← Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Success Story with Scott D. Clary
Marcus Barney - Financial Education Expert | How Understanding Credit Changed Everything About Building Wealth
00:53:29
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I remember being on Instagram looking at credit card groups and I'm like, this is like a secret society. I identified that majority of people didn't even understand how to get a credit card. Majority of people don't understand the power of a credit card and what they can do. And at that point I realized you're learning things. And as you continue to learn, there are so many people who won't.
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Marcus Barney isn't just teaching financial literacy, he's redefining what it means to own your financial future.
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From boardrooms to barbershops, Marcus has built a reputation as HIM500, a mentor, strategist.
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And wealth architect for the underdog.
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The miseducation is often much easier to get than the correct information. Don't feel bad about working a 9 to 5. The work ethic that gets developed is more important than education. Why? Because that'll help me be the best boss and business partner. With millions of views across social media, a loyal following of aspiring entrepreneurs, and.
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A curriculum that's helped thousands escape the paycheck to paycheck cycle, Marcus is on.
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A mission to close the wealth gap by giving people the tools they were never taught.
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If you've ever been told you'll never make it out, he's living proof that you can.
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The best entrepreneurs have the best relationships. They figure out how to manage relationships on the good side and the bad side. How to be in a relationship and give. Everybody wins. We only control ourselves. I don't have control over what you say to me, but I have a control over how I perceive it and how I respond to it. Foreign.
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I'm excited you're here. You have an incredible origin story. So you went from selling bootleg sneakers to cleaning gutters. You became a multi millionaire, now owned private jets, ambulance companies. You teach thousands how to turn credit into cash. You've made tons of people millionaires. Think about a moment in your life when you realized that financial strategies that you were learning for creating wealth were not just for yourself, but would benefit your entire community.
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B
When I realized it.
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Yeah, like when you were like, listen, I'm learning things that are not the norm. People don't know this shit and they have to know this shit. And this is like a life hack secret unlock.
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B
Honestly, it was. I remember being on Instagram looking at credit card groups and they had all these like code words and things like that. I'm like, what the are they talking about? Right? It's like MC just day this form. And I'm like. And I realized it's like MasterCard was MC and VGC was vanilla gift card. And I'm like, this is like a secret society. Right. And I started to. And it was a thing called manufacturer spending and was just learning how to manufacture spends on your credit card. Right.
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A
This is like the whole points thing.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I remember going down the rabbit hole, but I went down it with a friend and he couldn't understand what they were talking about. So I started strategically going and creating groups of people that was in the community that was on the comment thread talking about it. I would go and create a group chat with them. Since you guys all seem to understand it. I would be DMing them one on one and then I create a group chat. And so then I would decode what they were saying. Exactly. Because now they're talking High level amongst each other. And it was, it wasn't nothing that I wasn't exposed to. It was just the terminology and the codes that they were using. And at that point I realized, okay, how do I communicate this back to my community? Yeah, because this was something amazing to me. And I'm like manufacturer spending all these different things with gift cards and so many shopping techniques. And I identified that majority of people didn't even understand how to get a credit card. It, it was way above. And I'm going, you know what? The things that I'm learning now is benefits from hard work and things that I took for granted. And I took for granted the fact of me actually understanding how to develop my credit, getting my credit together and actually realizing how many cred cards is out there and that there's different ones. Majority of people don't understand the power of a credit card and what they can do, nor how it can benefit them. And at that point I realized, you know what, like, you're learning things and as you continue to learn, there's so many people who won't.
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A
They're not on the same journey because they didn't. So going back into your origin story, you only figured this out because your businesses kept failing because you couldn't figure out credit, how to fund the businesses. So you went through a lot of like candidly really stressful like life events that a lot of people don't want to expose themselves to. Like not a lot, not a lot of people want to be entrepreneurs because of what you went through. That's the reason why. And then it's like light at the end of the tunnels, like these other ways to do this so it's not so stressful so there's a better chance of it working out. But also like with credit and credit cards, the first exposure people have credit credit cards are like, you know, they have some. For me at least it was when I went to university and there was like this little like stand on campus and they're giving these shit credit cards. It was kind of super predatory because you didn't know what it was. And then you, you yourself over with high interest rates and your parents give you for getting a credit card and then you're like scared of like oh, like I don't know, I don't know how to play this game.
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Credit credit drops.
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Yeah.
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B
You're not understanding credit utilization.
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No. Manufactured spending. Nobody knows.
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B
Yeah. So you don't understand none of those things. You don't understand the benefits of even the credit or understand if I went into like, due dates, statement dates, your, your payment day, your due date, your statement date. When I start breaking those things down and people are like, wait, what say, yo, okay, well, you know, I got three credit cards and this one is due this day. And I tell people, hey, you can change that and put it on the same date. It's like, oh, you can. It's like you operate in this capacity of credit. America is built off of credit, yet we don't understand how to navigate it. There isn't a curriculum, there isn't a place that teaches us how to properly navigate it to our benefit. Nobody tells you, well, just you can change your due date, put them all on the same date so that way you're not confused or separate. 50%. Put 50% on the 15th and another 50% on the 1st. That way, depending on where you're at in the month, you know which credit cards to use. Based on the date it reports, you.
