The Fullback of Finance with Jedidiah Collins – EP 177

Interview with Jedidiah Collins

The Fullback of Finance with Jed Collins

Featured on This Episode: Jed Collins

✅ What he does: Jedidiah Collins is a former NFL player turned Certified Financial Planner, who faced financial challenges in his sports career, leading him to pursue financial education. He founded Money Vehicle, an education technology company, with a mission to provide engaging financial literacy curriculum, empowering individuals, including professional athletes and young professionals.

💬 Words of wisdom: “The moment I got my first NFL paycheck was the moment I had already spent it! This interaction with money and this perspective of how I saw money woke me up to the reality that I was financially illiterate. Never in school nor in my family had someone explained to me how money works, let alone how to make it work for me. So I sought out to learn, studying for the Certification in Financial Planning® while still playing in the NFL. This knowledge allowed me to capture the opportunity in front of me and created a passion to help others do the same!”

🔎 Where to find Jedidiah Collins: LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | X | Facebook

Key Takeaways with Jedidiah Collins

• The growth that comes from embracing failures
• Each life stage is a unique chance for growth
• Dodging the temporary millionaire trap
• Education is the first step. Taking action is the second
• You can’t outsource financial literacy
• Spreading Money Vehicle across 23 states
• Teaching students how to handle their first paycheck
• Learning is a lifelong journey

Closing the Gap in Financial Literacy | Jedidiah Collins

Jedidiah Collins Tweetables

Resources

• Money Vehicle
• Money Vehicle on LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram | X | Facebook
• Jedidiah Collins on TikTok | X/Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram
• Your Money Vehicle: How to Begin Driving to Financial Freedom by Jedidiah Collins
• Ryan Casey
• Orangetheory Fitness
• Justin Forsett
• Chris Board
• Mark Sanchez
• Scott Donnell
• GravyStack

Tax Strategy Masterclass

If you’re interested in learning more about Tax Strategy and how YOU can apply 28 of the best, most effective strategies right away, check out our BRAND NEW Tax Strategy Masterclass: www.lifestyleinvestor.com/tax

Strategy Session 

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Read the Full Transcript with Jed Collins

Justin Donald: What’s up, Jed? Good to have you on the show. 

Jedidiah Collins: Brother, it has been a few years since we got connected. It is amazing to see where you have come and to see really both of our messages continue to help people across the country. And I would imagine Lifestyle Investor’s going global so maybe across the world. 

Justin Donald: Yeah. We’ve been very blessed in our reach and having members all across the world, which is really cool. And I’m excited for what you’re doing in the world as well, Jed. You and I share a passion for educating people on finance and investing and just being wise and smart with your money. And so, this is just not something that is taught, and we need to do a better job as a nation. And so, I love the path that you’re on and the mission that you have. And I’m excited to dive into it. 

Jedidiah Collins: Absolutely. The only thing I would maybe correct you on is, bro, we don’t educate. We both empower. I know the message you put out. I know the kind of groups you put together. It’s all about action. And I say the same thing in education. You know, financial literacy fails if you don’t go do something with it. And that is kind of one of the biggest messages that we’re trying to get across through Money Vehicle is it’s great that you’re speaking the language of money, but now you got to go do things. How do you start to take those steps and build out your personal plan? But, yes, it is very simpatico, very co-branded in the idea of how do we help people live the life that they want to live. 

Justin Donald: I love that. Empowerment, I like that. Yeah, that’s good. So, your story is a really fun story. And by the way, we got connected originally. You’re friends with Ryan Casey, who’s the COO of Lifestyle Investor. Great guy. And we talked a while back. 

Jedidiah Collins: If he’s listening, well, let’s not give him too big of a head. He’s an okay guy. 

