Minding the Wealth Gap: Cliff Goins on Collective Solutions to Economic Injustice

Join us for a profound discussion with Cliff Goins IV—author, entrepreneur, and wealth strategist—as we examine the real costs and collective solutions to America’s racial wealth gap. With insights from his book, Minding the Wealth Gap, Cliff lays out practical steps for becoming a “gap closer,” no matter your income, background, or beliefs about capitalism. With guest host Lloyd Kuykendoll, the conversation is an honest exploration of history, policy, investment, and community, all rooted in Black economic empowerment.

Transcript

 Thank those of you in the audience for joining us here for this live, edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite, which is a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. And today, we have a very special, conversation with our guest, Cliff Goins, the fourth, who is author of Minding the Wealth Gap Our Playbook to Close It Together. And he is the managing partner of Ash Beach Companies. And I'm excited because I have a good friend of mine, Lloyd Kuykendoll, who is stepping in as a special guest host. And Cliff, I think Lloyd is a good person for you to be paired with because Lloyd is, you see all the books in the background. I do like Lloyd is legit, like one of these brothers who has his own pH. D because he studies, he explores. He's really interested in black history and black culture and all things black literature and thought. And so, before we started hitting the record button, he was really excited by some of the things that you presented in the book. And so, I'm excited to have him here as someone who can facilitate and host this conversation. And so as you all get started, I'm going to turn my camera off, I'm gonna fade to the back, and I'm gonna let Lloyd take it from there. Sounds good. Let's make it happen. I'm ready. Alright, Mr. Goins, I look, I'm, you know, I'm excited and I'm kind of humbled at the same time. One that that, that Doctor Langston would actually have me, talking with you. And so that's a very humbling. And I'm excited because as I was reading your book, there was a lot of different things because that I was conflicted with because I'm a person who's staunchly against capitalism. Right? I mean, I'm against it. And but reading the book, it had so many different practical, things to it that you just kind of be like, okay, this is how we can use capitalism to help the black community. And, you know, sometimes you got to use, what we have to try and, you know, you know, move, move the, move us a little bit further, right? Sure. So. So I thought it had a lot of really good, trinket and tools. In fact, I was just telling Langston before you came on, how I'm going to use your, you know, little for block. Sure. Yeah. And I love the whole thought about taking score. So, you know, I don't want to get into it yet. I do want to ask one thing. Go ahead and introduce yourself. This is about you, sir. This ain't about me, using using what you said in the book. But this is about you. Can you please tell us about yourself and tell us, you know, just a little bit about why why you started writing this book? No, it's definitely about you. It's about you and whoever else reads it and enjoys it. I'm just a I'm just a conduit, but, Yeah, a little bit about me. I'm a native South side of Chicago. went to Florida A&M University. nice HBCU down in Tallahassee, Florida. did my grad school here near Chicago at northwestern. and at the end of the day, I'm kind of a finance ops and strategy guy in terms of my professional expertise. married to a wonderful woman, Janelle here, in Chicago. And we have two teenagers, one on her way to college and, one joining her next year. So, probably not at the same school, but but at least joining her in college. and so, yeah, that's a little bit about me. I currently, as, Langston said, run a company called Ash Beach Companies. We buy lower middle market companies. So essentially we're a, you know, kind of small private equity shop. we just closed on a deal, actually, earlier this week. And so we're trying to, get that business, to kind of the next level. the owners did a great job kind of putting the putting that business together. And now we're kind of partnering with them, trying to take it, take it to another level. So, that's a little bit about me, but, we can go deeper wherever you want to go. Awesome. Well, you know, I did have some questions. I'm just going to kind of let it be a conversation. Is that okay? If it's just a little more conversation, I prefer that. I actually prefer that. Great. Because, you know, there's certain concepts that I think, in the same way as you think. And we said throughout the book that it is a shared responsibility, not just a shared responsibility in the black community, but also a shared responsibility in the white community and all other marginalized community to, mining the wealth gap. And can you tell me, how did you come up with that concept about it being a shared responsibility and not just black people trying to, gatekeep only thing that's for black people. Yeah. So one of the things that's, that I like people to understand is, you know, whatever game you're playing, you actually need to understand the game. And so once you understand the actual playing field, then you can come up with kind of tactics and strategies. And so one of the things that you have to understand about, not just the American economy, but the global economy is that it's actually interrelated. So the idea