Be bold and don't be afraid to ask for what you want. Even in 2025, that message still applies. And when you hear it, you know who we're ready to talk to. John Hope Bryant, CEO of Operation Hope. It's financial literacy month, so we got to check in. You're in an enterprise zone at the [Music] NASDAQ. Hello everyone. This is Jabari Young here at the NASDAQ market site and I am joined by John Hope Bryant, CEO of Operation Hope platform that obviously promotes financial literacy, credit awareness, also a author of like a plethora of books, right? And then you have Black 50. Yeah. So I mean a a BLK50 member, man. I mean money and wealth podcast. Always promoting financial dignity. John, thank you so much for for making the trip, man. As always, love to see you. Honored to be here. Absolutely. Hey man, are you writing another book in 2025? Can we get expect another one's coming out later on this year? Uh my publisher is trying to get me to do two. Um two this year. Well, I'm going to write two this year. Um one uh might be what would basically what would you give your what advice would you give your 18-year-old self on financial literacy, which would be an easy one to write if I do it. The the the big book that I would write this year was inclusive economics, right? Yeah. And then uh in two years I'm gonna write a book called the he the the bridging of an unhealed America. Wow man. So you already got it in. Can I do one of the forwards for these things? One of these. You can do whatever you want. You're you're Javari Young. Listen, I got to ask. It's your book, man. You know what I mean? But hey, listen, as always, you know, again, first of all, thank you so much and welcome as a new advisory member to the BLK platform for BLK. Man, definitely look forward to your insight. Look forward to your help leader, man. And so it's been great. I mean, me and you have known each other now for years, right? Met back in Alabama talking in Atlanta about all of this stuff and here we are sitting. So, it's always a privilege to see you, man. Always a privilege. Thank you, sir. You You guys make make me proud. I mean, you guys just do it right. You know, you're not a you're not a group of black leaders. You're a group of great leaders who happen to be black and brown and you're producing and showing the green, which I really love. Yeah. Well, following your lead. You're all about excellence. Yeah. Following your lead. Well, listen, we're at the NASDAQ market site. So, I always love to get your opinion on a stock, something that's worked well for you maybe over the last year, something you're looking to buy. Nvidia, right? Delta Airlines. I know you're a Delta guy. Wells Fargo, like what's what's I I think in in these times, you want to stick to to fundamentals. Fundamentals. You want to you want to what's what's the stuff that's like the anchors for a society and economy and gamble? I love Walmart. I love, you know, um I love Apple. I uh these are not it's not obvious. I I mean it's not it's not uh mind-blowing stuff. Yeah. I I love stuff that that you use every day that no matter whether the economyy's up or down or the stock market is in or out or whoever the president is, whatever, you're going to involve yourself in those kinds of companies and their kind of products. Um and and in in times when times are sketchy, you want a flight to quality. like you don't you don't want to be caught over here doing you know crazy cryptocurrency stuffs and you know you're not a believer in cryptocurrency look I mean to a certain degree you know digital money today you know for the last 10 years we've had currency that's digital currency so I mean I we all we we all swipe a card cryptocurrency is gambling it's not investing it's it's gambling and and there's no there's no assets underneath it a billionaire friend of mine was at milking conference speaking and was and somebody asked him about this guy's worth 15 billion. What do you think about crypto? He said if somebody could tell me why the price goes up and why the price goes down, I'll buy some. Well, it's a scarcity thing so much of it. No, no, no. Look there's this look Bitcoin itself is a separate thing and I love blockchain technology by the way but there were people don't know there were almost 20,000 cryptocurrencies in you know in the in the last 10 years or less most of them went poof they just they just went away and most people are trying to get a cryptocurrency to cash it out for cash they want cryptocurrency then they what they really want what they really want at the end of the day is cash so it's like so look I'm not I'm down on cryptocurrency. I'm just saying don't use your rent money to go buy some. It's it's it's gambling. It's speculation. You can go to New York. So, you can go to Las Vegas and hit really big. Or you can understand that Las Vegas keeps getting bigger with every flight. It keeps getting bigger. House always wins. So, you might be one of the people who hit you might get hit on the head. I don't want you to be hit on the head. The biggest population buying cryptocurrency are African-Americans. Yeah. And because of a lot of reasons, but they they a lot of these promoters feed on our emotions. And whenever you make an emotional decision, it's a bad one. Yeah. So my wife owns some she she did well with Bitcoin, but she's got me. If things don't go if things go south of the border with her, she knows she can rely on me. So you know, take 5% 10% of your portfolio and speculate. And if you want to speculate on crypto, God bless you. Fantastic. You might you might do extraordinarily well. People walk to me all day, I do great with crypto. That's great, right? Do you own a house? Do do you own a do you own a blue blue chick stock portfolio? Yeah. You know, do you do you have do you have some bonds? Do you have some, you know, get the basics in