From Prison To Financial Freedom: The Journey of Reshaping Your Identity w/Wallstreet Trapper EP 1209

This is episode number 1209 with the Wall Street Trapper. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Welcome, my friend.

Today's guest is Leon Howard, who is better known as Wall Street Trapper. Growing up in New Orleans, Leon is no stranger to the streets and the pitfalls that come with it. He has an incredible story that we dive deep into today about his 10-year prison experience, where he learned about the stock market and the similarities to business in the real world and the business in the streets. He provides a ton of resources, ranging from courses and ebooks where he simplifies wealth creation and creating wealth through the stock market. In this episode, we discuss how Trapp's upbringing and experience of going to prison saved him and taught him the foundations of building wealth, the similarities between business in the real world and business in the streets, the key steps to begin to build Financial Freedom, the simple Concepts people misunderstand about building wealth, how to truly change your identity and the trajectory of your life, no matter what you've been through, and so much more. If you're inspired by this, make sure to share this with someone that you think would be inspired as well. You can just copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this or go to lewishouse.com/1209 and share that link. If this is your first time here, please click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts or Spotify right now to stay up to date on the latest and greatest from the School of Greatness podcast. And I want to give a shout out to the fan of the week today from Maers. And they said this podcast is pure in goodness and valuable for so many reasons on so many levels. And Lewis decided to live his truth openly and in the process is able to influence and help people at scale that would not be possible otherwise. So big thank you to Mers for leaving a review over on Apple podcast and being a fan of the week. Okay, excited about this one. And in just a moment, the one and only Wall Street Trapper.

When did you realize that you were going to start learning about financial literacy and then What did it look like when you got out?

Oh man, so, you know, born and raised in New Orleans, first and foremost, and New Orleans has always been a city that I feel is full of culture, right? And on the front side, people know it for food and music. Music, you know, the good times. But there's a part of New Orleans that also is on the other side that gets a lot of light, which is it being a murder capital, high crime, right? a lot of poor, a lot of underdeveloped people, financially, just in so many different ways. And so I grew up in that. Saw my moms get shot when I was nine years old.

Saw her get shot.

I saw her get shot when I was like nine. Maybe like 100 yards away from me. So immediately I had a connection and understanding of violence. So at nine years old, kind of like when I got older, I now think about how that played in my brain over and over and over again.

When a kid sees violence at an early age in the family, what does that do to the kid? Does it normalize it? Does it make them want to be more violent, be less violent? Like, and run away from it? What happened?

So what it did for me was it did two things. One, it made me realize that violence in my environment was a necessary evil.

To do what? Protect yourself.

Protect whatever, like, And if anything happened, violence was now the first result. No matter what that violence looked like, whether it was fighting, whether it was shooting, it was like, okay, if someone can shoot my mother, then they can shoot me. So now I'm automatically in protect mode. Okay, cool, this is what it is. But also it becomes a tool for regulation. like you understand, like, okay, like violence is what gives me respect. Violence is what keeps me from being a prey, right? And so you just start to normalize it. It's like I always, I said this to somebody before, I said, if you come to New Orleans and you're in a park and a gun goes off, if there's a bunch of kids in the park, I can almost guarantee you they won't run. They know the protocol. You know, to get down, look both ways, see where the gunshot's coming from, and then go the opposite way. That is normalized. That's trauma. No kid should understand the protocol to what to do when- For a gunshot.

Yeah.

But it's like understood. Like I even knew it at a young age. I would be inside. Gunshots ring, the first thing we do, we get under the bed. Wow.

You know what I'm saying? Like this is understood.

So- It's like the, you know, in.

School they teach you like- Stop, drop, and roll.

Yeah, yeah. Where there's a tornado warning, a siren, it's like, here's what to do.

Yeah.

This is what you do. So it's like a Survival Handbook, but in real time. And you also see that no age limit is off limits to getting killed. Wow.

Because young kids are getting shot up.

Yeah, like it's happening. So you start to understand, like, okay, this. This is my environment. Me seeing guns, me seeing drugs, prostitution. All right, cool.

This.

Okay, this doesn't scare me no more. I get it. All right, cool. So now I got to, I have to now walk around and understand how that feels. I have to walk around knowing if I don't do the right things, that could be me at a young age.

Right?

So, so you have to educate yourself on violence and protecting yourself and being aware of what to do and how to get out of situations and how to defend yourself.

Conflict resolution. Yeah. Like all of those things are apparent at a young age. even when it comes down to even just like bare fists fights, like you understand that if I don't handle this situation right here, right now, then it's certain things in this neighborhood I will not be able to do. You know what I'm saying? Like I will not be able to go to this store if I let him take him or whoever they are take this dollar from me, 50 cent from me.

Why I want you to go to the store?

Because now every time they see you, they take more. It's gonna take more.

Unless you defend yourself.

It's either gonna be, man, it ain't even worth my time going over there messing with him. I'm gonna get something. Yeah, I don't got time to hear that. He's gonna beat one of a time. Let me go over there. Yeah, right.

So it's like the bully in school.

It's like the bully keeps beating you up until you stand up to the bully. And then the thing about the bully is the bully never really wants a tough fight. Why would I do something tough when I could go away easier? So you just start to understand those things. You're like, you know what? And then you start hearing things in the street. your people tell you stuff like, if let's say you go home, you, you, you my uncle, you send me to the store and I come back and be like, oh, man, such and such and them took it from me. Well, don't come back in here until you either come back with what I gave you or you come in here bloody.

Prove me, right?

Show me that somebody. And now we gonna go out there and take care of that. So now, like, those are the realities at a young age, and it doesn't. say, okay, you're too young for this. Nah, it's whenever it happens, you got to be able. And so now you develop that mindset, that mentality from a little bitty to adulthood. And what happens is now you see it so much, it becomes you. Oh, I know how to handle this situation right here. All the gate, boom, boom, booms. And then you now teach that trauma.

Yeah. Right.

You replay it.

You replay it. You so 16, maybe like 14, I was homeless. so my grand. I live with my grandmother. My grandmother passed away, and I was homeless, like, literally homeless, because my. It wasn't that my family didn't want nothing to do with me, but everybody has the issues. Nobody wants to take on another burden, you know what I'm saying? No matter what it is. So I dealt with that for a minute, just being homeless, and then I moved with my aunt who was on drugs, and I. Started hustling out her house, you know, for survival purposes, you know what I'm saying? Just been able to survive, just understanding like I learned this from my mom. So this is how I'ma eat, right? So school becomes second nature, survival becomes present, you know, this is what has to happen. So 16, I go to prison for attempted murder. I got robbed out of some drugs and some guns. some money and in the streets, it goes back to that same mentality where if I let you get away with this, then I can't hustle no more.

Then you're gonna do this again to me over and over.

Yeah.

And not only are you gonna do.

It, but- Someone else will do it.

Everybody else, I'm fair game.

They'll hear that you can't get away with it.

That's my fair game. And then in the streets, there's this code of, there's a difference between robbing me and jacking me.

What's the difference?

So if I Jack you, it's, yo, give me this. What you gonna do about it?

Right, right, right.

Whether it's a gun or not, it's mine now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What you gonna do about it? Robbing you is if I have a mask on. I don't really know who you are. Right. So robbing you, you kind of get like, all right, I gotta find out. But jacking me, it's a bold statement. It's like, whatever. And so that has to be met with some type of consequences. You know what I'm saying? And not always saying it's right, but in a jungle- To survive. Exactly.

Otherwise you gotta move. You gotta move to another state.

And this is what we're doing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then nobody, you don't have time to do all that. That's why I'm in this situation.

Trying to get to the store.

Yeah, so I went to prison for shooting him, and I got 10 years. for attempt murder on robbery. And that's kind of when, I'm not gonna say life changed, I'm like, all right, cool, I'm in prison.

'Cause your mom was there for an entire year.

My mom was in prison, yep.

And you would visit her, so you kind of knew that this is an environment that I could potentially be in one day.

Yeah, that's kind of understood already.

Yeah.

Like you already understand that at some point on your journey, you're going to prison. like, that's it. You're going to prison. You're going to, at some point, use a gun on several different occasions. Wow. Right? Like this. Like this understood already. And I know it'd be kind of hard for a lot of people to understand that, because if you, if you, if you've never been introduced to that, you'll never, you know, like, if you've never seen a lion hunt, then when he eat the gazelle, you're like, that's so ferocious. But you don't understand the rules of the jungle. you don't understand the rules of the safari, right? So it may seem grotesque, but in the safari, we know that's the ecosystem, right? So in the streets, that's just like part of the ecosystem. That's the environment. Yeah, it has to happen.

What was that like when you knew that you were sentenced to 10 years at 16? Was it devastating? Is it kind of like, this is my badge of honor? Is it kind of like, man, I was only hoping for a year or two, not 10.

So I remember, My great aunt came to court for me because they wanted to give me 35 years. Geez. Because the dude, you know, he wasn't, again, it was a temporary so he wasn't dead. And my aunt, she knew the judge. Wow. And she kind of like just told him my story. She's like, look, he just been going through a lot. His mom's in prison. My sister passed away, which was my grandmother's sister. You know, he just been out here. He's a better kid than that. He just, you know. So he actually gave me, he came to me and he said, you have no other option than to take these 10 years. I'm not asking you do you want to take them.

You're going to take them.

You're going to take these 10 years, right? And the DA was like upset about that, right? 'Cause here's an opportunity to take again, you know, and I'm not saying he mad, but here's an opportunity to take somebody off the streets. in a city who's, that's plagued with crime for shooting somebody. Like he has to go. So in my mind, I was just like, because I had saw it so much, I was kind of numb to it. You know, it was like, all right, how much they gonna get me?

Right?

And I kind of, to be honest with you, the 10, I was like, all right, cool, this is a cakewalk. Wow. You know, think about it, 16, 10 years, I'm like, I'm already like, okay, 25, 26, I'll be home. That's cool.

Wow.

But let me tell you something that's crazy. Let me tell you something that's absurd. In prison, you will hear people say, well, I could do another five, 10 years.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah. I was that person. At about age 19, I was like, yeah, I still got another 10. I could do another 10 year bid. Why? Because you just, you don't see no other way.

Right. Right.

You kind of have to mentally put yourself there.

Yeah.

Otherwise you go crazy, I guess.

You kind of feel like one of the things that you don't see a lot in in those communities, you gotta remember we financially and they just underdeveloped.

