Get Rich Fast & Slow Series Part 1

Is it you or like Y-O-U-R-E? Oh yeah, it's Y-O-U apostrophe R-E. Could have did that before I hit the live button. You're worth it, appreciate that. So we are officially live on YouTube. Welcome everyone, my name is Denzel Rodriguez, your personal finance geek of the 21st century. And today's a special day because I am in Fort Lauderdale area at the Born On Purpose community venue, which is just an awesome spot so far. Really loving the spot. And this has all been made possible because of Josefa, who is the founder and owner of the Born On Purpose Foundation and community. It's a ministry, helps folks discover their purpose. There's— it's faith-based nonprofit, helps people discover their purpose. And then they have a signature program called the ROPES program, which stands for Retired On Purpose Extended Service. So it finds people who are retired, they've been in the workforce maybe 30, 40 years, similar to Josefa. She was a a Broward Sheriff's officer for over 30 years, I believe. She's retired and stepped into the next calling that she was guided by God on, and it's become this place here. And then after attending a couple of her events, I said, hey, are you doing anything financially related, any kind of financial workshops? She's got the ROPES training. She has a youth program, and then there's like tons of other nonprofit communities that are coming together here to, you know, help people get to the next level, which is pretty awesome to see. And I said, well, I got Finance Geek Ministry, I got Finance Geek Community here, the YouTube channel, some people that know me in person. What if I held some financial workshops for free? People could come in the Lauderdale area. And learn some things, get their finances in order. And that's what we're doing. So we got 9 people live currently. So if you're in the house tuning in live, please comment where you're tuning in from. What state? Where are you tuning in from? Let me know in the comments, please. If you're a client, let me know. Lifetime client, been following for X amount of years. Share some of those details. I want to hear your testimony, all that. This is literally a big step for me in the business and what I'm going to be doing locally. And I thought it'd be great to start off a series that may come off as controversial, a little spicy, which is how to get rich fast and slow. It's going to be a series that we're going to do on a monthly basis. We're going to come together, via livestream and in person and provide as much education, actionable knowledge, actionable intel around your finances on how we can become rich and slow at the same time to ultimately achieve financial freedom and independence. Okay, I got communities here listed on the board. It's the Finance Geek Ministry, which is what I've been building the last 8 years, the Born on Purpose community, which blessed me with the venue. Literally didn't have to pay a dime. So shout out to Josefa for that. I probably shouldn't have said that on live. Um, that was a gift. So the Increase Academy is hosted by Travis Peters. So shout out to anyone from the Increase Academy. Appreciate you following my journey as well. And You're Worth It Foundation, which is another local nonprofit That I spoke at Sharon's very first event that she hosted herself. She's been a part of many other events. She's in the finance space as well. And so it is just an absolute pleasure to be working with all the people here. So we got Hollywood, Florida in the house. I'm like, uh, Marie, you could have, you could have stopped by. It's like a— I'm not gonna lie, it's probably like a 40-minute drive with traffic to Lauderdale from Hollywood. Probably gotta go. Yeah, yeah, that north and then west. Brooklyn, New York is in the house. Shout out to you. And again, as you're tuning in, as you're coming in, let me know where you're tuning in from. If you're a client, have you been blessed by this channel so far? Yes or no? And if it's a no, let me know how I can fix that. Okay, I got over 1,200 videos at this point, bunch of content. That can literally help you get to the next level. With that being said, here's how I'm going to start this series on Getting Rich Fast and Slow. It's dedicated to the city of Fort Lauderdale. That's what it's dedicated to, and you're going to see how I break this down. So no matter where you're tuning in from, this framework that I'm building is going to be relevant wherever you live in the United States. You're going to see how I how I address things, what numbers, what metrics I'm looking at. And honestly, just because of the demographic of Lauderdale and the demographic of my clientele over the last 8 years, I have a majority of Black and Hispanic households over the last 8 years that have worked with me, all across the country. In Fort Lauderdale specifically, I'm gonna share my screen and begin to share with you some details that I have been searching thoroughly and just kind of going through. And this will begin our series now. All right, so this will give you the framework of what I'm looking at here in the city of of Fort Lauderdale, there is roughly, as of 2025, these are numbers I pull from Google AI and census.gov. So those are my resources. There's roughly 37,000 residents in the state of Fort Lauderdale, in the city of Fort Lauderdale. And of that, we have about 5,000 to 6,000 Black Household homeowners. Homeowners. There is an 80% Black demographic in the city of Fort Lauderdale— of Lauderdale Lakes, sorry, not Fort Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes. So we have an 80% Black population in Lauderdale, but only 5,000 to 6,000 Black homeowners. Interesting stat right there. Now, in the city of Lauderdale, the median home values are between $200,000 and $600,000, and the average annual income is anywhere from $50,000 to $60,000. In the city. And there were some more numbers I was just grabbing here. These are national averages now among Black households. So the average Black American household, a single individual, whether it's male or female, but identifies Black, is making anywhere between $53,000 and $56,000 a year. And from my viewers, and I already know this, I have a very, very heavy demographic of Black and Hispanic for people that watch my YouTube channel. So I would greatly appreciate your vulnerability if you're tuning in live or catching the recording. If you come from a Black household, let me know. Give me an average of what your salary W-2 income is. In 2025 or projected in 2026? What is that number? All right, so if Black people in Lauderdale are only making about $50,000, $60,000 or less, and the median home values are between $200,000 and $600,000, yeah, that makes sense why there's only about 5,000 to 6,000 Black homeowners. Makes perfect sense. The national average— this is taking in all the races throughout the United States— the average income salary, W-2, is between $62,000 and $83,000. So now I have a goal for the city of Lauderdale focusing on those Black households. And like I said, this framework, I can go anywhere and apply this. To whomever I'm looking to serve. As you all know, in Finance Geek Ministry and just on the YouTube channel, my whole mission is serving mothers, single moms, divorced moms, widows, moms in general. Well, the average woman, average single mom in the United States makes even less than $50,000. They're in the $30,000 to $40,000 range per year, annual income in the United States. These are just national averages amongst single moms. That could be a single divorced recently mom, that could be a single mom never married, that could be a single mom widowed, right? Or a married woman that's going to become divorced, become single. They're either already making Below national average, or when they become widowed or they become single from a divorce, from a breakup, you name it, whatever life circumstance, their income typically goes down because of that unexpected life, life event. And