Speaker 1: Welcome the Money in Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio, Yo Yo,
Speaker 1: John O'Brien and this is Money and Wealth on the
Speaker 1: iHeart Network, the Black Effect Podcast Network, my weekly series.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about Taraji Henson and her saying she
Speaker 1: was underpaid by Oprah. And in comparison, you have Terry
Speaker 1: Crews who says he's worked for a minimum wage and
Speaker 1: no pay to land big gigs. And those are very
Speaker 1: popular movies that in one training day, I believe with
Speaker 1: Denzel Washington he was paid zero and Friday he was
Speaker 1: paid four thousand dollars and Taraji was paid in comparison
Speaker 1: big Bucks. In comparison. Now she says she was underpaid,
Speaker 1: which one is correct? Well, I'm with Terry Crews. Terry
Speaker 1: Crews says, don't say yes, and you really meant no.
Speaker 1: And he says, look, I read the contract. I knew
Speaker 1: what it said. Nobody forced me to sign this contract.
Speaker 1: Time is money. I could have used my time somewhere else.
Speaker 1: I could have gone and worked somewhere else. I could
Speaker 1: have gone and worked at a grocery store. I guess
Speaker 1: he didn't say this I'm inferring this. I could have
Speaker 1: gone and taken a corporate gig or an endorsement deal,
Speaker 1: or try to find a different movie to be in.
Speaker 1: This was my choice to sign up. I thought this
Speaker 1: would be a good move for my career and it was.
Speaker 1: And Taraji was asked by Oprah Winfrey and I think
Speaker 1: Tyler Perry to do a project. And she looked at
Speaker 1: that contract. She knew what it said and she accepted it.
Speaker 1: End of subject. Let me say something to you. I
Speaker 1: need you to hear me here. Business is not personal.
Speaker 1: This is not emotional. It's not my job as a
Speaker 1: capitalist to pay you top dollar. It's my job, if
Speaker 1: I'm the producer of a project, to actually pay you
Speaker 1: the least I can afford to get away with. Yes,
Speaker 1: I said it. It's my job to make a profit
Speaker 1: for that project, to give a return to my investors.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got a boss. You don't think Oprah's got a boss.
Speaker 1: You don't think Tyler Perry as a boss on a project.
Speaker 1: Who's funding that project, who's putting the money up for
Speaker 1: that project, who's distributing that project? What agreements do they
Speaker 1: have for that project to hit a certain budget and
Speaker 1: not to exceed it. So she's a baller, no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. But she's got to speak to her partners
Speaker 1: and investors, and she's got to deliver a project that's
Speaker 1: under budget and hopefully exceeds on revenue. And that comes
Speaker 1: from trying to squeeze every dime you can out of
Speaker 1: cost without being cruel. Now, did she underpay based on
Speaker 1: what was on the piece of paper to Taraji? That's
Speaker 1: not the claim. Miss Henson's not saying she charged. She
Speaker 1: promised me five dollars and she paid me to She's
Speaker 1: saying what she promised me and what I agreed to,
Speaker 1: I think is a travesty. No, it's a travesty for
Speaker 1: you not to get a job and your talent. It's
Speaker 1: a travesty not for them not to be an Oprah Winfrey.
Speaker 1: Thank god, there's an Oprah Winfrey and a Tyler Perry
Speaker 1: who can hire somebody. Hello, do you think the creators
Speaker 1: of Motown paid their talent top dollars? No, they tried
Speaker 1: to negotiate the best deals they could for themselves and
Speaker 1: hope to god the talent didn't read the contract. And
Speaker 1: then if the talent was literate and could read the contract,
Speaker 1: negotiated themselves up, then they would probably say, yeah, if
Speaker 1: they really believe in that talent, yes, let's negotiate. But
Speaker 1: my job as a capitalist you may not like this episode.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you way this world, this world works. My job,
Speaker 1: sitting on the other side of that that table is
Speaker 1: to pay you the least I can afford to pay
Speaker 1: without being upset. And your job is a talent in
Speaker 1: this example, is to try to negotiate the most that
Speaker 1: you can get from me without without creating friction in
Speaker 1: the relationship. Did you hear me? You can't grow without
Speaker 1: constructive friction. Rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a
Speaker 1: rainbow without a storm first. Everything grows through constructive friction.
Speaker 1: You can disagree without being disagreeable. So is your job
Speaker 1: to negotiate and advocate saying, Hey, I'm worth X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z and here's a non emotional reasons for that.
Speaker 1: My last product to produce X Y and Z, and
Speaker 1: I'm making this up. That's tenfold of what you're paying me,
Speaker 1: or twenty fold of what you're paying me what I'm
Speaker 1: proposing you paying me. So I think if you pay
Speaker 1: me this, I think I can deliver a project that
Speaker 1: will produce this other outcome and if I don't, I'll
Speaker 1: give you a refund or whatever, or how about you
Speaker 1: pay me a baseline. But if I exceed this and Mark,
Speaker 1: we agree with profit sharing, like be creative. But to
Speaker 1: say that I am this great talent and because of that,
Speaker 1: and because i'm this and i'm that, you should be
Speaker 1: paying me more because you're black and I'm black, that's crazy. Green.
Speaker 1: The color of currency is green. And Oprah's job is
Speaker 1: to pay you what she can get away with, to
Speaker 1: negotiate every call saving she can in that project, delivered
Speaker 1: on time and on budget or under budget, and to
Speaker 1: make listen to me now a profit for her investors
Speaker 1: and her partners. The talent is not the end all
Speaker 1: be all of this project. The talent is one of
Speaker 1: many components of a film project. Don't get emotional about
Speaker 1: it again. Terry Crews had it right, Hey man, give
Speaker 1: me the right project. I'll work for free. I'll pay you.
