DJ Dramos (18:25)
Hey, this is John Hope Brian on money and wealth. And I'm going to tackle a topic today that is a little controversial, which is self esteem versus confidence, particularly with regard to my African American brothers and sisters. So why is this important and why does it have to do with money and wealth? Because if your assets are all on your ass is a reason for it. If you spend, if you produce $1.6 trillion in consumer economic output as a race, but 91% of that is consumption, there's a reason for it. If the number one way to build wealth is homeownership and we don't really own homes, there's a reason for it. And there's a reason why America has African American ghettos and not really any kind of other kind of ghettos. And it has to do with slavery. It has to do with destroying and destroyed self esteem. We are brave people, African Americans. We've been doing so much with so little for so long, we can almost do anything with nothing. We have, you know, succeeded against the odds. We were brought here as brilliant agricultural geniuses of the land and had the self esteem beaten out of us for literally 300 years. So I had to do the math. 1619 to really the mid-1960s, even before America was America, you know, and I'm not. This is not even a podcast over race or slavery or what. This, it has nothing to do with it. I'm just giving you the backstory to understand you can make a mistake and not be one. We're actually the opposite. We're geniuses, we're amazing. But there was an intentional attempt, which I'll do in another podcast, to break down the why as to why African Americans, with all our genius, with all of our outside success all around the world, I think the majority of us are clinically undiagnosed depressed. And that depression creates a surviving mindset. And a surviving mindset is directly in conflict with a thriving mindset and a winning mindset. Winners are builders. If you're a surviving mindset, you are always looking for risks and issues and the glass is half empty, not half full. You tend to be more cynical than skeptical. Now, you generalize, you discriminate. So yes, these are generalizations, but they tend to stick. And I'm going to frame this in a way that makes it perfectly clear. I'm going to give you the economic framework first because this arrays to white people too. So if the issue was only race, right, that defines success. Or failure, self esteem, incompetence and all that kind of stuff, then you would not have rich whites and poor whites, you just have rich whites. If the issue was just race, you would just have rich whites. But the large population of poverty in this country is actually white poverty. I'll go one step further. The number one group dying in this country are high school educated white men. Lack of hope. Opioid addiction is the trigger, but it's really lack of hope. Let's now go to African Americans for a minute. If the, if black was the same, just like I just said, the white was the same and it wasn't a cultural issue because somebody's gonna say, John, why are you picking on your own people? I'm not picking on anybody. I'm breaking some stuff down so that we can understand it, so we can fix it. Just the opposite actually. I said we've been picked on and we picked ourselves up. Like as I said, we've been doing so much with so little for so long, we can almost do anything with nothing. But I don't want you an expert in surviving, I want you an expert in thriving and winning. Can I get an amen? So I talked about whites. Now poor whites and poor blacks, these are obvious, but no one ever says it. So the issue was only race. Then all blacks should be the same too. But the Federal Reserve in Boston did a survey about five to seven years ago on the net worth of everybody in Boston. They found that whites had a six figure net worth. They found that Caribbean blacks had, I think it was a twelve hundred dollar net worth. And they found that African Americans had a net worth of seven bucks. That's right, seven dollars. And when they put this on the front page of the Boston Globe and you can pull it up on the Internet, by the way, it said blacks net worth $7. And it had to say this is not a typo in the headline because it was so dramatic. And if it was just race, why wouldn't all blacks have the same net worth? Why wouldn't all whites have the same net worth? Because culture and environment matter and so we can be proud that we have survived and all this torture. But if there's some PTSD there, there's some damage to our psyche and our spirit and our self esteem. And as I've often said, if I don't like me, I'm not gonna like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm not gonna feel good about you. If I don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you. And if I don't have a purpose in my life, I'm going to make your life a living hell. Because whatever goes around hello comes around. So now broken down and hopefully in a way that's sufficient, the economic differences even within the same group of black people. And I'm going to say something I can't absolutely say is the fact, but I believe it based on me traveling the countless cities across this country. They're not Ghanaian ghettos in America, they're Ghanaian communities. They're not Jamaican ghettos in America, They're Jamaican communities where Jamaicans live together. Working class, middle class neighborhoods. I can think of some in the five boroughs right now as example, there are Ethiopian communities, lots of them. There are South African communities and so on and so forth, right? But they're only black ghettos, African American. So African American communities where you see check cashes, payday loan, now you see these in other communities, right? But it's intensely focused in African American communities because, well, we were broken and people are now preying on that brokenness where. So now I'm going to get to self esteem and confidence. So you can't fix this stuff unless you recognize it. If you look at the