January 2, 2025 • 38 mins
In this episode, John recounts the early stages of his life that led him to the path of entrepreneurship. This episode also contains special bonus content at the end to provide deeper context for the stories in the episode!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
of The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. So my
road to entrepreneurship wasn't some fairy tale, and it certainly
(00:21):
wasn't easy, and that's good because then you can relate
to it. When I was in Compton and living with
my mother, the backstory to meeting this white banker who
taught me financial literacy in what was then home economics
(00:41):
class was my mother who had bought that home. And
so I saw somebody make a choice right between rending
and owning the dignity and the respect that gendered the
sense of somebodyness that we had knowing that the roof
(01:04):
over our head was our own home. There's an unconscious
thing about owning your own stuff, right. And you could
tell whose home was rented because the grass was up
to your knees. Our grass was well maintained because well,
(01:25):
nobody washes rental cars, right, but you when you own it,
you take care of it. You tend to take care
of it. And so we would cut the grass. I
would cut the grass right for for my mom. And
at that one five five oh two South Freely address
in Compton, California, the corner.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Corner lot that she owned.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And when I was growing up there in Compton, i'd
already seen, you know, the death of our net worth
or the death of our family structure, divorce when I
was less than five years old. Then I saw a murder.
(02:07):
Oh see, the guy who saved my life when I
was you know, six, seven years old, might have been
even five or six murdered right in front of me.
That was about over money. He was selling marijuana part
time in the wrong neighborhood, trying to make some extra money,
(02:28):
the wrong side hustle, and they murdered him for it.
I witnessed that. I can still see it in my
own mind's eye to this day. And I had met
when I moved to Compton, this young man who was
older than me by ten years plus, George.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
He was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I was nine or ten at this time at this
particular point. So when I met him, you know, he
was you know, maybe seventeen or sixteen, but when he was.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Murdered he was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Uh. George was smart. George had great grades. I had
okay grades, by the way, I got to C minus
C plus in math. I think, so the finance, the
so called financial literacies are you know, financial literacy big
baller for the country, who's advised three US presidents from
both parties, President Clinton, President Bush, and President Obama, who's
(03:25):
advised the Treasury Department, helped create policy for the Executive
Order through the federal government, and financial literacy policy and
emergency financial disaster policy through female homeland security, and all
the stuff that we've done in Operation in Hope, et cetera.
I got a C minus C plus in math. That's right,
And I'm in good company because you may not know this,
(03:47):
but doctor Martin Luther King Junior got a C minus
in public speaking from Krozier's seminary. Did you know that?
That's right? They said, if you don't stop talking like that,
you never amount to anything. Well, he turned out more
than okay. So doing something different doesn't mean that you
can't do it. It just made mean that it's different.
(04:08):
So George had a great grades. He was a perfect student,
but didn't have great parents. And I don't think i've
ever remember seeing his father. Now, I didn't have a
father at home, but I had a father. My mom
and dad were divorced, but my dad spent time with me.
My mother spent time with me. They did not argue
(04:30):
with me. They didn't make me a negotiating point between
them in the household. They didn't make their children to
argue point. Please don't do that to your kids. They
don't Your kids not asked to come here. They did
not get a vote, right, you guys got busy. They
showed up. And so you have a responsibility to raise
them into adulthood and to make them responsible citizens and
(04:51):
give them all the tools they need to compete. Discipline, structure, love, accountability, confidence, belief,
all in the tool they need to roll in this world. So,
my mother was like a mom and a dad when
I was, you know, with her. And then my dad
was like extra sauce right when I go went to
(05:13):
go hang out with him oftentimes on weekends. He lived
in South Central, We lived in Canton. He lived at
thirty fifth in Western and But but I never saw
George's father and and and his mother was nice enough,
but you know, I don't really remember her very much.
When I would hang out, he would spend most of
his time at our house because I think he loved
(05:34):
my mother. Anyway, George was a great student and I
want to be like George because I want to be smart. Unfortunately,
George didn't know who he wanted to be. So George
started hanging out with my next door neighbor, Tweet, the
local drug dealer. The whole family next door was just
off the chain, crazy like they were.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They were.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
They were all involved with the drug train, ganging, slanging
and banging. Police were always at the house next door.
Tweet was he was a handsome guy. He was, you know,
he was super cool, but just uses talent for something
that did not have a return on an investment. And
in my neighborhood you had prison, baroque and death, and
(06:19):
Jors started hanging out with Tweet, started walking like Tweet,
talking like Tweet, acting like Tweet, and got shot and
killed with Tweet. So that was the third time I
witnessed a death, and the second time I actually I
didn't witness that it happened, right, but it was witnessed.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
In my life, I.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Saw three deaths, two murders, experienced three deaths, deaths of
something important to me that was transformational to family structure,
our net worth, you know, generational wealth. Then the murder
of Oc and then the murder which I actually witnessed
in the murderer of George, and I realized being smart
(07:06):
wasn't enough. Like you know, yeah, it's really important, but
it's not enough. Being cool is not enough. Hanging out
certainly depends who you're hanging out with.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Not enough.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Culture matters. Like culture to this day is not the
most important thing in business. It's the only thing in business.
It's the only thing in your life. On your street,
your neighborhood has a culture, your household has a culture.
As my wife Schachuer has said, most habits are learned, right,
most things are learned. What is the habit in your household,
(07:48):
in your life, and your family structure. So you're trying
to get a sense of what the habits were in
my family structure and the ecosystem in my family that
my mother, what's going to make sure sure was embedded
in our culture before we walked down that front door,
and even when she wasn't around, we were guided by
(08:09):
her role. Modeling right, you model what you see. A
lot of kids want to be rap stars, nothing wrong
with it, but you can't scale a rap star. TI
is my friend, Killer, Mike's my friend. I have a
lot of friends who are rappers, actors and my friend
I was with Chris Tucker to bring comedian and actor.
Uh just today, great friend. You know, I have a
(08:32):
lot of people in the entertainment business. Quincy Jones is
a mentor of mind. But the very fact that I
can mention these names, I know, Oprah Winfrey, I know
I know a lot of a lot of these people
that you are aware of, Quavo, right, but you can't be.
The very fact that I mentioned their name means that
they're there, their their brands, they're unique into themselves, and
you cannot have forty million black people trying to be
(08:54):
you know, three thousand rappers and two hundred named actors,
and just the numbers don't work right, not scalable, and
and even their businesses dependent upon their personality. So they're
they're in all likelihood have two, three, four to ten employees.
But our community needs even going to go work for them. Uh,
you need somebody who can create hundreds of employee employees
(09:16):
and thousands of employees. I I e. I wrote a
piece once that America needed and I love the presidency
of Barack Obama and what he represented, but I wrote
that America probably needed black America probably needed a Black
Bill Gates before it needed the black.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
President, right.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
We needed that role model to see, uh, and experience
what it's like to create a business that create that create,
created a business of the billionaire that creates one hundred million,
one hundred millionaires to work for him, that create then
you know, uh, multi millionaires, and then creating millionaires underneath
underneath underneath that then create one hundred thousand airs salaried employees.
(09:55):
And all these people are giving money back, you know,
you know, to their communities and donating charities, going to donating,
tiding at church, and hooking up the vendors at their
house where they be you know, painters or electricians or
folks cutting the grass. It all trickles down right, and
(10:16):
it's all habit for me. So that's why I've said
Black America probably needed a Black Bill Gates or several
of them before we needed a black president, because government
can't save you, just like drug dealing can't say you,
just like rap stars can't save you. So my point
was that we end up wanting to be rap stars,
athletes and drug Dealer's nothing wrong with a rap star example,
other than it's not scalable, and you shouldn't want to
(10:38):
be a drug dealer or a gangster.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But we end up modeling that because that's what we see.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Those are symbols of success that we see and where
the rules of published and the playing fiellers level, Black
folks and brown folks succeed. Think about the arts, you
sing well, you dance well, people buy your records or whatever,
go to your performances, you succeed. I think about sports.
