not built around these people. My book Capitalism
Speaker 1: for All was written for these people, written for you.
Speaker 1: This episode it is for those people, and hopefully it's
Speaker 1: for you, America's future dream makers. Here's what I want
Speaker 1: to tell to these people, the one who's almost always
Speaker 1: there and doesn't know it, These people so close. I
Speaker 1: want them to know this. The gap between where you
Speaker 1: are and where you're trying to go is not as
Speaker 1: wide as you think or as why as it looks.
Speaker 1: But you will not close it by renting your future.
Speaker 1: You close it by owning it, and that starts with
Speaker 1: ownership in your mind mindset, because whether you believe you
Speaker 1: can or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: You're not as far as you think. But you will
Speaker 1: not close the gap renting as again, you close it
Speaker 1: through an ownership mindset, the four pillars of ownership mindset.
Speaker 1: You own your story. I'm outsourcing your narrative to your circumstances.
Speaker 1: Can I get an amen? You own your decisions, not
Speaker 1: your parents, not your zip code, not your algorithms on
Speaker 1: social media? Right, you own your development, your own personal development.
Speaker 1: Investing in yourself is not arrogant, it's stewardship. As I
Speaker 1: said in this T shirt, Ashley, you can number four,
Speaker 1: you own your legacy? Who are you building for? That
Speaker 1: question changes everything. I grew up with nothing, and I
Speaker 1: mean nothing, I mean not literally nothing. My mom and
Speaker 1: dad worked, but I grew up in Confinence, South Central
Speaker 1: and we had no inherited wealth, no legacy, no nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: And my parents couldn't help me. They were working class people.
Speaker 1: My dad owned his own business, but it was a
Speaker 1: semen contracting business and it literally was weak to week
Speaker 1: hand in mouth. My mother worked. McDonald was aircraft when
Speaker 1: he is Smith, Johnny will Smith. You read their story
Speaker 1: in my book Up from nothing. I mean, I slept
Speaker 1: in my car. I was homeless for six months to
Speaker 1: a year or more in my Montero jeep in LA.
Speaker 1: No safety that And the thing that saved my life
Speaker 1: wasn't a program, it wasn't a handout. It was a
Speaker 1: moment I decided I was responsible for this, this thing
Speaker 1: called my life. I owned this life. And when I
Speaker 1: owned it, I gotta start building it. I remember these
Speaker 1: inflection points. I remember a guy and I was in
Speaker 1: a suit. I'm going to work backwards. You know. It's
Speaker 1: an investment banker, around twenty one years of age, twenty
Speaker 1: something like that, and I was wearing a suit. I
Speaker 1: was in the hood, ad a nice Mercedes car and
Speaker 1: convertible at drove to see a property I owned in
Speaker 1: south central LA and Watts and I took a photo
Speaker 1: of the property. But as I took a picture of
Speaker 1: the property, wasn't these fancy phones now that's instantaneous. It
Speaker 1: was a digital handhold camera and took a minute for
Speaker 1: the shutter to finish closing capture the picture after you
Speaker 1: hit the button and you could hear a click, And
Speaker 1: so as I was trying to get the camera out
Speaker 1: and push the button. A guy walked across the lens
Speaker 1: between me and the property. I didn't mean to get
Speaker 1: him in the picture. He just happened to be walking
Speaker 1: fast and didn't care about me standing there in the
Speaker 1: middle of the road. And he turned to me and said, man,
Speaker 1: did just take my picture? And I realized that moment
Speaker 1: that a rational answer didn't matter. What he's really he
Speaker 1: was saying was I don't want my picture taking and
Speaker 1: if you're picking my picture, you and I have a problem.
Speaker 1: I want that camera and I may want your life.