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Know when to pay them off. And it's so confusing because you have Dave Ramsey saying, don't buy shit on credit. And now you have predatory credit cards. And then America's built on credit. I actually just learned this recently, that credit is actually like a relatively new concept that was like, based in the US where in Europe for a long time there wasn't as much credit as there is in the U.S. like, the, the thought of buying with not your own money in, in history is actually, I think, very new, if I'm not mistaken. And nobody knows how to play that game, like, really, really well. And there's so much conflicting advice. I think that's what really screws people.
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And it's, it's a. You got to understand that it's, it comes from a capitalistic place, right? In reality, I believe in credit because it's available to us. So we should know how to utilize tools when you don't have any. But if you look at it on the flip side, is that the way the credit is, is. Is even pushed out and pushed into the community. And for you to be able to finance things, it's not for the benefit of the consumers, for the benefit of the bank, 100%. And so when you start to realize and identify that, you start. For me, I was going, okay, well, how do I make this beneficial for me? I understand you guys set us up on a spin wheel for your benefit. I'll allow you to. Finances are paid. Imagine on a mortgage, I'll allow you to pay 30 years first eight years, interest only, year 15. You fall on hard Times we got our interest, and now we foreclose on you in year 15, year 12. But we've already collected the interest. Now, at this point, once it starts going to principal, if you ever fall on hard times, you lose the house.
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Yeah. People don't realize any of this. There's so many levels to this.
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Even with auto loans, you have a bad. You got bad credit. Like, okay, think about it. The car is $80,000. If you have great credit with interest, you'll pay 93,95,000. Bad credit, you'll pay 140, 160,000. Okay. In that buffer for the same car you came in. Ideally, you don't want to help people with good credit. It makes more sense to service people and have people with bad credit. I'd rather you be confused if I'm going to make double the money.
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You take advantage of people.
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B
So it's just. That's. That's the importance of it is understanding that this system is not created to help you grow if you're not educated on how to properly use it and navigate it. That's why they say, well, why don't they teach credit in schools? Well, why would they? They don't teach business and how to be your entrepreneur and how to not believe in the school system in school either. It's a circle that we kind of go into where we have to realize that there's. There's pros and cons. The cons are naturally sitting and presented to us more. The miseducation is often much easier to get than the correct information. And that's one of the key things that I like about where I'm at, is that I teach people how to use credit the right way to their own benefit. Don't get suckered into doing it and thinking, oh, this is how I was taught to do it, and it's wrong.
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Lingoda is a partner of success story. Look, I'll be real with you. My French used to be solid. I learned it in school. I even had decent pronunciation. But when I booked trip to France last year, it was a total blank. I could barely order a croissant without sounding like a tourist. So I jumped into the Lingoda Sprint challenge, and, man, it changed everything. I'd take live classes late at night after podcasting. Only five students, max. Real teachers, real conversations. And in just two months, I went from bonjour to holding full conversations at a Paris cafe. Confidence unlocked. Now, here's the play. 30 or 60 classes in 60 days, and if you finish them all, you get 50% cash back. That's basically €4 or $5 per class. That's insane value. Go to try.lingoda.com success_ sprint and then use my code Scott Sprint for an extra €20 off on top of their current deal. Registration closes May 5. Classes start May 12. Let's get fluent HubSpot Is a Success Story Partner now if you're an entrepreneur, listen up because HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. If you are building a business, you need to get HubSpot. Why? Here's the perfect example. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content, a problem that every single business in the world has. But with a 900 page website, even the tiniest update took 30 minutes to publish. Now Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimize their content in a fraction of the time. And the results? 30% more page views and visitors now spend 27% more time on their site. If you are ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot.com Quint is a success Story Partner now living in Miami, I need clothes that can handle the heat while still looking good. I picked up these linen shirts from Quince and they're phenomenal. Stylish, European. I love the cut, I love the fit. Now whether or not you're in cold Seattle, Dry Phoenix, they have got premium essential clothing for every single climate. But these linen shirts are a game changer. They're breathable, they're lightweight, they handle Miami heat like nothing else. I wear them everywhere. Business meetings, dinners, you name it. Now here's what makes Quince different. They work directly with premium manufacturers but cut out all the middlemen. That means you're getting luxury quality linen at 50 to 80% less than comparable brands. We're talking the same materials, the same craftsmanship without the insane markup. Plus they only partner with factories committed to ethical manufacturing and sustainable practices. And that matters. Elevate your closet with quince. Go to quince.comsuccess for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That is Q U I N C E dot com success to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Points.com/success. So teed up for people because we talk a lot about investment on this show. And like should you raise money from investors and angels and VCs or should you just bootstrap? I've never really had a conversation on this show about like strategic credit for business. So just frame it for people, where in their business should they use credit versus bootstrap and fund it with customer cash versus VC versus angel investing? Like, I don't think it's a. Oh.
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I was gonna say.
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Sorry, no, I don't think it's a bad idea. But it's not something that If I watch 100 videos on entrepreneurship, I don't think any of them are gonna talk to me about how to use strategic like credit or is it debt, I guess for a business compared to all the other types of ways to fund it.
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So when you bootstrap, ideally, honestly, if you most entrepreneurs will end up. They'll start bootstrapping.
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Yeah.
