Jason Brown
Appearances
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
Coming up in this podcast... All of a sudden, I'm 27 years old. I'm living the American dream. I'm living in a 10,000 square foot mansion and I didn't like what I thought.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
It is a beautiful farm, a gorgeous thousand acre farm. And here in North Carolina, more sweet potatoes grown here than anywhere else. So that is one of our staple crops. Most of our food that we have grown, harvested and donated, which to date is more than two million pounds of food, about one point million pounds of that have been sweet potatoes.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
I was inspired by my older brother, Lunsford Bernard Brown II. He was slain in service over in Iraq. I wish that I could say that so much of my passion and being so tough came from a happy place. Actually, all of my passion came from a really dark place of not... wanting to let my older brother down, like no matter what it took, all of a sudden I'm 27 years old. I'm living the American dream.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
I'm living in a 10,000 square foot mansion. And I didn't like what I saw because it's, In reflection, Lunsford lived a life of service and giving back. And I was living a life of fortune, fame, and selfishness, a lot of materialistic things. And it hit me to my core. I knew that I had to give back. And I always told myself, I'm never going to forget about where I come from.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
And you have to keep a certain level of humility and a certain level of humanity and that compassion for your fellow man.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
That was my grandfather. He was a large farmer here in North Carolina. I was inspired by stories that my father would tell me about my grandfather, about how giving he was. Every Christmas, he gave every single one of his family members and friends gifts. a 50 pound sack of beans, a gallon of molasses, and a salt cured ham or a shoulder, that's an awesome gift.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
If you're a family that's struggling and going through food insecurity, that's the type of gift that can help you to make it throughout another month or so. And all while growing up, I saw the miracles of agriculture, even just on fruit trees. I would even make fun with my mother when I would ask her for some money. And she said, hey, son, why are you asking me for money? What do you think?
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
Money grows on trees? I said, well, no, it doesn't, but food grows on trees. There's something of value that grows on trees. That's why one of the first things that we planted here at First Fruits Farm was as many perennial fruit and nut trees as we possibly could.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
And my son, JW, who was four years old at the time, he said, hey, dad, when are we going to be able to harvest and eat some of these fresh nuts? I said, what I'm doing right now you and your children are going to benefit from these trees more so than I ever will.
Global News Podcast
The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed
I said, but you have to learn right now what it means to invest in our future, what it means to sow a seed, to plant a tree, but yet it's going to be beneficial and help to feed our families for generations to come. look at all of your unique gifts and how you can give back in a unique way. There's something that you can do to build a legacy
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And there's a part of me that just wanted to prove them right. You know, I remember saying that on my own podcast, I remember once saying like my mom, I will be the best investment my mother has made because my mom's from Mississippi. She grew up in slavery times. They grew up picking cotton. My dad passed when I was two in a car accident. And I was like, my mom didn't have a lot of money.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
She didn't know about the stock market. I was like, but she did one thing right. She had me. And so, you know, when I was 13 and I broke her down from selling drugs, I just, I just never wanted to disappoint. I was like, I want to make sure I'm the best investment that my mom has made. And so that's like my driving force. I'm getting emotional even thinking about it.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Oh, man, that's another one that, man, you got all emotional stuff bubbling up. Let's go, Jay. You know, that was my cousin who, you know, you know, just that episode was deep to me because, you know, I had dropped out of school. Most people don't know that when I had made six figures in the stock market. I'm like, what am I going to go back to school for?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Yeah, I'm like, I'm richer than anybody with a degree at 21. I'm just going to be an engineer. I'm like, engineers are making like $80,000. I'm like, I made over $100,000 not working. So I dropped out of school. And what most people don't know, too, is I ran that account up to about $300,000, moved out to the suburbs, partied for a couple years, all that stuff, bought a Lexus.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And then year three, I'm like 25. I actually risked a quarter million dollars trying to make half a million dollars. I lost it all. So I'm flat broke. I have to move back to the hood in Detroit, back to the house with bars on and back in with my mom, which is a very humble point in my life. And so it comes full circle to you saying, what were those six words? At that time, I said, I got to do it.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Only I know what to do is go back and get a job. And so I got a job at Verizon Wireless selling cell phones. And I was like, all right, I'm going to base my lifestyle off the hourly and I'm going to use my commission checks to get back into the stock market. And at the time they had tuition reimbursement because, mind you, I dropped out of school.