Marcus Barney - Financial Education Expert | How Understanding Credit Changed Everything About Building Wealth

I remember being on Instagram looking at credit card groups and I'm like this is like a secret society. I identified that majority of people didn't even understand how to get a credit card. majority of people don't understand the power of a credit card and what they can do and at that point I realized you're learning things and as you continue to learn there are so many people who won't. Marcus Barney isn't just teaching financial literacy. He's redefining what it means to own your financial future. From boardrooms to barber shops, Marcus has built a reputation as him 500. A mentor, strategist and wealth architect for the underdog. The miseducation is often much easier to get than the correct information. Don't feel bad about working a nine or five. The work ethic that gets developed is more important than education. Why? Because that'll help me be the best boss and business partner. With millions of views across social media, a loyal following of aspiring entrepreneurs and a curriculum that's helped thousands escape the paycheck to paycheck Marcus is on a mission to close the wealth gap by giving people the tools they were never taught. If you've ever been told you'll never make it out. He's living proof that you can. The best entrepreneurs have the best relationships. They figure out how to manage relationships on the good side and the bad side. How to be in a relationship and give everybody wins. We only control ourselves. I don't have control over what you say to me but I have a control over how I perceive it and how I respond to it. Marcus, I'm excited you're here. You have an incredible origin story. So you went from selling bootleg sneakers to cleaning gutters. You became a multi-millionaire now owned private jets ambulance companies. You teach thousands how to turn credit into cash. You've made tons of people millionaires. Think about a moment in your life when you realize that financial strategies that you were learning for creating wealth were not just for yourself but would benefit your entire community. When I realized it? Yeah like when you were like listen I'm learning things that are not the norm. People don't know this shit and they have to know this shit and this is like a life hack secret unlock. Honestly it was I remember being on Instagram looking at credit card groups and they had all these like cold words and things like that and I'm like what the fuck are they talking about? It's like MC. It's just this form and I'm like and I realized that like Master car was MC and VGC was vanilla gift car and I'm like this is like a secret society right and I started to and it was a thing called manufacturer spending and was just learning how to manufacture spins on your credit card right. This is like a little points thing? Yeah yeah yeah and I remember going down the rabbit hole but I went down it with a friend and he couldn't understand what they were talking about. So I started strategically going and creating groups of people that was in the community that was on the comment thread talking about it I would go and create a group chat with them. Since you guys all seem to understand it I would be DMing them one on one and then I created a group chat and so then I would decode what they were saying exactly because now they're talking high level amongst each other and it was it wasn't nothing that I wasn't exposed to it was just the terminology and the codes that they were using and at that point I realized okay how do I communicate this back to my community? Yeah because this was something amazing to me and I'm like manufacturer spending all this different things with gift cars and so many shopping techniques and I identified that majority of people didn't even understand how to get a credit card. It was way above and I'm going you know what the things that I'm learning now is benefits from hardworking things that I took for granted and I took for granted the fact of me actually understanding how to develop my credit getting my credit together and actually realizing how many credit cards is out there and that there's different ones. Majority of people don't understand the power of a credit card and what they can do nor how it can benefit them and at that point I realized you know what like you're learning things and as you continue to learn there are so many people who won't either not on that same journey because they didn't so going back into your origin story you only figured this out because your businesses kept failing because you couldn't figure out credit how to fund the businesses so you went through a lot of like candidly really stressful like life events that a lot of people don't want to expose themselves to like not a lot not a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs because of what you went through that's the reason why and then it's like light at the end of tunnels like there's other ways to do this so it's not so stressful so there's a better chance of it working out but also like with credit and credit cards the first exposure people have credit credit cards are like you know they have some for me at least it was when I went to university and there was like this little like a stand on campus and they're giving me shit credit cards it was kind of super predatory because you didn't know what it was and then you fuck yourself over with high interest rates and your parents give you shit for getting a credit card and then you're like scared of like oh like I don't know I don't know how to play this game credit credit drops yeah you're not understanding credit utilization right and you fact you're spending nobody knows yeah so you don't understand none of those things you don't understand the benefits of even the credit or understand if I went into like due dates statement dates your your payment that you do date your statement date when I start breaking those things down and people are like wait what say yo okay well you know I got three credit cards and this one is due this day and I tell people hey you can change that and put it on the same date it's like oh you can it's like you operate in this