
Episode No. 6
Income Rich But Cash Poor with Dr. James Bryant
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Episode No. 6
Income Rich But Cash Poor with Dr. James Bryant

Listen To The Podcast On
Your Favourite Platform
SHOW NOTES
Imagine having a high-paying job but still living paycheck to paycheck, trying to get out of debt? In this episode of the Share the Wealth Show, Dr. James Bryant shares how he escaped being cash strapped and built generational wealth while doing good. James’ positive mindset is key to his success, and he highlights the importance of focusing on goals. He also discusses passing more than a financial legacy to his kids and structuring his life to be fully present in his family. James Bryant, Ph.D., P.E. is the Founder of Engineer Your Success, LLC, a boutique leadership training and peak performance coaching firm designed to help engineers win in business and in life. Dr. Bryant believes that you can build the business of your dreams and have a life that you absolutely love. He has over 20 years of experience leading teams and organizations in the private and public sectors and is the host of the Engineer Your Success Podcast. Dr. Bryant is a professional engineer, a certified John Maxwell Leadership speaker, trainer, and coach, and most importantly he is a loving husband and father. Dr. Bryant is an Alumni of the initial Myers Methods Multifamily Real Estate Investing Course and using joint ventures, has an ownership stake in 4 multifamily properties that have a total of over 85 units.
[02:31 – 10:42] Who is Dr. James Bryant?
● Being income rich but cash poor
○ Not living beyond their means but somehow still struggling to get rid of debt
● How they started monitoring cash flow to manage expenses
● The start of his investing journey
[10:43 – 17:32] Getting Your Finances in Order
● Going to multifamily to pay off their mortgage
● Tapping into lines of credits and their retirement account
● Locking in on financial goals
● Projecting your cash flow
○ This has a psychological impact
[17:33 – 20:11] Doing Well While Doing Good
● Financial freedom enables you to give back
● The fulfillment in being able to provide for your parents
[20:12 – 29:07] Having a Growth Strategy and Looking at the Future
● James talks about investing passively in the future
● Leveraging on your 401(k) to get the resources needed to invest
● The work he does with Engineering Your Success, LLC
● He shares stories about his kids and what’s the legacy he wants to leave behind
[29:07 – 36:36] Closing Segment
● The final 2 questions
○ James’ take on the diversification: Niche down!
● Connect with James!
Key Quotes
“Success is a journey and it shifts. How we view and use money, and leverage money begins to grow as we grow.” – Dr. James Bryant
“Your kids see who you are not who you project to be. And they begin to follow your cues.” – Dr. James Bryant
“You can only be an expert at so many things. So even if you’re looking to generate income from other areas, then which one are you going to be the expert in? Which one are people going to look to you to be the authority to speak about, to talk about when it comes to investing and moving forward?” – Dr. James Bryant
Connect with Dr. James LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jbryant2/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/drjamesbryant_coach/
Also, check out his Engineer Your Success podcast Listen here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/engineer-your-success/id1577397948
and check out LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/bett…
Let’s get connected! You can find Nicole on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-pendergrass/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nvestornikki/?hl=en
or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nvestornikki
or Visit her website https://noirvestholdings.com
Transcript
Dr. James Bryant 00:00
I just focused on the things that I love versus the thing that they were telling me that I wasn’t good at. And that was absolutely phenomenal. Because I wasn’t expecting that my heart was broken for him. But he was like, I’m just gonna focus on the things that I love. And focus on that and kind of live in that space. Yeah. And that was cool for me. And you know, some people were like, Well, does he want to get better? What is he going to do? First of all, I’m just happy that he’s not blaming anybody else, right? He’s not mad and all this other stuff. So that’s the first thing is first, right attitude, your approach it right, the rest of the stuff, we’re going to be instilled and we’re going to be working on running and we’re going to be working on getting a little bit more competitive. I signed them up for some different classes. And so those things are happening, but having the right attitude is huge.
