Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin - Change Maker: Hill Harper

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

CSI:NY and The Good Doctor star Hill Harper joins Nicole to talk about Black Wall Street, cryptocurrency, and the falling value of the American dollar.

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money is working as hard as you do. So why overcomplicate your money? Keep it simple with Bank of America, your one-stop shop for everything you need today and the goals you're working toward tomorrow. To get started, visit bofa.com slash newprosmedia. That's b-o-f-a dot com slash n-e-w pros p-r-o-s media. bfa.com slash newprosmedia. Hey guys, are you ready for some money rehab? Wall Street has been completely upended by an unlikely player, GameStop. And should I have a 401k? You don't do it? No, I never do it. You think the whole world revolves around you and your money.

Well, it doesn't. Charge for wasting our time. I will take a check. Like an old school check. You recognize her from anchoring on CNN, CNBC, and Bloomberg. The only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. Nicole Lappin. As you know, every Friday we talk with a celebrity, a public figure who's making change in every sense of the word,

and along the way has been in or is still in money rehab. So today I'm talking with Hill Harper. Hill is an award-winning actor. You probably have seen him on The Good Doctor. If you haven't, you're seriously missing out because he is amazing. But even beyond acting, he is so super accomplished. He's written four, count them, four New York Times bestsellers, including The Wealth Cure, which offers financial advice after my own heart, so I highly, highly recommend it to all money rehabbers, and I am really tough on personal finance books, so

I'm serious about this one. Pick it up, guys. Hill has also been in some serious money rehab himself. At one point, he was tens of thousands of dollars in student debt that he racked up throughout earning his many degrees. P.S. He went to school with some guy named Barack Obama. So obviously it was a worthwhile investment in himself that paid many dividends later on. And while he was in debt, he got to work. He rehabbed his own finances and he was able to get his life and his bank account back on track. We're going to be talking all about how he beat his debt in another episode, but today's episode is all about Hill's expert advice on crypto

and his new exciting project at the intersection of finance and social justice. Yes, this was so good that we split it up into two episodes. Here's the first part. So I'm excited to chat with you, Hill. It's been a minute since I last saw you when you came on Hush Money with Jason in the studio when we were seeing people in real life. Yeah, you were actually in studio talking to people, letting your spit go everywhere. Dang, we were nasty back then. You know, hugging people and stuff. That's right.

Shaking hands. I can't believe it. Totally. Now we can air elbow. Boom. So before we dive in, I want to do a quick round of money rehab. Never have I ever. Okay.

This is good. I'm excited about this game. I'm excited too. Okay. Okay. Never have I ever been audited. Don't even say that word. I know.

It's the A word. I know. No, no, no, no, no. Don't even say that word. That word. There are certain words in the English language I don't even say. I agree with you. It's bad juju.

Never have I ever maxed out a credit card. I'm launching a fintech. Of course I've maxed out a credit card. I'm launching a FinTech. Of course I've maxed out a credit card. You can't be an entrepreneur and not max out a credit card. I don't, you know, unless you're Jeff Bezos and your parents give you a million dollars to launch a company. Must be nice. Never have I ever sold an NFT. No, I haven't yet. Never have I ever leased a car. Yes, I've leased a car. It's not my favorite move, but. No, no, no. But watch this. The reason why is because I leased it under my corporation and it just worked out. I repeat what my pastor used to say to listen. I need you all to start just buying a car that you can afford.

And when I say afford, I mean buy a Ford. Because you saw a lot of Mercedes and stuff. That's amazing. Here is your lovely layup, Mr. Harper. Never have I ever invested in crypto. Yes, I have. Not only have you invested in crypto, Hill, but you're actually starting casually your own digital wallet. Super underachiever.

So the Black Wall Street platform is the first Black-owned digital wallet and crypto exchange that I'm so proud to be the founder of. So if somebody is saying, yes, I'm here for this content, Hill, Nicole, all over it, what is a digital wallet? this content, hail Nicole, all over it. What is a digital wallet? Okay. So we're moving to where not only are we going to hold pictures of our, our kids that we love and people that we love on our phones. And not only we're going to do Facebook and Instagram and all these things, we're going to do everything with this device, right? We're going to pay our bills. We are going to purchase things. We're already doing it, but it's just, we're going to purchase things we're already doing it but it's just we're gonna do it more and we're gonna do all of our banking every single bit of your banking and financial transactions will happen here so a digital wallet is simply that it's the easiest way to describe it it's a

wallet but the wallet exists in here you're gonna stop carrying a wallet you you know that sexy gucci purse you spend all your money on you're gonna still carry it but it's just going to stop carrying a wallet. You know, that sexy Gucci purse you spend all your money on, you're going to still carry it, but it's just going to be an accessory because there ain't going to be nothing in it because all your money is going to be in here. Okay. It's going to be digitally here. And so you have all these technologies that are digital wallet technologies where you put money and hold it into this digital wallet. And then when you're ready to send somebody money or pay a bill or do some type of transaction, you'll use the digital wallet. The Black Wall Street platform is going live, live, live, live, live, May 31st,

