 All right, good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining the Office of Business Opportunities. We are here today with Stephen Hughes to discuss the facts behind money myths, money cycles and how to financially recover after COVID-19. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. Who doesn't wanna learn more about how to better manage your money and what myths are out there? So we're excited to get started today. And I would like to start with just a little bit of information about our office. I am Aisha Driggers, again, with the City of Columbia Office of Business Opportunities. Some of our program areas include financial assistance in the form of our commercial lending program. We provide that to startup and existing businesses for the growth expansion, retention and the creation of new jobs. We also offer assistance in the redevelopment of commercial corridors. A lot of the federal dollars that have come down though through our commercial lending area. Brett Whiting is our lender in the office and he is on the call as well. If anyone needs any follow-up discussions or would like to schedule a meeting, we'd be happy to discuss more options available in that area. Next, we have our contractor and supplier diversity areas. They offer training and support for city initiatives that are designed to increase the local contractor's capacity to compete for government contracts and other procurement opportunities. These programs include our subcontractor outreach, mentor protege, local business enterprise and the Columbia Disadvantaged Business Enterprise. I also wanna add that we do have a 15% citywide DBE goal where all of our city departments should utilize their discretionary dollars towards procurements with minority and women-owned businesses. And we track that throughout the year. In this area, we have Kalina Gignard who's on our call. She's gonna be monitoring our chats as well as Juliet Nelly and Latanya Germany. Lastly, we have our technical assistance, education and advocacy. We offer business development assistance and courses for startups and existing businesses looking to grow and expand. Topics covered include marketing, the use of social media, business development, finances, legal issues and more. This is one of the trainings that we offer in that area but we're happy if anyone has any suggestions for follow-up trainings or additional trainings you've seen out in the field. We'd be happy to provide those as well. Also on our call, we have Carla Eichelberger in our office and LaPetra Collins. They provide a lot of our assistance in all the program areas in our office. I'm not sure. Our director, Melissa Lingler, I'm not sure if she's on the call but if she will give our opportunity to speak later but she absolutely welcomes you and is excited that you're able to join us today. We've also created our 2021 impact of COVID-19 on small business survey. So what we've done is we've created a survey to determine the ongoing needs of our local businesses as we recover from the economic impact of COVID-19. So the information gathered from this survey will be used to establish funding priorities based on the needs of our business community. So we encourage everyone on the call, if you're a business owner to please go to this link I've provided here and Kalina will put it in the chat as well. So you can click on that and take that survey. It will close tomorrow, but it's so important that we get the input of our small businesses to see how they've been impacted over the past 12 months. We know that federal dollars are coming down from the American Rescue Plan. So we really want to position ourselves to provide as much assistance as possible but we need to hear from you. So please take that survey. If you have any friends that are entrepreneurs or small business owners, please encourage them to take the survey as well. I also want to mention the shuttered venue operators grant that is available. It will, I believe it's opening, it's already opened this week but we will provide a webinar along with the Small Business Development Center next Wednesday just to kind of talk about some of the eligibility requirements and what type of documentation is required to apply for those funds. I think Kalina is going to also put that in the chat if you would like to register for that. Also, I do want to mention if there are any restaurant owners there is a restaurant revitalization fund that's available as well. So I encourage you to look on SBA's website. They will have some additional training throughout the week next week, different opportunities for you to listen into those webinars and access those funds. Here is our contact information. We are located at 1401 Main Street on the fourth floor. Currently our office, the physical business is closed but obviously you can contact any of our staff members and we'll be happy to assist you. Our phone number is 803-545-3950 or you can send us an email at obo.columbiasc.gov. Before we get to our presentation, I just want to make sure do we have any questions about our office or the services that we provide? I see Kalina has put in here to put your questions in the Q&A. Thank you so much. We don't have anything in right now, Aisha. Okay, good. Next, I want to introduce Mr. Stephen Hughes. He's taught thousands of adults how to maintain, manage and grow their money to realize their financial goals. After making every money mistake imaginable as a college student, he took this first generation Jamaican-American to years to improve his financial situation. He now shows others through his experience and his specialized financial psychology and therapy education how to do the same. Stephen is a certified financial education instructor. He calls himself a financial psychology nerd and he offers a weekly on-air money expert for the CBS Morning News in Columbia, South Carolina. Stephen has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Yahoo Finance, credit.com and other media publications. We've met several times Stephen and it's always such a pleasure to meet with you and just talk about what's going on in your life and you just have so much wisdom, I think, when it comes to finances. So we definitely appreciate your partnership, your friendship with the Office of Business Opportunities and we're so excited to offer this training for our clients. So take it away, Stephen. Thank you. Thank you, Aisha. I need to tag team with you more often and have you do these intro. But I've been wanting to partner with the Columbia opportunity, the OBO Office of Business Opportunities and this is one of our first partnerships. We've been looking forward to keep growing this relationship and providing resources for entrepreneurs and business owners across the city of Columbia. And for those, Aisha, I think, did a great job of interviewing me but I'll fill in the gaps where it need be. As we talk about, we're gonna talk about money myths today. We're also gonna talk about the money cycles that we all need to go through to really live financially healthy and be financially well. But as we talk about those things, we also wanna talk about how those things have affected us and will affect us going down the road when it comes to recovering or rebounding after COVID-19. And so, as Aisha mentioned, I'm Stephen Hughes and when I got started with this money world, as far as financial education and financial wellness, things looked a little different. I actually got my start in middle school, really. I was getting ready to start my professional football career. I was 12 years old at the time and I was standing in front of North Springs Park, getting ready to apply for my football team is the first time that I got an opportunity to play organized football. And so, I was wildly excited. I was so excited I had things that you don't usually bring to a record league sign up with you. Like I had a shoulder pads with me, I had a helmet with me, I had a water bottle that I was gonna drink out of when I wasn't playing, but I was never gonna drink out of it because I was always gonna be playing and be a star. But as I went through this process, they asked you to fill out an application when it comes to your name, your height, your weight, your address, all that good personal stuff. And as I filled out the application and handed it to the person in the front, they told me to take a seat. And when they called me back up, they told me like, hey, Steven, I have some bad news. And I said, well, no, I promise you the check will not bounce. Like, please put me on a team. I promise you things will work out. And he said, no, no, no, no, it's not that. It's that you're too big for your age to play on a football team. And I bust out laughing. I was like, what, that's not even real. Like people who play football are huge. And he said, yeah, you're right. But when it comes to playing Wreck League, there's an age requirement and a weight limit. And so there I was at 12 years old, 185 pounds, like devastated that I wasn't able to play football. And I also internalized like, being big Steve in middle school. And I kept doing, I was big Steve in middle school. I was big Steve in high school. I was big Steve in college until my English class, I was sitting there and my phone just kept ringing off the hook. I had six missed calls. I had seven missed calls. To the point I had eight missed calls and I just picked up the phone before we could ring again. And before I could say anything, the person on the other end of the phone told me, don't panic, but your mother's in the hospital. How am I not supposed to panic, right? And so I did what any good son would do. I jumped into my 1994 mint green, cutlass supreme, no AC and I was doing 85 on 85. And it's funny when I was on my way back to Columbia, this was the only time that I didn't mind not having AC because if y'all are from South Carolina, you know that air condition is not a luxury, it's mandatory. It is hot in Columbia. We are even famously hot here. And so as I'm driving on 85 and doing 85 on 85, I'm okay with no AC because the windows are down and the wind is blowing so hard that the tears are kind of flying past my face. And so I get back to Columbia and you know, even to this day, I'm not quite sure what a hyperactive thyroid is, but all I knew was that I got into the hospital room to see my mother. She wasn't as coherent as she usually was and she'd lost a lot of weight from the radiation therapy and things were a little touch and go for a while. And in that hospital room, it really dawned on me, it kind of slapped me in my face that you've been being big Steve, like this is cool. And I looked around the room to kind of see a glimpse of my future where I saw my dad rest his soul, who was a diabetic. I saw my oldest brother who was also a diabetic. And I saw my older brother who has had back problems in the past and he's mentioned that because of his weight. And so right then when I was in that hospital room, my mindset shifted on doing something different than I was doing before. And when my mom gave me her blessing to go back to school, I went ahead and I said, okay, well, I'll go ahead and start making some changes when it comes to how I am dealing with my wealth, my health, I'll say. And so when I got back to school and just for the people, have y'all heard of like the Beachbody workouts like the P90X? If you have, drop a one in the chat box for me, just so I know that we're all on the same page. But like P90X, Zumba, different things like that. So I did a Beachbody workouts, Beachbody workout called Insanity. If you have done Insanity, drop an exclamation point in the chat box just so I can see how other people are as crazy as I was. But and so when I started Insanity, right? I think that it was as advertised. I started the workout and in the first 15 minutes I was drenched in sweat. I was like, wow, this is real. And when I was going or walking towards the