Unlock Your Equity Achieve Debt Freedom Faster

Welcome, welcome. Good evening. If you're tuning in live, Denzel Rodriguez here, your personal finance geek of the 21st century. And tonight we're going to focus on unlocking your equity, which in return can unlock your potential, your potential to do many things in this life. Predominantly on this YouTube channel, we're covering financial freedom, financial independence as the, the goal, what we're after with our personal finances and/or business finances. We're trying to get to that place of, of peace, of security, freedom, independence, etc. How do we get there? There's many ways there. There's many ways that we can get there. I want to look at simple, practical, implementable— like today, coming off this livestream, you're going to take action on certain steps that you feel called to, and we're going to stack on those steps and keep building and building along the way. I want to recognize various communities coming together over the last 8 years I've been on YouTube now, building this YouTube channel. And in the last couple of years, specifically this year and last year, I've been forming multiple partnerships to expand this message, help continue to help more people at scale. So I want to shout out folks who are tuning in from the Increase Academy hosted by Travis Peters. Welcome in. Obviously we got Finance Geek community. That's everyone that I work with. Clients, if you've just been a loyal subscriber, appreciate all your support. Then we have, uh, Nation's First Financial or Daniel Romberg's YouTube channel. So right now I'm moving forward and you guys are going to start seeing more and more of this. But moving forward, I'm going live on my channel and Daniel's channel at the same exact time, and I'm also live on Zoom. If you are a client in any one of the communities that I'm partnered with, or if you're on my email list specifically— and it's so easy to get on there, you just fill out a contact form on my website— or you would have paid for any of my programs in the past, as long as you stay subscribed, you can join me on the Zoom. And in the Zoom room, I can See you. I can see your name. I will see your questions first, answer those directly. We can even have a little bit of a time off camera and before we go live. And that's just been the rhythm and flow of how things have been going. So with that, all the announcements are out. We're going to take this straight to the whiteboard. We're going to get started. So again, welcome in if you're live. If you're catching the recording and you got questions, things I might have missed, drop those in the comments section. I do spend a lot of time reading my comments on, on YouTube, and you can even take that question and comment offline by sending me an email directly. So if you ever go to my website, you will see my email on there. I have my email listed Pretty much everywhere, and you can get a hold of me. We can have some fun together. So the theme tonight, and I built out this whole model here to help you unlock your equity and unlock your potential. I want to start with the number one asset on this planet is you. Jeff, Terry, Jasmine, Denzel, my wife, my friends, my clients. Do you believe— for those that are here with me live and in the Zoom room, and you can interact with me— do you believe that you are your number one asset? Comment yes, comment no. If it is a no, We should probably take that conversation offline and figure out why that is, why you believe that is. If you believe you are your number one asset, then I want you to prove it. And how we prove it is based off of your actions. And your words do matter, but actions is a whole nother ballgame. I work with so many people, thousands of families I've interacted with over the last 8 years, specifically have coached over 1,500 families, but I've spoken to thousands of families, and I've personally worked with over 1,500 families in the last 8 years, going on 9 years in 2027. And more often than not, I ask that question, are you your number one asset? We say yes. But then when I look at your actions in the 3 key areas of what makes you who you are— what are those 3 key areas? I've listed it right here on the board: your spirit, your body, and your mind. When I look at these 3 key areas in your life, if you claim that you are your number one asset, yet when I look at your life, the way you operate your finances, the way you operate your faith, the way you operate your body, the way you operate your mind, we begin to see cracks. And this is the beginning Of awareness. This is not to judge. This is not to criticize. This is not to condemn you in any way. Rather, to bring awareness. Hey Denzel, I believe I can improve in my body. I believe I can improve in my spirit. I believe I can improve in my mind. And as human beings, We can always continue to improve in these 3 key areas. You never in life will reach a certain point and then stop learning or growing. The moment we stop learning and growing, you begin to decay and you eventually die, either in one or all of those 3 areas, and then it leads to a final death where you're no longer breathing. And so to avoid And early death, and to avoid these obstacles and challenges that occur in our life, we first need to become aware. Where are the leaks? Where are the cracks? Those are the 3 key areas: spirit, body, and mind. Now, as I'm going through this model here with you, because of the context of the type of room that we're in, I'm pointing everything back to finances. This framework could be used in the fitness industry, can be used in the church world. It can be used in the mind psychology world, in the therapy world. You can transfer this and use it. in other areas, but since our primary topic is finances, I'm going to direct those things back to finance. Not to say that that's the most important thing, it's just the context of the room that we're in. All right, so just keep that in mind. So we have spirit, body, and mind. These are the 3 key areas in, in your life that would provide evidence to prove that you are your number one asset. So spirit, that's made up of your faith and belief. How much belief do you have in spirit alone, right? The definition of spirit— what is spirit? Do you believe you have a spirit? Yes, no, right? Like, you, you go through these basic questions in life, you figure out what that is. Then we step into faith. Okay, faith in what? Faith in the unknown, faith in the spirit realm. Okay, there's the The reality, and then there's spiritual realm. Do we believe in those things? And then you go further, you say, okay, since I believe in the unknown, and I believe in the things that are unseen, and I can't see what I believe in, but I believe it to be true, then you say, well, who's responsible for all those things? And then you have to give credit to somewhere. Either you're the God that you believe in, or you believe in another man or woman who's a god or a prophet. Or you believe in the God of gods, the King of kings. And so once you've made it to that place of conviction and belief, now we have to fortify it with facts, evidence, experiences, skill, mastery, speaking, learning, studying, etc., etc. And you build that up. Great. Most of the families I speak with are coming to me with a level of spirit, a level of faith, a level of belief. So that's often not too difficult of an area that people are struggling with, more often than not. Because again, in the context of this room, we're talking finances. So for the most part, people know where I stand. I have shared my— I share my beliefs on YouTube. I let you know I'm a man of God. I represent the kingdom of heaven here on earth. My mission and purpose is serving moms, single moms, divorced moms, and widows. And that has expanded to serving all walks of life, but my mission is on moms across the United States that I can serve at the highest level. God gave me that mission. I give him all the glory. I credit everything back to him. I use all the wisdom and knowledge and and gifts, skills, gifts, and talents that he's given me to then proceed in the world. I create value from nothing, and I continue to multiply that, creating compound interest. And in return, I'm taken care of by my father. Father takes care of me, makes sure that I don't fail because I'm representing the king. And then I'm serving people and they're getting results, which then increases my reputation because when they speak about me in other rooms, they say how great of a service I provided to that family, and people begin to talk. And as long as I keep making content like this and showing up on people's phones and devices across the United States, it's going to continue to build up the reputation. That is a constant exercise, muscle building, strength resistance, resistance training, obstacles and challenges, skills and mastery for my spirit, for my faith and belief. It continues to get fortified. The wheel keeps spinning. It's well-oiled. I have the support of my Father. I have the support of my followers and clients and viewers, the support of my family and friends, the support of myself. Because I've strengthened the spirit, and therefore, I believe I'm my number one asset due to everything I just said as it pertains to spirit. So we won't spend too much time there. Next is the body. Again, I'm going to tie it to finance. There's so many other things that we can cover about the body, but we're going to cover the financial part of it. So if you believe you are your number one asset, then there are 2 critical areas that I want to bring to your attention that many families that I work with specifically and in this community, people watching live and catching the recording, What I have found to be true is this is the first crack in this community that we can become aware of, and we'll continue to work towards and build and get better. Mortality credits, personal and business credit— these are 3 areas many of us struggle in. I struggled in it early on in my career, and I repaired it. Specifically referring to this body, your body. You have what's called mortality credits. According to major life insurance carriers across the United States, are able to calculate what's called a human life value on yourself. And that number is determined by 3 key areas: your age, your current age right now, your health, and your finances. I can personally help you with the finances. Nobody