“Recession means… It’s another word for “Reset.” So when times get hard, it just means that you have to sit down, buckle down, elevate who you are as an individual, educate yourself.” -- Larese Purnell

----------------------

ROB RICHARDSON
Welcome to Disruption Now. I’m your host and moderator, Rob Richardson. It's good to be with you during this crazy time -- COVID-19, coronavirus, whatever you want to call it. It's a lot of craziness. A lot of people are panicking.

I have a guest on that has had a lot of ups and downs in his own life, understands how to make the most out of every situation -- Larese Purnell, a friend of mine from all the way up in Cleveland opposite Cincinnati, Ohio as many of you know. -- Larese, how are you doing, brother?

LARESE PURNELL
What’s going on, Rob? How are you doing, man? Thanks for having me on today, man. But how are you?

ROB
Amen. Blessed, man. I’m here at my home office. I feel good about it. I had to adjust. I usually have my studio but we're all trying to be safe during this time. But while we're being safe, we don't want to panic. I think people want to be pragmatic but not panic, right?

I know you're a man of faith and you're a man of principle and you're a man of action, too, and that’s something I respect about you.

For those who don't know, Larese Purnell is a serial entrepreneur. “CLE Consulting…” -- Is that the name of the company? Correct?

LARESE
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

ROB
“Black Fox Fin,” am I saying it right?

LARESE
“Black Box Fix,” yeah.

ROB
“Black Box Fix,” excuse me.
LARESE
That’s right.

ROB
It’s a restaurant. There are several others. I think you have some real estate developments going on. But you came from a [humble] beginning. Part of your childhood was finding odd jobs -- mowing lawns. You were homeless at one point in your childhood, so it's not like you're a person that came from means. Nothing wrong with that, by the way. But it's not like you're a person that came from means or even came from middle-class. You have literally embraced struggle. And you've seen worst environments than what's going on now.

I want to have you on anyway because I think you have an incredible story and I want people to hear, understand your story and then understand how people can proceed in this moment, and what you're doing and how you're planning with this business in this moment, to not let it defeat you but figure out how to move forward in the midst of it. I just want to really just have a conversation because people need to hear and be motivated.

You know, Larese, our job on Disruption Now is about disrupting common narratives and constructs particularly surrounding Black folks. One of the trends and one of the constructs and one of the patterns that I want to disrupt, and I know you're passionate about, is Black wealth creation and really changing the narrative and changing the trajectory on where we're going.

I’m sure you know that medium Black wealth is projected to go to zero by 2053. But I’m not accepting that. I want to figure out how we can change that. And we change it by understanding how people have created wealth for themselves and connecting more opportunities for our community to do so. That's really the goal here and I just really want to get to it.

But before we get to the coronavirus and things like that, I want people to know more about you. I want you to take yourself back to whenever that was when you were going through a lot of struggle as a kid -- I don't know if was 12, 11, 13, whenever that may be -- and thinking about where you were at that time. Not what you know now but what you knew then, what would you tell your younger self based upon the knowledge you have now?

LARESE
That's a great… Through all this, I had not even considered my upbringing at this time and how it's impacting me and how it's allowing me to get through times like this until you just said it just now. Sometimes, it’s who you are and how you were raised. It is just the person that you become. It’s what you've been built from. So it's just naturally just what you do.

But what I would say, to answer your question, Rob, if I look back and I think about times growing up, you know, living in homeless shelters, having to avoid just different situations… I actually rode past one of the shelters we stayed in just a few days ago because I watched the movie, “Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith, if you remember that…

ROB
I do.

LARESE
…and I thought about that and I said… I remember when him and his son locked themselves in the bathroom because they had nowhere to go. They got locked out the shelter and I remember that happening to me and my mother and my siblings. We literally went to the shelter. We missed the deadline, couldn't get in. And it was right next to a Wendy’s restaurant. This may have been nine o'clock or so in the evening. Wendy's didn't closed for a later time, obviously, because we went in there.

And I just remember my mother not knowing what to do because she didn't know where we were going to go that night and remembering… Yeah, we didn't spend a night in the bathroom that night but it was a night that I’ll never forget for the rest of my life because she… I just remember her crying, just not knowing who to call. We didn't have any finances. We didn't even have money to catch the bus to go somewhere.

A lot of people you talk to, Rob, when they talk to you, they can't remember certain times in their life beyond a certain point. So when you’re talking about somebody -- five-six years old -- they really struggle to remember times like that. I don't know, for whatever reason, God allows me to remember exactly what happened, where they happened, when they happened, what street they happened on.

And I would say, times like that, if I were to… you know, based on what I know now, what I would say is, “Those times were necessary.” And I would never change anything about--

Yeah, were they hurtful? Were they overwhelming as a child? Were there a lot of uncertainties as a child, not knowing where we were going to go, what family member we were going to stay with, actually, what place we were going to live in? We went to the Virgin Islands and lived there for some years, came back here. We stayed with grandparents, aunts, uncles.

So I would say is I would embrace that because it really truly, I think, made me who I am today. And it's taught me to always just live a humble life no matter what God provides to you; to always remember that there's somebody who has a struggle, somebody who doesn't have access, somebody who doesn't have resources that needs to make sure that people like us… I’ve always reached back and be a blessing in some way.
So I would just say I wouldn't change anything. I would say, “Just learn from it.” I don't think I would have done anything different, Rob, because… I was doing an interview early this week and I said my mother used to go and serve people while we were in a shelter. And when I look back at that, Rob--

ROB
You guys were in the midst of struggling and she still finds the capacity and the grace enough to help others though she was struggling herself.

LARESE
Again, when you ask me that question that you asked initially, it's like, I wouldn't change that because--

ROB
Well what would you tell yourself though? Here’s what I’m saying, Larese. Think of it this way: Your life makes sense looking backwards. The struggles that we went through have shaped who we are.

I have a story about being shaped, too, and you've heard it already. You know about it -- teachers telling me that I would never achieve just because I was in some learning disability classes. I struggled in school but I had a lot of success despite them trying to define me.