TV to turn it off, the trainer on the DVD was like, all right, that was the warmup, get ready for the workout. And I was like, whoa, whoa, what are we getting into? And so I'm sitting here in a pool of sweat looking at the DVD trainer. He's looking at me, I'm looking at him and I'm shook at this point. But nevertheless, I made it through the first day of Insanity and then the second and the third and I made it through the whole 60 day program. And as I started that program, I was 297 pounds, like right at 300 pounds. And in that first round of the program, I lost 35 pounds. And so I was like, okay, well, this is good. I wanna keep the party going and lose more weight. And so I started changing the way that I was eating. And so I stopped eating pork, I stopped eating beef, I stopped eating chicken. There's a point that I stopped eating fish for a while and I lost another 35 pounds. And by this time, like the people who were close to me, my friends, my family, sometimes they were calling me New Steve as this joke, like saying like I wasn't the same person before. And I would tell them like, nah, I'm still the same person, we can hang out, it's all good. And they really started tripping on me when I stopped drinking. One of them I remember even told somebody that I was the reason they started drinking. And I told them, never say that out loud again. I can never put that on a resume or LinkedIn or anything like that. But as I had these experiences and I kept applying these things to my health, I started to also change the other things around me, like when it came to my money, when it came to how I was connecting spiritually. And so one thing that I'll ask y'all this morning, like as we're working and we're gonna be talking about money, but what do you have to do to be new Deloria or new Nadia or a new Teresa, right? What are the things that you have to do to be new Trayvon when you're managing your money and your business post COVID? And so we're gonna jump into that today because as I had these different experiences when it came to my health journey, my wealth journey followed suit and everything is connected y'all. I'll mention that really quick here that every single thing that we're doing is connected. And so I came from humble beginnings when it came to my money, both of my parents are from Jamaica and as a first generation Jamaican American, my parents were so focused on education just like most immigrants because in this country, like most of us, when if we were seniors in high school or juniors in high school, we're thinking about how we can prepare and get money for college by applying for scholarships. Well, my parents had to do that in middle school just to go to high school in Jamaica. If they didn't have money to go to pay for high school, they would have to get a scholarship. And so needless to say, education was a big deal in my household, but financial education was not. Like we very rarely talked about money in our household unless we were telling each other how much we didn't have. And it was eight of us in a three bedroom house, sometimes 10 depending on who was here from Jamaica. And we'd have different money experiences like the water or lights being cut off and having to prepare for that. But since we never talked about money in our household with those same experiences, I took all those money missteps and mistakes with me to college and continued to make more. When I got to school, I had seven maxed out credit cards. I had overdraft fees to appoint the banks closed all of my accounts and told me to ease on down the road. I had two repossessions, because one wasn't enough of course. I got evicted from my apartment. There was one point that my credit score was a 385. And I see Aisha's eyebrows hitting the ceiling right now. And because I think that as I was making these money missteps, I didn't have anyone to kind of go back on it and say like, hey, what are the things that I can do differently, right? And so no matter what position you're in, I knew that I wanted to take my life and get a total financial 180. And so as I started sharing my story, as I was making changes and talking to people, I met a lot of people who were either making the same money mistakes or wanting to stay clear of them as fast as possible and not touch them at all. And so that's what led me to start No Money in 2014 to really teach college students how to stay clear from those mistakes. But also like as I've been in the financial education space for the past eight years, I know that money is emotional. We make our money decisions emotionally. Like we think about those, the things that we, like if you think about the things you care about most, they're probably displayed in your bank statements because that's what you spend your money on, whether it's family, whether it's traveling, whether it's food, because I'm a foodie too. But all the things that we do when it comes to our money, it's emotional spending in the way that we behave. And I don't think we talk about money in the financial behavior sense or in the financial psychology sense enough. And so we're definitely gonna jump into that today. But I wanna assure you, like as we are working together, first things first, it's never too late to get your money stuff together, right? Like not even specifically focusing on your business, but we're talking about your personal finances right now. And even it's not never too late, it's never too bad either. Because I told y'all all the money mistakes that I made and just how things were going when I was managing money. And fast forward to now, I just made my first real estate investment into our investment group yesterday. I wired the money, right now I'm an angel investor, I have a growing business and I'm acquiring another by the end of next month. And so y'all heard all the money mistakes that I had. And just to let y'all know, like no matter what the pandemic has done for your finances on the personal side of things, whether you've grown with your money, like some people have depending on the opportunity or whether you've had to dial things back and focus on how you can write the ship and make sure that you are getting towards your financial vision and seeing it. We're gonna cover all of those things this morning. And so as we're talking about money, right? One thing that we don't talk about enough is how we come to making these money decisions as adults. At the age of four, we start putting the money equation together y'all of trying to figure out what money and value have to do with each other. And the thing about not talking about money in specifics, right? Because money is a taboo topic just like sex in this country. We never talk about it in details. And because we don't talk about money in specifics, we oftentimes don't know like, oh well what are the things that have affected me when I was younger and how I behave with money now? For example, maybe eight-year-old Stephen was frustrated with not being able to make his own decisions. And so now I'm making all of my decisions with my money. Spending exactly how I want to, right? Kind of like that work hard, play hard statements that we hear. And then, or maybe like you're 15-year-old Stephen and I don't want people to feel like, oh I'm doing this one specific thing so I'm buying things to show people what I'm doing or how I'm living, right? So when it comes to our money, before we can even talk about spending plans or financial goals or anything else like that, really we have to start thinking about how we came to learn about money and how we are making these money decisions because all of the behaviors we have now with our money are shaped by what we heard, what we saw and what we experienced when we were younger. And all of the things that we've learned from now until being an adult. And so I've got a couple of questions for y'all to help you investigate like some of the things that you've heard when we were growing up and what are some things you experienced as a child and growing up to adult now when it came to your money? So first thing, what are some common statements you heard about money when you were growing up? And maybe some of the money myths that you've heard and you've latched onto. And then the second question is who managed money in your household? Was it your mom? Was it your dad? Was it your grandmother? Was it another guardian? Tell us about that. And then the third question is when was the first time you bought something with money you saved? And what did you buy? And so I'm gonna give y'all just about 60 seconds to answer these questions. Feel free to write them down as you're taking today or if you feel free, if you feel some move like drop them in the chat box so we can all talk about them. But I'll give you guys our pause here, give you 60 seconds to answer these three questions. And then we're gonna jump back in and talk about some of the answers and how they affect how we're managing money now. I wish I had a little bit of Jeopardy music popping off for y'all. But as you're answering these questions and thinking about these questions, a drop in the chat box for me. What are some common statements that y'all heard about money when you were growing up? And if anybody wants to volunteer to talk about like one of the statements they heard, oh, Aisha, yes, credit is bad. I would love to talk about this one if you're down. I see it's your own mute right now, but yeah, let's talk about it if you'd like. I see Trayvon said, stay out of room folk business. We definitely gotta wrap about that one. And I see Aisha's on the phone, but Trayvon, do you wanna come off mute and just talk about maybe that statement heard before? And now I realize that we're panelists, so I can't hear the attendees. But the statement of stay out of grown folks business, right? I think that when it comes to what grown folks was talking about, because that's the same thing that I heard when I was growing up. Even to the point when I asked my parents, like how much they made, they were hesitant to tell me. They were like, hey, why do you have to know that? And it was for a class assignment when I was in elementary school. I still remember this. Well, it was like one of the first times that my parents told, I can remember that my parents specifically told me we're not talking about money. And so that stay out of grown folks business, I think that it's done more harm than good because adults generally just said that so that you would not listen to their conversation. But don't spend your money on frivolous items. Theresa, I can get with that. I can get with that. For anybody who's in the chat box or who's typing some of these statements in the chat box now, have any of y'all heard the statement that money is the root of all evil? Like if you have, just drop a one in the chat box for me so I know that we're on the same page. But Theresa said that's the main one. Yes, so let's talk about money is the root of all evil a little bit, right? Because I think that some of these statements that we're dropping in here are money myths that we sometimes eternalize, like credit is bad or staying out of grown folks business. But my absolute, I guess, favorite money myth to debunk for people is the statement of money is the root of all evil. And why do I say that? One, because there are some times that I'll be talking about this. I'm glad that Nadia dropped that in the chat box. There's some times that I'll talk about this statement and I'll have someone say, well, no, that's not the right quote. That's why it's the love of money is the root of all evil. And I get that correction, especially for Christ followers who find that verse in the Bible. But one thing that I've internalized as I've shifted my mindset around money is that the lack of money is the root of all evil. Because when you don't have money for just to take care of their necessities, right? You're willing to do some things outside of