How A Former NFL Lineman Builds Cash Flow And Legacy

Undrafted doesn’t mean unprepared. We sit down with Mike, a Chesapeake native and former Green Bay Packers defensive tackle, to trace the real path from instability to ownership. He opens up about growing up with a single mom, experiencing eviction and shelter living, and how that early fear forged discipline instead of defeat. The result is a money mindset built on survival, patience, and respect for every dollar.

From Oscar Smith to junior college to the University of Miami, Mike explains what it feels like to bet on yourself, earn your way into elite rooms, and learn business by studying the people who already understand ownership. We also get into the realities of playing nose tackle, where your job is sacrifice and leverage, not highlight stats, and how that same concept shows up in smart investing: do the unglamorous work now so the results compound later.

Then we go deep on financial literacy, athlete finances, and generational wealth. Mike shares what he’s seen players spend on jewelry, cars, and “experiences,” why investing in what people need beats “pretty investments,” and how he built an ownership group and later his own company focused on real estate and transportation. He breaks down cash flow, dividends, budgeting with a spreadsheet, and why he prefers investing money from a side hustle rather than risking the money that keeps your life stable.

If you want practical wealth-building advice with real stories behind it, hit play. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review. What’s one expense you’d cut this month to start investing?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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Meet Mike From Chesapeake

SPEAKER_00 0:27

everyone. Mike is homegrown. He's a former defensive tackle for the Green Bay Packers. Mike, would you say hello to everyone? What's going on, everyone? All right. I've been trying to get you in here for a while. I'm so glad that you were able to come in. You have so much to offer from the standpoint of being someone that's from Hampton Roads, being um, I don't know if you see yourself as a mentor, but I think you you have definitely have those qualities. And from where you started from to where you are now, it is it's tremendous growth. So let's start from you being in um from this area. So you grew up in Chesapeake, is that correct? Correct. Okay. All right. Um you have brothers and sisters? I had three sisters. Okay. An only boy. Oh, okay. All right. So you were spoiled, and every everybody was Mike in the house, probably, huh? Guess, I guess. Okay.

Single Mom Household And Early Struggle

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Well, that's good. Um, so let's talk about your childhood. Um you were you were in a house where your mom was the sole parent in the household, is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Yeah, uh, pretty much uh growing up. Uh, because my father left early because uh he had to go to prison. But um, yeah, for the most part, my it was just me and my mother.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Wow. That that's uh that's pretty actually, you know, it's relatable because people have that situation a lot when you come from a background where um you're you're impoverished or you are marginalized. Right. Yeah, so where'd you go to high school?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Went to high school at uh the Oscar Smith High School.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Oh, okay, Oscar Smith.

Junior College Reset And Miami Leap

SPEAKER_00 2:45

And you played football for them, you got recruited by probably a ton of schools, but you wound up going to Miami, correct?

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah. Almost every college in the country um came out to me, but um I decided to go to Miami. At first, I was committed to the University of Southern California because I was already out there for junior college. Because I had to go to junior college because I um I kind of messed up my grades a little bit. And um I had other schools offering me that I could go to right away, but um I didn't want to go to those schools, no disrespect to those schools. I just thought that um I was better than that. You know, um I had offers from, you know, North Estate, Hampton, which is great schools, but I knew that I was better, and I knew that um the guys that I was competing against every day at Oscar Smith, I knew that I was on A-level. So I bet on myself. I went out to junior college and um I became the number one defensive lineman in the country out there in junior college.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Really? Wow, okay. And so you went to Miami. What was that? Tell us what that was like, you know, because that's a big difference, right? Miami is made a major city. So junior college, from here, the junior college to Miami, a major city, what was that like for you?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Well, it it was it was jumping from one major city to another major city because uh I was out in LA, so I was really comfortable out there in LA. I enjoyed myself out there in LA, you know, but uh they ended up firing my coach Lane Kiffin. Uh like I said, I was committed to USC and they ended up firing him. So I opened up my recruitment, and um I was really trying to see where he was going because I was gonna follow Lane. I everybody give Lane Kiffin a hard time because they don't like the way he uh left Ole Miss and left Tennessee. So they, you know, they give him a hard time about nobody want to play for him, but Lane was a a coach that I wanted to play for, you know. But um, so that didn't work out. So uh I opened up my recruitment, uh Miami happened to be the best fit for me, and um went down to South Beach and uh called Gables to be a Zach. And uh man, uh I joined that team. We had a great team, we had uh a lot of great players on that team. Um very um organized team, very physical team. So I really love our um our image. It was very physical and everything. Um we had a good run game, so I felt like we had a chance to be a great team. Um so uh we didn't do too bad, but we didn't do too good either. You know, um I wanted it to be like that you in the 80s, you know, back in the day where Michael Irvin and all those guys were playing. That's what I envisioned.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

He he he definitely shows up for the events there.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Oh, yeah, yeah. Unc crazy, man.

