Mindset, Burnout, and Resilience: A Conversation with Tarik Willi

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You said you help with people with burnout.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

You spend upon doubt. Ooh, okay. Oh, you wake up in the morning, you're already tired.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

I'm like, man, you just slept.

SPEAKER_03 0:15

You wake up tired, you go to sleep tired, and it's this daily monotony nine to five in your life, and you feel like you're losing your self-worth and the meaning of all these different things that are going on in your life. And you think that your potential is capped. But now here's the deal burnout is actually the best thing that could ever happen to you because it's literally your body telling you that what you're going through right now and what you're doing right now ain't it. So something's gotta change.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Money on my mind indeed. Yes, everybody. This is your boy Darren Harvey, and I am your gracious host of financial state of minds. And this is the show where we help you get to that bag, manage that bag, and grow that bag as best as possible as we discuss business and financial literacy and anything, everything to do with the almighty power of the dollar. And today you are listening to us on KGPC 96.9 FM streaming right now on KGPC969.org and available on all streaming platforms of choice. And today we got a very special guest who I've been chasing for months now to get man's busy making an impact on the community, our community, both African American, blind, and beyond. We got aka the twin, brother Tweek Williams is in the building. How are you doing today, sir? How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Woo! Let's go, let's go. What's up, Darren? I'm excited to bring impact. You know, I don't know how much about finances we'll talk, but you know, you gotta have a money. There's a mindset to making sure you're taking care of your money properly and getting to the bag, like you were saying. So absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Absolutely. So you beat me to the punch. What is today's topic? We're gonna talk about you and we're gonna talk about mindset because as I've explored many times on the show, mindset is everything when it comes to finances, right? It's everything. Everyone knows an example of somebody that came from not the best situation and they got out. And we know people who came from all the advantages and they blew it. So I felt that it was important that someone like you, a problem-solving coach, burnout coach. So we're gonna get into the burnout coach, mindset coach. I think you may have had a discussion too about finances at some point, since that's the leading cause of stress, divorce, and all these negative statistics. So it may not be your focus, but you're a mindset guide, and we teach finance on this show. So I had to bring you in. So before I start with the good old mindset, I always ask my guests who is Tariq Williams? Who is that?

SPEAKER_03 3:22

Excellent question. So welcome. I am Tariq Williams, your one-stop shop for everything. Empowerment, leadership, burnout, breakthrough, coach, and consultant, and who I am. I put on my pants one leg at a time, just like everybody else. But when I think of the person who I am and what I want to give to the world, I just think of once again the word empowerment, right? My dream, my passion is to bring empowerment to myself, but also to others to live the life, live a life they love. Because we often get the question, or people say, Oh, are you a lover or are you a fighter? Well, let me ask you real quick, Darren. I know this is your podcast, and I'm gonna come to a question with you, but let me ask you a question real quick, Darren, are you a lover or a fighter?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I'm a fighter.

SPEAKER_03 4:06

Okay, interesting. All right, yeah, and I'm all about that, right? You gotta fight for the things you want, there's no doubt about it. But let me tell you this. So I consider myself a lover, okay? But here's the deal. I I think if you won't fight for your love, then are you actually a lover? You know what I mean? And so it's a really interesting way to bring both of those together. So I'm really big on just living a life I love because life is too short for anything else.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

Absolutely. So I like to take it back, especially when I get my guests on for the first time. My audience is new to you, you're new to my audience. So, but let's give a little background. You don't have to share the Netflix series of your story. Yeah, but let's give the trailer version of your story. So tell me a little bit of your story and how you got to the place of becoming the coach that you are today.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Yeah, great question. Well, what's Philadelphia border? How are we gonna get going? Um no, so I am from Pennsylvania, though, about an hour or so outside of Philadelphia. And how I really got into the coaching space is because life will throw certain things at you, and certain things you may think that you're promised your entire life sometimes can get taken away from you. And that's happened to me a few times in my life, and one of them being my eyesight. At the age of 16, I started losing eyesight, and we thought it was because I got hit in my eye playing basketball, getting ready for uh AAU basketball tournament, and my right eye started changing, and there was no central vision in my right eye, and it was weird because I always wore glasses, but I could see basically fine just like anybody else. And then seven or eight months later, about we realized there was something more serious going on, and through some different genetic testing back and forth, the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, we realized that there was something more serious going on, not just getting hit in my eye. Uh, I had a genetic disorder that we had no idea that I had called Lieber's Hereditary Optical Neuropathy, L-H-O-N. And in that moment, it was nerve-wracking. I felt like my life and my dreams had been taken away from me. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I had the mindset immediately that I have now in that moment. But after some reflecting, some learning more about the person that I am, I think I started realizing that my hardships and my difficulties don't have to define the person that I am. And I realized that a lot of times we let our hardships and our difficulties define us. And I was like, this is my gift to give to the world.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Absolutely. So you're already better than me on that, man. My heart ships absolutely defined you. I'm not even gonna lie about that. But I'm not mad at it because it's part of the reason why I created Financial State of Minds because I'm shared the story plenty of times on the show. But you know, kind of the last straw was my dad passing away of Alzheimer's. I was managing$12,000 a month coming in, but I was still spending$16,000 because the care was so ridiculous. So that trauma is part what spearheaded me to be to leave legal sales and enter the world of personal finance and stuff like that. So it was a high level of respect for you because me and you on very similar missions, but we just have different perspectives on said mission, you know. And I best believe before this episode I consumed quite a few of your episodes. First off, you're you definitely have that motivational like energy that comes from it. You do a very good job of that. I want to try to steal that energy from you a little bit, and I am today on this episode type that a little bit more, but you just said something earlier. You you didn't just wake up one day and go, oh crap, I'm blind, but I'm still gonna be positive. Yeah, it's a great life. So talk about some of that work you did so you can get to the point where you are today where you can have five episodes, and it's all very high energy positivity coming out of it. How did you get to that space?

