Out of the Club and Into the Office

hate me, It's all right. I'm going to give you good reason why this is your season and give you an understanding of how this game works, in what's going on and why and who and why it relates to you.

So I want you to hyper focus during this podcast today, when you're reading or listening or watching this podcast, when you're reading transcripts of it or listening to it, or you're jogging, or you're cooking, or you're on commute or whatever it is you're doing, I want you to take mental notes and if you have to come back and take written notes and share this with those that you love, particularly the up and coming Aspiration generation. That's right, the

aspiration generation. You want to get ahead more than anything. This group that I've noticed of young and resetting African Americans and people of color, they want to strive, they want to succeed, they want to they're aspirational. Now. People define success in different ways, but one thing that's absolutely clear. They want the Golden ring. They want the success song to sing. They want to go from the streets to the suites. They want to be successful, and they want freedom.

And as a friend Chris Gorman, and CEO of Key Bank, once told me, John, is entirely possible that the only true freedom is financial freedom, financial and economic freedom, because every other freedom can be taken away from you. So how do you achieve freedom today? How do you go from the streets to the suites and stay there, I mean the business suites. How do we grow from the

foundation of civil rights? Thank you our forefathers and our and alls who came before us, and doctor King and Bastor and you, young doctor dor the Height, all the heroes and sheroes that came before us. Thank you for all they have done. So we can go from civil rights in the streets to cutting business deals and succeeding in the business suites. So the pandemic brought on remote work. A global pandemic introduced for the first time remote work. I had never done a video call ever before, and

I'm a techie. Before February twenty twenty, I remember when it was done. I was on a video call with Coca Cola executives and they had a technology that they called blue jeans, and it was you would call it its companion technology, zoom, And quickly I realized that this was a new way to communicate in a distanced world. And as we all know, zooms and blue gene sessions and whatever other technology you use just absolutely took off

and commanded the stage. And we've been zooming and video calling and all that while working from home ever since. But keep in mind that happened as a result of a global pandemic not seen since the Spanish flu one hundred and twenty five plus years ago, and for very good reasons, people had to distance themselves, and the benefits was you got to spend more time with your family and spend your time and spend time at home and

so on and so forth. And now that the pandemic has receded, was being managed through vaccines and through normalization of this is like the flu. Mean, by the way, when the flues first came out, it killed people left and right, But there were you know, vaccines and other things that were done to manage the common code and the flu and so on and so forth, so it didn't kill you. The same thing with COVID. It's not

a health session. I'm just giving you the backstory of why I'm about to tell you, or the framework with which I'm going to say to give you some really hard news. For some people as they are cursing me out listening to this podcast, what the heck is I listened to John O'Brien. He normally gives me good advice. With this is bone stupid, somebody is saying, and I'm about to give you five great reasons why you need

to return to work. So here we go. Am I saying first of all, that is an end to remote work? That I'm am I saying that we're working from home is dead? No, I am not. In fact, I'm saying

it's here to stay. That one of the benefits of two of the benefits of the global pandemic was one a further embrace of technology by everybody, young and old, and rich and poor, conservative and liberal, no matter where you were, who you are, you understood the power of technology because it was a thing that allowed you to continue to function. Number two, more quality time with your family, more peace of mind, better wellness, hopefully less commuting time.

And I think that those two things are in balance here to stay now. Most things out of balance are not good for you, and most things in balance are. Alcohol in balance, will you know, lower your blood pressure. You drink a glass of wine every now and then, it's good for you. You drink glass of wine every hour or all day every day, and you'll be a drunk. That's not good for you. You know, drugs that are that are in balance or prescribed, and it goes on.

Sleep on balance, you know, is key to your wellness. And too much sleep, you know, literally make you lethargic. And it goes on and goes on and goes on. So I think that the remote works in a transition to one or two days a week. That's not what this podcast is about. But just to let you know, I'm not the Debbie Downer here. I'm not trying to to, you know, mess with your joy and be a joy Killer. Yes, I think remote work is on balance here to stay.

