August 12, 2025 ⢠54 mins
On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, talks with financial strategist Nicole Garner Scott about breaking down the myths that keep people from true financial empowerment. Nicole shares her journey from PR powerhouse to financial expert, revealing the common misconceptions about wealth, generational financial literacy, and why cultural narratives around money often keep communities stuck.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Affordable housing is going to continue to be smaller and
smaller as far as inventory and offerings. You know, there's
a lot of people sitting on the sidelines of ownership
waiting for the interest rates of nineteen eighty nine to resurface.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's gone.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's gone, y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And if it comes back, I need you all to
understand how bad of a situation we're probably going to
be in for it to come back.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Correct, And if it comes back, it's not You're going
to have so many corporate infrastructures that'll be able to
take advantage of that way before the average individual.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Kid.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Button Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler, founder CEO of Butter ETL.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And today I got.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Somebody special in the building, somebody I've known for a
long time, somebody who's been doing to work in these
streets and she's put so many people on around this
amazing city of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The one the.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Only miss Missus, Nicole Garner Scott and Nicole, how are
you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Good? I'm good. It's so good to be here and
it's beginning to see you in this in this environment,
I feel like we always knew this was next level
for you, but it's really good to see it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Look, no, Cole, look we go back, man.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Look, I remember we were recording podcasts, I know, a
long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It was at your old spot, Like this is this
is a full circle moment, right, it is?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It is, it is, and it I think it's just
a testament to continuous growth. I think we used to
all laugh, Brandon, in our world was always ahead of
the trends, like far ahead of the trends. And I
remember you used to sit down and talk with us
and be like, this is next, this is what's coming.
And I just blindly would be like, all right, Brandon,
(01:45):
let's do it. I'm not sure if I always understood
the infrastructure behind it, our dynamics, but I knew you
were so vested in forward thinking that you couldn't help
but to know, Brandon, to know to get on board
with that. So so here you are doing the thing.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I appreciate it, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Look, it's it's good to be ahead of the trend.
Sometimes I thought I was a little bit too far
on the trends. Yeah, yet caught up.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah we know it all right now? Yeah? Cool? Well, cool, look, look, Nicall,
I'm so glad you pulled up.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
You know, one of the things I love to do
uh on here on Better Nomics is I love to
introduce everybody for those that don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But I do something a little bit different sometimes.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So what I did is I asked chet gpt Oh
to write a bio about you. So do you want
to hear what the bio said?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I need to go back and do that myself.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Doctor the Cole Garner Scott'm sorry I left the doctor
out in the first time.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Let me tell you what the bio says.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Doctor Nicole Garner Scott is an Atlanta based financial strategists,
serial entrepreneur, speaker, and author. She's best known for holistic
approach to wealth building, helping high achieving professionals and cultural
creators build financial security and generational wealth through tactical moves.
She OWDs agrees from Georgia State in the NBA and
Digital Entrepreneurship, and even has been awarded an honorary degree.
(02:59):
She's founded multiple ventures, from the Garner Circle to account
financial services, and even initiatives like the one hundred Female
Entrepreneurs and the pink Lemonades, and a nonprofit focused on
entrepreneurship in young girls in her private Wealth advisor role,
and the Cole works at executives, entrepreneurs, and creatives to
turn income into lasting wealth. She's recognized by Wall Street
(03:19):
Journal as a Top Woman Advisor and it's active and
culturally responsive financial education, specifically for underrepresented communities. The Cole
often speaks on closing the racial wealth gap, tactical financial planning,
and practical strategies tailored for people without traditional employment. She's
appeared on podcasts like Sold Money in Atlanta Business Radio
when she delivered talks, including Ted Talks that challenge a
(03:42):
notion of being broke while lacking solid financial infrastructure. In short,
she blends Atlanta rooted cultural insights with financial expertise, helping
people not just build wealth, but understand how to use
it wisely.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
In twenty twenty five and beyond.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, thank you Chatty. I call Chatty chat Chatty. That's
my nickname. Yes, well, I need to go back and
do that though, but yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I always ask people so that that's what Chad said,
Was it on? Was it all that?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
No, it didn't miss anything. Some of the some of
the philanthropic things have updated since then, but outside of that,
it gave you the whole picture.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Scary sometimes and we check and find out again, that's
all I typed in was who was ducking? The kind
of gives you all that, right, I can put myself
in here one of these days, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I think we forget to do the things for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So let me ask you the cole like look when
you when you think about Atlanta and you know the
people's produced creatively, Like, what do you think has made
Atlanta this this cultural incubator? Is that you even kind
of call it like the black economic hub of the country.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I think it is. Uh, It's a lot of things
that have converged to bring it together in that fold.
It's the level of talent that's here that probably domin
dominates concentration wise more than you can find in a
lot of other markets. It's what I call this natural
way or this this level of magic of collaboration that
(05:10):
you'll see here more than you see in other markets.
Being an Atlanta native, I got to put that out there.
I'm Alana native. Being an Atlanta native, and I've lived
in multiple places at this point, I've never seen a
level of people wanting to work with each other in
so many different ways. Now there's still dynamics to the city,
(05:32):
you know, like that's just that comes with when you
have a degree between have have not those who are gatekeepers,
et cetera. But overall, I feel like the energy is
very collaborative here. I think that you have a lot
of corporations that have put their headquarters here, so you
have a level of executives from a diversity standpoint that
(05:53):
you won't see in a lot of other markets. And
for a while, you have people who were able to
partake in the cost of living that was still until COVID,
but it's you know until like pandemic price that shot
everything up. But prior to then, you have a lot
of people who made a lot of good real estate
moves here that have positioned them very well, very much
(06:15):
early in life. I think even while we were growing up,
it wasn't it wasn't far fetched to meet someone in
their twenties that was a homeowner, Whereas if you were
in California, Miami, New York, you wouldn't see home ownership
happen until maybe thirty five forty for a lot of individuals,
just because of the pure dynamics of the city. So
(06:37):
I think you have a lot of those different pieces.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Absolutely, Now you know you've kind of seen it on
both sides obviously, like from an entrepreneurship standpoint, you know,
now you're in the whole financial advisor space, and even
you know, you kind of think back to, you know,
your time at the Gardner Circle, which again like you
sprout out a lot of the folks that are doing stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Now we had Daniel.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Dickey on here, you know, oh yes, showing you all
the love in the world for all the opportunities and
doors you kind of opened up for people like him.
Like what do you think that Atlanta and even I'd
just say kind of culture largest miss from like turning
culture into capital.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I think that the city of Atlanta, and that probably
even plays a role in why I had such a
career pivot, is that we really started to romanticize the
optics of the city and the aesthetics of the city.
So you can move around in the city of Atlanta
(07:30):
very easily. It's not as culturally blocked as maybe other cities. Right, Like,
if I want to get to Brandon, I can figure
out through six degrees how to get to Brandon, whereas
in New York I might get to Brandon and brand
it will still be like, what is the purpose of
you getting to be right? So the Atlanta version of
(07:51):
Brandon is accessible in some form or fashion. I mean,
still you're at a place where you're not gonna allow
a lot of people to waste your time. But if
it's a liable reason for communication, you'll cross paths at
some point. I think in the city of Atlanta, there
became because it's been a bit easier. There was not
(08:12):
a lot of infrastructure behind a lot of that. So
you have a lot of individuals who were operating optically
and creating these paradoxes of what felt like wealth, but
it was very surface level. And then I think a
lot of people too, because wealth is still new in
many of our communities. Many of us are first generation.
(08:34):
There's this part of the puzzle where a lot of
people think that wealth is static. It's this number I was.
You know, there's many people who were saying they were
trying to get to a million or this six figure amount.
But as quickly as it came without any infrastructure or
any pieces that were in place. Deeper with the puzzle,
(08:55):
it goes right back out. A city like Atlanta can
consume you very quickly if you don't have that true
foundational piece so you can. I mean, just listening to
a lot of the podcasts and everything, it's people who
four years ago were at their financial peak and they're
being very transparent now and they're quickly coming back out
(09:15):
of that, you know, and being very honest about that.
And I know you're seeing a lot of just clips
and everything else, but it it can a city like Atlanta,
when you walk out the door, you can immediately spend
a million dollars. It feels like you're not careful.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So m hm, no, it feels like it real quick.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I mean, yeah, like I think, you know, if you've
you know, one thing I always kind of tell people too,
especially when you deal with like brands and companies and entrepreneurship,
Like you know, it's always interesting when especially folks on
the corporate side away, I would always kind of say,
you know a lot of y'all think about this money
like it's your money. Yeah, you know, so if you're
managing a budget, you know, if you haven't been in
a position to where you've bought a house before, you've
bought a car before, right to like to you ten
(09:56):
thousand dollars twenty one hundred thousands, a lot of money.
But you don't really realize these companies throwing money around
left and right, right, So I think what happens, to
your point, is you put people like that who might
not necessarily have that personal experience with money, and they
start getting it, and they got to get it's just
as easy it was to get it, it's hard to
lose it.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And like, let's be honest, like.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Money, to your point, was flowing, you know, a couple
of years ago, real estate was cheap, you know, and
all again the pandemic happened, everything started shooting up inflation,
and now there's definitely like a squeeze, you know what
I mean. Like even with some of these brands, even
from like an activation standpoint, like it's always funny to
me and people are like, oh, I want to do
this event and I want to get a sponsor. It's like, well,
these sponsors ain't just throwing money around because they notting
(10:32):
us to do to nomore, right, Like it's a whole
different ballgame, right.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Right, right, The rules are different. I mean, we just
saw that recently with Essence Fest. We've seen that with
just a lot of large events that the sponsorship dollars
are not there like how they used to be, so
you have to get very creative. But that's also why
I would say during like during these times, because it's
just a lot of volatility, people are surround themselves in
(10:57):
fear things are not how they've known them to be.
I mean, both of us I have seen our fair
share of economic cycles at this point right, I'm not
aging us, but we've been here. We've been here through
two thousand and eight twenty eleven. We've seen some things,
We've lived some life. At this point, you have newer
generations where this is their first time experiencing some of
(11:19):
these things. What happens is you cannot base your financial
trajectory on the good times. And that is what most
people do. You know, it's when everything is perfectly aligned
across the board. They're making a lot of moves based
on that, but that won't hold you when things change,
and things will always change. Even if you are doing
(11:42):
amazing now, there's going to be times in the future
where your industry, your assets, whatever that might be, are
going to have a low point and that's just how
all of this works. So understanding and getting yourself around
those people that understand the dips help just helps so
much more.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I Mean, I like everything is cyclical, and like I said,
this is a you know, the smart money knows like
times like this is kind of when money is made. Yeah,
at the same time, you know, like Warren Buffett always says, right,
it's like, what is it when people are.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Fearful be greedy? When people are greedy be fearful?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
And I'm thinking, like, right now, there's definitely I mean,
there's a whole you know, the economic fear calendar or
whatever you kind of call it, that whole meter they use,
and like, these are the moments where you know, especially
the folks who have the wealth, they're like, Okay, they're
seeing the opportunities and kind of jumping in because they're
not necessarily worried about the interest rates and stuff like
That're like, Okay, when this stuff comes back around, we're
going to refinance, keep it moving. But it's those folks
on the other side of it that hadn't kind of
(12:36):
had that breakthrough yet where things a little bit harder
from them, like from your perspective, because again, you work with,
you know, celebrities, corporations, entrepreneurs, Like, what are some of
the patterns that you see and the people that are
getting it right right now in today's economic climate.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Some of the patterns that I see as those individuals
or those businesses treat themselves like institutions. Those are the
ones who are thinking in decades. They're not things in days,
They're not thinking in immediacy. Those are the ones who
are very much understanding the laws that are put in
(13:09):
place right so, I know everyone, I mean right now,
you have the big beautiful bill, you have a lot
of things that are floating through the internet, But how
many people are taking the time to really understand what
does that mean to you and your household? Not the
big headline pieces, not the big clickbait pieces per se,
(13:32):
but what specifically does that mean to you and your household?
