John Hope Bryant, the CEO of the nonprofit organization Operation HOPE, joins Forbes senior writer Jabari Young on The Enterprise Zone at Nasdaq MarketSite. During their discussion, Bryant addresses the ongoing financial literacy challenges facing the country in 2025. He emphasizes the need for the U.S. to adopt inclusive economic practices similar to those in Finland and Singapore. Additionally, he provides updates on the One Million Black Businesses initiative in partnership with Shopify.
00:00 – Be Bold and Ask for What You Want
00:52 – New Books Coming: Inclusive Economics & More
02:27 – Stocks John Hope Bryant Is Watching
03:16 – “Crypto Is Gambling”—Investing Advice Explained
05:36 – His Biggest Financial Mistake
07:53 – The Power of Patience and Compounding
10:03 – The Shopify Partnership: $190M for Black Businesses
12:35 – What Entrepreneurs Get with Operation Hope
14:17 – Why It’s About the Green, Not Just DEI
16:00 – Bad Capitalism vs. Good Capitalism
18:01 – Homeownership and Tax Policy Explained
20:04 – His Mother’s Wisdom: Broke vs. Poor
23:12 – Selling Promise Homes and the “Rent-to-Own” Model
28:56 – Financial Literacy in Finland vs. U.S.
30:10 – “Financial Literacy Is This Generation’s Civil Rights”
32:03 – Why Parents Should Open Stock Accounts for Kids
33:39 – Push for Federal Financial Literacy Legislation
35:57 – “We’ve Gone from Civil Rights to Silver Rights”
38:27 – What He Did With His First Million
41:08 – What Makes a Great Entrepreneur in 2025
43:33 – Green Socks Day: April 30th Financial Literacy Campaign
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00:00 – Be Bold and Ask for What You Want
00:52 – New Books Coming: Inclusive Economics & More
02:27 – Stocks John Hope Bryant Is Watching
03:16 – “Crypto Is Gambling”—Investing Advice Explained
05:36 – His Biggest Financial Mistake
07:53 – The Power of Patience and Compounding
10:03 – The Shopify Partnership: $190M for Black Businesses
12:35 – What Entrepreneurs Get with Operation Hope
14:17 – Why It’s About the Green, Not Just DEI
16:00 – Bad Capitalism vs. Good Capitalism
18:01 – Homeownership and Tax Policy Explained
20:04 – His Mother’s Wisdom: Broke vs. Poor
23:12 – Selling Promise Homes and the “Rent-to-Own” Model
28:56 – Financial Literacy in Finland vs. U.S.
30:10 – “Financial Literacy Is This Generation’s Civil Rights”
32:03 – Why Parents Should Open Stock Accounts for Kids
33:39 – Push for Federal Financial Literacy Legislation
35:57 – “We’ve Gone from Civil Rights to Silver Rights”
38:27 – What He Did With His First Million
41:08 – What Makes a Great Entrepreneur in 2025
43:33 – Green Socks Day: April 30th Financial Literacy Campaign
Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Be bold and don't be afraid to ask for what you want.
00:04Even in 2025, that message still applies.
00:06And when you hear it, you know what we're ready to talk to.
00:09John Hope Bryan, CEO of Operation Hope.
00:12It's Financial Literacy Month, so we've got to check in.
00:14You're in an enterprise zone at the NASDAQ.
00:21Hello, everyone.
00:22This is Jabari Young here at the NASDAQ market site.
00:25And I am joined by John Hope Bryan, CEO of Operation Hope,
00:31a platform that obviously promotes financial literacy, credit awareness,
00:35also an author of a plethora of books, right?
00:38And then you have a podcast.
00:39A Forbes Black 50.
00:40Yes, I mean, a BLK 50 member, man.
00:43I mean, Money and Wealth podcast, always promoting financial dignity.
00:48John, thank you so much for making the trip, man.
00:50As always, I'd love to see you.
00:51Honored to be here.
00:52Absolutely.
00:52Hey, man, are you writing another book in 2025?
00:54Can we expect another one's coming out later on this year?
00:57My publisher's trying to get me to do two.
01:00Two this year?
01:01Well, I'm going to write two this year.
01:04One might be, basically, what advice would you give your 18-year-old self on financial literacy,
01:12which would be an easy one to write if I do it.
01:14The big book that I would write this year was Inclusive Economics.
01:17Right, yeah.
01:18And then in two years, I'm going to write a book called The Bridging of an Unhealed America.
01:25Wow.
01:25Man, so you already got it.
01:27Can I do one of the forwards for these things?
01:28You can do whatever you want.
01:29You're Jabari Young.
01:30I mean, listen, I got to ask.
01:31It's your book, man.
01:32You know what I mean?
01:33But, hey, listen, as always, you know, again, first of all, thank you so much and welcome
01:37as a new advisory member to the BLK platform, forwards BLK, man.
01:41Definitely look forward to your insight.
01:43Look forward to your help leader, man.
01:45And so it's been great.
01:46I mean, me and you have known each other now for years, right?
01:49Met back in Alabama, talking in Atlanta about all this stuff, and here we are sitting.
01:53So it's always a privilege to see you, man.
01:55Always a privilege.
01:56Thank you so much.
01:56You guys make me proud.
01:58I mean, you guys just do it right.
02:01You're not a group of black leaders.
02:03You're a group of great leaders who happen to be black and brown,
02:06and you're producing and showing the green, which I really love.
02:11Yeah, well, following your lead.
02:12You're all about excellence.
02:13Yeah, following your lead.
02:14Well, listen, we're at the NASDAQ market site,
02:16so I always love to get your opinion on a stock,
02:19something that's worked well for you maybe over the last year,
02:21something you're looking to buy.
02:23NVIDIA, right?
02:24Delta Airlines.
02:25I know you're a Delta guy.
02:26Wells Fargo.
02:27What's up?
02:27I think in these times, you want to stick to fundamentals.
02:30It's fundamental.
02:31You want to, what's the stuff that's like the anchors for a society and economy?
02:37Yeah, property and gamble and peanuts.
02:38I love Walmart.
02:39I love, you know, I love Apple.
02:43These are not, it's not obvious.
02:44I mean, it's not mind-blowing stuff.
02:47Yeah.
