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Steven Stack's journey to financial freedom began at the tender age of four, when he earned his first "paycheck" sweeping floors for his father's business. Later, his hustling mindset during his years at Clemson, coupled with the life lessons learned from his first (bad) real estate investment, all shaped his approach to wealth management, and ultimately led him to earn millionaire status by age 31. Now 100% debt free, his views of money aren't limited to the numbers in the bank, but stretch to the personal growth experienced through his journey to financial freedom. Tune in as Jessica and Brandon dive in to Steven's experiences, how he utilizes money now, and how that differs from how he grew up. They discuss the importance of financial literacy, being intentional with money, and teaching the next generation to create solid financial habits. This conversation will leave you encouraged and ready to reach your own millionaire status.
For someone like myself who grew up in a middle upper middle class family and went to the concept of me going to college. I knew I was going to go to college. My mom was a college professor. So I quote unquote have the right track and I still didn't know the information. So to think that anybody else who didn't have even those type of opportunities that I had, why would they have any access to that? I think people don't realize how big the barrier was and still is to a certain extent, to financial literacy.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome to the Sugar Daddy podcast. I'm Jessica and I'm Brandon, and we're the Norwoods, a husband and wife team here to demystify the realm of dollars so it all makes sense while giving you a glimpse into our relationship with money and each other. We are so glad you're here. Let's get started.
Speaker 3:Our content is intended to be used, and must be used, for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment, based upon your own personal circumstances. You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with or independently research and verify any information you find in our podcast and we should rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.
Speaker 1:Hey babe. What are we going to talk about today?
Speaker 2:Today we are talking to Steven Stack and I'm really excited because he's a millionaire, he's totally debt-free, a father of three, he's doing all the things, and we were just talking. I don't really remember how I found Steven, but we're kind of from the same neck of the woods. We know some of the same people I don't want to say ran in the same circles but I feel like there's like a familiarity, even though we've never met in person. I'm really excited to get into this conversation, steven. We're so excited to have you today.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm excited to be here with you and I think, with us, being from smaller areas, having that connection, the familiarity is going to be there. No question, no question.
Speaker 2:Tell me what you want to know Absolutely Well, I love it. I want to get into all the things debt-free. It's not a buzzword, but it kind of is a buzzword. Right now. Everybody wants to be fully debt-free. So we definitely want to get into how you did that, how you started. But first I'm going to give our listeners a little bit of background into who you are and more detail into why we're talking to you today. So I'm going to get into this bio. Steven Stack is a financial consultant whose mission is to help others build wealth holistically. He is 100% debt-free, which includes paying off a six-figure mortgage. He also became a millionaire by age 31. I'm just going to pause, because that's big Through consistent money management and investing primarily through real estate and the stock market. He believes wealth isn't just what's in your bank account, but also the person you're becoming. I love that. Welcome, steven. Thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me, so we like to start off our episodes with your first money memory. What is your first or one of your first money memories?
Speaker 4:So I think if I were to go back so I'll kind of make it too pronged of first money memory for me was that my dad's an entrepreneur. He still is to this day. He just loves the work that he does. He doesn't have to do it anymore but he just enjoys doing it. But he has a furniture re-upholstery business and so I can remember as early as age four that I would get paid to sweep the floors and so I had the pleasure of working in my dad's business and don't worry about any child labor laws or anything too crazy like that. But so that's your delimitations.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I just saw an article about that with McDonald's crazy stuff happening not trying to get pops in trouble.
Speaker 4:Right, exactly, I saw that too, it was like 10 year olds working the cash register till 2am, so not one of those situations.
Speaker 2:Until 2am Right.
Speaker 4:Okay, and so I remember that dynamic of actually doing something connected to work, because my parents neither me nor my siblings got paid for doing chores. It was like, hey, you just got to do that, you live here so, but I did get paid. You live here. Yeah, right, I don't get paid for doing chores either, right, right, it's like, hey, congratulations, welcome to life. So I'd sweep the floors and I can remember, even at an early age, that my parents would say, okay, you've made some money and think through what do you want to do with it, but you do want to give some of this money away of doing generosity. So, like I learned at an early age to try to put aside at least 10% of what I made to be able to give, so that's what I would say would be. My first clear money memory was around the age of four, of getting paid for doing work.
Speaker 2:I love that. I don't know if our kids have ever held a broom minus the like you know, play pretend broom. We might need to do that this weekend. I love that your dad had you contributing and helping, but then also was, you know, paying you for that and then was teaching you okay, here's some of it that you get to keep, but we are going to give some away. How did you remember how you felt when he told you you can't keep it all?
Speaker 4:So like I think I was so young that just my mentality was just like, oh okay, you know, like I think I was just so, thought it was so cool to write Right, exactly, and I think it was just neat to be able to actually do work and get paid for it. Because for me so I'm actually the youngest of three siblings, so my older siblings they did work too, so it was cool, like we all got paid for the work that we would do in the business. So, and I and something I should also add here too is that my parents are probably easily the most generous people that I've ever met, that they're always giving and have always given to others so it was almost like, oh man, well, now I'm able to actually do some giving of my own, like what I see them do, so it wasn't too crazy.
Speaker 1:I always say you know, when I'm sitting down with clients, I always want to know about their first money memory because I feel as though, like your first interactions with money is completely indicative of how you you know, how you interact with money as an adult. It tells so much about whether it's a positive interaction that you had as a child, as compared to even a negative interaction, but either way, it shows some way and how you interact with money as an adult.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, no, that's actually a really good observation. That I think is pretty consistent for most people is if it's really bad or really good.