What part of this is affecting you? And how are
you how are you preparing for that? Also, I see
that some of the people who are getting it right,
they're very much attuned to not relying on the world
to fix it, not relying on DC to fix it,
(13:54):
not relying on politicians or outside They're figuring out how
do we build this infrastructure in our home and our
household that's independent no matter what is transpiring out there
in the world. So those become very big pieces because
if you start to understand the game that you're playing,
(14:15):
then you can be prepared no matter how the game goes.
You don't want to just be prepared and expect the
world to do what's right for you. The only person
who's going to do what's right for you is you
in your household and your family. So how do you
build an infrastructure to insulate you during that?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
No, you make you make a really good point.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think again when you talk about people in the headlines,
like yeah, look, whatever you think about the current administration,
they're in place right now. And you know, again this
is you know, like when I had John O'Brien came on,
he said, he said a great He's like, look, it
ain't about red or blue, it's about green. And so
if you take that part of even for a second,
like I saw interesting piece of content together that it
(14:55):
was talking about, like, look that bill has passed and
sure like the news is going to have certain headlines
and if you if you simply let those headlines create
your perspective on it without actually.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Reading it in the day.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I'm gonna be honest with you, right, Like these folks
up here, one thing I know they don't mess around
about is they money. So at the end of the day,
whether or not you like the current administration or how
you feel about it, if you actually take a step
back and say, okay, well, what's actually in the bill?
And that was the whole piece of the content, right,
It was like it was specifically speaking to you know,
(15:31):
black entrepreneurs and black Americans saying.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Look y'all, the bill has passed.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So based on this bill, you need to go start
this kind of company, correct, You need to go form
this kind of corporation if you want to take advantage
because at that point, it doesn't matter what you look
like as much as taking advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So I love the idea, like you're saying that you
actually need to go out here and not just rely
on the headlines, but actually inform yourself and get the
you know, the more context about what's happening right there.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Much so and then also too, a lot of that
is emotional bait for you to pull you out of
focus and to make you distracted but then depending how
old you are, unless you're eighty five ninety ninety five,
there's going to be a few more administrations you don't like, Yeah, likes,
you know, like, it's not going to be this is
(16:18):
one and done. There's been precedents said that you can
expect to see some more things. So instead of sitting
on the sideline, how do you dive into that? How
do you figure out what do I specifically need to
do to advance myself and my family and my bloodline
through these times?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Absolutely, let's get into what I'm gonna ask you the coole,
how do I make a million dollars?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So I would say this, I would I think that
a lot of people feel like they can earn their
way to whatever that number is in their mind. So
we'll use a million as that. Depending upon what you
have going on, it could be very hard to earn
your way to a million, right Like, if you're hourly,
if what's coming in and what's going out are pretty
(17:18):
much even across the board, it could be very hard
to earn to a million. If you feel like it's
very easy to earn to a million, then it's very
hard to keep a million because if it's very easy
for you. Then taxation is sitting right there on your
shoulder as well, right, and so as every million you're getting,
you're like, oh my gosh, this amount is going right
back out. So I would say, right now, in regards
(17:40):
to that million, it becomes how am I placing all
of the pieces of the puzzle together to make it
make sense? How am I leveraging my dollars? Right? I
don't think we do enough with the leveraging of dollars
as a community. It's like, we bring the dollar in
and we think it can only serve and I talk
my hand. Sorry, we bring the dollar in, we think
(18:00):
it only has one purpose, and that is to spend.
But if you really understand capital, then every dollar has
multiple points that it can serve you. It could either
grow for you. It could outpace inflation for you. It
can be tax efficient for you. It can help you
lend so that you're not having to rely all on
(18:22):
one pot of money. It can grow for you. There's
so many different things as far as the leveraging of dollars.
So when we're thinking about getting to that million dollar point,
how are you giving all these dollars an assignment that
it can work for you in that type of way,
you can aggregate that dollar. Also, I think that our parents' generations,
(18:44):
our parents parents generations, older generations, it was all about
wealth accumulation. For them. It was keep tucking this money away,
keep tucking this money away. But you had some things
there that weren't vying for your dollar every day. Now
we're in a space where you pretty much don't own anything, right,
Like remember we had CDs, Like once you saved up
(19:06):
your money and you got the CD, then it was
your ownership. Everything is in a subscription model now, et cetera.
So you're going to have a lot of things vying
for your dollars. How do you supersede that? And that's
going to be how you make calculated moves at this point.
What are your investment structures, What is your diversity in
your investments? How are you thinking long term? Just to
(19:30):
give an example, a lot of individuals, if they're on
the corporate side, they're thinking, let me just stuff all
my dollars into maybe a four oh one k. But
at some point the tax reaper is going to come
for that. So where else did you place your dollars
for this million dollar pot? That's allowing you to retain
that because you don't want the million, and then you
(19:53):
get to sixty and it all comes right back out
in like tax distributions and things of that nature. So
so to answer your question, basically, getting to that million
is understanding all the different parts of the dollar to
get to that million.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, absolutely no. When did that really kind of start
to click for you? Because again, like you were again,
you were running the Garner circle and you were in
the pr space and then you all of a sudden
kind of started when all of a sudden started making
this transition, Like what was the moment in which you
really start deciding, you know what, I'm really going to
kind of focus more on the financial opportunities and you know,
do more education about myself but also.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
From my community.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So I would say when I got to college is
when I got introduced to what I call like financial mentors,
people that helped me really understand the language and the
tool usage of money. I had a roommate in college
that just being around her her family was very generational,
(20:50):
and the things in the conversations they would have just
sparked so much interest in me. I was like, we
are not talking about this. Your family wants you to
go see the wealth manager. Who is that? Like, I'm
asking my family who's our wealth manager? Like, and they're like,
you know what, Nicole, who are you around? And so
it made me take a deep dive into that. I
(21:11):
when I was operating more in the PR and marketing space,
I was always running my own company, and so with
that I had to learn very quickly the understanding of
cash flow. I had to learn very quickly, taxes, tax structure,
(21:32):
how this would a few years after I started my company,
I got married, how this impacted my household. It was
just a lot of different things I was learning in
real time. But what I started to notice is a
lot of my clients they would come to it was
this time, it's not anymore. I don't see it anymore.
(21:53):
But do you remember there was a while where it
was like quit your job. If you're going to really
be an entrepreneur, you need to aband and in everything,
burn all the ships. Don't forget about a plan, Like
if you really want this bad, go do it. Who's
the worst advice ever? You know? Like even now when
I hear people and they're like, I really want to
quit my job, I'm like, ah, like, let's think this
(22:14):
through here. There's some things, you know, you're you're considering
having a baby in the next two years, you want
to be able to use those benefits for fertility planning,
or you want to have you know, some other pieces.
There's real life things. It's not so much fairy tale.
But there was a time at the height of like
entrepreneurship in Atlanta was very, very tailish, and so I
(22:35):
was sitting down mapping out marketing infrastructures and people would
have they would have leveraged their homes, they would have
over leveraged themselves in the business. They've used up their
entire for on one case, trying to make that transition
into entrepreneurship. I was just seeing so much and I
was like, who is advising this, Like, we're I'm pr
(22:59):
market it's not going to save you. This is way
deeper here as far as what's going on. And I
started to realize it wasn't a lot of people I
could send them to right that could really hear them
and understand the cultural nuances right, Like, there's something to
be said, like entrepreneurship to you may be how you
(23:22):
feel like you're saving your family, So you are putting up,
you're taking risks that are way outside of suitability to
do such because you have this emotional charge. Then if
I'm sending you to an advisor and they're judging you,
they're like, Brandon, this was dumb. Why did you do this?
What calculations were in place? So then you leave that
(23:44):
meeting feeling depleted and depressed, and then you're like, you
know what, I don't even want to deal with financial
people anymore because they're making me feel like like I'm
below or ignorant or whatnot. And so I'm just going
to continue living in my own silo and try to
figure this out, which that doesn't work, you know for
many people either, yea. So it was during that time
(24:07):
that I was like, well, who can they speak to
at a higher level? And then also too, it was
just it was this versioning part of Atlanta too, that
they were getting a lot of wealth, but they had
no one to speak to as well, right, Like, there's
many people, especially you know, just clients over time where
(24:29):
they would say, you know what, Nicole, You're the only
person I can talk to about this, because outside of you,
it sounds like bragging to other people or it sounds
like this is you know, this is They're like they're like, oh,
we wish you had your problems, right like once you
pay seven figures in taxes if no one else around
you has ever experienced that, They're like, I wish that
(24:52):
that was my problem. You're like, well, I wish it wasn't,
So how do I figure this out? So yeah, it
was just you know, a lot of those different pieces,
and I just became very very passionate in that world.
I was already doing it behind the scenes. And then
also I felt like too for a moment, I was
helping to proactively create some of the falsity narrative, you know,
(25:18):
Like it was I was like, great, we'll do all
these big, amazing things, but I was like, this is
not serving them for the long run. So it's just
me tapping more into what I felt like I'm my
calling was what I'm supposed to be doing more of
during this journey.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, yeah, to your point, it's interesting, right, Like,
I think there was definitely this idea of extreme entrepreneurship
that kind of get sold to a lot of people
like you. But what I've noticed is because I listened
to a lot of podcasts, listen a lot of folks talk.
The people that say that are usually already rich. Yes, there,
already well off, right.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yea, So it's easy.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
And again they're in different industries or they might have
you know, for a lot of them too, they might
have made their money before a lot of these economic
things have changed, right, So it's again like if they
were buying, you know, if they bought all the houses
on Edgewood when they were all twenty thousand dollars, it's
easy to sit back and like, oh, yeah, you need
to quit do this. But the world has changed. And
so I always kind of tell people like, be careful.
Are you're taking the advice from too right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Right? Because rich people tend to give like rich advice,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And that's and that's across the board, not even in finances.
