“If our family doesn’t understand money, we are all in trouble.” Mina Black
About Our Guest:
Investment Consultant. Wall Street Survivor. Angel Investor. Mrs. New York City 2019. Mina Ennin Black is on a quest to help women create multi-generational wealth and multi-generational knowledge.
She is the go-to wealth strategist for First Generation Wealth Creators™, women that may have not come from money but have worked hard to make it and are determined to leave a lasting legacy.
She is the founder of In The Black Wealth (ITB) an investment consulting firm specializing in helping clients create income-producing portfolios so that they can cover their monthly expenses with their investments.
Mina has been described as one of the top personal finance people to follow on Twitter, and has been featured in numerous publications including, The New York Times, Ebony!, CNN Money, Yahoo Finance, The Grio and many more!
She holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University and lives in New York City with her husband and two little girls.
Episode Summary:
This episode is powered by God Girls Making Millions
More than likely you were born into a family where talking about money was taboo. And because it wasn’t discussed, understanding how it works was the farthest from your reality. But here is the thing: if you don’t understand how money moves, you won’t make the move to millions! I have one mission: to normalize an understanding of money. And I also desire to normalize you having more of it than you can give, spend, invest or save. My guest for this week’s episode, Mina Black, is on a similar mission. Our conversation was so RICH – pun intended. From breaking down where we come from and how we first learned about money to realizing that we can make money move whenever you want and everything in between this conversation is going to bless you and just for listening, your income is going up! Until we can get comfortable talking to money, your earning potential will be limited but as you unlock the blueprint in this episode, your earning potential will increase exponentially. This is your new making money move blueprint. Grab your pen and paper and listen in to discover:
- How to dismantle the money beliefs that raised you
- Why it’s incumbent upon you to learn how to understand money so that you can play the game to experience wealth and abundance
- 3 must do’s when it comes to money
- #1 way to make money move
- How to access your Making Money Move Blueprint
- And so much more
Powerful Mina Quotes From The Episode:
- “When you grow up in certain circumstances, you come up seeing money in a way that is wrong.”
- “Wealth was just not something we thought about; we were only focused on making it to the next day.”
- “Money is not something we had and it was not something we thought about.”
- “At minimum, I need to put money into a 401K.”
- “Stop the mindset that I am not good with numbers.”
- “Money moves when I change my mind.”
- “Right now I’m broke, all I have is a dollar. When you hear that enough times you start to believe there is not enough to go around.”
- “the sense of lack when it comes to money is just how it is.”
- “We take the stories around us about money to heart and they take over our lives.”
Last Book Mina Read: All Your Worth Senator Elizabeth Warren
Favorite Quote: “When one rises, we all rise – Unknown
Tool Mina Swears By: Time Blocking
How to Connect with Mina:
- Website: www.itbwealth.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wealthwithmina
- Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/intheblackwealth/
- Twitter: @wealthwithmina
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/intheblackwealth
Incredible One Enterprises, LLC is not responsible for the content and information delivered during the podcast interview by any guest. As always, we suggest that you conduct your own due diligence regarding any proclamations by podcast guests. Incredible One Enterprises, LLC is providing the podcast for informational purposes only.
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Making Money Move With Mina Black
Mina Black, I’m excited to welcome you to the show. How are you?
I am doing amazing. I am excited to be here and to head on the conversation.
I have been looking forward to this conversation. Before we even jump in, take a moment and tell everybody who you are in your own words.
I am a mom of two, an Angel investor and a serial entrepreneur. I’m running about three businesses. You will find me talking about investing. I was born in a country called Ghana in West Africa, Virginia-raised and in New York or NYC planted. I’ve been in the US for many years. I am a profoundly passionate person about helping women create multi-generational wealth.
You already know you speak my language right out the gate, which I love because that’s a big thing in my heart. It wasn’t always on my heart. I’ve been broke, busted and disgusted. I’m writing my book Moved To Millions. It’s bringing up all of these stories and reminding me of the lack, the poverty, mindset and all of that kind of stuff. Why don’t you take us on a journey? How did you get to the point where you are profoundly passionate about helping women create generational wealth? Walk us through what happened and how you got to be at this point.
