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Boss Uncaged Podcast Overview

“For me, it was the best career move I’ve ever made. It changed my life in a substantial way. I mean, the quality of living for my family, my immediate family, and then now I can see the legacy that is going to leave behind this change dramatically. So what I would say is, if you’re interested in it, pursue it, step out on faith, which is what I did at the time. I stepped out on faith and said, look, I’m going to do this because.”

Tondeleo Day
Financial Advisor at Edward Jones

4270 Atlanta Hwy Ste 105, Loganville, GA 30052
(770) 466-0031
tondeleo.day@edwardjones.com
@ejadvisortondeleoday

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Focus Areas

  • Retirement Savings Strategies
  • Insurance & Annuities
  • College Savings
  • Estate & Legacy Strategies
  • Wealth Strategies
  • Entrepreneurs & Business Owners

Personal Interests

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  • Movies & Entertainment
  • Music
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  • Spending Time with Family

Boss Uncaged Podcast Transcript

S1E23 – Financial Advisor at Edward Jones: Tondeleo Day AKA The Pharaoh of Wealth – S1E23 – powered by Happy Scribe

For me, it was the best career move I’ve ever made. It changed my life in a substantial way. I mean, the quality of living for my family, my immediate family, and then now I can see for the legacy that is going to leave behind this change dramatically. So what I would say is, if you’re interested in it, pursue it, step out on faith, which is what I did at the time. I stepped out on faith and said, look, I’m going to do this because. I don’t know if I said this part, but when I did start working.

Boss Uncaged is a bi-weekly podcast that releases the origin stories of business owners as they become uncaged Trailblazers, Unconventional Thinkers, Untethered Trendsetters and Unstoppable Tycoons. We always hear about overnight success stories, never knowing that it took 20 years to become a reality. Our host S. A. Grant conducts narrative accounts through the voices and stories behind uncaged bosses in each episode, guest from a wide range of backgrounds sharing diverse business insights. Learn how to release your primal success through words of wisdom from inspirational entrepreneurs and industry experts as they depict who they are, how they juggle their work life with family life, their successful habits, business expertise, tools and tips of their trade release. The Uncaged Boss Beast in you welcome our host S. A. Grant.

Welcome Back to Boss Uncaged podcast. On today’s show, we have Tondeleo Day today. He’s a financial adviser, but he’s many other things. And I’m looking for an opportunity to kind of break you guys down to what his expertise is and his background. So welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Hey, I’m doing awesome. Good to see you, brother.

Definitely. Definitely. So. I mean, I know who you are. I’ve known you for like 20 years literally at this point. Right.

At least here.

So who are you officially?

Who I am is Tondeleo Day today, financial adviser. That’s the title that’s on my business card on my website. But I like to tell people I’m also a wealth manager because I do manage big wealthy individuals, affluent individuals, high net worth individuals. I’m a retirement specialist. That’s the bulk of my business is my older clientele that is rolling over, ready to retire. Some folks might just equate it to a stockbroker because I do a lot of stock investing for my clients who are interested in that. But anything financial life insurance, estate planning, all of those things are encompassed within their financial advisor role. And just real briefly, as you said, you’ve known me for quite a bit. Yeah, I’m a big family guy, big community activist, I guess, if you want to say that. But definitely just a family guy. I love my business. And on the lighter side, I’m a music, so I love my music as well, you know, and I have a few different hobbies I get into. So that gives you a little brief snapshot of who am i.

Got you. So if you could define yourself in three to five words, what words would that be?

Oh, Father. God fearing excellence. Compassionate. I like to say that we all have superpowers, so we won’t say superpower, we don’t put that in there, too.

And it’s funny that you said superpower. It’s like one of my bonus questions. And since you brought it up, I might as well just jump ahead, jump back a little bit. So I usually, like, come up with this general question to say, if you could be a superhero, who would it be and why?

So honestly, man, I’m a brother all the way through, so I just feel like black people as a race, as a people. We have superpowers that have come through ancestrally. You know what I’m saying is the lagacy is in our blood to think about the things we’ve endured first and foremost and think about what we have to do to be where we are successfully, whether it’s athletics, whether it’s music and singing and putting words together with hip hop, whether it’s technology. I mean, honestly, we’re superpower brother. You look at those different things. So I’m the superhero. I am who I am at this point. I in it’s about fifty five million dollars in assets. My goal is two hundred and fifty. I want to get to that quarter billion more. But fifty five million is definitely respectable for a period of time that I’ve had my practice here, you know what I mean. I’m an accelerated pace and I attribute that to God’s gifts that he’s given me in order to connect with people because people have to trust me right. And trust me to manage their their life savings. I have to build that connection in a very, very short period of time. And where people say, OK, here, say five hundred thousand for my entire life, here it is. You take it and you do with it what you will because they trust me. And to me that’s a superpower in itself. So I’m not going to give you a I love my thoughts and my hopes and all of that, you know, I mean, the vision. And I’m a big Marvel comic book guy as well. I love my Marvel Comics and all of that, but I love the superpowers that God gave me

To step back in time a little bit when I first met you, I was actually a student at the Art Institute of Atlanta right now. You were like on the administrative staff and team. So coming from that, I know you was helping students find their way. So you took some of that and now you’re helping people with their wealth find their way. Like, how did that journey happen? How did you go from working in a school environment, going into financial services?

