Yo, what's up people? I'm your host Jay Will and I would like to welcome you to inspire guys people where we balance faith and business to guide you to your purpose. This is episode 221. What is it called?
Generational Poverty. That's not kind of wild. Don't it? Let me get this live on Instagram.
Instagram is kind of weird because you have to go live on air after you officially go live everywhere. So anyway, um, and also if you watching this on Instagram, I can never see those comments until after the show. So yeah, that's kind of weird too. But anyway, this is episode 221, generational poverty.
And we're going to be talking about like this exploration to why do poor Christians struggle to build wealth, right? It's a question. It's exploration. And what happened is I came across this article that's pretty dope looking at some of the psychology of money.
So we actually don't kind of explore pieces of the article together and then I'll kind of break it down and give some of my thoughts around it. The intention here is to have a healthy conversation about money. So let me tell you one thing I know about money, especially as it relates to Christians, it's a tricky topic because a lot of Christians, it's like you either fall on one end of the scale or another, right? You either have Christians that's like super like prosperity movement and like everything is about money and God is going to make me famous and God.
So you got like that side and then you have like the side of romanticize is poverty, right? You got the side is like, no, like, you don't need nothing but God. We don't have to have a dime. It's like, okay, cool.
There's actually, in my opinion, on the surface, a little bit of truth to both of those extremes, but I don't think any one of those is the actual truth. You feel what I'm saying? So what do I mean by that? Like when I believe when we look in the Bible, as Christians, it's super easy just to take one scripture and like build this whole idea off of one scripture.
And to me, that's how you get to these extreme extremes. I can talk people. I promise I can talk. But that's how you get to these extremes when to me, I think the intention of the Bible is genuinely for us to have a balanced understanding of both sides of the coin, right?
New Testament, Old Testament, just figuratively speaking in that sense where I think we should kind of understand and know God in that balanced way. Because I think what happens is again, you have some people looking at Old Testament and they see some judgment or something and be like, oh, is this evil God? How could he ever and then you see like God displaying some grace or Jesus coming along in a New Testament and then you get people that's like, oh, God is nothing but love. We can do anything and treat them any kind of way and it's just love.
Right. And again, like for me, this podcast is really about balancing faith in business. Right. So today we're going to look at a more business side of the coin through the lens of our faith, but the intention is to explore, right?
Not to, not to point the finger. Now you come in and nobody saw ways. We don't care if you got a little bit of money or a lot of money. This is more exploring the psychology.
And let me give you a little background if you knew to the show. You know, I come from poverty. And so my personal journey has been as started through the lens of poverty growing up in inner city of Detroit and kind of growing from there. Right.
Like to wherever I'm at now, just kind of growing and still on this continued journey of growth. And my intention again is as a Christian, I would like to try to understand these things through the lens of what God would truly have for me. And I see in the world as I look around, especially in the world of Christianity, I see conflict between these two thought processes and how do we think about money and, you know, I don't necessarily see a lot of exploration again, I ain't pointing to finger nobody, but that's the intention. Right.
That's my disclaimer today. Even though I said my motto for 2024 is no disclaimer. So enough with that. Let's jump into this article and let's kind of check out this show.
All right. So we're going to start over at a where's this article? I'm going to share my screen. You know what I'm saying?
If I could find it. And we're going to explore this. Let's see share screen. All right, better.
I think you all can see my screen now. Let me check. Yeah, there we go. We good.
All right. So we're going to explore this. This is by some guy named Travis Luther. I don't know a lot about him.
Honestly, I came across this in my in my reading. This morning I was reading and I came across this. I think yesterday morning actually. So let's just check it out.
The lasting impact of poverty. A psychological look at money relationships. Right. Again, like this is just exploring.
We're looking at what Travis said. I know he's an entrepreneur. I read his bio some things about him. There was nothing like faith related or anything like that.
So just from a business perspective looks like a serial entrepreneur has been, you know, starting businesses since the late 90s. So let's see what he says. Right. First things first caption growing up in poverty affects millions of people in the United States with long lasting implications on mental and emotional development.
Interesting. The psychological effects of experiencing poverty during childhood shape and individuals relationship with money as an adult. Let's look at the various ways poverty impacts a person's psychological well being and influences their final financial behaviors later in life. All right.
So let me stop sharing for a second. First thing we're going to try to explore is like this idea of like does growing up in poverty actually impact you like through the rest of your life. You know what I'm saying? And I stand on the side of believing that it does because I grew up in poverty and like one of the craziest things about growing up in poverty is you grow up through this lens of looking at money.
Like your reality is less than you feel what I'm saying. That's real to you. Right. And what happens is as you grow through life, sometimes without even knowing it, I talk about me so nobody get offended.
I would be looking at things through the lens of less than you feel what I'm saying. So it was like everything was through this lens of like my reality was poverty. So anything better than poverty seemed unreal to me like normal stuff would just seem like a dream. You know what I'm saying?
And so again, when you growing up in this in scenarios where you in a city like Detroit, I mean, in poverty, city segregation really highly segregated city. I grew up around all black people, you know what I'm saying, which I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that's a reality. And so what happens is you have this one point of view.