Who you get your business advice from? Right? If they're
telling you, hey, I worked, do you you? I mean,
we've grew up in this brand. And there was a
time too where it was like overwork yourself, you know,
you should be working sun up to sundown, sleep when
you die. It was all these type of very toxic
(26:41):
mental things that we were given. But it's very different
when you are a family man, when you are a mother,
when you have children, when you have there's advice that's
being given to you with people who's their life on
the inside is not how you would want your life
to look, right, and you're taking that advice and they're
getting on. It's funny because I'm doing this podcast, but
(27:05):
I said, I'll never do like a marriage podcast or
any of those things. I don't think you can give
that type of advice blanket right right, Like what I
would be like, what's going on in your household? And
you guys got to figure that out for you because
it's gonna be someone that says, you know what, you
should quit your job and serve your husband. That might
work for them. They might could work on one income.
(27:27):
That could be their thing, but that might not flow
over to you because that is not your The nuances
that are occurring in your household, how you were raised,
how you look at finances, et cetera. So even outside
of the financial advice, just overall, be more discerning who
you take your information from.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Look, I'm gonna say something that's gonna probably fiss people
off right now, But like every time I hear this
whole fifty to fifty conversation, Like, that's what annoys me
about it, right is because again it's it's a one
size fits all conversation. Yeah, and I fully understand that,
you know, you know, to have kids is a full
time job. You know. I have a friend of mine
(28:20):
called them domestic engineers, you know what I mean. It's like, look,
there's real work associated with that, but the reality is
too for a lot of people, Like and I saw
something again, it was interesting because it was kind of
talking about how a lot of those ideas, if you
really break it down, come from we're talking about black
folks right now, come from white culture that has generational wealth.
(28:42):
So you're trying to apply that concept to a lot
of people, especially in the back and the black community,
that are just now getting money, that are just now
getting jobs because you heard it from somebody else. But
the reality is they family had money on money on money.
Their reality is when they grandma died, they didn't have
to do a GoFundMe correct, you know what I'm saying.
And so you know, it's like, and I have another
(29:02):
friend of mine who he is he is very wealthy.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
He has made a lot of money. But he'll tell
you straight up.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
He's like, look, man, in the beginning, me and my wife,
we were fifty to fifty because that's what we had
to do to build something. And he said, once I
got to the point to which she didn't have to work.
But this whole idea of like you just got to
go in and just I gotta have this much like
it's it's it's a one size fits all.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Just to remove a lot of the ideology and also
look at the root of the a lot of the
ideology and figure out once again what works in your home.
That's really all it boils down to. I think everyone
wants to to group think and group share when these
are more individualistic plans that need to be mapped out.
(29:48):
Even I don't know if you watch AHGTV you might,
but if you watch ash TV right and you see
it's the one show that we all watch where it's
like this young couple is picked and we're going to
redo their house, and what type of house are you
looking for? And it'll say the husband is like a
teacher and the mom is like a stay at home wife,
and it's like, what's your budget for the house? And
(30:09):
they're like seven point two million, and you're thinking, like, teachers,
stay home, how is the budget seven point two million?
But you don't understand it. It might be a trust.
You know that there might have been insurance beneficiaries that
that are partaking in this. There might have been a
(30:30):
great amount of inheritance that was left for one of them.
They might have other real estate that was passing on
to them. It was so many other things that allows
that seven point two million dollar budget to be there.
But then you have the world looking at them and
being like, Okay, well I'm a teacher, my wife is
a stay at home so this should be around how
(30:52):
much house we should go for.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
No, yeah, they're doing that for TV.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Like look, I had a friend of mine that was
on one of those reality shows. It was like, you know,
the one of the ones where they have to they
get to like view a couple of different houses and
move in or something like that. And he told me,
he said, Brandon, look, let me tell you what really happened.
He said, bro, we were already living in that house
for six months. And he said, we finally got on
the TV show. They came to our house, they moved
(31:18):
all of our stuff out the house. We went and
stayed in a hotel for like a week. They staged
the house that we were living in, and then we
went and looked at that house and two other ones,
and we walked into our own house and were like, hmmm,
I like this.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I like that, you know what. And when they made
the decisions.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
It was like, we're gonna pick this house, right, he said,
it was the house he was already living in.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
The should have threw off the producers and picked another house.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
That's what I'm saying, right to your point, Like, there's
so much like people don't understand. They see these things,
they take it that surface level. To your point, man,
like you're dealing with people that just have different you know, specifics.
And you know we we both have shot him out.
We both have a good mutual friend, my boy Mo's
mutual friend. One thing Mods said to me that I
always remember. He said, Bro, when you think about it,
you got to remember, as a as a as a people,
(32:06):
we're not that far from segregation.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Of course, we're still my mom still grew up drinking
at a white omen Yeah fountain.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, So you think about it, He's like, we're not
that far from these things even happening, we're like, again
like the first generation, but again you're you're you're you're
comparing yourself to again another person or another couple, another
situation has for generations, and.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Think about think about how deeply layered that is. So
let's say that you meet with your financial team and
you're like, I need to think about this. Is this
making sense? And you go back to your parents to
get their advice. Their advice is based off of the
limited amount of information that they were able to receive.
So they're going to be like, no, don't do it
(32:49):
because it's fear, I've never heard of that before, et cetera.
So you're listening to their advice. You're then from there
you go to your friends who have limited advice as well,
right Like they come from the same spaces, same places,
and they're like, no, don't do it. So you're going
back into the scenario like, you know what, I'm not
going to do this now because I don't feel comfortable,
(33:10):
et cetera. But how would you where else would you
get that infrastructure to say this is sound, this is
a good decision, et cetera. So for many of us,
we have to hire out so many people to guide
us through these different spaces, whereas many of our counterparts
can go back to the kitchen table and get a
(33:32):
lot of that upper level advice. So yeah, we're not
far removed from that. We're not far removed from women
having to be married to open up a bank account,
to purchase a house, to you know, there's a lot
of different things that are happening in real time for
many of us. And then also take into account how
much information is free flowing, right, So you have AI, right,
(33:59):
so many of us are now out going and trying
to figure out our financial plans through AI, which some
of it is good, right, like you'll be able to
get that for skeleton, But then there becomes nuances to
what's really transpiring that it's not wired to put together
for you in that realm as of yet. So you
(34:19):
got to remember the different tools and how they play
a wrong.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, I mean again, it's.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
You know, I have another buddy of mine, and again
he's a white guy, and he's cool, and he started
a business, but he told me he was like Brandon.
The reason why I was able to start this business
is his uncle died and left him a million dollars
and again, like you see it and you're like you're like, man,
let me ask how many of y'all have had I'm
just saying how many black folks have really had I'm
trying to frank parent that has passed away and had
(34:47):
a trust in place. So again, like and the other
part that a lot of times I don't think people
realize is a lot of times by the time we
get the information, it's played out, it's already been so
like it's already not only some people already know it,
but like that game doesn't even kind of work, you know,
like the kind of example I would even give, and
not even just talking about finances right now, but like
(35:07):
right now, it's like when you see a lot of
people talking about something trying to like sell you on something,
I always kind of take a step back and say,
if they were really making that much money, would they
really be like, hold on, I'm gonna go teach you
how to make the same thing. Like I always tell
people the number one way to make money online is
by telling people how to make money online.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Let's be honest. So, like there's a whole.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Thing going on right now about like YouTube automation because
like everybody thinks making money is easy, and so everybody's like,
you know, you can go take AI and you can
generate these YouTube channels. They're faceless, and YouTube came in
and shut that down quick. But literally, for the last
three or four months, all you've seen people talk about
is automation and it's easy, and all of a sudden,
(35:45):
this whole change came in. So again you got to
ask yourself. It's like, if all these people are if
all these people are making all this money, like they
knew this change was coming, and that's where they're like, Okay,
how can I still you know, profit off of this
and put it on you. Now of a sudden you
at homes and they're trying to make these fakes.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
And now YouTube's like nope, caid quick, don't even work.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
They canceled that quick too. I was like, whoa they
were paying attention. I wish they should because it's a
level of authenticity you don't want to lose in that space,
which is the poor crux of that space. I think
also too, when it comes to being in a city
of a lot of distractions, any major market, it's going
to be a city of large distractions. I tell people,
(36:25):
if you land at the airport, on your way out
of the airport, you want to see enough billboards that
tell you where to put your money. Yeah, right, it's
gonna be. You can buy this neighborhood for five dollars down,
You can such and such, and you can get into
this space and investment here. And as soon as you
stop at the gas station, somebody's gonna see you and
be like, hey man, have you heard about this investment?
(36:47):
Like it's just that's just any major market, you're going
to see a lot of that transpire. It is on
you to figure out how to decipher a lot of that,
but then also to figure out what really is your endgame,
because if you're very clear on your endgame, a lot
of these distractions won't take you off. Right. You got
(37:08):
at some point you gotta do the un sexy stuff,
Like even when you were asking, like how do you
get to a million? At some point you still gotta
do all the boring stuff that no one wants to
talk about, right cause that foundationally keeps you on place.
You still gotta have savings. Everyone loves I feel like
post pandemic people love burning out savings at this time,
(37:30):
yolo spending the last dollar. This opportunity might never come
across again. It will, it will, All these things will.
And if you put yourself so far on the edge,
you're going to fall off the edge. So you got
to do all the boring things. When you do all
the boring things, you put yourself in a position where
you could take some of those other risks. You can
(37:51):
be more permission oriented when your foundation is good. But
it you just gotta know what you're trying to do
as the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
And stay focused.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Like I said, even even my buddy who I was
talking about before, that's you know, is wealthy. He'll be
the first one to tell you if the way that
he built his the way that he got his initial
investment money to start building his empire cutting grass and
cutting hair, he will be the first person to tell
He was like, man, if you don't know what else
to do, bro, go get you a lawnmower and they'll
get you some clippers, and go out there and get
the work. It's not always be needed, and go grind
(38:24):
it out and you know, save you up twenty thirty grand.
And then he'll be the first person to tell you
that's how I did it. And he's in a whole
different situation now, but he'll be the first person to
tell you, like, yo, like, if you don't know what
else to do, I'm tell you these two things that
will happen because people are gonna need it. And so,
you know what I kind of wonder is there's you know,
Atlanta's a very entrepreneurial city, right, and so for the
people out there that don't have W two's like, how do.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
You what do you?
Speaker 3 (38:47):
What should these creative entrepreneurs that are on that ten
ninety nine like, what should they start doing and start building?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Well, definitely, I want to take it back to them.
Needed to think of themselves as an institution as well. Right,
So when you are on the W two space, you
luckily have someone else that's concerned about your future and
about your risk. Right. So, once you start working somewhere,
you're getting benefits, you have a four to one K setup,
so your retirement structure is in place. That doesn't mean
(39:14):
you'll do all the things that you need to do,
but there's someone that's offering that to you. When you say,
you know what, I'm gonna pull out of this and
I'm going more into the gig economy or I'm gonna
be more on just the freelance space or whatnot. You
are one hundred percent responsible for you. If you don't
(39:35):
think about retirement, it won't just happen. There's no one
who magically gets to sixty and life gets figured out.
That's when you really wake up and you're like, what
the heck? What did I do here? When you are
completely responsible for you, that's when you need to look
(39:55):
at the money that's coming in really is not yours.
