Funding provided by The Equifax Foundation is dedicated to helping people Build Financial Capability Because, a single financial opportunity Can change the trajectory of families and communities for generations.

Learn more at Equifax.com/foundation ♪ I've got brand new feeling - I'm Jacqueline Schadeck, and I'm soon to be your favorite certified financial planner.

♪ And I'm feelin' good - My name's Chris Corinthian.

I'm a financial literacy expert and financial coach.

♪ Ready for action - We are a professional powerhouse.

♪ I've got a brand new feeling - So I handle the numbers.

- And I try to see, what is their relationship with money?

- So we meld the two together to give you the most financial empowerment.

♪ And I'm feeling good ♪ Hey (upbeat music) ♪ Walking like a winner - Hey, how are you?

- Good.

How you feeling?

- I'm pretty good, I was actually just opening up and looking at the information they sent over on our new mentee.

- Mm-hm.

- Would you like to hear it?

- Yes.

Let's talk about it.

- Okay.

Let's talk about it.

My name is Justin, I'm 22 years old, and I work as the head of marketing for a Web3 startup.

The company that I work with is Project Pi, and we're building out a DeFi protocol.

- At 22, you're usually young and full of life.

So I wonder what his plans are for the future.

- I know at 22, I was not thinking about the financial future.

So this is good that he's seeking help.

- Yeah, he's a young guy, and he's working in blockchain, which is futuristic.

Yeah, so it sounds like he's looking toward his future.

- The thing that I'm looking forward to is actually finding more about what I'm doing wrong.

- You know, Gen Z's built a little different.

- Let's go meet him and find out how we can help him.

- Let's go meet Justin.

- All right.

(steady music) How you doing?

Chris.

- Hey.

Justin.

- Pleasure to meet you.

- Hi, Justin.

I'm Jacqueline.

- Nice to meet you.

- Hi.

- Van.

- Van, nice to meet you.

Thanks for having us in this space.

It looks really cool.

- Yeah, just a incubator program for people to come build businesses, and that's where I met my buddy Van.

You know, we're building Project Pi.

It's a liquid staking platform.

It's a little bit of DeFi.

- So when you say DeFi, what does that mean?

- Decentralized finance.

So typically, you know, you have like a TraFi, traditional finance, you know, using banking.

But with crypto, it's like DeFi.

We're decentralized where you no longer have to actually go to the bank, it's all digital.

- Okay.

As they're explaining what it is that they do, I'm getting a whole new understanding of this space that they're in.

- DeFi may seem a little bit scary, but if you think about the history of finance, we've always had new inventions.

We used to be on the gold standard, and we no longer are.

So this is a new wave that's coming up and it's important that we're educated on it.

Tell us about your background.

- Yeah, so I was born in Vegas and I moved to Korea, and then I moved to Georgia and I basically spent my whole life here.

It's me and my sister, my mom.

So I didn't go to school.

It was when COVID hit.

So I went for a semester and just been, you know, trial and error, trying to start different businesses, trying to make money different ways, making money for myself, and you know, just been evolving ever since.

I am working with a startup, and they've been paying me about around like 2,000 a month.

I have no marketing background, you know, this is all very new to me, but I want to say I'm a quick learner.

So I've been kind of learning on the spot.

Trying to level up myself so that I can, you know, take these skills and maybe start my own marketing agency, specifically in the Web3 space.

- Hearing that Justin values freedom and that he's willing to take a chance on himself really shows me what type of person he is.

I love that he's willing to take high risk, but he also needs to understand that it's risk.

One thing that I like about what you said is that you took a chance on you.

So it doesn't look like you're, you know, afraid of a certain risk if they're calculated, right, especially if you believe in yourself and you have a plan, right?

- It sounds like you have a lot figured out.

You're already working in a form of the finance space.

So tell us a little bit more about why you reached out to our team and what we can help you with.

- Everyone always says while you're young, you gotta take those like, you know, big risks 'cause you don't have a lot to lose.

But sometimes, I'm a little bit too optimistic and it doesn't always work out in my favor.

