9. Money Matters ft. Jeffery Holmes

Let's talk about money. On this episode, BD is joined by Certified Financial Planner Jeffery Holmes. Jeffery is the founder of Investstream Advisory, where he focuses on financial planning, real estate, and insurance. He received his MBA from the Graves School of Business & Management at Morgan State University and has hosted numerous wealth-centered events around the Baltimore area, notably at Stem & Vine.

Topics discussed include:

• Jeffery's journey so far from corporate America to doing finance on his own terms
• What is financial literacy?
• Common money mistakes
• Saving vs. Investing vs. Trading
• Practical money advice

Also, we got Hold Ya Head, Support the Homies, and much more. 

R.I.P. Harambe, gone but not forgotten. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:34

Yes, hello, yes, boy. Today is Thursday, May 28th. Maybe May 235. God damn. And you were listening to episode 9, if my math is right, of the Big Drain Show. The voice you hear right now is your favorite podcaster in the whole wide world. Give me my flowers now while I can still smell them. Your boy Jordan, BDJ Taylor. And I'm feeling good, man. I'm feeling good. Yeah, last week's episode was definitely one of my favorites. Shout out to my pop, shout out to Big Ray coming through. Got to chop it up with my dad on a podcast. Some shit that is usually reserved for big dogs like Bill Simmons or Dan Labatar, you know the ESPN cats. But I'm grateful for that. If you haven't already, go back and binge the whole catalog. It's some gems in there, some nuggets, some great guests, some great conversations, some some evergreen topics. Just me. Yeah, just me pouring my heart and my soul out. As always, like, rate, subscribe, review on some other housekeeping notes before we get into the ground rules, which I still didn't record. I've been saying I was gonna record them for eight weeks now. And I'm gonna record them eventually, but I didn't record them yet. But other housekeeping things, other things that get out the way before we get to this week's episode. I had an interview. I got an interview that's gonna be dropping. Interview with Eighth House. That's A-Y-T-H-H-A-U-S. Um it's gonna be on YouTube. Some social media clips are out right now. By the time this episode drops, the full interview will probably be out. But just shout out to my dog Kirsten again, friend of the pod, alum, alumna of the pod, alumnus of the pod, I guess is the top term. Alumnus of the pod. She's getting in her media bag. It's always cool to see your friends change their dreams and change their passions. So that interview, like I said, is gonna be available on YouTube. If you follow me on social media, it'll be blasted out. Also, I'm gonna put a preview of it on this feed at some point. Probably Frida. Well, today's Thursday, so probably not Friday. But it'll be on the on the feed at some point next week. And yeah, I just really got into it's cool to be on the other side of getting the questions asked instead of the one asking the questions. So I got to get into my brain, my my ideas as a creative as well as an entrepreneur. The combination between the business side and the creative side, how does it all work together? My story, my journey, experiences I've had. Just a lot of shit. It's something about talking to your friends that you're gonna get into kind of a different bag than if you're talking to a stranger. Other cheap plugs and promo, if you're listening to this before Saturday, May 30th, me and the guys, me and the six-minute men, we're throwing a cookout at Carol Clark. Make sure the RSVP pull up, bring just don't pull up empty-handed. We always have a good time, man. It's always safe, always good vibes. Never, we ain't on that bullshit like a lot of people be on. So if you're free on Saturday between the hours of 12 and 8, pull up to the cookout, kick it with the guys, have a good time. B Y O B, B Y O E, all that good shit. Also, another shout out to the heavy boys. You had your boy outside this weekend, DC, running the running the triple play from the brunch to the day party to the to the rooftop party. So if you saw me outside this weekend, you ain't seen me outside this weekend. And yeah, let's get to the let's get to these ground rules. Oh, I'm sorry. One last housekeeping note. Books, you left a voicemail. We're gonna be addressing that voicemail next week or next week's episode. If anyone else would like to leave voicemails, feel free. The link is directly in the podcast bio. It's like the first thing when you click on the description. Am I missing anything? Am I missing anything? Yeah, keep leaving voicemails, keep leaving voicemails. But we're gonna get into these ground rules. Also, I want to give us, before we get into that, I'm gonna give a shout out to our guest for the day, my guy, Jeffrey Holmes. He's been sitting here waiting patiently, like, when is he gonna say something for me to get on the episode? But hey, certified financial planner, founder of live stream advisory, graduate of the illustrious Grade School of Business and Management on the campus of Morgan State University. I know you got a lot of accolades and shit. Is there anything you want to add?

SPEAKER_00 4:35

No, that's good. Invest stream advisory.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Invest stream, I said it wrong. When I say invest live stream, you said live stream, but it's still cool. I like the name too. So yeah, this this week's episode is gonna be a little different. We got Jeffrey in the building. He's gonna talk to us about some financial literacy, about some money moves. Grateful for the platform because I can go on one end talk about conspiracy theories and bullshit and Drake. And another week I can have my pops on here talking about 30 years of knowing me, and then the next week we can switch it up and have a real legit financial man in the building. So grateful for my platform, grateful for y'all the listeners. Y'all y'all helped make this great, y'all help keep me going. And let's move to these ground rules that I did not record, even though I've been saying for seven weeks I was gonna record them in advance. So, if you're not, if you're new here, the ground rules are kind of how we center ourselves there, there, so you know what you're about to get into for the next 45 minutes to an hour as I talk my shit. If you've been here before, you can fast forward 45 minutes to an hour unless you just take pleasure in hearing me recite these every week. Because you know I hate reciting a Merry Week, and I keep saying I'm gonna record a Merry Week, and I just never record them. But hey, we had a guest, we had a special guest this week, so I didn't get the same kind of prep time. The time I would have spent recording this shit is the time that went into the actual conversation. So, hey, excuse me, it is what it is. So, ground rule number one, these thoughts are strictly my own. They do not reflect the views of any family, friends, partners, affiliates, or associates, or guests, we'll add that. Number two, we use vulgar language, we cuss here, shit, ass fuck damn, because we we say bad words. So if you're somewhere where that kind of language is frowned upon, if you're somewhere where you got maybe young, impressionable ears, impressionable impressionable minds around you, if you had a break room at work, like I'm gonna see what this nigga BD talking about. You might want to put some AirPods in, you might want to put some headphones in, you might, you might wanna wanna hold off. Number three, follow me. Not in the literal sense of the Facebook IG, so on and so forth, but but literally follow me. The way that my brain works, I can go from point A to point B to point C, then back to point A. And we also live in an era, we live in a generation where it's common to multitask, where it's coming to try to do a bunch of different things at the same time. You might be listening to me scrolling on the gram or TikTok, X reading, doing your grocery shop, whatever it may be. I just ask that you listen intently, because I don't want I don't want the valuable knowledge that I'm dropping on this motherfucker to get lost in the sauce. On that same token, number four, tell me if I'm tripping, if I'm tripping, if I'm geeking, if I'm saying something that's out of pocket, if I'm saying something that's out of bounds, if I'm wild, even if I'm just wrong. If I just say some shit and I'm wrong. Let me know. Human just like, y'all, I'm an easy guy to get in contact with at Big Dreams Jordan on all social networks. Pull my car, pull me up. Like, let's let's have a conversation with. I never wanted to be a thing. That's how motherfuckers end up washed. When you don't listen to people's opinions and you don't listen to the outside world and you just kind of stay in your own bubble. That's that's how you end up washed out here. And I I pray that the spirit of washness is far, far, far away from me. Number five, help this thing grow. Like I said, like, rate, subscribe, review, tell your friends, tell a friend to tell a friend, send a DM, repost on a story, whatever it may be. If you believe in me, you appreciate what I'm doing here. Help me to spread the word, help me to make this thing grow. The marketing for the last two months has been real, real grassroots, real if you know you know. I'm excited this summer to take some different approaches, do some more creative stuff, really have fun with marketing it. But the best, the best marketing tactic outside of whatever I do, I can get a goddamn billboard on Times Square, get a billboard in the hub, get a billboard in Narry City. The best marketing is always gonna be word of mouth. It's always gonna be someone that you trust telling you something. So if you like what we're doing, help me out. You feel me? Spray the word. And last but not least, please, please, please, please, please, always do your own research. Don't let anything that I say or for this episode, Jeffrey, don't let anything that he says be the end of, be your end of really do your research, really take time to consult some different sources, consult some different people. Just never let anything that anyone tells you stand is just that, especially in this era, especially in this generation where there's so much misinformation, so much ignorance. And then any era, you just got people that get shit wrong, period. So always do your own research, always look into your own things. And yeah, with that being said, let's get into it, bro. How you feeling?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

