The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - The Kyle Miller Show: Janasha "Jay" Bradford Of Mahogany and Friends Joined Kyle Miller

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Janasha “Jay” Bradford, Author, Founder, and CEO of Mahogany and Friends, joined Kyle Miller live on The Kyle Miller Show! The Kyle Miller Show airs live Thursday from 2:15 pm – 3 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Kyle Miller Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Kyle Miller, and today we're here with somebody who is passionate about finances, passionate about making a difference in somebody's life, and that's what this show is about, right? We're here to inspire you, to give you guidance, to give you that little bump that you need to get out there and make something else happen with your life, do something that you've been putting on the back burner, get inspired, and just go out there and make it happen. So excited about today's show. First, today's show is brought to you by Apex Allies, your key to slashing cost and boosting productivity. With Apex Allies, you gain access to exceptional virtual assistance at half the usual cost, transforming how you handle administration tasks. Say goodbye to overwhelm and hello to more time focusing on business growth.

Apex Allies offers you the support you need without the financial strain, making it easier to prioritize what truly matters. Visit GoApexAllies.com now to evaluate your business efficiency with Apex. With that said, today we have Ms. Jay Bradford on the show, author of Mahogany and Friends, and also a financial advisor at Edward Jones. Yes, yes, yes. Awesome. Thank you for having me. Beautiful studio, and I'm excited to be here.

Well, your smile just brightens the room up so much. You walked in here, and I was just like, oh, I could just tell you were just a bubbly personality, wanting to help, wanting to communicate and talk. And I was, I mean, I'm excited about the show today. Yeah, I am too. Awesome. So, um, Jay, you're a busy woman. You're in, you're in a lot of events here in Charlottesville, a lot of, um, clubs, not clubs, but, um, groups, networking groups. You're a busy woman. How do you make it happen? That is the question. I think I am determined.

So I know I want more. I have goals. And I understand the importance of having a network of people. Your network is your net worth. Right. So, you know, I just put myself out there. When I first became a financial advisor at Edward Jones, when I moved over, I asked a product partner, like, what can I do? He was like, get out there and act like you're the mayor. Kiss babies.

Shake hands. So I think it's really important whenever you have any brand or whatever business you're doing to just get yourself out there, network. And so I kind of, I don't have kids. So I don't, I do a lot of stuff at night and I just really have to like block out my day. Yeah.

Yeah. That, I mean, you have a lot of stuff going on and you wrote these two books and I really want to get into this cause I think it's important. Um, why did you, first of all, the books, mahogany and friends, you have two books over here. Yes. So the first one is mahogany goes to wall street. It's an introduction to the financial market. So it's going to go over things like what's a bull and bear market? What's the stock? What is an IPO? Different things to kind of get them familiar with terms that they would hear on Wall Street. And then the second book, Malcolm's Master Plan to

Gazillionaire, he's a little entrepreneur guy and he wants to really be a gazillionaire. And this book shows the importance of having a long-term plan and utilizing active and passive income, investing in stocks and compound interest to build your wealth. So I love it because there's three things in there that you just said that I don't think most people understand. Right. One, having a goal, a long-term goal. Where do I want to be? How do I get there? Right.

I think in life, where we're at today, everything's so short-sighted. Where do I want to be? How do I get there? Right. I think, uh, in life where we're at today, everything's so short-sighted. What's going to happen next week? How can I make money tomorrow? Yeah. Right. This is long-term goals. Uh, and this is long-term game. You're in this for the long-term. Exactly. Right. And that's, that's how prominent the prominent families, this is how they think. They don't think in days. They think in years. Yes. And they think, what's it going to be like in 50 years?

How do we build this for 50 years? They plan out, and much longer than that. Yeah. That's what they're planning for. The other two things is what, oh, shoot, now I forgot. I got stuck on that. But you were talking about, one, the plan, and then active and passive income. Yes. Right?

