May 4, 2023 • 44 mins
In honor of Financial Literacy Month, Justice is joined by financial literacy campaigners, Anita McClasky and Emeka Onoba, to discuss the importance of taking control of your finances. Financial literacy is not just an option but a necessity, and the guests explain why all Americans need to feel empowered to be their own money managers. They dive into the basics of financial literacy, from building a strong foundation to understanding the wealth formula and how investing fits into the picture. The conversation touches on the counter-intuitive nature of not talking about money and why it's important to be your own spokesperson. Start building your financial foundation now, don't wait for the "right time," as Anita and Emeka stress the importance of patience and discipline in making smart financial decisions. Don't miss this informative and empowering episode on financial literacy!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
What Your Finance presented Say What Radio? All right, all right, all
right, we want to welcome youguys back to What the Finance, our
series on learning everything that is andcan be about finance. I know it's
(00:32):
been a while since we've actually beenon this particular podcast series. Got your
girl Justice here, and I havesome wonderful people here. If you guys
have listened to any of the otherSay What Radio Network episodes or shows,
you know that one thing that Iam very much endeared to is teaching and
doing my best to spread knowledge amongstpeople. So that is one of the
(00:57):
main reasons why I created this network. I wanted to be able to give
people the opportunities to be able totalk about things that they're passionate about and
also just kind of spread knowledge toothers. I always saw this as kind
of like a living library for allof those who are looking to talk about
their passions and just to educate others. And I was fortunate enough to run
(01:19):
into a wonderful person who is inthe finance world, and not only that
doing her part to bring financial literacyto everyone, she also brought along her
business partner to this episode with thisand I kid you not actually refers to
themselves as financial literacy hand painters.When I heard that, I was like,
(01:44):
that is perfect. That is exactlywhat we need in this day and
age for people to be able tobe out their campaigning for financial literacy.
I want to welcome Anita and aMecca to the show. How are you
guys tonight doing excellent? Thank you? Thanks for having us. Oh no,
no, thank you again. AsI said, Anita came into my
(02:06):
life at a point where I wasdoing as much as I can within one
of the companies that I worked forto be able to educate on diversity and
inclusion. So when she told meabout her love for financial literacy, I'd
always thought, you know, hey, she'd know, she'd be great to
have on the show. But whenshe spoke about this kind of like I
(02:27):
don't want to say it aside host, so kind of like our passion project,
let's say that for financial literacy withthis company, I was just like,
okay, we have to talk aboutit. And the first thing that
she said, she was like,oh, can my business partner, Mecca
come on. I was like,of course, So so with that,
can you tell us a little bitabout yourself and what brought you to this,
Anita, absolutely, thank you Jessicafor having us again. Are truly
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truly all excited to be here andmost importantly and everyone to know that April
is financial Literacy Month, so thetiming couldn't have been any better than this
month, and excited to share.You know, my thoughts are perspective around
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financial literacy and how it would benefiteach and everybody including you know I'm still
learning, so how it will benefiteveryone here or everyone listening on this postcast
today. So a little bit aboutmyself, I would say that I have
actually been in the in this space, meaning by share nature of my background
(03:35):
in accounting and finance for close totwenty years plus. I have been in
the space where I do understand certainfinancial concepts, but truly never understood how
it actually impacted my personal financial positionas an individual and you know how my
(03:57):
current position, how my financial yourposition trajectory into my retirement. I did
not have a clue and truly trulyunderstand my personal position. So that is
why I actually I became part ofthis organization WSB, which is Wealth System
Builders and the mission here is toamplify and teach, educate Americans about financial
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literacy so that Americans in the middleclass specifically can be empowered to be their
own money managers. That's saying thatfinancial literacy truly, it's not an option.
It is a necessity. Very trulyit is a necessity. But if
we see it as an option,we step back and don't do much.
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But it's truly a necessity for eachand every American so that you can become
your own money money manager, learnabout basic concepts, and that is w
The Wealth System Builder's an organization that'sgreat about financial literacy. So, like
I said, that's my background.I definitely have the accounting and finance background.
(05:10):
And like you already mentioned, we'vehad some great collaboration working together,
you know, um in in inin some companies that we did work together.
So I love the D and Ispace, but this, this particular
space just gives me so much joyand fulfillment when I get into the space
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to talk about financial literacy. Sothat's that's where that's why I started,
and that's you know, um that'swhy I am now. And I love
it over to you and no,it very it very much shows in your
your voice, your ever I mean, your effrofessing when you talk about this
stuff. So I know when youmet a Mecca, he had to be
(05:56):
just like, okay, just agoing away by this, if not more
as I was. Basically, yeah, absolutely definitely, I completely agree,
Jessica. And as for me,I'm a certified instructor, certified financial instructor
with our firm, a fully licensedadviser, but most importantly a proud campaigner.
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Like you said, I would aboutseventeen years a little over seventeen years
experience in the financial services industry.I'm married, I've got three kids,
my boys, my twin boys areseven years old. My daughter is four
going on fourteen, because she thinksshe runs this household, and I just
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love what we do. Like Anita, I echo her sentiment. You know,
one of the things that drew meto this enterprise was the empathy and
the approach around helping everyone, notjust the wealthy, but everyday people like
me. I was a broke collegestudent when I was hearing this information for
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the first time, and the factthat someone like me could be given access
to the information, but I providedguidance, given resources and tools and ideas
and concepts that were once reserved formaybe a certain class of people, but
me and being made available to everyone, including people like me. I was
(07:24):
humbled by that, and that wasone of the reasons why I decided to
get into industry and I've been hereever since. So that's a little bit
about me. Well, thank youfor that. I think a lot of
people are a little bit how shouldI put this, embarrassed to say that
they would need like any type ofhelp within the finance genre. And I
don't know why you don't hear thatabout anything else. As Anita so eloquently
(07:47):
put, being your own spokesperson withinthis is a necessity, and you know,
it's kind of like part of lifethat you have to do that.
But for some reason, within thefinances area, a lot of people just
tend to be like hush hushed whenit comes to it. Do you think
that comes from like a cultural standpointwhere people are just like, oh,
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you don't talk about your money likethat unless you have it or something,
or where do you think that typeof mindset comes from? You know,
I'll take a crack at this one. I think it largely has to do
with culture. I think most culturesshare a similar approach of not really talking
about money, and I can speakfor myself. Growing up in a third
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world country. I'm of Nigerian descent. I was born in Boston, Massachusetts,
and I was raised in Nigeria.I learned the language, the culture
was one of the best things myparents could have ever done for me.
But since coming from Nigerian moving here, I've also seen I've just observed just
in my interaction with people, youknow, where we don't even at work,
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right and you don't talk about yoursalary or what you earn, your
discourage from information. You know,everybody is kind of trying to, you
know, sizing up each other.There's the whole keeping up with the Joneses
kind of concept, and there's allthese things going on. I think that
make people insecure about where they mightbe financially, and they don't want the
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next person to know that because theyfeel like if the other person knew exactly
where they were financially, they mightthink less of them, you know,
or they might be embarrassed. Right. So I think because of that,
people generally try to stay away fromthat topic. And I think that's really
counterintuitive, honestly, very very much. So. I mean, it's similar,
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it's I mean you you hit thenail on the head earlier when you
were just saying that, you know, the things that you were able to
you know, understand and learn frombeing in the culture within Nigeria and things
like that, that you know,that was one of the best experiences that
you had. So being able toapply that as well to you know,
your finance, you were saying,humbled you just knowing and being able to
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be amongst those types of that educationit brings you. It open is up
your world. So it's just it'svery very counterintuitivent. You said that many
people will be like, well,no, don't talk about it, Like,
how do you think you're going tokeep up with the Jones You're not
learning from them? So exactly exactly. I mean to thyself first, be
true. That's always been my mantra, you know, be honest with yourself.
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And if there if there are people, if there are resources, if
there are platforms that can help youget ahead, why not embrace them.
Why shy away from them? Youknow, because here's what I know about
most people. Most people deep downwant to get ahead. Nobody ever plans
to fail. We just fail toplan. Okay, I think that most
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people want to get to a pointwhere money is no longer an obstacle.
