Embark on an empowering odyssey with us and Zo Azubuike, a mortgage mogul with a story that weaves through the bustling streets of Tulsa with roots grounded in Nigerian soil. Our latest episode examines the intricate tapestry of trust, cultural identity, and the tenacity to thrive amidst systemic adversities. Azubuike's experiences illuminate the significance of heritage and upbringing, and how they contribute to the narrative of success within the black community, offering key insights into fostering resilience and prosperity.
Together, we tackle the oft-avoided but critical topic of finance, unraveling the profound relationship between faith and fiscal responsibility. This isn't just another chat about saving pennies; it's a transformative discussion that redefines wealth as a tool for stewardship and community upliftment. You'll be equipped with wisdom on navigating debt, leveraging your credit score, and mastering the art of budgeting with long-term wealth building in mind. Whether you're just taking your first financial steps or are well on your journey, our conversation offers practical strategies for achieving true financial freedom.
Close out with a spiritual reflection that connects the dots between personal growth, faith, and seizing the ample opportunities that life presents. By embracing strong foundations and the support of our communities, we underscore the potential each of us holds to craft a legacy of success. Join us for this introspective and practical exploration into living our best lives, guided by faith, wisdom, and the indomitable spirit of our ancestors.
Embark on an empowering odyssey with us and Zo Azubuike, a mortgage mogul with a story that weaves through the bustling streets of Tulsa with roots grounded in Nigerian soil. Our latest episode examines the intricate tapestry of trust, cultural identity, and the tenacity to thrive amidst systemic adversities. Azubuike's experiences illuminate the significance of heritage and upbringing, and how they contribute to the narrative of success within the black community, offering key insights into fostering resilience and prosperity.
Together, we tackle the oft-avoided but critical topic of finance, unraveling the profound relationship between faith and fiscal responsibility. This isn't just another chat about saving pennies; it's a transformative discussion that redefines wealth as a tool for stewardship and community upliftment. You'll be equipped with wisdom on navigating debt, leveraging your credit score, and mastering the art of budgeting with long-term wealth building in mind. Whether you're just taking your first financial steps or are well on your journey, our conversation offers practical strategies for achieving true financial freedom.
Close out with a spiritual reflection that connects the dots between personal growth, faith, and seizing the ample opportunities that life presents. By embracing strong foundations and the support of our communities, we underscore the potential each of us holds to craft a legacy of success. Join us for this introspective and practical exploration into living our best lives, guided by faith, wisdom, and the indomitable spirit of our ancestors.
All right, welcome, welcome to. Yeah, just another great edition of the Journey to Freedom podcast and just so excited to be able to do this. You know we're trying to get a hundred of these. This is 2024, we're early in the year. I want a hundred, you know, of these podcasts done before the end of 2024. And it's so important because what it shows is that there are folks, there are black men, who are being very successful in our sections, in our communities, in other things that we do.
Speaker 1:You know, the five pillars that we continue to talk about is trust and how we show up, and identity and who we are, our health and how do we stay healthy. You know I got to go to a doctor's appointment tomorrow and you know I don't want to die at 72, you know, whatever our life expectancy is and the other part of it is just our mental health, you know, and thinking about. You know I was just talking to a few people yesterday and they were just talking about some of the struggles and it was good just to hear them coming out of those struggles and you know the determinations and the things that they can control compared to the things that society has controlled for us, and so that's been pretty good. And then we talk about our faith and what grounds us, and you know finances. You know how do we? That's one thing that I think is our biggest challenge to overcome, because we somehow we have decided that we can't talk to others about our money and the biggest thing that prevents us from succeeding. I did a podcast with a family yesterday that a white family yesterday and they were talking about how much of the conversations though you can be amazed has been around money over the last 20 years. I mean, they have. They have family meetings where they talk about each other's finances on a weekly basis almost. And these are grown folks. They did it when they were kids and they're grown. But you know they're talking about the 50 properties that they now have in the investments and how it's affecting their. You know everything. And then you, I would love to see how many black families are spending a weekly meeting talking about finance. Right, you know, and you know.
Speaker 1:And then and then you know relying on others, and you know he said one of the things that has helped them more than anything is putting together teams. You know I said we have teams that deal, we have an attorney on our team. We have a, you know, in this case, because they do real estate. We have a property management company on our team. We have a, you know. We have a real estate agent. We have a lender we have, you know, this is the team that goes out and does all these things as far as finances go, and so so today, we, you guys, are in for just a major treat that we have so as Zuki on, and he, he's in the, he's in the mortgage industry, just like I am, but he is built and amassed a pretty sizable you know, just you know plan for his family and what they do, and so I want him to tell his story. I want him to, you know, I want to dive into all five of these pillars over the next hour, but I really want him to be able to tell his story and where he came from and maybe some of the struggles that he's had. And then, you know, we'll kind of finalize with.
Speaker 1:This is some things that you, as a person who's watching this, as a person who's listening to this, can duplicate, because the success leaves clues. You find people who are successful. Then you do what they do or do what they did, because those, those things are, I guess, lessons, those things are blueprints, those things are pathways into helping us achieve. You know, whatever it is that, whatever we're going to call the success, you know, and then journey to freedom. It's a journey. So we know that we're never going to end it and and we all define success differently.
Speaker 1:But success is not having anybody determine. You know, in my mind, anybody determine. You know what happened when you get up every single morning. You get to, you get to call that, and then how you live your life and then, ultimately, it's our best life. You know, and I want to say that, make sure I say it in every show. When I say our best life, it's our community, it's our family, it's the people that we're around. It's not my best life, because my best life doesn't if it's just me. It doesn't include all the folks that come, that came before us, and all the people who are coming after us. Hey, so, so glad to have you on and maybe you can just kind of start sharing a little bit about your story and who you are and what you do, and you know how we can improve folks' lives.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on, brian, it's really a pleasure. And yeah, man, there's a lot of different ways I could start with my story, because there's so many interesting elements to it, but you know, I'll just say you know, grew up in Tulsa, oklahoma, but, as you can see, with my last name you're like you're not from Tulsa, oklahoma, right? Azubri Ket is the Nigerian Ebo language and how you say it with that accent. But you come to America and everybody comes up with their version of how to say your last name, so we've kind of adopted that. You know we're known as Azabruki, but but yeah, so Azabruki and grew up in Tulsa, oklahoma.
