Building generational wealth should be at the top of mind for every adult on the planet, in my humble opinion. Who doesn't want a better life for their children and grandchildren. Well according to the latest statistics, not many. Generation wealth is achievable for everyone on the planet but you know what stops the majority from getting it? Sacrifice! 

If I told you that I could guarantee that your future descendants can live the most amazing life ever but there's just one catch, would you be intrigued? Most would be intrigued by such a proposition but of course their willingness to take the offer or walk away depends on that proverbial "catch." Here's the catch. In order for your grandchildren and all future descendants of yours to live the most amazing life ever, YOU have to live like crap for 10 year.

I know you're probably thinking, "what exactly do you mean...live like crap?" Almost anything on earth no matter how hard can be accomplished with intense focus for 10 years. When I say live like "crap" I mean a stripped down, bare bones minimum existence. Absolutely no extras, nothing above basic necessities. Things that you can actually live without, you go without them. No cable TV, no $5 lattes, no ball games, nothing but basic necessities for 10 years.

Most stand up guys are thinking, I can do that in a heart beat. Women for the most part have become accustomed to sacrificing for everyone else and are probably thinking this is nothing . Keep in mind though ladies, if you don't need it to live, you can't have it. No make up, no hair dresser, no perfumes and expensive body washes...just the bare necessities for 10 years. Men and women alike with any love for their children and future descendants will still likely agree that this is a fair exchange. You'll build generational wealth and your grandchildren and future descendants will live amazing lives because of your sacrifice and willingness to live like crap for the next 10 years.

Here's where it gets interesting though. If at the time of this reading you don't have any children, you are truly in the best position to build generational wealth and leave a solid legacy using the plan that I'll outline below. However, if you already have children, this challenge just intensified 100X. If you're looking to build generational wealth and you already have children, then guess what. You have to convince them of the bare bones minimum lifestyle for 10 years too. No birthday parties, extra curricular activities at school, proms and homecomings don't exist, no Christmas, yep no Christmas at least not in the hyper commercialized way. Remember, this is a guarantee that their children will never know struggle and all of their descendants going forward will live the most amazing lives ever if they are willing to sacrifice for 10 years. Thing you can get the kiddos on board? Or is this the place where you check out and say things like, "money ain't everything," or "money can't buy happiness" or "the best things in life are free." Funny how we're quick to rationalize our current state when things get just a tab bit challenging.

So...if you're still reading at this point you either don't have kids or you're intrigued enough to at least want to know what the plan is that you'll be convincing the children to buy into, right? Either way I'm glad you've decided to stick around. Just remember this blueprint is designed for an intense 10 year plan that will ensure that your grandchildren are wealthy, not You, not your children. However, I'll roll out an abbreviated plan that can get you there as well, cool?

"Why a bare bones minimum for 10 years?" you ask. It's simple, you have to understand the time interest on money. See, inflation cause money to lose value every single day. Therefore, in order to use money most effectively you have to exchange as much of it as possible and as often as possible for something that's going to at least retain it's value at the rate of inflation or grow in value at a pace faster than inflation. If inflation, historically, has increased at a rate of 2% annually and you're not getting a 2% increase on your job and your interest on your savings account is less than that, are you beginning to see why you're losing financially. Is it making sense to you why you have to do something as radical as a bare bones minimum lifestyle for 10 years. You need to take every single dollar you get above what it takes to live a bare bones minimum lifestyle and put it towards building generational wealth for the next 10 years. This will ensure that your grandchildren will inherit wealth and never have to worry about money.

The 10 year generational wealth blueprint is simple, however we never confuse simple with easy. You're going to take every dime you get  for the next 10 years and aim at  1 or 2 things, paying down debt or investing for double digit returns (see video below, most don't believe in getting double digit returns). That's it, that's the blueprint. If you do that for 10 straight years, no parties, no expensive dinners, no name brands, packed lunches for work, no upgrades in lifestyle whatsoever. A span of 10 year with this type of intense focus will change your life and your financial family tree forever.

Disclaimer: This is NOT financial advise as I am not a licensed planner or advisor and NOT authorize to give financial advise. These examples are hypothetical and for information purposes only.