I'm good, bro.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

How you feeling? Goddamn. You see why I say I want to pre-record that, Drake, because every week it's just like a goddamn marathon and just like this, this, this, this, this.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

I love the professionalism.

SPEAKER_02 9:21

You know, you know, we I'm I'm too old to be out here trying bullshit and and freewheel it. But yeah, man, so let's let's just start from the top. And this is gonna be uh, I'm excited for this conversation because I don't necessarily do interviews on this show, it's more so conversations. And the last couple folks I've had on here have been more so riding shot guy. But due to what you're experiencing, due to and conversations that we had offline, I'll I'll uh fully disclose now. Jeffrey is helping me with my finances. He's somebody that I'm talking to, consulting with when I gotta balance out the the IRAs and the 401k, so on and so forth. He's somebody that I'm I'm turning to. Actually, he was a like the last week of our the last week of class for the semester, he was the guest speaker. So that's actually how we met. Shout out to Big Gray, shout out to Mr. Fletcher, shout out to all the boys and girls back home on over on East Coast Green Lane. Yeah, shout out to everybody, but yeah, bro, I was I was taken aback by you initially just because a lot of times in this finance space, you hear people talk about money, they don't necessarily look like us, they don't necessarily talk like us, they don't necessarily come from where we come from. Or if they do, they get that air about them of like, well, if I did it, nigga, you should do it too. Yeah. So when you came through with your approach, and it really was like point blank period, okay, this is what you need to do, this is what you need to think about. It was refreshing because it was accessible to the average person, yeah. But also real knowledge. You feel me? I'm not someone that's green per se when it comes to financial literacy. I watch, earn your leisure, I've been to InvestFest, I got investments, I got things of that nature, but it's it's something different about having somebody that you can reach out and text, reach out and call about these type of things. So, first and foremost, what is your role specifically? What is a certified financial planner?

SPEAKER_00 11:03

That's a good question. Like, I always like to start with like saying you go to the doctor, you have your primary care doctor, right? You go to your doctor when you're not feeling well. You go to your therapist if your psyche is not right. Right? You go to the gym, you get a personal trainer to get yourself in shape. But who do you go to when it's your money? Right? Most people can't answer that. And like I think we talked about offline, no disrespect to your landscaper, the custodian, whatever the case. That's not their profession. Right? So my role as a certified financial planner is to help look at your finances from a holistic standpoint. Right? I'm trying to look at everything and how do we maximize your money from now until retirement or like I like to call it the inevitable because you're gonna get old. Yeah, right? God willing. God willing. So my role is just to help set this plan and we ride the wave to this plan, right? But we're looking at it from a holistic standpoint. Whether you got investments over here, how's your taxes looking? How's your insurance looking? How's your health plan looking? How's your car insurance looking? I'm looking at all of that shit to maximize your money. That's what the role of a certified financial planner is, in my opinion. Oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

That's the best of the best opinion we got in this world, but uh, how did that, what was the genesis of that? Because when we talk, I know you originally went to school for communication, undergrad. So how did it, how did it transition into you then going into the business world?

SPEAKER_00 12:50

After I graduated from Grace, getting my MBA, just had my son, and I thought I was gonna be a career student. I was about to get my doctorate. I was gonna go to University of Maryland. Well, I don't know. But I was in the process of going to University of Maryland to study kinesiology. And I remember speaking with the dean of the program, the head of the chair or head of the department. Yeah. Yeah, and we had a conversation, I never gave it, it was like a phone interview. And I remember going downstairs, sitting on like the dryer and just having a conversation. And I had just interviewed at Merrill. Merrill offered me $42,000. And I'm talking to the department chair, and he's like, Man, only thing I can offer you is $20,000 and a teacher's assistant. And I'm like, bro, I just had a kid. What am I supposed to do with that? And then he asked me, Hey, how do you want to do your research? Do you want to be in the field doing the practical or you want to teach? And my question to him was, how can I teach something I've never done? So of course I want to be out in the field. And he said, Hey, I only raise you to be a teacher. I don't raise you to be anything else other than that. And I was like, ah, that's where we bumped heads. He was like, Look, it's easy, math. You just had a child, and I can only offer you 20,000, they can offer you 42,000. And I was like, hey, appreciate you. And like that was my my my goal into the lane of financial planning, literacy, whatever the case may be. So when I got to Merrill and I got into the role, and we'll talk about this later, uh, I got good at it. Yeah, and but that's when to see that planet was like, hey, I can do this shit on my own. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

But that was that's a big thing too. Like you said, we're gonna get into it.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

That's a big thing too, bro. You know, that's just being naive in it at it, but that shit moved mountains, but like that's how it started, and that's how I got into it. And then when I got in it, I was like, oh, I'm home. Yeah, I don't I don't want to go nowhere else. Like we just been rocking ever since 20 September 26, 2017 was my higher date. And I've been gone ever since then. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

So something that you did say that I want to touch upon is you now you doing on your own.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 15:16

That's a big leap too. How long did it take for you to feel like, well, I guess it's both the skill set piece, how long did it take for you to feel like you had the skill set to go out on your own, but also how long did it take for you to have the confidence to have the the drive to like I can make this shake on my own? Cause I know those are two different timelines, a lot of science for folks.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

I still don't think I had a skill set. Okay. Cause I'm I'm I'm always trying to get better. Right. The confidence to do it again. I started that role at Merrill at 20 in 2017. By like three months into the role, I was already I was already the site leader at my at the at my office. I was the site leader in bringing new money over. And I was top five in the segment. Yeah. And I was like, I can do this shit in my sleep, right? And I never forget I shadowed a financial advisor and I was like, yo, how you know when to put him in this fund? He was like, We just put him in there. And I was like, but what if they 60 or whatever? We just put them in this fund. And I never forget that shit. And I was like, damn, bro, that ain't helpful. Like it's not, and then it was like, I never forget. I walked back and I was in a pod of like four because I was in a call center. So I I walked back to my partner, I was like, yo, we can start a financial firm. All of them said, Jeff, you crazy as shit. And I'm like, yeah, we know that, but I can still start a financial firm. So the confidence I had the confidence that I had the know to do this shit. Hell no. So every year I like research. Every day I researched, every year I research, and it wasn't until 2017 or 2018 to 2023. And that's when I I like leaped. And then we can talk about like that metamorphosis process.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

I think that this piece, whether you are interested in taking a different kind of step or a different kind of leap, or if you just somebody at home that's looking for that spark or that motivation, period. I think that there's I think that they're in gems, no matter what perspective you're taking it from. So please be my guest.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