However, we're doing the best thatwe can with what we know, and
with limited information and limited knowledge.What ends up happening is every day we're
faced with many choices and we keepmaking crucial financial decisions without the prerequisite knowledge.
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At some point we have to behonest with ourselves and say, you
know what I don't know, whatI don't know? You know, and
if I'm not able to learn fromthe mistakes I've made in the past,
if I'm not happy about where Iam and how I feel about where I
am, I have to do somethingproactively about that, as opposed to just
repeating the same thing right insanity likeyou if you will, like expecting a
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different result. So that's that wasa motivation for me, and I think
that that's the motivation for a lotof people who end up taking advantage of
our platform or getting into this industryor benefiting from this industry. So that's
just my thoughts on it. Okay, Yeah, I would just chime in
here. I totally agree. Fromthe culture perspective. Just like me,
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I grew up in Ghana in WestAfrica, and our culture actually handled we
use cash pretty much. It's acash we call it a cash and carry
system, right, So you haveto have you do everything with cash.
And because of because because you literallyhave to do everything with cash, buy
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everything with cash. Therefore you haveto treat cash. You have to treat
cash in a way that you preserveit, you take good care of it,
you don't share that information, youtake care of it so that nobody
would take your cash away. Right, So it's definitely a culture. And
then in a country like the UnitedStates and in you know, most most
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developed countries, we also believe inthe credit and the debt system, right,
which is great. It is great, but it also has its good
and bad. It has its goodand bad, right, And that is
why knowing and understanding the rules aroundmoney, how money works, it's very
important in the basis. Going backto the basis and learning about financial literacy
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would actually help you to be betterat managing you know, the debt and
the credits stuff. So again,the culture culture cultuck. But like America
mentioned, you don't know what youdon't know, so we always have to
be open to learn more about youknow, finance and pretty much on finance
one on one basics, So thathas to be ahead from a financial perspective.
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I love that. I love that, and actually let's let's let's get
into let's dive into that. Sincesince you know we're starting out a new
uh, this is financial literacy,what are like some basics or financial one
on one aspects that we can actuallylearn from, especially from WBS. That's
a great question when it comes tomoney or our approach. Fundamentally, we
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believe that before you talk about financialsecurity and financial independence, you must start
with a financial foundation. So that'sone of the very first things you will
learn in our workshops because every day, multiple times a day, Monday through
Friday, we conduct these workshops wherewe take a holistic approach to helping people
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understand money. Okay, not justkind of a one dimensional or one product
or No, we look at thewhole thing, from cradle to grave.
And the start of the series isall about building a solid financial foundation,
okay, just the same way youbuild your physical house, Jessica. And
the reason why it could be raining, snowing, storming outside and you feel
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safe and comfortable inside of your homeis because at least you believe that it's
been built on a very solid foundation. The structure is solid, your roof
is sound, your windows are solid, so you're not worried about what's happening
outside. But many people don't sharethat same sentiment when it comes to the
financial house. So I think forstarters is learning how to build a solid
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financial foundation. I believe it alsoincludes learning about the things like wealth formula.
If we are going to start takingpersonal responsibility for building this financial house
and building our financial future, thenwe must understand, like Anita alluded to,
the rules that govern money. Solearning about the wealth formula, the
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relationship, for example, between moneyand time and made of return and inflation
and taxes, and knowing how thosepieces interplay and how to use them in
the right amounts to get to whereyou need to be. That's important.
Learning about the X curve, Likethe X curve, the relationship between building
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wealth as well as protecting and reducingyour responsibilities over the long term. That's
important. Down to the rule ofseventy two. You know, understanding compounding
interests and how you can make moneyor how money working for you can be
powerful if you are on the rightside of interest and not on the wrong
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side of interest. So so theseare just a handful of ideas and concepts
that we share and people should definitelygive themselves a chance to learn and most
importantly apply as education. Like welike to say, without implementation, it's
actually a disaster, right, it'sit's it's it's a waste of time for
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everyone involved, frankly, because acquiringthe knowledge in and of itself is not
powerful. Is what we do withthat knowledge, that's what truly makes it
powerful. And but the starting pointis at least the acquisition of that knowledge.
And these are in my mind,some of the basic concepts that people
need to understand. I'd love that. I love that. And the um
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the rule regarding the compounding interests.I think that's very key because I think
a lot of people believe, orlet me let me say this, misconstrued
that when they have money that okay, that's just it. That's just much.
I have the money, that's it. Now you have to make that
money, you know, work foryou, and not necessarily just have it
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sitting there. Your your goal isto basically have that money just sitting there
compounding doing more in that you knowwhere it is in the bank or it
could be a CD whatever you've actuallyinvested in it, rather than you going
out thinking like, okay, letme invest in that, invest in this,
invest in that. I think alot of people believe that, oh
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um, real estate. I haveto do I have to play the stock
Murner, have to do this,I have to do that. And there
are some other, uh, youknow, strategies for you to be able
to make your money and real proJessica, before you know, we even
jumped the gun typically to start talkingabout strategies, investment strategies and vehicles.
That's why I started with and that'swhy we always start with the foundation,
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and you need to one to kindof expand on that. The foundation where
we build it from the ground upbecause we make we take certain things out
for granted, we make certain assumptions, you know that every day we can
get up, go to work,make money, put you know, an
invest in. But we have tothink what if what if we don't wake
up in the morning right and wepass away to so what if we do
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wake up but we can't work anymorebecause we've become critically ill or chronically ill
or triggered a long term care event. You know, I don't know if
anither you want to, you wantto maybe kind of just expand on not
just a little bit about why it'sso important to lay that foundation before talking
about you know, investing and allthat other stuff. Absolutely, thank you
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America. I think you actually dida great job explaining the proper foundation.
But just to add on here andMeca did mension. We need to have
a solid financial foundation. And justlike building a house, you must build
it from the ground. App Sowhen we when we talk about a foundation,
what do we mean building? Andif a solid foundation is to fify
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yourself or fortify your financial basis sothat if anything should crumble, you still
have the foundation to be able toget up and build back on. When
we talk about foundation, we talkabout proper protection. I know, you
know, folks go in it's like, hey, I need to investiate,
I need to investiate. Nope,that is not that is not what we
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teach. That is not what weeducate. That is not what we we
I mean teach people to focus on. We focus on the proper foundation where
they properly know what the levels orwhat is considered proper foundation. After having
the foundation, we move on todebt management, right, and that is
your next step about building that financialsound financial house. And then from debt
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management you go to emergency fund becausedebt management is like you have in the
bucket, and that is one ofour business. You know, a team
Inverse will share it's like having abucket and having a bucket with holes underneath,
so you are leaking water almost everytime you refill your bucket. So
there are waste and there are effectiveways to seal those holes so that you
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can manage your debt and then beable to build emergency fund. Now,
when you have secured emergency fund,then you go into the investment. So
it's like you know, like atear. And I know we are not
showing any we are not on video, but just you know from a pictoria
view, your foundation is the broadbasis and then it starts it starts up
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up to investment. So you folksneed to really understand what we mean by
a sound financial foundation. It doesnot start with talking about product, talking
about oh I need to invest inthis, I need to figure out that.
But again it all start with aproper foundation. And you know,
we talked about the needs to knowand understand the wealth formula right, we
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talked about the rule of serving tytwo. That was my my wi wow
moment. Rule of seventy two.The power of compounding, it is powerful.
If you could explain a little bit. We don't have to go into
great detail, but it's playing alittle bit on the rule of sevent two.