I am from Ghana, West Africa. I was born in a place where most people can’t even fathom what it’s like to exist in a place like that. What I mean by that is there’s no running water. I used to take baths outside. We have no bathrooms. I’d spend a good chunk of my time in a little village that we went back to visit. When you grow up in that kind of environment, one of the things that most of us don’t realize is that it is not something that we even think about. It is because it’s not part of everyday conversation. You’re more concerned with just making it to the next day or the next meal.
When you come up under those circumstances, you develop a certain mindset over the course of time about money, what you are worth and what it says to the world. One of the things I always like to joke at people as an immigrant or someone from Ghana is that, “In Ghana, I always believed that the streets of the US or United States were paved with gold.” I remember when I first got here, seeing that’s near accurate, and how that shifted my mindset as a newly immigrated person and growing up in my household, money was not something we talked about. It was something that other people had and there was never enough of it. As someone who grew up in a traditional household whereby you go to school, get a job and that’s it, then you kind of live life.
Hopefully, things work out over time. Money was just not something we talked about. One of the things that my dad did try to impart to me when I got older and got out of college was, at a minimum, I should put my name in a 401(k). I didn’t know what a 401(k) was. I made a lot of mistakes in undergrad. When I say a lot of mistakes, they don’t do it now, but years ago, for those of us who are older, they used to allow credit card companies onto campuses.
Before you even tell this story, let me pull back the curtain on some of the things you shared because I have gone on this mission to help us become financially literate. Most Americans and I’m not even going to say Black Americans or true African Americans, have grown up financially illiterate. The majority of our country was born and raised financially illiterate. We have no clue. There were many things that you said already. Wealth wasn’t something that we thought about. We only thought about making it to the next day. That is real. I feel you much because I was writing a chapter in my book called Mindset For Millions. It’s one of the most popular keynotes that people bring me to speak about.
I wrote something very similar when I was writing that chapter that whenever my dad talked about money, he was either stressed, pissed off or belligerent because of someone he perceived to have had money. What he said to us all the time was, “We are lucky to have enough to get by. Keep your head down. Do what you’re supposed to do and you’ll be lucky if you have enough money to get by.” I know we haven’t even got into the crescendo of your story, but you already told me that you’re an Angel investor. What I know about being an angel investor is that sis got to have some cash and you said, “I’m running three businesses.”
I have chills in my body because I’m excited for this conversation. I want to take us in many different directions. With your permission, I want to use this as a blueprint of how we can go from nothing to something significant and be able to leverage that significance to shift generational trajectories because that’s what I think it’s all about. It starts by talking about the college campus. I went to college on a full scholarship, but by the time I graduated, I had enough credit card debt to have had student loans because I didn’t know. I was financially illiterate.
I want to know your story about those credit cards. Eventually, I want us to talk about and give a roadmap of if a person is still in that, “We don’t think about wealth, we’re just trying to get by,” how can we begin to edge them out into a different possibility and then ultimately give them a plan that they can leverage to begin to shift their generational trajectory.
One of the things that we take to heart that we don’t even realize is the stories around us about money. I know growing up even talking about credit cards and what happened to me on the college campus, unfortunately, a credit card wasn’t even part of the conversation growing up. Meaning that it was something that was there. It wasn’t something that I wasn’t taught about debt or credit and how to properly use credit. When the credit card companies came on campus, I was happy because, in my mind, “That was free money. Thank you. I’m going to take it.” There was no thought given to, “I need to pay this back.”
One of my dorm mates and we were walking the quad together and we saw the credit cards. I’m like, “What’s the credit card?” She said, “A credit card is a layaway you get to take home now.” I know all about layaway. I got all the t-shirts in all the credit cards, would go, spend and send them $15 a month thinking that I would not put myself in the cage. I ended up having to file for bankruptcy and $250,000 in credit card debt.
You see where it started.
It started before I even knew what money was. Looking at the way my parents acted and moved around money. My mom was the queen of robbing Peter to pay Paul. That was her jam. What could she hold off on paying so that we could do what we needed to do right with that money? My dad was the king of, “If you ain’t sweating, you have no business having money. It had to be hard, grueling and grind-filled in order for it to matter and for you to be able to feel good about spending it.” What were some of those stories that you either heard or observed as you were growing up?