It is crazy. So not to be offensive. I’m not a witch called a Bible thumper, but I definitely am a spiritual person. And I believe that the path that I’ve taken has already been kind of predestined to be. We don’t see it in the past, back when we’re in the midst of it. But as I look back, I talk to people about this frequently that so like you said, you met me late 90s, early, early, two thousand prior to that I must start with the with prior to that, I worked for Sallie Mae. So it’s always been in fine. It’s OK. I work for Sallie Mae. Most people the audience knows from Sallie Mae is right. I work for Sallie Mae. So I was dealing with debt at that time. And then I started that job, led to working for the state of Georgia in the Hope Scholarship, which then led to the Art Institute because of the relationships I built from job to job and now to the Art Institute. And then that kind of just fine tuned me in terms of a counsellor and being able to guide people and talk with people about finances, not only students, but parents. How are you going to afford this? Can we what are you going to do once you’re out? You know, how are you going to handle the debt and things of that nature? So to me, it was all kind of a progression to get me to this point. There was a small time frame in between being the associate director at the Art Institute of Atlanta dictator, which I opened with the small staff. It will when I was there, but in between I started working for a company that did financial, what we call a CFP credential for financial advisors. And the time was that that certification I used to enroll them through universities like Duke University, Stanford, Loyola, Emory here in Atlanta. And why you big business schools and you would enroll so they get their credentials from those schools. Well, in doing so, Edward Jones, who is where I run my business now to my practice through now was my client. So I would go in, fly to St. Louis and talk with their executive staff about getting the CFP and kind of broke down sort of what you learn in the CFP and how important it is for those advisors that felt like they needed that extra credential to bring in business and so forth. And they would always say, hey, man, you do really. Should consider coming on over here and being an adviser, you have all the intangibles that you need, you know, you have the background, et cetera, and eventually I see because I was always comfortable in my corporate structure. But see, in this business, you are running your own business. So it’s a matter of bringing folks in. And I mean, it is a partnership. So I don’t get like I’m not a salary or anything like that. Know, I killed what I eat anyway. And make a long story short, I took that leap of faith and just been extremely successful since then. But again, the path leading to it is what I needed to get to this point to be successful at what I do.

So it sounds like from the beginning you started off on a journey to currently to where you are. And the irony is that, I mean, you and I have talked over the last like maybe 10 years or so. And I got my licenses as well to, you know, I got my 06 and got my assurances. So I definitely understand what you do. And I commend it because, like you said, you have to kill what you eat. I mean, there is income that comes in from that. But you also have to maintain that as well to keep going.

Right. I started from scratch. I didn’t know any wealthy people. And like I said, I’m at fifty five million. Now is not a small feat.

And that’s assets under management,

that’s assets under management.

So when you break that down, I mean, some people may not understand, you know, if we’re talking about wealth, right. What is assets under management?

So assets under management means the earlier asset handled people’s role. So somebody might roll over a half million dollars from there for one K plan. That means I’ve talked to them and they said, I’m going to entrust you with this money. I’m retiring. I need that money to continue to grow so that five hundred thousand is added to my assets under management. I’m an athlete that gets a big contract and he says, Hey, I got this contract, here’s two million dollars. I wanted to invest some of my assets and it might even be a life insurance policy that is now I might have a million dollar policy, but that doesn’t count as assets under management. But the premium in the accumulation of cash value does. So all the money that I have managing under my office at this particular time now, sometimes everybody loses applying your name. So when money goes out, that’ll to bring your asset management down. But I’ve been fortunate that that really happened is very infrequent for me and I’ve been able to continue to grow at a good clip.

What I mean, anyway, under the rule of seventy two, I mean the longer you have these clients over a period of time that there’s going to grow anyway.

Yeah. Continue to grow. Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, like I said, starting out from scratch from zero dollars and then bringing in certain things that I’ve grown what I have like you just said. So just whether, like you said, rule of 70 to just good quality investments in diversification have allowed my assets to grow based on that. But on top of that, you have to continue to bring in new money.

Got you.

And so that’s kind of was my point about what I’ve built from scratch. So is that part, you know, once it’s in, it’s already an expectation on my part and it’s going broke. That’s just my own what I consider my own excellence and what I expect from myself.

I’ve got you. So, I mean, we’re talking about the rules only to demand that. I mean, some people may understand that, but I mean, that’s really the bread and butter of investments is if you understand the rule of seventy two, you can’t lose. Right.So,

yeah, I’m normally I’ll have a little chart out of formula, but just to break it down, real basic terms. The rule of seventy two is just the formula used to determine how fast your money that you are cantrip or investing will double or if it will double. Let’s say you say I want to have it at this point. You can use that formula to say it’s going to take this many years to make it so you can try to use that rule of seventy two to determine the year it takes or to determine the type of return you have to get for it to double within that period of time. And it’s just a formula that we use. And I don’t know the formula by heart, but it’s like maybe if we’re trying to find out the rate that we need, we’ll put in the years that we’re going to have it invested. Let’s say we say ten years and we want it to double and is divided by seventy two and it gives us the interest rate you like, whatever that ends up being. Something to that effect is just a formula.

To add to that, to just it works both ways. It works as far as your money growing or works, whether you have a mortgage or you have credit card debt, it works need a direction. So understanding if you have a higher interest rate, you’ll be paying more out.

You’re going to pay more and over a longer period of time, or if it’s a shorter period of time, you’re going to have a higher interest rate. So,

yeah. So I mean, you’re saying pretty much like you’re a ten ninety nine contractor, right. Is your business set up like an LLC, a EZCORP.

No, no, no. So we we’re a partnership.

OK,

that to my business is a partnership. And as far as the major corporations like Morgan Stanley or Merrill Lynch’s and things of that nature, they’re all just sell the, dare I say, their salary. They’re not ten ninety nine, but they get W 2s, et cetera. In my case, we’re a partnership, so it just works a little different. I don’t get it to ninety nine. I get a W-2 as well, but it’s still a partnership. And so the longer you’re in the more assets you have, the more things you do allow you to buy into that partnership, which in turn is very lucrative at the end of the day because you’re benefiting from the success of the business.

