Allen Williams | Allen Williams Journey: Financial Wisdom, Mentorship, Sports, and Military Insights

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Alan is one of the most brilliant, intelligent people that you will ever meet in life.

You know, both of my parents, man, my dad, man, was a success in Orangeburg. I gained all my, my accolades from him. They had the Junior Olympic team, they had a Bunch of athletes, man. Like. Such as, like the Terry Guesses, Henry Guesses, William Grahams.

What would you say are the top two things that you learned about yourself that helped you with your retirement from the Navy?

First of all, discipline, Growing up early, taking responsibility early. Second thing is adaptation. Because we learn to adapt to anything.

What's the two things you should be doing daily?

Learning something new every day and just investing in something. In something.

Welcome to Mick Unplugged where we ignite potential and fuel purpose. Get ready for raw insights, bold moves and game changing conversations. Buckle up, here's Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of MC Unplugged. And today's guest is a highly distinguished individual who has achieved remarkable success both military and in the civilian sectors. After serving more than two decades in the US Navy. His dedication and exemplary service and leadership earned him inclusion into the distinguishable Marquises who's who. He is a man, he is a friend.

He is.

He is a mentor, and he is someone that we're about to have so much fun with. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to welcome my friend, the disciplined, the innovative and the inspiring, Mr. Allen Williams. Allen, how you doing today, brother?

Oh, man, with that intro, I am great, man. I love it, brother. I love it.

Look, and that's the last scripted thing we gonna do today because what I want to tell the listeners and viewers is this right here. Yeah, man, all that intro was amazing.

Yeah.

But Allen is also a fool. And if I can show you or record some of the late night conversations that we have, I would probably get kicked off the airwave. So I'm not gonna do that. But we might get into some of it. I just had to preface that because we don't know where this conversation is going. But I will start with this. And I mean this from my soul.

Yes, sir.

Allen is one of the most brilliant, intelligent people that you will ever meet in life. So I do want to let the listeners and viewers know that. And Alan, you know how much I respect and love you, brother. So, man, where do we even begin, dude?

Oh, man, South Carolina, I guess.

Let's.

We are both South Carolinians.

South Carolinians. I know you well, easily. I'm from Orangeburg, so it's not too far, but yeah, man. Grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina. You know, both of my parents, man, my dad, man, was a success in Orangeburg, you know, you know, with the police force, but also with the help in the community. You know, I gained all my accolades from him as me being by him as he was doing the Junior Olympic team with the late, great Orangeburg chef, Papa Johnson. They had the Junior Olympic team. They had a bunch of athletes, man, like. Such as, like the Terry Guesses, Henry Guesses, William Grahams, who else? I know I'm missing a lot, but just a few of the names, man, that ran on that track team, went all over the United States, competed, broke records. So, you know, me seeing that and him coaching football for Brookdale B team and seeing all the athletes that came from there. Him just helping in the community. For example, Shelton Benjamin, you know, he helped him a lot, you know, in his accolades through his childhood. And Shelton has taught highly about, you know, my dad and stuff like that. I think he did a documentary with WWE at one point and my dad was on there. I didn't realize it. Yo, young, young guy had hair still. But yeah, just following his steps, you know, him helping kids and stuff like that. So, you know, did sports, played at Edisto High, played Little league football in Orangeburg as well. You know, all a bunch of little league teams there. From there, you know, after football, you know, I decided I wanted to, you know, get out, you know, I wanted to see something else. So, you know, the Navy guys came to the high school and they were talking to this good old deer like, yeah, we went here. So I like, try this Navy thing, give it a shot. So joined the Navy in 2001. Matter of fact, it was a week after September 11th happened, so it was crazy. Yeah, so 2001, did my boot camp, graduated, went to a school in November in Virginia beach, graduated from there, and I flew straight to deployment, man. I think I had like 10 days home to come home. Yeah, 10 days. And then flew straight to deployment, man. So I flew into the action, which was very interesting, you know, landed in Bahrain, then took a card onto a carrier, which was first time experience. But yeah, man, after that, man, I traveled all over the world, lived in three different countries and then my last set decided me that I could play pro football over there. So I did that for three years while I was serving. Met a lot of great people over there and then came here to Colorado, retired and had like a two month hiatus, just a little break. And then Lockheed Martin hired me on as a CN test engineer and interrogator. So I was blessed with that and continue to do that. But I also continue to like help around the community here in Denver. The Denver Broncos Boys and Girls Club Global Children Literacy foundation, which kind of ambassador on that, one of my good friends, Prince DICE and co founder Chad Chadwick Davis founded a nonprofit which we give kids first time shareholders of the S&P 500 index fund. So he has four book series. The kids has to read the books, do an essay and he reads every essay and coordinate, you know, the funds we have for donation. It could be one kid or two kids, maybe three kids. So me being a part of that, I love it. Giving back. I love helping the kids. I feel, you know their motto and what we need to do is kids need to have like something in their accounts when they graduate high school. But you know, the hardest thing is making the parents believe because, you know, a lot of parents don't understand, you know, investing and stuff like that. So they're looking for hey, 520 something dollars or where's the cash? But they don't know that, hey, we just gave your Kid the top 500 companies in the United States. So yes sir, they can make money as they go in the years if you keep adding on, if you keep putting in, you know, stuff like that. So that's the hard part. But other than that, it's fun. I having a good time doing it with my job currently with Lockheed. Having a great time, great company, very diverse company. Yeah. So that's a little bit about me.

