The 700 Credit Score: The Real Key to Wealth Nobody Talks About

Summary

---

Money and Wealth With John Hope Bryant

Episode: The 700 Credit Score: The Real Key to Wealth Nobody Talks About
Date: October 9, 2025
Host: John Hope Bryant
Producer: The Black Effect & iHeartPodcasts

---

Overview:

In this solo episode, John Hope Bryant—entrepreneur, finance educator, and founder of Operation HOPE—dives into “the real key to wealth nobody talks about”: the 700 credit score. Bryant weaves personal narrative, practical advice, and compelling data to illuminate how credit scores not only unlock personal and generational prosperity, but also reveal and reinforce the stark economic disparities between communities. The episode is a clarion call for financial literacy, especially within Black, Brown, and underserved communities, and a challenge to see raising credit scores as a transformative—indeed, revolutionary—social and economic goal.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Power—and Origin—of Credit

• Credit as Credibility: Bryant emphasizes that credit isn’t about flashy purchasing power, but about trust and credibility in the financial marketplace.

  • “The Latin word for credit is ‘credito,’ meaning credibility. Your credit is your credibility.” (04:49)

• Personal Stories as Parables:

  • His mother, with a near-perfect 854 credit score, achieved financial stability and homeownership, revealing the lasting power of credit.
  • His father, a hustler but “bad at paperwork,” ended up broke—demonstrating that hustle without financial structure (and credit) is not enough.
  • “The difference between a hustler and a businessman is paperwork... You need paperwork in your head.” (05:12)

• Banking is a Trust Business: Banks lend to those they trust, and trust is codified in your credit score.

  • “Banking has never been about money; it’s about trust. Capital is really about knowledge.” (06:13)

---

The Black Community & The “Missed Memo” on Money

• Structural Disadvantage:

  • Financial literacy wasn’t historically taught to Black families, compounding systemic barriers.
  • “Half of all Black people in America have a credit score below 620. Not just poor people—half of all Black people.” (11:02)

• Consequences of Low Credit:

  • Locked out of the free enterprise system
  • Predatory lending and “paymentized” (over-focus on monthly payments, not interest rates)
  • Higher cost of capital, less wealth accumulation, increased risk of bankruptcy

---

Why a 700 Credit Score is the "New Cool"

• Practical Advantages:

  • Access to prime loans (homes, business, cars)
  • Lower interest rates, greater wealth-building opportunities
  • “A 700 credit score is at least as important as a four-year education.” (26:40)
  • Raising your score is in your control—not at the mercy of discrimination or bias

• Data-Driven Evidence:

  • Bryant uses US census and Operation HOPE’s “Hope Financial Wellness Index” to show the dramatic difference between neighborhoods with low vs. high average credit scores: income, crime, homeownership, life expectancy
  • “Raise credit scores in your community by 100 points and you transform its reality.” (20:27)

---

The Credit Score/Life Expectancy Connection

• Striking Correlations:

  • Every 50-point rise in neighborhood average credit score is linked to about a 5-year increase in life expectancy

    • “In a 500 credit score neighborhood, you live to about 61. In a 700 credit score neighborhood, it’s 81.” (39:00)

  • Other metrics move in lockstep: higher incomes, lower crime, higher education and graduation rates, increased home ownership, longer life

---

Community Snapshots: The Data Never Lies

(Key cities examined; see transcript for more cities and detail)

St. Louis, MO (33:54)

• Carr Square (63106): 602 Avg. Credit Score
  • Median household income: $21K
  • Homeownership: 11.9%
  • Life expectancy: 71 years
  • Violent crimes: 15.7/1000
• Clayton (363105): 745 Avg. Credit Score
  • Median income: $119K
  • Homeownership: 56%
  • Life expectancy: 83.5 years
  • Violent crimes: 0.7/1000

Oakland, CA (51:19)

• Uptown: 698 Avg. Credit Score
  • Median income: $77K, Homeownership: 10%
  • Violent crimes: 26.5/1000, Life expectancy: 80 years
• Rockridge: 765 Avg. Credit Score
  • Median income: $205K, Homeownership: 66%
  • Violent crimes: 4/1000, Life expectancy: 84.2 years

“I like math—it doesn’t have an opinion. I’m not cherry-picking…I’m telling you the way it is.” (44:14)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Stakes & Urgency:

  • “Financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation. When you know better, you do better.” (18:50)
  • “If your day is not about God or love, your day is about money…The new color isn’t black, white, red or blue. The new color is green.” (04:30)

• On Building Together (“Marriage Math”):

  • “In a relationship, 2 plus 2 should equal 6, 8 or 10—not 4. If you’re not better together, what are you doing?” (14:05)

• Actionable Challenge:

  • “Go find out your credit score today. If it’s not 700, make a plan to get it there. When you rise, your community rises with you.” (65:40)

---

The Road to 700: Actionable Takeaways (64:00+)

• Check your score weekly.
• Pay bills on time: Payment history is 35% of your score.
• Keep balances low: Don’t use more than 30% of your credit limit.
• Spread balances if needed: (But consolidate cards once you can manage it.)
• Ask for help: Operation HOPE coaching and resources are available—no cost for those who qualify.
• Use credit unions and diverse lenders.
• Don’t fear credit—build responsibly. Good debt enables opportunity; it’s bad debt that hurts.
• Zip code matters: But you can beat it with intentionality and community.

---

Operation HOPE Success Stories

• Delta Airlines Employee: Raised credit from 703 to 786, saved $5,300, paid down $12,340, became homeowner.
  • “It was a great experience working with Operation Hope and Christine. She helped me bring my credit score up and walked me through the process.” (67:29)
• Jamie Ray Wright: Domestic violence survivor, with support from HOPE coach Pamela Sanford, secured $4.1M state grant to build homes for survivors in Oklahoma, proving how increasing credit and financial literacy multiplies impact.

---

Final Thoughts: The Silver Rights Movement

Bryant reframes this work as the “Silver Rights” movement, elevating financial literacy and empowerment to the level of civil rights. His mission: to bring private banking, economic opportunity, and dignity to every community, regardless of background.

• “If we get to 700 credit scores, all of America rises—it even solves political problems. Credit isn’t just a number, it’s a passport to opportunity.” (66:50)

---

Key Timestamps

• 01:09 – Show opens, Bryant’s intro
• 04:30 – “The new color is green”
• 05:10-06:30 – Personal family case study: mom vs. dad, credit vs. hustle
• 11:00 – “Half of all Black people…below 620”
• 18:50 – Why financial literacy is today’s civil rights
• 26:39 – Bold claim: “Raise credit scores 100+ points—everything changes”
• 33:54-55:00 – Neighborhood comparisons/data
• 39:00 – Credit score/life expectancy link
• 64:00 – Practical steps to 700
• 67:29 – Success stories/testimonials

---

Resources Mentioned

• Operation HOPE & Hope Financial Wellness Index
• Free coaching via Operation HOPE / Hope Inside network
• Hope In Hand app (download for credit tracking/support)

---

For full details on data, stories, and solutions, listen to the episode or visit Operation HOPE’s resources referenced throughout.