Speaker 1:It's also really interesting because you can have two individuals who had very similar money memories but reacted to them very differently. So you know, say, two individuals share a negative money memory of maybe not having enough money growing up and they can have two complete different reactions to that as well. So always find the behavioral finance side of stuff really interesting and it's very big part of you know helping individuals. You know work through their money issues as adults.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that's entirely true, like you'll see people who, depending on what it is, they may say, okay, this is the path I'm going to take because that's all I know, and others may look at it and say I know, I don't want to experience this again, so I'm going to run in the opposite direction.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 4:And sometimes that can be good or bad, but yeah, I think you're spot on.
Speaker 2:So let's go to your college career and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is where you and again, just from listening to other podcasts you've been on. This is where you had hustles. Right, you were always working, always doing something, always making money. Okay, first of all, tell us like your craziest job in college. And then why? Why were you always hustling and trying to make money?
Speaker 4:So I don't know if any of them were crazy, but like, I'll lay them out. And here's the cool thing too of saying this stuff is like people know me from then. So when they hear they're like, oh yeah, no, Stack was definitely doing all these different jobs. So I'll just kind of lay out the ones I had. I'll just go lay out the ones I had. So one of them was that I would give tours of the engineering department. So I'd give tours to prospective students and their parents of just talking about, hey, you know, here's some of the things you can expect. Go here and even answering questions hey, what's the average salary for some of the different engineering disciplines? So that was one job was doing tours. Another one was I was like I did like mentoring for freshman minorities at Clemson, because Clemson is where I went to school. So I did that. I worked at the performing arts center, so like I would be putting up lights and taking them down and I got to watch shows for free. You know what I mean is I try to knock out my homework and then just kind of sit and just just chill and watch the shows. I worked in the student athlete center for football and track. Once upon a time I played football long ago. I don't want to hit nobody, so I'm not for the violence anymore. I'm good, I'm fragile, I'm soft. I'm not really, but it sounds good. And then what else did I do? There was, I did have a gig where you can't even count them all.
Speaker 2:You're like trying to like go back in your mind and you're like waiting for the losing track of all of the jobs I had. Right, I know I had like at least six jobs, one job in college.
Speaker 4:That's it One, yeah, well, one Okay One. That was interesting and there is a statute of limitations on this. It's not bad, I promise. But I would work the concession stand for Clemson football games and there is a lady who's like she was kind of like over all of the stuff, like I guess she was like a third party person, but she would pay in cash after every game. So like if you work the games, you got paid in cash. And like I even had setups where if, like a friend came in town to visit, be like hey, man, you want to make some money, you come through and work the game, and like the lady would actually pay us in cash. Uncle Sam, please don't come after me. I did not pay any taxes on that, but it wasn't that much money. It was $10 an hour, though it wasn't bad, so so yeah, so those are some of the many jobs that's not bad. Right, right Inflation, right that, that's in a little bit further.
Speaker 2:I mean right, that's. Oh yeah, I mean for $10 you could fill up like a gas tank.
Speaker 4:I mean almost depending on what kind of car you had. Yeah, yeah, yeah, now answer the motivation question. But $5 was like legitimately gas money back in those times. No question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh yeah. When we first started driving and then through call, I mean yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is not that long ago, guys Like I was in college from like 2001 to 2005. So it's not ancient times.
Speaker 2:No, but it just the month. The dollar went so much further.
Speaker 4:Right, right, it did, it did. And yeah, we had overlap on like time in school because I was in college when Hurricane Katrina happened, so I remember there were like gas rations you could only fuel up so much at that time. As far as motivation, so I just had this crazy thought of I knew I wanted to be in a good financial position and even if I get into some of the psychology for me just around money and what I saw with with my parents was that saw my dad doing his thing from a business standpoint and and I'm like man, I appreciate the spot that he's allowed us as a family to be in financially. I just want to do a little bit more enjoyment along the way, more so, more so than my dad, and not saying he's bad person by any stretch he really enjoyed his work and I'm like, yeah, I like working, but more so working to the end of what I'm able to do as a result of the means that I get from work. So I kind of was always fascinated with this idea of how can I make money work for me. But the only stuff I really knew about was bank CDs or certificates of deposit that you could put money in for 12 months up to 60 months, get a fixed return from it. That compounded the money I put in. So that made me say, ok, I don't want to be a broke college student. Like I'd heard all the horror stories and all that kind of stuff and I'm like I don't believe that that has to refer to me. So that's part of why I was doing all these jobs and trying to figure out, ok, how can I take this money and make it work for me? So that's, that was the motivation.
Speaker 1:You had that pretty early too, because I mean I worked portion of I was in college. Didn't work nearly as many jobs as you did. But my main motivation for working was is that I was actually a Bellman at a hotel in downtown Charleston and my main motivation was I wanted to live where I wanted to live and I didn't want my mom to dictate where I lived in college. So I was like I'm going to pay for my own rent, so then I could decide where I want to live. That was literally the sole reason for me getting a job, which sounds much more in line with like how college students think, whereas you were thinking way ahead of like.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be the broke college student, I want to actually enjoy my money right. So you're like great grateful to your dad and the work that he did and the business he ran and what he provided. But you saw that there was a possibility for more like OK, I can work and enjoy the work I do, but I also want to enjoy the money that I earn which. I think is also really important, right Like why are we going to work 40 plus hours a week at this stage in life? We also have to learn how to enjoy a little bit. So that's a very mature thought that you had early on.
