MSG Presents: "Eric on Money" - Leveraging Your Credit To Build Wealth Pt. 1

In this powerful episode of Eric On Money, Eric breaks down the truth about credit—and how to use it as a tool to build real wealth. Whether you’re just hitting a 700 credit score or still working your way up, this is your roadmap to financial power.

Eric, a former “financial imposter,” shares how he went from confused and hesitant to confident and in control. He walks you through clear definitions of credit, leverage, and wealth, explains how credit scores are calculated, and why your score is only the beginning of the story.

Learn how interest rates impact your ability to build wealth, what your credit score really gives you access to, and how to use tools like 0% interest credit cards strategically. With relatable examples, practical insights, and a no-fluff coaching mindset, Eric shows you how to shift from fear to power—and turn your credit into a true asset.

Key topics:

• Understanding your credit score and credit mix
• How leverage accelerates wealth-building
• Why net worth matters more than income
• Real-life ways to use credit for investing, not just spending
• The dangers of misusing credit—and how to avoid them

This episode isn’t just theory—it’s a masterclass in financial empowerment. Tune in, take notes, and start using your credit to create real assets.

Transcript

Leverage Your Credit To Build Wealth_ A Step By Step Guide Pt_ I

[00:00:00] Good afternoon. Welcome to leverage your Credit to Build Wealth. My name is Eric, i've been waiting to have this conversation for a while now. Such an important subject. You know, I get a lot of people reaching out, ask, telling me, you know, Hey, I have a really good credit score.

I really don't know what to do from here. You know, I'm at a 700 credit score or higher. You know, what am I supposed to do? I don't want to make mistakes because that took a long time for me to get this score. Or sometimes I'll have people reach out and say, you know, I'm trying to get my score up so I can make some moves, but I really don't know what to do.

So this is just for you. Just for you. All right, let's dive in. So, who am I? So my name is again, is. I have a few credentials here, but my favorite credential is the fact, the one that's on the bottom here is that I am a former financial [00:01:00] imposter. I am a former financial imposter. What does that mean?

It means that I was a person who did not believe that I was supposed to have success with the money. I was a person who. Wanted to do good with money, but I just really didn't know what to do. And it took me some time to really figure that out. I had to go through a lot of trials and tribulations, but that I understand that feeling of feeling like, you know what?

I just don't deserve it and I don't deserve it because of maybe what I did in the past, or I just don't feel like I have the education, the literacy or whatever. So if you out there, if you're a financial imposter, I can relate. I've been there. Some of my other credentials are MBA and corporate finance.

I'm pretty proud of that even though that MBA did not help me understand personal finance at all. Kellogg School of Management alum. Been in the financial industry for a while over a decade. Started off selling life insurance [00:02:00] and then got into other facets of the industry. And then I am a financial coach

all right, here's the agenda for today. Is really simple. It is number one, we're gonna get into these terms, so I'm really big on making sure we understand the words that are being used.

You know, many times we hear these conversations happening, but we don't necessarily know what the words mean or the concepts, or maybe we think we know, and later on we find out, you know, that wasn't the definition of the term. So we are going to make sure we understand these words and then we're gonna get into, in the words we're gonna make sure we understand our credit, leverage and wealth.

Credit, leverage and wealth. We're gonna make sure we understand those and then we're going to get into what factors impact your credit score because we are talking about . 

So we wanna make sure we [00:03:00] understand the game, right? So what factors are actually impacting my credit score? Or our credit scores, how does the calculation work? We're gonna get into that and hey, if you're out there and you're like, I think I already know that, just be patient.

You might find one nugget that might change your perspective . And then we're going to, going to get into interest rates and wealth building. So interest rates, and we're gonna dive into this few minutes. They are such a big factor in wealth building because depending on what your interest rate is, it's going to it's.

Or allow you to pay off debt faster or get debts at lower amounts, and we'll get into that more. And then the fourth thing we're going to cover is I like to do examples and so we're gonna give some specific examples of leveraging credit to build wealth. Credit to build wealth. Okay? Alright, let's dive in here.