So I started doing like research, like, you know, how do you start a financial firm and all this other shit? You get you get all this information and just like investing. We get all of this information, and then what happens? We get analysis, paralysis. From all of this shit that we done read, it cripples us, and now we can't move or make a decision. I'm a fast forward the timeline. I was working at Morgan Stanley, and I just remember my last 90 days. Bro, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't do anything. I was like, yo, it's time. But I was like, all right, so what are the steps? So then I just started implementing everything to start a financial firm. Started getting everything that I needed to get myself going. And then it just got to a point where it's like you gonna you gonna bitch out or you gonna take this leap? Yeah, and you gonna take that shot? And that's what I did. I just took the shot. Was I ready? Hell no. But you never, yeah, you never ready. You never ready. You gotta put yourself in a fire and in hella high water, you just gotta figure it out. I'm still figuring out. I'm not where I wanna be, but if I look back at my goals that I wrote down, I'm right here.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

Real, bro. Real. And that's how I feel with even with this podcast and all the media stuff I'm doing. You feel me? It's like the both, it's like the conundrum, you know what I mean? Whereas I have experience doing this shit for years, both on the on the hosting the joint, engineering it, producing it, putting it out, marking it. I got experience across different platforms, different places, different decades. But when it's time for me to step in the booth and do my own shit, and you can hear it kind of when I go back and listen to episode one, episode two, I was like, I don't even know how to start these goddamn episodes. I don't even know, but again, you just do it because if there's something you're really passionate about, something you really care about, you're gonna put that time into the craft to figure out. Well, first you're gonna define what greatness means to you. Then you're gonna figure out day by day, step by step, how do I get to that point?

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Everything has a system, right? To the point of the podcast, everything has a system, and it's like you like, oh shit, that's why they started off like this. And then okay, this is the bridge. Like, everything has a system, and and when it comes with like finances, it's a a system to everything, right? And if you just going off the whim, or you just going off, and I I love your housekeeping rules or your ground rules. It was like, yo, go research this shit. And if you don't, you're gonna find yourself just on the hamster wheel the whole time. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

You at the mercy of you at the mercy of your ignorance. Yeah. But let's go high level real quick. How would you define financial literacy?

SPEAKER_00 20:22

That's a good question. Financial literacy to me is if we break it down, we look at literacy in itself, right? It's being to being able to speak, read and the knowledge and breakdown of something, right? So that's how you become literate, right? Then the finance piece, if we now go back into it, finance has its own language, right? So you gotta now go in and study this shit, know how to speak it, know how to read it, and then combine that shit together. So that's financial literacy to me. I know it's not the textbook definition, but that's what it is. Being able to speak, understand, and know finance.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

So on the flip side of that, what do a lot of people get wrong about their personal finances, whether it be philosophy, whether it be just a move that people make incorrectly, what what are some things that you see just looking 300, 3,000? I don't know what the fucking phrase is, 10,000 feet, 40,000 feet. Like an airplane. Yeah, looking down from the airplane, the the learning jet. Yeah, what are some things that some some pitfalls that you see a lot of people fall into?

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Most it it's two things. Okay. One, you still have learned habits from whoever your guardian is. Oh, you're talking. Okay. Right. So that's your first pitfall. And I'm not saying that they're right or wrong, but you pick up on most of the things that you see within the house, and especially when it comes to money.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Right? So you're learning those. Habits.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

So that's like when niggas be like, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna say niggas. That's like when grandma or dad or mom be like, don't get a credit card. Or when you get money, put it in bonds.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Absolutely. Shit like that. So like that's the first you gotta untrain that shit. Yeah. Right? Then the second part is most people don't know their current financial situation. So I like to always ask people, yo, how much money you make? Not how much you think, how much money is at the top of the of your 1040, the top of your tax return. How much did that say? Give me to the cent. Nobody can. Right? So it's like because personal finances is just that. So personal, so emotional. Yep. Nobody really wants to look in. Like I did corporate finance for the four years, four and a half years, five years. Everybody is good at managing somebody else's money. Especially on a on a company that because it's it's it's numbers on the scoreboard. That shit don't mean nothing. You load up Excel, you see all of this money. You whatever the system is that you see the money, it's like, ah, okay, I get it. But then once you gotta look back at your shit, it's like, oh, where my money going? You don't do the same practice that you do, that you do at work, at home. And then I think that's what a lot of people like get wrong, right? It's unlearning these bad habits that you grew up from your guardian, and then not knowing your current financial situation, those are the main two. I know I touched on the third topic, but those are my top two.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Yeah. And I'm stuck on that emotionality part because I've I've been of the belief as long as I've been trying to like manage my money and manage my finances, right? I've been of the belief that it's the emotional shit that's gonna jam me up more than the numbers and sense. It's the I had a bad day, so I'm gonna go buy an Icy or I'm gonna go buy an AF or whatever it may be. I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go waste some money. You feel me? Yeah. And it's it's that, it's being able to control them systems and being able to know your triggers and shit to be like, oh, when I'm not feeling well, or when I feel like I did a good job, or vice versa. I feel like I need to go out to eat, whatever it may be. I know that when I feel X, that Y happens. So if I can understand that when I feel X, that Y might happen, I can then trick myself to be like, nah, don't do the Y.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Here's a small trick. And I I think I learned this from listening or watching somebody. Even when you go through these parts with your money and you think you need to go out and do retail shopping, have like a savings account or whatever account it is that you can't see, whatever it may be. And you go, all right, I was about to buy X that costs $200. Boom. Take it from your check and move it to that account that you can't see, and that same dopamine is released.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

Right? So it's a I ain't feeling good, but I do know in the back end, if I spend this $200, I ain't got it no more. Right. But what you can do is just do a reverse trick on yourself and just move it to another account and you're gonna still have that same dopamine release.

SPEAKER_02 25:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

I used to do something similar.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

I would, so back when when back when I was more of a fan dueler, you feel me? Back when I was more of a draft king, if I put a bet down, right? I say I bet 20. If I put 20 on a bet, I'm also taking 20 and putting it in my savings. Like I'm matching every bet I play, so every like vice. Because I know that it's I know it's harder for me to not spend money on a vice than it is for me to double it up. And then when I'm looking at my account and have and double what I expect to spend is gone, even though psychologically I'm tricking myself because 20 just went in the pot, 20 just went to Stardust Casino or whatever the fuck.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Yeah. I mean, but yeah. It's the same kind of thing, but I also you can budget for that shit. True. That's right. Right. So you I like to call it play money or fuck off money. You should budget to have that. For sure. Right. The bills taken care of, your savings taken care of. You got some money to go have. Some some tricking time. Call it what it is. But yeah, you got time, you got money to do. Like, you don't do all of this hard work just to get that shit out to people. And I think that's where, yeah, that's where we like again fall in that hamster cycle. It's like, nah. But budget for it. Right? You gotta, you gotta make sure that everything has a budget. Every dollar has to be accounted for, just like when you at work and you do procurement with an accountant, whatever the case may be, every dollar is counted for. And that's how it should be with your personal finances. Real. Real, real, real.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

So if y'all can't tell by now, Jeff is an authentic, he's an authentic guy. He he talks, he took he speaks the language of the people. Y'all can't see because we don't got camera, but he came in with the hair out, shades. It's like we're about to drop a mixtape. I'm sure the people at the front desk are probably they would be real confused if they saw how we walked down here and then they heard the content of this episode, they probably be a little lost. But for you, and this is switching gears back to you now. How do you balance like the authenticity of I'm a black man, I'm gonna be fly, I'm gonna have my hair braided, or I'm gonna have my hair out, and I'm gonna show up in this way, and I feel that's more so what's the word I'm looking for? Respect more more so leans into like respectability politics. So you gotta have your blazer and your dress shirt, and you don't necessarily gotta talk a certain way, but it's frowned upon. How do you how do you balance that though? Of staying you, but also being in this white, white patriarchal, white supremacist ass line of work.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