Justin Donald: Well, he does run two of the most successful Orangetheory Fitnesses out of over 1,300. So, he’s at least figured some tough stuff out and has become very profitable for him, which I love. But you and I connected immediately upon chatting. And I love your story. So, you’re a former NFL professional, right? You played as an athlete. You educate NFL players today, past and present. You’re an author. You’re a professor, right? So, you’re teaching, which is cool. And then we definitely want to get into to Money Vehicle, which you founded. But I’d love to start early with your career. And I mean, as kids, we all, maybe not all of us, many of us, myself included, want to become a professional athlete. I didn’t have the chops but, obviously, you did. You’re willing to do something different probably through work ethic, through commitment, and maybe your skill set. Your genes also give you a little plus one.

But I’ve got to imagine a lot of years was mindset and work ethic and doing what other people weren’t willing to do. So, for someone that is part of the smallest percentage out there, we’ve got an NFL player that is on the Patriots that’s in our mastermind. And he gave me the stats when I featured him on our podcast. And it’s such a small percentage that make it. So, how on earth did you do this? 

Jedidiah Collins: Well, not only make it but then make it out with something to show that the game has given them. I look at it and what I love about what you just said is what were you willing to do to achieve it. And that is truly it, man. I’m a massive component of being a journaler writing my goals and dreams down. Fifteen years ago, I said I want to do what I’m actually doing today in my journal but it was really aligning what you’re willing to do to go and achieve your dreams and your goals. That is a much bigger question after you’ve written your goal down is what are you willing and what are you not willing to do? I look at myself. I was the guy who should not have been there. I was the fly on the wall. My maybe greatest claim to fame is making it seven years in the NFL. And I ran a 5 flat 40. We’re in the middle of the combine like people are actually running 40 times this week. And I still look at it every week, every day I was in the game, we would have scouting reports on other teams, and there was not another 5 flat 40-skilled guy to be seen.

So, I have some natural gifts but not the ones that you would think of. I definitely think it was more my mentality and my mindset. So, I was undrafted out of Washington State because I was in the midst of a position change. I was going from tight end in college to fullback in the NFL. I actually was a linebacker in high school, made the change in college, and then you go into the NFL and I’m not 6’5. I don’t run a 4 or 5. You’re not going to play tight end in the league for very long. So, as I transitioned, I had a lot of learning to do. Fullback, luckily, is a position of will not skill. It is, are you willing to go and do the job over and over and over again? Anybody can play fullback for one play. Can you get up and go do it again? So, I got cut 13 times and I wear those as a badge of honor. When I go talk to teams, players, people today, I tell them I’m a great failure because each of those times I got cut and walked out, I forced myself to sit and reflect upon the room I was just fortunate enough to be in. What could I steal from the greatest in the world at what they do? And I actually would walk away and I’ve created since a series of principles for myself.

I call it rookie to veteran, but it is all around the mindset that I was able to build traveling in and out of those buildings. And so, as I look at my NFL journey, my career being undrafted, being cut a baker’s dozen times, I look at what I was able to experience. It was an amazing blessing, but it also just put me on a path. And that, I think, is something that a lot more athletes today are being attuned to is you got to be an athlete and… And being cut was one of the greatest blessings for me because it forced me to think about who I was beyond, even before my journey really even took off. 

Justin Donald: Well, seven years is a long time, especially in professional sports. So, first of all, the stats of making it are so slim to none. I mean, you’re at like 0.01%, right, of the people that played that make it. And then beyond that, I think people think once you have made it, you get drafted, “All right. That’s it. You’re in.” And that’s not the case. In every season you’re retrying out for the position. Your contract is not. I mean, now there’s more guaranteed money but it’s still like there are so many less guarantees than you think exist in that contract. Right? So, the contract can be shaken up. The contract can be traded. The contract can be reworked. And so, it’s not only impressive that you made it. It’s impressive you made it seven years, especially in that position because that’s a short-lived position. Most people get injured and that’s it. They’re done. 