I love it, man. And there's so much I want to unplug and unpack right here. So let's talk about the Navy and the decision to go into the Navy. What was a couple of the deciding factors of one, the military and then specifically the Navy itself.

The guys, the recruiters coming in, you know, they were honest. I didn't have a recruiter that was. None of the recruiters was like telling me this, telling me that, just trying to get me in. But they were just honest. And I go to other recruiting officers such as Army, Marines and other, you know, I can tell like, okay, this is, this don't sound right. But you know, the Navy was like very honest. Like, hey man, you're going to have some hard days, you're going to have some deployments, you work some hard hours. But I guarantee you this, man, it'll get you out. You can see the world. You can have an education or you can get an education. You're getting paid every two weeks. The average kid don't get paid, especially in college, but you can still go to college and still get paid. You know, we have TA assistants and all that stuff. So they would like this, break it down and nitty gritty. And he was like, hey look, if I were. You pick a job. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you really don't know, then you want to go undesignated. But I'm telling you, like this here, like, you know, undesignated. You know, you'll be in a deck, a deck department. You're probably gonna be doing a little bit of everything. Probably gonna be hard work, but you don't want to do that. So you want to come in here, have a job. So you want to do as good as on your ASVAB as possible. I know, because, you know, back then, we was all sitting in the auditorium. He had to take a asvab, but I retook mine, you know what I mean? So he was like, yo, just get the best score. Pick a job. Try to get a job with a clearance if you can. And then when I told him what I want to do, he was like, hey, well, this. This rate right here does a little bit of everything. But, you know, he's telling me what I don't qualify for and stuff like that. So I was like, cool. So they were honest, but, you know, looking inside like, you know, they do more traveling, it got me out, you know, to see something different, you know, instead of just staying back at home, but to see something different, man. So, you know, I signed myself up, you know, because turn 18, and, you know, my mom, she was like, I'm.

Not going to do it.

So I'm like, look, I'm signing myself up now. My mom today is like, man, best decision you ever made, man. She's like, so proud of you. Best decision.

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Yeah. Well, number one, thank you for your service.

Appreciate it.

And then number two. So to my very close friends, my best buddies, Darren Vermost, Army Danielsong Marine. So I'm gonna let both of them know, and I know they're listening to this podcast. I'm gonna let both of them know, hey, the Navy was authentic and transparent.

Very.

And that's why Allen went there.

Yeah. Don't get me wrong, I took the dinners from the other branches. Don't get me wrong now, I wasn't that naive. So, you know, everybody made dinner, I took it. There you go.