You run fast, you hit a bounce a baseball, you bounce,
(11:04):
you bounce a basketball, you throw a football, whatever, you're
good at it, You get the.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Contract, and you succeed.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Right even though that, by the way, is not necessarily sustainable,
because seventy percent of those seventy percent of those in
professional sports, namely the NFL, in the NBA or bankrupt
five years give or take after retirement. That's another podcast
doing all focus on professional sports and all that. But
on this example, just once you understand that this is
(11:31):
the math of the matter. You cannot have forty million
plus black people trying to fit into these sub categories
of artistry that are scalable. So you got all these
people trying to do these few jobs which don't last.
But that's what we're modeling what we see because we
see success in it, but you can't scale.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It, and.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
So we end up to do these things that don't
have what I call economic legs on them. There are
no retired drug dealers, r prison, beaged, probation, parole, death right.
It does not have a retirement plan. There's no pension plan.
But one thing I did understand in my neighborhood, and
I do give credit to the folks in my neighborhood,
(12:20):
and think about people now in your neighborhood, if you
can relate to this where you grew up or where
you may live right now, there are no dumb drug
dealers who is successful. It may be immoral, it may
be unethical, it may not be a good business plan
because you're selling death to youral community. In many cases,
you're infecting people with something that doesn't doesn't prosper their lives.
(12:41):
It's what I call bad capitalism. Good capitalism is where
I benefit and other people benefit more. Bad capitalism is
where I benefit everybody else pays a price for it.
So drug dealing is by its own very nature bad capitalism.
But we're not necessarily talking about bad people. Right, So
if you're a drug dealer, you're an I legal and
ethical entrepreneur. You understand import, export, finance, marketing, wholesale retail,
(13:04):
customer service, security, territory logistics, and on and on and on.
You've got payroll, right, I mean, these are business people,
they're entrepreneurs, they're hustlers, and they just need a good
business plan. By the way, I'm not picking on black
and brown people. Poor them were poor whites in America,
the poor anybody else?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Hello?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And where do you think NASCAR came from? Moonshine running
from the Appalachian mountains?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
These are guys who are running from the police, selling
moonshine running the police. Became really good at it, realizing
that the moonshine running part was not going to last.
Running from the police was not a sustainable career. Get prison, ovation,
garrow death right, right, And so it was they had
to stop that part. And they're like, you know, we're
good at driving, and so they started driving on those
country roads, then driving on the beach, and then driving
(13:51):
in circles on dirt tracks, and then that turned into
a fifth generation five generations later. If you go back
five generations of a lot of these NASCAR families. You'll
find moonshine runners, but their multi multi multi millionaires today
is a multi multi billion dollar industry today. And the
president of asdcars on my board of director's great guy,
Steve Phelps. So how do we take where's the rainbow?
(14:13):
After this start? He took a negative to turn into
a positive. These drug dealers are natural business people. Maybe
they can't go work for IBM because a lot of
them have a public record, but they can go create
the new IBM, right they can. If you can't get
a job, create a job, you can't cast a check,
right one. And if you're a gang member, you're a
frustrated union organizer. Hello, right, so that's organizing skills, right.
(14:35):
These are talented people. Unfortunately they didn't get the memo
of my neighborhood. So George got murdered with tweet. My
friend Andre got hooked up at jail. I'm looking at
I'm thinking about now in the I was on the corner.
Look left, there's Tweet and there's George murdered. Look in
front of me, there's Andre and all my boys that
hung out there jail, prison, per parole, in some cases murder.
(14:59):
These are friends of mine, but an extremely talented never
got out of the hood. To my right was this
one family, our role model, Hispanic family and one of
(15:20):
my dear friends lived down the street, Sanchez family, and
they all lived in the same property. Now, part of
that was because it's a Hispanic neighborhood now Compton where
grew up, but it was a black neighborhood there with
a few Hispanic families. They didn't feel necessarily welcome to
the neighborhood. So they had a fence around their property.
And that actually forced them to work together as a unit.
(15:43):
And they lived in the same house. It was a house,
a frontment house in the back. They lived together, worked together,
slept together, were family together, created business together, built wealth together.
To this day, the whole generation, multi generations of them
make it's three generations now immensely successful. I'm still in
touch with the family. I watched that, right, I watched that,
(16:04):
and I say them in my book Up from Nothing,
and I'll get into details of that. The five pillars
a success. But the third pillar is family structure and resiliency. Right, So, uh,
becoming an entrepreneur and a businessman is not just about
having a great business ideas having the right culture, the
right role models, right environment, because you and you model
(16:24):
what you see. And so I said, when the rules
of publishing, the playing field is leveled, black people succeed.
I mentioned the arts, I mentioned professional sports, politics, that's hey,
you give a good speech, you you have a good platform,
they vote for you. The rules of published in the
playing field is level. But in entrepreneurship, in business, there
is no rule book right. And you confuse making money
(16:46):
of building wealth right. Anything hustles enough, it's not. And
so we have to get our hustle right, get our
life right, and our role models right, our our and
then we'll get we'll get our business plan right, and
then we'll get our story right. So I became an
entrepreneur in my mind before I ever became one in
real life. I became a businessman in my spirit, before
I ever became one who cast a check or brought
(17:09):
in revenue.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It was a mindset. Mindset matters.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
And and I looked around my neighborhood and saw what
I liked, so what I didn't like, decided I didn't
want that. And there's a lot of love of the
word no and so I'd start by legal hustle and
I started selling mail order because I have any inventory,
didn't have any money, So what can I do.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I've got good hustle.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
You if you don't have any compounded capital, if you
need a compound and hustle and hustle and hustle can
create more hustle.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And that and you know fear.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Fear is a lazy bastard, and the devil's a lazy bastard.
They don't work hard. They wait, they wait for you
to give up. So I figured if I got up earlier,
stayed up later, worked harder, likes my teacher says, nobody
cares work harder, that that would be my advantage. And
so I h hustle and I had gift for gam
and I sold mail order anything. I would share my
(18:02):
dream with my teachers at school and whatever, and all
that led to then my lesson in financial literacy that I, uh,
you know, had this banker come in my classroom.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And click click click click click.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That plus what my mother taught me, what I saw
my father, what I saw my neighborhood. But I didn't
want but I did want rainbows after storms boom. That's
the business plan for my life. And you know, this
story can go on forever. I can do two three
different segments on just this aspect of becoming an entrepreneur
and a business owner. But it all started with that
(18:36):
childhood framework. And there's nothing I just said that's magical, right,
And none of it required a lot of money capital,
none of it required fancy stuff or you know, flossing.
None of this it was all pretty basic and it's
everyone of these tools are available to you. And uh
so when that banker said I'm a banker and not
(18:58):
financial entrepreneurs, well that became the business plan for my life.
I'm gonna become an entrepreneur. And then when I asked
that banker, well, how many bankers are there in you
know they're more than you, right, Like, make sure understand
this is properly. I can borrow money from you, and
I don't get dead if I don't pay you back.