SPEAKER_03 8:14

Yeah, you you said a lot. I don't want to say I hate something that you said, but I'll say I strongly dislike it. But it's only because there are people in my life who have said, Tariq, you know, I can't really look at your podcast because it's it's too positive, Tariq. I can't wild, it's too positive. Toxic positivity, okay. I try not to get too emotional about that comment, but here's the deal I don't really consider myself positive nor negative. I just consider my reality. You know what I mean? That's not positive or necessarily negative. There's a certain way I want to live my life. Let's just talk about negativity for a second. Like, what is negativity? Negativity is ultimately giving power to your limits, giving power to the things that can negatively affect your life, right? And I just choose to not give power to those things because once again, like you mentioned your dad, right? Like, our life is too short to give power to the things that can negatively affect us. So I just choose to not give power to that. But with that being said, no, Tariq did not just wake up and say, butterflies and rainbows, absolutely not. Uh I think I had a lot of great examples around me. My mom being a big one, immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago, and seeing her hardships that she went through and like kind of reflecting on those made me think, okay, I'm I just lost some eyesight. I didn't have to go through having to leave a difficult relationship and trying to find a better life in America, right? I didn't have to go through that. I think reflecting on other people's hardships and reflecting on my own and really starting to recognize my power. I think also meeting other blind people was really helpful for me and seeing like, oh, like I'm a blind person that can use some improvement because this person has been blind their entire life, and now they're at Harvard Law School. I'm like, I probably need to step it up a little bit. You know what I mean? What it what it comes down to is this I'm a really big words person, and you mentioned that your hardships define you. I I want to frame what you said a little bit because I don't believe that my hardships or my difficulties define me. However, comma, they most definitely shape the person who I am. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, they definitely shape me. There's no doubt about it. And so letting them shape me in a way that sure I have some bruises, sure I have some scars, but recognize that they have the ability to heal. And I think a lot of reflection, a lot of inner work, a lot of getting out in the community and meeting other blind people going through similar issues and just being around other people who nobody's life is perfect. Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

So, right. So it's funny because your answer was well, I don't like the fact that you say, Darren, I'm positive or my podcast is positive. This is just my reality. Well, I'm sure from one mindset coach to another mindset coach, your reality or your perception of reality dictates your reality. So that's why I'm sure you get the comments of the positivity because one thing we share is we're both completely, we're both blind. We both have lesser vision than the average person. But the way we have taken it is two different directions, and that's something that you personally helped me out on as recently as literally last week. You've helped me out with the perception of it, and that's so important, and that's a great segue to the finances. It's the same thing in finances. I agree with you. We all have different challenges, we all start at different what I call levels, because I'm a nerd, I'm gonna refer to video games. Not everybody starts at level one. Some people start at level 10, they get the advantages. Some people start at nine's world, like literally level to negative one, because they just had the disadvantages from birth. But we can't control that. My OCD is obsessed with what we can control, and what we can control is the mindset. So, from one blind person to another blind person, I'm really curious to ask you this question. When you're doing your work, how much was the thought of how am I going to be able to provide for myself and the people I care about come up into your mind? Oh, all of it, right?

SPEAKER_03 12:52

Because immediately you start thinking the sacrifices and belief that other people had in me, I thought was null and void. So I was like, it's impossible. You know what I mean? I really thought that my ability to provide and be there for others was no longer a thing, and that's just the truth. I think it's all about recognition. So when you've done one thing or done multiple things one way in your life, and then for like 15, 16 years, then all of a sudden the world tells you, hey, you gotta switch it up. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I relate, I relate.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

Um uh it's it's an adjustment, okay? It's an adjustment, but that's life. I think blindness though might be a bit more unique than most people, but life throws those things at everybody, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

Right, and I feel that you do a you do a great job just looking, listening to your podcast. You do a great job of and you do it better, I'll just be blind, you do it better than me. Where I take blindness and I go, blindness is unique within the world of disability. Right? It's unique in a sense of, I just blatantly say it, I think it's one of the tougher ones to deal with. And I feel that you do a good job of going, even though you may feel that way or not, everybody goes through their challenges. And that's something that even some of my other what I call bond OGs tell me. It's like, yeah, Darren, this is our challenge, but everyone has challenges basically. Like we're not we're unique in the specific challenge that we face. We're not unique in the fact that we face a challenge. And tying this back to finances is again, we all start in different levels. So me, I started in a situation in a family where finances were straight. They were good. They're good, they're straight. I got everything I wanted for Christmas, there was money in my account for college. So I I was very fortunate and blessed in my situation. So I want to personally ask you, and I do ask this question to a lot of my guests. Growing up, what kind of did you learn or take away when it comes to finances or personal finances? What did you learn?

