Ep 21: The Politics of Building Wealth - Featuring Troy Millings & Rashad Bilal

On this week's opening filibuster, Jemele breaks down the Department of Defense temporarily deleting the military history of Jackie Robinson. Later, she is joined by Troy Millings and Rashad Bilal, the creators of the Earn Your Leisure platform. Rashad and Troy discuss their new book, You Deserve To Be Rich, a step-by-step guide that teaches people how to build their wealth. Rashad and Troy share anecdotes about their financial growth, share the top reasons people are intimidated when it comes to growing their finances, and common financial mistakes people make when they begin their investment journey. Jemele then closes out the episode by remembering former NBA player Junior Bridgeman.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, what's up everybody. I'm Jamel Hill and welcome to politics.
And I heard podcast and unbothered production time to get spolitical.
During the nineteen seventy five lecture at Portland State University,

(00:20):
Tony Morrison, as she often did, said something that was
incredibly profound. Morrison said, the very serious function of racism
is a distraction. It keeps you from doing your work.
It keeps you explaining over and over again your reason
for being now.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I thought about her.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Words immediately when I read about the Department of Defense
removing the military story of Jackie Robinson from its website,
though later they restored it after a wave of understandable outrage,
They claimed it was a mistake. Now, Robinson is widely
considered one of the country's great heroes, a patriot who
loved this country and a stellar all around athlete who
integrated Major League Baseball in nineteen forty seven, forever changing

(00:59):
the sport. But Robinson understood this country, while it might
be worth fighting for, it also had deep flaws. Tony
Morrison understood this too, and that racism, in fact, was
one of the deepest flaws this country has ever had.

(01:39):
It's impossible to believe this was just some innocent accident
when this presidential administration has made it painfully clear that
it holds a special kind of hostility when it comes
to acknowledging, celebrating, and memorializing the contributions of people who
are not white men.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
They not only removed.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
The page dedicated to Jackie Robinson's military history, but also
the content that honored the to ski E Airman, the
Navajo cold Talkers, history making female fighter pilots, and Native
American soldier Ira Hayes, who was one of the six
flag raisers in the iconic World War Two photo. When
ESPN Baseball writer Jeff Passon asked the Department of Defense
why they remove Jackie Robbins's page, Pentagon press Secretary John Olyat,

(02:18):
and I truly hope I'm pronouncing his name wrong.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
He had this to say, as.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Secretary Hegseith has said DEI is dead at the Defense Department.
Discriminatory equity ideology is a form of cultural Marxism that
has no place in our military. It divides the force,
erodes unit cohesion, and interferes with the service's core war
fighting mission. We are pleased by the rapid compliance across
the Department with the directive removing DEI content from all platforms.

(02:46):
In the rare cases, content is removed either deliberately or
by mistake that is out of the clearly outlined scope
of the directive. We instruct the components and they correct
the content accordingly. Boy, he hit every crazy ass buzzword
on the Bingo car, didn't He discriminatory equity ideology, which
is not what the actually stands for, throwing up a

(03:06):
word salad with woken cultural Marxism. I bet you one
hundred dollars he doesn't even know what any of that
shit means. But maybe the reason the Department of Defense
tried to slightly erase the history of Jackie Robinson's military
service is because there is a pretty interesting reason Robinson
was honorably discharged from the military. Here's sportscaster Kurt Menafee

(03:27):
with the cliff notes version.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
When he went into the military and it was segregated,
he was chastised for not keeping himself separate on the
bus and sitting in the back of the bus where
the black guys.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Were supposed to sit.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
He said, Hey, I'm a man, I'm a college any
educated man.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
I'm not going to do that, but.

Speaker 4 (03:41):
The military came down on him because they were segregated
at the time, and so the charges were kind of
trumped up at the beginning. They charged him with public drunkenness,
and he's a guy who didn't drink, and so once
everything got cleared out, they wound up being just a
very minor mark on his military record. But I think
it was a major moment for him because it showed
that he could stand up to authority and not actually
have to come to anyone.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Now, while this was mentioned on the Department of Defense
page honoring Robinson, I bet a lot of people who
wouldn't have normally visited that page have now learned something new.
And now that the Department of Defense has given us
a reason to revisit Robinson's.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
History, let me tell you the whole.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Story, and not just the sanitized version many of us
learned about Jackie Robinson A lot of times. When Robinson
is complimented, people mentioned how he carried himself with dignity
and class while facing incredible racism when he integrated Major
League Baseball. All true, but that's kind of the PG version.
While it's true that Jackie Robinson did promise Brooklyn Dodgers

(04:38):
executive branch Ricky that he wouldn't respond to racism that
he faced on a routine basis during his first season.
As his career progressed, Robinson became increasingly outspoken. In fact,
he was so outspoken that some black people worried that
he was going to ruin the chances for other black
players who might follow in his footsteps.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
And then that was Robinson's post baseball life.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
In nineteen fifty seven, Robinson pressured President Dwight Eisenhower to
send troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect black students
seeking to desegrade public schools. He helped raise bail money
for college students who were engaging in sit ins in
the South. He led a fundraiser to raise money to
rebuild black churches that have been burned down by racists
in the South. He was a constant presence in helping

(05:20):
doctor Martin Luther King Junior's voter registration drives.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
He was a huge advocate for the Black Panther Party.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
He criticized the police for their treatment of black people
and the banking industry for discriminating against black neighborhoods. And
Robinson's nineteen seventy two memoir I Never had it made,
Jackie Robinson wrote this, There I was the black grandson
of a slave, the son of a black sharecropper, part
of a historic occasion, a symbolic hero to my people.

(05:46):
The air was sparkling, the sunlight was warm. The band
struck up the national anthem. The flag billowed in the wind.
It should have been a glorious moment for me as
the stirring words of the national anthem poured from the stands.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Perhaps it was again.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Perhaps the anthem should be called the theme song, or
a drama called the Noble Experiment. Today, as I look
back on that opening game of my first World series,
I must tell you that it was mister Rickey's drama
and that I was only a principal actor. As I
write this twenty years later, I cannot stand and sing
the anthem. I cannot salute the flag. I know that

(06:21):
I am a black man in a white world in
nineteen seventy two and nineteen forty seven, at my birth
in nineteen nineteen, I know that I never had it made.
Of course, on that Department of Defense page that had
to be restored, they didn't mention this part of Jackie
Robinson's legacy, because the entire point of trying to bury
his legacy isn't to decrease division. The point is to

(06:44):
erase history so that people forget that you're actually repeating it.
I'm Jamel Hill, and I approved this message. Coming up
six years ago, this amazing duo created a unique financial
movement that was initially aimed at teaching young people financial literacy,
and it has since ballooned to something that has become global.
They've got a new book out called You Deserve to

(07:05):
Be Rich, which gives people a roadmap to creating wealth.
It doesn't matter if you have fifty thousand dollars or
fifty cents.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
They have skyrocketed their.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Digital platform, created the financial version of Coachella, interviewing some
of the biggest names in business, sports, and entertainment, among others.
So if you think you deserve to be rich, by
their book, and just as importantly, listen for the next
hour to get you some incredible financial gems. Coming up
next on spolitics, Troy Millings and Rashad Blow, the founders

(07:35):
and creators of Earn Your Leisure.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
All right, here we go.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Well, I am so pleased for this very special episode
of Spolitics, which is also being broadcast live on YouTube
right now. I'm very happy because the gentlemen that I
have with me, I've been on their platform numerous times.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
I'm always the one in.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
The hot seat.

Speaker 1 (08:03):
But today I get to turn the tables on them,
and I get an opportunity to interview them and talk
about their new book, their platform and just it's really
a movement, That's how I would describe it. But I'm
really pleased to be joined today by Rashad Balau and
Troy Millings. Earn your leisure, how as most people know,
you earn your leisure, guys, I'm sure you hear that commonly, right, So,

(08:27):
Rashot and Troy, thank you so much for Gracing's politics
with your presence.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
We appreciate you having us.

