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Why Teaching Kids Real Estate and Money Early Changes Everything

By January 27, 2026Real Estate Pros Show

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Leonard Nesmith shares his journey from a challenging upbringing in North Philadelphia to founding a Kids Real Estate and Financial Literacy Academy. He discusses the importance of financial education for youth, the challenges he faces in engaging schools, and the transformative impact of his workshops. Leonard emphasizes the need for early financial literacy and entrepreneurship education, drawing from his personal experiences and the lessons he learned along the way. He also shares effective teaching strategies and the significance of instilling discipline and goal-setting in young minds.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Leonard Nesmith (00:00)
    it was one evening. This is what really sparked everything. I, my mother cooked.

    And great cook, but when you a kid and you eat your mother food, you know, always what’s something else. So I wanted a cheese steak from, have a corner store that served cheese steaks. And my mother looked at me and said, boy, you better go downstairs and eat what I cooked. And that moment there sparked something to me and said, I don’t want to ask anyone for anything anymore. And that’s the reason why.

    Quentin Edmonds (00:25)
    Come on!

    Leonard Nesmith (00:37)
    I started looking for a job to get a job. And then I wouldn’t have to ask if I wanted cheesesteak, cause that’s where it started.

    Quentin Edmonds (02:18)
    Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. Man, I don’t know why I just really, man, I just really got excited. Kind of almost even emotional ⁓ because I’m excited about what this guy is doing. I might really get emotional. This is crazy because I’m excited what this guy’s doing. ⁓ Hell, I’m getting emotional. I think if I had this guy in my life when I was younger, ⁓ my path would have probably been different.

    from being honest. And so I’m really excited about what this guy’s doing. I’m excited for him to share what you all. And so, ⁓ man, so I won’t burst out in tears. Let me just say, man, I want to introduce Lenny the boss. Lenny, how you doing today,

    Leonard Nesmith (03:06)
    My Eagles lost last night, I’m a little hoarse about it. So I apologize. We was at the game. But other than that, I feel amazing. How are you?

    Quentin Edmonds (03:16)
    Man, I’m doing good, bro. I’m a Ravens fan, Baltimore born and raised. So when that kick of Mr. Phil go, actually I wasn’t too hurt because I knew he was going miss it because I was like, this is how all season been going. So I understand, man, dealing with the loss and I understand out there cheering, hats off to you, you was able to go to the game. So I’m sure it was an experience. You would have to say, but it was a good experience, bad with the result. But Lenny, bro, I’m.

    Really excited to talk to you. I think what you are doing kind of hits at a core for me in so many different ways. so what I want to do, I want to dive right in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. Yeah. Lenny, if you want to give us a little origin story of how you got to what you’re doing. We love origin stories. So you want to do that? That’s fine.

    And then you probably already took the hat of what part of the world you’re in. If people could put context together, but man, but tell us what part of the world you’re into, man. So Lenny, sir, you got the floor now.

    Leonard Nesmith (04:21)
    Yeah, awesome. Once again, thank you for having me really appreciate it. So I’m in the Philadelphia area. You know, the experience of going to the game was great, but we lost. So the outcome really hurt. But other than that, I had a fantastic time with some family and friends last night. But I have a kids real estate and financial literacy academy. And what I do is I want to get a little bit about my humble beginnings and the lead up to how

    I opened up the kids real estate financial literacy Academy. So I like to start by saying my mother, cause I really loved that lady. ⁓ she had 10 children and guess what? I was the golden one to be the 10th kid. All right.

    And yeah, I’m the 10th kid. And we grew up, in North Philadelphia, ⁓ in a three bedroom, one bath row home. If anyone knows about North Philadelphia is not the best of neighborhoods, lot of killing, lot of murder.

    lot of drug dealing and growing up, you know, it was, it was pretty tough. And in that three bedroom, one bath row home, was 12 of us there because it was obviously my nine of the siblings. Then I have a nephew that’s older than me. He lived there with us as well. And of course my mom and S we got a little older. Some people moved out, but

    It seemed like when one person move out, another person was moving back in. So it seemed like it kept constantly balancing itself out. And I have to say, which I’m so sad to talk about, but is my story is that I was not the best of kids. And, I had a big time attitude problem, always getting it in trouble. And I got in trouble so much. And don’t laugh at me here. I failed first grade.

    And I didn’t fail because I wasn’t smart. I fell because I knew the principal and the first name basis. I was in his office, you know, maybe two or three times a week. And then I got smart. said, ⁓ a D is passing. So if I get D’s and C’s on my report card, it get my mom off my back and I can still cut up with all of my friends. So I was striving to get D’s and C’s. So fast forward that story.

