Generational Business
You have come to the section of the Blueprint that will determine the outcome of your wealth. This is where you begin to make wise decisions on where your capital will have the greatest profit potential. Your banking skills will be put on full display setting the example of building wealth for your family and community. “Start a Business” is the third statement on your business plan. Small business is the backbone of American wealth, might, and power. The time has come to realize the obvious. Black America must participate in business to secure our future for a solid foundation for the next generations.
There are 3 forms of business you want to consider: 1) Investor 2) Property owner 3) Businessman. The number 1 greatest total wealth of any business in this country is property ownership. It has always been and will always be. If you added up all of the total land values in the U.S., it will be worth $45 Trillion. With a number this great, opportunities occur every day. Larry, our resident wealth builder, went out and searched on his own initiative and found a jewel with the purchase of his brownstone. As an estate builder you will purchase property for investment and living purposes. Property may be the best business because it is hands on and it pays returns in more than just money. Lifestyles are developed with property through home ownership. Every wealth builder joining this cooperative should strive to own his own home.
The other 2 forms of doing business are exciting as well. The number one form of investing is stock ownership in public companies. The open market of buying and selling stock is the best invention ever since sliced bread for wealth builders. Larry got his start this way. His capital base grew quickly while he continued to work two positions. What stock ownership does is it allows you to build wealth without ever managing any responsibilities. Someone else does all of the decision making and provides labor for operations while you receive benefit from their work. You even have a say in what decisions are made. You have a vote and a right to discuss business at shareholder’s meetings. Owning stock is the same as owning a percentage of a business. Some of you could become very wealthy this way without ever investing in the other two vehicles.
The other form of doing business is owning your own business. It is the most exciting, harrowing, exhilarating event a human being could ever do. It is also the most scary, gut-wrenching, nerve-wrecking, life-risking, and fallible event a human can do. You have the outcome of lives hanging by your decisions. 80% of businesses fail within 5 years. Larry didn’t dare try something as difficult as business ownership until he found LaTasha. He recognized her expertise immediately when he met her. He entered into a relationship with her before they ventured into the jewelry business. Use his example of knowing your business or joining with a person with expertise before you invest any of your capital. Many people’s lives are affected by incompetence, greed, and treachery when a business fails. In spite of this, people still risk capital to start a business to build wealth. Please be careful if you decide to take the plunge starting a commercial business. Be competent and learn how to conduct a business from experience. Do not operate by the seat of your pants, flying around recklessly from pillow to post like an unaware idiot. And for all the pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters at the bottom of a wishing well, DO NOT operate your business in a bankroll out of your pocket flashing for all to see. It’s foolish and it could cost you your life. Go back and reread the budget section.
There are other ways to invest, but these 3 business vehicles may be the simplest form of ownership for large numbers of people. We will return to this theme over and over again because of the high success rate of being profitable. We will look at each business in detail.
Stocks
The best business ever is totally within your reach. You don’t have to toil for hours on end, plus you can start immediately, and it’s open every weekday. This business gives you the opportunity to have everything you ever needed or wanted. The business is the stock market. You take your capital, purchase a stock in a company. Now, you are part owner of a business. Other people manage the business and employees conduct all the work to return a profit. You receive part of the profits in dividends from your ownership in the company. When the profits grow every year, this translates into the company becoming more valuable. When the company becomes more valuable, your stock shares become more valuable. Your stock grows in price when the profits grow yearly.
The stock market operates this easily. People tend to make it more complicated than it really is. What about people losing their money in the stock market? What goes up must come down, right? Not always. Risk is involved in all investment, but if a company is growing profits every year, the stock price could keep increasing indefinitely. I think the fear of losing comes from a lack of understanding. We have said Wealth is accumulating assets and equity appreciation. Purchasing the stock is accumulating an asset. The equity appreciation is where people go off the tracks. You can be assured of your wealth increasing in value if the company’s profits grow exponentially yearly.
The number one investment of a Capitalist is business. Purchasing stock in a business is the easiest form of investment. When you purchase a stock, you are expecting a group of people to perform their daily duties of selling goods and services to earn a profit. Shouldn’t you make sure the people are trustworthy to operate with your money? Then your job would be to make sure you choose the right company with a solid management team. Your job would also be to make sure the company has not lost its way while profits remain strong and growing. If you can do these two things, you will be able to operate your own stock ownership business.
