Nikita Wolff is joined by 3rd Decade graduate, Leroy Adams, to discuss how he's changing generational money habits within his own family. Throughout this episode, they discuss:
Nikita Wolff is joined by 3rd Decade graduate, Leroy Adams, to discuss how he's changing generational money habits within his own family. Throughout this episode, they discuss:
Hey 3rd Decade community. We're happy to have you here. I'm your host Nikita Wolff, and today I'm joined by 3rd Decade champion, Leroy Adams. Leroy graduated from our class series in December of 2021. He was not only a highly committed student during his time with us, but he also went on to adapt our financial lessons into monthly meetings with his family, where he could begin to break down barriers and share financial discussions with his family. In this episode, we'll be discussing generational money management practices, overcoming shame and embarrassment, and tips on getting started. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast with us today, Leroy. Thank you for sharing your time with us today.
Leroy:Thank you Nikita.
Nikita:I would love if you'd start us off by maybe sharing a little bit about your own financial journey.
Leroy:Well, first I will say thank you for having me. I love third decade, love everything that you all are doing. It is really tremendous work. And so just thank you for this platform and what you all are doing to help break down financial barriers for those of us who need it.
Nikita:Yeah! Of course.
Leroy:So my financial journey, I think, you know, last time we talked, I shared with you that I certainly come from a family of savers. My mom& my stepfather really, really stressed the importance of saving your money. My mom saves everything<laugh> even receipts. She probably still has receipts from back like the 1990s or something<laugh> and so that was their financial education was saving and they passed that financial education down to my brothers and I. I'll take it even a step further. They always taught us to pay your bills, right. Or pay other people first m m-hmm< affirmative> and then save what's l eft o ver. A nd so naturally my brothers and I, we took that and we've applied it in our lives to today. And, you know, as I was thinking about preparing for this conversation with you, one of the things I realized was, you know, to my parents' credit, they provided my brothers and I with everything that we needed and even wanted, right. We had a roof over our head. We had food on the table. We went on family vacations to Disney World because we grew up in Florida, Disney World's right there. You know, we, my brothers and I, we were in after school activities and things like that. So the financial education that we received from our parents- that is pay your bills, save everything else would be fine, was validated by our reality. Right. We didn't feel poor mm-hmm<affirmative> we felt provided for. And so, because of that, we never thought to look at other ways of managing your money or even talked about investing or real estate or the stock market, or starting a business because well, life is good. We have a house, we have food, right. So why, why should we do any of those things anyway? And then what changed for me was leaving that environment, leaving that community, going off to college, being exposed to concepts like investing, generational wealth, making your money work for you by, you know, through conversations with friends or other students, you know, echo throughout the hallway, if you will. And even then I didn't jump into investing or anything like that. I think in college I created my first brokerage account with TD Ameritrade and I bought one Nike stock<laugh> it was like, OK, people are talking about this. I think I can do it. I think I understand it. I wear Nikes. Okay. I'll just buy a Nike stock.<laugh> and that was, that was it. You know, I didn't take it any further than that, because I was still unsure of what it all meant. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and then after college, I was accepted into the peace Corps and it was in the peace Corps where these conversations continued investing stock market, generational wealth, things like that. But these were conversations that were had by the white volunteers. And what was interesting about these conversations was they were talking about these things, wealth building, stock market, investing real estate as if it was second nature as if they knew exactly what to do, how to do it and what it all meant.
Nikita:Right. Whereas you're looking at this going, like, what are you guys talking about?
Leroy:Yeah. Like what are you talking about? And it wasn't even, you know, the disparity if you will, in terms of the information gap was not just across racial lines, it was also across class lines. Because there were white volunteers who were from the same economic bracketed, you know, income bracket that I was from, or, you know, that was also like, okay, how do you do this stuff?<laugh> like, what does all of this mean? And so you just dig deeper and further you realize it's not, it was really about just, just sort of a class difference if you will. And the sort of education information that was being passed down throughout one's family. And so after experiencing that in the Peace Corps, looking at peers who were my age, who were very active in investing in wealth building, I continued to read, I continued to look up, what do these things mean? Look at my own financial situation to see if I could at least get started. Of course, in the peace Corps, you're not making any money. So that was not an option at all. Fast forward after the peace Corps, when I really started, you know, two years later, I moved to China and these conversations continue. But now I'm seeing these conversations are had by people that do look like me and people that are from the same income bracket that I grew up in. Right. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, middle class, um, African American kids who were having these conversations. And now I said, okay, now I know I can do this, right. It doesn't matter what, you know, race that I may be or what, what class I may have grown up in. I can at least start to do this and learn more about it because there are people like me that are doing these things. And so I, it was really during that time, you know, in my early twenties, between peace Corps and my two years of being an expat in China, where I really just took the leap, if you will, to start investing or at least, trying to put away money for my retirement through an investment vehicle.