Speaker 2:My family is from Nigeria, though, and my parents they actually had us in London, england. So me and my siblings were born in London, england, and we moved to the States because my parents wanted to put us in Christian schools, and so I love what you're doing here, brian, because a lot of the stuff that we're going to talk about today is a big part of our story Overcoming hardship, overcoming trauma, you know, messing up, starting over again. You know my dad went to prison when I was I think it was here, was it was like 2005, he got sentenced to prison for four years for financial scandals. So just to finance the fact that you've got that as your pillar you know that's. I got some stories on that. You know, sports is a big part of our family. You can see the Georgia's in the background. You know, play basketball in college, and my brother got to play in the league for a little bit in the NBA and 76, by the way, is the year that my parents were married, and it feels like, you know, that's the number where all this started with our family.
Speaker 2:But yeah, just like I said, there's so many different elements to touch on in my story. What I'll say, though, is, you know, we've been blessed, and, at the end of the day, our Heavenly Father has had his hand of favor, honest given, through the ups and downs. So, you know, at this point, you know I'm happily married to my beautiful wife, michelle, and we've been married for 10 years. We've been real estate investing for 10 years, got a good portfolio of properties, and I've been a mortgage broker as you well know, brian mortgage broker for about the same time about 10 years as well, and a lot of stories within that. So that's a little bit about me, I guess. A quick overview. But you know, superbless got an incredible family, got three brothers, I'm sorry, two brothers and a sister, three siblings, and they're considered, you know, some of my best friends, but just blessed with incredible relationships and just living life in a way where it's like let's maximize our relationships Because, at the end of the day, the influence on the relationships is all we can really leave with.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. Thank you for you know. You just giving us the quick overview because I want to unpack some of those things that are in born in London and then what you need to me, as they wanted you to go to Christian schools or be part of a Christian family and come out from.
Speaker 1:I had two of my roommates in college were, you know, from Nigeria, from the same place. Your family's from Innocent, ebonique and Christian Okoy, which are pretty famous. You know Nigerians. One you know Olympic track person, innocent, and then Christian Okoy, I believe they're from the same tribe.
Speaker 2:That sounds like the Ebo tribe. They are.
Speaker 1:They're from Ebo, yeah, so exactly. So you know I know a lot about your tribe. I know a lot about, but I also know about their Christian beliefs and how it was not the you know when they were coming over and they were coming over Christians and the persecution and the stuff that happened you know as coming over is saying, okay, your beliefs maybe not be accepted. Was that talked about in your family? You know, as far as this is our tribe, this is some of the beliefs of our, of that tribe and then some of the. You know how that affected you. You know, in Tulsa, oklahoma, did you guys go straight to Tulsa or did you live somewhere else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, my dad left. So interesting thing is yes, to answer your question, that's definitely talked about a lot, and especially in my family, because my parents were really, really serious believers, very strict. You know, we were the kind of kids that would go to school and everybody would look at us weird because, you know, everybody knew that our parents were strict, you know. So we weren't able to date, we weren't able to, we weren't allowed to. There's a lot of things we weren't allowed to do. My parents didn't even like the sounds of movies, just because they're like, hey, if we don't see a christen element to it, we don't see the point, right, like little things like that. But to answer your question, yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a bedrock within our family because it's it's really something that allows us to Kind of not give ourselves any excuses. So my parents were both doctors. They met in the University in Nigeria, right? And and can you imagine, brian, having getting your license, your medical license, in three different countries? My mom was able to do that, my dad was only able to do it in two. But they moved to London, right? So I felt the need to move to the US because of us, once they had asked me, my siblings I'm the oldest of four and and they wanted to put us in Christian schools. They started all over again, got their medical licenses, started practicing. You know, we, I remember moving to Tulsa and we had to stay with some friends and we were on the floor, you know, sleeping on the floor and Not complaining about that right, that's just the, the starter, right, yeah. But next thing, you know, mom and dad are moving us into, like these nice homes, like nice home after nice home after nice home. They're just busting their butts and getting busy, right, they got their license and started, you know, you know, becoming decently successful doctors.
Speaker 2:And then my dad. You know, the downfall of my dad is he got away from the medical industry because he wasn't able to get his US license. My mom was able to get her license, but that's what led him into kind of doing some other things that he shouldn't have been involved in, and that's a whole, nother Long story. As you know, he kind of led into this path of Financial struggle, but all I had to say he was still an incredible father to us, you know, loved us, loved my mom, and had that Mantle of just teaching us the ways of the word of God and, and a lot of that was identity.
Speaker 2:A lot of that was understanding who we are. Who we are and, yeah, we call him Yeshua, we like calling him by his Hebrew name, aka Jesus Christ. But knowing who we are in our Savior gives us the confidence to Address anything and overcome anything, because we feel like we're on the winning side, right. So so, yeah, there's there's a lot there as well, but, you know, we definitely have a really strong foundation and the nice thing about that is, you know, growing up, you know there's a verse in Proverbs he's trying to be child in the way you should go. When he's old, you won't depart from it. I see that with myself, I see that with my siblings. It's carrying on into our marriages and it's one of those things that are allowing us to really live life and and live it in a victorious manner that's so, so, and I love that right.
Speaker 1:Trust him, lord, with all your heart, leading out on your own understanding. All your ways. Acknowledge him and he will direct your past. But and I start thinking about that is so you go to Tulsa and you are now, you know, come from london, which was you know? I don't know how old were you when you moved to.
Speaker 2:I was like six or seven, six or seven, six or seven.
Speaker 1:So you've you've been part of a culture that's different in britain than it is in, than in united states, because the united states, and then you move to a state that has had Like race issues in Tulsa, oklahoma, right, because it was so segregated at one point. And then the black wall street, and you know, I don't know when we get to learn about that. So now you, you enter school, as you know, a young nigerian, you know, uh Kid, that was in london, uh, and now you're in black america, america, kind of just.
Speaker 1:You know, how did you find ways, associations or people To impact what your journey was going to look like? Because it sounds like your parents had a pathway that they had decided for you and they were pretty strict about it. And then, you know, probably by the time you became a teenager, you're going okay, this is my path was, was athletics part of it? Was it? Just, I know schools have made your. You know, hey, we have to have good grades. What was it like growing up in Tulsa, oklahoma, being a, I guess, a black man?
