WUWY INTERVIEW: Earn Your Leisure Talks New Book 'You Deserve to Be Rich' Mindset, Money Risks, + More

Published Jan 15, 2025, 7:00 PM

Earn Your Leisure Talks New Book 'You Deserve to Be Rich' Mindset, Money Risks, + More

What's up? His way up at ante la yee for a Wealth Wednesday and Stacey tusdam my partner's here with me.

Happy Wealth Wednesdays, everybody. It is National Financial Wellness Month and we are bringing you what Forbes calls the cultural kings of financial literacy. They need no introduction.

He liked that.

I like that, you Leisia like you saying a lot.

I can get a T shirt.

Thank you guys for joining us.

Thank you for having us. It's a privilege and an honor to be amongst you.

And we are celebrating today because yesterday, Yeah, you deserve to be rich. Came out or so excited for you.

This is awesome, beautiful.

Really really a great book.

I got a little advanced copy in and managed to read most of it. Yeah, I did.

You're a fast reader.

I am. I'm a speed reader and you know I love to read. I read all the time. So as soon as I got my book in the mail, I was like, Okay, let's dive into this. Yeah, what do you think I mean? I think you know, we do Wealth Wednesdays, and there's topics on here that I'm so familiar with because we also like similar to what you guys do. We definitely are also always trying to make sure that we are giving whatever financial information that we can to people, bringing on experts, you know, referring bringing people up who also can help people get ahead, because we do think that we all not just want to be rich, deserve to be rich, right.

My background is financial behavior, six years of research into what drives financial behavior. And I love that you get into the how important being aware of that trauma and everything is. And straight off the bat from the title of your book, you deserve to be rich? Why the word deserve and what did you want to convey with that?

Yeah, I think a lot of times people you know, coming from working class environment, so you don't feel that you're actually worthy of riches. You think that it's out of the realm of possibility. You know, the word realistic is a very dangerous word in the English language. And a lot of times we're put in situations where we think that the middle of the road is the end journey, like that's like the highest.

Level that we should we should have achieved to.

Right like, and we never really think about becoming wealthy or becoming rich because a lot of times, you know, even going back to when people say, like, you know, money's are really evil and it's just a lot of negative connotation. A lot of times that has been given to wealth. So a lot of times people don't aspire to be to even be wealthy because they don't think that they are capable of it. And in my brain, that means that you don't think you do you deserve it. So the first thing we're gonna talk about stocks and real estate and credit and all that stuff. But the first thing that we had to do is actually get people to understand that they actually are worthy of being rich, that they deserve to be rich, That it's not an impossible dream, it's not something that's so far fetched. It's not something that's only for entertainers and athletes like that. Every average day person that comes from you know, any any background can achieve financial freedom for financial success. So read wiring the mindset of people is extremely important.

Yeh, because they would say, like, you know, money can't buy you happiness. A lot of times people equate money with like, like you said, with being evil and not something that you should aspire toward. But why shouldn't we aspire toward that? And why shouldn't we feel like we deserve to do that.

Yeah, I think it goes back to like the first line of book.

I'm always interested when people open it and see the first line is the American dream is a lot, right, because we've been told, you know, it's the white pick of fence, and it's the big house, and it's the two and a half kids, which is impossible, and it's the dog. And you realize that dreams aren't monolithic, right, Like everybody dream is not the same, right, And so people fall into that happen like this is what I have to do. This is what I have to do. I have to work harder to obtain it. And if you study wealth, people work smart more than they work hard. But it's a mindset, right, Like we have to see it and we have to believe it. But we always have to be around it, and in our communities, too far and too many times we are not around it.

Right.

We don't have close proximity to what wealth looks like. So the first thing and to get wealth is well, somebody gotta get rich, right. We always say, like you only get somebody to do it once, and then we can become wealthy and we can make it sustainable.

We can make it generational, but.

It starts with that mindset like all right, let's debunk everything, let's retrain, let's rethink, let's start over.

So that's what this book feels like for everybody.

A lot of people talk about changing your mindset without knowing how to show people how to actually do that. But if you there's this this interesting dichotomy here. If you look at the black financial story, just even going back to slavery, Lincoln freed the slaves. Within ten years, those only freed slaves had a mass sixty million dollars in the freedman's bank. That money got stolen from them. Then we rebuilt, and you had this whole business age and you know, you saw things like black Wall Street and stuff, and that was taken from us. And we rebuilt, and we rebuilt and we rebuilt. We are actually an incredible story of resilience. But how do we reframe that? How do you help people? You know, see that in our story because all we see is the trauma of the pain.

We see that DEI is people that you know, and that's getting scale back. But people are thinking that the way that they are defining DEI is so not what the purpose of it is.

Yeah, I think you addressed a head on.

I think for so long we haven't had conversations around trauma, right.

Like why are we putting money under the match? Right? Like why are we just bank? Exactly? Well, where's that mistrust come from? Right? So if you understand the Freedman's bank, you understand how money was stolen from us in railroads.

And we talk about Black Wall Street all the time, but this lingering effects with that, right, So we got to meet that head on. I look at this this body of work as like, you know, they talk about social injustice. I feel like this is financial justice, right, Like, this is the step by step let's talk about the traumas, let's come up with solutions, and let's figure out how we're going to execute on it. And so we're starting to see that, right, Like people are gaining wealth at a different rate now, and it's not because they're working harder, but they're actually learning how to invest, right, they're learning how to create business, create create business. Right, there's multiple ways to create business, but it's changing, right, And the fact that the first thing is like, all right, let's realize that this is happening, right, let's come to terms with it, but let's come up with a solution to figure out how we combat it well.

And then if you can't convince people of a lot of the next best thing is just to confuse the truth. So like even this whole dr thing is this distraction and it's just it's made to confuse people. The first The first thing is is just a light out lie that you're lazy and whatever. You don't believe that. Then the next thing is that you have a leg up because of di which that's actually the furthest thing from the truth. If you look at how much money's allocated a back businesses, it's less than one percent of venture capital. If you look at the fortune five hundred CEOs, it is less than one percent.

That's black. If you look at the amount of people that buy.