There you go. And so then you're in the Navy, right. And you've had an amazing career in the Navy. What would you say are the top two things that you learned about yourself that helped you with your retirement from the Navy?

Oh, man. First of all, discipline. Because soon you go to, you know, boot camp in the Navy, they gonna break you down and stuff. So all mental discipline. So a lot of mental. And just knowing yourself growing up, growing up early Taking responsibility early, you know, when you get certain ranks and stuff like that, you get to get your own apartment. So, you know, own stuff, own, you know, whatever you're gonna do. So it teaches you how to maintain and be by yourself, hold your ground and just be a man on woman, take on responsibilities, important responsibilities on your job. Because a lot of those guys, man, we either monitor or we either operate on million dollar equipment. So, you know, it teaches you, you know, that aspect. Second thing is, I want to say adaptation, because we learn to adapt to anything that is put in front of us. So we get put in the fire, but we just got to figure it out. I know a lot of people, you know, it's a lot of bookworms that's in the military too, or they come in as bookworms. But at the end of the day, you know, they gotta learn how to think. Think on the swivel, think fast and execute. So that's one thing like just adapting, you know, change of transition, this change of scenery, change of learning a new thing, a new equipment. So that's, that's the main thing, you know, that I'm grateful at. And I'm gonna add a third one, networking, because travel around. So we met a lot of people. Everywhere I go, every country or whatever or state, you know, networking. And military is very tight knit, you know, it's a different community. A lot of people don't realize that, you know, you can tell, like in the civilian sector, you know, but vice, the military sector, like, we're just very close knit, you know, somebody back in your first duty station, they're here visiting or they're just here on vacation. You find out they're here, hey, you know, you just, hey, man. You know, and then. So like Back to Squirrel 1 again. Hey, man, come over here, man, let's go get lunch. Come to the house, you know, and very close knit. Yeah, yeah.

And I will say this about you as my friend now, I would say networking is the skill that you have taken and have conquered and have mastered. Because, you know, in the entertainment world, right, you know, there's that thing six degrees of Kevin Bacon, right? So everybody's like six people away from Kevin Bacon. I'm gonna say in the real world, everybody's like three degrees from Alan Williams. If I'm in a room, I guarantee you, if I'm in a room of 10 people, four people know Allen Williams or know somebody that knows him very well. And there's always a story about Alan that's going on, right? So I would totally say that. And when I say it's something that you've mastered, and I really mean this. And I would say this for all the listeners and viewers as well, too, right? Because Alan is the person who. He checks on his people, he checks on his friends, right? Like, all the time. Like, I was just on my anniversary, right? And you're messaging me, seeing how things are going and giving me some advice. I'm gonna use air quotes and just leave it at that for right now. Giving me some advice, right? But that's what I love, and that's what the world needs, is like, sometimes you just genuinely have to check on people. And here's the other thing that I love about Alan when it comes to networking. If I'm like, hey, Alan, I see that you're connected to this person, could you make an introduction? Alan doesn't just send an email or a dm. You're gonna get a phone call from Alan, and then he's gonna say, hold on one second. And then you click over, and the person that you were just talking about is on the other line. And Allen's done this amazing introduction. Like, this literally happens two days a week with me and Alan, where it's like, hey, do you know that person? Or Alan will ask me, do you know this person? And the next thing I know, I've either got a phone call with the person or there's a meeting scheduled. And when I get to that meeting, the person knows my whole life story. And it's like, dude, like, how do you do that? And then number two, I'd love for you to tell the audience why that's important in today's society, you know, so.