Speaker 2:at this point, so can I be honest with you, absolutely Okay so, um, so I'm gonna go back a little bit in the history and then kind of unpack this. Okay so, our ebo tribe we come from, um, like some really deep roots. Um, our tribe is One of the oldest tribes in Nigeria. It's like 922 bc is when it initially was.
Speaker 1:Okay, it goes that far back right.
Speaker 2:Um, so we're actually sons of israel. Our forefather is iri, who, uh, his father was gad, and gad was the son, one of the 12 sons, of jakef, aka israel. So, um, so iri basically established our tribe and this is kind of like it's kind of hidden information, but it's also available in plain sight. If you search the world to find this, it's really easy to find and confirm. But, long and short, um, you know, we have a family heritage where, uh, we know who we are, right, we have this confidence about us. There's, um, a lot of um. You know, it's kind of cool because our bible Actually has our name in it Um, the gadites, you know, that's like our name, that's the, the history of our tribe or whatever.
Speaker 2:But if you just unpack what the bible actually says about our people We've been prophesied over that we would have territory that the, the, the territory of the gadites, will be expanded. There's a rich cultural heritage that includes a unique language our language is very unique, uh, but additional traditions and social systems. So all that to say, you know, when we come to america, when nigerians and ebos, that who know who they are, when they, when we come to america, we're googly-eyed. You know what I mean. We're like, what you mean? We feel like we've struck gold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know we're like you mean we can be free here.
Speaker 2:You mean we can do whatever we want. You mean we can have access to these resources and and, and, and we're just like, let's go nuts. This is amazing and that's why you see a lot of nigerians. They come in america and they're immediately successful. You know, they're becoming doctors, they're, they're becoming lawyers or, um, you know, becoming real estate investors, and they're doing these things and they're not taking they're not taking any excuses, they're not giving themselves any excuses, right, and we see, you know, and again, not trying to be too blunt, but we see, you know, sometimes, people from the black community and we're scratching our heads like y'all have been living here your whole lives. What's what's holding you back?
Speaker 2:Um, so, anyway, I think I say all that to say we just look at things completely different and that's that's the, the mentality that our parents brought us up in, like, like, be confident in who you are, because of who who's you are right and uh, the spirit that lives within you, the spirit of the holy one, you know, and um, so we see ourselves as that, we see ourselves at the seat of abraham, we see it ourselves ourselves as like, hey, we're, we're actually part of the chosen, we're like the blood chosen nation, right. But the beauty of the gospel is, you know, anyone can, can embrace that right Because of the work of what is she will harm. A sheik has done again a k in jesus christ. Everyone can have that confidence Because you can be grafted in whether you're part of the original nation or not, like it's, it's for jewin's and zentiles, for everyone. Uh, but because we have that history and because we have that knowledge of who we are, we just we don't take any, any, any excuses. So we kind of look at stuff like systemic racism and what someone would say is, hey, that's systemic racism. We look at that, we're like. So we're like, is that a fly, excuse me? Like, let's just, let's keep moving big deal. You know um. So again, just completely different mentality.
Speaker 2:So that was kind of the way we grew up, we um, and that was the mentality we took in the sports. You know, um, we had some success in sports. You know my brother was able to play in the nba. Uh, I'm his older brother. So you know, claim the fame. I started the dream, it was my dream first, and then he took it because he's, he shot up to six, five and and went on to be have a Solid career. But you know that that was. I don't know if I mentioned your question brine, but that's kind of like. That's the mentality.
Speaker 1:That's what we did well, and that that absolutely Um, answers my question. Because it goes to identity, right, because when you, when you have this belief that you are part of greatness or you're part of you, know what god has ordained, and you walk through life, the things that people do to you, you know, I was, uh, you know, I heard a story, my, uh, my, uh, I I'd been, you know, married twice now, and so my wife that I have now, Uh, her kids are descendants of frederick deglas and I, you know, so I've been really, you know, understanding and learning about frederick deglas, uh, and, and realizing he had to buy his self out of slavery three times. You know, the, the things that he did, the, the teaching himself to read because he, you know, he, the belief was, you know, he learned a little bit to read and then the slave master at the time found out that the, his wife, was teaching him to read and stopped it, and then he grabbed, like, every piece of paper he could, and then he would trade stuff, like he would, you know, he was in the house and they would give him something. He would trade it to other young white kids to teach him how to read, because he knew, you know, if people really didn't want him to read, that was the most important thing that he could do. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:And so to see the mentality of you know, my identity is, it doesn't matter what my circumstances are, because you know, there's things that I created and there's things that are within me that I have to go throughout. And so, uh, you know the things that you can't control, right, you can't control. Was there systemic racism? Absolutely it. Are we living in the results of systemic racism? Absolutely, but that's not the reasons people don't succeed.
Speaker 2:Yeah right.
Speaker 1:That's not the reasons people don't move forward. They, they are. I don't want to just say that they're excuses, because they're not just excuses, but and there are, there were times when absolutely there's nothing you could do about it. If you're in a, you know you're chained to a bed and can't do anything, that you there's other than your mind. There's not a lot to do, but that's not most of the people who are in our society right now. And so you guys come to America now and you, you have that mentality is we're born for greatness and there's opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so everything that you now Direct your life through is hey, we, you were born with this and now we get to have this opportunity that can take us anywhere. We want to go Absolutely, and I'm hoping that folks are hearing that this is the identity that all of us black men should have. Absolutely, this is the identity that we were all born from greatness.
Speaker 1:Just the fact that the ones that came here that came from I come from two parts. I come from the Native Americans so we were already here from a tribe Chalktel tribe and then I also come from slavery, but I think of the people that made it over in the boats that then became my ancestors or my relatives from the past.
Speaker 1:They were the best of the best because they survived Not to say anything bad about the folks who didn't, but they made it through. So they come from greatness, they come from the ability to survive it. So that's the identity and I love the fact that you're there and even though we make mistakes and we do stuff, we still have this identity that we are children of God.
Speaker 1:And there's nothing that should stop us. So I absolutely appreciate you talking about that portion of it, because it is. It's a story that needs to be told, that says so, as you're going through school and you have this mindset of we can do anything. What were some of the things that, or maybe some of the obstacles or barriers that you were able to overcome to make it through where you're heading to other than just your brother's dream? I mean, that's what's up with it there. But, yeah, talk to me about that.
