Money Conversations with KJ
Replay - 095: From Foster Homes to Financial Freedom: Norvel McDonald's Path to Success
Ever wondered how someone can rise from the challenges of a large, financially struggling family to a successful corporate career? Our guest Norvell McDonald shares his extraordinary journey that began in the bustling streets of New York City. His story, marked by resilience and determination, is a beacon of hope for anyone aspiring to overcome their starting point. Discover how Norvell's early dreams of escaping poverty led him to master goal-setting and achieve financial security, ultimately shaping his inspiring career and fulfilling retirement.
Norvell's narrative takes a touching turn as he recounts the pivotal role mentorship played in his life. Separated into foster homes at 11, he found a guiding light in Bob Griffin, whose support was instrumental in Norvell's academic and athletic success. This mentorship not only provided hope but also directed him towards Northeastern University and a thriving career. Norvell’s experience underscores the profound impact of mentorship and the strength of the human spirit, no matter the adversities faced.
In this episode, we also cover essential financial topics, offering listeners a practical roadmap to financial literacy. From managing credit card debt to understanding the nuances of retirement planning, Norvell imparts valuable lessons from his own financial mishaps. Learn about the importance of early investment, the differences between various financial philosophies, and why teaching financial literacy to children can set the foundation for future success. This episode is filled with actionable insights and inspiring stories, perfect for anyone aiming to achieve financial stability and success.
Don't forget to subscribe, like and share it with a friend or two!
Ever wondered how someone can rise from the challenges of a large, financially struggling family to a successful corporate career? Our guest Norvell McDonald shares his extraordinary journey that began in the bustling streets of New York City. His story, marked by resilience and determination, is a beacon of hope for anyone aspiring to overcome their starting point. Discover how Norvell's early dreams of escaping poverty led him to master goal-setting and achieve financial security, ultimately shaping his inspiring career and fulfilling retirement.
Norvell's narrative takes a touching turn as he recounts the pivotal role mentorship played in his life. Separated into foster homes at 11, he found a guiding light in Bob Griffin, whose support was instrumental in Norvell's academic and athletic success. This mentorship not only provided hope but also directed him towards Northeastern University and a thriving career. Norvell’s experience underscores the profound impact of mentorship and the strength of the human spirit, no matter the adversities faced.
In this episode, we also cover essential financial topics, offering listeners a practical roadmap to financial literacy. From managing credit card debt to understanding the nuances of retirement planning, Norvell imparts valuable lessons from his own financial mishaps. Learn about the importance of early investment, the differences between various financial philosophies, and why teaching financial literacy to children can set the foundation for future success. This episode is filled with actionable insights and inspiring stories, perfect for anyone aiming to achieve financial stability and success.
Don't forget to subscribe, like and share it with a friend or two!
Welcome to Money Conversations with KJ. Kj is a lifelong entrepreneur who's made a lot of money, lost a lot of money and found his way back again. If you're looking for a sterile how-to, you're in the wrong place. Kj and his guests will walk you through real-life situations told by the people who live them, and they are as messy as they are inspiring. Each episode will offer lessons learned, advice on how to replicate successes and avoid pitfalls, and a new perspective to power your financial literacy. Far from a one-size-fits-all, this podcast can help you build a roadmap to your personal promised land milk and honey for some, whiskey and steak for others and remind you that you're not alone on this journey well, well, welcome back everybody.
Speaker 2:welcome back to the show. I'm kj, your host, and uh, today I got a really uh, a fun. I believe this story is going to be amazing for a lot of you guys, only because I've known this gentleman. Now I don't know what do you think. Five, six, seven years, six years, six years or so, we play golf. We're golf buddies, right, and it's a path that I think a lot of people try to go down and don't do it successfully, but they try, and so I think his path is going to be open to a lot of you guys out there that are either on that path, thinking about going that path. But anyway, today we've got Mr Norvell McDonald. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Awesome. You know I want to start off at your end and then we're going to reverse engineer this thing on how this all happens. So Norvell now is in his retirement years that's correct, Right and took up the game of golf about five years ago, right Six years. Six years ago, and Norvell's path was one of the corporate world.
Speaker 3:That's correct.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's really cool because within our group we've been doing these bios and Norvell just did his and things and I learned things from him on this bio that I didn't know, which was one. You grew up in New York city.
Speaker 3:I grew up in New York city and a family of 11 children, 11, 11. I was number two. There are four boys, seven girls.
Speaker 2:Wow, which you know what we're going to talk about. That then, because, um, there's not a families of 11 pretty much anymore in today's world, right that that that definitely rarely, rarely happens, and I'm one of four, but I think we're going to find out if that was advantageous for you or not in a minute. And you wrote in here that you, you had dreams of making it big in the world one day. You know what I mean. But I want to start there real quick. At what age, when you wrote this and you said had dreams, what age do you think you had those dreams?
Speaker 3:I believe it was about the age of five or six.
Speaker 2:What made you? What do you think? Why did you think you? That's a pretty young age to think that big, that's thinking large.
Speaker 3:It was thinking large, but again, the context was very, very small. Keep in mind as a little kid, right, right. But the backdrop to all this is not only did I grow up in a family of 11 children, we were poor, poor, poor, okay. In fact, as I tell people, we were trying to get to poor, okay.
Speaker 3:That would have been a step up. Get to poor okay, that would have been a step up. So what drove me was to be in an environment with kids that had things that I didn't have and I could sit and dream about why, you know, why can't I have what they have? Why can't I have the new bicycle? Why can't I have the new clothing? Why can't I have the new whatever Right?
Speaker 2:And so that inspired me to kind of reach out and do whatever I could, you know, to try to go up the ladder okay, which is interesting because I talk about um, and I specifically generally say that kids between the ages of five and seven is when we really start to aspire things in life.
Speaker 2:And we're going to talk about money in a minute because, again, this is money conversation with kj and we're going to get into the money aspect of this thing in a second, but this is kind of the foundation in in really is going to set a great point.
