Latest / Money And Wealth With John Hope Bryant / The Ownership Generation
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John Hobrant, a production
- 0:03Speaker 1: of the Black Effect podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey, Hey,
- 0:14Speaker 1: this is John Hope Bryant, entrepreneur and host of the
- 0:21Speaker 1: Black Effect Networks podcasts Money and Wealth with John Hopebriant
- 0:26Speaker 1: on iHeartRadio. And I've been doing a lot of guests
- 0:30Speaker 1: recently because I believe they've been bringing you best in
- 0:33Speaker 1: class intel that you need to transform your life. And
- 0:39Speaker 1: I'm proud of all those guests. When I bring a
- 0:41Speaker 1: guest to you know that I believe they are the
- 0:43Speaker 1: best of the best in their space and their field.
- 0:46Speaker 1: But when I come at you myself, there's something going
- 0:50Speaker 1: on that I really want to communicate with you directly.
- 0:53Speaker 1: I believe the time is now, and I believe the
- 0:56Speaker 1: message is urgent, and such is the case for this moment.
- 1:01Speaker 1: I believe the economy is essentially strong, but there are
- 1:06Speaker 1: outside forces that are messing with the economy, messing with
- 1:10Speaker 1: its stability that I think will create challenges for it
- 1:14Speaker 1: in the short term. I think long term it's strong,
- 1:17Speaker 1: but I do believe in the next six to eight months,
- 1:20Speaker 1: you may need to find a safer place to hide
- 1:24Speaker 1: and don't do flaky stuff. Don't do silly stuff. Be
- 1:29Speaker 1: very mature about your decisions. They got me thinking about
- 1:32Speaker 1: the larger issue of this generation and a lot of
- 1:36Speaker 1: stuff I see on social media that just it frustrates
- 1:41Speaker 1: me because I think people are just misguided. I think
- 1:45Speaker 1: that they are going to harm their own economic futures
- 1:49Speaker 1: because they think things are simpler, easier than they are.
- 1:56Speaker 1: And so this is inspired by my book. This podcast
- 2:00Speaker 1: episode called the Ownership Generation. That's this episode's title. It's
- 2:04Speaker 1: a special one hour, two part podcast. Tell all your
- 2:08Speaker 1: friends to put this on repeat, break it down in
- 2:12Speaker 1: the pieces, and talk about it in barbershops and nel
- 2:17Speaker 1: salons and hair salons and fraternity and sorority meetings and
- 2:21Speaker 1: family meetings. And is inspired by my book now bestseller
- 2:25Speaker 1: Capitalism for All Inclusive Economics in the Future Proving of America,
- 2:30Speaker 1: which I'm going to get to in subsequent episodes dealing
- 2:34Speaker 1: with the book itself. But this book, this piece, this
- 2:37Speaker 1: podcast episode is inspired by the book, but it's not
- 2:42Speaker 1: about the book. This is about specifically you right now,
- 2:48Speaker 1: and particularly if the you right now is twenty thirty,
- 2:54Speaker 1: even forty years of age, and even paying way too
- 2:59Speaker 1: much attention to Instagram or social media, or what your
- 3:05Speaker 1: friends are telling you and who maybe broke themselves and
- 3:09Speaker 1: not realize it. So let me break this down. You
- 3:13Speaker 1: don't build a life by renting one. There's gonna be
- 3:18Speaker 1: a lot of straight talk. I do these straight talk videos.
- 3:21Speaker 1: There are two or three minutes, and you can almost
- 3:24Speaker 1: assume this is one hour of continuous straight talk about
- 3:29Speaker 1: the things that I think matter the most right now.
- 3:31Speaker 1: And I'm doing this because I love you, Because as
- 3:33Speaker 1: my T shirt that I'm wearing right now says, actually
- 3:37Speaker 1: I can you can, Actually you can win. I want
- 3:40Speaker 1: you to win. And when you want somebody to win,
- 3:44Speaker 1: you tell them what they need to hear and not
- 3:45Speaker 1: what they want to hear. I rather you respect me
- 3:48Speaker 1: and learn to like me, than like me and never
- 3:51Speaker 1: respect me. So let me drill down on things that
- 3:59Speaker 1: I think really mad. And it starts with this first
- 4:04Speaker 1: principle of the ownership generation. You don't build a life
- 4:09Speaker 1: by renting one, and one gift mean something that you
- 4:14Speaker 1: have that's part of your life. One gift is not
- 4:18Speaker 1: enough to build anything worth leaving behind. So part one
- 4:24Speaker 1: rent a life versus own your life. The false argument
- 4:30Speaker 1: that's keeping a generation in place, Part two. One thing
- 4:35Speaker 1: is not enough pretty smart, handsome, educated, credentialed, talented, degreed.
- 4:47Speaker 1: Why that's only the beginning. It's gonna be a deep episode.
- 4:52Speaker 1: So let's talk about where we start. I want to
- 4:57Speaker 1: talk to you today about a decision and you're making
- 5:01Speaker 1: right now. If you're in that age group that I mentioned,
- 5:03Speaker 1: or you know somebody you love and care about who's
- 5:06Speaker 1: in that age group that I mentioned twenty thirty forty,
- 5:11Speaker 1: maybe you're making decisions even without knowing. You're making them
- 5:20Speaker 1: every single day. You're either renting your life or you're
- 5:24Speaker 1: building toward owning it. And most people I talk to
- 5:29Speaker 1: have convinced themselves that renting is enough, that it's even smart.
- 5:36Speaker 1: I'm here to tell you that's the most expensive lie
- 5:41Speaker 1: in the economy. I'm thinking right now about folks who
- 5:46Speaker 1: show up on business television shows telling poor people and
- 5:51Speaker 1: working class people and working middle class people not to
- 5:54Speaker 1: buy a house, not to buy a home, when they
- 5:59Speaker 1: own one, two, three, four, or five six homes themselves.
- 6:05Speaker 1: Certainly they own one home. The number one way you
- 6:07Speaker 1: build wealth in America, everybody who's an investor knows is
- 6:11Speaker 1: home ownership. It's a lie, but it feeds into a
- 6:15Speaker 1: narrative that renting and living your best life right now
- 6:21Speaker 1: is a smart thing to do. I'm going to unpack
- 6:23Speaker 1: all this now. I'm not just talking about apartments. And
- 6:27Speaker 1: by the way, I'm a landlord joint venture with CIM Group.
- 6:32Speaker 1: I sold my last real estate company. I was a
- 6:35Speaker 1: principal owner. I was the owner and the Promise Homes company.
- 6:38Speaker 1: I've sold it in twenty twenty one and I have
- 6:41Speaker 1: a minority stake in that. I'm sure trying to get
- 6:42Speaker 1: out of that deal right now. But I've partnered with
- 6:46Speaker 1: CIM Group is incredible organization. They're doing cent to new
- 6:50Speaker 1: yards here and Atlanta. I'm part of that as well.
- 6:54Speaker 1: And so I am an investor. I am a landlord.
- 6:58Speaker 1: I was doing single family, now doing multi family. So
- 7:02Speaker 1: I'm talking against my own interest, is what I'm saying.
- 7:04Speaker 1: I'm telling you not to rent from me long term.
- 7:08Speaker 1: I want you to be with me short term, but
- 7:12Speaker 1: I want you to at some point to transition. I
- 7:14Speaker 1: really want you to go from rent to own with
- 7:18Speaker 1: me or with somebody else. So I'm not here to
- 7:23Speaker 1: debate square footage and interest rates people. I want to
- 7:28Speaker 1: talk about the bigger picture. The idea that renting has
- 7:32Speaker 1: become a lifestyle, a brand, a vibe, and I want
- 7:38Speaker 1: to challenge that, not to shame anyone, but to free someone.
- 7:44Speaker 1: I rented right until I didn't me I'm talking about.
- 7:49Speaker 1: So here's the false argument. So the cultural narrative is
- 7:53Speaker 1: owning is overrated, renting is freedom. The financial influence would say,
- 8:02Speaker 1: you're not throwing money away, you're buying flexibility. The tech
- 8:08Speaker 1: optimized entrepreneur influencer would say, own nothing, access everything. Here's
- 8:17Speaker 1: what they don't tell you about renting as a lifestyle.