    Up into eighth grade, the eighth grade me changed my life. In eighth grade, my mother always worked night shift until I got to eighth grade. She started working day shift. So at this time, you you have to pick what high school you were going to go to. And there was this local high school, two blocks from where I grew up that I wanted to go to. But I knew that if I went to that school,

    all of my friends would be cutting up and we’ll probably be cutting up at my house, skipping school. So I made the best decision of my life. Never knew what I was doing at the time, but I decided to go to a school outside of my neighborhood. Not because it was academically better, but because it got me out of my environment into a different environment. And at that time, guess what?

    I start paying attention and getting A’s and B’s on my report card. You know, and I went to a VOTEK school. So I took up carpentry and that’s when I became, you know, more of a hustler. like to say where 10th grade, I got a job at a restaurant actually in a really nice one, working three nights a week, Wednesday nights, Saturday nights, Sunday brunches. And then in 11th grade, I actually got a carpentry job.

    And so I was going to school for half the day from whatever time you get there to about 12 and then at 1230 to about four or four 30, I was working this carpentry job. And then I still had the, the restaurant job as well. So in high school, was working two jobs. So graduated from high school, the restaurant closed down.

    I decided to do something different when it came to, to, carpentry. So I got another job and I started college and I start working full time and going to school full time. Now at this time, I’m about 19 years old. I’m into girls at this time, you know, and being at my mom’s house. Wasn’t the place to be. So I got with three of my friends and we all actually purchased a house now.

    At 19, I purchased my first house and that sounds great, but I’m going to be brutally honest. It wasn’t because we were these four smart individuals like, let’s go purchase a house. No, what happened is that we were searching for places to rent

    and the rent and the expenses was too much. And this realtor said, you guys should buy a house. And that allowed us to do the house hacking thing before house hacking was even a term. So we bought this house.

    We all was going to school and working and it allowed us to have bills roughly around 300 to 350 bucks. Right. So for four straight years, I went to work full time with the school at night, Monday through Thursday from 6 PM to 10 AM, four straight years worked at this company. Then I started getting, when I graduated, I started getting promotions. So I went from regular employee to team lead to supervisor to assistant director of the biggest department.

    Then I made it all the way up to the ⁓ vice president of operations where I had a staff of over 200 people responsible for well over a billion dollars in AR annually. And I worked there for 22 years. Now, why I was there is when I started my entrepreneur journey of investing into real estate. So I set a goal and that’s why I say goals are important because I set a goal to buy a property every single year when I started. And that’s what I did.

    And I got to year 22, I worked at that company for 22 years and I got a phone call. They call me and less than one minute, less than a minute and a half, they say, it’s sorry, we no longer need your services. And I never forget, I was sitting there, I put my head back and I popped up and said, ⁓ my God, I got to get health insurance now. You know, I say that because we were in position where we were getting

    enough rental income to cover a mortgage, me and my wife, car payments, the things that we need to do. So I decided to, I had one foot in entrepreneurship at this time, let me do two. So I’m like, okay, what I’m going to do. So I have a vision board in my office. I put on his vision board. said, Lord, should I teach the kids real estate? That was just a thought of mine. Put it on the vision board and all my life.

    I always was teaching, mean, my son, ⁓ coaching my son’s football teams, flag, flag, flag. And then when we got over to tackle, it was like night and day for the kids because you got to now teach them how to stand, how many people in the field, this is where you stand. You got to be on the line. You got to be off the line. Here’s the reasons why you can’t move. You can’t do this. ⁓ don’t forget when someone hikes the ball, the other person will punch in mouth. So, you know, and teaching those things, I found myself extremely.

    ⁓ successful when no one went to hug the youth, went to push the youth, went to talk aggressive, talk less aggressive and, and teaching them the sport. So that gave me some confidence, but what truly happened is one day my son and I, ⁓ had to go somewhere and we just moved a few people to our units and I had a bunch of money orders. So I said, son, we have to go to the bank first. So

    I’m going to the bank. gave my son the money orders. say, son, do me a favor, add them up so I can just go to the bank, deposit the money and we off doing whatever we need to do. I took a picture of him and he, I put this picture on social media and I say, Hey social, try to get your kids involved in your business. Any way, or form. Look at my son here, adding up some money orders. And I wrote a few other things, went off to the bank, did whatever we needed to do.

    got back home maybe four or five hours later, opened up social. I had about 10 messages from different parents saying I would love for my kid to learn. And that’s how I birthed the Kids Real Estate and Financial Literacy Academy.

    Quentin Edmonds (14:29)
    Man, ⁓ man, I find your story so fascinating, so fascinating. I’m writing things down as you talk, Tim Chow born, you worked two jobs in high school, restaurant, carpentry. There’s so many things that spoke to my head. My parents adopted five kids at one time, so we had eight kids. We had eight kids in the house at once.

    My dad, I’m writing a book on my dad.