And for me, what happened is a different points in life. I remember going to college was one of them, especially at Oakland University because at Oakland University, it was a lot of non blacks, you know, when I went to college and I was like, yo, I was in the school of business and I would be like, you know, having a partner with different groups and things like that for projects and I'm like, yo, I'm the only black person in some instances. I wasn't the only black person at the school, but in my, in some of my classes, I would not be a lot of us. So my point is like, I started getting exposure outside of my bubble.
You feel what I'm saying? And I'm gonna tell this little brief story of like one of the first times, I ain't gonna say the first time. Because it's too size to even what I'm saying. I've always aspired for greatness and more.
I knew at a young age, I wanted more, but aspiration and exposure are two different things. Sometimes you can aspire for something and more of a fantasy type way of like, I want to go to the NBA. You don't know any of the realities associated with you. Feel me?
But when you start getting exposure to stuff, that's a little different, right? So me growing up in inner city Detroit, growing up more so around poverty. And I don't like if you grew up in poverty, let me just say this half of the time you're not calling it poverty. As a matter of fact, I don't ever remember even using a term poverty until I probably was out of poverty.
And I say that to say, sometimes when you kick in it about things to some people that's going to sound worse. And this is kind of the trick of the enemy sometimes. Sometimes when you are in a bad situation, it's so normal to you that none of y'all in it even look at it as bad. Like, what this poverty, we having a great time.
We like, this is a beautiful day in the neighborhood. And there are some aspects of that that's so true. There's a lot of good that comes from the hood. You feel what I'm saying?
But there's a lot of like things that you carry into your adult life. And it may not be either until you're educated or you're exposed to something differently to even shine a light on the fact that like, yo, that's not normal, even though it's normally your bubble. So I'm gonna tell this little piece of the story. When I was a, you know, I had just started in corporate America.
So this was like, I was probably, I came in corporate America. I think at 24 just turned to 24. So I was probably like 2526 when this happened. And I remember at the time me and my wife was living in apartment.
Cool. No wrong with apartment. I don't want nobody to take no offense to anything. When you talk about money and different thing, everybody, you know, on the internet, take offense to everything.
So y'all, y'all are my witness at this part of the video. This is gonna be like an hour video, right? But at this part, I gave the disclaimer. I'm not trying to come off no kind of way.
I'm not even on that. I ain't into that. I'm trying to help people and I'm trying to help myself and people around me and think through like, what's the right way to do this. So it was this dude that I work with.
White guy. Cool, cool dude. I'm not gonna say his name, but like we work together. I'm like, this is my second role in corporate America.
You know what I'm saying? For context, I think I'm on my ninth role in corporate America in over 17 years, right? So this was earlier in my career, some point in the first few years of my career. And we were going to this basketball game.
We went to a Pistons game as a team. And so we, I don't know who drove, but everybody went around picking somebody drove around picking people up, right? And we got to this one dude house. And he lived in a house in St.
Clair, Shores, and St. Clair, Shores is a beautiful area. You know what I'm saying? Nice, nice kind of small town off of the water if you're not from Michigan.
So we go to we go to St. Clair, Shores, and these are small, small town small houses, but really like kind of like nice clean area. You feel what I'm saying? So not like mansions and things like that.
We pull up to my man house. He had to break house with the white picket fence. And I remember a dog ran out when he came. I was like, he got a dog.
It was at that moment. I kid draw not before like it was in that moment because me and him had the same job. He was young, just like me. Like we both just came out of college not too long ago.
And I remember like being like in my mind. I was like, I'm supposed to have a house. I got he got a fence. No.
Again, y'all can laugh at me, whatever that might sound extreme to some people. But the reality of it is based on where my mind was at. I ain't talking about nobody else. I'm being honest about myself based on where my mind was at at the time in apartment.
Just was normal. I wasn't even thinking about owning a house. It wasn't even something. I didn't even know how to own a house.
Like literally I had no idea how do you buy a house. I was confused. Like, yo, houses cost a few hundred thousand dollars. How are people getting along for that?
And I'm barely getting approved for a loan for a $20,000 car. I was genuinely confused. I didn't understand the difference between the mortgage loan and auto loan and credit scores and how to manage your credit. I didn't know none of that, right?
Again, they don't teach that kind of stuff in school. I had a degree. I had a degree in business marketing, but I was never necessarily taught that the business of my home, the economics of my home. We go to school and we learn about the economy in the world, but we never learn about our personal economy.
And I think like, especially in America, right? I don't know. Like, I'm not an expert on all the countries and the financial systems in the world. I kind of grew up in America.
You know what I'm saying? So that's the lens I have. And I understand that we like even we're the richest other rich, right? So some countries might be looking like you don't understand.
I can't make money. Like, there's always exceptions to the rule. I'm not talking to you. But it was at that moment when I saw this dude walk out of that house and St.
Clair Shores and had a picket fence in the dog. That I was exposed to something that I had never been exposed to before through the lens at my age. And I said, I never seen a house before. Seen some dogs for show.