Speaker 1: And for anybody who's saying with John, how do you
Speaker 1: have a right to say this again? I don't talk
Speaker 1: about things I don't know. I've worked for free, right,
Speaker 1: I've worked severely underpaid. I remember this billionaire he'd be
Speaker 1: a billion here today is worth two hundred million. Back then,
Speaker 1: his name was Harvey Baskin, and I worked as a
Speaker 1: waiter and his restaurant, Jeoffrey's Malibu in Hollywood, I mean
Speaker 1: in Malibu, California. I worked there, pay minimum wage and tips.
Speaker 1: Hired me for a Monday, which means they didn't think
Speaker 1: I was a very good waiter. But I wanted to
Speaker 1: be in that environment. I wanted to be around those ballers.
Speaker 1: So I drove from Compton, California, to Malibu. I think
Speaker 1: I started taking the bus initially, and I showed up
Speaker 1: and showed out. I showed up early, stayed late, worked hard,
Speaker 1: and when I saw Harvey Baskin and Geoffrey at Tienne,
Speaker 1: his partner for whom the restaurant was named after, at
Speaker 1: the bar, I went up and took the opportunity to
Speaker 1: go talk to him, build a relationship, build a rapport.
Speaker 1: I pressed them as more than a waiter. Started as
Speaker 1: a busboy, actually more than a busboy, more than a waiter.
Speaker 1: I was an average bus boy and an average waiter,
Speaker 1: but I knew I was a great leader. I had
Speaker 1: the potential to be one, and over time, sure enough
Speaker 1: I build relationships, build rapport. It cost me money probably
Speaker 1: to work there as a waiter and a bus boy.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I wasn't paying attention to my short
Speaker 1: term economic gain through a paycheck. Again, we obsessed about
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. I'm gonna do a whole podcast on
Speaker 1: this whole getting paid, getting his dollar, getting his money,
Speaker 1: and you end up broke because you're not building wealth. Well,
Speaker 1: you bill wealth in your name. The biggest asset you've
Speaker 1: got is you, not what's on your ass not your clothes,
Speaker 1: not your jewelry, not your whatever, it's you, the inside
Speaker 1: of you. So anyway, I got up job working as
Speaker 1: the assistant for Harvey Baskin for also was underpaid twenty
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars a year or something like that. But
Speaker 1: I got to work in his home in Malibu. Watch
Speaker 1: how he moved, listened to his phone calls. I went
Speaker 1: to I asked him to go to dinner with me
Speaker 1: one day, and he said yes. It was like driving
Speaker 1: mister Daisy because he was broke his leg or his ankle,
Speaker 1: and so he was sitting in the back seat of
Speaker 1: my Audi and he had his leg up the fronts.
Speaker 1: The passenger front seat was pushed forward. He had his
Speaker 1: leg up on the passenger front seat, sitting in the back.
Speaker 1: I'm the driver, I'm sure like I was his chauffeur.
Speaker 1: I could care less not went outs of my self
Speaker 1: esteem and self worth. Its dependent upon your acceptance of me.
Speaker 1: I was cool with it because he is the multi
Speaker 1: millionaire back and now be a billionaire who was going
Speaker 1: to give me knowledge and insight that no one else
Speaker 1: could know what else could give me. So we went
Speaker 1: to dinner. He found he made this very expensive restaurant reservation.
Speaker 1: We went to dinner. We had dinner, great dinner in Venice, California.
Speaker 1: The bill comes and it's one hundred dollars. Now. One
Speaker 1: hundred dollars is not cheap now, but back then, and
Speaker 1: this is going back thirty some years now, that was like,
Speaker 1: I mean, call it one thousand dollars, right, And I
Speaker 1: didn't want to pay it. I'm like, the bill came
Speaker 1: to me, I slid it to Harvey. Harvey slid the
Speaker 1: bill back to me. I slid back to Harvey. Harvey
Speaker 1: slid the bill back to me. I slid it back
Speaker 1: to Harvey. He said, hey, hey, hey, slow down. You
Speaker 1: got to decide John, what you want. Do you want
Speaker 1: to pick my brain or pick my pocket? One lasts longer. Now,
Speaker 1: you were asked me to come to this dinner, and
Speaker 1: you've been plying me with questions all night. I've get
Speaker 1: basically given you free consulting. That's invaluable. I put you
Speaker 1: in the driver's sept literally, and you can talk my
Speaker 1: head off. And you want to punk me for one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars bill, I'm willing to pay the bill. Nope.
Speaker 1: I grabbed the bill, paid it, gave the guy twenty
Speaker 1: percent tip, shut my mouth and said thank you, and
Speaker 1: then plied in with questions all the way home, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, Harvey put his arms around me, said this
Speaker 1: was my guy introduced me to countless people, many relationships
Speaker 1: I have to this day, and it was an invaluable experience.
Speaker 1: When you show up at a corporate office as an intern,
Speaker 1: who cares where they're paying you a fee? You're in
Speaker 1: the light of sight, of power and wealth and opportunity.
Speaker 1: People can see you, they can hear you, they can
Speaker 1: watch you. I mean, folks are like, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to work remotely, okay, great, cool, Well you won't get promoted.
Speaker 1: You may not lose your job by the way. If
Speaker 1: there are cutbacks, guess who they're gonna cut first, right.
