January 9, 2025 • 50 mins
This is the first episode of 2025 and John is helping you set the tone for the rest of the year!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey Hey,
it's John O'Brien and this is Money and Wealth on
a Black Effect Network and iHeartRadio podcast series for twenty
(00:22):
twenty five. This is the kickoff episode. This particular episode
is called The Transformational You. That's right, The Transformational You
is a pretty audacious title for a pretty bold time.
In many ways, I've been preparing to do this podcast
(00:42):
episode for the last twell thirty years, maybe thirty years plus,
but certainly since I found it Operation Hope. So let
me get into this. As you're walking or reflecting, or meditating,
or making dinner or breakfast, or sure heading to work
or heading home or on a jog, or do whatever
(01:04):
it is you're doing while you're listening to your podcast,
I want to give you something that you can tuck
away in your spirit and pull out and energize your soul.
There will be times where you're gonna be tested in
twenty twenty five. There's gonna be a year of incredible
opportunity and incredible challenges. Because rainbow is only follo storms.
(01:27):
You cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First, it's
actually a scientific fact. I want you to remember when
things get tough, that success is going from failure to
failure without loss of enthusiasm. Never ever, ever, ever, ever
give up. You were born to win. God made you
unique and special. There's eight billion some odd people in
(01:51):
the world and no one just like you. He made
you absolutely unique. No one has your eyes, no one
has your finger press. You are completely unique. While would
you want to be a copy of someone else? You
want to model good behavior because a lot of success
is good habits, and I'm going to teach you some
good habits. I'll give you some cheat sheets from what
(02:14):
I went through in my life coming up to go
from the bottom quartile of the worst environments in Compon California,
in south central Los Angeles, it's so called porous of
the poor. We were so broke we couldn't pay attention.
We were so poor we could afford the o R.
We actually were not sustenance poor. In other words, we
(02:34):
had a roof on the table, roof over our head,
food on the table, and reasonable health care. My mother
worked a job my dad. Mom and dad actually were
prosperous at one point, but they got a divorce and
my dad when he died, I ended up taking care
of him. My mother worked the same job for thirty
two years. Jannia Smith my dad, Johnny will Smith, both
(02:55):
had a high school education, but one had the potential
of becoming a millionaire. One did become a million in there,
my mother, working an hourly job, became a millionaire before
she passed away a million dollar net worth, making fifteen
to eighteen dollars an hour. You can listen to her
story in a special episode I did last year in
(03:15):
twenty twenty four season of this podcast. Or you can
also chronicle her story in my book Financial Literacy for All,
which is now a bestseller. Please pick up your copy.
I also talk about her and my dad in my
From Nothing Story that was my fifth book, I Believe,
which is also a bestseller. But they it's very important
(03:37):
to recognize that my mom and dad they were broke,
but they weren't poor. There's a difference between being broken
being poor. Being broken's economic Being poor is a disabling
frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit.
And you must vow never ever ever to be poor again.
(04:00):
Did you hear me? Please underscore this as my friend,
God bless your soulways been promoted. Quincy Jones once told me,
not one ounce of my self esteem depends on your
acceptance of me. It wasn't a statement of being better
than it was being equal to. You're not as good
as your compliments. You're not as bad as your criticism
(04:21):
as you are who you are, which is to say
we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. Were spiritual
beings having a human experience? And energy matters. Please listen
to me. I want you to look at your environment.
I want you to look around you and see who
you hang around. And you've heard me say this before,
(04:43):
but some things are worth repeating again. A lot of
success is good habits. If you hang around nine broke people,
you're going to be the tenth. And the opposite is
also true. Why do people go to Harvard University or
Yale or Prince and versus going to the state university
or the community college? Even is it that the state
(05:04):
university is so much less than these vaulted named universities
I mentioned. No, in any cases, you're going to get
an equivalent education at a state university, maybe even a
better education. But your networks may be different your network.
May you know, at Nebraska State or wherever you're having
(05:28):
to be at Arizona State, you're going to have maybe incredible
relationship capital in the state of Arizona in this example
of an Arizona State, and you business with people you know, respect,
reflect and understand who you have a relationships with. But
if you go to a nationally known university, maybe even
globally known, then your relationship capital is going to be
(05:50):
in this example global as well. And so as they rise,
if there's a possibility. So to you, it's a club,
a country club, a golf club, a fraternity, a sorority,
university graduating class. These are clubs. These are places of association.
(06:12):
So I want you to watch who you associated with
and understand that eagles don't fly in packs. You've never
seen a flock of eagles. Eagles are high altitude birds.
They don't feel that better than anybody else. They just
know who they are. And buzzers are low altitude birds.
Buzzers love packs. They're always player heating, they ever, but
(06:33):
player congratulating always has something negative to say about somebody,
and buzzers often shoot at eagles. And then you've got turkeys.
Turkeys got wings and can't even fly. All they do
is profile translation, trying to be something they are not.
(06:54):
So I want you to watch your circle. I go
through life consciously oblivious of most things around me because
it just doesn't matter. I spent a lot of time,
wasting a lot of time trying to impress people I
didn't even want to be like when I grew up,
and when you really thought about it, that four square
block celebrity in your neighborhood that you're spending so much
(07:17):
time trying to be like, not trying to be like,
trying to impress so they like you, trying to get
their attention, trying to be popular with them. Why do
they have a job that you want and they have
a career that you wanted. They're a partnership, a partner
that you want, that they have an aspirationial life that
you want, and they traveling the world? Are they whatever
(07:38):
your definition of success is. Probably not. They may be
a definition of cool that twenty years later will only
make them a fool. A lot of people who I
grew up with, who I thought were cool, who tease me,
demean me, player hated me. Even it's a phrase from
(08:04):
the neighborhood twenty thirty years later, trying to get a
job from me, trying to get a contract from me,
because the looks will fall away. The coolness does not
pay a bill, and they didn't have a skill that
they could rely on for the rest of their lives.
I spent my time focusing on that skill, focusing on
(08:27):
becoming the best version of me possible. I also became,
unbeknownst to myself, resilient because I ignored the noise. Again,
it's not what you answered, it's not what you call me.
It's what I answer to you that's important. And I
argue with a fool proves there are two. You know.
(08:49):
Somebody once said, you don't want to be in an
argument with a fool because the people passing by, who
may be importantly you don't. I cannot differentiate one from
the other. So let's now move from what you don't
(09:12):
want to what you do want. And you really don't
want the drama, you really don't want the toxicity. And
I'm going to tell you why you can't afford it either.
How do I say this, Well, let me do it directly.
Thirty years ago, when I found an operation Hope as
the first non fropit social investment banking organization in America.
(09:35):
I really thought at that time that it was going
to be transformational. I didn't know how or didn't know why.
I just thought it was going to be transformational. And
I had a hunch that even then the color wasn't
the issue before us in our generation was not going
to be black or white. Race primarily. Racism is real.
I'm not saying it's not real, but it won't be
(09:57):
the primary issue. The issue won't be politics Republican a Democrat.
I know that's hard to believe in the current environment,
but that won't be your primary impediment. It's not going
to be black and white, redder blue. It's going to
be green economics. This was going to be the defining
thing of this century issued a century. And if that's true,
(10:20):
that would mean that things like financial literacy, which was
something that was pioneered by Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas
after the Civil War of eighteen sixty five and signed
in the law with the Freedman's Bank March third, eighteen
sixty five. And I'm the only American citizen that ever
triggered and inspired the renaming of a building on the
(10:42):
White House campus, a Freedman's Bank building, with my friend
of Wally Idiyamo and others helped to make real at
the Treasury Department during the Obama administration and to this
day is called the Freedman's Bank building. That bank was
starting to teach free slaves about money, that's financial literacy
(11:02):
circa eighteen sixty five. So I thought that this unfinished work.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated a month after he signed it
in the law, and here comes doctor King. So that
called that the first reconstruction, from the fields of slavery
to the streets of freedom, the fields of freedom, the factories,
the job, the opportunity for basically freedom of choice. Then
(11:27):
the second reconstruction was really from those fields into the
field of exploration of access literally to the factory jobs
and to access to public facilities and the voting booth.
And that was a civil rights movement, a second reconstruction
which doctor King and my mentor Ambassador Andrew Young, that
(11:48):
movement they led, and that's what we call civil rights right,
and that was led centered in government as the central
element for change, and doctor King dealt with love and
hate very pointedly. People said they even left it or hated.
They made it very clear where they stood. Doctor King
only had twenty percent of the black community support as
(12:10):
high twenty percent of the white community support at his height,
and half of the white community for it was Jewish.
Most people set on their hands, they were indifferent. They said,
not my problem. And even with that, by the way,
give you a point of inspiration. Is five percent of
role models, just five percent of role models. The book
The Tipping Point Malcolm glad World University of Illinois study.
(12:30):
The book Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, you should
read it. The University of Illinois study proved that at
five percent of all role models, five percent positive role models,
every community stabilized. Look at the black and brown community.
