Get Up, Get Out, and Vote: A nosy AF Election Special with Stephisha Ycoy-Walton

Gotta get up, get up tell the whole world you a winner, winner vision of a star with a mission in the cause what you doing, how you.

Doing, what you doing and who you are?

Flex yourself and press yourself Check yourself, don't work yourself if you know me.

Then you know that I be knowing what's up.

Hey, Stephanie Graham is nosy as.

Hi, my nosy friends.

Welcome, and welcome back to the Nosy AF podcast.

I'm your host, Stephanie, and today.

My.

Stomach is in knots because it's election day in the United States.

That's right, it's election 2024.

And with everything this world has been going through and all the intense campaigning for the past few weeks, we know there are so much at stake.

Well, to talk about today's big, big deal, I am thrilled to introduce you to my battle buddy, Stephisha Ekoy Walton, who has been tirelessly mobilizing to the polls these past few weeks.

Together we've been attending content creators for Harris calls, hosted by none other than lovey Ajayi Jones, the self proclaimed professional troublemaker, and also joining the win with black women phone banks showing up on every call, every meeting, every corner of our networks that we could reach.

Stephisha is not only out in the streets helping her community, getting folks to vote, but they are also deeply rooted in service and social justice.

They're a God fearing powerhouse with a clear purpose.

Purpose, and as you'll see, a true gift for creating change.

As a licensed financial advisor, a member of Oakland's budget advisory committee, and a credentialed teacher, Stephia is on a mission to bring literacy, community impact and equity to the people they serve.

So today is one for the bookshelf.

My stomach is totally, totally in nuts.

As I say this.

This is such a truly momentous occasion.

Steph.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Nosy af.

I'm happy to be here.

This is a.

I've never been INV to be Nosy af.

I was always told that I would get my nose shot off if I was nosy.

So this is a totally different feel.

I can't wait to share this with my moms.

Oh, my gosh, listen.

I wish a mother would try to shoot our noses up.

Come on.

Good stuff, sister.

Are you nervous?

Like, I'm nervous.

I'm nervous, but I'm optimistic and feeling really good.

Lately I've been doing a bad thing of going down a rabbit hole of anti Harris and just seeing what people have to say because I'm so curious.

Like, what does y'all be like, what.

Do y'all against her?

People are saying, you know, Trump gave us stimulus money.

No.

Well, actually.

And we like that.

And it's like, that's not how they.

No.

Yeah.

No, actually.

And if you want to be honest, Obama gave us a check too.

But I mean, he just don't have to brag and boast about what he did because it's not about him.

You see what I'm saying?

Furthermore, to give a stimulus check is nice, but can you fix a broken system?

Can you stimulate this system to not be broken anymore?

So it's like we're bragging about the wrong things.

You know, like, when I look at where we stand today, like, we got a couple hours.

We need people to get up, get out, and get out the vote.

If you have not done your part up until this moment, or maybe you have been like, it's just still time to get it done.

Because between the phone calls, the door knocks.

Like, and then us previously doing the postcards, we were trying to touch as many people as we could leading up until today, even to the point of getting people on buses to go to battleground states out to like, Yuma, Arizona, Al Torino, Nevada, Las Vegas, Nevada.

Like, we sent people out, right?

So that today we don't have to worry about, will Kamala win?

We know she's going to win.

But I'm still nerve wracked.

I'm still nervous because I don't know, man, like, I have a 10 year old son.

You see what I'm saying?

Like, I feel like I am a walking piece of politics.

Like, I identify as lgbtq.

You.

I am masculine, centered.

I'm, you know, I'm black.

I'm black black.

I'm black and I'm proud.

You see what I'm saying?

Like, I live in an impoverished neighborhood.

I live in deep East Oakland.

You see what I'm saying?

Not just East Oakland, not just Oakland.

I live in deep East Oakland.

And when I think about the level of just like socioeconomic downturn that we experience on a regular basis, to know that there's a possibility that somebody could get elected into office who would just perpetuate that entire system to the max, and people who look like me, who come from where I come from would never stand a chance, that scares me.

And I think for that reason is why for this election, I did more than I've ever done for any election.

Even when Obama was running.

I did, you know, like, my part, but not to the extent that I'm doing it this time.

I understand what's on what?

Like what's on the line, what's at stake.

Oh yeah, me too.