They might have been straight dogs. I don't think I ever saw a labidor in person at that point. But my point is like, through the lens of like, Oh, I'm supposed to have that. Cause my mindset was like, he do what I do.
Like, we make the same amount of money. Like, so like, I got I can do that. And I'm telling you, as crazy as it sounds, a lot of times in poverty, that's really the beginning of it. The beginning of it is getting someone in poverty to be able to see that they don't have to be in poverty.
And so many people in America today, especially in so many Christians are in voluntary poverty, meaning that if you just manage your money a little better, if you became a little financially literate, you don't have to be a millionaire. You don't have to make crazy money. But some of us are in voluntary poverty because we refuse to learn. We refuse to be shown another way because guess what?
We've convinced ourselves in order to make ourselves comfortable that, yo, this is pleasing on the God. Those people with money are evil. Like money doesn't make you evil, bro. You could be poor and go to hell.
You could be rich and go to hell. You get what I'm saying? Like salvation is through Christ Jesus. Like I could be a base or a base and a bond.
Like you listen as a believer through Christ Jesus, you could be rich or poor. That's the beauty of it. But so many of us are choosing one side of it and we may pick out one or two scriptures to try to justify. And then on the flip side, some of us are just chasing money and fame and success at the expense of our salvation, at the expense of our foundation.
And the things God wants us doing. And my argument really to start off is that neither of those things is the right way. You feel what I'm saying? Neither of those is the way that I believe that God wants us to navigate this process of life.
But what's my point to open up the show is just that I do believe that growing up in poverty can affect how you navigate through your adult life. And some of us either need education or exposure to escape that poverty. And it really starts in your mind so much of what we're going to talk about today is in your mind. And that's why nobody really can convince you you have to be willing to be convinced like you have to give someone the key to the door to unlock your mind so that you can be exposed to something different.
But if you just shut people off because you don't like the first thing they're saying or you don't understand the first thing they're saying, then you are the one that ends up suffering in the end. Right? So let's let's explore this a little more. I'm going to go back to sharing my screen and we're going to look at the next part of this this article.
And like again, if you just get in here, this is an article by Travis Luther, the lasting impact of poverty, a psychological look at money relationships. So let's look at this first part here scarcity mindset. Let's see what Travis says, growing up in poverty can lead to the development of a scarcity mindset, a psychological phenomenon that influences decision making and cognitive function. Oh, yeah, that's just a site and the sources, Mullen, Malain, Malain, nothing, Malain, nothing and Shafir 2013, Malain, nothing.
This mindset is characterized by constant worry about resources of focus on short term goals and difficulty in making long term plans. The scarcity mindset may lead to impulsive spending poor financial planning and difficulty in accumulating wealth as an adult. Oh, the scarcity mindset. Hold on, bro.
Hold on. A psychological phenomenon that influences decision making and cognitive function. Constant worry, short term focus on short term goals, difficulty in making long. I got to stop sharing and talk about this scarcity mindset.
Now we really exploring this idea of poverty, right? And if it's you was okay, like there is a way out there's a path out of this constantly worrying. Now, let me tell you why I'm making this argument, right? So if you look at poverty and this idea of the scarcity mindset and poverty, one of the impacts of the scarcity mindset, according to what Travis is saying and his sources that he cited.
One of those, one of those impacts of the scarcity mindset is constantly worrying. Now, I know for a fact the Bible says worry about nothing, but in all things, pray, you get what I'm saying. And so this is how I start making the connection and personally between poverty and a poverty mind. And when I'm reading the word and I'm asking myself which ideas is the Bible actually forcing us to we got to ask yourself the Bible says don't worry right.
But if I'm in poverty, I got to worry all the time. Let's be real why because your bills do every month. And the reason people are worried. I'm not blaming you for worry.
It's just the fact that like I'll talk about me right I'm gonna talk about me so nobody get offended. When I was living in poverty, it was this cycle that you felt like you can't get out of. And I'm gonna tell you why the cycle feels like that. Every four weeks, the rent is due.
Every four weeks, the phone bill is due. Every four weeks, all these bills are due. And then every week you need to go to the grocery store to get food, you need gas in your car to get to work to the job that you don't feel like you're making enough to pay the bills that's way too much and coming too fast. That mix creates a worry constant worry why because the bills are constant dog the bills ain't stopping the bills are coming quick fast and in a hurry, hurry, hurry, the bills come quick.
You got a new bit like I probably got a bill in my office since I've been on here. Let me check my email. Hold on. Let me just see some that the bill come through.
Okay, we good. I got no bill in the last 20 minutes. Listen to what I'm saying. That's how quick bills come like they they come so I just pay the car insurance this week.
The I mean, listen, I got a lot of bills. My point is you get end up in this cycle in poverty where you like how do I get out of this right? But you can't get out of it because you constantly worrying about it. And then, according to the scarcity mindset, it's talked about in this article.
The next part of that is that you have a constant focus on short term goals and you lack the ability to be able to plan for the long term. Ooh, this is this is tough because when you think about it, it's this domino effect of things that are interconnected that are preventing me from being successful, preventing me from building wealth. And I'm a Christian and I love God. So what I do is convince myself that, Hey, as long as I love God, it's okay, because I'm going to heaven and all this other stuff don't matter.
