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Da Conch Salad Podcst
Da Conch Salad Podcast is a platform where real issues are discussed and solutions provided—rooted in Caribbean flavor and frank conversation. Join us for candid takes on politics, love and relationships, business, culture, and more, with guest perspectives, practical advice, and the warmth, humor, and rhythm of island life. Tune in for honest dialogue, actionable ideas, and the unapologetic Caribbean vibes that keep the conversation lively.
Da Conch Salad Podcst
Nobody Taught Us How Money Works
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In Episode 2 of Da Conch Salad Podcast, we’re having an honest conversation about the things most of us had to figure out on our own — earning money, saving, spending, credit, debt, investing, building wealth, and understanding the financial decisions that can shape our future.
Why don’t schools teach us more about financial literacy? Why do so many of us learn about money through trial and error? And what happens when we grow up knowing how to make money, but not necessarily how to manage it, protect it, or make it work for us?
This episode is about breaking down the money lessons many of us were never given and starting the conversations we should have had a long time ago.
No financial jargon. No pretending we have all the answers. Just real conversations, real experiences, and real lessons about money.
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🎙️ Real Conversations • Real Experiences • Bahamian Perspectives • Culture • Money & Life
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the Kong Salad. And I'm Anton Brooks coming to you from Nassau, Bahamas.
SPEAKER_00And I'm Kat from Houston, Texas. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Hey, this is Kong Salad where we have unfiltered Caribbean conversations.
SPEAKER_00What are we gonna talk about today? I know y'all probably was like, oh, that conversation last week was so heated. What are they gonna bring on week two? We're gonna talk about what so many people worry about, what so many people run away from, what so many people just don't understand, and many worship money.
SPEAKER_01The great dollar. So tell me, Kathy, tell me some of your experiences with money. Like when when did you first learn the value of money? Like, tell me something of your some of your experiences with money. Like when did you get your first dollar?
SPEAKER_00When I was a kid. So when I was a kid, I used to um, I feel like I was always a hustler, you know, because even in high school, like when mommy gave me lunch money, I never ate lunch at school. I would stay hungry. Many can't imagine that I would stay hungry, right? But I was stay hungry. And I would save my money so I could take my money and go buy new clothes. I was hot up for clothes, even at a young age. So I remember the first time money, hmm. Like in high school, I took, so I did high school in America, and I had um, I want to say it was economics, if I'm not mistaken. And in that class, it taught us about like checking accounts, savings accounts, but it was information that I already knew because mommy used to like send me to the ATM and make me take out money. So she taught me how to use the ATM. I always saw with this checkbook, and then anytime like I received money like from my dad from Western Union, she would send me to pick it up. So she would put me in in decision-making places so I could understand what money is. Cool. What about you?
SPEAKER_01The first time I think I really learned about money, y'all are gonna don't judge me, don't not judge me. But the first time I actually realized money, I probably was I don't know, eight, nine, ten years old. And actually, it was the movie Scarface. And I don't know why they had a little kid watching Scarface, but I saw the movie anyway. Uh, and I saw this guy, and his name was Antonio, and my name is Anton. By the way, my middle name is Antonio, too. So my middle name is Antonio, and I saw this guy with lots of money, and I was like, wow, this is what money does for you. So that was my first real like, okay, like learning about money or thinking about money or anything. Well, that that was my first experience as a kid.
SPEAKER_00So I have a question. Do you think that social media has us, you know, delusional about money or probably financially irresponsible?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I think it's uh both. Mostly, I would say, financially irresponsible. I think some of us are living for the gram. And to be quite honest with you, we're not taking into consideration that years are passing and days are passing. Time is passing, and time is the one commodity that you cannot never go back, you can't get it back. And a lot of us are delaying investing because we want to take a trip, we are delaying investing because we want to look nice in this particular car, we're delaying investing because we want to eat at a nice restaurant, we want to go to Bahma here in the Bahamas, we want to go to Oak, the new restaurant. We want to we want to just look like we're doing what every what the successful and rich people are doing.
SPEAKER_00So let me let me so here's the thing. What I what I and I don't know, I remember this is an opinion. Everybody has an opinion just like our pitts. So if you agree with me, great. If you don't, great. You know, God made us all different. So here's my thing: people that look like us, right? Here's the issue. I think that there's so much internal trauma and drama that we want to look good on the outside. So, like they wear N or they need a Gucci purse, or and women need a Gucci purse. They paid $3,000 for this purse, but if they needed $3,000 to put down on a home, they wouldn't have it. So it's like I think it's generational. I think that unfortunately, you know, black people want to look good on the outside because of the way that they feel inside, they want to like hide the way they feel inside.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's so it's um society has done such a good job on us that we don't even realize how we're being played. You know, I watched an old video, I don't know if I seen it circulating on social media years ago, and I go, How to sell to the black man? And it was a video on they say the number one thing really you could do to a black man is you you can never tell a black man he can't afford it, or don't call him broke, make him feel like he's rich, he's successful, and he will buy just about anything to make himself feel rich and successful. I think we're all broken on the inside, it's carried through the wounds of our ancestors, and we've handed it down, they've broken our spirit, but you know what? We're back on the rise.
SPEAKER_00I know that's right. I know that's right. I go ahead. I agree.
SPEAKER_01So I want to ask you a question, Gathy. Okay. Do you work for money or does money work for you?
SPEAKER_00I tell people and I tell my agents, baby, money works for me. I don't chase money, I attract it. And that, you know, a past mentor, not a current mentor, but a past mentor once told me, if you chase money, you'll chase it till you die. But if you find passion and you find purpose and you chase that, money will chase you. So I tell people I could be broke, and I tell people, I don't, I don't, I don't chase money, money chases me. And I have my mind tricked to that. That I'm gonna walk into opportunities that when I enter a room, favor is gonna meet me there. That's how I I live.
SPEAKER_01Because you ain't answer my question. You must be a politician. I ask you, do you work for money or does money work for you? That's what I want to know. Like, do you like come on? Let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Don't try to run from this question.
SPEAKER_00Right now, primarily, I exchange my time for money. So I work for money.