And so people don't understand what active income is, and neither do they understand what passive. They may think they know what passive is. Yeah. Right? It sounds good. Oh, I just put my money over here and I get money. People think that rental real estate is a passive investment. And I can tell you right now, being a landlord and owning property as a rental investment, that is not a passive investment. It is an active investment. If you own more than one

house, you understand what I'm talking about. Some tenant calls you at two o'clock in the morning and says, hey, the water line just busted. I don't know what's going on. You got to get somebody out here to fix this. You understand that it's not passive. Passive is what? So passive is when you don't have, so as I explained to the kids in the book, to the children, I just did this yesterday at Greer Elementary, but passive income is you're going to initially have to put some work into it, anything that you do. But it's bringing you income in that you're not having to work hard for. Right.

Or work for at all. The money is working for you. Right. Or that investment is working for you. Exactly. So give me an example. Can you give me an example of what a passive income stream would look like? So sometimes I like to look at like affiliate marketing. So for instance, if you have a car and you let all these different brands tattoo

your car, you live in this high area, you're just driving your car around. They're going to pay you to allow them to put logos on your car. So that's affiliate, that part of affiliate marketing can be some passive income. For instance, even if you have a website and allowing ads and things to be on your website, and if they click through it, that can be affiliate marketing. YouTube channels, I talk to the kids at schools about it. Like you have to do the initial work of logging and then but once you upload that content right that content if you get over a certain amount of streams and followers it can start bringing you in income so that that goes into another thing that's active that turns into passive right and so that's creating something once that gets produced over and over and over

and over again right and you can capitalize capitalize on that multiple times, unlimited amount of times. See, a lot of the things with business when we're saying active, active, active, that we have to do it to create income. So as an hourly worker, right, you go into the office or wherever you're going and you work for an hourly wage. And then when you're done, you're off and doing whatever, right? But with that active, you can work for that time frame,

put in the work, make it happen, and then boom, that gets put online and it's an evergreen. It's always out there. It's always doing the work for you. For you, yeah. And you can retain income. So you only have to work once.

Now, does that work? You don't get paid usually for that work up front, right? No, you don't. You get paid on the results of that work. Yes. And so it's very interesting. And I think people need to learn more about this, right? Because I think some people, I think school does a really good job of putting everybody in the school system and creating workers. Yeah. Right. Creating workers and consumers. Exactly. Everything that we do in school, I believe, now I have family members that are teachers and the whole school system, right? So, but I think everything that we do in school is counterproductive to what we do in life. Right. Everybody sits in their own, own rows. Everybody,

don't talk to anybody and raise your hand when you have a question, you know, you can, there's only one right answer in life. It's not like that. No, it's not. So why do we teach our kids that that's, that's, we train them for those 18 years of their life and we set the narrative like this is how it's going to be. And then once they get out into the real world, it's nothing like that. It's nothing like that. That's a good question. I don't have the answer as to why the system is set up that way.

It is a flaw. Yeah. is set up that way, it is a flaw. I think maybe if I want to put out my own thoughts, maybe they do that so that it can be a little more orderly in school. It's a lot of children that they're dealing with. Or maybe they're setting them up because they want a certain type of worker. Right. You know, everyone to be that employee not that business owner right so um that those are my thoughts so i think um once you recreate how school looks for

kids and you're teaching them about money and entrepreneurship it kind of society is going to have to do some things differently yeah and uh when it comes down to even finances or tax breaks, different things, because there are going to be a lot more business owners and not as many employees. Right. Also, there's nothing wrong with being an employee. No.

But I think there should be another avenue where they are learning about entrepreneurship or just even financial literacy so they can have other options that is not just this one way because sometimes I was one of those kids my mom's like all right you're gonna you're gonna finish school you're going to college and maybe college probably wasn't the best thing for me I did it right but I could have used my talent and just my determination and drive to maybe really tap into my passion of being an entrepreneur and could have maybe been light years ahead of where I'm at now if that space was set up to teach a child that there's other options. Right. No, I completely agree with you on that.