place and then go do that other stuff. Most definitely. Every time we talk, man, again, financial literacy is always a theme. And real estate, by the way, all real estate. That's my cornerstone. Absolutely. You know, you could touch it. But I never asked you your worst money management advice. Like what's the worst thing? I'll just tell I'll tell you the worst thing I did. Forget not money management advice. I'll tell you a mistake. I made I did a I hit big since I saw you last. It was about two years ago, right? And I last year. It was last year. Was it last year? Yeah. Right here. The perform moves fast. Absolutely does. So, last year, yeah, I I lost big in the last year and I hit big in the last 18 months. So, uh just to tell you the power of real estate. I bought some real estate um in a foreign country on the beach. I wasn't intended for it to go up. It was just a It was a lifestyle move that was secured. That thing doubled. Now, you know, the one me you talk about. Yeah. It doubled. It doubled. And and and I don't know any legal legitimate asset secured investment. Now, it's not going to double again, but there was a moment where, you know, I bought it for X and it was X time 100. So, or you know, X time 80 is almost double. So, that was a a a really smart move I made. And if you buy real estate, the in all likelihood, if it's near jobs, near transportation, near activity, it's just going to go up in value. So, don't wait. And I'm I'm a landlord now, so I shouldn't be encouraging people to rent, but I want you to go from rent to own. But let me tell you about my mistake since I saw you. So, I sold um I sold a company two years ago, and I wanted to put some money away into something that was safe. I didn't need to go up. I didn't needed to do extraordinary. I just needed to not deplete. It was like a safety valve. So, I'll tell you the number. I put $ three and a half million dollars into the market. And I'll tell you when it was. It was January 2022. And I put it with one of the best market manager, money managers you could imagine, like family office kind of a company. And in three months, four months, it went from 3.5 balance to three. So my what I always tell people is don't sell. If you buy well, keep it. Don't sell. Don't get freaked out. Don't be emotional. What did I do? Was emotional. I was emotional. Sort of. I wasn't trying to make money, right? And you know, if it'd be different if the market had gone up and you know, I' had gone up to 3.5. I was in it for 2.5 basis. It went down to three. Okay, but it's you know this house money. This was this was my money, right? And um it went down to three. I lost 500,000. I said, "Move me to cash. Move me to treasuries, bonds, cash equivalents, US Treasury uh bills." So they did that and what happened? So I asked my guys last last No, this year I asked them in in February. So that's out of curiosity. What happened with that portfolio? You know, they tracked it. They said, "Well, you would have lost another $250,000, right? But there's a butt coming. There's a butt." So, I'd gone down 750 if I just done nothing. This is the power of this place. The power of markets. If I had done nothing, Jabari, just let it sit there. I would have returned the 750. It would have repaired itself and then it went up another 750. So take two steps back, move three steps forward in a way. Yeah. If I if I No, it's just power of compounding, right? But you go down. So you take a you take a loss, but then if you wait, you you get that gain back. Well, what I Yeah. What I keep saying to people is there's three things that have never gone down in American history. Uh real estate values, stock market values, and GDP. Yeah. They go up. And people will say, Washington, wait a minute. No, you know what about a recession? Yep. They go up. Listen, recession, it recedes. Recession, not depression. It recedes. Take a breath because poor people sell on loss. We get free time. Ah, and then it corrects above the line, right? Every time. All the time. So, you just want to hold on. If you have if you made a good investment, if it's flaky stuff, you may want to get rid of it. But if you made if you even if you if you bet on Jabari Young, just hold on to it. Well, I appreciate that, man. I like to say I'm a I'm I've returned my investment, you know, return on investment. Whatever woman whatever woman bets on Jabari Young is going to be doing pretty good. Hey man, listen, as always, I got to check in with Operation Hope. It's the latest. You know, we always talk about 1 million black businesses. The uh and you know, the plan, the initiative you have with Shopify, I believe it's over $130 million commitment now. It's about 160 million, something like that. 190. No, no, it was 190 million. 190 million. They they were 130 million after George Floyd's murder and recently came in at six 60 million in December. They put up another $60 million. Uh Toby Lukey, the founder, and and Harley Finkelstein, the president in particular. And this one didn't show up in your junk folder. You know that story. Yeah, it show up in your junk folder, right? No, it wasn't my junk folder. Does the audience know that story? The audience knows the story. Of course, everybody knows the story. I tell them all the time, check your junk food. Even when people say, "I haven't received an email." I say, "Did you check your junk food?" And behold, there it is. And be gracious. Like I I I could have assumed to to assume is to make an ass out of you and me. I could have assumed that that guy Toby was disingenuous or negative or whatever and just didn't respond to me, right? Or or I could have taken an attitude that he just said no. What I assumed was that he was busy and that he hadn't thought about doing anything for black business until I raised it to him and he said graciously, "Send me something." He had