Speaker 1: Hey, y'all.
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Speaker 5: Yesterday Welcome The Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a
Speaker 5: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: Yo, Yo Yo.
Speaker 5: This is John O'Bryant, and this is the Money and
Speaker 5: Wealth podcast series, season three on iHeartRadio and the Black
Speaker 5: Effect Network. And I want to thank everybody for making
Speaker 5: the podcast a NAACP Image Award nominated podcast and one
Speaker 5: of the top fifty for entrepreneurship in the country and
Speaker 5: top two hundred on every content in the world, not
Speaker 5: for people of color, for everybody, and the get you
Speaker 5: know what, I have a guest on it. As you know,
Speaker 5: it's very rare. These are outliers, these are unique leaders.
Speaker 5: These are people who bring something well more than I
Speaker 5: can bring myself.
Speaker 4: And so you're gonna get a treat.
Speaker 5: The days I'm gonna shut up and let you listen
Speaker 5: to somebody who I think brings a great deal of
Speaker 5: wisdom and perspective. And to be really blunt me be
Speaker 5: for a reader bio to you. She's not playing a
Speaker 5: game with you. I'd say something else if I was
Speaker 5: by the no children were listening, But uh, she's she's
Speaker 5: not playing a game.
Speaker 4: I just drives me nuts.
Speaker 5: All these people out here, and it's Tiffany by the way,
Speaker 5: you know her. There's the budget, the budgetiese star is
Speaker 5: you know, or Tiffany the Budganese Sta, which is a
Speaker 5: beautiful branding for her. But I also don't even want that.
Speaker 5: That sounds a little entertainment ish, it's a little sort
Speaker 5: of slickish. I don't want you to think, even with that,
Speaker 5: that she's not in any way and every way substantive.
Speaker 4: You'll hear again that I read her bio.
Speaker 5: She's incredibly credential, and she volunteered at our whole Global
Speaker 5: forum just recently with my friends from Pink Deer in
Speaker 5: December of twenty twenty five and did an extraordinary job.
Speaker 5: Couldn't walk down the hallways after that without being mobbed
Speaker 5: in a positive way. But there's so many people out
Speaker 5: here playing games on the internet, lying straight into the
Speaker 5: camera talking about money. They don't have experiences. They never
Speaker 5: they've never gained companies, have never run investments that they're
Speaker 5: telling you to do. That they they've never engaged in
Speaker 5: talking about a million, two million, five million, all this
Speaker 5: money that they never had talking about incomes. Don't marry
Speaker 5: somebody if they haven't seen it or received it or
Speaker 5: felt it. I mean, I just just drive me nuts
Speaker 5: and they give me with bad advice. And and so
Speaker 5: if I put my arms around somebody, if I point
Speaker 5: to somebody to the best of my knowledge, know that
Speaker 5: I have vetted them and think that they are straight
Speaker 5: up legit. And of course the New York Times made
Speaker 5: her book of New York Times Bestseller. And again let
Speaker 5: me just read her bio. Tiffany is known to millions
Speaker 5: as the Budgonese sta Is One, and she's one of
Speaker 5: the of America's most trusted voices in personal finance. She's
Speaker 5: an award winning financial educator, a New York Times bestselling
Speaker 5: author of Get Good with Money, and the founder of
Speaker 5: a movement that has been has helped literally millions.
Speaker 4: My wife loves it.
Speaker 5: By the way, shasrum a million has helped more than
Speaker 5: a million women save, manage, and transform their financial lives. Now,
Speaker 5: she's helped women, but it will help you too, if
Speaker 5: you're a man, if you're if you're a Martian. It
Speaker 5: will help you if your Martians come to America. He
Speaker 5: dine on our financial system. You need to talk to,
Speaker 5: need to talk to Tiffany. Tiffany has made financial education practical, empowering,
Speaker 5: and accessible for everyday people, and her impact is reached
Speaker 5: from living rooms to classrooms, including helping them aspire financial
Speaker 5: educational legislation in New Jersey. She's also been featured by
Speaker 5: major major national outlets including The New York Times, Wall
Speaker 5: Street Journal, Time Today, is in The Today Show, and
Speaker 5: Good Morning America. And she also is academically credentialed. And
Speaker 5: I'll let her walk you through all the nine zillion
Speaker 5: licenses and credentials that she has gained, the ones that
Speaker 5: she thinks are relevant for this conversation. I saw her
Speaker 5: recently with Earn your Leisure, Earn your Leisure Guys, and
Speaker 5: she said something that pleasantly surprised me because she got
Speaker 5: it completely right. She said that people be talking about, oh,
Speaker 5: I want to be debt free, and she's.
Speaker 4: Well, my little cousin's debt free. You know, I don't
Speaker 4: mean nothing. He broke U.
Speaker 5: And I would she would say her little cousin, I'd
Speaker 5: say pooky in them. You guys, tell me I got
Speaker 5: the Pooky and them syndrome in my head. But being
Speaker 5: debt free, it means nothing thing if you have no
Speaker 5: income stream, if you have no In fact, I'll flip
Speaker 5: that and I'll challenge her to to talk me to
Speaker 5: say I'm just stupid and wrong. But uh, I say
Speaker 5: you you don't want it's not it's not you want
Speaker 5: don't want debt, you want don't want bad debt, you
Speaker 5: don't want stupid debt, you don't want silly debt. In fact,
Speaker 5: there's no millionaire, multimillionaire, billionaire, uh, city, state, county government
Speaker 5: that didn't do it without good debt. There's no university,
Speaker 5: no company that didn't do it with on the back
Speaker 5: of good debt. So you want to tie to somebody
Speaker 5: that appreciates, not something that depreciates. And that was the
Speaker 5: point she was making on On your Leisure.
Speaker 4: It was a point.
Speaker 5: Where very well made ladies and gentlemen, I bring to
Speaker 5: you the budgeteest welcome to.
Speaker 3: Thank you, John.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I'm actually going that that clip is probably
Speaker 1: like I don't know, five years old. I guess it's
Speaker 1: like recirculating. But I'm gonna I'm going back on a
Speaker 1: few weeks.
Speaker 3: With Tory and Rashad.
Speaker 1: But yes, I will say that people were eating me
Speaker 1: up about that. Oh well, debt freedom is better than nothing.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The joke I make is that my nephew Roman is
Speaker 1: debt free. He doesn't have a cardinal student loans mortgage.
Speaker 1: But Roman is broke because romans ten years old, right,
Speaker 1: And that debt freedom is not the goal that certainly
Speaker 1: it can be a goal, that's what you want on
Speaker 1: your way to building wealth. And that's the mistake that
Speaker 1: a lot of people make, is that debt freedom by
Speaker 1: itself is not enough to grow the kind of life
Speaker 1: that you want financially. Because our children are debt free,
Speaker 1: and so you know, and there are people who have
Speaker 1: a bunch of debt and still have wealth for themselves.
Speaker 1: So yes, that is something that I've leaded into. Even
Speaker 1: though people fight me on it, I get it. Nobody
Speaker 1: wants to be burdened by credit card debt, but I myself.
Speaker 1: So I have four properties. Now two of them I
Speaker 1: kinda I wasn't expecting to purchase. But there were such
Speaker 1: good deals last year. They came within the same week
Speaker 1: of each other, and I remember thinking, hmmm, I can
Speaker 1: pay for these these homes in cash, but I really
Speaker 1: think I don't want to pull any money out of
Speaker 1: the market. And also too, I didn't want to incur
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't want to miss out on whatever, what,
Speaker 1: whatever growth I might have in the market. So I
Speaker 1: did what's called, well, my bank calls a pledge asset line,
Speaker 1: which essentially I borrow against.
