June 19, 2025 • 47 mins
In this episode, John discusses small and safe ways to continue moving towards the goal of generational wealth!
To learn more about John's Operation Hope initiative, visit: https://operationhope.org/how-we-help/credit-money-management/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
of the Black Effect podcast Network, and iHeartRadio. Yo Yo
Yo is John O'Brian here, and this is money and
Wealth on the Black Effect Network, And this is a kindness.
(00:24):
Is so gangster is certainly how I approach or try
to approach life. And I will often say, you've heard
me say that we need to make smart sexy again.
We've been making dumb sexy for way too long, we've
dumbed down and celebrated it, and a time again to
make smart sexy. Well this is a little different. Maybe
(00:49):
we need to go beyond making smart sexy. My friend
Quincy Jones God Rest is Soul told me it takes
twenty years to change a culture, and then I added,
in the last twenty years, then we've made dumb sexy.
We've dumbed down and celebrated it, appears, and we both
agreed that it was time to make smart sexy again,
(01:11):
and we hope that it would not take twenty years
to do that because we needed it like well right now.
But then, in discussing this topic with my friend Bishop
TD Jakes, who I think is just amazing and a
living icon in the world. I call him the Black Pope,
(01:32):
and I'm only partially kidding, he said, John, And this
was a couple of years ago. Maybe we need to
make boring sexy again, I added, you again, because I
think we've been there before. In Black America, there was
a time where we wore suits. There was a time
(01:55):
that we wore suits and ties. There was a time
ladies wore dresses. There was a time where people who
had babies were called moms and dads, mothers and fathers.
There was a time where jobs were of employment of
any kind. Education of every kind was honored and honorable
(02:16):
and desirable. Hard work was a beautiful thing. Sweat on
your brows to be admired. There was a time where
women hid their bodies, not flaunted it in public. There
was a time where we actually understood that success only
(02:45):
came before the word work in the dictionary because it
was alphabetical. There was a time where we didn't call
our ladies a phrase with a B. And there was
(03:05):
a time where every other word out of our mouth
wasn't a phrase. It starts with an end. Even though
the most intelligent, some of the most intelligent folks of
color will use choice phrases from time to time in
order to insert humor or warmth or familiarity. But it
(03:29):
wasn't commonplace as part of every day, all day, every lang,
every sentence language. There was a time where men didn't
call women bros. And women didn't call women or men bros.
(03:52):
I mean, I don't excuse me. This time wasn't that
long ago. This was in the twentieth century and in
the mid twentieth century, in the late twentieth century, there
was a time where things were just sort of normal
and intelligence was vaulted and valuable. And maybe we need
(04:16):
to get back to that time with regard to fundamental values.
And so everybody wants to be deep, but nobody wants
to be consistent. The real flexes and flash. It's stability,
security and sustain wealth and sustainable wealth. We need to
(04:44):
make the fundamentals of life attractive again. Why is this important?
And what am I talking about? Let me tell you
that what I'm talking about first, and then I'll tell
you why, and then we'll get into some depths about
the how. So what's important? I should never say this,
(05:09):
but things like family values, watch how you live your life.
Maybe the only Bible that anybody else reads. Right, what
are kids modeling? Well, you and they model what they see.
I'm talking about budgeting, I'm talking about ownership. I'm talking
(05:30):
about planning, basic life planning. When I was coming up,
they had a home economics class. Do you remember that
there was wood shop? Do you remember that, if you're
forty year older, there was auto shop? Remember that all
that's gone. There was pe physical education which kept you
(05:59):
in reasonable shape, so everybody didn't walk away all you know,
well obese. Remember that there was a nutrition class actually,
so you actually had a sense for what you were eating.
But now we think that fast food restaurants on every
corner again everything, most things in balance are good things,
(06:21):
but on every corner interspersed with soul food restaurants. I
love soul food, just not every day, three times a week.
That these were somehow tied to a balanced budget, a
balanced diet, sorry, and that this was real food. Right.
(06:43):
You can have dessert, you can have sweets, you can
have cool food every now and then, but you might
need some fruits and vegetables and something green on your plate.
And to understand that you are what you eat. But anyway,
I'm really saying something pretty radical and pretty basic, that
(07:06):
common sense is not so common. We need a radical
movement of common sense. I once said. And let's get
into the bit of the why here. Why am I
doing this episode? It's not being long, it's not going
to be in depth, but it's going. I think it's
foundational for new families, and I think reset older families,
and for the whole culture. Why is this important? Sort
(07:29):
of like when somebody said to me, well, John, why
should I try? Why should I trust God? Why should
I do this whole spiritual thing you're talking about? My reaction,
my response, because God cannot possibly mismanage and screw up
your life worse than you have, can I get the amen? Right?
So it's not like we tried all this stuff that
(07:51):
I'm about to discuss in this century at scale and
America and it didn't work. We've actually just tried everything else.
Gangster rap, you know, anti, you know, society, government, I guess,
(08:20):
government assistance. We've tried flossing, We're still flossing. We've tried shortcutting,
we've tried not parenting. We've tried not no, not having responsibility.
We tried blaming, We've tried partying. We've tried some of
(08:41):
us drugs, some of we've tried living in an alternate universe.
We tried living in I'm good, you know, chill reality
where we just sort of checked out. Has any of
this stuff worked. We tried getting rich quick forty percent
of all crypto we're black people, and we lost all
of our money, or nearly all of our money. Some
(09:04):
of us made a few bucks, but most of those,
those the cryptocurrencies I'm talking about, went bust. But we've tried.
You know, by the way, that wasn't That wasn't a
slap of cryptocurrency. I'm just saying that that that you know,
it's like going to Las Vegas and thinking that that's
a sustainable strategy. Vegas just keeps getting bigger, and your
wiles will keep getting smaller, even though you may win
(09:25):
every now and then. Look, how about we just do
some boring stuff that I don't know has proven the work.
So I want you to pull out your pencil, or
pull out your iPad, or pull out your note pad,
or pull out whatever you take notes on, and get
your mate, your partner, your friend, your lover, your your
(09:47):
your best buddies, your your crew, your fraternity buddies, your
sorority sisters. Let's let's let's start a real conversation here.
Let's take some notes, and let's get the basics right,
and let's thank Bishop TD Jakes for inspiring all of this.
The power of the boring stuff, the culture of flass
(10:10):
versus the power of foundation. Yeah, I said it. The
difference between being broken being poor, being broken as economic,
but being poor as a disabling frame of mind, a
depressed condition of your spirit. And you must vow never
ever ever to be poor again. The difference between looking
rich and being wealthy? By the way, have you noticed
(10:31):
when you went to By the way, I like Lloyd Baton.
I'm not disting Lloyd Biton, But have you noticed when you,
you know, during the pandemic, have you noticed everybody, I
mean everybody in that Louis Vaton line seemed to be
the same group vibe energy. Did that line that you
(10:54):
saw standing outside of the Louis Viton waiting to get in,
did they look like wealthy people to you? Do you
know there's seventy six percent seventy six percent, I know
it's seventy over seventy five of all luxury good sales
in the United States and around the world. Certainly in
the United States are the poor, the working class, and
(11:17):
the struggling middle class folks who are aspiracial with too
much month that end of their money trying to connect
with wealth. It's not the wealth buying luxury goods. Is
everybody trying to look wealthy. You might notice now I'm
wearing a T shirt and I certainly could afford to
wear anything I want, right, you don't see me with
(11:38):
a bunch of gold chains around my neck and and
you know, a bunch of jewelry falling off. I mean,
every piece of jewelry I'm wearing here is actually mission centered,
is symbolic. There's Africa and spirituality, there's kind of other things,
some technology, but we cannot keep wearing our assets on
our ass. I I guess I can say that it's
(12:00):
podcast how social media. Social media has glamorized flash while
wealth lives quietly. I'm gonna do a separate podcast about
my mom and my dad and the difference between her
his flash and her discipline. So watch for that because
(12:24):
I think it's a very powerful lesson that speaks to
this topic. Spoiler alert. My mother, who worked an hourly
job ended up with a million dollar net worth. So
the sexy of life is in the basics. The real
grown ups have really disciplined moves. So let's frame these
(12:48):
wealth power moves budgeting. This is where your money sleeps
at night. I used to hate budgets. I used to
think they're stupid and silly. And a director of our
preaching the whole board member was like, look, the mission's great,
and all this stuff's great, John, but if you run
out of cash, you're out of business. So you got
all this fancy stuff and all these numbers, but you know,
(13:10):
you know, where's your cash flow budget? You know, we
added a C a hadding a cruel budget, which is,
you know, basically a form of accounting that shows your
profitability based on sales. But I wasn't running a parallel
cash flow budget, which is actually when the cash comes
in and when the cash goes out, and you start
running a big enterprise, and you better have your your
(13:30):
your hands around actual cash and and not just accounting treatment,
even though accounting treatments really really important. And as I
start becoming it's really odd. And when I was broke,
when I was told from the floor up I didn't
really think I needed a budget, and I was wrong.