It's my podcasts for everybody, but I'm hyper focusing on
the black community because we're the only ones enslaved in
(12:53):
American soil. And our self esteem was destroyed and ideal
with that, with the five pillars of success from a
book up from nothing, our self esteem was destroyed. Even
though we had high confidence because we're competent, we had
low self esteem because people convinced us we were a thing,
or at least tried to. And we're now repairing that,
(13:14):
we're healing that. So if I don't like me, I'm
not going to like you. I don't feel good about me,
I'm not going to feel good about you. I don't
respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I
don't have a purpose in my life, I'll make your
own life. I'm living in hell. Whatever goes around comes around.
So had to repair self esteem. But when you look
at the third reconstruction, which I believe started with George
(13:36):
Floyd's murder in the pandemic twenty twenty, and we'll go
to twenty thirty, give or take. I believe, and I
think this is social justice to an economic lens. I
think this is about economic opportunity for all. Believe the
color is green. There's something else that came along with that, though.
Really the pulling back the draperies on the real challenge,
(13:58):
which is class and often race baiting is a placeholder.
Race diminishing, racism is a placeholder. It's a convenient distraction
for what people really after, which is class differentiation. And
(14:18):
I'm better than you in whatever nectar you want to
describe it puts me if I succeed in the vision
that puts me further ahead in the line, which allows
me to get more economic opportunity than you. There's redlining
and all these things that happen as a result of that.
I was perceived in one way in a positive light.
(14:39):
You're perceived another late in less another light, in less
positive way. Right. So I'll do with all these in
my masterclass in not twenty twenty five. I'll unpack all
these things. I'm an unpack what God is here, what's
holding us back? And how do we move forward in
a positive way? Right? Because I believe there's enough poverty
to go around. There's only to argue and compete about
(15:00):
that of your nonprofit. We should all be working together
to try to lift everybody up. And there's enough room
in a success table because you want to expanding the
table and adding a chair. So nobody should do insecure
because blacks and browns and Latinos of women, poor whites
or whoever are succeeding, our middle class people become upper
class again. I've gone from the bottom court till all
(15:20):
poverty in this country to the top one percent. As
I was saying earlier, in one generation and if I
did that right, did that legally? I brought people up,
of created employees, of created wealth, of created tax base.
I've paid my taxes, I employed people. I've created opportunities
for others as I've come up. I've built a ladder
that other people can follow. I've done well and done good.
(15:43):
Good capitalism is where I've benefit and you benefit more.
Bad capitalism is where I do benefit, where I've benefit
and you pay a price for it. I'm talking about
good capitalism. So no one should feel insecure about my
success or yours. They should applaud it. I've said that
if blacks succeed legitly in this country, even the racist wins,
because all boats rise. Let's get back to why I
(16:07):
had an epiphany thirty two years ago, because if what
I just said is correct, and if the seas of
transformational change have shifted, then the issue is primarily not
lover hate. It's doctor King, dealt with and Andrew Young,
my mentor doctor Dorothy Heyden cretits got King and all
these heroes and heroes, and even going back to the
first reconstruction, that was well, that was class structured primarily,
(16:30):
but it was it was it was sort of massed
in love and hate racism. I mean, slavery was about money.
I do a whole podcast about that. It was it
was primarily an economic exploitation situation. Okay, it's about money.
I need get people who work for free, build a
country for free. So what I'm saying now, though, is
the issue is not lover hate, it's radical indifference. Please
(16:51):
hear me, because now minute seventeenth mark of this podcast,
I'm about to talk about what it's going to take
for you to become the transformation know you Again, this
works for anybody, but it's going to really work for
African Americans and Latinos and people of color because when
when when Mason America has a headache, Black and Browns
have pneumonia, Okay they're sick, but we're really sick. It
(17:16):
could kill us. And I want you to get this
success format. I want you to understand that initially everybody
may not see it, or it may not you know,
they see it. They may not acknowledge them because they're
insecure about your success and may players hate it, maybe
challenged or threatened by it. First they will to ignore you.
Then they will criticize you if you keep at it.
(17:37):
Then you'll win. First they will ignore you, then they'll
criticize you, and you keep at it, and then you win.
Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever give up. But
if the issue is radical and difference, then somebody does
not care them about you to hate you. Let me
give you some signals about this. Private communities, private private security,
(18:01):
gated gated communities, private clubs, private homesteads, private transportation, private security,
starting to get it, and they're popping up all across
this country, popping off all around the world. People just differentiate.
They're just saying, look, if you want to tear yourself up,
(18:22):
if you want to blow yourself up, if you want
to destroy your own community, I don't care. They're saying
that that's your business. I'm not saying it's right. I'm
telling you this as to what when religion falls away,
when spirituality gets diminished, then people start making the decisions
that are more transactional and more selfish in nature. And
we've got to get our spirituality back. But that is
(18:44):
a fight for another The other day, I'm trying to
make sure that you have the tools you need to
compete and succeed in the current environment. And I believe
the current environment political, economic, social, society, cultural, et cetera.
Your fere this is a future. It's common for you now, Okay,
(19:05):
I believe the current environment supercharged by an overlay of
technology and artificial intelligence that will aid in a bet
progress for progress's sake, it would be progressed at the
speed of light. As doctor King said, the world's moving
at as jet like speed. In America is moving at
(19:27):
horse and buggy pace. When it came to social progress,
we are at this inflection point again. But back then
he can make a moral case and people listened. There's
a whole bunch of reasons for that, and whether the
moral case worked and all that. We won't get into
that in this podcast. But for a range of reasons,
I'm telling you that people are increasingly disconnecting from your
(19:48):
success or your failure. It's not lever hate. It's just
in difference, just shrugging their shoulders, not my problem. And
until we can get everybody back on the same page,
agent realize we're better together. You might be on your
own for a minute. Okay, Now, there are some benefits
to being on your own, as you can get yourself right.
(20:12):
Nobody's coming to say to you as a great wake
up call. You don't you realize you cannot subcontract your democracy,
or your freedom or your opportunity. You realize you have
to vote, and you got to be a stakeholder. Otherwise
there's no stake in what you're looking for, so you
tend not to vote. You understand that nobody watches rental cars. Okay, right,
you got to own something and that starts with owning
(20:32):
your self. So I want you to become Please write
this down now. This is the most important I'm going
to say in the first twenty minutes of this podcast.
And I'm not getting now, I'm getting to the meat
of the matter. I want you to become obsessed with
becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Obsessed. This is
(20:53):
your primary asset. That's why this is a money and
wealth podcast. Yes, but you are the product. Okay, please
hear me. And I want you to become obsessed with
becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Because when you
like you, you can love somebody like somebody else. When
you love you, you can love somebody else. When you're
comfortable with you, you're comfortable with everybody else. And see
how that works. And the opposite, unfortunately, is also true.
(21:15):
Whether you're insecure, you're going to be insecure about others.
If you hate yourself, you're going to hate other people.
If you don't like yourself, it's to be hard for
you don't like somebody else, and you don't love yourself,
how do you understand how to love somebody else? And
so on and so forth. The most dangerous person world
is a person with no hope. So I want you
to learn to become reasonably comfortable in your own skin.
I'm going to literally give you a prescription for that
(21:36):
here in a moment. I want you to heal from
the hurt of your eighteen year old self. Heal from
the hurt of your eighteen year old or your fifteen
year old, or your twelve year old, or your eight
year old or your five year old self, whatever that
pain is. I want you to become focused on healing
from that thing and becoming a new version. I'm a new,
(21:59):
powerful version of your newfound self. I want you to
understand that you might be broke, but you're not poor.
That God made you unique and powerful and special and different,
(22:23):
and he made you to win. I want you to
learn to manage all kinds of things coming at you
in an age of radical indifference. I want you to
see opportunity everywhere. There's one hundred trillion dollars worth of
opportunities coming your way. I'll cover this in the future podcast.
One hundred trillion dollars of economic opportunity coming your way
(22:45):
and no one's paying attention to it. And I'm gonna
give you the roadmap in future episodes of how to
get at it yourself. It's gonna be easy to go
after a thirty million dollar opportunity in the next few years,
the next ten years, sure than it is to going
after a twenty dollars toller opportunity. Yes, I said that.
Easier to go after twenty million dollars. That an opportunity
(23:05):
the way I'm going to tell you how to pursue it,
then going after a twenty thousand or twoitive thousand dollars
start up opportunity. But we'll get to that in successive episodes.
Tell all your friends to follow this episode series for
twenty twenty five. I want you to become obsessed. This
is why I became absolutely focused on financial literacy. I
(23:29):
believe it's a civil rights issue. Of this generation. That's
why I think it's one of the most radical thing
I could do was to teach you financial literacy. And
now I think that financial literacy is a civil rights
issue of this generation. And I believe that AI literacy,
artificial intelligence AI literacy is the silvi rights issue of
(23:50):
this generation. And I want you to go from the
streets to the suites, from the streets to the business suites.
I want you to cut deals. I want you to
be get on that aspiracial ladder. I want you to
be the aspiration generation that I know you can be.
But you're gonna have to be obsessively focused on from
a technical perspective, financial literacy because we live in and
we live in, an economic democracy, a capitalist democracy. The
(24:15):
United States of America, the largest economy in the world,
the sold superpower in the world, is a capitalist democracy,
a free enterprise democracy. Please hear me. And if you
don't understand money, Bastard Andrew Young, my mentor Doctor King's
right arm in the civil rights movement, the guy who
built the biggest economy in the traditional South, the only
national city in the South. Only mayor ever mentor by
(24:37):
doctor Martha King Jr. Said to live in a system
of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of
free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. Can
I give an amen? And what I've said is it's
what you don't know that you don't know that's killing you,
but you think you know. Hello, So here we go.
