Can We Reimagine Capitalism? Dr. Rachel Laryea on Wealth, Culture & Liberation”

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The CJ Moneyway Show. Dr. Rachel Larrea. Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with the Believe Network, the podcast where we uncover the real stories behind success, resilience, and purpose. I'm your host, CJ Moneyway. Today's episode asks a bold question: Can Black professionals thrive inside capitalism without compromise? Our guest brings a perspective you don't hear every day. Dr. Rachel Aria is a Yale double PhD, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, a current researcher at JPMorgan Asset and Wealth Management, and the founder of Keluuli, a culture-forward lifestyle brand where business meets community. She's also an upcoming author examining how we arrived at our current economic reality, how to decode it, and how to build intergenerational wealth without losing our values. This is a conversation about money, about culture, about liberation, and about what it looks like to reshape capitalism for the collective. Collective. Collective. Collective. Collective.

Collective.

Dr. Rachel Aria, welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show.

What's up, my good people? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show. Today, my guest, Dr. Rachel, brings us perspective you won't hear anywhere else. She's a Yale double PhD. Former Goldman Sachs analyst and a current researcher at JPMorgan Access and Wealth Management, and founder of Kiliwili, a cultural-forward lifestyle brand that blends business with community. This is going to be a conversation about money, culture, and liberation, and how to reshape capitalism for collective good. Dr. Rachel, welcome to the show today. How you doing?

I'm good. Thanks so much for having me.

All right, I'm glad you could join us today. Before we get started, let's go ahead and talk about this new groundbreaking book that you're about to go on tour with. Let's talk about Black Capitalist. How did you come up with the concept and what inspired you to write this book?

Yeah, so, you know, it's been a long time in the making because ever since I was a kid, I was always really interested in the relationship between race and money. And that was the case because of my lived experiences. And so my mother, she immigrated to the United States from Ghana back in the '80s. And through a lot of hustle, grinding, she was able to purchase her first home here in the United States in what was then one of the wealthiest counties in Northern Virginia through the help of an affordable housing program and a lottery system. And so I grew up for the majority of my childhood in a predominantly white, very elite, very wealthy community and neighborhood. And as a child, every depiction that I saw of wealth was associated with whiteness. And it made me wonder, what would it mean? What would it look like to be Black and wealthy? And what would be the cost of that? And so those are the kinds of questions I had as a kid. And You know, so many of my experiences thereafter further crystallized that question for me because I grew up, you know, and found myself in spaces of privilege that I never felt like I had authority in. I'll give you another example. Fast forward, I was able to go to an all-girls boarding school that cost $60,000 a year to go to. I went there on a full-ride merit scholarship. And so I was there on account of my academics. Right. But I was not there on account of my family's financial status. And so again, it was learning how to navigate these spaces of being in something, but never really of them. And then, you know, fast forward again, while I was at NYU for undergrad, I was recruited to work at Goldman Sachs. And so much of my training at NYU was really rooted in Black studies, critical race theory. And really learning about Black people's historic relationship to capitalism, as well as our present and maybe even future theories about how we should participate in capitalism. And so that really informed so much of my training as I was coming up in college. And so to get recruited to work at Goldman, which was not on my radar, no one in my family had any experience in high finance. But yet I still went for it to kind of just see what would happen and what this place was all about. And my experiences there really kind of challenged me to open my thinking about how we can be both critical of an economic system like capitalism, because we know that it is predicated and built on violence. It is nurtured through exploitation, extraction. We know all these things, right? But how we can hold that intention while still use the tools of capitalism in service of social good and in service of ourselves. And why I say my time at Goldman was challenging, because I saw Black professionals do it every single day. I saw how they were able to do the thing that I was doing growing up. They were in this place, but they were never of it because they understood that these systems, these places were not designed for them to thrive. But at the same time, they still chose to be in these places because of the resources that were there and how they could use them to their benefit. And so that got me really passionate to tell this story about how people navigate contradictions, navigate tensions at the kind of nexus of Black identity and capitalism. And so went to grad school to do this work and to fully answer your question for why Black Capitalists, I think there was a particular moment when I was in graduate school that really solidified for me that I was going to write this book. And it was 2 years into my program at Yale, and I was responsible for giving a prospectus, which is basically just, you know, 10-15 minute presentation of what my dissertation would be about. And as I mentioned, I was going to write about, you know, Black capitalists as I defined them and studied them as an anthropologist and how they did this, you know, really complicated, interesting thing about navigating spaces that they were never designed to win within. And after my presentation, which was to an audience of Black studies scholars and faculty within the African American Studies Department at Yale, one of my colleagues, she raised her hand and she said, Black capitalists don't exist. At best, they can be financiers, but they can't be capitalists. And that's what she said to me. And it was in that moment that I knew I had to write this book for a number of reasons. And I understood why she would say something like that, because when you consider all of the critiques of capitalism that I kind of mentioned before, it's hard as a Black person to adopt an economic system where intergenerationally you have not systematically or structurally been allowed to benefit from your labor, your ancestral labor that has produced American capitalism. And so to adopt it creates a kind of identity crisis for some. But still, to make a direct statement that put a limitation on what Black people could be, the expansiveness on Black life, to say that Black capitalists don't exist at one of the finest educational institutions in the country was very problematic to me. And I did not want that to be the only input when it comes to this conversation. I thought that an intervention needed to be made about how we can think about these things while still holding on and reckoning with all of the contradictions and the problematics of capitalism. And so that was really important for me. And so Fast forward a few years later, I published the book to do this work of telling that story.