capacity of credit America is built off of credit yet we don't understand how to navigate it there isn't a curriculum there isn't a place that teaches us how to properly navigate it to our benefit nobody tells you well you you can change your due date put them all on the same date so you know where you're not confused or separate 50% put 50% on the 15th and another 50% on the first that way depending on where you're at in the month you know which credit cards you use based on the day it reports you know when to pay them off and it's so confusing because you have Dave Ramsey saying don't buy shit on credit and now you have predatory credit cards and then America's built on credit I actually just learned this recently that credit is actually like a relatively new concept that was like based in the US where in Europe for a long time there wasn't as much credit as there is in the US like the thought of buying shit with not your own money in history is actually I think very new if I'm not mistaken and nobody knows how to play that game like really really well and there's so much conflicting advice I think that's what really spruce people and it's it's you gotta understand it it's it comes from a capitalistic place right in reality um I believe in credit because it's available tools so we should know how to utilize tools when you don't have any but if you look at it on the flip side is that the way the credit is is is even pushed out and pushed into the community and for you to be able to finance things it's not for the benefit of the consumers for the benefit of the bank 100% and so when you start to realizing identify that you start out for me I was going okay well how do I make this beneficial for me I understand you guys set us up on a spin wheel for your benefit I'll allow you to finances or pay imagine on on on on the mortgage I'll allow you to pay 30 years first eight years interest only year 15 you follow them hard times we got our interest and now we foreclose on you year 15 year 12 but we've already collected the interest now at this point once it starts going to principle if you ever follow hard times you lose the house yeah I people don't realize any of that there's so many levels to this even with auto loans you have a bet you got bad credit like okay think about it the car is $80,000 if you have great credit with interest you'll pay 93 95,000 bad credit you'll pay 140 160,000 okay in that buffer for the same car you came in ideally you don't want to help people with good credit it makes more sense to serve as people and have people with bad credit I rather you be confused if I'm going to make double the money you take advantage of people so it's just that's that's the importance of his understanding that this system is not created to help you grow if you're not educated on how to properly use it and navigate it that's why they say well why don't they teach credit in schools well why would they they don't teach business and how to be your entrepreneur and how to not believe in a school system is good either it's a circle that we kind of go into where we have to realize that there's there's pros and cons the cons are naturally sitting and presented to us more the miseducation is often much easier to get than the correct information and that's one of the key things that I like about where I'm at is that I teach people how to use credit the right way to their own benefit don't get suckered into doing and thinking oh this is how I was taught to do it in its wrong so teeda for people because we talk a lot about investment on this show and like should you raise money from investors and angels and vcs or should you just bootstrap I've never really had a conversation on this show about like strategic credit for business so just frame it for people where in their business should they use credit versus bootstrap and fund it with customer cash versus vc versus angel investing like I don't think it's a bad idea but it's not something that if I watch 100 videos on entrepreneurship I don't think any of them are going to talk to me about how to use strategic like credit or is it debt I guess for a business compared to all the other types of ways to fund it so when you bootstrap ideally honestly if you most entrepreneurs will end up they'll start bootstrapping right and so when a bootstrap at the beginning what happens is that I believe that's the proven method because there's a lot of things that you have to prove to yourself it's a lot of things you have to prove to your customers develop and prove your brand after you bootstrap and let's just say you get to a point to where you're doing six figures right you do a multiple six figures and you figured out the kinks right you went through it you you're going through it now is going okay I have a proven model I've worked out my customer support support I understand the lifetime value of my customers I understand customer acquisition how to get customers I understand my business I'm actually a business owner at this point I'm not I'm no longer risky and gambling and I don't know what's going to happen I kind of have numbers on the board that I can actually check have data to be able to look at at that point most people go I'm ready to scale that's the point when you're ready to scale you'll get asked where to start but I just want to scale but you don't know your numbers you don't understand the psychologically if you don't have a control over your business you don't understand it can't look inside the hood you don't really you're not running a business run the hustle yeah you're just running and you you really don't know what's going on you take that that's kind of mess crushes it yeah but when you have somebody who understands it now when you deploy somebody else's money into it you know what your what atmosphere and what environment you're putting that money into so you imagine as an entrepreneur and business owner you figure out okay I'm actually profitable now this is how I make money these campaigns work for me these marketing styles work for me or this yellow pages work for me this bill board worked for me okay now how can I use somebody's capital and be able to put it out and most entrepreneurs