 In this culture that we have, including African culture, of stunting, of looking the part, of having swag, we prioritize swag over substance. May I check this shit out? So, I got into an argument on Facebook like I usually do. I think at this point it's a hobby. And this particular picture is what kind of inspired the whole conversation. And the person who shared the picture, one of the things that he said that I thought was interesting was, he said, people need to mind their own business. The person who commented under the original post, or on top of the original post, he said that this is the definition of stupid. What we see in the black community is that we fail to hold each other accountable sometimes. And we do not perceive constructive criticism properly. Constructive criticism is considered hate in our community. If you live in a trailer park, but you found money to throw away on two luxury cars, two luxury cars, not even good luxury cars. Luxury cars that are going to depreciate in value. They're literally money pits from the time you drive it off the lot to the time you drive it for maintenance to the, to every mile that you add on top of it. It is a depreciating asset. Money is something, as I'm getting older, I'm starting to understand, especially in my industry, you understand why the haves are the haves, and you start understanding why the have nots are the have nots. And the biggest reason for that is how the haves spend their money and view money, how the have not spend their money and view money. Different books like Rich Dad Poor Dad talk about this, different books like Millionaire Next Door talk about this. And you see what the black community is doing in comparison to the white community and other communities like that. Currently, our money stays in our community six hours. Six hours. Currently, every time we go to the club, the bottles that were popping are not owned by black companies. They're owned by Europeans. So you throw $2,000 at the club. A thousand of that, at least, went to Europe. But you claim you're about, you're about your people. You claim you're for the cars. You go and you buy a car because now you want to look cool. Instead of getting the fuel efficient car, the car that's going to still look good, but get you from point A to point B, reasonable maintenance costs. You want to stunt and get a German car. When you don't even make $50,000 a year, you want to get a German car. Just so you can step out and look the part. Just so you can feel that void of a lack of self-esteem created by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow. For everything that you buy, for everything that you do, there's an opportunity cost. And to explain it simply, if I'm going to buy this $100 pair of shoes, right, I can look at it as I spent $100, versus I can look at it as, okay, what if I invested that $100 into Nike stock and that Nike stock goes up by 50% or whatever the case may be. So now instead of this being $100, it's actually $150. It's an opportunity cost of $150 because I spent, you know what I'm saying, what I could have made over here. The money that the black community has from a consumer standpoint, we consider the 11th, 17th richest nation in the world. But what does that go to us? It goes to its image. It goes to its hair. It goes to its cars. It goes to all kinds of unnecessary things that don't really empower us. All kinds of unnecessary things that don't actually push the needle forward for us as a community. Money makes the difference. Martin Luther King knew that. That's why he got killed. Malcolm X knew that. Marcus Garvey knew that. Money makes the difference. One of the most effective civil rights strategies that ever took place is the bus boycotts. People don't really realize that part of history. Why it was effective was not because we're saying we shall overcome. We're saying that we're taking money out of your pockets. Number one, you want to live below your means. Number two, you want to prioritize assets over liabilities. That means buy things that are going to make you money. Spend time on things that will make you more money. Give you knowledge that you can never lose. Give you things that you can pass down to your kids and your kids' kids. And not things that are going to be worthless when you decide to sell them or when you don't decide to sell them than they were when you bought them. I'm not saying don't look good. I'm not saying don't take care of yourself. I'm saying prioritize value. Prioritize net worth. One of the things I'll leave you with, one of the things you can do today, so a lot of people don't know that inflation right now is 2%, 3%. And that's good. It's been higher before in the past, but typically you want to keep inflation at 2% and 3%. So inflation, to explain it simply, is how money changes over time. So right now, if you go to a gas station, you can't really buy shit with a quarter. But if you talk to somebody old enough, they'll tell you back in the day with a quarter, I could have left out with a Halloween bag full of candy. That's inflation, you know? Now, right now, like I said, 2%, 3%, that means that for what you could spend $100 to buy right now today, in 2020, in 2021, it might cost you 102. And so on and so forth. A lot of people don't realize with big banks, the interest rates that they pay out are really, really low. So for example, Wells Fargo's APY, that's annual percentage yield, is 0.01%. That means that they're not giving you shit for the money that they're making all for your money. Because all they do is invest it in the stock market. So it doesn't matter if you have $100,000 sitting in the Wells Fargo account, all you're getting back is 0.01% of that. So in essence, you are losing money. Like I said, inflation is 2%. You're not making any money. So as the years go by with your money just sitting in savings accounts, you're losing money. First thing you guys can do, start looking up high yield savings accounts. Start looking up money market accounts. Click the link or look in my videos and I have a video on how to start with stock trading. But you need to learn how to make your money work for you. You need to learn how to make your money, make money for you. And a step you can take, an easy step, is put your money in a high yield savings account. If you're making 1%, if you're making 1.52%, you're actually now keeping up with inflation. Even if you don't match it or beat it, but you're at least a little bit closer to inflation.