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So I'm not eligible for any scholarships and stuff like that again. And so they had tuition reimbursement. So I'm working full time. I'm going to school. I'm trying to invest and build myself back up. And, you know, my my pseudo senior year, I guess, like my second time being a senior in college going part time this time because I switched to finance from engineers. I switched majors.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I'm like, no, I know what I want to be. It was just a really tough time going to school, battling living back at home, being broke after living high for so long. My cousin calls me. I'm sitting in the driveway. Well, we didn't have a driveway. I'm sitting in front of the house. And my cousin called me. She's like, how you doing? And I just vented. I'm like, I'm tired of school.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I think I'm going to drop out. I don't need a degree anyway with where I'm going. I just was just tired. And I was fatigued. And the six words was, he was just like... Boy, it ain't even about you. So that's what my cousin said to me. And I said, boy, it ain't even about you.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And she said, you don't know what young black man, what person from that neighborhood need to see you finish, need to see you get the degree so that, you know, you can inspire them and get them hope that they can do it. And for the first time, I was just like. I don't know. I thought she was going to be like, it's okay or take a break if you need to. She was like, boy, it ain't even about you.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
You better finish that. It shocked my system because that's not what I was expecting. Sympathy and all this and that. She just said, boy, it ain't even about you. Those words really resonated with me. They stick with me to this day when I want to quit or I'm tired or I don't feel like shooting a video or doing a podcast. I'm like, It ain't even about you. You don't know who go hear this, see this.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Let's go get inspired. Let's go push them to keep going. When I lose money, if you look at my channel, I only talk about when I make money. I got videos like I lost $50,000. I lost $100,000. Because if you don't talk about that stuff, somebody thinks you just come on and hit home runs every time you press the button. He has the Midas touch. All he does is make money.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And I'm like, no, I'll lose money too. And I put that stuff out there because I remember my cousin. It ain't about me. It ain't about my ego and I'm such a good trader. It's like, I'll lose money too. Sometimes I doubt myself too. Sometimes I'm not sure when I wake up every day if I still can do this or got it. And so... Um, those were the six words that changed my life.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I appreciate that. Yeah, I believe that you should at least get a taste of the information and the way that a person teaches without having to pay them. And I know when I first got started, I was just scouring all kinds of videos trying to look for information.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And I just think about it in everything that I do, even with writing the book that I have coming out. I'm like, I got here. It's tough writing the book. If you've never written the book, I got to some points where I'm just like, do I really need to publish a book? It's like, boy, it ain't even about you. You need to publish this book.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And so I take that those six words with me into a lot of lessons in life that Sometimes it's not about you. It's about the next generation. It's about the person on the other end of these, the microphone and the person on the other end of these headphones. Listen to this, that you're going to impact that goes far and beyond, you know, you and yourself and your personal benefit.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So now that I'm in a place to give back and teach that information, I like to make sure there's a platform where people can at least get started and feel comfortable before they even put a dollar up. And that was YouTube for me.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Yeah, it's, you know, so I think it's important to understand the reason I talk about my titles are like that. These are stuff that's just going on in my life. I'm just sharing my life. It's not stuff like I read in the book and I'm like, this should go viral. This is stuff I went through in my life. And what I realized was, you know, I'm in the stocks and options trading.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
But I realize it's much more than that. And if you don't have the right mindset, you'll never be successful trading stocks and options, just like you want to be successful in real estate or podcasting, because it's a mindset, the energy, a consistency, a commitment that goes with it. And a lot of times all we talk about is the craft. Look at a stock. Look at a chart. Press the button. Buy here.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
But it's like there's a mindset that you got to master before you can even press the button. You got fear. You got greed. You got worthiness. Can I do this? Do I believe in myself? Who am I to be an investor? Am I smart enough? It's all that stuff. And so in that episode... I had always wanted to make a million dollars, but it wasn't until I became a millionaire that I made a million dollars.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And I don't mean I became a millionaire, meaning even though I've hit millionaire status and done that several times, it wasn't until I became a millionaire right here that I actually made a million dollars. And so the difference between making a million dollars and becoming a millionaire is the simplest way I can put that episode is
