Bank on Your Neighbor: The Audiobook - Chapter 17

Remember the GameStop frenzy of 2021? Meme stocks, Reddit rebellion, and hedge funds losing billions—it felt like financial activism in real time. But as Mel explains, GameStop was a fight on Wall Street’s terms, and the rules of the game didn’t change.

In this chapter, Mel shows you how seller financing does change the rules—by moving wealth-building off Wall Street and into our communities. You’ll hear how this approach creates real win-win deals, keeps equity local, and gives power back to people instead of institutions.

This isn’t about chasing hype or gambling on broken systems. It’s about building sustainable financial freedom rooted in relationships, purpose, and agency. As Mel says, this is not GameStop—it’s game time.

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Transcript

0:00

Hi, friend. I'm Mel Doman, real estate investor, former social worker, TEDx speaker and financial activist. And this, this is Bank On Your Neighbor, the podcast. You're probably here because you felt it too, that the system wasn't built for us. That building wealth shouldn't mean selling your soul to Wall Street or crossing your fingers every time a bank says no. That there has to be another way. Well, there is, and this podcast is my free gift to you. That's right. Free, no paywall, no audible subscription, no gatekeepers standing between you and the knowledge that can change your life. Because here's the truth, just because something's free doesn't mean it isn't valuable. Sometimes the most valuable things, clarity, empowerment, freedom, don't come with a price tag. They come with purpose. I created this podcast because I'm on a mission to decentralize wealth, to take power out of the hands of billionaires and put it back into our communities. Each episode is a chapter from my book Bank on Your Neighbor. Read by me. It's my way of making sure this knowledge reaches the people who need it most without a single algorithm getting in the way. We'll walk through the real strategies I use to go from dumpster diving in my twenties to building a multimillion dollar portfolio in my thirties without banks, without credit, and without compromising my values. We'll talk seller financing, community centered investing. And creative ways to build wealth that actually serve people, not exploit them. But this isn't just a podcast, it's a movement, a radical reclaiming of power, a blueprint for creating more community-minded millionaires and fewer billionaires extracting from our neighborhoods. Every chapter builds on the last, so I recommend listening in order. I'll drop links, visuals, and extra resources in the show notes to help you take action. Not just absorb information, and if something in an episode strikes a chord, send it to someone you care about. That's how we spread financial literacy. That's how we grow a movement. That's how we rise together. Welcome to Bank on Your Neighbor. Welcome to the movement. Let's build something together. Chapter 17, from Wall Street to Main Street. It's game time. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Leo told. In January, 2021, something wild happened. Something so chaotic and culturally unhinged that it briefly, United Day Traders, anarchists and Millennials raised on Mario Kart. I'm talking about GameStop. Yes. That strip mall video game store we all assumed went extinct somewhere between Blockbuster and MySpace. Not only did it survive, it somehow became the face of financial rebellion. If you miss the saga, here's the nutshell version. A group of Redditors on our wall Streete bets realized the hedge funds were heavily shorting GameStop stock, basically betting their billions on its failure. These everyday investors armed with trading apps, memes, and a kind of tenacity, usually reserved for online arguments about pineapple on pizza, decided to flip the script. They bought up shares in mass, drove the price sky high, and in doing so, cost hedge funds billions. It was messy. It was kind of hilarious. It was also deeply revealing because underneath the memes pulled something real, a collective. Enough people were tired. Tired of a rigged game, tired of working harder for less, tired of watching wealth pull up at the top while everyone else scrambled for crumbs. GameStop was a rogue wave in a sea of financial oppression, but like most waves, it rose fast and receded just as quickly. The hedge funds recovered the system still standing because here's the truth, GameStop was a battle fought on Wall Street's terms using Wall Street's tools. And while it was a clever ambush, it didn't change the rules, it didn't rewrite the game. But what if we could, what if instead of throwing rocks at a broken machine, we stepped off the factory floor altogether and built something better. What if instead of investing in companies we don't believe in, through systems we don't trust, governed by people we'll never meet. We choose to invest in something. We do understand our communities, our homes, our neighbors. Imagine building wealth, not through speculation, but through relationships. Not through algorithms and volatility, but through conversations and consent. That's what seller financing offers. If GameStop showed us that power can be disrupted. Seller financing reminds us that power can also be redirected quietly, creatively, and without asking for permission. This isn't about sticking it to Wall Street. It's about walking away from the need to ask them for anything at all. Seller financing removes the middleman. It puts you in direct relationship with another person, one looking to sell, one looking to buy and creates a space where both can win. No hedge funds, no gatekeepers, no third yachts named liquid assets. Instead, imagine this. A seller gets interest based income in retirement. The buyer gets into a home without sacrificing their firstborn to a mortgage underwriter. That's not just capitalism. That's capitalism with a soul. Some call this stakeholder capitalism. I just call it sanity, A version of economics where the stakeholders aren't invisible. Shareholders chasing quarterly gains, but actual human beings making agreements that benefit everyone involved. This isn't a fairytale, it's math and it works. Seller financing isn't a loophole, it's a language, a tool, a