The, I think the school system is set up for that. And like you said, there's nothing wrong. I envy some people that they can just turn it off at five o'clock and go home. Yeah. Right. And I can't. Yeah. I'm thinking about it nonstop.

And I go, man, that would be nice. But it's the life we pick and it's the life we choose. I'd rather have the ups and downs, the journey of the entrepreneurship because it's a lot of fun. And with risk comes reward. I always grew up saying I want to do what I want, when I want. I don't want anybody else to tell me that I can't. And so that's always been my thing. I don't do well with people telling me what to do what I want, when I want. I don't want anybody else to tell me that I can't. Yeah. Right? And so that's always been my thing. So I don't do well with people telling me what to do.

I didn't do great in school. I showed up. Right? I got the grades to pass, but I was never mentally there. I was always thinking about other things. I was daydreaming about what I was going to do when I got out. Yeah. I was creating these scenarios in my head.

And that's what I would do in class. Yeah. But I was, I was creating these scenarios in my head and that's what I would do in class. Yeah. But I was sitting there. So tell me. And I think entrepreneurship sometimes allows you to kind of tap in to what your purpose is. Right. Like, and, and, and it allows you to have a little bit more fulfillment in life that,

Hey, I, even if your business fails, right. Hey, I, I was able to take the risk on myself. I was able to explore these different options. I learned this about myself. Like, I can pass on and know that at least I went on and tried this thing. I think you're right with that. And you said business may fail, but then you also learn a lot about business, about doing business. Sometimes I also don't think colleges are set up right now

to teach you much about business. Economics, yes. The standard business of what KPIs and stuff that you need to look at, yes. Maybe some thoughts. But I don't think, as far as marketing and advertising, that stuff changes on the daily. I don't think colleges are equipped and they don't have the right

teachers to be teaching that. I myself will not be sending my unless they want to be like a doctor or a lawyer or something else that needs specific knowledge to make that. Yeah, but I don't think i'll send them yeah same if they're especially i i agree with you if like if you're getting going to college and you're studying business marketing uh-huh they don't do a great job at it because things

are constantly changing so we spoke about this a little earlier. Maybe it may be best for you to, one of these people that are out here teaching how to do marketing or teaching how to utilize TikTok to bring in revenue, taking one of their courses and learning that way. I think you'll spend a lot less money. Definitely. You'll learn a lot more. And the thing is with learning, you have to implement. And I think a lot of people don't do that they want to learn learn learn learn learn and they never take the first step they want to become an expert before they take that first step to be going and you're never going to do that because you're never going to learn everything from a book everything from somebody just talking to people about a subject until you start doing it yes you have You have to jump in there. Yes. That's, that's, that's me

all day. Like even as a financial advisor, we're getting a new system. We got to jump in. We have to just jump in there. Like we can read all we want. We can hear all these different experts talk, but we won't really know how it is and how we flow, flow in a business. If we don't at first take that first step, No more dipping the toes. You got to take the first leap. Get in there. Dive in. You're going to take your bumps and bruises. That's going to happen. But you need to take that step. You need to go into it. And that's where you're going to learn. You're going to learn, oh, that didn't work. Let's go over here. And then you're going to understand, OK, why does this work and that didn't? And's go over here and then then you're going to understand okay why why does

this work and that didn't and now you're going to be able to take that into future steps that you do future endeavors and other marketing that and one thing I want to add to that with jumping in you still want to be like a sound mind like be financially sound like Like, make financially. Don't just say, I'm throwing all this money, I'm jumping in, and I am going to be waxing tables. I mean, I don't know how great that business, like, let's think it through. There has to be a model. Let's pick a model that works. There's so many models out there that you can make money in. I find that some people, I heard this from somebody, I forget who it was, but they're

running a business. It was a production business and they were losing like a couple pennies per unit that they were selling. And he said, well, we'll make it up in volume. You're losing a couple pennies per unit. You're just going to lose more money when you do it in volume. And so that's what I think you meant by let's not just jump in without financial soundness. Let's make sure the model works. There's so many models out there.