(24:59):
I'm one, and now tell you why most people will
never be successful. Now, this is something that I've been
that I've had in my file since two thousand and four.
I believe a poem. It's a poem, if you will,
or a memo to self that's written by a gentleman
by the name of doctor ben Hardy. Okay, And I
(25:20):
want you to listen very carefully this because this is
how I live my life. When I say I wants
you to become reasonably comfortable in your own skin. When
I talk about being high frequency, it just a phrase
that I really first heard from from my wife shape
for Bryant. But I want you to I didn't living.
I just didn't know what the phrase was, and I
describe it. So I'm about to explain this to you.
(25:41):
Please listen to this, go back, make notes and write
this down. Listen to this podcast and hit reverse hit
rewind that's creating my podcast, and go back and listen
to it again. Talk to your friends about this and
unpack what I'm about to tell you. Success isn't just
having lots of money. Money. Many people with lots of
(26:03):
money have horribly unhappy and radically imbalanced lives. Success is
continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve,
how you relate. So why won't most people be successful?
(26:23):
Why don't most people evolve? The more evolved you become,
the more focused you must be on those few things
which matter most. Now I'm a pause here and say,
and this is me talking, not doctor Hardy. Please remember now,
I think I really do believe people are dumb on purpose. Yes,
(26:45):
I said, I think you're stupid and dumb on purpose.
You have a smartphone in your hand, had more access
to data and information easily obtainable in your life. And
before you had a smartphone and AI, you had an
Internet search, Google Search. The library of the world is
open to you. I'm nosy about everything, Quincy Jones, how'd
you get so smart? I'm just nosy as hell. I
want to know everything about everything. Well, John O'Brien is
(27:07):
nosy God, I'll give you two ears in one mouth,
so you listen twice as much as you talk. So
if you're not successful today, you're well not successful. Sorry,
it's separate because that is about choice, luck and opportunity
and a few other things. But if you're dumb today,
if you're stupid, you're you're stupid on purpose. Unless you're
a mental illness or something that you can't control, you
(27:28):
have some kind of a chemical bounce, it's a different thing.
But if you're a reasonable, sound mind, that's what I'm
talking about. You know what I'm talking about. So what
am I saying? Love is work? Non love us laziness,
anti love is evil. Evil exists, but it's very rare.
Most people are just lazy, intellectually lazy, financially lazy, spiritually lazy,
(27:51):
emotionally lazy. They don't want to do the work. They
want somebody else to do it for them. They want
to subcontract the work. Well, only in the dictionary does
the word success come before the word work, because it's
out a better go? Can I get an amen? You've
got to do the work. There's no excuse for the work,
there's no way around it. So doing the work's tough.
(28:12):
Doing the work may be dealing with your pain, your drama,
the unhealing, dealing with the unhealed nature of your eighteen
year old self or your twelve year old self. Whenever
somebody abused or took advantage of you. You've got to
make peace with that pain and turn it into promise.
You've got to be comment committed to evolving every day
(28:33):
and waking up tomorrow better than you were yesterday when
you went to bed. That is my commitment to myself.
I'm obsessed with it. That's why I love books and learning,
because once you learn, and you can't no one can
take that from you. You don't unlearn it, right, and
once that river vand has expanded it, it never returned
to its original size. The more involved you become, the
(28:55):
more focus you must be on those few things which
matter most. Yeah, as Jim Rohn has said, quote, a
lot of people don't do well simply because a major
n minor things end quote. To be successful, you can't
continue being with low frequency people long periods of time.
(29:17):
I'm going to repeat that. To be successful, you can't
continue being around low frequency people for long periods of time.
I'm not judging anybody, it is what it is. I'm
not saying somebody's better for worse. I'm saying they're either
high frequency, low frequency of medium frequency. They're either highly
evolved and critical thinking and do the work and all
(29:38):
that stuff, or they just are. You figure out what
low frequency is. You define it yourself. I think you've
got good common sense. Look around you, eagles, buzzers, turkeys. Hello,
you can't continue eating crappy food, regardless of your spouse's
or colleagues food choices. He's an old Southern SI. No
(30:00):
matter how much I love you, my son or my daughter,
if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you
my own ignorance. Hello, I'll say it again, No matter
how much I love you my son and my daughter,
if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you
my own ignorance. I can only give you what I've got,
So please listen to me. Now, out of love, we
pass down bad habits and generation and generation. Out of love.
(30:21):
We do that because what you don't know that you
don't know is killing you, but you think you know.
Is what you don't know that you don't know that
they be killing you, but you think you know so
somebody can love you and give you bad advice. Hello,
you can't continue eating crabby food regardless of who's your
spouse or colleagues whose choices may be what they may be.
(30:42):
Your day must consistently be spent on high quality activities.
The more successful you become, which is balancing the few
essential things princes print, spiritual, relational, financial, physical, and princes. Yes,
this is balancing the few essential things in your life
(31:05):
and removing everything else. The less you can justify low quality.
I'll repeat that, the more successful you become, the less
you can justify low quality in your life before you evolve.
By the way, it's so hope, it's another quick I
just love Quincy Chelsea, he said. Again. He said, the
(31:28):
only worse than being alone is wishing that you were.
You can do that all by yourself before you evolve.
You can. You can reasonably spend time with just about anyone.
This is called youth young being a young person, growing up,
having fun before you evolve. As a child, he said,
you can reasonably spend time and justify spending time with
(31:48):
about anyone you like. You can reasonably eat anything placed
in front of you. Again, this is what children often
do young people who are immature and not evolved. You
know your body can absorb anything. At a young age,
it appears you can reasonably justify activities and behaviors that
are frankly mediocre. As your vision for yourself expands, you
(32:12):
realize you have to make certain adjustments. You need to
cut back on spending all of your money and time
on crap and entertainment. You have to save more hello
financial literacy and invest more in your education in your future.
(32:35):
The more successful you become, the less you can justify
low quality. The more focused you must become, the more
consistently your daily behaviors must be high quality and increasingly
higher quality. This isn't about perfection. It's definitely not about
(32:55):
being busy all the time. Actually, the balance of true
success involves what Tim Fairs calls many retirements or regular sabbaticals.
I love this, by the way, and I was doing
this long before I read this. Just told me I
was on the right track. Yet, if your daily behaviors
(33:17):
are consistently low quality, what do you expect your life's
output to be? And I'm going to go back now
to these many retirements or regular sabbaticals for a second,
So I work my tailoff. I work from can't see
anyone and I can't see at night. I believe an
entrepreneur works eighteen hours day to keep from getting a job. Frankly, right,
our middle name is work. But I've learned that my
(33:38):
body and my brain needs rest. I'm on travel now
doing this podcast in Las Vegas because my friend at
Bashi and CEO of Delto invited me and my wife
to come out to support them as they support their
as they celebrate their one hundredth anniversary and so on
and so forth. He's a friend and supported Operatos work,
and I'm proud of them. So we left our out.
(34:00):
We left our retreat, but with the family what shape.
We're on a family retreat which I go on every
six months to recharge because the world is discharging itself
on you. Your world is maybe refueling you, but it
can't re energize you. Okay, because the world because gas
comes from fuel, right, but you need energy source material
(34:26):
which you need to step off the field sometimes and
get quiet on yourself and recharge. I hope this is
making sense. So I step off the field so I
can re energize myself read reflect, go through on the
left side of my brain, analytical and dealing with tactics
and strategies and doing things and the urgent, and I
go from the urgent to the important. I switch from
(34:49):
the left brain to the right brain creativity and hope,
well being, faith, you know, wellness, inner thought, consciousness exists,
and I heal myself, and I read books, and I
sleep long, take long naps and play in the water
the ocean, and let my body. It's all heal so
(35:10):
I can go back into the battle, because capitalism is
a gladiator sport, and I need full force to be
able to deal with all that. So I step off
for a retreat, which in this example is called sabbatical.
But I take many retirements every night when I read
a book or watch something silly on YouTube for fifteen
or twenty minutes to grow over the bed. I take
(35:31):
a many retirement when I've meditated as a stop light
or fifteen minutes between meetings, and I just go inside
of myself and become quiet. But in order to do that,
you've got to love yourself. It's got to be reasonably
comfortable in your own skin so that you enjoy your
own company. You don't need everybody around you in order
to justify who you are or to make you comfortable.
(35:54):
I don't even know what the word, but I don't
even know what people say when they're bored they don't
have time. I mean, I've got more things I'm interested
in that I've got time to allocate to it. And
I enjoyed my own company, even though I really enjoy
everybody else's company. So it is example I gave you
of my friend Ambashi. We were on a retreat. He
asked to for us the Avitus to company this. So
(36:15):
we stepped away from our retreat because we felt this
was important. To come this bene a couple of days
with him, and then in Las Vegas, and then we're
out of here. We're too and we're back on a retreat,
back on schedule, good habits, back into a quiet space
because I know that once this year gets going, it
won't stop. The life will come on, it won't go off,
and the world will use you and till you know
(36:38):
you say no. There's a lot of love in the world.