Homes, every everything, So where where is the where is the leg up? There is no leg up. It's not like the narrative that you're achieving success because it's an unfair advantage that you have doesn't even make sense when you look at it. It's really just to just it's really to say, like any there's never supposed to be any black person in any level of success. That's what they It's the new way to kind of say the N word without saying it, because it's like, okay, like if you should see if you achieve success, then you did it through DI, right, and that just discredits everything that you did. So it's really just to keep every every person that's black on the ground level. That's the whole push of the DI talk. It's not really to dismantle DI because there's no DI to dismantle. It's really to make sure that there's a permanent underclass in society and to make sure that nobody rises up the ranks, because if they do rise up the ranks, then that's easy to discredit because you don't have to have any facts. You can just say d I. If you say it enough, people believe it. So it's been said so much that now you don't even have to provide any information or any proof that somebody's not qualified.

For their position.

You could just say, Okay, they only got that position because they're black, and now everybody just believes it because that's been permeonated, and it's been permonated by the richest people in the world. The richest person in the world has championed.

That, so right, you know, it's interesting. This is a great time for this book to come out too, with elections haven't happened. We're about to have a different president coming back into office again. And I do feel like a lot of people have been really discouraged about I mean, some people think it's a great thing, but some people have been discourage about what that looks like for us, you know, as far as opportunities, as far as finances, what's going on, because right now it is a difficult time financially for a lot of people. We see what the housing market is like, it's like, you know, the lowest amount of transactions happening in like the past thirty years or something like that. So and interest rates are really high. People are waiting for them to come down. And I know you guys also in this book addressed like every facet of investing that you can, whether it's real estate, whether it's stocks. It shows you all the different like eleven different types of sectors. You know. When it because I'm not that well versed in certain things, like some things, yes, this is you know what I focus on. But this book is great because I think it lays down at any level for any person, some of the foundation for what it is that you may need to achieve wealth that you deserve, you know, to have. So no matter what level you're at, what knowledge you have, there's going to be other things that maybe you're not as versed in that something like this can help you with, or if you've never done any of these things. You have really specific examples of people that could be anybody that's reading the book that you're like, Okay, you know, here's Julie. She makes forty thousand dollars a year, but here's the amount of death that she has. Here's what she did to be able to get herself on the track to being able to achieve wealth.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's important. And that was one of the goals when we were sitting down, was like, we want everybody to identify themselves. And so the characters that are in the book, like you said, they could be any person. Right, it could have been your brother, it could have been your Mom's been your cousin. Right, there's a family that has a kid going to college. There's a single day, so like, we all know somebody like that. So inside that, let's figure out how we can figure out the solution inside of the strategies that we're talking about. So when you're talking about investing, like somebody might never heard of what a stock was, Well, here's what a sector is, here's what indexes is. Because if we look at wealth, right, there are some similar characteristics.

Right.

Either somebody created a company and they own stocking it and that's how they become wealthy.

When we talk about the wealthiest.

Person in the world, right, us and he owns shares a tesla, or they own lands and they have real estate. And so these are core principles. I think what's important is that those things are important, but the future.

Of investment is important.

So we have to talk about what cryptocurrency is that we have to evolve and make sure that we're current because there hasn't been an asset class like this that's ever we've ever seen.

Yeah, there's so many people that didn't trust it when it was first happening, and there were and there were some people who were like, let me invest and figure it out. And you know, it was fluctuating and there was a period of time with the ha ha see I told you, you know, no, what was your question?

You had a question you said about the political landscape, right, that people might be what's the question for?

But I was gonna say a lot of people are concerned about what's going to happen on them now, and not just concerned but discouraged. Right. They might feel like, well, what's going to happen to us? You know, when it comes to student loan forgiveness? I see, you know, Donald Trump is trying to reverse some of those things that were put into placetos to security benefits, because that does benefit people who are thinking about when they want to tired. You know, there's a lot of things right now and a lot of information that's being put out there, and if you're not doing your own research or even going on like you can go on the White House website and see exactly what's happening. But then we see the threats of trying to dismantle certain things that are being put into place.

You know.

So the question is like the anxiety that people may have based off of the new administration, and like what they can do?

Yes, thank you for summing that. Yeah, thanks, that's what I mean. Yeah, So explain to me what you guys think and what you would say to people who have purchased this book, and that's what their main thing is. I feel the anxiety about what's about to happen.

Yeah, I mean as far as like, okay, like what you can do politically not you can't do anything, and as far as like with the anxiety that you yeah, you're screwed. So that's why you wrote the book. Because if you wait, if you're waiting, if you're waiting for government, if you're waiting for government to save you, it's not going to happen. Especially not gonna happen. Is this four years is going to be based off of benefits for entrepreneurs, very wealthy entrepreneurs and people that's investing, so you can benefit from that. But if you're looking for some level of help, that's not going to happen.

So no one's going to say it's never really happened.

No, it's never happened.

No one's going to say it's happens. When you hear all this and fear based thinking. First of all, I think this this election really highlighted the financial illiteracy crisis in this country because it was one on a completely false narrative about the economy that wasn't true.

And then if we can get and thank you, I watched you explain it. When we're talking about people don't understand how it works. So they're just saying, hey.

Watch that, of course, but it's important.

For them to know.

Right they're thinking, oh, I'm going to bring prices down, and so, you know, you get elected and you realize, I'm not sure that's not how.

The quicker we could get to that, the better welf will be. So the quicker we could just get people to understand that, no, it's not going to work out for you that way. It's not it's not going to happen.

But it can't work out.

But we got there because it first place.

But as far as the how, it's not gonna work out for you. As far as waiting for the price of milk to go down, it's not gonna work out for you. Waiting for student loans to just evaporate, it's not gonna work out for you. Waiting for you know, living costs to go down and controlled rent for every single person, that's not gonna happen for you. So the only way it's gonna happen for you is if you take control your own destiny. That's the whole point of the whole point, like master the inner game of wealth. You have to understand for yourself. This is a capitalist of society, and the people that are rewarded and people that win are the people that understand the game and play it efficiently. So you have to learn how to invest in the stock market, that's important. You have to learn about new technology, you have to learn about cryptocurrency, you have to learn about you have to be you have to be an entrepreneur on a certain level, like you have to take your destiny into your own hands.

Yeah, we can.

