Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / The Businessman Hustler vs. The Hourly Worker Investor

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The Businessman Hustler vs. The Hourly Worker Investor · Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John Hobryant, a production
0:03
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey,
0:14
Speaker 1: this is John Hobriyant and this is Money and Wealth
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Speaker 1: Podcast Series Season two. Honored to be with you and
0:22
Speaker 1: to come at you again with another very personal example
0:29
Speaker 1: of success and failure in order to be a teaching
0:32
Speaker 1: tool for you on your journey to be self reliant.
0:37
Speaker 1: I want to start off by thanking everyone for making
0:40
Speaker 1: this a top podcast in the world. Now one of
0:43
Speaker 1: the top I believe five percent of all podcasts in
0:46
Speaker 1: the world. Will thank you very much to all your
0:48
Speaker 1: friends about it. Let's now get into this. The title
0:53
Speaker 1: of this podcast is the Businessman Hustler Versus the hourly
0:58
Speaker 1: worker Investor. The businessman hustler versus an hourly worker investor?
1:06
Speaker 1: Who do you bet on? It's a deeply personal episode.
1:13
Speaker 1: It contrasts two very powerful forces in my life. My father,
1:20
Speaker 1: Johnny will Smith, hard working, hard driving businessman, self made
1:27
Speaker 1: if you want to call it that. He owned multiple
1:31
Speaker 1: ventures by the time I was a young man and
1:34
Speaker 1: could recognize what was going on around me. But he
1:39
Speaker 1: lacked financial literacy, which I did not understand the value
1:45
Speaker 1: of it. All at all as a young person, at
1:48
Speaker 1: least now at that time I'm now talking about you
1:53
Speaker 1: know what I'm thinking about my life, my dad and
1:56
Speaker 1: seeing payroll and meet the payroll of the front door
1:59
Speaker 1: of for front screen door and then front metal door
2:03
Speaker 1: of our place on thirty fifth Street in Western. It
2:08
Speaker 1: was four or five years of age, actually, I'm sorry
2:10
Speaker 1: Santa Barbara Boulevard which was now Martin the King Boulevard,
2:13
Speaker 1: and then later on thirty fifth in Western when I
2:15
Speaker 1: want to live with him as a young man, he
2:19
Speaker 1: had a cement contracting business. He had a at that time,
2:24
Speaker 1: but before that, when they were my mom and dad
2:26
Speaker 1: were together, they owned a cement contributing business. That was
2:31
Speaker 1: his cash flow business. They had a nursery business, took
2:36
Speaker 1: care of kids. I was the first client. They owned
2:40
Speaker 1: their own home on Santa Barbara now Martin the King Boulevard.
2:43
Speaker 1: Those in Los Angeles know these street names. We owned
2:48
Speaker 1: an eight unit apartment building that they bought for eighteen
2:54
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. You can make the payment on the note
2:59
Speaker 1: renting two units. They lived in one of the units.
3:03
Speaker 1: This is before they bought their own home. The rest
3:06
Speaker 1: was profit that in an apartment building today is worth
3:12
Speaker 1: millions of dollars. Last time I checked, it was something
3:16
Speaker 1: north of six million dollars, six to eight million dollars.
3:23
Speaker 1: They owned a gas station at Western and Vernon, I
3:30
Speaker 1: believe Southeast corner still there to this day. They were bawling.
3:36
Speaker 1: They were married, high school education, up from the South,
3:41
Speaker 1: migrated to Los Angeles. I'll tell you a little bit
3:44
Speaker 1: about that story. It's also in my book Up from Nothing,
3:47
Speaker 1: A little bit of my book Financial Literacy for All.
3:50
Speaker 1: But Johnny will Smith and Wuanita Smith were for a minute,
3:57
Speaker 1: literally the American dream. My mother, Jannita Smith, was an
4:04
Speaker 1: hourly worker. She had a side hustle making handicrafts, robes
4:11
Speaker 1: and things like that. She made from terry cloth, basically
4:18
Speaker 1: bath house She turned that into little pieces of artwork
4:25
Speaker 1: that you wore, robes, kitchen covers for cooking, playful aprons
4:42
Speaker 1: that I can't explain in public now because it was
4:45
Speaker 1: pretty embarrassing. And I'll just say you I was a
4:47
Speaker 1: model and my mother used to put the female parts
4:50
Speaker 1: in the male parts. She'd make those and stuff the
4:54
Speaker 1: male parts with stuffing, and we did to come out
4:58
Speaker 1: walk in the living room and we'd have to we'd
5:01
Speaker 1: have to model the aprons that she made and then
5:07
Speaker 1: lift up, you know, lift up the private parts to
5:11
Speaker 1: make everybody laugh and hopefully they buy something. I could
5:14
Speaker 1: probably assume my mother for looking back, sue my mom
5:18
Speaker 1: and my dad for child abuse or something. But at
5:22
Speaker 1: the time when you thought it was cute, actually no idea.
5:24
Speaker 1: I was embarrassed back then too, now I recalled. But
5:26
Speaker 1: my mother was an industrious she was. That was her
5:29
Speaker 1: side house with though her primary business. Her primary business
5:32
Speaker 1: was a paycheck and she worked at McDonald's Aircraft, which
5:35
Speaker 1: later was so de Boeing Aircraft. But she had this
5:37
Speaker 1: side hustle, which I'll get to in the moment because
5:39
Speaker 1: it's important, because it's important. So she was an hourly
5:42
Speaker 1: worker and quietly built wealth through discipline, smart investing, and
5:48
Speaker 1: excellent credit. So when you don't have inheritance, when you
5:51
Speaker 1: don't have somebody to give you something right, then you've
5:56
Speaker 1: got to find And if life is about compounding, right,
5:59
Speaker 1: you make money during the day, you build wealth and
6:02
Speaker 1: you'll sleep okay. And if you don't have compounded cash,
6:08
Speaker 1: compounded financial capital because daddy mummy did well and handed
6:13
Speaker 1: it to you, which are a lot of mainstream families
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Speaker 1: have that legacy. Black families typically black and brown families
6:18
Speaker 1: typically do not. Okay, because this generation might be the
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Speaker 1: first generation that made any real money right and putting
6:27
Speaker 1: it over the side now is how you build wealth
6:30
Speaker 1: for the next generation. So this might be the this generation.
6:33
Speaker 1: You might feel stressed out because you're trying to do
6:34
Speaker 1: it all out of one pocket. Can I get an
6:37
Speaker 1: a man, Everybody listening, this can relate to this. You're
6:40
Speaker 1: trying to pay it back, spend it, finance the now,
6:45
Speaker 1: and pay it forward all out of one paycheck or
6:47
Speaker 1: out of one hustle. So if you feel stressed out
6:51
Speaker 1: and don't know why, that's the reason. It's the reason
6:54
Speaker 1: because you're in the season of doing it all and
6:58
Speaker 1: it's not. If it doesn't feel easy, that's because it's
7:01
Speaker 1: not right. You're doing generational legacy work and trying to
7:08
Speaker 1: live your best life. So I commend you. And so
7:13
Speaker 1: compounding education, compounding hustle, hustle on hustle creates more hustle.
7:20
Speaker 1: If you get up early, work later, get up earlier,
7:24
Speaker 1: stay late, short lunch. After a while, you outrun your competitor.