Why the question, why did I do that? Because, you know, everybody, you know, needs, you know, helping hands. So I always been that person. Like, if I don't withhold information. Cause, you know, information has been withhold for. For a long time. You know, so if I. If I know it or if I could find out about it, I'm trying to make it happen. If I can't make it happen, then I'll let you know, hey, look, I tried this, I tried that, tried all my avenues, but it just couldn't happen. You know, the reason why it's important is because people just be selfish a lot, you know, in this society today. So me and my good friend Prince, we always say this. Back when we was growing up, me and you, Mickey Prince, at that era, the world had less information, right? So if you didn't go and find out, or if you didn't know about it. You just didn't know. The world today has too much information. So it can smother the brain, but you have to know which is what, right? So there's so much information thrown at people. So if you got a person like myself or anybody else who's a networker that can guide you to say, hey, look, go this route, or, hey, know this person or know that person, because you got all the information just fluttering in now. You don't know which way to gravitate. You'd be like, okay, should I go here? Should I go here? Or should I go here? But you have a person that knows this area or just know this person, and knowing that, hey, look, what you're doing could help you then. Yeah, you got to have those people. You get what I'm saying? And a lot of these kids today, they got to have those people. They got to find the right people to be in their circle. The right people that's growing with them or the right people that's guiding them in the right direction. Because so much information pouring in today, right? So you got to have that, hey, go here, go here. I guarantee you go here. Yeah, this guy's knocking at your door. But look, I know this guy.

Go here.

So that's like the main thing I see, like, in society today. Too much information. I don't know where to go. But you got certain people that either been there, done that, or know somebody who did this, done that, and they can guide you to say, hey, do this person, and maybe that person, know this person, that person, and that can connect all your blocks. Because now you trying to get this person, but you got a person that. Where, hey, I talk to him every day. I talk to her every day.

Totally. One of the things I appreciate the most about you, man, is that. And so, again, I wanted to tell you thank you to your face.

No problem.

No problem. So now let's go into, you know, you're out of the Navy. You've got this position with Lockheed Martin where, you know, I'll let you briefly explain to the people what you're doing there. But so much innovative things that you're doing. You know, a lot of things that you talk, that you do that you probably can't talk about what's going on. But just, dude, I love the fact that you were not one of those people that retired from the military and was like, okay, I'm good. Or I can take the benefits of retiring from the military, because there are people that do that. And not saying that there's anything wrong with that. Right. But you definitely took your skill and said, you know what, now that I'm here, I'm about to go 20 levels higher. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what you are doing at Lockheed Martin and why you find fulfillment in what you're doing there.

First of all, you know, yeah, you know, I could have been one of those persons that come back to Florida and don't have to work, but, you know, I kind of wanted to give back, especially the kids that's coming in the military or just anybody else that's in, because I know what type of company Lockheed is. Our major customers are the military. So me being from the customer and being in those seats before, I wanted to just pretty much give back. And, you know, I was thankful for Lockheed for hiring me and put me in things that I can accomplish and give back to the military. So things, you know, that I usually do is, you know, I was on, was on a program. I just recently got moved to a new program, but I was on the program and they needed me for a certain expertise, so they hired me on and my job was to learn the program and then basically travel to different sites, teach the operators the program and get them up to speed and make sure they're, they're trained properly. Which, you know, that program was good, but I moved to another program now. And the thing about Lockheed, you know, they don't care. I like this company because they'll take a risk. They don't care. You got the experience and they know that you came from the customer. They want your point of view because, you know, like I said, it's a lot of engineers and you know, the language barrier is totally different. And some stuff I'm still trying to learn, but you know, military, we simple, make it short, simple and sweet. Less PowerPoints, more hands on this. Tell us what it is, tell us how to do it, give us the basics. And if you got like a date, PowerPoint or if you got like a document for the product, hey, make sure we can access it and we'll go back and look at it if we have problems in certain, certain sales, right? So, you know, a lot of, a lot of the engineers, they're lucky, you know, they, they're readers. They want to explain everything. But I told them I look, can't explain everything. Explain the basics, design, divide the positions. Whatever this position, do you explain this? Whatever this position, do you explain that eventually they're going to have time to get Together and learn each other else positions, right? So that's the kind of like I kind of bring to the table too. Just hey, approach it like this. Don't say like that. Like learn that translation from engineering to human. And I just, I like it. You know, they, they took a chance on me and I'm, I'm grateful. A lot of the guys there, you know, and you know, like the whole company, man, is very diverse. You know, one of the top leaders, Ms. Stephanie Hill, she, you know, African American woman. There's a lot of diversity in the company, but the way the company is going by, you know, getting retired military, I think, you know, you know, they got a lot of people that was prior, right? But the time they got out, man, the military has changed so much. So if you haven't been in, you know, in a minute, you probably ain't gonna know like what's going on or what's these changes and stuff like that.

