Gladys Knight is 82 and still touring - when should you quit working?

0:00My love, you know. Welcome to Fly Newbie and Money, where we help you master your mindset and maximize your money. So today we're talking about Gladys Knight. She has been performing for more than 75 years. Can y'all believe that? I don't think anybody on this panel does 75 years ago, okay? And at 82 years old, she's still taking the stage, y'all. She has actually been, began performing when she was four years old, okay? And she started out as doing gospel music. So now there's nothing wrong with continuing to work and loving what you do. But there's a big difference between working because you want to and working because you have to, okay? And for a lot of Americans, that choice is a guarantee. According to the 2026 retirement confidence survey, only 60% of workers are confident that they'll have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement. That's down 6% of the point. And y'all know what this economy,

1:00I just got the $4.19 gap. Look at that. So it's probably, that number is probably going to go up. So today we're asking, are you setting yourself up to one day, make work an optional thing, okay? Cause the goal shouldn't be to spend your time by being a workhorse just to keep the bills paid. Financial freedom should mean reaching a point where you can slow down and enjoy what you build. And if you continue working, it's because you choose to, not because you need that block, okay? That check. So you guys don't get the text queens to 8, 7, 9, 4, 8 and join the conversation. Introducing our panel, we're going to start with Miss Noma Langa coming live from the Mugland, entrepreneur, business, woman, author, community activist, cash for our girls.com. Noma Langa, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thank you for asking. Excellent. Excellent. Next we have Realtor extraordinaire, okay? Miss Dominique Morgan, how are you today Dominique?

2:04I am doing well. Excellent. I heard it. She got the baby hair that bust down is laid. Okay. The bust down is bust. Beautiful. You're all right now. You see how long it lasts though? That's gonna be insane. Girl, take that top from her. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. And last but not least, Miss Minister, Connie Spearman, author, real estate agent extraordinaire and entrepreneur. How are you doing, Miss Connie? I am passing Holly Faeber. Thank you. Okay, it's given old school throwback Sally Jesse Rafael with the old school red. I can't tell if I'm revealing my age. Okay. And last, I guess I got to introduce myself as I've introduced everybody else. I am Dr. Charm. I am Santa Comedian, actor, dancer singer, real estate agent, life insurance agent, and doctor. So, and then if you wanna get your palm red,

3:05well, you know what, I don't wanna do palms yet. We wanna get a tarot card reading, coffee for that soon. So I'm glad to have everybody here. We got, and don't forget our last whole, our whole other co-hosts, the most important co-hosts of them all is the chat, okay? Everybody in the chat, check it in with draw. So just, you know, to get started like, first of all, or anybody in the house with Gladys Nightfan, chat, if you're a Gladys Nightfan, put one in the chat if you're Gladys Nightfan. And ladies, just give me your thoughts in general on Gladys Night, the icon to let you start it with no more. Yeah, so yeah, this is gonna be us aging ourselves. She was more of my parents' time, but we did grow up when we had, you know, those records that were around, and you had the record player. My parents had all of those records from her music, and people from around that time,

4:06I was a little girl. Okay, so you were able to go and pull out the dusties from the shelf, you was going to put the dusties. All right, Dominique, what's, how do you feel? How do you feel about Ms. Gladys? So I love me some Ms. Gladys, and she's also from my parents, you know, generation, but we grew up on, you know, listening to her. And I actually seen the video, and it just, it is heartbreaking, especially being a healthcare professional. There's certain things you can see without people saying anything to you, you know what's going on. So it was heartbreaking. And just, just describe the video a little bit, because we aren't able to play it for copyright reasons. So for people who haven't seen, describe it just a little bit in depth. So she's just on stage singing, and she appears to forget her words. She's needing assistance and guidance from her background singers. The background singers have to take over the song. She's seen this convobulated on stage, and it's just disheartening to see.

5:07Okay, and so you said, you said as a healthcare, and what's your healthcare background again, Dominique? I'm a registered nurse. Okay, so as a registered nurse, as a fan of Blasnayn growing up, listening to Blasnayn, how does all this make you feel? How do you filter all this? It just makes me feel sad in general. And the reason being is this, she's just a public figure. You see this happening also often. And it could be a multitude of things. They may not, I know they were leaning towards abuse or making her work, but sometimes they just want to do it themselves and nobody takes control. And they kind of let their loved ones just do what they want to do, even if this is at the detriment. And then sometimes it is abuse. You know, so it just makes me sad overall because we see this so much. And we don't have things in order. It could be a financial thing. There could be a lot of reasons why she's still working. That she's still working. Yes, thank you so much. It's been from another healthcare professional. Deborah Wilwin said, movement is medicine. Deborah said, not the term does it all. Deborah is coming through with the commentary.

6:08Deborah said, what else did Deborah said? Deborah said something about Gladys. Oh, like she's having sundown moments for people who are not in the medical profession. Sundown moments are basically when people are starting in with dementia at about sundown about that time, 4 p.m. and after until it's nightfall. It will, it's for some reason, the people who are having dementia, they will start to be confused. They may get agitated, irritable, angry during that moment. And it's usually that certain time of day. So men is the kind. Awesome, real tough. We got three real stories. Oh, you're the big one. Real story. Entrepreneur extraordinaire. What, first of all, are you a Gladys knife fan? Oh, certainly. I didn't been to one of her concerts. And I did see that video. And yeah, it seemed like she kind of

7:09forgot for a moment and was like, she was like in practice and she talked to them. But her stance was still small and her voice is still small. So yeah, it was fun. The era of my mother and then even I, all her songs is timeless. So it's, you know, it is what happens that, you know, we do get older. She's just told she lives, but her voice is still very strong. I agree with you. I don't know if any of you guys have seen her live lately, but I happened to was able to go to the Queen's concert last year with Shockacon Stephanie Mill, Paddle LeBelle and Gladys. Yeah, Shockacon Stephanie Mill, Paddle LeBelle Gladys, yeah. Because I wanted to see these legends before they passed away. I had seen Shockacon before, but I had never seen Gladys. Of course, I'd never seen Paddy. Of course, Paddy picked up from shoes.

