Yohance Harrison 0:01

Greetings. Welcome to the Money Script Podcast. I'm your host, Johanse Harrison, financial advisor and financial literacy educator. In each episode, you'll hear incredible interviews and get tips and strategies that you can implement into your daily life to help you improve your Money Script and grow your wealth. Thank you for taking some time with me today. Let's get into this episode of the Money Script Foreign.

Yohance Harrison 0:32

Welcome back, everyone to episode three of the Money Script Podcast. Want to give a special shout out to all of our followers and listeners on all the platforms? Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, coming.

Yohance Harrison 0:46

To iHeartRadio really soon. So stay tuned for that.

Yohance Harrison 0:49

I have a very special guest on today's episode, a good friend of mine I've known for over a decade, Mr. Bilal Little. He is the founder of the Money Standard, a platform that educates all ages all over the United States on the importance of having access to financial literacy. Bilal is also vice president with one of the largest fund managers and asset managers in the world. But of course, he's not here to represent them today. He's here representing himself and the Money Standard. So I don't want to keep anyone waiting any longer. Subscribe, show us some love. And let's get to my conversation with Bilal Little.

Yohance Harrison 1:31

So you can share your money story with the people, your Money Script, and how you are using all of the knowledge and information that you have today just to be able to improve for yourself, improve for your family, improve for your daughter. Because I know you want to set a great example for, for her. So, yeah, like I said, I want to be quiet. I want to give you the chance to, to just, you know, introduce yourself and then let's get into it.

Bilal Little 1:57

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. This is, this is fantastic that not only has we been able to sort of pull this together, but really to get on the same page, to have a conversation around money with people, it's, it's a, it's a topic that's much needed. But you know, just a little bit about, about myself from a pretty, pretty basic or humble background. Don't come from money. You know, like many folks grew up on food stamps and welfare systems. And then I had some tragedy happen in my life and my mother passed away and my aunt and uncle raised me, and they raised me in middle class, went off to college, picked up, obviously, the tools of life, if you will, playing football and building some relationships with some great friends. But then right out of school, I started working on Wall street for an investment firm and There I really started to cut my teeth and learn the financial game, if you will, of life. Like most people. Trial and erro,

Bilal Little 2:58

right? I mean, it's trial and error. It's like, you know, you never have any of those conversations. It just kind of leads you down a dark path and then you find yourself trying to climb out of a hole. But learn the game. And then, you know, started to position myself in a better situation, I would say financially, by making better financial decisions. But at the same time I realized that not only was I sort of having this challenge for myself, but a lot of my friends were, they started to have the challenge. Then as I continued to get older, I started to make more and more, I would say, investment based decisions. And my mindset shifted from being consumer, if you will, to being an investor. And I just started thinking about all the different people who come from, where we come from, have those same sort of issues and challenges. So I created a company called the Money Standard, which is a financial literacy platform. But I'm just here to have a conversation and see what I can share and hopefully give a couple nuggets to some people.

Yohance Harrison 3:50

And you said something there that really struck me. You said your mindset shifted from that of consumer to investor. Now most of us, I feel our first relationship that we have with money is typically as a consumer. I mean, I don't know a lot of kids that are thinking about, you know, their first thoughts about money or let me go invest. So we usually start as consumer. We want to buy something. It's a candy bar or some shoes or something like that, or toy, whatever it may be. But that's where I find most of us begin. Where would you say your. If you were to go all the way back? I know you mentioned some tragedy, but if you go all the way back, what is your first memory or when did you become self aware when it came to your relationship with money?

Bilal Little 4:33

I think that's two part question. I'd say that my first memory of money, and I'll be honest here, is the color of food stamps. You know, that's a very, very vivid picture for me, but that's what I know. You know, I know. Brown, Blue, brown, orange.

Yohance Harrison 4:49

Brown, right?

Yohance Harrison 4:52

Hey, I, I know the color of food stamps too. I do, I do. A lot of, a lot of our listeners might not understand that, but some of them will, some of them will stamps.

