The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: John Hope Bryant Debunks The Myths of Capitalism, Talks Inclusive Economics, New Book + More

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Today on The Breakfast Club, John Hope Bryant Debunks The Myths of Capitalism, Talks Inclusive Economics, New Book. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. I'm Lori Siegel, and this is Mostly Human, a tech podcast through a human lens. This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman. I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility

to the products we put out in the world. An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future. My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that.

A shocking public murder. This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics. I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. A tragedy that's now forgotten. End of mystery. That may or may not have been political.

It may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack. Murder at City Hall on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you. you get your podcasts. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice in so much, correct?

I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian. Michael Marangini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is love trapped.

Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know Roll Doll. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What?

You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You're all finished or y'all done. Morning, everybody is DJ NVJ. Just hilarious. Charlemagne Nagar. We are the Breakfast Club. Lawn LaRose is here as well. We got a special guest in the building. Yes, indeed.

John Hope Brian is back. Welcome. Honor to be with you. New book right now, Capitalism for All, available right now. Provocative title. Capitalism for all. People will say it sounds good,

but has capitalism in America ever actually been for all? Not really. And is it good for all? Can be. I mean, look, the Bible says money's not evil. The love of money that's evil. And look, you know, 2008 economic crisis was really bad for a lot of people. It wasn't bad for me.

I didn't take one of those reverse subprime mortgages. with a negative amortization loan, pick a payment, where every payment you made, you were a broker, you owed more money after every payment, with a negative amortization loan. That's financial literacy. That's people taking advantage of our people. You know, good capitalism is where I benefit

and you benefit more? No, you've been benefiting for a long time. No, no, standby. Okay. Good capitalism, my definition, good capitalism is where I benefit and you benefit more. So it's why designing a comb or glass. is in that jacket.

And you're okay, I like the jacket. The glasses make me enhance my look. It's worth the money I'm paying for it. Bad capitalism is where I benefit and you pay a price for it. Rape, murder, sex trafficking, drug dealing. You know, we can talk, is it gangsterism on Wall Street or Main Street? Good debt and bad debt, right? good debt is something that's tied to something that appreciates real estate stocks, bonds, and businesses, bad debt is tied something to depreciates, financing jewelry.

And so all these things are neutral. It depends how you use it. So something hit me two days ago when I was preparing to come in here, and I didn't want to come in here with just talking about a book. because it's not about the book. This is about a business plan for the rest of our lives. But how do I explain that? It hit me. Like, we're in the third Reconstruction right now, from the streets to the suites.

The only colorblind color is economic green. That's the only colorblind color. Now, second Reconstruction, we thought we, I'm talking about black people now, we thought we made it. We thought we were free. Reality is we didn't make it. Somebody made it for us. Andrew Young, who is here, Ambassador Andrew Young, Dr. Martin of the King Jr., Dr. Dorothy Haig, Greta Scott King,

the heroes and she rose of the Second Reconstruction, and the President, President Johnson, and the legislatures created this infrastructure, post-slavery, first reconstruction, freedom, where we had affirmative action. We had, we call it DEI now. You had set aside contracts. You have voting rights and all kinds, public access laws. So we're like, okay, cool. We're free. No, you're in a bubble. We're in a 70-year bubble of protection.

This is deep when you think about this. We thought we were operating in the free enterprise system and capitalism and we were out here doing our thing. No, you're operating in a padded sale. Expound on that. It only hit me a couple days ago. I mean, I'm wondering like, why am I so uncomfortable? Why do I think we're in trouble?

we thought that when we got that job in the 60s, when we were to go to the lunch counter in the 60s, that we were free. We thought, okay, we got the right to vote. We got, no, that was dependent upon somebody else, according to your respect and dignity. It was dependent upon the government always being fair and reasonable. It was dependent upon the public, the never turning against us.

It was dependent upon Dr. King, Andrew Young, another, given their life so that we might have life so that we have the right to vote. I mean, it's literally codified in the amended constitution so we would have the right because we were considered property. So these things were afforded us

not provided to us. It wasn't an original thing. It was a layered-on thing. It was a box of protection that, thank God, all that came before us gave us. But they gave it to us. We didn't give it to ourselves, and we don't own it.

And it could be taken away. And we're seeing none. Boom. And what it hit me, why am I so uncomfortable? We cash a check, we don't write it. We had actions at the lunch counter and we don't own it. We bounce the basketball, we don't own the stadium. I was hit a basketball game with Tony Restle,

owner of Atlanta Hawks, my business partner, friend, two weeks ago, they won that night. And he was very happy. But I was in the players area where they parked the cars. I mean, it looked like a parking lot. It looked like one of your car shows. It was absolutely beautiful. And I'm so proud.

These brothers legitimately making them money and all that kind of thing. The humblest car in the whole parking lot. It's Tony. What's Tony? The only one not dripping in jewelry? Tony. That jeans on. A pullover.

His wife, Jamie Gertz, dressed down. They're worth, I don't know. I don't want to tell their business, but $15 billion. Executive producer of the Magic City Document. too, by the way. No, that's right. That's right. Honorary black people.

Really cool people. They put their money where the mouth is. But we don't own that. They do. And he paid the players with his petty cash. But the players are flossinging, but they're flowing like

they own the whole situation. I ask Tony, how much is the front row cost? I looked there. Tony, by the way, Tony's up with the 10th row. You call it the nose seats. We're up with the 10th row. I'm cool with it. I'm with the owner.

But down, he's like, oh, yeah, he knew the price of every seat, $3,500 per ticket, per seat, per game. He knew, and he, because he, ching, ching, ching, ching. Another billionaire friend of mine used to own strip clubs and all kinds of other clubs. And he said to me one day, we should go to one of these clubs. I'm like, what do you mean we? We mean we should go to the, don't you, didn't you own these clubs? I've never been to one.

My children have never been to one. my family have never I won't let them go for 20 years he bought them owned them sold them so I'm looking at the system and saying we cast that check

we never wrote it we didn't we weren't graduate to owning the company or CEO at scale we didn't graduate to ownership we didn't we didn't take the next leptych we got comfortable in the second reconstruction and then when the mood shift

in this country. It all fell away. And what hits me now is falling away all at once. And now you have a government that's either neutral to you or hostile. We've never had this in the history of this country at the federal level. You had a mayor, you had a governor. Never at the federal level. So now the civil rights assumptions are fading away.

People are talking about white people are being discriminated against. They're flipping the civil rights acts on some on their heads. You can't, so you're on your own. You cannot rely on the government. You've been thrown into 300,000 black women last year, conservative number were unemployed, qualified, competent people. The unemployment rate for black people

is double the national average today in growing. So you have, economically, we're being thrown into the fire. Politically, we've thrown into the fire. Socially, you're thrown into the fire, right? An AI, changing the game. All at the same time. I said, you know what? We've been doing so much with so little for so long.

We can almost do anything with nothing. We just need to master this new game. Because to quote Reverend Jesse Jackson, where the, guy rest of soul, where the rules are published and the playing for this level, we kill it. The arts.

Top of the game. Congratulations on Netflix, by the way. Thank you, sir. Congratulations. Top of the game. Not the black game. Not the brown game. The game.