Nikita:Yeah. Now what, like, if you feel like there was one thing that really kind of like helped you make that plunge into starting that process, what do you think it was?
Leroy:Obviously the conversations helped just being around different communities of people. Mm-hmm<affirmative> because the communities that I was in, weren't having these conversations and there's one thing to have these conversations. There's another thing to have these conversations and understand why you should be having these conversations or these financial conversations, understand why these things are important. And so for me, it was, I would look at my community where generational wealth, wasn't a conversation where home, no one owned their own home, no one owned their own business or anything like that. No one had an investment portfolio and the reality, their economic reality validated that, right. There was nothing put away for their children down the line or anything of that nature compared to those who not only were having these conversations, but were actively involved in, you know, generational wealth building and throughout their family. If you looked across their family, people, own homes, people have businesses, you know, financial assets that were growing. And it was that, that said, well, you, you have to, it's important to do these things because you have to be able to give something to the child that you may want to have one day so that they have something to start off life with at least. Right. Right. You can't rely on a job. You can't rely on pension plans or 401ks, especially being a millennial. You're looking at these retirement systems and they looked like they're being just stripped away. And I said, well, you gotta do something, right. Yeah. You won't may not be able to rely on a government system once you retire. So you have to do something to prepare yourself and to make sure that your family is secured financially, at least.
Nikita:Yeah. It's definitely no longer something that like passively happens. I feel like a lot of our parents and grandparents, like you said, had pensions that they were automatically enrolled in and they could count on the fact that when they turned 62 or 65, whenever they chose to retire, that they were gonna be taken care of. And now it's like, all of the onus is on us. And so if we don't know what we're doing and we don't start this process, it can be a really rude awakening if you've not, you know, been preparing for that throughout your working career.
Leroy:Yeah. And that was, again, the one thing that was really, really scary for me, I I'll even, you know, give a, a quick example, was my family ran into a very tragic moment back in 2018. And my mom had to go into her 401k and pull out, I think,$10,000 to help resolve, the issue. And I remember overhearing as some kids do, like, what are, what are mom and dad talking about? You know, overhearing my mom, talking with my aunt about how devastating that was for her. Mm-hmm how, how afraid she, how very scared she was, because she said that I have been building into that 401k for years, and now in a split second, because of this very unfortunate thing, it is all gone. And I would have to start over and hearing that conversation. It was like,"that cannot be Leroy's reality" When he gets that age.
Nikita:Yeah. Sometimes you learn from other people's mistakes and seeing them go through it and
Leroy:Mm-hmm
Nikita:<affirmative> oh man. Yeah. So many people I think have found themselves in that, in that position too. And it's just, it's hard to come back from and certainly discouraging to experience as well.
Leroy:Yeah. Yeah.
Nikita:So as far as the project that you've taken on with your family and doing these monthly zoom classes. Do you plan to move them to in-person at some point? Or are you gonna keep'em on zoom for simplicity's sake?
Leroy:I do. As a matter of fact. So when I moved back from China, one of the things my cousins and I started to do was organize family reunions.
Nikita:Oh, fun!
Leroy:Cause it had been so long since we had a family reunion, so we started to organize them and we were going, and then the pandemic happened. And you know, now we're looking to get that back up and going again. But once we started our family reunions, I looked into having them structured as a nonprofit actually, which is a thing you can do. You can have family reunions structured as a nonprofit. And what happens is as your family's paying those fees for thefamily reunion, it can be tax deductible because you're paying it towards this nonprofit, of course you have to structure it like such.
Nikita:That's so creative.