go I want to scale and if I say hey I'll give you $50,000 for 15% of your business they go 15 maybe 10 or 12 like and they're willing to do a deal yeah but they don't know of of banks like Marcus and the Goldman Sachs in Apple right like you can get an Apple credit card same thing with the golden sex Goldman Sachs is that you can go and apply for a pre-approval you go apply for a pre-approval and it'll tell you if you're pre-approved and what you're pre-approved for you now know what you can get access to you don't even have to get a hard inquiry or apply or or do the full application you just check the pre-approval and now you say okay well here's 25,000 here's 20,000 I have 45,000 dollars sitting there if I need it I gotta now I put that into my business right but you already have the business figured out that's the difference and it's growing and it's working but you realize hey if I had to extra 10 15,000 dollars 20,000 dollars to put into products or to be able to expedite and grow my marketing and advertising or to hire more staff to get things out faster whatever it may be depending on the industry you realize you get to a point where you can operate and you understand it and now I can actually deploy somebody else's money to put gas on something that works yeah I think that's smart too but plus you also get to hold on to 100% of your business you're not diluting yourself you're not giving up equity with with credit um where did like I know that you sort of your interest in credit came from like failed failed businesses shit that wasn't going so well did you get any because I'm looking I'm thinking back to like when I was in when school and I got zero financial education about credit about entrepreneur to your point nothing did you have any like education growing up at all like is there and why is our education system so messed up and and we just don't give kids the tools that they need because I honestly think that it's a different um I don't think this is for kids right um because it often comes up like they should put it in teaching in schools and it's like no there's other things that they that are more important right um about the human development about self-development and actually allowing people to develop versus putting them right into the rat race of finances and dealing with money because what we realized and we can even look at adults once they figure something out where they get miseducated or a misunderstanding they can stay in live with that miseducation and misunderstanding for 10 years and all and if you're not properly educated on how to how to be cognitive of how to think how to process how to analyze you know how to use your discernment teaching people about how to go get access to capital is dangerous for a 16 year old who looks online and wants a hellcat who wants to be able to spend money on streaming and he's figuring out ways you know now when it comes to financial when it comes to credit right but now when it comes to budgeting things like that it's super important because those are things that need to be taught in school is like how do you actually manage the relationship with money how do you manage the relationship with money and on on on a spectrum of not going and getting money from other people but just how to deal with it how to you know deal with your bank accounts how to actually look and check nowadays we got apps and things like that out there now to tell us all of our how we're spending where we're spending that things like that but it's like okay well now how do we read these things how do we actually govern it to make ourselves better I mean we can like kind of outsource our thinking to apps we still don't do a good job of managing money and even some now there's I know there's apps that like show you like hey you're spending this much on your monthly subscriptions and I think those are smart but I think that that early child the dedication about finance that's important just to figure out like where you're spending what a balance is like how much you know your personal cash flow kind of that's really the way that I think about and that doesn't exist in schools but then like when you're older like credit is important I mean there's a really should be mandatory for kids going into college I agree with that as opposed to just having like a little booth at the credit card on the campus now it needs to be it's something that should be a prerequisite in college not as much high school so when you think what I think about kids I think about high school I think high school needs to have a very strict strategic across the board course and in trainings on relationship with finances right um to understand it but I think by the time people get to college now it needs to go into actually understanding finances how it works the understanding credit what it is because at this point now you're it's available to you so coming in freshman year it should be automatically how you got to take prerequisites on credit because what happens is is that now all the credit card offers start and and now it's like okay I'm just taking things and I don't know any better today's episode is brought to you by Vanta now listen up this matters for your business and today's digital landscape security isn't optional it's essential without it deal stall sale cycle stretch on and scaling becomes very difficult now why because investors customers and partners all expect businesses to demonstrate strong security practices before they commit if you can't prove trust you lose opportunities so whether you're a startup founder trying to land that first big client or an established company scaling 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go in like a pretty safe way entrepreneurship doesn't mean you have to be a billionaire entrepreneurship doesn't mean you have to fail a thousand times either so let's figure out how to build a business there's seasons to that business let's be smart about the money we use and then anybody can kind of live like an above average lifestyle and escape like escape the matrix escape the nine to five and i'm a big fan of that idea i think that like a lot of entrepreneurs listen to show and i talk to