Bilal Little 5:02

I think the program is something different now. It's like supplemental, like nutrition or something. Yeah, snap. But it's food stamps to me. So I would say, that's my first memory. But I would also say, after my mom passed and I moved my aunt and uncle, that shifted to being more of just a consumer. No, not even. Not even getting to the consumer part. It shifted from realizing, like, hey, we have to allocate resources because there were so many kids in the house, so we had to be mindful of where we spent the money. But just going back to, like, that consumer mindset, you know, we're just kind of conditioned during our most impressionable years, I don't know, middle school or so, where we're starting to develop, like, hey, I'm attracted to this, or I like this, or I want this, I want this. That's happening all the time in front of us as kids. Think about it, it's your birthday, you get a toy, you get a gift, you get something, you go out to the store. On the weekend after you guys or your parents had a long day, you know, a long week of work, you go to a store, hey, mommy, daddy, can I get this? Can I get that? And many times they give that to you as a form of reward. So I say, you know, we're conditioned to that stuff because we're conditioned to consume. No one's talking about making investments. They're only saying, hey, here's a reward, Here's a reward. Here's a self, you know, here's something to like.

Yohance Harrison 5:05

Snap.

Yohance Harrison 6:20

I would say that dopamine hit. We need that dopamine, right?

Bilal Little 6:25

Yeah. And that's it. So when I moved my aunt, uncle, you know, it kind of shifted a little bit to, hey, you can't have everything you want. We have to sort of allocate resources depending upon. Because. Depending upon what's needed because there's so many mouths to feed in the household, so we got to take care of everybody. So those. I would say my early, early memories of money.

Yohance Harrison 6:47

Do you remember your first dollar that you earned that didn't come from, like, your aunt or uncle or mother? Anyone else? Do you remember the dollar that you earned the first time you brought money in from outside of the house, inside of the house?

Bilal Little 7:00

Yeah. My grandfather used to allow us to basically cut the grass. And every time I got some money or received some money, I would say for my efforts, for some reason, money was always scarce in my mind, so I saved it. I was the kid. Like, I was always trying to save. I would iron my dollar bills.

Bilal Little 7:21

They all laid flat, you know, and my relationship with money was like, we don't have enough or I don't have Enough. So I always worked and I always saved. Was sort of my natural default.

Yohance Harrison 7:32

What was one of those moments where you saved for a long time to make something happen?

Bilal Little 7:38

Yeah, man. It was a moped. People don't know what those are anymore, right? Yeah. So I saved about 1200 bucks, maybe. No maybe, like, 900 bucks. It was a mopad, because I got tired of riding my bicycle across the city, and I wanted some power to it, so it was moped.

Yohance Harrison 7:57

Got it? Got it, indeed. Yeah. Most won't know moped. They have those little hoverboards now, and. And all these scooters. That's probably what they say for now. I don't think they can get a scooter for 900 bucks, though. I doubt it. Thank you. Telling your age on that one. So, okay, so you, of course, you went through this. This adversity when you were younger, but eventually, I mean, I know you've had a great education career as well. I know you. You got your bachelor's degree from IS Hofstra University, I believe. And then I remember when you were getting your master's at usc, we didn't see you for two years or a year and a half. It was a little bit. Bilal was. He's studying. Oh, okay. Well. Well, I guess we'll see him a little bit later. But. But you were doing. I know you were doing your master's program while you were still working for an investment firm. Why did education become such a cornerstone in. In your life?

Bilal Little 8:09

That's true.

