Can You Create Generational Wealth In 2024? | B2B Vault - The Biz To Biz Podcast | Episode 244

You are now watching the Biz to Biz Podcast with Allen and Justin. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Andre Agassi of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we're gonna probably argue a little bit. Is it possible to create generational wealth in 2024? Today's date is May 16th, 2024. It is 3:39 PM in the afternoon on this wonderful Thursday afternoon. Yeah, man. How you doing?

I'm doing good. It's kind of a crazy little week going so far. It was raining this morning. Rocky couldn't go on his usual 2-mile hike, so when I get home, I have to take him out for a long walk now that it's, uh, dry.

I don't know about that. It's— there's this band coming.

Oh, there's a band coming? Well, he might have to wait till in the morning.

Yeah, I was supposed to go to the beach this afternoon and reflect with my feet in the sand. My birthday was, uh, Monday, so do a little grounding. But I don't know if today's the day for that. Maybe I'll do that, try to get there this weekend.

All right.

But yeah, I definitely want to go to the gym anyway. I've been trying to get back, you know, not trying to get back. I go to the gym almost every day of the week, but I was thinking about going to—

I miss it when I don't get my walk in.

Yeah, I've been walking around the facility here every 2 hours. I take a walk every 2 hours. My dad said it should be every hour. And he's right because we have a— what is it?

Sedentary.

Sedentary. Sedentary job.

That's why— that's what's good. Rocky's good for. He makes me get out and make 3 or 4 laps during the day here.

Yeah, no, it's definitely— I definitely notice a difference in my back. Uh, since I— it's been like, what, 2 months I've been doing that? I feel like something like that. Yeah, it's a little warm. It's about to be the rainy season.

The last time I came in, I was schwitzing.

Yeah, I think I might have to bring a walking shirt because I definitely need one of those, you know, the workout shirt, wicking, the wicking. Yeah, wicking workout shirt, dry fit, dry fit. Yep, I have enough of those. All of mine are super tight and I look like a superhero when I wear them, so I don't want to walk around. My wife doesn't really appreciate that. Oh, but I got my, my chest is poking out. It makes you stand up straighter because it's like you don't want to look weird or whatever, because, right?

Yeah.

So anyway, generational wealth, uh, it's a very— Allen and I discuss money and other things quite often, um, I am on the stance of the American dream is dead. There is no more such thing as the middle class. People, you know, in my financial situation, it looks very bleak. When you look into the future of what, you know, what my life might turn out. Anyway, it's just, I just don't, it's just not feasible. It's no shade at Allen here, you know what I mean? He pays us what he could pay us and it's a small business and, you know, it is what it is. So it's like, I just don't see, you know, I can't afford to buy property. I know that, you know what I mean? And that's really the, I think the way in for creating generational wealth is investing in property.

Somewhat. I mean, a lot of people will say, you know, my stepdad used to tell me, you know, dirt, they don't make any more dirt. You know, no more land. So if you have land, then, you know, land can be— you can view land in a couple of different ways. Land, you know, can go up in value, or if you buy a house, your house can go up in value. And then one day, one of two things is going to happen. You're either going to A, sell that house and turn a profit on it, or B, you're going to give that house to your kids so they can live there and something like that. So, you know, there's, you know, different things. Some of the stuff that disturbs me about, you know, wealth in the United States is we see a lot of athletes. I mean, I saw a video yesterday about the guy on the Celtics signed some like insane contract last year or something. Brown. Okay, whatever. Millions. No, I'm just saying there are people that are getting millions and millions of dollars. But what do these people do with all this money? Does it go back into the economy?

We're not talking about people who are making millions of dollars.

No, I'm just talking about those are the people who— you're not going to get wealthy from the government. Okay. Everybody's got the wrong idea that the government is here to rescue everybody. Ronald Reagan, I know Justin doesn't like Ronald Reagan, but the sentence you don't want to hear is, "Oh, we're here from the government and we're here to help." The government's not helping anybody unless there's some, whatever, sneaky, snaky deal going on. The government, unfortunately, I have views of the government that you probably don't agree with. I think the government takes our money and wastes it. Okay. We don't need to be—

I have no argument here.

