April 29, 2025 • 56 mins
In this solo episode, Dramos recaps everything we uncovered during Financial Literacy Month—from building wealth without generational money to healing from financial trauma and learning how to shift from survival mode to long-term stability. Whether you’re just starting your money journey or trying to level up, this one’s all about the real talk they don’t teach us: mindset shifts, money mistakes, and what financial freedom actually looks like for our community.
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 (00:05):
Alright, let me talk about Tom. Here we go. He said,
you live in life pas a ringo, where you question
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do. This would not that this life. Yes, hello,
and welcome to another episode of Life as a Gringo.
I am dramas of course, and we are on the
(00:29):
last Tuesday of April, which means the last day of
Financial Literacy month. Also crazy to once again be speaking
these words, but I believe this is episode one hundred,
which would mean one episode, one on one, which that
(00:53):
means we have four episodes left of Life as a
Gringo and then it's done, and then we're over a
lot of cool shit on the horizon though, so have
no fear. If you enjoy our time together. I hope
that you do stay subscribed to this podcast, this feed,
(01:13):
because there's a bunch of stuff coming out. Even after
we finish the season in what I think I said
two and a half weeks, whatever it is, there's gonna
be a few bonus episodes. I'm gonna be doing some
like mini bonus episodes. I can't remember how many there are,
but this what happens on you're your own producer, as
well as host. By the way, you're just like balancing
(01:35):
a million and one different things and can't remember shit,
but you have a vague idea of what is actually happening.
With that said, yeah it is. I think we have
three I want to say, three bonus episodes after the
season ends, so have no fear. There'll be episodes coming
out well into May, I think up until the end
of May. So I'm excited. I'm just excited, man, excited
(02:00):
for what's ahead, Grateful for what we've done, what we've
built here together, this community and everybody they've gotten to
me as a result of this podcast, and the way
that this podcast has helped me grow personally. It's just crazy.
And I'll go down, you know, memory lane and be
(02:22):
a bit more nostalgic as we get into the final episodes.
But I am just forever grateful for what this show
has done for me personally, career wise, and on a
soul level. The ability to bring people together in some
sort of way has been really beautiful. So thank you
all so much for being a part of that that journey,
(02:43):
this journey, and I hope you join me on the
next one. With that said, we're closing out Financial Literacy Month,
and I just kind of wanted to like, you know,
raw dog or real conversation here and apologize. I was
I'm finding a cough here, dude. I don't know what
is in the flu that they're given out these days,
but my god, everyone's wan I'm still getting this fucking
(03:05):
dry cough and like you just heard right there. But
as I was saying we're closing out Financial Literacy Month,
I wanted to just do like a sole episode and
just kind of like decompress all the information we took
in and not necessarily like highlighting our best of But
I just think my mindset around money and finances has
(03:26):
changed a bit over the last couple of years. I
think this last year specifically, and then I think even
with these conversations I've been having, you know, kind of
opening my mind a bit more. So I just kind
of wanted to have a raw conversation I guess around
my decompression or my takeaway from, you know, these these
convos that we've been having this month. So with that said,
(03:50):
we'll have one long hint that segments all right, So
I guess for starters, we'll just kind of take it
from where I'm at mentally like kind of what's on
my mind as I think about this topic of money,
(04:12):
And it's been something that quite frankly, has been on
my mind a lot over the course of the last
year or so. And I think I'm hyper aware. I
think of starting to really plan for the future. And
I probably should have been doing this a long time ago.
But you know, I'm going to give myself grace because
(04:35):
I didn't have the information right and it's better to
start now than ever. But I think the evidence sort
of making me blatantly aware of the volatility in my
career path, right And I think I think, I mean, listen,
(04:59):
I believe any rear path has volatility if you don't
actually have ownership. But specifically, I can say I've seen
so much happening in the entertainment industry that I didn't expect,
or just technology and the way that it's changing everything
and how quickly things continue to change and downsizing and
(05:20):
all these different things. You know, it feels like you
know you I don't know, I never really felt completely
in control when somebody else was signing my checks, but
there still was a bit of I don't know, comfort
would be the word whatever it might be at, you know,
(05:40):
being with a big company like iHeart, and sort of
now with just the realities of where we are in
the world and this country economically, you know, seeing that
even the big players are not immune to the outside
(06:02):
circumstances of things like the economy and technology and how
quickly things are moving and social media. Right, and I
guess feeling human for the first time, if you will,
in that career regard had me really sort of rethinking
a lot of things. And I feel like I'm speaking
in fucking circles a bit over here. I guess what
(06:24):
I'm really trying to get at here is when I first,
you know, began on my career path or even just
thinking about making money, right, And when I mean, I've
always wanted to make money, I think, like anybody else,
especially when you don't come from money and you've seen
your parents struggle just to get by, and it it
(06:46):
never seemed like they were able to really get a
fucking grasp on things right, no matter how hard they work,
no matter what promotion they got. Every time it seemed
like they're about to have this big breakthrough, you know,
something would come to pull the rugout underneath. And what
I've become more and more aware of through my experiences
and through conversations like we've had this month, is that's
(07:08):
just life, right. It's not my parents having bad luck,
it's not our family having this dark cloud over us.
That's just the unfortunate reality of life. Is that it's
always going to provide you with surprises. And sometimes they're
good and welcome surprises. Other times they are the fucking worst,
(07:31):
you know, you know, and it's just crazy the things
that life can throw at you. And it feels like
(07:53):
we could tell ourselves these stories, these narratives that it's
just my luck, and I think many of us, myself
definitely included oftentimes fall victim to that story. But if
you really want to find the culprit of all of this,
it's a lack of planning on our end, right. And
(08:13):
I'm not saying we should beat the hell out of
ourselves for a lack of planning, but that's just the reality. Especially,
you know that that last conversation I had with so
that that's sort of like hearing the way that somebody
so meticulously had different accounts, you know, one for like emergency,
one for you know, like maintenance of the car, like
(08:35):
all these different like planning ahead so intentionally, and it's like,
that is how you combat the way that life is
so all over the place. That is how you push
back against the narrative of your bad luck, is just
(08:59):
by trying your best to figure out ways that you
could be proactive and be prepared for the inevitable roller
coaster ride that is this thing called life, right, and
that goes for your finances, that goes for your mental health,
that goes for your physical health, all these different things. Right,
it's a bit more of offense than defense. And I
(09:21):
think many of us weren't taught that right. Again, myself included.
My parents didn't have a savings that I knew about,
a real one, right. They didn't have rainy day money,
they didn't have God forbid the car breaks down money.
So when those things inevitably would happen, when we would
hit some sort of snag, our entire world blew up
(09:43):
because of a lack of preparation. And again not their fault.
They definitely didn't have any sort of knowledge. But also,
you know, they weren't making crazy amounts of money. My
mama's a fucking public school teacher in the Bronx, right.
And by the time she ascended to becoming a principal,
my father had dealt with, you know, multiple national tragedies
(10:08):
if you will, of nine to eleven, and then the
two thousand and eight you know, housing market crash and
inevitable recession we went through that really up ended his
career and led to layoffs and he was never able
to get back to where he had been, right. And
so with that, even my mom, my mom got the
(10:29):
bump in pay as a principal, it was just compensating
for the money my dad had lost by you know,
his industry downsizing, by the economy being in a shitty place, right,
And so they never really felt the effects of that, right.
And it's it's funny how you you sort of go
into your adulthood, at least for me, and I would
(10:51):
take a lot of mental notes as to how I
didn't want to live right as an adult, and and
one of those things was I saw the contention that
money caused in our family dynamic, and I didn't want
that to be a part of my life. And my
(11:12):
goal was then always to try and make a lot
of money, right. And that's sort of even the narrative
that I was taught is nobody mentioned savings or having
emergency money or all these things. It was like, no,
you just got to make more money. And in one
degree that's true, but it doesn't erase your need for planning.
(11:35):
And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways that
I've had from all these conversations is, you know, I
don't like to talk about money and salary and all
these different things. And I know that that's some would
call that a problem, but I just don't think it's
(11:56):
I don't feel comfortable with that. I'm fortunate that I've
made a decent living, and particularly when you talk about
doing something you love, it's a phenomenal living. And for me,
even though it wasn't a crazy goal, I was able
to beat out, you know, what my parents ever made,
(12:20):
and that was like a big time goal for me
because it meant, like I think in the back of
my mind a it meant that external validation of proving
them wrong, right, And that was a lot of my motivation,
as I've talked about for years doing the show. But
on the other side of it, it was like, if
I can make more money than my parents, that means
I'll never fall victim to the problems that they did,
(12:43):
and truth be told, a lesson that I had to
learn the hard way over these last couple of years,
particularly being self employed. But I think in general this
probably applies to a lot of people. Is just because
you're making more money, does it mean that you're actually
(13:07):
going to feel the freedom of it in a real
way unless you have an actual plan, Because this is
what happens. You hit a certain threshold of making money
and you get hit for more taxes, and mentally, when
you're making more money, you can easily fall victim to
(13:30):
spending more money, which quite frankly I did. And while
I've been I feel like I'm not of a materialistic
type of person who's blowing money on stupid shit. I've
been very modest about, you know, not wanting to go
out and get a brand new car for no reason
(13:50):
and driving a car that's cheap to maintain and all
these things, and you know, not buying the cool looking
house put instead buying the one that was in investment
property as my first property. You know, I thought that
I was being I don't want to say frugal, but
(14:12):
conscious of my money habits and I think for me
more than anything. I began being hyper aggressive with investment
opportunities and entrepreneurial ideas that I had, which on one
(14:32):
hand I'm proud of because I lived without fear. On
the other hand, I was spending more money than I
should have investing into these projects, right, and in doing that,
I didn't first come up with a plan. I guess
(14:53):
is what I'm trying to get to in a roundabout way.