them this in person and you know and and i think that the version of entrepreneurship where you quit your job and try and make it work in three months before you run into money like that's people think entrepreneurship is but it's not and you actually are giving them like like a safer option to entrepreneurship be strategic about it and don't feel bad about working a nine to five you don't think that is bad to work a nine to five i need you to i always encourage people to understand the work ethic that gets developed is more important than education you can learn everything you can know everybody but if you lack work ethic then you don't become great and so when you look at it and go i'm able to do something that i don't like for the greater good of myself that self discipline to be able to still show up a hundred percent don't go and say i don't want to work a job i'm not good with working for nobody okay but if you're in this situation where you have to to discipline yourself to know hey i may not like this but i'm going to show up a hundred percent i'm going to give my all i still will be the best employee why because that'll help me be the best boss and business partner because i know no matter there isn't everything i don't like everything about my business i don't like reviewing books and going over all the charts and numbers but i show up my best and i give my best even when i had to work a nine to five that transferred over i'm going to always show up as my best those are things that will help entrepreneurs become successful it's going hey even if he goes you know what you don't look at you're not even the be the best employee well how do i be the best employee sometimes if working and it doesn't help this job doesn't help me get by people are working jobs and they're not they're barely getting by and it goes hey well you're still not being a smart employee because you don't have to be an employee of this operation that does not help you get by financially you can be an employee of a situation that does go find a better job because in business you're going to have to find better opportunities and develop better products and price points to make more money if your revenue does not equate to what you need to be to be profit yes so get a better job if you want the ambitious regardless what you do yes that it transfers over and so often it goes well this the safest way i'll tell our entrepreneur up your price you want to make more money you don't have to serve as more people up your price simple go up 20% 25% and see what happens if that doesn't work then bring it down to 15% but you just up your price you'll you'll generally make more income with entrepreneur i mean with a person who works a job it says hey well have you found an opportunity to go and make more money at a different job not i'm taking you out of your nine to five going develop no figure out how to be a better employee and navigate this space because you need it and be the best employee there and work on self-discipline to where when you walk away from the job where you start to develop your own business when you're tired when you don't want to do it you still have to do it you now have that discipline people think that hey well i don't want to work for nobody i'm not a good i don't i'm not good at listening taking orders that you will not be good at at being an entrepreneur entrepreneurs are best the best entrepreneurs have the best relationships they they figure out how to manage relationships on the good side and the bad side how to be in a relationship and give everybody oh everybody wins it's never one sided most most entrepreneurs great relationships with their significant others family and they have a group of friends what was the biggest and by the way i think that yes so i think that there's a lot of we we're talking with this for a press record and i was complaining about like hiring hiring talent because everybody's so entitled and nobody wants to nobody wants to work for somebody that want to work for themselves but there's so many lessons even if you don't love the company that you work for there's so many lessons that i learned by working for somebody that allows me to be successful today and i'm sure you too like if you do not you don't just jump into entrepreneurship with no life skills no business skills at all like it's actually you're gonna increase the chance that you're being successful if you figure shit out somewhere else now that means you don't just show up and clock out it means that you show up and learn yes wherever you're working that and that's that's super important and when when and when finding good help like it's hard to find good help because everybody thinks that they can just build a business these days and it's possible but they don't realize that most businesses start off in somebody else's infrastructure if you're really gonna be good you have to operate in somebody else's infrastructure no business no business it's successful on the song you think about it if you go back to amazon it says amazon is a billion dollar business it operates in somebody else's infrastructure when it came to saying okay well you know what look at how it's set up and we only deal with books well books was kind of regular you have barns nobles and all these other things and they started learning and they started to create after dealing with how the booking how people buy books they didn't just naturally change it they were servicing people and it was trying to create its own opportunities so then you looking at it was doing things how eBay did things and the other things in that that was in control of the market at that time and as they started getting market control they started to shift things but then at one point they had to even you know now they have their own delivery but at one point they had to do delivery things based off of UPS FedEx and US who controlled the way the things were delivered now they're able to come in and re re re re structure how things are delivered but thanks to companies like Uber coming out and delivering I mean and creating that technology now they can go oh we can pivot and use this method so things grow but if amazon wouldn't