- 8:22Speaker 1: The landlord me in this example is always building equity. Always,
- 8:28Speaker 1: So as you're paying rent, paying two thousand, three thousand,
- 8:31Speaker 1: four thousand, five thousand a month, six thousand, seven thousand,
- 8:35Speaker 1: eight thousand, ten thousand a month in New York City,
- 8:38Speaker 1: that's very common that rental rate. You're paying down that
- 8:43Speaker 1: mortgage of the investor every month, and you're opening up
- 8:50Speaker 1: a window and just throwing that money out the window.
- 8:53Speaker 1: With regard to yourself, now, if you're there for a
- 8:57Speaker 1: short term job, or if you're in that city because
- 9:00Speaker 1: you have a career or a job, or renting is
- 9:04Speaker 1: part of a long term strategy for you to transition
- 9:07Speaker 1: within one, two, three, four, five years into home ownership fantastic.
- 9:13Speaker 1: There's a strategic part of your thinking. No different than
- 9:18Speaker 1: you don't want to work at McDonald's for the rest
- 9:20Speaker 1: of your life. It's a great job at a certain age,
- 9:23Speaker 1: but unless you're the manager or the general manager, or
- 9:25Speaker 1: you want to be an owner of McDonald's at some point,
- 9:27Speaker 1: you want to step up and step out at some point.
- 9:30Speaker 1: Walmart is one of those rare places where you can
- 9:32Speaker 1: actually stay with them from cashier to general manager and
- 9:37Speaker 1: make a half million dollars a year, but that's very rare.
- 9:39Speaker 1: My friend w Millan literally went from stocking shelves to
- 9:42Speaker 1: CEO at Walmart. But for most of these places, you
- 9:45Speaker 1: want to hit it and split it. And same as
- 9:50Speaker 1: the case with renting versus ownership, the landlord is always
- 9:54Speaker 1: building equity. Your rent check is writing someone else's wealth
- 9:58Speaker 1: story freedom. That's a subscription, a very expensive one. But
- 10:06Speaker 1: this isn't just about housing, which about renting your job
- 10:11Speaker 1: versus owning your career trajectory. If it's late in late
- 10:15Speaker 1: long lunch, leave early and you aren't invested in that thing,
- 10:18Speaker 1: you're just showing up. You're just sort of mailing it in.
- 10:22Speaker 1: You're really hitting your face on their fist. The employer,
- 10:27Speaker 1: you're wasting your time and not impressing them. They're not
- 10:29Speaker 1: going to give you a raise and you have an
- 10:32Speaker 1: earned one. And I'd rather you waste my money than
- 10:37Speaker 1: waste my time. No one can waste my time but me.
- 10:40Speaker 1: I'm ruthless about my time. It's very interesting. Poor people,
- 10:43Speaker 1: struggling people value cash, and wealthy people they value their time.
- 10:49Speaker 1: And wealth is a mindset. You make money during the day,
- 10:52Speaker 1: you build wealth in your sleep. Renting your relationships transactional
- 10:58Speaker 1: versus commitments. A giver and a giver is exotic. That's relationships,
- 11:06Speaker 1: that's covenant. But then you have giver a taker. That's
- 11:11Speaker 1: neurotic and truly, I'm assuming in this case you're the
- 11:13Speaker 1: giver and then you have take her to take her,
- 11:17Speaker 1: and that's psychotic. You don't want to really be in
- 11:19Speaker 1: the last two versions of this. Networking is a taking business, right.
- 11:23Speaker 1: Relationships are a giving business. You want to be a
- 11:26Speaker 1: giver and engage with a giver. Right, So what are
- 11:32Speaker 1: your relationships like? What's your relationship capital? Like? Are you
- 11:36Speaker 1: hanging around people smarter than you, brighter than you? Sharper
- 11:38Speaker 1: than you, wiser than you, people who can teach you something.
- 11:41Speaker 1: Are you the smartest person in your group? That's scary.
- 11:47Speaker 1: I know a person very very, very smart who hangs
- 11:50Speaker 1: around people smarter than she is, sorry, less intelligent, less ambitious,
- 11:55Speaker 1: and less intelligent than she is because she wants their approval.
- 11:59Speaker 1: I guess, and she had a home and decide to
- 12:04Speaker 1: move from the house, didn't want to deal with a
- 12:06Speaker 1: renter and decide to sell the house, and now she
- 12:08Speaker 1: lives in an apartment because she wants to be where
- 12:10Speaker 1: all the action is. I think she's won the battle
- 12:12Speaker 1: on the loss of ward twice. But it's not my
- 12:15Speaker 1: life to live rendering your identity performing for approval versus
- 12:21Speaker 1: building from values. Let me go back to the person
- 12:25Speaker 1: who I mentioned didn't want to deal with the lamp,
- 12:27Speaker 1: with the renters and tenants and owned ownership drama, just
- 12:30Speaker 1: wanted to live free. Only in the dictionary does the
- 12:35Speaker 1: word success come before the word work, because it's alphabetical.
- 12:40Speaker 1: All things that are valuable are work. Whatever you love
- 12:45Speaker 1: is going to drive you nuts. Your family, your children,
- 12:48Speaker 1: your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your job,
- 12:52Speaker 1: your career, your friendships, whatever you love is going to
- 12:55Speaker 1: be work, so get over it, knock it off. You
- 12:59Speaker 1: can do it, as I said that, my T shirt says,
- 13:01Speaker 1: actually you can, but you've got to invest in it.
- 13:04Speaker 1: Everything's an investment, and if you find a free lunch
- 13:07Speaker 1: is probably stale. Renting your future outsourcing decisions to algorithms, trends,
- 13:15Speaker 1: and other people's opinion. I don't love to say it's
- 13:19Speaker 1: okay if you don't like me. I like me. Not
- 13:21Speaker 1: one ounce of my self esteem depends on your acceptance
- 13:23Speaker 1: of me. That's a Quincy Jones quote. God bless his rest,
- 13:26Speaker 1: his soul, friend of mine. So you've got to understand
- 13:30Speaker 1: that you're a leader. You are an eagle surrounded by
- 13:33Speaker 1: buzzers and turkeys. People are not going to understand you.
- 13:36Speaker 1: So don't rent your future, and certainly don't rent it
- 13:39Speaker 1: out to somebody else who doesn't have one, and don't
- 13:42Speaker 1: listen to broke people. You can rent a beautiful apartment
- 13:45Speaker 1: and still be homeless in your spirit. I see a
- 13:49Speaker 1: lot of people who've got doorman and fancy rented or
- 13:55Speaker 1: least cars and clothes they bought on twenty six percent
- 14:00Speaker 1: credit cards, and apartments that they can't afford trying to
- 14:03Speaker 1: press people they don't know with money they don't have
- 14:07Speaker 1: about things that don't matter, and people who don't care
- 14:10Speaker 1: about them. And for what what is all that for?
- 14:14Speaker 1: You just rearranging the deck chairs of the Titanic, you're
- 14:17Speaker 1: just stepping in mess versus over it that you're on
- 14:20Speaker 1: the Titanic. You're just picking drapes that you know you
- 14:23Speaker 1: just need to get off the ship and find one
- 14:27Speaker 1: that is not full of holes in false dreams and lies,
- 14:31Speaker 1: and one that travels and can get you to a destination.