So, defining the credit, wealth, and [00:04:00] leverage. So, and I'd love to know if you already felt like you had a handle on this, if we're going through this, but drop it in the chat if you feel like, okay, I already knew what credit was, this was my understanding, but the way I see credit is like this, it's, it is part of our financial power, is part of our financial power because really it is just designed to help you gain access to things that you need or want.

It helps you to gain access to things that you need or want. So think about this. If we're trying to get access is something that we are, we don't have already. And so we're gonna use that credit to get that access. Now here's the thing that I love about credit, and it took me a while to really understand this.

Not only will it allow you to gain access to something that you need or want, but it also gives you access prior to actually paying for it. So I did a post today on LinkedIn where I was talking about a [00:05:00] property that we purchased. So we got the property, but because we're leveraging credit, we got access to the property before it's actually paid off.

Same thing with any other thing that you use your credit for. So you get a car, you're accessing the car before it's actually paid off. So as part of your financial power, it gives you access. Now your ability to gain that access is determined by your credit score. Now, I know everybody out there already knows what a credit score is, but what you might not know is that the scores for credit range from 300 to 8 50, 300 to eight 50.

Now, I would ask people to drop their credit score in the chat. I'm not gonna do that. But you know what your credit score is. But think about where are you in that 300 to eight 50 range, and then take it a step further and say, where am I? And then how much access do I have to the things [00:06:00] that I want?

Because you might be out there and be saying, you know what? I have a seven 50 credit score. But I want you to take that next step and say, I have a seven 50 credit score, but do I actually have access to the things that I need or want, whatever that is for you. And then the last piece is here is, is the higher your score, the greater access you're going to have.

So think about this, if you've got an 800 credit score or eight 50, and you are in real estate. Or say you purchased businesses or whatever it is that you're doing, you might want credit cards. The higher your score, the more of those things you're able to get. And we're gonna talk about this later, but you'll probably be able to get them at lower interest rates.

All right, so credit power, access your score just like in school or in college. And then the higher your score here, the greater your access. Now wealth, [00:07:00] we hear this all the time. We hear this word. I mean, I literally hear this word I feel like every five minutes. Wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth, wealth, and I, I've heard it my entire life, but I didn't understand what it meant probably until even after I got in the financial industry, I didn't really understand what wealth was.

It took me a while. Because it is one of those words that we hear it so much, you don't question it. You just feel like you know. Now let's see what, let's see if this definition that I have up here matches what you believe wealth is. Wealth is the total value of what you own, the total value of what you own.

Now, this second part, I really enjoy because. We could feel like we own a lot of different things and we could feel like we're wealthy or you know, all of this stuff, but we have a metric that we can use to really see if we are or we're not. And so the value that you use [00:08:00] to refer to what your your wealth is is called a net worth.

Net worth, and it is a calculation that we can all do. It's really is not that hard. All you're doing is taking the total value of everything that you own, everything that you own, which are your assets, and then all you're doing is subtracting it from everything that you owe, and that is your net worth.

That is your wealth, that is your level of wealth. Why is that important? Because we need a way to be able to quantify if we're actually making any progress. So you can cal calculate your net worth at any given time. Also, you can be very strategic. So say you're sitting there thinking, you're like, you know what?

Okay, I keep hearing this net worth thing. I haven't calculated it yet. I wanna figure out where my net worth is. And if you DM me, I have a spreadsheet that you can use to calculate your net worth so you don't have to worry about [00:09:00] trying to figure it out and all that. All you have to do is drop in the information and it will calculate it for you.

But once you know what your net worth is, the great thing about it is you can get really strategic about what do I need to do to build my net worth? What do I need to do to improve my net worth? Because it might not be what you want it to be, and so it can always be improved upon, which is great. So wealth is a total value of what you own.

Now this next slide is actually my favorite. I believe it's my favorite concept. In finance, and I was in love with this word even before I, I knew exactly what it meant. It was just sounded like a sexy word. Leverage. Leverage. I love that word. I love to say it. Leverage. And leverage is something that is super important when we're building wealth.

