When Greg Brown from CHAFA graced us with his presence on Journey to Freedom, it wasn't just a conversation—it was an exploration into the heart of what it means to build a legacy within the black community. His compelling stories of resilience and the undeniable power of homeownership as a cornerstone for generational wealth had us all reconsidering the foundations upon which we build our futures. From the echoes of our past shaping expectations and the unwavering support of family, to the hard-hitting realities of systemic challenges that black fathers face, this discussion is a tapestry of shared experiences and lessons that are as profound as they are personal.
Life has a funny way of redirecting us—my path was no exception, veering from sports marketing dreams to a purpose-filled career over a decade deep in the finance industry. This episode isn't just about my own strides but also the ways in which we, as a community, can navigate life's unexpected turns. We unpack the intertwined nature of identity and education, and the formidable role of faith and determination in overcoming the toughest of struggles. It's about the relentless journey towards success, the kind that's measured by the legacy we leave for our children, and the strategies we employ to manage the financial hurdles that life throws our way.
Wrapping up, we turn the lens on the immense value of seizing the day and the opportunities it brings. Greg and I share insights on the path to financial freedom, hoping to ignite a cultural shift from renting to owning, from surviving to thriving. This episode is a clarion call to embrace the opportunities for growth and success—because it's not just about the property we own, but the stakes we claim in our community's future. Join us as we celebrate the victories, confront the challenges, and walk together on this journey to freedom.
When Greg Brown from CHAFA graced us with his presence on Journey to Freedom, it wasn't just a conversation—it was an exploration into the heart of what it means to build a legacy within the black community. His compelling stories of resilience and the undeniable power of homeownership as a cornerstone for generational wealth had us all reconsidering the foundations upon which we build our futures. From the echoes of our past shaping expectations and the unwavering support of family, to the hard-hitting realities of systemic challenges that black fathers face, this discussion is a tapestry of shared experiences and lessons that are as profound as they are personal.
Life has a funny way of redirecting us—my path was no exception, veering from sports marketing dreams to a purpose-filled career over a decade deep in the finance industry. This episode isn't just about my own strides but also the ways in which we, as a community, can navigate life's unexpected turns. We unpack the intertwined nature of identity and education, and the formidable role of faith and determination in overcoming the toughest of struggles. It's about the relentless journey towards success, the kind that's measured by the legacy we leave for our children, and the strategies we employ to manage the financial hurdles that life throws our way.
Wrapping up, we turn the lens on the immense value of seizing the day and the opportunities it brings. Greg and I share insights on the path to financial freedom, hoping to ignite a cultural shift from renting to owning, from surviving to thriving. This episode is a clarion call to embrace the opportunities for growth and success—because it's not just about the property we own, but the stakes we claim in our community's future. Join us as we celebrate the victories, confront the challenges, and walk together on this journey to freedom.
Okay, welcome, welcome, welcome to another edition of the Journey to Freedom podcast. And so, as we try to do every single time, is to make sure that we give content that can help you move forward, that can help you move from what we call the past, you know, into the future by trying to live in the present. And so what's so kind of crazy about the present, you know, and as I think of this, I think heaven is going to be wearing the present forever. But here you're, either in the past or you're looking towards the future, because if you think of, if I say we are in the past, as soon as I say the word past, it's before us. It already happened.
Speaker 1:And so today I have Greg Brown on, and so when you think of folks, as I'm trying to do, we're going to try to do this is 2024. If you're watching it at a different year, we're doing a hundred black men this year, you know and journey to freedom is exclusively for black men of how we move forward and how we take this journey and know what happened in our past, but be able to move forward and not get stuck. You know. And so you know when I so when I think about. Greg works for an organization here in Colorado called CHAFA right now and it is dedicated on housing and getting people into homes. Because we didn't realize that when you think about finances and you think about wealth and you think about generational wealth and you think about how do we move forward with our families and our legacy, one of the biggest ways is through homeownership and being able to, you know, take somebody to be able to buy their first piece of property that they probably didn't know, that they knew how to do, and then be able to move forward.
Speaker 1:But Greg has a lot more depth to them, other than the job that he does. And you know he has a family, he has a life, he has things that you know I say this often is, success leaves clues, right, and if you want to be, or if you want to find success in your life, you find people who are succeeding and you kind of find out what they're doing and in some cases, duplicate it in the ways that can help you move forward. And so, greg, thank you for being on today, thank you for taking the time to spend with us today, and then maybe you can just kind of tell us a little bit about your journey, about your story about how you got to where you're at, and then we'll jump into what you're doing and how we can help others. But we'd love to just kind of hear that story at this point.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, first of all, brian, thanks for having me. I'm excited for your platform, man. This is great, this is good stuff. Man, you know the community needs something like this, you know, because the more we can talk about exactly what we're talking about here the past, historically-wise, how it affects our now, how it affects our future and how we can move forward and the more people and the more men that talk to other Black men about success and the more we hear it, it just creates that domino effect. So I appreciate you having me. I'm excited to be here and excited for this platform, brian. I'm excited to be here and excited for this platform, brian.
Speaker 2:A little bit about me, man. I you know I was never going to be that guy getting into the mortgage business. I never saw myself, you know, before I came on, where I am with Chaffa and Chaffa is the Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. It's the state housing and finance authority. But before I came with Chaffa I was on the lending side of things in a mortgage business for over 15 years. You know I started as a loan officer back in about 2004, 2005, worked for several you know of the big name companies. You name it. I worked for them. But that wasn't my path. You know. There was another plan. God had another plan, you know, and so my path. When I was in college I was a communications major and I had done internships with sports marketing. I had done radio and television broadcasting internship at News 12 New Jersey and I was going to be that sports guy, that reporter, that sports marketing or something like that.
