Spark Financial Liberation

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Jaden Petrus. [00:00:02] Speaker B: And I'm Brandon Bush. [00:00:03] Speaker A: And we are the co hosts of Spark by Revolutionnaire, where we pass the. [00:00:06] Speaker B: Mic to people whose voices are not. [00:00:08] Speaker A: Always heard and have candid and informative conversations. [00:00:11] Speaker B: And today's episode is about financial literacy. [00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of Spark by Révolutionnaire. I'm Jaden. [00:00:18] Speaker B: And I'm Brandon. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Today we have two guests. We have Jackson Session and we have Iman Davis. And Iman Joseph Davis is a first generation senior marketing student at Howard University. And Iman has been able to pay for his own school as a first generation college student primarily through scholarships and practicing responsible management of his finances. In addition to his interests with investing, consulting, digital media and advertising and data analytics, he also serves as Howard University's president of the School of Business. [00:00:53] Speaker B: And now I'm going to introduce Jackson Session. Jackson is a third year Howard University student from Dallas, Texas studying finance with the aspiration of entering the venture or private equity space. Currently, Jackson serves as the CEO and founder of his nonprofit organization, dollars and change. Thank y'all for coming on to sparked by revolutionary. [00:01:16] Speaker C: Happy to be here. We have a great topic lined up. [00:01:19] Speaker A: I know Iman has been here before. Jackson, this is your first time? [00:01:22] Speaker D: This is my first time. [00:01:23] Speaker C: His first time on the podcast. [00:01:25] Speaker D: You know, I was a little bit at first, but I got a warm welcome. So ready to discuss. [00:01:33] Speaker A: Right, so we're going to jump into it. We have some amazing people with us that have started, created and been a part of some amazing organizations. So I want to know what sparked your drive to create your organization and to be Sob president, to be a part of everything that you're doing with me. [00:01:48] Speaker C: Being a first generation college student and seeing know coming from my background with a single parent household as well, seeing my mother struggle, also have an older sister who was unable to obtain agree on her own as well and struggling. Now, as a mother of four, I have a lot of people to make proud. And so it's always been like my main charge to take advantage of everything in front of me, to kind of just take charge of my future. One thing that happens at school is like, and we all empowered, we get tons of emails with opportunities and things to take advantage of, but people really don't take the time to sort through them. I take the time to sort through those things and I recall a time even going back to my senior year of high school where majority of the day I'm sorting through scholarships online to make sure I can go to college and make that a reality. I bring that same mindset to Howard. I take advantage of everything in front of me. You see my interests that you call out, but that's all come from experience of just, like, me saying yes to different programs or different experiences that I could have gotten being a school of business student. And so in me, just being open to obtaining new experiences and learning new things and receiving exposure, which is a powerful thing for me. Coming from Houston, Texas, as a first generation student, I've built passion for the school of business. And also with me being helped by so many people, especially with all these scholarships that have allowed me to make my senior year Howard a reality and for me to walk across the graduation stage, just like I've just received a lot of help. And so my passion, my purpose, I believe, is just to really help others. And so you see that through areas in which I'm involved with revolutionary as well. And so I've been helped a lot. My family has struggled to see me make it to this day. And so I carry the name Davis on my back with a charge. And I'm really focused on uplifting my family and building generational wealth, which is what we're talking about today. [00:03:47] Speaker D: Well, for dollars and change. I think what really sparked me to want to create something like that was I'm born from two teachers is what I like to say. So my mom worked on DISD in public schools all her life, and then my dad is a pastor, so he teaches people the same way. It's my mom. That's right. So I just took that. And I really have a passion for working with children and teaching, and so I really took that and matched it with my degree because I'm a finance major. And so I took my passion for learning about numbers and business and money management and combined that with my love for working with children and kind of talked to my mom and dad and seeing what was the best range of students or age range for students. And I decided on middle school because I feel like they're the most moldable, impressionable. [00:04:36] Speaker A: What do you teach these kids? [00:04:38] Speaker D: So I've done Zoom calls. I've done in person lessons with just, like, different middle schools in DC, like learning about just money management. I think middle school is kind of the age where you don't have a lot of money, but you're getting some, I guess, and you're starting to have little things like field trips or, like, you may want shoes from the weekend or I remember in middle school, they. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Started selling stuff like, yeah, the chip. [00:05:02] Speaker D: Boy go crazy people, right? [00:05:06] Speaker A: People scouts. Come on. Everybody was an entrepreneur in middle school, right? [00:05:11] Speaker D: So you're first getting, I guess, your own money. And so I felt like that was just the perfect age, just teaching them. Okay, this is what you do with your money. Maybe get a checking account versus keeping it at home with your mom. Or maybe it's time to get a wallet. Understanding. Hey, if you have don't carry big bills or you have a wallet all the time, that's what your checking is for, right? So just teaching kids, like, the small things that I wish that I went to public school so I didn't have money management classes. Luckily, I have my parents, but not everybody has financially literate parents, especially like in our community, because of the circumstances. Not everybody has its finances. So just being able to teach people those things, especially kids, was something I wanted to do, as you should. [00:05:57] Speaker A: I think that's amazing, especially in our generation. Gen Z, 18 to 25. I think we're one of the generations with the least amount of financial literacy. We don't know a lot of information about how to manage our money. I think that goes in. It's a lot of factors that contribute to that. The fact of the matter is that the price of living keeps raising and the minimum wage is not. So instead of saving and developing habits that are healthy to our financial literacy, we're struggling, we're surviving, and then it's not encouraging us to make the decisions to educate ourselves. And where are these resources? So I guess my question for you guys would be, everyone has so much to say about how Gen Z is lazy and we don't want to do the work. But what is your perspective as college students? As people who, as somebody who provides for themselves. Let's be real. Are we lazy? What's going on with that? [00:06:56] Speaker D: I don't think we're lazy. I think we just have a different world that we're growing up in. I think that at least my parents are like 50, okay? So I think them, they didn't have really a choice but to go to school and go to work. And this is what it was going to be. And even then they could have got a trade, right? But at the end of the goal was a job. And I think our generation, we have so many different ways of getting money. You can be an influencer and some ways are more proven like, okay, you're going to get a job and have a successful life this way. But I think one thing I love about our generation is we're adventurous and we are experimental. So nobody's going to knock you from saying you're going to get rich off of TikTok because we know people do it, people get rich and people do it, and people do it well, and they turn that into marketing agencies and a whole different models. I think our generation is just more experimental and adventurous. And I don't think our past generations had those opportunities. [00:07:58] Speaker B: So they don't understand what you're thinking about. [00:08:00] Speaker C: For me, it's like distraction is running rampant in our generation. Social media runs the world nowadays. It quite frankly runs some people's lives. And so our generation is also suffering as a result of generations before us not having those lessons or these experiences of how to build wealth or how to manage finances or whatever. It is like just financial literacy overall. And so in my opinion, it gets worse with each and every generation. If the generations before don't take the charge to do the work and figure out these lessons to then pass it down over to generations coming after us. And so if anything, our generation is just struggling as a result of the past 400 plus excess years that our community has gone without these resources, these lessons, this knowledge, this money and everything in addition to that, that we haven't had for the longest. And so all of this is accumulating. Our generation is like, we're here. For me, I think we're figuring out how to navigate society without everything that some other communities have. And we're figuring it out, but some people fail naturally as a result. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Right? [00:09:12] Speaker C: And I think for me, it's up to the people who are able to navigate, get these lessons, network and overall connect with people who know this wealth of knowledge that we don't have access to, to then share it with our community. And so naturally you have some people falling off because we don't have these examples or this knowledge to tap into. For the people that do get the opportunity to tap into it, it's your charge to go ahead and share that with your community. [00:09:39] Speaker D: Paying it forward. [00:09:41] Speaker C: Paying it forward. [00:09:42] Speaker A: I think that speaks to going back to the social media and having the opportunities. Because I feel like with our phones, we have the world at our fingertips. We can see everything, we can read an article, we can learn. [00:09:55] Speaker C: That's why I said distractions run rampant. Because you have access to the information, you're just distracted. And you also probably don't know what to search up, what to search for. [00:10:06] Speaker A: That was my next point. I think you have the ability, but what is stopping you from making the decision to educate yourself, make those healthy choices? Where do you start? So what for you two, would you suggest is a good starting point for somebody, a youth like us, looking to be more financially stable or smarter with their money? [00:10:29] Speaker C: For me, the biggest thing and what sparked me to be more financially aware is just paying attention to my family. And also with education being pushed onto me since a very young age, it came around to my junior year or senior of high school. I started to think realistically about, how will I pay for school? And I didn't have an answer to that question. And so one thing for me that I took the lead on was being proactive and figuring out the answer to that question. And so for me, it was, how will I pay for my education? Also? Just like coming home to a single parent household and my mother just not able to afford certain things. For me, I was proactive in search for a job. Beginning my sophomore year in my high school, my first job was chickfila. I was smiling at people, telling them, my pleasure, my pleasure. But my mother just put me in charge and responsible for certain things. And so also, I saw certain things I went without that other people had. I wanted a car, I want some shoes, as Jackson said, on the weekend. And also even basic necessity, things like struggling, my mother's struggling to pay for lunch, things along those lines. And I just kind of took the charge. And so for the youth and for those who are struggling with the idea of like, oh, how do I know what, it's my turn or when should I become financially responsible? It's never too early. Pay attention to your surroundings, and if you do have the opportunity to be more present financially for yourself, or you have the inspiration or you feel the charge to do so, follow it. Like we said, you have all of this knowledge, all of these resources available to you nowadays. Eliminate the distractions and really educate yourself on what's present in our society today. And you could be such a powerful force within our generation, within our community. And so pay attention to your family dynamic. I know we all come from a special story. If you find yourself in a position to become more responsible for your family at an early age, embody that and take the proper time to educate yourself, and you'll be a powerful force. [00:12:41] Speaker B: I'm actually experiencing financial hardship and trying to move. So obviously, like, I have graduated from Howard, I'm not in college anymore. I'm like, almost two years removed this upcoming may period. But now, as a full grown adult who pays my own bills, I pay my own credit cards, everything is coming out of my own pocket. I wish I would have had those conversations with my parents, I wish that somebody would have had the time to really show me what all of that stuff meant, because now, as a young adult and trying to navigate these sorts of things that, like I said, I have no clue about, it's really difficult. It's really incredibly difficult. Like, I was literally trying to apply to get a place, and I got rejected because of my credit. And even though it was only because of a little discrepancy that just resulted in a large credit drop, that was still something that affected me from getting something that I wanted, despite any other things that was on my record. Of course, I don't have a criminal record. My background is cool, rental history. [00:13:52] Speaker C: I pay my bills on time. [00:13:54] Speaker B: I've never missed a bill. So it's stuff like that that nobody lets you know. Like, hey, in order for you to build your credit, you should probably do this at this time, build it over time so that way you can give yourself a lot more. Yeah, I only have one credit card because everybody has scared me about how bad credit can be and how dangerous it can be. So I got me a small credit card to build myself up, and it did a little something, but I still think had I had the opportunity to learn more or for people to really sit me down and be like, hey, like, how we have the talk, how we sit up here and have conversations about all of these other different things. We need to have financial talks with our young people and just really sitting them down and getting them to understand. Like, once you get out into this. [00:14:42] Speaker C: Real world, this is what you need. [00:14:43] Speaker B: To make sure that you got going on. Even while you're in college, you can do little stuff like how I did get you a small credit card, use that to do uber and stuff like that. Order, capital one, discovery, discover. [00:14:55] Speaker C: I got. [00:14:56] Speaker B: That. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Was my first. [00:14:59] Speaker B: Just doing stuff like that to help you have some footing once you get out into the real world. I wish I would have had those conversations. [00:15:07] Speaker C: I think another thing is too, and also just to be transparent, I'm about to move off to Chicago for a job. And with you having the fear and also being denied for an apartment, that's definitely something scary for me as well, being a first gen student and not having the opportunity to build credit before coming off to college. But it's just like, we should start having these conversations as. And like, it's nothing to be scared away. Like, for me, I've had the benefit of being able to network and learn from many established professionals, know corporate America, and I learned these lessons. But if you and I never talk about this, Brandon. You'll never know that I have three credit cards and that like have learned this from once again, these people who have this wealth of knowledge and we never share resources or what we've been able to learn. And so I think it's also just having conversations between ourselves because even go back to my early point, our generation is suffering from generations before us not really having access or any types of know abouts of any of these things we're discussing nowadays. So we're navigating this, we're making mistakes and we're learning from them, but we must share these lessons we learn together. [00:16:20] Speaker B: I know I'm going to have these conversations with my kids because they ain't Finna struggle like how I'm struggling right now. [00:16:27] Speaker A: Speaking of credit, you said something like that. It's kind of ingrained in us to be scared of credit cards. I think that was one of the things me, I relate to you a lot, Iman, in terms of getting to a point where you're realizing nobody's paying for college for me, nobody's paying for my house in, nobody's paying for my room and board, nobody's paying my tuition. How am I going to do this? And I think the same way you were looking at those scholarships is the same way I be on those scholarships. The last two years of my college experience, I have not paid a dime because I went out and sought those scholarships. [00:17:03] Speaker C: Being proactive in a self starter is so important. [00:17:06] Speaker A: And some of these scholarships take less than an hour. [00:17:10] Speaker C: I'm going to be real. [00:17:14] Speaker D: People apply. [00:17:15] Speaker A: If you have those essays lined out, those short answers, your why your passions? Because a lot of them ask the same questions. It's really not hard. I mean, the quickest money I made, I'm not going to lie to you, is through a scholarship. I took an hour out of my day and I got $10,000 that helped me pay for my school. I think like you said, finding those opportunities and not just passing them by, swiping them, by letting those distractions get in the way can really change your life. [00:17:49] Speaker C: Also, I have to say this. I think something in our community that's pushed on us is getting a job like at an early age with our family struggling and essentially like us having to be providers for ourselves at an early age. Essentially my senior of high school, I changed my thought process on that. Instead of getting a job throughout my entire senior of high school where I'm going to have to commit time, my energy and just overall myself to a job all day. Why do I not just sit in the library and apply to as many scholarships as I can and therefore increase my chances of getting as much money as I can and also making the ability to come to Howard much more practical? [00:18:35] Speaker A: Is that what. [00:18:37] Speaker C: That's exactly what I did. And I did earn much more money. Much more money. Choosing that perspective instead of just, oh, like, I need some money. I need to pay for school. Let me go get the. No. Like, there are many ways to go about a situation. Don't be afraid to challenge the status quo and follow your direction. And in me doing that UCB nowadays here, and I have the capabilities of telling you that I've earned over $130,000 to be able to pay for my school. And so don't be afraid to challenge the status quo. Follow your own system direction and be a self starter. Trust yourself. Take the proper time to educate yourself, and you can make it happen. I tell people all the time, if I can do it, you can do