And to give you a part example, like my first
couple of years being completely self employed, I didn't pay
taxes quarterly, so I would get lump sums of cash
(15:16):
for the podcast. I get a lump sum of cash
that is basically the my pay for the entire year,
my guarantee, and then it's up to me to obviously
pay taxes on that and budget it for you know,
whatever the year. So what I was doing was those
first two years, I didn't do that, So I'd go
to do taxes and then I would just fucking, you know,
(15:38):
internally scream at how much money I had to send
the irs in a lump sum, right, and how quickly
they wanted to get add interest to it if I
didn't pay it in you know, expeditiously if you will.
And that was a lesson learned, and that was unnecessary
pain that I had to go through because of a
lack of planning on my end, back of being intentional
(16:00):
and saying, Okay, quarterly, we're sending this amount of money
to them, right, or let's calculate for the year and
let's just rip the band aid off right now and
send them a lump sum so that we're not spending
the entire year thinking we have more money than we
actually do. Right, Because I was the other part, there's
money sitting in my account. I know I have to
pay taxes, but somehow, some way, I'm still like mentally
(16:22):
existing as if I have the full amount of money
essentially at my disposal. And again, while it wasn't like
I was, you know, doing crazy shit to the naked eye,
I was over extending myself with my interests as far
as business and ideas, right because again, I only saw
(16:42):
value in trying to create more revenue. I didn't see
value in saving and being proactive and budgeting and all
these different things. Right to me, that was something I
was going to do after I hit it big, essentially,
is what I would tell myself, right, but for now,
risk risk risk, right, And the irony of all of
that is I would find myself in the same position
(17:07):
that my parents were when they were making substantially less
money or didn't have or you know, I'm making more
money and I don't have all of the expenses on
paper that they did as far as two kids and
and everything that goes along with that, right, and paying
two car payments at that point, and whatever else it is, right,
(17:29):
But I found myself in a similar stressor because I
was trying too hard to like force growth, right. I
was trying to strong arm my way into the next
stratosphere or the next you know, wealth class, if you will.
(17:51):
And again, as much as I believe in having to
pull the trigger on ideas and do these different things,
you also have to have a level of patience and tact.
And I guess what I'm taking away from a lot
of the conversations we had this month, it's not always
just being on the attack, right. I talked about offense,
(18:11):
and I don't when I say, you know, offense like
I started the show, like I wish my parents is
more saving or taught us more saving. That's offense to me.
And offense is also investments and things like that. But
it's like, I guess, if you're a football fan, let's say, right,
it's not all about throwing hail mary's, which essentially is
what I was doing with these entrepreneurial ventures. I was
throwing these deep hail mary's that don't have a high
(18:31):
success rate, just like in the NFL. Right, in the NFL,
the highest you know, success rate are like the little
ding and dump passes they call them, right, the short
yardage passes you dump off to a receiver. You take
the easy win. But instead of me doing that, which
I would equate to like you know, saving and low
risk stock investments and things of that nature, I was
(18:55):
all about hail mary after hail mary, and eventually I
got into to a stressful situation where I'm like, oh man,
so much of my money is now tied up in
these projects, which as an entrepreneur, majority of your ideas
are not going to yield the results you expected. Right,
(19:16):
You're really most people are living off of the couple
big wins, right, But they shot a lot of shots
to get those couple wins. And I guess for me,
my biggest takeaway and I keep saying that, and I
keep like talking in circles. You know, these are just
takeaways when I call it the biggest takeaway, But there's
(19:36):
a bit of patience needed, right, And I think this
bleeds into maybe some of the mental health conversation and
motivation behind building wealth, because why is it that I
wanted to build wealth so quickly? Why was I so
(19:58):
hyper focused on that? Now, part of it was that
I genuinely enjoyed the things that I was doing and
the things that I am doing, and I wanted to
tenex them and do them bigger. And I have a
natural competitive spirit and I want greatness out of myself
and I think those are beautiful things. But on the
(20:18):
other side of it, a lot of it was probably
also some trauma responses. Right. I was the broke friend
for so long who didn't have anything to show for
all the hard work he was putting in. And now
(20:39):
I not only wanted to match where people that you know,
my peers were, I wanted to stand over them essentially, right,
And as much as I have pushed past the need
to impress people with things like the car I drive
(20:59):
or the house I live in or whatever it might be,
there still is that part of me that is wounded
in wanting to be enough. And I think much of
my pursuit of monetary success is looking for the external validation,
(21:21):
be it from my peers, be it from my industry,
be it from women, whatever it might be. And I
think as a result, all of my focus was zoomed
in on trying to create wealth and trying to create
it as quickly as possible, which means being as you know,
(21:46):
as risky as humanly possible. That's really how you build
wealth quickly? Is the risk? Right? And I guess you know,
as I'm here, we're three years into the podcast or
almost four at this point, my mindset has changed a bit,
and I think this month, in these episodes we've had,
is a reflection of that. And I want to kind
(22:09):
of get into where I'm at now after some of
those lessons learned. So we'll talk about that, but let's
say a quick break here and then we'll be right back.
All right, we are back, And I guess for me,
these lessons that we talk about and lessons learned the
hard way, and then also lessons learned gently from conversations
(22:32):
like the ones I've been having this month you sort
of begin to get clear, or at least I've begun
to get clear and what I really want right, and
why am I chasing these things? And sometimes I need
a refresher of it, you know, I need to remind
myself of that, and I'll remind myself to play this
(22:53):
fucking episode next time I'm chasing something just for the
monetary sake. But I think when you begin to get
clear on what it is that you want, you can
then make better decisions, right, And just getting rich is
not being clear on what you want right, And I
think that for me was so much of the goal
(23:15):
of the target. Now. Of course, I have genuine aspirations
of helping people. I have genuine goals of being able
to do more of what I love and being able
to have more resources to bring ideas to life in
the way that I really want to. But also there
(23:36):
was just a want and need of building wealth just
to make myself feel better, just to look better to
those on the outside, just to make, you know, get
more paths in the back from my parents or my
peers or whatever it is. And that is I think
(23:58):
where you begin to deviate from your actual happiness and fulfillment.
And where you begin to go down a road that
you eventually won't even recognize yourself anymore, you know, midway
(24:19):
through that journey, or you won't recognize your life, or
you'll sort of just be like, why the fuck am
I even doing this? You know? And and that's again
the mental health aspect. I think, you know, it's funny
to me as I reflect on this journey of life
(24:43):
as a Geldingo, of the brutal self education of finances,
you know, not having grown up with knowing anything about
these things. I reflect and like, man, the like the
year I got the podcast and then the the couple
that followed it. You know, I'm in a position where
(25:05):
I'm doing things that I love, I'm getting paid more
than I've ever getten paid before, and my lifestyle is
far more of what I want it to be. Now,
it's important to keep striving for more. I think we
(25:27):
have to always be, you know, have something we're working
on and working towards. But it's important to not allow
that to cheapen the present moment. And I've talked about
this at nauseum. Right it feels like the ajavoo as
I say that, But I guess for me It's like
(25:48):
I was white knuckling life because I was so obsessed
with accumulating more revenue, more income, and I was getting
fresh straded that I wasn't there yet. And I'll give
you an example. There was this house that was for sale,
(26:15):
not too far from my parents actually, and I was
just in love with this house, like the architecture of
it and the style of it. It had a fucking library,
it was like wood, like huge open rooms. It was
just it was stunning. And here I am. And I
went to the open house because I just want to
see this place in person. And my initial goal with
(26:39):
that was like to just be inspired by it, right,
like I want to be able to afford this. One day,
there was this house that that was basically this is
literally I feel like I've just bought my property, probably
a year prior to that, maybe not even. And this
house was double at the time, double the cost of
my first property that I bought. And I remember leaving
(27:06):
that open house at first motivated like, all right, well,
how do we make more money? Like let me figure
out how much money I have to make a month
a year in order to get approved for that loan.