But I think that employers. I know that employers are going to want their employees back in the office for the most part. And that's not what this podcast is about either. This is about you and why you should want to be in the office. But as an employer myself, I have much more value with the employees that I have that I see much more value from that I

engage with. And now we are a technology centric company and my people are all over the country, and so I get used to not seeing my people, but it is always more valuable. It is the things I remember. By the way, during two years of COVID, we zoomed our rear ends off. We all did that, right, Do you remember any of those sessions. It's all a blur, right you zoom zoom zoom, zoom, zoom zoom zoom, right all day and all night. Do you remember anything? Come on,

be honest, it's just a blur. But I remember when I'm in front of somebody, I remember them when they're in front of me. I remember the laughter, I remember the hug, I remember the engagement. I remember the energy. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience, where spiritual beings having a human experience. Energy matters. I remember the impressions that people make on me in person. I don't remember the impressions that they make on me on zoom

or on blue jeans. What are the technology? Is? Technology is more efficient? It's not more effective. I'll get to that in a moment. So here are the five reasons why black folks should want to go back to the office. Number one, the issue today is increasingly not love or hate. It's radical in difference. It's not love or hate. It's not active racism. It's in difference. It's radical in difference. People just don't care enough about you to hate you.

In fact, they're trying to get away from you. In many cases, think about this, gated communities, private gated communities, private roads, private schools, private security, private transportation. It goes on and on on. They don't hate you, they're not thinking about you. They're trying to This is they're trying to have more what they enjoy and less of what

they don't understand. It's hater rade. Yes, necessarily it might be something worse, but in many cases, they just want what they want, and they want what they call quality of life, and you may or may not be part of that equation. So in an environment, I remember this this brother, I was in a Harlem. This is years and years and years and years ago. In fact, President

Reagan was president. And I've I've known nine presidents. I have been recognized by five, and I've been honored by three, and I've served three as from both parties, as an advisor, president advisor, commissioned advisor. And when President Reagan was president, I was in Harlem and I remember this brother was saying, Oh, you know, President Reagan's a racist. I said, no, I think he's insensitive, and I think he's out of touch on certain issues were born on the same day. I

know the man, February sixth. I know the man. We're not best friends or anything, but I know the man. I'm telling you the vibe I picked up is he's not a racist. Oh yeah, President Reagan, and he's a racist. I'm telling you he's a racist. No, he's not a racist. I'm telling you. He hates me, President Reagan. It doesn't hate you. I told him, he's not thinking about you. You're not even on his radar screen. President Reagan. I told him, was raised around black people, didn't know many

black people. Was he not influenced black by black culture, did not have black people in his family, His wife's not black. His culture, his societal societal environments not black. His paychecks not depending on anything tied to black, his wealth's not tied to anything tied to black. His movies didn't feature a bunch of black people, like he doesn't

hate you, he's not thinking about you. And the only time that he even thought about black people was when he got criticized by a group of black legislators for being well they called him racist. So even if he had an experience, it was a negative one. So he just wanted nothing to do with it. And as a result of not having a relationship with him, I think we were worse served by his legislative agenda. The one thing he did do right was to pass doctor King's holiday,

and I thank him for that. But anyway, my point is that that gentleman had it wrong. That he made something emotional and personal that was worse. It was non feeling at all. What does this have to do with you? No one cares about your drama and your agenda, and no one cares about your feelings. Capitalism is a gladiator sport. You're going to have to show up in your own life. You're going to have to embrace the fact that you've

got to create a value proposition. So the first issue is that you need to understand that you're not, as I hate to say it, valuable to society as you might have thought. And if you don't think that's true, look at what's happening right now to things like d n I diversity equity inclusion programs, which I just think were not well designed and so they're easily easy to attack. Once again, they were had emotions in them and relied on more out morals and all that stuff. I deal

with that on another podcast. I deal with that a lot in my writings. Of your interested in what my opinion is on D and I, you can go to my podcast, my Time magazine and Fortune magazine articles and others where I break that down and talk about what I think is the future, which is inclusive economics, but that's another topic for another day. I like math because it doesn't have an opinion, so that sort of relates to what I'm saying here that there's an environment coming