Jedidiah Collins: Yeah. It is a brutal position. And that’s one that like I had to come to the mindset of looking at my collisions and measuring them in six-inch battles and really coming to that idea of like, “No, man. I’m bad enough. That guy is going to hurt more. He’s going to fear me more as opposed to me fearing them.” And believe me, everybody looks at confidence and bragging and all that stuff. Every player on that field feels some kind of way. I feared every time I stepped on the field and had to overcome that. So, it’s not like I’m some mental like giant. I had to truly work on it each and every day. But yeah, as you look at it, that’s part of the blessing and the curse. I kind of reflect on the NFL dream and the NFL nightmare. A lot of guys are that 0.01% that get an opportunity to walk into the building to achieve and play in their dream, but then it’s so short-lived that they didn’t capture it. They didn’t understand that it was just a platform to springboard into something else. And financially, they didn’t capture the opportunity.

When you live like a millionaire in the three or four years you get to be one, it’s not going to last for very long. And so, it is really that mindset shift of this is a dream. As long as you have the plan and the discipline, what are you willing to do to go and capture it? And so, it was a good journey. Seven years, no doubt, is a lot longer than I expected to survive. And every year, if you’re not one of the franchise guys, which I never was going to be, they’re trying to replace you. They’re trying to replace you with younger, cheaper, faster. And I remember sitting at tables with guys getting $50 million deals. And in that last season, $27 million was in your fifth year. And you started looking at him and going, “Do you think you’re going to make it to year five?” Because that’s a big ticket at the end there. And you start to learn the game of 53 and the game of the business off the field with how salary caps work and why they’re backloading and why a lot of guys don’t make it to the end of those second and third contracts. 

Justin Donald: And keep in mind, you’re paying, I mean, these are salaries. You’re paying high taxes on these dollars. So, what you see in the papers and online and news that’s not take home, right? You owe a lot. I think the problem is a lot of people live like that money’s going to continue on and it likely isn’t. It’s probably going to be short-lived either to injury or to younger people outperforming or to whatever it is. So, you’ve got a small window for most people that make it, which is already a small percentage. And so, you’ve got to get good with your money, except you’ve never learned how to get good with your money, right? I mean, for most people. I mean, you have. And we’re going to get into that. I was talking with Justin Forsett, who you may know. 

Jedidiah Collins: Yeah. Go Bears. Berkeley. 

Justin Donald: Yeah. So, he is an athlete who had a long stretch, who had very few injuries his entire time. It’s crazy. I think he had one minor injury and that’s it, which is unbelievable for how long he played. But what he did is he left on his own terms and it was a springboard to the next thing, which is being an entrepreneur. He started his own company and brand that’s doing really well. They’ve got products in Target and Walmart and all the big stores. It’s cool to see him and his story but for him, it wasn’t NFL or… I mean, maybe it’s NFL or bust to get there but for him, it was NFL for chapter one to launch into what’s going to be bigger, better, longer for him, which is the rest of his career. And I feel like that has been what your story is like, right? 

Jedidiah Collins: Absolutely. And nobody tells you NFL actually stands for “not financially literate.” It is a humbling experience no matter who you are. Whether you’re an NFL player or a 17-year-old driving for Uber, you get that first paycheck and you have no idea what to do with it. In the NFL, it’s a much bigger paycheck, which just means you get to mess up even larger. But I really do see this transition of the modern-day athlete. Justin played when I was playing and we were shunned and shied away from anything off the field. He, I’m sure, hid a lot of his off-the-field activities. I was studying to become a certified financial planner during my seven-year NFL career, of which not one coach knew I was doing, by design. I would hide my books even though I bring them on trips. Nobody knew what I was trying to be because I didn’t want them to think it was a distraction.

That model has kind of been flipped to where now guys are being so encouraged to see themselves as something beyond off the field mainly because we’re seeing so much struggle in the transition and we’re seeing so much struggle in the financial acumen beyond the game. And so, if you can start building something while you’re playing, while you have the eyeballs, while you have the brand. Now, thanks to Taylor Swift, the NFL may be the biggest brand in the world, you look at how can you utilize that. It is so neat to see guys like Justin take advantage full wholeheartedly use the NFL, use who you were, who you are to get an advantage, to get an edge because the other side of the coin is always going to be there. People are going to not give you a chance, not give you credit, not give you what you’ve deserved. So, you need to use it to what? But all it does is maybe crack a door open. He’s busted a door wide open, but we really need to see that as the new template for the modern-day athlete.