02:47I love stuff that you use every day,
02:51that no matter whether the economy is up or down
02:53or the stock market is in or out or whoever the president is or whatever,
02:57you're going to involve yourself in those kinds of companies
03:01and their kind of products.
03:03And in times, when times are sketchy, you want to flight to quality.
03:08Like, you don't want to be caught over here doing, you know,
03:12crazy cryptocurrency stuff.
03:13And, you know.
03:14You're not a believer in cryptocurrency?
03:15Look, I mean, to a certain degree, you know, digital money today,
03:19you know, for the last 10 years, we've had currency as digital currency.
03:24Right.
03:24So, I mean, we all swipe a card.
03:29Cryptocurrency is gambling.
03:31It's not investing.
03:32It's gambling.
03:33And there's no assets underneath it.
03:36A billionaire friend of mine was at the Milken Conference speaking
03:38and somebody asked him about, this guy's worth $15 billion.
03:43What do you think about crypto?
03:44He said, if somebody could tell me why the price goes up
03:47and why the price goes down, I'll buy some.
03:51Well, it's a scarcity thing, right?
03:52You don't minding so much of it.
03:53No, no, no.
03:55Look, Bitcoin itself is a separate thing.
03:58And I love blockchain technology, by the way.
04:01But there were, people don't know, there were almost 20,000 cryptocurrencies.
04:06You know, in the last 10 years or less, most of them went poof.
04:10They just went away.
04:12And most people are trying to get a cryptocurrency to cash it out for cash.
04:16They want cryptocurrency.
04:18What they really want at the end of the day is cash.
04:21So, it's like, so, look, I'm not down on cryptocurrency.
04:25I'm just saying don't use your rent money to go buy some.
04:28It's gambling.
04:29It's speculation.
04:29You can go to New York.
04:30You can go to Las Vegas and hit really big.
04:33Or you can understand that Las Vegas keeps getting bigger.
04:36With every flight, it keeps getting bigger.
04:39House always wins.
04:40So, you might be one of the people who hit.
04:42You might get hit on the head.
04:43I don't want you to be hit on the head.
04:44The biggest population buying cryptocurrency are African Americans.
04:48Yeah.
04:49And because of a lot of reasons, but a lot of these promoters feed on our emotions.
04:54And whenever you make an emotional decision, it's a bad one.
04:56Yeah.
04:57So, my wife owns some.
04:58She did well with Bitcoin.
05:00But she's got me.
05:01If things don't go south of the border with her, she knows she can rely on me.
05:05So, take 5%, 10% of your portfolio and speculate.
05:09And if you want to speculate on crypto, God bless you.
05:12Fantastic.
05:13You might do extraordinarily well.
05:15People walk up to me all day.
05:16Yeah, I do great with crypto.
05:17That's great.
05:18Do you own a house?
05:20Do you own a blue chick stock portfolio?
05:23Yeah.
05:23You know, do you have some bonds?
05:25Do you have some, you know, get the basics in place and then go do that other stuff.
05:29Yeah, most definitely.
05:29Every time we talk, man, again, financial literacy is always a theme.
05:32Real estate, by the way.
05:34All real estate.
05:35That's my cornerstone.
05:36Absolutely.
05:37You know, you could touch it.
05:37But I never asked you your worst money management advice.
05:41Like, what's the worst piece?
05:42I'll just tell you the worst thing I did.
05:44I forgot.
05:44Not money management advice.
05:45I'll tell you a mistake.
05:47I made, I did.
05:48I hit big since I saw you last.
05:50It was about two years ago, right?
05:51No, last year.
05:52It was last year.
05:53Was it last year?
05:54Yeah, right here.
05:54The book, yeah.
05:55Financial literacy moves fast.
05:57Absolutely does.
05:58Last year.
05:59Yeah.
05:59I lost big in the last year and I hit big in the last 18 months.
06:04So just to tell you the power of real estate, I bought some real estate in a foreign country
06:09on the beach.
06:12I wasn't intended for it to go up.
06:14It was just a, it was a lifestyle move that was secured.
06:17That thing doubled.
06:19Now, you know.
06:20The one me and you talk about.
06:21Yeah, it doubled.
06:22It doubled.
06:22And I don't know any legal, legitimate, asset-secured investment.
06:31Now, it's not going to double again, but there was a moment where, you know, I bought it for
06:37X and it was X times 100.
06:40So, or, you know, X times 80 is almost double.
06:43So that was a really smart move I made.
06:45And if you buy real estate, in all likelihood, if it's near jobs, near transportation, near
06:52activity, it's just going to go up in value.
06:54So don't wait.
06:55And I'm a landlord now, so I shouldn't be encouraging people to rent, but I want you to go from rent
06:59to own.
07:00But let me tell you about my mistake, since I saw you.
07:02So I sold, I sold a company two years ago, and I wanted to put some money away into something
07:11that was safe.
07:12I didn't need to go up.
07:13I didn't need to do extraordinary.
07:14I just needed to not deplete.
07:16It was like a safety valve.
07:17So I'll tell you the number.
07:19I put three and a half million dollars into the market, and I'll tell you when it was.
07:23It was January 2022, and I put it with one of the best market money managers you could
07:30imagine, like family office kind of a company.
07:34And in three months, four months, it went from 3.5 balance to three.
07:42So what I always tell people is, don't sell.
07:46If you buy well, don't sell.
07:49Don't get freaked out.
07:50Don't be emotional.
07:51What did I do?
07:52It was emotional.
07:53I was emotional, sort of.
07:55I wasn't trying to make money.
07:58And, you know, it would be different if the market had gone up, and, you know, I'd gone
08:02up to 3.5.
08:03I was in it for 2.5 basis.
08:05It went down to three.
08:06Okay, but it's, you know, this is house money.
08:08This was my money.
08:10Right.
08:11And it went down to three.
08:15I'd lost $500,000.
08:16I said, move me to cash.
08:17Move me to treasuries, bonds, cash equivalents, U.S. treasury bills.
08:22So they did that.
08:24And what happened?
08:25So I asked my guys last, no, this year.
08:28I asked them in February.
08:29So that's out of curiosity.
08:31What happened with that portfolio?
08:34You know, they tracked it.
08:35They said, well, you would have lost another $250,000.
08:36But, there's a but coming.
08:39There's a but.