yourself and how you generally move to provide for yourself and your family, right? And the other thing that I want people to really get, if you don't even remember my name, my organization or anything else like that on this workshop, there's one thing that I want you to take away, which is money is energy. Money is energy, y'all. And so if you replace the word money with the word energy in that myth of money is the root of all evil, like you will never say that again, will never be something you think about as far as internalizing again. Because if you say out of your mouth, energy is the root of all evil, that makes no sense. We need energy every single day to do the things that we want to do, whether it's getting up and growing our business, whether it's spending time with our family, whether it's working out to stay fit and healthy, like all of these things take energy. And even if you change it to the statement that Nadia dropped in the chat box, that the love of energy is the root of all evil. Like we can't make that make sense logically, right? Because it doesn't. I believe that the statement of money being the root of all evil is not something that helps us like when it comes to making our best money decisions. Because talking to people for years about money and the specific myth is that we internalize that. And do you wanna be around evil? Like I'm pretty sure everybody's answer is no in here, right? So if you think about and you keep hearing that money is the root of all evil or the love of money is the root of all evil, you're not gonna be around money either. You're not gonna want it around you. You're not gonna wanna save it and keep it to hit these goals. You're not gonna want to even show people like your family and friends that you have it, you wanna help grow it even more with family and friends. And so I'm less today, get rid of that myth. I hate that. I just, I want to get that off my chest. And I want y'all to know, like as you not only manage your personal finances but we're all business owners in here, as you manage your business finances, you can't internalize that myth. Because you want money to grow your business. The Columbia OBO has so many resources, both human resources like this workshop and access to capital to help you grow your money in your business. And we all know that's not evil. And so let's kick that to the side and get rid of that. I hope y'all never say that again. Or unless y'all are telling people that money is energy. Because at the end of the day, money is just a tool, just like a hammer or screwdriver. It can be used to build or destroy. I've told y'all all the mistakes and missteps that I've made in college with money. And I was using it to destroy as fast as possible. But we're talking about this morning, to get on the right mind says we can use it to build as much as we want. And so the second question, who managed money in your household? If it was your mom or your mother, drop a one in the chat box. If it was your father, drop a two. And then if it was somebody else, drop a three. I remember I was doing a workshop, this same workshop maybe two months ago, and somebody dropped a three and told me it was Jesus who was managing the money in their household. I couldn't get it together for the rest of the workshop. That was hilarious. But I think that as we're thinking about who managed the money in our household, and remember who managed the money in our household, we also think about how that part felt with that money. I was going through some of these questions to investigate like how we felt when we were younger about how people manage money in our house. And I remember talking to a physician last month, and she was very, just very quickly said that money doesn't really matter to me. Like I'm okay. Like I can manage it. It can come, it can go. It doesn't really matter. And I asked her like, what made you say that? Like why do you feel that way? And she said, well, in my household, that's just how it is. That's how I run things. And I said, well, how are things ran when you were younger? And she mentioned that her dad weaponized money. So when he felt good, like everything was cool. If he liked what you were doing, he would give you money. As a punishment, he would cut things off or tell you that, oh, you're not getting the dinner that we are eating tonight. And for that, that has shaped the way that she feels and thinks about money because she never wants to make it a big part of her life or even acknowledge like the part it plays in her life. And it wasn't until that conversation that we talked about that, that she realized like, oh, that is directly from my childhood is how I think about it. And she started asking herself questions without even me asking her like, oh, well, I wonder what else happened? Like as a child that is affecting the way that I manage money now. And so think about who managed money in your household but also think about some of their characteristics around money. Like, when I was growing up, similar to what Aisha dropped in the chat box, I heard that credit was bad. And it was bad for me because I didn't know how to manage it as we never talked about it. But I can imagine going forward as I teach students and adults now about credit that if we can just talk about a specific money topic and really drill down on it without the emotional experience of what we think about it. Like, oh, credit is bad. Well, you need credit to make some large purchases at times. So maybe you need to learn how to manage credit and not make it be bad for you personally. But those are big things that you can pull from your experiences when it comes to money as we've grown up. And the third question was when was the first time you bought something with money as you say it and what did you buy? So feel free to share those things in the chat box if y'all remember those as a kid that you've bought. Like the first thing you saved up for, I see some of y'all thinking. So feel free to drop them in the chat box. But as we're thinking about not only our experiences that we've had as youth with money and grown to be adults and create businesses around money, one thing that I've realized working with thousands of adults is that really the big thing of changing the way that you're managing your money and the way that you're moving with your money and doing the things you wanna do with your money, even if you have an idea of what you wanna see at the top of the year, we set resolutions and goals and create vision boards to really see what we wanna see in the year. But even if you have these visions and these goals, oftentimes people get paralyzed on where to start, right? And so when it comes to making healthy money decisions because I'm all about financial wellness, because I know that it's not just about what we know about money, which is financial literacy. It's not just about the terms and these different things. It's really about making healthy money decisions. And when it comes to making healthy money decisions, there's a framework that created that every single person needs to go through when it comes to these four money cycles. And if you're not going through them, oftentimes people can't grasp on where they should start or where they should continue when it comes to their money, they're taking their money actions. And so we're gonna talk about those cycles today. And I want you to start thinking about, well, where are you at in these money cycles, right? So the first one is shifting your mindset. The first money cycle that all of us have to go through if we wanna be better with our money is shifting our mindset. And when you shift your mindset when it comes to money, you're gonna start unlearning things from the past that don't serve us now. And when it comes to those things, we're talking about money mis-like, money is the root of all evil or the love of money is the root of all evil or credit is bad or that we should stay out of grown folks business, where really the grown folks should explain to us like what was going on so that we don't have these issues as adults. But the other thing of unlearning those things that don't serve us is starting to learn things that are helping us make our decisions in our best interest when it comes to our money. So shifting our mindset is the first thing that we need to do and the first cycle that we are gonna go through. The second one is stabilizing your household. We've heard a lot of statistics around 76% or three out of four adults don't have enough money to or they live in paycheck to paycheck, right? So if a month of income doesn't come in, the homeless citizens in our area or in our place are gonna increase, right? And so we're thinking about, especially as business owners where the income may not be the exact amount every single month, it ranges. We have ebbs and flows up and down even through the pandemic. And so thinking about stabilizing our households and setting our money goals so that we're not living paycheck to paycheck anymore. That's the big thing about stabilizing our households. And from there, we can look at the third money cycle which is sustaining good money habits. And when you're sustaining good money habits, not only are you creating the environment that you want to be in and that you want to see and grow your money and your mindset as well, but you're also bringing people in to your environment that will help you continue down this path. So once you stabilize, maybe you already know that you wanna automate your expenses and how you're investing or how you're saving for a buffer account to put a little bit of space between you and your expenses on a monthly basis. But making sure that you have things that will continue to go and grow so that you can hit this next money cycle which is the one that I think everyone wants to get to and that's stacking your money towards your money goals. And this is saving to invest in assets like businesses like growing your business or yourself. This is like saving towards doing financial projects with your family or friends. This is saving towards maybe retiring early and putting your business on autopilot once everything's said and done. And so the thing about these money cycles, right? It's no matter where you are in your financial life, you're gonna wanna go through these to get financially well and healthy because as we go through these cycles, let's say that you are in a position where you don't have a lot of money or you don't have the money that you desire, you're gonna shift your money mindset, you're gonna start stabilizing your household, you're gonna sustain good money habits and then you're gonna start stacking towards saving to grow your business or stacking towards investing in other assets. But once you get to that point that you're stacking towards investing in other assets or you're growing your business the way you want to, we all know that as you get to a new level, there are new problems, right? We heard of growing pains before. And so when you get to the forecycle, we're getting right back to the beginning of shifting your mindset so you can deal with these bigger challenges and come up with these bigger solutions. One thing that I tell business owners when I'm working with them is the bigger the problem, the bigger the paycheck, because as long as you can solve that problem, people are gonna compensate you for solving that issue. And so as we're talking about these money cycles, I wanna go through each of them so we can talk about what are some things that you can do since the pandemic has started and as we're recovering from COVID-19 crisis that you can do with your money to really get on track and put some rails for yourself on what you wanna do. And so if y'all have questions about these four money cycles, feel free to drop them in the chat box because we're jumping into questions in a little bit. But so shifting your money mindset, right? One thing