And then once I did the calculations on that, All right,
what's the idea to get us there? But that quickly
turned to frustration and anger because I didn't have a
(27:28):
clear answer at that point, And then that just cheapened
the fact that you're literally still a new homeowner. You
have your dream lifestyle of waking up when you want
to wake up. Essentially, you make your own schedule, you're
hosting a podcast, you have your own platform, like, you
(27:51):
have so many things you dreamed of, and it's amazing
to have that goal of you know, three acting or
five acting whatever it was at the time salary to
afford this house. But don't allow that greater dream to
make you a fucking crazy person in the moment that
doesn't appreciate what he has. And then on top of that,
(28:14):
begins to make erratic decisions just to chase a quick
paycheck or to make more money and take risks that
you are not prepared for. And I think that is
so much of what I had learned, right, Like I
wish I had had a conversation with so that that,
(28:36):
you know, around that time, because then it would have been,
all right, well, we're not going to fucking do the
Las Vegas. You know, dice roll version of trying to
make more money, right, where you just bet everything on
red and hope for the best, which essentially what I
was doing. We're going to create the long term plan
(28:56):
x amount in the savings account x amount here, and
then how do we, you know, increase our salary by
x amount as well? But planning ahead, right, because even
I would have done the salary require salary requirements if
I wasn't planning ahead for that, the costs of everything,
of closing, of moving, of fucking maintenance on a it
(29:18):
was a pretty large house on a large piece of property,
the amount of maintenance that is going to go into
it each and every month. I wasn't thinking about that
type of shit. So thank god that I didn't get
the the you know, increase in revenue that I was
hoping for, right, Like God protected me there because I wouldn't.
I would have lost that house probably, you know, I
(29:38):
wouldn't have been prepared and it would have been another burden. Right,
that's the idea of like being house rich and cash poor.
So I guess you know, for me, I'm no longer like,
how do we quickly do this? I'm now in the
mindset of how do we become happy and grateful for
(29:59):
what we have while being patient and slowly building for
the future goals. And to me, that is the key
when you talk about our community where so many of
(30:19):
us don't come from parents that are extremely wealthy or
parents that are financially savvy, and for many of us,
your parents might be the first time homeowners. Maybe they're
the first time college graduates. Maybe you're the first time homeowner,
(30:39):
you're the first college graduate. You have to allow yourself
a some grace, but also I guess it's not trying
to get everything at once, which is so much of
I think what my problem has always been. I want
everything all at one time, and I'll make I'll literally
(31:02):
be a miserable human being while trying to do it right.
It's like this all or nothing mentality, and I've outgrown
it in many ways. In other ways I have it.
It still creeps back into my life and my mindset sometimes,
but it's like I think back to moments where I've
been stressed out over the last couple of years, or
(31:26):
like with the house, how I talked about like that
just drove me into like a spiral of like, you know,
being angry at the world that I can't afford this
thing that I want, you know, and being angry at
the government for fucking hitting me with taxes even though
it is frustrating. But again, it's like it's that behind
(31:49):
closed doors, slow work, the planning ahead, the planning for
trad for you know, unexpected things, planning for the car break,
that like all those little things protect you from the
rug being pulled out from underneath you, which is so
much of what makes us mentally unhappy or depressed or
(32:12):
frustrated at life. Right, It's it's really just a result
of being ill prepared. And again that's nobody's fault, but
it's something to learn and want to be better at,
you know. And again, I also just think it's like
slow down a little bit, right. I just think there's
(32:33):
so much of that like that we all need to hear.
Slow the fuck down. It doesn't have to all happen
at once and again, and I'm talking literally to myself
in this moment, right, And I've mentioned this so many times,
(32:55):
but it's like it's not the giant explosive it leaps forward.
That's not sustainable. And it's a daily struggle for me
where I'm like, areight, what's the fucking big win today?
And every day is not going to have that big win? Right?
(33:15):
Most days are you showing up doing what needs to
be done and calling it a day, Right, And that's
a win in itself because those little things each and
every day, the daily tasks that you take care of,
the daily goals that you achieve, they do add up
to those bigger things. But allow yourself the patience and
(33:42):
grace for those those little wins to stack up into
a big one, and don't think just because they are
a little win that they're not something worth celebrating and
being appreciative of. And again, I think that's so much
(34:05):
of like our problem with money, right. It's what causes
so many of us to go and blow our paycheck
on something we can't really afford because we want that
feeling of being successful, but we don't want to have
(34:26):
the patients needed to be truly successful, right, to actually
be fulfilled. I'm not saying buying a designer bag if
you love them, is a bad thing, but doing so
with the last of your paycheck and now you have
zero dollars in the bank probably not the smartest idea, right,
(34:50):
Having the patience and discipline to set aside a fund
for it so that when you buy it, you don't
even notice it, and then you could really celebrate it.
That's the way, right, Because what happens when you end
up spending money you don't have, or charging things to
a credit card. You have that brief moment of excitement,
and then at some point reality fucking sets in and
(35:11):
now you're anxious, and now you're depressed, and now you
hate your life. Right, And I've been that vicious cycle
so many fucking times, and even for me, like I'm
and now I'm just kind of like unlocking memory, you know,
core memories in my brain and shit, but like there's
(35:33):
nothing worse to me, and that this is childhood trauma
of like you're on vacation but having to like fucking
nickel and diamond and that I know that that's like
first world problems, but it's like if you want to
if you're spending all this time saving up for this
(35:53):
trip and you're you're you're out there, this is your
fucking one week a year that you're gonna be able
to enjoy it, but you don't actually have the money
to afford that trip it's miserable. I can remember my
parents were out there on like vacation and like, you know,
we're nickel and diming it. And I know it sounds ungrateful.
(36:16):
I don't mean it in that way, but it's like
they're stressed out because of how much money they're spending
each day. How is that fun? Right? Because then their
stress of and frustration bleeds into how we feel as
the kid, right, And then it's like as an adult.
When I was on tour with my band, we would
(36:37):
go to all these like new places and these different
cities around the country, and we couldn't afford to do anything,
Like we're surviving off of the cheap menu at the
fast food restaurants, right, So it's like, oh, yeah, you've
been to this place. Absolutely, I've been to that city.
What you do you have any recommendations? No, because I
(36:58):
didn't see shit. We ate at the fucking McDonald's or
the KFC or the Taco Bell. We played a show
at the venue. I made myself a peanut butter and
Joey sandwich from what I had in the van, and
we drove to the next city. And like all these events,
as silly as they sound, they were like a slightly
(37:19):
traumatizing experience of like never really being able to indulge
in life, and also like the hard work you put in,
because the irony of it is, even though we weren't
getting paid for those shows, it took a hell of
a lot of work, as like a band that nobody
ever heard of to book a tour around the country,
(37:42):
and we're so excited about going to these different cities
and doing different things. And it was enjoyable, don't get
me wrong, but like it's also deflating as fuck. Like
you go there and like, oh, we'll sleep in the
van tonight. You know, we're eating fucking I eating surviving
off of honey buns that I haven't been in the van.
Like it's like this fucking tease almost right, but again,
(38:06):
and at that point, it's like, I'm an eighteen nine
tye old kid. It's likely, but so much I can
save off of my you know, six dollars an hour job.
But a little bit of patience, a little bit of foresight,
a little bit of planning allows us to really reap
far more of this life in a far more enjoyable way.
(38:27):
And I guess that's what we're getting as we're all
so hyper fixated on hyper growth, and that's so much
of the narrative around social media is these exorbitant lifestyles
that impress people and always be traveling, always be doing this,
always be somewhere, and it sort of causes us to
(38:50):
shoot ourself in the foot over and over again as
we try and keep up with the Joneses and I
love again. I keep reverencing that conversation with so that
because I got so much out of it from the
Netro Bartholos. But she talks about setting money aside. Okay,
I know I like to eat out. I don't want
to cook every single night. This is our fund for
(39:12):
even just the local restaurant down the street, right, But
like planning, just down to those details so that you're
not in a place where you're overspending, which then leads
to you not having money when you need it, which
then leads to you having a downward spiral of depression
and hating your life and going down the rabbit hole
(39:34):
of things are never going to change, and then which
usually makes you just spiral even more. And it's just
like this vicious fucking cycle, which again, if we could
just be proactive and be a bit more patient we
can avoid as much as humanly possible, and then at
the same time, I'll pivot to the idea and I'll
(39:56):
sort of end on this note. Us overworking. Right, So
many of us saw our parents killing themselves each and
every day, many of them doing jobs they hated just
to get by, and we're of the privilege of having
(40:18):
a leg up on them. But here we are because
we're chasing this designated idea of success. We're taking on
extra jobs, extra gigs, jobs we don't like, staying at
jobs we don't like because of money. We're doing all
(40:43):
these extra things, spreading ourselves thin, stressing ourselves out, just
to chase after a lifestyle that we may not even
really want. And we talked about the American Dream this
month and the fallacy of it that it was never
really set up for us as people of color again,
(41:05):
and there's been arguments about the American Dream really just
being a great advertising campaign of you know, consumerism. Essentially,
there's so many things within that, right, We're like programmed
to chase things that we don't actually want, and then
we get them and we're like, why am I not happy? Right?
(41:26):
And it's because we're not in alignment, and that alignment
is an internal journey. You set up what your financial
goals are, right, you determine what you want in this life.