Speaker 2:You know, we definitely had a lot of the stories of kind of looked at sideways from people that are not our color, or remember those a time when we were pulled over. Me and my brother were pulled over because we were mistakenly identified as some thieves in a nearby neighborhood and just basically being stereotyped. But there's challenges that we definitely face like that. But I think our parents did a really good job of just kind of bringing us up. You know, what's interesting is, Brian, they never really sat us down. They're like hey, if the cop pulls you over, this is what you have to do. You know, they never gave us any of those type of talks. It was just kind of a mentality of everything else that they taught us that spilled over to where we just knew that when something like that were to happen, we would respond the right way. So they didn't have to coach us through specific scenarios, which I definitely advise and encourage. They had never experienced it because they were new to the States too. But what they did do was show us the right mentality to think of ourselves, and so we always had this inner belief and strength of man. We know who our dad is. We know like our heavenly papa is Like we're a king's kid. And then our dad walked around the same way and we were confident in who he was and so those challenges that we would face, we found ourselves not getting in trouble because we wouldn't have some again. This is maybe not being able to relate to a lot of the American black history as far as understanding ancestry, slavery and things like that, Even though that's in our DNA too. It's just further back as far as experiencing slavery. But we don't have this welling, this welled up like emotion of, oh here we go again when something like that were to happen, to where we're almost putting ourselves in just with our whole countenance and attitude towards a white cop or someone that would pull us over. We're just like OK, whatever you got to do, have the patience, show them the patience, respect. It just kind of bleeds over from the stuff that we were already taught from home. So those type of challenges weren't really big challenges for us. I would say the bigger challenges were things that we would do to ourselves.
Speaker 2:We would get in our own way at times, and that's kind of the story with my dad. He got in his own way, he can't blame anybody else. There was definitely some things that other people did that potentially impacted his situation and made it worse Because he never went out. He was basically convicted of 48 counts of fraud, but it really I don't know if it was that many, but it was like a whole bunch of people came into the scenario and was at court trying to make it look worse than what it was, Because he never actually intended to go out and steal money from anybody. He just was caught up in making some bad decisions and had the answer for it. So, yeah, he got in his own way.
Speaker 2:There's stories of things that me and my siblings would do growing up that kind of got in our own way in the progress of success or in the progress of just success in sports. But those challenges were always embraced from the mentality of a few things. One is our parents taught us to embrace when something is our fault, Take ownership, Take responsibility. My dad was humbled through that experience, but he ultimately came to that humble in place of, this is on me. I did this, so I think it's a big part of your pillars too.
Speaker 2:With identity, with trust, with faith. You've got to have ownership, You've got to have responsibility, You've got to be able to look at things with a sense of what can I do to change my situation, and I think that's attitude. I think attitude and mentality make a big difference and changes everything. So that's what I would say too, as far as like challenges and stuff, that's how we overcame Is having the right mentality, staying with a positive mindset and not letting anything ever have the final say of it being the excuse. We were always going to take challenges head on and address it the way they are.
Speaker 1:Katchel, how old were you when your dad went to prison? I was 25. Ok, so I have a similar story, just because my dad went to prison in 2007, I believe. Same type of thing, same financial. He had this investment club, never intended when 2008 or 2000, whatever was where he wasn't making a amount of dividends, and then he started paying out dividends out of principal and that kind of stuff, an investment club.
Speaker 1:And all of a sudden, oh, you've done this, and I think through that, I think through had I been in the same situation, or what could I have done differently, or what would I, because I don't have it a investment club and I don't do any of the things that he would do it at the time.
Speaker 1:But who did he rely on as his advisors? Who are the people that he surrounded himself with? When I think about trust and associations, who he'd become, is a lot attributed to who we spend our time with, who we hang around with, the people that we do stuff. I mean the mistakes that are made. My dad was in for seven years and then now he's living his life and he's doing fine and learned from his mistakes and paid his debt to society and all that kind of stuff, and I still love the relationship with my dad.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, I think through associations and who we trust. How did you or how do you find that doesn't even mean around that time, because I was an adult as well yeah, I don't think I was. Yeah, well, I don't 20, 35, I guess I was. Did you? You and my dad probably went and we had a family and kids and how it impacted. But as far as trust, how do you find the right associations and develop trust in your relationships that can move you forward and not engage in some of those relationships that can hurt you? How? What's your philosophy there?
Speaker 2:It's a good question I think it starts with relationships is everything, because ultimately, like I said earlier, I feel like that's the only thing that we could take out of this life into the next one is potential impact on relationships, when you talk about a new heaven and a new earth, spiritual state of mind and all that. So I think that, for me, my closest relationships and the people that I trust the most are most like-minded that's probably the easiest way to describe it and what I mean by that is they have their faith in the same God that I have my faith in God-bidji right I'm talking about Yahweh right, like the one that says I am that I am. He's the great I am. He competes with no one, like there's no other God but Him. Right To me. If I can look at somebody and they start there and they have that same devotion of man, I want to love Him with all my heart, soul, all my mind and all my strength.
Speaker 2:Then we're on a good foundation to start off with building a trust, because ultimately, he's where my trust lies, and I think it's really hard to put my eyes on he because he's, and so it's like you know, you have that vertical setup If anybody else wants to be on that same trust plane.