Yeah.

Education, financial literacy. We underdeveloped coming up in that. Everybody you see is in survival mode. Nobody is thriving but the drug dealers, the rappers and the people that play sports.

Yeah, that's it.

That's it.

Maybe a couple of musicians. Yeah.

And if you can't play sports or if you can't make it rapping, then all the power is now in the drug dealers or in the criminals.

Right.

You see them living a life they want. Everybody that you see going to work, they badly making Right, you know people with two jobs, you know people with three jobs, and all you see them doing is coming home whipped. They still struggling, so you're like, I'm not about to do that. If I'm gonna live a life, at least let me have some fun. At least let me do some of the things I want to do. And so in your mind, you're like, if this is the alternative, well hell with it, this is what it is.

Right?

And so you like, you just accept it. And so when you accept that life, you know what come with it, right? And so you mentally preparing yourself like, all right, well you ain't here for a murder, you ain't here for a temp murder, you ain't here for own robbery, you ain't here for selling drugs. Man, like, well you messed up at what you did wrong. So now y'all start swapping stories. You know, he telling you what he messed up at, he telling you what he did wrong. You like, okay, well, I can get better. If I just don't make this mistake, then don't do this. So you learning real time. from somebody who may have 99 years, 240 years, life, the debt penalty. Like you may be learning from- Learning.

What not to do when you get-.

What not to do, where they messed up at. And remember, experience is the best teacher in any way in life, right? What mistakes did you make? Okay, cool, that's what you did wrong? Gotcha. I'm gonna take mental note of that. And you gotta think over the course of two, three, four, five, six years, you sleep on the side of somebody, you learning the game and in your mind you just like, I'm about to go home and be better at this than what I was before. So you accept the idea of, all right, cool. I could do another 10 years. Sure. I did this 10. I could do another 10. It's in me. What's safer for you? What was safer, the streets or prison?

So honestly, prison saved me.

Saved you? Prison saved my life.

Was it safer? 'Cause I heard some stories from people.

It's not really stories. I've been stabbed.

Yeah.

I got a stab wound right here. I think it's on this arm. Yep, I got stabbed right here. I got stabbed in my back in prison. I think they both have, you know, their shortcomings because you got what the thing about prison is you boxed in. So you can't run. You can't escape from that. And when you're in home, you can move around, you can do some things. There's advantages and disadvantages to both. For me, I know prison saved my life because right before that situation, I had got into with somebody, I was almost kidnapped. I was literally almost inside of the trunk. And I barely got out of that, the skin of my teeth. And I literally came to prison. I really went to jail, like, three weeks later. You know what I'm saying?

It probably would eventually happen.

Which was going to, so that charge that I went to prison for.

Either.

Saves me from going to prison for something more serious or getting killed. Right, and that's kind of always, again, that's always the, like prison is always the lesser of two evils that you're willing to accept, right? Because you're like, at least I ain't gone. And you just start to accept it.

And what was the moment then during prison where you learned about making money?

So I had got into a fight with two of my homeboys.

Is this like a verbal fight, a physical fight?

A physical fight. Yeah, yeah. I got in a physical fight with two of my homeboys, and I go to solitary confinement. How long?

A week, two weeks?

Nah, so I got, I sent it to 90 days. Ooh, man. Solitary confinement. That's not fun. So it's crazy because this is where I feel like I have this thing that I say that, like, if you take a picture, and you put it in a darkness, this is where it develops at.

Right?

And the darkness is where it develops. You don't want to expose it too early, 'cause it'll mess up. But in the darkness is where it develops, and when it's time, when you know just right, it can be one of the most beautiful pictures you've ever seen if you let it develop in the right time. Prison was my development stage. So I get in a cell, this white guy. I'm in a full man cell, and it's just me and him.

Bunk bed.

Yep, two on each side.

A little two foot walkway. One little bathroom. Yeah, I've been in this small.

For 45 days, me and him were just in a cell. No one else came in the cell.

Which is, this is for solitary confinement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So shared confinement.

Yep, yep, yep. 13 cells on each side, four people in each cell. An hour a day out.

Hour in a day out.

So we didn't even get an hour. We got 45 minutes. Take a shower together, come back in the cell.

Man.

And for those 45 days, we did a lot of talking.

Oh man.

My first day in the cell though, like, I wanted to beat him up. 'Cause I come into the cell and the first thing he told me was, man, y'all playing the wrong game. I looked at him, I just had a fight with two of my homies.

My blood still hot.

Don't tell me what to do. I'm like, what? What are you talking about? And he was like, nah, I don't mean no disrespect. And it's something about his tone.

That.

Made me just listen to him. I don't know what it was, I can't even describe it.

How old are you at this point?

I'm 17.

Oh wow. One year in.

I'm still a hot head. Yeah, I'm still a hot head.

Ego maniac. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What you talking about? So he was like, I think for him, that was the first time he had seen that many black men in one spot. 'Cause he had this look of, like, confusion. Like he was confused. He was like, man, y'all playing the wrong game, bruh. And I was like, well, if you playing the right game, why you in here with me? Why you in here with me? What you talking about? He was like, what are you in here for? And so one of the things about in prison, like, you don't just tell people what you in prison for unless you in there for something serious. 'Cause then you wed. So I'm like, I'm in here for a 10-year ride on a rise. you know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Like, I mean, like, don't play with me. I'm like, so what you in here for? So he was enough for embezzlement. He invested eight, eight, 2.8 million dollars. He kept two million. He paid 800, 000 restitution. And I was like, man, you lying. And so one thing about prison is you can always show somebody your paperwork, what you in there for. And so when I saw it in black and white, It was a different level of respect for me. 'Cause I never saw $2 million on a piece of paper before. And so he said, this is why I'm telling you, you're playing the wrong game. He was like, how much time you got? I was like, ah, 10 years. He was like, have you ever seen a million dollars before? He was like, you'll never see it playing that game.

Playing what game?

The streets. The drug, it's the game. Like, you'll never see it playing that game. And I kind of just took that in for a second. Because up until that point in my life, I never met a successful drug dealer.

Right, right. You mean maybe for a year or two, but boys get caught, you get shot, you get something. He gets still robbed.

Everything, yes, I was just like, that was like one of those moments that humbled me. So he said, listen, you got to do these three things. You got to start trading time for money. I start learning how to make your money work for you. You gotta learn how to give value to people. I didn't learn that message, the value part. I didn't learn that till I started my business. And I was like, man, I had never heard nothing. Like, that was like scripture to me hearing that, right?

What was three again?

It was, you gotta learn how to make your money work for you. Stop trading time for money and give value to people. Yeah. And so, he kind of just, I'm not even gonna lie, like, he don't that. The way he said it was so much conviction. It kind of, like, mesmerized me. Like, it caught me off guard, because I had never heard nothing like that before. And so he just started explaining to me about how wealthy people use money and. And how the streets is a game that we can never win. We were only pawns in the game.

The house always wins. Yeah.

And I was like, damn. So he just started me realizing that, and so I'm thinking. that moment, I just started looking at everybody from my mama. I was like, damn, I don't know nobody that won. Everybody had moments, but nobody really won.

Yeah.

And so maybe before he left, he told me, you need to learn how to do these three things. You need to learn how to wealthy people invest in stocks, then invest in real, start a business, and then they invest in real estate. And because he said stocks first in my mind, I wanted to do whatever he was doing. Yeah. And so had he would have said real estate first, I would probably be in a real estate trap. But because he started with that, it just, it stuck with me. So when he went upstate, he went to the, so he went to the federal prison.

How long was he in for?

So he did 18 months. Right. He was in federal. And that was, that was another thing that caught me off guard. I was like 2.8 million. I think you about to tell me you have 30 years, 40 years. Yeah, 18 months. and he told he should, he shined light on something for me. He said, even if I was to come back, the most they could give me is 36 months at this time. So even if he went home, kept the 2 million, paid 800 in restitution. So he did 18 months, kept 2 million. If he went home and did the same thing again, the most they can give him was 36 months based on those federal guidelines, right? he still would have done less time than me, had more money than me.

Right.

That just blew me away. He was still doing something illegal.

He was doing it illegal, yeah.

But it's just like, it was a different level. Yeah, of course. You know, I was just like, damn, like I'm playing the wrong game. He's like, you,'re risking your life for 30 years.

Yeah, you're tripping. What are you doing? Where I'm risking 18 years.

You tripping, yeah, you're on the wrong level. So that's just kind of like, that was my moment. And so I remember getting shipped upstate to prison.

So now I'm in the penitentiary.

At 18, you're going to prison. Yeah, yeah. I'm in prison. So I went from the Orleans Parish Prison to, like, Louisiana State Prison, like prison, maximum security. And I remember stocks, stocks, stocks. So I remember the first book I read was Rich Dad Poor Dad. I remember reading that, and I remember just being, like, blown away at the idea of what financial literacy was. And I remember thinking like, why nobody never teach me this? And so then I remember starting to look at CNBC in prison.

Yeah.

Yeah. So prison is an odd place.

You got a little, you got a little TV in the cell.

Nah, nah, nah. So we got a day room.

Yeah.

So the day room, they has like a, probably like a 30 inch TV in there. So sports is number one. Of course, movies, the news is number the news sports, the young and the restless, right? Victor Newman, they like grown men love to watch Victor Newman, right? So I would have to get up like kind of early so I could watch CNBC. And I remember watching like Jim Cramer. I was like, yo, this dude is crazy. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I remember just telling myself, I don't see no black people up here. It's a lot of rich white dudes. and they not risking their life. And they was talking about numbers I had never heard of before. Numbers I knew I could never make selling dope. Numbers I knew I could never make robbing nobody. And I was just like, yeah, I'm playing the wrong game. So I remember reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and then I remember reading about a guy named Reginald White. Reginald Reginald Lewis. And I was like, okay. Because his book was why the white guys have all the fun. He built a billion dollar empire off private equity. And I was like, oh, I could play this game. And so I will watch CNBC and I couldn't get it because I couldn't understand it. I couldn't, they were speaking in a language that was just, I was like, I ain't never heard that before. and I never forget they was talking about tariffs and what they are. And terrorists were simply taxes that people pay for other countries pay for coming, you know, hustle in the United States. And in my mind, I said, well, that's the equivalent to paying draft. So a draft is like, let's say you live in one hood. I live in one hood. You want to come hustle over here? I said, Louis. you got to pay me some money to come over here. That's a terror.