Just in life though, I mean, before we get into the definition, just think about how you use the word leverage in [00:10:00] your everyday life. You know, you might be like, Hey, I'm gonna leverage my friend's apartment to throw a party. Or you know, Hey, I'm gonna leverage this person's network so I can get a job.

It's something that we do in our everyday lives, but it sometimes it doesn't carry over into finance leverage. If you are out there watching this live let me know if you are using leverage on a day-to-day basis. Are you using leverage and what are you using it for? Now, here's the financial definition.

This is kind of a definition that came up with through my own experiences and knowledge, and it's leverage is really using a person, a place, or a thing to accomplish something. Whatever that something is, but it's a person, a place, or a thing that you're using to accomplish something. So it's probably something that [00:11:00] you don't already possess, which is why you need to use another person, place, or a thing to accomplish your goal.

And then the other slight definition that I would use for leverages is also using a resource that somebody else owns. Somebody else owns to accomplish your goals. Even if you are in business and you hire a virtual assistant or a marketer or some, somebody like that to help you in your business, you're leveraging, you're using leverage because they have time, right?

They, they have time that you want to utilize. That is leverage. When you go to a situation where you're like, Hey, can I borrow some money to do X, Y, Z? You're leveraging because you're using somebody else's money to accomplish something that you want to do, which is fantastic, right? Because now you are able to speed up the process by leveraging something that [00:12:00] someone else has.

So how are you using leverage? How are you using leverage? Person, place, or a thing accomplishing something, and you're using a resource of someone, someone else's to accomplish a goal. That resource could be time, money, or property time. Money or property. Now, calculating your credit score. We have a lot of credit repair people in the marketplace.

Now, I remember when it wasn't that big of a thing, but I had a friend named Terry is probably the first person who introduced me to, to the credit repair business. But now it's, there're so many different credit repair people, so I feel like people have more knowledge about credit now. They definitely know that they have people that they can go to to improve their score, but let's talk.

How you actually calculate your credit score. How do you do that?[00:13:00] 

What is the formula? So the formula is really simple here. It's so we have a hundred percent, so view this circle as 100% and then these different percentages are. The different pieces of how your credit is is broken up. So let's start on the right here. So we have 10% new credit, so whenever you get a credit inquiry, it can harm your credit score initially for a while.

That's what they mean when they're talking about new credit. 10% of your a hundred percent score is dealing with new credit. 15% of it is the length of your credit history. So, however, whatever the period of time is that you've had credit, you could have started at 18 years old or 20 or whatever it was, but from the time you got your first credit card that went on your report or whatever it was, that is part of the calculation [00:14:00] for your credit score credit mix.

What are the different types of credit that you have? Do you have all credit cards? Do you have credit cards, mortgages, car notes, you know the different things. So the different mixes that you have, or part of your mix of credit is also how your credit score gets calculated. So you could be out there and be thinking, man, I wish I could give my score up, but then you realize all I have is credit cards on my credit.

I don't have any mortgages or any other types of credit in my profile. So that would be an easy way to improve your score by just adding in different types of credit into the mix. And then payment history, we all know about this one. So it's like if you're making late payments or you're making payments on time, whatever your history is, there's gonna be 35% of your score.

And if you look at this thing, 35% is the largest piece of this. It's [00:15:00] the largest piece. Bear with me for one second. 35% is the largest piece of this thing. I keep going past this. So when we're thinking about our credit, if you miss a payment, that's what's going to hurt you the most or strategically thinking about it in a positive manner.

If you make your payments on time and have a great credit history, that is going to improve your score. That's the fastest way to improve your score. And then the last one, which is 30%, is really getting into what do you owe? So how much of that credit are you actually accessing? Now, I wanna get into this because when I'm working with people one-on-one, we, I always talk about this.

Another thing that you want to do is try to figure out how much credit do you actually have access to? Because you can have your score reduced a lot of times just because, say you have, you spend $2,000 on a credit card, but you only ha and you only have [00:16:00] access to $2,500 worth of credit, it's gonna drop your score drastically because you only have access to $2,500.