Speaker 1: We tend to be the last hire and the first
Speaker 1: fired anyway, But they're gonna cut you first because there's
Speaker 1: no connective tissue and you're not getting a promotion, not
Speaker 1: a big one. But if I were you, I'd show
Speaker 1: up in the office. I'd get right in my boss's face.
Speaker 1: I would have walked from front to back, front, the back, front,
Speaker 1: the back, front, the back, eight times a day in
Speaker 1: front of my boss's office or my boss's boss's boss's office,
Speaker 1: until the boss says, excuse me, come here, young man.
Speaker 1: What's your name? I mean, what do you do here? Like?
Speaker 1: And then like, are you busy? No, sir, not too busy.
Speaker 1: I have a project. It's not very interesting. I'll take
Speaker 1: it right. And that's how you get in the game.
Speaker 1: So Taraji did this great film for Oprah Winfrey. I'd
Speaker 1: be wearing that out. She wants Over once her going
Speaker 1: on a tour and not pay her for it. I
Speaker 1: don't care. I got that gives me more exposure. At
Speaker 1: least Over is gonna pay for the expenses for me traveling. Now,
Speaker 1: you give me a trip around the world, I'm want
Speaker 1: to take a trip around the world on your dime.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make producers and TV shows on your dime.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get excused to talk to take my brand
Speaker 1: globally on your dime. I'm gonna meet all kinds of
Speaker 1: people and expand my territory on your dime. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: build my brand on your dime. I'm going to impress people,
Speaker 1: maybe future investors in my own projects on your dime.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this project extremely successful on your dime
Speaker 1: with your investment, and when it does extraordinarily well, I
Speaker 1: may come back and say, this has exceeded everybody's expectations.
Speaker 1: I know you don't owe me this, Oprah and Tyler.
Speaker 1: You don't. You paid me what I asked for, what
Speaker 1: I agreed to, and it's unfair for me to say
Speaker 1: yes and then later say no and then drag you
Speaker 1: in the media after the fact. But I didn't do
Speaker 1: that in this example. I didn't do that, and I
Speaker 1: will honor my contract. But I told you if I
Speaker 1: hit a certain mark, I would come back and ask
Speaker 1: you if you would mind considering profit sharing or points
Speaker 1: in the back end or something. And maybe now we
Speaker 1: can have that conversation, and if you've treated that relationship right,
Speaker 1: I'd be surprised if they didn't say, yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: figure something out or not on this project, because maybe
Speaker 1: you've already I've already paid out all proceeds to my investors,
Speaker 1: and there's nothing left less unless I take it out
Speaker 1: of my own pocket, she might say, and she might,
Speaker 1: by the way, but tell you what you've done so
Speaker 1: well on this let me let me bake you into
Speaker 1: my next project and maybe make you an associate producer.
Speaker 1: Now you're talking, But listen to this whole interview, because
Speaker 1: he says it better than me. He's in the business.
Speaker 1: Terry Crews says it right. He didn't work for a
Speaker 1: small fee, not even a big paycheck. I mean, tryge
Speaker 1: you talking about I can't pay my assistance and all
Speaker 1: my bills on these paychecks, then go do something else.
Speaker 1: You can't live on a million dollar paycheck. Maybe you
Speaker 1: need to be speak to one of my financial coaches.
Speaker 1: Now I'm not jamming her up. I'm trying to. Actually
Speaker 1: I'm but you know, she made herself. She brought this
Speaker 1: out in the public. I'm not going looking for this.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting into somebody's business. I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: embarrass her. I'm saying I think she's wrong. And I
Speaker 1: waited a while for the hoopletter calmed down and everybody's
Speaker 1: jump saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, Oprah should pay more, Tyler
Speaker 1: should pay more? Why Hello? Why Eve? And if you
Speaker 1: want to distribute money like a socialist, you've got to
Speaker 1: first collect it like a capitalist. You guys have got
Speaker 1: this backwards. You don't give it away on the front end,
Speaker 1: you give it away on the back end. You can't
Speaker 1: give away my money as an investor, a shareholder. You
Speaker 1: can't give somebody my money. You can't pay somebody a
Speaker 1: million dollars and a half million dollars more because they say
Speaker 1: they don't have enough caveat for their dinner. You can't
Speaker 1: do that on my dime. That's not your money, that's
Speaker 1: my money. And every billionaire in the world built their
Speaker 1: billions on the back of good debt. Please hear me.
Speaker 1: They didn't do it on their own, and they're not
Speaker 1: doing it on their own. Every billionaire, every multimillionaire, has
Speaker 1: partners and investors, and there are agreements to that, and
Speaker 1: you got to honor those agreements. And if you are
Speaker 1: seeing somebody who throws away money, you're not getting another investor.
Speaker 1: So she had no responsibility to overpay Taraji. She's said
Speaker 1: just the opposite again, what can I pay this fair
Speaker 1: and reasonable and bring this project in at budget or
Speaker 1: below and deliver outsize results. That's the goal. And Taraji,
Speaker 1: you should be honored to be in the project with
Speaker 1: Oprah and Tyler. I would be all right, let me
Speaker 1: know what you think. I'm sure you will, but I've
Speaker 1: brought this is my opinion on this point. I'm not
Speaker 1: really I'm curious what you have to say. See if
Speaker 1: you've learned anything. But I'm telling you this is how
Speaker 1: the game works. This is not an opinion poll. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you this is the way capitalism works. And we
Speaker 1: have got this can used. We com boozed and we
Speaker 1: need to start getting a memo. And Terry Crews has
Speaker 1: it right. Don't take business personally? All right, John O'Brien,
Speaker 1: I'm out. This is money and wealth. Let's go yo,
Speaker 1: yo is John Hope Bryant. This is money and wealth.