Speaker 1: He wasn't saying that, but that's what he was saying,
Speaker 1: and it hit me at that moment. It was five
Speaker 1: to eight feet back to my car. He was about
Speaker 1: ten fifteen feet from me. I couldn't sit to negotiate
Speaker 1: with him, because the most dangerous person in the world
Speaker 1: is a person with no hope. He would have taken
Speaker 1: my life, or taken my camera, or beat me up
Speaker 1: or mugged me. He didn't want to talk to me.
Speaker 1: He didn't want to negotiate with me. He wanted to
Speaker 1: take out his frustrations on me. I had to get
Speaker 1: the hell out of there. Don't hang around toxic people
Speaker 1: or environments. Don't try to reason with unreasonable people. I
Speaker 1: got back into my car, got in my car, locked
Speaker 1: the door, and realized that lesson you cannot reason with
Speaker 1: unreasonable people. Sometimes you just need to balance and watch
Speaker 1: you taking pictures of There's another story where I was
Speaker 1: selling fila and unless they sports were out of the
Speaker 1: trunk of my car. Much earlier, my teens and I
Speaker 1: had to borrow some money from this local gangster in
Speaker 1: my neighborhood. This was Compton, and I went to go
Speaker 1: pay him back with interest and he said, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? I said, what do you mean? What am
Speaker 1: I doing? I'm I'm paying you back and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't understand what kind of lender I'm at.
Speaker 1: I am man, you don't pay me back. We have
Speaker 1: a relationship for life. You borrow from me, We just
Speaker 1: figure out what you need and I'll you can give
Speaker 1: me some money, and you know we talked about it
Speaker 1: and I'll make sure you have enough money to live.
Speaker 1: But you know, you and I we we have a relationship.
Speaker 1: I'm a partner with you. I'm not your lender. And uh.
Speaker 1: And then at some point I decide when you're free
Speaker 1: that was date, and he was serious, and he would
Speaker 1: kill me, That's what he was really saying if I
Speaker 1: try to get away from him. But God gave me grace.
Speaker 1: He looked at me and said, you know, you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing this. Man. You're like a good kid.
Speaker 1: I know you from the neighborhood. Your mom is really
Speaker 1: raised you well, she loves you. Tell you what, You're
Speaker 1: not supposed to be here. I'm gonna let you go.
Speaker 1: Don't come back here. You're not meant for this life.
Speaker 1: I bounced learn another lesson there. Know who you're getting
Speaker 1: business with, know who you're borrowing from, no know who
Speaker 1: you're tying up with. I've only made that mistake once
Speaker 1: since that time that I'm aware of, and I am
Speaker 1: paying a tax for that. Actually right now, I can't
Speaker 1: talk about it right now. But it was a lesson
Speaker 1: I learned, and I've learned it again as an adult.
Speaker 1: Just being naive and thinking the best of people and no, no,
Speaker 1: you want to know the facts. You want to know
Speaker 1: what you're getting into in advance, read the fine print,
Speaker 1: Understand the arrangement that you're getting into with whomever. There's
Speaker 1: been a lot of these little aha lessons that have
Speaker 1: stuck being forever. There's more, but I think you get
Speaker 1: the point. You cannot build a legacy on a lease.
Speaker 1: You build it on a deed, starting with a deed
Speaker 1: to your own mind. So here's some practical on rams
Speaker 1: for you. I want you to open a brokerage account
Speaker 1: before you're twenty five. A stock brokerage account, you can
Speaker 1: do it. You can do fractional investing, by the way,
Speaker 1: as a friend that I had on this podcast, who
Speaker 1: create a company called Public and he does fractional accounts.
Speaker 1: But you can go to a number of different platforms,
Speaker 1: whatever brokerage house you want to do business with. We
Speaker 1: have a new Nastek partnership that teaches financial literacy investing
Speaker 1: Operation Hope does. And just go to the Operation Hope
Speaker 1: in Nastek foundation website and get boned up on investing
Speaker 1: it and then figure out a firm that you're comfortable
Speaker 1: with and do fractional investing or full stock investing. But
Speaker 1: open an account twenty bucks, fifty bucks, you pick the number.