that you can do as we are coming out on the other side and outside is starting to open back up in this crisis is that you can start listening to new people when it comes to your money. If in as business owners, we know that everyone doesn't get it, right? Everyone doesn't understand how to grow as an entrepreneur or how to grow a business. But even in that same vein, everyone doesn't know how to manage money. I know the way that money is marketed to us, we're supposed to feel bad about that about not knowing how to manage money. But the truth of it all is that just because we use electricity every single day, it doesn't make us qualified to be electricians, right? And so just because you're making money and you're getting paid every single month, doesn't mean that we come out the gate knowing what to do with our money and how to manage it. So one, like shifting your mindset is putting that shame down, like taking that off of your shoulders and putting it to the side because it's not for us. We were not taught how to manage money. Or if you were taught how to manage money, oftentimes people didn't teach you what's that next level of managing money, right? After you've stacked all your money and you start getting your assets and starting your business. And so you have to shift your mindset, no matter what side of the spectrum you're on to really get into finding these solutions when it comes to managing your money the way you want to. And a couple of ways that you can do that as far as shifting your mindset is to listening to podcasts or audio books, right? There's an audio book that just dropped called Get Good With Money from the budgetista, Tiffany Aliche. And she talks about the 10 things that help you be financially whole or become financially whole no matter how much money you have. And so she's someone who talks about financial wellness but there's another book called The Energy of Money that helps you understand like how money really helps us bring these things that we think about like these ideas for a business, for example and how we can bring it from an idea to actually people supporting our business they're buying our products or needing our services, right? And so you can listen to audio books but you can also listen to podcasts like there's a podcast called Paychecks and Balances that is really on the intersection of work, life and money. And it helps even as an entrepreneur to think about how we are managing our money but how our team members as we grow like what are the things that they think about so we can help continue to reduce their financial stress? And then the third thing that you can do to start shifting your mindset and unlearning some of the things that you've learned in the past about money that's not serving you is starting to ask yourself the questions of that we asked before of what are some things that you remember as your first money memory like a positive first money memory when you were younger? What's the first challenging money memory that you remember when you were younger? What are the things that you heard about money when you were younger? What are the things you saw when it comes to managing money in your household or even in your neighborhood as you were growing up? Or what are the things you experienced with money as a youth and as you grew up? Asking yourself these questions and then answering them but this is a big question I don't think that we ask ourselves either but this will help you shift your mindset. How do you define financial success for yourself? And this is a great question to pose to your partner or your spouse or your friends or family members to see if y'all are on the same page when it comes to even talking about financial success because you could have a partner in your business and never ask this question and y'all are on two separate books, pages everything like that when it comes to growing the business. So you wanna know how do you define financial success? And this will help not only shift your money mindset but solidify the way that you wanna move forward when it comes to getting towards your money goals. When it comes to stabilizing your household three things that you can do like post pandemic is create accounts with specific jobs, okay? I think this is one of the biggest things in money management that you can do. And when I say that I mean have one account that specifically works for your income. So anytime you make money that's coming into your account it's coming into this specific account. Anytime that you have to pay bills or any expenses you have a separate account, a separate checking account that's your bill account, okay? And that helps keep things very clear and concise it gives you some more clarity around your money because what you can do each month and I don't know how many of you all operate if you've heard of the book Profit First and you've read it, drop a one in the chat box for me just so I know if that's a resource that y'all have used or a resource that you may wanna tap into. But just to go back on the audio books that I suggested because I'm gonna throw a couple of resources at y'all and I'll also they'll be in the money plan that y'all get as a PDF as long as you registered with the city of Columbia OBO's office through that event bright link. But as far as the audio books that you can listen to the one, the first one that I've mentioned is Get Good With Money from Tiffany Elicce, the budgetista. The second one that I mentioned was The Energy of Me by Maria Namus and I also mentioned a couple of podcasts that you can listen to like Paychecks and Balances and Side Hustle Pro. I think that's an excellent podcast for entrepreneurs. And then the book that I just asked y'all about is Profit First because it has a money management system in Profit First for business owners that not only help you manage your money as a business owner, but also as you pay yourself as a business owner. So when we're talking about managing your personal finances and stabilizing your household, this is a huge thing when it comes to managing your money. So if you haven't read Profit First or listened to the audio book Profit First, that's homework that I'm giving y'all to do before the next time I ever see y'all. Make sure that you check out Profit First and you talk to your bookkeeper or your accountant to see how you can maybe adapt your business to Profit First finances as far as the system. But as we're talking about managing our own money without our accountant or our bookkeeper when it comes to our household, I pay myself twice a month. And each time I pay myself, I am immediately transferring money to my bill account or my expense account so that I can not have to worry about those expenses for the rest of the month, right? And so when you are getting paid and you separate your money and you're putting it into these buckets that have specific jobs, it makes things so much easier and clearer and it takes the weight off your shoulders, especially as you're getting started with managing your money better. The second thing that I'll mention that you can do outside of creating these three accounts with income bills and then saving towards your goals is you can automate. You can automate your expenses and your income. Like I mentioned to y'all, I get paid twice a month on the 10th and the 25th of every month. And that's automated. Like I know that the money's coming in from my business to my personal account. That's not something I think about. I also know once that money hits my account that it starts being separated into the places it's supposed to go. And all of our dollars need a job, y'all. None of them should be unemployed, all right? So when you get paid, you should know, okay, well, this is the income that I'm getting for the next month or the next two weeks or however often you pay yourself. And then when this income hits my account, well, these $1,500 need to go and pay these expenses. This $500 needs to go to help growing my money more and going and get more money for me so that I'm not working to survive. And so that's changing how you're managing your money with those three accounts, automating your money and then creating some time for yourself every single month to sit down and have a monthly money meeting on how you're managing your money, like what income is coming in, what expenses are going out and how close or how much more you're getting towards your money goals, all right? When it comes to sustaining your money and sustaining these good money habits, three easy things that you can do. One is finding an accountability partner. This is somebody who has similar thoughts about getting their money right, whether they're a business owner or maybe they're a high earning employee with a company, but they have the same mindset that you do that they wanna make some changes. You wanna make sure that you have an accountability partner that's on the same wavelength as you. And so whether you find them in this chat box, like we all know that we're business owners who wanna do better with our money. So maybe you'll find your accountability partner here. Feel free to chat amongst yourselves about that. But maybe your business partner or your friend or your spouse is your accountability partner to get your money back on track or to continue to go towards your financial vision. So getting an accountability partner is definitely something you can do to sustain good money habits. The second thing that you do, excuse me, to sustain good money habits is create a list of affirmations that you say to yourself every single day. I mean, this goes back to shifting your mindset, but if you're not using affirmations or declarations now, then you are not going to, I mean, it's maybe something new to you, but it's something you can incorporate now and get a lot of benefit out of. And when I say affirmations, these are statements that you recite to yourself or you read aloud that affirm your thinking. And so they may not be things that you're doing right right now, but they're things that you aspire to do. You aspire for this to be a part of your life every single day. So like I remember when I was working an office job, like I was almost going crazy because I was sitting in this office with these four walls. And for people who know me, I like to be out, I like to meet people, I like to connect with people and build new relationships. So I was like, oh, I'm losing my mind in here. But when this was about eight or nine years ago, I started listening to motivational speakers every single day, right? Because the people in my life and in my network couldn't specifically help me like sustain these money habits that I was doing or changing because they were asking me for help to help them get on track. So to like maybe to fortify myself, I was listening to these motivational speakers and then also reciting these affirmations. Like I am clear, like I'm grateful for the prosperity in my life. I commit to being rich and wealthy. I will help hundreds of thousands, even millions of people. I create profitable investing opportunities for myself and others, right? These are things that I was saying to myself every single day. And so now like fast forward to 2021, these are things that not only still recite but that are real life that are happening into my life. I just mentioned to y'all at the beginning of this workshop that I have an investment, real estate investment group, and we started it in 2019. So right before the pandemic came or hit, but at the end of 2019, November, we got things started, starting LLC, started contributing monthly to the group. And it's only five of us. But as we continue looking up today or early this month, we had $20,000 in the group that could go directly to any investments that we were thinking about. So I created profitable investing opportunities for myself and my friends and my family, exactly what I've been reciting for years. And