08:41So I'd gone down $750,000.
08:43If I had just done nothing, this is the power of this place, the power of markets.
08:49If I had done nothing, Jabari, just let it sit there, I would have returned the $750,000.
08:55It would have repaired itself.
08:58And then it went up another $750,000.
08:59So take two steps back, move three steps forward in a way.
09:02Yeah.
09:03If I, no, it's just the power of compounding.
09:06Right.
09:06But you go down, you take a loss, but then if you wait, you get that game back.
09:10Well, what I keep saying to people is, there's three things that have never gone down in American history.
09:16Real estate values, stock market values, and GDP.
09:21Yeah.
09:22They go up, and people will say, Washington, wait a minute, no, you know, what about a recession?
09:26Yep, they go up, listen, recession, it recedes, recession, not depression, it recedes.
09:34Take a breath, because poor people sell and loss.
09:37We get free time.
09:38And then it corrects above the line.
09:41Right.
09:41Every time.
09:42All the time.
09:43So you just want to hold on.
09:45If you've made a good investment, if it's flaky stuff, you may want to get rid of it.
09:49But if you bet on Jabari Young, just hold on to it.
09:54Well, I appreciate that, man.
09:55I like to say I've returned my investment, you know, return on my investment.
09:59Whatever woman bets on Jabari Young is going to be doing pretty good.
10:03Hey, man, listen, as always, I've got to check in with Operation Hope.
10:06It's the latest, you know, we always talk about one million black businesses, the plan, the initiative you have with Shopify.
10:13I believe it was over $130 million commitment now.
10:15It's about $160 million or something like that, $190?
10:17No, no, $190 million.
10:19$190 million.
10:19They were $130 million after George Floyd's murder.
10:23And recently he came in at $60 million.
10:25In December, they put up another $60 million.
10:28Toby Lutke, the founder, and Harley Finkelstein, the president, in particular.
10:33And this one didn't show up in your junk folder.
10:35You know that story.
10:36Yeah.
10:36It didn't show up in your junk folder, right?
10:38No, it wasn't my junk folder.
10:39Does the audience know that story?
10:41The audience knows the story.
10:42Of course, everybody knows the story.
10:43I tell them all the time, check your junk folder.
10:45Even when people say, I haven't even received an email, I say, did you check your junk folder?
10:48Right.
10:48And behold, there it is.
10:50And be gracious.
10:50Like, I could have assumed, to assume is to make an ASS out of you and me, I could have assumed that that guy, Toby, was disingenuous or negative or whatever and just didn't respond to me.
11:02Right.
11:03Or I could have taken an attitude that he just said no.
11:06What I assumed was that he was busy and that he hadn't thought about doing anything for black business until I raised it to him.
11:13And he said, graciously, send me something.
11:16He had no obligation to say yes to me.
11:18So a week had passed and I was like, yo, man, I sent him a note.
11:21Yo, man, you're still my brother.
11:24We're going to do something else down the road.
11:25Thanks for considering it.
11:26I understand.
11:27I didn't hear back from you that you're not interested.
11:29And his response was, what are you talking about?
11:31I said yes.
11:32Yeah.
11:32And it was my fault.
11:33So talk without being offensive.
11:36Listen without being defensive.
11:37And always leave even your adversary with their dignity, their dignity, because if you don't, they'll spend the rest of their life working to make you miserable.
11:44It becomes personal.
11:46Step over mess and not in it.
11:47So I would have, I was the idiot there, not them.
11:50He had done his part.
11:51So that was a, it was a two-line email.
11:54We're in, right?
11:54130 million.
11:55So then in December of last year, and the timing is important, they recommitted at our Hope Global Forum another $60 million on top of the $130 million.
12:04Lance Triggs, who's here, who's our president of all partners, of all programs at Operation Open.
12:09He runs that program.
12:10He's staff co-chair for 1MBB.
12:12They doubled down and created a commitment of $190 million by 2030 to create a million black businesses.
12:19Where are you guys at now?
12:20About $450,000, although Lance will probably correct me, say it's more than that.
12:24But $450,000 businesses that have been started, supported, you know, advanced by us.
12:31Are that many still in business now or some of them?
12:33Oh, I don't know if they're still in business.
12:34But they were started, $450,000.
12:35Started, supported, nurtured.
12:37The reason I say that is you could have a restaurant and start an e-restaurant.
12:43You don't have to start an e-commerce business.
12:46You could have an existing business.
12:48We could have just improved your existing business with a credit enhancement called e-commerce.
12:53But with us, you get this $25,000 package we do at 1MBB.
12:57You get a domain name search, domain name secured.
13:00You get a website.
13:02You get a payment system, a delivery system.
13:04You get an e-commerce site from Shopify for six months, for a dollar a month.
13:10You get all the back end.
13:12You get financing.
13:13After your first sale, they'll finance your second one.
13:15You get a small business plan from Operation Open.
13:18You get credit score and support.
13:20You get two hours with an attorney, two hours with an accountant.
13:24You get support from Shopify's team on e-commerce and so on and so forth.
13:28We're about $25,000 for each small business.
13:32Anyway, so I asked Harley, why?
13:35Like, this is recently.
13:36Like, you are paying attention to the environment, right?
13:41So I wasn't going to change the name, but I at least was being gracious.
13:45Like, do you need me to make some adjustments?
13:47No.
13:48The only adjustment I need you to make is take this $2 million for your administrative expenses.
13:53Excuse me?
13:54Yeah, and I need this to report to me.
13:57Excuse me?
13:58Yeah, and here's my chief of staff, and she's going to be the one that Lance reports to.
14:01Okay, what's up?
14:04He's like, this is fantastic for us.
14:07We have X number of small businesses that are black.
14:10Let's call it 3%.
14:11We want 10% of small businesses that are black of Shopify.
14:17It's business development for us.
14:18Well, it's the right thing to do.
14:19It feels good.
14:20But the conversion rate they're discovering of folks who came on and stayed on,
14:25went from free to fee as a successful business, was off the charts for them.
14:30They couldn't find nothing else that had this conversion rate, so they wanted to double down on it.
14:35And that's what I want.
14:36That's what, it reminds me, I was on a show with my brother Roland Martin a year, no, three years ago,
14:41and some callers came in, you know, his callers, you know, why is Shopify doing this?