But if you had access to $10,000. And let's use the credit card example again, and then you swipe $2,000 of it on your card. It's not going to hurt you as much because you've only used two out of the 10,000. So that's where the amounts owed come into play. So that's the, that is the calculation for your credit score.

Now let's tie this back to our overall conversation, which is. Is we're trying to, we're looking at this only in the, the sense of, okay, we're using this information to try to build wealth. That's what this is all about. So we went through what credit actually is. We talked about leverage, and then we talked about the, the definition of what wealth is.

And so now we're gonna get into interest rates and wealth [00:17:00] building. Where do interest rates come into play? So we've done the work of getting our credit together. Our scores are better. We're now, we're like, okay, now I'm trying to get really specific and try to build some wealth. How do I, how do I go about doing that?

Well, interest rates definitely come into play because they can lower or, or raise the cost of borrowing so two people can go after the same. Say two people go to get a car, they go buy a Mercedes-Benz. One person has a higher credit score, the other person has a low credit score. They could buy the same car, but the person with the the lower credit score is going to pay more.

The cost for them to do that is going to be more 'cause of their credit score. Obviously if you have a great credit score, you're gonna have cheaper mortgage payments. And the other thing is on the flip side, thinking about it from the bank's point of view, if your interest rates [00:18:00] are lower for the banks, then they're going to be less profitable.

So the banks make their money on interest rates, so the higher the rates are, the more money that the bank is going to be, is gonna hurt us. And then on the flip side, if the rates are low, you know, if the rates are. If their rates are not good for us, they're bad for them and vice versa. So we want to be on the side where we're getting the lower rates and it's going to be bad for them versus giving them high rates and making them the banks more money.

And when I say bank, it could be an institution that's giving you a mortgage. It could be someone that's offering you a credit card. You could be going to the jewelry store and getting something. It doesn't matter what it is, but we want to make sure we have the lowest rate possible. Now let's look at how it will actually impact you though.

So in this example here we have just think of all these different interest rates as different people. So you'll see the 3%, the four to [00:19:00] five to six, and the seven. So if you were paying a $2,000 monthly payment. With the 3% interest rate, you could gain access to something that costs 474,000. Say it was an investment property, $2,000.

Now the same person, let's jump over to 7%. The same person is paying $2,000, but because their interest rate is so much higher, they're only able to gain access to $300,000 worth of an asset. So if we're thinking about wealth building, we have to ask ourselves, if I'm trying to build wealth, right, I'm trying to accumulate and build my net worth.

Do I want to be the person that has the 3% interest rate where I have access to more? Or do I want to be the person with the lower interest, the higher interest rate to have access to less? Right? And I know we, I know we all know the answer to that, but those interest rates. It is that [00:20:00] drastic. Let's take another example.

Let's go down to $8,000. So say you're paying $8,000 a month for something. Let's use a commercial real estate property as an example. If I have a 4% interest rate, this is basically 1.6 million that I have access to, so I could probably get a pro, I could get a property for 1.6 million. But if I had a 7% interest rate paying the same $8,000, I only have access to a property that's $1.2 million, the same $8,000.

So what I want us to walk away with here is when we're thinking about building wealth, you can go access the same thing to somebody else, but depending on what your score is, and the score introduces the interest rate, right? So if this person has a 3% interest rate, we can assume that they have probably have a 700 or [00:21:00] higher credit score where the person with the 7%, they have the lower credit, the lower credit score, but a higher interest rate.

And so they're able, they're gonna be spending the same amount of money and get less. The same amount of money and get less. So if they're trying to build wealth, it's going to take a longer period of time because it's costing them so much money to access this property. It is costing them money to access the property, but they're only, they're not even able to access the same level as the person with the 3% interest rate.

They're not even able to do it. Based on their credit, based on the interest rate that they get subsequently from their credit, it's going to determine, remember we talked about at the beginning your level of access and then your level of access is based on those interest rates. So it all ties together.

[00:22:00] Now let's get into some examples and let me see if there's any comments out there. If you got any questions, drop 'em in the chat. Lemme see.

Okay.