it, too. [00:19:23] Speaker B: I'm dead. [00:19:26] Speaker D: I was saying to his point of being a self starter and to both of you guys'point about getting your own job and actually going out and paying your own bills, I think my dad taught me the first thing to realize, because he always would say, jackson, you don't understand money. And I would be, know, I can save. I can, like, I understand. I know not to pay my credit card bill late. You know what I'm saying? I don't think he was saying that in the literal sense, but I never understood it because I didn't have bills in my name, right? And so until I had, like, being, I was at the point where I was like, okay, let me get my phone bill in my name, right? So I know I can go out to the movies, I can go to the mall. I get those shoes. I could do whatever. But at the end of the month, if I want to call my friends, that whatever needs to be in that account or it's going to. You know what I'm saying? I'm not going to be able to do that. And so then I got to actually put, okay, this is my money and this is my responsibilities, like you guys are saying, and start to click in my head. And I'm glad that I did have that. And I do think we all need to have that at some point. It needs to be a transition, whether it's the smallest bill, like your phone bill, right? And then it transitioned to dealing with, Howard, we have to pay rent here. So that's a big boy bill to pay rent. Yeah. That's a big boy bill. So now I'm dealing with that because I'm an undergraduate. Well, some of us are still undergraduate, but, yeah, being undergrad and paying rent, that's crazy. But that comes a whole different level of financial literacy and maturity that conversations could be had. So we all have that knowledge. Yeah. [00:20:55] Speaker C: I like your point. Start early and take small responsibility if you can. Right. Especially before you're in a position to support yourself and navigate this world with a full set of responsibilities. If you're young watching this, because they don't stop paying them. [00:21:16] Speaker A: I know you all got the thing from your parents. Like, you want to stay a child as long as possible, because once the. [00:21:22] Speaker C: Bills start rolling in. Oh, my God. [00:21:27] Speaker D: Then a mail starts coming in your name. It never stops coming in your name. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:31] Speaker D: The mail never stops coming in your name. [00:21:33] Speaker A: It never stops. I think a shift for me happened a few years ago, not a few years ago. I got my car last year, so that's a glad. [00:21:44] Speaker C: Congrats. That's what's up. [00:21:45] Speaker A: But I got the insurance. I pay my own rent. I pay my own bills. I have two jobs. I'm going to one tomorrow. 07:00 a.m. So it's like all of these things, I manage, and I learn to manage by myself, unfortunately. And like, a point that you mentioned, a lot of what I learn is from watching my family, watching my parents, watching them make decisions that I would never make or never want to be in, positions that I would never want to be in. And you get tired of it when you live a life where you're constantly. You lack stability. It's very tiring. And I want to bring in a point going back to the Gen Z. So according to Deloitte Global 2022 Gen Z and Millennial survey, only a quarter of Gen Z report that they can comfortably cover their monthly living expenses. And almost half, 46%, say they live paycheck to paycheck. So that's a frightening. That's very frightening. What does that mean for us in the future in terms of how we're living? I know, Brandon, you're in that world right now where you just graduated college. We're about to graduate college. Is that not scary? Is that not something, Jackson? [00:22:56] Speaker D: Yeah, I think it is pretty scary. I've seen another article that said that 46, or, like, 50% of people making $100,000 are living paycheck to paycheck, too. So I think it just speaks on our world today and what we're graduating into appeared price of living is crazy, especially being from the south. We know that we would not be dealing with this if we were back home. Right. But again, being able to manage that is something that we're just going to have to focus on. But I also think that our generation, we have a lot of expensive habits, especially like in DC, we like brunch. We like to look nice. But those are real things that we have to budget into our money. Especially because brunch looking nice is a big thing here. [00:23:43] Speaker B: People ordering out for Doordash. [00:23:45] Speaker D: Yeah, Doordash is expensive. [00:23:46] Speaker C: Uber even paying for groceries, it's becoming expensive. [00:23:50] Speaker D: Oh, my God. [00:23:51] Speaker C: You definitely have to budget out for. [00:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah, so that's another, like, it's making smart decisions. So when is the time to say no to that brunch? When is the time to say no to going out to El Ray on that now? [00:24:04] Speaker D: Because