Speaker 2:When I talk to people that sometimes they tell me, oh, we shouldn't talk to our kids about money until they're like 15, 16 or something like that, and I totally, a hundred percent disagree. But and you're're you're kind of making the point here of at five years old, because of your environment where you grew up, the family you grew up in, which, as you say, was striving to be poor, right, um, seeing other people around you that your dream was to make it big in the world one day. Now you lived in new york city, which is the, you know, largest mecca capital in the world, that like. So your eyes were open to a lot more than, let's say, someone's in some small town, ohio. You know what I mean. So you're like your eyeballs were open more, and so for a lot of you guys out there listening, if you're from small town wherever, now I got listeners all over the world. So you're small town wherever, don't be afraid to dream big.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:But. But I want to move on to this story, because that's just only where it begins the dream, because you went from dreaming to making a goal. You know what I mean, and that's one of the modules that I teach in my course, which is goals and goal setting. And, after reading this bio, whether you really learned it, consciously or subconsciously, how important setting goals are, or someone sat you down and taught you about this, I believe is the reason your path became the path that it was, which is an amazing story. Talk to me about when do you remember? Five was there was a dream, a big dream. How much longer until you're like I got to take some actions, set a goal, take some action steps to move towards this big dream. How did that happen?
Speaker 3:Well, it is an interesting story because it's unusual. Coming from a family of 11 children, we struggled and, to be quite honest with you, we were broken up into foster homes when I was 11 years old. So two or three kids would go to one home, another two or three to another home, et cetera. In one of those homes I had the opportunity to meet a family that really changed my life, and this was the Griffin family. I was at a church retreat when I first got out to the foster home and the pastor came by because the foster mother said I have this new kid, maybe you can help him out, introduce him to some people in the church. He said well, we're having a retreat this coming weekend, so why don't you send them along? And the question came of a money and he said no, you don't need any money. So, fine, I went off to this retreat with all these kids.
Speaker 3:I was the only black kid amongst maybe 12 or so white kids, and that made no difference. I was the only kid, but I had no money. Were you around 11? I was about 11. Okay, and so during the breaks, you know, they went to the soda machine to buy soda. I had no money. And so there was this black gentleman there who was one of the assistant pastors, Bob Griffin, 6'5", really nice guy. So I went up to him. I said, mriffin, lend me a dime. And so he gave me a dime and I bought the soda, you know, and I made you myself a dime for a soda, right and um, and this kept on during the whole retreat and after a while, you know, he said boy, get out of here. And I said, mr griffin, and then on the I said I want to ride with you on the way home. He said no, I don't want anything to do with you, get away.
Speaker 3:I was a pesky little kid, right, but I found him. And then I found out that he worked for IBM and we became very, very close. So coming home from school, I would go over to his house rather than go to the foster home. I was playing sports and I played sports all year round. I never missed a season of sports, three sports a year, and that was a goal to keep being competitive. And I am very, very competitive. That's why I have a problem with my golf game being low on the totem pole, as you might imagine.
Speaker 3:Right, but he worked for IBM. Long story short one day he worked well, he worked for IBM in New York City at the time and I went to his office at the end of the day and I put my feet up on his desk at the end of the day, because I had seen that on TV, right, and I said Mr Griffin, one day I'm going to take your job. You told him this at 11 years old. 11 years old, I said one day I'm going to take your job. And you know what he said to me. What's that which inspired me? And it was incredible. He said well, come on, bring it on. That's all he said. Come on, bring it on. That's all he said. Come on, bring it on.
Speaker 3:And from that point on, I said I'm going to work for IBM one day and not take his job, but aspire to be where he is and even greater than what he is, and so that helped me in terms of the schooling, in terms of getting the grades that I got, getting into the right classes, being able to go to Northeastern University, and that's financial right.
Speaker 2:Well, let me ask you this so this is a lot to unpack, because there are folks out there, as we know, right, like today's statistic is, there's 64% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and 25% of those people make up to $250,000 a year. Right? So it's not about how much money we make, it's how we handle money, and, in your case, I believe, now hearing your story, how this developed. Now, typically, one of my first questions for a lot of the folks is hey, norvell, how old were you when mom and dad sat you down and taught you about money? So, if I ask you that question, what would be your answer? Never, right, which is the common answer. Right, this doesn't happen, but you were fortunate enough to meet a family and a gentleman that, sounds to me, became your mentor.
Speaker 3:He was my mentor and I can learn from watching them. He became the dad figure, even though I didn't have a dad, keep in mind. But he became the father figure that I really needed because he was athletic. You know, he had done well. He had gone to Brandeis University. In fact, he was drafted what then became the Dallas Cowboys the team before that, right, but he hurt his leg and all that. So I followed in his footsteps all the way. You know, I also did neighborhood. From the financial point of view. I did all the neighborhood jobs, everything. Okay, I shoveled snow, keep in mind, I grew up in Long Island at that point, right, I shoveled snow, raked leaves, cut, you know, washed windows, did everything. I became the neighborhood. Whatever you want, norvell McDonald would do it.
Speaker 2:Well, let's digress just for a minute here. So, man, the beginning of the story is awesome. You can remember at five years old that you dreamed big and then your family, as large as it was, you up a little bit right, and so you were kind of flying blind a little bit, but you were inspired. And so my question is because I know there's people out there that just need inspiration and where does this inspiration come from? Be able to follow these, these dreams, create goals, create action plans and, you know, and move along life's uh journeys here and for you, do you think it was the low end of poverty that motivated you so much? What do you think motivated you? Or was it being around that family and seeing what they have done and like, hey, this is possible and I want this? What do you think? How did you get motivated to do that?
Speaker 3:Well, kevin, I think it was really a combination of things. One, you have to have an internal drive, because there are a lot of people that are around those the same situation. They don't have that drive. I always had that drive. I don't know where it came from, but there was always that drive that I wanted to be better than I was. I wanted to be. You know, if I saw this person doing something, I wanted to, to match that person, in fact do it better. That's that competitive drive.