SPEAKER_01All right, so you say you change your time for money. See, I'm glad that you said that because some of the books that I've read, which we'll be discussing during the show today, the rich man that the richest, the richest man in Bobby Land, Rich Dad, poor that, you know, some of the books that we've all read or some or should read. I think, first of all, us as a people, we do not want to educate ourselves about money because there is a huge difference, a tremendous difference on working for money or having money work for you. As an as a kid, you know, when I watched that movie, it taught me to make money, but I was trying to make money the wrong way. It greatly influenced me in the first part of my life, and I was trying to make money wrong. Thank God. My life changed around, and I one day realized that this is just some crap, and I'm too smart for this dumb crap.
SPEAKER_00But anyway, uh what you used to do, sell ice?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, tattoo. I sell anything. I'm an entrepreneur, so it doesn't make a difference to me. But you know, one of the things I think we need to learn is we learn to we need to learn the systems. There's a system about making money, and us, we don't want to do the investigation, we don't want to do the hard work, we don't want to learn what rich people do to make money and how do they acquire wealth. And I I it, you know, I've been reading books for years now, a lot of books, and I it just bewilders me how people are going to think that one day they're gonna become rich and they have no past.
SPEAKER_00No clue, no clue, no idea. Two things, two things, that's a great point. Two things that I would say are like the G-O-A-Ts of making money. The first, and you can tell me if you agree or disagree, the first one is real estate, invested in real estate, the second one is life insurance. Those are the two things. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01So you say the goat. Well, in the Bahamas, uh, we're just getting hit to the life insurance, and I think the life insurance part, if I'm gonna hit on that first, is a great way for Bohemians to transfer wealth to their children's children. You know, the Bible talks about creating uh wealth for your children's children, it's a great way to transfer wealth to your children's children, and I think any, especially males, uh, because we are usually head of the household, in this day and age, any male that does not make the conscious effort or conscious decision to ensure that if something happens to him that his family isn't taken care of, is a very irresponsible man. The second part about the real estate, I think real estate is one of the greatest parts to financial security and achieving your financial goals. But you know, today a lot of people, what I see what's going on, if I may say, everybody's just getting back to the Instagram, everybody wants to be Instagram crazy. And I'm seeing here in Nassau, Bahamas, I see it more and more because I have friends that are trying to move to Nassau, and they're like, Well, I gotta live in this certain neighborhood, or I gotta buy a house in this certain thing. I remember buying my first house, and I've owned five homes. My first house was $64,000.
SPEAKER_00Smart, smart man.
SPEAKER_01And I flipped that house, bought another house, flipped that house, and just kept doing it. And I don't understand how people do not see the value in investing, not only in real estate, but investing in financial education. So money's the biggest thing in the world. How are you not gonna learn how to manage money and how to how to control it?
SPEAKER_00Here's what I want to say. If you don't own, like if you're not paying your mortgage, you're paying somebody else's mortgage. And I don't care if it's for business, like if you have a brick and mortar, if you don't own the building, you're paying somebody else's mortgage. So why would you want to help somebody else gain compound interest and you lose out? You understand what I'm saying? And one thing you said, I want to bring notice to it. You said men, because it's it's in our language, right? You said men. If you're the head of your household and you don't have something in place, if you die, if something happens to you. And you know that's crazy because here's the thing we all have to get out of here. We all have a one-ticket, one way over here. We cannot stay here forever. So it's not a if something happens to you, it's when something happens to you. Because if you're the provider of your home and you want your family to have this certain type of lifestyle, or you have a mortgage and you want them to live a certain type of life, and you pass away and you don't have anything in place, you're leaving them to be GoFundMe projects or to be selling um um um um chicken in a bag.
SPEAKER_01The worst thing is to go fund me just to get buried.
SPEAKER_00And you know what? And I tell people, and I know if I ever tell you this before, but I tell people, I don't, I wouldn't give GoFundMe five cents for nobody. I don't care how sad the story is. Because here's the thing it just shows your irresponsibility. Because let's just say, for instance, you have a five-year-old to pass away, right? You shouldn't be on GoFundMe because insurance for that child ain't but twenty dollars a month, that's five dollars a week.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm gonna disagree with you on that a little bit because the only thing about I don't want to stray off the topic, but the only thing about gofundme is I won't judge a person for being in a situation like if my child was in is sick and they needed an operation, and I ran out of money, like this. Suppose this operation is like a million and a half dollars, the insurance will only pay a certain amount, and I'm still like I'm short, and I need to have my child's operation. I'm gonna do whatever it takes for my child to have an operation. So, short of me um doing something illegal, the only thing that I'm gonna think of is I gotta, I gotta ask, I'm not too proud to beg, especially in a situation like that to save my child's life. I'll do whatever it takes.
SPEAKER_00But do you know that life insurance can handle that? Because what happens is you can come and pull off of the death benefit. That's called living benefits. So living benefits will come in if you have like a critical chronic or terminal illness, you can go to the insurance company and tap into the death benefit while you're alive, and that's the thing.
SPEAKER_01I understand that, but you know what? I I gotta talk and defend my friends and people out there who don't have life insurance, you know. A lot of people don't have life insurance, you know. You're speaking from a person of yeah, it is what it is. But before I before we dwell into that, I want to ask the question, though, because we're talking about everyday people. Do you believe you can build wealth and become wealthy from a regular, I won't say a regular, but I'm just gonna say from a nine to five job, or do you think you have to be an entrepreneur to become wealthy?
SPEAKER_00I think that you have to find a problem and create a solution. So whether that's you being an entrepreneur or you being a you know a nine to five employee, here's the thing: everybody can't be an entrepreneur. We need people to wash our cars, we need people to take our orders. But even if you're doing that type of work, it's not bad. But what are you gonna do on top of that? Because here's the thing when you have a job that's just over broke, that's somebody telling you, hey, you worth this amount for this amount of hours. So you gotta give me 40 hours a week, and I'm gonna give you this amount of money. That's set money, that's sure money. That money ain't going higher, that money ain't going lower. Once you have a J-O-B, what are you gonna do? Because if you keep doing the same thing that you have been doing, you can get the same result you've been getting. So, what you can do different on top of that, and COVID brought that up. COVID made everybody think about side hustles. Everybody was a chef, everybody could do something else outside the box. So, what are you gonna do outside the box to get you to break free? Because if you keep doing the same thing, you're gonna have the same result.
