Mindset Matters

entrepreneur and this is my weekly ministry of Hope. I promote the Black Coffee Company at the twenty twenty four Black Effect Podcast Festival, which happened a couple months ago here in Atlanta, the moral capital of America, and the

Black Coffee Company. I was introduced there by Charlemagne by God and because he hosted the whole thing obviously, and he featured them, and specifically, Nicky Sparrow of iHeartRadio walked me over and said, you've got to meet these brothers, and she was not wrong, and I was very impressed with them. First, they're five founders, and they weren't playing games with each other. They weren't ego tripping. They weren't trying to argue about who had the bigger title, or

who was going to speak to me or not. They weren't playing crab in the barrel. They weren't rolling their eyes at each other, or flipping each other off, or playing silly games. And as simple as this sounds, this is a miracle. A camel is a horse designed by committee. And if you got people working together who are not emotionally stable, who are not normal, to be normal is sort of apt normal these days, increasingly, if you're not dealing with stable people, you're going to have an unstable

everything else, And everything compounds. Success builds on itself. You build wealth in your sleep, you make money doing the day. Heard me say that before. And failure compounds, It builds on itself. You've heard me say, if you hang around nine broke people, you'll be the tenth. I'm going to break down in this podcast episode the Ministry of Hope, the Ministry of Finance. This week mindset matters, and I invested. I'm sorry, Operation Hope. Hope Ventures specifically invested twenty five

thousand dollars into the Black Coffee Company in Atlanta. Yes they've got a great product, Yes it tastes good, Yes it's delicious, but they also are well run. Best I can tell they're doing it the right way. I'm not in there. I've not been into the depths of their books and records, So I'm not endorsing all of that, but I am saying based on what I saw, I

was impressed enough. And for the first time in thirty two years, Operation Hope through Hope Ventures, made a direct investment at a four hundred and fifty thousand semi black businesses that we've nurtured, supported, inspired, created, advanced through the one Million Black Business Initiative one MBB in partnership with Shopify. This is the only time I reached in and actually

put direct capital into a business. We've had banks finance businesses and we've helped We've had lawyers and attorneys and everybody. All this is good stuff, right, but they were raising capital and I just thought it was a good bet to give them a little bit of a jolt. So we did that, and I went and spoke at their black coffee black tie event recently in the last few days. Was so inspired, just confirmed that we made the right decision.

And I think that day have the capacity of going across the nation and across the world with a brand because they're not black for a living, they're great. They're good business people who happen to be black, and a good product that happens to be produced by black people, not a black business or black product. You know, I'm getting sort of off on a thing here. But only black folks put we get emotional about this stuff. We

put black owned business in the window. Right. You don't see folks Jewish people putting Jewish owned business in the window, or Latino owned business the window, or white owned business in the window. Right, Indian owned business in the window, Asian owned No, just African Americans. We're saying. You know, unconsciously, what you're saying is anybody but black folks, don't. You may be a little uncomfortable walking up in here. You're

in a green business. You're not a black business. You're a green business in the US at least or wherever you are. You're the color of that currency in the US, the color is green. And you want everybody to come in your business. You want to then take that currency, that income that seales or sales, and then translate that then too profit and wealth creation and job creation and

growth of your business. And if you want to start a philanthropy that then focuses on lifting up folks from your neighborhood, fantastic, But you can't distribute money like a socialist until you first collected like a capitalist. And everybody knows you black, they can see you. So the Black Coffee Company, clearly it's in their name. But when you walk in there, you just smell good coffee and you see good customer service, and you don't see drama and instability.

And we need to knock this stuff off. Getting ahead of myself on this podcast, you see this one's near and dear to me as a person, I believe we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. Where spiritual beings having a human experience, energy matters. So let's start with the trending topics for this podcast. I'm gonna pick on somebody rich and somebody poor poor as relative. I don't mean poor as then you don't have a roof for

your head, a food and the table. I mean you've got too much month at the end of your money, you can't go on vacation or blink without thinking about it. So the rich example is Kanye West. He has a bunch of other names, but I'm gonna ignore all that. It's ridiculous. My man needs to I mean, it's not on me to say he should take his medicine. But he just seems ever since he lost his mother, God rest her soul, who seems to be a rock in his life, it just seems that he he has been

less than stable. Yes, I said it. He can be a genius and be unstable. He can create great music and be less than stable. You don't do some of the things that he's done and set himself and his economics on fire as an artist and as a businessman, and set his net worth on fire. This is an example. I'm a gift today. Unless you are insane, which I don't believe. He is crazy and stupid, which I don't

believe he is. Are just unstable, imbalanced, which means in this example, he should take his medicine and go to a counselor Why am I picking on him? I'm not picking on him. He's the one who bought a fifty four million dollar mansion in Malibu. I think it was fifty four million dollars, some crazy number in Malibu that was designed by one of the most amazing architects in the world. And this home on the beach, situated between

two architectural treasures, was itself an architectural treasure. Go look at them before and after picture so you can see for yourself. It was, you know, art alive. And he bought it for over fifty million dollars and then proceeded to destroy it, like literally destroy it, like jack hammer destroyed it. Said he didn't want any bathrooms, didn't want any plumbing, didn't want any heating, didn't want any infrastructure whatsoever. It's ocean front. Now, he wanted to destroy the view,