7:30
Speaker 1: Because the devil's a lazy bastard. Yeah, I said, the
7:36
Speaker 1: devil's lazy. The devil's a fall of angel, right, So
7:40
Speaker 1: even God gives permission, the devil permission to exist. He
7:43
Speaker 1: likes shortcuts, and he likes people who don't want to
7:46
Speaker 1: hustle and don't want to do the work. And love
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Speaker 1: is work. Non love is laziness. Anti love is evil. Exists,
7:52
Speaker 1: but it's very rare. Most people are just lazy, intellectually lazy,
7:56
Speaker 1: physically lazy, financially lazy, spiritually lazy. Yeah, they just don't
8:02
Speaker 1: want to do the work. They want somebody to do
8:03
Speaker 1: it for them. So if you do the work. To
8:06
Speaker 1: quote my friend Tony Wrestler, who's one of the two
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Speaker 1: hundredth richest man and most successful successful self made businessmen
8:13
Speaker 1: in the world today, Tony Wrestler would say, if you
8:17
Speaker 1: don't quit, you can't fail. If you don't quit, you
8:22
Speaker 1: can't fail. I would say it differently and say, you
8:26
Speaker 1: just have to take note for vitamins that success is
8:29
Speaker 1: going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm, old
8:32
Speaker 1: rounded through it, you're going to get to it. So
8:35
Speaker 1: my mother had My mother and my father had this
8:38
Speaker 1: sense of undying resiliency and hustle. They were not lazy,
8:43
Speaker 1: So let's check that box as a success feature. I
8:47
Speaker 1: wrote in my book I think it was. It was
8:53
Speaker 1: the memo or Up from Nothing about the five pillars
8:59
Speaker 1: of SSS, and I talk about as much education as
9:05
Speaker 1: you can shove down your throat, understanding, financial literacy, family
9:12
Speaker 1: structure and resiliency, self esteem and confidence, role models, an environment.
9:20
Speaker 1: If you have these five things, even with racism, bias, discrimination,
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Speaker 1: an unpleasant political environment, unsupportive environment period in the world,
9:32
Speaker 1: maybe even a repressive environment leaning down on your world,
9:36
Speaker 1: you'll still succeed. If you need to write those five
9:41
Speaker 1: things down, replay this, take the podcast back thirty seconds,
9:46
Speaker 1: replay it again, write it down on your iPhone or
9:49
Speaker 1: your Android wherever you keep your notes. These five things.
9:52
Speaker 1: If you have these five things and you have this
9:55
Speaker 1: resiliency factor, I said, what did Tony say, if you
9:58
Speaker 1: don't quit, you can't fail. I told you. John Brian says,
10:01
Speaker 1: we're going to take no for vitamins. Success is going
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Speaker 1: from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. We're never
10:06
Speaker 1: going to give up. You will fit in time, you
10:09
Speaker 1: will succeed if you have three of these things or
10:14
Speaker 1: more you're going to go from surviving mode to thriving mode,
10:18
Speaker 1: and maybe the building mode, but you'll at least go
10:20
Speaker 1: from surviving mode to thriving mode. You don't want to
10:22
Speaker 1: be in surviving mode. If you have less than these
10:24
Speaker 1: three things, any three of these things, you're in trouble again.
10:29
Speaker 1: As much as education, you shut down your throat, family
10:31
Speaker 1: structure and resiliency, well, financial literacy, self well, family education, right,
10:39
Speaker 1: financial literacy, family structure and resiliency, self esteem and confidence,
10:45
Speaker 1: role models, an environment. As you're going to hear from
10:47
Speaker 1: my example, my family had most of those things but
10:51
Speaker 1: then lost some critical elements. And I want you to
10:56
Speaker 1: tell me in the notes when you see this in
10:59
Speaker 1: pieces of this in social media, which of the five
11:01
Speaker 1: things did my family my mother and my father mess up,
11:05
Speaker 1: screw up, miss out on, etc. Because they had it
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Speaker 1: all and then it fell apart. So my mother again
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Speaker 1: had compounded good credit, right, compounded self education, compounding discipline,
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Speaker 1: right compounding focus, compounding good values plus compounding hustle. The result.
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Speaker 1: This is a real life case study and why hustle
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Speaker 1: alone isn't enough to be successful, sustainably successful, and how strategy,
11:43
Speaker 1: stewardship and financial literacy win the long game. So let's
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Speaker 1: now get into this. Who do you bet on the
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Speaker 1: businessman who owns a gas station in an apartment building
12:00
Speaker 1: or the ali worker who with good credit in a
12:03
Speaker 1: long term plan is betting on herself my mother, Well,
12:12
Speaker 1: my father made the money, but my mother built the wealth. Interesting,
12:17
Speaker 1: how is that possible? We're going to talk about these
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Speaker 1: two people who I love, my parents, and the very
12:24
Speaker 1: different money legacies they left behind. Let's talk about my
12:30
Speaker 1: mother and my father as a couple. Married. My dad
12:37
Speaker 1: Johnny Smith. His father, RB Smith, was a sharecropper. My
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Speaker 1: second great grandfather on my father's side, George Young, was
12:47
Speaker 1: in the Civil War. Uh, part of the answer to
12:50
Speaker 1: the call for the emancipation proclamations. Maybe or I got
12:54
Speaker 1: my social justice bones from I served in Memphis, Tennessee
13:00
Speaker 1: for the Union calls. Fought for justice and freedom for
13:03
Speaker 1: those who never gave him justice or freedom or protection,
13:07
Speaker 1: protected those who didn't protect him. Long list of self
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Speaker 1: reliant doers. My father grandfather was a sharecropper. Dad was
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Speaker 1: a businessman. I'm an entrepreneur, So there's your role modeling example.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know my dad was financially literate. I just
13:24
Speaker 1: knew my dad hustled hard and worked hard, and so
13:26
Speaker 1: I'm following that write the check versus cast to check
13:31
Speaker 1: model right the check, meaning you're a business owner. My
13:35
Speaker 1: dad was very successful and as seement contracting business, he
13:40
Speaker 1: did it with his own hands. He would go to
13:43
Speaker 1: a job, he would guestimate the cost of that job,
13:49
Speaker 1: which was the cost of cement. It's the products that
13:52
Speaker 1: make cement the hourly worker wage for the workers. And
13:57
Speaker 1: he had all races of workers working for him as
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Speaker 1: one of the And I have no problem with white
14:01
Speaker 1: people or Hispanics or Asians or anybody else, of course blacks,
14:04
Speaker 1: because everybody worked for my father. Everybody respected him as
14:08
Speaker 1: the boss, the boss man. They called him the employer,
14:12
Speaker 1: the guy who paid them their paychecks so they can
14:14
Speaker 1: then pay their bills. And they were lined up every
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Speaker 1: Friday for payroll. He paid them in cash back in
14:19
Speaker 1: the day. But they all respected them. And I love
14:22
Speaker 1: that seeing that respect that gave my dad. Well, he
14:26
Speaker 1: would just calculate in his head or on a piece
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Speaker 1: of paper a notebook he had what the job was
14:32
Speaker 1: to make this redo or to lay out for a
14:36
Speaker 1: first time a sidewalk or a driveway, which were typical
14:43
Speaker 1: his typical jobs. And I remember one day he was
14:47
Speaker 1: trying to beat out another contractor who had bid let's
14:51
Speaker 1: just say, twelve hundred dollars for this job. My dad
14:55
Speaker 1: not knowing what the heart costs were, but wanting the job.
15:00
Speaker 1: Around all these jobs, I sit in the passenger receipt
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Speaker 1: of this pickup truck, burning up to death in this
15:06
Speaker 1: hot truck with no air conditioning, by side of my
15:09
Speaker 1: head stuck to the window because it was so high
15:11
Speaker 1: in the south central Los Angeles. As I went to
15:13
Speaker 1: sleep trying to get through the twenty job estimates he
15:16
Speaker 1: went through and it was really beautiful that he made
15:18
Speaker 1: me hang with him because my daddy was not a
15:20
Speaker 1: baby daddy, he was a father. So on a commend
15:23
Speaker 1: him for that. We have to, I think, claim our kids.