- 14:38Speaker 1: So let me talk about that systemic dimension here, because
- 14:42Speaker 1: some people are like, I just want to live my
- 14:44Speaker 1: best life. This whole system is rigged and all that
- 14:46Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And this is from my book Capitalism
- 14:49Speaker 1: for All, which again which is now a bestseller. Let
- 14:52Speaker 1: me acknowledge structural realities, not to excuse inaction, but to
- 14:57Speaker 1: make this message honest and defensible. The argument from Capitalism
- 15:01Speaker 1: for All for All that ownership gaps are not only behavior,
- 15:07Speaker 1: they were in part deliberately engineered. I want to acknowledge
- 15:11Speaker 1: that that's in it. I want to acknowledge that relationships
- 15:16Speaker 1: are rigged. I mean if you go to not literally,
- 15:19Speaker 1: but if you go to Harvard. People don't just go
- 15:21Speaker 1: there because it's better quality education than a university or
- 15:25Speaker 1: college down the street from Harvard. They go there because
- 15:29Speaker 1: the relationships you're gonna get at Harvard as you go
- 15:31Speaker 1: to college there are you're gonna hook each other up
- 15:33Speaker 1: for the next thirty or forty years. So if you
- 15:37Speaker 1: hang around nine broke people, you'll be the tenth. The
- 15:39Speaker 1: opposite is also true. So a system that is designed
- 15:45Speaker 1: to game you, I want you to game it. If
- 15:48Speaker 1: you're not working the system, the system is working you.
- 15:50Speaker 1: We've never mastered financial literacy or capitalism free enterprise for
- 15:55Speaker 1: most people unless you come from wealth. So it's what
- 15:58Speaker 1: you don't know that you don't know, but you think
- 16:00Speaker 1: you know, and the system is set against you. But
- 16:03Speaker 1: I'm trying to set you free. Let's ungame this system.
- 16:06Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to do with capitalism for all.
- 16:09Speaker 1: And I've told everybody who's read this book. If you
- 16:11Speaker 1: don't agree by the preface the preface that this book
- 16:15Speaker 1: is transformational, just send it back to my office with
- 16:18Speaker 1: your receipt and your cost of postage, and we will
- 16:21Speaker 1: send you a full refund. I will personally do that
- 16:23Speaker 1: I've donated the proceeds for Operation Hotel Perache hold my
- 16:27Speaker 1: financial literacy Philanthropy for the All twenty twenty six for
- 16:29Speaker 1: my book Capitalism for All, And I'll donated that book
- 16:32Speaker 1: copy that you sent back to me to a library.
- 16:34Speaker 1: No one sent it back to me. In fact, if
- 16:36Speaker 1: you look at the reviews so far as they've been
- 16:38Speaker 1: all five star. Now I want to be honest with
- 16:43Speaker 1: you about something. I'm not standing here pretending the playing
- 16:47Speaker 1: field is level. It is not. The system was not
- 16:52Speaker 1: designed with everyone in mind to be at the table.
- 16:55Speaker 1: Red Lining was real, as in real estate red lining,
- 16:59Speaker 1: discriminatory ending practices was real. And many places probably still
- 17:02Speaker 1: are communities deliberately cut off from the wealth building machinery
- 17:07Speaker 1: of this country. That is historical fact, not an excuse.
- 17:12Speaker 1: But here's what I also know, and this is the
- 17:15Speaker 1: argument I make in my book Capitalism for All. The
- 17:18Speaker 1: answer to a system that excludes you is not to
- 17:21Speaker 1: exclude yourself. Further, to argue with the food bruiser too.
- 17:26Speaker 1: Even if you're arguing with yourself, the answer is to
- 17:29Speaker 1: demand a seat. To quote my friend's Deephanie rule, to
- 17:33Speaker 1: expand the table and add a chair, build the capacity
- 17:38Speaker 1: and the capital to buy one, as in a seat
- 17:41Speaker 1: at the table if you have to, and then hold
- 17:43Speaker 1: the door open for everyone to follow behind you. That's
- 17:47Speaker 1: what I'm trying to do here with this podcast, in
- 17:50Speaker 1: my straight Talk Live series and my book and the
- 17:53Speaker 1: work of Operation Hope and the speeches I give, etc.
- 17:57Speaker 1: Etcam trying to open the door and hold it for
- 18:00Speaker 1: those behind me. Or to quote James Brown, I like
- 18:04Speaker 1: the James Brown version of affirmative action. Open the door.
- 18:08Speaker 1: I'll get it myself. It's a hand up, not a handout.
- 18:13Speaker 1: The system needs to change, and it is changing by
- 18:16Speaker 1: the way. But you cannot afford to wait for the
- 18:19Speaker 1: system to save you. You have to move, and you
- 18:22Speaker 1: have to move now. AI is coming like a train
- 18:26Speaker 1: and is going to threaten everybody's sense of entitlement or
- 18:30Speaker 1: I'm gonna be okay syndrome. You're not gonna be okay.
- 18:33Speaker 1: Your job's not gonna be replaced. I put this in
- 18:35Speaker 1: my book Capitalism for All whole chapter by AI. But
- 18:40Speaker 1: your job may be replaced by somebody who can use AI.
- 18:44Speaker 1: That requires you to move, to bob, to weave, to flex,
- 18:46Speaker 1: be flexible, to gain new skills, to not sit as
- 18:50Speaker 1: a renter of your own life. Now, while the door
- 18:56Speaker 1: is still open, I want you to slam it open
- 19:00Speaker 1: further for others and for yourself. In other words, when
- 19:05Speaker 1: you get out of your own way. The real cost
- 19:08Speaker 1: of renting a life. The Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer
- 19:13Speaker 1: Finance in twenty twenty five, along with the Aspen Institute
- 19:18Speaker 1: and the US SINSUS Girl, have just absolutely compelling statistics.
- 19:25Speaker 1: In twenty twenty five, the average homeowner has a net
- 19:28Speaker 1: worth of four hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Had a
- 19:31Speaker 1: networth of forture and thirty thousand dollars. The average renter
- 19:34Speaker 1: hold on now same income level, paying the same amount
- 19:40Speaker 1: of rent on indoor mortage payment in aggurgate dollars dollar amounts,
- 19:45Speaker 1: the average renter has a net worth had a net
- 19:47Speaker 1: worth of ten thousand dollars. I'll repeat that in twenty
- 19:51Speaker 1: twenty five, the average net worth of a homeowner paying
- 19:55Speaker 1: the same amount for shelter and making the equivalent and income.
- 20:01Speaker 1: This is why I keep saying we over index on
- 20:04Speaker 1: cash dollars money, the bag getting that money, It's irrelevant
- 20:08Speaker 1: it all the money is an exchange of value. You
- 20:11Speaker 1: want to build wealth and you build wealth and your sleep.
- 20:13Speaker 1: That's compounding. So the average homeowner had a net worth
- 20:16Speaker 1: of forded and thirty thousand dollars. The average renter had
- 20:19Speaker 1: a net worth of ten thousand dollars. That is a
- 20:23Speaker 1: forty three to one gap. Again, that's according to the
- 20:27Speaker 1: Federal Reserve data. Now, who do you think this hits
- 20:30Speaker 1: the worst? Black people who have forty three forty four
- 20:36Speaker 1: percent home ownership rate compared to their white counterparts. Right,
- 20:40Speaker 1: so we're not owning homes with chilling. And there are
- 20:42Speaker 1: other groups too. But I'm we have the lowest credit score,
- 20:45Speaker 1: the lowest access to prime credit, the lowest home ownership rate,
- 20:48Speaker 1: and the lowest net worth. And I'm tired of it.
- 20:50Speaker 1: I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and
- 20:53Speaker 1: so we have to break this cycle. So I'm giving
- 20:58Speaker 1: you these and out of their numbers, not because I'm
- 21:01Speaker 1: an accountant or I love numbers. I like math because
- 21:03Speaker 1: it doesn't have an opinion, but because numbers tell a
- 21:06Speaker 1: story that feelings can argue with. So renter versus homeowner
- 21:13Speaker 1: thirty years two people, same annual household spend, radically different outcomes.
- 21:21Speaker 1: Two twenty eight year olds same income, same city, same
- 21:25Speaker 1: starting housing budget of approximately twenty four thousand dollars a
- 21:28Speaker 1: year two thousand dollars a month. One rents, one buys. Again,
- 21:33Speaker 1: I want you to take this part, clip it out
- 21:36Speaker 1: and share it to everybody who says ownership is stupid.