(41:47):
If you don't care about a fancy car, then why
the fuck you are you trying to keep up with
other people who that's what they care about. Right, I'm
not like a car enthusiast like that. The only thing
I get out of it is when other people validate
my hurt child from the car that I drive, right,
(42:07):
that was my old car, not this one. Other than that,
I don't really care that much. So why am I
chasing and strong arming and white knuckling and being frustrated
(42:29):
that I'm not at that financial level when in reality
I have a lot of what I want and more
than what I need in my current lifestyle. And again,
doesn't mean you don't keep striving, but it also doesn't
mean you ruin the present moment. And again, I feel
(42:52):
like I'm I get redundant when we talk about this,
and it's but I just think it's so important. It's
like a refresher Like we just need like somebody to
fucking call us every every other week and remind us
like remember, like, you know, get clear on what you're chasing.
Is it because what you really want or because you're
trying to you know, heal your your hurt inner child.
(43:13):
Are you being patient and trying to rush things right?
Are you doing work that actually matters or are you
just trying to accumulate another paycheck to fund a bunch
of shit that you don't really want? And I guess
(43:34):
I don't know to surmise it all. For me, what
I'm realizing is I don't really need much and alignment
and fulfillment aren't coming from me making excessive amounts of money.
(44:00):
They come from the work that I'm doing, the people
that I'm connecting with and potentially helping, and the ability
to not have to have anxiety about my finances, to
(44:22):
be able to do the little things that I want
to do that make me feel free. Right. I want
to be able to go out to eat a couple
of times a week, or order food, whatever it is.
I would like to travel to Puerto Rico every other month,
and I'm not doing it as a baller. I'm going
to and staying at you know, for free, at the
(44:42):
house that I have over there. Thinks to my family,
you know. So my expenses are renting a car and
just hanging out. But I don't have to be a
fucking a millionaire, is what my point is to do
all those things. I want to have a studio, which
I already have. I want to have my own place,
which I already have. So why am I making myself
(45:07):
miserable worrying about some tax bracket and worrying about some
symbols of status that when I'm having a raw and
honest conversation with myself are not a part of the
conversation or not a part of the equation when I
ask what do I look like when I'm what does
my life look like when it's in alignment? And what
(45:28):
is it? What do I look like when I'm fulfilled?
So really, life is a lot simpler, is I guess
what I'm getting at, because what I say is, Okay, well,
what do I need to do to actually get these
things that I enjoy doing? Okay? Well, I have the
career that I like, I enjoy that I love awesome,
what are the extra things? Okay, maybe I need to
(45:52):
have a budget of an extra one hundred dollars a
week that allows for me eating out twice a week. Awesome.
I want to be Important Rico every other month, Okay?
On average, I spent about two hundred and fifty dollars
on a flight, rental car might be another one hundred
hundred and fifty. We're probably looking at a trip that
(46:12):
costs six seven hundred dollars. Every time I go out there.
Usually I get a better flight deal than to fifty.
But let's just call it six seven hundred dollars, okay,
So that means every month, because if I want to
go every other month, every other month, I have to
have saved about three hundred and fifty dollars. Cool. I
(46:39):
mean when you break it down to that capacity, that's
less than one hundred dollars a week that I have
to save. Right. So if I say those are my
two biggest things, because I already have a career that
fulfills me. So my two biggest extracurriculars are one hundred
dollars food budget and we'll just call it one hundred
dollars for my Puerto Rico trips every other month. That
(47:03):
means I have to budget two hundred dollars a week, right,
or find an extra eight hundred dollars a month, and
I'm living my dream life at that point, and anything
(47:27):
else that doesn't involve that I can cut back on
or erase from my regular spending. Or when we talk
about the conversation of gigs and side hustles, okay, maybe
I pick up if my current thing isn't doing it,
maybe I pick up an extra gig or side hustle
(47:48):
that I know will yield me that extra eight hundred
dollars a month without stressing me out too much. And then,
in a very simple fashion, you're living your dream life
at that point. Addition, through subtraction and patience, and let's
(48:11):
tie everything we talk about today in a neat little
boat and a segment call conclusions due. But first we'll
take a quick break and they'll be right back time
for comp soon. All right, I went off on a
fucking tangent. I guess surmising the whole all the conversations
(48:33):
we've been having. Getting your finances in order will be
a release and a benefit for your mental health. Getting
clear on what you want and not allowing yourself to
be distracted by what you're supposed to have will be
(48:54):
a relief on your mental health. Planning a head so
that when life in nevery throws a curveball at you
will be a relief on your mental health. We talked
a bit about the American dream. There's no one size
fits all. The American dream is probably a fallacy. What
(49:16):
is your dream? Insert your name and the word dream
and let that be what you're chasing. Talked about gigs
and side hustles and all these different things. If you're
going to strive for extra if you're going to bend
and pull yourself a bit thin at times trying out
(49:40):
entrepreneurial ventures or just trying to make a couple extra bucks,
make sure that it's worth it. Make sure that it
actually adds value to your life beyond just the financial
What are you doing it for. Are you doing it
because you love the entrepreneurial journey and it satisfies you
a doing it because it's a hobby or a gig
(50:02):
that adds you know, is something you genuinely enjoy. So
it's a bit of a relief from maybe what you
do for a nine to five, or are you doing
it with a clear plan in mind? Like I said,
if I can make you know theoretically and actually eight
hundred dollars that means I get to live out, you know,
going being Puerto Rico every other month and eating out
a couple of times a week. Right, that is worth
(50:24):
it to me to find a little side huset, so
that would add that, right, But have a real reason
why you're adding more to your plate. Don't do it
just for the sake of being busy. Don't do it
because entrepreneurism, entrepreneurial entrepreneurialism geez is the cool thing on
social media and people trying to tell you're a sucker
if you have a nine to five. Now do it
(50:44):
because you have a real reason. Because it's going to
demand a lot out of you. It's going to take
you away from your family, your friends, it's going to
make you not get as much rest as you as
your body probably needs. Have a real reason, right, Don't
just do it because it's a trendy thing and the
idea of building wealth rather than trying to build it quickly.
(51:11):
Have a little patience and a lot of strategy. Have
multiple savings for the inevitable shit that life is going
to throw at you that alleviates stress. Have a plan
in place where not only are you planning for achieving
(51:33):
the goal, so that that give us an example of
buying the house, but on top of that, you're also
planning for all of the expenses that come along with it,
so that then you can truly enjoy the experience of
buying your home, whereas now it's not a burden, but
you could truly celebrate that goal because you also planned
for the crazy shit that happens when you own something.
(51:59):
You have to build wealth and look at wealth through
the lens of self care, because wealth without happiness means nothing.
Wealth for the sake of wealth means nothing. It's just
(52:20):
having clarity on what you really want and making decisions
that provide you with fulfillment and put your life in alignment.
There's nothing like alignment. And actually chatch GPT said the
thing of the day because I was describing something and
(52:40):
they said, it sounds like you're living in alignment. I'm
doing the things that I love to do. If you
told me, uh Drama's you could do anything in this world,
what would you do? I would literally just exactly what
I'm doing, maybe at a bigger scale, more resources, but
exactly what. I can't think of anything else that I
(53:00):
want to do. I love what I do and I'm
now getting more opportunities to do that and getting more
resources to do that. Am I a millionaire? No? Am
I living in that fancy your house. No, But it
doesn't mean that I can't be happy right now. More
(53:24):
importantly than any of those external things, my life is
in alignment. I love what I do. My bills are
getting paid, and I'm getting the opportunities that I've dreamed about,
and I wake up every day excited about the things
that I get to do and living life by my
(53:48):
definition of happy or great and fulfilled. Living in alignment
right now. Of course, I need to improve, as we said,
certain practices, get better at business, at my finances, at
planning ahead. But that's like the bigger goal, right is
(54:13):
knowing once I do that, life will become far less stressful.
It's not about chasing the next big bag and adding
more shit to my plate that stresses me out. It
is setting up systems that alleviate the stress so I
can have the clarity to make decisions based upon what
(54:33):
really makes me happy. And I think that's like the
grandiose idea of everything we've talked about this month in
terms of financial literacy, in terms of building wealth, is
setting up systems. Be it your physical mental health, be
it your goal setting, and the clarity of what you
(54:56):
really want. Be it not just adding a bunch of
shit on your plate for the sake of staying busy
or because what you're supposed to do, but having intention
behind the things you say yes to and having the
(55:17):
patience to build properly so that you can enjoy the
fruits of your labor. And I'm gonna stop talking before
I fuck it up, because I can't summarize this month
any better than that. With that said, thank y'all so
much for tuning in. We've got four more episodes of
Life as a Gringo again, other stuff on the way.
(55:40):
Bonus episode's coming throughout the month of May, so you know,
even our finale, there'll be some extra things happening afterwards
to keep you entertained. And as we get closer, I'll
start to reveal more and more about what the next
chapter looks like. But put that said, thank y'all so
much for tuning in. I'll catch you on Thursday for
a Thursday Trends episode. Thank you all our guests from
(56:01):
this last month for Financial Literacy Month, Big Shots Apple
Podcasts for the support and yeah, I'll talk to y'all
on Thursday till thensday. Safe, we'll talk soon. Life as
a GREENO is a production of the micro Tura podcast
Network and iHeartRadio
Alright, let me talk about Tom. Here we go. He said,
you live in life pas a ringo, where you question
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do. This would not that this life. Yes, hello,
and welcome to another episode of Life as a Gringo.