So what are you talking about it? Well, in my neighborhood,
if you borrow money from pooky them and you don't
(19:19):
pay them back, you're not coming back. You know, they
take you out or they enslave you for the rest
of your life. You don't never you never get out
of debt. He's like, no, no, you you know you
take it a loan, you qualify. You know, you take
the loan out, you pay it back, your fine, and
you don't pay it back. You know, we have notice
of default. We foreclose on you. You live this fight
another day. I'm like, Okay, well, I just figured out
(19:40):
what I'm gonna do, and I gotta do is convince
you my business plans right and have decent credit. Yet Okay,
so how many people are like you? Well, there's a
couple hundred thousand bankers in the Bank of America, he said,
So it's got to be millions of bankers in America.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Whoa whoa?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
And how many bankers are there in America? May ten thousand?
Back then it's forty five hundred banks today. FDIC Insurance Bank,
whose mission is to in you capital if you can
prove you could that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
You qualified, said, who whoa wa who whoa whoa whoa.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
So my people don't have to go out and get
money from Pooky them and Jojo and Bang Bang and
the mafia and all that stuff, paity lenders and rent
own stores and check cashers and look, what's what's going
on in our neighborhoods wrapped, you know, fire of the
credit score, neighborhoods, check cash or patio on lender, rent
on store, title, lended, liquor store, pawn shop. They're just
praying on people with low financial literacy and high aspirations
(20:27):
and dreams.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Where the house.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Whoever's a surviving mindset, they're praying on you. It's target marketing.
And I don't know about you, but I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired. It's Malcolm Max said,
I've been we've been bamboos, we've been tricked, we've been full,
and I don't know about you, but I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So he told me that that.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I didn't realize that, but that was a business plan
for Operation Hope, which I had found, which I would
found back then, so I was nine going on ten
years old. I would have found it twenty six sixteen
years later, I would have found Operation Hope. And there's
a whole nother story of some organization I found it
for Tom Bradley, which is still a city government agency.
I found out was nineteen years old and a volunteer
for the City of la under Tom Bradley. But I
(21:03):
was too young to run it. They told me it
was a city lending agency. But I'll try to put
that in the in the in the comments for the podcast.
God remember the name of the city agency, but you
can look it up today. I inspired when I was
nineteen years old, if that became the preamble for what
Openan would become after the Rony King riots. Operation Hope,
but Operation Hopes business plan of really unleashing untapped human
(21:26):
potential at scale and making people bankable at scale and
get your credit score up and your debt down, your
savings up, and making you bankable, turning you from black
and white or red or blue to green right right bankable.
That get making the private banker to the working class,
the underserved folks were too much month at the end
of their money, folks who are moving from a struggling mentality,
(21:51):
surviving anxiety, to a thriving mentality to a winning mentality
you know again, the private banker for the working class
and working for the working working middle class. Operation Hope,
which is large in the country today, fifty four million
dollar budget, five billion dollars invested almost in under cerved neighborhoods.
Raising credit score is fifty four to one hundred and
twenty points in twenty six months and twenty four months.
(22:12):
All that started with this kid and this dream. It's
all the same business plan. I became the entrepreneur and
now operation sho was you're a banker, so you can
become dream makers in your life. Rainbows only follow storms, right,
you cannot have a rainbow without a storm.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
First?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Can I grow without legitimate suffering? Don't run away from
your problems, run through them. I love you, I'm out.
Let's go do this thing. They bought at eight unit
of Harber Building. First lived in one unit rented to
out that covered the mortgage payment that was supped three
(22:49):
hundred dollars a month. Yes, they built. They bought it
for eighteen thousand dollars. For anybody who think in real estate,
that's not magical that private buildings worth several million dollars
today almost, I think it's a six lesson. I checked
it was six million dollars. That's that apartment building is worth.
We bought it for eighteen thousand dollars and the rest
of the unit rent so was eight units. So we
(23:10):
lived in one unit rented out to to cover the
mortage payment. The rest of the units, the five units
that were left for profit, and they used that profit,
saved that extra money to then put a down payment
on their home, the home I'm talking about on Santa
Barbara Boulevard. And by the way, we lost the apartment building.
I'll get to that in a minute. And I say
we lost because that's generational wealth for our family. It
(23:31):
wasn't just my mom and my dad. It wasn't just
my dad. My dad didn't realize that they had to
be better together. My dad was a great hustler, by
the way, a great hustler. But there's a difference between
making money and building wealth. I'll get the end of
that in a separate podcast. We're really focused on that.
But like a lot of black strivers, we think that
(23:53):
making that money, getting that dollar, getting that cash, getting
that buck, getting that bag is everything. It's actually not right.
You can you can make you can win the battle
and lose the war. And that's exactly what my father
did and wouldn't listen to my mother. So but here's
the positive part. They were smart enough to buy that
apartment building for eighteen thousand dollars, and they did nothing
(24:15):
else but buy that and just hold it. The whole
family would be set today, more set than ultimately we
ended up being with my mother by at least six
times more set. My mother ended up being technically a
millionaire when she passed on, but that one apartment building
again would be worth six million dollars today.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
We only only own eighteen thousand dollars when we purchased it,
when they purchased it.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
And when you buy a piece of real estate, you
get the benefit of the depreciation at tax benefit. You
get the benefit of the appreciation the equity, and you
write off the most of the mortgage payments against your income.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So it was really a win win when.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Anyway, so we moved from the apartment building, owned it,
then woved got a house, great good job. Then we
bought a gas station at I believe it's at Normandy
and Vernon south east corner. For those who know Los
Angeles geography, you know that that gas station is still
there today. Last time I was in LA it was
(25:13):
still there and functioning. We owned that gas station. We
own a cement contracting business. We owned a little nursery
business taking care of knucklehead kids like me before and
after school for working parents. My mother had a side house,
so making arts and crafts. Anyway, my dad ought to
really argued over money because my dad could make it
(25:34):
but couldn't keep as I mentioned earlier, and he was
a great hustler, but he was not financially literate. And
Vassil Young says the men and women failed for three
reasons ar against, pride and greed. My dad was not greedy,
but he was full of pride and slightly arrogant, and
he wouldn't ask my mother for advice. And only in
(25:54):
a relationship do I think that the mass should not work?
Like I love math, my friend Melody Hobson, I love
math because it doesn't have an opinion right, But only
in a relationship should the math not work two plus
two if it doesn't equal? Who was six, eight or
ten meaning more than four? What are you doing right?
(26:16):
You can do bad all by yourself if you're not
better together, what are you doing right? So Dad and
mom had the building blocks right, but they didn't have
the strategy right. They didn't have the mindset right. They
still had a surviving mindset. They didn't together move to
a thriving mindset. Again, my mother finally got to thrift
your mindset, we're not there yet. And unfortunately they thought
(26:38):
they were builders, but they still had a surviving, hustling
mindset and approach, and so end up winning the battle
and losing the war. Crossing bridges ahead of time, picking
up a stepping over a dollar to pick up a din?
What do you mean by that? They argued over money.
Dad wouldn't listen to mother. He would bid jobs of
(26:59):
the scene, seement contractor. He wanted to win the bid.
I respect the hustle, but again not financially literate. So
the job was if the last contract to bid with
the client for a thousand dollars, my dad would go
in and bid at nine hundred. Well, the materials might
be nine to fifty. My dad didn't think about that.
He thought the cash flow is profit wrong. So the
(27:21):
more money he made, the broker we got. He made
a dollar and spend a dollar fifty and we lost everything.
We lost the gas station, we lost the apartment building,
we lost our home, and on the verge of losing
our home. My mother again, she was a master at savings.
Remember this going back to the Grandma story, and she
(27:43):
would you put those sea corns to the side, and
ladies and gentlemen get married. I want you to trust
each other. I want you to be in each other's lives.