the glass, all that. He wanted all of that to go. You ended up with a shell, a concrete shell now being exposed to the elements. And I believe the Arctic's named Ando. I believe it is. I don't have absolute confirmation this, but I believe Ando was an architect that his ex wife loved. If that's the truth, then then here you go. He hired a guy, a laborer to come in with a jackhammer and just tear the whole damn thing up. Well, he got into trouble. He bought

this in twenty twenty one. He got in economic trouble. You all know the rest of the story. And then he had to dump this property that he had destroyed. Was fifty seven million is what he bought it for. Almost sixty million dollars and now he's trying to sell it for thirty something million. No one's buying it. I'm not buying it. I'm not buying the story. I think this is lighting yourself on fire. You just destroyed half of value. I don't think buy it for thirty million.

Thirty five million is what he's trying to get for it. I think. I mean, it's nothing. It's just got land value, and somebody's gonna have to redo this entire house, is my sense. It's a scene of violence. The I believe the realtor or somebody close to this. No, somebody from New York magazine described the Jackhammer House home. Sorry, it's not a house, and it's not a home anymore. It's a house, it's a thing. Actually, he decigned this, described it as a scene of violence, and I believe that's

the best way to sum this up. As we move on to something. There's no there's no there's nothing to say. There's nothing to see here. You look at it online, you look at it the link I'll give you. There's nothing to talk about. It's just plain silly and it was a stupid act. I don't think it's a stupid person. Think he's brilliant as an artist, but it was a stupid act. It will not help us with net worth. It will help to destroy it. And he keeps on

like this and he will be broke. He was a billionaire. I don't know what his net worth is now, but it's heading. My guess is it's sliding downward. You keep doing stuff like this, plus all the lawsuits and the lawyers and all that stuff, and if your outfloaks, he's your inflow, then your overhead will be your downfall. It's just math. It's a whole bunch of folks thought they would never go broke. I average, Ivan Allen thought he would never go broke. I averaged. You guys have talked

about these basketball players. I did a whole podcast on this. I'm thinking about two different people at the same time. But stop laughing. You know what I'm talking about. Yes, Alan Iverson, stop laughing, you guys. You guys knew I was on to something. You're just teasing me and egging me on because I don't follow all the details of every basketball player and team. Ask me about motorsports. I know that. Ask me about Tony my partner Tony Wrestler's team,

the Atlanta Hawks. I can tell you about them. Iverson is the gentleman. And when they try to get him give him a contract extension, Uh, he said no, no, I got to feed my family. And now he's absolutely broke. I got to feed my family. When discussing conjurct negotiations, this quote has often been cited as an example the professional athletes emphasizing the financial pressures and responsibility as a

feel despite their seemingly large earnings. Irish and stated statement highlights the complexities and personal stakes involved in financial aspects of a sports criminal. This is just stupidity. No, I'm not letting folk get away with that. It's just stupidity. You know. He was offered an extension amount that was more than most people's playing amount, and he just shot himself on the foot. And look, there's a difference between

being broken being poor. Being broke is economic. Being poor is a disabling frame of mind, a depressed condition of your spirit. And you must vow never ever ever to be poor. Again, Let's go to somebody not financially rich, because rich is a contract. By the way, wealthy is as you're here, he's here it's a mindset. But wealth, generational wealth or wealth is a whole different thing than getting rich. You can get rich on a contract. Ellen Iverson got a contract. You know the eye. You know

what Kanye has had contracts. You can the money can come in, it has velocity, it will leave, and you can go dead broke because it's only about making a living. You're not making a life, but you make money during the day. You build wealth in your sleeps. That's compounding, right, stocks, bonds, investments, real estate, small business, big business, home ownership, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's building wealth in your sleep

and mindset. So this poor example again poor, not broke, This young lady, this brothers, This is a trending topic. This guy, the Big Kenny, he's on Instagram. She go and watches his Instagram piece on this he talks about he was talking to a fifty year old friend. I'm only talking given the age because it's important to know. This wasn't a twenty year old who didn't know better. Somebody should have known better. And she was wondering why she couldn't keep a man, get a man, keep a man, whatever.

And she's a smart lady, the gentleman says, but she had dumb friends. And to make a long story short, she met a dude, and the dude was gainfully employed and had you know, you know, checked all the boxes. And he invited her to go some place she wanted to go. She wanted to go to can Comb her whole life. He invited her to go to Cankon, bought the tickets, pay for the hotel, pay for the car service, transportation, everything, just said, look, when we get there, can we buy

groceries together and take terms cooking. I believe I've got that story right. Sounds reasonable, right. She went to her girlfriends she said yes, then went to our girlfriends and said, what do you think? And our girlfriend's like, girl, if he's going to be a man, he should pay for every How can he invites you to your birthday tripping? Won't pay for everything? Anyway? She went back and told the dude, and the dude was like, cool, no problem, I'm gonna take somebody else. So she's like, what do