majority of ghettos and inner cities in America where people proliferate, they tend to be mostly African American versus communities where different people live. And there's oppressive environments in those neighborhoods and communities because those oppressive environments are profitable to some people and negative to the people that they're subject to it. But maybe you don't even notice it because we're just so used to surviving and so used to brokenness that we think it's okay. We think it's okay for a check casher to be next to a payday loan lender, to a rental store title lender, liquor store, pawnshop, by the way, that actually does exist in low wealth communities of all kinds. I'm not just preying on that, but I'm just giving that as an example. Right? And I'm now going to pivot to something that I think does differentiate healthy from those trying to heal or those who need to heal. So self esteem versus confidence, those things are different. Self esteem is internal and confidence is really external. And so confidence comes from your competence, you're competent about something, so you express that through a confidence. I'll come back to that in a moment. Self esteem is how I esteem myself. So if you look at Caribbean Blacks and, and you look at African blacks as an example. You see people and I'm generalizing. Whenever you generalize, you discriminate. That is true, but follow me for a moment. I'm making a point. If you go. If you look at those who come from the the Caribbean and come from Africa, you generally speaking see fine people who have high self esteem but low levels of initially of confidence when they come to America. Why? Because they the self esteem comes from nuclear families, mom and dad, husbands and wives. It comes from seeing the doctor, dentist that looks like you, the mayor that looks like you, the governor looks like you, the CEO that looks at you, the saint looks like you, the pastor looks like you, and the crooks look like you too. Everybody looks like you. So there's a self esteem that comes from having a healthy spiritual, emotional, psychological environment. Are you with me so far? But they have a low level of confidence because they come from a small and developing economy that's not cutting edge economically. It's not where you take your skills and put it to work against other people who are at the top of their game. And so as a result of that you don't really know whether you've been taught is truly top of the mark. So you may not have the confidence that comes from competition at the highest level and winning. So you may have low confidence but high self esteem, the opposite is true for African Americans. In American you have people who have high confidence, extremely high confidence, but typically low self esteem. Now low self esteem for the reasons I just mentioned. People have beaten the love out of us, beating the confidence and self esteem out of us, beating the joy out of us because they needed us to not create a problem back in the day. Keep you in that box, just become human machinery for hundreds of years. But it damaged our spirit and it ruined our families. I think the five pillars of success. As much education as you can shove down your throat. This is from my book up from Nothing. I have six books now, three or four bestsellers. The last one being out being financial literacy for all just out that's entered the fray at Amazon. Number one in economics, et cetera, et cetera. Pick it up if you don't have it. But up from nothing. My last book, as much education you shove down your throat. Understanding the math, financial literacy, wealth creation, etc. Family structure and resiliency. Number three, self esteem and confidence. Number four, role models and environment. Number five. Now I've done a podcast episode just on this so you can go back and listen to that. And I break These things down in some detail. And if you have three or four of those things, of those five things, you're going to be very successful. But three groups were denied those three things and not in, you know, any order here. Native American, Indians, poor whites and African Americans. And, and out of, you know, couple hundred ethnic groups in this country, and there's actually more than that if you want to get into cultures. Everybody seems to come here and be able to succeed within a short period of time because they have self esteem intact and their confidence comes ultimately from competing on the playing field called life. But our experience was just the opposite. We were denied, actually it was legally barred to educate us. They destroyed our family, separated our children, sold wives off from husbands, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we did not have the five pillars of success. But if you have three, four of those things, of those five things, I guarantee you, no matter what's in front of you over, round and through it, you're going to get to it. I know that because that's my story and I'm African American. My mother told me she loved me every day of my life. I had a sense of yes I can from my dad and yes I am from my mother. I was taught about financial literacy when I was nine years old. I have self love, self esteem, which I'll get to in a moment in great detail. I had good role models in an enabling environment. Thus I succeeded at scale. Went from the bottom quartile of poverty and struggle, not the very bottom, but the bottom quartile, to the top 1%. And you can do it too. You can rehabilitate yourself, but you got to understand what the what ghost is chasing you and what healing you're pursuing. So there's self esteem and confidence. So here's self esteem again. I'm going to repeat myself a little bit. I apologize. But it's really important to get this. If I don't like me, I'm not going to like you. If I don't feel good about me, I'm not going to feel good about you. If I don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you. And here's the big one. If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'm