Speaker 1: And this week's episode is pretty hot because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you something that is a cheat sheet on success.
Speaker 1: More than that it's something that literally is a formula
Speaker 1: that if you follow it, no one can mess with you. Yes,
Speaker 1: I said it. People tell you all kinds of things
Speaker 1: that are nebulous and sound great, but Ashley, in practice,
Speaker 1: they have no clue whether it's gonna work, because it's
Speaker 1: not worked in their life. They tell you something they
Speaker 1: read in a book, they tell you something they saw somewhere.
Speaker 1: They may be trying to sell you books and tapes.
Speaker 1: I made my wealth in entrepreneurship, in capitalism, in business,
Speaker 1: I've built businesses. I've built several of them. Three of
Speaker 1: my businesses are the largest in their sector in the country.
Speaker 1: That includes the largest nonprofit financial literacy coaching organization in America,
Speaker 1: Operation Hope. Three hundred offices for hundred employees, four billion
Speaker 1: dollars invested in underserved neighborhoods, raising credit scores, lowering debt,
Speaker 1: increasing savings, the only non profit allowed to operates out
Speaker 1: of a bank branch in the US history. I built
Speaker 1: in sold a company called the Promise Homes Company, largest
Speaker 1: minority owner of single family rental homes in America seven
Speaker 1: hundred homes, give or take sold it. And I'm now
Speaker 1: as part of a joint venture where I'm a principal
Speaker 1: shareholder and still involved with it, and there are other
Speaker 1: things that I'm doing. I'm just telling you I'm an operator,
Speaker 1: I'm an entrepreneur, a businessman, and yes I faced discrimination
Speaker 1: and bias and all those things over to rounded through it.
Speaker 1: Let's get to it. You don't want to rearrange the
Speaker 1: deck chairs on the Ti Tanic. The ship is sinking
Speaker 1: and you're picking drapes. You don't want to be focused
Speaker 1: on what's going on with the right, and really all
Speaker 1: the action is here on the left. As Malcolm X
Speaker 1: says said, We're been bamboozled, We've been tricked, We've been fooled.
Speaker 1: I want you to now have enlightenment. I want you
Speaker 1: to understand that I understand racism is real. It's like rain.
Speaker 1: It's either fall in someplace or it's gathering. But you've
Speaker 1: got to get out in that rain and an umbrella,
Speaker 1: with an umbrella and the color you like, and start
Speaker 1: strolling through the rain because it's not going to change.
Speaker 1: So you must, and you can and you will. So
Speaker 1: here as a formula that I guarantee you you follow this,
Speaker 1: You're going to succeed. This is from my last book,
Speaker 1: Up from Nothing, The Five Pillars of Success. I also
Speaker 1: have a new book called Financial Literacy for All that
Speaker 1: comes out April sixteenth. I want you to pre order
Speaker 1: it and help me make it a national best seller,
Speaker 1: maybe even a global bestseller. That book is is me
Speaker 1: sitting with you at the kitchen table. But this is
Speaker 1: a primer on success. It's my story and it's about
Speaker 1: my failures, not my successes. This book Up from Nothing,
Speaker 1: The Untold Story of how We All Succeed with a
Speaker 1: Ford by Ambassador Andrew Young. Five Pillars of Success. So
Speaker 1: here are the five pillars of success. You do this.
Speaker 1: If you have less than three of these things, anything's
Speaker 1: possible with God's grace. But less than three of these
Speaker 1: things is really hard to succeed. You have four or
Speaker 1: five of these things, I can guarantee you're gonna kill it. Now.
Speaker 1: I want you to tell me after I walk through
Speaker 1: it whether you think I'm correct. Here we go. Take
Speaker 1: out your pen and paper, pencil, digital ink, iPad, iPhone,
Speaker 1: whatever you use. Write this down. It's time to go
Speaker 1: to school. This is a masterclass now on mindset and success.
Speaker 1: No matter who's standing in your way, success is going
Speaker 1: from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm over to
Speaker 1: rounded through it. I want you to get to it.
Speaker 1: Life is ten percent what life does to you and
Speaker 1: ninety percent how you choose to respond to it. I
Speaker 1: did a ninety minute masterclass for my friend Bishop TD
Speaker 1: Jakes at his ILS summit in Dallas, and I told
Speaker 1: the audience, who paid money and traveled to be there
Speaker 1: investing in themselves, what I'm telling you now for free.
Speaker 1: Here you go. I'm condensed ninety minutes into this podcast
Speaker 1: where you can listen to it on the way to
Speaker 1: work or on your way home, or gardening or cooking
Speaker 1: or whatever, and literally write this down step by step
Speaker 1: five pillars. You do three of these, you'll at least survive,
Speaker 1: maybe thrive. You do four of these. Five of these,
Speaker 1: you'll go from thriving to building. From survival to thriving
Speaker 1: to building. You do five of these, I guarantee you
Speaker 1: you'll be building. You're a builder winner. Here we go.
Speaker 1: Pillar number one. As much education as you can shove
Speaker 1: down your throat. Education is the ultimate poverty eradication tool.