By the way, so let's say you make thirty six
(13:52):
thousand dollars a year. You mean I think you need
a budget? Do you think what you think? What you
think you need is to make more money? Okay, let's
take that. Let's look at that for a minute. You
have a Starbucks habit and you've got a cigarette habit.
So you go to Starbucks. I'm not picking on Starbucks,
but you go to Starbucks. It's an easy one because
you can relate to it. You go to Starbucks three
(14:13):
times a week to get your fix of whatever it is,
cappuccino or whatever fancy drink you like, and you smoke
a pack of two cigarettes let's say a day, Let's
say a pack a day, let's say three packs a week,
five whatever. The short, short version is that this habit
(14:35):
of yours, of going to Starbucks multiple times a week
and smoking consistently in the smoking is going to literally
kill you. By the way, a cigarette actually literally said that.
The pack says this stuff will kill you. But this
habit of yours, it costs about six thousand dollars a year, well,
(14:55):
six thousand dollars a year, combined with your Starbucks in
your cigarettes is it's just about twenty percent of your
annual income of thirty six thousand dollars a year. Had
thought about it that way, hedge six thousand dollars on
(15:18):
this habit, it's twenty percent of your income. So there's
two ways to make money, make more or spend less.
So when you start creating a budget, you start and
you start listing out. First of all, you need a
network statement. Even if you don't think you own a lot,
when you start listing out what you own, you'll be
absolutely surprised and generally pleasantly so. And then you can
(15:38):
you'll start realizing, even if you don't have a lot
of assets, you'll start realizing things that you own that
you should get rid of, that you should sell, which
will be created source a revenue for you. Things that
are in storage. Start with on your phone and subscriptions.
That is a form of It's not an asset per se,
but it is an obligation and an expense side of
(15:59):
your balance. There's gettings. Two ways to make money make more,
spend less. Think about all the subscriptions you have that
you forgot about, and the companies love you forgetting about them,
and they auto renew every month or every year, and
you don't think about it. How many years and how
many months have you been paying for stuff that you
don't use. Go in there and cancel those those subscriptions
that you're not using. That will save you a ton
(16:21):
of money. And ten to one's equal ten. So this
little money ends up being a lot. List out every asset,
everything that you own, I mean shoes, I mean consists, tapes,
I mean books, I mean you know, everything you own,
Go through your stores, go through your house, list it
all out. Decide what you want to keep, Decide what
(16:41):
you want to sell, Decide what you want to restore,
decide what you want to focus on. That's an you know,
you want to create an asset and net worth statement,
then create an expense and revenue statement, and created a
living an expense budget, at least expense budget where you're
spending and where, And I think you'll be shocked at
(17:03):
how much you're spending and where you're spending it. And
that will that's the first way of making more money
is not spending money on stupid stuff. So a budget
is where your money sleeps at night. An emergency fund
about forty percent of this country. He doesn't have four
hundred dollars for an unplanned event. That's shocking. There should
be shocking to you. And Operation Hope is partner with
(17:25):
Delta Airlines. I'm gonna have the CEO of Delta Airlines
Ed Bashing on my podcast here soon. I think he's
one of the most extraordinary CEOs. He's a good dear
friend of mine and a partner of Operation Hope. One
more extraordinary CEOs in the world. And Time just made him.
Time Magazines just made him one of the top one
hundred I think business leaders with the category he's under recently.
(17:47):
And I absolutely endorse that we partner with Delta air
Lines with ad Bashion Support to teach financial literacy to
all one hundred thousand Delta employees and they all get
a one thousand dollars emergency Saves account if they go
through the financial literacy course offered through either Operation to
Hope or Fidelity Investments, and it's been transformational for their lives.
(18:09):
That said, and in Truest Bank, another one of our partners,
also does that and we're in eight hundred of the
two thousand Truest branches, and that has been transformational for
truests and their customers and their employees. But I'm not
talking about one thousand dollars or seven to fifty dollars,
which is the case of Delta or Truests. We are
about four hundred dollars. Forty percent of Americans. At least
(18:31):
forty percent of Americans don't have four hundred dollars for
an unplanned event. In some cases the numbers as high
as sixty five percent, depending on whether you're calculating credit
card access. I mean just looking at like pure cash
in your hands. The numbers in excess, I believe above
forty percent, but no less than forty percent of Americans
(18:54):
have this current crisis. So you need to. It'll create
enormous peace of mind if you just saw for this,
like you create a little emergency fund because something's going
to go wrong. Johnny's going to get sick, you know somebody,
you know, crap will happen, you lose your job, whatever.
You don't want to be thrown into an emergent situation
(19:16):
and you know you're down on your rent, or you're
down for your carnal or whatever, or you can't pay
for a medical bill or whatever it is, because you haven't,
you know, planned in the good times for the bad times.
I want you to sleep peacefully so life won't knock
you out right. Life insurance. This is number three. Right's
(19:38):
number one was budgeting too, was an emergency fund. Three
life insurance. I want you to protect your legacy even
in your absence. I want you to have a legacy,
and I want you to to floss like you have
generational wealth. You do this to a life insurance policy.
I don't care whether it's a term or whole life policy.
Stop think about these fancy policies that you you've heard
(20:00):
of that the wealthy use. I'm talking about something basic
for you. If you're a young person watching this podcast,
a basic life insurance policy just might cost you lettles
five or ten dollars a month. If you're young and
in good health, for a twenty five fifty dollars one
hundred thousand dollars policy might cost you literally a few
dollars a month, no more than twenty five to fifty
(20:23):
dollars a month. And if you want one hundred dollars
a month policy, a term life insurance policy, you might
be able to get a one hundred thousand dollars in
some cases a million dollar life insurance policy as a
young person. As you get older, the premiums get larger
because they think you might die on them at any one,
any moment in time. So you should get the policy
(20:45):
as young as you can, for as long as you can.
If you can get a whole life policy which has
a savings component to it, great, if you're not. If not,
it's a it's much cheaper get a term policy. I
have had term life policies. I have term life policies
amongst other policies right now. When you die, and you
will die, I don't know how long you're going to live,
but I dang sure know you're going to die. We
(21:06):
all are going to die. Now you get to direct
where that money goes, right and who gets it? And
I'm gonna get to that. To Will's next. Hold on
a minute. I don't want to see go fund me
campaigns for people who are passing away. I'm tired of that.
I mean, we should go fund me campaigns. Was meant
to do something purposeful, purposeful, meaningful, intentional, aspirational. Now it's
(21:29):
turned into you know, professional begging. We've made this normal,
like going through a check cash or patilon, lender, rental,
own store, title lender, liquor store, pawnshop. Oh, go fund
me campaign because Joe died, Joe Anne passed away. We
should be planning for this. There should be a proper
like burial policy. And when I see celebrities with go
(21:51):
fund me campaigns because they had a medical issue or
somebody died, I'm particularly mortified because weren't they just flossing
around and at least Rose Royce or something just a
few months ago. Like, we need to knock all this
stuff off again. Let's time to make boring sexy. Let's
get the basics in place. If you have a major employer,
(22:14):
if you're sorry, you have a job with a major company,
there's a good chance, there's a good chance that there
is a life. A death policy in place is part
of your insurance policy at your employer, so your employee
provides health insurance. Is a very good chance that buried
(22:36):
in that health insurance policy is a death policy for
up to twenty five thousand dollars. I know it because
I offer that at an operation Hope to my employees. I
know it because there was an employee that passed away,
that we that didn't that was struggling with with burial
costs and did not know until we told them that
there that the health policy provided twenty five thousand dollars
(22:58):
with the death benefits, and that changed their whole life,
allowed them to bury their loved ones in dignity. So again,
boring is a new sexy read the dang on health policy.
Health insurance policy that you already have, right and you
might find magic in that policy in the form of
(23:21):
what I just told you death benefits. Please put in
notes when you see something some comments, when you see
posting me on social media after watching this, listening to
this podcast, you see a social media clip of this somewhere,
please put in the comments whether you confirmed that your
health policy has death benefits attached to it, number four
(23:47):
wills and a state planning. This is a love letter
to your family's future, right, That's the way I want
you to look at it. This is a love letter.
You're saying, I love you, I'm leaving you, but I'm
I'm I'm but I'm showing you I love you. I'm
directing resources to your to tell who, what and where
I want my resources, my heart earned resources to flow
(24:10):
to and why and when and in what order. My
mother was gangster Wannya Smith. She had a will. She
passed away a couple of years ago, got rested her soul.
She has been promoted Wenya Smith when she passed away.
