IAM728- Co-founder Teaches About Financial Literacy

Ron Curtis is an author, Credit Repair Consultant, and Co-Founder of a non-profit called First Base Inc. He is a natural-born leader and also a serial entrepreneur who has a passion for helping others. He aspires to teach as many people as he can about financial Literacy.

• CEO Hack: Constantly engaging with mindful content that adds value
• CEO Nugget: Discipline is the key to achieving your goals
• CEO Defined: You are a leader, and innovator and have to hustle in any environment

Website: http://www.dmvsbest.com/

Instagram Personal Page: @Wavy_Ronny
Non-Profit Page: @Firstbaseinc
Business Blog Page: @_dmvsbest
Book Link: https://gumroad.com/l/diNNX

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Transcription

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[00:00:02.20] – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

[00:00:29.69] – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Ron Curtis of Wavy Tech. Ron, it's awesome to have you on the show.

[00:00:38.79] – Ron Curtis

Thanks for having me on the show, Gresh. I really appreciate it.

[00:00:41.39] – Gresham Harkless

No problem. I definitely appreciate you for taking some time out. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Ron so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. Ron is the author of Financial Lit Volume One, Understanding Credit. He also is a credit repair consultant for Max Credit Score, and he's the co-founder of a nonprofit called First Base Inc. He's a natural-born leader and also a serial entrepreneur who has a passion for helping others. He aspires to teach as many people as he can about financial literacy. So, Ron, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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[00:01:11.00] – Ron Curtis

Yeah. Most definitely. I'm ready I'm ready to talk to them.

[00:01:13.59] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Let's do it. So to to kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, hear a little bit more more how you got started. Could you take us through your CEO story? We'll let you get started with your business ventures.

[00:01:23.50] – Ron Curtis

So, basically, as far as I as long as I can remember, I've always had, like, a natural-born hustle. And pretty much working a nine-to-five job, I realized that wasn't the lifestyle for me. I have been blessed. I went to Virginia Commonwealth University, graduated, and majored in business. I received a couple of internships that led to full-time jobs that placed me in the career path that I am now. But, I can honestly say that reading different books such as Rich Dad Poor Dad, Think and Grow Rich, different, business mind focus novels like that helped inspire me to wanna, to become a CEO and and pretty much lead an entrepreneur lifestyle.

[00:02:03.40] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense. It's it's so funny. Each of the books that you mentioned is definitely classic, and it's so for me, I didn't necessarily grow up in an entrepreneurial background, but felt I had those tendencies when I was younger too. But I think it was those kind of books that, for me at least, made me feel like it was possible and, of course, exactly how you can, you know, make that happen.

[00:02:24.00] – Ron Curtis

Definitely. It starts with the book, knowledge is power. Mhmm.

[00:02:27.69] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And, so I wanted to to drill down a little bit deeper, and hear a little bit more about your ventures. Could you take us through, like, the different ways that you help support the clients that you that you have?

[00:02:38.30] – Ron Curtis

Okay. So, the most focal point in my business right now is financial literacy. And as you, stated so I have a passion for financial literacy. My goal is to teach over a thousand people this year financial literacy. So in that aspect, I'm really focused on financial services. So I'm a credit repair consultant for Max Credit Score. I teach people how to leverage their credit, how to increase their scores, and also, how we should be using our credit on a day-to-day basis to provide them with that literacy. I'm also a broker for Primerica where I teach, people in my community about, the importance of life insurance.

I'm trying to get us to change the narrative that life insurance isn't something that should be looked down on or frowned upon, but it also should be looked at as something as this income protection to protect your income, when you're when you're not here, you're no longer here to support your family. And last but not least, I'm currently in the process of studying for my securities license so I can deal with, teaching people how to, deal with their retirements and investing and things like that. So I am also working on my second novel, under, financial aid, understanding the stock market. So that's pretty much what I focus on in terms of my business.