The first business Larry, our resident wealth builder, chose was the stock market. Elon Musk of Tesla chooses the stock market to invest in. If a business mogul like Musk first choice is the stock market, what should be your first choice of a business be? Okay, but how do you pick stocks?
Let’s use an example. There are 2 convenience stores in your neighborhood. One has cheap prices, but the store is dirty, has peeling paint on the walls, plus the owner treats people with disdain and is mean to everyone. Compare this to the other store across the street. This store is clean, has nice displays and coolers. The store owner has a great disposition and treats people with respect. The owner volunteers monthly for community functions. The difference is this store has higher prices for snacks, drinks, and food. Which store do you shop in? An easy choice.
Choosing a stock is as easy as choosing between the two stores. How can you tell if a company is acting like the second store owner? By getting to know the company you want to invest in. First off do you use the company products? Do you like the products? How many of you have an I-phone? Do you like it? Does it mean you can invest in Apple? Maybe.
About Apple, does the company have a good management team? Yes, it does, headed by Tim Cook who has led the company to greater profits since Steve Jobs turned over control to him. Are those profits growing every year? Yes. Does Apple run a smooth operation? Have you ever visited an Apple store? Then you know how smooth it keeps its business. Is Apple a good stock to invest in? Yes, it has been for the last 30 years, and is still one of the top performers. Larry’s number one stock is Apple.
How many stocks do you need? Unless you are running an investment fund, you only need three stocks. This keeps your ability to follow and manage your portfolio simple. How do you know when it is time to sell your stock? You should never sell your stock unless it moves below its 150 day moving average, meaning it is losing money. The other reason is you have a better business to invest in giving you a better return. Larry sold half of his stock to put a down payment on his Triplex in Sugar Hill. His stocks were returning 35% a year, an excellent return. He invested in his own real estate business which returned 409% the first year, a much better return.
The reason you start your first business in the stock market is the same reason Larry started his in the stock market. It puts your money to work immediately. Larry’s capital was doubling every 2 years at the 35% rate of return. Do you have to go into any other business? Most likely you will because investing in your own projects can be very prosperous. You may not be up to the challenge of putting in the effort and being responsible for the totality of every task. Purchasing stock for investing eliminates these responsibilities. If I took this route, I would continue to add capital into my portfolio, so it can grow at a much faster rate.
Real Estate
Land is at the center of every activity known to people. Land is everywhere you go. Land is where we live. Land is valuable.
In the Generational Business segment, it was stated, the greatest volume of wealth is property. Land in America is worth 3 times more than the whole stock market. Land is worth more because there will be no more made. Meaning it can’t be created. It is limited, once it runs out, that’s it. A builder cannot build anything without having land to build on. The theme of this website is “Rebuilding our neighborhoods with our own hands.” Can we rebuild or build anything without owning the land beneath? Absolutely not!
My objective is to show you the benefits of building wealth through accumulating appreciating assets. This is a worthy task but if we do not or cannot be in control of our everyday lives, wealth will be the least of our concerns. Simple question, do you rent or do you own? If you rent, it’s not the end of the world, but what you are doing is building another person’s wealth. Think about the amount you spend every month just to live under shelter. Your payment contributes to the wealth of someone else. Now, think of your entire community renting or owning.
The whole focus of building an estate is to direct all of your spending into wealth building vehicles. Your greatest expense is rent or mortgage. If it is rent or worse you live on someone else’s home expenses, you are moving in the wrong direction. Every time you move to a new location, you start the process all over again. You spend all of your time working in employment at the bottom level of the hierarchy of an economy just to spend all of your earnings on rent to build someone else’s wealth. Can you see the importance of building a real estate foundation?
The question of which is more important, time or money, definitely hits home when real estate is concern. Let’s try to use a little vision. What if every man you know in our community purchased his own home. What would be the result? All of those monthly mortgage payments would one day come to an end in 15 or 20 years, ownership and wealth would be the result. This builder teaches his kids to do the same. At the end of each life would be a worthy estate to pass on for the next generation to build something even greater. Purchasing real estate builds wealth. Purchasing real estate also builds lives. Use your time and effort to build your family prosperity with real estate.