Speaker 1: When you know better, you do better. No one can
Speaker 1: take it from you. Once you have it. Pillar number
Speaker 1: two understanding the money, financial literacy. That's why I wrote
Speaker 1: the book Financial Literacy for all this is just coming
Speaker 1: out financial literacy, understanding capitalism, free enterprise economics, ownership and opportunity,
Speaker 1: and those things are different, but they're tied together. We
Speaker 1: live in a free enterprise democracy in America. There's never
Speaker 1: been a global economy. There's never been a superpower. Listen
Speaker 1: to me now that wasn't also an economic power. I'll
Speaker 1: repeat that, There's never been a superpower in the world
Speaker 1: that wasn't also an economic power. Think about Rome, think
Speaker 1: about Italy, Think about France. These were all superpowers in
Speaker 1: the world at one time. Think about Germany, all right.
Speaker 1: Think about Argentina. Even Argentina at one time he had
Speaker 1: the largest economy in the world. Think about Great Britain. Right,
Speaker 1: these were the largest economies at that time in the world.
Speaker 1: They were the sole superpower. America is now the sole
Speaker 1: superpower in the world. And guess what, it has the
Speaker 1: largest economy in the world. Well, what happened with those
Speaker 1: formerly enslaved? In eighteen sixty five, Abraham Lincoln was inspired
Speaker 1: by Frederick Douglass and others to create a Freedman's Bank
Speaker 1: chartered to quote, teach free slaves about money. And then
Speaker 1: Abrahamligan was assassinated the next month. It was forty acres
Speaker 1: January eighteen sixty five, The Mule February eighteen sixty five. Savannah,
Speaker 1: Georgia a Bank March third, eighteen sixty five. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: the only American citizen. I'm told to inspire the government
Speaker 1: to rename a building on the White House campus. It
Speaker 1: was renamed the Freedmen's Bank Building in twenty sixteen, I believe,
Speaker 1: and it stands as the Freeman's Bank Building today. And
Speaker 1: then Abrahamlincoln was assassinated in April when he promised blacks
Speaker 1: the right to vote. So we it's not like we're
Speaker 1: dumb and we're stupid. We're brilliant. When the rules are
Speaker 1: published in the playing fields level, we succeed. Think about
Speaker 1: the arts now, think about professional sports, where the room
Speaker 1: rules are published and the playing fielders level, we kill it.
Speaker 1: We succeed. Think about public office, think about government service,
Speaker 1: think about the church. We understand these rules, we've applied them.
Speaker 1: We work hard, and we succeed. But no one ever
Speaker 1: told you the lessons of free enterprise, capitalism, economics, ownership,
Speaker 1: and opportunity. No one gave you a lesson in financial literacy,
Speaker 1: and so you can't master that game. You're hustling at
Speaker 1: it and you've got You're even confused about it because
Speaker 1: you think that making money is building wealth and it's not.
Speaker 1: That's another podcast episode for another day. Understand the Memo.
Speaker 1: That's my third book. Get the Memo is what you
Speaker 1: don't know that you don't know that's killing you. But
Speaker 1: you think you know in a blind town, a one
Speaker 1: eyed man's king. If you don't know better, you can't
Speaker 1: do better. Please now listen to this as an old
Speaker 1: Southern saying, no matter how much I love you, my
Speaker 1: son or my daughter, if I don't have wisdom, I
Speaker 1: can only give you my own ignorance. I'll repeat that.
Speaker 1: Think about now, all the people who love you, who
Speaker 1: say they love you you, who keep giving you bad
Speaker 1: advice with good intentions, no matter how much I love you.
Speaker 1: That's a rap there, that's a word. My rap friends
Speaker 1: would say. That's a word. No matter how much I
Speaker 1: love you, my son or my daughter, if I don't
Speaker 1: have wisdom, I can only give you my own ignorance.
Speaker 1: I can only give you what I've got. So out
Speaker 1: of love. We passed down bad habits from generation to generation.
Speaker 1: The third pillar, family structure and resiliency. Family structure and resiliency,
Speaker 1: what it got broken up during enslavement? Family structure. We
Speaker 1: don't have time to go into this. I may do
Speaker 1: a separate podcast episode just on breaking down the business
Speaker 1: plan of slavery. It was a business plan. It wasn't emotional,
Speaker 1: it wasn't personal, It was business. But they broke up
Speaker 1: the family as a short lesson here because they couldn't
Speaker 1: afford for the big burly guy from Africa to fight
Speaker 1: for his family. They couldn't afford for the mother to
Speaker 1: fight for her children, so they sold them off and directions,
Speaker 1: so you were a hopeless family structure and resiliency. Okay,
Speaker 1: And just so you know this is not racial. And
Speaker 1: come back to this. There are three groups that are
Speaker 1: left behind by this system that succeeded, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to name those groups. Is going to surprise you which
Speaker 1: three groups I name? And it's more than just black people.
Speaker 1: Fourth pillar self esteem and confidence. And yes, those two
Speaker 1: things are different. Self esteem and confidence. You can have
Speaker 1: high self esteem and low confidence. You can have high
Speaker 1: confidence in low self esteem whatever you generalize, you discriminate,
Speaker 1: but generalizations sometimes strike a nerve. I'm about to strike
Speaker 1: one for you. There are exceptions to this rule. But
Speaker 1: here's a rule. I've been to one hundred countries. I
Speaker 1: can say this with confidence. If you're black and you're
Speaker 1: from the Caribbean, or you're black and you're from Africa,
Speaker 1: and you've seen intact families, you've seen a doctor or
Speaker 1: a lawyer who's black, and the mayor was black and
Speaker 1: the premier was black or whatever, the people around you
Speaker 1: look like you. You probably have as a result of that,
Speaker 1: high self esteem. You esteem your self, You love yourself,
Speaker 1: You respect yourself, You admire your family and yourself. You
Speaker 1: know you're good with you, but you may have low
Speaker 1: levels of confidence even though you may be competent. You
Speaker 1: train in school, you got an education, but you never
Speaker 1: been had that put to test, that skilled, to test
Speaker 1: in what I call a leading market economy. So you
Speaker 1: don't really know if that thing you've got is gonna work.