14:47Well, what's the deal, John?
14:48I said, they want customers.
14:52And so I was like, you don't want a handout.
14:54You want a hand up.
14:55And I said to them, so do you want charity?
14:59Or do you want me to teach you how to fish?
15:01And then do you want to become the fisherman?
15:03Yeah.
15:03So I think it's really progress because this is about the green.
15:07And this is my whole argument about inclusive economics and why I think DEI was designed with good intentions,
15:16but it was designed emotionally.
15:17And as a result of that, it became really easy to attack.
15:21Well, I wanted to ask you about that because you said in that email that, I mean, you know, Shopify, the CEO,
15:25the co-founder, Toby, was telling you, make no changes.
15:31Were you shocked at that?
15:32Because, you know, you've been very vocal about companies dropping diversity,
15:38making changes to the DEI because of the, you know, political environment we're in.
15:41We just had the MLB commissioner sitting right where you're at.
15:44And, you know, Rob was saying how—
15:46He's great.
15:47Rob is phenomenal.
15:47They're helping us with Green Sox Day.
15:49What they had to do, right, to make sure that their programs are not targeted,
15:53and they had to drop the word diversity.
15:55If you would have had to make changes, would you have done it?
15:59No.
15:59No.
16:00I mean, the color is green.
16:02That's what I keep saying.
16:03It's not black or white or red or blue.
16:06It's green.
16:07Yeah.
16:08At least in the U.S.
16:09And it's always been green.
16:10Look, slavery was about money.
16:13Real talk.
16:14Nobody went halfway around the world to drag you and me, all the way, our descendants,
16:20all the way over here because they didn't like us.
16:21Yeah.
16:22Just the opposite.
16:23Yeah.
16:24We were agricultural geniuses.
16:26We understood the land.
16:28We knew how to take dead land, dead soil, overburn, overheated, worn out,
16:35oversaturated with crop rotations.
16:38And we knew how to bring that soil back to life in Africa.
16:43So the southern soil with all the humidity and all of the heat was very similar.
16:48But that's where the cash crops were.
16:50That's where the cotton was.
16:53That's where the tobacco was.
16:54All the crops of those days, which was like gold.
16:56Half of all exports in America in the 1840s was cotton.
17:00So this country literally depended on these crops.
17:04But they couldn't get Europeans to work that soil and to turn those crops into gold.
17:08Only we could do that.
17:10But they had to sort of get the self-esteem out of us.
17:13They didn't want our attitude.
17:14They didn't want all that energy.
17:15They just wanted us to be mechanical.
17:17So I think we still have self-esteem issues to this day as descendants of American slaves
17:22because of that experience.
17:24We have high confidence, many of us, but low self-esteem.
17:26But my point is that was bad capitalism.
17:29So we tend to reject capitalism because we think it's all bad capitalism.
17:32No, there's bad capitalism and there's good capitalism.
17:35Bad capitalism is where I benefit and you pay a price for it.
17:39Slavery.
17:40It's not drug dealing.
17:41There's a whole bunch of examples.
17:43Good capitalism is where I benefit and you benefit more.
17:46A hair comb, you know, a shave, you know, Shopify, you know, everybody wins.
17:54There's good debt and there's bad debt, right?
17:56Bad debt's tied to something that depreciates, facing jewelry.
18:01Good debt's tied to something that may appreciate, homeownership and real estate.
18:06And no one ever taught us these lessons, man.
18:08No one, we're not dumb and we're not stupid.
18:10It's what we don't know that we don't know that's killing us, but we think we know.
18:14But we're making a lot of assumptions and presumptions.
18:16Oh, I'm on one of these programs.
18:18A lot of these programs are live.
18:20So, you know, John O'Brien, talking about homeownership.
18:24I don't want to buy no house.
18:26If I own the house, the bank owns the house.
18:28If you don't pay, right?
18:32And as long as you pay, as long as you, look, if I loan you the money and you don't pay, I'm going to own your house.
18:38John O'Brien's house.
18:39So, and by the way, I am the largest, well, I was the largest minority owner of single-family rental homes in America.
18:46I own, you know, this company, the Promise Homes Company.
18:47I sold most of the company.
18:49I'm still a major shareholder.
18:50But, so I should be in the rental business.
18:52I want you to go from rent to own.
18:53I want you to own a piece of the American pie.
18:55I want you to go up the ladder.
18:58But, but that person just, all they saw was the mortgage.
19:02They didn't know that the entire tax policy for the United States is arranged around homeownership.
19:09The entire tax policy.
19:11Yeah, yeah.
19:12People, man, they know, you know, your story.
19:15Listen, John, you're a superstar now in our community, right?
19:17You look up and you're everywhere.
19:19Yes, that's not, that's not true, man.
19:20You're on Stephen A's show.
19:22You're on Shannon Sharpe and you're all in, all those guys.
19:25And so, you know, when they.
19:28Because their other guests canceled.
19:30Yeah.
19:32That's not true.
19:33You had Robert, you had Robert Smith up and come in here.
19:35He had to go to Canada.
19:37So you got to be.
19:37No, stop, stop that.
19:39But, I mean, listen, man, for those people who don't know, you grew up in L.A.
19:42And I always love to allow people to return to their past, right?
19:46And, you know, before I do that, I know your mom passed away not too long ago.
19:50And I'm sure you get up every single morning and you think about her.
19:53Or what's the one thing that maybe she taught you when you were a kid that you still apply today in business?
19:58God bless her life.
20:04Sorry.
20:05You got me in a moment.
20:07My mother, Juanita Smith, was and is amazing.
20:12She told me she loved me every day of my life.
20:15Yeah.
20:16And from that I got there's a difference between being broke and being poor.
20:21You know, being broke is economic, but being poor is a disabling frame of mind and a depressed condition of your spirit.
20:28And you must vow never, ever, ever to be poor again.
20:31And that's a quote I came up with for Operation Hope in 1992.
20:34But I got that spirit from my mother.
20:36My mother wasn't loved.
20:38My mother wasn't told she was loved by her mother and by her father, but she knew it was important to tell her child that he was loved.
20:45And so we were broke, but we weren't poor.
20:49And that differentiation made all the difference in the world for me.
20:52So my self-esteem from a very early age was raised up.