So this whole thing is about leveraging your credit to build wealth. What are some examples? So I've been talking about purchasing properties most of the time today. So here's an example.

Purchasing an investment property. At a low interest rate. Now you notice I didn't put purchasing a primary residence because, and everybody has their views about this, but I don't view purchasing a primary residence with one unit is necessarily building wealth. But you might, there's nothing wrong with that, but I have here purchasing an investment property, so it's not something that you live in.

Or you living in, and then you have multiple [00:23:00] units. And if you have a low interest rate, it's gonna build equity faster because you have a low interest rate. So if you have a $2,000 a month payment and you're paying a 3% interest rate, that means there's more money going to towards the principal than if you had an 8% interest rate.

So you're able to pay it off faster. You're not wasting a bunch of money on interest. And then you can take all that money that you would've been paying on interest or that you were paying on interest when you had a lower rate, and you can use it to do something else. All right. Bridget has a question.

What if you have a high credit score, but you are still getting very high rates? That's a good question. So the reason why that could be happening could be a, a number of different things. Number one. It could be the fact your credit, say you had a lower credit score and then you just very recently had it go up.

That could be one factor. So you might have a [00:24:00] 800 credit score, but it is very recent, is something that just took place very recently. So the lender is basically looking, and this goes back to our credit history, they're looking at your entire history and saying, okay, this is great that this person has this high credit score.

But this is very recent. Most of their history wasn't that great. So that is going to come into play. Or you could have a high score. And remember we talked about getting inquiries. So you might have three or four inquiries on your credit report 'cause you're trying to access credit and the lender is looking at that and saying, okay.

Got a decent credit score, but she's out here trying to get, get access to something that's a red flag for us. Why does she have so many inquiries? That could be another reason. Also, right now, this is a perfect question because [00:25:00] right now the going rate on a mortgage is very high. To me, it's over 7%, so sometimes it's just economic.

So where a couple of years ago, a high mortgage would've been 4% or 3% or 2%, but right now the economy is in a different place, and so you're getting very, very high rates. Even if you have good credit, you're still getting 7% interest rates, even if you have good credit. So if you have good credit and you're getting 7% interest rates, somebody else might be getting 9, 10, 11, and 12.

But the best rate that you might be able to access, even with good credit in today's time could be 7%, which right now it is, I think they're going way before mortgage is around 7.4% right now, which to me is very, very high. So I hope that answers your question. Now, another example that I have here is you could be acquiring things with no money down.

[00:26:00] So some people are in the business of acquiring businesses with no money down. Why would you want to be able to do something like that? Because you can reap the cash flow from the business with no upfront cost. So think about it. You knew someone that had a let's say a healthcare business and the business was doing really well, and you knew that they wanted to get out of the business.

You could potentially approach them. And put together a deal where you can acquire their business for no money down. And then you could put other incentives in there, like, you know, you'll pay them a certain amount per month, or you'll allow 'em to still have an active role in the business, whatever it is.

But you, because you have that solid credit profile, and this might be more your business credit, you are able to reap the benefits of getting the cash flow from the business with no upfront costs. Now, what's the opposite of that? You go to that [00:27:00] same business, you wanna buy it, but you have to put up a bunch of money to get the business.

So acquiring businesses or anything else with no money down is definitely a way to build wealth faster because you're bringing in that cash flow, you're taking that cash flow and you're saving it or investing in other assets, and that's increasing the value of what you own. So that's a great strategy.

The last one is very, very tricky, but I'm gonna put it in here anyway, as an example. So, using a 0% rate credit card to purchase income generating assets such as vending machines. You might do educational courses, technology, equipment, just things that you need. To grow, you're doing it with a 0% interest rate credit card.

So you're in, you're getting access, you're going out and doing what it is that you need to [00:28:00] do, but you have a 0% interest rate credit card. Now, you gotta be careful with this because as we know, most times that 0% rate is going to expire at a certain point, and when it does. The, the ideal thing to do would be to pay it off before the, the promotional period.

They call it. The promotional period is up so that you don't get hit with this big interest rate, you know, or any interest rate once the promotional period is over. But the great thing here is, is that if this is done correctly, you are able to go ahead and so you're in business for example, and you're like, look, I need to expand right now.