I'm always be me. And if I'm me, I ain't gotta change that, right? Do I know how to code search? Absolutely. But for the most part, I'm appealing to whoever is appealing to me, right? If you think me having my hair out is a problem, that's on you. It's not gonna stop me from having my hair out. Right. You know what I'm saying? But I'm also respectful. The other part of it, and I told you this offline, you're not gonna out-credential me. You're not gonna have everything that I got behind my name. And if you do, kudos to you. But you can't call me out because you're gonna be like, damn, he went through that already. So I ain't never got called out in that regard. I don't know, man. I I don't I think that was another thing that I fought with in corporate America that I had to keep changing up and I couldn't never be myself. I'm not in it. I'm on the outside of it. I still operate with people who are in corporate America, but I just gotta be me. And I think that is the freeing part of not being in corporate America, right? And I just, bro, if I can say it bluntly, either you love me or you or you like me. Right? You know what I'm saying? Either you love me or you like me. But I'ma always be me because I don't have to change that up.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Real shit. Real shit. And again, that's part of I don't know if like really pulling back the curtain. I don't know if people really understand like how how intentional like image and branding and all that shit is. You feel me? Like, the second I walk through the door, I'm marketing. The second I walk through the door, I'm branding. The second uh the second I open my mouth to speak to somebody, no matter where the fuck I'm not or what the fuck I'm doing, is a reflection, it's a bigger reflection of me. So in a world where a lot of shit is is fake, in a world where shit is literally AI, that authenticity piece that I'm me myself, and hey, we got a superstar in the building, man. He just mic's up with the goddamn lavalier mic. This guy here, man. But Chen, that is that's a superpower, because it's rare for so long. I spoke about this in an interview that's coming up with A Thouse, but for so long, similar to what you say, I didn't recognize that it was rare to be authentic. I didn't recognize it was rare to be real. I didn't recognize that it was rare to be able to articulate and express express yourself in a way the way people, whether they from goddamn Court of America on Wall Street or goddamn East Baltimore Green Mount, can understand you and be like, oh, you're saying some real shit. I'ma meet you where you are.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Like I'm still polite, bro. I'm still gonna walk up to you, yes sir, no sir, yes, ma'am, no ma'am. How your day? Nah, tell me. Like the people that walk me down here, each of them, how your day? Are you you good? All right, perfect. How yours? And they don't be used to getting that. You know what I'm saying? Like, we can talk. Like, I can talk to you. And then if we go on, if we're going on Green Mountain, or we going wherever in the city, I'm still gonna talk to you. I'm gonna introduce myself, I'm gonna know the neighbors around, like prime example, like the other side of me, I'm a real estate agent, right? I'm in like the west side, like I'm in the west side of the city, right? Where other agents can't go or they won't go. Right. And I'm there, hey, I'm knocking on the doors. Hey, let me introduce myself. Hey, I got this property next door. Keep an eye on it just in case. Yeah, hey, here go my number. All right, hit me up. And then I'm coming back. I'm not, isn't it's not just one time.

SPEAKER_02 31:36

Yeah, it ain't transactional.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

I'm coming back. Hey, how everything? Oh, you good? Hey, you see an attraction coming through here? Yeah, I see you doing your thing. Boom. So it's like, bro, like I can't be anybody but me. Yeah, you know what I'm saying? So it's just if it's rare from being yourself, hey, I'll I'll fall in that red breed. Yeah. But I'm also I'm also not trying to appease anybody by being me. Again, like I said, either either you're gonna use my services or you not. Yeah. But I know I'm gonna drop you off with some good information in that time frame. Real shit. Real shit. Who or what inspires you? Damn. Who or what inspires me? I think I think my future self inspires me the most. Oh, that's a bar.

SPEAKER_02 32:29

Yeah, I think my future self- I told y'all this man is good, ladies and gentlemen. I told you.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

I told you. My future self inspires me because I'm always like trying to better myself. Yep. And it's like, all right. Do I ever know if I'm gonna ever get there? I don't know. That's the fun part. Yeah, but let me see. So I'm always trying to do better. Yeah, my future self inspired me like shit. Yeah, because I gotta live up to this shit that I wrote down on paper. All my goals I wrote down on paper. Like, I if it don't work out, it's me. Yeah. So it's like I gotta check off what I said I wanna be, what I want to do, how much I want to make, the house, the kids, the family, the wife. Like, I gotta check that shit off. So like that's what inspires me the most. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

And I feel a real sense of intentionality behind that too. You really gotta sit and think. You really gotta sit and reflect. You really gotta sit and like, this is who I am, this is who I wanna be, or this is what you really gotta sit down. Like, I think that, and that's why whatever ground rule it is, number three or number four, I think it's number three, follow me. That's why that piece is so important. Because it's not like it ain't just like follow me, because I'm gonna talk shit and I'm gonna go all around the place, but it's it's the practice of like sitting, focus, sit and lock in. If you can lock in on another motherfucker saying something, you can sit with a notebook for 15 minutes or a white boy for 15, 20 minutes and be like, boom, this is where I want to be, this is my goal, like, yeah, man. That shit lonely. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

That shit is lonely.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

That shit's lonely.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Sitting and peeling that onion back on yourself, you're gonna see a lot of shit about yourself that you never wanted to see. Right. But if you want to see that future self or whatever it is you want to be, you gotta sit by yourself, bro. And sitting by yourself, the noise is louder than being around a bunch of people.

unknown 34:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

Yeah, your thoughts, them shit scream loud. That pain, that trauma, it scream loud when you're by yourself. But you gotta sit in it, you gotta address it. And then rise up above it, be a phoenix. You feel me? How do you define success? Uh I think it's back to that point. It's different for everybody, but it's what you wrote down for yourself in a sense. Like, if I say I'ma create this podcast and I'ma record once a week, that's success. Right? One you created the podcast, and then now it's I'm recording once a week like I like I held myself to, and I did it, right? And then after that, you gotta redefine your goals. Yep. Right? And then now it's it's new success. So success is what what I'm looking for? Infinity. Ever like it's always gone. Perpetual. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

So it's like climbing a mountain over and over and over. You get to the top, then you go to another mountain, another mountain. But for you personally, what is success? How do you define success for for your business endeavors, for your for your personally? What does success look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

I'll say it right now. Managing about 10 million assets under management. That is. Yeah, in terms of the real estate. I've learned that 71% of all agents, real estate agents last year in 2025 didn't have one deal.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Damn. Hold on, say that again. Cause that's a that's one of them stats right there.

SPEAKER_00 36:11

71% of all real estate agents in 2025 didn't have one deal. And that's across the United States. And 93% of all agents don't have over 10.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

So if you hit one, you already in the top 20-something percent. Correct. If you hit 10, you already in the top 7%.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Correct. And so success in that is now getting 10. All right. I had one last year, I'm at two now, and I got like two under contracts. So like I still gotta find a way to get six more. Yeah. Insurance is a different goal in itself, but I'm not worried about that. But it's then being able to do the things that I want to do. Free. Yeah, right. You don't jump out by yourself with the thought of not being free, but it's a cost to it. Yeah. But I want to be able to do the things that I want to do. Shit, like just like you and everybody else. I'm tired of looking at my bank app and saying, hey, can I get this gash right? But you know, trying to find a way to like have a system in place where it's like, oh, now I can scale. So that's another part of like success. So it's being able to scale the business, uh, being able to meet those goals, 10 million on the assets on the investment side, 10 transactions on the real estate side. I'd say those my type three success.

