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ANGEL RICH - The Humble Beginnings and Comfort of Goulash · Eating While Broke

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, I'm super excited today on the next on
0:03
Speaker 1: this episode of eating wamp and I'm gonna redo that.
0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. Today we
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Speaker 1: have the super super super financially little Angel Rich with us.
0:17
Speaker 1: She's about to show us what she used to eat
0:19
Speaker 1: when she was broke. Hey, everybody, I'm Angel Rich, also
0:23
Speaker 1: known as the next Steve Jobs. I'm super excited to
0:26
Speaker 1: be here on Eating while Broke. Can't wait to share
0:29
Speaker 1: all my broke stories and my broke food. But hey,
0:33
Speaker 1: you know, it's started from the bottom and now we're here.
0:36
Speaker 1: So we're here on Eating while Broke and looking forward
0:39
Speaker 1: to it. Well, what do you have us eating today? Today?
0:43
Speaker 1: We are eating googlesh. Now, for those that don't know,
0:47
Speaker 1: this meal actually kind of came out of slavery in
0:51
Speaker 1: the South. This is a meal that people eat to
0:54
Speaker 1: this day, especially if you are in the South, or
0:57
Speaker 1: if you are in a little bit more of an
1:00
Speaker 1: impoverished area, or if you just are hungry and so.
1:05
Speaker 1: Growing up, I actually did not know that this was
1:08
Speaker 1: a struggle meal. It was my favorite meal as a child.
1:12
Speaker 1: I didn't know how much my family was necessarily struggling
1:17
Speaker 1: for different meals, you know, eating mac and cheese and
1:21
Speaker 1: hat dogs and porking beans and oodles and noodles and
1:24
Speaker 1: all those very different things. I just thought it was
1:26
Speaker 1: food and I didn't think anything of it. And when
1:29
Speaker 1: my grandmother used to make this meal, it used to
1:32
Speaker 1: feel like so special. I mean, look how many ingredients
1:35
Speaker 1: are in it. It just it feels like you're about
1:37
Speaker 1: to have a feast. And it's very colorful. It was
1:40
Speaker 1: very colorful, and it actually tastes really good as well. Um,
1:44
Speaker 1: and I'm looking forward to eating it. I haven't had
1:46
Speaker 1: it in a very long time. Uh, And it's an
1:49
Speaker 1: honor to make it with you. Yes, So what are
1:51
Speaker 1: the ingredients you have? Yes? So first we just started
1:54
Speaker 1: with some elbow macaroni. Then we have ground beef, some
1:59
Speaker 1: shredded cheese, stew, tomatoes, and plenty of catch up okay, perfect,
2:04
Speaker 1: And then of course we're gonna season to taste salt
2:06
Speaker 1: and pepper, season all and hats of okay, okay awesome.
2:09
Speaker 1: So while you start cooking, I maybe thrown some questions
2:14
Speaker 1: at you. So where are you originally from? I am
2:19
Speaker 1: from d C. I'm from Capitol Hill and my great
2:23
Speaker 1: grandparents are actually founding residents of Capitol Hill and that
2:29
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. Um. But by the time it got
2:32
Speaker 1: to the nineties, the neighborhood was it didn't have the
2:35
Speaker 1: same makeup as it had before, and the croc epidemic
2:39
Speaker 1: had sort of happened, and they started UH letting various
2:43
Speaker 1: different people win with housing vouchers and different things like that.