So.

But you get somebody who kind of just got out and they did, they did it 20 years or whatever, or 20 plus or 30 plus. You know, I think that's the route to go, to break the barrier of them and the customer understanding why when they interact, everything is like now, now, now, go, go, go. And they want something to be done for the mission. If it ain't everything, but something that can lead, that can work. And then we give them that, and then all of a sudden, now we can work in the background, okay, we gonna add this, add that, add that, but give them something that's gonna make it work right then and there, right? And then as they're doing that, we add on. So, you know, a lot of people is picking that up now and realizing that. And yeah, it's not just building just to build because you got this cool product and it does this, it does that, but knowing your customers and knowing the mission and knowing what they need it for, I have a machine to do everything. But guess what, if it don't fit the mission, it ain't gonna work. Or make it fit the mission. And then you go ahead and add these. So yeah, it was, it's a good thing. You know, they're trying to go towards that direction, but, you know, it's just gotta, you know, get that language barrier, get that translation. And that's, you know, where I come in and other folks that come in that, you know, has the same background as I am and to be called an engineer, you know what I'm saying? Which is good.

Yeah, absolutely. I want to talk to the Listeners and viewers that are leaders. I want to talk to you specifically right now because Alan just brought out something that I think is critically important and is usually the biggest mission in leadership. And that is being short, sweet and to the point with direction. Right? Like so many times, leaders are out to prove how smart they are or how detailed they are in a process. And I'm not saying the process shouldn't be detailed, it actually should be. But how do you communicate that process? Right, like exactly, give me the basics, give me the reason, give me what the output should be. And then to your point, if there's a manual, I great, give it to me, show me the manual. Show me where it's at and when I need it, I'll go to the manual for certain things. I feel like where leaders go wrong is they start the opposite way. They start with the manual and then when you give me all these details, then you say, but if you just do A, B and C, you'll be good. And I'm like, well, damn it, why you came in. So for leaders out there, it's really important that you understand. And this goes for coaches as well too, right? Leaders, coaches. And I don't care if it's sports coaches, if you're coaching business people, if you're coaching kids, whatever it is short, sweet, to the point, give me what the reason of why we're doing this, what the end result should be, and what specifically is my role in this said project or this said position.

Exactly.

That's the most critical thing. Everything else is learned because processes are always being improved. Processes are always going to change if you get so granular in the process. All you're doing is showing people how to switch and do things over again. Because I promise you step one to step two is going to change at some point. Tell me what the big picture is supposed to look like.

Exactly. And that's the thing that it comes back to too much information. You know, if you smother the brain with someone, you know, they're not going to retain it. So like I told them, like, you know, a lot of the guys we're training and stuff like that, or a lot of guys who going to test these equipment is not going to be be guys that's, you know, high end rank or whatever. It's gonna be guys that's coming probably straight out of High School, 18, 19, 20 years old. And I said, you know, I said a lot of people join the military because they don't want to go to school. I'm just gonna Be real, they don't want to go to school, right? And then once they get in the military, they develop a little discipline about themselves, right. Their mindset, little change, their child mentality is gone. Now they don't got broken down in boot camp, brung back up and now you know, they realize like wow, you know we got post 9 11, you know, GI Bill, oh I got ta, I can use now so I can actually go to school. I got these clep courses I can take like they fly instructors on deployment while we here, you know what I'm saying? To clep a course, clep a math, couple of science. So yeah, it's just now they find out these avenues and ways all these search you can get. So they got all these avenues that they probably haven't even seen. You get what I'm saying? Now they're exposed to it. So now they take advantage, you know, while they're in go to school or they, you know, they, they offer sea duty or whatever deployment. So they own the shore duty now. Little easy, little laid back so they can go to school and get their associates or they have enough schools within the military, they got an associates already. So now they need a couple of credits for a bachelor. So you get seen all this, these things now and you taking on responsibility, you're taking on challenges, you getting put in unusual situations and then you got to adapt and you got to overcome. So yeah, you know I tell them all the time like look, keep it short, brief, make the PowerPoints just basic, you know what I'm saying? Information. If you have a manual, if you have a big PowerPoint that describes the whole system, have it there where they can access it, you know, they know we know table of contents, we can look it up and say okay, well we don't know this. Okay, we look at the table of contents. Okay here so she got to be under here, look it up. Oh, okay. Because eventually they're going to train each other on each thing. I'm telling you. Because that's like, it's like the norm, right. You know we gonna have to know a little bit about everybody else position. So it's going to happen. But I always tell them it's not the us like to try to give them everything. Teaching them to give them the raw, the basics. Let's do this hands on training. Let's show them what it, what it does. And then after that you know, hey, here's a book, here's the PowerPoint goes by each thing and then that's it.