15:26
Speaker 1: We shouldn't be saying baby mama or baby father. He's
15:29
Speaker 1: a father and a mother. That's your child. You own them,
15:32
Speaker 1: you own their legacy in making and they know what
15:36
Speaker 1: you give them. You know, and my dad gave me
15:38
Speaker 1: everything he had. It wasn't everything I needed, but it
15:42
Speaker 1: was everything he had and for that I will forever
15:45
Speaker 1: be thankful to Johnny will Smith, who even as you
15:50
Speaker 1: can hear in a minute, took care of my brother
15:51
Speaker 1: and my sister who was not his children. So a
15:54
Speaker 1: very honorable man and bastard, Andrew Young would say that
15:57
Speaker 1: men and women fail for three reasons, eric and pride
16:00
Speaker 1: and greed. My dad was not arrogant, not in a
16:05
Speaker 1: traditional sense. He was not greedy at all, but he
16:11
Speaker 1: was full of pride, and that pride might have brought
16:13
Speaker 1: it on a slight bit of arrogance because he wouldn't listen,
16:17
Speaker 1: he wouldn't take advice, certainly not from my mother. So anyway,
16:31
Speaker 1: he met this job four thousand dollars, and the problem
16:36
Speaker 1: was that the costs he found out later, or maybe worse,
16:40
Speaker 1: did not find out later, but it was obvious when
16:42
Speaker 1: he went broke the cost of that job was at
16:45
Speaker 1: least one thousand dollars, probably one thousand and fifty or
16:47
Speaker 1: eleven hundred dollars. So my dad confused cash flow with profit.
16:55
Speaker 1: Very important point, he thought, the cash flow getting that back,
16:58
Speaker 1: And again, what do we do in the black community,
17:00
Speaker 1: Give me that bag, give me that dollar, give me
17:02
Speaker 1: that cash. You know, we think that we over index
17:06
Speaker 1: the importance of cash. Cash is nothing more than a
17:10
Speaker 1: transfer of value. That's all it is. But we think
17:14
Speaker 1: it's really more than that. And we think we have
17:17
Speaker 1: a bunch of cash, a bunch of bills in our pocket,
17:19
Speaker 1: then that means something. It might mean you're going to
17:22
Speaker 1: go broke when out of that money disappears, and it
17:25
Speaker 1: will disappear because if your outflow sees your inflow, then
17:27
Speaker 1: your overhead will be your downfall. And with my father,
17:31
Speaker 1: he would spend a dollar, but he would make a dollar,
17:35
Speaker 1: but spend a dollar fifty. So the more money he made,
17:38
Speaker 1: the broker we got. And I say we because as
17:41
Speaker 1: you're here in a minute, we lost everything. So my
17:47
Speaker 1: dad back up the story a little bit. My dad
17:49
Speaker 1: was doing very well, as I seeing a contractor would
17:53
Speaker 1: buy a new car from Detroit every couple of years,
17:56
Speaker 1: because that's how you profile back then, your success. Because
18:00
Speaker 1: black people could not buy cars like that directly from
18:04
Speaker 1: a car dealership or you know anybody. I mean, you
18:07
Speaker 1: could not in the sixties just go buy a fancy
18:10
Speaker 1: new car. People wouldn't sell it to you. The dealers
18:13
Speaker 1: wouldn't sell it to you you're a black man. My
18:15
Speaker 1: dad went full floss. He would drive the car to
18:20
Speaker 1: the manufacturer in Detroit, and he had family in East
18:24
Speaker 1: Saint Louis, and so he would go through East Saint
18:30
Speaker 1: Louis to visit his family and then go to Detroit
18:34
Speaker 1: to sell the car and buy a new and to
18:36
Speaker 1: trade it in and buy a new one. Well, this
18:38
Speaker 1: time he ran into my fine and mouth one, Nita Smith,
18:44
Speaker 1: and the rest is history. He fell in love, and
18:48
Speaker 1: my mother said, well, if you want me, you got
18:50
Speaker 1: to take my two children with me. It was my
18:52
Speaker 1: brother Donnie Dave jon L. Harris and my sister Maral Hoskins,
18:57
Speaker 1: two brilliant, amazing people and who were from a former
19:03
Speaker 1: marriage my mother had. And my mother was all about
19:07
Speaker 1: her kids. And my mother grew up in a shotgun shack,
19:10
Speaker 1: and he'st Saint Louis. You want to know about more
19:12
Speaker 1: about her story, her backstory, you can read one of
19:14
Speaker 1: my last books, I believe is detail it up from nothing.
19:19
Speaker 1: And so dad says, yes, happy to do that. I
19:23
Speaker 1: wanted to do that. So they packed up everything in
19:25
Speaker 1: my dad's car, including the two kids I was not
19:28
Speaker 1: yet born, moved to la That's where I was born,
19:31
Speaker 1: in Good Samaritan Hospital. They start building, building, building together,
19:36
Speaker 1: and I'm now I come in this world. They get busy.
19:39
Speaker 1: They have me. I come in the world, and about
19:41
Speaker 1: four or five years of age, they're having some serious
19:46
Speaker 1: differences of opinion. But my mother is like, that's okay,
19:50
Speaker 1: you know, this is normal. I'll deal with whatever it is.
19:53
Speaker 1: He's a good man. He's taking care of my kids
19:55
Speaker 1: and me. But my mother had saved four thousand dollars
19:59
Speaker 1: to send my brother, Dave Darnelle Harris to a college
20:03
Speaker 1: of his choice, and four thousand dollars in nineteen sixty
20:11
Speaker 1: eight nineteen seventy, I think it was in nineteen seventy
20:14
Speaker 1: was a lot of moolah. And I was born in
20:17
Speaker 1: sixty six to nineteen seventy and I was about four
20:21
Speaker 1: or five years old, and she was saving that money
20:25
Speaker 1: so he could go become whoever he wanted to be.
20:28
Speaker 1: My dad found the money because my mother did not
20:30
Speaker 1: put the money in the bank account. She had it
20:32
Speaker 1: under a mattress and wherever she saved. Please open a
20:34
Speaker 1: bank account, everybody. The bank account is FDIC insured right
20:40
Speaker 1: for your deposits. So this would not have this whole
20:43
Speaker 1: story about to tell you. It would be different if
20:45
Speaker 1: my mother put the money into a bank account, but
20:48
Speaker 1: black you don't trust banks because of the history of
20:50
Speaker 1: the Freeman's Bank and all the other stuff, which I understand,
20:53
Speaker 1: But this is a new world. I'm telling you to
20:55
Speaker 1: upgrade your software. Put your money into the bank in
20:59
Speaker 1: your own name. In this example, this bank my mother
21:02
Speaker 1: and dad. Mom and dad probably had a joint account,
21:04
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but she surely should have had a
21:07
Speaker 1: separate account for this money in her own name. He
21:10
Speaker 1: found the money, he wasted it on some hair brain thing,
21:14
Speaker 1: some investment or something he thought he assumed was going
21:17
Speaker 1: to be important and successful. And as usual, he was
21:21
Speaker 1: wrong about this. He was great at semen contracting. The
21:24
Speaker 1: rest of the stuff he was speculating on was not
21:26
Speaker 1: so great because my dad game was financially illiterate, I
21:29
Speaker 1: found out later. So he wasted the money and Mom
21:35
Speaker 1: had had it. Mom was like, Okay, I'm done. You
21:38
Speaker 1: can mess over me, can messle with my kids and
21:40
Speaker 1: with my mother. What I was not thinking about then,
21:42
Speaker 1: but I now know. What I know now is that
21:45
Speaker 1: she's like, well, look, I got two more kids in
21:47
Speaker 1: the line here. This is the oldest kid. If you're
21:49
Speaker 1: doing this to my oldest kid, then the rest of
21:53
Speaker 1: my kids, I'm just asking for pay. So at this
21:57
Speaker 1: point we owned keep in mind, this is nineteen seventy.
22:00
Speaker 1: We own our own home Semen on Santa Barbara Boulevard
22:06
Speaker 1: now called Martin the King Boulevard. We owned a gas station.
22:17
Speaker 1: The home we owned was at twenty fourteen West Santa
22:20
Speaker 1: Barbara Avenue in Los Angeles, now Martin the King Boulevard.