here a pushback. That's almost the opposite of what happened if you George Floyd's murder, where people were more sensitive and more engaged and more folks. Now people are either indifferent or maybe even anthetical to your issues and your interests and your concerns. They may be even bothered by you asking for special considerations, which may or may not be legitimate those special considerations. In many cases, those considerations are legitimate for reasons we all know tied to the

history of black people in America. But none of that matters because nobody cares about your drama and people may not care about you, which is why you need to go back to read my book Up from Nothing, where I talk about self esteem as differentiated from confidence. Now, in order to do what I'm talking about today, you're gonna need confidence, and you can do that because you're competent, but you're also gonna need self esteem, which is to esteem yourself. If I don't like me, I'm not gonna

like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm not gonna feel good about you. If I don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you. And the big one is if I don't have a purpose in my life, I'm gonna make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around, And whenever you make an

emotional decision, it's going to be the wrong one. And when you have low self esteem, you tend to engage in the three things, and then Bashil Young says will kill you, and angreew Young. The men and women fail for three reasons. Arrogance, pride, and greed. We don't tend to be greed, not traditional sense. We don't tend to be arrogant per se. That's really low self esteem. But we tend to have a lot of pride and pride in this example is tied to emotions, and I want

you to put that aside. I want you to be practical and listen to what I see in these next four rules. The first one is the set up. It's the environment that you're living. As Quincy Jones said to me, not one ounce of my self esteem depends on your acceptance of me. And what I would say to you is not what people call you, is what you answer to this important and never ever ever answer out of your name to argue with a fool proves there are two step over mess not in it. You know who

you are. You are somebody, You are God's child, You are special. You don't need to scream and holler and make a spectacle of yourself to prove it. So don't make a spectacle about folks telling you that they want you to return to work when you're big, run out of town, get it in front of the crowd, and make it like a parade. Now, if you don't need all of the stuff that I'm saying between one and

five here, just fast forward. You tell your friends want repeat you literally picked the moment that the marker on the podcast and tell them just listen to step to the minute A minute, B minute, C minute. You know, to get to the five if you have a short on time. But context here really is important. Number two. Black folks are legend, as quote, the last hired in the first fired when budgets are tough and things get tight,

or when budgets are tight and things get tough. We are legend in corporate America for being the last hired in the first fired. When things go south, it's super easy to get rid of the person or the department you cannot see and have no emotional connection with. It's harder to show the value proposition when you're not in the office, just like it's easy for you to work from home. You're like, shit, why should I come to the office. I hit my marks, I did my things. See,

you're talking about compliance, now I'm talking about achieving. I'm talking about being a standout. And if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Please listen to me now, I tell you, capitalism is the gladiator sport. If you're not at the table, you're on the menu. So it's just harder to show up and show out when you're not showing up. Some people say that showing up is half of success because we're not human doings. We're human beings. So you say, no, I'm just gonna do my work.

I was gonna chill at home. I don't owe these people anything more than that. Okay, that's your right. You also have the right to be fired. Okay, let go because people just again goes back to number one. Nobody wants your nobody's even concerned about you personally. You're going to have to be concerned about you. You're going to become your own advocate. Back to number two. You cannot lean on other assets. What do I mean by that? In the corporate environment? Right, how did how did a

lot of people get hired? Did they read the field on an application? No, they knew somebody. It was a relationship cap. They went to college with them, They went to the university with them, They were part of us, a private club with them. They know they know their uncle recommended them, or their daddy runs the company or whatever, whatever whatever. But you don't have that. You don't have

that inheritance asset of inheriting a relationship. You don't have the relationship capital of being the caddy for the caddy with your daddy, with the boss of the company. And that's how you got hired. Uh, So you don't get fired. So you have to show up and show value because your value proposition, you're you're predetermined non financial assets. How people feel about you, whether they respected meyer. Uh, you know, regard you know, all the soft skills, those things that

thin you come to you. Hopefully you want diversity. You went to college of your degree. You don't go to the same games you you don't go to the same sports. You don't hang out with the same people. You didn't. You didn't you didn't go to college with them. They don't know you. I was talking to a friend of mine and he was saying that these folks in corporate America, the border rooms were racist, and he just saw a bunch of white sixty five year old people in boardrooms.