no obligation to say yes to me. So, a week had passed and I was like, "Yo, man." I sent him a note. Yo, man, you're still my brother. We're going to do something else down the road. Thanks for considering it. I understand. I didn't hear back from you that you're not interested. And his response was, "What are you talking about?" I said, "Yes." Yeah. And it was my fault. So, talk without being offensive. Listen without being defensive. And always leave even your adversary with their dignity. Their dignity. Because if you don't, they'll spend the rest of their life working to make you miserable. it becomes personal. Step over mess not in it. So I would have I was the idiot there, not them. He he had done his part. So that was a it was a twoline email. We're in right 130 million. So then in December of last year and the timing is important. They recommitted at our hope global forum another 60 million on top of the 130 million. Lance Triggs who's here who's our president of all partners of all programs operation. He runs that program. He's staff coach here for 1 MBB. uh they they doubled down and created a commitment of 190 million by 2030 to create a million black businesses. Where are you guys at now? About 450,000 although Lance will probably correct me say it's more than that, but 450,000 businesses that have been started, supported, you know, uh advanced uh by us. Are that many still in business now or some? Oh, I don't know if they're still in business, but they were started 450 started, supported, nurtured. When I the reason I say that is you can have a restaurant and start an e- restaurant. You don't have to start a you don't have to start a e-commerce business. You could have an existing business. We could have just improved your existing business with a credit enhancement uh called e-commerce. But with with us you get a this $25,000 package we do at 1 MBB. You get a domain name search domain name security secured. You get a a website. You get a payment system a delivery system. You get you you get a e-commerce site from from um Shopify for 6 months for a dollar a month. Uh you get um uh all the back end. You get financing if you after your first sale to finance your second one. Uh you get a you get a small business plan from Operation Open. You get credit score support. Uh you get two hours of an attorney, two hours in with an accountant, you get support from Shopify's uh team on e-commerce and so on so forth. We're about $25,000 for each small business. Um anyway, so I asked Harley why like this recently. I'm like, uh you you are paying attention to the environment, right? So I wasn't going to change the name, but I I at least was being gracious like do you need me to make some adjustments? No. The only adjustment I need you to make is take this $2 million for your administrative expenses. Excuse me. Yeah. And I need this to report to me. Excuse me. Yeah. and here's my chief of staff and she's going to be the one that Lance reports to. Okay, what's up? He's like, this is fantastic for us. We have X number of small businesses that are black. Let's call it 3%. We want 10% of small businesses that are black of Shopify. Yeah, it's business development for us. Well, it's the right thing to do. It feels good. But the conversion rate they're discovering of folks who came on and stayed on went from from fee from free to fee as a successful business was off the charts for them. They could find nothing else that had this conversion rate. So they wanted to double down on it. And that's what I want. That's what I was on a show my brother Roland Martin a year no three years ago and some callers came in you know his callers you know why why Shopify doing this? What's what's the deal John? I said, um, they want customers. And so I was like, you don't want a hand out. You want a hand up. Like, and I said to them, so do you want charity? No. Or do you want me to teach you how to fish and then you do you want to become the fisherman? There you go. So I think this really progress because this is about the green. And that this is my whole argument about inclusive economics and why I think DEI was designed with good intentions but it was designed emotionally and as a result of that it became really easy to attack. Well I wanted to ask you about that because you said in that email that I mean you know Shopify the CEO the co-founder Toby was telling you make no changes. Were you shocked at that? Because, you know, you've been very Harley, you've been very vocal about companies dropping diversity, making changes to the EI because of the, you know, political environment we're in. We just had the MLB commissioner sitting right where you at. And, you know, Rob was saying how he's great. Rob is phenomenal. They're helping us with green socks day. What they had to do, right, to make sure that their their programs are not targeted and they had to drop the word diversity. Um, if you would have had to make changes, would you have done it? No. No. I mean, the color is green. That's what I keep saying. It's not black or white or red or blue. It's green. Yeah. At least in the US. And it's always been green. Look, slavery was about money. Real talk. Nobody went halfway around the world to drag you and me all the way. Our descendants all the way over here because they didn't like us. Yeah. Just the opposite. We were agricultural geniuses. We understood the land. We knew how to take dead land, dead soil, over burn, overheated, worn out, oversaturated with crop rotations, and we knew how to bring that soil back to life in Africa. So, the southern soil with all the humidity and all of the heat was very similar, but that's where the cash crops were. That's where uh the the cotton was, that's where the tobacco was and all the crops of those days, which was like gold. Half of all exports in America in 1840s was cotton. So