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Right. And so when they bootstrap at the beginning, what happens is, is that I believe that's the prove it method. Because it's a lot of things that you have to prove to yourself. It's a lot of things you have to prove to your customers, develop, improve your brand after you bootstrap. And let's just say you get to a point to where you're doing six figures. Yeah, right. You're doing multiple six figures and you figured out the kinks, right? You went through it. You, you're going through it now and it's going, okay, I have a proven model. I've worked out my customer support support. I, I understand the lifetime value of my customers. I understand customer acquisition, how to get customers. I understand. And I now I understand my business. I'm actually a business owner at this point. I'm not. I'm no longer risky and gambling. And I don't know what's going to happen. I kind of have numbers on the board that I can actually check, have data to be able to look at. At that point, most people go, I'm ready to scale. That's the point. When you're ready to scale, you'll get entrepreneurial starting. But I just want to scale. But you don't know your numbers. You don't understand the psychologically, if you don't have a control over your business, you don't understand it. Can't look inside the hood. You don't really. You're not running a business. You're in the hustle and you're just running and you, you really don't know what's going on.
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You take that, that's going to mess crushes it. Yeah.
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But when you have somebody who understands it now, when you deploy somebody else's money into it, you know what your, what atmosphere and what environment you're putting that money into. So you imagine as an entrepreneur and business owner, you figure out, okay, I'm actually profitable now. This is how I make money. These campaigns work for me, these marketing styles work for me, or this yellow pages work for me. This billboard works for me. Okay, now how can I use somebody's capital and be able to put it out? And most entrepreneurs go, I want to scale. And if I say, hey, I'll give you $50,000 for 15 of your business, they go, 15, maybe 10 or 12, like, and they're willing to do a deal. Yeah, but they don't know of, of banks like Marcus through Goldman Sachs and Apple. Right. Like you can get an Apple credit card. Same thing with the Golden Sachs, Goldman Sachs is that you can go and apply for a pre approval. You go apply for a pre approval and it'll tell you if you're pre approved and what you're pre approved for. You now know what you can get access to. You don't even have to get a hard inquiry or apply or do the full application. You just check the pre approval. And now you say, okay, well here's 25,000. Here's 20,000. I have $45,000 sitting there. If I need it, I get it. Now I put that into my business. Right?
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You already have the business figured out. That's the difference.
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And it's growing and it's working. But you realize, hey, if I had an extra 10, $15,000, $20,000 to put into products or to, to, to be able to expedite and grow my marketing and advertising or to hire more staff to get things out faster, whatever it may be, depending on the industry. You realize you get to a point where you can operate and you understand it. And now I can actually deploy somebody else's money to put gas on something that works.
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Yeah, I think that's smart too. But plus you also get to hold on to 100 of your business. You're not diluting yourself. You're not giving up equity with, with credit. Where did like, I know that sort of your interest in credit came from like failed, failed businesses that wasn't going so well. Did you get any? Because I, I'm looking, I'm thinking back to like when I was in, in school and I got zero financial education about credit, about entrepreneur. To your point, nothing. Did you have any like, education growing up at all? Like, is there. Why is our education system so messed up and we just don't give kids the tools that they need?
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Because I honestly think that it's a different. I don't think this is for kids. Right. Because it often comes up like they should put it in, teach it in schools and it's like no, there's other things that they, that that are more important. Right. About the human development, about self development and actually allowing people to develop versus putting them right into the rat race of finances and dealing with money. Because what we realize, and we can even look at adults, once they figure something out or they get miseducated or misunderstanding, they can stay and live with that miseducation and misunderstanding for 10 years. I know. And if you're not properly educated on how to, how to be cognitive of how to think, how to process, how to analyze, you know, how to use your discernment, teaching people about how to go get access to capital is dangerous for a 16 year old who looks online, wants a hellcat, who wants to be able to spend money on streaming and he's figuring out ways. You know, now when it comes to financial, when it comes to credit. Right. But now when it comes to budgeting, things like that, it's super important. Those are things that need to be taught in school is like how do you actually manage the relationship with money? How do you manage the relationship with money? And on, on a, on a spectrum of not going and getting money from other people, but just how to deal with it, how to, you know, deal with your bank accounts, how to actually look and check. Nowadays we got apps and things like that out there now to tell us all of our, how we're spending, where we're spending at, things like that. But it's like, okay, well now how do we read these things? How do we actually govern it to make ourselves better?
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A
Yeah, I mean like we can like kind of outsource our thinking to apps. We still don't do a good job of, of, of managing money and even some. Now there's, I know there's apps that like show you like, hey, you're spending this much on your monthly subscriptions. And I think those are smart. But I think that that early childhood education about finance, that's important just to figure out how to like where you're spending, what a balance is, like how much you know your personal cash flow. Yeah, kind of, that's really the way that I think about it. And that doesn't exist in schools. But then like when you're older, like credit is important.
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B
I mean there's a mandatory for kids going into college.
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A
I agree with that. As opposed to just having like a little booth at the credit card on the campus.
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No, it needs to be it's something that should be a prerequisite in college, not as much high school. So when you think, when I think about kids, I think about high school. I think high school needs to have a very strict strategic across the board course and trainings on relationship with finances. Right. To understand it. But I think by the time people get to college now it needs to go into actually understanding finances how it works, the understanding credit, what it is because at this point now you're, it's available to you. So coming in freshman year it should be automatically, hey, you got to take prerequisites on credit. Because what happens is, is that now all the credit card offers start and now it's like, okay, I'm just taking things and I don't know any better.