There it Is there it is. So let's go rapid fire with Allen Williams. You ready?

Okay.

All right. Favorite college football team?

Oh, Gamecops, baby.

No, I said your favorite college football team.

Yeah, S.C. gamecops.

Your favorite college football team.

My favorite college football team?

Yeah.

South Carolina. King Cox.

They don't play football there. So who's your favorite guy?

Look, that other school up north.

Nah.

Okay. No, I don't like them either, you know? Yeah. Like, I'm a North Carolina guy, so I know you're. Yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah. And don't even talk about them, you know?

No, no. So let's go there. Your favorite college basketball team. And why is it the University of North Carolina not North Carolina?

Don't even try that. It's not North Carolina. Hey, listen, my college basketball team is the Gamecocks, man. The Gamecocks.

The Lady Gamecocks are awesome. I will give Dawn Staley and that crew. And I'm being very serious.

Yeah, I love the game.

I was a huge Dawn Staley fan when she was at uva.

Yeah, Olympics.

Like Dawn Staley is. She's no gender. Dawn Staley is one of my top five college basketball players ever.

Oh, yeah, she was legit. I remember seeing her when she used to play for the Charlotte Stings, man. I was right there, sitting right behind her mom, God bless her soul. Go, go, baby. And she just running and. Oh, man, she.

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She was something else, man. But like, her mentality, like, is barred to none, man. She just magic. You get what I'm saying? Like, she's a people's person, first of all. She's a player's coach. You know what I mean? Like, she, she gonna coach you and she gonna guide you in the right direction and give you this and that. But you know, players coach, you know, if you got a coach that they can approach you for anything, and I believe them girls can approach her with anything. I mean, any problems, like personal problems and dawn, she'll just answer it or find the answer or, you know, it's just a good culture there, you know, and we need that in South Carolina. We definitely needed that. And I hope. I'm thinking it's gravitating towards the men's basketball team, too, because they had a pretty good season. They're growing young, Coach, too. So they're growing.

I didn't know the men's had a basketball program. I'll be honest with you. I thought we had a women's basketball program and a men's tennis team and I didn't know there were any other sports.

Listen, you remember BJ Mackey, the only trip. Do you remember BJ Mackey? He used to whip up on, you know, Terrell McIntyre and all them. So why don't we try or.

Matter of fact, I'm not a Clemson guy.

Oh, yeah. But matter of fact, yeah, with Antoine Jameson and all them boys is whip up on y'. All.

I forgot to let the listeners and viewers know Allen does lie sometimes. So don't. Don't believe anything about Antoine Jameson or Vince Carter or myself getting whipped up on.

That didn't happen. Listen, that didn't happen. We used to whip up on them boys, you know, and you know what? I'm gonna say that other teams up north. I remember a player with one of my good friends, Harold James, they beat. They beat. They beat your Tar Heels. I remember. I got the clip. I sure do. I should play it. I should play it on here.

Championship game. Everybody remembers the one time they beat North Carolina.