2:47
Speaker 1: So while I was going to school, me and my
2:50
Speaker 1: sister were the only two people in the entire school
2:54
Speaker 1: that had to pay for our lunch. Everybody else in
2:58
Speaker 1: the school was on welfare, and my mother, even though
3:01
Speaker 1: we had a lot of financial hurdles, she just always
3:04
Speaker 1: refused to get on welfare, so we still had to
3:07
Speaker 1: pay for our lunch. So everybody always assumed that we
3:11
Speaker 1: were these rich kids just because we could pay for
3:14
Speaker 1: our lunch, you know, um, not realizing that there would
3:18
Speaker 1: actually be times that we didn't have electricity, or we
3:21
Speaker 1: didn't have gays, or we didn't have water. We had
3:23
Speaker 1: normal struggles just like everyone else. But being in that
3:27
Speaker 1: position of of sort of seeing the UH dichonomy and
3:34
Speaker 1: and and sort of mixed world at the same time
3:38
Speaker 1: of my neighborhood and my friends, it gave me a
3:40
Speaker 1: different perspective on life, and that's why I became so
3:43
Speaker 1: passionate about financial literacy. Wow, so when did you decide
3:47
Speaker 1: to write history of the black dollar? So I decided
3:52
Speaker 1: to write history of the Black dollar when I was
3:53
Speaker 1: going through my own personal struggle. So I had became
3:57
Speaker 1: a global market research analysts, and while I was there
4:01
Speaker 1: and working at Prudential, I became the author of the
4:05
Speaker 1: first African American financial experience study, the reason It's Blacks
4:08
Speaker 1: and life insurance commercials. But I also had a vision
4:12
Speaker 1: for the reason for what the reason that there's currently
4:15
Speaker 1: blacks and life insurance commercials and financial services commercials. I
4:19
Speaker 1: was able to prove that black's own life insurance at
4:22
Speaker 1: an equal or higher value than other races, and nobody
4:25
Speaker 1: had ever researched that before. Whoa yeah literally, yeah, So
4:31
Speaker 1: that was crazy. And I, you know, had all of
4:35
Speaker 1: that success and I decided to start my company. But
4:39
Speaker 1: I was struggling to raise money because, as I'm sure
4:42
Speaker 1: you probably know, it's very hard for black women to
4:45
Speaker 1: raise money, and we only receive zero point zero two
4:50
Speaker 1: percent of funding. And with that, I was going through
4:54
Speaker 1: a really hard time and it got so bad that
4:56
Speaker 1: I didn't have any electricity, and I was walking down
5:00
Speaker 1: the street picking up change off the ground to be
5:01
Speaker 1: able to feed myself. This is while you were trying
5:06
Speaker 1: to get your company off this that's only a couple
5:10
Speaker 1: of years ago. I've never shared this before. Wow, I'm
5:14
Speaker 1: glad you're sharing it here because I'm excited to share.
5:17
Speaker 1: So how far from that point did the article come
5:20
Speaker 1: out afore saying that you were the next Steve Jobs?
5:23
Speaker 1: Because I remember seeing that and I was like, it's
5:25
Speaker 1: a black girl. Literally like a month later. So fast
5:30
Speaker 1: forward to I'm going through this hard period. I'm in
5:34
Speaker 1: this competition. I'm thinking I'm gonna win, and I'm lined
5:38
Speaker 1: up for a million dollars and I lose. And well,
5:42
Speaker 1: I didn't lose. I came in ninth. I came in
5:44
Speaker 1: ninth in the world. I mean, some people would consider
5:46
Speaker 1: that a big deal, but that didn't have the million
5:48
Speaker 1: dollars attached to it, so it might as well have
5:50
Speaker 1: been a loss. It might as well have been a
5:52
Speaker 1: hundred place to me. So I go through that whole
5:54
Speaker 1: period and then January of seventeen, um, I don't have
6:00
Speaker 1: any electricity, and I get to the point where I
6:03
Speaker 1: just started reading all of these black history books over
6:06
Speaker 1: and over again, just by candlelight because that's my only
6:10
Speaker 1: source of entertainment. And I realized that there is living
6:14
Speaker 1: by yourself at this point, are you know? I was.
6:17
Speaker 1: I was actually with my um X at the time,
6:21
Speaker 1: and I actually was going through a bit of a
6:23
Speaker 1: domestic violence situation as well, and it was just a
6:27
Speaker 1: completely just bad time. But I didn't have a job,
6:30
Speaker 1: I didn't have funding for the company. I had no
6:33
Speaker 1: way out. So my mentor adopted Maya ROCKI more uh Comings,
6:37
Speaker 1: who's the wife of a congressman, a logic comings. She
6:42
Speaker 1: was having a program for her organization, Center for Global
6:47
Speaker 1: Policy Solutions, and she allowed me to be able to
6:50
Speaker 1: launch the book there about a few weeks. Right before that,
6:54
Speaker 1: Google also hosted a competition in New York for the
6:57
Speaker 1: top thirty black women in the country and I happen
7:00
Speaker 1: to win. And so the lady that was one of
7:03
Speaker 1: the judges was also a writer for Forbes, and she
7:08
Speaker 1: came over and she interviewed me and she heard my
7:11
Speaker 1: story and she was like, oh my gosh, like you're
7:12
Speaker 1: vastling on the writing. I'm gonna do a story on you.
7:15
Speaker 1: And I didn't think anything of it. So fast forward.
7:18
Speaker 1: I have no electricity, I am washing my clothes in
7:23
Speaker 1: the bathtub. I am just you know, living the brokens
7:28
Speaker 1: of brokens of lives. You know. I got rats in
7:30
Speaker 1: my apartment and we're having to burn them in the backyard.