20:57And so today I'll say, it's okay if you don't like me, I like me.
21:00Because if I don't like me, I'm not going to like you.
21:03If I don't feel good about me, I'm not going to feel good about you.
21:06If I don't respect me, I don't know how to respect you.
21:07If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you.
21:10And then hope.
21:11If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'm going to make your life a living hell.
21:15Whatever goes around, comes around.
21:17My mother told me to treat others as I want to be treated.
21:21Don't treat them as they treat me.
21:25Treat them as I want to be treated.
21:27That's biblical.
21:28My mother and my father were rooted in the church, were rooted in spirituality.
21:31My mother was a walking testimony to dignity.
21:34And my mother always was about that Dorothy Height's quote.
21:38Dorothy Height told me one day that,
21:40John Bryant, you remind me of a dreamer with a shovel in your hands.
21:44So she was like, God helps those who help themselves.
21:47That's Proverbs.
21:48To be poor is not to not have anything.
21:51To be poor is not to not do anything.
21:53And lazy hands make a man poor.
21:55That's in Proverbs.
21:57No one talks about that part of the Bible.
21:59So my mother worked an hourly job for 32 years.
22:04McDonnell Douglas Aircraft.
22:06Made $18 an hour at her height.
22:08She died a millionaire.
22:11So I don't, anybody says I can't do it.
22:14No, no, no.
22:14Yes, you can.
22:15There's your example right there.
22:16She had worked an hourly job.
22:18She had a high school education.
22:19Went back to school at age 62.
22:21And graduated from high school at 62.
22:24Walked with cap and gown, cap and gown with 18 year olds.
22:27No indignity there.
22:29Defied the odds, man.
22:31And had a will when she passed away.
22:33Her will, her will was gangster.
22:35Her will had a clause.
22:37And said, anybody who disputes his will is denied it.
22:43Crickets.
22:44Like no one said.
22:45You know, normally it's a fight.
22:46Normally, you know, it's a fight.
22:48But, you know, she put that clause in it.
22:51Anybody who disputes the contents of this will is excluded from the will.
22:57And, I mean, I was a trustee for it.
22:58So, hey, I was ready to defend her honor.
23:01And I didn't have to say a thing.
23:02I'm like, man, from the grave, my mother teaching.
23:05So she had a will.
23:06She had a life insurance policy.
23:07She bought and sold seven homes.
23:09Yeah.
23:10Yeah, pretty amazing story.
23:12Another thing, man, people don't really talk about when it comes to you is, again,
23:16your business side, right?
23:17We know you as a phenomenal motivator, speaker, again, financial literacy, the dignity that
23:22comes behind it.
23:23But, again, you sold Promise Homes, right?
23:262021, I believe.
23:27You started that company.
23:28Christmas Eve afternoon, 2021, wire transfer came through and I was in Taco Bell's checkout,
23:38the drive-thru line.
23:39Who were you getting?
23:40Ordering a number three.
23:41What was the number three?
23:41Hardshell.
23:42Oh, the Hardshell.
23:43I was going to say, was it the two?
23:43Taco Supreme.
23:44It's either the one or the three.
23:45It was the Taco Supreme.
23:46So you get that call, man, again, you sell that company and 700, you know, plus homes
23:51that was in that company, 100 million plus in the assets.
23:54121 million dollars, yeah.
23:56Your philosophy, though, was the rent-to-own strategy.
23:59That's what you kind of did.
24:00And financial literacy.
24:01And financial literacy.
24:02And minority vendor program support.
24:05Why that rent-to-own strategy?
24:07What made you go all in on that?
24:08Because I want to be a good capitalist.
24:11Because I believe that good capitalism is better than bad capitalism.
24:14Because I need to live my values.
24:16Yeah.
24:16I don't know another way to operate.
24:18I can't go to bed at night knowing I jacked somebody up on purpose.
24:21I just, other people can't.
24:22I can't do it.
24:24You know, if I mess you over, it was an accident.
24:26Like, I asked you to move out of the way.
24:27I was moving real fast.
24:28I begged you.
24:29I asked you.
24:30I'm coming.
24:30Please, please get out of the way.
24:32And you just stood there.
24:33And I apologize.
24:34I came over at, you know, a million miles an hour because I'm heading that way.
24:37But you'll never meet anybody who will consciously tell you that John Bryant screwed him over.
24:44And that's something I'm proud of.
24:46That, you know, I don't have a bunch of lawsuits.
24:48I don't have a bunch of drama tied to my name.
24:50When I walk out the door, people don't say but.
24:52You know, I respect that John Bryant.
24:54Yeah.
24:55But.
24:55You know, I respect that John Bryant high rose.
24:57But so I just I just so personal integrity, but also just from a business philosophy.
25:04I thought that was just a great business plan.
25:08Everybody else is just rent to rent.
25:09Why not be rent to own?
25:11Give people a pathway out.
25:13I'm the smallest player of institutional players.
25:16Like 700 homes is the largest minority owner of single family rental homes in America.
25:20But it's the smallest one of the smallest institutional owners of single family homes.
25:26And so in order to distinguish myself, I had to have a different model.
25:32I call it a social impact investing model.
25:34And that model attracted actually different kinds of capital.
25:38So I had financial literacy for every resident.
25:41You raise your credit score to 700 from 600.
25:44I'll reduce your rent by 10 percent permanently as long as you keep it above 700.
25:48If you pay to rent on time, I'll give you a $25 or a $50 credit.
25:54If you got in trouble, you were a renter for me for I think it was 18 months.
25:59For every 18 months, I gave you one month of life event credit.
26:02So you're with me for 18 months.
26:03God forbid.
26:04Johnny gets sick.
26:05You lose your job.
26:06Get a divorce.
26:06Whatever.
26:07I will give you a month of life event credit with no rent.
26:11You can borrow your security deposit from me to cover that month's rent.
26:16For every 18 months, I give you one month of life event credit.
26:19So after five years, you have 90 days to reset your life.
26:22You can pay that back with a little paid tied to your rent over time so you don't even feel it.
26:28These are little things.
26:28That's great stuff that you're doing.
26:30That's why I was kind of confused why you sold the company.
26:32Because that type of mindset is still needed.
26:34And I know you're still involved and you're a shareholder.