I am dramas of course, and we are on the
(00:29):
last Tuesday of April, which means the last day of
Financial Literacy month. Also crazy to once again be speaking
these words, but I believe this is episode one hundred,
which would mean one episode, one on one, which that
(00:53):
means we have four episodes left of Life as a
Gringo and then it's done, and then we're over a
lot of cool shit on the horizon though, so have
no fear. If you enjoy our time together. I hope
that you do stay subscribed to this podcast, this feed,
(01:13):
because there's a bunch of stuff coming out. Even after
we finish the season in what I think I said
two and a half weeks, whatever it is, there's gonna
be a few bonus episodes. I'm gonna be doing some
like mini bonus episodes. I can't remember how many there are,
but this what happens on you're your own producer, as
well as host. By the way, you're just like balancing
(01:35):
a million and one different things and can't remember shit,
but you have a vague idea of what is actually happening.
With that said, yeah it is. I think we have
three I want to say, three bonus episodes after the
season ends, so have no fear. There'll be episodes coming
out well into May, I think up until the end
of May. So I'm excited. I'm just excited, man, excited
(02:00):
for what's ahead, Grateful for what we've done, what we've
built here together, this community and everybody they've gotten to
me as a result of this podcast, and the way
that this podcast has helped me grow personally. It's just crazy.
And I'll go down, you know, memory lane and be
(02:22):
a bit more nostalgic as we get into the final episodes.
But I am just forever grateful for what this show
has done for me personally, career wise, and on a
soul level. The ability to bring people together in some
sort of way has been really beautiful. So thank you
all so much for being a part of that that journey,
(02:43):
this journey, and I hope you join me on the
next one. With that said, we're closing out Financial Literacy Month,
and I just kind of wanted to like, you know,
raw dog or real conversation here and apologize. I was
I'm finding a cough here, dude. I don't know what
is in the flu that they're given out these days,
but my god, everyone's wan I'm still getting this fucking
(03:05):
dry cough and like you just heard right there. But
as I was saying we're closing out Financial Literacy Month,
I wanted to just do like a sole episode and
just kind of like decompress all the information we took
in and not necessarily like highlighting our best of But
I just think my mindset around money and finances has
(03:26):
changed a bit over the last couple of years. I
think this last year specifically, and then I think even
with these conversations I've been having, you know, kind of
opening my mind a bit more. So I just kind
of wanted to have a raw conversation I guess around
my decompression or my takeaway from, you know, these these
convos that we've been having this month. So with that said,
(03:50):
we'll have one long hint that segments all right, So
I guess for starters, we'll just kind of take it
from where I'm at mentally like kind of what's on
my mind as I think about this topic of money,
(04:12):
And it's been something that quite frankly, has been on
my mind a lot over the course of the last
year or so. And I think I'm hyper aware. I
think of starting to really plan for the future. And
I probably should have been doing this a long time ago.
But you know, I'm going to give myself grace because
(04:35):
I didn't have the information right and it's better to
start now than ever. But I think the evidence sort
of making me blatantly aware of the volatility in my
career path, right And I think I think, I mean, listen,
(04:59):
I believe any rear path has volatility if you don't
actually have ownership. But specifically, I can say I've seen
so much happening in the entertainment industry that I didn't expect,
or just technology and the way that it's changing everything
and how quickly things continue to change and downsizing and
(05:20):
all these different things. You know, it feels like you
know you I don't know, I never really felt completely
in control when somebody else was signing my checks, but
there still was a bit of I don't know, comfort
would be the word whatever it might be at, you know,
(05:40):
being with a big company like iHeart, and sort of
now with just the realities of where we are in
the world and this country economically, you know, seeing that
even the big players are not immune to the outside
(06:02):
circumstances of things like the economy and technology and how
quickly things are moving and social media. Right, and I
guess feeling human for the first time, if you will,
in that career regard had me really sort of rethinking
a lot of things. And I feel like I'm speaking
in fucking circles a bit over here. I guess what
(06:24):
I'm really trying to get at here is when I first,
you know, began on my career path or even just
thinking about making money, right, And when I mean, I've
always wanted to make money, I think, like anybody else,
especially when you don't come from money and you've seen
your parents struggle just to get by, and it it
(06:46):
never seemed like they were able to really get a
fucking grasp on things right, no matter how hard they work,
no matter what promotion they got. Every time it seemed
like they're about to have this big breakthrough, you know,
something would come to pull the rugout underneath. And what
I've become more and more aware of through my experiences
and through conversations like we've had this month, is that's
(07:08):
just life, right. It's not my parents having bad luck,
it's not our family having this dark cloud over us.
That's just the unfortunate reality of life. Is that it's
always going to provide you with surprises. And sometimes they're
good and welcome surprises. Other times they are the fucking worst,
(07:31):
you know, you know, and it's just crazy the things
that life can throw at you. And it feels like
(07:53):
we could tell ourselves these stories, these narratives that it's
just my luck, and I think many of us, myself
definitely included oftentimes fall victim to that story. But if
you really want to find the culprit of all of this,
it's a lack of planning on our end, right. And
(08:13):
I'm not saying we should beat the hell out of
ourselves for a lack of planning, but that's just the reality. Especially,
you know that that last conversation I had with so
that that's sort of like hearing the way that somebody
so meticulously had different accounts, you know, one for like emergency,
one for you know, like maintenance of the car, like
(08:35):
all these different like planning ahead so intentionally, and it's like,
that is how you combat the way that life is
so all over the place. That is how you push
back against the narrative of your bad luck, is just
(08:59):
by trying your best to figure out ways that you
could be proactive and be prepared for the inevitable roller
coaster ride that is this thing called life, right, and
that goes for your finances, that goes for your mental health,
that goes for your physical health, all these different things. Right,
it's a bit more of offense than defense. And I
(09:21):
think many of us weren't taught that right. Again, myself included.
My parents didn't have a savings that I knew about,
a real one, right. They didn't have rainy day money,
they didn't have God forbid the car breaks down money.
So when those things inevitably would happen, when we would
hit some sort of snag, our entire world blew up
(09:43):
because of a lack of preparation. And again not their fault.
They definitely didn't have any sort of knowledge. But also,
you know, they weren't making crazy amounts of money. My
mama's a fucking public school teacher in the Bronx, right.
And by the time she ascended to becoming a principal,
my father had dealt with, you know, multiple national tragedies
(10:08):
if you will, of nine to eleven, and then the
two thousand and eight you know, housing market crash and
inevitable recession we went through that really up ended his
career and led to layoffs and he was never able
to get back to where he had been, right. And
so with that, even my mom, my mom got the
(10:29):
bump in pay as a principal, it was just compensating
for the money my dad had lost by you know,
his industry downsizing, by the economy being in a shitty place, right,
And so they never really felt the effects of that, right.
And it's it's funny how you you sort of go
into your adulthood, at least for me, and I would
(10:51):
take a lot of mental notes as to how I
didn't want to live right as an adult, and and
one of those things was I saw the contention that
money caused in our family dynamic, and I didn't want
that to be a part of my life. And my
(11:12):
goal was then always to try and make a lot
of money, right. And that's sort of even the narrative
that I was taught is nobody mentioned savings or having
emergency money or all these things. It was like, no,
you just got to make more money. And in one
degree that's true, but it doesn't erase your need for planning.
(11:35):
And I think that's one of the biggest takeaways that
I've had from all these conversations is, you know, I
don't like to talk about money and salary and all
these different things. And I know that that's some would
call that a problem, but I just don't think it's
(11:56):
I don't feel comfortable with that. I'm fortunate that I've
made a decent living, and particularly when you talk about
doing something you love, it's a phenomenal living. And for me,
even though it wasn't a crazy goal, I was able
to beat out, you know, what my parents ever made,
(12:20):
and that was like a big time goal for me
because it meant, like I think in the back of
my mind a it meant that external validation of proving
them wrong, right, And that was a lot of my motivation,
as I've talked about for years doing the show. But
on the other side of it, it was like, if
I can make more money than my parents, that means
I'll never fall victim to the problems that they did,
(12:43):
and truth be told, a lesson that I had to
learn the hard way over these last couple of years,
particularly being self employed. But I think in general this
probably applies to a lot of people. Is just because
you're making more money, does it mean that you're actually
(13:07):
going to feel the freedom of it in a real
way unless you have an actual plan, Because this is
what happens. You hit a certain threshold of making money
and you get hit for more taxes, and mentally, when
you're making more money, you can easily fall victim to
(13:30):
spending more money, which quite frankly I did. And while
I've been I feel like I'm not of a materialistic
type of person who's blowing money on stupid shit. I've
been very modest about, you know, not wanting to go
out and get a brand new car for no reason
(13:50):
and driving a car that's cheap to maintain and all
these things, and you know, not buying the cool looking
house put instead buying the one that was in investment
property as my first property. You know, I thought that
I was being I don't want to say frugal, but
(14:12):
conscious of my money habits and I think for me
more than anything. I began being hyper aggressive with investment
opportunities and entrepreneurial ideas that I had, which on one
(14:32):
hand I'm proud of because I lived without fear. On
the other hand, I was spending more money than I
should have investing into these projects, right, and in doing that,
I didn't first come up with a plan. I guess
(14:53):
is what I'm trying to get to in a roundabout way.