So I mean, how does the equity share where is this something that I say 40 years, 50 years down the road, you pass away? Can your assets on the management roll on to your kids if they decide to get the same licenses as you or.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I could do that if one of my children decided they wanted to be in this business. I can give them those assets today. You know, they’re mine, you know what I mean? I can give them they can come over and do that. And to be quite honest, I could open my own practice without the that we’re doing some barella and I can’t solicit you always sign disclosure decision. Not going to solicit. If you leave folks who want to follow me, I can let them know, hey, I’m leaving. They can follow me and come with me now. Edward Jones is one that I really respect the way that we run our business, because it doesn’t for me, it doesn’t make a lot of sense when you have someone that gives you all these resources to be successful and you’re still running your own business. I set my own hours. I hire my own people and so forth, and they basically do the bookkeeping for me,

that’s a win win situation.

Oh, my God is great. And then I have all the access to the resources in terms of the research analyst compliance to make sure I’m with the compliance with FINRA and the rules. You don’t want to cross those things because it could be really detrimental to your business and to your livelihood. So, yeah. So anyway, that’s what I would say in terms of that. I have a lot of colleagues who have children who have come into the business and they may give them twenty million dollars to get started or they may say, I’m retiring and I’m going to do a retirement transition plan and give my child all of it, you know what I’m saying

with that so I mean by default, you say that you have life insurance so that you would have like a series six or seven licence.

I have a series seven. I have a series sixty six. I have state licenses. I think I’m license right now in about 30 states for both life insurance and for investments. And the six to seven allows me to be offered use, basically not be able to give advice, counsel and to act on the behalf of my client.

So when you say you go to the lawyers or do you have a principal licence as well, do you need a principal licence to be able to open up a new location?

I don’t have a personal license, but you don’t have to. From what I’m understanding, I’ve not explored that option. But from what? And say you don’t have to have the principal licence to open your own.

OK,

as long as you have those licences, you’re good to go to seven in the sixty six. But I understand now. But again, don’t quote me on that one because that’s not something.

I’ve got you. I’m just diving into this. This is sort of our audience, you know, it’s an entrepreneur. So just think about if you want to become a nurse you’ve got to get licensed right. You want to have a tax, you’ve got to get a license. So if you want to take someone’s money and their wealth and understand what to do with it, you have to have a licence and you have that maintainance of that licence as well, continue education roles into this. So that’s just kind of well, leading down with that to kind of just educate people on what you have to go through to be able to sit where you are currently.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I’m glad you brought that up, because first of all, those licences are no joke. As you know, I think the seven or the sixty six, it was an eight hour exam. They were one of the six hour exam. And because you are dealing with people’s life savings, their money, their retirement, if you want to get into this business, they’re going to go through a section with the fine tooth comb, I mean that and ask me questions about things like high school. It was crazy. I just wasn’t prepared for that meant like, oh, man, are really digging deep into who I am and whether I’m somebody who can is morally fit to him to do this. They run this position, do this position. You mentioned also how if you notice, I call my business my practice. It is. And I tell people to because people always think that, OK, I can go and I’m going to invest myself and rarely works out for people when they do that. Some people it does, obviously, because that’s why you have day trading. That’s why you have different apps and things that people can do. But I’m always talking about if you consider your money to be important. Just like your health, you got going and operating on yourself, right? You’re going to a physician who’s done the years of training and knows how to operate on. Why would you not take that same sense of responsibility and care with somebody who’s managing your finances to somebody that you’re not going to operate on yourself? Don’t just think that you understand and know things and you don’t have any of these resources and then you end up in a bad situation. At the end of the day, allow somebody who’s trained to do it do those things.

To your point, I think a lot of people are probably scared because, one, it’s the fear factor to not know what it would cost. And they have to understand if you’re making money right, then they have to be making money is the bottom line. The more money you make for them, the more money you can make for yourself. So if you end up making a million dollars with, then by default, this person has to be making way more in a way more.

And that’s what people don’t understand, too, is first of all, you don’t have to be rich to invest. Now, there are advisers like I could tell I could definitely turn some people away. I have some advisers that if you don’t have a half a million dollars, they won’t work with you at all. Some firms say if you don’t have to drive 50 thousand, we won’t work with you at all. But I got into this business because I want to help my community educate and get people to invest. I wanted that to happen. And so for me, you know, I do now have a little threshold in terms of looking at this. Under that, I’m going to refer you to maybe a newer adviser. But if it’s somebody I know or somebody who I want to just really want to help and I want to keep my eyes on their money and their finances, it doesn’t matter how much you have. I’m going to work with you.

Got you. So do you have a baseline? Do you have like I mean, somebody come to you, a five hundred. You’re more like five thousand. Ten thousand. I mean, what’s your range.

So preferably twenty five thousand is my starting point. Starting point. But I say that but then I take a lot of folks. Five thousand is probably the drop dead. Like I’m really not much of a thousand unless it’s somebody very young and they want to get started. And I’ll just say you can do a hundred dollars a month. I do all of those things. But if you like, for example, if somebody comes to me, they’ve given me statements and I know they have a half a million dollars and then you want to give me five thousand, I’m not going to take that account. I’m going to say not. You know what? You stay where you are or you’ll find and you can find someone else because it doesn’t really benefit. If you’re not going to trust me with five thousand over half a million, then you really don’t trust me at that point. You know what I mean? Exactly. Exactly. And let’s talk about really quick. You touched on another part of that because they’re making money off me. Money. If I’m making money, they’re making money. Right. So you’re right. It behooves me, obviously, to grow your account because the way I get paid is a very small percentage. I get paid basically about one percent of your assets with me that if I’m managing the account now, if you don’t want a managed account and you’re just saying I’m to pay a commission when I buy stocks, mutual funds, bonds, ETFs, et cetera, then you’re going to pay a larger amount up front. Like, for example, you might pay me two percent for a stock. By that two thousand dollars, you’re going to put no stock. I’m going to get fifty dollars from that stock. I’m not getting rich off of one person.

No,

I’m making my money off of the collection of the collective of assets and clients. And then of course, the biggest way I make money or is to get referrals and so forth. That’s where all my clients or public appearances for me that’s been very good for me. It’s well, public speaking.