SPEAKER_03 15:22

Oh wow, that's a great question. When I think about what I learned, I would say it was very surface level. If you want to get money, you gotta get a good job. If you want to get a good job, you have to go to school. If you want to go to school, get a good job and make money, you gotta work hard. And then if you want to keep your money, spend it wisely. There weren't many conversations in my home about the importance and understanding of investing or how to build wealth or compound interest. And so for that, I learned about those things, things I had to learn later on in life and doing some independent study. But at home, not a lot of those more detailed, nuanced conversations on the growth of finances were really happening. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

And that's pretty standard. That's pretty standard regardless of generation, background. That's that's still going on. Like that's still going on. So that's why I have my podcast, and what I do is to educate and make sure that those conversations are happening because there are classes of people where that conversation is happening at 10, at 8, at 5, at 3. Those conversations are happening, and in other communities, they're not happening, and we can see some of the differences there.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

For sure. And the other part of this, too, I don't want to just say it's an at-home issue. This isn't my opportunity to get on a soapbox and bash the education system, but I I will kind of slightly go up this soapbox and say, I think education-wise, K through 12, we could do a better job of educating our kids to be able to understand these nuances.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Absolutely. And it's a fact, it's not taught in K through 12. I have my own conspiracy theories on why it is. Which is uh, it's not really much of a conspiracy. It's just um, you know, it's the truth. The truth is that they want you to be an employee. They don't want you to be, it's not in the system's best interest to produce entrepreneurs, it's in their best interest to produce employees. So I tell this people all the time if they taught personal finance in school, I might be out of a job, right? Like the whole reason why I can have this situation in a client base is because they weren't taught, which I don't agree with at all. It needs to be taught ASAP, like it needs to be top as soon as possible because the thing about money is money touches everything. It's a money podcast, but money touches everything. So I can talk about anything on my show because it's affected by money. If he wants to reak services, I'm gonna have to pay him money unless he wants to be generous and do it for free. I'm gonna have to cut him a check. You know what I'm saying? So it's just a reality, right? Like I didn't make the rules, this is the rules we were just born into. Now, switching gears a little bit. Me and you both have a unique challenge because we're disabled and our choice of disabled is a blindness, it does affect our productivity. Um, when you told me what you did, and I'm not gonna spoil it because I want you to say it on the show, but when you told me what you did and how many different roles you currently are doing, I was very impressed. So I need the listeners to understand and hear you. What do you do? Like literally, when it comes down to we know you're a coach, but you do a little bit more than that. So explain to the listeners not only what do you do, but kind of explain your you don't have to go in detail, but how do you go about doing it?

SPEAKER_03 18:58

Oh wow. Well, that's a big question. Um, what do I do? Great question. I'd love to tell you. So, in one word, empowerment, but here's the long story. So I train working professionals and business owners to once again step into their power, but ultimately how I do that is by meeting people where they're at. And so I do one-on-one coaching and I do group coaching and I do speaking engagements, and I also train staff at a Center for Blind People here in Arizona, Savvy Services for the Blind, S-A-A-V-I. And what we're doing once again in all those situations is meeting people where they're at, emotionally, mentally, to be able to really get the inner workings, understanding that everybody ends up where they are, but you don't know the path that they took to get there. And so genuine connection with people is a really big way to inspire and cultivate growth in multiple situations. I mean, we're people, we are generally social beings, even though some of us are introverted, extroverted, introverted extroverts. Um, you know, but once again, the goal and the key to this is being able to meet people where they're at. And how this really officially started, I actually didn't think this was possible at first. When I was about 18, 19, 20 years old, I started teaching blind people how to travel independently as an orientation mobility instructor. And there was a time where blind people actually weren't able or allowed to get certified in orientation and mobility. That's actually a thing. Fun fact, you can look it up. And I didn't think it was possible for me either. Because I was like, how I can't see how am I gonna teach somebody else to cross the street and navigate life? But once again, meeting other blind people and seeing what they were doing and just learning more about my abilities, I was like, oh, who better to teach than another blind person? Because they're doing the thing, and so uh I realized that a lot of the things that I was telling those students and those blind individuals when I started teaching, I was like, oh, I would tell this to anybody. The working professionals going through burnout, the individuals are trying to work towards their dream, because I don't believe in chasing dreams, and we can come back to that question if you like. But ultimately, how I do what I do is building connection emotionally and mentally, actually meeting somebody where they're at so that they can get to where they're gonna go.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Got you. So you mentioned just quick, you just quickly mentioned it. You said you you help with people with burnout. You spend upon doubt, like burnout. What do you mean by burnout?