Faith, our brother Bishop T.D. Jakes, and many others. Politics from slavery to the President of the United States of America, President Barack Obama. Professional sports. Too many examples to name. Jordan's not gone from basketball to NASCAR. By the way, congratulations on your sponsorship of a NASCAR team. I'm paying attention.

But we haven't done it in capitalism. And we're in a capitalist democracy. It's the music business. business of music. It's a sports business. It's a business of sports. Nothing happens without understanding how the money moves and the dollar works and how wealth is created. But no one gave us that memo. That's my fourth book. And no one taught us about financial literacy. That's my last book. And no one's gained us ungame capitalism. That's this book. And God has a sense of humor. Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. Andrew Young quote. We're on the 250th anniversary

of America. It's a 100th anniversary of Black History Month. Thank you, Carter G. Woodson. Can't make this up. And for the first time in history, you cannot have a future, you cannot have a country that's, you never had a country that wasn't the superpower of the world if it wasn't the economic power, ever.

Rome, all the way forward. You cannot now have a superpower, the economic power, without black and brown people. And women. Never happened in the history of America. But the demographics, have shifted. And so now they need us to succeed.

When you say we've never done it in capitalism, what about the Bob Johnson, the Robert Smiths, the David Stewart, the Byron Island? Somebody told me yesterday, forget who it was. I know I think it was Bishop T.D. Jakes. If you've got a, when you can name the success stories, we fail. Name white entrepreneurs.

It's just, name, name, Name white billionaires. Name Jewish billionaires. You can't. It's just too many. Do you have to be a billionaire to be at the top of the game account? No, no, no. I was just,

I was just giving that as a category. I mean, name black, sorry, name white multi-millionaires or centipionaires. It's too many to name. It doesn't matter what category, small business owners, Fortune 500 CEOs. It's too many to name.

I get what you said. But when you come to black people, you literally can go, oh, you know, And by the way, kudos on that. Fantastic. It's a North Star. But it's the exception, not the rule.

I want to make it the rule. I sent you a video yesterday, remember? Of all these white folks here on vacation, everybody's walking around on their phone. Short pants, t-shirt, everybody's watching. It's like, this is what business leaders look like on vacation. I want to see that with Black America and Brown America, everywhere, every city.

Are you trying to fix capitalism or sell people on believing in a system that hasn't always worked for. I don't want to do either. I want to upgrade the software. So I guess you can call it, fix it, but I want to repair it and I want to upgrade it. I also want to upgrade us as we do it because even if capitalism was repaired,

we aren't prepared for the moment, in my opinion. There was like $100 billion committed to black people and brown people after George Floyd's murder. You see none of it. None of it. Not one dollar. The press release was issued, but we never got to the point where we went to,

with a business plan to whoever was on the press release, hey, I want to move on $10 million of that equity, $20 million of that debt. I want to buy that company. I've got my lending set up. I've already got the credit right. I understand the economic structure. My LLC's in place.

I've already got bonding from, you know, We weren't playing the game at the way the games need to be played. You know who used to make sure that those corporations, you know, did what they said he was going to do, Reverend Jesse Jackson? Yeah, yeah.

Yes, but we've got to, yes. But we now, even he would say, he shook the tree. He needed us to make, he needed us to plant the seed and make it under something. We don't need tree shakers now, just tree shakers.

We need plant makers. We need to build the plant. We need to, we need to go from PhD the PA to do. And we have to do this right now. I mean, this is the fierce urgency of now to quote Dr. King. This is that moment of both problem and opportunity. Artificial intelligence, to quote Van Jones, 99% of black people don't know a thing about AI, but 99% of white folks don't know a thing about AI either. And the first jobs is taken are white people. White middle class

attorneys, accountants, anybody who's in anything to be processed. That's six-figure incomes gone away instantly. Then it's going to come for customer service jobs. But you can't fall from the floor. And the very thing that we were good at has never valued being creative, duckling diving, being innovative, being resilient, over and around it through it, we're going to get to it, being creative.

These are very, leadership. These are the very things that AI can't do. Now, this conversation that we're having, I feel like we have this conversation every two years, right? We talk about, we put a mirror into our community. We talk about that we don't have homeownership, that, you know, we don't have assets. And we look at all the things that a lot of us do have, whether it's cars, it's jewelry, it's this. When does that change and we start going into a plan to do something different, right?

When does that change? Because we have these conversations every year, you know, and we'll say, hey, look at the owner of the company. he's wearing a ugly polo on some khakis and everybody else is wearing $10,000 chrome heart jeans, right? We go through this every couple of years. But how do we change that? Because if not, it's just the same conversation over and over again, right?

And you talked about the 2008 market, the real estate market that fell. And yet it fell because I think a lot of people that didn't have means found it their only way to get in, right? Because a lot of people's credit scores were low. A lot of people didn't have the finances to put down on their first home. A lot of people don't know much about it.

I remember in that 2008 market, I think my interest rates at the time when I bought my house was like 12%. That's right. That was the average. Right. I didn't know any better. I asked a friend at the time,

which was Buster Roms, and Buster Roms was like, use my guy. And you use this guy, and you think 12% is what it is. And then you learn. So how do we change that? You know? Because people don't know who to trust anymore.

Right. So first of all, I never let the perfect become the death of the good. So I'm glad you got in the game in 2008. I almost lost my house in 2008. It was not because I got a bad mortgage, but it was some other things going on, but it went down in value.

All my friends told me to sell it. They were broke. Luckily I didn't. But I couldn't pay the property taxes easily. And I rented it out to a police officer, a black police officer to be specific in L.A. He didn't pay his rent, right, on time. But I held on.

on to it and it went from 200,000. I bought it for 200,000, down 160 or something. Everybody, sell, sell, sell. I held out onto it and five years later, I looked up, it's worth $750,000 and I sold it, got a capital gains. Took that money, 1031 tax-free exchange, flipped it into a property now worth $5 million.

But, but, but, so I don't begrudge you or anybody else trying and getting in the game. You were actually pioneering, actually. And everybody who tried were pioneering. But pioneers get arrows. Here's what gives me hope, man. I'm trying to do so I get emotional.

I went to Delta last night, late. We coach all 100,000 Delta employees at operations. But the person who sent me at the curb, young lady, she put out her Ameri Express blue car, and then her American Express platinum car. And she's like, I've been on this grind for two years, John. My credit score is 7-Ele. And she knew everything about her entire financial picture.

I didn't start this conversation. She ran her mouth from the time we headed that curb the time I got on that plane talking about her life and how it had completely transformed and her self-esteem is up I get on the plane three people walk on

can I get a picture this is y'all are used to this I've been doing this for 33 years I don't know what happened it's like a switch is flipped and I've had a billion video views in two years

but this thing I'm having talking about right now this is like the last eight months I can't go anywhere I'm on the plane can I get a picture I get off the plane yo man what's up come at midnight

something's happened man I don't know what it is but it's inspiring and you're not saying that because of for ego purposes you're saying that because of the information that you're putting out no no I'm saying people are eating information it's not nothing to do with me I've been saying this for 33 years if I was special I should have been special 30 years ago there's nothing to do with me I'm emotional because I'm like my people's smart we getting the memo

I'm not screaming into the wilderness. I just think, you know, Dr. King gave that I have a dream speech man a hundred times before the march on Washington. So many times that Mahalia Jackson said, if you looked at the tape, she's off to the left. Tell him about the dream, Martin. Translation. I've heard this speech so many dang on times.