No love is not just yes. Love is also known
so that you can say yes later to the right things,
high quality things. If your daily behaviors are consistently low quality.
(36:58):
What do you expect your life's output to be? Your
choice is must become a higher quality. Again, there's nothing
that is about better or worse than somebody else. Everybody's equal,
everybody's God's child. This is about you making quality choices
and getting the toxicity at your life. Can I give
an amen? This is about you said I can do
bad all by my day on self. If two plus
(37:18):
two in a relationship is not equal four, then what sorry?
If two plus two does not equal more than for six,
eight or ten, then what are you doing? What are
you doing? You can do bad all by yourself. This
is not in a relationship. It's not addition is multiplication?
Two plus two should equal six to eight or ten.
I've said it before, I've said it now. A giver
and a giver is exotic, A given or taker is neurotic,
(37:40):
and a taker and a taker is psychotic. And you
want to ruin your potential to build income and create wealth,
hook up with somebody who's a leech, who's a who's
sapping you and sucking you of energy and taking, taking, taking, taking, taking,
and a chief criticism officer, a chief negativity officer, Chief
toxicity officer has nothing to give and nothing to offer.
(38:04):
How draining can that be? How draining is that? Hello,
hopefully you're not looking to the left and the right
of you right now going Your choices must become higher quality.
Your relationships must become higher quality. Every area of your
life affects every other area of your life. Please hear me,
(38:25):
I'm let's say it again. Every area of your life
affects every other area of your life. Hence the saying
how you do anything, it's how you do everything. This
is very high level thinking. It only makes sense for
people who have removed everything from their lives they hate.
(38:50):
I will repeat that this only makes sense for people
who have removed everything from their lives that they hate,
which includes toxic people too, Which means you may have
that in you with your family. I'm not saying discard
your family. I'm saying, separate yourself from them on critical
(39:11):
decisions and don't let them create a cancer in the
core of your life. You can love your cousins and
your family members without letting them overtake your thinking or
make decisions for you. How can someon make a decision
for you where they're unqualified to do it. Are they
(39:32):
successful or do they other relationships you? Again, it goes
back to trying to model that four square block celebrity
that you admired and wanted to be thought to be
cool by. I mean, what is it's cool paying you
a mortgage your cardinal? Do you know they're no ugly billionaires?
Don't get me started this kind of thinking. I'm gonna
(39:56):
say again, this high level thinking only makes sense for
people who have removed every think in their lives that
they hate to actually live this principle. Your daily in
normal life can only be filled with those things you
highly value. I want this to be your aspiration. When
your days are filled with only those core essentials that
(40:18):
means the world to you and is valued by you,
and you're succeeding in those few areas quality over quantity,
you absolutely will dominate in all areas of your life
because you're focusing on few areas of your life. Because
(40:39):
the only things in your life are the things you
highly value. Everything else has slowly been weeded out. You're
living intentionally and congruently. You hear, you have momentum and balance.
You're being who you truly want to be. Every single day.
(41:01):
To actually do this not only takes time, but it
is extremely hard to live in practice. I'm gonna give
you I'm gonna acknowledge that this is extraordinarily hard. Where
did I say love is work? Non love is laziest,
anti love is evil. Whatever you love is gonna drive
you absolutely crazy. You love your kids, you want to
strangle with them once if once a month. You love
your husband wants a divorce one, you know, once a year.
(41:23):
You love your job, you love you hate you. You
love your career, you love it to be okay. You
want to quit you know once once at least once
a year. Whatever you love is gonna drive you a
little nuts. It's okay. You love your country. You want
to strangle your country. You want to divorce from your
country sometimes, but you can't. You're stuck with it because
it's all we got. We got to make it work,
and we will. Because rainbow's only fiable. Storms cannot have
(41:44):
a rainbow without a storm first. You can't grow accept
the legitimate suffering any By the way, that's big lokal.
Saying no to great but irrelevant opportunities is hard, right.
It's a maybe opportunity, but may not be relevant to you.
Getting up bad habits is hard. Changing your belief system
(42:07):
and expanding your vision takes courage. I sit in my
book Love Leadership. The courage is nothing more than your
faith reaching through your fear. Displaying it self is action
in your life. Faith courage is nothing more than your
faith reaching through your fear. Displaying it self is action
in your life. Changing your belief system and expanding your
vision takes courage. It's so easy to revert back to
(42:30):
small and mediocre thinking. However, as you come closer you're
living on a daily basis with your values and ideals,
Amazing things start to happen. You'll feel happier, You'll be
more present with those you love. I try to be again.
Present at all times is the way they call the
(42:51):
President of Gift. Yesterday's a memory that is the work
of the book. The powerful now by echo told his philosophy.
Yesterday's memory doesn't exist tomorrow. The future hasn't happened. Most
people will have one footing yesterday one and foot in tomorrow,
which is why they're not present and which is why
they're anxiety in their lives. Once you have a presence
in your life, once you live in the present of
your life. Peace comes over you and you create more time.
(43:17):
It's a whole another discussion for another time. You'll be
more present with those you love. You'll spend more time.
You'll spend your time better. You'll actually you start investing
your time versus just spending it. You'll pursue bigger dreams
and ambitions. You'll be more resilient during challenges. You'll live
at a higher frequency, and everything around you will reflect that.
(43:42):
But to repeat Jim Rowne's quote, a lot of people
don't do well simply because they major in minor things.
Say it another way, most people are caught in the
thick of thin things. Hence, most people won't be successful.
Most people won't evolve and progress. But you will. You
(44:06):
know it, and you can feel it. You've already begun,
and every day you're taking one step closer. Soon enough,
you'll fully commit to being who you know you can be.
Once you pass that point of no return, nothing will
stop you. I want you to get up from this
(44:28):
podcast with a renewed sense of somebodyness. I want you
to know that you're God's child. I want you to
know that He made you great. You don't approve to
anybody else. It's already there. What you got to do
is become reasonably comfortable in your own skins. Settle down,
and settle up. Buckle up, because this is going to
be a ride in your life. People thought they did
(44:50):
you some disservice by not giving you attention, by ignoring you,
by being indifferent to you. And what they did was
set you free, because it's a great thing to be
underestimated and ignored and no one's paying attention to you.
People for years didn't pay attention to me. They do
their nose up at me. They disrespected me. They said, oh,
John brian that capitalism of financial literacy. I'd go to
(45:12):
the White House and the White House officials four Honey
administrations ago. I've known nine presidents, probably six presidents ago.
Black Man. Even though that's ambassador John Briant, it's an ambassador.
I've been made at a good will ambassador for Fantasy
for the United Nations conference treating developer Geneva Switzerland. So
I was very proud of that. But he called me ambassador.
(45:33):
In other words, I'm just a ham. I'm just talking.
It hurt my feelings. It was intended to hurt my feelings.
That's okay. Haters just make you better again. Rainbow's after storms.
Do you know that people called doctor Martin U King
Junior Martin Loser King Martin Luther Kuhn, Uncle Tom sell
out and want to be and those are his friends talking.
(45:54):
He ignored the noise, and I'm telling you to ignore
the noise. I'm telling you that I nor the noise.
I'm not gonna lie to you. It hurt my feelings.
I put it in books. I acknowledge it. It hurt
my feelings. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
And it made me stronger. It made me resilient. I
rather respect me and learn to like me than like
me and never respect me. So then when you like me,
(46:17):
it's great, but it doesn't define who I am. And
I want you to wake up tomorrow knowing that you
can do anything you set your mind to. I want
you to be a giver. I want you to be
about I want you to about what you have to
give and I want you have to get. I want
you to be about relationships and not transactions. I want
you to wake up and figure out what you have
to uniquely give and contribute in this world and go
(46:39):
about doing that thing. And when you do that thing,
you become the best at it in the world, and
that will create income and generate brand equity, meaning what
your name is worth, and that will then create wealth.
And wealth compounds or is created when you sleep, more education,
more knowledge, more insight, better you know, compounding stocks, bonds,
(47:01):
investments of growing organization, more employees, which will then ultimately
in time, set you free and give your opportunity to
well have more high frequency conversations like this and get
out of the urgent and deal with what's important. Don't
never let the urgent crowd out the importance. It's another
conversation for another day, but today take your life back.
(47:24):
This is John ho'brien and this has been my discussion
to you on becoming a transformation of you in twenty
twenty five so you can live a life of wealth
from the inside out. Tell all your friends about this podcast.
Share this with everybody you know. Tell me to go
get the book Financial Literacy for all my other five
(47:47):
books with them, Tell them to subscribe to this podcast
and watch it out Takes on YouTube. Subscribe to my
YouTube channel, follow me on social media. Certainly subscribe to
Money and Wealth and the Black Offect Network, other podcasts
and on iHeartRadio. Support those who are supporting you. Let's
start a movement. Let's build ourselves from the shoulders up.
(48:11):
Let's make smart sexy again. We've been making dumb sexy
for way too long. We've dumbed down and celebrated. It's
time to make smart sexy again. Love and Light, John O'Brien.
(48:40):
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.