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Oh, okay. Oh, you wake up in the morning, you're already tired.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I'm like, man, you just slept.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

You wake up in the morning, you're already tired. I'm going to the daily Monotony of the nine to five because you listen to Darren's podcast and you know you got to find ways to make money, but you don't like where you're at. But the world has told you it has to happen this way. But yet you're tired, you're not doing the things you like, and it's an issue for you. Do you mind if I go down this rabbit hole a little bit? Keep going. Do you mind? Keep going. Excellent. Excellent. So you're going through that and you're tired. You wake up tired. You go to sleep tired. And it's a stealing monotony nine to five in your life. And you feel like you're losing your self-worth and the meaning of all these different things that are going on in your life. And you think that your potential is capped. But now here's the deal burnout is actually the best thing that could ever happen to you. Tariq, you're crazy, you're insane. Yes, I am. But let me tell you why I believe this. Because burnout is the best thing that could ever happen to you, because it's literally your body telling you that what you're going through right now and what you're doing right now ain't it. So something's got to change. So it's literally telling you to make a change. That's great. Because your mental and your physical are telling you that your life has to change. Now you give Tariq a call to help you change it. Let's get it.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Absolutely. So let's keep going with that. So I give you a ring. As you know, I I did do, I call it W-2 Life up until 2020, 2021. And my vision got to a point where it was really difficult for me to do that. But if I knew you were there around 2014 to 2020, you would have got a call because I was in sales. And sales is probably the number one industry when it comes to burnout. It is so stressful, so demanding. It's really difficult. Yes, you can make a lot of money. I do push it when you don't have a degree and you want to make a lot of money. But God, man, it is freaking stressful. Freaking stressful. So, one, have you helped people when it comes to their jobs and careers when it comes to burnout? And two, what does that look like? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 24:15

And I'm gonna give you an answer you're probably not gonna like because I'm gonna repeat a little bit of what I just said. Sure. Darren, what working with you on that situation would look like is there's a 99.9% chance that it's different from the person listening. Because once again, all of our experiences in life are so different. You know, you might be going through burnout, but you actually love your job. Right. So, how does that make sense? Great question. I'd love to tell you. It makes sense because you haven't set any boundaries with your workplace. You're clocking in at 5 a.m. and you're not really clocking out until 12 a.m. And your best friends had a party, and your other friends were playing basketball, and your other friends met on a Zoom chat and they were playing video games, but you didn't make time for it because you felt like you had to work. So, what it could look like for somebody is a boundary. So, what does it look like to help somebody work through that? That's just one example. For other people, it could be a trauma that they've gone through. For somebody else, I mean, well, trauma is a whole other big conversation that all traumas are different. Going through blindness when it's unexpected is a trauma, right? So I think to answer your question, but I probably not answer it the way that you want me to answer it. So if you have a follow-up, please let me know. It's gotta be very specific to the person. So my my first meeting with somebody, I'm just getting to know you.

unknown 25:57

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

And then I'll like look at my notes from the conversation, and then from there, I'm like, okay, we might have to go down a few of these avenues here to figure out where the point is, the inner point where we might have to take a look at, oh, there's something more here that we need to navigate. And a lot of times it is setting a boundary, but it might not be the boundary you think you have to set. Got it.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

So I hear you, and I agree with you for the most part, but there's a question. I'm sure you may know where it's coming from. Tariq, I hear you it's boundaries, but I got bills to pay. Tariq, that sounds cool, but using Arizona. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area. I can't afford to not work 50 hours, two jobs, high stress job. How do you expect me to put a boundary on that?

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Oh, yeah, Tariq, it sounds good, right? It sounds cool, Tariq. Um, how do I put a boundary on it? You know, I want to go back to this word love, right? They say that if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Um, you know, depending on what that is, there's some truth to that. I will tell you that people who tell you that you have to set a boundary, and they say it's about balance, you have to understand what balance really is. And balance isn't always 50-50. So, for example, in a relationship, if you think it's 50-50, you have lost. Okay, it has to be 100-100. However, comma, there are some days I gotta show up 120 because the other can only show up 80. I only got 20 today, I only got 20% today. So I need my partner to bring in the other 180, you know? Those things happen. So I bring that up to say if you gotta work and you gotta dream, there might come a time where there might be a grind there for a certain amount of time longer than you expected. But understand that you're working towards a specific goal and you gotta work towards it, if it's financial stability or what have you, so that you could eventually get knowledge and get to a place where you could maybe come back down to a place where you're living a life that you can settle into.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Love it, love it. And you're absolutely right. You gotta love yourself or at least appreciate yourself, appreciate your worth. Or what I would say from a financial coach point of view, you have to understand and believe and your value. And we told the story before, but I joke around and say this. Yeah, I'm an entrepreneur for three. If some company were to understand my disability, my situation, and they give me a big enough check, this is a hobby now, bye-bye, I'm gonna go do that job. But those opportunities are so few far between, at least in my experience, that I had to create the opportunity. And it was one of the best decisions I've made in my life because I do love what I do. And putting eight to sixteen hours a day into what I love what I do is different from doing eight to sixteen hours in sales. It is absolutely different. So I see where the saying comes from. You also mentioned something earlier. You said, well, if you got a dream, well, you made a comment even before that. I believe you said you don't like the phrase chase your dreams. Absolutely not. So expand upon that. Because I say, hey, if you dream big, you know, you kind of got to be a dreamer to be an entrepreneur, honestly, in my opinion. You kind of got to be a dreamer. So I'm missing the disconnect. So explain for us.