Okay, So what the rule ofsevento It's just a mathematical concept,
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right, and anybody who has thema math or you know, crack any
calculus or whatever it needs too.Who knows what may know what the rule
of seventy two is, but asto how it really implies to our financial
standing, what the rule of seventytwo is is if you take the constant
seventy two divided by your rate ofreturn, it would show you or it
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would equal the number of years anyinvestment or the number of years your money
would double. So let's take forsimple who mathematics. If you use seventy
two with and you put your money, If you put ten thousand somewhere and
it's giving you a rate of returnof four percent, you divide the constant
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seventy two by four percent, it'sgoing to take you eighteen years to double
your money. So if you usethe same rule of seventy two and if
you are getting a rate of returnof twelve percent, it's going to take
you six years to double your money. So this is real, the rules
about money. It's it's very powerfulbecause guess what if you put your money,
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you know, somewhere that generates onepercent, guess what, it's going
to take you seventy two years todouble your money. And if you put
your money somewhere that is you know, whether it's a liability or asset like
a credit card that has a rateof an interest of maybe twenty two percent,
your debt will be doubling. Soguess what. Different people in different
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levels of money are using it indifferent in diverse ways. You can use
it to bet out your financial position. But if you I'm not well edicated,
you would actually use it to toto I mean, shoot yourself in
the foot, if that makes sense. Oh oh, I've I know,
I've probably shot myself in the footwhen it comes to something. Oh man.
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And and I'm not I'm not ashamedto say that, because I think
that's one thing that people don't wantto, you know, do when they're
talking about their finance. Oh well, you know I made a mistake or
I bought this and it didn't turnout like that, or I did this
or did I've made some stakes whenit comes to finance, and I'm here
to say it. Yes, Yes, my name is Jessica. I've made
some all Jessica. We may weall have. And that's why I love
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this platform. That you know,we're not pre judged because of a spreading
background, or certain level of experienceor assets or any of that. We
come at least I can speak forme. I come from the very statistic
that we're trying to fix. Youknow, the wrong that we're trying to
right is where I came from.And I'm not ashamed to say it,
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because as long as the intention isto change, transform your life and lift
yourself out from the statistic right andbe on the right trajectory to become financially
secure and financially independent, hey,it's a wonderful journey to be on.
And I know that Anita talked aboutthe rule of seventy two purely as a
mathematical concept, which is what itis. But when you look at the
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implication and the application in real life, what tends to happen with most people,
right, including myself many years ago, is this we turn around and
with very limited financial knowledge, wewill put our money in places and in
vehicles where we don't fully understand taxes, inflation, by penalties, losses,
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and we think we are getting assets, but in reality, we're investing in
liabilities that we think are assets.And as a result, many times we're
barely earning one or two or fourpercent on our money. So our money
that's supposed to be growing for usis barely doubling at eighteen or every eighteen
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or twenty years. But then we'reso good at creating liabilities, right,
and in this high inflation environment,I mean, from the credit cards to
the student loans, card, mortgageyou can name, we're paying on debt
upwards of six eight, twelve percent, some credit cards twenty two percent right
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paid animals. So the debts aredoubling every three or four years, but
our wealth is barely limping along anddoubling every eighteen to twenty years. And
you can see, you know theproblem there and why most people are never
really able to get ahead, right, So just putting that into fective whereas
those who seem to be getting ahead, those who are financially aware and knowledgeable
(26:06):
and literate. Guess what, Theyare even able to leverage other people's money
or leverage debt, like if youknow what you're doing at one or two
percent, where that debt is barelydoubling every thirty or so years, and
they find the right opportunities, theright vehicles, the right assets that they
create to have their wealth growing everythree or four years or doubling every three
(26:30):
or four years. And as aresult, they're able to compound and speed
up the trajectory of growing their moneyand compressed time of doing it, all
the while, in some cases doingit with other people's money, not even
their own money. So it's prettyamazing when you start to understand how the
rule of seventy two works and theother concepts. Oh and one more common
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about this in case our audience iswondering, Man, there they're really using
some really you know, there aresome fancy terms here that I can't keep
up with. I want them toknow that we have a proprietary book.
It's complimentary, is titled Saving YourFuture. And everything that we've talked about
so far and anything that we probablywill talk about, they're in that book.
(27:15):
And as long as people are opento suspending an hour or two to
read the book, because I've heardit once said, right, if you
want to keep a secret, putit in a book, because people won't
read. Right. As long aspeople are open to reading this book,
Jessica, they can learn about thesecontints and have a resource to go back
to. We will have a linkto be able to have access to that
(27:37):
book within the description of this episode, So you guys can go ahead and
take advantage of that. And Iimplore you too. One thing that I
wanted to touch on was I knowfor most people, you know, age
is always like it's supposed to beindicative of you becoming an adult. And
I can say for myself that whenI became, like, say, for
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instance, twenty five, and Istill felt like a kid. I had
no idea about money, about things, credit or whatnot. And as you
said before, in this day andage, with the way things are,
just everything is so expensive and itseems like they've thrown out all of these
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options that buy now, pay later, just everywhere, and it's enticing to
a young person. What financial advicewould you give to a young person who's
listening right now, is probably goinglike, whoa, you know, I
really want to buy that. Iwant to treat myself to you know,
something like that. But they maybe, you know, not in the
best place financially for well, letme take a step at that and with
(28:41):
very a short answer. You cannotafford to wait, so start now.
You cannot afford to wait, sostart now, right. You can't afford
to even wait because you know agebefore you know, you are already and
you're trying, you're trying to planfor a time, and then you know
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the implication of toxics, inflation andso on, so you cannot fall to
wait. Start now, laying aboutfinancial medication, become your own money manager,
I mean, build a solid financialfoundation, grow and protect your financial
future. So it's playing simple words, start now. I love that,
(29:26):
no chaser, She's just like,we're going at it. Start now,
Yeah, And I think I needto specifically, speaking from the perspective of
building the foundation, that it willtaste to start building. Well, start
now. The earlier, the bettertime is really the asset, especially when
you don't have a lot of money, because like she said, I mean
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you click, you blink, andten years has gone by. I mean
I was listening to this for thefirst time. I was twenty five years
old. You know, today I'mforty two, and if I close my
eyes long enough, I feel liketwenty five was just yesterday, you know.
And that's how quickly you know,I was just there minding my business.
And then you know, seventeen yearslater, I'm married with three kids
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and all this stuff. So that'show prickly time can fly. So start
now. However, from the perspectiveof the enticement or the appeal of having
stuff now, like I would say, it's discipline and patients are really virtues
that you want to have, thatyou want to work on and have as
(30:33):
strengths all right in your corner.It really is a good thing to know
that you can practice delayed gratification,that you can work towards something and enjoy
the fulfillment of having earned that thingthat you worked for, as opposed to
this microwave economy where you can justhave something now and pay as you go
or pay for it later, notrealizing the costs, what interest has cost
(30:56):
me, the opportunity cost of havingthat stuff now. Many times the stuff
that we're even chasing after to have, right now for most people, not
all are not even things that service. There are things that hurt us.
We're only getting them because we thinkwe will impress people, or we're doing
it to feed out fuel our ownego or you know. So what I'm
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getting with this is, you know, growing up, I remember growing up
back home in Nigeria. You know, if you wanted something, you saved
for it, and once you savedup enough money for that stuff and you
went to go get it. Manytimes you even have to think two,
three, four times before actually makingthat purchase because you know how hard you
worked to save up that money,and you're like, man, do I
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really want to part with this inone goal just for this? Is that
really that important anymore? You know? And so there are tools, there
are vehicles, there are resources inour arsenal that we make available to people
so that they can earmark certain purchases, whether it's to travel, maybe it's
to buy your first home, maybeit's to purchase your your car, a
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dream car, or maybe it's tooum safe for college, or just even
have an emergency fund. There areindeed practical vehicles that we make available that
they can leverage earmark these different goals, have the different objectives outlined, and
have a timeline for each goal,and then just work your plan, you
know, and when you get there. Hey, the fulfillment and knowing that
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you earned that purchase or that expenseis much better than having it right now
and then dealing with the consequence ofpaying for it, paying sometimes two or
three times more what you got itfor, you know, over the months
and over the years. So that'sjust another angle I just wanted to throw
at it. Oh, Mecca,you just you took me to church on
that one when you when you whenyou say when you said, we're doing
(32:54):
it to empress people or feed ouregos, like oh, through yourself is
like me, even if you're talkingabout me, trust me, we've all
been there. We've all been there. So I'm speaking from the experience too.
So and and a quick one too, you know. I mean,
(33:15):
not that the information is out there, you know, we don't have an
excuse ignorance. It's not an excuse, right, So it's it's about you
know, people being disciplined and alsotaking advantage of information around financial literacy.