Transcript

[John O'Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[State Farm Ad Voice]

You've been working in the garage with your dad every week, Monday to Sunday, trying to get the old school up and running. Today, after all the hard work, y' all finally finished it. Even better. Your dad says all yours, son. Yep. Same car that belongs to your grandpa that your dad helped him fix. It's yours. To really keep the tradition going, you need to get State Farm Insurance just like them, generation to generation. Remember to choose the agents that your family counted on. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Propane Ad Voice]

The US Electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up. And the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready. Powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail] Wasabi is purpose built to.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Free your business from skyrocketing storage costs and fees from the big guys. Wasabi is the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams around the world. Check out Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage, Wasabi Air, and the industry's only cloud storage service with triple protection against cyber criminals. Wasabi driving innovation in data storage for up to 80 less than market competition. Try for [e-mail] Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage, proud partner of iHeart Podcast Network.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 1]

And Doug. Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 2]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 1]

Cut the camera. They see us.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings. Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. Affiliates excludes Massachusetts.

[John O'Bryant]

Welcome to Money and Wealth with John o', Bryant, a production of the Black Effect podcast network and iHeartRadio. Yo, yo, yo. This is John O' Brien and this is the Money and Wealth podcast series on iHeartRadio and Black Effect Network. And today we're tackling a really important topic that frankly, even I might have taken for granted that everybody just sort of knew and had figured out and understood. And for that, I apologize. Let's deal with 700 credit scores. That's right, the 700 credit score phenomena I keep talking about. I keep talking about that if your day is not about God or love, your day Is about money. That the new color is not black or white or red or blue as in race or politics. That the new color is green as in US currency. I have talked about my mother, Juanita Smith, and how powerful credit scores have been or were to her life. She since passed away, gone to glory, been promoted. How she had a credit score of 854 back when the credit scores went that high. I think the cap out at 850 now really set her life free to do as she liked. I talked about how my dad had more hustle than my mother. My dad was a natural hustler. He had built with my mother a little monument to up from nothing wealth into South Central la. We owned our own home, which I now believe was approved of my mother's credit, by the way. We built an eight unit apartment building. Same thing. My dad's hustle, economics. My mother's credit. My dad's credit was so bad he used to call it credit. He said his credit was bad. That's Johnny Will Smith. Great, great man. Also since passed on to glory. We had a gas station at Normandy. No Western and Vernon, southeast corner. If I'm. If I'm not mistaken, we owned our own home. Cement contracting business, a nursery business. I mean we were balling then. How is it that my mother, working an hourly job after that, McDonnell Douglas aircraft for 32 years, ended up being a millionaire and which I was the executive of her estate. So I know that's true. And how is it my father ended up broke and I ended up taking care of him the last 10 years of his life, he lost everything essentially based on credit. How's that possible if my dad was a better hustler? Because the difference between a hustler and a businessman or a businesswoman is paperwork. Not just paperwork with the county, the city, the state, the federal government, structured paperwork. But paperwork in your head. Paperwork in the sense of it's a business, not busyness. It's about doing the details behind the sales. A large part of those details deal with, well, the word, the Latin word word for credit is credito, which means credibility. So your credit has to do with your credibility. You're just showing credibility in the marketplace of finance. In this particular example, by the way, capital comes from the Latin root word capitas, which broadly defined means knowledge in the head. And banking is a trust business. It's about trust. So none of these things directly have anything to do with money. But what do we talk about in our communities? In my community, get that bag, get that dollar, get that cash, get that money, get that dollar. As I said, it's about money. It's about that green. It's about that thing. It's about looking for love in all the wrong places. Because all currency is. All money is a exchange of value. No different than a check. I can write a check on a T shirt with the routing number and the bank account number because it's really just transferring value. But if your outflow exceeds your inflow, then your overhead will be your downfall. If you're making a lot of money and you're spending a lot of money and you start making a lot of money, how do you not go broke? That's why 70% of those in the NFL as an example, have filed bankruptcy. NFL, I think NFL and I think broadly speaking, NBA, same. It's over 60% bankruptcy within five years. So credit allows you to access capital. Knowledge in the head. Capital is codified in the financial sector. Access financial capital, knowledge about accessing this capital. Using your credito credibility to get prime rate financing from banks because they trust you. So that you can build wealth in your sleep. You make money during the day. Thank you, Tony Ressler again for this great quote. You make money during the day, you build wealth in your sleep. If you don't get that memo, then you're just hustling your whole life. And at some point when your outflow exceeds your inflow, then your overhead will be your downfall. If you make a dollar, spend $1.50. The more money you make, the broker you get. But you don't realize it because you're not managing the paperwork. You're not looking at financial statements, income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, credit reports. You're not noticing that you're not paying your bills. And as a result of that, you're paying the highest rate for credit in the country. And you have the lowest access to credit in the country. And that cost of capital eats into your profit, which means you may actually be making a lot of sales, but not making a lot of profit, if, or if any. And if you have a profit margin of 5% or 10% or 15% on your product, but you're paying 15 or 20% for the cost of capital. Simple math is you're actually losing money. If you're fully leveraged in that business or even mostly leveraged in that business. Come back. Let's bring this back to home. Half of black folks. Now, this, my podcast, is for everybody, right? If you're a Latino, this applies to you. If you're white, middle class, this applies to you. If you're white, rural, poor, this applies to you. If you're Indian on Indian reservation, this applies to you. If you're black in Africa, this applies to you. If you're Asian, this applies to you. Certainly if you're a woman trying to come up, this applies to you. Certainly if you're African American, you should be paying attention to what I'm saying because I'm African American and I've made it up from nothing. Unfortunately, African Americans lead the bottom statistics of the worst areas in finance, which means that if we've been doing so much with so little for so long, we can almost do anything with nothing. That means that if we improve on any of these indexes, my God, the economy just explodes positively and we don't have any choice but to do better. Half of all black people, not half of poor people, half of all black people in America, the richest economy on the planet, black people who've inspired people of color and black people more than a billion black people all around the world who inspire them with culture, community, creativity. If we say it's cool, it's cool anywhere in the world. As I've said before, that same group were never given a lesson on capitalism and commerce and money. Half of all black people have a credit score below 620. Let that sink in for a minute. I didn't say poor people. Half of all black people have a credit score below 620. Let that think. Now, I want you to think about this. That means in my credit score and my wife's credit score and my, you know, I don't know, my cousin's credit score, my brother Killer Mike's credit score, our credit scores are, let's say, above 700, 750, right? But then our cousin, our. Our nephews are our nieces, people that we love and, but didn't go to the financial literacy coaching classes, their credit score may be 500. So the top credit scores get pulled down on average from the bottoms. That means the average is 620, which means it's really worse than what I'm saying. But let's just take this as an example. Half of all African Americans, so 20 million of 40 million on average, have a credit score below 620. That means when we wake up in the morning, even though we're talking about police brutality and racism and discrimination and what's going on in Washington, D.C. and all these things that are occupying our mind space, in many cases rightly so, that also means that half of us wake up in the morning locked out of the free enterprise system completely. And if your day is not about God or love, as I said earlier days about money, you go to the club tonight after you listen to this podcast and do your work. And you meet this fine woman. Oh man, she's fine. This handsome dude. Oh, girl said, oh, he's so handsome. What's your name? I don't know. What's your name? Okay, cool. What do you, what's up? The next question, what's your credit score? And I'm only partly kidding, right? Because when the, when the, when the, when the looks drop, when the looks fight or fade away and the body drops, that's your business partner for life. Marriage ultimately came out of business and transitioned into spirituality. And really in many cases simplistically, many people just think it's about, oh my God, she's fine, she's sexy. And it's gonna. This is a temporary decision to make, last you a lifetime. You can't afford to get this one wrong because In a relationship, 2 plus 2, she equals 6, 8 or 10, not 4, not 2 plus 2 equals 4, 6, 8 or 10. If you're not better together, what are you doing? Friendships, partnerships, marriages, all kind of relationships back to credit. So there's not. So some people, somebody, somebody said, okay, John, you've now mentioned that half of black people have a credit score below 620. What does that mean? That means you can't get a decent car loan at 620. I mean, you can go to an auto dealer lot, secondary used car auto dealership in an underserved community where I grew up and go get, try to get that previously owned Mercedes, but you're not buying it. If Your credit is 580, 550, 610, 620, you're not getting a Mercedes, you're getting a Mercedes payments. It's a mobile bomb. It's going to explode on you as you're driving down the road. And that car dealership makes their money three ways. They make their money on car sales to a lesser degree, on finance department and warranties to a greater degree. And they really make their money on maintenance. So they hope that the car either breaks down or you break down. Either the car breaks down, you got to bring it back for maintenance, or you break down and, and you got to bring it back because it's a repossession and they get to resell it to somebody else and cha ching all over again. You can't get a home loan, not a prime rate loan below 700, credit score at 680, 650. Right. You can't get. And by the way, you should never ask what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached. Black folks, brown folks, we tend. Poor white folks, we tend to be paymentized. We tend to be paymentized. What's a payment? You never ask what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached. And certainly if it's five zeros attached or more, you never ask what the payment is when there's an interest rate attached. You ask what's that interest rate? Because at five or six zeros is going to eat you alive over time. During the mortgage crisis, folks didn't pay attention. Some people signed up to adjustable rate mortgages, which means that the payments went up and down depending on where interest rates went and interest rates fluctuated. Never, never to your advantage by the way, it always went up. Or worse. You got a negative amortization mortgage, which means that every payment you made on that mortgage you owed more the next payment than you did the last because it's negative amortization, which means versus positive amortization, which means the payments going down a little bit with every mortgage payment. Negative amortization. See, this is why financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation. When you know better, you do better. It's why making smart sexy is real. Because you got to know what amortization means, negative and positive in this example, otherwise somebody's going to rob you in broad daylight and separate you from your wallet. A negative amortization mortgage over time just grows in balance. How do you ever get out of it? A lot of people signed up to them in 2008, 2009 economic crisis and adjustable rate mortgage. You want a fixed rate mortgage at prime rates. You can't get that unless with good credit. Go back to half of black folks have a credit score below 620. Again, you have a great business idea. You can't get business loan below 700. It's risky credit. It's the riskiest form of bank credit. So you think the bank has discriminated against you? Maybe they did. I think it's more likely because I know modern day banks, most of them are publicly traded, are hot and, or highly regulated and, and I met these people who run most of these banks and they are on balance really good people and they want to make a good loan because if they don't make a good loan, they cannot make a good profit. So they want you to be well qualified and to pay the Loan back. They don't want the property, they can't do anything with the property that they're not a, a repo company. They're, they're a bank. They make money on the spread between what they're paying depositors for interest on their savings and what they're, and the efficiency of running the management of an administration of the bank and the interest rate they charge you on the cost of money. The difference, the delta they call it, the difference is profit.