8:11But I did notice that Gladys needed a little bit help. But as Minister Connie said, her voice was strongest ever. She was keeping up. Now, when I saw her, the background singers did kind of fill in a little bit to help out. And I could, it was obvious, but Gladys was holding her own. She was, you know, she remembered all her parts, all her lines. So I thought that she was okay, but just a little bit, you know, faltering a little bit. But to hear about this video from what I'm saying, hearing is that she was just in the state of confusion. You know, it's unfortunate that she's having these moments. And then I'm also a little confused because now one announcement, they said after that video came out, if I'm not mistaken, if they didn't retract it, they were saying that she was gonna cut down on her performances now. I guess, you know, after that video had come out. But then I also saw things where, because the husband, she married to a man that's about 20 years younger than her, and then she got the son. Now, the son, I don't know if anybody ever visited Gladys,

9:14nice chicken and wildlife, I never did get the visit it, but it was here in Atlanta. And she had that restaurant with her son and her son did all kind of shenanigans allegedly to where that restaurant closed down. And they said it was very popular. I think they had more than one location. So it closed down here. So the son and the husband had been fighting over control of what, you know, with her. And the husband came, I said, I'm in charge of everything. So you got a family dynamic, you got a possible healthcare, health dynamic. And it's unfortunate, because I'm a big Gladys Knight fan, and I have sang her songs and stuff, as if my voice is similar to hers, while I could sing in her pitch and everything. So it's unfortunate, you know, with that. Now, with the fact that it says, cause so much family mess going on. Just real quick, before we get into the financial stuff, what did y'all think about, as far as have y'all had any experience with a family member with dementia or Alzheimer's? And I don't know what, if Miss Gladys has a diagnosis, but we can just, we can confidently say

10:17that there's something going on with, you know, allegedly with memory just based on her behavior on stage. So anybody have any dealt with any relatives with all time as dementia or memory issues? So my husband's grandfather, he had dementia, probably I think he lived with it for maybe five or six years, but the longer he had it, the worse it got, repeating things, and Knight, he was going home every other minute, he was packing his toilet shirt bag, and he was going home even though he was home, forgetting everything, forgetting what he just said, and you'll be sitting at the table and he said the same thing 20 times, you know, so yes, I dealt with that. Wow, that has got to have been tough on your husband and all of you as a family. Noma or Minister Connie, have either you all dealt with any type of memory issues in the family dementia or Alzheimer's? Not within my family, but in the health field also,

11:19I had a medical and a non-medical staffing firm which I'm here today. I see a lot of our clients and actually, what I did, I became a practitioner for that to train on that in, yeah, she's starting to get some stages of forgiveness, but 82, who's going to remember everything anyway? Yeah, 82, at our ages, we don't remember everything, so I think that just because you have a moment of forgiveness does not mean you're going to get, you're going to go into dementia, just forgiveness because of age sometimes. Age related. My, my spiritual mom passed away a couple months ago, she was 88, her mind was short, but there was a mommy, she'll be like, oh, let me think for a minute, I just forget my thought, and then she would come right back home, but she was dead on her body was deteriorated,

12:23but her mind was short, and I pray over my mind, I'm like, I got, you know, I got a strong mind, I say all the time because we really have to know that our minds is going to get older as we get older, it's going to, you know, it's going to get some, but it doesn't have to, if you try to, you know, keep whatever you need to do, cognitive wise, to keep it short. And see, which brings me to the point when you say do what it is cognitively, the state sharp, what a lot of people don't realize is that music helps people stay cognitively sharp, dancing, music, and also they use music and memory care. I worked for quite a few years, and that was one of the things we had, so people, honey, there are people who cannot remember their first name anymore, okay? Who are their own children that they gave birth to in labor hours and hours, but they play a song from when they were between, they were between 18 and 20 years old,

13:24they will remember that song you can sing it where for work. So in my opinion, when I saw everything initially going on with the husband and the son fighting the son, saying y'all are using my mama, because y'all got her torn, and I'm like, her doing music is the best thing for her in my opinion, as a clinician, having work with, you know, the whole thing with people with memory issues, the music is actually probably gonna keep her going and having a purpose to get up and go to work. So my opinion, and I don't think it's changed too much, I haven't seen the full video with her being, you know, disoriented, but I kind of agree with, if they're sticking to that about maybe reducing the concert schedule. Completed that tour with Shaka Khan and them, so maybe reducing the schedule, but I don't think she should stop, because I think that's keeping her a purpose, and you hear all the time about people that they retired, and they drive me in. Yeah. You know, so because they don't have a purpose, they just sitting around the house with nothing to do. So I got a different opinion of that,