Speaker 2:And then you get out of college, you get in life and things happen and life happens and you start to go down a little bit different of a path than you thought you might have. But I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason and that path that was put in front of me, which I didn't think I was going to take, and I really, along the way to tell you the truth, brian, as I'm in it and I'm doing it, I'm questioning why am I on this path, why am I going this route? And I start not having regrets. But you start thinking back, like man why had all these plans to do X, y and Z? And here I am doing these mortgages, going through the ups and downs, going through 2008,. You know, going through what we experienced after the, after the clearance, walmart sale of 2020. And now you know the 2021, 2022. So I went through all that and so, but it brought me to a place where I can be now. All the education, all the knowledge that I gained in the mortgage industry allowed me to be where I am now to get in the communities, to get in the Black communities and be able to talk to our people. Be able to talk to our community about homeownership, the importance of generational wealth, the importance of getting out of that mindset that you can only rent and that's all that there is for you, just to help change that thought process. And all that brought me to here, and I believe it all happened for a reason.
Speaker 2:I couldn't see it when it was going on, but when it started happening, you know, it was just one of those things like wow, you know, because I was, I would tell you, the last mortgage stop, the last loan officer position I was at, I was just kind of at my wits end, kind of with the whole business, and it was more so. I didn't really feel I was being felt fulfilled, brian, that's what it was. I didn't feel like. I was like is this, it Is this? All I'm really going to do is just slaying loans and turning, helping folks get into their home, the home of their dreams, especially when you're doing it for the black community, when you're doing it on the lone side. There is a certain fulfillment to that, but it was kind of losing, I'm like I wanted more and at the time I really wasn't sure what that more was.
Speaker 2:But then this opportunity came along and once I saw this opportunity, it was just lining up where I was at, both personally in life and professionally, and I just jumped on, you know, because you know I will say this while we're on here. I believe that and I've heard this in the past, when I was a little bit younger and I really didn't, really didn't really think about it as much until I got older but there's three to five events, choices in your life that can change the couldn't miss, and it stood out to me and I feel like, as men, as community, if we recognize these things and we jump on them, it could be life-changing. And so that's what happened for me, you know, college-wise, to where I'm at now.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So you know part of identity you know, and when we think about identity is you know the people that we're around, the associations that we have. You know the folks that guide us, the mentors that are part of our lives. You were able to go to college and you know what you know. If we drop back into you know the importance of education or the importance of being able to and maybe just drop back and kind of be like your upbringing a little bit. What enabled you to realize that college was important enough to go to, to get an education? And I'm assuming and I could be wrong I mean it could be everybody that you were around. Everybody went to college and that's what just everybody in your community did. My thought process is probably not. So what was it that kind of changed your trajectory compared to maybe, other people in your family from another spot or other people in your community?
Speaker 2:Sure, talk to me a little bit about that. Yeah, so you know we're all a product of our environment and you know we're all that identity that we're talking about. It's shaped and it can be shaped through your family. It can be shaped through your community, the people that you keep around you. My identity was shaped by all of that, but a lot of me is my dad, my parents, the influence of my extended family.
Speaker 2:Now, let's, let's, you know, just focus on what we're talking about here is the education piece. I, you know, I was blessed in the fact that I grew up. My parents are still married. My mom's side of the family, all teachers come from a family, all teachers. Okay, my mom was a phys ed, health teacher and she was a coach and she got her master's in education and I have two aunts uh, one you know, uh, you know, rest her soul, um, but two aunts that were both principals, but two aunts that were both principals, educated with their masters. I have an uncle, same side of the family, that he was a science teacher, basketball coach, won state championships.
Speaker 2:You know, my dad went to college and so not everybody in my family and or extended family went to college, but it was a common theme in our family Expectation almost right, expectation, you know and well, and my dad told me, you know, I was on the 18 and out plan, regardless. He said, listen, man, when you turn 18, my dad was military. My dad said when you turn 18, you can go to the military, you can go to college. If that's not built for you, you get out the house and get your own job. But at 18 you're getting out the house, and so I knew I wasn't ready to live on my own yet and, um, my two choices were at that time, military college.
Speaker 2:I grew up playing football. I played six years old, all the way through college, and so, having that as a goal, I always wanted to play college football and so having that as a goal also helped push me to want to be in college. But I will tell you, there was a time I didn't think it was going to happen. I did not think college was going to happen for me at one point in my life. Freshman year in high school was really hard for me. It was really hard. Year in high school was really hard for me. It was really hard to adjust in the high school. I'll just be transparent, since we're on here, and we will talk about past struggles that help us. I mean, I grew up in New Jersey and in New Jersey at the time this is my freshman year 1994.
Speaker 2:You have six classes every report card and I failed three classes every report card. And I was. I failed three and I did that all four report cards. And then I took summer school and I got A's in all three of the classes that I failed. Now my mom's mad because she's like boy. So I told you, you ain't no dummy, you just weren't applying yourself. Now you have summer school and you have to go do it and then you're applying yourself.
Speaker 2:But what I'm saying is, even when I made honor roll my junior and senior year in high school and I started figuring things out, I had messed up so bad my freshman year that it was. It was hard to make up and I have no problem telling that story and I tell it to my kids because I want young people to know like, hey, don't go messing up like that and thinking, oh, it's three, four years down the road, I can make up for it, because when you mess up so bad it's hard to catch back up. But anyway, circling back around, that's what really propelled me was my family, my parents, my aunts, uncles, my community, the friends that I had, my parents, my aunts, uncles, my community, the friends that I had, my sisters, the family as a whole was really what instilled in me like, hey, man, the best opportunity that you will probably be able to give yourself later down the road in your future life is having an education and learning to learn.
Speaker 2:We all get education in high school, but take it to a little bit different level when you go to college, because now you're learning how to learn. You're learning how to assimilate in an environment that you haven't been in yet, simulate with people, learn how to speak and talk and learn and take notes and just live life in general. And so that's what propelled me to get in and get through college, man.