Leroy:Yeah. I was like, okay, we can do this. Right. Yeah. So I, I mentioned that because what I would like to do with the monthly financial sessions is build those into our family unions. So like for, you know, maybe one day or, you know, four hours out of one day, we're all together and we're going through these sessions, you know, we're, we're reviewing our year, what do we spend our money on? How does our budget look? What are our financial goals? How do we support each other in reaching those financial goals? How do we set up a family scholarship fund? How do we set up a family entrepreneurship fund where the kids can, you know, create businesses and pitch those businesses to family members and we vote and award, you know, startup capital, if you will. That is where I would like to see these family financial sessions grow into. Not just remain., You know, because if it remains the way that it is right now, just through virtual sessions, I think the engagement will continue to be there, but you run the risk of some people falling off mm-hmm<affirmative> right. The last session, I had a couple cousins join for about 10 minutes and they just, they, they got off, they logged off and I get it, you know. Right now we have it every Wednesday, last Wednesday of the month from 8:00 PM Eastern time to about 9, 9 30. They're tired. Yeah. I get it. You know, and so I don't shame them or guilt trip them for that. At least they showed up right. But I think that in person engagement and connection can be really, really special. And, it really helps with that, that community aspect of saying we're all in this together and, you know, we can support each other along, along this journey.
Nikita:Yeah, for sure. So what was it that inspired you to kind of take on this project? What made you realize the importance of taking it on?
Leroy:Yeah, it goes back again to the conversations that I was exposed to throughout college, peace Corps, in China. When I moved back to the US in 2018, you know, I started to be even more aggressive with my learning, reading books about investing and things of that nature, but what really did it for me was I read the book,"rich dad, poor dad", which I'm sure most people are familiar with.
Nikita:Lots of people have recommended it I've yet to read it, but I really need to,
Leroy:It's really good by Robert Kosaki, it's really good. It's a very easy read. He does a great job of like really breaking down, you know, these financial concepts, wealth building, investing, et cetera, in a way that is digestible and understandable. And so as I'm reading that book in it, he has a section where he goes through the cash flow patterns of poor people, middle class people and rich people.
Nikita:Interesting.
Leroy:Yeah. And actually I have it here, and he shows where the cash flow pattern for a rich person. He shows their income statement and their balance sheet and on their income statement, their income is rental income, dividend interest and royalties.
Nikita:Mm. Opens up a whole different section of income. Interesting. Yeah, exactly.
Leroy:Exactly. And the expenses are taxes and mortgage payment, right. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And then he looks at, we look at the balance sheet, the assets, which, you know, which generates that income, their assets are real estate stocks, bonds, notes, intellectual property, and the liabilities are mortgage consumer loans and credit cards. And so he's showing the difference between one, he's breaking it down in terms of what, what is an asset, what's the liability and look at these cash flow patterns for rich middle class and poor, and then compare them. And so I did, I said, okay, let me look at the cash flow pattern for middle class people, because that's what my that's what I fall at. And that's where my family falls at. And so I look at the cash flow pattern for a middle class person, and the income is salary
Nikita:A Job. That's it. Right.
Leroy:That, that is it. Yep. And the expenses are taxes, mortgage payment, car payment, credit card payment, and school loan payments. And then on the balance sheet, there are no assets.
Nikita:Mm.
Leroy:But the liabilities are mortgage car loans, credit card debt, and school loans. And I read this and I said, oh my gosh, mm-hmm<affirmative>. That is me. That is my family. Yep. That equation does not lead to generational wealth or financial security at all.
Nikita:Yeah. That's so true. What an interesting"aha moment" to be seeing that and reading that and being like, this is, this is the problem. This is why I feel like I can't get ahead. It's cuz I don't have like these other sources of income, like yeah. It's a bit of a trap
Leroy:And it was, and it was, it was like, I don't have these other sources of income, but I didn't even think, I didn't even know that I could create these other sources of income or that these things that are out there and, you know, invest in stocks. Bonds could also provide some form of income that would not only help create financial security for me, but also giving my time back
Nikita:Mm-hmm<affirmative>
Leroy:Right. And you asked me earlier, like what was one of the reasons you went into like even decided to start investing and learning more about creating financial security? It was freedom of time is important to me. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, you know, I looked at my mom and my aunts and my grandma. And I said, man, you know, there's nothing wrong with having a job. My mom and dad both had jobs always and created a great life for my brothers and I, but I do sit back and I, and I ask myself how much happier could my mom, other and my family be if they had control of their time. Right. If they were able to live life in a way that they wanted to and do things that they wanted to when they wanted to. And if that is the goal, how do you, how do you get there? Right? How do you, how do you create more time for yourself?