14:25but what also would bring us to, let's discuss some of this financial side, but I did want to mention just on the piggybacking on the Alzheimer's side, black women, y'all know I'm a doctor, y'all know I got a shot, I said don't care statistics. Black women are the highest group at risk for dementia and Alzheimer's related illnesses. And then it's 35% less likely to be diagnosed on time. So I don't know why black women are the highest group of all the races, but we got to be careful about that. And I didn't have a family member that we had to take care of with all timers. My aunt Katie, resident P. Saint Katie, and Katie was one of the first female just jockeys in the city of Houston on, because she was on K-Y-OK. And she was a promoter. She brought James Brown and everybody else to town. So we used to take us to the radio station where she would do her gospel show on Sunday. So it hit home and it affected my grades, helping to take care of somebody with all timers in the family. So it is about getting the diagnosed early

15:27because there is treatment and they're developing more treatments every day. That's this public service got to shot that out. But speaking of, we talked about retiring and some people not taking well to it and dropping dead. So which is what relays the question, do y'all want to work for the rest of your natural life? No more. I see some facial expressions going on over there. No more, can you ask it as far as no one do you want to work for the rest of your life? What is your answer? So I'm not retired when I was only 34. I was a tenure track college professor and I retired. So I'm not retired at 34. But of course, retirement at such a young age isn't entirely retirement. I'm trying to focus on your own self, on your own, the income streams that you build yourself rather than working for somebody else. And I have loved that. And I will always do that, I think until I drop dead.

16:27But if we're talking about touring and traveling and things that are strenuous, it's a big no to me. I mean, if you love singing, you can find ways to have that strain on yourself. I'll give a quick story when I was just in that transition phase because I had started to build my income streams. And I wanted to stop working, quote unquote, working outside of the home. I was getting a lot of mentorship from Dr. Boyce. And I was like, you know, I really had a dream to be an international speaker. And he was like, yeah, you could still do that. This is the age of, this is the digital age. You could reach more people online than getting on a plane and going to an event. And at the time, I was a member of National Speakers organization. I was still trying to get gigs. I was getting invited on radio shows, getting bad talking phases. But I had two small children at the same time.

17:28And I really wanted to be home and do the best that I could in the home. And he was like, look, there's so many ways that you can still do what you do. And here it is. How many years has it been a decade and a half later? I'm on a show. And I'm always getting invited on shows and things. So you don't have to do it in a way that puts stress on you. That's really all I'm saying. But you can still continue to do what you love. I'm an expressive. I always have been. I used to write like crazy. I speak wherever. But it doesn't require me getting on a plane every single day or every single week and putting a strain on myself and my family and being away from my children. So that's how I feel about that. OK, so as somebody retired in a very young age, OK, it's very interesting to hear that perspective. Dominique, do you believe in working for the rest of your life? I'm going to have to agree with Nolmolanga. I don't believe in doing anything strenuous while I work and do things.

18:29Yes, as you all know, I want my farm. So I'm going to have that farm like I'm going to have a garden. I'm going to be able to make money off the land. And then the other things I do. So in terms of real estate, I will probably always work, but I agree. I don't want to do anything strenuous. And so I am preparing myself to be able to work but do the things that I enjoy that are not in a cause wear and tear on my body. And then I just want to double back when you were talking about Alzheimer's and women. A lot of times, a lot of studies show that like a sleep is to be too dementia. And as you know, as black women, we do a lot of things. We get very minimal sleep. And that contributes to, you know, that is stress level. Mm-hmm. And high stress. High stress. Yes, that's what I just said. Stress level. Yep. So that, thank you for that. And we are, and that maybe really the key because high stress will cause you to lose sleep or get, or get, or get, per-quality sleep.

19:31So, yeah. Minister Connie, do you believe in working for the rest of your natural life? I believe in being creative the rest of my life. Hey. Hey. So, the thing is, is that I retire from this business a couple times and I came back because two reasons. I needed to be here because when you're not here, people just do what they want to do. The second reason is that I wanted to still be involved. I was so routine. I'm so routine of just being here. But the thing is, is that I just opened up a suboxys clinic three weeks ago. This lady doesn't stop. Do she stop? Yeah. Because I don't believe in retirement. Retirement is not in the Bible, OK? So Caleb, Caleb, he took the mountain at 90. So therefore, you know what?

20:31Now, I'm going to be strong in the Lord and the power of his might as long as I can and be sharp up here as long as I can. So I want to exercise everything that Lord has given me, being creative, making money, helping my family, just loving on people. So that's what I want to do until the day he called me up. I know that's right. I mean, when Sarah Papantura and I did at 120 or something like that, she was 100. So, hey, I love it. It's a boxing clinic. She got the medical facility just doing it all. I don't believe in working for the rest of your life, but I believe in having a purpose for the rest of your life. Because I've known several people that have retired. Like our band director at our high school, they had a big old, because I think he had been a band director for like 40 years or something. They had a big old retirement thing for him. And that man was dead in two years, and he was a good person. And so having to have a purpose, I think,

21:31is important whether you start to do a garden, or you go in travel, or you go see the grant, is to take care of, but having some type of purpose, it is important. But I worked with one of my mentors and pediatrics. Dr. Lamb, that lady is 70-70 years old. She still sees patients. Because you know what she says? She always says, her colleagues retire, and they go down here. So she's still tired as long as she, I think she's going, we kind of got a running joke. Does she like a running thing that she might die at the office? And her, and I asked her office manager, I said, Martina, what's going to happen if Doc passes away at the job? And she goes, she's already told me, I know where all the paperwork is, everything. But away. So it's a real deal, holy feel. It's a real deal, holy feel. So, but I think ladies, we are all on the same accord about, do you want to work for the rest of your life? And I think that's a resounding no for everybody,

