The School of Greatness - From Prison To Financial Freedom: The Journey of Reshaping Your Identity w/Wallstreet Trapper EP 1209

Episode Date: December 31, 2021

Today’s guest is Leon Howard who is better known as Wallstreet Trapper. Growing up in New Orleans, Leon is no stranger to the streets and the pitfalls that come with it. He has an incredible story that we dive deep into today about his 10 year prison experience where he learned about the stock market and the similarities to business in the real world and business in the streets. He provides a ton of resources ranging from courses and e-books where he simplifies wealth creation and creating wealth through the stock market.In this episode we discuss how Trap’s upbringing and experience of going to prison saved him and taught him the foundations of building wealth, the similarities between business in the real world and business in the streets, the key steps to begin to build financial freedom, the simple concepts people misunderstand about building wealth, how to truly change your identity and the trajectory of your life and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1209Check out Wallstreet Trapper: www.thetrapperuniversity.comDaymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-pod 

This is episode number 1209 with the Wall Street Trapper. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome, my friend. Today's guest is Leon Howard, who is better known as Wall Street Trapper.

Growing up in New Orleans, Leon is no stranger to the streets and the pitfalls that come with it. He has an incredible story that we dive deep into today about his 10-year prison experience where he learned about the stock market and the similarities to business in the real world and the business in the streets. He provides a ton of resources ranging from courses and eBooks where he simplifies wealth creation and creating wealth through the stock market.

In this episode, we discuss how Trapp's upbringing and experience of going to prison saved him and taught him the foundations of building wealth, the similarities between business in the real world and business in the streets, the key steps to begin to build financial freedom, the simple concepts people misunderstand about building wealth,

how to truly change your identity and the trajectory of your life, no matter what you've been through, and so much more. If you're inspired by this, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired as well. You can just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this, or go to lewishouse.com slash 1209 and share that link.

If this is your first time here, please click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify right now to stay up to date on the latest and greatest from the School of Greatness podcast. And I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week today from Maersk. And they said, this podcast is pure in goodness and valuable for so many reasons on so many levels.

And Lewis decided to live his truth openly and in the process is able to influence and help people at scale that would not be possible otherwise. So big thank you to Maersk for leaving a review over on Apple Podcasts is able to influence and help people at scale that would not be possible otherwise. So big thank you to Merce for leaving a review over on Apple Podcasts and being a fan of the week. Okay, excited about this one. And in just a moment, the one and only Wall Street Trapper.

When did you realize that you were going to start learning about financial literacy and then what did it look like when you got out? Oh man, so born and raised in New Orleans, first and foremost. And New Orleans has always been a city that I feel is full of culture. On the front side people look for food and music, you know, the good times. But there's a part of New Orleans that also is on the other side that gets a lot of light, which is it being a murder cavity, high crime, right? A lot of poor, a lot of underdeveloped people financially, just in so many different ways. And so I grew up in that. Some of my moms get shot when I was nine years old. Saw old sorry get shot I saw her get shot when I was like nine maybe

like a hundred yards away from me Wow so immediately I had a connection and understanding of violence right so at nine years old kind of like when I got older like I don't think about how that played in my brain over and over and over again. And so- When a kid sees violence at an early age in the family, what does that do to the kid? Does it normalize it?

Does it make them want to be more violent, be less violent, like and run away from it? What happened to you? So what it did for me was it did two things. One, it made me realize that violence in my environment was a Necessary evil to do one protect yourself protect what up with like in if anything happened violence was now the first result No matter what that violence looked like what it was fighting what it was shooting was it was okay if Someone could shoot my mother Wow

Then they could shoot me So now I'm automatically in protect mode. Okay, cool. This is what it is. But also it becomes a tool for regulation. Like you start understanding like, okay, like violence is what gives me respect. Violence is what keeps me from being a prey. Right? And so you just start to normalize it. Like I always, I said this to somebody before I said, if you come to New Orleans

and you're in a park and a gun goes off, if there's a bunch of kids in the park, I can almost guarantee you they won't run. They know the protocol. They know to get down, look both ways, see where the gunshots coming coming from, and then go the opposite way. That is normalized. That's trauma. No kid should understand the protocol to what to do about it. For a gunshot. Yeah.

But it's, like, understood. Like, I even knew it at a young age. I would be inside. Gunshot's ringing. First thing we do, we get under the bed. Wow. You know what I'm saying? Like, this is understood.

It's like the, you know, in school they teach you is understood so it's like the you know in school they teach you like There's a tornado warning a siren it's like that's what to do. Yeah, what you do So it's like a survival handbook, but in real time And you also see that no age limit is off limits to getting killed Wow Cuz young kids are getting young shot up. Yeah, like it's happening. So You start to understand like okay this this is my environment Me seeing guns me seeing drugs Prostitution. All right, cool. This okay. This doesn't scare me no more. I get it. I cool

So now I got that I have to now walk around And All right, cool. So now I have to now walk around and understand how that feels. I have to walk around knowing if I don't do the right things, that could be me at a young age. So you have to educate yourself on violence and protecting yourself and being aware of what to do and how to get out of situations and how to defend yourself conflict resolution like all those things are apparent at a young age even even when it comes down to even just like bare fist fights like you understand that if i don't handle this situation right here right now then it's certain things in this neighborhood i will not be able to do you know what i this neighborhood. I will not be able to do You know I'm saying like I will not be able to go to this store if I let him take him or whoever they are

Take this dollar from me 50 cent from me Why won't you be on the store because now every time they see you they take more there's gonna take more Yeah, unless you defend yourself unless you and it's either gonna to be man it doesn't even work my time going over there messing with him right right yeah i don't got time to hear that he's going to be one of those let me go over there yeah right so it's like it's like the bully in school it's like the bully keeps beating you up until you stand up to the boy and then the thing about the bully is the bully never really wants a tough fight no why would i do something tough when i could go away easier right so you you just start to understand those things like you know what and then you start hearing things

in the street like your people tell you stuff like if let's say you go home you you you my uncle you send me to the store and i come back and be like oh man such and such them took it from me well don't come back in here until you either come back with what I gave you or you come in here bloody. Prove me. Right. Show me that somebody. And now we're going to go out there and take care of that. So now, like, those are the realities at a young age.

And it doesn't say, OK, you're too young for this. Now, it's whenever it happens, you got to be. And so now you develop that mindset, that mentality from a little bitty to adulthood And what happens is now you see it so much it becomes you Oh, I know how to handle this situation right here. I'll be gay boom boom booms, and then you now Teach that trauma. Yeah Right you replay it you replay it you so 16 maybe like 14. I was homeless so my brain I live with my grandmother. My grandmother passed away.

And I was homeless. Like, literally homeless. Because it wasn't that my family didn't want nothing to do with me. But everybody has their issues. Nobody wants to take on another burden. You know what I'm saying? No matter what it is. So I dealt with that for a minute, just being homeless.

And then I moved with my my aunt who was on drugs and I Started hustling our house, you know for survival purposes, you know, I'm saying just been able to survive just understand Like I learned this from my mom so This is how I'ma eat right? So school becomes second nature survival becomes Present, you know, is what has to happen. So at 16, I go to prison for attempt murder.

I got robbed out of some drugs and some guns, some money. And in the streets, it goes back to that same mentality where if I let you get away with this, then I can't hustle no more. Then you're going to do this again to me over and over again. Yeah, and not only are you going to do it, but everybody else. I'm fair game. They'll hear that you gave it. I'm fair game. And then in the streets, there's this

code of, there's a difference between robbing me and jacking me. What's the difference? So if I jack you, it's, yo, give me this. What you gonna do about it?

Right, right. Right, whether it's a gun or not. It's mine now, yeah. Yeah, what you gonna do about it? Robbing you is if I have a mask on. I don't even know who you are. Right, so robbing you, you kind of get like, all right, I gotta find out.

But jacking me, it's a bold statement. It's like, whatever. And so that has to be met with some type of consequence. You know what I'm saying? And not always saying it's right, but in the jungle. To survive. Exactly. Otherwise, you got to move.

You got to move to another city. And this is what you're doing. Yeah, yeah. And you don't have time to do all that. Yeah. That's why I'm asking. Trying to get to the store. Yeah. So I went to prison for

shooting him and I got 10 years for attempt murder on robbery and that's kind of when I'm not gonna say life changed I'm like I cool I'm in prison like cuz your mom was there for my mom was in prison yeah and you would visit her so you kind of knew that this is an environment that I could potentially be in one day. Yeah, that's kind of understood already. Like you already understand that at some point on your journey, you're going to prison.

Like that's it, you're going to prison, you're going to at some point use a gun on several different occasions. Wow. Right, like this understood already. And I know it'd be kind of hard for a lot of people to understand that because if you've never been introduced to that, you'll never, you know,

like if you've never seen a lion hunt, then when he eat the gazelle, you're like, that's so ferocious. But you don't understand the rules of the jungle. You don't understand the rules of the safari. So it may seem grotesque, but in the safari, we know that's the ecosystem. So in the streets, that's just part of the ecosystem. That's the environment.

Yeah, it has to happen. What was that like when you knew that you were sentenced to 10 years at 16? Were you like, was it devastating? Is it kind of like, this is my badge of honor? Is it kind of like, man, I was only hoping for a year or two, not 10? So I remember my great aunt came to court for me because they wanted to give me 35 years. Because the dude, you know, he wasn't, again, it was a 10th marriage, so he wasn't dead. And my aunt, she knew the judge. And she kind of like just told him my story.

She's like, look, he's just been going through a lot. His mom's in prison. My sister passed away, which was my grandmother's sister. He's just been out here. He's a better kid than that. You know, he just, you know. So he actually gave me, he came to me and he said, you have no other option than to take these 10 years. I'm not asking you, do you want to take them?

You're going to take them. You're going to take these 10 years, right? And the DA was like upset about that, right? Because here's an opportunity to take, again, and I'm not saying he's mad, but here's an opportunity to take somebody off the streets in a city that's plagued with crime for shooting somebody like he has to go so in my mind i was just like because i had saw it so much i was kind of numb to it you know it was like all right how much they gonna give me right and i kind of to be honest with you the 10 i was like all right cool it's a cakewalk, you know think about the 16 10 years I'm like, I'm already like, okay 25 26. I'll be home. That's cool. Wow, but let me tell you something's crazy

Let me tell you something's absurd in prison You will hear people say well I could do another five to you. Oh my gosh Yeah, I was that person At about age 19. I was like, yeah, I still got another 10 year, I could do another 10 year bid. Why though? Why?