Speaker 1:The majority of people nowadays. You know people that are fully into their career. Don't even you ask them like why are you going to work 40 plus hours a week? What are you working for? And they can't tell you. Yeah. So, you know, to have that mindset at such an early age is very much the minority.
Speaker 2:Who taught you about CDs? Where did that come from? You were talking about making your money grow.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. So my, I got that from my mom. So she would and I mean, I feel like this is ancient history even though it really wasn't that long ago but she would look in newspapers to see what were the highest yielding CDs and like look for different, you know, like promotional interest rates, and that was her way of just trying to find places to park money. You know, you know that was saved to be able to have it grow and even like we didn't know this concept at the time, it was just just trying to find the best ones. But you know, later I understood about things of people like laddering CDs so that they could constantly be having them mature at a certain you know like timeframe with it. So I would sometimes just sit with her and like look through the newspaper to to try to find what the best deal was on CDs, even even as a younger person. And I did want to speak to something that you said earlier of. I agree I can't. And for me, when you're saying thinking this way at an early age, like for me, I would credit that more to just kind of a general like faith in God, like instilled thing, because there wasn't anything that I could say, inherently, that that I could point to and be like, oh yeah, this was the thing. It just kind of was in me that my wheels were turning that way, like literally. I still clearly remember we were going on a, you know, a family vacation trip and it was at a motel, which I always like to make the distinction, not a hotel but the motel, like outside, you know, I mean you pull up to the door of where you're going to stay and I still clearly remember being like man I wonder who owns this place and how much? How much do they make? And I'm like no one told me about that. You know, I mean like my parents weren't talking to me about like ownership stuff in that way. I just kind of inherently knew, okay, whoever the person that the reception desk is is not the owner of the hotel, or the people cleaning the rooms or room service aren't the owners. But we might've been paying I don't know $59.99 or $79.99 a night for the motel as a family and I'm like I see all the cars and that there's multiple rooms that are occupied. So my mind was a little bit different early and I give my parents a lot of credit of they did their best to cultivate my mind, even if they didn't know. Hey, these are the things that you should do.
Speaker 2:I love that. How old were you when you were thinking about the hotel or motel rooms and you were kind of like, okay, $79 a night, how many doors are there? Look at all the cars in the parking lot. And you were like doing the math and like you know, you got the cartoon eyes going with the dollar signs. How old were you when you had that thought?
Speaker 4:I was around like seven or eight years old.
Speaker 2:So that's very young. So did you okay your mom's looking through the newspapers, looking at CDs and the returns? You're kind of fiddling through the pages with her. Did your parents do you know if they ever had a financial advisor or anybody that they were working with that was helping them make these decisions to invest and grow their money and save their money in a certain way?
Speaker 4:They didn't, and the only things that I would have been aware of that they had was just like programs, like there was something called Crown Financial that my dad would use and even teach classes for, and then later on you had like Dave Ramsey's with the financial peace university or money makeover type of stuff, but it pretty much was more so, you know, just self-taught of, hey, save for a rainy day, don't spend more than what you make. Yeah, nothing really, nothing really sophisticated on like the investing in. It's just hey, work hard, put money aside, try to be, you know, good to other people, be generous, and let it play out from there.
Speaker 1:That's interesting because you know, even though they didn't have this extensive financial literacy background that they had learned. You know, through trial and error and just doing things they, you know, started to figure things out and even through those little bits and pieces, they were able to teach you as well. It's interesting to me because my mom raised my brother and I and she's done very well for herself financially, but she actually had a financial advisor for most of these years and the lessons that I took from her was mainly, you know, the idea from a budgeting standpoint don't spend more than you make. You know, that was the biggest lesson I took from her because I was younger I never really learned about, you know, investing or anything of that nature. But you know, obviously I'm her advisor now. But it's funny to me because, like, we were really big into Apple products, as you know, very early on, and my because my mom's in education and Apple was really big in the education realm. But the part that's so sad is that she never invested in Apple until I got into it. I mean so many years later and I was like you should Miss the boat. Like she literally had the first Apple laptop, oh, but did not invest in Apple, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah so. That one hurts that, that that does. So I'll I'll share a story, and I don't think I've ever shared this publicly, but so I had done a like an internship while I was in college. So my, my, my discipline was engineering and so I had like this design engineering role with. At the time when I first started, it was called Bell South and then eventually they changed over to. AT&T, which, which bought, bought them out. But I can remember clearly, clearly, working for AT&T and them talking about having an exclusive deal for this thing that's going to come out called an iPhone. That's going to be this smartphone that's going to revolutionize communications and you know and again I was working as an engineer- I forgot.
Speaker 1:I forgot Cause. I forgot when I first got my iPhone it was only on AT&T.
Speaker 2:Yes, great Wow. What do? You mean what? You were just like standing in the break room and like they were leaking this major secret. What, how, what was that?
Speaker 4:It was like all I can remember is the. I remember the people talking about how big of a deal this was going to be and how great it was going to be for AT&T and just that, the thought of that people would really like this, this phone. You know that they were hopeful, but I mean who? Who you know, like Blackberry was, was probably hitting at the time, you know so.
Speaker 2:That is true, yeah. I was. I loved my Blackberry, loved it.