I think that this election for sure has got me tapped in because it's like, oh, no, we definitely cannot go back.

We definitely cannot go back.

I'm not having it.

No.

And yeah, I just, I'm just hoping for this to go our way.

But you know, one thing I was thinking about, the last episode that I posted was also a political episode about the election.

Okay.

And I was thinking about how no matter the outcome, how my everyday doesn't change.

Or does it?

Yeah.

I feel like, I feel like I.

When I think about that, it's like, well, I'll still do my art, I'll still do my podcast, I'll still have my job.

But I don't know, I feel like it's such.

It messes with my mind.

Yeah.

I think it messes with our mind in the way of we.

Well, I've always been taught, regardless of who's in the presidential seat, like, you know, your day to day life is still always going to, you know, be the same.

Well, that was until I learned about what the World Economic Forum was and where I realized that it's an entire forum of world leaders who come together from different countries.

Countries and they talk about the vision of the globe.

Not just the country, but the vision of the globe.

And this is an organization who was ran by a man whose father was heavily involved with the Nazi party.

And when you think about this, and you could go on, say for instance, YouTube as a matter of fact, and it's called called the Great Awakening.

And when I tell you this was a documentary that totally brought me full circle in terms of where our world is headed.

When you look at America having been the superpower, right.

For our entire globe and how everybody says, well, if America does it, then okay, we're going to follow behind.

When you have a man like Klaus Schwab, you see what I'm saying?

Like the founder of the World Economic Forum.

Well, for one, you just listen to his name and you know where he's from for the most part, his lineage, right?

But then you think about the fact that this man no longer sees and even wants America to be the superpower.

He wants us to be a dualistic society where we have two superpowers at the top being that of the United States and that of China.

But if you think about it, we're ran in two totally different ways.

One is a democracy and one is a communistic society.

You see what I'm Saying like we are in no way, shape or form the same.

And then when you have this man swab, that's literally like praising the Prime Minister of Canada for having like a democratic society, but running it as though he's a communist.

Meaning that if you oppose any policy that has to do with him in government, he will not only lock you up, he will lock up your bank account and you will no longer have the opportunity to purchase property.

So I'm a bring this back full circle to say I'm nervous because this, this is the vision that's being set for the entire world, for the entire world.

For us to be ran as a top down approach where we as citizens only and solely depend on our government.

If we only and solely depend on our government, what use do we have for fellowship and for community with our neighbor?

You see what I'm saying?

There's nothing for you to genuinely fight for when you live in a society where everything is given to you because you don't have the right to go after anything more or better for your family.

So I get nervous because people say, well, your life going to be the same regardless of who's in office.

And I used to think that too until I understood what it meant for us to not live in a democracy.

Because if we lived in somewhere like China, sis, I wouldn't be able to wear these threads.

We all have to dress the same, we all have to shave our head and look the same as a society because you're not supposed to be desirable.

You see what I'm saying?

So no, that might not change overnight.

But if Donald Trump says on day one, I'm shutting down public school education.

If he says on day one I'm doing mass deportation.

I don't know if we gonna be doing so much art and I love art.

I got acrylic paints all up in my living room.

But some things gonna change for us.

And that makes me sad.

Like I'm with you, like, yeah, but it makes me sad and nervous at the same time.

I got like this boiling, like, I don't know, just a boiling level of anxiety.

Today has to be the day where people show up.

We gotta show up to the polls.

Yeah, you're right.

Now my life will change.

I've changed my aunts and I'm not.

Gonna say that I'm sorry to go so deep so soon on you.

We need to know that because I feel I will be in a bubble, you know, I'll be in a bubble and I feel like even the selection has gotten Me more political.

Yeah.

And I've been even so shocked at.

I have a friend who's like a Jamaican woman immigrant, is like a Trump support.

I'm like, dude, he does not like you.

He don't even like our people.

No.

And I just.

It's just so shocking.

And so I feel like seeing that and seeing how he was and then seeing what I know my.

I want my future to be, and then now seeing Harris have the opportunity to change all that, I feel like I am getting tapped in.

But even this, like the Great Awakening documentary to learn about the Global Forum, I didn't even know about this stuff, you know, And I feel like this is stuff that the young man at the liquor store is always trying to talk to me about.

Ah.

Because he's at the liquor store.

You're like, I don't know.