[State Farm Ad Voice]

Right?

[John O'Bryant]

And if you have great credit, you negotiate the best rates, they get the slimmest profit, but they also don't have to chase you for their money. So it's like clipping a coupon. It's just rinse and repeat. The bank loves people with good credit because it's guaranteed income. Again, everybody wins. I've often said a good negotiation is where everybody walks away from the table slightly annoyed because nobody got everything they wanted. The bank didn't get the most profit and the borrower didn't get the lowest rate. But they both got enough to be satisfied. I just negotiated the sale of one of my collector cars and I wanted a price of X. The buyer was able to show a legitimate thing that needed to be fixed because it's a previously owned vehicle. And I wasn't thrilled about that. But the borrower had prime, the buyer had prime credit pre approved from their bank. They were a doctor. And so that incentivized me to go ahead and take the discount on the sale of the car because I had a great buyer where I knew it was going to be no drama. He was going to, he's already pre approved. The deal is going to close very quickly. I have a time value of my money. I don't be messing around with selling this car, reselling the car, negotiating with five, eight, ten different buyers or even three or two buyers. Here's one buyer I absolutely know can buy the car. He's agreed to the purchase price, but he wants a discount based on a negotiable item that I found legitimate. And I said yes because he was a prime credit buyer. When you are a prime credit buyer, you walk in the room ready to drop the mic. So half of us have a credit score below 620, which means no matter again, the people who provide credit want to provide it to you. I'm not talking about hard money lenders and these shylocks and all these folks trying to separate you from your wallet. I'll get to that in a second because I've got some, unfortunately some recent Examples of that in my extended world, folks who come to me trying to get help at the last minute. But I'm just telling you that these banks, corporations, credit providers, they love folks with excellent credit for the reasons I've already mentioned. And I want you to be one of them. And the great thing about getting your credit score up is it's in your control. Like I can't control racism, discrimination, sexism, bias, whether somebody likes you or not. But what I can say is if you go to that computer at midnight tonight and your credit is above 700 and you're trying to get a loan or a line of credit below, let's say a hundred thousand dollars and you got a job, right, and you can afford it, the chances of, of the bank telling you yes is extremely high. I know because I've done it. The computer doesn't know what color you are, doesn't know what race you are. It doesn't know what gender you are. In midnight, you hit that button, that application at midnight. The computer, the analytics, the robotics, increasingly the AI just goes through a process. And if you meet the process, the answer is yes. Isn't that liberating? That means it's a whole new world. I've actually said this boldly. If you want to stabilize America, just raise credit scores 100 points. I know that sounds crazy. Every mayor listening to this. If your mayor in your city, your city council person, your governor is not listening to this, send it to them, Ask them to listen to it. We had all this trauma and drama and division in this country. Republicans and Democrats and rural and urban and all this rich and poor.

[State Farm Ad Voice 2]

Look.