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A
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B
Bad about working a 9 to 5, don't think that it's bad to work a 9 to 5. I need you to. I, I always encourage people to understand the work ethic that gets developed is more important than the education. You can learn everything, you can know everybody. But if you lack work ethic, then you don't become great. And so when you look at it and go, I'm able to do something that I don't like for the greater good of myself, that's self discipline to be able to still show up 100%. Don't go and say, I don't want to work a job. I'm not good with working for nobody. Okay? But if you're in a situation where you have to, to discipline yourself, to know, hey, I may not like this, but I'm going to show up 100%. I'm going to give my all. I still will be the best employee. Why? Because that'll help me be the best boss and business partner. Because I know no matter there isn't everything. I don't like everything about my business. I don't like reviewing books and going over all the charts and numbers. But I show up my best and I give my best. Even when I had to work a 9 to 5 that transferred over, I'm going to always show up as my best. Those are things that will help entrepreneurs become successful. It's going, hey, even if he goes, you know what you don't look at, you're not even to be the best employee. Well, how do I be the best employee sometimes if working and it doesn't help this job doesn't help me get by. People are working jobs and they're not, they're barely getting by. And it goes, hey, well, you're still not being a smart employee because you don't have to be an employee of this operation. That does not help you get by financially. You can be an employee of a situation that does go find a better job. Because in business, you're going to have to find better opportunities and develop better products and price points to make more money. If your revenue does not equate to what you need to be to be profitable.
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A
Yeah. So get a better job if you want to be ambitious regardless what you do.
- [28:15]
B
Yes, transfers over. And so often it goes, well, this the safest way. I'll tell an entrepreneur, up your price. You want to make more money. You don't have to service more people, up your price. Simple. Go up 20, 25% and see what happens. If that doesn't work, then bring it down to 15. But you just up your price. You, you'll generally make more income. With an entrepreneur, I mean with a person who works a job it says hey well have you found an opportunity to go and make more money at a different job? Not I'm taking you out of your 9 to 5 going develop. No figure out how to be a better employee and navigate this space because you need it and be the best employee there and work on self discipline to where when you walk away from the job or you start to develop your own business when you're tired, when you don't want to do it, you still have to do it. You now have that discipline. People think that hey well I don't want to work for nobody. I'm not a good. I don't, I don't. I'm not good at listing, taking orders. You will not be good at being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are best. The best entrepreneurs have the best relationships. They, they figure out how to manage relationships on the good side and the bad side. How to be in a relationship and give everybody oh, everybody wins. It's never one sided. Most, most entrepreneurs great relationships with, with their significant others family and they have a good group of friends.
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What was the biggest and by the way I think that. Yes. So I think that there's a lot of. We. We were talking about this for repress record and I was compl. Hiring talent because everybody's so entitled and nobody wants to. Nobody wants to work for somebody. They'll want to work for themselves. But there's so many lessons. Even if you don't love the company that you work for, there's so many lessons that I learned by working for somebody that allows me to be successful today. And I'm sure you too like if you do not you don't just jump into entrepreneurship with no life skills, no business skills at all. Like it's actually you're going to increase the chance of you being successful if you figure out somewhere else. Now that means you don't just show up and clock out. It means that you show up and learn.
- [30:18]
B
Yes. Wherever you're working that and that's. That's super important. And when, when and when finding good help. Like it's hard to find good help because everybody thinks that they can just build a business these days and it's possible but they don't realize that most businesses start off in somebody else's Infrastructure, if you're really going to be good, you have to operate in somebody else's infrastructure. No business, no business is successful on its own. You think about it, if you go back to Amazon and says, Amazon is a billion dollar business, it operated in somebody else's infrastructure. When it came to saying, okay, well you know what, look at how it's set up and we only deal with books. Well, books was kind of regular. You have Barnes and Nobles and all these other things. And they started learning and then they started cree after dealing with how the booking, how people buy books, they didn't just naturally change it, they were servicing people and it was trying to create its own opportunity. So then you're looking at it was doing things how ebay did things and other things. And that was in control of the market at that time. And as they started getting market control, they started to shift things. But then at one point they had to even, you know, now they have their own delivery. But at one point they had to do delivery things based off of UPS, FedEx and us who controlled the way that things were delivered. Now they're able to come in and re and restructure how things are delivered. But thanks to companies like Uber coming out and delivering, I mean, and creating that technology, now they can go, oh, we can pivot and use this method. So things grow. But if Amazon wouldn't have started as a bookstore, it wouldn't have been able to grow and morph into what it is today.
- [31:53]
A
Yeah, I mean I think the, the ability, the ability to take the lessons and learn and figure out like, listen, if you're going to play the entrepreneurship game, to be successful, you got to play in someone else's arena to a point. You can't just. No one, no one's self made and no one's self made. I hate that term because like what, what your customers, they don't make you like what, your mentor? You're telling me, you're telling me your wife, when she puts up with your like working like 10 hour days? Bro, trust me, if you are with the wrong person, you're, you aren't building anything. So no. This is such a good teammate.
- [32:26]
B
I tell people I'm teammate, I'm never self made. You know who self made? Only people who are self made are people who made it. Right. One of the funny parts is that I've never heard anybody say they're self made who's unsuccessful. Right? But you'll hear people say their teammate. I mean they're self made and then they'll think other people like I did this for myself. It's an internal thing. But I'm gonna rewind that back. Right. Is that being self made? Like when I say I'm self, I'm not teammate, I'm not self made, I'm teammate. Is that I could not be who I am without my team. I couldn't be who I am without my community.
