From Low Self-Esteem to Wealth: Janet Tonkins on Confidence, Resilience, and Legacy

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:00

Well, Janet, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

JANET TONKINS (: 00:03

I'm truly blessed and I'm doing excellent and it's a pleasure to be here, Keith.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:09

Well, it's good to have you on. I'm excited to talk to you about this conversation. I always had a passion for this, never dove into it in my life, but when I was younger, I studied it and was like, I want to do real estate. And then my life took a different path, but it's always been the back of mind. So I'm excited to talk to you about this.

JANET TONKINS (: 00:26

Okay, and I'm excited to be talking to you about it as well.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:31

I love to ask my guests this question, what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

JANET TONKINS (: 00:36

Okay, from grandma, it was first of all, seek God first as kingdom and everything else will be added unto you and then do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And that's how I strive to live my life.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 00:53

we called it a good old golden rule my grandma told me when I was growing up.

JANET TONKINS (: 00:57

Absolutely, that is the golden rule. And grandma had her own holiness church. So of course, those were the things that she instilled in each of us.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 01:09

That's so neat. You know, I always think about people like yourself who God has blessed with a level of success, but on our journey, we always run across people who serve to be role models for us, to inspire us. Who are some of those people in your life, in your journey that you want to kind of give a shout out to and tell us about what they meant to you in your journey?

JANET TONKINS (: 01:31

absolutely. First of all, my first grade teacher, Ms. Caldwell from Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School in Jacksonville, Florida.

She always pushed us and I grew up in segregation, of course, once upon a time when we were colored. And of course, you know, they were members of the neighborhood as well. So they really had a keen interest in seeing that we exceed and do well. And so she pushed me and I could read. I was actually tutoring at the age of five years old. And so they told my parents that they saw something special.

special in me and so they pushed me. Then it was my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Rawls from Rufus E. Payne Elementary School, who helped me to win the spelling bee for the city.

And I mean, they pushed us. Matter of fact, they almost cheated a little bit because they gave me some of the words, but they wanted me to succeed so badly. And then grandma, good old grandma, Pensacola, Florida. I'm from Jacksonville, Florida, originally. We moved to New Jersey when I was 12 years old, but every summer regardless, as soon as school was out, my grandmother, we were at grandma's house. And you know, I always tell people, you know, that I'm the oldest of six.

and I tell her that my husband and I were the first to have our homes, but that's not true because grandma had her own home. She had her own store with the knee -high sodas and the Coca -Cola's and seven cents and they had their own church. So they had a nice piece of property. So that's where I have to attribute a lot of my entrepreneurialism to as well. But loved grandma. That was my paternal grandmother. We weren't as close to my mother.

JANET TONKINS (: 03:32

to my maternal, but my father's mom, who was an only child, she instilled so many things. And the first thing that she instilled was the ability to become a Christian as well, because they had their own church.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 03:48

that's so neat. And it's so nice to be able to kind of know that those people serve to inspire you, push you to achieve things you may not have thought you could achieve on your own. But I remember those kind of people. My secretary just always stands out to me as one of those people who do that for me. And I got a chance to meet her later on in life and tell her just how impactful she was in my life. So those are neat to kind of give thanks to God for those people.

JANET TONKINS (: 04:10

JANET TONKINS (04:13.82)

absolutely. And that was truly awesome. I was unable to do that for my teachers, but we always, you know, I always, I give God a thank you. And you know what, I really, when I look back, you know, I really wouldn't have grown up any other way. I truly enjoyed my childhood in the Florida area.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 04:36

There you go. I love that. I grew up in Louisiana myself, so I kind of know that that Southern upbringing. So, yep.

So I'm always curious about people like yourself too, because as we think about your personal journey, oftentimes it gives us insight into the decisions you've made and how you got where you are, because those personal stories tell us some of the things you overcame to get where you are, but also the inspiring story of how you are where you are today.

JANET TONKINS (: 04:49

Mm -hmm.

JANET TONKINS (: 05:05

Okay, so as I just said, I originally I was born in Jacksonville, Florida. I'm the oldest of six. My parents moved to Patterson, New Jersey when I was 12 years old. As a matter of fact, and of course, as you know, that was the migration to the north at that time for a better living. But when I moved to New Jersey,

Even though I told you about my teachers and how they pushed me in Southern area, it was not to be the same. So we grew up, we moved to the Christopher Columbus projects in Patterson, New Jersey, building four, apartment 15C, where of course drug abuse and violence were the norm. There are often elevators often broken. I can't tell you how many times that we had to bring groceries and lunch.

up 15 flights of stairs. And so, so often the elevators were broken. We almost, I almost got raped at one of those times. And then there was low -ain and in Patterson today, there is still low -ain or no -ain.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 06:04

Wow.