SPEAKER_02 37:44

How do you find a balance between the different hands that you wear, both as an entrepreneur, both as well as like a human being? Like you somebody, you a father, you a husband. How do you how do you manage all of these different things at the same time? That's a damn good question.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Hey man, I ain't gonna lie. I do this media shit, bro.

SPEAKER_02 38:05

I ain't gonna lie.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

It's a damn good question. And you you you schedule for it. You schedule for everything that you want. So, alright, we wake up, we got a routine as a family. Once we go out, alright, I gotta go out and hunt. Once we pick up, oh alright, I'm back to dad mode, but I still got some business in there. Alright, wifey come home, now I gotta be the man that I gotta be the husband, I gotta be all of that shit. So you just gotta schedule for it, right? And that's how you that's how you do it. Like every dollar gotta be budget for it, every minute, right? And I'm trying to get better at that. Oh, for sure. Yeah, like do I have balance in a sense, but right now as I'm growing, there's no such thing as balance, right? So every day kind of bleeds in itself. But I say with that, but I think budgeting your time or scheduling your time uh is a good way. Like I'm I like studying successful people. What's that dude? Ryan Sirhan? Yeah, he likes it sound important. Yeah, like a big real estate guy. Okay. Everything on his schedule is 15 minutes. So he's blocking out 15 minutes for everything. Oh, we want to meet, it's 15 minutes or less. I think as you as we fine-tune this process, some people schedule the hour, you block an hour, right? Then you go up a little higher, you block 30 minutes. And then once you get to that elite, it's 15 minutes. And so I think that's how you that's how I'm trying to balance. So I'm still at that hour level. I'm still blocking hours, but yeah, like that's how you find balance. Yeah. Or that's how I'm trying to find balance and balancing all of this shit is just scheduling it, getting into a routine. Yeah. And that when you can float through, rain or shine. And I'm gonna say this being an entrepreneur, being an entrepreneur, the key to it is finding a routine and finding a routine early. Because when you W-2 employee or when you work for somebody, that routine is already made. You know you gotta get up at set time, you know you gotta eat breakfast, hit the drive, get to work, you know you got this eight hours plan. Got your 15 here, your 30, yeah. Then you come back, right? Yeah. And then it's like, all right, now I just drove home. Now I gotta eat, go to the gym, thumb through the gram, thumb through the social media, whatever it is, and then I'm back to sleep. Boom. That's the routine. But when you're out on your own, shit. Yeah, you gotta develop that routine. And it's 16 hours in a day. If you, you know, you sleep eight hours. You gotta map out 16 hours a day, bro. Yeah. And so, there you go, right there.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

No, that's real.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

But find that routine.

SPEAKER_02 41:10

I was talking to my I was talking to my cousin. I missed her on the on the show earlier, but shout out to Celeste, Celeste, something good, something good, food and events, one of the best chefs I ever met. And I'm not just saying that because it's my cousin. She really, she really liked that. But we were talking about balance, and I was like, it's kind of it's kind of like, I don't know if you've seen the circus back in the day, but they be like a clown on a unicycle trying to balance all these plates and shit. And I was like, that's what like life is like, and that's what your priority is like, just trying to keep all the plates spinning, knowing that some of them are gonna be a little wobbly than others, some of them you're gonna gotta check on for a little bit, but it's just trying to keep as many of them motherfuckers in the air as possible, because that's gonna be your family, that's gonna be your friends, that's gonna be your job, that's gonna be your finance, whatever it may be, but always having an idea. I ain't I ain't walking the dog in two days. He's getting a little restless. Let me let me make sure I go to the store, get him a toy, some shit like that. Or I ain't pay this bill, I ain't pay this ticket and it's coming due. Let me spend a little extra time here. So that's how I try to look at it. That same philosophy for real.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

And and when you think about it, what happened? He made that shit happen. Ain't no plate drop. That's why we all stood up at the end. Get the clap and they got the clapping at the end, right? Because you find a way to you get it done, right? If you think about that example that you just laid out, how did he get to that point?

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Practice. Bunch of practice. Now you know his wife was mad at him some of them, some of them days, like, damn, it's three in the morning, kind of thing. You went to the basement, breaking up all the China shit.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

Yeah, fucking up the color. Whatever he's fucking up, the China, the fine China, he's fucking it all up. But it was like, all right, I'm gonna practice, I got this routine, and then now I am off balance. And you fail it. And then it gets to a point where it's like, oh shit, I'm performing. Right? I mean, he there was a moment before he got to perform it, right? I'm going out on auditions, I'm getting it, I'm doing it, I'm doing shows. Somebody sees me, somebody validates me because that's the other part to success. Somebody has to validate you. Interesting. You can't validate yourself. I never thought about that one. I might I might got set with that one. You can't validate you can talk shit about yourself all day, right? You can say I'm the greatest, I'm the best. And then until somebody come ignite you and validate you, and then that's what propels you. You think of any artist, 50. Mixtape, mixtape, mixtape. What happened? You got validated by Eminem, Dr. Dre. Blew up. And that cosign. Right. You think of any artist, right? And that's how it happens. Like somebody validate you, and back to the story, somebody validated. Now you performing. Now you getting that applause. Now you and that's what we all want. We want that clap at the end. But Back to the analogy. Buddy made it happen with all them plates. And we gotta find a way to make it happen.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Hey, real quick, we got any any clowns in the audience? Metaphorically speaking, you know, not literally. I don't I don't think we got a lot of clowns and suckers that listen to this hair program here. But if we got any clowns in the audience, I would be curious to know like what your life like. I ain't gonna lie to you. I'd be real curious. But yeah, let me let me ask you this, because I got a couple, I got a couple more things for you. But uh I'm having a lot of fun, bro. I like talking about money, I like talking about finance, but I also like talking about the philosophy behind the emotion, the emotion behind it. I like I like getting into the nitty-gritty, because I think that when it comes to money, a lot of times motherfuckers look at it like baseball, where it's like all these words and all this jargon, but at the end of the day, it really is simple. It's bring in more money than you kicking out, put some money aside for a rainy day in smart places where it's gonna make money, and keep seeking out opportunities that's gonna grow your money and not gonna drain your money, and people that's gonna grow your money and not drain your money, type shit. But I want to ask you a real basic question. I want you to break it down in the most simplest way possible. Because a lot of people still get jammed up on this.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

What is what is the difference between saving, investing, and trading?

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Okay. Saving is putting money to the side for a rainy day. I'm gonna use let's use that as like an emergency savings, right? Savings is putting it to the side for a rainy day. Investing is making sure that your money grows and keeps up with inflation. And trading is you trying to outsmart the market and having fun at the end of the day. So, but each each one of those components, each third has. Sorry, the camera went off.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

Yeah, that's I gotta get. I mean, that's all right, but at the end of time we gonna have the camera popping up, because that was hilarious. I wish y'all could have seen it.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

But but each third has its has its place, right? So you gotta save for the rainy day, you gotta save for the big purchase items.

SPEAKER_02 46:20

Yeah, and I always heard rule of thumb, six, I heard six months of expenses, but I I think that because where we at?

SPEAKER_00 46:27

You really gotta have 12 in real life. Yeah, and when I came and spoke, or when I was speaking on the Zoom, I said, hey bro, be great at it. Save for 12 month expenses. Because here's what happens when you lose your job. You're still going to have your same spending habits as if you have money coming in, and there is no money coming in, or that next job hasn't happened yet. And then you're gonna get to a point where you look and you like, oh shit. And then it gight. And then you like all right, and then that's when that pressure comes on. I'm trying to help you so you don't feel like that pain and that pressure.