In her will, she had put a gangster clause in
there that said anybody essentially anybody who and I was
a trustee. I'm a trustee of the will. And I
(24:32):
could feel the energy of some members of my family
like rising up questioning what you know, would my mother
put in her own will? But anyway, uh, the will
essentially said anybody who challenges this will will be denied
any benefits of it. And everybody just just just with
stone quiet. I love that and uh uh, and you
(24:54):
don't need a fancy will. You can than in an
audio message will when she was in great health. But
even that's not enforceable by law. It's a cool thing
to do, and if somebody wants to do it, it's
and it's you know, it's a it's something great for
your loved ones to see that after you passed away
(25:16):
and what your intentions were, particularly if you want to
pick the rose who received benefits from it because people
might explain who gets what and why, But you shouldn't
do it if you're digging at somebody though I ain't
giving you nothing. I don't do that. But my mother
also a physical will. Anyway, you can pull a wheel
down from the internet, right, a simple will. You can
(25:37):
do a one page wheel. You know, it doesn't be
this complicated thing. But let's start there. Because Prince did
not have a will, and the entertainer prints did not
have a will, I believe either Aretha Franklin did not
have a whill. They didn't think they were gonna ever die.
Nobody says, ooh, I'm gonna die. Let you know I'm
gonna do that now, I'm dying next week. People think
they're gonna live forever. I think I'm I'm gonna live
(26:00):
for a long time. I think I'm in great health.
I think I'm in better health when I was twenty five.
But I still have a will. Because death is not scheduled, right,
you don't know how long you're gonna live. You dang
should know you're gonna die. At least you should. What's
the mystery? And Prince had no direction or no controllable
Who got his resources and people. I believe that he
did not want to have control, ended up with control
(26:22):
because they were the next and next again, he did
not have children, and so on and so forth, and
O Nora a wife, Retha Franklin, you know, similarly unfortunate.
My friend Quincy Jones had a will and had an
orderly a state as best I can tell, so and
then be on a whill. You can do a state planning.
(26:45):
I have I advocate for trusts. You can do a
revocable trust. That's one you can change, and irrevocable trust
is one you cannot change. And you need to be
very careful before you do an irrevolable trust. A friend
of mine did one of those and irrevocable trusts, and
they really put members of his family in a buying.
(27:05):
Twenty five years later when situations had changed and he
had sort of forgotten about it and he had passed away,
and then on his deathbed, try to change the irrevocable trust,
and the attorney said, I'm sorry, it could not be
trust changed. That's why it's called irrevocable. So words matter.
So you're going to do a trust, might want to
start with something that has some flexibility. Yeah, anyway, So
(27:31):
Number I was gonna get in the whole thing in
my opinion about why would you do an irrevocable trust
when you can do a revocable one. But you know,
people have their reasons. Number five credit score and debt discipline.
Seven hundred plus. Credit score is a new status symbol. People.
You've heard me say it a million times over, like
you meet me somebody attractive, Oh cool, what's your name?
(27:51):
That's yeah, beautiful? What's your credit score? Because if you
get serious in this person, it's going to be a
business partner for life, and you make sure you're sharing
values and they're not just sharing your credit card. Right,
a little financial literacy lesson the person who makes it
has a right to spend it. The person who makes
it can also save it. You can have somebody who
(28:14):
doesn't make it, but who manages the money. And then
you can have somebody who manages the money, who doesn't
spend the money or spends the money and manages the
money or spends the money or manages the money and
doesn't spend the money. But what you cannot just have
as somebody who spends the money, that's a disaster relationship
so I think credit scores. Seven credit score is a
(28:37):
new status symbol, and we should have everybody around you
should have to aspire to a seven hundred plus credit
score number six. Owning a home. This is a forced
savings account in pride of place. It's also the easiest
way to build wealth in America. Forty four on average
of African Americans on a home compared to seventy five
percent of our white counterparts. White folks are not doing
(28:58):
it because they have nothing else to do, and doing
it because tax policy in this country is essentially designed
around the home ownership and eat and home ownership is
the easiest single way to build wealth. And you got
to live somewhere, Why would you want to Why would
you want to rent? When you get own? I don't
get it well and worse, we're flossing again trying to
rent something uptown with something we don't with money. We
(29:18):
don't have to spend money, we don't have to press
somebody we don't know about, and to brag about things
that don't matter, and people in places where they really
don't want you in an environment that is not sustainable
and will not last. You're literally just raising a window
and throwing money out, and I'm a landlord and I'm
encouraging you not to do it for the rest of
(29:39):
your life and encouraging to. It's like working at McDonald's
aor Walmart. You know you can work there your whole
life if you want to make at a career. But
for most people that's in it and split it. Get there,
stay there for a few years, and then let there
be a step they starting to go do something else.
Rent until you can own home. Ownership is a brilliant
way to combine a place to live with the with
(30:00):
a way to build wealth. You build make money to
the day you build wealth in your sleep. I hate hate.
It's a strong word. No, I do hate. I hate
hearing these commentators on TV shows and where even I'm
(30:21):
a contributor in CNBC, these very very wealthy people saying
that this generation shouldn't own a home. What are you
talking about. You're telling people not to own a home,
telling them poor, strugging people not to own a home.
And you own a home, right, everybody's saying you shouldn't
own a home, owns a home. It's crazy. You just
knock it off and probably reason they want you to.
(30:43):
I'm convinced. They don't want you to own a home souse.
They want you to rent from them. They just want
the whole society to become a renter. Right, rent your car,
rent your vacation. You know, you rent your aspiration, rent
your house, rent your you know that. Don't worry about it.
We'll take care of it. Just enjoy yourself. Put you
to sleep with you know, debt uh number six, it's
(31:06):
owning the home. Number seven. Stock market investing, So get
off the sidelines and become an owner of stock. So
you know, very the vast majority of African Americans do
not own stock, the vast majority. I want you in
the marketplace. Just look, start with buying what you like.
(31:26):
So you like these tennis shoes, you like these pants,
you like a jacket, you like a food store, you
like a grocery store, you like you know, Walmart, whatever,
If you go and shop there, or you're using these products, why,
you probably believe in it. If you believe it, your
friends probably believe in it too. You know, buy that stock.
(31:48):
Start there, but don't overcomplicate it and try to make
a flight to quality. Invest in things that are investable.
Don't don't don't don't go doing flaky stuff. You want
to flight the quality. But get in the marketplace again.
You make money during today, you build in your sleep.
Three things have never gone down. Home ownership value over
the long length of time in America, stock market value,
(32:09):
and the GDP gross domestic product of this country. They
go upset, sometimes recedes, recession, recedes, and then corrects above
the line. So you want to open an account. And
by the way, as a as a gift for your
children or people you love, young people. There's a company
called Share. I think it's called Gift to Share thing.
(32:29):
It's called gift to Share. It's a buy. If you
search this how do you buy a share of stock
for a child? It'll come up and we are Operation
Hoping is associated with this company. If time, if you
af you top of the internet, share a gift a
share for a child as a gift. And then Operation
Hope I'm sure to come up in the search engine
(32:51):
because they're a partner of Operation Hope. But and against
it's all gift to Share. But they they you can
buy a child for their birthday or graduational whatever, not
some toy they're gonna break or something they're gonna forget
about a month, buy them a Shriff stock and they
can you select the company. This is a real Sheriff's stock.
(33:13):
They frame it. I think they even put a nameplate
for the kid on it. They send it to you, beautiful,
you can give that to your kid. They can put
it on the wall. They own the share a real
share of stock in this company in question. And once
you own one Sheriff stock, you have the right to
access all the financials for that company. In that sexy
I'm talking about. So I'm talking about if you can
(33:34):
access come out an active financial literacy lesson. Now you
and your kids can talk about the real balance sheet,
income statement, et cetera, et cetera for whatever company is
in the news, because now you're a shareholder. One shaff
stock gives you access to all the financials and voting
rights of that company. And now you also have something
that's symbolic on that Ki's kids walld. Imagine every birthday
(33:56):
or every graduation, whatever, they get a new Shriff stock.
Imagine a half dozen of these on the kids walls.
In that inspiring and it's valuable. So you should do
it and your kids should do it. Number eight Financial
literacy for your kids, the generational wealth multiplier. I want
(34:16):
you to talk to Financial Lucy, talk about financial legacy
with your kids. Model what we're doing with Mayor Andrey
Dickens in Atlanta with the Hope Child Savings Accounts. We
have ten thousand, five hundred accounts that we've opened for
every kindergarten kid Hope Child Savings Account in Atlanta public schools.
Thank you Doctor Johnson, Thank you Mayor Andrey Dickens. Thank
you former Mayor of keys Atland's Bottoms for believing Atlanta
(34:37):
City Council in this. In US, a city of Royal,
Illinois has modeled this after what we've done in Atlanta.