this country literally depended on these crops, but they couldn't get Europeans to work that soil and to turn those crops into gold. Only we could do that. So but but they had to sort of get the self-esteem out of us. They didn't want our attitude. They didn't want all that energy. They just wanted us to be mechanical. So we I think we still have self-esteem issues to this day uh a as descendants of American slaves because of that experience. We have high confidence, many of us, but with low self-esteem. But my point is that was bad capitalism. So we we tend to reject capitalism because we think it's all bad capitalism. No, there's bad capitalism and there's good capitalism. Bad capitalism is where I benefit and you pay a price for it. Right? Slavery. It's like drug dealing. There's a whole bunch of examples. Uh good capitalism is where I benefit and you benefit more. a hair comb, you know, a shave, you know, Shopify, you know, uh, everybody wins. There's good debt and there's bad debt, right? Bad debts tied to something that that depreciates. Fancy and jewelry. Yeah. Good debts tied to something that may appreciate, home ownership and real estate. And no one ever taught us these lessons, man. No one We're not dumb and we're not stupid. It's what we don't know that we don't know that's killing us, but we think we know. But we're making a lot of assumptions and presumptions. Oh, I'm on this pro one of these programs and a lot a lot of these programs are live. So, uh, all you know, John Bryant, Tom talking about B home ownership. I I don't want to buy no house. If I own the house, the bank owns the house. If you don't pay, right? And as long as you pay, as long as look, if I loan you the money and you don't pay, I'm gonna own your house. John O'Brien's house. So, and by the way, I I am the largest well, I was the largest minority owner of single family rental homes in America. I own, you know, this this company, the Promised Homes Company. I sold most of the company. I'm still a major shareholder, but uh so I should be in the rental business. I want you to go from rent to own. I want you to own a piece of the American pie. I want you to to I want you to go up the ladder, but but that person just all they saw is the mortgage. They didn't know that the entire tax policy for the United States is d is arranged around home ownership real estate. The entire tax policy. Yeah. Yeah. People, man, they know you know your story. Listen, John, you're a superstar now in our community, right? You hook up and you're everywhere. Yes. That's not that's not true, man. You look you're on Stephen A's show. You're on Shannon Sharp and and and you're all in all those guys. And so, um you know, we because there are other guests canled. Yeah, you had you had Robert Smith. You had Robert Smith up coming here. He he he had to go to Canada. So, you got to be No, stop. Stop that. But I mean, listen, man, for those people who don't know, you grew up in LA and always love to allow people to return to their past, right? And you know, before I do that, I know your mom passed away not too long ago. Um, and I'm sure you get up every single morning and you think about her. What's the one thing that maybe she taught you when you were a kid that you still apply today in business? God bless her life. Um, sorry, got me in a moment. Um, my mother, Wanita Smith, was and is amazing. Um, she uh she told me she loved me every day of my life. Yeah. And uh and and from that I got there's a difference between being broke and being poor. You know, being broke is economic, but being poor is a disabling frame of mind in a depressed condition of your spirit. and you must vow never ever ever to be poor again. And that's a quote I came up with for Operation Hope in 1992. But I got that spirit from my mother. My mother wasn't loved. My mother wasn't told she was loved by her mother and by her father. But she knew it was important to tell her child that he was loved. And so I I we were broke, but we weren't poor. And that differentiation made all the difference in the world for me. So my self-esteem from a very early age was was raised up. And so I today I'll say it's okay if you don't like me. I like me. Because if I don't like me, I'm not going to like you. Yeah. If I don't feel good about me, I'm not going to feel good about you. If I don't respect me, I don't know how to respect you. If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you. And then hope. If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'm going to make your life a living hell. Whatever goes around comes around. My mother taught people told me to to treat others as I want to be treated. Don't treat them as they treat me. treat them as I want to be treated. That's biblical. Uh my mother and my father were rooted in the church, were rooted in spirituality. My mother was a walking testimony to dignity. And my mother always was about that Dorothy Heights quote. Dorothy to Height told me one day that John Bryant, you reminded me uh of a dreamer with a shovel in your hands. So she was like, "God helps those who help themselves." That that's Proverbs. Poor to be poor is not to not have anything. To be poor is not to not do anything. and lazy hands make a man poor. That's in Proverbs. No one talks about that part of the Bible. So, my mother worked an hourly job for 32 years. McDonald Douglas aircraft, made $18 an hour at her height. She died a millionaire. So, I don't anybody says I can't do it. No, no, no. Yes, you can. There's your example right there. She had worked an hourly job. She had a high school education. went back to school at age 62 and graduated from high school at 62. Walked with capp and ground cap and gown with 18 year olds. No indignity there. Uh defied the odds, man. And uh had a will when she passed away. Her will her wheel was gangster. Her will had a clause and said anybody who disputes his will is denied it. Crickets like no one said, you know, normally it's a fight. Normally, you know, it's a fight, you know. it any she put that clause that anybody who's who disputes the contents of this will is excluded from the will and I mean I was a trustee for it so I was ready for to defend her honor and I didn't say a thing I'm like from the from the grave my mother teaching so she had she had a will she had a life insurance policy she bought and sold seven homes yeah pretty pretty amazing story another thing man people don't really talk about when it comes to you is again your business side right we know you as a phenomenal motivator, speaker. Again, financial literacy, the dignity that comes behind it. But again, you sold Promise Homes, right? 