I'll leave you alone as long as you pay me.

As long as you pay me. I was like, oh, oh, this reminded me of the streets. And then a friend of mine named Chris Kellogg, he used to get the USA today. And so when I was in prison, I used to run numbers. I was a bookie. And I remember him telling me, you always get the sports section. Why do you never get the business section? You always looking at CNBC. I was like, man, nobody looking at the business section. He said, well, you looking at stocks? This the part you need to be looking at. I was like, yeah. So I remember I started reading that from him. So every time he would get the USA Today, I would pay him to give me just the business section, and I would just read it. And then, like, it just started clicking to me. It reminded me, literally, of the streets. Like, in order for a company to be great on the stock market, they have to have a good product. In order for a business to be enough for me, a good Hustler, I gotta have a good product. in order for the company to have great, they gotta have great revenues, they gotta have a great profit in the streets. If I can be a great Hustler, I have to know how to turn my revenues into profit. I gotta have more than re-up money. It has to be money that I can re-up with and then go get some more and pay my bills.

Yeah.

You have to learn that. And on a stock market, if a company has a good moat, a competitive Advantage, they can beat off their Defenders. Well, if I'm a Hustler, if I got a good product, if I got a good price, I got good packaging, if I'm always out there, if I'm always available, I got a moat.

You're like 7-Eleven baby.

It's popping.

You're always open.

I'm open, you know what I'm saying? And so I was like, yo, this reminds me of the streets. It's no different. And so once I was able to make that connection in my mind, I said, I could be the next Warren Buffett. Wow. Like, I could be the next Warren Buffett.

So were you teaching yourself and reading books then for the most of those years or did you have someone else in there teaching you? Was it all self-taught?

Nah, everything was self-taught in prison. Kind of like nobody was really on it. Like everybody was like on sports. Real estate was the thing. Like everybody in prison wants to come home and get into real estate. Really? Everybody wants. And that was one of the things that Robert Kiyosaki talks about. Real estate, real estate, real estate, real estate, real estate. so, you know, that's kind of like the thing. Like, I'm gonna come home, I'm getting into real estate. And in prison, I learned about real estate investment trust, which is Reese. I was like, oh, yeah. So I can own the real estate without even, you know, managing a property. None of that. Oh, this is. This is love. So everything was me just learning. So studying Mones per bride, studying Warren Buffett, studying Bill Ackman, studying. just so many different people. Peter Lynch, just studying them, understanding them. Joelle Green, black, just studying them, listening to them, like, getting my people, man, send me some books. Getting somebody I know, like, yo, man, tell your people, send me these books. I'm gonna pay you for it from the commissary. And so I would just read, read, read, read. I ain't had nothing else to do. I would go to work, come back to my dorm, read, and just read, and then I would get consumed in it because immediately I saw that there were two different Americas. There was the America that I knew and everybody around me had the same problem. There was a particular thread that ran through every hood across America. Every hood that I went to was always the same. And then we always look at another part of America and we'd be like, yo, how do they get that? and I was like, the reason why in my mind was because they have access to a different type of information.

So is it information or is it an environment?

So it's a combination of both, right? So people like to talk about racism a lot. And while it does exist, I think classism is a completely different animal.

What does that mean?

Animal. So classism is there's a group of people, no matter your color, that has a different information, pedigree, status, access.

That.

Other people don't have.

Doesn't matter what race or religion or where you're from. So how do people get into that class? Even if they don't fit the majority of the class, look like the majority, or come from the majority of that class. Where it could look like racism.

Yes. And that's the thing, like, even though racism exists, but it exists on a bigger picture at a smaller scale. So this is my introduction to it, is understanding that classism says, this is how our family is set up. Look, I'm gonna use you for example. Your father says, listen, you need to learn how to invest. You need to learn how to start a business. But also, I want you to meet so and so's son. I want you to meet so and so's brother. I want you to meet so and so's daughter. I want you to go to this school. I want you to go to this party with me. And so information gets passed down. Life insurance get passed down. wills, trust get passed down. Those type of things help you get access to room that me or these people over here will never see.

I want to be in the room wearing the outfit.

And so I was like, that's it. Yeah, that's it. The information is what changes everything.

Right.

And so I had this saying, education and information changes the conversation. If you change the conversation, you can change the compensation. If you can change the compensation, you can change the realization. You feel what I'm saying? It's because if I can get access to information, just something simple as investing, When I started teaching my home is about investing, I was like, yo, in order to be wealthy, you gotta own something. You can't be a, you cannot create wealth if you don't own nothing. If you don't own nothing, you're just a consumer. And if you don't own nothing and you're a consumer and you don't teach your kids how to own nothing, then now you've let them inherit it being a consumer.

Yeah, they have the same education, information and repetition that you created, they're gonna repeat what they're seeing.

And if nobody breaks it, nobody is a disruptor, right? No one becomes a disruptor. So now it's, well, I've never seen wealth, so I probably can't be wealthy. Let me just live my life like whatever. Let me live my life for me. Let me just keep buying things, right? Let me work hard. every day. And the little time I do get some free cash because I work so hard for it, I need some type of self-gratification I need some type of reprieve from this. I don't care if I can't afford it. Sacrifice. What am I sacrifice for? It's all paying these bills.

It's.

No, I'm not about to do that. And so now Christmas becomes the day where we go broke buying liabilities. Yeah, right. We, we have. more month left than money all the time. Right. We are, again, we are financially deprived because we have no relationship with money. Whereas this other class says, let's say assets of the blood of the oxygen to this.

Right.

Let me teach you about taxes. Let me teach you the importance of Life Insurance. Let me teach you the importance of this.

Right?

Let me teach you the importance of you may not like this person. Check this out. You may not like this person, but just because you don't like them don't mean you can't do business with them.

Right?

Because they have access to such and such that you don't. So what over here is if you don't like them, kill them. You don't like them, you know, have let them know you don't like them. Let them know there's animosity right there. because I wanted to like, there's it. The way that the world is viewed is two completely different ways. You feel me? And so because of that, this set of people, until they get exposed to it, until this class of people gets exposure, everyone will repeat that cycle.

Yeah.

Whereas this class of people, if you repeat, if you do anything less than what we've done already, like, what is your problem? You know what I'm saying? Why won't you be great?

Yeah. Right?

And so once I understood that, I was like, I get it. I get it.

Right.

This. This is the game changer.

So when you. When you knew you had a year left in prison, did you have a game plan? Was there a mindset of, like, okay, I've been studying for eight, eight years plus years, nine years, and here's my next three moves, or were you like, I, you know, obviously, if you don't have money, you got to work a job for certain periods so you can invest to own something, whether it be stocks, your own house or real estate or equity in something. You've got to make money to be invested, or you could borrow it from someone and invest it, but then you got to pay something off. So what were the next three moves after you got out of jail?

So the idea was to come home. I don't know. I was like, y'all could be wired. Right away, like, I gotta be warmed up. 'Cause you know, when you're in prison, like, you paint this picture and you never know who you really are until you jump in the water. Right, 'cause you gotta remember, I went to jail at 16. I come home, I'm 26. I'm a completely different man. At this point, the majority of my life has been in prison. My developmental years, I've been in prison. So my mind was like, all right, cool. I went to the halfway house, which was, you know, you've been- Six months.

To a year, yeah.

I had six months. So I remember I came home with like $4,500 and I bought me a Grand Prix.

After you got out of the six months, you came home with $4,500?

I came home with $4,500 and I said, the first thing I gotta do is I gotta give me a car. I don't even know how to drive. I gotta give me a car. So I remember my cousin who was a preacher at the time, he came, got me and I told him he had avalanche and he was like, man, drive. I was like, man, I don't know how. He said, if you don't learn nothing, you ain't gonna never learn. So I tried to avalanche, and then the next day, he took me to, two days later he took me to the license place. So I get my license. Wow. The lady tells me, she was like, you don't know how to drive, but I've been gone for 10 years. She was like, let's get your license.

Oh my gosh, that's crazy. That's not good.

Wow. She said, you deserve it. Wow. I said, yeah, man. So I remember going to buy my car and I was broke. By the time I bought the car and- Then you're broke now. I'm broke.

You already bought something that's a liability. It's not an asset.

You're already losing the money. I'm done. I'm like, all right, cool, but I'm like, I could get around.

I don't gotta ask nobody that.

You got some access. You got some flexibility. You got some- You can get around. And so, I remember I got into school. I was in Baton Rouge. So I learned how to weld. Like, all right, I'm gonna take this welding trade up. So I took that for six weeks, took fast track welding. So I got certified at that. I came home, I was an iron worker. So I started building schools, painting some power plants, schools, power plants, prisons. I was doing all of that. And I was like, man, I'm about to start hustling, man.

Mm, going back. Yo, it's too hard.

This is, this work is not worth it.

This is not it. I'm not gonna do this for 10 hours.

I'm not gonna do this.

I'm not gonna do this.

For 10 bucks an hour or whatever. That's what I was making at the time. I was like, I'm not gonna do this, man. This is not gonna get me to Warren Buffett fast enough.

Right.

So I get back in the streets. No way. Got back in the streets. Come on. Got back in the streets, man.

Even after all that education and all that information and knowing it's the wrong thing and knowing that he can get you right back in there. Mike Tyson says something that's amazing, man. He says everybody got a plan until they get punched in the face.

That's true.

You know what I'm saying? I got punched in the face. I was like, man, again, I'm influenced because I come home.

Your environment is that.

See it. I see the cause. I'm broke. I'm like, man, this ain't it. I'm going to work every day, and I'm just looking like, this ain't. This ain't gonna get it. So I remember taking my check, it's like 600. I got me a pound of weed. I said, we on.

Oh man, I'm gonna start splitting this up, packing it and dealing it.

I start selling weed, selling weed to the people at work, selling weed to the people at home. So I said, all right, I'm gonna be smart. I'm not gonna hustle all day. I'm gonna sell weed at work and at home.

Right.

So I'm doing that and, you know, I'm making money. You know, I started getting more weed, like that was my thing. So I started selling weed and X pills. Right, I was like, all right, cool. Like, this is it. So I would sell weed on the weekends when I was off, I would go to the clubs, sell X pill. I was like, all right, that's it. Like, I see my vision. And in my mind, I said, if I get $100,000, I'ma quit. No.