Because you just, you don't see no other way. Right. Right. Kind of have to mentally put yourself there otherwise you go crazy, I guess. You kind of feel like, one of the things that you don't see a lot in those communities, you got to remember, we've financially and they just underdeveloped. Yeah. Education and financial. Education, financial literacy.

We underdeveloped coming up in that. Everybody you see is in survival mode. Nobody is thriving but the drug dealers, the rappers, and the people that play sports. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Maybe a couple of musicians Yeah, and if you can't if you can't Play sports, but you can't make it rapping Then all the power is now in the drug dealers or in the criminals, right? You see them living a life they want

Everybody that you see going to work They barely making it right you know people with two jobs you know people with three jobs and all you see them doing is coming home whooped they still struggling so you like i'm not about to do that if i'm gonna live a life at least let me have some fun at least let me do some of the things I want to do. And so in your mind, you're like, if this is the alternative, well, hell with it. This is what it is. Right? And so you just accept it.

And so when you accept that life, you know what will come with it. Right? And so you mentally prepare yourself like, all right, well, you ain't here for a murder. You ain't here for a temp murder. You ain't here for a robbery. You ain't here for selling drugs. Man, what you messed up at murder, you ain't here for on robbery, you ain't here for selling drugs. Man, like, what you messed up at? What you did wrong?

So now y'all start swapping stories. You know, he telling you what he messed up at, he telling you what he did wrong. You like, okay, well, I can get better. If I just don't make this mistake, then don't do this. So you learning real time from somebody who may have 99 years, 240 years, life, the debt penalty, like you may be learning from it.

Learning what not to do when you get out. What not to do, where they messed up at. And remember, experience is the best teaching in any way of life, right? What mistakes did you make? Okay, cool, that's what you did wrong? Got you. I'ma take mental note of that, and you gotta think,

over the course of two, three, four, five, six years, you sleep on the side of somebody, you learning the game, and in your mind, you just like, I'm about to take mental note of that. And you got to think, over the course of two, three, four, five, six years, you sleep on the side of somebody. You're learning the game. And in your mind, you're just like, I'm going to go home and be better at this than what I was before. So you accept the idea of, all right, cool. I could do another 10 years. Sure. I did this 10. I could do another 10.

It's in me. What's safer for you? What was safer, the streets or prison? So honestly, prison saved me. Saved you. Prison saved my life. Was it safer? Because I heard some stories from you. It's not really safe. I've been stabbed. Yeah. I got a stab wound

right here. I think it's on his arm. Yep. I got stabbed right here. I got stabbed in my back in prison. I think they both have their shortcomings because you got what the thing about prison is you boxed in so you can't run you can't escape from that and when you're in home you can move around you can do some things there's advantages and disadvantages to both for me I know prison saved my life

because right before that situation, I had got into with somebody where I was almost kidnapped. Like I was literally almost inside of the trunk. Um, and I barely got out of that, the skin of my teeth. And I literally came to prison. I really went to jail like three weeks later. You know what I'm saying? Which probably would eventually happen.

Which was going, so that charge that I went to prison for either saves me from going to prison for something more serious. Or saves you from dying. Or getting killed. Yeah, yeah. Right? And that's kind of always, again, that's always the, like prison is always the lesser of two evils that you're willing to accept. Right? Because you're like, at least I ain't gone.

Yeah. And you just start to accept it. And what was the moment then during prison where you learned about making money? So I had got into a fight with two of my homeboys. Is this like a verbal fight, a physical fight? No, a physical fight. Yeah, yeah. I got in a physical fight with two of my homeboys.

And I go to a solitary confinement. How long? A week, two weeks? A day? No. So I sent it to 90 days. Ooh. That's not fun. a solitary confinement. How long? A week, two weeks? A day? So I send it to 90 days. Oh. That's not fun. Solitary confinement.

That's not fun. So it's crazy because this is where I feel like I have this thing that I say that like if you take a picture and you put it in a darkness, this is where it develops at. Mm-hmm. Right? And darkness this is where it develops it mm-hmm right in the darkness is where it develops you want you don't want to expose it too early because it'll mess up but in the darkness is where it develops and when it's time when you know just right it can be one of the most beautiful pictures you've ever seen if you let it develop in the right time. Prison was my development stage. So I get in a cell with this white guy.

I'm in a full man cell and it's just me and him. Bunk bed. Two on each side. A little two foot walk away. One little bath. I've been in this cell. For 45 days, me and him were just in a cell. No one else came in a cell, which is.

This is for solitary confinement? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So shared confinement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's 13 cells on each side, four people in each cell. An hour a day out? Hour and a day out. So we didn't even get an hour.

We got 45 minutes. Yeah. Take a shower together, come back in a cell. Man. And for those 45 days, we did a lot of talking oh man my first day in the cell though like i wanted to beat him up because i come into the cell and the first thing he told me was they all playing the wrong game i looked at him i just had a fight with two of my homies my blood i'm like what like what are you talking about and he was like nah like i don't mean no disrespect and it's something about his tone that made me just like listen to him i don't know what it was i can't even describe it

how old are you at this point i'm 17. oh wow one year i'm still a hothead yeah i'm still a hothead this point I'm 17 oh wow one year I'm still a hothead yeah I'm still a hothead you go man yeah yeah what you talking about yeah so he was like I think for him that was the first time he had seen that many black men in one spot because he had this look of like confusion like he was confused he was like man y'all playing the wrong game, bruh. And I was like, well, if you playing the right game, why you in here with me? Right, right. Why you in here? What you talking about?

He was like, what are you in here for? And so one of the things about in prison, you don't just tell people what you're in prison for, unless you in there for something serious, because then you wed. Yeah. So I'm like, I'm in it for a temperament on robbery. This is my badge of honor.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, like, I'm in it. Like, don't play with me. I'm like, so what you in here fored-on robbery. This is my badge of honor. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, like, don't play with me. I'm like, so what you in here for? So he was in there for embezzlement. He embezzled $2.8 million. He kept $2 million. He paid $800,000 in restitution.

And I was like, man, you lying. And so one thing about prison is you can always show somebody your paperwork, what you in there for. And so one thing about prison is you can always show somebody your paperwork, what you in there for. And so when I saw it in black and white, it was a different level of respect for me. Because I never saw $2 million on a piece of paper before. And so he said, this is why I'm telling you you're playing the wrong game. He was like, how much time you got?

I was like, ah, 10 years. He was like, have you ever seen a million dollars before? He was like, you'll never see it playing that game. Playing what game? The streets. The drug. It's the game. He's like, you'll never see it playing that game.

And I kind of just took that in for a second. Because up until that point in my life, I never met a successful drug dealer. Right, right. You mean, maybe for a year or two, but you always get caught. You get caught. You get shot. Right, right. You mean maybe for a year or two but you always get caught, you get shot, you get something. You get robbed. Everything. Yes, I was just like that was like one of those moments that humbled me. So he said, listen, you got to do these three things.

You got to start trading time for money. You got to start learning how to make your money work for you. You got to learn how to give value to people. I didn't learn that message. The value part, I didn't learn that so I started my business and I was like I had never heard nothing like that was like scripture to me here and there right well those three again it was you got to learn how to make your money work for you stop trading time for money and give value to people yeah And so he kind of just,

I'm not even going to lie, like the way he said it with so much conviction, it kind of like mesmerized me. Like it caught me off guard because I had never heard nothing like that before. And so he just started

explaining to me about how wealthy people use money and how the streets is a game that we can never win. We were only pawns in the game. The house always wins. Yeah.

And I was like, damn. So he just started me realizing that. And so I think in that moment, I just started looking at everybody from my mama. I was like, damn, I don't know nobody that won. Everybody had moments, but nobody really won. Yeah. Damn, I don't know nobody that won. Everybody had moments, but nobody had really won.

And so maybe before he left, he told me, you need to learn how to do these three things. You need to learn how to, wealthy people invest in stocks, they invest in real, start a business, and then they invest in real estate. And because he said stocks first, in my mind, I wanted to do whatever he was doing. Yeah. And so had he said real estate first first I'll probably be the real estate trap but because he started with that it just it stuck with me so when he went upstate he went to that so he went to the federal prison he was almost in the floor so he did 18 months right he was in federal and that was that was another thing that caught me off guard I was like 2.8 million dollars and you about to tell me you have 30 years 40 years he had 18 months

and he told he said he shined light on something for me he said even if i was to come back the most they could give me is 36 months this time so even if he went home kept the two million2 million, paid $800 in restitution, so he did 18 months, kept $2 million. If he went home and did the same thing again, the most they can give him was 36 months based on those federal guidelines. Right. He still would have done less time than me, had more money than me. Right. That just blew me away.

He was still doing something illegal. He was doing it illegal he was going to the legal yeah but it's just like it was a it was a different level yeah of course you know i was just like damn like i'm playing a wrong game he's like you're risking your life for for 30 years yeah you're sure what are you doing where i'm risking 18 months yeah you're in the wrong level so that's just kind of like that was was my moment. And so I remember getting shipped upstate to prison. So now I'm in the penitentiary. At 18, you're going to.

I'm in prison. So I went from the Orleans Parish Prison to like Louisiana State Prison, like prison, maximum security. And I remember stocks, stocks, stocks. So I remember the first book I read was Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I remember reading that and I remember just being like blown away at the idea of what financial it was and I remember thinking like why nobody never teach me this and so then I remember starting to look at CNBC in prison yeah yeah so prison is a place you got a little you got a little TV in the side

No, no, so we got it. We in it. We got a day room Yeah, so the day room it has like a probably like a 30 inch TV in there So a sports is number one of course movies Oh, yeah, the news is number the news sports the younger the wrestlers right make the Newman they like Grown men love the watch Victor Newman, right? So I would have to get up like kind of early so I could watch CNBC. And I remember watching like Jim Crane. I was like, yo, this dude is crazy.

