[00:00:00] Bob Wheeler: Do you find yourself too often letting the opinions of others limit your beliefs and your own abilities? Our self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and lack of confidence causing roadblocks on your path to success? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us, but with a few conscious adjustments, these feelings don’t have to hold you back if you just learned how to believe in yourself no matter what.

In this episode, our guest, Wally Green, grew up in an abusive home surrounded by gangs and. Despite the turmoil in his life, he found solace in sports, which numbed him to the pain of his home life one day while passing through the school lunchroom while he saw kids playing ping pong and ridiculed them.

But when he stumbled upon a pool hall and saw people who looked like him playing the game, he decided to give it a try. He discovered his talent for the sport and set out to prove himself despite what his stepfather had told him. With his passion drive and never say die attitude, he has gone on to great success in the world of Ping P.

And the belief that anything is possible. Wally Green, celebrity pro athlete from Brooklyn overcame poverty and violence to become a world-class athlete. He represented the US in international competitions, including a historic trip to North Korea and co-founded the premier social ping pong club called Spin Wally’s Determination, spirit, and Perseverance make him a true inspiration and a role model for anyone facing Advers.

He proves that with hard work, dedication, and a positive attitude, anything is possible. I’m Bob Wheeler, and this is Money you should ask, where we explore why we do what we do when it comes to money.

Well, I, man, it’s so exciting to have you on the show. I’m super excited to have you.

[00:02:06] Wally Green: Appreciate it. Great to be here, bro.

[00:02:08] Bob Wheeler: For people that are listening, we met at Pod Fest, which is this amazing festival, conference, party, whatever you wanna call it, down in Orlando. And I got the privilege of hearing you speak at the closing of the conference.

And man, the audience was like impacted. They didn’t know whether they should cry, run, but they knew they needed to listen. And, uh, , like, you know, you shared a story that’s like you had to make some really pivotal choices, right? That changed the trajectory of your life. . I’m wondering, just for people that don’t know, you play table tennis, ping pong professionally.

How did you first get involved in that and what inspired you to pursue it as a career?

[00:02:45] Wally Green: Ping pong. Oh man. It’s, it’s actually crazy because I actually hated ping pong . You know, I, I, I hated the sport. I grew up in the projects, you know, I had a very abusive, uh, stepfather who told me everything from I’ll be dead or in jail to, I’ll never amount to anything.

used to beat up my mom used to beat me up as well. Because of that, I turned into gangs, guns at a very early age. By 13, I already owned six guns. I was already gang banging hard. Yeah. But the other side of me was sports. Sports is what kind of numbed me to all the pain that was going on at home. So if I played a lot of sports, you know, I practice in the morning, go to school during the day, in the evening practice again, by the time I got home, I would be exhausted and kind of numb to the abuse that was going.

Um, they had ping pong in my high school actually, and at that time, you know, I played every other sport. I played football, basketball, tennis, volleyball, because all the hot girls played volleyball. That was the only reason I joined the team, and I became MVP at that, by the way, but I joined it. Mainly because there was hot girls playing volleyball.

Good reason. And when I would play football, our football field was right next to the lunchroom. So whe when the lunchroom was situated at school, the football field was right next to it. So we would go out the lunchroom to get to the field, and as I would pass through the lunchroom, I would see kids playing ping pong and I would just make fun of, I’d be like, look at these kids with their short shorts and a stick.

Like it was just a funny sport, so I hated this sport. Hilarious. To make a long story short, I found ping pong. At a pool hall. I went to a pool hall to shoot pool, thought I was good, was not, got hustled for some money, got really upset, took the pool stick, slammed it on the whole table. The pool stick shattered.

And I got really upset that my pool stick shattered and I was the kind of kid that would blame everyone else for what was going on in my life. So I saw some kids playing ping pong who was standing a few feet away from me playing ping pong at, at these, there’s like three ping pong tables in the pool hall.

And I went up to ’em and says, Hey, I wanna get a. and they were like, oh, you play. I was like, no, I don’t play this. Just gimme the paddle. And my goal of taking the paddle from him was to hit him in the face with the ball when he hit it to me. Right, right. So the kid hits the ball to me and I go and I swing at it wildly trying to smash him in the face with the ball, but the ball goes on the table and when the ball goes on the table, he goes, oh my God, that’s a great shot.