22:23
Speaker 1: We owned a eight ent apartment building, the gas station,
22:27
Speaker 1: nursery business, seman contracting business, which was cash flow. So
22:30
Speaker 1: nursery business and the contract contracting business were cash flow businesses. Right.
22:35
Speaker 1: The single family home was an asset that appreciated. The
22:41
Speaker 1: gas station was cash flow plus an asset that could appreciate.
22:45
Speaker 1: The apartment building was cash flow plus an asset that
22:48
Speaker 1: could appreciate. And we probably had a couple of side hustles,
22:52
Speaker 1: but my mother's side hustle of doing handicrafts that came later,
22:57
Speaker 1: But just that alone would have made us mot millionaires
23:01
Speaker 1: and the whole family would have had generational wealth. Mom
23:05
Speaker 1: and Dad get over, get into this. I remember the fights.
23:08
Speaker 1: I had to call my mother, call my brother, my sister. Sorry,
23:10
Speaker 1: Monty called the police. We called her Montemorrow. We called
23:13
Speaker 1: her Manti. She called the police and put somebody answer
23:16
Speaker 1: and somehow gave me the phone. Don't know how I
23:18
Speaker 1: get the phone and policemen. Come, come, come. My daddy's
23:22
Speaker 1: being up by my mother. My mother took off that
23:24
Speaker 1: three inch pump. She was a church. It was it
23:26
Speaker 1: was a Sunday after church, and she's like, no man's
23:30
Speaker 1: going to ever put his hand on me again. That
23:32
Speaker 1: happened in her first or their first husband. By the way,
23:35
Speaker 1: Number one calls for domestic abuse. Money. Number one calls
23:39
Speaker 1: for divorce. Money. Number one calls for heart attacks. Stress.
23:45
Speaker 1: Number one calls for stress. Money. Hello, if your day's
23:49
Speaker 1: not about God or love, your day is about money.
23:52
Speaker 1: That's why we need to understand money. We lived in
23:54
Speaker 1: a capitalist democracy, right, we got to understand how this
23:56
Speaker 1: game is played. So uh there getting into it, and
24:02
Speaker 1: she popped them over the side of his head with
24:04
Speaker 1: that little that three inch pomp here didn't grow there
24:06
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life, right on the ball
24:08
Speaker 1: of his head. He stopped messing with it. But she's like, Okay,
24:11
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit around here and get beat I
24:13
Speaker 1: can't protect my kids. So my mother filed for divorce
24:16
Speaker 1: and left them. Now, California is a community property state.
24:19
Speaker 1: Please hear me, My mother could have taken it in
24:22
Speaker 1: for everything he had. Anybody listening to this, and you
24:26
Speaker 1: live in California, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
24:28
Speaker 1: I grew up there. It is a California is a
24:31
Speaker 1: community property state at least half. And she's got these
24:34
Speaker 1: kids also. I mean, she could have left them destitute,
24:38
Speaker 1: but she wanted. All she wanted was her freedom. All
24:41
Speaker 1: she wanted the ability to go out and do for
24:43
Speaker 1: herself and create her own life. And she had enough
24:47
Speaker 1: confidence in herself, so she left with nothing. And it
24:51
Speaker 1: just dawned on me recently that this was how much
24:53
Speaker 1: courage she had, because she could have again, she could
24:56
Speaker 1: have left the house, left and kept the house and
25:00
Speaker 1: everything else, and he had to go get an apartment
25:02
Speaker 1: or live with friends. She left with the kids lived
25:06
Speaker 1: to go stay. So now he's got all these assets.
25:09
Speaker 1: Now she goes to stay with her girlfriend. And you
25:12
Speaker 1: can listen to the you know again, check out the
25:15
Speaker 1: backstory of this in my book Up from Nothing I
25:18
Speaker 1: believe it is, and financial Literacy for All, because it's
25:20
Speaker 1: an interesting backstory with the guy who I ended up
25:23
Speaker 1: living with temporarily a guy named O C. I believe
25:27
Speaker 1: who saved my life while staying there temporarily while my
25:33
Speaker 1: mother what was her girlfriend and her girlfriend's boyfriend who
25:38
Speaker 1: saved my life? But my mother wanted to stay with
25:40
Speaker 1: her girlfriend so she could get a job, or she
25:43
Speaker 1: did working in McDonald douglas Aircraft For that she said
25:46
Speaker 1: they equivalent of fifteen dollars to eighteen dollars an hour,
25:48
Speaker 1: fifteen dollars an hour when she started, eighteen dollars an
25:50
Speaker 1: hour about that when she retired, plus benefits in a pension.
25:59
Speaker 1: My mother worked that job, did not have bills because
26:03
Speaker 1: she stayed with her girlfriend, used the money from not
26:06
Speaker 1: having bills to save a down payment. And mind you,
26:10
Speaker 1: the guy her the girl, her girlfriend's boyfriend saved my
26:13
Speaker 1: life when I fell on this porch. But again that's
26:15
Speaker 1: the backstory not important to take up in this podcast.
26:20
Speaker 1: He was ultimately murdered over money, by the way, the
26:24
Speaker 1: guy who saved my life. Mom then bounces from that
26:28
Speaker 1: house that she stayed with her girlfriend, moves to one
26:33
Speaker 1: five five oh two South Freyley. Don't you you know
26:35
Speaker 1: when you buy a house and you own it, you
26:37
Speaker 1: remember the address, right, My mother bought her first home
26:40
Speaker 1: one five five oh too South Freyley in Compton, California,
26:45
Speaker 1: and I was in nirvana. I mean it was our
26:51
Speaker 1: own home. It was me and my sister. My brother
26:53
Speaker 1: had okay to check this out. So my brother, because
26:56
Speaker 1: he couldn't I go to college of his choice, he
26:58
Speaker 1: ended up happy to go into the Navy to get
27:01
Speaker 1: his education. He wanted a four year education. So the
27:04
Speaker 1: Navy said, fine, we'll give you an education, but you're
27:06
Speaker 1: going to have to give us four years of military service.
27:10
Speaker 1: Whether the Navy understands its psychology, the psychology people very well,
27:14
Speaker 1: and the chances are once you get in the Navy
27:16
Speaker 1: and you get that environment in your bloodstream, they know
27:20
Speaker 1: that there is at least a fifty percent chance, if
27:23
Speaker 1: not better, you're going to stay well. My brother stayed.
27:26
Speaker 1: My brother stayed four years, eight years, ten years, twenty years.
27:29
Speaker 1: He retired as a commissioned officer in the Navy as
27:33
Speaker 1: an intelligence officer. Very proud of him. Dot He's David
27:37
Speaker 1: Downare Harris. He married, moved to Hawaii, married a wayan
27:40
Speaker 1: Apwayian kids. You started to get the memo all this
27:44
Speaker 1: changed his life. There's little four thousand dollars decision my
27:46
Speaker 1: dad made change his entire the trajectory of his entire life.
27:51
Speaker 1: You don't think money makes a difference. Money money can
27:54
Speaker 1: be I mean, as the Bible suggests, the Bible talks
27:58
Speaker 1: about money more than it's talk about any other topic,
28:01
Speaker 1: more than two thousand mentions. Money is not evil. It's
28:05
Speaker 1: the love of money. What you need to do is
28:09
Speaker 1: understand how to use it before it uses you. So
28:13
Speaker 1: my brother goes to the military, and he's got a
28:15
Speaker 1: great life. He's required. He's on the second retirement from
28:19
Speaker 1: naval contracting because of the contracts with companies that will
28:22
Speaker 1: do business with the navy. So he's a real expert
28:24
Speaker 1: at what he does. But how his life had been
28:26
Speaker 1: different if he had that four thousand dollars could have
28:28
Speaker 1: gone on college of his choice and did as he liked.
