Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Bryant, a production of The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. So I'm John O'Brien. I'm here with two legends, a commissioner of NBA basketball of course in NFL football, Adam and Roger, and we're going to take them, transport them back to their eighteen year old selves, which is only a couple of years ago. What would you advice would you give to your eighteen year old self? Robert financial literacy advice.
I think learning how to manage money. You don't have a lot usually when you're eighteen to have the ability to learn more about how to save, how to their best, how to make sure that what you earn you take care of, and so you just have to learn about it well.
That some of the great program should.
Do financial lucy for all what we're doing together, all three of us are doing together. I said yesterday, I would ignore the noise. There's a lot of noise around you. You're trying to be like this person, probably like that person. Somebody's trying to be a four square blocked celebrity. You just realize later on none of that stuff in.
All timing the market that's the other thing you get. So you know, if somebody's got some get rich quick screen ski, yeah usually does work.
That's right, it's smart. A free launch is probably still adam you've been. Have you always been this calm and cool and collected your whole life?
By the way, I'm not inside. Uh.
And in terms of financial literacy, I know a mistake I made was when I was eighteen outs is pre internet and all that, that I had a summer job and I bought some individual stocks. And I'll never do that again to this day. I don't buy individual stocks. I only buy funds. And I thought that you could read the paper or learn something about a company, and I didn't understand it was essentially gambling to pick an individual.
Stock like that. So buy funds.
If you're not an expert on the market, you know, invest in the market overall, but stay away from individual stocks at least, that's my advice.
That's brilliant. Actually I wouldn't go that far.
No, it's brilliant because you're you're going to an expert who knows who knows about stocks, and you're saying I'm gonna rely on the expert to find a bucket a basket of investments to make. In some ways, it's how you run an NBA franchise. You've got these owners and coaches who get the individual players you're running. You're you're building the franchise value of the whole both of you, of of the leagues.
That's a great, great point.
We don't have to root for individual teams or buy an individual teams where we managed to risk through.
The whole league. But there's a similarity there.
But but I do I think that you know, individual vestors who day trade, it's highly risky, you know, unless you're an expert in that, you know, but if you buy funds or indexed funds or professionally managed funds, then you can ride the market.
I think that's the way to build long term wealth.
Yeah, as you said about you're not as calm uh on the inside as you running outside. I think it gives a lot of people confidence because you look so confident all the time, and it makes people watch to say, well, if he is not always calm inside, then it makes them feel okay that they're not always a call included collected inside gives them courage.
Yeah, you know, it's a great point, John, I would say that I've learned over the years. I'm sure Roger has as well that when you're nervous, most about everybody else is as well. Yeah, you know, and just some people do a better job of hiding it. But I think acknowledging that nervousness really takes you a long way. I think when you accept like, Okay, I'm nervous. You know, I'm scared. Now I'm gonna go do my best.
That's right. That's that's a great advice for young people.
And players call it pre game jitters, and it's sort of the you know, you get the little stomach bugs and yeah, that's all good stuff.
Right, because that gets you, gets you killed up. That's right, you're ready for it. It reminds me we had a kid who would go through our financial literacy course. He was about twelve years old in Detroit, and he had gone the course and by the third week he was wearing a suit like the banker. And when he came out of the course, I was going to go commend him and his friend. We're teasing them, man, why do you want to wear that stupid suit? Why do you
want to go to the stupid class? You know, and I went over to him and said, look, i'm gonna give you this was now a decade and a half ago. I'm gonna give you seventy dollars make a decision about Nike. The young man Derek says, I'm going to buy a shared Nike stock.
Uh.
And they had been studying Niki by the way in the classroom, so it wasn't an individual purchase. It was something he researched. And the kids were like, oh, they doubled down.
This is stupid. Why would you want to do that. He gives you some Air Jordan's.
Everybody's got Air Jordan's Purple, Air Jordan's Future Air Jordans start going through all the way. So I went to the I want to go defend Derek. Amen, Derek, You're okay. Derek says, no, no, no, I'm cool. I want them to buy those shoes because when they do, they're making me money. He had already transported himself into a shareholder.
