Get Rich Fast & Slow Series Part 2

We are live. Welcome on in. Get in here. Gonna get started in just a second here. Forgive me for the delay. It's having some technical difficulty. But as soon as, as soon as you're in here live, let me know. Drop a comment. Please comment on my audio. Let me know if that's coming in nice and clearly for you all. As I said, I was having some technical difficulties, so I just want to make sure I'm good before I get started. We got a few people in the house so far. Welcome, welcome. Welcome in. Who's here? Who's here? A couple people in the house. All right, beautiful. All right, so I'm gonna get started. I see there's some people here present with me. So YouTube recently launched a new feature called Shows, so I figured I'd test it out, see what it's about. And that's basically what this is. YouTube has allowed me to put basically a show together. Or like a series of videos that kind of build on top of each other and they go in a specific playlist. And so now when you open up YouTube, there should be a category that you can select on, I think called Shows, just like, just like podcasts. Now they have one for shows. So if you're a content creator, if you're making content in your studio, you're going to see another tab called Shows. And I've been, I've been hearing some good things about it. Not sure where YouTube wants to take this. I, I believe YouTube is wanting to draw more people instead of on their mobile phone, but having more and more viewers watching from a TV, from a television. So I believe that's why they're doing this, and we'll see how it goes. But small creator like myself And I know I have some that follow me, that watch me, get insight. Use the tools. Use the tools that, that, that's available. So I'm going to put the link in the description to the show link so that you have that there. So that's for you. And now welcome to part 2 of the Get Rich Fast and Slow. series, this, this framework, this mindset is really helping everyday average American salary, W-2 employees, 1099 self-employed individuals think about their money totally different. We are slowly but surely shifting away from the traditional financial way to achieve financial independence, retirement on time, financial freedom. What we're seeing is more and more financial professionals, advisors, insurance agents, content creators are starting to push this theme that has always been there. This has been known by the wealthy individuals and will continue to be known by the rich and wealthy. But it's coming to Main Street now, which is the cash flow over net worth model or theory or mindset. And that just simply— the way I interpret it and understand cash flow over net worth is simply saying, I'm gonna walk through life, I'm gonna operate my life and my finances according to, does this produce me cash flow right here, right now? Or is it accumulating wealth for later, for the future? Both things are not bad in a sense. Accumulating wealth for the long term is not bad, but by itself can be absolutely destructive to everyday Americans. We're seeing this happen in real time with anyone who is in retirement today. You're a few years out from retirement, or maybe you're even a few years into retirement, and you literally can't sleep. You are struggling trying to figure out how much income you need to survive. You're stressed whether your nest egg can produce the lifestyle you want or not. And it's just causing Americans to just spin out. And then their resort is spend less, restrict, or go back into the workforce. So these are post-retirement individuals trying to get back into the workforce, taking jobs, taking lower-paying jobs than what they were making before. And it's just, it's messing them up. They're not— they're like, I did everything right. You did everything right according to accumulating wealth, sticking money in your 401, sticking money in this retirement account, this retirement account, getting this rate of return, getting this average rate of return. The problem is when it came down to cash flow, money in hand, money to spend, and money to have left over. It's not adding up. So more and more retirees today are waking up to that. My generation, millennial generation, I want to say is half awake. We're pretty awake to what's going on. And what I'm noticing millennial generation doing is just departing from the system altogether. And they're creating other forms of income, or they're creating different forms of lifestyle that isn't according to traditional American society. I'm seeing really good case studies with that. And I'm also seeing individuals completely try to check out of the financial system, and they're going into Bitcoin, they're going into the crypto world, they're going into decentralized assets, and that has its, its benefits as well. All right, so the overall theme here, Get Rich Fast and Slow, has you focusing on how can I produce cash flow right here and right now with the skills, gifts, and talents that I possess and the capital that's available to me today. As a result of focusing on increasing cash flow in your life, you get net worth as a benefit. This flips the model to think, okay, I need to get to a certain number. So many Americans today are trying to get to a number— $1 million in my retirement account, $2 million, $3 million, $4 million, $5 million. Doesn't matter what the number is. At the end of the day, it doesn't produce the cash flow required because Of where they're putting their money in the specific accounts and not— and them not realizing those accounts are not designed to actually produce cash flow for you on a guaranteed, consistent, reliable basis. There are other vehicles for that. And when you focus on cash flow right here, right now, we begin to unlock wealth. That has been hiding in plain sight right in front of us. So with this series, Cash Flow, Get Rich Fast and Slow, we're focusing on cash flow over net worth is the foundation. Another foundation to that is tax-free over taxable and reclassifying income. If we can focus on doing these as a Foundation in your household, now you're able to operate in whatever investment that you would like to be a part of, whether it's passive or active. You're going to have the cash flow to do it, the capital to leverage to make that happen. And now when you make investments, you're not just hoping for a ROI, return on investment, aka some percentage, some average return— 8%, 10%, 12%— you're no longer thinking on that metric. The metric you're thinking about is when I make an investment, how much Cash flow, does it produce right here, right now? If I invest 50 grand into something and I am going to get an 8% rate of return, but it's locked, it's illiquid, I can't access that return. Moving forward in this community, and the way that I'm teaching and sharing with clients is, unless you are well off financially, that's not attractive to you. What would be attractive is if I put 50 grand into an investment, and within 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 6 months or less, I'm getting cash flow that's accessible. Even if the rate of return or appreciation is, say, I don't know, 4%. It's not a high appreciation or it's not a high accumulation number, but you're making Cash flow from the asset that's giving you cash now to then give us liquidity capital to remove other obstacles in our way right here, right now. Once these are gone, once we have a strong foundation and you have the ability to depart some of your cash flow in more Locked up accounts like retirement accounts that are built for appreciation. Now you're getting the best of both worlds. You're using, you're using your cash flow from an investment to get net worth, to get appreciation, rather than most Americans are taking seed money. Right. Seed money, that's like initial dollars that you make from your income after you spent all your, your expenses and paid all your debts, and then you have this cash flow that's left over. You're taking what little cash flow you have, seed money, and you're putting it to an average rate of return that you won't see for 30, 40 years. That takes way too Dang long. And so in this community, we're shifting that, we're flipping the script. In addition, because of my faith background, a man of faith, man of God, I like to use case studies in, in the Bible as another layer of foundation to prove my point and actually like see this happen in amongst you all. Like, let's, let's document it. Let's, let's watch it happen in real time. So one of the case studies in the Bible that I'm going to use as a framework is Abraham. The call of Abram is the, the storyline, how this man gets introduced into the Bible. This, this man Abram, who's in his 70s, I believe, when he, when he first gets