7:34
Speaker 1: There's murderers happening in my front yard. And it's just
7:38
Speaker 1: a whole insane situation going on. And it got to
7:42
Speaker 1: the point that I'm walking down the street and I
7:45
Speaker 1: literally go up to a like a crackhead, and I
7:49
Speaker 1: asked him for some money, and he reaches in his
7:53
Speaker 1: pocket and gives me a handful of pennies. And then
7:57
Speaker 1: he said, if I see you later, I'll give you
7:59
Speaker 1: a dollar. And I say, thank you, sir, I'll be
8:02
Speaker 1: looking for you at that dollar. And used to borrow
8:06
Speaker 1: from the convenience store lady, and we're so proud to
8:09
Speaker 1: pay your back hurd a little twenty cents. So this
8:11
Speaker 1: is what I'm in the midst of. Ok before the
8:14
Speaker 1: article comes out, Right before the article comes out, it's okay.
8:19
Speaker 1: So I decided to get out of the domestic violence situation.
8:24
Speaker 1: And it was right when the article comes out or
8:26
Speaker 1: after you read it, and then you're like, I'm worth more.
8:29
Speaker 1: The day before, Wow, the day before I moved back
8:36
Speaker 1: to my mother's house, which I hadn't done. And I
8:40
Speaker 1: wake up the next day and it's all types of
8:44
Speaker 1: people just screaming all over my Facebook page, and I'm like,
8:48
Speaker 1: what the heck is going on? And then I look
8:51
Speaker 1: and I'm like, Fords and Forest named me the next
8:54
Speaker 1: two jobs, and I was like, I just I just
8:57
Speaker 1: went through the house screaming. I Oh my god. It
9:05
Speaker 1: was just crazy. It was absolutely everybody was super happy.
9:11
Speaker 1: Everybody like just couldn't believe it was super happy, just
9:15
Speaker 1: over the moon and static and it was a very
9:19
Speaker 1: special moment. And so from there, I still a lot
9:25
Speaker 1: of people don't realize I didn't even have the product
9:27
Speaker 1: out when Ford say, mean the next step jobs that
9:30
Speaker 1: happened may third seen. From there, I was able to
9:34
Speaker 1: leverage the publicity that I got from being named the
9:38
Speaker 1: Next Step Jobs to then be able to um get
9:42
Speaker 1: funding for my company. I raised my first two hundred thousand,
9:47
Speaker 1: and then I put that into actually being able to
9:50
Speaker 1: build the app. We did two hundred thousand downloads in
9:53
Speaker 1: ten days. Because I also couldn't afford the ads like
9:56
Speaker 1: that so I reverse engineered um, Google Play and a
10:00
Speaker 1: few of the not Google Play, Google Ads, um, no
10:03
Speaker 1: Google Play. Anyway, I reverse engineered a few of the
10:08
Speaker 1: different advertising platforms, and I created my own algorithm for advertising.
10:15
Speaker 1: You you personally did this or you hired someone to
10:17
Speaker 1: do that. No, I personally did this. I'm a statistician
10:20
Speaker 1: by trade. So I personally sat down and I specialized
10:24
Speaker 1: in advertising. Okay, and so I personally sat down and
10:27
Speaker 1: reverse engineer um, Google AdWords, YouTube and Facebook and a
10:33
Speaker 1: few other things, and I came up with my own algorithm. Um.
10:36
Speaker 1: They were telling me that it was gonna cost three
10:39
Speaker 1: dollars a download. There were all types of experts telling
10:43
Speaker 1: me I would never get it one in three dollars,
10:45
Speaker 1: and I got it to per download. That's why they
10:49
Speaker 1: call you the next Steve Jobs. You thank you. So
10:53
Speaker 1: then we did two hundred thousand downloads in ten days.
10:56
Speaker 1: Apparently it was historic. We got a call from Google
10:58
Speaker 1: telling us they've never seen anything like it. We became
11:02
Speaker 1: the number one education I fin fourteen countries, top five
11:05
Speaker 1: and forty countries, and we just completely blew up. And
11:08
Speaker 1: then from there everything just went amazingly well. And we
11:13
Speaker 1: finally we were able to get on Breakfast Club the
11:15
Speaker 1: next year, and we achieved a lot of money from that,
11:18
Speaker 1: and it was just success, success, success, and then I
11:22
Speaker 1: broke my back. Well, I have a question before just
11:27
Speaker 1: rewinding back, how do you in those environments, coming from struggle,
11:33
Speaker 1: not having money, domestic domestic violence situation, how do you
11:37
Speaker 1: go from that and somehow seeing past the storm too?
11:42
Speaker 1: I'm gonna still keep focused on the bigger dream and
11:44
Speaker 1: not just settle for, you know, something easier and smaller,
11:50
Speaker 1: because my God promised me. Okay, it's as simple as that.
11:57
Speaker 1: I grew up as a deaconess. You know. I believe
12:00
Speaker 1: it takes the faith of a mustan seed to be
12:03
Speaker 1: able to move mountains. And my great grandmother had already
12:06
Speaker 1: told me that it was written, and I actually received
12:09
Speaker 1: a vision from God when I was six years old.