22:32not hard work, not bank breaking work. Let's see. So we spend a lot of time talking about how to make more money. Hey, double A-A-82, all right, girl. We spend a lot of time talking about how to make money. Do we spend enough time talking about what we're supposed to do with money while we're making it, like being wise with how we spend our money? No, let's hear from you on that. The question is, are we spending enough time on how we spend our money? On what we're doing, yes, what we're doing with our money. We're talking about how to make money. But do we spend enough time about what we're doing with that garden when we get that garden? Well, yeah, of course. I think most of our platforms, when we talk a lot about finances, is talking about how to make money. One of the things that came to my mind right at the beginning

23:34was when we were talking about glass night, is about the fact that she's 82 and still working. And the first thing that came to my mind is passive income. I think a lot of us, yes, we want to make money. But the older you get, I think you want it to be passive income, right? That's the whole point why they have records. So they don't have to always be on stage singing. You can sell records and still get money without doing anything. That's why we write books. That's why we have online programs, shows, all of these things is to kind of create these passive income streams. So I think that's the goal is yeah, to continue to make money. But somehow you should have some kind of system or a framework that's going to also make the income passive income so that you're not always forced to work. And of course, the other thing is you always have to, I say this about women, which people think is unusual. I think one of the best investors are women. Rather, women are much better investors than men.

24:36If you pay attention, when women are in the element, they do a better job of investing if they have the information about how to do it, because we have the consistency. So if you know, if you educate yourself about investments, it doesn't have to be a huge thing. It can just be something where I love having investment clubs, always learning about new investment deals, all kinds of things, real estate. Again, it doesn't have to be anything big. It can be something small. So again, this still all goes towards passive income. And at the end of the day, you should have enough money, but you should also have enough time. And if you don't have passive income, you're always going to be a slave to making money. Yeah, I think that's a really sound answer. And as a newly licensed life insurance agent and working with annuities and living planning, there are just so many people that don't have anything set aside passive. Not even just passive income, having multiple-spinning income

25:38or having some retirement plan planned. We talked about it at the top of the show that 61% of folks don't have retirement planning. And I was with a gentleman yesterday. And I'm like, you don't have anything to bury, not even just to bury yourself with. You got a kid, like a daughter. So you're going to put that burden on your child and maybe have a go-fun, or a fish fry that even bury yourself. Not to mention, you got a grandchild, you want to leave a scholarship or something behind. And he actually said, I'm not going to be worried about that. I'm going to be dead. So we got to change our attitude about these kind of things. Because I work with communities that, one of the communities of Eastern European, maybe they all get policies on one another. Everybody chip in, get a million dollars. And then when that person dies, then they split that money. So just having legacy plan, passive income, as NOMO talked about, just having things to decide.

26:38I think one of the things with the psychology of black American people, unfortunately, because we have been forced to be in a more of a now attitude, like we think more about now than the future, unfortunately. So we got to definitely change that. I want to ask the next question. Let me ask the chat. Chat, have y'all thought about this? If your income completely stopped when you stopped working, have you built wealth, or do you simply have a good paying job? So put a dollar sign in the chat, if you have built wealth or have started to build wealth. So let me ask this question, Ms. Dominie, do you think that somebody can make six figures and still be setting themselves up to work forever? Yeah, if you don't spend it wisely, if you just live in your best life,

27:39literally, the year you can have six figures and make six figures year at the year and still end up broke and struggling. People are broken struggling with six figures and they haven't even retired yet. Well, absolutely you can if you do not, because I believe that you can play hard, but you also got a plan hard. You got a plan right as well. And you got to make sure that if you're playing hard, you're planning for plan. You know, you're planning for your future. You have buckets of things that money should go into so that you're smart. You don't wanna be struggling financially. And also, you need to have multiple strings of income because these jobs will let you go. There's no guarantee that you can have a job for 30 years and you're banking on this job to sustain your lifestyle and to make sure that you're good. And they come in tomorrow and they decide, they go down size and I give you no warning and they let you go. So we have to think about multiple strings of income because you cannot bank on these jobs. This is not like back in the day where you go on a job for 30 years, you stay there,

28:39you get a pension and you're good. That's not how it's set up now. No offense and I agree that for you know, I was one of the 400,000 black women that lost their job. I, our whole team got laid off last year and that pivoted me. I've been wanting to do something more entrepreneur. I've always had side businesses, but it was a big leap of faith to become a full-time entrepreneur with real estate and now life insurance. And Jeva, we're with us that she's creating 12 streams of income. What are the things that we have in the chat that somebody said people making six figures and still living paycheck to paycheck? Babe, okay, no, no, put our own coming in. Everybody, this is America, honey. Everybody, more than half the country's living paycheck to paycheck. But I think having those multiple streams, because I've gotten laid off from jobs before but I always had extra gig with something coming in, extra two or three gigs. I'm also a university professor. I don't think y'all know that either. I teach at a school in DC. So, you gotta have multiple streams,