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Oh sorry, it's really funny. I get a lot of, I shouldn't say pushback, but confusion when I say something like that. Yeah. Let me tell you a little bit of a story, okay? Sure. So I'm in my master's program for counseling and guidance and orientation and mobility in Ruston, Louisiana. All right, very small town. It's late December, and it's almost holiday break. But my grandmother's birthday is December 21st, and she was turning 80. And I'm like, I gotta get there. Brook College student, but I gotta get there. Let me take a look at flights. So I hop on um the computer, my computer's talking to me, all that stuff, right? Non-visual techniques. For those people who don't know, save click aside, jobs accessible with speech, jaws, it's a software for Windows computers. That's how black people use the computer. All right, end of the commercial, back to your ready to schedule programming. So I'm navigating the internet and I'm looking at flights to get to Trindad and Tobago to see my grandmother, who basically raised me because my parents were at work. And I'm looking at flights, and a round trip ticket from Monroe Airport, a pretty small airport, was about$1,400. Trig doesn't have that money.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:16

But I had a moment, I took a deep breath. How am I gonna figure this out? Because that's not gonna work. How do I problem solve through this to make this work? And the answer is no, I didn't go rob a bank. Um, I kept looking. My guess was wrong. Um, I kept looking. And then I started thinking, okay, no matter what, I gotta connect through Houston. Let's see if I just flew direct from Houston. Okay, that's reasonable. Like a few hundred. All right. Okay, let's look at buses. The flight was on Saturday at 1 p.m. Let's look at early Saturday morning buses. Nothing that would get me there in time. Okay, keep looking. Greyhound 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon gets me to Houston, Texas, Greyhound Station at 2 a.m. All right. That's the most financial that I can do. I can make that happen. Done. Without even thinking about it, because I knew the goal, and that was where I wanted to get to, and that's just what I had to do. And so at 5 p.m. on Friday, I found my way to the Greyhound bus station in Ruston, Louisiana, and it was a few stops in between. At 2 a.m., I get to the Houston airport. It's cold, I'm blind, all right, but I'll just figure it out, all right? I'm navigating my way, and then I'm in the Greyhound station at 2 a.m. I'm like, all right, well, what do I do now? My flight's not until 1 p.m. in the afternoon. And so I basically keep to myself a little bit. I find a little corner store area, get a little bit of food, and I don't talk to nobody. And just to put this out there, being at a downtown Greyhound station at 2 a.m. and overnight, 10 out of 10 would not recommend.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:05

But I wasn't thinking about any of those things. I was just thinking about the goal was getting to the person that raised me and who was there for me, walking me to the bus stop as a kid to her 80th birthday party. So once it turned like 5, 6, 7 a.m., I took public bus Houston to get to the airport and found my way over there. And eventually got to Trinidad at like 11, 12 p.m. Saturday night. Why do I bring up that story to answer your question why you should not chase your dreams? Great question. I'd love to tell you. Here's the deal. You should never chase your dreams. See, the language that we use is so important. Now, I really highly don't agree with chasing your dreams because when you chase your dreams, you're implying that your dreams are running away from you. My dreams are not a game of tag. My dreams are not running away from me. My dreams are just waiting for me to put in the work. So going to visit my grandmother for her birthday, who I hadn't seen in years at that point, had nothing to do with that running away from me. There was just more work I had to do to get there, which is fine. That dream was always there, and just required a bit more work than I was anticipating. So your dreams are not running away from you. You're not chasing your dreams, your dreams are just waiting for you. So I'm always working towards the dream. It's my dream. So who'd just say it's running away from me?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

I have to sit on that one. I need five seconds to process that, guys.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Don't chase your dreams. You're just waiting. They're literally because your dream hasn't moved. Right. It's always been in your heart. Right. It's always been in your brain. It's just sitting there waiting. Right. When's Darren gonna put in the work to get there? When's Tariq gonna put in the work to get there? When's Ashley gonna put in the work there? When's John gonna put in the work to get there?

unknown 35:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Because it hasn't moved.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Man. I'm sitting here because I personally I need to hear that. I can see that you're an English major. I can see that. Because your intent and your what's the word I'm looking for? It's like you're so meticulous with the words you say and the intent behind it, you're able to frame things in such a I'll be framed better light since you don't like positive. I'm sorry, Tariq, it's positive. But better light is better light. Because I understand where you're coming from. I'm gonna steal that. I love it. Because it's true.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

It's in the keynote, so it's true.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