Speaker 1: You can participate in the marketplace. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be rich. Understand your credit score as a financial tool,
Speaker 1: not a grade. Okay, starting a business even while working
Speaker 1: for someone else, is a thing that you're nine to five,
Speaker 1: financial five to nine, and of course access operation, hope
Speaker 1: for scholarship, financial literacy, coaching, and counseling. So now let's
Speaker 1: get into part two of this podcast. So now you
Speaker 1: know what we're building toward ownership of your life, of
Speaker 1: your legacy, of your future. That's a destination. And I
Speaker 1: want to be clear here, I'm talking to the people
Speaker 1: in the middle. I'm talking to you, not the ones
Speaker 1: who've already made it, although they may be inspired by
Speaker 1: this too, Not the ones who've given up, because to
Speaker 1: argue with the fool proves there are too. If you
Speaker 1: don't want to save your life, there's nothing I can
Speaker 1: do about it. You got to come to that conclusion yourself.
Speaker 1: The ones who are close and don't know it yet,
Speaker 1: that's my target market, and that's I'm convinced most people.
Speaker 1: I'm just fascinated by people who want to argue about
Speaker 1: this book Capitalism for all, saying is this and is that?
Speaker 1: And haven't read a page? Want to down capitalism? While
Speaker 1: they're using capitalism on the phone, that's capitalism. You're driving
Speaker 1: a car, that's capitalism. You're paying a card, up. You
Speaker 1: bought the phone talking mess in a house, you're paying
Speaker 1: rent or worgage payment. That's capitalism. In a job, that's capitalism.
Speaker 1: You're trading a human capital for a paycheck. And go
Speaker 1: on and on and on. You're in this world. You're
Speaker 1: in this world, but you don't want to understand it.
Speaker 1: And where I say that, people again, read to the preface.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't blow your mind, I'll buy the book back.
Speaker 1: So what's your risk? But people just convinced, Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: just convinced. They don't want to take ownership or responsibility.
Speaker 1: They don't they don't want to admit that. They're petrified.
Speaker 1: They're afraid of what happen if they try and fail,
Speaker 1: you know, worse than where you were before. It's like
Speaker 1: somebody says, why should I try God? Because God cannot
Speaker 1: possibly mismanage your life worse than you have. Give them
Speaker 1: a shot. But let me stay here at this point
Speaker 1: for a few more minutes, because there's something I see
Speaker 1: in this generation that's really positive. And I say this
Speaker 1: with love, not with criticism. There's so much potential, so
Speaker 1: much optimism, so much bring in, so much aspirational desire
Speaker 1: that that's really it has me hopeful, but something worries me,
Speaker 1: and it has to do with what people think it
Speaker 1: takes to become successful. A lot of young people I
Speaker 1: talk to believe that one thing is enough, that being
Speaker 1: pretty is enough. Just look at your social media. They
Speaker 1: think that because they're pretty, that means everything else is
Speaker 1: right and tight, and they can talk mess and be
Speaker 1: smart alex and all that kind of stuff. That being
Speaker 1: smart is enough, that having a degree is enough, that
Speaker 1: being funny is enough, or talented or well connected is enough.
Speaker 1: For charismatic or handsome. Let me tell you something. It isn't.
Speaker 1: And by the way, you can have several of those things.
Speaker 1: It's still not enough. And I need to tell you why,
Speaker 1: because no one else is going to tell you. And
Speaker 1: that's what this part two is about. One thing is
Speaker 1: not enough, even if it's a number of one things.
Speaker 1: It's just all an illusion. Social media reward surface appearance
Speaker 1: with virality over depth, credentialism. The degree has a destination,
Speaker 1: not a starting point. Right. Beauty culture the idea that
Speaker 1: being attractive is a career strategy or something can get
Speaker 1: you paid. It can get you paid temporarily if that's
Speaker 1: what you want to do. They call that something else,
Speaker 1: by the way, but look who will fade? Somebody else
Speaker 1: will be twenty in gorgeous, And then what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do if that's all you're trading in? The smart
Speaker 1: kid trapped being told you're gifted and then coasting on it.