Speaker 2:They got to be on that same vertical setup right, and so over time I feel like that's what I've learned in life because I'm a people pleaser. You know I'm in a business that's a relationship business. You know how it is Brian People in this. You know when you're doing loans for people, with real estate transactions, you're dealing with relationships and even on a business level you have to have people that you can trust. You know partners that you can trust and you learn how to build what the foundations for those that trust on a business level, but just overall in life and just in people in general, I think if we could start with him, because ultimately he's who puts us in a place of unity anyway, in a place of understanding and a perspective for life. That's on the same plane field, but it's got to start with that for me personally, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you for, yeah, I agree with you 100% on that. When we think about you know and I want to talk about finances here, so we'll do a big portion of finances but I want to jump into health first. You know, whether it's physical health, I mean, we all have relatives that you know have some kind of mental health challenges. You know that stop us from being able to achieve or stop us from being able to move forward. But what are some of the things you do to stay healthy, to make sure that when you wake up in the morning and you go through your day, that at the end of your day you know there's so many of these diseases and things that plague our community, that plague black men, that having us die early and the things that we eat and we put in our body and the way that we think? What are some of the things that you do to protect your health and your mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's good, really important pillar as well. It's me in the heart directly, because my father you know, after all, that he went through a few years after he came out of prison he passed away from heart complications in 2010. So, you know, so, when I got married in 2014, also, my wife would mention this hey, you know, don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but, like you know, you're kind sometimes like that's that seems to be the case a lot of times is shortness, you know, shorter lifespan. Let's be mindful of that, right, and so, yeah, it's a big deal for me, you know, and these are things that I want to try to get better right, like, I'm not trying to say I got it all figured out, but I do love working out, you know, just being in sports, playing basketball, I always got to have some access to the gym. So I get, I get that in every week, you know, I'd say consistently, three days a week at least.
Speaker 2:And then I try to watch my eating habits. I'm a. My big kryptonite is meat. I love meat, you know. So I can sometimes eat a ton of meat, but I try to stay away from a lot of sugars and processed foods. My wife is trying to help me do a better job at that. Nice thing is, you know, she kind of has a thorn in her side right now because she has to eat healthy in order for her stomach. Like she has like these stomach ulcers sometimes that can impact her If she doesn't stay really clean with her diet. So sometimes I will spill over to the stuff that I eat as well.
Speaker 2:If you look at our refrigerator you're kind of like wait, where's all the? Where's all the snacks in the? You know the doodads and knickknacks, doodads type food. You know you don't see that in our house. So so definitely, diet, you know, is a big, is a big thing. That's something I want to get better at. But yeah, doing some kind of cardio when you are working out, I think is important. But just all those little things are so many things. The beautiful thing about health is everybody can attain it. It's just you have the want to, you have the discipline to set forth and actually go get it for yourself because it's attainable, right. So I think that is an important element and important pillar, because it is one of the things that I believe our Heavenly Father wants us to be a good steward at.
Speaker 1:Absolutely One of the my favorite. I was when I was a track athlete, you know, burned thousands and thousands of calories every single day, but man, fufu. We were eating some Fufu every day.
Speaker 2:Okay. Hey you know every day, you know about the Fufu.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, my gosh. Okay, I think if I was eating that now I'd be like 400 pounds. But you know the okra, all the stuff that was added. You know, probably not because, but at the same time you just think about okay, what? What have our generations put into our bodies and it's become a staple in our diets. You know like, like fried chicken. You know fried chicken and I'm sure it's not for for, like what your family, but you know for the families that. You know in the. You know we have our reunions and you know the amount of grease and stuff that is the good at the. You know the best food and you know my, my dad, say, hey, we need to go get a pig or sandwich, and I'm like I'm not even a pig or sandwich. Stay away from pork and stuff On the.
Speaker 1:On the mental health side, what do you do to keep your mind as fresh as possible, to put the the, I guess, nutrient type of information in your mind instead of the poison part of our minds that sometimes I see our culture really struggling with? Not that it's, you know, so debilitating that you're. You know you end up homeless, although our group of you know there are more a percentage, wise, of you know, black men that are homeless than any other part of the population, and a lot of it is due to mental health, but a lot of it, you know the things that we put into our minds and the poisons that that that go in it, that are affect our ability to achieve success. What are some of the things you do to protect that or or to make sure that it doesn't even enter into your mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great question. So I'm a big reader of scriptures. I've been doing it for the longest time. That's the first thing I would say is, mentally, every day I wake up is the first thing I'm doing. Most mornings I'm normally in a Bible app, you know, like a Bible through the year, and I listen to scriptures and so that's always in me, right, and I've been doing that for years now. So I've gone through the Bible multiple times. I can't tell you that I got the whole thing memorized and I don't know if I ever will, cause there's so much to the scriptures.
Speaker 2:But that for me is a foundation mentally, helps me start out my day in the right mentality. And then this goes back to how my family brought us up, but just being positive. You know I have a hard time saying anything negative. You can ask my wife even if it comes to saying that I'm sick with something or not feeling that good, I got hard. I have a hard time just saying it because in my head it's like I don't want to be negative, right, and I want to be honest and, you know, address and be realistic about situations. But I'm always trying to stay positive and to me it helps me see the best in people. It helps me it even applies into our work as mortgage brokers, working with different people.
Speaker 2:You have to have a certain type of patience to deal with people's crap, you know, and when you have a mentality of positivity, you're able to see the best in people, despite their crap, despite their issues, despite you know, whatever you want to call it, and so I think that comes with.
Speaker 2:You know it's practice of just thinking positively, verbalizing things that you know, looking for the things that are admirable, things that are praiseworthy. There's a scripture that talks about that. You know you think on these things that are of good report and when you're doing that, over time it starts to become a part of you and you know I think I've got good people around me, thankfully, to when that ever becomes my Achilles heel as far as like just you know, sometimes a pirate people, just because I'm like, hey, I see.
Speaker 2:I think, you can do it right, I just want to be with you. My wife is like that wasn't a good pirate babe. But thankfully I have people around me to kind of, you know, give me those additional voices of reason. But overall, to answer your question, I think that really helps me with just the mental space. Is I'm just, I'm generally just a positive person because of those practices of you know, everyday, just kind of thinking on those types of things.
Speaker 1:Well, that's good, let's jump into. Let's jump into money. You know when we think about, you know, money, money, money, right, you know the what freedom is, what financial freedom is, you know, and that's a different number for everybody. I was doing an exercise with the gentleman that I was coaching and we were trying to come up with benchmarks and I said, if you have enough money, that, let's say a million dollars, will spend out $50,000 a year, you know, by interest, and still continue to grow. So if you had a million dollars in the bank, it would spend out 50,000. What is that benchmark number? I asked him for for how much money you think you need to live the way you want, because that's what freedom is.
Speaker 1:Freedom isn't as I have a billion dollars. Freedom is I have the ability to do most of the things that I want to do, and that first benchmark was just that. It was. You know how much would you need to save up, how much would you need to put in. And then, how do you do it?
