The hallways of our 2024 HOPE Global Forums annual meeting were full of people whose names you know, so I grabbed a microphone and asked each of them the same question. If you could go back to your eighteen year old self, what financial advice would you give?

The answers surprised me. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver admitted he is not always as calm on the inside as he looks, and shared the lesson he learned from picking individual stocks with summer job money. T.I. said liabilities are never as fun as they look before you buy them, and talked about raising children who value what is in them over what is on them. Roland Martin told the story of how a credit score nearly cost him his first job out of college.

Boris Kodjoe reminded young people that fifty will come, so build for it now. Killer Mike laid out a plan any group of cousins could start this year. Shannon Sharpe put it plainly: he is the same man in a Chevy or a Ferrari. And Stephen A. Smith gave one of the wisest answers I have ever heard to this question, about humility, listening and learning that you cannot do it alone.

These are people who made it and remember what it cost to learn. Listen with an eighteen year old in mind. Better yet, listen with one sitting next to you.

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