Got you. I mean, like the statement was goes I mean, money like speed. Right. So if you’re going to try to shortchange somebody by giving the one percent and that’s going to take that five thousand, going back to the rule of seventy two would probably take seventy two damn years to actually double and a particular interest versus they put half a million in there.

So that actually

it’s a snowball effect pretty much that was the worst experience you ever had dealing with moving funds and money with clientele. Like what’s the worst thing you’ve ever experienced in this business.

That’s a really good question. I got to think about that for a split second. I’ve been fortunate that I haven’t had anything earth shattering happen to me even when the market has crashed. You know, I’m trained enough to be able to advise people accordingly. And if I can hold, you know, until people take, now’s not the time to sell, you know what I mean? And then a month or two months later, they see that, OK, I’ve made all that money that I mean, like this just happened in March. Everything is crazy, right? March happen. Coronavirus came, the market plummeted. Worst has been in its own way. Basically we’ve had a forty five percent return on. Since that date, so all that’s happened, you’ve made your money back and most of my clients are up for the year about Tinder’s, and that’s talking about an array of clients from conservative to aggressive. I think the smallest I’ve seen doing my annual reviews for folks over the last month or so, somebody might be up five percent. And that’s a small return compared to some that are up 15 percent. You know what I’m saying?

But even at that five percent. Right, I mean, even at five percent, if you look at a basic savings account, it’s like it’s not even a percent. It’s a fraction of a percent.

no is point zero the most basic savings account, all the major banking institutions, you’re probably getting point zero one point zero to. I mean, you’re not getting a return at all. So what I’m telling you is, yeah, I got a conservative client who may be in bonds or bond funds, you know, very conservative investments. And even the market has dropped on us so dramatically where we’ve gone into the first bear market in what was. Oh, wait, wait. Now what does that 12, 12 years. And those folks are still up for the year at five percent. So, yeah, it makes sense to be invested, but it makes sense to be invested wisely. Like, don’t just jump on it. That’s the biggest thing that people make a mistake on doing is they say, oh, this is hot. Well, if everybody was hot, everybody on did not return to quality investments that are going to do well, do whatever, whether to whatever dips and turns in the market makes, you know, so

I think I mean, you’re you’re a really good example because, I mean, what people don’t realize about the market is that there is more than one way to make money. You can make money when it’s on a run. Right. You can make money when is down a short a stock and you can make money when the margins are equal. And just understanding that diversification different ways is.

Absolutely, absolutely.

So, I mean, if you want to disturbances on economy right now, obviously in Covid, right? Everybody’s like, oh my God, pull out, pull out, pull out the market. But they don’t realize people that have the wealth that win if you pull out so you can short the stock. So everything that they’re making could triple and quadruple.

And so the biggest shift of wealth is the impatient to the patient. So like you said, the people with money, they know that the market is coming back. It always has and always will. I always showed this chart that I have. I wish I had it up today, but it’s this chart that I show that starts out with ten thousand dollars and nineteen. It goes all the way back to like nineteen thirty three or something like that to last year to the end of twenty nineteen. Right in that ten thousand dollars. And we use this, I use this chart because it illustrates the up and down at the market and different things that have happened in the world, whether it’s the Vietnam War, the Korean War, World War One World War to President Nixon being impeached, 9/11,

other pandemics as well.

I was just about to say, other pandemics, all these different things, and that ten thousand has still persevered. It’s going to go up and down. Right. But at the end of the day, that ten thousand dollars today is worth one hundred and seventy five billion dollars, which is crazy to me because it’s all it’s doing is giving you a seven percent annual return. It’s just a mutual it’s a mutual fund that I use regularly. It’s a regular mutual fund, but the market continues to grow, you know what I mean? And that’s how money works. That’s how the market works. We call it a mountain chart because even though it does go up and down, it always goes up. It still rises up is that trajectory.

So I think you broke down. I mean, what you just broke down was the other part of Rousay to an understanding compound interest is not

in the power of compounding interest. Absolutely. Absolutely.

And I think people will realize

their demands are met hammer that home at every presentation, every face to face. When I have somebody here in my office, we talk about the importance of leaving the money alone. Even the best thing you can do with your four one K is just haven’t invested wisely and don’t touch it. We all tend to use that is a lot of people tend to use. That is. Oh, I got to my car broke down. I need to dip into my four one kay. And if you didn’t have it, what would you do. You’ve got to leave the money alone. That’s how the compound interest works and that’s how your wealth continues to grow. Time is your friend. If I could sing this song, time is always on your side.

Yes, it is.

I can’t stress that enough. It’s important to just start saving no matter where you are. If you’ve not started. I don’t care if you’re five or fifty, start saving, putting money away and don’t touch it. Leave it alone just with your strategy or your plan and you will accumulate money. That’s all this is. All investing is, is saving and getting a good return on it or getting better with.

Yeah, you brought up a solid strategy about reinvesting the dividends so the dividends are being cashed out, but they’re cashed out back into reinvestment. So it’s still funding itself.

It’s just self-funded, just goes back to buying more shares when you do that. And so, yeah, just for example, right now, and I’m not making a recommendation, just for example, Apple stock splits this week on the 30th of June. Usability is going back up to five hundred with just five years ago, it had made it up to almost eight hundred or so, seven for one and had gone down to ninety three dollars. I was getting a lot of my clients in that time and prior to it splitting and after splitting. Now one of my clients was who I love to death. It was like, I don’t trust that or whatever, whether I like well, it’s a good company. It’s a great company. We’re going to put a portion in. I will put a portion. It seems like this isn’t going to go back up to two hundred dollars. I was like two hundred dollars, like it’s going to go to two hundred to three hundred. And as you see now is that five. I think it might be five hundred today.

Well imagine back in nineteen ninety nine. Two thousand when it was five.

That was crazy. But my point is though you didn’t have to get into quality that farago you could get into it today and still benefit from it. You understand what I’m saying?

Yeah, definitely.