introduced, he's either in his mid-60s or mid-70s. Don't know the precise date. If, if you know, you're a scholar, you, you've studied this before, let me know in the comments. What was Abram's age when he was first introduced in Genesis in the Bible? How old was he? I believe he was either 65 to 75 years old, around that time. Now, at that age, Abram It says in Genesis 13, verse 2, chapter 13, verse 2, Abram was very rich. And depending on what translation you're reading from, it essentially basically says Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. And so this implies that if you're a Christian today living in America and you're broke and you go to a church that isn't teaching, that isn't— I don't want to use the word promoting. I don't want to use the word prosperity. These are trigger words for Christians. Unfortunately. But if you're going to a church that's not teaching you how to acquire wealth in large magnitudes and steward that wealth properly in God's kingdom here on earth in his church, I believe there's a disconnect. If you're a Christian today, if you're a believer, And you believe that you shouldn't be rich because you're Christian, I believe there's a disconnect in your faith. If you believe that it is righteous to be broke, to be poor, to, to use words like humble and content, with where you're at right now in your, in your financial circumstance or situation, again, I believe there's a disconnect in your relationship with God and your understanding of the Word of God. Your relationship with God, I believe, needs improvement, and your understanding of the Word of God needs improvement. And again, I will use this as the proof. It's God's own literature. It's God's own language saying that Abram was very rich. What does rich mean today? Please comment. What does rich mean in society today? It, it usually means rich in possessions. Usually means rich in possessions, meaning you have an abundance of possessions. That could mean an abundance of collectible cards, art, real estate, cars, luxury real estate, waterfront properties, um, an abundance of businesses that you manage and steward. An abundance of cash, wealth. In Abram's case, it says he was very rich in cattle. So this man was a farmer. He wasn't just a household farmer managing a couple of cattle. No, no, no. It says he was very rich in cattle. So this assumes this man had a ton of real estate, number one, to hold all this cattle. So he had a ton of real estate, ton of land under his stewardship and ownership. He had a ton of cattle that had to have been producing income for himself and his family, passive cash flow through that, through the animals that he was stewarding. And he was also very rich in silver and in gold. So money in Abram's time, money was silver and gold. In the 21st century today, money is not necessarily, um, silver and gold. It is still considered money, but not usable money in our society today. I can't go into any store today and just give someone an ounce of silver or gold and buy anything. We all know that. So money in the 21st century today is United States dollar, or whatever country you live in, that currency. So I'm using him as our case study. The theme: he was called out of the familiar. And what I'm doing in this series is calling you out of the familiar. Out of the traditional way of doing things, because the traditional way of doing things in the financial sense are literally breaking apart. They're not working. I'm literally working with families day in and day out for the last 8 years between the ages of late 40s to late 60s, and all of them are stressed. All of them are experiencing a level of stress, uncertainty, doubt, fear, you name it, as it pertains to their finances. Because they're like, Denzel, I'm 50 years old and I don't have this net worth that I need to live off of. And now I'm teaching them. I'm like, hey, it's not that you lack the net worth, you lack the cash flow that the net worth could produce for you. So what if we just focused on the cash flow instead of trying to get to $5 million, which is going to take 30, 40 years for the average American to do? And oh, by the way, you have to live a very restrictive life in order to get there. Why not just skip the net worth number and go straight to cash flow? How much money do you need to live today and in the future? And we can run these formulas all day long. What is your desire? How much money do you want to have each and every month above and beyond What it costs to live your specific lifestyle. What does that cost? And let's just solve for that according to the call of Abram, the call of Denzel, the call of— what is one of my clients? The call of Glenn. The call of Sandy, the call of Susan, the call of Mary, the call of John. These are all kinds I recently spoke to. That was just names that are coming off the top of my head. And what is that call? That call, that pull, is God speaking to you through dreams, visions, people, circumstances, opportunities, and miracles, and you name it, to discover Your purpose. Your purpose lives in your skills, gifts, and talents that you possess right now that are, that are currently not being fully activated to its fullest potential to produce the cash flow that you seek, the cash flow that you desire. So Foundation: Cash Flow Over Net Worth. This is part 2. Part 1, I went deep into this, right? The location right now, I'm in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, South Florida area. And I'm using this area as an example case study, showing you what's going on and how I take this entire framework and I can apply it anywhere. And that's literally what I'm doing now in individual households across the United States. Applying these frameworks into your life and getting faster, better, more efficient results. So location, Lauderdale Lakes communities. These are the helpful collaborative communities that are coming together to support me, support you to achieve some of the solutions that this is essentially solving for in your life. So we got Finance Geek Ministry. Obviously, if you are watching this channel, You are a finance geek. If you're subscribed to this channel, if you're a client, you're a finance geek. You have decided to commit hours upon hours upon hours upon hours of your time to listen to this guy go through whiteboard case studies that are not the most entertaining in the world. I think I can be a little bit funny. Yeah. But I would imagine there's other channels that are way more entertaining, way more funny, way more captivating, better looking than me that are talking money and different ways to make a bunch of money. Where I'm taking all of that stuff, all that surface level stuff that people do and breaking all the numbers down and all the frameworks because at the end of the day, this is what it boils down to. This is what it boils down to. And if you have the desire to dedicate that time to achieve these things that you want in life, you're in the right place. You always have been, whether you were praying for it, and here it is right now. And now we're just dedicating that time together. So Finance Geek Ministry, Born On Purpose Community provide this location for me. Increase Academy. You're Worth It Foundation, and I'll be adding more communities along the way as more and more people see this content, especially locally. So here's the local problem, but this is also a national problem. The problem local in Lauderdale Lakes is the average income amongst Black households, which is 80% of the demographic in Lauderdale. Of residents, residents who live in Lauderdale Lakes, roughly 80% are of Black demographic. And then you have Spanish, white, everything else. But the majority is Black. And based on my research, there's 37,000 residents in the city of Lauderdale Lakes. The average annual income, so again, amongst majority Black, but this also includes white, Spanish, you name it, are anywhere between $50,000 and $60,000 a year, W-2, whether it's husband and wife combined or single income households. That's the number. So that's the problem. Problem number 1. Denzel, why is that a problem? Why is it a problem? To be making $50,000 to $60,000 in America. Well, in America, 21st century, it's 2026. It is extremely hard to live a lifestyle to finance protection, provision over your average family of 3. 