- 2 months ago
Books, Business and more are discussed as these ladies drop gems for ESSENCE
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Oh, good afternoon, New Orleans. I'm Patrick Henry Bass, and as Editorial Projects Director at Essence, I am tasked with reading and reviewing all kinds of books.
00:13Every so often, I come across a title that takes my breath away and teaches me a valuable lesson.
00:20Today, I'm here to discuss one such book entitled Real Lives, Real Money.
00:25Who wants to make some money?
00:26Joining me on the stage right now is Cheryl D. Cruzeau, a 35-year veteran of the financial industry.
00:36She serves as President of Wealth Development Strategies, which is one of Houston's oldest financial planning firms.
00:42She's also the esteemed author of, as I said, Real Lives, Real Money.
00:47Please give a warm welcome to Ms. Cheryl D. Cruzeau.
00:56Our next guest is a creative visionary, fashion designer, author, and dedicated philanthropist.
01:08She, too, is the mother of Beyonce and Solange, and the life partner of Mr. Richard, with whom she's spearheading the Waco WACO Theater Center in Los Angeles.
01:19And just last year, she received our inaugural Inspiring Leadership Award.
01:24Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for the phenomenon known as Ms. Tina Knowles-Wawson.
01:29So, Ms. Cheryl, you've titled your book Real Lives, Real Money.
01:47Having read and endorsed the book, I'm intrigued by the subtitle, The Road Back to Prosperity.
01:53Talk about that subtitle and how people can get back out of the road to prosperity.
01:57I'm sorry.
01:59Sorry about that.
02:01So, did you guys miss all of that that I said previously?
02:05It was wonderful things about Ms. Cheryl and Ms. Tina.
02:08Wonderful.
02:10We don't have to go back.
02:11Okay, so, you've titled, we do have to go back.
02:14You've titled your book Real Lives, Real Money.
02:16And Ms. Cheryl is quite the perfectionist, so wing with me right here.
02:20Having read and endorsed the book, I'm intrigued by that subtitle, The Road Back to Prosperity.
02:25Talk about that subtitle and how can people get back on the road to prosperity.
02:31Okay.
02:32You know, I think all of us as young people lay in our plans.
02:37You know, we're going to go to school.
02:39After school, we're going to get this job.
02:41We're going to get married.
02:43We're going to have the house with the white picket fence.
02:46And then sometimes, God, she has a sense of humor.
02:53And then sometimes, you know, life just throws us a curveball.
02:59And so, what we've got to do is to be able to pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off, and get back on track.
03:07And for those that didn't have a plan, didn't have a plan to begin with, then we've got to put together that plan so we can get from where we are to reaching financial security, which means to me, peace of mind.
03:24Wow, absolutely.
03:28Let's clap it up for that.
03:29Peace of mind.
03:30Not worried about bills and, you know, you see so many commercials, but you've got the IRS after you.
03:36That's right.
03:37I mean, you don't want to live that way.
03:39No, it makes it hard to sleep.
03:40It really does.
03:41And it also builds other stressors into our life, right?
03:43You are the financial advisor's financial advisor, yet you've compiled 12 deeply personal stories about successful people who have a complicated relationship with money.
03:56Can you expand on why you chose this format and share, without naming specific names, what you discovered about our cultural understanding and misunderstanding, meaning black folks, about wealth and investing?
04:09Okay, absolutely.
04:10Absolutely.
04:12Patrick and I think Tina would agree, all of us have a complex relationship with money.
04:19And our relationship with money has a lot to do with how we grew up, how we saw our parents spend money, how we saw our parents deal with the lack of money.
04:33Sometimes our relationship with money stems from how we feel about ourselves.
04:38I've seen a lot of clients self-medicate, do retail therapy, I call it, buying purses and shoes and jewelry.
04:51That's one of my favorites.
04:54Sometimes, and I find, particularly with African Americans, a lot of us are first-time generation graduating from college.
05:04Or, some of us are people-pleasers, and Tina can tell you, I'm a reformed people-pleaser.
05:14And so...
05:15I'm still a people-pleaser.
05:17I'm not cured yet.
05:19Yeah.
05:19And sometimes we have to look the part, right?
05:22So we've got to have the right clothes, and we've got to have the right car, and we've got to have the right home.
05:27And all that's destructive, so it really depends on your money personality, and I've seen that come into play.