I know that's made me a better person now. I know that's helped kind of motivate me to be always that underdog and to never really accept the circumstances that others say are in front of me. But going through it is hard sometimes. It’s one thing to say you embrace struggle when you're going through it particularly if you don't understand it as a kid.

This might be relating to right now with this coronavirus, this week, from my understanding, there are more people that filed for unemployment that lost their job than ever in history according to the stats right now. So we have a lot of people, through no fault of their own, who are in a situation where they could be just like you were. They could be either homeless or not knowing how to make ends meet within a matter of months or weeks or a really short distant time.

So you've been through that time. I’m sure there has been a point where it seemed dark. It seemed like things weren't going well. What words of encouragement or advice would you offer yourself at that point because somebody could use that advice right now. Does that question make sense?

LARESE
Margins is… I just said it this morning to a group on the phone: “It's one thing to look good and not be good,” and I think that's what we're dealing within our communities. Nobody has margin. I know we said we're not going to really get into corona yet. We should not--

ROB
No, we can get it to it now.

LARESE
Okay. It should not take seven to 10 days to be broke. Corona is not the issue if we really want to talk about facts. Right now, as you're sitting in your home and you have time to evaluate and look around at the things you possess, how is your closet more valuable than your bank account? You can't call GE, you can't call a Nissan, you can't call Range Rover and say, “Come get this $5,000 Gucci bag that I have and let that pay my note for the next six months.”

So I would say the words of encouragement that I would give people is… We possess right now a very powerful tool in our hand and it's called our “Phone.” Why are you not googling about your money? Why are you not creating margins? Why are you not looking at where your money goes and controlling your money?

And I would tell you is, “Don't think because you go through a bad situation that you can't reset” because… I said it earlier this week, “Recession means…” It’s just another word for “Reset.” So when times get hard, it just means that you have to sit down, buckle down, evaluate who you are as an individual. Educate yourself and create margins and create habits that you haven't traditionally done in the past.

I think this is going to make a lot of people realize that maybe not have went through what me and you went through, Rob. I’m just going to make people sit down and really self-evaluate where they are. It's going to make them see that they don't have life insurance. It's going to make them see that they don't even own a savings account. It's going to make them get sick and tired of going to check cashing places to cash their check because they don't even have a bank account.

ROB
Right.

LARESE
It’s going to challenge a lot of people to really evaluate themselves because when it's only you and the mirror, you're only looking at yourself because a lot of people are isolated. They can't hang out with a bad crowd that really doesn't add any value or doesn't add to their network. They can't go to the clubs that make them feel important because they're wearing a thousand-dollar outfit and they're buying a section and all that sort of stuff. They can't go to the movies and go on all these dates and all that. So really, I would say, cover what they're really going through and what they lack financially and in a lot of other area of their life.

So that's what I would say is, “Use times like this to make yourself and position yourself not to have to deal with times like this again.”

ROB
So what is the message? You mentioned so many things there. I want to break down a few of them. Let's talk about habits -- building good habits. The situation you came from… You came from a long distance. And this is why I consider you very, very successful. You, obviously, had success by any measure of the term. But I measure success… I forgot who said this. It might have been Booker T. Washington. “You measure success not by how far a person has come but the obstacles that they had to overcome to get to where they are.” So you've overcome a lot.

One of the hardest obstacles, and you mentioned it, is really developing good habits because habits… I talk about this a lot on my show. Habits are things that become automatic. It becomes automatic. People make decisions about how they use their finances, not thinking, not being intentional and not really even knowing because--

This is not an excuse. I’m just saying how things are. Habits can become institutional and cultural in some way, right? So you get these habits that have been built in, some of which you mentioned. You just start doing it and you find yourself just automatically, all of a sudden, getting to a point where you're over-leveraged or you're buying things that are not important in order to impress people that don't matter to you anyway.

LARESE
They don't even like you anyway.

ROB
They don’t even like you anyway. You try to impress people that don't even like you. So what? But there are some human nature in that. What are some good habits people can replace with bad habits because science shows, Larese, and you probably know this, that science shows that you actually can't get rid of a bad habit. You can only replace it with a good habit over time, to get a routine to replace those bad habits. So where does one start if you want--

You're using this moment as a reset because now, like you say, you buy yourself the things that you used to do -- your routine, some of which may have been destructive -- have now been disrupted. Where would you tell people to start in terms of getting good financial habits in place?

One, you're going to… I just did a video on my social media saying that in order to change habits… You're right. We’re talking about generational curses that are taking place. Some of this stuff didn't happen. Your grandmother, your grandmother's grandmother did it. You watched your mother do it. You watched your sister do it. So it's just something that you kind of took on that's with the family. What we’re saying is, “Ain't nobody got no money.” So that's been embedded in your head: “Everybody's broke. Nobody have no money to do nothing special. Nobody has no money to travel.”
So I would say first is it's going to take patience and it's going to take discipline. And I know that's easier said than done when you're broke and you're dealing with real-life issues but you got to start somewhere. And the reality is--

I said to the [indiscernible - 15:35] that “Hey, you did not get in this situation overnight so you're not going to get out of it overnight.” So again, we're going to have to practice those principles.

And then I would say is, like anything else, we google… They say the average American or person looks at their phone 742 times a day. And you may think, “Wow, that's a crazy number. Who does that?” Think about how many times people look at Facebook then they go to Twitter then they go to Instagram then they go to Snapchat and now they go to TikTok then they go to their email and they go to their phone then they go to their voicemail then they go to this and that and this and that. So how do you stay on a phone that's this powerful and you don't Google something about finance? How do you go and say that “I’m going to set a “date night” with my spouse and I’m going to stick to it every week” but you never have a “money date night”?

So you have to do things and employ things out of the box to get you out of a situation that did not happen overnight. I could give you resources and list them. But if you don't discipline yourself to take the time and say, “I’m going to dedicate two hours on Saturday to go through my bills, to list out what my debt is, to actually know what my net worth is…” because everything I’m saying is--

ROB
Right.

