How To Graduate College Debt-Free With Money In Your Pocket - Episode 8
Worried about paying for college for your kids? Imagine if they not only had school fully paid for but graduated with a nest egg already in place. Chris shares how his Debt Free Degree Triangle makes this possible.
About our guest:
Chris Corinthian has worked for over 15 years in higher education in the areas of financial aid and financial literacy. After working with thousands of students, he realized that there were specific steps that students did to receive multiple scholarships and graduate debt-free. Unfortunately, there were also students who did not know this information and dropped out of school because they did not have enough money to complete college. Chris is on a mission to stop the national student loan debt from rising by showing students the blueprint to not only graduate debt-free, but also show them how they can have money in the bank when they walk across that stage at graduation. Through teaching the principles of financial literacy, he walks high school students and current college students through a three-step framework on how to “find the money, budget the money, and grow the money” to pay for school.
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Naseema: what's up? What's up you guys?
You are gonna love this episode because today I am enjoying my friend Chris Corinthian, and he is going to drop some gems about education and hang for education, which as a parent has been one of those things I have regret. Like I have a lot of anxiety thinking about. But fortunately was in a.
Position to, you know, fund my daughter's education so that they have five 20 nines where they'll both have a hundred thousand dollars when they go to college. And you know, that's not probably gonna be enough, but
[00:00:38] Chris: I'll be stable. . It's something,
[00:00:40] Naseema: right? . It's a lot more than what I had. I didn't have. Exactly.
Okay. Exactly. But anyway, I want people to learn more about you, Chris, and learn your background. I wanna know like how you started on this journey, where you're coming from, and how you have the gems that you have right now.
[00:00:58] Chris: Great. Well first of all, Seema, I just wanna say thank you so much for allowing me to speak on your platform and to your people because it's an honor and privilege for me to even be here speaking to you at this time.
So thank you. Okay. , I'm real, you know? So yeah, we're gonna talk about all of that. And the reason I'm able to talk about this is because I did everything wrong, right? I thought I knew the plan, I thought I knew the path, but. Little backstory about me. You know, I'll, I'll go back to when I was going about to go to college, right?
And. You know, I had a few scholarships. I graduated from a school in Georgia, you know, so I had the Hope Scholarship, which is a state funded scholarship. If you have a certain gpa, which most states have some type of state funded scholarship. Right? Just not California . Just not California. Right. . So they have other scholarship programs that you could be eligible for.
But, so I was eligible for the state funded Georgia hope Scholarship because I had over a 3.0 or a B average for those that don't know what the grading system is like. And so I had that and then I was involved with Boys and Girls Club. So there's this teen leadership organization within the Boys and Girls Club called Keystone, and I was a part of that.
And each boys and girls club around whatever city you're in, they always have what they call a Youth of the Year program for each city. And so back in the day, they used to have a Youth of the Year for each state had their own youth of the year. And then that Youth of the Year would go on Oprah.
Like when Oprah had a show, they would go on Oprah and then each of the 50 states would be showcase. Yeah. So when I was I was a first runner up for Metro Atlanta, so somebody else got it right before me. I think that was last year that they went to Oprah. Oh, I never gotta go on Oprah, but shout out to Oprah.
If you're listening to this, guess what? I don't care which show on the own network I can go on, but I will gladly be a guest on your show, you know? Okay. I mean, it's not gonna be as good as SEMAS show, but listen, it's like levels, right? Like theory, right, right. That's right. So, yeah, exactly. It's levels.
And so I graduat. High school went to went to Savannah State University is my alma mater. So I went to Savannah State on scholarship. Right? No loans. I went to school. But the thing is, I always tell students, work hard, then play hard, right? Even if you have habits in high school, that still resulted in an a.
For example, I was a master procrastinator, but I could cram for an exam the night before, or I can write or type a paper. I don't even think it was Ty. Cause we, I would write a paper the night before, right? And then and then I would get an A on it and I thought I could sustain those habits when I got into college, right?
But fast forward, I ended up with a 1.65 gpa.
[00:03:31] Naseema: Wait a minute, can I tell you? That was like my first semester GPA as well. See. Right. And I was a four point something student. Right, right, exactly. I just never learned how to study. So this is so interesting to me, and I don't think I've ever shared that publicly, , but I'm like, how?
We're like, you're
[00:03:51] Chris: like, exactly. Hundred. I get what you're saying. Yes. I had the same experience. Right? Yes, yes. And so I, I had that GPA and it was like, even though I was on campus away from the house, like my parents were just like you know, this is not acceptable. Right. Like, so I'm first generation American, all my fam, my parents, my mother and my father, all my grandparents, everybody's from Jamaica.
right. And so I'm first generation American, so you know, and when you come up in the house, in the West Indie house, it's just like, no, you . Unless you're getting all A's you know, this is not acceptable. So when I had a failing gpa, oh, my mom bout lost it. She said, you know, you know you can't come back here if they kick you out, right?
And so I didn't know if she was playing or not, but I just took it as okay, she's probably not playing until every semester after that, I got nothing but A's and B's and I ended up graduating with honors. But after that first checkpoint, after the spring semester, So in college you go fall and then spring, just like most schools.
Right. And then you're off for the summer, or you could take classes. But at spring they checked it again. And what happened was my GPA wasn't high enough and I lost all my scholarships, so Yeah. Yeah. So then I had to take out student loans. Right. And I had to take out student loans for those next two years.
And I ended up getting scholarships my junior year and my senior year. But I still had some loans, you know, in that in that junior year. But but I had to do nothing but get A's and B's every semester after that in order for me to graduate with honors.
[00:05:16] Naseema: Right, right. Because once you have that low gpa, it's, it's easy to drop your gpa.
It's hella hard to bring it up. for real. And I know, cause I was like all a's like the rest of the time. But still my GPA was like three. It was like the struggling 3.5. Like ?
[00:05:34] Chris: Yeah, it's a lot. Oh, you got a 3.5? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't know what I had to do exactly in three five, right? Yes. I had to work some miracles.
I had to put some magic dust on that thing. Yes. Like it was a lot, right? I mean, study groups and just structure and like you had to really change up what you were doing. So it was, it wasn't that I didn't have fun in college, but I had to really get to the work hard part then play hard, right? Mm-hmm. Like I want, I want everybody to understand like college is more than just going to school, going to your room and eating.
Like you want to experience the whole college experience, right? But you gotta put your priorities in order. Once you put your priorities in order, why don't you put your priors in your order? If you're a student listening to this, or if you're a parent, just kind of keep ingraining that in your child, and hopefully it sinks into where they'll be like, you know what?
let me do what I need to do, right? Mm-hmm. . And so we're gonna talk about like all the scholarships and ways that you can pay for college, but but so fast forward, let's go into the real world. So I graduated, you know, got hit a couple jobs or whatever ended up Fast forward a few jobs and to worked for his billion dollar company as a project analyst.
And the day after my son was born, they said, congratulations, Chris on your new baby boy, but we gotta let you go. Ooh, right. Nice . Right. My wife wasn't working. They were like, we gotta let you go. It's just, we gotta lay out 1200 people. It's a recession. We, sorry. We gotta let you go. And so my whole, and that's similar to what's going on right now, right?
And then the thing is, I thought I followed a plan because I was taught, go to school, get good grades. Yeah, yeah. Get a high paying job and you're good. And that's
[00:07:00] Naseema: what our parents set us up for. Right? So that's all we know. Like that's all we know.
[00:07:04] Chris: Because a lot of times that's all they knew. So they were like, yeah, like do that, put some away for a rainy day.
And then some parents might say, and invest, but they don't really know what that means. They just like put some away for rainy day and, and, Invest in the future , you know, and you're like, and that's your whole financial literacy education. Like, that's, that's it. That's, that's it.