The Building Business
Did you know long ago in the past, Black men used to build their own homes? It is true. When I was a kid, Black craftsmen were in the neighborhood everywhere. There were brick and stone masons, carpenters and framers, plumbers, electricians, and thousands of painters. If you wanted to build your own house, you didn’t have to go far to find specialty contractors. The disappearance of skilled workers started when immigrants moved in and took these positions for lower pay causing a loss of income and vitality in our community. Other factors included alcohol addiction, family constraints, and political unfamiliarity. Once drugs entered the picture, it eliminated the Black skilled tradesmen.
Real estate is a hands on business, you have to get dirty and physical to gain value. This involves a tremendous amount of brute strength. Some how today’s values doesn’t include physical strength as an asset. It has somehow been downgraded to neediness. If you are seen doing physical labor you are stupid or worse, you are a servant. This is a mistake to think this way.
Did you know an astute plumber can build his business into a half million dollars every year even though he works with raw sewage. I know a gentleman who paints middle lines on roads and his business clears $5 million annually. Physical labor will always be needed. Being a laborer is where you start, owning your own business is where you finish with the experience you learned from being a laborer.
Every young men should get in the habit of being able to fix items around his house. Even if he doesn’t do it for a living, he should be able to follow along with what a contractors does to his home to not be taken advantage of.
Returning to our resident Master Builder Larry in the Blog pages for an example, Larry started his career as a janitor. Almost everyone considered this demeaning work. Larry was smart and understood this was a steppingstone to better pursuits. The job also served his immediate need of income to take care of himself. On his first real estate purchase, he used his experience being a janitor to work on his own building. He was able to turn his knowledge of building trades into $1.1 million in profit in one year. He only spent $75,000 in materials because he did most of the work himself. More importantly, his position of janitor put him in frequent contact with other skilled tradesmen. He used these relationships to hire out services on his building for a fraction of the cost.
Currently in 2024, there is a shortage of men going into contracting and building. This is an opportunity that will pay huge for you in the future. You want to build an estate worthy of consideration, become a construction builder and follow in the footsteps of Larry. You will be able to purchase numerous properties to build wealth.
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Business Go Time
It’s business go time. I really should not have to say this but look around our neighborhoods. There are not many commercial establishments lining the main avenues. We provide less than 1/3 of 1% of the jobs in our community. If Black people living within our community want to work, they must go to other neighborhoods and work for others. The occasional fast food chain and supermarket is the exception. In this blueprint, I do not state statistics to point out what’s wrong with us. What I look at is the enormous potential and opportunity we have presently available.
The opportunity we have right now is to duplicate the Greenwood District and build small businesses at a rapid pace. There is no one standing in between us and this historic time in history. There is excess capital in the marketplace. It is searching for talented men and women to invest in. You have a business idea and you have tested it to see if people like your product or service, then pursue your business. Before you take the plunge, follow the steps in your simple 3-step business plan first. 1) Always earn an income 2) Build a Bank. Does this mean you will have to work while trying to start a business? Yes, it does. If you don’t, you will most likely spin your wheels and become disappointed in your results.
Our resident wealth builder Larry took the time to build a solid financial foundation before he launched his business. He piggybacked on other large capital businesses by investing in their stock to grow his capital base. He was able to launch successfully because he fully understood how to structure a business without much debt. He also teamed up with competent people who could see his vison clearly without conflict. He didn’t just start a small business without having any expertise. He entered the jewelry business with his new partner LaTasha. He brought his strength of having a strong economic foundation together with her expert knowledge of the in’s and out’s of the jewelry business. They complemented each other’s strength’s and covered each other’s weaknesses. This makes for a powerhouse partnership. I asked that you read Larry’s story from start to finish to demonstrate the time and patience it takes to build a business from the ground up. Go back to page 3 in the Larry section of the blog and start at chapter 1.