Speaker 5 (08:34):
Like you said, you've been gracious enough to lend us
your brilliance on a few of our platforms.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
So this is gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Yeah, this will be a lot of fun. We're gonna
do a deep dive into your book. I'm gonna hold
it up here real quick. For those watching on YouTube.
It's called you deserve to be rich. I highly suggest
not just saying this I highly suggest you guys get
this book. It has incredible financial advice and mostly and
we'll get into this deeper a little bit later. One
of the things I love is that you all sort

(09:01):
of attack it from an emotional perspective, because finances and
money are tied together, as.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
You all know.

Speaker 1 (09:07):
But before we get deeper into the conversation about the
book and about other things that are happening in the
world financially, I want to ask you a question that
I ask every guest that appears on politics, and that
is name and athlete or a moment that made you
love sports.

Speaker 6 (09:25):
Yeah, for me, it was a Fab five. That was
a moment in time, you know, just they came out
the gate, you know, fashion and skills and everything, just
kind of combining the culture with basketball. And I was
always a basketball fan my whole life, but that was
like the first time I really liked was emotionally invested

(09:46):
into a team or storyline. And yeah, that was that
was crazy, you know, just to actually watch them. I
remember they lost to Duke. That was crazy. I think
I started crying they That's how emotionally invested I was
in the And like I said, just had the Michigan
warm up jersey, like a lot. We was wearing a
lot of Michigan apparel back then, Like they was definitely

(10:08):
like very influential, I think on not just me, but
the whole entire culture for sure.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
So you had the black socks, did you do go
ball ahead? Did you do.

Speaker 6 (10:19):
Well? I had a ball head for a minute, like
for a minute when I was a kid, and then
I had I didn't really wear black socks too much,
but I had like Michigan like I had the warm
up jersey, had the Michigan warm up jersey. I think
I might have had a starter coat. So I had
a few different T shirt. I know I had a
T shirt. I had a few different like Michigan Wolverine apparel.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
I hear what about you, Troy?

Speaker 5 (10:44):
I think I got like a one A one B.
And it's probably my first memory of sport with his
nineteen eighty five with the Chicago Bears and the Super
Bowl shuffle.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I remember. I just remember my.

Speaker 5 (10:57):
Dad having a Super Bowl party and like the eat
up to that game was was just like incredible. So
I remember like Walter Payton rapping and I'm just like, oh,
this is cool. And one B would probably be eighty
seven when my team, the Washington Redskins or Commanders as
I know now, won Super Bowl with with Doug Williams

(11:17):
at quarterback, and I was like, that's it. Once I
saw that, I was like, that's my team forever, and
it still has been my team.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I had the mug.

Speaker 5 (11:26):
You know, if you bought the paper that day, you
could buy a mug for nine ninety nine. So my
dad got me the mug and the cup, and uh
so those two things. I fell in love with sports
and the history sports. I just became obsessed with all
sports after that.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Well, congratulations to you because the Commanders, they obviously had
an incredible season and you stuck with them despite some
lean years.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
That have been some bad ownership. Like you, you have
gone through a lot so.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
Served this moment, right, you know, all those days that came,
all those years, so this year was a good one
in the future right as well.

Speaker 1 (12:01):
Okay, Well, as I mentioned at the at the top
of this recording, is that I wanted to dive really
deep into your book because it covers a lot about,
you know, just how people can financially kind of get
themselves together, and it's for all situations. So you know,
a lot of people I know are intimidated when it
comes to money and finances.

Speaker 3 (12:20):
And that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
But let's just start with the motivation behind it and
ra shout, I'll start with you. Is you guys have
talked for years about finances and really have grown your platform.
What made this now the ideal time to create or
to have a book?

Speaker 3 (12:38):
You deserve to be rich?

Speaker 6 (12:41):
You know, we've been in existence for about six years now,
so I feel like this was a good time to
kind of have that legacy moment that could you know,
stand and test the time you write a book. You know,
that's every person's idea of when they're writing a book,
is that to have it, you know, twenty thirty years
from now, how we think of like Stale Carnegie and
stuff like that. So being that we've we've been putting

(13:04):
our content pretty much every day for the last six years,
we had a wealth of information already online, but we
wanted to just have it more streamline as far as
like a real easy go to from beginner to end.
Then we get that question a lot as far as
like where do I start, So we wanted to just
kind of put everything together have a roadmap as far

(13:28):
as financial freedom and really kind of explain our thesis
on finance. And that was with the book came out
to be. So yeah, you know, it just felt like
it was time. We've been working on it for a while,
a couple of years now, so you know, it was
a blessing that we were able to put out a

(13:49):
couple of months ago. And it's been greatly received so far,
so great greatly appreciated.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
I think so much, and I was really happy you
all kind of shared this in the book.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
Is so much how a lot of us deal with money.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
Now is shaped by how we grew up, you know,
some of the early financial trauma a lot of us
and our families experience. And Troy, you were very candid
in the book about a sort of traumatic moment that
occurred for you and your family early on and how
that shaped your financial perspective, and that was your parents
losing your.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Home, so losing their home.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
Excuse me, So from that standpoint of them losing their home,
what did that teach you about money and finances as
you went forward?

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, I mean it told me a lot.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
I mean the first thing was like something could be
here that ain't going tomorrow. So when you said we
lost our harm, it was that right. It just felt like,
you know, we were a family, you know that had
left the South Bronx and made it to a fluent
neighborhood or in Westchester County. It was like, you know,
this is it. We've made it in life. So to
have a stripped it was kind of one of these
puzzling things, was like you're just moving. And so it

(14:57):
taught me about what it is to be financially disciplined,
what it means to understand financial terms, right, Like the
biggest mistake that they made at the time and we
didn't unpack that till years later, was understanding what a
fixed rate mortgage is versus what an adjustable rate mortgages.
These aren't, you know, conversations that would happen at the
dinner table. But had we had that conversation, who knows
where my outcome would have been. And then from that

(15:20):
point you start to unpack other things, Well, why didn't
we have the money, where did the money go?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
What's gambling an issue?

Speaker 5 (15:26):
Why did my mom always have to handle the money,
And then you learn that, hey, my dad wasn't as
responsible as he could have been.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
And so now you tell yourself, well, I don't want
to be that.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
And when it comes to me in any type of
relationship that happen in the future, I got to be
the financially discipline and hopefully my partner is financially disciplined
as well, so we can see a better outcome for
our families.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
So you learn these lessons as you go.

Speaker 5 (15:46):
And even in adulthood, you know, I almost didn't almost
feel comfortable until I got to a point where was like,
what really happened here? And it goes back to the
trauma that they faced. Right, they didn't know financial education.
It wasn't something that they were pretty to know. We
had the grace of having an uncle who actually bought
a home and so he kind of taught.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Them everything they know. In fact, they loaned him money.

Speaker 5 (16:08):
He loaned their money, which you know he wanted it back,
and that led to another issue.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
So anytime I came into money, those lessons.

Speaker 5 (16:16):
Always reverberated with me. I got to be disciplined. Can
I afford this was always a thing. Well I have enough?
What are my reserves going to be if I do
this or make this decision? So those things were shaped
from a decision that my parents made when I was
nine years old.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
But it's stuff with.

Speaker 1 (16:31):
Me and for those out there on the live stream,
I want you all to know that since we have
these two financial experts here, feel free to drop a
question in the chat if you have some things that you.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Want to know. No, they're not going to sit here
and explain the whole book to you. You got to
go out and buy it, all right.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
So, but I'm sure that I'm sure that happens to
you frequently, like when you guys are out and about,
like I'm sure people are always running up to you
be like hey man, like can you all share like
what that's like when people are like, hey, uh, you know,
I just invested in this in the video, Like can
y'all help me out?