We can play the political game, and that that is important. But even that we play it the wrong way, like we play it from a standpoint of marching and trying to play off. People say, but there's no sympathy. You have to only play it. The only thing that people politicians respect is money. So we've done we've done everything except for actually play the game the right way, which is money. Right, You go to a politician and you fund their campaign and then they do what you want them to do. Elon Musk is a perfect example that he gave two hundred million of Trump and made two hundred billion in return. That's a great, that's a great investment. So I think a lot of time we just get too emotionally caught up in things and we look at it from an emotional standpoint.

What do you think about morals when it comes to like, let's say, I want to know, first of all, what you guys think about Elon Musk and what if he was like you know what, I want to be down with, like earn your leisure and I want to just let's just say something like that happened, and I want to invest, Like when it comes to morals and money, do those two things can they coexist?

Like?

Can you can you maybe take some money from somebody who you morally can't stand? But I don't know, maybe you guys like him, I'm not sure, but I'm just saying I'm just curious what you have to say about that.

I mean, if you have no morals, then money doesn't matter because you'll do anything for money. You'll do anything for money, right, So if you have if you're doing anything for money, then I can't trust somebody because that means you're robbed. You're still like you need to yeah, exactly. So, of course, morals always have to come before money because when money's not here, morals will always be here. So as far as us doing business, now, we're not looking through business with everybody. If we don't, if we don't align with the person, then why would we do business with them? This this comes from a scarcity mindset of like, I gotta do this deal because it's the only opportunity that I'm ever gonna have. If you come from an abundant mindset, then you realize that not as multiple, If this is not the right deal for me, then maybe you know, I gotta just wait it out six months down the line, like I'll get into a better situation, or I'll just do it myself. I'll take the stairs instead of the elevator, right and self fund the situation as opposed to take it in investors. We never took outside capital. So Elon Musk, you know, he's an interested person. I think that he's an opportunitist more than anything. And I think that you know, he sees opportunities for himself to for really world domination. I think that's that's his end goo And I think that he's willing to do whatever it takes and say whatever it takes. And you know, Trump is somebody that is kind of similar to that, So they don't really their moral compass is a little different, but they also didn't have to go through that pathway of having a moral compass like you know, when you are born in and parts of South Africa and you are part of the ruling party that's ruling over I mean, yeah, you gotta of course what kind of moral compass are you're going to have? You benefited from that system. You got to think about that, even if you wasn't a full adult. You know, that's that's still in your your level of psyche. It's still how you look at people still, how you look at power struts. You just take what you want because that's what happened. So I think that he still he still has that colonize of mindset, even going to Mars. Like the way that they talk about Mars is very interesting because it's it's still done from a colonize of mindset, not asking people we don't even know if there's people on Mars, thoughts we are already making we already making plans for a planet, right because we should. Some people just psychologically think that everything is there.

And all that decides isn't isn't financial freedom. You know, the we focus so much on the financial the freedom part, it's finding your power because you align your finances with who you authentically are and what you really are, and that's the you know, that's real wealth. And I think I always say money's greatest gift is it can really reflect back to you where you are and are not living in step with who you really are. When people align their core values with their finances, they tend to find that they have the money that they need. And I love you guys. Really lay out three principles for financial freedom in this book. You deserve to be Rich available since yesterday you say so, talk to us about your active and residual income, control of your time and on your terms.

Active and residual income.

I got this straight out of your book. Three principles of financial freedom, active.

And residual income. That's important because most of the time how most people were taught about income was from an active standpoint, like work for it, Like you had to go to work and then you get paid to work, right, and then most of the time the work that we're doing is from the neck down, so it's manual labor jobs like you know, what I mean, Like you go and you you use your hands, like your construction and stuff like that. Like you know, you you you have a hard days of work and then you get paid for that. But most of the money is made from the neck up and it's people that actually is just thinking for a living. And that goes back to the passive income where it's like you can only make so much money during the course of a day. And Warren Buffett said, like, if you don't make money while you sleep, you're gonna work till you die. So the whole point is to actually make money while you're not working. That's passive. So real estate stocks, businesses this twenty four hours a day, right, So this is you could be on vacation, you could be at soccer which your son, you can be working on another business while you're making money. So when you start to understand that, and that goes back to psychologically how we look at money. When you start to understand that, then you look at things differently. You're not thinking about how can I get the hardest shift possible, how can I work ten overtime shifts? You're thinking about how can I make some money? But how can I make this money double. How can I put it in this investment? How can I get this home? How can I do that? That's your main focus as opposed to because you can't focus on too many things at one time. And that was the whole point of it. Even for Frederick Douglass actually said something that was extremely insightful when he was like, you know, the system, the system of slavery was not going to last forever. They actually knew that. So even when they abolished slavery, they abolished it, but they still kept the core principle of making people work and not having anything. So you still technically a slave, right, you don't have the shackles on your feet. You can go home, but if you work all day, somebody's weeping the benefits of your rewards and you don't have anything to show for it. Well, that sounds like a lot of people in America, black and white. So when you start to break that chain and you realize like, okay, now there's more to life than just physically working for a paycheck. So that's important, that that dynamic is important.

Yeah, And I guess based on the passive income the explanation of that it kind of goes into two and three. Right, so earn your leisure even that the name is based on controlling your time, right, Like the leisure.

Parties came up with that because you're trying to teach how to earn your leaders.

Yeah, it's about the name stuff, the name stuff.

So it was just about the freedoms, right, like how do we get our time back? And that goes for anybody, Right, I was working nine to five. He was an entrepreneur.

While I'm working, I'm realizing, like I don't have the amount of time.

That I need to do the things I really want. And a lot of people struggle.

With that, right, I think most people, most people, Right, So how do.

I change that? I have to get back my time? Right, I can't exchange my time for money.

It's the number one.

It's the most valuable asset that we can't replicate and we can't get back. And so it became a situation where I'm like, all right, if I'm doing nine to three, that's good, But what am I doing from four to twelve?

Right?

Can I have something from four to twelve that can almost become the new norm for me, that can replace what I was doing in nine to three? And I was like, all right, well, here comes this this idea that we have called ernial leisure. Let's see where this goes. And you start seeing the impact, I start getting my time back. Right now, I get them like, hey, this can actually supplement income, right, this income can now be the main thing.

Now I get to have more freedoms. Right, I thought I did. Right. People don't realize that's an entrepreneur you're gonna.

Work hard on but at least for yourself.