LARESE
I mean I have people tag me saying, “Larese, I don't understand that stuff” but you figure out how to get to another part of the world to go on a vacation and find a hotel and some streets you will never go down every day but you can't figure out how to open a savings account? That's hard for me to believe, Rob.

ROB
Yeah. Hey, if you can afford a nice car, if you can afford nice clothes, you can clearly afford to invest in yourself.

One of the principles that I live by is to invest in yourself first and just make it automatic so you don't see it… You don't even get into the habit of getting used to that money being there because--

The issue is, for a lot of people, myself included, is if you see the money, you think that's money available versus having something where it's automatic… And there are lots of apps out there. I don't know which ones you recommend -- [Acore - 17:40] -- whatever you want to say. Like there are things that can be done, apps that you can use but you got to first decide that, okay, this is the one thing you want to do. So you sound like having one day a week that you set aside just to focus on your finances, right?

LARESE
That's right. Let's talk real. When you go in to a financial institution, there's three offices. You have your banker -- use your branch manager -- you have your mortgage broker in there and then you have your investment banker. So this is something that you have access to. So while you're standing in line going to cash your check, take cash out, you can stay in the same line right in the same building that you're in and sit down with that investment advisor. Set goals for yourself.

The big thing is #goal. Everybody puts that on social media, #goal. But when I ask them, “What is your goal…” I’m in a room full of people. I said, “Who in this room wants to retire?” Everybody raises their hand. Then I ask the question, “How much will it take you to retire?” If you don't know what that number is, how are you going to retire?

So is this going to be automatic because less than 3% of people in our community are going to be ready for retirement because nobody knows how to answer the question. Tell me the figure right now. What is it going to cost you to live the lifestyle you live now or live a better lifestyle when you retire? Why work somewhere 35 years, Rob? Why work 35 years to have to downsize after giving your life to a company?

ROB
Oh that’s a good question. That's a good question. So you've been an entrepreneur nearly all your life and you have some businesses that we referenced. In the midst of this coronavirus, where have you seen opportunity? I know you have a restaurant business and restaurants have been severely impacted so I’d like to start there. I don't know if the tax company has been impacted at all but I imagine it could be. Talk about how you viewed this and where you see opportunities for particularly Black and brown entrepreneurs who, even though that are out there hustling, it's still hard.

LARESE
Yes.

ROB
But as you talked about earlier, being a Black and brown entrepreneur means that you don't often have a linear path or one that’s set out for you so you have to learn to embrace trouble and to innovate. This is not a new concept. How are you going about dealing with the whole coronavirus and the impact that you could not have predicted?

LARESE
Yeah, you got me here writing. I’m taking in notes, man. You got my mind running now.

ROB
That's good.
LARESE
So great questions, man. And I would say, one, my tax business has been impacted because they pushed the tax deadline to July now. As soon as they announced that, we had 11 cancellations, Rob, in our period of time. You know being innovative, I had created technologies prior to this happening that allowed me things like Zoom meetings and different things. It allowed me to be able to do virtual tax meetings but that's irrelevant when people feel like they have time now.

ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
So that has been truly impacted. So what we have to do now is get innovative. So what we're doing is we're going to put out something that says, “Hey, come to us.” Everybody needs money right now. They need immediate money. So what we're going to do is give a $50 gift card… you know, a Visa gift card if you come and do your taxes because at the end of the day, people need cash right now. So they may think that, “Hey…” One, they need to refund. Two, it's like, “Hey, 50 bucks is 50 bucks if I want to work right now but I still have to do my taxes.” So again, I would challenge everybody and--

That's just the tax business. But the restaurant business… Great question. We were on the phone for two hours last night. About seven of our clients are all restaurants. I told them, “If you…” Like we talked about early in this conversation, a lot of them have created margin. This is a lesson for everybody: To reset their financial on landscape and create margin in their lives. Because these businesses have reset--

ROB
What do you mean by “creating margin”? I know what you mean but break it down.

LARESE
Okay. Yeah, good question. So “margin” means that you have more money than you have bills, to simplify it. So if you make $1,000, you don't owe $1,000 monthly in bills. You may have $700 so then now you have $300 for yourself. And that's considered the margin that you can save, that you can invest, that you could have for yourself and put away for a rainy day -- emergency funds and all that sort of stuff.

So these businesses have used good financial principles. They save money. They have some margin. They have lines of credit. They have good financial. They're updated on their taxes.

So what has taken place now is… You say restaurants have been impacted, Rob. That's not going to be locally. It’s going to be nationally.

ROB
Correct.
LARESE
You will have thousands of restaurants that will not come back from this.

ROB
Yeah. And it’s already a tough business.

LARESE
Yeah, it’s a tough… You’re right. The margins are already low. But what that has done is it's created an opportunity. And when I say that, you're going to have restaurants close their doors and walk away from brand-new kitchen equipment because they owe the landlord money for the rent. So what that's going to do is… It's already been newly-renovated. It has $100,000 worth of equipment in it; has everything as a turnkey that could be open as long as you put food and staff in it.

So now these entrepreneurs who have created margin now have the pick of the city to say, “I’m going to expand my business to Lakewood. I’m going to expand my business to Avon. I’m going to expand my diner to areas that traditionally have not had the opportunity from a cost perspective.”

So now they not only can acquire restaurants that are already ready to go… So now they're open and expanded their business at little to no cost then it creates an opportunity that they can buy facilities. Just like homes before close, people will foreclose on commercial properties. So now they will have the ability to not own… And you know we talked about it, Rob -- build assets; things that appreciate. They will be able to acquire these facilities at very low cost to build assets within our communities and become owners or not renters. So it's so much to it.

And then the negotiation power that they're going to have is going to be amazing, man, because if you have vacancies all over the city of Cleveland and all over the northeast in Ohio, they can negotiate the best deals for restaurants that have everything they need.