He's always talking and just like, wait a minute.

He might have just said something like that.

Like, he actually may be really conscious, but you know how that is when people are just always talking.

You're just like, what are you saying?

But I'm like, hey, you know what, Stephanie, listen, sometime take some time and just say, what are you talking about?

Yeah, yeah.

Because he has the time clearly, to research this stuff for sure if ain't.

Nobody coming into the store.

Yeah.

But I feel like I'm ignorant to these things and like, this is like, where I feel I'm really tapping in to political stuff.

And you've been a public, as you call yourself for right now, a super volunteer of this election.

But I know, I know that, you know, you're a part of like, financial world, you know, like in public service.

And so I just think that that is so wonderful.

So I feel like I look to you as sort of like a guide to be like, okay, how can I tap in even more?

Absolutely.

Because even sometimes in art projects, I feel folks will maybe make an artwork about something, but it doesn't have necessarily the follow up.

So, like, what is the real on the street?

What's the beat of the street?

Yeah.

What's the beat of the street?

Like, what's.

What's the.

What's the heartbeat?

Right.

And so for me, when I think about this election season, you're right.

I do wear, like, many, many hats.

Right.

So by trade, I am a licensed investment advisor.

So I have six different licenses.

I have a life insurance license through the department of insurance for the state of California, along with like 12 or 13 other states.

And then I also have a series of investment licenses or what we call securities licenses, which allows me to manage my clients investments whether they're individuals or small businesses or large corporations.

We handle everything from retirement to college savings accounts, like five to nine plans, families, life insurance, business insurance, home auto, renters, all that stuff.

We do living wills, trust, things like that for our families and we even help, you know, with mortgage loan origination, whether it be for businesses, for homes, things like that.

So that's what I do by trade as a licensed advisor, but I'm a credentialed educator as well.

So the way that I bridge my corporate in my community is by taking my corporate resources and bringing them to my community, right?

So I get to teach, I get to teach financial literacy to my youth.

And for me that's big because teaching financial literacy to the youth means that we can have a hand in shaping what the next generation looks like and how our society is actually going to be ran.

So for me, I'm 37 years old, right?

And my dad told me very clearly, I need you to read rich dad, poor dad.

I need you to understand Robert Kiyosaki and why his two dads said what they said and felt the way that they felt and why he took what he took from each one of these role models in his life.

But outside of that, the only thing I was really coached to do or not do was don't get a whole bunch of credit cards.

But little did I know that would bite me in the foot a little bit later, right?

Because at the end of the day, I got accepted to medical school.

Steph, like me, the black wow.

Girl like me, like the little old black girl before I really came into myself, like I got accepted into medical school.

And so it was after I applied the first year, the second year I got accepted.

So for me I'm feeling like I'm winning, man.

Like I got an acceptance letter in this hand, but then I got the bill in this hand and I'm like, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm happy.

But then this was dragging my dreams down.

So I deferred six months and then my brother in law was like, hey, you should look at what I do.

I work in finances and I think you'll be great.

I'm like, man, I'm on my way to medical school, I'm working at this physical therapy clinic getting my hours and outside of that, I will not be distracted.

I've been laser beam focused my whole life, I'm not getting derailed now.

And he's like, all right, time for me to pay.

I couldn't pay.

I defer my last time.

And he's like, you sure you don't want to give it a shot?

So he ended up showing me how they get paid.

I'll show you that.

I'll tell you that story later.

But once I understood how they got paid in the industry, I was like, wait a minute.

You just put my portfolio in place.

You just made money off of me?

He said, yeah, 350 bucks.

I said, Can I get 50?

He goes, no, but I could teach you how to make 50%.

And that's how I stepped into the financial services industry, because I was going to utilize that medium to make the $12,500 that I needed to make my first payment for med school.

But then once I got going and I saw the leadership, I understood that, wait a minute, I don't have to go in debt $200,000 to be financially independent.

And so my entire trajectory switched.

And I say that it was because I didn't want to go in debt $200,000, but I think I was just scared to actually think about the fact of me not having what I needed to go the entire distance.

You know what I mean?

Because I was not taught about collateral, credit, co signers, any of those things.

You see what I'm saying?

I did not have a model financial, you know, backing to be able to just.

Yeah, I got accepted.

I'm going.

It wasn't that I went to undergrad on a basketball scholarship.