Now that we got that out the way let's look at some numbers. Say at the beginning of year 1 you literally cut all the fluff out of your life. No paid TV, gym membership gone, movie night cancelled, kids activities come to an end unless the can get sponsored, no more ripping and running burning valuable gas, all the things that we're "train" to do in a capitalistic society come to an end. For the average American household that would save a minimum of $500 per month. You save every single dime of the $500 for the first 6 months, now you have a $3,000 mini emergency fund established.

Now that the mini emergency fund is established you spend the next 18 months attacking your debt with vengeance. You apply the $500 plus the original payment to the smallest balance owed and you do that until the balance is wiped out. The funny thing is, some of us have debts and the balance is less than $500 but instead of paying it off we pay the minimum and let the interest continue to compound. If the smallest balance had a $100 minimum payment, when you pay it off you've increased your monthly cash flow by $100. Now you have $600 to apply to the next lowest debt balance and you repeat the process until all of your debts are wiped out with the exception of your mortgage. Car notes, furniture, student loans, credit cards, cell phone leases, get rid of all of them. For the sake of time we're going to say you've done that and it took all of 3 years. Assuming that you have lost your job or lost any significant income, chances are you're $1500 - $2500 or more cash flow positive. Meaning the debt is gone but after you pay your mortgage and other residual bills, light, gas, water etc. you have money left over, that amount is your monthly cash flow.

Let's be clear about one thing here. When I say "save your money" I'm not talking about putting it into a savings account. I'm talking about safe guarding it with your decisions and not letting it get away from you in a senseless fashion. If you make a habit of treating your money this way, it will in turn safe guard you as well. Now let's talk about what you can do with an extra $1500 per month for 7 years that will build generational wealth for you and your family.

The image above is a financial calculator called the CashFlow Manager in it I've plugged in your monthly cash flow of $1500 per month at 14% rate of return for 7 years, as it took 3 years to pay off debt and build the $1500 monthly cash flow. As you can see at a generous 14% your money would grow to $212,063.74. Now, let me reiterate, this plan is for generational wealth building, it's not for "YOU" to become wealthy it's for your grandchildren to inherit wealth. I can see you thinking that $212k is not a lot of wealth. Hang with me, let me show you how the grandbabies will inherit wealth then we'll talk about an accelerated plan for you to enjoy a little wealth.

Lookie, lookie, lookie what 10 short years of sacrifice has produced. You basically lived like a hermit for 10 years so that your grandchildren can inherit $3,431,236.61. Do you think it'd be worth it. Can you do something this radical to end poverty in your bloodline forever? Because naturally you're going to be required to learn how this stuff works. This is just a silly example but as you're cutting back on your lifestyle, not going out as much, there's no cable TV so chances are you have a ton of free time. Might as well learn to invest, learn the real rules of capitalism. See I can say that you can end poverty in your bloodline forever because when you learn this stuff, you teach it to your children. When they inherit this wealth they have the financial I.Q. to manage it and make it grow. 

Is it going to be easy, not at all. To pull something like this off, you have to fight like hell. Fight against those that don't understand and those that are satisfied with the status quo. You might have to fight with your mate as they might not be able to see the bigger picture. You're definitely going to have to fight with your children, at least early one, because they won't understand how saving $20 bucks on a movie ticket will radically change their future. But most of all you're going to have to fight with yourself. You have to fight to rise above average, you'll have to fight to stay disciplined and remain or course. It takes courage to build wealth. In the words of Damon Dash, "I hustle for my last name!" I encourage you to do the same. It's worth it and building generation is not only an option, it's our obligation!

If you are not satisfied with where you are, right now, financially...chances are you're not too excited about where you're head either. Income shifting is a timeless financial strategy used for rapid financial transformation that requires a ton of discipline and personal accountability. In it's simplest form income shifting is a method by which a person systematically recovers the income that's escaping them by way of taxes, debt and big business and shifts it back into their own household.

To be quite honest with you, there is only one person that can answer that question, YOU! As previously stated the strategy of income shifting is a simple one, but it's certainly not easy to execute. If you struggle in the areas of discipline, self control and personal accountability, you'll struggle with applying the strategy effectively and getting the desired result.

The good thing about Income Shifting is that it's strategy based or in other words it a simple formula. As with any formula or strategy as long as it's applied correctly the results are pretty predictable. Contrast that with a sales approach, something that most people just are good and and many are willing to do at all, Income Shifting is probably the best option for most, especially working class people.