Speaker 1:Gotcha. So when you say you know learning how to learn, and you think of what does that mean to be able to learn how to learn? Because, are there, are there places or people or things that were just triggered, all of a sudden became you know? You said your last few years of high school, you know you're on the honor roll and you're doing what is expected or not even expected. Was that intrinsic for you or was it because of the pressures of everybody else? Was there a time when you're just like wait a minute, I got to get myself together, I got to get my act together. Time and you're just like, wait a minute, I got to get myself together, I got to get my act together? I have to learn what it means to be successful, Because I guess what I'm saying. If we drop back to your freshman year, there must have been some things that wasn't clicking as far as what I need to do. Where did that transition happen and what are some of the results of those lessons that maybe you've put together?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember, to be honest with you. I remember feeling it towards the end of my sophomore year, going into my junior year, and I'm just going to tell you it was a feel I just got hit where I was like I'm tired of feeling like this. I'm tired of the family looking at me like this. You know, my whole freshman year I said my dad was military, he didn't play, I this. My whole freshman year I said my dad was military, he didn't play, I was grounded. My whole freshman year I sat up in my room what was that Brandy song Sitting up in my room? I was sitting up in my room. I was sitting up in my room.
Speaker 2:My whole freshman year and summer my dad yanked me out of everything. The only reason I got to finish a football season was because I first report card didn't come out after the season was over, and so no basketball, no track. You know I was a three sport athlete in high school but he yanked me out of basketball and track. And so my sophomore year I was coming out of it, but it wasn't as good as where it should have been. And you just get to a point at least for me.
Speaker 2:I just get to a point where I'm tired of it. I'm tired of feeling like that. I'm tired of people looking at me like a certain way, like I'm stupid. And that's coaches, that's teachers, that's family members, that's peers, you know, everybody out having fun and I can't do it because I'm over here messing up doing this and that. And it was just something just changed in me, it just clicked. I can't really, I can't really pinpoint one specific, but I remember it was that feeling coming out of my sophomore year, going into my junior year, telling myself, greg, if you want to give your chance, give yourself a chance at anything further in life.
Speaker 2:You really got to change how you're, how you're approaching this whole school thing right now and you don't want people thinking about you a certain way, like they already are. Apply yourself and see what happens. And, um, I would start paying attention more. Um, and I started understanding the work more, which helped a lot, and I unders, I started under understanding myself more. I started knowing the way that I learned. I started not being scared to ask questions. I started staying after school and getting tutors. That's another thing. My freshman year, the summer of my freshman year, I got tutors and, moving forward, even in college, I used tutors because I understood that was a way I learned better.
Speaker 2:I was in study hall in college and I was on the football team and the coaches. Your freshman year, they make you take study hall but once you can get a certain GPA I believe it was like 3.2 or higher you no longer have to be in study hall and I got a GPA higher than that. But I kept myself in study hall because I understood I needed that more one-on-one attention to succeed at the education piece. So it was really kind of a flip of a switch with me being real with myself, with where things were going, and then, even by my senior year, I wasn't completely sure it helped that I was an athlete, I started getting recruited to play some ball, and then that combined with where I was at my senior year with grades and and things like that, so it was just really like a mindset where it's like okay, enough, enough, man, let's go do this, enough is enough wow, that's cool.
Speaker 1:So you know, when you think of contributing factors, you know the contributing factors are those outside factors that contribute to the decisions that we make. And then we have deciding factors. And I can tell there are some deciding factors right there in between that sophomore and junior year, during that time where you made some decisions. Talk to me about the people in your life that helped you. Or was it? You know, hey, I just got to do this myself that helped you, or was it? You know, hey, I just got to do this myself? Or were there people or coaches, or parents or aunts and uncles, or were there folks in your life that kind of helped guide your trajectory a little bit? Or just because of their disappointment in you? You know it could be a positive impact, or it could be. You know, hey, knucklehead, you need to do what you need to do. Talk to me about some of those people that are in your life that may have helped you, yeah, and it was a little bit of both.
Speaker 2:It was a little bit of both, but a lot of the people that were around me, I tell my children you know children. I tell my two kids they're not kids, they're 20 and 17 now but I tell them, keep successful people around you, keep like-minded people that are doing things. You know, keep them around you. You know, and my parents were always in the community. You know my mom, outside of what she did with her work at school, she was always, you know, putting on the big Christmas play at school but also involving herself anywhere we moved. She was always involved in the community. Same thing with my dad. You know, if I'm playing Pop Warner football, he's coaching. You know. He got to the point where he was, I think, the vice president of whatever that Pop Warner chapter was. My mom was the head of the palms, you know. And so everyone in the community knew the family. And so I think when you grow up, seeing that it just you have no choice for that kind of thing to rub off on you. And you know, and so it is.
Speaker 2:It is a lot of the you know we all have. We all have the family members that are doing things. We have family members that aren't doing things and you want to bounce things off of. You know, I see my older sister having success, I see my other sister having success, I see my parents have success, my aunts and uncles, and you want that success for you. And so it really was a lot of the family that you know, even when things were down, when I was young, they believed in me. They just needed me to believe in myself and that's a. Let those outside notions or identities that they're trying to put on you guide you. You know, beat that, be better than that, and anything's possible. I mean, we're a group of men that when we put our mind to it, bro, we can, we'll take it over, and we, we, we, we can, we'll, we'll, we'll take it over and we'll do great things, you know, and so, um, but yeah, for me personally it was, it was a lot of family and the people that I kept around me.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. Uh, you brought it. You brought a family and having a few kids. Uh, being a dad, you know, talk to me about the importance of being a dad and what are the legacies and the things that, as a dad, I mean. What's kind of nice is because you're not in that two and three year old and you're just trying to figure out, like your kids are 17 and 20 at this point, you know what were some of the things or the lessons that you wanted to instill in. What did it mean for you? You know, I know, dad being dad, but something special about being an African American dad in this country in this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, man, um, oh, first of all, being a dad, I mean, it's changed me. You know, I had my first um, my daughter's, born when I was 24. Um, my son, when I was 27, and I had no intention, no intention of starting fatherhood that early. But God had a different plan for me, and so you know, just teaching, you know, teaching a young Black woman and a young Black man societal things that you're going to have to overcome, and hearing myself repeat things that I never thought I would repeat that my parents said to me, I'm saying to them and things happen in life.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was 10 and I'm standing in the kitchen and I'm looking at my dad's a big six, four dude. So I'm looking way up at him and something had happened in class and I got in trouble and I said all the other kids were doing it. And he said I don't care what the other kids were doing, you can't do the same thing that they're doing. You're a black kid, you're a black man in this country. You got to be twice as better. You can't do the same things that they're doing because you're going to get called out. And so we learned these things and when I was 10, I didn't understand what he was saying. You know, maybe even when I was 14, 15, I didn't understand what he was saying. But I never forgot that. Then I got older and things happen in life and you go back and you hear what your mom or your dad or your parents had told you and you, I would preach education.