And this is not just for restaurants. This is for gyms. This is for car washes. This is for barbershops. I mean the list goes on based on what I’m hearing people talk about right now.

ROB
Yeah, it does seem like there's going to be significant disruption in the commercial real estate market and there'll be opportunities to own things at lower prices. I do believe that's true.

Literally, the podcast before this, I had a financial advisor on and we were just kind of going over the trends in the market and he felt that looking at where commercial real estate is going, there’s going to be definitely some opportunities but it's going to be hit. There are some big firms that they are either going to renegotiate their price like you said -- the big county firms, big law firms.

What they are seeing from this coronavirus pandemic is that… where people are moved to go home, they're being even more productive. So a lot of people are saying, “Why am I going to pay this large bill?”

LARESE
That's a great point.

ROB
Yeah. So there's also opportunities…

LARESE
That’s a great point.

ROB
…there, right? There’s opportunities, too.

LARESE
Yes.

ROB
What can you offer virtually? You already do this with your tax business.

If you have knowledge in something, figure out a way to expand your audience and go out and reach them. Like there are ways to use technology. Zoom, what we use now, that stock is going through the roof. Makes sense. People are now going to move towards -- I won't get too deep into this -- augmented reality, stuff like that. We know the trends were already moving towards remote so start thinking about the trends.

I’m actually a big gym fanatic and I saw the trend coming that gyms are going to be shut down for some period of time because obviously, that's a place where germs can just live. So I had to go out and… I spent a lot on home gym. But guess what -- somebody at Peloton, the home bike gym, has gone through the roof, too.

Thinking about how people think in the midst of this can also… just keeping a clear head about where the trends are because that's what one has to do if you're looking for opportunities. And you're an entrepreneur. You've done this all your life. What do you think is the most important skill set for one to be an entrepreneur? What do you think, if you had to say, the most important skill set or asset that you have? What's the most important and why?

LARESE
That’s a great question. I would say work ethic because at a time like this, it’s really going to… because you have some people that have knowledge but are not willing to work hard.

ROB
Right.

LARESE
They're very intelligent but they won't roll their sleeves up so they'll easily go away. But the person who is willing to work hard, roll their sleeves up and be a learner and willing to be a student every day for the rest of their lives, I think they'll be very successful because it's a time like this where I got to be on the phone at 1:00 o'clock this morning, talking about, “Hey, what are we going to do with the restaurants this week? How are we going to make sure the employees are good? How are we going to make sure precautions are in place? How are we going to get inventory if this company is out of inventory? How far would we have to drive? How is that going to impact our margins?” Some people aren't willing to put that work in.

I stated, from one to five o'clock in the morning, just strategize how that's going to happen and had to jump on my first call at seven o'clock. Well that takes somebody who has work ethic, that's willing to work hard and roll up their sleeves and get in there because it's bigger than you. See, I don't work hard just for myself. I work hard knowing that other people's lives depend on what I do.

So I would say as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, you have to possess that first. Of course you need the skills. We can jump into skills. Man, you shouldn’t be in an accounting field if you’re not an accountant.

ROB
Yeah. You certainly have to have some competency, yeah.

LARESE
You're going to have--

ROB
Which is also about work ethic, right?

LARESE
Yes.

ROB
I tell folks like, “You can by the way have more… You could be efficient…” I said, “You can't be efficient until you're proficient,” right?

LARESE
That’s good.

ROB
You got to know something. In order to know something, you have to do some work.

LARESE
Right.

ROB
I can do things that still take a lot of time and work but I can do things that others, it would take them three or four or five hours. But that's not because, I don't think, I’m more naturally gifted, it's because I spent years honing my craft and understanding things.

LARESE
That’s right.

ROB
And then I got to the point where you can do more in a more efficient time. You're absolutely right. Work ethic is like the foundation.

I tell my kids all the time, when they're going through learning whatever it is, math or something, for example, they try to learn algebra, I say, “Well you haven’t learned to fraction that's why you can't do this.”

If the foundation is not [formed - 29:19], it just doesn't matter. Like you can have a beautiful building, if your foundation sucks, the building is crumbling.

LARESE
It’s crumbled. That’s right.

ROB
It’s coming to the floor. But another part I’d like to get through is… I think that's very important. And I agree, hard work is the foundation. What I found to be the struggle for some folks is… People that have the ability--

I think there are a lot of hard workers, too. I think what gets tough for people is going through the obstacles. So I’d like to talk about a time you maybe had in your life through your entrepreneurship or could be personally where you failed and then now that failure… You can call it “Failure.” You can call it “Setbacks.” Some people don’t want to call it “Failure.” I don't mind calling it “Failure.” I don't think failures are anything permanent unless you let them be.

Think about a time where you failed… because I think people need that right now. In this moment, people might have set up their business without seeing this because… Setting up a business is an act of faith, too, right?

LARESE
That’s right. Absolutely.

ROB
It’s the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Literally, you are setting up a business hoping that things will work out based upon nothing; based upon your own belief in yourself and the future.

Right now, the present… I won't say the future looks uncertain but the present looks like a tornado right now, and so someone might have done all the right steps, did everything they can and they're going up against the block. Talk about your block that you might have had in your moment and how that's helped you have even better results now or have a future set up.

LARESE
So I’ll tell you two things. I tried a business when I was 24-25. I invested in real estate with a development company. I was a developer in the northwestern part of Ohio. I was out there going to school, started my career out there in the Toledo market. A person I went to church was a developer, got me involved. Then the market turned and I invested everything I had into it. And I personally guaranteed some things. It was going to be a game-changing project. We were doing a development project where houses at that time were more expensive than the house that I lived in. So it was an opportunity of a lifetime I felt.

Where I learned a lesson... There's two I’m going to share with you. That's the first one. I learned never get into something that you're not passionate about just to make a paycheck. That's one thing I learned. And two, if you don't have all the details and all the data, don't do it because you're not making data-driven decisions -- now you're making it from the heart. And the heart doesn't work at a business table. The heart doesn't work when you got to tell the bank that “I can't afford to pay you.” So that was another thing.