Welcome the Money and Wealth with John O'Briant, a production
of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey Hey,
it's John O'Brien and this is Money and Wealth on
a Black Effect Network and iHeartRadio podcast series for twenty
(00:22):
twenty five. This is the kickoff episode. This particular episode
is called The Transformational You. That's right, The Transformational You
is a pretty audacious title for a pretty bold time.
In many ways, I've been preparing to do this podcast
(00:42):
episode for the last twell thirty years, maybe thirty years plus,
but certainly since I found it Operation Hope. So let
me get into this. As you're walking or reflecting, or meditating,
or making dinner or breakfast, or sure heading to work
or heading home or on a jog, or do whatever
(01:04):
it is you're doing while you're listening to your podcast,
I want to give you something that you can tuck
away in your spirit and pull out and energize your soul.
There will be times where you're gonna be tested in
twenty twenty five. There's gonna be a year of incredible
opportunity and incredible challenges. Because rainbow is only follo storms.
(01:27):
You cannot have a rainbow without a storm. First, it's
actually a scientific fact. I want you to remember when
things get tough, that success is going from failure to
failure without loss of enthusiasm. Never ever, ever, ever, ever
give up. You were born to win. God made you
unique and special. There's eight billion some odd people in
(01:51):
the world and no one just like you. He made
you absolutely unique. No one has your eyes, no one
has your finger press. You are completely unique. While would
you want to be a copy of someone else? You
want to model good behavior because a lot of success
is good habits, and I'm going to teach you some
good habits. I'll give you some cheat sheets from what
(02:14):
I went through in my life coming up to go
from the bottom quartile of the worst environments in Compon California,
in south central Los Angeles, it's so called porous of
the poor. We were so broke we couldn't pay attention.
We were so poor we could afford the o R.
We actually were not sustenance poor. In other words, we
(02:34):
had a roof on the table, roof over our head,
food on the table, and reasonable health care. My mother
worked a job my dad. Mom and dad actually were
prosperous at one point, but they got a divorce and
my dad when he died, I ended up taking care
of him. My mother worked the same job for thirty
two years. Jannia Smith my dad, Johnny will Smith, both
(02:55):
had a high school education, but one had the potential
of becoming a millionaire. One did become a million in there,
my mother, working an hourly job, became a millionaire before
she passed away a million dollar net worth, making fifteen
to eighteen dollars an hour. You can listen to her
story in a special episode I did last year in
(03:15):
twenty twenty four season of this podcast. Or you can
also chronicle her story in my book Financial Literacy for All,
which is now a bestseller. Please pick up your copy.
I also talk about her and my dad in my
From Nothing Story that was my fifth book, I Believe,
which is also a bestseller. But they it's very important
(03:37):
to recognize that my mom and dad they were broke,
but they weren't poor. There's a difference between being broken
being poor. Being broken's economic Being poor is a disabling
frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit.
And you must vow never ever ever to be poor again.
(04:00):
Did you hear me? Please underscore this as my friend,
God bless your soulways been promoted. Quincy Jones once told me,
not one ounce of my self esteem depends on your
acceptance of me. It wasn't a statement of being better
than it was being equal to. You're not as good
as your compliments. You're not as bad as your criticism
(04:21):
as you are who you are, which is to say
we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. Were spiritual
beings having a human experience? And energy matters. Please listen
to me. I want you to look at your environment.
I want you to look around you and see who
you hang around. And you've heard me say this before,
(04:43):
but some things are worth repeating again. A lot of
success is good habits. If you hang around nine broke people,
you're going to be the tenth. And the opposite is
also true. Why do people go to Harvard University or
Yale or Prince and versus going to the state university
or the community college? Even is it that the state
(05:04):
university is so much less than these vaulted named universities
I mentioned. No, in any cases, you're going to get
an equivalent education at a state university, maybe even a
better education. But your networks may be different your network.
May you know, at Nebraska State or wherever you're having
(05:28):
to be at Arizona State, you're going to have maybe incredible
relationship capital in the state of Arizona in this example
of an Arizona State, and you business with people you know, respect,
reflect and understand who you have a relationships with. But
if you go to a nationally known university, maybe even
globally known, then your relationship capital is going to be
(05:50):
in this example global as well. And so as they rise,
if there's a possibility. So to you, it's a club,
a country club, a golf club, a fraternity, a sorority,
university graduating class. These are clubs. These are places of association.
(06:12):
So I want you to watch who you associated with
and understand that eagles don't fly in packs. You've never
seen a flock of eagles. Eagles are high altitude birds.
They don't feel that better than anybody else. They just
know who they are. And buzzers are low altitude birds.
Buzzers love packs. They're always player heating, they ever, but
(06:33):
player congratulating always has something negative to say about somebody,
and buzzers often shoot at eagles. And then you've got turkeys.
Turkeys got wings and can't even fly. All they do
is profile translation, trying to be something they are not.
(06:54):
So I want you to watch your circle. I go
through life consciously oblivious of most things around me because
it just doesn't matter. I spent a lot of time,
wasting a lot of time trying to impress people I
didn't even want to be like when I grew up,
and when you really thought about it, that four square
block celebrity in your neighborhood that you're spending so much
(07:17):
time trying to be like, not trying to be like,
trying to impress so they like you, trying to get
their attention, trying to be popular with them. Why do
they have a job that you want and they have
a career that you wanted. They're a partnership, a partner
that you want, that they have an aspirationial life that
you want, and they traveling the world? Are they whatever
(07:38):
your definition of success is. Probably not. They may be
a definition of cool that twenty years later will only
make them a fool. A lot of people who I
grew up with, who I thought were cool, who tease me,
demean me, player hated me. Even it's a phrase from
(08:04):
the neighborhood twenty thirty years later, trying to get a
job from me, trying to get a contract from me,
because the looks will fall away. The coolness does not
pay a bill, and they didn't have a skill that
they could rely on for the rest of their lives.
I spent my time focusing on that skill, focusing on
(08:27):
becoming the best version of me possible. I also became,
unbeknownst to myself, resilient because I ignored the noise. Again,
it's not what you answered, it's not what you call me.
It's what I answer to you that's important. And I
argue with a fool proves there are two. You know.
(08:49):
Somebody once said, you don't want to be in an
argument with a fool because the people passing by, who
may be importantly you don't. I cannot differentiate one from
the other. So let's now move from what you don't
(09:12):
want to what you do want. And you really don't
want the drama, you really don't want the toxicity. And
I'm going to tell you why you can't afford it either.
How do I say this, Well, let me do it directly.
Thirty years ago, when I found an operation Hope as
the first non fropit social investment banking organization in America.
(09:35):
I really thought at that time that it was going
to be transformational. I didn't know how or didn't know why.
I just thought it was going to be transformational. And
I had a hunch that even then the color wasn't
the issue before us in our generation was not going
to be black or white. Race primarily. Racism is real.
I'm not saying it's not real, but it won't be
(09:57):
the primary issue. The issue won't be politics Republican a Democrat.
I know that's hard to believe in the current environment,
but that won't be your primary impediment. It's not going
to be black and white, redder blue. It's going to
be green economics. This was going to be the defining
thing of this century issued a century. And if that's true,
(10:20):
that would mean that things like financial literacy, which was
something that was pioneered by Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas
after the Civil War of eighteen sixty five and signed
in the law with the Freedman's Bank March third, eighteen
sixty five. And I'm the only American citizen that ever
triggered and inspired the renaming of a building on the
(10:42):
White House campus, a Freedman's Bank building, with my friend
of Wally Idiyamo and others helped to make real at
the Treasury Department during the Obama administration and to this
day is called the Freedman's Bank building. That bank was
starting to teach free slaves about money, that's financial literacy
(11:02):
circa eighteen sixty five. So I thought that this unfinished work.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated a month after he signed it
in the law, and here comes doctor King. So that
called that the first reconstruction, from the fields of slavery
to the streets of freedom, the fields of freedom, the factories,
the job, the opportunity for basically freedom of choice. Then
(11:27):
the second reconstruction was really from those fields into the
field of exploration of access literally to the factory jobs
and to access to public facilities and the voting booth.
And that was a civil rights movement, a second reconstruction
which doctor King and my mentor Ambassador Andrew Young, that
(11:48):
movement they led, and that's what we call civil rights right,
and that was led centered in government as the central
element for change, and doctor King dealt with love and
hate very pointedly. People said they even left it or hated.
They made it very clear where they stood. Doctor King
only had twenty percent of the black community support as
(12:10):
high twenty percent of the white community support at his height,
and half of the white community for it was Jewish.
Most people set on their hands, they were indifferent. They said,
not my problem. And even with that, by the way,
give you a point of inspiration. Is five percent of
role models, just five percent of role models. The book
The Tipping Point Malcolm glad World University of Illinois study.
(12:30):
The book Malcolm Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, you should
read it. The University of Illinois study proved that at
five percent of all role models, five percent positive role models,
every community stabilized. Look at the black and brown community.
It's my podcasts for everybody, but I'm hyper focusing on
the black community because we're the only ones enslaved in
(12:53):
American soil. And our self esteem was destroyed and ideal
with that, with the five pillars of success from a
book up from nothing, our self esteem was destroyed. Even
though we had high confidence because we're competent, we had
low self esteem because people convinced us we were a thing,
or at least tried to. And we're now repairing that,
(13:14):
we're healing that. So if I don't like me, I'm
not going to like you. I don't feel good about me,
I'm not going to feel good about you. I don't
respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I
don't have a purpose in my life, I'll make your
own life. I'm living in hell. Whatever goes around comes around.