SPEAKER_01 47:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Because once survival mode hit, life changes. Yeah, right. You can't love the same, you can't be the you can't be the best friend anymore. Like, you can't do any of that. That's real. So that's why I say, yo, you gotta build that cushion for at least a year. The investing part is like I said at the beginning, is the inevitable. We're going to get old. And we've seen it with friends of the family or our family. We know what improper planning looks like. Yeah. And then what's gonna happen at the end of it? Family gonna split up. Y'all gonna get mad because somebody gonna pay for it, somebody ain't. Come on now. We we all been there.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:50

And so we gotta like start taking those steps now. And then the trading aspect, that's just you saying that, hey, I'm smarter than the market. Which in the long run. Few are. None are. None are.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

You ain't you wouldn't even give it to Warren Buffett or somebody like that?

SPEAKER_00 48:09

He's not trading.

SPEAKER_02 48:10

He's investing. True, he's straight buying stocks that you know are gonna be good and then flipping. Not yeah, not then flipping. Yeah, cashing them out when it when it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Yeah, he's not trading. He's investing. And I've done, I've been a pattern day trader. Like I've had the 25k in the account, and I'm buying and selling and things of that nature. I don't ran up the account and then I blew that shit up. Because it's like, yo, you can't, you can't beat that shit. Yeah. Right? So like those are those are the three I hope I explain what the differences were.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Nah, for sure. For sure. And if you have any more questions or want to know more about what he's talking about, you can hit the you can hit the man up. But I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna ask you a few more questions before we we get out of here. So I wanna give you a scenario right quick. Let's say 25 to 30 years old, like paycheck to paycheck, really got no money saved up. What should be, what steps should I take to change my financial situation? This ain't me and this example, by the way. I ain't I ain't, you feel me? I ain't I ain't master P. I ain't cash money and young money out this motherfucker. I got a little something, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:21

If you are 25 to 30 living paycheck to paycheck, know that it don't matter your age. It's a lot of people out there living paycheck to paycheck. So don't put that stress and pressure on yourself. That's rule number one. Rule number two is make sure you can live. So, like if you live in paycheck to paycheck, but you gotta use this money to make sure you got food in your mouth, you got a household, like a roof over your head, do that. Don't worry about that right now. Just make sure that you can live comfortably right now, because that's what you need to focus on.

SPEAKER_02 50:00

Maintain.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Yeah. Right? And because what Rick Ross say, fuck make fuck maintaining, man. I'm trying to be bald. All right, you gotta maintain right now so you can get to the ball. Focus on that part. And then I'll say, then start growing, get a skill. Right? So if you work at this job, what's the certification designation that you need at this job so that you become better? Because once you obtain that skill, that means your bargaining becomes better. You gotta get paid more. So now it's like, all right, I'm gonna get better at something, and now I can get paid more. I wouldn't say go out, look for another job. If you have to, cool, do that. But trying to max out where you at first, max out where you can outgrow it, position yourself to be somewhere else. And then in that 25 to 30 range. And if you do have some disposable money, start saving small, start small, start five, ten. Yeah. Every paycheck, let me save five dollars, let me save ten dollars. Because what you're now doing is building a muscle of saving. Yeah. So start doing that. Get get get in love with that process of just doing it. And then you'll say, Oh, all right, I think I can save just a tad bit more. And then that's when you start to do like some fundamental things, and you're like, oh, all right, now I know I need to save this much. Oh, now I can look up and say, Oh, I am at that six months that Jordan was talking about. Oh, I'm at that 12 months that Jordan was talking about. Oh, all right, cool. But it's just getting started. So in that 25 to 30 range, I say, hey, this is the first thing you need to do. Do the shit you need to do to live and survive. Don't focus on it, like that investment shit right now. Two, get a skill, get better, develop, make yourself marketable, valuable for whatever job you're at or whatever your entrepreneur things is. Get better at it, get a skill. Three, increase that pay that way. That's true. And then four, yeah, teach yourself on how to save. And if you do have like the 401k, 403B, 457, TSP, whichever one you have, don't forget to use that. Right? That's that's all gonna be your first investment right there.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

Or and it do add up, ladies and gentlemen. That little that little percentage, that little consumer match, consumer match, a little employer match out that chat. That bad boy add up.

SPEAKER_00 52:37

So like do those four or five things. You're straight. Like, don't beat yourself up though, like, because we ain't never gonna get nowhere. But put some action behind it, because you don't want to look up 30, 35, and you ain't did shit. Cause then you're gonna psychologically say, Oh, I gotta play catch up. And that's when you're watching your friends and everything, oh, I ain't dead. Then you beating yourself up some more, then you 40, 45, and you still ain't do it. Yeah, so you psyched yourself up to shit for 10, 15 years at this point. And then I'm gonna tell you, like, I I hear it all the time. I wish I would have did this sooner. Oh, I'm stupid. And I don't let nobody beat themselves up. I'm like, no, you just ain't know. You ain't had nobody guiding you or telling you. Don't beat yourself up. But this is how we're gonna do it now that we we got a game plan.

SPEAKER_02 53:22

You heard the saying about when the best time to plan a tree? I'm sure you heard that. Go ahead, I'll let you do it. My man. So it's a it's a finance, you hear the line of finance, a lot of investing. The best time to plan a tree, they say, is 20 years ago, which is a metaphor for investing in, I don't know, whatever stock, let's say Apple in 2006 or whatever the fuck. But the second best time to plan a tree is right now. Don't let that go over your ears. And one of my favorite concepts as I'm getting my MBA is the time value of money. Because I might not take nothing away from none of the finance classes, none of accounting classes, but the time value of money is something I always take away. At the beginning of the conversation, Jeffrey talked about getting money to beat inflation. What the time value of money represents is that a dollar today is gonna be worth more than a dollar tomorrow because inflation is always going up. The price of shit is always going up. So money in your hand today, and then money in your hand either saved or invested at a rate that's gonna be higher than the money, then the cost of shit is going up via inflation, is gonna be how you continue to be financially literate, financially good, feeling secure type shit. I ain't even following that up, bro.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

I ain't following that up, bro. That was for Fireball right there. I hope everybody heard that.

SPEAKER_02 54:34

Hey man, we drop gems in with the big dream show. Because I want you to live your best life. That's what it's all about. But let's say I, okay, I'm out, I'm out the mud now. I got I got 12 months of saving saved up. I'm at work, I'm doing an employer match with my 401k. I feel good, I got a little bit of extra money laying around every month. Maybe I'm putting it into a high-yield savings account, which is a savings account that's gonna give you a little more bang for your buck on your percentage return versus your standard bank, your Wells Fargo, Bank of America, scamming ass niggas. What do I do now? What do I do now? I got my foundation, I got my blueprint good, I'm making good money, I got my money in the bank. What do I start to look towards now to take the next step towards financial freedom, financial literacy, so on and so forth?

SPEAKER_00 55:19

I do want to go back to the to the ground rules. I don't subscribe to uh fuck them scamming ass niggas. I just wanted that to be.