So open an account for young person. Studies have shown
that a kid that has a savings account in kindergarten
is much more likely to go to college. You put
some money in that account, a few hundred dollars, there's
seventy five percent more likely to graduate from college. Get
(34:58):
the kid a financial literacy book. You can get mine,
Financial Literacy for All, which is a best seller. I've
talked about it. I use it. I've written in a
way that's very approachable and user friendly. You can read
it with your middle school kids. My brother tip t.
I just gave it to his son. He just told
me son or his daughter, and they wanted he wanted
them to have a financial literacy book and he wanted
(35:20):
to knows from a black man, somebody who from their
hood that they could relate to, which was very nice
of them. But it's out in paper book, paperback, by
the way, so it was less expensive. But it's the
best seller for the last fourteen months. Pick up a
copy of Financial Literacy for all and of course, subscribe
to this podcast every week and talk about this with
your kids. Sexy is not the chain around your neck,
(35:40):
it's the deed to your house. Hello again, we need
to make boring sexy again. Right, So we've abandoned the
basics and we must return to them right. Generational trauma
and systemic barriers has pushed us into survival mode. I
talk about this in my book Up from Nothing, the
surviving mode, thriving mode, and building mode. Most Black people
(36:04):
are in surviving mode and combinement with a five hundred
credit score, and you're toe up from the floor. And
by the way, if you have a surviving mode mentality,
which is depression, and you have a five undred credit score,
you live to an average sixty one years of age.
That's right, you'll even make it solid security. But if
you're if you have a thriving or building mindset and
(36:26):
you have a credit score about seven hundred, you live
to eighty one years of age on average. For every
fifty point increase in your credit score, it appears to
be good for another five years extension on your life.
And it's not about the credit score. It's about the
trending indicators of hope, well being, belief, confidence, et cetera.
If you want to find out for yourself what your
credit score community is, go to Operation Hope, our website
(36:51):
or type and the Hope Financial Wellness Index in your
search engine right now, and you'll a graph will come up,
A level page will come up for Hope Financial will
on this index our partnership with Experience and the US Census,
et cetera. Type in your zip code, I'll tell you
how you're living. I'll tell you what your zip code,
what your credit score is in your zip code, and
that will give you an indication of how how well
(37:12):
or not well that community is, how long people live,
what the crime rate is, the home ownership rate, is,
and whether you need to move or or improve, either
move or help people around you improve. So, uh flash,
it became a way to show value in the world
(37:32):
that denied it and denied us. I get that, But
those insecurities we need to ship and we need to
replace it with real values. Reclaiming boring is revolutionary. We
must heal through discipline and and and self acknowledgement like
there is no perfect there's just you, know you and
(37:55):
accepting you and loving yourself where you are as a
starting point is an old Southern saying, no matter how
much I love you, my son or my daughter, if
I don't have wisdom, I can only give you my
own ignorance. Right. So out of love, we've passed down
bad habits from generation to generation. We need to make
it cool again to to be normal. Uh. And we
(38:17):
need to lead by example. Uh. Cool is showing up
for your kids. I'm so I'm so dang on tired
and people talking to somebody talking about your baby daddy
or your baby mama. What does that mean? I'm a
baby daddy, what I'm a baby mama? How does it
make the kid feel? Hello? All right, the kids already
got self esteem issues. And identity issues. The kid needs
(38:40):
and you should. You should want to be a mother,
a father, a parent. I'm this is my child. I'm
claiming them, claiming him, claiming her. I'm a parent to
this child. Uh and and I and I'm taking ownership
of that role. We need to knock off all this
stuff because it's having all kind of psychological impacts on
(39:04):
those we love. It's not a trinket, this is not
a cool thing. This is your child. And I'd rather
and with regard to the child, it's not your best friend.
This is your child. I rather, this is my model.
I respect you. I rather you respect me and learn
to like me. They like me and never respect me.
Can I get a name? Man? This is not It's
not important whether the child likes you or not. They
(39:24):
can like you later. I didn't like my mother for
twenty years. I didn't like her, but when i she
made sure I had the discipline in the structure to
become a man. My dad too, and they helped me accountable.
And it was years later I was like, thank god
you raised me exactly that way, and thank god you
(39:46):
didn't tell me yes when I really desperately wanted you
to so it kept me alive and gave me a life.
Sexy is paying off your mortgage and your credit cards
when you can. But don't pay off your mortgage too early,
because actually right off the interest of that mortgage the
first twenty of those thirty years and write that off
of your gainst your income and get it back in
(40:06):
a tax refund. Another podcast, another time. Go back and
listen to the podcast did on home ownership. But certainly
paying off your credit cards. It is certainly high interest
rate credit cards. First, it's certainly sexy. Paying them down
to at least thirty percent of the of their usage
will boost your credit score, by the way. So here's
some action steps for you. I want you to start
(40:28):
your your wealth revolution today. Here's five things you can
do this week. Create a basic monthly budget, pull your
free credit report by signing up for free credit coaching
and counseling with Operation Hope. It's not free, I pay forward,
my partners pay forward for you, but you get a
thousand dollars scholarship for whole financial coaching and counseling by
(40:49):
downloading the Hope and Hand app and or calling our
one one hundred number of Operation Hope or call are
going on the one going online and want to operation
hop dot org. Let them know I sent you, and
sign up for coaching and counseling and that will help
you get your credit score up, your debt down, your
savings up. But pull your free credit report so you
know where you where you are. I guarantee if you
(41:10):
not pulled your credit report in five or more years,
you have got an error on your credit report that
we can help you resolve and that will boost your
credit score. Once you challenge that to the credit bureaus
and law states. If they cannot confirm this yours, they
must remove it. Again, Let's make boring sexy. Start reading
stuff and paying attention to details. Don't just go to
the car dealership and ask you what's the payment? Never
(41:32):
asked what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached, right?
You know you only get paymentized. Right. You buy a
Mercedes from a secondhand car dealership because you've got your
credits tore from the flow up, and they charge you
eighteen twenty percent interest for that Mercedes purchase. It's not
a Mercedes, it's Mercedes payments. Again. We need to stop
flossing and start flying. Number three open a life insurance
(41:57):
policy term life. If you just starting out, as I
said earlier. Number four, get a free will written. You
can go to a legal aid organization or online tools
and I mentioned earlier, so there's no reason not to
get a will. You can do it in a day,
you do it in a couple of hours. There's no
reason for you not to create a will. Number five.
Start investing. You can do fifty dollars in the S
(42:19):
and P five hundred or ETF or you can do
partial stocks. You can buy portions of a of a stock.
You know, to buy the entire stock, you can ask
my team and operation Hope how to do that. So yes,
you can buy a whole stock. You can open a
(42:42):
normal investment acount, or you can do fractional investing. So
just there's no reason. The same money you spending on Starbucks,
you can buy that much in a stock and just
do it with discipline. If you save two hundred dollars
a month and invest it in the stock market, earning
an average annual return of nine percent, you'll be a
(43:04):
millionaire by the time you become an adult. If you
start doing that as a young person. Hello, did that
get your attention two dollars a month for most of
your life or your working life. When you want you
to get to retirement age, you'll be a millionaire with
an average return in a quality stocks of nine percent
(43:25):
on average. Some years will be long bigger better than that,
some years will be less than that, but on average,
that's what the stock market is returning on high quality
stocks over time. I want you to talk to your
family about money and normalize this conversation. Make boring sexy again.
So boring is the new black, and not just black
(43:51):
lives matter, but black capitalists matter. I want you to
make this topic sexy and cool. I want you to
go to your own version of school every day. I
want you to have a financial meeting, a family meeting
every week in your household. We've done flash, we've done hustle.
Now let's do legacy. I want you to remember what
(44:14):
Bishop Tdjig said, and that quiet power of consistency goes
like this. When you've got the power, you don't need
to use it. I don't need to scream in the holler.
I'm just gonna knock you out, my Merris blessed black
cart Right, here's a challenge. Let the next generation inherit
(44:37):
your wisdom, not just your struggle. And stop using go
funding campaigns to plan for a funeral. All right, John O'Brien,
I'm out and this is Money and Wealth on the
Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio. Tell your friends about this
podcast series and tell them to sign up and subscribe.
It's free to them every Thursday. This is my Ministry
(44:57):
of Finance. New episodes, go back and listen to old
ep sides episodes from this episode, this season and last.
Thanks for making as a top podcast in America for
business and entrepreneurship here and around the world, the UK,
in Europe, Chile and Latin America, Saudi Arabia in the
Middle East, the UK and in Europe, South Africa, in Africa,
(45:19):
and I believe Hong Kong and Asia of all made
this podcast a top two hundred podcasts. Get my book
Financial Literacy for All, my last of sixth that is
part of building a library of empowerment for you. And
go to Operation Hope and ask for your free financial coaching.