[00:07:23] Naseema: That at best part I didn't get that right.
Neither did I, like, go to the best paying school and get that job and then everything else will be okay. ,
[00:07:32] Chris: get that paper right. Get that paper, that's it. And then, you know, and then some parents say, get your pension. I'm like, there ain't no, there's nothing do with a pension these days. That's
[00:07:41] Naseema: why my grandfather said that.
Right. You right. You better get your pension. Get your pension .
[00:07:46] Chris: No. So I, I thought I followed the rules, right. But I was getting, you know, educated on my academics, right. My academic literacy, you know, but, but my financial literacy was. Was was through, you know, in shambles because had I set myself up, you know, with things we'll talk about, like having your emergency fund and all these other things, I wouldn't have been hit.
And so here's another thing cuz we're talking about like, you know, security and protection and things like that. So two months, two and a half months after I got laid off, you know, we're at the house, you know, the baby's there. It was a blessing disguise cause I was able to spend that intimate time with the baby instead of going to work every day and coming back.
So I was like, my wife and I were here with our son, Chris Junior, cj, and it's just like one day he wakes up in the middle of the night and he's like, he wants to get fed, so I'll go to the bottle warmer. No, before that he wakes up and then I hear people outside. I'm like, why is this so loud outside?
Like, it's like one or two in the morning. So I look outside the window and we stayed in apartment complex at a time and looked out the window. And everybody's looking at the building, right? And so I said, babe, let me go see what's going on. So I go outside and I look up and the apartment's on fire. The Yeah, the apartment building is on fire.
Like literally on fire. So I was like, babe, the apartment's on fire. Let me go warm up a bottle. And I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm tired. I'm not even thinking. I'm like, don't we get out this house? Right, right. So anyway, we get the baby we get CJ and we just grab what we can grab. I think I grabbed my keys and, and that was it.
And then we go outside. And then it started off, cuz one of the girls across the hall upstairs, she must have gone to the club, left the stove on, and then 25 families are displaced. The whole building went down. Like I was thinking the fire department was gonna come. They couldn't get the water pressure up.
It was like Oh, big mess. Yeah. And we looking and we. , this thing is spreading. Like it just started on one porch and then little by little, like it consumed the whole building. Right? Oh my God. And then, and guess, guess who didn't pay the $12 a month? Horrendous insurance. Cause it wasn't required. So literally lost everything, everything.
All the money that I had. Cuz, cuz the company I was getting paid, I mean that I was working for, I was getting paid every week. We were going on vacations and everything. And so all the money we had, we were putting toward baby stuff. And so I was depleting my savings cuz it's just like after we get all the stuff for the baby, I'll just stack it back up.
Right? Like, no problem. But. I didn't account for losing a job and then I didn't account for our apartment fire because it's like you're responsible, but then because of somebody else being irresponsible, it can still affect you. Exactly. Exactly. And so I, you know, we didn't have rent insurance. We lost everything.
I didn't have any, we didn't have any money, so Red Cross had to give us a $250 gift card so we can get close from Walmart. So here we are. I'm working for this billion dollar company. And then moments later, you know, We need a gift card from Red Cross. So we get close from Walmart and we didn't have anywhere to stay.
So luckily my wife's parents had a spare bedroom that they just cleared out. So that we can live out of for the next six to eight months until we're able to get back on our feet. So it's like one moment you're high, everything's rocking and then literally can lose everything, you know, minus our lives.
Mm-hmm. . And so we count our blessing cuz it was like our lives, the thing that I ate the most at that I lost is like in high school I had like I had pictures and videos and everything, those memories, right? Yeah. And this is like, those are the things that money can't replace, right? And so that was the only thing I regret, like stuff.
Stuff comes and goes, TV and sofas. Exactly. All that stuff closed, like you can replace that stuff. But those, those other things that, that money can't buy, those are the things you want to cherish. Right, right. That I just said. All of that just to say how it's important to have your finances in order and to understand, you know, how financial literacy works and why it's important outside of just your academics and your grades or even getting a job, right?
Or even owning a job. Cuz there's some business owners that still don't have it figured out cuz they're living, you know, month to month because of the expenses and, and, and paychecks for examples, you know, they don't understand. Just because you're making more doesn't mean you know how to manage more, right?
Mm-hmm. , it's all about the principles you have behind financial success. And. I ended up getting a job after that, working in financial aid back in my alma mater at Savannah State, right? Mm-hmm. . And so my mission, it wasn't my mission initially, but what I saw when I would see grandmothers and, and aunts and uncles and parents come in and be terrified at the financial aid experience and, and the process, they didn't know it was a first time sending their child off to college and they didn't know what to do, right?
Yeah. And so I always thought if somebody was talking to my grandmother, how would I want them to talk to her? How would I, would I want them to walk her through the process of getting everything squared away? And so once I thought about that, I just treated everybody the same as if it was my grandmother.
Mm-hmm. . And so I'm on a mission now because another thing I saw was that students would max out on these student loans, meaning they would take out the most they can get in student loans and then. Look like a guilty face right there. Listen. Oh,
[00:12:42] Naseema: hang on. Ask me how I know about that. Yeah. Ask me how I know about that.
Yeah, exactly. Was too late.
[00:12:47] Chris: Exactly.
[00:12:49] Naseema: Balling you.
[00:12:50] Chris: You ain't the only one. Okay.
[00:12:53] Naseema: tell me nothing. When them faster checks came in, listen,
[00:12:57] Chris: when them checks came in, everybody was like, all right, where we going? Right? What we doing? What we what? What should you know? So, I mean, you see your classmates going to Cancuns.
Mm-hmm. going straight to the mall. Yeah. You know, getting used cars, like they, it was like, Wait a minute. Also, we just, we just out here living good, aren't we? Mm-hmm. , you know? Mm-hmm. and so, and so I would see that, but the students still now do this to this day and they'll max out and then they'll max out and they'll graduate with all this student loan debt when it, you know, it only cost a fraction of the amount that they took out.
And so, you know, the US is over 1.7 trillion in student loan debt. You know, that's our deficit right now. And, you know, it keeps growing and growing. So, like my personal mission, even outside of, you know, what I did for Savannah State, even still to this day, cuz like I'm over mentoring right now. And so I infuse financial literacy with the mentoring that I do and then, , I'm on a mission to eliminate the need for student debt.
Mm-hmm. . And so that's, that's what we're gonna talk. That's the good stuff. Yes. That's what we're gonna talk about today. Yes. To show you how to never have to take out a student loan. Like never. Okay. I'm gonna show you how easy it is. Yeah.
[00:14:03] Naseema: I'm excited. Yes. Because we need to know this. And you know what I just wanna say like, I have a, I'll do some content for other FinTech companies.
And I have this post on TikTok talking about, you know, how I had $180,000 in student loan debt. Paid back over 150,000 of it, but still owe a hundred thousand dollars. Yes. Like, and that's how the student loan system works. And then people are on there like, well you should not took out, you shouldn't have took out debt if you don't know how debt works and all this kind of stuff.
And I'm just like, I was 17 years old, right? You think I'm really supposed to understand this? Like my dad never this, that wasn't my experience for my dad. My dad went to school on his GI Bill. He didn't understand student loan debt and school was affordable when our parents went to school. So it is just like, We gotta look at like some things and like, like really understand that we're blaming the wrong people.
Like how are we looking at like all these people now that are begging for this forgiveness? Not because they don't wanna pay back loans, but probably because they've been paying on these loans for hell along and not seeing their balances go down and not in a PO financial position to continue to do so.