So his mindset shifted, and so he had jitters that turned into confidence because he had knowledge about how markets worked, and what you guys are doing is helping people to take their jitters and turning it into confidence because you're authentic as leaders, and you're giving people a place to take their talents and turn them into magic on a stage that everybody can cheer for. And I want to thank you for being American heroes, that you really are a force for good.
Want to have you. We just work with American heroes. No, you manufactured. Thank you all you doing, appreciate it. Thank you.
Ti, my brother Tip, I love this drug. He is from the streets and the suites and back again. He's a bridge to all of our communities. He's much smarter than anybody gives them credit for. He's a noted artist, a hip hop artist, a producer. He also is a comedian now he's also a real estate owner, father, husband. What would t I tell his eighteen year old self about money and financial literacy to look back?
What would I tell my eighteen year old self that the liabilities aren't this fund as they before you bound?
That's deep.
Yeah, you know, I think we've been blessed with with with abundance, and we we all of us, have spent way more money on things that we didn't need because we thought that they would benefit us far more than they actually did. But it wasn't until we you know, to we made the purchase and we and we experienced you know.
So the payments continue even when the fun stops.
Well some of us, some of us cash out, you know what I'm saying. But I've done it both ways. So yeah, you're absolutely correct. But but but it's not until until we splurge and we're in the midst of it that we're like, you know that I could have done with that this, But but I think it's that experience.
We really are paying for that experience.
Could that be like low self esteem? Could that be like it could it be like weird, like trying to prove that we are somebody by overcompensating, and you think that it's you know, because we haven't had these experiences and these opportunities to pass.
I don't think it's as much self esteem as well.
For some it could be, But for me, it was just I grew up not having, you know, and when you grow up not having, you want to have it exactly, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, just like you know most people who when you're fast, you know, of course they say it's supposed to break your fast with something small, but you know, the human nature is to gorge, you know what I'm saying, after you haven't had you want? And I think that, you know, like, for instance, my children.
You know, my kids, most of them don't even care for most you know, like Major, he don't care what kind of shoes he wear. I ask them what kind of car you want when you turn sixteen? He says, man, just something to get me from point to eight to point b, you know. Same for Messiah, Same.
For the country singer. Well he rock and roll, he's really.
Yeah, he doesn't, but he doesn't really value. He values things that has been you, that have been used and can stand the test of time, you know what I mean. He's into vintage things, and that's because he grew up having so much.
You know.
So they don't agree, they don't, they don't. They don't have the same hunger exactly. They don't have that itch to scratch the way I did, right, you know So I think that it's growing up without that kind of had me overdo so much.
But it's also you raised them, well, you cursed him out, you set them down, You told them that, look, this stuff is not real. You gave him real values, you showed him what was real. You show him what what real and then let them make the decision. Yes, I is very about that kid. If he's walking in here now, no one even know he's your son. He's just he's just chill and understated. He let his talent speaks for itself, that's right. And he's walking in role. Let's traveled on
music that he's completely comfortable with. And because he's comfortable, everybody else is coming.
Yeah.
And I think I've tried to I tried to to to instill in them just the value of what's in you more so than what's on you, you know what I'm saying. And and and the true measure of wealth is the amount of things you have that money came back. That's right, you know, love, respect, honor, integrity, you know what I'm saying. I try to feel them full of you know, tools they can.
Use like that, and service like you're showing up every year to the Hope Glow Reform. And as busy as he is. I saw him about a month ago and he was in the middle of a public situation. She's like, hey man, when's the forum.
I need to be there. He brought it up. I didn't and you do.
You remember the first time I came, I brought him with me.
That's right, he informed.
No, No, he didn't was a second time. I don't even think he was even playing the guitar yet. Remember, I think the first time I came, maybe it was about four years ago. I think it might have been twenty one.
Two before that for real. Yeah, yeah, you've been around for for a minute. But but he came with last year or the year before. Yeah, yeah, he came with me just observing, just because I won't.
I thought it was important for him to kind of learn it, be exposed to to people who have a lot more than.
Us, like you and uh and see you're doing You're doing just fine. And see the way that that they behaved.
That let them know that all money isn't loud, you know what I'm saying, right and uh And and he liked it and enjoyed it and learned so much from it that he made it his business to come back on his own.