It's your future version of you. All of that money
belongs to the fifty sixty seventy year old version because
there's no infrastructure that's going to kick in at that
point for you. So getting your retirement pieces understanding if
you need a solo four one K or a step
ira or what that might be. Understanding your investments. You
(40:18):
can't you can't rely on cash like that. You can't
do the and many of us have some level of
fear right like you like to have your cash where
you can see you. It's so many people I meet
from in a ten ninety nine space and they have
this crazy amount of cash just sitting in there, checking
account and I'm like, it's going to erode. It will
(40:38):
erode over time, and there's no infrastructure anywhere to back
that up for you. So, so yeah, treating yourself like
an institution even more, and knowing that those dollars coming
in really don't belong to you. They belong to the
seventy eighty year old version of.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yourself, the future, the future version.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
You know. One of things that you said this, you know,
you said this a couple of years ago on your
Ted talk could Always Love is if you're gonna be
broken Atlanta, you better have money. I'm telling you that
that's a less the bar right there. We put that
bar on butter ETL. I ain't even gonna lie. That's
that's been the post we've been on Butter Like, where'd
that line come from?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
You know what? I love it? That was before AI
so I made that, Yes, any anything prior to that?
The cole did you know that was? That was a
bar off off the top of the head. But no,
I was so through just I've worked with a lot
(41:45):
of people, but even for a while when we used
to do the podcast, I owned a coworking space on
Auburn Avenue, and so I was in the thick of
the city, and because of that, people would just stop
by all the time. It was I just has so
much touch, so many touch points with people, probably more
than the average. It's like I was stationed in Hartsville
(42:07):
Airport right Like, it's just the amount of people where
I'm hearing their stories, where I'm seeing things, et cetera.
And for a while, you had so many people moving
to Atlanta, relocating to Atlanta with this falsehood dream that
you could come to the city with nothing in your pockets,
sat run into Jermaine Duprie at DP gas station and
(42:29):
he's going to blow you up or whatever that might be.
It was just a lot of that, and I remember
just telling people like that. I was like, before you
moved to Atlanta, you need to have your money together. Yeah, like,
before you come to Atlanta, you need to have your money together,
before you graduate from high school, before you graduate from
Morehouse or Spelman or whatever that might be. You have
got to have your money together. If you don't, this
(42:52):
city will eat you alive. And so I always was
saying that to people. And then when it came time
to do the Ted Talk, and because it was an
Atlanta focused taed talk. I was like, I would be
remiss if I did not take this real data point
that I feel so strongly about and not talk about
it in full totality. So the name of my taed
(43:15):
talk was if you are going to be broken in Atlanta,
you better have money. I talked through a lot of
pieces on how expensive it is to be broken a
city like this, Like, once you understand what the poverty
line is in Atlanta, once you get below it, it
takes everything, every cell in your body to ever get
(43:36):
above that. Again, it is basically like the statement where
people are saying, you want to make sure you do
everything not to get in jail, because once you're in jail,
it's almost impossible to get back out of that. It's
the same with the poverty line in Atlanta, like, once
you get below it, it's costing you so much just
to fight to live every day. And so understanding how
(44:00):
expensive poverty is also too. I think during that time,
we had the largest amount of and I have to
go back and check statistics, but it was the largest
amount of women living out of their cars but still
working in corporate America. So it was yeah, so it
was it was a convergence during this time where it
(44:22):
was so many working professional homeless or unhoused in the city,
and so it was just you know, I was just
bringing light to how well we make it look here,
you know, like Atlanta, you would not know that someone
is unhoused right in the office right with you. But
(44:42):
it was so common and it just wasn't enough people
speaking speaking to that.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
So let me let me because you said something, I
just want to I want you to unpack what you
just said for a second. It's how how how expensive
it is to be broke, Like just to unpack that,
I know what people just for the people that are listening, Yeah,
give more context.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah yeah, so and especially you're going to see that
now too, because there's there's changes to medicaid, there's changes
to SNAP benefits, there's changes to a lot of different
things that you're going to see happen very fastly, uh
and aggressively. But in regards to that, when you are
(45:23):
what was the movie, what's the movie that just came
out with Saraji.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Snap wasn't Snapped or something like that.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Uh, it definitely starts with I saw it, I know,
and I'm like, why did it just leave my mind.
It's shaw Uh. It'll come back to me in a second.
But if you if anyone happened to see that straw.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
The reason that it resonated emotionally with so many people
is because once things start spiraling, then the catch up
becomes just so unreal to do. And so in a
city like Atlanta, because it is there are so many
moving parts to it. If you find yourself in a
space where you have to come downtown for anything, you're
(46:08):
gonna have to pay the park. If you say, let
me just see if I can slip by this one
time and not pay the part, you will be you
will welcome yourself to the land of the boot the
boot man. The Bootman costs a certain amount of money.
If you didn't have the money to park, you didn't
have the money for the boot Man. You're like, Okay,
I can't deal with this right now. I'll get back
(46:29):
to it in a few days. You come back. Your
car has been told. Once your car has been told,
it costs you a certain amount of money each day
that is sitting in the toe place. So then you're like,
I didn't have the five dollars to park, how am
I going to get the additional dollars to get it
out of the toe, and it just continues to send
you on this cycle and this cycle and this cycle.
(46:50):
So understanding how expensive poverty can be in this city.
And then also too, I don't even want us to
think about already in the traditional sense of just un housed.
If we remember, like during the pandemic, when it was
all the food the food pick up places that open
around Atlanta. I had you know, friends that are that
(47:14):
oversee those different things they sit on infrastructure of the city.
How many like porsches and benzes and everything else you
saw drive up into the into the food pick up
spaces is because even though these people were making great income,
they were still very much checked to check. Yeah, right,
and Atlanta can That's what I talked about the optics
(47:35):
of the city. You being the best penthouse, you can
be in the best condos, your children go to the
best private schools. But let you miss one paycheck and
that's completely out the window. Again.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
So yeah, absolutely, Now one thing you've said too is
like that in Atlanta and just in general, right, like
capital really needs to be you know, really held as
close as passionately as the culture. But you know when
you think about that, like, what are some of the
trends over the next three or five years that people
need to start preparing themselves for.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I think to have an understanding of liquidity and the
power of liquidity. So you even brought up earlier in
our conversation how during these types of times, people will
be able to deploy their money and strategic ways and
build a lot of wealth. Right, it's because your money
is not locked up in all these different things. And
(48:27):
so what happens now what I see a lot of
individuals do is their money is spread up, spread out
in all these different areas where it's very heavily locked out.
There's no liquidity to that. You can yeah, yeah, like you.
I mean, if I was to see your net worth, yes,
it looks beautiful on paper, but you cannot access those
(48:48):
dollars in an efficient way. You can't leverage those dollars.
So all this time is passing you by. Right. It's
like someone telling you, oh, I have like a million
dollars in equity, but you can't. You can't move, like
you're locked into that property. So it's great. Or you're
telling me like you just signed this beautiful tech job,
(49:10):
and you have all these RSUs as a part of
your compensation deal, but you haven't thought through how best
to amplify that or to utilize it. It sounds good.
It's one of the things that when you're talking to
people and you're like, yeah, I mean I have a
million dollars in equity on my property, but you haven't
(49:31):
actualized it or realized it right, and it's not working
for you and your best interest. So I say, in
the next three to five years, understanding efficient liquidity is
going to be very, very key. That's a lot of
things that I help my clients with. I think that
affordable housing is going to continue to be smaller and
(49:51):
smaller as far as inventory and offerings, and people need
to understand that. You know, there's a lot of people
sitting on the side lines of ownership waiting for the
interest rates of nineteen eighty nine to resurface.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
It's gone.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
It's gone, y'all.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
If it comes back, I need you all to understand
how bad of a situation we're probably going to be
in for it to come back.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Correct, and if it comes back, it's going to get
You're going to have so many corporate infrastructures that'll be
able to take advantage of that way before the average
individual can. So even understanding we're not even playing the
same game that you were. Then, so understanding affordable housing,
(50:39):
understanding liquidity, also understanding I would say, if you didn't
understand taxation before understanding the purpose of needing people around
you that do. Because if you felt like you've suffered
(50:59):
a lot of tax burden in your life, you're probably
not in the top one percent or even twenty percent
that are going to benefit from a lot of the
laws that are changing. Everyone under that is going to
be impacted. So you understanding what are the tools that
can help you be most efficient during that time. It's
(51:19):
gonna be very.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Key to absolutely, absolutely, Look, this is a great conversation.
We're ready to wrap this thing up. Let me ask you, man,
if there's somebody that's listening and they're kind of feeling stuck,
they're in that in between space, they're all here hustling,
you know, Like, what's one decision they can make, like
right now this week, that like help them just start
moving in a better situation financially.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
One decision I would say, relationship capital is going to
be is going to be the ultimate mover more than
ever before. I think that who you are around, who
you know, is going to move you faster per se,
especially with this with the technology rush. You know, that's
(52:02):
the soft skill side is what's going to be completely forgotten.
And I feel like when it comes to if you're like,
I need money now, it's not going to really be
chatch BT to tell you to create an ebook and
you put it out there and you try to sell
it for forty nine and everyone's like, what is this?
You created this on chat GPC. People love exposing you
(52:25):
now too. It's going to be that person that you
know that's like, you know what, I do need some
extra hours on this project I'm working with, Come do that.
I really believe tapping more into personal person, person to
person dynamics is going to be very key during this time.
And then also too, when you are at your brink,
(52:45):
that's not the time to throw it all into some
untrusted hustle. That's when when you're your most vulnerable, that's
when predators can feel that the most, and that's when
they'll come after you with the best idea ever when
you are at your most desperate.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely cold. Look, this has been a great conversation.
You dropped a lot of gems. We appreciate you pulling
up before you get out of here. If people want
to work with you, they want to.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Find out more.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
They want to you know, they want to figure out
how they can get in the right direction. They don't
want to be broken Atlanta, and they want to have
some money. How can they get in contact? Would you
like give them.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
All the things?
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah? Yeah. On Instagram is doctor Garner Scott d R
G A R N E. R. Scott. A lot of
my financial information is on LinkedIn, so let's Nicole Garnerscott
on LinkedIn website is the Money Plan i NC dot com.
And I'm pretty accessible in regards to very serious people. Yes,
(53:41):
so yes, But thank you so much, Brandy for having me.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
This is excellent, absolutely man, Nicole, thank you so much
for coming up again. This is a long time making.
