♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> Clifton Johnson, the founder of the EMPOWER Series, next on "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, diverse representation and perspectives, equity, and inclusion is critical to meeting the needs of our colleagues, customers, and communities.

We are focused on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside our company and in the communities where we live and work.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives and in our communities.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry around the world.

Learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

At AARP, we are committed to ensuring your money, health, and happiness live as long as you do.

♪♪ ♪♪ >> We're most honored to have on "The Chavis Chronicles" Clifton Johnson, financial professional, founder, and executive director out of Dallas, Texas.

Welcome.

>> Doctor Chavis, thank you.

It is my honor to be here.

I tell you right now that, with what you've done, you inspire me to do more and to be better.

>> Well, thank you.

It's mutual.

Let's go back to your social beginning.

>> Okay.

>> I understand you had some very hard-working parents.

>> Yeah.

>> You were born in LA.

>> Right.

>> Now, is where you were born part of South Central?

>> Yeah, yeah.

Most definitely.

>> So you were born in the hood?

>> In the -- Right, right.

>> All right, so tell us about your upbringing.

>> Well, I'll just tell you that my mother and father -- And I can go back.

Even their journey is amazing, inspiring.

But my father met my mother in Los Angeles, and I have two older brothers, and they had a boy and a girl.

And I tell them all the time that I was their best accident they ever had.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I was in the South Central section, the Hyde Park -- Hyde Park neighborhood.

That's really the territory of the Rollin' 60s Crips.

But what I saw was an opportunity to really not be in that lifestyle.

My father worked hard.

He worked 36 years for the post office.

Within those 36 years, he worked 12 years as a janitor.

>> Your father's working two jobs?

>> Two jobs, two jobs because he supported and paid for us, his three kids, to go to private school from K to 12.

>> So that means you got a good education.

>> Yeah.

They wanted to put me in an environment where I could thrive.

And then, my mother, my mother, I would tell you that she was a creative.

And everybody that I talked to, my cousins, my friends, they all tell me how much my mother made -- how my mother made them feel.

She really poured into them.

And when I was growing up, she started the Madden Avenue Athletic Club.

So we had all of the kids in the neighborhood doing push-ups and sit-ups on our front yard, and we were doing relay races around our block.

So she was very involved in the community.

And my father, even though he worked two jobs, was also involved in our school.

He was a Boy Scout leader.

He also was the president of our booster club in our high school, who really supported and raised money for our athletic programs and academic programs.

And, so, I just had a lot of examples with my parents that family is important.

We traveled to see our family in different states every year.

And community is important, as well.

>> So, with that beginning, how did you start on the pathway toward financial services?

>> Well, I'll tell you, first, I wanted to go to college, and I knew that my parents didn't have money to afford paying for my college.

So my focus was education and sports.

That was my focus.

That was my vision and my dream.

That's what I went to bed dreaming about.

And I realized that, when I went to college and was making a lot of money playing football, I wanted to manage my own money.

I couldn't trust anybody else.

So that was my interest in just learning about money.

I read books about money even during high school and college.

So my focus has always been about, if I'm going to be wealthy, I need to understand how to manage it and not just trust other people.

And, so, when I went to college, I graduated with a business degree, and I started as a staff accountant for a telephone company, and worked my way up to the controller and the first Black officer of a gas company in Texas.

I looked at my life and thought, how did I get here?

Is this what I really want to do?

I want to really -- I have a message that I felt like our people needed to hear.

Everybody was chasing money.

But I think what's more important than the money is your purpose.

And, so, I thought, let me take a shift.

So in 2004, I decided to get my license in financial planning and to start my journey in delivering my message about what's really important, which is not necessarily money initially, but it's your purpose and the way you think which dictates how you spend your time, which dictates your relationships, and then it manifests with money.

>> I like the word "purpose."

You know, in the entertainment industry and the sports industry and in other fields, everybody's concerned about their brand.

>> Right.

>> And I always tell people once they start bragging about their brand, say, "What is your mission?

What is your purpose?"

And I think you have found your purpose.

What would you say is the essential purpose of the EMPOWER Series?

>> Our mission is to be a positive impact in the world by inspiring people to thrive in every area of their life, because the principles of what it takes to be successful are transferable to any area, whether it's money, whether it's your personal life, your spiritual life, or your community involvement.

And, so, my vision is to see that everybody has a clear purpose of what they want to accomplish, and they're making steps progressively to achieve it.

And that I would define as being successful, because when you have any goal, you always have a vision of yourself that is different than where you are.

When I was in Los Angeles, I wanted to be out of LA.

I wanted to be in college and play football.

That wasn't where I was when I was in South Central LA.

So I think one of the most difficult things that people have to do is to believe in this dream or the vision they have, regardless of the current circumstances.

And I've been inspired by many people who had big dreams.