12:12
Speaker 1: So everything I do has never been about me. Um,
12:16
Speaker 1: I never really even I asked God for anything. I
12:18
Speaker 1: asked him to guide me and see would have me
12:20
Speaker 1: to go. So even if I wanted really bad, I said, God,
12:24
Speaker 1: if it's not for me, don't give it to me.
12:26
Speaker 1: So I believe in me doing that and keeping true
12:29
Speaker 1: to his vision and his word and not ever making
12:34
Speaker 1: it about me. Um, it has been able to got me.
12:39
Speaker 1: I will say there has been periods. There's been two
12:42
Speaker 1: periods where I kind of was like, Okay, what is this.
12:47
Speaker 1: The first one was when I didn't have electricity in
12:50
Speaker 1: January and I actually went and got a job at
12:55
Speaker 1: Olive Garden for two weeks for two weeks, and I
12:59
Speaker 1: kept telling Nerve, but I was like, this is just temporary,
13:01
Speaker 1: this is just temporary. But I was starving, literally starving.
13:05
Speaker 1: I had no food, eating out of food pantries, and
13:07
Speaker 1: then the food pantry food is expired, which is a
13:10
Speaker 1: whole another problem I'll work on one day, so for real,
13:14
Speaker 1: like they're serving expired foodstes right now, Like it's crazy.
13:19
Speaker 1: And if it wasn't, and you know, God work in
13:21
Speaker 1: mysterious ways, because if it was not for me going
13:23
Speaker 1: through that period, I wouldn't have a deeper understanding of
13:27
Speaker 1: the people that I'm trying to help, you know. So
13:29
Speaker 1: it was all for the benefit of people at the
13:33
Speaker 1: end of the day. Um. But basically I went through
13:38
Speaker 1: that period of having that job of being a bartender
13:41
Speaker 1: at Olive Garden and the there was a competition once
13:46
Speaker 1: again to get into this accelerator and I end up
13:49
Speaker 1: winning and I want I was like, told you, I'm out.
13:51
Speaker 1: It's been real, no need to see the check. I
13:54
Speaker 1: keep your touch. Also, that years actually just reminded me
14:02
Speaker 1: of something. M hmmm, um, what do you call it?
14:08
Speaker 1: New Year's Eve? When that period happened, I sat down
14:14
Speaker 1: and I applied to every single possible competition and accelerator
14:21
Speaker 1: that existed in the world, and it ended up being
14:24
Speaker 1: about seventy of them. And I did not go to
14:27
Speaker 1: sleep until I applied to every single one of them,
14:30
Speaker 1: and I ended up getting into about three of them.
14:33
Speaker 1: And that's how I then got accepted into that competition.
14:36
Speaker 1: I had already applied for um New Year's Eve, and
14:40
Speaker 1: then I had to go through the steps once I
14:42
Speaker 1: got down UM to the final ten, so I got
14:45
Speaker 1: that twenty five thousand. From there, I was able to
14:48
Speaker 1: get another seventy thousand from another from because remember I
14:51
Speaker 1: got three of them, so I accepted to another one
14:53
Speaker 1: was seventy thousand, So at one time I got a
14:56
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and UM and I was able to lever step.
15:01
Speaker 1: So all of that really worked out in my favor.
15:06
Speaker 1: And then fast forwarding to January twenty nineteen. I have
15:10
Speaker 1: like all this money lined up and you know, everything's
15:13
Speaker 1: going extremely well, and I go out to celebrate. Um,
15:16
Speaker 1: A T and T had just made me a celebrity
15:18
Speaker 1: ambassador and they gave me like this this goal. I mean,
15:21
Speaker 1: I go, um glass clack and it had like Queen
15:25
Speaker 1: Latifa and Tony Blair and Anderson Cooper were and like
15:28
Speaker 1: all of our signatures inscribed on it. It was a
15:30
Speaker 1: really big deal. And they put me on the board
15:34
Speaker 1: of like Dreaming Black with A T and T. So
15:37
Speaker 1: my team was like, come on, let's go celebrate. You
15:39
Speaker 1: know this that in the third and I went out
15:41
Speaker 1: to celebrate, slipped on something on the floor and broke
15:45
Speaker 1: my back and for real, broker, I think I've seen
15:48
Speaker 1: this on Facebook because I'm up broke my back, I
15:51
Speaker 1: think I remember seeing that. Yeah, like that for real
15:53
Speaker 1: happened in real life. And so uh look at you,
15:57
Speaker 1: you're walking good. Yeah. I was Pair Lives for seven weeks.