I want you to all that and understand that you're
meeting a business partner here and not just to mate.
And when you go to the club and you see
the dude, oh he's handsome. Guys, you see the lady,
she's fine. Don't just ask their name, ask their credit score. Right,
(28:05):
And I'm joking, but I'm serious, right, because this is
the business partner for the rest of your life. So
you want to have a joint account, right, and you
want to have a separate account to make sure that
you know, if you find out this person is actually
not financially literate, they tear their own revery and they're
not tearing yours, the collective of yours. At the same time,
(28:25):
you need to have the backup plan for your family.
So my mother had a separate little account that she
had set up and she wasn't hiding for my father.
My father knew it was there, and she had saved
four thousand dollars, which was a lot of money back then.
This is nineteen sixty eight. No, this was nineteen seventy.
I was four four or five years old, between three
(28:47):
and five years old. I get the math right, So
sometime between sixty I was born in sixty six, sixty eight,
sixty nine, seventy seventy one, that time period, anyway, four
thousand dollars a lot of money. My mother had said this,
four thousand dollars to send my brother to a college
of his choice, because she wanted him to move from
a surviving mindset to a thriving mindset. Right, a thriving mindset,
(29:09):
SOS surviving mindset is free. Your first reconstruction, out of slavery,
you're free. Second reconstruction, civil rights movement, getting access to jobs,
access to careers, access to education, access to the polling booth,
access to public facilities, restrooms of your choice, all that
stuff being able to have access. Of course, third reconstruction,
(29:31):
which we're in today, that operation SULP is helping the
lead is a movement from the streets to the suites,
from civil rights to silver rights. Right at the third reconstruction.
The color is not black or white, it's green. It's
not red or blue, it's green. It's economicist opportunity for all.
It's it's about writing checks, not just cashing them. So
(29:51):
we're in the second reconstruction. Now we're in the sixties
and the seventies, and my mother knew that for my
brother to do better, he needed a higher education. And
you know better, you do better, and so my brother
was set to go to a college of his choice
to be whoever he wanted. My father got to the
bank first and took that four thousand dollars. Unfortunately my
(30:12):
mother had him as a signer on the account. So
you might want to have until you guys in bed,
until you embed yourself into you know, going for about
me to a bout a week. It may take a
minute for you guys to come together as one and
you trust each other, not just romantically, but about money
and business decisions, and you're on the same accord. You
might want to have an account just your own name
on it, and then he has an account, or she
(30:34):
has an account with their name on it. Then you
have a joint account. Until things evolved. He got the
money and wasted it on some hair brain idea. He
had to get a bag, my dad did, and of
course he lost it, and my brother could not go
to a college of his choice, and it broke my
mother's heart. And by the time my brother ended up
(30:55):
going to them to the Navy. And he went to
the Navy because he could get a four year education
to be signed up for military service. He thought he
signed over for four years. Of course, it's like they
know the psychology in the military. Once you're there, you
probably stayed there. He had a good experience, so he
signed for four years, resigned up, resigned up, and had
a career the Navy, became a noncommissioned officer, a great
(31:16):
career in intelligence there, and ended up retiring to Hawaii,
marrying somebody who lives in Hawaii. It works for retire
from the Navy, works for the Navy as a private
contractor with his family, and it's a beautiful story. But
it wasn't his choice. His whole story is defined by
(31:36):
that four thousand dollars moment where he did not have
self determination. Right, but, uh, what would his life be?
How to be different? Right if if if he had
gone to college of a choice and become a dentist
or a doctor, or a banker or a business person
or an engineer or whatever. Right, you know what does
(31:57):
a matter what was but it could have been his
choice and he just didn't do uh that and as
a result of that, Uh, well, I just told you
the story, right, He's a great, great life, but it
wasn't his choice.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And that was enough.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
My mother had had enough and my mother said I'm
out and uh and that became the fight of all
fights and my dad they had domestic abuse came to blows.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
They had to call the police to get my mother.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
My dad off, my off, my mother beating her up,
and she put off a pump, a three inch pump
popped him on the head. Here didn't grow on the
top of his head until his last dying days from
that pop. Uh. So he learned how to do that
with my mother again. But uh, she she was out,
you know that she left. We left with the shirt
of her back and her kids and we went to
(32:45):
go to stay with with somebody, she said, with my
uncle oc. Uh was really her girlfriend and her boyfriend
whose name was OC. But it order made me feel comfortable,
make the kids feel comfortable, she said. It was that
that was my uncle and I was playing on the
and she was staying there with her girlfriend and her
boyfriend to save money for her by her first.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
House on her own.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Again, here's that same lesson again, the basics learning, you know,
spending lesson you make, putting a little side for the future.
So she's working as a seatrist now in McDonald bill's
aircraft when she later became boeing and making you know,
equivalent of today of fifteen dollars eighteen dollars an hour.
(33:29):
And she worked work, work, safe, safe, save. And while
she was doing that, I built a relationship with the
guy O C. Who again thought was my uncle, and
I was. I was playing on the porch one day
and I fell and I was swallowing my tongue. I
was choking, and he cleared. He cleared my throat, you know,
(33:49):
he cleared my throat passage and saved my life. I
wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. So I
adored this guy, right, and you got a murder it
in front of me. Well, in order to take care
of his family and all and our staying with him,
he didn't have a conversation with us saying, hey, I
can't afford to have you guys stay with me. Let's
(34:11):
talk about this against Young's quote. Men, when failed for
three reasons, arrogance, pride, and greed. He could have just
had a conversation with us. My mother would have contributed
some money. But he decided he was going to go
to work his legit job. Then he was going to
go out again and he was going to sell drugs
part time, and it was marijuana. Was in the wrong neighborhood,
and those guys sitting very seriously, they followed him home.
(34:32):
They said, you're in the wrong territory, and they drove.
They dragged him. They hit him with a truck and
dragged him. He was on a bicycle.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And that was right in front of me, in front
of the house. And I think they did it because
I could see him. Sent a message and they killed
him right in front of me. And I still did
mention my in my head. So I saw my first
death and that was about money. So the first death
was the of our of our parents net worth, family structure,
(35:03):
generational wealth. Second first murder was oc getting murdered in
front of me. All this is about money. And my
best friend George got murdered over money selling drugs with
the next door neighbor, tweet who we moved into. My
mother bought her first home one five five oh two
South Freeley in Compton, California. And she bought that house. Uh,
(35:25):
and I became friends with George, who was real smarter
than me, by the way, so intellectual alone is not enough.
And but George had the wrong role model, wrong mindset,
and got murdered hanging out with Tweet. So watch who
you hang around again. You hang around nine broke people,
you'll be the tenth. Whoever you hang around, whatever you
see is who you will be.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
And so I could go on and on and on
about my mother.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
But the story here is that she she bought that house,
we lived in it.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
It was the beginning of our generational wealth.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
She built equity and then she sold that house, bought
another house, sold that house, used the equity to buy
another house. She did that seven times, and she ended
up with a net worth of a million dollars. And
I know that because she gave some money to my
sister and my brother to buy a home a couple
of times. And of course I'm the manager of her
state trusty Verus state. Because she had a will. I
(36:20):
want everybody to have a will when she passed on
the glory, So Hopefully she's an inspiration to you. She
lives on today, she has a fund in her name,
and her legacy lives and hopefully now you know that
even if you're a single parent, you can still make it.