When are you gonna quit that? When are you gonna quit? No, not when I get 300 times.

It never happens.

No way.

So, 2007, I come home, 2007, in 2009, Me and my, one of my friends was in a car together. He had three strikes. Police pull us over. I had just served him a quarter pound of weed.

You just gave him?

Yeah.

So he had it on him?

He had it on him.

Oh.

Yeah, and so the police pull us over, he threw it.

Oh my gosh.

And the police don't find it.

Oh man.

But then something made them come back, and he finds it under the car. so now me being a friend, I know that my partner can't go to jail for another time. He gone. So I said, man, that's mine. So I was. I was. It may sound stupid, but in my mind, it's like I was smart enough because I knew that I could only get probation because it was my first drug charge.

What?

I already got a temper on robbery. One drug charge ain't gonna kill me, right?

In my mind, so.

He like, man, thank you, bro. I'm like, man, it's all good. I ain't tripping. So about two months later, did you.

Think to yourself, okay, now I need to stop this or were you like-.

No, that's a little probation talk, man. That ain't nothing, man. That's probation. I just did two years. That's probation. I already know they can't give me nothing for probation. I'm not even mad at that. So I remember like three months later, they kicked my door in.

Oh, no.

Eight pounds of weed.

Oh, they found it.

10 times. Ten thousand dollars. Oh, 40. 40 with extended clip on a beam, a 223 and 100 X pill. When the people kicked my doing, I.

Remember.

The man looked at my TV and the stock market was on and he said, you watching the stock market? And this what you doing? And immediately in that moment, I said, I done effed up.

Oh, you said this out loud?

Yeah.

Dope part about that was I was able to get found not guilty because they kicked my door in with no search warrant. Right, right, right. So it's called Fruit of a Poisonous Tree.

Oh my gosh.

So I was able to get found not guilty on that. And in the charges of my partner, we did what's called the Crosby Plea, saying that I copped out only in my best interest. and then when it went to the full circuit court, they was able to throw it away. So I got away with a clean slate. You know how the state of Louisiana, anybody looking at that, go look that up.

So but how long was that process, that energy, was it three months, six months?

Nah, that was, so I came home in 2007, that was 2009. From 2009 to 2012, I was fighting those charges.

Oh my gosh, it's a lot of energy.

It's a lot, and it broke me.

Yeah.

And I remember after that, I'm broke again.

Now you got all, yeah, you got court fees, you got lawyer fees, whatever it is.

I start robbing dope dealers.

Crazy, man.

So, Rod, this is what I know.

2012, yeah.

2012, I start robbing dope dealers. So, I'm like, all right, a friend of mine, he used to be with it. So we robbing. He like, bro, what we doing? I'm like, man, we robbing dope boys now.

Oh my gosh, man.

This is what we doing. We robbing dope boys.

You're not selling, you're robbing.

We just robbing now. What they can do?

All they can do.

Kill me here. Like, I was successful for a while. And then I almost got killed.

Oh my gosh.

And I remember we was doing a situation and I forgot something. A dude put a 12 gauge in the back of my head and he said, I would have knocked his shit off. And in my mind, I remember this ain't about to go out. But my partner was there, God bless his soul. He said, bro, look, I can't stop you from killing my homie. But if you kill him, though, you gonna die right with him. The next best thing you can do is let him go. And I promise I'm gonna let you go. God was with me.

Wow.

Dude, let me go. I remember us getting out of it. And I said, though, I'm finished. I found out guilty twice and this situation happened. Yeah, you're like, I can't do it.

I'm gonna die in the next three years.

Yeah, good. Or I'm back to jail for, like, I'm good.

And I committed to it. So, but then you go back to welding or something?

I did like, I started back doing iron work heavy. But you're making 11 bucks an hour. Now I'm doing good. So now I was still doing a little bit. So now I was building stadiums and power plants. So I'm making $2,500 a week now. So I had to build my craft up.

I had done got good and I.

Was getting like $25, $32.

Okay, so you're building that up.

Yeah, I had to build that up. Man, I quit.

You're making 25 an hour, an hour, yeah.

Now I'm bringing home $2,000 a week. It's not bad.

Good working, man.

It's great, it's good money, man. I still had it. You're making six figures.

Yeah, I was making like $100,000 a year.

It's not bad. $120,000 a year. That's amazing. It's like a lot of money. I was good, but like, I'm a hustler. It's just in me. But I never went back to the streets. That's when I started taking this serious. 2014, I said, Man, you playing the wrong game, bro. And I was still, the crazy part was on the journey, I was still teaching my homies in the street about the stock market. Oh my gosh. I was literally telling them- But you weren't doing it yourself. Yeah, I was still investing. Oh, you weren't doing it? I was still investing.

This one made me take it serious.

When they kicked my doing, they froze my bank account. Oh man. They took my truck, but they didn't mess with my stocks. Oh my gosh. And I said, oh, They don't think we that smart. All right.

Let me show that one.

Cool. So I really just started telling my home in the street like, say bruh, like, that's where you should put your money at. Don't put your money in, nope, put your money right here. And so they didn't get it.

Invest in something that can give value to them.

Invest it. We wear Nikes all the time. We should own Nike.

We should own stock in Nike.

We should own stock in Nike. all that's got Apple iPhones. Just in the beginning, we should own iPhones. I'm like, yo, like we were at Dickies and Timberlands. That's owned by a company called VFC Corp. We could own that. Like we were Louis Vuitton, Moet, we drink Moet, we drink Hennessy. That's LVMH on the stock market. We wear Gucci, that's PPRU on the stock market. We got 18-10, like bro, we can own this. Just be like, man, we're gonna do the stock market crash. I'm like, if it crashes, you just buy more. And so then, like some of them got them, some of it didn't. But then I started, I had to switch it. I was like, well, what happens if you go to jail the day tomorrow? You come home with no money. You got money in the stock market, what happens? You don't owe nobody nothing, you come.

Home with some money.

More money. And so I started preaching it to my homies. And that's when financial literacy really changed my life. Because at this point, I was dedicated to, like, I knew that the streets wasn't for me no more. like, I hadn't already been through all the phases. I did the 10 years in prison. I got found not guilty. My life had been on the line several times. I'm still here. I was like, you're like, God got something different for me. Wow. Again, that's why I said I was developed in the darkness. It ain't nothing that nobody can say about the streets that I ain't never did nothing. So for me, it's like, from that, okay, I looked at myself like, I'm the person who can teach them because just being real, if somebody go to them Street dudes with a suit and tie, they're not gonna feel that you ain't been through what I've been through. So now I wanted to represent something different. I wanted to represent Wall Street in a way that I'm gonna wear my hoodie, I'm on my team tops, I'm on my tennis shoes, but I got the same information. I can help you change your life. I can teach you the game that they playing. If you wouldn't learn it. It reminds you of the dope game. And so that's when my life shifted, when I started taking this serious and I started saying, I'm gonna be the first person in my family to build wealth. I'm gonna be the first person in my family to have a trust. I'm gonna be the first person in my family to own land. I'm gonna be the first, like. And I'm gonna teach a bunch of dope dealers how to do the same thing. But then my mission got bigger because I realized it wasn't just the dope dealers. It was people that was working nine to fives every day that still didn't see a way out. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna teach them too. All right, let me just start educating my people. Let me start educating this class of people. You know what I'm saying? Because now we can get this information. Now we can start saying, well, it is possible.

Right.

When was the first big win, I guess, legitimate win? Was it like, okay, I'm investing in a stock and I saw like a five to ten x? Was it teaching and getting paid for your service and, you know, educating people and getting paid for that? Was it...

So for me, the first... I'll never forget this, a friend of mine was in a jam and at this time I had been teaching him since 2014, so maybe like 2016-2017. and one of his spots got kicked in. He had no more money. He was like, bro, I don't got no money, I don't got nothing. I said, man, sell the stocks. Sell the stocks. And at this time- so he had.

Invested in stocks a couple years prior.

They had been, like I had, like, I always been a leader.

Are they setting up like a TD Ameritrade account or whatever?

Yeah, I'm literally walking my homies through the process.

Yeah.

Like I'm walking them through, look, we gotta get a bank account.

Yeah. And then put the money.

Legitimately money in the bank account, bro. Like, put the money in the bank account, bro. And I remember he was like, man, I need law your money because I had told him, you put the money in the market. Just forget about it. Just let it go.

You know, money's gone. Just let it go.

It's gonna keep making you money. It's gonna. Your. Your money now becomes your employees. You know what i'm saying?

Dollars multiplying. It's working for you.

It's working for you. A dollar that ain't moving is a dollar that's losing. Yeah. So if a dollar that's consistently attracting more money, that's your employee. You sending them out there to go get more money, they recruiters for you. And so, and I said something like, think about this dope game. Like, if you know this company got some good dope, then you know this company gonna be around for a long time. And so I remember he sold like $8,000 worth of stock and it helped him from going to prison. Mm.

'Cause he was able to hire a.

Lawyer and get a lawyer. And he ain't hustled since then.

Wow.

And so it'd be the moments for me don't be about myself. It'd be moments like that where I know somebody can say, because of this, like, this helped my life, this impacted my life, this changed my life, this made me see my money different, this made me feel like this was possible. like, that's the power of financial literacy. That's the power of saying, now I got the right information. Mm-. Like, information would change our whole life. And so that was it. Now, for me, it was saying, like, first it was like, here's a thought. I got a thousand dollars invested. I got ten thousand dollars invested. I got fifteen thousand dollars invested. And so for me, I started using the market also as, like, a savings account. Yeah. because I know that my money wasn't making no money in the savings account. So I started buying like index funds. Like, I'll just buy the index fund and I'll treat them like stocks. Yep. That'll be my savings account and then I'll do individual stocks for my real investments. So if I can get eight to 10% on an index fund, that's better than 0.101 in a savings account. All right, cool. That's my savings account then. And it started, it's a mind game with me. If I got the money in the index fund and I'm using the index fund as a savings account, as long as I see the money working for me, I'm not gonna touch it.

Right.

In a savings account, what happens is I see the money.

I can take it out.

I can take it out easy.

Right?