So my mission of the EMPOWER Series is to give people hope that whatever they envision they can achieve.

In all of our programs, we inspire them to take action on their ideas.

Because we're all called to be stewards of our ideas.

We definitely educate you, but education is not enough.

It's critically important, but the key is relationships and connection to resources.

And I believe that there's enough resources in our communities.

And there's an illusion of lack.

There are resources in every community of professionals who are successful that will pour into the community and each other to help people achieve their goals.

That's why it's called the EMPOWER Series.

>> How do you respond to this myth that it's impossible for you to be wealthy in America because of your skin color?

We are mired down in poverty.

It's a permanent thing.

So how does your program engage those myths, those stereotypes, those preconceived conditions that are not necessarily accurate, but that's the prevalent view?

>> I think there's multiple answers to it, but the idea that I've been given is to do programs to give people the experience of other people who are successful.

You know, we were just talking the other day or just recently about, when you look at somebody and see them being successful, that's all they see, and they don't see the process of success.

But I'll tell you right now that we all start at the same place.

We all start with an idea and probably no idea as to how we're going to make that reality.

But the people who make it a reality take action and they have faith.

So faith without works is nowhere.

And, so, I want to give people the experience that, no matter what level of success that you see in anybody, you can do it, too.

And what they do is they come in, they share their story of how they've overcome adversity to achieve their goal.

So that connects them to the attendees.

And then they just give their points.

They give what they've learned from it, an empowering message, or a financial literacy topic.

So every year we talk about visioning and goal setting in January.

In February, we talk about entrepreneurship.

In March, we talk about credit management.

In April, which is National Financial Literacy Month, we talk about raising your financial literacy IQ.

No matter where you are, you can always learn more.

In May, we talk about finding scholarships for college because it's a myth to think that, if you go to college, you've got to go into debt.

Especially with African-Americans, we find that we have the most amount of college loans and debts when we come out of college, and we have low income.

And, so, it makes it very hard for us to actually save.

So, in May, we talk about finding scholarships and resources, what you can do to do that, starting as a freshman in high school or even before.

And then, in June, we talk about home ownership because real estate is very important.

In August, we talk about growth mind-set.

In September, which is National Life Insurance Month, we talk about life insurance because someday we're not going to wake up and we want to make sure that we're giving our family enough resources to continue their journey.

And then, in October, we talk about estate planning.

So, every year, we cover those topics, and in November, we bring somebody in to talk about their journey of how they put all of that together.

We've been doing that for over 13 years.

We've impacted over 500,000 lives in making progress, progressive steps to help them achieve their goal.

>> You're now a mentor to thousands of people.

Who's your mentor?

>> My father was definitely my first mentor.

My father has taught me the value of being a servant leader.

You know, he sacrificed for his family and he worked hard and he wasn't braggadocious about it.

And then, my father and my mother passed away when I was younger.

And, so, my other mentors at that time were my uncle and aunt, Dr. James Frank and Dr. Zelma Frank.

My uncle did a lot of things in collegiate athletics, and he loved sports.

So what I what I learned from them is that you can mesh your passion with your -- with your purpose in life as well as with making money.

And he did.

He was very successful.

He actually became the first African-American president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association, also the first president to serve in that role because, previously, it was always athletic directors.

So what the NCAA is experiencing today is a reflection of what he started back between 1979 and 1983.

>> What's been some of the feedback?

Have you seen lives transformed, are other people getting in the pathway of financial services?

What has been the result?

>> So the one that touches my heart the most is there was a gentleman who came to see Dr. Dennis Kimbro in 2014.

I didn't find this out until 2018, but at the time that he saw him, he was in a program at the Dallas County Community College program that was designed on helping be in school, but get through school.

And, so, he was in that program.

He had just got out of prison, and he was sleeping in his car.

When he saw Dr. Dennis Kimbro share his story about when he was writing the book, "Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice," it took him seven years and, at that time, he lost his car.

He was going through hardship, he was going through some things.

And when you hear about stories of people who are successful and their process of success, it inspired him.

He stuck with it and he now graduated from college and has a mentor who is an attorney and is taking his LSAT to go to law school.

>> So this is a brother that started out in prison, was homeless, but gets inspired by a success story.

Now he's preparing to be a lawyer himself?

>> Exactly.

Yeah.

So that story touches my heart.

But then I have a number of people who've come to me and said, "Hey, Clifton, we went to your program in June on home buying, and I just bought my first house in February."

And, so, this is happening, what we do is we help people.

We give them hope, like I said before, inspiration, education, and connecting them to resources.

And I believe that we're transforming lives one person at a time.

>> You know, a lot of young people that watch this show, they want to know, how can they stack the paper?

>> Right on.

>> So I'm asking you, how can people stack their paper?

>> Well, I'll tell you.