Intro 00:50
Welcome to the Share the Wealth Show where minority professionals can learn to escape the racial wealth gap and catapult themselves into abundance. Your host, Nicole Pendegrass who her network from being negative to multiple six figures. Join her on her investigative mission to expose secret strategies of the wealthy. So we can all have the tools needed to build the life and legacy we were created to possess. Now it’s time for the show.
Nicole Pendergrass 01:18
Welcome back, everyone to another episode of the Share the Wealth Show, I am your host, Nicole Pendergrass. And today, I had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. James Bryant. We covered a wealth of information. We talked about his money mindset, being income rich, but cash poor, and the different tools and vehicles he used to be able to get rid of debt and start building wealth and the strategies behind that. We also touched on his kids and how they have a mindset that is phenomenal. And really adults can take that and transition and feature their goals in a positive light. And so don’t let disappointment stop you from taking that next step or to focus on the things that are really going to make you happy that you want to be good at. So there was just so much it’s all entwined together. Dr. James Bryant, if you don’t know who he is, is the founder of Engineering Your Success, LLC, a boutique leadership training and peak performance coaching firm designed to help engineers win in business and in life. Dr. Bryant believes that you can build a business of your dreams and have a life that you absolutely love. He has over 20 years of experience leading teams and organizations in the private and public sectors, and is the host of Engineering Your Success Podcast. with Dr. Bryant is a professional engineer, certified John Maxwell leadership speaker, a trainer and a coach. And most importantly, he’s a loving husband and father. So on the real estate side, he’s actually invested in real estate. He’s an alumni of the initial Myers Methods of Multifamily real estate investing course. And also he uses joint ventures as an ownership stake in for multifamily properties that have a total of over 85 units. And that’s just part of his wealth building strategy. And like I said, he did use a bunch of other vehicles within his journey. So you want to stay tuned and listen to what those are. So without further ado, here’s the show. Welcome, everyone to another episode of the Share the Wealth Show. And today, you heard a little bit about his bio, but we have with us James Bryant, the man the myth, the legend, right?
Dr. James Bryant 03:35
Yes, yes, Nicole, how are you doing?
Nicole Pendergrass 03:37
Good, how are you? And thank you for coming on today. I really appreciate that.
Dr. James Bryant 03:42
I’m doing great. This was the highlight of my day. I’ve been looking forward to this interview all day. I’m so excited that you asked me to come and join you in a talk about sharing the wealth. It’s an absolute pleasure and an honor for me to be here.
Nicole Pendergrass 03:56
Thank you. I really appreciate it. Okay, so let’s just jump in, I gave a high-level overview of your bio, but and your journey and all the different things that you’ve experienced, what was one of the big highlights or aha moments, paradigm shifts, whatever you want to call it, that kind of changed your the trajectory of your journey into leading you to what you’re doing today.
Dr. James Bryant 04:20
You know, I would say getting to the point where I didn’t have to, I realized that I didn’t have to do it all myself. And that going it alone is a slow strategy. It could be a slow strategy towards wealth, but it could also be a slow strategy towards death, because you’re doing so much and you’re not empowering other people or building a team or finding like-minded people that can help carry the mission that you have. So for me, it’s doing well while doing good wanting to make sure that the money that I have is invested in projects, where people are actually they care for the tenants they care for the neighborhood and the not trying to be slumlords. So but before we dig into that, you know, we’ll talk about way, way back when, you know, kind of growing up, not even growing up. I won’t go back that far, but I’ll go to early on in our marriage. So early on in our marriage, I would call, I would say that we were income rich, but cash poor.
Nicole Pendergrass 05:21
Oh, let me just clarify. In James and his wife’s marriage. Me and James are not married? Yes. Just the way it said it was like in our marriage, and I’m like, maybe we should clarify.