So had to repair self esteem. But when you look
at the third reconstruction, which I believe started with George
(13:36):
Floyd's murder in the pandemic twenty twenty, and we'll go
to twenty thirty, give or take. I believe, and I
think this is social justice to an economic lens. I
think this is about economic opportunity for all. Believe the
color is green. There's something else that came along with that, though.
Really the pulling back the draperies on the real challenge,
(13:58):
which is class and often race baiting is a placeholder.
Race diminishing, racism is a placeholder. It's a convenient distraction
for what people really after, which is class differentiation. And
(14:18):
I'm better than you in whatever nectar you want to
describe it puts me if I succeed in the vision
that puts me further ahead in the line, which allows
me to get more economic opportunity than you. There's redlining
and all these things that happen as a result of that.
I was perceived in one way in a positive light.
(14:39):
You're perceived another late in less another light, in less
positive way. Right. So I'll do with all these in
my masterclass in not twenty twenty five. I'll unpack all
these things. I'm an unpack what God is here, what's
holding us back? And how do we move forward in
a positive way? Right? Because I believe there's enough poverty
to go around. There's only to argue and compete about
(15:00):
that of your nonprofit. We should all be working together
to try to lift everybody up. And there's enough room
in a success table because you want to expanding the
table and adding a chair. So nobody should do insecure
because blacks and browns and Latinos of women, poor whites
or whoever are succeeding, our middle class people become upper
class again. I've gone from the bottom court till all
(15:20):
poverty in this country to the top one percent. As
I was saying earlier, in one generation and if I
did that right, did that legally? I brought people up,
of created employees, of created wealth, of created tax base.
I've paid my taxes, I employed people. I've created opportunities
for others as I've come up. I've built a ladder
that other people can follow. I've done well and done good.
(15:43):
Good capitalism is where I've benefit and you benefit more.
Bad capitalism is where I do benefit, where I've benefit
and you pay a price for it. I'm talking about
good capitalism. So no one should feel insecure about my
success or yours. They should applaud it. I've said that
if blacks succeed legitly in this country, even the racist wins,
because all boats rise. Let's get back to why I
(16:07):
had an epiphany thirty two years ago, because if what
I just said is correct, and if the seas of
transformational change have shifted, then the issue is primarily not
lover hate. It's doctor King, dealt with and Andrew Young,
my mentor doctor Dorothy Heyden cretits got King and all
these heroes and heroes, and even going back to the
first reconstruction, that was well, that was class structured primarily,
(16:30):
but it was it was it was sort of massed
in love and hate racism. I mean, slavery was about money.
I do a whole podcast about that. It was it
was primarily an economic exploitation situation. Okay, it's about money.
I need get people who work for free, build a
country for free. So what I'm saying now, though, is
the issue is not lover hate, it's radical indifference. Please
(16:51):
hear me, because now minute seventeenth mark of this podcast,
I'm about to talk about what it's going to take
for you to become the transformation know you Again, this
works for anybody, but it's going to really work for
African Americans and Latinos and people of color because when
when when Mason America has a headache, Black and Browns
have pneumonia, Okay they're sick, but we're really sick. It
(17:16):
could kill us. And I want you to get this
success format. I want you to understand that initially everybody
may not see it, or it may not you know,
they see it. They may not acknowledge them because they're
insecure about your success and may players hate it, maybe
challenged or threatened by it. First they will to ignore you.
Then they will criticize you if you keep at it.
(17:37):
Then you'll win. First they will ignore you, then they'll
criticize you, and you keep at it, and then you win.
Never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever give up. But
if the issue is radical and difference, then somebody does
not care them about you to hate you. Let me
give you some signals about this. Private communities, private private security,
(18:01):
gated gated communities, private clubs, private homesteads, private transportation, private security,
starting to get it, and they're popping up all across
this country, popping off all around the world. People just differentiate.
They're just saying, look, if you want to tear yourself up,
(18:22):
if you want to blow yourself up, if you want
to destroy your own community, I don't care. They're saying
that that's your business. I'm not saying it's right. I'm
telling you this as to what when religion falls away,
when spirituality gets diminished, then people start making the decisions
that are more transactional and more selfish in nature. And
we've got to get our spirituality back. But that is
(18:44):
a fight for another The other day, I'm trying to
make sure that you have the tools you need to
compete and succeed in the current environment. And I believe
the current environment political, economic, social, society, cultural, et cetera.
Your fere this is a future. It's common for you now, Okay,
(19:05):
I believe the current environment supercharged by an overlay of
technology and artificial intelligence that will aid in a bet
progress for progress's sake, it would be progressed at the
speed of light. As doctor King said, the world's moving
at as jet like speed. In America is moving at
(19:27):
horse and buggy pace. When it came to social progress,
we are at this inflection point again. But back then
he can make a moral case and people listened. There's
a whole bunch of reasons for that, and whether the
moral case worked and all that. We won't get into
that in this podcast. But for a range of reasons,
I'm telling you that people are increasingly disconnecting from your
(19:48):
success or your failure. It's not lever hate. It's just
in difference, just shrugging their shoulders, not my problem. And
until we can get everybody back on the same page,
agent realize we're better together. You might be on your
own for a minute. Okay, Now, there are some benefits
to being on your own, as you can get yourself right.
(20:12):
Nobody's coming to say to you as a great wake
up call. You don't you realize you cannot subcontract your democracy,
or your freedom or your opportunity. You realize you have
to vote, and you got to be a stakeholder. Otherwise
there's no stake in what you're looking for, so you
tend not to vote. You understand that nobody watches rental cars. Okay, right,
you got to own something and that starts with owning
(20:32):
your self. So I want you to become Please write
this down now. This is the most important I'm going
to say in the first twenty minutes of this podcast.
And I'm not getting now, I'm getting to the meat
of the matter. I want you to become obsessed with
becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Obsessed. This is
(20:53):
your primary asset. That's why this is a money and
wealth podcast. Yes, but you are the product. Okay, please
hear me. And I want you to become obsessed with
becoming reasonably comfortable in your own skin. Because when you
like you, you can love somebody like somebody else. When
you love you, you can love somebody else. When you're
comfortable with you, you're comfortable with everybody else. And see
how that works. And the opposite, unfortunately, is also true.
(21:15):
Whether you're insecure, you're going to be insecure about others.
If you hate yourself, you're going to hate other people.
If you don't like yourself, it's to be hard for
you don't like somebody else, and you don't love yourself,
how do you understand how to love somebody else? And
so on and so forth. The most dangerous person world
is a person with no hope. So I want you
to learn to become reasonably comfortable in your own skin.
I'm going to literally give you a prescription for that
(21:36):
here in a moment. I want you to heal from
the hurt of your eighteen year old self. Heal from
the hurt of your eighteen year old or your fifteen
year old, or your twelve year old, or your eight
year old or your five year old self, whatever that
pain is. I want you to become focused on healing
from that thing and becoming a new version. I'm a new,
(21:59):
powerful version of your newfound self. I want you to
understand that you might be broke, but you're not poor.
That God made you unique and powerful and special and different,
(22:23):
and he made you to win. I want you to
learn to manage all kinds of things coming at you
in an age of radical indifference. I want you to
see opportunity everywhere. There's one hundred trillion dollars worth of
opportunities coming your way. I'll cover this in the future podcast.
One hundred trillion dollars of economic opportunity coming your way
(22:45):
and no one's paying attention to it. And I'm gonna
give you the roadmap in future episodes of how to
get at it yourself. It's gonna be easy to go
after a thirty million dollar opportunity in the next few years,
the next ten years, sure than it is to going
after a twenty dollars toller opportunity. Yes, I said that.
Easier to go after twenty million dollars. That an opportunity
(23:05):
the way I'm going to tell you how to pursue it,
then going after a twenty thousand or twoitive thousand dollars
start up opportunity. But we'll get to that in successive episodes.
Tell all your friends to follow this episode series for
twenty twenty five. I want you to become obsessed. This
is why I became absolutely focused on financial literacy. I
(23:29):
believe it's a civil rights issue. Of this generation. That's
why I think it's one of the most radical thing
I could do was to teach you financial literacy. And
now I think that financial literacy is a civil rights
issue of this generation. And I believe that AI literacy,
artificial intelligence AI literacy is the silvi rights issue of
(23:50):
this generation. And I want you to go from the
streets to the suites, from the streets to the business suites.
I want you to cut deals. I want you to
be get on that aspiracial ladder. I want you to
be the aspiration generation that I know you can be.
But you're gonna have to be obsessively focused on from
a technical perspective, financial literacy because we live in and
we live in, an economic democracy, a capitalist democracy. The
(24:15):
United States of America, the largest economy in the world,
the sold superpower in the world, is a capitalist democracy,
a free enterprise democracy. Please hear me. And if you
don't understand money, Bastard Andrew Young, my mentor Doctor King's
right arm in the civil rights movement, the guy who
built the biggest economy in the traditional South, the only
national city in the South. Only mayor ever mentor by
(24:37):
doctor Martha King Jr. Said to live in a system
of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of
free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. Can
I give an amen? And what I've said is it's
what you don't know that you don't know that's killing you,
but you think you know. Hello, So here we go.