Business creation is not a random act. It is a deliberate, intensive, and advancing act to produce a whole operation that wasn’t there before. The more profit producing businesses we can place in our neighborhoods, the more we can grow economically. The catch is to do it in a manner that increases the harmony in our community. We can initiate peace if we go the extra mile to do it. This is exactly what good businesses demonstrate. It is business go time! Who will stand up and answer the call. Go Quickly!
Collectibles , Art, & Gold
Treasures
Collectibles are a part of investing that’s fun. You can turn it into a hobby where you meet people of all backgrounds. Collecting is like going on a real life treasure hunt. People tend to think more about art when you talk about collections. Art is the number one collection. But you can collect antiques, Persian rugs, classic cars, dolls, coins, antique books, dresses, vinyl albums, and my favorite, stamps…
What gives collections value is someone must want to own the item. If there is no demand for your collection, then it will be worth nothing. Example: Once, while searching for coins and metals, I found a box of old R&B albums in an alley in Southshore Chicago. The box had a personal letter inside written by the late soul music composer Curtis Mayfield. I put the 30+ albums for sale on Craigslist. A gentleman from the northside of Chicago called me within 25 minutes of posting. He wanted to come right over, but I was busy. I made plans to meet with him the next day. He emailed me that night and called me the next morning before he came over.
He was very eager when he got there! He looked them over, a few album covers were mildewed, it didn’t matter to him. There were 5 Curtis Mayfield albums and a couple when he was with the Impressions. He offered me $175 for the box. I said no I want $250. We went back and forth. As a wealth builder you must know how to negotiate. We settled on $225 for the albums, but I kept the letter. He wasn’t happy with that but he took the albums anyway.
I know if I had sold those albums one at a time, I would’ve earned more. My business was about turning cash and time was the issue, so I sold the collection to him. Remember my investment was $0. He wasn’t through with me yet. He wanted that letter. He called me back a week later and offered me $25 for the letter which would’ve brought me to my original $250. I said no I want $50, you know that letter was from Curtis. He laughed and said all right you got me, I should’ve paid you last time. We settled on $35, I laughed too, because he was a good sport about it.
Whenever you do a business deal whether it’s collectibles or a million dollar building, be willing to walk away if you don’t get what you want. To the other extreme, don’t be so obstinate, that you don’t know a good deal when you see one. I sold those albums wholesale to someone who could value this asset for $500 immediately. The wild card was the letter, one day he could get an extreme amount of money for that letter by selling it to the right person. But for right now he was going to enjoy the albums and I got what I wanted because my return on investment was infinity. You cannot calculate assets purchased from a zero cost basis. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Win/win is the way of a Master Wealth Builder.
Boys collect baseball cards, hot wheel cars, and action figures. I collected stamps as a kid. I have been collecting stamps all of my life. My stamp collection is extensive now and I can place it on my balance sheet as a hard asset. I have a terrific time collecting stamps. I have a Black Heritage collection. I also have a President collection. I even have President Obama on a stamp. You do know, you can’t get your face on an American stamp until you die. He is not dead. I had to purchase his stamp from the Caribbean Island of Dominica. I could talk to people about stamps all day long. The best advantage I have in collecting stamps is every time the Post Office raises its prices on stamps, my collection increases in value!
Collecting gives me a tremendous amount of satisfaction. I collect artwork and coins too. In the images above are a few of my favorite pieces in my collection. My friend Ving Rhames suggests collecting art in the video. Yes, he is rough as face stubble but he means well and his words are accurate. Go to an art gallery opening, go to a stamp & coin collecting convention, or join a classic car club to enjoy a beautiful social life with people who have similar interests to yours. It will enrich you materially and spiritually. Coach T
King Gold leads the Pack
Gold: All that glitters
1 troy ounce gold = $2,063 11/23
oz of gold = $2,365 04/11/24 up^ 14.5%
Gold is one of the chemical elements of the universe. Gold’s atomic number on the periodic chart is 79. Its symbol is AU, which is Latin for ‘aurum’ meaning Gold. Mining the element can be a tedious process. It is found in the veins of rock formations, in riverbeds, and caves. It usually comes in the form of small nuggets. There have been large rock sized gold nuggets found in history’s many gold strikes, but that’s rare. It is considered a precious metal because of its rarity. It’s orange-yellowish color makes the element beautiful to look upon. Being beautiful to look at and it being rare to find makes it the ideal metal for people to be attracted to. Gold is the most malleable of all metals. The remarkable characteristic of gold is its ease of shape by goldsmiths and jewelry makers. Gold rings, necklaces, and coins will keep this precious metal in high demand for a long time to come.
