Lauren London sparks conversation on how Black parents unintentionally give kids negative outlook on money
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Actress Lauren London joined Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings onstage at REVOLT WORLD for a live video recording of their podcast “Assets Over Liabilities” and dropped many gems. During the fireside chat, the trio spoke about how she’s navigated her financial journey and what she’s been working on behind the scenes to build wealth. In addition, they discussed why it’s important to understand how money works, so negative concepts won’t continue to be passed down.
The star divulged that she hasn’t always had the best relationship with money. Although she was never scared to lose any, the mother of two talked about having to rewire her thoughts about it throughout the years.
“I think I’ve had to work on my mindset around money, as well, and understanding that it’s an energy too…that we gotta have the mindset it’s flowing,” she shared. “Even when I was not making enough to pay my car note and all this stuff, I always knew that if I had to put a lot of money into something it was going to come back. I never thought with a scarce mentality. I think that I grew up around a lot of people that did, like steal from Peter to pay Paul and I was like, ‘I don’t want to do that… like I know it’s going to come somewhere.’ I would get another job. At one point I had three jobs, you know?”
This statement caused Bilal to go into how vital someone’s outlook is when it comes to discontinuing nonbeneficial habits.
“I think it’s very important to highlight that as far as the mindset — no matter how much information you give somebody — if their mind isn’t trained properly, it’s not going to matter,” the Earn Your Leisure co-founder said.
“It doesn’t matter how much money you give somebody if the mindset is not really tapped into the flow and the abundance and a good mind…a good relationship with wealth,” London added in agreement.
This jumpstarted a convo on how parental figures and older generations in the Black community many times will unintentionally implant a negative concept of money into children. Bilal gave an example by sharing childhood memories he had of his mother.
“Like just recently she stopped, but my mom forever…she used to tell me like Walmart [is] having a two-for-one sale on bottles of water and like you can get napkins for 50 cent[s] off if you get bundle packs, and that’s kind of how I grew up…but I appreciate the trying to save money aspect. But, that’s not a pathway to generate wealth,” he explained. “That’s a pathway to stay in a middle-class mindset where you [are] constantly looking at things from a scarcity standpoint. I’m going to spend an hour to cut coupons to save $10 as opposed to saying I’m going to spend an hour and study charts and make $30,000.
“That’s how a lot of people grew up, and it’s done not maliciously, but it’s detrimental,” he went on. “So, it’s like when you talk to your children, be aware of that because words are powerful. When you tell kids like, ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees.’ And all of these things are very negative standpoints and you’re making them already have a scarcity mindset.”
London added that she wasn’t brought up being taught that there is an abundance of money. “Well, we were taught to survive, you know? It wasn’t like a thriving environment. It was like we gotta survive, and so I think a lot of us are [the] first generation even talking about generational wealth. I know I am. I wasn’t raised in a house where that was even a concept or like available for me,” the Puma partner said.
Bilal followed up by reminding the audience that there is a limitless amount of information available for people about money. Additionally, he wanted the main takeaway from this segment of the chat to be that there is an abundance of money in the world, so no one should be afraid to lose it.
“In my opinion, you have to look at money as something that is like a frisbee. Throw it out. Throw it out because it has to come back,” he told the live crowd. “Don’t throw it out literally, like in a strip club. That’s not intelligent. But I’m saying throw it out like put it back out there. Put it into investments, buy real estate, buy stocks, put it in business. Money is not meant to be hoarded; money is meant to circulate amongst each other. When you fully understand that, now you are on a pathway to generate wealth.
“Like if your money isn’t working for you, you’ll always be working for money,” Bilal added.
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