so for the last 8 years, I've been helping women of that income level and higher to literally improve their income and cash flow, get out of debt, improve credit, save more money, invest more money. and live a more intentional lifestyle, which is— it's been amazing to actually witness. And just giving a shout out to everyone, we got 17 people in the house now. We got— we got Fort Lauderdale is in the house. Cool. Running late, can I still come by? Absolutely. The door, by the way, is G113, and it's the first room on the left when you walk in. So definitely come on in. Appreciate having you here. And what is ND? North Dakota? Is that North Dakota? ND? Yeah, so North Dakota's in the house. Appreciate you being here. So let me, let me continue on with my stats here. Come back to my screen, giving you the, the context of what I am dealing with in the city of Lauderdale and, and my focus moving forward. Again, in partnership with Born on Purpose, You're Worth It Foundation, Finance Geek Community. And the Increase Academy. My target for Black households moving forward based on this data— this is my goal. It has to become your goal, obviously, for the person that's in this situation, whether you're Black, Hispanic, white, doesn't matter. I'm just using Black households as an example simply because of the demographic. Like, literally 80% of Lauderdale is Black residents. People who live full-time in Lauderdale predominantly is Black, and they're only making about $50K to $60K a year. National average, $62K to $83K. My target for that income range, anyone who's living in Lauderdale making $53,000 to $56,000 a year, I want you to increase your income by 37%. I want to get to right smack in the middle of the national average. This would be a game changer for any household that's making $50,000 to $55,000 a year. If I can help you increase your income in the next 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, say 5 years tops, next 3 to 5 years, increase by 37%. This is going to be my framework on how we become rich fast, and then I'll get into how we get rich slow. So now I've given you the target audience Who I'm talking to, where they're located, how much they make now, what's their current situation, and then the target. If I can get them to making $72,500 or more per year, per household, per person, all right, let's say, or even if it's just husband and wife and it's just the husband doing it, that still works. Or if it's husband and wife together making $72,500 or more. Is ultimately the goal. Because if I can get to national average numbers or higher, here's the fun part. You already know how to live off $50,000 to $60,000 a year. So if I dump in an extra 37%, yes, it's going to put you in a higher tax bracket, but we're talking 3, 4, 5x the amount of— discretionary income left over for you to do what? I don't know, potentially acquire a property in Lauderdale, potentially be qualified. And don't, don't get this mixed up. There's, there's a lot of talk with my older generation. So the, the oldest, the oldest millennials today are in their 40s. And then you have the Gen Xers, the young Gen Xers that might be, might be like early 50s. If you're listening to any one of that demographic right now, someone in their 40s and 50s, or someone like me in their young 30s or late 20s that are doing well financially, They're very successful on YouTube, and they're saying that buying a house is a terrible investment. That is a half-truth. It's a half-truth because if I were to interview— and I have— if I was to speak with highly successful entrepreneurs— and I have— when I asked them, do you have a house? They say yes. And I begin to look at all of their other assets that they have and created for themselves, and I'm like, okay, there's something going on here. There's something about having real estate in your portfolio that is able to help you accelerate wealth. And that is a version of Getting Rich Fast and Slow. I believe that the average American, when we get our finances in order, when we have proper stewardship and we maximize efficiency, I would say the next reliable, arguably guaranteed, fixed safe asset for a family to acquire would be a home. Now, here's where I'm going to educate and continue to on how to acquire that next property that would be extremely efficient for your family. And we're going to get into that. So before I do, I'm going to wrap up with some more data, just kind of closing out Everything that I'm sharing with you so far about the demographics, the households, who I'm going after, and then the case study here that I'm going to preface. So as most of you know, I am a man of God. I'm a man of faith. I'm a kingdom citizen. I represent the kingdom of heaven here on earth. And so I have a framework. That I believe, and I'm always open to constructive criticism and feedback, so very much open to it, is this concept of becoming rich fast and slow. I'm going to use Abraham as my case study. And I'm gonna use him as a framework on how I educate people in the city of Lauderdale, Lauderdale Lakes, which is that the theme is the call of Abram before he was Abraham. The Bible uses the word rich a little over 80 times, and depending on what version you're reading from, rich may be Be intertwined with wealthy. So it either is using the word wealthy or it's using the word rich. The very first time we see the word rich used in the Bible is actually in Genesis. It's early, the first book. Quite amazing. Genesis 13, verse 2. So chapter 13, Verse 2, it just simply says Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. It says he was very rich, and I would love to get some comments. 21 people in the house now. Let me know what you think very rich means. Today in 2026. And you can also give me an idea of what you think very rich means, uh, what is this, couple thousand BC, before Christ, couple hundred. I don't, I don't know how far back, um, but this is very, very early, early days of the Earth, right? What was it to be very rich in that time, and what is it for you to be very rich today? I see 3 assets identified that Abram was very rich in: cattle, in silver, and in gold. Now, as I— if we were to continue to read this, I don't think anyone's going to come to the conclusion if you're living in 2026, that you should go and buy cattle, silver, and gold. I don't think that's what the Bible is saying. Okay? I really don't. But again, I'm open to criticism. I'm open to being wrong because I like to discover things. I like to figure things out. What is this saying in the Bible? How does it apply to Denzel in 2026? When I'm reading the Bible, I'm asking God, Help me understand. Give me the wisdom to understand what is being said here in the Bible. Give me the wisdom to then apply that in 2026. So I read Abraham. God said he was very rich. So therefore, I don't think any Christian— if you go to a church and the pastor is demonizing people who are rich, The question is, is that rich person Christian, or is that rich person not a Christian and an evil person? Because there's 2 different things. Would you agree? Let me know. A rich evil person, I would— obviously we criticize. We say, this is why this is X, Y, and Z, and we all make our opinions. But when God classifies Abram— now we know him as Abraham— as someone who was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold, then we need to figure out why is God using rich in the first place. And if we do a little back study, and you may come to the same conclusion as I would— is that being rich in Jewish culture actually meant righteousness, blessings from God. So to be rich and in righteousness is a blessing from God, which would imply God wants Denzel. And let me know if you are a believer in the comments. So I'm gonna take a swing and assume my friend Maria is a Christian, and I'm willing to bet that God wants Denzel. My brother Josh in the house, my friend Sharon, Josefa from Born on Purpose, Travis Peters with Increase Academy. To be rich. And