that you, are going to kind of ring fence resources in one community, it sounds good, but it's actually not practically how the economy works. in fact, a lot of folks who have made money have made money on the backs of the black community. So the idea that, you're just going to ring fence resources in one community, that part of that is just, for me, a bit of a myth. I think the other piece, just very specific to just America as a country, is, at the end of the day, this is a very extreme statement to some people. But, you know, America wouldn't be America without black people. so the idea that now, you know, we're generations, you know, beyond slavery and, you know, x amount of years beyond Jim Crow and all these different things. but the reality is we're still feeling the effects of that, and there are still parts of this nation who are benefiting from those effects. And then there are other parts of this nation who are essentially diminished by those effects. And so the idea that, you know, black people should just solve it themselves. I just fundamentally disagree. And I also know there are people who fundamentally disagree with me about that, but that's fine. Oh, no. No. In fact, in fact, I was going to release a, I was going to release a TikTok video about that last part of your book, this morning where you actually talk about, the responsibility of inheritance. Oh, yes. You know, and I thought that was that was a super powerful concept. And before we go to the responsibility of inheritance, can you tell us what motivated you to write this book? What what was going through your mind? Like what? What made you say, you know what? Let me write this. Let me write this book about mining the wealth gap. What is it about mining the wealth gap that not just the black communities knows, but all other communities need to understand about wealth and why it does need to be. Why doesn't it? Why do we need to care? Why should we care? Sure. So, well, the origin story is, I had a mentor and a friend who's in the publishing space, and she reached out to me kind of late 2022, and she said, hey, I just reread your piece, on LinkedIn. I wrote a piece after George Floyd, just kind of giving my, my take. And she was like, you know, I was really moved by it. And she was like, I think it could be a book. And I was like, well, maybe. but but we started talking and we ended up on this conversation talking about the wealth gap. At that time, I was working at Amazon, and we were working on a business to help close the wealth gap through entrepreneurship and through large scale entrepreneurship. And so it was top of mind for me at that time. And she also had run into a few folks, who are big time. Kind of black. Successful black executives. I won't name them, but she has run into a couple of them, and she was having conversations about things they were trying to do to help close the gap. And so she asked me a question, and she said, well, what would you say to wealthy black folks about closing the wealth gap? And I thought about it for a few moments and I said nothing. And she's like, well, what do you mean? What do you mean? And I said, wealthy black folks cannot close the wealth gap. And so that sent us under sent us kind of down, a path. And at the end of the day, by the by the time we got to the end of the conversation, she was like, well, write me a book proposal. And so that's what that's what kind of led to it. but the reason that wealth is so important, and again, it's not the most important, but it is important is because it actually gives you a marker as to, a lot of different life outcomes, whether that be health outcomes, whether that be education outcomes, whether that be just overall, life enjoyment outcomes. And it doesn't mean you have to be Uber wealthy, but it means that you have to have enough wealth that you can do the work that you were put on the planet to do. that you can enjoy that work. And it doesn't mean that you won't face stress, but it gives you flexibility to manage the stress. And so, that's what I think is very important. Amazing, amazing. you know, like I said, you know, even reading this book and even my stance now is I'm still anti-capitalism. I'm more black Marxist. Tell me about this. I'm very fascinated by that. Tell me what you mean by that. Well, because I, I, I just, you know, I am very much in a, not just African spirituality, but I'm also about African practices or communal practices. I believe in collective and community, and I believe that it is only in the collective community that a person has worth without having wealth. And, and, and I believe that if you don't if we are in, in America, your worth is your wealth. But in community, you know, you're you're belonging to the village is your wealth. And so I believe that capitalism, really chokes that out, chokes individuals out because we oftentimes only think we only give a person worth in this world when we hug. How much if they make money that look like mine, they drive cars that look like mine, if they have jobs that look like mine. And so it's easy to turn your nose up to a person that's homeless because because those reasons. So I think that if we go back to taking care of everybody, then I think the only way we could do that is really you have to take away capitalism, because capitalism, as in the word of Stokely Carmichael, is a backward system. It eats, it eats people, and I just don't think that people should be really taken advantage of. And that's the reason why. But living in a capitalist society, I have a