Speaker 4:Right, right. So unfortunately, the hindsight was 20. Right, I was going to say unfortunately, like, right, in that moment, I didn't invest in Apple. Now, eventually, later I did, and don't cry for me. I realized dramatic gains over time. So but it wasn't. I didn't even know what to do, like if someone had told me hey, invest in Apple, I wouldn't even have known where to start. And there there were not as many self-directed options as there are today to be able to do that. You know, now there's so many. You know different brokerage type platforms that one could use to just go and buy it. And plus, you know, commission free trading was for the people listening, believe it or not, there was a time where you had to pay money to actually buy shares of companies. Or you know different. You know funds. So now actually all your money actually goes to the actual shares of the companies you're buying. Now, of course, you know if you're buying funds there may be, like you know, expense ratio connected to it, but hopefully you're buying something that's really cheap on the expenses.
Speaker 1:So it's really hard for people to understand that. You know, going back to say, you know, 2008, 2010, that the way that we receive information now wasn't even the same then. So it was so hard to find, to have access to information that showed you how to invest. You know, for someone like myself who grew up in a middle upper middle class family and, you know, went to, you know the concept of me going to college, I knew I was also going to go to college. My mom was a college professor. So I, you know, I quote unquote have the right track and I still didn't know the information. So to think that anybody else who didn't have even those type of opportunities that I had, why would they have any access to that? You know, I think people don't realize how big the barrier was it still is, to a certain extent to financial literacy.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I'd argue, even as recent as what? Maybe four or five years ago you still like? The difference between four to five years ago and today is dramatically different of the options that are out there. You know what I mean. Like today, it is very easy to be able to buy something called fractional shares, meaning that if you had $100 that you were looking to invest, you could actually invest all 100. Right right right, like regardless of what the share price is of whatever you're buying, you could invest the whole thing and you'd get partial shares or fractions of shares. Versus before, that wasn't really a widespread thing. You could only buy a whole share. So if I had $100 to invest but what I wanted to buy it was $111 a share, I'd have to wait until I got an extra 11 bucks to be able to buy it. And that's if I perfectly buy it where it's a whole share. You know, if the price goes up to 112, tough luck.
Speaker 1:And with the access to information, that has obviously helped so many people that previously were not privy to this type of information. But I also find it has its cons in the sense of information overload. Now you know, you have so much information out there, especially with social media, so many people talking about different things, and it makes it so hard for the everyday person to weed through all the noise to find out one like what is true and two, what is actually what pertains to their specific situation, Like what are the orders in which they should be doing these things. So you have individuals that are wanting to jump straight into the stock market and start investing when they don't even have enough to get through a thousand dollar emergency tomorrow. So I see both sides and I'm glad that there's more access, but it makes it really hard for people to get the right information as well.
Speaker 4:Right, right, no, you're totally spot on of that. Some of the cons are that it can be hard to know what is good information, what is accurate information, social media everybody, according to social media, is making six figures. They've got, you know, at least a seven figure portfolio. Let me show you how to make an extra $15,000 a month on the side. You only got to work an hour a week, you know, to be able to make it happy. You know what I mean, like all this kind of stuff that's out there. But if you buy my program, I'm gonna teach you how to do it. When I'm like man, if you're making $15,000 a week yourself, working four hours, why are you worried about selling me a course? Why don't you just do more of that? You know what I'm saying, but that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1:I literally said the same. Thing.
Speaker 2:I said the same thing, yeah if that was true, you wouldn't be on Instagram trying to promote your course.
Speaker 1:Like I have, like individuals like, oh you know what is the market gonna do? And I was like if I knew what the market was gonna do, I wouldn't be talking to you. I'd be sitting on a hut and bore, bored, just chilling cause I'd have so much money.
Speaker 4:Right, right, yeah, like Warren Buffett, Peter Lynch, all these people would be calling you yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly so I do wanna get to. You were hustling. You were in college. People kinda started. I heard that people started coming to you for financial advice. I also know that you made an investment I think you said it was like $1,500 into a project real estate, your first real estate deal. Right, walk us through people coming to you for advice, you investing not so great the very first time and learning that lesson to how that catapulted you into where you are now.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, first off, you really did your homework, cause that's true, you nailed it that all of those, even the number, was right. So, like, what would happen is like so I'll give you an example, and I won't use the guy's name, but if he listens he'll know I'm talking about him is, I can remember coming back from an internship and I done well, had made some meaningful money with it, and yet I was still driving the same car as what I had before the internship, which it was a Honda Civic, which it's not exactly the kind of ride that you're necessarily trying to impress your friends or the ladies with. And I'm not, like, a huge human, but I'm not small either. Right, right, it's reliable. Right, right, exactly, yeah, it's reliable. So, like, I'm not huge, but I'm not necessarily small either. I'm six foot one, so Civics aren't big vehicles. So I always had the seat slid all the way to the back. But I can remember my friend like saying hey, man, so you're gonna get a new car right. And I'm like oh, this one's already paid for. Like, why would I do that? He's like, oh, and then I just started, like we'd started talking about that, and Like, later on he asked me hey, well, give me some advice just on, like how you maneuver money. And and like I talked him through, hey, here's my thought process on it, and he's like man, this is good. And then he started telling other people, hey, man, stack, help me out With this, this money stuff. And they're like, oh man, let me talk to stack and see, you know what's going on. And so it kind of worked itself out that way of Helping out, like my friends and you know just kind of fellow, you know college mates, think through it, people you know getting full-time job offers and they're about to graduate and saying, hey, well, let's kind of try to figure out what your budget would be. We can kind of estimate what you'll make after taxes, because the internet I promise I'm not that old, the internet was very much here at that time, so so we can look up you know what the federal, you know income taxes were, state income taxes and kind of get a close approximation. Hey, here's what I think you'll make after taxes. And and we made a budget, one of my great friends that was engineer, he, he still works a company called Michelin and I helped him make his first budget Before he went there full-time. So that was kind of the story of how I started. Now the $1500 bad investment, what happened with that?