And so it's all of those little tricks and those little nuances that make us be like, why ain't never learned this? And so you start to realize that the reason why the elitists can't teach financial literacy to certain people is because then they lose customers. A lot of wealthy people can't teach financial literacy to poor people because those are the biggest customers. Who else gonna be the consumers? The lion can never tell the zebra or the giraffe how to get away or the gazelle how to get. What are you gonna eat? If the lion tells the zebra or the gazelle how to get away, they're gonna tell everybody else. Not a lion. No longer the king of the jungle or the king of the Safari. It's a vegan. You know what I'm saying? Nothing against veganism. But it's why would I teach you how to be a financial predator? Financial predators need financial prey. So if you look at my community now, you see check cash in places. What does a check cash in place do? The check cash, if I get $100, you gotta get a check cash and pay $150. That's taking away money from you.

Right.

And the reason why check cash and players gonna always have be prevalent in the hood, because people have no relationship with money. So they said that the average person spends a dollar and 25 Cent for every one dollar they make.

Wow.

You know what I'm saying?

Right.

Like, that's horrible. So you have more people living above the means. You have more people, like, saying, I gotta get this. I gotta get that. And one thing I've learned, like, even about wealthy people, what I love is that. there's never. I have to have this. It's about assets first, saving second, spend was left. Right. And Hood is the other way around. It's spin first, bills. If I save, if I have enough to save, then I might save until I find something else I won't buy. Yeah.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So it's always like for me and where I'm at now, my journey is. how do I now make financial literacy prevalent in everybody that comes from the class where I come from? Because I know some poor ass white people too.

Absolutely.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So it's like, how do I now teach them the importance of financial literacy? And so now we feel like we can have leverage in the game because now, you know, you tell, like, I get pride of somebody saying, man, I bought my first stock. That's the power of owning that first stock is a game changer.

Yeah.

'Cause you're telling people ain't never owned nothing a day in their life. So my motto is always helping the culture build wealth one share at a time.

One share at a time, yeah.

One share at a time.

Instead of being and consuming everything, start owning something. Even if it's one stock, one index fund, you know, a piece of real estate from a real estate investment. You don't have to buy a whole house. You know, you can buy $20 for a stock. That's it. And then let that work for you.

That it worked. And then over time, what I know about human nature is progress breeds like addiction.

Absolutely.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you start seeing something, you're like, what?

We get more of this.

I want more of that. You go to the gym, you see one little muscle. Yeah, I'm going.

It's funny, I saw, you know, I get dividends every month from a real estate that I'm involved in.

Right. Okay.

So I got a. This morning, right before you came in, I just opened up my email, and there was three notifications of different payments from three different real estate properties I'm invested in. Yeah. That I invested in a few years ago.

Right.

And every month I get a check from money that I invested in years ago. That money's not sitting in the bank, just, like, depreciating in value with inflation. I'm not blowing it on some car or something. I got a car, it's great. I don't need more clothes. I'm putting it into things that can bring me passive income to then pay my bills. And then the extra cash that I have, I put it into more assets to help me pay my bills, hire more people on my team, and help serve my mission. And I think that's, you know, I see that and I'm like, man, I wish I would have put more in. You always think, that's always it. I should have bought more of that stock. I should have bought more of that real estate. And you can always get started now putting more in. Yes. What should we people thinking about when it comes to investing then? How do they know what to invest in and to not, because you can invest in something and lose all your money.

Yes.

So what approach do you give to people there?

So I always say the first thing is, and I say this and I want people to understand this, invest in what you understand.

So if you wear Nikes.

Yeah. You should be looking at apparel brands, right? Nike, Lululemon, because you understand that, right? If you a workout person, then you should be looking at, like, Planet Fitness, things like that. Like, if you are a tech person, if you use an Apple phone, you should 100 be on looking at Apple, right? If you're a car person, like. But one of the things I like now is fintech, Financial Technology. so everybody uses PayPal or Square, right? That is the way money is changing. The way we using money is completely different now. So I think everybody should be investing in fintech right now, 100. But I look at it as so every investor has what's called an investor identity, like what you're willing to risk, your risk tolerance, what companies you're more familiar with. If you're a doctor, then you know more about medicine, so you should be in biotech, a pharmacist, Healthcare, you should, that should be your thing. If you are, again, a person who's in software, then cyber security software, that's where you're going to be strong at. And that's where your strong points are. I remember Warren Buffett said for a long time, he didn't understand technology, so he didn't buy technology. He didn't buy Apple stock until, like, 2017.

He's like, I don't understand.

I don't even have a computer. I don't use it. Yeah, I don't use it. Right, so I learned that from him. He says I put things in a too hard box. It was too hard for me to understand. I don't do it. And what I love about investing is it's not an IQ sport. It's not about who has the biggest IQ at all because it's most so about how do I stay in my circle of competence and what I understand because that's what gives me the advantage. Mm-. Whatever I under, like for me, it's banks. Like I love banks. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, love it. FinTech, love it. Still dealing with, like I love money. I'm a hustler, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I love that. So that's why I'm like heavy at. Sure. You know what I'm saying? But I'm not a, I'm not a bio-pharmaceutical person. So I stay away from that. How do I stay away from it? Right, so the easiest thing is like wherever you work at, like, look around, wherever you shop at, look around. Every time I buy a product, I'm looking at who made it. So I can go look that up, see if it's a public company. If it's a private company, right? If it's public, that means we can all invest into it. If I can invest into it, I want a piece of it. You know what I'm saying? Just to keep it simple, we don't even have to make it hard. You don't have to be Warren Buffett out the gate. You don't have to be that. Warren Buffett didn't become Warren Buffett until 20 years, 30 years in. You know what I'm saying? So you gotta figure out who you are as a person who you are as an investor that take you to that next level.

Do you have a strategy where every month you're automatically putting money away into investments or when you get a chunk of money, then you're putting a certain percent into it? What's your mindset around investing in terms of how often you do it, how frequently you're putting money in?

Yeah. So every time I get money, at least 50% of it goes to investment. Really? Yeah, I'm heavy with it. I could do a lot with less.

Yeah.

Like I don't live my life like that. I literally, and I'll say this on camera, I only have like $10,000 sitting in the bank. My life, if something happens to me, my life is not set up in a way where I need a lot of money on hand.

You can always sell stock.

You're not going, you know, so for me it's, I do three things every time I get some money. I invest for my daughter first, and then I invest for myself, and then I see what else got to be paid. Right. right. So even when investing for myself and I'm putting money in the market, I'm sometimes just putting it in my account so it's available for me to use the right time when the time permits. Right. So every week I'm putting money in. Okay, let me put this money into my account. Then I have separate accounts because I got portfolios that are designed to do different things for me.

Right.

So I have a dividend portfolio, whereas everything in that portfolio is about me having businesses that pay dividends. So I got Costco. T-Ro price, Home Depot, O'Reilly, companies like that. That is just designed for me to get dividends. Yeah.

Even if it's only 20, 30 bucks a month, it's something.

That's it. And so I look at it as, okay, this will be passive income 39. I won't need this until I'm 59, 60.

It keeps reinvesting in itself.

So now they buy me more shares of themselves. All right, cool. And then one portfolio I use for growth stocks. So all right, this is where my Apple's at, my fintech companies, my PayPals and Affirms and things like that. Because now I'm gonna get a lot of growth. That's why I'm taking more risk right here, right? And then there's an option portfolio I have, I trade at. So now I got three portfolios to have to do three different things when they have three different agendas. And I got a Roth IRA.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? that's tax, you know, for tax advantages. So that's Financial literacy.

And life insurance.

Yeah, yeah. Got whole life insurance. Right. So understanding, just understanding how the wealthy play the game. I just bought 40 Acres of land, right? I said, I'm gonna create agriculture. Why? Because agriculture gets more breaks than anybody, you know what I'm saying? But 40 Acres of land, free and clear. It's mine. I'm gonna turn it into a farm.

Right?

Grow organic food, organic vegetables. I got water well on it.

Wow.

Right? Cool. All right, cool. Let's do that. Tax advantages for this. Anything comes off that land, I can get breaks on that. So it's me sitting back saying, this is how the wealthy play the game of life. Not in survival mode, but in offense. Mm-. The moment you can switch from survival mode to offense, the game changes. The more aggressive team in the game, the more aggressive boxing in the game, the more aggressive, like, that's when the game is played again. Class of people are used to life dictating them. I'm gonna take the punches. I didn't come. How you doing, man? You know, I'm making it.

Yeah.

The responses be different, man. What's up? How you feeling, man? I'm making it, man. Well, you ask somebody, what's up man? Just close out on a deal. You know, got a couple business meetings. Like, I love attacking life. And it don't have to be, it don't always have to be going the way you want. As long as you attacking it. Every day I get up saying, yo, I got an opportunity to go attack.

Right?

I got an opportunity to change something to make sure, turn my last name into an asset.

Right?

Turn my last name into an asset.

That's cool.

Own my 24 hours. That's the goal. Like, the person who can own their 24 hours can create Freedom, right? That's the difference between Financial Freedom and then Financial Independence.

What's the difference?

So Financial Independence is saying, I now can make money for myself. I don't have to worry about my job. I don't have to worry about none of that. I can create the cash flow that comes to my house. Financial Freedom says, money is no longer even an issue. Big difference. Because even someone who can create money for themselves still doesn't have freedom all the time. You can be an entrepreneur and be a slave to the business.

You build yourself a job.

You build yourself a job. But financial freedom says your money is not even an issue no more. And that don't even have to be a lot.

That's why I feel like some people, have this fantasy of entrepreneurship as like this ideal lifestyle that's going to come. Where I don't think people understand the weight of being an entrepreneur and how long it actually takes. I mean, you hear great stories of people that are like, oh, I built this thing and then sold it for a billion dollars. I usually took 10, 15, 20 years.

Yeah.

And so many punches in the face and the gut and ups and downs. But most businesses fail after a few years and the ones that succeed, a lot of the entrepreneurs are just working really hard to pay themselves a salary and take more responsibility, weight and pressure, taxes, you know, insurance, all these things they got to pay until they learn to break through.

Yeah.

And so it's not like the sexiest thing. It takes time and energy and a real persistence.

I remember that, like, just before the show, I asked you, I said, outside of consistency, Yeah. What was one of the things? And you was like, man, now, and I was like, this nine years. Yeah. Like, most people quit year one, year two. Like, nope, it's too much for me. I can't deal with it. It's pressure, right? But there's this thing about getting up, and let me say that I don't think there's nothing wrong with anybody working a job. Because I don't think entrepreneurship is for everybody.

I don't think it is, man.

Right? But I do know that building wealth is for everybody.