The other thing is find an avenue where you want to make money. And be flexible. avenue where you think you can work where you want to make money so and be and be uh flexible as you have to be flexible as an entrepreneur right things don't always happen as that plan you wrote down on paper yeah like you have to be okay with pivoting and now i'm going to take this this road have your goal in, but the road may change. 100%. And I think you got to work backwards, right? And so everybody wants to own a business and I think they can make much money. Well, let's look at the businesses out there, right? And let's see, all right, what does that business make? What does that industry average make, right?

Let's work backwards. Is that what the lifestyle I want? Yes or no? No, that's not what it is. Okay, why go down that road? Let's find something else. Let's see something else that has a higher ceiling. And so I find a lot of people that just pigeonhole themselves into too small of a niche. That's not big enough and they can't scale. So I flip a lot of houses. I do a lot of real estate.

To me, it makes good money, but it's not, it's too small. One, because of the headaches. Well, it's, I can't grow it to the one where I want to grow it to. So it's a transactional business. There's no reoccurring income. There is a lot of overhead, high debt because you're taking on loans to buy these properties and to renovate them. And then you've got to sell them on the back end to make it work. Right? And so you're taking a high debt, high risk with good rewards. But you can't scale it unless you have...

A large amount of capital. A large amount of capital and then a big team. Yeah. Right? And so there's this like no man's land that i was kind of getting into once you get like above 40 40 houses a year you get into a no man's land because one you don't have the capital yeah to have reoccurring to pay everybody on your team to get bigger so you got to get more on the lines of like 80 houses a year and then then you can start to make more money,

but that's that 40 to 80 is no man's land because you're just paying overhead. And that wasn't a risk that I wanted to take. That wasn't a, um, I was looking at it and just going, you know, this, this isn't, this isn't what I want in life. And I've done that a couple of times in my life. And I sat back and I looked at it and go, is this what I really want? And try to put a plan together. But so then I went into other things and started to network more. I built a sales team that's scalable. I'm able to sell across the whole country instead of just here. Right?

And so my market is now infinitely bigger. And I have more opportunities to sell. So that's, those are kind of the things that I was thinking about in business, uh, with the opportunities that I had. And, and it's a growth thing, right? I didn't think in the beginning, I thought just, you know, I could flip 10 houses a year. I'd be fine. And then I get to 10, I'm like, if I could flip 30, I'd be good. I get to 40. I'm like, I don't want to go any higher. I don't want the headache. And so I think there's a quality of life thing that you got to look at as well. Yeah. And you have to be okay. I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs or business owners, they started like how you started, right? You start, I want 10, I want 20, I want 30. Now you're in this no man's land. And you're like, oh, my gosh, do I leave this alone and do something else?

I've poured so much of my time into it. But it's it's OK to pivot. Like we have many different lives that we live. Yeah. Live those different lives. You did this. You learned something. Yeah. Move on to something bigger and better. That is going to give you a more fulfilling life. Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That's I love how you how you rephrase that for me and just kind of like button it up. So you've had a couple of journeys, right? So you grew up in New Jersey. Well, you were born in New Jersey.

Born and raised to about seven, eight. And then what happened? And then, so around seven, my father was in a truck accident and tragically passed away. He isn't my biological father, but he did raise me. He's Puerto Rican. And he grew up very, from like very humble beginnings. He was very poor. And so when he met my mom, he didn't know how to read, write, anything. And she helped him write checks. And he made money.

He was a truck driver. But he didn't know how to budget it and manage it well. And she helped with the amount of knowledge that she knew. She at least knew how to read and write. She didn't know much about money herself. But he did run into someone, and they told him the importance about life insurance. And it's not about what you're paying, but it's about who you're leaving behind. And how do you want them to live on without you?