Anyway, the investments being that during that time frame when I initially bought that investment for them five years ago, it’s been reinvesting, reinvesting, buying more shares, growing that Apple stock between just over the last five years probably averaged about a 20 percent annually, twenty twenty two percent annually. So now

I had to change my seat

and look now at splitting the again is going to continue to accelerate, which is done over the last couple of weeks once the news of the split has come out. But once it does split, people are going to it doesn’t really change the dollar amount. But what it does is people feel like

there’s are cheaper now. Yeah.

So now more people are buying. So now it just continues to shoot back up again and cycle starts all over.

So, yeah, it’s a beautiful thing. It was. I mean, since you brought it up, we should just talk about it just to educate people, to understand what’s putting a stock is. So if you have a stock that starts off at one hundred dollars and it climbs a two hundred dollars and it splits now it’s back at one hundred dollars. But what happens is the quantity of the stock. I said it was ten thousand shares. Well, it just splits those shares. It doesn’t add any more shares to it. Essentially it just splits those shares in half.

It’s split. But when you’re looking at it, let’s say they had one hundred shares now split two for one. Now you have two hundred shares.

Yeah. Yeah. got you. So it doesn’t mean that they put more shares in the market. It just it they’re splitting the shares at a distance.

No, you’re right. You’re correct. Yeah.

I got you. So I mean we always hear about the twenty year to take somebody to become a success story and the beginning of this conversation, you kind of give a little bit of your journey. But how long did it take you to get to where you are?

Well, I’m going to start this part of this chapter, I would say, seven years ago.

OK,

you know what I mean? Now, it’s definitely took the entire twenty five years of my professional career to get where I am. If you’re just going to be frank about growing in the progression and so forth. But let’s just talk about building this business starting seven years ago from scratch, you know what I’m saying? And again, seven years, thankfully, I was able to sort of start fast in terms of for whatever reason, people tended to come to me very early on in my in opening my practice and trusting me early, just like any other small business, new business, you’re going to have your growing pains. It’s going to be some difficult time. So I did have sort of a roller coaster ride, but over the last of that seven, I would say over the last three years, it’s just been really, really smooth inclined smooth rock.

Definitely a positive outcome, so, I mean, what’s one thing you would do differently to get you to where you are a lot faster if you could do it all over again?

huh I’m going to be honest with you. I don’t know that I would do anything. I always say I wish I would have made this move earlier. I’m not a spring chicken. Right. So I wish I would have made this move a little earlier in my professional career. But I was comfortable with my roles at the Art Institute, my role, you know what I mean? I was in a management position that made a good salary. And for me for me to make the decision to come out on something that wasn’t guaranteed and I had the opportunity earlier, it would have actually pursued me. And I was an artist, too, for quite some time. And I was like, I’m not really interested in commissions only or whatever you want to call it, and building that business, I was very comfortable. But once things set into motion that put me into this position, it just became apparent that this was where I was supposed to be and where my success blossomed. I mean, since I’ve been here, man, I’ve been I’ve traveled the world. I’ve been blessed financially. I’ve been blessed culturally. I’ve been blessed to meet a diverse, different amount of different types of people. I’ve been blessed to be able to contribute back to causes that I believe in. So the path, the journey, I would say really took it started twenty five years ago, but it really kind of took shape on where I was headed seven years ago.

Got you. Got you. So with that being said, right, you talked about your age and if you don’t mind me does acts and you say you started business seven years ago. And I just want to ask this question because there’s always somebody out there that may be 18 years old or somebody that may be 40 or 50 years old and may think at the end of the rope and they got to stay where they are, if you don’t mind me, actually. How old were you seven years ago when you started your practice?

So I’ll be fifty one in October. So what does that mean? I was 40 or so.

You were forty four. And the reason why because I kind of know how old you are. Right. So being that forty four and I just turned 40. So imagine if I decided to say, you know, to hell with everything I’m doing and I’ve done a lot in my lifetime. Right.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So and four more years I could be like to hell with everything. And I just want to start completely from scratch. Right. And still make it. I just want people to understand it is never too late.

It is not. And I’m a part of a recruiting team here at a war zone. So I recruit advisors and I also kind of put an emphasis on recruiting diversified because there’s not enough black advisors, period. We’re less than one percent an entire country in the right across all firms, black advisors and less than one percent. Some firms do a lot better job than others. I think we are like three or four percent, something like that, something crazy like that. But I think it’s important to have people that look like you helping you with things that are important to, you know what I mean, and understanding sort of what’s important to you, what’s your journey is and things of that nature. And so I definitely try to recruit people who are capable and are interested in doing this interest in running their own business. Now, the flip side to that, this isn’t for everyone. I’ve seen a lot of people come and go, you know, a lot of different type of backgrounds and ethnicities in education because it does take a certain DNA to be able to get people, again, to trust you very quickly. To me, that’s the number one thing, is you have to be able to communicate with folks, but you have to get they have to trust you. You have to be able to build rapport very quickly, because if you’re not, you’re not going to be here long. I mean, to be quite as most people I think the attrition is crazy, is a crazy number. But most people who start as an advisor are out within the first year just because you can’t continue to find wealth at a steady clip to continue to sustain your business. And again, I’ve been blessed and fortunate to where that I started out doing well early, which kept me. And so when I hit my bumpy road, I already sort of had some hay in the barn, you know what I mean? Where it was.

Yeah, you live it off the renewables at that point.

Exactly. I was able to continue the residual income and. Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, do you come from entrepreneurial background with your mom, your dad, anybody, aunts, uncles in your family had the hustle or you just kind of picked it up?

I don’t come from an entrepreneurial background, but I will say I come from a humble background.

OK,

my family has always. Well, let’s go back. My grandfather on my mother’s side, we’re from South Carolina and my grandfather owned a farm. And so, yeah, if you want to look at it like that, he owned a farm, but he also had pigs that he took to slaughter, you know what I mean? And my grandmother was selling greens and peas on the side and saying

they got a hustler in your blood.