I think the Golden State Warriors really changed the game as they were so close to Silicon Valley. There’s going to be several billionaires that come out of that team in that run. Yes, because they made some good money on the court but mostly because they made a lot of money off of the court. And that mindset has really passed through all professions, all athletes of, well, how can I go be an investor now? Some guys need to pause and realize that you don’t need to throw every dollar you make into an investment but it is a really neat undertaking seeing these new NIL athletes be introduced to that concept four years earlier and really forcing them to say, “Sports is great. Sports is a moment. Sports is a part of you,” but it is just that part. You called it chapter one. I love that. Maybe it’s chapter two by the time you get into college in the pro level but that is just a chapter of your life. You got a lot more to live. 

Justin Donald: I love that. And I love that it’s becoming more embraced or more mainstream to like be doing other things off the field. I mean, I know Chris Board who is our mastermind member who’s in the NFL. He has been investing in single-family homes, doing rentals for years now, which I just love. I think it’s incredible. And he was very open about that. So, I would assume people know that that is part of who he is and how he shows up. I just think it’s incredible. The thing that I have heard and seen and I’ve got a handful of friends that have played in the league and in many of the professional leagues is that they become a target for just bad deals and money-hungry people. And I just feel like there’s a lot of predators out there after high-income earning professionals money, especially if they don’t know a lot about investing. And I’m sure you see it all the time. You coach athletes, right? So, not only did you play alongside him, but now you’re coaching NFL players. 

Jedidiah Collins: And that’s what’s really neat. So, I went in, after I was done, I went into the wealth management space for about five years, realized my passion was not there. My passion was in helping students. That student could be a 16-year-old high school kid, a 20-year-old college kid, or a 25-year-old NFL player but really being that coach, that teacher. And yes, just last month, I had a player finish his NFL season and call me and talk to me about, “Man, I think my advisor is stealing some money from me.” And it’s such a humbling and gut check but it is because he’s starting to become more financially literate that he even understood it and saw it. And you do even in real estate, every guy wants to start, “I should go buy real estate.” Well, you have to be able to review. Not all real estate is a good deal. It’s the price. It’s the location. There’s a lot of different considerations. But you need to be able to speak the language and understand it. And that’s my challenge to anybody.

One guy tells me, “I want to go start investing.” “Uh-uh, we’re going to take the next six months to a year and just learn before you take the jump. You have time on your side. You’re 24. You got a window of opportunity to invest.” We don’t need to rush into anything but that target, I have seen it from day one. One of my high school teammates was Mark Sanchez. Mark has gone through his own, obviously, he’s extremely successful, but he’s been attacked. He’s a very educated and smart guy. It wasn’t that all players aren’t smart. It’s we don’t speak this language. You walk in and you are introduced to a foreign language and told, “Yeah, you’re the 1%. Go act accordingly when you’ve never had, for the most part, anyone in your family remotely close to this scenario and situation.” So, who do you trust? And sadly, a lot of people in that trust tree have broken the trust and taken advantage.

So, that is how we’re going to flip the script is see the professional athlete and say, “You can no longer just be the talent at the table. You need to be the talent. You need to ask the questions, and you need to know some of the answers or at least speak the language. So, when people explain to you the answers, you know what they’re talking about.” But that’s where people like yourself, people like myself, education is that first step. Empowerment and action is that second step. 