I've learned that when you've got the power, you don't need to use it. There's no need to scream and holler and raise your voice. It speaks for it. Well, you've got the real power. It speaks for itself. It's better to underestimate and overperform than overestimate and underperformed. Yeah, and you have, you have slid under the you've slid on the radar and things like movie production. You're doing movies,
now you're doing comedy. You're just you're just going to do the work and letting that speak for itself.
I mean, man, you know what, Man, I'm just continuing to to just be blessed enough to have my steps guided by my passion. Man, I don't even think about what, you know, what I'm gonna do, like for money. It's just like I just do what I what I feel is gonna fulfill me. You know what I'm saying and what I think can help others around me.
So it sounds like what you tell your eighteen year old self. It's chill.
Yeah, yeah, don't sweat the small stuff.
Over mess not it.
Make sure your asses are not on your ass. So Rowland, first of all, thanks for coming here every year for the Whope level form. This is our biggest eversar. I tend to anniversary uh and because of you, in large part, we're able to reach after the meeting where we get incredible engagement. We're able to reach millions in the weeks after because in large part of your engagement.
So thank you.
You are the network for Black America. As far as I'm concerned, what would you tell your eighteen year old self around financial literacy lessons that you now know to be true, but when you're you may be kicking yourself when you're eighteen.
First, the credit card that they came and shot to us fro Texas A and M, don't do it.
That's one.
The second would be actually, no matter how little made in college, still save something. Those are two that jump out like most people. So the Birmingham The Birmingham News, I interviewed with them sixteen editors.
They all wanted to hire me. But in Alabama in nineteen ninety one.
They had a law that said they can factor your credit score in really and you couldn't get to your job. So h R at the Birmingham News said they couldn't hire me. Every editor wanted to hire me, it's for the credit.
Score and so and so.
In my career wherever I was spoken, especially in Alabama, I would remind the Birmingham News that they could have had me work there. Except for that law, and they were like, damn, you have to keep bringing that up. I'm like, yes, I do, but again, it's a perfect And there were so many journalists, George Curry and others who were pissed. They were like, what the hell I mean here, we are one of the top journalism and graduates in the country and because of the credit score,
I wouldn't get hired there. But that's also I went to the Austin American Statesman and then career took off. But that's a perfect example that that was a law in nineteen ninety one. And then later when I joined TV one, I said, you know, we're gonna do a whole one hour show on credit and my producer Jay Felman is like, dude, that's no show here. I said, trust me, there's a show here. And then when we're over,
he was like, like four shows here. Like I tried to tell you that, because even he didn't understand how deep and broad a credit score goals.
And so many different people.
We have people on who could not get military advancement because of your credit score was so low because of top secret and so that's.
How broad lose your security clearance in the military.
That's what I'm saying.
Ability to serve your credits to the floor. So we did.
We did a whole on our show. But that experience again not getting hired.
How were you?
I was senior college, like they again the editor, dude was like almost in tears. But the HR qualified and every other I mean destroyed. But the HR Department said no.
That's why I say that civil rights and civil rights are now connected because you had the talent, you had the gifts, but the criteria included financial ecument acumen that they that that it is based on the standard that no one's taught us. We never had an economic infrastructure in the history of Black America, which is what you're advocating for and what I'm trying to also build.
But that's also one of the reasons why Alabama remains the poorest because there's a lot of talent that those laws that were passed that they keep folks, keep folk away. And so again, so Birmingham News they the talent that I had never came because of that law and the errors, like we got to get rid of this because we're losing great talent. But but but again that that was one of the deals so it was just I mean,
that was a perfect example of what I said. Remember, my dad was upset, and I was like, Dad, don't worry about it. I'm gonna get a job. Don't worry about it.
We'll be good.
And then he coold, now him, I'm living in my house that's paid off.
Yeah.
But but it was a perfect example, Like that was the first job that come I wouldn't I hadn't graduated yet. They wanted to hire me, but the credit card prevented from happening. And uh, and now that thing is now expandings that I think it was thirty eight or forty states. I mean, it's how it's expanded, how that has changed.