gonna make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around. And hurt people, hurt people. The opposite is also true. Hurt people, hurt people. It's an old saying. No 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. So out of love, we pass down bad habits from generation to generation. I know this is going to be a deep, deep, deep controversial podcast, but this is also wealth, because wealth is mindset. Anybody can make money. A drug dealer can make money. Pimp can make money. Wall street, banker can make money. Engineer can make money. Anybody legit, illegit can make money. But building wealth, you build wealth in your sleep. You got to think, you got to do it from the neck up, not the shoulders down. It's a mindset that builds wealth. And I want you to have that mindset, not only in financial wealth, but mental, spiritual, emotional wealth. I want you to heal. So confidence comes from competence. So why are African Americans confident in America? Because we competed in the biggest economy in the world, the most competitive place in the world, and we killed it. When the rules are published and the playing field is level, we succeed. What's examples of that? Professional sports, the arts, government, service and elected office. The faith community. The rules are published. The Plainfields level, we kill it. But capitalism and free enterprise, nobody gave us that memo. That's my. Is that my third or my fourth book? It's my third book. No one gave us that memo. I think it's my third book of how things work. Freedmen's Bank, 1865. Abraham Lincoln, a bank chartered to teach free slaves about money. He was killed. The next year, Frederick Douglass tried to run the bank. So we're not dumb and we're not stupid. It's what we don't know that we don't know that's killing us. But we think we know. But, you know, in spite of that, we've done actually, okay, pretty okay. But we are so focused on getting that bag, getting that money, getting that hustle, getting that dollar, getting that money that we don't realize that that's short term, that's just transactional. You can get rich, but you don't build wealth. You build wealth and you sleep. It's mindset. So, but, but the reason we're so successful is that we actually are the most competitive group of people of color, I believe in the world, and we should be proud of it. We've got our share of billionaires, we have our share of, of, you know, multi, multi millionaires, of which I would qualify. We have tons of, you know, hundred thousandaires. You know, we have a solid middle class. Thank you. Andrew Young, Dr. King, Dr. Dorothy Height, Curtis Scott King, Etcetera he rose and she rose. We have from ct Vivian John Lewis, who created the civil rights movement. Right. But we got to go from, from cashing checks to writing them mindset, becoming wealth creators and not just consumers mindset to loving ourselves. We can love each other so we don't have crab in the barrel mindset. Why is somebody watching me, listening to me and going, he ain't nothing. That has nothing to do with me. If I'm succeeding and you're listening and you're in, I mean you should be like bravo. I mean maybe he's not doing what I'm doing, maybe I don't want to be in those. But God, that's fantastic. He's succeeding. That gives me some sense for what I can do. Was there anything negative in it? But you'll find people who are hurt trying to hurt people. Dr. King once said that evil and hurt. I'm adding hurt. I'm pretty sure it was just evil. He said corrodes the container it sits within. Hello. Your body's 70% water. So when you get all worked up and hot, you're just killing yourself. You're cooking your own organs. Whatever goes around comes around. So self esteem, not only it helps you live in the world, it helps you to live. That's why in these low wealth communities, the credit score. Launching my last book, Financial literacy for All, I was in CNBC Last call and I broke down how credit scores are Hope Financial Wellness Index, how credit scores are lower in low wealth communities and the. And you also live 20 years, a shorter life than you live in a 700 credit community. Credit score community. I said it. You lived at 61 years old in a 500 credit score neighborhood. You lived at 81 years old in a 700 credit score neighborhood. 20 year Delta. And I think that that is state of mind, it's mindset. It's what I'm talking about. So we've got to heal. And, and I mentioned check cashes, payday loan lenders, rental owned stores, title lenders, liquor stores, pawn shops and a church down the street trying to make you feel a little bit better once a week. That's your neighborhood psychologist, that's your neighborhood shrink trying to keep you going crazy, going completely crazy and going postal on somebody once a week just calm you down. Why we black folks, we're emotional. We're going, ah, we're going hooping. Holla. We're getting out of our system to replace that anger and that frustration with joy. That's a depressed person who needs a Screen to get it out of them. You're just, you just, you're on. You wake up on nine on a scale of one to 10. You need to release some tension. By the way, not just black people. You go to a poor white neighborhood, you see the same thing. Check, cash or payday loan, lender, rental store, title lender, liquor store, pawn shop, church. They just do things, they move in different way. We riot when we angry on the streets. When they're angry, they riot. It appears at the ballot box. Poor whites, you figure that out for yourself. What am I saying? And what does it relate to? Hello. So we've got to heal. 3 Ways to Live suicide. You can die alive. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. And energy matters. I just refuse to have toxicity around me. It's like, you ain't have, you don't have to go. You got to get the heck out of here. I just try to be clean. I try to have a toxic free zone. People I go to dinner. Like what, you know anything you're allergic to? Yeah, bad food and toxic people. I'm just like, I'm, I'm done. Like, you hang around nine broke people, you'll be the 10th. Like you just keep that mess over there. I don't want to jumping on me. Life's about energy. What are you? Who are you? What are you attracting? Hello, can I get an amen? We have some church today. All these things are related and they're interrelated and they're interconnected and wealth tends to hang around wealth and poverty tends to weigh around poverty. And we need to start doing some transfers to get people out of poverty, rebuild the ladder and get them back up to wealth. And by the way, when you are depressed, distressed, when you're angry at the world, you actually don't believe in the dream anymore. And that's by the way, suits wealth just fine. Stay over there and and be angry. Be an expert in what you're against, not what you're for. Fine with them, then leaves more for them. What did Malcolm X say? You've been bamboozled. You've been tricked. You've been fooled is what we don't know. That we don't know this. Killing is what we think we know. We have to heal. We have to deal with our stuff. Suicide, coping, healing. Three ways to live suicide. You can die alive. The most dangerous person in the world. Well, the second most dangerous, a person with no hope. First most dangerous, someone with power, money, wealth, different things. Power, money, wealth, position, low self esteem, fear. Now you think about who I'm talking about. That person is very dangerous because they can actually use, they can weaponize their unhealed nature to hurt somebody that threatens them or has angered them. I mean, a narcissist literally believes everything somebody else's fault, like it's never themselves. And a malignant narcissist, well, that's a whole nother situation. I don't want you trading in any of that stuff. So there's suicide, right? Then there's coping and there's healing. Coping. An addiction is literally a response to an emotion you can't handle. So you have all kind of ings you don't need. Shopping, drugging, drinking, sexting, texting, all day, all night, oversleeping. These are negative ings you need to replace them with some positive ings, like healing. Because you cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. It's a scientific fact. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. And then of course, the third way to live is to heal. And that's really what I'm talking about. Before you heal, you got to deal. And when you're not dealing, somebody's taking advantage of you. Either you're not using your money, your money's using you. Andrew Young quote. To live in a system of free enterprise and not to understand the rules of free enterprise must be the very definition of slavery. People who are surviving, mindset, glass half full, not half empty. Remember, whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, you're right. They don't like success. They're like, oh, I hate rich people. No you don't. You hate rich people till you become rich. What you hate is a game system, but the ladder is broken and you don't believe the system works for you. You think it's corrupted and so you throw your hands up and decide to live. Short termism, coping. You start to see how all this works together. And then if you're taking your advice from somebody who's just coping, dealing, not healing, that goes that quote. In a blind town, a one eyed man's king. If you don't know better, you dang sure can't do better. No 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. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different outcome. Let's assume you disagree with half of what I've said on this podcast. Why don't you try it. It can't possibly. Somebody says, well, why should I try God? He cannot possibly mismanage your life worse than you have you and me. By the way, I'm in that same bucket. I decided to try. It worked beautifully. He's never let me down. But maybe you should try a different business plan. The one that has not worked but a lot of wealth or the lack thereof is mindset. Poverty. Outside of roof over your head, food on the table, health care, sustenance, poverty. That's sustenance poverty. Every other form of poverty is mindset. It's how you're thinking and whether you believe you can or you believe you can't. You're absolutely right. I want you to have high self esteem. Not one ounce of my self esteem and self respect depends on your acceptance of me. That's a Quincy Jones quote. It's okay if you don't like me. I like me. That's a John O'Brien quote. Life is 10% what life does to you, but 90% how you choose to respond to it. How you gonna. What's your response going to be? Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. That requires requires self esteem and confidence. Never give up. I take no for vitamins. That requires self esteem and confidence. I don't want you to just have confidence because you'll be cocky, you'll be arrogant and you will overcompensate by trying to put your assets on your ass. You're going to try to wear yourself. Seem to prove to everybody else you have loud music and a loud life because you're trying to communicate to everybody else externally your value versus realizing internally you're already valuable because you're God's child. When you got the power, you don't need to use it. Okay, this was deep. Let me know what you think. Spread the word. Let's have a conversation. Go to Operation Hope. Get your financial literacy counseling from my team at Hope Inside Locations in 300 locations across the country. Pick up my book Financial Literacy for all, which is now out and debuted at number one on economics and a couple other categories. Thank you all who supported it. It is your weekly workshop toolbox as you sit down and have a discussion every week about money with your family at the kitchen table. And there's a bunch of tools coming out tied to that. But it starts with the book. Yeah. Take your life back. It starts with making that decision. I believe in you. Do you?