Nikita:So you and I haven't talked about this yet, but are you one of the people pursuing the FIRE movement?
Leroy:I am. I am. It's a very cool concept. I actually started the FIRE concept- I started to learn more about it about a year and a half back. I was following this couple who has a YouTube channel called FIRE channel and they showed their journey. And what was, what was really cool about their FIRE journey was one they've been doing it for almost 15 years now. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and they started in their early to mid thirties. What was really impressive about their story was they were not wealthy, right? They didn't, they started with basically in terms of, um, assets to help them start along financial journey. They didn't have any, they had government jobs pay, you know, a decent salary. And with that they save, save, save, and then started to invest. Yeah. And they showed us, you know, what their investment portfolios look like, the stocks and the bonds and the equity funds and mutual funds that they own and how that is compounded over the years. So where now, not only do this couple lives in Portugal, they actually own a home in Portugal.<laugh> you know? Oh, wow. So yeah. Yeah. It goes back again to that, that time piece, they can travel the world with their daughters and Nikita they're living off of the dividends that they receive from their investments, be that real estate and, or the stock market.
Nikita:That's incredible. You talking about, you know, essentially buying your time back is what reminded me of this. Cause that's the whole concept of it. I guess I should have said this at the beginning of our spiel on the FIRE movement. But for those that aren't familiar with it, FIRE stands for"financial independence, retire early", and it is a concept of shortening your working career, or at least your mandatory working career by heavily investing. There's a wide spectrum of how much you choose to invest. Some people, you know, do just a little bit more than the average person. Some people will do 80% of their salary, but basically the more that you save and invest, the less time you have to work. And if you're in a situation where you don't love your job, or you wanna travel the world with your children and live on your investments, you can do that. And you're not forced to be in the workforce until your sixties. And in some people's cases, seventies, eighties, some people never get to retire. So, yeah, a lot, I think it's gaining a lot of popularity because people are seeing that having to live your life bound to a job is pretty disappointing. And that there are other options out there, but yeah, it's a really interesting movement and it doesn't surprise me that you're part of it, knowing the other things you've shared about your journey now and where you're at.
Leroy:Yeah. You just, you start to go down a rabbit hole mm-hmm<affirmative> right. And, and see what's out there and who's doing, and again, I can't stress how important it is and you know, I'll just share this really quick, going back to why I felt it was important to start these sessions with my family. I can't stress enough. How important it's to see people like you or who may have a similar cultural or lived experience doing these things. Yeah. Because it helps you understand like again, oh, I can do this.
Nikita:Right. It can feel so out of touch for somebody who's family never had the conversation growing up your parents. Yeah. You know, in some cases don't know it themselves. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so how do they teach their children? But yeah. Yeah. As soon as you can start hearing from other people like you, that you can relate to, you start seeing like, oh, this is actually possible. Yeah.
Leroy:Actually possible. Yeah.
Nikita:So what are some maybe unexpected challenges that you've faced in, in holding these sessions with your family?
Leroy:You know, my family hasn't voiced any challenges yet<laugh> but I<laugh>, they haven't voiced any challenges yet.They've been very enthusiastic, very excited and very motivated. But I have noticed that when we talk about compound interest and starting early, I'll look at the faces of my mom, my aunts, who are all in their fifties, still very young. Right. And there's a bit of discouragement there. Right. Perhaps even a bit of shame and embarrassment, they don't voice this, but you know, your family. Right. And you understand their body language. So the challenge for me as a facilitator, when you, when you're facilitating different generational groups, right. The family members are on the call make gen Zers, millennials, and gen Xers.
Nikita:It's very hard to create a lesson that can effectively apply to all of them
Leroy:Nikita. Yes.
Nikita:<laugh>. Yep. I mean, that's why we, we cap our classes at that 35 mark. We had to find somewhere and you wanna be able to reach everybody, but yeah, no, it is very hard to find relatable content that spans, you know, four decades.