Well, the problem I have with that is that if we kind of minimize life to it doesn't matter, then you're kind of minimizing the opportunity to God gave you to be alive. So imagine if it doesn't matter, why am I given somebody a 25% tip instead of a 20% tip? Why did God cause me to be a cheerful giver if nothing matters? And I know again, there is a side of this where stuff doesn't matter where this rights away and all these things, but you have to try to balance these realities.
It doesn't matter. And it all matters at the same time. And that's the craziest part of life to me is that money doesn't matter money does not define me at all. It doesn't matter at all.
And it completely matters on the other end. Why? Because I got the deal is do right. I don't want to not have a place to live.
I don't want to not eat. And if I didn't have money, guess what? If I didn't have money, I would be trying to borrow money from you. What up.
Say what's the schedule? So I can like, Hey, bro, no, if you talking about reaching out to me personally, dog, you could just hit me up whenever if I don't know if the context of what you asking is the schedule of the show and the schedule of the show is like, we'll never I can do it. Whenever I'm not busy. I got a little bit of time right now.
It's been a crazy day. But yeah, if you need to hear me up personally, bro, you know, you got the number list. Just let me know. We can lock in whenever I make time.
Oh, the show. All right. See what I'm saying? Yeah, the show, bro.
Look, this podcast is officially on a whenever I can make it episode. Just please subscribe on YouTube people. That's when you're going to get all the shows go to inspire guys people on YouTube and subscribe. And also chopping up chopping up and smaller doses so you can get the bits and pieces of the show that might matter to you most so it's fired.
Subscribe. I can talk to inspire guys people. Not inspire guys people that kind of inspired guys people on YouTube. So the scarcity mindset is interconnected.
You feel me? It's this idea of like I'm looking at money as this scarce item. So I'm always nervous about money. You feel what I'm saying?
I'm always like, I'm always behind. And then it's this cycle that I can't get out of because it's moving too fast. Right? That's part of the scarcity mindset.
All right, Sean, you say you'll subscribe. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, bro? What kind of person are you Aaron Davis with a fan, Black Standard? Listen, listen, fam, Black Standard time all day long.
I can't even deny. We can't, but I will say it's just because of the business. Excuse me. I can't even get it.
I must be lying because I can't even hold on. Let me get my ladder together. No, it's just my corporate schedule is crazy. I got travel.
I got travel coming up. I just got a lot going on people. And I do love doing this show. So let me say that.
I love doing this show. All right, but back to the scarcity mindset. Let me go back to this article real quick. If anybody just jumping on just so you can see what we're talking about today.
We're talking about generational poverty and the scarcity mindset. And I want to go to this part to say is this mindset characterized by constant worry about resources of focus on short time goals and difficulty in making long term plans. So let me tell you one of the biggest differences that I've seen between some of the more wealthy people I know and the people I know in like myself when I was in poverty, right? Because we exploring these minds as we not judging either person.
This ain't about sending you to heaven or hell today. Like it ain't. It's about trying to understand through the lens of the Bible. What should I be doing?
Right. And one of the differences between the wealthy people I know, even wealthy Christians, right? Because you can't be wealthy and be a Christian as well. And I think we have to be exposed to that idea.
I talked a lot about exposure earlier. You need to be exposed to the idea that somebody can be wealthy, living right, serving God, good to people like all those same qualities that you can have when you're poor and be a Christian. And a rich person needs to understand that they don't look down on you because you have less than or me because I got less than any at the same time you can't look down on people if you got more than them. And you can't like elevate people who got too much.
You see how it's this constant balance and act. All these things are a little bit true, but we got to balance it all. You feel what I'm saying through the lens of the Bible. So one of the biggest differences I see between the people around me to have wealth and the people who don't is that the people who don't have money are actually way more focused on money.
And what do I mean by that? This idea of a scarcity mindset that caused you to focus is only on short term goals. So I'm gonna give you a real example. I talk to a lot of people around me about investing anybody who knows me know that I'm always talking about this stuff.
This is really what I be on like I really love this stuff. I love thinking through it and I love helping people through it. But I noticed some when I talk to my friends from poverty who grew up where I grew up who think how I used to think like they don't want to think past this week. Scarcity mindset.
So all the decisions they're making is like, all right, so what happened with my money like, all right, so I'm gonna put this money there and what happened is like, bro, you put that money there and you chill if it's two years or four years or five years you chill you go do whatever you were doing. You invest over time. But when you're in a scarcity mindset and you're always constantly worrying about resources, which the Bible says, remember, don't worry about nothing Bible tell you don't worry about nothing. You got a scarcity mindset you're worried about everything and it's causing you to be short term minded.
Well, what does that mean? It means when you think about building wealth, most wealth is built over a long term. Now, of course, there are some instances where somebody hits the lottery while I don't play the lottery and I don't teach the strategy and a lottery because I don't think it's an efficient way to build wealth. Except out.