Again, April is financial literacy,man. We are all of other plays,
(33:35):
you know, trying to amplify financialliteracy and you know folks to plug
in and the platform of you know, well system Builder. It's a great
platform that shows all these tools andhelp people to start and you know,
gain moved from financial insecurity to financialindependence through financial education. I love that.
(33:58):
I love that and I know forme, and similar to what Michael
was saying, and once you've takenthe time to build up your discipline and
in trying to say for what youwant, by the time you actually have
it and you're like, should Ireally do that? It made me remember
and I'm gonna ask you guys ifyou've done anything just as silly or crazy.
(34:22):
I was when tea poor when Ibought my first house, and I
was very very proud of that fact. But when it came time for I
believe it was the h A duesand I bought my house in October.
January came. They were like,oh, yeah, hra A dudes or
here again? But wait what whatum? I just hade this? They
(34:45):
were like, yeah, that wasthere last year. I was like.
I was like, okay, soI had my little stash and I paid
that, but the stash was gonnago towards a little girl's trip that we
were going to do, and Iwas like, okay, I also want
to. This is before we hadyou know, door Dash and Uber Eats
and all the rest stuff, butwe did have online shopping still and I
(35:07):
was I was a partaker of theonline shopping. So my thing was electronics
and I would I was like,you know what, I am going to
save and build up my my mystash again before I do anything, because
I'm going on this trip and nothing'sgoing to stop me. So for myself,
I am not the tallest person outthere. I'm like, I mean,
(35:30):
I could really like drown in arain drop. So I had one
of my brothers put a debit cardon the refrigerators and it was like at
the back of the refrigerate, itcouldn't be real like at the you know,
at the top. So it's justlike it's there, so I'm not
messing with it. And I rememberhaving a moment of weakness because I saw
a sail and I remember it tothis Dave was on Tiger Direct. I
(35:52):
saw ourselves or something that I wanted, and I was just like, oh,
I'm going to go get it.The battle I had trying to get
up and get the deal. Iwas like, you know, this isn't
worth it, and if somebody couldsee me right now, this is not
something I want to do. I'mgonna just leave it there. And I'm
not I kid you not. Ihad filled up that stash and had forgotten
(36:14):
all about that debit card at alater date, and by the time that
I had thought about it again togo get it, I had actually doubled
what I was supposed to put inthere. So I was very proud of
myself, and it was it wassad that I had to go to that
extent, but it did teach mesomething. It made me feel good over
time for that. Yes, andthere's something about just having like putting money
(36:37):
out of sight, out of mind. You know, it's not a coincidence
that my uncle Sam has taxes deductedfrom my people's paychecks before they actually received
their net income because they had experimentedpreviously with people paying them. In fact,
today many people who end up owingtaxes sometimes they struggle with paying the
taxes back because hey, if youdon't have a way of automating the savings,
(37:01):
automating putting that money away, you'llend up, there'll there'll always be
a vacuum, there will be somethingto try to pull that money from you
and to spend it on. Soa similar way, you know, having
a routine way of kind of puttingmoney aside, not even seeing it out
of sight, out of mind.It's such a wonderful feeling when you know,
you check a balance and say,oh my god, I didn't realize
(37:22):
I had this much money saved up. And then you're even because of how
well that how good that feeling is, you're even more reluctant to just turn
around and go just blow that moneyor spend it either because you know what
went into you know, creating thatand building up that stash. But here's
(37:43):
one more thought I want to offeron the topic of you know, being
proactive and you know, saving orworking towards something. We're not against having
stuff, okay, We're not againstpeople having enjoying the good life and enjoying
you know, all the good thingsthat light has to offer. All we're
saying is the practicing delayed gratification earlierand playing the game that the wealthy play,
(38:07):
which is creating assets first. Youknow, can you have a foundation
built and you have the bulk ofyour money earlier on working for you,
so that you create assets that,in turn, if done right, are
generating you in a passive, residual, recurring manner, money that you can
now use to go and get someof that stuff. Then it's different versus
(38:30):
training time for the money that you'regoing to go used to get that stuff,
because inevitably that's what now creates.You know, a situation where if
you lost your job, if youhad an emergency, if the income stopped
coming in or the money stopped comingin, then you're in jeopardy. You
know, you're in your destitute,You're in a difficult position. So again,
(38:52):
just want to let the audience knowhaving good stuff is not We're not
against that. In fact, wewant you to be able to be the
position where you can enjoy the finerthings in life and done the right way.
And I think it all starts withbeing financially literate, actually educated,
lay your foundation, averaging and implementingthe concepts so that you can indeed enjoy
(39:14):
those things. Your peace of mind. I love that. I love that,
Anita. I wanna give the lastword to you. What what would
you like to have? Parting wordsto our wonderful audience. This has been
an amazing conversation. By the way, I want to I want to thank
you guys for this. Every timeI talk to you, I'm learning something
(39:35):
and it's just like, you know, feeling like being in school again,
just from just from chats and notnecessarily even in the workshop. So you
know, guys, I'm talking tothe audience that if you're taking taking up,
taking them up on their resources thatthey have available, you're gonna learn
a lot from them. But Anita, I'll pass it off to you.
(39:57):
Oh yeah, so um, AndI'm going to, you know, wrap
it up by saying, you know, small changes make big money, right,
small changes? We can make smallchanges to make big money. I
mean, what if you can makesmall changes in your spending habit and start
saving, start saving and it canbe as little as ten dollars a day
(40:22):
three hundred dollars a month. Ittakes consistency and discipline to get there.
Discipline and consistency are the key.Can you cut down on things like soda,
cigarette, Lackey's, cable TV games, new gadgets. I know you
(40:44):
said you are a gadget lady,shopping, driving in a nice guy.
Hey, we love the good thingsin life, right, eating out,
partying, you know, every weekend, and start saving a discipline and consistent
now so that you can to enjoythe finest sense in life in the future.
(41:04):
Yes. Oh, that is agreat place to end this on.
And I'm really really sad that weactually have to go, but I thank
the both of you for coming onand just going over this. It's it's
such a great topic. So manypeople are out there with the desire to
do better when it comes to thefinances, but it seems like it's a
(41:24):
fantasy to them. It's just like, well that's for somebody else to do,
because you know, I need everydollar, every cent that I have.
And just as Anita said, smallchanges start and with the what a
Mecca said, there are those instanceswhere you're trying to do feed your ego
about something and you just don't realizethat at that point, discipline and just
(41:46):
that patience over time really does goa long way. And I want everyone
to go and take a look atthe resources that we have available within the
description. I believe you said thatthere are some workshops that are available as
well. If you could give alittle bit of info on like timeframe or
(42:06):
where they can find this absolutely onour website www dot World system builder dot
com. That's at world as inthe Worldwide Web that system okay. And
then builder like you know, abuilder of a house, so again World
system builder dot Com anywhere in theworld, as long as you've got an
(42:29):
Internet connection and a device to connect. On the workshop menual workshop menu on
the top and you hover over that, it will take you to our workshops
link and on that you'd see everymonth month in month out every weekday Monday
through Friday, with the exception ofWednesday. We conduct these workshops three times
(42:51):
a day. Right, you canregister any particular workshop that interests you and
get the email at a particular thatparticular date and time and then jump on.
Okay. And so that's the wayJessica, that they can or they
can also reach out to us.I know we're going to provide you with
our personal details. After this,they can also send us an email or
(43:14):
reach out and we'd be able toprovide them direct information at that time on
those workshops or any other workshops beingheld outside of the scheduled times. Okay.
I wanted to offer that any anyanything I'm missing Anita regarding viting them
this, yeah, I think youwould. I mean that's a part of
information there at their Wealth system Buildersite. Tools that helps people to determine
(43:40):
their you know, the rik's number, you know, tools around that management.