Gold earliest known use in civilization was 5,000 years before the birth of Christ by the country Bulgaria. An Italian Fine Jeweler named their company Bvlgari because of this historic fact. Very smart marketing indeed. Historic gold uses were for jewelry and household furnishings. It became so popular that people began trading these items like currency. Then they went straight to trading the gold itself. Next, they turned gold into currency in the form of coins to pay directly for goods and services. It was used this way for thousands of years up to the last 150 years when paper currency became the norm for purchasing goods and services. In this country, the American dollar was backed by gold until August 1971. Meaning the dollar was guaranteed its value because you could demand gold if the dollar failed. Former President Nixon took America off the gold standard shocking the world’s economies in the process. This allowed the price of gold to grow at a rapid pace. It grew from $35 a troy ounce to $850 a troy ounce in less than 8 years.
Now that we know a little about the history of gold, why should you own it? The reason a wealth builder should own gold is because of President Nixon taking the dollar off the gold standard. Whenever there is danger or trouble in the world such as a World War, the dollar will fall in value while concurrently the price of gold will rise rapidly. This happens because gold, being a precious commodity, is recognized in every country of the world with their own commodities exchange to buy and sell the metal. Gold would revert back to being a currency and you could use it to purchase goods and services. In other words, when the world is going to hell being destroyed by foolish people, you would be able to survive in this hostile environment because you would have your stash of gold assisting you in your movements to live while everyone else that wasn’t prepared will perish. This makes gold a hedge of protection in a terrible dangerous environment. Remember, as a man you want to provide for your family. This include protecting your family when the world is falling apart. The only asset that can do this is Gold.
As a wealth builder, I do not want you to run out and invest all of your money in gold. Gold is a non-income producing asset meaning it will not bring you a passive income. You want to invest only 5% of your total wealth in gold. Gold does bring you a capital gain of 3 – 5% a year, staying just ahead of inflation. It will increase faster if inflation increases, so the value will most likely not decrease, but grow to keep pace with inflation. Gold is more of a hedge of protection first and investment second.
Last but not least. As we stated earlier in the chapter, it is beautiful to look at. Gold is a hands on investment and you have to physically handle it. A 1 kilogram gold brick cost $66,000, Thanksgiving 2023. Being a hands on investment, the best place to store gold is in a safety deposit box in a bank vault. You can easily fit $1 Million in gold bars in a large safety deposit box at your neighborhood commercial bank. If the bank defaults in times of trouble, you may not be able to get your cash savings in the bank, but you will be able to bypass the hordes of people screaming outside and enter the bank to retrieve your gold from your safety deposit box to use for currency. Very smart, right?
Gold is 10,000 years old as an asset class. King Mansa Musa, the wealthiest man ever, built an entire empire with gold. You can build wealth with gold like King Musa. Have fun building wealth and owning this asset but remember what it’s for. It’s a hedge of protection against worldwide disaster. The Golden Rule: He who has the Gold, Rules
Profit
The goal of income is to evolve into passive income. The goal of capital is to return capital gains. The goal of business is to earn profits. Business is somewhat different because it is a mutual shared experience. It involves a group of people as opposed to you working individually in a job or you investing alone. This is why abundant business formation builds community wealth. Lack of business and business failure brings about decline of life and vitality in a community.
Wealth is the ability to accumulate assets. Business ownership is the number one creator and starting point of community wealth. Business generates profits from revenue. Assets are purchased from profits. Without profits, you cannot establish a capital foundation for future investment. Without investment, wealth can’t be built. Without wealth, living standards are lowered and poverty is the result.