Speaker 1: I know a bunch of kids like this, and it's
Speaker 1: just not enough. You gotta hustle, you gotta work hard.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself. Being pretty is not the
Speaker 1: same as being attractive. Can I get an amen? I'll
Speaker 1: say it again. Being pretty is not the same as
Speaker 1: being attractive. There are a lot of very pretty ugly people.
Speaker 1: Attractive people draw others through character, energy, authenticity, presence, not
Speaker 1: just appearance. I can't say this enough. There's a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of very pretty, very ugly people, men and women.
Speaker 1: Being smart is not the same as being wise. Intelligence
Speaker 1: is a tool, Wisdom is the judgment to use it well,
Speaker 1: and wisdom costs something. It comes through experience. Having a
Speaker 1: degree is not the same as having a skill or
Speaker 1: an insight, a value proposition, or a career. Being funny
Speaker 1: or witty is not the same as having substance. Attractive
Speaker 1: people aren't just good looking. Attractive people pull things towards them, opportunity, trusts, loyalty,
Speaker 1: legacy that's built, not born. Only in the dictionary does
Speaker 1: success come before the word work, because it's alphabetical only place.
Speaker 1: So let's break this down. Work, consistent, unglamorous, repetitive. It's
Speaker 1: a repetitive effort that most people are abandoned. They want
Speaker 1: to say in late, long lunch, leave early. Everybody wants
Speaker 1: to get to heaven. Nobody wants to die to get there.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There's no free LUTs of it is free,
Speaker 1: is stale. Love is work. By the way, whatever you
Speaker 1: love is going to drive you crazy, been wise, best friends, ambition, education,
Speaker 1: you name it, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever he loves to drive
Speaker 1: you nuts. Struggle, the pressure that reveals and refines character, resilience.
Speaker 1: It's not bouncing back, but bouncing forward with something learned, grit,
Speaker 1: doing the work on the days you don't feel like
Speaker 1: you want to and the years no one is watching.
Speaker 1: All the years that I worked, everybody just laughed at
Speaker 1: me and talked about going out to the clubs and
Speaker 1: whatever else will Now I could buy the club and
Speaker 1: they can't get into it. Right. They all came to
Speaker 1: me for jobs and interviews, but they weren't interested in
Speaker 1: that back then. By the way, there are no ugly billionaires,
Speaker 1: they're no unattractive multimillionaires. Okay, success is the greatest revenge.
Speaker 1: But it took years and years of me staying focused
Speaker 1: where everybody else was trying to get their immediate gratification
Speaker 1: for free. No sacrifice, Wisdom, the compound interest of experience,
Speaker 1: failure and reflection over time, Leadership, the willingness to be
Speaker 1: responsible for outcomes, not just activities. Sacrifice, giving up the
Speaker 1: good for the great, the now for the later. Can
Speaker 1: I get an amen? We're going to church here? Values,
Speaker 1: the invisible architecture that determines what you built in, what
Speaker 1: you break, Relationship capital, who you've invested in, and who
Speaker 1: would go to war for you, your ride or dies.
Speaker 1: Talking a little, the discipline of doing over announcing. I'd
Speaker 1: rather underestimate and overperform than overestimate and underperform. Somebody told
Speaker 1: me recently, John, you move very quiet. I'm like, are
Speaker 1: you sure you're talking about the right person. Most people
Speaker 1: would say move very loudly and said no, no, No, You
Speaker 1: teach loudly, you inspire loudly, You walk into a room
Speaker 1: with confidence. Quiet confidence loudly. Your presence is loud, your
Speaker 1: platform is loud because you're trying to impact millions, But
Speaker 1: you move quietly, You do things and then you talk
Speaker 1: about them. That was a real compliment. It It came
Speaker 1: from a real person. By the way, None of these
Speaker 1: traits show up well on a highlight reel on social media.