You know what I'm saying? And I remember just telling myself, why don't see no black people up here? It's a lot of rich white dudes. And they not risking their life right and they was talking about numbers i had never heard of yeah numbers i knew i could never make selling them numbers i knew i could never make robbing nobody and i was just like yeah i'm playing the wrong game so i remember reading rich dad poor dad and then i remember reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

And then I remember reading about a guy named Reginald White, Reginald Lewis. And I was like, OK, because his book was Why the White Guys Have All the Fun. He built a billion dollar empire off private equity. And I was like, oh, I could play this game and so I went watch CNBC and I couldn't get it because I couldn't understand it they were speaking in a language that was just like I ain't never heard that before

and I never forget they was talking about terrorists and what they are and terrorists were simply taxes that people pay, other countries pay for coming, you know, hustling in the United States. And in my mind, I said, well, that's the equivalent

of paying draft. So a draft is like, let's say you live in one hood, I live in one hood, you want to come hustle over here? I said, Louis, you got to pay me some money to come over here. That's a terror. I'll leave you a loan as long as you pay me. As long as you as long as you pay me i was like oh oh this remind me of the streets and then a friend of my name chris kellogg he used to get the usa to date and so when i was

in prison i used to run numbers i was a bookie and i remember him telling me you always get the sports section why you never get the business section you're always looking at um CNBC I was like man nobody looking at those business section he said well you're looking at stocks this is the part you need to be looking at I was like yeah so I remember I started reading that from him so every time he would get the the USA Today I would pay him to give me just the business section and I would just read it and then like it just started clicking to me it reminded me literally of the streets like in order for a company to be great

on the stock market they have to have a good product in order for a business to be enough for me a good hustler i got to have a good product in order for the company to have um great they got to have great revenues they gotta have a great profit in the streets if i can be a great hustler i have to know how to turn my revenues into profit I gotta have more than real money it has to be money that I can re up with and then go get some more pay my bills yeah you have to learn that and on a stock market if a company has a good moat a competitive advantage they can beat off their defenders well if I'm a hustler if I got a good product if I got a good price I

got the packaging and I'm always out there if I'm always available I'm a hustler, if I got a good product, if I got a good price, I got good packaging, if I'm always out there, if I'm always available, I got a moat. You're like 7-Eleven, baby. It's popping. You're always open. I'm open. You know what I'm saying? And so I was like, yo, this remind me of the streets.

It's no different. And so once I was able to make that connection in my mind, I said, I could be the next Warren Buffett. Wow. I could be the next Warren Buffett. So were you teaching yourself and reading books then for the most of those years? Or did you have someone else in there teaching you? Was it all self-taught?

Nah, everything was self-taught in prison. Kind of like nobody was really on it. Like everybody was like on sports, real estate was the thing. Like everybody in prison wants to come home and get into real estate. Everybody wants, and that was one of the things

that Robert Kiyosaki talks about. Real estate, real estate, real estate, real estate, real estate. So, you know, that's kind of like the thing. Like I'm going to come home, I'm getting into real estate. And in prison, I learned about Real Estate Investment Trust, which is REITs. I was like, oh, so I can own the real estate without even, I learned about real estate investment trust which

is Reese I was like oh yeah so I can own the real estate without even you know I'm saying managing a property and none of that oh this is this is love so everything was me just learning so studying Monash Pabrai studying Warren Buffett studying Bill Ackman studying just so many different people peter lynch just studying them understanding them joelle greenblatt just studying them listening to them like getting my people man send me some books uh getting somebody i know like yo man tell your people send me these books i'm gonna pay you for it from the commissary and so i would just read read read read i ain't had nothing else to do i would go to work come back to my dorm read just read and then I would get consumed in it because immediately I saw

that there were two different Americas that was the America that I knew and everybody around me had the same problem there was a there was a particular thread that ran through every hood across America. Every hood that I went to was always the same. And then we always look at another part of America and we'd be like, yo, how do they get that? And I was like, the reason why in my mind was because they have access to a different type of information. So is it information or is it an environment? So it's a combination of both, right? So people like to talk about racism a lot.

And while it does exist, I think classism is a completely different animal. What does that mean? It's a bigger animal. So classism is there's a group of people, no matter your color, that has a different information, pedigree, status, and access that other people don't have. It doesn't matter what race

or religion or where you're from. It doesn't matter. So how do people get into that class even if they don't fit the majority of the class, look like the majority or come from the majority of that class? So where it could look like racism. Yes, and that's the thing, like,

even though racism exists, but it exists on a bigger picture at a smaller scale. So this is my introduction to it. It's understanding that classism says this is how our family is set up. Look, I'm going to use you for example. Your father says,

listen, you need to learn how to invest. You need to learn how to start a business. But also, I want you to meet so-and-so's son. I want you to meet so-and-so's brother. I want you to meet so-and-so's daughter. I want you to go to this school. I want you to go to this party with me. And so information gets passed down. Life insurance get passed down. Wills, trust get passed down life insurance get passed down wills trust get passed down those type of things help you get access to rooms that me or these people over here will never see

i want to be in the room wearing that and so i was like that's it, that's it. Yeah, that's it. The information is what changes everything. And so I had this saying, education and information changes the conversation. If you change the conversation, you can change the compensation. If you can change the compensation, you can change the compensation you can change the realization you feel I'm saying it's because if I can get access to information just something simple as investing when I started teaching my home is about investing I was like you in order to be well you gotta own

something you can't you can't be, you cannot create wealth if you don't own nothing. If you don't own nothing, you're just a consumer. And if you don't own nothing and you're a consumer and you don't teach your kids how to own nothing, then now you've let them inherit it being a consumer. Yeah. They have the same education, information and repetition that you created. They're going to repeat what they see. Yeah. And if nobody breaks it, nobody's a disruptor, right?

No one becomes a disruptor. So now it's, well, I don't, I've never seen wealth, so I probably can't be wealthy. Let me just live my life like whatever. Let me live my life for me. Let me just keep buying things, let me let me work hard every day and the little time I do get some free cash because I work so hard for it I need some type of self gratification I

need some type of reprieve from this I don't care if I can't afford it sacrifice what am I sacrifice for it's hard can't afford it. Sacrifice? What am I going to sacrifice for? It's hard paying these bills. No, I'm not about to do that. And so now Christmas becomes the day where we go broke buying liabilities. Right? We have more month left than money all the time. Right? We are, again, we are financially deprived because we have no relationship with money.

Whereas this other class says this assets are the blood of the oxygen to this. Right. Let me teach you about taxes. Let me teach you the importance of life insurance. Let me teach you the importance of this. Right. Let me teach you the importance of you may not like this person. this right let me teach you the importance of you may not like this person check this out you may not like this person but just because you don't like them don't mean you can't do business with them right because they have access to such and such that you don't so what over here is if you don't like them kill them you don't like them you know have let them know you don't like them, you know, let them know you don't like them. Let them know there's animosity right there. Because I wanted to,

like, the way that the world is viewed is two completely different ways. You feel me? And so because of that, this set of people, until they get exposed to it, until this class of people gets exposure,

everyone will repeat that cycle. Whereas this class of people gets exposure everyone will repeat that cycle yeah whereas this class of people if you repeat if you do anything less than what we've done already like what is your problem you know I'm saying why won't you be great right and so once I understood that I was like I get it I get it this this is the game changer so. So when you knew you had a year left in prison, did you have a game plan? Was there a mindset of like, okay, I've been studying for eight years plus years, nine years,

and here's my next three moves? Or were you like, obviously if you don't have money, you gotta work a job for certain periods so you can invest to own something, whether it be stocks, your own house, or real estate, or equity in something. You've got to make money to be invested, or you could borrow it from someone and invest it, but then you got to pay something off.

So what were the next three moves after you got out of jail? So the idea was to come home, I was like, y'all could be Warren Buffett. Right away, like two years. I was like like y'all could be warren buffett right away like two years to be one but because you know when you're in prison like you paint this picture and you never know who you really are until you jump in the water right because you got to remember i went to jail at 16 i'll come home i'm 26 i'm a completely different man at this point the majority of my life has been in prison yeah my developmental years i've been in prison so my mind was like all right cool i went to the halfway house which was um you know six months to a year i was i had six months so i remember i came home

with like forty five hundred dollars and i bought me a grand prix after you got out of the six months you came home with forty hundred i came calling came calling 4 500 and i said the first thing i had to do is i gotta give me a car i don't even know how to drive like i gotta give me a call so i remember my cousin who was a preacher at the time he uh he came got me and i told him he had an avalanche and he was like man drive i was like i don't know how he said if you don't learn now you ain't gonna never learn so I tried to avalanche and then the next day he took me to two days later he took me to the license place so I gave him my license wow the lady tells me she was like you don't know how to drive but

I've been going for 10 years she was like let's get your license oh my gosh that's crazy that's that's not good. Wow, that's scary. She said, you deserve it. Wow. I said, yeah, man. And so I remember I'm gonna buy my car, and I was broke. That's when I bought the car and-

Then you're broke now. I'm broke. You already bought something that's a liability. I bought the car. It's not an asset. You're already losing your money. I'm done. I'm like, all right, cool.

But I'm like, I could get around. I don't got an actual body then. You got some access. You got some flexibility But I'm like, I could get around. I don't got an actual body. You got some access. You got some flexibility. I can get around. And so I remember I got into school. I was in Baton Rouge. So I learned how to weld.

Like, all right, I'm going to take this welding trade up. So I took that for six weeks, took fast track welding. So I got certified at that. I came home and I was an iron worker. So I started building schools, parents, and power plants. Schools, power fast track welding. So I got certified at that. I came home and I was an iron worker. So I started building schools, paying some power plants, schools, power plants, prisons. I was doing all of that. And I was like, man, I'm gonna start hustling, man.

Going back, it's too hard. This work is not worth it. This is not it. You're like, I'm not gonna do this for 10 hours a day. I'm not gonna do this. I'm not gonna do this. For 10 bucks an hour or whatever. Nah, that's what I was making at the time. I was like, I'm not gonna do this, man. hours a day. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. For $10 an hour or whatever.

That's what I was making at the time. I was like, I'm not going to do this, man. This is not going to get me to Warren Buffett fast enough. So I get back in the streets. No way. Got back in the streets. Come on. Got back in the streets, man.

Man, even after all that education and all that information and knowing it's the wrong thing and knowing that it can get you right back in there. Mike Tyson said something that's amazing, man. He said, everybody got a plan until they get punched in the face. That's true. You know what I'm saying? I got punched in the face. I was like, man.