Bilal Little 8:53

I would definitely say it was my aunt and uncle who instilled that on in me, as well as some really, really important teachers. And then I would also say mentors along the way and coaches. And what I realized is information was truly the gateway to whatever level of success that I wanted. I often found more reward comes from having more information than not. And it sounds a little corny and cliche, but whenever I found myself learning and actually understanding things, no matter what it was, I felt more fulfilled. But at the same time, I always felt ready for whatever, what was next, as weird as that seems and sounds. But, you know, we're in a society where, like, change is constant, and if you're not constantly retooling yourself, you know, you'll be left behind. And the rate of change now with technology, like, it's really leaving people behind, and people. It's funny, because when you sort of flip, when you really take a step back and you look at that whole concept of, like, trying going out and sort of seeking information, Versus like having information dictated to you, right? Like in today's society where these clips of social media videos and so forth and so on, it's just information pushed to you. When you actually go out and seek information, you're able to sort of, I would say internalize it and rationalize that information into a better sense to where, you know, you can make a decision on anything. Rather it's food, on what you eat, rather it's where you decide to dine, rather it's where you decide to travel. Opposed to just someone saying to you, hey, this is X, right? And then you just take that for what it is. So I started to look at that in every aspect of my life. So when I was working and I decided to go back to business school, everyone thought I was crazy, I was making good money, I was already, you know, I was young, my career was really taking off.

Yohance Harrison 10:52

I didn't, I didn't think you were crazy. You said everyone, I didn't think you were crazy. Everyone else, you supported me, bro.

Bilal Little 10:59

Like, he was there. But you know, a lot of people challenge my, my reason to go back to school. And you know, I had some really strong mentors that just flat out told me like, look, it is the ultimate game changer. Not only is it really strong for your career to validate you, but at the same time, and the people that you meet, the information that you're able to absorb can really, really help you in the next level, wherever you're trying to go. And you may not see it right now, but you're planting a seed kind of for the future. So that's really where it shifted for me.

Yohance Harrison 11:33

So I believe it was, it was a long or through that journey in that journey where the money standard came into or where it was, I believe it was born out of that. If I remember some of the conversations we were having because we, we started, you started the money standard and I started the money script around the same time. And I think came out of just some late night conversations that we were having about information and access to the information. You told a story, I think it was about, I think it was steak or something, I can't remember. You can do it better than I can. But you started talking about that access and that's what drove me to want to build this platform where we can give people access to the information. Because I'm confident that someone was listening to the story about the color of food stamps and they were probably remembering the color of food stamps for themselves or probably if it was more recent I think they have the, what they call it, EBT cars now, so they probably have a memory of that. And for them to know that you went from the lifestyle of food stamps to platinum American Express cards, I mean, you, you went through that whole journey. You went from the, the, the, like you said, consuming to investing, where you. We have different conversations now. We're talking about, okay, where, where are you going to buy your next property versus where am I going to buy the property for me to live in? I, I think you're one of those rare individual, I don't know, a lot like you, where the first homes that you purchased were actually investment properties rather than what you were purchasing to live in for yourself because you had the inf. You had access to the information and it made sense for at that time. Can you share a little bit about what the money standard is and what you're doing in the community?

Bilal Little 13:18

Yeah, so, so it's funny, right? Because like, you know, my financial, I would say literacy journey started and it comes in stages like everyone else, right? But like, for the most part, like your different experiences that you have in life, like, essentially they create these, like, firsthand knowledge, I would say, like templates for you. Right. And for the most part, those are your filters and how you look at things. So as I was in business school, I was actually, I was one of maybe, maybe one or two of the youngest folks in business school, but I already had a plan in my mind to actually pay for the entire program in cash. And this is all the money I had saved to go buy a house for myself. And the program was $140,000 for USC. So go USC Trojans.

Yohance Harrison 14:03

We got a pause on that. You said the program was how much?

Bilal Little 14:07

140,000.

Yohance Harrison 14:09

That's an investment in yourself right there.