SPEAKER_00 6:08

He is.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

You know, I've kind of grown, me being an Eagles fan, you know, Dallas Cowboys, I didn't particularly care for him, but he's kind of grown on me. I really support him now, uh him as a person.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

So he seems like he's a very genuine person.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah, yeah. You know, he had some little bumps in the roads when he was younger, but you know We all do. We all do. He's a great man, great guy to be around, great mentor. He always comes back to give back to the players. But um, man, that experience at my at the University of Miami was um it was a growing experience for me because uh playing at Oscar Smith, I won so much. I was I I got taught how to win at a young age.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

And we won all those championships. I won a championship at the middle school level, I won a championship at the high school level. So I was so used to winning. And and um when I got there, um I'm not gonna say guys didn't take winning serious, but they ain't take it as serious as I did, you know. And um, you know, but uh we had some very talented players that went on and played in the NFL and everything, you know.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

At that time, was my did Miami move to the Big East?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

Uh no, Miami was in the ACC when ACC. Yeah, they moved from the Big East, I believe, to the ACC.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Okay, all right. Yeah,

Virginia Tech Grudge And Nose Tackle Reality

SPEAKER_00 7:29

so you played um Virginia Tech, huh? Yeah, I don't like Virginia Tech.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

I'm sure you I'm gonna say that, I'm gonna say that on this on this podcast. I don't like them. Okay. And the reason why, the reason why, is because I'm from Virginia. I'm from the 757. So Virginia Tech was everything to us. We make it a Virginia Tech out of the 757, you were um, you was it. That was like making it to the NFL.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah, and uh and and Smith and everything. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

So during so during that time, um Virginia Tech, I became the top junior college lineman in the country. And out of all the offers that I had, um I wanted to go to Virginia Tech. So I uh told one of my coaches about it, like, hey man, I'm really trying to go home and play at Lane Stadium and everything. I played at Lane Stadium when I was in high school. That's where I won a state championship at in that stadium. So I was very comfortable with that stadium. That's that's a place that I really wanted to go to. And they say they don't recruit junior college players at the time. And it became personal. Like, because I felt like I'm like, I'm one of the top guys in the country, man. What you mean, like you don't recruit them? Like, I don't see what's going on. So I it it became personal for me. And uh that played a big role into me going to Miami in the ACC because I knew I would have to see them.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

I gotta look at your stats against uh your college stats against Virginia Tech.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Well, you know, you know the crazy thing about stats when it comes to the position that I played, yeah. Our stats are not eye-popping.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Uh nose tackle, uh, we we do the dirty work.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Oh, you what is it five, five? I you know, what defense did y'all play?

SPEAKER_01 9:22

So we we we ran like a 3-4. Okay. So, which means that I was uh right above the center. Okay. So my job was to command a double team.

unknown 9:33

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

You know, so my job was I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to compare it to more like with the Chicago Bulls with Dennis Rodman. His job was to grab them rebounds. That was his main objective. Right. So my job was to command a double team so my linebackers can roam free and make the tackles that they're supposed to. So when you play in that position, it's more about sacrifice than eye popping stats. Right. And people, that's you know, people who know football know that, you know. Yeah. But um, yeah, so our stats are not very, very high eye popping, but uh we get paid, we get paid good though.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um uh I'm a defensive person. Yeah, so um I love that position. It does command the double teams, you clog up the runs.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, yeah. You gotta be very strong, very stout. Yeah. Um, yeah, you gotta be you gotta be very strong. You gotta be strong in the hips, gotta be strong in the legs, you gotta be strong in the arms. Yeah, you gotta have very violent hands.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

Yeah. Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot lately. Yeah.

Going Undrafted And Reaching The 1%

SPEAKER_00 10:39

So uh from Miami, you were um you were drafted by I went undrafted. Undrafted, okay. Yeah. So um when was that? What year was that?

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Um, that was 2016. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I went undrafted.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

So But it was the greatest feeling in the world. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Man, just getting to that level, you know, no matter where you go, you know, uh whether you go first round, first pick, or whether you go undrafted, you know, just being in that 1% was like amazing. Like, yeah, I'm in that 1%. Like, you know, so that's one of the biggest accomplishments you could ever achieve in football. Oh, absolutely. You know, so uh, you know, I did I was thankful for wherever I went because you know, during that time, you know, I went through a lot too, you know, uh personal things that I went through. And um, you know, so just to be there and uh and and and for them to give me a call and tell me, come on, that was that was that was that was big, man. And when I got to Wisconsin, man, it was just like, you know, for the first 30 minutes, I had to soak it all in, like, wow. But then after I put on the helmet and put the cleats on, you know, it was back to work.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