[John O'Bryant]

Just raise credit scores 100 points in your neighborhood and the entire reality changes. And I'm going to go through the data in a minute to prove what I'm saying. So tell your mayor to start this video at minute 18. And as I unpack this story, let me tell you real quickly what happens. Quickly, what happens when you have horrible credit or you're financially illiterate. Sorry. So a friend of mine, I can't get into much detail, otherwise you might figure who out, figure out who this is. And I don't want to embarrass them. It's not because it's not helpful to them, but they own prime real estate in an inner city neighborhood. They had a really successful, have a really successful business. They own the real estate. Now they own one piece of real estate. They're trying to buy two other pieces of real estate on the same street. This area, I guarantee you the prices are going to do nothing but go up. In fact, if I had a chance to buy this property in question, I would have bought it and just sat on it. He went to a hard money lender, meaning a non prime lender. It sounds, it is what it sounds like. Hard money, expensive. I don't know why, I don't know why he. Well actually he was having a problem with a bank because he didn't Again, the difference between a great hustler and a bad business person or you know is bad paperwork or just being a hustler and a business person is paperwork. And he didn't, he had made the payments so I hear but he didn't comply with what's called loan covenants and the bank foreclosed on them supposedly. I don't know the details but that's what I was told. Well, covenants in a bank loan agreement are important as part of the agreement. Again, credibility. It's financial literacy. Anyway, the bank bops him out of the bank. He has to now go. He's in foreclosure and he's trying to put. He doesn't want to file bankruptcy. I don't want to file bankruptcy. He's not trying to. He goes and finds a hard money lender who tells them what he wants to hear, gives him a horrible rate. My dad did this by the way. My dad would respect in an underserved neighborhood as a has an overly important equation. My, my dad did not feel seen. My dad did not feel respected by mainstream America. So when the mortgage broker would come down our neighborhood if you were offering 2% interest rate but you were rude to him, he would, he would kick you, he wouldn't talk to you. But if you were offering an 8 or 10 or 12% interest rate but you were Mr. Smith and how are you today and how's your family and oh, I brought you a pie, brought you a cake and oh, I'm so, you know, so. You're pretty, your house is so pretty and oh you dress so well. Oh there's some nice shoes you have on. Trying to rep to really just talk my dad sweet talk my dad into a horrible deal which he did and my dad signed. Dad signed as what was a payment on that loan, not what was the interest rate. Signed it and the whole thing imploded and we lost everything. As I mentioned earlier.

[State Farm Ad Voice]

This past weekend, like every other Sunday you were on the court with the guys playing ball. Just a pickup game, living out your hoop dreams. No triple doubles, but a mean set of threes in between buckets, one of the homies mentions he closed on a new crib. This is big. And while everyone's asking about the housewarming and making plans to celebrate, you're asking the real questions. Like has he spoke to his State Farm agent yet about coverage? See, home ownership is one thing, but the right coverage is the real game changer. Even more than your last hot streak is how you protect your legacy. Dropping buckets and bars on the court. A State Farm agent can more than assist you with finding the right coverage for your new place. If you have a claim, your local agent can help you file it. Yep, that's right. Over the phone, in person, online or on the app, they're ready to help you and they don't drop the ball, if you know what I mean. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Propane Ad Voice]

The US Electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up and the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready, powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail] Innovation is what gets your.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Business to market and Wasabi is designed to give every business a shot at competition. How Break free from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know the big guys. Wasabi is the world's hottest cloud storage company and the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues around the world. And here's why. Innovation from Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage Wasabi Air to the industry's only cloud storage storage service with triple protection against cybercriminals, data deletion and ransomware. The world's top companies trust Wasabi. Remember, Wasabi is up to 80% less than market competition and doesn't charge a cent for businesses to access their own data. Wasabi Another championship story. Check them out for [e-mail] Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage proud partner of iheart podcast network Limu Emu and Doug here we.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 1]

Have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 2]

Uh, Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 1]

Cut the camera. They see us.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[John O'Bryant]

Liberty, Liberty Savings Very unwritten by Liberty.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Mutual Insurance Company affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.

[John O'Bryant]