- [33:08]
A
I want to understand a little bit more about like some of these like business building strategies that you teach over so you talk a lot about credit, understand that makes sense and credit and debt are kind of the same thing. Are they yes or no? I just want to make sure that I don't even under credit credit, I.
- [33:22]
B
Mean credit and debt 100% is using somebody else's money.
- [33:25]
A
Using someone else money use but not giving equity. That's the point. You hold on to any business. You do have interest. You got to be strategic about when you're going to use this. But what is the, what is the tie in between credit and then building a recession proof business?
- [33:41]
B
No, when you build a recession proof business, everything pays you three or four ways. I hate shit that goes one way. Right. The worst entrepreneur is a one to one. How do you make money? I sell this. What else? That's it. You failed already. You lost. You're not built in. See if you look, I'll just use credit since we spoke on it. Then I'll go into a business aspect. I look at credit. I, I having good credit is a security nest and be like, yeah, at least I got it. Okay, cool. That's one thing. If you only have credit and say, well if I need it for security purposes or I'm gonna use this to make money in my business and this is my benefit from it, then you already lost. That's not, well, it's not recession proof. You didn't lose, but it's not recession proof. Recession proof is going. I have a credit Card, I have $25,000 here. But I also, I use this in the manner of let's say I got a gold American Express card. I use it to run advertisements. I use the re it gives me 4 points per dollar on paid advertisements. I then get reward points. I get reward points to make money. Now I get reward points that help lower my overhead. I mean that I can use for expenses. So now my reward points I can use for groceries, toiletries, utility bills. So now my overhead at home is lower. I may have another, a city card or a different credit card that I use for authorized users where I Help other people build their credit. And I don't use this at all for spending. I simply add you onto my credit card to help you build it. And since I help you build your credit by adding you onto this credit card, you now pay me. Now I generate six figures a year off a credit card that I don't use, I don't have debt on, I don't have a payment on. But now I generate six figures a year from having good credit. Because these are the perks and benefits that I have. See, that's three different benefits. I'm making money, I'm making money. Cash flow, I'm using debt and going up, I will pay interest on that. But the reward points and things like that is boring down my overhead, making my business more profitable. Because at that point, if my personal expenses, a lot of people's personal expenses kill their business. Paying for their rent, paying for their groceries, paying for their toiletries, paying mortgage, cell phone bills, those kill it. That's a three. I'm benefiting off of something three or four ways every time people put so.
- [35:54]
A
Much money into their business, so much energy, excuse me, to their businesses. Anyways, like why put so much energy into your business? And then like not, not sort of optimize as much as possible and that's what you're doing. So you do it with credit and it's like a recession proof with all businesses do with credit, do it with your business. Even like the thing you're talking about with credit. So not only you're like setting up cards so you have authorized users that are, they're building their credit, but then you're like making points off that and then you get points off your main credit they're using for your bit. So I get it. It's like you look at, you look at strategy not just from one angle, from like three or four or five different angles every single time, all the time.
- [36:31]
B
Everything needs to pay you three or four ways. You think about this, I'll look at this and I'll say, hey, I come on your podcast, your podcast, amazing podcast. And now I get to connect with you. So one, one benefit is I get to sit and develop a relationship. Another thing is I get introduced to a new audience. Another thing is I get content with you, that I can give people the opportunity to clip and go and react to. So I understand clipping. Also I say, hey, in here we're naturally talking, we're talking about my business. It's also, this is a, is promotion. There's so many different benefits now guess what? Not only the promotional side of people getting here, now I'm also going to retarget my advertisement to your podcast. So the more the platforms in places I get, hey now, my, my, my ads are cheaper. I know my ads are cheaper when I have warmer leads who have been exposed to me. So since you've been exposed to me now, guess what? It's going to cost me less to sell you something or educate you or give you an offer. It cost me less. So it's so many different benefits. When people do things, they go, well, why would you. And they don't have the systems put in place because they go, oh, that makes perfect sense. If I say, hey, you know what? Everybody, who's everybody? Comment the word success or if it was on Instagram, right. Let me go comment the word success and I'm going to give you a free seven step guide to recession proof. Your credit. If you're like, oh cool, they go download it. But, but when you get to my website, you're gonna have to put your name, phone number, email address in. Now have your contact whether you download the ebook or not, and then I'll upsell you something else. But even if you don't and you click and you put success and you go to that website, my pixel is going to track you. Now I'm going to follow you. So everything has so many benefits. But I think that people only do one or two dimensional because they don't want to think hard.
- [38:17]
A
Yeah, I, I don't know why, I don't know why. I think people get, I think that the, to play devil's advocate, people say, well, you should only focus on one thing so you do it really, really well. But I, I don't think, I don't think that, I don't think that just finding different ways to monetize the thing you're already doing is like really spreading your attention too thin. I think it's just smart business. Yeah. Maybe it's because people don't think hard enough about what they're building. They don't, they don't think strategically, they don't think outside the box. They kind of do the way it's always been done.
- [38:48]
B
And that's why these conversations are needed though.
- [38:50]
A
Yeah, I agree.
- [38:51]
B
Because majority of the people that you bring on and your guests, they think at a different level.
- [38:56]
A
100.