So just being a little bit more calculated, I could definitely work on that a little bit more 'cause I've always wanted to be like free.

I always wanted to do what I wanted to do, not in a very, not in a selfish way, but I actually maybe, maybe in a selfish way.

- "Maybe."

(all laughing) - It was like, you know, it's my life.

- Right.

- Like I want to live the way I want.

I don't want to just leave my family behind as well.

So definitely wanna take care of them.

My mom, you know, she's been working really hard.

So gotta pay her back.

It's kind of part of the Asian culture.

And my mom, she sacrificed a lot just to give me a chance to be born in the States.

You know, coming here as an immigrant is not easy, especially when you're raising two kids as well.

And I just want to take care of her before it is a little too late, and I gotta thank her for actually even giving me the chance to pursue my dreams and do what I want to do in my life.

- So if there was one big takeaway that you're expecting to have from this experience, what would you say that is?

- Like a flaw in my way of thinking.

I think that would obviously be the most beneficial so I don't get blindsided in the future.

- Okay, find all the problems, that's what we gotta do.

- Find all problems.

Point 'em out, right?

- Well, let's get to working on his plan.

(moderate music) I loved meeting with Justin.

He seems to have a really good heart.

The fact that he's so young and he's already thinking about helping take care of his mom and his sister shows me that he's a really giving person.

I think that it takes a special person to be able to take entrepreneurship on, especially as young as he is.

So I'm really excited about the fact that he has all of the tools in his hands right now to design the life that he loves.

But I wanna make sure that he understands that it's key to have his own money in order so that he can help other people.

- Right, I love that he's working with somebody that has a vision, that has a goal.

I think one of the things that are gonna be important is just helping him find what his individual goals are.

Like he has a plan set out for what he wants to do with the company, but now we need to make sure that he has a plan to tell the story of himself.

- Most 22-year-olds, they went to college and they plan to use their degree after college.

So they have some sort of a journey that's already created for them.

But with Justin having not gone to school and just kind of figuring it out day to day, he hasn't had that set path in front of him.

So I think it'll be key that we teach him how to create his own path.

- That's a great point.

And what does this future look like with this company?

Is he planning to solely work with them or for them?

Or does he wanna look at it more from a client perspective and build other partnerships with different businesses?

'Cause if that's the route he wants to take, then that's another opportunity for him to grow as well.

- So I think if we can show him a little bit about the path of where he wants to go and then how to get there, he'll be golden.

- I love that plan.

- Let's do it.

- Let's go.

(mugs clink) - Justin has spent so much time helping other people focus on their business, I'm wondering how much thought he's really put into building his business.

One of the toughest things to manage at being 22 is looking into the future.

So if we can help him visualize his highest self, we can help him get there.

We've invited Justin to the office today so we can learn more about his goals and help him set himself up for success.

So you felt like your biggest takeaway could really be a mindset shift for you?

- Yeah.

The amount of experience you guys have, I think I can learn a little bit more about how I can go about my kind of roadmap.

You know, I feel like you guys can direct me in the right direction.

- Mm-hm.

We're here to support you.

- Yeah.

- So let's start with talking a little bit about your goals and what your future is gonna look like - Okay.

- because everything that we're gonna talk about today is really how to structure and how to set you up for success in the future.

So we're gonna work backwards today, all right?

- I like that.

- So I'm gonna have you doing some of our work here on the board.

- Okay.

- A seven-year plan is designed to help you look into the future and direct you on the path of where you want to be.

It's really high level, it's meant to be more motivating than anything.

So you start at year seven and see where you want to be, and then go all the way back to where you are right now and design a plan that's gonna get you from here to year seven.

Most of us struggle with visualizing our highest selves, and when you're in that early stages of life, like Justin at the age of 22, you need to visualize where you want to go.

So the seven-year plan really helps you to get an idea of the way that you want your life to go.

So the first line is going to be for your portfolio value, and the second line is gonna be for your annual income, okay?

- Okay.

- So let's start with the annual income.

- All right.

- What would you like your annual income to be?