SPEAKER_01Well, one of the things I've learned in life is this because I've been up and down where I've made hundreds of thousands a year, and some I've made no money. So, one of the things that I've learned is it does not matter how much money you make. So, as an entrepreneur, you could make a million dollars, or as an employee, you could make ten thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars a year. What matters most is what you do with your money. How much it cost, pardon me?
SPEAKER_00How much you keep, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And this is not only how much you keep, because uh, you know, a lot of people will keep money, they got something called hoarders, where they take money and they put it in the bank and they save, save, save, save, save. But if you're not investing that money, so that money can this is what we're getting back to the beginning. When I asked you, do you work for money or do you let money work for you? This is when you turn around and you start to let money work for you. And this is when you take that savings and you invest it. You know, when I was young, one of the greatest books I've ever read in my life changed me. It was called The Richest Man in Babylon. Very small book, but in that book, it talked about a man, his name is Akkad, how he invested money. And the money, I even got a deeper question now, actually. That even put me down to the question. But the money that he saved, he invested it. And the the investments he called the investments his children, which I love uh the how he used that because if you have a child, you're gonna take care of it. So he called his savings his children, and he said, You never put your children out there unless they're gonna replenish themselves. So you never put your children out there until they unless they can duplicate themselves. So you would look after that savings as as much as you look and care for it as much as you look for your children. So he took the money, he invested it, and that's how you become rich. So a person who's making thirty thousand dollars a year, who are you paying first? Are you paying yourself first or are you paying everybody else? And that's what I wanted to ask you. That was when I was saying, I got something to ask you.
SPEAKER_00Who do you make for? That's a great question. Um, the thing is, is like that's a for me, it's a two-edged sword. So right now, I let my money work for me with investments and I work for my money. But I'm transitioning to where my money just works for me. So, for example, let's talk about it. Rich dot poor dot, right? Hiasaki, he breaks the world, the world down into four quadrants. Four quadrants. You're either employed, that's a nine to five, right? You're either self-employed, that's like, let's just say, like a hairdresser, an aesthetician, um, you're selling something, you're the one actually doing it. So you're self-employed, but you still have a job because that's a job. Or you are a business owner or an investor. Here's the thing the secret the left side, the employed and self-employed, the majority of the world is on the left side of the quadrant where you're exchanging your time for money. There's only 24 hours in a day, right? The in the most elite part of the world is on the right side of the quadrant where they have systems in place. It's kind of like a McDonald's. Like, hey, McDonald's don't sell the best burgers, right? But they have created a system that where if you're here or you in um or you you could be in Portugal going to McDonald's and you're able to see them same arches, the same fries. So their system has gotten them financially free. Whereas, hey, if you are mom and pop and you sell the best chicken in a bag, there's only so much chicken in a bag you can fry. So the key is to create a system to let you break free. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01No, it makes a lot of sense. Um, you touched on so many things. I don't I don't know, but I I'll just first touch on the systems, right? There's another book that I read. Actually, it's an audio book called The Stranger's Secret by um uh Nightingale. I forgot his first name. Um, anyway, it used to play here in the Bahamas first thing in the morning. If you're old, damn. I'm just told my age. If you're old enough, Earl Nightingale, you used to play every morning, Earl Nightingale. But anyway, and one of the things Earl Nightingale says, and I want everybody to realize this, don't care what type of if you're an entrepreneur, you can always tell your wealth. You because all you have to do, like if I'm here in Nassau, so I can say, okay, the population in Nassau is about 300,000 people. If I sold my chicken in the bag to 300,000 people, how much money could I potentially make in one day? And that's the greatest amount of money I can make in one day because that's the amount of customers I have. Now I'm saying, like now, and then you have to ask yourself, well, how rich do I really want to be? How much? And this is the questions that people really don't even ask themselves. They say they want to be rich, but have you put a dollar amount on it? Do you know how much it takes for you to live comfortably? Like, do you know? Does I know it takes a lot? I mean, my number is big because I know the lifestyle that I want to live, I know the people that I want to help, I know the organizations I want to start. So my number is big, but everybody's number is not the same. Maybe somebody might take a hundred thousand dollars a year for them to live how they want to live. To some people, is you remember me and used to be having these conversations, be like, Boy, if I just could be making 10 grand a month, or I and then when you start making 10 grand a month, you'll be like 10 grand, we can make it 10 grand, we can make it for 10 grand a day.
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01See, see, and then you have other people to be like, Boy, if I make 10 grand a month, I'll be set. But see, people don't realize that you have to know where you're going, so you know how to set your life up to get there. And a lot of us do not know where we're going, so that's why we're just going in circles. It's like a ship going out there, and you don't know where's the destination. Captain, where we going? And the captain, like, I don't know, and you're just going around in circles until you run out of gas or crash upon some rocks. Bam.
SPEAKER_00Let me tell you, Anton, you that make like how do you get unstuck? Because here's the thing. Let me tell you when I be reminded of that. When I come home, and home, home is home is where the heart lives. But let me tell you, when I come home, most of the time when I'm there, I'd be very angry. Because here's the thing I left Freeport about 16 years ago, right? Without a quarter to rub together, or a part to piss in. You understand what I'm saying? But I just knew, and I and I I don't even know if you remember you gave me this advice. You told me, because in my 20s, I was very mixed up, very mixed up. It's like I would live in America for a couple years and I would come to the Bahamas for a couple years, and I just couldn't figure it out. And you called me and you told me it's like, look, I ain't gonna tell you what to do, but whatever you do, you have to understand that it's the same principles that you use. No matter where you go, that makes you successful. So I remember when I left the last time, I was like, buddy.
SPEAKER_02Like I said.