Leroy:Exactly. And that, that is the biggest challenge right now. So much so that for our next session, at the end of this month, I'm gonna break it up. I'm going to sit with, well, one, the next step that we're taking is setting budget, setting financial goals, and then setting a budget to meet those financial goals. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. And so I'm gonna meet with my mom and my aunts by themselves, like either 1 on 1 or within a group, and really help create that sense of comfort and opportunity that they have to get started. Right. Don't worry. You know, it's not too late, you're not too, like, let's get started. How do we get started today? All right. What are those financial goals? How do we get you all, you know, investing or moving towards your financial goals today? Right. Here's the opportunity. And so, you know, to combat that challenge or to address that challenge of teaching across generations, I'll start right now to break it up, to see, you know, what are the challenges they're having in terms of these, the, the curriculum that I've been sharing, how do we address those challenges? How do we catch them up to speed if they need that? Or how do we, you know, just make sure that I'm doing my best to support them in that space so that they stay encouraged. And then with the, my cousins, you know, who are my peers meet with them separately and also continue to like, reinforce these financial concepts and stress, the importance of us starting early and of us building and doing this together because we are the future of our family. Mm-hmm<affirmative>. So the biggest challenge just to reiterate has been teaching across gen you know, generations, and to address that for the next couple of sessions, I'll break it up and then, you know, down the line, we'll all come back together. Once I feel everyone is comfortable and connected in the way that can support, you know, a large group connection.
Nikita:Yeah. I think that's a really smart way to approach that. Cuz I know that if I was in a group session, I would probably not have as productive of a conversation surrounding my own personal budget because yeah. Personal expenses are personal. And I think it's a lot better to do that one on one setting. And you know, to your point about how it's, you can kind of see the expressions on family members' faces, who are maybe older. I, I think I emailed this to you in the past, but for our listeners, when we see this with people who have maybe gotten a late start on investing can certainly feel discouraging to be in that place. But, there's a phrase that goes"the first best time to start investing is in your twenties, the second best time is today". And I mean, if they're in their fifties, they still have 10, 20 years of compounding interest. And then beyond that, because, you know, we don't pull all of our money when we retire, it stays invested and we're pulling out a percentage of it each year. But yeah, there are definitely ways to remind ourselves that there is hope. It's not like you're just doomed. That's not the case. But when you do have that advantage of starting in your twenties or thirties, it's exciting. So yeah. Yeah. How about any successes you face have there, has there been anything that you've felt just super encouraged by or something of that nature that you wanna share?
Leroy:Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. So, one, I would just say that one of the, you know, major successes is just starting this project with my family, like two sessions in and I'm like, okay, cool. We got some momentum. We're going, we're moving. Folks are hitting me up saying, Hey cousin, can I join? I wanna be there. I'm like, great. I absolutely come on in. So that, you know, is a, is a huge success for me. But I will also share one of the things that really brought a tremendous amount of joy to my heart was when my cousin started her own vending business. Oh cool. And she started her own vending business because she saw me start my own vending business.
Nikita:Oh, I love that. Yeah.
Leroy:Yeah. And she was like, well, how did you do that? Like what's going on? And Nikita, I think this is an important thing to share when we were all receiving stimulus checks back in 2020, you know, maybe even 2021, I decided to take one of those stimulus checks. I think it was 1200, 1400. And I started my vending business with it.
Nikita:It's a smart use of that money.
Leroy:Yeah. Yeah. Cause I, again, it goes back to the conversations I'm having the books, I'm reading and I'm learning make money work for you, make money, work for you, make money work for you. Okay. That, that idea is like stuck up here. Mm-hmm<affirmative> now I look at every dollar that I receive and my thought is not, well, what can I get with this? It's how can I use this to make more, to bring more security and more time
Nikita:You're very entrepreneurial-ly minded. I don't know if that's, that's a long version of that word, but very entrepreneurial.
Leroy:And to be honest, I didn't growing up, never knew what an entrepreneur was. I didn't even in college, even in peace Corps, even in china. I didn't know what an entreprenuer was. And then when I learned what an entrepreneur was, I didn't think that I could be an entrepreneur because I never saw anyone around me who was an entrepreneur.
Nikita:And now you're being that person for somebody else.
Leroy:Now I'm that person, right?
Nikita:Yeah. That's so cool. It's a very neat, full circle moment.