Tells me about a club. And I’m like, there’s no way. There’s a club where people play this. I like, it’s impossible. I go down to the. Right, because the athlete in me says, maybe there is a ping pong club where people get together. I don’t know. Let’s, let’s go check it out. Right? So when I got to the club, I noticed that there were people playing and they were standing back from the table and going, ha, what?

And the ball was spinning. It was sweating and, and making all these crazy shots. But the most important thing for me was that there were people that looked like me. So black people were playing ping pong. And I was like, wait a minute. Black people played ping pong. Like no way. Black people. I only thought Asians played ping pong.

Like for real . Exactly. I black people don’t, don’t play ping pong in the projects where I live the way play ping pong. Right. So that was the first step into me actually being interested in the sport because I saw people like me playing it and I was like, whoa, whoa. If they’re playing it, then maybe I could play too.

And that’s how I.

[00:06:03] Bob Wheeler: Wow, that’s amazing. And I mean, you talk about growing up in, basically Yeah, the projects, the place where people are struggling on a daily basis. I mean, I can only imagine the challenges besides just in your house with the abuse that’s going on in the community, right? It’s underserved, there’s probably not access to malls and stuff, and you go into the gang life.

What were some of the other challenges? I mean, I don’t think people understand how like rough it can.

[00:06:28] Wally Green: You know what it is? I get a lot of people sometimes who don’t really know. If you don’t know anyone who grew up in that life or you never lived that life, it’s really hard to understand how a 13 year old could have guns.

How? How’s a 13 year old get six guns? Well, it’s very easy. It’s not difficult really. It’s not difficult. It’s just money that it’s, that’s pretty much it. And if you have the money, you have the guns. It’s not difficult, but a lot of people will say, oh, you know, You have a choice. And I hate this. I really hate when people say, oh, you have a choice.

You, you could have chose to not be in a gang. Okay? Not be in a gang. Do what? Get beat up by the gangs every day. Get killed by the gangs, because I’m not part of them. I gotta live there. Right? I have, I have to actually live there. It’s not like I have the money to say, okay, you know what? I’m just gonna get out the projects and go to where the gangs are not right.

No, it doesn’t work like that. Like if you live there, you’re gonna be a part. There’s no way you’re not gonna be a part of it, because especially where I lived, there’s more than one gang, right? It’s not just one, right? So if there’s, let’s say there’s three, right? You need to join one, because if you don’t join one, then you’re getting beat up by all three, right?

So you need some protection from someone. And in my case, I didn’t have. That parental love or guidance, as you say, and even if I did it wouldn’t really matter because it’s not like I’m gonna stay in the house all day. I have to leave, I have to go off to go to school. Right? And so a lot of people say, oh yeah, you have a choice, but you really don’t have a choice, right?

You only know what you know until someone shows you different. And how does

[00:08:03] Bob Wheeler: that history, the poverty, the gangs and all that, how does that play into. Choices you make today or setting future goals? I mean, is there stuff that comes in and you’re like, oh yeah, there’s that, or, that’s behind me. Like, I don’t know that it ever leaves you, but it’s it’s

[00:08:20] Wally Green: part of you.

Well, you know what? It is that part of my life, it doesn’t just disappear, right? It doesn’t disappear. It’s always in you. But as an adult and as someone who’s changed their life, you learn to control. You learn to be in control. You learn to control it. , A lot of times I get asked would I ever go back and change that part of my life?

And the answer is no. Because things that I learned when I was in gangs are things that I can never learn in school. Things that, and and we’re talking about stuff like being aware of your surroundings. I’m aware of my surroundings all the time. I know he was in front of me. I know he was in back of me. I know he was in the side of.

and you hear these things about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. A lot of times when people at the wrong place at the wrong times because they didn’t recognize that they were at the wrong place, the wrong time, they didn’t recognize or they didn’t pick up on what was going on. Right? So they walk into that place blindly, right?