Man, that's incredible. So at a young age, watching your mother, like you say, coming from Ghana and living in a nice neighborhood and things of that nature, you had the desire, you had it in you to be a trailblazer from the very beginning. So when that girl at Yale raised her hand and say, This can't happen. I already seen it there because I see the fire in you, like, I'm gonna make it happen. Hey, so thank you for being a trailblazer and giving us some perspective on this situation right here. So let me ask you, uh, Rachel— let me put some respect on your name, Dr. Rachel— can Black professionals truly strive inside these systems without reinforcing the same power structures?

I believe so, but you have to have a strategy. You can't go to a gunfight with a knife. You can't use the tools of capitalism in the ways in which we've learned about capitalism and the ways in which we've become acquainted with capitalism and expect new outcomes. We know that capitalism today nurtures individualism. It nurtures a kind of dog-eat-dog mentality and this idea that my ability to succeed depends on you not succeeding. It tells a story of winners and losers, right, in its effort to really focus on ownership and profitability, private ownership, that is. And so it also nurtures a scarcity mindset. This belief that there are limited resources we need to hoard and collect for ourselves in that kind of individualistic mindset in order to succeed. That is capitalism today. And so we need a mindset and a framework that allows us to counter that and actually fight against it in a way that's going to be most importantly communal and in service of all of us. And so my definition of what it means to be a Black capitalist, practice Black capitalism, which is about how any individual or private actor repositions themselves within the economic system in order to produce social good. And so that definition, both in belief and behaviors, is all about an abundance mindset, is about communalism versus individualism. And it's about believing that my economic security is also dependent on your economic security. All of those key kind of functions of Black capitalism, again, as I define it, it's antithetical to the capitalism that we know today. And it's really going to be the blueprint, as I say in the subtitle of the book, for how we can really resist the capitalism that we live in while still be successful, while still strive within the economic system that we're in, because why I say this framework is pragmatic is that it meets us where we are. You know, a lot of people will tell me, oh, you know, you should be dismantling capitalism. We should be thinking about socialism or communalism or some other economic system. That's what we should be dreaming up. And to that I say, sure, I think there are people who are, you know, operating in that lane and they're thinking about what's the next economic system. I think my work and my call to action is to help us think about the in-between. While other people are dreaming up that next thing, I'm really concerned with how can we pave in this system in a way that's going to do right by each other, in a way that's going to get us closer to that next thing, acknowledging the fact and the reality of the situation that capitalism isn't going to be dismantled tomorrow. We've had an ethos and a spirit of dismantling capitalism for many, many years, and yet here it still is. And so we need tools and a framework and a thinking about how do we engage in it differently, because what we've been doing has not been working for us. And so when you also overlay, I think, the sociopolitical climate that we're in, we know that the cavalry is not coming. No one's going to solve our problems for us. It has to come from us. And so much of that is about how can we have some kind of empowerment, but so much more importantly, have some kind of strategy and organizing principle, especially within the Black community, to get us through this in-between space. And so I think there's absolutely opportunity for thriving and successful navigation within this space, but we have to have a plan.