A lot of eighteen year olds feel that they don't need to worry about what they're doing in eighteen life. They're gonna live forever. Every it's gonna be great though repercussions and what I'm here you're saying is, in hindsight, everything matters.
When you're read Oh, because that impacted impacted the car I got, impacted the uh they impacted and impacted the interest rate I got.
Uh.
And then even that even impacted the interest rate that I got when I bought my first house nine years later, so same thing.
Thank you very much, Rollan appreciate less your brother, so boris. First of all, thank you for being here, Thanks for being a force, so goot honored to have you here.
Amazing.
So what advice would you give to your eighteen year old self? What financial literacy advice if you had to go back, would you give it? And by the way I got to I get it our get the mic up.
So the first thing I would say is invest in financial literacy, meaning read as much as you can, kind of can talk as talk to as many people as you can, get a financial mentor. And don't be afraid to make mistakes because we're paranoid about making the wrong move. You will definitely make the wrong move many times over and it's okay. And then I would say, stay away from the stock market and invest in S and P five hundred.
So do that, so not with the stock market, but state go go smart with the stock market with the S and P five hundred, which is.
Basically the leading company leading five hundred companies. And invest for the long term. Don't buy into becoming a billionaire in three years. Don't believe social media, take your time, learn, educate yourself, and know that at some point you will turn fifty. So even though you're only eighteen, fifty will come.
So what you're doing now will pay off handsomely when you're fifty, and you might actually be handsome when you're invest in your mental health as your physical health, in your spiritual health, because the spiritual.
The mental, and the physical go together. If you let one slide, you will suffer. Holy they're all connected. They're all connected.
Yeah, and most millionaires, by the way, don't get there until they're in their fifties.
That way, right, Yeah, So.
You would basically tell your eighteen year old self to knock it off, don't ignore the noise all around you say, very focused on fundamentals, and these fundamental truths have been true your whole life.
It appears right. These are solid These are solid things that you're value said things.
You can double your money every seven years if you're careful and you educate yourself, and that's a that's an absolutely attainable goal, and it'll pay off when you're fifteen.
Yeah, this is somebody who understands you make money during the day, you build wealth in your sleep. And there's a difference. He's not just making a living, He's built a life for him and his wife. What's financial advice would you give? Financial literacy advice, economic advice, cautionary tales? What would you say to your eighteen year old self if you could go back?
Listen more?
Hmm.
Prioritize saving hmm.
Embrace the fact that you can't do it alone, because even if you do succeed in doing it alone, chances are you didn't uplift anybody else along the way right standing alone, and when you're standing alone, a fall is inevitable because there's but so much you can do by yourself. You can spearhead, you can spark, you can motivate and inspire, But in terms of carrying that load, it only gets heavier as you get older, more responsibilities, mortgages, children, family, and by.
The way, the more successful you are, the more people are going to get to know you.
They're gonna be in your pocket, they're gonna they're gonna end not only that they're not gonna come asking, they're going to come feeling entitled to what you've earned. And all of those challenges are things that you will work a lifetime to ward off.
I am in my fifties, and I'm still learning how to.
Ward that off because there's always new people that come along and they may have helped you, they may have assisted, they may have provided assistance and help and all of that stuff, but their belief and what they're entitled to far exceeds what your beliefs may be engaging. Where that line is, that line of demarcation where you're trying to establish what's right, what's wrong, what's fair, what's unfair, what's
too excessive, what's enough. It's a never ending process, right and when you're youthful, you don't think about that that's right, but inevitably it comes your way. So that guidance from the elder statesmans of the world, and by that I don't mean age, I mean.
Wisdom and experience.
When you have folks who are wiser, who have more experience, who have endured the terrain, that inevitably is going to come your way. If you arm yourself with that level of intel that comes from a place of inspiration and heartfelt you know emotions as well in terms of them caring about you and your upliftment goes a long way.
This is one of the best pieces of advice that I've heard anybody give on this question, because when you're young, you look at successful people and go why they're so stand offish, why they got to why they got people around them? And I can't get at them, why they got such an attitude, why they're so paranoid with paranoid because y'all coming at us and you try to get your in our pocket, and when we won't, when we zip up the pocket, you want to go around us and take it as if it's yours.