One of the things my dad used to say, and I tell him to this day that I’m going to put it as an epitaph on this tombstone is, “Right now, I’m broke. All I have is a dollar. Every single thing that I asked for, it didn’t matter what it was, college tuition, this, that, right now, I’m broke. All I have is $1.” When you hear that enough times, you start to believe that there is never enough money and to go around. Money is a zero-sum game.
As an adult, even right after I graduated from undergrad, I started to embody all of that. Meaning the sense of lack when it came to money was how life was. Some people had it and some of us don’t. That’s how life is and it’s okay. Those people that have it, good for them. Unfortunately, for a lot of us, we start to develop this mindset that those people that have it are bad. Think about television and all the imagery. Think about the Dynasty. For those of us who grew up during a certain era, how all the rich people were bad on TV.
Even think about The Beverly Hillbillies, Sanford and Son, All In The Family, or The Jeffersons. The TV shows were hoodwinking and bamboozling us into believing that being broke was fun and it was exciting poverty makes you holy. You’re closer to God if you’re broke.
That took me the longest to get over, which is the Bible script, “It’s harder for a rich man to get through the eye of a needle than to get to heaven.” I took that to heart growing up.
You did because that’s what the pastor said without the context of the fact that the Eye Of Needle was a very thin gate into the city.
In 2010, I went to a retreat and this woman says, “No. Whoever told you to that script?” They left out a big part of that script. It was the first time I had heard somebody go deep into scripture and explain that particular verse. For me, that’s when the awakening started happening. I realized when I looked around, “If someone in our family doesn’t understand money, meaning that somebody doesn’t take the time to understand wealth and wealth creation, we’re all in trouble.”
I wholeheartedly believe that within every family, there should be a professional that does one thing. Does one thing, meaning that there should be an attorney or doctor. In my family, I said, “I’m going to be our finance person. I’m going to take the time to learn money, investing, and how we can break some of this generational curse,” because coming from where we come from, “Money or wealth is not something we have access to.” However, one of the things that we do have is our brain and our ability to learn. Nobody can ever take that away from us. As long as we’re willing to learn about how to create money, nothing’s going to pass us by. We are going to be able to get this money. As one of my friends is saying, “Let’s get this money.”
Wealth is not something we have access to. However, one of the things that we do have is our brain and our ability to learn. As long as we’re willing to learn how to create money, nothing will pass us by.
As entrepreneurs, once we come into this awakening that you talked about, the reason why it works well for entrepreneurs is because we earn through our creation. It’s not like when you have a job and your boss says, “You get paid $20 an hour and that’s it. No more.” You equate your worth and your value to what you earn by the hour. I always tell this story. My husband and I were building our home and we went to the design center. Neither of us had ever built a home before. I had home owned a home, but this was his first time even owning a home, but we decided to build from the ground up and we went to the design center.
Our home is a Toll Brothers home. It’s one of the luxury builders here in the US. We went to the design center. We wanted everything like, “Give two of them. I’ll take five of them. Don’t forget six of them,” and then we got the bill at the end. It was huge. My husband’s immediate is like, “We have to put things back.” “No, we don’t. We can create the money.”We had the money in savings, but I said to my husband I wanted to teach him about money and creation because he was not an entrepreneur. He was a guy who worked two jobs. When I met him, he worked two jobs. When I would ask him why, he was like, “Everybody in my family worked two jobs.” He thought that’s what you had to do.
I was like, “Let’s create the $50,000.” He’s looking at me like, “We got to pay this woman in two weeks. How are we going to create $50,000 in two weeks?” I was like, “Watch.” I went into my tool chest and I said, like the widow in 2nd Kings, “What’s in my hand that I could use to go to people to get them to buy?” I created a $5,000 thing. I went to my list and said, “I have ten slots.” My husband needs it in two weeks. I did it in seven.
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We have already started to dismantle some of those limiting beliefs that you have around money, but we are only just getting started. Mina, we were talking about these definitions that we’ve learned and these stories we’ve been telling ourselves about money and when the awakening happened when we realize that we had the power to create wealth. When it comes to money, although the Bible talks about money 2,300 times, more than heaven or hell, God talks about money because it’s a lesser thing. We got to be able to master the lesser thing in order to get the greater things.