Absolutely. And you can take your money you're making from your job and invest it so it's working for you.

It should be your biggest investment.

And that's what you were doing.

That's what I did. But I feel to that, like, I think that everybody should at least once in their life go all in on something. Something that you just believe in. That's living to me. Because for me, I always, I don't need motivation because when I look at my life, my motivation is saying I'll never go back to that again. My motivation is saying that I have a daughter that I never want her to experience that life.

Right?

So getting up every day knowing that I can change my family, knowing that we are now in a time But we've never had the opportunity like we have now. And if I don't take advantage of that opportunity, when it's time for me to go, I'm gonna feel real messed up all day. You know what I'm saying?

Absolutely.

Because I don't, it's a difference between never getting the opportunity and getting the opportunity and never taking advantage of it.

Absolutely, man. Absolutely. How has mental health played into your life with the, the journey of learning how to heal so much trauma, pain, memories, experiences, not only as a kid, not only as in prison, but six, seven years ago when you were still doing a lot of things that were, you know, against the law and out of integrity, and how do you learn to emotionally heal so much?

I'm still healing. Yeah. I just told you, I gotta get your book right now, man.

I know.

When you talk, I gotta get that. I'm still healing. Man, I just, it's crazy because I just had a moment last night. I was talking to my mother and we had an okay relationship because she still got a lot of trauma and pain that she deal with. And it's hard for me to attempt to heal, run a business, and be aware that she has healing to do.

Right?

Like, that'd be a lot. Just last night, I was like, I can't take this, man. I can't do this. I can't do all this. You know what I'm saying? It's because I was trying to deal with her situation emotionally and rationalize the logic, then deal with, okay, I gotta do this, this, this, this. I'm trying to do this. And it was just a lot. And I had to step back. Me and my daughter's mother have a great relationship, and I told her, Man, healing, this was my exact words last night. I said, Man, healing is a lifelong process. I said, Man, this stuff takes forever. She said, well, you thought she was gonna heal overnight?

Your daughter said this?

No, my daughter's mother.

I was gonna say, Man, your daughter lies.

No, my daughter's mother. I said, Man, healing is a lifelong process. She said, what you thought she was gonna heal overnight? And it's understanding emotionally. So there's three phases in my life. Well, more than three, but you gotta realize there was me before prison, just seeing, viewing, observing, seeing a violence. Like, not only seeing my mom get shot, but also overdose, right? So, rationalizing that, me being homeless for a couple years of my life at a young age, then me going to prison, adapting to a completely different lifestyle, then coming home as a grown man, nobody's going to give you hands out. So now I have to realize who I am as a free man, a free grown man, right? Then in that process of learning who I am, I'm fighting cases again, right? And then we go to. Okay, well, this is not it. I'm just gonna, you know, get into robbery, because the only leverage I feel like I have in life at these points is leveraging my life. Right, the only leverage, the only fighting thing, I don't know at the moment how to leverage information and knowledge. The only thing that I knew that I had was my life. So okay, freedom of prison. I mean prison or debt, it's the only thing I can. So it's now breaking away from that and now being a leader, being an influential person, in my communities around the people now accepting that because no one teaches you how to be a leader. No one teaches you how to do it. You got to learn that on the fly. You got to learn, okay, I can't see this. I can't see that. And then social media is something different. And so I'm learning that. Yeah, I'm still learning how to heal. I'm still. I'm still praying more. You know, I gotta. We're talking about, like, we got to get back with the therapist, right? just so I can brain dump. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I got into journaling, like, getting these thoughts out of my head, listening to stuff like Atomic Habits and, you know, just stuff like that. So I'm. I'm still healing, and I know it's gonna be a lifelong process because you gotta remember, I don't be shot before. I don't been shot at. I don't did some shooting. And honestly, if you shoot somebody, you.

Deal with that all your life.

What does that feel like, man? I still have nightmares about that. You know what I'm saying? Like, in the moment, you feel like I did the right thing.

Justified.

You justify it, right? You feel like, man, it had to be done. You know what I'm saying? And I think maybe the difference in a lion when he eats a gazelle is it's on to the next one. Right, but human nature comes in.

You gotta live with the consequences.

Yeah, like, I'm gonna kill that man. you know what I'm saying? Like when you deal with that and it never goes away. You know what I'm saying? Like it never goes away. And part of you, you know, I'll have, like right now, like I don't even be wanting to be around guns.

Right.

You know, be like, man, I'm good, man. I don't wanna go to the gun range, right?

Like, it's not worth it.

Nah, it bring me, it bring me back to a place of my life where I was. and I feel like the only way for me to move forward is sometimes you gotta, like, disattach yourself from certain environments, certain things. So I'd be like, nah, man, I honestly don't even like listening to music that has a lot of talk, a lot of gangster talk. Because, one, I lived it, and it brings in a different emotion in me. I'm like, nah, if I'm gonna be here, I don't want to get into that emotion. And I know with music, most people are telling their story. Mm-. I don't want to relive that story.

Right.

That's part of my healing.

Trying to create a new story.

Yeah, so that's part of my healing. I'm always healing, man.

What do you think would be the three big things you need to take on or let go of in order to get to a completely different level in your life one year from today?

Mm.

So when I see you in a year in Atlanta or in LA, and you're like, I did these three things, or I let go of these three things, and it took me to another level of financial abundance and another level of emotional freedom and healing. What would those things be?

Three things that I would let go or take on. Or take on. One is more mentoring.

Mentoring more people.

No, me getting more mentorship.

You getting more mentorship, yeah.

Yeah, because I think that life, I think everyone should has a mentor. Mm-. Because we should always be learning.

Yeah. Right.

And it doesn't always have to be with finances. It can just be with life experiences. So I think one of the things for me is, like, finding, like, I had a mentor now. I think I'm out growing a little bit, so I'm ready to get another one. So one is mentoring that I would love to take on. Two is truly cleaning up the way I eat because you are 100 a reflection of what you eat.

Absolutely. Right.

So I already don't drink. I don't smoke, but my eating habits, not the best.

Yeah.

And the third one would be actually just sitting still. Like, I move around so much in the process of doing this and doing this. I think one of the things that's important for us is to sit still. I pray a lot already. And I think when you sit still, you can get clarity and you can get instructions.

Right?

I think we move around so much, we don't get to get the instruction. I think everybody has an assignment, right? Everybody here has an assignment. If you're moving around so much, you can never hear. that assignment. People always say, follow your passion. Follow your passion. I think it should be follow your purpose. Because the assignment is attached to your purpose. And it's not to get real spiritual or crazy on people, but I just feel like the only way you get that assignment is you sit down and talk to the person who gave it to you, right?

Your Creator.

That's it. Yeah.

Yeah.

You sit down and talk to the person who gave it to you. And the only way you could do that, the only way they can talk to you, whoever it is, is when you're sitting still. So for me, it would be getting, like, more mentors. I want to have a mentor at all the time because what? Again, it reverse back to where I came from. It was OGs that taught you a lot of stuff. and they only could teach you what they knew. So you became a reflection of that. And then if you didn't have an OG to tell you something, you freestyled it.

Yeah.

And the freestyling, you may not know, it cost you a lot. A lot of mistakes, a lot of hard times, a lot of money. And some people who freestyled it, it cost them their life. So for me, I take on those same principles and say, okay, like, not only am I a leader, Not only am I influential, but my goal is to be a person who can change or be a vessel for change. And because it's all new to me, I need somebody who's already took on that journey.

I'm always talking about investing in coaches and mentors. I love it, man. And I have a coach in pretty much every area of my life. And I think it's hard to think we can do something on our own if we've never done it before.

You've never done it before.

It's hard to think that we can do it consistently when things get challenging and hard without some type of, you know, emotional support from a friend, an accountability buddy, a coach, a mentor, whatever it is, whatever you want to call it. I'm a big fan of investing in it. So you're accountable to that time with that Mentor or finding some skin in the game with the coach or Mentor. And if you don't have the money right away, then you could find mentors without investing that, but finding other ways to add value. And I think that's such a massive, massive part of my growth and my success is being around the right people.

Yeah.

It changes. Like, I understood at first, I. At first, I. So I'm my only child. So a lot of me is always, man, I got this. I could do this. I don't need nobody to teach me that. I can do this, you know, like, you. You know, it be hard, but as you start to put that ego to the side and say, nah, like, I can learn something from that person. This person can teach me something. Let me humble myself to learn this lesson. Because if I learn this lesson from them, that's less haughty and pain I gotta go through. And learning from that person speeds up my process.

Absolutely. There's so many things I learned from my three older siblings that I didn't repeat, you know? And I mentioned before, my brother went to prison when I was eight. I went to the prison with my family almost every weekend to visit in the visiting hour, in the visiting room. And I was like, I don't want to be here. You know, I want to make sure that I don't go down this path. I started doing things when I was 12, 11 to like 12 and a half, 13, where I started doing petty stuff. I was stealing like candy bars and cigarettes, like whatever. I was just like as a high. And I did it almost every day for probably a year, year and a half, I had to steal something.

Mm-.

And it's crazy to think, but I remember getting caught once.

Mm.

And I got caught by my dad.

Mm.

I didn't even get caught by a store, right? I remember getting caught and feeling like, and I was kind of hanging out with the wrong group, just doing things that I wasn't really proud of myself. Little stupid stuff. I remember thinking like, if I keep doing this, here's where it could go.

Mm.

Maybe it doesn't happen in the next year or two, but Three, four, five years, if I keep doing these same actions, I'm gonna get more of these results. I'm gonna feel bad about myself. I'm gonna get caught. I'm gonna hurt other people along the way. And who knows what consequences could come from that. So I remember that moment, I was like, I'm never stealing or doing anything like this ever again. I need to change my environment. I didn't change my mindset around this. And I begged my parents to send me away to a school around kids that I, a private school they sent me to, a private boarding school.

Yeah.

Begged them. to send me to this place to get me out of the environment. What you're talking about with your daughter, like sending her to a class of an environment that speaks differently, that has a different, you know, mindset, everything, behaviors, all that stuff.

That's important. That environment is so crucial. Like even just being around, so like for me, being around people that understand the importance of investing.

Not only just, yeah, not just spending their money, but investing in them.

Yeah, investing the money, investing in their personal development, investing in their business, investing in teaching them how to run businesses. Like being around them made me be like, damn, I gotta invest in myself too.

Right.