Okay?

When you look full circle at what I do in the community, it's because.

Because my steps led me to this point.

I was slighted by money.

So for me, I don't want my community, my child, my family to ever be in that position.

So I teach financial literacy to the most underserved kids in our community at the Freedom School, the kids that are traditionally kicked out of regular high school because they were truant, not paying attention, falling asleep in class.

But then that goes right back to, did the teacher or anybody ask why they were falling asleep?

Sleep?

Or what might not have been proper in their day to day life?

Those are all things that need to be considered.

And with the candidates that we have at the top of the ticket, those are candidates that we have to look at and say, those are candidates we have to look at and say, okay, one of these candidates actually understands why my child is falling asleep.

And then one of these candidates don't understand why my child is falling asleep.

And if you can't understand the cultural context that exists, Exists in that space, then you don't need to lead the entire country when it comes to, like, just looking at the leadership and where we stand.

Like, today marks a day in history where if we don't stand up and if we don't use our voice in the form of our vote, we could wake up tomorrow and be drastically disappointed.

Come January, we could be in a space where we are literally hearing conversations of people really utilizing their passports to move out of the country.

You see how I got this passport in my pocket right here that wouldn't even stay just because I couldn't find my id, Right?

But this thing right here is going to be some people's best friends because they are genuinely going to be scared at what's coming next.

And rightfully so, if you think about having a man at the top of our ticket in terms of, like, being commander in chief, but he literally would put out an ad, you see what I'm saying?

To execute five black men without even having proper facts.

If he would refuse to rent to our people, if he would shut down the schools that serve our kids, if he would tell the women in our family, up, sorry, I know you got raped.

And I know that, you know, sexual molestation and all those things run rapid in, you know, black and brown communities and stuff.

And, yeah, I know that that baby in your belly might be, you know, as a result of a family member of yours, but you got to keep it.

Like, no, I don't stand for that.

Like, I don't stand for that at all.

So, you know, the work that we do, the way that we show up today and every day before today, you know, that's what matters.

Like, we got to have change, and we got to have it today.

We got to have it now.

Man, I get passionate about it.

Like, I do, because if you think about it, Steph, like, as a licensed advisor, I take so much pride in being able to teach about financial literacy.

And then some people will say, how you going to teach me how to be a millionaire?

You ain't even a millionaire.

And my rebuttal to them is, do you understand that I started out at negative 1 million before I could even really get going.

Like, everybody who was born black or brown, even though you started literally with no dollars in the bank, you really started negative, because the system that you were born into, that system don't even serve you.

So even if you go to school, even if you don't have no kids in high school, even if you don't get addicted to drugs or alcohol, what Are the chances that you are actually going to be able to go to a university that's top notch in a country just like your counterparts might be able to.

You might have a 4.25, 4.3 GPA, but they still gonna ask you to do a little bit better on the SATs because you not a legacy admission.

You see what I'm saying?

There are so many different hurdles that stand in our way.

And then we think about it like FAFSA don't pay for an education at Princeton.

Even if you got a Pell Grant, even if you got fafsa, FAFSA funds, it's not going to pay for you to go to Stanford, to go to Princeton, to go to Yale, to go to Cornell, Dartmouth.

It doesn't pay for it.

I know I got accepted to all of those places.

You see what I'm saying?

So it's one of those things where it's like you can have all the knowledge in the world.

For me, I am a financial guru front and back.

But my past started a little bit after all of the other people that I was born in the same generation with.

So even though I might not see super wealth in my lifetime, I know for a fact my son will, because I've built him with a millionaire mentality.

Something that I didn't start with was something that I gained along the way.

So the way that I show up in my community is a reflection of that.

So I do work on a budget advisory commission because I like to understand how the money flows in the system and I like to keep it transparent in our community.

And then in terms of being civically engaged, this has been the time period where voting all the way down the ballot matters.

So like today some people are going to step into the booth or they going to put they ballot into the mail, but all they voted for was president and vice president, or maybe they had a friend that was running a local race so they searched for their name on the ballot.

Right.

But what we don't do is talk about the city council races, the at large races, you know, our county board, trustees for the school board.

We don't talk about, you know, races like the Oakland Unified School District, where most people don't even realize there are more elected school board members than any other elected position in the entire country.

More elected school board members.

However, there's no training for school board members.