You've been somebody I've known for a long time. It's
been doing these things and I love all the stuff
you have going on and can't wait to see what
happens next.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
And thank you.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
You know what that said, We out, y'all, that's the
pod you've been listening to and im your host Brandon Butler,
Got comments, feedback, Want to be on the show. Send
us an email today at Hello at butternomics dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Butter Nomics is.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia Byksey Pegram, with marketing
support from Queen and Nikki.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Music provided by mister Hanky.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never
missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on
all our social platforms at butter dot atl Listen to
betteron Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts
Affordable housing is going to continue to be smaller and
smaller as far as inventory and offerings. You know, there's
a lot of people sitting on the sidelines of ownership
waiting for the interest rates of nineteen eighty nine to resurface.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
It's gone.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's gone, y'all.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
And if it comes back, I need you all to
understand how bad of a situation we're probably going to
be in for it to come back.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Correct, And if it comes back, it's not You're going
to have so many corporate infrastructures that'll be able to
take advantage of that way before the average individual.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Kid.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Button Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandon Butler, founder CEO of Butter ETL.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
And today I got.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Somebody special in the building, somebody I've known for a
long time, somebody who's been doing to work in these
streets and she's put so many people on around this
amazing city of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
The one the.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Only miss Missus, Nicole Garner Scott and Nicole, how are
you doing today?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Good? I'm good. It's so good to be here and
it's beginning to see you in this in this environment,
I feel like we always knew this was next level
for you, but it's really good to see it.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Look, no, Cole, look we go back, man.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Look, I remember we were recording podcasts, I know, a
long time ago.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
It was at your old spot, Like this is this
is a full circle moment, right, it is?
Speaker 1 (01:25):
It is, it is, and it I think it's just
a testament to continuous growth. I think we used to
all laugh, Brandon, in our world was always ahead of
the trends, like far ahead of the trends. And I
remember you used to sit down and talk with us
and be like, this is next, this is what's coming.
And I just blindly would be like, all right, Brandon,
(01:45):
let's do it. I'm not sure if I always understood
the infrastructure behind it, our dynamics, but I knew you
were so vested in forward thinking that you couldn't help
but to know, Brandon, to know to get on board
with that. So so here you are doing the thing.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I appreciate it, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Look, it's it's good to be ahead of the trend.
Sometimes I thought I was a little bit too far
on the trends. Yeah, yet caught up.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah we know it all right now? Yeah? Cool? Well, cool, look, look, Nicall,
I'm so glad you pulled up.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
You know, one of the things I love to do
uh on here on Better Nomics is I love to
introduce everybody for those that don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
But I do something a little bit different sometimes.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So what I did is I asked chet gpt Oh
to write a bio about you. So do you want
to hear what the bio said?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
I need to go back and do that myself.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Doctor the Cole Garner Scott'm sorry I left the doctor
out in the first time.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Let me tell you what the bio says.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Doctor Nicole Garner Scott is an Atlanta based financial strategists,
serial entrepreneur, speaker, and author. She's best known for holistic
approach to wealth building, helping high achieving professionals and cultural
creators build financial security and generational wealth through tactical moves.
She OWDs agrees from Georgia State in the NBA and
Digital Entrepreneurship, and even has been awarded an honorary degree.
(02:59):
She's founded multiple ventures, from the Garner Circle to account
financial services, and even initiatives like the one hundred Female
Entrepreneurs and the pink Lemonades, and a nonprofit focused on
entrepreneurship in young girls in her private Wealth advisor role,
and the Cole works at executives, entrepreneurs, and creatives to
turn income into lasting wealth. She's recognized by Wall Street
(03:19):
Journal as a Top Woman Advisor and it's active and
culturally responsive financial education, specifically for underrepresented communities. The Cole
often speaks on closing the racial wealth gap, tactical financial planning,
and practical strategies tailored for people without traditional employment. She's
appeared on podcasts like Sold Money in Atlanta Business Radio
when she delivered talks, including Ted Talks that challenge a
(03:42):
notion of being broke while lacking solid financial infrastructure. In short,
she blends Atlanta rooted cultural insights with financial expertise, helping
people not just build wealth, but understand how to use
it wisely.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
In twenty twenty five and beyond.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Well, thank you Chatty. I call Chatty chat Chatty. That's
my nickname. Yes, well, I need to go back and
do that though, but yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I always ask people so that that's what Chad said,
Was it on? Was it all that?
Speaker 1 (04:11):
No, it didn't miss anything. Some of the some of
the philanthropic things have updated since then, but outside of that,
it gave you the whole picture.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
Scary sometimes and we check and find out again, that's
all I typed in was who was ducking? The kind
of gives you all that, right, I can put myself
in here one of these days, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
You have to.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
I think we forget to do the things for ourselves.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So let me ask you the cole like look when
you when you think about Atlanta and you know the
people's produced creatively, Like, what do you think has made
Atlanta this this cultural incubator? Is that you even kind
of call it like the black economic hub of the country.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
I think it is. Uh, It's a lot of things
that have converged to bring it together in that fold.
It's the level of talent that's here that probably domin
dominates concentration wise more than you can find in a
lot of other markets. It's what I call this natural
way or this this level of magic of collaboration that
(05:10):
you'll see here more than you see in other markets.
Being an Atlanta native, I got to put that out there.
I'm Alana native. Being an Atlanta native, and I've lived
in multiple places at this point, I've never seen a
level of people wanting to work with each other in
so many different ways. Now there's still dynamics to the city,
(05:32):
you know, like that's just that comes with when you
have a degree between have have not those who are gatekeepers,
et cetera. But overall, I feel like the energy is
very collaborative here. I think that you have a lot
of corporations that have put their headquarters here, so you
have a level of executives from a diversity standpoint that
(05:53):
you won't see in a lot of other markets. And
for a while, you have people who were able to
partake in the cost of living that was still until COVID,
but it's you know until like pandemic price that shot
everything up. But prior to then, you have a lot
of people who made a lot of good real estate
moves here that have positioned them very well, very much
(06:15):
early in life. I think even while we were growing up,
it wasn't it wasn't far fetched to meet someone in
their twenties that was a homeowner, Whereas if you were
in California, Miami, New York, you wouldn't see home ownership
happen until maybe thirty five forty for a lot of individuals,
just because of the pure dynamics of the city. So
(06:37):
I think you have a lot of those different pieces.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Absolutely, Now you know you've kind of seen it on
both sides obviously, like from an entrepreneurship standpoint, you know,
now you're in the whole financial advisor space, and even
you know, you kind of think back to, you know,
your time at the Gardner Circle, which again like you
sprout out a lot of the folks that are doing stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Now we had Daniel.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Dickey on here, you know, oh yes, showing you all
the love in the world for all the opportunities and
doors you kind of opened up for people like him.
Like what do you think that Atlanta and even I'd
just say kind of culture largest miss from like turning
culture into capital.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
I think that the city of Atlanta, and that probably
even plays a role in why I had such a
career pivot, is that we really started to romanticize the
optics of the city and the aesthetics of the city.
So you can move around in the city of Atlanta
(07:30):
very easily. It's not as culturally blocked as maybe other cities. Right, Like,
if I want to get to Brandon, I can figure
out through six degrees how to get to Brandon, whereas
in New York I might get to Brandon and brand
it will still be like, what is the purpose of
you getting to be right? So the Atlanta version of
(07:51):
Brandon is accessible in some form or fashion. I mean,
still you're at a place where you're not gonna allow
a lot of people to waste your time. But if
it's a liable reason for communication, you'll cross paths at
some point. I think in the city of Atlanta, there
became because it's been a bit easier. There was not
(08:12):
a lot of infrastructure behind a lot of that. So
you have a lot of individuals who were operating optically
and creating these paradoxes of what felt like wealth, but
it was very surface level. And then I think a
lot of people too, because wealth is still new in
many of our communities. Many of us are first generation.
(08:34):
There's this part of the puzzle where a lot of
people think that wealth is static. It's this number I was.
You know, there's many people who were saying they were
trying to get to a million or this six figure amount.
But as quickly as it came without any infrastructure or
any pieces that were in place. Deeper with the puzzle,
(08:55):
it goes right back out. A city like Atlanta can
consume you very quickly if you don't have that true
foundational piece so you can. I mean, just listening to
a lot of the podcasts and everything, it's people who
four years ago were at their financial peak and they're
being very transparent now and they're quickly coming back out
(09:15):
of that, you know, and being very honest about that.
And I know you're seeing a lot of just clips
and everything else, but it it can a city like Atlanta,
when you walk out the door, you can immediately spend
a million dollars. It feels like you're not careful.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
So m hm, no, it feels like it real quick.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I mean, yeah, like I think, you know, if you've
you know, one thing I always kind of tell people too,
especially when you deal with like brands and companies and entrepreneurship,
Like you know, it's always interesting when especially folks on
the corporate side away, I would always kind of say,
you know a lot of y'all think about this money
like it's your money. Yeah, you know, so if you're
managing a budget, you know, if you haven't been in
a position to where you've bought a house before, you've
bought a car before, right to like to you ten
(09:56):
thousand dollars twenty one hundred thousands, a lot of money.
But you don't really realize these companies throwing money around
left and right, right, So I think what happens, to
your point, is you put people like that who might
not necessarily have that personal experience with money, and they
start getting it, and they got to get it's just
as easy it was to get it, it's hard to
lose it.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
And like, let's be honest, like.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
Money, to your point, was flowing, you know, a couple
of years ago, real estate was cheap, you know, and
all again the pandemic happened, everything started shooting up inflation,
and now there's definitely like a squeeze, you know what
I mean. Like even with some of these brands, even
from like an activation standpoint, like it's always funny to
me and people are like, oh, I want to do
this event and I want to get a sponsor. It's like, well,
these sponsors ain't just throwing money around because they notting
(10:32):
us to do to nomore, right, Like it's a whole
different ballgame, right.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Right, right, The rules are different. I mean, we just
saw that recently with Essence Fest. We've seen that with
just a lot of large events that the sponsorship dollars
are not there like how they used to be, so
you have to get very creative. But that's also why
I would say during like during these times, because it's
just a lot of volatility, people are surround themselves in
(10:57):
fear things are not how they've known them to be.
I mean, both of us I have seen our fair
share of economic cycles at this point right, I'm not
aging us, but we've been here. We've been here through
two thousand and eight twenty eleven. We've seen some things,
We've lived some life. At this point, you have newer
generations where this is their first time experiencing some of
(11:19):
these things. What happens is you cannot base your financial
trajectory on the good times. And that is what most
people do. You know, it's when everything is perfectly aligned
across the board. They're making a lot of moves based
on that, but that won't hold you when things change,
and things will always change. Even if you are doing
(11:42):
amazing now, there's going to be times in the future
where your industry, your assets, whatever that might be, are
going to have a low point and that's just how
all of this works. So understanding and getting yourself around
those people that understand the dips help just helps so
much more.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
I Mean, I like everything is cyclical, and like I said,
this is a you know, the smart money knows like
times like this is kind of when money is made. Yeah,
at the same time, you know, like Warren Buffett always says, right,
it's like, what is it when people are.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Fearful be greedy? When people are greedy be fearful?
Speaker 3 (12:15):
And I'm thinking, like, right now, there's definitely I mean,
there's a whole you know, the economic fear calendar or
whatever you kind of call it, that whole meter they use,
and like, these are the moments where you know, especially
the folks who have the wealth, they're like, Okay, they're
seeing the opportunities and kind of jumping in because they're
not necessarily worried about the interest rates and stuff like
That're like, Okay, when this stuff comes back around, we're
going to refinance, keep it moving. But it's those folks
on the other side of it that hadn't kind of
(12:36):
had that breakthrough yet where things a little bit harder
from them, like from your perspective, because again, you work with,
you know, celebrities, corporations, entrepreneurs, Like, what are some of
the patterns that you see and the people that are
getting it right right now in today's economic climate.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Some of the patterns that I see as those individuals
or those businesses treat themselves like institutions. Those are the
ones who are thinking in decades. They're not things in days,
They're not thinking in immediacy. Those are the ones who
are very much understanding the laws that are put in
(13:09):
place right so, I know everyone, I mean right now,
you have the big beautiful bill, you have a lot
of things that are floating through the internet, But how
many people are taking the time to really understand what
does that mean to you and your household? Not the
big headline pieces, not the big clickbait pieces per se,
(13:32):
but what specifically does that mean to you and your household?