Speaker 2:I would preach, you know, good moral compass. You know kids are going to be kids. Teenagers are going to be teenagers. My daughter and I had a rough patch, when you know, between she was 14 and 16, as I'm hearing a lot of dads have with their teenage daughters and you know, and now my son turned 17, coming into being a young man, the teaching and the lessons will always, you know, continue to go on. They just kind of shift, you know, this kind of move into different things. You know, now my, now my son, is driving and there are the lessons that I teach him like, hey, man, don't be out there. I know you're going to try to look cool, blaring your music, leaning back, hat backers and all that. You're going to draw attention and they're out, you know, they're out looking, you know. And my daughter, you know she's in college at CU Denver as a criminal psychology major. You know she has a full-time job as well, goes to school at night, and but these are just kind of the things that I instilled. I told them both, you know. You know I'm not going to say I would prefer, but I told my kids like, look, college is a good option. College is going to help you set up for things in the future that others won't have access to because they don't have a college degree. If you want to go that route, I hope you go that route, you know, and so, but I also didn't want to feel, wanting to feel like you have to go to college, you know.
Speaker 2:And so, man, being a black father in this, in, in, in this country, to me it means a lot, because we have that stigma about us already. You know, we have that identity that they try to put on us, that perception that they try to put on us, that perception that they try to put on us, and I so I mean, if you talk about legacy, I want my kids to know that they have a father that loved them, that never wavered. You know, even when they were, even when they might not been doing right, dad never wavered through all the drama. You know that. You know, because they're I have a doing right Dad never wavered through all the drama. My kids aren't my wife's kids. I will say this because we're in this space.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of obstacles we have to hurdle as Black men, and when it comes to having children with someone that you're not with anymore and having to go through this child support system that they put us in. And when I say they put us in, I'm going to say that because, being in that system. At one time I was laid off, so I enrolled myself in the Parents to Work program and in that program there were these kind of group therapy sessions that you could attend and they consisted of probably about I don't know, let's call it 20, 30 men who are fathers within this, within this, within this, in this session and not, I'm not saying they were, it was just for black men. But you go and there's literally all black men in this and it's it's not to say, look, child support has this place, okay, it has this place for men that aren't taking care of their responsibilities. Then, yes, you should go after them because they should be helping you. It is not built to be vindictive after them because they should be helping you. It is not built to be vindictive. It is not built because you know that you're bringing a Black man to the situation and you're going to get what you want.
Speaker 2:And you may not even be thinking in your mind, as a woman, that that's the purpose, but the view has been painted that, hey, that's a Black man, he's going to take off, he's going to run back to New Jersey and not take care of Black man. He's going to take off, he's going to run back to New Jersey and not take care of his responsibility, so I have to put child support on him, otherwise I'm not going to get nothing. I'm never a guy that ran, never ran, never will. I will never run from a responsibility from my kids or anything like that. But because I'm a Black man and because of the thought process that this, our society, our country, has put on us as a perception of, hey, you got to put them in child support or they're not going to take care of their responsibility, man, I could keep it. Man, I don't even know if I'm still on point.
Speaker 1:No, you are still right on point because we're thinking this is helping. You know, I can remember, like one of the loans I did not too long ago. You know you think about systems and police pieces. You know, and so you know, in this case she was receiving child support from, you know, the father of her, of her daughter, and he has been paying faithfully for the last seven or eight years. And then you go to like the underwriting system and they're going we can't use that income. Why can't you use the income? She's got it for the last six or seven years. He's paid on time, every single month. Well, he's not in the system, he's not mandated to pay it.
Speaker 1:You start thinking of these systems that are put together. You go well, okay, so you want to penalize this man, in this case a black man, because he's taking responsibility for raising his kids and you're not going to let that income count for her to be able to be able to buy a house. You just go wait a minute. There's so many things in there. You know that that you're impacting. That is that is so important. Yes, if you're not taking responsibility and you start thinking about our past and you think about the family unit and even back as far as slavery, where we pulled men out and then we get it back together in the 30s, 40s and 50s and families are doing well, and then into the 60s we pull them in right back like 60s, right back out of the families. And it's great to hear your story here because you're saying no way, I'm a responsible guy, I was going to take care of my family, my kids, no matter what, and they're throwing me into these systems that are designed to make me, to put me down.
Speaker 2:And you just touched on what I was going to talk about the whole systemic, the whole system, how it's set up, because they know the vast majority not all, but the vast majority of the men in this system particular system that we're talking about are black and brown people, and if you really want to, I mean we could go deep if you really want to go further. I mean, in our country they don't want the black man to succeed. The system is set up so we don't succeed. So where we're sitting now, brian, where you are, where I am, we've already succeeded compared to where they want us to be at Now. I know you and I want more success. The people that we know in our circle, that I've seen you talk to and I've seen that you have had on here the Milford Adams of the world, the Omar Montgomery's of the world they're successful, but we want more. We want to be able to pass on our more, but it's not set up that way.