I’m always aware of these things and, um, that life, it transfers over into adult life, into where you make decisions. , right? Mm-hmm. , you know, just so many different things, man, that come to mind about that life. So I would never change it because that’s what made me right. That’s what made me the competitor I am.

That’s what made me the person that with the never say die attitude, right? Never say die, right? So that life is who made me today. So that’s the reason why I would never. Absolutely.

[00:09:52] Bob Wheeler: How does money play a role in your life choices today? Like is that the driving factor or is there a, like, I know for myself it was always a fear of like, I have no safety net.

Like my parents were poor, so ain’t nobody gonna save me. So I, I was very driven. And I’m curious how money plays in your life decisions.

[00:10:12] Wally Green: Man. Um, , of course, it’s extremely important, right? With money, we have to make very important decisions. What are we’re gonna do without money? First we gotta make the money, right?

And now we make the money. Then what do we do with the money we make? Are we gonna invest it? Are we gonna spend it? What are we gonna do? And I think, like for me, I didn’t learn this until late because I didn’t have money growing up, right? I had no money growing up and I didn’t learn until late through meeting people.

Were business owners or were people that were big in that whole money world, you know, about investing, right? I didn’t start investing until, I wanna say like five years ago, four years ago, I didn’t even know what that was, but now I’m all about it. I’m, I’m all about trying to take the money that I have.

and make more from that money. And usually for me, I just like investing in weird stuff. . That’s what, it’s . So like cryptocurrency with the cryptocurrency thing. And uh, I have a friend who you might know him, his name is James Altucher, very close friend of mines. Okay. And he is really big into that. And his girlfriend was like, yo, you should rest some cryptocurrency.

And I was like, really? He was like, yeah, Bitcoin stuff. I was like, all right, let’s do it. And then I’d invest . . But yeah, I think more importantly is the savings and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. , I don’t know really a lot about the money in terms of that way. Yeah. But I do know that you need to prepare for the end game.

I call it the end game. Like what’s your end game? Yeah. And you have to make sure that you’re not like freaking 80 and working in McDonald’s. Not that that’s bad, but that’s not what I. Right. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:11:50] Bob Wheeler: And do you have a fear of like, it might all go away and I might have to go back to that life of not having that much.

I know for me it still creeps in. I’m like, could you go away? Like life is good. The facts say I’m doing okay, but inside I’m like, oh my God, it could all leave tomorrow.

[00:12:08] Wally Green: Right. So you know what? I’ll tell you something I’ve never told. It’s exclusive on your podcast. I’ve never mentioned this . Out of all the podcasts I’ve been on, I’ve never, ever, ever mentioned this in my life, has never had to come up.

But my biggest fear in life is to be homeless. Mm-hmm. . It is the thing that is my number one fear to be homeless. And I think because it is my number one fear, because I’ve been homeless. I’ve been one year living in the street, right? So I know what it is and it’s my biggest fear, and I think because it is my biggest fear that that situ.

Is almost impossible because I believe very much in manifestation and in passion, and I’m so passionate that I am not gonna be homeless, that I will do everything it takes. To make sure that doesn’t happen. So I’m just very driven to use what I have to make money so that I don’t end up like that.

Because that, like, when I see people homeless, I’m telling you it does something to me. Cause I, I’ve lived it before and then a lot of people, they just walk right by and a lot of times they don’t want to help and they think they’re on drugs, but, . A lot of times it’s not the case. You know, a lot of times there’s just some issues with family and they got nowhere to go and they really need help.

So.

[00:13:21] Bob Wheeler: Wow. I’m curious because you seem so open and so aware and you had a lot of obstacles and a person of color living in the projects, everything against you, and you feel so rilliant. Right. It feels like unstoppable is sort of the energy that I get, and I’m wondering, did you cultivate that? Was that something you were just born with this spark that said F it?

I’m freaking going to come out on top regardless of where I’ve started. I’ll tell

[00:13:53] Wally Green: you where that energy comes from. As I mentioned before, every single day as a kid from, I don’t know, as early as I can remember, to about 16. When I left my house was my stepfather systematically abusing and breaking, trying to break myself and my mom down.