There's no standardized training.

Furthermore, there's not even a real pipeline to make sure that we have proper school board directors elected.

Why is that so?

Scary to me because most school board races are ran unopposed.

These are the same people who step into the seat.

They control what happens at the schools locally in our communities, which means the people who get elected to the school board control what curriculum get taught to our schools.

So if it's not culturally relevant, whose fault is it?

We could say it's the boards, but no, it's ours, because we didn't step up to vote for those school board members.

So this election season, you know, I have just been focused on how can I make sure people understand their election book, how can I help them understand the candidates?

I am the voter guide for my community.

In my huge living room window, I put up the signs of the candidates that, yes, I'm endorsing and that I care about.

But if you ask me about the opposition, I will educate you with no bias.

And if you ask me about a candidate, I will tell you where to find the information and everything.

But I will always tell you why I'm voting for.

The person that I'm voting for is my hope to get you to go look at them.

Absolutely.

Because I've done my thorough research and I genuinely believe that that person that I'm voting for, I'm voting my values.

Now, if somebody has different values than I do, I can't get mad at them for voting how they vote.

Does that mean that I have to agree with you?

Do that mean that I gotta invite you over?

None of that.

You see what I'm saying?

But what it does mean is that I have to genuinely be willing to listen and understand why you stand in that position so that I know how to have an articulate conversation without getting emotional.

Yeah.

So maybe you have a Steffi Share EOY voter guide.

Ooh, you know what?

I need to start working on that for our.

For our next go round, man.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, I see a cute little zine that's just folded.

Doesn't have to be anything you could, like, print it off of a Xerox.

I love it, man.

Like, there's so many great things that can come out of this.

When we were at dnc, the Democratic National Convention, they had Content creators dinner exclusively for content creators.

And that was mind blowing because they said that it was the first time in history that they exclusively invited creators to the space.

And it made me understand how much social media is influencing our society.

But it also helped me understand how people like us on the ground genuinely do have a voice that needs to be heard.

And before I wouldn't get, like, I wouldn't put so much, like, on my live or on my Instagram of like, me talking or like, actually doing live things because I was a little self conscious, I'm not gonna lie.

And then I got to a point where I was just like, you know what?

How somebody feel about me is none of my business.

I'm about to do it anyways because I got something to say.

And then what I realize is that people actually want to listen to what I have to say.

Because that's right.

Most of it is valuable, some of it is comical, but most of it is valuable.

And for that, I'm grateful, you know.

So this election has been full of education, but stressful, but full of joy.

Like, my hope from 2008 is back.

Yeah, yeah, it's been a lot of fun, like, getting to know everybody.

And, you know, even with the candidates going to the different podcasts, they've been calling this, like, the election of the podcast.

Seeing Vice President Harris on Club Sh.

Shay, it's just like she's sitting on the couch, right?

It's just like, so wild to me.

And, you know, it's like these podcasts, they have seem to have more reach, just the same amount of reach as, like, traditional media, you know, so it's just like, wow.

And I think too, like, I can relate to the being shy.

Like, I would get shy about stuff too, but I think connecting with, like, folks such as yourself, like other friends who, like, do use social media as a voice, as long as you, like, see them when you're making it, makes it easier, you know, and then you.

You get people.

I will get people that might not post publicly, but they will message me privately.

And, like, we'll have discussions.

And I'm like, hey, that's good too, you know, that's.

That's fine.

You don't have to be the person that's posting on your platform.

You know, Lee put the message in front of everybody in a way where they can take ownership in it.

Like, there's something about that message that resonates with them.

I feel like we have greater impact, you know, like in VP Harris's campaign.

She has so many different touch points that we can all literally resonate with.

When I see her speak, like, she reminds me of, like, my mom.

My auntie, like, VP Harris was born in 64, right?

So she's five years old, older than my mom.

And so when I look at her, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's auntie, that's mom.

If she say, get up and vote.

Oh, I'm voting twice.

Like, send me another ballot.

You see what I mean?

If she say, get up and take people with you.

Come on, y'all.

Auntie said we gotta hurry up.

Like, it's non negotiable.

Like, for me, the black women in my life, I show up with as much respect as I can possibly give because that's how I was raised.

Like, there is no in between.

If they are your elder and if we are of community, I am to respect you through and through.

So when I see Kamala get up and when she speaks, it's authentic.