job, I have a retirement, I have a disability, and I, and I, and I have to eat. me preaching communism is not going to put food on the table, right? So, so so I understand that we have to all be part of this capitalist society. but in seeing that, I see that black people as a whole are struggling, like you gracefully pointed out in your book, whether it be health care, whether it be wealth, whether it be, interest in the jobs or even interest in the schools that that were failing. And I love that you brought up Isabel Wilkerson's book caste for the end of the book. You know, you also brought up, case for Reparations by Coates. I thought that was wonderful that you weaved all them in because, reading everybody's story was was great. But, you know, the relevance was really, I tell you, you had some so many good Easter, Easter or, say, Easter eggs at the beginning and so many Easter eggs at the end. And I was just like, okay, I'm trying to tie this stuff in because but, you know, you have to get through everybody's story to get to the end. And then the end is where I felt where I really found the wealth of knowledge of who you are. And so that takes me on to my next concept question is, if we don't if we if we start mining the wealth gap like the principles you put in this book, what do you see the black community in 25 years? And if we don't mind the wealth gap, where do you see the black community in 25 years? Yeah. Well, if we do, we can certainly make some headway. I think ultimately, without some kind of major legislative movement. you know, the math is very, very challenging when we just talk about, quote unquote pulling up from our bootstraps. Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. in fact, I think as much as we can control, we should control. but I also think that there are, things that we would have to influence to really make a dent. So where are we in 25 years if we do? we probably have made some incremental progress. we'd have to really make some, some movement. I think on the legislative side, the the answer to your second question is really easy. We're just way worse off. I mean, ultimately, this gap is something that's continuing to grow and continuing to run away from us, just just mathematically. and so if if we do nothing, we get it gets worse. Right? and so, the idea of doing nothing, that's, that's, to me, not even an option. but, yeah. Yeah. That. Yeah. I don't know if that that was a good enough answer to your question, but but that's, that's really what, that's what we're looking at. I think I think it's great. Go ahead. I'm sorry, I it's interesting, like, sometimes when, I talk about this topic because it is, it's a big, big, big, big problem. a lot of people are scared of tackling big problems, but you know, you tackle big problems by breaking them up into chunks. And so what we tried to do in the book, between the folks that I talked to and, and then obviously my, my philosophy about it is how do we think about different chunks and how people can play small parts where that's their, ability, and then people can play big parts where they have that kind of influence or those kind of resources and that kind of thing. And so, I think that that's what gets to your idea about the collective, about being cooperative. I actually think the two can coexist. I think the issue that most people have with capitalism is, what happens, you know, if I get I'm a Christian by by training, if you, if you will, or by belief. And what happens is people fall in love with the money. And so now it becomes way more about the money than it is about relationships and pulling up other people and all those different things. but I do think the two concepts can, can coexist. I just think that, yeah, you're right. Money can be. It can be its own kind of drug and elixir, if you will. So I so I understand that. Well, well, you just, you kind of helped me caveat into this, and it's one of the concepts that, like I said, it was a book I truly enjoyed because when I shut off myself to a book, I make it my reading daily. And, there was, there was a part. And I just got back from Martinique on the 25th. So when I get when I got back from Martinique, I was like, okay, this is the book. I because I don't want to read it before and I don't want to read it during. So it was like right after I was like, okay, I'm reading this book. And one of the concepts that you just said, this collectivism, and you did not leave people who don't make money out of it. And montegut, that's what I thought was really good. You included everybody into the practice of minding it. It wasn't just the people that have to mind it, or the people with the money, the people with the jobs, the people the experience. But you did say it is their job to create, to create angles for those who are without to come in. And if they create a way for them to come in. And in other words, you got to welcome in those who are without. And once you welcome them in, then they can actually feel like they can actually contribute to that. I guess my my caveat question about bringing them into the conversation is, how do we take this conversation off of, from you and I off of from, billionaires that that will probably read the book off of the Robert Smiths. How do we take this conversation into what Kenneth Clark would call the dark ghetto? Mhm. Yeah. well, one, One is to just have the conversation with people and acknowledge that it's very challenging if you're in a household, for example, that's bringing in $50,000 or less a year. Is very