ORLANDO, Fla. – If you asked around, you’d probably be surprised at how many successful people got to where they are only after coming closer than many of us ever have to a life of squalor.
This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray interviews A.J. Vassar, a walking success story who proudly teaches others how he went from living in a car to giving them away.
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“The first time I had to sleep in my car was Easter Sunday 2014. I’ll never forget it because, you know, if you go to a Black church, everybody hype, they go in on Easter. I’m the only dude on Easter Sunday like ‘Yo what am I gonna do? Like, God, you got to come through like, bro, what’s up?’ And I remember that night man, being under under a light pole in Atlanta, and I had another mentor in Atlanta, his name is Sam Shepard,” Vassar said. “So I remember telling Sam I was gonna be homeless, and I was like, ‘Yo, I’m going to move back to Texas with my mom and I’ll come back when I get on my feet.’ And Sam was like, ‘No, you’re not.’ He said, ‘No, no woman wants a man that runs to his mom when times get hard, so you’re not gonna start that habit now,’ he said, ‘and you’ll learn more from your car than you ever will running from your problems.’ And then he changed my life, he said, ‘I got a safe parking lot you can sleep in.’”
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Vassar now lives in Medellín, Colombia, and a facet of his advice to better your life and business has to do with that.
In short, Vassar suggests moving to another country, as he says living internationally can create competitive business advantages for you.
“The best way I can explain this is that I can afford my mistakes, and in the U.S., because it is so competitive, it’s very hard to step out and do some stuff if you’re not backed by investors, if you don’t have family members that can hold you down,” Vassar said. “Here, I can afford mistakes, right? I just made one recently. I’m starting a kind of a pseudo call center here and I had a girl send me some referrals and I was like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna give you referral fees,’ and I just paid the referral fees right before they even got started, and then they weren’t able to start. If I would have did that in the U.S., I’d be hurting, like ‘Yo, I ain’t got it,’ You know what I’m saying? It’s like, so many things that could have happened by me needing that money, (but) by me being down here man, I’m good. Alright, cool. Right? I’ll learn next time. So now, I’ll give you a referral fee after they on for 90 days, right?”
In addition to studying neuroscience, epigenetics and quantum physics, Vassar has written three books. One of them, titled “Day Grades: From homeless to giving 5 cars away and much more in just 3 short years,” discusses Vassar’s so-called “day grade system,” what he said came from lessons learned while playing football at Southeast Missouri State University.
“Every week the coaches would grade us out, we graded every practice, right? Every practice is filmed. So when it came Saturday when we play, you don’t even have to question what you playing or not, you ain’t have to question if you starting, you ain’t have to question nothing. It was like, ‘How did I grade out?’ Right? So then I just started looking at my life once I started struggling and I was like, ‘Well, if I start grading my film — which is what I call my days — if I started grading my days, you know, to have a great life, I need to have great months, right? I need to have great years, I need to have great weeks.’ So ultimately, I need to have great days, and if I could string enough great days together, then I can be straight,” Vassar said.
Hear the full interview and more in Season 2, Episode 23 of “Black Men Sundays.”
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.