JANET TONKINS (: 06:19

for children that look like you and I. And even though I graduated number 57 out of 500 in John F. Kennedy High School, I actually wanted to be a physical therapist. But the white guidance counselor said no, that that was not possible for me. So the only thing that we were steered to become is either nurses or school teachers. And which is something that I really wanted to do is to become a teacher at that time. But you know,

that was not to be done either. I've always worked. I started at Gino Giant at the age of 13 and I would walk three miles because number one, I always, for some reason I loved dressing and I loved to go. I grew up with parents who lived from paycheck to paycheck, never owned anything. I remember and I worked and I saved up enough money to buy my first car at the age of

17 years old. However, I still needed a co -signer. Lo and behold, I go to mom and dad and I guess you know what happened. They could not co -sign because they didn't have good credit. Okay, so you know I that fueled my determination to say look.

This is not something that's going to happen to me. There has to be a better way. So that fueled, I always had a love for reading. So that fueled my reading for Money Magazine, Forbes, Inc, Kiplinger. And I wanted to know how other folks that didn't look like me, how are they able to make it?

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 07:42

This is not something to throw in the concrete. There has to be a better way. So that's you. I always had a love for you. So that's you and my new means of money management for things like this. And I wanted to know how other folks that didn't look like me, how are they able to make it?

JANET TONKINS (: 08:02

in life. And so upon my reading, I discovered that 90 % of the wealth or 90 % of the millionaires throughout the world, not just the United States,

own their wealth or became millionaires as a result of owning real estate or owning assets. And I say to my students that even your McDonald's, your Burger Kings, even though they have the burgers and so forth, the real money lies in the assets that they own. So the way to become wealthy is to own assets. And so I say to my young women,

And I have two daughters that will be 49 and 50. They're not married. In my church, we have medical doctors, we have gynecologists, lots of female professionals that are not married. And so I say to them, this is one way owning assets. And even if you don't want to own assets, you still need to start learning how to invest. As a matter of fact, we taught our son at the age of 13, he had eight vending machines. And then we taught him.

him how to invest in stocks by something called dollar cost averaging. What you do is you buy one stock directly from the company and then you automate that where you can buy as much or as little as you want each and every single month. So by the time he was able to go into college he got a partial scholarship but he was able to pay for the balance with the money that he saved from the stock. He was on Black Enterprise Journal as a result of that and Tony Brown's Journal in New York.

New York City as a result of him teaching that. And then he had eight Pepsi vending machines. What Pepsi would do is they would throw their machines away. But then we had it. We built relationships with a distributor, with a friend of ours. And he said, him, I'll give him the vending machines because we're only going to throw them away as well. So entrepreneurialism, owning assets, and then investing. In my church, we

JANET TONKINS (: 10:13

We teach folks, and I have to say 75 % of our parishioners are debt free. We teach them that, okay, as I say to pastor though, okay, but once they become debt free, you can't just save your money or sit on your money. You still have to invest that money in order for it to grow and then compound interest makes a big difference in how you can live your life.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 10:31

I love that. And I love how your story went from what you could have been when you moved to New Jersey, because the education told you, you were limited in where you could go in life. And I wonder how many people who are like us, who look like us, believe that limitation. You can only be this, you can only be that. So,

Talk a little bit to us about how you encourage people to get outside of that, I would say, bigotry of low expectation. You can only be a basketball player. You can only be a rapper. You can only be a nurse. How do you help people to see beyond what society may say or teachers may say or a counselor may say you can be to see that there's so much more for you out there than that?

JANET TONKINS (: 11:28

Okay, first of all, with us is we have to invest in ourselves. We have to be willing to read.

and change our own mindsets. You gotta remember, I had low self -esteem, believe it or not, and sometimes I still suffer from that. But as a result of reading, as a result of believing and trusting and then having that faith, the Lord said we can do all things with and through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but according to our what? According to our own beliefs. So it takes a lot of work.

and digging into it, having affirmations, meditations. You know, I can do this through my life. I believe that I am smart. I am worthy. I deserve.

to succeed and live not just a good life but a great life with and through our Lord and Savior Jesus. We can live life abundantly and things like that. So meditations, affirmations, and then continuously investing and reading upon yourself. And then investing in yourself, educating yourself as well. What did Warren Buffet say? The best thing you can do is gain knowledge and

education and at 90 something years old he's still reading every single day and then we have to do that too and then surrounding ourselves with other folks.