And it's something we take for granted. And being around people who understand that a certain amount of money isn't what you may see, though that's a lot of money. Somebody like, no, I may spend that on investing in myself. I may spend it on buying assets. like, understanding that people who build businesses are different. Like, damn, like, that's. You build that business, like, okay, those conversations change your life. Yeah, it's environment. If I'm in. If I'm in the hood, if I'm my community and I'm telling people about investing and doing this and they all. And all they want to do is party and drink, then no matter how positive I am, at some point, I'm gonna say, ain't worth it, man. Let's go party and drink.

Right?

All right, cool. If you're around people that they complaining about their bills and their bosses and they working every day, then that's not an environment that's conducive to you being successful. That's not an environment that's conducive to change. It's only. It's only so long that you can flirt with the other side of what you want that you become that. Yeah. And like, if you want to be healthy, if you want to work out, it's only so long you can chill with people that won't go to all you e-buffees all the time. You'll be like, you know what? I might as well eat this too.

You got to change your identity in the process too.

Evolution.

Yeah, you got to change the identity and, you know, say, I don't do these things. That's not part of my identity.

That's it. Yeah. I read this book. I can't think of what it was, and it said, there were two people. that were attempting to quit smoking cigarettes. One person said, when off the cigarette, they said, yo, I'm trying to quit. I'm trying to quit smoking. I'm good. And the other person said, no, I don't smoke anymore. The person who said, I doesn't smoke, I don't smoke anymore, immediately changed the identity.

Yeah.

The person that said, I'm trying to quit smoking, still Associated themselves with smoking. So it's only a matter of time before they said, well, let me hit the cigarette one time. Trying to because I'm trying to it is not and so that is important.

When you decide I'm not this is not what I do anymore It's not my identity then you just have to keep saying that every time it tries to come up. No, that's not my identity. I'm not doing that anymore.

It's part of who you are you change that you evolve and the evolution and who you are should be ongoing because who I am today I Won't be that person in 90 days or six months some aspects of me have changed. You're going to change, and I want that. I've never let people, especially on this part of my journey, hold me to one layer of who I once was. Man, you used to do this. I know I used to, because I wasn't this person. I'm not that no more. I can't be that no more. I have way more to lose now than to even be that or attempt to be that. Yeah. I'm not that, right? And so that's what, like, that's what's like, I look at me now and see the change. I look at me now and say, like, I appreciate where I'm at now, but more importantly, I appreciate, like, where I'm going. I appreciate the kind. I appreciate the people I'm around right now. I remember I was talking to a close friend of mine, and he got into. He didn't get into nothing. He. Something had happened. I was like, brother, you need me. You know I'm here. He said, I would never put you in that situation. I love you too much to bring you there. I wouldn't love you as a friend if I did that. That showed me like, all right, I'm around the right people. I'm around because I come from an era of people where the only way you prove loyalty is through, I'm willing to die for you. I'm willing to go to jail for you. I'm willing to do this for you. I'm willing to risk my life for you. I'm willing to leave my family to show you I'm loyal to you.

Right?

I'm willing to, you know, go to prison to show you I'm willing to hold this block down and show this block that I'm loyal. I'm willing to leave my same family who I say I'm protecting and providing for. I'm willing to leave them to, you know what I'm saying? Like, so it's that change in me now. It was like, what? Oh, I don't care about that.

That. That.

That's. That's. That's the change I won't represent.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? That's the. Yo, like, you really want to take care of your family? Are you. Are you willing to go to jail?

Let's not take care of your family.

Because the same people who you are defending them from, you've now left them, too. Right.

Yeah.

So, like, are you really. So for me, it's. It. It's teaching them financial literacy, but most so the evolution, the mindset shift. Because they can look at me and say, man, I know Trap was in them streets. Because he talked it the way I talk it. He has the intricate details that only somebody in the streets know. If he could do that, man, I know I could do it. And then I come like, yo, it ain't easy.

Right.

It ain't easy, but if you want it, and then now, you know, we've heard a million times, like, what is the why? What is the purpose? For me, it's so much bigger than myself. I feel like your purpose has nothing to do with you. Like, you got this school of greatness. School of greatness is not about you. It's about how many people you gonna impact with this. Why you nine years in?

Right.

If it was about you, you wouldn't have made it nine years.

Retire, man.

You would have got tired. Yeah. Yeah. Personally, you'd got birthed. I don't want to do this no more. But you know every time you turn them cameras on, that conversation you have gonna change somebody life. that's what keep you going. Every time I cut on something, I go do an interview, I talk, I get on Instagram, I know I'm gonna change somebody like that.

That's great.

I'm gonna tap into something just a little bit different. And if I can do that, that's one person I kept out of prison. That's one person that I made them look that death a little bit different. That's one family I may say, you know what? I won't be here for my little one. So let me do something different, right? that's bigger than me, man.

That's powerful, man.

That's bigger than me, man.

What?

When did you. Are you still doing welding?

Nah, man. I haven't.

Or when was the last time you did that?

So I walked away from my job in 2019, man. Yeah.

Is that because you were making. You got enough saved up and invested. Is that because you were doing other things?

What?

So 2019, I was building a power plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana. It was the S.A.S.S. Chemical Project, one of the biggest projects in the Southeast region now. I walked away from the job to be an educator. To be an educator?

Yeah.

To teach.

To teach.

I walked away and I said, well.

They wanted me to shave my beard. Yeah. You know, like, nah, I'm not doing that.

I was like, I'm not doing that. I had this thing since 2002, man.

I'm not doing that, man. And it was like, what you mean you're not gonna shave your beard? I'm like, man, it ain't It ain't worth it. And I remember, that's why I say, I think everybody should have one thing they go all in on. So I looked at my account and said, all right, we got money invested. Pretty good. Let me just focus on it and let me focus on teaching people. And I said, I quit. I walked away from it. And I said, you had enough saved.

And invested into the last, what, a year or two years maybe?

I don't know, probably six months.

Six months?

Yeah. Yeah, probably six months. Depending on how I live. Yeah. Depending on what I did. I remember calling my daughter's mama like, look, I'm about to quit this job. Wow. So instead of me sending you five, six hundred a week, let me just pay for her Nursery. Because my daughter was like, maybe four at the time. Yeah, three, something like that. I was like, let me just pay for Nursery until I figured this out. I said, I ain't going back to the streets and I ain't going back to that job. I said, I'm all in on me. I'm gonna create change. I believe in it. I know this could change the hood. She was like, you believe in it, I believe in it. You know what I'm saying? And so 2019. I quit my job. That was my last time. And I've been building this from the travel to Wall Street. I've been building a Wall Street Travel brand ever since. Came with a lot of ups and downs, but I never turned my back on it.

Right.

And I real, I knew that it was going to change my life while changing a lot of people life. And I was, I was cool with that. I, I bet on it, right? I bet on it, and I I ain't never prayed as much in my life as I do.

What's the biggest myths around money that you've learned about since then, since kind of going all in on a business and your own thing?

One of the biggest things I always say is that I've never met a person working two or three jobs that actually was doing better. Because all you did was sell more time.

Sleep less, stress more.

I think that is one of the biggest myths is saying I gotta work harder. I don't think getting where you want to go at in life is not about actually working harder.

Right.

And I get it, man. If you're already in debt, you got bills, you got kids, you got responsibilities, you got these things because you've been choosing those behaviors consistently for years. You've gotten yourself into a hole. that is probably harder to get out of.

Yeah.

So how do you switch that mentality of like, I hear what you're saying, Trap. It's not about working that extra two jobs, but I got all these bills, I got kids, I got this, I got that, I got my rent, food, I'm already taking government subsidies, I'm doing these things. What's the next move? To start getting me out of working harder and working smarter.

So I think now what happens is we now have to start saying, okay, I always say that we can. The problem is hard to identify. The problem is hard to identify. It's the lie that's hard for us to see. And it's saying that, all right, I don't have the money right now. That's the problem. Why don't you have the money? It's the lie. I don't make enough.

No.

Well, you got bad money habits, right?

You'Re making bad decisions.

You're making bad assumptions.

And they compound it.

Yeah.

Right. So, and for me, and just to get to that question is saying, okay, so now let's lay out an outline. I think one of the things we fail to do is plan. Like, what is the strategy to get us out of this situation? And if we end a bad situation, sacrifice has got to be made.

Right.

So, okay, cool. How do we get out of this situation? All right, cool. So maybe you do take on another way. Maybe you do take on another job.

Right.

Okay, that's cool. how long are we taking on that job? And are we using this other job specifically for paying off debt or getting me out of this hole? Because the objective is not to work the two jobs, right? Or I would say the world we in right now, that smartphone is so amazing, so powerful. So find a way to create some passive income from that. Like it is, it's Limitless. yeah, right. Like we are. The situation that most people are in, they didn't get in overnight. So the goal shouldn't be, how do I get out of it overnight?

It should be a plan over time.

It should be a plan over time. This is the reason why people who scam will always have a job is because it's always easy to sell somebody in a desperate situation how to get rich quick. It's always easy to sell somebody on how to get rich quick when in a desperate situation, the worst place you won't be at in life is a desperate. It's the worst place you won't be at, right? It's desperate because you're willing to actually put yourself in the worst situation to try to get better. And nine times out of ten, it only gets worse. So for me, it's saying, like, let's really take a back. And that's one of the things I love about the stock market is I've learned how to run my life like a business, not my business. Like my life is ran like a business. Like, I understand, okay, this how much came in. this month, this how much money I'm spending? Not in my business, in my life, it's how much my bills cost. Right. This is how much food intake costs.

Right.

This is how much I'm giving myself for, you know, miscellaneous things. Because I'm not, I think some people feel like I don't got to spend no money on. No, let's be realistic. You're going to spend some money, right? That's going to happen. But let's not be abusive with it, because money is the tool. Yeah. Money is a tool, not a goal. Money is a tool, not a goal. If we use the tool for what it's for, it leverages our life. Right.

What's it for?

It's for to give you leverage. It's for to build wealth. It's for to buy back time. It's for to give you access. It's for, it's for to give you opportunity. I always say that. I use my money for three things. Access, information and assets. That's the triangle, man. That's the Phil Jackson triangle.

Yeah.

Information, access and access. And why? It's because the information and the access allows you to become the asset.

You become the asset. You become not investing in assets.

Well, both.

So.

Investing assets, but the biggest asset.

You are the most valuable asset.

You're the most valuable asset.