3, 4 people. Husband, wife, 2 kids. Husband, wife, 1 kid. Husband, wife, 2, 3 kids. It is not an easy task. Can it be done? Yes. But it creates a restrictive way of living. So, restrictive... Lifestyle. Versus intentional living. For the most part, for the most part, in my experience, most Americans that are making this amount of money between $50K and $60K per year are not exactly happy. They may be happy in other areas of their life, But this right here is— it creeps into those other happy areas of their life, like their happy marriage, like their happy relationship with their kids, like the happy relationship they have with maybe some of their coworkers, like the happy relationship they have with their faith, with their church, with a nonprofit they volunteer at. But the moment someone in the family gets sick, needs an expensive surgery that medical insurance doesn't cover, the moment someone gets in a car accident and car insurance doesn't cover all the expenses, the moment that your house needs certain repairs that are above and beyond your budget, what does that do? That fear, uncertainty, and doubt creeps into those happy areas of your life, and then you become somewhat miserable, somewhat agitated, like there's a block, there's a financial block. And so getting people to realize, hey, just because it's normal in society doesn't mean you have to live there. For the people who are live, 14+ people live, and, and those catching the recording, you don't have to Live there in that environment. You have a choice. And in fact, it's actually a lot simpler than you think to get this number up. A lot of different things that we can do. So in Lauderdale Lakes, it's $50,000 to $60,000 according to the national average in America. The national average income in America is actually $62,000 to $83,000 national average. So that's very wealthy people bringing that number up. That's really what it is, extremely wealthy people raising that number up. I would say in America, for the most part, in most states, except for your really expensive states like California, New York, Washington, D.C., Washington State, like, aside— and even Florida. Florida is becoming very expensive over the last couple years with, with the migration of, of New Yorkers and Californians, like, coming here by the, by the droves. But despite that, if you're making $62,000 to $83,000 a year W-2 salary your life, depending on how you track your money, how you live, you spend less than what you make, if you're not going— if you're not fully embracing American society lifestyle consumer living, if you're not about that, then you're probably living a better life in terms of better experiences, more opportunities, more money you're able to save and invest. I would say in the case of Lauderdale Lakes, if the average Black family in Lauderdale Lakes was making between $62,000 and $83,000 or more per year, their lives would dramatically improve. Like dramatically get better. Dramatically. So I set a target. My target for the vast majority of Lauderdale Lake residents is for them to increase their income by 37%, or about $19,500 per year. And that's roughly an increase of $1,625, and then say minus 25%, that's an increase of roughly $1,200, $1,300 take-home. in cash flow per year just by increasing their ability to make more money. The other problem we have here in Lauderdale Lakes, and this is also a generalization in America as well, is your average American right now in 2026 in America, in this society, the average American individual has an equity-rich, cash-poor problem. What does that mean? If you're a homeowner, type homeowner in the chat. If you're a homeowner, you more than likely, if you acquired a home pre-COVID, you probably have a ton of equity in your home. If you're someone that is, you know, you've just been paying the regular mortgage payment pre-COVID, so let's say you're someone who acquired Acquired a home pre-COVID and all you've done is just pay the mortgage payment. Maybe you made a few extra payments. It's now 2026 and your house has doubled in value. Your house has increased by 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 100% in valuation, and it's just dead equity. It's sitting there, it's doing nothing for you. It's just a number. You have an idea according to Zillow, but it's not doing you any favors. It's not really benefiting you. So right now in America, there's over $11 trillion of untapped equity in single-family resident homes. Single-family resident homes in America, $11 trillion. So your average American is equity rich. Another area that they're equity rich in is their retirement accounts, their 401s, their IRAs, their 403s, these locked-up restrictive accounts. They have a ton of money in them and they're maybe earning 6% to 8% or more, let's say, rate of return, but they're getting hammered at 20% to 30% average interest debt costs, 20+%— 10%, 15+% average interest costs on debt. And then on top of that, roughly 30% of their income is literally going to debt obligation payments, which is creating a restrictive lifestyle. It just is. So you're equity rich, cash poor. You have trapped equity in restrictive retirement accounts. The opportunity in this series of Get Rich Fast and Slow is educating us on the opportunity that exists in America. Today, what's available? What assets are available to you right now as an average American doing $50,000 to $60,000? Or maybe you're at the national average between $62,000 and $83,000. That, A, there's tons of opportunity in America to increase your income by 37%. That's my goal here in Lauderdale Lakes. And then I want to continue to hit other places. There's an opportunity to unlock equity. Which as a result, when you unlock the equity in your life, it can increase cash flow. Now, increasing income can happen one of two ways. Either A, your activity that you do for a living, you get paid more for it now. Whether that's you working more hours for the same job, Bonus, overtime, etc., etc. Or the other way is through tax planning, tax strategy, and reduction of obligation of expenses, aka debts. So whether this $19,500 comes from us paying off $3,000 worth of payments per month in your life with— via car loans, credit card loans, student loans, Okay, that's, that's, that's the equivalent of earning more than $3,000 per month in income, right? If someone has $3,000 of debt obligations, and let's say through unlocking equity in their life via home equity line of credit, Some sort of credit leverage, and we reduce their $3,000 a month obligation to a $1,000 a month obligation, there's $2,000 unlocked capital now, cash flow every month. So $2,000 times 12 is $24,000 a year. $24,000 a year unlocked cash flow back into their economy. So That's the equivalent of earning more than $24,000, because in order to net $24,000 increase in income per year, what needs to happen? You have to pay taxes. So you probably need to make like $30,000 to net what paying off debt would do in that same year. And then they both have value. I'm not know, doing a verse— this versus that. It's more of a this and that. So one of two ways, or both, is we increase your income by reducing debt obligations in your life, reducing certain expenses in your life that creates more cash flow. Also, taxes is an expense in your life. So if I can reduce your tax liability in your life, guess what? That's, that's more income to you. And/or we leverage your skills, gifts, and talents to increase your value in the marketplace, hence solving that, that average number. So that's again here in Lauderdale Lakes. As a result, you unlock capital, you increase cash flow, you save money on interest, you accelerate debt faster, and we begin to redefine retirement. We begin to redefine retirement. Retirement needs to be defined by every single one of you in, in this Livestream and catching the recording. In one sentence or two sentences, because there's a limit when you comment in the chat, and then if you're catching the recording, you can go, you can go put a whole paragraph. But those of you who are here live with me now, what is your definition of retirement? Don't go to Google and look it up. Don't answer it like a financial professional or advisor would answer for you. No, no. I want you to really think personally. What does retirement mean to you? What is that answer? I want to see some of your answers and I'll read them. All right. So now, in order to get to the solution, to the opportunities that exist, In part 1, we went over the steps. These 5 steps is a framework. It doesn't necessarily need to happen in order. I would say the majority of people I work with, it's happening in this order, and that's why I wrote it this way. So step 1 is know your numbers. I would say That is, is and has always been number one since the very first video I posted on YouTube 8 years ago, 2018. Knowing your numbers is a simple way of me telling you to start tracking your money. Many of you compare knowing your numbers or tracking to creating a budget. And that's a trigger word for a lot of you because budget equals more work. And that's a trigger. So I am not saying that. When it comes to knowing your numbers, I am not telling any of you to get a budget or to start