And to give you a part example, like my first
couple of years being completely self employed, I didn't pay
taxes quarterly, so I would get lump sums of cash
(15:16):
for the podcast. I get a lump sum of cash
that is basically the my pay for the entire year,
my guarantee, and then it's up to me to obviously
pay taxes on that and budget it for you know,
whatever the year. So what I was doing was those
first two years, I didn't do that, So I'd go
to do taxes and then I would just fucking, you know,
(15:38):
internally scream at how much money I had to send
the irs in a lump sum, right, and how quickly
they wanted to get add interest to it if I
didn't pay it in you know, expeditiously if you will.
And that was a lesson learned, and that was unnecessary
pain that I had to go through because of a
lack of planning on my end, back of being intentional
(16:00):
and saying, Okay, quarterly, we're sending this amount of money
to them, right, or let's calculate for the year and
let's just rip the band aid off right now and
send them a lump sum so that we're not spending
the entire year thinking we have more money than we
actually do. Right, Because I was the other part, there's
money sitting in my account. I know I have to
pay taxes, but somehow, some way, I'm still like mentally
(16:22):
existing as if I have the full amount of money
essentially at my disposal. And again, while it wasn't like
I was, you know, doing crazy shit to the naked eye,
I was over extending myself with my interests as far
as business and ideas, right because again, I only saw
(16:42):
value in trying to create more revenue. I didn't see
value in saving and being proactive and budgeting and all
these different things. Right to me, that was something I
was going to do after I hit it big, essentially,
is what I would tell myself, right, but for now,
risk risk risk, right, And the irony of all of
that is I would find myself in the same position
(17:07):
that my parents were when they were making substantially less
money or didn't have or you know, I'm making more
money and I don't have all of the expenses on
paper that they did as far as two kids and
and everything that goes along with that, right, and paying
two car payments at that point, and whatever else it is, right,
(17:29):
But I found myself in a similar stressor because I
was trying too hard to like force growth, right. I
was trying to strong arm my way into the next
stratosphere or the next you know, wealth class, if you will.
(17:51):
And again, as much as I believe in having to
pull the trigger on ideas and do these different things,
you also have to have a level of patience and tact.
And I guess what I'm taking away from a lot
of the conversations we had this month, it's not always
just being on the attack, right. I talked about offense,
(18:11):
and I don't when I say, you know, offense like
I started the show, like I wish my parents is
more saving or taught us more saving. That's offense to me.
And offense is also investments and things like that. But
it's like, I guess, if you're a football fan, let's say, right,
it's not all about throwing hail mary's, which essentially is
what I was doing with these entrepreneurial ventures. I was
throwing these deep hail mary's that don't have a high
(18:31):
success rate, just like in the NFL. Right, in the NFL,
the highest you know, success rate are like the little
ding and dump passes they call them, right, the short
yardage passes you dump off to a receiver. You take
the easy win. But instead of me doing that, which
I would equate to like you know, saving and low
risk stock investments and things of that nature, I was
(18:55):
all about hail mary after hail mary, and eventually I
got into to a stressful situation where I'm like, oh man,
so much of my money is now tied up in
these projects, which as an entrepreneur, majority of your ideas
are not going to yield the results you expected. Right,
(19:16):
You're really most people are living off of the couple
big wins, right, But they shot a lot of shots
to get those couple wins. And I guess for me,
my biggest takeaway and I keep saying that, and I
keep like talking in circles. You know, these are just
takeaways when I call it the biggest takeaway, But there's
(19:36):
a bit of patience needed, right, And I think this
bleeds into maybe some of the mental health conversation and
motivation behind building wealth, because why is it that I
wanted to build wealth so quickly? Why was I so
(19:58):
hyper focused on that? Now, part of it was that
I genuinely enjoyed the things that I was doing and
the things that I am doing, and I wanted to
tenex them and do them bigger. And I have a
natural competitive spirit and I want greatness out of myself
and I think those are beautiful things. But on the
(20:18):
other side of it, a lot of it was probably
also some trauma responses. Right. I was the broke friend
for so long who didn't have anything to show for
all the hard work he was putting in. And now
(20:39):
I not only wanted to match where people that you know,
my peers were, I wanted to stand over them essentially, right,
And as much as I have pushed past the need
to impress people with things like the car I drive
(20:59):
or the house I live in or whatever it might be,
there still is that part of me that is wounded
in wanting to be enough. And I think much of
my pursuit of monetary success is looking for the external validation,
(21:21):
be it from my peers, be it from my industry,
be it from women, whatever it might be. And I
think as a result, all of my focus was zoomed
in on trying to create wealth and trying to create
it as quickly as possible, which means being as you know,
(21:46):
as risky as humanly possible. That's really how you build
wealth quickly? Is the risk? Right? And I guess you know,
as I'm here, we're three years into the podcast or
almost four at this point, my mindset has changed a bit,
and I think this month, in these episodes we've had,
is a reflection of that. And I want to kind
(22:09):
of get into where I'm at now after some of
those lessons learned. So we'll talk about that, but let's
say a quick break here and then we'll be right back.
All right, we are back, And I guess for me,
these lessons that we talk about and lessons learned the
hard way, and then also lessons learned gently from conversations
(22:32):
like the ones I've been having this month you sort
of begin to get clear, or at least I've begun
to get clear and what I really want right, and
why am I chasing these things? And sometimes I need
a refresher of it, you know, I need to remind
myself of that, and I'll remind myself to play this
(22:53):
fucking episode next time I'm chasing something just for the
monetary sake. But I think when you begin to get
clear on what it is that you want, you can
then make better decisions, right, And just getting rich is
not being clear on what you want right, And I
think that for me was so much of the goal
(23:15):
of the target. Now. Of course, I have genuine aspirations
of helping people. I have genuine goals of being able
to do more of what I love and being able
to have more resources to bring ideas to life in
the way that I really want to. But also there
(23:36):
was just a want and need of building wealth just
to make myself feel better, just to look better to
those on the outside, just to make, you know, get
more paths in the back from my parents or my
peers or whatever it is. And that is I think
(23:58):
where you begin to deviate from your actual happiness and fulfillment.
And where you begin to go down a road that
you eventually won't even recognize yourself anymore, you know, midway
(24:19):
through that journey, or you won't recognize your life, or
you'll sort of just be like, why the fuck am
I even doing this? You know? And and that's again
the mental health aspect. I think, you know, it's funny
to me as I reflect on this journey of life
(24:43):
as a Geldingo, of the brutal self education of finances,
you know, not having grown up with knowing anything about
these things. I reflect and like, man, the like the
year I got the podcast and then the the couple
that followed it. You know, I'm in a position where
(25:05):
I'm doing things that I love, I'm getting paid more
than I've ever getten paid before, and my lifestyle is
far more of what I want it to be. Now,
it's important to keep striving for more. I think we
(25:27):
have to always be, you know, have something we're working
on and working towards. But it's important to not allow
that to cheapen the present moment. And I've talked about
this at nauseum. Right it feels like the ajavoo as
I say that, But I guess for me It's like
(25:48):
I was white knuckling life because I was so obsessed
with accumulating more revenue, more income, and I was getting
fresh straded that I wasn't there yet. And I'll give
you an example. There was this house that was for sale,
(26:15):
not too far from my parents actually, and I was
just in love with this house, like the architecture of
it and the style of it. It had a fucking library,
it was like wood, like huge open rooms. It was
just it was stunning. And here I am. And I
went to the open house because I just want to
see this place in person. And my initial goal with
(26:39):
that was like to just be inspired by it, right,
like I want to be able to afford this. One day,
there was this house that that was basically this is
literally I feel like I've just bought my property, probably
a year prior to that, maybe not even. And this
house was double at the time, double the cost of
my first property that I bought. And I remember leaving
(27:06):
that open house at first motivated like, all right, well,
how do we make more money? Like let me figure
out how much money I have to make a month
a year in order to get approved for that loan.