can help you with your age. Your age is your age. It is what it is. You either, you either get blessed by starting extremely young because your parents Had the knowledge, or at some point in your life you come aware of this knowledge, and maybe you learned it from me even though I'm younger than you, or maybe I might be older than you, but that's usually rare. Most of my audience are in their 40s, 60s, and up. 40 to 60s and up. So when you come to this knowledge for the first time, And you believe you're too old, pause. Don't just run to the conclusion. Pause, learn first, and see what options exist on the table for you before you just close that window. Regardless of your age, we all have mortality credits. And in some cases, mortality credits will benefit the person who's young. So the younger you are, the cheaper your mortality credits can be over a specific product such as life insurance. Then the older you are, there are certain mortality credits That will benefit the individual who's older and not be a benefit for the person who is younger. I'm 30 years old. I have a client who's 78 years old, or 77, and we were just talking recently. And so if he was to acquire what's called an annuity, He will get a higher benefit for having that product at his older age than I would at 30 years old. It would not make sense for me at 30 years old to buy an annuity because of the way the mortality credits work for that specific product. So at the end of the day, everyone has mortality credits. If you believe— and I saw a couple of yeses earlier in the chat— that you are your number one asset, and then I ask you, do you have life insurance protection? And you say no, that's a crack, that's a leak in your finances as well as in your belief system. You're believing something But your actions aren't showing that. Your actions are showing that you're investing in things outside of yourself. You're buying Bitcoin, you're buying cryptocurrencies, you're buying real estate, you're investing in the stock market, ETFs, S&P 500, bonds, mutual funds, CDs, brokerage accounts, high-yield savings, HSA, Roth IRA, 401, ba ba ba. La la la. But when it comes to your body, uh oh, there's a crack in the system. How can we claim to be our number one asset? But we're not funding and protecting the number one asset, which is you. So mortality credits work in both ways. It benefits the young. It benefits the elderly. It benefits everyone in between. In all different types of cases. So showing, revealing that to you, that's an area that we can begin to work on. Over the last 8 years, I've had the privilege and honor of serving hundreds of families acquire life insurance protection, whether it be term life or permanent insurance on yourself. I was just talking with an individual, another client today in his late 30s. Last year we put 6 life insurance policies in place. This client of mine, husband, father of 4, and married. So total family, 6 people. We acquired 6 life insurance policies. Multiple millions of dollars of coverage across the 6 individuals. Multiple millions of dollars just on the head of the household, the father alone. We have over $3 million of coverage just on him, and throughout the rest Multiple millions. Pretty cool stuff. So that individual, this client of mine, believes that he is his number one asset. And he also believes that for his wife and for his children. And so because he believes that's his number one asset, the next practical step is to protect, have a defense. Think of it like in sports, like football, for example. The quarterback is the one with the ball. He's the first person to receive the ball when they hike it, when they start a play. He's the first one to receive the ball. It is the job of literally everyone else on the team to protect the quarterback. At all costs, because if the quarterback goes down with the ball, that can cause a turnover where the defensive team can now take over and become offense. So in your life, if you're the quarterback in that example, we have to set up assets, we have to create assets. other team players that their number one job is protecting you, the quarterback, because you have the ability to score touchdowns yourself. You have the ability as the quarterback to pass the ball to a running back or throw the ball to a wide receiver and have them Take the ball, travel it upfield to earn more interest, more compound interest, and more protection. Meanwhile, you've got other players that literally continue to defend you at all costs so you don't get touched whatsoever. So in life, if we have this this perspective, I'm my number one asset. If I believe that, my very next move. Is how do I begin to invest in that asset? The 3 key areas is your spirit, your body, and your mind. We covered spirit a little bit. The body, we're getting into the practical— 2 practical areas: mortality credits, life insurance protection, and income protection. That's annuities. Life insurance, mortality credits—that's protecting your life on this earth. If something were to happen to you, if you were to pass away too soon, unexpectedly, how much money is your body worth on paper? How much are you worth on this earth to your loved ones? That number, if you were to ask one of your family members, how much are you worth to me? The answer is priceless, unlimited, infinite. Okay? Now go to a life insurance company. They're not going to say the same thing. They're going to say you're worth $3 million. They're going to say you're worth $4 million. Why? Because they're looking at your age, they're looking at your health, and they're looking at your finances. And usually insurance companies use a multiple off of your gross annual income. So if you make $100,000 a year, and depending on your age and health, typically the younger you are, the higher the multiple. That multiple ranges anywhere from 10 to 15x your annual gross income. So I, Denzel, if I was making $100,000 a year, At my current age, 30 years old, I could probably, with great health, I could most likely qualify for $1.5 million, maybe even more than that, with good health and my young age. The older we get, as you approach 50s and 60s, that multiple comes down. I've seen it, you know, as low as like 8 to 10x. I've seen it as high as maybe 11 or 12x. The person's annual gross income, right? And if they're really healthy, again, it boosts that multiple up. So if I believe I'm my number one asset, how can I begin to invest in that asset? I want to protect it. I want to grow it. We can go to insurance companies that will literally give us millions of dollars over our life in exchange for premium. Peanuts, pennies on the dollar compared to the amount of death benefit coverage you get. And it comes with a laundry list of other benefits along the way. We don't have to get into that in this session. I just want to give you the ideas, and then we begin to take action with those ideas by us having a conversation together. Alright, the next practical thing we're gonna— we're actually gonna do some work here. Get ready. So wherever you're at right now, wherever you're watching from, if you're watching on your phone, get your laptop, get your notes. We're gonna do some work together. This next one is so practical. We can begin to work on this immediately, which is your personal and business credit. I'm gonna focus on personal credit for now because I know who my audience is. Majority of you are W-2 earners. Most of the people watching my channel the last 8 years are W-2, maybe self-employed, some entrepreneurs, some business owners, but the majority of you are W-2 earners. So we're gonna focus on personal credit. Your body operating On US soil, you have what's called a credit score. There's 3 bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. These 3 companies— you and I and everyone in here and those catching the recording— are at the mercy of these 3 institutions. These 3 institutions Dictate and create a profile about you and me. Based on that profile, we can go to these other institutions called credit and bank institutions where we can access equity. Back to the theme, unlocking your equity. Specifically talking about the body, 2 critical areas we can begin to unlock equity and unlock potential in your life is through mortality credits, getting life insurance or income protection through annuities. You're basically taking some money and making more money out of it with no risk, guaranteed no risk. Credit. By having great credit over not having good credit, You literally can take no money whatsoever out of your pocket, and you can get money from other institutions, and they will give you capital— what you call debt. I like to call it capital. I like to call it cash flow. I like to call it leverage. And we take this capital, and now we can go do something with it. When we combine spirit, body, and mind to come up with an idea. Now, unfortunately, this is where I get to poke some holes in this community. Now, I know the predominant demographic of my YouTube channel, and based off of My clients, people who've paid me money in the past over the last 8 years that have worked with me for the last 8 years, are predominantly Black and Hispanic households. I have a strong white demographic as well, and then I have smaller demographics like Indians and Asians that I work with, but predominantly Black and Hispanic households. Now, specifically focusing on Spanish and Black households for just a moment here. This is where I get to just— I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna press a button. Is what it is. But we get to grow. We get to become aware and we get to learn from this. Because from my position, Again, I've had the privilege and honor of working with all walks of life. It is actually really, really cool. And I have some really awesome clients who are of Asian descent, Indian descent, African descent. There's a difference if you're born in America Black versus if you're born in Africa Of that, that whole continent and then come to America. I like to label this crowd, like my Asian descent, Indian descent, African descent, basically anyone that is from another country, not born in America, or You say you were born in America, but you've spent many of your years overseas in another country, and you've you know come back and forth. The immigrant lifestyle continues to blow my mind every single day. I talk with my immigrant clients, and