So it's very very interactive. Soyep, definitely we urge people to
actually go to the site and um, you know, take a look and
also take advantage of the workshop inthe community. All Right, I again,
(44:00):
thank you guys for coming on.This has been what the finance and we're out
What Your Finance presented Say What Radio? All right, all right, all
right, we want to welcome youguys back to What the Finance, our
series on learning everything that is andcan be about finance. I know it's
(00:32):
been a while since we've actually beenon this particular podcast series. Got your
girl Justice here, and I havesome wonderful people here. If you guys
have listened to any of the otherSay What Radio Network episodes or shows,
you know that one thing that Iam very much endeared to is teaching and
doing my best to spread knowledge amongstpeople. So that is one of the
(00:57):
main reasons why I created this network. I wanted to be able to give
people the opportunities to be able totalk about things that they're passionate about and
also just kind of spread knowledge toothers. I always saw this as kind
of like a living library for allof those who are looking to talk about
their passions and just to educate others. And I was fortunate enough to run
(01:19):
into a wonderful person who is inthe finance world, and not only that
doing her part to bring financial literacyto everyone, she also brought along her
business partner to this episode with thisand I kid you not actually refers to
themselves as financial literacy hand painters.When I heard that, I was like,
(01:44):
that is perfect. That is exactlywhat we need in this day and
age for people to be able tobe out their campaigning for financial literacy.
I want to welcome Anita and aMecca to the show. How are you
guys tonight doing excellent? Thank you? Thanks for having us. Oh no,
no, thank you again. AsI said, Anita came into my
(02:06):
life at a point where I wasdoing as much as I can within one
of the companies that I worked forto be able to educate on diversity and
inclusion. So when she told meabout her love for financial literacy, I'd
always thought, you know, hey, she'd know, she'd be great to
have on the show. But whenshe spoke about this kind of like I
(02:27):
don't want to say it aside host, so kind of like our passion project,
let's say that for financial literacy withthis company, I was just like,
okay, we have to talk aboutit. And the first thing that
she said, she was like,oh, can my business partner, Mecca
come on. I was like,of course, So so with that,
can you tell us a little bitabout yourself and what brought you to this,
Anita, absolutely, thank you Jessicafor having us again. Are truly
(02:53):
truly all excited to be here andmost importantly and everyone to know that April
is financial Literacy Month, so thetiming couldn't have been any better than this
month, and excited to share.You know, my thoughts are perspective around
(03:14):
financial literacy and how it would benefiteach and everybody including you know I'm still
learning, so how it will benefiteveryone here or everyone listening on this postcast
today. So a little bit aboutmyself, I would say that I have
actually been in the in this space, meaning by share nature of my background
(03:35):
in accounting and finance for close totwenty years plus. I have been in
the space where I do understand certainfinancial concepts, but truly never understood how
it actually impacted my personal financial positionas an individual and you know how my
(03:57):
current position, how my financial yourposition trajectory into my retirement. I did
not have a clue and truly trulyunderstand my personal position. So that is
why I actually I became part ofthis organization WSB, which is Wealth System
Builders and the mission here is toamplify and teach, educate Americans about financial
(04:26):
literacy so that Americans in the middleclass specifically can be empowered to be their
own money managers. That's saying thatfinancial literacy truly, it's not an option.
It is a necessity. Very trulyit is a necessity. But if
we see it as an option,we step back and don't do much.
(04:46):
But it's truly a necessity for eachand every American so that you can become
your own money money manager, learnabout basic concepts, and that is w
The Wealth System Builder's an organization that'sgreat about financial literacy. So, like
I said, that's my background.I definitely have the accounting and finance background.
(05:10):
And like you already mentioned, we'vehad some great collaboration working together,
you know, um in in inin some companies that we did work together.
So I love the D and Ispace, but this, this particular
space just gives me so much joyand fulfillment when I get into the space
(05:31):
to talk about financial literacy. Sothat's that's where that's why I started,
and that's you know, um that'swhy I am now. And I love
it over to you and no,it very it very much shows in your
your voice, your ever I mean, your effrofessing when you talk about this
stuff. So I know when youmet a Mecca, he had to be
(05:56):
just like, okay, just agoing away by this, if not more
as I was. Basically, yeah, absolutely definitely, I completely agree,
Jessica. And as for me,I'm a certified instructor, certified financial instructor
with our firm, a fully licensedadviser, but most importantly a proud campaigner.
(06:18):
Like you said, I would aboutseventeen years a little over seventeen years
experience in the financial services industry.I'm married, I've got three kids,
my boys, my twin boys areseven years old. My daughter is four
going on fourteen, because she thinksshe runs this household, and I just
(06:40):
love what we do. Like Anita, I echo her sentiment. You know,
one of the things that drew meto this enterprise was the empathy and
the approach around helping everyone, notjust the wealthy, but everyday people like
me. I was a broke collegestudent when I was hearing this information for
(07:02):
the first time, and the factthat someone like me could be given access
to the information, but I providedguidance, given resources and tools and ideas
and concepts that were once reserved formaybe a certain class of people, but
me and being made available to everyone, including people like me. I was
(07:24):
humbled by that, and that wasone of the reasons why I decided to
get into industry and I've been hereever since. So that's a little bit
about me. Well, thank youfor that. I think a lot of
people are a little bit how shouldI put this, embarrassed to say that
they would need like any type ofhelp within the finance genre. And I
don't know why you don't hear thatabout anything else. As Anita so eloquently
(07:47):
put, being your own spokesperson withinthis is a necessity, and you know,
it's kind of like part of lifethat you have to do that.
But for some reason, within thefinances area, a lot of people just
tend to be like hush hushed whenit comes to it. Do you think
that comes from like a cultural standpointwhere people are just like, oh,
(08:07):
you don't talk about your money likethat unless you have it or something,
or where do you think that typeof mindset comes from? You know,
I'll take a crack at this one. I think it largely has to do
with culture. I think most culturesshare a similar approach of not really talking
about money, and I can speakfor myself. Growing up in a third
(08:28):
world country. I'm of Nigerian descent. I was born in Boston, Massachusetts,
and I was raised in Nigeria.I learned the language, the culture
was one of the best things myparents could have ever done for me.
But since coming from Nigerian moving here, I've also seen I've just observed just
in my interaction with people, youknow, where we don't even at work,
(08:48):
right and you don't talk about yoursalary or what you earn, your
discourage from information. You know,everybody is kind of trying to, you
know, sizing up each other.There's the whole keeping up with the Joneses
kind of concept, and there's allthese things going on. I think that
make people insecure about where they mightbe financially, and they don't want the
(09:11):
next person to know that because theyfeel like if the other person knew exactly
where they were financially, they mightthink less of them, you know,
or they might be embarrassed. Right. So I think because of that,
people generally try to stay away fromthat topic. And I think that's really
counterintuitive, honestly, very very much. So. I mean, it's similar,
(09:33):
it's I mean you you hit thenail on the head earlier when you
were just saying that, you know, the things that you were able to
you know, understand and learn frombeing in the culture within Nigeria and things
like that, that you know,that was one of the best experiences that
you had. So being able toapply that as well to you know,
your finance, you were saying,humbled you just knowing and being able to
(09:54):
be amongst those types of that educationit brings you. It open is up
your world. So it's just it'svery very counterintuitivent. You said that many
people will be like, well,no, don't talk about it, Like,
how do you think you're going tokeep up with the Jones You're not
learning from them? So exactly exactly. I mean to thyself first, be
true. That's always been my mantra, you know, be honest with yourself.
(10:18):
And if there if there are people, if there are resources, if
there are platforms that can help youget ahead, why not embrace them.
Why shy away from them? Youknow, because here's what I know about
most people. Most people deep downwant to get ahead. Nobody ever plans
to fail. We just fail toplan. Okay, I think that most
(10:39):
people want to get to a pointwhere money is no longer an obstacle.
However, we're doing the best thatwe can with what we know, and
with limited information and limited knowledge.What ends up happening is every day we're
faced with many choices and we keepmaking crucial financial decisions without the prerequisite knowledge.