But you know what? We're gonna send people to school debt free from now on. Because good people need to know how not to take out loans for college. How to not be like me and graduate with $200,000 in student loans. So how can we send our kids to school debt
[00:15:32] Chris: free? Absolutely. So let's start with the foundation, which you doing an amazing job because you're just like, it's probably not gonna be enough.
But listen, a hundred thousand dollars per child for 5 29 plan is a huge, like, let's give it up for those of the listeners. You're in your car wherever. Well, if you're not in your car, just kind of clap your mind. But wherever you are, you put them hands on that wheel. Okay? Did not take the hands off that wheel, but let's clap.
Because that is a huge thing, right? And for those that do not know what 5 29 Plan is, it's a college savings vehicle where you can put your money in tax free and you can use it for educational expenses when your child goes to college. Okay? Now, even if, let's say that your child has so many scholarships that they never need it, guess what?
You as a grandparent can gift that 5 29 money to your grandchild,
[00:16:19] Naseema: okay? You could also take out that scholar if you can prove that the person has a, the kid has a scholarship. You could also take that. Scholar. Like you just have to prove that this is, prove that they have enough and this Yeah. And then you can take that money out if you want to.
But like, like Chris was saying, you could also gift it to other kids. Yes. Cousins, anybody in your family, there's a qualifying list of other people that you can transfer to and you could use it for yourself
[00:16:41] Chris: if you wanna go back to school. Exactly. If you wanna go back to school, you could absolutely use it for yourself.
So that's usually the foundation I start with, depending on where you're starting. Right. And sometimes, well, a lot of times when I'm talking to parents, it's like, my child's about to graduate in a few months. So , right? How can you make this possible? Right? Yes. And so and so, if you're in that position, if you have a child that's a junior senior in high school or they're in college now and you've already taken out loans, I'll show you how, you know, if we have time, we'll talk about some ways where the loan could be paid off even before they graduate.
So they could still graduate debt free. Without you having to come up with extra money outta your pocket as a parent. Okay? And so that's a foundation. Another thing, if your child is in, in high school, there's a website called Raise Me. Raise me.com or raise.me where if your child is in a leadership organization or they're part of a, a sports team or they're part of a certain club or group, or if they're getting certain, certain grades in class, guess what?
They can get scholarships committed to them from different colleges and universities just for doing something that they're already doing. So raise me, raise dot em. And guess what? There was an article I forgot the young lady's name, but she was featured in c n n. She got over $80,000 just from Raise Me Okay.
From different scholarships. And so that's one. Now what we're gonna do is we're gonna talk about a three-step framework that, that that I usually walk my students through the, the top one, the middle, and the top tier of the, what I call the debt free degree triangle. We probably won't focus as on as much in this interview, but I'll explain it just so you can have an idea of how it works.
Okay? And so you have three tiers. You have the base, which is scholarships, and then the middle is budgeting or money management. And then the third is what I call automated income streams. Okay? And each one builds on the other in order to graduate debt free. So the most, like there's a, there's a article they did last year, the year before last, I believe it was last year, Forbes did it.
And it says the title was a hundred million dollar over a hundred million dollars in scholarship. Monies go unclaimed each year over a hundred million dollars in scholarship. Money goes on claim. So that means there's scholarship money out there for you or for your child depending on who's listening to this, right?
There's money out there for you that just needs you to apply for it. Okay? . So that's, it sounds oversimplified, but I'm telling you there's more students that do not do this because they don't believe there's scholarships out there for them. There are a couple of barriers and hurdles that students just don't apply for, and I'll tell you the top reasons why they don't apply.
Number one, they don't know where to find the scholarships number. They don't know what to write about because mo, a lot of the scholarships applications require some type of essay, right? And so if we can eliminate the obstacle of not knowing where to find the scholarships, and we can eliminate. The whole burden of you having to write all these essays over and over and over again.
Guess what? If we can eliminate those two big barriers, then hopefully that encourages you to follow through and apply for all these scholarships. Sound like a deal? I love it.
[00:19:42] Naseema: I'm excited. Hear about this. I'm, let's get on this framework. We, we are getting into this triangle. Let's
[00:19:49] Chris: go. So, and then if you think about it, like if you look and wanna look on a deeper level, like they're three phases.
So scholarships, that's the dependent phase. Budgeting or money management, that's the independent phase where you manage your own money. And then automated income streams, that's where it's interdependent, right? Because that's where you're talking about passive income streams. And then you have to rely on them just as much as they rely on you for presenting the value of some form.
Okay? And so scholarships, so this is, this is what you really need in order to increase your odds or likelihood of getting scholarships. I've worked with students for over 17 years in financial aid, financial literacy, higher ed, high schools. Everybody listen to this carefully. Everyone that's applied for at least a hundred Qualifiable scholarships, a hundred scholarships, everybody.
And this over the last 17 years, everyone that I've come in contact with that's applied for at least a hundred scholarships have gotten scholarships. I love it. Let's stop right there. Yeah, stop right
[00:20:47] Naseema: there. Who's beating those? That, who's beating those? Like that's hundred percent
[00:20:52] Chris: success rate. Every love applied for a hundred.
At least a hundred Qualifiable. Like you not gonna be like, okay, your . A a, a guy, a right-handed guy applying for a basketball scholarship when it's a, a women's left-handed basketweaving scholarship. Right? Right. Like those two just don't connect. Okay. So that's why I qu, that's why I qualified it with the term qualified scholarships, right?
Mm-hmm. , if you wanna be at least in the ballpark, right? But if you're applying for at least a hundred scholarships, guess what? You will get scholarships. If you don't message me, hit me up. And guess what? I'll give you some scholarship money. I'm putting that publicly on the podcast . And that's the challenge that I had to
[00:21:28] Naseema: everybody.
Yes. That's the challenge. I love it. That's the challenge we got. We gotta hold people to the fire.
[00:21:33] Chris: That's right. Absolutely. Yes. And so that's why I always challenge people to do it, because guess what? It gets 'em in the habit and it gets 'em, at least to take the challenge on to do that. Now you're like, okay, I applied for a hundred scholarships, but what's gonna increase my odds of getting these scholarships?
That's where we're gonna start. So where do we find the scholarships? There's so many apps, right? And so many websites and scholarship portals, right? But we talked about raise mes. So if you're in high school, that's a good one. And then if I make sure I don't forget, but there's scholarships where you don't even have to write essays.
Wow. They give out lots of money. So we'll talk about that in a second. If I don't, if I don't forget. But you have, you have portals like scholarly, and I always talk about scholarly first, and it's like my go-to because scholarly is a scholarship portal that was created by someone. Who cracked the code on scholarships?
So Christopher Gray. Christopher Gray was featured on Shark Tank. His scholarship portal was actually featured on Shark Tank. Christopher Gray was homeless at different times at, at some points during his high school year in his senior year in high school. And he knew that the only way to get out of his current situation, right living situation was by going off to college.
So he ended up going to the library, he'd be on his phone applying for scholarships, and he ended up getting over 1.3 million in scholarships. Wow. 1.3 million in scholarships. So he understood how to get scholarships, right? So he goes off to Drexel University in Philly, he meets some friends and partners and they end up creating the software known as Scally.
And then what happened? When he went off to school, cuz he can go to any school he wants. One of the biggest scholarships that he had was a bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Scholarship. Okay. But but he ended up going off to school and then he built it and then he was featured on a Shark tank. The rest is history.
But what scholarly does is like some other scholarship portals, but it, you put in all your miscellaneous information, all the personal information like detail, they'll ask you a lot of things if you're left-handed, if you have certain diets, if you check off everything that applies to you. And what happens is the software goes out and searches for vetted scholarships, keyword vetted, cuz some sites will send you scams and like sign up for this credit card and loans and all this other stuff.