Well, that 0% interest rate credit card will let you do that now. And so you see I have why here? It's like, why? Because you don't have to wait to start generating that cash flow. And how would you get the 0% interest rate credit card? I can [00:29:00] tell you right now, typically if you get to a 700 credit score, you'll start to get some 0% interest rate credit cards.

It might not happen. The moment to bridge this question. It might not happen the moment that you get the 700 credit score, but if you can maintain that 700 credit score over time, you're going to start getting some 0% interest rate credit cards. And remember, we talked about how the higher your score is, the more access you're going to get.

So believe me, the higher your score gets, the more of these offers you will get. You're able to take these offers and use them to generate wealth by purchasing income generating assets. I have a vending machine up here as an example, so you might have a friend that's a barber or someone who does hair.

You purchase a vending machine and you work out an agreement to put it in their shop. Do it with a 0% interest rate credit card, generate the cash flow, pay the money back, and then continue to generate [00:30:00] cash flow. On the equipment that you purchased, the vending machine, the technology, whatever it is. And then the last one that I want to mention is, and I've done this too, I've taken a 0% interest rate credit card and used it to get information that I needed.

So it might have been a course or a program or whatever it was. It could, sometimes it could be an executive education program. It doesn't matter, whatever it was that I thought. That I can take that information and leverage it into making more money, leverage it into making more money, doing it on a 0% interest rate credit card.

So I'm gonna go ahead and get the cash flow, pay off the 0% rate card, and then increase my wealth. So those were the three examples that I used. So you're taking your credit in the first example, you're getting property. Now why property real estate? Because we know that it, it [00:31:00] tends to increase in value because I could take my credit and go get a car, but we know cars typically have the opposite cycle.

Usually when we go get a car, it decreases in value, as they say, as soon as you drive it off the lot. So that's not something that you would Yeah, we need to get cars and all of that, but we wouldn't be thinking, I'm gonna get a car to build my wealth. It might make you look wealthy, but when we calculate net worth, it's not likely to, to improve your net worth.

There's gonna be a decline there. We talked about acquiring a business with no money down, you know, and reaping the cash flow from the business with no upfront cost, beautiful thing that you can do. Why? Because you getting the cash flow, no upfront cost, and so you're not getting these high interest rates and things that are really hurting your wealth.

And then the last one we talked about was the 0% interest rate credit cards. Again, be careful with those. [00:32:00] Make sure that you're able to pay that off during the promotional period, or if you're not able to pay it off, make sure you're prepared and you know what that interest rate is going to be. Because a lot of people get caught up and then here's how they'll get you.

Oh, you get these points and all this stuff. You will get the points, and all of that stuff is great. But when that promotional period is over, it's going to negative. If you still have those balances, it's gonna bring your wealth down because now not only do you owe the money, but it's going to cost you now to, to get that money.

The the same money that you had access to for a year now is gonna start costing you, and we don't want to be in that position. So let's do a quick, quick recap. So credit is powerful because it provides access to other people's money or resources. Money or resources. You know, we talked about the resource of time.

Wealth is the total value of what you own. [00:33:00] So you, when I was younger, I owned a bunch of clothes and watches and chains and gold teeth and all this stuff. Yeah. I looked, you know, for the circle of people I was in, I looked like I was wealthy. But if you added up the total value of all that stuff, it wasn't much, it, it was very low.

So it's the total value of what you own. Is your net worth. And you can do the calculation. The calculation. I really want to encourage anybody who's watching this do that calculation. Reach out to me and get that spreadsheet. 'cause you wanna know where you stand, like what is my current net worth? Because it's hard to improve, but if you don't know where you are, and then we talked about leverage.

My favorite, the sexiest finance word, is using one thing to get another. Or using another person's resource for your benefit. So we've been talking this entire time about using OPM or other people's money, [00:34:00] or in some cases other people's businesses. For our benefit, the benefit of bringing in cashflow, the benefit of increasing our net worth leverage.