So

Packers Culture And Reggie White Standard

SPEAKER_00 12:08

that organization, you know, one of the things we were talking about earlier was it's um it's actually the the crebe of the of every organization in football, most championships, right, the most storied history, um, their community base, they're the community owns the team. That's true. Yeah. And um it's the Lombardi Trophy is basically named after a Green Bay Packers coach. So when you walked and you got to that facility and you just looked up the ring of honor. I know you said you soaked it in, but the ring of honor in the the championships, um, what did that make you feel like?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Like, wow, I'm I'm really in a historic organization. And then on top of that, the what made it really good was my favorite player playing for him, Reggie White.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

So I watched a lot of film on Reggie White.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

I liked you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Reggie, Reggie was my favorite player, man. And um uh he inspired me a lot, like when I started playing the defensive line position. Yeah. You know, um, he didn't inspire me to start playing football. Alan Iverson start inspired me to start playing sports, you know, because he was just, he was, he was like God to us around here, you know. Everybody wanted to be like Alan Iverson, you know. So uh so uh he he the reason I he sparked my sports interest. But when I got into my sport uh football, Reggie White was, and I knew what position I was playing. Reggie White was like the guy to watch and study and and things like that. And I adopted his hump move, so that that kind of uh that kind of took me far.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Yeah. Did you Reggie White is is a very, I think in terms of football, his presence even outside of football is massive. His influence on um the NFL during that time as a father, as a leader, um, did you also try to model yourself after those things for him?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, so that was the that was the most unique thing about him. Um so not only could I look up to him on the football field, you could look up to Reggie off the field too as a husband, as a father, as a man. Um he was a religious man that everybody knew. And um and usually the style of play and and the impact on the game and the way he played the game, you don't see that from too many people who are outspoken religiously. Right. You know, uh he was a religious man and he had like a soft side because of the religion, but then he'll go out there and turn into a monster, yeah, you know, but still find a way to be nice, you know. But um yeah, he was he was he was impactful. He was impactful. I look up to him and like on in off the field.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Yeah, yeah. All right,

Great Defender Debate And Meeting Bruce Smith

SPEAKER_00 15:16

I gotta ask this because I just saw something on um saw something on the internet the other day. You know, the internet just poisons everything. They were trying to say um who was one of the best defensive players in history. I happen to think Reggie was, you know, being an Eagles fan, I watched him play. But I seem to think he's probably top, probably the top one of the top five defensive players ever to play the game. Would you rank him up there?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Reggie?

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Reggie, to me, um, I think he's number one.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

You think he's number one?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

A lot of people shoot me in the head and say, Lawrence Taylor, you're crazy, Lawrence Taylor. But then you got Bruce too. We can't a lot of people forget Bruce and his impact on the game. But my favorite player, I didn't learn about Bruce till later on, you know, and I didn't know he was from here and everything like that. And I actually got an opportunity to meet him, and he gave me a lot of insight on the game, you know, as well. So having access to the NFL all-time SAT leader, and he's from Virginia, was a major blessing because uh I actually met Bruce at um Cam Chancellor. Uh he had an event. He's from Chesapeake, too, right? Uh Cam Chancellor from North. North Yeah, he went to Maury High School, I believe. Okay. Yeah, and um I met him at an event. Cam invited me to an event. Uh it was called like Bam Bam Spring Jam. It was like a community event that he hosts every year when he was playing. Yeah. Um I met Bruce there, and literally I I picked his brain about like his uh his fake, his fake rip spin move that I studied online. He's like, he's like, man, for you to be that young, like knowing like my move like that, I was like, man, I just need I just need a detailed answer. And I, you know, I shook his hand to feel how strong he was. I'm like, yeah, yeah, is a reason why. You know, so just trying to pick his brain and study him, and now you can feel him and touch him, like, okay, like, so I was a big, that's when I knew I was gonna be a coach one day, you know, like, because I'm I love studying other players, but uh my number one guy, going back to what you were saying, uh Reggie, my number one guy, but but everybody argues Lawrence Taylor, and Lawrence was good.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

Yeah, yeah, I uh I agree with you. Um I think he's up there. Yeah, yeah. All

Frugality And Why Money Awareness Matters

SPEAKER_00 18:02

right, so rumor has it that rumor has it that you still have your money from your your rookie deal. Is that true? So we know you I know you, you know, I know you're frugal, but um is that true?

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Professionally?

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Oh I'll say this. Okay. Um I do I do have money from when I was playing football. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

And uh, but um which is gonna lead us to our next thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So but it wasn't as much as you think, right? It was my discipline and um my investing uh skills that set me apart.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Yeah, so we're gonna we're gonna talk about that um because from that you launched um your business management skills, your entrepreneurship. And so let's talk about that. So after you um after you became you took that money and and you launched that, what was the first thing you did um with that investment?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

My first thing I did was I uh so first of all, I met players in the locker room. Okay. Uh so I built relationships in the locker room, in the packer locker room. Okay. I didn't, I didn't I didn't play long. Yeah. So uh the relationships were very important. And um one day we were talking, me and the guys were talking in the locker room. Um, and I got to talking about investments and all of that. And uh it kind of sparked some of the guys' interest. Some of the guys didn't care. They they got their checks and they wanted to blow what they wanted to blow at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Is that does that is that common?