One thousand dollars scholarship is yours. All you can do
is ask for it and be the change you want
(45:40):
to see in the world. Let's go. This is Our
Time is the seal for rights movement from the streets
to the suites. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is
(46:04):
a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. 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'Briant, a production
of the Black Effect podcast Network, and iHeartRadio. Yo Yo
Yo is John O'Brian here, and this is money and
Wealth on the Black Effect Network, And this is a kindness.
(00:24):
Is so gangster is certainly how I approach or try
to approach life. And I will often say, you've heard
me say that we need to make smart sexy again.
We've been making dumb sexy for way too long, we've
dumbed down and celebrated it, and a time again to
make smart sexy. Well this is a little different. Maybe
(00:49):
we need to go beyond making smart sexy. My friend
Quincy Jones God Rest is Soul told me it takes
twenty years to change a culture, and then I added,
in the last twenty years, then we've made dumb sexy.
We've dumbed down and celebrated it, appears, and we both
agreed that it was time to make smart sexy again,
(01:11):
and we hope that it would not take twenty years
to do that because we needed it like well right now.
But then, in discussing this topic with my friend Bishop
TD Jakes, who I think is just amazing and a
living icon in the world. I call him the Black Pope,
(01:32):
and I'm only partially kidding, he said, John, And this
was a couple of years ago. Maybe we need to
make boring sexy again, I added, you again, because I
think we've been there before. In Black America, there was
a time where we wore suits. There was a time
(01:55):
that we wore suits and ties. There was a time
ladies wore dresses. There was a time where people who
had babies were called moms and dads, mothers and fathers.
There was a time where jobs were of employment of
any kind. Education of every kind was honored and honorable
(02:16):
and desirable. Hard work was a beautiful thing. Sweat on
your brows to be admired. There was a time where
women hid their bodies, not flaunted it in public. There
was a time where we actually understood that success only
(02:45):
came before the word work in the dictionary because it
was alphabetical. There was a time where we didn't call
our ladies a phrase with a B. And there was
(03:05):
a time where every other word out of our mouth
wasn't a phrase. It starts with an end. Even though
the most intelligent, some of the most intelligent folks of
color will use choice phrases from time to time in
order to insert humor or warmth or familiarity. But it
(03:29):
wasn't commonplace as part of every day, all day, every lang,
every sentence language. There was a time where men didn't
call women bros. And women didn't call women or men bros.
(03:52):
I mean, I don't excuse me. This time wasn't that
long ago. This was in the twentieth century and in
the mid twentieth century, in the late twentieth century, there
was a time where things were just sort of normal
and intelligence was vaulted and valuable. And maybe we need
(04:16):
to get back to that time with regard to fundamental values.
And so everybody wants to be deep, but nobody wants
to be consistent. The real flexes and flash. It's stability,
security and sustain wealth and sustainable wealth. We need to
(04:44):
make the fundamentals of life attractive again. Why is this important?
And what am I talking about? Let me tell you
that what I'm talking about first, and then I'll tell
you why, and then we'll get into some depths about
the how. So what's important? I should never say this,
(05:09):
but things like family values, watch how you live your life.
Maybe the only Bible that anybody else reads. Right, what
are kids modeling? Well, you and they model what they see.
I'm talking about budgeting, I'm talking about ownership. I'm talking
(05:30):
about planning, basic life planning. When I was coming up,
they had a home economics class. Do you remember that
there was wood shop? Do you remember that, if you're
forty year older, there was auto shop? Remember that all
that's gone. There was pe physical education which kept you
(05:59):
in reasonable shape, so everybody didn't walk away all you know,
well obese. Remember that there was a nutrition class actually,
so you actually had a sense for what you were eating.
But now we think that fast food restaurants on every
corner again everything, most things in balance are good things,
(06:21):
but on every corner interspersed with soul food restaurants. I
love soul food, just not every day, three times a week.
That these were somehow tied to a balanced budget, a
balanced diet, sorry, and that this was real food. Right.
(06:43):
You can have dessert, you can have sweets, you can
have cool food every now and then, but you might
need some fruits and vegetables and something green on your plate.
And to understand that you are what you eat. But anyway,
I'm really saying something pretty radical and pretty basic, that
(07:06):
common sense is not so common. We need a radical
movement of common sense. I once said. And let's get
into the bit of the why here. Why am I
doing this episode? It's not being long, it's not going
to be in depth, but it's going. I think it's
foundational for new families, and I think reset older families,
and for the whole culture. Why is this important? Sort
(07:29):
of like when somebody said to me, well, John, why
should I try? Why should I trust God? Why should
I do this whole spiritual thing you're talking about? My reaction,
my response, because God cannot possibly mismanage and screw up
your life worse than you have, can I get the amen? Right?
So it's not like we tried all this stuff that
(07:51):
I'm about to discuss in this century at scale and
America and it didn't work. We've actually just tried everything else.
Gangster rap, you know, anti, you know, society, government, I guess,
(08:20):
government assistance. We've tried flossing, We're still flossing. We've tried shortcutting,
we've tried not parenting. We've tried not no, not having responsibility.
We tried blaming, We've tried partying. We've tried some of
(08:41):
us drugs, some of we've tried living in an alternate universe.
We tried living in I'm good, you know, chill reality
where we just sort of checked out. Has any of
this stuff worked. We tried getting rich quick forty percent
of all crypto we're black people, and we lost all
of our money, or nearly all of our money. Some
(09:04):
of us made a few bucks, but most of those,
those the cryptocurrencies I'm talking about, went bust. But we've tried.
You know, by the way, that wasn't That wasn't a
slap of cryptocurrency. I'm just saying that that that you know,
it's like going to Las Vegas and thinking that that's
a sustainable strategy. Vegas just keeps getting bigger, and your
wiles will keep getting smaller, even though you may win
(09:25):
every now and then. Look, how about we just do
some boring stuff that I don't know has proven the work.
So I want you to pull out your pencil, or
pull out your iPad, or pull out your note pad,
or pull out whatever you take notes on, and get
your mate, your partner, your friend, your lover, your your
(09:47):
your best buddies, your your crew, your fraternity buddies, your
sorority sisters. Let's let's let's start a real conversation here.
Let's take some notes, and let's get the basics right,
and let's thank Bishop TD Jakes for inspiring all of this.
The power of the boring stuff, the culture of flass
(10:10):
versus the power of foundation. Yeah, I said it. The
difference between being broken being poor, being broken as economic,
but being poor as a disabling frame of mind, a
depressed condition of your spirit. And you must vow never
ever ever to be poor again. The difference between looking
rich and being wealthy? By the way, have you noticed
(10:31):
when you went to By the way, I like Lloyd Baton.
I'm not disting Lloyd Biton, But have you noticed when you,
you know, during the pandemic, have you noticed everybody, I
mean everybody in that Louis Vaton line seemed to be
the same group vibe energy. Did that line that you
(10:54):
saw standing outside of the Louis Viton waiting to get in,
did they look like wealthy people to you? Do you
know there's seventy six percent seventy six percent, I know
it's seventy over seventy five of all luxury good sales
in the United States and around the world. Certainly in
the United States are the poor, the working class, and
(11:17):
the struggling middle class folks who are aspiracial with too
much month that end of their money trying to connect
with wealth. It's not the wealth buying luxury goods. Is
everybody trying to look wealthy. You might notice now I'm
wearing a T shirt and I certainly could afford to
wear anything I want, right, you don't see me with
(11:38):
a bunch of gold chains around my neck and and
you know, a bunch of jewelry falling off. I mean,
every piece of jewelry I'm wearing here is actually mission centered,
is symbolic. There's Africa and spirituality, there's kind of other things,
some technology, but we cannot keep wearing our assets on
our ass. I I guess I can say that it's
(12:00):
podcast how social media. Social media has glamorized flash while
wealth lives quietly. I'm gonna do a separate podcast about
my mom and my dad and the difference between her
his flash and her discipline. So watch for that because
(12:24):
I think it's a very powerful lesson that speaks to
this topic. Spoiler alert. My mother, who worked an hourly
job ended up with a million dollar net worth. So
the sexy of life is in the basics. The real
grown ups have really disciplined moves. So let's frame these
(12:48):
wealth power moves budgeting. This is where your money sleeps
at night. I used to hate budgets. I used to
think they're stupid and silly. And a director of our
preaching the whole board member was like, look, the mission's great,
and all this stuff's great, John, but if you run
out of cash, you're out of business. So you got
all this fancy stuff and all these numbers, but you know,
(13:10):
you know, where's your cash flow budget? You know, we
added a C a hadding a cruel budget, which is,
you know, basically a form of accounting that shows your
profitability based on sales. But I wasn't running a parallel
cash flow budget, which is actually when the cash comes
in and when the cash goes out, and you start
running a big enterprise, and you better have your your
(13:30):
your hands around actual cash and and not just accounting treatment,
even though accounting treatments really really important. And as I
start becoming it's really odd. And when I was broke,
when I was told from the floor up I didn't
really think I needed a budget, and I was wrong.