And now you're in a worse off position. And when you started to look for scholarships, but it goes out and finds all the scholarships and it does two things. You can filter it by deadline. So let's say if you click deadline date, and then you see all these scholarships that have a deadline of this week, right?
Most people think you only apply for scholarships in the springtime. Guess what? You can apply for scholarships year round. Okay? Number two, you can filter it based on what's the likelihood of you getting that scholarship, meaning how much does it match based on your profile information? How much does the scholarship match?
And I'll rate that from zero to. And so if you have a lot of tens, nines, eights, guess what? These scholarships were made for you. Right? And then you have other scholarship websites like sco scholarship Owl and Bold and other scholarship platforms that you can look into. As a matter of fact, while I'm thinking about it cuz I, I, I only do this for my, for my, for any time I want to guess on a podcast, I only do this for, for those guests.
But there's a website link and and I'll say it, and you can probably put it in the notes, but it's tiny.cc/scholarships chapter. That's all lowercase tiny cc slash scholarship chapter. And that's the free chapter from my book on scholarships. So everything I'm saying, if it's going too fast, you'll have all the ins and outs, what to do, how to do it in the order to do it.
In that chapter, it's like no download, it's just a. To the Google Link, Google Drive link, and then you'll be able to pull up that chapter. Okay? So that's my gift to your listeners, just for being a listener of this great show. I want you all to have that. If you're a parent or a student that's looking to go to college for free, that's definitely gonna help you.
Okay? We love you for
[00:25:19] Naseema: that, Chris. Oh, well, I love y'all too, .
[00:25:23] Chris: And so so then, so now we, we knocked out the barrier of entry for where to find the scholarships. Right now we have scholarships finding you. Now, most students don't wanna apply. They'll write these essays. So it's like, Chris, how can we figure out a way to where you said a hundred scholarships, like most people get burnt out after five or 10.
They're like, I can't do this no more. Like, this is a lot like . I might do one a week or once every other day, but like you're talking about a hundred scholarships, that's, that's almost impossible. So what I usually tell students is if you have, and see, see this is, this is a key right here. There's only five essays that you need.
There are only five essays, so I know I said a hundred scholarship, but listen, there are only five, and you'll only ever need one or a combination of these five essays. So I want you to pay attention. It's in the notes in the chapter that you'll see, but I'm gonna say it to you if you're listening to me.
All right, so here go the five essays in no particular order. Number one essay is your Rags to Rich's essay, your Rags to Rich's essay. And once you have these five, I'll tell you what to do with them. Your Rags to Rich's essay is talking about some type of obstacle or challenge that you've had to overcome to get to the point to where you are now.
How did you overcome it or what did you do to get to the point to where you overcame that obstacle? And where do you plan on going? Scholarship, donors, businesses, organizations, they want to know that if we give you this money, if you come up on hard challenging times where you feel like dropping out, are you gonna dig down and push through and succeed and graduate college?
Because the last thing they want to do is give all this money to someone who's. Probably not gonna graduate, right? Because they don't have that, that, that grit or that wherewithal to push through when they see challenges come. But if they see somebody who has a story of triumph and overcoming, guess what?
They're like, we wanna support what you wanna do because listen, you've overcome all of that. Guess what? We wanna push you towards success. Whatever you, whatever it is you want to do. And here's another thing that I wanna mention, because a lot of times people think that, well, I don't have that quote unquote Tyler Perry story, right?
I don't have those external things that I dealt with. But guess what? There's some students who deal with some internal stuff, right? So there's one of my students who I work with. And she didn't have one of those, you know, chaotic external things. But the thing is, she held herself to a high standard where it's just like, she was almost at the level of perfection where she was like, I gotta make it perfect.
I gotta do this. And if she didn't reach that level, she would get anxiety or she would get stressed, or she would feel overworked and overwhelmed. Right. Especially with her major that she was in. And so what she did was she found a outlet in yoga, right. And, and learning about mental health strategies.
And then by her doing that, that gave her a way of escape so that she can, you know, be able to. Focus back on her studies, get back on a better schedule and regimen, and then she was able to flourish and succeed. And so that was her. No,
[00:28:16] Naseema: that, that's a, that's a great example because it also shows to people that you figured out a way to be able to cope and to overcome something that's hard internally, which a lot of people don't do, even if they do have these external battles.
A lot of people don't know how to like, be introspective and to actually figure things out. So I That's a, that's a perfect
[00:28:36] Chris: example. I love that. Good. I'm glad. Yeah, because then she, Wow, I never thought about that because she, number one, she didn't think she was worthy. So before I even continue, I want you to know that you are worthy of these scholarships.
I don't care what type of situation you're in or whatever, like get outta your mind that you're not worthy of the scholarships. Cuz there are people who want to hear your story. They want to give money to you and you're the person that they're looking for. So what happens is, and, and it might sound oversimplified, but it really comes to down to a numbers game.
And the more opportunities that you put yourself out there, and guess what, then the, the likelihood or increased chances are you getting this money. Because guess what? There's scholarship dollars with your name on it. But if you never take that shot, what'd they say? I think when Wayne Greski says, and a lot of other people say it, but they say you miss a thousand shots that you don't take.
Right? , you miss a thousand shot thousand, a hundred percent of the shots that you don't take. Right? You miss. And so keep that in mind. You are worthy of it and you deserve these scholarships. Okay, so now that I said that, that was a little sidebar, but just that mental status, I really want you all to know that it's all mental.
Once you understand that it's mental and you can do it, you will do it. So that's your rights or riches. Next one is your impact essay. What type of impact do you plan on making in your community in the world? Just in general, what type of impact? And then another thing I'd like to add on is like impact slash leadership, right?
Because it's just like along with your impact, like how have you made an impact through leadership? Like how have you led groups of people? How have you been in a leadership situation? Like how have you, how has your leadership. made an impact in whatever it is that you were doing. So you got rags to riches, you got your impact essay impact slash leadership.
Your third one is what will you do with the money essay . Now that's a long name, but you get it. What will you do with the money? And so outside of like paying for school, like there's some students who are, who need, like, who ought to pay lab fees or they gotta pay for a lab coat, you know? Or they gotta, so when
[00:30:36] Naseema: you said that, I was like, wait, I mean, why would they ask you what you need to, what you need the money for?
I need the money to pay for school.
[00:30:43] Chris: Right, right. But there's these, all these other things like, wait, all these other majors ain't gotta pay for all this stuff. You know what I mean? Yes. Like prime example, you probably could attest to that. You're like, yeah, I gotta pay association fees and yes, I pay for a lab equipment and
[00:30:56] Naseema: all this other stuff.
Right? Yes. It was a lot of fees. I went, well, for my undergrad, I was pre-med, so Okay. Yeah. All those laugh fees and all that stuff. But my books were $500. Like each each, each,
[00:31:09] Chris: right. Yeah. How much you up? $40. $40. You know, these majors and
[00:31:14] Naseema: stuff. Yeah. You're like, but
[00:31:15] Chris: ah, I'm paying 500 a piece for my books.
Yeah. Right. And so when the student talks about, yeah, well I don't have to borrow books from my friends. I don't have to borrow lab coats or lab equipment, you know, I can actually have my own. And so when you map this thing out, like it's pretty much like a budget, so to speak, of what you're gonna do with your money.
So when people know specifically what you're planning on doing with your money, they're gonna give it to you. and so, or they're likely to give it to you because you already have a mapped that plan. Now, your fourth one, this is what I call your career slash major. Like what are you gonna do in your career?
What are you gonna do in with your major? Like why are you going to school? You know, what are you planning on doing? And then once you can map that out, like you could kind of tie in your impact with your major, like what, how are you gonna change the world after you get this degree? How are you gonna change this industry?