2021, I believe. Started that company. Christmas Eve Christmas Eve afternoon 2021. Wire Transfer came through and I was in Taco Bell's checkout uh the the drive-through line ordering a number three. What was the number three? Hard shell. Oh, the hard shell. I was say Taco Supreme. It's either the one or the three. It was a taco supreme. So, you get that call, man. again, you sell that company and 700, you know, plus homes that was in that uh company, 100 million plus in assets, $121 million sale. Your your philosophy though was the rent to own strategy. That's what you kind of and financial literacy and financial literacy. Um and minority vendor program support. Why that rent to own strategy? What made you go all in on that? Because I want to be a good capitalist because I believe that good capitalism is better than bad capitalism because I need to because I need to live my values. Yeah. I I don't know another way to operate. I can't go to bed at night knowing I jacked somebody up on purpose. I I just Other people can't. I can't do it. I you know, if if I mess you over, it was an accident. Like I I asked you to move out of the way. I was moving real fast. I I begged you. I asked you, I'm coming. Please get out the way and you just stood there and I and I apologize. I was came over at, you know, million miles an hour because I'm heading that way. But I you'll never meet anybody who will consciously tell you that John Bryant screwed him over. And that's something I'm proud of that, you know, I don't I don't have a bunch of lawsuits. I don't have a bunch of drama tied to my name. When I walk out the door, people don't say, "But, you know, I respect that John Bryant." Yeah. But, you know, I respect that John Bryant High Rose. But, so I just I I just so personal integrity, but also just from a business philosophy, I thought that was just a great business plan. Everybody else is just rent to rent. Why not be rent to own? Give people a pathway out. I'm the smallest player of institutional players. Like 700 homes is the largest minority owner of single family rental homes in America, but it's the smallest instit one of the smallest institutional owners of single family homes. And so in order to to to distinguish myself, I had to have a a different model. I called it a social impact investing model. And that model attracted actually different kinds of capital. So I had financial literacy for every resident. you raise your credit score to 700 from 600, I'll reduce your rent by 10%. permanently as long as you keep it above 700. Um, if you pay the rent on time, I give you a $25 or $50 credit. Uh, if you got in trouble, uh, you were you renter for me for I think it was 18 months. For every 18 months, I gave you one month of life event credit. So, you're with me for 18 months. God forbid Johnny gets sick, you lose your job, get a divorce, whatever. I will give you a month of life event credit with no rent. You can borrow your security deposit from me to to cover that month's rent. For every 18 months, I give you one month of life event credit. So after five years, you have 90 days to reset your life. You can you can pay that back with a little paid paid tied to to your rent over time so you don't even feel it. These are little things. That's a great stuff that you're doing, but that's why I was kind of confused why you sold the company because that type of mindset is still needed. And I know you're still involved in your shareholder, but why was the decision to sell? And I don't even want to know because of course, of course, they want to get out of the business, right? The object is to build a business, sell it. I'm glad you said that. Build it and sell it. But you guys, you guys hear what he said? The whole purpose of businesses, this is Wall Street. Your whole purpose is to build it and sell it and and have a liquidity moment to to to to optimize it to to create a value proposition for yourself and then go buy something else or build something else. One, if you go far enough to the North Pole, you end up south. As a boutique small business, I had taken it as far as I thought I could. So, I had two partners with me. It was Tony Wrestler and Michael Ericetti, both billionaires. And they were like, "We love you, John, but we're not we, you know, this is we're we we're as much as we can put into this." And um and in order to grow to the scale, I wanted to be a billion-dollar business. I was at $150 million of assets under management. I also had made a promise to my partners that in five years, I'd get you out. So, we had reached year three or four and I needed to start thinking about the promise I made and the exit strategy. And uh then I got a offer I couldn't have refused. One of my partners said, you know, if you sell this company in a year, we'll give you a, again, I don't get in details, but an office you can't you can't refuse. And I sold that I restructured the company uh to attract additional capital. Um, and it was all the stuff I was doing with residents. And by the way, half of my vendors were minority and