- [38:56]
B
Yeah. And, and, and you get to look in and go, wow, this is, these are the moments that allow me to wake up. And this is the importance of podcasts, is the importance of channels like this is because I don't. People may not resonate with me personally, but something I may say may trigger and go, wow, you know what I'm look, you know, how else can I make money from this? What else? What other opportunity can I do? And I do and, and I'm in, I, I'm in knitting. Who knows, right?
- [39:22]
A
Yeah.
- [39:23]
B
Knitting.
- [39:23]
A
Yeah.
- [39:23]
B
But I didn't realize that I'm in knitting and I'm, I'm selling sweaters here in, in, in Kansas. But I didn't realize that If I made YouTube videos knitting that people will actually watch it and I can make money off of it. I didn't realize that if I told people the best techniques for knitting and, and different patterns that they can use that they would download and buy an ebook about it.
- [39:46]
A
More money.
- [39:47]
B
Don't, don't realize that is there's ways to monetize every industry three or four ways.
- [39:52]
A
I just want to take a second and thank Cornbread Hemp for supporting today's episode. Now, Cornbread Hemp CBD gummies have been this really nice addition to my wellness toolkit. I don't use them every day, just when I want to unwind after those extra busy weeks, but they're perfect for those moments when you want to take the edge off and just find your balance, really just shut off from work. And what makes them special is how Cornbread Hemp crafts them. They only use a flower of USDA organic hemp plants. That's the best part. For the purest, most potent experience. No fillers, no artificial fluff, just clean, full spectrum goodness in delicious watermelon, berry and peach flavor. I keep them in my nightstand for those moments when I just need a little extra help relaxing. And I love how transparent they are too. Every batch is third party lab tested so you know exactly what you're getting. And they put together a special offer for all success story podcast listeners. All listeners can save 30% off their first order. Just head to cornbreadhemp.com success and use code success at checkout. That's cornbreadhemp.com success code success for 30% off your first order of these amazing gummies. FreshBooks is supporting today's episode. And if you've ever wondered how successful entrepreneurs stay on top of their finances while growing their business, the answer is FreshBooks. The numbers don't lie. Over 30 million people have chosen FreshBooks, processing more than 6, 60 billion in invoices and saving an incredible 192 hours every year on accounting tasks. Think about it, that's nearly eight full days you could get back to focus on what really matters. Growing your business. FreshBooks is more than just accounting software. It's your all in one financial command center. Create professional estimates, track time, automatically bill clients, and capture expenses on the go. Plus it integrates seamlessly with over 100 business tools you already use. All backed by award winning customer service. If you're ready to stop drowning in receipts and you're ready to stop chasing down payments, here's what I want you to do. Head over to freshbooks.com to start your 30 day free trial. No credit card required. And for all you success story listeners out there, I've got something special. Get an exclusive 60% off for six months when you visit freshbooks.com pricing offer. Transform your business with FreshBooks today. That's freshbooks.com pricing offer for 60% off. I. I'm a big believer that entrepreneurship actually isn't as hard as people make it out to be. If you know how to stay in the game long enough. I mean, from your first businesses that were kind of just like side hustles that ended up not working out to where you're at now, to fumbling with Ross and then not, not giving up, not just taking the L and like rolling with it, you just never give up. That's literally it. Like, you just never give up. Like there's, there's like what doesn't exist for you.
- [42:32]
B
That's the one common denominator. That's the, that's, that's the one thing, it's the one thing in life that I've learned is that hard times are inevitable. But quitting is a choice. How you deal with it is a choice. Shit gonna pop up every day, people gonna throw rocks at you every day. There's gonna be obstacles in the road every day. When you wake up, just understand that when you, when you wake up in the morning, be thankful that you had the opportunity to go fight the obstacles. Then I get to go navigate it. I'm not afraid to, to face adversity. I'm excited that I get the opportunity and I'm thankful that I get the opportunity to. Because somebody doesn't. Somebody wanted to be able to fight the, to fight to learn taxes, to have to fight and learn home ownership, have to fight on learning how to employ people. And they never got the opportunity to. They never got the opportunity to train people, hire and fire people. They never got the opportunity to do it.
- [43:27]
A
Everything's a blessing.
- [43:28]
B
So for me to wake up every Single day that I wake up and get the opportunity to go out here and fight a battle. I won when I bought my first home. 250,000. I was born homeless. I already won. So by the time I'm here now, where I'm at, the things that I experienced buying private jets, Rolls Royces, I'll be a fool to complain about a hard time or difficulty. I'm excited about it. This get me going every day, like, yeah, what I gotta do, what else I gotta figure out. How can I be innovative? What can change to be better?
- [44:07]
A
If you ever thought about, about, you know, when you were, when you were young, coming up and you thought about like what your dream day would be mentioned, like, you even had your own perfect day laid out, have you ever thought about how much that has changed? And the reason I say that is because it's super important for entrepreneurs that are successful, super ambitious people not to move the goal posts every single time they win.