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Think about anybody who's a lottery winner, a high school football player or basketball player or some type of sport that gets drafted. They instantly make a million dollars.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
But how come some of them or majority of them go on to blow the money, lose the money, get on drugs, hookers, you know, all the things they talk about, all the bad business deals that they invest in there because they made a million dollars, but they never became a millionaire. Right. And becoming a millionaire means you know how to manage the money. You know how to make it back if you lose it.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
You know how to evaluate a good or a bad business deal. You know how to evaluate your investment. You're not just pawning that off on your agent or your financial manager. And so that was me. It was like... I don't really have a fear of money because I'm the millionaire, not my bank account. The bank account just adds up the X's and O's and the ones and zeros of the results of me. I did that.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
It didn't just show up like you a millionaire. Me and my buddy joke about this all the time. It's like, If you said if I said, Mick, you're going to win a million dollars next week, two weeks. How would you act over the next two weeks? You didn't get the money yet. You'd be walking around like what? I'm Mick. Don't you know I'm a millionaire? It's like, but what changed?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
You didn't get the money yet. You changed your mindset. You're like, I can't do this anymore. I'm a millionaire. You're like, I need to go hire financial advice. I need to learn about investments. Why don't you have that mindset now? Because two weeks is not here. You still didn't get the money yet. So what changed? Your mindset changed to be like, I'm going to carry myself like a millionaire.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And once I started doing that, I started saying, well, what do millionaires do? I said, they know about the stock market. What do millionaires do? They get up early. They work late. They give. They're not selfish. Are millionaires scared or do they get the answers, the knowledge and the resources and they learn how to manage risk? They don't get scared. They're like, what's the downside?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
How do I mitigate the downside? I'm like, well, let me figure out how to mitigate the downside. So that's when I became a millionaire versus making a million dollars. I don't care what my bank accounts say. Jason Brown is a millionaire. I know how to make it. I know how to think like it, walk like it, talk like it. And I could probably help a couple other people get there.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And so that's what being a millionaire versus making a million dollars that episode was about. It was just my own realization that, like, I'm the machine. I'm the millionaire. I'm my bank account.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So five-year millionaire, again, what I look back on my life, my episodes, my podcast, stuff that I do, one of the things I'm really proud of is that none of it is something I pulled out of the sky, took from somebody else. It's all based on my real life experiences.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And so five-year millionaire, the book was about from the time that I lost all that money, decided to go back to school, live below my means, and then invest in the stock market. It took me five years before I became a millionaire from losing it all to the time I made a decision. And there's some stuff in between that I actually wrote out a vision board and all that stuff. And I eventually hit it.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I made a million dollars. Right. And so when I look at the time frame, it was five years. When I looked at the formula about how to make a million dollars, I realized if you take four thousand dollars.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
and you invest in the stock market, if you can earn 10% a month, so if you can earn one trade a month, 10%, if you do 60 trades or one trade a month for five years, you'd have $1.2 million at the end of five years. And so number one, I realized everybody can come up with $4,000.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Number two, one trade a month doesn't require you to be sitting in front of your computer all day because I couldn't sit in front of my computer all day. I was working a full time job. I was going to school. And so I couldn't sit in front of computer despite what society tells you. Like, you got to do this all day. It's like, no, you don't. Right.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And then I was like, can you earn 10 percent a month? Well, I'm an option trader. So when I trade options, I absolutely can make 10 percent a month. In fact, when I was trading that five hundred dollars with Sprint, that's all I was trying to make was 50 bucks, which was 10 percent.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So if you can make 10 percent or four thousand dollars once a month for five years, you'd have one point two million dollars. And so that's what five year millionaire is about. It's about giving hope to regular people that they can start without having a lot of money. I'm talking you can save your tax returns and drive Uber on the weekend or hustle up and get four thousand dollars.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And if you can learn the strategies and the skills to make one trade a month, 10%, you'd have $1.2 million. So anybody that's late, feel like they're late in retirement or started late or had a hard time in life, everybody can do this in about the same time that it takes to get a college degree. And in my program, we find, so I invest my own money. I don't just talk about this.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So that's like the pinnacle of one of the stories. And so I think it's important for listeners to understand the story behind the story. And so growing up, a poor single family home in Detroit, Michigan, my mother raised, you know, two young boys and we had bars on the window. I actually never had a bed growing up until like
