The American Dream is still alive and well. The responsibility is ours, however, if we want to pursue and capture this dream for our lives and that of our families. Charles Payne continues to live that dream daily.
One could say that is the resounding theme of Natalie Brunell’s online program, Coin Stories, where she offers a refreshing media style that is consistently uplifting and inspirational.
Usually, the program revolves around how Bitcoin can be the means toward this future prosperity. Brunell has spent years educating her audience about why she believes Bitcoin is a means to economic prosperity, especially in nations where mere economic survival remains a crucial, daily priority.
This past week she offered an episode of her program to highlight another American media figure who takes a similarly optimistic approach toward educating and empowering his audience, albeit mostly through the stock market, Charles Payne.
Brunell began the episode, titled “Building Wealth, Stocks, Bitcoin and Hope,” by digging into the Fox News anchor’s childhood, searching for clues that have led to his current success. As an “Army Brat” born in New York, Payne moved every year – from Pittsburgh, Texas, Germany, Japan, Alabama, North Carolina, and eventually to Virginia, where he lived a peaceful and happy early childhood.
“Beautiful Fort Lee, Virginia. Beautiful Army base, two-story house. The staircase was like the Brady Bunch staircase,” Payne recalled. “We had all these extra rooms. We had a den. You know, it was just, really almost just an amazing life. Almost too good to be true.”
Looking back on that stage of his childhood, Payne appreciates that he was protected in many ways from the darker side of American culture at the time.
“It was a bubble, you know what I mean? Particularly in the late 60s, early 70s, with all the turmoil that was going on in America at that particular time,” Payne remembers. “We were kinda shielded from all of it, if you will. You know, just an idyllic lifestyle for a little kid. Just go outside, play all day, ride your bikes.”
Payne said his Army father instilled discipline in him, giving him household chores to complete, such as mowing the lawn with a hand mower.
“It was a beautiful life,” he summed up.
But Charles Payne’s life was about to take a major shift – one that arguably provided both hardship and the life lessons he built upon to earn his place in the world.
“One day I came home from school and my mom said we’re leaving. And so, you know, my parents are having trouble. And my mother, it was me, my mom, and my two younger brothers. So we got on a bus from there, and we went to Harlem,” Payne said. “Now this was the early 70s, when it was still probably the most dangerous, poorest neighborhood in America. And we left with nothing. We just got up and left.”
Payne goes much deeper into his history and childhood in his new book, Unbreakable Investor. His investing philosophy and detailed how-to guide comprised his previous book, Unstoppable Prosperity, which we detailed in this Barrett News Media space in November 2020.
In Harlem, Payne experienced a new life in so many ways.
“The culture shock was just mind-boggling, I gotta tell you. It was so, so mind-boggling to go from that manicured, organized life to one that was completely hectic,” Payne recalls. “I remember taking the train for the first time. You gotta remember, in the early 70s, they were still using trains from the 1950s. They had those real big iron, like rambling down the track, you know. Oh my goodness! So we took the first subway train, it was amazing. Coming out of the subway station, all of these buildings. All of these people. That part was absolutely amazing!”
To a trained media eye, both Brunell and Charles Payne share many traits in common. Among the most pronounced may be a curiosity and willingness to learn everything they can about their vocation’s key topics.
Payne can still remember other facets of his new hometown, Harlem, as if it were yesterday.
“The first thing that struck me was the music. It was everywhere,” he said. “Coming out of windows. Coming out of cars. Coming out of boomboxes. And I’m like, stuff I’ve never really heard before. I’m like, ‘Oh snap, who’s that?’ Cause you know I was like digging Elton John, Philadelphia Freedom. That’s my man. But I heard Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes, I’m like who’s that? It was so amazing. We’d walk down the street, that was 145th Street and Saint Nick. Walk down the street, then we turned down the street where we were going to stay. And I saw the girls double-dutching jump rope for the first time. I’d never seen that. And again, the energy, I’d never seen anything like that.”
As a young boy, the change from the country to the city brought all kinds of new experiences.
“We took an elevator up to the apartment. That I thought was cool as hell,” Charles Payne remembers. “There was a strange smell in there that I later learned was pee. But initially, it was just like, this thing was really like, to live with an elevator. I don’t know if I’d ever even been in an elevator to that point in my life.”
Brunell has appeared on Payne’s Fox News program in the past, and she often speaks of the promise and hope that Bitcoin offers to poverty-stricken citizens worldwide. During this conversation, Charles Payne said he encountered a level of violence and poverty in Harlem that he had never previously seen. The only correlation he could make, in terms of poverty, was to what he experienced down south when he visited his grandparents’ farm.
“As I became a man and the older I got, the more actually ashamed I was of myself, for not appreciating what my grandparents were pulling off there,” Payne noted. “Because when I went down there, it was like no electricity, no running water. Like, golly.” For these reasons, he didn’t love traveling down to visit his grandparents. However, in later years he began to truly admire his grandparents for their sacrifice in purchasing the farm. In fact, he tracked down the deed from the purchase to include in his new book at its publishing deadline.
“I finished the book but I cried that whole day,” Payne said of the deadline this past July 4th. “I mean, what they gave up to get that farm was just amazing. I have a copy inside the book. This was in 1952. And just the stuff that comes along with it. They became a target also. Most people didn’t own a farm down there, let alone a black family. So the Night Riders and the Klan gave them a hard time. It was really tough. And then just owning a farm is tough, but they wanted it. They saved up and they worked their ass off for so many years.”
Brunell, a polished interviewer who often speaks of her own family’s challenges after immigrating to America, has a knack for asking insightful questions and keeping the focus on her guests. Both she and Charles Payne have said they feel they are truly standing on the shoulders of giants, when they consider the sacrifices paid by their ancestors.
“When I hear people describe how hard it is these days, particularly millennials. Oh, my parents had it easier. My grandparents had it easier. You know, you have to put things into perspective. You not being able to pay your Uber bill is not the same. It’s not the same. And I urge everyone to invest, because everyone should be investing. It’s an amazing opportunity, and everyone can with certain sacrifices. They made an enormous sacrifice so that they could control their own destiny,” Payne said.
“You’re right,” Brunell added. “It’s the idea of sacrifice. That people do things so that not even just themselves have a better life and future, but so their kids and their descendents, their children’s children. And sometimes they give up a lot and they risk their lives and that is the American dream.”
Natalie Brunell has interviewed many of the top financial personalities on her Bitcoin-focused program – including Michael Saylor, Cathie Wood, Vivek Ramaswamy, Dan Tapiero, James Lavish, and Peter McCormack.
In next week’s column we will recap the rest of Charles Payne’s story, as Brunell advances the conversation from his childhood to how it influenced his investing philosophy. Most importantly, she’ll get him to open up about what investors should be focusing on today, regardless of their starting point.
Their focus on achieving the “American Dream” will be a fitting way to cap off 2023 and look ahead to the promising future of 2024.
Rick Schultz is a former Sports Director for WFUV Radio at Fordham University. He has coached and mentored hundreds of Sports Broadcasting students at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, Marist College and privately. His media career experiences include working for the Hudson Valley Renegades, Army Sports at West Point, The Norwich Navigators, 1340/1390 ESPN Radio in Poughkeepsie, NY, Time Warner Cable TV, Scorephone NY, Metro Networks, NBC Sports, ABC Sports, Cumulus Media, Pamal Broadcasting and WATR. He has also authored a number of books including “A Renegade Championship Summer” and “Untold Tales From The Bush Leagues”. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @RickSchultzNY.