you mean You're not taking me, You're gonna take somebody else. Yes, I was going to take you. I was excited to take you. I wanted you to be my guest, and really, I really want you to be in my life. But if you're gonna listen to dumb friends telling you what you should do with your life and you don't know any better yourself, then you don't have the sense that God gave you, and you don't have the faith and

the confidence the lead with determination and distinction. So you can't be my partner, my travel mate, and certainly not my wife. And that lady and people who think like her will be alone for the rest of their life unless they change their behavior and change their mindset. Entitlement. That's entitlement and stupidity. And I bet you her girlfriends have never been to Cantcon. I bet you her girlfriends don't have a man. I certainly bet you her girlfriends

are not married. Yeah, you can hit on me all you want. I may not be right, but I know I'm not wrong. If you guys have been listening to me, you know I obsess on certain approaches a mindset. Mindset matters. You gotta win this battle from the neck up, from the shoulders up. Right, You're not gotta win this battle of building wealth and opportunity to move from the streets to the suites. By fighting with your hands and stopping with your feet and being angry for a living that's

not going to work. There's a place and a time for everything. It's time to put that stuff aside. What do you hear from me when I talk? Right? I say and again, I came from the hood D A hyphen h O O D. I was so poor at my family at least was so poor at one point my mom's family, they couldn't pay for the O R. They were just poe p oh. And I lived in

a severely underserved area neighborhood. My mother all Nita Smith, my brother Donnie David on El Harris, my sister Marlon Mont Hoskins, and she's remarried now has a new married name. But all of of us, these kids got through the hood South Central incompent. All those kids, no criminal records, no drama, no and we had a single mother. Right, it's mindset, mindset. You heard me say again, I've gone from the bottom quartel to what they call the top

one percent. You've heard me say I take no for vitamins. I want you to sit down with your family, sit down with your children and walk them through this sit down with your partner, your mate, your husband, your wife, your business partners. Sit down with your posse, your crew, folks, you hang around and listen to this together, have a conversation. Let's talk about something that's meaningful for a change. I take no for vitamins. That's me. Success is going from

failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. That's me. It's okay if you don't like me. I like me, as Quincy Jones says, now when I answer, my self esteem depends on your acceptance of me. That's me. I really respect me and learn to like me. Then like me and never respect me. That's me. There is a difference between being broken being poor. Being broke is economic. Being poor is a disabling frame of mind, a depressed condition of your spirit. And you must vow never ever ever

to be poor again. That is the ethos of Operation Hope, the organization I found a thirty two years ago which is impacting millions of lives. Invested four point five billion dollars in capital in underserved neighborhoods for home ownership, small business ownership, ownership, creation, access to capital, et cetera. Raising credit score is lowering debt, increasing savings, increasing our economic

and our mental and social frequency. As my wife would say, high frequency thinking, getting us to lift our shoulders back and our heads up. And as doctor King once said, no man can ride your back if you stand straight up. This is mindset. Mindset matters. Life is ten percent what life does to you and ninety percent how you choose to respond to it. What's your response going to be? That's what I write in my book Love Leadership. That

was my second book. I'm onto my six. I want you to get the Financial Literacy for All book, which is number one right now nationwide, has been for that way for three months on Amazon and Financial and Business Finance and Economics number one. Go get it, and I want you to mark it up, underline it. I want you to put out a sharpie pen. I want you to I want you to want to be dog eared because you're going through it. You're marking up like a workbook and talking about it with you. Don't read it

and put it aside. Most people have read it a couple of times. I've been told it's got a great radio to Amazon, look at it for yourself, look read what people are saying about it. But let this be a workbook for the rest, for the for the playoff games, of the rest of your life. If you hang around nine broke people, you'll be the tenth. You heard me say that earlier. That's me. You model what you see. Why the kids want to be rap stars, athletes and

drug dealers. The kids aren't dumb and there, they're not stupid, they're brilliant, but they're modeling what they see. We got to give those kids something different to see. Malcolm glad Well, The Tipping Point bestseller says, based on the University of Illinois study, five percent positive role models every community stabilizes. Think about that, not eighty percent positive role models, not fifty percent, not twenty five percent, not fifteen percent, just five.

With five percent positive role models in your community and around you, every community stabilizes. That's how powerful God is. That's how powerful love is. Love is the only energy that's self renewing, the only thing that does not need any help because it comes directly from God. Darkness is defined by light, not the other way around. Badness has failed goodness. The devil is a punk, I said it.

Mindset matters. The devil is a punk. The devil is a fallen angel, God gives the devil permission to exist. Can I get an amen? Yeah? This is my ministry of hope, this is my ministry for an ads, and I'm going all in right now. Badness has failed goodness right, You're not a mistake. You just made a mistake. All angels with dirty faces, right, So let's get up and claim our glory. You've heard me say that you cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First, it's not just

a nice analog. It's not a nice statement that I say. It's also a scientific fact. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First. Let's get into now the depths, the serious around mindset, and I'm gonna give you some cheap cheat notes on this before we get finished with this podcast, and your drive or walk, or our job or workout or whatever it is you're doing while you're listening to this. It's by size. You can get your hands around it, get your mind around it. Mindset matters.