So let's get into this because I've said something pretty bold. Raise credit scores 100 points in your neighborhood, in your family, and you'll see everything change. So your credit score isn't just about borrowing money. It's the single most important number in your financial life and in your community's life too. Frankly, I would argue that 700 credit score is at least as important as a four year education. I know that is. And I want you to get a four year education, by the way, or a higher education. I want you to get this credit score because. And somebody's going to then say, let me just get this out of the way. Isn't credit bad? No, no, no. Bad credit's bad, right? Bad debt is bad. There's good debt and there's bad debt. I cover that in another podcast. Go back and listen to that one. Good debt is tied to something that, tied to an asset that it may appreciate. Bad debt's tied to an asset that. Or something that will probably depreciate, go down in value. You want assets that appreciate that, not that depreciate. Can I get an amen? So you have good debt and bad debt, right? So there's not a successful city. It's not a successful. Think about Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, right? As examples, Seattle, whatever. There's not a success. Minneapolis is not a successful state. It's not a successful government, including ours. It's not as successful. Successful millionaire, multimillionaire, centimillionaire 100 millionaire, billionaire, multi billionaire, successful corporation, Fortune 500 company that didn't do it on the back of good debt. Please hear me. That's a. Drop the mic. There's no successful entity, person, individual or initiative that didn't do it on the back of good debt or back of money. And hopefully good debt. I guess you could have gotten lucky with bad debt and just hustled enough and got lucky and then you stumbled into good debt at some point. But at some point you've got to get to good debt, otherwise the initiative, whatever you're riding on, has to explode. And debt allows you to sort of responsibly leverage the returns of an investment. I'm getting off into something else. Stay focused on this credit thing. So credit scores for communities, 700 credit scores in particular. I want to thank, by the way, Experian for giving us the data along with the U.S. census and others to build this Hope Financial Wellness Index. You can go to your computer right now, type in Operation Hope, go to our website or just type in HOPE Financial Wellness Index or Hope Credit score index or hope 700 credit score index and you can all this will all pull up the Hope Financial Wellness Index. Type in your zip code, I'll tell you how you're living. You type in your zip code and that, that database. I'll tell you what your credit score is in your neighborhood and I'll tell you how you're living. And as I said before, you hang around nine broke people, you're going to be the tenth. So what does a 500 credit score neighborhood look look like? It's a check casher next to a payday loan lender next to a rental owned store next to a title lender next to a liquor store next to a pawn shop. Can I get an amen And a church down the street trying to make you feel a little bit better once a week so you don't go crazy and go postal on Monday, right? I'm joking, but I'm serious. Like your church is your neighborhood therapist. And we think this is normal. This is not normal. This is what, this is target marketing in a 500 credit score neighborhood. And just to prove this is not about race or class or any of that other stuff, right? And how this is a great equalizer and the great empowerment tool, if you get it right, is that same example I just gave you, check, cash or payday loan, lender, rental store, title lender, liquor store, pawn shop. That's also the same thing you see in a white rural, poor neighborhood. I was talking about black, urban, black and brown urban neighborhoods as the prime example here. And that's what I'm going through in the data I'm about to show you. But you see the same thing in a poor white rural neighborhood. Can I get an amen? It's the same thing around the mouth of a, of a military base because those military personnel cannot have bad credit and have a security clearance. Am I going too fast? Like this is a really powerful episode and I really want you to get it. So if you got to hit backward, hit reverse on this and play it again and play it two or three times, then you should do it. So what is credit really? Right. Credit equals trust plus your payment history. What are credit score ranges? 300 to 850. My credit score is high 700-low-800. My wife's is over 800 because she's got less drama going on financially than I do. I've got a Lot of stuff that I'm literally financing. And so it looks like I got a crack at addiction or something with my dang on Amex black card because I put Operation Hope and other things on my black cards that don't have an expense account, have an expense report, which means that I just get reimbursed for proper expenses for my different entities. But I initially just charge all that on my black card. So I carry a very large balance. As a result of that, the credit bureaus, rightly so, which, which pay it put a higher weight, higher measurement on credit scores on consumer debt. They rightly so say, well this guy, even though he makes a lot of money, he's got a high net worth. He's, you know, I don't like his consumer debt level. So I'm going to, I'm going to ding his credit score a little bit. And by the way, you have different credit scores for different things. You have a different credit score for consumer cred credit cards, then for auto loans, then for mortgage loans, then for small business loans. These are different formulas for credit scores. I'm giving you the consumer credit, the basic one. Right, Right. Now again, watch this over, listen to this over and over again. For parts that you missed, here's some myths. So, so, so why is 7 credit score a great number? Because it gives you prime credit access, right? Lower interest rates and wealth building opportunities. What are some myths? Credit isn't about being rich, it's about being responsible. That is a myth buster because it is exactly that. It is not about being rich, it's about being responsible. But people think that credit somehow is tied to being rich. And we wrongly thought that being taught in our churches and in my neighbors I grew up in, that money was evil. No, money in debt are not evil. The love of money is evil. And bad debt should be evil. Bad capitalism is like slavery. I mean literally slavery was bad capitalism, drug dealing, all that stuff. So that should be avoided. So it's the good stuff you want. And that has to do with your intentionality, your knowledge and your moves. Your zip code predicts more about your, your financial health than your, your, your genetic code. Where zip code you grew up in, born in or live in will have an enormous impact on your life. Again, I'm going to come back and I'm going to go through it, I'm going to go to it right now. Like, let me just, let me, let me explain exactly what I'm talking about. Let me take the city of St. Louis, Missouri. You can pull these examples up from the Hope Financial Wellness Index, by the way, online. So the Hope Community credit index for St. Louis, Missouri. And I was born in East St. Louis, which is even worse. The numbers are worse in East St. Louis and St. Louis, but in fact, you may get some of that here. The following data are from the neighborhoods of Carr Square and Clayton, St. Louis. These two neighborhoods are less than nine minutes apart, nine miles apart. So as you, as I go through these, these examples, if you see a snippet of this online, type in what if this is your city, right? And same man. If you're listening to this on your. While you're jogging, whatever. If this, if I've hit a nerve where you live. Okay, so Car Square, Carr zip code 63106. Average credit score is 602. Clayton zip code 363105. Credit score 745. Now get this. Median household income in car, $21,475. In Clayton, nine miles away, $120,000. Basically 119,446. Unemployment rate, 8.3% in car in Clayton, 2.4%. Night and day homeownership rate, 11.9% in car, 11.9% in Clayton, not excellent, but much better, 56.4%. I wonder whether in Clayton, where there's a lot of multifamily rentals and commercial buildings versus single family homes, I may look at that to find that information out. By the way, the average credit score for African American, average homeownership rate for African Americans, 44%. Average homeownership rate in the country for white Americans, 75%. Last time I checked that delta, that difference of 30% is generational wealth. Because the number one way you build wealth in America is home ownership. Median household income in car, again, the 602 area zip code, 6602. Credit score neighborhood is 186,700. Not bad. But the average home value in Clayton, 735,500. Now why are these so different back in the day? Redlining. Where'd that come from? Did it come from banks? That's what you were told. Banks discriminated against you? No, it came from the federal government, the FHA, Federal Housing Authority in the 19. Well, the first part of the 20th century discriminated against black and brown neighborhoods. And it was really sad because these folks literally couldn't live anyplace else. And they came up from the south and they were forced in these areas and versus giving folks opportunity to give them grief. And then the Federal FHA wouldn't guarantee a mortgage in that neighborhood because they said it was crime ridden and dangerous. Well, what do you expect when you put a bunch of poor people with no opportunity and no education and they just came from slavery and Jim Crow. Hello. Anyway, they refused to finance a mortgage. And what's the government's job if not to offset unintentional societal risk like this for people who did nothing wrong? But anyway, they refused to finance a mortgage, insure a mortgage in that so called poor neighborhood, black and brown neighborhood, but where they insured in the suburbs where whites had moved. That meant that banks again, common sense. Where are you going to put your mortgage at? A risky area with no mortgage insurance from the government where you're guaranteed to get your money back or from a suburban neighborhood where you're guaranteed to get your money back either through the borrower. And the fact they got great credit typically or better credit ratings, but more so the government has said, I'll guarantee your loan, of course you're going to go to the suburbs. So that meant there was more transactions, there was more capital flows, more fluidity of money flowing in that area, more economic activity going that area, higher incomes in that area, more services in that area. And the values popped up in those areas. People, more people buying and selling in that area for the reasons I just mentioned. You can get a mortgage, you can get mortgage insurance. And where did it economic, economic stall Poor struggling black and brown neighborhoods that were redlined and they were green lined in the other areas which depressed values. Okay, say focus again on this credit thing. But as you see, as you can tell, I can go in so many different directions at one time on one podcast. But I got 15 more minutes. I want to cover a lot of ground here. Property crimes in the in car square. 60 per 1000. Property crimes 62.3 compared to 14.0 in Clayton. Violent crimes per thousand residents 17.1. Sorry, 15.7 versus 0.07 or 0.7. 0.7 basically non existent in Clayton versus almost 20% violent crimes per thousand in car. High school graduation rates. Actually this is not bad number. 82.1% in car, 97.1% in Clayton. 97% basically means they went to college. Just to be clear, life expectancy, again, this is completely predictable. You start to see this as a trend line. 71 years of age in CAR, 83 years, 0.5 years in Clayton. So what I found is, and this is the part that this is not an exact science, but I found this to be True. Looking at the data, for every 50 point gain in credit score above 500, you live five more years. Isn't that crazy?

[State Farm Ad Voice]

Right?

[John O'Bryant]