29:39whether it is active or passive and because it's a protection. And then Dominique mentioned about back in, you know, you would gone other days but everybody got that 30 years, been on the job 30 years and they get that tension. Look what Trump did to the Frickin Federal employees. That is mostly black people. A lot of those black women and men that lost their jobs were federal employees and he did it deliberately with that big, beautiful bill. And we're gonna do the doge and we're gonna cut costs and so all y'all did was put people in the brand line. So, I hope that God that people had other things coming in because the way this economy is set up, it's not conducive to people living and being able to buy a home on one income. I mean, people got to be on three and four income for the home living days unfortunately. Minister Cain, I want to ask you specifically since you have multiple businesses,

30:39what do you think is more important to be financially slowly free? Earning more money or building assets that can produce income without the labor? What do you think? I believe in building assets. One of the things that I started many, many years ago that was taught at our church. We tied, we sew, we saved, this is been. The spending is your mortgage, your groceries, all those other things. You supposed to pay yourself first. And that's a principle that I incorporated years ago it started off much. The Bible says that little makes much. You start doing that little by little and then it'll be much. And another thing is when I picked my house, I made sure I was in a neighborhood, I was gonna get the value out of my house. So I lived in my house that was creating value. So my house is two times what it was worth when I bought it. So when I do sell my house,

31:41that is gonna go towards my retirement also. But for those that are slow or last or have not thought about building wealth for their stuff. The first thing I did as a first time home buyer by a three or four unit, live in one and when the others out and then save that money. If you're in a 401, which I don't like for a one's for myself, if they are giving you 10% or more or whatever, you know, double down on that, double down on it. But you know, see if you can do your own self directed IRA because some of these companies that, you know, do it as a group, I don't think it makes all that much money on the returns. You could do a really great return. But my financial advisor told me I would need

32:43like 2.4 million to retire. Yeah, I mean, that's what it paid off. I think that's probably more than likely. I think, you know, the biggest, you know, most of Americans, their wealth is in real estate. And so that's, I think that's one of the reasons that we got three filters on this panel because we realized the importance of that because automatically your net worth, your home value is calculated into your net worth. You go to try to get credit, whatever your home value is, that's your net worth. So that's, you know, that's added onto your net worth for credit purposes and everything else. So it's very important and we didn't have a huge loss of black wealth, the greatest loss of black wealth, single greatest loss of black wealth in US history was in 2008 when we had the housing crash. And the other communities recovered from that, Hispanic community, the Caucasian community, but the black community has not ever really fully recovered from that. And so that is really unfortunate. So we definitely do need to possess this land. And that's one of the things I do work

33:44with luxury apartment rentals. But for all my rental clients, I'm like, hey, do you want to buy a home? You know, you can qualify. You can get, you don't got to have perfect create one credit, FHA long and get it for five with a five baby credit score. Maybe if you get you a little townhouse it's something, it's yours. And so we're throwing this money away renting and I just saw an article, well, I just saw a news report about how the evictions in Atlanta is the highest in the nation. Wow. The highest in the nation is in Atlanta right now. And they did, and then they did a story about Houston, how the evictions have skyrocketed. And what were they saying? And the judge, they had an interview a judge, one of the judges that's in the district court, believe it's a district court that does the eviction, she presides over the evictions. And she said the two reasons that she sees that people come in for evictions is the job loss or somebody's died in the family. So all these ladies on this panel we've got these multiple streams of income,

34:45a job loss, you should be able to say, okay, well then I got the screen coming in. And then somebody dying, okay, like I said, I'm sitting up here as a life insurance agent. Nobody dying should make you homeless. So that's right. Do not have life insurance, you really, at least something to bury yourself so your family is not going in the day. So that's awful that somebody should have to decide to get in between those two things. So like bury a panda damn rent. So what is, you know, from the financial side, what happens was somebody reaches 60 or 65 and realized, hey, I can't afford to stop working. Minister Connie, what is your advice? Well, I'm over 65, but the thing is, is that, you know, one of the things that always kind of ate me think about doing better with my money when I'll go into Walmart or some of these, or you see these elderly people working because they have to,

35:46the breeders, I feel so bad for them, they're sweet. And they're doing all kind of stuff and it really breaks my heart. If, you know, if I, you know, I don't want to be in that position and I hate to see people in that position. So I would say that at 65, if you don't have any money, say that, better pray about it. You know, as Lord, Lord, what can you do because he can mysteriously send you money, but you better do the right thing with it. I would just say that, I don't think it should be. You're gonna have to adjust your income to what you have coming in. But nowadays, you know what? Social security, they have to still pay a supplement for their medication. Yeah, yeah. What you said, and you don't even get enough. Yeah, people have decided between medications or what to eat or what to eat. And I used to live in Phoenix. That's where my medical license is. And I would go to Mexico.

36:47We were only two hours from the Mexican border and I'd go and get my prescriptions and get dental work done. And honey, the dental clinics over there, they're not geared towards Mexicans. They speak pure English over there. Okay, they got, because they got bus loads of seniors coming from Canada and the United States to go and get their dental work done at a 80% discount. And then also to get those prescriptions and things. Let's see, classic Cgences will work two or more W2 jobs in my experience, my account and dance that I pay more taxes. She mentioned 10.99 was better for write-offs. I think the key is to have a schedule C and a W2. If you can really maximize your write-off, I have, which is like somebody that has a side business or multiple strings of income, they're able to write off their schedule C, expenses and lower their W2, having, you know, for taxes that they have to pay out. So you get a bigger refund and things. I think that's good. What else did I want to ask?