Dr. Dennis Kimbro says, in one of his books, "Wealth starts in the mind and it ends in the purse."

So when young people are talking about getting your money right, I first want to have a conversation with them, like, where's your money?

Where's your mind at?

Is your mind on, uh, insignificant things?

Are they on really stacking your paper and getting your money right?

Because we run a in a unconscious script, you know, we see all of these things coming at us that's separate, that's designed to separate us between our money.

And, so, what are we doing to really combat that?

Are you waking up with a purpose, with a vision of what you want to accomplish, and a plan of what you need to do to get there?

Because if you don't have that plan, you're being flipped around in the wind.

So my conversation with young people about getting their money right is to first get an idea about, what is money to you?

What does that mean?

And we got to be careful because a lot of times money is defined and success is defined by the amount of stuff that we have.

Big house, big cars, you know, material things.

And that's not really well.

>> Depreciating assets versus appreciating assets.

>> Exactly.

So we got to start there with, what is your mind-set around wealth?

And if it's not empowering, and to your point, if you're about acquiring depreciation assets and not income-generating assets, then we need to switch that.

And, so, there's some effort involved in that.

Identifying what is the wealth mind-set.

What are the principles that you should be thinking about?

And then, how do you embed that over years of oppressive thoughts?

That's step number one.

>> Today there seems to be a retrenchment, a backward force on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

>> Right.

>> After George Floyd's tragic murder, all the major corporations, "Oh, we got to have a diversity officer.

We're going to work on diversity, equity, and inclusion."

Now equity is almost a bad word.

>> Right, right.

>> How this retreat from diversity, equity, and inclusion affect what you do, but also just the basic access to capital?

>> So it is tough.

So we already have barriers to access to capital, especially in our communities.

We are charged higher interest rates when it comes to loans.

We don't have the financial institutions in our communities.

So we already have those barriers.

And when George Floyd happened and we got a windfall of additional attention and money, that was great.

But I would like to look at that as icing on top of the cake, because at the end of the day, no one's going to come and save us.

We've got to rely on ourselves.

So when money is being retreated and when things get difficult for me, what that tells me is that I got to step up my game because, to make anything to personal development, community development takes somebody writing a check.

So what I ask myself is, what relationships have I formed?

What partnerships am I working with?

And I don't want to make this a White and Black thing because it's much bigger than that.

And I think you would agree to that with your bridging the divide, right?

We are born to work together in a collaborative environment where we care for each other, mutual goals.

And it's not about White, Black, Democrat, Republican, or any of those things that divide us because we're going to achieve and grow together, not separately.

>> Yeah, you're right.

I think there's much more that we should celebrate in terms of the oneness of our humanity, rather than the division of our humanity.

For all these various reasons.

So, if you had to write the how-to book on empowering people financially, what would the title be?

>> Wow.

Besides EMPOWER Series?

>> That's a good title.

>> I would start with that and I would define EMPOWER Series by, again, focusing on the mind.

Right?

Because everything starts with the mind.

If you look at a result cone, we have the top being results.

And it's easy to see that results come from actions.

And a lot of times, when we're trying to change something, we start with the actions.

>> See, I'm smiling because you deal with >> Yeah.

>> Consciousness raising.

When former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela was alive, we had a discussion about consciousness raising in South Africa, but also in America.

So you're saying, from a financial perspective, being conscious of the potential, being conscious of the opportunity, this consciousness that you're talking about, financial consciousness, lays the groundwork to actually get involved in generating revenue and on the pathway to wealth building.

>> Yeah, and that's great because underneath actions are thoughts, beliefs.

And then how do you change that?

You change that by having an epiphany.

So how do you create epiphanies?

There's a number of things you can do.

There's all these different directions you can come at it.

But we mutually know Munson Steed.

He talked about having an acronym for money.

>> Munson Steed from Rolling Out.

>> Yes, from Rolling Out.

He has an acronym for money.

So his acronym is Manifesting Opportunities and Negotiating Everything Yourself.

And, so, when's the last time we used the word manifestation?

So he talks about manifestation is manifesting the thoughts that are in our mind, you know, being conscious of our thoughts because they're endless, endless possibilities, and we manifest them.

So when it comes to a business idea, you know, we all have -- probably we get thousands of ideas a year, but probably four, four or five, that, if we acted on, if we were bold and courageous enough to take action on these ideas, could transform our life financially, which is about adding value in the marketplace.

And, so, I believe that everybody has an idea that's a big idea, no matter how big -- no matter how small it starts.

So once you have your idea and you're conscious of it, the next step is to create some kind of plan.

Some kind of plan that leads with a budget.

So you have income expenses.

And what's happening now is that we're not saving enough.

As a society, we save less than 7% of our income.

That's not cutting it.