Just assume their racist. Said no, they probably discriminated, but they're not necessarily racist. Well what do you mean, Well, you know, I discriminated against stupid and dumb people. I'm working on it. I'm trying not to, but I do. So what they're doing in this environment is they went to school with these people. They chase girls together. If they are guys who were talking about guys, Here are the ladies. The ladies, you know, google their guys together.

But whoever they are, they have a relationship of history. And there was three applications in front of them. There was an overqualified white female, there was a well experienced black male, and then there was this buddy that he went to college with. And the position was a trusted position of deputy treasure or something. But the company who gets hired, well, unless the friend is an idiot and at least he had decent grades in math. He's going to get hired because that's his boy as we ran

with in school. That's who he's comfortable with. That's who he knows, and those intangibles matter. That's thick relationship capital. And so yes, they discriminated it. So they discriminated against, if you will, quotation marks the overquali wi fi white female and the overexperienced black male. That's the way the world works. When you have a party in your house, if you're black, or you have a barbecue cookout, how many people are white, probably all black. Did you discriminate?

You didn't do it actively. It was racism. It's just your comfort zone. So people are living in their comfort zone. And so why are these people? Why are boardrooms filled with sixty five year old white men because they that's who they went to school. I mean, why do you go to Harvard? Because the class of Harvard twenty twenty four is go hook each other up for the next thirty forty years. It's relationship capital. You don't have that. That's the point two point three of my five points.

Only repeat it. You cannot lean on other assets because your uncle is not running that company and you didn't go to school with a hiring manager. Number three, you need to be seen to be picked. Okay, so number one was, it's not lever hate. It's not. It's not you know, active racism. It's radical indifference. People don't care off a bunch of hate. You cared enough about you to hate you. Number two. Black folks are legend for

being the last hired in the first fired. When budgets get thin and things get tough, you may get lost in the shuffle. Number three, you need to be seen in order to be picked. I want you to don't laugh now, I'm serious. I want you to walk past show up to the office, and walk past the boss's office. By the way, you want the white folks to not show up to the office. I'm picking on white people. But it doesn't matter whoever, whoever's in, whoever already has

all of the chips, who as already successues. Doesn't matter who they are, right, you want the other people who are seasoned and who are credible and who can afford to work for home because they've already got the relationship. But they've already got the history, right, they've already achieved. They're just almost coasting. You want those people to stay at home. You want to encourage the people to stay at home. Really, and you want to show up to the office and you want to walk past the boss's

office twenty or thirty times a day. That's right, I said it. Until the boss says, hey, Joe, Jack, Joe, and come here. Well who are you? Now? You got it? You want to talk to that boss when there's nobody around. Everybody else wants to stay at home. You're at the office. You walk back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Finally got the boss's attention. Now you're having a chance to tell your story. And do not wear that person out. Do not talk for thirty or forty freaking minutes. Don't

talk for three hours. Talk for five or ten minutes, and bounce it and be interesting and interested. Number four, This is really important. I've just set you up. Now I want you to pay it off. I want you to volunteer for pain duty. This is really important. Rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. It's a scientific fact. I want you to volunteer for pain duty. Raise your hand to get the worst, most unattractive assignments. Around that office and then kill it

in completing that that assignment through execution. I want you to get the worst assignments possible, some things that nobody else wants. If there's a team of people in a meeting and nobody wants the assignment, you you volunteer to get that one. I was working at a mortgage company. You know a few jobs. It's I cover that in one of my books, Up from Nothing or the memo. If you're interested in going back to that, you should, by the way, get my new book Financial Lucy for

All be seller right now, said Walmart. By the way, on two thousand store shelves, and go on to my linked tree to find out which stores. Anyway, I'm in this mortgage office, and nobody wanted to go work in the hood, So I volunteered to go work in the hood. Well, I had the complete territory. And then the story goes on and goes on and goes on. Nobody wanted to do this, woy wanted to do that. I end up, by the way, doing a measuring buyout, a joint venture,

a measurment buyout of my division of that company. I built from zero to twenty three million. Dollars a year in business and buying my employer. Again another story for another time. I was twenty one years old something like that. This is pre dates operation Hope. But I never got the if I was trying to compete with everybody trying to do business on the West side of LA. By the way, God bless those are dealing with the fires right now Los Angeles, Operation Shop will be there and