Speaker 2:My parents have had success, the aunts and uncles that I talked to you about earlier. They had success, but they had to overcome numerous things to get there and they had to keep believing. So, coming back to the whole system thing, what better way to keep a community poor poor is to keep them in that system. And I've never felt in my entire life, I've never felt more helpless than I felt in the beginning of that process and in the middle of it. When I'm in my young and mid-20s man and I'm trying to figure it out. I'm fresh out of college and man that happens to me at an early age. I can't make no money because they're taking everything from me.
Speaker 2:And it's not that I don't believe in helping, it's not that I don't believe, like I said earlier, that it doesn't have its place. Sit there and not evaluate the whole situation because you don't want to employ enough people to have enough hours to sit around and actually review it and say, wait, no, hold on this. Man is right here, he's in the state, he's working, he's not going there. What is your purpose of trying to put him, the child support on him and put him in the system? But I've never felt so helpless because you can't. Once you're in it, you can't get out. Now, yeah, as they get older, you're going to be out of it. But there's things that go on in the middle, like when I'm struggling to make the payments and I'd have to go to court. The judge says just pay what you can. So I pay what I can, but I'm behind. When you get behind, they suspend your driver's license and so you're trying to get to work but you can't drive.
Speaker 2:You know, it's just all this craziness going on you know, certain counties are getting grants or money to their system by collecting more child support and having people in the system. So it's this whole thing, man. It's this whole. You know. I can go on and on about that.
Speaker 1:But it unfortunately affects our community of men more than it does others. Well, yeah, and when you think of the mindset and the things that, as a black man, that you are now having to contemplate on a daily basis while you're trying to move up the ladder and succeed, and then and there's gotta be a way, and that's why we're doing this right this part of this journey is saying okay, so yes, there are systems in place and contributing factors that are systems in place and contributing factors that are there in place. How do we move and rise above those contributing factors in order to take away that mindset and what you were feeling and the things that you were going through? You know, and I'm just thinking, you know, as I'm out loud and saying what if there were groups that say, okay, this is how you do this, this is how you get through this. Yes, we are going to look at your whole situation and then we're going to put a plan together, we're going to put goals together, we're going to help you create money, instead of just that negative aspect that we're pulling everything you got and making you feel helpless.
Speaker 1:How do we make you feel strong as a result? Because at some point, okay. So now we move ahead a little bit, right? And so now you have I guess you have your two kids that were part of into the system. What were you able to do to rise out of that where now you're in your situation, where you are successful, you are taking care of, you are the dad, you're doing it and the takeaway that pit that some people can't figure out a way to get out of right, that you think of the folks that are in that class. How, if there was 10 people or 30 people in your class, all black and brown folks If there was 10 people or 30 people in your class, you know, all black and brown folks probably 27 of them are still in this phase of that belief system that they can't move forward.
Speaker 2:What did you do differently? Or just what did you do that?
Speaker 2:helped you brought you out of this. Two things, brian. One I kept fighting, I just kept fighting and there were times where I just wanted to give up to five job where I work in the morning, and at this time I had a job out in Golden. I wasn't driving, so I was leaving my house in Aurora to catch the bus. I would get up at five in the morning to go catch the 540 bus. That 540 bus would bring me to the light rail station on Colorado at 25.
Speaker 2:I'd wait 15, 20 minutes to catch the light rail to shoot downtown. I would get downtown. I'd wait another 45 minutes to catch a bus that would take me to Golden so I could get to Golden to work by about 730, 745. So I could then leave at 4, 430 to catch a bus to go downtown to work my second night job at the restaurant and bus tables and be a bar, back then become a server and wait tables and bartend and things of that nature, and I was in that cycle for 10 years. Man, not the golden job, but I went on, got back in the mortgage business and I was doing jobs that I worked early in the morning, got off 4.30, got downtown by 5.30, made some more money and woke up and did it all over again. And it was pretty much that way from 2007 to about 2015. There are a few times there are a few years in there where I just worked the restaurant job full time, but for the most part from 07 to 2015, I had two jobs and I just kept working and just kept fighting.
Speaker 2:Another thing I wanted to point to was one of your pillars is faith. There were times where I, honestly, was losing it, but I kept fighting and I started having more and more faith and faith that things are going to work out. And along that time I met the woman who was now my wife and she helped with instilling more positive and faith. Having that partner and someone in your life that has your back or wants you to succeed and in turn, wants you to be a better man, and in turn, you want to be a better man and things start to shift a little bit. But faith, man, I mean making moves. My cousin and I were just talking about this the other night. The whole thing. Making moves that are intentional, making moves that you know in the end it's guaranteed that what you're working to will come to pass. And so I just had that kind of during this time I'm talking to my cousin, I'm talking to my family, I'm bouncing things off, I'm just continuing to have faith. Continuing to have faith knowing like, look, this is going to be a little bit longer for me, but there's some light at the end of the tunnel and if I keep fighting, if I keep pushing, I keep getting there. It's going to be hard, but I got to figure out a way to make this work and it's not going to look like it's going to look like for everybody else. I'm just going to have to have these two jobs for a little bit.
Speaker 2:But then I slowly, as I got more experience in the mortgage business, I slowly was able to start. As I got more experience I got better at what I was doing. That in turn I was making more money and then so I could, I could stop having to work as long as I did at night at the night job, so went from every days but Sundays to just maybe three or four days of the week and then it went down to just a couple of days a week. And then it got to a point where, man, I don't even have to. I have to. But it was a fight. In the middle of all that there was a fight. I had to keep that faith that we were talking about as one of your pillars.