We get bound and caught up in not truly understanding wealth. Talk to me a little bit more about this awakening that you had. You said it was the scripture in Matthew about the Eye Of The Needle when that thread loosened and started to get pulled on. What continued to happen to get you to the point where you are an Angel investor with three businesses, making millions, moving millions and being in a position to leave millions to your two babies. Tell us all about it.
One of the things that happened right around that time was I decided, “I’m going to learn as much as possible. I’m going to take the time to see what these wealthy people are doing.” I made the insane decision to go ahead and become a financial advisor. I had no background in investing and in wealth advisor. I said, “If you want to become wealthy, you have to surround yourself with wealthy people.” I left my job at that time and decided, “I’m going to just switch gears. I was on track.” I was on my way to applying for law school and going to law school. I said, “Nope. This is more important for our whole family, not just my immediate family bar, extended family.” I became a financial advisor right around that time.
To learn how to become wealthy, you need to surround yourself with wealthy people.
Once you are an advisor, you are exposed to people with not $1 million or $2 million, but hundreds of millions of dollars. Most importantly, you are exposed to the tricks and the tools that are used by the “1%” that most of us don’t even realize exists. For us, it changes our perception of everything, how you view life, people, and most importantly why how you see wealth. Wealth is no longer a zero-sum game.
Wealth is now, “It’s possible. If I want to be a multimillionaire, I can do it. This is how I can do it. I can take some of these steps and actions. I can go ahead and invest in my 401(k) and set up an IRA. I can go ahead and invest in these income-producing assets that will allow me to not hustle all the time so that I can invest and have this passive wealth that most of the wealthy live off and thrive off that most of us are struggling to attain.
You said something that I always say, “Exposure creates expansion.” Being exposed. It was brilliant of you to say, “If I want to be wealthy, I need to get around some wealthy people.” The fastest way to learn about money is by becoming a financial advisor. I ended up filing for bankruptcy in my mid-30s. A requirement of my bankruptcy being discharged was that I had to go through a Financial Literacy course. That was the best thing that ever happened to me because I learned about money.
The instructors of the class were wealthy people. It was better than getting my undergraduate degree, MBA and an honorary doctorate. It was an eight-week class they broke down from the origins of money. Some of that was spiritually based on the understanding that, “Money is just an energy.” I was surprised that it wasn’t just the technical dollars and cents kind of class. It was, “Let us break this down to you that you can understand. Also, how to leverage money. Leveraging your own money and other people’s money. How to leverage it in order to create wealth how the wealthy don’t spend their own money? None of us should. It’s so much.
I love what you said about income-producing assets. I want to pull on that a little bit, then. This thought of passive wealth excites me because I used to hustle and grind. I’m over that. It’s all about grace and ease. If I can’t make money by being in alignment, then I don’t want to make money. Think about that Abraham quote, “If you believe that you have to work hard in order to deserve the money that comes to you, then money cannot come to you unless you work hard. Financial success or any other kind of success does not require hard work. It only requires alignment of thoughts.”
Being in the space of a financial advisor, seeing the wealthy, being exposed to some of their tricks, tactics and the things that they know that we are just not taught, how did that begin to shape you to get to the point where you also had millions that you could now invest in other people?
For me, being exposed to some of these clients, working with them and seeing how they generate wealth and think about wealth. For most of us, our mindset is our biggest barrier to acquiring and maintaining wealth. For me, having access and being able to ask some of these multimillionaires close to billionaires, specific questions like, “How did you get started?” or even I noticed that you are claiming this amount on your taxes. Why is that? How are you able to do that? Also, hearing how they think about wealth and understanding that the tax code is built for the wealthy.
The tax code is built for small business owners and the wealthy. If you look at the actual forms 400, you’ll notice that a lot of the people on there are business owners. If you want to acquire wealth and get to the point whereby your mindset changes, honestly, surround yourself with those people that have. Getting exposure to those people that have can go a long way for you. That is what worked for me. It was having exposure to them and being able to ask those one-on-one questions and ask, “How did you get to where you are?” I’m watching what they do. Seeing that, “Earned income is not going to get me where I want to be. It is passive income that’s going to get me wherever. I don’t want to be 99 years old eating cat food. I don’t want to hustle.”