We don't need to be spending gazillion dollars on all these people coming across our border. We don't need to be spending money. We don't need to give US federal tax dollars. That's for, if you read the Constitution, okay, the tax money is supposed to be for the good of everybody, right? So if it's the good of everybody, why do we need to give 5 $1 billion to California to build some tunnel in Silicon Valley so people can drive their Teslas through some tunnel over there, right? That's not benefiting everybody in the United States. It's benefiting the people who live over there. It's not benefiting me in Florida. It's not benefiting you.

What does this have to do with generational wealth?

Well, that's what I'm talking about. We're just— wait, we're— the government is taking all the money just wasting the tax dollars that they don't need to spend. So they don't need all this money that they're collecting from us.

Okay.

Okay. And if they weren't collecting so much money, they wouldn't have all this money to spend and print money. And basically they create artificial inflation. Okay. Because you can't do what they're doing in California. Look what they did in California. Oh, we want all these restaurants that are QSR, quick service restaurants, fast food. Everybody's got to pay $20 an hour. Well, now you took all these— you're paying everybody $20. The people who are making— who were making $20 now are making more money and more money. So what do they do? The business owners, they're not going to lose money. And people have a wrong idea about business owners. I think everybody that owns a business is clocking down $1 million a year or making $150 grand a month.

I mean, it's just not the truth. A lot of people just don't understand money, right? That's so— I mean, yeah, but what I'm saying is, is if you keep raising— or they've never owned a business, right?

But what I'm saying is if you keep raising costs, okay, the costs up, which is labor, you keep raising up taxes, tax rates, okay? You keep raising up, that all just trickles down to raising up prices. It's an artificial tax on the public. So if you raise wages, right, then the business is going to raise their prices and then the public's going to go in there and buy more, buy, have to pay more for the same thing that they were paying less for. Okay. I go in the store, I buy groceries, makes me sick. I go in there, I'm spending almost double What I was spending.

I had— how many items did I have in my hand that day?

Like 5.

How much do you think that cost?

Probably $30.

A little bit higher.

Okay, $40.

Yep.

No, it's crazy. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Like, it's crazy.

It was 3 bananas.

Yeah.

Uh, a thing of almond— a small container of almond milk, a jar of peanut butter. Right. And this, this put it up. The protein powder, I bought it because it was only $20, right? So I don't know if they mislabeled it or something, but that's probably why there was only 2 left. Oh, because it was Garden of Life and it was a— I was like, $20, I'm gonna take that. Because— and it wasn't even on sale, it was just—

that's crazy..

But yeah, so yeah, man.

No, but it's crazy when we go into the store and you see how expensive everything is, right? It doesn't make sense. It's all— but all of those costs, that's being caused by the price of gas being double what it was 3, 4 years ago. Wages are— when you raise the minimum wage, everybody's wages go up because you have to raise everybody's wages in the same fashion, right? And so you're going to raise all that up. And then what do you think is going to happen? The business owner has to say, well, I got to cover that cost. I mean, I'm seeing stuff online where they go into to get a burger. Like this guy went into Wendy's. He went into Wendy's. He went to—

we're a little off topic.

Okay. But I'm just making a point about money. Money's just not going as far as it as it was going.

Okay, so you just literally agreed that the middle class is dead?

Well, the middle— the— we need some change in the government so that the middle class—

if you're not making $100,000, $125,000 a year, you're poor.

You, you—

I'm just— and I don't argue or disagree all you want, but if you ain't up there which I'm not, it is hella difficult to maneuver and navigate life. And you are correct, prices of things have skyrocketed since COVID and it's— it hasn't went back down like we were promised, right? So, and that's— I understand that the gas prices are still high. We're in like 5 wars. Whether you were in proxy wars.

We shouldn't be in any of those wars.