Bilal Little 14:11

Right. Right at the peak of my career. No debt, no issues. I wanted to sort of maintain that, but it was true investment in myself. But to get to your point, the reason that it. The money standard, and I'll tell you what it is, it's essentially an educational platform, but the reason that it was birthed is because I had this experience of growing up without money. Then I sort of transitioned into a period time in my life where I was doing okay and I had some money and I recognized that my life's journey was meant to be somewhat of a vessel to go back and get back to the community, right? So I was always volunteering. And I realized, like, I have this very, very unique perspective of not having money, being in the middle class and now having some. How many kids really want to transition through that life anyway? How many people want to walk through those same doors? If not just say, like, hey, I know I don't want to be poor, I know I don't want to afford money and just, you know, wait for the 1st and the 15th, like how many people are in that situation? And then you fast forward. And I just kept challenging myself like, well, what am I really good at? And sort of, where can I help people? And it just came to me like, hey, why don't you start your own program? Because there's no other programs out there that really cater to our community that communicate the way that you can to help people understand. And then just to go to give you the example, because you brought it up, Information and access came about because I used an example while teaching these kids about having life experiences. And I was 29 years old before I had wagyu steak. Now some people know what wagyu is, you know, yo, like some people don't, right? And I grew up on steakums. So in the south where, you know what I'm saying, like, you don't have money, a steak them is essentially, think about it like a hot dog, like the ground up leftovers of beef made for poor people for the most part. Think about it like that. That's what a hot dog is. It's the grounded up leftover parts of the pig that nobody wanted. So you fast forward. I was eating that as a kid. As you know, we start going out for Sunday dinners as I was a kid, right? We go and get a nice steak or mom would cook a nice steak and we put a bunch of A1 sauce on it. You fast forward, you become an adult and you start going to a dinner or two with a date and you go to Fridays or something like that and they'll say, hey, do you want filet mignon?

Yohance Harrison 16:45

And I thought that

Yohance Harrison 16:48

that was the premiere right there.

Bilal Little 16:50

Yep, I thought it was fish. The first time I heard it was a period in time when I turned 29. I'll never forget it. I was with one of my good clients and a friend and his son was with us. And his son might have been like seven or eight. And we were at this very fine steakhouse and they asked, did you want to try the wagyu? I didn't know what wagyu was. That experience because his son said to his father, like, hey dad, can I get the wagyu again? Now here, this kid is 7, I'm 29, he's already had this type of high end stake and I hadn't even heard of it before. And I started to use that example of taking people through this sort of journey of having experiences, providing exposure which the exposure essentially is some sort of information that allows the person to make a decision on if they want that or not. Now if I didn't even know about it, I don't even know what it is to tell you if I want it or not, but I can tell you what a stake em is, you know. So in hindsight, looking back, I used to give that example because not only is it funny, but people can relate to it.

Yohance Harrison 18:01

Oh, we deal with it all the time. I mean when you deal with it too, being in, being in financial services, you know, we meet people that say, you know, what's a Roth IRA? And I've known what a Roth IRA is since I was 18. I mean two decades of knowing what a Roth IRA is. But most 18 year olds have never even heard the term Roth IRA. I can show you 40 and 50 year olds that never heard of a Roth IRA. They say who's Roth? And I'm like, oh well this guy that came up with this IRA a long time ago. So, so you're absolutely right. And I think that's where we had a lot of synergies on, on creating these sort of platforms so that we can give this information valuable sometimes at life changing information. I mean, yes, your stake was probably life changing as well, but we're talking about the life changing information so that they can eat a steak every week if they want to and, and giving them access, bringing it to them. I mean think about this podcasting. It, it costs a consumer nothing to get access to this podcast. They just need to know that, that it's there. So we're creating that we're putting there. And of course we tell a friend to tell a friend to tell a friend and maybe one day they'll get to sit down in a nice restaurant and order themselves a wagyu steak as well. So I appreciate that story. I love that story. Gets better for me every time tell it. And I always learned something new. I didn't pick up on the stakehams before and now I did and stayed with tie that together like okay, I can, I can see that part of doing this, like we said, with the information and the access. I, I would like for you to share with everyone, you know, some of your top strategies or lessons or however you want to put it. Just if you could offer something to the listeners right now, and I know you dropped a lot of gems through here, but if you could kind of put a nice bow on that, what would you say? That is something that they can go and start implementing it or taking action on it or seeking more information so that they can make better financial decisions for themselves.