This is one of the things that a lot of entrepreneurs get us in trouble. We get into the mindset of create and work. By the time we know it, we’ve accumulated a certain amount of money, but we still got to hustle and keep that going. If you’re able to shift your mindset and say, “I’m not focused on earned income, which is the money that I’m creating from my businesses. I’m focused on passive income. I’m going to convert this earned income into passive income.” I assure you before you know it, your life will completely change. Meaning that you will no longer stress about taking that one-week or month-long vacation. You’re no longer going to be booked and busy. You’re going to be, “My calendar is as it should be. I like an empty calendar.”
I want to talk a little bit more about passive wealth. Let’s make it simple so that if fifth graders happen to be reading this show, they know exactly what we mean. I can define passive wealth. It’s wealth that continues to grow without you having to exert to receive it. What are some examples of passive wealth that you love and like to have your clients get involved in? Share a little bit about that with us.
It is wealth that you don’t have to exert a lot of energy. You do it once and that’s done. Examples of passive wealth are anything that pays you dividends or interest. For example, “I’m going to go ahead and invest in real estate.” Specifically, when it comes to real estate, I like to think of it as direct and indirect real estate. Direct real estate is you are actively managing the properties, or you have hired a property manager that you are in touch with that manages properties and you’re collecting the monthly income from that. That’s one type of passive wealth. What I like to help my clients to focus on is indirect real estate investing.
Meaning that, “What we do apartment syndications, or there’s a development that’s raising $6 million, go ahead and put in $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000. You are able to generate income and collect that income on a regular basis.” One of the ways to generate income or passive wealth is through real estate. Another way is peer-to-peer lending. I can probably list at least six ways off the top of my head, peer-to-peer lending, royalties and licensing streaming music, investing in REITs or Real Estate Investment Trust, and master MLPs. There are many different ways for you to start generating income.
One of the ways to generate income or passive wealth is through real estate.
One of the things that I often work with my clients is how we create a portfolio that aligns with your passion, interest and the legacy you want to leave behind and, most importantly, that aligns with your bandwidth. Do you have time to pay attention to it? Most of my clients are busy. They do not have time to sit there and actively manage real estate. They do not have time to sit there. You can invest in a cashflow-producing business. You don’t have time to manage that business, “Let’s see if are qualify as an accredited Angel investor. You can do some Angel investing and make sure that some of that passive wealth comes your way and you do not focus all your attention on actively managing you wealth.”
I remember a couple of years ago, I had a mentor who worked with people like me and they didn’t charge us anything. I had to make a donation to his charity. He’s like, “Go and make a $10,000 donation to my charity. I’ll tell you whatever you want. I’ll meet with you once a quarter and hip you to the game.” That was his thing. He would invest in companies. He would be like, “I’ll find a company that I believe in that I know has longevity and I’ll make an investment.” It could be $100,000, $50,000 or whatever the amount is.
Based on that investment that I make, I get a percentage stake. That means I’m first making my money back, but then I’m also getting a check every quarter based on the earnings of the company. I avail myself to the client or the business owner to make sure that I was protecting my investment, but he was wrapped up. At that particular point in time, he was probably in 50 different companies. He was like, “Before we knew of Marcus Lemonis and The Profit, he was doing the profit, but without the TV show and the cameras following him around.” That was one of the first times that I got this understanding of passive wealth that the move is not to sing for your supper. The move is to create an environment where you have other people singing for your supper.
That’s what it’s all about. I love that you’re touching on this. I know for many people, this is a conversation that is too soon. What I want to say to them, and then I also want to know what you want to say to them is, “It’s not too soon.” Exposure creates expansion. That’s why I was excited to have Mina on the show so that you could start thinking about this.
You might be in your business and you are the reason why you’re getting sales, and that’s perfectly okay. As you continue to leverage and scale your business and you bring on a team, we want to get you to the point where they’re hiring your company, they’re not hiring you. That frees you up to take some of the revenue that is coming in, that is in surplus to invest it in other ways.