Then fast forward, about 10 years, I invested with a friend in the restaurant industry. He had this big vision and really didn't plan it out. I’m very loyal to people. If you're in my group, I’m loyal to you.

ROB
Yeah. I’m the same way.

LARESE
I want to support people. I want people to be successful. They believe in it. A good friend of mine talked to me and he's like, “Hey Larese, I’m doing this. I’m [passed - 32:46]. I’m leaving my job. I’m going to get this done,” and he didn't have a full plan. So the business got up and gone. It lasted probably about eight months. And I dumped probably close to six figures into the business and never saw my money again. It was a business where they called it “Grand opening, Grand closing.” [Laughter]

What happened was because I didn't challenged him to get a business plan and again, because he didn't have the structure in place, to allow for times like difficulty, the barriers, not being able to get client-customers as quickly as he wanted to… We hadn't plan for that.

So those were lessons learn. Again, getting to industries that you don't understand.

When it comes to Black Box Fix, even though I don't cook well, I know the business inside and out. I know the cost to make a sandwich. I know to the penny. I could tell you what every product of my menu cost to make. I can tell you my prime cost, down from your labor to your food cost. I can break the business down in my sleep. If somebody called me the last minute and say, “Hey, you need to make a decision or make an adjustment,” I’m going to able to make it and know how it's going to impact me, financially. And that's probably the most valuable thing.

And the last thing I’ll say to that is pay people and let them do what they do well. A lot of times, we don't want to create partners. And Rob, I know you know -- this is my business perspective -- we want to be the marketer. We want to be the HR department. We want to be the payroll company. We want to be the accountant. We want to be the actual entrepreneur. We want to wear 20 hats at one time and don't realize -- it goes back to that foundation -- you don't have it. Then there's no stability and it will crumble.

You've got to pay people that do what they do. People get paid to solve problems. You've got to employ that within your business and let people do what they do to protect you from yourself. And I’ll say that's something that I stay with now and I always advise my clients as well.

ROB
Well yeah because look, if you try to do everything, even if you're pretty good at everything, you have no time to grow the business. You're always in the weeds…

LARESE
That's right.

ROB
…and you have no time to go out there and build the relationships, to get more clients, to build a business because you're always trying to do everything. You can do anything but you can't do everything. If you try and do everything will make sure you do nothing, essentially.

I also took a few points away from some of your stories -- the one about the business deal that you did with both your friend at church and your friend for the restaurant. We had Robert Greene… Have you read any of Robert Greene's books, about the 48 Laws of Power? Anyway, he's a great author.

LARESE
I’m going to make sure I read it.

ROB
Yeah, and “The Laws of Human Nature.” He came out with some great books. They're long but listen to audio if you can. He's been on the show before. He's a New York Times selling best author. One of his rules for the 48 Laws of Power is, “Save friends for friendship but work with the skilled and competent.” It doesn't mean you can't work with your friends and family but I think you have to be at a higher alert because you're likely going to have your awareness down because it's your friend, it's your family, and you want to do and help out your family. I think Kobe said this: “You help out your family, just give them money then.” Right? Give them money.

LARESE
Right. Right.

ROB
And don't expect that back. Or better yet, do the LeBron model to say, “Listen, we can make money together. You get a skill set. You get it and then we can help build something to actually help us all make money.”

But if you just… You didn't do this but this happens when a lot of us get means… because there are not enough of us still that have enough wealth that oftentimes when you have some wealth… And we're not talking about super-rich but you make six figures. You have to put that in context. That's better than 95% of the population, period -- not the Black population, of the population, period. And you add that on to Black and brown communities, you're probably in the top 2% of folks.

A lot of times, your family sees you as the one to rescue, right, and you help them--

LARESE
Yeah, you’re the Moses.

ROB
Yeah, you're right. You can't do that. First, you got to put on your own oxygen mask then you got to… The plane is going down. You got to put the oxygen mask on first then you hand it out to your children because if you both died, it doesn't do any good.

LARESE
Yeah, that’s right.

ROB
So we have to teach good habits. If you go back to like, “We can do this,” you work with your friends and family, you still got to bring it. You still got to be confident. I expect not less but more out of you. So I think we got to be harder on our family and friends in the sense not that we don't give them opportunities but if we're going to give them opportunities, they need to really be about their business times, too, because we don't have enough wealth to just be throwing out yet. We still got to build more wealth between us. So that's something I took from it.

And the second thing I took from your story is that… from your stories, I should say, is that… We talked about the most important skill set with an entrepreneur. You said “Hard work.” I’d say it's cousin, which is related to hard work, is “Perseverance” and understanding that this process is not going to be linear. It's going to go backwards, this way, that way, up-down.

You've talked about how much money you lost. The average person would have just said… This is what I think makes a difference. The average person would have just said, “I didn't just do something safe. I’ve taken these risks. It's killed me. I’ve lost X amount of money. I can't do this again.” People become so, I think, cautious. They over learn the lesson, to think that, “Okay, I shouldn't just take any chances.” That's not the lesson. You learn the lesson but don't over learn a lesson.

You over learn a failure, you get fear and then it'll hold you back. And I think people do that and it prevents them from really reaching their highest potential. So I applaud you for not allowing the setbacks to define your future path because I think that's one of the things that really sets entrepreneurs apart, if that makes sense.

LARESE
Yeah. Oh no, that's good. I like what you said, “Over learn a lesson.”

ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
Yeah. Or a failure. Yes, that’s good stuff, man.

ROB
I appreciate that. So you're in the financial literacy and I am, too. I haven't always been but I’ve… It's really important. I don't spend enough time on it but I do more and more now because I understand how important it is. I think that we've honestly got it wrong in terms of what we value. We talk about not only getting a college degree... That's important. But I think financial literacy is more important than a college degree. If you have no financial literacy and you have three degrees, it's not going to matter, right?

LARESE
Right.