28:31
Speaker 1: So my mother then had the chance now to curate
28:36
Speaker 1: the life of my sister's older than me and me,
28:40
Speaker 1: and she did a fabulous job. None of these kids
28:42
Speaker 1: went to prison or jail or had any because we
28:46
Speaker 1: were more afraid of her than we were the streets.
28:50
Speaker 1: So so far in the story, you like, well, John,
28:53
Speaker 1: I understand like your dad's winning in fact, your dad won?
28:59
Speaker 1: What what's how do you make some sense out of this?
29:06
Speaker 1: My dad was, you know, charismatic and driven, proud black businessman.
29:11
Speaker 1: An error of this wasn't easy. But he had no
29:14
Speaker 1: financial literacy. He had no credit management, no systems around
29:19
Speaker 1: his business, no estate planning, and he didn't understand my
29:23
Speaker 1: mother was a mathematical genius. Right. My mother wanted the
29:28
Speaker 1: Smith worked an hourly job for thirty two years, never flashy,
29:33
Speaker 1: focused on stability, had excellent credit, paid her bills on time,
29:38
Speaker 1: invested quietly and consistently. Ultimately walked away when money became
29:44
Speaker 1: a point of contention from the marriage. They owned real assets,
29:48
Speaker 1: but were they lacked together? Was they shared philosophy about money? Right?
29:54
Speaker 1: And two plus two in a relationship, it has to
29:56
Speaker 1: be six eight or ten or why are you doing it?
29:58
Speaker 1: If you're not better together? Why are you doing it?
30:01
Speaker 1: Because marriage when the when the looks drop and the
30:03
Speaker 1: body falls away, that's your business partner for life. Right,
30:07
Speaker 1: So it has to be more than I like this person. Okay,
30:10
Speaker 1: So so now, uh, let's fast forward in my dad's life.
30:16
Speaker 1: Johnny will Smith is winning. He's got all these assets.
30:20
Speaker 1: He was left with everything my mother got nothing. He's
30:22
Speaker 1: got cash flow, he's got he's got appreciable assets, he's
30:26
Speaker 1: got everybody in the city knows him. You know, he
30:28
Speaker 1: goes to the bank brands. They call him by you know,
30:31
Speaker 1: his first name, Hello Johnny, and mister mister Smith or whatever.
30:34
Speaker 1: He's balling. He's got equipment. He's got a tractor. He's
30:38
Speaker 1: got a truck. He's got his name, a van, Johnny's
30:42
Speaker 1: you know semen work on the outside of the van.
30:44
Speaker 1: He's got workers, he's got respectability in the neighborhood. I
30:47
Speaker 1: remember all of that, right, it's as if it's as
30:50
Speaker 1: if it happened yesterday. So fast forward now, mind you.
30:53
Speaker 1: My mother's just now working a job. You got his
30:56
Speaker 1: mother's house, uh in confidence. He's working this job. And
31:00
Speaker 1: she's got those side hustle doing handicrafts. But so my
31:04
Speaker 1: mother's put it on sort of you know, not rent repeat,
31:06
Speaker 1: but just remote control. By the way, if you if
31:10
Speaker 1: you do nothing, here's a little tip for you. If
31:11
Speaker 1: you do nothing but save two hundred dollars a month
31:15
Speaker 1: into the stock market, and the stock market gates between
31:19
Speaker 1: seven and ten percent return every year between thirty three
31:22
Speaker 1: years and forty years from the time you start that
31:25
Speaker 1: you'll be worth a million dollars. Okay, so that just
31:28
Speaker 1: put that aside, right, Yes, I said that pretty quickly.
31:31
Speaker 1: You're like, what, Yes, you put two hundred dollars a month.
31:34
Speaker 1: So whenever you start to start, just start right now.
31:37
Speaker 1: If you need it done it halftime. Double up on
31:39
Speaker 1: the money if you can. You put two hundred dollars
31:42
Speaker 1: in prop in sort of you know, premiere stocks, not
31:46
Speaker 1: no Homeboy shopping network stuff. No, no, no speculative stocks.
31:50
Speaker 1: I mean, you know blue chip stocks that are returning
31:53
Speaker 1: you seven to preferably ten percent a year. If it's
31:56
Speaker 1: ten percent a year, you'll be worth a million dollars
31:58
Speaker 1: in thirty three years. If it's seven percent in the year,
32:00
Speaker 1: it's about forty years. But just just put it on
32:04
Speaker 1: a pay right and you'll be a millionaire. Okay, now,
32:17
Speaker 1: not aside my dad. I remember calling my dad one
32:24
Speaker 1: day and what dad was going on? Well, and I'm
32:28
Speaker 1: wondering why his girlfriend was ugly because my mother was fine.
32:31
Speaker 1: But when I think back, because I was just traveling
32:33
Speaker 1: all around the country, around the world, I was hustling
32:35
Speaker 1: myself and life was a blur. I slept for six
32:38
Speaker 1: five or six hours in the middle or three hours
32:40
Speaker 1: in the middle of a day, because it was just
32:42
Speaker 1: a blur, so I didn't really wasn't really paying deep
32:44
Speaker 1: attention what was going on with my dad. But when my
32:46
Speaker 1: dad told me that he was staying with his lady.
32:49
Speaker 1: There was his girlfriend, and she basically had control financially
32:52
Speaker 1: over his life, and she was staying in a house
32:54
Speaker 1: that she owned, it got my attention. I'm like, what
32:57
Speaker 1: would you say? Yeah, you know, saying with whatever her
33:00
Speaker 1: name was, she was ugly, unattracted physically and unattractive spiritually.
33:08
Speaker 1: I remember meeting her and she didn't treat my father
33:10
Speaker 1: very well, but he was like a It was like
33:13
Speaker 1: a reverse sexty situation. He I guess he played with
33:16
Speaker 1: him for so long now they're playing him and she
33:20
Speaker 1: at this place and she let him stay there, but
33:22
Speaker 1: he had to be her girlfriend. This is a serious story,
33:25
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, no, Dad, you can't do that. Now.
33:28
Speaker 1: I was not a place financially where I can afford
33:30
Speaker 1: to uh to do what I'm about to tell you.
33:33
Speaker 1: But I knew that my dad could not be in
33:35
Speaker 1: this situation. So my first real estate lesson, I I
33:40
Speaker 1: guess I was in my early twenties when this happened.
33:46
Speaker 1: I remember I had my first for my first success
33:49
Speaker 1: in business. I bought the property, the home from the
33:55
Speaker 1: lady and one hundred thousand dollars whatever it was. By
34:01
Speaker 1: the way, you can't find anything in Los Angeles for
34:03
Speaker 1: one hundred thousand dollars to day, So that's why I said,
34:05
Speaker 1: people just buy the property. You'll never think it's the
34:08
Speaker 1: price is right. It's just gonna go up. If you
34:10
Speaker 1: could afford it, buy the property and hold on to it.
34:13
Speaker 1: I bought this property. I knocked down the zoning was
34:17
Speaker 1: I thought R four. It was R three, which is residential,
34:21
Speaker 1: which I mean I could put three or four units
34:22
Speaker 1: on it. But it was on a single family residential.
34:25
Speaker 1: A single family residential home was on this lot, so
34:28
Speaker 1: I thought, if I buy it. I checked this out
34:30
Speaker 1: with an account with an architect first, but I did
34:33
Speaker 1: not check the zoning. My father told me it was
34:34
Speaker 1: a C four, it was an R four. I just
34:36
Speaker 1: trusted them. I bought the property. I knocked down three walls,
34:41
Speaker 1: kept one wall up, which made it the sustainable structure.
34:45
Speaker 1: I didn't got a construction loan for an apartment building
34:49
Speaker 1: that's when the bank was Fargo. I'm always thankful to
34:51
Speaker 1: them told me that it was not zoned R four.