these are people who either are first generation, maybe second generation, became a U.S. citizen. You lived in another country. You came here, but you were taught. By your immigrant mom or dad that came to America, came to America, brought you here. I continue to get amazed, continue to get amazed by how they operate their finances, number one, and how freaking awesome they get their credit scores up in a. relatively short period of time. And what's even funnier is how little these immigrant families use their credit versus— poke the hole now, get ready, I already prepped you for this— from my Black households, from my Spanish households. I'm Puerto Rican and Colombian, okay? I have seen a consistent Unfortunately, it's part of the culture. I have seen a consistent lack of credit use, credit knowledge amongst Black and Hispanic households compared to our other demographic parties that live in the United States, whether it's white people, Asians, Jews, Africans, uh, you name it. Anyone, any, any immigrant, uh, that migrates to America, for the most part, it's night and day. And I haven't been able to crack the code yet. I haven't been able to figure out like what in the hell are they doing that we're not. I haven't been able to figure out, but what I am doing is being part of the solution. Not the problem. I am working towards doing everything I can to bring awareness to this, to say, hey guys, Black and Hispanic households, we've got to wake up. There's so much opportunity if we can unlock your equity. I would argue between Spanish and Black households in America. And there's no— I haven't seen any reliable studies done on this. I don't think anyone can do a study on this because it would be too political, maybe. It would be— it's way too touchy for probably anyone to really touch this. At scale. But I'm willing to bet there's probably trillions of trapped equity. Trillions. When I tell you trillions, trillions of dollars of trapped— trapped in prison— trapped equity amongst Black and Hispanic households. Do you believe that? Let me know in the comment section. Do you believe that? And where do I get my number from? Well, there are some studies that in America, among single-family households— single-family households across America— there is about $11 trillion or more, roughly, of available equity in these single-family homes. So then, of those single-family homes, how much of those homes are owned by Black and Spanish households? How much? Well, I did a little studying on a particular area, and this is part of a Another series that I'm doing here in South Florida. I have a show on YouTube and it's titled How to Get Rich Fast and Slow, and I'm covering the city of Lauderdale Lakes in South Florida. Some information for you to know about the city of Lauderdale Lakes in South Florida. There's about 37,000 residents that live in Lauderdale Lakes in South Florida, and roughly 80% of the population in Lauderdale Lakes is made up of Black households. Of the 80% Black demographic in Lauderdale Lakes, About 5,000 to 6,000 residents are Black homeowners. So use the lower number, say 5,000 Black homeowners, underestimate. And the average home value in Lauderdale Lakes is anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000. And the average available equity in these homes in Lauderdale Lakes is about $70,000 to $90,000. So I'll take the higher number since I used a lower amount of residents. 5,000 Black households, Black homeowners in Lauderdale Lakes times $90,000 of available equity in the city of Lauderdale alone, folks. How many people live in America? 450 million, right? Something like that. In the city of Lauderdale Lakes alone, 5,000 Black homeowners. The number I have is $450 million of trapped equity. If the average available equity in a Black household in Lauderdale Lakes amongst 5,000 Black Homeowners is $90,000. 5,000 times $90,000, my friend, that's $450 million. Imagine if I just covered the state of Florida and just did that for every city in Florida, just went by one by one by one by one by one. Dude, I'm at, I'm at $2-3 trillion and I haven't even left Broward County yet. Makes sense. So I know for a fact there's trillions of dollars trapped in Black communities across America and Spanish communities across America. And I am a result of growing up living in a family who operated without equity, and any equity they could access was taxed or charged at very, very, very high interest rates. Okay? Very, very, very high interest rates. So we got multiple things going on. I just exposed you to mortality credits. I'm exposing you to personal credit, the value The true value of personal credit. It is insane what one can do with credit. Again, I am a result of growing up in a household where nobody had good credit, and we're talking for many decades. I'm only 30 years old. Okay, so for 20 of those years. Call it 22 of those years I experienced poor credit, a poor credit lifestyle. What that results in, the numbers are horrible. It's scary. The person who operates their life, the person who walks through life in America, specifically focusing on Black and Hispanic households right now, That person is just walking through life with a terrible credit score, 550, 600, 650, whatever it is. They don't realize how much money they're giving up in interest alone. That results in hundreds of thousands of dollars net lost. Hundreds of thousands dollars lost. So that's what we call opportunity costs lost. Then you compound that by a simple rate of return of 4% over a 30-40 year period, the average career span of an individual in America, say 40 years, and you end up with millions of Millions of dollars lost that you can guaranteed recover. Guaranteed you can recover this. And when you recover and then you teach the next generation, they'll never experience opportunity cost lost, nor will they experience compound interest in the negative effects. Right? So now that I gave you the context and I poked you a little bit, especially if you are of Black descent, Spanish descent, maybe your, your blood is boiling a bit. I know I get hot just talking about it because I'm like, I wish my mother knew this. I wish my mother knew this in her 20s. If someone was to, to, to look at my mother's life, like if I could just like have God's eyes and go back in time and just see all the money my mom had to pay in interest Because of her lack of knowledge, lack of support, lack of resources, da da da da da, the whole thing, and not knowing about credit. Ladies and gentlemen, when I tell you my mom and everyone's here got a mom, got a family member, and maybe you're that person too, you've been paying interest. Your whole damn life, and it sucks. Does it not? Be real with me. Some of you in here have just been paying interest, and man, it is such a weight on your body. Oh my goodness! People are dying over this. People are literally having health concerns. I work with clients who literally have health concerns. And finances is one of the number one areas that is affecting literally their organs, their mind, their spirit, their body, the 3 areas. And we're gonna now get into— this is the work part. Got your computer open? I'm gonna have you open some tabs. I'm gonna share my screen. And you're going to make accounts right now. You're going to do it right now. We're not going to wait. We're going to do this stuff right now because I've painted the picture and I want these 2 specific communities to do better. Black and Spanish households growing up in America, living in America. Let me tell you, it is a night and day difference because you can take the same Mexican or Puerto Rican or Colombian who was not born in America— maybe not Puerto Rican, right, because you're, you're still a citizen. So Colombia and, and, and Mexico, I'll use those 2 as an example. I talked to a Mexican family born in Mexico, came to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, grew up here, They have pretty decent credit, and and for the most part they don't even know how to use it. For the families I speak spoke with, I'm like holy crap! You literally have a 687, 720 credit score. You know they have a house. They really don't carry credit card debt. Night and day versus Mexican, Colombian doesn't matter Spanish descent growing up in America. So that's the second generation. And they get— somehow they get access to credit. I don't know how they do it, but they get access to credit, a lot of it. And then they don't pay the damn shit back. They don't pay it back, or it takes them forever to pay it back, or when they do pay it, it's late. And then it creates a characteristic profile. The banks see it. So then they go to apply for the next thing. The next car, the next student loan, the next personal loan, the next credit card, the next home loan. And little by little, when they could have got a 6% rate, now they're at 7.5%. Where they could have got a 7.5% rate, now they're at 9.5%. Where they could have got 10%, they're at 12%. When they could have got a 20% credit card, they got a 29% credit card. When they could have got a 4% mortgage, they're at a— 8.5%. 5.5, and it just keeps happening, and it compounds, and it compounds, and it compounds, and it bleeds everywhere else. So we're going to change that. We're going to change that, ladies and gentlemen. Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion— we're going to focus on those 3 companies. So many people I talk to don't even have an account with With these bureaus. But that doesn't matter because just because you don't have an account, just because you're not monitoring your credit, you have a credit profile just out there floating around the world doing whatever it's doing, and it's affecting your life. It is trapping the equity in your life, and boy, does it cost a whole lot. A whole lot of money. All right, so let's do some work. So let's go, every single one of you and catching the recording. If you don't have an Experian account, I need you to go make one. It is free. You don't have to pay for it. You can make some investments into your credit repair. You can make some, right? With, you know, with a budget and, you know, with practical financial planning and all that good stuff. And you connect with me and I can help you save a ton of money. All right? This is what it looks like having good credit. This is my Experian credit score as of September 25th, 2026. It's at 811. Equifax says 780. TransUnion says 773, but it is out of date. In order for me to get the updated ones, I gotta pay. I don't pay. You know why I don't pay? Because I already got the score. And that's what's cool. When you have great credit, what do you need to pay to monitor your great credit for? When you have bad credit, that's when you got to pay. Because we need to begin to monitor this so that we can begin to grow it. Once we get it to where it needs to be, then you start to reap the rewards. So why am I sharing my account? Why am I being vulnerable in, in this moment? Because I want to inspire families across the United States of what's possible. When you have someone that looks like you, we have maybe similar skin tone. There's something relatable about me, and hopefully that inspires you to say, okay, if he can do it, I can do it. If I came from a family where they never have seen an 811 credit score. I, Denzel Rodriguez, have never seen an 811 credit score on my credit report. I'm sharing this with you because this is 8 years in the making. It is much harder to get your credit higher when you're young because you, you know, when you're really, really young, like in my— when I first started, like Started building credit around 18, 19 years old. It takes a long freaking time to build credit. This is not a quick thing. But when you compare it to a life, right? When you compare it to a life, lifelong experience, it's night and day for me. So building credit for me over the last 8 years Feels so much faster. It feels so much shorter than the last 22 years growing up. So when I compare, if I look at anyone in the room here, if you're, say you're 40 years old and all you've known is a life of a credit score below 650, well, guess what? That's 40 years. But what if I told you in just a 1-year window, Maybe a two-year window that we could flip that 400 credit score, 500 credit score, 600 credit score, and get it to at least 720 or higher. Because 811, that that shouldn't be your goal. That that's just like bread. That's just you know bread on butter. That's extra. The the real meat. Is when you get to 720 or higher. That's the sweet spot. 811 is just bragging, right? At that point, you're just bragging, right? I'm doing a little bragging here. Why? Because I'm just letting you know, I've never seen this in my life, so I, I gotta get excited. I have to feed— I have to continue to feed my number one asset. I have to get excited. Hopefully this inspires you. This is what's possible. You can, you can experience this for yourself. And what's even more exciting other than the score itself is the amount of money I save. Oh my Lord. Again, compare my mother's life to mine. It is night and day, the amount of interest that I save. Because I have good credit. So at this point, if you haven't yet created an Experian account, it is so easy to do. You can skip past the subscription that they try to sell you, right? And we move on to the next one, which is MyEquifax. Okay, go to MyEquifax, look that up. Create an account, also free. They will try to sell you, of course, but we don't need to buy anything just yet. We just need to create the accounts. We need to get clarity, all right, on, on where you're at. 781 with Equifax. Now I'm going to skip over TransUnion. It's the most difficult website I've ever seen in my life. I even haven't been able to figure out TransUnion. So we can get TransUnion scores through Experian and Equifax or something like Credit Karma. So 2 out of 3 is fine. All right, now different bureaus solve for different things, and I don't know all the facts, but I'm just letting you know the basis that, you know, basically Certain institutions will look at Experian, certain institutions will look at Equifax, certain institutions will look at all 3, certain institutions just look at one, right? They each solve for different things. You basically want good credit across all 3 bureaus. That's the goal. The target is 720 or higher. If you don't have a 720 or higher score, that puts you in a what's called below prime. All right, in a lot of cases. Now, some cases you start to enter prime around 680 to 700. You start entering prime for certain things, and for other things you enter prime when you exceed 720 or higher. So I'm just setting the standard to say, look, every Black and Spanish household in America and the other demographics as well that, that don't experience— I'm just leaving you guys out because for the most part, in my experience, it usually isn't too much of a problem. You know, in some cases it is, but I'm just going over my experience working with lots and lots of Spanish and Black households. I experience credit scores that are not satisfying, and they affect many areas Of our lives, right? Especially when you have 30 to 40% of your income going towards debt, and yet you're trying to invest in the stock market earning a measly, I don't know, 8%. I'm like, what are we doing? Why are you trying to earn 8 cents on the dollar? And you got 40% of your income going to debt, and you're paying way more than what you're earning in interest annually. So imagine if we redirected that money that you're sending to earn 8 cents on the dollar, and you redirected it to credit repair, and you reduced your overall cost of money. Cost of debt from an average 15% to 8%, that's the equivalent of earning more than 8% in the stock market. That's equivalent to earning more than 8% because when you earn 8 cents on the dollar in the stock market, you have to pay taxes and you probably pay fees in your 401. So say you pay 1% in fees in your 401, so now your net earnings is 7%. And And then taxes is gonna take 20% to 30% of that. So now you're left with a net growth of, I don't know, 5%, 4.5%, 5.5%. When you could take those dollars, redirect it towards credit repair, credit building, credit monitoring, refinance debt from an average cost of 15% to 8%, that's tax-free. No taxes on the net growth, cash flow back into your economy to throw towards the now the refinance debt, and then pay that debt down. Having fun? This is fun for me. This is exciting. All right, next action step. Experian, Equifax, you're gonna make accounts there. It's free. Next. There's a company called Self, pretty popular. Self is a great place to begin building your credit. Building. I want to build your credit, and I also want to repair your credit. In the last few months, I've been building up my skills in learning more about credit repair so that I can actually help people repair their credit and provide that service as well within this community. I've always had a tough time with credit repair partners and referrals. They typically don't stay in the business as long, or it's not their main thing, it's a side business. And I say, you know what, I'm just gonna do it in-house now. So moving forward, I can now help people repair their credit. I've got a service, we use AI, you'll get coaching from me one-on-one, and we'll begin to do a lot of different steps to begin building your credit. All right, Self is one of them. They've got 3 products that I do like. It's simple, very, very low cost, In some cases free. For example, rent and utilities reporting. You can turn your everyday bills into credit building where this company Self will report your consecutive rent payments that you're making to the credit bureaus. As long as you're paying your rent on time, We can use that to boost your score. We can then add utilities and other subscriptions that you pay, right? That's free to have your rent reported. Other bills, they charge a little subscription fee. I think it's like $7 a month or something like that. So I want you to make an account here. There's, there's other companies that, that do this as well. I'm just picking Self because this is the one I just I know a lot and it's very reputable. The next is the self-secured credit card. Solid, can't go wrong making a secured credit card. You could start with $100, $200. You can go to any major bank institution today and create a secured credit card and Some don't have fees, some do. I think Self is the lowest fee I've seen. It's only $25. It's free the first year and then it's $25 after that. My, my now wife, um, when we first started dating, I had her go and get a secured credit card with Capital One and we used that to begin to build Her credit. She now has great credit. She gets access to so much debt and capital; it's insane. All right, and we're both of Spanish descent. All right, right here I'm gonna provide a link in the chat. This is for credit repair. So if you wanted to work with me directly, I can help begin. To work on your credit, partner up with me, and we'll do additional coaching as well. So I'm just gonna drop that in the chat so you can see it all there. Take a look. It's $99, um, to start, $99 a month, and then we need to connect To a company called SmartCredit. They're $19.99 a month, and those 2 things will communicate with each other so that we can begin to repair your credit. Meanwhile, you and I are going to do things that can build your credit. So it's 2 different things. Repair credit is removing things. You can remove stuff off your credit over time. Right, then we do things to build our credit. We have to form a new character, a new profile that the credit bureaus will, will report so that your credit can improve. So by reporting consistent rent payments, reporting consistent subscriptions and utilities, by setting up a secured credit card and spending $50 every month consistently on a bill you already have— so not spending new money, just Just redirecting expenses onto a credit card rather than a debit card and getting credit for that, had that be reported. Then the next thing we're gonna do— this has been going viral on the YouTube channel the last couple of months, but the 3-payment strategy. People are literally seeing results really fast in such a short period of time. So the 3-payment strategy, you're gonna apply this to existing debt that you have if you're not doing velocity banking. And the way it works is 15 days after the due date on the credit card, you make a payment. 