When I see her, you know, speak her truth and she talk about what she has done as well as what she's currently doing and what she's going to do, I believe her.

Because when I look at her track record, her track record proves it.

You see what I'm saying?

Like, she's always fought for the unhoused.

She's always tried to make sure that our streets were safe.

And some people have a gripe with saying, well, she locked up too many black men.

I'm sorry, wait a minute.

Her job is to keep us safe.

And sometimes we don't always agree because that person that got sent away on vacation might have been our family member, might have been a cousin, might have been a close friend.

But even I talk to my uncle every single night when he called me from a collect number from Iown from Mule Creek State Prison.

And even I have to sit with the fact that knowing that I have people in my family that made some wrong decisions.

You see what I'm saying?

But I can't hold that against a woman who is just doing her job and doing it well.

I can't hold that against her.

And furthermore, if that's the only gripe that I got with her, then I gotta look at who I'm willing to vote for outside of her.

And at this point, it's nobody.

It's nobody she hold.

Like, nobody holds a flame to her.

I'm sorry.

Like, she would literally take care of all my needs.

So to know that not only her, but her dad studied economics.

You see what I'm saying?

Like, true.

Like, it's not just something that she just stepped up and was like, oh, I think I might be halfway good at this.

And, you know, I want to give it a shot.

Somebody tap me on the shoulder to see if I'm a run.

It's like, nah.

Like, this runs in my blood.

Like, this is in my family.

You see what I'm saying?

Like, you graduate, you Graduate a political science major, you study economics, you get back in your community and really start working and giving back.

You see what I'm saying?

You go to law school, so you understand how the law works for and against our people.

These are things that you're genuinely learning along the way.

And then you bring it full circle to come back to Alameda county, where you really do the hard work.

You see what I'm saying?

Like, in the 90s, where you got people who are really, like, height of the crack epidemic right after the 80s, you see what I'm saying?

We roll into the 90s, and now it's starting to get calm.

But you got a lot of people going off to the prison industrial complex.

Like, it's a lot of people being shipped off.

To be totally honest, my dad had just came back.

You see what I'm saying?

So when I look at that entire time period, I was just a little girl, but I get all of the stories, I get all of the history around things that were happening.

And so to know that you have someone like her through that time period who, you know, was a district attorney in San Francisco, getting it done, where you have a high rate of crime and drug use during that time, like, I don't know.

I stand by VP Harris.

She had to do her job during an impossible time period.

And for her to still be here serving at every single level of her, like, trajectory through career, she has served.

She served community.

She deserves our vote.

Bottom line, she deserved to vote.

I have a question.

So you have a son who's 10.

I am 42, and I have friends who are starting to have kids, like, late 30s and their 40s.

And with you teaching the youth how young are they, it almost seems like if I want to be a parent, I got to figure that out soon, first of all.

And then two, it seems like I need to have, like, a financial plan, like, before I even get pregnant.

Like, this is, like, so ideal.

I, like, drool at people that say things like that, because I'm like, you get it.

Like, you should be planning well before the event actually takes place.

Place, right?

Because once the event is here, it's too late to plan for it.

So, like, when it comes to financial planning, like, as a whole, honestly, every single person should have what's called a financial needs analysis, an fna.

Right.

And the FNA is something that helps you understand where you currently are in your finances, where you're going, and the steps that have to be put in place in order for you to actually get there.

And manifest it.

So when it comes to teaching youth, we have to tailor that in a way that youth actually want to engage and participate.

Right?

So you could take students as young as third, fourth, and fifth grade and teach them financial literacy.

They need to understand what a dollar is.

They need to understand the value of a dollar.

They need to understand currency.

They need to understand needs versus wants.

They need to understand saving 10 cents of every dollar.

These are just basic things that our kids need to know.

They need to be able to take $5, go to the store, buy whatever they're going to buy, and be able to calculate the change without a receipt.

That's financial literacy.

Because imagine how many of our students in East Oakland walk into a store because the mom gave them however many dollars, and they don't know how much change they supposed to get back.

But they trust that the cashier gonna do right by them.

But the cashier knows and understands that kids in Oakland don't truly understand, like, how to count.

So they like, okay, I'm gonna give you back a couple dollars.

Here go a couple cents.

And the kids just stuff it in their pocket as soon as they walk out the store.