SPEAKER_00That's why I was a soldier. I was raised by soldiers. Like, I have to be a soldier. So I was like, I'm not coming back, I'm not leaving America until I get something for myself. And it's so crazy. Like when I bought my first house, initially I actually wanted, you know, because me and Fred was dating at the time, I wanted Fred to do it. So I knew, you know, I always is know, you know, the ins and outs. I'm like, hey, you gotta do this, you gotta do that, you gotta do this, you gotta do that, you gotta do this. But what I realized is he wasn't moving fast enough for me. So I said, okay, we can do it. So I say the same advice I've given you, I can do it. So I'll never forget when we um we bought our first home, it was a town home, and it was 125,000. And um, six years I get a little itched, right? So it was 125,000. But in that process, I almost quit because it was like they needed this, they needed that, they needed this. I was like, oh my god, do they need to know the last time I had a menstrual cycle? Like, what else do they need? And I remember my realtor at the time, she said to me, buy the home because if you don't buy it now, the market is gonna change so good that you're not gonna be able to afford it. Six years later, we were able to sell a hundred and twenty thousand dollar house for 260,000. And here's the thing, I always just figure something out. I didn't use a realtor to sell it.
SPEAKER_01You're muted, Kathy. For some reason, you're muted, you're muted, you're muted. Somebody muted. I don't know, she's gonna have to. Well, I don't know if you guys can still see me, but one of the things, you know, Kathy talked about selling homes, you know, and in Robert Kiyosaki's book, Rich Diapo, that he uh he has publicly been all over TV saying that he's against home ownership and you shouldn't buy homes. And to me, I totally disagree with that. Kathy, are you back?
SPEAKER_00I'm yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, you're on one screen, but you're frozen for some reason. I don't know what happened there. Uh some type of technical difficulty, but we couldn't hear a lot of what you said. You you you were muted and then you blanked out. So I was I started to talk about Robert Kiyosaki and uh my disagreement with him and him telling people that they should not buy homes. Like, I have been involved in real estate, so let me put that out there. That's a disclaimer. But besides me being involved in real estate as a real estate professional, I am still involved in real estate. I don't sell real estate anymore, I manage a lot of real estate. But one of the things that has added to my personal wealth from a personal story, you know, I thought about buying a home, uh letting it uh letting it acquire some value and then selling it. And to me, home ownership, you gotta pay rent, like Kathy said earlier.
SPEAKER_02You gotta pay rent anyway.
SPEAKER_01You have to pay rent, you have to pay for some expensive. And you're both and you have to pay for somewhere to rent. I'm gonna go to Kathy. I can hear you, Kathy. You can mute yourself because I'm getting some feedback.
SPEAKER_00I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01Kathy, we can hear you. But one of the things in home, in home, when you invest in real estate, you gotta pay. Sorry, I'm all over the place. I'm trying to look at Kathy's and make sure she's fixed. But one of the things that you have to realize is you gotta pay for somewhere to live anywhere. So why not make that a profitable investment? Yes, Robba Kisaki is correct. Guys are killing me now. Robba Kiyasaki is correct in that I cannot Kathy. Can you hear me? She can't hear me. Robba Kiyasaki is correct in that you know, a lot of your income is going to be towards housing because a home is more expensive than renting. But what Robaki Saki doesn't take into effect is that to me, home ownership and paying rent is a part of it's like saving. So instead of you putting money directly into a bank account, you're putting money into a home. And nine times out of the hand, yes, there are some times when homes drop in value, but nine times out of ten, historically, homes will rise in value. And if you make a smart purchase in a smart location, the home will rise in value. You do a little fixer upper, I mean you do a little fixing up so it will continually rise in value. When you sell that home, you will get a lump sum of money. And when you get that lump sum of money, you can do something with it. You can make a serious investment into another home, into a multifamily property, into all types of different avenues of investment. But without that big lump sum, it's it's very difficult for someone to save $50,000, $60,000, $80,000, $100 and something thousand dollars. That's a difficult thing for the average human being to do. So, but if you sell your home, you're gonna get a big lump sum like that. And when you get that big lump sum, you can turn around and invest that into something that either another home, either a multifamily property, you know, Airbnb is going. You could buy a home and turn it into Airbnb. Like, you can make so many investments today, so much easier today to make money than in the past. That is crazy. Well, Kathy, are you back with me? Well, Kathy looks like uh she's not she's she's she's she's not back. So since we're talking about home ownership, I'll tell you guys how I bought my first home. So I thought, like Kathy said, the woman really controls controls the house. My wife at the time, she was like, we moved back to the Bahamas, we were living in the U.S. and we just moved back to the Bahamas, and we actually stayed with my in-laws when we first moved back because we were determined. Well, first of all, to be honest with you, I didn't, I would, I didn't have a job, so she was working and I didn't have a job. So when I moved back, we moved into our parents' home. So after I got a job, and we both were working, we were like, Are we gonna move out? Or are we gonna she was like, No, we're not moving out to get an apartment, we're gonna move out and get our own house. And I was like, Yo, we gotta be working for two years before the bank takes us seriously, we gotta have all this money. Like, I don't know where we're gonna get this money from. And she's like, We're gonna do it, don't worry about it. And actually, just like she said, we did it. Uh, she forced me. I mean, dragged me by my shirt collar basically into the bank for uh finally got me by my shirt collar basically into the bank for uh Kathy, mute yourself. Finally got my shirt collar back.
SPEAKER_00Can I go?