I should play it all.

My God. Ladies and gentlemen, I need you to forgive Alan because again, everybody remembers the one time they beat North Carolina. We beat people so many times, we just. Yeah, yeah, we own them. That's what we say. You guys beat us once, we own you all the other 900 times. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. All right, so back to rapid fire. What's two things that you want all listeners and viewers to incorporate in their daily lives today? What are two things that people should be doing? And I don't care who you are. What's the two things you should be doing daily?

So the two things should be doing daily is learning something new every day and is investing in something. In something. I don't care if you don't know it. Find somebody that knows it. But investing in something because, you know, savings, great, that could be emergency fund, but you know, the way the economy and stuff is right now, you want to just invest in something that pay yourself. How about that?

Dude, I love that because my birdie, Herman Dulce said literally the same thing. Everybody shouldn't own a business, but everybody should be an investor. Yeah, right. Like, everybody should be an investor. And I believe that that's true. I mean, I think financial literacy is something that we don't get enough of in the world today. And again, I don't care who you are, where you come from, how much money you have, how much money you don't have. If someone would have taught me financial literacy at an early age, yes, sir, I would have been dangerous. I feel like I'm dangerous now, but good Lord, I would have been dangerous early. Yes, I would have understood financial literacy. So one of the things that I want to tell the listeners and viewers is this is get a mentor, because you should have multiple mentors, by the way.

Exactly.

But you should definitely have a mentor that is going to teach you and help you with understanding finances, how money is made and created, what's the good things to do with your money, the bad things to do with your money, how to get money if you feel like you can't. Like, you should have a mentor that is going to teach you financial literacy. Yes, sir. And again, I don't care who you are, because the more wealth you start to accumulate, you need a mentor that has more than you. So you always want to make sure that you're gaining mentors and gaining advice with the places that you're trying to go financially.

Most definitely. You know, and shout out to Prince Dice, man, when I got here to Colorado, you know, checked in and everything, and everybody was like, yeah, man, it's just Guy, man. You know, he's like a little celebrity, man. You know, he wrote children's books and he's a big financial advisor. He has his own thing, his own firm. I was like, okay. I said, I wonder who this guy is.

Yeah.

So checking in and I'm coming in. I was like, I saw a guy walk down here and say, hey, what's going on, man? How you doing?

How you're doing?

And start asking people questions just randomly. He's just come on and ask me this question also. What did Jerome Powell say today? What do you think interest rates or what do you think this stock going to do? And I'm looking. I said, he, oh, yeah, man, you new guy? He said, yeah, man, I'm Prince. I said, oh, you the guy. He's like, yeah, man. I said, man. I said, you like me? He's like, yeah.

He said.

I said, and you, Coach? I said, man, where you from? From Waynesboro, Georgia. What? I said, I'm from South Carolina. I said, oh, man, I said, I can relate to you. And then ever since then, ever since then Mesh, you know, every time he'll come, hey, you need to watch this. And then you come back tomorrow, you tell me what you think. You know, he just come in random with random questions. He had to do it, you know? And, you know, some people, they look at him like he was like, huh? Like. And laugh like he didn't know nothing or whatever. But he was humble. He had like. He knew it all. He just asked questions. And now look at him. You see what I'm saying? That man is doing everything in the book. Now, you talk about a networker, that's a networker. And he always picked at me to call me, like, out a promoter or out of networker. But no, he has a lot of network. You know what I mean? He'd be around a lot of great folks. So being in that circle now, today, you know, I always tell her, hey, man, appreciate it, you know, like, because, you know, anything that I can bring to the table, I bring it. And then he'll put me in this, the same circle. Like, hey, look, you need to come on. Come. Come here. You know what I'm saying? Introduce yourself. You know, like, I think the first man I did a podcast, man, I was so, like, nervous and so just anxiety acting, you know, this I wouldn't like in a picture, I wouldn't smile. I always had to look like, this tough, you know, I wouldn't even smile or anything. I wouldn't.

Her brother.