It's true what you say and how you frame it. Dreams, your goals or your dreams are not run away from you. They're there. They're there. You just gotta go put in the work, and that's absolutely true. And it's so relatable to financial security and independence. But what I hope to show, and I'm sure it's the same way for you or similar to you, is that literally anybody can be financially secure. Anybody can be financially independent. It doesn't matter if you're African American, it doesn't matter if you're blind, it doesn't matter if you're both, it doesn't matter if you're Latino, it doesn't matter if you're deaf. You can get to it. And I loved how you frame it. It's there, but I think it's so important that you did frame it like that because people were double jeopardy. Black and blind, double jeopardy. So we have a lot going against us just naturally. And this is why I need someone like you on my platform. That mindset is so important because if you have a different mindset than what you have, a more different outlook, more maybe negative outlook, because you have that outlook, you're not even gonna put in the effort. You just don't believe in it. You just don't believe in it. You don't believe that you could have made that trip. Heck, I don't know if I could have believed that I could have made that trip that you just explained in your story. I might have just given up, or we'll definitely say the average person may have given up. But if I just haven't that tweak in mind frame or mindset, it allows you the belief to go out and give it a try. And one thing my thing is is important is you need to at least give it a try, no matter who you are. At least don't use the excuse of your disadvantage. Notice I said disadvantage, not disability.

unknown 37:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Disadvantage. Because everybody has a disadvantage. Everybody, not everybody has a disability, but everybody has a disadvantage.

SPEAKER_03 37:38

Well, that's why, you know, and we we can get into race a little bit, and that, you know, that's a whole other conversation, right? But everybody has something like what you're saying, right? The double jeopardy thing. What's the idea of not getting to Trinidad for my grandma? Like, the idea, like, there was no part of me that thought I wasn't gonna make it. Even when I saw$1,400,$1,500, whatever it was, like my brain didn't allow me to think like it didn't compute. Okay, right.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Next, how we doing it? You know what I mean? Right, right. But that's so important because I don't want to get intoo much into the race or whatever, but we'll say not race, let's say culture, right? Culture which is influenced by essentially and race, yeah, will dictate a certain mindset. You had a mindset to go, I'm not gonna let anything stop me. Period. I'm not gonna let it stop me. Period. You could have said you could have said because of A B C, I can't do it. That's why I respect you so much, and I I respect myself, but I respect you so much because that's your mindset, and you have every reason to not have it. And I listened to your episode about your sister. And as somebody who's lost his brother, sorry, I lost my mother to cancer, I'm not sure if we knew that. I lost my mother to cancer, and I lost a sibling to suicide. You can have every reason to use that excuse. I listened to another episode of yours where your licensed therapist talked about trauma and how some people are not ready to get off the ramabout. Don't make me take your intro theme. This is dang near a promotion for you, but I I love it so much because we it's needed. It's needed. You know, there's there's people like me who's gonna be like, all right, you know, you can do it. You know, you use a little bit of therapy techniques, a little bit of counseling techniques for for the understanding, but ultimately I'm gonna say, here's the strategy, you can do it. I really don't want to hear that many excuses. I'm not the person to be given excuses. I'll be here to understand, but I'm not the guy to want to hear excuses because I don't want a usually non-disabled, fully functioning person to tell me they can't go out and get a second job looking dead at me. I don't want to hear it because it's just a reality. They have that advantage, and we do not. And me and you are going around doing multiple jobs with our disadvantage. I challenge people and I commend people like you, and it's not to down them, it's just the reality.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

But I mean, now there's the well, can I just jump in there for a moment? Because you you hit on some really good things, and then I agree with you, but I just want to let's to add a little bit of a wrinkle. Sure, sure. Invisible disabilities do exist, yes, right? Yes, and so that's also uh an area where people don't know what's going on. You have people who are neurodivergent and all those different types of things that are out there, and there's other work that those individuals may have to do to get the work, but once again, those things exist and they gotta work towards their goals just like anybody else. This might look different than anybody else. But there's a certain where we all come together on this and where we all have to work towards it is that there's a mindset piece, right? And that that that's where the common ground truly is. Like, do you have a mindset that says, Oh, my hardships are gonna stop me, or do you have a mindset that says my hardships are gonna shape me to continue moving? They're just lessons I have to learn to get to where I need to be.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:16

I have another guide I'd love to share with you and your audience, the money mindset guide. Yes, you're underpaid, uh, money mindset guide. And really, what that guide goes through is not necessarily the hands-on like financial piece. It really talks about the mindset it takes to believe that you can actually make more money at the nine to five or go somewhere else to make the money that you want to make. So I'd love to share it with you, and you could do whatever you like with it. But and I think I used to sell it, I'm not exactly sure, but we'll give it to you and your audience for free. And so, what that looks like once again is the mindset piece. That's a common ground. Everybody has something going on.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

Right. Everybody has something going wrong. So have you ever had clients where um okay, well, let me roll it back a little bit. In finance, particularly the client base that I currently have right now, it's a lot of um, I'll just be blunt. It's a lot of entitlement. I'm gonna ask you a question, but hold it for a little bit. There's a lot of entitlement. So the entitlement is because I worked, or I can even agree, if I worked hard, I deserve this. Because I worked hard, I deserve this. I don't want to work harder because I've already worked hard, or I don't want to work in a different way because I've already worked hard. One, I know we're two different coaches in two different industries, but we still coach. Have you faced that with your clients? Where is it just I don't want to say complaining, but they're like it's we'll use the word pushing back. I'm telling them one thing and they're like, Darren, we're hearing you, but I already worked hard. So I'm entitled to the vacation, I'm entitled to the Jordans, I'm entitled to the PS5 Pro that costs$700. Is that something that you kind of deal with in your coaching or not really? Oh, 100%. Got it. Because it means money, right? So what I tell people, and most of my clients are fully able-bodied. So it usually is two things. They don't manage their money well, so they're blown it all. So they simply just need to not spend it in a certain category. Or they just don't make enough money. So I have to tell them you gotta go get a second job. And the amount of pushback of we're already work 40 hours, already have a full time job, or like I just said earlier, I worked hard, so I'm entitled to the$700 PlayStation Pro. It's the probably the most frustrating aspect of coaching. Um, so I'm curious how it looks for you in your world and How do you help people with that?