Then we talked about how credit is, is scored, and this one is a big deal. I mean, it's really important for us to understand this calculation because if your credit is not where you want it to be, you can look at the, the breakdown and understand where you might be weak. It could be your payment history, it could be what you owe.

It could be the length of credit. You just may not have had credit that long credit mix. You might find out you only have a bunch of mortgages, you don't have any other types of credit and then new credit. A lot of times we get these inquiries because we can get tricked into applying for something.

When they said that they weren't gonna pull your credit, and then you have 10 inquiries on your credit and it drops your score. Now it really does. [00:35:00] So it's usually one of those reasons or, or a variety of reasons why your credit score is what it is and say you have a good credit score. These are the things that you can look at to get it even higher.

You might have a seven 50 and you want to get to eight 50. Examine the formula to see where you can get stronger. And then the last one, we talked about interest rates and how they allowed you to access money at. And resources at either a lower cost or a higher cost. It just depends on what your credit score is or your credit history, and then what your cost is going to be to access somebody else's resource.

So those, that is what we talked about today. So we have another question. Can you talk about, can you talk to current creditors and ask them to give you a 0% interest rate for a period of time? Yes. Especially if you've been with that creditor for a while and you have a [00:36:00] solid history, you can do that.

Or say you, your score has changed, it's gone up. Say the whole time you were with them, your score was in the five hundreds or six hundreds and now it's at a seven 50, or it's much higher than it was. You can go back to the table and renegotiate. Those interest rates, you can definitely do that. And when we're talking about wealth building, we also, 'cause it's about access.

You can also go back to them and say, Hey, you know what? I have a $10,000 balance on this credit card. My situation has changed dramatically. I would like to I'd like for you to increase my credit limit. I've done that negotiation several times. They're going to ask you. What some, now this is what I don't like.

You have some credit card companies, if you're doing this with credit card companies, that they want you to tell them what you, [00:37:00] what your score what? Like they want you to say you have a thousand dollars credit limit. They want you to say, I want $3,000. This is my new limit. I don't really like that because if I say the wrong number, they're not going to do it.

But then you have other companies that will be like, you know what, I, you just apply, you wanna apply for additional credit increase? Just say yes or no. I'm gonna read this disclaimer to you, and you either get it or you don't, based on your credit profile. But either way, yes you can definitely talk to current creditors and get a different rate and as a, as well as additional or a larger credit limit.

And I would encourage people to do that. Because we're literally talking about building our wealth based on what we have access to. Now, we've been talking about all this stuff for the, you know, last couple of minutes and we're wrapping up soon, but I wanna make sure it's clear when we think about this [00:38:00] credit situation, just because we have access, it doesn't necessarily mean that things are going to go well.

And this is where I want to get into kind of what I do on the back end with working with people. So you could be sitting out there and saying, okay, this presentation makes sense. I have a credit profile. I think I can do more with it. And so I'm gonna to use some of these examples to put myself in a better position.

But you might be thinking, you know what, but I need some help. I need some help to do this. And that's where financial coaching comes in. Because what that is is it's just a tool to help committed people reach their financial goals faster. Some people do better when they have guidance. Accountability and support.

I know I did. I had, I had to get a coach, and I've had several coaches since then because I just needed assistance and there's nothing wrong with that. You might have the knowledge, but you need assistance because you have so much going on. You might [00:39:00] need assistance because you just work better like that.

You know, you want to be on a team. You might need assistance because it's new to you and you just have no idea. You understand conceptually, but you just don't have the understanding because you haven't done it, and so there's nothing wrong with that. Now, my approach is I use something called a paid framework, P-A-I-D-I prioritize mindset.

The reason why is because sometimes we have to get in a different frame of mind in order to reach our financial goals. I talk about this all the time. I used to look in the mirror and say, you will become a millionaire. And at first I couldn't even say it because my, I was afraid. I just didn't believe I could do it.