We got hustlin blood and my mother has that same work ethic. So we got hustle. But I wouldn’t say entrepreneurial background for my immediate parents, but definitely had that hustle spirit.

Got you. Do you think that was a factor to your success? Just thinking about you reliving that moment just now when you made that statement, do you think that was part of your success?

Absolutely. You’ve got to go get it. This is not a job. And I’ve said this to this isn’t for the faint of heart. You got to be ready to go get it. You’ve got to be able to take rejection as well, people call it. Some people are successful in different ways. They take their path to success in different ways. For me, I’ve never been what I would call a good salesperson, but I’ve always been I’m never scared to work. I’ve worked my entire life, but I love what I do first, which is important to be passionate about what you do. But what am I trying to say here? I love what I do. I’m passionate about what I do. And I think that’s what’s important in terms of for me with being able to again, going back to build that record. That’s that superpower I was talking about. Again, being able to build that rapport as what what has really the thing that made me is not being able to sell people, is being able to communicate and build support with.

So ironically, you I mean, I don’t think you see it that way, but I think part of your superpower is that you are a storyteller and it comes from you, Raimund, right. From being an emcee and being able to deliver a message in a particular fashion. You’re using it in a different light, like when somebody is talking about a million bucks and like, what are you going to do with it? You’re going to tell them the steps, the procedures of how to move that money, how to grow that money is your time and your flow when you’re making a story for them to visually see from point A to point B.

Yeah, and you’re absolutely right. That also attributes I have had this conversation with some of my buddies about being in front of a crowd and talking about investments. I’m comfortable talking to a crowd, you know what I mean? I’m comfortable being in front of a crowd, maybe because of that background as well. But you’re right, storytelling is very important, making people visualize what this money is going to look like for them in the future. Or maybe they’re trying to visualize what that goal should be and me helping them to paint a picture of what that looks like.

Definitely

a great point, though. I hadn’t really thought about it like that. But you’re absolutely right. I love that.

cool cool. So how do you juggle your work life with your family life?

You know, again, this is a career that allows you to do that. From the beginning. My kids have always been involved in sports and I’m very active back then. I’m able I’ve been able to, like, make my time, you know what I mean? I can schedule if I want to take off in golf every Friday, I can do that because this job allows me to do that, this type of career do that. And being here at a firm that really prioritizes your family balance like work, family balance has been helpful because so they’re not again, you don’t really have a boss, but you still got hit numbers in order for them to continue to say it’s good for us to continue to invest in you. Right. Those are the things that have allowed me to have a good balance of family work balance. I mean, I met all my kids events at all, their milestone things that are happening. And I’ve said to you before we started recording, my youngest daughter is having heaven. She’s probably in labor right this minute. She’s at the hospital with my second grandchild. And that all happened this year. So I’m able to be there for those things.

Funny you brought up, because, you know, I had an opportunity to work with Michael, who was kind of like you passed the torch because be a lot of people don’t realize, like when I was in school, you was hiring me as a freelancer to do some of your design work 20 years later. And then your daughter shows up at my doorstep one day. And it was like, how funny how that ecosystem just works.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I mean, your daughter’s credit. I mean, she’s I would think that in your business structure, she’s a business savvy monster. So I think once it gets to the point, I mean, you’re going to probably be able to help her invest that money to grow that for your grandkids and great grandkids.

We’re already there. We’re already there. So, yeah, she has our accounts open as soon as her child is. My first grandchild was born January twelve from my middle daughter, Zerzan, and he had his account. We opened his account soon as he got his Social Security card and I put money in it. My wife puts money in it. And of course, his mom and dad put money. Right. And so same thing will happen with Mekka, maybe even on a bigger level, because she has more resources at this point. I’m teaching her about investing. And so forth, but again, she’s like, I’m not a personal trainer, so I’m not going to tell her how to do her job, but she trusts me to say her dad, take this and let’s invest it in making some money, you know what I mean? So, yes, we’ve already started that. So, yes, absolutely.

Got you. Got you.

And also being a small business, you know, making sure she understands the importance of having something you can write off in terms of a rate for her, you know what I mean? You can do up to fifty four thousand dollars in a separate, whereas in a traditional or Roth, you can only do six thousand if you’re under 50. So I’m like, OK, let’s get together. You can do more than six, you know, and whatever you put into this, we can write this off this year for twenty one.

Got you. So as far as your grandson, I mean what kind of account. I mean this is five ones. And what flavor did you start for.

Five. Twenty,

twenty nine.

Twenty nine and custodians are basically going into account. I have him in a custodial account and most of my clients typically recommend custodial unless they just admit my telephone calls. But you just don’t know. For me I’m just like you know and is limited on how you can invest the five twenty nine. It goes to a particular fund. Families fund mutual funds that they have set aside or not, whereas a custodial account I can open that the benefit of the five twenty nine is when you use it. If it’s for college it comes out tax free basically like a Roth. But I say let’s put it into a custodial account and let’s grow it. Stocks that are going to grow at a faster rate. This kid is young, so I’ll put him in Microsoft, Apple, you know, Tesla, whatever stocks the exact moment, some great stocks even or things that are interested in Disney, Nike, if they’re athletes, things of that nature, those type of things, stocks that they know because that way when they’re young and they come in, I can engage them and say, look, you own a part of Nike. We’ve put in five thousand dollars over the last five years. Maybe it is worth twelve thousand dollars. So you’ve made seven thousand dollars off of this, right? So we can show them, hey, it’s important to invest in things you’re familiar with. I don’t like people to invest in things that they have no clue what it is they just heard. It’s a good stock or good company. But you never heard of the company. To me, that’s not very wise because you don’t know what the success of that company will be. That’s more of a gamble now. No risk. No reward. Right. So you may get rewarded big. If you take on more risk, you could lose more as well. So you got to kind of wait where you are, what your risk tolerance is in that in that thing. But anyway, I know I’m getting off on it.

Oh, no, no.