Let's break down each component of the income shifting strategy so that you can clearly see where the discipline and self control are so very critical.

Before we dive into the specific challenges of discipline and self control let's just go over a few, very common financial obstacles that most people are dealing with, but chances are just can't seem to put their fingers on. At least I couldn't until I was introduced to income shifting originally.

1. INFLATION: Also know as the silent income killer inflation has a subtle but steady affect on ones income and we most times don't even realize the detrimental affects. In simple terms inflation is the dollar losing value daily. We won't get into the dollar as fiat currency and backed by nothing just know that it's loss in value daily is compounded by the fact that raises on the job don't keep up with the steady rise in cost of living.
2. TAXES: If inflation is the silent income killer then taxes is like the "Chainsaw Massacre" lol. There is nothing silent about Uncle Sam taking his money off the very top before you even see your paycheck. Nevertheless we've come to understand that taxes are a necessary evil. After all, we need our schools, fire & police departments, highways & bridges, etc. What most people DON'T realize though, is the way we're taxed has everything to do with how we choose to earn our income. Since most of us choose to earn our income with labor, we're taxed the most. You can very well choose to earn money as a business or an investor in which case the tax laws are radically different but most think there's too much risk involved so we gripe and complain while refusing to do anything about it.
3. DEBT: I feel bad for debt! Poor debt get's the bad rep as if it attacked your bank account without our consent. Remember you willingly entered into an agreement to leverage future earnings in order to have something today. In other words you've agreed to spend money you haven't earned yet to possess something now. Sometimes 5, 10 even 30 years into the future. Believe it or not, debt is the reason that wages have pretty much flat lined. Because of your many many debt obligations (not you personally), you'll stay on the job where you're being overworked and underpaid. Walking away means you'd put all your "STUFF" in jeopardy. All the things that you say are yours, but miss a payment or two and the really owner shows up. What you have to realize is debt is caused in large part by challenges 1 & 2. Get those under control and you won't need to borrow.
4. Less than Ideal Spending Decisions: Yes that's just a nice way to say we're bad with money. Some of the decision we make when it comes to money are just flatout wrong. Our priorities are all mixed up and we make a lot of our financial decisions based on feelings instead of logic. Big Business doesn't make it any easier either. Every month of the year there's something going one that requires us to spend money. Because we're social beings, the last thing we want to do is be considered an outcast. Therefore we routinely spend money that we don't have on things we don't need just to feel like we're part of the social fabric of the community. Here something to think about though. 95% of all working class people think the same way about money, as a result they only control 5% of the worlds wealth. It's time to shift your mindset to the way that the 5% thinks so you can get a piece of the 95% of wealth that they control.

The entire income shifting strategy is designed to help hard working men and women not only identify the root causes of their financial challenges but also help the over come the. As I stated before, overcoming these challenges requires discipline and self control. The strategy is simple, the execution...not so much.

Now that we've identified the root causes of our financial struggles the process of shifting your income back from those entities and into your household starts with tax minimization. According to the IRS 80% of working people are over paying their taxes to the tune of $200-$500 per month. Now, if you couple that with another statistic that says 75% of working class Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, it becomes quite clear why so many people are struggling with debt,

If you're one of the many living paycheck to paycheck, there's a good chance that you don't have the money needed to actually pay down your debts so you service them by paying the bare minimums. If this is the case, you're positioning yourself to be in debt until the day that you die. If, however there is a way to get our hands on that $200-$500 that we're overpaying in taxes that'd be the perfect catalyst to start our debt elimination game plan.

Imagine if you will, you were able to use a proven strategy to increase your take home pay on your job by $500 per month. As tempting as it may be, you cannot fall back into old habits and increase your lifestyle because your pay increased. The smart thing to do, is to apply the entire $500 increase to an outstanding debt, after all, you were getting by just fine without it so continue to operate as if it's not even there. You'll want to tackle revolving debt first because just as compounding interest is the 8th wonder of the world on your investments, the same is true on your debts. If you have credit cards, department store charge cards etc, take the extra $500 and get rid of them.