26:36But what was the decision to sell?
26:38And I only wanted to know because they want to get out of the business, right?
26:42The object is to build a business and sell it.
26:44I'm glad you said that.
26:45Yes, build it and sell it.
26:46But what makes you say that?
26:47Did you guys hear what he said?
26:48The whole purpose of business is Wall Street.
26:51Your whole purpose is to build it and have a liquidity moment to optimize it, to create a value proposition for yourself.
26:59And then go buy something else or build something else.
27:00One, if you go far enough to the North Pole, you end up south.
27:05As a boutique small business, I had taken it as far as I thought I could.
27:09So I had two partners with me.
27:10It was Tony Ressler and Michael Erichetti, both billionaires.
27:14And they were like, we love you, John, but we're as much as we can put into this.
27:21And in order to grow to the scale, I wanted to be a billion-dollar business.
27:27I was at $150 million of assets under management.
27:29I also had made a promise to my partners that in five years I'd get you out.
27:33So we had reached year three or four, and I needed to start thinking about the promise I made and the exit strategy.
27:43And then I got an offer I couldn't refuse.
27:46One of my partners said, you know, if you sell this company in a year, we'll give you, again, I don't get into details, but an offer you can't refuse.
27:54And so I restructured the company to attract additional capital.
28:00And it was all the stuff I was doing with residents.
28:03And by the way, half of my vendors were minority in women.
28:07So plumbing, heating, landscaping, roofing, lighting.
28:10I was able to reinvest in the community.
28:12So I felt really good about growing the business.
28:14And I wanted to grow it more so I could do more for people.
28:16But I had reached that ceiling.
28:18So it's time to cash out, reset.
28:21And I can't announce it just yet.
28:23But within two or three months, I'll come on your show.
28:27You'll be hearing about a new venture that I'm in that I believe has the potential to be a billion dollars in real estate.
28:35Yeah.
28:35Well, I love it, man.
28:36Make sure I'm involved in that deal, too.
28:37Don't.
28:38Now, you're a journalist.
28:39You can't.
28:40You got to.
28:41You can't get a deal, but afterwards we got to talk, right?
28:42But listen, man, Financial Literacy Muff, and I'll let you go because you're busy, John.
28:46You're a CEO.
28:47You hop on a plane.
28:48You're going back home to Atlanta.
28:49I know that fancy car you got.
28:51You want to drive it around the track.
28:53I don't get a chance to drive it that much, unfortunately.
28:56Anytime you want to let me hold it, too, just ship it right up there, man.
28:59But Financial Literacy Muff, man, I remember me and you, I wanted to bring this particular subject to this very show.
29:04But me and you were texting, and I had sent you an article about what they were doing in Finland.
29:09And, you know, the headline read, Finland fuels children's future with financial literacy and food.
29:16Finland aims to be the number one country in the world by 2030 in financial literacy.
29:21And what they're doing over there is phenomenal.
29:23They're turning warehouses and creating mock marketplaces and allowing kids to go in there and be entrepreneurs, owning stores, civil service, real-life situations.
29:33And I took a quote from a 14-year-old girl in that article, right, from the Financial Times, and it says,
29:38that program in Finland, it helps us learn about the environment we're living in.
29:42It prepares us for life as an adult.
29:45I used to be in school in the U.S. before, and we learned a lot less of this stuff.
29:49And she's talking about financial literacy and how they are not teaching it as much.
29:54Now, in the U.S., you know, there are about 35 or so schools that do implement financial literacy.
29:59States, excuse me, states that do implement that, but when you look at the landscape as a whole,
30:04what still needs to be addressed when we talk about financial literacy today in this country?
30:10Financial literacy is the civil rights issue of this generation.
30:14It's as important as the right to vote was in 1960.
30:19Financial literacy and credit scores are as important as a four-year college education degree and a career.
30:26And I believe you're going to see a renaissance, a revolution of values in the next five years around financial literacy and AI literacy, artificial intelligence.
30:37We haven't had a chance to talk about that, but I'm co-chair of Financial Literacy for All with Doug McMillan.
30:41And by the way, all of the sports organizations, Rob, at Major League Baseball, Adam Silver, NBA, Roger Goodell at NFL, the Major League Soccer, hockey,
30:53they're all involved with Financial Literacy for All and Green Sox Day, which we're going to be doing.
30:58But I'm also co-chair of AI Ethics Council with Sam Altman, who I think is the Steve Jobs of this generation,
31:04and the AI LP3, which is a farm club, a pipeline in Atlanta, from kindergarten all the way up through college of AI talent.
31:12Don't just wait for the jobs to be taken from our community.
31:16Be creative and create the jobs and the opportunity that AI is going to manifest by 2030.
31:23And so Atlanta is a model for this.
31:27Atlanta's economy is as big as Singapore.
31:29I was in Singapore two weeks ago speaking.
31:31And in Singapore, 90% of the, they have a 90% homeownership rate in Singapore.
31:38And I think that we're going to model that in Atlanta where every kid has a bank account.
31:45Right now, every kid in kindergarten has a Hope Child savings account, thanks to Andre Dickens, the mayor.
31:50And we're going to connect that.
31:52Studies have shown that if a kid has a savings account in kindergarten, they're 25% more likely to go to college.
31:58Is that what you would advise parents nowadays?
32:00Listen, open a savings account for your child immediately.
32:03Yes, I'd go one step further.
32:04I'd say open a stock account.
32:05You can get a fractional stock account.
32:07Uniform style.
32:08I did that for my kid, yes.
32:09You can buy fractional shares.
32:10Yes.
32:11You can get a stock certificate, buy one share.
32:14I think the company's called Buy a Share.
32:16And you can buy one share for their birthday, whatever, Christmas, put it on the wall.
32:21Share of whatever, Coca-Cola.
32:23Share of, you know, whatever you love on the wall.
32:26And once that kid has that share, they get access to all the financial records for that company.
32:31People don't know that.
32:32One share gives you access to all financial records.
32:34But what it does is enrolls the kid in thinking about free enterprise.
32:39If you have a few hundred bucks in that child savings account, they're 75% more likely to graduate from college.
32:45Because now you're connecting education with aspiration.
32:48So we have an account.
32:50Lance Triggs runs this as well for every kid in Atlanta Public Schools with Andre Dickens in the Atlanta Public Schools, Dr. Johnson.