Speaker 2 (17:08):
That's exactly what it sounds like.

Speaker 5 (17:09):
It's funny like when you when you were up, like
why did you write the book? It was probably because
of that, right, Like when we get stopped, it's hey man,
I appreciate everything you're doing.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
Kind just show you something really quick? Can you look
at my brokerage real quick?

Speaker 5 (17:20):
And it's like okay, which is great, Like that wasn't
a conversation five six years ago. Right, people would just
ordinarily show you how much they made their broken account,
which I think is incredible. The fact that they have
a broke account is great. The fact that they made
money inside of it is even better. But like the
book becomes like, hey, this is the blooper, how did
you get to this point? For the person who hasn't
it becomes a blueprint for it. So that's that's the

(17:42):
we appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Yeah, well, one of it's interesting that you you know,
you kind of brought up, you know, people's brokerages account
because I saw an interesting statistic and I would love
to get you all's perspective on this that in states
where sports gambling is more people gambled on sports then

(18:04):
put money in the stock market.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
I'm sure you guys have seen this probably statistic before.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
What does that say about America and or I should
say Americans and sort of how they're processing their financial
well being that more people are willing to put money
on a team than they are willing to invest in
their future.

Speaker 6 (18:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think it says a lot of
other times that we ain't gambling. It's always been a
big deal, but huge now so much money has important
to advertising, and sports betting specifically has just skyrocket over
the last five years. So people, you know, want to
change their situation quickly, and that's always been the lure

(18:47):
of gambling is that you can make money quick. So
you know, whether it's poker, whether it's blackjack, whether it's craps,
or whether it's you know, sports parl ads, right, it's
like it's one day turn around if you win. But
you know the problem with that is that obviously more
people lose and they win. So just reframing the way

(19:08):
that people think, I think it's important as far as
you know, that's not really a recipe or to build wealth,
as investing is. But investing is going to be a
longer halfway. It's not going to be you're going to
hit it and you know, double your money tomorrow. So
I think that, you know, it's just a matter of

(19:29):
really having more awareness, the same awareness that is given
to sports betting. You got to get that to invest in.
But ultimately, I think we live in a society where
instant gratification is what is desired, and that's a reflection
on sports play.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
John O'Brien I had him as a guest on his politics,
and he said something that kind of stayed with me.
He said that he thought financial literacy was the civil
rights movement of this generation. And and you know, again,
you all have been you've created this platform. Is you're
now six years or so, and people are still very
intimidated when it comes to investing and planning for the future.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
From where you all sit and from the.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Experiences that people have shared, and Troy, I start with you,
but I want you both to answer, what why are
people so sort of intimidated about stocks and about investing
in the future and what financial planning really looks like?

Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, I think it's the fairly unknown.

Speaker 5 (20:32):
It's not something that we've been educated on and something
that we haven't had conversation on. If you look at
your K through twelve experience, for most of us, you
never had an economics class, right, But people have to
make money and pay taxes and eventually get a job
at some point or create their own job.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
But you never taught that.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
And so the more common that we the more these
conversations become common, the better and more equipt will be.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
And we're seeing that change.

Speaker 5 (20:55):
It just hasn't happened at the exasperated rate that we've
seen other things, but it is happening. And the reason
why he said that is because we couldn't agree. More
like the last part of the Civil rights movement was
economic empowerment. Right when the leaders of the Civil rights
movement we're no longer here.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
What happened to that vision?

Speaker 5 (21:15):
And so we understand that power comes with finance, and
in order for us to get finance, we have to
democratize the vocabulary. We have to democratize the vernacular that
comes with it, and so we have a flair that
comes with it. Right, we understand that entertainment is a
part of it. We started teaching using music as a
caveat to get people into the understanding of business. And

(21:37):
so whether it was taking a Beyonce lyric about equity,
or was taking the Travis Scott lyric or Drake or
j lyric, we were going to tie that in and
teaching you students about business, entrepreneurship, investing, and they were
going to use the music as the artist as the
person that taught it to him. And so that became
something that was very fresh and that spread to the

(21:57):
masses of us teaching about education. You entertainment as I
guess the candy inside the medicine.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
And it's worked. And to the point now where you
realize that the.

Speaker 5 (22:06):
Topics that have been talked about and discussed on any
publication when it came to finance, you know, it was
spoken in the foreign language so that we would never
understand it until you have a few guys and a
movement now that has been able to decode that and
become neo in the matrix iner sense. For this financial
literacy thing, I think the most important thing now is
desperate literate, but now we need to become fluent so

(22:26):
everybody can take part in the conversation and uplift themselves
in their community.

Speaker 1 (22:33):
What Richard, what do you say are the common financial
mistakes that people kind of make, especially when they kind
of first start figuring out whether or not they want
to invest, you.

Speaker 6 (22:48):
Know, just not investing first and foremost thinking that you know,
you have to have a million dollars to actually start,
and delaying it and saying putting it off. Fascination is
a big thing, and then you know fomo investing at
the top. But you know, waiting to big coin gets

(23:09):
one hundred and ten thousand dollars and putting all your
money in and then it drops and then getting nervous
and then taking your money out. That happens a lot
with you know, whether it's bitcoin and video, whatever you
name it.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Like, you know, people.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
Ride the wave of public attention and you know, once
something becomes like a household name, and that's when they
want to you know, invest in it, and then like
I said, they get nervous, take the money out, and
then that's a recipe for disaster that cycle. Another mistake
that people make is not fully understanding what they're invested in.
So you know, every investment is not a good investment.

(23:44):
So you know, just investing in something because you saw
it on social media or you just your friend told
you about it, and you just think that that's that's
the reason why you should put money into it.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
That's not the best way to go about it either.

Speaker 6 (23:57):
So you should always be aware of knowledgeable research before
you put money into something. So, no, those are a
few mistakes I think that people make when it comes
to investment.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
We're living in a bit of a turbulent time right
now in this country. You know, we have tariffs that
are kicking in or being pulled back. Not really sure
which story of that to believe. When it comes to
Canada and Mexico, consumer confidence is dropping rapidly. We've seen
that all the games that have been made in the

(24:30):
stock market, I believe since the election had now been
erased because of the way that the stock market has fallen.
How would you say that we should be managing our
money right now as we try to weather these ups
and downs of this particular presidency.

Speaker 5 (24:52):
It's something earlier that we learned is always take advantage
of the crisis, right in the sense that when we
see pullbacks in the market, that's not an opportunity for
us to say, hey, we shouldn't participate. Is actually the
time where we should be looking like there is opportunity
because the things that used to run at it all.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
The time I have pulled back on to a correction level,
which is a twenty percent falling.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
But even if you look at it from a historical perspective,
right in the month of February, right the SMP has
pulled back historically eighty percent of the time. And so
we just came out of February March you start to
see an uptick in aprils. One of the best months
to invest in when you take that historical perspective and
then you look at the presidencies and how the market performs.

(25:32):
In the first year of a candidate taking office, there
is a little bit of uncertainty because it's a new
administration and there's going to be new legislation. And I
mean we're falling right into that, right when you're talking
about tariffs. One day, we're going to pull them for
thirty days and we'll see what happens after that. And
then there's a new country and we're renaming things and
we're putting an extra tariffs, and people don't do things

(25:53):
by April second. All this type of uncertainty leads companies
not to figure out what they're going to do on
a daily basis, and so you know they always use
that adage when you see something on sale in the store,
you run to buy it, right, But when we see
companies on sale, we get a fair for and run
away from them.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
I think it's an opportunity, right.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
If there's there's strong companies that you believe in, have
strong fundamentals, they have a brand, dominance, or a competitive mode,
you should be looking at a time like Okay, well,
this company is now put to a point that it
makes it attractive for me to invest for the long
term because we know historically that the market is going
to rebound. Right a two percent of the time that
SMP has been positive for the year, and so with

(26:31):
those type of numbers, you got to use that to
your advantage.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
What are your thoughts on that or shot?