By the way, so let's say you make thirty six
(13:52):
thousand dollars a year. You mean I think you need
a budget? Do you think what you think? What you
think you need is to make more money? Okay, let's
take that. Let's look at that for a minute. You
have a Starbucks habit and you've got a cigarette habit.
So you go to Starbucks. I'm not picking on Starbucks,
but you go to Starbucks. It's an easy one because
you can relate to it. You go to Starbucks three
(14:13):
times a week to get your fix of whatever it is,
cappuccino or whatever fancy drink you like, and you smoke
a pack of two cigarettes let's say a day, Let's
say a pack a day, let's say three packs a week,
five whatever. The short, short version is that this habit
(14:35):
of yours, of going to Starbucks multiple times a week
and smoking consistently in the smoking is going to literally
kill you. By the way, a cigarette actually literally said that.
The pack says this stuff will kill you. But this
habit of yours, it costs about six thousand dollars a year, well,
(14:55):
six thousand dollars a year, combined with your Starbucks in
your cigarettes is it's just about twenty percent of your
annual income of thirty six thousand dollars a year. Had
thought about it that way, hedge six thousand dollars on
(15:18):
this habit, it's twenty percent of your income. So there's
two ways to make money, make more or spend less.
So when you start creating a budget, you start and
you start listing out. First of all, you need a
network statement. Even if you don't think you own a lot,
when you start listing out what you own, you'll be
absolutely surprised and generally pleasantly so. And then you can
(15:38):
you'll start realizing, even if you don't have a lot
of assets, you'll start realizing things that you own that
you should get rid of, that you should sell, which
will be created source a revenue for you. Things that
are in storage. Start with on your phone and subscriptions.
That is a form of It's not an asset per se,
but it is an obligation and an expense side of
(15:59):
your balance. There's gettings. Two ways to make money make more,
spend less. Think about all the subscriptions you have that
you forgot about, and the companies love you forgetting about them,
and they auto renew every month or every year, and
you don't think about it. How many years and how
many months have you been paying for stuff that you
don't use. Go in there and cancel those those subscriptions
that you're not using. That will save you a ton
(16:21):
of money. And ten to one's equal ten. So this
little money ends up being a lot. List out every asset,
everything that you own, I mean shoes, I mean consists, tapes,
I mean books, I mean you know, everything you own,
Go through your stores, go through your house, list it
all out. Decide what you want to keep, Decide what
(16:41):
you want to sell, Decide what you want to restore,
decide what you want to focus on. That's an you know,
you want to create an asset and net worth statement,
then create an expense and revenue statement, and created a
living an expense budget, at least expense budget where you're
spending and where, And I think you'll be shocked at
(17:03):
how much you're spending and where you're spending it. And
that will that's the first way of making more money
is not spending money on stupid stuff. So a budget
is where your money sleeps at night. An emergency fund
about forty percent of this country. He doesn't have four
hundred dollars for an unplanned event. That's shocking. There should
be shocking to you. And Operation Hope is partner with
(17:25):
Delta Airlines. I'm gonna have the CEO of Delta Airlines
Ed Bashing on my podcast here soon. I think he's
one of the most extraordinary CEOs. He's a good dear
friend of mine and a partner of Operation Hope. One
more extraordinary CEOs in the world. And Time just made him.
Time Magazines just made him one of the top one
hundred I think business leaders with the category he's under recently.
(17:47):
And I absolutely endorse that we partner with Delta air
Lines with ad Bashion Support to teach financial literacy to
all one hundred thousand Delta employees and they all get
a one thousand dollars emergency Saves account if they go
through the financial literacy course offered through either Operation to
Hope or Fidelity Investments, and it's been transformational for their lives.
(18:09):
That said, and in Truest Bank, another one of our partners,
also does that and we're in eight hundred of the
two thousand Truest branches, and that has been transformational for
truests and their customers and their employees. But I'm not
talking about one thousand dollars or seven to fifty dollars,
which is the case of Delta or Truests. We are
about four hundred dollars. Forty percent of Americans. At least
(18:31):
forty percent of Americans don't have four hundred dollars for
an unplanned event. In some cases the numbers as high
as sixty five percent, depending on whether you're calculating credit
card access. I mean just looking at like pure cash
in your hands. The numbers in excess, I believe above
forty percent, but no less than forty percent of Americans
(18:54):
have this current crisis. So you need to. It'll create
enormous peace of mind if you just saw for this,
like you create a little emergency fund because something's going
to go wrong. Johnny's going to get sick, you know somebody,
you know, crap will happen, you lose your job, whatever.
You don't want to be thrown into an emergent situation
(19:16):
and you know you're down on your rent, or you're
down for your carnal or whatever, or you can't pay
for a medical bill or whatever it is, because you haven't,
you know, planned in the good times for the bad times.
I want you to sleep peacefully so life won't knock
you out right. Life insurance. This is number three. Right's
(19:38):
number one was budgeting too, was an emergency fund. Three
life insurance. I want you to protect your legacy even
in your absence. I want you to have a legacy,
and I want you to to floss like you have
generational wealth. You do this to a life insurance policy.
I don't care whether it's a term or whole life policy.
Stop think about these fancy policies that you you've heard
(20:00):
of that the wealthy use. I'm talking about something basic
for you. If you're a young person watching this podcast,
a basic life insurance policy just might cost you lettles
five or ten dollars a month. If you're young and
in good health, for a twenty five fifty dollars one
hundred thousand dollars policy might cost you literally a few
dollars a month, no more than twenty five to fifty
(20:23):
dollars a month. And if you want one hundred dollars
a month policy, a term life insurance policy, you might
be able to get a one hundred thousand dollars in
some cases a million dollar life insurance policy as a
young person. As you get older, the premiums get larger
because they think you might die on them at any one,
any moment in time. So you should get the policy
(20:45):
as young as you can, for as long as you can.
If you can get a whole life policy which has
a savings component to it, great, if you're not. If not,
it's a it's much cheaper get a term policy. I
have had term life policies. I have term life policies
amongst other policies right now. When you die, and you
will die, I don't know how long you're going to live,
but I dang sure know you're going to die. We
(21:06):
all are going to die. Now you get to direct
where that money goes, right and who gets it? And
I'm gonna get to that. To Will's next. Hold on
a minute. I don't want to see go fund me
campaigns for people who are passing away. I'm tired of that.
I mean, we should go fund me campaigns. Was meant
to do something purposeful, purposeful, meaningful, intentional, aspirational. Now it's
(21:29):
turned into you know, professional begging. We've made this normal,
like going through a check cash or patilon, lender, rental,
own store, title lender, liquor store, pawnshop. Oh, go fund
me campaign because Joe died, Joe Anne passed away. We
should be planning for this. There should be a proper
like burial policy. And when I see celebrities with go
(21:51):
fund me campaigns because they had a medical issue or
somebody died, I'm particularly mortified because weren't they just flossing
around and at least Rose Royce or something just a
few months ago. Like, we need to knock all this
stuff off again. Let's time to make boring sexy. Let's
get the basics in place. If you have a major employer,
(22:14):
if you're sorry, you have a job with a major company,
there's a good chance, there's a good chance that there
is a life. A death policy in place is part
of your insurance policy at your employer, so your employee
provides health insurance. Is a very good chance that buried
(22:36):
in that health insurance policy is a death policy for
up to twenty five thousand dollars. I know it because
I offer that at an operation Hope to my employees. I
know it because there was an employee that passed away,
that we that didn't that was struggling with with burial
costs and did not know until we told them that
there that the health policy provided twenty five thousand dollars
(22:58):
with the death benefits, and that changed their whole life,
allowed them to bury their loved ones in dignity. So again,
boring is a new sexy read the dang on health policy.
Health insurance policy that you already have, right and you
might find magic in that policy in the form of
(23:21):
what I just told you death benefits. Please put in
notes when you see something some comments, when you see
posting me on social media after watching this, listening to
this podcast, you see a social media clip of this somewhere,
please put in the comments whether you confirmed that your
health policy has death benefits attached to it, number four
(23:47):
wills and a state planning. This is a love letter
to your family's future, right, That's the way I want
you to look at it. This is a love letter.
You're saying, I love you, I'm leaving you, but I'm
I'm I'm but I'm showing you I love you. I'm
directing resources to your to tell who, what and where
I want my resources, my heart earned resources to flow
(24:10):
to and why and when and in what order. My
mother was gangster Wannya Smith. She had a will. She
passed away a couple of years ago, got rested her soul.
She has been promoted Wenya Smith when she passed away.