37:48So as far as, you know, we are seeing these senior citizens that are still having to work. Oh, this is what I wanted to mention. So y'all ever follow any of those Instagram accounts where they, you know, they surprise the person. They may ask them for a dollar and then they give them a dollar for them. They say, oh, here I got $500 for you for giving money to me. If any of you guys see it all, there's one I believe is Jimmy Darts or no, MD motivator. He's out of Canada. Now this really touched me. He came across working at Minars. I don't know. No, was it Minars or Myers? No, that guy was working at Myers. Myers is a super grocery chain out in the Midwest, okay? We have Michigan, Chicago, Detroit. I think Michigan, Indiana, have them. So it's like a Walmart or something like that, but it's more groceries. So there was a night, the gentleman I believe he was 97. If he wasn't 97, he was 95. Wow. This man was still working at the grocery store and the store was horrible

38:49because he had actually had one of those jobs. I wanted to say this one was in Michigan because he had worked for a GM. He had worked for a car company and they took them people pension. We're talking about Dominic, say people don't get the 30 year pension anymore. This man had a 30 year pension. There was some kind of legal loo call where they could take this man's pension and they were able to basically just gamble it away. It was subject of a lawsuit and the lawsuit settlement was that they can only get like a fraction of their pension. And his wife had cancer, she later died. And so he had to use, he chose to stay with the fund so he could have health insurance for her and he used everything got used up on her cancer. She died then he was left. He lost all his bills. He had bills. I say now when he had medical bills on top of losing his pension. Losing his pension. So you saw that guy. And he was over 95.

39:49Yeah. And ended up having to go work at the Meyer and they ended up retiring. I think they raised like a million dollars for that man. I was boy. Mm-hmm. Man, that's it. But he was so nice and pleasant. Everybody loved him, but he was struggling. He was struggling. And this is, and the thing about that is this man did all the right things. He had his retirement. He contributed everything. But one debilitating cancer where he had those out of pocket bills and that pension thing where they were tied up in court about what happened with that pension. So they're booked by the grace of God we go. Because some people do the wrong things. You don't hate. And then you got somebody like that that did everything that he was supposed to do. You got those federal workers that did their pension and then the DJT forced them to take that buyout. So you just got a lot of things going on. But I do say that multiple screams can help. It can definitely help.

40:52So do y'all think, let me ask Dominique. Glad is night has pretty much been working her entire life. I mean, this baby has been singing since she was four years out. When you work for that long, your whole life, it becomes a part of you. Do you think her cutting down or even just stopping? Do you think you can have a negative psychological impact for her? Oh, absolutely. Because I don't think, when you think about somebody like a Gladys night that has been singing since she was four, that's not work to her. That's not work. Now, maybe traveling may be rough, but her singing is not work to her. That is the part of who she is. That is her makeup. That is her. And so I think that now I don't agree with her traveling and singing and things like that, especially because she's a public figure and the videos that are going around. There is just a lot that goes with it. But maybe on a smaller scale, I think she should sing. And I think there's something like that. Say that again.

41:52Like a residency like how a deal was in Vegas. Yes, something like that where she, you know, it's more of a controlled environment. People understand what's going on, but I don't think she should stop because it's not work to her. That's the thing that we were talking about. You're doing things that you love where it's not sure you is. It's just kind of what I do. Her singing is just who she is and what she loves. And so I don't think she should ever stop. But again, her performance on that scale that she's doing now, which means she's traveling and doing all those things, that's too much. That's too much for her. You think it's too much? Yeah, I think that I agree with her doing a reduced schedule. I think, but I think her stopping call turkey, I don't think it's going to be healthy for her at all. Not to buy things that save us four years old in the church. So I think it's a part of her DNA. You know, just like I said, I stuck in a work. I was on retirement for three weeks. And all of a sudden, I was like, I can't do this. So I had to come back to what I like to do.

42:55You know, get up. I have time. I don't have to be here. I could get here whenever I want. So that makes a luxury for me. So yeah, it's a part of her DNA. So I think that will just kind of, from four years old to 82, that would take her out. That would definitely take her out. Yeah. Yeah, I think she would probably accelerate her death off of it, but so no, let me ask you this girl. If you knew today that you had enough money to never, ever have to work another day in your life, what would you do with your life? So I'm not working right now. So you bet you best equipped to answer this question. Yeah. Yeah. So to me, and even when I'm listening to this whole conversation, I'm just thinking of the importance of family. When we hear about Gladys Knight, we're talking about, you know, her son versus her 20, you know,

43:58the gap husband. And it doesn't sound to me like they have like that kind of village that I love to talk about, where it's not one person versus another. I'm wondering does she have grandchildren? You know, there's so much fullness that comes out of life. And then yeah, you do have to explore creating income streams, but they do also have to kind of not interfere with the things that are more important, you see. So I don't really, I'm thankful. I believe that even if I had all the money in the world, which I don't, I would still be exactly where I am now. I would be putting my family first. I would be pursuing my passions. I have a travel company. I love traveling. You know, I have online platforms. Like I said, I'm an expressive. I get to write. I get to make videos. And I'm here when my children leave in the morning, when I would children leave in the morning, and my husband leaves in the morning.