As Carolyn Young, doctor Ambassador Andrew Young's beautiful wife, would tell me, when somebody is trying to diss her in public or in private, typically trying to do it in public because they've got a who are afraid to come straight at her because you know, punk's hide, coward's hide. They throw rocks and hide. But on occasion, when you hear something that sounds crazy, Carolyn will say, you can't piss on my head and call it rain, and she smiles at you and just gives you more love. She

just beats you up with love. That's all I'm built of, that's all I know, because you can't go wrong doing right. My father was on his way to Detroit to get a new car from South central LA. He had family in East Saint Louis, and he took the detour to go to East Saint Louis. Back in the day, I'm told back in the fifties in the sixties, black people who who could buy a brand new Buick or Cadillac or whatever it was. It was a mark of distinction to be able to walk in the dealership and buy

a car, just to have one. But some people to underscore their achievement. I don't get this, by the way, but it's a thing, and my dad did it. But somebody explained it to me. That's cool, but it was it was not just good enough to go to the car dealership and have the white car dealer rep to sell your car. My dad wanted to go to the factory and buy his new car, trade in his older car and buy I guess it was the dealership at

the factory. I don't know. Anyway, he would drive to Detroit to buy a new car, and on the way he detoured to where my mother lived. He St Louis, where he had family and mindset. He was present enough of mine to realize he had met brilliance and elegance and somebody who would add to his life, and realized at that moment they're better together. And he married her. Well, he asked her. He said, I'm going to go back. I'm not going to Detroit. I'm going to turn around.

I want to take you, want to marry you. She said, well, you got to take me and my two children, my brother I wasn't born yet, my brother, my sister. And she was being abused by her then husband, and she had a premonition that if she if she could get two thousand miles away, a premonition from God, that that would be her beacon, her signal of a new life. If she can get two thousand miles away, didn't nowhere and it just so happened that Los Angeles was about

two thousand miles away. So she thought this was the message from God and said yes to my dad, and they packed up my brother, my sister, and my brother. My dad, God bless him, took my sister and my brother as if they were his own. They drove all the way back with all the furniture, and they could pack and luggage on the top of the car back to Los Angeles. And now I was born much longer time from then at Goods and Aridan Hospital. Can't make

this up. In downtown La Good Samaritan Hospital. I was born there and they made a life now that worked until it didn't. And you should never make an emotional decision. Wherever you make an emotional and emotional decision, it's going to be a one. And my dad, my sister, my mother, and my father built a gas station that they owned and I built. They owned a gas station at Normandy and Vernon. For anybody who knows La listening to this in La, you know I'm talking about, it's still there.

They owned an eight unit apartment building on Martin Luther King Boulevard. It was called Santa Barbara Boulevard back then they bought it for eighteen thousand dollars. She can listen to an earlier podcast as I go into deep details there. They bought a lot of stuff, owned their own home. Anyway, they lost it all because my dad can make it but couldn't keep it. He was brilliant and hard working, but not financially literate and would not ask my mother

for help. He didn't realize that they were partnership and not just a romantic connection, and he can make it. He should have let her invest it. In fact, I'm gonna do a whole podcast just on how a family builds wealth. The short cheat sheet right now, mindset matters is one person should make it the other person. If there's two people working, one person makes some money for a living and the other one makes some money, makes money for a life. The first person makes money and

pays your bills. Second person makes some money and invest it. There's a couple called the Kinsey family, Bernard and Shirley Kinsey in Los Angeles. He worked for Xerox. I forget what she worked, but it was, you know, it was a regular job, as I remember, and they lived off of one salary or forget which one they invested the other salary and they end up today. They have a beach house overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Rina del Ray or something like that. But just you know along the coast.

They have an art exhibit and art collection and they're living their best life. So I'm telling you what works. This is a black couple. So my father made a mistake and he took the four thousand dollars that my mother had saved to send my brother to a college of his choice. And my mother said, that's it. You're not doing that to the rest of my kids. That's my oldest child. You just robbed him of his ability to go to a college of his choice and make

the decisions that he wants. My brother Donnie, and you're not doing that to Manty and John John Johnny. Okay, I just told you one. My nickname was John John. And no, you don't say that to me in an airport. That was what my mother called me. My sister called me, brother call me. So she she stepped. She said, I'm out. I love you, but I'm done. And mindset. My mother was was very focused on building right and if you look at the history of marriage, it's not a romantic

history that came later. It wasn't religious history that came before romantic, but it came after business. Originally, marriage was just a business arrangement going back thousands of years before God endowed it. In my opinion, I'm saying that God endowed it with certain features that gave it spiritual dimensions Jesus Christ and so on and so forth the Bible. So you do your reap, and I did it. I

did a whole piece on marriage God. Listening to that podcast right by the way, I'm not I'm not saying something's better her worst. Don't get all don't start getting all alone of me and getting holy ghost. I'm just telling you that was the timeline that business, that marriage was, you know, made of man. Then God endowbed it right, and then we put a romance on it. And now all we thought, what do you think about today? Is what the romantic part of it? Whether the the looks

are gonna fall away? People? All right, I don't want to get into a lot of detail here that show all that stuff will will drop and now you're left with the substance of the person, right, and and what do you got? What do you got. What do you have? Is that your business partner? Are you better together? It's a question. Okay, So my mother left my dad. My

dad found my mother good decision mindset. He lost my mother, bad decision, emotions, ego, and bassior Andrew Young says, men and women fail for three reasons arrogance, pride, and greet My mother left my dad and discovered her calling raising these children, and all of them have emerged as successes in this world in different ways. And I thank my dad for what he gave, But he missed the software upgrade along the way, the human software up grade. Okay, let me get into a deep one here. My friend