♪ Paper stack, bring the money home ♪ - I mean, I wanna go big.

So let's say a solid million dollars a year.

- $1 million?

That's a 22-year-old answer.

Okay, so that's gonna be line two.

Put $1 million.

- Right here?

(marker squeaks) (Justin chuckles) - You wanna be making $1 million a year.

Okay.

- Yeah.

- Typically by the age of about 30, you would want to shoot to have one times your annual income in your retirement account.

So the easiest thing to do is to go from year seven to where you are right now.

- Gotcha.

- So come here to year one.

All right.

- Write your age.

- All right.

- Write your portfolio value on line one.

- 7K.

- And write your annual income right now.

- [Justin] Let's see, about... - Okay.

So now we just need to figure out how to get you from $40,000 a year to $1 million a year, and from 7K saved to $1 million saved.

- All right.

- All right?

So it's going to be a big stretch, but I like this stretch goal for you because it's going to expand your mind.

- Mm.

(laughs) - Let's talk a little bit about risk.

- Okay.

- Have you lost money before?

- I have.

Yeah, yeah, - Tell me about that.

- So I got into the crypto market's last cycles.

I rode the wave up, took a little bit of profits out, but I also rode it back down.

And I would say I made a lot, I lost a lot, you know?

- Okay, so investing comes with risk.

- Yeah.

- And we need to see how much risk you're willing to take because even if you are willing to risk a lot of the 7,000 to get to your first 100,000 saved, the fear is that if it's so risky and it keeps losing in value, you'll never get to the $100,000 saved.

- True.

- So let's talk about risk a little bit later, but let's just talk about numbers right now.

Okay, general numbers.

- Okay.

- Hey, hey.

- Hey.

- How y'all doing?

- What's up, Chris?

- So I see Jacqueline and Justin.

They've already started the party, so it's time for me to crash it.

- We're just going over some numbers.

Kind of just started, so perfect timing.

- Okay.

All right, so let's see what we got.

- We are looking at some numbers here.

So what Justin would like to have is $1 million of income in seven years at the age of 29.

$1 million- - Okay.

Wait, pause!

- $1 million?

- $1 million as a goal is not easy.

- As he's doing this activity, he's gonna see what it really takes to actually achieve that goal.

Here we go.

So let's just say it's an average of $2,000 a month that you're earning, right, per client.

- Okay.

You're gonna have to have around 66 clients (laughs) a month, paying you $2,000 a month.

- Yeah.

- So what I'm thinking is that as you get better, the only realistic way this will work is if you're increasing your numbers, maybe even doubling your client price per year.

There are two ways that Justin can look at this, increase the cost or increase the number of clients.

- Both of those things will help him make more income.

So if he can increase the amount of clients and the cost as time goes on, he's gonna make more money.

And the whole goal of this is to be able to increase your pay over these years to get you to that seven-year goal.

- Right?

- Okay, goal.

- Let's just go by two each year, instead of doubling, right?

So 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, right?

Then by year seven, you'll be around 15,000.

- Mm.

- So let's do the calculations, right?

$1 million divided by - 15.

- 15,000 is 66.

- All right.

- Divided by 12, and you'll need five clients a month paying you 15,000.

- 15,000 a month.

- So let's just round it up to six clients, okay?

Now let's think about your skillsets.

Do you have the skillsets now to be charging 15,000 a month per client?

- I don't.

- 'Kay, so now this is why we're doing the math, right?

(Chris laughs) - That's why we're doing it because your skillset, your portfolio, your income, it's gonna be built one step at a time.

- So if I were to have a skillset or a service that is able to charge $15,000 a month, what does that kind of look like?

- So you tell us.

What are your skills?

What are you capable of doing?

- My main skillset is social media.

- Okay.

- On the industry that we're working in, that's where most of the eyes are.

So we thought it's best to kind of tailor to them.

So I create the content calendar.

- Okay.

- I make up all the post ideas and I spend another day actually building out the content, and then I go ahead and schedule all the posts throughout the week so that I'm not worried about posting or making the content on the spot.