(24:59):
I'm one, and now tell you why most people will
never be successful. Now, this is something that I've been
that I've had in my file since two thousand and four.
I believe a poem. It's a poem, if you will,
or a memo to self that's written by a gentleman
by the name of doctor ben Hardy. Okay, And I
(25:20):
want you to listen very carefully this because this is
how I live my life. When I say I wants
you to become reasonably comfortable in your own skin. When
I talk about being high frequency, it just a phrase
that I really first heard from from my wife shape
for Bryant. But I want you to I didn't living.
I just didn't know what the phrase was, and I
describe it. So I'm about to explain this to you.
(25:41):
Please listen to this, go back, make notes and write
this down. Listen to this podcast and hit reverse hit
rewind that's creating my podcast, and go back and listen
to it again. Talk to your friends about this and
unpack what I'm about to tell you. Success isn't just
having lots of money. Money. Many people with lots of
(26:03):
money have horribly unhappy and radically imbalanced lives. Success is
continuously improving who you are, how you live, how you serve,
how you relate. So why won't most people be successful?
(26:23):
Why don't most people evolve? The more evolved you become,
the more focused you must be on those few things
which matter most. Now I'm a pause here and say,
and this is me talking, not doctor Hardy. Please remember now,
I think I really do believe people are dumb on purpose. Yes,
(26:45):
I said, I think you're stupid and dumb on purpose.
You have a smartphone in your hand, had more access
to data and information easily obtainable in your life. And
before you had a smartphone and AI, you had an
Internet search, Google Search. The library of the world is
open to you. I'm nosy about everything, Quincy Jones, how'd
you get so smart? I'm just nosy as hell. I
want to know everything about everything. Well, John O'Brien is
(27:07):
nosy God, I'll give you two ears in one mouth,
so you listen twice as much as you talk. So
if you're not successful today, you're well not successful. Sorry,
it's separate because that is about choice, luck and opportunity
and a few other things. But if you're dumb today,
if you're stupid, you're you're stupid on purpose. Unless you're
a mental illness or something that you can't control, you
(27:28):
have some kind of a chemical bounce, it's a different thing.
But if you're a reasonable, sound mind, that's what I'm
talking about. You know what I'm talking about. So what
am I saying? Love is work? Non love us laziness,
anti love is evil. Evil exists, but it's very rare.
Most people are just lazy, intellectually lazy, financially lazy, spiritually lazy,
(27:51):
emotionally lazy. They don't want to do the work. They
want somebody else to do it for them. They want
to subcontract the work. Well, only in the dictionary does
the word success come before the word work, because it's
out a better go? Can I get an amen? You've
got to do the work. There's no excuse for the work,
there's no way around it. So doing the work's tough.
(28:12):
Doing the work may be dealing with your pain, your drama,
the unhealing, dealing with the unhealed nature of your eighteen
year old self or your twelve year old self. Whenever
somebody abused or took advantage of you. You've got to
make peace with that pain and turn it into promise.
You've got to be comment committed to evolving every day
(28:33):
and waking up tomorrow better than you were yesterday when
you went to bed. That is my commitment to myself.
I'm obsessed with it. That's why I love books and learning,
because once you learn, and you can't no one can
take that from you. You don't unlearn it, right, and
once that river vand has expanded it, it never returned
to its original size. The more involved you become, the
(28:55):
more focus you must be on those few things which
matter most. Yeah, as Jim Rohn has said, quote, a
lot of people don't do well simply because a major
n minor things end quote. To be successful, you can't
continue being with low frequency people long periods of time.
(29:17):
I'm going to repeat that. To be successful, you can't
continue being around low frequency people for long periods of time.
I'm not judging anybody, it is what it is. I'm
not saying somebody's better for worse. I'm saying they're either
high frequency, low frequency of medium frequency. They're either highly
evolved and critical thinking and do the work and all
(29:38):
that stuff, or they just are. You figure out what
low frequency is. You define it yourself. I think you've
got good common sense. Look around you, eagles, buzzers, turkeys. Hello,
you can't continue eating crappy food, regardless of your spouse's
or colleagues food choices. He's an old Southern SI. No
(30:00):
matter how much I love you, my son or my daughter,
if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you
my own ignorance. Hello, I'll say it again, No matter
how much I love you my son and my daughter,
if I don't have wisdom, I can only give you
my own ignorance. I can only give you what I've got,
So please listen to me. Now, out of love, we
pass down bad habits and generation and generation. Out of love.
(30:21):
We do that because what you don't know that you
don't know is killing you, but you think you know.
Is what you don't know that you don't know that
they be killing you, but you think you know so
somebody can love you and give you bad advice. Hello,
you can't continue eating crabby food regardless of who's your
spouse or colleagues whose choices may be what they may be.
(30:42):
Your day must consistently be spent on high quality activities.
The more successful you become, which is balancing the few
essential things princes print, spiritual, relational, financial, physical, and princes. Yes,
this is balancing the few essential things in your life
(31:05):
and removing everything else. The less you can justify low quality.
I'll repeat that, the more successful you become, the less
you can justify low quality in your life before you evolve.
By the way, it's so hope, it's another quick I
just love Quincy Chelsea, he said. Again. He said, the
(31:28):
only worse than being alone is wishing that you were.
You can do that all by yourself before you evolve.
You can. You can reasonably spend time with just about anyone.
This is called youth young being a young person, growing up,
having fun before you evolve. As a child, he said,
you can reasonably spend time and justify spending time with
(31:48):
about anyone you like. You can reasonably eat anything placed
in front of you. Again, this is what children often
do young people who are immature and not evolved. You
know your body can absorb anything. At a young age,
it appears you can reasonably justify activities and behaviors that
are frankly mediocre. As your vision for yourself expands, you
(32:12):
realize you have to make certain adjustments. You need to
cut back on spending all of your money and time
on crap and entertainment. You have to save more hello
financial literacy and invest more in your education in your future.
(32:35):
The more successful you become, the less you can justify
low quality. The more focused you must become, the more
consistently your daily behaviors must be high quality and increasingly
higher quality. This isn't about perfection. It's definitely not about
(32:55):
being busy all the time. Actually, the balance of true
success involves what Tim Fairs calls many retirements or regular sabbaticals.
I love this, by the way, and I was doing
this long before I read this. Just told me I
was on the right track. Yet, if your daily behaviors
(33:17):
are consistently low quality, what do you expect your life's
output to be? And I'm going to go back now
to these many retirements or regular sabbaticals for a second,
So I work my tailoff. I work from can't see
anyone and I can't see at night. I believe an
entrepreneur works eighteen hours day to keep from getting a job. Frankly, right,
our middle name is work. But I've learned that my
(33:38):
body and my brain needs rest. I'm on travel now
doing this podcast in Las Vegas because my friend at
Bashi and CEO of Delto invited me and my wife
to come out to support them as they support their
as they celebrate their one hundredth anniversary and so on
and so forth. He's a friend and supported Operatos work,
and I'm proud of them. So we left our out.
(34:00):
We left our retreat, but with the family what shape.
We're on a family retreat which I go on every
six months to recharge because the world is discharging itself
on you. Your world is maybe refueling you, but it
can't re energize you. Okay, because the world because gas
comes from fuel, right, but you need energy source material
(34:26):
which you need to step off the field sometimes and
get quiet on yourself and recharge. I hope this is
making sense. So I step off the field so I
can re energize myself read reflect, go through on the
left side of my brain, analytical and dealing with tactics
and strategies and doing things and the urgent, and I
go from the urgent to the important. I switch from
(34:49):
the left brain to the right brain creativity and hope,
well being, faith, you know, wellness, inner thought, consciousness exists,
and I heal myself, and I read books, and I
sleep long, take long naps and play in the water
the ocean, and let my body. It's all heal so
(35:10):
I can go back into the battle, because capitalism is
a gladiator sport, and I need full force to be
able to deal with all that. So I step off
for a retreat, which in this example is called sabbatical.
But I take many retirements every night when I read
a book or watch something silly on YouTube for fifteen
or twenty minutes to grow over the bed. I take
(35:31):
a many retirement when I've meditated as a stop light
or fifteen minutes between meetings, and I just go inside
of myself and become quiet. But in order to do that,
you've got to love yourself. It's got to be reasonably
comfortable in your own skin so that you enjoy your
own company. You don't need everybody around you in order
to justify who you are or to make you comfortable.
(35:54):
I don't even know what the word, but I don't
even know what people say when they're bored they don't
have time. I mean, I've got more things I'm interested
in that I've got time to allocate to it. And
I enjoyed my own company, even though I really enjoy
everybody else's company. So it is example I gave you
of my friend Ambashi. We were on a retreat. He
asked to for us the Avitus to company this. So
(36:15):
we stepped away from our retreat because we felt this
was important. To come this bene a couple of days
with him, and then in Las Vegas, and then we're
out of here. We're too and we're back on a retreat,
back on schedule, good habits, back into a quiet space
because I know that once this year gets going, it
won't stop. The life will come on, it won't go off,
and the world will use you and till you know
(36:38):
you say no. There's a lot of love in the world.