16:02
Speaker 1: I was on bier rest for three months. Um. I
16:05
Speaker 1: had to learn to rewalk again. UM. I still go
16:08
Speaker 1: to physical therapy once a week right now, and it's
16:13
Speaker 1: been a very humbling experience. UM. From there, I came
16:19
Speaker 1: out to l A and I ended up getting two
16:23
Speaker 1: opposition offers for my company for like thirty five million.
16:27
Speaker 1: And then I decided, so I'm like, that's a big deal.
16:32
Speaker 1: I don't even have vocals. Gone. Yeah, the people yesterday
16:35
Speaker 1: seemed to think that was a big deal. That is
16:37
Speaker 1: a big deal, and I hate to highlight them, but
16:41
Speaker 1: especially the fact that you're a black female woman, that's
16:44
Speaker 1: a huge, huge, Yeah, that's what they said too. I
16:49
Speaker 1: didn't really see it as a big deal, so I
16:54
Speaker 1: felt like it was chomp change take it. You turned
16:57
Speaker 1: it down. I turned it down. I've made billions for
17:00
Speaker 1: other companies, billions time and time and time again, so
17:06
Speaker 1: too for me to accept thirty five million to me
17:09
Speaker 1: for me personally is in salting and so um. I
17:13
Speaker 1: decided to turn it down. And I went to see
17:19
Speaker 1: one of my mentors who's the founder of cis one
17:23
Speaker 1: of the founders of Cisco Gas, and his company is
17:26
Speaker 1: worth like sixty billion dollars and it takes like two
17:29
Speaker 1: hours just to drive on his property to get to
17:31
Speaker 1: his house, and so that's real money money. That's why
17:37
Speaker 1: I gotta set the stage. That's that's real money, Okay,
17:41
Speaker 1: And the hour. The first hour is like kind of
17:45
Speaker 1: like flatish land and it has like a lake and
17:48
Speaker 1: like all of this, and you stop and you see
17:50
Speaker 1: the lake. And then the next hour is pure uphill
17:54
Speaker 1: to the top of the mountain. Okay, So I get
17:57
Speaker 1: to the top of the mountain and I say, how
18:00
Speaker 1: it's a pleasure to meet you. How much of this
18:02
Speaker 1: do you own? Question? And he says as far as
18:07
Speaker 1: you can see? And I said, okay, that's what I thought.
18:11
Speaker 1: Let's let's go. And during that meeting, I asked him
18:15
Speaker 1: if he felt as though I should take thirty five million,
18:18
Speaker 1: and he basically he also felt like it was chump change.
18:21
Speaker 1: He said, I don't even start conversations unless it's thirty
18:24
Speaker 1: million a aboff. And he was like, Angel, it takes
18:28
Speaker 1: the same of my time to make a million dollars
18:31
Speaker 1: as a due, to make a hundred million as a due,
18:33
Speaker 1: to make a billion. And you've probably seen me post
18:35
Speaker 1: that on Facebook. And that changed. That moment changed my life.
18:40
Speaker 1: And when I came down off of them out in
18:42
Speaker 1: I asked myself how kind of make a billion dollars?
18:48
Speaker 1: And I recently came up with a term um the
18:52
Speaker 1: night of my engagement party, and that is circumstantial visions.
18:59
Speaker 1: I had to remove circumstantial visions from my life. I
19:03
Speaker 1: had to remove me thinking that I was a black person,
19:06
Speaker 1: or that I was a female, or that I was
19:08
Speaker 1: from the hood, or that I wore a braid, or
19:11
Speaker 1: that I didn't go to an ivy Lee school or
19:14
Speaker 1: all of these various different circumstantial things that occurred that
19:21
Speaker 1: for the most part, we have been told you can't
19:24
Speaker 1: do this. You can't partner with a credit bureau, you
19:28
Speaker 1: can't create a credit card, you can't you can't do
19:32
Speaker 1: these things. You can't disrupt the financial services industry. You
19:36
Speaker 1: can't become one of the first people to intern um
19:39
Speaker 1: from America and China. All of these things I told
19:42
Speaker 1: that you can't do. And once I removed that from
19:45
Speaker 1: my mind, and I said, Okay, if I was an
19:48
Speaker 1: old white man with lots of money and the Vanderbilt
19:52
Speaker 1: s where my parents, what would I go do? And
19:56
Speaker 1: with that, I said, I would go partner with the
19:59
Speaker 1: top credit bureau. So that's what I did. After that,
20:02
Speaker 1: what would I do? I'll go partner with the top
20:04
Speaker 1: credit card company. So that's what I did. Okay, now
20:08
Speaker 1: I'm going to go partner with all the other fintech companies.