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, brand new. If they drive me in the bank anyway, long story short, we got the first home, it was just a little two-bedroom house, it was 64,000, brand new. We turned around and we doubled our money when we sold that more than double our money when we sold the home. We think we lived there for three years. We sold the home, we bought another home, we did the same thing, and we kept doing the same thing, and and it it helped us. It was not the only way that I got we got money, but it definitely helped her because we still were working and we still made different investments. Kathy, are you back? Kathy's not back. Well, one of the things I I definitely also want to talk about today, you know, I have a list of questions down here. One of the one of the lessons, well, one of the questions I wanted to ask Kathy was what was one of the worst financial investments that you made or money decisions that you made that you regretted. And one of the things that I regretted is I I won't just tell you my story, my worst one. I went into the fish business. I never double uh died before in my life. I never did anything, but I saw some people making money and fishing. I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna go in the seafood business. I went and I bought a bunch of freezers, I cleared out my living room, and I turned my house into a fish house. Kathy, can you hear me? I don't know why you can't hear me, but I can hear you perfectly clear. Let me just in tell her. And I perfectly I forgot. Oh, I was telling the story about the fish. And I invested in that, and I did something that rich the richest man in Babylon said, You should never do, never invest your children into something that you do not have specialized knowledge in, or a partner does not have specialized knowledge in. And I got robbed, I bought a couple hundred pounds of grouper, and when I came to try to resell it, it was all rockfish. And if anybody in the Bahamas knows there's a big difference, they look alike, but there's a big difference between rockfish and groupa. And it was at that moment I decided that I had to get out of the fish business and they sold my freezes because I wasn't a subject matter magic, subject matter expert. And in not being a subject matter expert, it taught me the lesson that the next time I go into a business, I'm gonna be sure to be a at least know what I'm getting into before and do some investigations before I get into it. I don't know where my cohost is at. I'm real mad because no, I need her back and forth. I love the energy that we have between each other, but she's nowhere to be found. Kathy, you better get back in here. And that's one of the things that helped me to become financially financially. I'm not financially successful yet, but it made me become more financial, more financially uh uh solid, I would say. Because I'm nowhere near what I want to be. Another thing I would like to bring up when we're talking about Kathy, um, when we're talking about becoming financially free or making up, is that you have to invest in yourself and become great at what you do. A lot of us today have not invested in ourselves and become good at what we do. There are a lot of people that are just doing the basic minimum to stay on the job, and if you want to be acquire wealth, you have to become good at what you do. And if I can use a basketball player or anybody, if I can use a basketball players to reference to, you know, the best basketball players in the world earn a lot of money because that's because they became the best at what they do. So at anything that you do in life, once you become the best at it, you're gonna get uh you're gonna get paid handsomely because you're good at it. And besides investing in property or investing in stocks or investing in whatever, if you don't invest in yourself, like that's the first investment. It kills me that when I see people save money to invest in a nice car, people save money to go on vacations, people save money to do all kinds of stuff to get married, people save money to buy nice clothes, but people will not save money to invest in themselves.
SPEAKER_00Can you hear me?
SPEAKER_01I can hear you.
SPEAKER_00Praise the Lord. I'm back. Look at Cody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you was about to cost me. I ain't know what to do. I was having a panic attack up here. Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00I was gonna say one thing with us, we know how to pivot, but baby, I I Jesus. I you know what I did. I had to take my anger to the Lord, and I say, you know what, God, at least my brother has good enough sense that if I can't say another word, he could hold it down.
SPEAKER_01I know how good job I was doing, holding it down, got it.
SPEAKER_00But anyway, ask me a question, ask me a question, but being coached.
SPEAKER_01You got me question right now. Um, okay, let me ask you a question. I forgot which direction we were heading in, but do you agree with no? I I I already really really really talk up really um talked about that. Can you tell me you know, you talk to me, you know, when we have in our calls throughout the weeks, you talk to me about the about savings. What how how are you able to save money? What's your saving plans like? What do you do?
SPEAKER_00So that's a good question. And I was actually just talking to a girlfriend about that yesterday. I told her that I'm I am in a sowing season. So um, you know me, I always can take it to the Lord. But in the Bible, it says that you sow in silence, or you shall reap in silence. And tangible ways that I save now is through life insurance. Because in the Caribbean, you know, every country is called something different. So Freeport is called ASU, um, Jamaicans is called it partner, Haitian is called Susu, you know, where you put all your money together and every week you're paying this, you're paying that, and then you end up, you know, getting your drawer. But guess what? There's no compound interest on that drawer. So I save money through life insurance heavily. So whereas people will be like, You spending that much on life insurance? Yeah, because I know that's a guaranteed paycheck. And it doesn't mean that the person has to die in order for me to um to access the money because the money is liquid, it gains compound interest and it's liquid. So that that's basically what we do. We save money through insurance.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01Well, one of the things, one of the stories I like to tell is actually how I started my first business. And well, not my first business, but how I started the a current business that I won't call Island Traders. Shameless plug, greatest shipping company in the Bahamas.
SPEAKER_00But anyway, I know that's right. I know that's right.
SPEAKER_01What I wanted to say was that I read a book, it's called The Automatic Millionaire, and it seems that, but I learned this all the way, I learned this a long time ago from the book The Richest Man in Babylon. And basically the question is, who do you pay first? And and the richest man in Babylon it basically said you pay yourself first. Now I know a lot of people, Kathy, probably gonna jump on me for what I'm about to say right now. I don't understand how y'all niggas is pay the church first and y'all don't pay yourself first, but that's between me, y'all. That's between y'all and y'all God, and me and my God. But anyway, I think that we should pay ourselves first. And the only way, you know, I it took me a I really never learned that lesson. But how I learned the lesson was I was working at a uh company called Ross University, and when they hired us, they said, Do you want to take part in the savings program? I was like, Yeah, and I was like, I just read the book so happenly, and they said, How much you want to save? I said, What's the max? What's the max I could put in there? And it was like 10. I was like, Okay, I want to do 10. And I saved that 10. And you know what happened? I didn't even realize that I was saving it. I totally forgot about that 10. How it and what happened was the school closed down and moved because of Obama, by the way. But anyway, we ain't getting into that. The school closed down, and you say no, I know, I know, I know you're all Obama lovers, but anyway, I ain't one of them. Um, the school closed down, and I ain't a Trump lover neither.