Bilal Little 19:55

Yeah. So just kind of to take a quick step back. Like look, I created the Money Standard, right. Which is my platform really to help bridge that gap between I would say academics as far as the education goes and practicality, meaning like allow people to make their own financial decisions so they're informed about what they're doing, why they're doing it and how it's going to impact them. That's what the Money Standard is for. It's literally meant to build your own framework for what you're doing and how you live your life. So more to come on that and sort of how I roll it out in the future. But the very first I would say is probably prioritize yourself when it comes to your finances. You are the whole picture, you're the big picture, your life will change, but until you start prioritizing what's important to you, you're not going to make any financial changes. That's one I would say. Second thing is having a foundation in personal finance, meaning the understanding of that critical because society is basically putting more and more responsibility on individuals to make better financial decisions. And if you don't believe me, just look at the amount of people call it 50% are under prepared or under saved for retirement.

Yohance Harrison 21:20

If you go back 50%, that's generous, but okay.

Bilal Little 21:24

Right. But if you go back, you look at the 19, sort of 60s, 70s, 80s, there's a big shift from pension and defined benefit plans to now define contribution plans where people are going to be more responsible for saving for their retirement and what it looks like for for them in the future. People actually think, look, I'm going to live a long time. They're much more health conscious, much more conscious of what they put in their bodies, but they don't take care of their finances. They are still consumers first because we're marketed to non stop. So prioritizing yourself, your financial future, but making sure that you have a foundation and framework for how you understand is really, really important. The next thing I would say is no growth comes without challenge. So challenge yourself to commit some time to learning decent financial principles. So that way the framework or the foundation that you build on, it's strong, it's sturdy, to where you don't have to rely on someone Saying, hey, you should invest in this and worry about losing your money. That's all about understanding the risk that you can take or, you know, you're willing to take or not willing to take to make investment decisions and choices. So I would say those are probably the big ones.

Yohance Harrison 22:41

I love it. I love it. Especially you mentioned the time piece. You know, I think when we were having these origin conversations of our firms, I think I told a story to you about how I would meet families all the time that would spend hours, if not days planning a Disney World trip, especially for the family that's never been, I mean, oh, we're going to go to this park and that park and we're going to get on this ride, we're going to do this. You know, they've been saving up for this trip and they put all of this thought and planning into this four or five day vacation. But then when I asked them, how much time have you spent planning for your retirement, which is the ultimate vacation, you know, you're not going to be out of work a lot longer than four or five days. And I find out it's very little time. How much time did you put into researching paying off your house versus, you know, putting money into your 401k? None. But spend a lot of time on, on the vacation piece or a lot of time, which probably more relevant these days. A lot of time just scrolling Instagram, Twitter, whatever it may be, when we could take just a little bit of that time. Like you said, I mean, I would encourage people, you know, invest 30 minutes a week into learning something new about finances and like you said, focusing on building that foundation and focusing on prioritizing yourself first. I think those things are going to be critical to helping folks get ahead. So last week Alicia was, was, was our guest on the show and Alicia was giving out her top five financial books. So now I'm putting you on the spot. I'm not going to ask you for five, but if you could think of maybe one or two authors or books or information sources that you think someone could go out there and pick up and really start building their foundation.

Bilal Little 24:18

Yeah, this is gonna seem a little esoteric, but I truly believe, like it's, it's a book that, that offers tremendous value. John David Mann, the go giver. And someone would say, well, how does that book translate into good money principles and standards? Because the book not only teaches you about giving, but the book also teaches you how to receive. And I think once your mindset shifts towards gratitude, you will have a better Emotional and psychological connection with investing and having money. And it's going to tap into a different part of your brain that I think provides some connectivity on everything else that you read, right? These money principles, these seven steps, these, this and that, all those things, yes, they're all important and guidelines to follow and maybe some standard operating procedures, but making sure that you have a framework for your emotional ties to not only connections to things, but people, the environment, you know, family, your legacy. All that's going to be surrounded by how you want your legacy to be perceived.

Yohance Harrison 25:32

And what was that book again?

Bilal Little 25:33

It's by John David Mann. It's called the Go Giver.

Yohance Harrison 25:36

The Go Giver. The Go Giver. I love it. I love it. Well, I'm. I haven't read that one, so I thank you for that. I'm gonna go pick that one up. Well, listen, brother, hey, I really, really appreciate you.

Yohance Harrison 25:39

The Go Giver.