So yeah, then that goes to the last part, right, control your time and do it on your terms. So on your terms, it's like, now I'm doing I still educate, I just don't do it in the classroom. I'm still doing what I love, right, I just get to share it with the world, not a school district. And so doing it on your terms, it's like, hey, we've earned the right to do it, right, We've earned the freedom to now do it how we want. We get to show up in polos and hoodies and tims.

We're authentically not on the inside jacket.

No, look at that.

We'll get focus, Angela, let's stay focused. But we get to do it on our own terms, which is a breath refrustator.

Right, Like, we've watched finance for years and it never looked like us. Right.

You know what about people who think how but I have to work hard to get that. I know, like there's some single mom out there listening and this going, well, what am I doing from four to nine? I'm taking care of it?

And she's in the book, she's in the vote.

It's even more important to make your money work as hard as you're working.

It has to work harder than you're working, right, Like, we look at it like, hey, if you're making money, right, those become your soldiers, right.

You got to put the bat on the field, right, Those soldiers need to bring back more money.

If they don't, you're going to keep being in that cycle of I'm working, I'm working hard, I'm doing overtime. I got to get a second job. You're just treating your time for money, right. We have to make sure that it's out there bringing back more. So the more it brings back in, the more time you're going to have back to yourself. It's the only way to get out that right race.

And when you guys talk about on your own terms, Another thing I want to ask you, you are a childhood friends how is it working with your friends? Because we've seen a lot of people who came up started doing stuff together and then it didn't work out, and partnerships can be difficult. So what are some of the rules that you have because people might want to read this book and think about like being an entrepreneur, maybe teaming up with somebody, family, friends, or whatever. But what are the parameters that you've been able to set to successfully have this run?

I'll tell Shy never called me up to ten. I think it starts with respect. I mean, our relationship is very unique. It as a brotherhood first. So before there was any arnallesia, before there was any businesses, it was two dudes used to play ball together, who.

Had who was better?

He was better?

Okay for sure?

See like how humble I am telling me? Yeah?

I mean, and we had a belief like in each other growing up right like we were. We had a group of friends, but me and him were more kindred mind in a sense. And so anytime he has something going on, I'm supporting. Anytime I had something going on, He's supporting. And so that just kind of grew and then as you grow as young men and men and fathers you start to realize strengths and weaknesses. And so every time I see that he has a strength, I'm like, good, I could be good at that, but he's already strong. And anytime I see a weakness, I'm like, all right, I need to be better at this for our unit to work. And so it's always been that, like he's super creative, right, he's super innovative. I'm more like, hands on, how are we going to execute this right? And so that balances each other, Like he comes up what I did, so shrew the text and shrewed it out to the group, and I just wait because while he's thinking of that, he has the idea, I'm like, all right, let me clear some my mind out to see like how we're going to get this done.

And that's usually worked.

That's yeah, because you can't both do the same thing.

I tried that. I tried that.

I realized that when we started he was great at social media.

I mean you could see my social media, like I tell you to take some shit down to.

I was like, yo, what, I'll get up and I'll start posting on this on earner Lisu's page. And like after the first day, I'm waking up at five am to do this.

I'm like, yo, it takes me like thirty minutes to write a cashle and I know it might take him two minutes.

He's overthinking it.

I was Almo over thinking that. I'm checking punctuation. I'm like, we gotta make sure this is right. Where's the comma? And then I was like, you know what, this is not good. I'm good at research.

I can go look at the articles and find out what's important. I'll send to him, let him go do his magic.

I got the gift of gab.

Yeah, definitely. And you talk about that the importance of it. Sounds like you guys have just been each other's forever, a money team and an accountability partner being on that team, and it's difficult because there's so much shame around asking for help for money. Tell people how important that team, that backup person and getting over that shame is.

Yeah, for sure. I mean you got to be able to you know, it goes back to childhood. A lot of times, you know, our parents told us like, don't ask an adult how much money he makes or she makes.

And you talk about sex easier than money.

Yeah, exactly, stay out of grown folks business, and so you internalize that and you think that you know, you don't talk about money, right, and then that.

That's every community, that's everybody.

And that turns into not asking about it as well, right like you want. You know, even Gez. We talked to Jez and he was telling us about his first check that he got for a million dollars and he didn't cash a check for a year because he didn't know how to cash a checker. So but he was like he was too embarrassed to talk to anybody about it because it's like, you know, it was kind of an embarrassing thing not to know what to do with the check if you're in your mid twenties and you're a millionaire, like you know what I mean. So having that ability to have, you know, an accountability partner in the group, I think kind of it lowers your guard because now everybody kind of has some level of vulnerability. You might not know one thing about real estate, somebody else might not know something about stock, somebody else might not something that's about credit. So we we all learning together, and you have.

To have an openness to be able to do that too, because some people are like I'm not doing that. I'm not and they won't open their mind up to be able to learn because I'm very quick to be that. Look, I don't know how to do that. I need somebody who knows to teach me how or let me go ahead and take this course because reading this book, because like I said, I don't know. I have like my very safe investments because I want to make sure when it's time to retire that that is you know what it is. But I do want to be more active when it comes to investing in the stock market. And then that makes me think like, okay, well maybe I need to take some courses, but also watch you guys and figure that out too.

I think that's what makes it such a unique time, right. I go back to my school all.

The time and they talk about retirement, and retirement just meant like there was a guy that was coming like once a year and hopefully you meet him in the cafeteria. But you know, since we've been doing any leisure, people are not looking at it as an age anymore.

They're looking at it as a number. And that's a mindset change.

Just like once I get to this, but I feel comfortable with retiring it's important. I mean that type of mindset changes things, but it goes back to, you know, kind of what you're saying, having that accountability partner. I come from a background in health and physid like I didn't come back from a background in finance. I taught myself that he comes from, you know, a background of sales and finance as well. But I remember he used to tell me, like, you know, kill the deal, kill the deal, and so that mindset kind of stuck with me. Anytime I would talk about an investment, I run it by him and he would like, try to kill the deal. He'd be like, yo, no, it's not gonna work. No, why would you do that? Why would you do that? And I'm just like, damn, I gotta really sharpen my skills because he's finding with holds in everything I'm saying about this investment, to the point where it was like I tell him something now and it's like he trusted because he knows that at.

This week, you've done the work.