women. So, plumbing, heating, lights, landscaping, roofing, lighting. I was able to reinvest in the community. So, I felt really good about growing the business. and I want to grow it more so I could do more for people. But I had reached that ceiling. So, it's time to pa cash out, reset, and I can't announce it just yet. But, uh, within two or three months, uh, I'll come on your show. You'll be hearing about a new venture that I'm in. Uh, that I believe has the potential to be a billion dollars in real estate. Yeah. Well, I love it, man. Make sure I'm involved in that deal, too. Don't No, you're a journalist. You can't you can't you you got you need a deal, but afterwards we got to talk, right? Listen, man. Financial literacy month. And I'll let you go cuz you're busy, John. You're CEO. You hopping on a plane. You're going back home to Atlanta. I know that fancy car you got. You want to drive it around the track. Um uh I don't have to drive it much, unfortunately. Listen, anytime you want to let me hold it, too. Just ship it right up there, man. Um but financial literacy month, man, I remember me and you I wanted to bring this particular subject to this very show, but me and you were texting and I had sent you an article about, you know, what they were doing in Finland. Yeah. Um, and you know the the headline read, "Finland fuels children's future with financial literacy and food." Finland aims to be the number one uh country in the world by 2030 and financial literacy. And they're what they're doing over there is phenomenal. They're turning warehouses and creating mock marketplaces and allowing kids to go in there and being entrepreneurs, owning stores, civil service, real life situations. And I took a quote from a 14-year-old girl in that article, right, from the Financial Times. And it says, "That program in Finland, it helps us learn about the environment we're living in. It prepares us for life as an adult. I used to be in school in the US before and we learned a lot less of this stuff." And she's talking about financial literacy and how they're not teaching it as much. Now, in the US, you know, there are about 35 or so schools that do implement financial literacy. States, excuse me, states that do implement that. When you look at the landscape as a whole, what still needs to be addressed when we talk about financial literacy today in this country? Financial literacy is a civil rights issue of this generation is as important as the right to vote was in 1960. Um, financial literacy and credit scores are as important as a four-year college education degree um and a career. Um, and I believe you're going to see a renaissance, a revolution uh, of values in the next 5 years around financial literacy and AI literacy, artificial intelligence. We haven't had a chance to talk about that, but I'm co-chair of financial literacy for all with Doug McMillan and by all the way by the way all of the sports organizations, Rob at Major League Baseball, Adam Silver, NBA, Roger Goodell at NFL, um the Major League Soccer, hockey, they're all involved with financial literacy for all and green socks day, which we're going to be doing. Um, but I'm also co-chair of AI Ethics Council with Sam Alman, um, who I think is the Steve Jobs of this generation in the AI LP3, which is a farm club, a pipeline in Atlanta from kindergarten all the way up through college of AI talent. Don't just wait for the jobs to be taken from our community. Be creative and create the jobs and the opportunity that AI is going to manifest by 2030. And so Atlanta is a a model for this. You know, Atlanta's economy is as big as Singapore. I was in Singapore two weeks ago speaking for and and in Singapore 90% of the they have a 90% 90% home ownership rate uh in Singapore and and I think that we're going to going to model that in Atlanta where every kid has a bank account. Right now every kid in kindergarten has a Hope child savings account thanks to Andre Dickens the mayor. And we're going to connect that with studies have shown that if a kid has a savings account in kindergarten, they're 25% more likely to go to college. Is that what you invite would advise parents nowadays? Listen, open a savings account for your child immediately. Yes. I'd go one step further. I'd say open a stock account. You can get a fractional stock account. You uniform. I did that for my kid. Yes. You can you can buy fractional shares. You can get a stock certificate uh buy one share. I think it's I think the company's called buy a share and you can buy one share uh for their birthday whatever Christmas put it on the wall share of whatever Coca-Cola share of you know whatever you love on the wall and once that kid has that share they get access to all the financial records for that company people don't know that one share gives you access to all financial records but it what it does is enrolls the kid in in thinking about free enterprise if you have a few hundred bucks in that child's savings account they're 75% more likely to graduate from college because now you're connecting education with aspiration. So we have we have an account Lance Triggs runs this as well and every with for every kid in Atlanta public schools with Andre Dickens in the Atlanta public schools Dr. Johnson but now we're going to connect financial literacy and AI literacy on that and I think it's going to create a super highway of of economic opportunity for all and I think that's going to become a national model. Uh Bernese King, Dr. Bernice King, Dr. King's daughter and I are launching the 100th uh anniversary project for her father uh tied to having a 100 cities having a 100 bank accounts. We're excited about that. I'm meeting with Secretary of the Treasury uh the new SK Secretary of the Treasury Scott I call him Basant French but Scott Bessett um uh who is somebody I can work with uh and his