Justin Donald: Yeah. I think it’s really important here. I talk about this all the time that most people outsource their financial literacy to someone else, and that is dangerous. You cannot outsource that. Not completely at least. You can outsource part of it but you need to be learning along the way. The best thing to do is to in-house it, to get the education yourself, to at least build a foundation that is very competent. You don’t have to be an expert, but at least have some competency around it, and at least bring in some experts into your ecosystem that care about you and can advise and oversee what’s going on. And not just so that they do it, but you enlist them to teach you what they’re doing. And so, you fit that mold and I think that’s why a lot of people have hired you and a lot of people work with you. But I’d love to hear more about that transition into the next chapter of life where you wrote a book and you started Money Vehicle, and you build out some courses so that people can learn this. And we can get into the educational system because it’s lacking big time. 

Jedidiah Collins: Yeah. We’re seeing the change. So, it is coming to the educational system near you. Thirty-plus states are now requiring financial literacy to graduate high school. But what I realized when I was with wealth management is, one, it’s a much easier career choice, great opportunity, great impact, much easier income than financial literacy. I wasn’t necessarily going to wake up and be passionate about helping people land the plane. I really wanted to get them to start down the path and start down the journey. And the book came from my workshops. I would stand in front of people and tell these little stories, analogies, fictitious little games, and things, and I got to be pretty good at engaging a room and engaging people in a foreign language in this money conversation that I love. And I even this morning had an NFL player tell me, “The way you break things down, the thought track that you take us on, it is so digestible, so easy. Other people, it sounds like they’re speaking…” And I go, “That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.”

So, as I looked at it, I started to challenge myself, what would I want? And a gentleman came up to me after one of the guy who actually brought me in, he goes, “Hey, this was great.” It was actually at his company and he goes, “Your question is, Jed, how are you going to teach a million students? You go room-to-room. You can empower and impact a lot of people. But how do you get to a million students a year?” And that was about seven-ish years ago. And it really put a bug in my head of, how do I take a book? How do I take a live workshop? And how do we scale it across America? And it’s sent me down a path where I started my business. To tell you the truth, Justin, a lot of my business was going to be public speaking at first. I was going to launch out. I was very confident. People would pay me because I’m good at talking in front of a room. And then COVID hit and ripped the public speaking, ripped my income away, and what I was already building in the background became the only thing.

It went from in spare time to all your time. And that’s where Money Vehicle made a massive pivot and became my sole focus and only thing with the intention of the problem, the nationwide problem. We don’t teach this in high schools. How do we not teach our high school students how to handle the paycheck, how to speak the language of money? And so, I set out to build that curriculum. It had to be comprehensive and that’s where my certification and financial planning came in handy. It had to be engaging. And that’s where some of my NFL experience but really the storytelling came in and it really had to be cohesive. So, there had to be a throughline connection. And so, as we look at Money Vehicle, it starts as an analogy. We want you to see money as a vehicle, as a tool, something that you control and you drive, not something that drives you.

So, as you look at, that’s the start but then we started to play into the car analogy with our focused audience of about 15 to 20-year-olds, something that they know is a physical car. So, each chapter of the book, each part of the curriculum ties to a different aspect of a physical car. And as you look at it, it makes it just a little less overwhelming. It makes it a little more easier to digest. And you start to say, “Oh, it’s not your budget. I don’t like budget. I say cash management. That’s not your cash management. That’s your steering wheel. In a car, you got to tell when you got to turn right, when you got to turn left. You’re steering wheel is your cash management system.” And you see that light bulb and students go off and go, “Oh, that’s a little less scary. I’m a little more comfortable doing that.” And if we can get them to be a little more comfortable, we can get them to be confident and then we can get them to take action. And so, it’s been an incredible journey. And, yeah, today, I’m proud to say Money Vehicle is being used in high school curriculums in about 23 states across the country. 

Justin Donald: That’s incredible. And just to think just a handful of years ago, there were only five states that actually required personal finance for graduation, which is absolutely mind-boggling. So, my wife, when we lived in St. Louis, used to teach business classes and most specifically, personal finance. And so, I just figured at this point, I mean, I didn’t have to take it when I was younger so I just figured, though, like that was an oversight they fixed it over the years. I couldn’t believe that the 45 states didn’t require it. That’s mind-boggling. 