You can work an hourly job and build a net
worth of a million dollars and live a life of dignity.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
And self reliance. You can be free. It is possible.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
The only freedom is financial freedom, because every other freedom
can be taken away from you. Money and Wealth with
John O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
(37:08):
For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production
of The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. So my
road to entrepreneurship wasn't some fairy tale, and it certainly
(00:21):
wasn't easy, and that's good because then you can relate
to it. When I was in Compton and living with
my mother, the backstory to meeting this white banker who
taught me financial literacy in what was then home economics
(00:41):
class was my mother who had bought that home. And
so I saw somebody make a choice right between rending
and owning the dignity and the respect that gendered the
sense of somebodyness that we had knowing that the roof
(01:04):
over our head was our own home. There's an unconscious
thing about owning your own stuff, right. And you could
tell whose home was rented because the grass was up
to your knees. Our grass was well maintained because well,
(01:25):
nobody washes rental cars, right, but you when you own it,
you take care of it. You tend to take care
of it. And so we would cut the grass. I
would cut the grass right for for my mom. And
at that one five five oh two South Freely address
in Compton, California, the corner.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Corner lot that she owned.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
And when I was growing up there in Compton, i'd
already seen, you know, the death of our net worth
or the death of our family structure, divorce when I
was less than five years old. Then I saw a murder.
(02:07):
Oh see, the guy who saved my life when I
was you know, six, seven years old, might have been
even five or six murdered right in front of me.
That was about over money. He was selling marijuana part
time in the wrong neighborhood, trying to make some extra money,
(02:28):
the wrong side hustle, and they murdered him for it.
I witnessed that. I can still see it in my
own mind's eye to this day. And I had met
when I moved to Compton, this young man who was
older than me by ten years plus, George.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
He was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
I was nine or ten at this time at this
particular point. So when I met him, you know, he
was you know, maybe seventeen or sixteen, but when he was.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Murdered he was eighteen.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Uh. George was smart. George had great grades. I had
okay grades, by the way, I got to C minus
C plus in math. I think, so the finance, the
so called financial literacies are you know, financial literacy big
baller for the country, who's advised three US presidents from
both parties, President Clinton, President Bush, and President Obama, who's
(03:25):
advised the Treasury Department, helped create policy for the Executive
Order through the federal government, and financial literacy policy and
emergency financial disaster policy through female homeland security, and all
the stuff that we've done in Operation in Hope, et cetera.
I got a C minus C plus in math. That's right,
And I'm in good company because you may not know this,
(03:47):
but doctor Martin Luther King Junior got a C minus
in public speaking from Krozier's seminary. Did you know that?
That's right? They said, if you don't stop talking like that,
you never amount to anything. Well, he turned out more
than okay. So doing something different doesn't mean that you
can't do it. It just made mean that it's different.
(04:08):
So George had a great grades. He was a perfect student,
but didn't have great parents. And I don't think i've
ever remember seeing his father. Now, I didn't have a
father at home, but I had a father. My mom
and dad were divorced, but my dad spent time with me.
My mother spent time with me. They did not argue
(04:30):
with me. They didn't make me a negotiating point between
them in the household. They didn't make their children to
argue point. Please don't do that to your kids. They
don't Your kids not asked to come here. They did
not get a vote, right, you guys got busy. They
showed up. And so you have a responsibility to raise
them into adulthood and to make them responsible citizens and
(04:51):
give them all the tools they need to compete. Discipline, structure, love, accountability, confidence, belief,
all in the tool they need to roll in this world. So,
my mother was like a mom and a dad when
I was, you know, with her. And then my dad
was like extra sauce right when I go went to
(05:13):
go hang out with him oftentimes on weekends. He lived
in South Central, We lived in Canton. He lived at
thirty fifth in Western and But but I never saw
George's father and and and his mother was nice enough,
but you know, I don't really remember her very much.
When I would hang out, he would spend most of
his time at our house because I think he loved
(05:34):
my mother. Anyway, George was a great student and I
want to be like George because I want to be smart. Unfortunately,
George didn't know who he wanted to be. So George
started hanging out with my next door neighbor, Tweet, the
local drug dealer. The whole family next door was just
off the chain, crazy like they were.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
They were.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
They were all involved with the drug train, ganging, slanging
and banging. Police were always at the house next door.
Tweet was he was a handsome guy. He was, you know,
he was super cool, but just uses talent for something
that did not have a return on an investment. And
in my neighborhood you had prison, baroque and death, and
(06:19):
Jors started hanging out with Tweet, started walking like Tweet,
talking like Tweet, acting like Tweet, and got shot and
killed with Tweet. So that was the third time I
witnessed a death, and the second time I actually I
didn't witness that it happened, right, but it was witnessed.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
In my life, I.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Saw three deaths, two murders, experienced three deaths, deaths of
something important to me that was transformational to family structure,
our net worth, you know, generational wealth. Then the murder
of Oc and then the murder which I actually witnessed
in the murderer of George, and I realized being smart
(07:06):
wasn't enough. Like you know, yeah, it's really important, but
it's not enough. Being cool is not enough. Hanging out
certainly depends who you're hanging out with.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Not enough.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Culture matters. Like culture to this day is not the
most important thing in business. It's the only thing in business.
It's the only thing in your life. On your street,
your neighborhood has a culture, your household has a culture.
As my wife Schachuer has said, most habits are learned, right,
most things are learned. What is the habit in your household,
(07:48):
in your life, and your family structure. So you're trying
to get a sense of what the habits were in
my family structure and the ecosystem in my family that
my mother, what's going to make sure sure was embedded
in our culture before we walked down that front door,
and even when she wasn't around, we were guided by
(08:09):
her role. Modeling right, you model what you see. A
lot of kids want to be rap stars, nothing wrong
with it, but you can't scale a rap star. TI
is my friend, Killer, Mike's my friend. I have a
lot of friends who are rappers, actors and my friend
I was with Chris Tucker to bring comedian and actor.
Uh just today, great friend. You know, I have a
(08:32):
lot of people in the entertainment business. Quincy Jones is
a mentor of mind. But the very fact that I
can mention these names, I know, Oprah Winfrey, I know
I know a lot of a lot of these people
that you are aware of, Quavo, right, but you can't be.
The very fact that I mentioned their name means that
they're there, their their brands, they're unique into themselves, and
you cannot have forty million black people trying to be
(08:54):
you know, three thousand rappers and two hundred named actors,
and just the numbers don't work right, not scalable, and
and even their businesses dependent upon their personality. So they're
they're in all likelihood have two, three, four to ten employees.
But our community needs even going to go work for them. Uh,
you need somebody who can create hundreds of employee employees
(09:16):
and thousands of employees. I I e. I wrote a
piece once that America needed and I love the presidency
of Barack Obama and what he represented, but I wrote
that America probably needed black America probably needed a Black
Bill Gates before it needed the black.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
President, right.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
We needed that role model to see, uh, and experience
what it's like to create a business that create that create,
created a business of the billionaire that creates one hundred million,
one hundred millionaires to work for him, that create then
you know, uh, multi millionaires, and then creating millionaires underneath
underneath underneath that then create one hundred thousand airs salaried employees.
(09:55):
And all these people are giving money back, you know,
you know, to their communities and donating charities, going to donating,
tiding at church, and hooking up the vendors at their
house where they be you know, painters or electricians or
folks cutting the grass. It all trickles down right, and
(10:16):
it's all habit for me. So that's why I've said
Black America probably needed a Black Bill Gates or several
of them before we needed a black president, because government
can't save you, just like drug dealing can't say you,
just like rap stars can't save you. So my point
was that we end up wanting to be rap stars,
athletes and drug Dealer's nothing wrong with a rap star example,
other than it's not scalable, and you shouldn't want to
(10:38):
be a drug dealer or a gangster.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
But we end up modeling that because that's what we see.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Those are symbols of success that we see and where
the rules of published and the playing fiellers level, Black
folks and brown folks succeed. Think about the arts, you
sing well, you dance well, people buy your records or whatever,
go to your performances, you succeed. I think about sports.
