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Van Jones at the Eighth Annual Icon Mann Honors held at the Waldorf Astoria on March 8, 2023, in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo: Brian Feinzimer/Variety via Getty Images)
In an interview on the popular finance podcast Earn Your Leisure, the 55-year-old longtime CNN contributor and Color of Change founder spoke candidly about the road he’s traveled since receiving the once in a lifetime gift.
“I realized, I was gonna put myself in an early grave because you have insurmountable opportunities,” he said, according to AfroTech. “You also could have insurmountable obstacles. You could also have insurmountable opportunities. The door’s just opening and opening and opening and opening, and that can stress you out and that can also bring a lot of haters and a lot of criticism.”
It was through a renewed focus on overall wellness that Jones found his way to clarity. And now that he’s adjusted to life as a multimillionaire, the Yale Law School alumnus also has a clear view of how he plans to use his affluence.
“We’re worthy, we’re worthy to be in these rooms,” Jones said. “We’re worthy to move capital. We’re worthy to imagine whole industries. …We could make every Black neighborhood into ‘Wakanda’ with the best technology in the world. Every Black kid could have an AI tutor better than Harvard, MIT for free. All of these things, we’re worthy to have those dreams, and we’re worthy to fight for them and not just fight for them, just to manifest them and say, ‘This is what is going to be in my community.’”
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Source: Black Enterprise