05:36All right?
05:36Just a couple things I wanted to point out.
05:40Sometimes it's just lack of knowledge about money.
05:43People just don't know.
05:45And I meet people with, in all walks of life, that just don't have the basic knowledge about money and how to get ahead.
05:53And they feel like they're very despondent, that I don't make a lot of money, you know, I'm not able to save and achieve financial independence, so why bother?
06:05But nothing could be further from the truth.
06:08Nothing could be further from the truth.
06:10Anybody's sound mind and sound body can achieve financial independence, because it just takes saving a little over a long period of time.
06:21Thank you, Cheryl.
06:22Ms. Tina, you've written the foreword for this wonderful book.
06:26Why was it important for you to let people know about real lives, real money?
06:32Well, I met Cheryl 35 years ago.
06:35She was a Harris client of mine.
06:37And, you know, we were her first, my ex-husband and I were her first presentation when she got her license for financial planning.
06:47And I can tell you that she's come such a long way.
06:50She was shaking when she was doing it.
06:53But she was steadfast in her message.
06:55And basically what I came out of it with is that we needed to get our together.
07:01Because, you know, we made good money, but we spent more than we made, and we didn't have any kind of plan.
07:10It's amazing when you think about it.
07:12And she was like, okay, well, you need to do some estate planning.
07:16And I'm like, I ain't got an estate, but I mean, you know.
07:18And she's like, well, do you want one?
07:20And I'm like, yeah.
07:21And she's like, you got to do tax planning.
07:24You have to get your insurance in order.
07:26Because you have children.
07:27It's so irresponsible for you not to have proper life insurance.
07:31And I'm like, you don't think about that when you're 26.
07:34You know, 27 when I had Beyonce.
07:37And she was like, let's do a savings insurance plan so that you can ensure that your kids are going to be able to go to college if they choose to do so.
07:47These are things I had not even thought about.
07:50And later, and this just developed this relationship over 35 years where I called Cheryl at 12 o'clock at night.
07:58And I'm like, look, I'm talking about doing this deal.
08:01I want to go into business.
08:02And what do you think?
08:02I am very hard-pressed to make any kind of business decision without consulting this woman here.
08:08She is sharp, let me tell you.
08:10Thank you very much.
08:11Yeah, and it's like she said.
08:14I have referred her to some of my young friends that really don't make a lot of money, but they have bought homes.
08:21They're not in tax debt.
08:23I mean, my family got in a bind where we had to sell our house.
08:27We had to sell our cars because we got in a tax situation.
08:30And, you know, I still feel like it wasn't our fault, but at the end of the day it happened.
08:37And it was so overwhelming I didn't know where to start to detangle it.
08:42But she gave me all these steps to do, and we worked through it, and I have not been in that situation since.
08:50So I've been on her to write a book forever.
08:52I'm like, Cheryl, everybody can't afford a financial planner, but if you wrote a book for $20 or whatever,
08:59everybody could have the advantage of knowing these basic things that you can do.
09:05And her favorite thing is not how much you make is how much you save.
09:09That's right.
09:10And it's true, because I have friends that, you know, make a small amount of money, but they have nice homes.
09:18They have, you know, they live well, and so it's possible.
09:22So get the book.
09:23Do yourself a favor and get the book.
09:26Okay, sure.
09:27It's also wonderful to see a beautiful black female friendship and to show African-American women supporting other African-American women,
09:36especially around the issue of money, because we keep so many secrets to ourselves,
09:41and we don't share that much, you know, because it begins with the trust.
09:45Now, you, we could give you a preview of the book.
09:47I believe we have, if we could show it on the screen, your tools.
09:52Can we show that graphic, folks?
09:57Well, as we wait for the G-R-A-P-H-I-C to come up on the S-C-R-E-E-N.
10:03I'll get started.
10:03Yeah, you can start talking about the grant.
10:06Yeah, start talking about the plan.
10:07The way we approach planning doesn't matter if somebody makes $20,000 a year or they make several million dollars a year.
10:16The process is always the same.
10:18And the very first step is to make sure that our clients have laid a solid foundation.
10:24And that's certainly after they've made the commitment that they're going to put the time and effort to do this.
10:32Very first step is to put together a budget.
10:35That's a bad word for a lot of people, but everyone has to have some parameters around their spending.