Leroy:It is. It is now. And again, those are the things that really bring me joy. And you know, if I had to offer, and I know we get to this, but I just real quick, if I had to offer anyone, any sort of tip or advice, I would say, just be fearless. Like you, you were going to be, you may very well be the generational change that your family deserves. And with that, with that responsibility, that's a heavy responsibility. And I don't want to romanticize it. It's a heavy responsibility, but because you are that generational change, you are equipped with the mental toughness, the fortitude and the skills to do it. And to be that change, things will take time, but you, right. It's a rocky road to get started and to learn things that you never learned before. And then it's another thing to pass down and share this, this knowledge with your family, but you can do it. And so my whole life up until where I am today, I'm 33. My whole life has been that you are that spark, that change from traveling to going into the peace Corps, to living in China, to getting my college degree, all of these things, you know, I was the first and none of them came without their challenges, but because I have done them because I have said, Leroy, it's scary, but do it anyway, go for it. Now, tmy family and the cousins that are coming up after me are also doing these things. Mm-hmm,<affirmative> traveling.
Nikita:It really is a ripple effect.
Leroy:It's a ripple effect, you know, starting businesses. My cousin, you know, I, I bought my first home also back in 2020. I was able to, but 2021, I closed, I was able to, you know, buy a home, which is a duplex. And again, my cousin saw that and she's like, okay, I'm gonna do that now. And so now all of my cousins are like, you know, one of the things that I would, I would want to see grow out of these family financial sessions. And I had this conversation with my brother yesterday because he's getting ready to relocate to another city. And I said, Gabriel, when you move, your goal is not to rent. Your goal is not to have a single family home. Your goal is to buy a duplex. You can live in one side and rent out the other side. Mm-hmm,<affirmative> create another stream of income. And he was like, oh, I didn't know. I could do that. Yes, you can. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and we're gonna work together to create that plan so that you can accomplish that. And again, it just goes back to being willing, to take the risk and to do things that you've never seen before and, and, you know, allowing, you know, time to, to do what it will in terms of the decisions you make. And now, like I say, I have a ton of cousins around me and coming up after me who were also making these same moves. And you know, that is, that for me, is the real success.
Nikita:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I feel like you pretty much answered the question that I had lined up. But if you have anything else to add to it, for somebody interested in doing, you know, something similarly to what you're doing, whether that's breaking this generational cycle or starting this conversation in their family, or maybe even doing these financial lessons monthly, what would you suggest for getting started?
Leroy:One of the things I will suggest, I'll talk about two things getting started. And one of the things you should be aware of when you do eventually get started and, and what you should do to safeguard a against that. So one, you know, what do you do in terms of like, how do you get started? You may very well be the only you, you, if you're the only person in your family who is thinking about investing or generational wealth, or what have you, I would say, talk to a parent, right. Talk. Cause I first started to have these conversations with my mom about investing about generational wealth. And she would tell me, oh, this is okay. I didn't know this. How can you, how you know, help, like help me, how do we get started? And so do your best to finally these one or two people in your family who will be in, who would be interested in learning more about this and they're there, right? Mm-hmm<affirmative> and then you work together to create, you know, larger sessions for more family members. So one, it's important to find one or two people who have a similar mindset who are also interested in learning more about this. And you can just start there with those two or three people, and you all start to come together and have those sessions. I would also say, go very slow and start small. Malcolm X has this wonderful quote and I I'm gonna paraphrase it, or summarize it rather. But he basically says that when you have received new knowledge and new information, you were so anxious to then share it with those you love, but you have to be careful not to overwhelm them because they could reject it. Right. People, especially when it comes to money, no one likes to feel like they don't know what they're doing. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, that is an uncomfortable place. And if you are coming with all of this new, these new concepts and this information, I'm getting overwhelmed, I'm feeling discouraged embarrassed. I may even feel like you're trying to one up me and embarrass me. So what I would recommend is, you know, what I did was one meeting a month for one hour, mm-hmm,<affirmative> start. So start small and build from there.
Nikita:Yeah. Take it just a bite at a time,
Leroy:One bite at a time. And that is more than enough. I promise you if you think like, well, it's not enough. We could be doing so much more. I promise you starting slow, starting small and building from there is more than enough.