Dr. James Bryant 05:32
Not our marriage. But you know, my wife’s pictures. For those of you watching the video is behind me with my kids and family. So yes, in my marriage, my wife and I, we were, I would say, income rich, but cash poor. We had nice incomes, nice jobs, we were making good money, we purchased a home. But we were actually just cash strapped. I mean, all the money was coming in, and it was going to pay the bills. And it wasn’t an issue of us really trying to live beyond our means. It was just tough, very early on. We had to make some really tough decisions. And the number one decision was really this you get out of debt. And so we worked very hard to get out of debt from, you know, having lots of credit card debt to doing credit card balance transfers, switching money around from place to place and say, Okay, we’re gonna put this money over here, because it’s, they’re charging zero interest right now. And then we’re going to pay this one off. And then before this interest comes due, we’re going to take that and shift it back over. So we played this shell game for a few years working and whittling down our debt, you My wife used to also play the harp. And so she had heart jobs on the weekends. And so we were hustling, doing what we needed to do to pay down debt. And then we slowly but surely, began to build a nice cash position. One of the things that both of us were really keen on even while we’re paying off debt, we weren’t contributing to our retirement accounts. So we were fully funding our retirement accounts at the time, you know, then we started having kids and all we got to pay for, you know, we need to save for college. And we need to save for this. So we had this long journey of just really trying to figure that out. I can remember us using Microsoft Money. For those of you that don’t may not remember, it used to be kind of Microsoft’s answer to like Quicken and some of the other money management tools. But the great thing about Microsoft Money at the time is it had a cash flow projection function. So we would have all our bills in there, who would have our income coming in. And then every month, we will look at the projection. So that really helped us to see if we have some recurring bills, or some things that are coming up six months from now, if it went from green to red, we knew we had a problem, we had to do something different. So we watched that really, really closely. And then our focus started to be on paying off our mortgage. So we were aggressively paying off our mortgage, Nicole. Now, you know, there’s some people that are like, Why are you going to pay off your mortgage is cheap money, you should take that money and invest it here and invest it there. But there’s a psychological kind of impact on reducing your debt, and a sense of feeling safe and secure. So we were rolling down that path. So I would have different people that would talk to me about different investment options, you know, whether it was a single-family or multifamily, but none of those things really appealed to me. Because whatever it was, had to draw me away from the lore of paying down my debt. And then that’s where my good friend and business partner, Jerome Myers comes in. And he says, Hey, I’m thinking about investing in apartment complexes, really, you’re thinking about investing in apartment complexes, tell me a little bit about it. So he began to share, you know, kind of the memorandums and different things that he was looking at. And we decided that, hey, you know what, I think this sounds good, because I think this will allow me to build generational wealth, it will help me make an impact in the community that was important to me. And that’s where the whole concept of doing well, while doing good kind of came into play and looking through the projects and different things that he was presenting to me. So eventually, I started investing with him. We’ve done four deals, mostly joint ventures, and I’ve been a main partner in all of those deals. And obviously, we moved past as a my wife and I, we’ve moved past the income rich and cash poor because we had to have some cash to actually invest in.
Nicole Pendergrass 10:00
Okay. All right. So there was a lot there. And…
Dr. James Bryant 10:04
That’s why I stopped talking. I want to give you some time to interject.
Nicole Pendergrass 10:07
Yes. Okay. Did you actually finish paying off your house before you ended up investing with Jerome?
Dr. James Bryant 10:12
No, we still, we got pretty close. And we’re still moving even closer. I think at the time, we may have had maybe 150, $180,000 left on our house. And this was five years ago. Okay, when we started investing in multifamily properties, okay, we’re still aggressive. But the last I’ve checked, I think we owe about 80,000. Okay.
Nicole Pendergrass 10:43
So if you had $100,000, would you invest it in a multifamily deal? Or would you pay off your mortgage right now? Yeah, right now?