Will you please give me something original? And he ripped. He started rapping. Black children, white children, Jews, and Jews. But before that, he thought he was not effective. And there's so many leaders I'm sure you show up here and you're saying it now. We've been talking about this for every two years. I just think you've got to wait for the moment.

You can't go to grace, but you can prepare yourself well for the coming of grace to you. Our people are smart, man. But if it looks easy, if it looks like there's an easier route, we don't take it. That's human nature. Nobody changes in good times. Why would you?

You just go shopping. We only change in bad times. What, capitalism is a dirty world. to a lot of people. Like they don't even want to hear it. They hear the word, billionaires, they hear the word capitalism. They just think it's something evil.

They think that it's ruined America. It hasn't worked for everybody. What do you say to those folks? That's wrong. It's wrong on several levels. First of all, people say, let's go, let's not even talk about billionaires. Just talking about rich.

I hate rich people. I hear this all over things. I hate rich people. No, you don't. You hate rich people until you become rich. what you hate is a game system what you hate is that you've been working two jobs you toe up from the floor up you got too much month

at the end of your money and no matter how hard you work you can't seem to get by and so you look at these people who are half wits and people who are half as smart as you are at the top and you go if they're winning and I'm losing if I'm taking an L they must be crooks

the system must be rigged no if you hang around nine broke people you'll be the 10th right why do you go to harvard because it's going to make you five times smarter than a state university no the class of 2026 at harvard it's going to hook each other up for the next 40 years connections connections relationship capital why are you part of where are you part of a country club why are you part of a fraternity or sorority why are you part i mean people don't think about it this way these are all clubs what kind of clubs are you hanging out are you just hanging out in the club

are you a member of a club right if you're a member of a club what kind of club what kind of club visit. Most places I go, I'm the only brother there. I want to change that. It's not something that makes me proud. But somebody's got to put their foot in the door. Somebody's got to get in the door and stand there. I was with

last week. It was Robert Smith. God bless what he's doing. He did this Aware Fest for HBCUs raised money last week. I saw that with Tyler. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we just happen to run each other in our hallway. Robert Smith comes over. Is Tyler Perry, yo, dapping it up. We have a private moment.

conversations about he takes a picture. They post it. They're like, oh, no, that's what we, that's what we want to see. Now, you can't, you can't make this up, but that's basically three businessmen. Right. Now, we need to see business women, too. But we, I just think that, I think business celebrity is a new celebrity. I think capitalism has to include us in the capital stat.

When I was growing up, I didn't know until I walked down the street, that was our taught financial literacy that the muffler shop was a capitalist. I didn't know the nail salon. The nail salon, I got my nails done yesterday. They didn't do it for free. I paid them. You got children. No one's taking care of those children for free. That's right.

Unless it's your grandma. I mean, real talk. Help me out here. You're getting your hair done? They're not doing that for free. Somebody doing your, what they call it? My wife calls it. What somebody does your clothes? Dry cleaning.

Your wardrobe. Your wardrobe. You have dry cleaning too. They're not doing that for free. But that one's an easier one. wardrobe is a little bit more nuanced. They're not doing that for free. Am I right?

You're right. Even if you don't believe in capitalism, your behavior will be that of a capitalist because of the system that we're in. No, no, go one step further, Charlemagne. We're all capitalists. So, okay, if you're going to work and they're paying you a salary

or hourly, you're using your human capital and you're trading it for compensation. Now, it made a lower level of risk, you're not taking the risk in the enterprise. You're not Bob Pittman at eye heart. You're not Charlemagne at Black Effect Network, but you are risking your time

and you wanted to be compensated for compensation. Otherwise, you show up for free. So capitalism is at every level. It just doesn't matter how much risk reward. Now, I'm an entrepreneur. It's the highest level of craziness. But I take a lot of risk. I want a lot of reward if it pays off.

We need more people who look like us who are getting reward for that risk and do it. What's a drug dealer? Come on, let's a real talk now. Entrepreneur. Illegal and ethical, okay, let's set that out, just make that clear. But if you're a successful drug dealer

know it's an oxymoron, you're not dumb. You understand import, export, finance, marketing, wholesale, retail, customer service, security, HR. Quality control. And control. Distribution. If you're a gang leader,

you're a frustrated union organizer. These are people with, These are folks with talents and skills, man. Look, look, it's real talk. Where did NASCAR come from? Moonshine running in the Appalachian Mountains. Poor white people running from the police, selling alcohol, which was illegal. They realized, you know, we're going to end up in dead or in prison probation parole.

We can't do this. Let's stop the moonshine part. What part of this are we good at that's legal? They're driving. Now, we can't drive on the street like that. okay so they went up on the beach and then they found a field and they were going circles because they used us

it was just they found it was a small field that's how that started running in a circle nobody would naturally drive a car in a circle is what it was a it was a real estate somebody gave them well that same family that started that don't trust me go do your research four of those families that billionaires in NASCAR today

same families they were running the moonshine they just mainstreamed it legitimized it now it's got logos on it Now Michael Jordan is in the game, right? All I'm saying is let's stop hating this game and let's master it. Question for you, right? So when you say something like that and people, you talk about people having an issue with capitalism, it's the fact that, like, you got people that get to a certain point.

So like you say, you go into country clubs wherever you go and you're normally the only black person. Jay-Z, I've heard him talk about capitalism, and somebody has to get in because when you get to a certain point, you're not doing business with people that look like you. His 4-44 album was, by the way, a financial literacy album. Right. But when you get to these places, the truth of the matter is a lot of people don't make it there, right?

So when we're trying to get to this equal for all capitalism for all place, who's more responsible to make that happen? Is it the person that's in the room to throw down the resources or is it the person that really doesn't have the ladder? I know you have that chapter in your book, right? To climb up and continue climbing even when it gets to the point where like I can't even see the person that's already made it in the room and nor can they see me because there's such a disconnect. So you've asked a really, really good question, and you actually answered it to. It's both. I'm responsible if I'm in the room or Don Peoples or whoever it is because to whom much is given, much is required. Service is the rent you pay on your success and giving back and lifting up because we were lifted up.

I mean, somebody opened the door for me. So we must go out of our way to help our brothers and sisters to come up. But it's a hand up, not a hand out. If you tell your rear-in, if you, I'll hire you because you're black. I will fire you if you're incompetent, straight up, right? And I have a bunch of black vendors. In fact, most of my vendors are black and women in minority. But if they tear their rear-in three, four times, you're done with me.

I'm not tolerating that in this. You can't waste my money. You can't waste my time. On the other side of that situation, if I'm trying to come up, And I'm trying to get that John Bryan contract. I'm trying to get that Charlemagne or, you know, whoever. Lauren, the contract, I need to make sure I'm top of the mark. I make sure that when I leave the room, nobody should say, but.

You know, I like, I like, Lauren. You know, I like, but, but I like, I like them, but. No, no, no, that's a problem. When you're born black in America, you've got to be twice as smart, twice as intelligent, twice as well-dressed, show up twice as early, leave twice as late, and understand you'll get half the pay, and don't have an attitude about it. Just let the haters make you better.