So he did these insurance policies and then he passed away maybe like a year later. And he left my mom in the early 90s over a half a million dollars. And she upped and moved us to Charlottesville because this is where my grandmother is from. And we grew up here. But just because we talk a lot about, especially in underserved communities, let's pump them in with resources. Let's give them money. Let's help them. But that's great, right? But if you don't have the tools or the knowledge to know what to do with those resources, to keep it or to multiply it, it's an ultimate fail regardless.

And that's what happened with my mother. She was not financially educated. She didn't know much about money. She did try to seek out some financial advice. She had emotional trauma around money. She didn't really take the advice. She was spending more than what she should have. And then when 08 came and the market crashed, we lost everything. And me being where I'm at now, my mom didn't have to right but it was just lack of financial education and we lost our family home on Rose Hill that I grew up in I was just starting college around

that time I had to pull out I was very embarrassed it's just a thing and we just went through a lot of financial hardships like it was a different life than what we were used to for the last 10 to 11 years. And that's a short amount of time to have wealth and lose it. Right. And so that as the oldest, I just used to help her out. Like, let's call let's call the mortgage company. Like my mom was was one of those ladies that will bury her head in the dirt. Like, oh, I just don't want to hear about it.

I don't want to see it. I don't know what's going on. It's bad. And so I'm like, no, mom. And I would help her with different things and get on the phone with people and just walk her through it, right? Right.

But that showed me the importance. Like, I need to be empowered in my finances. I need to know what's going on. I don't want to go through what my mom went through. I seen firsthand how that just can tear a family apart. And so I just went out in the world and started learning all I could about money and helping people. Right. Yeah. I love it. I love the story. And then what made you start writing this book so so it was covet it was 2021 but before that i had just started at wells fargo advisors and i had to get my series seven okay and i was i have my uh colleagues that are around predominantly white men and they just were so

knowledgeable on this stuff. It was just like, oh, I can study for this test in a couple days or give me a month and I'm going to take that test and pass it. And it was different for me, very different. I took a lot of time just trying to break down what the terminology meant. Forget about digesting the information. It was just like, what is a stock? What does that mean? What is a? Like, what does that mean?

What is a mutual fund? Like, what does this mean? So it took me longer to study. And I tried to be under their timeline at first. And I failed the first time. And it kind of felt like a blow to me. But I'm like, I'm doing this for a bigger purpose. And I was listening to Beyonce.

And she was motivating me. And I'm like, I'm going to do something with this because why, why didn't I learn this in school? Like, why was I in school learning, you know, algebra and geometry when I really needed to learn about money and, and how it works and learn about a stock and how to grow my wealth. And, um, when I, I always said like, when I always said, like, I'm going to do something. I'm going to do something to help the community to instill this in the kids to come because they're my future. I'm going to be an old lady soon.

And I need them to know what they're doing, right? And just to make a brighter future. So my friend, she writes books and I have an old English teacher that, you know, she's written things and different things like that. And I just got the idea, just came to me like, you should put this in a children's book. Like there's nothing out there fun. I went through a deep dive on YouTube and Google and I'm like, a lot of kids are saying that this is a concern of theirs. They don't feel secure in their finances. And then I learned that your financial foundation is built at seven. And I'm like, what? Like, I wasn't learning anything at seven about money. So I thought, but I was, I was witnessing how my mom interacted with money and maybe those weren't the

best interactions or, you know, you can't get this. We don't have enough money. And those types of money doesn't grow in trees. So you're teaching them something, but let's start teaching them the right things, especially during this pivotal age. So it made me decide to write my children books. I love it. I love it. It's just inspiring. And you didn't know anything about writing books. So you had to go connect with people. I had to connect with people. And I had to do research. So growing up, I always wrote little poems or raps and little short stories. I always was creative like that. I had a vivid imagination. But I knew nothing about writing a children's

book. I knew I can write something that sounds cool and talk it out. And I watched a lot of cartoons to kind of get inspiration. I researched a lot, like, how is this possible? So I first wrote the story and I partnered with an English teacher, Ms. Zinkgraf, and she did the edits for me. And she was like, I have my cousin, Kelly Corrigan, who writes these books. She's a New York Times bestseller. I'm going to connect you with her. She's like, I love the story. I'm going to connect you with my editor at Penguin Random House.