SPEAKER_03 44:02

Um, let me tell you a story.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Sure. I'm getting oh man, three stories in one episode. I'm doing something right.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

So I'll never forget. I was probably like maybe eight or nine years old. And at this, for whatever reason, my grandmother wasn't there. My mother worked at a nursing home. And at this point in time in school, things for the most part came pretty easy to me, getting hundreds on the test, studying here and there, but doing well in school. Okay. For whatever reason, I had to go to where my mom was working, and I had to stay there for a little bit, maybe waiting for a ride or whatever it was. I don't fully remember that part. But I remember seeing my mom at a moment where she had to go work with some of her elderly patients and take care of them and like make sure that they were clean and all these different things, and lifting up patients and doing all these different things to be able to take care of them and make money, right? In that moment, like I thought when like kind of doing some reading or doing a little bit of studying, or but not really things that's coming easy and getting hunches. I thought that was working hard because I was getting the results that I wanted. I had to take a step back and realize that I really didn't know what it meant to work hard. So that's the first step of this conversation here. People don't really know what hard work is. And we have to redefine sometimes what hard work is. Because as soon as you think you know what hard work is, you gotta push a little bit harder to get to where you want to be. Facts. If you're not a lifelong learner, if you don't believe in like continued improvement, then at some point you're just gonna get stagnant. And so that's the first step to all this. Defining truly what it means to work hard. The second part of this is when you're when I'm talking to somebody and we're trying to define what hard work is and recognizing all that. Um actually, well, real quick, I just want to I want to hear your words again. Can you repeat the question one more time? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 46:29

Yeah, so you answered the first part. So we have clients where in finances I need them to work harder, but they have this entitlement of because I worked hard already, I deserve this. Well, you actually technically answered both questions. The first question was do you experience it? And to how do you help clients through that? So here's number two.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

Here's what people need to realize. Here's what I do believe. I believe that everybody who's living deserves all the great things in the world. Nobody's better than anybody else. You deserve it all. However, comma, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you earn. Facts. I I truly believe in that quote: you don't get what you deserve, you get what you earn. So if you are quote unquote entitled to something, sure, so am I. Right, right. But but if I didn't go out there and earn it, then what are we talking about here? Right. Somebody who has it did something or somebody did for them to get to where they are, fine. Maybe somebody didn't do it for you, maybe you gotta work a bit harder than somebody else did. Right. Because here's the deal it all comes down to sacrifice time, energy, work, money, investing, whatever. So here's how I told you a lot of things, but there's the quote you don't get what you deserve, you get what you earn. Right. But here's the finale to the quote, all right? It's about sacrifice. So here's the deal: you either sacrifice to get to the dream, or you sacrifice getting the dream.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

Oh man, I'm still on that one too. Man, you good with these quotes. Say that again for the listeners.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Sacrifice the dream, sacrifice for the dream or sacrifice the dream.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

I love that. I'm still on that. It's a choice. It's a choice. I'm still on that one too. So I'm throwing it because it's very similar to what I say. So what I say, because when I'm doing business consulting, I generally help people who have never done business and they want to start for the first time. So and this is part of just general coaching, and also times the ties to finance. People say that they want things, right? So once and needs is very important in finances. Needs are your rent, food, insurance, if you got kids, it's daycare. Wants is everything else, basically. Minus a few things. It's everything else. You have to know in finance what's a need and what's a want. Once you figure that out, then you have to know how much your money is going to needs and how much your money is going to wants. Like I said earlier, half the people I work with, they just spend too much on wants. The other half generally is just they don't make enough money. And I understand no one likes working at McDonald's. No one likes working, or very few people like working most traditional W-2 jobs. They don't like doing it. So they they don't like it, and then they want a reward for doing something they don't like. I completely get it. But what I tell people is if you want something bad enough, that means you have to be willing to do what it takes, all of it. You don't get to pick it, right? So you just said it earlier. Someone who's a freaking hundred millionaire, they sacrificed a whole lot to get there. They didn't pick it, right? They didn't go, oh, I'm a hundred millionaire, and I just want to sacrifice 20 hours of family time, not 60 hours, right? It doesn't work like that. If you want something, you have to do everything that's required to get whatever that goal or that reward is. That's what you have to. And if you don't want it bad enough, then you're not gonna be willing to do it. To me, that's that's it's that simple. It's that simple. I love the way you phrased it though, because it is so true. Like you're either gonna sacrifice getting to your dream, or you're gonna sacrifice the dream. Let's get it. And it's and it's really it's to me, it's that it's simple in a sense of it's that simple.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Darren, I'm a simple guy, man. Yeah, like a simple man.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