3 days before the due date, you make a payment, and then on the due date itself, you make a payment. So let's say your due date is the 1st of every month on one of your credit cards. Count 15 days. You can make it easy, just say the 15th of every month you're gonna make a payment. And then 3 days before, you can just say the 27th of every month, you make a payment. And then on the 1st, you make a payment. You can do this on existing credit card debt that you're actively trying to pay down. Instead of trying to lump all your money together and then make a payment on the due date, principal plus interest, or minimum payment plus an extra payment, spread that out throughout the month. Make multiple payments, you actually will pay off the card faster, paying less money in interest. And from a credit building standpoint, you'll boost your credit because the bureaus are reporting that you made 3 payments every single month on the same debt, and that will begin to boost your credit. So it's things like that with coaching and support that we could be working on together. With your finances. And that's how we're gonna begin to unlock more and more equity. When we can unlock that credit score by boosting it up, and let's say you're a homeowner, let's say you got equity in your home, can't access it right now because your credit score is terrible. Guess what? We can begin to take the credit score that's growing over time. against the bad debt that you acquired with that bad credit score and refinance it forward into good credit territory with 0% leverage and/or low single-digit rates, saving you tons of money, all tax-free net growth savings to you. And we begin to have more fun. All right, so that's the work. Gotta be willing to do the work. Okay, I won't spend too much time on this, but business credit— it just logged me out. For, for business credit, for some of you who do have a business or you're about to start a business, this is worth doing as well. Where you can begin to build business credit that does not connect to your personal credit. As you can see, these are my scores across the different bureaus: Experian Business, Equifax Business, Dun& Bradstreet, also as your Paydex score, and then there's the Paynet, I think, and there's someone else. But, uh, 2 out of the 4 areas I'm doing good in. So the red areas, you see 27, 384, those have to come up. I've been building business credit for maybe the last 5 to 6 years, I want to say. So this is a much longer approach and process for me, but I'm not doing bad for a 30-year-old. I'm able to access quite a bit of debt on the business side, and then I can take, let's say— and this is a strategy that I've seen people do quite successfully— where you take personal debts that you have and you can actually move it over to your business at cheaper rates, cheaper costs, 0%. And let's say you make more money in your business than as a W-2 earner. Well, if you make more money in your business and you have more profits, you can put the business in debt rather than your personal And then you can have the business profits pay back the debt, and that can potentially lower tax liability. The interest that you pay on those debts could potentially become tax deductible with, with tax strategy and planning, and that's a strategy in and of itself. I won't spend too much time there because like I said, I want to focus on my, my W-2 people, earners that are You know, you're really struggling right now. You know, the economy has been tightening up, rates went up, okay? There's a lot, there's a lot going on. And despite things that you and I can't control with current administration and even the previous administration and all the things and external wars and government policies and state policies and All the things that drive you and I up a wall that you can't control. In this community, I want you to focus on what you can control. I want you to continue to focus on what you can control because it's way too stressful to be thinking about things that you can't control. Rates going up, rates going down. Are we done with the Iran war or are we going to keep going? Are we, you know, taxes are going up, are they going down? This state is doing this, this state wants to add this tax over here. There's so many things you and I can't control. What we can control is your personal economy, is your credit score. We can begin to do things to provide relief. We can shift the way we think about money. Okay, the theme Tonight and in this community, unlocking your equity. One of the one of the belief systems right here is the cash flow over net worth belief system. I've been teaching on that a lot lately. The other is tax free over taxable. Okay, tax free over Taxable. So many W-2 earners, so many W-2 earners are putting their money in taxable locations that aren't liquid and not— and are not making them cash flow right now. Meanwhile, they're getting ripped apart with their debt and their cost of living is going up. But if we can flip that and say, hey, what was the— what is the result you're looking for with your retirement accounts and the money that you're investing outside of yourself? The result typically is what? More income, more cash flow. Okay, what if we just solve for that right here, right now, instead of one day someday? If we begin to flip that mindset, And adopt these new belief systems, it's gonna relieve a lot of stress. It's backed by math, not theory. And then we can begin to do things right here, right now to unlock the equity, to give us more capital, to provide the relief, to reduce our expense obligations, debt obligations, and increase more cash flow to then continue to invest in your number one asset, which is yourself. All right, so we covered spirit, we covered body, Mortality credits, personal business credit. Turn your enemies into allies. Many of you have experienced banks, credit unions, credit bureaus as enemies. They don't like you. They have terrible profiles of you. They're charging you ridiculous interest rates, high rates. You haven't experienced what it's like to be an ally. To be a partner with these banks and credit unions. I have experienced both. I know what it's like to be on the enemy side, where it feels like banks and institutions are, are your enemies. And now I know what it's like to have them as my ally, where they want to give me money on the business side, they want to give me money on the personal side, any day, all day, every day. And I accept, and I accept, and I accept, and I steward, and I steward, and I steward. And I don't put myself in a bad position. Next is the mind. The mind. You have the ability to think, which means you have the ability to create value from nothing, from absolutely nothing but the thoughts in your mind. I, Denzel Rodriguez, Had a thought in my mind that I could serve mothers after helping my own mom. It was a thought which then became this growing idea, this idea which then grew into like a concept. Which then became writings and notes on papers and whiteboards and digital devices. This, this concept that I could help mothers, this 21, 22-year-old kid working in food and beverage, washing dishes, working a register, cleaning Serving ice cream, making fast food, doing deliveries for Papa John's, working in a small Italian restaurant cash under the table, was thinking I could help people financially. How crazy of an idea that is from that position! But I kept feeding the idea. Rather than investing in an ETF, rather than investing in the 401, rather than investing in the S&P 500, like what all the financial advisors said to do. No, I said I'm going to read books. I'm going to grow this mind of mine. I'm going to grow this body of mine. I'm going to grow this spirit of mine. And I'm going to just continue to formulate and continue to think about these ideas, turn these ideas into concepts, concepts into actionable intel that I can produce results with. And so out of nothing came this YouTube channel, which then grew into serving people all across the United States and even abroad. Once you experience that in for yourself, the ability to think— most people don't spend enough time thinking. They just do things. Thinking is some of the hardest work most people never do. And so I encourage this community, Finance Geek community, To think of ways to create value from nothing. When you start with zero, there's nothing to lose. When you start with zero, when you start with nothing, there's nothing to lose. You have nothing to lose when you think about ideas that can actually help other people, and then in return they help you monetarily. That's the exchange. It's a brilliant concept. It's called entrepreneurship. So now we combine these 3 things: spirit, body, and mind. We're doing these things simultaneously. You are your number one asset. Here are the areas that we have to understand as United States citizens living in the United States. You have to understand your position and how to improve that position without taking really any risk. Number one, protect the asset. Let's get— let's secure your human life value. Let's protect your income with life insurance and living benefits. Now, once we do that, let's begin to reclassify the asset. So I, Denzel Napoleon Rodriguez, I have 2 options. I can serve you as Denzel Napoleon Rodriguez, or I can serve you as builder to contributor, BTC for short, like Bitcoin. The big difference, if I serve Jeff, Jasmine, Terry, Glenn, right? Sandy, Raquel. If I serve you as Denzel Rodriguez, I'm gonna pay a lot of money in taxes. But if I serve you as BTC, builder to contributor, I'm gonna pay lower taxes. So if Denzel believes that he is his number one asset, and so does Raquel believes that they're their number one asset. Okay, and let's say— who else? Who else believes? Jasmine believes that she is her number one asset. If this is true, and if you're your number one asset, you're the biggest asset, which means Guess who else knows that you're your number one asset? The United States government. The Internal Revenue Service also knows that you are your number one asset. And since you are your number one asset according to the Internal Revenue Service, you get taxed the highest. amount off all of your labor. So if I labor as Denzel Napoleon Rodriguez versus if I labor as Builder to Contributor, BTC for short, then I get taxed less for doing the same work. This blew my mind when I first learned about this. So if we can reclassify the asset by putting a business on your household, we can then reclassify the income that your household makes. And if we reclassify the income, we might as well reclassify the lifestyle that you choose to live. We want your income, your assets, and your lifestyle to all All come together and