20:10
Speaker 1: So that's what I did. Yeah, So if people get
20:13
Speaker 1: nothing out of me being here today, it's definitely to
20:19
Speaker 1: dream prediculously and follow your visions. Do not be limited
20:25
Speaker 1: by what people tell you. People tell me all the
20:27
Speaker 1: time that they think I'm crazy for turning down Smart Smart.
20:36
Speaker 1: So people tell me all the time they think I'm
20:38
Speaker 1: crazy for turning down the thirty five million. But you
20:43
Speaker 1: have to know what's best for you and what's best
20:45
Speaker 1: for your life. And I live by vision other people
20:50
Speaker 1: try to put on you, but what you really have
20:52
Speaker 1: for yourself. So I want people to understand that, and
20:55
Speaker 1: don't worry about people underestimating you. You know, I call
20:58
Speaker 1: that the power were underestimation and be a trojan horse.
21:03
Speaker 1: When they decided to take down Troy and enter with
21:05
Speaker 1: the trojan horse, they didn't announced themselves. They presented it
21:09
Speaker 1: as a gift. They pretended as though they had left,
21:13
Speaker 1: and as though they were giving a gift to Troy,
21:16
Speaker 1: and they underestimated their opponent. They assumed that they in
21:21
Speaker 1: fact had left, and they welcomed the trojan horse right
21:25
Speaker 1: on his side, with the enemies inside of the horse.
21:32
Speaker 1: And so they waited until they were asleep. They didn't
21:35
Speaker 1: jump out, and it'say ah, got your second. They waited
21:39
Speaker 1: until they were asleep, and then they proceeded to burn
21:43
Speaker 1: it down. And by the time the Trojans woke up,
21:48
Speaker 1: their castle was already burning down. And that's how you
21:52
Speaker 1: have to be in life. You can't let the left
21:55
Speaker 1: hand know what the right hand is doing. If you
21:58
Speaker 1: put too much of your car is on the table,
22:01
Speaker 1: then what type of poker face do you have at all?
22:03
Speaker 1: And you're just making it easy for the enemy to
22:05
Speaker 1: be able to attack you. So people I find, especially
22:10
Speaker 1: you know these days in the millennial age, are so
22:12
Speaker 1: busy back brigging and boasting about what they got going
22:15
Speaker 1: on in their life and instead of kind of keeping
22:18
Speaker 1: their cards a little bit closer to their chest and
22:21
Speaker 1: not worrying about the impression that other people are having
22:25
Speaker 1: on them. Why why financial literacy, Well, my whole family
22:38
Speaker 1: is sold life insurance and so being in the community
22:42
Speaker 1: I grew up in, as well as going around and
22:44
Speaker 1: hearing people's different stories and my mother having to spend
22:47
Speaker 1: her saturdays. I cannot believe I'm making googleash right now.
22:50
Speaker 1: Shout out to my grandmother shout out to my grandmother
22:54
Speaker 1: and my entire Moses family. I am sitting here and
22:57
Speaker 1: making googlash. Wow, this is crazy financial literacy because my
23:01
Speaker 1: whole family sells life insurance. And growing up in the
23:03
Speaker 1: neighborhood that I did, and traveling around the country and
23:06
Speaker 1: hearing some people's stories, it always boggled my mind. It
23:10
Speaker 1: always boggled my mind while people didn't know how to
23:13
Speaker 1: manage their money. And it occurred to me that people
23:17
Speaker 1: literally did not know how to manage their money. I
23:19
Speaker 1: didn't know that you had to pay your bills on
23:22
Speaker 1: time before. I literally didn't know that. I didn't for real,
23:26
Speaker 1: I thought as long as you got your bills paid
23:29
Speaker 1: during the thirty day period that they counted. I didn't
23:33
Speaker 1: know that you actually needed to pay it on time
23:35
Speaker 1: on the first um as well as something I've now learned,
23:39
Speaker 1: it's even better if you pay it on the twenty
23:41
Speaker 1: second because that really helps even more. And so these
23:45
Speaker 1: are just things that I didn't learn growing up. So
23:49
Speaker 1: with credit Rich, you know, we round up us their
23:51
Speaker 1: spare change to pay their bills intelligently and help them
23:54
Speaker 1: optimize their credit score. And by simply helping them to
23:59
Speaker 1: pay their bills on time that in itself helps to
24:03
Speaker 1: raise their credit score and providing them with the financial
24:08
Speaker 1: literacy tools to then help them become even wealthier from it,
24:13
Speaker 1: which is why we name it credit rich because I
24:15
Speaker 1: hate seeing people that just sit around with a seven
24:18
Speaker 1: hundred credit score and do absolutely nothing with it. You
24:21
Speaker 1: should be leveraging that to acquire higher and higher wealth.
