What is Your Relationship With Money

Hello, everyone. My name is Denzel Rodriguez. Welcome back. Today I want to go over what is your relationship with the Monet, with money? M O N E Y When you look at money, what are the first things that come to your mind, right? Or what are the conversations that happen in your household around money? Are they negative? Are they positive? Are they curiosity? Does curiosity strike you when you are looking at your finances? Do you have an open mind when you're looking at financial concepts or, you know, if you're in a hard financial situation? How do you look at that hard financial situation? Do you look at it as, okay, that's it, it's the end of the world. This ain't for me? Or are you optimistic? Lord's gonna provide me with a strategy that I can implement in my household. I can implement these kingdom financial principles in my household. God's gonna give me the keys and the access so that I may learn about this money, so that I may no longer be a slave to money, so I no longer serve money. I become master over money so I can serve my master, our Lord Jesus Christ, right? If that's the way you look at money, we're on the same page. If you're like 95% of people out there in the world that quit right at the beginning that look at money and they're just, you know, oh, Lord, please do this, Lord, please do that, Lord, please do this, Lord, please do that. You know, you're going to have a problem. You're going to have an access problem, okay? Because your prayer that you're praying to God or the things that you're asking for, God has already done. So if you're wondering why God hasn't done it yet, it's because he already did it. Now it's up to you to take hold of it so that you may access the keys to the kingdom. And that's what we're going to be going over here today. So I want to direct our attention to the board for just a few moments, and I want to give you some perspective. So many moons ago, when I was just getting started out in my finances, around 18, 19 years old, I got exposed to some interesting financial concepts, okay? One of them is a general thing which is called the four quadrants, or also known as the cash flow quadrant. And this basically breaks up the whole human population financially into four categories, okay? E stands for employee. S stands for self employed. B stands for business, big business. I stands for investor.

Okay?

I would say 95 to 99% of people are on the E and the S side employee, meaning they work for the man, they work for the woman, self employed. There are sales, commission base, maybe they have hourly or salary plus a commission base. You get a 1099 off that commission employee, you have a W2.

Okay?

Whereas on this side, this is what I call the rich side, big business investor, about 1% of the population lives over here. So can you imagine that 99% of the wealth in the world rest on about 1% of the population? Can you imagine how crazy that sounds? Because that is very real, right? Whereas the rest of the population simply works for the 1%, right? They don't think outside the box. They stay stuck here. They stay stuck in their box and they don't look for ways to get out. Now, I will say this, that majority of people in life, when you first start out your life and your accumulation stage, once you hit like 18 to like 35, 40, that's your accumulation stage of wealth, knowledge, prosperity, spiritual, physical, mental, wellness, all of it your accumulation stage. Most people will start on the E and the S side. Now, very few ever cross over. Why? It's simply a mindset. It's simply A one that feels the conviction, the desire to, right? If you don't have the desire to, that's okay. Now there are strategic ways for you to go over to the B and the I side without ever having to actually own and operate a business, which is also a very interesting thing to say.

Okay?