By yeah, far, I have done the work. And now it's like there's no hole to shooting it right, Like this makes a lot of sense, and I can see how you've seen it but early on it was like, now I'm not seeing that. Nah, if you do that, it's gonna mess up. I'm like, all right, yeah, you're right, let me go back. But that's sharp in my eye, you know what I'm saying.

You know what, It's great too. You've been really honest about like your family and losing a house when you were young to foreclosure, and how that's affected how your parents view money, how they view investing, And that's a lot of our stories when it comes to our families and issues that they've had with money in the past that has definitely clouded whatever it is that they might feel comfortable doing in the future. So for you, you know how, like just even this journey that you've been on, I would love to hear what your parents have to say about seeing where you guys are now, because this was something when y'all first started this, it was like, all right, we don't know where this is going to go or what's gonna end up happening, And here we are now.

Yeah, our story is going to be very different. Obviously, you know he's an entrepreneurial dad. I let him tell it. But you know, my parents come from nine to five. My dad worked for forty three years. I remember doing Alesia and telling him like, my mom, I'm like, this is it. I'm not going back to teaching. It's like, oh, whatever, you'll be back. And then I was like, yeah, I'm not going back. And she was like, are you sure you're retired?

You know the usual things.

What about your four on one K, your four or three B, your health insurance, all these these I could hear the fear and the.

Anxieties teachers they get about that, and it made me think about the trauma that they faced, right, and so I understood it, but I understood who I was in my family.

I'm the kid that's willing to take the risks. I'm the kid that's willing to take the chance because I know we're closer to zero than we are to the real goal of generational wealth, and so the chance doesn't feel as great.

To me as it did to them. Whereas their first generation, I'm first generation American. My parents are from Jamaica. They didn't have financial education.

They were making decisions based on what their family members were telling them. Some of those decisions didn't work out. They still live with that. I can make a decision doesn't work out, I can move on. Right, I have the wherewithal I have the education, I have the resources to say and that's without money.

I have the.

Resources say all I've learned from this mistake. How do I how do I get up and recover for it? My mom read the book and she yeah, yeah. When I went this, I sat down. I was like, what you think? And she was kind of hesitanting.

She was like, why'd you tell all those stories?

I'm like, I needed to tell them. She's like, everybody doesn't need to know our personal business. I'm like, no, no, it's not our business. This is going to help educate people. In fact when they hear this story, Like you said, this is everybody's story. Right, you're from Jamaica. How are you supposed to know what adjustable rate mortgage is or if this rate mortgage is?

So many people got that, Yeah, we don't know.

And so like when your dad gets his car repulled by his brother, like, okay, we don't have a car anymore. And then you go from a house to the white house with the picket.

Fence, and then you go into an apartment.

Then you liveing in somebody's basement and it's like it feels embarrassing, but I'm like, no, it's the triumph in that story.

Right.

The person that wrote this book lived through that, so it can encourage and hopefully inspire people to like, hey, if that's my circumstances, it's not over right, what's the X factor in that?

Because I identified there's three major drivers in our financial belief system. I call them money scripts. Just like actors follow scripts, we blindly follow these scripts. There's childhood scripts the way you saw money handled or not discussed or not growing up or not your brain literally you know, says okay, this is right and wrong. There's social script about gender, race, culture, all that kind of stuff. Something in your parents, even though they had all that stuff going on, you saw something that Okay, I can do it anyway. What do you think that X factor was?

You know what, it's a unique thing.

And as we are going on this port tour and some people get in the book early, there's a uniqueness in people that they just believe right away, Like if you ask him, he'll tell you he never thought he wasn't going to be wealthy.

Right. I have essays that my mom kept when I was in third grade, saying I'm going to be a millionaire. No Clid's cue, she.

Still has them, right, Like, in my mind, I saw wealth for myself, right, it didn't matter what was.

Going on around me when we were living in the basement.

Or you know, I watched my dad work and my mom controlled all the money.

I'm sure that's plenty of households. I'm like, oh, she must be more disciplined than him. Why does he keep giving her the money? Right?

Like, so you're working in and she's getting the money to manage it. Does that mean you can't manage it? Nah, I'm not gonna be like the guy who can't manage it. I'm gonna I'm gonna manage the money when I get older.

So I'm watching those things, and innately it was like, I'm gonna be wealthy. I just knew it.

I just was like, Hey, at some point, I'm gonna be wealthy. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I just know I have the mindset for it. And so I think I'm noticing now like the people who feel like that and they.

Have that belief, they make it happen.

Yeah.

Right, there's just this innate thing that they have from childhood that they followed this dream, they followed the intuition, and they have the whrewlthal to say, all right, that's gonna be me, this is gonna be my lifestyle.

Ambrashad your father as an entrepreneur, did you always know like this is gonna be my past too? Just from watching him?

Yeah, I always know I wanted to be an entrepreneur, just from a lot of different stuff. I mean him definitely, and then just different inspiration that I was getting growing up. You dodge on inspiration from everything you know, from music to movies to just different different things. So all of these, all of these things that was shaping my reality all pointed in the direction of being an entrepreneur. So I always never really had an idea of like exactly what I wanted to do as far as entrepreneurship. But I never wanted to I never aspired to have a job. I never wanted to go on like a career. I never wanted to be like, Okay, I want to be a lawyer. I want to be like I never never had any aspirations of like working a job or having a career, like in a traditional sense, how.

Is it too for you guys, being on the pedestal that you're on, everything doesn't always work out the way that you intended it to. And so, but like you said about your parents, being honest about those things that didn't workout can actually help other people because no matter who you are, what position you're in, everything is not a home run, you know, and I think we all know that. So how do you deal with that when it's like okay, you know, because sometimes, yeah, sometimes that's not easy.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just it's just life, you know, It's wins and losses in life. Like you know, no matter what you no matter who you are, it's challenges. You know, you're gonna be tested. You're gonna be tested with your children, with your family, your spouse, your money, everybody has challenges. So you know, we just we just live like you know. Of course, it's good days, it's bad days. There's there's wins, there's losses. Everything is a lesson And I feel like, you know, a lot of times we share different things that have happened to us or are currently happening to us with our audience and they get some level of insight. Hopefully they can avoid making making some mistakes. But now you can't really look at it from a victim standpoint. You can't look at it. You can't feel sorry for yourself because nobody's gonna feel sorry for you. And I think that just leads to, you know, depression, that leads to anger, that leads to a variety of different things. When you start to think about like, Okay, well why did this go bad for me? Or I come this thing work out for me, or I come this thing go You just gotta keep going like life is about just moving forward, Like you know it's not going. Everything is not gonna always work out, but that's part of the journey. Trying not to get too high, try not to get too low. Just stay, just stay even because you know, when you get too high emotionally, you setting yourself up for a crash because it's not always going to be great. When you get too low, you sen yourself up with depression because it's not always going to be bad. So if you just stay in the middle, then I feel like you know you'll be positioned to whether it's storm.