Gotta have a plan. And I would not try to add or take away anything that the good doctor is talking about. This is her lady, she tearing it up right now. Let me ask you, uh, Dr. Rachel, breaking down the system as you was talking about, when you say socialism and capitalism and things like nature, and we know that there's a big thing going on right now, like you said, in the, you know, space that we're in right now. In your book, you trace how we got here economically. What are the most overlooked truths about our current financial system?

Mm, great question. I think that the most overlooked truths about our financial system are the ways in which we have— we being Black people— persisted, innovated, created, even within systems aimed to oppress us. And that knowing should be the reason why we can have a hopefulness and a new orientation when it comes to how we navigate capitalism. Because truth be told, we know America is a contradiction. It is a place in ideal about life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. But we know in reality that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is only afforded to some. And yet we navigate that contradiction every single day. So many people still believe in and pursue the American dream, right? Capitalism should be no different. We know that it's embedded with contradictions. And yet so many of us have financial dreams and motivations evident in the fact that you have more Black millionaires in this country than we've ever seen before. Contradiction to that is the racial wealth gap is ever widening. When you look at Black homeownership rates in comparison to white homeownership rates, for example, Black community lags behind, but yet we are outpacing our white counterparts when it comes to the acquisition of wealth. How do we sit with all of these contradictions? You know, and that becomes, I think, the place that we've overlooked. We've overlooked the fact that We have these kind of financial dreams and we persist despite the structural challenges. So if we just shift our paradigm to thinking about what is the strategy, what are the tactics that we can employ to really do this thing in a communal way, in a way that's not exploitative, not extractive with one another, that could really unlock the door to tremendous impact and most importantly, tremendous economic power, not just within an American context, but on a global scale as well. I think a story for me that really inspired me, if I will, about how we can engage in capitalism from a place of empowerment was a story that I learned just looking through the archives when I was doing this research and developing the book. I learned that during legalized slavery in this country, there were enslaved Black people who bought back their time from their slave masters, thereby operating as bondsmen, right? And they pursued entrepreneurial endeavors. And after they would pursue those entrepreneurial endeavors, get the proceeds from that work, they would pay back their slave masters. And with the excess, they would go on to create venture capital businesses and enterprises. So much so, some of these people were able to amass enough wealth that they were able to literally buy back their freedom and the freedom of that of their family members and friends. Elizabeth Keckley is an example of this. You know, folks can look her up later and learn about her story. But I think to know that even in a time where Black people legally did not have right or ownership to their body. They were able to create avenues to use the tools of capitalism in service of their literal physical freedom. And to do that in that kind of historical moment, it should give us some framework, some thinking, some inspiration about how we can think about economic liberation in the moment that we are in now.

And I like it. I like it. On top of that, you was talking about the Black wealth and, you know, millionaires that we've had, more than we've ever had in this lifetime, or, you know, saying anytime. And, you know, when you're talking about the lady where they bought their freedom and things of that nature. So on top of that, let me ask you, Dr. Wealth Ownership Liberation, as you was just alluding to, what are the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs of color make when building wealth inside of capitalism?