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I'm actually a real trader. So in my program, I find 10% trades for me, and I do the write-up, a video, and then we send a text alert out to our members so that they can follow along. So all of our trades are documented, tracked, and timestamped in the back end of our platform.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So Value Millionaire, the book, is really a documentation of my life and how I became a millionaire and how we came up with the program, basically, and then how people can do something similar. I like to say something similar because I can't guarantee you'll be a millionaire. Also, every trade we do, if I look at last year's track record, out of 12 trades, well, we did a little bit more.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
We probably did 15 trades. Two of them were losses, but 13 of them were profitable, roughly. I have to look back at the numbers. Either Three were losses and 11 were profitable. So like everything is not a home run, but it's about the average. If you can do one trade a month, 10% return over five years, you'd have $1.2 million.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
February 18th, 2025.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Yeah, first, thanks for having me. And thanks for being willing to give some books out. That's super cool. I didn't expect that. So I appreciate that love. And everyone can find me at The Brown Report. So I'm Jason Brown. It's The Brown Report. And I just want to say one other thing.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
The way that The Brown Report started, when I lost all my money, I had a crazy idea that I was going to record myself making it back. And so that's how I started my YouTube channel. I just started reporting on trying to make the money back. And that's when people start asking me, like, how are you finding these trades? How are you finding these investments? And that's how I started the business.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I had no intentions of starting a stock market coaching business. I was just sharing my story on YouTube of how I was making the money back. So my point is they can find me at the Brown Report on all social platforms. YouTube, Instagram. It's The Brown Report. Or you can just go to thebrownreport.com and all the socials are listed there.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
later on in life but when i was little we used to sleep with sleeping bags and so uh i didn't really realize we were poor until we went to my friend's house and he had a bed and i remember telling him i was like wow you have a bed he's kind of looked at me like of course i got a bed and i was like well i thought beds was for grown-ups because you only need a good night's sleep when you got to go to work and make make money um that's when i was like well maybe we just pour you know
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And he had something like, well, maybe that's why he can afford the bed. The reason I'm sharing that was that was my early introduction to starting to realize like there was a difference in money and having it not happen because where we from, everybody had bars on their window. And so I just thought that was normal. I thought everybody, every kid slept in sleeping bags.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So from an early age, then I started becoming even more aware when I would see TVs on, I mean, houses on TV that didn't have bars. I'm like, well, where are those neighborhoods at? And it was typically California. We watching Beverly Hills 90210 and those high school shows. And so basically I started to ask myself, like, how do we get out of this situation? How can we have bars on our window?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
How come we don't have a bed? So I got real interested in money. And where I'm from, if you graduate from high school and you didn't sell dope, you didn't get locked up, you didn't get a girl pregnant, like you didn't get killed, by the way, that was a big thing. So we at 18 in our neighborhood, we have these big parties when you graduate high school as if you got a college degree.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And at these parties or these like you made it, you didn't get someone pregnant, you didn't kill someone, you didn't, you know, get locked up. People would give you money like that was it. If they got you through to high school, like that was an accomplishment. And so I got two thousand dollars from my high school graduation.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And so I took that two thousand dollars and I would hear people say, well, you want to be rich, you got to invest in the stock market. I started investing. you know, researching what do people that don't look like me, specifically white people, how they make money, was always talking about the stock market. So nobody in my circle was in the stock market. I took the $2,000.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I went down to a well-known bank. I tell the girl, I want to be rich. I mean, I said, I want to invest. She said, why? She asked me two questions. She was like, so you want aggressive funds, right? And I was like, yeah, I'm 18. I need aggressive growth. And she's like, well, what's your goal? I was like, I want to be rich. Like, why else do people invest?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I'm not thinking people invest for retirement. They invest for, I'm just, I'm like, if I get rich, that take care of retirement, mobile home, vacation home, it takes care of everything. So I'm like, I just want to be rich. I gave her the $2,000. I come back two years, I'm 18. I come back about two, two and a half years later, I'm 21. And I'm like, how's my investment going?