have started as a book store it wouldn't have been able to grow more into what it is today yeah I mean I think the ability the ability to take the lessons and learn and figure out like listen if you're gonna play the entrepreneurship game to be successful you got to play in someone else's arena to a point you can't just no one no one's fucking self made and no one's self made I hate that term because like what what your customers they don't make you like what your mentor you're telling me you're telling me your wife when she puts up with your shit like working like 10 hour days bro trust me if you are with the wrong person you aren't you aren't building anything so no this is such a good team I tell people I'm team made I'm never self made you know who self made only people who are self made are people who made it right one of the funny parts that I've never heard anybody say they're self made who's unsuccessful right but you'll hear people say they're teammate I mean they're self made and then they'll think other people like I did this for myself it's an internal thing but I'm going to rewind that back right is that being self made like I want to say I'm self I'm not teammate I'm not self made I'm teammate is that I could not be who I am without my team I couldn't be who I am without my community I want to understand a little bit more about like some of these like business building strategies that you teach over so you talk a lot about credit understand that makes sense and credit and debt are kind of the same thing are they yes or no I just want to make sure that I don't even under credit credit I mean credit in debt 100% it's it's it's using somebody else's money using someone's money using somebody else's money but not giving equity that's the point you hold on send your business you do have interest you've got to be strategic about when you're going to use this but what is the what is the tie-in between credit and then building a recession proof business no when you build a recession proof business everything pays you three or four ways I hate shit that goes one way right the worst entrepreneurs are one-to-one how do you make money I sell this what else that's it you fucking failed already you lost you're not built in see if you look I'll just use credit since we spoke on it and then I'll go into a business aspect I look at credit I having good credit is a security lesson but yeah at least I got it okay cool that's one thing if you only have credit and say well if I need it for security purposes or I'm going to use this to make money in my business and this is my benefit from it then you already lost that's not recent well it's not recession proof you didn't lose but it's not recession proof recession proof is going I have a credit card I have $25,000 here but I also I use this in the manner of let's say I got a gold American Express card I use it to run advertisements I used to give me four points per dollar on paid advertisements I didn't get reward points I get reward points to make money now I get reward points that help lower my overhead I mean I can use for expenses so now my reward points I can use for groceries toiletries utility bills so now my overhead at home is lower I may have another city card or a different credit card that I use for authorized users where I help other people build their credit and I don't use this at all for spending I simply add you onto my credit card to help you build it and since I help you build your credit by adding you onto this credit card you now pay me now I generate six figures a year of a credit card that I don't use I don't have debt on I don't have a payment on but now I generate six figures a year from having the credit because these are the perks and benefits that I have see that's three different benefits I'm making money I'm I'm making money cash flow I'm I'm using debt and going up I will pay interest on that but the reward points and things like that is boring down my overhead making my business more profitable because at that point if my personal expense a lot of people's personal expenses kill their business paying for their rent paying for their groceries paying for their toiletries paying more get cell phone bills those kill it that's a three I'm benefiting off of something three or four ways every time people put so much money into their business so much energy excuse me into their businesses anyways like why put so much energy into your business and then like not not sort of optimize as much as possible and that's what you're doing so you do it with credit and it's like a recession proof of all businesses you with credit do it with your business even like the thing you're talking about credit so not only you're like setting up cards so you have authorized users that are they're building their credit but then you're like making points off that then you get points off your main credit they're using for your bit so I get it it's like you look at you look at strategy not just from one angle from like three or four or five different angles every single time all the time everything needs to pay you three or four you think about this I look at this and I'll say hey I come on your podcast your podcast amazing podcast and now I get to connect with you so one benefit is I get to sit and develop a relationship another thing is I get introduced to a new audience another thing is I get content with you that I can give people the opportunity to clip and go and react to so I understand clipping also I say hey and we're naturally talking we're talking about my business it's also this is a it's promotion there's so many different benefits now guess what not only the promotion aside of people getting here now I'm also going to retarget my advertisement to your podcast so the more the platforms and places I get hey now my my my ads are cheaper I know my ads are cheaper when I have warmer leads who have been exposed to me so since you've been exposed to me now guess it's gonna cost me less to sell you something or educate you or give your offer it cost me less so it's so many different benefits when people do things they go well why would you and they don't have their systems put in place because