Mike Maples, this is very deep. This is the very definition of mindset. My friend Mike Maples is a big picture capitalist in Silicon Valley. And I asked Mike Maples, a very nice guy. He's on the board of advisors for Operation Hope. I asked him, how did you become who you are? How did you get so it become

so decent, so nice. It's one of the questions I asked people occasionally when I really liked them, and they got power and money, and they could be jerks, but choose not to be And he said it was where I was raised. I said, well, tell me about your family. He said, well, my mother with the house, homemaker, so on and so forth, and you loved me and supporting him. And my dad worked for Microsoft. And I said, okay,

well what do you do for Microsoft? Where He said, he works for you know, he worked for Bill Gates. I said, well, technically everybody worked for Bill Gates. What did he do? Like? Was he fifteen levels below? Was he on a loading dock? What did he do? You know? At Microsoft? He says, well, he he ran products. Well what do you mean he ran it? Well, he was the president of the product division. Oh so he really worked for Bill Gates? Like literally yes, he very humble guy.

So I said, okay, what for that kind of achievements. That's a special mind. It's a special brain. It's a special mindset. So you're no accident how you got here. Success is intentional failures too. By the way, how tell me an example of how your dad thought? Now, please everybody listen to this. This is so deep. He said, Well, one example is I had this business and I was nine, ten, eleven, twelve years old with this business and I grew this

business and it was very successful. And I don't remember exactly what the business is. It's not really all that important. But I grew this business, and let's just say it's let's just say for the sac of conversation, it was a gaming business. I grew this business as a young man, and I was selling whatever and people were buying it, and I was very successful. I'm twelve years old and I go to my dad very excited and say, Dad, Dad, I'm going to sell my company to Disney. And Dad

was disappointed. Now let's stop here and be honest. If your child came to you and said they want to start a business, would you be impressed. Yes, they want to grow the business. They stuck with it. Yes, it was successful and profitable at nine, ten, eleven, twelve years old, you'd be impressed, right, Yes, if your child came to you. Let's be honest. Now, your child came to you and said, I'm going to sell this company to Disney, wouldn't you just be cheering and take them to Chick fil A

or know. I'm trying to think of all the kids places. Stop laughing at me. I see you guys laughing. TGI Fridays there. You know, I can't say red lobster. They're gone chuck egeez. That's what I was thinking about. You'd be excited, right, Mike's dad was pissed, upset. We don't think like that in this family. I'm disappointed in you, Mike Junior. Don't you ever come to me with mess like that. That's not how I raised you, That's not how I built you. We don't raise children around here

to sell their company to Disney. We raised children around here to use their company to buy Disney. Just wrecked your car, just spell off your bike, just walked off the walking trail into a wall. I apologized, But that was a drop. The mic that man so shaped Mike Maple's expectation. He is one of the top ten tech venture capitalists in the country, certainly one of the top ten in the Silicon Valley. Don't trust me. Search his

name yourself. Unbelievable. That's not accidental, that's intentional. He's now funding businesses, buying businesses, building businesses, but nobody's buying him. Success is intentional. Mindset matters. I've already covered a decision making. Now let me talk about something that's very specific. I want you to write this down. It's from my book. I want you to go get Financial Literacy for all, my most recent book. That's number one. That's I think

financial literacy is the civil rights issue this generation. But I want you to now to focus on from my book Up from Nothing, which is the book before this one, and the book before this one was called The Memo, And the book before that one is The Memo is everything no one talked to you about how success really works. The book before that one is How the Poor Can Save Capitalism. I could bring that book to Forward today

and attach it to the Dee and I debate. By the way, you'll be hearing more from me about that in the future, because I think that people who are attacking de and I are just wrong on the facts. The book before that was Love Leadership. The book before that was Banking on Our Future, my first book. Three of those books are national bestsellers. This last one is the biggest bestseller debut on USA Today Bestseller List number one and nonfiction number twelve overall, Publishers Weekly number one

and nonfiction number nine overall, and retains itself. It's number one in business financial on Amazon. Go Get it. Now here are the five pillars of success. Number one massive education, as much education, and shoved down your throat. That was a President Johnson quote, Go get as much education as you can shove down your throat. You can never be smart enough. But once you have education, no one can

take it from you. Now, when I mentioned these five pillars, think now, none of this has to do anything to do with money. I'm talking about building wealth. Now. I'm talking about you becoming not just rich, not just doing well, not just successful financially. I'm talking about building generational wealth that lasts wealth beyond your generation into the next one. I'm talking about what it takes. It takes the right mindset.