24:25
Speaker 1: And so what would be an example. Real estate will
24:29
Speaker 1: be an example. Um taking a heatlock um, which is
24:33
Speaker 1: a home equity loan. You could then take a heatlock out,
24:37
Speaker 1: but maybe invest that into private equity. You could take money,
24:40
Speaker 1: all of your full monk and invest that into private equity.
24:44
Speaker 1: You could be sharing the wealth of your friends and family.
24:47
Speaker 1: Let's say you have a seven hundred or eight hundred
24:49
Speaker 1: credit score. You could add your friends and family to
24:52
Speaker 1: your credit so that they then are able to receive
24:56
Speaker 1: some of that authorization and be able to increase their
24:59
Speaker 1: credit score in that way, but they don't have to
25:01
Speaker 1: actually get a card from you. So there's just a
25:05
Speaker 1: bunch of ways to be able to increase the wealth.
25:08
Speaker 1: And what's better than one person with an eight hundred
25:11
Speaker 1: card of score two? So yeah, So especially if if
25:17
Speaker 1: you're not giving them a card. You're just it's it's
25:19
Speaker 1: almost like you're giving them the power to be powerful
25:22
Speaker 1: on their own, and what they do with it is
25:24
Speaker 1: on them exactly. And I think that it's really empowering,
25:30
Speaker 1: UH to be able to teach people to fish for themselves.
25:34
Speaker 1: And even disabled people, you know, they might not be
25:37
Speaker 1: able to work, they might not be able to walk,
25:39
Speaker 1: but they still get that disabled paycheck and they need
25:42
Speaker 1: to be able to manage it and know what to
25:44
Speaker 1: do with it and make more money from it and
25:46
Speaker 1: give money to their kids. And so history is black dollar.
25:49
Speaker 1: It occurred to me when I was rereading book or T.
25:52
Speaker 1: Washington's UH from Slavery that he also wrote a book
25:57
Speaker 1: called Negroes and Business in nineteen o seven, and it
26:01
Speaker 1: I realized that the economic history of our community was
26:05
Speaker 1: just conveniently neglected from my black history pages. UM. At
26:09
Speaker 1: the same time, we were having sort of the earlier
26:14
Speaker 1: insurrections with people kind of fighting back against Jewish people
26:20
Speaker 1: when forty five at first got into office, and I
26:24
Speaker 1: said to myself, why do people understand and sympathize with
26:29
Speaker 1: the Jewish community but not the Black community. And it
26:33
Speaker 1: occurred to me because they read the Diary of Van Frank.
26:39
Speaker 1: The Diary of Van Frank is mandated across America. Yeah, now,
26:44
Speaker 1: tell me a book about a child slave or gym
26:48
Speaker 1: crawl era, or even just a black kid. Let's mandated
26:52
Speaker 1: across America. Oh there isn't one. Oh okay. Maybe that's
26:58
Speaker 1: why they don't understand to struggle. Maybe that's why they
27:03
Speaker 1: can empathize with something that happened four years in another
27:07
Speaker 1: country as opposed to something that happened for four hundred
27:11
Speaker 1: years in our country, because they literally don't know. I
27:16
Speaker 1: was just in Tulsa for the anniversary of the Black
27:21
Speaker 1: Wall Street Burning, and people that grew up there are
27:25
Speaker 1: unfamiliar with what happened with Tulsa. They have magically been
27:30
Speaker 1: able to take our history from the American history pages.
27:36
Speaker 1: And so it's my goal to have this book not
27:40
Speaker 1: only mandated as a Black history book, but as an
27:44
Speaker 1: American history book. And we're proud to be partnered with
27:47
Speaker 1: Forbes of Culture as well as Greenwood Bank and Marcia
27:51
Speaker 1: dison Um in an effort to be able to get
27:54
Speaker 1: this done. And we have a I don't know if
27:57
Speaker 1: I can even talk about this, but I think I
27:59
Speaker 1: can just mention it. Yeah, I mentioned it. Girl. We
28:01
Speaker 1: have a docuseries that's coming out on it as well.
28:04
Speaker 1: Where can people catch it? I can't say that. I
28:08
Speaker 1: can't say nothing that that's the teaser. Yeah. I remember
28:11
Speaker 1: when you published the History of the Black Dollar. I
28:14
Speaker 1: was on Facebook when you had walked into your bank
28:16
Speaker 1: and you had posted that you know, there was I
28:19
Speaker 1: for got thirty forty grand in your bank account and
28:21
Speaker 1: you thought it was some kind of bank mistake. What
28:26
Speaker 1: did that feel like when you found out no, that
28:28
Speaker 1: was actually your book selling and that was Amazon depositing
28:32
Speaker 1: money in your account. That was absolutely insane. You know.