in 2026, there's ways that we can become rich fast, hitting certain targets while stewarding the wealth efficiently, and then getting rich slow in ways that we begin to take the wealth that we build fast and put it into slower assets, secure assets that build wealth long term. Okay, so that's what I am most excited about. Let me see what you guys are saying. Rich, Alex says, as he didn't stress at all. He could take care of any problem that arose and not even sweat it. Rich to be able to protect and provide for himself and his family. Nothing wrong with being rich as long as in our pursuit For money, we don't lose ourselves. We forget what truly matters: family, friends, health, God, etc., etc. Totally agree with that, Alex. So as Christians and my clients watching this, catching the replay, my goal for you is I want you to become rich fast. That's what I want for you, but you have to want it too. And you need to get comfortable with this word rich. It has a negative connotation. in society. Why? Well, when we look at supposedly rich people who do nefarious things, evil things, the first question I'm asking myself is, is that person a Christian? Does that person follow the Lord? Do they have God in their hearts? Have they submitted to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior? If not, makes total sense. for them to be using money as a tool in nefarious, evil ways. Makes total sense. I want to see case studies of rich people who follow the Lord day in, day out. It reflects in their life, and what fruit comes of that. And if we begin to see a culture of rich Christians doing righteous things, in the world, in society, and we begin to see this consistent kingdom culture of abundance giving, guess what? More people are going to want to be like that. But if our rich supposed leaders of the church, our shepherds, our pastors, are not speaking rich language, are not encouraging the community to become rich because they fear XYZ of unrighteous people, I think they have a doctrine mix-up. That's my opinion. That's what I'm seeing. Okay, and then Maria says, yes, I'm a follower. Beautiful. What's up? How are you? 21 people in the house. Let me know if this is valuable for you so far. I'm just like Prefacing where I'm going with this. All right, get rich fast, get rich slow. Let's get into how we do these things. I'm going to address ways that we become rich fast without increasing your income and without spending less money. So we're going to address some of those things. First, then we'll go into compounding some of these basic financial skills on how money works in the 21st century today. And then compound it with getting rich fast. Let's take a look at this. This is some really cool data, shocking data. As a 30-year-old now married, I have been blessed with certain financial principles that I've applied for the last 8 years now, and I want others to experience that same blessing regardless of your age, demographic, where you come from, etc., etc. So let me give you guys some details. Let's talk about credit. And then we're going to talk about salary-based positions, careers that pay above average salary that I believe households in Lauderdale should consider pursuing or something similar. All right, so we're gonna start with credit. This is something I pulled off the internet where we have majority of minorities have low credit scores, and in legal language and in on paper, you would be considered subprime or below prime. Borrowers. If you are a subprime borrower, your credit score is between 500 and 600. Near prime or below prime is 600 to 660. And a simple example of this— and let me know, anyone in the chat, if you currently finance a car, new or used, Let me know what your interest rate is on your car and I'm going to tell you what kind of rank you fall in. In my 8 years of working with over 1,500 families, majority of the time— not always— majority of the time, Blacks and Hispanics rank below prime on the credit score base, which means that immediately knocks them out of acquiring debt, whether it's a mortgage, whether it's student loans, whether it's car loans, whether it's credit cards, whether it's personal loans, you name it, business loans. It puts you in a subprime, below-prime category, and this is stripping wealth out of the Black community and Spanish community. Day in and day out without you even noticing. And when I tell you there's tens of thousands of dollars to be recovered by just shifting how you use credit, how you comprehend credit, and how you leverage credit, that if I can put you in a prime or above prime, super prime position without Having you go work more hours, without having you spend less money, I literally can save you tens of thousands of dollars over a 5 to 7 year period. This is getting rich slower, but very efficient, which will kind of feel fast. So again, it's— we're getting rich fast and slow. It's at— At the same time. That's the theme here, getting rich fast and slow. We want to do moves that recover cash flow back into your economy with what little money we are making. And we want to begin to redirect money back into our economy so that we can stack that money in a different direction. So for the past 8 years, this is what I've been helping most of you do. Is getting your credit score up. And then for my 5,000 to 6,000 Black homeowners in the city of Lauderdale who have a home, who also are sitting on debt, and the equity in their home has risen since COVID astronomically, what we're seeing in Black and Hispanic communities today— This is, this is mind-blowing what we're seeing in Black and Hispanic communities today, especially those of you who are homeowners, Black and Hispanic homeowners. If you're listening, let me know. Black homeowner, Spanish homeowner, let me know in the comments. Many of you are sitting on a ton of equity, so you would be identified as equity-rich But because your salaries have not increased like real estate has, like inflation and cost of living, you're cash poor. You're equity rich, you're cash poor, and your credit's not like where the Asians and the white folks are in the 720s and higher. So if we want to get like them, we just got to make one tweak. We have to begin to direct time and energy Toward fixing your credit. It does not cost a whole lot of money to fix credit. All it is to fix credit is proper reporting. There's so many people who have things on their credit report that are being reported incorrectly, or inquiries that haven't fallen off of your credit report that should have fell off because you already paid off that debt. Or you have mistakes you made in the past. You have a late payment back in 2014, and that's messing with your payment history the last 10+ years. And if we would just properly report those things and spend a little bit of money to fix our credit, we're going to What? Redirect a ton of cash flow back into your economy. That's literally what I've been doing the last 8 years, helping people access the equity in their home, because that's the cheapest type of debt that you can get, is the equity in our homes. In the city of Lauderdale, we've got hundreds of thousands of dollars of Black homeowners, 5,000 to 6,000 homeowners that have anywhere from $70,000 to $90,000 of available equity. That they could tap into. So let's talk about that. I'm going to use— let's use— yeah, let me use standard numbers of someone making $60K a year. Divide that by 12, it's $5,000 a month. Minus taxes in the state of Florida. Let's minus 20%. We don't have state income tax. I think it's safe to say that person is probably taking home $4,000 a month. Yeah, let's do that. Let's say someone in the state of Florida living in Lauderdale Lakes. This is Lauderdale Lakes, right? I always forget because Lauderdale's right, like borderline. So Lauderdale Lakes, making $4,000 a month. And I'm going to put this person in a tough position and say their expenses are $3,900. They only have a free cash flow of $100. So they're