- 21:40Speaker 1: The median US home price in twenty twenty four four
- 21:42Speaker 1: to and twenty seven thousand dollars with a ten percent
- 21:46Speaker 1: down payment forty two thousand, seven hundred dollars. And by
- 21:49Speaker 1: the way, if you're a person of color, you're a woman,
- 21:52Speaker 1: you might be able to get down payment assistance of
- 21:54Speaker 1: about ten percent from an FDIC insured bank. Hello with
- 21:59Speaker 1: a few times where being a person of color being
- 22:02Speaker 1: black is an advantage. I'm joking, but I'm serious. And
- 22:06Speaker 1: if you don't know these programs, you're not ware what
- 22:08Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Go to Operation Hope online, the Hope
- 22:12Speaker 1: in Hand app downloaded on your Android or Apple device,
- 22:15Speaker 1: iOS device are going on our website at Operation Hope
- 22:19Speaker 1: dot org or call eight eight eight three eight eight
- 22:21Speaker 1: hope get a hold of one of my people. I
- 22:23Speaker 1: suggest you go to the app that way, you're in
- 22:26Speaker 1: the queue. It is. It's hard to miss it because
- 22:30Speaker 1: you're in the queue on the app, versus you calling
- 22:33Speaker 1: somebody and then we just missed the call. My team
- 22:35Speaker 1: will walk you through this. But okay, ten percent down
- 22:37Speaker 1: payment and a thirty mortgage that let's say six point
- 22:40Speaker 1: seventy five percent make this reasonable monthly payments about twenty
- 22:44Speaker 1: four one hundred and ninety dollars. The home buyer spends
- 22:49Speaker 1: modestly more in early years. By year aged ten, the
- 22:54Speaker 1: renter absorbing three percent annual rent increases. It's being the
- 22:58Speaker 1: same or more per month. Now, I'll also tell you
- 23:04Speaker 1: that in the thirty year mortgage, twenty to thirty of
- 23:07Speaker 1: those thirty years are probably the interest. That's not a negative.
- 23:10Speaker 1: That's a positive because the US tax policy in this
- 23:14Speaker 1: regard as design to support home ownership. So you get
- 23:16Speaker 1: to write off most of those mortgage payments against your income.
- 23:20Speaker 1: That's why if you do a detailed tax return, you
- 23:23Speaker 1: get that back and potentially as a tax refund against
- 23:27Speaker 1: Talk to your tax people and talk to my people
- 23:29Speaker 1: that operation. So back to the example, the renter thirty
- 23:32Speaker 1: years later, total rent paid over thirty years at two
- 23:35Speaker 1: thousand dollars a month with three percent annual increases. Hold
- 23:38Speaker 1: on to your boots approximately one point to million dollars,
- 23:46Speaker 1: and you have nothing to show for it except for
- 23:49Speaker 1: doorman who says yes, sir, yes, ma'am, who don't care
- 23:52Speaker 1: about you either, at getting paid. Equity built from those
- 23:57Speaker 1: payments zero assets owned at year thirty nothing, average renter
- 24:03Speaker 1: net worth ten thousand dollars according to AID Institute and
- 24:07Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve. The homeowner thirty years later, mortgage fully
- 24:11Speaker 1: paid off at year thirty. US median home prices have
- 24:16Speaker 1: arisen over this period one hundred and eighteen percent after
- 24:20Speaker 1: inflation since nineteen seventy. This is a Census Bureau, So
- 24:25Speaker 1: a four hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars home purchase
- 24:28Speaker 1: today is conservatively worth seven hundred to eight hundred and
- 24:31Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars in thirty years. And I think that's
- 24:34Speaker 1: that number is low. Equity built through principal reductions alone
- 24:40Speaker 1: approximately two hundred thousand dollars in this example. Total acid
- 24:44Speaker 1: value at year thirty, let's say eight hundred thousand dollars
- 24:48Speaker 1: owned free and clear. Average homeowner net worth four hundred
- 24:53Speaker 1: and thirty thousand dollars according to the Federal Reserve. And
- 24:56Speaker 1: I think these numbers on the home ownership level are
- 24:59Speaker 1: very low. I think over thirty years at number is
- 25:02Speaker 1: easily double that. But I'm just being conservatives for those
- 25:05Speaker 1: who want to argue, let's just hope for the best,
- 25:09Speaker 1: expect the worst, and condition your mind for whatever happens.
- 25:12Speaker 1: I'd rather underestimate and overperform than overestimate and underperform. But
- 25:17Speaker 1: in this example, same income, same city, roughly the same
- 25:20Speaker 1: monthly spend on shelter. Thirty years later, one person has
- 25:25Speaker 1: an eight hundred thousand dollars asset they own outright. The
- 25:28Speaker 1: other person has ten thousand dollars in net worth and
- 25:31Speaker 1: a landlorder who just raised the rent again, same money,
- 25:35Speaker 1: same year, two completely different financial lives. That is not
- 25:39Speaker 1: an accident. That's a decision, and most people don't even
- 25:44Speaker 1: know they're making it. They're just living. They don't I'm
- 25:48Speaker 1: just chillingtting. No, No, you're making a decision every day.
- 25:51Speaker 1: The wealth gap between homeowners and renders has grown seventy
- 25:55Speaker 1: percent since nineteen eighty nine, and it's still accelerated. Seventy
- 26:02Speaker 1: one point five percent of renters say they would rather own,
- 26:04Speaker 1: but fewer than fifteen percent prefer renting. Again. These the
- 26:09Speaker 1: Federal Reserve numbers twenty twenty five, renters are spending fifty
- 26:12Speaker 1: eight point five percent more in real terms than renters
- 26:15Speaker 1: did in nineteen seventy. The rent trap tightens every decade.
- 26:19Speaker 1: That's according to the US Census, only thirty nine percent
- 26:23Speaker 1: of renter households earn more than they spend, which is
- 26:27Speaker 1: why the down payment never materializes. Seventy eight percent of
- 26:32Speaker 1: homeowners own stock and appreciating assets see becomes ownership becomes
- 26:37Speaker 1: a habit. Once you own one thing, you want to
- 26:38Speaker 1: own other things. Only twenty five point seven percent of
- 26:43Speaker 1: renters participate in the stock market, according to Oxford Academic
- 26:48Speaker 1: and the Federal Reserve. See what I'm saying culture mindset.
- 26:54Speaker 1: It's a habit. Success is a habit. Compound interest works
- 27:01Speaker 1: on both sides of the ledger of people. If you're
- 27:04Speaker 1: building equity, it works for you. If you're paying a rent,
- 27:08Speaker 1: it works for your landlord. Every single month, when I
- 27:14Speaker 1: own those homes, they just kept appreciating in value. I'm
- 27:17Speaker 1: not a genius. It's just the magic of compound and interest.
- 27:19Speaker 1: In fact, when I own the homes, seven hundred of them,
- 27:23Speaker 1: just about an annual income and annual expenses almost equaled out.
- 27:29Speaker 1: What I really benefit from was the appreciation over time.
- 27:32Speaker 1: That's just the way compounding works. There's something that happens
- 27:36Speaker 1: to a person when they stop believing they can own
- 27:41Speaker 1: anything and doesn't stay in the financial column. It bleeds
- 27:45Speaker 1: into how you carry yourself. The most dangerous person world
- 27:49Speaker 1: is a person with no hope, and it bleeds into
- 27:51Speaker 1: the risks you won't take, including on yourself. The table
- 27:57Speaker 1: you won't sit at because maybe you're intimidated or you
- 27:59Speaker 1: don't feel like you're worthy the deal. You won't ask
- 28:02Speaker 1: for what winters cannot pass on, equity assets of family legacy. Again,
- 28:10Speaker 1: I'm not downing renters. I was a renter. I own
- 28:14Speaker 1: rental property. It's a natural course of life. I just
- 28:17Speaker 1: want you to have a life plan that transitions you
- 28:20Speaker 1: out of that in three, five, eight years. Don't stay
- 28:25Speaker 1: in that for twenty years. Don't just decide I don't
- 28:28Speaker 1: want to be an owner at all, because you'll be
- 28:31Speaker 1: broke for life. Your grandchildren will be shaped by the
- 28:36Speaker 1: decision you make this decade. As an old Southern saying,
- 28:39Speaker 1: no matter how much I love you, my son or
- 28:41Speaker 1: my daughter, if I don't have wisdom all I can
- 28:44Speaker 1: give you is my own ignorance. So out of love
- 28:47Speaker 1: we pass down bad habits from generation to generation. How
- 28:51Speaker 1: the poorka Save Capitalism is another book that I have
- 28:54Speaker 1: and I want you to read that because I talk
- 28:56Speaker 1: about ownership as community transformation doesn't create renters a right,
- 29:01Speaker 1: Let's talk about spirituality and identity calls. God doesn't create renters.