Speaker 1: That's the point, get it. I rather you respect me
Speaker 1: and learn to like me, than like me and never
Speaker 1: respect me. Stripes, scars, and wisdom. Wisdom is not available
Speaker 1: on a download. It comes with time and loss and
Speaker 1: the willingness to be taught by experience. The stripe a
Speaker 1: mark you earn, not inherit, the scar evidence of a
Speaker 1: risk taking, a lesson survived, the story, the difference between
Speaker 1: someone who has lived something and someone who has read
Speaker 1: about it. Can I get an amen? By the way,
Speaker 1: I just want people to read. By the way, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's scares the heck got to be. Kids can't read.
Speaker 1: Young people can't read today because social media doesn't reward it.
Speaker 1: So you can't write your signature. That's deep. You can't
Speaker 1: write your cursive or yeah, long form signature and it's
Speaker 1: not an X and thus not thha. You know, or Tha.
Speaker 1: I mean like you've got to understand math, you got
Speaker 1: to understand how to write, You got to read. Because
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is going to reward and technology is going
Speaker 1: to reward constructive thinking, not dumb moving with social media algorithms,
Speaker 1: by the way, that are owned by somebody else. Somebody
Speaker 1: can pull the plug on that social media at any
Speaker 1: time they like because they own it. You don't. That's
Speaker 1: another podcast or another time. So I hope this as
Speaker 1: laid a foundation for you because wisdom isn't free. It
Speaker 1: has a tuition. The bill comes in the form of time, disappointment,
Speaker 1: and the humility to learn from both. I take no
Speaker 1: for vitamins. Success is going from failure to failure without
Speaker 1: loss of enthusiasm. Here's the full stack person, not a
Speaker 1: person with one impressive attribute, but a person who has
Speaker 1: done the patient work of building a complete human architecture.
Speaker 1: This is where it gets sexy. I think we've made
Speaker 1: dumb sexy by the way we dumbed down and celebrated
Speaker 1: it over the last twenty years. It is time to
Speaker 1: make smart sexy again. That's the Quincy Jones quote. I
Speaker 1: want to give them credit. He says, to take twenty
Speaker 1: years or change of culture. And then I added to
Speaker 1: you know, we've made dumb sexy, so it's time to
Speaker 1: make smart sexy again. So here is the architecture for
Speaker 1: building a complete human being, pretty and purposeful. Write these down,
Speaker 1: smart and servant, minded, servant leadership, minded, educated and experienced,
Speaker 1: talented and trustworthy, gifted and gritty. Humility, but also hunting.
Speaker 1: You're at this game, you're all in, but you have
Speaker 1: a humility about how you go about the game. I'm
Speaker 1: not here to take anything from you people. Your beauty
Speaker 1: is real, your intelligence is God given, it's real. Your
Speaker 1: degree is real if you have one. But I'm here
Speaker 1: to tell you it is not enough, and I need
Speaker 1: you to get that, like real quick before the world
Speaker 1: sends you a message the hard way, because a train
Speaker 1: is coming and it will mow down everybody in his
Speaker 1: path if you cannot get in the way. It's called
Speaker 1: a few and it is about to change everything you
Speaker 1: know by twenty thirty. And the government's not going to
Speaker 1: save you. They're out of that business, it appears, so
Speaker 1: you're really have to save yourself. And I'm trying to
Speaker 1: give you the tools to do that for yourself. But
Speaker 1: why is it not enough is it because you're not enough? No,
Speaker 1: you're enough. In fact, you're more than enough. You've just
Speaker 1: not done enough yet. Your value actually has to be
Speaker 1: realized and optimized. You've got to live the life. What
Speaker 1: the proverb says, to be poor is not to not
Speaker 1: have anything. To be poor is to not do anything.