a budget or to download this app or this software or this thing or that thing or this tool or that spreadsheet or this thing or that thing to create a budget that you are not going to uphold. I'm not saying that. I, Denzel Rodriguez, Have not had a budget. I actually, in fact, have never budgeted in my life. In my life. I'm 30 years old now. Thank God some of the earliest books I read were not anti-budget. They just weren't teaching financial stewardship that way. They just weren't doing it. So Robert Kiyosaki, your Grant Cardones of the world, these alternative financial gurus and professionals were operating with a different measurement altogether. And so thankfully, I didn't have to unlearn budgeting. I never actually learned budgeting, and I never actually did budgeting. What's the alternative? The alternative is intentional living. Sounds cliché, sounds woo-woo, and it is in a sense. Not gonna lie to you. When you pair intentional living with tracking— what is tracking? All tracking is doing is showing you where your money is going right now. So when I'm working with clients, working with you, I'm not— like, when we get on a call together, in no way, shape, or form am I saying you need to cut this, cut that, cut this, cut that, do this, do this, restrict, restrict, restrict, restrict, conserve, conserve, conserve. Because I, Denzel Rodriguez, I represent the kingdom of heaven here on earth, who is Who operates outside of space, time, and matter, who literally performs miracles on a regular. I serve a God that is the King of all kings. I serve a God that can do all things. Just from the faith that I have in him that he can do all these things, who operates outside of space, time, and matter, and has an abundance of resources in his kingdom that can literally be unlocked and delivered here on earth. In the physical realm. You can go from the spiritual realm to the physical realm and release blessings and abundance and opportunities. Because I think that way and believe that way, in no way, shape, or form do I need to have a budget. Rather, I track everything. I just track my money. I have tools that help track my money. And I do simple things like using a whiteboard because that's what works for me. Whiteboard works for me. And I use my little note on my phone, and I have listed every single personal expense in my life, every single business expense in my life, whether it be monthly, quarterly, semi, or annual. Doesn't matter whether it's a fixed expense, a variable expense, an unexpected expense, a buffer expense, a miscellaneous expense. I list and track everything. So I like to do that with my clients where I say, well, let's first see where you're at. Stop making an assumption that you need a budget in your life. Stop making that assumption. Stop making this assumption that you're spending too much money. Like, well, let's prove it first. Maybe you're right. And yeah, I would say for a lot of people that could be the case. Maybe you're right. For some folks, it has more to do with your relationship with the money and how the money is used in your lifestyle. So step 1, if I can simply track where every dollar goes first, and once we do that, we visualize it on the whiteboard or on a spreadsheet together. And we just looked through it all. And I began to ask intentional questions like, how does it make you feel when you take your wife and family to these restaurants? How do you feel when you're there? How do you feel afterwards? How do you feel before you go there? Are you dragging your feet? Are you doing something you really don't want to do, but because you haven't sat down and actually thought creatively— what's something creative that I can do with my family that's actually going to bring joy in my life and pleasure and, and fulfill my desires— but we as Americans, we're just, we're just following the leader? We're just following monkey see, monkey do when it comes to our finances. Oh, let's go to this restaurant. Let's go here. Let's do that. Let's do that. It's like, well, when's the last time you actually thought about what you want to do rather than just being triggered and a reaction, then you go and do it? These are intentional questions that I'm asking folks. I'm looking at the finances. I'm saying, the way this is set up right now, the way you spend money right now, Do you want to keep spending that amount of money? For many of you that I speak with, the answer is a resounding no. For the most part, very, very few clients are like, I have no issue with my living expenses, more so the debt category. I have no issue here. When they say that, we literally spend no time on living expenses. We go right to debt, Cash flow opportunities. If that's you, that's where we're at. That's what we're talking. For the rest, we're looking at this lifestyle that this person has, and I'm like, hey, do you want to live that lifestyle? Does that bring you joy, happiness, peace, fulfillment, excitement, surprise, Spontaneous, like all of it. Does it increase your faith? Does it? Is it make you stronger, healthier? If I'm if I'm getting no, no, no, no, no, I don't know, uh uh kind of thing. Ba da da bo do do. Like then we get to make a conscious decision to say, okay, how do we want to live our life? And we begin to make a new spreadsheet. We begin to make a new line item list of things we actually want to be spending money on and things we don't want to be spending money on. Does this make sense? Let me know if this is clear, this is landing for you. So intentional living combines tracking your money to see where it went, and then you reverse engineer and you ask yourself, Do I want to live this way? Do I want to eat out 5 times a week? Do I want to go to this entertainment thing that I do with the family or that I do by myself? Do I have a— in the faith world, we would call it a sin. Do we have a sin that we're financing? Is there some kind of thing that you do that you know isn't beneficial to your health, to your faith, to your mind, to your spirit, to your family, but you're doing it and it costs money? If, if these things that you, you send money to does not produce the things that you want in life, you just make a conscious decision to remove it. It has nothing to do with budgeting. Budgeting how much money we're gonna spend at the grocery store. It's like, instead of trying to budget how many— how much money you're gonna spend at the grocery store, what if we sat down and actually thought about what do we want to consume in our bodies this week? What if— what if we started going to certain grocery stores that were more advantageous to the amount of money that you have? What if we start analyzing other cultures to see, okay, these cultures are going to these smaller supermarkets, these smaller grocery stores, not the Publix and Whole Foods. They're going to these, you know, smaller restaurants where an avocado costs cents versus I go to Publix And an avocado, you know, 3 avocados cost me $5. But I go to this Mexican supermarket or this Spanish supermarket over here, I go to this, you know, one-off little grocery store over here, and it's 5 avocados for $3. So it flips instead of Instead of 3 for 5 at Publix, I can get 5 for 3 over here. Farmers markets. Like, I can go on and on and on all day long of so many ways that we can reclaim cash flow by not having a restrictive mindset, by just simply auditing where the money is going, deciding I no longer want to participate in those things. Have these subscriptions. I want to put my time and energy towards the Bible, towards my faith, towards building a business. Now I have no time for SportsCenter, ESPN. I have no time for HBO Max and, um, Hulu and Netflix and Disney Plus. I have no time for those things, so I'm, I'm putting it over here instead. And so you saved money, you increased your wisdom and knowledge, that increased your value in the marketplace. Uh-oh, already in step 1, I'm not even like going through the other steps yet. Step 1 alone puts so much money back into our pocket. If budgeting works for you, for the people who love to budget, keep going. I love you. Great, keep going. I have nothing against things that work. For me and for a large amount of people, and studies have been done already, you can Google this. Don't take my word for it, Google it and look up the success ratio of budgeting. It's horrendous. A lot of people do not succeed in their budget because it's, it's like designed to fail. It doesn't matter what you say. I want to spend $400 this week on groceries. Okay, great. And then something happens across the world that makes the price of beef go up and eggs and milk. And now you breached your $400 budget to $475 or $450. It had nothing to do with How much you consumed in that moment had nothing to do with, like, you