And don't you think people have to get a little more realistic and comfortable with being uncomfortable. No growth ever came when you're comfortable and just kind of reframing, Okay, these challenges are actually tools instead of oh my gosh, this feels terrible and getting so lost and the feeling of it. Feelings pass unless you dwell on them, and just like kind of getting over yourself.

It's crazy.

I was.

I was just listening to Scissor on the Way and on the first songs you talk about I gotta have to be broken for it to grow, and so that that's life, right, Like you're gonna get stronger from the healing because you learned from something that you didn't have, Like there's a chink in your armor that you now have that you didn't have a prior to your circumstances. And that goes to anything investment included. I remember that there's days when it's like there's an emotional roller coaster.

I just tell people put your seatboat on.

Yeah.

I always say it's like even some things, you might take some losses, but that's like paying for education and classes. You know, we pay to go to school, and so I always look at it it's like, well that was a school for me, Like I just invested in some education to learn from what just happened.

I mean, you're not going to succeed if you have a short term mindset when it comes to investing in becoming wealthy. It's not going to happen overnight, right, it may not even happen on your time. Don't happen in God's will, right, So, like we would purpose to do this, right, Like you even think about our careers prize to this financial advisor teacher, Yeah, we would individuals before this, But like when we're together, that makes financial literacy. It just kind of works out that way. And so you got to have and it's funny because we I was gonna lose to it. Like, but like having not having emotions when it comes to investment sometimes works for you, right, Like I don't love a company, I'll invest in a company, right, I don't love this piece of property, but I'll invest in that property. Right, So you take that piece out of it. Now you realize this is something that's just trying to make those soldiers work, Yeah, a little bit harder so they can bring back.

More Money's so great. I mean you it ultimately ends up being a spiritual journey because you got to learn how to transcend fear, it'll teach you all those things, but investing, I really want your guys take on this. Blacks have been the largest number of first time investors to the stock market the past couple of years.

In a row, since twenty nineteen.

Yep, and there's still this notion. That's the very first financial conversation I had with Angel almost ten years ago. I came in to talk about how Blacks have to lose this notion that you have to be rich to invest. It's still out there. I talked to a lot of people about, you know, wanting to get out of debt and you know, wanting to invest. I can't invest because I have debt.

Right types of debt, and two guys addressing.

You guys talk about that whole investing part of it and our fear of it in your book.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean there's some truth to that. I mean, it is kind of hard to invest if you don't have money to invest. So a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, a lot of people are in debt, so that that's kind of the first part of you know, figuring out the financial aspect is figuring out how to get out of debt. Figuring out how to manage debt, figuring out how to increase your income.

That's important.

That is important, figuring out how to budget, figuring out how to you know, not spend money on things that you don't need so you can have a higher amount of discretionary income so you actually can invest. So all that stuff is actually comes does come before investing to me. But then it's understanding that investing is not really optional, like when you give, when you put optional on it, then you're never gonna do it. It's like, all right, I'm gonna do it after this, after that. After that, it's just like, yeah, your cell phone bill, like your cell phone bill has to get paid. There's no option, Like everybody's going to find a way to pay their cell phone bill, right because nobody can live without their phone. So it's like you gotta find a way to put money away and you can't treat it like if there's anything left, I'll get to it at that point in Tom, like, you know, you gotta really pay yourself first, and dollar cost average and something that we talk about and that's the great thing about the four to one K is it comes out of your paycheck and it develops a discipline form of saving.

And sometimes it's a match, and then why would you not do the free money match?

And when you do that, the eighth wonder of the world comes into account, compounded interest.

You know.

When I first started, like getting ready for I did my broth, I was only putting fifty dollars in a month because I didn't have a lot of money. But I was like, I'm gonna do something. And that was like super early on for me. And I saw that grow and that gave me a lot more confidence. Like after a couple of years, I was like, okay, and I could do a little bit more. And that was before I had paid off like everything, but I was like, I can do fifty dollars, you know.

Yeah, I mean fifty dollars is better than zero. Yeah, right, So like even the fact that you did it, that takes financial maturity to say, all right, hey, most people will create that brokeer's account, right, they'll invest it and the stock market will go down and they'll say, I'm out.

Of here, I lost one hundred dollars, right.

They're not realizing the education behind it is like eighty three percent of the time since nineteen twenty five. The stock market that's going up, right, so you have to keep it in the long term. That's why I said that short term vision is what fails us. We want money so fast, right, we haven't had it so long that as soon as like there's an opportunity. That's why I said crypto is important because the asset class, but invest in the market is important. As soon as we see money, we're like, oh wait, we made some and if we lose it, it's like I'm out of here. I'm never doing this again. But we got to learn, right. It takes a process. Right in two thousand and eight, that was me. I invested in the market, then the market crash, I'm like, damn, I'm out of here. I had invested in Apple it was eighty five dollars. If I had just kept the money in there, I mean, Apple doesn't split three times.

The first people to panic aerial investments, so the first people to pan excel in a falling life. We also have a lot of us are first generation. We're carrying that extra weight for eight times more likely to be financially supporting family members.

So it's a lot and nobody taught us like I can't.

I couldn't ask my dad for advice he has even now, like he's watching Market Mondays and talking to me about.

Time to start watching Wealth Wednesdays.

Of course I know he's watching it because he's.

Learning, so at the time, it's never too late to learn, never did.

There's no age limit to this, and that's the beautiful things. And I know we talk about our community a lot, but the book is really for all communities.

Right, Like my next door neighbor would hit me.

I gave him a copy for Christmas and he was like, look, this is an incredible kind of just half an hour of your time.

I'm like, come on side. We can talk about it.

You'll talk about viral questions that happened on social media, which is always a fun thing because, like I said, this is a really relatable book for anybody.

Right.