Speaker 1: And lazy hands make a man poor. There's problems in
Speaker 1: the Bible. Become irresistible, good people. This is where we
Speaker 1: bring it home. I'm going to ask you something and
Speaker 1: I want you to sit with it for a minute.
Speaker 1: When you are gone from this earth, what will you leave?
Speaker 1: What will you have built that's meaningful? What will your
Speaker 1: children have that they didn't have to start from zero on?
Speaker 1: Because here's what I know. Every generation has a choice.
Speaker 1: You can be the generation that consumed, or you can
Speaker 1: be the generation that constructed. Which one are you? The
Speaker 1: generation that rented or the generation that owned? Which one
Speaker 1: are you? Pretty fades, Smart without wisdom wonders. Degrees without
Speaker 1: grit gets you to the table, but not to the
Speaker 1: head of it. And nobody likes arrogance. People who think
Speaker 1: they're smart just because they have a degree. It's unseemly.
Speaker 1: And no one says it, but they dismiss you as
Speaker 1: soon as they can. They don't want you around them
Speaker 1: because you're full of yourself. A humble spirit is a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. I'm glad that I don't have a bunch
Speaker 1: of degrees and all that stuff, because I just show
Speaker 1: up paranoid every day ready to work. I know I've
Speaker 1: got to be smarter than everybody else in the room,
Speaker 1: So my insecurity has actually turned into a strength. Rainbows
Speaker 1: after storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first.
Speaker 1: But what about the person who has worked, who has
Speaker 1: failed forward and grown up and built something real? That
Speaker 1: person becomes irresistible. Do I have your attention yet? Not
Speaker 1: just to other people to destiny itself? Stop performing, start building.
Speaker 1: The world already has enough performers. It needs builders. Stop
Speaker 1: rocking the mic and start owning it. Stop bouncing the
Speaker 1: basketball and decide you want to own thesketball team. If
Speaker 1: you see me ever at a club at two in
Speaker 1: the morning, you better know I own it or I'm
Speaker 1: being paid to be there. Own your mind, own your future,
Speaker 1: own your legacy. That is the assignment, that is the standard.
Speaker 1: And I believe, I genuinely believe this generation is capable
Speaker 1: of meeting it and exceeding that standard. Don't prove me wrong.
Speaker 1: I am your biggest fan, but I need you to
Speaker 1: stop performing and start building. The world as I said,
Speaker 1: and I'll say again, already has enough performers. I want
Speaker 1: you to live your best life. I want you to
Speaker 1: wake up tomorrow commit it to being the best version
Speaker 1: of yourself. I want you to know that God does
Speaker 1: not make mistakes. You may make a mistake, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't make you a mistake. That just means that you
Speaker 1: just are living this life. A saint is the center
Speaker 1: that got up. We're all angels of dirty faces. I
Speaker 1: want you to stop nabl gazing, stop the paralysis of analysis,
Speaker 1: stop criticizing other people, stop beating yourself up and hiding
Speaker 1: behind a fake social media algorithm. I want you to
Speaker 1: sit down and become over time, reasonably comfortable in your
Speaker 1: own skin. You're not as good as your compliments. Hello,
Speaker 1: You're not as bad as your criticisms, including the ones
Speaker 1: you give to yourself. You just are who you are,
Speaker 1: and the sooner you live and decide to live an
Speaker 1: authentic life, the faster you will get to the front
Speaker 1: of the line. Call the American dream. I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: I'm waiting for you to join me as a partner
Speaker 1: at the table of aspiracial success. Go get your book
Speaker 1: Capitalism for All, Read it, listen to it, consume it,
Speaker 1: and then collect people around you who are in your posse,
Speaker 1: who are part of your same mindset, and build a
Speaker 1: whole community of exotic A giver and a giver you
Speaker 1: can do bad all by yourself. I guarantee love and light.
Speaker 1: I'm out John O'Brien Money and Wealth on the Black
Speaker 1: Effect Network on iHeartRadio, Tell a friend, Let's go change
Speaker 1: the world. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a
Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.