John Hope Bryant (2:05)
Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide, based on the February 2025 Nielsen report. Welcome to Money and Wealth with John Hope Bryant, a production of the Black Effect podcast network and iHeartRadio. Yo, yo, yo. This is John o', Brien, and I'm coming to you from my Money and Wealth podcast on the Black effect Network on iHeartRadio. Coming to you from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates in the Middle east, halfway around the world And I'm speaking at the World Government Summit this week. So it's appropriate that going to talk about how this week I'm going to break down economically how cities work and how the millionaire next door gets made and how those two things are directly connected. And this all leads into my book that's coming out in two months called Capitalism for All Inclusive Economics and the Future Proving of America. It's appropriate that I'm in the Middle east in Dubai, and I'm in the library at the beautiful hotel here where we're staying, the iconic hotel that is the largest edifice here in this region, the Burj they call it. And I'm gonna let you see, for those who are watching replays this on video, we'll let you see what the library looks like. This is their library. Unbelievable. And I will put photos up on some of the social clips so you can see what I'm seeing. But it is absolutely stunning. Okay, so let's now get into this important episode, maybe one of the most important episodes I've ever recorded for this podcast series. By the way, thanks everybody for making this NAACP Image Award nominated, please go and vote. Before voting concludes how cities really work, please take notes. This could change your entire life. Understanding how cities work and how the millionaire next door is made. Most people think millionaires are made in loud places. Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, tech startups, crypto. By the way, these are not loud places. These are places with a lot of activity. There's loudness all around, but there's quietness in the minds of the creators. And when I say that wealth is created in quiet, I don't mean literally quiet places. I mean quiet inside your mind, inside your brain, inside your space. And that it is very hard to build when there's noise running through your soul and your spirit, your mind, yet alone. Noise all around you. Like neighborhoods I grew up in, in the hood that have a surviving mindset in a thriving and winning world. So just want to contextualize. When I talk about noise, I'm really talking about spiritual. First, we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. Energy matters. But that's not actually where most wealth in America comes from. These fancy places, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Hollywood, tech startups, crypto. Most millionaires live literally next door. They own boring businesses. This is the get. They don't chase attention, they chase stability. And many of them didn't invent anything at all. Nothing new. They simply figured out how their city works by the way. This is in many ways my story as well. That idea comes straight out of the classic book the Millionaire Next Door. It showed us that something powerful is at work. That real wealth in America is usually built quietly, patiently, locally. What we're going to do today is to take that idea one step forward. Because cities are not just places to live. Cities are economic machines. Did you know that almost 90% of all GDP gross domestic product for this country comes from cities? Wouldn't know that from the national commentary, the media and what's going on in Washington, would you? So cities are not just places to live. They're economic engines. They buy services, they sign contracts, they outsource work. And they do this every single year, forever. From trash collection to plumbing, from electrical work to landscaping, from cybersecurity to janitorial services. Not just the city, the municipality itself, but the people also within the city. I'll get into this. Cities don't ask if they need these things. They ask who will provide these things. The question is, is that who you. And here's the part most people miss. Almost everything a city needs is something an ordinary person can start, buy, grow, or dominate. Some of you know that I founded the largest minority owner of single family rental real estate homes in America. That company was the Promise Homes company and built it for five years from zero to owning about 700 homes from Georgia to North Florida and sold the company in December of 2021 for nine figures. And that wasn't rocket science. It was providing housing. It was buying and rehabbing and renting and providing services with a value added to local real estate. I also created Financial Literacy Platform, which is now my nonprofit that's the largest in the country, arguably possibly the largest in the world. That's why I'm here, speaking here in dub on that model. And I built 50 companies, but none of them, none of them were rocket scientists. In fact, my first patent based company, I'm just issuing a patent, registering a patent now for a company. But that, that is, you know, way into my entrepreneurial process, right? So don't complicate this, right? So you don't need anything special here. You don't need to be a billionaire. You don't need to be a venture capitalist, and you don't need a venture capitalist. You don't need to invent an app. You need to understand demand and supply. And cities create guaranteed demand. Cities are economic machines. Understand this. Now let's slow this down. Every city has a budget, right? Every city has expenses. Every city has procurement officers. Write this down contracts, vendors, compliance rules and long term obligations. A city is capitalism operating in plain sight. And the larger the city, the more complex and valuable that system becomes. Now some people say, john, forget all this capitalism stuff. Give me socialism. Aren't some of our leaders talking about socialism? Look, this is just political noise. Even if you want to distribute money like a socialist, you have to first collect it like a capitalist. I hope you got that. So cities are capitalism machines. Your local dry cleaner is capitalism. Your local barber is capitalism. Your local daycare is capitalism. The gas station is capitalism. It's all around you, right? Socialism is a taxing system. I'll cover this in a separate video. These separate platforms of capitalism, socialism, Communism, all these different things. I'll cover this as a separate podcast to really break those down. I want to stay very focused here. The larger the city, the more complex and valuable that system becomes. Cities don't reward hype, they reward reliability. I'm going to repeat that. Cities don't report. Cities don't reward hype, they reward reliability. If you show up on time, do the job well, follow the rules and don't embarrass anyone, notably yourself. You can stay in business for decades. That's not sexy, but it's powerful. Let's make smart sexy again. We've been making dumb sexy for way too long. We've dumbed down and celebrated it. It's time to make smart sexy again. Or as my friend Bishop, T.D. jakes, Chairman T.D. jakes would say, boring is the new sexy. Consistency is the new sexy. This is why so many quiet fortunes are built in city based businesses. Not because the owners are geniuses, but because they understand the system they're serving. Why city size matters. A city of 25,000 people in a city of 500,000 people need many of the same things. The difference is scale. Smaller cities tend to have fewer competitors. This is an advantage, not a disadvantage. By the way, everybody living in a smaller city, which is most of America, listen to me here. Fewer competitors, lower barriers to entry. And if you're not in a small cities, go find one, right? Why compete with everybody in New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, right? Go find San Francisco, whatever the major city is, go find the. I mean in LA county, there's 88 cities in LA County. Why is everybody focusing on the city of la, which is where I grew up at? Go find Lynwood, Compton, Englewood, you know, Riverside, you know the cities in Riverside County. Go find some place where there's less competition and you are showing up with excellence and get that contract. Okay, stay focused here. Smaller cities tend to have lower competitors, lower barriers to entry, easier access to decision makers. Listen, you can walk in the door at some of these cities and meet the mayor, meet the city manager, meet the procurement officer. Right? You can't do that in Chicago. Right. This is often first generation wealth beginnings. Larger cities bring bigger contracts. Yes. More specialization, longer procurement cycles, more complications. Yes. Higher margins. This is where businesses scale, professionalize, and eventually sell. In other words, the whole purpose of business is to build it. Not emotional now so you can sell it. That's another podcast for another time. The purpose of a business so you can monetize it and do as you like with those proceeds. Understanding city size helps you understand where you fit the essential services. Now, please focus here. I want you listening to this to stop thinking abstractly and start thinking specifically. Every city needs infrastructure. Trash must be. Must be collected. Okay. Streets must be cleaned. Water must flow. Lights must turn on. Right. Plumbing systems must work. Electrical grids must be maintained. Traffic lights must function. Roads must be paved. Can you think about all. I mean, there's hundreds of vendors in these different. Just in the sectors I just mentioned, then making all this stuff. Go pick one little sector or section or subsection or the thing that is within the thing that makes the whole thing work and master it. The book, the Outliers. 10,000 offices. Specialization in something you specialize in that get put 10,000 hours in and you become the NBA player in that space, the professional athlete in that space. And you dominate.