So my stepfather would tell me every single day. You’re a failure. You’re worthless. Why are you here? You’re not my child. You should be dead or in jail. This is what I heard every day. Wow. Every day. At least one of those things I heard. And the thing was when he did this, he didn’t do this out of anger.

Most parents, they might say, oh, you should be dead or in jail because they’re angry at you. And the ladies say, oh, I’m so sorry. I was just angry. Right? He would systematically do this, like call me into the room and say, Hey, how was school? Oh, school is good. Well, you know, it doesn’t matter what you do because you’re never gonna be successful anyway.

Right? Wow. So it’s very different when it comes from a place where it’s not anger, right? It’s a way that he’s trying to groom you to believe that these things were true. Right? So there’s no one that I hated more in the world than my stepfather. There’s no person that I hated, so I don’t ever want. In my life to happen that he said, so whenever I’m stressed out, whenever I’m in a bad place or whenever I’m failing at something, I just think of the words that he said because.

I had to come to peace with this. Mm-hmm. , right? I had to come to peace with it. Before it used to make me angry, right? But now I came to peace with it. That’s a part of my life. Instead of having that negative energy, I’m gonna take that negative energy and make it positive. So whenever I’m having a problem and I can’t get through stuff, I just hear his voice, oh, you’re worthless, you’re sick, you, you’ll never be successful.

And those things are what drives me. Every single time I go to the darkness, change it to positivity, and that’s what drives me. Every single.

[00:15:56] Bob Wheeler: That’s awesome. That’s awesome cuz a lot of people would take it in. But you know, there’s nothing better than proving people wrong. , especially I love it. That are making irrational.

I’m gonna take you out. Yeah. Thank you . Yeah, exactly. I’m, I’m gonna take you out. I’m gonna take you out man. There are other kids out there that, growing up in the projects that have to grow up with all these obstacles. What do you say to kids like that? I mean, yeah, great, survive, but what do you say to those kids that are still trying to find their.

[00:16:26] Wally Green: I would say think of your decisions wisely. Like I’m never one to tell kids, oh, you shouldn’t be doing that. You shouldn’t be doing this. You shouldn’t be doing that. Right? Because if the person told me who saved my life that paid for me to go to Germany to learn ping pong, if he would’ve told me, oh, why you walking around with a gun?

The one that he saw fall, I would’ve never talked to him again. Right? So I never tell kids, don’t do this, don’t do that. You shouldn’t. I just say, think about what you. Yeah, the decisions you make today will affect you tomorrow. So just really think about that and more importantly, if you have the opportunity to ask someone for help, don’t be afraid to ask someone for help.

Hmm, and even more important than that, If someone offers you help, don’t be afraid to take it. Cause so many times we feel like, oh, you know, I’m a Superman, I don’t need your help. Uh, I can do everything myself. But in reality, you really do need the help, but the ego is stopping you from getting that help.

Right? So with the guy who offered to pay for me to go to Germany to learn ping pong, I could have said, you’re crazy. I’m not going to Germany. What are you crazy? I’m not gonna leave my hood to go to Germany. I mean, the fact that even say yes is complete madness because no one that I know, or no one in my situation like that would’ve been like, yeah, I’m going to Germany.

I’m gonna leave here the hood, I’m gonna go to Germany. No, no, it doesn’t work like that. So if I didn’t accept the help I was given, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now. So those are, yeah, my two very important things for the younger. So that’s sort,

[00:17:56] Bob Wheeler: sort of being aware of your surroundings and somebody in front of you saying, here’s a path.

And you said, yeah, I’ll follow that path. I’ll take that path. Yes. Yes. And that path took you, you eventually went to North Korea, you, North Korea went as the only Western. Like what were some of the challenges that you faced and what was that like?

[00:18:16] Wally Green: When I wanted to go to North Korea, I wanted to do something bigger than myself.

I, I wanted to, at this point, I was already a pro, I was well known around the world, you know, I was doing my thing, right? You know, I bring this hip hop, gangster, smooth thing to ping pong, and I was doing my thing, and I wanted to do something bigger than myself. and I was looking through the tournaments for the world and I saw Japan.