It's already kind of laid out.

- The best thing that I'm hearing about what you're saying is that you're in a high-demand industry, and because it's something that other people are doing, you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

- Mm-hm.

- You should find somebody that's very close to where you want to be with their company, and you can replicate what they're doing.

- Gotchu.

Yeah, so I've done a little bit of research on like the top marketing companies in the Web3 space, but one thing that I feel like is missing is video work.

So I was thinking maybe like having like an agency where I could provide that service, and once I have consistent money coming in, maybe I could start hiring editors, different marketers.

So I'm taking a little bit more off my plate and I could just be- - There you go.

Now we're thinking.

- I love that.

Yeah, we're getting somewhere.

- All right.

- Okay.

- So let's realistically understand that it's going to take quite a bit to get from 40,000 a year to $1 million a year.

- Yeah.

- It's gonna require a bigger skillset, right, a bigger documentation of that skillset, and it's gonna require a lot of hard work.

So what do we realistically think that you can do from year one to year two in income if you're starting at 40,000?

- Okay, so if 40,000 is year one with one client, then the cost per client, right, is gonna go up to right over 3,000, right?

- Yeah.

Three clients.

- Three clients total.

- Yeah.

- Okay, so three clients total times $3,000 a month is how much?

- $9,000.

- $9,000.

Okay, so let's do the math.

$9,000 times 12 months is $108,000, right?

- I know $1 million sounds like a huge number to us, and it is, it's a lot of money.

But the reality is we can break that number down, especially over the seven years to help Justin get from where he is now to the million-dollar mark.

It's just gonna require that he has quite a bit of financial discipline and really builds his skillset so that people will see the value in paying him more money.

- The numbers is one aspect, but it really comes down to your mindset and what you're willing to do, what you're willing to sacrifice in order to reach that goal.

- You shared a little bit about your mom and your sister.

What about your dad?

- So my dad is in Korea.

He left around when I was like maybe seven, 13 when I was pretty young.

As of right now, the people who are already in my life, who have been supporting me since day one, I'm looking out for them first.

We started talking about why I even want to chase these big numbers, and it's always been for the family that I have right now.

I've always had a feeling of wanting to give back to them 'cause they've already done so much for me that, you know, money really can't pay back.

I really do wanna make sure that I'm not only living out my dream, but they're also able to live out their dream and they're not worrying about financial struggles as well.

- The most important thing I want you to remember is that you can't trust that nothing's ever gonna go wrong, right?

Family, business, even your own health.

You're just gonna have to learn to trust yourself that you can handle all of those things when they come.

These outside factors are always gonna come, but it's about how you handle them.

I'm really happy to hear that Justin has a clear motivator for becoming a millionaire.

Having your family behind you is a really good push to get you where you wanna go.

- Does this sound like a workable plan for you?

I think that's pretty achievable, it's just becoming the person that can charge those prices and getting those clients.

So it's gonna take some work, but yeah.

I actually never done this before.

So it's kind of cool to like visualize the actual numbers, make it make sense, and kind of come down to reality.

Yeah.

- Mm-hm.

And even if you don't make it in year seven, even if you make it in year 12, you'll have made it way before most people, and you'll be able to help your family.

So that means a lot.

- Yeah.

(chuckles) - Okay.

I'm proud of you, man.

It's a big step, okay?

- When it comes to actually achieving that goal, it's gonna be a a long and tough journey, but I am in a very innovative space.

Yes, marketing already exists in our world, but there's not too many companies that apply those services to the Web3 space.

So the way I'm kind of positioning myself, I feel like there's not as much supply when it comes to the service, and I see the demand only growing as time progresses.

(catchy music) - [Jacqueline] Now that Justin has his seven-year plan in front of him, he's going to need the discipline to understand how risk management can help him reach his million-dollar goal.

We're taking Justin rock climbing because we wanna help show him this metaphor for his financial life.

- A simple way to think of risk management is how you can reduce the amount of risk that you have regarding a plan.

Now what we want Justin to do is minimize those risks and have something that's stable and secure long term.