I don't— we're not a podcast about politics, uh, but there's, there's a lot of things that were supposed to change after COVID and they, they did not, right? Yeah. Um, but so like I've been, you know, I've been just trying to figure out like what I can do for the future, what I can do for my kids. You know, when Sean, even when he wrote that on the board, you know, Allen said, "Well, Justin doesn't want to talk about this because blah, blah, blah," you know? And I'm like, "Well, I don't, me and you, we have a very different perspective on money, right?" Like, you are more established, you're set, you're good to go.

I'm older than you.

Of course. But I mean, you're a dinosaur compared to me. So I shouldn't say that. You're like, I'm almost a dinosaur.

No, you're—

I'm 44 years old.

Okay, I'm 20 years older than you.

There you go.

So I have 20 years on you.

So like, you know, like how can I, how can I get ahead, right? That's the—

So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about that. So today I'm watching a—

Gene Simmons.

Gene Simmons.

No thanks. I'm not really interested in hearing what he has to say about business, but here, let's—

No, so he, you know, and also I know you don't like Grant Cardone either. So I was listening to Gene Simmons today. He was on this fireside chat offered by Forbes.

I didn't say I don't like Grant Cardone.

We talked about something.

You said you don't like Grant Cardone.

I said I—

You don't agree with him.

I don't agree with him, but—

I don't know enough about him.

Okay, I just don't agree like he's saying, whatever. So Gene Simmons was saying like, You know what, he was just saying like, you know, you want to be successful, hang around with successful people. Don't hang around with losers.

I mean, one of the oldest sayings in where I'm from in the neighborhood is if there's 5 drug dealers on a corner and you're hanging out, you're the 6th, whether or not you are or not.

Okay.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So like if you don't want to be, labeled as such, right? You need to go and hang— if you want to be a nerd, then you go hang out with the nerds, right? You know, you want to be an athlete, you go hang out with the athletes. You want to be a millionaire, you go hang out with the nerds and the guys who are millionaires already, right?

Yeah. So people who are working their way towards that. No, but it's just like, you know, he was also saying like, you know, he came from very humble beginnings. He used to go to the library. He didn't speak very good English when he came to the States.

And by the way, he's talking about Gene Simmons from KISS.

Yeah.

Like he's mega rich.

Now he is, but he wasn't when he was— he wasn't. His mother was a Holocaust survivor.

Right.

And he came and I guess they went to Israel and then they came to the US. So he didn't really have a grasp of the English language. He was going to elementary school and he picked himself up. And obviously we know what happened to Gene Simmons with KISS.

Yeah.

Okay. But he was just giving— people were asking him questions. He was giving advice. One of the things he talked about is, and I talk about this all the time, if you want to do better in life, You got to change your circumstances. When I was broke as hell, divorced, and had no money, I was like, went to, went to work for this company that was selling merchant services. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I figured out the business. I, I mean, I was scared to death to go walk into somebody's business and go talk to them. I would literally be be in the car sweating, okay? And I was like, I gotta feed my kids and I don't wanna sweat in a kitchen and I don't wanna move. And my kids were little and I was like, I gotta do this for myself, my kids, and whatever my problem is of getting out of this car, I need to solve it right now. And no matter how stupid I sound, I'm gonna do it till I get it right. And I worked for that company for a year and a half. And then I decided, like, I didn't like— I said, I figured out I could do this. And I thank my— somebody who was a mentor to me at the time, Riyad, owned the business, and he gave me the green sheet, which I read. And then I called the ads.

I figured out—

me and Dave got together and started this company. And it wasn't easy all the time. It was not, it was not easy. But the one thing is, is you, you want to get ahead, I don't care what you do, you got to be in an activity of sales, okay? And if you're not in the activity of sales, you're not in control of money. So when you're not in control of money, like for me, I was a chef, I worked for a hotel, I worked for a management company, right? I was on a salary, so there was only so much money I was going to make, what they, what they gonna pay me, right? That's how it was. And then I owned a restaurant, and then I made money, and the restaurant didn't work out because I wanted to get a liquor license, and a whole bunch of stuff happened that didn't work out. And then boom, I end up in the credit card processing business where I have more control over my destiny. Okay, so being in— and, and even my stepdad used to tell me, he sold insurance, he's like, if you want to be in control of your destiny, got to be in a business. And this business offers a lot of things because residual income, you can pretty much make your own hours for the most part. But you can, you know, you, you, you— but you know, in order to do that, no matter what, if you see people that are in sales Some of the most successful people, even somebody like Mark Cuban, he was a sales guy. And he stepped in doo-doo because he bought a few domain names that he was able to parlay into multi-millions of dollars. So he got really lucky. And longevity of doing something, you're going to get that luck. That luck's gonna come. But you gotta step outside of your comfort zone to get ahead in life. If you're just a worker bee, you're, you know—