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I'm thinking, this is great. It's going to be at $6,000, $7,000. It was down to $700. Wow. And so I asked the lady, I said, well, what happened? That was my life savings. Like, I'm not about to graduate high school again. So I don't know where I'm going to get $2,000 from. And she just kind of looked at me like, I don't know what to tell you.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And so I said, I thought the professionals don't lose money. And she like, market goes up, it goes down. I said, give me my $700. I can do this myself. I could have lost my own money. At least I would have known why I lost it. Because I didn't even know how they lost it. I just handed it over. No explanation. Yeah, and it just disappeared, right? And so that was the beginning for me.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So what happened, Mick, was I was making $8 an hour selling cell phones for Sprint PCS. I'm that guy in Best Buy or you're going to Costco, Sam's Cup. And they're like, who's your cell phone provider? Well, that was me. I was like 20, 21 years old. And so I did what most people do. I spent $200 on some gym shoes to make me feel better. I bought some Jordans. So I had $500 left.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I was like, man, if I can make $50, because after making $8 an hour, $64 on a Saturday, you take taxes out, I'm left with $50. I've been working Saturdays since I was like 16 in retail. I worked for McDonald's. I worked for Mervin's. I worked for Best Buy. I worked for Sprint, PCS, Southern Fund. I'm always working retail. I'm finally like, if I could just take a Saturday off and not lose pay,
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
that would be like amazing. So I got 500 bucks. And like, if I can make 10%, that's $50. I can take one of these Saturdays off. And then I said, if I could do that once a week, then I could take a whole month of Saturdays off. So I bought Sprint stock at $5 a share. Sprint stock fell down to four. I was like, oh man, this doesn't work. Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought I was.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Sprint stock went back up to five dollars. I'm like, OK, let's go to five fifty. It fell back down to four. I'm like the stock market rig. It's a setup. It's a scam. That's why they asked for my Social Security number. They know I needed to go to five fifty. They won't let it go to five fifty. Stock went back up to five dollars, Mick. And I said, I've seen this before.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I got out at five dollars and broke even. It fell down to four. I got in and went back up to five. I made my first hundred dollars. I didn't know that at the time that was called a channeling stock. And so I started like, well, what are the patterns out there exist that I don't know about? I got really good at studying the stock market, spent countless hours studying these patterns.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Then I get really good at flipping my $500. I made my first hundred, like I just told you about. I started making two, 300 bucks. And then I was like, wow, if I had a thousand dollars, I mean, I would have made 200. I was like, if I had $10,000, I was like, oh my gosh, I'd be rich. Right. Right. And so, you know, I read books like Rich Dad Poor Dad. And one of the things he said in the book was,
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
You know, if you know the story, when the kids went to work for the daddy, like, he wants y'all to work for free. They're like, you want us to work for free? He's like, by not paying you, you'll see money around you that would have before gone unnoticed. So for me, I was like, how am I going to get $10,000? Me and my cousin went to all our family. My cousin was trading too.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
We were going to our family members like, hey, can 10 people give us $1,000? We're trying to raise $10,000. Nobody wanted to do it. I had saw my friends get, so I had a scholarship to the Michael School of Business, Wayne State University here in Detroit, Michigan. So full circle to your question, how did I get to the $10,000?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I saw my friends getting their student loan refund checks and they were partying, they were shopping, doing all this stuff. I went and talked to my financial advisor, said, hey, I got a scholarship. but I know we poor enough to qualify for financial aid. So what would happen if I qualify for financial aid? He said, well, your scholarship would pay books and tuition first.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And since it doesn't cover room and board, you can use it to move on campus. You can use it for living expenses. If you just want to go to school full time, whatever you want to use it for. So I'm like, I use it for whatever I want. It's like, yeah, you'll get a refund check. That was the light bulb moment for me. I was like, I'm taking the refund check and I'm putting it into the stock market.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So that's how I got the $10,000. And I know people would be like, well, isn't that risky? It's not risky because I had got so good at doing it with my $500 that I was just doing the same thing with a little bit more money. And so when I put that $10,000 in there as a 21 year old college student, I grew my trading account to over a hundred thousand dollars.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
So that's, that's the full circle of how that $10,000 student loan turned into a six figure trading account.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
You know, I look back. I don't think I knew until, you know, you don't really know until you look back over your life. But as I look back over my life, I was always different. You know, I was in the gang here in Detroit, Michigan. And I remember when kind of like when report cards came out, all the gang members, we'd be like, what'd you get on your report card?