- 29:06Speaker 1: He creates stewards, right. And nobody washes a rental car,
- 29:09Speaker 1: like nobody rents a car from Hurts or wherever you budget,
- 29:13Speaker 1: rent a car and texts it through a car wash
- 29:16Speaker 1: and polishes it up every day. And this is not
- 29:19Speaker 1: the mindset of people rent You drive it every day
- 29:22Speaker 1: and you put enough, put gas in it if you
- 29:25Speaker 1: have to, but you let it get dusty and whatever.
- 29:27Speaker 1: And then you know, you take it back to the
- 29:29Speaker 1: owner and let them deal with it, which is Hurts
- 29:31Speaker 1: or budget, and let them wash the car. That's why
- 29:33Speaker 1: they have a huge washing bay there. Nobody washes rental cars.
- 29:36Speaker 1: There's a mindset, right, So God creates stewards. There's a
- 29:40Speaker 1: difference between being broken being poor, being broken as economic
- 29:43Speaker 1: being poor is a disabling frame of mind, a depressed
- 29:47Speaker 1: condition of your spirit. He mu's vow never to be
- 29:49Speaker 1: broke again. So there's a difference between someone who takes
- 29:54Speaker 1: care of what belongs to someone else and someone who
- 29:57Speaker 1: takes ownership of what they've been and trusted to build.
- 30:03Speaker 1: You can always tell when there's a render in a
- 30:05Speaker 1: house because the line is up to their eyebrows. Right
- 30:09Speaker 1: the ownership mindset. What ownership is not not just buying
- 30:15Speaker 1: a house, not just a class status marker, not available
- 30:21Speaker 1: only to the ultra already wealthy. Please hear me on that,
- 30:26Speaker 1: because it starts with a mindset. So who is this for?
- 30:29Speaker 1: Who's this podcast for the excluded middle and the burgeoning
- 30:34Speaker 1: working class, those who are strivers. This is the capitalist
- 30:38Speaker 1: for all argument made personal. This is not the wealthy.
- 30:42Speaker 1: I'm talking to, not the hopeless, but the people in
- 30:46Speaker 1: between who are close and don't know it. I'm not
- 30:50Speaker 1: talking to people who have already made it. I mean,
- 30:52Speaker 1: I guess I could they want to reset a reminder,
- 30:56Speaker 1: but that's not my target market here. I'm not talking
- 30:58Speaker 1: to the people who are geting up either, because I'm
- 31:01Speaker 1: not trying to convince you that you should be at
- 31:03Speaker 1: the table. I can't guarantee that being positives is going
- 31:06Speaker 1: to make you a success, but I absolutely guarantee you
- 31:08Speaker 1: that being negative is going to make you fail. I'm
- 31:11Speaker 1: talking to the people in the middle, the ones who
- 31:14Speaker 1: are working, the ones who are trying, the ones who
- 31:18Speaker 1: are one decision, one relationship, one piece of financial knowledge
- 31:22Speaker 1: away from crossing into a completely different life. That is
- 31:27Speaker 1: the group nobody talks about or talks to. They try
- 31:31Speaker 1: to other than try to take advantage of them, separate
- 31:33Speaker 1: them from their wallet. The financial system was not built
- 31:38Speaker 1: for these people. The wealth management industry was not built
- 31:42Speaker 1: for these people. Even a lot of the financial literacy
- 31:45Speaker 1: conversation was not built around these people. My book Capitalism
- 31:50Speaker 1: for All was written for these people, written for you.
- 31:57Speaker 1: This episode it is for those people, and hopefully it's
- 32:03Speaker 1: for you, America's future dream makers. Here's what I want
- 32:11Speaker 1: to tell to these people, the one who's almost always
- 32:16Speaker 1: there and doesn't know it, These people so close. I
- 32:22Speaker 1: want them to know this. The gap between where you
- 32:25Speaker 1: are and where you're trying to go is not as
- 32:28Speaker 1: wide as you think or as why as it looks.
- 32:32Speaker 1: But you will not close it by renting your future.
- 32:35Speaker 1: You close it by owning it, and that starts with
- 32:39Speaker 1: ownership in your mind mindset, because whether you believe you
- 32:42Speaker 1: can or whether you believe you can't, you're absolutely right,
- 32:46Speaker 1: You're not as far as you think. But you will
- 32:49Speaker 1: not close the gap renting as again, you close it
- 32:52Speaker 1: through an ownership mindset, the four pillars of ownership mindset.
- 32:58Speaker 1: You own your story. I'm outsourcing your narrative to your circumstances.
- 33:03Speaker 1: Can I get an amen? You own your decisions, not
- 33:07Speaker 1: your parents, not your zip code, not your algorithms on
- 33:11Speaker 1: social media? Right, you own your development, your own personal development.
- 33:17Speaker 1: Investing in yourself is not arrogant, it's stewardship. As I
- 33:20Speaker 1: said in this T shirt, Ashley, you can number four,
- 33:25Speaker 1: you own your legacy? Who are you building for? That
- 33:29Speaker 1: question changes everything. I grew up with nothing, and I
- 33:34Speaker 1: mean nothing, I mean not literally nothing. My mom and
- 33:37Speaker 1: dad worked, but I grew up in Confinence, South Central
- 33:40Speaker 1: and we had no inherited wealth, no legacy, no nothing, nothing,
- 33:44Speaker 1: And my parents couldn't help me. They were working class people.
- 33:46Speaker 1: My dad owned his own business, but it was a
- 33:48Speaker 1: semen contracting business and it literally was weak to week
- 33:51Speaker 1: hand in mouth. My mother worked. McDonald was aircraft when
- 33:54Speaker 1: he is Smith, Johnny will Smith. You read their story
- 33:57Speaker 1: in my book Up from nothing. I mean, I slept
- 34:01Speaker 1: in my car. I was homeless for six months to
- 34:03Speaker 1: a year or more in my Montero jeep in LA.
- 34:07Speaker 1: No safety that And the thing that saved my life
- 34:10Speaker 1: wasn't a program, it wasn't a handout. It was a
- 34:14Speaker 1: moment I decided I was responsible for this, this thing
- 34:18Speaker 1: called my life. I owned this life. And when I
- 34:22Speaker 1: owned it, I gotta start building it. I remember these
- 34:25Speaker 1: inflection points. I remember a guy and I was in
- 34:29Speaker 1: a suit. I'm going to work backwards. You know. It's
- 34:32Speaker 1: an investment banker, around twenty one years of age, twenty
- 34:36Speaker 1: something like that, and I was wearing a suit. I
- 34:38Speaker 1: was in the hood, ad a nice Mercedes car and
- 34:42Speaker 1: convertible at drove to see a property I owned in
- 34:44Speaker 1: south central LA and Watts and I took a photo
- 34:48Speaker 1: of the property. But as I took a picture of
- 34:50Speaker 1: the property, wasn't these fancy phones now that's instantaneous. It
- 34:54Speaker 1: was a digital handhold camera and took a minute for
- 34:56Speaker 1: the shutter to finish closing capture the picture after you
- 35:01Speaker 1: hit the button and you could hear a click, And
- 35:03Speaker 1: so as I was trying to get the camera out
- 35:05Speaker 1: and push the button. A guy walked across the lens
- 35:10Speaker 1: between me and the property. I didn't mean to get
- 35:14Speaker 1: him in the picture. He just happened to be walking
- 35:15Speaker 1: fast and didn't care about me standing there in the
- 35:18Speaker 1: middle of the road. And he turned to me and said, man,
- 35:21Speaker 1: did just take my picture? And I realized that moment
- 35:24Speaker 1: that a rational answer didn't matter. What he's really he
- 35:26Speaker 1: was saying was I don't want my picture taking and
- 35:29Speaker 1: if you're picking my picture, you and I have a problem.