Dr. James Bryant 10:51
Am I investing with you? Well, it really depends on the project, it really depends on the person, I think you really have to know your partners, you really have to get to know your partners to make sure that your values align, what you don’t want to do is to say that, hey, I want my money to be on a mission, and you have someone else who is driving everything, and all they’re thinking about is squeezing the absolute maximum amount of profit that they can give. I am not against making a profit. But I do think that when you’re looking at some of these multifamily properties, that if you look at your tenants, to some degree as your partner from the standpoint of they’re the ones that are, you know, you want them to continue to pay the rent, you want them actually to help to keep up your property, you don’t want them to damage your property. So the better of situations that you can have and the better you can even subconsciously treat them. I think the better off you’re going to be in the long run.
Nicole Pendergrass 11:56
Yeah, you might have a few hiccups here and there because sometimes just don’t care. But just keep your composure, you know, they’re humans, they’re renting, like a lot of us have rented before at least I’m in New York City. So you know, most people rent and I was a renter for years. I’m renting now, actually, like I moved out of the house that I bought. So you just have to however you want treat people to treat you just make sure you’re treating people in like manner, even if it’s not reciprocated, because that will come back to you and to them.
Dr. James Bryant 12:27
Yeah. But if I had $100,000, you know, I probably would, I can tell you exactly what I will do. I will pay off the mortgage, and then use the line of credit to invest in whatever the project is, if I found that project worthy of my money and my time.
Nicole Pendergrass 12:41
Aha, okay, ’cause I was gonna ask about that, too. Like having, what were your thoughts on that equity?
Dr. James Bryant 12:47
Yeah, I’ve used lines of credit to purchase or to participate in a few of the multifamily deals that we’ve had. So part of it has been lines of credit. Of course, now we’ve paid those lines of credit down, we’re not carrying any debt on any of the multifamily projects that were part of, we’ve also tapped into our retirement account to kind of borrow funds against retirement account people like why would you do that? The way it was set up at the time, I was able to borrow like $50,000 and like one and a half percent, it was something really, yeah, it was something really, really low in I looked at it and was like, Well, yeah, I can invest in a property that will give me X percent return while this money is only costing me 1%. Hmm, yeah, I think I’ll do that.
Nicole Pendergrass 13:36
Yeah, I will do that, too. 1%. Like interest rates now are as low, I mean, they’re creeping up a little bit. But a few years ago, I borrowed from my 403 B and my interest rate wasn’t 1%. And interest rates are supposed to be low, then, you know, like, I was still paying 5 or 6%.
Dr. James Bryant 13:54
Yeah, it was pretty interesting. The way they set it up, they will shift money away from some of the stock funds and put it into a temporary kind of annuity fund, but that annuity was paying, you know, three or 4%. So the loan was costing me 3%. So I was, the loan was costing 5%. The annuity was paying off 4%. So the really net cost to me for borrowing that money was 1%.
Nicole Pendergrass 14:22
Okay, that definitely makes sense. All right. And you know what, I had another line of questioning to go along with that, but I can’t remember. So I’m going to shift gears because I don’t remember what that was. But going back to that beginning where you said you were playing, you know, a shell game with all these credit cards. How intensive with is that? Because that sounds like a headache. I don’t know how I would keep up with just all that going back and forth and bringing them over like just transferring, like, how did you guys keep them for a few years.