34:55
Speaker 1: It was zoned R three. Fine. That means I could
34:58
Speaker 1: put three units up my dad's. He's in one unit
35:00
Speaker 1: read from the other two just pays enough to cover
35:03
Speaker 1: the mortgage and his living expenses. Because I couldn't afford
35:07
Speaker 1: to just write a check out of my pocket every
35:09
Speaker 1: month to take care of my dad for the remainder
35:11
Speaker 1: of his life. I did a cook calculation. Knew I'd
35:13
Speaker 1: be broke doing that, and I didn't want to make
35:16
Speaker 1: a promise to my dad I couldn't keep. So I
35:18
Speaker 1: got Wells Fargo to make this loan a construction loan,
35:23
Speaker 1: and Tom Swanson. I want to be for everything for
35:27
Speaker 1: the Tom Swanson because the story gets in very interesting.
35:30
Speaker 1: I gave my dad the chance. My dad asked for
35:32
Speaker 1: the chance to construct his own home. I should have
35:36
Speaker 1: just said no. He's not a general contractor. And the
35:39
Speaker 1: reason he wasn't broken in the first place was he
35:41
Speaker 1: couldn't manage his money. Fine. Emotional I've always said to you,
35:44
Speaker 1: don't make an emotional decision, it's going to be a
35:46
Speaker 1: bad one. Out of love and emotions. I said yes,
35:49
Speaker 1: when my brain should have said no, I should have
35:52
Speaker 1: got an independent contractor to building already giving him place
35:55
Speaker 1: to live, already bought the place, and not like I'm
35:57
Speaker 1: not doing enough. So he wanted to be seen, is
36:00
Speaker 1: building his own place profile like whatever. I give him
36:04
Speaker 1: this construction loan, he runs through it nothing less. I
36:09
Speaker 1: give him an Emerger Express green card. I didn't even
36:11
Speaker 1: have one, had a six thousand dollars limit on it.
36:14
Speaker 1: My dad ran through that in a month. I mean,
36:16
Speaker 1: I was so upset, But what am I going to do?
36:18
Speaker 1: He's my father. So I canceled the green card and
36:22
Speaker 1: had to pay it back over time. I mean, it
36:24
Speaker 1: might as well have been fifty thousand dollars today, six
36:27
Speaker 1: thousand dollars back then or more. And luckily for me,
36:33
Speaker 1: Tom Swanson ed Wills Fargo since retired. I went back
36:37
Speaker 1: to him, told him the truth, told him exactly what happened. Luckily,
36:40
Speaker 1: the market was going up at that time, values were
36:42
Speaker 1: going up, and he said, look, the property's worth more
36:44
Speaker 1: now than it was when you took out the contruction loan.
36:46
Speaker 1: We're going to refinance the construction loan for you. Allow
36:49
Speaker 1: you to take out the money to now finish his
36:52
Speaker 1: three unit apartment building. But now you've got to get
36:54
Speaker 1: a proper contractor we're going to have project ensured project
36:57
Speaker 1: construction insurance on this project. As you get weak, need
37:01
Speaker 1: and trust your father again. And I learned so many lessons.
37:04
Speaker 1: I finished the project just barely. And it's worth that
37:09
Speaker 1: that that three d of building is worth seven figures
37:12
Speaker 1: today without question. So anyway, and my dad lived in
37:16
Speaker 1: dignity there until the day passed on broke. My dad died.
37:22
Speaker 1: God bless us, so God rest is so financially broke
37:28
Speaker 1: lost everything. We lost the gas station, lost the single
37:33
Speaker 1: family residential home. If you're in La Drive by Western
37:38
Speaker 1: and Vernon, I believe those are the new Rodale world.
37:42
Speaker 1: I think I think those are. That's the corner southeast corner.
37:47
Speaker 1: That gas station still there is what we owned. Lost
37:51
Speaker 1: the apartment building worth millions. We lost it all. I
37:55
Speaker 1: don't know how I lost it. He just did. And
37:58
Speaker 1: the only thing was keeping him going until he couldn't
37:59
Speaker 1: do it more was it seeming contracting business. And even
38:03
Speaker 1: lost the trucks or sold them or whatever the equipment.
38:06
Speaker 1: So by the time I got back around into the story,
38:09
Speaker 1: the story. My dad was not in great health and
38:14
Speaker 1: didn't take good care of himself and wouldn't listen to
38:16
Speaker 1: me when I tried to. It was a whole other story.
38:20
Speaker 1: But I loved him and I was gonna do everything
38:22
Speaker 1: I could to let him live in dignity. And I'm
38:24
Speaker 1: proud that I did that. And when I think Rachel
38:26
Speaker 1: died my chief of staff for being an honorary sister
38:29
Speaker 1: to my to my unorary honorary daughter to my father
38:32
Speaker 1: and taking care of him when I was out on
38:34
Speaker 1: the road. My mother had a different story. So my
38:40
Speaker 1: mom and my dad had just two different world views right,
38:43
Speaker 1: and they collided and the partnership dissolved over time. My
38:48
Speaker 1: dad lost it all, every asset gone. My mother worked
38:54
Speaker 1: that job, took that extra money, and she was making
38:57
Speaker 1: part time. And by the way, if you're married, here's
39:00
Speaker 1: an ideal situation. If two people are working. One person
39:03
Speaker 1: earns the income and pays the living expenses. You live
39:06
Speaker 1: on one paycheck, please hear me. The other person earns
39:10
Speaker 1: an income and invests it. Now that this is at
39:13
Speaker 1: the forty minute mark of this podcast, you you don't
39:16
Speaker 1: get to pick up anything else. Tell your friends to
39:18
Speaker 1: go to the forty minute mark or whatever around thirty
39:20
Speaker 1: eight or forty minute mark, and mark this place and
39:23
Speaker 1: follow what I said. One person. Usually you have two
39:26
Speaker 1: parent two income houses. One person makes the money and
39:29
Speaker 1: you live off that all your living expenses under this
39:32
Speaker 1: one person. The other person take this money and invested
39:34
Speaker 1: what I tell you earlier. Two hundred dollars a month,
39:37
Speaker 1: and we're two hundred dollars a month over thirty three
39:39
Speaker 1: to forty years, and you'll be a millionaire. What happens
39:41
Speaker 1: if you do five hundred a month or one thousand
39:43
Speaker 1: dollars a month? Okay, you starting to get the hint,
39:46
Speaker 1: get the memo. It's the magic of compounding in the marketplace.
39:50
Speaker 1: So my dad, Johnny Smith, had assets, but no structure
39:55
Speaker 1: in his life. He's cash rich at times, but as
40:00
Speaker 1: had pour in the end, no diversification, no succession plan,
40:06
Speaker 1: no long term investment strategy. My mother hustled differently, hustled smartly,
40:17
Speaker 1: use credit as leveraged, not a crutch. My dad used
40:20
Speaker 1: to say his credit was bad. My dad's credit was
40:24
Speaker 1: so bad he didn't call it credit. He said his
40:25
Speaker 1: credit was bad. My dad, I love him. My my
40:34
Speaker 1: mother understood delayed gratification, believe in consistency over charisma, invest, reinvest,
40:42
Speaker 1: leave it alone, let it compound. Hustle gets you in
40:46
Speaker 1: the door. Literacy and stewardship keeps you in the room.
40:49
Speaker 1: It keeps a roof over your head that you own.
40:53
Speaker 1: They again, they fought over money to different world views.
40:56
Speaker 1: My mom, My mom left. You know, you know again,
41:00
Speaker 1: you can do that ale by yourself. She made a choice.
41:04
Speaker 1: So my mother ended up buying and selling seven homes
41:08
Speaker 1: to drop the mic here. She had a life insurance policy.
41:13
Speaker 1: She drew up a will with a poison peel in it.
41:15
Speaker 1: Anybody who contests this will, and I want to thank
41:20
Speaker 1: Sir James Buchanan for helping her in the later years
41:22
Speaker 1: of her life. He works for me, became a friend
41:26
Speaker 1: of my mother, and he advised her to put this
41:30
Speaker 1: element in the will, which I agree with. Anybody who
41:32
Speaker 1: can test his will will be removed from the proceeds.