Hmm. I mean, I would say it starts at a really kind of fundamental level. There are two things, and a great book that should be a resource to any person thinking about entrepreneurship is The E-Myth. Go check it out. Go read it. And it's this. Imagine a scenario where there's a woman named Sally and she makes excellent pies., right? And people know her for her pies. Her apple pie is divine, right? People say, oh, we love your apple pie. You should go start a business, Sally, because your pies are that good. And she gets to thinking, okay, people like my pies, maybe I should do this. She gets into business and she ultimately fails. The pies are great, but she fails. Why does she fail? Because Sally does not know how to manage business financials. She does not know how to price her apple pies. She does not know how to think about the cost of goods sold. She does not know operationally how to think about overhead. None of that, right? It just was about the apple pies and people saying that they were good, and so she should, you know, become an entrepreneur. And so within that story that I just gave, that hypothetical You see a few things. One is a lack of business knowledge and that really being a driver for early entrepreneurial failure. You know, we know a lot of businesses that start and fail, but I think when you're talking about how do you create a setup for success, that's so pivotal. It's not just about the product and people saying that it's good. It's about what is the ecosystem and the foundation that the product stands upon that's going to actually make you successful in the end. The other key thing is, you know, we live in a society that romanticizes entrepreneurship. And, you know, being an entrepreneur myself, you are in the trenches. There's really nothing sexy about it most of the time. You know, sometimes you'll get, you know, a little bit of platform or visibility, and those moments, you know, are nice. You know, it can feel like a pat on the back. It doesn't tell the full story by any means. And, you know, and so when people are looking behind the curtain, they see that you're in the trenches. And so I think we have to start being more honest about that because it is hard. And that road, it requires tenacity and it requires some mettle out of you that if you don't have it, it can be a rude awakening when you just throw yourself into that experience. And so these are some of the core things around really having a sense of what you're getting yourself into in order to have the right setup for success at the end of the day. And so I think that's really important. And then the other key thing is to have that kind of Black capitalist framework also becomes tremendously important because there's a critical difference between practicing Black capitalism, as I defined it earlier, versus being a Black person participating in capitalism. Because the latter, you can just be reproducing the harms of capitalism. And how does that show up? You know, as an entrepreneur, you have to think about the bottom line. You have to be profitable because otherwise, why are you in business, right? And so within a capitalist framework, as I mentioned before, it's all about private ownership and profitability. And so if you have this kind of entrepreneurial lens on, you're thinking about, what's my bottom line? What are my profit margins? And a capitalist ethos is always trying to squeeze those profit margins to get as much out as possible. So then what happens when you're talking about your labor force who are actually creating the value for the business? You're trying to then— and this is where you start to see, you know, people getting underpaid, poor work conditions, because it's just about extracting labor, exploiting people in order to achieve maximum profitability. That's a capitalist framework. To practice Black capitalism, and this is what I'm encouraging and calling all entrepreneurs, especially Black entrepreneurs, to practice. Is to really anchor on the social good piece. And it's a challenge. It's a lot to ask of people, but at the same time, it's the only thing that's going to allow us to create new outcomes within this capitalist system. So then what does that mean and look like? If you're prioritizing social good, that means at the cultural level, you're really invested in developing a business culture where people feel valued predominantly for the fact that they are human and their intrinsic value as people, not just about their output. And you are figuring out ways to not just value your bottom line, right, and prioritize that, but most importantly, prioritize the people that we work with you and the people that you are in business with as well. And so you have to make challenging decisions. Sometimes you make less because you're really trying to focus on the people. You know, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions but always anchoring and always being able to value people first and foremost. I've, you know, talked to hundreds of people and some of the business owners that I've spoken to have made millions of dollars, have been wildly successful. They've been able to do this, you know, because some people might say, oh, well, it's impossible. You know, within capitalism, it's just about the money. No, you can do well and do good. It's possible, but these are the kind of requirements, and this is the higher standard that I would challenge all of us to rise to when we're thinking about entrepreneurship and what's really required of us in order to operate in capitalism differently.

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Reproduce the harms of capitalism that we know so well.