Speaker 1:the crazy part is is that you Basically something you were like this was, this was your calling from the good go and you had your friends coming to you for advice. It's funny because, in my scenario, where you know, I'm a financial advisor and I'm telling people that I know, you know certain things and whatnot, and they just choose not to listen to me and then, like you know, maybe a couple years later they come back and they're like oh well, you know, you were right. I was like I know I was right. Or, like you know, I'll tell people things for free, give them information and whatnot, and then it turns around they wouldn't bought a Dave Ramsey course that told an exact same thing that I told them for free. I'm like you know, maybe that's what you needed To, like you know, actually take action with the pay money for it.
Speaker 2:So I'm not mad at you, but I gave you.
Speaker 1:I told you the same information for free. At least your friends, your friends, seem to listen better.
Speaker 4:Right, right, right, hey, you know it worked out. Oh man. Oh yeah, I was gonna tell you about the $1500 investment thing. So what happened with that is that the long and the short of it is, if I had to diagnose it, because I was hungry for wanting to see my See money work for me. I had a friend approach me about a deal that seemed Amazing, you know, potentially too good to be true, which it turned out it was, and I learned a valuable lesson there because, like some of it, kind of made sense of how Money would be made. But I'll be the first to admit that ultimately I let, like, greed kind of cloud my judgment of really Wanting to understand how would this investment work, how does everybody make money from this? And you know, I didn't know to really think through things that way, but it it took losing what $1500 which was a lot of money to me at that time to To get a valuable lesson to say, okay, you need to understand, like, even if it makes sense, you need to understand how does everybody win here? Because that is what sustainable investing really entails is that you can see how everyone benefits. So, like, even when you use the example of of Apple. How everyone benefits is for the consumer. They get to buy, like if they're buying a smartphone, they buy this device that Instantly becomes an alarm clock, houses all these different apps that they can use. You can call people, text people, get on the internet, email folks. You know, like there's all sorts of different things that you can do. You can run a business off of your phone, so there's a payoff for the customer who's buying it. And then you know Apple, we want them to make a profit, like whether whether you're invested in them or not, like if they're not making a profit, they stop making the products and services that can potentially make people's lives easier. And for the Android people, you know hey, I don't want to make it feel bad, you know the same can apply for Samsung, you know I mean we're not in the tank just for Apple you know, I had a back to Apple because I had to switch back to Apple, because of Just being upset about her text message just being green and not blue.
Speaker 2:That's not why you switched back. Yes, I was upset about the non-correct colored bubbles.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna lie. I had an Android for a few years and I'd like, I like the phones that I had.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm not gonna lie until your phone literally just died on the spot and you couldn't turn it back on or do anything with it.
Speaker 1:You had the same thing happen with an Apple phone, so it can happen anytime. Listen, listen and I also understand how you feel about the Civic, because I'm six foot three and I would never. I wouldn't fit comfortably in the Civic.
Speaker 2:Also don't fit comfortably into our niece on rogue, and you're still driving that into the ground. Yes, you don't want a car payment.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I don't want a car payment, so I can definitely understand how you feel about that as well. It's paid off, I'm good.
Speaker 4:Salute to another six-foot-n-up brother. I love it.
Speaker 2:So you learned I mean losing $1,500 in college. That's got a hurt, right I know, because it was a friend and he did the right thing. You ended up getting that money back, which is not common, right? No typically you would have just been out that money, whatever that amount is. So that's a good you had a silver lining there. But how did you move forward with investing, growing your money? I know some of your portfolio now is still in real estate. I'm sure you've got lots of doors, especially since that seven and eight years old you were looking at the motel thinking you know, this is a lot of money coming in. I could do this. So talk to us about your, your lessons learned. And then how did you move forward to actually grow your wealth into what it is today?
Speaker 4:yeah. So, yeah, the big, the big lessons were to really analyze Whatever it is that I'm investing in, and that the person who will care the most about your money is you, ultimately. And you do need to have an understanding of how things work. And, yeah, it did it. The good thing is it didn't make me shy away from real estate because I still understood the dynamics of it, of there's this dirty little secret about land there. They're not actually making more of it. I know that may be shocking for the people that are listening. So so I'm like, hey, there's, you know, there's a scarcity to you know, things like that. So I'm like, hey, I just need to get a better understanding on that end. And similarly with you know, like the stock market, to of saying, okay, I Still need to understand From a base level, just how does this stuff work so that I can feel comfortable with where Deploying dollars to ultimately be able to work for me Going into the future. So those were the really the big things. It's just really understand it as Best I can. And if I can't explain it to my mom or you know, like a 10 year old, then Then either I don't understand it enough or maybe it's just not a good investment.
Speaker 1:I agree 100%. I always say that if you're going to invest your money in something, you need to understand what it is you're investing in. If you do not understand it, you do not need to be invested in it, because you're not gonna understand. You know what causes it to. You know increase in value or what could be the potential that causes it to decrease in value.
Speaker 4:Right right.