Seventy percent of all those who finish their NBA contracts, about seventy percent our bankrupt financially broke in five years. And sixty seventy percent of those in the NFL and NBA are bankrupt within five years and worse with the NFL that contract. And I love the NFL. I have a partnership with the NFL. My friend Roger Goodell, et cetera, et cetera. I'm all good, and we have a partnership

with them. At Operation No. But that contract maybe a fifty million, but you're guaranteed only the signing bonus and how many games you play. So if you bust your knee out in year two on a five year contract, that's it. So you better plan that money right. But a lot of these players are living just paycheck to paycheck, and the vast majority of those who win the lottery go bankrupt within a few years after let's call it five I think the number seventy percent, but it's just

the vast majority of those who win the lottery. So just making money is not is not enough. Mindset matters. I've often said that if you give a homeless man a million dollars and that's all you do, he or she will be broke within a year. If nothing changes here your mind, nothing changes here, your heart and your soul. Nothing's going to change here. In your hands, in your pockets, or your feet. You're gonna walk right into a financial wall. Because if you don't know better, you can't do better.

There's an old Southern saying, no matter how much I love you, my son or my daughter, if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you my own ignorance. So out of love. We pass down bad habits from generation to generation and hurt people. Hurt people. Somebody can love you and give you horrible advice. Massive education. When you know better, you do better. You see books all around my study, if you're looking at my videos. You see me on CNBC or on any of the network TV.

You see me in my home studio, books everywhere. I'm just passionate about learning. You don't hang around dumb people. Number two understanding the numbers. Financial literacy. When you know better, you do better. I think financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation. Good financial literacy forra and go to opportunity for coaching. Accountling. Number three Family structure and resiliency nuclear families. One of the best way to

build wealth is to get married and stayed married. And if you can't you're not sure you're gonna stay married, then try not to get married. Now. You could also get married and decide that that's not a good fit for you. And if this person is not helping you, if two plus two does not equal six, eight or ten, I don't advocate just staying there forever, because it's gonna be embarrassing to your friends and your family. If you break up forget all that can Who cares if somebody

else thinks about your life? I told you when not went out to my self esteem depends on your acceptance of me. Your life is your life. You gotta love you. You have to have self esteem, and you gotta know what's gonna help you build in your life. And if you made a mistake, fix it quick, miss quick. Don't spend twenty thirty forty years in regret. You're just gonna age. A lot of disease is disase. Mindset matter, Energy matters. Whether you believe you can, whether you believe you can't,

You're absolutely right. Number one one is a five pillars of success. In my book, Up from Nothing, Massive education number two, understanding the numbers, financial literacy number three and how financial wealth, creation, capitalism, free enterprise works number three, Family structure and resiliency number four. Self esteem and confidence. Those two things are different. Self esteem is how I esteem myself. If I don't like me, I'm not gonna like you. If I don't love me, I don't expect

me to love you. If I don't respect me, how can I respect you? If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'll make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around and hurt people. Hurt people. A lot of the press folks running around here, a lot of toxic people, a lot of negative people. Takes a lot of muscles to frown, very few muscles to smile. Find somebody who's smiling. Because whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, is I keep saying

you're right. You hang around nine bro people, you'll be the tent. Mindset matters. Self esteem is how you esteem. Yourself confidence is based on confidence. You can be confident about something and because of that you have confidence and still have low self esteem. There's somebody running for national office right now who has low self esteem. They're insecure, they're full of fear. They've got power, money and position in the world. Now you guess who I'm talking about.

I didn't say anybody's name. Role models. If you don't watch How You Live your Life, then you won't understand that that may be the only bible to anybody else reads. Watch How You Live your Life. It may be the only bible that anybody else reads. People model what they see. Give folks something different and positive to see. The three mindsets. I believe this is from my book the Memo, but I might have mentioned it also up from nothing, the three mindsets. Oh I did it. It was up from nothing,

a surviving mindset. If you got too much month at the end of your money, if you're depressed, if you're distressed, and I believe half this world is depressed. I believe seventy eighty percent of Black Americans, African Americans are clinically undiagnosed depressed. My people because we went through slavery and Jim Crow and been hating on us almost four hundred years. Is crazy. This country, this nation is two thirds of our nation, our national history history, maybe three fourths of

our national history is enslaved. Two hundred and fifty plus years of a four hundred year old history deals with enslavement. And how can that not mess with your head. You're gonna have PTSD, You're gonna have depression and have identity issues. You're gonna have self esteem issues, you know, maybe even self hate issues. I don't know. You know, this is

the only thing I cannot scientifically yet prove. I'm still looking at the data, but well, what I know from my observation just dealing with our people is that all black is not the same. I'm doing our whole podcast just on this short version of this. Go to my Instagram feed and go look at the thing where I talk about jobs and income by ethnic group in America, and it'll blow you away. There's like a eight hundred

thousand views of this on MA and Charlemagne's pages. Where you think white will be at the top is not. White's in the middle and whites below Nigerian now African Americans at the bottom, literally at the bottom. So how can it after Americans at the bottom? Black poor whites in there towards the bottom, right right, think right next to close to African Americans, Latinos are in there, so on and so forth. All right, but white Americans are right in the middle, and then above that are Nigerian uh,

Nigerians who came to America. Okay, they're black, right, and then you got Indians at the top, they're brown. So race is a factor, but race is not the only thing. Mindset is. And I'm gonna get all into this. I'm gonna do a whole podcast just on this is black and black the same, right, And I'm gonna break it down. We're amazing people. We've been doing so much with so little for so long. We can almost do anything with nothing.