reduce your tax liability. Because if we reduce your tax liability, that's less expenses on your life. And the number one expense in your life is taxes. So again, if we're chasing rates of returns with investments, you're taking little money that you make after being taxed and paying all this debt and trying to go earn 8 cents on the dollar, 10 cents on the dollar. I want to save you whole dollars. Whole dollars. If I save you $1, that's 100% return on investment. If I save you $1, that's 100% return on investment. What if we did that so many times over and over again? Guess what? You don't need to worry about net worth. Because if I recover 30% to 40% of your income with debt alone, and then I reduce your number one expense, which is taxes, And I save you 10% there, 20% there, whatever the number is, that turns into more income, more cash, just through tax savings alone, which is more cash flow to put towards debt, which speeds up your rate of return faster, which then gives you more free cash flow to put towards you, your number one asset. And so you keep feeding the asset, the number one asset, it's able to produce more things out of nothing. More value, more value, more value out of nothing. And you strengthen the 3 areas: spirit, body, and mind. You get better at this one asset of yours. And so there's stages to this. There's stages. When you begin to reclassify the asset, which is you, you can establish yourself as an S corp, a sole prop, or an LLC. And then in time you can then graduate to the S corp, and then in time you can graduate to the C corp, and then in time maybe you add a nonprofit along the way, and then in time maybe you begin to add trust structures along the way, and then in time you start learning jurisdictions, right? And how the ultra-wealthy start to move money into different jurisdictions where this jurisdiction can't tax that jurisdiction, and this jurisdiction has no jurisdiction over there over my assets, and you begin to just move assets all over the world into different jurisdictions and different protections, different levels of protections, depending on how, you know, big you want to take this. Depending on how big you want to take it. Let me know if there's any questions. I know I'm dropping a lot on you, but that's the theme here tonight. I want to unlock equity, unlock your potential, change the way you think about money. Let's rethink. Let's solve for what you want rather than hope and pray for a rate of return that maybe one day, someday, we'll get there. Why are we doing that? That system's broken. It doesn't work. It failed for the, for the, the Gen Xers. It is failing for the Gen Xers. Cash flow over net worth. Tax-free over taxable, you will recover so much money in your life, it's insane. All right, so we're gonna have even more fun. We're gonna have even more fun now. I gotta create some space on the board here because this is where it starts to get intense. So before I erase it, let me show you the board one more time. We're going to— I'm going to erase like all of this here. I'm going to create some space. Spirit, body, and mind. You are your number one asset. Faith and belief. Fortify that with the body. Mortality credits. Business personal credit. We can begin to immediately build that up. Your ability to think. Your ability to create value from nothing. All right, so I'm going to erase this. We're gonna focus on your number one expense in life outside of your wife. Outside of your wife. Okay, that's for the men. Now check this out. Watch this. What's that? We're gonna do a simple, and and let me tell you, like I myself don't even know too much about this topic, but I did maybe twenty minutes of research, and I exposed myself. To so much opportunity, which I already know I'm taking advantage of because I have a team and I have support and I leverage other people who do things better than I do. And then I just keep doing the thing that I do best, and that creates more money. That's the same thing I'm going to recommend to you. I don't recommend anyone in here to become a tax expert unless God's called you to that. If, if not, we're just going to list out things. For my, for my W-2 people to consider. Protect the asset, reclassify the asset. When you reclassify yourself as the asset into a business, you reclassify the income. If you reclassify the income, you can begin to reclassify your lifestyle, which then get recorded as taxable deductions. Powerful stuff. We're going to look at a few things here. I'm going to be going back and forth on the board. I'm going to use an example for the— I'd say the majority of clients that I'm working with now. Maybe, maybe I'll just use myself. Let me know in the comments. You want me to use like a standard example? Use myself? I think I'll use myself as an example here. So 2026 federal income tax brackets. If you're Married filing jointly, I believe this year I'll probably close between my wife and I in the 24% tax bracket. So that's between $211,401 and $403,000. Okay, so between my wife and I In my S corporation, I pay myself a salary, W-2, of $75,000, and then my wife as a lawyer will probably make this year about $140,000, um, W-2 gross. Okay. So we're going to use $215,000 as W-2 earnings, and then let's say between my wife and I we make, say, about— $100,000. $400,000. So that's another $185,000 through business income, which would put us in that 24% Range. 24% range. So $400,000 minus $211,401, we have— we're going to have a tax bill We have $188,599 in this example. $188,599, right, is going to be taxed at 24%. Now, great question just came in from this gentleman. Marco says, does it make sense to reclassify Yourself even if you're not generating consistent or much income? Definitely not, right? It would, it would not make sense because there is not much to write off, okay? So once we've done the foundational work, do you believe you're number one asset? Yes, Denzel. Great, prove it. How's your spirit? How's your body? How's your mind? Have we fortified those three positions? From those three positions, what can we do to to build up this this asset of yours? We want to protect it. So we get life insurance protection. We build your credit score. That right there alone could take someone a couple years to rebuild their credit from scratch, to afford life insurance, to begin paying down debt. So. Again, when I speak, ladies and gentlemen, I'm not expecting 30, 60, 90 days. I'm not that kind of content creator or marketer. I've been doing this 8 years now. I have clients I've been working with for literally 8 years. Some of those clients are still W-2 earners. Some of those clients never started a business. That's okay if, if that's not the direction they wanted to go in. I'm giving the full picture. Of the direction I'm taking my life because I see the potential of what can be done. So not every one of my clients is going to just follow what I'm doing 100% of the way, but there are things that they have done to improve themselves. So I have folks that have been repairing and building their credit for the last 3 to 5 years, which then unlocked equity in their home. To then help them become debt-free. Then they started doing infinite banking, and they funded that asset, get life insurance on themselves. And now in the 6th or 7th year, they're now thinking about starting a business. Especially when I'm working with husband and wife, there's so much opportunity. If, say, the husband is doing all the W-2 earnings, wife doesn't have a business, and she's also W-2, but her income's smaller. And let's say she has more time on her hands than husband does, then it would make sense because it's dual income household and they're making good money, they're being taxed at these higher brackets. It would make sense for wife to maybe start some kind of a business. Again, I have to start with the foundation. We are moving in the direction of a business, but these things don't have to like Oh my God, I got to do it right here, right now. No, the stuff I told you to do earlier, right here, right now, is get your credit right, protect your asset, get the foundational stuff. What I'm showing you now is, is my experience and process of how all these things have come together and got me to, to this point. And now this is a different level of what we're doing here now. Now going into taxes. So I'm showing you that in my household, at minimum, I've got $215,000 worth of W-2 earnings in my household alone. So that money, $215,000, the bulk of that money is being taxed between 12% and 22%. And then there's $188,599 times 24%, huh, which is— which is going to get taxed $45,000 $263.76. That's $3,771.98 a month. That's basically a mortgage payment to the Internal Revenue Service every single year in that 24%. So when I'm working with families, I'm— this again, I'm speaking to people now who do make good money as W-2. You're a 6-figure earner, you're a multiple 6-figure earner, and, and you are now feeling the effects of high taxes and trying to get out of debt and trying to manage your, your money and trying to build credit. And so there's different things that we can attack here to improve this. So in my household specifically, we got 2 W-2 earners, my wife and myself, but then we also have a business, Builder 2 Contributor, which unlocks tax deductions that I can take advantage of. So now we're going to learn more. We're just going to do basic things that maybe you're not paying attention to. Maybe, maybe you just don't know about it, okay? So I have a home. I looked up how much mortgage interest can I deduct? I'm gonna pretend like I don't know these things, so I'm Googling it like you would so that I can encourage you to do this stuff. Says you can deduct mortgage interest on the first $750,000 of your total mortgage debt, right? So I'm married filing jointly, so I get to qualify up to that $750,000. It says you must itemize your deductions instead of taking the standard deduction to claim this write-off. So the question you want to be asking yourself in your household, if you have a home, is you look at the total amount of interest you paid in your home in a year, and you want to ask yourself, Uh, was this interest on my home more than the standard deduction that I can claim? Right. 