Speaker 2:So so, as I'm, as as you're explaining that, I'm thinking for the folks that are out there that are struggling, right, like well, how did he get that drive? They're out there thinking that you had some sort of leg up somehow, maybe because it was that family that was better, or whatever. But, like you're saying and I think this is the God factor, baby, right, like God was in me and inspired me, because other people will go the other direction and go in the pity pot, right and self-pity, like well, this is my situation, I'm never going to get out of here. And then they don't even try. Right, you were the opposite of that 're like no, no, no, I'm going after it. And you knew that at an early age, which is so commendable to do that. I hope that inspires you listeners out there, if you have young kids or you know somebody it could be a neighbor's kid, right that this guy, this gentleman who became your mentor, tell me, was it by accident? Was it on purpose? Did you ask him to mentor you? Did you you say, I want to learn from you? Or you were just like you said, you were kind of pesky in the beginning, like I'm following this guy. He's somewhere that I want to be.
Speaker 3:Exactly it was that, okay, I didn't ask him, I just knew you were going to be my mentor. You chose him. I chose him, okay, and one of the things I would give you know, one of the pieces of advice I would give to your listeners if you don't have a mentor, find someone. It doesn't have to be a family member, it could be someone in your neighborhood, could be someone that you know an uncle was, it doesn't really matter, right? Someone that is doing what you believe that you would like to do, that you can get some advice, counsel from. Go to that person. In fact, if you have to ask him, ask him hey, can you be my mentor? And many people would be honored to take on that role, because that says that there's a degree of respect that you have for them, right? But in his case, I told him no, mr Griffin. He said I couldn't ride back from that retreat with him. And I said, no, I'm going to find you.
Speaker 3:And one day I saw him down the block. He lived around the corner and I didn't know that and I yelled out Mr Griffin, I see you. He hid behind the corner. He said, no, you don't see me. I said I do see you. Oh, that's funny. And I ran up to him and that day I kept going to his house and I became part of the family. Nice OK.
Speaker 2:That's how it happened. So at 11, you said you're doing all whatever odd jobs that in that era 11-year-olds would do, because in today's world 11-year-olds don't do any work in today's world. You know what I mean. Back in the day, in our era, we did what we had to do. There was nobody telling you that you couldn't go earn a buck.
Speaker 2:So, let's get into the making of the money. Right, so you knew that you wanted to go do these odd jobs to make money, right? Did Mr Griffin ever sit you down and talk to you about money? Because mom and dad didn't? So then you had to figure this out on your own. Yes, like 99% of people. Right, we got to figure this out. And so what was your inspiration for making money at an early age? Why did you want to make money?
Speaker 3:Because I didn't have any money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, coming from, but you were being taken care of. You were 11. You were in someone's house. They were feeding you, food, shelter and clothing. That's it Okay.
Speaker 3:But there are other things I wanted. I Food, shelter, clothing the very basics. We're covered Right Now. If you buy me a shirt or a couple of shirts, that says, okay, this is it for the school year, and I'm exaggerating a little bit, right, right, no, I want five or six. I want different colors, right, you know, I was a clothes hawk.
Speaker 2:So that's what said I'm going to go make money because I want more things for me.
Speaker 3:I want more things than what you are offering me.
Speaker 2:I want more things, okay, so brings up a good point that I teach, which is that sort of an early age you wanted things, and most of the main reason why people live paycheck to paycheck in today's world is because they they take care of their wants before they fully take care of their needs Right, and hence then they live beyond their means, right. So we all learn the wants education, for I want, right, and we want for everything, right. You wanted the clothing, and then it just progressed from there as life goes on. At what point? Okay, so you started making money, you started buying your wants. At what point did you understand money, the responsibility of it? Like? Money is more than just what I want. I need to do something better with it.
Speaker 3:Honestly, I believe it was when I first got my real job at IBM. And when I say my real job, you know I had all these part-time jobs, summer jobs with IBM. But after graduating from graduate school I started IBM with IBM in Baltimore, maryland. That's when I started to receive what I thought was real money and at the time I'm laughing at it now because at the time it was like $13,000 to start out with. I thought I was rich, but I knew that I could do more than just the basics at that point. I knew I could start investing at that point than just the basics. At that point. I knew I could start investing at that point.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's back up. Let's back up Because so you went through college, right? College cost money. Did you get degrees, or someone paid for this? How did you pay for?
Speaker 3:college by work, I went to Northeastern University. If you know anything about Northeastern University, it's a co-op school. Okay, in essence it's the largest in the country. At the time it was, and I believe it still is. But the first year you go to school like any other normal student, from years two through five three months in three months out working. Three months in three months out working. Six months in six months out working. That's why it takes five years. So I paid my way through Plus Through all your odd jobs, not just my odd jobs, but also the fact that, coming from my background, I was able to get all kinds of assistance and loans low interest loans, which I gladly took on they were like 3% loans at the time, okay, and so I got a lot of loans. I had work, study jobs and all of that in combination allowed me to get through northeastern okay, and then?
Speaker 3:after northeastern, my grades were good enough or well enough, where, uh, at the time they were encouraging african-american students to go to graduate school and they were giving them full scholarships.
Speaker 2:I had the grades you took advantage of that I took advantage of that.
Speaker 3:So I went to the University of Massachusetts on a full scholarship, nice, and they gave me a stipend which I could pay for my room and boards. I stayed there a complete year. I'd never left. I said, no, I just want to finish this thing up, right?
Speaker 2:And I did never left, I said, no, I just want to finish this thing up, right, and I did. And then I went into ibm. So, looking back, you grew up, you had your big vision. You're taking action towards it. You're doing any job that you can do because you want to make the extra money for your wants. Yep, you do. You get this education. During the process of getting this education in your field, how much education did you get on money? Very little. So you weren't, I like to say, proactive about understanding more. You just kind of went with the flow.