ROB
How do you think, beyond getting the one-day-a-week you talked about, any other general advice for someone who’s saying, “Look, I want to change. I want to do this. I got time on my hands” -- now you do. What would you tell them right now in the midst of this craziness that we're going through with the coronavirus? Where would you tell them to start if they were agents looking at their money or B] let's say they want to be like Larese Purnell and they want to start a business as an entrepreneur? People say, “Where do I start?” How do you go out there… I hear that question all the time. What do you tell them?

LARESE
So first, I’m going to say, “Bad personal finances make bad business finance.” So until you have your personal finances in order, don't start a business. You shouldn't be starting a business if you have bad credit. You shouldn’t be starting a business if you don't have a savings account or investment account because if you don't have anything to fall back on… And what you’ve now done is when the business fails, not only do you fail from a business perspective but you also fail from a personal perspective. Now you’ve jeopardized your entire family. So that would first be my advice.

But the first thing you're going to have to do, and from a simplistic perspective, most people, if I walk up to them and say, “Tell me how much your debt is,” they can't answer that question. You're like, “Well I don't know. I got five credit cards. I think one is a thousand. Now I think another is $500. But I really don't know exactly what it is.”

You got to understand what you're dealing with first, like they say your portfolio. You better understand exactly what your obligations are. You should be able to tell me which credit card has the highest interest rate. What are your interest rates in your card? What is your interest rate on your mortgage? So you first have to get a collective understanding of every piece of anything you pay for. Then next, you got to figure out where your money is going because you--

I know we're all guilty. Now I throw this out to you and I’ll know by your reaction. We go to the ATM. We take $50 out. And by the end of the day, when we get home, what do we always ask ourselves? Man, where did that $50 go?”

ROB
Yes.

LARESE
So most people, Rob, that's their everyday life. They get a paycheck. So their paycheck is the ATM. They get a paycheck and then they keep living paycheck-to-paycheck because they don't know where the last paycheck went. So until you understand where your money is going, it's hard for me to tell you to invest.

And the degree don't impress me, Rob. I don't care – lawyer, doctor, NFL player – because… And they say millionaires have million-dollar bills. So it’s just--

ROB
You have Adrian Peterson who had $100 million in bankruptcy.

LARESE
That’s absolutely right.

ROB
That’s one of many. It’s not to pick on him. He’s, unfortunately, more the rule than the exception.

LARESE
Close to 80% of people that play professional ball leave and they're bankrupt.

ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
So that's a whole ‘nother situation. But we’re all constantly--

ROB
Going back to your earlier point, and then I’ll let you finish, it's about… If you've developed bad habits, million-dollar… Millionaires have million-dollar bills. Look, people will find ways to spend your money for you.

LARESE
That's right. So it goes back to what you said, “Financial literacy being important and more important than a college degree at times” because if you got a guy who grew up in the projects and then he wakes up and he has millions of dollars in his account and he has no financial literacy and he does not know how to manage his money, he doesn't know how to make sure he directed in the right places, you've done nothing for him. You have created actually a monster and he really finds out who he truly is.

It’s no different than if me and you leave our kids a million-dollar life-insurance policy but we never taught financial literacy and what to do with that million dollars. We actually just created a monster because now we gave a 19… We passed away today… I left an 18-year-old a million dollars and think that they're going to do the right thing with it. That's impossible.

ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
So with that being said, you want to, again—

ROB
So do you have conversations with your kids about financial literacy? Walk us through how you have those conversations because I want to hear it for myself because I need to have more--

LARESE
Okay.

ROB
You have kids. What do you tell them about… How do you go through these examples?

LARESE
So one is the stuff that I read, they should read. Some of them may be a little more difficult. But just stuff that I watch, they watch. And what we do is… We just did it. Especially in a time like this, shame on you if you're listening to us and you have not sat down with your family and hit the reset button and educated everybody on every resource. How do you set a financial goal if your kids are unaware of it?

A goal is not just for you. It’s for the whole household. And us, as men, we have to lead in every area of our household. So if I say, “Hey guys, we're going to save $10,000 this year,” I don't do it just for me and my spouse being a doll, that goes for the kids as well because they'll be the ones… And they'll be your distraction because when I’m in the mall and I have a goal and my daughter says, “Dad, I would like this,” I’ll look at her and say, “Hey, how does it affect our goal?”

ROB
Hey, that's good. That’s good. I’m going to do that.

LARESE
If you're the only one who knows the goal then who's going to hold you accountable?

ROB
Yep.

LARESE
So with that being said… I just sat with them the other night. We sat for four hours. We sat there three-four hours and we went through the will. We went through my healthcare, power of attorney. We went through the life insurance policy. We went through the bank accounts. We went through the investment accounts. While I was doing that, I was making sure that I had them as beneficiaries. And I had to write documents, update it. And I made sure that we had conversations on, “Hey guys, if you had a million dollars today, what would you do with it” because I want to hear what they would say.

ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
My daughter is like, “Oh man, dad, I would buy this. I would buy that.” I said, “No, no, no.”

ROB
Yeah. My son said, “I want to buy Fortnite.” I said, “Oh god.” [Laughter]

LARESE
[Laughter] He’ll have every game.

ROB
Yeah, exactly.

LARESE
[You can take that off. He’ll have his game - 45:44].

ROB
I’m like Fortnite [rich - 45:47].

LARESE
So what we have to do is give them instructions. Again, we have to tell them the steps to what we need to do. And that's where a will comes into effect because you have to protect them.

I’ll tell you something I did, Rob. What I did was on the life insurance policy… and I’ll change it as they get older, as I get older if God keeps me here. But for right now… My daughter is 18. My son is 16. I put in the life insurance policy, they would pay them over a 10-year period of time. Why would I give them that kind of money all that one given time?

ROB
Yeah. That's a good idea. I’m going to do that, too.

LARESE
So what that does is, now they will get a monthly payment for 10 years. I figured about this, she's almost 30. It will only going to take them two years to figure out they're wasting money so by then they still got eight more years to live off that money in the right way.