    He worked a job when he was in high school, right? So many different things that you said is sparked. And that’s I was really smart. Sparked to me, sparked to me. And I’m looking at what I’m writing because I wrote down smart, you were smart getting Cs and Ds. That’s what I put it, right? Because when I say smart, you put a plan into motion. Like intelligence shows up in different forms, right?

    Some people is book smart, but for you, you was finding a plan that fits what you wanted to do your life. And for me, it seemed like you kind of followed that strategy of finding things that fit what you wanted to do. So what, of course you not, it’s not the lack of intelligence. The C’s and D’s don’t talk about how intelligent you are. I’m looking at the fact that you put a plan in motion and executed on a plan. So I want to ask you.

    Can you give in language to the innate abilities that you have watched serve you all your life? From the time when you was young, to the time you was in high school, to even now. Are there innate abilities that you can give in language to that you know help you be the successful man that you are today?

    Leonard Nesmith (16:55)
    Well, one was, ⁓ I have obviously not owed a brothers and sisters, and that gave me the opportunity to see a lot of what’s going right and what’s going wrong. So, directly and indirectly, I was very mindful of that. Now, ⁓ in my neighborhood, like I said, ⁓ another thing too was, you know,

    Quentin Edmonds (17:09)
    Yeah, yeah.

    Leonard Nesmith (17:23)
    wasn’t trying to go to jail. ⁓ So, so, so the, the, the negative things of selling drugs or doing those things just really wasn’t going to cut it for me. Yeah. All right. ⁓ now what truly happened is honestly is really getting out of that environment. When I got out of that environment, again, the school I went to, like I said, it wasn’t academically better. The environment wasn’t, but it was different.

    And it gave me the ability to become who I needed to become and be okay with getting the A, be okay with getting the B, be okay with sitting in the front of the class and raising my hand to answer a question. I wasn’t okay in grade school. We thought that wasn’t cool. And I was all about obviously hanging with my friends, being cool.

    begging my mother to buy me the latest Air Jordans ⁓ or the Barclays. All these sneakers, Bo Jackson’s when they first came out. So ⁓ it allowed me to say, ⁓ it’s all right for me to raise my hand and say, yeah, I knew that answer. And the answer is eight.

    Quentin Edmonds (18:32)
    Come on. ⁓

    Leonard Nesmith (18:49)
    That’s when I was like, okay, I wanted things at this point in time. I wanted, I, happened? I’m tell you a quick story.

    Obviously we’re the land and cheese steaks and filling. Yeah.

    it was one evening. This is what really sparked everything. I, my mother cooked.

    And great cook, but when you a kid and you eat your mother food, you know, always what’s something else. So I wanted a cheese steak from, have a corner store that served cheese steaks. And my mother looked at me and said, boy, you better go downstairs and eat what I cooked. And that moment there sparked something to me and said, I don’t want to ask anyone for anything anymore. And that’s the reason why.

    Quentin Edmonds (19:31)
    Come on!

    Leonard Nesmith (19:42)
    I started looking for a job to get a job. And then I wouldn’t have to ask if I wanted cheesesteak, cause that’s where it started.

    And obviously as you grow and you mature, that stuck with me. I never really want to be in position of asking. And honestly, that was the reason why I was striving to become much of a leader at the company I used to work for, because as I moved up the ranks, I was able to ask less.

    of, you know, to do this or do that. People were coming to me asking me, hey, can I get off or look, you know, here’s the value that I bring. And I would like a raise, you know, I was that decision maker. I was driving the B because I didn’t want to go to, cause I reported to the owner at that time. He gave me full autonomy of the organization. Once I made it to the vice president of operation, status. So with that being said, you know, I felt like

    at the time, you know, I had my own business because I’m signing off on compensation packages. You know, we’re writing procedures and policies. I’m meeting with clients to make sure that business is where it needs to be. You know, there’s some inter detail they need to tell me so we can fix and make sure that everything is great. So that was the big thing. So I blame the cheesesteak, right? For not being able to get the cheesesteak to

    making that say, do not want to be in a position to have to ask somebody to do something.

    Quentin Edmonds (21:17)
    So, man, these are things that I wrote down. You let me know if they hit. So as I hear you talking, hear highly motivated. I had great observation skills and I hear seasoned opportunities. So when I, when I hear you talk, I see someone is highly motivated. I see somebody that has a great observation. Like you just observe how there’s an opportunity in a moment. And then when the opportunity moment presents itself, I see you as seasoned opportunity.

    And I think this is why I’m so excited about the academy that you’re building, because I know you’re going to be highly motivated. I know that you’re going to be observing on how to get this where it needs to go, how to really empower these kids. And you’re going to seize the opportunity when it comes. So with that being said, I would love to know what is the next real goal for you? What are you looking to solve a scale next?