Again, I'm influenced because I come home. Your environment is that. I see it. I see the cause. I'm broke. I'm like, man,

this ain't it. I'm going to work every day and I'm just looking like, man, this ain't gonna get it. So I remember day and i'm just looking like this ain't this ain't gonna get it so i remember taking my check it's like six hundred dollars i got me a pound of weed i said we on oh man you start splitting this up it's packing it and dealing it i start selling weed selling weed to the people at work i'm selling weed to the people at home so i say all right i'm gonna be smart i'm not gonna hustle all day i'm gonna sell weed at the people at home. So I said, all right, I'm gonna be smart. I'm not gonna hustle all day I'm gonna sell weed at work

And at home, right so I'm doing that and you know, I'm making money, you know started getting more weed Like that was my thing. So I started selling weed and X pills Right. I was like, all right cool. Like this is I was selling weed on the weekends when I was off I'll go to the clubs sell X pills. I was like, all right, that's it Like I see my vision and in my mind I said if I get a hundred thousand dollars on weekends i was off i'll go to the clubs sell x pill i was like all right is that like i see my vision and in my mind i said if i get a hundred thousand dollars i'm gonna quit no when are you gonna quit that when do you ever quit no now when i get 300 times it never happens no way so um 2000 so i come home 2007 in 2009 me and my one of my friends in the car together he had three strikes

police pull us over I had just served him a quarter pound of weed you just gave him yeah so he had it on him he had it on oh yeah and so police pull us over through it oh my gosh and please don't find it oh man but then something made them come back and he finds under the car so now me being a friend I know that my partner can't go to jail for another time he gone so I say man is mine so I was I was in me sound stupid but in my mind is like I was, it may sound stupid, but in my mind, it's like I was smart enough because I knew that I could only get probation because it was my first drug charge. What? I already got a temporary robbery. One drug charge ain't going to kill me, right, in my mind.

Dang, man. So he like, man, thank you, bro. I'm like, man, it's all good. I ain't tripping. So about two months later. Did you think to yourself, okay, now I need to stop this? Or were you like? No, that's a little probation talk, man.

That ain't nothing, man. That's probation. I just did it 10 years. Oh, my gosh. That was probation. I already know they can't give me nothing for probation. I'm not even mad at that. So I remember like three months later, they kicked my door in.

Oh, no. Eight pounds of weed oh they found it ten thousand dollars a forty forty with extended clip on the beam a 223

a hundred X pills when the people kicked my door in I remember the man looked at my TV and the stock market was on and he said you watching the stock market was on. And he said, you watching the stock market? And this what you doing?

And immediately in that moment, I said, I done effed up. You said this out loud? Yeah. The dope part about that was I was able to get found not guilty because they kicked my door in with no search warrant. Right, right, right. So it's called fruit of a poisonous tree. Oh, my gosh. So I was able to get found my guilt on that and the charge of my partner we did was called um the

crosby plea saying that i copped out only my best interest and then when it went to the full circuit court they was able to throw it away so i got away with a clean slate you know however state of louisiana anybody looking that, go look that up. So by how long was that process, that energy? Was it three months, six months? Nah, that was, so I came home in 2007. That was 2009. From 2009 to 2012, I was fighting those charges.

Oh, my gosh. That's a lot of energy. It's a lot, and it broke me. Yeah. And I remember after that, I'm now you got all you got court fees you got lawyer fee whatever it is i start robbing dope dealer crazy man so right this is what i know 2012 yeah 2012. i started robbing dope dealer so like i a friend of mine he used to be with it. So we robbing.

He like, bro, what we doing? I'm like, man, we robbing dope boys now. Oh my gosh, man. This is what we doing. We robbing dope boys. You're not selling, you're robbing. We just robbing now. What they can do.

Killing me here. Like I was successful for a while. And then I almost got killed. Oh my gosh. And I remember we was doing hit doing a situation and I forgot something Do put a 12 gauge some back of my head and he said I'll knock it off

And in my mind, I remember it's not about to go out My partner was that god bless his soul. He said Brad. look, I can't stop you from killing my homie. But if you kill him, no, you're going to die right with him. The next best thing you can do is let him go and I promise

I'm going to let you go. God was with me. Wow. Dude, let me go. I remember us getting out of there and I said, yo, I'm finished. I found out guilty twice

and this situation happened. You're like, I can't do it. I'm gonna die in the next three years. I'm good. Or I'm back to jail for luck. See, I'm good. And I committed to it.

So, but then you go back to welding or something? 2014, I start back doing iron work heavy. But you're making 11 bucks an hour. Now I'm doing good. So now I was still doing a little bit. So now I was building stadiums and power plants. So I'm making $2,500 a week now. So I had done build my craft up I don't got good and I was getting like

$25 $32 okay so you're building it up yeah I had to build it up so now I was like man I quit like a 25 an hour now yeah yeah so now I'm bring home $2,000 a week it's not bad good working man it's great good money man I still had it make the six figures yeah I was making like a hundred thousand dollars yeah yeah it's like figures. Yeah, I was making like $100,000 a year. That's not bad, man. $120,000 a year. That's amazing. That's like a lot of money. I was good, but like, I'm a hustler.

It's just in me. But I never went back to the streets. That's when I started taking this serious. 2014, I said, man, you're playing the wrong game, bro. And I was still, the crazy part was, on on a journey i was still teaching my homies in the street about the stock market oh my gosh i was literally telling them but you weren't doing it yourself yeah i was still investing oh you weren't i was still investing this one made me take it serious when they kicked my doing they froze my bank account they took my truck but they didn't

mess with my stocks oh my gosh and i said oh they don't think we that smart all right let me show them cool yeah so i really just started telling my home industry like say bro like this one you should put your money in don't put your money no put your money right here and so they didn't get it invest in invest in something that can give value to invested yeah we were nikes all the time we should own nike should own stock in nike you should own stock in nike all of us got apple iphones just in the beginning we should own iphones i'm like yo like we were dickies and timberlands that's owned by a company called vfc corp we could own that like we were a little bit on more

wet we drink more wet we drink Hennessy that's LVMH on a stock market we will go to that's PP are you why on the stock market we got 1810 my bro we can own this just like man we go to the stop all the crash like if it crash you just buy more and so then like some of them got on some of it didn't but then I was thought it I had to switch it I was, well what happens if you go to jail tomorrow? You come home with no money. You got money in the stock market. What happens?

You don't owe nobody nothing. You come home with some money. More money. So I started preaching it to my homies. And that's when financial literacy really changed my life. Because at this point I was dedicated to like, I knew that the streets wasn't for me no more. Like, I hadn't already been through all the fates. I did the 10 years in prison.

I got found not guilty. My life had been on the line several times. I'm still here. I was like, yo, like, God got something different for me. Wow. Again, that's why I said I was developed in the darkness. It ain't nothing that nobody can say about the streets that I ain't never did. Nothing.

So for me, it's like, from that, okay, I looked at myself like, I'm the person who can teach them. Because just being real, if somebody go to them street dudes with a suit and tie, they're not going to feel that. You ain't been through what I've been through. So now I want to represent something different. I want to represent Wall Street in a way that I'm going to wear my hoodie, I'm going to wear my team tops, I'm going to wear my tennis shoes,

but I got the same information. I can help you change your life. I can teach you the game that they playing. If you want to learn it, it reminds you of the game. And so that's when my life shifted, when I started taking this serious and I started saying, I'm going to be the first person in my family to build wealth. I'm going to be the first person in my family to have a trust. I'm going to be the first person in my family to own land.

I'm going to be the first. And I'm going to teach a bunch of dope dealers how to do the same thing. But then my mission got bigger because I realized it wasn't just the dope dealers how to do the same thing. But then my mission got bigger because I realized it wasn't just the dope dealers. It was people that was working nine to fives every day that still didn't see a way out. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna teach them too. All right, let me just start educating my people. Let me start educating this class of people.

You know what I'm saying? Because now if we can get this information, now we can start this information. Now we can start saying, wealth is possible. Right. When was the first big win, I guess, legitimate win? Was it like, okay, I invested in a stock and I saw like a five to 10 X, was it? So you teaching and getting paid for your service

and educating people and getting paid for that, was it? So for me, the first fur I'd never forget this a friend of mine was in a jam and at this time I had been teaching him since 2014 so maybe like 2016 2017 and one of his spots got kicked in he had no more money money He was like, bro, I don't got no money. I don't got nothing. I said, man, sell the stocks. Sell the stocks. And at this time... So you'd invested in stocks a couple years prior. Mm-hmm.

They had been... Like, I had, like... I've always been a leader. Like, I've... Are they setting up, like, a TD Ameritrade account or whatever? Yeah. Like, I'm literally walking my homies

through the process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm walking them through, like, look, we gotta get a bank account. Yeah, and then put the money, legitimate money in a bank account. Yeah, and then put the money, legitimate money in the bank account, right? Put the money in the bank account, right? And I remember he was like, man, I need all your money.

Because I had told him, you put the money in the market, just forget about it. Just let it go, your money's gone. Just let it go. It's gonna keep making you money. Your money now becomes your employees. You know what I'm saying? Dollars multiplying.

It's working for you. It's working for you. A dollar that ain't moving is a dollar that's losing. Yeah. So if a dollar that's consistently attracting more money, that's your employee. You're sending them out there to go get more money. They're recruiters for you. And so, and I said something like, think about it, do a game.

Like, if you know this company got some good dope, you know, it's coming to be around for a long time It's our remember he sold $8,000 stock and It helped him from going to prison. Hmm He was able to hire a lawyer and get a lawyer and he also says then Wow And so it'd be the moments for me don't be about myself it'd be moments like that where i know somebody can say because of this like this helped my life this impacted my life this changed my life this made me see my money different this

made me feel like this was possible like that's the power of financial literacy that's the power of saying now i got the right information like information would change our whole life and so that was it now for me it was saying like first it was like here's a thought i got a thousand dollars invested i got ten thousand dollars invested I got fifteen thousand dollars invested and so for me I started using the market also there's like a savings account yeah because I know that my money wasn't making no money in the savings account mm-hmm so I started buying like index funds yeah like I was just about an index one and I'm like stop yep that'll be my that'll be my savings account and then I'll do

individual stocks for my real investment so if I can get eight to ten percent on an index one that's better than zero.101% in a savings account. All right, cool. That's my savings account then. And it started, it's a mind game with me. If I got the money in the index fund and I'm using the index fund as a savings account, as long as I see the money working for me, I'm not going to touch it. In a savings account, what happens is I see the money.