And then once I did the calculations on that, All right,
what's the idea to get us there? But that quickly
turned to frustration and anger because I didn't have a
(27:28):
clear answer at that point, And then that just cheapened
the fact that you're literally still a new homeowner. You
have your dream lifestyle of waking up when you want
to wake up. Essentially, you make your own schedule, you're
hosting a podcast, you have your own platform, like, you
(27:51):
have so many things you dreamed of, and it's amazing
to have that goal of you know, three acting or
five acting whatever it was at the time salary to
afford this house. But don't allow that greater dream to
make you a fucking crazy person in the moment that
doesn't appreciate what he has. And then on top of that,
(28:14):
begins to make erratic decisions just to chase a quick
paycheck or to make more money and take risks that
you are not prepared for. And I think that is
so much of what I had learned, right, Like I
wish I had had a conversation with so that that,
(28:36):
you know, around that time, because then it would have been,
all right, well, we're not going to fucking do the
Las Vegas. You know, dice roll version of trying to
make more money, right, where you just bet everything on
red and hope for the best, which essentially what I
was doing. We're going to create the long term plan
(28:56):
x amount in the savings account x amount here, and
then how do we, you know, increase our salary by
x amount as well? But planning ahead, right, because even
I would have done the salary require salary requirements if
I wasn't planning ahead for that, the costs of everything,
of closing, of moving, of fucking maintenance on a it
(29:18):
was a pretty large house on a large piece of property,
the amount of maintenance that is going to go into
it each and every month. I wasn't thinking about that
type of shit. So thank god that I didn't get
the the you know, increase in revenue that I was
hoping for, right, Like God protected me there because I wouldn't.
I would have lost that house probably, you know, I
(29:38):
wouldn't have been prepared and it would have been another burden. Right,
that's the idea of like being house rich and cash poor.
So I guess you know, for me, I'm no longer like,
how do we quickly do this? I'm now in the
mindset of how do we become happy and grateful for
(29:59):
what we have while being patient and slowly building for
the future goals. And to me, that is the key
when you talk about our community where so many of
(30:19):
us don't come from parents that are extremely wealthy or
parents that are financially savvy, and for many of us,
your parents might be the first time homeowners. Maybe they're
the first time college graduates. Maybe you're the first time homeowner,
(30:39):
you're the first college graduate. You have to allow yourself
a some grace, but also I guess it's not trying
to get everything at once, which is so much of
I think what my problem has always been. I want
everything all at one time, and I'll make I'll literally
(31:02):
be a miserable human being while trying to do it right.
It's like this all or nothing mentality, and I've outgrown
it in many ways. In other ways I have it.
It still creeps back into my life and my mindset sometimes,
but it's like I think back to moments where I've
been stressed out over the last couple of years, or
(31:26):
like with the house, how I talked about like that
just drove me into like a spiral of like, you know,
being angry at the world that I can't afford this
thing that I want, you know, and being angry at
the government for fucking hitting me with taxes even though
it is frustrating. But again, it's like it's that behind
(31:49):
closed doors, slow work, the planning ahead, the planning for
trad for you know, unexpected things, planning for the car break,
that like all those little things protect you from the
rug being pulled out from underneath you, which is so
much of what makes us mentally unhappy or depressed or
(32:12):
frustrated at life. Right, It's it's really just a result
of being ill prepared. And again that's nobody's fault, but
it's something to learn and want to be better at,
you know. And again, I also just think it's like
slow down a little bit, right. I just think there's
(32:33):
so much of that like that we all need to hear.
Slow the fuck down. It doesn't have to all happen
at once and again, and I'm talking literally to myself
in this moment, right, And I've mentioned this so many times,
(32:55):
but it's like it's not the giant explosive it leaps forward.
That's not sustainable. And it's a daily struggle for me
where I'm like, areight, what's the fucking big win today?
And every day is not going to have that big win? Right?
(33:15):
Most days are you showing up doing what needs to
be done and calling it a day, Right, And that's
a win in itself because those little things each and
every day, the daily tasks that you take care of,
the daily goals that you achieve, they do add up
to those bigger things. But allow yourself the patience and
(33:42):
grace for those those little wins to stack up into
a big one, and don't think just because they are
a little win that they're not something worth celebrating and
being appreciative of. And again, I think that's so much
(34:05):
of like our problem with money, right. It's what causes
so many of us to go and blow our paycheck
on something we can't really afford because we want that
feeling of being successful, but we don't want to have
(34:26):
the patients needed to be truly successful, right, to actually
be fulfilled. I'm not saying buying a designer bag if
you love them, is a bad thing, but doing so
with the last of your paycheck and now you have
zero dollars in the bank probably not the smartest idea, right,
(34:50):
Having the patience and discipline to set aside a fund
for it so that when you buy it, you don't
even notice it, and then you could really celebrate it.
That's the way, right, Because what happens when you end
up spending money you don't have, or charging things to
a credit card. You have that brief moment of excitement,
and then at some point reality fucking sets in and
(35:11):
now you're anxious, and now you're depressed, and now you
hate your life. Right, And I've been that vicious cycle
so many fucking times, and even for me, like I'm
and now I'm just kind of like unlocking memory, you know,
core memories in my brain and shit, but like there's
(35:33):
nothing worse to me, and that this is childhood trauma
of like you're on vacation but having to like fucking
nickel and diamond and that I know that that's like
first world problems, but it's like if you want to
if you're spending all this time saving up for this
(35:53):
trip and you're you're you're out there, this is your
fucking one week a year that you're gonna be able
to enjoy it, but you don't actually have the money
to afford that trip it's miserable. I can remember my
parents were out there on like vacation and like, you know,
we're nickel and diming it. And I know it sounds ungrateful.
(36:16):
I don't mean it in that way, but it's like
they're stressed out because of how much money they're spending
each day. How is that fun? Right? Because then their
stress of and frustration bleeds into how we feel as
the kid, right, And then it's like as an adult.
When I was on tour with my band, we would
(36:37):
go to all these like new places and these different
cities around the country, and we couldn't afford to do anything,
Like we're surviving off of the cheap menu at the
fast food restaurants, right, So it's like, oh, yeah, you've
been to this place. Absolutely, I've been to that city.
What you do you have any recommendations? No, because I
(36:58):
didn't see shit. We ate at the fucking McDonald's or
the KFC or the Taco Bell. We played a show
at the venue. I made myself a peanut butter and
Joey sandwich from what I had in the van, and
we drove to the next city. And like all these events,
as silly as they sound, they were like a slightly
(37:19):
traumatizing experience of like never really being able to indulge
in life, and also like the hard work you put in,
because the irony of it is, even though we weren't
getting paid for those shows, it took a hell of
a lot of work, as like a band that nobody
ever heard of to book a tour around the country,
(37:42):
and we're so excited about going to these different cities
and doing different things. And it was enjoyable, don't get
me wrong, but like it's also deflating as fuck. Like
you go there and like, oh, we'll sleep in the
van tonight. You know, we're eating fucking I eating surviving
off of honey buns that I haven't been in the van.
Like it's like this fucking tease almost right, but again,
(38:06):
and at that point, it's like, I'm an eighteen nine
tye old kid. It's likely, but so much I can
save off of my you know, six dollars an hour job.
But a little bit of patience, a little bit of foresight,
a little bit of planning allows us to really reap
far more of this life in a far more enjoyable way.
(38:27):
And I guess that's what we're getting as we're all
so hyper fixated on hyper growth, and that's so much
of the narrative around social media is these exorbitant lifestyles
that impress people and always be traveling, always be doing this,
always be somewhere, and it sort of causes us to
(38:50):
shoot ourself in the foot over and over again as
we try and keep up with the Joneses and I
love again. I keep reverencing that conversation with so that
because I got so much out of it from the
Netro Bartholos. But she talks about setting money aside. Okay,
I know I like to eat out. I don't want
to cook every single night. This is our fund for
(39:12):
even just the local restaurant down the street, right, But
like planning, just down to those details so that you're
not in a place where you're overspending, which then leads
to you not having money when you need it, which
then leads to you having a downward spiral of depression
and hating your life and going down the rabbit hole
(39:34):
of things are never going to change, and then which
usually makes you just spiral even more. And it's just
like this vicious fucking cycle, which again, if we could
just be proactive and be a bit more patient we
can avoid as much as humanly possible, and then at
the same time, I'll pivot to the idea and I'll
(39:56):
sort of end on this note. Us overworking. Right, So
many of us saw our parents killing themselves each and
every day, many of them doing jobs they hated just
to get by, and we're of the privilege of having
(40:18):
a leg up on them. But here we are because
we're chasing this designated idea of success. We're taking on
extra jobs, extra gigs, jobs we don't like, staying at
jobs we don't like because of money. We're doing all
(40:43):
these extra things, spreading ourselves thin, stressing ourselves out, just
to chase after a lifestyle that we may not even
really want. And we talked about the American Dream this
month and the fallacy of it that it was never
really set up for us as people of color again,
(41:05):
and there's been arguments about the American Dream really just
being a great advertising campaign of you know, consumerism. Essentially,
there's so many things within that, right, We're like programmed
to chase things that we don't actually want, and then
we get them and we're like, why am I not happy? Right?
(41:26):
And it's because we're not in alignment, and that alignment
is an internal journey. You set up what your financial
goals are, right, you determine what you want in this life.