- 35:31Speaker 1: I want that camera and I may want your life.
- 35:33Speaker 1: He wasn't saying that, but that's what he was saying,
- 35:36Speaker 1: and it hit me at that moment. It was five
- 35:38Speaker 1: to eight feet back to my car. He was about
- 35:40Speaker 1: ten fifteen feet from me. I couldn't sit to negotiate
- 35:43Speaker 1: with him, because the most dangerous person in the world
- 35:45Speaker 1: is a person with no hope. He would have taken
- 35:47Speaker 1: my life, or taken my camera, or beat me up
- 35:50Speaker 1: or mugged me. He didn't want to talk to me.
- 35:53Speaker 1: He didn't want to negotiate with me. He wanted to
- 35:54Speaker 1: take out his frustrations on me. I had to get
- 35:56Speaker 1: the hell out of there. Don't hang around toxic people
- 35:59Speaker 1: or environments. Don't try to reason with unreasonable people. I
- 36:02Speaker 1: got back into my car, got in my car, locked
- 36:04Speaker 1: the door, and realized that lesson you cannot reason with
- 36:08Speaker 1: unreasonable people. Sometimes you just need to balance and watch
- 36:13Speaker 1: you taking pictures of There's another story where I was
- 36:16Speaker 1: selling fila and unless they sports were out of the
- 36:18Speaker 1: trunk of my car. Much earlier, my teens and I
- 36:21Speaker 1: had to borrow some money from this local gangster in
- 36:23Speaker 1: my neighborhood. This was Compton, and I went to go
- 36:26Speaker 1: pay him back with interest and he said, what are
- 36:27Speaker 1: you doing? I said, what do you mean? What am
- 36:29Speaker 1: I doing? I'm I'm paying you back and he's like,
- 36:33Speaker 1: you know, you don't understand what kind of lender I'm at.
- 36:34Speaker 1: I am man, you don't pay me back. We have
- 36:36Speaker 1: a relationship for life. You borrow from me, We just
- 36:39Speaker 1: figure out what you need and I'll you can give
- 36:42Speaker 1: me some money, and you know we talked about it
- 36:44Speaker 1: and I'll make sure you have enough money to live.
- 36:46Speaker 1: But you know, you and I we we have a relationship.
- 36:49Speaker 1: I'm a partner with you. I'm not your lender. And uh.
- 36:52Speaker 1: And then at some point I decide when you're free
- 36:56Speaker 1: that was date, and he was serious, and he would
- 37:00Speaker 1: kill me, That's what he was really saying if I
- 37:04Speaker 1: try to get away from him. But God gave me grace.
- 37:07Speaker 1: He looked at me and said, you know, you're not
- 37:08Speaker 1: supposed to be doing this. Man. You're like a good kid.
- 37:11Speaker 1: I know you from the neighborhood. Your mom is really
- 37:13Speaker 1: raised you well, she loves you. Tell you what, You're
- 37:16Speaker 1: not supposed to be here. I'm gonna let you go.
- 37:19Speaker 1: Don't come back here. You're not meant for this life.
- 37:22Speaker 1: I bounced learn another lesson there. Know who you're getting
- 37:27Speaker 1: business with, know who you're borrowing from, no know who
- 37:29Speaker 1: you're tying up with. I've only made that mistake once
- 37:32Speaker 1: since that time that I'm aware of, and I am
- 37:35Speaker 1: paying a tax for that. Actually right now, I can't
- 37:38Speaker 1: talk about it right now. But it was a lesson
- 37:40Speaker 1: I learned, and I've learned it again as an adult.
- 37:43Speaker 1: Just being naive and thinking the best of people and no, no,
- 37:46Speaker 1: you want to know the facts. You want to know
- 37:47Speaker 1: what you're getting into in advance, read the fine print,
- 37:51Speaker 1: Understand the arrangement that you're getting into with whomever. There's
- 37:56Speaker 1: been a lot of these little aha lessons that have
- 37:59Speaker 1: stuck being forever. There's more, but I think you get
- 38:03Speaker 1: the point. You cannot build a legacy on a lease.
- 38:07Speaker 1: You build it on a deed, starting with a deed
- 38:10Speaker 1: to your own mind. So here's some practical on rams
- 38:14Speaker 1: for you. I want you to open a brokerage account
- 38:18Speaker 1: before you're twenty five. A stock brokerage account, you can
- 38:21Speaker 1: do it. You can do fractional investing, by the way,
- 38:25Speaker 1: as a friend that I had on this podcast, who
- 38:28Speaker 1: create a company called Public and he does fractional accounts.
- 38:32Speaker 1: But you can go to a number of different platforms,
- 38:34Speaker 1: whatever brokerage house you want to do business with. We
- 38:37Speaker 1: have a new Nastek partnership that teaches financial literacy investing
- 38:42Speaker 1: Operation Hope does. And just go to the Operation Hope
- 38:45Speaker 1: in Nastek foundation website and get boned up on investing
- 38:49Speaker 1: it and then figure out a firm that you're comfortable
- 38:52Speaker 1: with and do fractional investing or full stock investing. But
- 38:55Speaker 1: open an account twenty bucks, fifty bucks, you pick the number.
- 38:58Speaker 1: You can participate in the marketplace. You don't need to
- 39:00Speaker 1: be rich. Understand your credit score as a financial tool,
- 39:03Speaker 1: not a grade. Okay, starting a business even while working
- 39:07Speaker 1: for someone else, is a thing that you're nine to five,
- 39:10Speaker 1: financial five to nine, and of course access operation, hope
- 39:14Speaker 1: for scholarship, financial literacy, coaching, and counseling. So now let's
- 39:22Speaker 1: get into part two of this podcast. So now you
- 39:27Speaker 1: know what we're building toward ownership of your life, of
- 39:31Speaker 1: your legacy, of your future. That's a destination. And I
- 39:36Speaker 1: want to be clear here, I'm talking to the people
- 39:39Speaker 1: in the middle. I'm talking to you, not the ones
- 39:44Speaker 1: who've already made it, although they may be inspired by
- 39:47Speaker 1: this too, Not the ones who've given up, because to
- 39:51Speaker 1: argue with the fool proves there are too. If you
- 39:53Speaker 1: don't want to save your life, there's nothing I can
- 39:55Speaker 1: do about it. You got to come to that conclusion yourself.
- 40:00Speaker 1: The ones who are close and don't know it yet,
- 40:03Speaker 1: that's my target market, and that's I'm convinced most people.
- 40:07Speaker 1: I'm just fascinated by people who want to argue about
- 40:10Speaker 1: this book Capitalism for all, saying is this and is that?
- 40:13Speaker 1: And haven't read a page? Want to down capitalism? While
- 40:18Speaker 1: they're using capitalism on the phone, that's capitalism. You're driving
- 40:23Speaker 1: a car, that's capitalism. You're paying a card, up. You
- 40:26Speaker 1: bought the phone talking mess in a house, you're paying
- 40:28Speaker 1: rent or worgage payment. That's capitalism. In a job, that's capitalism.
- 40:32Speaker 1: You're trading a human capital for a paycheck. And go
- 40:34Speaker 1: on and on and on. You're in this world. You're
- 40:37Speaker 1: in this world, but you don't want to understand it.
- 40:40Speaker 1: And where I say that, people again, read to the preface.
- 40:42Speaker 1: If it doesn't blow your mind, I'll buy the book back.
- 40:45Speaker 1: So what's your risk? But people just convinced, Oh, I'm
- 40:49Speaker 1: just convinced. They don't want to take ownership or responsibility.
- 40:53Speaker 1: They don't they don't want to admit that. They're petrified.