Speaker 4: Myself, which is the Bank of Tiffany.
Speaker 3: Yes, but that essentially is that. And so I borrowed
Speaker 3: against myself.
Speaker 4: Is it a margin account? Is it a margin line
Speaker 4: against your.
Speaker 5: Let's hold on, because you've already gone deep into the
Speaker 5: well of good financial literacy. Let's stop from a given
Speaker 5: that we're both black, we can both have this conversation
Speaker 5: bluntly with our audience. Let's say what no one ever
Speaker 5: tells our people. One of the reasons that people say that.
Speaker 5: And I was just with a very successful person last
Speaker 5: week who said, I just want to pay off my house.
Speaker 5: And I was saying, no, you want to keep a
Speaker 5: mortgage on that the house. I was telling her why
Speaker 5: and all the tax advantages, but she's like, no, it
Speaker 5: just freaks me out, Like I just want to pay
Speaker 5: off the house, and she's had trauma. And black folks,
Speaker 5: after Americans in particular, we've been traumatized by this system.
Speaker 5: We've been trauma. Our descendants were traumatized by slavery, and
Speaker 5: then slavery came, you know, Jim Crow, and then you
Speaker 5: had folks are leasing you lands and then we're going
Speaker 5: to sell you the land and sharecropping. Sham cropping was
Speaker 5: before Jim Crow, and that gamed us. And you have
Speaker 5: the Freeman's Bank and that gamed us. Uh and and
Speaker 5: then Jim Crow, that gamed us. You had you had
Speaker 5: convict lists leasing, that gamed.
Speaker 3: Us, and that red lining.
Speaker 5: You got redlining, and that gamed us and you and
Speaker 5: you and then you you, and you have fraudsters and
Speaker 5: folks just trying to separate your wallet on a regular basis,
Speaker 5: and even folks showing up at the church and that
Speaker 5: might have gained you or you are people you saw grandma, grandpa,
Speaker 5: somebody lose everything, and so we we just paranoid and
Speaker 5: then we get in the market. The last time, the
Speaker 5: two thousand eight crisis probably was the most traumatic because
Speaker 5: we got there, we got these got these adjustable rate
Speaker 5: mortgages UG. We had a negative amortization mortgage. Ug, you
Speaker 5: had Wall Street? Who people protect? Who the people I
Speaker 5: thought they could trust? Who are trying to put a
Speaker 5: postman in a million in a mini mansion and going
Speaker 5: to ever work out?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: So so we all now I'm off of real estate. No, no, no,
Speaker 5: don't be off of real estate, be off of stupid decisions.
Speaker 5: Because nobody gave me a bad mortgage in two thousand
Speaker 5: and eight because I wasn't gonna take it. So we're traumatized, yes,
Speaker 5: and that's why we don't want that. We don't want
Speaker 5: we don't want any risk. And so let's deal with
Speaker 5: the trauma, the drama. Let's deal with our low self esteem,
Speaker 5: our insecurities, our fears. Let's address those head on, get
Speaker 5: our hands around it. She's about to educate you now
Speaker 5: now because she doesn't have a self esteem problem.
Speaker 3: Well I did for a long time.
Speaker 5: I'm getting this, but like I'm not vouching for it.
Speaker 5: I'm just saying I read people very well. She has
Speaker 5: confidence and she has acquired self esteem.
Speaker 4: I loved it.
Speaker 5: She said she didn't she did have a self seem problem.
Speaker 5: Because everybody can relate to that, and those who know
Speaker 5: my story y'all's homeless. So from from broke to Blueprint
Speaker 5: the comeback story, Tiffany, you lost your teaching job, got
Speaker 5: scammed out tens of thousands of dollars, ended up moving
Speaker 5: back home with your parents, all while sitting on a
Speaker 5: master's degree. Walk us through that low point and the
Speaker 5: moment you decided to turn your mess into a message.
Speaker 1: So, John, I was fortunate. I grew up in a
Speaker 1: household where money was talked about all the time. My fathers, yeah,
Speaker 1: his master's in economics, his his bachelor's in finance.
Speaker 3: My mother was a nurse with her master.
Speaker 1: So my dad literally, I'm one of five girls, and
Speaker 1: I think he really worried about making sure his girl
Speaker 1: could take care of himselves, so he would do the
Speaker 1: academics when it came to money. Literally, this is how
Speaker 1: you invest, this is how you this is what credit is.
Speaker 1: And my mom was more the actual applied knowledge, like
Speaker 1: now let's go food chopping and I'm gonna show you
Speaker 1: how to do that. And here's how you negotiate, Like anybody,
Speaker 1: if you're buying a car on our household, you bring
Speaker 1: my mother. She's the best negotiator, right. So I had
Speaker 1: that growing up and I listened to them up until
Speaker 1: my mid twenties. And then that's when I decided, as
Speaker 1: the old folks say, you're smelling yourself, and so I
Speaker 1: decided I was grown and I didn't have to take
Speaker 1: their advice anymore. Despite all that education, and I started
Speaker 1: making financial decisions and not running it by these experts
Speaker 1: that had lived through it successfully raising five girls, setting
Speaker 1: us all the college and paying for it. And so
Speaker 1: I bought a condo. I was twenty five. I was
Speaker 1: really proud of myself. I put my down payment down.
Speaker 1: I was still teaching preschool. I taught preschool for ten years.
Speaker 1: It's making like thirty nine between thirty to fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year depending when I started. And then I
Speaker 1: say thirty five thousand dollars. I put my down payment down.
Speaker 1: Then at twenty six, I got my master's in education.
Speaker 1: Then at twenty seven, twenty eight, I fell victim to
Speaker 1: a credits card scam with a friend who told me
Speaker 1: to take money off of my credit card and invested
Speaker 1: with him. He promptly ran away, and there I was.
Speaker 1: Now all of a sudden, the span of a few years,
Speaker 1: I owe fifty thousand dollars because I had to pay
Speaker 1: for my masters myself in student loan deck two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty thousand.
Speaker 3: Also that.
Speaker 4: These messages all in here.
Speaker 5: You didn't say a stranger, No a friend now, by
Speaker 5: the way, friend of quotation marks, because clearly wouldn't like that.
Speaker 4: We don't need enemies, no he Yeah.
Speaker 5: So we saved our worst behavior for those we care
Speaker 5: the most about. Right, Nobody curses out homeless peoplecause homeless
Speaker 5: people don't care.
Speaker 4: Right, So.
Speaker 5: Tiffany got scam. You're gonna get scammed if you get
Speaker 5: scammed in all likelihood by somebody who knows you.
Speaker 4: Somebody's gonna come in you with some crazy deal.
Speaker 5: And on the guys that supposedly they love you, to
Speaker 5: quote Bill President Bill Clinton, it's hard to get somebody
Speaker 5: agreed to the truths when the liar's paying their paycheck.
Speaker 5: So so to rationalize is tell rational lies. So Tiffany
Speaker 5: just gave you a lesson here in the midst of
Speaker 5: her lesson that watch every angle, yeah coming at you,
Speaker 5: because just because somebody's related to you doesn't mean they
Speaker 5: have your best interest.
Speaker 4: At hand. Okay, back to you too, And.