Speaker 1:Oh man, this is so good because when I think of success leaving clues what I started with and when we think about work and fighting through and I'm hoping the folks who are here watching this are going know I might have felt this way at one point, or I feel this way and this is what I found All work works. Yeah, that's what I said. All work works. It's just maybe it's working on you until you're ready for it to work as making the money and doing the success and creating the success. But all work works and the willingness to be able to get up and work through it.
Speaker 1:And I don't think you can do it without faith, you know, in my mind, because one of the things is you think of faith and you go okay, I have to have my own willpower, right, well, willpower doesn't work without the faith that goes along with it, right, without the belief that it's going to somehow be better, that that faith is going to somehow. You know, because our bodies are flesh, right, and the flesh is with sin and sin is fighting against us to be successful. And so if you don't have that faith or that and I can see you always saw that light someday, it was never to you that this is how it's going to be and and the light was low, it was a little faint at times dim and a little dim that it was still.
Speaker 2:That is still glimmering, though it was still glimmering. But as I'm going through it, brian, I really did feel like and I'm not just saying this to say I really did feel like I was built, I was intended for more like I remember going through it, being like this can't be it, this can't be it, this isn't what this isn't how I always felt you know things would be.
Speaker 2:And then you know just telling myself okay, man, you're just going through it right now, everybody goes through it and this is your time of going through it. And going through it lasts a little bit longer than I wanted it to, and we all go through it still every now and then we all have our things that we deal with. But it ain't that, it ain't what it was. You know in 07, 08, you know 9, 10, 11, 12, you know.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, man, I just had that feeling like, come on, come on, man, there's, there's, there's, there's. Well, it's not. This is not just what you're going to be about. This is not your identity, right? This is not what you're going to be.
Speaker 1:And so feeling that, and knowing that, having faith in that, just allowed me to keep fighting allowed me to keep pushing, yeah, and you didn't succumb to the alcoholism and the drug addiction and the things that people used to cope with, because you really kind of have to go down before you're able to go up, yeah, but the up gets to be so much better than the down. But realizing we're all going to have to go through things, we're all going to have to fight and I love that word that you said we're going to have to fight through in order to have the things that we have. And then you end up doing things that other people aren't willing to do, and then people wonder why you get to have things that other people don't get to have. Right, oh, brian, yeah, there were some.
Speaker 2:There were some points, brian were some points. Brian, some of the places I was living and some of the buses I had to catch during this time. I remember walking. I mean it was a few mile walk from this one apartment that I had to where I had to catch the bus, and I remember I had to get to work and it was a snow storm and I was like screw it. And I'm out there in my slacks you know, I have this mortgage job, so I'm in my slacks, I button up a heavy coat, shoes you know nice shoes and a bag and I'm walking in boots and I'm walking alongside of the road. This is on Arapahoe. I'm like walking along like Arapahoe towards or Parker Road towards, arapahoe, okay, and this truck stops.
Speaker 2:A white dude in a big pickup truck Don't know white dudes in pickup trucks just pull over for random black men. He pulled over and he said man, what are you doing? I said I'm out rocking. He said why? I said I got to get to work. I got bills, I got kids. The bus is up here. I got to get to work. He's like where do you work? Let me take you to work. I said you don't have to take me to work, man, but if you're giving rides, you can take me right up here to this bus stop. And what I'm saying, where I'm going with this, is, if you have that mindset where you're making intentional moves to get to where you got to go get to work I'm going there. I'm going there. I have a purpose. I could have stayed at home and called in but, but that's not my mindset.
Speaker 2:My mind says, greg, you gotta, you gotta go work, you know.
Speaker 2:And so I had to go.
Speaker 2:What I'm saying is I had to go through that to get to where I'm at now, Cause maybe if I don't go through that, I'm not prepared in life to have you now, because maybe if I don't go through that, I'm not prepared in life to have you know, the things that I have now, you know, and so that's just a little, just small example of you know kind of things that I went through. And so, yeah, I had the parents that preached education. I had, you know, grandparents that owned their own homes, and so my parents owned their own homes and had the opportunity to see that and I had the education piece and the good family. But that does not mean that just because that stuff happens, that you're not going to go through struggles, because I went through the same struggles that the brother up the street went through, the same struggles that the sister down the street went through, and it was rough, but I went through those struggles and I fought through those struggles and I kept faith through those struggles to get to where I am now.
Speaker 1:I love it. I love it. Let's pivot a little bit. Let's talk about money, because it's one of those topics, right, that as black men, we don't ever want to share anything about our money. We don't want to share anything about our finances. We don't even want to give.
Speaker 1:I don't know if there's just this feeling of if you have it must mean, and you get to have this mean, I can't, and then we blame everything.
Speaker 1:Well, only people can make money in our community, or folks that you're athletes or entertainers, or you know in these, these jobs, that you know attorney or doctor, you know, somehow they got to get there. Then you know, but just just the concepts of how did you get from hey, I'm working two jobs and I'm not making enough to make ends meet to being able to live kind of comfortably? What are some of those money decisions? You know I'm not, I'm not talking about numbers, I'm just saying what are some of the thought processes about money that had to shift in your mind in order to be able to move that ladder up? So there is the little motor, and it's not just making more money, because there's something that goes along with it, right, just because you get B-Way, right, all the people win the lottery, right, even though, whatever is the billion dollars now, right, I don't probably be okay, forever right, but those other ones are. What are some of those things? That those life lessons or money lessons that you learned?