Yeah, I’ll do Japan, Korea, I’ll do Korea. Uh, Brazil. I’ll do that. Germany, I’ll do that. I’m scrolling down. Oh, oh yeah, yeah. Okay, I’ll do that. Pyong Yang. Whoa. Wait, what? Pyong Yang. Wait. Pyong Yang is North Korea. There’s no way in the world there’s a tournament in North Korea. I couldn’t even believe that. I just saw Youngen and I was like, oh my God, I need to go to immediately.

I said, I need to go to North Korea. And the reason why is, is that there’s a historical moment in American history in 1971, America established relations with China is through ping pong. It’s called the ping pong diplomacy. So if you’ve ever seen Forest Gump, you’ll see him playing in China. That is that ping pong diplomacy.

Okay? And more so. When I first started playing, like training Phar real Pharrell outside of Europe, I played with a guy, his name is George Brak, who passed away, very close friend of mines who was actually on the team, the US team, during the ping pong diplomacy, right? So I felt very passionate about that and I said, you know what?

I wanna go to North Korea. I, I wanna go to this tournament to promote world peace. And I said, I’m gonna do it. And so I called up the US team cuz the US team has to enter you into all the tournaments you can’t enter yourself. And they said, what? Wait, that’s not a good idea. I said, I’m not asking if it’s a good idea, it’s what I want to do.

Just, just sign me up and I’ll handle everything myself. Then I called or email or text the entire world. I know players from every part of the. And I said, Hey guys, I’m going to North Korea to do a diplomacy for world peace. And they were like, what? North Korea? I said, yeah, come on. We should all go together as like a world team.

The, I mean, think about how big that was, how big it’d be if like so many people from the world went to North Korea to do this diplomacy for world peace, two sport. Every single person told me. . Every single person said, no, we’re not going. It’s too dangerous. You’re gonna be killed. You’re gonna die. There’s no way we’re gonna go there.

And I told ’em, I says, okay, if you guys don’t want to go, then I’ll go by myself. Right? Because that’s that fight that I have in me. Yeah. When they’re telling me, no, you’re gonna die. You’re not gonna be sexual. Oh, one person. One person can’t change the world. One person can’t. . It brings me back to that.

Well, I listen to my stepfather saying, you’ll never be successful. It’ll be worthless, right? So I went there by myself. I literally went to North Korea. I was the only Westerner there. Forget about only American, only Westerner. Oh, no one from America wanted to go. They were like, you’re crazy. We are not going to North Korea.

And so I went and I went by myself. I didn’t have a plan. Right. I had no plan. Like how do you do a diplomacy for world peace in North Korea? You’re a kid from the projects born and raised in the projects. Right? Right. It, it’s something that’s almost impossible, right? It’s impossible, but like I said, when I go to that dark space for my stepfather, I can make impossible to possible, right?

As long as I’m passionate about it, as long as I really want it that bad, it’s going to happen. So I went there with no plan to North Korea, most dangerous country in the world, no plan of how I was gonna do it. And lucky for me, uh, well, I wouldn’t say lucky, I wanna say I manifested it. Yeah. And it was completely incredible.

That’s so cool.

[00:22:01] Bob Wheeler: That would be a bit scary for me. Uh, that’s probably one of the places that I’d be like, ah, let me get back to you. Yeah. , that would not be an impulse. Buy about that. That’s a little crazy. Well, now you’ve added professional sports. You’ve traveled the world. Now you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve got clubs, you’ve got a spin club.

You’ve got all these things going on. How does that feel and how does it feel to look back and go kid from the projects did pretty good. Yeah,

[00:22:30] Wally Green: lemme tell you, I see my smile, . See my smile. And I don’t smile. I don’t smile often, but you see my smile, , I’m telling you. It’s really amazing. Seriously, because yeah, like I said, man, my stepfather used to systematically try to break me down.

And you know, some people succumb to that, right? If someone tells you something, a New York Times, sometimes you start to believe it and that becomes your life. I just was so happy that I was able to take that negative and turn into positive and push myself and, and it feels good, man. It’s like, yeah, man.