44:59And I'm here when they come back. They get three meals a day if they want to. Or they be travel whenever we want. I have homeschooled my kids. So I've really for the last decade and a half really poured into the things that I want to do. But it does come with sacrifices if you don't have all the money in the world. So yeah, it's really just focusing on family and what's most important to you. Wow, that's wonderful. And I think you were probably best equipped of the piano to answer that question. Thank you for that. And that's nice that your children can say, mom was there when I left for school. And mom was there when I got home. And I didn't have to go, you know, because I was a latch key key. OK, all of a lot of the 80s kids were. So it's nice to be able to say, I didn't have to let myself in and put a microwave dinner on in front of the TV. You know, that mom was there. Dominique, how do you create income that continues when you stop working in your family? There's multiple ways, investments, stocks, real estate.

46:03There are multiple ways that you can create income, even when income stops. But you can start this before, right? You can make small investments outside of your 401k, like for instance, with my children. I, my children have retirement right now. I created an IRAs where I just put small amounts in it, right? And guess what happens? First of all, it's a tax write off. And then by the time they retire, they're positioned, they can have their own job, they can have their own 401k. But I'm starting them off early. And I just think that we have to change on mindset. I feel like in our community, we focus more on appearance and keeping up with the Joneses and having a name brand. If you could spend $3,000 on the purse, you can put money into an investment. If you could spend $3,000 on the purse, you can buy a property. There are a lot of things that you can do. People say, well, I don't want to be a landlord. Well, they have management companies that can manage the property. Absolutely. So that you're creating an income and that can be part of your retirement, right? So if you know you need $10,000 in order to retire, then what you do is you figure out how many property,

47:05how many doors you need in order for you to retire, making this amount of money, and just being smart with your investments, keeping up with your investments, not going in and saying, and I tell people this all the time, your first home is often not your forever home, right? So find a property, even if it's not a multi-unit, because I understand I know in our area it's kind of hard to find multi-units, but I agree with Minister Connie. You can buy a multi-unit, but also things don't have to be pretty. And the fact that it matters, things that you buy that you think are pretty, I'm not always pretty. I call it lipstick on a pig. It's okay to have a pink sink and a green tub. You can fix it and make it the print you want, and have the equity in it, so that if you want to make some type of investment, or you need to purchase another property, you're gonna buy the property, you're gonna rehab it, refinance it and repeat. In this ways for you to make money, that's just real estate, but there's other ways to make money, and I think that we just kind of get stuck, and we don't think about the things, because we're just relying on this job that is not dependable. They can let you go at any time. So those are two stocks.

48:07You know, IRAs, outside investments, you get people get bonuses. What do people usually do with their bonuses? They're gonna spend a lot of software nows. So you're gonna get your income tax. You're gonna get bonuses. Those are ways where you can get money. You can spend money, you can spend money, you can splurge, but also plan, put some of it up so that you are indirectly saving for your retirement. Yeah, haven't started. Oh, hearing someone, sorry, hearing someone say they don't want to be at landlords, gotta be one of the dumbest things that I ever heard. Oh, I hear that. You're, and you're too young to be here. That's the people who know what's involved. They just own a property, and they say, I don't want that. It just sounds like the dumbest thing I ever heard. Yeah, and what, why would you rather be a tenant than be a homeowner when there's, yeah, I'm not sure. I have the, it can be managed. I had a client that was, you know, that we were taking them on department tours, and their child was tearing up every lobby that we were in, and I'm like, that baby needs a backyard to run around it.

49:07Well, we don't want the responsibility right now. We just want to, and I'm like, we want to wait a few years, and I'm like, if you, if five years, you could have built, you know, 2030, $50,000 of equity in case you have emergency. So I just think that people don't understand what is available. That's why I'm supposed to have all these real estate here on the panel. They don't understand what the value is to them. I mean, and all these people in the Viction Court, my these folks, and Pam rent 10, 15, 20 years, and they could easily bought something, but just don't know that they can. A lot of people don't have down payment, but they don't know that there's down payment assistance right now in Georgia, between Atlanta and the state of Georgia, we got $50,000 in down payment assistance right here. Yeah. Yeah. We have a program in Illinois, the same way. People just don't, they were at the pace somebody else's rent. And the fact of the matter is there is no home stability because each month they go on up on your rent. If they decide to sell it, you may be out of a place to stay.

50:08Like people don't understand all of that. So what happens is you have these young kids, and you're moving, some people have young kids, but if you have young kids, you're moving every year, every couple of years, you're moving from place to place to place. What kind of stability is that give me your children? They don't get to grow up with the same friends, going to the same schools. They're just moving around. And so you have professionals like us that have these conversations. And they're like, no, you're just a salesperson. I understand, I'm going back off, but I'm not speaking from something that I have not done. I'm speaking from a place that I've done it. But let's take it a step further. So we talk about, and I have these conversations with my clients, it's not good enough just to purchase your property. How are you protecting it? So what happens is, we don't put out properties and trusts. And then something happens to you, and I'm gonna say you only have to die. Say you want to a nurse at home. If somebody doesn't live in that property, there's a possibility that you have to need that home over to the nurse home. And people forget about all of these things. So not just purchasing the property, you're protecting it. And then God forbid you die. We all, that's a given, we all gone die.