I mean, it's— I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I mean—

And if interest rates were lower right now, you could probably afford a house if the interest rates were lower.

If we were down to interest rates— the mortgage for my house is like $6,000 a month.

No, but that's because the interest rates are out of control right now. That's just— That's got to get fixed.

This doesn't make sense.

You can't pay— you can't— not everybody can go into a 5%, 6%, 7% interest rate. If the interest rates are lower, you know, the Fed keeps saying they're going to lower the interest rates. That's just impeding everything that's going on right now. And then on top of that—

It's been going up and up and up. Ain't nothing being lowered. Right.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, I mean, like, Creating generational wealth, uh, right now, if you don't have any money, you're, you're shit out of luck.

Well, you gotta change. You gotta be in a different job situation or in a different side hustle situation where you're doing something with sales. You're starting some kind of business that involves sales. Anything involving sales is a type of business where you're gonna create activity to make more money. Yeah, I mean, that's what I believe. I mean, obviously, you know, going out, being able to buy a house, that's, you know, that, that, you know, you gotta, you gotta— that's something you gotta work towards. If that's your goal, then you gotta, you gotta make a goal, and then you gotta make— then you gotta set yourself up for to do, to make a change in your life that's gonna make a positive impact.

You know, have 5 jobs and sell crack. No. I mean, yeah, I don't know, man. For me, I look at it like, I don't wanna say I accept my fate, right? Because I'm somebody that believes in, creating and manifesting your own destiny, right? So do I feel like I'll never own a house? No, I don't feel like that. Do I feel like I'm going to wake up one morning and I'm going to be a millionaire? No, I don't. I'm a very realistic person.

Yeah, but let me ask you a question. What would it take you to step outside of your comfort zone?

I mean, I stepped out of my comfort zone the second I stepped into this building. Okay, well, because I was, I was, I owned my own business. Yeah. And you know, I'm, I'm, I was scraping by after COVID. It was really tough. A lot of people were saying, why? Well, you know, you build websites. And my answer to you and to everyone else was people were doing it themselves.

Yeah, there's a lot of DIY going on.

So we were and no, everyone was bootstrapping, right? You know what I mean? So like a lot of the clients that I was getting, they— it was like, uh, almost like, hey, I'll give you points on my company, blah blah blah. How about you invest in the company? You help me grow, I'll help you. And I've done that before and it just doesn't really end up well, end out well.

You gotta— that's a numbers game.

Yeah, exactly.

Um, and, and do they have money that they're putting out?

No, exactly. So Like they're all— it was— everyone was swimming in a shark tank, right? So I, I wasn't really, uh, I, I didn't, I didn't want to go down that route again, right? And so I knew it was time for me to— I know I'm really good at what I do. I help small businesses grow, right? That's what I do. And I've helped you grow. I know I have. Yes. So it's like, you know, I know my value and I think it's going to, you know, I was just talking to Sean about it, about how, you know, artificial intelligence has everybody in my industry in a tizzy.

Oh, artificial intelligence has everybody in a tizzy.