We're amazing people. But surviving is not enough. And you and we have we have majored in a surviving mindset. We got red rooms all over the country, fighting police brutality, fighting racism, fighting discrimination. But none of that fighting pays. The bill pays, the mortgage builds wealth. We need to we need to build to have the red rooms in place, civil rights and put some new green rooms in place,

silver rights, access, the capital, access, the internships, apprenticeships. All right, our artificial intelligence opportunities, you know, wealth creation opportunities, small business creation, entrepreneurship. We get our higher education, like we need green rooms that get us up the in up the ladder to success. This is the aspiration generation cannot get an amen. Surviving mindset. All right, let me let me get to the I'm running out of time for

this podcast. Surviving mindset. That's a lot of people expers in what they're against, and I like what I'm doing much better than what you're not doing. See, there you go, there's John Brian again. I'm very consistent. Right again, I can choose to be negative. I just don't remember the last time I was right. I can find a rainbow after most storms, right, I can see the positive and motion, you can you can't even grow through it. About legitimate suffering,

that's biblical. And by the way, the Bible says in proverbs to be poors, not to not have anything, not to be poors, not to not do anything, and lazy hands make a man poor. Can I get an amen? So then you have a thriving mindset. That's a middle class mindset. That's a getting mindset, getting access, getting a job, getting a career, getting a promotion, getting a vacation, you know, getting accepted to a club in fraternity. It's all good. It's middle class. And then the third mindset is a

building mindset, and building builders are winners. Winners are builders. Builders are entrepreneurs like me, and we are crazy. We're nuts. We believe all things are possible. Okay, well we've come to the end of this situation. I think I dropped the mic a couple of times. I think we made the point that in order to be successful, you've got to not just have the money, not just have access to the capitol, and not just have a great idea, a great business, great hustle. You have to have the

right mindset. I was at dinner last night with my wife Shaeitra, and it was a late dinner. Was you know, it was close to midnight because I had on a Saturday two speeches. And I could have complained about that and wine and moan or could say that, you know, I've got high class problems, and God gave me relevancy and a chance to make a difference and just accept

that and be thankful. So I went to my first speech and did that and went to my second that was for Van Jones on artificial intelligence here in Atlanta. I went to my AI academy, went to this an operation. Hope did that help him with the AI Ethics Council which is coming by the way, my work with Sam Aultman. Then I went to the second speech. I went to my office, worked a little bit, when changed clothes, took

seed on. Went to the second speech on Saturday night for the Black Coffee Company, which I, you know, talked about earlier and to encourage other investors to double down with them and encourage them. And so anyway, we went to a late dinner and I'm sitting there wait for my wife to show to come from the she went to the restroom to wash her hands and whatever. And his brother walks over to me and I could see him oy the side of my eye, and I sort of know what this is now. You know, he's about

to approach me, which is all good. I don't mind. And he said, look, my guy, he did like a you know in these celebrity things that you know, where the rock star, the celebrity dude sends somebody else over with a message. It's crazy. So he says to his my buddy over here has a finance company. Black guy, all of them are black, and he wants to come talk business with you. That's okay. I said, well, you know, I'm sort of so I waved the dude right the other guy. I say hello to the guy in front

of me. They're five feet from me. I wave the other guy. He just sort of barely nods like he's some rock star. Okay, whatever, whatever, whatever fumes you're on, whatever you're tripping on, that's is your right. But I'm really unimpressed. Now, So I'm impressed with the dude who came over to me. He's very respectful, is it. Look, I'm on the day with my wife. I hope you don't mind. I'm not gonna I'm an interested talking business right now, He said, no problem, much respect, and he

always goes over. Now, what the move would have been for the other guy is for him to got get his lazy rear in up, sorry, get his tail up. And because love is work. None love is lazy, his anti lover is evil. Evil exists, but it's very rare. Most people are just lazy, intellectually lazy, spiritually lazy, emotionally lazy, financially lazy. They want somebody else to do the work. He could have got up said to his lady, excuse me, baby, I want to go say hello to him. Come over,

shook my hand, look me in the ia. Man. I heard what you said. All good. I should come over myself to begin with my bad You know, I respect. You're out of date, so a week, you know, I just you know, whatever, respect your work, whatever. I hope we can catch up sometimes later I would have said, what's your name? I would that would have been, That

would impress me. I would remember him and maybe even if given him my information to connect with me later or one of my you know, senior leaders in my office. But he missed that whole memo. He missed the opportunity because what Ambassador Young said is so true. Men and women fail for three reasons. Arrogance, pride, in greed, mindset. It wasn't about whether he had a successful business or all that stuff. You know, whether he's making money, I