I’m about to go to closing on a new house. We buy real estate. We have a real estate portfolio as well. We have money in the stock market and crypto. We are doing a lot of different things to make our money work for us so that we don’t have to work for our money. I want you guys to catch this because the move to millions is not one time. The Bible talks about going from glory to glory. We should all be going from millions to millions. I’m excited that Mina has already shared a lot of great nuggets with us, but I want to go a little bit deeper. I want to start to create an actual action plan. Let’s concoct the scenario.
Let’s say that my business is doing about $500,000 a year. What I pay myself, my team and all of the things, it costs me about $300,000 a year to run that business. That means I’ve got $200,000 left over. I want to keep 3 or maybe 6 months of operating expenses in the bank. That means I’ve got $150 to play with. I’m making these numbers up for the purposes of the scenario. I want you to give ideas but not advice that needs to be construed as anything. We’ll need to get ourselves in any trouble here. Although Mina is a financial advisor, I am not one. I don’t play one on tv. Anything that we’re suggesting to you is just a suggestion. How should I start thinking about that $150,000 that I could potentially make work for me versus just sitting in a bank account somewhere?
I’m going to be honest with you. One of my pet peeves is when people say, “I have X amount of money sitting in a bank,” because that bank is not paying you anything. The first thing I would tell someone in that particular scenario is, “I want you to do me a favor. I want you to go and calculate all your expenses because our goal is we need to go ahead and cover your monthly expenses with some of your investments. I need you to go and calculate what your monthly expenses are.” Let’s say you come back and say, “My monthly expenses are $10,000.” This is your monthly personal expenses, not your business expenses. We need to make sure that we are investing enough to bring and generate $10,000 in monthly income at a minimum. That’s on the low end.
The first thing I tell people to do is, “Go ahead and calculate what your actual expenses and monthly cashflow are so that we can see what’s coming in and what’s going out. we want to make sure that we move toward passive wealth and passive income.” That $150,000, if you can have that amount of money, there is much damage you can do because there are opportunities that people don’t even realize exist. There’s something that I like to teach my clients. It’s called layered wealth. At the foundation, we go invest in the stock market. We invest in some dividend-paying stocks. These dividend-paying stocks are what’s going to help us cover our earned income. I’m not going to tell you which stocks to invest in.
At the core, we put a good chunk of our money, at least 60% or more, in the stock market from there because our goal is to cover our monthly expenses right to make sure that we have income coming in every single month, even when we’re not working or when we stop working. That’s the ultimate goal. We want to make sure that we don’t have any worries. We could be 99 and all we’re doing is sitting at home collecting checks. Every month we’re going to go ahead and invest in some dividend-paying stocks. We’re going to invest in REITs and all of these other income-producing assets cashflow businesses, become an advisor or a partner in a cashflow business, and make sure that you’re collecting a check from that business every month.
There are some Angel investing opportunities that will pay you a dividend depending on how far along the company is to be an Angel investor, between that and some investing concerts. There are many things in that $150,000 that you can do. One of the first things I will say is, “Go ahead and figure out how much you need to cover for your monthly expenses then we are going to craft a portfolio of different asset classes.” You mentioned crypto. One of my businesses is a Web3 company where we onboard the population into Web3.
There’s absolutely no reason. If you have Bitcoin, especially any of the ETH coins, there’s absolutely no reason that you shouldn’t be generating income from your crypto. If you aren’t, then we have a problem. We need to have a conversation, “Why aren’t you generating income? Why don’t you have your crypto savings account? Why aren’t you staking your crypto? Why aren’t you leveraging and lending your crypto?” There are many things you can do to generate income, but your 1st job is to calculate your actual monthly expenses. The 2nd thing we’re going to do is we’re going to create a portfolio of different assets that will produce income over the course of the year for you.
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Are you having as much fun as I’m having knowing all of the gems and the nuggets that our guest, Mina Black, is dropping? You could get your whole life and put yourself on a specific, intentional generational shift. That is what it’s all about for both me and Mina. I’m excited that we’re having this conversation. Mina started downloading the blueprint exactly what you need to do. Let me give you a quick recap. Number one, you need to calculate all of your monthly personal expenses. Figure it all out for the car, house, groceries, cell phone, travel and all the things. What does that come out to per month?