Speaker 1: And the people around you, maybe the former colonialists who
Speaker 1: are now in that area, are telling you you can't
Speaker 1: do it, so they got you in these low level jobs. Maybe,
Speaker 1: so you have high self esteem, you got low confidence.
Speaker 1: But if you're in America, you're in the biggest economy
Speaker 1: in the world. So African Americans here have been tested
Speaker 1: in the largest economy in the world and gone from
Speaker 1: nothing like myself to something, from owning nothing to being
Speaker 1: multi millionaires in some cases billionaires. So we have high confidence.
Speaker 1: But because of our experience in this country, we may
Speaker 1: have low self esteem. I think that seventy percent of
Speaker 1: African Americans before the pandemic were clinically undiagnosed depressed. Now
Speaker 1: the podcast for another time. But I'm touching some nerves
Speaker 1: because you were told you were nobody for three hundred years.
Speaker 1: And so if I don't like me, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna feel good about you. If I don't love me,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna love you. If I don't respect me,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna respect you. If I don't have a
Speaker 1: purpose in my life, I will make your life a
Speaker 1: living hell. Whatever goes around hello comes around. I can
Speaker 1: only treat you what I know. And hurt people hurt people,
Speaker 1: and we've been hurt, but we can heal. So we
Speaker 1: tend to have high confidence we've killed it in the
Speaker 1: market economy. That confidence has leaned in and created confidence
Speaker 1: because we succeeded in the market economy, but we still
Speaker 1: may have low self esteem, which equates for a lot
Speaker 1: of things like crab and the barrel mentality. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I've dealt with number four, the fourth pillar, the fifth pillar,
Speaker 1: role models and environment. You heard me say this, I'll
Speaker 1: say it again here. If you hang around nine broke people,
Speaker 1: you'll be the tenth Hello. And the opposite is also true.
Speaker 1: Why do people go to Harvard? Because Harvard is ten
Speaker 1: times better than the state university in Boston or some
Speaker 1: other universities in Boston where it's located. It's a great university.
Speaker 1: I've got a certificate degree from Harvard. I'm proud to
Speaker 1: be associated. I love going to speak at Harvard and
Speaker 1: hang out. And when I see somebody with a degree
Speaker 1: from Harvard, I know that they are from a top
Speaker 1: tier university. If it's not that it's the best in
Speaker 1: the world, why do people go to Harvard and pay
Speaker 1: much more? Because the class of twenty twenty four in
Speaker 1: Harvard is going to hook each other up for the
Speaker 1: next forty years. It's a club of success. Why do
Speaker 1: you join a country club, Why do you join a
Speaker 1: sorority or fraternity? Why do you join a private dinner
Speaker 1: club or a private club of any sort. You're trying
Speaker 1: to associate with other people who share your aspirations in
Speaker 1: your success. You're mixing with people who have the same
Speaker 1: mindset and mentality, and so success tends to hang around
Speaker 1: success and it feeds on that, And povery tends to
Speaker 1: hang around povery, and it feeds on that. I'm going
Speaker 1: to do a separate podcast on how the streets want
Speaker 1: to eat you. I mean that literally, but where I
Speaker 1: grew up. If you got consumed by what was going
Speaker 1: on in my neighborhood in competence South Central, with the
Speaker 1: best of intentions, you just got consumed with things that
Speaker 1: would consume you. And doctor King once said that I
Speaker 1: refuse to finance my own oppression, right. But sometimes you're
Speaker 1: in a toxic field environment and it looks normal. So
Speaker 1: why our kids in underserved neighborhoods want to be rap stars,
Speaker 1: athletes and drug dealers. They are dumb and they're not stupid.
Speaker 1: You can't be as a business plan for a whole
Speaker 1: race rap stars. You can't. You can't scale my brother
Speaker 1: Killer Mink. You can't scale my brother Ti. You can't
Speaker 1: scale these incredible artists, Jay Z and others. You can't.
Speaker 1: They're not their personalities. They're unique in any of themselves.
Speaker 1: Women and men. You can't scale. The female basketball players
Speaker 1: are not killing it. You can't scale the Lebrons and
Speaker 1: Tiger Woods and the Lewis Hamilton's. There is personalities, and
Speaker 1: even when they succeed, they only have a few employees
Speaker 1: in their group. We need to employ hundreds and thousands
Speaker 1: and tens of thousands of people and build wealth across
Speaker 1: the spectrum of our society. But we want to be
Speaker 1: what we see. We see successful rappers, successful professional athletes,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately my neighborhood I grew up, you see drug dealers.
Speaker 1: We want to be raps to ours, athletes and drug
Speaker 1: leaders because we model what we see. And by the way,
Speaker 1: drug dealers are not dumb and they're not stupid. They
Speaker 1: have a horrible business plan, it's a moral it's unethical,
Speaker 1: but they're not dumb. They understand import, exports, finance, marketing, wholesale, retail,
Speaker 1: customer service, curatory security, territory logistics, etc. They just need
Speaker 1: to be reset the right soil again, another podcast, another time.
Speaker 1: I've thought about five podcasts episodes out of this one.