(11:01):
At some point we have to behonest with ourselves and say, you
know what I don't know, whatI don't know? You know, and
if I'm not able to learn fromthe mistakes I've made in the past,
if I'm not happy about where Iam and how I feel about where I
am, I have to do somethingproactively about that, as opposed to just
repeating the same thing right insanity likeyou if you will, like expecting a
(11:24):
different result. So that's that wasa motivation for me, and I think
that that's the motivation for a lotof people who end up taking advantage of
our platform or getting into this industryor benefiting from this industry. So that's
just my thoughts on it. Okay, Yeah, I would just chime in
here. I totally agree. Fromthe culture perspective. Just like me,
(11:46):
I grew up in Ghana in WestAfrica, and our culture actually handled we
use cash pretty much. It's acash we call it a cash and carry
system, right, So you haveto have you do everything with cash.
And because of because because you literallyhave to do everything with cash, buy
(12:07):
everything with cash. Therefore you haveto treat cash. You have to treat
cash in a way that you preserveit, you take good care of it,
you don't share that information, youtake care of it so that nobody
would take your cash away. Right, So it's definitely a culture. And
then in a country like the UnitedStates and in you know, most most
(12:28):
developed countries, we also believe inthe credit and the debt system, right,
which is great. It is great, but it also has its good
and bad. It has its goodand bad, right, And that is
why knowing and understanding the rules aroundmoney, how money works, it's very
important in the basis. Going backto the basis and learning about financial literacy
(12:54):
would actually help you to be betterat managing you know, the debt and
the credits stuff. So again,the culture culture cultuck. But like America
mentioned, you don't know what youdon't know, so we always have to
be open to learn more about youknow, finance and pretty much on finance
one on one basics, So thathas to be ahead from a financial perspective.
(13:18):
I love that. I love that, and actually let's let's let's get
into let's dive into that. Sincesince you know we're starting out a new
uh, this is financial literacy,what are like some basics or financial one
on one aspects that we can actuallylearn from, especially from WBS. That's
a great question when it comes tomoney or our approach. Fundamentally, we
(13:43):
believe that before you talk about financialsecurity and financial independence, you must start
with a financial foundation. So that'sone of the very first things you will
learn in our workshops because every day, multiple times a day, Monday through
Friday, we conduct these workshops wherewe take a holistic approach to helping people
(14:07):
understand money. Okay, not justkind of a one dimensional or one product
or No, we look at thewhole thing, from cradle to grave.
And the start of the series isall about building a solid financial foundation,
okay, just the same way youbuild your physical house, Jessica. And
the reason why it could be raining, snowing, storming outside and you feel
(14:31):
safe and comfortable inside of your homeis because at least you believe that it's
been built on a very solid foundation. The structure is solid, your roof
is sound, your windows are solid, so you're not worried about what's happening
outside. But many people don't sharethat same sentiment when it comes to the
financial house. So I think forstarters is learning how to build a solid
(14:54):
financial foundation. I believe it alsoincludes learning about the things like wealth formula.
If we are going to start takingpersonal responsibility for building this financial house
and building our financial future, thenwe must understand, like Anita alluded to,
the rules that govern money. Solearning about the wealth formula, the
(15:15):
relationship, for example, between moneyand time and made of return and inflation
and taxes, and knowing how thosepieces interplay and how to use them in
the right amounts to get to whereyou need to be. That's important.
Learning about the X curve, Likethe X curve, the relationship between building
(15:37):
wealth as well as protecting and reducingyour responsibilities over the long term. That's
important. Down to the rule ofseventy two. You know, understanding compounding
interests and how you can make moneyor how money working for you can be
powerful if you are on the rightside of interest and not on the wrong
(15:58):
side of interest. So so theseare just a handful of ideas and concepts
that we share and people should definitelygive themselves a chance to learn and most
importantly apply as education. Like welike to say, without implementation, it's
actually a disaster, right, it'sit's it's it's a waste of time for
(16:22):
everyone involved, frankly, because acquiringthe knowledge in and of itself is not
powerful. Is what we do withthat knowledge, that's what truly makes it
powerful. And but the starting pointis at least the acquisition of that knowledge.
And these are in my mind,some of the basic concepts that people
need to understand. I'd love that. I love that. And the um
(16:45):
the rule regarding the compounding interests.I think that's very key because I think
a lot of people believe, orlet me let me say this, misconstrued
that when they have money that okay, that's just it. That's just much.
I have the money, that's it. Now you have to make that
money, you know, work foryou, and not necessarily just have it
(17:06):
sitting there. Your your goal isto basically have that money just sitting there
compounding doing more in that you knowwhere it is in the bank or it
could be a CD whatever you've actuallyinvested in it, rather than you going
out thinking like, okay, letme invest in that, invest in this,
invest in that. I think alot of people believe that, oh
(17:29):
um, real estate. I haveto do I have to play the stock
Murner, have to do this,I have to do that. And there
are some other, uh, youknow, strategies for you to be able
to make your money and real proJessica, before you know, we even
jumped the gun typically to start talkingabout strategies, investment strategies and vehicles.
That's why I started with and that'swhy we always start with the foundation,
(17:52):
and you need to one to kindof expand on that. The foundation where
we build it from the ground upbecause we make we take certain things out
for granted, we make certain assumptions, you know that every day we can
get up, go to work,make money, put you know, an
invest in. But we have tothink what if what if we don't wake
up in the morning right and wepass away to so what if we do
(18:15):
wake up but we can't work anymorebecause we've become critically ill or chronically ill
or triggered a long term care event. You know, I don't know if
anither you want to, you wantto maybe kind of just expand on not
just a little bit about why it'sso important to lay that foundation before talking
about you know, investing and allthat other stuff. Absolutely, thank you
(18:37):
America. I think you actually dida great job explaining the proper foundation.
But just to add on here andMeca did mension. We need to have
a solid financial foundation. And justlike building a house, you must build
it from the ground. App Sowhen we when we talk about a foundation,
what do we mean building? Andif a solid foundation is to fify
(19:00):
yourself or fortify your financial basis sothat if anything should crumble, you still
have the foundation to be able toget up and build back on. When
we talk about foundation, we talkabout proper protection. I know, you
know, folks go in it's like, hey, I need to investiate,
I need to investiate. Nope,that is not that is not what we
(19:23):
teach. That is not what weeducate. That is not what we we
I mean teach people to focus on. We focus on the proper foundation where
they properly know what the levels orwhat is considered proper foundation. After having
the foundation, we move on todebt management, right, and that is
your next step about building that financialsound financial house. And then from debt
(19:48):
management you go to emergency fund becausedebt management is like you have in the
bucket, and that is one ofour business. You know, a team
Inverse will share it's like having abucket and having a bucket with holes underneath,
so you are leaking water almost everytime you refill your bucket. So
there are waste and there are effectiveways to seal those holes so that you
(20:15):
can manage your debt and then beable to build emergency fund. Now,
when you have secured emergency fund,then you go into the investment. So
it's like you know, like atear. And I know we are not
showing any we are not on video, but just you know from a pictoria
view, your foundation is the broadbasis and then it starts it starts up
(20:40):
up to investment. So you folksneed to really understand what we mean by
a sound financial foundation. It doesnot start with talking about product, talking
about oh I need to invest inthis, I need to figure out that.
But again it all start with aproper foundation. And you know,
we talked about the needs to knowand understand the wealth formula right, we
(21:03):
talked about the rule of serving tytwo. That was my my wi wow
moment. Rule of seventy two.The power of compounding, it is powerful.
If you could explain a little bit. We don't have to go into
great detail, but it's playing alittle bit on the rule of sevent two.
Okay, So what the rule ofsevento It's just a mathematical concept,
(21:27):
right, and anybody who has thema math or you know, crack any
calculus or whatever it needs too.Who knows what may know what the rule
of seventy two is, but asto how it really implies to our financial
standing, what the rule of seventytwo is is if you take the constant
seventy two divided by your rate ofreturn, it would show you or it
(21:51):
would equal the number of years anyinvestment or the number of years your money
would double. So let's take forsimple who mathematics. If you use seventy
two with and you put your money, If you put ten thousand somewhere and
it's giving you a rate of returnof four percent, you divide the constant
(22:11):
seventy two by four percent, it'sgoing to take you eighteen years to double
your money. So if you usethe same rule of seventy two and if
you are getting a rate of returnof twelve percent, it's going to take
you six years to double your money. So this is real, the rules
about money. It's it's very powerfulbecause guess what if you put your money,
(22:36):
you know, somewhere that generates onepercent, guess what, it's going
to take you seventy two years todouble your money. And if you put
your money somewhere that is you know, whether it's a liability or asset like
a credit card that has a rateof an interest of maybe twenty two percent,
your debt will be doubling. Soguess what. Different people in different
(22:59):
levels of money are using it indifferent in diverse ways. You can use
it to bet out your financial position. But if you I'm not well edicated,
you would actually use it to toto I mean, shoot yourself in
the foot, if that makes sense. Oh oh, I've I know,
I've probably shot myself in the footwhen it comes to something. Oh man.