10:41All right?
10:41And with that budget, we've got to make sure that we're living beneath our means, beneath our means, so that we have the monies available, as Tina was saying, for savings and investment.
10:56First step is to make sure you have that emergency fund.
10:58I have lots of clients that make seven figures, but they're one paycheck away from being SOL.
11:07So that emergency fund is six to eight months of living expenses.
11:12If someone has debt, bad debt, consumer debt, then we've got to work on reducing that debt.
11:19And then the next areas are taking care of those things that as human beings can happen to all of us.
11:26And what are those?
11:27We can get sick.
11:28We can get disabled.
11:30We can die too soon.
11:33And now with all the advances in medicine, we can live too long.
11:39All right?
11:41Homeownership is very, very important.
11:43And I can't emphasize that enough, particularly for African Americans, because that is what causes the greatest disparity in net worth, is not owning our own homes.
11:55And then last are the wills and having the estate planning.
12:00The problem is where most people start when they get that first job or they get a raise, they start at that second step, which is the growth stage.
12:09And they end up putting monies away in their 401K, and guess what happens when the refrigerator breaks or they've got to go into their long-term savings because they don't have that emergency fund.
12:24And they've got to take money out with a penalty or a tax or some other harm.
12:28And people always tell me, I just feel like I'm on a constant treadmill.
12:32So, foundation first, and if that foundation is solid, there's absolutely nothing that can come along that will be financially devastating for you or your family.
12:45Wonderful.
12:46And I believe that graphic is going to be up.
12:48I know it will.
12:49It is said that the only way to cope with change is to create it.
12:52And yet so many of us become paralyzed by the thought of change.
12:57And it makes us very conservative with the way that we do our investing and our wealth, and that's culturally.
13:03Can you address that?
13:04Yeah.
13:06I think people are paralyzed, Patrick, for two reasons I've seen.
13:11One is just fear, which is what?
13:15False evidence appearing real.
13:17It's fear.
13:19The other is just lack of knowledge.
13:21I had a very educated gentleman come in and earning a good salary, a couple of children, and he had no life insurance other than the life insurance at work.
13:37I said, what's going to happen when you retire and you leave all that there?
13:42And so he said, you know, really, honestly, the only reason why I've never done anything is I really don't understand it.
13:49So we had to sit there and go through and educate him on it.
13:57So it's about reading and learning and understanding.
14:03And, Ms. Tina, can you address that, the notion of it's why so many of us stay in the same job or we don't evolve because we're afraid of risk.
14:13We tend to be a very risk-averse community.
14:16Well, I know for me, in terms of investments, I've always been afraid.
14:23And like Cheryl said, part of it was lack of knowledge, but the other was that I just wanted to guarantee.
14:29I didn't want the risk that went along with it.
14:32And what she tells me all the time is she tries to find the safest ways for me to save money so that there's no risk involved.
14:43And, of course, the return is not the same, you know, but there are ways to save and to protect yourself.
14:50And it's not risky.
14:53But I think that people feel like, you know, annuities and mutual funds, and it's very confusing.
14:59So you go to a financial planner for them to break it down to the, you know, to the most simple way, like you're a sixth grader, as Denzel says, so that you can understand it.
15:12And that's what she does.
15:13And she broke it down, and so it was really simple because it was so intimidating that I was just scared.
15:18I just put my money in the bank.
15:20But the bank, you yield nothing.
15:23You know, you don't get anything from your investment.
15:24And just the pros and cons about financing and paying cash, because I paid cash for everything because I didn't want to be in debt, which is good to a certain degree, but sometimes it's not the best.
15:35So she explains the difference between the tax breaks of financing things and how you can write off interest.
15:42And, you know, she makes it very simple.
15:45So, you know, I wish everyone could afford a financial planner, but now you can because you can get this book.
15:50That's right.
15:51Amen to that.
15:53I put on my glasses because they say that black don't crack, but nobody told me about the eyes, right?
15:59Like that kind of weighs you down.
16:02How did you become interested in financial planning?
16:04What was that journey like for you?
16:06Well, as a young child, I was always very entrepreneurial-minded, but I wanted a way to take that entrepreneurial spirit and help people, and particularly in the African-American community, and to help the community build wealth,
16:29and to make this world a better place for our children and our grandchildren, and so I set out to educate and help.