Yeah, some people have an inheritance, but I don't know I've never done a math on the percentage of people who are wealthy that got an inheritance or not cool whatever but that's not me that's probably not true. And if it is you congratulations I'm not managing. My point is people if you talk to people who have built wealth I'll talk to people who built wealth a couple different ways right. So I know some people who built wealth through corporate America right meaning they have had a job in corporate America built their career ladder ladder gotten to hire senior executives roles where they getting crazy stock options and different bonuses and things over time that accumulate over time and they're able to build it and let's say over a 20, 25, 30 year career they look up and they have x amount of millions of dollars.
Well that wealth was not built in a day. And this is the biggest struggle that I think people in poverty need to realize is that let's say you're 35 years old and you're in poverty. I'm in poverty 35 years. Guess what buddy.
Even the poverty wasn't built overnight. Generational poverty. The idea that poverty is something that you develop. Grow and pass down just like wealth.
I literally today for the first time in my life had this thought that you can pass poverty down. Like poverty is actually something that you can give to the next generation and it happens time and time again but because nobody's identifying it. So there is no alarms going on. There's nobody noticing it and we are constantly passing down poverty generation after generation and it takes time.
So time for you to get poor. Why? Because when you was two years old you had no debt. No debt at all.
No debt at all. No debt at all. You ain't had no debt at two years old. Twelve years old you ain't had no debt.
What happened over time though you got your first credit card. Mom's with the phone bill in your name. Come on now speak to me. Things you got your first car and nothing to mess you up like a car if you don't know what you're doing.
And what happens is we start doing these things and making these decisions and look up and we 35 years old and we've been building our debt since we were 18. But we want to build wealth overnight scarcity mindset that makes you think that you need to build wealth overnight where it took you 15 years to build poverty. All right. LaVell what you talking about bro.
Give it a $200 via cash $200. Hey check the numbers brother. I think we're like 15 something that's right $200 via cash after the two million follower. How about that?
Y'all give me the $2 million and I give you all some money. I doubt it. Let's go back to this article. Let's check it out.
I'm just kind of stuck. Let's look at the second thing attachment to money. Children raised in poverty may develop an insecure attachment to money due to their early experiences of financial instability. This attachment style can manifest in several ways such as hoarding money, excessive spending to gain a sense of security or avoiding financial discussions altogether.
Insecure attachment to money can hinder a person's ability to make rational financial decisions leading to an unhealthy relationship with money and adulthood. I want to focus on two things in this art at this part of the article. This attachment to money can cause can manifest in several ways, excessive spending to gain a sense of security or avoiding financial discussions altogether. Ooh, that's rough y'all.
Let's look at that. Let's be real. I'll share y'all through the lens like I'm going to tell you like this. You go in a poor neighborhood.
You're going to see some of the best cars a lot of times. No, when I say the best cars, not at the extreme level, right? Because you're not talking about like, I mean me and my wife went to brunch and Birmingham one of these Sundays or something. I was Lamborghini here, Lamborghini here, G wagging there like I ain't talking about that.
You ain't seeing that in the hood. You ain't seeing no Lambo at all. But just on your everyday cars, you go to a upper middle class neighborhood. You're going to see mostly normal cars for the most part, if one fifties and you're going to see a lot of pickup trucks in upper middle class neighborhoods, you're going to see, you know, you're going to see some electric cars, but you're going to see just like a lot of Hondas, a lot of normal stuff.
Maybe a range over here there. Maybe an Escalade here there, right? But up and down the block, you'll see the most normal stuff. Go to the hood, especially in the summertime.
Everybody sitting on something, everybody got the challenger, the charger, the, I can't even think of the other one is the challenger in the Camaro. Like you see all the cars in the hood, then you're going to see the business and then oh, in a hood, like you go to the hood, go to a party or something, a gathering is Louis Vuitton everywhere is Gucci everywhere. And it's interesting to me, it's this attachment to money through poverty where you excessively spin to like have this sense of like, it's covering up in insecurity. I'm insecure about how much I really had.
So let me, I got it. And then you like, you see yourself through the lens of the brand. You feel what I'm saying? That's poverty.
And I'm only calling that not to talk about nobody or nothing, but we got to like start calling this stuff what it is like excessive spending the gain a sense of security. That's one of the ways poverty manifests. And in other way, this is real dangerous is it manifests through ignoring financial discussions altogether. If there was one thing that I would tell you that I thought was the number one kind of symptom of poverty.
If I was to say the number one symptom of poverty to me is not wanting to talk about money. Like people who don't want to talk about money, like they are deep in a poverty mindset. I mean, deep, they think it's a waste of time. You don't want to talk about growing money or building wealth, but you have no problem talking about spending money.
And that's my problem with some Christians, if I'm being real, if you want to have a healthy conversation about money, they don't know how to do that without thinking that like you a person that love money or, you know, this ain't got to do with God. Like, all right, cool. But at the same time, how much money did you spend a day? Do you have a nice TV in your house?
Yeah, you have a nice couch like people love spending money. Like, I never meet people spending money. And they think that's against God. Like they just spin, spin, spin, spin.
Right. But if you talk about growing money, then all of a sudden people have a problem. It's as if they never actually read the Bible. It's as if they never read the story of Joseph.