Speaker 1: But your role modeling and your environment matters. You want
Speaker 1: to be in able to remove yourself from toxicity and
Speaker 1: toxic environments. And if you hang around broke people, you
Speaker 1: tend to be one. You hang around successful people, you
Speaker 1: tend to become one. It's not because you're a genius,
Speaker 1: but it's relationship capital. That what you get your first job,
Speaker 1: if you were in a career, not just in a job,
Speaker 1: in a career, somebody probably put their arm around you say, look,
Speaker 1: you know you're a bit a good intern. You know,
Speaker 1: I know you are some of my friend told me
Speaker 1: about you where I met you. I think you could
Speaker 1: do this job. Would you like this job? Let me
Speaker 1: make an email introduction, Let me make a phone call
Speaker 1: for you. Go talk to this person that person. Think
Speaker 1: about it. If you're in a career that's high five
Speaker 1: figures or six figures, where did you get that hook up?
Speaker 1: Did you get it spelling out an application or did
Speaker 1: somebody tap you in the shoulder and say you can
Speaker 1: do this and introduce you relationship capital? So here are
Speaker 1: the five pillars of success. I'm wrapping this up. Now,
Speaker 1: If you have three of these you may make it.
Speaker 1: If you don't have three of these things, it's hard
Speaker 1: to make it. Again. It's much education. You can shove
Speaker 1: down your throat understanding the memo on money, financial literacy,
Speaker 1: family structure and resiliency, self esteem and confidence, role models
Speaker 1: and environment. Three mindsets, surviving mindset, thriving mindset, winning mindset,
Speaker 1: Winners of builders. That's another podcast, right, just keeping us
Speaker 1: very focused. What three groups were denied three of these things?
Speaker 1: Certainly more than three of these things? What three groups?
Speaker 1: Just so you understand, this race is a problem, but
Speaker 1: it's not the only problem in today, it's not even
Speaker 1: the primary problem. Keeping from where you want to go.
Speaker 1: Poor whites, and more poor whites in American than portybody else,
Speaker 1: were denied these three things when they came to this country.
Speaker 1: They still don't have more than three of these things.
Speaker 1: By the way, picking any three that's how you know
Speaker 1: something works. Pick any three of these five. Native American
Speaker 1: Indians the largest group who suffer from alcoholism in this country.
Speaker 1: Native American Indian and Native American reservations. Number one group
Speaker 1: draw dyingpping dead in this country. Poor white men, high
Speaker 1: school educated, dropping dead, and we call it drug abuse,
Speaker 1: but it's really depression, lost hope. And then you have
Speaker 1: African Americans, right, And there are no Ghanaian ghettos in America.
Speaker 1: There are Ghanaan communities in America. There's no Jamaican ghettos
Speaker 1: in America. There are no South African ghettos in America.
Speaker 1: There are South African communities, there are Jamaican communities, Bheman communities.
Speaker 1: There's only African American ghettos in America. Because our self
Speaker 1: esteem was robbed from us again, another video for another time,
Speaker 1: another podcast for another time. So it's not our fault,
Speaker 1: is our responsibility to pick ourselves up. Here's the good news.
Speaker 1: I just neutralized the race thing. I'm gonna do with
Speaker 1: this as a separate issue. This whole racing is a
Speaker 1: made up problem, yes I said it. The word white,
Speaker 1: racial word white is a made up word, yes I
Speaker 1: said it. And that I will have to deal with
Speaker 1: that separately and unpack it for you. The world is
Speaker 1: five billion years old, the organism life four billion years old.
Speaker 1: Neanderthals a couple hundred million years old, Modern mankind, womankind
Speaker 1: a couple hundred one thousand years old. Right, But the
Speaker 1: word racial, word white was made up in the sixteen
Speaker 1: hundreds in North America for a political purpose. So we'd
Speaker 1: fight with each other, poor whites and poor blacks. We
Speaker 1: were once friends, yes, blacks and whites and both in
Speaker 1: dentury servants in sixteen hundreds. And unfortunately we got along,
Speaker 1: and some people didn't like that we were getting along. Malcolm, Xay,
Speaker 1: we've been bambooza, we've been tricked, we've been food. So
Speaker 1: look at this. These three groups out of two hundred
Speaker 1: ethnic groups, and these three groups did not follow these
Speaker 1: five pillars. Pick any three or four of these, right,
Speaker 1: pick let's just say three. That's a minimum. You need education,
Speaker 1: financial literacy, and family structure and resiliency. Can you succeed?
Speaker 1: Role model's an environment? Self esteem and confidence? Financial literacy,
Speaker 1: can you succeed? I love this, It's so easy. Self
Speaker 1: esteem and confidence, family structure and resiliency, the memo and money,
Speaker 1: financial literacy. Can you succeed as much? Education and shut
Speaker 1: down your throat? Self esteem and confidence? Role models an environment?
Speaker 1: Can you succeed? See you're starting to get it. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter who's standing in your way now, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what's going on with you? And if you have
Speaker 1: four of these things out of the five, my god,
Speaker 1: you'll kill it. Now you've a formula for success. Do that,
Speaker 1: plus get your credit card to seven hundred hello, which
Speaker 1: is part of memo number two, and bastiaror Andrew Young says,
Speaker 1: it is entirely possible. The financial literacy. It's not only
Speaker 1: the civil rights issue of this day. It's it's important.
Speaker 1: It's the right to vote and a seven or the
Speaker 1: credit score. It may be as important as a college
Speaker 1: degree once you get it into the market economy of
Speaker 1: we Okay, let's go by the way. I'm not telling
Speaker 1: you how to get a college degree, so don't put
Speaker 1: words in my mouth. I think it's important to have
Speaker 1: a higher education. I just said it. It's number one pillar. Okay.