it really is never no to brunch. [00:24:08] Speaker A: I can say no to brunch. [00:24:09] Speaker D: You make it happen. [00:24:10] Speaker C: No, you can say no to brunch. [00:24:13] Speaker B: Overdraft your account. [00:24:14] Speaker D: Trying to go to brunch. [00:24:15] Speaker B: Trying to go to brunch. [00:24:16] Speaker D: Don't go to brunch. [00:24:16] Speaker B: Don't go to brunch. Don't go to brunch. It's not worth it. It's not worth the stress. [00:24:20] Speaker A: You can make that mimosa at home. [00:24:23] Speaker B: Mimosa at home. And if you can't, girl, watch a movie. [00:24:26] Speaker A: But speaks to healthy habits. I feel like also another thing that I'm learning. I have friends who are in different situations than I am, and it's very hard sometimes to keep up with them. And if you have friends that love you and care about you and understand your situation, I think it's very important for people to have conversations with them. I just recently had a conversation with my roommates about how our spending habits in the house, because we shop together, we go grocery shopping together. We're in Costco. Yeah, we're in Costco. Why are you picking the $30 shrimp? Let's get that $20 shrimp. [00:24:59] Speaker D: Great value tastes the same. Great value tastes the same. [00:25:04] Speaker B: I've been trying to get those lays. [00:25:07] Speaker C: That great value water is disgusting. [00:25:11] Speaker D: But that's another thing. No, that is another thing. Like, there are different things that when you go shopping, you get the great value and you get the offering that goes back to budget. That's something about mom taught me. Yeah. You got to decide what you're going to end back to the brunch. You got to decide what you're going to spend your money on. And that goes back to conversations because a lot of people just don't have that. No, a lot of people, if you invite me, I'm out. You know what I'm saying? I know some people. I was some people at one point. I have fear from checking my account. Sometimes. [00:25:46] Speaker C: Dangerous. [00:25:47] Speaker D: Yeah. So sometimes I'm going to go in. Your whole day, whole night. Yeah, your whole night if you open that $2. Right. So it's like sometimes you just have to have real conversations with yourself, with yourself, and sit down and really be stern with yourself about a budget. [00:26:02] Speaker B: Now, is it okay if we take a little bit of a pivot now with all of us talking about these things? Of course, we have talked about how cost of living is going up, we're in a coming recession, inflation, and all of these things are happening. How do we continue to center liberation in this talk? Like, is there a such thing as financial liberation with all of these things that are happening? [00:26:29] Speaker C: It's definitely such a challenging time that we're in, and financial liberation is definitely possible. And you see it within all other communities that exist around us. The jewish community is big on financial liberation. They will run. [00:26:44] Speaker A: Their dollar circulates. [00:26:45] Speaker C: Their dollar circulates in their economy. Obviously, whites have thrived in this country for the longest off of the work that our ancestors have completed, and they're liberated financially. For me, I look at every other community around me and I see some form of financial liberation within their community. And I definitely think that it's just as possible for us. I think, once again, it just goes back to taking the time to properly educate yourself. Education was pushed on me since such an early age. The mind is very powerful. And with us not having this knowledge or being born into this knowledge or being born into families of wealth that have had wealth passed down as well as knowledge passed down for an excess of 200 years, we're just at a disadvantage. Somebody's going to have to put in the work and bridge that gap, and it's us. And so we must take that charge. You must take that charge, and you must put some power behind that charge. Believe in yourself and understand that you got what it takes. Our ancestors. [00:27:55] Speaker D: No, go ahead. [00:27:56] Speaker C: Our ancestors have endured so much worse than what we have to navigate nowadays. Like we're complaining about, oh, we're not able to go to brunch. [00:28:10] Speaker D: Actually. [00:28:12] Speaker C: It's kind of crazy, but our ancestors have endured so much and our community is still around nowadays and we're still pushing. And so one of those things that needs to be next for us is financial liberation. It's more than possible, but it is possible. And we must individually do our own parts to make that happen. And so instead of focusing on the larger group as a whole, focus on what you can contribute individually and focus on making that impact. And if we all have that focus, it will get done. [00:28:41] Speaker D: Amen. [00:28:42] Speaker A: That's a word. [00:28:43] Speaker D: Because I really want to pick up where you left off. I agree