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

They they don't have financial awareness. Oh man, you got to- Where did that come from? Because you crew you came basically from nothing. So we gotta we're gonna get delve in that a little bit, but go ahead, let's start this.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Okay, so so so pretty much like uh some guys listen, most guys didn't, when it came to investments. They cared more about blowing their money, spending it on Rolls Royce's. First thing some of the players do, they go buy a chain, and you know, they ain't thinking about none of that. They thinking about, you know, exploring with the women. You know, uh, you got some guys that'll blow a 70 million check in no time. 70 million. Wow. You know what I'm saying? I didn't I didn't have friends, football friends, that didn't came to me and came to see me in Miami. I was hanging out with NFL players when I was playing in Miami. They come down, spend some time at my uh place, they blow 500,000 in two days. Wow. Easy work.

unknown 21:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Easy. So um those guys listen, and uh so I I proposed the idea to them, like, man, you know, man, maybe we should start an ownership group. Because everybody in here is not gonna play 20 years like Tom Brady or yeah, so some of us might be going home next week. You just you never know.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Mike, where did that come from? Because you grew up in a single parent household and you said it was a struggle, right? Right. So where did that awareness come from?

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Growing up in South Norfolk, man.

unknown 21:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:46

I done seen some things, man. When you done when you done when you done got evicted, you lived in women's shelter with your mama, um, you started to think different. And I question people who've been through that struggle and still manage to disrespect money and don't respect a dollar.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

I question them.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

That's discipline and it's fear. So it's fear. Yeah. What drove you? You dev, you did, you, you had, that was probably the worst place for you to be. You want to know something crazy? What's that? I still have that fear. That's why you are the way you are. And people don't know. I I know how hard you work. Right. You know, so um let's talk about your investments. Okay. So you and a few of your teammates. Um they get started.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

So we formed the ownership group, and then we then after we formed the ownership group, we all got individual LLCs. Okay. So that way the money you make from the ownership group is gonna spill down into your business. Right. And now you either can stay with the ownership group, you can stay with the band, or you can go off and do a solo record like an artist.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

So it's kind of like we're a band and we're sticking together. Some of the investments was okay, some of the investments was amazing, but you don't take a hard hit because you got a band together. So we really ain't gonna feel that. We can recover better than if you would have done it, if you would have done it by yourself. Yeah. So it was it was awesome that we stuck together. That way we could learn together, you know, through bad investments, through good investments. You know what I'm saying? We all make the strategic investments together. So um after that, I I took care of my portion, and um I started branching off individually, but I'm still involved with them as well. I'm always gonna be involved with them.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

So, where did you branch off into?

Ownership Group Investing With Teammates

SPEAKER_01 23:52

So I branch off and I formed my own business called MWE. And MWE pretty much we're investing in transportation. We're investing in real estate, you know, things like that. I my um investment strategy, I like to invest in what people need, not what they want. Because people can turn you on and turn you off. They can cancel. We live in cancer culture now. Yeah. So we're like, I don't like him, or you know, yeah. But people are gonna always need transportation. People gonna always need towing. People gonna always need cars transported all across the country. People gonna always need somewhere to stay. You know, so things that people need, that's what I'm invest, that's what I'm interested in investing in. I don't like pretty investments most, because pretty investments usually lead to grand opening, grand closing. Depending on the depending on the pandemic or depending on the the way the economy going, it could, it could, it could easily Yeah, and you probably seen being around professional athletes, you've probably seen them make some bad investments and decisions. Right. Man. And that's because they don't know business. Right. You know, you don't know business and you're getting into something, uh, and then sometimes they family members saying, Hey, you invest in this. How you gonna help me spend a million dollars and you never even had a million dollars? Right. You know, how you gonna help me, you know, invest in something, you know? Yeah, you know, so but a lot of people invest in things and don't know how to manage the business. You know, it comes with that comes with like how did you learn? How did I learn?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

I grew up in the streets. I hate this.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

And I'll tell you what, I'm just gonna be perfectly honest with you. In the streets, I saw a lot of things not to do. But I knew I wanted to be better than that. But while you're in that, you learn principles, okay. You gotta double up twice before you splurge once. You gotta keep rearing up the profit that you're getting. You're learning these things, even though it's wrong, because that's all you can see. But you gotta be prepared not to spend this profit for two to five years. You gotta have that type of financial discipline. So I learned that in the streets growing up in the hood. But they was the wrong kind of entrepreneurs, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Yeah, yeah. They were doing it legally. You're a businessman. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