Over to the round through it, we're going to get to it. Life's not fair. And there is no perfect. Don't let the perfect be the death of the good. I was saying that earlier, but I lost my point. Don't let the perfect be on the death of the good. There is no perfect. This game is not changing.

It's getting worse, harder, quicker, faster, and it's going to leave us behind with us sitting here, noodling around, rearranging the deck chairs in the Titanic. We have got to get our hustle, focus on the right thing. I don't disagree with you, but you work twice as hard to get half to pay. Initially. That's why people don't like capital. So what?

Life's not fair. I didn't create the system. I'm telling you how to work it. Look, there's some things that it just isn't. Why is a black neighborhood worth less than a white neighborhood? Because in the 1920s, 1930s, the federal government redlined. We don't have time to go on the details here, but literally the federal government put a red marker and said, these neighborhoods are dangerous.

And then there was a green neighborhood and yellow neighborhoods. So where did the federal guarantees go? For mortgages, it went to the green and the yellow neighborhoods. Where did the banks finance loans in the green and the yellow neighborhoods? Where did nobody finance a loan? In the red neighborhoods. So the real estate got depressed in values in the red neighborhoods. You follow me?

And the real estate's increased in value because they were able to get financing at prime rates in the yellow and the green neighborhoods. Now, that's historic and that's 100. years old. I can't change that. And I'm not going to sit here and debate about it. But when I bought that condo for $200,000 and sold up a $750,000, I cleared a profit of $550,000.

I'm not saying, yeah, but the guy across the freeway was double that. It probably was double that, by the way. But that's, that has got nothing to do with me. That's still my $550,000. And I still turn that into $5 million.

My money still works for me. My wealth works for me. My success works for me. But if you spend your time being angry, angry is not a strategy. Frustration is not a business plan. And by the way, I ask people this. How's that work for us so far?

So we've tried everything else. So what I said about when I first came in here, we tried everything else. We tried government. We tried civil service, social justice. We've tried working for the man, not working for the man. We've tried illegal. We tried, you know, we tried all.

We tried, how it worked? Has that set us free? It's like, when people ask me about this, it's like somebody saying, well, why should I try God? Because God cannot possibly mismanage and screw up your life worse than you at. Give them a shot. My question is, you know, people like, easy conversations, right? Yeah, yeah.

It's not an easy one. They like to be guided, right? And the reason I say they like to be guided because a lot of times people just don't know, right? We only see what our environment is, right? That's why for a long time people wanted to be rappers, they wanted to be basketball players, they wanted to be baseball players,

what people see, what they see fast. They want to be drug dealers because they see the local drug dealers. That's right. So for people that's out there, what do you tell people? Because they want to be guided, right? I see you post something and says, you know, think about buying a business rather than starting one from scratch. Oh, yeah.

So break that down of those recommendations. Yeah, yeah. So now we're getting to the real. Let's bust up another myth. I want that bag. I want that cash. I want that dollar. I want that money.

Get the heck out of here. It's useless. All money is is an exchange of value. I could take your jacket right in the back of your jacket, pay to the order of, routing number, checking account number, and an amount. Take your jacket to the bank. and they'd have to go in the back and start huddling about whether they're under a legal responsibility. You know what I'm going, to cash your jacket.

Because all a check is, when we used to use checks, all a check is is a medium to transfer the value of the money that's in your account. So we've gotten obsessed. We're looking for love in all the wrong places and obsessing about the wrong thing about money. It's not you make money during the day, you build wealth in your sleep. This is a big one. where are we spending all of our time? Short-term cash. So if your outflow exceeds your inflow,

then your overhead will be your downfall. If I'm an NBA player, by the way, 70% of NBA players, 70% of NFL players bankrupted in five years after retirement. 70% of those who win the lottery bankrupt five years after they get the money. So it's not just about the money. If it was about the money, everybody would be cool.

They are not financially illiterate and they're not using the money to build wealth. Take that money and put it into an asset, and the asset can be on your ass. Put it in an asset. Can I say that? You already did. It's all good.

It's all good. And by homes, by tangible assets, that will compound. That's the first key to building wealth. Because when the income stops, the bills continue. This is really important. I don't know why we don't get this. If you're an NBA player, you're making $5 million,

a year and your bills are three and a half million dollars a year you're going to be broke you broke IRS taking a half Yeah but even if okay let's make it easier Because you're really you're really smart You got that already Let's assume you make $5 million a year

And your bills are a million and a half dollars a year And you have no other skills And you're 28 And your contract lasts eight years You're going to be broke Because when you're you finish that contract. Guess what your bills still are?

The 1.5 million a year? 1.5 many a year. What's your income now? Zero. Zero. So it's just simple math. At some point, the lines are going to cross.

And it's happened now for 30 years. We've been watching the same movie for 30 years. It's a slow-moving train wreck, right? But we don't learn. So, right now, you said another key thing. Why are we spending $20,000 for a GoFundMe campaign to raise money from our relatives is going to be upset with us on the pizza shop startup that's going to fail. Why not go and buy a million dollar business,

a seven-figure business in your town that's already successful? There's a hundred, between 88 trillion and $100 trillion of wealth is going to transfer in the next 10 to 15 years by baby boomers. These are white, wealthy people, mostly men, who are all trying to retire at the same time. In the book I talk about that there's 10,000 people leaving the economy every day. This is a deep number. Let me phrase that.

There are 10,000 baby boomers leaving the economy every day. By death, they're dying? No, they're retiring. Okay, okay, okay. Everybody wants to go play golf at the same time. So they own businesses. Now, when they're doing this money, they're going to give the stocks, the bonds, the cash,

the houses, to their wives, their husbands, and their children. Kids don't want the businesses. This is too much work. There's nothing wrong with the business. This is an opportunity for us. go meet yourself a white person. I'm being sarcastic. Go meet you an Asian person.

Go meet you an Asian person. I don't care what color they are. It's a green person. Go find somebody. When you drive down the street, you listen to this on the radio. Driving down the street. You see that office building of those little squares? Those are all businesses.

An architecture business. A dentist is a business. The lawyer is a business. Whatever you're going to in those little squares, Or the retail, those are all businesses. Find one that looks around 65. Befriend them. Get to know them.

Prove to them that you are competent because their kids don't want the business. And they may not even like their kids. Real talk. And say, look, I'd like to buy, after about six months or a year, building that relationship. It can't be a game now. A real relationship.

Mr. Joe or Mrs. Jeff, I'd like to buy this business. Are you interested? it? Well, you know, I really would like to transition. Do you have any money? Well, no, but I got a lot of hustle, and I can probably get a bank loan for half of this. I've already done to run the numbers. And if you carry back paper, which means the owner finance is part of this, carry back paper for 40%. I can get the 10%. It's a million dollar purchase. I'll get $500,000 loan, 40% carry back from you, and I'll bring $100,000 and I'll buy your business. And by the way, if it doesn't work, you get it all

back. If I fail, you get the business back in three to five years. That's a great deal. Everybody wins. Fair exchange is no robbery. So this is a podcast about video games. Kind of. It's also about friendship. Definitely. And chaos. Unavoidably. Welcome to it's dangerous to go alone. A podcast where we talk games, culture, nostalgia, and immediately go off topic. There is no gatekeeping. There is no skill check. If you win a game on easy mode, we support you. If you've never touched a controller, honestly, same energy for some of us. It's fun. It's chaotic. its friendship with a loose gaming theme. And somehow we keep getting away with it.