I can take it out easy. I can take it out you take it out easy right and so it's all of those little tricks and those little nuances that make us be like why ain't never loved learn it and so you start to realize that the reason why the elitist can't teach financial literacy to certain people because then they lose customers. A lot of wealthy people can't teach financial literacy to poor people because those are the biggest customers. Who else is going to be the consumers?

The lion can never tell the zebra or the giraffe how to get away, or the gazelle how to get away. What are you going to eat? If the lion tells the zebra or the gazelle how to get what are you gonna eat if the lion tells the zebra the gazelle how to get away they're gonna tell everybody else not a lion no longer the king of the jungle the king of the safari it's a vegan you know i'm saying nothing against veganism but it's why would i teach you how to be a financial predator financial predators need financial prey so if you look at my community now you see check cash in places what does the check cash in place do the check has to if I get a

hundred dollars you got to get a check cash in place 150 that's taking away money from you right and the reason why check cash in place is gonna always have be prevalent in the hood because people have no relationship with money mmm so they said that the average person spends a dollar and 25 cent for every one dollar they meet Wow you know I'm saying right like that's horrible so you have more people living above their means you have more people like saying I gotta get this I gotta get that and one thing I've learned like even about wealthy people I love is that there's never a I have to have this it's about assets first save a second spin was left right and hoods the other way around is spin first bills if I save if I have

enough to save then I might save until I find something else I want to buy. You know what I'm saying? So it's always like for me and where I'm at now, my journey is how do I now make financial literacy prevalent in everybody that comes from the class where I come from? Because I know some poor-ass white people too. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? I know poor white people. You feel me? So it's like how do i now teach them the

importance of financial literacy and so now we feel like we can have leverage in the game because now you know you tell us like i'll get proud of somebody saying man i bought my first stock that's the power of owning that first stock is a game changer. Yeah. Because you're telling people we never own that in their life. So my motto is always helping the culture build well one share at a time. One share at a time, yeah. One share.

Instead of consuming everything, start owning something. Even if it's one stock, one index fund, you know, a piece of real estate from a real estate investment. You don't have to buy a whole house.

You know, you can buy $20 share of stock. That's it. And let that work for you. Let it work. And then over time, what I know about human nature is progress breeds like addiction. Absolutely. You know what I'm saying? Like, you start seeing something, you're like, what?

We get more of this. I want more of that. You go to the gym, you see one little muscle, I'm going back. It's funny, I get dividends every month from real estate that I'm involved in, right? So I get a, this morning, right before you came in, I just opened up my email and there was three notifications

of different payments from three different real estate properties I'm invested in, that I invested in a few years ago, right? And every month I get a check from money that I invested in years ago. That money's not sitting in the bank, just like depreciating in value with inflation. I'm not blowing it on some car or something.

I got a car, It's great. Right. I don't need more clothes. Right. I'm putting it into things that can bring me passive income to then pay my bills. Yes. And then the extra cash that I have, I put it into more assets to help me pay my bills, hire more people on my team, and help serve my mission. Mm-hmm. And I think that's, you know, when I see that, I'm like, man, I wish I would have put more in.

Yeah. You always think I should have bought more of that stock. I should have bought more of that real estate. And you can always get started now putting more in. Yes. What should be people thinking about when it comes to investing then? How do they know what to invest in? And to not because you can't invest in something and lose all your money.

Yes. So what approach do you give to people there? So I always say the first thing is, and I say this and I want people to understand this, invest in what you understand. So if you wear Nikes. Yeah, you should be looking at apparel brands, right? Nike, Lululemon, because you understand that, right? If you're a workout person, then you should be looking at like planning, fitness, things like that. Like if you are a tech person, you use an Apple phone. You should 100 percent be on looking at Apple.

Right. If you're a car person. But one of the things I like now is fintech financial technology. So everybody uses PayPal or Square. Right. That is the way money is changing. uses PayPal or Square, right? That is the way money is changing. The way we're using money is completely different now. So I think everybody should be investing in fintech right now, 100%. But I look at it as, so every investor has what's called an investor identity, like what you're willing to risk, your risk tolerance, what companies you're more familiar with. If you're a doctor, then you know more about medicine

So you should be in biotech Pharmacies healthcare you should that should be your thing if you are again a person who's in software then cybersecurity software that's what you're going to be strong at and that's what your strong points are I remember Warren Buffett said for a long time, he didn't understand technology. So he didn't buy technology. He didn't buy Apple stock until like 2017. He's like, I don't understand. I don't even have a computer.

I don't use it. I don't even use it. Right? So I learned that from him. He says, I put things in a too hard box. If it's too hard for me to understand, I don't do it. And what I love about investing is it's not an IQ sport. It's not about who has the biggest IQ at all.

Because it's more so about how do I stay in my circle of competence and what I understand? Because that's what gives me the advantage. Whatever I understand. Like, for me, it's banks. Like, I love banks. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs. Love it it fintech love it still dealing with like i love money i'm a hustler you know i mean i love that um so that's why i'm like heavy at sure you know i'm saying but i'm not a i'm not a bible former sugo right so i'll stay away from

that how do i stay away from it right so? So the easiest thing is, like, wherever you work at, like, look around. Wherever you shop at, look around. Every time I buy a product, I'm looking at who made it. So I can go look that up, see if it's a public company, if it's a private company. Right? If it's public, that means we can all invest into it. If I can invest into it, I want a piece of it. You know what I'm saying?

Just to keep it simple. We don't even have to make it hard. Right? You don't have to be Warren Buffett out it simple. We don't even have to make it hard. Right. You don't have to be Warren Buffett out the gate. Right. You don't have to be that. Like Warren Buffett didn't become Warren Buffett until 20 years, 30 years in. Right.

Right. You know what I'm saying? So you got to figure out who you are as a person, who you are as an investor that take you to that next level. Do you have a strategy where every month you're automatically putting money away into investments? Or when you get a chunk of money, then you're putting a certain percent into it? What's your mindset around investing in terms of how often you do it, how frequently you're putting it in? Oh, yeah. So every time I get money, at least 50% of it goes to investing.

Really? Yeah, yeah. I'm heavy with it. I could do a lot with less. Yeah. Like I don't live my life like that. I literally, and I always say this on camera, I only have like $10,000 sitting in the bank. Mm-hmm.

My life, if something happens to me, my life is not set up in a way where I need a lot of money on hand. Mm-hmm. You could always sell a stock and get money. You know, so for me, it's, I do three things every time I get some money. I invest with my daughter first. Mm-hmm. And then I invest with myself. And then I see what else gotta be paid right right so even when investing for myself and I'm putting money in the market I'm

sometimes just putting it in my account so it's available for me to use the right time when the time permits right so every week I'm putting money in okay let me put this money in my account then Then I have separate accounts because I got a portfolio that are designed to do different things for me. Right? So I have a dividend portfolio whereas everything

in that portfolio is about me having businesses that pay dividends. So I got Costco, T. Rowe Price, Home Depot, old realty, companies like that

that is just designed for me to get dividends. Yeah. Even if it's only 20, 30 bucks a month, that's a month that's something that's it and so I look at it as okay this will this will be passive income 39 I won't need this until I'm 59 60 I keep reinvesting in itself reinvesting yeah so now they buy me more shares of themselves I cool and then one portfolio I use for growth stock So alright, this is where my apples at my FinTech company my PayPal's and affirms and things like that

Because now I'm gonna get a lot of group. That's I'm taking more risk right here, right? And then as an option portfolio, I have I trade it So now I got three portfolios have to do three different things I have three different agendas. And I got a Roth IRA. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That's tax, you know, for tax advantages. So that's financial literacy. And life insurance.

Life insurance. Yeah. Yeah. Got whole life insurance. Right. So understanding, just understanding how the wealthy play the game. I just bought 40 acres of land. Right. I said, I'm 40 acres of land. Right?

I said, I'm going to create agriculture. Why? Because agriculture gets more breaks than anybody. You know what I'm saying? I bought 40 acres of land free and clear.

It's mine. I'm going to turn it into a farm. Right? Grow organic food, organic vegetables. I got water well on it. Wow. Right?

All right, cool. Let's do that. Tax advantages for this. Anything comes off that land, I get breaks on it. Wow. Right? All right, cool. Let's do that. Tax advantages for this. Anything comes off that land, I get breaks on that. So it's me sitting back saying, this is how the wealthy play the game of life. Not in survival mode, but in offense. The moment you can switch from survival mode to offense the game changes the more aggressive team in the game the more aggressive box in the game the more aggressive

like that's when the game is played again class of people are used to life dictating them i'm gonna take the punches i didn't come right how you doing man you know I'm making it yeah the responses be different and what's up how you feeling man I'm making it man well you ask somebody what's up man just close out on a deal yeah you know got a couple business meetings like I love attacking life mm-hmm and it don't have to be it don't always have to be going the way you want as long as you attacking it mm-hmm every day I, yo, I got an opportunity to go attack. Right. I got an opportunity to change something, to make sure, turn my last name into an asset.

Right. Turn my last name into an asset. That's cool. Like own my 24 hours. That's the goal. Like the person who can own their 24 hours can create freedom. Right. That's the difference between financial freedom and then financial independence.

What's the difference? So financial independence is saying, I now can make money for myself. I don't got to worry about my job. I don't got to worry about none of that. I can create the cash flow that comes to my house. Financial freedom says money is no longer even an issue. Big difference. Because even someone

who can create money for themselves still doesn't have freedom all the time. You can be an entrepreneur and be a slave to the business. You build yourself a job. You build yourself a job. Right, but financial freedom says your money is not even an issue no more.