Speaker 3:I went with the flow. To be quite honest with you, right, I never really had an education on money Other than finance classes and stuff like that. And you get some education, but not personal education, okay, you don't get that. Well, if you're fortunate enough to get it, you take advantage of it. But I never had that, okay, other than, as I said, in school, part of my business curriculum was finance classes, right, so I understood stocks Right, glasses, right, so I understood stocks right, understood the various ratios, you know the working capital, the quick access to debt equity, all those ratios that help you to understand how money is.
Speaker 2:But it was always someone else's money, not my money okay, but did you think, well, I should use all of this education that you learned about money and how it's working at K wall street? I need to somehow weave that into my personal life. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:That's where the transition took place. Okay, All right. And then that's when I started looking into investing in stocks and bonds and things of that nature. Okay, and what made sense? What didn't make sense, even into real estate? Okay, Because it came from that part of the education. But no one the answer to your question, no one ever sat down with me, nor did I pursue this personal education about finance. To create a path. To create a path. It just kind of happenstance.
Speaker 2:Right. That's why my program's called Roadmap to Financial Literacy, right? I believe we need to build a roadmap Right, exactly If you're at the end of your career now you're like me, we're in our fourth quarter of life that you know. Had we had someone to help us create a roadmap, yes, a financial roadmap that it's not just about going out and getting the good JLB or making money, right. I like to teach people make money, make money, right, right, that's really the, the name of the game, right. The from the money game is called make money, make money, because you and I and everybody, we can trade time for money. But time is finite. We only have so much, right, and in a 24 hour day day period, most people will work eight hours, maybe 10 or 12 if you're an entrepreneur or head of whatever, and we don't want to do that. Nobody wants to work 12 hours a day, five, six, seven days a week, but money works 24, seven, three, six, five. So I try to teach people make money, make money.
Speaker 2:That's how you will build wealth, the sooner that you figure out that nothing makes more money than money the sooner that you're going to nothing makes more money than money, the sooner that you're going to get ahead Would you agree.
Speaker 3:I couldn't agree with you more. In fact, one of the statements this entrepreneur who and he died years ago, but one thing he said that really stuck with him. He said I want to make money while I'm asleep.
Speaker 2:That's Warren Buffett saying, and I said that's it.
Speaker 3:That's the key. How do you do that? How do you use other people's money to make money? And then I had a chance, while living in LA, to meet Magic Johnson. He was a friend of a good friend of mine, lucius Allen, and I would get with him from time to time. And what Lucius told me about Magic is magic says I never use my money. He says, no, if you want to use my name, fine, but you're going to pay me, right, all right. And now magic is worth almost what Three quarters of a billion or something.
Speaker 3:Exactly All right. So you take from examples like that, and I wish I had learned that earlier. So I have two daughters and I'm trying to teach them to do it, but they're they're much smarter than me. They're doing that on their own. They're, they're investing. They understand how to play the game right, right, and that's the whole thing.
Speaker 2:Listen, that's again back to where 95 of americans are right, right, living, paycheck to paycheck exactly you know, just struggling with money. Because there's no one taught us early in where 95% of Americans are right, right, living, paycheck to paycheck Exactly you know, just struggling with money. Because there's no one taught us early in life, in age, mom and dad didn't teach us and I just tell people that's not good or bad, that's just what is right. Mom and dad can't teach what mom and dad don't know Exactly. We can't fault them for that. Like you know, if I wanted to be an airline pilot, my dad couldn't have taught me that. That's just not his fault, that wasn't his thing.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, as we go through here, talk to me about because a lot of folks out there probably more so today than in our era when we were younger about credit credit cards. When did that come into play for you in your life? When did you understand this is part of the equation, credit. And then some people are on the bandwagon of I love credit cards. Some people are not. Just depends who you are and who you really listen to. But at what point or what age do you think you were when that came across your plate.
Speaker 3:Well, credit cards first came into my life when I started working for IBM, right? Okay, so this is after your education, then After my education, right? I never had a credit card before that Did you know about them.
Speaker 2:Did you aspire to want one or need one?
Speaker 3:I never even thought about it, to be honest with you, because I took care of my needs at the time with what I earned Cash, which is a great. That's what you should be doing, absolutely absolutely. And then, later on, you use credit cards and then you realize that there's a horror story connected to credit cards. That horror story is you get over your head, you start believing that you have more than what you have, and then you start understanding the interest rates can kill you. And then you have to understand their strategy, and that's to keep you hooked for life. And so you know, what I try to do now is get out of credit card debt as quickly as possible and live as much as I can within my means.
Speaker 3:I'm not always successful. Sometimes I go over the line and I curse myself. I'll be honest with you how did you do this to yourself? But you know, but I understand the dangers of credit cards. Okay, it's a necessary evil when you need it. But try to look for other ways to do it. Try to go without, try to live within your means. That's my model now.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, okay Again. Now again we can all play money. Yeah, money, money quarterback.
Speaker 3:But growing up I never knew that. I just you know you kind of happen along and one day you're in debt, yes, and you're in trouble.
Speaker 2:This is all about education, right? So no one sat you down and taught you about credit cards, the purpose of them, how to use them, what I call responsibly, and so the problem is that people don't use them responsibly. When I hear the term credit cards are bad, right, there's people out there like credit cards are horrible, don't use them, they're bad. I'm like, well, first of all, a credit card's a piece of plastic, right? Okay, that's not bad, it's how people use them. Irresponsibly is how they get the term that credit cards are bad. Um, well, again, because there's people out there in today's world, these young kids that are getting them right as they're signing up for college, not when they get out and get their job like you did. They're waiting for them on campus on day one here. Get this card and they treat it like it's free money.
Speaker 3:I think that's a mistake. I think it's far too young it is. I don't think you have the maturity at that point to know how to handle that, and they're the ones most likely to get into trouble, and then they carry that throughout the rest of their lives, right, and that's unfortunate. So I think you have to be at least 21 and over, and that doesn't mean at 21 that you have the knowledge, but hopefully you're more mature than that 18 year old.