And it's happened to me, it's happened to you, it's happened to.
Everybody in this room, and we're shocked by it, like we're stunned by because it's not strangers, the people who look like us, and we never had this conversation. But this is wisdom, and everybody listening to this needs to understand you need to have compassion and empathy for folks who are walking a different path from yours and learn
from them. And you can't take everybody with you when you get on that path and success and help people as you can, but you don't have they don't have an entitlement to your success.
The thing that I just got from you more than anything.
Becase people hear you, and you're always loud or whatever, it's as quiet wisdom you listen. I asked Quincy Jones, why are you so how'd you get so smart?
Answer?
God, rest of soul. I'm just nosy as hell. I want to know everything about everything. When I met you, I was shocked. After I interviewed. The first thing you had to say to me was questions. Tell me about this, tell me about that, Tell me about the structure of this too. He was as smart as he is still learning. God gave you two ears and one mouth, so you listen twice as.
Much as you talk. Well.
I think the word that comes into mine as humility.
That's it.
My success is not something that I think about too often.
My attitude is I have to wake up every day validating that success that I've achieved. I can't walk around like I've arrived because the second you do that, you're gonna get knocked off. That proverbials pedestal, and I'm not gonna let that happen. But the thing about it is that the humility comes from an understanding and a complete acceptance. You don't know it all. You don't even know most of it. There's always somebody that knows more. There's always
somebody who can teach more. There's always someone who cares more, who's more empathetic, who's more in touch with their empathetic side, and the kind of things that ail us, not just as individuals, not even just as a community, but as
a society. And so when you're thinking along those lines and understanding that, you sit down in that humble space of yours, looking somebody in the face who sees you as a successful human being, and you're saying to them, no matter what I am, I don't think I'm better than you. I would appreciate it if you would help
me become even better than I am right now. And when you do that, it's very, very difficult for somebody to turn away from you and you on helping hand when you come to them with such humility and an understanding of your place in this world.
Success with a light touch, yes, success with a light touching.
And sometimes the heavy touch is necessary, but only in defense of your self preservation.
That's right.
You know, when you know that you're crumbling, when you know that the weight is too much, only you can make that call about yourself. And if you know that about you, there are going to be people that accuse you of being selfish. They're gonna say you don't care enough. They're gonna discount all that you've done, all that you've done, They're gonna they're gonna discount all of that.
But you have to work the late nights and weekends. You didn't.
You have to have the alligator skin, the intestinal fortitude to withstand it all and keep marching forward. Because anytime somebody is prosperous, there's always going to be people in your path trying to stop that progress because their definition of success is hindering your progress in their mind, in their mind, and you have to know what that is, what that looks like when you see it in your world.
So your eighteen year old self, a tougher skin, a lighter touch, a humility and understanding that hurt people, hurt people.
Yes, I've always had the humility, God blessed me with that. I've always been one who listened, always been one who was inquisitive, So I never was I never lacked that part. The other stuff, though, when you're on your grind and you put your head down and it's about marching forward and making sure nobody stops your progress. Sometimes you miss a lot, you miss a lot along the way. But in my case what I missed was helpful for me
because the lessons it taught me. Sometimes you got to pay if somebody is If somebody is walking down the pass, you don't want them to fall into an abyss they can't get out of. But sometimes you got to let them fall because that's the greatest lesson they'll learn, rather than the wisdom that you may have bestowed upon them. Because even though they'll listen to some degree, sometimes they don't listen enough.
That's right.
Sometimes the fall is the greatest device for listening than anything else.
Drop the mic. This is Steven A. Smith on him talking to him at eighteen years of age, and all of you need to listen to this and put it on repeat. So the question, Mike is, and we've been asking all the top leaders, yep, what advice financial literacy advice would you give to your eighteen.
Year old self?
Man, The same thing my grandparents tried to get, tried to drill in me. It took me a while to get I got mentors like you that drilling in me and live at it below your means. If you're eighteen years old and you make two grand a month, you can't afford a two grand apartment. So you and two of your cousins should get together and go in on that apartment together. You guys should take the extra money put aside to a savings to buy an investment property together,
by your very first duplex or quadplex together. We have to start taking seriously money very early. So at eighteen years old, you're old enough to start saving. You just need to do it with a plan and do it with the folks of people. If I was eighteen years old, I tell me my cousin Jimmy and my cousin Brian, let's get a place together.