Speaker 1: So I should have known it was a scam, but
Speaker 1: I was in my twenties and so because the terms
Speaker 1: were too favorable.
Speaker 3: But the house always wins. Like I was literally justin Vakas.
Speaker 1: I don't gamble, but I was there for a conference,
Speaker 1: and I just remember seeing all these people lined up
Speaker 1: to give away their money, and I thought, the house
Speaker 1: always wins. And so so I had the credit card
Speaker 1: debt thirty five thousand, the student loans fifty thousand, and
Speaker 1: my mortgage two hundred and twenty thousand, and I purchased
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, so
Speaker 1: right before the the crisis.
Speaker 3: And then I thought.
Speaker 1: The first domino that fell was the scammer went ran
Speaker 1: away with my money and I couldn't find him. And
Speaker 1: now I had to pay off this credit card debt.
Speaker 1: But at first I didn't want to. I was just
Speaker 1: paying the minimum because I told myself, I'm gonna find him.
Speaker 3: He's gonna pay me. I did. I didn't. He's in
Speaker 3: jail now.
Speaker 1: Every once in a while, I was looking up his
Speaker 1: name and his very unique name, and I looked him
Speaker 1: up and I said, wow, he tried to scam the
Speaker 1: federal government.
Speaker 3: And so I caught up with him.
Speaker 1: I was not his only victim, but so he is
Speaker 1: currently sitting in federal jail, which I'm like, eh, anyway.
Speaker 4: You should go visit him and sign a copy of
Speaker 4: book and delivery.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 3: And so that was the first dominum.
Speaker 1: So finally, when I decided, like a year into like me,
Speaker 1: having to pay that debt, I said, Tiffany, you're working,
Speaker 1: just buckle down, you know how to budget, know how
Speaker 1: to save.
Speaker 3: Just pay off this debt.
Speaker 1: And then I found out my school, which was nonprofit
Speaker 1: based law, they're funding during the recession, and they said
Speaker 1: we're closing. So now I owe all this debt. I
Speaker 1: have no income. It's the new school year, and if
Speaker 1: you're a teacher, you know that September you're least likely
Speaker 1: to get hired because everyone the classrooms are full that
Speaker 1: they have to have teachers in the beginning of the
Speaker 1: school year. And so I just remember thinking, what do
Speaker 1: I do Now? I owe all this money, I owe
Speaker 1: my mortgage. I can't afford it. And so I was fortune.
Speaker 1: This is not the case for so many. But my
Speaker 1: parents still lived in New Jersey where I lived, and.
Speaker 3: I moved back home.
Speaker 1: I was twenty nine going on thirty by then, and
Speaker 1: it was a humbling experience because my parents are very
Speaker 1: are immigrant parents straight from Nigeria, which means even though
Speaker 1: you're twenty nine, you're like nineteen, right, And so the
Speaker 1: rules were the rules.
Speaker 3: They were like, what you have twelve midnights, you better
Speaker 3: be in this house. Yes, and so it was really hard.
Speaker 1: But it was then that I said, if I can
Speaker 1: lose a job teaching, there is no safe job. So
Speaker 1: what if I bet on myself instead of like letting
Speaker 1: someone else decide. And that's when I decided. I said,
Speaker 1: you know what I was. I was already kind of
Speaker 1: teaching financial education. I used to volunteer at different nonprofits
Speaker 1: the United Way and churches, the YMCA because I taught,
Speaker 1: you know, I loved teaching and I learned so much
Speaker 1: from about money from home. And I said, well, what
Speaker 1: if I start teaching? And I started the budget NISA.
Speaker 1: First year, I made like I don't even know negative
Speaker 1: amount because I think I was still on unemployment. Second year,
Speaker 1: like twelve thousand dollars for the whole year. It took me,
Speaker 1: like we hear about all the people who make a
Speaker 1: million dollars the first month. No, it took me five
Speaker 1: years to make six figures, my first six figures, and
Speaker 1: that's gross. I remember my take home in that fifth
Speaker 1: year was what I used to make as a preschool teacher.
Speaker 1: So it took me five years just to get my
Speaker 1: income back as.
Speaker 3: A preschool teacher. And in that five years.
Speaker 1: Years exactly, so by then I was like staying with
Speaker 1: my sister, staying with a friend. I mean I was,
Speaker 1: this is in my thirties. I wasn't a kid. And
Speaker 1: then year six I went from six figures to my
Speaker 1: first seventh figure year because of cumulative knowledge. And then
Speaker 1: during the pandemic, we had our first eight figure year,
Speaker 1: you know, and so it just really grew, and so
Speaker 1: did our audience. I mean I I you know, to
Speaker 1: teach financial education really is a privilege and a pleasure
Speaker 1: because people stop me all the time, whether it's TSA,
Speaker 1: whether they're like tivity, we're reading your book collectively, like
Speaker 1: as a group, Like I get stopped by the women
Speaker 1: a TSA all the time, whether it's you know.
Speaker 3: At the Whole Foods or shopwright or whatever.
Speaker 1: People stop me that And what I'm seeing now because
Speaker 1: I've been doing it for sixteen years now is generational.
Speaker 1: So I get the mama and the daughter and the son,
Speaker 1: and so it's just been amazing. But what I'm seeing
Speaker 1: is that are people just people in general general, they
Speaker 1: want to do better, but sometimes they have that they
Speaker 1: don't have the access to aligned culturally aligned financial education.
Speaker 1: Like just say it to me regular is what people
Speaker 1: usually say to me. And so that's what that's that's
Speaker 1: the premise of my business. How can I get you
Speaker 1: to access to financial education so you can change your
Speaker 1: life on your chops.
Speaker 5: And there's also a little bit of a boost that
Speaker 5: you got from I have Africa on my bracelet here
Speaker 5: this is Mandela's prison number where every day but the
Speaker 5: fact that you're from your parents are from Nigeria, which
Speaker 5: are some of the most entrepreneurial, high confidence and high
Speaker 5: self estem people on the planet.
Speaker 4: Someone the smartest on the planet.
Speaker 5: And I did a whole video on how African Americans
Speaker 5: and African Caribbeans and African Africans are the same but
Speaker 5: different and the African American experience we were, as I
Speaker 5: said earlier, our self esteem was beaten down. And even
Speaker 5: though we are the role models for the world and
Speaker 5: aspirational success because we did this in the biggest I mean,
Speaker 5: on the planet America, we still suffer unhealed soul. And
Speaker 5: so those who come from the Caribbean and come from
Speaker 5: Africa theoretically don't happen as much of that burden because
Speaker 5: either he was Caribbean and it wasn't the kind of
Speaker 5: slavery that sold your soul with their families. Were still
Speaker 5: nuclear families in the Caribbean, even though they were enslaved.
Speaker 5: They're kept together. That was different.
Speaker 4: That was not in America, and of course Africa. It's
Speaker 4: all about family.
Speaker 5: And so I want to just underscore the benefit you're
Speaker 5: seeing here. You're witnessing here the benefit of the of
Speaker 5: the value of family. I was talking to Bishop TD
Speaker 5: Jakes this morning and he was he was concerned, hopeful
Speaker 5: of a concern about the decreasing rates of marriage and
Speaker 5: the nuclear families in the black community. And he said, John,
Speaker 5: this affects your economics, yes, effect, This affects your self esteem,
Speaker 5: This affects your ability to heal, the fix stability, this
Speaker 5: affects you know, all these things. And valuing also the father,
Speaker 5: valuing the wife, and the wife valuing the husband.