So the average I found is that in a 500 credit score neighborhood you live to about 61 years of age. In a 700 credit score neighborhood you live to 81 years of age. About 5 year extension of life for every 50 point increase in your credit score. It's not about the credit score, by the way. It's about the trending indicator of hope, well being, belief, faith, confidence, joy, like you know, your uplift, like whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't. You're right. I can't guarantee that being positive is going to make you successful, but I absolutely guarantee you that being negative is going to make you fail. Disease is often dis ease. Right. Again, my wife Shae talks about wellness and health, wealth. Right. These things go together. All right, let's talk about Atlanta. I'm going to go through this data really quick so you can see it's different cities. Again, it's from all from the same index, Hope Financial Wellness Index, which I expect you to go to your website and type in your zip code yourself. Forest Park 302-97629. Credit score. It's not that bad actually. Virginia Highlands 30306 which has gotten gentrified. And by the way, gentrification has nothing to do with race. Gentrification is literally defined as a movement of middle class values. So it could be black middle class values, Latino, women, white, you know, doesn't really matter. Right. It's just, it tends, what tends to happen is that folks are looking for a value who are Caucasian, young and well educated, not racist. See black and brown neighborhoods as cool and hip and it's the music they listen to and the food they like. And prices are right cheap, so they come and buy there and then they start bidding up the prices. In the way in which I described about the suburbs earlier. Are we solving a lot of problems in one podcast, by the way, I just described gentrification, redlining. Okay, deal with you deal. My, you know, my friend Melody Hobson would say you, you deal with math, you get. Well, you. Well, I say if you deal with, if you deal with the math and the economics, you get racism for free. Right? You just zero that stuff out. Do the economics, you get racism for free. You saw poverty, you solve poverty for free. But she would say that she likes math because it doesn't have an opinion, which is what I'm saying here. Forest park, median household income, 45,000. I'm gonna start generalizing these numbers so I can get through this. Virginia Highlands, 133,000. Again, these are 15 miles apart, so less than a 20 minute drive. 15:30, 30 minute maximum drive. These are, these are, you know, city, you know, urban city miles, right? Not highway miles. Unemployment rate 6.7% in Forest park versus 4.5. That's actually not bad. Again, these numbers aren't horrible. I'm gonna tell you horrible in a minute. Homeownership rate, 35.5 versus basically 60%. Median home value, 121,000 versus basically 800,000. Violent crimes per thousand, 9.5 versus 2.0. High school graduation rates, 76.4 versus 97.1. What did I say? 97 meant basically you went to college. Again, look at these jumps. Based on where the credit score starts at 629. Call it 630. You start to see the life expectancy rise up. Right? And violent crimes are less. And all the disparities are less. Still bad. Life expectancy, 72 years versus 82 years. Okay, let's give you some, really, give you a really stark example here. Let me see, let's talk about, let's see what Baltimore has to say. So Belair Edison, which is 21213. Baltimore, Maryland, Roland park is 21210. Again, I expect to say, man, when I talk about your area, these areas are less than six miles apart. Median household income, $50,000 versus $108,000. So double unemployment rate, 6.3 versus 4.7. Homeownership rate, not that bad of a difference, 53% versus 61%. Home values though, 134,000 versus 520,000. Violent crimes per thousand, 12.4 versus 3.7. See the consistency here? Graduation rates 83% versus 97.9%. Again, that 97% is consistent in those high credit score areas, aren't they? Basically 100% highly educated, went to college. And I'd bet two parent households, by the way, versus single parent households in the hood. D A hyphen H O O D 70% of black households run by women. That's not a mistake, it's not an accident. That's basically a community that's just trying to survive. That includes my mother, by the way. Life expectancy again, 66.4 years versus 84.3 years. Okay, in Chicago you have. I'm doing this one by memory. Chicago, you had Lincoln park and then you had. Oh, I'm blanking. On the other community's name, but it was a low income area. Garfield Park, I think. I think it's Garfield. Yeah. Garfield park and Lincoln Park 15 minutes apart. You'll tell me in the comments, I'm sure. You guys don't let me get away with anything. I'm doing this from memory. And Lincoln park was750,770 credit score or something. And Garfield park was toe up from the flow up. I think it was like high 500. You lived at 61 years of age in Garfield Park. You lived to 81, 85 years of age plus in Lincoln Park. Depending on the area and the numbers. Violent crime was off the chain. Like it was just a complete dichotomy. Right. Let's look at Dallas is not going to be that bad, but I'll do Dallas because somebody listening would want me to cover that. Cedar Crest 75203 Highland Park, 75205 is Dallas, Texas. 627 versus 745 credit scores. Median household income 46,000 versus 188,000. Unemployment rate seven and a half versus 4.6. Homeownership rate 37% versus 60%. Median household income, wow. 125,000 versus 1.5 million. These communities are what, seven miles apart? Crazy. Violent crimes per top per thousand 12.3 versus 2.7%. Here we go again. High school graduation rates 66.7% to 98.6%. Essentially. You went to college. Higher education. Life expectancy 73 years versus 83 plus years. You see, I like math. It doesn't have an opinion. Like I'm not cherry picking. I'm not giving you specialized data. I'm telling you the way it ti is. Detroit, Michigan, Jefferson Chalmers. I'm sorry Detroiters, if I missed that, if I mangled that right. Jefferson Chalmers at 48215 zip code versus gross 48230. These are neighbors are two miles apart. Okay, household income 33,000 versus 131,000. Credit score 620 versus 746. Two miles apart.

[State Farm Ad Voice]

This past weekend, like every other Sunday, you were on the court with the guys, playing ball. Just a pickup game, living out your hoop dreams. No triple doubles, but a mean set of threes in between buckets. One of the homies mentions he closed on a new crib. This is big. And while everyone's asking about the housewarming and making plans to celebrate, you're asking the real questions. Like has he spoke to his state farm agent yet about coverage? See, home ownership is one thing. But the right coverage is the real game changer. Even more than your last hot streak is how you protect your legacy. Dropping buckets and bars on the court. A State Farm agent can more than assist you with finding the right coverage for your new place. If you have a claim, your local agent can help you file it. Yep, that's right. Over the phone, in person, online or on the app, they're ready to help you and they don't drop the ball, if you know what I mean. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

[Propane Ad Voice]

The US Electric grid is approaching a breaking point. As demand soars from data centers and home energy use, our aging infrastructure can't keep up, and the Department of Energy warns that without action, blackouts could surge 100 fold by 2030. The good news? One solution is already here. Propane. It's American made, stored on site and always ready. Powering homes and businesses with cleaner, reliable energy that doesn't depend on the grid or the weather. Learn [e-mail] Innovation is what gets your.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Business to market, and Wasabi is designed to give every business a shot at competition.

[John O'Bryant]

How?

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Break free from skyrocketing storage costs and unpredictable egress fees from old and top heavy legacy providers. You know the big guys. Wasabi is the world's hottest cloud storage company and the go to provider for professional and collegiate sports teams and leagues around the world. And here's why. Innovation. From Wasabi's AI enabled intelligent media storage, Wasabi Air to the industry's own only cloud storage service with triple protection against cyber criminals, data deletion and ransomware. The world's top companies trust Wasabi. Remember, Wasabi is up to 80% less than market competition and doesn't charge a cent for businesses to access their own data. Wasabi Another championship story. Check them out for [e-mail] Wasabi Hot Cloud Storage proud partner of iheart podcast.

[John O'Bryant]

Network.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 1]

And Doug Here we have the Limu Emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual. Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 2]

Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 1]

Cut the camera. They see us.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Only pay for what you [e-mail] Liberty.

[John O'Bryant]

Liberty Liberty Savings Very unwritten by Liberty.

[Wasabi Ad Voice]

Mutual Insurance Company affiliates excludes Massachusetts.

[John O'Bryant]

I love this dramatic difference. Two miles apart. Unemployment rate 12.9 versus 3.1 homeownership rate 49% versus 77.7. That's black versus I guarantee you that's black neighborhood versus a white neighborhood. I Guarantee you somebody tell me in the comments when you see this, clips of this on social media. I know you can't do that on the podcast itself, but when you see clips of this on social media or on YouTube, when we do release it there, we release it about every episode about a week after it's released on the podcast. So please comment where you can because I do want to get an amen or a correction. Violent crimes per,027.8 versus 1.8. Right. High school graduation rates, 84.2% versus 98.1% again, 98.1. You went to college. You can't make this up. Coincidence is God's way. Remaining anonymous. So that's an Andrew Young quote. Life expectancy, again, 620. Credit score is 74 years old age versus 746. Credit score of 81 years of age. Right. Every 50 points about, about, give or take, five years of life expectancy. I'm trying to find one of these cities that has like a really dramatic, dramatic, dramatic difference. A lot of these cities I'm going through, they're just going to repeat what I'm saying. Here's one that's worth It's Oakland, California, uptown, 94612 compared to Rock Ridge, 94618. That's a 698 credit score versus a 765 credit score. You say, okay, they're pretty close. And this is only four miles apart.