2026, here is the standard deduction for married couples. $32,200. Now I have a lot of couples that are in their 60s, so you get additional deductions because of your age, right? So for me, Denzel, I'm going to take that $32,200 number We're going to do some simple math. So the standard deduction, standard deduction is $32,200. The average amount of interest I'm paying on my home is around $3,000 a month, comes out to $36,000 a year. Per year. Which is more, $36,000 of interest or $32,200 standard deduction? $36,000, of course. So let's use that number. I'm going to itemize This is what my tax strategist and CPA will do for me. I'm going to itemize my deductions, and we're going to start with the mortgage interest that I pay on my home, $36,000. So that means you minus $36,000 from $188,000. So 188,599 minus 36,000 brings it down to 152 times 24%. Now we're at 36,000 just from that one move. I go from 45 to 36,000. Okay, we're not going to stop there. What are some other things that I can do? Well, since I am a business owner and I'm in my home, this is my studio, so I can get what's called a home office deduction. So let's look at the home office deduction, shall we? You can deduct up to $2,000— oh, this is the wrong one. That's student loans. Let's go to— where is it? 32— home office deduction. There you go. $1,500. Well, let's use that. Home office deduction, $1,500. Cool. Let's go back to the student loans because that was a good one. My wife has student loans that she pays for becoming a lawyer, and she can deduct $2,500. So that's another item deduction off the interest that she paid on her student loans. She has about 100 grand owed with an average interest rate of say 6%. That's about $6,000 of interest. So we can deduct $2,500 of that 6 grand that she paid in interest for say 2025, you know, or, or this year it'll be, it'll probably be a little bit lower because the debt's been coming down, but we'll still get $2,500 of So that's cool, then let's look at some more things. Now as a business owner, there are additional deductions that you can get, it goes on for days, so many things. So we can do business meals, we do a 50% deduction off business meals. Softwares and subscriptions, 100% of the cost for digital tools, cloud storage, domain names, industry apps used for operations. So it's like I make the money and then I spend the money according to the the tax incentives that exist. So as a business owner, it makes sense for me to get a domain and buy a website and, and have, you know, these different subscriptions and different tools, right? Like, I could probably write off my YouTube Premium subscription because I use it for business versus many of you who pay for YouTube Premium You're doing it under your W-2 income, so you don't get a deduction because you're not using it for business. But technically you are, but since you're not a business, you don't get it, right? So when I say reclassify the income, what has to happen first? We have to reclassify the asset. What has to happen first before you reclassify the asset? You got to protect the asset. What happens before you protect the asset? We got to understand, are you your number one asset? Comment yes in the chat. Are you your number one asset? I'm going to keep asking this because, because you have to be fully convicted in this. Fully convicted. Right. So now check this out, this qualified business income. This is a cool one. It says pass-through LLC owners can deduct up to 20% of their net business income right off their personal income tax. Okay, so let me make sure I get this right. Let me just go off the $188,599 number. So you mean to tell me that if I make $188 grand in my business through the qualified business income, I can write off 20% of it? Off my personal, right off the personal income taxes. Hmm. So how does that work? Does it mean that we take 20% off 215, or is it 20% off the the business earnings? Right. Let let let's say it's off the the business earnings, and maybe I'm getting this wrong. Don't know, but we'll we'll learn together. 188 times 20% is 37,719. So 37,719.80. So now let's start, let's start adding all this up. We started with 188 $599, because that's the highest amount of taxable income that we want to— we want to bring that bracket down, want to offset that. So we're going to minus $37,000. This was QBI, okay, minus $37,000. $719.88 minus the mortgage interest I paid on my home for 2026, let's say it was $36,000, minus the home office deduction, minus $1,500, minus student loan interest, $2,500. Now we're at $110,000. We're at $110,879.12 times 24% is $26,000. So I took a $45,000 bill, and with a couple of moves, we've reduced our taxes down to $26,610.98. Right, and there's, there's still more to go. But, but do you, do you see the, the power? And I work with a lot of you that have high W-2 earnings. You're making $300 grand a year, you're making $200 grand a year, you're making $150,000, $250,000, and you live in California. Let's say I'm in Florida, I've got no state income tax. Some of you live in New York, California and other states that have state income tax on top of the federal, you are getting smoked. You're getting drained. So for those people who are making good income right now, really, really good income, 6 figures and up, between you and your wife, we have to have this conversation. You cannot avoid this. This is your biggest Bill. That's right in front of you. And so we've got to have the conversation. Okay, husband. Okay, wife. Who's going to be the business owner in the family? In my household, it's Denzel. It's me. My wife is the W-2 earner, so she's making this W-2 income. And in my business, I'm doing everything I possibly can to reduce her W-2 earnings and my W-2 earnings off of what's taxable. Okay, let's keep going. We got another cool one. This is one that I looked up. I looked up the SALT, state and local tax deduction on your federal income taxes. So Again, in order to claim the SALT deduction, you must itemize your deductions, okay. This is all stuff I'm learning right on the spot, and again, I don't need to be a master in this, I need to just meet someone who knows how to do this. And guess what? If you don't have a tax strategist, if you don't have a CPA, if you're going to H&R Block, Right, Jackson Hewitt, and you got no relationship. Let's change that. I can help you. Uh, I'm now— I don't work alone anymore. I, I've never worked alone, so I have experts on my team that know what they're doing, and I can connect you. And when you get connected through me, you get discounts. Okay, more and more savings. All right, so check this out. Property taxes, property taxes. I can deduct the taxes in the calendar year you actually pay them, such as this person is from an escrow account, okay? Standard add value base, non-add assessment, maintenance, and repair account. Specific fees or special assessments for new local improvements often do not qualify. So let's talk about my Florida property taxes. Now in the state of Florida, we're a little bit known for having high property taxes. So my property taxes are going to be $12,600. $12,700, I believe. Either— no, I think it's gonna be $12,400. So through the state and local tax, the cap is $40,400. So my accountant is gonna do everything in his power to get me to the $40,400 number. I don't know how to get there. But I'm imagining a big one is property taxes. So I pay, say, $12,400 in property tax, and you minus that off of our earlier number. All right, let's put it all together. $188,599 minus QBI, $37,719.88 minus mortgage interest, $36,000. Let me know if this is valuable, you guys are enjoying yourselves learning. You're going to do the steps, minus mortgage interest, minus home office deduction, minus student loan interest, minus property taxes. Now we're at $98,000. So at this point, I've cut the property tax in half without being a tax expert, without really knowing much about taxes. All I did was a little bit of Google research, and I just began checking things like, okay, we can do that, I can do that, I can do that. You know what's cool? Is most of these things don't really require me to like track. I'm already doing it, so I just show the proof through my bank statements, send it to the accountant, and they'll bookkeep everything for me. They'll track it all. And then when you hire a tax strategist through your business, that's another deduction. So you begin to add expenses in your life That, that we can classify as a deduction. So I eat food. I know Jasmine eats food. I know Eric eats food. I know Rhonda eats food. I know Sandra eats food, and Terry and Jeff and Marco. We all eat food to live. We all need food to, to survive. What if every time— not every time— But what if 50% of the time, 75% of the time you went to eat food, you thought of something business-related in your, in your economy? You had a business conversation, a business-related conversation with another person. Could we then declare a 50% deduction off of the cost of Of that food? The answer is yes. Okay. So little by little in a household, husband and wife, you come together, you talk about what business could we create in this household that's in alignment with the way we live our lifestyle? So that we can begin to deduct these expenses in our household that we already have, that we can begin to deduct and recover back into our economy to pay less in taxes, which means more money, more cash flow to put towards debt or savings and investments. Could we do that? These are the conversations I want you guys to be having in the community. And then you book a call with me, we figure it out, and then we bring in the experts that do this stuff for a living. You don't need to be the expert. I'm literally just doing some Google searches right now and getting exposed to things. That we could implement. And within a 30-45 minute window here, we were able to reduce the highest tax bracket in my income from 24% to 12% of the money actually being 50% of the money. So we got it down to $98,000. And so only that $98,000 is going to be taxed at 24%. So that's roughly half of $45,000 in taxes saved. That's insane. And again, there's more things that, that, that can be done. In my business, all the things that I spend money on in my business is also part of like my lifestyle. It's how I live. So my computer— every W-2 earner in here, you have a device. That's the only way you're watching me right now. You have an iPad, you have a computer, you have a phone, you have a TV. When you buy those things, you don't get a tax deduction. When I buy those things, I