And it's also very true, and we'll dive into that. But with that being said, this kind of lays the feel, I should say E, the S, B and the I, you can evaluate where you're currently at. Are you at that crossover stage? Are you working to get over there? Do you have the desire to. I think you do. Especially if God has called us dominion, right? We are to have dominion over the Earth. And he's called us to be fruitful and multiply. And he's giving us these high standards from the beginning, right in Genesis. If he's giving us these high roles, why would I ever diminish the role of king, Right? Why would I ever diminish that role of my life as a king? So if I'm a king because my creator told me I'm a king, then I need to start thinking big, not thinking small. Is it bad to think small? Is it good to think small? I don't know. But what I do know is that when I think big, I create opportunities not only for myself, but also from my family, from my friends, co Workers, constituents, acquaintances, and people I don't even know, okay? I create a vast amount of abundance and access to the keys to the kingdom of God. So that may implement those keys here on earth with my physical body, okay? It's all up here in the. In the mind first. Then it gets executed physically out here in the world, what you see today. All right, so let's go back to the board. Let's go over my personal financial numbers back in the day when I was on the E and the S side, trying to make that crossover, okay, over to the B and the I, what my relationship with money was and how I was, you know, I pretty much just kind of laid out like reality. Okay, what's the reality of my financial situation? Where am I currently at? And then what's the dream? Right? What's the dream? Goal, purpose, where do I want to get to? Because I can't stay here forever. In reality, I need to dream big. I need to have goals so that those dreams become my new reality, my new way of being, my new mindset, right? My new access points in terms of my finances. So let's take a look at something. When I had a job, I was making about 2,000amonth. My expenses are 1,500. Debt was around 20,000. This is back in 2018, cash flow, 500 bucks before I got my job, right? So back in, I want to say, 2014, 2015, at the start of my financial journey, which is around the same time I graduated high school. What I did in my personal life was try to figure out and read information, anything I could find on financial literacy, right? So that was the first thing. Financial literacy was key. I needed to figure out, okay, what is out there, number one, and how can I get access to it? Who can I model? Right? Who can I copy? Who can I. What. What footsteps can I follow, so to speak? So I can, you know, get the things that I want to get and accumulate the desires that I have. And then also, how can I be a steward in God's kingdom? How can I follow Christ without having the burden of money chasing me from behind, trying to pull me away from the path that Jesus Christ laid out for me? Because in order for me to walk that path, I need to become free from the money or else the path will get further and further away from me. I won't be able to hear God's voice clearly, right? In terms of what he has for me. And this money tool will always try to contaminate my mind from hearing God's voice. I Don't know if it's the same for you, but this is how it impacted me in terms of my relationship with money. I looked at it like, you know what? Money has the power to not only change my personality, the way I look, the way I dress, the way I talk, the way I walk, but it can also affect and has the power to take over my relationship with Jesus Christ. So by me knowing that, the reality of that, the depth of that, okay, the, you know, the obstacle to overcome that, by me knowing this, I can now say, you know what? I need to create goals. Real, tangible goals that I can accomplish over the next five years, 10 years, 15 years, however long it takes. I need to become free from the money so that money does not have control over me. I have control over money. Therefore, I'm able to fully serve Christ without even blinking an eye when it comes to money. So when someone asks me for help financially or, you know, in my business, someone needs help, or in church, they need help, an organization, they need help, I can just do things without even blinking an eye, okay? And we're in 2020, okay? Back then I could not do those things. So I needed to figure out what's going to be my relationship with money, which is why I'm going to be pressing this whole video dedicated to what is your relationship with money? How do you operate with money? You need to write the things down. I want you to create two columns, right? Just like this and just on one side. What is the reality of your situation? Are you drowning in debt? Is your credit score terrible? Are you negative cash flow? Do you have low income, high expenses, all these obligations? Financially, you work in paycheck to paycheck. Just write down the reality, right? Get to know your situation. Do not become comfortable in your financial situation. Don't get comfortable. You want to be exceeding and growing and, and crossing over to the other side, alright? And then on this side, I want you to write the goal, right? What are the goals? What are the financial goals? What do you want to be able to have? What do you want to be able to do?

Okay?

And I'm going to give you some terms, okay? For me, financial freedom was a big one, okay? And I'm sure everyone can agree with this. Financial freedom, what does that actually mean? Okay, I want to break down some terminology. Financial independence means that you have enough money coming in from assets to simply pay all your bills and stay out of debt, okay? Financial freedom means that you not only have enough assets to pay your bills, your expenses, your living, everything's covered no debt, but you have the ability to go wherever you want in this world, give to whomever you want, whatever organization, without even blinking an eye. Okay? Without even thinking about finances. Financial freedom is you being able to go into a marketplace, whether that be the mall or online, and you just buy things without even looking at the balance on your checking account, credit card account, like you don't even blink an eye is what I'm trying to tell you. Financial freedom is a stage where money is simply no longer an issue, period. You couldn't even spend enough money. You could spend. You could keep spending as much money as you want. You still wouldn't run out because you have what's called assets that continue to produce and produce and produce, no matter what. They just keep coming in, whether you get up to work or you take three months off. That's true financial freedom. So I want you to get that. That's a high standard. Now, how do I get there? Let's talk about that.

Okay.

How do I get there? So the first part would be financial independence. Just getting to a certain stage where you can cover all your bills right in your current reality situation, and then start thinking about, okay, how can I cross over, go over to the B and the I side where I can start establishing and creating assets that will, you know, over exceed everything that I do in my life and everything that's around me.

Okay?

So financial independence, maybe that's, you know, one of the goals you want to put. Financial freedom, that would be like the top, top, top goal right there. Another one for me was 10x, which simply means that I simply wanted to go from making 2,000amonth, and I simply just wanted to add a zero.

Okay?

That's all I want to do. I wanted to go from 2,000amonth to 20,000amonth. How can I do that right? In my current situation? What type of mindset do I need to have to get over here?

Okay?