mindset. It's how we reroute power away from institutions that hoard it and back into the hands of people who will actually use it to build something lasting. It's also what makes the rest of this book make sense because yes, you now know how to find off market deals, structure creative offers, evaluate risk, run the numbers, but all of that, that's just the mechanism. The magic is in what makes it possible you what I wish I'd known sooner. In 2025, the year this book was published, a billionaire strutted his way back into the highest office of the land, again, surrounded by power brokers who treat the country like a monopoly board. Their approach to governance fill equal part frat boy and hedge fund. And if you listen closely, you can almost hear the beer cans clinking behind the policy briefs. It's exhausting. It's infuriating. It's tempting to check out completely. But here's the truth. They don't want you to know your exhaustion. That's part of the strategy. Your disillusionment. That's what keeps the machine running, because when you're overwhelmed and disconnected, you are less likely to notice the quiet siphoning of your time, your resources, your options. And that's exactly why tools like seller financing matter, not because they fix everything, but because they return power to the level where it can be actually used. Not in boardrooms, not in algorithms, but in households, on blocks in neighborhoods that have been left out, priced out, and counted out for too long. And if all of this feels a little abstract, let me tell you where it got real for me. At the beginning of this book, I told you about a 16-year-old boy in Uganda who handed me Rich Dad, poor Dad, and said it would change my life. I smiled politely. I didn't read it. I thought I already understood the world. I believed that serving others meant rejecting money. That wealth was selfish, that making due with less made me a better person. But when my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at 67 and I watched my family scrambled for care, for dignity, for options, I realized just how wrong I'd been. Money wouldn't have prevented the pain, but it would've given us choices. And in that moment, choices were everything. If I'd read that book, if I had been open to a different way of thinking. I might have helped carry the weight that fell on my sister's shoulders. I might have had something more to offer than grief and regret, but I didn't. And that gap, that loss of power, it was everything. I can't go back and change that ending, but you, you are holding the chance I missed this book Could be your turning point. Not because it's particularly brilliant, but because the tools inside of it, if used can do what? GameStop never could. Create sustainable community rooted financial freedom, the kind that doesn't require you to gamble or conform or sell your soul for a seat at the table. So picture your future self 10 years from now. Not perfect, not pressure free, but more grounded. More spacious, more open. The kind of life with margin for your people, your passions, your purpose. Seller financing is how you get there. It's how you stop trading time for money. It's how you stop asking banks for validation, how you stop believing. The only way to build wealth is to abandon your values. This is not about having all the answers. It's about starting with one better question. What if I didn't need permission to live the life I want? And when enough of us begin answering that question with action buying properties, creating win-win deals, keeping equity local, mentoring the next person coming up behind us, we stop being isolated, individuals making smart financial decisions. We become a movement. The movement becomes momentum. Imagine this boomers using seller financing to create affordable pathways to home ownership for millennials and Gen Z, while also securing their own retirement income. Immigrants, freelancers, artists, those who've always lived on the edge of the banking system, stop waiting to qualify and start crafting win-win solutions. Communities where wealth isn't extracted but reinvested again and again. This is what's possible. This isn't a dream. This is a decision and one people are making every day. The problem is most of the world still doesn't know it's possible, but they will. When you and I share our stories, because one story can inspire, but many, they shift the collective belief we move from, that's impossible to, oh, that's just normal. So if this book helped you to take your first step, if you closed your first deal, pitched your first seller, or even just shifted your mindset, I wanna hear about it. We need your story. Not because it's perfect, but because it's real. Send it my way. All elevated. Because the more visible we make what's possible, the more people will believe it's possible for them too. So what's your next step? Maybe it's running the numbers on a property. Maybe it's sending a letter to a potential seller. Maybe it's simply sitting with the idea that you can do this because you can future you. The one with more margin, more clarity, more choices is already whispering. Thank you. And when you set this book down, I hope you do the most radical thing of all. Share what you've learned. Teach somebody, gift them this book. Invite them into possibility. And if you have a story to tell, tell it loudly, softly, and perfectly. Just make it known. When we bank on each other, we don't just shift our finances, we shift what the future can be. You don't have to be the loudest, you don't have to be the most qualified. You just have to decide this life I want, I'm going after it. Playing small won't keep you safe. It just keeps you stuck. And the opportunities you don't claim, they don't disappear. They just flow to someone else, but not this time you're here, you're ready, and the life that's waiting for you, it starts now. When we act from love, love for our people, our neighborhoods, our own becoming, we step outta the machinery and into something far more powerful agency. So let's build a world where you call the shots, where wealth is local, where time is precious, where your life reflects, your values and your legacy lifts others up. This isn't GameStop, this is game time and your future self. They're already cheering you on. Share your story@meldoman.com.