So one of those questions that you guys had on there is about co signing.

Right.

There was this whole thing that went viral where this woman wanted to I think it was her brother's car. She wanted to co sign and her husband told her no, he didn't think it was a good idea because if he already had messed up credit. Clearly he wasn't handling business. And then she ended up giving doing the co sign and then sure enough he defaulted on that, and you know, and then she needed her husband and he told her no. Right, And so I got to ask y'all, like, if a family member did ask you to co sign, because that's a hard thing, you know what I mean when it comes to family and money. So if a family member did ask you to co sign, would you tell them no? What would your your because it's different to give advice, but then can you take that advice family member?

Like children or like your.

Kids don't getting cars yet?

Well I was on yet, but yeah, yeah, I mean I've learned, and this is again something we talk about, like becoming the CEO of the family and understand that knows a complete sentence.

The education around it is important. Right, So if I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonn tell them why I'm telling him no, right, Because it might not even be a great decision for you to even have this, this vieing.

You don't want to be in the name.

Right you mad?

You can't afford this, right or your credit might be the issue why you need the co sign, So let's deal with the issue, right, Why is your credit in shambles?

Right?

Like, how can we improve that so that the next time when you try to get this loan or whatever it is, you won't need a co sign And you're doing this so so like the definitive answer is important, but the education of why you're giving the answer, I think is equally as important.

And also when family members ask for money, a lot of times they'll do, you know, pull you aside. Look, I'm in a tight spot. It's not just your money, Like you're taking money out of our family. Again, it's not just your money. You're taking money. Maybe they get you got it, you got it, Like like I have a budget. You're asking me to throw my budget out of alignment. And if someone's still going to ask you that, that might say something about the friendship.

Like somebody tell me like they needed five thousand dollars and I was like, I'm not and they were like that's a drop in the bucket for you, And I was like, stop believe in fake YouTube's about my STI gallery in my house.

You never know someone's financial situation, but to think of I see you really not And this must touch the nerves about your asking. So one I always say a thing to say, could be let me talk to my family about it, because it affects all. My wife said any thing everybody, but she got a.

New She.

Earned it, everything earned.

It's just it's interesting, this is this is what they don't prepare you for, right, Like there's no school for this, There's there's no like I can lean on. Like again, I can't lean on my parents for this, my cous like you're the CEO now and so.

Uh, it's a journey because I can't tell my brother now. I feel like I just can't do it.

I realized more than you.

Know that about yourself. You also have to think about, Okay, if I say no to this person, how am I going to feel about me? But also if I this is going to stretch me and I have a trouble, trouble playing my child's tuition and next month because I did this.

It's a big right, But then we realize money isn't the issue.

What is going to happen again?

Right?

Because if you need it now, then what's going to stop it from six six months from now?

No, you're not going to be probably not going to get it. Back.

Well, we know that that's a given side. What are you doing? Are you co signing?

Well?

Now, I mean if I'm gonna do something, I would rather just do it for you, like if I'm like as opposed to coast, like, all right, co sign a car, right, Like like if you need money, and then I'd rather just give you.

Money, okay, if the credit but if you know, maybe sometimes the credit is an issue, would give them the money for the car.

No, I'm just saying like, if it's a situation like okay, I need X, Y and Z, right, it's either or you can actually just put the car on your name, okay, right. But most of the time I felt like, oh.

Brother, he's really nice ninety for the friend.

We are. We're like fifth cousins. You just don't know it.

I mean, it's just one of these things like you know, you shouldn't like even loaning money, you shouldn't. You shouldn't ask the ball money from somebody if you know you can't pay it back. But also you shouldn't loan money to somebody that you know can't pay you back. It's irresponsible on both on both people's decisions. So if I'm gonna do something to If I'm gonna do something for you, then I'll do it out of love and I'm not expecting to get the money back. If I get it back, then it's a blessing. And then if somebody is continuously asking you for money, then that's that's your fault for actually having that type of energy around you. I don't have people around me like that. I don't have people around me that's asking me for money. If they ask me for money or not they really need it. I don't have people that's asking me for money every week every two weeks. If they were asking me for money every two weeks, then they wouldn't be around me. That's that simple for me. I would just end that relationship because it's it's it's a seesaw that I'm not I'm not benefiting from. I mean, it's this is a pattern and you're you're taking advantage of the situation. So I think that that's a lot of times we like to look at other people. When I look at ourselves, you gotta look at yourself. Why are you enabling these persons? Why they feel comfortable asking you? Why you have this person so close that they can even do that that that speaks a lot about about you, like.

Me, being like the here of might you might, you might, you might need.

That type of energy to fulfill your ego to make you feel like, you know, you're I don't need that. So yeah, so I don't have people around me like that. Nobody around me is asking me for for for money on an ongoing basis and try and take advantage of me.

Tell them I will and I do this. If someone asks me for financial help, Okay, when's your appointment with their financial planner, I'll give it to them. I'm not gonna you know, if you have a way to get out of someone what has needs to borrow money, that means they're gonna have to pay you back. They're going to have to get a job that's like double the current salary to get to the point where they could pay you back. They're not going to pay you back. So show me that plan first.

And the fact that you're in this situation speaks to maybe there's a lack of financial discipline.

There is no plan ye, and so again it becomes even tough.

And you guys are very explicit in this book also about not trying to shame people for being in the situation that they're in, you know. And I think that's important too, because people do feel shame when it comes to discussing money topics and any type of hardships. When you ask people, even me, as to my mom, like okay, what's your credit score? Let's you know, clean your stuff up. She did not want to give me no type of information at all. And I was like, I'm offering to help pay off your credit card bills, Like you don't want to tell me. How about you just get me in and I'll do it. I'm like, man, just let me help you. Like, but she's like, it's the shame of not being financially responsible. But like you said, we shouldn't feel the shame in that, but we should be able to face those things and deal with it.

And you should put people in prison for being in debt. I mean there's a lot of history.

Yeah, I mean that's why.

And I think it's important that conversations that had early on, right. So, like my kids, they feel comfortable talking about money.

They want to know how much money is in their account.

They want they want not much money's in my account, They want to give my brokerage, they want to know what I invested.

They feel comfortable. So when it comes down to the credit score, they I mean, this is gonna be like that? What is it like? Why won't you tell me? They've ever been accustomed to it?