Speaker 6 (26:37):
You know, it's it's a lot of uncertainty that women
right now, obviously, from the tariffs to Ukraine. It's a
variety of different things that's happening globally and markets usually
like you know, some stability, so there's going to be
a choppy road. I mean, you've got immigration that's that's
causing problems already, and there's no clear sign of what

(27:04):
will happen in the future because it's one day is
one thing, one day is another thing. So it's kind
of hard to plan when you don't know what to
expect for. So yeah, I mean long term, stock market
always goes up long term, and the housing market always
goes up long term, So I think it's important to
kind of be aware of what's going on politically for sure,
but also just you know, as a sports analogy, just

(27:29):
stick to the game plan, right like you can't. A
lot of variables out of your control, but stick to
the game plan. Investing in good companies. You know dollar
cost average, which is put money in every single month,
you know, continue to put money to that S one
hundred over the course of the time. That'll that'll be
helpful for you, That'll be beneficial. I don't think it's
the time to just start panicking, even though you know

(27:49):
it's it's a lot of uncertainty, but you still want
to maintain, you know, the game plan that you originally had.
And I think over the over the loan, hould you
be okay?

Speaker 1 (28:02):
As you know, one of the things, as I mentioned,
and as I you know, let me reiterate again to
people in the in the chat, is that if you
have a question for Rashot or Troy, make sure you're
dropping in the chat and I'll read it.

Speaker 3 (28:14):
And no eggar roach. The third you cannot get a
free copy.

Speaker 1 (28:16):
Of You Deserve to be Rich? Okay, So let me
just answer that one. I'm not gonna even put it
on the screen.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
No free copies of you Deserve to be Rich? Okay?

Speaker 1 (28:26):
All right, but any of you all if you have
a question or you know that you'd like to pose.

Speaker 3 (28:32):
Now would be a great time, you know to do it.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
One of the things you really, you guys both address
in your book is about developing healthier relationships with money.
What you know, what are some of the ways in
which if we do come from, you know, some sort
of financial trauma that we grew up, grew up with,
be it parents didn't have enough, didn't really weren't really

(28:57):
financially educated. What are some ways in which people can
develop a healthier relationship with their finances.

Speaker 6 (29:08):
I think, you know, living below your means is extremely important, right,
Understanding finances is important as well, so really, you know,
educating yourself on how credit actually works. People use credit
cover understand how credit actually work, like what actually makes
up a credit score. So understanding aspects of finance is important.

(29:30):
So understanding credit, understanding crypto, understanding stocks, on understanding real estate.
I think that that helps because the more you understand it,
then the less likely you are to make fools decisions
when it comes to you know, your credit or home
buying processes and stuff like that. So there's a bunch
of different resources. Of course, our platform, but other platforms

(29:51):
as well, you know SNBCE just read books, but understanding
it is extremely important. I think you know, that's really
the key is to understand finance, live below your means,
and as much as you can early and often.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
You know, that's that's really like the blueprint as far.

Speaker 6 (30:05):
As you have to increase your income over the course
of time, so that's done through either entrepreneurship, start side businesses,
or increasing your value so you can get more higher
wages in the workforce. Then living below your means, and
then taking the discretion of income, which is the difference
between how much money you spend and how much money

(30:27):
you make and invest that and then over the course
of time, that is how you build wealth. Right, that
difference that you invest is the money that you have
later on as a nest egg. So that's kind of
like the the easy, understandable, you know, blueprint for financial freedom,
and if you stick to that, you'll be okay. The

(30:47):
problem is, you know, it's a lot of obstacles that
come in away when it comes to that. But if
you just stick to that game plan, then that's that's
the pathway to success.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
All right, We're going to take a quick break and
we have more to come ons politics real quick before
I h it didn't mean to cut you off, Troy,
but before I get your answer.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
It's funny because as I was.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Reading your book, I realized I had not checked my
credit score years like I actually hadn't, and so I
was like, let me just go see what this credit
score is.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
Like I wouldn't worry, let me let me just put
that out out.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah, you know, I wasn't concerned that it was gonna
be low or anything like that. But it actually wound
up being a banner moment for me because you know, I,
especially in my twenties, I made I made some financial mistakes,
made some of my thirties two and then.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
Sort of rewrited the ship.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
And I was so proud of myself because for the
first time in my life, I had eight.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
Hundred credit and I didn't even know it. I had
no idea. I know, I was like, yes, I was like,
we did it.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
We didn't know.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
I was very excited about this.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
So I thank you all because you all gave me
a moment by reading your book. I was like, I
should check my credit score, So thank you for giving me.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
That that victory.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
So so go ahead and I.

Speaker 5 (32:22):
First want to congratulate you on the eight hundred club
that that is not something that is you know, common.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
Maybe y'all I knew, maybe y'all probably ain't new to
that club, but.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Like this is a locally ceremony. Yeah, I think just
to reiterate with Rashad said, I mean that that is
the game plan. I think addressing some of those traumas,
like we said at the beginning of the book, is
important to recognize the mistakes and what not to do right.
Sometimes understanding where you come from will sometimes determine how

(32:52):
far you get in financial space. But I think looking
at money as an asset and a tool is important too.
A lot of times, you know, we work for money
just to spend it. I think the end of the
book we even represent it is like use money as
a worker and not as a coupon to spend because
it's important, right every downar that we make should actually
go out and make more money and bring back to us.
And that's just a mindset shift that our community needs

(33:14):
to have. We've been over index on the consumer side.
We haven't invested at the numbers that we would like,
but we're seeing improvement. I think that's important and creating
a budget. A lot of people will say, I know
my budget, I know what it is. I can't spend
as much, but that means nothing, right, Like if there's
not a written out plan that's formulized, then you're just
doing stuff over hearsay. How much money are you bringing
in every month? How much money are you bringing in gearly?

(33:36):
How much money is going out? How much money is
be invested. Having that ratio will tell you like, okay,
well this is how much I need to put to invest,
Here's how much I need to have in reserves, and
here's much I may need to do for TAVE donations
as well. And so that blueprint gives you a roadmap
to follow, and as you accumulate more money then you
can shift and adjust those percentages.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
But having the baseline is important, all right.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
Gonna go to the audience real quick.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Tst Sports account has a question, and their question is
do you need to clear all debt.

Speaker 3 (34:09):
Before you start investing money? What say you all, I don't.

Speaker 6 (34:14):
Think you have to clear all your debt, but it's
definitely a priority. I think you should. You should, especially
credit card debt. So every debt is different. But like
speaking specifically to credit card debt. You should definitely have
it manageable. If the credit card debt is not manageable,
then that should be a top priority before investing. I think,
like really knocking down, it's a couple of different ways

(34:37):
snowball method. I think we go over that in the
book as well, But you should definitely prioritize lowering your
credit card debt for sure and at least having it
at manageable levels before investing, because if not, then you
kind of robbing Peter to paypall. You put money into
an investment, but you know, you might have twenty five

(34:57):
percent interest rate that you have to pay your credit
card commidents, defeating the purpose.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
You're not really gaining on that situation.

Speaker 6 (35:03):
So definitely always prioritize pay paying down and manage and
managing credit card debt for sure.

