From a Six-Figure Job On Wall Street To Educating People On Financial Literacy: The Story Of Ross Mac

Ross Mac is an inspiring entrepreneur who has helped dozens of individuals achieve their life’s goals by improving their finances. As a former Wall Street professional and creator/host of REVOLT TV’s hit weekly segment, Maconomics, Ross Mac shares the fundamental understanding of financial literacy from an urban perspective. 

Ross’s approach to financial literacy is the perfect fusion of hip hop culture and Wall Street knowledge. In this article, Ross sheds light on his life and the events that led him to where he is today. Let’s have a look;

1.What was the turning point that made you decide to quit your Wall Street six-figure job to pursue something more rewarding, albeit less stable?

I think as a society, we often get caught up in the mundane pursuit of money and lose track of our true passions and missions in life. In other words, you can make a lot of money and still never achieve your true purpose. 

For me, working on Wall Street was a tremendous accomplishment, being that I come from the South Side of Chicago, but I knew I always wanted to do more. I knew I always wanted to take my life experiences and bring this exposure to everyday people who may not have otherwise had the opportunities that I had.

What made me finally leave Wall Street was when I moved back to my hometown and found out that so many individuals from different backgrounds were always in some form of trouble due to financial illiteracy. Hence, I sought out to educate my community on the importance of financial literacy. Financial literacy is a language, and the earlier you learn it, the more likely you will become fluent in it. 

I found out my life’s mission – to help uplift and educate my community on good financial values.

2. Were you always interested in rap? How has that interest morphed into a passion and calling?

Music has always been a positive outlet for me and an opportunity to express myself creatively. I began making music in high school and started taking it more seriously once people I never met kept telling me to keep going. 

I have been lucky to garner some attention with my music and have gotten a lot of my music licensed in television shows. I have my music on amazing platforms such as NBA 2K21, Netflix, Showtime, BET, and much more. 

I consider my music Wall Street rap because I talk about getting money through investments. This is a lane that no other artist has, and I love it.

3. You are now on REVOLT TV! What an accomplishment. Tell us about how this manifested.

My partnership with Revolt TV was all organic. I met a few people that worked there (Dante and Lynzie) who happened to follow me. Once I began making Maconomics videos, my bite-size financial literacy content, Dante and Lynzie advocated that Revolt TV add this element to its wheelhouse. 

One thing led to another, and Revolt started reposting my content. Their viewers engaged with my content a lot and really liked the aspect of educating the community while simultaneously making them laugh. The rest is history!

Subscribe to Maconomics on Youtube! 

4. Do you use social media outlets do you use to promote your message? If so, what are they? 

The biggest thing in today’s society is content! Content is king, and I try to use all possible platforms. It’s important to meet your audience where they already are.

My most successful platform is Instagram. However, I also use Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Clubhouse. All these platforms have a different audience, and I love connecting with all ages and races.

5. What is the best piece of financial advice you can give us?

The best financial advice I can give you is if you want to do better financially, you need to have a real plan. 

• This plan should start with budgeting. It would help if you got firm control on your inflows and outflows to save more and pay down your debt.
• The next thing you need to do is make sure you have a fully-funded emergency fund to help when life throws you a curveball. 
• The last piece of advice I want to give you is to Invest! It’s really not difficult at all. The reality is that if you aren’t investing, then you are actually losing money. The money that is simply sitting in your bank account is losing its value because the prices of goods go up every year (this is inflation). You can start by buying a basket of stocks that represent the best and largest companies in America. You can buy an S&P 500 ETF, and you will generate an average return of 10% per year. 

If you need more help, join my Maconomics Investing Club where I answer questions daily and give weekly training zoom tutorials.

6. What is the most rewarding part of your career change?

The most rewarding part of my career is the lives that I have genuinely changed. I have helped people start thinking about financial literacy before the later part of their lives. 

As a result, this is changing their entire family’s trajectory. I receive DM’s daily where people tell me they have watched my videos and are now on a path to building generational wealth.

7. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Ten years?

Five years from now, I see myself touching more lives and educating more inner-cities around America. I see more TV deals. I see financial literacy being an everyday conversation in our culture.

Ten years from now, I see myself with a self-sustaining non-profit for high school inner-city students worldwide. They will have the ability to use real money to learn how to invest. We will have 1,000s of kids who understand how to invest and value companies properly. All of the profits they make, they will be able to keep them. Maconomics will be a household name.