Right. And that don't even have an issue no more. Right. And that don't even have to be a lot. Right. Whatever you... That's why I feel like some people have this fantasy of entrepreneurship as like this ideal lifestyle that's going to come. I don't think people understand the weight of being an entrepreneur and how long it actually

takes. I mean, you hear great stories of people that are like, oh, I built this thing and then sold it for a billion dollars. I usually took 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah. And so many punches in the face and the gut and ups and downs. But most businesses fail after a few years. And the ones that succeed, a lot of the entrepreneurs

are just working really hard to pay themselves a salary and take more responsibility, pressure, taxes, you know, insurance, all these things they hard to pay themselves a salary and take more responsibility and pressure taxes you know insurance all these things they got to pay until they learn to break through yeah and so it's not like the sexiest thing it takes time and energy and a real persistence i remember like just before the show i asked you i said outside of consistency yeah what was one of the things and you was like man now and I was like this nine years Yeah, like most people quit year one year to like no, it's too much for me. I can't deal with it. It's pressure Right, but there's this thing

About getting up and let me say that I don't think there's nothing wrong with anybody working a job Mm-hmm, because I don't think entrepreneurs for everybody. I don't think it's nothing wrong with anybody working a job. Because I don't think entrepreneurship is for everybody. I don't think it is. Right. But I do know that building wealth is for everybody. Absolutely. And you can take your money you're making from your job and invest it so it's working for you. It should be your biggest investment.

And that's what you were doing. That's what I did. But I feel, too, that, like, I think that everybody should at least once in their life go all in on something something that you just believe in that's living to me because for me I always I don't need motivation because when I look at my life my motivation is saying I'll never go back to that again. My motivation is saying that I have a daughter that I never want her

to experience that life. So getting up every day knowing that I can change my family, knowing that we are now in a time where we've never had the opportunity like we have now. And if I don't take advantage of that opportunity when it's time for me to go i'm gonna feel real messed up all day right you know i'm

saying absolutely because i don't it's a difference between never getting the opportunity and getting the opportunity and never taking advantage of it man absolutely how has mental health played in into your life with the uh the journey of learning how to heal so much trauma pain memories experiences not only as a kid not only in prison but six seven years ago when you're still doing a lot of things that were you know against the law and out of integrity and how do you learn to emotionally heal so much? I'm still healing. Yeah. I just told you I got to get your book, man.

I know, man. I know. When you told me, oh, I got to get that. I'm still healing. Man, I just, it's crazy because I just had a moment last night. I was talking to my mother and we had an old care relationship because she still got a lot of trauma and pain that she deal with and it's hard for me to attempt to heal run a business and be aware that she has healing to do right like that'd be a lot so um just last night i was like i can't take this man i can't do this

this is i can't do all this you know i'm saying it's because i was trying to deal with her situation emotionally and rationalize the logic then deal with okay i gotta do this this this this i'm trying to do this and it was just a lot and I had to step back and me and my me and my daughter's mother have a great relationship and I told her they're healing it this was my exact word that last night I said man healing is a lifelong process I said man this stuff take forever she thought she was gonna heal overnight yeah your daughter said this my daughter's mother yes now my daughter's mother I said man healing is a lifelong process.

She said, what you thought you was going to heal overnight? And it's understanding emotionally. So there's three phases in my life. Well, more than three, but you got to realize there was me before prison just seeing,

viewing, observing, seeing the violence. Like, I'm not only sending my mom to the shop, but I was so overdosed, right? So rationalizing that, me being homeless for a couple years of my life at a young age,

then me going to prison, adapting to a completely different lifestyle. Then coming home as a grown man, nobody's going to give you handsouts. So now I have to realize who I am as a free man a free grown man then in that process

of learning who I am I'm fighting cases again and then we go to okay well this is not it I'm just going to get into robbery because the only leverage i feel like i had in life at these points is leveraging my life right the only leverage the only fighting

thing i the only like i don't i don't know at the moment how to leverage information and knowledge the only thing that i knew that i had was my life. So, okay, freedom or prison. I mean, prison or death, it's the only thing I can. So it's now breaking away from that. And now being a leader, being an influential person in my communities, around the people, now accepting that. Because no one teaches you how to be a leader. No one teaches you how to do it. You got to learn that on the fly.

It's hard. You got to learn, okay, I can't say this. I can't say that. And then social media is something different. And so I'm learning that. I'm still learning how to heal. I'm still praying more. You know, we're talking about, like, we got to get back with the therapist, right?

Just so I can brain dump. Yeah. You know what i'm saying i got into journaling like getting these thoughts out of my head listening to stuff like atomic habits and you know just stuff like that so i'm still healing and i know it's going to be a lifelong process because you gotta remember i don't mean shot before i don't get shot at i don't get some shooting and honestly if you shoot somebody you deal with that all your life And honestly, if you shoot somebody, you deal with that all your life.

What does that feel like? Man, I still have nightmares about that. You know what I'm saying? Like, in the moment, you feel like I did the right thing. Justified. You justify it, right? You feel like, man, I had to be done. Like, you know what I'm saying?

And I think maybe the difference in a lion when he eats a gazelle is it's on to the next one. Right? But human nature comes in. You got to live with the consequence. Yeah, like, I almost killed that man. You know what I'm saying? Like, when you deal with that, it never goes away. You know what I'm saying? Like, it never goes away.

And part of you, you know, I'll have, like, right now, like, I don't even be wanting to be around guns. Right. You know, I'll be like, man, I'm good, man. Like, I don't want to go to the gun range, right? It's not worth it. Nah, it bring me back to a place of my life where I was. And I feel like the only way for me to move forward is sometimes you got to, like, disattach yourself from certain environments certain things. I'll be like nah, man

I honestly don't even like listening to music that has a lot of talk a lot of gangsta talk Cuz one I lived it and it brings in a different emotion in me Not like now if I'm gonna be here I don't want to get into that emotion and I I know with music, most people are telling their story. I don't want to relive that story. Right. That's part of my healing. Trying to create a new story.

Yeah. So that's part of my healing. I'm always healing, man. What do you think would be the three big things you need to take on or let go of in order to get to a completely different level in your life one year from today so when when i see you in a year in atlanta or in la yeah and you're like i did these three things where i let go of these three things and it took me to another level of financial abundance another level of emotional freedom and healing what would those things be? Three things that I would let go.

Or take on. Or take on. One is more mentoring. Mentoring more people. No, me getting more mentorship. You getting more mentorship, yeah. Yeah, because I think that life, I think everyone should have a mentor. Because we should always be learning yeah right and it doesn't always have to be with finances it can just be with life experiences so i think one of

the things for me is like finding like i had a mentor now i think i'm out grooming a little bit so i'm ready to get another one so one is mentoring um that i would love to take on. Two is truly cleaning up the way I eat. Because you are 100% a reflection of what you eat. Absolutely. Right? So I already don't drink, I don't smoke, but my eating habits are not the best. And the third one would be actually just sitting still. Like I move around so much in the process of doing this and doing this.

I think one of the things that's important for us is to sit still. I pray a lot already. And I think when you sit still, you can get clarity and you can get instructions. Right. I think we move around so much we don't get to get the instruction. I think everybody has an assignment. Right. Everybody here has an assignment. If you move around so much, you can never hear that assignment. People always say, follow your passion, follow your passion. I think it should be follow your purpose. Because the assignment is attached to your purpose.

And it's not to get real spiritual or crazy on people, but I just feel like the only way you get that assignment is you sit on a talk that person gave it to you right mmm creator sit yeah sit on a talk that person gave it to you and the only way you could do that the only way they can talk to you whoever it is is when you sitting still so for me would be getting like more mentors I want to have a mentor at all times because, again, it reverts back to where I came from. It was OGs that taught you a lot of stuff, and they only could teach you what they knew. So you became a reflection of that. And then if you didn't have an OG to tell you something, you freestyled it. And the freestyling cost you a lot.

A lot of mistakes, a lot of hard times, a lot of money. And some people who freestyled it, it cost them their life. So for me, I take on those same principles and say, okay, like, not only am I a leader, not only am I influential, but my goal is to be a person who can change or be a vessel for change and because it's all new to me i need somebody who's already took on that journey yeah i'm always talking about investing in coaches and mentors and uh i have a coach in pretty much every

area of my life yeah and i think it think it's hard to think we can do something on our own if we've never done it before. If you've never done it before. It's hard to think that we can do it consistently when things get challenging and hard. Without some type of emotional support from a friend, an accountability buddy, a coach, a mentor, whatever it is, whatever you want to call it.

I'm a big fan of investing in it so you're accountable to that time with that mentor or finding some skin in the game with a coach or mentor. And if you don't have the money right away, then you can find mentors without investing that but finding other ways to add value. And I think that's such a massive part of my growth and my success is being around the right people.

It changes. I understood. At first, I was my only child. So a lot of me is always, man, I got this. I can do this. I don't need nobody to teach me that. I can do this. You know, it'd be hard.

But as you start to put that ego to the side and say, nah, like, I can learn something from that person. This person can teach me something. Let me humble myself to learn this lesson. Because if I learn this lesson from them, that's less heartache and pain I got to go through. And learning from that person speeds up my process. Absolutely. There's so many things I learned from my three older siblings that I didn't repeat.

And I mentioned before, my brother went to prison when I was eight. I went to the prison with my family almost every weekend to visit in the visiting room. And I was like, I don't want to be here. I want to make sure that I don't go down this path. I started doing things when I was 12,

11 to like 12 and a half, 13, where I started doing petty stuff. I was stealing like candy bars and cigarettes, like whatever. It was just like as a high. And I did it almost every day for probably a year, year and a half.

I had to steal something. And it's, it's crazy to think, but I remember getting caught once. And I got caught by my dad. I didn't even get caught by a store. Right? I remember getting caught and feeling like, and I was kind of hanging out with the wrong group, just doing things that I wasn't really proud of myself, little stupid stuff.

I remember thinking like, if I keep doing this, here's where it could go. Maybe it doesn't happen the next year or two, but three, four, five years, if I keep doing this, here's where it could go. Maybe it doesn't happen in the next year or two, but three, four, five years, if I keep doing these same actions, I'm going to get more of these results. I'm going to feel bad about myself. I'm going to get caught. I'm going to hurt other people along the way. And who knows what consequences could come from that.

So I remember that moment was like, I'm never stealing or doing anything like this ever again. I need to change my environment mmm I didn't change my mindset around this and I like begged my parents to send me away to a school around kids that I mmm private school they sent to a private boarding school we begged them to send me this place to get me out of the environment she's talking about with your daughter like sending it to a class yeah an environment that speaks differently that has a different mindset. Everything.