Wow. You know, for a young guy, like, I’ve done so much crazy things that don’t even make sense, like the, like the things that I’ve done don’t make sense. Like it doesn’t make sense. Like, if you didn’t know me or if this stuff. In the papers, uh, if you couldn’t Google search it, you would think, this kid’s crazy.

He’s making up some shit. How? Right. How this kid from the projects go to North Korea to do the ency piece. Like it doesn’t make sense, right? Yeah. How this kid founded a company that’s actually doing very well with like nine location. It all doesn’t make sense. But um, yeah, so it feels good to me that I was able to come from that and turn it around and change my life and now I can help other people and I can.

And use all of that to inspire and motivate other people who was where I was.

[00:23:52] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, absolutely. And I was gonna ask, in that pursuit of world peace and inspiring others, like what do you want your legacy

[00:23:59] Wally Green: to be? Oh man, I love this question. This this. No, no, no. Seriously. Seriously. The legacy question is such an amazing question.

I think a lot of people don’t give a lot of. To what legacy means. Yeah. Or what it’s really about. And some people might say, yeah, you know, I wanna be super famous and blah, blah, blah. That’s my legacy. I wanna do this, but I’m gonna tell you what legacy means to me. Yeah. Legacy means that my kids, kids, kids, kids, kids, kids are gonna know who I am.

That’s legacy for me. They have to know who I am. 10, 20 generations down that, oh yeah, great, great, great, great, great Grandpa Wally Green was a great. That’s legacy for me. Yeah. And that’s what I talk about when I hear the word legacy is the first thing I think about. You want your generations to know about you because if they know they have someone who’s motivational ins inspirational and did great things, then it just pause on them and then they have to do great things.

Right? They feel the pressure, oh, you know what I, I, I gotta do great things. I have a great person in my family line. So that’s legacy for. That’s

[00:25:10] Bob Wheeler: awesome. And I do agree, I think a lot of people don’t think about it. And for me, legacy is so important. Intention and whatever that might be for each person, but wanting to make a mark, wanting to have an impact, wanting to matter.

And I think a lot of people are afraid to admit that they wanna matter, that they’ve had impact, that they have lofty goals. But the truth is like hopefully we’re all trying to make a difference on a certain level. Right. And trying to be better versions. Right. Right, right. Right. That’s awesome. Well, I wish I could be around after grandkid, after grandkid, after grand, like 22 generations to hear everybody go.

Great. Great, great, great, great, great. Grandpa, Wally, man, , did he do some shit? ? Yeah. That’s pretty awesome. That’s pretty. They’ll be doing a Netflix special, you know, 200 years from now. Oh no, that’ll be cool. No,

[00:25:59] Wally Green: wait, no, no, no. 200 years from now. I just finished. Listen. Oh, for the last year. I’ve been talking with a film company, I can’t say the name since my New York Times article came out.

Hundreds of film companies I’ve been talking to and they were all crazy like, oh yeah, we wanna buy the rights for your life. No, it’s not happening. I’m never selling the rights to my life story for that. I can make them film myself. Right. But finally, after year of talking to this one particular company, uh, they’re going ahead.

So there is a feature movie Awesome. About my life story in the works and as. Two months ago, we decided we’re gonna move ahead and it’s something where I’m gonna be a part of, great. I’m gonna have decision making and I’m not selling the rights to my life story.

[00:26:46] Bob Wheeler: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, congratulations.

That’s exciting. That’s super exciting. Very cool. Oh, and

[00:26:52] Wally Green: one more big thing. Yeah. Very important. So now it’s Black History Month. Yes. And um, M Ms. G Network, which is Madison Square Garden, they just put out my story. For Black History Month. And that for me is, is really, I think it’s, it’s really important because like, like I said, I’m this kid that came from the projects and now I’m being honored with a story for Black History Month by one of the biggest networks M S G networks.

So that’s really cool and I think that’s so important and it can inspire other kids who grew the way I did. I just wanted to toilet it

[00:27:25] Bob Wheeler: out. Oh no, that’s awesome. That is so awesome. We probably need to have black history months or year, like people just don’t realize, so that’s awesome. Kudos. Well, Wally, we’re about to shift the energy.