JANET TONKINS (: 13:03

that have those values or have that sometimes we have to go backwards in order to go forward, to go sideways and surround ourselves with people who are doing those things so that we have something to emulate in order for us to improve our lot in life.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 13:07

So let's get into your real estate because I'm dying to find out how you say you do it. I ran across your information you said you should own at least between two to ten properties. So tell us how.

JANET TONKINS (: 13:30

Mm -hmm.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 13:34

you begin to break through that and see yourself doing that and accomplish that goal.

JANET TONKINS (: 13:39

Okay, first of all, we saved up, remember I told you we were reading, so you gotta remember, home ownership is a way, if you use it appropriately, if you use it properly, is a way to increase your network.

Okay, so we decided then, okay, we're going to start saving 20%. And I'm truly blessed as I started Verizon, it was at that point it was New Jersey Bell. I started at the age of 16 years old. And I should have gone, I did not go straight to college and when I was in love.

time. As a matter of fact, I was supposed to marry my high school sweetheart and we got engaged. He went off to the service, came back. He married somebody else. Matter of fact, he married three other people. All three of them plus himself all died of AIDS. So you know God has been with me all the way because had I married him.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 14:37

my goodness.

JANET TONKINS (: 14:44

I may not have even been here to talk to you this day. So...

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 14:46

right.

JANET TONKINS (: 14:50

I married a few years later and I've been married 43 years now. It'll be 44 years in June to my husband and love a best friend and business partner as well. But we decided, okay, so we're going to buy a first property. But what I wanted was a single family property. I wasn't thinking about investing. So we met this attorney. My girlfriend had an attorney. Everything is about relationship. So she said he wants to sell his property, but he's

His nephew wants to buy it, but he doesn't think his nephew can qualify for the mortgage. So we go, we see the property. Absolutely loved it. He said, okay, if you like it, we'll get together next week. We don't have to do any paperwork. Next week comes, I don't hear from him. Two weeks come, I don't hear from him. Three weeks, he calls my girlfriend and said, look.

We finally held the mortgage, which is one way that you can buy it. We held the mortgage because he knew his nephew couldn't qualify. But I have a client that has a three unit property on Broadway in 33rd Street. Ask her if she wants to take a look at it. I said, okay, I'll, I'll, we'll take a look at it. So there were seven rooms on the first floor, three bedrooms. Seven rooms on the second floor, three bedrooms. Four rooms on the third floor, two bedrooms. Five finished.

. I want you to listen to it.: 1987

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 16:27

Wow.

JANET TONKINS (: 16:45

We were first time home buyers. Remember I said we saved 20 % down? We only had to put 4 % down and all of our closing costs were paid. So with that one property, our mortgage was paid and the taxes were even higher. Matter of fact, when we left New Jersey to come to Baltimore in 2001, the taxes were $12 ,000 a year alone. But because it was a triplex, the tenants paid that.

We refinanced that one property over five times with lower interest rates as the interest rates lowered, took money out. When you take money out on a refinance, that's free money. You don't have to pay any taxes on that as opposed to you flipping a house, then having to pay, once you sell it, having to pay long -term capital gains or short -term capital gains. Then we said, wow, we love this.

know any of that. Remember in: 1987

Or you would see the late night infomercias from 12 or 1 o 'clock in the morning with carton, coffin sheets. That was the only way. So we were risk takers. We delved in, we dug, we learned by trial and error. Now I'm, you know, I'm a mentor and a coach, so I'm very transparent. I'm going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly. The bad and the ugly was that there was a tenant.

in the property on the first floor. We had not done our due diligence. We were told that her rent was $500. So when we get in there, she hands me $300. I'm saying, you know, what's this? She said, well, that's how much I paid. She said, here are all of my receipts and so forth. So they said, so what we did is we lied and we told her that my mother -in -law was going to move in to get her to move out. Okay.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 18:56

Right.

JANET TONKINS (: 19:10

She found out and she sued us. Okay. But we settled. We settled for $5 ,000 and it was worth it in the long run. But what I learned from that is to do my due diligence, to get everything in writing, to actually talk to a tenant. And then going forward, I would not buy a property unless the tenants were out of them or unless they were able to move out.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 19:37

okay. That's interesting. So you said there was some good and there's some ugly and bad. So tell us what those other two parts of the real estate thing we need to be aware of if we were going to delve into this, that we need to be aware of, especially in today's market. Cause I know there's been some changes since you first started that we should probably be aware of some definite changes.