Speaker 1:Because I think one of the the biggest obstacles we find, you know, because of identity, because of trust, because of you know just, you know, maybe, our faith and our belief in ourselves, with our identity, that we believe that those jobs aren't out there, are those abilities to do income that are not out there.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't have any issue with somebody who has a job and they love it and they're making a difference in society. And they said you know, this is what God's called me to do and I'm going to praise it. I'm going to do the best that I possibly can do it so I can serve others. That's kind of how I look at whatever it is that you do. But at the same time, we got to eat right and money is that thing that allows us to transact, so that we have a roof over our heads, that we have, you know, food in our bellies, that we're able to take care of our kids and we're able to enjoy this planet that God has given us. Kind of, maybe you talk to us a little bit about what makes somebody successful with money and some things, mental types, things that they can think about, that can help them through the process.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, as you're saying all of that, you know I'm thinking through the scriptures that are popping up in my mind. I'll you know, I'm always going to be like quoting scripture sometimes. That's great, but there's there's a Bible talks about money, a ton and there's a few scriptures, as you were sharing, that that just popped up in my mind. One is it says money is the root of all evil. Right, a lot of people think that's what it says, but it's actually know, the love of money is the root of all evil, right? There's a big difference, because there's another verse that actually says money is the answer to all things.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:How do you mix it too right? So? And then there's another proverb that says you know, there's a prayer. The writer is saying this prayer to Yahweh, to God, saying hey, give me enough money so that I'm not poor, but don't give me too much money to where I get too rich and I have to forget about you because a certain amount of money we've seen it multiple times in human history, especially for men.
Speaker 2:Man, we get to a certain level of success and wealth and money, like we think we've got it all, and that's a scary place to be, because that's at the point where we basically let our pride, get to the point where we even tell God we've got it all and we don't need you. So for me to get back to your question, I try to have a healthy balance with money right, cause I've seen what it's done in my family, I've seen what it's done to my dad, I've seen the reasons my dad had to spend time in prison and that I've been very observant A lot of the biggest things that I've learned from my dad. He was an incredible father but I probably learned more from his mistakes than from his successes, especially around money. So I kind of have those prayers often where I'm just like father, heavenly father, please don't let me fall away Like cause. I'm a very ambitious dude. I strive for success, I strive for achievement, I always have goals. Me and my wife go through this seven category goal thing of Zig Ziglar every year and we just put down what our goals are, and a big part of that is finances, but in the same breath, I'm not trying to make that everything. So you know. So, yeah, you can come to a certain amount of money and you feel like you're living well, but there's still this requirement to be a good steward of it. So the point where you you can't just be content with what you've done, you have to continue to grow it right. I think that's what there's.
Speaker 2:Another verse, matthew, chapter 25, it's the parable of the talents is part of that chapter, and the whole idea is using money as the actual resource of what these people are doing to show their master that they're responsible and they can be faithful, and it's all about growing it right. The actual slave or servant that doesn't do anything with it, he's the one that's called wicked, the guy that actually saves the money and puts it away. When the master comes back and says, hey, here's your treasure, I just put it in the ground. I was scared because I knew you know, whatever, here's my reasons, but here's your money back. The master wasn't happy with that. So so I feel like you have to have this healthy balance, and I think it really comes from just staying in a humble and hungry place.
Speaker 2:You never get to a place where you're satisfied as far as just what is it that God wants you to do with the treasures he's giving you, with the resources, the money, the gifts, the businesses you know, the roles, any type of hats we're wearing? How do we please him with it? First and foremost, because ultimately it's his, and I think that's the main attitude you have to have with money, all this have to have a money. It's not ours, we're just managers. That's the whole idea of the parable, of the talents he's given it to us to manage for a time. Because, at the end of the day, when all of this world fades away we, you know treasures fade away with it too. Anything that you've built with the money, you know, fades away with it too.
Speaker 2:The big question is would you do with that to expand his kingdom and to make an impact for his glory, right? So, anyway, I'm kind of all over the place, but that's one of the things I always try to remember. Brian, I gotta remember that this is not mine. You know I'm big on tithing. I'm big on trying to be generous, trying to do things, you know, not just to build, you know, my household, but to help others, because I see that that's what Heavenly Father did for us, right? And that man is generous enough to give up his son and give away everything in that manner. You know his son gave up his life, that's everything. So I wanna be, I wanna have that same mentality, and I think it just starts from knowing hey, this is his like. Whatever he tells me to do with it, have open hands. Don't have closed fists right To where you know. Leave him open so he can pass it through. And when he's passing it through, you can be managers and, you know, stewards of more than what he initially started with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love where you're going because when you think of scriptures, I just you know, I have this on my desk. It's the and you probably can't see it because I got the Bible, but it's the spirit. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:The spirit filled the pocket guide to finances, right, and so it starts out with the prayer. It's pretty thick because there's a lot of verses in the Bible about money and I think sometimes, folks, we just get confused on. You know well, God really doesn't want us to have money. We're, you know, I can remember, you know, being grown up and going to a lot of the black church and we're always going through right. We just got into the Lord Terry's. They kept saying it all the time. It's like what does that mean? You know, what does he have? And the purpose that he has for me, Because most of the purposes, in order to fulfill them, have to deal with money. Right, Even if my, even my purpose is to run a nonprofit, I can't run a nonprofit without any money right.
Speaker 1:If I want to give to the poor, I can't give to the poor if I don't have anything to give. Absolutely Right, and it's so amazing. When you think of you know, I think of the parable of the talents, and I think God gave them according to their gifts. But so what gift is God given me?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And the purpose is to utilize the money. You know I think about you. Know, joseph, when we talk about well, you know how incredibly he smarty was to the Pharaoh and the kingdom, but he didn't give away the food right. And all the grain and everything that was in there. He sold it to the folks.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then when they ran out of the grain they kept, you know, during that seven year famine, you know. Then they came to him and said we wanted our. You know we were hungry. He said, well, what else you got? He said, well, we got livestock. You know what else you got? You know well, we got family. You know they even sold themselves into slavery so that they could eat.
