- Now, with a very special guest this morning, Daymond John, the Shark Tank star and financial expert, has written a new children's book. He's got the top hat on today. The book, called Little Daymond Learns to Earn, teaching kids all about money, super important. But also, with so much uncertainty in the financial world, we asked you to ask him your money question. So we're going to do that during the thing. Damon, so nice to see you. I haven't seen you since the barbershop quartet. - That's right, I love you, my dear friend. - You said you liked the hat too. - I'm wearing it. [ALL SPEAKING AT ONCE] DAYMOND JOHN: I wear these hats because kids don't care about my $10,000 Tom Ford suits. But when I teach them financial intelligence, they ask, am I gonna teach them magic? I'm gonna to teach you how to leave your parents-- - You bring the magic, exactly. - --do when you're 20-- and turn $1 into $3. - So we're going to get into the children's book in just a bit. - Absolutely. - We're gonna put you to work while you're here because so many people have questions. Given the current financial environment, many asking about how to approach banking overall. And our first question here is from Will out of Greenville, South Carolina. Let's take a look. - As a small business owner and dad, would it be wise for me to spread my savings across a few different banks right now? - Well, it depends on how much savings there is, because you are federally protected up to $250,000. So first of all, if you have more than that, yeah, I would consider not spreading it, putting in the big banks, like Chase, the ones you think are not going to have that type of turmoil. But more importantly, putting your money to work. You're only going to get 6% in the bank. You'll get way more in various other different financial, you know, products. - Yeah, I like that advice because it's like, not just bank it-- does this look OK? [ALL SPEAKING AT ONCE] Am I rocking it? - You're a little stiff wearing it. - Well, because it's a little big, so I feel like it'll be on my nose in any second now. - You don't look like the baby New Year. You look like the Mad Hatter. - So here's the question-- thank you-- from, She's Chelsea on Instagram. I have some extra money to invest. In light of the financial crisis-- and this goes back to the bank and you just talked about maybe investing some-- what would you suggest I do with my money? - Well, always the first investment is in yourself, an education, or various other things. Before you get into things that may be hot, you know what to do? Put all the financial kind of tips on Instagram, put that-- follow 20 sites. Don't buy anything. But the same way you scroll through and see travel and-- and things you love, you'll start to get financial intelligence. And then you invest where you feel comfortable. - We do it with everything else, right? I mean, you're right. We look-- do recipes that way. We do vacation-- DAYMOND JOHN: Travel, working out, whatever it is. - Do it in a way that actually benefits you in the long run. - Exactly. - All right, there's a question here. This is Hannah B On The Gram-- I love the handle-- she asked, is now a good time to make extra payments on my home mortgage? - It always is a good time. You pay down the principal though. If you are paying $600, $700, but you want to pay down $800, you take about $200 and pay down on principal, not on interest. That then reduces the principal and then overall, it reduces your payments. - How come I'm not smart-- the long-- as long as I've known you, how come I'm not smarter at this? That's my next question. All right-- - You needed the hat. DAYMOND JOHN: But by the way, I almost went bankrupt twice when I was broke. And when-- once when I had $10 million in the bank. So this is something that we constantly have to educate us on. - Learn and grow. - So don't be afraid of it. - Do not be afraid of it. - All right, one more question before I think we talk a little bit about the book. So, so many of our viewers want to know, with interest rates so high-- and maybe, I think a lot of America has credit debt, right? So what do you-- what do you do if you have a lot of credit card debt? - First of all, you go to your creditors who are around 18%, and you ask them, can you renegotiate because you're going to cut the credit card off? They'll move it down to 15% or 14%. Then you try and go get a loan if you can. No you have to have discipline. You get that into 6%, combine all the credit cards together, and you pay that and you reduce it. But you cannot go back now to putting more-- - To more debt. - And that's the entire reason for Little Daymond Learns, because you need to understand financial intelligence because we're not taught that in this country, because we're taught, the way we used to work, in an industrial era. You know, learn a trade or be a good employee. And so if we don't have financial intelligence starting at 5, well then at 17 years old, we acquire $750,000 worth of student debt that we won't pay off until we're into our 50s. - So important. And that brings us to the book right here, because Little Daymond Learns to Earn, I love it. You were telling us that this is-- this is your legacy, not necessarily the book, but the conversation-- - By the way, we did it-- - --teaching young people. - --this is the number one book in the country. And it just came out yesterday. And it's, we did it, because this is my legacy because it's not about a book. America has voted that we need financial intelligence for our children. And I want every celebrity, every bank, everybody else to say, I need to make products for kids 5 to 15. I'm tired of reading to my little daughter that someday a prince is gonna show up and she needs to have a glass slipper or a slay a dragon or throw hair out-- - And you said this was inspired by conversation. DAYMOND JOHN: Exactly, my little girl. By the way, she better not live with Seven Dwarfs. [LAUGHTER] You know-- but at the end of the day, you know what? I want my daughter to be able to say, no, I'm making my own glass slippers. I want the prince to walk in and go, damn, who owns this glass slipper place? I need to meet her. And that's what this is about, teaching kids 5 to 10 years old, and families, about financial intelligence in a soluble way where they can read it every month to their child. - Your daughter's 7. My daughters are 8 and 10. So I will be bringing this home. Daymond, thank you so much. - Thank you. - Congratulations. - I love you, man. - Little Daymond Learns to Earn available right now. And you can see Daymond on Shark Tank, Friday at 8:00 PM Eastern, right here on ABC. We'll be right-- oh, out of the hat.