What are you gonna do? Like, going back to the example with Taylor my student, she was one thing she wants to do because her area is forensic toxicology. Ooh. So she know, she knows that's a high stress environment in that mm-hmm. , you're looking at, you know, you're looking at a lot of stuff, right?
Mm-hmm. , that can be stressful if you're not used to it. And so, so she wants to bring like yoga and mental health strategies to that field mm-hmm. and make it like a norm so that people that are in this industry automatically have proven ways or systematic ways to decompress and, you know, and not get burned out.
Okay. And not get burned out. Right? And so that's the type of impact that she wants to make within that team. That's so dope. Okay. Yes. And so and so, so that's it. And then the last one. The last one. So you have your rags or riches, you have your impact, what will you do with the money? You have your career slash major, and then your last one is what I call the wildcard essay.
This is usually types toward some current event. So this is always gonna change depending on the times. So a lot of people are talking about the recession, right? Mm-hmm. , a lot of people are talking about, okay, well, how's the recession affecting your industry? Or how's it affecting your community? How's it affecting you?
right? How is, and or like even a couple years ago, everybody was talking about covid and quarantine, right? And every, the whole world being quarantined flipped the whole world upside down, right? How did that affect your industry or affect how business is done or how you interact and how's it gonna change the future?
How's it gonna affect the future? So you wanna talk about those type of things. But once you have those five essays, you put it into Google Drive or you throw it in iCloud, and now you have access to it from your phone, from your laptop anywhere. Some people put it on flash drive or save it to the laptop.
But if you're in a situation where I need to apply for this scholarship in the next three hours, and my laptop is back at home, or my flash drive that I need, no, you could just log into your drive and you'll be able to copy and paste, put in your essay. You can put certain sections from each essay into it, and guess what?
You tweak it. Make sure you fit the guidelines of how many words it needs to be. And guess what? Now you have your essays and you can wash, rinse, and repeat. Watch, rinse and repeat. And guess what? Now you have your essays, now you got the burden or your obstacle of where to find the scholarships. Cause scholarships are finding you now and then what to write about.
Now you got your essays out the way. Now here's the third part. Once you combine these three, then it increases your chances for success through and through. So a lot of times people are just like, well, how do I apply for a hundred scholarships? So let's just say that today is December 1st, right? By February 1st, but so January 1st is 30 days by February 1st.
That's 60 days by February 1st, that's a over 120 scholarships that you've now applied for. And most people, most people, when I ask, I say I usually talk to like a classroom or an arena full of students. I say, raise your hands in the air if you have, if you've applied for at least a hundred scholarships.
Maybe five to 10 people's hands, or let's just say 5% or less of the hands go up. I said, okay, for those that raise your hands, keep 'em up. If you apply for at least a hundred scholarships, right or no, not a hundred scholar raise, keep your hands raised. If you receive scholarships and all the hands, a hundred percent of the time stays up, right?
I say, hands down. How many of you had to take out some form of student loan? Everybody else's hands, the 95% hands had to go up, and then like a light bulb goes off. Maybe I should apply for at least a hundred scholarships, right? And so now you know where to find 'em, how to find 'em, and now you know what plan to do.
So now, if you do it in the next two months, whatever today is, just map out two months from now and just do two a day. And then even if you're just doing one of those scholarship portals that I talked to you about, filter it by the deadline and then apply for everything that has a deadline of this week.
I don't care if your essay's not that great, or if it doesn't really apply to you, just do it and start getting in the habit after you've done all the essays for this next week. Then after the following week, that's when you start doing two a day. Okay? And then once you do the two a day, guess what? Now you know where to find the money, how to apply for the money, and how to increase the chances for that money.
And then that my friends is scholarships. And then I've talked to people who have gotten $300,000 plus it's scholarship. Millions of scholarships all, and I've worked with students who got this last piece about scholarships. You don't even have to have a essay for some of these scholarships. This one, if you have a 16 year old or older, you can apply for this scholarship.
And the deadline is the second week of January. So depending on where you're listening to this, this application opens up from November to January of every year. This is the Taco Bell Live my scholarship, foundation scholarship. You just have to do a two minute video, 30 seconds to two minutes. And one of my students, she did a two minute video recorded in the day she got $10,000 for that two minute video.
[00:36:45] Naseema: Woo. That's what I'm talking about. That's, that's a good roi. 10 ROI for 10 minutes. Ok, come on. Now I
minutes,
[00:36:52] Chris: two minutes
[00:36:54] Naseema: thousand for two, two for two minutes. Wait, so I, I wanted to ask you this question before I forgot. Like, at what age age did kids start looking for scholarships?
[00:37:03] Chris: So what I found is early as 13, a lot of scholarships will start as early as 13 years.
Right. And then a lot, most of 'em are like 16 and up. So this is like, as long as you're, you know, a freshman, freshman in high school and up can start applying. And what'll happen is if you get awarded these scholarships, most of the colleges or organizations will just hold it for you until you end up going to school.
And they'll be like, let us know when you're going, where do we need to send the money? And we'll, we'll apply it. And then institutions will hold scholarship monies for you until you graduate, until you graduate high school and go there too. And then now there's things like students are doing dual enrollment.
For those that don't know what dual enrollment is, a student can be in high school and take college classes at the same time, and a lot of times it's no additional college. It's like it's free if they're taking these college classes while they're enrolled in high. And so if you're getting these college credits, by the time you actually graduate high school, you can go into college as a junior.
And guess what? You done saved yourself two years of taking out possible loans that you would've taken out, right?
[00:38:01] Naseema: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I love that. And that's the, a lot of, that's a big cheat code into Saving a lot of money in college. I know there's something else. As far as like just basically testing out of a lot of classes that people can also do as well.
[00:38:18] Chris: Mm-hmm. ? Yes. Yes. You can actually clip out. So you could do CLE exams. Yes. Which is one, right. And you can actually take tests, especially if you know the material you can actually test out of taking courses and get credit for that class as if you took it or as if you paid for it and took it. So if you already know the material or if you studied for it and you want a clip for an exam, you can take that exam.
And then and then there are different names, but that's one of the popular names that people understand. They, you can actually test out of a class that you don't have even have to take. And so, yeah, so that's a good point. And then, so even with the taco Bell scholarship, they offered, they've been offering over a hundred million dollars in scholarship.
So it's, it's like se over 70 people got the. $10,000 and then there was like five to 10 people that got 25,000 each. And then there was a number that got 5,000 each. And so, and it's renewable every year. Wow. Let's say that you get the 25,000 as a freshman, you can get it three more times and get a hundred thousand dollars just from that one scholarship and
[00:39:13] Naseema: that, and that's how much I've had to save for my kids' education.
So just to put that into perspective and best believe when it, my daughter, my oldest turns 13, is about to be on and popping. Like, we about, let's go to, let's go. We're about to get that money back. And like, I don't, I don't look at, I, I look at that money as a safety net. Mm-hmm. . But we are gonna do everything.
If my, if my daughter wants to go to college and she said that she does right now, but she's eight. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. You know, we're gonna do everything possible to make sure that, you know, She gets in for as little as possible out of our pocket, because we look at that 5 29 money as a generational well tool.
So even if she doesn't use it, her sister will use it, her as her other sister will use it .
[00:39:51] Chris: Right. Or exactly.
[00:39:55] Naseema: Or, you know, somebody else in the family that, you know, I can help out. Imagine having a auntie that can give you a hundred thousand dollars towards your education. Okay. Yes, yes, absolutely. But, but, but I bet you I'm gonna, I'm gonna put in the, the contingencies that you had to apply for at least a hundred scholarships
[00:40:10] Chris: first.