I’m going to go on custodial account and start talking about risk and but yeah, his name is Zaira. He’s in a custodial account and we buy stocks for him in that account, as I do with most of my grandparents. Open accounts for their kids or their grandchildren.

Yeah, but I knew when you talk about wealth, you talk about family. I knew your passion was going to shine through in that moment. So you kind of just fed into it with your morning habits, your morning routine. I’ve talked to a couple of dozen people at this point time and not ten of them. Is coffee working out like what’s your morning routine?

Yeah, so I’m not a morning person. I’m usually trying to roll up out of the big man. But since I’ve been a little more focused on my eating habits, I’ll just get up, have again a cup of coffee or maybe a cup of green tea or something like that. My wife thinks this a pandemic has started working from home. So she’ll get up and make a healthy breakfast or I’ll get up and do some bran cereal or something like that. My staff knows that I’m really don’t do appointments earlier than 10:00 a.m.. Right. That’s my first. Whether it’s a phone appointment, whether it’s an in-person Timonium is my appointment. I try to be in the office by nine most days. If I have something earlier than I’ll come in earlier. But if something has to happen at that point, I’ll do that. Sometimes I have different meetings. I have to attend that earlier. But typically in the office about 9:00, you know, my first meeting is usually at about 2:00.

Got you. Got you so what do you see yourself in 20 years?

You know what, this is the type of career where you don’t have to retire, honestly. You can keep working well into retirement age 20 years, man, I’ll probably be still running my office. How will I be 20? I might be looking at retirement, getting ready to retire, saying again, it’s a passion and I might be run in my office with the larger staff and maybe coming in once or twice a week. You know what I mean? I know some of my colleagues who are at that age and typically they sit in by the pool or they’re on the golf course most days of the week, but they may spend two or three days in the office. And then I have some who are workaholics, who are older and still come in five, six, seven days a week. I mean, you know, the market’s is only open five. So me, I don’t do that because I’m already like five days a week. I mean, here I do Saturdays by appointment only if you definitely want me to Saturday. And it’s worth both our while, then I’ll do a Saturday appointment. But I have no problem celebrating my victories. I have no problem taking Fridays off to go golf and things of that nature. But most times I’m here in the office Monday through Friday for sure.

Got you. Got you what tools do you use in your business on a day to day basis?

I have my on my watch list that I watch on stocks and bonds and mutual funds. We have all types of different research reports that come through. And I kind of filter things that I want to filter through and look at and read the things that are pertinent to my business and my clients. But I’m always looking at the market. We have a really good system in terms of putting in trades and things of that nature. But my day normally looks like really just talking to people and finding out what it is they want to do and then putting together a plan for.

Got you, got you. So what final words of wisdom do you have for anybody that’s coming up as an entrepreneur that wants to kind of follow in your footsteps?

Well, I think very quickly you learn whether it’s for you or not. Remember, I said this is the first one. So I think very quickly, for me, it was the best career move I’ve ever made. It changed my life in a substantial way. I mean, my my the quality of living for my family, my immediate family. And then now I can do this for the legacy that is going to leave behind. It’s changed dramatically. So what I would say is, if you’re interested in it, pursue it, step out on faith, which is what I did at the time. I stepped out on faith and said, look, I’m going to do this because I don’t know if I said this part. But when I did start working for that company that did credentials for financial planner CFP credentials, Edward Jones was my client. They told me they were pursuing me at that time, like, you should really do this and I kept saying I kept saying, I’m not going to do that. I’m not. I’m not. I will take this for me until I finally said, you know what? I’m going to step out on faith. I’m just I didn’t even say that. Actually, somebody just said to me, just talk to support to a recruiter. And I finally gave in and said, OK, I’ll talk to them. In my mind, not thinking that I was going to move over and actually do this. But after I talked to them and they said, well, why don’t you just put in an application? And then the process started happening and then it was more and more like, OK, I actually want this. And I kind of said, if I do do this, I knew I had this. I was stepping out on faith.

So, I mean, how can people get a contact? We’ve got a Facebook, a website, email address.

Yeah, I wish I had something to share the screen with. But bottom line is, you can call my office and let me give you that number 77466031 my hours are eight thirty to five. You call my office, somebody will be here. Just my administrative assistant branch office administrator. She handles everything and the office handles my schedule. So again, seven seven seven four six six zero zero three one. My email address isTondeleo DayEdward Jones.Com. Hopefully they’ll be able to see that when this podcast. Honestly, I tell folks if all else fails, just Google me and Tondeleo Day. Usually the Edward Jones will pop right up or Tondeleo Day, Edward Jones and it’ll definitely pop up. And we have a website can come to my website.

I usually get pretty much license in about 30 states. You’re essentially nationwide at this one.

Pretty absolute. Anyhow, the only states, of course I’m not. It’s just places where you don’t really find many folks who are here or who are going to hear about me, which is like

Hawaii.

Yeah, well, actually, I had a client in Hawaii, but I was going to say like Montana, those places, I don’t have anybody out there, Minnesota or Iowa or anything like that, that northern part of the world. But I have people in California and Washington and. Colorado and Texas and all along the East Coast.

cool cool. So I got a bonus question for you, who would you want to spend twenty four hours with, dead or alive, uninterrupted?