And I would say you need to have this whatever it takes mindset. You need to have this crazy amount of faith. I would say as well, you need to really, really trust in God that he will reveal those keys to the kingdom for you to implement into this world. And one of those keys, this is huge. One of them was giving. God revealed to me that if I was to just give and give and give, I mean, really give, it could be giving time, giving energy, giving patience, giving focus, giving money as well. It's a big one. But just overall giving truly from the heart, if I can open myself up, God's going to open himself up as well to me and reveal the exact steps that I need to take in order to get to this side of the. My dreams and my goals. All right, so during this process, right, I'm writing down my reality situation. You know, I'm making low income. Let me delete that real quick. So I'm making only 2,000amonth. I'm young, expenses are whatever I got, you know, lots of debt. My family is low to middle income class. I knew that I needed to get access to this. This is, this was going to be my way out. If I can just learn about the financial, everything else is going to fall in line for me, right? And if I also learn how to give and give generously and abundantly, that more knowledge is going to get, you know, inputted, downloaded into my brain. That's exactly what happened when I was, when I really started giving. God literally himself started just talking to me, revealing financial concepts through YouTube, through the Facebook, through social media, through books, through any type of material, any type of, you know, workshop or event possible. He was just revealing it to me. Now, I'm sure you can agree that God works through people, right? Whether they are believers or not believers, doesn't matter. He will have his will done no matter what. No matter who he got to go through, his will will be done here on earth. Okay, so with that being said by him, by me, giving, he was revealing financial concepts to me that I just started saying, wow, that's, that makes a whole lot of sense. Let me, let me get into that. Let me, let me do that. But he was also saying that, hey, your relationship with money's got to change. You cannot rely on money. I am your source. Money is just a resource. So change of the mindset. Okay, so we got change of the mindset. Giving, looking up financial literacy. Anything around financial literacy, just dedicate time, right? So one thing I did was, I was like, all right, you know, I'm watching, you know, three to four hours of TV and video games, right? This is what I was doing when I was a little bit younger. So I was like, alright, if I just eliminated TV and video games in my life, I'll have three to four hours a day.

Okay?

So three times seven is 21 hours in a week. So if I dedicate 21 hours a week to learn anything and everything I can about financial literacy, these numbers are going to change. I, I promise you these numbers are going to change.

Okay?

So for me, when that occurred, when I started doing this shift, and you can do this in your life as well. Find the places where you are wasting time. Time is money. So figure out where are you wasting time and how can you redirect that into financial literacy? Financial concepts that you can accumulate and learn and master and then implement them into your finances.

Okay?

So the concepts that were revealed to me, one of them was 10x, another one was debt acceleration, debt acceleration, velocity banking, Becoming your own banker. These are real concepts. You know, you can look this stuff up and see what, see what comes up and just start reading. So become your own banker. Real estate investing. How can I become a real estate investor? So, real estate investing. Let's see. Creating content. What you see right now, what's going on right now is that I'm creating content to reach the masses. This strategy right here brings in an abundance amount of this cash, okay? You'd be utterly surprised, okay? In this world that we live in right now, where everybody is on this, all the attention is right here. So when you look at the world and you look at your relationship with money, you need to figure out, okay, well, where is the money? Because I don't have much of it, right? So if you're working paycheck to paycheck, you have now gone into your reality mode and you're like, all right, I don't have access to money. Where is the money? Who's got my money? Where is it? How can I get closer and closer to it? What jobs, what careers, what business, what product, what service, what marketplace can I get into? What knowledge can I learn? What problems can I solve? The more problems you solve in life, the higher that income will go. Your ability to solve problems will correlate to how much money you make, period. So if you're making little money in this world, you're probably not solving a whole lot of problems, okay? Very simple, okay? Not trying to offend anyone, but sometimes we have to get real, down to the point. If you want more in life, the number one tool you will need is money.

Okay?

I'm not talking spiritual tools, I'm not talking faith tools. I'm talking logical, tangible tool money. The faster you learn the money, the faster you become free from it. Therefore, it has no chain on you. There's no bondage, right? The more I can be a faithful servant to Christ, that is the way I am correlating it right now. I'm young, I'm 24, got a lot to learn, got a lot to give. I'm going to make mistakes, I'm entitled to make mistakes. But the way I'M looking at things you know I look at people that are three and four times my age and they're still in this mindset this bitter mindset rich people are like that's all I hear Are you providing a solution to the problem? Are you providing a strategy that I can do as a 24 year old that's going to not put me in the same position that a 59 year old would be at where they can't retire they don't have enough in their retirement account and they got to go back into the workforce do something that they don't want to do and get paid minimum wage for I mean this is embarrassing stuff too many of us in the United States where you have the greatest opportunities in the world are doing this poorly so this goes back to what's your relationship with money? I'm going to keep pressing on that what is your relationship with money? What are you going to do to get to the other side the B and the I side Right because that is where it's.