Jedidiah Collins: Yeah. And they’re still in the teens of ones that don’t and aren’t and struggling to pass it. I know this year New York and California are supposed to pass. Washington actually just put it on their docket. It feels like a no-brainer and it’s sad but encouraging to see the political ties are what is pushing it. Now, it is an encouraging thought. If you are a politician to say, “No, we want to support this. This is a social good and a social need.” Whereas in the past, they weren’t getting that kind of encouragement for it, which is why nothing kind of moved but, yeah, it’s one of those scary things to make a claim. Back in 2018, I said, “By 2025, I think this is going to be a nationwide mandate.” People laughed at me. I started building the curriculum. I’ve poured my heart, my soul, my obsession into it, and now people are looking at me and going, “Well, how did you build this thing so quickly?” And I’m like, “It ain’t been quick.” It’s been a decade.

But I love when superintendents ask me that question. It’s like, “Oh, you’re really smart to jump into this market.” It’s like, “No, you are just now giving me the time to meet because you have to. I’ve been here all along.” So, it’s been kind of a funny catch-22. 

Justin Donald: No kidding. And by the way, something really cool about what you’ve built is that you are receiving the highest of praise from school administrators, from superintendents from people that actually serve in financial departments or business departments that teach the curriculum that are saying this Money Vehicle is the best thing they have ever seen in terms of education. I do want you to take a moment to brag on it for a bit. 

Jedidiah Collins: Well, it is super humbling and exciting because it is one of these things. I mean, Justin, it wasn’t too long ago Lifestyle Investor was this thought in your head and you’ve manifested it, made it become real. It wasn’t too long ago Money Vehicle was this thought in my head. And it has been a decade of really fine-tuning and continuing to improve it, where we have really turned the corner now. So, much of my first five years was focused on the student. It was focused on how do we train and teach the student. Working with schools now for five years, a lot of our focus has shifted to the educator. What we know is, A, teachers aren’t the most financially literate people in the world and, B, none of them went to college to learn to be financial literacy teachers. So, where we’re separating ourselves is how much we’re empowering the teacher to be able to stand in front of their room and have this conversation. Yes, we have a full virtual library of co-instructors, myself included, where we can come in and help but to really have that in-person educator be the one, be the muse in the classroom and allow them to speak on it.

In the past, it has been a nice resource to have, “Hey, here’s three weeks or four weeks, we’re going to talk about some banking stuff and then maybe play a game in a stock market simulator.” But Money Vehicle is 18 weeks. It’s 100-plus hours. It has assessments, assignments. You actually create a character throughout the program and develop a financial plan for that character, again, with the focus being how do you make it easier for teachers? How do you make it more engaging for students? As long as we continue down that path and those guiding lights, we’re headed in the right direction but it is no easy feat. Working with schools, the hardest part is getting the introduction, getting that conversation. Again, like you said, we have administrators, superintendents, principals, curriculum people brag about our program after they’ve seen it. Seeing is believing. It’s how do you get great.

Wisconsin just passed the mandate. How do you get introduced to 100 high schools in Wisconsin? You can’t do it physically anymore and it’s just a challenge to look at schools and say, “We can serve. We can help. All we need is a little time to be introduced.” And that’s the challenge of working with school districts but that’s also the large payoff when you say, “Hey, this school, these 400 seniors, I know exactly what they understand about the language of money now.” 

Justin Donald: Yeah, it’s great. And it’s interesting because, in college, I always thought it was comical that you’d have these people teach marketing based on these five marketing principles, even though they’ve never done marketing. But at least in the college space, you get adjunct professors that specialized in the thing. They actually did it. They were actually an entrepreneur. They’re actually in banking. They’re actually an entrepreneur. They’re actually in real estate. And then they’ll come in and they’ll teach courses. And so, for me, the school I went to, University of Illinois, we are lucky enough to have a ton of them. And that’s cool. You don’t get that in high school, right? You don’t get that level of expertise in the non-core subjects and it’s comical to me or ironic to me that we would even say this is non-core, but based on school curriculum, it’s non-core. It should be one of the primary core subjects though. And we need subject matter experts like you.