- [Jacqueline] We are hoping that he can get a good understanding of his finances through this rock climbing exercise.

- You're probably wondering why we're here today, - Mm.

- and we'll explain it in a second, okay?

- (chuckles) Okay.

- But what we'll do first is we're gonna show you three routes.

- All right.

- And after we show you those three routes, then we'll explain what's going on today, okay?

- All right, sounds like a plan.

- Let's get to it.

- Yeah.

- We're taking Justin rock climbing because it's gonna show him a lot of things.

It's gonna show him that if there's a goal, there'll be barriers and challenges along the way to reach that goal.

- We have a timer on Justin.

He needs to bank $1,000 before the time runs out.

He has three options.

He can either take the easier route, which has a lower payoff, the medium route, or the larger route, which all have higher payoffs.

He's gonna have to assess which risk he wants to take in order to get that $1,000 in the bank.

- The higher the reward, the higher the risk.

- Mm.

- And you're going to be timed.

So you have to be real strategic on how you want to do this, just like planning for your financial future.

- Just like bouldering has inherent risks, so does investing.

The decision is yours.

Which route do you wanna do first?

- I wanna start with the riskiest one first, - Mm-hm.

- and see, gauge my level from there.

And if I don't think I could do it, maybe move down.

The last route was $500, and it's obviously the hardest one.

So I wanted to start off with that.

It would be very fast way to start racking some money up in the bank.

The routes kind of looked doable.

I don't climb a lot, but just definitely wanted to give it a shot.

'Cause I don't want to fall while I'm up there, and I've already, you know, completed one and two.

- Okay.

- Okay, he's going for the gusto first.

- He's going for the gusto.

Let's go.

- Let's do it.

- Three, two, one, go.

- Gonna take a little bit of charting.

- [Chris] There you go.

- Little bit of learning.

♪ Climbing to the top - [Justin] Yeah, I'm... (chuckles) - There we go.

Oh!

- [Justin] That one's... - Let's stop the time.

So far, you've earned $0.

(chuckles) We're gonna go -500.

Okay.

- I'm down 500 right now.

Gotta earn- - The good news is you can earn it back.

- Yes, let's go to an easier one 'cause I don't think I could do this hard one.

- You decided you wanna take some risk off the table.

You wanna go to the easy route or the medium route?

- Let's try the medium.

Maybe the medium's doable.

Okay, so you want to do a medium route?

- Yeah.

- Let's try it.

♪ Gimme the loot, gimme the brass ♪ ♪ Gimme the monies, gimme the sprint, gimme the stacks ♪ - You got about six and a half minutes left.

- Okay.

- Let's see what you could do on this medium route.

- All right.

- Remember, this is for $300.

- Gotchu.

- Three, two, one.

(Justin grunts and chuckles) (stirring music) - [Jacqueline] Justin... - [Jacqueline and Chris] Justin, Justin, Justin!

- [Jacqueline] Justin, you're going for the blue.

- There you go.

There you go.

- With your right foot.

- Investing inherently has some risk, - There you go.

- just like this course.

- Okay.

- [Jacqueline] Dust yourself off.

Try again.

- There you go.

- You got it.

- Oh.

- Oh.

Okay.

So now $1,100.

- I'm negative.

- Investing isn't going great for you.

You don't have to keep putting up real money.

You could switch over to what we call paper trades, and you could practice.

- [Chris] Paper trading is practice trading where you buy and sell stocks or other assets using virtual money instead of real money.

It allows you to learn and test strategies without any financial risk.

- Let's go with the paper trade so I'm not digging myself deeper into this hole.

- Okay, and just remember, if you do make it to the top, it won't go towards this number.

- Okay.

- This is just really for practice to get into the better habits so you can learn your strategy.

- Okay.

- It's going to show him that to advance in our careers, we must understand our personal risk tolerance.

Risk tolerance is the level of risk someone's willing to assume to achieve a potential desired result.

- All right, I'm done.

I'm done with this one.

Give up.

I wanna go with the safest route possible.

- It's not necessarily giving up, it's just about shifting your strategy.