You can't come back and contest it now.

And it happens all the time.

To me as an adult, it has happened.

So when I teach financial literacy, I teach it from the perspective of ownership.

Like, I'm going to teach you about dollars and cents, but I'm going to teach you how finances work in our economy.

And then I'm going to teach you how your personal finances spill into business finance.

And then I'm going to teach you how you don't always have to be a loner.

You can actually be an owner, meaning that you can take an idea that's your own.

And if you can learn how to teach and duplicate yourself, you don't always have to work in your business.

You can work on your business.

Business meaning that you are allowing other people to come into this fold with you and create greatness and create magic, and you create opportunities for people along the way.

So, for instance, the third, fourth, and fifth graders, they started off with their own business ideas for four weeks.

I got with them and went over how to give a perfect pitch.

Basically, if I needed to talk to investors, what do I say to them to get them to invest in my little old business, right?

So we went over how to get a perfect pitch for four weeks after that, we set up an entrepreneurial fair at the school.

There were students, more than two handfuls of students, that made over $100 that day.

And these are third, fourth, and fifth graders.

They propagated plants.

I had students that made like beaded jewelry and stuff.

And rather than buying the boxes to put the jewelry in, we talked about overhead.

And so they asked a teacher for a packet of construction paper, and they watched an origami video on YouTube and they folded their own jewelry boxes to bring down overhead and increase revenue.

You see what I'm saying?

These are things that we talked to the kids about.

So they did their whole entrepreneurial fair, had all the teachers, staff, parents, everybody around the school coming and buying stuff from them.

And then we took the 10 kids that truly got what they were supposed to get out of that entrepreneurial fair, who truly performed and saw it from beginning to end.

And we took them into the studio and we recorded our first episode of Tiger Tank.

So it's like Shark Tank, but it's Tiger Tank for the kids.

And when I tell you we had a star studded panel.

It was phenomenal, Stephanie.

Like, absolutely phenomenal.

Like, we had investment bankers from Merrill Lynch.

We had Cheryl Cotton, who's the deputy super superintendent for instruction for the state of California.

We had Janine Glista, who's the co executive producer of Biz Kids from pbs.

We had Val Chapman, who's a retired investment banker but sits on the financial literacy task force for the state of California.

Like, it was just so amazing.

We had Carl Chan, who's the president of the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce.

He sat on the panel for the kids.

And these were all of my judges, and I hosted the show.

And it was just phenomenal to see these kids get so excited because their business ideas were being listened to but being supported.

And at the end of it all, Carl Chan offered them a deal.

And he said, I will let you guys set up a big booth, the biggest booth size that I have, at my Chinatown street fair in Oakland at the end of the summer.

And you can keep 100% of your revenue.

And I was just so excited for the kids because he normally has booth rent for all the vendors, but to bring that service, why Kamala?

Because Kamala actually believes in uplifting entrepreneurship.

She doesn't only believe in sending our children to school so that they can become worker bees and then become employees in the future.

She actually sees education, post secondary education in a space of college, but she also sees it in a space of trade school and where our kids can actually, like, have skills that can't be taken away from them.

So when people ask me, who you voting for?

You shouldn't have to ask me, right?

But it's Kamala 20, 24.

All day, all day.

That's what it is.

You know, hearing you talk and it's the last thing I'll say about these kids.

I feel if I see kids outside the grocery store, I'm gonna say, do you want something?

Here's $5.

But we need to go and you need to tell me how much change we're getting back.

I feel like that's stranger.

That's stranger danger.

But I really just want them to count change.

Challenge them.

Yes, absolutely.

Make them count change.

And then we gotta talk to our kids about stop using plastic so much.

So like most people, if you ask them to pull out their wallet, they have more plastic than they have actual bills, right?

And so I tell people you should have more individual bills in your wallet than you have plastic cards.

So if you got a debit and a credit card, you better have more than two bills in your wallet.

You shouldn't always have to pull out a card to be able to pay for things.

Because when you lose the touch, the feeling of money, it becomes non existent to you.

Out of sight, out of mind.

So if all you're doing is swiping a card and you don't check your balance, except for when you don't have any money, well, you ain't gonna ever have no money.

You see what I'm saying?

So, like, get.

Get used to using paper cat, like, like paper money again if it's something that resonates with you.

But, huh, Today, what do we do?