So, if it can’t be done inside the schools, it should be done and again, I think the private sector entrepreneurs are solving most of the big problems in the world. You know, get away from the bureaucrats, get away from the politics. Like, just build good-quality programs, products, tools, resources. And so, you’re doing great work here. But one thing that I know that I know you know is that schools are not like even the finances of the schools are not managed well. So, you have a lot of these schools not only are they not teaching the subject, but they don’t even know it well enough to run a reasonably sound financial business. Right? 

Jedidiah Collins: The realization is schools are not businesses. They are functioning entities, but they are not run as a business. There’s probably something to be said is I don’t think they can be to a certain extent but you look at the shift in education over the last five years. Especially since COVID, you look at where it’s going in the next 5 to 10 years and you start to question what our classroom is going to look like. The traditional classroom you and I grew up in where we had desks and we all faced the teacher and we sat, we read physical books. That is all gone. Like, we have a textbook. It’s a good textbook. If you can get a 17-year-old to sit down and read the textbook, I’ll give you a dollar. But why we realized everything in the text had to be translated virtually on screen is because our learners are different today. Why we realized we had to create a character project that is going to incorporate artificial intelligence is because these students are dealing with it. This is their awakening. They are going to know way more about all of this.

And so, part of ours is just almost directing them in the right place, giving them the principles of what money is. We don’t teach you how to be a stock picker. We don’t teach you how to arbitrage credit cards. We don’t teach you the tricks and the life hacks. We teach you the foundational principles that are not going to change. Beyond that, you can continue to learn your path. But what Money Vehicle is, is that first mile of money. We want you to begin with these 12 actions and 12 steps, and be one mile further down the road than when you started. And as we’ve been talking about, you’re usually a mile further than where most people have been throughout their lives, whether they were getting a paycheck or not. But that’s my challenge. And to support schools, I ask whoever will listen. What is one thing every one of your high school graduates will have in common? They’re all going to get a paycheck. So, why is that one subject we have not prepared them for? 

Justin Donald: Yeah, 100% agree with that. And again, I still think it’s ironic. By the way, whether it’s a business, whether it’s an extension of the government, whether it’s a charitable organization, how on earth can you run something where you don’t have some of the best and the brightest to help you be financially responsible? Right. So, private sector, public sector, however you look at it, it’s a shame that these educational systems and by the way, some are private education system, some are public education system. So, some on the private side could be making money. And on the public side is a little different. But regardless, most of them are in just total disarray on the financial side to the point that it’s disturbing. It’s shocking. But we’ve got people that are running these things that don’t have the expertise, the knowledge, the know-how to do it. And those are the same people and organizations you’re pitching to make sure you’re getting your curriculum in that they really need, even though they may not have the funds to be able to do it. So, it is just crazy to me. 

Jedidiah Collins: It is a funny thing when you decide on your passion and your purpose and what you’re called. The more and more you dive into anything, the more you realize the mountain you are climbing. As you look up, that mountain gets a little bit higher. And so, it’s a worthy cause to look at schools and say, “We want to help you.” But, yeah, there are a lot of schools out there that just simply are broken. And it’s most difficult to see because the end result is the student. How did they get the same education as the one a district or two over who had a lot more opportunity? 

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, I love what you’re doing. You know, I’ve got a good friend, Scott Donnell, who started GravyStack. And I think that the education there is great and this is going to more the youth a lot younger, getting kids started at a young age with, by the way, the same thing, right? We’re not doing it in textbook form. We’re doing it in gamification and just ways that are going to resonate with them at that age group. And so, I love that because it kind of steers people on the right path. But we need the actual tools, the actual curriculum in our schools, and then we need this curriculum even beyond the schools. But at a minimum, we need it in high school at a minimum. And so, I love that you’re doing that. What I’d love to do is invite our listeners and those of you watching this to help us problem-solve.