Speaker 4: The two plus two equals six, eight or ten. You
Speaker 4: better together. It seemed like those things were present.
Speaker 1: I mean more than I knew John. Like the first
Speaker 1: time I went to Nigeria, I was twenty one. My
Speaker 1: dad flew us all out like we've had been saving
Speaker 1: and my mom, my dad, all my sisters who went
Speaker 1: to Nigeria. It was my grandparent's fiftieth wedding anniversary, so
Speaker 1: he said, everybody was going back to the village. My
Speaker 1: grandparents are on mine because both of my father's parents
Speaker 1: had really so on my mother's side, my grandparents were
Speaker 1: still alive and they were celebrating their fiftieth so all
Speaker 1: her sisters and.
Speaker 3: Brothers were coming to the village.
Speaker 1: And my dad said, this is a great time for
Speaker 1: y'all to go to Nigeria for the first time.
Speaker 3: So we went.
Speaker 1: And so my last name is Alich, which it was
Speaker 1: just like Alich, which means like people of the earth
Speaker 1: in Ebo, like an old Ebo. So the first time
Speaker 1: in America, if I mean Aliche, it's my sister or
Speaker 1: like my mom or dad. That's it, you know, I
Speaker 1: have I think like one like I think I got
Speaker 1: one aunt, one uncle maybe, but so I'm going in
Speaker 1: So Nigeria, we land. We drive the many many hours
Speaker 1: to the village and my dad is introducing us as
Speaker 1: we're walking through this beautiful village and oh, this is
Speaker 1: Samson Alice. I was like, oh, oh, fam, I'm Aliche too.
Speaker 1: They're like, yes, oh this is Sylvie Alice.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm Aliche too. This is true Corlice. Then my
Speaker 3: dad looked at me.
Speaker 1: He said, Tiffany Adochi really is my ebo name, which
Speaker 1: means gift from God Adochi.
Speaker 3: Everyone here is Eliche. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I said, I don't understand. He said, the village is
Speaker 1: extended family.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 1: Literally, every single person that you run into here is
Speaker 1: connected to you by blood.
Speaker 3: I did not know that.
Speaker 1: And he said that village over there, everyone there is
Speaker 1: your mother's people.
Speaker 3: They all have to say last name.
Speaker 1: And when your I saw your mother and I thought
Speaker 1: she was beautiful and I wanted to, you know, get
Speaker 1: to know her.
Speaker 3: Our village elders had to get together to.
Speaker 1: Talk through our lineage to make sure there was no
Speaker 1: overlap before we were allowed to be and court each other.
Speaker 1: For him to court her, I remember thinking, that is
Speaker 1: the power here. Everyone here is a leech. I'll never
Speaker 1: forget that. And so that's where your.
Speaker 5: Self esteem just exploded. Your center of agency just exploded,
Speaker 5: your center of belonging just exploded. Your inner wealth began
Speaker 5: to really generate because you're like.
Speaker 4: I am somebody. Yes, I mean this is royalty here, Rudy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's unbelievable the boost that that is.
Speaker 5: And people African Americans don't understand what we're missing by
Speaker 5: not reconnecting back to our African roots. And our friend
Speaker 5: of mine, another friend of mine told me, and I
Speaker 5: agree with them, Blacks have to become the Africa with
Speaker 5: Jews art Israel a resource. But you can't do that.
Speaker 5: You can't give anybody that. It's something you don't have yourself.
Speaker 5: I can't love you unless I love myself. I can't
Speaker 5: feel good about you unless I feel good about myself.
Speaker 4: But a lot of has to do.
Speaker 5: The healing and reconnection and that experience you had. I
Speaker 5: think it's still breathing through you today.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: It is because I was I was born right here
Speaker 1: in Jersey, like I was born in New York.
Speaker 3: I live in nor you know, so my experience was
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: At home, Yes, it was African at home, and and
Speaker 1: and and black every place else, you know, like home.
Speaker 1: We still would go to like festivals and things like
Speaker 1: my parents made tread home that like we got as
Speaker 1: close as they could recreate for us to have like
Speaker 1: an African upbringing. But no, I'm black. I'm a black girl,
Speaker 1: like I'm Tiffany a friends that you know. I love
Speaker 1: to play double dutch and jump double dutch. And I
Speaker 1: didn't quite learn how to play spades well because I
Speaker 1: can't say that nobody's table. They're like, no, you know,
Speaker 1: I played the dozens as a kid. I grew up
Speaker 1: in the eighties.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm an eighties baby.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, So I say all that to say that, like, yes,
Speaker 1: I believe.
Speaker 3: I believe I've gotten the best of both worlds.
Speaker 1: And so because my dad would say, you know, say
Speaker 1: what you want about America, but he would say, honestly,
Speaker 1: I ask him, well, why did you come here? And
Speaker 1: he said, this is one of the few countries in
Speaker 1: this world where you can actually make your.
Speaker 3: Dreams come true.
Speaker 1: Opportunity, he said, I can work really hard in Nigeria,
Speaker 1: do everything right and get my degrees. Nigeria's are some
Speaker 1: of the most degrees. They are actually the most degreed
Speaker 1: people in the world. They did a study and yet
Speaker 1: so many of my cousins are farmers because there is
Speaker 1: no opportunity. That's right, but here, if you are willing
Speaker 1: and to put the work in, even with all the discrimination,
Speaker 1: everything that we know, you still at least have the
Speaker 1: possibility for success here because there are ways around it.
Speaker 1: There's some places where there are no ways around it.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just no opportunity.
Speaker 5: So we're going to go in unexpected but very very
Speaker 5: important corner of the universe of thought here for a second.
Speaker 5: One of the reasons America is so successful in spite
Speaker 5: of all of her challenges and insecurities, and she's capitalism
Speaker 5: and democracy and America or horrible systems and places except
Speaker 5: for every other system in place. And one of the
Speaker 5: reasons that America is so successful is it inspired or
Speaker 5: triggered or lit a fire of these rare dreamers all
Speaker 5: around the world Nigeria, South Africa, South America, all the
Speaker 5: place in Asia, Europe, all these different places, who said,
Speaker 5: I have a dream, I have an ambition, I want
Speaker 5: to be successful, and I'm not going to just sit
Speaker 5: here and wait for this to happen. I'm going to
Speaker 5: go to where I have the greatest, highest and I'm plane, trained, automobile,
Speaker 5: boat ship, no money. But what it takes for somebody
Speaker 5: that to transport themselves from comfort to risk is unprecedented
Speaker 5: self esteem and confidence. And so you magnetize all those people.
Speaker 5: All economy is is the collection of the economic energy.
Speaker 5: You magnetize all those people in one place, how do
Speaker 5: you not create the largest economy on the planet. And
Speaker 5: that's sense that that's that that freedom thing that America
Speaker 5: was advertising and everybody got them, but black people got
Speaker 5: on the wrong boat after Americans. But that freedom thing
Speaker 5: really was its original advantage. And so her father is
Speaker 5: a living and mother or living examples of what I
Speaker 5: talk about. And I didn't know the backstory, but it
Speaker 5: lines up perfectly. And when I say that that marriage
Speaker 5: did not originally come from romance, it didn't really didn't
Speaker 5: come from religion. It came from two families or villages
Speaker 5: or people with resources saying how do we protect how
Speaker 5: do we grow the name, the lineage, how do we
Speaker 5: grow the assets?