We’re at the Fast five, so we’re gonna shift to a little lighter topical questions. The Fast Five is brought to you by Survey Junkie, making a difference pays in more ways than One. Survey Junkie opens the window of communication between you and the brands you love. Take surveys, get. All right, Wally, we’re just gonna have some fun here.

How much do you spend yearly on your awesome hairstyles?

[00:27:58] Wally Green: Haha. Lemme see. Faster, you figure. Okay. Usually do it about every three months. It costs me about $55 plus to get there, so about a hundred dollars, 3, 6, 9, 12 hours. That maybe about six, $700. Oh, okay.

[00:28:20] Bob Wheeler: Wow. All right. I was thinking you were gonna go into the thousands a month.

I thought it was gonna be like 15,000 a year. That’s crazy.

[00:28:27] Wally Green: Probably. No, no, no, no, no. The person that does my hair, I’ve been with them for a very long time, for like seven years, so.

[00:28:32] Bob Wheeler: Oh, that’s cool. What’s the most expensive piece of ping pong equipment

[00:28:36] Wally Green: you own? Oh, probably my racket. Uh, probably, yeah, because I don’t, I don’t own it.

Well, when you say own me personally or in my club? Your

[00:28:45] Bob Wheeler: club, you. , even if your

club

[00:28:48] Wally Green: paid for it. Hey, we used to have a $2,000 case. Okay. But it was a collaboration with, oh my God, I can’t remember the name of the company. It was collaboration with one of these fancy companies. Yeah. But that was the most expensive ping pong thing.

[00:29:02] Bob Wheeler: Okay. And is it something you would splurge on again?

[00:29:05] Wally Green: No, . , okay.

[00:29:08] Bob Wheeler: What is one thing you regularly splurge on? Ooh,

[00:29:12] Wally Green: regularly splurge. Wow. That’s a tough one. All right. Oh man, I’m not really, wow, I can’t even think about that. Something I regularly, I wanna say good food. Okay. I love really good sushi. Like I, I love good food.

Like good food. Makes me happy actually. . Yeah, I hear you. So

[00:29:30] Bob Wheeler: good food. I love it too much. I love it too much. Yeah. You travel a lot. So what’s your travel necessity? What do you need to travel with no matter what?

[00:29:40] Wally Green: Oh, . One thing I need is my little mini paddle. And my old iPhone sixes. Okay, , because the mini paddle, I’m gonna play players who are like really good and the old iPhone sixes I’m gonna beat everyone else with.

That’s a must. That’s one thing that has to be in my bag, is my mini paddle and my two old iPhone six Es for playing ping pong.

[00:30:01] Bob Wheeler: I wonder if Apple had ping pong in mine when they made the I six Oh .

[00:30:05] Wally Green: Listen. Listen. I, uh, Apple, are you listening to this? Let’s go

[00:30:11] Bob Wheeler: Now. You’re gonna get more health pings like for steps.

How many hits you get in. Yeah. Rights. Uh, yeah. Who’s the most inspiring person you ever met? Oh, ever met?

[00:30:19] Wally Green: Wow. There’s a lot, I think, man. Including celebrities too, right? Including Celebr. Anybody? I, you know what? I’m gonna go with my friend James Altucher. Okay. And I’m gonna tell you, not because he is my friend and I know him for a long time.

He’s the kind of guy that you would think would fail and he’s the kind of guy who has failed. Yeah. Hundreds of times. Like he’s made shit, tons of money, lost all of it, made shit, tons of money, lost all of it. And a guy like that just shows perseverance of keep going, keep, keep going. You know, you made all this money.

Okay, you lost it. Let’s go again. And he’s definitely very inspiring because he doesn’t look like the. Who is winning, right? He, he doesn’t have that persona of the guy who is winning. Yeah. Drew Failures, he wins a lot. So that he inspires me a lot. That’s awesome. That’s

[00:31:17] Bob Wheeler: awesome. Or at the m and m moment, our sweet spot, money and Motivation, and I’m wondering if you have a practical financial tip or a piece of wealth wisdom you can share with the

[00:31:27] Wally Green: listeners.