basically paycheck to paycheck. Let's use average American savings national is like literally between $400 and $500. And let's say this person is a homeowner and the vast majority of their debt is in their home. The median averages Was $200,000 to $600,000. Let's say they got a home pre-COVID and they owe like maybe like $200K now on their home is what they owe, but their home value Let's say doubled. So paycheck to paycheck, so many people like this that I meet all the time. Very low cash flow, breaking even, ton of debt, though expenses is mixed up of debt payments and living expenses. But they are sitting on a lot of equity in their home. These are the people I'm going to target. First in Lauderdale. Because if I can target them first, get their money right, then they're going to have more cash flow to stimulate the economy with. And hopefully they decide to become mentors and teachers within Born On Purpose community and begin to influence people in their church, pastors, leaders. We have to target leaders first who are struggling. Because they don't know what they don't know. And then if I can help leaders in the city of Lauderdale improve their finances, then they're going to go back to their community, be an influence, and teach folks how to do certain things before they get the property, before they acquire all the debt. So we're going to fix this around. It's going to take, I guesstimate, to help 37,000 residents in the city of Lauderdale and focusing on 6,000 or so Black households, if it took me 8 years to help 1,500 people alone by myself, granted I had other— I have other financial professionals, let's put 40 years. I don't plan on leaving the state of Florida. I'm 30 years old now. 40 years from now, I'll be 70. Me alone could probably reach everyone in the city of Lauderdale if they were willing to come and sit and talk with me over that 40-year period. So easy math to expand that. I got Miss Sharon in the house, who's another financial professional. And if we dedicated again the rest of our lives into this, and then she has other financial coaches or consultants that we bring in, I believe we cut a 40-year cycle down to 4 to 7 years within no time. I would, I would I think that's very conservative to help that many Black households over the next 4 to 7 years. I'll do my part. I'll continue to do my part with everyone that I'm serving here and witness that shift with, again, the theory, the theme is get rich fast and slow. And below this theme is a way of thinking about money. The way we think about money moving forward in the Black community and Hispanic community, we need to adopt this as quickly as humanly possible, is the cash flow over net worth theory. After 1971, when we got removed from the gold standard, the U.S. government began to print debt like crazy. Debt became a way of leveraging and creating more income, but most Americans And most financial professionals continue to learn this method, which is accumulate, accumulate net worth to create cash flow. That's what That's what every financial advisor, educator— if you go the traditional route of learning finances, not the unconventional— everyone in here on YouTube, you're literally learning unconventional, untraditional financial concepts. These are not conventional. This is conventional: accumulate net worth first. To then create cash flow. What that looks like for this family is they take what little money they have left over after they paid all their bills and debt payments. They take what little they have, they bring it to the financial advisor. The financial advisor says, I'm gonna earn you 8 to 10%, whatever it is, on your money. Again, in other words, eight to ten percent should not excite any black household in America or Spanish family. It should not excite you, not one bit, because eight percent translates to eight cents. Let me know if that's attractive for you. Compound interest. Only becomes attractive after an ungodly amount of years of contributing to that account. And I'm telling you, wealthy people today that are creating wealth fast, that are getting rich fast and slow, are not accumulating. They're not accumulating first. They're creating cash flow first. And the most efficient way to create cash flow— Robert Kiyosaki gave it away many, many years back, so shout out to him— is you got to figure out how to enter the B and the I category, business owner and investor. Investor honestly comes after, I would argue, business owner. First, taking the skills, gifts, and talents that you acquire and continue to acquire and begin to shift that over to the business side. When you do that, you're going to unlock more potential for cash flow and/or more recovery of cash flow through tax savings. Big time. So again, Get Rich Fast and Slow is the picture that I'm painting for the Black community here in Lauderdale. The theory, the framework, the mindset is everything I do moving forward needs to produce cash flow over net worth, because cash flow will produce net worth as a Benefit. Net worth does not create cash flow according to the way that you and I want to live in retirement. The math will never add up. It just won't. And what we're seeing in the baby boomer generation that did not get pensions and the Gen Xers that are retiring right now followed this method because that's what baby boomers did and they were successful. The only reason why they were successful— accumulate net worth to create cash flow— the only reason why this worked was because their employer, right, provided a defined benefit plan. If you're in the comments section, you work for the government, military, first responder, or you work for a major corporation, let me know if you have a defined benefit plan. If you do, this still works. This still works. Accumulate net worth to create cash flow. It still works to an extent. It does have success, and we have to be stewarding our money right. It still works. And honestly, cash flow over net worth solves for this— defined benefit plans. That's what we ultimately want, is we want a defined, predictable, guaranteed result so that when my mom's out there hit retirement age, they know Without having to guess whether their 401 will be there or not, whether Social Security will be there or not. They don't have to guess because they know I have a divine benefit plan that creates guaranteed cash flow for the rest of my life because I solved for cash flow my whole entire life. I started making $4,000 a month. Let's say your desire is to do $10,000 a month. So all you're going to do is solve for— Cash flow. Making $10,000 a month, not accumulating a bunch of money in a separate account, hoping and praying that that would make $10,000 a month. It's going to take way too long, way too long. And the way these numbers look in the city of Lauderdale, I could probably go— I could probably pick any city in the United States and look at minority communities, Black and Hispanic, and it'll give me the same numbers for the most part. So So I would argue that Blacks and Hispanics don't have the time to be hoping and praying for 8 cents on the dollar. What you need to be looking at is how $1 can create another dollar. That's it. How do I take the dollar you make right now, that $100, and how do I put One more dollar back on every dollar you put in. How do I take a dollar, make it another dollar? That's a 100% return. 