Speaker 2:Man, having that discipline to, I had to be broke for a minute, you know, and I had to tell myself, hey, man, you know what? You're just not going to be able to go do things for a minute, you know, and you're going to have to fight for every inch and while you're doing that, make sure. I wanted to make sure I was doing right and doing good at my job, wherever I was at, so I could continue this, you know, climb into the ladder, so to speak. But it took discipline. I mean, there was a point in my life, I mean, that I pulled my credit and I was like, oh no, I didn't even know credit could get that low, you know, but that was from stupid decisions. I spent my 30sies making up and I love telling people this because, being in the lending business and now in the housing industry, I like telling folks especially. I mean we talked about things that I preach to my kids, I mean the credit thing. They they can't stop hearing me say that, because I know how easy it is to mess it up and how hard it is to build that back up. I made bad decisions in my 20s and I spent my whole 30s trying to make up for those bad decisions. And so it was for me, knowing the discipline of, okay, not doing what I was doing when I was broke with bad credit. Greg, don't do that, you know. Hey, you can't go out. You can't go out with the boys. There was a wedding that I didn't go to just because you know it would have exhausted the rest of the, and it was a good friend's wedding and I didn't go cause it would exhausted the little bit that I had, you know, and just so, gradually, you know, put things away slowly.
Speaker 2:As far as cash, you know, I don't care if it's 20 bucks. You know you get paid and all you can really afford to put away right now is 20. Go put that 20 in an envelope and label that envelope something of a goal that you want to get to and keep that over there and then, every time you get paid, you know, put a 20 in there. I have a friend. He owns a fitness gym. Now, well, he's owned a fitness gym for a while out in Arizona. Years ago I was at his house out there hanging out and one of the things he said was like, hey, man, just whenever you have cash on, you just pull a five out and just put it in somewhere and it doesn't seem like a lot. But if you do that a lot over time and you just go back and look at it like, dang, that's not $500 right here, real quick.
Speaker 2:You know so small little things that I kept hearing about. Saving, you know, putting away some money, taking that five putting away, but, at the end of the day, having discipline. We could say this all we want to, about what the right thing is to do. Everybody knows the right thing to do is to, you know, save a little bit of money, be disciplined about that. But are you going to do it? Are you going to make the moves? So I mean, if we're going to get you know nailed down, for me it was really just, I had to be tight.
Speaker 2:I had to be tight for a long time and had to learn. You know I lived broke for a little bit but at the same time, while I'm doing that, I'm working my tail off at these jobs that I have. So then now you know, if I'm just, you know, kind of breaking even at one point, then I'm doing a little bit better at my job and you know it goes from this to the jobs up here and the hurt, the fights here. And then it just keeps building up as I'm continuing to get better at my job and, at the end of the day, whatever work you're doing, perfect your craft, man. Perfect your craft Because that's something I started learning a little later in my career.
Speaker 2:You know I was doing loans but you know I would catch myself not able to answer some clients' questions sometimes and having to reach out to coworkers and this and that. And then I started watching things and hearing things. You know, like Kobe would always, like Kobe Bryant would always talk about being a master at your craft, putting in the work. Jordan would talk about that and I always had that athlete mentality and I was like, okay, how can I switch that and apply that to my life? And I just started having to, you know, master my craft a little bit more.
Speaker 2:And once I started paying attention to how to do my job better, all of a sudden you know folks notice that. You know they, you know the people that you work with and I said earlier, you know, when I talked about my dad saying you got to be twice as better. I'm in the fight. When I was in the financial industry. You got to imagine I'm, I'm, I'm the one one, the only black face, and most places that I worked at maybe one or two. So I really got to perfect my craft because if someone, if I'm, doing the same thing that someone else is doing, they're going to be looked at at a little better light than I am. And so, just knowing where you are, being honest with yourself, perfect what you're doing, save along the way and just be disciplined about it. I don't got no Jordans, man. I don't got no Joe. My kids got better shoes than I'm. Where'd you get those? Why are you asking me for gas money?
Speaker 1:I love it, love it. Talk to me about home ownership. I mean, I know that's what you do, I know it's in our community. How important it is is maybe just you know, for the four or five minutes just talk about you know not only the importance but that it's a realistic goal. It's not something that somebody has and it's something that people can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, art, my main slogan when I'm out, you've heard you probably heard me say homeownership is possible. And I say over and, over and over again because it really is. And folks, especially in our community, they don't understand how close they are to owning a home, especially right now. If you're paying rent let's say you're paying $2,500 in rent. When you get into a rental you're going to have to pay first month and last month. That's five grand. Right there. You're going to have to have a security deposit. That's typically the same amount of what your rent is. That's $7, grand. Right there. You're going to have to have a security deposit. That's typically the same amount of what your rent is. That's $7,500 right there. That's your closing costs. That's your closing costs. And if you find all these down payment assistance programs that are out there like Jaffa, but if you find all these down payment assistance programs that are out there, you can get into a home, a home, and instead of taking $2,500 in rent and making someone else rich, you can put it towards your home. That's going to appreciate over time.
Speaker 2:And so talking about home ownership in a community is talking about the importance of generational wealth, but understanding why it's important from a historical context. I mean, we can go back to World War II, when the white vets were coming home from the war and the government gave them a leg up. They were giving them programs to have land, they were giving them programs to have homes and giving them a leg up saying thank you for fighting for our country. Government wise, we're going to give you this, but the Blacks, the Black folks that were coming from war, the Black soldiers and this, and that they weren't given those same opportunities, you know so, our white counterparts, when it comes to housing, and I talk about the disparity and why we are where we are, you have to understand it from a historical context of redlining and of discrimination and zip codes and why black folks live in a certain area and white folks don't, why it looks like a certain area, why it looks a certain way. It's from a historical point. It started way back then and it's hard to get out of that mindset and get out of that group. And they wonder why we have ghettos, they wonder why we have hoods, and so homeownership is important.
Speaker 2:It's the most tried and true financial investment in our country. We've had our ups and downs, you know, recession-wise, economy-wise. The one thing that's always bounced back in this country has been real estate. That's been the one thing, and we've had. You know we had the meltdown of 08, but we still came back. You know things aren't great, where folks want rates to be, and all that right now, but there's still ways, there's still homes, there's still opportunities, and so the challenge is to get our community that believes it's okay to just rent, because mom and dad, or mom or dad just rented and their grandparents just rented and their friends are just renting. Why should I go out and have the headache of owning a home and having to deal with the things around the house, but they're not thinking about what that home does for you in the future?