the centennial of the Black Wall Street massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So we want you to get onto our platform. We want you to do what I do, which is, and I'm not giving you anybody investment advice right now, so don't try to sue me at some point, but I'm going to tell you what I do. I dollar cost average into ascending value asset classes like Bitcoin. Here's the deal, y'all. The purchasing power of the dollar is going down. And that's what's happening with many different types of asset classes. But I truly believe in Bitcoin

and dollar cost averaging is the way to go. So for folks who are excited to get into money rehab and they're like, yes, Nicole Hill, dollar cost averaging, I'm all over it. What the fuck is dollar cost averaging? Essentially, it's like if you had $ like, yes, Nicole Hill, dollar cost averaging. I'm all over it. What the fuck is dollar cost averaging? Essentially, it's like if you had twelve thousand dollars, you wouldn't put all that twelve thousand dollars in Bitcoin right away. You'd put like a thousand dollars a month. You know, if you're going to buy low, sell high. The thing is, you don't know when the

low is. You don't know where the high is. So dollar cost averaging helps you space it all out. Yes. And I actually would space it out even more because that's what the beauty of technology offers you. Rather than actually choosing your one day a month for that thousand, I would do your $30 a day because that's a real spread, right? And the one thing about the crypto markets is that they never close. They don't close on the weekends. They don't close at night. It's not like the stock market. And so there's always movement. And since there's always movement, there's always opportunity to DCA, which stands for dollar cost average. And the beautiful thing about these tools, the tech tools that you'll have, for instance, on my platform, and there are other platforms

where you can do this. I just think my platform is going to be the best. I like to say you come onto my platform and you set it and forget it. Don't think about what Bitcoin's doing today, tomorrow. What we're talking about is a long time horizon. Time in the market is more important than trying to time the market. And that's why either way you win if you're dollar cost averaging. And if the price goes down, you're getting more. And if the price goes up, your portfolio value is going up. And so I always tell people you're winning either way. And that's why, to me, dollar cost averaging is the way to go.

And it's just a sound financial literacy method of whatever asset. You want a dollar cost average into your savings account, do that. I just think that you're losing money every day because the value of the dollar is going down on a daily basis. And you've said that black and brown people moving away from using predatory establishments like check cashing places and paying bills using Cash App and PayPal, which are not black and brown owned. You've said that the pathway to financial prosperity in the black and brown communities is through cryptocurrency. Why is that?

It's not the only pathway. So an ecosystem of systemic problems requires an ecosystem of solutions. And that's what we want to create, right? We want to look back and look at what was the most prosperous Black community in the history of this country. It was the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921. And to me, there were three pillars that created wealth, not just individual wealth. And this is a key point here, Nicole. O.W. Gurley was the founder of the Black Wall Street, 35 blocks of the Greenwood District. And rather than saying, oh, I own this, I'm going to build a hotel, I'm going to build a grocery store, I'm going to build this building, this building. All these people are going to lease from me. I'm going

to build this apartment buildings and they can lease, they can rent it from me. He said, no, I'm going to create this community or this ecosystem and I'm going to empower people. I'm going to give loans for them to start. So we ended up with five black-owned hotels. He didn't own the hotels. Ended up with six insurance companies, five banks, barbers, lawyers, doctors, 1,200 homes and businesses owned by individuals. The more a dollar changed hands 60 to 100 times before it left the ecosystem, that's up to a year or more within the black Wall Street. Today, a dollar leaves the Black community within six to seven hours. And unless we start owning digital wallets with the advent of digital currency, it's going to leave within six to seven seconds.

And it doesn't take a genius to see that with industrial bank licenses being offered to a number of these digital wallet providers, they're falling in line to become digital wallet payday lenders, right? And you're going to see dollars leave the black community in seconds and then folks paying interest on those. We can put payday lenders out of business. We can put digital payday lenders out of business, and we can recirculate dollars on this platform such that we can start giving loans, small loans to help businesses be creative. Because the one thing you never hear fintech people talk about is the most important thing, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Everyone wants to talk about, oh, I got this sexy app. Oh, I got this cool tech.

Oh, what difference does it make if you're not creating jobs for the community? People need jobs. They need income. And the problem is that 95% of the financial products offered to black, brown, and marginalized communities are either predatory on their face or hidden predatory. Okay. And we can change that with technology. And that's what we seek to do with the Black Wall Street platform. Hold on to your wallets. Money Rehab will be right back. Now, back to business. What would you say to someone who's still freaked out about crypto? Okay, so here's the deal. Don't be scared. People who didn't grow up with the internet were probably said at one point,

the internet? People keep telling me this is going to take over the world and it's going to be perhaps the most important thing in my life. And it's going to influence every bit of my life. You're like, what are you talking about? No, it's not.