    Leonard Nesmith (22:06)
    Thanks for asking, man. You know, again, I wish that there was a me that was in my life when I was in middle school or high school, because as I mentioned, I purchased my first house at 19. I purchased my first at 19, uneducated. My real estate journey didn’t start until I was roughly about 32, 33 years old.

    That means that I missed out on was that 10 13 14 13 or 14 years Yeah, but what if me came to you the school? Taught me about real estate my real estate journey would have started at 19 yeah, and it didn’t and that’s why I’m here because a lot of two things one

    The communities that I grew up in, the challenging communities, they just don’t have the people who have the experience of knowing how to budget, knowing how to create a business, knowing how to maintain great credit, understanding the difference between needs and wants, understanding a difference between an asset versus liability.

    understanding the ability of compound interest. These are the things that there, never heard any of these terms until I was again, out of high school. And I just think that that’s ridiculous. And then in the other communities where there’s high impact ⁓ from a financial perspective, remember everyone is not teachers. And if you have kids, your kids for whatever reason,

    do not want to learn from their parents. Their parents can tell them something. They can go out and hear the same thing from somebody else and come back to you and say, dad, mom, guess what I heard? And you looking at them like, just told you this last week. And that’s where I come in where with them too, they still have to learn how to budget. They still have to learn credit. They still have to learn needs versus wants. They still have to learn. You have to put money up for a rainy day because things happen.

    You know, I get a good example. So, me and my wife, we own a couple of businesses and, ⁓ one of her businesses right now, we have a client that owes us over $20,000.

    Quentin Edmonds (24:44)
    with the what’s the name and number we’re going to ride.

    Leonard Nesmith (24:49)
    They haven’t cleared the invoices for five to six months, but we still have to pay our employees that’s down there. We still have to buy material. We still have to buy supplies. And my wife just had the tough conversation with the client and the client, you know, said they put a plan together to make sure that the invoice does get clear. But who told us this? No one, no one told us about a P and L.

    Like I didn’t even know what that was. What the PNL, what everybody keep talking this PNL stuff, you know, and no one told us about investing early. I teach the youth right now, this exercise, we do this workshop exercise where it’s really fun. Two kids, not the short version, where does one kid invest for 10 years only from the age 15 to the age 25, invest $100 a month for 10 years. That’s it. And then this other kid.

    Decided to start investing at the age of 25, but they went on all the way to 40. always a 65 So every year how many years is that that’s? You know 40 years if my math correct, you know and The person who invested for 10 years with compound interest Right in a history repeating itself, right? You know that person for 45 years would never catch up

    Quentin Edmonds (25:57)
    years.

    Leonard Nesmith (26:15)
    And I show that and it’s a mind like how simple that is. No one never told us now. I’m like, okay, well, rather than me sitting here buying these Jordans, cause that’s what I was into at 18. Right. I will buy one of them once a month. They was a hundred bucks. I could have been taking that a hundred dollars and invest into my future and still getting that cheesesteak.

    Quentin Edmonds (26:39)
    They don’t get in the team state. Oh man, Lenny brother, this was so good for me, man. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they reach out to you,

    Leonard Nesmith (26:55)
    Yeah, man. You know what? can follow me online. Lenny the boss. I’m on Facebook. I’m on Instagram and that’s Lenny L E N N Y the T H E uhm boss B O S S and or they can just shoot me an email. You know, you can shoot me an email that is at Leonard L E O N A R D @kidsrealestateacademy.com again, [email protected]

    Quentin Edmonds (27:28)
    Man, I want to thank you so much, man. This is, again, this is truly really good for me. You survived Philly. I had to survive Baltimore. And so, you know, and I survived the nineties. And so I’m assuming maybe you were around the same, maybe around the nineties and stuff.

    Leonard Nesmith (27:44)
    80s and 90s. Yeah.

    Quentin Edmonds (27:47)
    80s and 90s. so we already know, you know, just the fact that we’re here talking to each other today about real estate, finance, man, let’s pat each other on the back because man, listen, you know what I’m saying? So I gotta say thank you, man. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your story. Definitely. Thank you for your perspective, your mindset, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. was truly a pleasure for me. And I thank you for being here today.

    Leonard Nesmith (28:01)
    Thank you. ⁓

    Awesome, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.

    Quentin Edmonds (28:18)
    Absolutely. So listen, you can’t tell me you didn’t get the value out of that. Especially some someone is listening, you know, this planet is heating your heart and you know that you’re going to look many up, you’re going to look up the kids Real Estate Academy. ⁓ So definitely do that. Definitely empower your kids. Definitely make sure you’re subscribed here. That way you can see the.

    Just connect with these amazing people that I tell you we’re going to continue to bring up just like Lenny the boss. And so, sir, I thank you so much and everyone else. We’ll see you on the next time.

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