It's as if they don't realize that Solomon was a rich king. It's as if they never read Matthew chapter 25 verses 14 to 30. Like, it's as if you've never read anything that where the Bible clearly states how you should be a good steward of money. Like, how it's better to give than receive.
How can I give what I don't have? How can it be better to give something if it's not better to have something? You get what I'm saying? Like, so, like for me, we're kind of, we're so deep into the poverty mindset that sometimes we just want to ignore it.
And I'm be real. I try to, everybody who know me in real life know, like, I come with this energy, like, I'm trying to kick it with you about growth, self development, wealth, like the Bible, like I'm trying to do that. And I know this dog, people will almost fall asleep if I start talking money. So it's like sometimes I don't even bring stuff up.
And the crazy thing is like, I'm trying to help you because I'm not talking about loving money. We're really a lot of times, and even talking about making more money. We're talking about being a good steward of the money you have. And we need to tell my chasing money.
Everybody who know me know, I don't like fame. I don't like, I'm not trying to, like, I say run from fame. That's what I like. I don't like this ain't about like, I want to be famous.
I want to be known. I want people to like, no, I really don't rock like that. But I do believe in being a good steward or whatever God has given me. You feel me?
All right, Aaron, what you turn about? I know I came in late and I need to rewatch from the beginning, but you're talking about living in debt or poverty in America or both. Okay, I got you, Aaron, here we go. I'm going to show this real quick.
We're looking at this article. And we are specifically looking at the last impact of poverty, a psychological look at money relationships. So this is more about a poverty mindset and trying to have a healthy conversation about finances right from a Christian biblical view, not necessarily when I say biblical like we're not right now like this is an scripture on it is more so like as a Christian, how should I think about money? And if I'm not careful, it's why do why do poor Christians poor people in general, right?
But I always typically on the show and talking from a Christian perspective as a Christian for sure. But like, why do poor people make more poor people? Like, why is it this cycle, right? Like, how can we stop this cycle of generational poverty?
That's really what we're looking at. We're going to look at a couple more and I'm going to get out of here, financial literacy, right? Poverty can limit access to resources and include in financial education without adequate knowledge and understanding of financial matters. Individuals are at a disadvantage when it comes to managing their finances.
Lower financial literacy may contribute to a cycle of poverty. That's what we're talking about a cycle as individuals lack the tools and knowledge necessary to improve their financial situation. So as we think about this cycle of poverty, you feel me, Aaron? No problem.
You think about this cycle of poverty and why it keeps happening in financial literacy is a huge part of that. In order to be literate, it means you need to learn. It means you need to be educated. I'm going to tell you what I think is the number one enemy of education today in this entertainment.
I'm going to give you the phones. We have our phones, our powerful educational tools, right? Our laptops are access to the internet Wi-Fi. Like, we have almost unlimited information at the palm of our hands, but we don't educate ourselves in that limitless fashion.
But we do entertain ourselves that way. So what we do is we put all of our efforts and energy towards entertaining ourselves. So when we online, what do we want to do? We want to joke the comedy videos got 20 million views like, well, some of the educational stuff do in all fairness, you know, just because my stuff ain't like that.
Don't mean that somebody ain't doing it. But my point is, ultimately, what ends up happening is we are so heavy on entertainment that education becomes an afterthought. And then what it does is it makes most of us think, okay, cool, what I'll do is I'll just entertain as well. And I'm going to try to like, I'm going to be an influencer.
I'm going to do this and I'm going to try to make money and, excuse me, here's what I think. I think a lot of times we looking at the 1% of people who doing something and doing it at a high level. And then we're blindly chasing that. And a lot of time is because we just running from being educated.
If you educate yourself financially, you can break the cycle of poverty. I genuinely believe that. I genuinely believe if you put effort and energy towards learning about money in a white right way to use it, then you can actually break the cycle of poverty. But you got to be willing to be literate.
You have to be willing to put time towards things that on the surface aren't going to make you laugh. They're not jokes. They're not, oh, I'm grabbing you in the tank. Like we ain't even talking about spicy right now.
You know what I'm saying? Like these days, if you want attention, you got to talk crazy and like going to other stuff. That's not what I'm about. I'm really trying to give people something that can be valuable to their lives.
And I say this all the time on this show. The hardest thing in the world I'm learning is to give somebody something they need because people don't want it. They want what they want. So a lot of times when I'm engaging people about financial topics here, some of the things that I know this is I'm just sharing with you generally what happens.
It will be people who are struggling financially and try to make themselves the teacher in a conversation where they should be the student. I know that sounds a certain type of way, but I always try to be aware when I'm in a conversation when I need to be the student versus when I need to be the teacher. And I'm not saying you're either the student or teacher in every conversation. But remember, we're talking about education specifically, right?
Financial literacy. So when you're talking about education, there are some conversations I mean with people where they're teaching me something about finances and I'm learning. And then I noticed that when I engage people who are in poverty, right, whether they know it or not, and I try to talk to them about money, they think they know already. And that's the thing about financial being financially illiterate.