will be responding. But if I was trying to compete with everybody dealing with Beverly Hills clients and Western LA clients or Centamonical clients or Vallet clients, I never got any business. I didn't know anybody there. But but but I went to the one place nobody wanted to go, and people were afraid of the hood. The hood d a hyphen h o o d the hood and cleaned up on business. When I worked at that company to the point where I did so much business I ended

up buying my division. So I want you to volunteer for pain duty, the thing that nobody wants to do but you, and I want you to look for the opportunities where people see problems. So during the pandemic, my friend at Bashing the CEO of Delta was trying to hire for a very key position at Delta, and of course he about air flight, so it's all about showing up. And he put this request out and for employment, and people just would they have given a choice. You can

zoom in or fly in. Keep in mind, he's an airline. One person flew in. Guess who got that job? And I'm talking about it was a really, really good job. It wasn't that person was. It was ten times more qualified than everybody else. He was as qualified. The other people are as qualified as him, and vice versa. But he showed up and he showed out in front of Ed Bashan and got that job. Number five nurture new invaluable relationship capital because we don't have financial or legacy

capital or in heritage capital to lean on. Technology is more efficient, but it's not more effective. Here's relationship capital before you in technology at work. So I'm during the pandemic having a conference calls like you and everybody else with everybody, and I can't name the name of the company or the person you figure it because it's well, you explain it. You understand at the moment why I can't.

But I'm talking to this big player on Wall Street, like household name, and we've done two or three zoom calls in a year, John, what's goung on with you? Give me the update? And I tell him, and we have a forty minute forty minute call proper, and he'd hang up and we'd hang up, and it was great. When I was in New York on a trip and I called this guy, I said, Hey, can I stop by the office? Say? Oh, come on by. So I went by the office. No one's there, but everybody's trying

to stay at home. And he said, let me come to my office. Let me show you. Show you my office. Come to the come down to the cafeteria. Let me show you our new cafeteria where we build this new skyscriper that he just invested in for his whole all of his people. And by the way, there was a lot of people in the cafeteria. This is during the independent pandemic, so the people were showing up for the reasons I'm telling you now, young associates showing up and

smart season executives. Then he was like, well, come on, you want to joined me for lunch? Sure, So we go to a private dining room and I sit down and he says, So, John, tell me what's going on with you now? Mind you, I'm saying to myself, this is having a memory loss, Like we just covered this ground on two conference calls. Fine, I repeat the same thing I said on those calls. He's like, oh my god, this is it's amazing. Hey, Joe, come here. Joe, and

my assistant he says, can you get Joe. Come in. Joe ran a real estate division for this company. Sit down here, pull up, have lunch with my friend John. Tell me again what you're doing. At the end of the conversation. Shouldn't we be involved with something like this? Can we invest in John's company or buy it or something? Do you know this company made to offer a tender offer for one hundred plus million dollars to buy my

company shortly thereafter, and they didn't win that bid. Another company won the bid, but they helped me prove that my company was as valuable as I thought it was. But that would have only happened. That did only happen because I actually showed up. So I'm living the philosophy that I'm telling you that you should adopt yourself. I want you to so this is that was point number two.

This my living legacy story. Number three, Be interested. Look around on that office when you're in that office with that CEO or that manager, whoever it is. Get into their hearts, not just in their heads. And do not try to get in their pockets. Do not be transactional. It's not about what you get. Is what you have to give that's true to life. Care and be there, be present in that conversation. Lastly, I want you to offer if the opportunity ever comes up, I want you

to go to breakfast or lunch or coffee. If your a lady may not want to go to dinner because there may be something else going on and may be taking your friendliness for something else, So you might want to tap the brakes on a dinner. But if you have a chance to go to breakfast or launch or coffee with a leader in that company, again, most people will not be around. You want their undivided attention, and now you're really beginning to build real warmth in that relationship.