Oh, man. I started a book club here with the in business here that we turned. Jones started with about five people that attended the first one. Now we have about 30 that come 30 black advisors. We have dinner at issue, a book out. And so I always do questions like this. And this was a question I gave to the same question. But I think I said, give me three people that you like to have dinner with. So you narrowing that thing down is kind of like, OK, you know, if I’m going to say one person. I could go a few different ways, but you know who I would love to talk to maybe in their prime is Ali muhammad Ali is one of my heroes, a person who was obviously killed at his own sport. But he was involved, obviously, with society and was not going to the Vietnam War and losing his builtin championship during that time, but then also just didn’t know how his lifestyle was because he dealt with a lot of celebrities, females and all of that. And just how he moved through all of those things, through that notoriety, to that fame, how he maintained his respectability as that figure, as an icon through all of that. Of course, he’s human. He made mistakes just like everybody else. So I think it would just be an incredible conversation just to hear some backstories. I love history. So there’s a few people I would like to say to me, of course, Jesus would be having a conversation with you. This would be crazy. Tupac and his father would be. That’s one of my guys. I want to know how to fight, bro. What was going on in your head when this happened? I love now that we’re in this pandemic, we’ve been blessed to hear stories on things like podcasts and things of that nature that we’ve never been privy to. And like the purses here and backstories on songs when you see this versus thing that Swiss beats and Timlin got going on. So there’s a lot of people I would love to. I mean, I think it would be incredible to sit with just to hear some of his stories. He seems to have some just background on everybody in hip hop and some outside of hip hop talent. And he’s going to be real transparent about what’s going on, what he experienced. So there’s a lot. But if I’m adjustable when I’m I’ll just go with my man’s Muhammad Ali.

got you got you a Malcolm X would probably be a close second. Well, I mean, they were around the same time period, so.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

definitely. So this is a time in the podcast as I usually give the microphone to you and if you have any questions for me, man, shoot,

we kind of talk briefly, but we didn’t I was just curious, why would you like me to be on the podcast when you think at that point I brought to the table in terms of this conversation?

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, everybody that I pick for this podcast and this is just like season one, season one is more so kind of like my extended in a circle like everybody that I’ve actually dealt with on a business b be or I was influenced by in one time other within my last 20, 30 years saying that I can remember more so on and on adults. So for you was like, I seen your journey, you see them saying I was there with you and I was in school, but you were working there and then I’ve seen you leave and then I seen you start. Then, you know, when I was doing the series six and you had just finished your seven, it was a lot of like parallel stuff, different directions. Yeah. So I definitely and I was like, you be great because I’m really big on diversity. So on this podcast, it’s really about multiple different backgrounds. I’ve had people from radio shows. I have people that own storefronts. I’ve had people that were just millionaires because they filed a patent. So giving the diversity to understand that there’s a million ways to make a million dollars, no doubt, and hopefully that one of my guests would give somebody an opportunity listening to understand it. OK, maybe the last guy wasn’t. But that this guy is it was this guy, maybe this girl. She’s the one that’s going to make you wake up and realize that you don’t have to work nine to five. Right. You can start your own business. And it’s a million different ways of starting your own business and growing it from point zero to one hundred million to a billion dollars. And that’s the reality of everybody got their they started from nothing. And even if they started, would welcome their bell. They still have to use that wealth to create the next thing. So.

Right, right.

That’s why I got you.

OK, appreciate that. Who is your audience on your podcast? Who are you reaching first? If that’s not the ultimate goal, was the ultimate goal of who to reach and how big you want your podcast.

So what I’ve always learned, just by becoming a marketer over the years and becoming more and more into marketing is you’re going to have to hone in to an audience to obviously the default. And the person that would say everybody is a person is not going to get anybody right.

Focus right.

So my focus group honestly is I would say middle age men and females. So a say I’m talking like maybe like thirty five to about fifty five, because that’s the age group of where people are kind of like, you know what, I’ve been doing this job forever. It’s paid my bills. But now one more or like in your case, you know, you say you was like forty four and he was like, boom, we clicked.

Right, right, right. I’m working for somebody else making them rich, like I need to make a move. If I’m old you will lose all this good talent. And you know, I’m saying I need to be doing it for the benefit of my family.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So and that demographic is just so many. It’s kind of like when you look at wealthy versus middle class. It is way more small business owners than they are million dollar corporation owners, a billion dollar corporation owners. So if you’re targeting a wide audience and I’m targeting, you know, obviously this 20 year olds out there, I can listen to this podcast. You’re doing a Mecca, for example. She’s a demographic that’s different to her age group that’s unique, that she’s a little bit more seasoned as a veteran as far as business.

Yeah.

So, like the terminology that we’re talking about and that’s the beauty of his podcast, is that you not talk about financial services. Right. And another podcast we could be talking about audio engineering. Another one we could talk about graphic design. So just the diversity between the conversations, it’s given a blanket to that demographic.

Right. Right. OK. Yeah. And I love the title is Boss Uncaged. Right. It’s the title of the podcast at Boss Uncaged. Now what your books say Uncage Trailblazer. Yeah.

This one.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s dope. Could you talk a little bit about that real quick before we go.

Yeah. Yeah. So my original book series before that one I had a two part book series before the title was cool and it was more for a younger generation. But now what. Just like to target the demographic that I’m going after has to be a little bit more, not so much in your face, but everybody has a caged animal inside of them dying to get out. That’s why I have a line on the cover. When you think about beasts in our world, the lion kind of represents like the ultimate animal. I mean, you have wolves, you have dragons, but a lion is very symbolic. So the thing that everybody has a lion or a lion this inside of them and you’re a boss and you try to Boss Uncaged trying to break out. So that’s why the podcast and the book are all about being their boss and breaking out that show.

Right. Right. I love it. I love it.

Well, I definitely appreciate you taking the time. I know you’ve got a busy schedule. Your phone’s been ringing off the hook near the end of this podcast. I know you’ve got to get back to work, but I definitely appreciate you, man. And I commend you for what you’re doing.

It’s all good. I appreciate you having me, man. It’s been a pleasure.

Definitely. Man have a good one.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Boss UnCaged. I hope you got some helpful insight and clarity to the diverse approach on your journey to becoming a Trailblazer at this podcast. Helped you please email me about it. Submit additional questions. You would love to hear me ask our guests and or drop me your thoughts at asksagrant.com post comments, share it, subscribe and remember, to become a Boss Uncaged, you have to release your inner Beast. S. A. Grant signing off.

listeners of Boss UnCaged are invited to download a free copy of our host S. A. Grant’s insightful book, Become an Uncage Trailblazer. Learn how to release your primal success in 15 minutes a day. Download now at www.Sagrant.com/bossuncaged.