1 1 2 is 100% rate of return. Stock market, the S&P, will never do that for you. 100% ROR. That's the only thing that should excite you moving forward. I will compromise and meet you halfway at 50 cents. I'll compromise. If you find something that gets you 50%, I'll compromise. But other than that, we need to focus on getting rich fast and slow, cash flow over net worth. Accumulate net worth to create cash flow is now debt. It's dead due to after 1971 when we got off the dollar. You gotta know this stuff. Looking at this household here, the ways that I begin to help them recapture dollars in their economy is that good old credit score. Alright? So if I got home value, it's $400,000 minus $200K. We've got, say, $200K of equity. Let's say they have a credit score of 620 to 650. I'm gonna take this $100, and let's just say they have— majority of Americans have about 40% of their income go into debt payments typically. So $3,900 times 40%, $1,560. Take that $100 plus $1,560 is debt payments. Yes. I'm gonna take this money This $100, and we're going to begin to strategically pay down certain debts that would begin to boost credit score. So first thing I want to solve for, typically the most efficient way, is tackling your utilization debts. So if you got credit cards, you got revolving lines of credit, these are probably going to be the most attractive debts that we want to kill. And I had a video that has been doing really well where I discuss the 3-payment strategy. Let me, let me know if in the comments, let me know if you have seen that video where I talk about the 3-payment strategy. And the 3-payment strategy basically entails that whatever your monthly payment is on your credit cards, Say it's a $200 payment, $150 payment, divide it into 3. You're gonna make 3 payments throughout the month in that billing cycle. All right, for the most part, I typically say due date, right? Because you're still gonna make a payment on the due date of the debt. 15 days Into the cycle. So into cycle, and then 3 days before the due date. Please study that video that I did recently on the 3-payment strategy. Doing it again here, really summarized. This is gonna boost credit. My brother Josh in the house texted me an audio chat. He was like, it literally works if you do it. It's really cool. And it doesn't cost you money. We're just being strategic with how we apply our money towards our debts as we're paying it down. We're also going to incorporate— on this channel, we talk velocity banking, we talk cash flow index, debt snowball, debt avalanche. We're gonna figure out what debt elimination strategy works best for you in your household that you're actually gonna implement and stick to. I hold you accountable, and that also begins to improve credit. As soon as we have created double the amount of cash flow that you were originally starting at— so in this example, $100— once I've created at least $200 or more in cash flow for this family in this example here, we're then gonna take $100, $150-ish or so, and we're gonna start investing in credit repair. So this was the first step, right? This is recreating, redirecting cash flow, saving money on interest, building credit. Now we're going to repair your credit, and the goal, 720 or higher. Once we get to 720 or higher, okay, once we get to 720 or higher, We then apply to access the equity in that home. So for the Black households that I'm gonna be targeting, working in City of Lauderdale, and then pretty much most clients I work with do have a home. If you don't, this part doesn't apply to you right now. There's other things that we can do. But again, just focusing on those families first. I gotta focus on leaders of any community and then trickle-down effect. To help the rest. Gotta start with the leaders first. So, second step, repair credit, 720 or higher. We're then going to access a HELOC, home equity line of credit, first or second position. I just had a client today in the state of Massachusetts, Got approved for a home equity line of credit for $165K at 6.24% fixed for 5 years. So if you live in the state of Massachusetts, you need to watch my series on how to find the right HELOC in your state. I've got a whole entire playlist on this and I'm going state by state. It is absolutely— I'm having a ton of fun finding you all unique banks that are benefiting local communities. So here's the next part. Third step, which is part of the repair. As we're repairing credit, You're going to be building a bank, or I should say credit union relationship. Huge. This is huge, folks, especially again targeting Black and Hispanic community. You got to stop doing business with Wells and Bank of America. And Regions and TD and Chase and Citi, they don't help Black people as much or Spanish people. I'm gonna tell you why. Because they're not obligated to, nor do they have to. It's not a race thing. They're just the big dogs in the room, which simply means it doesn't matter whether you're Black, white, Hispanic, Spanish. It doesn't matter what your race is. They're so darn big that not even the U.S. government will allow those banks to fail because it would destroy the country. And we got a taste of that in 2008. Since then, there's been a ton of regulation and laws and rules, etc., etc., that have been put in, put in place. And since then, we have been seeing a consolidation of banks. Banks have been shrinking and shrinking because Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Chase, Citi are gobbling up, swallowing up all these smaller banks, which is going to limit the amount of options, again, Blacks and Hispanics will have across the country, which is why it's extremely important For you to start considering building a relationship with a small local credit union in your city, state, county. Why? Because credit unions are not-for-profit. They're nonprofit banking institutions. So their whole purpose and mission is to serve the local— What? Residents. That means they only do business with people in the state of Florida. I'm in the state of Florida. There's a bank called BrightStar Credit Union. Phenomenal bank. Space Coast Credit Union. They only do business with people in South Florida. So you can't live in Boston and have a bank account with BrightStar. Period. The reason why you're never gonna hear about BrightStar or any of these credit unions It's because they don't have the marketing budget that Bank of America has, or Chase, or Wells Fargo. And we have to realize, it's because Black people are where they're at financially, and Hispanics, we're both— we flip back and forth in last place in terms of income, salary, and credit, that again, it's not ideal for you to do business with Wells Fargo. or Bank of America because they're going off of these general prime standards and income standards. So you go in there thinking you're going to get a loan with Wells, and sure, they, they may write you one. That's the benefit, is most of the time you will get something from the big banks. The problem is They're going to take your whole lunch from you in the form of interest. So whenever I see a Black family with a Wells Fargo mortgage, I'm like, oh my God, the rate on that thing is crazy compared to if they would have went with a local credit union. They probably would have got 1% to 2% lower just because they're a local resident. You see, when we start doing Analytics and numbers and general averages. If you live in the city of Lauderdale and you get lumped in with the average income salary in New York or California, where the average income over there is, say, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 more— again, Bank of America is nationwide, so they're taking in a pool of Of borrowers and creating their standards of who they're gonna lend money to. Black and Hispanics always fall below that, but they'll still give you the loan. They're just gonna knock you over the head with a much higher rate. Guys, we can, we can completely avoid that by building a local relationship with a credit union in your city, county, state. Huge. Whether it's a federal credit union, Local credit union, not-for-profit bank. Look those up. I've already did the work for you. Just look at the channel, go to playlist, how to find the right HELOC. Already did the work for you. That's huge. I wanted to spend a good amount of time on that because this is a way of getting rich slow and fast, slow and steady. We are recovering cash flow when you go to finance, finance the next car. Get the next credit card, get the next personal loan, get the next student loan, get the next debt, you're doing it 2% cheaper, 