(41:47):
If you don't care about a fancy car, then why
the fuck you are you trying to keep up with
other people who that's what they care about. Right, I'm
not like a car enthusiast like that. The only thing
I get out of it is when other people validate
my hurt child from the car that I drive, right,
(42:07):
that was my old car, not this one. Other than that,
I don't really care that much. So why am I
chasing and strong arming and white knuckling and being frustrated
(42:29):
that I'm not at that financial level when in reality
I have a lot of what I want and more
than what I need in my current lifestyle. And again,
doesn't mean you don't keep striving, but it also doesn't
mean you ruin the present moment. And again, I feel
(42:52):
like I'm I get redundant when we talk about this,
and it's but I just think it's so important. It's
like a refresher Like we just need like somebody to
fucking call us every every other week and remind us
like remember, like, you know, get clear on what you're chasing.
Is it because what you really want or because you're
trying to you know, heal your your hurt inner child.
(43:13):
Are you being patient and trying to rush things right?
Are you doing work that actually matters or are you
just trying to accumulate another paycheck to fund a bunch
of shit that you don't really want? And I guess
(43:34):
I don't know to surmise it all. For me, what
I'm realizing is I don't really need much and alignment
and fulfillment aren't coming from me making excessive amounts of money.
(44:00):
They come from the work that I'm doing, the people
that I'm connecting with and potentially helping, and the ability
to not have to have anxiety about my finances, to
(44:22):
be able to do the little things that I want
to do that make me feel free. Right. I want
to be able to go out to eat a couple
of times a week, or order food, whatever it is.
I would like to travel to Puerto Rico every other month,
and I'm not doing it as a baller. I'm going
to and staying at you know, for free, at the
(44:42):
house that I have over there. Thinks to my family,
you know. So my expenses are renting a car and
just hanging out. But I don't have to be a
fucking a millionaire, is what my point is to do
all those things. I want to have a studio, which
I already have. I want to have my own place,
which I already have. So why am I making myself
(45:07):
miserable worrying about some tax bracket and worrying about some
symbols of status that when I'm having a raw and
honest conversation with myself are not a part of the
conversation or not a part of the equation when I
ask what do I look like when I'm what does
my life look like when it's in alignment? And what
(45:28):
is it? What do I look like when I'm fulfilled?
So really, life is a lot simpler, is I guess
what I'm getting at, because what I say is, Okay, well,
what do I need to do to actually get these
things that I enjoy doing? Okay? Well, I have the
career that I like, I enjoy that I love awesome,
what are the extra things? Okay, maybe I need to
(45:52):
have a budget of an extra one hundred dollars a
week that allows for me eating out twice a week. Awesome.
I want to be Important Rico every other month, Okay?
On average, I spent about two hundred and fifty dollars
on a flight, rental car might be another one hundred
hundred and fifty. We're probably looking at a trip that
(46:12):
costs six seven hundred dollars. Every time I go out there.
Usually I get a better flight deal than to fifty.
But let's just call it six seven hundred dollars, okay,
So that means every month, because if I want to
go every other month, every other month, I have to
have saved about three hundred and fifty dollars. Cool. I
(46:39):
mean when you break it down to that capacity, that's
less than one hundred dollars a week that I have
to save. Right. So if I say those are my
two biggest things, because I already have a career that
fulfills me. So my two biggest extracurriculars are one hundred
dollars food budget and we'll just call it one hundred
dollars for my Puerto Rico trips every other month. That
(47:03):
means I have to budget two hundred dollars a week, right,
or find an extra eight hundred dollars a month, and
I'm living my dream life at that point, and anything
(47:27):
else that doesn't involve that I can cut back on
or erase from my regular spending. Or when we talk
about the conversation of gigs and side hustles, okay, maybe
I pick up if my current thing isn't doing it,
maybe I pick up an extra gig or side hustle
(47:48):
that I know will yield me that extra eight hundred
dollars a month without stressing me out too much. And then,
in a very simple fashion, you're living your dream life
at that point. Addition, through subtraction and patience, and let's
(48:11):
tie everything we talk about today in a neat little
boat and a segment call conclusions due. But first we'll
take a quick break and they'll be right back time
for comp soon. All right, I went off on a
fucking tangent. I guess surmising the whole all the conversations
(48:33):
we've been having. Getting your finances in order will be
a release and a benefit for your mental health. Getting
clear on what you want and not allowing yourself to
be distracted by what you're supposed to have will be
(48:54):
a relief on your mental health. Planning a head so
that when life in nevery throws a curveball at you
will be a relief on your mental health. We talked
a bit about the American dream. There's no one size
fits all. The American dream is probably a fallacy. What
(49:16):
is your dream? Insert your name and the word dream
and let that be what you're chasing. Talked about gigs
and side hustles and all these different things. If you're
going to strive for extra if you're going to bend
and pull yourself a bit thin at times trying out
(49:40):
entrepreneurial ventures or just trying to make a couple extra bucks,
make sure that it's worth it. Make sure that it
actually adds value to your life beyond just the financial
What are you doing it for. Are you doing it
because you love the entrepreneurial journey and it satisfies you
a doing it because it's a hobby or a gig
(50:02):
that adds you know, is something you genuinely enjoy. So
it's a bit of a relief from maybe what you
do for a nine to five, or are you doing
it with a clear plan in mind? Like I said,
if I can make you know theoretically and actually eight
hundred dollars that means I get to live out, you know,
going being Puerto Rico every other month and eating out
a couple of times a week. Right, that is worth
(50:24):
it to me to find a little side huset, so
that would add that, right, But have a real reason
why you're adding more to your plate. Don't do it
just for the sake of being busy. Don't do it
because entrepreneurism, entrepreneurial entrepreneurialism geez is the cool thing on
social media and people trying to tell you're a sucker
if you have a nine to five. Now do it
(50:44):
because you have a real reason. Because it's going to
demand a lot out of you. It's going to take
you away from your family, your friends, it's going to
make you not get as much rest as you as
your body probably needs. Have a real reason, right, Don't
just do it because it's a trendy thing and the
idea of building wealth rather than trying to build it quickly.
(51:11):
Have a little patience and a lot of strategy. Have
multiple savings for the inevitable shit that life is going
to throw at you that alleviates stress. Have a plan
in place where not only are you planning for achieving
(51:33):
the goal, so that that give us an example of
buying the house, but on top of that, you're also
planning for all of the expenses that come along with it,
so that then you can truly enjoy the experience of
buying your home, whereas now it's not a burden, but
you could truly celebrate that goal because you also planned
for the crazy shit that happens when you own something.
(51:59):
You have to build wealth and look at wealth through
the lens of self care, because wealth without happiness means nothing.
Wealth for the sake of wealth means nothing. It's just
(52:20):
having clarity on what you really want and making decisions
that provide you with fulfillment and put your life in alignment.
There's nothing like alignment. And actually chatch GPT said the
thing of the day because I was describing something and
(52:40):
they said, it sounds like you're living in alignment. I'm
doing the things that I love to do. If you
told me, uh Drama's you could do anything in this world,
what would you do? I would literally just exactly what
I'm doing, maybe at a bigger scale, more resources, but
exactly what. I can't think of anything else that I
(53:00):
want to do. I love what I do and I'm
now getting more opportunities to do that and getting more
resources to do that. Am I a millionaire? No? Am
I living in that fancy your house. No, But it
doesn't mean that I can't be happy right now. More
(53:24):
importantly than any of those external things, my life is
in alignment. I love what I do. My bills are
getting paid, and I'm getting the opportunities that I've dreamed about,
and I wake up every day excited about the things
that I get to do and living life by my
(53:48):
definition of happy or great and fulfilled. Living in alignment
right now. Of course, I need to improve, as we said,
certain practices, get better at business, at my finances, at
planning ahead. But that's like the bigger goal, right is
(54:13):
knowing once I do that, life will become far less stressful.
It's not about chasing the next big bag and adding
more shit to my plate that stresses me out. It
is setting up systems that alleviate the stress so I
can have the clarity to make decisions based upon what
(54:33):
really makes me happy. And I think that's like the
grandiose idea of everything we've talked about this month in
terms of financial literacy, in terms of building wealth, is
setting up systems. Be it your physical mental health, be
it your goal setting, and the clarity of what you
(54:56):
really want. Be it not just adding a bunch of
shit on your plate for the sake of staying busy
or because what you're supposed to do, but having intention
behind the things you say yes to and having the
(55:17):
patience to build properly so that you can enjoy the
fruits of your labor. And I'm gonna stop talking before
I fuck it up, because I can't summarize this month
any better than that. With that said, thank y'all so
much for tuning in. We've got four more episodes of
Life as a Gringo again, other stuff on the way.
(55:40):
Bonus episode's coming throughout the month of May, so you know,
even our finale, there'll be some extra things happening afterwards
to keep you entertained. And as we get closer, I'll
start to reveal more and more about what the next
chapter looks like. But put that said, thank y'all so
much for tuning in. I'll catch you on Thursday for
a Thursday Trends episode. Thank you all our guests from
(56:01):
this last month for Financial Literacy Month, Big Shots Apple
Podcasts for the support and yeah, I'll talk to y'all
on Thursday till thensday. Safe, we'll talk soon. Life as
a GREENO is a production of the micro Tura podcast
Network and iHeartRadio
Host
DJ Dramos
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.