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Deep, deep. Go get the book. Email, is that what you said? Email to find out certain things. And go get Black Capitalist, and find out what Dr. Rachel is sitting here giving us y'all about entrepreneurship. One thing I will say, Doc, is when you said that, in the trenches, you know, like I say, my tagline, stories behind the success brick by brick. Like you say, sometimes you get a pat on the back, you seen or whatever. But people really don't know, like they can see you where you are right now. You know, got your own company, writing books and things of that nature, working on Wall Street. But they don't know the trials and tribulations and the things that you had to go through to get to where you are. You know, we can— we can— oh, look at Dr. Corwin Johnson, she looking good and, you know, she's successful and everything, but they really don't know what it takes to get there. And I thank you for sharing, you know, saying some inside information with us, some inside stuff with us. Let me ask you, Doc, because you brought this up earlier, you was talking about intergenerational wealth. So let me ask you, what does intergenerational wealth without compromise look like to you?

Mm-hmm. That's a great question. I think it's really building a legacy anchored on social good, anchored on community and what that means. You know, I think it can sometimes sound just like, oh yeah, that's a nice thing to not be exploitative, not be extractive. Like, who doesn't want that? That sounds like ideals. But it's really possible. But it does require you to have a standard. It requires you to have a line in the sand that you don't cross. And it really requires you to live this life out. It's not a one-time thing. It's not about, say, like, oh, if I amass enough capital, then maybe I'll write a check and become a philanthropist or something like that. No, it's really about a decision that you make every single day. To live in community with other people because you deeply believe that your own economic success is attached to everyone else's in your community. And you can think about that in the kind of family structure when you're thinking about intergenerational wealth building. And that was certainly the case for, you know, my mom and how she thought about legacy and sacrifice. My grandmother, like I have a strong history of especially the women in my family really thinking about in order to receive anything in this life, you have to give, you have to be in community with people, you have to create opportunities for reciprocity. And it starts with you, you know. And so I think that that's so paramount to when you're talking about intergenerational wealth building. It has to be from a place of What can I give? What can I sacrifice on account of the bigger picture? Because again, it's not about individualism. It has to be done in community. That's the only way we get through this. And so I think that that, that's really the framework when you think about what's the key to success within an intergenerational kind of vision for wealth. That's, of course, much bigger than the monetary piece. You know, you think about wealth holistically. Do you have your health? Do you have your financial security? Do you have your family? Are you in community living a life that's full and robust and rich? It's much bigger than just the monetary.

You know, you made me think about something when you said your mother and you said your grandmother. I was talking to a young lady a couple of weeks ago where they, you know, they have a company. I guess it's a worldwide thing where they help people build generational wealth, you know, go through the program and things of this nature. And she says something to the fact that you know, in the years to come or whatever, because she was talking about women, that it's going to be like a $60 trillion transfer of wealth, you know, from— and so women particularly, you know what I'm saying, will have to be able to manage things of that nature. Would you know anything about that or any transfer of wealth that's coming about that, that, uh, people should be aware of?

Yeah, she's exactly right. There is a massive wealth transfer that's coming. And I think right now, especially that transfer, oftentimes historically, you see that get transferred to women, whether they be widows, that was the case with my grandmother, or they are just the money managers of their families. And so I think as we look to the future, and you'll see, you know, investment institutions thinking about how do we, you know, provide servicing that acknowledges this upcoming wealth transfer, acknowledges whose hands the wealth is going to be in quite literally and how we can support them. But then I think of it at the communal level of how do we create ecosystems that account for the system that we're in, capitalism, around, again, private ownership and profitability, but to do it in a way that's really in service of us and acknowledging that this wealth transfer has global implications. Again, we have to think bigger than just the American context because again, for someone like me, born and raised in America, but deeply ingrained in my kind of Ghanaian heritage. And so I'm always thinking about my family in Ghana, my family on the continent, and what are the interconnections between my experience and theirs. And so what's interesting too about this upcoming wealth transfer is the fact that when you look at, say, all of the reports coming out of the World Economic Forum, all of the research on longevity economies, you see, especially within the African continent, Africa is the future. And people might say that, you know, and just kind of say it in jest, but it's quite literally the truth. And that's because within the next 25 to 50 years, the greatest populations of working people are not going to exist in America. They're not going to exist in the West. It's actually in the East where you're going to see that. And You think about continents, if you will, or regions as the life cycle of an individual. You know, Africa is in its youth, right? And it is growing. Hence why you're going to have the greatest population of working people. And so when you think about then what it means from an investment standpoint, from growing kind of development and maturity cycles around that, People's gazes are turning to the African continent. They're thinking about investment and how to leverage and also make the most of this moment. And that's why I say it is such an urgent time for us to be organized, to be principled, and to be strategic in how we think about wealth from a place of community uplift. Because I think the greatest tragedy would be in this next industrial revolution that we're going to go through, through AI and, you know, technology, that we not be in the driver's seat to this moment. We have to really rise to the moment and behave differently and think differently.