Speaker 4: And then hey, do you guys like each other?
Speaker 5: That's important and of course we you know, we added
Speaker 5: spirituality of God is at a spirituality on this in
Speaker 5: doubt it three thousand years ago. But the village had
Speaker 5: to come together about about her and her mother. It
Speaker 5: was two different villages. They had to have a conversation.
Speaker 5: And that is thousands of years old. That that and
Speaker 5: she's the benefit of that, and I could see it
Speaker 5: in her eyes without knowing her story, her backstory. And
Speaker 5: that's a supercharger. And so if you can relate to
Speaker 5: this story, know that you have whether you're African African
Speaker 5: and African Caribbean or you're African American, and you've been
Speaker 5: going over and rounded through it and now you can
Speaker 5: get to it because in spite of everything else, still
Speaker 5: you're the most successful black people on the planet. Yes,
Speaker 5: her father's trying to get to you, so know that
Speaker 5: you can do it. And she's a living and her
Speaker 5: parents are living examples. I want to tell you say
Speaker 5: your mother and father's name out loud so that we
Speaker 5: can put in the history books.
Speaker 1: So Sylvia Aliche is my mother and Irandi Eliche is
Speaker 1: my father.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's beautiful. Your self esteem you said it wasn't
Speaker 4: always great.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, I'm at financial self esteem because of all that.
Speaker 1: I had what I call post traumatic broke syndrome. I struggled,
Speaker 1: so certainly I had self esteemed like so many young
Speaker 1: girls like I used to hate that I was dark skinned.
Speaker 3: Because I grew up in the eighties, when you know,
Speaker 3: everyone to be light.
Speaker 1: I used to like, I mean, I have locks now
Speaker 1: and I love my hair, but I used to hate
Speaker 1: the texture of my hair because the eighties were for
Speaker 1: light and wavy and curly. That that's what, that's what
Speaker 1: if you were Louisiana, yes, and so the brown bag
Speaker 1: exactly so, I, you know, but with time and age,
Speaker 1: those things tend to melt away, and I don't feel
Speaker 1: that way at all anymore.
Speaker 4: I love the way to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I, you know, I plus two it's not
Speaker 1: nearly as important, but I, you know, I I when
Speaker 1: I look at myself, I see my dad, I see
Speaker 1: my mom, I see my people. You know, when I
Speaker 1: went to Nigeria, I'm like, oh, look at my great
Speaker 1: grandmother was still alive. She was one hundred and two,
Speaker 1: and I could see myself and I remember thinking looking
Speaker 1: at her.
Speaker 3: Hair, like it curls like mine. Is that where I
Speaker 3: got it from?
Speaker 1: And so those helped me to be like girl, I
Speaker 1: don't worry about what these people say in middle school
Speaker 1: and high school and whatever. But the post traumatic broke
Speaker 1: syndrome was harder to get over because I had made
Speaker 1: those mistakes as an adult and so well into my
Speaker 1: deep into my thirties. I'm forty six now, I still
Speaker 1: was carrying around what if I now that I'm making
Speaker 1: decent money and I'm starting to grow, and especially when
Speaker 1: I've at thirty seven, I officially became like a millionaire
Speaker 1: asset wise, and then by like forty it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I actually see a million dollars in the bank, like okay,
Speaker 1: and so but I was terrified because of the mistakes
Speaker 1: I made in my twenties, that I would do something
Speaker 1: to trigger the downfall of my finances, and so I
Speaker 1: moved so conservatively.
Speaker 3: I left a lot of money on the table.
Speaker 1: And I did what you said, Like I owned four
Speaker 1: home so my first two properties I bought cash because
Speaker 1: of that fear, right, I said.
Speaker 3: Oh, no, no, no, y'all not going to foreclothes on this,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And I remember I have I have a certified financial planner.
Speaker 1: On Julie, she's amazing, and she was like.
Speaker 3: Girl, put that money in the market. And I knew.
Speaker 1: I knew logically what she was saying was right, but
Speaker 1: emotionally I was terrified of being broke again or someone
Speaker 1: taking my property. So the first two I bought cash well,
Speaker 1: first three because I had bought something from the city,
Speaker 1: but that was like ten thousand dollars. And then but
Speaker 1: the last two that I purchased last year, I was
Speaker 1: I'm finally beyond that. So I was like, girl, we're
Speaker 1: not doing that. Let the money grow in the market.
Speaker 1: I purchased these two properties. They're already up. Nework is
Speaker 1: one of the fastest growing to real estate places in
Speaker 1: the country. I'm so fortunate and so already. Like the
Speaker 1: condo that I'm living in now, I purchased it like
Speaker 1: two years ago for five twenty it's already worth eight twenty.
Speaker 1: Like that's how quickly. Well, let's state it's growing here
Speaker 1: and so like. But you know, so I understand the shame,
Speaker 1: I understand the year. I understand that. But you have
Speaker 1: to work through it. And the key to working through
Speaker 1: those things is sometimes it might mean working with somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, that's why you've got like you
Speaker 1: know what you do John, Like, is there are there
Speaker 1: places I can go to sit with someone to share
Speaker 1: this is where I am, this is where I want
Speaker 1: to be I don't know how to get there, you know,
Speaker 1: and so let me tell let me.
Speaker 5: Say something now for the audience say and it may
Speaker 5: not be maybe obvious, may not be obvious. Before we
Speaker 5: got on on on on camera, she would she would
Speaker 5: timply saying that she's starting a financial literacy program herself.
Speaker 5: She has one, a teaching one, she's starting a curriculum.
Speaker 5: And she said, well, you know, in addition to what
Speaker 5: you're doing. No, we needed an addition to what I'm doing.
Speaker 5: We need a movement. Right, this is the third reconstruction everybody.
Speaker 5: My new book Capitalism for All is on the two
Speaker 5: and fifty, the anniversary of America, and it is one
Speaker 5: hundred anniversary of Black History Month. God, you know, coincidence
Speaker 5: is god way remain anonymous. The whole country is going
Speaker 5: through one huge colonic trying to figure out who it
Speaker 5: wants to be when it grows up. And and so
Speaker 5: you got women power in the economy. You got you
Speaker 5: can't can't survive this future growth without black and brown
Speaker 5: people in the economy.
Speaker 4: But we don't have the tools to succeed.
Speaker 5: We're still dealing with civil rights in a world of
Speaker 5: civil rights, and so we need Tiffany.
Speaker 4: We need earn your leisure.
Speaker 5: We need Robert Smith, we need we need whoever you know,
Speaker 5: Ash Cash, whoever is ethical and honest out here it
Speaker 5: was doing it right. We need everybody at the at
Speaker 5: the table because the new movement is not in the streets,
Speaker 5: is in the suites. So we need a whole network, local, state, federal,
Speaker 5: international of people. Realize if financial literacy is a civil
Speaker 5: rights issue with this generation, when you.
Speaker 4: Know better, you do better.
Speaker 5: And she is and so on this point, you've created
Speaker 5: uh legislation. Also in New Jersey, tell the audience about that.
Speaker 1: So yes, so I work with She was my assembly woman,
Speaker 1: Angela Vie McKnight. She actually was one of my students
Speaker 1: at the United Way when I was teaching. I wrote
Speaker 1: their curriculum at the United Way and Newark and I
Speaker 1: taught that program for three years and she was one
Speaker 1: of my students. She had this amazing nonprofit. The community
Speaker 1: said you need to run for office. We need people
Speaker 1: like you.
