Breaking the Cycle with Smart Money Moves

Unlock the keys to financial liberation and establishing a legacy of wealth with Dr. Shon, a Motivational Dentist whose life story is a testament to the transformative power of money smarts. Step away from the shackles of ignorance and into a world where financial literacy is the cornerstone of community upliftment. I, Dr. Shon, invite you to gauge your own financial literacy score and begin the journey from novice to savant in the realm of economics. Embracing this challenge could very well be the first stride towards ensuring prosperity for you and the generations that follow.

Embarking on this episode, we confront the stark realities that face underprivileged communities, where the cycle of living paycheck to paycheck is a daunting norm. With anecdotes from my own experience and practical advice, we navigate through the essentials of saving, investing, and the art of debt management. We also unpack the significance of retirement planning and the safeguarding aspects of insurance. Tune in for an enlightening discussion that demystifies financial terms like interest rates and inflation, and reveals how understanding credit can be your ally in seizing opportunities and cementing financial stability. Join us as we lay out the blueprint to not just survive economically, but to thrive and pass on the torch of wealth to future generations.

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Chapters

• 0:01 Financial Literacy for Generational Wealth
• 13:40 Financial Literacy and Wealth Building

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey dreamers and gold diggers, welcome to the Hood to Hooded podcast. With Dr Shonda Motivational Dentistry, we're here to elevate your game in business, entrepreneurship, mental and physical wellness and financial literacy, all aimed at helping you create generational wealth. Grab your pens and pads, because we're diving deep into strategies to boost your mindset and set you on the path to happiness and success. All aboard the Hood to Hooded Express, let's get started.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Hello kings and queens, welcome back to the Hood to Hooded podcast with Dr Sean, the motivational dentist, and today we're diving into a topic that is crucial for building generational wealth, and that topic is financial literacy, guys. So this topic is so near and dear to my heart because it's something that is lacking in the communities where I come from, where people who look like me are never taught this. So one of the main goals of this podcast is to introduce different financial literacy topics, ideas and skills into your life so that we can all get better and build more generational wealth. Because I didn't come from anything. I started from nothing.

Speaker 2: 1:28

That's why this podcast is titled Hood to Hooded, because we need to be motivated in the hood to get out of that, get out of that poverty mindset. Get out of the mindset that says that we have to give our time away for chump change. I'm sick of it, I'm tired of it and I just want to change it. I feel so cheated that I wasn't taught about so many different concepts when it comes to money, because I was a very bright child. Even the journey to becoming a doctor, there was no road map. There was nothing laid out. Nobody in my family was a dentist. It's kind of like I went into it blindly and just and allow I, allow god to lead me, so god is always required for the recipe.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Um, and in addition to that, you have to do your hard work and your homework.

Speaker 2: 2:17

So when we talk about, you know, breaking generational curses, building generational wealth and being financial, financially literate, it is a big step in your life and it can change your life, so welcome, let's dive in. So one thing that I want to know and I want you to just think about this amongst yourself, if you're driving, if you're watching, wherever you are just what is your financial literacy score? So everyone isn't on the same level and some people are more financially literate than others. And some people have a plus they know all about the financial tools to building wealth, and some people just don't know, because it's something that is taboo, is not talked about, it's not taught about, even in school with kids. Nowadays, especially, especially this generation they want to know about money, they want to know, and I think even as a young person I wanted to know about money, but I didn't see examples around me. There wasn't really a social media. It was just very different landscape back in the day to what it is now.

Speaker 2: 3:22

It just wasn't in the hood, it's just still not in the hood and it's an unfair advantage, so we have to change it. So I want you guys to think what is my financial literacy score if you could give yourself a grade from a all the way down to an f? F meaning you know nothing about financial literacy, you basically financially illiterate. You don't know anything about the topics. Um wealth, you just grew up like me, generationally encouraged, but I didn't realize until I was older that some of my family members knew certain tools, but they just didn't talk about it. They didn't tell us because maybe they didn't think we needed to know that.