SPEAKER_00But you don't like my we don't like my run, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, we don't like mine. Um but the school closed down, and when the school closed down, I was like, I'm out of a job, I don't know what to do, what am I gonna do? And surprisingly, that 10 turned out to be like a 10,000, something it was close to 11,000 that I saved, and I didn't even know that I saved that. So the point that I'm and that's what I use to open up Island Traders. But the point that I'm saying is if you don't make your savings automatic, if you don't take it and automatically pull it out of your paycheck before you touch it, if you do not pay yourself first, how is it you're gonna pay the light insurance, the light man? How are you gonna pay the clothes man? I when I say the clothes mind because you're buying clothes, you're paying it. How are you gonna pay the restaurant man because you're buying food? And the one person who works harder than anybody else is you, you're not gonna pay yourself first.
SPEAKER_00So, can I I want to give my perspective on that? It's good that you have that perspective because it, I mean, I get the 10%, but I do it differently. And you know, we're all different, and that's one thing we have to realize in life. There's no most things, there's no right way or wrong way, is which way works for you. So I could remember, because you have to remember, I used to be in corporate America, and just to give you guys an idea, I was making about $65,000 a year. I was um a manager of eight people, I was a lead underwriter for a homeowner's insurance company. But I always knew like God had something different. But here's the thing when I started, I it's so funny because you was like, oh, remember when we was begging to make $10,000? I literally sit in my bed and I cross my legs and stuff. I'm like, God, if I could just make $10,000 a month, like everything would be fine. But here's what happened. I was making a lot of money. And I wasn't used to it because you have to think about it: $65,000 a year, after your $401K, all these things getting taken out, I probably was bringing home like four grand a month. So I went from bringing home like $4,000 a month to like over $40,000 a month. And it was like my pockets had a sink and hole because I was so used to robbing Peter to pay Paul, I didn't realize that I was no longer drowning. And it's a mindset. So if you think, if you if you always drowning, when you stop drowning, you have to change your mindset. That's why a lot of people is win the lottery and go broke because of their mindset. And I was in a um, I'm big on learning and and personal development. And I was at a conference where they basically you dissect what's going on with you from your childhood, leave it behind, and go forward. So in that conference, they talked about tithing. And this was something that my grandmother, you know, me and my grandmother talked about, Grammy talked about all the time. And in that conference, I remember I reached out to Fred and I was like, hey, going forward from this day on, whatever we get, we're gonna tithe. 10%, automatic, off the top. That's just 10 cents on every dollar. And that don't have nothing to do with sewing and offering and stuff like that, but just because for me, God is testing your obedience. You understand? He already owned the world. So we've done that, I want to say now, three years of consistently tithing. And I got to a point where, you know, the mind has played tricks on you, where because of my irresponsibility, I used to dip and dive, like, yeah, I used to tithe, yeah, it used to be good, but it wasn't. I was robbing. I I was I was robbing, I was robbing God. And I got to a point where I was dogmatic about it. So where automatically as it comes, it goes. Automatically as it comes, it goes. And let me tell you, it's it's a different when you when you are doing what you're supposed to do, you get to put a demand on God. You get to say, like, hey, like I remember one time, not recently, it wasn't too far ago. I was like, hey, Jehovah Jirah, you say use my provider, you gotta show up. And I'm telling you, somebody that owed me money, still owes me money now, send me $500. And I say, you know what, God, you very funny. You very, very funny. And to each his own, you might have your own relationship, but we just have a one-on-one because I just have to have this dialogue and these questions. So I definitely believe I definitely believe that once you have discipline and you stick to it, you're gonna see the result. The thing is, is that most people quit when it gets hard.
SPEAKER_01I agree with you. Whether you want to call it tithing, whether you want to call it paying yourself first, the discipline is what really uh matters in it. And when a lot of people learn, you know, I was riding with this successful guy. I actually was taking his class to be a stockbroker, and he was right, I gave him a ride back just to the professor now. He's teaching the class or the lecturer, and he said, Brooks, give me a ride today, but I give him a ride. He said, Brooks, you got any money? So I said, What? What you mean? Anything he asked him for ten dollars is me saying, No, no, no, Brooks. You got any money in the bank? So he said, I got a little something, something. What's up? So he's like, Brooks, you know, he's make a lot of money, you know, Brooks. I say, No, he said, Brooks, you know I ain't got ten thousand dollars. He said, I just think about that. He said, I live in an apartment. This was and this was at least 15. Okay, I'm like been in island traders for 15 years. This is at least this at least seven, this is at least 17, 18, probably 20 years ago, right? And he was like, Brooks, I pay four thousand a dollar, four thousand dollars a month rent. I drive a Mercedes Benz that I probably pay in twenty seven hundred dollars a month to drive. He said, he said, and I got all kinds of women. Ice gold everywhere. He said, but I broke, he said, Ice make a lot of money. How I get broke, and he said, Hey, he says, Somebody sit me down and one day and tell me if you can't put one three, four, five thousand dollars in your bank account and just let that sit, you will never be rich. And that's the discipline, you know. I just wanted to touch on that because you talked about discipline. A lot of us can't have money in our bank account without burning a hole in our pocket, and we gotta find something to spend that on. But one of the things I want to touch on, or one of the secrets I want to touch on, and how I the only reason I was able to save, Kathy. I was telling them before you came back about me saving money at Ross automatically. I don't know if you heard that.
SPEAKER_00I heard that. I heard that.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay, okay. And the only reason I was able to save that ten thousand dollars and God's honest truth is because I couldn't touch it, I didn't even know I had it. Because if I knew I had that, that was gone. I tell you, something's gonna come up that I can spend that.
SPEAKER_00So you didn't believe in um delayed gratification?
SPEAKER_01No, I know me, but I getting back to the point that you made, it taught me how to save money without really teaching me. Because after that experience, it said, Wow, Brooks, now I see what it means to save money and take that money to use it for an investment. Now I did investments before, but I usually was a lump sum when I made a thing, sold a car or sold a house or something, and I would get a lump sum and take that and flip it. But that was the first time where I gradually saved money and used that gradual savings or that the that amount from my gradual savings to make an investment. And sometimes I want to say one of the secrets you gotta do with that savings that you make that you do make automatically, you gotta put that away from yourself. Put that in one CD or put that in a new under your left breast. No, do not put it under the S-breast, don't put it under your bed, don't put it in the checking account, don't put it in the savings account. Do not put that money there because you know it's gonna happen. Your car can break down and you can go get the money. Your transmission can go, you can go get the money. Your cousin, your cousin on foofu can needs cancer or surgery, and you can be like, Lord, I can't let my cousin die, and you can go get that money. That's what you can do. I know what happened. A gal can come and tell you how she can't pay her rent, and use a nigga, and you're trying to get this gal, you can't go touch that money.