Speaker 2:Well, based on the fact that you didn't get one. Basically, you got one after college and you started ibm. It was a job thing. But let me ask you would you consider yourself maybe not right now, but as you're going through your your life journey, life here um were you a spender or a saver?
Speaker 3:no, I'm more on the spending side, you're more of a spender than a saver yeah, you know, and um, yeah, no, I, I, I, no, I was a spender.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's not beat around the bush, I was a spender right, which most people are okay, and and again, you can be a spend. We're not. I'm not. I'm not saying, guys, that being a spender is a bad thing. It's a bad thing if you don't have the money. If you're using a credit card to buy your wants. That's a bad thing.
Speaker 2:I'll often categorize debt as good debt and bad debt. If you listen to someone like a Dave Ramsey which I'm all about, dave Ramsey if you're a W-2 earner, if you have a job, I want you to listen to Dave Ramsey when he advocates no debt, wipe out zero debt. Right, forget about it. No credit cards. He doesn't even believe in the credit and I won't go down that path. But there are two kinds of debt that I believe in good debt and bad debt. Bad debt I categorize as consumer debt when you go in debt on things that don't make you money, right, aka you're leveraging your credit cards for dinner and shoes and just all these things that are just frivolous. Versus, hey, I'm going in debt on an investment here that I'm going to get an ROI on, right, I'm okay with that debt.
Speaker 2:Exactly as we're going through life's journey building wealth right, because if you want to listen to a robert kiyosaki right, he's the opposite of dave ramsey, but he's talking to the 1099 earners, okay, the business owners, the entrepreneurs. He believes the opposite. He believes you get in as much debt as you can. The only way you're going to get wealthy is to leverage your way through debt to create wealth. He's proved it. You can do it. So they work both ways. It just depends on your path Exactly. This is not a one size fits all and I think both of these guys right, depending who you are in life and who you're listening to are right, and I say, yeah, they're both right, depending their audience that they're talking to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I did. You know, I attended a seminar with Kiyosaki, right? Rich dad, poor dad type seminar in LA, in fact a couple of them. And you're right, there's such a thing as good debt, yes, but it's to get that ROI, as opposed to that consumer debt where you're just buying the newest pair of sneakers or whatever it is that you're buying. So I believe in that. How do you manage that, though? There's a balance there, and I have to caution myself not to trip over the line, because as soon as I think something's freed up, I said, oh my God, now I can go to that fancy dinner, I can go to that fancy golf island. You want to enjoy life, I want to enjoy life, but there's a balance. I want to enjoy life, but not hurt later, right? So you know you have to strike that balance, and that's an individual thing, right?
Speaker 2:It is. That is a total individual thing. That's why I don't like the one-size-fits-all teachings that a lot of these guys are out there doing. What I like to teach people is, like you explained earlier, how you played sports. Year round, you played three different sports, and so I love using the sports analogy in the way that I teach financial literacy. I want people to understand.
Speaker 2:My financial literary course is about teaching the fundamentals of financial literacy. And you're in any sport baseball, football, basketball, doesn't matter Before you can get good at that sport, what's your coach going to teach you the fundamentals of that sport Until you can master the fundamentals, before you can really excel in whatever the sport is? That's the same thing with money. There's no way that you know guys out there that you're going to create wealth on any level until you master the fundamentals of money, financial literacy, how this game is being played. So I don't give people financial advice. That's not my job. I don't want to be a financial advisor.
Speaker 2:What I do want to do is change your mindset on money, because you, the way you grew up in a lot of folks. No one sat you down and taught you about it, so then you learned by visually. We watch people and I share that with people that kids start watching at five to seven years old. They're learning, they're watching You're not sitting down and talking to them, but guess what? They're watching. And you're watching Mr Griffin. And you were learning like I want to put my feet on his desk, I want to be like this man because he's a successful man, right. So we subconsciously learn these things at such an early age. That's why I'm so happy to hear, when I read that and you're telling me that I did that at five, because a lot of people don't believe me. They're like no, not at five. Nobody knows that I'm like no, you don't understand, you didn't consciously know what you were doing at five.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't consciously.
Speaker 2:This is looking back.
Speaker 3:It's looking back Right.
Speaker 2:I just knew that at that age I wanted. So it's so important now when we're raising our children, right, okay, they're no different, everybody's five at one point in time. Right, that that's how we are learning. We're by watching, by examples, how we learn most of the things we learn in life by example well, let me share a story with you.
Speaker 3:That kind of puts, you know, embellishes a little bit about what I said about At six years old. I remember that my dad came in and again didn't have a lot of money, right, but he gave us all like a quarter, something like that, or a dollar, and I thought my brothers went out and bought candy and cookies and all you know what I bought. What did you buy? Cufflinks, cufflinks. I didn't have a cufflink shirt, I bought cufflinks.
Speaker 2:So what inspired you to buy cufflinks? Because one day I knew Mr Griffin's wearing them.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't know, mr Griffin at that point. Oh, okay, it's six years old. I didn't meet him until later on, right, okay. But I knew one day I'm going to have a cufflink shirt. You knew it, I knew it. That's why I bought the cufflinks. One day I'm going to have a shirt to put the cufflinks in.
Speaker 2:I love that. You know what that reminds me of and I share with people and I do it, and I'm sure you've probably done it in your life. You manifested it. You manifested your future, yes, right. And so some people, whether you believe in manifestation or not, it's real, it is very real. If you speak it into the universe, it can and will happen. So that's why they say words are powerful, because when we wish or want things or manifest things, they can't come to true life. So for you to do that at that young age, to me you manifested the path that we already know you took. It started way back then I believe that what did?
Speaker 2:what did your family and your siblings say when they saw they bought candy or whatever and you bought cufflinks?