What part of this is affecting you? And how are
you how are you preparing for that? Also, I see
that some of the people who are getting it right,
they're very much attuned to not relying on the world
to fix it, not relying on DC to fix it,
(13:54):
not relying on politicians or outside They're figuring out how
do we build this infrastructure in our home and our
household that's independent no matter what is transpiring out there
in the world. So those become very big pieces because
if you start to understand the game that you're playing,
(14:15):
then you can be prepared no matter how the game goes.
You don't want to just be prepared and expect the
world to do what's right for you. The only person
who's going to do what's right for you is you
in your household and your family. So how do you
build an infrastructure to insulate you during that?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
No, you make you make a really good point.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think again when you talk about people in the headlines,
like yeah, look, whatever you think about the current administration,
they're in place right now. And you know, again this
is you know, like when I had John O'Brien came on,
he said, he said a great He's like, look, it
ain't about red or blue, it's about green. And so
if you take that part of even for a second,
like I saw interesting piece of content together that it
(14:55):
was talking about, like, look that bill has passed and
sure like the news is going to have certain headlines
and if you if you simply let those headlines create
your perspective on it without actually.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Reading it in the day.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
I'm gonna be honest with you, right, Like these folks
up here, one thing I know they don't mess around
about is they money. So at the end of the day,
whether or not you like the current administration or how
you feel about it, if you actually take a step
back and say, okay, well, what's actually in the bill?
And that was the whole piece of the content, right,
It was like it was specifically speaking to you know,
(15:31):
black entrepreneurs and black Americans saying.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Look y'all, the bill has passed.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So based on this bill, you need to go start
this kind of company, correct, You need to go form
this kind of corporation if you want to take advantage
because at that point, it doesn't matter what you look
like as much as taking advantage of it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
So I love the idea, like you're saying that you
actually need to go out here and not just rely
on the headlines, but actually inform yourself and get the
you know, the more context about what's happening right there.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
Much so and then also too, a lot of that
is emotional bait for you to pull you out of
focus and to make you distracted but then depending how
old you are, unless you're eighty five ninety ninety five,
there's going to be a few more administrations you don't like, Yeah, likes,
you know, like, it's not going to be this is
(16:18):
one and done. There's been precedents said that you can
expect to see some more things. So instead of sitting
on the sideline, how do you dive into that? How
do you figure out what do I specifically need to
do to advance myself and my family and my bloodline
through these times?
Speaker 3 (16:37):
Absolutely, let's get into what I'm gonna ask you the coole,
how do I make a million dollars?
Speaker 1 (16:54):
So I would say this, I would I think that
a lot of people feel like they can earn their
way to whatever that number is in their mind. So
we'll use a million as that. Depending upon what you
have going on, it could be very hard to earn
your way to a million, right Like, if you're hourly,
if what's coming in and what's going out are pretty
(17:18):
much even across the board, it could be very hard
to earn to a million. If you feel like it's
very easy to earn to a million, then it's very
hard to keep a million because if it's very easy
for you. Then taxation is sitting right there on your
shoulder as well, right, and so as every million you're getting,
you're like, oh my gosh, this amount is going right
back out. So I would say, right now, in regards
(17:40):
to that million, it becomes how am I placing all
of the pieces of the puzzle together to make it
make sense? How am I leveraging my dollars? Right? I
don't think we do enough with the leveraging of dollars
as a community. It's like, we bring the dollar in
and we think it can only serve and I talk
my hand. Sorry, we bring the dollar in, we think
(18:00):
it only has one purpose, and that is to spend.
But if you really understand capital, then every dollar has
multiple points that it can serve you. It could either
grow for you. It could outpace inflation for you. It
can be tax efficient for you. It can help you
lend so that you're not having to rely all on
(18:22):
one pot of money. It can grow for you. There's
so many different things as far as the leveraging of dollars.
So when we're thinking about getting to that million dollar point,
how are you giving all these dollars an assignment that
it can work for you in that type of way,
you can aggregate that dollar. Also, I think that our parents' generations,
(18:44):
our parents parents generations, older generations, it was all about
wealth accumulation. For them. It was keep tucking this money away,
keep tucking this money away. But you had some things
there that weren't vying for your dollar every day. Now
we're in a space where you pretty much don't own anything, right,
Like remember we had CDs, Like once you saved up
(19:06):
your money and you got the CD, then it was
your ownership. Everything is in a subscription model now, et cetera.
So you're going to have a lot of things vying
for your dollars. How do you supersede that? And that's
going to be how you make calculated moves at this point.
What are your investment structures, What is your diversity in
your investments? How are you thinking long term? Just to
(19:30):
give an example, a lot of individuals, if they're on
the corporate side, they're thinking, let me just stuff all
my dollars into maybe a four oh one k. But
at some point the tax reaper is going to come
for that. So where else did you place your dollars
for this million dollar pot? That's allowing you to retain
that because you don't want the million, and then you
(19:53):
get to sixty and it all comes right back out
in like tax distributions and things of that nature. So
so to answer your question, basically, getting to that million
is understanding all the different parts of the dollar to
get to that million.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, absolutely no. When did that really kind of start
to click for you? Because again, like you were again,
you were running the Garner circle and you were in
the pr space and then you all of a sudden
kind of started when all of a sudden started making
this transition, Like what was the moment in which you
really start deciding, you know what, I'm really going to
kind of focus more on the financial opportunities and you know,
do more education about myself but also.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
From my community.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
So I would say when I got to college is
when I got introduced to what I call like financial mentors,
people that helped me really understand the language and the
tool usage of money. I had a roommate in college
that just being around her her family was very generational,
(20:50):
and the things in the conversations they would have just
sparked so much interest in me. I was like, we
are not talking about this. Your family wants you to
go see the wealth manager. Who is that? Like, I'm
asking my family who's our wealth manager? Like, and they're like,
you know what, Nicole, who are you around? And so
it made me take a deep dive into that. I
(21:11):
when I was operating more in the PR and marketing space,
I was always running my own company, and so with
that I had to learn very quickly the understanding of
cash flow. I had to learn very quickly, taxes, tax structure,
(21:32):
how this would a few years after I started my company,
I got married, how this impacted my household. It was
just a lot of different things I was learning in
real time. But what I started to notice is a
lot of my clients they would come to it was
this time, it's not anymore. I don't see it anymore.
(21:53):
But do you remember there was a while where it
was like quit your job. If you're going to really
be an entrepreneur, you need to aband and in everything,
burn all the ships. Don't forget about a plan, Like
if you really want this bad, go do it. Who's
the worst advice ever? You know? Like even now when
I hear people and they're like, I really want to
quit my job, I'm like, ah, like, let's think this
(22:14):
through here. There's some things, you know, you're you're considering
having a baby in the next two years, you want
to be able to use those benefits for fertility planning,
or you want to have you know, some other pieces.
There's real life things. It's not so much fairy tale.
But there was a time at the height of like
entrepreneurship in Atlanta was very, very tailish, and so I
(22:35):
was sitting down mapping out marketing infrastructures and people would
have they would have leveraged their homes, they would have
over leveraged themselves in the business. They've used up their
entire for on one case, trying to make that transition
into entrepreneurship. I was just seeing so much and I
was like, who is advising this, Like, we're I'm pr
(22:59):
market it's not going to save you. This is way
deeper here as far as what's going on. And I
started to realize it wasn't a lot of people I
could send them to right that could really hear them
and understand the cultural nuances right, Like, there's something to
be said, like entrepreneurship to you may be how you
(23:22):
feel like you're saving your family, So you are putting up,
you're taking risks that are way outside of suitability to
do such because you have this emotional charge. Then if
I'm sending you to an advisor and they're judging you,
they're like, Brandon, this was dumb. Why did you do this?
What calculations were in place? So then you leave that
(23:44):
meeting feeling depleted and depressed, and then you're like, you
know what, I don't even want to deal with financial
people anymore because they're making me feel like like I'm
below or ignorant or whatnot. And so I'm just going
to continue living in my own silo and try to
figure this out, which that doesn't work, you know for
many people either, yea. So it was during that time
(24:07):
that I was like, well, who can they speak to
at a higher level? And then also too, it was
just it was this versioning part of Atlanta too, that
they were getting a lot of wealth, but they had
no one to speak to as well, right, Like, there's
many people, especially you know, just clients over time where
(24:29):
they would say, you know what, Nicole, You're the only
person I can talk to about this, because outside of you,
it sounds like bragging to other people or it sounds
like this is you know, this is They're like they're like, oh,
we wish you had your problems, right like once you
pay seven figures in taxes if no one else around
you has ever experienced that, They're like, I wish that
(24:52):
that was my problem. You're like, well, I wish it wasn't,
So how do I figure this out? So yeah, it
was just you know, a lot of those different pieces,
and I just became very very passionate in that world.
I was already doing it behind the scenes. And then
also I felt like too for a moment, I was
helping to proactively create some of the falsity narrative, you know,
(25:18):
Like it was I was like, great, we'll do all
these big, amazing things, but I was like, this is
not serving them for the long run. So it's just
me tapping more into what I felt like I'm my
calling was what I'm supposed to be doing more of
during this journey.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, yeah, to your point, it's interesting, right, Like,
I think there was definitely this idea of extreme entrepreneurship
that kind of get sold to a lot of people
like you. But what I've noticed is because I listened
to a lot of podcasts, listen a lot of folks talk.
The people that say that are usually already rich. Yes, there,
already well off, right.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yea, So it's easy.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
And again they're in different industries or they might have
you know, for a lot of them too, they might
have made their money before a lot of these economic
things have changed, right, So it's again like if they
were buying, you know, if they bought all the houses
on Edgewood when they were all twenty thousand dollars, it's
easy to sit back and like, oh, yeah, you need
to quit do this. But the world has changed. And
so I always kind of tell people like, be careful.
Are you're taking the advice from too right?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Right? Because rich people tend to give like rich advice,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
And that's and that's across the board, not even in finances.
Who you get your business advice from? Right? If they're
telling you, hey, I worked, do you you? I mean,
we've grew up in this brand. And there was a
time too where it was like overwork yourself, you know,
you should be working sun up to sundown, sleep when
you die. It was all these type of very toxic
(26:41):
mental things that we were given. But it's very different
when you are a family man, when you are a mother,
when you have children, when you have there's advice that's
being given to you with people who's their life on
the inside is not how you would want your life
to look, right, and you're taking that advice and they're
getting on. It's funny because I'm doing this podcast, but
(27:05):
I said, I'll never do like a marriage podcast or
any of those things. I don't think you can give
that type of advice blanket right right, Like what I
would be like, what's going on in your household? And
you guys got to figure that out for you because
it's gonna be someone that says, you know what, you
should quit your job and serve your husband. That might
work for them. They might could work on one income.