Dr. James Bryant 14:56
When you have goals, you will do what you need to do to achieve your goals, I mean, that’s the bottom line, it was having our eye on the prize. Once we got locked in, on, hey, we need to pay down our debt, we need to get rid of this credit card debt, we need to start focusing on our future. And what we want to do, we need to build up a cash position so that we can go do X, whatever that x is, whether it’s buy a car, or go and invest in real estate or some other kind of investment. Once those goals were pretty clear, then my wife and I, we were locked in. And it was my responsibility to kind of juggle all of that. And so we would have monthly meetings. And again, the software we were using at the time was great, because we had that cash flow projection. So all we really, once you put everything in, and you have the reminders letting you know, hey, this balance is going to come due at this time so you need to start making the shift. Once you have that in, it’s pretty simple to kind of follow that through. But being able to project your cash flow is huge. I cannot say how huge that is both just from fiscal policy, but also psychologically, because again, we will look at that spreadsheet, we will look at the graph. And if the graph started going in the red, that meant that, hey, three months from now, if we keep the same trajectory that we’re on right now, we’re going to be at a deficit. So we need to start making changes. Now let’s take a harder look at our budget, let’s take a harder look at how we’re spending money to see what do we need to tweak? What do we need to change? What do we need to drop? What absolutely do we need to do to be able to stay on the other side of the red to be able to stay in the black. And you know, through all of that, you know, my wife, very early on, she wanted to be able to provide finances and resources to our parents. So her mother is in her mid 80s. My mother is in her mid 70s. But you know, early on in our marriage, this was a goal that my wife had. And kind of the agreement that we had is that we needed to get out of debt other than our house, we need to get out of debt, we needed to have our finances in order. And once we get to that point, we will then be able to invest and give back to our mothers. And so it wasn’t just about the investing to build wealth, but it was also being able to get some sense of financial freedom that would allow us to give back to those people that gave so much to us.
Nicole Pendergrass 17:33
Wow. Yeah. And no, that’s definitely how I started my journey too. With the mindset of I wanted to retire my mom, I didn’t want her to have to work until forever. Real estate took much longer than I thought so. She actually fronted some money for me to get started in my real estate journey with like the first course I ever enrolled in. And so now I’m finally at the point where I’m right on the cusp of being able to pay her back with plus interest. And she’s just so excited because now I like have like, now that I’m in multifamily, and I have deal flow, and I’m looking at things and now she’s like, oh, you know, I’m telling you how to invest that some of that money, and so, you know parents, she is counting every dollar have that money, she’s like, Alright, I think I’m gonna put 19,000 into the investment, not 20, because I need that extra 1000 to do this and that or whatever it is. But she’s flexing that thing up like that.
Dr. James Bryant 18:30
But it’s good, because you want to I mean, you want to be able to bless your mom in that way. I mean, it makes me feel good as you know, a son to be able to do that for my mom to be able to pay her bills to be able to you know that she calls and says she needs something it’d be in a position to be able to provide it. I mean, because let’s face it, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them. Yeah, so that was really important to my wife. And because of that, that was one of our goals. One of our financial goals was being in a position to give back to our parents. We’ve always been really big givers in terms of to our church and to, you know, the community. So that was always part of, that was baked into our financial plan. Even we were cash rich, I mean, cash, poor income rich, we still were giving in doing the things that we believe that we were supposed to.
Nicole Pendergrass 19:22
Okay, yeah, that’s fantastic. And I actually love how your entire journey is interwoven with you getting out of debt, and your financial journey was all still based around, giving back and helping other people as well along the way. So it wasn’t always just about getting out of debt or having more money or whatever it was about who can you impact while you’re doing that journey yourself.
Dr. James Bryant 19:46
Yes. And, you know, it’s kind of having kind of a different take on when, and that’s, you know, what’s important now, so at that time, you know, what’s important now it’s important for us to focus on getting out of debt, but we still need to give back we still need to do something other things, but those things, you know, I guess just like success is a journey and it shifts. How we view and use money and leverage money begins to grow as we grow.
Nicole Pendergrass 20:11
Yeah. Okay. In this journey so far, you’ve talked about a lot of different vehicles and mindsets and strategies that you’ve used to kind of get from being out of debt into investing and where you get and pull capital from and how you grow that. So you use credit cards and interest rates, promos bouncing those around to pay off some debt, and then you use home equity lines, you said, to invest in some deals. And you’ve also borrowed from your 403(k) or 401(k) to invest in deals as well, because you’re using that interest arbitrage., actually, the HELOC and the loan from your retirement are both about interest arbitrage like investing that and something that’s going to give you more return, more percentage back then you’re paying out. Is there, are there strategies that you’ve used or thought about using or heard that you might want to implement when it comes to either investing or growing that pot so that you can maybe like amplify it? I don’t know what your legacy plan is for, you know, your children and things like that. But I’m sure you are. Are you still in like a growth strategy? Or are you more the preservation of capital mindset? So those are two different ways that people will approach investing.