so affirmations would definitely help you get down the path and sustain good money habits, especially when you're trying something new or reaching this new level that you're looking to do. So one last thing that you can do to sustain good money habits is you can write things down. I'm not talking about in a phone. I'm not talking about typing on a computer or a laptop, but one quote that I've heard and it rings in my head like all the time is that writing makes a man or woman exact. You write down the things that you are committed to, and when you put, there's something magical that happened when you put pen or pencil to paper and you're getting these ideas and thoughts out of your head. So these will help you sustain good money habits as well. And last but not least, when it comes to stacking your money, the big three things that you can do is one, find, you know, you've heard that quote about being like the average of the five people that you hang around the most, you might need to find some new people, right? But stacking your money, one thing that you can do is you can create the people that you wanna associate with. And an easy way that we can do this digitally or virtually is either clearing your whole social media account which may take a little bit of time as far as who you're following or which is a whole lot easier, create a new social media account like a new Instagram or a new Twitter or a new Facebook profile and only follow people who can help you grow your money. So these are people who are either growing businesses, these are people who are growing money in real estate, they're growing money in stocks, they're growing money in different assets and you're only following these people. You're not following none of your family or friends, you're not following anybody who's outside of this realm but seeing this, right? Because we know that with social media we're kind of drinking from the fire hose as far as all the things that are marketed to us every single day. But if you actively and intentionally control what's in your feed and what's marketed to you every day, it changes everything, right? So that's one thing you can do to stack your money a little bit better. The other thing, the second thing you can do is to create an account outside of the bank or financial institution that you primarily bank with and use that as your savings account. So if you've had issues in the past of saving money for your financial goals, understand that unnoticeable money gets saved. Inconvenient money gets saved. So I remember when I had an office job, I would open a savings account at a federal credit union because they had bank hours, they closed at five o'clock every day. And so I couldn't leave my job if I wanted to go and get money because I did not get a card. That's like another thing you can do to increase the hurdles or obstacles between you and your money if you've had trouble or challenges saving. But if I had to get money or withdraw money out of that account, I would have to take off and go to the bank, inside the bank, walk in and take money out of the account, which is crazy now because we could do so many things virtual. But when it comes to really separating your money, it'll give you the opportunity to not be able to have instant access to transfer money in and out of accounts when you're moving around or when something comes up, it'll continue to grow and you can automate that like we talked about with good money habits as far as sustaining good money habits. So if you know, okay, every single month, this $100, this $1,000, this whatever it is is gonna continue to grow and then I'll put that money into something that will help me grow more money. All right? So stacking your money, the last thing that you can do is to get clear about where you wanna be at the end of this year or the beginning of next year. So one exercise that every single one of us can do on this is making sure that you write a letter to yourself, that you can read on the first of next year to say like, oh, these are the things that I accomplished, right? Hey, Stephen, congratulations on growing your investment account to $100,000. It looks like you have five real estate investing properties that are under tow that are cash flowing every single month. And you've destroyed all of your debt and are living debt-free, like making sure that you're getting very clear. You're living where you're living, what are the things that you have? You wanna make sure you're super clear about, how this looks or what this looks like for next year. And so these are things, every single money cycle that we have or that we're experiencing and that we're going through, their activities and tasks that we can do that are low hanging fruit, y'all. I'm talking about things you can just download on your phone when it comes to an audio book or texting a friend to say, hey, I wanna get my money stuff together. Are you down to be my accountability partner? These are things that we can do right now. But, and even the affirmations, like if y'all go to my personal website, stevenmhuse.com, y'all can download the 28 daily affirmations that I use and say every single day. And so that'll give you guys a starting, that's a give y'all a starting point. If you are new to affirmations that, all right, well, this is something that I can use to either say every morning or every evening. And this, so take a snapshot of these four money cycles, internalize them and figure out which money cycle you're in. Maybe you have already shifted your money mindset. You know, like, all right, these are things that I need to do as a business owner and managing my personal money and you're on to stabilizing your household. But really take a snapshot and figure out what money cycle you're in. And this is my favorite part of these workshops, which is the Q and A, because we've talked about a lot of general things that we can apply to our lives. But I wanted to hear from y'all on what questions y'all have about either the money cycles that we've talked about, changing or getting your money mindset right, or different money questions you have about managing your money. This has been so great, Steven. I have a page full of notes. I'm excited for everyone attending. This has been wonderful. You've given us a lot of great practical steps. So while everyone is trying to figure out how to word their question, I ask that they please take advantage of us having you here. It's always a treat for us in our OBO staff whenever we meet with you because we learn so much. So this is exciting. I do have a question though. How has COVID impacted some of these cycles? Perfect, perfect question. So no matter what is happening in your life, so COVID is something that we've all been impacted with, but something that we all go through but at different stages of our life are transitions of loved ones. Like my father, he just transitioned in February. There are other things that we experienced by losing a job or maybe our businesses dipping in regards of performance. So whether it's COVID or it's something else that we're experiencing in our lives, life is gonna keep life in. We're gonna keep seeing these different challenges that are happening and this framework of these money cycles really is a foundation that you're gonna see no matter what's happening around you. So even for example, at the top of the pandemic, there was so much uncertainty about what was happening with not only people's jobs but what our businesses look like. Could we open our doors? Could we provide this product or service to our community? And we had a lot of questions about that. But for the entrepreneurs that have excelled in this time period, they definitely shifted their mindset around how they dealt with their business. Then they stabilized like their expenses and maybe cut some things down over their overhead. They started sustaining good money habits in regards of growing their business in the time of all this uncertainty. And then they started stacking or putting money to the side for resources so they could understand like what things are gonna be different or they could continue to invest in a channel that was working and growing their business. So the good thing about these money cycles is that no matter what's going on in your life, you're gonna be able to apply these money cycles and be clear about, okay, what are some things that I can do right now as I'm in this specific situation? Whether it's a pandemic or retreat at home, a panorama outside, whatever you wanna call it. Like these cycles will be really foundational for anybody who's wanting to do something different with their money. Steven, we got a question that just came in from Trayvon Jordan. He wants to know, what's your view on the emergence of cryptocurrency investments? Yes, okay, excellent Trayvon. So I am somebody who, I didn't look at cryptocurrency as an investment when things were really popping off. And I'll tell you all a quick thing about Bitcoin. When I was in college, I still had my Blackberry. Like, I feel like most of us, you know, when the smartphone things were popping off, I had a Blackberry and I heard a Bitcoin and they were giving away free Bitcoin. Right, that was valued at $10. So if you signed up for this app, you had free Bitcoin that was valued at $10. And I had a point where I had a 100 Bitcoin in this Blackberry. Then, you know how you switch phones? Like you buy a new phone and then you factory reset the other phone before you like get away from it? I did that. And the app that I had my 100 Bitcoin in was reset. It was gone. Like I could never get them back. And so now that I see Bitcoin at like $58,000, like I'm hurt a little bit. Like personally, I feel like, oh, I wish I had those 100. But as far as like investing in cryptocurrency and I think I feel like most of us have heard of Bitcoin which is like the most heard about cryptocurrency. I didn't look at it as an investment but instead I looked at it as currency. Like what you could use to pay for things. And so like for Bitcoin, it's becoming more of a natural thing that people are adopting. And because of that, they're gonna adopt other coins that people use for utility transactions like Ethereum or for things that people use for international transactions like Ripple or XRP. And I think that whether it's cryptocurrency, real estate, investing in the stock market, whatever it is, the big thing that you have to think about when it comes to investing is how much time can I allot to learning about this and who are the people that I can go to in my network who have real experience and real knowledge on this thing that can teach me more about this investment. So if you're thinking about cryptocurrency and putting some money into it or maybe you're already a cryptocurrency investor, make sure that you have some resources that you can lean on to see how things are going and growing. But because it's so early on cryptocurrency for a lot of these different things, you have to do the research on what these coins are being used for and how these cryptocurrencies are being used. For example, like I mentioned three and three specific purposes that they have but there are also things like a doggy coin that is a spelled DOGE that really was produced as a joke. Like it was a meme, right? And people have made money in it because I remember when it started as a penny and I think now it's up to 27 cents. So people have made money putting money into that but I don't think that that's an investment. I think that that's a gamble just like going to a casino and playing Blackjack or playing Russian roulette. It's not tied to a specific asset or it's not something that's clear on how you can make money. You can't even really track to see how it's gonna go and grow whether you're doing technical or fundamental analysis. And so I think that when it comes to cryptocurrency just like any other investment you gotta do