And so that made me say, oh, my gosh, this could be, like, a real thing. Like, they're liking this. Like, I need to do something about it. So I'm like, I Googled, like, how do you get a book deal? And it was like going the traditional publishing route. You can write these letters that are telling about your book and pitching your book. You may need an agent.

So I started going down that path and when I spoke to a couple of editors they felt like uh this feels a little complex for kids uh it's a little niche it's a niche market and I'm like this is not niche everything that you're doing even in your day-to-day job is dealing with money the world is spinning around right with money circulating around it, like an orbit around it. So it's not a niche market. So I got, I'm one of those people,

I'm like, you keep telling me no, like I'm gonna make this happen myself. So I'm like, I can self-publish this and I start Googling and buying courses on how to get print on demand because I didn't want all this overhead cost. Right. Different things like that. So I learned how to publish a book and I self-published my books.

And it's been really rewarding because, no, the traditional route I probably would have got a check up front. Right. probably would have got a check up front, right? But going the self-published route, I'm still doing just the amount of work that I would have done if I would have went the traditional route, like marketing myself. But I'm able to keep 100% of the proceeds and say, this is me. And now the sky is not even the limit.

I can say, hey, I want to do a course for UVA Star Hill program and teach kids financial literacy. I want to have a cartoon, an animated series. I can do all of this under my Mahogany and Friends brand because I 100% own it.

And I love how you didn't know how. You researched. You took the steps. You found out information. You didn't like that information. And you found a different way to go about it. Yeah. I mean, that's life.

Yeah. And it's been hard. I mean, it's not an easy process, especially mahogany. Like, everyone loves mahogany. But I look at it, and I'm like, it's a beautiful flaw. Because this was really my learning curve. I was learning through that book, learning how to write as a writer, working with my sister-in-law who did the illustrations and

how printing should be and how the margins should be and just trying to get it to look like a book that's at Barnes & Noble, which our books are at Barnes & Noble. Oh, congratulations. That's exciting. Yeah. So it's it is it just calls to pivot and to reimagine. And sometimes it's OK to take take a step back. Like this year, I told myself I'm going to take a step back and and perfect this thing. Like, OK, I'm going to push out a couple of books. I'm going to have product that is shelf ready and just different things so that I have different avenues of where I can get income from. I'm impressed. Thank you. Do you know how many books that you've sold so far with this? So I do have, well, not this recent let's see I've probably sold a little over 10,000 books

have you really yeah so I do big events too so like you said you you don't want to just keep yourself in this market right Charlottesville I have to say I love my city they have really got behind Mahogany and Friends and supported me like through and through they made me believe like this i need to take this serious this is not just some little story you wrote this is other people that believe in you yeah it gives you it gives you it gives it inspires you you're like it gives you some momentum yeah like they're counting on me yeah they see the importance of it and they're wanting it so that made me open my eyes and say this is bigger than charlottesville we all there's a bigger market we all need it

so i started going into other markets and i did essence fest i've done invest fest which is a huge um investment it's like the coachella of investments okay Okay. And I like do amazing there. Like I'm making over $10,000 at these events with books and some merch. Like I have merch, like pillows and shirts and stuff like that.

But it's just surprising to see how many people are like yearning for this information and seeing the importance of like, I didn't have this when I was growing up.

I want to set my kids up for, you know. I wish I knew more. Yeah. And I want my kids to know now. And even when I'm at like a bar or something, my mom loves a bar. Yeah. And she talks at the bar all day.