they go oh that makes perfect sense if I say hey you know what everybody who's everybody comment the word success or if it was on Instagram right to go comment the word success and I'm gonna give you a free seven step guide to recession proof your credit if you're like oh cool they go download it but when you get to my website you're gonna have to put your name for a number email address there now have your contact rather you download the ebook or not and then I'm gonna upset you something else but even if you don't and you click and you put success and you go to that website my picks was gonna track you now I'm gonna follow you so everything has so many benefits but I think that people only do one or two dimensional because they don't want to think or yeah I don't know why I don't know why I think people get I think that the to play devil's advocate people say well you should only focus on one thing so you do it really really well but I don't think I don't think that I don't think that just finding different ways to monetize the thing you're already doing is like really spreading your attention too thin I think it's just smart business yeah maybe it's because people don't think hard enough about what they're building they don't they don't think strategically they don't think outside the box they kind of do the way it's always been done and that's why these conversations are needed though yeah I agree because majority of the people that you bring on and your guess they think at a different level on percent yeah and and and you get to looking and go wow this is these are the moments that allow me to wake up and this is the importance of podcasts is the importance of channels like this is because I don't you people may not resonate with me personally but something I may say may trigger and go wow you know what I'm looking at you know how else can I make money from this what else what other opportunities can I do and I do and and I'm in I I'm in knitting who knows right yeah I didn't realize that I'm in knitting and I'm selling sweaters here in in in Kansas but I didn't realize that if I made YouTube videos knitting that people will actually watch it and I can make money off of you I didn't realize that if I told people the best techniques for knitting in in in different patterns that they can use that they would download and buy a ebook about it more money don't don't realize that is there's ways to monetize every industry career for ways I just want to take a second and thank cornbread ham for supporting today's episode now cornbread ham CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit I don't use them every day just when I want to win wine after those extra busy weeks but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance really just shut off from work now what makes them special is how cornbread ham perhaps them they only use a 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dash offer for 60 percent off I'm a big believer that entrepreneurship actually isn't as hard as people make it out to be if you know how to stay in the game long enough I mean from your first businesses that were kind of just like side hustles that ended up not working out to where you're at now to fumbling with Ross and then not not giving up not just taking the L and like rolling with it like you just never give up yeah it's literally it like you just never give up like there's there's there's like something this for you that's the one common denominator that's that that's the one thing it's the one thing in life that I've learned is that hard times are inevitable but quitting is a choice how you deal with it is a choice shake on pop up every day people want to relax at you every day there's gonna be obstacles in the row every day when you wake up just understand it when you when you wake up at the morning be thankful that you had the opportunity to go find the obstacles that I get to go navigate it I'm not I'm not afraid to to face adversity I'm excited that I get the opportunity and I'm thankful that I get the opportunity to because somebody doesn't somebody wanted to be able to fight the to fight to learn taxes to have to fight and learn home ownership have to fight on learn how to employ people and they never got the opportunity to they never got the opportunity to train people hire and fire people they never got the opportunity to do everything's a blessing so for me to wake up every single day that I wake up and get the opportunity to go out here and fight a battle I won when I bought my first home 250,000 I was born homeless I already won so by the time I'm here now where I'm at the things that I've been buying private jets rose voices I'll be a fool to complain about a hard time or difficulty I'm excited about it this shit get me going every day like yeah what I got to do what else I got to figure out how can I be innovative what can change to be better if you've thought about about you know when you're when you're young coming up and you thought about like what your dream day would be mentioned like you even had your own perfect day laid out you've ever thought about how much that has changed and the reason I say that is because it's super important for entrepreneurs that are successful super ambitious people not to move the goalposts every single time they win you know one of my I tell people all the time fuck generation of wealth so gives a sheet I say don't ask me questions about generational wealth fuck generational wealth I say that's that's that's a mechanism to help you comfort with your lag thereof and to kill your micro accomplishment say micro accomplishments you don't have a hundred thousand dollars in savings you don't generate a hundred thousand dollars you live paycheck to paycheck why don't you plan for generation of wealth when you gotta get a first day we not don't allow people to move your goalposts well it's important fuck out of here it's not it's not important it doesn't matter buying a home for the first time matters being in the position where you can actually take your family on a vacation matters creating an environment where you can love your children that matters fuck generational wealth I don't want to leave my