your research and have like sound resources that can say this is what's gonna happen or this is how things are moving with the investment. Okay, and I'm answering these questions as they're coming in. And the next question is from Travis Wilson. He says, I'm very frugal what recommendations do you have as far as spending responsibly to expand a growing business operating on a limited budget? Steven, you're muted. There we go. All right, so Travis, as far as being frugal I don't know if he can be frugal to a fault. I think the big thing when it comes to being frugal or managing your money the way that you've been managing it is getting clear on your financial vision that you have for this business is growing. So if you already know that your business is growing and you wanna do some things to increase your business one thing that you can do is to have a specific goal of how much you're going to put to the side to increase the business. So instead of feeling like you're frugal or that you're a penny pincher or anything else like that then you're very conscious that this money has a job to increase this business. I'm putting this $150 or $1,500 to the side every month not necessarily that, oh, I don't wanna go out or I don't wanna spend money on food or I'm not gonna take this trip as things open back up but I have a specific goal and vision to increase my business and this money that I'm not spending on this is going towards this. I think that there are people who in the personal finance world who try to guilt people into getting their money right. Like, hey, you need to drink all of your coffee at home and stop going to Starbucks. For me, I don't care about that. You should really focus on the large things that make a large difference and large impact. So if you're drinking coffee or for my sake because I don't drink coffee, I drink tea or hot chocolate but if I'm drinking hot chocolate from Starbucks three times a week and spending that $10 but it gives me peace of mind when I'm planning for the rest of the day or the rest of the week, drink the dang $10 hot chocolate a week. It just don't matter that much. Like don't get hung up on the spending of that but also I think that it sounds like you may be doing a good job of this already. Be very clear about the things that you do not care about financially. Like for me and my lady will tell you this I'm not a shopper when it comes to clothes, right? I probably buy clothes once a quarter or maybe once every six months, something like that. And so because I don't buy clothes I do have more money that I can use to eat because I eat a lot of my money, I'm a foodie. And so just the same way that you're growing your business you may not be spending money on a specific marketing plan like a Facebook or Instagram ads but you do have this money that you're being frugal with that you're kicking to the side that you can use on hiring a brand expert who can help you revamp things as you're growing your business that will help you grow even more. If you need more clarity on that feel free to drop more statements or questions in the chat box. Okay, next question is from Deloria. And this is one that you made a cover earlier but I'm gonna go ahead and ask the question for contracted workers how does an individual pay themselves or stack his or her finances if they are in between contracts but bills continue to come in but the money's not coming in? Excellent, excellent question. So for contract workers I envision contract workers managing their personal finances similar to how business owners may manage their personal finances when they first get started, right? And so we talked about how things ebb and flow with our money but one thing that contractors can do is take a look at what has happened in the past 12 months as far as your income and take the average of your income over the last 12 months. So I'm not asking you to do a whole lot of math. If you've made $2,000 last January, 1,000 February, March and April and May were zeros because people were trying to figure out things with the pandemic and then every month after that you made $2,000. Well, for the last half of the year you made $12,000 and the first half you made $3,000 so you have $15,000 you made in 2020, right? And you can say, okay, well in this $15,000 that's almost like 1,100 bucks a month when it comes to income then you look at your expenses and say, well, are my expenses more than $1,100? If they are, I need to cut down on the things that, like I mentioned on the biggest things that have the biggest impact on your expenses like maybe you need to move somewhere different. That was one thing that like changed my cost drastically. I used to live in an apartment that all in with all my expenses and utilities cost me $1,300 a month. Now I live somewhere that cost me $900 a month. That $400 can go wherever I needed to go. But in addition to just understanding your expenses and your income as a contractor or a business owner also get clear on how much you want to contribute every single month towards your savings and investment goals. So make that decision in the front end and make sure as we talked about earlier automating your money when you're paying yourself like once the money hits like because you're a contractor you're gonna get different contracts. So there may be a month like for April it's financial literacy month. I have more workshops this month than any other month of the year, right? But I need to also know that, all right even though I'm making $30,000 in April I need to manage it like I still only made that 1100 that we talked about last year as far as paying myself. And I know that I was 1100 I'm gonna kick $100 to the side for saving and investing. And so when you're a contractor and you have some months that maybe are zeros you's have to be very consistent about when the money does come in that you split it up like percentage wise on where it should go. So on the profit first model the similar model that I use 30% of the money that comes into my household like from my business goes to taxes. 15% of money that comes into my business goes towards expenses. 50% of the money that comes into my business goes towards owners pay or paying me my monthly salary. And then 5% of the money that comes into my business goes into an account marked profit. And at the end of the quarter, every single quarter I pay myself half of the money that's in the profit account. Just to be clear on the 50% that I'm sending over to my owner's pay account it's not that I'm getting all of that money every single month. I'm only paying myself $2,500 a month from that owner's pay account. So as we're talking about this example where like I make 30,000 this month 50% of that is going into this account which is 15,000. But the only money that's coming out of that account this month, next month and going forward is 2,500. So I wanna continue to build that account so that I can continue to have consistency on paying myself. But also as I'm paying myself now we're talking about managing my personal finances. I wanna know, okay every single time I get paid on the 10th I'm putting $250 towards stocks or cryptocurrency. Every time I get paid on the 25th I'm putting $250 towards real estate. So I know $500 a month is going towards that. Whether I have a workshop booked this month or not this is going to happen because I've made a conscious effort to make this account that's gonna continue to pay me whether things are coming in or not. And so I think profit first will help you a lot on reading just how that system breaks down and how you can have just a really clear way of managing your finances in a system. And I know that Aisha, Carla, Melissa and I had talked about it before but maybe we can do a workshop specifically on profit first. So I can show y'all how as business owners to get really clear about how you're managing your money. Next question is from Maddie Johnson. She wants to know, do you know of any easy investment sites for beginners? When you say easy investment sites, Nadia I need some more information. When you say easy investment sites are you saying easy to understand as far as user friendly information or are you talking about ways that you can invest? And I'd like to know like what are you investing in? Are we talking about stocks or real estate? Let's get a little bit clear here so I can answer your question. All right. So Nadia if you heard it, if you could put that question back in and just kind of clarify please. And let's see, we have in the chat. We just had one comment from Trayvon Jordan. He said that the line of thinking is similar to the book I will teach you to be rich by Ramit Sethi. Yes, Ramit Sethi and I will teach you to be rich. It's like one of the first books where I was getting my financial stuff together. And so he aligns. And one thing about Ramit is that he's really, he majored in psychology and undergrad and got his master's in psychology. So when he's talking about money it's usually how we think about it. Oftentimes when I'm talking about money it's how we think about money and the experiences that we've had with money in our past. And so yes, you're right in line with that. Me and Ramit, our tag team partners on the way that we think about money and expenses as far as not sweating the small stuff like the Starbucks or eating lunch with your friend or family member once a week but instead like really focusing on the big stuff like your car payment or where you live and how that's taking money out of your account. Nothing in right now. But some of that I heard you say and I learned, this is something that I learned in financial ministry when I took it at Brooklyn Baptist. But did you talk about, well, I'll say my question for later. So another question just popped up from Travis Wilson. He said, my business is ready to hire W-2 employees. We currently have 1099 employers. I need guidance on how to navigate hiring employees. Any advice or resources is greatly appreciated. So perfect question. So I can't give you much insight on hiring employees because I have generally used contractors in my business. We haven't hired our first employee yet but as far as resources, the first place that I tell you to go is to ask your accountant. And ask them, whoever does your taxes, tell them the same thing you're telling me and ask them for resources on hiring an employee because one, they will ask you some questions about benefits on, hey, what do you plan on providing as a business owner? Because as we know as business owners, the benefits that we provide ourselves, like the amount of money that we invest in a SEP IRA or a single, a solo 401k because we're a business owner could be different than what we offer as benefits for our team members as we grow. And so definitely reach out to your accountant as a resource. I think that's a perfect place to start. And then there's a, I'm trying to remember the name of the podcast. If I remember it, I'll come back and give you all that resource too as far as what you can use to really be clear about hiring. But one thing that I'll just ask you to do as a business owner, you're growing a business, it's doing well, lean into and follow your intuition when it comes to interviewing these different people that you wanna bring to your team. Because I have an accountability partner that's growing an office, a chiropractic office and they're doing excellent. I think their revenue is around $60,000 a month or something like that now. But he's had to hire team members and he's had some challenges on getting the right team member in the door and keeping them. But he follows his intuition now and says, this is the person that I wanna train, this is the person I wanna grow with and I think things are working out a little bit better. So how about your accountant and follow your intuition when it comes to interviewing the people that you wanna interview. And make sure that you're clear on