ROB
Right.

LARESE
So all that [important - 46:36] tools, talking to them… Then they’re going to ask you questions because… Again, why do we wait till we die for the family to have to go crazy and locate the insurance policy? We can't even find it. We don't even know what bank account you have. We don't even know what investments. So I tell my kids--

ROB
They’re so scared they’re opposed to conversations about debt and death. That’s one problem.

LARESE
That's right. That's right. So we have real conversations. They ask, “How much do you have here, dad? What do you have there?” And it's like a lot of times, we don't want to think our kids should know that. But we put them in our business and other aspects so probably, we put them in [crosstalk] [inaudible - 47:12]--

ROB
You make a really great point. I mean we've been… and I’m guilty of this, too. You tell them like, “You’re not supposed to ask how much people make.” But at the end of the day, they need to know what it takes to get here, what it takes to understand a budget and they should be part of the process. I mean that's a great point that I’m going to take for myself because I haven't done that either.

LARESE
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

ROB
Man, that's really great. As we kind of wrap up, I want to get to a few, what I like to call, legacy questions. What's an important truth you have in your life that many people disagree with you on but it's a truth to you?

LARESE
That we can’t have everything… because you said “Legacy” is the keyword. You can’t possess everything you want and have a real legacy. And I would say you can't have the fancy cars, you can't have the fancy house, you can't take the best vacations, you can't have the fur coat, you can't wear the Rolexes, you can't the most expensive clothes and say you're going to leave a legacy. Something has to be a priority. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.

So I have to ask myself day-to-day, and I argue with people about this all the time, they are like, “Well Larese, I can't have all that.” But then I say, “The power is not that I can possess it, the power is known that I know I can possess it.” That's more powerful than me, to know that… Yeah, you look good shining on that Rolex but I know I can go to the bank and buy Rolex but I don't need to have it to prove to you that I can have it. The power is, when your lights get cut off and you don't pay your mortgage because you weren't responsible, then guess what, somebody has to be the Moses in our family to be able to help people who just fell on hard times.

So again, for me, I like that power of knowing, when people pull up next to me in their Bentley and I’m driving an average car that I’m not impressed because in my heart, I’m like, “That’s a nice car. I celebrate that, brother. Man, great. Nice car. But I know that if I want to, I can roll to the dealership and get them as well but it’s a choice that I don’t.

I argue with my sister all the time because she likes it all. She wants a nice a house. She wants everything. And she’s like, “Well if you make the money, you can afford it.” Again, millionaires have million-dollar bills.

ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
So if you’re a millionaire--

ROB
My style creep.

LARESE
Ooh, that’s it.

ROB
That’s what happens, right?

LARESE
That’s right.

ROB
You want to live up to your means. As you said, when you live up to your means, to quote you, “there’s no margin,” and then what happens when you get something like this? You’re over, right, or you’re [crosstalk] [upset - 49:55].

LARESE
I’m going to give you an example because you brought up Adrian Peterson. The first thing that most athletes do when they sign their deal, who’s the first person they do something for?

ROB
They buy a house for their mom.

LARESE
Man, they buy a house for their mom cash, right?
ROB
Yeah.

LARESE
So let me give you an example. So then they go on to the league, they get traded six times throughout their career, if they’re lucky to stay in the lead that long, and they go to different cities and they lease every place they go. They never buy anything.

So an example like Adrian Peterson, the first person he bought a house cash for where does he end up living when he files bankruptcy?

ROB
With his mama.

LARESE
With his mama.

ROB
Oh lord. He goes back… Oh my gosh. He goes back to where he started.

LARESE
And that’s most NFL players. And then what happens after that happens, in most cases, within a few years… I bet if we did a research, we would figure out that mom ends up losing the house because now they bought a house too big that was out kind of her income bracket. Now they have no money to help her pay the property taxes.

ROB
Oh man. Hooh.

LARESE
So nobody has any wealth. So now we have exposed people... Exposure can be good but it can be dangerous because once you’ve been exposed to it… Now some people can’t deal with not being able to touch it again. So now he may never--

ROB
Oh yeah. That’s probably harder.

LARESE
Oh yeah because now he’s been exposed to having $100 million and he may never, and more than likely, see that type of money again in his life.

ROB
Yep. Before I get to my last two questions, part of what Adrian Peterson talked about… was the issue… was who he chose his financial advisors. As an entrepreneur and as a person who’s been successful, how do you go about choosing your advisors and your partners? What are your important characteristics there that you look for in people?

LARESE
I’ll tell you just now, I bought some more life insurance. What I did was I went to the Department of Insurance. I went to a legal entity that evaluates that person. So what I wanted to do is, as I did this, I wanted to figure out who passed the stress test. Who could pass a stress test in a time like that that could still pay their premiums out?

There’s only three companies nationwide that have the ability, that have been government-tested, that they can pass a stress test and pay all their premium out if the bottom falls all the way out. One being New York Life. You got companies at that size that have been around for 150 years.

Now my cousin down the street from me, they got a life insurance place that… It’s a company desk in somebody’s garage in Wichita that you don’t know… As soon the thing goes belly-up, now you pay a premium something that’s not going to exist.

From a financial advisor perspective, you can go to Broker Direct and you can look up their history to see… It’s like the Better Business Bureau for financial advisors to make sure they have the credentials; to make sure they’re actually registered. So you want to make sure that they actually have what they say they possess.

Then from there, once I figure out who is who then I go off for relationships. So I call a person that I trust their integrity; I trust their lifestyle. So I’ll call you, Rob, and be like, “Hey, who’s a good attorney that I should call?” And you’re going to tell me, “Hey, based on what you’re looking for and the area you’re looking for, these are the three best people.” Then I’ll do my homework on the back end to make sure the Bar Association, that they've done all the right things based on the level of what I’m trying to do.