32:57But now we're going to connect financial literacy and AI literacy onto that.
33:01And I think it's going to create a superhighway of economic opportunity for all.
33:06And I think that's going to become a national model.
33:09Bernice King, Dr. Bernice King, Dr. King's daughter, and I are launching the 100th anniversary project for her father, tied to having 100 cities, having 100 bank accounts.
33:20We're excited about that.
33:21I'm meeting with Secretary of the Treasury, the new Secretary of the Treasury, Scott, I call him Besson, French.
33:27But it's Scott Bessett.
33:28Who is somebody I can work with?
33:32And his suggestion for the part of the agenda was financial literacy.
33:37So there's no administration that is taking a financial literacy.
33:39I'll let you know after the meeting.
33:40But he is interested, and I'm interested in having this embedded as legislation.
33:47As you know, I and Operation Hope were responsible for financial literacy becoming the policy of the U.S. federal government under George Bush and under Obama.
33:56But it was unfunded.
33:57It was only tied to the federal government.
34:00I learned a lot of lessons about the power of money.
34:03School districts are businesses.
34:04You cannot have an unfunded mandate.
34:06Expect them to do it.
34:07They need to have funding to push that curriculum.
34:09So we want Congress to codify legislation K through college, at least K through high school, mandating financial literacy education.
34:19I think that's like putting a plug into the socket in the wall.
34:22I think the kids will now connect education aspiration.
34:25You then tie that to Hope Business in the Box Academies like they're doing in Europe where your kids are now starting businesses at a young age, opening a bank account, having a stock account, trading stocks.
34:37Now all of a sudden they're excited.
34:38Real life situation.
34:38Real life.
34:38Yeah.
34:39So as you can tell, I'm excited.
34:40Yeah.
34:40Yeah.
34:41I thought that article was brilliant.
34:42I mean, listen, what they're doing overseas, a lot of this, you know, financial literacy, first of all, is a global issue.
34:47Every country is trying to solve it.
34:48And everybody is obviously attacking it.
34:50So it's good to see that Finland is taking that step up.
34:52And isn't it interesting that this is the one thing that is not a fight with this administration?
34:59No.
34:59Yeah.
35:00I mean, I've talked a lot of mess, as you know.
35:05I don't intentionally do it.
35:06I just speak my mind.
35:08No one's attacked me.
35:09I mean, I've asked, like, why?
35:12We see you're a capitalist.
35:14Like, we see you're using the free enterprise system.
35:16And, by the way, the math makes sense.
35:20This other stuff is being politicized.
35:24It's being game.
35:24All theatrics.
35:25It's theatrics.
35:26Exactly.
35:27Exactly that.
35:27And I just try to keep it very simple.
35:31And, again, as you know, I like math.
35:33It doesn't have an opinion.
35:34That's a Melody Hobson quote.
35:35Yeah.
35:35I love it.
35:36Aerial Capital Management.
35:37Yeah.
35:37Well, get you out of here on some math, man.
35:39Because, you know, again, you're a CEO.
35:40I know you've got to go, man.
35:41Again, always appreciate you taking the time to come up here to talk business and talk life.
35:46It's always good to see you.
35:47You're probably one of the frequent guests.
35:49You're my only frequent guest.
35:50Really?
35:51Yeah, man.
35:52Because, you know, we should start our own show.
35:54But, no.
35:55We'll go for hours.
35:56We'll go for hours.
35:57Your ratings would crater with me on your show on a regular basis.
35:59That's your mind.
36:00I think they would go spiked, man.
36:01You're crazy.
36:02But let me tell you.
36:03We've gone from civil rights to silver rights.
36:07Civil rights in the streets in the 60s.
36:09Yeah.
36:10To now silver rights in the suites.
36:13And this is appropriate that you now are doing this show and Forbes is giving this platform and you're at NASDAQ and we're talking about money and markets.
36:24I think that the history is going to serve you well.
36:26I think that this Forbes Black 50 list that you did is a signature.
36:31I think your work that you did to highlight Junior Bridgman before he passed away, God rest his soul, put him on the cover.
36:39I mean, what an honor for his family and his legacy.
36:42But he earned it from nothing, an okay basketball career monetarily, but to a billion-dollar platform businessman that we should honor.
36:51We honor rappers and celebrities and whatever, but we don't honor our business elite.
36:57And that's something everybody can do.
36:58Everybody can't be T.I., my friend, or Killer Mike, my friend, or our people we know in entertainment.
37:03That's one of them, can't be Oprah, but you can be Jabari Young, you can be John O'Brien, you can be Robert Smith, you can be Don Peoples.
37:13You know, these are scalable models and the biggest economy in the world.
37:19And this country cannot continue to succeed for the next 20 years without the lease of these God's children.
37:26Black and brown people are now essential for the future success of the largest economy in the world and the sole superpower in the world.
37:35That's not my opinion.
37:36There's just not enough college-educated, successful white men to go around.
37:40If we leave it just to white men to run the economy, we'll be speaking Mandarin in 20 years.
37:48We need blacks and browns and women and Asians, everybody.
37:52Everybody's got to be rowing this boat, and that's a beautiful thing.
37:54And so I honor what you have done here.
37:59It is really important.
38:00I appreciate it, man.
38:01Well, listen, I think we know you're a millionaire, right?
38:04You said it.
38:04You just lost $3 million in the stock market.
38:07But let's go from 2021, right?
38:09After that deal, after the transaction went through, that million dollars.
38:13My brother keeps trying to get my net worth out of me.
38:16I'll get my net worth out of you one day.
38:17That million dollars, right?
38:19After 2021, right, what's the first thing you did, spend that first million dollars,
38:23after you've received the final transaction figure that you have for Promise Hope?
38:27You know what?
38:27No one's ever asked me this question before.
38:29This is why you're a great journalist.
38:31There's several questions no one's ever asked me before.
38:33No one's ever asked me that question.
38:36Well, Lance Triggs is here somewhere.
38:38He's one of my senior executives at Operation Hope.
38:41I took a million dollars, and I gave it to my employees at Operation Hope.
38:44Not all my employees, but the folks who were ride or die for me.
38:48Yeah.
38:48I've never said this on an interview before, but there is a senior team.
