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Today, we’re going to talk about how to get out of poverty.
About eighteen years ago, I fell into a really bad situation. I was ass out. I didn’t have any money. Most of my friends turned their backs on me. It was really, really bad. There was an half almost three-year period of economic stagnation and regression. I fell pretty deep. It was a life-changing moment.
I realized something in terms of changing your economic status. I’m not going to give you the “work hard” edict. There’s much more to it. I made a decision. I executed. I had really good strategy. I did something in six weeks that I couldn’t do in two and a half years which was move out of the boarding house and move into a nicer house and into a better job.
What I did in six weeks was I changed my social economic class. I went from poor to middle class in six weeks. It was a better standard of living and three times the money. I was associating with a better type of person. Things were really, really good.
After I got laid off the third time in eighteen months, I went home to that room in that boarding house and I took a bunch of sheets of paper and I started to think. I was scribbling all night.
I realized that working two jobs wasn’t going to move me out of that house. I knew going back to school was not plausible because I didn’t have any money. My third option was to get a better job. That option was the most viable. That’s what I did.
I knew the job had to be really good and it had to be on the bus line. I didn’t have a car. This was the nineties, and I felt the job had to have the potential to make $40K a year.
I went to Monster.com and I came up with this plan. I found these jobs. I did not write my resume first. I found the job and then I tailored my resume to the job. I applied for five jobs. Three of the people called me back. I had to increase your income. Then Rentacrate hired me.
The next thing that I did was become disloyal. I was going to get out of that job before that job left me. I decided to always be looking for something else. That’s when I met this girl who was making $185K a year selling office furniture. I became her friend.
Ultimately, I got into the office furniture business and became a sponge. Then there was this racist event where I walked into the conference room on a Monday morning and the faces were red. I didn’t say anything. I knew if I didn’t handle the situation the right way, I could end up back in that boarding house. It took me six months to get out of there, but I got out of there and I haven’t had a job since then.
You can’t take money out of the equation. There are a lot of people who will say, “It should not be about the money.”
“Fuck that noise.” Money buys you the power. Money buys you the access.
I had a situation where I was pulled over by the police. I had bought a car from a private owner. I was flying. I was in a brand-new car with no tag. I had the bill of sale in the visor. I got pulled over. It’s raining.
Here’s another little tip. I knew the possibility of me being pulled over was very high, because it was a very nice car. I pulled into the service station and I pulled up to the pumps under this awning.
This white female officer comes out. I give her all my papers. She goes to her car and comes back and tells me my license has been suspended. I said, “No it’s not.” I had just done Uber, so I didn’t believe my license could be suspended.
I wasn’t mad. I said, “This is clearly a mistake.” She says okay and goes back to her car. She’s in there like five minutes and then she comes back and says, “Your license was suspended for a ticket in 1989.” She said, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
I agreed. We’re just having this conversation. She said, “I’m not going to arrest you. This is clearly a mistake.” She told me to go to the DMV and get it cleared up.
So, I go down there and get it cleared up and it was dismissed. This happened because I was privileged person and I have a certain air about myself. I didn’t get mad. Because I was expected to be stopped, I was prepared. The windows were tinted, so she didn’t know I was black so it wasn’t racial profiling. Money matters, even if you’re black. You can’t name one famous black person that has been shot by the cops.
My goal in that last couple of jobs was to get as much out of the job as I could and then move on. I did not stay in those last two jobs long. I used them as stepping stones instead of allowing them to step on me.
I’m going to give you some doom and gloom. The next recession is going to be worse than the last one. The last one was pretty brutal because there are many people that never recovered. You’re going to see the emergence of classes.
There are rich people and that’s never going to go away. There is some semblance of a middle class. They are people that if their car breaks down, they can get it fixed. If they have a huge medical emergency, if they don’t have a good family unit, they’re ass out. With the middle class, one big crisis makes everything fall apart. The middle class doesn’t have money, but they have resources and better jobs.
The other group are the poor. They have two and three jobs. They have roommates. They have to do this to live because they don’t make any money. These two groups will be impacted more than any other groups.
There’s another class and I’m a member of it. It’s the creative class. That’s a whole different ballgame. The creative class includes coders, web developers, app developers. That’s going to be a whole new level of wealth. You’re going to see trillionaires in our lifetime and they’re going to come from the creative class.
Another reason you need to get some money together and get into a higher class is you can meet people you can do business with. Money does not care who makes it. I’ve seen this over and over again.
Changing classes is not just about money. If you want to move out of your socioeconomic class, you’re going to have to change how you think. You’re going to have to change who you associate with and who you date.
Rich people do not want to hang out with poor people any more than they have to, unless you’re serving those people. That’s just across the line, for all races.
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