Speaker 3:I don't know what they said. All I know is I took them back home and I just looked at these things and they were the most beautiful things that I had seen at that point. Right, these beautiful cuff. You know, obviously it had to be cheapest or whatever, but to me they were so beautiful, symbolic, symbolic. And one day I'm going to have that shirt, and one day I'm going to have that suit, and one day I'm going to have again carry on, I'm going to have that job, and one day I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to live here, I'm going to have that.
Speaker 3:I was manifesting throughout and I think that's the God spirit within me and everyone else. I listened to it and God has directed me from this poor kid to where I am today. Not that I'm rich. I'm rich in spirit, but I'm not rich financially. But I've gotten most of the things I really wanted in life through manifestation, know, through manifestation and through hard work. But again, getting back to the financial, I had to kind of tiptoe through that. I never really had the education and what I would recommend to anybody at this point is give your kids or kids or young adults go out and get that education, understand what that's all about. As you said, go back to basics. You got to understand the basics of finance. I had the basics of playing football and basketball and running track and wrestling. I had all that. I never had the basics of finance until later on and that was then became almost too late. I wish I I started when I was way you know well, that's what I teach.
Speaker 2:I'm happy that you said that because I teach one of my modules is teaching the rule of 72, compound interest and how that really works, and have and had a lot of folks like yourself and myself even included that if we really understood compound interest at the age of 18 or 20 and understood that make money, make money, you're 100% going to be a millionaire by accident. You're going to be a millionaire once you understand that and put those principles into play. But because we don't know those things, life, because society, the government has taught us from over 100 years ago to go to school, get a job, save, retire, die Exactly, pay taxes along the way right, and that doesn't have to be the path.
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't. In fact, the people I and I was telling our friend Mo this you know, mo from time to time would tell me hey, I didn't get the traditional education. I said, mo, I admire you more than I do the people that came up through the corporate world. You know why. You're an entrepreneur. You took the risks Right. I wish I was brave enough at the time to take those risks. To me, going to college was just. You know, that's what you do after high school, right? And after college you go to Corbett and Murr, that's what you do after college. But I wish I had within me that entrepreneurial spirit to go out and do something and take risks to make money. And he's done some incredible things over his life. I admire that, right, right.
Speaker 2:You know what? Again, I think not everybody can be an entrepreneur. Okay, not everybody can do that. The world couldn't survive without people doing the J-O-Bs that they do, right, I think it's either. I don't know why we do that. As you were explaining that, I thought to myself I grew up in New York City, which is not that's the mecca capital of the world of finance Like it was normal to go to college and go be working in that corporate world.
Speaker 2:That's that city, that's what it is, right, versus, he grew up in Chicago east side of Chicago, right, where you got to go get your own. Exactly, that was his right, his right, and again back to learning these things. Is this mindset at five years old? This is really where it comes from. Um, me personally, I've been an entrepreneur. My, I think I let my last job. I think I was 23 years old, right? Wow. So I haven't had a boss in 40 something years, right, right? So for me, it's normal, just as someone who's in the corporate world right now.
Speaker 2:They don't understand why someone would take a risk. Why not go get fully educated and map your life out Exactly. They don't understand it, just as we don't understand them For me. I distinctly remember why I left at 23 years old and, once started, my first small business was I. I didn't go the education route and I didn't want to have a ceiling on the amount of money I could make I wanted. I was going to control that. How much money I could or couldn't make was going to be under my control and I was okay with that Right. Some people want the safety of a JOP. They got to know I'm getting paid every Friday, every other Friday, whatever it is.
Speaker 3:And that was me. You wanted that safety Because you came from a family of poverty.
Speaker 3:Of poverty and risk-taking was not something that was part of my DNA at that point. It was take the surefire way to get up there and there's a lot of money up there, but there would have been a lot more money perhaps on the other path. You know that thing about compound interest. One of the examples that I heard is that someone said if I gave you, you know, a thousand, a hundred thousand dollars today versus a penny a day, now you start to understand what that can mean in a month and all of that stuff. And that's that compound interest that we're talking about. And once you start understanding that, you really have a grasp of what the compound interest is all about.
Speaker 2:Well, when you understand it, it helps you make better decisions with your money. Exactly, am I going to go buy this clothing, shoes or whatever? Am I going to go on this vacation? Am I going to buy this fancier car or am I going to? You know, at that point in time in your your life, settle for less and take the difference and put that money to work right.
Speaker 2:Right again, my whole training is about getting people to change their mindset, to think and act different with their time and their money. Right, because letting compound do its thing. If you just have, if you could be a w-2, earn and do that, um, and then understanding, if you're an entrepreneur, you're like turbocharging money, you have the ability to. I call turbocharge money right Versus, I'm going to go conservative way, but there's a lot of people that can go that do the conservative route and end up in their latter years. But let's talk about, let's make a quick switch here. So you went down, you're in that corporate world, you're in there for, let's say, the first 10 or 15 years. At what point, or how old were you when you thought about retirement? When did you say you know what? I got my job, I'm making my money. What am I going to do for retirement, Because days go by quickly, quickly, quickly. When did you think about retirement?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, I didn't really think about retirement until I got in my 50s, later on in life. You know, that's something that was for the older guys, not people like me in the prime of my life. Okay, and as you start edging up towards 60, then you really start thinking about it. Right, and not only are you thinking about it, but the corporate world thinks about it, and they'll let you know they're thinking about it. They'll let you know that hey are you getting a little tired these days, or what?
Speaker 2:So that brings up, so that's a mindset, that's a mindset yes. That's a mindset, and the fact that you didn't think about it until your 50s that now, looking back, because right now you're, if you don't mind, sharing your age 73. 73. What would your 73-year-old tell your 23-year-old self Invest?