- [44:30]
B
You know, one of my, I tell people all the time, generational wealth. I said, who gives a. I said, don't ask me questions about generational wealth. Generational wealth, I said, that's, that's, that's a mechanism to help you comfort with your lack thereof and to kill your micro accomplishments. Say micro accomplishments. You don't have a hundred thousand dollars in savings. You don't generate a hundred thousand dollars. You live paycheck to paycheck. Why the are you planning for generational wealth when you got to get a first down? We not don't allow people to move your goal posts. Well, it's important out of here. It's not, it's not important. It doesn't matter. Buying a home for the first time matters. Being in a position where you can actually take your family on a vacation matters. Creating an environment where you can love your children, that matters. Generational wealth. I don't want to leave my kids something when I haven't figured out how to love them properly first. I'm okay with raising children in an environment where I can love them and raise them properly. And I may not be able to leave them $100 million, but I left them better off than what the. I found this, I improved it. And if we don't do that, when you buy your first home and you looking at generational wealth, you need to have 10 houses in a trust. You need to own apartment complexes. You feel unaccomplished. And when you get those micro accomplishments that keeps you going, those are the things that keep you going. This is from somebody who Became successful. I live in a $5 million house I don't give a fuck about. I give a fuck about my quarter million dollar house that I bought. That was my first accomplishment that allowed me to know that I can't have something that belongs to me. My daughter came home in a house that had her last name on it. I was born homeless. This matters to me. This initiated me to work harder because I never wanted to lose it. I would not be able to afford a $5 million home if I did not buy this house and figure out and get scared to shit that man. I got approved. We have a 30 year mortgage. I'm used to one year leases. Yeah. Now I have to work my ass off so I never lose it. I need to be secure enough and get into a position where I have this house for 30 years. That work ethic took me to where I was at, where I'm at now. That's what takes me there. I didn't buy my. I bought a mansion on a country club. I didn't buy a mansion on a country club to say a mansion on the country club. I wanted a Rolls Royce. My wife says, how can you buy a $300,000 car and live in a $250,000 house? I say, you're right. But the thing is. Don't move my goal post. I'm not focused on building generational wealth when I haven't built a generational wealth of, of, of knowledge and experiences. I'm not trained for it yet. But I want to accomplish and be gratitude where I'm at. Put the set, the goal line out, the goal post 10 yards out. Then you can move it. But don't allow people to say this is what generation? Now you're looking way over here and you forgot that. Wait a minute. I forgot to put my children in activities to help them grow. I forgot to put my children in the environment. I don't have to live in a million dollar neighborhood. But let me get the hell out of this environment where we're scared going to the gas station. I can move to this area where it's more secure and I'm safer. The crime rate is lower, the education is a little bit. It's better. Yeah, I won and then celebrated.
- [47:46]
A
No one celebrates that. That's the issue though. People are just trying to get the 100 million dollar exit and they. And then forget about, forget about celebrating the small wins on the way to the hundred one hundred million dollar exit. They forget about their kids, they forget about their wife. They forget about everything.
- [48:00]
B
And, and they lose themselves. And you don't realize it because somebody put that, somebody else put that, that goal post out there.
- [48:06]
A
Yeah.
- [48:06]
B
And you cannot tell me that you didn't wake up and think about, man, I'm trying to figure out how to pay my bills. I'm trying to figure out how this. But when you go out into society and you go into public and talk, they say, yo, what you working on? And you got this big elaborate scheme and it's like, well, why don't you have an elaborate scheme to figure out the small things that you're dealing with and facing right now, right now? This tear time and place. You have issues and things that you need to overcome that you need to be putting all of your elaborate thinking and your high level thinking, your neurons into right now. Like, but it doesn't, it doesn't happen.
- [48:38]
A
Indeed as a success story Partner now say you just realized your business needed to hire someone fast. How can you find amazing candidates fast?
- [48:47]
B
It's easy.
- [48:47]
A
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- [51:12]
B
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only then full price plan options available, taxes and fees extra terms@mintmobile.com what do you.
- [51:25]
A
Think the biggest, the biggest misconception about wealth and entrepreneurship? Successful entrepreneurship is that is easy and.
- [51:35]
B
That it's fun and that you stay motivated. And in order to be successful, you got to stay motivated. It's a lie. Nobody stays motivated. The reality of it is, is people don't even like the. It's, it's fun at first. After a while it is. Do what's, what's the passion? You should really enjoy what you do. And it goes, no, I enjoyed what I did. But once you start doing it at a high level, you're just great at what you do. You figured out how to do it after 10 years. The enjoyment is not the same. It's repetitive. Now it's repetitive. You cannot tell me, yeah, look at LeBron. He just loves basketball. He probably loves basketball, but his daily activities are repetitive for training, eating, muscle recovery, the things that he has to do, studying, watching film, that is. It's not enjoyable as it was as that high school kid playing 100.
- [52:31]
A
So I'll ask you then, how do you stay in the game when the motivation dries up, when the motivation is all over?
- [52:36]
B
Discipline. When motivation don't. When motivation isn't present, discipline shows up. Discipline carries you through everything. It's more important than being motivated. It's more important than being inspired. Discipline is the most important factor you can ever have in your life because it does not matter if you want to do it, if you're excited to do it or not. Your discipline will make you do it.
- [52:56]
A
Out of everything you've learned in your. In your career, in your life, what would be one lesson that you learned that was a really hard lesson that you didn't.
- [53:03]
B
You.
- [53:03]
A
You would never wish that lesson on anyone else. It was so difficult, but it was useful to you.