didn't set the number right. It was an external thing that caused that money in your life to go up, right? It's like, oh, so now I'm creating a budget, and then when I fail the budget, it's, it's not that instant gratification or success. Now I'm down. Now I'm like, uh. And you try to do it again next month, and then you fail again next month. Rather, instead of trying to do something to get a result, what if we focused on the result first? For example, a budget, the result The result usually is what? More money left over. The whole reason why people budget is so that they have more money left over to save and/or invest for a future expense later on. To have more wealth, to build more cash flow. That's why we're budgeting. Well, instead of doing this whole thing of budgeting to then get to a result, to then have the money, what if you incorporate a principle that wealthy people do instead, which is you pay yourself first? What if you just paid yourself first every time you got a paycheck and you automate it? Automate. Say your paycheck is $2,000 biweekly. You get paid every other Friday. You collect $2,000, and before you spend a single dollar of that paycheck, you immediately sent automated— the bank does it for you because it sees the deposit and you automate $20 to a separate account, a savings account, let's say. What if you did that? Now I didn't have to budget to get the result of cash flow. I solved for the result first. I just simply paid myself first. So many people are like, oh, I can't do that. You never tried. You never even tried. Can you imagine if you attempted it what the result would be? You start with a number that's reasonable, attainable, achievable, To build confidence, even if it's a dollar, even if it's 50 cents, something that you pay yourself first before you pay everyone else. You're paying yourself first. That is a form of intentional living. I'm going to intentionally pay myself first every time I make money so that I have more money left over at the end of the month. So that means I created cash flow before I spent a dollar. Automation. That's step 1, right? So I'm gonna close it there. We can go on and on and on about that. But the more we begin to see that these traditional models of doing money, people are just failing horribly at it. Second is repair and build credit. We discussed this in the first, so I'm just recapping. When we begin to repair and build our credit, credit is a tool in the United States that should not be ignored, especially among Black and Spanish households. Let me take a drink of water so that my words are clear. So amongst Black households in Lauderdale Lakes, there's, there's no data that I could find. So I'm just going to share my personal experience working with Black households across America, regardless of that Black household's income. What I have found to be true. It may not be factual what I'm saying because I'm simply sharing a randomized study and review of the hundreds of families, specifically Black households that I've served, and I'm also going to throw in Spanish households. that I've served over the last 8 years. Doesn't matter the career, doesn't matter the income, doesn't matter the age. When I work with Black and Hispanic households, the average credit scores are in the low 600s. And that is trapping so much wealth is trapped for Black households in America today, Spanish households in America today, when you do not pay any attention to your credit. And so there's, there's a few things that need to be attacked there. First is education, wisdom, exposure. That's what this is. That's like level 1. Level 2 is action. Okay, how do we take action towards this? And then I would say level 3 is like a fortifying experience, a fortifying framework that leaders amongst Black and Spanish households would have. to take this forward and carry this flag forward is shifting the culture and views towards credit. Unfortunately, there are many financial professionals out there, very few that look like me, that have this skin tone or even darker than that, that are much of the lighter complexion. I'll throw Dave Ramsey out there. I'll throw his predecessor, maybe George— what is it, George Campbell? Is that his name? I forget. I forget his name. But we have been taught by other cultures, and then for whatever reason, for years and years and years, the leaders in our own culture— Spanish and Black households— are not teaching the values, the pros of having great credit. Dave Ramsey and all his constituents and partners believe that you should operate in America with no credit, zero credit, have a zero credit score. Don't get no credit cards, don't, don't go into no debt whatsoever. And as a Puerto Rican Colombian individual that came from a low-income household that never had any Knowledge and things like that. I've never seen anyone in my family have the knowledge and wisdom and/or culture to use credit in such a way that would accelerate wealth. When I observe other cultures, out there, the way they use credit is actually incredible. Banks, corporations, high-level entrepreneurs use credit, use debt to create more cash flow, to create more wealth in their life. And so my part of my problem-solving plan for Lauderdale Lakes, again, 80% Black demographic household, minority households here in Lauderdale Lakes, is to begin to expose the value of having good credit. Even if you don't use it, the fact that it's in your back pocket and you can pull it out anytime to use it to your advantage to avoid paying top dollar in, in interest is going To save you so much money. Let's use an example for number 2, repair and build credit. I'm gonna use— let's do something easy, easy and relevant today. We have prime interest rates went up recently. So prime is now at 7%. So interest rates just went up a couple days ago. They went up a quarter point. So prime is 7%. Let's look up what the Federal funds rate is today. What is the federal funds rate? So the Fed fund rate is currently. 3.75 to 4%. 3.75 to 4%. So this is what banks— banks lend— I'm sorry, banks borrow here. So banks Borrow here between 3.7 and 4%, and they lend here at prime. Prime means usually 720 or higher score. So we're gonna use In Lauderdale Lakes, we're going to take a black family. Take a black family, and let's use an Asian family. Okay, making same income. Same income, same age, gender same. Let's say I'm talking to 2 men. All right, let's say I'm talking to 2 fathers making same income, same age. Same gender, same career. Let's do that. Same career. Let's do same expenses, right? Same expenses. What else can— what else can I say that's the same? Like, like everything's the same. Everything's the same except for one thing, credit score. Let's say the Asian family has a 720+ credit score and the Black family has a 600 credit score to— 650. Say $650,000. Even though this person, they're the same age, same income, same career, same expenses, they live in the same neighborhood, Lauderdale Lakes, they, they literally have the same size square foot house. Let's say, uh, they have the same Amount of equity. This Asian family is going to get a HELOC, and this Black family is going to get a HELOC at the same bank. Same bank. Okay. Let's say Lauderdale Lakes, we use a bank Called Space Coast Credit Union. Let me just pull them up real quick. Let me just see what their rates are. Space Coast Credit Union. Watch this, it's gonna blow your mind. And this should fire you up if you're a Black household, Spanish household, minority household. This should fire you up. I'm All right, so, and let me share my screen so you can see what I see. So let's do that real quick. All right, so Space Coast Credit Union right now has an adjustable HELOC where you can get a 12-month intro as low as 4. 