You should listen. Stream it's dangerous to go alone on the free IHeartRadio app. Or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lori Siegel and I'm mostly human. I go beyond the headlines with the people building our future. This week, an interview with one of the most influential figures in Silicon Valley, OpenAI CEO Sam Alman. I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of

responsibility to products we put out in the world. From power to people. Parenthood. Kids, teenagers, I think they won't need a lot of guardrails around AI. This is such a powerful and such a new thing. From addiction to acceleration. The world we live in is a competitive world, and I don't think that's going to stop, even if you did a lot of redistribution. We have a deep desire to excel and be competitive and gain status and be useful to others. And it's a multiplayer game. What does the man who has extraordinary influence over our lives have to say about the weight of that responsibility. Find out on Mostly Human.

My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Why hasn't a woman formerly participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wag Ageddon change the paddock forever?

That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

A silver 40-caliber handgun was recovered at the scene. From IHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios. This is Rorschach, murder at City Hall. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. July 2003, Councilman James E. Davis, arrives at New York City Hall with a guest. Both men are carrying concealed weapons.

And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead. Now, everybody in the chamber is ducked. A shocking public murder. I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. Those are shots, get down. A charismatic politician.

You know, he just bent the rules all the time. I still have a weapon. And I could shoot you. And an outsider with a secret. He alleged he was a victim of flat down. That may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack, murder at City Hall on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Right. So, and I already said a negotiation is where everybody leaves the table slightly annoyed. Explain that. Bring that down real quick. People who don't understand capitalism. Okay. So this is a consumer. This is the, this is the, this is the, this is the, this is the, this is the, this is the, this is the,

the producer, economist here. This is the capitalist here, and this is the consumer. You got left hand and right hand, got it, because members radio, so people driving in the cars. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. Left hand is consumer, right hand is the capitalist. This is a negotiating table at the mic. The consumer's job,

please listen to me, is to pay the least amount of money while getting the most amount of value. The capitalist job is to extract the most amount of money while giving the least amount of value. That's your job.

The consumers, that's your job is to pay the lease for the most. The capitalist job is to get the most while giving the least. Everybody has a job. A negotiation, now in our economy, the price is already set. You go to the store, it already has a price of it. But you go to a third world country or a second world country, you're haggling with the, you're talking to the merchant in the corner, you try to figure out the prices.

A good negotiation is where everybody leaves that negotiation, slightly annoyed because nobody got everything they wanted. I want to ask you a few questions, right? People ahead, John... I'm just going to make sure that we're covering all the ground because you just

you said something really important, which is... And I want to be an underscourt. Go find you a business broker. Stop all this, Jane, and go find a business broker in your town. Stop talking about a billion-dollar company. Stop talking about a hundred million dollar company.

You ain't got $50 to your name. Go to your... In Columbus, Georgia, wherever you live, there is a dentist with three locations making seven figures. Buy that business. But see, that's where I want to start, right? We always hear Build Wealth, buy the business. But how do you build wealth by the business when you're starting with nothing?

You got bills and bad credit. That's what I started. Bills, bad credit, afforded a credit score. I was homeless. At Lottahara Airport in Los Angeles, or anybody here listeners who are driving by Lottierra, an airport, that parking lot was my home for almost a year as homeless person. My credit was towed from the flow up.

And I could have filed bankruptcy, but I wanted to honor my debts. My mother treated me, trained me to live up to my responsibilities in my dad. So I had to work my way back from nothing. So I'm not talking at somebody. I'm talking with you. Where did they begin? Right where they're sitting. The lowest credit score, look, let's go back to the original premise, I said.

You thought that you'd won. No, somebody won it for you. Now win for yourself because you can't control legislation. legislation, racism, whether somebody's going to hire you, fire you, you can't control that. You can control your credit score. Black people have the lowest credit score

on average in America, 620, which means that yours is 700 and yours is 800, and mine is 750, and Pookie and M. Jojo and our cousins are 500s, and it's all bounces out. But on average, it's 620. You can't get a decent car loan at 620.

You know the car business. 18% interest Yeah, about that. That's out of Mercedes is Mercedes payments And it's going to blow up, by the way. By the way, a car dealership is three businesses.

The sales side, the least profitable, the financing department and the maintenance department. Those are the most profitable, right? So that car is going... Maintenance is most profitable. It's going back to them. So we have the lowest credit score. If you want to buy a house, you can't buy a house at 620,

You need $700. Well, you can get a house. It's going to be a really bad loan. And you shouldn't get an adjustable rate loan ever to buy a house. Nothing that is five figures of more should be adjustable rates. Please hear me. You want to buy a business. You cannot get a business loan at 600 credit score.

The banker is not being racist. Well, they might be racist, but they're not being racist when they turn you down. It's a bad credit decision because small businesses are the riskiest form of credit. if you listen to me, if you have a job and you listen to what I'm saying, get your credit score to 700, go to your computer at midnight, just test my theory, and ask for a $35,000 credit card, watch the computer say yes. Don't believe me. Go test my theory.

Go get our coaching or somebody's. Don't pay for it. We do it on scholarships. I'm not charging you at Operation Hope. Get your credit score to 700. Don't believe the thing I'm saying. is the first step. Get your credit from toe up and the flow up

from 600 to 700. By the way, for every 50 points of increasing your credit score, you live five more years. I'm going to reverse that. Back it up. If you live in our neighborhoods, check cashers, payday loan lenders,

rent-a-owned stores, title lenders, liquor stores, pawn shops. Your credit scores on average 580 to 600, you live to 61 years of age. I agree. that whole heart.

Because people, people, statistics show that people would, wealthy people live like 12 years longer. 20. It's 20 or I thought 12? 20. So 15 minutes. So somebody here is listening from Chicago.

Lincoln Park, downtown. That's 740 credit score. They live in their, almost 90s. 15 minutes away is Garfield Park. That's 580 credit score. You live to 61 years of age. 15 minute drive on the freeway. Nothing else is different.

But, but, But your money affects your mind. Your mind affects your mindset and your mentality and your depression or lack thereof and a surviving mindset. If you are struggling and hustling and worrying all the time, eating bad food, not getting your rest, you're going to die early. So affecting one affects everything else. So anybody who listening to this just take a – I will put up right now – I'll put up 10,000. $10,000, $1,000 examples. You have 10 people who call in your show, contact you, and they're going to take this test.

I'm going to do what John Bryant says. I've got a job. My credit score is tow up. I'm going to get my credit score within a year to $700, and I'm going to go to the computer and ask for something less than $75,000, less than $100,000 of consumer credit. And if I get declined, John Bryan owes me $1,000, I'll pay it. I know the answer. And one thing I got to get approved.

At Operation Hope, you actually help people repair their credit. 100% and I've delivered $4.5 billion with the capital just through Operation Hope in what I'm talking about. We actually say

no loans denied. We're the only nonprofit allowed to operate inside of a bank branch in U.S. history. And on the walls of our offices there's no loans denied. We approve you

subject to the resolution of your primary denial factors. We figure out why you be declined for a loan. We figure it out. We tell you what's up. We help you fix it, repair it, upgrade it.