Let's buy an investment property.
Let's get a quadruplex.
We'll stay in two of them together, we'll rent out the other two and then we'll repeat processes.
We save money. That's it.
That's it tells about a seat. The guy's a genius. Not only first of all, he's got to rap like and understand. I love his music. I just play it on repeat all the time. But he's so wicked smart trying. This is the example of that. What advice would would you like to give to the eighteen year olds listening to this now?
In life, man, there's nothing that's impossible with time. You know, a river, a river takes a jagged rock and makes it smooth. It just takes time. Give yourself time. It's gonna hear to you that everyone else is taking off while you're sitting still. That's their story, that's their movie. Stop trying to star another people's movie starring yours. And if you've read Jason Ziliad or if you saw John Wick, what you know is the hero must go through a
personal overcoming to establish and win. So you're the hero in this movie. Every trial you're going through is just another trial that brings you closer to the ultimate victory. And the victory isn't the ending going your way. The victory is and que you become on the journey.
Rainbow's only follow storms. Amen, You not have a rainbow without a storm. Says you cannot grow except for legitimate suffering.
Man.
I was I landed in Jamaica with my wife once and it was poor down and she wasn't expecting Ryan, and she wanted a beautiful weekend, and she was complaining that a driver turned to us and said, ma'am, the farmers pray to.
That part.
So what would you tell your eighteen year old self about financial literacy? What lessons or what advice would you give your eighteen year old self? Looking at wo.
Knowing what I know now, that bicycle really wasn't worth it. Okay, I never really had a large summer money. I was working for five dollars a day.
I made.
Twenty seven to fifty working from seven to seven, working a half a day on Saturday, so I made twenty seven to fifty and by the time I settled up with the corner store, I brought home about twenty dollars.
And I've always had lofty ideas.
I mean, the worst thing that happened to me is what my advice started coming on because they had roles, they had a side shad, they they had ferraris, and I wanted that, and I felt that was I had made it.
If I had that.
You know, you grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing and you have to go outside to go to the bathroom, you have to draw whale water. So I needed things to say, Okay, I've made it, not realizing that I could have made it without having all those things, But that's not how my mind was wired back then. I had to have I needed a Rowlex to say okay, I got out of the hood. I needed a big house to say.
Yes yes.
And so now things that interest me and excited me when I was eighteen doesn't have the same effect on me now. It doesn't have the same effect when I was thirty, doesn't have the same effect when I was forty, And so I wish I would have had that mindset then to realize that, you know, what's shunting You could save, You could get something that's not as expensive, because at the end of the day, I'm shoting sharp regardless, that's right. I can be sharing sharp and a Chevy, or I
can be sharing sharp in Ferrari. At the end of the day, I'm still shunting sharp. And that's what I had to realize because the car didn't make me.
I bought it.
Yeah.
The wealth is not on your arm, it's in your head.
Yes, Yeah, So you realize that you are actually somebody and you don't need something else to reaffirm that. Now you get those things now, cool, but it's not a proxy for your self esteem. So you've become reasonably comfortable in your own skin over time.
Yes, if you go outside and you look at your car and your car, it's worth more to you having your bank account. You're a fool if your ass, if your assets are on your ass, you had a problem exactly. And so that's what that's what we're gonna have to understand, is that it's not the things that we have that make us wealthy.
You shouldn't be paying over your car notes.
And you are paying for rent no absolutely not no absolutely mortgage and look you and why have a fancy car if you're renting. Hello, that's a lot of times people have these nice cars and you pull up to you pulling up to an apartment complex really broke.
Ro I mean the range Rover and no range nowhere?
You parket it outside. You ain't going to arge garage to park it in. So home ownership you you you live and learn. So I wish I had learned these things a lot sooner in life.
You here and have you with this, Thanks are making this issue sexy and appealing and reachable for most people financial literacy and civil rights issue generation.
I'm honored to be here Thank You.
M.
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.