So again, using research -- using research. That's how I pick who I’m going to do. Some people might be like, “I don't have time for that.” But again, we will spend 15 minutes on the phone researching what movie theater to go to, “to make sure I can make that right movie time;” we’ll look for or spent all day looking what restaurant we're going to go to for our date night but we won't spend half an hour to figure out if somebody's a reputable company and I’m going to give my money to the right place, like come on now.

ROB
Yeah, I’m watching it. I’m watching it. Two more questions: You have a committee of three that can advise you on business, in life. They can be living or dead. Tell me who those three individuals are and why.

LARESE
One, a billionaire.

ROB
Who?

LARESE
I’ll tell you. I actually have advisors.

ROB
Okay. Tell me more.

LARESE
One of my advisors is Albert Ratner who's right here in Cleveland. He's an advisor. Then I have David Reynolds who's a vice president of a private banking for KeyBank. And then we have Andrew Jackson who own Elson’s and MAC Installation. And I actually have a fourth and his name is Michael Klein who was actually the managing partner for Ciuni & Paichi which is a larger accounting firm… a middle-sized mid-market accounting firm.

So what I did was I’ve chosen one. I found somebody from my industry so that I could utilize them as a resource as I’m developing where I want to go. And I can actually see not where I’m at but where I’m going. Two, then I want to be exposed to somebody who has a lot more money than me so then they can help me… you know, to put me in rooms that way exposed… They say your network is your net worth -- so he could expose me to people that have way more value in different aspects, financially, that I may never be exposed to.

Three, I did [??not - 55:20] pick a banker because he's used to working for high net worth clients. So he knows how to navigate different aspects of being an entrepreneur, being a businessman. And Andrew is an entrepreneur so he knows the grind of dealing with labor relations, dealing with having to fire or hire people, the struggles of the market changing on you and all that.

So I try to pick people that truly embraced me from a business perspective.

And I hate to say the last one because… I got to add this one. I literally have six people that are my team. I’ll say my fifth one is somebody spiritually that I trust, that I can call -- my pastor -- and ask questions and say, “Where's God? Add on this. Pray for me on this as I make decisions.”

First and foremost, I’m a Christian man. People that know me know I put God first in everything I do. So I make sure that, “Hey, I need your blessing to get this done. What do you feel? Can you pray with me on this?”

Then I have a female that I add to my advisory team. That’s the sixth person, somebody who I’ve respected. What I did was I picked someone who knew me as a kid. So when you hear me out here talking about what I went through, she saw me go through it. So she remembers my life and my challenges and the barriers I [retained - 56:48]. So now when FOX 8 wants to introduce somebody about me… The advisors know me now -- she knows me then.

So she's the person I’m telling them to call that can tell you the real facts of who I am and the consistency of who Larese Purnell is. So she's that person. Then she gave me that female perspective to say, “Is everything always about me?” She keeps me balanced from that perspective. She knows my heart truly since I was a child. So yeah, that’s me.

ROB
That’s good. You have a billboard or you can make it a Google ad to be 2020, a saying that really… It captures what you believe or your essence. What is that saying and why?

LARESE
I’m going to make you say the question beforehand next time.

ROB
[Laughter] No. I like people to think. I like them to think in the moment.

LARESE
That’s good. No, that’s good. I would say, Rob, I’m all about financial literacy. I’m all about people building wealth. What I would do is I would have a billboard that would show a gamut of people. I know a billboard is only so big so you can only put so many people but I would put a doctor on there. I will put a street guy on there. I would put a barber on there. I’ll put a restaurant owner on there. I would put a multitude of people from our community who would properly fit.

And then I would talk about building assets and wealth. That's the new hashtag -- “#wealth movement.” So that people in the community would want to see themselves so that they would say, “Oh I know him. That's Pookie and Ray Ray. That's my cousin in there. Oh he owned there and he must take it serious. Oh that's my barber, so barbers are taking it serious. Oh that's a restaurant I love in town. Oh that's that famous doctor that’s always on the radio.”

So now what it would do is it would encompass everybody and make them feel like they can be a part of something and it could be their reality. But I would also stay consistent--

I always tell people, “Consistency is one of the best things you can be, is being consistent.” People in this community know that I teach them about building wealth and building assets. So within that, from a graphical perspective, I could see the people. I could see homes and commercial businesses, almost like a Black Wall Street behind them where they see that this is not a moment but it's a movement. And this wealth-building thing we're talking about is something that can change our community’s fabric.

ROB
Hey, amen. And we're going to talk more about this, too. I am having a conference this year in Cincinnati, working in Columbus. And we want to work in Cleveland so let's actually talk more about that.

LARESE
Please.

ROB
But the end where you just did, I would say what you're talking about is making sure that, as Black people in particular, we recognize our value. Black folks start trends but we rarely get monetized for that -- recognizing and monetizing our value. Money certainly flows through us but it doesn't flow to us. And we got to change that direction to make sure it starts flowing to us not just through us.

Nearly every trend in Hollywood, nearly every trend started with Black and brown people. Now it's time to make sure that we actually get paid for the value not just have the value go through us.

Larese Purnell, thank you for all you do. Make sure that you send me all your links to all your businesses. I want to make sure… The name of your restaurant is “Black Fox…” Was it Black Box Fix”? Block Box Fix, right?

LARESE
Yes.

ROB
And then CLE Consulting and all that stuff. I want to make sure people support you. You guys are delivering, right? So you guys are still open?

LARESE
Oh yeah. We’re still open for business.

ROB
I wish you are in Cincinnati. I’d order to you, brother.

LARESE
Hey look, actually, tomorrow, we're going to be feeding 500 seniors throughout our community. So we're still out and here being safe, using proper precautions. But we also understand like God protects people in a war, He’ll protect His people because somebody has to go out and do the work even in times like this.

ROB
All right, look, I appreciate your time. Don’t make yourself a stranger. We're going to have another show because I think we had a good discussion here. Don’t make yourself a stranger. Let's do it again in the future, brother.

LARESE
Okay. Talk to you, man.

ROB
Thanks, Larese.

[END OF TRANSCRIPT]