And then we send you back over to the bank who wants to make your loan because if they don't, they go broke. So the bank's tells you, we know what the bank's criteria is otherwise we wouldn't send you back to them. So we have never had a situation where we actually had to fund the loan in 33

years out of $4.5 billion because the bank always says yes once we repair it. Because they want, it's not about a black person or a Latino person or an Asian person or an Indian person. It's a green person. They want good loans. But our credit score once I again is the lowest in the country.

So get in the game by getting your credit score up. You'll live longer. You'll be happier, by the way. And as the lady told me again from Delta last night, I'm getting yeses. She said, her own life change. Yeah. The bank's telling me yes. I mean, can you imagine what that does?

Yeah, of course. To your confidence and your self-esteem. So I'm just very excited about this. I just think this is our moment and our time. And then once you get one win, leads to the second one and the third one, and all of a sudden you're flying. I do have one, I got to run.

I'm sorry, but I just got one question before I go. You know, the biggest conversation. I love you being at you having you at the table, man. I want you to go. No, you know what it is? I got a doctor's appointment. I got to make sure I stay healthy. Okay.

Another prostate exam. Crazy, you know. Mind-blown. I don't know. Go ahead. It's important. Everybody get your prostate. is when should parents start having these conversations with kids, right? And the reason I ask that is I have six.

And I see the difference between when I started being an entrepreneur and I started messing around with money, then with my kids, right? So, like, my kids, they got this thing now. They're about to get in trouble, but they'll go to Walgreens or they go five below. They buy candy and they sell candy at school. That's right. Right? It's a profit.

I let them do it because I just love that they're starting business and business mind that early. You know, he's mad at me because he doesn't have Apple Pace. He's like, oh, dad, these kids will be. to pay me, they can't pay me. So my question to you is, at what age do you start with kids with credit, with credit cards, with having a bank account, with whether it's real estate, whether it's stock market, whether it's whatever it may be. At what age do you start and what's the way they should start for parents out there?

So they're not a 40-year-old parent just getting their first home, so they're teaching these kids a lot early. So what age and what's the mission or the way that they should do it? First of all, you're a great parent, man. Thank you. This is what you just said. That's fantastic. I'm setting my son down to you for a month.

Come on. I'm sending because he's on it. They'll train you. You come out with a little bit of muscles, but I'm sending them to you. But I'm sending them to you. But go ahead. That's all good.

Dang. I'm married. I said he could have been a stripper. His first one. By the way, I was a dancer for an American band, and so trained. Quite literally, I was a band. I was a whole other part of my life years and years and years ago.

First business. I'm sorry. I ran a candy house. It's the same thing as your kids doing. I was nine years old, and I went to a financial literacy lesson in Compton, California. This banker did not want to be there. White banker did not want to be there. His banker made them come community service. We didn't want them there.

He came in once in a week for six weeks. All the rest of my kids, the friends of my friends, but they're playing games and throwing paper planes, all kind of things. Because I saw my best friend get murdered with the drug dealer, try and sell for money, and because I saw the guy who saved my life getting murdered two years before that over money, drugs,

and my mom and dad divorced over money when I was four or five years old, I was like, okay, how don't get out of this situation, alive and legal and profitable? So I'm looking for an answer, and this banker comes in my classroom. So by the third time, I raised my hand. He came in the third week. Excuse me, sir. What do you do for a living and how did you get rich legally? And I was serious.

He said, I'm a banker and our finance entrepreneurs. I said, I don't know what an entrepreneur is, but it is legal. I'm going to be one. And he started unpacking this. That's when I said I walked down the street and saw the muffler shop and the candy shop. So I'm at the liquor store, and I sell you selling the wrong kind of candy. And he told me to go away. He knew what he was doing.

He had a college degree. I said, I've got cavities. And I didn't realize I was asking for it. joint venture, but I was like, work with me, let me help you sell candy, and he dismissed me. So I worked as a box boy. He wanted to have me up front at the candy counter, and he was going to pay me top dollar after school. This is indicative of our community.

We're always taking these flossie jobs, taking the high-profile stuff, rocking the mic, we don't own it. No, I don't want that job. I want the box boy, because I want to know where the inventory was. I want to open the inventory box, pull out the inventory list that that banker told me about, and look for the source of the inventory, the wholesale rate, what he bought it for, and the retail rate and the profit margin. I found out three weeks later I quit.

I went home, borrowed $40 for my mother, made $300 a week, selling candy just like your son, and put the liquor store out of the candy business. Now, that did wonders of my self-esteem. I was 10 years old. Now, in Atlanta, in kindergarten, thanks to Mayor Andre Dickens and Mayor Echisha Land's Bottles before, we have a bank account called a Hope Child Savings account

for every kindergarten kid in Atlanta public schools. 12,000 accounts. Now, studies have shown if you have money in an account, sorry, you're a kid with no money in account, you're 25% more likely to go to college. If you put money in that account, 50 bucks, 100 bucks, the kid is 75% more likely to graduate from college at kindergarten. So kids are paying attention to consequences

and connecting the dots at a very early age. I don't think you can start early enough because money transmits and transfers into everything we do. One other questions, but I got to run. I'm so sorry, y'all. I was reading something where they say the Jewish community, right? When they look at a job, they look at it differently. Let me know if you think it's real, if you think it's true,

or if you heard this, right? They said, when the Jewish community looks at a job, they look at it as first, when they go to that job, they look at it to understand the job, meaning learn the process of actually what the job is about. They said the second year, they look at the connects of the job to figure out how to do it on their own. They said the third year is they usually quit and start that job as kind of like being in competition. Do you see that a lot?

And is that true? A hundred percent true. Break it down. Because when I heard it, I was amazed. I thought that was. By the way, the Jewish community is a model. I joke sometimes and say, we need a black Jewish business plan. And I'm only partially joking.

Jews are 2% I think of the U.S. population. and 40% of the billion. Let that sink. Wow. Man. Should I say that again? Yes, of course. There's only 15 million Jews in the world of 8 billion people.

And black people have to come to Africa, what Jews are to Israel, which is a resource, hold another conversation. But Jews are only 2% of the U.S. population. But they are 40% of the wealth, of the billionaires in this country. And they've done it on their own. They've done it because they've been discriminated against. I mean, there's still being, to this day. And so, and by the way, anyway, it's a whole other conversation. But I think we have a lot to learn from the Jewish community.

I think we have to learn from our African brothers and sisters who come here from Ethiopia and Nigeria. And they go working at the, they're the bailman at the Park Hyatt. Then they get their buddies to be Belmont. Then they're in the front desk. And then they're at the concierge's desk. and then they get an Uber car and they get a black car and then they get an apartment

and they're all living together and they're all running this business it started as a job as a gig to just the exact point they learn the game why the front desk that's where people are checking in that's a trade

that now you know who can pay who can't why the concierge desk because they're making arrangements to go to concerts to go to events because that's where the transaction for transportation goes. Why then Uber? Because that's the easiest way to get into transportation and then they start

rent the car, then they buy the car, and why the apartment they're living together so they can pool their money until they can buy a house. We need to make smart sexy again. We've been making dumb sexy for way too long. We've dumbed down and celebrated it. We've got to make smart sexy.

We've got to make boring sexy. A lot of what I'm saying is basic. we've mastered the complicated. We now get back to the basis. That's why I'm saying capitalism for all, I'm saying try it. It's not like we tried this at scale and it didn't work.