JANET TONKINS (: 19:41

Mm -hmm.

JANET TONKINS (: 19:50

Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

absolutely. Okay. So number one, what you need to be aware of, you want to find out is where you're going to invest in. Is that a landlord friendly state or is it a tenant friendly state? Because that makes a difference as to if you have to evict a tenant, how long it's going to take for you to do that. Then you need to determine.

whether or not your city or your state is rent controlled. And sometimes that goes by county by count, county by county. For example, I'm in New Jersey, I'm in Atlanta and I'm in Baltimore city in Baltimore County, all of my properties. So I have over 100. So in New Jersey, because my properties are in an LLC, I can't represent myself in an eviction. I must hire an attorney. So you have to look at that. In Baltimore,

city in Baltimore County. The way that evictions are handled are totally, totally different. In the city, it's much more stringent. I have to first give you a 10 -day notice, then before I can even file for eviction. Then after the 10 -day notice, I can file for eviction. If I get the judgment for you, remember, I'm not, when I'm filing, that's just to put you out. That's not to rec...

JANET TONKINS (: 21:24

recuperate any monies from there. Then it takes me almost 60 days before I can actually put you out once I get the judgment as opposed to the county. I even once I get the judgment, I can put you out the very next day. What do I do with your property? In the city, I cannot put your property on the outside.

in the county, I can put the property on the outside. Also too, you need to determine what are some of the environmental issues. For example, in Baltimore City,

you are liable for lead paint lawsuits because you have older inventory. A lot of these houses have a lot of lead in it. I don't have to worry about that in New Jersey. I don't have to worry about that in Atlanta. But what I have to worry about in Atlanta is mold and trees that are falling down. So you need to know those things. Then you have to determine whether or not you're in the area that you're going to invest in. For example, Baltimore is a block five.

block neighborhood. So I can live on a block, which is where I live. I live across a lake, across the street from a lake and trees and everything. But if I go up two additional blocks, it's called the blue light district because of drug abuse and so forth. So you need to know those things. Then you need to know your fair housing laws, what you can do, what you can say to tenant. And right now you cannot hold.

You cannot even ask them. You can look to see if tenants were actually in prison or not, but you can't hold that against them anymore. You have to be careful to ask them how many children. You can't ask them how many children they have. What you have to ask them is how many people are going to live in the property because each property, each bedroom can only hold so many. So there's a limitation for each bedroom. So you have to...

JANET TONKINS (: 23:33

know those type of things. Your fair housing laws, then if you're going to be renovating properties, whether or not you need permits and what permits and things are needed for. So there's a lot of those things. Then if you're going to be renting rooming houses, whether or not how many rooms and how many people you can put in those. And then squatters have rights.

So if a squatter takes over one of your properties, if you're leaving it vacant for that length of time, you can't just automatically put them out. You have to actually file, you have to take them to court in order to actually remove them. And so what I think too, and if I was a politician, really Congress should be doing something to take that because even if they take over the house that you live in, your primary

residents, you would still have to follow the same process and taking them to court to put them out. So these are some of the good, the bad, and they are. And of course, if you're not managing the properties appropriately and you don't put the right tenants in there, of course they can damage your properties as well.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 24:52

Well, that's a lot to know. So if you were giving people advice to find out more about this, where would they go to find sources of this kind of information? Is there like a central located source or do you guys have to do your homework?

JANET TONKINS (: 25:06

Well, you have to do your due diligence at every city straight. Unfortunately, there is not one because each state...

Varies now if you want to in terms of fair housing laws. absolutely So what it's simply easy to do just Google fair housing laws. Okay, because that's the federal Program but for your states in your various cities most of them have They have tenant and landlord laws on on the website so you can just Google tenant and Fairlawn laws from the city or the state that you're actually in

you

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 25:44

So I know you wrote a bestselling book, The Turning Point. Tell us about that book.

JANET TONKINS (: 25:48

Other turning point chronicles my journey from low self -esteem to confidence and courage from living in the projects to creating and building projects.

And then as we just spoke about from building confidence and then creating wealth. So it chronicles me all the way from my six year old talking about my grandmother to me marrying my husband, which is my number one turning point to marry him and establishing our business. And then my number two turning point was accepting our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then seeking him first and then serve.