kids something when I haven't figured out how to love them properly first I'm okay with raising children in an environment where I can love them and raise them properly and I may not be able to leave them a hundred million dollars but I left them better off than what the fuck I found this I improved it and if we don't do that when you buy your first home and you looking at generational wealth you need to have 10 houses in a truss you need to own apartment complexes you feel unaccomplished and when you get those micro accomplishments that keeps you going those are the things that keep you going this is from somebody who became successful I live in a five million dollar house I don't give a fuck about I give a fuck about my quarter million dollar house that I bought that was my first accomplishment that allowed me to know that I can't have something that belongs to me my daughter came home in a house that had her last name on I was born homeless this matters to me this initiated me to work harder because I never wanted to lose it I would not be able to four to five million dollar home if I did not buy this house and figure out and get scared to shit that man I got approved we have a 30 year mortgage I'm used to one year leases now I have to work my ass off so I never lose it I need to be secure enough and get into a position where I have this house for 30 years that work ethic took me to where I was at where I'm at now that's what takes me there I didn't buy mine I bought a mansion on a country club I didn't buy a mansion on a country club to say I have a mansion on a country club I wanted a rose Royce my wife says how can you buy a $300,000 car and live in a $250,000 house I say you're fucking right but the thing is don't move my goalposts I'm not focused on building generational wealth when I haven't built a generational wealth of of of knowledge and experiences I'm not trained for it yet but I want to accomplish and be gratitude where I'm at put the set the goal line out the goalpost 10 yards out then you can move it but don't allow people to say this is what generation well now you're looking way over here and you forgot that wait a minute I forgot to put my children in activities that helped them grow I forgot to put my children in the environment I don't have to live in a million dollar neighborhood but let me get the hell out of this environment where we're scared going to the gas station I'm I can move to this area where it's more secure and I'm safer the crime rate is lower the education is a little bit it's better yeah I won and then celebrate it no one celebrates that shit that's the issue though people are just trying to get the hundred million dollar exit and they and then forget about forget about celebrating the small ones on the way to the hundred hundred a hundred million dollar exit they forget about their kids they forget about their wife they forget about everything and and they lose themselves and you don't realize it because somebody put somebody else put that that goalpost out there and you cannot tell me that you didn't wake up and think about man I'm trying to figure out if I pay my bills I'm trying to figure out how this but when you go out into society and you go out into public and talk they say yo what you working on and you got this big elaborate scheme and it's like well why don't you have an elaborate scheme to figure out the small things that you're dealing with in face right now right now this tear time in place you have issues and things that you need to overcome that you need to be put in all of your elaborate thinking and your high level thinking your neurons into right now like but it doesn't it doesn't happen what do you think the biggest the biggest misconception about wealth and entrepreneurship successful entrepreneurship is that is easy and that it's fun and that you stay motivated and in order to be successful you got as they motivate it's a fucking lot nobody stays motivated the reality of it is it's people don't even like the shit it's it's fun at first after a while this dude was was the passion you should really enjoy what you do and it goes no I enjoyed what I did but once you start doing it at a high level you're just great at what you do you figured out how to do it after 10 years the enjoyment is not the same it's repetitive now it's repetitive you cannot tell me yeah look at LeBron he just loves basketball he probably loves basketball but his daily activities are repetitive for training eating muscle recovery the things that he has to do studying watching film that is it's not enjoyable as it was is that high school key of playing 100% for us you then how do you stay in the game when the motivation dries up when the motivation is all over discipline when motivation don't we motivation that isn't present discipline shows up discipline cares you through everything is more important to being motivated is more important to being inspired discipline is the most important factor you can ever have in your life because it does not matter if you want to do it if you're excited to do it or not your discipline will make you do it out of everything you've learned in your in your career in your life what would be one lesson that you learned that was a really hard lesson that you didn't you you would never wish that lesson on anyone else was so difficult but it was useful to you 18 to 25 um still over 100,000 hours of iPhones from spring um it cost me two to three years of going to court one being being on the run I will not be on the run but not knowing what was going to happen because they I didn't get caught for a while it didn't come up about um and then going to court for two years realizing that you're how your quick your freedom can be taken from you and then how much time can be taken from you because things that you think about you don't things that you see you don't really consider time until you realize and you go and say okay yeah with your with your charges you have to do a minimum of three years up to a maximum of eleven three years and throughout that time my loss everything um I started working at a warehouse and it was a lesson of doing anything for money was after my best friend had died