Speaker 1:such a basic understanding I hate and also the best lessons come from losing money. I hate losing money, Like so if I lose money, that's a lesson that I'm going to learn and analyze, because more people it hurts more to lose money. You know it's a more of a reaction than you know gaining a lot of money.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no, no, absolutely, absolutely, and that's part of even just like human psychology is there's more emotion or pain involved in losing than gaining. So I'm gonna take a quick aside here, just and y'all just track with me for a second. So An example is there was this show, and I'm sure it's terrible and it's been canceled for years, but there was this show called Hash cab and what would happen is you'd have people who would get into a cab and they have to answer questions. Okay, you do watch it. Okay, guys, nice, all right. So like they'd have to like try to answer questions and and they kind of had even like a who wants to be a millionaire Kind of feel. Or you can ask somebody like out on the street to try to help you, you know, get get the question right. But one of the things that I always found fascinating about that show was there was a moment where they'd have an amount of money that they amassed and and the driver of the cab would say, hey, you can take the money, hey, I've got it. Like he'd have like few hundred bills or you know whatever. Like here's the cash, I can give it to you now, or you can risk it all for whatever this you know prizes on this one question. And it would be fascinating seeing the psychology of people, whether they won or lost all of that money. But most people were like man, let me just take the money I have because I don't want to feel the pain of losing it all. So there's my little story.
Speaker 1:It's also in that scenario, it's not their money. So it's also the psychology of you have a different feeling of when, like you know, if I lose all the money, I'm at the same place I was when I, when I got in the you know cab, as compared to if it was actually your own money, I had your own pocket that you were losing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, this is, this is so. I'm glad you brought that up. This may not have been the purview of of the interview, but I think it's important so For people who will do things like gambling. So, first off, let me just say this right off the gate of All of those amazing big, bright, flashy, shiny, tall buildings they're not built off of winners like, statistically, the house will win. The casino is going to win, like, the longer you play, the more money they make. But I wanted to even kind of push on this idea. When people say, oh, I'm playing with house money, no, no, no, you're playing with your money, like if, if you won, you know, I mean, if you get up from the table and say I'm a, cash these chips and they're gonna give you the money, like that whole, like that whole idea, that concept of oh, I'm playing with house money favors the house Because the longer you stay at the table, oh, 100% more likely is you're gonna lose. So that's, that's neither here nor there. So that was for free for everybody who was listening is be mindful of the house money concept. I.
Speaker 1:Hey, gambling. I've been to Vegas numerous times and I don't gamble not my thing. Yeah, once again, I don't like losing money and also I'm a math person, so I know about probability.
Speaker 2:Yeah the house is right, right.
Speaker 4:I'm gonna try not to nerd out on that, so we'll keep going forward.
Speaker 1:Granted. I have tried to convince my 66 year old mom, who is a retired math professor, to learn how to count cards. She still refuses, though. Also that's illegal so it's not illegal, it's just frowned upon. There's a difference. Oh my gosh no one would suspect a 66 year old black woman to be counting cards. It'd be perfect.
Speaker 4:I'm talking to the hidden Mike. We are only kidding, we are just kidding. Do not take us to a back alley. There we go.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I mean, what do we have kids? What are you trying to do to us? I?
Speaker 1:Don't look good in orange. I don't go to Vegas to gamble, so it's fine we do not know.
Speaker 2:Okay, I want to know how you two get it together. Right how did we go from you lost $1,500?. You learned a valuable lesson to I'm a millionaire at age 31. How did that happen? Some good stories in between.
Speaker 4:Right, and if you buy my course, I'll just play it. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So what I did, here's how I started. So there were multiple factors. So, and I want to be clear with people of, first off, when I started working, there were Fortuitous things going on. At the time of, there was this thing called the great recession. That was going on At that time. So the market was very much beat up in every way, from stock market, real estate, but essentially everything was down at that time. But I did have enough understanding at that time to say, okay, if prices are down, this is the time I really should be buying, because I believe this stuff is going to bounce back, because I'm like, hey, these companies aren't going to just in mass, go out of business, you know, like across the US economy, and if they do, then we got bigger fish to fry. Then the money that I did put in the market, you know, for me. So Like I had enough of an understanding to say the lower the prices were for assets, the lower my risk actually was, the entry point that I'm making is actually helping me To manage risk. So for those listening, because I don't know when you'll hear this if there is a nasty recession going on and Asset prices are down. That's actually lowering your risk as an investor. Risk tends to increase as the prices of assets increase. So what I did where I started was I said, okay, I had a, I had a, just had a nine to five job. And I said the first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take advantage of this employer sponsored plan or 401k, 403b you know, people in military, tsp, thrift savings plan, 457 I know it's a lot of numbers but trust me, they mean something. So I started with that and Getting like a company match. So I said I'm gonna max this thing Right out of the gate because I was coming right out of college. So I'm like, man, I don't Make it more money than I've ever made, so I'm just gonna go for it. On the 401k piece, so I started there. The majority of it was in like mutual fund type stuff. So I did like 90% and like mutual funds and I did 10% of my company stock. I just said, hey, you know why not? It was kind of my mentality. I didn't have anybody like walking me through it, so that was there. But then I'm like, hey, there's still Money's left that I have, and I was intentional about trying to keep my living expenses low, which, by the way, I did, for throughout my 20s I invested at least 50% of my income, so that that was another thing that helped me get from losing $1,500 to being at a million at 31 you have to say that again, how you were investing 50% of your income five zero, five zero yes five five zero.
Speaker 1:That's insane, at least Right, right, right at that age to have that or thought to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, everybody else is out partying blowing their money on this guy right here. And you're like nope, I'm gonna be in my Honda working side hustling, putting all of my money into investing, and then, when y'all are broke, I'm gonna be living nice.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing that I want people to really take away from this is that he didn't just Happen upon becoming a millionaire by 31. That was intentional. It didn't happen overnight. It didn't happen by just taking one or two steps. It was a lot of planning and action that went into the eventual outcome. So you know, you always see on social media, oh, you can do this and it will happen tomorrow. The reality is that that's not how it works.