51:09But now you got the state of your business because you assume that the property is automatically going to go to your next to Kim, which is not the, not gonna go through probate, $10,000 in the door. And that's not if people are not fighting, because you know when it comes to money and stuff, now family is fighting. So not only should we be purchasing properties, we should also be protecting our assets as well. Yeah, put that, put that deed in the inside of a trust so that they can't come after you personally. So I want to go to some stats real quick before we pivot to final thoughts. So as we stated before the top of the show, 16% of workers in the 2026 retirement confidence, they said they were confident that they would have enough money to live confidently throughout retirement. So 40% of the people don't feel confident. 35% of the federal reserve found that only 35, and they had the one that set the instance rates and all of those, you know, those is of, you know, basically the unbrought for all the financial policies in this country,

52:11they found that only 35% of people who are not retired said that they're retirement with one price. Okay, and that was this last year. 61% of people have a tax-referred IRA account or Roth or 401k, so 61%. So it is still more than half, but it's still, that's, I mean, it ain't that far away from that. Two thirds of adults have a tax-referred retirement account or an employer pension, so that leaves one third without one. And then lastly, 60, only 63% of adults said that they would have $400 to cover in an emergency. Yeah, so that is devastating. But I will have to say, you know, there are solutions to that. There's things like, you know, people talk about people driving Uber and Lyft, but I know people that drive just to have extra money to put away for their retirement or put away for stuff. Have another stream of income, you guys. Also, for IRA, you can, if you are behind,

53:11they do have, I think if you're over 50, you can do catch-ups, so you can pay more, you can contribute more to do catch-ups for that, to try to get you on track. So there are a lot of things that's never too late to invest. You know, Dr. Boyce has got the Black Business School. We have a lot of things that are to us that we have. So let's go ahead and get, you know, the final thoughts for everyone. No, I'm up. Let me ask you that. If you were to pass today to that, have you done everything, Dan, have you done everything, I guess, in your financial life? Do you think that you've made good decisions? Or are there something that you felt like you wish that you should have done when you were younger? And then tell us what we can find you. If I was what? If you passed away today, would you look back and say, hey, you felt like you made all the, you know, made good decisions with your finances?

54:13Or do you feel like there was something that you could have done differently? I'm, I'm, it should be today. We are in the process of really getting stuff in order. You know, our oldest child, we have two 20-year-olds and then we have two five-year-olds. So we have like a very broad range of children's ages. But we are in the process of putting things together from my parents onto us. A trust fund was established and now we're in the process of doing the same thing for our children. So God forbid I die now. It would be really tragic because we're in the process of doing it. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But definitely, I mean, the answer to the question is, yes, I do believe that we're doing the right things. I really love that nowadays when people are having conversations, we're talking about it at states, we're talking about trust, we're talking about insurance. We're really making good decisions. And these conversations are great.

55:15Where you can find me, you can find me across all social media among Facebook. How you laugh? Because I always say, I don't really want to be found. No. I don't know. Oh, Jesus. Oh, when you say, where could we find you? You always say, well, I don't really want to be found. But I am across very active on Facebook on Instagram. And I'm a lot more active on TikTok. And my name is the same everywhere. It's a unique name. It's Nolangga. Yeah. Beautiful. And thank you. I'm in sunshine. And then you can also please support us at our charity. It's called Pass For Our Girls. PassForOurGirls.com. The smallest amount of counts. What we do is we support young girls here in Botswana, who experience period poverty, which when you think about it is a really tragic thing, because sometimes they end up not going to school. So you can go to pads forourgirls.com. And the smallest amount really goes a long way.

56:15Thank you, Nolangga. That was an answer. Mr. Connie, I'm going to ask you a slight different variation, money versus time. Do you think, I know you said that you were over 65, looking back at your financial life? Do you feel like you spent more time chasing money or building quality time? I would say both, because I do ministry also at my church. I would say that if I had to start right now, I would definitely as a first time buyer, I would buy a seat, not a single home, but a duplex or a fourplex. I would do a R.O.F.I.R.A. self-directed, where you could pick your own stock and put it in here, is after taxes, the R.O.F.I.R.A. So that's what I would do for some of you. It's never too late to start.

57:18Little makes much, so just remember that. But do not put it in a regular savings account. They do have those high interest rates, where it's 4%, a percent, but it still don't pay that much. But that's a good start, too. Anyway, you want to start. I believe I made some good financial decisions being single most of my life. I am leaving inheritance to my children and their children. So I am happy about that, but I can always improve. I'm always looking. I'm always learning. So I'm not stopping now. I'm going to keep one living. I'm going to keep one learning. And I'm going to keep one investing and creating all the things that God gets me to create for my family and for... And I didn't have a lot of people going to business. I'm about to do a thing online, because I didn't have some people going to business

58:20with my own personal money. But you can find me at conyspheriment.com. I have a book I'll call Lord, I hear you, and I have a journal. So I'm going to say it because I'm now giving 30% to help other women and men go into business. So here you go. Amen. Thank you, minister. You're just wonderful things looking back. As far as me, I'm going to answer the same question money versus time. I spend a lot of time chasing money. But I am a person like, you know, when it's time to go do that vacation or take some time to myself, I have really, as I've gotten older, honored that I really have. And so hopefully I'm not in that number of black women that wouldn't get enough sleep. So, and you guys can find me on IG, Charm Girl 77, and then for, you know, my comedy and acting and all that and updates on everything else, Dr. Charm. And then if you are interested in making a real estate purchase

59:22or finding a luxury apartment in the city of Atlanta area, okay, you can find me on my Dr. Charm luxury Instagram. So chat, I want to thank y'all. Jebra will win all the other folks in the chat today. The tribute to comic classically gyms. Who else was in here tonight? Or not the night booker. Booker with the WAA82. I appreciate y'all. We appreciate y'all, we love y'all. So thank y'all signing off. Y'all have a wonderful rest of your week. Oh, and Donald Nick had to leave early.