Speaker 2: 4:02

So are you an F or you know nothing? Or are you an A? Were you an expert? You have experience with financial education, you use tools, you have generational wealth. Where are you? I would say that I am, like, definitely not an A yet, because I have so much learning to do when it comes to this topic. I mean, when it comes to being a dentist, that's an A. But when it comes to being financially literate, with every single topic, every single tool, I will probably give myself a strong C+. And I want to be hard on myself because I know that I have so much growing to do and I want us all to grow together. So, if you found this podcast before we dive into this topic of what is your financial literacy score, and you know why is it so important for us to believe in our dream because it's going to cost us. So you want to be prepared and you want to be unapologetic and unafraid of money.

Speaker 2: 5:02

Okay, so this is going to be a great topic, especially if you are new, young perhaps you come from the hood like me then you might want to press play. Grab your paper, your pen and just take some notes.

Speaker 2: 5:16

Get your mind back into the the idea of just learning, and don't take it too serious if you're new to this, if you're new to this just, you know, listen, take a few notes and see where you stand, grade yourself and if you are seasoned at this, just take the inspiration from it. You know, give back to other people who don't know, go back to the teach the kids, teach the youth, because they want it, they need it and I wish I had it.

Speaker 2: 5:40

Okay, all right. So what does it mean to be? What is financial literacy basically? So it's the knowledge of budgeting, saving and investing that empowers us to make informed decisions about our personal and business finances. Okay, it's a multifaceted topic that requires studying and implementation of the skills that we are learning in this hood to hood podcast. Okay, so that means we're going to be talking about how do you use this tool. They call money the benjamins all about the dollar.

Speaker 2: 6:15

Are you just spending, spending, spending or are you budgeting? Are you saving? Are you investing now?

Speaker 1: 6:20

that's the word that I can't wait to talk about.

Speaker 2: 6:23

So all of this stuff is going to be broken down into itty bitty pieces so you can absorb it and you can just grow regardless of where you are. So let's examine how we view our income. Okay, so we know that there's so many ways to make money and nowadays you kind of need to be uh, multi-talented and have multiple streams of income if you really want to secure your financial future. We're going to go into the different streams of income a little bit more in detail, but there are so many ways. You could do a service like dentistry and make an income. You can work for somebody and be an employee and make an income. You could be a business owner and make an income. You could be in the stock market and invest your money and do passive income. So there's different types of income and you should have more than one income tool to help you get over the challenges financially that come into your life, so that you can have happiness and not worry about money. Okay, you don't want to work every second for money because you're going to run out of time and realize that you're wasting all your time working for money. We don't want to do that. I don't want to do that. You don't want to do that. We don't want to do that. So we have to learn this money and how to implement it as a tool in our mindset and in our life. All right, so when you learn how to use money as a tool, this is giving yourself the financial education you need to make better decisions in your life. You're not going to be perfect at it, so don't beat yourself up. Just take a day at a time. Be happy every day, despite where you are financially. Just always aim to get better and learn and grow and budget and save and invest wisely, of course. All right.

Speaker 2: 8:04

So let's start by talking about you. Know what can you do with your income that you receive? Wherever you get your income from through through the multiple sources or the one source what are you doing with your money? Are you budgeting it? Are you saving it? Are you investing it? Are you using it as cash? What role does financial literacy play in your life? Where are you when you get a Benjamin in your hand? Where are you when you get the green in your hand or the blue note, so whatever you call it? Where are you in the mindset when you get it? Are you just going and spending it on any company? Or are you learning like, hmm, maybe I'll open up a brokerage account and start trying to learn how to put it in the stock market so it can grow? Maybe I will do some investing into my retirement, maybe I will invest in a business, or, you know, you have to really think what am I using this tool for? Am I just like going to work, turning this tool into the grocery store, to this bill, to that bill, to that bill, and repeating it?

Speaker 2: 9:05

That's how we get propelled into generational curses. I've seen it growing up as a child so much uh, bouncing checks, going to the cash, payday loan place, all these different things, even in college. I went to the payday loan people so many times in college not knowing. Psychologically, this is what I saw and it took me so long to get out of the chokehold of that, because you never make enough and the interest rate is high. So these all things play a big part in your life. If you have loans and bills and if you have, like mortgage and car notes, these things, all you have to be financially literate. I think that everybody needs this skill. So this is why we're talking about it today.

Speaker 2: 9:47

All right. So how has money shaped your life? How do you view money? Do you view it negatively, positively, and do you just feel like you idiot when it comes to money? Or do you feel like you, on top of your game? You have investments, you have tools, you have insurance policies. You just on point, you giving back. That's what I call a plus. When you giving back, you you have the knowledge you're giving it back and you know you don't really have to work and give your time away. That's an a plus to me. So we all aiming to be there. So just think about where are you today.