3% cheaper, 4% cheaper, 5% cheaper. That keeps more money in your economy, in your household. Again, gives us a different direction to drive that cash flow to. So I thought that was extremely, extremely important. Okay. So this is me meeting you where you're at. 4 major numbers. I'm meeting the client where they're at. I'm immediately addressing the debts in their life because that's plenty of cash flow. Literally 40%, sometimes 50% of their income is literally going to debt repayments. I find out what kind of assets they're sitting on. Let's say you're not a homeowner. The next place I'm looking at is your 401. We could leverage your 401 to accelerate debt. We can hide debt in a 401. Doesn't report to the credit. Your credit jumps, and then we get the HELOC and we pay off more debt. Credit goes up higher, cash flow increases. This gets fun, right? Everything I've shared so far involves not increasing your income and not decreasing expenses. I'm just attacking one of the biggest things in your budget. Okay? On top of that, where it gets even more exciting, this is not necessarily spending more, making less, but most families do zero tax planning. So that's just a little benefit. You can reach out to me directly if you're like, hey, I need a tax strategist. I need help with this. I got a phenomenal team based out of Arizona. They can help you and begin that conversation. And I can also just talk to you, give you some insight. Step 1, redirection, figuring out where the opportunities are. I have a playlist if you get on my email list and you start to attend these workshops with me, I have a whole playlist inside of Increase Academy. Okay, it's only $15 a month to join them, I think. May even be even less. If you go to my website and you go to Finance Geek Ministry, I partnered with Increase Academy and I have a playlist in there. And again, if you can't afford $15 a month, let me know in an email. I'll literally give it to you for free. But I have an entire playlist where I identify 12 ways for you to increase your cash flow without increasing income, without decreasing expenses. 12 different ways, all stages of life. This is incredible stuff. And that's all step 1. That's like the boom. Before I even get over here, I identify the 12 steps with you. We figure that out. We then graduate. Second step, we're going to start repairing credit. It kind of— repairing credit happens naturally for free over here. Your credit score will naturally increase as we begin to make your money work for you more efficiently. Then we'll put some money behind it because eventually you're going to have to hire someone. I can help you with credit repair as well. I have someone on my team, so you can reach out to me directly for that as well. When it comes to credit repair, and I'll give you the full breakdown how it works, but we have affordable ways for you to repair your credit, which just requires us submitting the disputes, updating Experian, Equifax, TransUnion, updating all these things so that everything reports properly so that you look like a prime borrower regardless of this skin color. You got a prime— This right here. Trumps your skin tone. Very important. This right here is the equalizer. This is what will catch— this is what will help the Black and Hispanic community catch up with the other races in America. Right here, credit. And once I get your credit right, now I'm going to teach you how to leverage the most efficient tool From a bank is a home equity line of credit. If you're a homeowner, the second would be a personal line of credit, and then credit cards would be next. 401 is leveraging against an asset, so that's, that's different. Once we get that, we unlock the tool. This is something I just remembered off the top of my head. Client today got $165K, 6.24%. Every single one of their debts outside of their primary 30-year fixed mortgage is at a higher interest rate than 6.24%, and they lock that in for 5 years. So there's fixed HELOCs, there's variable HELOCs, there's intro rate HELOCs. I explain it all on the channel. That's going to take to the next level. Again, getting rich fast and slow, fast and slow. Okay. Third step, build a banking relationship so that we can get The best HELOC and tool. I don't want you to get a HELOC at Wells Fargo. I don't want you to get a HELOC at Bank of America. I don't want you to get a HELOC at Chase or Citi. They have plenty of revenue coming their way already. I need you to do business with a local credit union, maybe a nationwide credit union like a Navy Fed. I have plenty of folks that work with them. That's a pretty decent bank. And there's others as well. But we start here. Oh my goodness, this is gonna put more money back in your pocket, again, without spending more or making more money. Alright, haven't even increased this person's income yet. Come over to the 4th step. This is where we finally implement velocity banking. So it's either gonna be velocity banking or infinite banking that we implement, or both. Depending on that person's income. Anytime I'm dealing with someone in the low 5-figure income, I'm usually skipping IBC, 'cause they're most likely not gonna be ready for that. They don't have the capital for that most of the time, unless they have some kind of an inheritance. That's a different story. But most people are gonna fall right in the velocity banking category when we get the right tool to recover that $1,560 of debt payments. Cash flow while staying liquid. That's important. This is where tax planning comes back in. This is where it gets a little bit more fun because when you have equity, home equity in your home, guess what, Sharon? There are tax deductions even without having a business that the interest that you pay on the HELOC can be tax deductible. So if I start refinancing, restructuring debt into my HELOC, and I'm using the equity in my home to improve my financial position, there are potential tax deductions at your disposal on the interest that you, that you pay. Then on top of that, this is a very popular thing most of my clients do, and they absolutely love. Is you remove escrow from your mortgage, your 30-year fixed mortgage. You decouple the escrow account because that's money from your income that's sitting in an account earning 0%. And if all you did was park that money in a high-yield savings account, Probably would earn 3 to 4% on that money. And again, I didn't increase your income and I didn't tell you to spend less money. All I'm doing is creating more and more efficiency, and I'm stacking and I'm stacking and I'm stacking. All right, 5th step, and this depends— this can happen at the beginning, depends on who I'm talking to. Or most of the time, this is where I begin to really understand who I'm talking to. Right. So whoever I'm talking to specifically, the families that I'm working with, the individual making $4,000 a month, I begin to ask them, how would you feel if I added a zero? We go from $4,000 a month to $40,000 a month. This is where I start to kick on the get rich fast theory. Everything I've been sharing so far is getting rich fast and slow intertwined. But now I begin to ask the question of getting rich fast. And the number one most efficient way for us to turn $4,000 a month to $40,000 a month, even if I fail miserably, And only double my income to $8,000 a month, this family's not going to be upset. Free to— I think that's ideal. So I begin to ask them about their own purpose, their existing skills, gifts, talents. Skills, gifts, talents, purpose, and then people they know. People they know. This is how I, Denzel, in the 5th step, when I was making $2,000 a month, this is how I got to $20,000 a month. And beyond is because I doubled down on my skills, gifts, and talents given by God, who wrapped— God wrapped it around in a purpose. He then gives me the authority, the anointing, with the appointment already booked. That's pretty cool. When you have the Father on your side, you're operating in righteousness. You're