Speaker 2:Well, also you have to be intentional, and that takes so much sacrifice, right to put that discipline and discipline, sacrifice and discipline and patience and, like you said, for thought, because in your 20s we were all spending more than we had, more than we should have, trying to live a life that nobody should have been trying to live. We didn't have the discipline.
Speaker 4:I didn't have the discipline.
Speaker 2:I didn't have the discipline, but Steven Stack had the discipline and that's what he was a millionaire at 31.
Speaker 1:So this is why you should also listen to the advice that it provides to you.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, that's. It's so fantastic because also just to have that, that delayed gratification to in your 20s is so, especially now. Delayed gratification is not a thing, right, you can have it now, you can have your door dash, you can have things delivered next day, same day, all the things. Nobody wants delayed gratification, but what you did is you. That's what you did. You focused on where do I want to be in In 8, 10, 12, 15 years? So that's, I mean kudos to you, because the rest of us were not doing that.
Speaker 1:I heard a quote the other day and unfortunately it's indicative of kind of where we're at as a society now is that people want the success For the work that they didn't put in. Like people just automatically want the success, but like when you break it down and you really think about it, did you actually put in the work to obtain the excess you think you're, you know you're warranted and most of the time you didn't right, right, not.
Speaker 4:That is a our house quote and and unfortunately, Very remember who said it.
Speaker 1:I didn't make that up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, like yeah it's really true and and here's the tough part about that too that people don't realize is Like it's not just the end result when you, when you are putting in the work, like that's part of the reward of it too is who it makes you become, like that it actually helps you to build the actual wherewithal who manage what You've achieved or what you've been able to accumulate or amass over time. You know, I mean like there's all kinds of things around, you know, like the lottery effect of people where they get like large sums of money really quick, and how it can ruin people Because they haven't built, built like the, the, the muscles to be able to actually Handle it well, and all the stuff that comes with that too, of Like. When it like you hear people say easy come, easy, go, like it's, it's easier to just be like oh yeah, sure, yeah, let's do this, let's do that, let's do that when you haven't put any Work or or sacrifice or discipline or commitment into you know, whatever the endeavor is, Also, a lot of people think that money is simply going to fix their problems.
Speaker 1:It's not, because if you all of a sudden have more money, you're still going to have the same habits you had before. So if you were excessively spending and now you're like, oh I've been dead, if I had more money, I'd be fine, no, you get more money, you just spend more, right, right, you have to really be conscious on changing the, the habits. Like you said, the habits, yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, your characteristics, yeah what I was gonna say is, to the point of what you were saying, like Someone can say, oh man, well, it's, it's easy. So let's say, if you got a million dollars and you get a 10 percent return, which would be a hundred thousand dollars, and someone can say, oh well, it's, it's easy to make that kind of money because you've already got a big amount, but what, what? I would say that that is, man, it's. It's much easier for me to invest $100 than it is for me to say I'm gonna take a swing of conviction with $100,000. You know what I mean. Because they be like oh well, you know, it's easy because you got so much. And I'd argue, when you have a lot right, you got more to lose too. You know what I'm saying. So. But when you've built the habits in the discipline over time, it's easier to have the conviction to say, hey, I'm gonna stay the course.
Speaker 2:I know we're up on time, but I do have two more things that I just want to briefly touch on. The first one is because you made the comment earlier about real estate. I do want to know how many doors are in your portfolio to date. And then the last part is you are a father of three and obviously your parents made a big impression on you, whether they did it intentionally or not, with the life you lead now, with money and your responsibility around money. So I would love to know how you're instilling those values and those lessons into your three kids today with your wife.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I'm gonna say this real quick, because this is another kind of wealth hack thing out there. It does matter the decisions you make romantically towards wealth building. I agree, we have 100%. You know. So like I know that's not necessarily like the heart of what we're talking about, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say that, because you could have a bunch of these dynamics go really, really well, but if you have eight kids from four different women, it's probably gonna be a lot more difficult to build and actually I'll take the problem. Oh my god.
Speaker 2:Not Nick Cannon honey.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying. Not Nick what is that man doing? He could have probably have a lot more money if you didn't have like 15 kids, right?
Speaker 4:And with Nick now I'm not super familiar with like his full breadth of work, like I remember when he kind of burst on the scene with drum line. But I want to say that Nick didn't start this way you know what I mean Like when he was ascending, that I don't believe you have. You know, a plethora of baby mamas Did not, you know, after he, you know got there. Then he said hey, you know I want to be very fruitful.
Speaker 2:Was that the smarter way to do it or worse way to do it? I?
Speaker 1:don't know. I hear he takes care of all this kids. So to each their own. He's taking care of them. It doesn't bother me, it doesn't affect my life.
Speaker 2:That's a whole different episode, because you cannot take care properly of that many children. You can financially support children, but my idea of proper care for children is not what Nick Cannon is doing. Let's move on, because we're gonna go down this rabbit hole. It's a deep, deep rabbit hole y'all.
Speaker 4:I have no comment. Good luck to him and all the ladies and all the children.