Speaker 3:invest, invest, okay, invest, invest and do what I really started, what I really wanted. I wanted to be a marketing advertising executive. When I first went to school, I wanted to be a child psychologist and someone told me at the time, that's eight years. I said, oh no, I'm going business. I wish I had done what I really wanted to do, but I would have invested from a financial point of view, invested more, spent less and forget about the clothing and all this other stuff. That is nothing, I mean. It depreciates. It's crazy, right? You know the bling, as I call that. That was my bling. My bling wasn't change. My bling was clothing.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And if you look in my closet today, you can still see my bling, which pisses me off, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:So at around the age 50-whatever, and that's when retirement hit you. What did you think? What? What did? What was your dream retirement? You're like, okay, well, I can't work forever, right? So what? What type of retirement were you thinking about? In terms of, in terms of, well, the day I'm not going to be employed anymore because, like you said, corporate america is going to boot you out, because, they want to bring in the young blood or whatever.
Speaker 3:So you mean from an?
Speaker 2:age point of view, not just an age, a financial point of view, right, what did retirement mean to you? What did you want retirement to mean?
Speaker 3:Okay, all right, I understand the question now.
Speaker 2:Real quick. Only say that because I ask people out there like I'm going to do a workshop in about a month, right Another live one because we're out of COVID and all that. And one of my questions I ask a lot of the folks is hey, what age is retirement, when I'm asking the 20, 30, 40-year-old or whatever? And if I asked you that question, what would be your answer? What age is retirement?
Speaker 3:It would have been like 62 to 65.
Speaker 2:Right See, now that is a stigma that the government has put on us, the people, because the reality it is that you probably know now retirement is not an age.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, exactly.
Speaker 2:Because retirement is supposed to mean I have enough money to survive now, the finishing years of my life, so to speak. Right, so that, but retirement is not an age. Because if I share with people my life, so to speak, right, but retirement is not an age. Because if I share with people, somebody like Mark Zuckerberg right, the guy who owns Facebook when he became a billionaire before the age of 30, could he have quit working and went off into the sunset with his money? Of course he could have. But guess what? He had a passion to continue to build what he had started. It wasn't about the money.
Speaker 3:Exactly, it wasn't about the money. Exactly, it is a mindset and if you come up through the corporate world, if you're locked into that world, it becomes an age. Yes, okay, and it depends if you're locked into a world. And so the financial literacy you're talking about gets people unlocked from just that world. They can do other, they can look at other avenues and they can think differently. Like again, I have two daughters that are thinking and they're in their 40s, early 40s, but they're both thinking about retiring and they're they're making plans to retire at 45 or something like that which I but so you got to ask them honey, what is that retirement?
Speaker 2:What does that mean to you? Right, because retirement is a different definition for a lot of folks. What does that really mean? So I don't I personally don't even like the word, right, I think, because it's like the end. Right, and for most people we know now, including yourself, retirement is not the end, right, and for most people we know now, including yourself, retirement is not the end, because most people who AKA retire from whatever they've done, just like you did. Well, what am I going to do next? Am I going to sit around the couch all day, watch TV? Am I going to golf seven days a week? Do I have the money to do that? I mean, it's typically people don't have enough money that they have to go back out into, whether it's the work world or they're trading value for money, whatever it is, but it's not technically really the end. But when you believe that, or you're trained to think that retirement means I finished, it's the end. But you know now it's not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the retirement for me leaving corporate America was I'm going to get a job with a smaller company and take the expertise that I've gained and help the smaller company, right, right, so it wasn't the end. It was the end of corporate America, right, but it was the beginning of being an entrepreneur or working with a smaller company.
Speaker 2:So we started with the question of you didn't even think about AKA, the retirement until 50, whatever Right Retrospect. I like to teach people this three, three pillars we need should strive for Right. Right, and this is what I teach. And I try to grab the younger, you know people in the world today, like my right now. I'm targeting more of the graduate type, people graduating, whether you're graduating high school or college. Right, because we can agree now, based on your story and my story, that we need to start early. Right, and so I believe that the first thing we need to strive for is to be financially secure.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so people don't even understand what that really means, and so I'll explain it again real quick for you guys that are out there listening. Maybe this is your first podcast. To be financially secure means that you have enough money to support your lifestyle for a minimum six months. So, in case something happens and for a couple of years now I've been telling people COVID hit, they all got sent home, they couldn't make money. And now they're like, ah, freak, if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you got sent home. What'd you do? You panicked, you stressed, anxiety. Not good things happened.
Speaker 2:For the people who are financially secure, they're like, hmm, all right, I can ride this out, let me try to ride this out. And I got time to figure out plan B, so to speak, exactly Right Now. It's not easy to get financially secure right, it doesn't happen overnight and we all live different, and I typically use the. I typically use the example If your monthly bills are 3000 bucks a month, you need $36,000. Well, it takes a little bit of time to put away $36,000. So I'll share with people that could literally take you a few years, right, but once you get there and you're in the position where, now, like, living debt free is such a comfort zone.
Speaker 2:Oh yep Right. Living in debt, heavy debt, is anxiety you wake up with, not in your stomach, and you have to do things right. So after that, we want to become financially independent.
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:That's when our money makes enough money to support our lifestyle. So this is not a one size fits all. Exactly Because we all live, we all are happy on different levels. You're at 73, live in your, your lifestyle. You're happy where you're at. Like you said, you're not a millionaire and we know plenty of people. You don't have to be a millionaire to be happy no not at all.
Speaker 2:Your lifestyle, though, and we don't not going to disclose numbers. Well, that you're living is comfortable where you're at now. For finance to be financially independent means my money is working hard enough to pay for my lifestyle. That's people who are happy to live on $2,000 a month, and there's people out there that say, hey, I need $25,000 a month. I don't even know how people live below that, and I know people like that too. So no right or wrong answer. Your answer is your right answer. So those are the first things if we learn how to do at a young age to get there. Money's going to take care of itself, money's going to compound and you're going to have plenty of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to. The way I put it, you have to create a comfort zone for yourself. That comfort zone for me is I want to be almost debt-free and be able to live where I'm living and do the things I want to do, and there's enough money to take care of that. The revenue source is there to take care of that. Anything outside of that is something that okay. That's a nice thing to want to do, but I don't have to do it. I'm comfortable with where I'm at today, in that little bubble that I've created for myself. That's my comfort zone, okay, okay, and I don't know if that answers a question.