Speaker 5 (35:10):
Yeah, I think that that that's vitally important and just
just like speaking from like personal experience, uh, lower the
credit card debt, still has student loan debt, but still
found money to invest. I think when you rop you
to pay Paul, you become undisciplined, and it's like you
start making undisciplined decisions inside of your broker's accounting, it's like, well,
I have to make this payment, and then that's when

(35:30):
it becomes almost in a gambling scenario. I know people
like to say, like investing in gamble are the same thing,
and they're completely different, but they have similar tendencies. And
so when you start having risky your behavior, you'll start
making risk your decisions, which is actually going to hurt you. Man,
So when you don't have that level of debt that
you're trying to pay off that is super high, you're
gonna make more sound decisions that are actually going to

(35:52):
help you in the long term.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
Rashot this next question.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
I feel like it's really tailor made for you in
light of what's something that I know that you're doing
over in Ghana.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Any thoughts this is from Orlando.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Any thoughts on ethics and finance expats, for example, lots
of people leaving America to live abroad and it's been
lucrative for them.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
How ethical is it now? You right now?

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Currently you can correct me on the specifics, but you
are building a compound in Ghana?

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Is that what it is?

Speaker 3 (36:25):
City?

Speaker 1 (36:25):
Sorry not ad like, I didn't mean to make you
sound like a cult leader.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
My bag. You're building a city in Kina.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
I underbossed you like by a lot.

Speaker 6 (36:38):
Yeah, no compound, drink the cooler.

Speaker 1 (36:43):
But you are building in Ghina, building something significant, and
you know, much like this question is like, as you know,
when we take our money elsewhere, it tends to jack
up the prices for everywhere else. So one talk to
what you're specifically doing so I don't get that wrong again.
And what do you think about the idea that we
need to approach living overseas with the level of ethics.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
Yeah, I think it's important to go overseas first.

Speaker 6 (37:12):
A lot of people speaking and never even travel, so
it's hard to have a perspective from Instagram. Right. We
as far as African Americans haven't changed anywhere in the world, Like,
we haven't displaced any There's never been a record other
than Liberia, right, And that's a whole historical We can
go down that whole path if you're interested. But there's

(37:33):
never been a time in world history when black Americans
have traveled to other parts of the world and displaced
people and colonized. That's never happened in the history of
the world. So it's actually just a very it's a
conversation that doesn't even need to be had, because it's

(37:55):
like you're you're arguing about something that or even having
a conversation about something that's not even a relevant conversation
to have. Colonization and displacement comes from force, like real
force and real influence and real power. We don't have
enough power to control our own communities in America. How
we're gonna have enough power to go overseas? And we're

(38:18):
not organized enough to actually have a real thriving community
here in the United of America. You think we're gonna
be organized enough and have enough financial resources and enough
wherewithal to go through a different continent, a different country
and displace people. That's so ridiculous that it's almost laughable.
But social media can spend any narrative and just make

(38:38):
people believe anything. So there's plenty of opportunity all over
the world. When you go different places, nine times out
of ten you're adding to that. It's like immigrants that
come to this country. Ninety percent of the immigrants that
come to this country are adding to the value of
this country. They're working, they're paying taxes, they're getting a

(39:01):
joba right. So it's like you know, even fast we
go to Ghana, we welcome in Ghana. We work with
people from Ghana, like people that live in on Development
are Gayanaans right, Like they are welcoming Americas like, look,
we need the resource, we need your money to come
into That's how that's how you stimulate an economy. How
do you think is how do you think economies are stimulated?

(39:22):
Why do you think Saudi Arabia is spending billions of
dollars to bring outside resources into their country because they
understand that the oil is dwindling and that eventually they're
going to need some other form of stimulation for the economy.
They don't have enough people in Saudi Arabia to do it.
How do you think Dubai. You go to Dubai, ninety
percent of Dubai's population are not from Dubai. They're not

(39:43):
in Maordis. Of the people that's in Dubai not in Maurdis.
So but it goes back to education. So we really
got to do a good job of just educating the
audience because once again, a lot of it just comes
from ignorance of not having world experience, not fully understanding something.
And then you could just make a video on TikTok,

(40:04):
and then everybody will just say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't want to be part of a colonization. I
don't want to go and displace people. Like I said,
there's never been a time in world history when we
displaced anybody. So how are you gonna start now? So yeah,
I think you should. You should travel the world. You should,
you should. I mean, if you want to stay in America,
then that's that's fine too. But the world is big.

(40:24):
People complain about America, they complain about Trump, they complain
about everything. Well, nobody told you had to stay here.
If you hate it so much here and you got
so many issues here, you and you and you can't
see a pathway to become who you want to become here,
then go somewhere else. I mean, you're not limited. If
you limit yourself, that's your own problem. So I think

(40:44):
we definitely got to start thinking globally. Everybody's thinking globally.
It's not you can't. If you're think it's just domestic
right now, you're not. It's not gonna work for you.
It's not gonna happen. Were talking about artificial intelligence, We're
talking about so many different things that happen in the
world is moving so quickly. So if you have just
a domestic in a view on things, that's an American
problem too. Americans don't really know too much about other
parts of the world. Like go to we go to London.

(41:06):
The uber drivers is listening to world dukes. They're not
listening to music. They listening to the world dukes. Like
you don't got to be rich like you go to
other parts of the world. Poor people understand what's going
on in every part of the world. America, we only
know what's going on in our neighborhood. We don't even
know half the time. We don't even know that the
capital of our state that we live in. So we're
extremely uneducated when it comes to geopolitics. We're not we're

(41:29):
extremely ignorant when it comes to geopolitics, and that's unfortunately
becomes it actually comes from arrogance because we don't have
to learn about the world because we've been isolated for
so long. Like we do everything different in America. Every
part of the world used celsius, we use. Every part
of the world uses different measurement. We use miles. Every
part of the world use everything that we do in America.

(41:49):
They do different in every part of the world, and
every part of the world they know at least two languages,
and most Americans don't barely. Most Americans don't really know English,
to be honest with you, if you actually put them
through like twelfth grade English class, they would fail. Like
people can't really spell that good or you can read
that good. No, I'm being honest with you know you are.

Speaker 1 (42:08):
I mean our literacy rate I think in this country
is like a sixth grade level.

Speaker 6 (42:12):
We haven't mastered one language when the average part average
part they'll know two and three languages. So it's just
so much. Man, when you start to travel, you realize
that how spoiled we are in America, how ignorant we
are in America, and we really got to change that,
especially our community, because our only pathway to success is global.

(42:35):
Is global. We limited. You see everything they're cutting out.
Now you think you're going to have a better pathway
when every single program is getting cut there's no money.
So if you how would you not think globally? You
you set yourself up a failure. If you think you're
just going to become a billionaire in the United States
of America, as a black person.

Speaker 3 (42:52):
All right, a preacher Rashad, let me get.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
I was going to me get the the collection play
for you, but uh, to go over it though, what
what exactly are you doing?

Speaker 3 (43:07):
In God, you're building a city, but a residential neighborhood.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
So it's on four hundred acres of land and its apartments,
townhouses and villas. And then we also got commercial so
we're going to have a grocery store, pharmacy, vegan farm.
So it's a residential neighborhood. But with all the amenities
that you would have where you kind of ice, you
don't really even have to leave the situation, honestly. So yeah,

(43:34):
upscale luxury living and like I said, this for everybody.
So we're going to have Gaians as residents and whoever
else wants to come, it will be Americans British. The
ideas to blink coaches together. So you know, we're talking
about Pan Africanism for a long time, but a lot
of times it's just the words. So if you really
want to try to unite people from across the diasp,
but everybody knows the story how we got ripped the

(43:56):
park whatever so you know, this is an idea to
actually you know, bring bring the world together, bring the
West and bring bring Africa together and all in one
community where people can learn from each other. And the
idea was to actually create a community like not just
you know, I live here and then my next neighbor

(44:17):
is a mile down the road. That's why it's town road.
That's why it's townhouses, apartments in villas. Is that it's
a mix of different things. So it's it's it's meant
to actually know your neighbor. That's that's we gotta get
back to community. A lot of times, like we don't
even know who lives next door to us. That's not
something that's you know, sustainable for a community life. So

(44:38):
you know, that's something that we wanted to do. You know,
you look at every part of the world. We go
to travel we Dubai, you go to Paris, you go
to London. You see all these construction, all these different
people that's coming from Russia and all that stuff. So
it's like, why not have something like that in the
continent of Africa. That would be amazing, like you know,
to anybody that wants to come, but focus mostly on
it on local Africans and then people from a diaspora.