- Okay.

- Okay?

Let's give it a shot.

Let's go.

- I think I could do this one.

Yeah.

- You think or you know?

- I know.

- That's right, that's the mindset.

Okay.

- Time is of the essence here.

We waited a little bit longer.

So when we're in our investing journey and we wait a little bit longer in life to start making those stable, steady investments, we have to work a little bit harder.

So we are here behind you to support you.

Let's get that timer going.

- Let's do it.

Three, two, one, go.

- Okay, see... - [Jacqueline] Justin... - [Jacqueline and Chris] Justin, Justin, Justin!

- Okay.

- You said two hands?

- [Chris] Just hit the top right there.

- There you go.

- Perfect.

All right, that's good.

Timer stop.

- [Jacqueline] There we go.

That's one.

- That's one.

- Okay.

- Here we go.

- [Justin] 20 more times?

- Yeah, take your time.

Think about your long-term strategy.

- I'm ready, I'm ready.

- Ready?

Ready, set, go.

- [Jacqueline] Who wants to be a millionaire?

- [Chris] Who wants to be a thousandaire?

You told us you wanted to be a millionaire, Justin, and there's gonna be a lot of moments when you have to push through.

- [Chris] There you go.

Got it.

- [Jacqueline and Chris] Five, four, three... - Okay.

- Two, one.

- All right!

- Woo!

(Jacqueline and Chris clapping) - Wow, you did it.

- There you go.

How do you feel?

How do you feel?

- How do you feel?

- I mean, tired, I feel a little tired, but you know, - Okay, naturally.

- made a little bit back.

So can't complain.

- Right.

- [Jacqueline] You are not in the red, that's amazing.

- Yeah.

- Tell us about what you thought about this whole experience.

What did it make you think about?

- I mean, I wanted to start off going risky first 'cause I had nothing to, well, I did have something to lose.

(laughs) I was in debt.

But I think that was better to at least try it instead of waiting till I made some money and then losing from that.

And after I realized how risky it was and how much I was losing, I was like, "You know what, let me play it safe.

Let me play a long game."

And did this about like 20-something times, so yeah.

- Knowing what you know now about all the different routes, - Mm.

- about the ones that had more risk associated with it.

If you could start over to get that $1,000, would you do it the same way, or would you have a different strategy?

- Nah, I would probably just keep doing this one from the jump.

It's easier, more consistent.

- Mm-hm, mm-hm.

- And it worked.

- Yeah.

- And it worked, and you had time on your side.

- Yeah.

- Right, 'cause when we got to this, you were already past the halfway mark, right?

- Mm-hm.

- So that's the thing that we try to bring home with you is because you have time on your hands, right?

- Yeah, definitely learned a lot from this.

Yeah.

- After everything we've gone over these past several days, what are your thoughts on the whole experience and what have you learned?

- Just seeing the seven-year plan, seeing the numbers broken down, that's probably like one of my favorite parts.

Makes it feel a little bit more like possible.

And today was a pretty strong lesson.

Consistency is key.

Go with the route that works and don't risk it all 'cause you don't want to be negative.

Yeah, that's- - (laughs) That's right.

- Yeah, that's not a good feeling.

- Well, we're here rooting you on and supporting you, but right now I'm gonna have to beat Chris in the race up this wall.

(Chris laughs) - Let's see it.

- Mm-hm.

- One lesson that I learned was maybe you don't know what the safest route is in the beginning, but the second you find that route, stick to it.

You know, it's not as exciting as going for the bigger numbers, the bigger returns, but at the end of the day, if it works, it starts to add up.

And with time on my side, that's the best route for me to go.

- [Announcer 3] Find more "My Money Mentors" financial advice, tools, and resources at mymoneymentorsshow.com.

(rousing music) - [Announcer 1] Funding provided by... - [Announcer 2] The Equifax Foundation is dedicated to helping people build financial capability because a single financial opportunity can change the trajectory of families and communities for generations.

Learn more at equifax.com/foundation.

- [Announcer 4] WABE.

(stirring music)