Okay. There we go. Yeah. Yeah. That's a part of the contingency on getting this right? Yes. Yes. . Oh my gosh. And then, and so there was another point that I wanted to make, so a lot of times students will get these big old refund checks right off of student loans, but guess what? You can get overage checks from scholarships. What? Because sometimes, yeah, organizations that don't, like, there's some scholarships. For example, remember I talked about the Hope Scholarship that adjusts based on however much tuition is at your school, right?
But there's some organizations that are like, for example, like talk about like $10,000. Here you go and they'll put it on your books or you know, your account or however you wanna look at, you know, four books for your education purchases. But guess what? Anything over the amount that it costs to go to school, a lot of times they'll just put it on your account and then your school issue a refund.
Guess what? That money can go into an account and you can use it for the next semester. You get it is gonna go into your bank account, right? So guess what? Imagine if you have $10,000 a semester, right in overage, and you just have that sitting aside. And let's say after you graduate, you wanna go to grad school.
But guess what? You can not just graduate debt free. And this, we're not even talking about the automated income streams or anything else, we're just talking about scholarships. But if you get 10,000 a semester, that's $20,000 a year in four years, that's $80,000 in your bank account and you graduated debt.
[00:41:29] Naseema: Listen. That is what I'm the dream. That is the dream. Like, yeah. But the thing is, nobody talks about this. Nobody talk. Nobody about it shares this because this is a game changing, especially. So not only are you, like you said, going to school debt free, but now you can come out. With a good nest egg. Mm-hmm.
And that opens up a lot of opportunities for you because sometimes we get outta school and we have this over word like, oh, we're overburdened with debt. Yeah. So we just take whatever jobs we can get and then, you know, your first job is gonna set your trajectory for your career. Yeah. Right. And so we can make better choices.
So I love that. I love that. But we're still on the bottom of this pyramid. We, we, we still got some ground to cover.
[00:42:11] Chris: Absolutely. And this, that's perfect. And this is a perfect segue cause so we talk about scholarships was the base, and then the next part is budgeting your money management. Right. And so, listen, if you have, so this is one thing I usually tell college students, especially college students because a lot of times, well, number one, students you'll find will go into these jobs that have nothing to do with their majors.
Like, nothing to do with, like, they'll get these degrees and then they. Work this job because the number one priority to them is paying these bills. Like they have an apartment now, like . They're not just gonna be able to just live on campus if they've already graduated. Well, you can stay here as long as you want.
No, they gotta get out, right? And so now they're like, oh, I have these college, I got these apartment expenses. I have a car note I have to pay for, and all these other expenses. So what I usually tell students to do while they're in college or even before that, Make dream lifestyle. What do you want your life to look like after you graduate?
This is what you want it to look like. Where are you living? You go to bank rate.com, how much is your mortgage if you, if you pay for a mortgage, right? And then what some students, if they're on their own, right, like there's sometimes with students will, they're first time home, they'll get like a duplex, triplex, or a fourplex, right?
So they'll have mul, so it's called house hacking in, in some terms. But what they'll do is their first, you know, if they get qualified for certain funding for their first house, is what they'll do is they'll just get a. , you know, multi-unit house, you know, four units or less, and they'll just rent out the other spaces.
So guess what? If they have enough overage, then their mortgage, you know, the amount that they have to pay the bank for that loan is being covered by the other tenants that are in that same unit with them. Right? And it's just like, wow, that's now they created a passive income stream if they did it right, right outta college.
And they're a homeowner as well. And then there are a lot of other benefits with that as well. But I also
[00:43:55] Naseema: think about that like when I'm put my kids in college, like dorms are expensive, food is expensive, all this kind of stuff. And if I can eliminate that expense for my kids, like my kids not only have their 5 29, they have their brokerage accounts.
Yes. I can't use that money in their brokerage accounts. Put a down payment on their first place, whether it's a single family house, a duplex, or or under a fourplex. You know, I'm gonna, That housing expense. Yes. Which for them means that that's less money that had to have to come out of their pocket with, and that's starting in college.
So Absolutely. I like that idea from that point, like when you go into college as well, because now you don't have to worry about housing and then all the lessons that are learned about like being a landlord and all of those kind of things that are even more transferrable skills when you get out into the real world.
So I love that example, but keep going, .
[00:44:44] Chris: Absolutely. Absolutely. That's also point. And then, so that's why I try to like, cuz then they don't think about, oh man, well how much am I gonna be spending on groceries every month? If I want to go out to eat, how much am I gonna budget for that? Right. This is where we talk about budgeting.
Right. And if they've never created a budget, , which is simply like, I like how Tiffany Aliche puts it. She said it's a physical plan for what you're gonna do with your money, right? And so the budget needs to, for those that don't know who that is. So the, she said it's a physical plan for what you plan what you wanna do with your money.
And so if you think that this is how I'm gonna want my life to be, then now you have a blueprint of, okay, this is how much it's gonna cost each month for me to live. And then once you have that budget, right, or that plan or that blueprint, now you know what you're gonna work towards. Okay. Now with that being said, you can use apps like Mint, Intuit, init, Intuit Mint app.
And that's an app that you can actually create a, a budget just with one click. And that's just one. It's free. As of right now it's free. And there's other ones that are free out there too. You can just do your search and find out what the best budgeting apps are f are. Okay. And so now you have a budget and you know exactly what you plan on doing with your money, okay.
And how to manage it. Okay. So now you got the scholarships, you got the overage money, you know what you're plan on, what your plans are doing with your money. And now you can know what you wanna do as soon as you graduate without having to be stressed out. You're like, okay, now what am I gonna do? And that's, that's the last point.
So when you have the overjoy, let's say you have a hundred thousand in your bank account right after you graduate. Now, if your lifestyle costs 50,000, right? 50,000 a year.
Guess what? Now with a hundred thousand dollars in your bank account, now you're built up an emergency fund or you've bu built yourself up two years to where you're not stressed to just settle for any old job, right? Like you've bought yourself time, right? Because time is more valuable than money in reality.
So it's just like when you bought yourself time or you bought yourself time back, guess what? Now you're able to move a little differently because if you notice, there's some people that move because they're under the stress alike. I have, I gotta do this, I got bills to pay, and then they move differently.
They're in a states of state of, I don't wanna say scarcity, but they're in a state of stress cuz they're trying to figure out what they have to do with their money, right? And then there are other people who have bought themselves enough cushion to where they can actually move the way that they wanna move, right?
And so you got the scholarships, you got the budgeting piece, and now the third part is the automated income stream. Y'all ready for the automated income streams? All right, we definitely ready for that . And so I go over 15 different automated income streams for college students and high school students.
Like you can apply that. And then, you know, some of the basics or the foundation I like to talk about in the book is like Rich dad, poor dad, cash flow quadrant, and you know, different ways to look at money because poor middle class, they usually just taught employee like get a high paying job and that's it.
But there's three other quadrants, right? Like you got self-employed, you have business owner and you have investor. And so the key is you wanna move from the. Left side of the quadrant, which is employee and self-employed to the right side of the quadrant, which is business owner and investor, because that's when you can leverage time and money to work in your favor instead of you working with time and money in against you.
Right. And so what we want to do when we're thinking of passive slash automated income streams is that most ki most students, when they go off to college, When they want to get extra money, if they don't feel like working for a job, they'll do things like cut hair or do hair or do nails or you know, do all these other things to where they wanna make some side money.
Right. But the thing is with that is that it takes away from their study time. It takes away from the class time. Yeah. They're making money, but in theory, the more successful that they are, guess what? The busier they're gonna become. And then it's like they're making more money, but they have less and less time for their studies and their academics are going down.