People want to talk about Greenwood or, you know, Tulsa. Okay, that was five square blocks. That wasn't the whole city. It wasn't the whole state. It wasn't a decade. And people, if you want to deal with Greenwood, Tulsa, let's deal with Tulsa an example. So Tulsa was an example of

black success, black ownership, black excellence. White folks burned it down, racist, horrible. What happened next? That's where the story ends were a lot of people. We rebuilt it. It lasted into the 1960s. What happened? Integration. Once we realized, once the laws changed, again, the second reconstruction, and we can go

to a white man's barbershop or a white man's dentist. or a white men's store, we wanted to try it out. I understand that. We wanted the thing that was denied us. I get it. But what happened to the core businesses that relied on that closed economy,

they failed. I want to ask a couple more questions, right? I hope I answered your question, brother. Send your son to me, man. I will. Congratulations on your prostate. But listen, do you think too much emphasis gets put on personal responsibility

when structural barriers are still very real? No. because it's not this is an and conversation not an or conversation you have groundwater effects and

and then you have tidal effects groundwater are things you can't change baseline things you can't change we need Washington D.C. Congress people that's why your elected officials really matter they've got to change those laws and affect that in the way that changes the groundwater

change the system meanwhile you got title effects. Where is the wind blowing? Where is the opportunity flowing? What are you doing about it? And to me, the one thing, I'm a control freak. I want to handle the thing I can control. And I built my whole life without the government's intervention. I'm not asking for permission. All money is this freedom. Do you know how good it feels going, well, you know it is, to go into a room as I did last week and give people a $5,000 scholarship just because I felt like it. I didn't have to go to a committee. I didn't have to go to a write a write paper.

I love it. Yeah, you know what? I think I'm going to give five $1,000 scholarships today. You know, I'm going to give Clark Atlanta $5 million of financial coaching scholarships. Sitting in a board meeting, you know, I just text my people. I just committed to $5 million. You know how good that feels? See, that's what I'm talking about. And the government had nothing to do with that. The groundwater effects had nothing to do with that. I was in rental real estate.

I gave people a chance to go from rent to own. I built that company and sold it for $120 million. I'm in digital media. I got a podcast with you that's doing money and wealth. Money and wealth podcast.

That just was nominated for an NWACP Image Award. I've got these books that is not my lifestyle, but it is something that fulfills me. I've got, you know, I've created 50s, businesses, none of which are in finance and financial literacy and real estate and all these

different areas, AI now, none of these involving the government. We're just, we're traumatized. I think we are depressed, distressed, traumatized, and now what did Malcolm McSaye say, we've been bamboozled, you've been tricked, you've been fooled, you've been hoodwinked, you've been run amuck. So now it's the shadow the scaring us. It's the threat of, it's the, it's the threat of, it's the history of, it's the legacy of that keeps us from moving. And all I'm saying is, this is your time. This is your time.

I think it's just, like, when I'm listening to you say that, you know how there's always a conversation about like the one, like the person that makes it out of their neighborhood or like whatever, right? And it's like, what's, I always try to think about like, what's the difference? Like, we went to the same school. We went to the, maybe I went to college, maybe you didn't, or we've experienced the same people.

What is the difference? And it's that mindset, but like there's still that, that still happens. Like, there's still people who are just as small. went to the same schools who one thing threw off their trajectory and then they fall back on the whole blame it on the system conversation so we just remove that from our mind because there are people that are still trying want to do things that still keep coming up against this like something so like what do we do again you you're giving excellent question yes removing from your mind i walk through life consciously oblivious of most things around me because the stuff just doesn't matter i'm i am laser focused i tell people i'm i'm coming that way. I'm going to encourage you to move out of the way. I don't want to run over you. I don't want to hurt you. I'm giving you fair warning. I'm coming that way. Over to round it through it, I'm going to get to it. I take no for vitamins. Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. I'm coming that way. I'm warning you. That breeds confidence. People were like,

oh, dang, I don't even like you, but I respect you. That's sexy. Maybe I'll join you. I was going to get him your way, but maybe I'll get it. So, yes, you have got to. ignore the drama and keep it moving. That's him, by the way. Yes, the drama. Right? Ignore the drama, keep it moving. And let me now go to the other side.

The mainstream situation is they've got so many success stories and so much infrastructure. They can be half-wits and half-smart and half-dum, and they just get carried because their boy is the CEO of a company and his sister is tired of the nephew sleeping on the couch. Can you give him an internship? Right? Sure.

So he's not all that smart, but he still gets in. So that is an unfair advantage. We need to create that unfair advantage for our knitwit cousins. And you're only going to do that role model. Why am I a businessman? I'm sorry, why am I an entrepreneur? My daddy was a businessman. His daddy was a sharecropper, and his daddy was a slave,

whose fault in the Union Army and protected Memphis, Tennessee as George Young, who was an officer. Why is my mother an investor and why was she so good to me and tell me she loved me? Because her mother didn't tell her she loved her. So she turned a negative into a positive. My mother owned seven homes.

My grandmother owned a shotgun shack. My great-grandmother owned one house from slavery with a border, a renter. I own 700. We're not geniuses. We're role modeling. It's an old saying. no matter how much I love you, my son and my daughter.

If I don't have wisdom, all I can give you is my own ignorance. So out of love, we pass down bad habits from generation to generation. I can't guarantee you that being positive and doing this is going to make you a success. I cannot. But I absolutely guarantee you that being negative and not doing this is going to make you fail. You keep saying, try it. This is my last question, right?

The wealth gap, a capitalism problem, or who has access. to capitalism. The wealth gap is a historical problem because it already exists. Because of capitalism, right? Because of bad capitalism, which we talked about earlier. Slavery was bad capitalism.

So let's go to the book in an example I gave this, a 50-year-old, it's a 50-year-old story, it's a 50-year-old history of what's already happened that proves my point. So in 1968, whatever, Dr. King and Andrew Young and all these people, Dr. Dorothy Height,

fought for civil rights. And we got affirmative action to President Johnson, President Kennedy, and honorary President King, Dr. King. And then Dr. King gets assassinated. And then Kennedy, Nixon comes in, which is a reaction to, by the way, it's still happening. So Nixon was a reaction to Johnson, conservative reaction to the so-called liberal. By the way, Johnson was a responsible reaction to Lincoln in 1800. And some would argue that what's happening now is a reaction to Obama.

Okay, but let's go back to your point. So in 1972, women, a white woman, could not get a bank account in 1972, not 1872. She couldn't get a loan unless her husband co-signed it. There was a whole debate about women's roles. You guys couldn't have had, you guys couldn't be sitting here in 1972. White version of you couldn't be sitting here because you had to be at home with babies, or whatever, you were not supposed to be in the workplace. There's a whole debate.

So finally they said, break-through debate, we're going to give it from a direction, but we're going to give it to white women. I'm cool with that, no problem. That opened the door to black women, Latino women, and all women. What's the result? Today, women are a third of the U.S. economy.

$30 trillion economy, and women are $8 to $10 trillion of that every year. So if we hadn't got that experiment right, we'd be a second-tier nation today and also ran country. So we need to now apply that to what people call diversity and inclusion or what some people will call DEI, which I think is useless. Forget all these program names.