Speaker 2:Exactly All the ladies, all the children. Oh my gosh. But we do want to answer your question. We do whole holder heartedly agree, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 4:So for me, as far as being a father, what I'd like to do is just try to normalize conversations around money just in everyday life. So one of the things that I just thought through is I'm like kids naturally see their parents spend the money, whether it's going to the grocery store or a toy store even, or whatever the case may be. They can see, okay, buying, spending, and especially if they want things. But I try to be really intentional about saying let me give them a layered view of what it looks like to who save money to invest money. So like taking a kid to the bank and saying, hey, count, you can count the money. So like intentionally using cash, even though, like personally, I don't really carry cash like ever. So like I have to be intentional to actually get cash to deposit it and like go inside with the bank teller and let them out the money and give it, and then see the statement to say, okay, what you put in this was added to an account you know. So this is money saved. Or like actually showing, investing and saying, hey, there's money that's put aside for you, for your future, and here's the growth in your account. And actually talking about it of hey, what do some of these things mean? What is a stock, what is a bond, or what's an index fund or mutual fund? Like what do these things mean? And try to explain it in ways as best I can that they can understand it. Ask questions hey, what does this mean? Or hey, what's an appreciating asset versus what's a depreciating asset? And then being able to answer that question of saying, okay, depreciating asset would be close a car, a car Right, furniture, like things that we use and they have wear and tear and aren't like they used to be, like things like that versus what's an appreciating asset of hey, these are where things go up primarily or over time. So just trying to normalize that stuff, having those conversations and adding on to what I heard when I said my first money memory early in our conversation of I've got to learn about giving and things like that and saying, okay, let me layer on to that the things that I know now to make this stuff more normative.
Speaker 1:I love that because one of the things that you know, one of the focus of this podcast, is to start normalizing. Talking about money, and you know, I would say just in general, across the board, there's not enough conversations had revolving around money, especially at an early age, but let alone, you know, within the black community, that it's even, you know, a smaller percentage of these conversations being had and our goal is to, like you said, normalize this so that you know the information that you know one generation is obtaining now is passed on to the next generation and built upon Right right?
Speaker 4:No, exactly, exactly, exactly. It's like there's so many things and just for parents, like don't feel like, just because you may not be a millionaire or close to it, or feel like, oh well, I'm not great with money, like you're still giving your children money lessons, whether you're being intentional about it or not. So my encouragement is try to be more intentional about it, to at least be able to craft and shape what what their experiences around it will be of hey, this is, these are how we make our decisions, because there are things that you're doing well, like for those listening. There are things that you are doing that are good with money and take time to be able to explain that stuff to to your kids, and you'd be amazed at how much they absorb and take in. That can be really, really positive.
Speaker 2:And I think too, when you normalize it, like you said, and you're intentional and you just talk about it, I mean your kids span, you know, quite a range. So your six year old is going to probably understand less than your 11 year old, right? But that doesn't mean that the conversation didn't stick or wasn't important. And I think when you normalize conversation and you just have that dialogue, naturally and you pull it into the every day, it allows people to comfortably ask questions to when they think of something. Right, but you don't know what you don't know. So how would you even know to ask the question if you never hear any of these terms? If you don't, you know get the, you know you have to start pulling all of the pieces together, but if you never hear the individual pieces, you don't even know to ask the question. So, whether you understand all of it or not, whether you're a parent, that is, you know doing your own learnings, sharing that with your kids, even that is valuable, right, you don't have to be perfect, you don't have to. You know be opening, you know ringing the bell at the stock market. You know to add value to your home. That's like one of my side. My side dreams is like ringing the opening bell. Let's, I'm just speaking it into, into fruition, but you know the kids, exactly the kids they pick up on so much, and so just hearing the normalized conversation will go a long way. Okay, we like to leave our listeners with a final thought or a piece of advice and this whole episode was full of great nuggets of advice, and even we could have just ended on that last one of being intentional and normalizing the conversation but is there anything else that you would like to leave our listeners with that you haven't said today?
Speaker 4:I'll say a couple of things. Regardless of where you may be at financially, be gracious to yourself. Like it's okay, none of us know everything we don't. I'm still in process, I'm still learning, like even even today, and I and I plan to be a lifelong learner. So so it's okay if you don't know stuff, and even even on the end, with the parent side of things, it's okay to be vulnerable with your kids and say I don't know, and it can be a great opportunity for you both to learn about it. Say, hey, I don't know the answer to this. Let's, let's go find out together. And it's never too late to start. It's never too late to start. So, regardless of where you may be financially, if you're still breathing, you're still here, you're listening to the podcast, you've heard us laugh all throughout and have a great time, you know that it's it's not too late, it really isn't. And don't get caught up into this all or nothing mentality. If it's like, I will pause here and just say this, like that. That's one of the things that I combat the most when working with people is they're like well, well, I'm not going to have 3.5 million, you know, in retirement, but you know what? 550,000 is more than zero, for example. You know, I mean like I couldn't agree more Right, like don't think that it's an all or nothing proposition. You can do things right here and right now that very much can impact your future and those that come after you. So get started now.
Speaker 2:I love it. Thank you so much, Stephen, for being with us today. This was so fantastic.
Speaker 4:Yes, no, you're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Maybe we'll do a part two. Like this was so fun, like y'all are awesome, I really, really enjoyed it sincerely.
Speaker 2:Don't forget. Benjamin Franklin said an investment in knowledge pays the best interest. You just got paid Until next time. Thanks for listening to today's episode. We are so glad to have you as part of our Sugar Daddy community. If you learned something today, please remember to subscribe, rate, review and share this episode with your friends, family and extended network. Don't forget to connect with us on social media at the Sugar Daddy podcast. You can also email us your questions you want us to answer for our past the sugar segments at the Sugar Daddy podcast at gmailcom, or leave us a voicemail through our email address. Or leave us a voicemail through our Instagram.