- 40:58Speaker 1: They're afraid of what happen if they try and fail,
- 41:01Speaker 1: you know, worse than where you were before. It's like
- 41:03Speaker 1: somebody says, why should I try God? Because God cannot
- 41:06Speaker 1: possibly mismanage your life worse than you have. Give them
- 41:09Speaker 1: a shot. But let me stay here at this point
- 41:12Speaker 1: for a few more minutes, because there's something I see
- 41:15Speaker 1: in this generation that's really positive. And I say this
- 41:18Speaker 1: with love, not with criticism. There's so much potential, so
- 41:21Speaker 1: much optimism, so much bring in, so much aspirational desire
- 41:26Speaker 1: that that's really it has me hopeful, but something worries me,
- 41:30Speaker 1: and it has to do with what people think it
- 41:33Speaker 1: takes to become successful. A lot of young people I
- 41:37Speaker 1: talk to believe that one thing is enough, that being
- 41:43Speaker 1: pretty is enough. Just look at your social media. They
- 41:48Speaker 1: think that because they're pretty, that means everything else is
- 41:52Speaker 1: right and tight, and they can talk mess and be
- 41:56Speaker 1: smart alex and all that kind of stuff. That being
- 41:58Speaker 1: smart is enough, that having a degree is enough, that
- 42:01Speaker 1: being funny is enough, or talented or well connected is enough.
- 42:05Speaker 1: For charismatic or handsome. Let me tell you something. It isn't.
- 42:12Speaker 1: And by the way, you can have several of those things.
- 42:14Speaker 1: It's still not enough. And I need to tell you why,
- 42:19Speaker 1: because no one else is going to tell you. And
- 42:22Speaker 1: that's what this part two is about. One thing is
- 42:26Speaker 1: not enough, even if it's a number of one things.
- 42:31Speaker 1: It's just all an illusion. Social media reward surface appearance
- 42:37Speaker 1: with virality over depth, credentialism. The degree has a destination,
- 42:46Speaker 1: not a starting point. Right. Beauty culture the idea that
- 42:50Speaker 1: being attractive is a career strategy or something can get
- 42:55Speaker 1: you paid. It can get you paid temporarily if that's
- 42:57Speaker 1: what you want to do. They call that something else,
- 42:59Speaker 1: by the way, but look who will fade? Somebody else
- 43:03Speaker 1: will be twenty in gorgeous, And then what are you
- 43:05Speaker 1: gonna do if that's all you're trading in? The smart
- 43:09Speaker 1: kid trapped being told you're gifted and then coasting on it.
- 43:12Speaker 1: I know a bunch of kids like this, and it's
- 43:15Speaker 1: just not enough. You gotta hustle, you gotta work hard.
- 43:18Speaker 1: I'm getting ahead of myself. Being pretty is not the
- 43:22Speaker 1: same as being attractive. Can I get an amen? I'll
- 43:25Speaker 1: say it again. Being pretty is not the same as
- 43:29Speaker 1: being attractive. There are a lot of very pretty ugly people.
- 43:34Speaker 1: Attractive people draw others through character, energy, authenticity, presence, not
- 43:40Speaker 1: just appearance. I can't say this enough. There's a whole
- 43:44Speaker 1: bunch of very pretty, very ugly people, men and women.
- 43:50Speaker 1: Being smart is not the same as being wise. Intelligence
- 43:55Speaker 1: is a tool, Wisdom is the judgment to use it well,
- 43:59Speaker 1: and wisdom costs something. It comes through experience. Having a
- 44:05Speaker 1: degree is not the same as having a skill or
- 44:08Speaker 1: an insight, a value proposition, or a career. Being funny
- 44:13Speaker 1: or witty is not the same as having substance. Attractive
- 44:17Speaker 1: people aren't just good looking. Attractive people pull things towards them, opportunity, trusts, loyalty,
- 44:25Speaker 1: legacy that's built, not born. Only in the dictionary does
- 44:32Speaker 1: success come before the word work, because it's alphabetical only place.
- 44:37Speaker 1: So let's break this down. Work, consistent, unglamorous, repetitive. It's
- 44:44Speaker 1: a repetitive effort that most people are abandoned. They want
- 44:47Speaker 1: to say in late, long lunch, leave early. Everybody wants
- 44:49Speaker 1: to get to heaven. Nobody wants to die to get there.
- 44:52Speaker 1: I'm sorry. There's no free LUTs of it is free,
- 44:55Speaker 1: is stale. Love is work. By the way, whatever you
- 44:57Speaker 1: love is going to drive you crazy, been wise, best friends, ambition, education,
- 45:06Speaker 1: you name it, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever he loves to drive
- 45:11Speaker 1: you nuts. Struggle, the pressure that reveals and refines character, resilience.
- 45:19Speaker 1: It's not bouncing back, but bouncing forward with something learned, grit,
- 45:24Speaker 1: doing the work on the days you don't feel like
- 45:27Speaker 1: you want to and the years no one is watching.
- 45:32Speaker 1: All the years that I worked, everybody just laughed at
- 45:34Speaker 1: me and talked about going out to the clubs and
- 45:36Speaker 1: whatever else will Now I could buy the club and
- 45:38Speaker 1: they can't get into it. Right. They all came to
- 45:42Speaker 1: me for jobs and interviews, but they weren't interested in
- 45:47Speaker 1: that back then. By the way, there are no ugly billionaires,
- 45:50Speaker 1: they're no unattractive multimillionaires. Okay, success is the greatest revenge.
- 45:56Speaker 1: But it took years and years of me staying focused
- 45:59Speaker 1: where everybody else was trying to get their immediate gratification
- 46:02Speaker 1: for free. No sacrifice, Wisdom, the compound interest of experience,
- 46:09Speaker 1: failure and reflection over time, Leadership, the willingness to be
- 46:14Speaker 1: responsible for outcomes, not just activities. Sacrifice, giving up the
- 46:20Speaker 1: good for the great, the now for the later. Can
- 46:25Speaker 1: I get an amen? We're going to church here? Values,
- 46:29Speaker 1: the invisible architecture that determines what you built in, what
- 46:34Speaker 1: you break, Relationship capital, who you've invested in, and who
- 46:39Speaker 1: would go to war for you, your ride or dies.
- 46:44Speaker 1: Talking a little, the discipline of doing over announcing. I'd
- 46:50Speaker 1: rather underestimate and overperform than overestimate and underperform. Somebody told
- 46:54Speaker 1: me recently, John, you move very quiet. I'm like, are
- 46:57Speaker 1: you sure you're talking about the right person. Most people
- 46:59Speaker 1: would say move very loudly and said no, no, No, You
- 47:02Speaker 1: teach loudly, you inspire loudly, You walk into a room
- 47:07Speaker 1: with confidence. Quiet confidence loudly. Your presence is loud, your
- 47:12Speaker 1: platform is loud because you're trying to impact millions, But
- 47:16Speaker 1: you move quietly, You do things and then you talk
- 47:19Speaker 1: about them. That was a real compliment. It It came
- 47:23Speaker 1: from a real person. By the way, None of these
- 47:25Speaker 1: traits show up well on a highlight reel on social media.
- 47:30Speaker 1: That's the point, get it. I rather you respect me
- 47:34Speaker 1: and learn to like me, than like me and never
- 47:36Speaker 1: respect me. Stripes, scars, and wisdom. Wisdom is not available
- 47:44Speaker 1: on a download. It comes with time and loss and
- 47:48Speaker 1: the willingness to be taught by experience. The stripe a
- 47:52Speaker 1: mark you earn, not inherit, the scar evidence of a
- 47:57Speaker 1: risk taking, a lesson survived, the story, the difference between
- 48:03Speaker 1: someone who has lived something and someone who has read
- 48:07Speaker 1: about it. Can I get an amen? By the way,
- 48:09Speaker 1: I just want people to read. By the way, I mean,
- 48:11Speaker 1: it's scares the heck got to be. Kids can't read.
- 48:13Speaker 1: Young people can't read today because social media doesn't reward it.
- 48:15Speaker 1: So you can't write your signature. That's deep. You can't
- 48:19Speaker 1: write your cursive or yeah, long form signature and it's
- 48:23Speaker 1: not an X and thus not thha. You know, or Tha.