SPEAKER_02 55:34

I ain't banging with y'all motherfuckers, and I know y'all own slaves, they don't talk about that part. Y'all still owe us reparations. Bank of America, my ass. I know I watched all the PBS documentaries. Stop playing with me, but yes, that's not the way. That's all I take the full the full brand of that, unless y'all want to sponsor the show.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

So I always say your 401k, your employer savings plan is one of the best things that you can save for. Like that you can save in. It's the best tool, one of the best tools. Don't let me say the best, but it's one of the best tools for retirement. I know online you'll always hear, oh, save only up to the match. And it's like, well, why would you do that? Right? They're giving you money, but you can go higher. As you start making more, you should probably increase because that is going to lower your taxable income. Right. So I always say, do your best to try to max that out. Right. Every year it goes up. I think what it might, I mean it was 23.5 last year. Let's say it's I don't know what the number is in 2026, but let's say it's 25,000, right? Mm-hmm. Shit, lower your taxable income by 25,000 if you can, right? Once you max that out, then let's start looking at other things, right? We've already built up the emergency fund. Okay. So what's what's the next play that you've done your research on that part, right? Can I get into the real estate? Can I get into the rental like program? Do I want to be a landlord? Like these are all of the things that you gotta be able to answer. Don't go in it blindly because you saw a TikTok tutorial. Right. TikTok good for doing your head and doing shit in the kitchen. The recipe, yeah. Right? But when it gonna finance, like you can't DIY this stuff. So I would say start there, like do your research and find the lane that you think that's best, right? It could be starting that side hustle or that consulting business or whatever the case may be. That could be the next thing that like that take you up. It could be art. You know what I'm saying? It could be a number of things on what it's gonna be. Like I'm just throwing it spitballing out here because I don't know like that. Like hopefully something resonates with somebody. Yeah, but it start with that 401k. Try to max that out. You've already built the the savings account. So if a rainy day happened, you know you're good. You know you can get four new tires at any time.

SPEAKER_02 58:17

Bro, that is a that's shh. You know you can hit the grocery store and you don't necessarily the bill is gonna be what's gonna be, or the gas when you put a full tank in the gas tank?

SPEAKER_00 58:29

Boy, especially in these times. Boy, you don't know how many times I done seen that lady with in that man with that shopping cart that walked by and it's full, and they pull out that that EBT car and I'm sitting there and I got less than 12 items. If I hang, I'm I'm always in the 12 items or less than like, damn, right, bro. But yeah, trust me, I know. But it's like just having that, but having that nest egg or that savings helps a lot. And that's where that financial peace comes into play. Because you ain't always stressed over your dollar or whatever, because now again, you save for it, you budgeted for it. And I that's what I think I want the biggest takeaways is how can we all get to financial peace? Right? Yeah, we all say uh my magical number is two million dollars. Bro, everybody that hit the lottery is broke within three to five years. Same shit. You know what I'm saying? Ain't learn a game. So it ain't just the dollar, right? It's how do we then get to financial peace? How do we learn how to budget for each dollar? Right. How do we account for each dollar?

SPEAKER_02 59:41

And bro, to the to the earlier conversation too, how do you find the peace in yourself the way you can get that money and not feel like you need to fill a void? Not feel like you need to go out and how do you how do you you gotta both do the shit that we talking about, but also do the shit where you sitting by yourself and figuring out this is who I am, this is what I want, this is what I want to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

And this shit I'll be fucked up on. You can do it two ways. You can learn from what's that proverbs? You can learn from the mistakes of others and become wise. Or you can fuck the bag up yourself and and go that way. I think my pastor said that we're about to fuck. Well, shout out the pastor, but you know what I'm saying? Like, learn from the mistakes of others. That that helps you gain the peace, right? So if you if you look at like let's take a sports route. If you look at Floyd Mayweather or Terrence Crawford, they'll smoke or they don't drink. And they'll tell you why. Oh, because I saw my parents do it, I saw my father do it, I saw it break up families. I never wanted to do that. And then they just get locked in tunnel vision. Now I'm not speaking on any, like we can read the reports, I'm not speaking on any of their money habits or whatever the case may be, or whatever is in the news. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about they learn through others, so they don't have to on certain vices. Now they might have other vices, but this the drug vice or whatever, they don't got and they don't have it, and they like, yo, I seen through others. And that's what I was using that proverb for. Learn through others, right? So you don't gotta experience that. So like that's how you can find financial peace. Learn through others' pitfalls, learn through others' mistakes. You might have to fuck up a bag or a little bit, make sure you pull back and catch yourself and like ah I understand that's human. Yeah, it's part of the game, it's part of it. And seek seek out help, seek out people that are in it that do it, right? If it ain't me, go to one of these financial firms, right? It was I've been sitting on this for like like four days now. Everything that we hear bad about finance, right, is always from somebody who's not licensed in the game. So if we look back at it, Charles Ponzi, the who the Ponzi scheme is named after. So you taking money from early investors to and and then paying off, oh, and then you get more people in, and then you paying with the more people you just got in, you're paying off early investors, and then you just keep cycling that, right? It's gonna blow up eventually. But he wasn't a licensed investor. Jordan, the dude from Wolf and Wall Street. Yeah, Jordan Belford. He wasn't a and he wasn't an investment advisor. He's a rich drugie. But what I'm saying is we always think about all of these these bohemuts that Google Yeah, right? And it's always people that there aren't they aren't licensed, they circumvent the system, right? Watching this document, this PBS documentary on Birdie Mainoff, he wasn't an investment advisor. So what did you think was going to happen? Right. He knew he was, he knew he was like skirting past the law because he was like, oh, I'm not gonna get registered. Because people just can give me money freely, and there's no recourse to it. Yeah, so why would I all I gotta do is just keep paying people here and there until they start to ask for their money back, like this can run all as long as it ran. But what happens? The person who don't know or who didn't go try to find the licensed professional, you end up fucking over the everyday person, right? So that's why I said find a professional, right? You either learn from the mistakes of others, you learn from fucking up, and then you get that financial peace by getting somebody who's licensed. You're not gonna let Dr. Miami do open heart surgery, on you. You know what I'm saying? You're gonna find you a nice PPO or HMO to go to. And it's the same thing when it comes to money, bro. Like, I don't get it. Like, that's what I don't get. We think we can go to all these different people that ain't licensed, that's gonna get us money. Like, you're not going to you're not going to the corner store, the bodega, to get health advice. Right? So why would you go to the bodega, the corner store, and this is no not to the bodegas of the corner store, but why would you go there for financial advice?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

Yeah, they're telling you, nah, I'm telling you, this stock about here, this stock right here, it's about to be the one.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:39

Boy, I'm going the other way.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:43

I don't want to get you in trouble, but I do want your thoughts on this. So answer it as bluntly or as politically correct. There we go. There we go. What are your thoughts on on Trump just from a money-making perspective? From a money-making perspective. From you know, with the insider trading, allegedly, so on a second.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

Allegedly. I mean, you play the game how you can play it. Right? Started out father build the empire, son of money. That's the dream we want to leave to all our seeds. Right? And what he was able to do with it was grow it. He ain't lose all of it. He grew it into an empire. Right? He and then in terms of like getting information, it's ethics behind it. But if you knew what was coming and you knew what you could do, would you benefit from it? Would you? I don't know. I can't answer that question. I know I wouldn't. But that's I'm also not in that position. Yeah. So I mean, I I can't I can't knock another dude's money. I you know what I'm saying? Like, I can't speak bad on it, like playing a game. He's playing in game. He's playing the cause. He I think he said it once before. I think it was in one of those debates. I'm getting away with the rules that y'all wrote. Yeah?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:11

That's that don't hate a player hate the game right there. Piggybacking off of that, and I I hate the phrase piggybacking, but it's it's always so appropriate when you're about to say some shit that literally branch off, but segueing into. There it is. Moving into a lot of we're seeing a lot of material effects from the policies and things that are being placed, decisions that are happening. If economic conditions don't improve in the short time, the short term, and we'll say the next two to three years. If economic conditions continue, inflation going up, gas prices still crazy, grocery prices still crazy, what type of advice do you have for folks if it's anything different than what we already spoke about?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:56

Just know that prices don't never come down.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:00