28:36
Speaker 1: That's the shout out to Charlemagne um power of the
28:39
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club, and that came as a result of me
28:42
Speaker 1: going on Breakfast Club. I didn't think nothing of it,
28:46
Speaker 1: you know. I was just excited to be on there
28:48
Speaker 1: with Charlemagne because I think he's so real and um.
28:52
Speaker 1: And then I, like you said, I went to the
28:54
Speaker 1: bank and there was an extra thirty dollars in it.
28:57
Speaker 1: And what was your financial situation then going into the
29:00
Speaker 1: bank where you were you just closing a lot of
29:02
Speaker 1: deals at the time or was that like old snap?
29:05
Speaker 1: I think I maybe had Let's see, this is eighteen,
29:11
Speaker 1: so I maybe had maybe like twenty thousand in the
29:14
Speaker 1: bank at that time. Maybe not maybe not even that.
29:18
Speaker 1: I'm not even certain. It wasn't it wasn't a lot.
29:21
Speaker 1: It wasn't a lot. It was somewhere between ten and
29:24
Speaker 1: twenty thousand, I think in that period, um, because I
29:28
Speaker 1: had started making a little bit of money off of
29:30
Speaker 1: speaking engagements and stuff like that. UM, So it was
29:33
Speaker 1: somewhere around there. So it was definitely noticeable that it
29:39
Speaker 1: was just like, you know, additional thirty dollars in there,
29:44
Speaker 1: and I it was so crazy that I thought it
29:48
Speaker 1: was an error. So I went to the bank teller
29:51
Speaker 1: to tell her, and she was like, oh no, this
29:53
Speaker 1: was deposited, and I was like, from a whole girl.
29:58
Speaker 1: She was like Amazon. I was like you, I like
30:04
Speaker 1: all that came from my books, say from books. So
30:08
Speaker 1: it was like and I was like, I'm gonna I'm
30:11
Speaker 1: gonna rock this to the wheels fall off, and I have,
30:14
Speaker 1: and now this has turned into such a larger brand
30:18
Speaker 1: than I ever expected. We just partnered with a company
30:20
Speaker 1: called Answer Source. They're a major education technology company, and
30:25
Speaker 1: we partnered with them to turn the curriculum into what
30:28
Speaker 1: they're calling Gym's granular education modules. So there are these
30:32
Speaker 1: ten minute interactive sessions that walk you through the book
30:36
Speaker 1: and help you relive the experience of the history. Yes,
30:41
Speaker 1: and that is available, or history of the Black Dollar
30:43
Speaker 1: dot Com, History of the Black you heard that. I'm
30:46
Speaker 1: definitely a one I experience. So we're offering wholesale rates
30:50
Speaker 1: for schools and corporations and this is the future. This
30:54
Speaker 1: is our goal. This is like, this is my personal
30:57
Speaker 1: goal to make sure that its curriculum and these courses
31:02
Speaker 1: get into the schools across the country. While I love
31:05
Speaker 1: that you're you're using your power, your platform, your drive,
31:09
Speaker 1: your education, and your your whole upbringing to better our community,
31:14
Speaker 1: not just the black community, but financial literacy as a whole.
31:18
Speaker 1: Just the overall community of America benefits from this absolutely.
31:22
Speaker 1: And like I said on Breakfast Club, it's financial agriculture,
31:25
Speaker 1: it's not. It's definitely on focus on the Black community,
31:29
Speaker 1: but we have to be able to come together and
31:31
Speaker 1: just like when you are dealing with normal agriculture, you
31:34
Speaker 1: can't keep plotting the same crop over and over or
31:38
Speaker 1: that crop will die up. You have to be able
31:41
Speaker 1: to mix it so that you have the balance of
31:44
Speaker 1: the nutrients in order to be able to have the
31:46
Speaker 1: best fruits of your labor. So the same can be
31:49
Speaker 1: told from an economic perspective and all of us coming together,
31:52
Speaker 1: and the more they understand our economic history, the more
31:56
Speaker 1: that they will understand our economic future. So now let's
32:01
Speaker 1: try some googlass. Let's die. Let me know you want
32:05
Speaker 1: some more catch up or hot sauce. I'm gonna rate
32:07
Speaker 1: her goolash. Here we go. That is fantastic. That is fantastic.
32:17
Speaker 1: Thank you for another episode of Eating Wall Broke. Thank
32:20
Speaker 1: you really appreciate you coming out. I love being here
32:22
Speaker 1: and you made enough for the whole girl song everyone
32:24
Speaker 1: everybody can eat and I know you're going to the
32:27
Speaker 1: moon girl, So congratulations. Thank you so much for taking
32:31
Speaker 1: your time. Coming up. For more Eating Wall Broke from
32:36
Speaker 1: I Heeart Radio and The Black Effect, visit the I
32:39
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
32:42
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.