Speaker 1:But, Joseph wasn't taking it, as I'm just gonna give a handout. And then he moved forward to like Moses, where you know he's now freeing his people, and he said the people stayed in slavery because they had no Joseph. You know there's no Joseph there because there's nobody who's managing the money. And so when I'm thinking about this and maybe we can get to you know a little bit of specifics like it's okay to have a side hustle, right, it's okay to start going money, what do you think about, like percentages? I'm just saying I come in, I'm listening to this, I'm thinking about this journey to freedom. I don't know anything about money. What are some things that you would say? Maybe top two or three things to get started, to understand how to start managing your money, or managing these, maybe the first thing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question, man. This is so good. So our story when my wife and I got together, we quickly realized we had to address. You know, when you get married you're bringing in money baggage right. We had a different upbringing with money, a different type of way of looking at money, but a big thing for us was addressing our debt right away. That was the first thing Addressing debt, getting rid of bad debt.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're interested in being a real estate investor, you know, buying real estate property, you can learn about the good type of debt which is basically, you know, debt that leverages appreciating assets and there's something to that, you know. But understanding you got to get rid of the bad debt first because the bad debt can really be a cancer to using debt to grow wealth. Right, because you can use debt to grow wealth, but you have to use debt that is leveraging appreciating assets to grow wealth. And you know, for us that's real estate. But that was the big thing was addressing debt, getting rid of debt and literally treating it like it was a cancer. So you know, we went through Dave Ramsey's financial piece university to help us have that mentality towards bad debt. You know we don't sign off on everything that Dave Ramsey says, because I know he's not. He's not going to talk about leveraging good debt, but we, you know, once we got out of the bad debt, we were able to understand and learn what it means to have good debt. Right Now, even good debt at one point or another could come back to bite you if you over leverage it, if you are not careful and you don't. You know, make sure you're managing that well is, you know, is a very important thing as well.
Speaker 2:But I would say that's the first thing is address your debt, eliminate your debt, and then, shortly after that, and a lot of times intertwined, is addressing your credit. You know this is a big thing for Brian and I because we're in the mortgage business. We look at people's credit every day. But you know, if you're wanting to build wealth and utilize debt, you have to have credit, you have to have a credit profile that people that extend credit and debt will want to work with you. But I think ultimately, at the end of the day, you're playing that game to get to an end result. That's some of the things my wife and I have been discussing. More is, we've been playing this game for a good while and you want to get to an end result where you can now be in a position where you're no longer needing the debt, you're able to leverage things on your own, you're able to utilize your assets to really build for the next generation.
Speaker 2:Apart from the debt, right, and that's a whole nother conversation. That's a whole nother level of financial conversation and literacy. But the basics I would say is start with the eliminating that debt, get your credit in shape and then third step I would say is you got to know how to budget. If you don't know what your money is doing, you can't expect to have your money grow, and budgeting allows you to know what your money is doing. You may think you know what your money is doing, but when you have so many transactions in a particular month, you really don't know unless you're actually documenting what that is. So have a Google sheet. We use Google sheets. You can have an Excel sheet of some kind of way of tracking what exactly is your money that's going in, going out, and knowing exactly what your money is doing, and budgeting is the way to do that. So I would say those are the three top things for me.
Speaker 1:I love those and one of the things that you know I'm writing crazy as you're talking, but you know, one of the things that I find is that folks don't even know where their money's at or how much money they have. Right, the first thing is, you got to know every penny that comes in and every penny that goes out, and whether you're using, you know, a product like Google sheets, which is free, or you're investing in something like QuickBooks or something like that, First you got to know where your money is before you can start managing it. Absolutely you know, to be able to know what's there, and there's so many. I want to tell everybody listen, stop trying to do all this by yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, there are millions and millions. I don't want to say millions of years, but I know there's at least two or 300 years of proof that trying to figure out finances by yourself doesn't work.
Speaker 1:And if you work out it in school, which I can pretty much promise you you weren't you have to find some people who around whether it's us or other people who were putting stuff together, because what's, though, saying is absolutely right. If you don't understand credit, because credit is this, you got to understand. Credit is this manmade construction. You know construct. I guess I need to say that put together a way to rank you whether you're worthy of borrowing money. That's all it is. And they come up with all these algorithms and say because you are this, this and this, you're allowed to borrow money, and because you're not, you're not allowed to borrow money.
Speaker 1:Or your history of how you're doing it, and so just understanding credit that you need to play the game. Be in the game instead of trying to just be mad at the game. Yeah, if you come across people, though I do all the time that.
Speaker 1:I'm just mad at them All the time it's all the time you go, you learn how to play the game. And then budgeting you know what he said about. Budgeting is so, so important Because now that you have now, first you know the money you have coming in right, and now you got to figure out, okay, what is the best use I can have of this money. And one of the biggest issues, especially in for black men in our community, is delayed gratification.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:Delayed gratification, which means you don't need to be buying stuff just cause you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know you don't need to be, or you're, and I get it because you're frustrated, you believe you're not making it to the next level, you believe that money's coming in fast enough. You know, I see so many people that are apartment complexes right, that don't own a home yet, that are driving $80,000, $90,000 cars. Yeah, you know and you go okay. So how is that an investment? Because it's not. It's a depreciating asset.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the game of assets is so, so, vitally important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:As we walk through this. But, like you said, manage it. Credit is a good thing, but the problem is, is they'll give you credit? You know, this happened to me. I went to college I wasn't taught a lot about money and credit, you know, in schools or anything and I got me a credit card, went to Sears and bought all much stuff from a dorm room and I thought it was like my scholarship, where I didn't have to really deal with it or I'd have to pay it after I graduated.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then Sears started like knocking on my door, like you got to make a payment on this stuff. I'm like, but I didn't graduate. Yeah, you know and then like no, this card we gave you has nothing to do with you going to school.
Speaker 1:So like well, you was on the school campus. You were sitting there telling me you know that I needed this, you know it convinced it. And there's all these commercials and things that are on that just do that. That convinces that we need stuff before we really need it. And I have nothing. I have zero against an $80,000 car, $100,000 car. It just has to come with. Okay, is it in my budget and how does it? And do we have other things set aside? Would you say like home ownership is like one of the number one most important things you know for somebody to start, to start building a financial portfolio, or what are some?
Speaker 1:of the things that you would think would be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, home ownership is a great foundation to understand the wealth game, the financial game, because it's gonna allow you to set a goal for achieving that. And you know a lot of things you said, brian. There's so right on.