41:36
Speaker 1: Anybody who can test his will removed from the inheritance. Boy,
41:40
Speaker 1: and I was and I was the you know, the
41:42
Speaker 1: the trustee whatever for the wheels. I didn't I didn't
41:45
Speaker 1: want to fight come in my way. But everybody got
41:47
Speaker 1: real quiet once they read the wheel and saw that
41:50
Speaker 1: in it. Mom was gangster. Mom had a stock account,
41:57
Speaker 1: she had a bank account. Of course, she had a
42:00
Speaker 1: she paid cash for it. My mother ultimately converted the
42:05
Speaker 1: life insurance policy and the stock I believe to cash
42:11
Speaker 1: she bought in the folk. She helped her kids to
42:13
Speaker 1: buy houses, put their down payment in their homes, but
42:15
Speaker 1: bought some seven homes. And when she passed away, she
42:18
Speaker 1: had a million dollar net worth and my dad was broke,
42:21
Speaker 1: and she worked an hourly job, and she didn't get
42:25
Speaker 1: that million dollar net worth from the stock market, Like
42:27
Speaker 1: I just told you. She put a little bit of
42:29
Speaker 1: money in the stock market through her through her, through
42:31
Speaker 1: her employer, but she did most of this through through
42:34
Speaker 1: real estate and making really smart credit moves. She had
42:37
Speaker 1: a credit of credit score of eight fifty four. Back
42:39
Speaker 1: when the credit score went that high, it was changed
42:42
Speaker 1: age fifty as a maximum. Whatever the maximum was, she
42:45
Speaker 1: had it. And then later on in her life, when
42:48
Speaker 1: she wasn't working, wasn't wasn't cutting deals, her credit score
42:51
Speaker 1: went down to the high seven to the low seven hundreds.
42:54
Speaker 1: But it's because she wasn't she wasn't using credit at
42:56
Speaker 1: that time. But I'm just giving you an example of
43:01
Speaker 1: what really matters right and what doesn't. So I want
43:05
Speaker 1: to break the myth you don't need to own a
43:08
Speaker 1: business to build wealth. You can be an hourly worker
43:11
Speaker 1: and build wealth. That is the situation for most people
43:14
Speaker 1: in this country. My mom's formula was good credit, equal
43:18
Speaker 1: access to capital, prime access to capital. She went to
43:22
Speaker 1: computer at midnight, typed in her so security number in
43:25
Speaker 1: her name at midnight. Computers not asking her she's black
43:27
Speaker 1: or a female or whatever. If it's below one hundred
43:29
Speaker 1: thousand dollars or whatever, the computer just says yes, because
43:32
Speaker 1: my mother is not black or white, she's green. Right.
43:36
Speaker 1: Good credit, she had automatic savings. She looked automatic savings
43:43
Speaker 1: as a long term gain. She had a modest lifestyle.
43:47
Speaker 1: She lived under her means. She knew that equal freedom.
43:52
Speaker 1: This is what millions of Americas that do as a
43:53
Speaker 1: business model. Imagine now, if Johnny will smith, I w we
44:01
Speaker 1: need to smith. My mom and dad combine their strengths.
44:04
Speaker 1: Imagine I mean that hustle they had, that network they built.
44:08
Speaker 1: If he made it and she invested it, oh my god,
44:13
Speaker 1: they'd be powerhouse in my life. Story would be different.
44:15
Speaker 1: Maybe they'd be no operation Hope. I wouldn't be no
44:17
Speaker 1: financial literacy course. I wouldn't have been in Compton. My
44:19
Speaker 1: mother went about the house. I mean, you know all
44:21
Speaker 1: these things. Rainbow's after a storm. She cannot have a
44:24
Speaker 1: rainbow out a storm. First, I'd been a very different
44:26
Speaker 1: person if it had not been for the trauma and
44:29
Speaker 1: the drama in my life. And so I don't regret anything.
44:32
Speaker 1: I don't ask for anything to be different. But I
44:34
Speaker 1: would have wanted my mother to be happier, and she
44:37
Speaker 1: wasn't really all that happy. She was happy with her kids,
44:40
Speaker 1: she was happy by what she had done, her success,
44:43
Speaker 1: but she wasn't personally fulfilled from a love perspective. She
44:46
Speaker 1: wanted to be loved. She gave. She told me she
44:48
Speaker 1: loved me every day of my life. So I never
44:50
Speaker 1: had a self esteem problem. And that's where the quote
44:53
Speaker 1: for Operation Hope comes from. There's a difference between being
44:56
Speaker 1: broken being poor, being broken as economic but being poor
44:59
Speaker 1: as a disabling frame of mind, a depressed condition of
45:02
Speaker 1: your spirit. And you must vow never ever ever to
45:04
Speaker 1: be poor again. That's came from my mother. But by
45:08
Speaker 1: my mother told me she loved me every day in
45:09
Speaker 1: my life. No one ever told her that even her
45:11
Speaker 1: own mother was not somebody who effusively said I love
45:15
Speaker 1: you baby. So my mother was not loved by her family.
45:20
Speaker 1: She was love by our kids, her and her sisters,
45:23
Speaker 1: but not really. It did not have a love interest.
45:27
Speaker 1: And that I think was the one sadness in her life.
45:30
Speaker 1: Now let's talk about my dad. Imagine if Johnny. By
45:34
Speaker 1: the way, my mother was my date for many, many,
45:37
Speaker 1: many years. I take her all around the world. I
45:39
Speaker 1: went to I've been to one hundred countries. I'm sure
45:41
Speaker 1: of taking my mother to at least ten. And I'm
45:44
Speaker 1: so proud that we had a time together. And anyway, reminiscing,
45:51
Speaker 1: sorry about that. What was my What can the modern
45:56
Speaker 1: entrepreneur learn from this? Incorporate your business, build business credit,
46:05
Speaker 1: maintain personal credit because if you're an if you're a
46:07
Speaker 1: small business owner, your business credit may rely on your
46:11
Speaker 1: personal credit rating. Separate hustle from household. Plan with your
46:18
Speaker 1: spouse or partner. Avoid silent wars over money again, have
46:22
Speaker 1: weekly meetings on money, or monthly or semi quarterly or
46:27
Speaker 1: semi annually or annually. You know, my family, we talk
46:30
Speaker 1: about money all the time. When it you know, when
46:32
Speaker 1: it comes up what doesn't come up when it needs
46:34
Speaker 1: to come up. Right, Keep a budget. I used to
46:36
Speaker 1: think the budgets were born. Budgets or budgets are glorious.
46:38
Speaker 1: You should have one. Everybody should have one. Here's an
46:44
Speaker 1: action plan for business hustlers. Formalize your operations and using
46:49
Speaker 1: a limited liability corporation as easy, as quick, as as cheap,
46:54
Speaker 1: use a proper accounting firm. Pay your taxes. My taxman
46:58
Speaker 1: was always after my dad way. He was in a
47:01
Speaker 1: cash business. He didn't pay his taxes. Build your credit profile.
47:05
Speaker 1: Invest in something that pays you back over time. An
47:08
Speaker 1: apartment building. And again the apartment building was cash flow
47:10
Speaker 1: and asset appreciation. So he was making money during the day,
47:14
Speaker 1: the week, and when he's and then and then it
47:17
Speaker 1: was it was appreciating because it's real estate and it's
47:19
Speaker 1: a business. Actually three three times it was a three
47:22
Speaker 1: times profit margin. Because he would have sold the business,
47:25
Speaker 1: he would have got paid. If he had sold the
47:26
Speaker 1: real estate, he would have got paid. And he was
47:28
Speaker 1: getting paid every week and every day and every month
47:32
Speaker 1: on the income from the gas station. Same was the
47:33
Speaker 1: same was the case with the apartment building. So if
47:37
Speaker 1: he had just kept those I mean he bought an
47:40
Speaker 1: eight unit apartment building in Los Angeles for eighteen thousand dollars.