Whereas, like you said, there's a generation of us where it's like I didn't know how much my dad made right until I had to go to college. We had to fill off ast for and I'm like, wait, the physic that teacher make it more than my dad, right, And it was like he worked hard for that, but he never we never spoke about it, Like to this day, I know, I.

Don't know what my mom meane, I don't know either.

I don't know what either one of my exactly. And it's like, how did we get this far not knowing these things? Right?

Because again, they could say, all right, that could have been the climax for me. I could be like, you know, my dad made one hundred and twenty five thousand. I want to be better than him, right, I just want to make more than that, right, But I never knew. So I just kind of figure out, like what I saw my physic teacher, how much you made, I gotta make more than him, and that became my mark when I was eighteen.

I gotta make one hundred and twenty five. That's it.

I got to make six figures, and that's I got to figure out how to get there. So I mean, it's a conversation that needs to be had, and I think things happening right. As more people become more confident talking about money, As more podcasts and shows people are talking about money, as more entertainers are talking about money and investing in entrepreneurship, the conversation becomes lighter. And I can use music as a reference now, whereas that wasn't always the case. I can use a show as a reference now, I can use a book as a reference. Route for so long, what was the resource that we were using in our community?

And when you think about what a big impact the way your parents' relationship with money had on yours, I say to all parents, that's what you are for you. Your child can be your best financial tool, because what do I have to put out? How do I have to change my own behavior to be the role model my kid needs them to be. But our community, a lot of people work hard at their finances, They do everything right, and then it completely completely falls apart by the lack of an estate plan and life changes like that. I'm shared with Angela many times. My father battled dementia for many years and then all of a sudden needed around the care help, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I'm twenty five thousand dollars a month and he lived for three years, and that can change. And he had his stuff set up, but I mean, it can change on a dime, and people don't seem to understand that.

It's It's interesting and even during this journey of nalsia, like estate plans weren't even something we talked about. I sat down with my parents and created my dad's estate plan, right, so like I'm the person that's I got an attorney and we sat down, we had the meetings.

It was like the episode of Insecure.

I'm like, it felt like that for me, and I'm just like, man, this is a little bit uncomfortable.

I was happy to you being in that position because it's number one.

Told me that they trust me when it comes to money, right, they want to They knew that that if I was looking over this, that this was going to be the right thing, right.

And then I got the bill for the estate plan, and I was like, oh, this.

Is on me too, Yeah it is, and that too, but it was he has it in place now, so that gives him some security, whereas.

You feel so good when you do it.

Yeah, yeah, because he told me this twenty years ago. He was like, everybody wants to live, but nobody wants to prepare to die. We're all going to die, so we should prepare for it. In fact, your death is your responsibility, not anyone else's.

And don't give money to people that don't have money.

Like this is the things he's always saying.

To Shout is like a rapper with him.

That's important. That's important, that's important, That's vitally important.

Actually right now that well, listen you guys, I'm you know, of course excited about this. You deserve to be rich, mastered the inner game of wealth, and claim your future. I have a lot of things that I need to work on because I'm not perfect either. You know. I feel like I'm I'm way up from where I was, but I'm still on the way up. So that is part of really you know, what this show is about too. So thank you so much for this, thank you for coming up here because I had to ask, like, will you guys please you know.

Yeah, I mean we watched Wealth Wednesdays for so many years now, and I was like, when are we going to get a call?

You know, like I see a lot I.

Had to add. But you know, I know, because you guys are like superstars, you know. So I was like, let me see if they'll do it. I told Stacey. I was like, I'm gonna ask them, but let's see because I know they got, you know, their own thing going on, and but I appreciate it, and honestly, really, for real, congratulations. I love when I see you guys out as human beings and then seeing what you're doing for our community and for everybody, you know, really to make sure that we secure our financial freedom. That's important to me as well, and they should be important to all of us.

Their book came out yesterday. Everybody should get it. One final thing, and the book tour is happening. This is the week that some of those January first resolutions start to get a little crazy. What advice do you have for people to stick to their financial resolutions.

I would tell them to use history as the greatest lesson. Right if you created a resolution in twenty twenty four, how did your year go right?

Did it go as plan right?

Well, if you know that's happening, it's a historic lineage of you not sticking to your plan and your life has been in the same position.

It's time for a correct.

Don't give money to people who don't have any.

And don't give money people don't cott.

This is accountability partner, What was your face of advice?

Face?

A six year resolution?

You gotta break your goals up into into different time frames because it gets overwhelming if it's just one big goal, like if you have a goal to make one hundred thousand dollars, like that's not really a goal, that's a wish. It's another great book that's called The Twelve Week Year, which actually breaks down how you should actually look at a week, a year and twelve week cycles. So it's like you got to break it down the smaller goals and that makes it more attainable. So like a yearly goal is okay, but a monthly goal is good, a weekly goal is better, and a daily goal is the best. Like conquer the day, right, take it like like they say, hey, one day at a time, that's a real, that's real, like one day at a time. Sometimes we get ahead of ourselves and we get frustrated. That's when you quit, I'm gonna lose fifty pounds, no pathway to do it, and then you just missed the gym. Like I just I need I need to work out for one hour every day.

Yeah, I can't.

I can't control the results, but odds are if you work out for one hour every day, if you stop drinking soda, if you if you just conquer the day, you're going to see results in three months. Right, But we get ahead of ourselves. Sometimes I lose.

Two pounds and then I celebrate.

One day, one day, one day at a time, one day at a time.

All right, thank you guys for normalizing the wealth conversation in our community, honestly, and.

Check them out on their book tour and make sure you buy that book too, please because.

You deserve to be rich out right now.

And it's the audio version is out also, so you can go to Amazon, you can go to Barnes and Nobles anyway. You know, we're pushing real hard this week, trying to get on the New York Time's bestsellers list, so we need all you feel good too, but you go you never know you secure, you got secure the victory.

When is what's happening with investments this year to just it's going to be.

Crazy best fast back.

We got some announcements, some secured names, so yeah, be on the lookout August, uh and August.

Guys should do Wealth Wednesday from investments.

You go, you're gonna do we Snesdays. And we totally want to do a financial mindset I'm telling you right now.

Speaking in mindset panel.

Yeah, hosting or speaking all.

Of it now, we'll put it together in the field, honestly.

Alright, let's do it.

Let's do it, all right,