(23:22):
And and I'm not I'm not ashamedto say that, because I think
that's one thing that people don't wantto, you know, do when they're
talking about their finance. Oh well, you know I made a mistake or
I bought this and it didn't turnout like that, or I did this
or did I've made some stakes whenit comes to finance, and I'm here
to say it. Yes, Yes, my name is Jessica. I've made
some all Jessica. We may weall have. And that's why I love
(23:53):
this platform. That you know,we're not pre judged because of a spreading
background, or certain level of experienceor assets or any of that. We
come at least I can speak forme. I come from the very statistic
that we're trying to fix. Youknow, the wrong that we're trying to
right is where I came from.And I'm not ashamed to say it,
(24:14):
because as long as the intention isto change, transform your life and lift
yourself out from the statistic right andbe on the right trajectory to become financially
secure and financially independent, hey,it's a wonderful journey to be on.
And I know that Anita talked aboutthe rule of seventy two purely as a
mathematical concept, which is what itis. But when you look at the
(24:37):
implication and the application in real life, what tends to happen with most people,
right, including myself many years ago, is this we turn around and
with very limited financial knowledge, wewill put our money in places and in
vehicles where we don't fully understand taxes, inflation, by penalties, losses,
(24:59):
and we think we are getting assets, but in reality, we're investing in
liabilities that we think are assets.And as a result, many times we're
barely earning one or two or fourpercent on our money. So our money
that's supposed to be growing for usis barely doubling at eighteen or every eighteen
(25:19):
or twenty years. But then we'reso good at creating liabilities, right,
and in this high inflation environment,I mean, from the credit cards to
the student loans, card, mortgageyou can name, we're paying on debt
upwards of six eight, twelve percent, some credit cards twenty two percent right
(25:40):
paid animals. So the debts aredoubling every three or four years, but
our wealth is barely limping along anddoubling every eighteen to twenty years. And
you can see, you know theproblem there and why most people are never
really able to get ahead, right, So just putting that into fective whereas
those who seem to be getting ahead, those who are financially aware and knowledgeable
(26:06):
and literate. Guess what, Theyare even able to leverage other people's money
or leverage debt, like if youknow what you're doing at one or two
percent, where that debt is barelydoubling every thirty or so years, and
they find the right opportunities, theright vehicles, the right assets that they
create to have their wealth growing everythree or four years or doubling every three
(26:30):
or four years. And as aresult, they're able to compound and speed
up the trajectory of growing their moneyand compressed time of doing it, all
the while, in some cases doingit with other people's money, not even
their own money. So it's prettyamazing when you start to understand how the
rule of seventy two works and theother concepts. Oh and one more common
(26:52):
about this in case our audience iswondering, Man, there they're really using
some really you know, there aresome fancy terms here that I can't keep
up with. I want them toknow that we have a proprietary book.
It's complimentary, is titled Saving YourFuture. And everything that we've talked about
so far and anything that we probablywill talk about, they're in that book.
(27:15):
And as long as people are opento suspending an hour or two to
read the book, because I've heardit once said, right, if you
want to keep a secret, putit in a book, because people won't
read. Right. As long aspeople are open to reading this book,
Jessica, they can learn about thesecontints and have a resource to go back
to. We will have a linkto be able to have access to that
(27:37):
book within the description of this episode, So you guys can go ahead and
take advantage of that. And Iimplore you too. One thing that I
wanted to touch on was I knowfor most people, you know, age
is always like it's supposed to beindicative of you becoming an adult. And
I can say for myself that whenI became, like, say, for
(27:57):
instance, twenty five, and Istill felt like a kid. I had
no idea about money, about things, credit or whatnot. And as you
said before, in this day andage, with the way things are,
just everything is so expensive and itseems like they've thrown out all of these
(28:17):
options that buy now, pay later, just everywhere, and it's enticing to
a young person. What financial advicewould you give to a young person who's
listening right now, is probably goinglike, whoa, you know, I
really want to buy that. Iwant to treat myself to you know,
something like that. But they maybe, you know, not in the
best place financially for well, letme take a step at that and with
(28:41):
very a short answer. You cannotafford to wait, so start now.
You cannot afford to wait, sostart now, right. You can't afford
to even wait because you know agebefore you know, you are already and
you're trying, you're trying to planfor a time, and then you know
(29:04):
the implication of toxics, inflation andso on, so you cannot fall to
wait. Start now, laying aboutfinancial medication, become your own money manager,
I mean, build a solid financialfoundation, grow and protect your financial
future. So it's playing simple words, start now. I love that,
(29:26):
no chaser, She's just like,we're going at it. Start now,
Yeah, And I think I needto specifically, speaking from the perspective of
building the foundation, that it willtaste to start building. Well, start
now. The earlier, the bettertime is really the asset, especially when
you don't have a lot of money, because like she said, I mean
(29:47):
you click, you blink, andten years has gone by. I mean
I was listening to this for thefirst time. I was twenty five years
old. You know, today I'mforty two, and if I close my
eyes long enough, I feel liketwenty five was just yesterday, you know.
And that's how quickly you know,I was just there minding my business.
And then you know, seventeen yearslater, I'm married with three kids
(30:10):
and all this stuff. So that'show prickly time can fly. So start
now. However, from the perspectiveof the enticement or the appeal of having
stuff now, like I would say, it's discipline and patients are really virtues
that you want to have, thatyou want to work on and have as
(30:33):
strengths all right in your corner.It really is a good thing to know
that you can practice delayed gratification,that you can work towards something and enjoy
the fulfillment of having earned that thingthat you worked for, as opposed to
this microwave economy where you can justhave something now and pay as you go
or pay for it later, notrealizing the costs, what interest has cost
(30:56):
me, the opportunity cost of havingthat stuff now. Many times the stuff
that we're even chasing after to have, right now for most people, not
all are not even things that service. There are things that hurt us.
We're only getting them because we thinkwe will impress people, or we're doing
it to feed out fuel our ownego or you know. So what I'm
(31:18):
getting with this is, you know, growing up, I remember growing up
back home in Nigeria. You know, if you wanted something, you saved
for it, and once you savedup enough money for that stuff and you
went to go get it. Manytimes you even have to think two,
three, four times before actually makingthat purchase because you know how hard you
worked to save up that money,and you're like, man, do I
(31:40):
really want to part with this inone goal just for this? Is that
really that important anymore? You know? And so there are tools, there
are vehicles, there are resources inour arsenal that we make available to people
so that they can earmark certain purchases, whether it's to travel, maybe it's
to buy your first home, maybeit's to purchase your your car, a
(32:04):
dream car, or maybe it's tooum safe for college, or just even
have an emergency fund. There areindeed practical vehicles that we make available that
they can leverage earmark these different goals, have the different objectives outlined, and
have a timeline for each goal,and then just work your plan, you
know, and when you get there. Hey, the fulfillment and knowing that
(32:28):
you earned that purchase or that expenseis much better than having it right now
and then dealing with the consequence ofpaying for it, paying sometimes two or
three times more what you got itfor, you know, over the months
and over the years. So that'sjust another angle I just wanted to throw
at it. Oh, Mecca,you just you took me to church on
that one when you when you whenyou say when you said, we're doing
(32:54):
it to empress people or feed ouregos, like oh, through yourself is
like me, even if you're talkingabout me, trust me, we've all
been there. We've all been there. So I'm speaking from the experience too.