Speaker 1: I hope you like this. This is John O'Brien. This
Speaker 1: is money and wealth. It gave you the Five Pillars
Speaker 1: micro version. You want to hear the full ninety minute
Speaker 1: masterclass where I've laid it out and unpacked it, just
Speaker 1: go to Tdjkes's site for the ILS Summit for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four and find the session I did once they
Speaker 1: release it, and sit down with a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: cup of tea and take copious notes for now. This
Speaker 1: is the micro class on taking back your Life and
Speaker 1: go to Operation Hope today and get your free scholarship
Speaker 1: financial coaching. It's worth between twenty five hundred and ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars per coaching. Engagement, love and Light. Let's go
Speaker 1: change your life. This is a silver rights movement. Hea
Speaker 1: John O'Brien, Money and Wealth. Okay, here's time for a
Speaker 1: fan question. Don Neat dawn Ieedt on Instagram at don
Speaker 1: Neat would you get a cash out reflance at a
Speaker 1: higher rate to pay down debt? The answer is it
Speaker 1: depends if you're paying off credit card debt and department
Speaker 1: store debt that's twenty six percent anything with a two
Speaker 1: in front of it, The answer is absolutely yes. It
Speaker 1: fits in the teams the credit card debt, the answer
Speaker 1: is probably yes. Uh. You want to make sure you've
Speaker 1: got decent credit so that when you go to refinance
Speaker 1: your home you're getting a decent rate. So you want
Speaker 1: to get a rate on the refinance. Preferably it's an
Speaker 1: equity line of credit. If you're going to refinance the
Speaker 1: first trusting mortgage, we want a new first trusting mortgage.
Speaker 1: If you have a two or three percent, if you've
Speaker 1: got a first trusting mortgage in the last four years,
Speaker 1: do not refinance that first trusted mortgage because one, two,
Speaker 1: three percent, four percent, five percent interest rates are not
Speaker 1: coming around anytime soon. That was an aberration. Hold on
Speaker 1: to that fix rate. You want to fix rate by
Speaker 1: the way, first trusting mortgage on your home. Then behind
Speaker 1: that you can do a home equity line. That home
Speaker 1: equity line is gonna have a higher return, higher rate,
Speaker 1: but you know it should be below ten percent, so
Speaker 1: eight percent, nine percent home equity line that you're going
Speaker 1: to use expansively to consolidate and pay off debt for
Speaker 1: things like home improvements. It's just sort of a security
Speaker 1: blanket that you can pull on when you need it.
Speaker 1: You can pay it down by the way, the right
Speaker 1: home equity line, and you want that to be a
Speaker 1: fixed rate also in that situation, Yes, it does make
Speaker 1: a lot of sense in my opinion to get a
Speaker 1: home equity line behind your first trustee mortgage sub ten
Speaker 1: percent interest rate to payoff debt, credit card debt, regular
Speaker 1: credit cards, Visa, MasterCard, etc. Et cetera, AMEX, discover et cetera.
Speaker 1: Or department store credit card debt that it's in the
Speaker 1: mid to high teens. Certainly anything with a two in
Speaker 1: front of it, twenty percent, twenty five percent. Most of
Speaker 1: these department credit cards are going to be in a
Speaker 1: twenty percent range. You be shocked when you actually look
Speaker 1: at the statement. You got twenty five interests, twenty eight
Speaker 1: percent interest shiny, beautiful, looks really cool, got a nice
Speaker 1: sexy name on a department store credit card. They just
Speaker 1: it's just robbing you in broad daylight. But you can't
Speaker 1: call it robbery because you agreed to it, right and
Speaker 1: you enjoyed shopping. I guess I've been there, By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm not blaming you. I've been I've done the same thing.
Speaker 1: So it's a good question. Hopefully I gave you a cogent,
Speaker 1: clear answer. But go to a whole financial coach at
Speaker 1: operation hope. Let them pull your credit and hopefully your
Speaker 1: credit report does not look like this toe up from
Speaker 1: the flow up like mine used to. Hopefully you've got
Speaker 1: credit that's in the mid six hundreds to high six hundreds.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, if you're in the seven hundred, you
Speaker 1: are living large and you should be able to get
Speaker 1: a very good rate on that home equity line of credit,
Speaker 1: so you can consolidate. If you can take ten credit
Speaker 1: cards or five credit cards, credit obligations to have to
Speaker 1: be just a credit card, just to be a credit obligation,
Speaker 1: a term long whatever. Put those all together, pay them
Speaker 1: all off. It will look greater in your credit by
Speaker 1: the way. To pay them all off, roll them into
Speaker 1: one loan at a fixed rate, right that is, actually
Speaker 1: at a good rate and good terms. Your payments will
Speaker 1: go down, all things being equal, Your credit score should
Speaker 1: go up, your debt service, your cost of borrowing should
Speaker 1: go down, and it should destress you. But again, talk
Speaker 1: to one of my Hope financial coaches at Operation Hope.
Speaker 1: Go to Hope dot Operation dot orger download the Hope
Speaker 1: and handah app Our scholarshiped you into financial coaching and counseling,
Speaker 1: so it won't cost you anything and they'll give you
Speaker 1: the private banking experience. Youse will rightly to serve. Good
Speaker 1: question at don Nete on Instagram on Love John Hope,
Speaker 1: Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
Speaker 1: the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Speaker 1: Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.