Speaker 2:It does again, because it's a mindset. It's a mindset. It's a mindset and and I know when I'm teaching my courses to different people and they're like well, I thought we're going to talk about money, why are we on mindset? I'm like no, no, no. Mindset's like the foundation of a house. Okay, if you don't have a strong foundation, your house you're building a house, a car it's going to fall down.
Speaker 3:I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2:Right. So at your where you're at now, in your, what would you consider to be your worst financial decision? Because I want people to know. What would the? And we're all making not good ones, right, but I don't want. If you knew this, if someone hears this and you're going to tell me your answer in a second, someone's going to hear this and maybe they're getting ready to make a decision that's similar and they're like, oh crap, maybe I better not.
Speaker 3:So for you personally, what do you believe if you've just and I know I just threw that at you real quick what was your worst financial decision? Well, one of the worst, and I haven't ranked them, but one of the worst was selling a lot of Apple stock, for instance.
Speaker 3:I had a lot of it and I was just going crazy with it and I bought all this property. I mean, I bought four or five properties here and one in georgia and I was just going crazy and a lot of that didn't materialize. It may have over time, right, but it was like, oh, why did you do that? You know you had renters that came and left and you're stuck with bills and this, that and the other. It's like I had that.
Speaker 3:I had you had that stuff I could have let it grow right, okay, okay, right. I had like 300 shares of Apple stock.
Speaker 1:I'll be honest with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that was just one stock and I had all of this, so that was a terrible financial decision. I wish I had just let it sit or invested in another blue stock or whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, that's my next. My follow-up question is cause, again, we've all made terrible mistakes with money, that it's okay to make mistakes, it's okay to fail as long as we learn from our failures, right? They're not failures unless we don't learn. And in your case, the lesson that we could teach the people would be what right you learn that?
Speaker 3:I learned be very patient. Well, not only be patient, but don't jump into things without doing your research, doing your homework.
Speaker 2:You got to do your homework.
Speaker 3:Understand this is not a helter skelter type game where you know you wake up in the morning, oh I'm going to do this, oh, I'm going to do that. That's not that. This is a very serious game, right, okay, and you got to take it seriously, like you take other aspects of your life. Finance is probably one of the most serious games you're playing, right, and so I jumped into it like a novice. I jumped into it. I had to sell it, right, and in my head, I'll get more. Right, but when you get to a certain age, you're not getting more. Okay, you may get more, but you don't have the same opportunities you did when you were younger. So I would tell people do your homework, talk to professionals, think about it and then when you make a decision, make it, but at least you go in with some level of you know- Confidence Confidence that maybe I'm doing the right thing.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree with you more. It's, if any. If you guys listen, I love to follow Warren Buffett. I mean Warren Buffett's obviously world known. He. It's, if any. If you guys listen, I love to follow Warren, but I mean Warren Buffett's obviously world known. He's a wealthy person in how he did it, but he's got his little lessons that he puts out there.
Speaker 2:And if you know anything about Warren Buffett, he does not buy a company until he does at least a minimum one year's research, right? He doesn't just jump right in on a tip, right? Hey, hey, warren, I got a tip for you. And he yeah, all right, I'll go through DOLOREC. No, he don't do that, right, he's a one-year research before he'll do that. So that what you just learned, right, and that's what I mean. You couldn't have said it better for the folks that are out there listening who are thinking I've got this, but, man, I'm gonna sell this because this one's better. Right, it could be. I'm not saying it's not, it could be. But the number one lesson here is do your homework, do your homework, that's so, so key Do your homework.
Speaker 3:And if you don't have it within you to do that homework, find a mentor you know. Get into a course Again, understand.
Speaker 2:Educate yourself.
Speaker 3:Educate yourself. You got to get to the basics. You got to understand the basics about anything, even in golf. Yep, you know, I don't take the time to really understand the basics because I'm just so, I just want to play, play, play. But if I'm ever going to be, you know, and I look at my age and I said, but I don't let age define me, I really don't let age define me, I really don't. But I really need to spend more time with the basics and rather than go out and buy that new club that I think is going to be the miracle thing, I should invest in a coach that can work with me for six months. Okay, Exactly. So I'm still learning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, no, you're having a good time. We go out there, folks. We hit it up every weekend. Norvell's come a long way since you started and realizes that golf is very parallel to life. It looks simple but it's not Simple, not easy. Awesome, you know what? What a great story. I really appreciate you coming out sharing your story.
Speaker 2:The takeaway, takeaways here, folks, a few things If you want to go the path that Norvell did, one he recognized he had that dream early in life, five years old, right, took action, grabbed Mr Griffith as a mentor. He didn't ask him, he just did it. He just said no, you chose him, so go choose a mentor. I always say 99% of okay, you know you're going to get that one that's going to tell you I don't have time, whatever Right, but you went after it. You got what you wanted, which is really cool. So take that to heat out there, guys. And two, one of his biggest money regrets is do your homework. Don't jump one investment to the next. Do your homework, make sure Because the next Do your homework, make sure because 300 shares of Apple today would be a pretty nice number. Exactly you know what I mean. So thanks again for coming out.
Speaker 2:Hey, for you guys out there watching this on YouTube, do me a favor, smash that like button, subscribe if you haven't already. And for some of you guys that are out there on the podcast world, whatever you're on, subscribe, listen, come out. I got a lot of guests that come out here, tell all their interesting stories and let's learn from them. Let's talk about money. Hey, everybody, hope you enjoyed that episode. I really enjoyed making all these episodes for you. Remember, we're just having conversations with people's journey with money and the things they did right with it, the things that did wrong with it and how did they really come about getting their mindset with money. So every episode is different. We all have a good takeaway from them. So do me a favor, hit the like button, smash the like button and subscribe to my channel, because every episode that I do is going to be different, as all our journeys are different. So you guys, take care and we'll talk to you next week.