6.24% principal and interest option, and then as low as 6.25% afterwards. So that's prime minus 0.75%, right? No closing costs. Credit history, right, is how this is chosen. For adjustable rate, fair APR is based on the value of an index plus a margin. Highest prime rate currently published in Wall Street Journal money rates tables. So these are probably out of date. That probably needs to get, you know, updated a little bit. All right. So let me stop sharing my screen. So here's what'll happen. Here's what'll happen. Drop my marker. Watch this. Say they both apply for a HELOC at Space Coast, and they both apply For $75K, $75K. And let's say they both get approved. All right, but the Asian family, they get approved for the 4.24, 12 months. But unfortunately, Black family here, because they had a score anywhere between 600 and 650, they are deemed subprime. So they're not gonna get the best rate or the best deal. So they're gonna be subject to a margin. Margin. They're gonna be subject to a margin, and they'll tack on usually 2+ percentage points, maybe 1, 1.5, 2, 2 or more. And instead of getting an intro of 4.24% for 12 months, maybe they don't even give them the intro. That usually happens. That can happen. But I'll say, let's give them the intro, but they're gonna get an intro rate of 5.5%, 12 months. And then they're gonna be at prime plus 1%. So they'll be at an 8% HELOC. Okay. Variable, right? They'll be at an 8% variable versus Asian family over here. They got to enjoy the lowest intro offer, 4.24% for 12 months, and then they're getting a prime minus 0.5%. So if prime is at 7%, they're gonna be at 6.5%. Meanwhile, the Black family's at 8%. A 1.5% difference can result in thousands of dollars of lost money that they could have received, right? And that's just, that's just for home equity line of credits. It gets way worse when you look at mortgage approvals, right? Same family, the Asian family today, Would get a mortgage at below 6%, 6.5%. Black family, 7.5%. Do you know the impact of a 1% difference on a mortgage? Let's take a look. Let's do this together. This should fire you up. So we're gonna do an amortization calculator, and we're gonna look at the impact. All right, coming back to my notes here, the average home value in Lauderdale Lakes is between $200,000 and $600,000. So we'll go in roughly the middle. Let's do a $400,000 house. Say someone gets approved for a $400,000 house. The Asian family got approved at 6.25% today. So their principal and interest payment would be $2,462.87. All right, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna rewrite some numbers here on the board. So let's say the Asian family, $400K, 6.25%, their payment is $246,287. Let's do the same mortgage, but give it to the Black household and add a percentage point, 7.25%. They're at $27,280. $27,280. 7-1. Let's come back. Let me know if this is firing you up in the comments, especially if you are of a Black demographic household or Spanish. This happens in the Spanish households as well. Daily, I see this daily, daily, because I work with hundreds of families across the country, all walks of life. I don't get upset. I get— for me, I just, I get more motivated to want to speak about this, to want to educate, because I'm like, oh my goodness, there's, there's these people here living a certain way, operating a certain way as it pertains to their credit, and they're getting a better deal even though everything is the same. They're even the same height as me, the same damn weight, the same eye color, the same hair color, maybe even the same skin tone. But the only thing that's different is that dang credit score. That's why I'm very passionate about this stuff, because I'm like, it has nothing to do with me. Has nothing to do— yes, to your career and income. Yes, that plays a part. But in terms of age and income and status and da da da, like all that for the most part goes out the door. It's more about that person's credit score, and in a way it's like equalizing the playing field. It equalizes the playing field when you have a good credit score. More opportunities come your way. So we do the math: two thousand. $7,287.1 minus $2,462.87, that is a difference of $265.84 times 360 payments. That's a ninety-five thousand seven hundred and two forty-cent difference over the period of thirty years. So let's go even deeper so that this really. Hits the heart and motivates you to want to do something about it. So watch this. Let's go to a compound interest calculator. And now that we know— Okay, the Asian family got a point difference, so they're saving $265.84 compared to the Black family. So I'm just gonna round down, call it $265 over 30 years. Okay, $265 over 30 years. And let's say the Asian family, because their mortgage is now $265 less than the Black family's mortgage, let's say that Asian family stuck it in a low-risk investment and earned 4%. 4%. So that Asian family, over, over the same 30-year period, Black family would have the house paid off. They paid an extra $95,000 for the same house, same everything, same neighborhood than the Asian family. Asian family also paid off the house in the same 30 years, but they also have an extra $184,000 $801.17 of wealth difference. $184,000, $801.17 at 4%. What if they earned 5%? That's $221,000. Shall I go further? That's 221,732 at 5%. What if it was 6? Oh my God, that's 267,792 at 6%. What if it was 7? What if it was 8? What if it was 9? Do you see how the number gets crazier and crazier? And that is the impact in America amongst Black households and Spanish households that refuse to look at their credit score, that, that don't take the time to improve their credit. And here's the wonderful thing about credit today, is it can literally be improved in a short period of time compared to the years of mistakes that occur on someone's credit report. That in a relatively short period of time compared to the amount of years that that family has been in the low 600s, say they've been in the— say they've had an average credit score for the last 10 years of between 600 to 650. And then over the next 6 to 12 months, they invest in credit repair. If you work with me, it'll cost you about $120 monthly for credit repair working with me. Just reach out. And 12 months, okay? 12 months, they invested $120, 12 months, that's $1,440 investment to get to a 720 or higher credit score to be considered prime amongst all banks. Hmm. To then get that 1% Savings on a mortgage, let's say 1% savings on a mortgage. That $1,450 made them $95,702.40 without doing anything because they're now saving that $265 that the Asian family has, right? Because they came in with good credit. So you get to experience the same thing that the Asian family has In this example, $265,000. And that $265,000 in savings, say you invested it and only earned 4%. So that $1,440 investment over a 12-month period, let's just say, to get the credit from 6 to 720 or higher, will make you $184,000 to $267,000 over a 30-year period. Would you take that deal? Let me know in the comments. This is the power of credit. But your boy Dave Ramsey and, and others are like, credit's horrible. And in a way, they're right. Why? Well, because this Black family is experiencing the negative effect of bad credit. That's what they're experiencing. But what if we flipped it? What if we just solved for the result that we all want in life? That's why I'm like, let's cut all the hard work in personal finance and just go straight to the result. What is the result of financial freedom? What is the result of financial independence? What is the result of anything financially related that we're after? For the most part, it's more money left over, more cash flow, more wealth. Well, let's just attack that and not assume anything in the process. Attack that, don't assume anything in the process. Track our money, live intentionally. When you live intentionally, it's not hard to spend less than what you make. I'm going to add another element. I did this in part 1. I'm going to add immigrant culture. And I'm going to be loud on this. This is important, especially for Americans who are born in America, grew up in America your whole life. You've been fed the consumer lifestyle, and that's not advantageous for the vast majority of average Americans making $50,000 to $60,000. It's not in your favor to live like Americans do. You want to live like an immigrant. Adopt immigrant culture. Immigrant culture— and this doesn't matter what the race is. This is, this is the fascinating part. So it could be a white immigrant, it could be a Black immigrant, it could be a Spanish immigrant, it could be an Asian Asian immigrant, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. All of them have a culture of spending less than what they make, period. That's culture number one when it comes to personal finance amongst immigrant culture: spend less than what you make, like, no matter what. The second layer is everybody contributes. Everybody contributes to the household. The third layer is we all live together. So instead of what you'll typically see in an immigrant household is anywhere from 2 to 3 generations living in the same household. So it's either mom and dad, Sons and daughters, grandma, grandpa, all under one household. What you'll also see in immigrant households is mom, dad, son, daughters, son and daughter's kids, all one household. All all working, all contributing. And then what they do, they either take the equity in that one home that they accelerated, they pay off debt, right? So immigrant culture— where do I want to put this? Let's just write it out. Why don't we— let's not play with ourselves here. Watch how cool this is. This is something that Like, I tried to adopt. It did not work in, in my household for a number of reasons, but