could kill that's where he's making money. I don't want your money. I got my own, all right. All money is his freedom, and I got the freedom to not be interested. Hello. But he wanted to combine attitude because I wouldn't talk talk to him. So he didn't say anything to me for the rest of the evening, and I could care less. And when he got up, I just thought it was a test. When he got up, I thought he'd stop over. I hoped he would for his sake, not mine. Did he stop over say yo, man,

blah blah blah blah, or you know something? Nothing ignored me walked out the door because I would not speak to him earlier. You're not hurting me. You're hitting examples like that as you're hitting your face against my fists. I'm not trying to pick a fight emotionally, intellectually with anybody. I'm just saying that wasn't the right way to handle it. You won the battle and the loss of the war. I don't even know where you won the battle. Don't even not sure what the battle was. I was in

minding my own business, having dinner. You did hurt my feelings one little bit, but you didn't get my information, you didn't get my number, you didn't get my help. You didn't We're not gonna do business. And I don't remember you. I don't even remember you. I remember the first guy. I will not remember the second, not in a positive way. Nobody owes you anything. Stop walking around entitled.

Like the story of the young lady I mentioned earlier in the trending topic who her girlfriends thought that that boy owed her all expense freight anyway, I don't want to pee. This frustrates me to even think about it. Okay, here's a fan question. This was a good podcast, wasn't it. It wasn't boring. Here's Purple Indian woman. Purple Indian woman from Instagram Purple Indian Women. What are the best options for my two children, my two daughters to start saving

and investing now age twenty five and sixteen. First of all, I'm glad you don't think it's too late at twenty five to start investing in sixteen. Certainly it's not too late. The answer to this question, Purple Indian woman on Instagram is the best option for your two daughters is now

and with you. It's not about whether it's an index fund or this, or stocks at real estate or fractual investing, or bitcoin or cr cryptocurrency or whatever it is you want to do starting a business, Grather, It's important that they do it with you. Get this book and read it with them, assign chapters to them. Let's come back and have a family meeting about money, because the lights

don't come on by themselves. Have a discussion about this every week about money around financial Listen for all, I want to see that book dog haired and beat up and the page is ripped and highlighted right, and you want to start a conversation, have dinner together what a concept once again once a week and have a kitchen conversation about money using the book as a discussion starter. And try to keep the spaghetti in the in the ribs off the rib juws of off the book, and

then let them see how you roll. Let show them your four oh one t account, show them your real estate portfolio, show them your bills, like, let them model what you do, because we model what we see. That's the most important thing you can do for your child is to be the role model that they want to be, because that's who they see in the world. You want to find a good man. Yeah, the generalization, I'm generalizing, but this is uh, this is mostly true. And yes,

their exception this rule. So don't pick a fight with me saying I know examples where this is not the case. I know you do. You want to find a good woman, Find a woman who's got a great relationship with her dad. You want to find good man, Find a man who's got a good relationship with his mother. They are exceptions, is these rules. But what you and you really want.

You know, when I talk to somebody and I'm looking at them and their eyes are clean, and they're they're positive, they're looking at me, I can tell they had a mom and a dad, or I can tell that a strong, ulture strong mom or an ultra strong dad that really grounded them and balance out the fact that the other mate wasn't there you really, Mom and dad, But you can. You can over index like my mother did. My dad did it when I was with him and when I moved for my mother to be with him. So give

him credit. But my mother really was a grounding sense situation. And she was a single mother, just like seventy percent of all black households. And she told me she loved me every day of my life, and I believed it. So, look, you can survive, you can chill and still succeed. But why would you want to right? Why you don't want to survive. You want to thrive and you want to win. And stop saying these kids that you a baby daddy and you a baby mama. Right, you're messing up these

kids its head, messing with their self esteem. Say you're a mommy, you're the mother or their father, and you're proud of them. When they screw up, you say, I'm mad at you. I'm upset with you. You future lawyer, you future entrepreneur, you future business owner, you future engineer. I'm upset with you, and I'm gonna hold you accountable. Now, let's go to dinner. I'm gonna hold you accountable. And here's your penalty for screwing up. Kids need love and accountability,

love and responsibility. You can't just you can't just let kids walk away from their own accountability. You end up with punks, you know, with a mess on your hands. You you need to They need to learn the word. No. You're not their best friend, you're their parent. Oh on, let me get me started. It's a whole nother podcast, John O'Briant, This has been good, This has been saucy. Let me know what you think. Pass it on, share

it with friends. Let's change the world. I want the whole network of podcasts to be something you can give to a new family. You know, a new mother, a new father, somebody going to college, somebody entering high school, somebody starting a new career, somebody's resetting their life, somebody who's sick and tired of being sick and tired. And it can be a university in your pocket and in your ear. I love you, John O'Brien, Get the book, subscribe to the podcast through your friends, and tell your

friends subscribe. Go to Operation op, get the services, get your coaching scholarship and change your life. Love and light them out and go get your black coffee, Tell him I sent you. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.