38:52I call them my special forces team, and about 20 of them.
38:56I have 400 employees who I call at 2 in the morning.
38:59I call them on Saturday.
39:00I call them on the weekends.
39:01They always answer the phone.
39:02It's always yes.
39:03Lance Triggs, Mary Erson, Janae Roscoe, Rachel Doff, Rob McGrew, all these heroes and sheroes,
39:08Kevin Boucher, et cetera, Tina Fair, my assistant, and Sir James.
39:12And they don't get any sunshine.
39:14They don't get any light.
39:15And because they were for a non-profit, all they get is a salary.
39:18They get no bonus.
39:19You get no stock.
39:21So I took my first million dollars, and I snuck around to figure out what was Lance Triggs' favorite car.
39:28It was a Porsche 911.
39:29I asked what was Rachel Doff's favorite car.
39:32It was a Raptor, a Ford Raptor.
39:33What was Mary Erson's favorite car?
39:35It was a white Mercedes SUV, I think it was.
39:38And Janae Roscoe, it was a little Mini Cooper.
39:42And I went and bought the cars.
39:43Oprah style.
39:44And then I gave them a stock portfolio for a rainy day.
39:48I gave them a little rainy day fund, a stock portfolio in the car.
39:51And then, you know, we unveiled it all.
39:52I told them to come to a meeting at the house.
39:54I told them the head of state was coming, so they had to come there at a certain time.
39:58And they had to be inside.
39:59Otherwise, the Secret Service would shoot them, which allowed us to then put the cars outside.
40:04That was a very special moment.
40:08And I wanted to share my upside with them.
40:12And they wouldn't have gotten it from their non-profit effort, so I took it from my for-profit effort.
40:17Yeah, I love that, man.
40:18And it teaches me two things.
40:19A, I need to maybe work for you one day.
40:21That's number one.
40:22And MB, man, that they're still great, generous bosses around.
40:26That does not mind doing stuff like that, man.
40:28And by the way, you mentioned Oprah.
40:30I got that idea from Oprah to put full credit.
40:32She's a nice lady, by the way.
40:33Just traded notes with her a couple weeks ago.
40:35I can't wait to meet her.
40:36She's good people.
40:37By the way, you put her on the list.
40:39Yeah.
40:39And I emailed her to congratulate her.
40:42And she was so excited.
40:43She's like, black.
40:44I wasn't sending you the text.
40:45I was excited.
40:46I'm like, Oprah said that?
40:47Hey, man, get you out of here on this.
40:49Get the great, right?
40:49Because we're going to have you back, so we'll get off to the other stuff later.
40:52But in 2025, there are a lot of people that may lose their jobs.
40:57And so they may find themselves having to be entrepreneurs.
41:00And maybe this is the opportunity that they needed for them to jumpstart being an entrepreneur.
41:04So in 2025, what is the difference between a good entrepreneur and a great one?
41:08Somebody who gets up early, stays up late, works harder, doubles down, is hooked on excellence,
41:15not perfection, who is resilient, who never gives up, never gives in, who is absolutely
41:21obsessed, obsessed with finishing the race and being a credit to their race.
41:28And if you do those things and you have that attitude, you can't help but win.
41:32Most people are just lazy, Jabari.
41:34I mean, love is work.
41:37Non-love is laziness.
41:39Anti-love is evil.
41:40Evil exists, but it's very rare.
41:42Most people are just lazy, intellectually lazy, physically lazy, financially lazy, spiritually lazy.
41:48They don't want to do the work.
41:50They want somebody else to do it for them.
41:52And so anybody who's willing to do the work, whatever you love is going to drive you crazy.
41:57You love husband, wife, kids, job, career.
42:00It's going to drive you crazy.
42:02It's going to exhaust you.
42:03Love is work.
42:04Only in the dictionary does a success come before the word work because it's alphabetical.
42:09So you've got to do the work.
42:10You have to be committed to it.
42:11You do the work.
42:12We talk all times of day, night, weekends, hour, weekends.
42:16And you've got to be obsessed with excellence.
42:18And if you do that, the haters will make you better.
42:23Rainbows only follow storms.
42:24You cannot have a rainbow without a storm first.
42:26These problems in society, and there's lots of them.
42:30Anybody awake today, you're not bored.
42:33I mean, people reading the Constitution, Bill of Rights, first time.
42:36Like, whoa, whoa, what's this about an executive order, right?
42:38I mean, people are interested in civics.
42:41There are so many opportunities that are going to come out of this disruption.
42:46Be focused on maximizing or trying to figure out how to turn that disruption into a business opportunity for yourself.
42:54They're everywhere.
42:54Artificial intelligence is going to change everything, like literally everything.
43:00AI in furniture, AI in suits, you know, AI in video photography, AI in – I mean, it's going to change.
43:09Whatever you're interested in, AI in sports, obsess about that, become the best at that, become the GOAT at that, and then you won't be denied.
43:18Yeah, love it, man.
43:19What a way to drop the mic.
43:21John Hope Bryant, Financial Literacy Month 2025.
43:25I love Financial Literacy Month, but listen, as my producer said, every time, every time this show comes on, it's Financial Literacy.
43:31It's a Financial Literacy-based show.
43:33Well, and I want to invite everybody to put on a green sock.
43:36That's right.
43:37April 30th is Green Socks Day in the nation.
43:40That's right.
43:40Walmart's making the socks, and all the sports teams, the sports organizations have signed on to support this, NFL, NBA, soccer, football, baseball, hockey, et cetera, et cetera.
43:52I'm going to try to get WNBA as well.
43:54And all I want you to do is do something for Financial Literacy on April 30th, put on a green sock, tag it, Green Socks Day, and post it.
44:03And NASDAQ, you can't make this up, coincidence, has got a way of staying anonymous, an Andrew Young quote, NASDAQ's going to put it on the big board.
44:10The best post on April 30th, NASDAQ's going to feature.
44:14Yeah, you see all people's feet and socks right on the big board.
44:17Yeah, make sure you have your socks.
44:18I want to see your feet.
44:18Yeah, that's right.
44:19I want to see your feet.
44:20I want to see your feet.
44:20John O'Brien, Financial Literacy Month 2025, NASDAQ, Enterprise Zone.
44:27Thanks for watching.