And then it's like one or two choices. Either you're gonna have to stop the business or you're gonna have to increase your prices to keep the customer base the same. Right. But automated income streams is that you set something up one time. And you do little to no effort in the future to gain more money.
So you know how they hear, you hear terms like money in your sleep, like that's a actual real thing. Like there're things that you can set up one time to where it pays you over and over again without any effort on your part. Or Luke, we
[00:48:59] Naseema: talked about that already, kind of with like the house hacking like that.
Yes. That's . Yes. That's
[00:49:04] Chris: one way you can do that. Definitely one way. Yeah. Uhhuh. Absolutely. And then so there are other ways. . One of the ways I usually tell students about is like, there's a simple way where you don't have to come up with a product. You don't have to worry about inventory or shipping. You don't have to worry about process, you don't have to worry about anything, and you can still get paid from it.
And they're like, well, what is that? And I, and then I asked the question, I said, before I tell you what it is, have you ever recommended a restaurant to somebody and everybody's hands go up? They'd be like, yeah. I said, now, if you told somebody how great the restaurant was, did that restaurant come and find you and say, Hey, we heard that you told such and such about us.
Here goes $50. They'd be like, no, . You know, have you ever recommended a great movie? And then that movie theater hit you up and say, Hey, we just want to go ahead and give you $25 because you sent somebody to our movie. More than likely no. Right. And so I said, well, what if you could set, what if you could set something up in a way to where every time you referred or recommended something, a product or, or software or something to somebody and get paid, and you don't have to worry about any of the fulfillment.
Would you like to do that? And everybody hands go up. I said that by definition is called affiliate marketing. Mm-hmm. affiliate marketing is to where, and then a lot of times these people that you're recommended, most of 'em probably have some type of affiliate program set up and you just didn't even know.
Mm-hmm. . So if it's your favorite apartment store, or let's say it's like let's say it's like Lowe's or you know, home Depot or something like that, for example. And, and, and then I try to combine all of them. I say, some of you actually have YouTube channels. How many did you know that if you keep working at it, you can actually monetize it?
So Google owns YouTube, so it's like if you're doing something already, why not get paid for it? Mm-hmm. . And so what I tell 'em is that if you're on YouTube and you have currently, if you have at least 1000 subscribers and 4,000 hours, Google will pay you absence. It's money that they'll pay you. Just for the traffic alone.
Just for the viewers. Mm-hmm. . And now let's say that, let's say that you have a channel that's talking about green grass. This is always an example I use cause it's easy to remember. Let's just say you're talking to all the experts that are out there in the world on that. You're interviewing, you have a podcast.
Right now, we're about to combine a lot of 'em, right? Let's say that you have a podcast and that you're, you're interviewing all the experts that are talking about greengrass and botany and flowers and everything like that. And guess what? Now everybody's gonna, and you record it. You record the video, and you upload that video recording of the podcast to YouTube.
Now your YouTube viewers are gonna go up and they're gonna tune in. Every time you release a new podcast. On podcast, you can get sponsored by a company. Let's say that Lowe's hears your hears about your pockets, and they say, can we be a sponsor? And then sooner or later you're gonna say, this podcast was brought to you by Lowe's.
You know, or let's say it's one of the products that Lowe's, that Lowe's offers. So for example, if you're talking about Green grass, there's a company called Turf Builder. Like Turf Builder is a fertilizer company. Let's just say. Turb Builders says, Hey, can we be a sponsor for your ad and we'll pay you a thousand or $2,000 a month just for a name drop?
Sure. , why not? Right? And then now guess what? You have a product. And then guess what? If , I keep saying guess what, but if you are if you have a affiliate link with Lowe's or with Turf Builder, you could put that in the description of the YouTube video and just say, Hey, click on the link below and you can get a percentage off.
They might catch you a deal. You get a percentage off. Everybody that purchases that fertilizer through that link, you'll get paid. And that's how you could combine the podcasting with the YouTube, with the affiliate marketing. And those are just three streams right there. And all you did was talk about one.
Right. And so when students think about ways that they could talk about something that's interesting and they could create something one time and get paid over and over and over for them, the light bulb starts to go off and they're like, man, like I'm actually doing this, but I didn't know I could get paid for it.
Right?
[00:52:55] Naseema: But you know what, you're rocking people's world here. So I kind of wanna bring me this back and put every, put this into perspective for everyone because you know, you might have just thought this was a conversation about how to go to school debt free, but it's really a conversation about reframing the way we look at education and what it can do for us in the meantime.
Mm-hmm. , because no longer are we saying like our kid, like our parents, said to us, you know, go to school by any means necessary and get that job. What you're doing at every step of this pyramid is ingraining these tools into these kids that are transferable. and that they can use to make money on their own so they can be independent, like come outta school with not only the skillset to work in a certain industry, but also a skillset to work for themselves.
Mm-hmm. . And this is, like I said, something that people aren't talking about. And so I really hope that our listeners are taking notes and taking key to this because this is changing the way we look at education and it's empowering our kids to be in a position to set themselves up for financial independence.
[00:54:05] Chris: Absolutely. Yes. Full.
And so, but, but even just made me think about something when you just said that, because let's say that, you know, the student thinks about all the living expenses that they'll have for a year, and it comes up to, let's say 36,000. Okay. So 36,000 a year divided by 12 months, right? So that's 3000, right?
So let's say that one of those passive income streams gets to the point to where you're getting paid a hundred dollars a day, right?
A hundred dollars a day, 10 days, that's a thousand dollars. You know? And then so let's just, let's just say on average, let's say if you missed some sales here and there, but let's just say that in three in a month you get $3,000. Okay? Let's just say with the, yeah. $3,000. Guess what? Now with that passive income stream, you've paid for your life.
And you're not even working for anybody. So now when you get into the, your field of study, guess what? You're in it more of a passion. And it's not for the money because many times, parents and students too children will go into a certain career because it's how much money that career is gonna be paying.
But guess what? If all your living expenses are being paid for out of something that you created, right? Guess what? Now you don't have the pressure of just going into it for the money, but you have a passion for it. It's something that you wanna just become better at because that's, that's where you feel your purpose lies, right?
And you're doing it whether you have all the money in the world or no money in the world coming from it. You're good financially. So that's why I want people to start having a paradigm shift to where your purpose for your education and degree should be separate from your money. Your money should be separate from your degree.
And usually they're always married together. But I want to separate those two cuz then guess what? They are separate. Just because you might be great at a job does not mean you're gonna be financially successful. Exactly. And so we, yeah. . Yeah. And so one of the last examples I'll give with the passive income stream, I'll always give this exam.
Cause I was working with a student and she's a biology student and one of the things that she had was a day planner. Mm-hmm. . And then she's a biology student. But she always had to, you know, print out a periodic table of elements, put in there, put equations, stuff like that. But if you can manufacture or get a period, get a day planner for biology students, create a by a biology student.
Right. And then sell it. And guess what? You sell it for $20. Okay. And now you have biology students around the world every single day that need that book. And guess what? You created it one time and now it's selling over and over and over again. And guess what? Next year there's gonna be a whole nother wave of biology students that, that are gonna be looking for your planner.
Because guess what? You're the one that has it. You're the one that knows exactly what biology student knew. And then you could create a YouTube channel that talk about day in the life of biology student, right? This is what you'll need. Okay? Guess what? If you're trying to get, you know, this, this is how, or some worksheets or day planners that I had, this is some stuff.
You can click the link of my bio and it'll take you to the site to go purchase it. Now you've created a whole business on something that you're already doing, and now you don't have to create anything. Cause a lot of people think they have to think, well, I don't have anything to think about. I don't, you know, I'm working with the men's basketball.