- 48:29Speaker 1: I mean like you've got to understand math, you got
- 48:32Speaker 1: to understand how to write, You got to read. Because
- 48:34Speaker 1: artificial intelligence is going to reward and technology is going
- 48:37Speaker 1: to reward constructive thinking, not dumb moving with social media algorithms,
- 48:47Speaker 1: by the way, that are owned by somebody else. Somebody
- 48:49Speaker 1: can pull the plug on that social media at any
- 48:51Speaker 1: time they like because they own it. You don't. That's
- 48:53Speaker 1: another podcast or another time. So I hope this as
- 49:00Speaker 1: laid a foundation for you because wisdom isn't free. It
- 49:04Speaker 1: has a tuition. The bill comes in the form of time, disappointment,
- 49:10Speaker 1: and the humility to learn from both. I take no
- 49:14Speaker 1: for vitamins. Success is going from failure to failure without
- 49:18Speaker 1: loss of enthusiasm. Here's the full stack person, not a
- 49:24Speaker 1: person with one impressive attribute, but a person who has
- 49:28Speaker 1: done the patient work of building a complete human architecture.
- 49:33Speaker 1: This is where it gets sexy. I think we've made
- 49:38Speaker 1: dumb sexy by the way we dumbed down and celebrated
- 49:41Speaker 1: it over the last twenty years. It is time to
- 49:43Speaker 1: make smart sexy again. That's the Quincy Jones quote. I
- 49:46Speaker 1: want to give them credit. He says, to take twenty
- 49:48Speaker 1: years or change of culture. And then I added to
- 49:50Speaker 1: you know, we've made dumb sexy, so it's time to
- 49:53Speaker 1: make smart sexy again. So here is the architecture for
- 49:59Speaker 1: building a complete human being, pretty and purposeful. Write these down,
- 50:05Speaker 1: smart and servant, minded, servant leadership, minded, educated and experienced,
- 50:13Speaker 1: talented and trustworthy, gifted and gritty. Humility, but also hunting.
- 50:23Speaker 1: You're at this game, you're all in, but you have
- 50:26Speaker 1: a humility about how you go about the game. I'm
- 50:29Speaker 1: not here to take anything from you people. Your beauty
- 50:34Speaker 1: is real, your intelligence is God given, it's real. Your
- 50:39Speaker 1: degree is real if you have one. But I'm here
- 50:42Speaker 1: to tell you it is not enough, and I need
- 50:45Speaker 1: you to get that, like real quick before the world
- 50:48Speaker 1: sends you a message the hard way, because a train
- 50:53Speaker 1: is coming and it will mow down everybody in his
- 50:57Speaker 1: path if you cannot get in the way. It's called
- 50:59Speaker 1: a few and it is about to change everything you
- 51:02Speaker 1: know by twenty thirty. And the government's not going to
- 51:05Speaker 1: save you. They're out of that business, it appears, so
- 51:08Speaker 1: you're really have to save yourself. And I'm trying to
- 51:11Speaker 1: give you the tools to do that for yourself. But
- 51:15Speaker 1: why is it not enough is it because you're not enough? No,
- 51:20Speaker 1: you're enough. In fact, you're more than enough. You've just
- 51:27Speaker 1: not done enough yet. Your value actually has to be
- 51:33Speaker 1: realized and optimized. You've got to live the life. What
- 51:37Speaker 1: the proverb says, to be poor is not to not
- 51:39Speaker 1: have anything. To be poor is to not do anything.
- 51:42Speaker 1: And lazy hands make a man poor. There's problems in
- 51:44Speaker 1: the Bible. Become irresistible, good people. This is where we
- 51:51Speaker 1: bring it home. I'm going to ask you something and
- 51:55Speaker 1: I want you to sit with it for a minute.
- 51:58Speaker 1: When you are gone from this earth, what will you leave?
- 52:04Speaker 1: What will you have built that's meaningful? What will your
- 52:09Speaker 1: children have that they didn't have to start from zero on?
- 52:16Speaker 1: Because here's what I know. Every generation has a choice.
- 52:21Speaker 1: You can be the generation that consumed, or you can
- 52:24Speaker 1: be the generation that constructed. Which one are you? The
- 52:29Speaker 1: generation that rented or the generation that owned? Which one
- 52:34Speaker 1: are you? Pretty fades, Smart without wisdom wonders. Degrees without
- 52:42Speaker 1: grit gets you to the table, but not to the
- 52:47Speaker 1: head of it. And nobody likes arrogance. People who think
- 52:51Speaker 1: they're smart just because they have a degree. It's unseemly.
- 52:53Speaker 1: And no one says it, but they dismiss you as
- 52:57Speaker 1: soon as they can. They don't want you around them
- 53:00Speaker 1: because you're full of yourself. A humble spirit is a
- 53:04Speaker 1: beautiful thing. I'm glad that I don't have a bunch
- 53:08Speaker 1: of degrees and all that stuff, because I just show
- 53:11Speaker 1: up paranoid every day ready to work. I know I've
- 53:14Speaker 1: got to be smarter than everybody else in the room,
- 53:16Speaker 1: So my insecurity has actually turned into a strength. Rainbows
- 53:20Speaker 1: after storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first.
- 53:25Speaker 1: But what about the person who has worked, who has
- 53:29Speaker 1: failed forward and grown up and built something real? That
- 53:33Speaker 1: person becomes irresistible. Do I have your attention yet? Not
- 53:40Speaker 1: just to other people to destiny itself? Stop performing, start building.
- 53:49Speaker 1: The world already has enough performers. It needs builders. Stop
- 53:55Speaker 1: rocking the mic and start owning it. Stop bouncing the
- 53:57Speaker 1: basketball and decide you want to own thesketball team. If
- 54:01Speaker 1: you see me ever at a club at two in
- 54:03Speaker 1: the morning, you better know I own it or I'm
- 54:06Speaker 1: being paid to be there. Own your mind, own your future,
- 54:11Speaker 1: own your legacy. That is the assignment, that is the standard.
- 54:16Speaker 1: And I believe, I genuinely believe this generation is capable
- 54:21Speaker 1: of meeting it and exceeding that standard. Don't prove me wrong.
- 54:28Speaker 1: I am your biggest fan, but I need you to
- 54:31Speaker 1: stop performing and start building. The world as I said,
- 54:36Speaker 1: and I'll say again, already has enough performers. I want
- 54:42Speaker 1: you to live your best life. I want you to
- 54:45Speaker 1: wake up tomorrow commit it to being the best version
- 54:48Speaker 1: of yourself. I want you to know that God does
- 54:51Speaker 1: not make mistakes. You may make a mistake, but that
- 54:54Speaker 1: doesn't make you a mistake. That just means that you
- 54:56Speaker 1: just are living this life. A saint is the center
- 55:00Speaker 1: that got up. We're all angels of dirty faces. I
- 55:03Speaker 1: want you to stop nabl gazing, stop the paralysis of analysis,
- 55:07Speaker 1: stop criticizing other people, stop beating yourself up and hiding
- 55:13Speaker 1: behind a fake social media algorithm. I want you to
- 55:18Speaker 1: sit down and become over time, reasonably comfortable in your
- 55:21Speaker 1: own skin. You're not as good as your compliments. Hello,
- 55:26Speaker 1: You're not as bad as your criticisms, including the ones
- 55:29Speaker 1: you give to yourself. You just are who you are,
- 55:31Speaker 1: and the sooner you live and decide to live an
- 55:34Speaker 1: authentic life, the faster you will get to the front
- 55:37Speaker 1: of the line. Call the American dream. I'm here for it.
- 55:41Speaker 1: I'm waiting for you to join me as a partner
- 55:43Speaker 1: at the table of aspiracial success. Go get your book
- 55:46Speaker 1: Capitalism for All, Read it, listen to it, consume it,
- 55:51Speaker 1: and then collect people around you who are in your posse,
- 55:54Speaker 1: who are part of your same mindset, and build a
- 55:59Speaker 1: whole community of exotic A giver and a giver you
- 56:05Speaker 1: can do bad all by yourself. I guarantee love and light.
- 56:09Speaker 1: I'm out John O'Brien Money and Wealth on the Black
- 56:11Speaker 1: Effect Network on iHeartRadio, Tell a friend, Let's go change
- 56:16Speaker 1: the world. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a
- 56:20Speaker 1: production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts
- 56:24Speaker 1: from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app,
- 56:27Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.