there are things that I did adopt from immigrant culture that literally will make me extremely wealthy in my 40s and 50s. Right. So immigrant culture Spend less than what you make. Period. No questions asked. They just don't do it. If they don't have the cash in their checking account, they don't—they don't use it. They don't spend it. They don't borrow the money to go get it. They just don't. All right, so spend less than what you make. That's one layer. Second layer, you've got everyone contributes. No debt. Or very little. They only use debt for assets. Immigrants only use debt for assets. So they'll get debt to buy a house. They'll get debt to start a business. They'll get debt to go to college, to further their education, to master their skills, gifts, and talents. And not all the time, but will acquire some debt to finance cars. But for the most part, immigrants will drive vehicles that are 10 years old, 15 years old, 20 years old, 25 years old, they'll drive a 2005, you know, whatever brand. They'll drive a 2010, they'll drive a 2003, they'll drive a 2016, they'll drive a, you know, 2015. It does not matter to them. They just need to get— they just need to get to point A to point B. They don't care. Point A, point B, that's all they care about, right? So they only use debt for assets. No debt or very little, meaning they don't carry consumer debts. They don't— immigrants don't finance couches with Ashley Furniture. Immigrants don't do that. Immigrants don't do any kind of work around the house. Through financing, for the most part. For the most part, they just don't. Either they have the cash to do it themselves, or they'll hire within the ecosystem. So they'll find someone who knows how to do work at half the price we Americans would go to a commercial retailer. To do windows and doors, right? Or roof work or yard work, whatever it is. No, no, no. Immigrants will use their own people. They charge hundreds, thousands of dollars less and more often do better work, or they get the work done so fast. Compared to the competitors that charge more and take more time. So everyone contributes into the household, no debt or very little. They only use debt for assets. This is what I've observed working with immigrants of all walks of life, specifically immigrants that lived in another country, came here, now live in America for the last 10, 20 years, but they're in their 40s, 50s now. But they lived in another country growing up from 0 to at least adulthood and then came to America. Or their parents lived in another country their whole life, 40, 50 years old, had a baby, boom, second generation, moved that baby to America, but that baby grew up under immigrant culture, not American culture. They grew up under immigrant culture. So it hasn't left them yet. Maybe when that has— when that child has a child, usually it leaves by the third generation. Hopefully not. But American culture is very, very tempting. It's very attractive, right? Spend, spend, spend, spend, spend. Finance everything, right? Not, not cute. So because immigrants don't have a whole lot of debt, or very little, and they only use debt for assets, Once the asset is paid off, right? So everyone contributes slash live together. Okay, I tried to do that part in my household and that didn't work. That was a failed attempt. But I do adopt spend less than what you make. I adopt the, you know, debt for assets. I adopt that. I'm a little more American on no debt or very little. I use debt to basically pay for everything because I can steward my money. So I use my credit cards on the business and personal to finance all expenses, and I get cashback rewards, etc., and I have good credit. So with immigrant household, they only use debt for assets, then They take the asset to borrow and buy another asset. So immigrant families eventually, when they come to America, they eventually learn about the credit. It's they learn about it a little bit late, but they learn about the credit. And so hence, you got your Asian family here. They learned about the credit. They may not be using it to the fullest extent, but they know the value of having a great credit score, and that's what gets them access to more capital. And the cycle goes on and on and on. And like these immigrant cultures, like they're not chasing ROI. So so. That's another big thing. Immigrants, typically they don't chase ROI since they have such a hard work ethic. They usually, they usually start businesses. So once they get their living situated right and all their families have moved to America and they got their citizenship and they're You know, rocking and rolling, everyone's going to school and doing their thing. Once they get their household in order and they obtain assets and they build credit, they typically start a business next. They don't know much about retirement accounts and investment strategies and velocity banking and infinite banking. That's not necessarily being taught in their cultures, but it almost Doesn't matter because they acquire businesses that provide services. So that means without even trying, they're creating cash flow in their economy. And when it comes to their lifestyle expenses, they spend money in their economy and they just— it just keeps flowing and flowing and flowing. And it's like not— they're able to live below the average American because of where they spend and how they spend. They don't go to the big box retailers and stores, and they're going to the little, little bodegas and supermercados and, and this and small Mediterranean, you know, supermarkets and like small little spots here and there. Maybe they go to some big box stores here and there because they're assimilating to American culture, but for the most part, they're not chasing ROI. They're building businesses that creates cash flow And then where I come in and I'm able to serve them at a great length is I do teach them about cash flow vehicles that can produce more cash flow and tax savings and the velocity banking and then infinite banking and credit leveraging, points, travel hacking, etc., etc. So this adoption into intentional living, tracking your numbers, repair and build credit to avoid losing hundreds of thousands of dollars just from getting better approvals, better rates, better terms with the banks. Third is now that you have— now that you're building up your credit, repairing your credit, build a relationship with credit unions. I'll use the same example, but without pinning a culture against a culture, right? Without pinning an Asian family against a Black family. So I won't do that this time. What I'm going to do is show the value of banking. So the value of banking. This is crazy. And this is another thing that I see many families dropping the ball on— the value of banking with credit unions. Okay? Same example. The Space Coast Credit Union had the intro rate of the 4.24%. I'm gonna pick a big bank, TD Bank. Let's look them up real quick. Watch this. TD Bank is a nationwide bank that they do offer HELOCs, if I'm not mistaken. Oh yeah, home equity. I just missed it. So TD Bank has a 6.69% HELOC, variable as low as prime minus 0.31%, and that's for prime borrower. A prime borrower would get a 6.69%. No intro rate, so they miss out on the 4.24% versus starting out with TD Bank at 6.69%. TD Bank, Nationwide Bank. Space Coast is a local credit union in South Florida. So you see, see my point? That could save you thousands of dollars when you bank with a credit union instead of a big bank. I'm not saying don't bank with a big bank. They have their value, they have their pros. I'm saying build a relationship with a credit union in your state, in your area. I have a playlist on my YouTube channel How to find the right HELOC in each and every state. Each and every state. And I am almost done. I've got probably like 8 or 10 states left to go. All right, let me see what some of you guys are saying. Retirement is to live freely and intentionally debt-free. I love that. So this is part of that, that one Step, know your numbers, track intentional living, redefine retirement. Love it. Living freely with no debt, with a cash flow to maintain any obstacles. Absolutely love that. The ability to have enough in reserve/investments to sustain your, sustain your life comfortably and be able to handle any emergency situation. Like, we need to live our definitions. of money out rather than letting society tell us what to do with our money all the time. So I'm saving you thousands of dollars over here, tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars over here, just with repairing and building your credit. You make an investment with me, roughly $120 a month, and To start repairing and building your credit, we're gonna be off to the races. Building a relationship with credit