Here at Savannah State, and one of the things that we're working on was there, one of 'em was coming up with a course and he used to play on a a u basketball team. And there are a lot of parents, right? Because you can sell this to the parents. A lot of parents who are starting at ground zero, ground one at point A and like, I don't know where to start, what to do.
And then he could walk those parents and the, and the children step by step. This is what you wanna do. This is your first milestone. And each milestone could be a module. You could package it up, put it on, like think if fig, or you could put it on Or you could put it on a teachable or any of these different portals to where you could take your information, package it up, and then sell it as a course.
And guess what? Now people could just go through it and you're the Chico. People are looking at, you already ended up on the other side. You went through a a u, you're on the sport division one sports basketball team. And now my son's just starting out. What's the pass on how to get there? Guess what?
People will pay you left to right for that information. That's right. You know, and
[00:58:21] Naseema: cause yeah, it is a Chico and so you're, you're short-cutting all the things that they don't have to learn about to get to the goal faster. Like, I love it cuz it's all a reframe and it's just like changing the way that you think, period.
And I think a, this is episode is just golden because there's just so many lessons here. Yeah. But it's really about, just like this whole reframe in general. Number one, we're not paying for school anymore. Not only are we not paying for school, we're making that pay us. We're. Learning budgeting and money management tools in this process.
And we're also generating passive income so that we have the power to have control over our finances. So whatever job you go into is just gonna be secondary. And for me, a person who thinks about retiring early and just making work optional, it gives you a lot of choices. Number one, you show up in your place of employment differently because you don't have to be there.
You wanna be there, that's number one. And so you usually are outperform everybody there. Mm-hmm. . And then number two. , if you wanna step away and work on your passions, you can, because if your living expenses are covered, then you are not worried about money. Right. Right. And so it just, it just fulfills you overall and just, it's just, I feel like it's just a great ROI just for society in general.
Yeah. And now you're, you're working and usually what happens is people in those positions are the ones that are helping people. Mm-hmm. , these are the people that are giving back to the community. These are people that are empowering people to do things, you know, for themselves that have never been in that position to do so, are teaching people things.
And so I love all these skill sets that, that this brings. And this just started as a conversation around how not to go into debt for college. Right. And so, I. Like hope people here are like taking notes and really listening because this is a whole different way of thinking. And I was even thinking like as an example of, you know, just the people that have gone through this or have reframed, you know, how they think about education shit, they can start a whole social media platform around that.
Like, let's think about college, let's think about education a little bit differently. This is what I did , and you know what I'm saying? Like just that selling that information right, right. Is super valuable. And so yes, like it, it's just so many things unlocked here and I'm just like, ah, so grateful. But I do like wanna bring it full circle because you like started with you basically.
going, getting into college, getting a one point something gpa. Mm-hmm. like having to pull yourself up from there, losing scholarships, having to takeout loans, getting a great job, getting laid off and starting from zero. Mm-hmm. , now you're in a position to impact so many others and it's because it's.
Because of all the things that you've had access to, it's in spite of, right? It's the things that y all the failures that could have took you out mm-hmm. that have positioned you to help so many other people. And so I just love what you're doing because Thank you. I've heard about people that help people get scholarships, but this is a whole reframe and how you, you approach life in general.
So if people wanna like work with you, we need to know , but good people I know. They're like, I wanna work with Chris. Cause Yeah, I mean, like you , you're super motivational. Like, you, you come appreciate, keep real and like, and, but you come with so many gems and so many tools that people need. So how can we work with you, Chris?
[01:01:59] Chris: Yes. So the easiest way, just follow me on Instagram, right? Message me. I'm trying to get my followers up anyway, , like, I don't even be pushing it. Those like, people that I come in contact with. You got Instagram, I'll be like, yeah, . So I'm, I'm trying to build that up now. So uh, but yeah, the fin lit guy, so it's t h e, the fin lit guy.
The fin lit guy on Instagram. You can follow me there. And, and then we'll just go from there. Yeah. , the fin lit guy. Yeah. .
[01:02:25] Naseema: Make sure you guys are following the fin lit guy. He drives gems in some. I know, I am excited to see what's next for you. I know you're coming up with some amazing ways that people can work with you and we gotta work together on something too, y'all
[01:02:40] Chris: know.
Yeah, absolutely. Like if you want me to, if you want me to come and speak at your school, at your college, or at your Yes organization, just let me know. I mean, I love, I love to speak it to students, parents, grandparents, like, cuz I know it could be a scary thing when you're thinking about my child, my grandchild, my loved one is getting ready to go to school and I have no idea what to do.
I don't have any money saved up. And like the fafsa, right? , like, we didn't even mention the fafsa, but the FAFSA is the free application for federal student aid. Every year, October 1st, it opens up. So if you haven't done that, go ahead and fill that out. Cause most schools, that's usually the universal application for federal funding and for state grants and scholarships, if they have any.
And then there are other schools, like, you know, some more of the Ivy League schools. They do what a CSS profile or college board that you can fill out so they can find out what information that you have to figure out if they have scholarship monies for you. So just do those two basic things and that that'll definitely help out.
And then message me and message me on Instagram and type. Message me something like free book. That's all I know that you'll hear. Here it is. Yes. And then what I'll do for the first, I don't know however many people I'll cut it off at, but I'll, I'll mail you a copy of my book. If you, you wanna see what it's like, it's a fin lit book.com.
It'll take you to the Amazon link and it'll show you what the book is about, if you're interested, right? . If not, then the scholarship chapter alone. Hopefully get you some results that you're looking for. And that's, that's my goal. My mission is just to help change the narrative and just make sure that we don't need these student loans ever again.
Like nobody.
[01:04:11] Naseema: No, I think that's so dope. And thank you so much for offering the free book to my audience and we'll put a link in there absolutely. So they can DM you to get these free books. But I just wanna say thank you from the bottom of my heart because this information, even me with all my degrees, and if you don't know, I have two master's degrees, like the, the, the,
[01:04:31] Chris: let's go.
We, we not going, we're not just gonna pass by that, right? Cause I know with some sleepless nights and some teary nights, oh my god. You know, and, and all of that. So I know it's a lot of sacrifice. So just doing that is like, but navigating
[01:04:44] Naseema: fi, but, but, but navigating how to pay for school has always been one of those things that's intimidating.
And it's just like when you go to student aid offices, they're not very helpful. . And so this is some really good information and it's very dynamic. It's always gonna change, right? Mm-hmm. , and so like having a resource like you to go to is super valuable. And so, you know, you guys make sure you're following him.
But even for me, like I went to school 20 years ago, I don't know what to do for my daughter. My daughter's a, I'm planning for. But I'm not gonna necessarily know how to navigate the system. Right. Because things are gonna change. And so absolutely this is information that we really, really need, but this is something that we have to stay up to date on.
And so I appreciate you cuz I know I'm gonna need
[01:05:27] Chris: you . Yeah, I got you. I got you. I got you. Whatever you need, I got Yes,
[01:05:32] Naseema: for sure. But anyway, make sure you guys are following the fin lick guy. Make sure you guys check out his. There's gonna be links in the show notes for everything that he mentioned. Overall I just wanted to thank you so much cuz Man, first of all, thanks for having me.
You're just hella easy to talk to. I appreciate it and you still have so much, so much information, but really you have reframed even for me how to look at approaching education. Cool. And just how to and, and how it ties into how we think about how we wanna live our lives. Mm-hmm. . And so I know people have so much to take away from this episode.
So I really, really, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate
[01:06:08] Chris: you being here. Thank you. Appreciate you having me. Absolutely.
[01:06:12] Naseema: all.
Hey there I’m Naseema
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