You’re going to probably add it all up for the year, then you’re going to divide it by twelve and that’s going to tell you how much you need per month. Once we have that number, then we are going to want to invest enough to be able to cover those monthly expenses. You thought you needed to figure out your monthly income, then go get a client. No. Mina says, “Once you figure out what you need to make, you make investments to cover it.” This is how we get passive wealth.
She talked about layering your wealth. Some of that is going to go into the stock market, but not just any stock, but stocks that pay dividends. You can do your research if you don’t have somebody to help you. I highly recommend that you do get a financial advisor, someone who knows what they’re talking about and the ebbs and flows of the market to be able to advise you. At a minimum, you could probably go to Google and type in, “Which stocks offer a dividend?” to get an idea of which stocks you should look to have in your portfolio.
You want to also sure that you get some REIT, some real estate investments going on there. You want to potentially look at some cashflow-positive businesses and make an investment stake in those businesses. What’s great about doing that is that they don’t necessarily need your money because they are cashflow positive. They need your expertise. They need what you bring to the table that they are not privy to help them to continue to grow their business. We know that you guys are brilliant.
There’s an opportunity for you to further capitalize on your brilliance without you having to be the labor source to execute that brilliance. Once we know your monthly expenses, we get your layered wealth strategy, then we’re going to create a portfolio. That portfolio is going to include all of the things that are going to bring you face-to-face with your passive wealth.
Starting with that $150,000 example. I hope your audience understands that you don’t have to wait until you have this massive amount of cash sitting around. Let’s say you’re bringing in $10,000 per month in your business right now, just take a small percentage of it and think about, “I have $1,000. What can I do with that?” Take that $1,000 and put it into some dividend stocks because that will get you on that journey toward that passive wealth. You don’t have to wait until you have this massive mountain of wealth before you can take advantage of this strategy.
Your goal is to start where you are. You don’t need to start where you want to be. Start where you are wherever you are or whatever amount of money you’re making because you don’t want to wait until you have millions in a bank. I do have people that come to me and they’re like, “I’m making all this money. Now, what?” “It’s great that you’re making all this money, now what?” If you aren’t making all this money before you get to that point, you can even start. Before you know it, you’ll be a lot further than those people that are making tens of millions of dollars because you put out the right strategy.
Your goal is to start where you are. You don’t need to start where you want to be.
This is for everyone who desires to have a $1 million company. You need a financial management team. That team is going to be comprised of a small business attorney, a tax attorney, an IP or Intellectual Property attorney, financial advisor and a CPA. You need all of these people in this suite. There are probably a couple I’m not even thinking of right off the top of my head. You need to have a whole team of people whose sole mission is to help you to make your money, multiply your money and make your money move.
Money is always moving. If it’s not moving for you, it is not through lack of effort. It’s because you do not have a firm understanding of what makes the money move. This is what I believe. Money moves when you invest and you are investible. You’re putting money out and you are available to take money in. That’s how we keep money moving. Would you add anything to that, Mina?
For a lot of us, at least me in particular, money moves when my mind changes. We let our mindsets and our environment get in the way of what’s possible. Going to your point about that financial management team, I will add one more person that you may want to have on your team, an estate planning attorney, in talking about legacy. Our goal here is all about impact and legacy. If you want to leave a legacy and make an impact, there are your personal board of advisors. These people are supposed to be there and you are supposed to be able to go to them and say, “I want to make sure that because I run this business, I have this IP that I’m able to license this IP.
Your small business IP attorney’s going to help you with that, “I want to make sure that I have this business and I’m generating this income, making these investments, but I want to donate to causes I believe in. How do I do so?” That’s what the financial advisor and the estate planner and the attorney you’re going to do for you. For a lot of us, if you’re not at the point where you can have that big team of advisors, you don’t need to have all everybody, but there are 1 or 2 critical people that you need on your team. Not just a good CPA, but a tax strategist. There’s a huge difference between a CPA or someone that does your returns and a CPA or tax attorney that’s a tax planner. They are going to be able to tell you the ins and outs of the IRS code and are going to be able to save you not just hundreds of thousands but millions of dollars.