In her will, she had put a gangster clause in
there that said anybody essentially anybody who and I was
a trustee. I'm a trustee of the will. And I
(24:32):
could feel the energy of some members of my family
like rising up questioning what you know, would my mother
put in her own will? But anyway, uh, the will
essentially said anybody who challenges this will will be denied
any benefits of it. And everybody just just just with
stone quiet. I love that and uh uh, and you
(24:54):
don't need a fancy will. You can than in an
audio message will when she was in great health. But
even that's not enforceable by law. It's a cool thing
to do, and if somebody wants to do it, it's
and it's you know, it's a it's something great for
your loved ones to see that after you passed away
(25:16):
and what your intentions were, particularly if you want to
pick the rose who received benefits from it because people
might explain who gets what and why, But you shouldn't
do it if you're digging at somebody though I ain't
giving you nothing. I don't do that. But my mother
also a physical will. Anyway, you can pull a wheel
down from the internet, right, a simple will. You can
(25:37):
do a one page wheel. You know, it doesn't be
this complicated thing. But let's start there. Because Prince did
not have a will, and the entertainer prints did not
have a will, I believe either Aretha Franklin did not
have a whill. They didn't think they were gonna ever die.
Nobody says, ooh, I'm gonna die. Let you know I'm
gonna do that now, I'm dying next week. People think
they're gonna live forever. I think I'm I'm gonna live
(26:00):
for a long time. I think I'm in great health.
I think I'm in better health when I was twenty five.
But I still have a will. Because death is not scheduled, right,
you don't know how long you're gonna live. You dang
should know you're gonna die. At least you should. What's
the mystery? And Prince had no direction or no controllable
Who got his resources and people. I believe that he
did not want to have control, ended up with control
(26:22):
because they were the next and next again, he did
not have children, and so on and so forth, and
O Nora a wife, Retha Franklin, you know, similarly unfortunate.
My friend Quincy Jones had a will and had an
orderly a state as best I can tell, so and
then be on a whill. You can do a state planning.
(26:45):
I have I advocate for trusts. You can do a
revocable trust. That's one you can change, and irrevocable trust
is one you cannot change. And you need to be
very careful before you do an irrevolable trust. A friend
of mine did one of those and irrevocable trusts, and
they really put members of his family in a buying.
(27:05):
Twenty five years later when situations had changed and he
had sort of forgotten about it and he had passed away,
and then on his deathbed, try to change the irrevocable trust,
and the attorney said, I'm sorry, it could not be
trust changed. That's why it's called irrevocable. So words matter.
So you're going to do a trust, might want to
start with something that has some flexibility. Yeah, anyway, So
(27:31):
Number I was gonna get in the whole thing in
my opinion about why would you do an irrevocable trust
when you can do a revocable one. But you know,
people have their reasons. Number five credit score and debt discipline.
Seven hundred plus. Credit score is a new status symbol. People.
You've heard me say it a million times over, like
you meet me somebody attractive, Oh cool, what's your name?
(27:51):
That's yeah, beautiful? What's your credit score? Because if you
get serious in this person, it's going to be a
business partner for life, and you make sure you're sharing
values and they're not just sharing your credit card. Right,
a little financial literacy lesson the person who makes it
has a right to spend it. The person who makes
it can also save it. You can have somebody who
(28:14):
doesn't make it, but who manages the money. And then
you can have somebody who manages the money, who doesn't
spend the money or spends the money and manages the
money or spends the money or manages the money and
doesn't spend the money. But what you cannot just have
as somebody who spends the money, that's a disaster relationship
so I think credit scores. Seven credit score is a
(28:37):
new status symbol, and we should have everybody around you
should have to aspire to a seven hundred plus credit
score number six. Owning a home. This is a forced
savings account in pride of place. It's also the easiest
way to build wealth in America. Forty four on average
of African Americans on a home compared to seventy five
percent of our white counterparts. White folks are not doing
(28:58):
it because they have nothing else to do, and doing
it because tax policy in this country is essentially designed
around the home ownership and eat and home ownership is
the easiest single way to build wealth. And you got
to live somewhere, Why would you want to Why would
you want to rent? When you get own? I don't
get it well and worse, we're flossing again trying to
rent something uptown with something we don't with money. We
(29:18):
don't have to spend money, we don't have to press
somebody we don't know about, and to brag about things
that don't matter, and people in places where they really
don't want you in an environment that is not sustainable
and will not last. You're literally just raising a window
and throwing money out, and I'm a landlord and I'm
encouraging you not to do it for the rest of
(29:39):
your life and encouraging to. It's like working at McDonald's
aor Walmart. You know you can work there your whole
life if you want to make at a career. But
for most people that's in it and split it. Get there,
stay there for a few years, and then let there
be a step they starting to go do something else.
Rent until you can own home. Ownership is a brilliant
way to combine a place to live with the with
(30:00):
a way to build wealth. You build make money to
the day you build wealth in your sleep. I hate hate.
It's a strong word. No, I do hate. I hate
hearing these commentators on TV shows and where even I'm
(30:21):
a contributor in CNBC, these very very wealthy people saying
that this generation shouldn't own a home. What are you
talking about. You're telling people not to own a home,
telling them poor, strugging people not to own a home.
And you own a home, right, everybody's saying you shouldn't
own a home, owns a home. It's crazy. You just
knock it off and probably reason they want you to.
(30:43):
I'm convinced. They don't want you to own a home souse.
They want you to rent from them. They just want
the whole society to become a renter. Right, rent your car,
rent your vacation. You know, you rent your aspiration, rent
your house, rent your you know that. Don't worry about it.
We'll take care of it. Just enjoy yourself. Put you
to sleep with you know, debt uh number six, it's
(31:06):
owning the home. Number seven. Stock market investing, So get
off the sidelines and become an owner of stock. So
you know, very the vast majority of African Americans do
not own stock, the vast majority. I want you in
the marketplace. Just look, start with buying what you like.
(31:26):
So you like these tennis shoes, you like these pants,
you like a jacket, you like a food store, you
like a grocery store, you like you know, Walmart, whatever,
If you go and shop there, or you're using these products, why,
you probably believe in it. If you believe it, your
friends probably believe in it too. You know, buy that stock.
(31:48):
Start there, but don't overcomplicate it and try to make
a flight to quality. Invest in things that are investable.
Don't don't don't don't go doing flaky stuff. You want
to flight the quality. But get in the marketplace again.
You make money during today, you build in your sleep.
Three things have never gone down. Home ownership value over
the long length of time in America, stock market value,
(32:09):
and the GDP gross domestic product of this country. They
go upset, sometimes recedes, recession, recedes, and then corrects above
the line. So you want to open an account. And
by the way, as a as a gift for your
children or people you love, young people. There's a company
called Share. I think it's called Gift to Share thing.
(32:29):
It's called gift to Share. It's a buy. If you
search this how do you buy a share of stock
for a child? It'll come up and we are Operation
Hoping is associated with this company. If time, if you
af you top of the internet, share a gift a
share for a child as a gift. And then Operation
Hope I'm sure to come up in the search engine
(32:51):
because they're a partner of Operation Hope. But and against
it's all gift to Share. But they they you can
buy a child for their birthday or graduational whatever, not
some toy they're gonna break or something they're gonna forget
about a month, buy them a Shriff stock and they
can you select the company. This is a real Sheriff's stock.
(33:13):
They frame it. I think they even put a nameplate
for the kid on it. They send it to you, beautiful,
you can give that to your kid. They can put
it on the wall. They own the share a real
share of stock in this company in question. And once
you own one Sheriff stock, you have the right to
access all the financials for that company. In that sexy
I'm talking about. So I'm talking about if you can
(33:34):
access come out an active financial literacy lesson. Now you
and your kids can talk about the real balance sheet,
income statement, et cetera, et cetera for whatever company is
in the news, because now you're a shareholder. One shaff
stock gives you access to all the financials and voting
rights of that company. And now you also have something
that's symbolic on that Ki's kids walld. Imagine every birthday
(33:56):
or every graduation, whatever, they get a new Shriff stock.
Imagine a half dozen of these on the kids walls.
In that inspiring and it's valuable. So you should do
it and your kids should do it. Number eight Financial
literacy for your kids, the generational wealth multiplier. I want
(34:16):
you to talk to Financial Lucy, talk about financial legacy
with your kids. Model what we're doing with Mayor Andrey
Dickens in Atlanta with the Hope Child Savings Accounts. We
have ten thousand, five hundred accounts that we've opened for
every kindergarten kid Hope Child Savings Account in Atlanta public schools.
Thank you Doctor Johnson, Thank you Mayor Andrey Dickens. Thank
you former Mayor of keys Atland's Bottoms for believing Atlanta
(34:37):
City Council in this. In US, a city of Royal,
Illinois has modeled this after what we've done in Atlanta.