get a tax deduction. My computer is being used for business. This monitor is being used for business. This camera is being used for business. These lights are being used for business. This house is being used for business. This business requires Wi-Fi. I have my Wi-Fi modem right there. So that means I get a deduction on my Wi-Fi. You W-2 earners pay for internet just like I do, but I get a deduction. You don't. I need electricity. I have solar panels on my roof, so, so I get, I get a double effect. I have solar panels on my roof, which saves me money on the electric bill itself, so I'm saving money every year by having solar, and then I'm able to deduct the solar cost of the solar, the electricity. Because I'm using that electricity to fund my business. And I just so happen to sleep here, and I just so happen to do laundry here and clothes. And oh my goodness, I wear clothes. I know Eric wears clothes. I know Terry wears clothes. I know Jeff wears clothes. I know Jasmine wears clothes. We all wear clothes. Well, guess what? The clothes that I wear are tax deductible because I'm wearing clothes right now for business. So when I go to Macy's, when I go to— where do I go? The mall. When I go to Scotch and Soda, when I go to Zara with my wife, And I buy clothes, I think in my brain, when I buy this shirt, when I buy this pants, when I buy these socks, when I buy these underwear, when I buy these, when I buy that, when I buy the belt, when I buy the shoes, will I use it for business? Of course I will, because I am the business. Everywhere I walk, I do business. Every conversation I have is part of the business. It's part of who I am now and how, and how I serve. So I'm operating and will continue to operate in a way that creates incentives for me to reduce tax liability according to the incentives laid out by the Internal Revenue Service, by the United States government, by the state of Florida, right? And I just continue to navigate that way all day, walk around, right? Everyone's got a cell phone. My phone bill Tax deductible, a portion, not all of it, tax deductible. I drive a car, I know Jasmine drives a car, I know Jeff drives a car, I know Rhonda drives a car, but if you're W-2, you can't deduct that. You start a business, you can. It's that— so it's this, a lot of the money we're already spending could be tax deductible in that new business you start, Despite the business not even making money. Now, we don't want to stay there. That's why I don't want you to just make any business. I want to create a business according to your number one asset, which is yourself, according to your spirit, body, and mind, where it's— where, where you're being led to, to do something you're excited about, passionate about, that you can create value from. And if it takes a little while for the business to take off, that's okay. Because you're given time according to the government. You have 1 to 2 years where you can run a negative before you're declared a hobby, right? And so you could be saving thousands of dollars by switching over from W-2 and establishing a business. So, uh, as a W-2, we are also paying for that stuff after tax plus paying sales tax, so we losing big time, right? Yes, yes. So imagine a world where you labor at an hourly rate of $30 an hour. You work the whole week, you get paid on Friday. You worked 40 hours, 40 times $30 an hour, so you make $1,200. And before you see that $1,200, you have to pay Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, federal income tax. Before you even see your, your money. Then whatever you net from your paycheck, if you're a homeowner, you pay property taxes just for living in that home that you own. You're paying property taxes. Then because we live in a society where you have to wear clothes, right, you can't walk outside naked, can't do that. So you go to Macy's, you go to the mall, you go to the store, you go to Ross, Marshalls, wherever, Target, TJ Maxx, you buy clothes, you get to the register, 7% tax. So you got taxed, say, 30% from the IRS, Social Security, you know, welfare programs in America. Now you have a net. Then you pay more tax, property tax, just to live in your home. So you have less. Then you go spend money anywhere— your phone bill, your— anywhere. There's a tax on every single thing that we spend money on. Can you imagine living in a world like that? Oh wait, You're doing it right now. Huh. Oh, that's gotta— that's gotta rub you the wrong— the wrong way, don't it? That's gotta just boil. Your skin is boiling right now. Your heart rate is up because you're like, Denzel just imagined a world and like, wait a second, we're in that world. We're living in that world, but it's a choice. It's a choice. If you remain a W-2 earner your whole life, then that's the life you're gonna live, where you're gonna pay the most amount of tax and you make the least amount of money in society. The moment you decide to start thinking for yourself According to your spirit, body, and mind, you bring these 3 things together. The moment you declare, I am my number one asset, I have the ability to create value from nothing, I don't need to rely on Bitcoin, I don't need to rely on ETFs and stock market, etc., then I can begin to protect that asset, invest in that asset, which is me, and then reclassify that asset, reclassify the income, and reclassify my lifestyle To let the IRS know I am operating as a business 24/7 in this household. Is that going to happen day one? No, which is why I did this in steps. But in my 8-year business career now, I would say 75+% of my lifestyle is probably a deduction. Probably 60%, 75% of my lifestyle, I would argue, is part of my lifestyle. It's how I operate because there is not an incentive for my wife and I long-term to stay in a W-2 earning position. That, that's not— it's not wise. Look how much tax the IRS wants from me if I make $300,000, $400,000 a year. But if I play by their rules that they set, I could arguably bring my tax liability down to like 10%. And that's been my experience. That however, for every $100,000 that I make, I think I'm paying about maybe 8 to 10% in taxes. I think something around that number. Um, could I do better? Probably, more than likely. But I know I'm doing better than most people in the W-2 position that are getting hammered, where they're losing 30 to 40 cents on the dollar in taxes, arguably upwards of 50% depending on what state you live in. And I'm only losing— and I would even say, I wouldn't say losing, you know, the taxes go somewhere. Don't know where, but hopefully it goes to the right place. But I would say I'm paying maybe 10 to 12 cents on every dollar I make in taxes, maybe something like that. Okay, so if taxes are your number one expense and you're your number one asset, And you said, okay, for the next year, I'm just not gonna invest in anything outside of myself. I'm gonna invest in coaching, personal development, establishing a business, formulating the idea. I'm gonna take the time there instead of hoping and praying that Bitcoin takes off. hoping and praying that this stock takes off, hoping and praying that you'll have enough net worth in retirement someday, some way. Why do that? Why do that? It's a terrible idea. Let's just solve for what we want right now. I got an LLC. I need a good tax person or accountant. Do you have one in the community? That can help me. Absolutely. And Rod, you got my email, so you know reach out to me. I will drop my email in the chat here, and then I'm gonna also drop my calendar link. Okay, so those of you who need tax. Support, a tax strategist. You want to begin to have that conversation, no charge, doesn't cost you a dime. You communicate with my team, that's this calendar link right here. You'll most likely speak with Daniel. We'll take you through our process. You begin to learn, doesn't cost you a dime. It costs you your time, but not a dime. We just need your time, attention, and focus on what it is you actually want to achieve. Those of you who are clients and it's been a while since you got on my calendar, please book time. Use the calendar link, the private one. Okay. This link that I'm gonna drop In the chat is my specific calendar to have a conversation with me. Also free, not a charge. 30 minutes to have a conversation with me. This is for folks who are not clients. If you're not a client, that link's for you. If you are a client already, don't use that link because it's only 30 minutes. You have a 1-hour link so we have more time together. 30 minutes is more of an introductory, right? You put a— we spend that time together, you're like, okay, Denzel is new, I'm getting to know you, I'm watching the videos, I'm getting value, I'm learning. I just want to like hear your voice one-on-one. I want to, you know, ask you some, you know, some personal questions. You know, that's the time to do it there in that context. And then we decide, okay, where can I begin to serve you first? There's a lot of different angles that we can attack this. There's a lot of different situations that people are in. So I want to be able to identify where you're at, what's the place where I can immediately help you first, and then we begin to work from there. So some people on here need credit repair. Great, reach out, I'll get you set up with credit repair. If you can afford it. If you can't afford it, we're doing the free stuff. We're doing the free stuff plus finding cash flow to then invest in yourself, credit repair, unlock equity, right? And you see how this stuff begins to steam— steamroll and it compounds on itself. All right, so we're gonna close out. Covered a lot today. A lot. Yes, Bitcoin to the moon. Trust me, I'm rooting for Bitcoin. I'm there too. But it's, it's me using the cash flow from my number one asset to then buy other assets. I don't spend seed money on, on other assets. I do it on me first, and then once my seed produces more Fruit. I take the fruit, aka cash flow, and then put it into the other investments. All right, all right, so we're done here. Recording will be made available immediately on the YouTube channel. You can watch it again. Have a wonderful evening. God bless you. You got the links there. Do your homework. Watch this again. Take it step by step. Reach out to me when you're ready. This is what I do. This is what I'm here for. All right, God bless you. Enjoy the rest of your evening, and we'll talk soon. All right. Thank you.