No love is not just yes. Love is also known
so that you can say yes later to the right things,
high quality things. If your daily behaviors are consistently low quality.
(36:58):
What do you expect your life's output to be? Your
choice is must become a higher quality. Again, there's nothing
that is about better or worse than somebody else. Everybody's equal,
everybody's God's child. This is about you making quality choices
and getting the toxicity at your life. Can I give
an amen? This is about you said I can do
bad all by my day on self. If two plus
(37:18):
two in a relationship is not equal four, then what sorry?
If two plus two does not equal more than for six,
eight or ten, then what are you doing? What are
you doing? You can do bad all by yourself. This
is not in a relationship. It's not addition is multiplication?
Two plus two should equal six to eight or ten.
I've said it before, I've said it now. A giver
and a giver is exotic, A given or taker is neurotic,
(37:40):
and a taker and a taker is psychotic. And you
want to ruin your potential to build income and create wealth,
hook up with somebody who's a leech, who's a who's
sapping you and sucking you of energy and taking, taking, taking, taking, taking,
and a chief criticism officer, a chief negativity officer, Chief
toxicity officer has nothing to give and nothing to offer.
(38:04):
How draining can that be? How draining is that? Hello,
hopefully you're not looking to the left and the right
of you right now going Your choices must become higher quality.
Your relationships must become higher quality. Every area of your
life affects every other area of your life. Please hear me,
(38:25):
I'm let's say it again. Every area of your life
affects every other area of your life. Hence the saying
how you do anything, it's how you do everything. This
is very high level thinking. It only makes sense for
people who have removed everything from their lives they hate.
(38:50):
I will repeat that this only makes sense for people
who have removed everything from their lives that they hate,
which includes toxic people too, Which means you may have
that in you with your family. I'm not saying discard
your family. I'm saying, separate yourself from them on critical
(39:11):
decisions and don't let them create a cancer in the
core of your life. You can love your cousins and
your family members without letting them overtake your thinking or
make decisions for you. How can someon make a decision
for you where they're unqualified to do it. Are they
(39:32):
successful or do they other relationships you? Again, it goes
back to trying to model that four square block celebrity
that you admired and wanted to be thought to be
cool by. I mean, what is it's cool paying you
a mortgage your cardinal? Do you know they're no ugly billionaires?
Don't get me started this kind of thinking. I'm gonna
(39:56):
say again, this high level thinking only makes sense for
people who have removed every think in their lives that
they hate to actually live this principle. Your daily in
normal life can only be filled with those things you
highly value. I want this to be your aspiration. When
your days are filled with only those core essentials that
(40:18):
means the world to you and is valued by you,
and you're succeeding in those few areas quality over quantity,
you absolutely will dominate in all areas of your life
because you're focusing on few areas of your life. Because
(40:39):
the only things in your life are the things you
highly value. Everything else has slowly been weeded out. You're
living intentionally and congruently. You hear, you have momentum and balance.
You're being who you truly want to be. Every single day.
(41:01):
To actually do this not only takes time, but it
is extremely hard to live in practice. I'm gonna give
you I'm gonna acknowledge that this is extraordinarily hard. Where
did I say love is work? Non love is laziest,
anti love is evil. Whatever you love is gonna drive
you absolutely crazy. You love your kids, you want to
strangle with them once if once a month. You love
your husband wants a divorce one, you know, once a year.
(41:23):
You love your job, you love you hate you. You
love your career, you love it to be okay. You
want to quit you know once once at least once
a year. Whatever you love is gonna drive you a
little nuts. It's okay. You love your country. You want
to strangle your country. You want to divorce from your
country sometimes, but you can't. You're stuck with it because
it's all we got. We got to make it work,
and we will. Because rainbow's only fiable. Storms cannot have
(41:44):
a rainbow without a storm first. You can't grow accept
the legitimate suffering any By the way, that's big lokal.
Saying no to great but irrelevant opportunities is hard, right.
It's a maybe opportunity, but may not be relevant to you.
Getting up bad habits is hard. Changing your belief system
(42:07):
and expanding your vision takes courage. I sit in my
book Love Leadership. The courage is nothing more than your
faith reaching through your fear. Displaying it self is action
in your life. Faith courage is nothing more than your
faith reaching through your fear. Displaying it self is action
in your life. Changing your belief system and expanding your
vision takes courage. It's so easy to revert back to
(42:30):
small and mediocre thinking. However, as you come closer you're
living on a daily basis with your values and ideals,
Amazing things start to happen. You'll feel happier, You'll be
more present with those you love. I try to be again.
Present at all times is the way they call the
(42:51):
President of Gift. Yesterday's a memory that is the work
of the book. The powerful now by echo told his philosophy.
Yesterday's memory doesn't exist tomorrow. The future hasn't happened. Most
people will have one footing yesterday one and foot in tomorrow,
which is why they're not present and which is why
they're anxiety in their lives. Once you have a presence
in your life, once you live in the present of
your life. Peace comes over you and you create more time.
(43:17):
It's a whole another discussion for another time. You'll be
more present with those you love. You'll spend more time.
You'll spend your time better. You'll actually you start investing
your time versus just spending it. You'll pursue bigger dreams
and ambitions. You'll be more resilient during challenges. You'll live
at a higher frequency, and everything around you will reflect that.
(43:42):
But to repeat Jim Rowne's quote, a lot of people
don't do well simply because they major in minor things.
Say it another way, most people are caught in the
thick of thin things. Hence, most people won't be successful.
Most people won't evolve and progress. But you will. You
(44:06):
know it, and you can feel it. You've already begun,
and every day you're taking one step closer. Soon enough,
you'll fully commit to being who you know you can be.
Once you pass that point of no return, nothing will
stop you. I want you to get up from this
(44:28):
podcast with a renewed sense of somebodyness. I want you
to know that you're God's child. I want you to
know that He made you great. You don't approve to
anybody else. It's already there. What you got to do
is become reasonably comfortable in your own skins. Settle down,
and settle up. Buckle up, because this is going to
be a ride in your life. People thought they did
(44:50):
you some disservice by not giving you attention, by ignoring you,
by being indifferent to you. And what they did was
set you free, because it's a great thing to be
underestimated and ignored and no one's paying attention to you.
People for years didn't pay attention to me. They do
their nose up at me. They disrespected me. They said, oh,
John brian that capitalism of financial literacy. I'd go to
(45:12):
the White House and the White House officials four Honey
administrations ago. I've known nine presidents, probably six presidents ago.
Black Man. Even though that's ambassador John Briant, it's an ambassador.
I've been made at a good will ambassador for Fantasy
for the United Nations conference treating developer Geneva Switzerland. So
I was very proud of that. But he called me ambassador.
(45:33):
In other words, I'm just a ham. I'm just talking.
It hurt my feelings. It was intended to hurt my feelings.
That's okay. Haters just make you better again. Rainbow's after storms.
Do you know that people called doctor Martin U King
Junior Martin Loser King Martin Luther Kuhn, Uncle Tom sell
out and want to be and those are his friends talking.
(45:54):
He ignored the noise, and I'm telling you to ignore
the noise. I'm telling you that I nor the noise.
I'm not gonna lie to you. It hurt my feelings.
I put it in books. I acknowledge it. It hurt
my feelings. But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
And it made me stronger. It made me resilient. I
rather respect me and learn to like me than like
me and never respect me. So then when you like me,
(46:17):
it's great, but it doesn't define who I am. And
I want you to wake up tomorrow knowing that you
can do anything you set your mind to. I want
you to be a giver. I want you to be
about I want you to about what you have to
give and I want you have to get. I want
you to be about relationships and not transactions. I want
you to wake up and figure out what you have
to uniquely give and contribute in this world and go
(46:39):
about doing that thing. And when you do that thing,
you become the best at it in the world, and
that will create income and generate brand equity, meaning what
your name is worth, and that will then create wealth.
And wealth compounds or is created when you sleep, more education,
more knowledge, more insight, better you know, compounding stocks, bonds,
(47:01):
investments of growing organization, more employees, which will then ultimately
in time, set you free and give your opportunity to
well have more high frequency conversations like this and get
out of the urgent and deal with what's important. Don't
never let the urgent crowd out the importance. It's another
conversation for another day, but today take your life back.
(47:24):
This is John ho'brien and this has been my discussion
to you on becoming a transformation of you in twenty
twenty five so you can live a life of wealth
from the inside out. Tell all your friends about this podcast.
Share this with everybody you know. Tell me to go
get the book Financial Literacy for all my other five
(47:47):
books with them, Tell them to subscribe to this podcast
and watch it out Takes on YouTube. Subscribe to my
YouTube channel, follow me on social media. Certainly subscribe to
Money and Wealth and the Black Offect Network, other podcasts
and on iHeartRadio. Support those who are supporting you. Let's
start a movement. Let's build ourselves from the shoulders up.
(48:11):
Let's make smart sexy again. We've been making dumb sexy
for way too long. We've dumbed down and celebrated. It's
time to make smart sexy again. Love and Light, John O'Brien.
(48:40):
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.
Host
John Hope Bryant
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