And she's like, my daughter wrote a book. And they're like, bring that book in here. And then we're selling books at the bar. And they're like, this book is for me. I need to know this stuff. And I'm like, you can just come sit down and talk to me I'm a financial advisor so yeah yeah that's awesome great oh man that is so cool and so you now you talk to mom about finances yep yeah yep and she knows and we work through things and and I do it with my entire family now um the thing about finances and talking to people about finances, especially adults, kids are a little different.

Adults, they have to want to know that it's helping. They have to want it. They have to know that it's helping better them. And they have to be okay with buckling down and putting on a seatbelt and having like, what's the word that I'm thinking? They need to buckle their seatbelt and know that this is going to be an effort. Like it's going to take some time. It's not going to happen overnight. So my mom listens to me, but sometimes I'm like, come on lady, you got to do more. This is what you need to be doing right but it's hard to kind of change someone's emotions around money so it's as an advisor it's important for me to understand the different emotions around how people think about money so like a first question I'll ask is

like what has what was your relationship with money growing up and that kind of gives me insight on how to approach them and and how to talk to them. Because I can give you all the knowledge that I have. That doesn't mean that that's going to resonate with you and going to make you take these steps to do it.

One of the things you said earlier, I didn't want to interrupt you. You were talking about money doesn't grow on trees. You got to save for a rainy day. Yeah. Like all these acronyms and these sayings that people say, right?

Where do they come from, right? And like you said, and now it's starting to hit with me as seven years old, you start to develop these habits of understanding where your money knowledge is because you hear these things. Oh, we can't afford that or we can't do this. So that gets ingrained into our brains and we can't afford that or we can't do this or you know so that gets ingrained into our brains yeah and we hold on to that you know um and creates a scarcity mindset so then you're like oh right i have this money i can't do anything i can't lose it but you

right takes money to make money well and here's the other thing, right? Money does grow on trees. Yeah. It's made of paper, right? And paper is made of wood. And I implore you to do this. If you think money is scarce, go look at Morocco. Go look at some of these places. Look at Vegas. Charlottesville, it doesn't happen to me in Charlottesville, but when I go to bigger cities,

not Richmond, it doesn't happen to me in Richmond, like Fort Lauderdale, Miami, New York, Chicago, these places, San Diego, I sit back and I just look at how many people are walking around.

Like, I remember sitting down in Orlando, sitting on a balcony, and the balcony at the hotel, off in the distance I could see the interstate. And I was looking at the interstate and I just saw how many cars were on the interstate. And it blew my mind. Like, I'm just sitting there and for as far as I could see I see red lights on one side of the road and white lights on the other right as far as I could see and I could see a pretty long way and I was just amazed how many people are out there and I'm like this is just one little city yeah it you you look at when I fly I look at how long those roads are and how many cars are on there.

There's somebody in each one of those cars. Yeah. Every single one of those people have money in their pocket. They do. And so it's like, how much money is really out there? Go look on, I do this a lot too. I go look on different websites. I'll look on Zillow and look in, I'm a big skier. I like the mountains and the mountain

homes and stuff. So you go look on those and there's houses up there for 22 million, 50 million. When I was out in Lake Tahoe, we went by one that was listed for 75 million. Like who has this type of money? And they're not even their primary residence. So they're coming in there paying cash for that and then, you know, living somewhere else most of the time. So you look at the yachts. Look at Jeff Bezos' yacht. Massive. Yeah.

How much money is out? There's a lot of money. So if you think that money is scarce, and you think that money is finite, it's not. You just have to figure out how to make money flow to you. Yep. And there's a lot of different models, a lot of different ways to make that happen. Provide a service. That's one way. Investing, another way. Figure it out. The money is a game. It really is. It's can you

provide value to somebody and will somebody pay for that value yep and there you go there's the game so figure that out yep and retrain yourself to start speaking differently you know stop saying money doesn't grow in trees or we don't have money maybe say it's not in our budget we have a budget. Say these different words to kids. We have a budget. We have this. We can maybe, if you want this toy, so let's set a budget goal so we can start adding to your goal so you can get that toy. These different ways of having a conversation instead of just shutting the child down, whether you have a ton of money or you're't, you're low income. This is setting a child