Speaker 3: Angela.
Speaker 1: She said, Okay, she ran and she won her seat
Speaker 1: as assemblywoman here in New Jersey. She's now Senator because
Speaker 1: she's gotten like the most lost pass in almost any
Speaker 1: other legislator in the state of New Jersey.
Speaker 3: She's so effective.
Speaker 1: And when she became the assembly woman, Angela said, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: I want to get a law.
Speaker 3: Pass about education.
Speaker 1: I was taking financial education and I said, well, there
Speaker 1: is kind of a long place for high school, but
Speaker 1: I think financial education should start as young as middle school.
Speaker 1: And she said, okay, we wrote what we thought it
Speaker 1: should be. I helped to meet with educators and met
Speaker 1: with other lawmakers and testified and it took about three years.
Speaker 3: But I called it the Budgetista Law.
Speaker 1: They call it a one four one four or whatever,
Speaker 1: a budgets law exactly. But that passed in two thousand,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, nineteen. So all middle school students in
Speaker 1: the state of New Jersey must get financial education integrated
Speaker 1: into their curriculum.
Speaker 3: And currently now we're working on refining.
Speaker 1: The law for high school because it used to be
Speaker 1: you could take an economics course or something else. Now
Speaker 1: we're like, no, no, we want every single high school
Speaker 1: senior by the time you're a senior to have have
Speaker 1: at least a semester of financial education.
Speaker 3: And so that's like what we're currently working on now.
Speaker 1: And then really what I want to do is I
Speaker 1: want to get back go back to elementary school. So
Speaker 1: I want, if you're in a state of New Jersey
Speaker 1: starting kindergarten through twelfth grade, you're getting financial education. How
Speaker 1: would that change the trajectory of the lives of the
Speaker 1: students here?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Here in Atlanta. Kudos to you, by the way, on
Speaker 5: the budget Easter law. I think that's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Atlanta.
Speaker 5: We have worked with Mayor Andre Dickens and Mayor Keisha
Speaker 5: Lance Bottoms before him and put together a Hope Child
Speaker 5: Savings Account for every kindergarten kid. And so now every
Speaker 5: kindergarten kids is over twelve thousand accounts that have a
Speaker 5: Hope Child Savors Account every kid. We're gonna now wrap
Speaker 5: financial literacy around that and go k through college and
Speaker 5: tie that with AI literacy and financial literacy for future literacy.
Speaker 5: Just what you're talking about. And it didn't hit me,
Speaker 5: but really it is a little bit of history here.
Speaker 5: You and I are probably the only two black people
Speaker 5: in America who's inspired a state in the federal law.
Speaker 5: And we got we got President Bush and Obama to
Speaker 5: make an executive order to make financial literacy federal policy,
Speaker 5: but but we never got the Congress to then codify
Speaker 5: that that was for the federal government to codify that,
Speaker 5: and it's something that would push down into the school district.
Speaker 4: And that's a dream I have.
Speaker 5: But you have gone beyond that and they got it
Speaker 5: done in a prominent state. And for that I give you.
Speaker 5: I give you absolute kudos. Talk to us about why
Speaker 5: women are so important to this narrative that you have.
Speaker 5: I can talk about it, but I'm not a woman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, honestly, studies show that when you help a woman,
Speaker 1: you help a family. And not to say obviously we
Speaker 1: know that men are critical. I mean, I am the
Speaker 1: product of like you know, probably the most influential person
Speaker 1: in my life, like my mother. Hopefully she doesn't listen
Speaker 1: because alway gets mad when I say this, But it's
Speaker 1: my father, So I'm not gonna certainly I'm not saying that.
Speaker 1: But you know that women typically are the first teachers
Speaker 1: in a household. So if a woman knows how to
Speaker 1: manage money, she passes it on to children, she creates
Speaker 1: many times the environment for her partner to be.
Speaker 3: Able to succeed financially.
Speaker 1: Even if a woman is not working, she's typically making
Speaker 1: the majority of the financial choices for those for those
Speaker 1: men who are married to women. Imagine deciding what house
Speaker 1: you want to get. If you love it, she hates it,
Speaker 1: you'all aint getting that house. But if she hates it
Speaker 1: and you don't like it so much, you might still
Speaker 1: get it. And so women, even if they're not working,
Speaker 1: are still making the financial choices, the car you drive,
Speaker 1: the food you eat, what the kids wear, and so
Speaker 1: if we can get women on board, it trickles down
Speaker 1: into every area of life. And so that's why I
Speaker 1: always say we don't turn anyone away. So we certainly
Speaker 1: have about maybe like twenty or thirty percent of our
Speaker 1: audience's men, but the vast majority are Because I'm a woman,
Speaker 1: I know I'm attracting women. The vast majority of my
Speaker 1: audience are women. And I love that because I have
Speaker 1: so many women who stopped me to say I didn't
Speaker 1: know what to do until I met you, or took
Speaker 1: your class or read your book Get good with Money.
Speaker 3: And because for women John what.
Speaker 1: I find that it's a confidence issue, not a competence issue.
Speaker 3: And so they're needed to see like, oh.
Speaker 1: If Tiffany can do it, this is another woman like
Speaker 1: I have the ability, I just didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: and she's showing me step by step.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, I think just go back to break another taboo.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: You you said some about your dad, who's an economists.
Speaker 5: I believe as well who talked he was.
Speaker 1: A financial and he was a CFO, a chief financial officer.
Speaker 1: But he has his master's in economics.
Speaker 4: Like I said, an economists.
Speaker 5: You know, there's an old saying that if you want,
Speaker 5: if you want to find a good woman, an easy
Speaker 5: place to find a good woman is find a woman
Speaker 5: who had a great relationship with her dad. You want
Speaker 5: to find a good man, an easy place to find
Speaker 5: a good man is to find a man who had
Speaker 5: a great relations with his mother. And now, yeah, there
Speaker 5: are exceptions every role, without question, but that that's an
Speaker 5: easy like a low hanging fruit. So she had a
Speaker 5: great relationship and still has with her dad. And I
Speaker 5: think there's a compliment her mother actually for nurturing that,
Speaker 5: allowing that, facilitating that and without with regard to women,
Speaker 5: without women to be a lot less men. Only women
Speaker 5: can create life. And in nineteen seventy two, a woman
Speaker 5: couldn't get a bank account in America or a credit card. Yeah,
Speaker 5: couldn't get a loan unless her husband co signed it,
Speaker 5: and I would again. I go into a great deal
Speaker 5: of detail about this, as I used women as a
Speaker 5: proof point in my new book Capitalism for All. I
Speaker 5: use it as a proof point that diversity and inclusion
Speaker 5: are not moral issues or money issues. Is take the
Speaker 5: emotions out of it. This is just good economics. Women
Speaker 5: were not allowed in the economy, and when black people's
Speaker 5: affirmative action triggered the women's movement that got codified by
Speaker 5: Nixon as president in nineteen seventy two nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 5: the economy grew because women were in it. And today
Speaker 5: women are eight to ten trade dollars of a thirty
Speaker 5: three dollars economy, a third Where we be Where would
Speaker 5: we be fifty years before, fifty years later if we
Speaker 5: had not included women, because white women then triggered the
Speaker 5: inclusion of Black women, Asian women, Latino women, all women,
Speaker 5: we'd be We'd be a we wouldn't be the biggest economy.