Behaviors, all that stuff. It's important. Like, that environment is so crucial. Like, even just being around. So like, for me, being around people that understand the importance of investing, not only just. just yeah not just spending their money but investing in the money investing in a personal development investing in their business investing in teaching them how to run businesses and that like being around them and we'd be

like I gotta invest in myself too right right like and it's something we take for granted and being around people who understand that a certain amount of money isn't what you may see though that's a lot of money somebody like no i may spend that on investing in myself i may spend it on buying assets like understanding that people who build businesses are different like damn like that's you build that business like okay those conversations change your life. It's environment. If I'm in the hood, if I'm in my community, and I'm telling people about investing and doing this and that, and all they want to do is party and drink,

then no matter how positive I am, at some point I'm going to say, that ain't working, man. Let's go party and drink. Right? All right, cool. If you're around people that they complaining about the bills and the bosses and they work and every day then that's not an environment

that's conducive to you being successful that's not an environment that's conducive to change it's only it's only so long that you can flirt with the other side of what you want that you become that yeah and like if you want to be healthy if you want to work out you it's only so long you can work chill with people that won't go to all you eat buffets all the time when you be like you know what I'm I would eat this too you got to change your identity in the process to evolution yeah you got to change the identity and you know say I don't do these things that's not part of my that's it yeah I read this book can't think of what it was and it said uh there were two there

were two people there were attempting to quit smoking cigarettes one person said went off a cigarette they said yo I'm trying to quit I'm trying to quit smoking I'm good and the other person no, I don't smoke anymore. The person who said, I doesn't smoke, I don't smoke anymore, immediately changed their identity. The person that said, I'm trying to quit smoking, still associated themselves with smoking. So it's only a matter of time before they say,

well, let me hit the cigarette one time. Trying to, but it's not what I do. Because I'm trying to, but it's not. And so that is important. When you decide, I'm not, this is not and so that is important when you decide i'm not this is not what i do anymore it's not my identity then you just have to keep saying that every time it tries to come up no that's not my identity i'm not doing that it's part of who you are you change that you evolve and the evolution and who you are should be ongoing because who i am today i won't

be that person in 90 days or six months some aspects of me have changed you're going to change and I want that I've loved I've never let people especially on this part of my journey hold me to one layer of who I once was man you used to do this I know I used to because I wasn't this person I'm'm not that no more. I can't be that no more. I have way more to lose now than to even be that or attempt to be that. I'm not that.

Right? And so that's what, like, I look at me now and see the change. I look at me now and say, like, I appreciate where I'm at now. But more importantly, I appreciate, like, where I'm more importantly I appreciate like where I'm going I appreciate the kind of I appreciate the people I'm around right now I remember I was talking to a close friend of mine and he got into he didn't get into none he something had happened I was like brother need me you know I'm here he said I would never put you in that situation I love you too much to bring you there

okay I wouldn't love you as a friend if I love you too much to bring you down. I wouldn't love you as a friend if I did that. That showed me like, I'm around the right people. I'm around it because I come from an era of people where the only way you prove loyalty is through, I'm willing to die for you, I'm willing to go to jail for you. It's crazy, right? I'm willing to do this for you.

I'm willing to risk for you. I'm willing to go to jail for you. I'm willing to do this for you. I'm willing to risk my life for you. I'm willing to leave my family to show you I'm loyal to you. Right? I'm willing to, you know, go to prison to show you I'm willing to hold this block down and show this block that I'm loyal. I'm willing to leave my same family who I say I'm protecting and providing for. I'm willing to leave them to, you know what I'm saying? Like, so it's that change in me. Now, it's like, what?

I don't care about that. That's the change I want to represent. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That's the, yo, like, you really want to take care of your family? Are you willing to go to jail? Right. Let's not take care of your family.

Because the same people who you are defending them from you've now left them to yeah so like are you really so for me it's it's teaching a financial literacy but most so the evolution the mindset shift because they can look at me and say man i know trap was in them streets because he talked it the way i talk it he he has the intricate details that only somebody in the streets know if he could do that man i know i could do it and then i come like yo it ain't easy right it ain't easy but if you want it and then now you know we've heard a million times like what is the why? What is the purpose?

For me, it's so much bigger than myself. I feel like your purpose has nothing to do with you. Like, you got this school of greatness. School of greatness is not about you. It's about how many people you're going to impact with this. Why you nine years in. If it was about you, you wouldn't have made it nine years. Retire, man.

You would have got tired. Personally, you would have gotten burnt out. I don't want to do this no more. But you know, every time you turn them cameras on, that conversation you have is going to change somebody's life. That's what keeps you going. Every time I cut on something, I go do an interview, I talk, I get on Instagram, I know I'm going to change somebody's life. That's great. I'm going to tap into something just a little bit different.

And if I can do that, that's one person I kept out of prison. That's one person that I made them look that death a little bit different. And if I can do that, that's one person I kept out of prison. That's one person that I made them look that depth a little bit different. That's one family I may say, you know what? I won't be here for my little one. So let me do something different. That's bigger than me, man. That's powerful, man. That's bigger than me, man. When did you, are you still doing welding? Nah, man, I haven't. Or when was the last time you did welding nah man I haven't or what was the last time you did that so I walked away from my job in 2019 man yeah I was that because you were making you got enough saved up and invested is that because you were doing other things what mm-hmm so 2019 I was building a power plant in Lake Charles Louisiana it was It was the SASO chemical project, one of the

biggest projects in the Southeast region. I walked away from the job to be an educator. To be an educator. To teach. To teach. I walked away and I said, well they wanted me to shave my beard. Yeah, you were like, nah, I'm not doing that. I was like, I'm not doing that. I had this thing since 2002. I'm not doing that, man. And it was like, what you mean you're not going to shave your beard? I'm like, man, it ain't worth it. And I remember, that's why I say, I think everybody should have one thing they go all in on. So I looked at my account and said, all right, we got money invested. We're pretty good.

Let me just focus on it. And let me focus on teaching people. And I said said I quit I walked away from it and I said you had enough saved and invested in the last what a year two years maybe probably six months six months yeah probably six months yeah depending on what I did I remember calling my daughter's mama like look I'm about to quit this job. So instead of me sending you five, $600 a week, let me just pay for her nursery.

Cause my daughter was like maybe four at the time, three, something like that. I was like, let me just pay for nursery until I figured this out. I said, I ain't going back to the streets and I ain't going back to the streets and I ain't going back to that job I said I'm all in on me I'm going to create change

I believe in it I know this could change the hood she was like you believe in it I believe in it you know what I'm saying and so 2019 I quit my job. That was my last time.

And I've been building this from the travel to Wall Street. I've been building a Wall Street travel brand ever since. Came with a lot of ups and downs, but I never turned my back on it. Right? And I knew that it was going to change my life while changing a lot of people's lives. And I was cool with that. I bet on it. I bet on it, and I ain't ever prayed as much in my life as I do.

What's the biggest myths around money that you've learned about since then, since kind of going all in on a business and your own thing? One of the biggest things I always say is that I've never met a person working two or three jobs that actually was doing better because all you did was sell more time. Sleep less, stress more. I think that is one of the biggest myths.

It's saying, I got to work harder. I don't think getting where you want to go at in life is not about actually working harder. And I get it. I mean, if you're already in debt, you got bills, you got kids, you got responsibilities, you got these things because you've been choosing those behaviors consistently for years, you've gotten yourself into a hole that is probably harder to get out of. Yep. So how do you switch that mentality of like,

I hear what you're saying, Trapp. It's not about working that extra two jobs, but I got all these bills, I got kids, I got this, I got that. I got my rent, food. I'm already taking government subsidies. I'm doing taking government subsidies, I'm doing these things, what's the next move

to start getting me out of working harder and working smarter? So I think now what happens is we now have to start saying, okay, I always say that we can, the problem is hard to identify. The problem is hard to identify. It's the lie that's hard for us to see and it's saying that all right i don't have the money right now that's the problem why don't you have the money

it's the lie i don't make enough no well you got bad money habits right you're making bad decisions you're making bad decisions and they compounded yeah right so it for me and just to get to that question is saying okay so now let's lay out an outline. I think one of the things we fail to do is plan. Like, what is the strategy to get us out of this situation? And if we're in a bad situation, sacrifices got to be made. Right? So, okay, cool.

How do we get out of this situation? All right, cool. So maybe you do take on another way. Maybe you do take on another job. Right. OK, that's cool. How long are we taking on a job? And why are we using this other job specifically for paying off debt or getting me out of this hole? job right or I would say the world we in right now that smartphone is so amazing so powerful so find a way to create some passive income from anything like it is limitless yeah right like we are the situation that most people are in they didn't get in there overnight so the goal shouldn't be how do I get out of

the night it's me a plan over time it should be a plan over time this is the most people are in, they didn't get in it overnight. So the goal shouldn't be how do I get out of it overnight. It should be a plan over time. It should be a plan over time. The reason why people who scam will always have a job is because it's always easy to sell somebody in a desperate situation how to get rich quick.

It's always easy to sell somebody on how to get rich quick when you're in a desperate situation. The worst place you want to be in your life is desperate. It's the worst place you want to be in. It's desperate because to sell somebody on how to get rich quick when they're in a desperate situation. The worst place you want to be in your life is desperate. It's the worst place you want to be in. It's desperate because you're willing to actually put yourself in the worst situation to try to get better. And nine times out of ten, it only gets worse.

So for me, it's saying, like, let's really take a back. And that's one of the things I love about the stock market is I've learned how to run my life like a business. Not my business. Like my life is ran like a business. Like I understand, okay, this is how much came in this month. This is how much money I'm spending. Not in my business, in my life. This is how much my bills cost.

This is how much food intake costs. Right? This is how much I'm giving myself for you know miscellaneous things because i'm not i'm i think some people feel like i don't got to spend no money on no let's be realistic you're going to spend some money right that's going to happen but let's not be abusive with it because money is the tool yeah money is a tool not a goal money is a tool not a goal if we use the tool for what it's for it leverages our life right what's it for it's for to give you leverage it's for to build wealth it's for to buy back time it's for to give

you access it's for it's for to give you access. It's four. It's four to give you opportunity. I always say that. I use my money for three things. Access, information, and assets. That's the triangle, man. That's the Phil Jackson triangle, man. Information, access, and access. Why? It's because the information and the access allows you to become the asset. You become the asset. You become the asset. Not investing in assets? Well, both.