Speaker 2:You're not thinking about putting yourself on a five-year plan, because when you buy that home and you stay in it for let's call it five years in the state of Colorado and you're paying that mortgage down and that home value is appreciating you're creating equity in your home.
Speaker 2:Maybe something happens, maybe you got to pull money out the equity of your home and now you can get a home equity line of credit that can use that to help your child with college or whatever the case may be. So the importance of homeownership is important because of the kind of wealth it could create, you know, for you and your family, something that you could leave for your kids.
Speaker 2:And that's something that our white counterparts have been doing for a long time. When I was a loan officer and that's something that our white counterparts have been doing for a long time when I was a loan officer, I would see all the not all the time, but a lot of times these young adults getting this $20,000, $30,000 from mom and dad because they are able to pull out the equity of their home, or a home or a piece of land is being passed down.
Speaker 1:You know, I want to get myself to a point where I have a few properties.
Speaker 2:I want to own land, I want to own some real estate and I can pass all that down to my children and hopefully pass it down to their children. You know, and so my dad, my parents I feel like I kind of, you know, starting the same thing and you know he's positioned my parents, positioned herself with their home, that, that, you know, when they unfortunately pass on, you know, there really shouldn't be any left for us as children to pay. You know, and that's an asset that me and my two sisters and my brother have, because my parents decided to make smart decisions and I want to do that same thing for my children. But I want the community to understand that it's what else in our country, what else in our society can you really own that you have a deed to and it's yours. And yeah, people say, oh, the government can come seize your stuff. The government technically can do whatever the hell they want to do when they want to do it. But let's not think about it like that. Let's think like this is your home and you own it and it's something that's appreciating the value. Cars aren't going to do that for you. The clothes ain't going to do that for you. You know the stocks, you know the insurance whatever the case may be, the insurance, whatever the case may be, the home is where it's at.
Speaker 2:And so, if we can get the community to flip that mindset, to really say, hey, you know what? No, this is not okay. I see all these folks out here make I tell them follow the money, follow the money. Look what all these you know so-called moguls or whatever, are out there doing. You know the Bill Gates of the world, the Donald Trump's of the world. You know the big. You know the big. They're all out there buying land. They're all out there buying property. They're all buying, out there buying the real estate. Follow the money. It's important and, um, I just think, if we can, it's really changing our mind. And it's a hard thing to do because it's a mindset that goes back way before you would be, and so it's not a thing that's going to happen overnight. The homeownership rate among Black Americans in the state of Colorado, I believe, right now was at 37%, 34%, 37%, which is lower than it was in the 60s when the Fair Housing Credit Act was passed. We got to do something about that when the Fair Housing Credit Act was passed.
Speaker 1:We got to do something about that. Absolutely, and you think about, you know there's something about the mindset of owning a home, you know, and one of the things that I read, you know it said it means responsibility, it means commitment, it means there's something about you own your own stuff, it's yours, you're able to take initiative. I was reading where it said people with this mindset believe they can shape the future and consider their choices and own up to the outcomes, regardless of what happens. There's just something that takes away from things happening to me to creating things, because this is mine, this is what I work for, this is what I was able to do, and if we can get all of our folks in that mindset and knowing because that means there's nothing that they can't do, you know, and that's kind of the first step. It's not just the first step to generational wealth, it's the first step to that mindset of being able to step up. I love that. Yeah, so, greg, you know you're not going to believe this, but we are at an hour.
Speaker 2:Are we at time? We haven't had so much more to talk about. Let's go.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, and I want to so appreciate you. You know, you never know what these shows are going to take. Well, what I saw was resiliency. What I saw was the willingness to to do what it takes. What I saw was the willingness to work hard at stuff. All I saw is, hey, I'm not going to give up, I'm going to fight, and I just love that so much. And you've enhanced our community. You've given us something not only to chew on, but to emulate and to make ourselves better as a result of it, and so I'm going to give you an opportunity to give any closing thoughts that you'd want to give to, but I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to be on our show.
Speaker 2:Thank, you so much, man. I really appreciate that. It feels good. It feels good to be in a position that I am.
Speaker 2:Doing this for the amount of time I'm doing. I'm starting to see that the mindset needs to be worked on more and more. I think if brothers and sisters keep talking about it like we're talking about it, hopefully in three to five years I can look back and be like hey, brian, remember we had that conversation back in back in 2020, back in April 24. Look where things are now, man. And so that's why that's what I'm passionate about, that's what I'm hoping for. I love to see us all blow up. We. Anything we touch is gold, and if we can touch this home ownership thing even more, that'll even be gold. So I appreciate it, man, I appreciate this platform. This is great man, and I just want our community to keep pushing, keep fighting, keep having faith.
Speaker 1:Keep fighting Faith in faith. I love it. Hey, like I say at the end of every show and thank you for being on this is that this is something you can do. You know the things that we're talking about. You have the ability to be as successful as you want to be. You know you follow the success that leaves the clues that follow you to success. Hey, you deserve this.
Speaker 1:We live in a country and Greg even talked about you know a lot of the things that have happened, that, whether they were fair or not fair, or whether you believe they were or not, these are things that happen and because of those things that happen, you now deserve. You deserve it because you get to live in this country the way that this country was intended to be able to live to, and the opportunities are immense right now. But the last thing, a part of it is don't try to do this by yourself. You get with some people that, whether it's watching these shows, whether it's getting on my list, it's on Amazon of all the different books that I've read and the tapes I've listened to, you know getting with people and creating communities of people that can help you along the way, because we are better together than we are by ourselves, and so get with the people who know how to do it, and so I appreciate you being here for another episode of Journey to Freedom. Can't wait to talk to you on the next one.
Speaker 1:You guys have an awesome, amazing just incredible day today. We'll see you later.