up to think about money differently. Yeah. And it's, you know, to hear the, you know, we don't have that money or that's expensive. As a kid, I remember hearing sometimes say that, oh, that's expensive. And I'm like, well, it's like 300 bucks. Like to me, to me, I'm like, that's 300 bucks. Let's go get it. You know, and I would implore the questions that you ask yourself and the things that you tell, tell yourself, ask, you know, if somebody, if, man, that's expensive. Don't just say, don't finish with that. Finish with, well, how do I, how do I make that type of money? And because I think we don't, thinking is our number one tool that we can use, right?

Warren Buffett, 90% of his day is spent thinking. Nothing else. He's just reading. Reading and thinking about what's going on, right? And he's one of the richest men in the world. So if we have something, we go, oh, that's too expensive. Don't just stop the thought at that. Let's create the thought of,

okay, it's more money than I have right now. Yeah. How do I get it? Yeah. What can I do to be able to get that money? Yeah.

I mean, that's, when I see something I want, man, how do I get that? Yeah. It inspires me to see somebody that has money that rolls through, you know,

Rolls Royce or, you know, Bugatti, any type of those cars. It's like, what do you do to get that? Yeah. You know, I'm not mad. Even if you have to start asking questions and utilize your network of people around you.

Man, how did you get that? And that's what Malcolm does in this book. He goes around and it's this guy, Mr. Money Monroe, that is like the wealthiest man in town. And he sees him at the barbershop and he's like, I'm going to ask some questions. Like, how did he get there? Like, how did he set up his plan? And so it's, I just think that's important to kind of teach your kids. And then as an adult, just know too, that if you see these things, you can have, you can have them too. Just don't be afraid to open your mouth and ask or find an expert to help you.

Couldn't have said it. Get around other people. I'm in masterminds. I'm involved with groups that all have business owners in there that they're all doing different things. We all talk about marketing, mindset, growing, like all these different things on how we expand who we are as people. You know, how do we get past the things that are causing us pain, overcoming those objectives and moving on. Right.

And so get around those people. Those, listen, successful people, they don't mind sharing. From my experience, go talk to a successful person and they're nice. Yeah. go talk to a successful person and they're nice yeah we've created this stigma of like oh he must you know clean hands um dirty money like i've heard that before so and i'm just like you guys don't have a clue what's going on yeah right it's the value you provide it's not it's it's yeah and then don't let uh surface level differences stop you either. Yeah.

I found that to be an issue. And so I'm in the Blue Ridge Rotary Club and it is a predominantly white older club. Yeah. And I'm younger. I'm an African-American woman coming in. But I can't let that stop me. That surface level difference. We have many things in common. Right.

And get to know someone on a personal level. Get to know more about them, and they'll be more open to start sharing their information with you. Because they're like, wow, Cal's cool. He just asked me all these questions about me and got to know me, and I like that guy. And then when you come and you want something from them, like knowledge, they're more open to giving it. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's that reciprocity being kind, being respectful. You know, it goes a long way. It does. It does. It goes a long way. Well, Jay, thank you so much for coming on the show. Man, the time just flew today.

It's a subject I really enjoy talking about, and I think a lot of people need to hear more about it. And so, again, thank you so much for coming on today, sharing the story, sharing the books. Put those up again one more time. Yes. Where can we find you on these? You can find me on social media, Mahogany and Friends, on everything.

My TikTok is not the best, but I'm going to get there. I'm going to buy that course. And then you can find my website is www.mahoganyandfriends.com. That is a direct way to support the brand and buy a book and just figure out, just to find out what's our happenings and what's going on in Mahogany's world. Awesome. Again, thank you so much for coming on.'s going on in Mahogany's world. Awesome. Again, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me. It was fun.

Absolutely. Yeah. Until next time, guys. Next week, we'll see you then. Thanks. Bye. Thank you.