I like it. I like it. So, Dr. Rachel, let me ask you, I know I'mma chop it up, and I asked you how to say it before we started, from Wall Street to I'll say it for you, kill it, Willie. Thank you, thank you. Almost had it, it was at the tip of my tongue. And so how did your Wall Street experience shape you to think about wealth today?

Oh, great question. I mean, I think it's really from a place of strategy. I think when I, you know, started my career in finance and just saw how other people, you know, in high finance think about wealth building for themselves, their communities, how they do it in the context of business. It's really about what's the plan, what's the strategy, what are the tactics that execute against that? How do you drive towards it in a very kind of objective way? You know, sometimes people might say, oh, you know, it can be ruthless. And, you know, then you start talking about all of the criticisms of capitalism and business, etc. But I did learn that nonetheless. And I think that as I was talking earlier about a story of Sally and her apple pies, that's— those early days at Goldman really impressed upon me the need to have a strategy, to have a plan in order to really make that investment of time, energy, monetary resources where you have the best shot at success. You know, it's not just about like— I'll say it this way. Hope is not a business plan, you know, and just like well wishes, they're not a business plan. You need to have one. And it's not just for business, but also for kind of how you live your life. I believe that. And so I think that was so crucial for me. And so that's why I say now when we think about this and overlay the communal aspect of it, what is our plan? What are our organizing principles to get to economic liberation?

I like that. Doc, I only have a couple more questions for you, but I do have the Moneyway Five. If I ask you 5 questions, tell me the first thing that comes to your mind. And you are a double PhD major, so I know that this will not be hard for you. Some people tense up and get a little get a little nervous when I bring the Moneyway Five about. Not you though. I know not you. Not when Brooklyn's in the house, you know.

I'm shaking in my seat right now.

Yeah, right. Yeah, right. So but let me ask you, the company that you have is built around community and things of that nature. So what does your brand, what role does it play in modeling culture towards, forward towards entrepreneurship?

Mm. I love that question. So I think it's sometimes you model things by practicing it. And so for me, I think Kilawili has been an example of that. I started that business really grassroots. You mentioned I'm here in Brooklyn. I was doing festivals and pop-ups, getting in the community and really creating a business at its start that anchored on what people wanted to see. What would make them smile, feel, you know, connected to their upbringing or feel connected to others. And so initially the offering of Kilo Willy was plantain-based treats that are also plant-based. So think plantain ice cream, plantain cookies, brownies, anything you can think of with plantains, I've made it. And I love that from a place of innovation, healthy eating, because it was plant-based, but then also most importantly, cultural connection. I can be West African. The next person can be from Latin America, the next person from the Caribbean. We're all eating plantains. You know, we just might prepare them differently. So I really love the idea that, again, it can bring people together across different cultural experiences because of this one food item. And so that's how it started. And, you know, had a brick-and-mortar location, scaled to do e-commerce and wholesale. I even had a stand at the Barclays Center. So that's why I picked the Nets. Conversation. And now it's evolved to the point where we also have travel stays that we offer in this beautiful island called Mafia Island off the coast of Tanzania in East Africa. And so we allow people to come back to the continent, have an experience, and experience Kelauele on the continent as well. And so for me, it's always about getting back to the roots of things and not just building a business that sits in isolation to that, but really how can you draw people back home? And so for me, I think the business is really a practice of how you build community and how you really anchor people on what matters most.

Mm, I like that. I like that. You say, "One food can bring different cultures." together. Might be made differently, but still the same thing. So let me ask you, Dr. Rachel, before we go any further, where can we find your book? Where can we find you on social media? And what's up next for Dr. Rachel?