>> Well, why do you think -- I know we are mass consumers, we over-index on social media.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Which sometimes is not that accurate or relevant to that consciousness, going back to your point, You know, where do people get their consciousness from?

>> Social media, TV.

So, life -- I believe that life is a manifestation of our ideas, right?

But life is also a battle.

It's a battle over the territory of your mind.

And if you're not waking up ready to fight that battle and do your meditation, do your praying... Was it Denzel Washington says he hopes that your slippers are way underneath your bed so that, when you wake up, you getting on your knees and you praying because you woke up.

So, waking up, you've already won.

Now what you gonna do with it?

Because there are a lot of people who didn't wake up today, and they have plans.

>> Well, that's a good thing, being awake.

And of course, you know, the governor of Florida is against woke.

>> Oh, my gosh.

>> They're banning books.

They're changing curriculums.

And I don't want to divert on governor DeSantis, but it's just not the governor.

>> Right.

>> He represents a view, a perspective that millions of Americans agree.

How do we win people over to the notion that the more inclusiveness of the wealth building process, the better it strengthens our democracy?

It doesn't weaken our democracy.

>> Yeah.

So I think there's a lot of different attacks and strategies that we have to implement to make a move in that area.

So what I do, and I can speak to the EMPOWER Series, is I am addressing this individual at a time and community at a time to increase their consciousness and their awareness, because I believe that we all have certain skill sets.

Some are in politics, some are in advocating for medical change or social change.

And, so, what I do is I wake up every day and ask myself, okay, God, what am I supposed to do today with this time?

Because it's not guaranteed.

Am I being a good steward of it?

So, number one, have a conscious mind-set that time is precious and that there are going to be things coming at me, news, negative people doing things that I don't like.

But I got to stay focused on my purpose.

So what is that?

Also, what is my plan?

What am I doing with my resources?

What am I doing with my time?

Who are the relationships that I'm collaborating with?

Because I believe that our collaboration is not to benefit you and I.

Our collaboration is to benefit the millions of people that are going to be blessed because we've collaborated.

So how am I walking through and building relationships and collaborating?

Because we are born to network.

We're born to create teamwork with each other.

We're born to work together in a common bond of caring and sharing.

So how am I doing that?

And we had talked about this before.

When I was a kid growing up in South Central LA, I was good at football, I was good at studying, but I wasn't really out there promoting myself with the brand.

And, so, there was an article written about me that Clifton Johnson leads by example.

And I would tell you that we are all leaders.

>> When was this article written?

>> It was written back in the 1970s when I was in high school, right?

If I go back to my books, my mother kept all these articles about me.

>> You have a very proud mother.

>> Oh, my gosh.

Don't get me started.

I'm going to start crying.

But the point I want to make is we are all leaders because people are watching us all the time.

So how do we make this change?

How would you make this movement?

Is, individually, if we're conscious about what we're doing with our time and how we are called to be a good steward of not only our time, but our relationships, then I think that can create a movement that can affect the negative things that are coming at us when people are wanting to rewrite history and give us a hard time.

>> Embody and exhibit not only financial success, but as you say, you want to share with others >> Right.

>> From your informed experience, what gives you your greatest hope for America?

>> I mean, there's two things I would tell you.

Number one is sitting here with you, right?

That gives me hope.

But, also, in coming to the building, I saw that the architect who designed this building was one of the first Black architects, Sidney Pittman.

Right?

My son, who's 24, graduated from the Ohio State University with an architect degree.

>> Oh, great.

>> He is now in his second year of getting a master's in architecture and design at Harvard University.

So, seeing that, I would say gives me hope.

We all stand on the shoulders of people who've come before us, and I'm getting my shoulders broad because, at some point, I'm going to give the idea of the EMPOWER Series to another young person to grow it even further.

So that gives me hope.

>> Clifton Johnson, thank you for joining "The Chavis Chronicles."

>> Thank you, sir.

>> For more information about "The Chavis Chronicles" and our guests, visit our website at TheChavisChronicles.com.

Also follow us on Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

Major funding for "The Chavis Chronicles" is provided by the following.

At Wells Fargo, diverse representation and perspectives, equity, and inclusion is critical to meeting the needs of our colleagues, customers, and communities.

We are focused on our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, both inside our company and in the communities where we live and work.

Together, we want to make a tangible difference in people's lives and in our communities.

Wells Fargo -- the bank of doing.

American Petroleum Institute.

Through API's Energy Excellence Program, our members are committed to accelerating safety, environmental, and sustainability progress throughout the natural-gas and oil industry around the world.

Learn more at api.org/apienergyexcellence.

Reynolds American, dedicated to building a better tomorrow for our employees and communities.

Reynolds stands against racism and discrimination in all forms and is committed to building a more diverse and inclusive workplace.

At AARP, we are committed to ensuring your money, health, and happiness live as long as you do.

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