SPEAKER_00Or you could put it in the savings account with a life insurance company that's just a plug.
SPEAKER_01Hey, remember now that's in the blah blah blah. The Caribbean different from America, so you're like, You could do that in the Caribbean too.
SPEAKER_00That's a big thing.
SPEAKER_01Okay, good, good, good, good, good, good. I hear you, I hear you.
SPEAKER_00Um, guess what? You must see mix up a what's that timing? Yeah, you must see mix up eh, hey, thank god.
SPEAKER_01What are we talking about today? What do you mix up is about? Tell tell the people what it's about.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's gonna be about you know, about 10 minutes where we touch on what's going on, like that the the trending topics in the Caribbean, not only in the Bahamas, because like Antoine mentioned before, yes, our roots are the Bahamas, we're name Kong Salad, but we wanna be the voice of the Caribbean diaspora, right? So this week we're gonna talk about the first topic is um Barbados and Guyana. So Barbados and Guyana basically um came to an agreement that you don't need a passport to go in between the two countries. So if you've born, if you're Bayesian and you want to go to Guyana, you can go just like you go into another city in Barbados.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's beautiful and it's coming more, it's growing more towards a carricorn, the single market economy. Whether Bohemi like it or not, one day it's gonna become a single market economy. I don't y'all could get mad and try to say y'all gonna be like England and y'all don't want y'all can Brix it if you all want to, but one day it's gonna happen. Whether the Bahamas wants to become involved with it or what time the Bahamas becomes involved with it, it is. But to me, I feel that we're better together and more and and it's more difficult to be a part. And if I could just extend on that comment one more time, I always thought that why, as Caribbean nations, we don't bind together when it comes to so many things. Like, we should have a teacher's college for the Bah for the Caribbean, like one nation should have a college where all our teachers go, don't care where you are in the Caribbean, to be trained. We should have like Jamaicans, they're good in sports. All Caribbean athletes should go to Jamaica for training. Maybe Trinidad and Tobago might be good at I don't know, something else. Uh being like Cuba is good at doctors. We should be sending all our people to Cuba to be trained as doctors. Like we should work together instead of trying every country trying to be separate and apart, and everyone has to have their own facilities and like like we're not in competition with each other.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but you know what that is, right? That's slavery mentality. It's just slavery mentality in today's world because it's like crabbing a barrel. You understand? So we like, oh, Bahamas is better, or Jamaica is better, or this is better. We just get off of the ship at different times. You know, most of our foods are very similar. One may just put a little bit more salt. You understand what I'm saying? But one may call it peas and rice, the other call it rice and peas. It's a mentality, it's a mentality, yeah. I wonder if um, I wonder if the Bahamas and Jamaica will come up in that agreement that you could go to Bahamas, um, go to Jamaica without a passport and come to come to Bahamas, but it'll be all kind of I can say that it'll be all kinds of.
SPEAKER_01Y'all behemoths think y'all, you're you're but y'all behemoths, you all some racist people, but geez, I don't know where y'all come from. Yeah, why you say you're y'all, y'all think y'all the first thing y'all shout, poor money work more, but y'all don't fail to realize is in the economics of things. If you ever do any financial education or you study mathematics, y'all realize that it all plays itself out. So, yes, you could get food and all kinds of stuff, probably cheaper in Jamaica than getting here when you go to the restaurant and all that stuff, right? But in actuality, when I say it all plays itself out, when you buy a television here in the Bahamas for a certain amount of money and you go to Jamaica to buy a television, when you convert the money to US dollars, it's all about the same. So it's like you're not, it's not really about what your money is worth, really. Is they just playing games with you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't hop into that best thing. I just don't. Here's the thing, and I just have to let people be who they are because at the end of the day, I born bred in dead Bohemian, even though I could talk patois. If you ask me where I'm from, I'm from the Bahamas. I am proud. But here's the thing I don't like when people just be like, Oh, well, yeah, our water is the prettiest. How you ever been to Exuma? You see them keys.
SPEAKER_01Who say water is the prettiest? What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this Jamaican girl I didn't know, and I had to shut her right down.
SPEAKER_01See, but this is the discipline. But no, this is the thing. Listen, yeah, it's sort of like we all let's just say the Bahamas. There's a bunch of different islands here in the Bahamas. You can be power proud, sorry, to come from Grand Bahama. And if we're having inter-island sports, you can chair for your team, you can chair for your whatever. But at the end of the day, we are all Caribbean people, we are all people of color, we all have basically the same struggles, we all go through the same stuff. So I'm still saying we're better together. Would you rather sell to 400,000 people? That's the population of the Bahamas, or would you rather sell to 40 million people the population of the Caribbean? I would rather sell to the 40 million because if I can get a dollar to every one of them, I'm I I'm 40, I'm gonna get 40 million dollars, and if I could get a dollar to every Bohemian, I only got 400,000. That's the big difference.
SPEAKER_00Hey, bro, we on a straight path. We on a straight path to reach them. Don't go this way though, straight path. So, next topic, next topic. So, um, Trinidad and Tobago, you say they become the what you say the US run them now. How'd that go?