and I was just you know what get rich by enemies necessary and I'm so thankful for that opportunity that I did not go to prison but I'm thankful for those hard years can I ask how you got out of going to prison? first offenders yeah so in Georgia when you get a day they allow you to do a first offenders where it's your first time getting in trouble they'll give you and grant your probation and the first DA would they were upset they was looking and trying to find things about me was tough right and so we went to court for two years can I make you up sometimes it's it's God I went to the point where I fired my attorney I didn't like him I didn't like how you were talking fired him my friend's wife was a attorney and she went and represented me for free and she was gonna go in there and see and she showed up she's a black woman I've been fighting his DA is all white white woman white man born white judge we walking on the day that she decides to represent me the DA switched all black women every other attorney in the courtroom that day was white man the DA was all black women but everybody else's representation of legal counsel were white man and you could feel the tension of like how they was like going in there was going back and forth it was tough and the only place the only person who made them comfortable and didn't have a real issue was another black woman she said okay they said listen they'll give you first offenders you pay $60,000 in restitution how many years you need to pay it they'll give you 15 years probation just to pay the restitution once you finish paying the restitution after three years two years it can go away and it'll never show like you was arrested first offenders is you you get a free walk free guard I said I'll take it I don't know God it's sometimes on your side but I went through all of that time fighting that working out of warehouse the whole two years of me fighting that case I worked at a warehouse walked out of court that day tired went home went to sleep woke up late for work went to working hard started body entrepreneurship journey that was that that's when I started I already knew crediting things like that I had no choice but to all the way take it so when I look back and I say that was one of the toughest times in my life but one of the most thankful times I've ever had to just go you know what this this is a lesson that I wouldn't wish anybody to learn but I don't regret it and I'm thankful for it but if people could avoid making financial mistakes and committing crimes and never having to learn the legal system I'm much rather than you go that way I figure out that there's better ways to make money man I mean that's a wild story it's an absolutely wild story what excites you about what you're working on now like what do you want people to know about your work if they want to connect with you like I know you do a lot you speak you teach up entrepreneurs you help people with like finance credit like what's the one thing that if you want to go into your universe and to consume your content my biggest thing now is honestly I'm on a goal to help 100 people become millionaires I felt over 60 people become millionaires and generate a million dollars in business I'm 2000 people be able to quit their job multiple thousands make six figures in multiple six figures the goal is to help over 100 people create multi-million dollar businesses that's my biggest passion project that I'm working on and that's the reason why I do what I do so now like I'm doing credit to cash live while I teach people how to turn credit to cash flow how to use credit to create businesses properly how you have to clean your credit what that needs to look like and that's my main focus right now throughout the rest of this year is really just training people on how to properly clean and use your credit report and how what credit cards to use how to not go into debt how to be profitable and how to set up a business three step things recession proof is that understanding credit understanding how to deploy or deploying capital but how to essentially set up a business that makes sense and what operations in your business you need to have so that's my and also figure out if a business is working before you take on the credit but when it is you throw fuel on that fire exactly I love it dude um also uh socials and website work working people can have to do um you can find me on all social media is that him 500 why him 500 I'm him and the way that I think is 4 to 500 oh he's got 500 so him 500 on all social medias if you want to um tap and do some trainings with me you can go to credit to cash live.com and you know I'll be I do free trainings and and help people you know be able to grow to business and give them a basis of fundamentals that they need last question I'd like to ask uh you get over a lot of different like ideas and mindset topics that have worked for you but if you could think of just one like the most important one and the way that I say is most important one and you can only pass one onto your kids that's why that's why you have to pick one but what would it be and why is it so important my most important one if I could pass one of my kids um and just people in general is conflict resolution is we only control ourselves it's the one thing I tell my girls and my daughters I don't care what other people do to you I don't care what other people say to you I don't care how other people treat you I only care how you react I only care how you treat and respond because you have control over you I don't have control over what you say to me but I have a control over how I perceive it how I receive it and how I respond to it that's the one thing in this world that if anything that I will leave people with just realize that you have control over you if anything goes good in your life it's because of you and if anything goes bad in your life it's because of you and the only person that can change it or make adaptions and it may change it to it it's going to be you and so the only thing you can control in this world is you and that's one of the biggest biggest things that I realized in my life is that I don't have control over nobody else but me