walking in righteousness with Him. He will give you authority over your purpose, which then establishes an anointing that other people will identify. They'll say he, she has a gift. He, she is ba ba ba. In the church world, in Christianese language, they'll say anointing. He or she has an anointing, a discernment, a spiritual gift. In the secular world, online, they'll say things like, oh, he's got a gift. He's got a talent. He's got a skill. She is amazing. Right? She is super smart. He is super smart. They're both saying the same thing, just in their own language. Does that make sense? Let me know in the comments if that's clear. So I view this as the get rich fast model, where we can begin to bring back Abraham into the story. How did he get rich fast? In his time, he was a farmer because he said he had— God said he was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold. So cattle implies real estate. He must have had some real estate. He must have had animals. If you're very rich in cattle, that implies you probably have an ungodly amount of cattle, a lot of cattle, which would mean that he cannot shepherd all those cattle by himself. If you keep reading in the story of Abraham, the theme is the Call of Abram. God is calling Abram out of the familiar to an unknown land. So he says, leave your land and come over here, and I'm going to bless you with all this land and glory over here. Well, Abram didn't just pack himself up and go to the new land. It says that he took all of his hired help. He brought his nephew or cousin Lot and his wife, and it says he was 75 years old. So if he was 75 years old, chances are he started building wealth in his mid-20s, arguably maybe even younger than that, because I think in those times he was working. There were no child restriction laws back then. So he was probably working as soon as he could walk and talk, probably. So you can imagine, uh, Abram. So I followed Abram's method. Abram, he was 75 years old, extremely very rich in cattle in silver and in gold. He must have started a business. There's no other way that this makes sense. This is the only conclusion. Again, I'm open to criticism in the comments. The, the guy must have had a business in farming. In farming. Translate that to 2026. Am I telling you go get a farm? No. Denzel does not have cattle. I don't have a farm. What I do have is a biz. I have a business. I don't see another way around this. For the Black community to hit the numbers at the targets that I want to see, and the Spanish community to increase your income by 37%, you've got to double down on the skill, the gift, the talent. According to your purpose. You'll then be gifted with authority and anointing. You'll have the appointment. The appointment is the service that you're about to provide. If I set up an appointment with a client online, if anyone books a call with me, they pay, I now have an appointment. I'm coming with my anointing. I'm coming with my authority to that appointment. They're just showing up. They don't know what they're about to get. And then I bless them. Their lives change because I double down on these skills, gifts, and talents, period. Within a year, my income 10x'd because I use skills, gifts, talents according to my purpose, and then I reached out to people. I went and started talking to people. So the people that I knew and people that I didn't know, and I got around people who were already making $20,000 a month or more for them to help me. And so there's an element within this that states you don't do it alone because you have God with you the whole way. And you have people with you that want to support you and see you win. And you just need to show up and need to practice these skills, gifts, and talents, which means, guys, Black community, Spanish community, we need to stay— I don't want this to get clipped incorrectly, but we really need to stay away from quote unquote investing. And that may sound like the worst piece of financial advice. But I, Denzel Rodriguez, Puerto Rican, Colombian, I barely invest. A very, very small percentage of my income goes to this kind of money, accumulation money. Very, very small in comparison to how much money I'm putting toward a business. Understand? And I don't want you to be afraid of the word business because you're thinking, oh, I need employees and I need to do this and I need to sell and market and that. You're getting past the whole point was, well, what are you good at? What are you skilled, gifted, or talented in that God has anointed you with? And guess what? You don't have to build the biz alone. I didn't. All I did was get the classification that Denzel Napoleon Rodriguez no longer operates as Denzel Napoleon Rodriguez. I operate as Builder 2 Contributor LLC that is now an S corp. That's all I did was get the classification. And then I found people who were already making good money. And ask them, when I bring people to serve them a product or a service, can you do it? And then we'll do joint work. So if Abraham was living today in the United States, hopefully in South Florida, okay, I would go to Abraham and I would present to him An opportunity to do joint work. Joint work. That's what I would present is, how can I do joint work with Abraham? Abraham's a farmer. He's got a ton of silver and gold. Maybe I can help him on the farming side, bring clients his way in 2026. What are we all struggling with in America today is finding organic, like actual organic food. Organic has become a marketing term now. It's not even real. You can pay the FDA to say that your product is organic and it's not. So it's just a marketing term. But I bet if Abraham was here today, his stuff would be organic. Pretty sure. So I can partner up with Abram and say, hey Abraham, uh, since you're good at farming, I'm pretty good at creating content. You teach me everything about farming, and then I'll reiterate it on the whiteboard and teach a bunch of people how to do this. And then we do joint work. Let me see what some of you guys are saying in the comments. How are we feeling so far? Let me know in the comments. So we got Orange County in the house. We got Pomona, California. Almost debt-free, looking to move towards Tennessee. Good for you. You're going to save a ton of money in taxes. Awesome service and education that you are providing for the community. God calls us to be good stewards of the gifts he gives us. Depending on our choices, we reap what That's what we sell. That's Maria. Yep. All right. On average, how long does it take to fix credit issues? 3 to 6, upwards of 9 months for, I would say, most credit issues. When you're dealing with like the, the real hard stuff— bankruptcy, um, you know, like long delinquencies, collections— those may take, I'd say, like maybe 6+ months or, or longer. But I would say like most things, like just like fixing some errors on your report, that can get your score bumped up 20, 30, 40, 50 points. That's huge. Let's see, we got former federal employee with the pension, 31 years served. Yeah, so, you know, anyone with a pension, coming back to that defined benefit plan, if, if you continue to go accumulate net worth to create cash flow, you'll probably succeed. You'll probably— so you have a high, a much higher chance of succeeding versus everyone today, people around my age who don't get a pension. All they get is the 401 and then whatever they invest and whatever they save, but there's no guarantee that that'll create any kind of cash flow. Let's see, I didn't see the video, but you did talk to me about it. Cool. Current federal employee, 10 years in. Cool, cool, cool, cool. Awesome. So I'm gonna get ready to close here because I gave a lot. And this series, again, we're gonna be doing this once a month where I just dive in, come in person, share all these different things. Hopefully you're having fun. Hopefully you're being educated. So now here's where the logical side of me really starts to look at opportunities in the city of Lauderdale. And