challenging if you're in a household where you have no emergency cash. And if a if an emergency hits, this stuff is going to hit the fan, right? it's very challenging if you're sitting on a bunch of medical debt or credit card debt or pick a debt, right? and so we used to first just start with acknowledging that, that that's just that's just hard. I think the other piece of that that we should acknowledge, and it goes back to just knowing the playing field is most of those households are also what's known as housing burdened, meaning that their housing costs take up most of their money, 50, 60% in some cases. And so when people say they don't have money left over, they're like, they're for real. Like, we know we don't have money left over after we pay rent or whatever it is, right? Maybe you're fortunate enough to have a mortgage, Right? And so we should acknowledge all of those things and understand that all that makes it challenging. And so that sounds super dark, but then I'm like, no, that's fine. So let's acknowledge where we are and then let's talk about what we can do from where we are. You know, absent the outside help that we know has to happen, what can we do from where we are? So one of the things is if you just think about something very simple like investing, like a lot of people are like, well, I don't know where to start. Or the big one is, oh, I don't have enough money to do that. Well, maybe you do. right now, I mean, basically, if you have probably about 25 bucks, you can actually start investing. So the question is, how do we start where we are? if it's if you're telling me it's going to take you five weeks to come up with 25 bucks, okay. I'll wait. But at the end of the five weeks, let's start and then let's build from that. And so I think, I think we can demystify Justify just even the concept of, say, investing. That's just one example. By saying, yeah, if you have 25 bucks, you can invest. if you think about another topic that people probably are more comfortable with real estate. Okay. Yeah, maybe you can't go out and buy a property right now, but could a group of you all do it? Could, you know, you know, if everybody kicks in $1000 or $100 or whatever it is, is there something we can do? and actually that applies to regular investing as well. But I just thought, you know, real estate starts to get, maybe big for people. And it's like, well, maybe you could, right? Yeah. And again, that brings in other issues like relationship management and who's going to be in charge and all those things. How are we going to split it up. But look, none of this is, is is without, risk. And none of it is without having to manage it like wealth doesn't create itself, right? Well, it does once you have it, it can start creating, but you gotta build it. And so that's where I would start. If you talk about some of the marginalized communities, some of our folks. Yeah. There's so many different points of entry in the book that we can have different branches of conversation. of course, the root of the book is about generating wealth and generating happiness. you talked about entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship. You also talked about black owners of businesses because, most people hire people that look like them. So you're saying if we have more black businesses, then we're going to have more black people getting jobs? the story, I forget whose story it was, but they hired, they invested in a young man and a young woman. They sent them to college or universities. I forgot whose story it was, is at the very beginning. But, they they sent them to, they sent one to air school, and then another one was very close to them, and they kept them around. And how it showed how, you know, they had that connection, that communal connection of people from the beginning and maintain them and watch them move up the way, you know, move their way up the company. That was great. Yeah. So that was Mark Wilson's story. Yes, yes. And that's a great story. Loved it. and so it it turns me on to this here. Tyler Perry's new movie snapped. I think it's called. I think it's called, Taraji. She goes crazy. She's living broke. I think I was watching the trailer. She loses her job. She her her child is taken from her. And, you know, I mean, and then at the end, it has a little delusional thing at the end, like the the whole thing. But you see the story, the the cop, the situation with the cops and all this other stuff, all these things are going on. How how do we find a way to find that hit? How do we find that hidden talent? In other words, we have we have people who, you said you said you said in the book, you said, there's some people who might be in jail. I think you had the Jay-Z part, right? You had the Jay-Z part, you know, Franco. you know, I'm a I'm a I'm a something man. I'm. I'm a business man. Yeah. I'm a yeah. I'm a business man. So I gotta mind my business, man. Right. And so my thing is, how do you find those nuggets in the in the black community that we can actually pour into? I've often told people gentrification is bad, but gentrification would be better if we're going to gentrify community, make sure we give jobs to the people in that community to make sure they can stay living in that community so they can benefit from it. And so I guess, can can you help me understand your concepts of, again, that shared thing, but how do you how do we go find these hidden people at the bottom? Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately, you, you kind of have to meet them where they are, right? So one, if you talk about, say, let's start with, say more quote unquote educated population. Well, we still know while, you know, there are obviously a ton of black folks that go to predominantly white institutions for college, but there are a ton of black folks at HBCUs. And so if if some of these corporations really want to level up on the corporate side of things, we we have places you can go to do that. So so we'll start with that. when we talk about the folks in our communities, who are underemployed or under-resourced, I think there are a couple of things to keep in mind. A lot of times, even to to Mark's story. Right, is you have to go meet them where they are. You have to be able to actually provide the opportunity. And then you have to understand that there is going to be a cost, both in time and money around, training, upskilling, education, whatever you want to call it. because the reality is our communities just have been under-resourced in that place. And so you might be 20 years old, you might be 30 years old, you might be in your mid 30s. Is you have experienced some kind of education gap, likely if you've come through, black community. And so that's not a that's not because you're not smart. It's because systematically your institutions are under-resourced. And that's not is not and and not not by accident by the way. And so we just have to understand that that exists. I mean, Mark's thing was he he did a lot of work with, single moms. He understood that they had certain personal needs. And so he was accommodating to that. and then he understood that because they were single moms, they may not have had access or ability to do X or Y or Z. And so he, he put the money in the time into essentially filling that gap. And that's what gave them the ability to then keep leveling up. And so that's that, that, that's that, that is the formula. I mean, it's going to it's it's more involved whether it's again time or money. But I mean we know we know where they live. I mean, you know, black folks are basically still redlined. So we know where black people live. That's easy. We can go we can go find us. That's that's that's the easy part. So, it's just providing that opportunity and then just understanding that there is, you know, some kind of outlay of time and money for, again, training, upskilling, education, however you want to categorize it in the area of upskilling. San Antonio has this wonderful program called S.A Ready to Work. Where here in San Antonio, they poured a lot of money into these. it's either the trade industry, aeronautics, it programming and and and but the thing is, they're, they're trying to upskill people that's under certain poverty line. Right. And they want to upskill them. But what happens is, and even your book talks about the historical barriers, and what happens is you open up a program like this and it's San Antonio. The it's it's by by matrix. It's fairly if you look at the matrix the I'm sorry by matrix. The matrix, it's failing because they wanted them to have so many other people upscaled. But what society doesn't understand is you can have this, but I can't have a person go through a program when they're trying to find out how they're going to eat tomorrow. I can't have a person going through a program and that that's going to take their time. But while they're in the program, they don't have money to survive. So I think it's a it's a system that eats itself. So how can we I know like right now we put in for a grant, and in our grant we actually wrote in where we want to get stipend so a person can have a part time job while they're going through these different upskilling. And we can subsidize, you know, their, you know, every week we'll give them a subsidy as in the program. So it kind of helps them out. I think that would be a way to do it. But, about these historical barriers, how do we. And the writing's on the wall. We talked about it. We we told corporate America. We told a lot of people. And of course they're going to say, well, it's not our job, it's not our inheritance. But back to that question there. How do we get them to understand that you have a responsibility of inheritance, that, that that is just it's it's in black and white. You inherited privilege. Yeah. How do how do we put that in the conversation? Yeah. I think that there's a couple of questions there. I'll tackle this idea of essentially what you're describing is the fact that you have to look at these problems more holistically. there are actually two examples in the book of this, right? One of them is By the Hand Club, for kids, which is a nonprofit here in Chicago. another is a nonprofit called Chicago Cred. by the Hand Club works with, younger kids. Really trying to help them, stay engaged in school. Okay. And to get essentially all A's, B's and C's, that's kind of their their outcome metric. what they learned as they were trying to solve that problem is we can't just solve it by having a after school program. We have to provide transportation to and from. We can't just provide transportation, transportation to and from. We actually have to feed the kids. We can't just feed the kids. We actually need to offer them a little bit of health care. So they do dental and health care. We can't just do this. We also need to provide enrichment programs. in addition to the academic. And so they went through this whole kind of battery, and they realized it was kind of six things they had to solve for if they really wanted to solve for the grade problem. And Chicago Cred did