Yes, so where you can find the book, anywhere you buy books. And I, of course, would make a plug to buy the book at Black-owned bookstores. You know, such a time to support them. And so Baldwin Co., great Black-owned bookstore, BEM Books, Café con Libros. These are just a couple of Black-owned bookstores, but the book is anywhere you buy books and you can also get the audiobook as well. That's out and available. When it comes to keeping up with me, I've got a newsletter and just getting tapped in via my website, rachellaurier.com. You can subscribe to the newsletter there and we keep the page super updated so you can see tour stops, where I'll be next, all of that good stuff. And then what's next for me personally? It's a good question. I think I'm really thinking through what are the multimodal ways to tell the story of Black capitalism. For me, I had a big vision, a big plan for this work, and it started with the book in that the book is really the front door. It's the entry point to telling additional stories about Black empowerment within our economic system. And so that's what I'm looking forward to, whether it's podcasts, TV, film, whatever it is. Like, that's really the next step in developing creativity anchored on that. And then taking some rest. I need a vacation.

Get yourself together, Dr. Rachel, because at the Barclays Center, you're going to have it sold out for all— for a book signing. Big things finna come about because you touching on a subject that many people don't talk about. And with your understanding and with the knowledge that you have with it, it's fit to open up doors, just fit to be crazy. So you're right, you better get you some rest, a lot of rest, because you are about to be on the move from Brooklyn to Ghana, back from Ghana, back to Brooklyn, and everywhere else in between. So Doc, you ready for this Moneyway 5? You say you're over there shaking in your boots.

I'm ready, I'm ready. Let's see.

All righty, all righty then. One money myth you want the Black community to throw out forever?

You have to have a lot of money to invest. No, start small, start today, start yesterday, honestly, and just keep going. You know, the market will be volatile. You keep going.

Mm. Build it brick by brick. Wall Street lesson you live by today?

Break up your day into small segments of time. To execute and drive completion of your goals.

Mm. So if I was to break up my day, how would you say I break it up? So I would— 4 hours, how would that break up?

Yeah, so I actually do it in 30-minute increments usually. And so especially within my workday, 9 to 5, you'll see my calendar, every 30 minutes I'm doing something that just gives me, you know, very quick doses of time that I can be hyper-focused, get what I need to get done. And then, you know, the cycle starts again at the midway point at that half hour. And so that's been a really useful way for me to just also practice time management. So outside of my 9 to 5, I'm able to just very quickly in my mind create these 30-minute time blocks to say I can get X, Y, and Z done. In these next 30 minutes, I'm going to do that. And then I almost do a reset for the next 30 minutes. And it might sound super extreme, but if you do it for a little while, it's helpful. And then ultimately, I can be really efficient with time because of those kind of time blocks that I now use.

Mm. Y'all better listen to the good doctor. Start breaking things up in increments, man. You get your day to be more productive. We gotta listen to her because she has proven— this has been a proven method that has worked for her. It'll work for you too. Hey, she said, but you gotta put it into practice. So let me ask you, a cultural practice that should inspire how we think about wealth.

Mm. I mean, I think there's so many different examples of community making within the African diaspora, but also within African cultures generally, one thing that's coming to mind is the concept of Sankofa. And for those unfamiliar, it is— or the translation of it, rather, within Ghanaian language is to go back and get it. So Sankofa means really anchored on know where you come from, know where your community is based, know where you're rooted in order to go towards the future. It's hard to have a future when you don't know your past. And it's hard to be rooted in something when you also don't know your past. It's hard to have a purpose when you don't know where you've come from. And so I think that that is a really important kind of cultural principle for me. And I think it's also something, you know, growing up as a Ghanaian, it's something that's always been rooted in me. And I think very valuable in how we can think about collectively, where are we going? You have to know where you've come from.

Where are you going? You got to know where you come from. Let me ask you, Doc, book or resource that shaped your perspective on economics besides The Black Capitalist and the E-Method? You gotta give me something else.