So and and a quick one too, you know. I mean,
(33:15):
not that the information is out there, you know, we don't have an
excuse ignorance. It's not an excuse, right, So it's it's about you
know, people being disciplined and alsotaking advantage of information around financial literacy.
Again, April is financial literacy,man. We are all of other plays,
(33:35):
you know, trying to amplify financialliteracy and you know folks to plug
in and the platform of you know, well system Builder. It's a great
platform that shows all these tools andhelp people to start and you know,
gain moved from financial insecurity to financialindependence through financial education. I love that.
(33:58):
I love that and I know forme, and similar to what Michael
was saying, and once you've takenthe time to build up your discipline and
in trying to say for what youwant, by the time you actually have
it and you're like, should Ireally do that? It made me remember
and I'm gonna ask you guys ifyou've done anything just as silly or crazy.
(34:22):
I was when tea poor when Ibought my first house, and I
was very very proud of that fact. But when it came time for I
believe it was the h A duesand I bought my house in October.
January came. They were like,oh, yeah, hra A dudes or
here again? But wait what whatum? I just hade this? They
(34:45):
were like, yeah, that wasthere last year. I was like.
I was like, okay, soI had my little stash and I paid
that, but the stash was gonnago towards a little girl's trip that we
were going to do, and Iwas like, okay, I also want
to. This is before we hadyou know, door Dash and Uber Eats
and all the rest stuff, butwe did have online shopping still and I
(35:07):
was I was a partaker of theonline shopping. So my thing was electronics
and I would I was like,you know what, I am going to
save and build up my my mystash again before I do anything, because
I'm going on this trip and nothing'sgoing to stop me. So for myself,
I am not the tallest person outthere. I'm like, I mean,
(35:30):
I could really like drown in arain drop. So I had one
of my brothers put a debit cardon the refrigerators and it was like at
the back of the refrigerate, itcouldn't be real like at the you know,
at the top. So it's justlike it's there, so I'm not
messing with it. And I rememberhaving a moment of weakness because I saw
a sail and I remember it tothis Dave was on Tiger Direct. I
(35:52):
saw ourselves or something that I wanted, and I was just like, oh,
I'm going to go get it.The battle I had trying to get
up and get the deal. Iwas like, you know, this isn't
worth it, and if somebody couldsee me right now, this is not
something I want to do. I'mgonna just leave it there. And I'm
not I kid you not. Ihad filled up that stash and had forgotten
(36:14):
all about that debit card at alater date, and by the time that
I had thought about it again togo get it, I had actually doubled
what I was supposed to put inthere. So I was very proud of
myself, and it was it wassad that I had to go to that
extent, but it did teach mesomething. It made me feel good over
time for that. Yes, andthere's something about just having like putting money
(36:37):
out of sight, out of mind. You know, it's not a coincidence
that my uncle Sam has taxes deductedfrom my people's paychecks before they actually received
their net income because they had experimentedpreviously with people paying them. In fact,
today many people who end up owingtaxes sometimes they struggle with paying the
taxes back because hey, if youdon't have a way of automating the savings,
(37:01):
automating putting that money away, you'llend up, there'll there'll always be
a vacuum, there will be somethingto try to pull that money from you
and to spend it on. Soa similar way, you know, having
a routine way of kind of puttingmoney aside, not even seeing it out
of sight, out of mind.It's such a wonderful feeling when you know,
you check a balance and say,oh my god, I didn't realize
(37:22):
I had this much money saved up. And then you're even because of how
well that how good that feeling is, you're even more reluctant to just turn
around and go just blow that moneyor spend it either because you know what
went into you know, creating thatand building up that stash. But here's
(37:43):
one more thought I want to offeron the topic of you know, being
proactive and you know, saving orworking towards something. We're not against having
stuff, okay, We're not againstpeople having enjoying the good life and enjoying
you know, all the good thingsthat light has to offer. All we're
saying is the practicing delayed gratification earlierand playing the game that the wealthy play,
(38:07):
which is creating assets first. Youknow, can you have a foundation
built and you have the bulk ofyour money earlier on working for you,
so that you create assets that,in turn, if done right, are
generating you in a passive, residual, recurring manner, money that you can
now use to go and get someof that stuff. Then it's different versus
(38:30):
training time for the money that you'regoing to go used to get that stuff,
because inevitably that's what now creates.You know, a situation where if
you lost your job, if youhad an emergency, if the income stopped
coming in or the money stopped comingin, then you're in jeopardy. You
know, you're in your destitute,You're in a difficult position. So again,
(38:52):
just want to let the audience knowhaving good stuff is not We're not
against that. In fact, wewant you to be able to be the
position where you can enjoy the finerthings in life and done the right way.
And I think it all starts withbeing financially literate, actually educated,
lay your foundation, averaging and implementingthe concepts so that you can indeed enjoy
(39:14):
those things. Your peace of mind. I love that. I love that,
Anita. I wanna give the lastword to you. What what would
you like to have? Parting wordsto our wonderful audience. This has been
an amazing conversation. By the way, I want to I want to thank
you guys for this. Every timeI talk to you, I'm learning something
(39:35):
and it's just like, you know, feeling like being in school again,
just from just from chats and notnecessarily even in the workshop. So you
know, guys, I'm talking tothe audience that if you're taking taking up,
taking them up on their resources thatthey have available, you're gonna learn
a lot from them. But Anita, I'll pass it off to you.
(39:57):
Oh yeah, so um, AndI'm going to, you know, wrap
it up by saying, you know, small changes make big money, right,
small changes? We can make smallchanges to make big money. I
mean, what if you can makesmall changes in your spending habit and start
saving, start saving and it canbe as little as ten dollars a day
(40:22):
three hundred dollars a month. Ittakes consistency and discipline to get there.
Discipline and consistency are the key.Can you cut down on things like soda,
cigarette, Lackey's, cable TV games, new gadgets. I know you
(40:44):
said you are a gadget lady,shopping, driving in a nice guy.
Hey, we love the good thingsin life, right, eating out,
partying, you know, every weekend, and start saving a discipline and consistent
now so that you can to enjoythe finest sense in life in the future.
(41:04):
Yes. Oh, that is agreat place to end this on.
And I'm really really sad that weactually have to go, but I thank
the both of you for coming onand just going over this. It's it's
such a great topic. So manypeople are out there with the desire to
do better when it comes to thefinances, but it seems like it's a
(41:24):
fantasy to them. It's just like, well that's for somebody else to do,
because you know, I need everydollar, every cent that I have.
And just as Anita said, smallchanges start and with the what a
Mecca said, there are those instanceswhere you're trying to do feed your ego
about something and you just don't realizethat at that point, discipline and just
(41:46):
that patience over time really does goa long way. And I want everyone
to go and take a look atthe resources that we have available within the
description. I believe you said thatthere are some workshops that are available as
well. If you could give alittle bit of info on like timeframe or
(42:06):
where they can find this absolutely onour website www dot World system builder dot
com. That's at world as inthe Worldwide Web that system okay. And
then builder like you know, abuilder of a house, so again World
system builder dot Com anywhere in theworld, as long as you've got an
(42:29):
Internet connection and a device to connect. On the workshop menual workshop menu on
the top and you hover over that, it will take you to our workshops
link and on that you'd see everymonth month in month out every weekday Monday
through Friday, with the exception ofWednesday. We conduct these workshops three times
(42:51):
a day. Right, you canregister any particular workshop that interests you and
get the email at a particular thatparticular date and time and then jump on.
Okay. And so that's the wayJessica, that they can or they
can also reach out to us.I know we're going to provide you with
our personal details. After this,they can also send us an email or
(43:14):
reach out and we'd be able toprovide them direct information at that time on
those workshops or any other workshops beingheld outside of the scheduled times. Okay.
I wanted to offer that any anyanything I'm missing Anita regarding viting them
this, yeah, I think youwould. I mean that's a part of
information there at their Wealth system Buildersite. Tools that helps people to determine
(43:40):
their you know, the rik's number, you know, tools around that management.
So it's very very interactive. Soyep, definitely we urge people to
actually go to the site and um, you know, take a look and
also take advantage of the workshop inthe community. All Right, I again,
(44:00):
thank you guys for coming on.This has been what the finance and we're out
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