wholeheartedly. I think it starts with us. We're blessed enough to be at the best HBCU, but there's hundreds of other HBCus where there's kids just like us, just as eager as us, just ready to get it out the mud, like us, who are getting those grades and going to go get those high paying jobs and have the education where they can get jobs and change the future. And I think that that is the first thing, because even our parents, the world was a lot different back when they were in undergrad, right? So when they graduated, even the great jobs that they could get were not paying what we are about to be. [00:29:25] Speaker C: You know what I'm saying? [00:29:26] Speaker D: Able to get paid. So we have to take that and then go into those spaces and thrive like we were talking about Zuri, and thrive and then bring people, then, you know, I think that is the way we can reach liberation also. [00:29:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Another point you bring up is it's about bringing those up behind you. Like other communities have such a focus on giving back and helping each other and uplifting each other, as well as helping each other. I think that one thing that's present in our communities is that we're disbanded, we're not together in such sorts. And it's like I'm going to look out for myself mindset. [00:30:02] Speaker A: And that's a survival tactic that we had to learn, that we had to adapt to because we had our own economies, we had our own communities. We still do, but there were systems put in place to marginalize us, to take those away. And then we got into a mindset of, okay, if that's how it's going to be, I'm going to focus on me, I'm going to make my money, I'm going to protect my family. And it's not coming back to a community centered place. So we don't have those businesses on a block that are working with each other. Everybody's preaching buy black owned, but it's not like unionized, it's not together, it's not consistent. And in our community, if we're talking about the black community, a lot of these issues are, like I said, out of survival, out of fear. So I want to thank you all for coming on the show, for coming on the podcast and talking it up. And I want to leave you guys with some points. So give us one point that you feel like our listeners, our viewers can relate to and take. [00:31:04] Speaker C: So, and this is kind of relevant to what you were just discussing. But go the extra mile to support black. Amazon is here. It's easy, but you have tons of black businesses around you that probably give you the same things that Amazon can provide. And you will have to navigate around some shipping deadlines that will be different. The experience may be different, but any black business around you or that you can support online, really go the extra mile to support black businesses. I think that's also a big part of black financial liberation as a whole. And in our community, we definitely do not go the extra mile to support our own businesses. We seek convenience. We seek the thing closest to us. Sometimes you just got to go out your way, and you going out your way, you're making an impact one purchase at a time. And so go the extra mile and do what you can to support black businesses, because at the end of the day, it's benefiting us and our community. [00:32:04] Speaker D: Yeah, for me, I just like to leave off point. I think everything you said, you pretty much wrapped it up. But I think financial literacy is something that, again, is very important to all of us, and it should be important to people in our community. And I think that if we're fortunate enough to have that knowledge, paying it forward and teaching people younger than us and even people older than us, like, trying to retrain some of those bad habits for the little money or a lot of money that you do have, creating healthy habits, right? Because anything that you can start doing, small or big, will continue to have that snowball effect and will continue to, if it's not us that clicks with it, your children will click with it, because they'll see dad or mom doing it right or so on and so on, just having those good examples in our community so that everybody can get that. Because like I said, it is about our community at the end of the day and circulating those black dollars and reaching liberation one. [00:33:05] Speaker A: And we're so grateful that we got to speak with Iman and Jackson. Thank you, guys. [00:33:09] Speaker D: Thank you, guys. Thank you. [00:33:11] Speaker A: They are young, black, successful men, and they're going to do great things in life, and we are just grateful to get those gems. So tune into our next episode on sparked by Revolutionaire. We have some amazing topics to talk about. Yeah. Thank you for tuning in. All right, and that's it. [00:33:27] Speaker D: Period. [00:33:28] Speaker B: Hey, y'all make sure that y'all stay tuned for more episodes for Spark by Révolutionnaire.co. [00:33:34] Speaker A: And follow us on TikTok and Instagram at revolutionnaire.co. See you later.