It's that and I am too. It's that simple. It's just, and I'm sure you kind of experience this, you know, sometimes as a coach is a lot of the challenges is that one, you're telling people something that they've never heard before. Two, yeah, it's coming from us. We're a unique messenger, so it's they're gonna have to accept it. But three, they don't like hearing it, they don't like it. You said it a couple times on this episode. Your audience may not like what I have to hear. I feel like sometimes successful people are the people who go, Man, I don't like what I just heard, but it's the truth, so I gotta take it. I gotta take it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 51:33

Anybody listening to this podcast and thinking that this isn't a financial conversation, I think you're missing the boat a little bit. Because once again, there's a mindset involved. So I encourage you to listen back and think about your current situation. And if it's your situation that needs improvement, think about the mindset it takes to put some improvement into place.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Absolutely. And I'll just be direct. This is absolutely a financial mindset conversation, and I'll take myself for an example. I've mentioned many times, and you know more than I'm gonna say on the show, I got a quite sizable inheritance. I trust me, that inheritance did not just fall in my lap and I didn't pay no costs. I paid a hell of a cost to get that inheritance. There's so many people who would have been through what I've been through and just go, oh, I got all that money. I'm gonna, as some of my favorite hip hop music would say, I'm gonna F up the commas. Like I'm gonna blow it all. I'm gonna blow it all away. But it's not what I chose to do because I really appreciate and value what it took. So one thing that popped in my head and listeners, when Tariq was going and saying, You have not earned it, you may have been going, Well, Darren, there's some spoiled kid somewhere where he was just bored and he gets$20 million. He gets$10 million. Listener, I hear where you're coming from, but guess what? He may have not earned it directly, but his father or mother or family put into work so that he didn't have to. And that's what and that's why I preach what I preach. Because the whole goal is your son or daughter doesn't have to work as hard as you did. You need to give, at least in my opinion, you want to give the next generation the advantage that you never had.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

You never judge somebody for where they are because you don't know what they had to do or what they had to go through to get there.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Exactly. Exactly. And a lot of greater, a lot of people need to really let that sink in because there's a lot of judgment. Honestly, it's to the point where it's culturally acceptable, right? It's acceptable in our culture. Oh my god, this guy has a billion dollars and he has no real problems, and I would wish to be in his situation. And I tell people all the time, as somebody who doesn't have a billion dollars, but I do have a good amount of money lying around. Some of these problems you don't want. Like sometimes I just miss, I miss the broke people problems because the non-broke people problems it it comes with challenges, and then you face the situation, which I believe you talked about in one of your episodes I'm referring to again, which is where you don't allow yourself to acknowledge that's a problem. You don't allow yourself to acknowledge that it is a trauma, that it is an issue, that you do have feelings. You hold it in because you compare yourself and you go, Well, crap, like I only have these problems because I have this blessing. So I can't complain about it when you absolutely have the right to complain about it, to deal with it, to feel a certain way, which is what uh brother Tariq over here has helped me realize last week. But, anyways, man, I would love to keep this going, but yeah, man, we are a little bit over on time, but this episode was great. We're gonna have to come back for a part two because one, you make my podcast way better by just being on it and bringing that energy and it pumps me up. But two, people need to hear this discussion from us. One thing I do believe in is modeling. I kind of mentioned it before, but I believe modeling, man. It's one thing to hear some of these conversations from people from a from a certain situation, and it's a different thing to have this conversation being talked about by people with a different situation. And I just think, and I'm not saying one is not needed and the other one is, I'm saying they're both needed. So we definitely need to continue this conversation in a part two, or we may have to just jump on something else. But unfortunately, I'm gonna have to wrap it up. So before I let you go, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_03 55:34

So it's not just about me, it's about we. So we are vision of hope on Instagram, we are visionofope.com, we are vision of hope, YouTube, speak your vision podcast on all platforms. We haven't put one out in a while, but a lot of good information on there. We are vision of hope on everything, and I'll share with everybody, I'll send it over to you, Darren, the yes you're underpaid, the money mindset guide, and I'll share that with you for free to your listeners and everybody, and that's where you can find me.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Absolutely, Tariq. I really appreciate you jumping on the show, and I really had fun with this conversation. Definitely, listeners, watch out. He's gonna be back. I have to force him, I have to strangle him, I'm at the fly out to Arizona. I'm gonna have to make sure he's back for a part two, or maybe that might be the way I have to revive his show, but that's for a different conversation. But, anyways, thank you again. This has been Financial State of Minds, joined here by Tariq Williams, special guests, and this is a show where we've helped you get to that bag, manic that bag, and grow that bag as best as possible as we discuss business, financial literacy, anything, everything to do with the power of dollar, which definitely includes mindset, you guys. Absolutely. So, again, brother, you take care, you enjoy the rest of the day, and God bless to you. Keep doing what you're doing, definitely support it. Listeners, please go follow him. His podcast was amazing. I knocked out like four or five of them when I had an absolute joy. I already have one episode, another episode queued up. And again, you guys, the discussion with the listeners, please comment, please share with everybody who needs to hear this and everybody who doesn't need to hear this. And share this podcast in the cleaning.