Speaker 4: In the world. We'd be an also ran nation.
Speaker 5: And because China's twenty trillion, give I think twenty trading
Speaker 5: and approaching that, but we're thirty trading. We're only that
Speaker 5: because of that advantage of women. And that's the message
Speaker 5: I have for folks today is is you're not doing
Speaker 5: me a favor right by by by by including the
Speaker 5: least of these gods children, you're doing yourself a favor
Speaker 5: because my frisch, my rich friends, my poor friends do
Speaker 5: better only to stay rich. So women are the only
Speaker 5: undeniable market tests.
Speaker 4: The results are in.
Speaker 5: We don't need to speculate fifty years history of what
Speaker 5: happens when you diversify.
Speaker 4: The economy and it is led by women. And I think,
Speaker 4: and so I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 5: That you you got this book that really highlights and
Speaker 5: brings up their dignity and this teaching inspiration around that.
Speaker 5: A lot of your comments that your endorses online are
Speaker 5: women who just herald how.
Speaker 4: This made them feel.
Speaker 5: It's not not not sure, it's how when it taught
Speaker 5: them that's important, but how it made them feel they
Speaker 5: can do anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And honestly that like all that I do. It's
Speaker 1: not to your point. I mean, because money is money, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know. And so so one I wrote Get Good
Speaker 1: with Money, it was really about trying to get people
Speaker 1: to achieve what I like to call financial holeness. That's
Speaker 1: the teacher in me. Right, that's the curriculum, right, that
Speaker 1: financial hollness are these ten steps, you know, So these
Speaker 1: ten steps that if you can master these ten steps,
Speaker 1: even if you don't make a ton of money, you
Speaker 1: don't become a million or whatever, you can be okay,
Speaker 1: you you will have a holistically strong financial life. So
Speaker 1: it's the foundation. Yeah, the foundational five are budgeted savings, debt, credit, income,
Speaker 1: and then comes investing.
Speaker 3: For both wealth and retirement.
Speaker 1: It is insurance, your net worth, your financial team, and
Speaker 1: estate planning if you master those ten things. So for John,
Speaker 1: for like twenty year old John, a state planning might
Speaker 1: look like, I don't know, like your mom or your dad,
Speaker 1: whoever raised you is the.
Speaker 3: Beneficiary on a bank account, you know. But for forty
Speaker 3: six year.
Speaker 1: Old Tiffany, now, a state planning looks like trust and
Speaker 1: a will. And so even if you're twenty, you could
Speaker 1: steal a state plan and even you know, so at
Speaker 1: every step of these steps it looks different, but you
Speaker 1: can achieve and master those steps where you are, and
Speaker 1: you can achieve financial homeness. And so when I wrote it,
Speaker 1: I knew there was going to hit a nerve. But
Speaker 1: it's sold like four hundred thousand copies. So even my
Speaker 1: publisher was like, what I'm like, But I knew. I said,
Speaker 1: people need step by step handholding help. How do I
Speaker 1: do these things? And so the softcover book comes out
Speaker 1: the thirty first, it'll probably be out by the time
Speaker 1: this comes out. The hardcover book was out, came out
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. Yeah, but eight weeks on the
Speaker 1: New York Times bestsellers list. And it's really like some
Speaker 1: of my greatest work of walking people through, step by
Speaker 1: step to whatever their financial journey it is.
Speaker 3: It meets you where you are and takes you where
Speaker 3: you want to go.
Speaker 4: Right, So new edition of your book people can pick.
Speaker 1: Up, Yes, the soft cover version of Getting Money, so
Speaker 1: less money because you know hardcovers costs more.
Speaker 4: So nose yes, yes, So everybody please go pick up
Speaker 4: her book Money.
Speaker 5: So you're in the pull pit of hope. You're in there.
Speaker 5: You're in the church of what's happening now? And what
Speaker 5: have you done for me lately? This is the ministry
Speaker 5: of finance. I'm gonna let you go for seven minutes.
Speaker 5: What do you have uninterrupted? I know you can do it.
Speaker 5: I've heard you speak for what in the message do
Speaker 5: you have uninterrupted? Somebody gives you a pulpit and say,
Speaker 5: preach into this audience and give them the tools they
Speaker 5: need to go into twenty twenty six, which is going
Speaker 5: to be a very interesting year.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to say this that I so I'm
Speaker 1: going to start with the story that I unfortunately lost
Speaker 1: my husband in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: He was forty one years old.
Speaker 1: He had a brain aneurism, and so he was literally
Speaker 1: here on Monday, going on Friday, like just like that,
Speaker 1: called me to say thank you that he had a
Speaker 1: headache and that he was going to the hospital, which
Speaker 1: I can chuckle about now because my husband, I'm like
Speaker 1: so many men love to go to the dagone doctor.
Speaker 1: I mean, his pinky told her he was going to
Speaker 1: the doctor. So I didn't really think anything of it.
Speaker 1: I thought, a headache and go into the emergency room. Okay, babe,
Speaker 1: but I'll meet you there. It turned out it was
Speaker 1: an aneurysm, but the doctors were very confident. They said,
Speaker 1: you know, he's talking, he's awake, it hasn't burst. He's
Speaker 1: gonna be fine. They did the surgery, they said it
Speaker 1: it went well, and then it didn't. He started bleeding
Speaker 1: and then he just fell into a coma and just
Speaker 1: never awoken. And so that fundamentally shifted how I thought
Speaker 1: about money and what I want to share when I
Speaker 1: think about the the what is the real reason behind
Speaker 1: like wealth and growing money? And for me, I used
Speaker 1: to think like more was more, you know, like I
Speaker 1: worked really hard to build this business from zero. I
Speaker 1: don't have any any no one ever backed me, no
Speaker 1: one ever gave me any money.
Speaker 3: I built from scratch, you know, and I.
Speaker 1: Worked really hard. And I remember he would always be like, oh, babe,
Speaker 1: we have enough, because I'd be like, I want a
Speaker 1: bigger house. We could get this, We could have that.
Speaker 1: I met him in my twenties and we got married
Speaker 1: in our thirties.
Speaker 3: I was a preschool teacher and he was a maintenance man.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget.
Speaker 1: And then we met up again in our thirties and
Speaker 1: I always thought he was really cute and we started dating,
Speaker 1: fell in love, and got married. And in that time frame,
Speaker 1: I remember him saying he wanted to have a house.
Speaker 3: He grew up in Newark, New Jersey. His father was
Speaker 3: in his life.
Speaker 1: His mother raised him and his twin brother and his
Speaker 1: sister and He was just one of the most stand
Speaker 1: up guys and candidly. My husband never made over sixty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year. There were moments in business where
Speaker 1: I could take home not even a business make, I
Speaker 1: could take home over sixty thousand dollars in a month.
Speaker 1: And he never made over sixty thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1: He was a super at Newark Tennants Council, which was
Speaker 1: they own, not New.
Speaker 3: York Tennis Council. I'm sorry, NewYork Housing Authority.
Speaker 1: They owned like public housing in Newark, and he was
Speaker 1: a super of three hundred units, and so it doesn't
Speaker 1: pay a bunch, you know.
Speaker 3: But I just remember when he passed.
Speaker 1: Away, collectively he left me and my bonus daughter seven figures,
Speaker 1: and yet I think people don't understand that. So I'm
Speaker 1: sharing all this to say the importance of financial education. Jarrell,
Speaker 1: his name is Jarrelle Smith, was really big on I
Speaker 1: want to make sure I have enough life insurance for y'all.