Nikita:That's really great advice. Yeah. It's so true. I think that, yeah, it's easy to unintentionally drive people away whenever you come on too strong about something you're excited about.
Leroy:Yes. There are even times during these sessions, Nikita, I've had to check myself. I said,"Leroy slow down, like slow down. Right. Go back over that. Make sure that they're comfortable- check in with them. Check in, check in, check in with them". Start slow, start small- one meeting a month for one hour. And also, you know, if you have family that may be in a different time zone, which I do- most of my family's on the east coast, I'm here in Texas and in the central time zone find the time that works best for them as the one who's creating this and leading this, there will be sacrifices you would have to make mm-hmm<affirmative>. And for me, I love my family so deeply that I'm fine with making those sacrifices. I'm okay with saying, well, you know, it's, it's going to, I have to be up at eight o'clock, you know, tonight for an hour and a half to go through these sessions with my family, I'm tired, but I'll make that sacrifice. Right. So finding a time that works best for the majority is critically important. And the last thing I'll say in terms of, you know, just getting started is do your best to create an environment of understanding empathy, not pity mm-hmm<affirmative> empathy and collective building. So during the first session, you know, to lay that foundation, I shared my family and I said, Hey, I've learned a lot of different things about money management and investing over the years. This is information that we were not exposed to, that we were not given each and every one of us on this call have been impacted in this way each and every one of us spends money or treats money based off the culture we grew up in the lived experiences we have. And just the basic knowledge that we have about money doesn't mean what you're doing right now is inherently wrong. It's just all that, you know, right. And now we have an opportunity together to make a shift for the better to create that change so that we have more business owners, entrepreneurs, home owners, and folks in our family with investment portfolios. Right? So creating that environment of understanding empathy. And I say empathy and not pity because I don't want to pity my mom. I don't want to pity my, they don't need that. No. And they certainly don't want that. They want support and encouragement and action. Right. If I pity them, I'm not doing any, I'm not doing anything to better their situation. Yeah. That's a great point. And, so the last thing, that's my advice in terms of, you know, just getting started and once you get started and, and I put this in there because I made this mistake early on when I was introduced to the investment world. I think I shared this with you Nikita. When I first started to invest, you know, I was in China actually. And I opened up an investment portfolio with a company called blue star. And, you know, real short, I had to invest a thousand dollars a month into this account. And it was the vested account. So I couldn't touch it for two years.And I, again, I saw other people around me doing these things. I saw other people around me, friends who had investment portfolios, retirement portfolios with this company, blue star, even some of them had the same financial advisor. And I learned two things. One, I didn't have anything saved up before I invested I was making money, but I had not built up a safety net before I started investing. And so I learned very quickly how important it is to have it is important to save and have that safety net and then start to invest because I ended up leaving China. And of course I didn't have that same job. And so I couldn't contribute that$1,000 a month. And because it was also invested and I couldn't touch it or take anything out and to add, I would be penalized. If I stopped putting a thousand dollars a month into that account, I ended up losing$10,000. I had been investing in this account for about 10, 11 months. And again, I wasn't thinking far enough into the future. I was thinking right now and it could start investing right now, right now, right now, go, go, go. And I did, I jumped deep into deep into the waters and you know, life happens, right. I left China, I moved back to the US. It took a lot to transition back into the US. It took time to find another job in the US. So I couldn't, I didn't have the financial means to continue to contribute to that account. And so I ended up losing$10,000 and that stung.
Nikita:Yeah, that would sting. I'm still curious what type of account that was. And when, when you shared that story with me, the first time I was thinking like, is that whole life insurance, like, I'm not a CFP. So I don't know as many ins and outs of those types of retirement vehicles, but that sounds like it could wreak havoc on a lot of people, you know, who, who can guarantee that for years, they're going to be able to invest a thousand dollars every single month without ever missing a payment. Like you just don't know what happens in two years, you know?
Leroy:Exactly. And to your point of kid, I, as a young, 20 something year old kid who understands that it's important to invest, but again does not know how to invest. Yeah. I wasn't even thinking that far out. I was thinking it's important to do it. I have a job I'm making money. So do it. Yeah. I never thought to say, okay, what happens in a year or two, if you don't have this job anymore.