So, here’s a problem. We’ve got the best product of its type out there. This product should be in every high school in the United States, most certainly of any high school that requires personal finance to graduate but you’ve got a broken school system that can’t even afford some of the basics that are out there. They can’t prioritize what should be and shouldn’t be effectively put in place for their students. And so, I would love to invite our audience in to just reach out to you, to me to make suggestions on, A, how do we get into more high schools, how do we get this great content there? And, B, what are some other paths, some other ways that we can go about getting to the high school students to use this that maybe it’s not through that? Maybe it’s through the high school sports teams, maybe it’s through the PTOs, maybe it’s through FBLA and many of the other extracurricular activities, after-school programs. There have to be other ways. And I want more brains thinking about this because this is something that can positively change the world. 

Jedidiah Collins: Absolutely. It is a necessary life skill of today. The retirement system has gone away, and now everybody has to sit in the driver’s seat of their own money vehicle and figure out which direction it’s going to hit. 

Justin Donald: And stop outsourcing it. Start in-housing it. We need to learn it. We need to be responsible. You can outsource a piece of it but get the financial education first, right? So, love what all you’re doing. Do me a favor. Tell people where they can find out more about you and even get access. I know we have a lot of parents that listen so maybe their school doesn’t have it. Maybe their state doesn’t even require it. But they may want to use your educational platform for their kids. 

Jedidiah Collins: Absolutely. So, YourMoneyVehicle.com is our website. You can get access to the book. The book is readily available on Amazon. You can also get access to one-hour courses if you want to spend an hour on cash management, on taxes, on insurance, on what the difference between a 401(k) and a Roth IRA are. This is what we’re trying to do and this is what we’re empowering students to do. Go to YourMoneyVehicle.com, get one or check out one of our programs, one of our courses, and I know we’re going to, Justin, offer a course on credit, free to all of your listeners. So, go to use the link and get the coupon code through Lifestyle Investor but reach out to me on LinkedIn. I mean, this is what we’re doing this for is to build the network, build the community. As Justin pointed out, more brains, more power, more ideas is how we solve problems. So, we’re out there. We’re fighting the fight. And, yeah, YourMoneyVehicle.com is how you can join the movement. 

Justin Donald: And keep in mind, by the way, this isn’t just for your high school students. This is for people of all different ages at all different levels in life because I’m very confident there are people that have graduated high school, graduated college. They’re in their career. They don’t know the difference between an IRA or even the difference between a traditional and a Roth IRA even in the world of IRAs or a Solo K, right? Or what does your 401(k) look like or that you can self-direct them and what does that mean and what does that look like. And so, there’s all this nuance that I think the vast majority of people don’t even know, regardless of whether they’re in high school or not. So, I see this being a huge win in that niche but I just want listeners to know at any age can use this. And there are people that you are coaching that are professionals. It might not even be professional athletes, some of them are, but professionals in other industries that are getting tremendous value out of this.

So, thank you for sharing and for spending the time with us and I just want to reiterate to anyone who’s watching, anyone who’s listening, for any ideas you have, please reach out to Jed or me and let us know what other ideas do you have that we can get this curriculum in more schools and to more students.

Jedidiah Collins: And the only encouraging thought I will have is it’s not rocket science. It’s just a language you’ve never been taught. All we got to do is start learning the language and you’ll be speaking it in no time. 

Justin Donald: I love it. Well, I love ending every episode with a question to our audience. So, those of you watching, those of you listening, my question to you is the same as it is every week. What is one step you can take today to move towards financial freedom and living a life that you truly desire but that’s on your terms? So, again, most people live a life by default. How do you live a life by design? What’s one thing you can do today to have that impact for you? What’s another thing you can do today to help your children have that same impact and help move them towards financial freedom, now and sometime in the future? Thanks for tuning in and we’ll catch you next week. 

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