If you have a good CPA that is also a tax strategist, then you don’t need a tax attorney. It balances itself out. Making sure that you have all of these people on your financial management team, starting where you are and adding as you can. Having access to people who will be a part of your team doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to pay them money right now, but at least knowing who those people are. I don’t necessarily happen to be one of these people, but there are a lot of people out there for a cup of coffee and a hamburger will give you a game. Making sure that you are clear and you have this list because this is about shifting generational trajectories.
It doesn’t matter where you come from, it only matters where you’re going. The fastest way to get there is what Mina said, which I love, “Money moves when I change my mind.” The reason why I like to Mina talk about money much is because I know it makes people uncomfortable. I also know that until we can get comfortable talking about money, we won’t earn as much of it as we should have. You’ve got to get into some spaces where your friends take you to restaurants where there are no prices on the menu, where your friends take you to places in a private jet. You’ve got to get uncomfortable. It’s going to be uncomfortable, but until it starts to feel like it is normal everyday activity to you, you are messing with your money.
The fastest way to change how you look at money is to get around people who have come to realize that money is just an energy available to them whenever they want. To a certain extent, it feels like they mistreat money. You’re praying over it and hoarding the little bit that you have and the other people around you are just tossing it away because they know that they can create more of it. That’s the kind of energy you need to get around money if you want to shift the way that money shows up for you. If you truly want to make money move, then this is what you’re going to need to make sure that you do. Anything that you would add to that?
One last thing I want to add to that is when it comes to money and wealth in particular women, I would love it if more women would stop the mindset, “I’m not good with numbers.” While money makes us uncomfortable, I can’t tell you the number of times whereby I have encountered someone who say that. Do not let that false notion keep you from wealth. I was not good with numbers, but an eighth-grade teacher I remember changed my mindset about what’s possible for women and when you like Math.
If you’ve been telling yourself this entire time that you want to be a millionaire, multimillionaire or an Angel investor, whatever that is, but you’re also literally secretly saying, “I don’t like math and numbers,” those two think can’t work together. I need you to say, “I may not be good at Math yet, but I can be good at Math tomorrow. I may not be good with numbers yet, but I’m going to take five minutes a day and look at my numbers every day or go back and check to see where was my money coming and where was my money going and what changes I need to make sure I’m still on the path.” I’m going to take five minutes a day and set financial goals.
I’m going to reach $500,000 in 2022. I’m hoping that your audience will, at least if you’ve ever said to yourself, “I’m not good with numbers or money,” change that recording and start saying, “I am not good with money yet, but I will be tomorrow and the next day after that.” You can have these conversations that make some people uncomfortable. I like to make people score when I start talking about money because I will come out outright and ask you, “How much did you make last year?” “I didn’t make as much.” “That’s okay. We can make more.”
If you say, “I didn’t make much because of X, Y,” and 20,000 excuses, we have a problem. We’re not being honest with ourselves about the real reasons. Part of that is being able to say, “My mindset is not right about money or wealth.” It’s not going to impact just you but also everyone around you. If you have a husband, spouse, or children, believe it or not, all of this matters and it matters more for them than it does for you.
This has been a phenomenal conversation. We’ll make sure that we put how everyone can connect with you if they’d like to deepen their experience and talk with you about their portfolios. I always like to end every episode by asking three questions. the first question is, what is your favorite quote?
One of my favorite quotes is by unknown, “When one rises, we all rise.” It’s my motto in everything that I do.
What is one book that you’ve read that made the difference to change the way you look at money and have helped you to get to millions?
For me, it was this book by Senator Warren. The book is called All Your Worth. I know people like to quote certain books when it comes to personal finance, but she wrote this book with her daughter years ago. If you read it, it gives you a good foundation for understanding money. It helps you create a budget and think about the long-term implications of some of your actions. It’s a fantastic read. I recommend it to clients all the time.
Last is, what is one tool that you swear by on your move to millions?
The biggest game-changer has been time blocking. It’s one thing to have a to-do list. It is a whole other to add that to-do list to your calendar and stick to the blocks that you’ve outlined for specific tasks because it’s easy to let things get away from you and your to-do list ends up becoming never-ending if you don’t stick to your time.
Time blocking is a big game changer.
If you enjoy this episode, do yourself a favor and start thinking about your legacy and putting yourself on a journey to shift your generational wealth trajectory. We’ll see you next time. Take care.