Nikita:Right. Well, you also expect that the people giving you advice, mm-hmm<affirmative>, especially when you're paying them are giving you good advice. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and I think this all goes back to the, a big point that 3rd Decade tries to drive home with making sure that whoever you choose to work with, if you choose to work with somebody is acting as a fiduciary at all times. Mm-hmm<affirmative> and they have to keep your best interest forefront. Mm-hmm<affirmative> so, yeah, it's, it's an expensive lesson to learn. Leroy. I'm glad you were young, at least when you learned it, but oh man...
Leroy:Yeah. Yeah.
Nikita:And hopefully, you know, other people hearing that, or I'm sure, probably your inner circle, hearing that story, you've been able to, you know, while you may have lost 10,000, maybe the next five people won't.
Leroy:Won't, yeah. Right. Learn from that mistake. And so the reason I share that is, again, for those who are like, okay, I'm gonna do this with my family. We're all gonna get started, stressing the importance of saving first, creating a budget, a financial plan, and then get started. Because it, what I realized was that, yes, I had friends, peers who were using Simon, the financial advisor who were using the same company, blue star does not mean that we were all playing the same financial game. Yeah. I don't know how much money they were making my friends. I don't know what their plans were. Two, three years down the line. I didn't know any of that.
Nikita:For all you knew, too, you know, if they weren't able to make their payments, maybe their parents would've been able to step in and do it for them.
Leroy:Exactly. Right. I did not know what their situation was. And a lot of times we look, especially today, you know, we look at other people and we're saying, well, if they're what I can, I should be able to own that, that car, or I should be investing as well. But you don't know what their financial game is. Right. You don't know what sort of support system they may have.
Nikita:You don't know the deck of cards they've been dealt. You don't know very much at all about their situation.
Leroy:None of that, none of that. And so get started with these sort of projects with the revenue, for sure. But just stress, the importance of taking our time. Right. Let's, let's create a budget, let's create a financial plan. What are your financial goals? What does your financial situation look like? Or job situation like two, three years, like have these ask these questions mm-hmm<affirmative> before, you know, your cousin jumps into building up,<laugh> putting all their money within, with Robinhood or opening up a TD Ameritrade account of Vanguard or anything like that. And then they also have a$10,000 mistake.
Nikita:Right,
Leroy:Right, right. So start for sure. But that's why I encourage to start slow, build from there. I don't want anyone to have a$10,000 mistake.
Nikita:<laugh> right. Well, is there anything else that you'd like to add on before we wrap it up today?
Leroy:Yeah. I, I think we covered, you know, quite a, a good deal of things. I'm just wanna send an encouragement, you know, it's, I look back on my life over the last two, three years. And, one of the things I'm learning more and more these days is, is grace and celebrating the wins a lot of times, you know, we'll accomplish something and it's onto the next thing. And we never take that time to pat ourselves in the back. For those of you who may even just be in a 3rd Decade cohort- that is success. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, you should be patting yourself on the back and graduating yourself for showing up to that space. If you just bought a house, or if you're looking like those are big accomplishments and those in your community, people in your community are seeing that and are saying to themselves, okay, I'm next. I can do that. So I would just say one, just get started. Right? Definitely engage your family about what you're learning, share with them. I promise you there'll be so much gratitude that comes from that. And I'm seeing that, you know, over these zoom calls. And just stay positive, you know, stay encouraged. Mm-hmm<affirmative>, everything takes time when you start a business or you wanna own a home. All of these things take time and it it'll happen if you just create your plan, take it one step at a time and, and, and go from there.
Nikita:Well, I really appreciate you coming on today, Leroy, this has felt like an inspiring conversation, even for me. So I can't<laugh>, I can only imagine that our listeners are gonna feel similarly. So thank you. We appreciate it. And I think it's awesome what you're doing. You're paving a great path forward for all of your family and friends as well. And I always knew my initial impression of you in the cohort was gonna be Correct.<laugh> I'm pretty sure you were like the first person to like turn in, like every assignment. I was like,"this guy is definitely overachiever in all of the right way"
Leroy:<laugh> I was like, I wanna learn this. This is such a cool, cool program. I was like, yeah, this is, I need this right now. I need this. And I know others that can use this. So again, you know, a shout out and kudos the 3rd decade. I really love what you all are doing. And I'll continue to support in every way that I can. And yeah, just thank you. I can't thank you enough.