So investing in assets, but the biggest asset. You are the most valuable asset. You're the most valuable asset. The best of your knowledge, your experience, your last name, your credibility, your relationships. Biggest asset. No one can never take that away from you. Yeah. your relationships biggest asset no one can never take that away from you so you use the money to put you in a situation

to get information and buy access you can do those two things you become the asset I sit down and talk to Lou I sit down and talk to you every day bro we build a relationship

I know who you know now right you be like you know what man I know somebody you should talk to you should talk to my guy Wall Street Trapper

perfect person for you I wouldn't have got that without building that rapport Right? You'd be like, you know what man, I know somebody you should talk to. You should talk to my guy at Wall Street Trapper, man. Perfect person for you. I wouldn't have got that without building that rapport. I got access. What's up, Lou? How you feeling, man? Christmas, man. Let's send him something, man.

Let him know it's all love, man. Let him know Trap think about it, man. How you doing, man? You good? Good. Cool. Man, I like Trap. Cool.

I built something here. You got a party? Man, I got a party man I got a Christmas party y'all you should come to LA cool now the information that I can provide

is valuable when I get in the room that I got access to I'm an asset I'm an asset to you now trap knows about investing trap may know something I don't know

I mean now we swapping value so people need to learn how not to go in a situation and say how much money can I make? How can I provide value to you? I do that all the time.

How can I be of value to you, man? You know what I do. What can I do to help you out? Right? How can I be of assistance? How can I take some of the sweat equity off you? How can I make your situation a little bit better based off what I know? I become the asset.

We can become assets in every situation we in, that's playing offense. That's playing, I'm all about full court pressure. All about leveraging this thing called life, man, because there's people out here making hundreds of millions of dollars. They didn't do that on their own. There's people out here living the life they could never imagine.

They didn't do that on their own. They knew somebody at some point that plugged them with somebody, that put them in a room, that put them on a phone call, that helped them get that role, that put them on a phone call, that helped them get that role, that gave them information that changed their life. That's how they get there. Yeah. And you know how you get in the room when it happens?

Talk about it. You get there by adding value to people in the room that want you to be in that room because you've offered value in some way. The value doesn't need to be you're the smartest, most talented person ever. The value could be, I just feel good around this person. This person's got a positive energy, good attitude.

Like, man, let's just bring him along. They make me feel better. That's value. It could be he's got a skill set. He's got some years of experience in an industry that I want to learn about. Let's bring him in the room. And I think when you can bring that value,

when you can learn a new skill and have that some type of value, bring it to someone who doesn't have it. Oh yeah. They're going to give you access. Hell yeah. That access is going to give you opportunities. Every time.

You've got to be willing to move into those. Every time. And that's why I said in the beginning, when he told me, stop trading time for money and start making money work for you. That was like damn All right, but when he said it brings value to people. That's it. I didn't learn that part too later on That's why I ain't get that till later like oh

That's what this mean. Yeah Like not going into a situation and I wonder what I can get out of this now What can I bring value to this? 100%. That's why I always, when I'm doing my show, I'm always thinking, how can I serve the person? How can I give them a platform? How can I tell their story in a better way? How can I help promote whatever they have going on? And I don't ask for anything in return. Not until I really have something where I'm like, okay, I've got a book out. Is there something we can do together? But usually my goal is like, how can I add 10 times the amount of value

to someone up front? To when then it's a no brainer to want to add a little bit to me. Like, I don't even need 10 times back. It's just like, just to say, of course, like you've given me so much value. Why would I not promote this? Why would I not make an intro?

You've built so much credibility with the person by adding value that they appreciate it. And if a person doesn't appreciate it and they're only a taker Then maybe that's not the right person you want to be in relationship with yeah and not everyone's gonna be able to pay you back something all the time, but it it should be Come back to in some way the more you add value to people in general. It's gonna come back. It's reciprocated Yeah, it had like I feel, so we all are cups. And if I'm always pouring,

I want to make sure that I'm pouring into people that at some point they can pour back into me. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because if I'm always pouring, then I'm going to be like insufficient. Right. Right.

And so I'm a burnout. I'm going to be depleted. And then I can't finish my journey. So I, even in bringing value, you also need to be around people that see value in what you do or what you bring them. Because now it's easy to be like, nah, man, trap. Boom. Like that helps. And then also to just understanding how I take my time. One of the things prison taught me was understanding people.

Everybody operates in their own unique way. I never expect people, this is one of the biggest mistakes that people have, expecting someone to handle a situation the way that they would. Yeah. I've learned that the hard way many times. Many times. Yeah. You are you. Yeah.

So for me, it's always, what is that person's perspective? Hmm. That's why they handle that like that. It's okay. And I appreciate it. Mm hmm. Don't take it personally. Man, I did that for too long. I did that for too long.

Too many nights. Yeah. Being frustrated taking something personally. I did that for too long, man. Too many nights being frustrated taking something personal. Now I'm like, nah, it's cool because that's the way to handle it. Now you know, it's information. Do I want to be in partnership

with this person in the future? You know, what do I need to do next time? That's it. And that has truly helped me on the journey. Like learning from, like I'm good at in taking information and using it because I know that life is something that keeps on revolving.

It's gonna keep happening. Every day we know Jim Rohn, one of my favorite people said, we know that the sun is gonna come up and then it's gonna do what? It's gonna go down. The ocean comes out, what happens? It sure comes back in. Life is gonna keep doing that.

So every situation that I've been presented with, it's only a matter of time before I'm presented with it again. It may not be to the same extreme, to the same extent, but some familiarity will be about that situation. Yeah. We've got to go through those lessons to create wisdom for the future. You know what I mean? You've got an amazing story, my man. I'm excited about everything you're creating and everything you've overcome. I think it's easy to stay stuck

in the past patterns that we're familiar with. It's easy to go back to familiarity. It's really hard to break the mold and create a new identity. So I acknowledge you for breaking the mold, man, for creating breakthroughs. Again, I don't think anyone would celebrate the things you did, but I acknowledge the growth, the wisdom, the lessons, and the journey you're on to be of service to people in certain communities and cultures that maybe struggle with finding these types of breakthroughs. So I really acknowledge the assignment that you're on right now

and the journey you've been on, my man. I appreciate that. You've got powerful social media accounts, WallStreetTrapper. If you just Google that, you'll see it everywhere on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, WallStreetTrapper.com. Yeah. With more resources, information, education on all this stuff for people. Yeah. How else can we be of support to your mission and where can we connect

with you the best yeah so right now i'm pushing um you know the wall street trap on instagram um i'm working on a show right now i call it a wealth connect man well connect the wealth connect wealth connect yeah the wealth connect um so i'm probably dropping that first of the year I just want to take financial literacy to another level so for those to be a voice for those who need it who I resonate with right I want to my goal is to make financial literacy a household thing yeah like that's my goal like I want to be the voice that says this is not over my head mm-hmm this is just my cup of tea right here right right right so um working on a wealth connect i'm definitely gonna be driving that soon so and that's it right now awesome pushing that you know

i'm gonna drop a lot of stuff on the youtube but that's my big project coming 2022 the well connect wealth connect that'll be you just go to wallstreettrapper.com and you'll learn more about that yeah so i'm posting some stuff on the ground right now, but it's definitely on thetrapperuniversity.com. Thetrapperuniversity.com. Everything Trapper, man. I don't want to deviate, man. I like it, man. I like it.

This is a question I ask everyone towards the end of the show. It's called the three truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth many years away from now and you've lived out your assignment. You've accomplished your goals and dreams. You've created the financial freedom and helped others do that in situations that you grew up in and beyond. You did everything you wanted to do. But for whatever reason, it's your last day. And you only get to leave behind three lessons to the world that you've learned. And they don't have access to Trapper University or the Wealth Connector.

That's all gone for whatever reason. It's on to the next place with you. But you have three lessons you get to share. I call it the three truths. What would be those three truths for you? I like that. One is live your life with no regrets. That's twofold, because in living with no regrets, I will want you to say that.

In every moment, I'm willing to live in it. I think we don't we don't appreciate the moments as we should right so living with no regrets um two it is okay to say no no is a complete sentence yeah right um and three And three, find your purpose. What happens to us when we don't find our purpose? We walk around lost. Yeah. We live an unfulfilled life. I get up every day because I know that I'm walking in my purpose.

So I get up every day happy. I get up every day and I say, yo, I get to do something that everybody don't get to do. Even there's entrepreneurs who aren't in their purpose. They just have a business. Maybe a successful business. Maybe they're making money, but it's not what they want. Maybe they ain't being fulfilled. When you find your purpose, you find fulfillment. I'm fulfilled.

I'm still healing. I'm still growing. But I'm fulfilled. I'm still healing. I'm still growing. But I'm fulfilled. Because every day I know I get up and I get to change somebody's life. Every day. Teaching, educating, showing humility, letting people learn from my past, me learning. Every day I get to walk in my purpose. And for that, I get to live a fulfilled life.

And I've said this. I say, yo, I know I got a lot of more stuff to accomplish. But, man, I know that if my day was to come, I know I can say, I finally got it. I found it. And the longer we're here, the more I feel that you'll get more assignments added to what you got going on. Here's another assignment. It's like a teacher. Oh, you doing good?

Here's another assignment. Here's another assignment. Because they know, the creator knows you can handle it. You can handle it. You can take it on. You can take it on. The more you walk into that purpose, man, your life changes. purpose man your life changes and I'm speaking this and I get emotional in a way because my life is unrecognizable from three four years ago yeah

unrecognizable because every day I was walking around just in a dark hurt painful abandoned you know all I knew was violence all I felt like I felt like I was empty To transition to say I'm fulfilled Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness my definition of greatness is being impactful in Living the life you're proud of. It doesn't have to do with money. It doesn't have to do with accolades. It doesn't have to do with notoriety.

Can I wake up every day and say I'm happy with this life? Like I'm, people don't really know what happiness is. And how many people can I have I impacted people before I left here impact don't have nothing to do with money either so if I can be impactful in the life that I can truly say

I'm happy with that's my definition of greatness thank you so much for listening I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love hearing feedback from you guys.

So share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.