I looked up what are the highest paying jobs in Lauderdale Lakes, who's getting paid the most. So in the healthcare and medical, physicians and medical doctors, $200,000+ per year. Nurse practitioners, $100,000+ registered nurses, $80,000+ therapists, psychologists, $80,000+. In business and management, operations manager, $100,000+— that's 6 figures. Business system analysis, 6 figures. Financial advisors— that's in my world— 6 figures. Skilled trades and construction, plumbing, HVAC, 6 figures. Construction workers, managers, project engineers, close to 6 figures. Working for the city, 6 figures. So here's what I would do if I was a pastor in the city of Lauderdale, because again, I'm focusing on Black community, 80%. So what that, what that will most likely mean, there's probably a good amount of churches in Lauderdale Lakes, Black predominant, more than likely. I would reach out and can reach out and will collaborate with others. Again, I've got to target the leaders, target the leaders, target leaders. Go to all the Black churches, go to all the Spanish churches, Who's the leader? Who's the pastor? And let's begin to do sermons like this. I'm not the best at doing a sermon style. That's not my gift. So I can collaborate with a pastor and say, what would it look like if the church began to play a real part— or I should word this differently— what if churches in Lauderdale Lakes began to get involved in how people choose what careers they decide to go into? It is a well-known stereotype and culture That when you talk to a Filipino or you talk to— we'll start with a Filipino. Most of them are nurses, so most of them are going to make close to 6 figures in no time. It's a culture. I don't know why that is. I've heard many comedians make jokes, and you hear that quite often. Oh, yeah. Filipino nurse, boom. Mostly the, the women, I think men too. And lo and behold, I have Filipino clients, a lot of them are nurses or in the medical field, and they're making close to 6 figures. Well, go figure. Next community, Indians. They come to the United States What jobs do they get? Tech, AI, IT, engineer. What do they make? Six figures. Lo and behold, I have Indian clients. Guess what industry they're in? Tech, AI, IT. Boom boom boom. Okay, we can go down the list. Of how certain cultures influence their younger generation, the moms and dads. They influence them to go into careers that pay above the American average salary. If you make above American average salary, chances are you're going to be able to live A little more than comfortable anywhere in the United States for the most part. And then we combine that with good financial stewardship. And then let's say that person's been working in IT for 15 years and they want to transition to something that God is calling them to. Well, now they have the capital to do so. Aye, Denzel. It is a typical stereotype for most Spanish people to work in hospitality. Have you ever not seen a Spanish lady at— working at a hotel in hospitality? That's the general norm. Or a Spanish guy like me working in the back in the kitchen. Lo and behold, Denzel spent most of his early years working in the kitchen, washing dishes, Making food, prepping food. But guess what? If you were to look up average income of a dishwasher in the United States, I guarantee you it's below the American average national income. So I just began to plug these things together. I said, oh, we have a culture issue. As it pertains to money. Black and Hispanics, we're dealing with a lot of the same issues. The general cultural norm, and I'll wrap up with this, that I have observed for the last 8 years, this always fascinates me. I love talking to these kinds of clients. Is the first and second generation immigrants. Yeah, these people, man. Comment below if you are first generation, first generation, second generation immigrant. Either you were the first to come to the United States In your lineage, or your parents came to the United States first, here, birthed you, so you were born in the United States. That's— you're technically first-generation American, right? I think that's how that works. Or you were born in another country and you were like maybe 5, maybe 10 years old, and and the family moved— you, the whole family moved to the United States, and that whole part, first and second generation now living in the United States, but the parent lived the majority of their lives in another country. There is an immigrant culture that if we combine the way they do money How they steward their money on a day-to-day. It's this culture of spending less than what you make. It's actually a phenomenal, super easy culture to live by. You literally just spend less than what you make. Matter of fact, immigrants go above and beyond. If they're making $4,000 a month, let's say, this is how an average immigrant will typically live. If they're making $4,000 a month, their expenses most likely are half this number. So they typically will live off of 50% to 70% of their income. The other 20%, 30%, they don't know how to invest. They weren't taught. No one's really going after them. No one's really teaching them. So all they do is just put it in a high-yield savings account. They stack up a bunch of cash for 20, 30 years. And you know what they do? Buy real estate. They buy real estate. They buy a house. So now you got 5, 7 people living in an apartment. They're all working together, spending less than what they make. They're saving the difference. Stacks up, they eventually buy a house. And what's crazy is a lot of them buy a house with no credit. Because they're just buying cash or they're doing seller creative financing deals. So they get the property at relatively a good rate with no credit. And then someone like me, second generation, learns the American way of living combined with learning how immigrants live. Perfect formula for the Spanish communities who were born in America and grew up in America. Black communities born in America, grew up in community— in a community in America— can totally adopt over the next 5 to 10 years. Coming back to my point about churches and the pastors, I think it'd be super cool if they did sermons on this using guys like Abram. Let's use a Solomon case study. Let's use David. Let's find whoever we need to find in the Bible. Find these case studies, translate to 2026. How can I apply what I'm learning in the Bible here now in 2026 and start to encourage communities to get into careers that pay above national average income? That's going to create the get rich fast. And then get rich slow is proper stewardship and all these steps that I shared here. Moving forward, once a month, I'm going to do a series like this. We break it down. I'll do case studies. We'll get deeper and deeper and deeper. But in this series, I'm going to keep focusing on the city of Lauderdale. So all my numbers are going to be based off of the community. And I'm going to start bringing in more people, doing case studies, local case studies according to numbers. and partnering up with the different nonprofits that I mentioned and have some fun. And with that, we'll close out. I think I've been going for about almost 2 hours. Let's see if I see any other comments here. Yep. First generation American Latino, Latina American. Yep. First generation. Alex is first generation. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Beautiful stuff. Well, thank you all for your time. Thanks for being here. We'll close it out here. This video will be immediately available for replay. Replay is going to stay on the channel. Reach out to me directly if you're not a client. If you've never done any work with me before, go to my website, click the links below. If you are a client and it's been a while, book a call. You know who you are. Let's, let's get you on the whiteboard. Let's, let's get your money up. Let's get you where you need to get to. All right, God bless you. Enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you.