a similar thing. You guys can read about it in the book. But the point is, if you don't go at it holistically, you are right. Your metrics will be off. You know, one of my favorite parts of the book is really at the beginning. Any, and why I say it's one of my favorite is because I think most people need to really understand that. And it was the ten myths about Closing the Wealth gap. Yes. I definitely can't take credit for that. That's actually William Doherty and and his team's work. but it was so powerful to me, that I gave a summary of it. I mean, they have about a 60 page paper on it, but. Yeah. Go ahead. No, it's wonderful, sir. It's wonderful. It's a chef's kiss. Because, if you've ever been on a social media room like TikTok and things like that, they have these debate spaces and everybody seems to have an answer for things that they don't know nothing about. Everybody has an answer for reparations, how it should be paid, and everybody has an answer for how the black community can do better. But they don't read. And so they'll read your book here. And they talked about the ten myths about closing it. And they talk about, well, we gotta buy black and bank black. Well, that's a myth. And so all these different things that are myths. And so, I guess going into that question and about that is, and I'm glad that you pointed out who you're giving credit to. I tell you, I love it when people give credit to, you know, other people that say, hey, this is where I got it from, I love that. how how do how do we, not not make the myths into not a myth? Because I think at the end you sums it up. You say there's there's a lot of ways to skin the cat and and and maybe it's going to be all of these things. And you just said it yourself. There's a holistic approach that must that must be solved. And what as a as a, as a gap closer or should I say. Yeah. As a gap closer. How do you one how do you one become a a gap closer. In other words how do I become a gap closer. How does everyone in the chat become a gap closer? Anyone that watches become a gap closer. And two how do we help others become gap closer as we become gap closer ourselves? Sure. So how do we become gap closers? Quite simply, get a little more educated on the problem. Figure out where you have passion around the solution and just plug in there. So nobody is asking you to do everything, but there are things that you're passionate about and that you're good at. You need to find that intersection and then you can go in it. So some of my friends are all in on real estate and that's all they want to do. And I'm like, go for it. And some of my friends are like, nope, it's all about startups. Okay, go for it. Right. And some of my friends, which is like me, like I'm more about kind of entrepreneurship with, like, you know, established companies. Okay. Well, go for it. And, you know, some of them people are all about education. So if it's all about education, that's where you find your passion. Hey, go make it happen. And so my point is at least pick something and you can pick 2 or 3. But at least pick one. and and and get after it. And you know, how do we get other folks involved? I mean, we have to talk with each of us. Probably almost all of us have at least one person we know who is both influential and actually cares about us. And so it's starting with that. Like, for me, I have several mentors who are not black folks who are really well off, who care about me, who I've had some really good deep conversations about this topic that, quite frankly, they didn't know much about and didn't have to. And that's gotten them engaged in a completely different way than they probably ever would have been. And so we have that responsibility with some of the relationships that we have to help drive the conversation forward. yeah. Buy my book for somebody. There you go. Somebody influential. You know what I mean? That was a shameless, shameless plug. No. Go ahead. Yeah. Toward the end. Toward the end of the book, you have a chapter or you have a segment called Unleashing your superpowers. Yeah. Cliff, what are your superpowers? My superpower is taking very complex topics and trying to make it simple and practical. And I'm hoping that's what came across in the book. I, I can see a lot of different pieces and parts, and then I can tie it together in a way that makes sense. And whether that's on the business front, on the volunteering front, on the writing front, that's that's my superpower. And that's what I love to do. yeah. When I'm in, you know, working in these businesses, I want to see every single piece and part, and then I want to be able to see a way to tie it all together that maybe other people didn't see. So that's that's that's my superpower. Amazing, amazing. you you have really you have really gave us some, some some Easter eggs or some Easter eggs. Yes. and I'll tell you, I, I would recommend this book to pretty much anyone who is, who's thinking about, who's thinking about, mining the wealth gap? And I guess my last question, and, and this is just maybe it maybe it's just it's just my own personal question. My own private question is, who came up with the starter kit of the long game? The, the quick wins, steps forward, and, of course, the little things. And then how do you how do you keep score? Sure. so that was that was my invention. call it the curse of having gone to one of those fancy business schools we like little two by two matrix matrix matrices. And so I was trying to figure out how can I, capture this in a way that's a little simpler? I think it ended up being a little simpler. Probably if I had more time, I probably would simplify it even further. But it was a way of trying to think about what could be most impactful, and think about the time frame it might take to implement and again allow you to kind of plug in wherever you want to be. If you want to work on something that's going to take 20 years, go ahead and do that. If you don't have the patience for that and you want to work on something that's going to take 12 months, work on that too. And so it's the idea of trying to, capture these different plays in that way. but yeah, so that was that was my construct. your second question was what? Oh, yeah, Keeping score. That was the question. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I thought that was amazing. Talking about keeping score. The reason why I thought keeping score was important is because, I don't think people go through life keeping score. And if you don't keep score, you don't know that you're winning more than you're losing. That's right. Keeping score is something that when you find a passion and you start marking off things and keeping score. I think keeping score opens you up to a a better, optimistic view of things and a pessimistic view of things. So I don't want to thank you for putting that in my life, that keeping score in this matrix, but keeping score, I thought, was something that that's just something I put in my pocket. I'd be like, wow. And I'm gonna start keeping score because because of this book. Because. And that was something I never thought about. I've had a lot of conversations about the wealth gap. I've had a lot of, you know, different conversations I'm part of in Cobra. So I listen to the different things about reparations and everything else. as you can see, I read a lot. But, my biggest thing is that I got out here is keeping score in my life. Because if you don't keep score, you're always in this fight thinking you're losing. And. And now that I can start writing down the wins, the little wins, the this win, this win, I can see I'm actually coming closer and closer to where I want to be. So I want to thank you for that especially. Yeah. So how do we keep score? Sure. I think at the end of the day. So we've talked a lot about wealth. So one, we have to understand what the measure of wealth is. And it's basically the difference between what you own and what you owe. And that difference is wealth okay. And so the the main thing that we're keeping score on is how are we actually increasing that difference between what we own and what we owe? Underneath all of that is a lot of the stuff that we talked about, talk about, talked about, it's about, you know, have we created X amount of jobs, right? Have we created an opportunity for somebody to go from, you know, earning $40,000 to earning $50,000, or from earning $50,000 to earning $75,000. And so there's are things we can then start to really measure. Have we you know, in the case of like by the hand, have we actually increased the, graduation rate of our eighth graders? You know, you just, you know, whatever that metric is that you're trying to push, those are the things you want to keep score of. in the case of quote unquote, the wealth gap, though, I all those metrics underneath need to be pushing to increase your own versus O ratio. And so that's how I think about keeping score. So we're going to get a part two. it's possible. It's possible. yeah. It's possible. It's a possibility. Thank you. So as someone who read the book and someone who's like an avid reader from your perspective, talk about some of the things that stood out to you that folks can apply in their lives from the perspective of the reader, not the author. What I plan on doing is, I work as a career counselor, for, for veterans, who are getting out the military, transitioning into civilian life. And I'm gonna sit down with my team and I'm gonna break down this matrix. Well, as a as a historian, I think it as, as a as a person who looks at things from a historical lens using Sankofa, going back to go forward, I would say the historical things like, something that you even forget about that I know I forgot about till I read the book, was how our government took taxes and subsidized Germany and Italy. You know what I'm saying? That that. And so when people have that argument of are taxes going to do that? Having that argument. So for me, I think the historical parts to to make sure you always go back to the history and put it in there. So as a reader of the book, as a reader, I would think that it just it makes you a more well rounded when you talk about, well, that's the best thing. That's the best thing it does. It makes you more well-rounded. It keeps you in it. Not only does it keep you in the past, but it keeps you in the now. It's a very present book for today, and I believe that black households need to read it today. If you're in any of these different fields, it's something that you need to read today because it's practical, it's very practical, it's usable information, and it's information that we need to make sure that we never forget. like I said, I'm doing a thing right now. I said, we'll we remember everything. There's some things in here that we have to remember. Because when you go to put when you go to, when you go to tax on and give them the bill, you got to show them that you have the historical knowledge to give them something, say, this is it, and this is what happened because of it. So for me, as a historian, I look at every book I read