suggestion for the part of the agenda was financial literacy. So this new administration is taking a financial relationship. I I'll let you know after the meeting, but he he he is interested and I'm interested in having this embedded as legislation. I as you know I and Operation Jehov were responsible for financial literacy becoming the policy of the US federal government under George Bush and under Obama but but there was unfunded. It was only tied to the federal government. I learned a lot of lessons about the power of money school districts or businesses. You cannot have an unfunded mandate expect them to do it. They need to have funding to push that curriculum. So we want Congress to codify legislation K through college at least K through high school mandating financial literacy education. I think that's like putting a plug into the socket in the wall. I think the kids will now connect education aspiration. You then tie that to whole business of boxmies like they're doing uh in in that nor in that in Europe where your kids are now starting businesses at a young age opening a bank account having a stock account trading stocks now real life. So I'm as you can tell I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that article was brilliant. I mean listen what they're doing overseas a lot of this you know financial literacy first of all is a global issue. Every country is trying to solve it and everybody is obviously attacking it. So it's good to see that Finland's taking that step up. And isn't it interesting that this is the one thing that it's not a fight with this administration? No. Um Yeah. I mean, uh I I've talked a lot of mess as you know. I don't intentionally do it. I just speak my mind. No one's attacked me. I mean I I I've asked like why we we see you're a capitalist. Like we see you're using the free enterprise system. And by the way, the math Yeah. makes sense. this other stuff is being is this other stuff is being politicized. It's being game. It's all theatrics. It's theatrics. Exactly. Exactly that. And I I just try to keep it very simple. And again, as you know, I like math. It doesn't have an opinion. That's a Melody Hoffson quote. Yeah. I love it. Aerial Capital Management. Yeah. We'll get you out of here on some math, man, because you know, again, you're a CEO. I know you got to go, man. Again, always appreciate you taking the time to come up here to talk business and talk life. It's always good to see you. You're only You're probably one of the frequent guests. You're my only frequent request. You really Yeah, man. Because you know they we should start our own show. No, we would go for hours. Your your ratings would die would crater with me on your on your show. People go spike, man. You're crazy. But let me tell you this. We've gone from civil rights to silver rights. Civil rights in the streets in the 60s. Yeah. To now silver rights in the streets. And this is appropriate that you now are doing this show and Forbes is giving this platform and you're at NASDAQ and we're talking about money and markets. I think that the history is going to serve you well. I think that I think that this Forbes black 50 list that you did is it is signature. I think your work that you did to highlight Junior Bridgeman before he passed away, God rest his soul, put him on the cover. I mean, what a what an honor for his family and his legacy. He earned it from nothing uh an okay basketball career monetarily, but to a a billion-dollar platform businessman that we should honor. We honor rappers and celebrities and whatever, but we we don't honor our business uh uh elite. And that's something everybody can do. Everybody can't be TI, my friend, or Killer Mike, my friend, or our our people we know in entertainment. That's one of them. Can't be Oprah. But you can be Jabari Young. You can be John Ho Bryant. You can be Robert Smith. You can beat Don Peoples. You know these are scalable models in the biggest economy in the world and this country cannot continue to succeed for the next 20 years without the least of these God's children. Black and brown people are now essential for the future success of the largest economy in the world and the sole superpower in the world. That's not my opinion. There's just not enough college educated, successful white men to go around. If we if if if we leave it just to to white men to run the economy, we'll be speaking Mandarin in 20 years. We need blacks and browns and women and Asians, everybody. Everybody's got to be rowing this boat. And that's a beautiful thing. And so I honor what you have done here. It is really important. I appreciate it, man. Well, listen, uh I think we know you you're a millionaire, right? You said it. You just lost $3 million in the stock market. So, uh, we but let's go from 2021, right? After that deal, after that the transaction went through that million. My brother keeps trying to keep keep trying to get my net worth out of me. Yeah, I'm one day. Um, that million dollars, right, after 2021, right? What's the first thing you did? Spend that first million dollars after you received the, you know, final transaction figure that you have for promise. You know, you know what? No one's ever asked me this question before. This is why you're a great journalist. There's several questions no one's ever asked me before. No one's ever asked me that question. Uh, well, Lance Triggs is here somewhere. He's one of my senior executives at Operation Hope. I took a million dollars and I gave it to my employees at Operation Hope. Not not all my employees, but the folks who are ride or die for me. Yeah. I I've never said this on an interview before, but there there is a senior team. I call them my special forces team. Uh, and about 20 of them. I have 400 employees who I call them at two in the morning. I call them on Saturday. I call them on the