Once they're gone you simply apply the same strategy this time taking the original $500 and adding it to the amount of new cash flow that you got back from paying off the revolving debt and you attack the next debt. You continue to do this until your debt is gone. Now that the debt is out of the way take a few months and stack that new found cash flow until you have a solid emergency fund in place, at least 6 months of living expenses. Once you've got that in place you're ready to put your money to work for you.

The final phase to building wealth is putting your money to work for you via investments. I know what you're thinking, all of this is easier said than done. You're absolutely right! But just because something is difficult doesn't mean that it can't be done and it certainly doesn't mean that it's not worth doing. In fact I've often found that the most difficult things are always the most worth while and satisfying. Tell me, what could be more satisfying than getting out from under the stress of debt and making smarter decisions with your money so your future is secure. 

So let me ask you... Can Income Shifting work for "YOU?"

This amazing young man has 5 vending machines under his management. You've gotta hear the story of how Mikey's Munchies got started. I've enjoyed getting to know this young man and his development as an entrepreneur is amazing. He's on pace to be a millionaire before his 18th birthday. I'll let him tell you his story. Check out this short clip and leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Robert F. Smith is absolutely correct with that quote. Yet millions of black people all across America are forcing their children to aspire to be the next Labron James. Not necessarily putting a basketball in the kid's hands, which many of us do, but rather by only exposing them to a singular image of success like a ball player or entertainer. 

Don't get me wrong there is absolutely nothing wrong with a kid playing sports...or is it? I have two sons that play basketball and as a coach I tell parents all the time of the life lessons that they can learn through the game of basketball. I wonder though if I had my sons put in the same amount of time into another area i.e. math and science would they be equally as good as they are at basketball. What I do know is that they stand a much greater chance at going pro in the field of engineering than they do with basketball. So is it true that I'm living vicariously through my sons hoping that they'd fulfill a shattered dream of mine? Where did that dream come from for me? What if I'd studied electrical engineering 4-6 hours per day like I did most summers growing up playing ball?

I guess my point is this, if we expose our kids to all of the wonders that they are capable of, let them pursue their vast interests unimpeded, would sports be at the top of the priority list? Again all things being fare, for every time they see a Kobe Bryant or Labron James and marvel at their accomplishments, they also see other professionals equally as accomplished in their respective fields. I get the feeling that there would be a few less kids playing sports and far more playing and winning at the game of life long after their physical gifts are diminished.  

Maryland has 5 of the top 10 wealthiest black communities in the country and three of these communities are in Prince George County. I don't know about you but I never imagined that 5 of the richest black communities would be in Maryland.

10. Uniondale, NY - Average family income $76,553
9. Hillcrest, NY - Average family income $76,960
8. Friendly MD, - Average family income $82,827
7. Woodmore, MD - Average family income $103,438
6. Kettering, MD - Average family income $107,008
5. Fort Washington, MD - Average family income $114,243
4. Mitchellville, MD - Average family income $118,824
3. Ladera Heights, CA - Average family income $132,824
2. Baldwin Hills, CA - also know as Black Beverly Hills Average family income $157,033
1. View Park-Windsor, CA - Average family income $159,168

I would have thought Georgia would have made the list. After all some do consider it the Black Mecca. Can you even have a Mecca without a significant amount of wealth. Oh well...perhaps that's a post for another day. Comment and let us know what you think of this list.

Today Donald J Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States of America. During his inauguration speech he talked about how we're now in a "day of action" alluding to the fact that in the past politicians have traditionally been all talk and no action. While that's true regarding many politicians, that's also true among the people. 

We live in what's know as a capitalistic democracy meaning that we have the freedom to be entrepreneurs and access the same free enterprise system as all of the fortune 500 companies and reap all of the same benefits of doing so. However like most politicians many individuals are all talk and no action. I hear people all the time talk of their grand ideas and how they are sure fire money makers and yet they're taking absolutely "NO" action toward manifesting those ideas, dreams and goals.

The one thing I will admit about President Trump is that, he did speak as though he believed deeply in the core message of is speech to help America rise from the ashes, bring jobs back and so on. The individuals that speak boldly about their dreams and business ideas too speak about them with conviction in their voice until of course you ask them "why aren't the executing?" What President Trump will actually do to deliver on his promise in this "Day of Action" remains to be seen, but it's my hope the he does actually take action. Just as it's my hope that you actually take action towards your dreams and goals and that you pursue them with a vigor that's required to manifest them into reality.