16:43And to get educated, because this girl stays in school.
16:47She's got every degree there is.
16:50I'm like, Cheryl, if you go to school one more time, I just really.
16:53But she takes every course there is to learn, and she stays on top of it, and I just so admire that, you know, because her education never ends.
17:04She's an attorney as well, too.
17:05She's really modest, but she's a bad girl.
17:10Thank you very much.
17:12But, you know, as my clients have evolved, and as the young people say, more money, more problems, then I had to go back to school to get more education to be able to properly advise my clients.
17:27And that's a good thing.
17:29Now, you named the book Real Lives Real Money, and so when you guys get the book, which Ms. Cheryl and Ms. Tina are going to be signing, I mean, they will be.
17:38So you can ask some questions of her, buy the book first.
17:42You don't have no free advice, right?
17:44But when you read the book, as I did, and Yvette Nelschor, who is here, the legendary Yvette Nelschor, connected me with Ms. Cheryl.
17:53And I was astounded, because when I hear a financial book, I always give it to, we have a finance editor.
18:00So I really don't feature finance books.
18:02I will do with this one.
18:03And I was struck by it, because it's personal stories.
18:08And so it's not the regular book.
18:10You know, it does have a chart, and it does have mathematics.
18:13But for the most part, these are real compelling stories, almost like a soap opera.
18:19Like, you know, it's something like a telenovela.
18:21It's, what do they say, sex, drugs, and rock and roll?
18:25Not really, but kind of.
18:27Yeah, yeah.
18:27Because it's interesting, and it's fun, and it's like, you read the stories, and you say, oh, I did that.
18:34Oh, is she talking about me?
18:36You know, you can relate to the stories.
18:38I'm sure that people, she's told me that people have called and said, are you talking about so-and-so?
18:41Because the thing is that people relate to it, so they think it's their story.
18:47So there's some story in there that will touch on everybody and what they've been through and what they have to go through.
18:53It's interesting reading.
18:55It's not like, you know, you get a how-to book, and you're like, these are the steps.
18:59And, you know, it's boring.
19:01It's actual stories of real people.
19:03So you're going to enjoy the book.
19:05It's entertaining.
19:06I concur a thousand percent.
19:08Can you talk about the relationship of love and money?
19:10Because that's a connective tissue that runs throughout the book, people making choices for love.
19:16Right, yes, love and money.
19:20And that's kind of a theme throughout the book and the stories.
19:26One of the stories in the book that's very riveting, and I see this very often.
19:34And the women that are my generation were probably read the fairy tales, you know,
19:40that the beautiful man is going to come along on the white horse and scoop us up and we'll ride along and be happy ever after.
19:51And I think there's an Anita Baker song that I mentioned that says they never tell you that we're going to curse, scream, and fight.
19:59But women need to protect themselves so that they're not vulnerable.
20:10And before you couple or marry, you need to know about your betrothed.
20:20All right?
20:20And understand what their money personality is, understand how much money they make, understand how much money they owe,
20:35understand what their credit score is.
20:38And just like Steve Harvey says in his book, what is the book?
20:45Act Like a Man?
20:46Yes.
20:47Yeah.
20:47Yes.
20:48Act Like a Man.
20:49Act Like a Man.
20:50Think Like a Man.
20:51Ask your soon-to-be, what's their plan?
20:58What's their professional plan?
20:59And if they don't have one, we might need to rethink that.
21:07The other thing is what comes up very often, especially when I see young women who are going to marry someone that's high-profile,
21:17a high-profile athlete or professional, and they are introduced with the prenup,
21:24sometimes a week before the wedding, and the invitations have already gone out.
21:31And so they sign under pressure, under duress, okay?
21:37If you're presented with a prenup, make sure that you get an excellent family law attorney who can explain it to you
21:46and make sure you understand it.
21:49And guess what?
21:50If it's not fair, don't sign it.
21:53If it's not fair, you're worth more than that.
21:56Go the other way.
22:00Ms. Cheryl and Ms. Tina, you have been much, much more than we could have ever hoped for or expected.
22:06Everyone, you will have an opportunity to meet Ms. Cheryl on the floor.
22:09She has a booth.
22:10The books are there.
22:12Enjoy the rest of the festival and thank both of you for this very necessary conversation.
22:15Please come and get the book.
22:16Come and visit us at the booth.
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