What, what, what? Okay, so clearly people who grew up with the internet know that that is true. I want to be very simple. Bitcoin is the internet of money. That's it. So whatever your thought about the internet was, whatever you think about, think about money and think about Bitcoin is the internet of money. Why? Let's break it down. Up until this window of time, there's always been money. In fact, the very first things that we found historically that people actually wrote about was money related. Money has been part of conversations forever, right?

The first thing we find is about exchange, a contract, an owed bill or owed exchange. Bartering is a form, goes back as old as time. That's money. Those yap stones. Stones or salt. Salt was extremely valuable, right? Because before refrigeration, salt was more valuable than actually having the buffalo. Because if you couldn't store the buffalo in salt, it was worthless because you couldn't eat it all, right? It would just spoil. And so salt was one of the most valuable things in the world, but technology, refrigeration, made it obsolete.

And so think about money. Money is just a system of trust, okay? They work really hard to make the dollar bill. They put in God we trust, and they put all these symbols on it and all these things. And then they put these old white guys with no hair on it to make you really think that it's trustworthy. It's this note. It's a note and you have to trust this note. But what happened with this note when last year, 21% of all the notes in circulation were printed or created,

all the notes in circulation were printed, were created, poof, like out of a puff of smoke, right? What's happening to the value of that note and that thing that we have to trust? We have to trust that this note is going to continue to have value even though they're overprinting it. And it's not. It's been going down and down and down in value over time. And it will continue, unfortunately. And what's happening is, as we move out of hard fiat currency into the digital wallet and digital currency space, there's an automatic shift in behavior and intention and also trust of digital currencies and digital products

that will exist in terms of exchange and the value of those. And when you have one that's been built perfectly for what it does, like Bitcoin, with scarcity, the fact is, is that as people learn and become more comfortable and more trusting of this system, this internet of money, then the values will continue to rise. And there's certainly going to be volatility and there's going to be ups and downs and there's going to be new technologies and new crypto assets that come to the forefront. And you certainly should be wary of them and do your research because the vast majority of them are snake oil. The vast majority of them are ripoffs, right? There's kind of like, just think of Bitcoin as gold, as a money standard

or store of value. And then everything else is alternative technology, some much better than others. It's amazing that when you're actually talking about the revolution will be digitized, there are a lot of people, bankers, traditional banks, central banks, governments that don't want to see that happen. And there are trillions of dollars at stake. And all black folks ever asked for is a level playing field. And the beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that it's a completely level playing field. What do I mean by that? I mean that historically, all the way up until now, the more money you had, the more access you had to cheaper and cheaper money. Just think about what I just said. The more money you had, the more access you have to cheaper and

cheaper money. All of the instruments at play were there to service you the more you had. And to me, logically, you'd think it should be the reverse. That's not the way it's worked. Here, we're at a time when no matter how many Bitcoin Elon Musk has, or how many Satoshis, his one Satoshi is equal to my Satoshi. His one Bitcoin is equal to my Bitcoin. The more Bitcoin he holds doesn't give him any more power or ability than what I hold or what I have over mine. In other words, one Bitcoin is equal to one Bitcoin, no matter if you hold one, a half of one, a Satoshi, or 100, or 1,000, or 2,000.

It's the first money instrument in history where that's the case. This is a great education on all things crypto. Do you think about your former self who didn't know all this stuff about money? What would you say to him? Yeah, I think about my former self that got educated about Bitcoin around 2013 and I didn't buy tons of it. That's what I think about. I want to go back and slap myself in the face. It's like, you big dummy.

You can't act like you didn't know. I mean, I got some, but I didn't do what I should have done. I think I could talk to you forever and ever about all of this. It feels like we are after the same goal and the same mission. I love the Wealth Cure. I love what you're doing with Black Wall Street. We need each other. Yes, we do.

We need some money rehab. Woohoo! Here's a tip from Hill you can take straight to the bank. If there's a stock you're interested in, maybe it's crypto, maybe it's an index fund, try dollar cost averaging. As we know, in the stock market, we all want to buy low and sell high, right? But the problem is we don't know where that high is going to be and we don't know where the low is going to be. So if there's a

stock you really want to invest in for the long term, like index funds, schedule a recurring investment weekly or even daily as Hill suggests. It doesn't have to be a lot. It could be like 20, 30 bucks, but dollar cost averaging increases your chances of buying during those lows. And that's what we want. Money Rehab is a production of iHeartMedia. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Our producers are Morgan Lavoie and Catherine Law. Money Rehab is edited and engineered by Brandon Dickert with help from Josh Fisher.

Executive producers are Mangesh Hatikadur and Will Pearson. Huge thanks to the OG Money Rehab supervising producer, Michelle Lanz, for her pre-production and development work. And as always, thanks to you for finally investing in yourself so that you can get it together and get it all.