You run fast, you hit a bounce a baseball, you bounce,
(11:04):
you bounce a basketball, you throw a football, whatever, you're
good at it, You get the.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Contract, and you succeed.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Right even though that, by the way, is not necessarily sustainable,
because seventy percent of those seventy percent of those in
professional sports, namely the NFL, in the NBA or bankrupt
five years give or take after retirement. That's another podcast
doing all focus on professional sports and all that. But
on this example, just once you understand that this is
(11:31):
the math of the matter. You cannot have forty million
plus black people trying to fit into these sub categories
of artistry that are scalable. So you got all these
people trying to do these few jobs which don't last.
But that's what we're modeling what we see because we
see success in it, but you can't scale.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
It, and.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
So we end up to do these things that don't
have what I call economic legs on them. There are
no retired drug dealers, r prison, beaged, probation, parole, death right.
It does not have a retirement plan. There's no pension plan.
But one thing I did understand in my neighborhood, and
I do give credit to the folks in my neighborhood,
(12:20):
and think about people now in your neighborhood, if you
can relate to this where you grew up or where
you may live right now, there are no dumb drug
dealers who is successful. It may be immoral, it may
be unethical, it may not be a good business plan
because you're selling death to youral community. In many cases,
you're infecting people with something that doesn't doesn't prosper their lives.
(12:41):
It's what I call bad capitalism. Good capitalism is where
I benefit and other people benefit more. Bad capitalism is
where I benefit everybody else pays a price for it.
So drug dealing is by its own very nature bad capitalism.
But we're not necessarily talking about bad people. Right, So
if you're a drug dealer, you're an I legal and
ethical entrepreneur. You understand import, export, finance, marketing, wholesale retail,
(13:04):
customer service, security, territory logistics, and on and on and on.
You've got payroll, right, I mean, these are business people,
they're entrepreneurs, they're hustlers, and they just need a good
business plan. By the way, I'm not picking on black
and brown people. Poor them were poor whites in America,
the poor anybody else?
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Hello?
Speaker 1 (13:22):
And where do you think NASCAR came from? Moonshine running
from the Appalachian mountains?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
These are guys who are running from the police, selling
moonshine running the police. Became really good at it, realizing
that the moonshine running part was not going to last.
Running from the police was not a sustainable career. Get prison, ovation,
garrow death right, right, And so it was they had
to stop that part. And they're like, you know, we're
good at driving, and so they started driving on those
country roads, then driving on the beach, and then driving
(13:51):
in circles on dirt tracks, and then that turned into
a fifth generation five generations later. If you go back
five generations of a lot of these NASCAR families. You'll
find moonshine runners, but their multi multi multi millionaires today
is a multi multi billion dollar industry today. And the
president of asdcars on my board of director's great guy,
Steve Phelps. So how do we take where's the rainbow?
(14:13):
After this start? He took a negative to turn into
a positive. These drug dealers are natural business people. Maybe
they can't go work for IBM because a lot of
them have a public record, but they can go create
the new IBM, right they can. If you can't get
a job, create a job, you can't cast a check,
right one. And if you're a gang member, you're a
frustrated union organizer. Hello, right, so that's organizing skills, right.
(14:35):
These are talented people. Unfortunately they didn't get the memo
of my neighborhood. So George got murdered with tweet. My
friend Andre got hooked up at jail. I'm looking at
I'm thinking about now in the I was on the corner.
Look left, there's Tweet and there's George murdered. Look in
front of me, there's Andre and all my boys that
hung out there jail, prison, per parole, in some cases murder.
(14:59):
These are friends of mine, but an extremely talented never
got out of the hood. To my right was this
one family, our role model, Hispanic family and one of
(15:20):
my dear friends lived down the street, Sanchez family, and
they all lived in the same property. Now, part of
that was because it's a Hispanic neighborhood now Compton where
grew up, but it was a black neighborhood there with
a few Hispanic families. They didn't feel necessarily welcome to
the neighborhood. So they had a fence around their property.
And that actually forced them to work together as a unit.
(15:43):
And they lived in the same house. It was a house,
a frontment house in the back. They lived together, worked together,
slept together, were family together, created business together, built wealth together.
To this day, the whole generation, multi generations of them
make it's three generations now immensely successful. I'm still in
touch with the family. I watched that, right, I watched that,
(16:04):
and I say them in my book Up from Nothing,
and I'll get into details of that. The five pillars
a success. But the third pillar is family structure and resiliency. Right, So, uh,
becoming an entrepreneur and a businessman is not just about
having a great business ideas having the right culture, the
right role models, right environment, because you and you model
(16:24):
what you see. And so I said, when the rules
of publishing, the playing field is leveled, black people succeed.
I mentioned the arts, I mentioned professional sports, politics, that's hey,
you give a good speech, you you have a good platform,
they vote for you. The rules of published in the
playing field is level. But in entrepreneurship, in business, there
is no rule book right. And you confuse making money
(16:46):
of building wealth right. Anything hustles enough, it's not. And
so we have to get our hustle right, get our
life right, and our role models right, our our and
then we'll get we'll get our business plan right, and
then we'll get our story right. So I became an
entrepreneur in my mind before I ever became one in
real life. I became a businessman in my spirit, before
I ever became one who cast a check or brought
(17:09):
in revenue.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
It was a mindset. Mindset matters.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
And and I looked around my neighborhood and saw what
I liked, so what I didn't like, decided I didn't
want that. And there's a lot of love of the
word no and so I'd start by legal hustle and
I started selling mail order because I have any inventory,
didn't have any money, So what can I do.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
I've got good hustle.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
You if you don't have any compounded capital, if you
need a compound and hustle and hustle and hustle can
create more hustle.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
And that and you know fear.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Fear is a lazy bastard, and the devil's a lazy bastard.
They don't work hard. They wait, they wait for you
to give up. So I figured if I got up earlier,
stayed up later, worked harder, likes my teacher says, nobody
cares work harder, that that would be my advantage. And
so I h hustle and I had gift for gam
and I sold mail order anything. I would share my
(18:02):
dream with my teachers at school and whatever, and all
that led to then my lesson in financial literacy that I, uh,
you know, had this banker come in my classroom.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
And click click click click click.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
That plus what my mother taught me, what I saw
my father, what I saw my neighborhood. But I didn't
want but I did want rainbows after storms boom. That's
the business plan for my life. And you know, this
story can go on forever. I can do two three
different segments on just this aspect of becoming an entrepreneur
and a business owner. But it all started with that
(18:36):
childhood framework. And there's nothing I just said that's magical, right,
And none of it required a lot of money capital,
none of it required fancy stuff or you know, flossing.
None of this it was all pretty basic and it's
everyone of these tools are available to you. And uh
so when that banker said I'm a banker and not
(18:58):
financial entrepreneurs, well that became the business plan for my life.
I'm gonna become an entrepreneur. And then when I asked
that banker, well, how many bankers are there in you
know they're more than you, right, Like, make sure understand
this is properly. I can borrow money from you, and
I don't get dead if I don't pay you back.
So what are you talking about it? Well, in my neighborhood,
if you borrow money from pooky them and you don't
(19:19):
pay them back, you're not coming back. You know, they
take you out or they enslave you for the rest
of your life. You don't never you never get out
of debt. He's like, no, no, you you know you
take it a loan, you qualify. You know, you take
the loan out, you pay it back, your fine, and
you don't pay it back. You know, we have notice
of default. We foreclose on you. You live this fight
another day. I'm like, Okay, well, I just figured out
(19:40):
what I'm gonna do, and I gotta do is convince
you my business plans right and have decent credit. Yet Okay,
so how many people are like you? Well, there's a
couple hundred thousand bankers in the Bank of America, he said,
So it's got to be millions of bankers in America.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Whoa whoa?