- [53:10]
B
18 to 25, stole over a hundred thousand dollars worth of iPhones from sprint. It cost me two to three years of going to court. One being. Being on the run. Well, not being on a run, but not knowing what was going to happen because they. I didn't get caught for a while. It didn't come up about. And then going to court for two years, realizing that your. How your quick. Your freedom can be taken from you, and then how much time can be taken from you? Because things that you think about, you don't. Things that you see, you don't really consider time. Yeah. Until you realize and you go in and say, okay, yeah. With your. With your charges, you have to do a minimum of three years, up to a maximum of 11. 3 years. And throughout that time, I lost everything. I started working at a warehouse, and it was a lesson of doing anything for money. It was after my best friend had died, and I was just, you know what? Get rich by any means necessary. And I'm so thankful for that opportunity that I did not go to prison. But I'm thankful for those hard years.
- [54:31]
A
Can I ask how you got out of going to prison?
- [54:34]
B
First offenders. Yeah. So in georgia, when you allow you to do a first offenders where it's your first time getting in trouble, they'll give you and grant you probation. And the first d. A. Wouldn't. They were upset. They was looking and trying to find things about me. It was tough. Right. And so we went to court for two years. Can I make you up? Sometimes it's God. I went to the point where I fired my attorney. I didn't like him. I didn't like how he was talking, fired him. My friend's wife was an attorney, and she went and represented me for free. And she was going to go in there and see, and she showed up. Black woman. I've been fighting. His da's all white. White woman, white man, boom, white judge. We walk in on the day that she decides to represent me. The DA switched all black women. Every other attorney in the courtroom that day was white men. The d. A. Was all black women. But everybody else's representation of legal counsel were white men. And you could feel the tension of, like, how they was, like, going in there it was going back and forth. It was tough. And the only place, the only person who made them comfortable, it didn't have a real issue was another black woman. She said, okay. They said, listen, they'll give you first offenders, you pay $60,000 in restitution. How many years you need to pay it? They said, they'll give you 15 years probation just to pay the restitution. Once you finish paying the restitution after three years, two years, it can go away and it'll never show like you was arrested. First offenders is just you. You get a free, a walk, free card. I said, I'll take it. I don't know, God is sometimes on your side. But I went through all of that time fighting that, working at a warehouse. The whole two years of me fighting that case. I worked at a warehouse, walked out of court that day, tired, went home, went to sleep, woke up late for work, went to work and got fired. Started my entrepreneurship journey.
- [57:01]
A
That was then.
- [57:02]
B
That's, that's when I started. I already knew credit and things like that. I had no choice but to all the way take it. So when I look back and I say, that was one of the roughest times in my life, but one of the most thankful times I've ever had, to just go, you know what, this, this is a lesson that I wouldn't wish anybody to learn, but I don't regret it and I'm thankful for it. But if people could avoid making financial mistakes and committing crimes and never having to learn the legal system, I much rather you go that way and figure out that there's better ways to make money.
- [57:45]
A
Amen. I mean, that's a wild story. It's an absolutely wild story. What excites you about what you're working on now? What do you want people to know about your work? If they want to connect with you? Like I know you do a lot. You speak, you teach, you help entrepreneurs, help people with like finance, credit, like, what's the one thing that if you want to go into your universe and, and sort of consume your content.
- [58:09]
B
My biggest thing now is honestly, I'm on a goal to help 100 people become millionaires. I've helped over 60 people become millionaires and generate a million dollars in business. A few thousand people be able to quit their job. Multiple thousands make six figures in multiple six figures. The goal is to help over a hundred people create multi million dollar businesses. That's my biggest passion project that I'm working on. And that's the reason why I do what I Do so now like I'm doing credit to Cash Live where I teach people how to turn credit to cash flow, how to use credit to create businesses properly, how you have to clean your credit, what that needs to look like and that's my main focus right now throughout the rest of this year is really just training people on how to properly clean and use your credit report and how what credit cards to use, how to not go into debt, how to be profitable, how to set up a business. It's a three step things recession proof is that understanding credit, understanding how to deploy or deploying capital but how to essentially set up a business that makes sense and what operations in your business you need to have. So that's my.
- [59:16]
A
And also figure out if a business is working before you take on the credit but when it is, you throw fuel on that fire.
- [59:23]
B
Exactly.
- [59:24]
A
I love it dude. Also socials and website work where can people connect with you?
- [59:30]
B
You can find me on all social medias at him 500.
- [59:32]
A
Why him 500?
- [59:34]
B
I'm him and the way that I think is Fortune 500. I always got the 500 so him 500 on all social medias. If you want to tap in and do some trainings with me you can go to credit to cash live.com and you know I'll be I do free trainings and and help people, you know be able to grow their business and give them the basics and fundamentals that they need.
- [59:56]
A
Last question I'd like to ask. You've given over a lot of different like ideas and mindset topics that have worked for you but if you could think of just one like the most important one and the way that I say it is most important one and you can only pass one onto your kids. That's why, that's why you have to pick one. What would it be and why is it so important?
- [60:16]
B
My most important one if I could pass on to my kids and just people in general is conflict resolution. We only control ourselves. It's the one thing I tell my girls, my daughters. I don't care what other people do to you. I don't care what other people say to you. I don't care how other people treat you. I only care how you react. I only care how you treat and respond because you have control over you. I don't have control over what you say to me, but I have a control over how I perceive it, how I receive it and how I respond to it. That's the one thing in this world that if any anything that I will leave people with is just realize that you have control over you. If anything goes good in your life, it's because of you. And if anything goes bad in your life, it's because of you. And the only person that can change it or make adaptions and make changes to it, it's going to be you. And so the only thing you can control in this world is you. And that's one of the biggest, biggest things that I realized in my life is that I don't have control over nobody else but me.