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Like prices never come down. Tough times always gonna happen. How do you set yourself up for? Are you going in this with a plan? Do you have things say? Okay, you don't. You need to start working on that. Okay, you do prepare yourself. Right? Look at that plan every year. Because again, the prices don't come down. Like you can like you think of COVID or whatever the case. I remember I was just driving around because gas was just so cheap. I was like, I'm gonna give me some gas. All this time, gas time ran up on me. Like gas is like a dollar, I mean like two dollars or something. Like that. I never forget. I ain't seen them two dollar prices ever again. Right? So what I do, I modified my driving. Right? So it's just you gotta, you gotta, you can't be rigid. Times are forever changing. You gotta be able to flow with the times and develop that plan and execute it and just keep keep refreshing it. Hit that F5 button. Word.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

Word. So in lieu of shout out to the homies, we're just gonna shout out Jeffrey. You feel me? I feel like that makes the most sense. Invest stream advisory. I said it right that time, right? You got it, 100%. Invest stream advisory, shout out to the homie. Also, I want to give a shout-out to the unsung homie. Shout out to the bootleg man. In our darkest hours, you disappeared. I've been in a barbershop. I ain't seen you. I've been I've been around. I ain't seen you. Me and my friends talk a lot about the return of physical media, so I feel that if you're someone that's looking for a hustle, we spoke earlier about finding the honest or find the skill. There's a wide open lane for people to bootleg shows that are only allegedly or hypothetically, there's a wide open lane for you to bootleg shows that are only on streaming services and give them to people on DVD or Blu-ray, as well as being the plug digitally. If you were to know or understand certain websites where you can watch movies and things for free, and you were to then somehow monetize access to those sites via some type of newsletter or direct-to-consumer type of thing. I think that there would be a viable hustle. I think often we can look to the past to find examples of how to move in the present and the future for real. So I'm gonna give a shout out to the bootleg men of days past and give a call to arms to all future bootleg men in the year 2026. Oh, sorry, bootleg people in the year 2026 to evolve. The game is wide open. People don't want to pay for streaming, people don't want to pay for cable, and people also can't afford to leave the house and have fun. So that's where the bootleg man used to come in, at least in my day. I can't go afford to see Spider-Man 2, so he's gonna come through with Spider-Man 2. And I might get some good commentary over the motherfucker because he recorded it in the theater on a camcorder. Real quick, hold your heads before we before we get out of here. Real quick, we're gonna move through some some folks. Ray J, hold your head. I seen you got knocked the fuck out by Super Hot Fire. Nasty work, nasty work. I hate when legends don't carry themselves as legends. And to me, for all intents and purposes, Ray J is a legend. I might not agree with a lot of the moves that he's made or a lot of the things that he said, but the man was uh was assigned to death row as a child. The man was on Moesha 101, um, some other films that we're not gonna talk about at this moment. And he gave us a lot of bangers. So, Ray J, hold your head. I hope that you're not dying. And if you are dying, then getting into Boxing Ring with Super High Fire was probably not the best course of action. Also, hold your head to the fans of the New York Giants. Your boy Jackson Dart was out there at that at that Trump rally, you know, out there out there rallying the troops. I know it can be tough sometimes to divorce our personal feelings and our personal emotions from the teams that we root for, the franchise that we support. So as y'all reckon with and reconcile the fact the fact that y'all quarterback is is straight, MAGA, loud and proud. Yeah, hold your head. Hold your head. Hope y'all have a good season with old old John Harbaugh. And also, last but not least, not not a uh loose change, not a shout-out to the homie, but I just want to give an RIP to DJ Robb bass of It Takes Two to Make a Thing Go Right, one of the most pivotal, pivotal and essential hip-hop songs of all time. I know as we get older and we get farther away from when shit came out, it's kind of harder to really respect and hear a lot of the 80s, the 70s, 80s, 90s hip-hop music with a with an honest ear, because it didn't really age the best or it don't really sound the best. But for as influential as that song is, as much as it's been sampled, as much as it's just it takes two, has been a phrase in the lexicon. I definitely want to pay respect to a legend like Rob Bass. Also, RP to Harambe. I heard it was 10 years since since they got you out of the paint. And for my money, things ain't been the same since we lost Harambe. RP to that gorilla, man. Also kind of crazy that some certain people, I ain't gonna say what what color they may be. We'll use the term melanemic, if you know you know. But they they they have more love for Harambe than they have for some of our brothers and sisters who got shot down as victims of police brutality or as victims of just negligence, femicide, homicide, whatever it may be. So with all the love and respect that you people on the internet have had and continue to hold the reverence for for the gorilla Harambe, I just hope that you can find in your heart to love and respect your fellow man or woman or they them in that same kind of way. Before we get out of here, Jeff, you got any shit you want to plug, any events coming up, where can people find you, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:29

Yeah, one thing I do want to take a step back. US said I was just in my phone. No, no, no, you was in your back. I was in a fucking close thing. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:35

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:36

No, no, no. It was just one minor correction, and I don't like to correct people on their own thing. No, please. It was uh when you said That's rule number four, I think. Alumnae, when you're talking about a female, alumnus, when you talk about a man, when a man, and then when you talk about a group, it's alumni.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:52

Alumni, yeah, I've been fucking that up for as long as I'm in graduate, please. I've been fucking that one up.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

But first and foremost, I appreciate you. Thank you for letting me come on your platform. Uh, thank you for letting me speak my truth, my peace. Hopefully, your audience that's listening, far and wide, close, got something out of it. Hit me up on uh Instagram at investing with Jeffrey, J-E-F-F-E-R-Y. Investing is spelled out. With is spelled completely. I do have some events coming up. I'm looking at uh June 26th, and then this is like me dropping it for the first time. I'm gonna start doing like we're gonna have like an experience. I'm creating an ecosystem. Uh just be out on the lookout on a page for it. Um, if you ever need financial help, hit me up, DM, hit join up, get my number, do whatever it is that you gotta do to get in contact with me. Uh if you see me out, say what up, though. Show love. And like I'm I'm I'm somebody that's accessible, that you can touch, that you can get to. Um, not just some being on social media, but I'm also outside.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:08

Hey, you're a cool guy, man. He's not a square, you're not a dirt. The only prerequisite I have for this platform right here, you gotta at least be kind of cool to come on here. Yeah. We're sitting in a room for an hour, hour 15, so I can't.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:20

I appreciate that. And and to that point, that comes back to the authenticity that you spoke about. All I can do is be mean, man, and I I appreciate the platform where I get to come and speak, and hopefully it resonates with somebody. Again, I'm not everybody's cup of tea. Word, but I'm tea in itself. You know what I'm saying? That was a bar. That was a bar. So again, thank you. Tell people to reach out, see me pull up. I'm always uh I'm always hosting an event somewhere. Stimming Vine, uh, more than likely. Pull up, come through, man. It's going, it's dope.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:59

No doubt. Listen, I hope y'all took something out of this episode. I'm very grateful for it. Really, really proud of the way it's coming out. I often don't listen back to episodes, but this will be one that I'm a I'm gonna listen back, play. I hope y'all had a notebook out. If you didn't, I hope you had some kind of way. We, yeah, the only way for us to be free, the only way for us to get what we want to get, be who we want to be, stand how we need to stand, is for us to invest in ourselves and invest in each other. This brother right here is playing a part and moving us towards that. All the guests that I had on this program are playing a part towards that. You taking the time out of your day, whenever you're hearing this, listen and take it, like really listen to the words that we say. It's playing a part towards that. So it ain't nothing left to do for us to but just keep trying to make the shit happen, man. So, until next time, as always, I'm your host, BDJ. This is the Big Dream Show, and we out this bitch.