When you're illiterate, you think you're walking around thinking you know what to do with money, but it ain't working. And that part of the reason you think you know what to do is because you've normalized poverty. So many of us has normalized, having just enough or having not enough. That's so normal to us because we've been surviving and surviving.
It's like, all right, yeah, God, go and do it. God, go and do it. It's like, yeah, I feel that. But when I read the Bible, a lot of times God is calling you to do something.
God is calling you to manage something a certain way. But what we do sometimes when we're in poverty, we put the entire responsibility on God. Now, yes, it says responsibility to save you. Like he say salvation is through God.
Like, I don't want to say responsibility. I don't know. I want to get into the semantics of somebody like wait responsibility. No, that's just I just said it that way, but I'm saying it's his role to save you, right.
But I mean, Jesus gave you, let me break it down this way. Jesus gives you a guy gave you a skill set to be able to get a job. Right. So let's say God made you really smart with math or understanding numbers.
Then you study and you become smarter, but like when you're doing a math test, God gave you the ability to like pick up a pen and write or these days they're probably doing a test on iPad or something. But like, it's not God's responsibility. Why you want to class? You like, I live my hand up.
Make me write this guy going to do it, but you you're unwilling to lift your God gave you the ability to do things. So when God blesses you with money, he gave you the ability to plant these seeds properly. There you go. Like the parable of the sewer, right?
You look in the Bible, like, okay, God gave you the seeds. He gave you the ability to get the seeds. Like, okay, he's also giving you the free wheel to plan on where you want to. We put all of the onus on God.
Like, all right, yeah, I'm gonna take these seeds. I'm a thumb in the air. I ain't even gonna plan them in the ground, but God don't do it. He's gonna, and a lot of times what happens is God will make a way out of no way.
But the thing is because you did the bare minimum, you got the bare minimum that he could offer. Sometimes we don't even realize God would a guy gave you everything you needed to make it above and beyond. But because you had just enough mentality, he probably was like, all right, I love my servant. Like, all right, I'm gonna let you meet this one bill this time, but next month you gotta turn around and do it again.
So you in a cycle. Let's see what Aaron's talking about. That's true. People scared to talk about money when they see money.
They don't know how to budget. Yes, that's it right there in facts. Like scared to talk about money. And that's why we try to have healthy financial conversations.
All right, let's move on to the next one. You feel me? All right. So, oh, intergenerational transmission of poverty.
This is where I had this thought for the first time of generational poverty. Poverty can have a generational effect with children of impoverished parents more likely to experience poverty themselves. Parental financial behaviors and attitudes towards money can be passed down to children perpetuating a cycle of financial instability, according to Congra and Congra 2002. Breaking this cycle requires a combination of financial education, support and resources to encourage healthier money management habits.
All right. Here's the thing I've learned about money. Everybody like getting money, but not everybody like doing what it's like to make it. Especially doing the legal thing that it takes to make it because let's be real.
A lot of times the fast money. That's why people get into the legal into the legal lifestyles and make it money is like, and I'm talking whether that's white collar crimes and people trying to make it extra lick or you in the hood and you selling whatever doing whatever they both the same to me is both two people that are driven by money so much so that they need to make it really fast like they like I just want to make this real fast. And that's a bad attitude towards money. Money is more of a process.
It's more building. And a lot of times what you're building doesn't really have anything to do initially with the money itself. It's more your mindset and how you build things in life. That's why I love talking about this because some of us when the poverty mentality just passed down to us.
We might be thinking I make good money I'm straight I'm in poverty. The mentality was passed down to you. You might have a poverty mentality towards your job. A poverty mentality towards how you raise your kids.
You might have a poverty mentality towards a lot of things and I'm a say this what I love about this is that it's a combination of things needed to get you out. You really need a combination of everything we talked about today from literacy education to the willingness to even get resources like a podcast like this like to have a conversation, the openness to think outside of your box exposure education and exposure are so key because some of us we can't believe something until we see that it's a reality. Right? Now that might be an area that we can faith right because some people are about faith.
I'm just dealing with the reality of it like some people can't even think about not live and check the check because everybody around him normalizes being checked to check. And the biggest one of the biggest problems in poverty is so much negativity is normalized. Let's keep it moving up. Let's check this out and then I'm going to get out of here.
My share. No, I ain't sharing. Let me go back to sharing. You feel me.
Oh, the last thing was mental health and poverty. The stress of living in poverty can have a significant impact on mental health, which in turn can affect an individual's relationship with money chronic stress, anxiety, depression, associated with poverty can lead to impaired decision making and difficulty in managing finances. Listen, that's kind of deep to me because this idea of like the mental health aspect of dealing with poverty is it's interesting because again, when you are living in poverty, the reason it's this domino effect is because everything costs money. That's like, I tell people all the time, like people be, you always hear this term and don't get me wrong.
I know it's some truth to it, but you hear this term a lot when you grow up poor. We have money, but we have love, but I never had nobody call me to borrow love. Every time somebody calls me, they want to borrow money. They don't want to borrow love.
So what does that mean? It doesn't mean money is greater than love. No way possible on the face of the earth. But what it does mean is money might not be first, but it ain't in last place.