[00:03:48.00] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I definitely appreciate that. And as you said, you know, knowledge is power. And I think I don't know what but it might have been Rich Dad Poor Dad that, and I know he always talks about this. Kiyosaki always talks about how important it is you don't really learn that financial aspect. They should be teaching it in school, but they don't teach it in school. So a lot of times, people graduate from high school, college, and so on and so forth. They might have all the book knowledge related to other things, but they don't necessarily know how to, at the very least, even balance a checkbook. So it's great that you, you know, devoted so many different ways to kind of empowering people. Exactly. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to, ask you for what I call your secret sauce. And this could be for you personally or your ventures, but what do you feel kinda sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:04:30.19] – Ron Curtis

One thing that I can definitely say is that the quality or trait that makes me unique is transparency and also, a form of relationships with my clients. And, with that being said, especially in the financial services industries, finance is something that they don't teach us in school. So, pretty much by the time that we're thirteen, twelve years old, we're handling money, money every day in elementary school and on, and they never teach you about money.

So if you're not going to learn about money in school, if your family does not have that, financial literacy and expertise to teach you about money and you don't go seek it yourself, pretty much that's where my expertise comes in to give you and provide as much value as I can to you wholeheartedly. Pretty much teaching you about financial literacy. So, like I said, those are the things that we can't and we're not gonna learn in school. Society is not gonna teach us. Sometimes they say experience is the best teacher, and I'm trying to, pretty much get my community to understand that you have to be proactive instead of reactive in, terms of financial literacy.

[00:05:28.89] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Absolutely. That makes so much sense, which, again, I appreciate you, for, you know, creating the books and working on your book and all the, you know, continued learning that you're doing as well too to kinda, you know, help out people in the community. Correct me if I'm wrong, but finances are something that can be learned. It's I think it's sometimes even if you don't grow up in our understanding of exactly what you can do with the dollar or different ways you can invest and so on and so forth, you still have the opportunity to learn to be able to increase that knowledge and, of course, increase the ability to be able to execute on that knowledge. Exactly. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, perfect. And so, I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:06:17.80] – Ron Curtis

It can be definitely a number of things, but one that comes to mind is, constantly and constantly engaging with my mindful content that adds to your value. So an example of this can be, it can be a number of things. It can be listening to books. It can be podcasts. It can be, reading. It could be going and just doing research, perfecting your craft daily. So the one that definitely sticks out, another great podcast to listen to is something called Earn Your Leisure podcast. And I love how they have about eighty-plus episodes where they go in and they break down all these different business opportunities that are available for, people like you and me everyday people that can, pretty much tell their story on how they became successful. And what I love about it is they give you so many valuable, gems and they drop all of the valuable knowledge that you need transparently to achieve those goals and become successful as well.

[00:07:13.50] – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That makes so much sense, and I almost feel like it's a lot like what we were talking about at the beginning where you, you know, at least for me, when I started to read more and hear about more, sometimes you think that maybe it's not possible, but when you start to read and see, like, as you said, everyday people that are able to kinda create these businesses, it helps make it, you know, I guess, experience that we all can learn to do and actually, create in our lives.

[00:07:39.30] – Ron Curtis

That's that's definitely facts. Most definitely.

[00:07:42.00] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now, I wanted to ask you for what I call CEO nuggets. So that could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client or if you were to hop into a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

[00:07:56.00] – Ron Curtis

The one thing that, I would definitely tell my younger self based on all the research and knowledge that I've acquired over the years, pretty much you cannot be successful or acquire anything you want in this life without discipline. Discipline is definitely the foundation to get you to achieve your dreams and your goals. And it could be something as simple as waking up every morning at a certain time and, season the day, deciding not to, you know, snooze your alarm. So I pretty much try and test myself, daily, weekly, monthly, and, also yearly, with different goals to make me more disciplined. So I would definitely say the key is discipline.

[00:08:34.60] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. And do you find, like, those challenges that you have, does it translate over and make you I mean, obviously, you know, make you more disciplined in that thing, but also, does it seem to carry over into other aspects of your life and, of course, in business as well?