For the past several decades, non-profit organizations have grown tremendously in our communities to assist the poor. Yes, these organizations assist, but they do not create wealth. A non-profit exist from the donations of wealthy individuals, governments, and charities. Next year, these same organizations have to be given funds to keep running, then the next… so on and so on. A non-profit can’t build wealth because it does not earn excess funds for reinvestment. It is right in the name itself! No profit is left over for any community asset building at the end of the year. What’s even worse, only 17% of the funds given to non-profits go to the actual cause! So much for giving back and helping others. Profit making enterprises can and will end poverty. You do not need others to do what you can do for yourself. As men of this cooperative we will provide for the people who need assistance through our overabundance of profits coming from our own clients in the community and those visiting from other neighborhoods. The real cycle of healthy community life and vitality.
Think about this, most of the outside money coming into our community goes to poor people that cannot change or improve our situation. Every year millions of dollars from private foundations, corporations, governments, Black athletes, and entertainers goes right in the hands of the impoverished to create generational dependency. Meanwhile, the Black talented entrepreneurial men and women almost get spit on if they try to approach the same groups with relevant business ideas and proposals. Seems totally backwards to me. No other racial group in America operates in this type of unproductive cycle. You give all of the money that should be used to invest into profitable community startups to people that will not even work. FDR started this poverty driven cycle with the new deal back in the 1930’s. 100 years of “giving back”. It is so commonplace, no one even questions it, they just donate. Makes you go Hmmmm! Looks like we must form our own groups like Master Wealth Builder OW Gurley.
Business profits is also not ill gotten gains. Meaning no community ever thrives from criminal activity. You cannot grow by taking from your neighbors. Business profits have a multiplier effect. Crime has a destructive effect. It tears people apart while destroying futures. Lately, every tv show and movie is about gangsters killing people or thieves gaming the system. It seems popular to do things the wrong way than try to correctly perform duties. Nobody goes to see movies of people loving each other in a community.
Compare this to a business. A business existence depends on earning profits to remain operable. If it doesn’t earn a profit, lights out, it’s over. If it does earn a profit, it has excess funds to invest in other ventures or to re-invest those funds internally. Investment capital is seed money to start a new generation of businesses. Do you see the might and intelligence it takes to start businesses producing profit, which in turn produces wealth? You, my young wealth builder, are the engine starter with the strength and might to produce wealth in our communities.
Profit motive in business is a prudent act, not an injurious one. Without profit our communities will continue to be hazardous places to live and visit. Wouldn’t you like people to come and spend money in our community and have a good time. We can surely entertain. We can cook delicious food. We can tell a joke or two. We have fly styles of dress. Our culture is imitated world-wide. The only thing that’s missing is organized business intelligence and profit making abilities to bring the world to our doorstep to see this culture in our own neighborhoods, for a fee of course. Isn’t this how Black Wall Street did it?
Capital investment in the hands of good stewards and business managers benefit the people in our community by raising living standards through job creation and profit making enterprises. Let’s learn from other successful business communities by using their ideas and strategies to create helpful, healthy, and happy environments of growth and prosperity. Then we too, can have modern day Greenwood Districts all over America. Pursue vigorously!
Performing Magic
Rule of 72
We have just established being in business and working in general is about making a profit every single month. It’s time to perform a little magic. I introduce you to the mighty number of 72, for clarification, The rule of 72.
When you make a profit, it is presented in the form of a percentage. We have established our sweet spot of the profit goal for a year being in the range of 15% to 20%. Whether it is saving your money as an employee of 20% of your income, building your bank account. Or if your stock portfolio is growing at 15 – 20% a year. Or if your business is producing a profit of 15 – 20% a year. When you are making a profit of 20% a year and you put that capital into an investment, the rule of 72 says your wealth will double in 3 ½ years.
Rule of 72- You divide the rate of return (20%) into 72 and the answer is 3.6 = 3 ½ years to double your money.
35% return 72 divided by 35 = 2.05 or 2 years to double your money
25% return 72 divided by 25 = 2.88 or 2 years 11 months to double your money
15% return 72 divided by 15 = 4.8 or 4 years 9 months to double your money
10% return 72 divided by 10 = 7.2 or 7 years 3 months to double your money
5% return 72 divided by 5 = 14.4 or 14 years 5 months to double your money
2% return 72 divided by 2 = 36 or 36 years to double your money
The rule of 72 gives you a quick gauge to see how your money is working for you in an instant off the cuff. No matter where you are or what you are doing, you can determine how fast your wealth is growing if you know the rate of return.