(44:59):
That's a that's the top priority. So you know, we
had developed a relationship with some developers out there in Ghana.
They already had the vision they had. That's another thing too,
people like they don't want African Americans, they don't want
black people, and that's just once again it's just based
out of ignorance. Like you know, we're working, we're working
with Dynaan's. I can't speak for every single guy name.
It's like I can't speak for every single African that's

(45:20):
in America. But we've only been welcome. We never had
any issue working with anybody, like we've only been welcomed,
very welcoming. And that was their idea. That was their
vision too. They wanted to bring people from America over
That's why it's so interesting. People like why are you
going over there? They wanted to bring people to America.
They like why they They're like why why they saying
these things? Like why why would they didn't understand it?

(45:41):
Like in Ghana, they like, why would they say that,
Like I don't understand. They like they don't underst they
don't know that the Lebanese came over and they owned
twenty five percent of the nightclub. They're like, they don't
understand that Italian's coming. They don't understand that China is
over here and they and they own all of it.
They was like reports they they're not concerned about yeah,
but they concerned about you, Like they like, why would

(46:02):
they why would they have a problem with that? I
don't understand.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
I want to dig a little bit more into how
you guys created Earn your Leisure. I know you guys
started off kind of teaching high schoolers like about financial
literacy and and you know, creating a program as you mentioned,
you know, for the youth so that they can understand
finances better. But what was the point where you all
realized that under Leisure, you know, it wasn't just a

(46:27):
class or it wasn't just sort of the singular thing,
that it was actually a movement.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
You know.

Speaker 5 (46:35):
It was early early on, you know, Shorty had built
up Instagram following and so people there was kind of
a demand for it.

Speaker 2 (46:42):
And then we shot our initial episodes.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
It was I remember like recording and saying like, man,
if we can get ten people to listen, if we
can get a hundred people listening. We get a thousand
people listening, we'd be great. That means like we got,
you know, an audience. And the first couple of episodes,
we started seeing those numbers like like multiply very quickly.
I think within the first two months we had about
twenty thousand listeners every week. I'm like, all right, there's
something here. And so we learned quickly like that is

(47:09):
going to be the foundation for everything we do. Everything
will be on your leision in terms of like the
tree that'll be the root, and anything we create will
be a branch from that tree.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
And so obviously when we.

Speaker 5 (47:18):
Were doing it, it's like, well, people are watching us
now because we're putting it on YouTube, so we need
to probably create a clothing brand inside of that, so
you get the apparel. People wanted more of an education
and right, and so we said, okay, well, if they
won't listen to it on the audio, right, what if
we create a university where we could have a hands
on where they could actually reach us and some of

(47:39):
our guests.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
So we built Earning Lesia University and then it was
a lot of events. Right.

Speaker 5 (47:43):
We took the music approach where they used to have
instores I know some of the kids like what is
then in store? Like when your favorite artists and entertainer
used to come to a store and you can.

Speaker 2 (47:53):
So we took that approach.

Speaker 5 (47:54):
We went to looked at our analytics and so were
the major cities that people will listen to us, and
we just decided do pop ups there just again to
engage audience, see or use the base was but it
told us like, hey, if three hundred people will show
up just to see us, then if we have a
lot of event maybe those same three hundred people will
actually pay to come see more information that even had

(48:15):
more value to their lives.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
And so that kind of worked and so that branch and.

Speaker 5 (48:19):
Once you start building a community, it feels like now
this is bigger than us, this is actually a movement.
You start seeing people executed on the information. So they
heard a vendor machine episode and then they started a
vending machine business. They listened to a real estate episode
and now they're building a real estate portfolio. They heard
about stocks and now they have brokenure accounts and your
meetings people on a daily basis.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
And then you hear that theme over and over. You
change my life. You changed my life.

Speaker 5 (48:44):
You changed my life that starts to feel like a
movement and you realize very quickly this is bigger than us.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
So we've been kind of I used to.

Speaker 5 (48:51):
Say, like we're flying a plane and building it at
the same time. But it was beautiful because people are
watching it happen in real time and now they're growing
with you. Which again talks about community, talks about family,
and talks about a movement that's been created.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
What would you say as you have you know, been
spearheading this movement for earn your leisure, how have you
all within this movement? How have you seen yourselves financially evolved?

Speaker 2 (49:18):
Yeah, I mean, you know, just.

Speaker 6 (49:21):
Learning about different stuff and investing in different things like
venture capital, you know, angel investing. We know, we've got
a variety of different startup companies that we've that we've
been able to invest in, and then you know, different
bigger scale projects like what we're doing in Ghana, you know,
entrepreneurial investing standpoints starting different companies. So yeah, definitely, you know,

(49:44):
start to uh, the more you're exposed to things and
the more education you have is going to broaden your
horizons and you know.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
Make you think about things a little differently.

Speaker 5 (49:54):
Yeah, I think another key things is the relationships that
we're able to puster, right, Like you I've been on
our show plenty of times.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
We were just at Cornegie Hall with Robert Smith.

Speaker 5 (50:04):
So the platform has given us an opportunity to meet
some of the people that we looked up to in
the world the business and finance, entertainment and have relationships
with them that are meaningful that we can use as
a resource. Right, Like we always say money is great,
but the relationships are far far more important. They can
open doors that money can't. And so like that piece
is the part that people have watched us from a

(50:26):
dining room table to sitting at Carnegie Hall for the
third year, which you know most people have never sat
and performed at with the one of the wealthiest men
that has ever been in American society.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
And so like that part is important.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
One of the things I definitely love about you All's
platform is that I'm exposed to what I call the
secret billionaires, like all these black people that are.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Making a lot of money. I was like, I had
no idea of like, oh okay, I.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Did not know of this person you know before you all,
you know sort of expose them. And I appreciate the
fact that you're showing us that despite what the media
messages that we may get that, there are a lot
of us that are out here making money, doing the
right things, understanding you know how to make the system
work for us. So I appreciate you guys for shedding

(51:13):
light on that. You mentioned relationships and one of the
things you talk about, and you deserve to rerich your book.
And again, if I sound like a broken record, I
intend to I know what it's like to sell a book.

Speaker 3 (51:23):
You all buy. You deserve to be rich.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Available wherever books are sold. We're a book sold everywhere, y'all.
Like it's like I feel like I've always did the
same people that Amazon, Bars and Noble. Of course, if
you know of a good black bookstore, buy from those,
especially independent local bookstore.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
It's very important that you do that.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
But one of the things you talk about, and I'm
finding myself in this space now in my own family,
is about having those conversations about finances with your parents,
and this has been This is tricky because we know
that the dynamic shifts is you know, eventually become the
parents of the parents, right, It's like especially like as

(52:03):
they get older. You know, I told my mom, you know,
to tell a personal story. Like, my mother, to my knowledge,
has never invested in anything, like, never invested in She
she thankfully like her house is paid off, but she's
never invested in stocks. And as a gift to her
me and my husband, you know, for a birthday, we said, hey,

(52:24):
here's a set amount of money we'll give you and
put it in the market. Now, this was maybe in
twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. Has my mother actually taken
us up on that?