Dr. James Bryant 21:25
Yeah, I think I’m always going to be we’re not always, right now still have growth. So the growth strategy, but it’s really, I’m very selective in the projects that I’m involved in. So you know, in the future, I may do, you know, maybe be involved in some syndications, doing something passive, because I’m active in the deals that were a part of now as part of the joint ventures. And so I may flip to do something passively. In the future. I know a lot of people talk about Infinite Banking and using insurance policies to build up a cash position, they use that for investing in businesses and investing in their real estate. That’s not a strategy that we’ve used to date, but it may be something that we look at in the future.
Nicole Pendergrass 22:09
Okay, do you have policies now?
Dr. James Bryant 22:11
You know, we did the old school, you know, what some people will tell you to do buy term and invest the rest, we actually bought term. And we literally invested the rest, which is how we were able to make the investments and pay off all of the other debts that we’ve had on those investments. So you know, like I say, using the HELOC, using the 401(k), all of those things have been, other than, our primary mortgage, all debt that we’ve used to invest in properties have been paid back.
Nicole Pendergrass 22:44
Okay, cool. Now, actually, with you using the loan from your 401(k), why did you decide to do that instead of roll that over to self-directed?
Dr. James Bryant 22:53
Well, you know, I’m still working a W-2. So I have the W-2. Okay, so I’m doing that. I’m also running Engineer Your Success, LLC, the boutique leadership training and peak performance coaching firm, where we help engineers when at work and at home. So we’re doing that. And it just, the money still sitting there in my W-2’s plan? Yeah, it’s I use the levers that I was able to pull to get the resources needed to invest in the projects more to invest in.
Nicole Pendergrass 23:23
Yeah, that makes sense. I always forget about that. Like, sometimes you can’t just because I pulled my money out with the Jobs Act, because I’m wanted to, was that jobs? No, that was cares with the Cares Act. So I pulled my money out from there. And so now I’m just automatically like, Oh, why don’t you just pull your money out? Because I forget that that kind of ended. In doing that it’s a little too late. Okay, now, actually, when it comes to this journey that you’ve been on, and all the things and what you’ve been doing, you’re still growing, and you’re still active, I see some post that you put out about your son, and his mindset is kind of super on point. And, you know, like, how do you instill that? Is that part of the bigger plan? What if he doesn’t want to do real estate or whatever else you’re doing? If he doesn’t want to, you know, pick up your better for you and your other businesses? How do you kind of plan to pass on some either financial legacy to him or just knowledge? Or what’s your basic like, legacy plan for your kids?