Speaker 2: 10:20

On your financial literacy journey on this hood to hood journey. Okay, where are you all right? So we're going to break down some terms today to help you get more acclimated with what financial literacy is and so that you can start filling your mind with these words and thoughts, so that you can figure out what type of person you want to be when you retire, where you want to go, what are your financial goals. Because we got to have goals. You know, if you don't have a goal and you're not planning, you're planning to fail. All right, we got to have goals. Goals will get you gold. I like that, but anywho. So here's three terms that we're going to dive into first. Now, where do you fall among these three terms?

Speaker 1: 11:05

number one a producer.

Speaker 2: 11:06

These are people, are businesses that provide goods or services. So my dental company, motivational dentistry, would be a producer. We, we produce services, we provide oral hygiene products. We are giving and producing something in the community, okay, and in reward for that we get income, all right. So, consumer? A consumer is someone who uses goods or services. So if you use these goods or services and this is pretty much all of us I'm a consumer, we're all consumers. We all spend our cash flow somewhere.

Speaker 2: 11:40

So, this is a trick when it comes to financial literacy, guys, where are you spending your cash flow? What are you spending your cash flow? Where are you investing your cash flow? Are you budgeting your cash flow? If you are a consumer, even if you are a producer, these same terms apply. Another level is entrepreneur. This is a person who creates and manages a business. All right, so basically I would be an entrepreneur and a producer, because with dentistry, I actually produce. Entrepreneur you open up a business. So the business side of it, the producer side of it, the entrepreneur side of it you are generating income. Consumer side you are giving away your income because you are using something. So when you're using something, you want to be kind of invested in it and make it have a purpose. You don't want to go through life 40, 50 years just spend it every year. You don't know where your money is going, you're not doing taxes, you're just completely financially illiterate and you don't know how to grow your money. All right, so did y'all get that? Like producer, consumer, entrepreneur, which one are you? Are you a producer, a consumer or an entrepreneur?

Speaker 2: 12:51

Now let's dive into some more financial terms that are really going to help you level up your game, all right. So the first we're going to talk about is budget and expense management. So this is the first level of financial literacy how are you going to budget your money? This is creating a plan for spending and saving based on your income and expenses. So you have a business you got to think about. Okay, I'm getting a hundred dollars. How am I going to split this hundred dollars up? I have overhead to pay. I have to pay this person. What is my profit, even in a household, when you get your income, how are you divvying up your money? Do you have enough to pay everything, or are your expenses? Are your luxury items, your nails, your hair? Is this taken away from you? Paying your debt and really budgeting so that you can live, not like check to check, like most of the people I know.

Speaker 2: 13:40

In the hood where I came from, we, we was, check to check, we, we, we was, we was, you know, and back in the day, you know, our grandmas could go to the grocery store and give them a check. That wasn't good, but you know, we ate that night and I saw this a lot. So I'm speaking from first-hand experience. Because we didn't. They didn't have enough money to budget. And that's a real problem in the hood is that we don't even start with enough money to budget. So we have to just do what we can, what we can, and just make it work, and we don't want to keep doing that forever. We want to set our kids up with this knowledge so that they can go on and be better than we are. All right, and I want to keep growing as an adult. Even though I wasn't taught this, I have to teach myself these skills. Go out and take classes, teach other people. This is how we get better.