Speaker 3 (52:35):
No, And you all know what she could have had
by now.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
And I mean the investment was ten thousand and so
what she could have had now versus just so she
could get in the habit of sort of building, you know, building.

Speaker 3 (52:49):
Her her wealth, if you will.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Because one of the things I love about your book
another thing is that it's not too late at any
age to do this right. But you find when you
have these conversations, and we weren't even asking her to
do anything risky. We were just like, hey, Edward Jones,
we set her up. You know, we have a financial
guy there. We were like, hey, you know, it'll be
very basic, little light mass you know some mutual funds

(53:13):
like nothing crazy right, and she just like she really
it was very hard to convince her to do it.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
And this again, as I said, she still hadn't done it.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
And I was like everyone Jones is one of the
most reputable financial you know.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Brokerage places out there.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
So uh, my long win, my long winded way of
asking is like, how do you or what are some
tips or tricks or tools or how do you have
these kind of conversations with your parents about their financial
planning when they come from a really traumatized financial generation.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
You know, how do you all do it?

Speaker 1 (53:47):
Because I know it's a lot of people out there
probably watching and who will be listening, who are having
who are in this same situation about how they can
get their parents to think a little bit you know,
I guess more wealthy about their wealth potential.

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Yeah, it's interesting even writing this book.

Speaker 5 (54:05):
My parents had the early version of it, and so
when they read it, they were like, why are you
telling all these stories?

Speaker 2 (54:12):
You know, because unpacking the trauma is important.

Speaker 5 (54:15):
But anytime I try to talk to them, I can
hear the fear, right, And so like having conversations when
you hear fear and knowing that we've been kind of
fearless on this journey. Kind of you but heads, I
think the most important thing that I've learned to be
is patient and walk them through it. And you know,
we've been doing early lead for six years. Market Money's

(54:35):
our investment show for about five years, and my parents
watched every episode. They watched every Monday, and they didn't invest.
They hadn't invested up until the last year.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
And so I helped their hand. I helped their hand.

Speaker 5 (54:48):
You know, obviously I have a lot of information, and
so I was patient enough to say, you know what,
I'm going to open your broker's account, right, I'm going
to show you how to invest.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
We're going to sit down and bought my mom a computer.

Speaker 5 (55:00):
Here's how you do it, here's how you log in,
here's your password, here's how you buy, here's how you sell.

Speaker 2 (55:06):
So my dad, you know, he took notes.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
My mom was kind of spareheaded, and again, which wasn't
wasn't foreign to me.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
But you got to hold that hand. You got to
be patient, and you got to be.

Speaker 5 (55:14):
Understanding that the unknown is very fearful. This is not
something that they're used to. Technology in itself, is something
that you know, they didn't grow up with, right, and
so investing with technology is even a scarier task.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
And so that's something I have to learn.

Speaker 5 (55:29):
And even with their planning for the future, right, like
who was supposed to do their state planning? You know
they watched the episode and realize that they didn't have one. Again,
that was like again using relationships, using your own resources,
and now sitting down and saying, Okay, here's how we're
going to do this, here's how it's set up, here's
the things we need to have.

Speaker 2 (55:46):
Let's get all our affairs in order.

Speaker 5 (55:48):
And sometimes you realize that like you were the child
and now you're the CEO of the family. And I
think we probably both sitting that seat as you know,
being the youngest of our parents should but now being
sort of the CEO because of information and relationships that
we have.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Any advice you want to add, Rashad, how to talk
to your parents about getting their money situation together?

Speaker 6 (56:13):
Yeah, I'm not thinking just anybody that's not you know,
well versed on finances and may be stuck in their ways.
You just gotta do a little bit of talent. Can't
like try to expect somebody that's been doing one thing
for sixty years to just do a complete one eighty right,
So it's just like you know, like show them some
results and just you know, have a conversation, show them

(56:33):
different videos stuff like that, like you know, just easing
you know, maybe even if it's a thousand dollars pope,
hundred dollars, right, it's just kind of like, you know,
you just gotta you gotta kind of do it one,
one step at the time. With somebody like that, as
opposed to somebody that's younger, they might just have one
podcast and just go all the way because they you know,

(56:55):
they they just they still in that mindset where they're
adopt the adapt Where somebody is older, they usually are
not adaptable.

Speaker 2 (57:03):
So to consideration, as.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
I mentioned a moment ago, as we see like young athletes,
those in college are getting they're making some big money
out here.

Speaker 6 (57:14):
Now.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
You know, when I covered college sports, you know the
dudes that pull into the to the parking lot at
the arena, the college kids, they was driving hooties.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
Now they're driving Lamborghinis. It all kind of crazy shit.
I'm like, wow, you know, way to get that money.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
But at the same time, as you know, all this
money comes with a lot of responsibility from I'm sure
you guys have had a number of conversations with athletes
about finances, and we have seen some of the horror stories.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
We've seen a lot of them.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
But as you look at these young athletes who now
have an opportunity to be millionaires in college and to
make all of this money, what are you all observing
in terms of how you feel like they're handling this
and what do you feel like they don't know but
they need to know.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
I love it. I think it's incredible. You know, we
grew up in that era where we watched you know,
like you said, the Fab five.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
Yeah, I can't imagine what the nil package like that.

Speaker 5 (58:15):
Story Chris reberco and Ford is his jersey, but it
was being sold in store in the university is making
money off of there. So we watched that for years.
So just to like in the words of Jay Z
pays like yours old years.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
That Jordas this is this is that.

Speaker 5 (58:28):
What I hope to see is the education piece, right,
like again K through twelve, how much financial education you're
getting and even in college, how much you're getting when
you're a seventh figure earner when you're nineteen twenty years old.
I would start there. I would hold it and encourage
them to educate themselves. If we look at a lot

(58:49):
of the athletes that we've seen over the course of
the past thirty years, there's been a common theme of
them being represented by someone who took advantage of them.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Right.

Speaker 5 (58:58):
And the only way for you to be taking advance
if you don't have a proper education or knowwal to
understand the process of business, right, because it is sports business,
and so you know, I just saw SGA fire his agent, right, Well,
like it's easy to negotiate a super Max deal, right,
we know the terms on that, and so more more players,

(59:20):
and you're starting to see it, are taking control of
their careers and taking to control of their finances. So
the education part is important. I think a tax professional
inside of their team is important. Right, That's the part
that nobody talks about. Yeah he made six million, but
yeah he lives in California, right, or she plays for
usc Right, So there's a there's a tax code that

(59:41):
they have to abide by when they're getting these endorsement deals,
and nobody talks something about that at that level, right,
because again, most of the times your parents didn't come
from a seven figure background, and so now you're the
first person, and how do we figure this piece out?

Speaker 2 (59:54):
So educate yourself.

Speaker 5 (59:55):
Surround yourself with a great team, definitely a tax professional,
and then learning ultra investments, like yes, you're a professional athlete,
and yes you're making money.

Speaker 2 (01:00:04):
Now how long is your career going to last?

Speaker 5 (01:00:06):
Some of these guys in college football right I'm looking
at them like this is great. They're not pro prospects.
And so you're making money in college at some of
these amazing universities. But what does your career look like
in five years when you're not playing football? So take
advantage of the time now and make smart investments and
educate yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
All Right, before I end every episode of politics, I
like to ask my guests a messy question. This is
when we create a headline. This is when y'all wind
up on the shade room. So I'm going to ask
a messy question and both of you have to answer this.
What is the stupidest thing you've ever purchased?

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
What was it? And how much did it cost?

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Stupidest Damar, listen, I still think about when I got
a refund check.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
When I was back in college and I bought a stereo.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
I think my refunt check was nine hundred dollars and
I bought a stereo one hundred and fifty dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
And I still to this.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Day think about why the hell did I buy a
seven hundred and fifty dollars stereo knowing that I'm want
to be broke?