(27:27):
That could be their thing, but that might not flow
over to you because that is not your The nuances
that are occurring in your household, how you were raised,
how you look at finances, et cetera. So even outside
of the financial advice, just overall, be more discerning who
you take your information from.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Look, I'm gonna say something that's gonna probably fiss people
off right now, But like every time I hear this
whole fifty to fifty conversation, Like, that's what annoys me
about it, right is because again it's it's a one
size fits all conversation. Yeah, and I fully understand that,
you know, you know, to have kids is a full
time job. You know. I have a friend of mine
(28:20):
called them domestic engineers, you know what I mean. It's like, look,
there's real work associated with that, but the reality is
too for a lot of people, Like and I saw
something again, it was interesting because it was kind of
talking about how a lot of those ideas, if you
really break it down, come from we're talking about black
folks right now, come from white culture that has generational wealth.
(28:42):
So you're trying to apply that concept to a lot
of people, especially in the back and the black community,
that are just now getting money, that are just now
getting jobs because you heard it from somebody else. But
the reality is they family had money on money on money.
Their reality is when they grandma died, they didn't have
to do a GoFundMe correct, you know what I'm saying.
And so you know, it's like, and I have another
(29:02):
friend of mine who he is he is very wealthy.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
He has made a lot of money. But he'll tell
you straight up.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
He's like, look, man, in the beginning, me and my wife,
we were fifty to fifty because that's what we had
to do to build something. And he said, once I
got to the point to which she didn't have to work.
But this whole idea of like you just got to
go in and just I gotta have this much like
it's it's it's a one size fits all.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Just to remove a lot of the ideology and also
look at the root of the a lot of the
ideology and figure out once again what works in your home.
That's really all it boils down to. I think everyone
wants to to group think and group share when these
are more individualistic plans that need to be mapped out.
(29:48):
Even I don't know if you watch AHGTV you might,
but if you watch ash TV right and you see
it's the one show that we all watch where it's
like this young couple is picked and we're going to
redo their house, and what type of house are you
looking for? And it'll say the husband is like a
teacher and the mom is like a stay at home wife,
and it's like, what's your budget for the house? And
(30:09):
they're like seven point two million, and you're thinking, like, teachers,
stay home, how is the budget seven point two million?
But you don't understand it. It might be a trust.
You know that there might have been insurance beneficiaries that
that are partaking in this. There might have been a
(30:30):
great amount of inheritance that was left for one of them.
They might have other real estate that was passing on
to them. It was so many other things that allows
that seven point two million dollar budget to be there.
But then you have the world looking at them and
being like, Okay, well I'm a teacher, my wife is
a stay at home so this should be around how
(30:52):
much house we should go for.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
No, yeah, they're doing that for TV.
Speaker 3 (30:56):
Like look, I had a friend of mine that was
on one of those reality shows. It was like, you know,
the one of the ones where they have to they
get to like view a couple of different houses and
move in or something like that. And he told me,
he said, Brandon, look, let me tell you what really happened.
He said, bro, we were already living in that house
for six months. And he said, we finally got on
the TV show. They came to our house, they moved
(31:18):
all of our stuff out the house. We went and
stayed in a hotel for like a week. They staged
the house that we were living in, and then we
went and looked at that house and two other ones,
and we walked into our own house and were like, hmmm,
I like this.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I like that, you know what. And when they made
the decisions.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
It was like, we're gonna pick this house, right, he said,
it was the house he was already living in.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
The should have threw off the producers and picked another house.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
You know.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
That's what I'm saying, right to your point, Like, there's
so much like people don't understand. They see these things,
they take it that surface level. To your point, man,
like you're dealing with people that just have different you know, specifics.
And you know we we both have shot him out.
We both have a good mutual friend, my boy Mo's
mutual friend. One thing Mods said to me that I
always remember. He said, Bro, when you think about it,
you got to remember, as a as a as a people,
(32:06):
we're not that far from segregation.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Of course, we're still my mom still grew up drinking
at a white omen Yeah fountain.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, So you think about it, He's like, we're not
that far from these things even happening, we're like, again
like the first generation, but again you're you're you're you're
comparing yourself to again another person or another couple, another
situation has for generations, and.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Think about think about how deeply layered that is. So
let's say that you meet with your financial team and
you're like, I need to think about this. Is this
making sense? And you go back to your parents to
get their advice. Their advice is based off of the
limited amount of information that they were able to receive.
So they're going to be like, no, don't do it
(32:49):
because it's fear, I've never heard of that before, et cetera.
So you're listening to their advice. You're then from there
you go to your friends who have limited advice as well,
right Like they come from the same spaces, same places,
and they're like, no, don't do it. So you're going
back into the scenario like, you know what, I'm not
going to do this now because I don't feel comfortable,
(33:10):
et cetera. But how would you where else would you
get that infrastructure to say this is sound, this is
a good decision, et cetera. So for many of us,
we have to hire out so many people to guide
us through these different spaces, whereas many of our counterparts
can go back to the kitchen table and get a
(33:32):
lot of that upper level advice. So yeah, we're not
far removed from that. We're not far removed from women
having to be married to open up a bank account,
to purchase a house, to you know, there's a lot
of different things that are happening in real time for
many of us. And then also take into account how
much information is free flowing, right, So you have AI, right,
(33:59):
so many of us are now out going and trying
to figure out our financial plans through AI, which some
of it is good, right, like you'll be able to
get that for skeleton, But then there becomes nuances to
what's really transpiring that it's not wired to put together
for you in that realm as of yet. So you
(34:19):
got to remember the different tools and how they play
a wrong.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yeah, I mean again, it's.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
You know, I have another buddy of mine, and again
he's a white guy, and he's cool, and he started
a business, but he told me he was like Brandon.
The reason why I was able to start this business
is his uncle died and left him a million dollars
and again, like you see it and you're like you're like, man,
let me ask how many of y'all have had I'm
just saying how many black folks have really had I'm
trying to frank parent that has passed away and had
(34:47):
a trust in place. So again, like and the other
part that a lot of times I don't think people
realize is a lot of times by the time we
get the information, it's played out, it's already been so
like it's already not only some people already know it,
but like that game doesn't even kind of work, you know,
like the kind of example I would even give, and
not even just talking about finances right now, but like
(35:07):
right now, it's like when you see a lot of
people talking about something trying to like sell you on something,
I always kind of take a step back and say,
if they were really making that much money, would they
really be like, hold on, I'm gonna go teach you
how to make the same thing. Like I always tell
people the number one way to make money online is
by telling people how to make money online.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Let's be honest. So, like there's a whole.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Thing going on right now about like YouTube automation because
like everybody thinks making money is easy, and so everybody's like,
you know, you can go take AI and you can
generate these YouTube channels. They're faceless, and YouTube came in
and shut that down quick. But literally, for the last
three or four months, all you've seen people talk about
is automation and it's easy, and all of a sudden,
(35:45):
this whole change came in. So again you got to
ask yourself. It's like, if all these people are if
all these people are making all this money, like they
knew this change was coming, and that's where they're like, Okay,
how can I still you know, profit off of this
and put it on you. Now of a sudden you
at homes and they're trying to make these fakes.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
And now YouTube's like nope, caid quick, don't even work.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
They canceled that quick too. I was like, whoa they
were paying attention. I wish they should because it's a
level of authenticity you don't want to lose in that space,
which is the poor crux of that space. I think
also too, when it comes to being in a city
of a lot of distractions, any major market, it's going
to be a city of large distractions. I tell people,
(36:25):
if you land at the airport, on your way out
of the airport, you want to see enough billboards that
tell you where to put your money. Yeah, right, it's
gonna be. You can buy this neighborhood for five dollars down,
You can such and such, and you can get into
this space and investment here. And as soon as you
stop at the gas station, somebody's gonna see you and
be like, hey man, have you heard about this investment?
(36:47):
Like it's just that's just any major market, you're going
to see a lot of that transpire. It is on
you to figure out how to decipher a lot of that,
but then also to figure out what really is your endgame,
because if you're very clear on your endgame, a lot
of these distractions won't take you off. Right. You got
(37:08):
at some point you gotta do the un sexy stuff,
Like even when you were asking, like how do you
get to a million? At some point you still gotta
do all the boring stuff that no one wants to
talk about, right cause that foundationally keeps you on place.
You still gotta have savings. Everyone loves I feel like
post pandemic people love burning out savings at this time,
(37:30):
yolo spending the last dollar. This opportunity might never come
across again. It will, it will, All these things will.
And if you put yourself so far on the edge,
you're going to fall off the edge. So you got
to do all the boring things. When you do all
the boring things, you put yourself in a position where
you could take some of those other risks. You can
(37:51):
be more permission oriented when your foundation is good. But
it you just gotta know what you're trying to do
as the bottom line.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
And stay focused.
Speaker 3 (38:03):
Like I said, even even my buddy who I was
talking about before, that's you know, is wealthy. He'll be
the first one to tell you if the way that
he built his the way that he got his initial
investment money to start building his empire cutting grass and
cutting hair, he will be the first person to tell
He was like, man, if you don't know what else
to do, bro, go get you a lawnmower and they'll
get you some clippers, and go out there and get
the work. It's not always be needed, and go grind
(38:24):
it out and you know, save you up twenty thirty grand.
And then he'll be the first person to tell you
that's how I did it. And he's in a whole
different situation now, but he'll be the first person to
tell you, like, yo, like, if you don't know what
else to do, I'm tell you these two things that
will happen because people are gonna need it. And so,
you know what I kind of wonder is there's you know,
Atlanta's a very entrepreneurial city, right, and so for the
people out there that don't have W two's like, how do.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
You what do you?
Speaker 3 (38:47):
What should these creative entrepreneurs that are on that ten
ninety nine like, what should they start doing and start building?
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Well, definitely, I want to take it back to them.
Needed to think of themselves as an institution as well. Right,
So when you are on the W two space, you
luckily have someone else that's concerned about your future and
about your risk. Right. So, once you start working somewhere,
you're getting benefits, you have a four to one K setup,
so your retirement structure is in place. That doesn't mean
(39:14):
you'll do all the things that you need to do,
but there's someone that's offering that to you. When you say,
you know what, I'm gonna pull out of this and
I'm going more into the gig economy or I'm gonna
be more on just the freelance space or whatnot. You
are one hundred percent responsible for you. If you don't
(39:35):
think about retirement, it won't just happen. There's no one
who magically gets to sixty and life gets figured out.
That's when you really wake up and you're like, what
the heck? What did I do here? When you are
completely responsible for you, that's when you need to look
(39:55):
at the money that's coming in really is not yours.