unions can save you thousands of dollars because we're just talking interest rates. That's like somewhat of a difference. It could be like 1 to 2, 3 points if we're just talking HELOCs, right? I mean, this applies to car loans and credit cards and you name it. Velocity Banking, Infinite Banking is now the application of putting all this together. Once we have a debt tool, once we have a line of credit, something that we can use, we're now going to attack the immediate obstacles in your life, that's usually debt, to reclaim that cash flow as quickly as possible. Infinite Banking is building an asset while paying off debt, that has no risk attached to it. Whole life insurance, guaranteed returns, guaran— um, non-guaranteed dividend rates that have paid every single year, mutual ownership with a massive company for protection, death benefit protection, living benefit protections, liquidity, and tax-deferred growth, tax-free use of the money, and full liquidity. That's powerful. Now it ends up in investing in yourself. So in part 3, we'll do a deep dive on the 4th, kind of how those things come together. I have many case studies and I'll just keep rolling them out. I'm just going to keep rolling them out because I got more and more now that I've been in the business now for 8 years. So I got more and more really, really good successful case studies that I'm just documenting. The 5th part here that creates this momentum shift in terms of solving the problem and then accessing opportunities for Lauderdale Lakes is when we can begin to have conversations on like the skills, gifts, and talents that you possess. Coming back to Abraham, what skills, what gifts, what talents Did Abraham possess? If we were to draw some conclusions that don't necessarily— the Bible doesn't necessarily expand on because it wasn't— from my understanding, the Bible is consistently in all the stories pointing back to Jesus, right? Old Testament, New Testament, everything. The theme Is the, the lineage of Jesus Christ, what he did for us, why he died, why he would die, all the prophecies, what comes after, and the endgame. Okay, so I think it's okay to an extent for us to draw some Inferences. So I'm not going to say this is fact, this is truth, but I'm drawing an inference. I'm drawing a conclusion, an understanding. This is my hypothesis. This is my observation. This is my conclusion, that the call of Abram to become Abraham, if we were to ask, What were Abraham's skills, gifts, and talents? He must have been an entrepreneur at best. Right? An entrepreneur, biz owner. He was in the farming industry. Maybe the mining. Maybe he mined gold and silver. It said he was very rich in, in silver and in gold. Was it because he traded cattle for silver and gold and then held that? Don't know. Um, but we can say that he was definitely a farmer, maybe in mining. I believe Abraham had some military experience, and he had he had a small military. Like this this guy had many servants. Says that in the Bible when when his nephew Was it Lot? I believe Lot was his nephew. He got kidnapped at one point, and Abraham, because he was very rich in silver and in gold and in cattle, I believe he cashed in some of that and was able to put together an army, a small army, a militia, call it. To go fight other nations to get Lot back, and he won. He won. So he must have had some military experience. He had many servants. This man was a mid to large-sized business owner in farming, mining, um, trade, trading, you could say. Trading. I mean, these were all the, all the skills. Uh, um, real estate, right? You can't have farm without real estate. So he probably knew how to negotiate land purchases at that time. I mean, we can go on and on, go on and on. So we look at Abraham in that time And now fast forward to today, 21st century. We've got more tools and resources than ever before, more than Abraham would have ever had in that time. We have more resources than Abraham has today to become extremely wealthy, hands down. So when we begin to have conversations about, hey, what skills do you possess? What gifts? What talents do you have that you're just not using? And then we say, okay, based on those skills, gifts, and talents, who else possesses those, and can we do some joint work? If Abraham was living today— I said that in part 1— if Abraham was living today, I would be seeking to do joint work with Abraham, because why do I need to try to become an investor in farming when he's already the expert and I can just team up with him? And then I could make content for Abraham because I'm good at creating content. I'm good at educating. I'm good at teaching. So if I can learn what he knows and put it on a whiteboard, explain it, and then give people a pathway to go do it themselves, and then he's the servicer, he's the deliverer of the product, and we split commissions, and that's joint work. So that's the power of joint work, which is a result of kingdom building. If you can teach, create, or mentor, you create a cycle. So when you're redefining retirement, like some of you have done in the chat, you redefined retirement. Now redefine the lifestyle in retirement. What, what is— what are we doing in retirement? What are we doing in retirement? I believe in retirement you can be performing a level of teaching, creating, and mentorship, which also as a result produces more cash flow. Anyone who's retired can position themselves as some sort of coach, consultant, Strategist, mentor, charge something, reclassify your W-2 income into biz income, lower taxes. We hit that number in Lauderdale Lakes. All right. So that'll be a future session where I go into step 5, but this was a nice overview of the steps yet again. And for the most part, wherever you're at, you start with one. And if you want to jump based on your income and based on your position, we can do that. But I would say the vast majority of people in this community, in Finance Geek community, everyone that I'm serving You're at 1, 2, and 3. You're at 1, 2, and 3. Many of my clients that I've been working with for years are now at 4 and 5. So they're doing velocity banking, they're accelerating their debt, they're managing, they're spending less than what they make, they're living intentionally, they've got their credit scores up, they've built a relationship with a bank, they have a HELOC, they unlocked equity in their property. Their funding policy or policies on all the family members, and they're rocking and rolling. And then we're just now approaching towards endgame, but we already had the end in mind, which was cash flow over net worth. They're no longer concerned about getting to a number. They're focused on cash flow. How do I get More cash flow on the top line. Keep building tax-free wealth. Keep reclassifying income in America because that's just the society that we live in today. The society that we live in today benefits business owners. It does not benefit W-2 laborers, workers. It does not benefit you. There's not enough tax incentives to stay in W-2 positions. So therefore, in retirement, you want to convert to a business. Convert to a business so you can unlock all that wealth. I don't see any questions. Appreciate your time as always. We'll go ahead and end here. And like I said, once a month we're doing this. I'm in person putting on this entire workshop. And you can— if you live in South Florida, you can come hang out with me. For like, you know, an hour or 2, and we can strategize together. But I'll keep going live just like this, and you can see the recording of this. It's stored in the show Get Rich Fast and Slow series with this. For coaching one-on-one, go to my website or reach out to me directly. Email me. Let's jump on a call. If you're a client and it's been a while, hop on a call with me. You have my calendar link. If you misplaced it, reach out to me directly, denzel@buildertocontributor.com. You should have my email. If you don't, you'll see it on my website. You can contact me on my website as well. You fill out my contact form. And that's a way of starting our relationship, getting things going. All the links are in the description of every single one of my videos. And I look forward to working with you one-on-one. In the meantime, keep watching these case study breakdowns, these videos, because this is what's prepping you before we get on a call together. You'll already have some of these things rocking and rolling. So that just saves a bunch of time. And then we're strategizing on next moves, pivots, tweaks to continuously improve what it is that you're doing and working on. All right, thank you so much. God bless you all. And till next time— actually, I'll be live tomorrow as well. All right, so I'll see you— see some of you tomorrow. God bless. Have a good one.