Speaker 1: He worked for the city essentially and had a pension.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: He changed the beneficiaries over to myself largely, and myself
Speaker 1: and Alyssa. He had purchased this property from the city
Speaker 1: for ten thousand dollars. We had it renovated. And when
Speaker 1: he passed away, I had a property and I told Alyssa,
Speaker 1: then this will be your property. Sold it to his
Speaker 1: twin brother, who now has his own property that has
Speaker 1: now appreciated. So now and now the money that I
Speaker 1: got from that property, I invested for Alissa.
Speaker 3: She was fifteen when he passed. She's nineteen.
Speaker 1: Now that money has grown exponentially. It is waiting for her.
Speaker 1: So when she graduates college, she's in school. Now she
Speaker 1: can buy her own property or start a business.
Speaker 3: But do you.
Speaker 1: See, so I'm sharing the that financial education is not
Speaker 1: always about like I'm gonna get rich, that's great.
Speaker 3: It's about creating.
Speaker 1: An atmosphere for you to be able to take care
Speaker 1: of yourself and leave a strong financial legacy for your family.
Speaker 1: I know so many women who lose their husband and
Speaker 1: their house, you know. But because of Drell, I was
Speaker 1: able to get my second property and pay.
Speaker 3: For it, you know.
Speaker 1: And I'm wanting access to culturally aligned financial education for
Speaker 1: everyone because some of the things, certainly I taught him,
Speaker 1: but some things he knew before I got here. And
Speaker 1: so what would that look like in our families, if
Speaker 1: everyone was able to pass on wealth like tangible wealth
Speaker 1: like that to.
Speaker 3: The people when they're no longer here. He did not
Speaker 3: think he was not going to be here at forty one,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: And so not only did we get to pass on
Speaker 1: this wealth for Alissa, my bonus daughter, but also she
Speaker 1: gets financial education matched to that.
Speaker 3: You know, she and I.
Speaker 1: She's living with me right now while she's in school.
Speaker 1: She and I talk about money all the time she's working.
Speaker 1: We talk about what savings looks like. Should she open
Speaker 1: a credit card because one that lump sum hits her
Speaker 1: after she graduates, she's going to be ready. I already
Speaker 1: connected a LISTA to my personal financial advisor. They speak
Speaker 1: at least annually so she can map out her plan
Speaker 1: so she doesn't waste that money when it comes to her.
Speaker 1: And so I can't want for myself and not want
Speaker 1: the same thing for you. I want, yes, for you
Speaker 1: to have access to money and resources, but not only
Speaker 1: just that, but the knowledge of what to do with
Speaker 1: it if you get it, because money without knowledge is
Speaker 1: brokeness that money will flow right through your hands. They
Speaker 1: have done so many studies that show people who win
Speaker 1: the lottery are typically broker a year later, because if
Speaker 1: you don't know how to manage money, it will actually
Speaker 1: do more damage than not having it at all. And
Speaker 1: so I'm just so grateful that John has allowed me
Speaker 1: to come here. Yes, I wrote good good would get
Speaker 1: good with money to be able to give you step
Speaker 1: by step guidance. But I decided very long ago that
Speaker 1: I wanted to live my life and service to others.
Speaker 1: And I think people think service needs Brokeness Well, I'm
Speaker 1: not broke. I'm wealthy. I've grown wealth for myself. I
Speaker 1: don't have to work anymore. So let's let's get that
Speaker 1: out of like so you can be of service. You
Speaker 1: can help good people, you can do good work, and
Speaker 1: you can make good money. I'm a testament to that
Speaker 1: I do not compromise on my integrity when it comes
Speaker 1: to being of service to the people that I serve.
Speaker 1: What I want for you is what I have for myself.
Speaker 1: I want you to have access to resources. I want
Speaker 1: you to have access to knowledge. I want you to
Speaker 1: have access to community. I want you to be able
Speaker 1: to build the life that you desire using money as
Speaker 1: one of the tools, because we don't know how long
Speaker 1: we have here, and I want you to have life,
Speaker 1: live life fully on your terms.
Speaker 3: And so you know that that is a legacy. I
Speaker 3: hope to leave when it's my time, not to be
Speaker 3: here anymore.
Speaker 4: So thank you, John, thank you.
Speaker 5: And it's inspiring. It's not the it's not the sermon
Speaker 5: I thought you'd give, but it's the one that everybody needed.
Speaker 5: It was right on time, and you're giving Peven a
Speaker 5: lot of dignity. You know, rainbows only follow storms. You
Speaker 5: cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First, you can't
Speaker 5: grow accept the legitimate suffering. And clearly you've grown. Clearly
Speaker 5: you've found purpose and meaning through the pain and found
Speaker 5: purpose and prosperity. And and there's enough between making money
Speaker 5: and building wealth. And you know, wealth is also a mindset.
Speaker 5: And I was at a closing comment. I was in
Speaker 5: the last two days at two different well sorry, the
Speaker 5: last two days yesterday and the day before, at two
Speaker 5: different fundraisers where I had a purpose role in the program.
Speaker 5: And there were you know, there were events, celebration events,
Speaker 5: but they were really fundraisers. And the organization Clarkland Aniversity,
Speaker 5: and then and then the Ace Awards of the Arts
Speaker 5: for honoring Bill Duke and spontaneously at both events, I said,
Speaker 5: you know what, My wife and I are in Operation Hope,
Speaker 5: are going to do X Y and Z Operations give
Speaker 5: you some program scholarships worth x Me and my wife
Speaker 5: are going to give a small contribution worth why. And
Speaker 5: I walked off back to my seat and finish my dinner.
Speaker 5: My point is I didn't have to worry about it,
Speaker 5: just like you said, I'd have to worry with that
Speaker 5: covering from my coming from my rent or my mortgage payment,
Speaker 5: or can I make can I get it? Can I
Speaker 5: make ends meet? All money is his freedom, all it is.
Speaker 5: And I've got enough freedom to be able to help
Speaker 5: myself and help everybody else too if I want to.
Speaker 4: And so is Tiffany, and she wants that for you.
Speaker 5: She she wants you to be able to have self actualization,
Speaker 5: have agency in your life. And we live, whether you
Speaker 5: like it or not, in an economic world. It's a
Speaker 5: capitalist democracy. If you don't believe that, look at the
Speaker 5: last election. People are making making decisions based on their pocketbook,
Speaker 5: their budget, or the perception of what's right for their wallet.
Speaker 4: And we have got to get our morals and our
Speaker 4: money back in alignment.
Speaker 5: And I think that what you are doing and the
Speaker 5: way in which you're going about it, heart first, head
Speaker 5: attached is directly in line with that, and I commend you.
Speaker 5: I can encourage everybody to go buy your book and
Speaker 5: support your organization because as you're they're supporting you, clearly
Speaker 5: you're supporting everybody else. So it's a multiplier effect. Ladies
Speaker 5: and gentlemen, it's been an hour with the budgetiesa on
Speaker 5: Money and Wealth. Spare to share this with your friends.
Speaker 5: Find her mother, Get this to her mother.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be bad.
Speaker 3: I talk about my daddy too much.
Speaker 4: In the world.
Speaker 5: Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of
Speaker 5: the Black Effect podcast Network. For more podcasts from the
Speaker 5: Black Defect podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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