Like it ain't the last thing. So we talk in these extremes where either money has to be everything or it has to be nothing. No money is something and we need to try to figure out what is that something? Where's the place that it belongs so we can understand as believers and through a healthy lens like yo.
How do I talk about this? And I'm gonna tell you the other reason I believe in talking about money from a healthy perspective and that is because you will otherwise get manipulated. So you have people complaining all the time about churches and money and all that. And I'm not about to not church is right now.
That's not the point of this conversation. But what I can't tell you is that when you are financially literate yourself, that education protection from manipulation. I tell you about like going to a car dealership. Man, before I before I was financially literate.
I remember I bought this on my carlo in college. One of my last year as a college. I got this money carlo. Man, I'm always dealt to one of my favorite cars.
Got the money Carlo. This was a car really wanted. So I went in. It's a good part of the story.
Like I said, there's balance to the stuff I'm talking about. You don't have to be in extremists to hear what I'm saying. There's balance to it. This was a car that I had printed out and put on a wall.
Not on my desk in my dorm. So I looked at it every day and I had to wrote the word motivation on here. I really wanted this car. And I had a red one on there ended up buying a cream off white or whatever.
So I'm in a dealership to get this car. And I remember my man was like, well, I need to go back. So first he came out and it was a high note. It was a very high car.
No, like let's say if it was like. I'm like, I don't remember how much money I was making working at the credit union, but it wasn't enough to pay for 75. And I remember telling my man like, I need my payment to be right here. He was like, hold on.
Let me go ahead. I'll be back. And I mean, go to the back. He do the whole.
Let me talk to my manager thing. I wouldn't hit to it then. He come back like, all right, I got it down. Let's say if it was 375.
These numbers I'm making up, but it was something like this. You're like, I could do 375. I was like, what? I can get the car for 375.
Yeah, I'll take it. And I remember I had that car. I love that car. Send it to windows.
That car was dope. And guess what? It was also my first time, you know, four or five years later, experiencing being upside down and alone, meaning I owe more on the car than what it was worth because the reason he was able to stretch that payment out. I found out later through my literacy was because he stretched out the term.
He took it from like a five year long to like an eight year long. So I was stuck in his loan paying interest all these years, not knowing because I was so focused on the monthly payment because I was illiterate financially. That's just being real. I was financially illiterate.
And I had to admit that and then become a student of the game and learn the game and then since then when I go, not since then because I was illiterate pride for a little bit after that too. And a couple more cars later, but at some point I got tired of that and I became educated. And now I've done many deals in a car dealership where the last deal I deal with a car. I did it earlier this year.
I took a car back. First of all, you got to like we talked about literacy now right so this is just me sharing about literacy. I took a car back. I've been following the market because I'm always following markets now.
I was trying to understand like the chip shortage and the supply and demand in a car industry and they didn't have new cars you go to a car like I took my wife to a car dealership. I said look around. There's no cars here. That means new car use cars have all this value right because they can't get new cars.
So the dealers were willing to pay more than anything. The crazy thing I'm not going to get to deep in my personal situation. But at the end of the day, it was a car that I had that they were willing to pay me thousands of dollars more than what the car was worth. So you see the direct difference between when I was financially illiterate, I would get to the end of a term and I would owe you more than the car's worth meaning I'm in a hole.
Now, through literacy, I knew how to play the game. Keep in mind, the car I was taking them was a car I knew they wanted and needed. It wasn't a car that I needed to sell. So I had this beautiful car.
It was my wife's car. Beautiful car. Really nice, better than my car. And almost perfect condition because my wife don't mess up cars.
Like she don't mess up cars at all. Her car is literally, I don't think she had this car for two years, maybe three years, maybe almost three years. Two and a half years. She had a car two and a half years.
The car was literally brand new. And it was also a certain addition that I knew the dealer would want. So when I went in there and negotiated with, I went to three different dealers, number one. One dude tried to low bar me.
I was still in profit. All the deals were in profit, but I knew he was lowballing me why because I actually knew the numbers. And that's just to say to you, when you become financially literate, the manipulation stops. Now, it don't mean you're the smartest person in the world.
By all means, I'm sure somebody can get me a little bit. But even if I get got, I'm not going to get got the way I did when I was illiterate. So now I go in a car dealership. By the time we were done with that deal, the finance manager was telling me the amount of inventory he had has per month.
The revenue he expects to make. Why? Because once we started engaging us a conversation at a certain level, he took off the facade. He took the facade completely off because he realized at some point he was like, Oh, you really know, like, you know your stuff.
I'm like, yeah, I do. Like I've done this a few times, by the way, the point is I walked out of there with a check for some something plus way more than what I what the car was originally worth or whatever. Right. Like I then I Oh, like I got more back.
Right. And he got a car that he could sell really quickly and he was going to make profit. I understand that he still had a margin gap. Right.
He can't give me everything he's going to sell it for. That's business. Business is the give and take business is there's an amount that somebody in consumer is going to pay for this car. Right.
I can tell you this. The crazy thing about the numbers is that car went for because I went back to the dealer and saw what they selling it for and looked at it and it went quick. That car went for like 13,000 more than the original amount kind of old. So to say, right.