Becoming a millionaire wasn’t always ‘a sexy thing’: Brandon Copeland | Wilnesh News

Fast forward to December 2016: My wife and I purchased our first home in New Jersey. When we bought that house, I was playing for the Lions in Detroit. My wife was sitting at the closing table, and she called me and (asked), “Hey, does everything look good?” They emailed me the closing documents; it was 100 pages, and I didn’t Know what I’m looking at. I could see that the purchase price was what we agreed to, but then I saw all the other title and warranty deeds and such. I thought, “I don’t know if I’m screwed right now.” One of my biggest fears as an NFL player is that someone is taking advantage of me.

GI: What do you think is the most important takeaway from your book?

B.C: The power of growth. This was a big discovery for me when I started making money. I didn’t know this existed when I was a kid. I always tell people, you either have your money working for you, or you work for your money your whole life.

There are a lot of people who are afraid of the (stock) market. I thought, well, everyone is an investor. If you have a dollar to your name, you are an investor. If you take your money, you put it under your mattress, you do nothing with it, you put it in a safe at home: that’s an investment decision. That’s a 0% return. If you deposit your money into a regular checking account, the rate of return is 0.01%. You put it into a high-yield savings account and the rate of return is 4% to 5%. The stock market, you put it in an index fund, S&P 500 Indexwhich could be an average return of 9% to 10%.

All of these are investment decisions, you just have to choose wisely. (People) can use their money to work for them and escape the “rat race” at some point.

GI: For someone who’s just starting out—let’s say they’ve been hesitant about investing their money in the market—how would you suggest they get started?

B.C: I think the first thing you have to do is download the (financial news) app — CNBC, MarketWatch, Yahoo Finance, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg of the world — and turn on notifications. These notifications begin to explain to you what is moving the market and why, and you begin to learn the language of money. Whether you choose to invest or not, you at least start to accept, “Oh, the market was down today. So, why?” I think it’s important to start training your stomach.

Another thing is, start looking at where (your) money is: what accounts your money is in and how much money is in those accounts. By doing this, you begin to view your money from a 30,000-foot perspective. You can start by identifying, “I have $X in my traditional checking account. Maybe I can put some of that money into a high-yield savings account that’s now giving me 4% interest. I can make $500 otherwise I won’t. Now you start getting yourself into the money game. What’s the limit of what I can do and still make money for me?

When you were a kid, if someone said, “Hey, man, I’ll give you $500 to do nothing and press two buttons,” you’d be like, “Sign me up!” I always said Breaking it down into, there’s a lot of tacos, there’s a lot of dinner, there’s a lot of dinner and time at the water park with my family. By doing this, I prioritize making investment decisions as quickly as possible.

GI: One of the first things you encourage people to do in your book is to say out loud to yourself, “I can be rich.” Why?

B.C: In football, your money or job can be taken away overnight or through injury. Many times when I am making money, I always look around. To this day, I still feel as if someone could pull the rug out from under me. So I’m still in survival mode sometimes. I think that while you can make money, there are still ways to make you anxious about money, your lifestyle, and when to spend it—all those things.

Start having positive affirmations – “I should be rich. I should be rich. I shouldn’t feel pressured to make ends meet. I can be rich. I can do this” – sometimes you have to coach yourself about this . Because where else can you get the positive affirmation you can?

Over time, doing these things will not only reinforce positive connotations about yourself, but it can have a real impact on your mental health. It’s really, really hard to get out of your house and be a super productive person in society when you don’t know if the door is going to be locked or changed the next time you get there.

GI: You write in your book that the journey to financial empowerment will require people to confront their “inner money myths.”” What is the most common misconception you hear about money?

B.C: For many of the communities I serve, putting money in the bank.

GI: You mean keep it as cash rather than as an investment?

B.C: Exactly. I think it’s a myth because you put your money in a bank and the bank goes out and invests your money: they invest it in other people’s projects, other people’s houses, and they get a rate of return on your money. Not that banks are bad, savings are bad, (but) you have to figure out at some point when do I get to the point where I can make my money work for me?

I think there are some myths about whether wealth is right for you. A lot of millionaires, that’s not a sexy thing. Too often, you feel like you have to create the next Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok to get rich, when in reality you just need to make simple, consistent, disciplined decisions. This is the hardest thing in the world, delaying gratification or allowing yourself to give in to delayed gratification.

I think a lot of times we are not prepared for situations that we will one day encounter or might happen.

GI: How do you balance today and tomorrow?

B.C: A few weeks ago, I went to a school and (asked) the athletes there to write down what they wanted their lives to be like five years after graduation. By doing this and saying, “Hey, I want my life to be like this. I want it to look like this, I want the holidays to look like this,” now you can always look at what you’re actually doing and determine if you Current actions are (working toward) your future, the things you want for yourself in the future.

I think a lot of us never take the time to write down what we really want, or imagine what we really want in life. So you end up going to school, you go to college, you’re there just to get a good job and make money, but you don’t really figure out what the job is and what you like to do versus what you don’t like to do. You end up being just a pinball machine in life.

I do let people into my life to help hold me accountable. I would say the best way to strike a balance between delayed gratification and enjoying where you are today is to have accountability partners who can tell you directly, “Hey, you’re slacking off” or “Hey, you’re doing a great job.” ”. But you can also create a plan based on your goals and needs, and (ask) are my actions really aligned with that?

GI: You write in the book that investing while carrying high-interest debt, such as credit card debt, is like turning up the heat while keeping the windows wide open during the winter in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Can you explain it?

B.C: Sometimes people put their money into the market trying to get 6%, 9%, 10%, 12%, whatever, and it’s even worse when they might be paying the minimum payment on a credit card or not paying at all and they’re paying 18% ( as interest rate).

You automatically lock yourself into a failure scenario that you won’t be able to transcend.