what they're going to be doing. I remember as I started bringing on contractors to my team, I would ask them to do something, like I had a specific description and then as they did it or finished it, I was thinking to myself, well, why didn't they do this? Like, why didn't they send this follow-up or why weren't they talking about this? Because I wasn't detailed and asked them about that. So write out your job description the person you wanna bring on and then send it to the people in your network and ask them what are some job duties that they feel like they would have to do when they see this job description so that you are clear on, oh, do I need to be more clear on this specific thing that's an important task for us? Okay. Nadia, she put, she cleared for her question in the chat. She said, I would like to start investing. Okay. I'm not sure where to start and she's looking for a site that is user-friendly. Okay. So I'm gonna assume, and Nadia, you can clarify a little bit more for us that when you say start investing, then maybe you're talking about stocks. But when it comes to investing, one thing that you need to do is you need a brokerage account. And I think that some apps make it easy for you to start investing fractionally when it comes to the stock market. So for example, my mother is a senior citizen and she just started investing in stocks with Cash App like last month, I think. And so with Cash App and with fractional investing, like you can see a company like Amazon or Berkshire Hathaway, which by one share of Berkshire Hathaway Group A shares is like, I don't know, $416,000. So I'm crazy thing like that right now. So if you wanted a piece of that share or of that company, you can say like, all right, I want to invest $100 into Berkshire Hathaway. And as the company grows, your $100 will grow, even though you don't have $416,000 to get one share of the company. So that's one thing that I'll mention to you as far as fractional investing. And you can do that with apps like Cash App. I don't believe you can do that with Webull, but you can do it with an app called Stockpile. I know that that's an app that a lot of kids like college students that I've exposed to as far as fractional investing. But if you're ready to kind of, once you take the training wheels off and you start investing that way, or you have an account to invest that way, you can create a brokerage account at some of the more well-known places like TD Ameritrade or Vanguard or Fidelity or eTrade. And when you create this brokerage account, this account is specifically used to invest in the stock market. So it's not like you're checking accounts, not like your savings account, put money over there that you wanna invest in the stock market. And then last but not least, I know that I mentioned creating a social media profile to like change the people that you're around. If you wanna start investing, create a social media profile on Instagram and follow these people, okay? I'm gonna give you a couple of profiles. So if you're writing or typing, like take some notes. Follow Wall Street Trapper. I don't care what y'all think about this man's name. He's brilliant when it comes to stop market investing. All right. Follow Teela Holcomb, it's T-E-L-A and her last name is H-O-L-C-O-M-B. Follow Kevin Matthews, his username is building bread. So B-U-I-L-D-I-N-G-B-R-E-A-D. Who else can y'all follow? You can follow Todd Capital. So T-O-D-D Capital, C-A-P-I-T-A-L. And if you really wanna like, if you're into music and you really wanna get into investing, one of the best profiles on Instagram is a profile called Black Market Exchange. And their website has a lot of resources on it as well. You can sign up for their email list. It's called, the website is thebmex.com. So T-H-E-B-M-E-X.com. And I'll send that to all of y'all in the chat box. There it goes. All right, so Nadia, I hope that helps. That's a perfect place to start when it comes to like getting started. And the profiles that I mentioned to you, they'll also help you create like a watch list of what companies you wanna invest in and figuring out what are the things that you wanna focus on. Personally, my watch list for my personal investments, it's about 12 to 15 companies. And these are companies that I examine every single week, every Sunday evening. I look at all of the charts. I look at what's going on in the next week or the next month as far as earnings and all that fun stuff. And funny that you mentioned investing because this is like a heavy earnings week that we're in right now, Microsoft, Visa, Tesla. I need to check the rest of my investments, but it's going down this week as far as earnings. So I hope that helps, Nadia. And I see, or Kalina, you're about to say something. Yeah, we had one more question. I think, Aisha, is this gonna be the last one? Yes, this will be the last one. And I think you had a question. Okay, this question is from Deloria. She said, what are your thoughts on investing in a SUSU? S-U-S-U, yes, I spilled. All right, so Deloria, okay? I'm glad you asked this question and this is cool that this is like one of the last questions, cause I definitely wanna hear your question, Kalina. But before I have mentioned anything about investing in a SUSU, I just wanna be very clear, you cannot invest in a SUSU, all right? There, I think last year, when everything was going on with the pandemic, you saw a lot of people talking about this thing called a SUSU, that you put money in and you find two people, you recruit two people to do the same thing, that is not a SUSU, y'all. As a Jamaican man, I'm telling you, that is not a SUSU. That is something called like a money loon or some foolishness, right? Nevertheless, that's not what I'm talking about. That's not a SUSU. So don't relate that to a SUSU going forward. So a SUSU for those who are not familiar, in Caribbean countries and in countries like from the continent of Africa, it was very, is very, very, very common for us to use community savings tools for us to accomplish things that we wanted to accomplish, whether it was going to school and getting more education or buying a house or starting a business, right? We would use these community savings tools. So in like more of the Hispanic or Latin countries, it's called a SUSU. In Jamaica, it's called a Padma. In Nigeria, it's called an Ajo, right? So there's a couple of different names depending on your culture. But the way that these groups work is that there'd be 10 of us, right? Because I'm still in a Padma with my family, like with my Jamaican family. And the 20 of us contribute $50 a week, right? And every single week, one of the 20 people get that money, the whole pot of money, right? And every single week we contribute, like again, and every single week, a different person gets the pot until we are through 20 weeks of 20 people getting this whole pot of money. The money doesn't change. You don't have to recruit anybody. You're not bringing anybody else. And when it comes to a Padma or like how an actual SUSU works, as far as recruiting, you don't want that. You want to try to recruit people because you wanna make sure that these people are gonna put the money in every week or every month, however the volume is as far as how much people need to contribute. So now that we all know what a SUSU is or what a Padma is, I'll also mention to you that the way that community savings tools are set up in Caribbean countries or in countries from our continent of Africa is that you often in the United States, they deem those things illegal. Like if you try to sue someone for not giving you the money from a Padma, like the legality of you getting your money back or the possibility of you getting your money back in the United States is very, very low because they don't want you to do with this community savings tool in the first place. In Jamaica, you can sue somebody for this, right? It's a real thing. It's something that we use. But as far as a SUSU, now that we're all have the same definition and we're all talking about the same thing, I think the community savings tool is an amazing idea. I think that it works exactly how I mentioned it as far as helping people invest in their education, invest in their businesses, maybe even buy a house because that's what I use my partner money for. Whenever I get my draw, I put it towards investing. That's the only thing it does. And so do I think that you should get a group of friends or family members that you can trust who can contribute at a regular basis whether it's weekly or monthly and do different things with them? Yes, I think that's a great idea. If you're talking about that SUSU that I mentioned, like at the beginning of even explaining the differences of what a SUSU is and what the foolishness on like Cash App and Facebook, what they post up about as far as recruiting two people and bringing them into this money loom and all this other stuff or watering and flowering people and stuff like that, it's not a SUSU. And I hate that they use that name because I think that our community savings tools that are cultural to us and that have been working for hundreds of years are getting a bad rap because people are not familiar with how they started. It's just rebranded with foolishness. And I think that happens oftentimes. We have a lot of examples of that, but I'll stop there because I could talk about this all day long. Like as y'all can tell, like I'm passionate about people getting clear on what the SUSU is and what it's not. Okay. And I think we are done with all the questions in the chat and we don't have any Q and A. So we are good. We're good. What about your question, Kalina? Oh, my question. Well, my question is, last night with the president had his speech and you were talking about with the economy is on its way back and things like that. What tools or what tips would you give to someone who may be a little bit leery about investing right now because a lot of businesses have either a thought out of business or their stock is not what as much as it was a year or two years ago. Do you think that right now is a good time to start investing or should you just wait a little while till the economy starts? You start to see signs of improvement. So great question about that. I will say that there were a lot of people last March or last April that started investing because they heard like stocks were on discount, right? It's just like going to Macy's and seeing the things on clearance which are things that you've been wanting to buy. But as far as like waiting for the right time there is no right time to invest. People should start investing as soon as they can. Like as soon as they are able to like digest the risk of investing and move forward with putting money to the side with the only purpose of this money is for it to grow and bring me more money. One thing even answering your question is that I believe that one thing we don't talk about a lot as well is that a lot of us are working to survive. And it's because of the way that we've been taught about money and the way of money has been marketing to us but we should not be working just to keep a roof over our head or working to feed ourselves, right? It's even more of the reason why I love doing work with the people who give resources to our homeless citizens or our housing insecure citizens because most of us are a month away from being in that position. And so as you're thinking about investing you wanna get clear that one, you're gonna commit to investing and you're gonna kick money to the side to invest but two, that this is something you need to be doing as not as a safety net but as something that financially healthy people do. Things, people who are focused on their financial wellness and making better money decisions, they use their money to grow their money and that's all investing is. And so if you're a little bit cautious or leery about investing right now because of