47:43
Speaker 1: I mean, my god, imagine you could just live on
47:45
Speaker 1: that for the rest of your life and then when
47:48
Speaker 1: you sold it, what heck, you're an easy street. But
47:53
Speaker 1: he didn't. So again, build your credit profile, formalize your operations.
47:59
Speaker 1: Build your credit profile while invest in something that pays
48:01
Speaker 1: you back over time for hourly workers. Max out your
48:04
Speaker 1: retirement plans. If your employer has a four oh one
48:06
Speaker 1: K plan and they're giving you x dollars, match it
48:10
Speaker 1: x dollars of your own money. It's free money, it's
48:12
Speaker 1: found money, it's yours. Why would you leave money on
48:15
Speaker 1: the table right, whatever your employer has given you, match
48:18
Speaker 1: it immediately, you know. If you don't, if you need
48:21
Speaker 1: it later, you always pull it out right. Protect your
48:24
Speaker 1: credit score. Learn basic investing. You know index funds ETFs,
48:30
Speaker 1: but learn basic investing in the stock market, and then
48:33
Speaker 1: put in at least fifty bucks one hundred bucks, two
48:36
Speaker 1: hundred bucks a month. You can do fractional shares. By
48:38
Speaker 1: the way, there's no excuse for doing for not doing nothing.
48:41
Speaker 1: And of course you know me, I'm going to say
48:42
Speaker 1: you should invest in real estate, buy home whatever you can.
48:46
Speaker 1: You don't have to own the block tomorrow, but you
48:49
Speaker 1: have to own your mindset today. My father gave me
48:53
Speaker 1: a fearless spirit, and I'll always be thankful for him
48:56
Speaker 1: for that. My mother gave me financial wisdom and I'll
48:59
Speaker 1: always be great for that. My mom gave me a
49:02
Speaker 1: sense of yes I am. My dad gave me a
49:04
Speaker 1: sense of yes I can. But in the end, it
49:07
Speaker 1: was my mother who built the legacy, the sustainable legacy.
49:11
Speaker 1: Here's your call to action, everybody. Share this with someone
49:15
Speaker 1: who you think is working harder in the same way
49:20
Speaker 1: that my mom and dad did, but not working smarter,
49:23
Speaker 1: and you want them to work smarter. The definition of
49:26
Speaker 1: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again
49:29
Speaker 1: and expecting a different outcome. Tell them to go to
49:31
Speaker 1: the Hope Credit Score Index, the Hope Operation Hope set
49:37
Speaker 1: credit score index page on the Internet and look up
49:41
Speaker 1: the credit score for the neighborhood that you're living in.
49:44
Speaker 1: Because that neighborhood that you're living in, if you do
49:48
Speaker 1: nothing but follow the trends in that neighborhood, you're gonna
49:51
Speaker 1: you're gonna, you're gonna model everything about the neighborhood. So
49:54
Speaker 1: you live in a six hundred credit score, five hundred
49:57
Speaker 1: credit score neighborhood, you're going to live to about sixty
49:59
Speaker 1: one years of age. For every fifty points we found
50:03
Speaker 1: and were met every credit score in American by zip
50:05
Speaker 1: code and operation hope and thank you Experience for giving
50:08
Speaker 1: us the data in the US Census. For every increase
50:11
Speaker 1: in credit score of fifty points, you pick up five
50:13
Speaker 1: more years of life. Yes, that's what I said. I
50:16
Speaker 1: said it, which, Yes, I hope you didn't rull off
50:18
Speaker 1: the road when I said that. If you have a
50:20
Speaker 1: seven hundred credit score, you lived on average eighty one
50:23
Speaker 1: years of age, you lived to have a state a
50:26
Speaker 1: fire under credit score, you lived to on average sixty
50:28
Speaker 1: one years of age, and you don't get so security
50:30
Speaker 1: until sixty five. Hello. Right, So a twenty year gap
50:35
Speaker 1: in wellness, in well being, you lived twenty year longer
50:37
Speaker 1: life with us with a two hundred different two hundred
50:40
Speaker 1: point gap in your credit score. It's not about the
50:42
Speaker 1: credit score. It's about hope, well being, faith, confidence, belief, optimism, mindset.
50:47
Speaker 1: It's about how your it's your mindset. Do you believe?
50:50
Speaker 1: Is the glass half empty? Is a glass half full.
50:52
Speaker 1: It depends who's looking at the glass. Whether you believe
50:54
Speaker 1: you can't, whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right right,
50:58
Speaker 1: So you got to get your mind right, because I
51:01
Speaker 1: can give again. I've done on my straight title Straight
51:03
Speaker 1: Talk Live series. I've talked about being homeless. I've talked
51:06
Speaker 1: about people win the lottery. I can give. I can
51:08
Speaker 1: give a million. A homeless guy a million dollars, He'll
51:11
Speaker 1: be broken six months if nothing else changes in his mind,
51:15
Speaker 1: in his heart, that reflex was in his pocket. Most
51:18
Speaker 1: people win the lottery bankrupt in five years, broke. Most
51:22
Speaker 1: NBA and NFL players bankrupt within five years of retirement
51:25
Speaker 1: and divorced. Because again, you got the money, but you
51:29
Speaker 1: didn't get the education. You can get the financial literacy,
51:30
Speaker 1: you don't understand what to do with it. So getting
51:33
Speaker 1: your mindset right is really important. Tell everybody listening to this,
51:36
Speaker 1: go download the Hope and Hand app Tell them that
51:39
Speaker 1: John Brian sent you. They'll offer you a one thousand
51:42
Speaker 1: dollars Hope financial scholarship for coaching and counseling. And get
51:45
Speaker 1: your credit score up, your debt down, your savings up.
51:48
Speaker 1: Reading credit scores up fifty four points in six months,
51:51
Speaker 1: twelve hundred dollars up for savings, thirty eight hundred dollars
51:55
Speaker 1: down for debt. In a year. You do that, you
52:00
Speaker 1: make forty eight to fifty thousand dollars a year. In
52:02
Speaker 1: this example, we just made you banka them. We're the
52:04
Speaker 1: only nonprofit allowed to operate out of a bank branch
52:06
Speaker 1: in US history, and so removing you from a no
52:10
Speaker 1: answer at the bank to a yes answer. In most cases,
52:13
Speaker 1: you have a job, your employe, you have a good
52:14
Speaker 1: credit score, your debt intrarationis are in place. The bank
52:17
Speaker 1: wants to make a good loan. The if they don't
52:18
Speaker 1: make a good loan, they can't they can't pay their bills.
52:20
Speaker 1: So they need the money to be working. They don't
52:23
Speaker 1: want to give to people they think are going to
52:25
Speaker 1: default on the debt. Right, So I need you to
52:27
Speaker 1: understand how the system works and where our job is
52:30
Speaker 1: to be economic plumbing for the entire country. I want
52:33
Speaker 1: you to tell your friends that subscribe to Money and
52:35
Speaker 1: Wealth to podcast and get my book Financial Literacy for All,
52:38
Speaker 1: which is the best seller in the world. John O'Bryant.
52:41
Speaker 1: This is Money and Wealth on the Black Effect Network
52:44
Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio This has been a special episode where I
52:48
Speaker 1: went deep into my own personal soul and told you
52:51
Speaker 1: some things are very private. Person with me. The example
52:55
Speaker 1: the businessman hustler versus the hourly worker and which one wins.
53:03
Speaker 1: There you go, this is something everybody can do. This
53:06
Speaker 1: is John O'Brien is the silver rights movement, from civil
53:09
Speaker 1: rights to civil rights, from civil rights in the streets
53:12
Speaker 1: to silver rights in the sweets. I'm Out Money and
53:29
Speaker 1: Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the Black
53:31
Speaker 1: Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect
53:35
Speaker 1: Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
53:40
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. The