Mm, I think another one that was formative for me The Forensics of Capital by Michael Ralph. Excellent book to really think about the nuances, the complexities of capitalism for African people on the continent and outside of it. Yeah, that's huge. I'd say— oh, I only get one, right? So let me stop.

I'll stop.

I'll stop.

It's a doctorate show. You can say how many you want. Shout out how many books you want to.

I think Poverty Made by America, Matthew Desmond, also an excellent book. The Sum of Us, Heather McGhee, also excellent.

I'm listening.

Oh gosh, I think The Color of Money, excellent, excellent book again to understand the history of capitalism and Black people's participation in it. Yeah, I'll pause there, but those are some required reading. Also Black Marxism.

As y'all see, she can go on and on. She's not a double PhD from Yale University for no reason, y'all. You know what I'm saying? She got some knowledge up there. Last question: define wealth in one sentence.

Oof, wealth in a sentence.

Doc, I gave you all these, uh, accolades and you gonna get stuck on me? I, I didn't think you were cold like that.

No, no, you said I get one sentence. Wealth in a sentence. It'd really be kind of what I spoke to before around knowing and moving in a way where my actions acknowledge that our success is interconnected. That's wealth.

That's wealth in a nutshell. Doc, before we get out of here, can you leave us one last nugget, something that's on your heart that you would like to share with the audience? Before we leave?

Yeah, I would say, you know, when it comes to conversations about race, money, capitalism, I know that it is difficult. You know, this conversation is one that is challenging one to have. It can be very provocative. But I think in truth and in seriousness, it can be one that is really filled with a lot of economic trauma. Some of us have had a lot of bad experiences when it comes to money and you know, just being burned or whatever it is. You know, we've had bad experiences and some of them we've inherited, some of them not on account of us in any way. And so I know that this is difficult and I know that, you know, everyone's got their economic identity. Some people are anti-capitalist, they're socialist, they're capitalist, whatever it is. But I think what's so important in this time in this future that we're all dreaming up for ourselves is we got to get to a place of unified action. You know, I've mentioned the term organizing principle. We have to be able to, despite our differences, lock arms and get to a place that says we recognize the landscape that we are in. We know that this is treacherous times. We have to lock into each other. And really work together to create that future that we're dreaming up. And so such a time as now, you know, when it comes to the debate on capitalism, we've been debating for so long, for so long. We really need to get to action at this point. And so that's the call to action that I would say and I would leave people with, you know, should people read the book, really think about it from a place of pragmatic action. That can be taken.

I like it. I thank you for coming on. And if they all don't get anything that she said, she said something earlier, she said, lock arms right now, but how Africa is just beginning or whatnot. So start thinking about some resources or where you want to start investing some of your money. You heard it here on the CJ Moneyway Show. She gave us a prophecy already. How it's going down with this transfer of wealth. So Dr. Rachel, I thank you for bringing such depth and clarity to a conversation that challenges us to rethink the system we live in. Your work reminds us that capitalism doesn't just have to be endured, it can be reshaped into something that builds wealth, uplifts communities, and preserves our values. For everyone listening, if you want to learn more about Dr. Rachel's work, keep an eye on her book and check out her brand. Say it for me again.

Kill it, Willie.

Kill it, Willie. And we'll have all the links in the show notes. And as always, thank you for tuning in to the CJ Moneyway Show in association with Believe Network. If today's conversation sparked anything in you, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone who's ready to reimagine wealth culture and community. Until next time, keep hustling, keep building, and keep moving the culture forward. Hey, this your boy CJ Moneyway with the good Dr. Rachel, and shall I say it again, double major from Yale, on the CJ Moneyway Show. Until the next time, we out of here. Peace.

Before you go, let me leave you with this. Every story shared here, it's a reminder that your story matters too. Keep your faith sharp, keep your focus steady, keep your vision clear. And if this episode gave you wisdom, hope, or Push forward, share it with somebody you love.

Tap in with me on all platforms @moneyway and stay locked into the movement because God's not done writing your chapter. This is the CJ Moneyway Show. Brick by brick and always anyway.

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