weekends. They always answer the phone. It's always Yes. Lance Triggs, Mary Ersome, Jana Rosco, Rachel Dove, Rob Mcgru, all these heroes and shirro, Kevin Buchet, etc. Tina Tina Fair, my assistant, and Sir James, and uh they don't get any they don't get any sunshine, don't get any light. And because they were for a nonprofit, all they get is a salary, they get no bonus. You get no stock. So, I uh took my first million dollars and I snuck around to figure out what was Lance Trig's favorite car. It was a Porsche 911. Uh I asked what was Rachel Do's favorite car. It was a Raptor, Ford Raptor. What was Mary Harrison's favorite car? It was a white Mercedes SUV, I think it was. And I a Jana Rosco. It was a little um Mini Cooper. Um and I went and bought the cars Oprah style. And then I gave them a I gave them a stock portfolio for a rainy day. I gave him a little rainy day fund, a stock portfolio in the car. And then yeah, we unveiled it all. I told them to come to a meeting at the house. I told them the head of state was coming to had to come there at a certain time. and they had they had to be inside otherwise secret service would shoot them which allowed us to then put the cars outside. That that was that was a very special um moment and u I wanted to share my upside with them and and they wouldn't have gotten it from their nonprofit efforts so I took it from my for-profit efforts. Yeah, I love that man and it teases me two things. A I need to maybe work for you one day. That's number one. and and MB man that that there's still great generous bosses around that does not mind doing stuff like that, man. That's Well, and by the way, you mentioned Oprah. I got that idea from Oprah to full credit. She's a nice lady, by the way. Just just traded notes with her a couple weeks ago. Can't wait. I can't wait to meet her. She's good people. She was, by the way, you were put her on the list. Yeah. And I emailed her to congratulate her and she was so excited. She's like, "Black for a text." I was excited. I hope you said that. Hey man, get you out of here on this good, right? Because we're going to have you back. So, we'll get off to the other stuff later, but in 2025, um there are a lot of people that may lose their jobs and so they may find themselves having to be entrepreneurs and maybe this is the opportunity that they needed for them to jump start uh being an entrepreneur. So, in 2025, what is the difference between a good entrepreneur and a great one? Somebody who gets up early, stays up late, works harder, doubles down, uh is is hooked on excellence, not perfection, who is resilient, who never gives up, never gives in, who is absolutely obsessed obsessed with finishing the race and being a credit to their race. And if you do those things and you have that attitude, you can't help but win. Most people are just lazy, Jabari. I mean, there love is work. Non-love is laziness. Anti- love is evil. Evil exists, but it's very rare. Most people are just lazy. Yeah. Intellectually lazy, physically lazy, financially lazy, spiritually lazy, they don't want to do the work. They want somebody else to do it for them. And um and so anybody who's willing to do the work, whatever you love is going to drive you crazy. You you love husband, wife, kids, job, career, it's going to drive you crazy. It's going to exhaust you. Love is work. Only in the dictionary does the word work, success come before the word work because it's alphabetical. So you got to do the work. You got to be committed to it. You do the work. We talk all times of day, night, weekends, hour, weekends. And you got to you got to be obsessed with excellence. And if you do that, the the haters will make you better. Rainbows only follow storms. You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first. This these problems in society and there's lots of them. We're anybody awake today, you're not bored. I mean you people reading the constitution bill of rights first time like whoa what is this about an executive order right I mean people are listening to interested in civics there are so many opportunities are going to come out of this disruption be focused on maximizing or trying to figure out how to turn that opport that disruption into a business opportunity for yourself they're everywhere artificial intelligence is going to change everything like literally everything AI and furniture, AI in suits, you know, AI in video photography, AI and I mean, it's going to change whatever you're interested in. AI in sports. Obsess about that. Become the best at that. Become the goat at that and then you won't be denied. Yeah. Love it, man. What a way to drop the mic. John Hope Bryant, financial literacy month 2025. I love financial literacy month. But listen, as my producer said, every time every time this show comes on is financial literacy. financial literacy based show. So, well, and and I want to invite everybody uh to put on a green sock. That's right. April 30th uh is green socks day in the nation. That's right. Walmart's making the socks and all the sports teams uh the sports organizations uh have signed on to support this NFL, NBA, soccer, football, baseball, uh hockey, etc., etc. I'm going to try to get WNBA as well. And um all I want you to do is do something for financial literacy on April 30th. put on a green sock, tag it, green socks day, and post it. And NASDAQ, you can't make this up. Coincidence is God's way of staying anonymous. And Andrew Young quote, NASDAQ's going to put it on the big board. The best uh post on April 30th. There you go. NASDAQ's going to feature. Yeah. You see all people's feet and socks right on the big board, man. Yeah. Make sure you have your socks on. I want to see. That's right. I want to see your feet. I want to see your feet. John Hope Bryant, Financial Literacy Month 2025, NASDAQ Enterprise Zone. Thanks for watching.