You know, you're a businessman, but you're going to jail. Yeah. You're going to jail. You're going to sit down for 30, 40 years once they catch it.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

And I ain't want that. I won't trying to, I won't, I won't trying to do that. So I wanted to, I took the same principles from that to start my business. Okay, I'm not going to touch this for two to five years. I'm going to let it grow. I'm not going to penny pinch off of it. I'm not going to go take no vacations and all that. So many people, and that's why you see a lot of companies can't recover. They can't recover from like uh like a bag, uh, bad market crash or something like that, because you done spent the money.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Yeah, they leveraged themselves.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Yeah, you done spent the money. You ain't, you ain't, you ain't reinvest the you ain't reinvest the profits or nothing. So you so yeah, grand closing. Here we go. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

So now you started when you started that, then what was what's next?

SPEAKER_01 27:24

What would if you finding out what we like to invest in.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:28

Finding out what's the calling around, seeing who's selling their business, do we like this business, and just keep going. The the main thing is taking care of the money, keep building buying power. That way, when an opportunity presents itself, are you prepared? Or are you gonna miss the opportunity?

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Do you uh do you train, coach and on any of these these ideas and principles?

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Uh I do. Okay. I do. I do to my uh mentees and everything. But uh as far as like public speaking about it, nah, I ain't really went off nowhere and really public speaked about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Is that one of the things you plan on doing in the future?

SPEAKER_01 28:14

Um, I want, I would like to. I'm I'm open to doing it. But you know, we'll see what happens. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:23

Yeah. I think your story is one that people can relate to. Yeah. You know, especially um people that are in um the urban areas and it's harsh areas, they can definitely relate to you. So lots of times they they look at athletes and they think that's the only way out. But you use that to to leverage yourself into becoming a an entrepreneur. So your God-given abilities and skill, you just took it to another level. And people don't know how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

No.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

No.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:02

So um and when they think they know how to do it, they end up going back to square one because it's it's it's really a science to this thing. Let me explain.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

Please.

MWE Strategy And The Ray Kroc Playbook

SPEAKER_01 29:15

So I took the Ray Kroc approach when it came to my business. Okay. So I train professional athletes. Okay. That's what the front of my business looked like. Okay. But the back of my business is really um an investment company. That's what created the cash flow. It's kind of like what Ray Kroc did with McDonald's.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Ray Kroc wasn't meeting his overhead a lot because sometimes the burger sales wasn't there. Sometime the training sessions are not there. So what did he do? He bought the land. He bought real estate. McDonald's own so much real estate around here. Some of the real estate that we probably sitting on, they probably own, and we don't even know it. If you see a wall, if you see a McDonald's in a Walmart parking lot, nine times out of ten, they probably own the land. And everybody that's in that shopping sending this pair, McDonald's a land fee. Wow. So now they got positive cash flow coming in every month, whether somebody buy a hamburger or not. So whether somebody buy a training session or not, it's there when you need it. We still making our money because we brought we invested in cash flow.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Okay. Um I'm not sure exactly. Maybe I wasn't listening. So what is it that the you said you train athletes and that is the basis for how you've developed the business?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Oh, so what I was saying was the front of my business looks like a training business. Okay. The back of my business, MWE invest in real estate, invest in transportation. Okay. So McDonald's ain't nothing but a real estate company that sells hamburgers.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

MWE ain't nothing but a holding company that trains football players.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Gotcha. All right. What did you study, Mike, to get to that? People need to know this, right? I'm gonna tell you why people need to know it, because they don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

I'm giving free game out here, by the way. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

But it's Al Neely, so you know, you know, I gotta I'm gonna tell you why I asked, right? Because growing up, my parents were we were solid middle class, right? My parents were workers. My mom was a nurse, my dad was a truck driver. They were not executives, right? So I was always searching for, but they their emphasis was for me to go to school to learn, right? So I was always looking for somebody that was an executive that I could learn from, right? And I feel like um young men today have a desire and they don't know how to go from point A to point F to point, you know, Z. So tell us how you taught yourself or you learned, or what things gave you that concept. Because most people don't know that I didn't know nothing about McDonald's owning land. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

So um I will say this never stop learning. Always keep searching for information.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

And that information came when I went to the University of Miami. Okay, all right. Yeah, so uh Where'd you study? I studied business. Okay, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:11

So uh, and then on top of that, a lot of people that go to the University of Miami, they family own Fortune 500 companies. You know, that's where all the celebrity kids go. I mean, literally, and the only thing that's really like poverty that come from poverty there is the athletes. The athletes. For real. Right. So um, you know, you you meet certain people and then you meet their parents. And I've always been a people person. So when I meet people and then I learn, like, okay, this guy's a business guy, or you know, something of that nature. I start picking his brain immediately. Okay But at the same time I'm researching because my favorite game was Monopoly growing up. I didn't like I didn't like playing video games or nothing like that. I like playing Monopoly. I could play Monopoly all day because I wanted to own everything.