Dr. James Bryant 24:26
So we have two kids, they’re 13 and 14. Both are great kids, love being a dad and a husband. And you know, what I’m learning is your kids see who you are not who you project to be. And they begin to follow your cues. So if you’re dishonest, don’t be fooled. Your kids are going to follow you in that dishonesty in terms of telling what you know, saying whatever and don’t whatever, they’re going to mimic the behavior that they see. And so I’m really super proud of my kids. And you’re right, their mindset, there are a couple of different, you know, stories that posted have been going online. One was my oldest son called me one day in the middle of school. And he’s like, Hey, Dad, what’s up was like, hey, and I’m thinking something must be wrong. Something’s going on at school I was doing, I had to go pick him up, you know what’s happening. And he says, I just called to say, thank you. So now I’m really concerned. Because this is a school day, my son is calling me. And he’s saying thank you. And I’m like, I’m looking at the phone. I’m like, is everything okay? He says, Yes, I got my grade back on my one-minute pitch project. Thank you for helping me develop that one-minute pitch and practice it. It really worked. I appreciate it. And he said, that’s all I wanted to tell you. Goodbye, love you. Clip. And I was like, wow. So that really, you know, kind of touched me is that I tried to really structure my life to be fully present and involved in my family. And so being here, being involved, being able to have an impact, that’s the legacy that I want to leave is being present with them, right? Because I can leave them money, I can leave them resources. But if I don’t instill know-how, if I don’t instill the fact that they’re important enough for me to be physically and mentally present with them, I think that’s part of the legacy. So my youngest son, and this is the post, I just, I think, earlier this week, he tried out for middle school track. He didn’t make it. He sent me a text message. You know, I didn’t make it. My heart was broken. I’m like, Oh, my God, you know, how was he going to be? So he asked me to come pick them up. I go to pick them up, like, hey, you know, Nate, how’s it going? And he’s like, you know, I’m okay. I said, No, let’s talk about how are you feeling? It’s like, well, I’m disappointed. I was like, okay, it was like, and he says, well, so I said, What did the coach say? What did they say? So Well, Dad. Once they started, say, they said, you have a good attitude. But they want you, too, she said, once, it was like, once they started talking, and I knew I wasn’t going to be on the team, I just checked out, in my mind, went to running cross country at the YMCA or going out with you running in the park and having fun. And I just focused on the things that I love versus the thing that they were telling me that I wasn’t good at. And that was absolutely phenomenal, because I wasn’t expecting that, my heart was broken for him. But he was like, I’m just going to focus on the things that I love, and focus on that and kind of live in that space. And that was cool for me. And you know, some people were like, Well, does he want to get better? And what is he going to do? First of all, I’m just happy that he’s not blaming anybody else. Right? He’s not mad and all this other stuff. So that’s the first things first, right attitude, you approach it, right? The rest of the stuff, we’re going to be instilling, we’re going to be working on run, and we’re going to be working on getting a little bit more competitive, I signed them up for some different classes. And so those things are happening, but having the right attitude is huge.
Nicole Pendergrass 28:03
Yeah. And you know, what his mindset that’s gonna take him very far in the future, because there’s a lot of adults who don’t take that type of framing of the situation. Like, they are not going to say, Oh, well, I’m not going to focus on what I’m not good at. I’m gonna focus on what I love. Because then guess what if he just focuses on loving, running and running in whatever other situation he can, he’s just gonna get better at it and do it naturally. Because he just likes doing it, regardless of what other people are telling him. Yep. And taking accountability for it. You know, that’s huge. You know, that’s something that took me even a while to think about or realize.
Dr. James Bryant 28:41
At 13, I would not have been there.
Nicole Pendergrass 28:43
No, definitely I wasn’t even thinking about that. So I’m jealous of my friend who got the roll over me. You know, like, I sung it just as good. You know what’s going on? So I definitely wasn’t there.
Dr. James Bryant 28:53
Oh, no, not even I sung it just as good. I sung it better than so and so I don’t even know. I don’t even know what they were thinking. Did they hear the same thing that I heard? So yeah, that’s where I would have been I’d have been right there with you.
Nicole Pendergrass 29:06
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Dr. James Bryant 30:57
That is an interesting statement, I am going to think about it from the standpoint of marketing. And when you’re doing something, your marketing, what do they tell you to do? Did they tell you to diversify? No, they tell you to niche down. Why because when you begin to niche down and you begin to speak to your particular audience, you will broaden your impact, because you become much more knowledgeable about that thing about those issues about those people. And I will say, you know, diversification in finances, I get it, you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, you want to make sure you have different streams of income. So you know, diversification in and of itself is not a bad thing. When you talk about people that are looking for financial freedom, they want different streams of income. If you’re looking at real estate, everybody, you’re not just gonna buy one multifamily property, you’re gonna buy several multifamily properties, you’re diversifying where your income is coming from, even if it’s coming from within that class. And so I think it’s really beginning to niche down and see, which, was it going to be stocks? Is there going to be crypto? Is it going to be real estate? What’s going to be your thing? Because you can only be an expert at so many things. So even if you’re looking to generate income from other areas, then which one are you going to be the expert in? Which one are people going to look to you to be the authority to speak about, to talk about when it comes to investing and moving forward?