It's your future version of you. All of that money
belongs to the fifty sixty seventy year old version because
there's no infrastructure that's going to kick in at that
point for you. So getting your retirement pieces understanding if
you need a solo four one K or a step
ira or what that might be. Understanding your investments. You
(40:18):
can't you can't rely on cash like that. You can't
do the and many of us have some level of
fear right like you like to have your cash where
you can see you. It's so many people I meet
from in a ten ninety nine space and they have
this crazy amount of cash just sitting in there, checking
account and I'm like, it's going to erode. It will
(40:38):
erode over time, and there's no infrastructure anywhere to back
that up for you. So, so yeah, treating yourself like
an institution even more, and knowing that those dollars coming
in really don't belong to you. They belong to the
seventy eighty year old version of.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Yourself, the future, the future version.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
You know. One of things that you said this, you know,
you said this a couple of years ago on your
Ted talk could Always Love is if you're gonna be
broken Atlanta, you better have money. I'm telling you that
that's a less the bar right there. We put that
bar on butter ETL. I ain't even gonna lie. That's
that's been the post we've been on Butter Like, where'd
that line come from?
Speaker 1 (41:24):
You know what? I love it? That was before AI
so I made that, Yes, any anything prior to that?
The cole did you know that was? That was a
bar off off the top of the head. But no,
I was so through just I've worked with a lot
(41:45):
of people, but even for a while when we used
to do the podcast, I owned a coworking space on
Auburn Avenue, and so I was in the thick of
the city, and because of that, people would just stop
by all the time. It was I just has so
much touch, so many touch points with people, probably more
than the average. It's like I was stationed in Hartsville
(42:07):
Airport right Like, it's just the amount of people where
I'm hearing their stories, where I'm seeing things, et cetera.
And for a while, you had so many people moving
to Atlanta, relocating to Atlanta with this falsehood dream that
you could come to the city with nothing in your pockets,
sat run into Jermaine Duprie at DP gas station and
(42:29):
he's going to blow you up or whatever that might be.
It was just a lot of that, and I remember
just telling people like that. I was like, before you
moved to Atlanta, you need to have your money together. Yeah, like,
before you come to Atlanta, you need to have your money together,
before you graduate from high school, before you graduate from
Morehouse or Spelman or whatever that might be. You have
got to have your money together. If you don't, this
(42:52):
city will eat you alive. And so I always was
saying that to people. And then when it came time
to do the Ted Talk, and because it was an
Atlanta focused taed talk. I was like, I would be
remiss if I did not take this real data point
that I feel so strongly about and not talk about
it in full totality. So the name of my taed
(43:15):
talk was if you are going to be broken in Atlanta,
you better have money. I talked through a lot of
pieces on how expensive it is to be broken a
city like this, Like, once you understand what the poverty
line is in Atlanta, once you get below it, it
takes everything, every cell in your body to ever get
(43:36):
above that. Again, it is basically like the statement where
people are saying, you want to make sure you do
everything not to get in jail, because once you're in jail,
it's almost impossible to get back out of that. It's
the same with the poverty line in Atlanta, like, once
you get below it, it's costing you so much just
to fight to live every day. And so understanding how
(44:00):
expensive poverty is also too. I think during that time,
we had the largest amount of and I have to
go back and check statistics, but it was the largest
amount of women living out of their cars but still
working in corporate America. So it was yeah, so it
was it was a convergence during this time where it
(44:22):
was so many working professional homeless or unhoused in the city,
and so it was just you know, I was just
bringing light to how well we make it look here,
you know, like Atlanta, you would not know that someone
is unhoused right in the office right with you. But
(44:42):
it was so common and it just wasn't enough people
speaking speaking to that.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
So let me let me because you said something, I
just want to I want you to unpack what you
just said for a second. It's how how how expensive
it is to be broke, Like just to unpack that,
I know what people just for the people that are listening, Yeah,
give more context.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah yeah, so and especially you're going to see that
now too, because there's there's changes to medicaid, there's changes
to SNAP benefits, there's changes to a lot of different
things that you're going to see happen very fastly, uh
and aggressively. But in regards to that, when you are
(45:23):
what was the movie, what's the movie that just came
out with Saraji.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Snap wasn't Snapped or something like that.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
Uh, it definitely starts with I saw it, I know,
and I'm like, why did it just leave my mind.
It's shaw Uh. It'll come back to me in a second.
But if you if anyone happened to see that straw.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
The reason that it resonated emotionally with so many people
is because once things start spiraling, then the catch up
becomes just so unreal to do. And so in a
city like Atlanta, because it is there are so many
moving parts to it. If you find yourself in a
space where you have to come downtown for anything, you're
(46:08):
gonna have to pay the park. If you say, let
me just see if I can slip by this one
time and not pay the part, you will be you
will welcome yourself to the land of the boot the
boot man. The Bootman costs a certain amount of money.
If you didn't have the money to park, you didn't
have the money for the boot Man. You're like, Okay,
I can't deal with this right now. I'll get back
(46:29):
to it in a few days. You come back. Your
car has been told. Once your car has been told,
it costs you a certain amount of money each day
that is sitting in the toe place. So then you're like,
I didn't have the five dollars to park, how am
I going to get the additional dollars to get it
out of the toe, and it just continues to send
you on this cycle and this cycle and this cycle.
(46:50):
So understanding how expensive poverty can be in this city.
And then also too, I don't even want us to
think about already in the traditional sense of just un housed.
If we remember, like during the pandemic, when it was
all the food the food pick up places that open
around Atlanta. I had you know, friends that are that
(47:14):
oversee those different things they sit on infrastructure of the city.
How many like porsches and benzes and everything else you
saw drive up into the into the food pick up
spaces is because even though these people were making great income,
they were still very much checked to check. Yeah, right,
and Atlanta can That's what I talked about the optics
(47:35):
of the city. You being the best penthouse, you can
be in the best condos, your children go to the
best private schools. But let you miss one paycheck and
that's completely out the window. Again.
Speaker 3 (47:47):
So yeah, absolutely, Now one thing you've said too is
like that in Atlanta and just in general, right, like
capital really needs to be you know, really held as
close as passionately as the culture. But you know when
you think about that, like, what are some of the
trends over the next three or five years that people
need to start preparing themselves for.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I think to have an understanding of liquidity and the
power of liquidity. So you even brought up earlier in
our conversation how during these types of times, people will
be able to deploy their money and strategic ways and
build a lot of wealth. Right, it's because your money
is not locked up in all these different things. And
(48:27):
so what happens now what I see a lot of
individuals do is their money is spread up, spread out
in all these different areas where it's very heavily locked out.
There's no liquidity to that. You can yeah, yeah, like you.
I mean, if I was to see your net worth, yes,
it looks beautiful on paper, but you cannot access those
(48:48):
dollars in an efficient way. You can't leverage those dollars.
So all this time is passing you by. Right. It's
like someone telling you, oh, I have like a million
dollars in equity, but you can't. You can't move, like
you're locked into that property. So it's great. Or you're
telling me like you just signed this beautiful tech job,
(49:10):
and you have all these RSUs as a part of
your compensation deal, but you haven't thought through how best
to amplify that or to utilize it. It sounds good.
It's one of the things that when you're talking to
people and you're like, yeah, I mean I have a
million dollars in equity on my property, but you haven't
(49:31):
actualized it or realized it right, and it's not working
for you and your best interest. So I say, in
the next three to five years, understanding efficient liquidity is
going to be very, very key. That's a lot of
things that I help my clients with. I think that
affordable housing is going to continue to be smaller and
(49:51):
smaller as far as inventory and offerings, and people need
to understand that. You know, there's a lot of people
sitting on the side lines of ownership waiting for the
interest rates of nineteen eighty nine to resurface.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
It's gone.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
It's gone, y'all.
Speaker 3 (50:11):
If it comes back, I need you all to understand
how bad of a situation we're probably going to be
in for it to come back.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Correct, and if it comes back, it's going to get
You're going to have so many corporate infrastructures that'll be
able to take advantage of that way before the average
individual can. So even understanding we're not even playing the
same game that you were. Then, so understanding affordable housing,
(50:39):
understanding liquidity, also understanding I would say, if you didn't
understand taxation before understanding the purpose of needing people around
you that do. Because if you felt like you've suffered
(50:59):
a lot of tax burden in your life, you're probably
not in the top one percent or even twenty percent
that are going to benefit from a lot of the
laws that are changing. Everyone under that is going to
be impacted. So you understanding what are the tools that
can help you be most efficient during that time. It's
(51:19):
gonna be very.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Key to absolutely, absolutely, Look, this is a great conversation.
We're ready to wrap this thing up. Let me ask you, man,
if there's somebody that's listening and they're kind of feeling stuck,
they're in that in between space, they're all here hustling,
you know, Like, what's one decision they can make, like
right now this week, that like help them just start
moving in a better situation financially.
Speaker 1 (51:40):
One decision I would say, relationship capital is going to
be is going to be the ultimate mover more than
ever before. I think that who you are around, who
you know, is going to move you faster per se,
especially with this with the technology rush. You know, that's
(52:02):
the soft skill side is what's going to be completely forgotten.
And I feel like when it comes to if you're like,
I need money now, it's not going to really be
chatch BT to tell you to create an ebook and
you put it out there and you try to sell
it for forty nine and everyone's like, what is this?
You created this on chat GPC. People love exposing you
(52:25):
now too. It's going to be that person that you
know that's like, you know what, I do need some
extra hours on this project I'm working with, Come do that.
I really believe tapping more into personal person, person to
person dynamics is going to be very key during this time.
And then also too, when you are at your brink,
(52:45):
that's not the time to throw it all into some
untrusted hustle. That's when when you're your most vulnerable, that's
when predators can feel that the most, and that's when
they'll come after you with the best idea ever when
you are at your most desperate.
Speaker 3 (53:01):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely cold. Look, this has been a great conversation.
You dropped a lot of gems. We appreciate you pulling
up before you get out of here. If people want
to work with you, they want to.
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Find out more.
Speaker 3 (53:11):
They want to you know, they want to figure out
how they can get in the right direction. They don't
want to be broken Atlanta, and they want to have
some money. How can they get in contact? Would you
like give them.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
All the things?
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Yeah? Yeah. On Instagram is doctor Garner Scott d R
G A R N E. R. Scott. A lot of
my financial information is on LinkedIn, so let's Nicole Garnerscott
on LinkedIn website is the Money Plan i NC dot com.
And I'm pretty accessible in regards to very serious people. Yes,
(53:41):
so yes, But thank you so much, Brandy for having me.
Speaker 3 (53:43):
This is excellent, absolutely man, Nicole, thank you so much
for coming up again. This is a long time making.
You've been somebody I've known for a long time. It's
been doing these things and I love all the stuff
you have going on and can't wait to see what
happens next.
Speaker 2 (53:55):
And thank you.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
You know what that said, We out, y'all, that's the
pod you've been listening to and im your host Brandon Butler,
Got comments, feedback, Want to be on the show. Send
us an email today at Hello at butternomics dot com.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Butter Nomics is.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia Byksey Pegram, with marketing
support from Queen and Nikki.
Speaker 2 (54:14):
Music provided by mister Hanky.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and never
missed an episode, and be sure to follow us on
all our social platforms at butter dot atl Listen to
betteron Nomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts
Host
Brandon Butler
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Footballâs funniest family duo â Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs â team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.