SPEAKER_00 34:12

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Keep Learning And Create Reliable Cash Flow

SPEAKER_01 34:54

So, yeah, just picking, just picking people brain, meeting new people, and just you know, retaining all this information and then looking up, okay, who who's the richest guys? How did this happen? Or researching Ray Krock like I did, right? You know, you know, uh, you know, it just came across my mind like one day, who owned McDonald's? How did he get it? Yeah, what did he do to get it? Yeah. And when I found out that he struggled with paying his overhead most of the time because he wasn't making the burger sales that he wanted to make. So he got tired of that. And this one guy told him this one thing. You need to create cash flow. Because you need to create cash flow within your business because you never know when the burger sales gonna stop. People could turn you on and turn you off.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Right.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

All right, well, so I just learned something today. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

So, like Amazon, right? Amazon owned Whole Foods. Did you know that?

SPEAKER_00 35:57

No.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah, Whole Foods is owned by Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Well, I know Amazon they pretty much destroyed um just about all the brick and mortars and and everybody else's. The things that we grew up with are just gone. So they just consume them. So I know a lot about those things, but I had no idea about Whole Foods. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Amazon home owns Whole Foods. Okay. And it's gonna own a lot more of the things. So, because can't nobody stop them. They're they're a monster right now.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So

Dividends Mindset And Breaking Generational Curses

SPEAKER_00 36:32

you tell people to buy shares at Amazon? Is that one of the things you do? Yeah, buy you a couple shares.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

Me, when it comes to the stock market, yeah, I'm not uh a guy that likes to buy and hold, especially if it's already like an established business. If it's an up-and-coming business and I see potential in it, I might dump some money in there. But for the most part, the only stocks that I'm really dumping money in is cash flowing stocks. So you got capital gain stocks and then you got cash flowing stocks. I like I like my money. So I'm not buying and hoping anything. Something goes up. I want my cash flow every month. So I buy stocks that cash flow. So they pay you dividends every month is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

So what is uh Gives Hope, Michael Weiss Gives Hope, LLC. Is that one of the holding companies?

SPEAKER_01 37:33

That's one of the businesses. Okay. I'm giving hope, you know, uh teaching people about the Michael White story. And the Michael Weiss story is breaking generational curses that try to hold us back and creating generational wealth so we can pass down to our family. Yeah. Because I'm tired of I'm tired of starting behind the eight ball. You know, every time I go, every time I was playing on the football field or whatever I was doing, every time I go to work, this is for my family.

SPEAKER_00 38:02

This is for That was your approach every day.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah, this is for my kids, kids, kids. Yeah, everybody's gonna eat off me. I'm the chosen one, I'm the sacrificial line. I don't care. Long as they be able to eat, as long as we ain't starting from square one, because it don't feel good. You know? That's why I work every day. That's why I hoard all my money. I don't go buying stupid stuff, man. I can't. I just you can't sit around here and blame people for 95% of your problems and then turn around and spend 95% of your money out doing the same thing. Like, you can't do that. You know, you going out here buying all the stuff that you don't need, all these clothes and shoes that you don't need, and you're not even like for what?

SPEAKER_02 38:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

You

Wild Spending Stories And Fake Wealth Online

SPEAKER_01 38:54

know? Yeah. That's been my biggest problem with some people.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Like then you said that people, when you were in um uh Miami, you are Miami, that you seen people come down and spend basically a half a million dollars and you said like a weekend?

SPEAKER_01 39:12

My friend, some of my best friends did that. What what were they buying? Uh you know, buying islands. You wanna know what you want to know what's crazy?

SPEAKER_00 39:20

What?

SPEAKER_01 39:21

When that happened that weekend, yeah, I'm not gonna say his name. He's my best friend, though, but I'm not gonna say you don't need to do that. Um, but when that happened, he laughs about it now, but when that happened, um I was trying to figure out what what did you buy? Because all we did was go jet skiing. We went jet skiing, we went to get something to eat at a nice restaurant down in down there on South Beach. And then I said, we went to the jeweler. Oh they go buy them chains in the jury, man.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 40:03

I don't own a single thing of Jewelry.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a jewelry person.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

I'm not a jury person, man. I just and I don't understand why those athletes. So I I talked to him about it because I I love him and that's my brother. And I want to see him have generational wealth. And I didn't make near, I didn't make nowhere near close to money he made in football. Nothing. But I wanted him to be able to look back on it like I took care of that money. Now, because this capital, you never getting back.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 40:35

When you spend it, you never get back.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

They may look at it like it's an investment, but you know, jewels, uh-uh, gold. Jewelry, investment.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Half of the jewelry that they buying, they don't even know it's fake.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

Oh, it's fake.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Come to find out, they selling most of most of these businesses that's selling y'all jewelry is fake. They sell it, it's almost like eating imitation crab almost.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

Gotcha. All right. All right. What is um is that the most outlandish thing you ever see somebody spend the money on?