[00:08:48.10] – Ron Curtis

Most definitely. An example of this could be the book The Compound Effect. Right? So it talks about how pretty much when you start with one task and you continue to do it over and over and over, there's that compounding effect where, of course, things overnight success and things are gonna happen overnight, but as long as you keep putting in that debt that works from day to day, you will reach the achieved result that you want.

So, it does have a have a piggybacking effect on other things. And perfect example could be waking up every morning and just making your bed. You can start there. I've been able to sustain and pretty much refrain from partaking in certain activities, in terms of eating habits, spending habits, just daily rituals, and listening to something valuable each day. And it really does have a snowball effect. When you when you start with discipline, you can start with something small, and it'll compound and continue to grow.

[00:09:40.89] – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I appreciate you for breaking that down. And I think was it Darren Hardy, I think, that wrote that book? I can't remember who wrote the compound effect.

[00:09:47.70] – Ron Curtis

But I can't remember off the top of my head either.

[00:09:49.89] – Gresham Harkless

It's a powerful book because I think that so many times, as you said, we think about overnight success. We think everything just happens overnight. But in reality, it's those little small things that start to add up and create those compound of those, you know, those watershed moments, I guess you can say, where things start to really move.

[00:10:08.10] – Ron Curtis

That yeah. It's definitely Darren Hardy. I have his book right here. Yeah.

[00:10:10.79] – Gresham Harkless

Perfect. Yeah. I thought so. Yeah. It's definitely one another great, you know, hack because I think, again, so many times we get we see everybody's finish line. We don't see the process that it took for them to get there.

[00:10:23.10] – Ron Curtis

Exactly. Yep.

[00:10:24.70] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO, and we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So, Ron, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:10:36.29] – Ron Curtis

Being a CEO means to me pretty much that you're a leader. When you're a CEO, you're usually the head of an organization. That means a lot of times you have employees underneath you that rely on you, that pretty much you're responsible for. The second thing that comes to mind with being the CEO is you have to learn to hustle in any, in every environment. An example of this could be, right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, just because the way of life has changed for a lot of us, that doesn't mean you stop. It doesn't, life doesn't stop for anybody. The clock starts ticking and the world keeps revolving. So I would say, that being a CEO to me is being a leader. You have to be able to lead so people can follow you and then you have to be able to be innovative and hustle in every environment.

[00:11:20.29] – Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I love those two perspectives just because, I think they definitely overlap as well because I think true leadership is in times when there are difficulties where there's, you know, disruption and changes, you know, you show your leadership by how you're able to lead yourself, but also, of course, lead the people that depend upon you, whether that be team team members or investors or whatever, however that looks. And I think, when you start to incorporate that and do that regularly, you're able to kinda, you know, hustle, pivot, change your way to towards where you need to be to reach whatever that goal might be. That's definitely true. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Ron, truly appreciate that definition. Appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know, and, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:12:10.50] – Ron Curtis

Okay. Well, first of all, I wanna thank you for your time today. I definitely enjoyed coming on your show and, giving you some insight on what a CEO is to me. In terms of what I like to share with you guys, if anybody ever wants to reach out to me, if they have any questions regarding their finances, I can make personalized budgets for them. I can also do a free consultation pretty much to go over your credit profile where we can take an in-depth look at your credit profile and and talk about some ways of how we can increase your score. And then you can contact me at, roncurtis at gmail dot com. And, you can follow me on Instagram, at way_ronny, and that's w a  y underscore r o n n y.

[00:12:54.60] – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Ron. And we will have the links and information in the show notes just so that everybody can follow up with you. But definitely, as you said, you know, being and understanding the different ways you can, you know, leverage your finances or know about your finances is increasingly important, insanely important for everybody. So I appreciate you for doing that in so many different ways and, of course, giving us so many words of wisdom today as well.

[00:13:17.50] – Ron Curtis

I will thank you for your time today, Grash. I definitely appreciate you as well.

[00:13:21.79] – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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