Nicole Pendergrass 32:33
I love that. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. You can’t be an expert in everything. So pick the thing, and get good at it and know what you’re doing. And that way you won’t lose all the eggs that are in that basket.
Dr. James Bryant 32:45
And then you can align yourself when you surround yourself with people that are experts in those other areas or people that you know, in your network that may provide other opportunities for you.
Nicole Pendergrass 32:57
Yeah, exactly. Because you just never know when you get started on one particular journey or path that other people who are in that same realm are going to start flocking to you. They’re going to be attracted to you because you’re being very specific. Okay, second question. You played Monopoly before? I’m just okay. I’m waiting for somebody to tell me. No, no one has yet. I don’t want to assume. So. In monopoly, are you buying Boardwalk or Baltic Ave and why?
Dr. James Bryant 33:25
You know what I’m thinking I know where Boardwalk is. And I don’t even know where bought together.
Nicole Pendergrass 33:30
So they’re right next to each other on the other side of the go. So but
Dr. James Bryant 33:34
Baltic Avenues… I’m buying Boardwalk. Okay, because Boardwalk. You know, if someone lands on Boardwalk after I’ve built up the property that has a quicker chance to end the game.
Nicole Pendergrass 33:48
Very true, very strategic thought process.
Dr. James Bryant 33:51
And if I buy Boardwalk and spend all my money, and I lose then I stopped playing the game earlier not to go do something else. Just watch the rest of my family do it.
Nicole Pendergrass 34:03
That’s a great way to think about it. Actually, you know, if I’m not good at it, or at least I lose my shirt early. And I go focus on something else… Yeah, you lose all the eggs in that basket. Be an expert in another area. Yes. Okay. So that’s a wrap. You know, like I love, thank you for being with us today. And how can listeners get a hold of you if they want to talk? They want to network they want to be involved with or listen to your podcasts. Let us know how to find that.
Dr. James Bryant 34:32
Yeah, I’m sure you’re going to include a link to the podcast in the show notes. But the podcast is Engineer Your Success with Dr. James Bryant. You’ll see my smiling face there we provide tools, tips and techniques to help you win at work and at home. And we really talk a lot of issues about work-life balance, expanding your ability to communicate and to be an effective leader. Even though it is marketed and targeted towards engineers, there are several people that are not engineers that are listening to the podcasts, if you look at the reviews on Apple, that’s what they’ll say. They’ll say, Well, you know, this is not just for engineers, you’ll be able to get some things that can help you move forward in your journey. And I will say the best place to connect with me is going to be on LinkedIn. So you can look for Engineer Your Success with Dr. James Bryant on LinkedIn, that page will come up, but you can just look for James Bryant, that should come up as well.
Nicole Pendergrass 35:27
Right, and you’re right we’ll put all those links in the show notes. We’ll put the link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes as well. So people can reach out and talk to you more about doing well while doing good and whatever else they need to reach out about. But thank you again, Dr. James Bryant for joining us today and sharing all your journey, your experience and everything that you’ve been through and giving people saw a different mindset about how to approach building wealth of money is not just about the money. It’s what you can do with it.
Dr. James Bryant 35:58
Yes. All right. Thanks a lot, Nicole. Much success to you.
Nicole Pendergrass 36:01
Thank you.
Outro 36:04
Did you love this episode of Share the Wealth Show? Be sure to connect with Nicole by following her on LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook. If you picked up any of the gems that were dropped by today’s guest, make sure you not only put them in your bag, but if you know of someone who would benefit from this information, don’t keep it to yourself. Share the wealth, and make sure to leave us a rating and review. We’ll see you for next week’s episode. Subscribe so you’ll be notified.

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