Speaker 1 (19:52):
And how many bankers are there in America? May ten thousand?
Back then it's forty five hundred banks today. FDIC Insurance Bank,
whose mission is to in you capital if you can
prove you could that.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
You qualified, said, who whoa wa who whoa whoa whoa.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
So my people don't have to go out and get
money from Pooky them and Jojo and Bang Bang and
the mafia and all that stuff, paity lenders and rent
own stores and check cashers and look, what's what's going
on in our neighborhoods wrapped, you know, fire of the
credit score, neighborhoods, check cash or patio on lender, rent
on store, title, lended, liquor store, pawn shop. They're just
praying on people with low financial literacy and high aspirations
(20:27):
and dreams.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Where the house.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
Whoever's a surviving mindset, they're praying on you. It's target marketing.
And I don't know about you, but I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired. It's Malcolm Max said,
I've been we've been bamboos, we've been tricked, we've been full,
and I don't know about you, but I'm sick and
tired of being sick and tired.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
So he told me that that.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I didn't realize that, but that was a business plan
for Operation Hope, which I had found, which I would
found back then, so I was nine going on ten
years old. I would have found it twenty six sixteen
years later, I would have found Operation Hope. And there's
a whole nother story of some organization I found it
for Tom Bradley, which is still a city government agency.
I found out was nineteen years old and a volunteer
for the City of la under Tom Bradley. But I
(21:03):
was too young to run it. They told me it
was a city lending agency. But I'll try to put
that in the in the in the comments for the podcast.
God remember the name of the city agency, but you
can look it up today. I inspired when I was
nineteen years old, if that became the preamble for what
Openan would become after the Rony King riots. Operation Hope,
but Operation Hopes business plan of really unleashing untapped human
(21:26):
potential at scale and making people bankable at scale and
get your credit score up and your debt down, your
savings up, and making you bankable, turning you from black
and white or red or blue to green right right bankable.
That get making the private banker to the working class,
the underserved folks were too much month at the end
of their money, folks who are moving from a struggling mentality,
(21:51):
surviving anxiety, to a thriving mentality to a winning mentality
you know again, the private banker for the working class
and working for the working working middle class. Operation Hope,
which is large in the country today, fifty four million
dollar budget, five billion dollars invested almost in under cerved neighborhoods.
Raising credit score is fifty four to one hundred and
twenty points in twenty six months and twenty four months.
(22:12):
All that started with this kid and this dream. It's
all the same business plan. I became the entrepreneur and
now operation sho was you're a banker, so you can
become dream makers in your life. Rainbows only follow storms, right,
you cannot have a rainbow without a storm.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
First?
Speaker 1 (22:29):
Can I grow without legitimate suffering? Don't run away from
your problems, run through them. I love you, I'm out.
Let's go do this thing. They bought at eight unit
of Harber Building. First lived in one unit rented to
out that covered the mortgage payment that was supped three
(22:49):
hundred dollars a month. Yes, they built. They bought it
for eighteen thousand dollars. For anybody who think in real estate,
that's not magical that private buildings worth several million dollars
today almost, I think it's a six lesson. I checked
it was six million dollars. That's that apartment building is worth.
We bought it for eighteen thousand dollars and the rest
of the unit rent so was eight units. So we
(23:10):
lived in one unit rented out to to cover the
mortage payment. The rest of the units, the five units
that were left for profit, and they used that profit,
saved that extra money to then put a down payment
on their home, the home I'm talking about on Santa
Barbara Boulevard. And by the way, we lost the apartment building.
I'll get to that in a minute. And I say
we lost because that's generational wealth for our family. It
(23:31):
wasn't just my mom and my dad. It wasn't just
my dad. My dad didn't realize that they had to
be better together. My dad was a great hustler, by
the way, a great hustler. But there's a difference between
making money and building wealth. I'll get the end of
that in a separate podcast. We're really focused on that.
But like a lot of black strivers, we think that
(23:53):
making that money, getting that dollar, getting that cash, getting
that buck, getting that bag is everything. It's actually not right.
You can you can make you can win the battle
and lose the war. And that's exactly what my father
did and wouldn't listen to my mother. So but here's
the positive part. They were smart enough to buy that
apartment building for eighteen thousand dollars, and they did nothing
(24:15):
else but buy that and just hold it. The whole
family would be set today, more set than ultimately we
ended up being with my mother by at least six
times more set. My mother ended up being technically a
millionaire when she passed on, but that one apartment building
again would be worth six million dollars today.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
We only only own eighteen thousand dollars when we purchased it,
when they purchased it.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
And when you buy a piece of real estate, you
get the benefit of the depreciation at tax benefit. You
get the benefit of the appreciation the equity, and you
write off the most of the mortgage payments against your income.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So it was really a win win when.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Anyway, so we moved from the apartment building, owned it,
then woved got a house, great good job. Then we
bought a gas station at I believe it's at Normandy
and Vernon south east corner. For those who know Los
Angeles geography, you know that that gas station is still
there today. Last time I was in LA it was
(25:13):
still there and functioning. We owned that gas station. We
own a cement contracting business. We owned a little nursery
business taking care of knucklehead kids like me before and
after school for working parents. My mother had a side house,
so making arts and crafts. Anyway, my dad ought to
really argued over money because my dad could make it
(25:34):
but couldn't keep as I mentioned earlier, and he was
a great hustler, but he was not financially literate. And
Vassil Young says the men and women failed for three
reasons ar against, pride and greed. My dad was not greedy,
but he was full of pride and slightly arrogant, and
he wouldn't ask my mother for advice. And only in
(25:54):
a relationship do I think that the mass should not work?
Like I love math, my friend Melody Hobson, I love
math because it doesn't have an opinion right, But only
in a relationship should the math not work two plus
two if it doesn't equal? Who was six, eight or
ten meaning more than four? What are you doing right?
(26:16):
You can do bad all by yourself if you're not
better together, what are you doing right? So Dad and
mom had the building blocks right, but they didn't have
the strategy right. They didn't have the mindset right. They
still had a surviving mindset. They didn't together move to
a thriving mindset. Again, my mother finally got to thrift
your mindset, we're not there yet. And unfortunately they thought
(26:38):
they were builders, but they still had a surviving, hustling
mindset and approach, and so end up winning the battle
and losing the war. Crossing bridges ahead of time, picking
up a stepping over a dollar to pick up a din?
What do you mean by that? They argued over money.
Dad wouldn't listen to mother. He would bid jobs of
(26:59):
the scene, seement contractor. He wanted to win the bid.
I respect the hustle, but again not financially literate. So
the job was if the last contract to bid with
the client for a thousand dollars, my dad would go
in and bid at nine hundred. Well, the materials might
be nine to fifty. My dad didn't think about that.
He thought the cash flow is profit wrong. So the
(27:21):
more money he made, the broker we got. He made
a dollar and spend a dollar fifty and we lost everything.
We lost the gas station, we lost the apartment building,
we lost our home, and on the verge of losing
our home. My mother again, she was a master at savings.
Remember this going back to the Grandma story, and she
(27:43):
would you put those sea corns to the side, and
ladies and gentlemen get married. I want you to trust
each other. I want you to be in each other's lives.
I want you to all that and understand that you're
meeting a business partner here and not just to mate.