Jamie Diamond, who's a friend of mine, CEO JP Morgan Chase, wrote a piece on a call this is Working, and it was advice for business leaders, And he said leaders have to get out. They have to get out all the time. They have to be curious and ask a million questions and be engaged. And just getting out of your office and getting on a plane or going to meetings, it sets off endorphins in your brain and energy and your soul. No different going to the gym versus looking

at the gym equipment. It exercising yourself and exercising your brain has real value and creates and develops your soft skills of engaging with people. These are five I just give you five very good reasons why if you're part of the aspiration generation, you should want to take yourself to the office. The office. And here's the five rules of your economic liberation from my book The Memo. So I've got six books banking our future, love leaderships. I

do this by memory. How the portin Save Capitalism the Memo up from nothing in my last book, Financial Literacy for all. Most of those are best sellers. You should get the last one for sure. But in my book The Memo, I wrote the fire rules of your Economic Liberation. We live in a free enterpris of some society. Embrace it. Don't argue with it. Even if you want to distribute money like a socialist, you have to first collect it like a capitalist. But what are we arguing about. Just

show up and show out. Number two. Your mindset makes or loses you money. You choose. Your mindset makes or loses you money, you choose. Number three. Your relationships are investments. Build relationship capital with yourself first, and then expand from there. Number four, don't just get a job, Bey entrepreneurial because number four relates to number three. You're the product, not what you're tapping your computer, not what you're doing as a job title. They can get somebody to replace you

on that, a I can replace you on that. Hello, please hear me. Artificial intelligence is going to replace forty percent of all jobs that are out there. And if you're just sitting at home and you're not visible and doing something that a computer can do, automation can do without you, then you're gone. So I want you to be. Don't just get a job. Be an entrepreneurial in your mindset. Create value. Number five. Spiritual capital is a start of true wealth. Own your own power, which is really what

I was just trying to tell you. Now I'm going to give you a little bonus here in this podcast, which is why you want to stay at home. Now. I just told you to get out the house, right, but this is why you want to stay at home. So get out the house, go to work, all that stuff. But as soon as you can go back home, don't go to the club. Go back home. Don't go to the club unless you own the club. Now, am I telling you not to go a party? Of course, enjoy yourself.

Whatever it is you enjoy, go do it. I'm not all things in balance, but you shouldn't be want to be the club four or five nights a week. You just paying off somebody's mortgage and all their business loans at that club, and they're selling your overpriced liquor, and they're making your brain numbs, so you can't get up and go to work, or you don't want to go to work, but you're focusing on the wrong things. I want you to understand why you actually need to have

quiet time. I have quiet time. I go on retreats twice a year and I get away. I step off the field as much as I can the field of capitalism and free enterprise engagement leadership. I go and spend quiet time, reflecting, thinking, listening. The book The Power of Now, I'm thinking of that through by Eckert Toll And he says, yesterday's a memory, doesn't exist, Tomorrow's the present. It hasn't happened. But mostly have one foot in yesterday, one foot and tomorrow.

And that's why they call the president gift. I want you to give yourself the gift of being present in your own life. When you do that, you create more time. You also create more headspace. You also you also get more creativity. Move from a surviving mindset to a thriving mindset, which was triggered as a winning mindset. Once you get about thirty, you start to realize that out in these streets, I mean it just rent and repeats, just the same old thing. And if you hang around nine broke people,

you'll be the tenth. So I'm not trying to kill the club and kill your vibe or kill hanging out again. I go, I enjoy myself just like anybody else. I'm just saying that that's not where you can find billionaires, millionaires, CEOs, leaders. They're out. I mean they're sitting behind a computer or reading a book or play by the way you should read a book. They're they're reflecting, they're thinking, they need a clear head. I walk through life consciously oblivious of

most things around me because it just doesn't matter. Drop the mic. This is John Hope Bryant. This is Money and Wealth. Get your pocket straight into you, get your mind straight. You made money during the day, you go wealth in your sleep. John Hope Brian Money and will tell all your friends to subscribe to this podcast that come at you every Thursday. This is my ministry of finance.

I do it solo like I did this podcast episode, but I often bring on very amazing guests, people you'll never hear or find or get or get advice from anywhere on the planet. This is not like any other podcast episode or series. The people I get can't be gotten unless they just well, they like you. What's that called relationship capital, John O'Brien, I'm out go change your life. It starts right now. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien

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