[State Farm Ad Voice 2]

Right?

[John O'Bryant]

This is pretty close. So let's see if the data holds up. $77,000 income versus a 200, 205,000 household income. That's everybody in the house, by the way. 6.4 unemployment rate versus 4.6. Not night and day.

[State Farm Ad Voice 2]

Right.

[John O'Bryant]

But different homeownership rate.

[State Farm Ad Voice 2]

Wow.

[John O'Bryant]

10.2% versus 66%. Hello. Two miles apart. Median home value 814,000. Not bad based. Compared to 1.8 million violent crimes per thousand. Look at this. 26.5% versus 4.0% night and day, two miles apart. High school graduation rates 87.3%. So it's measuring up as the credit score goes up. But where's the 765 credit score? Neighborhood where it's at. The high school graduation rates, 97.9%. Can't make this up. Exactly the same, like literally 96, 97, 98%. Every one of them. That's essentially college. Two parent households, again, probably black people, Latino people, Asian people. It's everybody. It's green people. Life expectancy, hello. 80 years versus 84.2 years. So there you go. It just. Even though the gap on expectancy gapped up mostly, some of the other stuff did not gap because there's still a mindset shift change. Right. See if I can. And by the way, in these communities, Operation Hope is raising credit scores 34 to 58 points, lowering debt 2,500 to $3,800. Increasing savings $1,500 on average through our Hope Financial coaches. So we're moving the needle in all these neighborhoods. So you go see our Hope Financial coach in the neighborhood where you live, you know, Washington, D.C. foggy bottom 20006. It's actually not a good example. We should have been anacostia, Barnaby Woods 20015755 credit score. And again, 80 year life expectancy versus 85 years. Right. And you know, violent, violent crimes per thousand 5.0 versus 0.3. Homeownership rate 255,000 versus 1.2 million. Right. Homeownership rate 8.1% versus 77%. Unemployment rate 12% versus 2.6%. I'm sure it's even more dramatic. In Anacostia, we have Philadelphia. Again, this is a decent one because I want to show you the life expectancy 626 credit score in Brewery Town 19121 versus Old City 19106. Right. 626 credit score versus 743 credit score. Median household income in Brewery Town 36,000. Old Old City 129,000. Unemployment rate 14.6% versus 3.1%. See, when I talk about, when I talk with confidence about this stuff now, you know why? Because this stuff just jumps off the page to you. Like it's completely obvious. That's why I love talking about this stuff. Because this is like a goat. This is like a. This is like a hidden. A hidden. A hidden golden goose or something. Like we can solve our problems economically and it will solve most of our social problems because most of our problems are at, at bottom, economic. If you don't have capital as an equity, because through an inherited wealth, then access capital through credit, good credit, and use it for smart stuff like buying a home, starting a business, buying some stock. If you're going to. I'm not saying use credit to buy stock, but I've done it before. But not risky credit, risky stock. Anyway, I think you're starting to get why I'm so excited about this Silver Rights movement. S I L V E R From civil rights to Civil rights, from the streets to the suite and solving problems from the shoulders up. Because this data is unimpeachable and it's completely race political emotional neutral. Just, if you do this, you'll win. Right again. Back to Philadelphia. Homeownership rate 33% in Brewerytown Old City, 45.5%. Median household income essentially double.250,000 to 528,000 between Brewingtown and Oak City. Violent crimes per thousand. Can't make this up. 19.0 versus 3.9. I didn't know this before. I. I'm doing this. You're hearing the data as I'm going through it because I'm so confident in the data. I just told my team, give me 10 examples and don't brief me in advance. High school graduation rates 87.3% to 95.6%. Life expectancy 69.4% versus 82.9% between the 626 credit score neighborhood and 750, basically. Credit score neighborhood. Are you starting to get it? Like, are you starting to understand? Like, is your head starting to nod about wow, like, this is deep, right? And I can do New Orleans. But I think you sort of get the memo here. If you're not convinced with the data with this, you're just not convincible. So here's what I want you to think about now. I want you to think about the success stories that we have at Operation Hope. We went from being denied a car loan to buying their first home. That's wealth creation in real time. And we have countless success stories. I'm going to bring some of them on one of my coming episodes so you can literally hear and see folks who look like you and have stories like you. So you don't write it off as well. John Bryant, that's different for you. Your life was different somehow. Even though my life was just like anybody struggling listening to this, I want you to hear from our clients. So we're going to bring those on in coming episodes and unpack their stories. So here's some practical things you can do. The road to 700, because that's the new cool. 700 credit score is a new cool. I go through airports and TSA agents, by the way, scream out their credit score to me. Isn't that cool? As I'm going through security. Some practical roads, right? Check your credit score at least weekly. Know your number, I know mine. I've got it on my phone. And Operation Hope can pull it for you. If you listen to this, you go to Hope, go download the Hope and Head Hand app, go to the Hope and Operational website or call our 1-800number for Operation Hope. I think it's 1-888-388-HOPE. I think that's the number 1-888-388-STEP but check it on the operational website. Call sign up for coaching and counseling. They'll give you a free scholarship to start that's worth between 500 and $1,000. They'll pull your credit. They'll do an initial assessment with you and if you're serious, if you meet certain criteria, then you might qualify for a coaching scholarship for it's worth as much as $5,000 after that. But that's up to the coaches and whether you meet the criteria. And this stuff will change your life. So we're going to basically put a private banker around you. That's what we do at Operation. We're the private banker for the underserved. We're economic plumbing for the whole dang on country. We're boosting the economic GDP from the middle of the economy down on the Federal Reserve of the hood. Right? We're economic plumbing. I'm the economic plumber for underserved neighborhoods. By the way. 20, 25% of our coaches in our communities and our offices are in rural neighborhoods which a lot of white poor, poverty. We're, we're on Native American Indian reservations. Thank you, Wells Fargo for that and bank of America. We are in again south. We're in rural areas. Thank you, First Horizon bank and Regions bank and Synovus Bank. We're in, we're in, you know, major. Of course, most of ours are in major MSAs. That's your problem in the areas. We are in Latino communities. 20% of our coaches speak Latino to their clients. We're for everybody, right? This is everybody's problem. In fact, shoot. We're getting a lot of middle class folks calling us because they got too much month at the end of their money also. Right. Half of those making $100,000 a year living from paycheck to paycheck, by the way. Okay, so check your credit score on a regular basis, pay your bills on time, payment history is, you know, it really matters. And it's 35% of your score. Keep balances low relative to your total to your limit. So if you have $1,000 credit card, you don't want to spend more than $300 as it relates to that on charges. If you have $100,000 credit card, you don't want to spend more than 30,000. You have a $10,000 credit card, you want to spend more than 3,000 right now, get it to 5,000. That's still fine, probably. But you will see some degradation in your credit score. You get it to 80% of your limit, you're going to start seeing compression in your credit score for sure, meaning it's going to lower. So credit balances low with regard to credit utilization. And by the way, if you, if you need to get two or three credit cards to spread it out, I'm not telling you to do it, but I did it right. And just. But you got to manage it well, right? And at some, whenever I could, I consolidated those credit cards and got one credit card. Let me see here. Don't I use credit credit unions also as well as banks to access credit and credit card companies? I've got a MasterCard, I've got a Visa, I've got America Express. I've got, you know, so I'm an equal opportunity utilizer, right? Don't fear credit. Build responsibly. Ask for help. Again, Hope Inside coaches are no cost to you because we scholarship you in through Hope Scholarship. So you use this benefit that we've raised tens of millions of dollars a year for just for you. This isn't about the 1%, it's about the 100%. If we get to, if we get to 700 credit scores, all of America rises. It solves all kinds of problems, right? Including political problems. So credit isn't just a number. It's a passport to opportunity. I'm going to, you know, once again tell you to download the Open Hand app on your Android or Apple phone and go get you or go to our website and, or call our number and get yourself a Hope Financial coach today where we have 1500 offices, physical and virtual in 42 states. We're in half of all truist branches. As an example, Wells Fargo has ordered 100 locations. I think that's right. B of A has matched them. Whatever the number is, B of A has matched them. US Bank, I mean you name the bank. Flagstar bank just signed up. Synovus bank, you name the bank. There's a 80% chance that we have some BMO Harris, we got some relationship PNC bank and Black owned banks also we've raised money. So it doesn't cost a black owned institution to have a hope inside inside of their institution, which I'm very proud of. So I want you to go find out your credit score today and if it's not 700, I want you to make a plan to get it there because when you rise, your community rises with you and the opposite is also true. And tell your friends to subscribe to this podcast and check out the next episode are episodes which include, as I mentioned, testimonials of civil rights to civil rights. Okay, so I was going to let you go and I'm going to let you go, but I want to tell you about a couple testimonials. I'll do this real quick. So this is my financial coach, Christine Lavulo. She's a Hope Financial Wellness Coach in at Hope inside Delta Airlines in Salt Lake City. We coach all 100,000 Delta Airline employees. By the way, love my partnership with Delta, which is by the way the first airline to get to 100 years and the biggest, most profitable airline in the world. So here's what they have to say about her, about their client Their client already had a great credit score of 703. However, he wanted to set himself up to be a best position possible to reach his goal of home ownership. As we worked together, created budgets and spending plans, he saved $5,300 and paid down $12,340 in revolving debt. This progress boosted his credit score to 786 which positioned him well to apply for a loan which we helped him with by the way. Although he was well on his way, we stayed in touch throughout the purchasing process so I could ease his concerns and give him a greater understanding of what was going on behind the scenes. Now that he has reached his goal of home ownership, he is asked to continue to so I can help. I meaning Christine, the coach for Operation Hope. This is from our website of Operation Hope and our testimonials so I can help him manage the additional expenses from becoming a homeowner and make sure he stays on track with his budget. Recently gave us this feedback. It was a great experience working with Operation Hope and Christine becoming a homeowner. She helped me bring my credit score up to substantially and walked me through the process. She answered my questions as they came up. It put me in my mind at ease when I started getting stressed the heck out. The heck out. I put that part in. I'm so glad I listened to her advice to keep going and didn't give up on the process. I love my new home. So this Delta employees is a homeowner because of Operation Hope and their sponsor Delta Airlines which was their employer in this example. Some of these stories are just really long so I don't want to take up valuable time describing them here, but just go to the opera show website and check out these testimonials. These folks look like you sound like you have stories like you and it makes it hard really to say that it can't be you and that somehow you can be locked out of this system because their stories are not so different from yours. So whether it was somebody with this person that was 700 credit score you want to go to 786 or somebody with 500 want to go to 625 same journey. Here's somebody who I love this story because it's somebody I met through Bishop T.D. jakes. She heard this is Jamie Ray Wright heard ME @Bishop TD Jakes International leadership Conference. She had no idea that moment would become the catalyst of transforming her vision and into a multi million dollar reality that would change countless lives. She's a domestic violence survivor. Domestic violence survivor. Again I'm not going to get read the details of her story but she had a coach which was Pamela Sanford, a Hope financial coach and she became a strategic really advisor in to move her from sort of small thinking to big thinking. And and she helped her get some grant funding and changed her whole mindset. And get this, she got a $4.1 million grant from the state of Oklahoma to build 13 homes for domestic violence survivors. Rainbows After Storms got an additional $250,000 grant to provide financial literacy. I love this. Homeownership coaching and other key supportive services for survivors and their children. Rainbows After Storms and became a sustainable model that addresses not only just housing but the holistic needs of families rebuilding their lives. And couldn't have done all that, she says without her coach Pamela at Operation Hope. And now she's helping others help themselves. So look, you can do this, right? Well, let's get busy and let's get cracking and let me know the results of your dreaming with your eyes wide open. John o' Brien this is Money and wealth on the Black Effect Network and iHeartRadio. And this is the silver rights movement. 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.

