This is a transcript of an interview I did with a major magazine:
How has your background and upbringing made you the person you are today with the goals that you have today?
My father was a strong disciplinarian, a Vietnam veteran and a police officer. My mother was a very passionate and courageous woman of God. My father taught me the importance of choosing to be mentally tough, facing your obstacles and not letting your enemies get inside your head. My mother taught me the power of passion. Passion means that if you want something bad enough, you’ll find a way to get it. You must go the extra mile, do things that others won’t do. That’s how you build an extraordinary life, by going to the limits without allowing fear to paralyze you.
What has your career path looked like? What motivated and inspired you?
I started off having no idea of what I wanted to do in life. I majored in finance because I wanted to have some money one day. I got a PhD because my mentor, Dr Tommy Whittler, told me that Finance PhDs make the most money on campus. I took my first job at Syracuse University because I was a broke graduate student who wanted to have money. I quit that job a few years later because I learned that even when you climb the ladder as a black man, you still find racism waiting for you at the top. There is no way for a black man to be truly free in America without owning his own business. All of our children should learn to start a business by the age of 12 as a means for economic survival.
You have created programs, including The Black Business School and The Black Wealth Bootcamp, to help the Black community of all ages on their journey to success. What are some of your major talking points in these programs? What are the major goals?
The Black Business School offers a high-quality, low cost, culturally-relevant education in all things related to the building of wealth in the black community. We teach 158,000 students around the world the fundamentals to investing in the stock market, buying real estate, starting your own business and we even have a mastermind on how to invest in NFTs. My former students at Syracuse University pay over $70,000 per year to learn from people like me, and most of them will die in debt. However, in The Black Business School, we’ve been able to leverage scholars and business leaders within our own community and establish a framework that is conducive to generational wealth building systems that function at the family level. In other words, we’ve solved the racial wealth gap.
April is financial literacy month. What are some ways that families can educate themselves and others during this time?
Start by reading something financial everyday. Watch Youtube videos. Have family financial conversations at least once a week so you can share ideas. The information is out there and you have the greatest university in the history of the world right on your cell phone. Use the resources around you and it can open any door you’d like.
What has been your biggest success so far?
Our biggest success is that we’ve been able to develop an economic model that reaches millions every week without an ounce of government or corporate financing. Our various platforms have been viewed by over two million people in the last 48 hours alone, reminding us of the impact of our work. I go all over the world and meet quite a few people who tell us how we changed their lives. This makes me very proud.
Please share any upcoming partnerships and programs you will work on this year.
On my website, BoyceWatkins.com, you can gain access to the partnerships and programs we are offering in The Black Business School for this year. We are also hosting our All Black National Convention in October, which brings together families from all over the world who are ready to see a stronger, more vibrant, more intelligent and more successful black community. Lastly, we’ve partnered with extraordinary experts in various fields to create one-of-a-kind programs in real estate, cryptocurrency investing and other areas of interest for our students. We are helping our community level up on a budget. I am extremely proud of the fact that our students received a better education than the one they received in college and most of them spent less than $500 in the process. We are the HBCU for the 21st century and beyond.