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Like, I got three F's and two D's and an incomplete. It's like, what'd you get? I got four F's and two extra D's, right? And they was like, Jay, what'd you get? And I was like, y'all don't want to know what I got on my report card.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
because i had like four a's two b's and like one c because i'm like look i'm getting up out of here someday i ain't trying to be running these streets with y'all yeah so even back then i was disciplined because i always knew like that wasn't the lifestyle that i wanted and then even when i worked retail a new level of discipline kicked in because it's like i know i don't want to work retail all my life no disrespect to anybody who works retail i just knew
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I didn't want to stand on my feet every Saturday selling cell phones, all the holiday seasons. And so I look back on different points in my life. I think that discipline always came from knowing that I wanted more and wanted something other than what I currently had.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Mick, glad to be here. I'm surprised you knew the What Up Doe.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And I knew that I would have to do something different or different than the people around me to get that success or to get to the levels that I wanted to get to. And now that I look back, I'm like, oh, you know, a little bit of that was discipline, a little bit was vision. And a whole lot of that was my mother praying, bro.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
You know, my purpose was my mom. My mom. I don't think I've told this story anywhere else. But I had like an ounce of weed. And my mom was like, I got to talk to you when you get home. And I don't know why, but I'm like, she found the weed. Because I was selling weed. We were selling drugs. I'm like, damn, she found it, right? I just knew. She didn't tell me where it was.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
She's like, I got to talk to you when I get home. I was like, she found the weed, right? And I ended up getting home before I took the weed, gave it to my friend. I just knew. I mean, she didn't whoop me or anything like that. You know what I mean? I'm not grown. I'm like 13, which is even weird to be selling weed at 13.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
Um, but again, we, I even think like the guy who sold us an ounce to break down and said like, what was he thinking? Some 13 year olds, an ounce to break down, but okay. So when my mom found that I was 13, I think it's eighth grade, seventh or eighth grade. And, uh, just how hurt she was. And I remember how hurt she was when she found that she's like, this is not us. This is not how I raised you.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
I told her at the time, I was like, my mom was holding it for somebody. It wasn't mine. My mom passed away last year, but, you know, so I ended up giving the weed to my boy. I was like, you can sell it, do whatever. Like, I'm kind of done with that. And then even with the gang, I was just like, I was just like, man, you know, my cousin was the leader of a gang.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And I'll never forget what my cousin said. They went to do like some dirt. You know, I don't want to say what they went to go do, but I'm talking, you know, stuff that ends up on the news. And I'm like, OK, we riding out tonight. And I never forget my cousin was like she passed away since as well. But my cousin was like, no, not like you got to stay back.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
She was like, we need you to go on and become a lawyer or something so you can get us out of prison. And I, you know, like at the time, I'm like, no, I'm down. It's the hood. But I look back and I was like, wow, like they saw something more in me than I saw myself. And I remember when she said like, no, you can't go with us. By the way, yes, my cousin was a female leader of a gang.
Mick Unplugged
From Detroit’s Streets to Stock Market Success: Jason Brown’s Rise
And they told me stay back. And I did. You know, they went. But like even I was in the gang, they would never let me do something that would like compromise my confidence. future, you know? And when I look back, I just was like, man, my mom, my family, it was like, there was always something where it was like, you meant for a little bit more, uh, than what this path has for you.