SPEAKER_01I say the US run them. They the US supposedly doing some head, I won't say headquarters, but some agreement with them where the US military works out of Trinidad and Tobago now and some stuff like that. One of the things that what I found out is they have some agreements in place where you know US military aren't gonna be, if any any crimes or certain crimes, any crimes performed when you're not in military duty will be prosecuted in Trinidad, but any crimes while you're serving the military or sir will be prosecuted in the United States. So I find that really funny because you know you're gonna be prosecuted or tried by your own military people, and I understand the politics of it, but at the same time, I just wanted to be fair. So that's one of the things that I'm I'm against. I mean, the U.S. has been a great help, so they have the manpower, they have the expertise, they have the helicopters, they have everything. But what I would like to see personally is Why are you saying all the good things about the US? I I said good and bad and everything. But what I'm trying to say is when is when when is the Caribbean going to come together and correct and have a united Caribbean force when all the Caribbean comes together and have a united, when are we going to be able to? Let's just say a person is a criminal in the Bahamas and he's known for housebreaking, he's you know known for whatever, and he travels to Jamaica. He said, I get into Jamaica and they staying on there for a couple months. Like, I feel like if he gets pulled over by a police officer in Jamaica, his criminal record in the Bahamas should be pulled up. So so the Jamaican authorities could be put on, like, hey, we we got a career criminal here. We you gotta look out for this guy. I'm not saying arrest him or harass him, but you gotta be aware, usually, a personal person's history kind of plays out on what they could be. Now, I'm a reformed criminal, you know. I used to break it. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00I ain't gonna say, why would you say that? There's plenty felons that it's cheaper.
SPEAKER_01That's what I stand. I am a reformed criminal, so I agree, but I still think, well, I might be reformed, but my history or my arrest record still follows me throughout my life to this day. So, you know, you you you if you do crime, that's that's the bad thing about it.
SPEAKER_00I but I don't, yeah, but uh, here's the thing though. I don't like, and I just being honest, I don't like like it's let's just say, for instance, you were 17 and they decide to try you as an adult, right? You mean for the rest of your life a decision you made at 17 years old is gonna stop you from being able, and I took ticket from America's side because that's where I am. It's gonna stop you from being able to rent an apartment, it's gonna stop you from being able to get a job, it could stop you from being able to buy a home in a community because you won't be approved by the homeowners association, but yet the president of the United States is a felon. Now, how that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Well, I agree with you. Some things are very unfair, and I agree with you, but one of the things I gotta remember, I want all people to always remember, right? There's something in life called consequences, and you know, you might have a child when you're 15, but that's gonna follow you for the rest of your life. So the decisions that you make in life are gonna follow you, and we gotta stop letting kids and adults feel like it isn't gonna follow you because it is gonna follow you, brother and sister. It is gonna follow you, and I'm living proof of that. It is gonna follow you.
SPEAKER_00I have um, we have last but not least, and don't hey, don't get mad at us. We just talked about what's going on in the Caribbean and around the world. What about these Haitians and the TPS? So in America, you know, like 14 years ago, um, Haitians got a temporary protective order because of the earthquake. Remember when the earthquake happened? They got a protective order, so it's 300,000 of them right now under that. And it was basically it was revolt, so it's expired. They're telling them that they can either self-deport or they'll be deported by ice. Ice, them tell me, pop my clothes, them. What do you think? Before I speak, what do you think about you know what they're doing? What's happening?
SPEAKER_01I think I think you have to look at both sides of the story. My first, you know, to my Haitians, brothers, and sisters out there. I really, and I'm gonna be honest here, I really find it hard that Haitians find it hard to want to go back home. That's just my personal. Now, I'm from the Bahamas, I've never been to Haiti, so let me put the thought out there. So I don't know. Closest I've been is Dominican Republic, and I've never been to Haiti. So I don't know what the conditions are. I don't know the now. If I watch the news and I see what's coming on the news, me myself, and I always sell this to Bahamians and who always have you know disparaging comments. I was like, shit, if I was living there, I was jumping my ass on that boat, too. You think I stay? I say and y'all behaviors can afford to get mad. You think I care if you all get mad? I ain't care because I coming and y'all can say what you all want to say and do what you all want to do, but I ain't staying there. I'm not staying there, and that's from the news. Now I've never been there and lived there, but what I would say is that one of the things that do surprise me are there are a lot of wealthy Haitians that live throughout the world, there are a lot of wealthy Haitians that live here in the Bahamas, and I don't understand how it is that uh some of them when I asked them when last you've been there, or I asked them, Do you have any investments there? Most I I there's only one that ever said that they went back there. I'm talking about a business person, and they had some investments back there. All of the other ones, and the only reason I think that is, is because he still isn't, he doesn't have he's here legally in the Bahamas, but he doesn't have I don't know, citizenship or whatever, green, but I don't know, whatever it's called. He doesn't he's here permanently, so he's here on the work permit. But he's been here for like 30 years, really, on work permit, and he but he has a lot of investments back in Haiti in case he ever has to go back home. He's been taking his money here in the Bahamas and he's been reinvesting it back in Haiti, and he does go home three times a year. So that's the only Haitian I've ever met who I asked that question to the said that they reinvest in their country. But I'll let you go because we're about we need to wrap up. Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I just feel like you know you have to hold on, hold on.
SPEAKER_01One last thing. I don't like how Donald Trump has allowed Europeans to come in America and stay, but you want to kick our brothers and sisters out when you let thousands of Europeans come in America. Okay, that's my life.
SPEAKER_00Because here's the thing America is racist, so it's like America has taught you years after years, decades, that that people like us, they are gonna fight again. So if they're telling you that already, it's like you tell them massa, masa, please let me in the house, please. They don't want to hear. Like, why? Like for me, I just feel like they are very strong people. I've seen them stick together. I just wish they can make like a coalition that they could go back to Haiti and build it back up. Who cares about what happened to the past? Let's leave the past and the past and focus on tomorrow. So, with us wrapping it up, very briefly, if you had one word to say what how you think about money now versus how you thought about it 25 years ago, what would you say? What would that word be?
SPEAKER_01Financial education. You must I think financial education. I mean, I know that's two words, but you have to educate yourself on how to rich many.
SPEAKER_00This would be looking like I know you could call.
SPEAKER_01I couldn't just say education, I had to say what type of education, like for that, like money matters. And if you're not gonna educate yourself on one of the most important things in the world, besides money and health, I don't understand what's going on in your brain.
SPEAKER_00So my word would be resilience. Tough problems don't last, but tough people do. You gotta be resilient, stand, stand firm, and it can get better. See y'all next week.
SPEAKER_01And don't be mixed up.