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
The rest of this semester the.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Stupid and it was.

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
It was a turn, it was a I got a BMW.
It was the stupidest investment I made. I'll say that
it's similar to you. I was like, yo, I want
a BMW. You know, I'm Jamaican, so we loved BMW.
So I had to get one. And I think I
was making like fourteen hundred dollars a month, well maybe
last I think it was like twelve hundred dollars a month,

(01:01:35):
twel hundred dollars a month.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
I'm like back, went to the dealership. I'm like, yo,
I want this BMW.

Speaker 5 (01:01:41):
I'm like, yeah, drove it, let me have it, sat down,
did all the numbers. He was like it's going to
be five to seventy five a month. And I was like, okay,
let me have it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
So it was it was it was basically half your
income for.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
The of my income, but I did. It was a
six year finance. I was like, oh my gosh. After
a while, I'm like, oh, I could afford the payments,
but I can't afford the maintenance, right, because that's one
of the things on these four our cars. It doesn't
matter what year it is, the park stayed the same
and the prices stayed the same. And so it was
a two thousand and five and the year I got

(01:02:15):
it was two thousand and seven, so I was ready
two years. And then overtime that meeting, it'stance, meaning I
was like, what was I thinking?

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
Half of my income? That's ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
How did you get it? How did you get out
of it?

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
So I ended up this is crazy. I ended up
paying it off after a while. I obviously made more.
I was at that time I was a I think
I was a teacher assistant. By the time I finished
paying off, I was a teacher. So I made more money.
And then it didn't have like four wheel drive. And
if you live in New York, you live in the
trade and the snow, you're done. So I really couldn't
d so I was.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
Like, wait, you got a BMW that didn't that far.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Come on, this is a vulnerable moment.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
Man, You're right. No shame, No, we listened and we
don't free.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Yeah, I got it.

Speaker 5 (01:02:59):
I had a uh my daughter was blowing and I
was like, I can't be driving this snow like this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
So I got a truck and swapped it out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
All right, what about you, Versha, what's the stupidest thing
you ever bought?

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
And how much did it cost?

Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
I'm building a house right now, so that's probably stupid
thing to be determined. How this thing is gonna work
out eventually hopefully you know, there's be light at the
end of the tunnel once it's done. But that's definitely
some agretable decision for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
Building a house.

Speaker 6 (01:03:29):
Wow, Yeah, I wouldn't have I wouldn't advise anybody to
build the house.

Speaker 3 (01:03:39):
I was like, did you also do a new bill
to two hours of them?

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
My gosh, Okay, I slightly lied.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
Really, I'm gonna let you go after this.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
But I was just wondering because I didn't realize you
guys live that close to each other, so you work together,
you live very close to each other.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Y'all fight like do y'all do y'all have an argument? So,
like what I.

Speaker 5 (01:04:00):
Thought about this the other day, I don't. We've never
fought like we played in and we went to the
same high school, so we know each other since middle school.
I don't think we've ever thought. I've definitely seen fights,
but we've never thought.

Speaker 2 (01:04:16):
Do we argue? We dis more than argue. We disagree,
but I think we understand.

Speaker 5 (01:04:20):
There's a mutual respect for both sides, both perspectives, and
we're both pisces, so you know we're never wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
We just argue. To us, we just stopped it, and
nobody ever wins.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
Okay, because listen, we we've all seen way too many
behind the musics and and way too many documentaries, a
great great R and B groups that broke up, so.

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Like you know, I'm see them when I take out
the garbage, so we see right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Well, listen, Rasha and Troy, thank you all for joining me.
I really appreciate all your knowledge, all your insight. More importantly,
you guys have really changed lives with your platform, and
once again, everyone, by the.

Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
Book, you deserve to be rich. It really is a
stock full of gems.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
And not only that, you guys literally lay out a
blueprint about how people doesn't matter how much you're making
per year. Investments are not just for rich people. It's
for really every income level. And I think by you
all sharing people's personal stories about how they were able
to invest making forty thousand a year or fifty thousand

(01:05:26):
or sixty thousand, I think it's quite inspiring and gives
people the courage to actually try this, and you know,
to also kind of lose a lot of the financial
shame that either was passed down to us or that
we just carry in general thinking about the BMW that
we shouldn't have bought, or actually.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
To be honest, that wasn't my worst financial mistake. The
worst missake.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
The financial mistake I made was in real estate is
getting involved in trying to flip houses and didn't know
shit about will estate. That is definitely the worst investment
that I made. But that's that's for another podcast next time.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
I'm o you you all have more, have me back,
ask me about don't ever don't ever do that?

Speaker 1 (01:06:08):
Okay, all right, but no, your your your platform, your
knowledge has been extremely helpful, and so I encourage people
to check you all out. Definitely do market mondays, which
are extremely enlightening, helpful, and particularly for those who are
already investing, and definitely for those who want to invest.

(01:06:28):
So thank you all for joining me, and and good
luck with everything else you're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
All right, take care.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
One more segment to go, and you guys know what
that means. I got questions to answer up next, your
viewer slash listener questions, and I have plenty of answers
coming up next on the final segment of Spolatives. As

(01:06:59):
you all know, this is the point in the podcast
where I answer a question from you. But for this episode,
I wanted to make sure that I took some time
to acknowledge the passing of Junior Bridgeman, who died recently
at seventy one years old, and especially in light of
the bulk of this episode being about financial literacy. Now,
if your immediate thought was who, I won't judge you,
because junior story is one that should be shared as

(01:07:21):
often as possible, especially with today's NBA players. It's a
story in general that deserves to be passed down as
many times as possible. Now, Junior played in the NBA
for twelve years, starting in the mid nineteen seventies. He
was never a NBA All Star. I never won any
big significant NBA awards. So he did average thirteen point
six points per game on his career. It was considered
one of the best six men in the league. But

(01:07:42):
Junior's legacy is having one of the most successful post
sports careers ever.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
This is his most impressive stet.

Speaker 1 (01:07:50):
His total NBA career earnings were just shy of three
million dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:07:54):
After he finished his NBA career, he made over a
billion dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
In nineteen eighty eight, he invested seven hundred and fifty
thousand to buy five Wendys in Milwaukee, where he played
the majority of his NBA career. From there, he built
an empire where he once owned four hundred and fifty restaurants,
including over one hundred Wendy's and well over one hundred
Chiles franchises. Now, he sold a bunch of his restaurants
and became a bottling distributor for Coca Cola. He also

(01:08:19):
bought Jett and Ebony magazines out of bankruptcy. He also
had a ten percent stake in the Bucks from player
to owner. So I just want to salute Junior Bridgeman
for not only his success, but also for being someone
known to share his knowledge with other players, especially when
it came to financial literacy and building generational wealth.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Resting power and positivity. Junior.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Now, of course I love to take your question, so
if you have a question for me, you can hit
me up on social media or email.

Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
I'm at Jamail Hill.

Speaker 1 (01:08:48):
Across all social media platforms Twitter, Instagram, fan based, Blue Sky,
and threads, please use the hashtags politics. You also have
the option of emailing me as Politics twenty twenty four
at gmail dot com. You can also send me a
video of your question, but please make sure it's thirty
seconds or less. Don't forget to follow and subscribe to
Spolitics on iHeart and follow spolitics pod on Instagram and tiktoks.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
This politics is spelled s p O L I T
I c S.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
A new episode of Spolitics drops every Thursday on iHeart
Podcasts or.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
This is politics where sports and politics don't just mix,
they matter.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
Spolitics is the.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Production of iHeart Podcasts and The Unbothered Network. I'm your
host Jamel Hill. Executive producer is Taylor Chakoigne. Lucas Hymen
is head of audio and executive producer. Original music for
Spolitics provided by Kyle VISs from wiz FX