I wouldn't even talk to people like that. You know what I'm saying? But being around him, and I always had these resources, but just being around him, man, you know, seeing him just talk, going into a crowd, speaking or just networking, man. Yeah, he taught me a lot of stuff, you know what I'm saying? So big shout out to him. You know, he don't know that. He kind of like gravitated me towards this, but, yeah, he did, because, you know, I seen somebody that I could relate to that is learning the same thing. Learning, learning, investing. I mean, got his MBA while I was in the military, got his, you know, all his accolades to do these type of stuff. So, yeah, shout out to him. And, you know, he gave me the confidence of like, hey, networking, introducing, just doing this and doing that. Always had it and I used it sometimes, but not as much as I'm doing it now.

So there you go. Good stuff, man. Well, Alan, brother, I appreciate you more than you know, man. Like, this is dope. Yeah, yeah, we kept it pg.

We didn't talk about some of the.

Advice you give, so. We did.

We did. But I want to ask you. I want to ask you one question.

Let's go.

Because, you know, I always ask people this. So how is your mental?

Great question.

I'm a huge mental health advocate, first and foremost, but my mental is good, man, because I make sure that I take time to untap. Right? Not unplug, but untap. Right? And I say untap because when we talk about mental, we put pressure on ourselves, whether people want to admit it or not. You know, people are too tough. We put pressure on ourselves, and we have stress that sometimes we don't know is stress or whatever. I make sure that I get time to just untap and relieve the pressure a little bit. And so my mental is good. I put it on my calendar to do those things. And just like you, and this is one of the things that I got from you. I check in on other people because that also helps me knowing that my circle is okay. And I know that that's why you asked, too. Knowing that my circle is okay helps me be okay.

Exactly. And that's why they call people, check on people who are just out of blue, you know, Like, I know they busy, but I just like, call a phone call. If I see a message, come back, say, hey, I'm in a meeting. Okay, they good or I'm doing this. Okay, they're fine, you know, just to make sure they're good, you know, because mental is. Is very important, especially in anything that you do. You got to use the mental aspect to make rash decisions, you know, and to make important decisions. So, yeah, man, I just had to ask that because I always just ask that, man. I just want to make sure everything is great. I know the podcast is doing great. I love the content. I love what you're doing. And like I told you, man, anybody, I'm bringing them because you started from down, now you're on the rise, you, and you're right there. So, man, commend you. Proud of you, especially a fellow South Carolinian showing, showing kids and. And residents in South Carolina that, you know, people can come from small towns or, you know, situations and is turning into magic. So appreciate it.

That's right. Just following the footstep and examples that you set, man. And I appreciate you more than you know, too. Really quick, where can people find and follow you? What are your social handles and links?

If you want to find me on Instagram, I'm Allen A L L E N underscore Williams W I L L I a m s 45 I have my LinkedIn profile, Alan Williams. Also my Facebook Alan Williams. And also shout out to the Global Children Financial Literacy foundation. You can google them, please donate if you can. Those books. Those, those proceeds go to children. We give them. You know, first time shareholders of The S&P 500 index fund also shout out to my boy Ricky Sapp, the Ricky Sapp Foundation. You can Google that as well. He's doing big things. I know he's probably, I think he's trying to do a, a trunk or treat coming up and then giving away turkeys. He's doing it different this year. I think he's gonna like give away turkeys that families that are in need. And then also that money goes towards, you know, his children's book also it goes towards, you know, his football camps and things that he do is around the community. He loves giving back. Yeah. So those two foundations, man, Global Children Financial Literacy foundation and Ricky south foundation. Go ahead and you know, give a little something. Donate nonprofits, both of them and doing things in the community. And if you google them, you can see what they do, you see what they achieve.

Yeah, Love it. I'll make sure that we have links to all that in the show notes and description. Alan, I appreciate you, brother.

Appreciate it, man. Appreciate it, bro.

For all the listeners and viewers, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Thank you for tuning in to Mick Unplugged. Keep pushing your limits, embracing your purpose and chasing greatness. Until next time, stay unstoppable.