The wisdom, your knowledge, your experience, your last name, your credibility, your relationships.

Biggest asset. No one can never take that away from you. So you use the money to put you in a situation to get information and buy access. You can do those two things, you become the asset. I said I'm gonna talk to you. I said I'm gonna talk to you every day, bro. We build a relationship. I know who you know now. Right.

Right.

You'd be like, you know what man? I know somebody should talk to me. You should talk to my guy at Wall Street Trapper, man. Perfect person for you. I wouldn't have got that without building that rapport. I got access. What's up, Lou? How you feeling, man? Christmas, man. Let's send him something, man. Let him know it's all love, man. Let him know Trapp think about it, man. How you doing, man? You good?

Good.

Cool, man. I like Trapp. Cool. I built something here. You got a party? Man, I got a Christmas party. You should come to LA. Cool. Now the information. that I can provide as value when I get in the room that I got access to. I'm an asset. I'm an asset to you now. Trap knows about investing. Trap may know something. I don't know. I mean, now we swapping value. So people need to learn how not to go in the inner situation and say, how much money can I make? How can I provide value to you? Yeah, I do that all the time. How can I be a value to you, man? You know what I do. What can I do to help you?

Right?

Like how can I be of assistance? How can I take some of the sweat equity off you? How can I make your situation a little bit better? Or based off what I know, I become the asset. We can become assets in every situation we're in. That's playing offense. That's playing, I'm all about full court pressure. All about leveraging this thing called life, man, because There's people out here making hundreds of millions of dollars. They didn't do that on their own.

No.

There's people out here living a life they could never imagine. They didn't do that on their own. They knew somebody at some point that plugged them with somebody, that put them in a room, that put them on a phone call, that helped them get that role, that gave them some information that changed their life. that's how you get there. Yeah.

And you know how you get in the room when it happens?

Talk about it.

You get there by adding value to people in the room that want you to be in that room because you've offered value in some way. The value doesn't need to be. You're the smartest, most talented person ever. The value could be. I just feel good around this person.

Good around it.

This person's got a positive energy.

Yeah.

Good attitude. Like, yeah, let's bring them along. They make me feel better. That's value.

It's value.

It could be he's got a skill set. He's got some years of experience in an industry that I want to learn about. Let's bring him in the room. And I think when you can bring that value, when you can learn a new skill and have that some type of value, bring it to someone who doesn't have it.

Oh, yeah.

They're gonna give you access.

Hell, yeah.

That access is gonna give you opportunities.

Every time.

You've got to be willing to move into those.

Every time. And that's why I said in the beginning when he told me, stop trading time for money and start making money work for you. That was like, damn, all right. But when he said bring value to people, that's it. I didn't learn that part till later on. That's why I said, I ain't get that till later. Like, oh, that's what this means.

Yeah.

Like not going into a situation, man, I wonder what I can get out of this. Nah. What can I bring value to?

It's 100%. That's why I always, when I'm doing my show, I'm always thinking, how can I serve the person? How can I give them a platform? How can I tell their story in a better way? Can I help promote whatever they have going on? And I don't ask for anything in return. Not until I really have something where like, okay, I've got a book out, there's something we can do together. But usually my goal is like, how can I add 10 times the amount of value to someone upfront? To when then it's a no-brainer to wanna add- On a bag end. A little bit to me. Like, I don't even need 10 times back. It's just like, just to say, of course, like you've given me so much value, why would I not promote this? Why would I not make an intro? you've built so much credibility with the person by adding value that they appreciate it. And if a person doesn't appreciate it and they're only a taker, then maybe that's not the right person you want to be in relationship with.

Yeah.

And not everyone's gonna be able to pay you back something all the time, but it, it should be come back to in some way. The more you add value to people in general, it's gonna come back.

It's reciprocated. Yeah. It had, like, I feel like. So we all are and if I'm always pouring, I want to make sure that I'm pouring into people that at some point they can pour back into me. You know what I'm saying? Because if I'm always pouring, then I'm gonna be like insufficient.

Right.

And so I'm gonna burn out, I'm gonna be depleted, and then I can't finish my journey. So even in bringing value, you also need to be around people that see value in what you do. of what you bring them, because now it's easy to be like, nah, man, trap. Boom. Like, that helps. And then also, too, just understanding how, like, I take my time. One of the things prison taught me was understanding people.

Yeah.

Everybody operates in their own unique way. I never expect people. This is one of the biggest mistake that people have. expecting someone to handle a situation the way that they would. Well, yeah.

I've learned that the hard way many times. Yeah, another many times.

Yeah, you are you. Yeah. So for me, it's always, what is that person's perspective? Hmm, that's why they handled that like that. It's okay and appreciate it. Mm-.

Don't take it personally. I did that for too long. I did that for too long, man. Too many nights.

Yeah.

Being frustrated taking something personally.

Yeah. Now I'm like, nah, it's cool, because that's the way we handle it.

Now you know it's information.

Data.

Do I want to be in partnership with this person in the future?

That's it.

You know, what do I need to do next time?

That's it. And that has truly helped me on the journey. Like learning from, like, I'm good at intaking information and using it, because I know that life is something that keeps on revolving. It's gonna keep happening. Every day we know Jim Rohn, one of my favorite people said, we know that the sun is gonna come up and then it's gonna do what? It's gonna go down. The ocean comes out, what happens? The shore comes back in. Life is gonna keep doing that. So every situation that I've been presented with, it's only a matter of time before I'm presented with it again. May not be to the same extreme, to the same extent, but some familiarity to feel about that situation.

Yeah.

We got to go through those lessons to create wisdom for the future, you.

Know what I mean?

You've got an amazing story, my man. I'm excited about everything you're creating and everything you've overcome. I think it's easy to stay stuck in the past patterns that we're familiar with. It's easy to go back to familiarity. It's really hard to break the mold and create a new identity. So I acknowledge you for breaking the mold, man, for creating breakthroughs. Again, I don't think anyone would celebrate the things you did, but I acknowledge the growth, the wisdom, the lessons, and the journey you're on to be of service to people in certain communities and cultures that maybe struggle with finding these types of breakthroughs. So I really acknowledge the assignment that you're on right now and the journey you've been on, my man.

I appreciate that.

You've got powerful social media accounts. Wall Street Trapper. If you just Google that, you'll see it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, wallstreettrapper.com.

Yeah.

With more resources, information, education on all this stuff for people. Yeah. How else can we be of support to your mission? And where can we connect with you the best?

Yeah. So right now I'm pushing, you know, the Wall Street Trapper on Instagram. I'm working on a show right now. I call it a well connect, man. Well connect.

The well Wealth Connect.

Yeah, Wealth Connect. So I'm probably dropping that first of the year. I just want to take financial literacy to another level to for those.

To.

Be a voice for those who need it, who I resonate with.

Yeah. Right.

I want to. My goal is to make financial literacy a household thing.

Yeah.

Like, that's my goal. Like, I. I want to be the voice that says, this is not over my head. this is just my cup of tea right here. Right, right. So working on a wealth connect. I'm definitely gonna be dropping that soon. So that's it right now. Just pushing that. You know, I'm gonna drop a lot of stuff on the YouTube, but that's my big project coming 2022.

The wealth connect. Wealth connect.

That'll be you just go to wallstreettravel.com and you'll learn more about that. Yeah. So I'm posting some stuff on it.

On the ground right now, but it's.

Definitely on thetrapperuniversity.com thetrapperuniversity.com everything.

Everything. I like it, man. I I like it. This is a question I ask everyone towards the end of the show. It's called the Three Truths. So imagine it's your last day on earth many years away from now. And you've lived out your assignment. You've accomplished your goals and dreams. You've created the financial freedom and helped others do that in situations that you grew up in and beyond. You know, you did everything you wanted to do. But for whatever reason, it's your last day.

Yeah.

And you only get to leave behind three lessons to the world that you've learned. And they don't have access to Trapper university or the wealth connector. That's all, that's all gone for whatever reason. It's on to the next place with you. But you have three lessons you get to share. I call them, I call it the three truths. What would be those three truths?

I like that. One is live your life with no regrets. That's twofold because in living with no regrets, I will want you to say that in every moment I'm willing to live in it. I think we don't appreciate the moments as we should. Right, so living with no regrets. Two, it is okay to say no. No is a complete sentence. Yep.

Right.

And three, find your purpose.

What happens to us when we don't find our purpose?

We walk around lost.

Yeah.

We live an unfulfilled life. I get up every day because.

I.

Know that I'm walking in my purpose. So I get up every day happy. I get up every day and I say, y'all get to do something that everybody don't get to do. Even there's entrepreneurs who aren't in their purpose. They just have a business. Maybe a successful business.

Maybe they're making money, but it's not what they want.

They're just being fulfilled. When you find your purpose, you find fulfillment. I'm fulfilled. I'm still healing. I'm still growing, but I'm fulfilled. Because every day I know I get up and I get to change somebody's life. Every day, teaching, educating, showing humility, letting people learn from my past, me learning. Like every day I get to walk in my purpose. And for that, I get to live a fulfilled life. And I've said this, I said, Yo, I know I got a lot of more stuff to accomplish. But man, I know that if my day was to come, I knew I could say, I finally got it. I found it. And the longer we're here, the more I feel that you'll get more assignments added to what you got going on. Here's another assignment. It's like a teacher. Oh, you doing good? Here's another assignment. Here's another assignment. Because they know the Creator knows you can handle it.

You can handle it. You can take it on.

You can take it on. The more you walk into that purpose, man. your life changes. And I'm speaking this and I get emotional in a way because my life is unrecognizable from three, four years ago.

Yeah.

Unrecognizable because every day I was walking around just in a dark, hurt, painful, abandoned. You know, all I knew was violence. All I felt like, I felt like I was empty. To transition to saying, I'm fulfilled. Mm-. Man, you can't match that with nothing.

That's good, man. That's good, man. Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is being impactful and living the life you're proud of. Doesn't have to do with money, doesn't have to do with accolades, doesn't have to do with notoriety. can I wake up every day and say, I'm happy with this life? Like, I'm like, I'm. Yeah. People don't really know what happiness is. And how many people can I. Have I impacted people before I left here? Impact don't have nothing to do with money either. So if I can be impactful and live a life that I can truly say I'm happy with, that's my definition of greatness.

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the video notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on.

Apple Podcasts as well.

I really love hearing feedback from you guys, so share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.