Speaker 2:You know the delayed gratification thing is epidemic in our country right, and I think it's because people just don't have the ability to pause and think of the future self. And I had someone say once and it's always stuck. It was a saying you gotta make decisions that the future version of yourself will be thankful that you did. You know, and if you can really understand that and unpack that, it changes a lot of the decisions that you would make. Right, the future version of yourself is either gonna be really mad that you made this decision or they're gonna be really thankful. So let's make a decision in line with the thankful, the thankful future version of yourself. And so buying a home and doing that is definitely, you know, it almost goes. It's like a no-brainer, like you have to do it If you wanna have any kind of access to wealth or option opportunity for wealth. This is where it starts.
Speaker 2:Home ownership is where it starts, because real estate is the number one vehicle for wealth building in America. It just is look it up, it's the stats right. So if you can start with your home where you actually live and why wouldn't you? Right, you gotta live somewhere you might as well put that money back in your own pockets than your landlord, because when you're renting. You know people are complaining about interest rates being in the sevens, eights, nines. It's like, well, your rate is really 100% when you're renting. You know what I mean. If you think about it, you're paying 100% of that money to a landlord. You never get a cent of it back. So why would you not put that same amount of money towards something that you own, so that you can build for your future Again something that allows a future version of yourself to be thankful? So I would definitely say home ownership. And you know, and for those who are willing to, you know, real estate investing beyond home ownership is not for everyone, but for those who feel like they have the wherewithal for that, you know, a fortitude for that that's another element of man. The future version of yourself is gonna be thankful because that, additionally, you know, real estate just gets more and more expensive over time.
Speaker 2:So you know, I always tell borrowers that are considering hey, you know, as soon as you're able to qualify, let's talk about what you can afford right now, because there is a cost for waiting. Inflation just continues to go up. Along with inflation is real estate values. If you look at the graph, that's all it's done. There might be some dips, you know, a crash here or there or whatever, but over time it just keeps getting more and more expensive.
Speaker 2:So you wanna get on the right side of that. You wanna get on the right side of that ride. It's where you can actually own your own real estate so that that value is going in your favor. So, yeah, that's kind of expanding on what you said there, but 100% you gotta start with home ownership. And obviously I'm biased on that, because I've been blessed to being able to not only own our primary home but we have rental properties as well, and we're seeing this work over and over again because we have multiple of these real estate assets that are helping build our wealth and we know that when we're done, god is gonna use that for the next generation, you know. And so if you wanna think of your kids and your kids' kids and just future generations because that's what life is right, you understand it's not just about you, it's bigger than you. These are some things that you can do to start influencing and impacting those future generations.
Speaker 1:That's great. So you're not completely. This is what we've been here for an hour now, We've been talking and it just goes so fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's on flies.
Speaker 1:It does, and hopefully we'll be able to come back and even unpack some more as people grow. Do you have any closing thoughts that you, of all the things that we've talked about, that you would encourage people who would watch this to say you're on the right path? You need to keep going. You need to have great associations, and associations can be the people that you watch on YouTube, the people that you, the books that you read, the seminars you go to. Those are all part of associations. You have to have some close ones and we'll work on that through the Journey of Freedom program. But is there anything that you would? What to this, leave folks with?
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, I really appreciate you having me. Brian, it's been an honor and a privilege being on with you. I would just say yeah, I'm not a preacher. Right, but I gotta go back to just that foundation man. I would just encourage anyone watching get in your word, get to know your heavenly father, get to know your savior, yeshua HaMashiach, aka Jesus Christ. I'm learning my Hebrew. I'm trying to pronounce the Hebrew correctly.
Speaker 1:I love it. This is so awesome.
Speaker 2:But there's something through that. Read your Bible every day. I think we're in a generation where people are almost more loyal to doctrines and manmade traditions and ideas of what Christianity is than actually the Word of God itself. People don't read the Bible anymore for themselves. They don't ask the Holy Spirit to have a relationship with them to say, hey, what is the scripture is actually saying? You have all these different. Someone told me this recently, brian there's over 30,000 denominations in the Christian faith. Did you know that 30,000? No way I had to watch it.
Speaker 1:It's insane right.
Speaker 2:And to me that just speaks of we talk about, the Holy Spirit is the most forgotten person in the church. To me, that stat screams that you have the Bible here, right? And then you have human beings here, then you have the Holy Spirit up here. We put human beings in the Bible and we mix it all up and we forget the Holy Spirit. He's up here. And then we go, bam, 30,000 denominations and the Holy Spirit's like does anyone wanna ask me I mean, I inspired the whole Bible Anybody wanna ask me what it actually means, what it says? Cause he's one spirit, how do we have 30,000 denominations?
Speaker 2:So I think it just points to and again, I'm not trying to come against any particular down the nomination or anything like that Everyone has their heart and their way of going about things, different mentalities and different ways of worship. But my whole thing is I think we gotta get back to being one with the spirit right, and being one with the Father, and that's the foundation for everything we're talking about. Once you can start there, once you can get right there, cause he has great plans for us, he loves us, he wants to see us do well, but it's that original commandment right. Love the Lord, your God, all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. And once you do that, everything else opens up. So that's what I'll leave with everybody.
Speaker 1:I love it, thank you. Thank you for doing that and, as you're watching this podcast and I hope you will be willing to subscribe to it, because we're just gonna continue to put more folks on that are gonna talk about your journey and talk about the journey that you're on, because yours is different than everybody else's, but you can glean so much stuff. So just go to the journey of freedomus. You can sign up for all different types of things. If you want coaching, all that kind of stuff, hey, but just want you to know that you can do this Right. You can do this. You can move and achieve freedom in your life like you could not believe.
Speaker 1:God has set it aside for us to be able to do it and we follow the things, just like Zoe said, the principles that are put forth in the Bible that allow us to move ourselves forward, and we do that with Jesus and God in place in first in our lives as we move forward. We can do that, so you can do this. The other thing, that is, you deserve this. You know we are in this country, in America, that Zoe talked about coming from London to here and just being excited about the opportunity that's here, and that opportunity is here for you and you deserve to be able to take part of it.
Speaker 1:And then let folks help you. I don't know how much I also I can say that is, let people help you, because if you do, your chances of succeeding just go exponentially greater than your chances of doing it by yourself. So I just want you to remember that you are God's greatest gift and he loves you, and I look forward to talking to you on the next one. You guys have a wonderful, awesome, just incredible day today. We will see you a great week. Thank you very much for watching.