So open an account for young person. Studies have shown
that a kid that has a savings account in kindergarten
is much more likely to go to college. You put
some money in that account, a few hundred dollars, there's
seventy five percent more likely to graduate from college. Get
(34:58):
the kid a financial literacy book. You can get mine,
Financial Literacy for All, which is a best seller. I've
talked about it. I use it. I've written in a
way that's very approachable and user friendly. You can read
it with your middle school kids. My brother tip t.
I just gave it to his son. He just told
me son or his daughter, and they wanted he wanted
them to have a financial literacy book and he wanted
(35:20):
to knows from a black man, somebody who from their
hood that they could relate to, which was very nice
of them. But it's out in paper book, paperback, by
the way, so it was less expensive. But it's the
best seller for the last fourteen months. Pick up a
copy of Financial Literacy for all and of course, subscribe
to this podcast every week and talk about this with
your kids. Sexy is not the chain around your neck,
(35:40):
it's the deed to your house. Hello again, we need
to make boring sexy again. Right, So we've abandoned the
basics and we must return to them right. Generational trauma
and systemic barriers has pushed us into survival mode. I
talk about this in my book Up from Nothing, the
surviving mode, thriving mode, and building mode. Most Black people
(36:04):
are in surviving mode and combinement with a five hundred
credit score, and you're toe up from the floor. And
by the way, if you have a surviving mode mentality,
which is depression, and you have a five undred credit score,
you live to an average sixty one years of age.
That's right, you'll even make it solid security. But if
you're if you have a thriving or building mindset and
(36:26):
you have a credit score about seven hundred, you live
to eighty one years of age on average. For every
fifty point increase in your credit score, it appears to
be good for another five years extension on your life.
And it's not about the credit score. It's about the
trending indicators of hope, well being, belief, confidence, et cetera.
If you want to find out for yourself what your
credit score community is, go to Operation Hope, our website
(36:51):
or type and the Hope Financial Wellness Index in your
search engine right now, and you'll a graph will come up,
A level page will come up for Hope Financial will
on this index our partnership with Experience and the US Census,
et cetera. Type in your zip code, I'll tell you
how you're living. I'll tell you what your zip code,
what your credit score is in your zip code, and
that will give you an indication of how how well
(37:12):
or not well that community is, how long people live,
what the crime rate is, the home ownership rate, is,
and whether you need to move or or improve, either
move or help people around you improve. So, uh flash,
it became a way to show value in the world
(37:32):
that denied it and denied us. I get that, But
those insecurities we need to ship and we need to
replace it with real values. Reclaiming boring is revolutionary. We
must heal through discipline and and and self acknowledgement like
there is no perfect there's just you, know you and
(37:55):
accepting you and loving yourself where you are as a
starting point is an old Southern saying, no matter how
much I love you, my son or my daughter, if
I don't have wisdom, I can only give you my
own ignorance. Right. So out of love, we've passed down
bad habits from generation to generation. We need to make
it cool again to to be normal. Uh. And we
(38:17):
need to lead by example. Uh. Cool is showing up
for your kids. I'm so I'm so dang on tired
and people talking to somebody talking about your baby daddy
or your baby mama. What does that mean? I'm a
baby daddy, what I'm a baby mama? How does it
make the kid feel? Hello? All right, the kids already
got self esteem issues. And identity issues. The kid needs
(38:40):
and you should. You should want to be a mother,
a father, a parent. I'm this is my child. I'm
claiming them, claiming him, claiming her. I'm a parent to
this child. Uh and and I and I'm taking ownership
of that role. We need to knock off all this
stuff because it's having all kind of psychological impacts on
(39:04):
those we love. It's not a trinket, this is not
a cool thing. This is your child. And I'd rather
and with regard to the child, it's not your best friend.
This is your child. I rather, this is my model.
I respect you. I rather you respect me and learn
to like me. They like me and never respect me.
Can I get a name? Man? This is not It's
not important whether the child likes you or not. They
(39:24):
can like you later. I didn't like my mother for
twenty years. I didn't like her, but when i she
made sure I had the discipline in the structure to
become a man. My dad too, and they helped me accountable.
And it was years later I was like, thank god
you raised me exactly that way, and thank god you
(39:46):
didn't tell me yes when I really desperately wanted you
to so it kept me alive and gave me a life.
Sexy is paying off your mortgage and your credit cards
when you can. But don't pay off your mortgage too early,
because actually right off the interest of that mortgage the
first twenty of those thirty years and write that off
of your gainst your income and get it back in
(40:06):
a tax refund. Another podcast, another time. Go back and
listen to the podcast did on home ownership. But certainly
paying off your credit cards. It is certainly high interest
rate credit cards. First, it's certainly sexy. Paying them down
to at least thirty percent of the of their usage
will boost your credit score, by the way. So here's
some action steps for you. I want you to start
(40:28):
your your wealth revolution today. Here's five things you can
do this week. Create a basic monthly budget, pull your
free credit report by signing up for free credit coaching
and counseling with Operation Hope. It's not free, I pay forward,
my partners pay forward for you, but you get a
thousand dollars scholarship for whole financial coaching and counseling by
(40:49):
downloading the Hope and Hand app and or calling our
one one hundred number of Operation Hope or call are
going on the one going online and want to operation
hop dot org. Let them know I sent you, and
sign up for coaching and counseling and that will help
you get your credit score up, your debt down, your
savings up. But pull your free credit report so you
know where you where you are. I guarantee if you
(41:10):
not pulled your credit report in five or more years,
you have got an error on your credit report that
we can help you resolve and that will boost your
credit score. Once you challenge that to the credit bureaus
and law states. If they cannot confirm this yours, they
must remove it. Again, Let's make boring sexy. Start reading
stuff and paying attention to details. Don't just go to
the car dealership and ask you what's the payment? Never
(41:32):
asked what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached, right?
You know you only get paymentized. Right. You buy a
Mercedes from a secondhand car dealership because you've got your
credits tore from the flow up, and they charge you
eighteen twenty percent interest for that Mercedes purchase. It's not
a Mercedes, it's Mercedes payments. Again. We need to stop
flossing and start flying. Number three open a life insurance
(41:57):
policy term life. If you just starting out, as I
said earlier. Number four, get a free will written. You
can go to a legal aid organization or online tools
and I mentioned earlier, so there's no reason not to
get a will. You can do it in a day,
you do it in a couple of hours. There's no
reason for you not to create a will. Number five.
Start investing. You can do fifty dollars in the S
(42:19):
and P five hundred or ETF or you can do
partial stocks. You can buy portions of a of a stock.
You know, to buy the entire stock, you can ask
my team and operation Hope how to do that. So yes,
you can buy a whole stock. You can open a
(42:42):
normal investment acount, or you can do fractional investing. So
just there's no reason. The same money you spending on Starbucks,
you can buy that much in a stock and just
do it with discipline. If you save two hundred dollars
a month and invest it in the stock market, earning
an average annual return of nine percent, you'll be a
(43:04):
millionaire by the time you become an adult. If you
start doing that as a young person. Hello, did that
get your attention two dollars a month for most of
your life or your working life. When you want you
to get to retirement age, you'll be a millionaire with
an average return in a quality stocks of nine percent
(43:25):
on average. Some years will be long bigger better than that,
some years will be less than that, but on average,
that's what the stock market is returning on high quality
stocks over time. I want you to talk to your
family about money and normalize this conversation. Make boring sexy again.
So boring is the new black, and not just black
(43:51):
lives matter, but black capitalists matter. I want you to
make this topic sexy and cool. I want you to
go to your own version of school every day. I
want you to have a financial meeting, a family meeting
every week in your household. We've done flash, we've done hustle.
Now let's do legacy. I want you to remember what
(44:14):
Bishop Tdjig said, and that quiet power of consistency goes
like this. When you've got the power, you don't need
to use it. I don't need to scream in the holler.
I'm just gonna knock you out, my Merris blessed black
cart Right, here's a challenge. Let the next generation inherit
(44:37):
your wisdom, not just your struggle. And stop using go
funding campaigns to plan for a funeral. All right, John O'Brien,
I'm out and this is Money and Wealth on the
Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio. Tell your friends about this
podcast series and tell them to sign up and subscribe.
It's free to them every Thursday. This is my Ministry
(44:57):
of Finance. New episodes, go back and listen to old
ep sides episodes from this episode, this season and last.
Thanks for making as a top podcast in America for
business and entrepreneurship here and around the world, the UK,
in Europe, Chile and Latin America, Saudi Arabia in the
Middle East, the UK and in Europe, South Africa, in Africa,
(45:19):
and I believe Hong Kong and Asia of all made
this podcast a top two hundred podcasts. Get my book
Financial Literacy for All, my last of sixth that is
part of building a library of empowerment for you. And
go to Operation Hope and ask for your free financial coaching.
One thousand dollars scholarship is yours. All you can do
is ask for it and be the change you want
(45:40):
to see in the world. Let's go. This is Our
Time is the seal for rights movement from the streets
to the suites. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is
(46:04):
a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. 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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