Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hey, what's going on, everyone?
[00:00:03] Today I'm so excited because I'm coming out with a new book about why should white men have all the money. This book is completely directed at black men to help them to become.
[00:00:13] Empower them financially. It's like a manual of liberation for money mindset, but give you actual information on how to move forward. But with that, I'm going to be doing a whole series. It's going to be maybe like 15, 20 episodes, breaking down each section of the book, but give me a little more insight as well, and actionable steps. And the reason why I'm doing this is because I totally believe that money is the economic tool that we need for liberation, right? The hardest thing in any.
[00:00:44] In any culture when trying to move forward is finances, economics, right? And a lot of people say that even the reason why Martin Luther King was killed was because he started talking more about economics. When he start. When he was talking about all of us being integrated as one and all that it was okay once his information moved from everyone being on the same page to, hey, this is an economic issue that we have, right? Systemic racism is all about economics. That's when he was killed. That's what they're saying. But at the end of day, you can go watch the videos, you can read about all that, and even the FBI has information released on that, too.
[00:01:23] But today, the first thing I want to talk about, right? Is the lie we're consistently told about money, right? We're always told that money isn't for us, right? There's this programming that we always talk about, right? And especially most black men, we don't have a money problem. We have a belief problem.
[00:01:41] We believe that we shouldn't have this money, so we just spend this money. You probably hear a lot growing up that this is white people shit, right? I remember specifically talking to a woman and explaining to her, hey, I want to buy a duplex. We should live in one unit, rent out the other, so that way we have no mortgage and we can pay off our debt faster and just increase ourselves financially. She was like, man, you really think like white people.
[00:02:08] And that was a really distinct moment for me and her to just say, you know what? Maybe this isn't going to work out, right? That was one of those moments where when you're dating somebody and you don't say red or green flag. That was like an automatic, like, you got money trauma issues. And you know what I mean? Your belief is that money's attached to white people and whiteness, right?
[00:02:27] However, the issue is, is a lot of times, for example, even going to church, we pray for money, for abundance, right? For God to bless us with a new job.
[00:02:37] But then we complain, or we say, you know, money's not that important, God is going to provide, but he gives us all these tools and resources. But God has all these cattles in the hill, has all this money, but yet he has this great kingdom up in heaven for us. But here on earth, we're suffering.
[00:02:52] Just can't. That just doesn't resonate with me, right? So I think the main problem is that we mentally elevated whiteness and saying that they can have money, and we demoted ourselves financially. We said the only way that we can be financially independent is by being closer to whiteness, right? And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with white people. That's not what I'm saying. You have to understand, understand what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, is that we said the only image of financial independence is that if it's in the European standard or if it's white, right? When we look at white people, we say instantly we always think they have money, they're okay, they're doing well financially. That's it, right? But we have to understand this.
[00:03:33] Words shape our belief.
[00:03:35] How I talk and how I communicate shapes what I think. Because what I'm thinking is what I'm using my words to communicate. That means whatever is embedded in me, I'm using those words to explain what I believe.
[00:03:48] Belief. Now, your belief, what you think about yourself shapes your identity, your self perception of yourself.
[00:03:55] So if you believe that, hey, I am black so I can't have money, or because I.
[00:04:02] Because money is only for white people, that means when I get money, I have to either spend it, go into debt, reject it, go, go into this pattern of getting money, losing this money, becoming comfortable with that identity of not having money, and then identity. So what I believe about myself, what I believe about who I should be, shapes that financial behavior. I just said, where I can get money, I can have money, I can make $100,000, but yet I spend 90,000 of it, or I spend maybe $200,000 and I'm always in debt, right?
[00:04:34] So what I want you to do is in your daily life right now is anytime that somebody starts talking about money, I want you to catch yourself and think, okay, what am I thinking about this situation in terms of money, right? When, when even, even yourself, right? So I start to understand, okay, am, am I demoting myself here in this situation or am I elevating myself in this situation?
[00:04:57] When I do elevate myself, how do I feel? Do I feel like this is proper for me or do I feel like I should be on this level? Why can't I be higher?
[00:05:04] And then I want you to go subscribe to everything money. CNBC has a great thing where people talk about how they make millions of dollars and then they move overseas or they paid off all this debt and they're into the fire movement. Go subscribe to all these things about money. Go get Vermet, Sethi's book, Dave Ramsey's book on money.
[00:05:26] Go get all these money mindset books and start reading them and consuming money and, and talking more about money.
[00:05:33] And then that is going to help you to really start to really identify what type of identity about money do you have? And you might be listening right now and say, you know what, what feeling is coming up when you hear my words talking about money and the way I'm explaining everything.
[00:05:49] Right. Just identify it for yourself.
[00:05:52] All right? And to close, I want you to understand you can't build wealth with a poverty identity. If you think that poverty is the only identity you can have because you're black, then you can't build wealth. I was there before. I'm not there anymore. And I just want to give that information to you, helped you. Okay, this is the beginning. I hope you stick with this and I can't wait for you to hear the next episode. Okay, As I said, this series, we're totally going to break everything down. And then I'm going to be sharing actionable steps with you all the way. Right?
[00:06:24] Episode two, in a way, is going to be talking about why traditional finances fails black families. I want to give you some insight of what we're gonna be talking about. Right? Looking rich, looking rich versus being rich. Right? Religion, money and guilt. That's super important. Survival mechanisms that become self sabotage. Right? The family burden trap. Why even myself? The first time I got a 100k job, I never felt like the 100k was, but it was for me and everybody around me, there's a huge burden on that, especially in the black family rewriting the black wealth identity. We can't just see that celebrities are our status point anymore. Money must become number one. It can't be anything else but money.
[00:07:06] I really want to impress on this and I really want to change the mindset of money's not important because money is community, wealth versus individual hustle.
[00:07:14] And then last but not least, I'm going to talk about don't become a bank. The fastest way you lose your wealth, especially financial independence, is becoming a bank to other people. All right, so with that being said, I'll probably add some more things and more insights and more stories. But this was the first episode and stick with me. Let me know how you like this in the comments or wherever you're hearing this, or text me, or if you have my number.
[00:07:36] I look forward to it. This is Bertrand. I'm logging off and episode number one is done. Alright, guys, bye.