Bilal Little 25:48

Yeah. So I. Let me, Let me. Let me give you one last thing. For the folks to listen to and think about this, there's this question of, like, financial independence and, like, how do you get there? And, like, what does that look like for. For you or for any individual? And I really want people to, like, understand, like, if you take a step back, you know, there's two elements to financial independence that are really important, and you can use this whenever you'd like.

Yohance Harrison 25:51

Oh, yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Yohance Harrison 26:12

Yo, but, you know, I'm taking notes right now. I'm written. Give it to me. Let's go.

Bilal Little 26:18

One is security, right? There's the emotional tie to security for people. The other is, I would say, freedom. And I think those are really the two big.

Bilal Little 26:31

The items that sit at the top for people, right? I want to be free, and then I need the security so I don't run out of money. But I would say, like, if you extrapolate out of that and you think about two things. There's the mental side of it and then there's the physical side of it, Right? The mental side of it is like, okay, this is like, I have knowledge and understanding and where my money is, and I can rest emotionally. I'm comfortable. Like, I understand where I'm at. I know where the money's coming from. I know where it's going. That also lends itself to the freedom of emotion as well. Then I would say there's the physical side of this thing where you have to do the legwork for preparation with your documentation to understand I got to put some time in, right? All the documents are aligned all the beneficiaries, all my paperwork, all that's available, but that I'm focused on creating physical memories for my legacy. And with people, that is true financial independence. It is not being debt free. It is not like making sure I have these investments. I would say if you can tie all of those together, where your mental and physical are connected to understanding that, look, I want security and I want freedom, then my friend, I would say people would make different decisions about what they do and why they do it.

Yohance Harrison 27:50

Man, man, let me tell you this. This was, like I said, this was an honor. I, I really appreciate you taking the time for the Money Script podcast. This was like I said, we've been talking about this for years. I, I want to thank you for pushing me. You kept pushing me. I'm telling you this, this was everyone, if you're excited about listening to this, you all owe Balao a thank you. Because he was one of those guys that would send me a text and say, what's up with the podcast, yo, what's up with the podcast, Joe? And then finally I said, hey, I need you to schedule your time for the podcast. He said, about time. I'm like, oh man, this is. But I appreciate that and I hope that, I hope that everyone has someone like that in their lives if they don't go find someone. Speaking of finding Bilal, where can the people find you if they want to learn more about the Money Standard or if they want to hire you to. Where can the people find you?

Bilal Little 28:39

Yeah, so they can find me on iglaus

Bilal Little 28:43

little.com you can also visit the Money Standard. You can also visit Money Standard as my Instagram handle as well. I'm also available on Twitter at. Just Allow Slittle and Money Standard. I'm easy to get in contact with.

Yohance Harrison 28:58

You have a great, great rest of your week. I wish you the best with the family and with that pain that you're dealing with after that tough, tough loss this weekend. You know I was going to bring it up. So with that, sir, I'm going to let you run. Like I said, I know you got it. Get to the family. Thank you again and I'm sure we will talk again in the, in the very near future. Talk to you soon indeed.

Bilal Little 29:19

Thanks for having me, brother.

Yohance Harrison 29:24

Thanks for joining us on the Money Script podcast. Be sure to check out our other episodes, subscribe, follow and give us five stars. Continue to send your financial questions on Twitter or Instagram at the Money script. Go to MoneyScriptWealth.com and schedule your complimentary consultation. Discuss your specific goals and concerns. Financial advisory and investment management services are offered by MoneyScript Wealth Management PLLC, a registered investment advisory firm registered in the State of Texas and California and other states where exempt. The MoneyScript LLC and the MoneyScript Wealth Management PLLC and guests of the episode may have interest in the investments mentioned today. The opinions and views are expressed here or for informational purposes only. This material is educational in nature and should not be deemed as a solicitation for for any specific product or service. All investments involve risk and a significant loss of principal. The MoneyScript nor MoneyScript Wealth Management offer tax or legal advice. Please consult your tax advisor or attorney for specific advice about your situation. Until next time.