And when you go to the club and you see
the dude, oh he's handsome. Guys, you see the lady,
she's fine. Don't just ask their name, ask their credit score. Right,
(28:05):
And I'm joking, but I'm serious, right, because this is
the business partner for the rest of your life. So
you want to have a joint account, right, and you
want to have a separate account to make sure that
you know, if you find out this person is actually
not financially literate, they tear their own revery and they're
not tearing yours, the collective of yours. At the same time,
(28:25):
you need to have the backup plan for your family.
So my mother had a separate little account that she
had set up and she wasn't hiding for my father.
My father knew it was there, and she had saved
four thousand dollars, which was a lot of money back then.
This is nineteen sixty eight. No, this was nineteen seventy.
I was four four or five years old, between three
(28:47):
and five years old. I get the math right, So
sometime between sixty I was born in sixty six, sixty eight,
sixty nine, seventy seventy one, that time period, anyway, four
thousand dollars a lot of money. My mother had said this,
four thousand dollars to send my brother to a college
of his choice, because she wanted him to move from
a surviving mindset to a thriving mindset. Right, a thriving mindset,
(29:09):
SOS surviving mindset is free. Your first reconstruction, out of slavery,
you're free. Second reconstruction, civil rights movement, getting access to jobs,
access to careers, access to education, access to the polling booth,
access to public facilities, restrooms of your choice, all that
stuff being able to have access. Of course, third reconstruction,
(29:31):
which we're in today, that operation SULP is helping the
lead is a movement from the streets to the suites,
from civil rights to silver rights. Right at the third reconstruction.
The color is not black or white, it's green. It's
not red or blue, it's green. It's economicist opportunity for all.
It's it's about writing checks, not just cashing them. So
(29:51):
we're in the second reconstruction. Now we're in the sixties
and the seventies, and my mother knew that for my
brother to do better, he needed a higher education. And
you know better, you do better, and so my brother
was set to go to a college of his choice
to be whoever he wanted. My father got to the
bank first and took that four thousand dollars. Unfortunately my
(30:12):
mother had him as a signer on the account. So
you might want to have until you guys in bed,
until you embed yourself into you know, going for about
me to a bout a week. It may take a
minute for you guys to come together as one and
you trust each other, not just romantically, but about money
and business decisions, and you're on the same accord. You
might want to have an account just your own name
on it, and then he has an account, or she
(30:34):
has an account with their name on it. Then you
have a joint account. Until things evolved. He got the
money and wasted it on some hair brain idea. He
had to get a bag, my dad did, and of
course he lost it, and my brother could not go
to a college of his choice, and it broke my
mother's heart. And by the time my brother ended up
(30:55):
going to them to the Navy. And he went to
the Navy because he could get a four year education
to be signed up for military service. He thought he
signed over for four years. Of course, it's like they
know the psychology in the military. Once you're there, you
probably stayed there. He had a good experience, so he
signed for four years, resigned up, resigned up, and had
a career the Navy, became a noncommissioned officer, a great
(31:16):
career in intelligence there, and ended up retiring to Hawaii,
marrying somebody who lives in Hawaii. It works for retire
from the Navy, works for the Navy as a private
contractor with his family, and it's a beautiful story. But
it wasn't his choice. His whole story is defined by
(31:36):
that four thousand dollars moment where he did not have
self determination. Right, but, uh, what would his life be?
How to be different? Right if if if he had
gone to college of a choice and become a dentist
or a doctor, or a banker or a business person
or an engineer or whatever. Right, you know what does
(31:57):
a matter what was but it could have been his
choice and he just didn't do uh that and as
a result of that, Uh, well, I just told you
the story, right, He's a great, great life, but it
wasn't his choice.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And that was enough.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
My mother had had enough and my mother said I'm
out and uh and that became the fight of all
fights and my dad they had domestic abuse came to blows.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
They had to call the police to get my mother.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
My dad off, my off, my mother beating her up,
and she put off a pump, a three inch pump
popped him on the head. Here didn't grow on the
top of his head until his last dying days from
that pop. Uh. So he learned how to do that
with my mother again. But uh, she she was out,
you know that she left. We left with the shirt
of her back and her kids and we went to
(32:45):
go to stay with with somebody, she said, with my
uncle oc. Uh was really her girlfriend and her boyfriend
whose name was OC. But it order made me feel comfortable,
make the kids feel comfortable, she said. It was that
that was my uncle and I was playing on the
and she was staying there with her girlfriend and her
boyfriend to save money for her by her first.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
House on her own.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Again, here's that same lesson again, the basics learning, you know,
spending lesson you make, putting a little side for the future.
So she's working as a seatrist now in McDonald bill's
aircraft when she later became boeing and making you know,
equivalent of today of fifteen dollars eighteen dollars an hour.
(33:29):
And she worked work, work, safe, safe, save. And while
she was doing that, I built a relationship with the
guy O C. Who again thought was my uncle, and
I was. I was playing on the porch one day
and I fell and I was swallowing my tongue. I
was choking, and he cleared. He cleared my throat, you know,
(33:49):
he cleared my throat passage and saved my life. I
wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. So I
adored this guy, right, and you got a murder it
in front of me. Well, in order to take care
of his family and all and our staying with him,
he didn't have a conversation with us saying, hey, I
can't afford to have you guys stay with me. Let's
(34:11):
talk about this against Young's quote. Men, when failed for
three reasons, arrogance, pride, and greed. He could have just
had a conversation with us. My mother would have contributed
some money. But he decided he was going to go
to work his legit job. Then he was going to
go out again and he was going to sell drugs
part time, and it was marijuana. Was in the wrong neighborhood,
and those guys sitting very seriously, they followed him home.
(34:32):
They said, you're in the wrong territory, and they drove.
They dragged him. They hit him with a truck and
dragged him. He was on a bicycle.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
And that was right in front of me, in front
of the house. And I think they did it because
I could see him. Sent a message and they killed
him right in front of me. And I still did
mention my in my head. So I saw my first
death and that was about money. So the first death
was the of our of our parents net worth, family structure,
(35:03):
generational wealth. Second first murder was oc getting murdered in
front of me. All this is about money. And my
best friend George got murdered over money selling drugs with
the next door neighbor, tweet who we moved into. My
mother bought her first home one five five oh two
South Freeley in Compton, California. And she bought that house. Uh,
(35:25):
and I became friends with George, who was real smarter
than me, by the way, so intellectual alone is not enough.
And but George had the wrong role model, wrong mindset,
and got murdered hanging out with Tweet. So watch who
you hang around again. You hang around nine broke people,
you'll be the tenth. Whoever you hang around, whatever you
see is who you will be.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
And so I could go on and on and on
about my mother.
Speaker 1 (35:51):
But the story here is that she she bought that house,
we lived in it.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
It was the beginning of our generational wealth.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
She built equity and then she sold that house, bought
another house, sold that house, used the equity to buy
another house. She did that seven times, and she ended
up with a net worth of a million dollars. And
I know that because she gave some money to my
sister and my brother to buy a home a couple
of times. And of course I'm the manager of her
state trusty Verus state. Because she had a will. I
(36:20):
want everybody to have a will when she passed on
the glory, So Hopefully she's an inspiration to you. She
lives on today, she has a fund in her name,
and her legacy lives and hopefully now you know that
even if you're a single parent, you can still make it.
You can work an hourly job and build a net
worth of a million dollars and live a life of dignity.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
And self reliance. You can be free. It is possible.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
The only freedom is financial freedom, because every other freedom
can be taken away from you. Money and Wealth with
John O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network.
(37:08):
For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Host
John Hope Bryant
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