This is magic you can use at any moment in your life.
Diy
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Chinese proverb
I don’t know about you but I’m ready to do some fishing. We have come to the point in the Blueprint where we must say farewell. The whole idea of the Blueprint is achieving what’s most important to you. Being able to provide for your family comfortably and sharing in the finer things in life while leaving a foundation for your children to build upon. This is called self-sufficiency. Men and women working together to build a better community through productive profitable means.
Becoming a wealth builder and a man of capable means can be challenging. You will be surrounded by naysayers, negativity, and people opposing you outright saying it can’t be done. It is sad and very damaging. When I was growing up, I heard all the time a Black man will never be president. You know, you are never supposed to use the word never, right? I guess former president Barack Obama, didn’t hear about being Black and being the president at the same time because he grew up so far away in Hawaii. Maybe he did hear it, but he ignored it every time it was voiced. The point is if a Black man living in America can become President of the United States. Each and every one of you can build an estate worth a million dollars or greater. You can become an OGOG by opening the door to economic independence for your family creating Black wealth.
Two of my favorite OGOG’s are not men, they are women. Harriet Tubman and Madame CJ Walker. An OGOG is one who lays their time, money, effort, and even their life on the line for others to advance. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. These two remarkable women did just that and more. You should watch the movie, “Harriet”. It shows the risk and courage involved in attaining freedom. She didn’t only run the obstacle course of slave catchers and bounty hunters for her freedom. She went back time and time again to do it for over 300 of her people left in slavery.
How many of you know breaking the law can get you shot and killed in this country? The bounty on Harriet Tubman’s head was $40,000. That would be $1.5 Million today. Everyone she went back for was eager to be free and ready to leave except her family members. When she went for her sister Rachel, she threatened to scream if Harriet tried to take her. Eventually Rachel was killed by her owner after she gave up the identity of her own sister, “Black Moses”. The funny thing is when she went back a 2nd time for Rachel’s teen aged daughter, her daughter packed her little knapsack and was ready to leave in 30 seconds. “You come for me, give me two shakes, Let’s go!”
The moral of this story and it will be your story too, is people closest to you will not be happy with you striving to accomplish self-sufficiency and surely not becoming wealthy. It’s as if you have the audacity to strive for wealth right in their face. The reason I can say this with 97% clarity is because only 3% of African Americans are in business, and even less are economically independent. Nineteen out of twenty people you come across cannot see we do not participate in business creation. That’s a whole heaping boatload of people that either don’t understand about self-sufficiency or do not care about being self-sufficient through business creation. Do not let this discourage you, this is a new day and the handwriting is definitely hanging on the wall. It’s only a matter of time before the tidal wave of prosperity overruns African American communities by builders, producers, and business developers. If you do not participate in the economy by producing going forward, you will perish.
You are on this journey all by yourself. You must do all the work yourself. You will be standing against a mob of disgruntled people by yourself. I call it, “Walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” Why? Because you will have to leave everything you have ever known behind. Dying doesn’t sound like fun, does it? That, young prince, is a correct statement. It can be disheartening and lonely at the same time. The pressure of being ostracized can be unbearable, just don’t flake out, because on the other side will be the freedom of prosperity making all the suffering worth it. The reason it is the valley of death is because you are killing poverty in your family. Be careful who you go back to assist in setting free because you do not want a Rachel on your hands. Screaming at the top of their lungs and clawing at your face, threatening you with “I’m going to tell on you to the authorities.” Leave these people alone. If they love being in poverty, do not try to educate them, do not try to appease them with monetary gifts, and for the life in you, don’t tell them anything about your net worth or anything about your business. Miserable, angry people can do a tremendous amount of damage to what you are building.
We can and will build our communities into modern productive economic forces to be reckoned with. That’s it, that’s all I have to say. Be well young wealth builder, no matter what your age is. (If you are 41 and just starting, you are a young wealth builder). Friend, grow and prosper!