Oh, practical financial tip, . You know, this always comes to my head and it, it sounds bad, but it’s the truth. It’s the truth. So, Always use other people’s money to make money. , never use your own love. It sounds so bad. Love it. But, but it’s, for those who don’t know, it’s not really as bad as it sounds. It just sounds really bad.

But seriously, no, I’m, I’m serious. It, it’s the biggest tip that I could give. It’s just a smart. Way to do things, you know, as long as you have something that’s gonna do well, like without business. None of us had money. None of us Right? Who had money? No. I had zero money, my partners had zero money. Nobody had money.

but we got investors. We came up with something that people loved, that people thought was gonna do really well, and we got investors and that’s where the money came from. So use other people’s money

[00:32:20] Bob Wheeler: to make money. Use other people’s money legally. There’s lots of banks and investors. Yeah. Legally. Yeah.

[00:32:25] Wally Green: All that .

[00:32:27] Bob Wheeler: That’s That’s a good tip. That’s a good tip. Well, Wally, man, I tell you, you know the thing I love about this whole convers. The whole thing. Knowing about your stepdad, knowing about all these different things and all the obstacles, everything you’ve done, uh, there’s a bit of happiness in there.

There’s a bit of peace that’s there. There’s not this blame and then that’s happened. And then I’m gonna get everybody, like I just hear this willingness to keep letting whatever come. Like it’s just this resilience I guess is what comes to mind is this place where you’ve had all these, you can’t do that.

You shouldn’t do that. It’s not possible. And you just keep going. Yeah. Yeah. Here I am. Let’s woo. That worked out. That’s crazy. That worked out. And what’s cool? And even talking about your friend who doesn’t look like a winner, but is a winner. Right? It doesn’t matter what we look like. It doesn’t matter if we do it awkwardly, if we do it quietly, if we just keep showing.

I think that’s the key is just to keep showing up and I just love this attitude that you bring in that’s just like, let’s go out and inspire, not let’s go back and pay back and all that kind of stuff. And I just, I really appreciate that because I think in this world we need a lot more people just being a lot more resilient that are willing to be kind and going out in there trying to help other people make it a better place.

So I so appreciate you sharing everything today. I do think you’re definitely an inspiration for a lot of people, so. Thank

[00:33:54] Wally Green: you, I appreciate

[00:33:55] Bob Wheeler: you as well. Where can people find you online? Social media and movies are gonna come out soon, but yeah, where can

[00:34:01] Wally Green: people find you? Best place to find me is actually on Instagram, so that’s Wally Green nyc and that’s like more of my serious side, although I try once in a while to change it up, make it crazy.

But uh, also on TikTok, so you wanna see some crazy stuff. My crazy stuff is on TikTok, so that’s Wally Green nyc.

[00:34:22] Bob Wheeler: Awesome. Awesome. Well, we’ll put all that in the show notes and yeah, check out his moves, man. , check out his crazy moves. I played him and I will admit I did not win . I don’t even know if I returned the ball

[00:34:35] Wally Green: I did take one loss though, in Pod Fest. Did you? Yeah, I played over, I don’t know, maybe 400 people. I don’t remember how many. I played so many people every day, and I took one loss of a lady who made me play blind. Oh, , and I thought, and I still thought I was gonna win because I knew she gonna return my serve.

But I couldn’t tell where the table was and yeah, it was, it was, it was

[00:34:58] Bob Wheeler: bad. That’s hilarious. I love that you still had the belief that you were gonna Yeah, I,

[00:35:04] Wally Green: I, I really wanted to win. I was really upset that I didn’t win blind filming . I got,

[00:35:10] Bob Wheeler: I love that. Oh man, man. Well, thank you so much. This has just been amazing.

Thank you. Thank

[00:35:16] Wally Green: you. I appreciate you too.

[00:35:24] Bob Wheeler: We hope you enjoyed this episode. Did you learn something new about your relationship to money today? Maybe you have a friend who has some financial blocks or beliefs that are holding them back. Please share this podcast so they too can get off the roller coaster Ride of Financial. And journey towards financial freedom.

To learn how to have a healthy relationship with money, visit the money nerve.com. That’s nerve not nerd. We’ll be back next week with another perspective on money and the emotions that bind us.