And I think it's a huge opportunity for people like myself. But Yeah, I mean, like, as far as like, you know, what I'm doing and getting out the comfort zone, you know, Allen keeps saying that I need to, you know, do more sales and do more sales. And, you know, you're probably right. Um, but, and it's not no, like, I had to go and knock on doors when I first started doing this, dude. Yeah, I can't tell you how many times, you know, you, you walk into this up north where I'm from, you know, there's the home remodeling industry is huge, right? Like, I feel like in Wisconsin a lot of stuff is made there, right? Like tiles and stuff like that, you know. I mean, you have that everywhere here. It's huge too, right? But so I'd be walking into these companies, you know, and I'd have to give my spiel, you know, I'd have to sell myself. So it's, you know, that's not a— I'm— that doesn't— that's not taking me out of my comfort zone at all, right? Like, I don't really— I don't— I'm not uncomfortable talking to people, okay, at all. Like, I've been through too much stuff in my life to be afraid of talking to someone. I get it, you know what I mean? I've slept next to killers, so it's like, come on, bro. You know what I mean? You gotta relax.

Don't come around here, Justin.

No, I'm just saying like, there's, I'm not like, I'm not saying like I'm not a, you know, a fearing man. I just don't, there's not a lot you could do to intimidate me. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care that if you have $10 million or $10 trillion or $10, like you're all, you bleed the same blood as me.

Listen, everybody.

You breathe the same air as me.

End of the day, everybody wakes up, you put on, everybody puts on their pants and their shirt the same way.

Eh, no.

No. For the most part. Unless somebody's got a trick where maybe their pants are in a special holder and then they jump off of their bed and they go right through their pants. I mean, I don't know anybody who does that.

That sounds fun. I might have to try that. Me and my granddaughter are going to do that.

You have to invent like the pants holder so that you can do that. A special holder holding onto the pants. And then you jump off your bed into the pants.

Yeah, I wish I would've had, 'cause this is a wild little thing. I used to talk to one of my daughters about shoe covers. How about when we were kids, we would put plastic shopping bags over our new sneakers if it was raining on the first day of school.

Right.

And now they literally have the shoe protectors that you zip up.

Yeah, I've seen that. That's crazy.

And that's huge.

Yeah.

It's a huge business, so.

I mean, and there's people that wear those outside because they don't want to get their $1,000 sneakers messed up. Yeah. Yeah.

But they still want to show them and wear them.

Right. Well, they take it off when they go inside.

No, they're see-through.

Oh, they're see-through? Yeah, it's clear.

But I mean, creating generational wealth in 2024, in my opinion, I'm not saying it can't be done, but it's a, you're in for a hell of a fight. Right. And Allen's 100% correct. You're going to have to make some, take some serious risks. The ideas that you have on your whiteboard at home, you know, like, yeah, but that's my time to implement that shit.

It might not be a risk of money. It could be a risk of time. So you might have to say, I got to put in some extra time.

I mean, you might have to quit your job.

No, you could start it on the side.

I'm just— I'm saying, you— if you're working Monday through Friday, at one point, at some point, you're gonna have to quit your job.

Well, yeah, if it's bringing in income and that's the time to make the move, then there's the— that's when you make your move.

Yeah, you know, some— I mean, yeah, for sure, you know, that's when you make your move.

But at— but at the same time, it's all about stepping outside of your comfort zone and creating that and, and, and and doing something that maybe that you got to bite your lip. I'm, dude, I'm telling you, man, you have no idea how nervous I used to be.

I get it. I mean, I get nervous when I'm talking to new— not nervous, but the butterflies in the belly and shit like that. You know, that's— I think that's normal when you're meeting somebody new, right? But, you know, I don't think it's impossible. I think it's feasible. I think that people are going to have to, you know, you got to really get smart and strategic about your time and your money management.

Yeah, money management is one thing we've talked about before. People really need to understand money.

Yeah. And I think that the education system in America sucks terribly and we could all benefit from some, uh, economics early on, earlier than— definitely 12th grade. Uh, so that's the pod, man. If you guys got any, uh, you know, comments, or if you're— any ideas on how you could, uh, create generational wealth, we'd love to hear from you.

Maybe you're starting a business and need some, uh, payment setup for that business. We can help you with that.

For sure.

We got stuff for starter companies and all kinds of stuff.

Well, smash that subscribe button, hit the like, share, leave us a comment. It's a lot of stuff to do, but please choose one. Anyway, peace out. That's the pod.

Peace out. Carpe Diem. B2B Vault.