You know, I'm a servant at heart. I'm a child of God. I'm a servant. And so I seek to serve Him first and then serve my community and serve. I'm also a Bible study teacher.

I'm a mentor. I'm also a hard money lender and a private money lender as well. So my students get comprehensive education in that as long as they qualify, I will actually loan them the money to buy their first properties. And so I've been able to change the trajectory. And we also hold a quarterly retreat. And every single quarter we take folks, it doesn't necessarily have to be in real estate. We've taken some

folks that own salon owners, some restaurant owners. And what we do is we talk about entrepreneurialism, we talk about business, and of course we include the real estate, and we go somewhere out of the country every quarter.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 27:22

So I ran across your website and you have some phenomenal resources. So if somebody wants to connect with you and learn more from you and take your class, where can they find you?

JANET TONKINS (: 27:38

that there are two websites, JanetTonkins .com as well as the CashflowDiva .com. And as a matter of fact, I am going to be doing a free master class on June 1st, a free three hour master class. So if you want to contact me at JanetTonkins .com, I will certainly provide you with the information for the free master class.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 28:03

Now I ran across what one of your life goals is, but I want to ask you this so you can tell the audience, what do you want your legacy to be?

JANET TONKINS (: 28:13

First of all, I want my legacy to be one where I'm serving my community, that I leave a legacy of resilience, persistency, determination, giving back. And also, you know, I'm about not only giving you a fish, but teaching you how to fish. And so, and you know.

I don't know about you, but I was never taught how to set goals and teaching our young folks. And even from five to six years old, we have a school.

From our church and and I've been able to teach the five years and six years old about money how to invest compound interest and it doesn't take a whole lot of money if you do ten to twenty dollars a month and you start at the age of six seven eight years old within 20 years you could have a million dollars if you don't touch it as I said dollar -cost averaging or just buy a Fund okay, just do an ETF fund and never touch it then

we could have, but I want us to be able to take care of our own community. And so, you know, I don't want my living to be in vain, you know, and I have that responsibility that, you know, I've been blessed and therefore I have to be a blessing to others. And so that's what I want my legacy to be.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 29:42

That's great. As we wrap up, Jan, I want you to kind of summarize for our audience some key takeaways you want our people to take away from our conversation today.

JANET TONKINS (: 29:51

Okay, number one, first of all, and we didn't talk about, but there's always a way, okay? And for us, we have to be persistent.

We have to be determined, we have to be focused, organized, and disciplined, and never, ever, ever give up. Okay? Then if this is something that we want to get into, it's important that we always do our due diligence. Okay? And first of all, we need to determine if this is something that we truly want, because this is not a get rich quick scheme. You can get rich, but it's over the long term. And then we'll...

When we seek to serve, when we make that our first choice, remember everything else that we do will come, will come. Seek God first and everything else will be added unto us. We truly will get that back. So if it's something that you want to do, and remember, if you think about it, anything that you really wanted to do.

You did whatever you could to do it and you've accomplished those goals. So the other thing is we cannot allow our environment to determine our destinations. With and through God, we can be the architect of our own destiny.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 31:13

Well, Janet, thank you so much for this inspiring conversation. I pray people look you up and learn from you because you said we can shape our destiny. And I think one of the things I've always tried to do in this podcast too for my community and every community really is to realize that you can pass down something to the next generation. And it's really important for us to think that way. What can I leave to my kids and my grandkids?

JANET TONKINS (: 31:34

All right, yeah, absolutely.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 31:41

that will get them set up so they can be successful in this world as well. So besides leaving with a faith that comes, that really undergirds all that we do, but set them up to be successful, to be able to navigate through the difficult times that the world has.

JANET TONKINS (: 31:53

Mm -hmm.

JANET TONKINS (: 31:57

absolutely. And we need to be able to take care of our own. And remember, we used to be able to do that. So when we look at other nationalities, they do it. Okay. They all as a family, they do it. And we used to be able to do that. So we need to actually get back to that, get back to the family, dig a ditch, dig a well. What does Proverbs 3 say? Okay. We need to be able to leave our children, our children something. And so,

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 32:04

Yes.

JANET TONKINS (: 32:27

I will leave you with that.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 32:31

Thank you so much, Annie. You have a blessed day and thank you so much for what you do.

JANET TONKINS (: 32:35

And thank you, thank you for having me and you continue to become a bridge builder as well. So I'm truly blessed and honored that you would have me in your program.

of Becoming Bridge Builders (: 32:43

Thank you.