everything we've been through in the past 18 months, let's call it and not only with the pandemic but also with the former president. I think that you should take a step back, take a deep breath and find people who are in your network that are investing so that you can be clear about, oh, well, is that something that I'm interested in? Do I wanna invest in real estate? Do I wanna invest in the stock market? And once you're clear about what you wanna invest in and the goals that you have to invest, like, hey, I don't wanna work every single day. I would like my money to just come to me every single day without me having to go and get it, right? I would like to make so much money for my money that my money is literally my job. Like people are just coming to me to borrow my money and give me more money back. I want that mindset when it comes to people investing because once that is a reality, then your time, you literally can do anything you want with your time whether it's spending time with family traveling, excuse me, traveling, whatever it is. But just get clear that the best time to invest was once you started making money whether it's high school or college or whatever, but the second best time to invest is now. Now that we're talking about investing, that you're clear that you wanna grow your money, that you know the importance of your money growing. These are things that you should definitely take advantage of. And not from the mindset of, oh, everything's on sale, everything's gonna go up, you gotta invest right now and jump in. The stock market gonna be here. It's gonna be here tomorrow. It was here last year, it was here years ago. It's gonna continue to be here. So you're gonna be able to continue to make money through the stock market. Real estate is gonna be here, you're gonna be able to continue to make money through those assets. And I don't wanna drop a bomb on y'all, like right as we close, but your primary residence is often not an asset because it's not making you any money. And so let's think about like how we can make money and not take money out of our households. And that's what investing is. So don't be fearful or weary no matter whether the president said some things positive that you rocked with or said some things that you're like, mm, I don't know. Just take a deep breath and prepare yourself to start growing your money and getting your time back. Cause that's the biggest thing. Okay. Now is there like, this is gonna be the last one. Is there a certain amount could you start with? Could you start with a hundred dollars? Should you save 500 and invest with that? How should you go about that? How can you go about that? So the question of is there amount? The answer is yes. And it's whatever you can invest. So like when I started investing, I started investing $25 a month. Like it's not a whole heap of money. And people, some people when they hear that they're like, $25 a month ain't buying you nothing. Okay. Like it's growing. And so you want that type of mindset because once you start with whatever you can start with, let's say that you decide, all right, for the next three months, I'm gonna, or for the next quarter, I'm gonna invest $25 a month into the stock market as I learned more about investing in the stock market. At the end of those three months, you can say, okay, I wanna invest $50 a month now for the next three months. And then you can look back at your spending plan. Maybe you wanna invest $100 a month by the end of the year. Maybe next year by your birthday, you wanna invest $1,000 a month. But all of these numbers, it's all based on your financial situation because personal finances are personal. There's no one size fits all thing about finances. I'm gonna talk about eight steps from a certain author or a specific book that you can follow when it comes to how you're managing your money and what numbers are right for you. It's all about the things that you value and the way that you value your money and time. So as far as a number, just get a specific dollar amount that you know that you can kick to the side every month for the specific goal of growing your money and getting your time back. If that's $25, cool. If it's $250, cool. If it's $2,500, that's cool too. But just start, that's the biggest thing. Like find the number that you can work with and start. Okay, all right. And I think we're good on all the questions in the chat and I know you definitely answered my question. So thank you so much for that. So we are done with the Q&A portion, Aisha. We're good to go. Okay, thank you so much, Collina. That was great. Do you have some final words, Steven? Yep, final words here. And so I used to tell everyone that I've lived my life by these three words. Action cures all because I can still remember when I was getting my money life together. It was after I had gotten my car repossessed, six days later I had lost my job and the next day it was like my birthday. And so I was like, oh man, so how am I gonna celebrate? And so I remember my girlfriend and I, we went out, we were supposed to be getting some food. And I told her, I was like, oh, well, we can walk. And we walked to this Chinese restaurant that was like around the corner. And you know, as we walked, I thought about how much money I had in my account. It was like right under $10. So when I got to the Chinese restaurant, I knew I could order like a pint of vegetable fried rice for $5.99, it'd be $6.47 total. I can get two plates, two spoons, two forks, we could kick it. And so as we sat down and we were eating this food, I remember my lady asked me a question that like forever changed my life. She asked, hey, if I needed $1,000 and I was in a position where like I needed $1,000 and you couldn't ask any friends or family member, like how would you get me the money? And my initial response was, oh, I just asked my best friend, Rich, he always held me down. She's like, no, no, no, no, no, you can't ask him for the money. How would you get it? And I said, oh, well, I'll just go back. You know, and she said, no, no, no, you can't do anything illegal. How would you get the money? I said, oh, okay. Well, I would cut 20 wands for $50 a piece. And she was like, you don't have a car or a lawn mower. Like what are you talking about? And so in that specific moment, I just realized that there was nothing, not only could I not do anything to help her with that $1,000, but there was nothing that I was doing right then to help my financial situation. And oftentimes when we talk about getting our money together, like it seems a little stressful or daunting, but really if you take a step back and just like I did with that, not positive financial situation, but just thought about what's the next thing that I could do, the next thing that I could do was just set some goals that I wanted to accomplish that wasn't where I was. And so I believe in these three words so much that action cures all because when you start moving your feet, that's when things are changing. But I added a fourth word in front of this all, which is authentic action cures all. The goal isn't to be busy, right? There's some people who say that you booked in busy. I don't wanna be booked in busy. That's not my goal. I would like my money to just keep coming and flowing in. I don't wanna be busy for it, right? And so as we're closing out and we're, now I'm sure you should have some words as well. I just want you all to think about what's the authentic action that you can take from this workshop today to make sure that no matter what business you're in, that you're managing not only your business finances, but more importantly, your personal finances is the way you need to be financially well. But I appreciate everyone who's attended. I've loved all the questions and engagement. Thank you again to Aisha, to Carla, to Melissa, to the whole, to Kalina moderating the questions, to the whole city of Columbia Office of Business Opportunity team that's brought me in and has put me in the position to help more business owners and entrepreneurs from our city continue to succeed, not only with their businesses, but with their money as well. Thank you so much, Stephen. I think we could all just continue to talk to you for hours, but we wanna be mindful of everyone's time. This has been a wonderful webinar. You've shared a wealth of knowledge with us and also offered some very practical steps for our entrepreneurs and individuals that they can take it immediately as soon as they get off the call. And that's so valuable and you can leave a training and immediately implement what you've learned. So we love your attitude. You make something that you make money not as complex as we think it is. So we appreciate that. I wanna add a couple of items. I do wanna ask you, Stephen, do you take individual clients on if someone wants any type of financial advice or how do you offer that? So for individuals, and as we're working in this workshop right now, for companies and organizations, I build these workshops that are centered around financial wellness, but as far as in really foundational in financial psychology and financial therapy to help us kick the money shames and traumas to the side, but as far as working with individuals in that same vein, I'm also a Reiki practitioner and Reiki is a healing technique and modality that's thousands of years old. Like we've been using it since ancient Clement, which is modern day Egypt as we call it. But that's how I help people really move their money challenges and blocks and get to see their financial vision to really identify like the things they've had issues with in the past when it comes to managing their money and then debriefing from that Reiki session about their intentions and goals of what they wanna see change. So I don't do like any financial planning or anything else like that, but people who work with me individually, they'll sign up for a Reiki session and they will come back to me to tell me how their business is growing or how their money is changing, which is always great to hear. And all of these Reiki sessions that I offer they're distant or virtual so people can enjoy this from the comfort of their own home. And working with different adults from Canada or California or DC or Atlanta or even here in Columbia, as I'm working with more people is clear to me that a lot of the things that we've talked about as far as actions we can take starts with the mind and how you feel and how you think. And so I help people on that to get them on the right track. Good, thank you so much. And Steven's information is in the chat if you need to get in touch with him. Even you did mention you'll be sharing a PDF with me so that I can provide that to anyone who registered. I'm gonna put my email address in the chat if for some reason someone had trouble registering or you came on late, please send me an email so I'll have that information. Again, please remember to complete that small business survey that Kalina posted in the chat earlier. You can also find that on our website at www.columbiasc.gov forward slash obo. I will also send you a survey for this webinar. We always like to get the feedback, tell us what we did great, what we need to improve on. We always appreciate that. Lastly, I want to add that we do have a newsletter that goes out every Friday. If you do not receive that newsletter, please send me an email and I will add you to our contact list. We are gonna have Steven back soon so we'll work out the logistics and send out information. You can always check our Facebook at Columbia OBO. We post a lot of information regarding upcoming webinars and just news that would be of interest to our small business community. So thank you everyone for joining us today. We ask that you please stay safe. Contact the Columbia OBO. There's anything that we can do for you. We hope you all have a great afternoon. Thank you, bye. Bye Steven, thank you so much.