is historical and from a lens of being black and being communal. So, that's that's my takeaway. I hope I answered your question, Langston. Yeah. You did. Lord, thank you for stepping in as guest host today. And so I'm going to tell the people in the audience, so if you all have questions, you can type them in the chat now and then. I actually have a few questions for Cliff before we get to the questions in the chat. And, and as you all were talking and it's, it's more than a question I prepped before, before we started recording because you mentioned you mentioned a few things. You mentioned policy and you mentioned William Darity. And it's interesting, a few, like I had Darity and Mullen on the podcast twice. Oh, nice. And it was like, I mean, I their, their, their book From here to equality was probably it's probably it's in my top 10% of books that I've read and I read a few books in my life. So, you mentioned Darity, so I'm thinking about the whole reparations thing, and you mentioned policy, and I'm thinking about Andrew Yang and, universal basic income. And so I would like to get your thoughts on reparations and universal basic income. Do you see them as as legitimate mechanisms for mining the wealth gap and like are they are they that different? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's actually when you were talking that's that's kind of where I was going to go with it. one I guess reparations as a term is, is a bit of a lightning rod topic. But the reality is, we we need them in some form, shape, right? Form or shape. what I think is if we really want to push policy forward, whether we call it reparations or not, it has to be something that is beneficial, seen as beneficial, and is beneficial to lifting up kind of the whole nation. so universal basic income could be a concept like that. Certainly, some kind of income or wealth based, you know, say investment program to create more entrepreneurs, right? It would not only benefit black folks, it would basically benefit anybody kind of below a certain wealth or income level. you could apply the same type of concept to something around real estate and home ownership. but I think in order to actually do that, the idea that we're going to get Congress and then the Senate to vote on just cutting a check, I mean, certainly it would be simple to do that. And we can definitely do the math and figure out what it is. And all the people who are worried about somebody accidentally get getting paid. I'm like, well, even if that did happen, it still wouldn't. I mean, come on. but I don't know that we have the political will as a country to do that, but do we have the political will to lift up, say, fellow Americans who are not, doing as well Economically, I actually think we probably do, you know, in this current environment, maybe not, but, you know, in the next regime, maybe. So, that's how I think about it. So I do think they are probably more similar than they are separate. in my you know, that's my opinion. Alright. And I don't see any, questions in the chat. So I'm going to ask my final question. And it is always when we have an author on if there was another chapter or another section, another concept of the book, that you would have added that maybe you thought about afterwards, or maybe the publisher didn't give you enough space. Like what? What would that be? Or what would that be about? Sure. yeah. Wouldn't necessarily, I guess because the publisher didn't give me space. But as, the book has kind of been out there and some people have read it, some people have read pieces of it or, have intentions to read it. One of the things that continuously comes up is, how do I close my personal wealth gap. And so I probably would have had some kind of chapter, around that. I think it's a little bit more kind of personal finance, which, you know, which definitely has its place here as well. And so, that probably would be the topic. I would, I would tackle in short form, short form form, give people, a little bit of a, of a, you know, a little bit of flavor around how do I close my personal wealth gap? I could see that. I can see that right after you tell what your superpower is. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah. Bonus chapter. I guess I gotta get to writing. Yeah, yeah. so, Lloyd, thank you so much for joining us as guest host. Do me a favor. Hold the book up. If you got it right there in front of you. I think you do. So people in the audience can see it. Cliff, thank you for coming. Yeah, I got it, too. Let's go, baby, let's go. Hey, Cliff, before we log off real quick, tell us where folks can find out more information about the book. Do you have a preferred website that folks go to to purchase the book? anything like that? Yeah, yeah. So you can find me at Cliff Goins Live.com. but quite frankly, if you buy the book on Amazon, we're we're we're we're all good. So, but yeah, my personal website, Cliff goins Live.com. ig is I'm, I am Cliff Goins the fourth that's my IG handle. and then yeah, anybody can find me on LinkedIn. It's also Cliff Goins the fourth. So happy to engage. All right. Hey if you have a book club hey this sounds like this is a good book club. book. So get a group of them. Right. All right everybody, cliff, thank you for joining us. Lloyd. I appreciate your time. And, you all have a good weekend. Oh, happy Father's Day to you, brother. Yes. Happy father's day. Thanks so much for having me, man, I appreciate you. I'm gonna I'm gonna find him on on LinkedIn right now and start following. Come on in.