SPEAKER_01 41:14

What, 500,000?

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Yeah, on uh big jury.

SPEAKER_01 41:18

No, I've seen people spend way more money than that.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

What give me an example of something that would be that you saw you was like, man, this is just nuts.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

I seen an individual blow the most I seen him do in one day, yeah. He dropped about he dropped about two point seven million on cars. Wow. 2.7 million. I'm sitting here watching all this. This when I was in college. I'm sitting here watching all this, 2.7 million on cars, and half of the time you ain't even gonna be able to drive. And ain't got no license.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Okay, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. That's pretty outlandish.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Yeah, that's what they do. They go buy all these expensive dinners for the experience. That's what people tell you, is for the experience. So you gonna go out of the country and get this country 10,000, 15,000 because you tell them out of experience and you come from nothing. You come from nothing, and you own your way back to nothing. Yeah, the way you spending this money.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

But most people like retail therapy, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Retail therapy. Yeah. Wow. Um your father. Um do you what is it like? Uh you know, you can't ask your kid, but what types of um experiences are you trying to impress upon your your your child as to how to do things and do they see it the way you see it?

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Them being young and with the social media influence and everything like that, it's a is a is a tug of is a tug of war. That's poison. Yeah, it's poison. And um, you know that so you know between fighting the internet and then fighting the kids in school, you know, because sometimes you force to get the kids all these nice things because the kids in school they be picking and bullying.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Feel what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Yeah, and then they're looking at all the stuff online, like like you know, you know, these people are not, they're just doing it for social media. Yeah, they probably don't have it. No. Tons and tons of wealth. Right. But you can make it look like that for 30 seconds. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

So I I know a lot of bums and business.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

I do. You know, and it's because everybody, we just live in an imitation world now. Everything's fake. You can make everything look good. You can go a person or be impressed by a person that's going to get a Range Rover or a certain type of Bins. Anybody can get their Bins. It's not hard. You know? But then they can't make the car payment. But online, you would think they're making the car payment, but they're struggling.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Yeah, you can drive around for three or four months until they come and get it.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Then heck on the repo, man. Here come the repo, man. The Grim Reaper. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:02

Then you want to fight, right? Yeah. That's what they try to do. Yeah. All right. So

Budget Spreadsheet And Simple Investing Rules

SPEAKER_00 45:12

give us something that we you can leave us with that will give us directions. People that listen to the podcast and give them directions as how to start creating a legacy. Um, because that's basically what you just said you wanted to do. And your legacy is fueled because of fear, the you fear being without more than anything. That that's the biggest fear that you have in life. So can you give us something or leave us something with something that um someone who may not have the resources can start from a place where they can start from?

SPEAKER_01 46:01

First thing I would say to a person that don't have the resources like I have, that I was blessed to have, or um first thing I would say to them, stop spending money on stupid stuff. Discipline. Discipline.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yeah. But you're a football player, man. You've been taught discipline early on.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Early on, since since middle school.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

You know, so you gotta develop discipline. That's hard. That's hard. Start you a spreadsheet. Okay. Okay. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

There you go.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

Start you a spreadsheet. Okay. Write down all your bills. Okay. Okay. Write down all your bills. And at the end of that, add it all up and come up with your your whole monthly overhead. I mean, phone bill, all that, card note, all that. Don't miss nothing. Your monthly subscriptions. All these unnecessary monthly subscriptions. Gym membership, all that. Plug it all in. And then tell me what your monthly overhead is. Now, look at how much you're bringing in a month. Now you can look at how much you can save after you pay your overhead. How much is your overhead gonna cost?

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Okay. Then start saving from there. If you got a little money left over, if you got a little money left over, save it. Yeah. Sometimes you if you really want to do this wealth thing, sometimes you're gonna have to eat cucumbers and tomatoes. You can't go out there. That's healthy. Yeah, exactly. I'm giving you a cheap. I'm giving you a cheap Poeboy meal.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

Yeah.

unknown 47:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:50

Cucumbers and tomatoes. If you need to get real, if you get too bored with that, add some avocado to it.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

But eat a cheap meal and save your money. It's gonna come a time that you're gonna be able to have fun, but this is not fun right now. I tell everybody, why would you want to work so hard at a job, a job that you don't even own? You don't own this job. And you going out here blowing the money after you done put blood, sweat, and tears in, you done your back aching and all that, especially blue collars workers. Why are you spending this money? This is not money for you to spend. Now, if you got a little bonus money, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

But you should have a system for that money that you're bringing in for a company that you don't work for, that meant that you don't own. Right. Yeah, that money is for to pay bills and invest. That's what your earned income should be for.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Next question, because you said invest. I was gonna go there. All right, okay. All right, so you know what to invest in. You studied in school. Uh tell us one, how we need to learn about investing. And then two, where should we start with investing?