Speaker 2: 14:25

So the second thing is saving and investing. Now this is the biggie, because a lot of people don't even have enough money after budgeting, or if they don't budget, to save or to invest. So their money never grows, their life never grows and they always stay stuck in a check to check cycle, but just like a hamster on a wheel. So this is setting aside money for your future and growing wealth through investments. So when you save and you invest, you putting a little something to the side. So when you get older or something happen, you want to have you a little nest egg, right. So now you're thinking okay, I'm getting this income. I'm budgeting now, I'm managing my expenses. I have a little something love Now. I can either save it or invest it and grow it so that one day these investments can pay for my lifestyle. Right Debt management you don't want to go into too much debt, so if you make an income and your debt is high, you're never going to get out of that hole. You don't even have anything to save or invest. So you want to manage that efficiently and make as much money as possible to pay down your debt. So you have nails, lashes, louis, gucci, fendi in debt. It doesn't make sense unless it's business, and you know what I mean. That's different.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Number four retirement planning. We don't think about life after work, but retirement planning is so important. What are you doing to retire? Even if you're an entrepreneur, you have to put a little bit of something to the side because you don't want to work forever. I know me. I want to travel, go around the world as I get older. I don't want to be stuck working. That is not my goal. So whatever I have to do to make that not a reality, I'm going to do it.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Even as a little kid I said you know, I see my grandparents. They're, they are. You know their job doesn't pay them that well and it's probably one of the hardest jobs in the building. They were CNAs. They struggled. I said I gotta do something different. So I said I gotta be a doctor. I don't know why, but you know, my mom gave me the idea. But once she passed away I'm like this is what I got to do. That's why she told me to do it. But even at this level you still have to keep leveling up and learn money Otherwise it doesn't even matter if you don't understand how money is a tool.

Speaker 2: 16:32

So you have to learn this, no matter what level you are on Retirement, you don't want to work. I don't want to be drilling teeth when I'm 80. I just don't. I want to teach or do something else or contribute to society in another way, if God allows me to still be here.

Speaker 2: 16:50

Number five insurance and risk management. This is so key to your financial literacy. You don't want to go and ruin your life by not being prepared when things happen. Life insurance, business insurance, home all of these different transits but especially life insurance as a tool is important risk risk management. So with your investments, you want to manage your risk, even with the life insurance. This is managing any risk that you have for unforeseen circumstances. So you kind of gotta look out for a lot of different things when you are talking about being financially literate. There's so many different things on the radar that you really have to pay attention to to make sure that you are ahead of the ballgame. You can't just sleep on this stuff, because time I time is the most valuable commodity. It's not money, it's really not any of this stuff, but with time, time costs. So if you want to have time to do what you love, you need to own something, you need to have some assets and you need to plan for your future, especially unforeseen circumstances.

Speaker 2: 17:58

Number six understanding financial products like interest rates, inflation, savings account and other derivatives is so important. How does the interest rate impact you? How does inflation impact you? I know everybody who is in the working class and paying taxes and buying groceries and food even the youth can see the inflation nowadays because things are going so crazy. Just in california they raised the minimum wage for fast food workers to 20 per hour and now I mean that's a big, gigantic move on inflation and it's great for the workers, but it is inflating the cost of the food. So now mcdonald's isn't 99 cent hamburger they can't afford it. I remember 99 cent hamburger they can't afford it. I remember 99 cent hamburger, 59 cent hamburger. I'm not that old, but that's how fast time goes, all right.

Speaker 2: 18:48

One other thing that is major to your financial literacy process is understanding credit. Business credit, personal credit, are both essential to you having the tools and using other people's money to kind of fund what you need to do and open up better financial opportunities for you. So that's a whole nother topic. So all of these different topics you can see how they can go and be something much bigger once you break them down. But once you hear this introduction to financial literacy, just think about how much you know already and how much you can give yourself credit for and how much you can just learn and add to your portfolio and add to your financial swag. Okay, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to be financially swagalicious. All right, financially swagalicious I'm here for it, guys. So how can you improve your financial literacy? How you can create a budget, you can tackle debt, start investing, improve your credit score, build an emergency fund fund and start an investment portfolio All right. So those are some ways to help you improve your financial literacy, and I think that reading is another way to grow your financial literacy skills.

Speaker 2: 20:20

Youtube has a wealth of financial products and ideas so that you can deepen your knowledge and really generate generational wealth. You know what I mean. So me just coming from poverty and being successful at dentistry it doesn't automatically teach financial literacy or those other things. You really have to make a conscious effort every day to budget, to grow, to learn, to teach your kids and to just aim to be financially wealthy. I know that, um, I have so many goals when it comes to financial literacy. One thing that I really really have gotten kind of heavily interested in in this past a couple years, especially during the pandemic, was day trading, um, looking into the stocks, because, growing up in the hood, you always see the top, the stock tickers and the lines. When they're, when the news is on, they talk about the NASDAQ and the S&P 500 and I don't know none of this stuff me. I literally thought this is just for white old men, like even as a kid, I knew that was something. We just didn't do.

Speaker 1: 21:24

I don't know what that stuff means, it's just weird in my eyes.