[State Farm Ad Voice 2]

This weekend. One of the homies mentioned he closed on a new crib. While everyone's asking about a housewarming, you're asking the real questions like who is his state farm agent? See, home ownership is one thing, but the right coverage is the real game changer. It's how you protect your legacy. A state Farm Agent can help you with finding the right coverage for your new place and even help you file a claim over the phone, in person, online or on the app. They're ready to help you and they don't drop the ball, you know what I mean? Like a good neighbor, State Farm is.

[Colgate Ad Voice]

There we use sunscreen so why not be proactive? The reformulated toothpaste, innovative toothbrush and refreshing antibacterial mouthwash were designed to work together to be quinces mas effectivos reducciendo bacterial buildup, la casa principal de los frelema sorales and solos seisa manas starting in week one compared to non antibacterial fluoride toothpaste and a flat trimmed toothbrush. SOS prevention power baby compre sistema de prevenciona activa Colgate Total. Protect your oral health and be dentist ready.

[John O'Bryant]

Ah, come on. Why is this taking so long? This thing is ancient.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 2]

Still using yesterday's tech upgrade to the ThinkPad X1 carbon ultralight, ultra powerful and built for serious productivity with Intel Core Ultra processors, blazing speed and AI powered performance. It keeps up with your business, not the other way around.

[John O'Bryant]

Whoa, this thing moves.

[Liberty Mutual Ad Voice 2]

Stop hitting snooze on new tech. Win the tech search at least lenovo.com Unlock AI experiences with the ThinkPad X1 carbon powered by Intel Core Ultra processors so you can work, create and boost productivity all on one device.

[LifeLock Ad Voice]

It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month. LifeLock is here with tips to help protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report scams and update your software. And for comprehensive identity protection, LifeLock is your best choice. LifeLock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and fixes identity theft guaranteed or your money back. Start your protection today with a 30 day free trial at lifelock.com use promo code news terms apply.

[John O'Bryant]

This is an iHeart podcast.