SPEAKER_01 49:11

Okay. It depends on what you got a taste for. Because some people don't like the stock market. Right. Some people like real estate.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Some people don't like real estate, some people like whatever they like. Okay. Figure out what's your lane. Okay. I like real estate because we had a challenge of growing up having skipping from house to house, so real estate was bigger than me. You know, but I invest in real estate with my ownership group. You know, so so that was a big one for me. Transportation was a big one for me. You know, because everybody needs something transported. Um it comes to how to invest, when it comes to that, you have to figure out how much money you're gonna put to the side. So I would recommend when it comes to investing, the minimum that you should be investing with, you should be investing at least a hundred dollars every every paycheck.

SPEAKER_00 50:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

I would say $400 a month. You should be a minimal investing for uh $100 a week. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

All right, so I'm a numbers person. All right. So earlier when we were talking, you were talking about twofold. And I and I used to hear this, um, you know, I I listened to Jay-Z, and it's kind of kind of what he says too. He's like, don't buy anything that you can't pay for twice. Is that what you meant? Double up twice before the first one. So it would you would you take that philosophy when it comes to investing too? So if you're if you're actually investing a hundred bucks, you should have two hundred dollars set aside. Is that the way you break it up? Or no. Or what what you tell me what you you're thinking.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

When it comes to investing, yeah, never use your money. Okay. Use your side hustle money. Okay. All right. Don't you don't use your livelihood money.

SPEAKER_02 51:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:31

What if the market crash?

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

You got to use money you don't care about. So that cigarette money that you got, that liquor money that you got.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

That's once again, it's a discipline, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Come on, man. That that that that that Michael Jordan Tenner shoes money that you got.

SPEAKER_00 51:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

That you're willing to do. That bar money that you got that you go spend every weekend on. Should I keep going? All that money that you all that money that you got that you don't care about, that casino money that you got, put that into an investment. Money that you don't care about losing. Because clearly you don't care about losing that, and y'all lose a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 52:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:14

So that money that you don't care about losing, and then create you a side hustle so you can be able to throw money in there on the regular and watch where it takes you. Okay. Watch where it takes you. All that little change you got, oh I stack change too. I got a five-gallon jug full of quarters. You think I'm lying? No. I know you, I know you're about it's about $6,000 in there right now, close to it.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Yeah.

unknown 52:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Say I wrote a chapter called Respect Every Dollar. Okay. What book? No, that was a blog. Okay. Yeah, it's on my website. It's a blog.

SPEAKER_00 52:54

Okay. All right. You

Book Plug Social Links And Closing

SPEAKER_00 52:56

but you were, you did write, you were part of a book, right?

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Grief Through His Eyes Volume 2. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:02

Can you say it slowly?

SPEAKER_01 53:05

Grief Through His Eyes Volume 2.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

Okay. And where can we find that book?

SPEAKER_01 53:10

You can go on Amazon and get it. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

So on Amazon. What's the nature of it? Just give us a brief, just touch on it so people know.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

So it's pretty much inspiring people to turn their per their pain into purpose.

SPEAKER_00 53:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

You know, whatever you're going through, times might be hard, but you gotta find a way to get up. You can't stay down forever. You know, you might be you might be uh in a homeless shelter right now, sleeping in your car. Get the discipline you need to get up. You know. So that's pretty much what it's about. You know, taking some grief that you experience and turning it into power.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Okay. Yeah. All right. So your website is uh we I want people to be able to find you.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

MichaelWeiss.com, M-I-C-H, A-E-L, W-Y-C-H-E dot com.

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Okay. What platforms are you on social media?

SPEAKER_01 54:17

I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Uh all the same at at Michael White72. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Yeah. Michael White72. Yep. All right. Yep. All right. I appreciate you. I'm so glad you you came in. Um, you're you're you're an inspiration. Appreciate it. I've learned from you. And I mean, you just, as far as your personality and everything, you're just a fantastic person. And I appreciate it. Um you gonna come back?

SPEAKER_01 54:55

I would love to come back.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

Okay, and so we're gonna we're gonna get you to the next chapter level. We're gonna get to start talking about investments at some point. So yeah, okay. Um thank you for for um coming in today and talking with us.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

And I appreciate you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 55:11

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

That's today's episode. We'll catch you next time on Listen Up. If you enjoyed today's episode, we're gonna ask you to click on the links below. Follow, subscribe, become part of the conversation. And remember, listen up.