Speaker 2: 21:27

You don't. It's kind of like you even just tune it out. You tune it out, but you wouldn't believe that 75% of the people in the stock market are white men Um are, I think, white people. The other, like I would say, 20%, is Asian and Hispanic African American people who look like me. I think we're less than 5% of the stock market, so a number like that is alarming. Because it's just like dentistry there is a representation of less than 3% of African-American dentists in America.

Speaker 2: 22:05

To me, these statistics are astounding and it just shows that there are barriers. There are invisible barriers there that kind of keep us out of these different financial tools. And you have to think to yourself why? How can they? And I can't do it. How? What's stopping me from learning how to do it or doing it?

Speaker 2: 22:26

It's talking about it. If we don't talk about it, we don't even know these things exist. So we will continue to work and give our time away for money, and that's just something I'm not with. And then even just learning about how I want to build my financial future and what tools and skills like trading could I use to add to my financial future. It just opens up a mind full of possibilities that I did not even know existed, and I always try to beat myself up like dang. I wish I had to know about day trading when I was a kid. I could have you know. But everything happens for a reason. I'm learning about it now because God took me through a different journey. You know, sometimes you got to go through with me the example and go do another task that God has you to do, and you'll get to where you're supposed to be in the right timing. Everything happens in the perfect timing. So I'm still new to stocks, I'm still new to day, I'm still new to day trade, but it's something that I actually love.

Speaker 2: 23:21

I just don't have the time to do it because I'm also a dentist. So those two things really battle right now and I kind of put my stock investing on the side to open a business. But the business is just as important because it's a production, it's an entrepreneurship type venture. So I'm excited to be along on this journey with my fiance, making these financial decisions, being an adult, getting life insurance and just even having that mindset at such a young age, especially where we come from, where people never have life insurance, they never think about these things, they never talk about having a will and being financially ready for events such as death, because it's going to happen.

Speaker 2: 24:05

I lost my mom at seven to eight years old and that's the most traumatic thing ever. It's traumatic. You just never know the day or the hour, and time, like I said earlier, is our biggest commodity. So don't waste your time working for other people forever and, if you are, make sure you are budgeting, saving, investing so that you can grow your money, so that one day you don't have to work for money, you have passive income and it can work for you Right, or you learn a skill such as day trading, and now you know you can work from anywhere. A skill such as day trading, and now you know you can work from anywhere.

Speaker 2: 24:42

My biggest inspiration when it comes to day trading is, um, a black day trader by the name of terry egioma. You can go and find her on any platform. She has courses. I haven't taken her courses yet, but I have taken most of the free ones on youtube, because I have to really dedicate time to study that, and I definitely will, but she is one of my biggest inspirations.

Speaker 2: 25:03

Um, I like to listen to Warren Buffett how he got so wealthy and he never got a bigger house. He never. He had a lot of money, mindset, ideas, um, and you know, we just have to be financially literate and ready. So this is an introduction to some key topics that are going to be important for your financial future. Okay, so stay tuned in each episode as we dive deep and we go deeper and deeper into unlocking our potential for generational wealth. All right, so I'm going to give you guys a book of the episode. So the book of this episode that I'm going to recommend that you read if you really want to dig deep and know what the hell is, dr Sean talking about.

Speaker 2: 25:53

Go get Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Go read that book and understand what he is talking about. It's all a mindset and you know I'm coming from both sides of that mindset because I did the educational route and now I'm doing another route as well and I know that this route is so promising because I did it before and I've seen like the potential that it has and I am so ready to just go full forward with a lot of my financial ideas and the tools that I'm gathering and the skills. All right, but for now, we are in this podcast, hood to Hooded with Dr Shana, motivational Dentist, and I really thank you guys for joining me. Please, please, please, don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, share and tune in for more insights to grow and elevate your mindset and lifestyle.

Speaker 2: 26:47

All right, um, we have a membership. Well, you can listen for us on any platform, but you can also support by going to drshawncom or going to my link tree and beinga paid subscriber. It only the minimum is three dollars per month, but this keeps us growing, getting more equipment, getting more you know tools and guests on the show and just growing and freeing up my time to be able to do more of this because I really, really love this. Even if I'm doing it for free, I still love this. All right, so just thank you guys so much. We are going to close out this episode and I will talk to you in the next video. Now, next time, we're going to be talking about believing in your dreams is going to cost.