Forget all this drama. The math says, the math says that my rich friends, my poor friends would do better if only to stay rich. The math says that 40% of this country economy is diverse people, us. The math says that within 10 years, this will be a majority of minorities. Now we're starting to get to the real deal. Unless we're going to be speaking Chinese in 20 years, there's not enough successful college-educated white men

for the first time in history to drive economic growth for the next 20 years. Now, if you haven't heard anything I've said, I hope you heard that. That's never happened in the history of this country. This country actually needs you to be successful in order for them to keep their cars, their boats, their yachts, their houses, their businesses.

we are a consumer base, we are a customer base, we are untapped capital, we are smart, we are good business people, we just have not been invested in. And I think that is what's happening. That is the opportunity that's now in front of us for the next 10 years. And I've written a business plan for Black America. I've given you copies of it.

We can people download this if they want. They can go to Dream Forward. You just go to John O'Brien, dream forward or go to to capitalism for all the new website for the book or go to and get the book or go to Operation Hope I made it real easy. Go to Operation Hope website,

Brian Group Ventures website, capitalism for all website, Dream Forward or just type in my name and business plan for black America, download it. There's not one thought, there's not one mention of the government in here anywhere. Right? And if we don't do this, here's what I can tell you. Black Net Worth is scheduled to be by 20503.

if we do nothing but complain and wine and bellyache this is before the government walked away from it this is before we were thrown into the fires of capitalism it was scheduled to be zero but with my plan says it could be $3.5 trillion in 10 years that's a billion dollars in business acquisition it's a trillion dollars

so let me give us me some math If you raise your credit score to 700, if we go from 620 to 700, less than 100 points, that's worth $750 billion of net worth in 10 years. You take that 700 credit score, you do what? Buy a house. The number of the way you build wealthy in America is homeownership. Don't buy it in New York City or L.A. is too expensive.

Go to a second-tier city. Go to where the puck is going. Go to a city that's on the – that's – I could have never been wealthy living in L.A. I had to go buy, I moved to Atlanta, and I bought 700 homes for $88,000 each. In Atlanta, those homes are now worth $400,000 each. Just do the math. But I moved there in 2009. So find the next Atlanta.

Find the next Nashville. Find the next L.A. Find the next. Stop trying to do everything in one place, right? And buy a house with that high credit score, and that's worth $800 billion. Now that's $800 billion and $750 billion, that's help me now, $1.5-ish trillion. go buy these businesses that already exist. That's another trillion.

Artificial intelligence. Levels of playing field. You can start a million dollar business with one person and technology for a thousand bucks. That's never happened. A million dollar business. That's a trillion dollars in 10 years. That's $3 trillion.

And I haven't said government one time. Why are we obsessing? Why are we screaming at the TV all day about something you can't control? You've got the largest reality TV show in the history of the world going on in Washington, D.C. And every day is a new episode. And they got us completely whipsawed, and we're sitting there obsessing about something you have no control over as they keep you distracted from something else. So focus.

Be obsessed with your time in your mind. Focus on what you can control. By the way, I say this in the book. 90% of all GDP in this country. comes from cities. Not the federal government. 90% go in your neighborhood,

volunteering your school board. Volunteer for your mayor. Volunteer at your school where your kid goes. Start a business in your neighborhood. Get your own home right. I mean, that's a full-time job. Yeah.

Just get to the base. Get an insurance policy. Get a will. Get a job. Get a life. Get your credit score right. Okay, I'm going to stop preaching. My man, John, who you want to say thank you, John, for helping me and my husband, putting us together, putting us with a financial advisor. Oh, no. Yo, I appreciate it.

Shout out to Lance Virgil, Operation Hope. I totally appreciate it because we was about to pay some money to learn about financial literacy. And John was like, man, it's out. Like, he literally kicked into, like, the uncle who was ready to go off because he found out that, you know, we were about. ought to pay for some financial literacy that, you know, that we can learn at Operation Hope. You just put us with a financial advisor. We're about to start these courses, man, so I appreciate you. That's beautiful.

And it's also beautiful that you were not afraid to say that right on the air. This is what I'm talking about. This is what it makes me, warns my heart. I can't say these names, but if you know the kind of folks calling my phone, these are these are household names. And they're like, look, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yeah. Like help me.

I'm trying to do this. I mess this up. Help me fix this. Some of the biggest stars and names on the planet are saying I'm tired of struggling. Oh, yeah. Some of them called me to get to you. Can you connect me with John Hope Bryant? I'm just very inspired, man, about this moment.

I think we have a real shot. A real shot at turning the tide on this. Rangles only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow with our storm first. You cannot grow except the legitimate suffering. And who has suffered more than us? we've been doing so much with so little for so long we can almost do anything with nothing

over it around it through it we're going to get to we're not going to give up so my white friends are like oh there's a crisis we have a crisis every Tuesday crisis don't bother us so the fact that you said this I'm honored to help you but the fact that you acknowledge this and by the way kudos in your book I ordered some thank you I appreciate it says a lot about your maturity and your growth because half of this is just showing up in your

your own life. No one's coming to save us. We got to do that for ourselves. Has this been useful? I mean, is this been, is there any of it jumps out? No, very much so. I'm going to hear of making notes. And you got a couple of calls to action. You know, we want you to go to, you know, what is it, dream forward? Dream forward, yeah. Download the business plan for Black America. An inclusive economic business plan for Black America. And we want you to go pick up the book, capitalism for all. My guy, John Hobran. I also bought a business plan for Latino Americans, for Native American, Indian for women's for rural white neighborhoods. I wrote one for everybody.

I'll read both, Jess. You do what? You know what? Don't make a show. I'm just saying, I got to read both. It's John Hope Brian. Go pick up capitalism for all and make sure you download the Money and Wealth Podcast

on the Black Effect Podcast Network. John Hope Brian will actually be with us at the Black Effect Podcast Festival in Atlanta, Georgia on April 25th. He's on the AI panel, I believe. Yeah, the AI. panel. So come check out John Hope Bryant at the Black Effect Podcast Festival Saturday, April 25th in Atlanta, Georgia. John, love you, brother.

Love you back. Let me just say this. We'll wrap up. You are a bad brother. People have no idea how smart you are and what an underground profit you are about the community. You really care about your community. I get calls from you at midnight on the weekend. It's never about you. It's always about how do we make our community better? And people don't know you're an owner and you're lifting other people up with your book imprint and your podcast platform you could have done this all for yourself by yourself but you bring other folks with you and that's the kind of role model we need to emulate you man thank you john i appreciate you go pick up capital losing for all available everywhere you buy books now is john ho brian it's the breakfast

club oh no every day i wake up wake your ass up the breakfast club you're all finished or y'all done Human, a tech podcast through a human lens. This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world. An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future. My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

favorite shows. Ten, shots five, City Hall building. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder. This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics.

I scream, get down, get down. Those are shots. A tragedy that's now forgotten and a mystery that may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Roershack, murder at City Hall, on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 2023, Bachelor Star, Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing.

Greg, a lesbian. Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is love trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You know Roll Doll. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? In the new podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll, I'll tell you that story, and much, much more. What? You probably won't believe it either. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.

Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you. I was a spy. Listen to the secret world of Roll Dahl on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.