What a crazy day.

Oh my gosh.

And there's still so much left to do, like more phone calls, like more doors to hit.

And you know, I'm nervous about the election not being properly certified.

Like, I know any mess after the numbers click over tonight.

Like, I just want to wake up in peace, Steph.

I just want to wake up in peace.

Yes.

Wake up in peace and in our favor.

Lord, please hear our prayer on that.

Yes.

So please God.

Yes.

Man, this has been so amazing.

Thank you for taking the time on such a crazy day, a full day.

I mean, how can I say that I serve if I'm not willing to make the time for the people who are really trying to get out the boat, this is.

Yeah.

You know, I'm grateful to have been partnered with you, you know, as my battle, but me too.

I really am.

And I feel like it's going to last way past this election.

I hope so.

I know so.

You are a powerful individual and like, this platform.

Like, I'm enjoying being nosy af.

Like, this is fun.

Like, I like it.

I need to unlearn what I learned when I was young.

Like, it's all right to be nosy over here because then I get to, you know, share some more info.

But I.

I love this platform and I love what you're about.

Like, I really do, Stephen.

Thank you.

I love what you're about, too.

And I love who you're voting for.

I love that you're helping the kids, helping yourself, helping our nation.

And, yeah, it's going to be good.

It's all.

It's all going to work out.

Yes, ma'am, it will.

I can't wait.

We are going to celebrate when we wake up.

That'll just be the first thing.

We really going to celebrate in January.

But, you know, I'm still celebrating.

I'm still celebrating.

I'm still celebrating, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

There's gonna be many a party.

We're about to act a fool.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

Well, I think since you asked me all the questions, I want to close out this session with a question to you.

Oh, please.

What inspired you to really do the thing?

Like, really, really do the thing when it comes to nosy af, knowing that there's a possibility somebody might not listen, but knowing there's a possibility that the entire world could listen.

What made you really move forward to establish this space?

You know, I feel in my own art practice, it's really driven by stories from people and my own story and seeing how we can relate, even if we're from different places, finding some sort of common ground.

And so I feel like.

And I will talk and I will talk to anybody.

And I do talk to everybody, even the liquor store guy.

Even I'll talk to him for a minute.

But when he starts getting going, it's like, actually, I did tell my mom I was going to meet her, but, you know, but I felt that it was a great opportunity for me to have these conversations I would be having anyway, have them recorded.

So that way there is an archive of these conversations.

So at some point someone can say, yeah, actually, Steffi should did speak about the 2024 election.

Like, there is archive of that.

I think that's very important.

And, you know, I feel like it's more of a research space, but then it turns around that it gives other people opportunity to hear people's opinions, their thought, their process, and where it feels really selfish for me, I feel that it is really self.

It is like a project.

I feel for me, but I'm happy that I'm able to share it with other people.

And I think having it be in this space of a podcast, people are open to do that, because sometimes they're like, oh, this is gonna help me too.

You know, and when they see how I want to archive their voice, you know, I used to look up artists all the time or filmmakers, and I would not see anything about them talking.

I went to an event last night that was films that nobody had ever really heard of about these Cuban filmmakers, these women filmmakers.

And this woman had pulled these films, and she's like, I'm showing them so that hopefully you guys will write about these films, because no one knows about these films.

And I'm like, I'm really glad she put that together, because you need to.

Have her on your show.

I love Cuban women.

During.

I know I should.

I wish the just the opportunity to be able to have these recorded conversations, be in community and have fun.

And people, they'll let me ask them all sorts of questions that they know ahead of time.

Like, they sort of know.

I'm not, like, ever being like, oh, hey, I heard that you were drunk.

You know, nothing like, not salacious.

Right, right, right.

Like, we're not gonna get into Friday night.

That is a phenomenal answer, Stephanie.

And I just.

Thank you for sharing.

Like, I'm grateful for you and for your platform.

Thank you for having.

Thank you.

This has been another episode of Nosy af.

I'm your host, Stephanie Graham.

What did you think about today's conversation?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Head over to the Nosy AF website for all the show notes related to this episode.

You can also find me on Instagram at stephaniegraham.

What would you know?

Or online@missgraham.com where you can sign up for my newsletter, where I share exclusive updates about my studio practice, as well as this podcast.

Until next time, y'all stay curious and take care.

Bye.