I was scared that if I said something like that, it was going like the opposite what happened. And then there I realized I'm like. Like, dude, you're already in a bad position. Like what's the worst thing that can [00:40:00] happen? But it helped me to understand that many people that I encounter, or people who are in society, you might be watching Susie Orman and Dave Ramsey and all this stuff, and they're telling you all this stuff, but you're sitting there thinking like, I'm not in the right mindset for whatever reason I need to, to work on the way I think about money.

The way I think about money. The other thing I just talked about, the A is accountability. Sometimes you just need someone to be there to remind you like, Hey, you said you were going to save $10,000 in three months. What's, what's the status on that? You know, we, we go through that in corporate, a lot of times we have accountability.

Sometimes we need it in our financial life, and that's okay. Literacy increasing. So I'm really big on, I want you to know what I know. It's not gonna be one of these situations where I'm telling you a bunch of stuff and you're just like, okay, Eric, I believe you. It's right. No, I'm gonna teach you what I [00:41:00] know and I want you to have a higher level of understanding when you walk away.

So we should both know the same information once you walk away or you transition out. This, it's not enough for me just to, to tell you information. The last one is very important because you want to develop new habits and routines. And so in order to pull off this wealth conversation that we're having, if you're adding up your net worth and I see a couple of people have already reached out for the worksheet, that's great.

That's gonna be a big help for you. But once you get your number, you know that you're gonna have to do some different things in order to get that number up. So you're gonna have to develop some new habits. One of my habits is. I do a financial, I reconcile all my finances for the week on Sunday. I've been doing it for years.

Every Sunday without fail, I go back and see what happened this week. Are my statements in my accounts correct? [00:42:00] Do I need to return any items? You know, what's coming up? Is it somebody's birthday? Is it a holiday coming up? And I just do that every Sunday. It makes sure that everything that happened during the week was good and is worked out.

And then it also prepares me for the upcoming week. But that's my habit and routine. You would develop your own based on your situation. Sunday might not work for you. You might be like, I'm gonna do that every night, or I'll do it in the mornings, but whatever it is, we, we will have to develop some new habits and routines to get to that wealth mindset.

And financial coaching minds is, I, I would say this for anybody, it should be designed to get you clear, because you see this number one here, you wanna get clarity on where you stand. That's the first thing, like, where am I now? What is my net worth? How much life insurance do I have? What, what, you know, how much do I have saved for retirement?

You want to get that clarity and you get that clarity by learning those metrics that I'm talking about. The net worth is one [00:43:00] metric, but there's a bunch of other metrics. How much do you need for retirement? How much life insurance should you have? How much are you spending every month? What is your actual monthly income?

We have this term that I love called discretionary income, which is basically just subtracting your income, minus your expenses so that you know what you have to work with to do other stuff. Key metrics. The literacy comes up again, burning questions. So having a coach, you should be able to get access.

And pretty much real time. Like if you have some things going on that you need some answers for, like one, one example I always use is open enrollment at your job. That's a time of year when a lot of people get confused because they, they brought in the little people and they're talking to you and all that, and you still don't understand, but you don't wanna raise your hand because you're in there with your coworkers, which is cool.

I've done it, but you need answers. Should I get an HSA? Should I get [00:44:00] an F, SA? You know what, like what do I need to do here? And so you can get some of those answers. And then my favorite one here is being able to reframe the challenges. So I don't like talking about this stuff in, in a negative way. Like, so whatever it is, it can be worked out, but we wanna reframe it.

So let's use, for example, we might run your numbers and figure out you're overspending by $2,000 every month. And then you're swiping a credit card to fill in that gap. Okay? That's what it is. But what we can do is reframe that to say, I am going to balance out my spending by reducing my expenses so that I'm not spending more than I make, and now it's a goal.

Now it's a goal instead of looking at it as a negative. And sometimes that's why. Another reason why we need the support. So we're not continuing to look at things in a negative manner and we're framing it [00:45:00] into a positive and a goal. Something to work towards. Some of the benefits of financial coaching, some of the benefits my clients have seen, increased confidence, accelerating growth.

We are measuring the results. The literacy comes up. Again, you can always see that word dealing with me. Reducing mistakes, direct access to expert insights, you, you gonna have a plan of action. And in my opinion, I think people are happier when their money situation is taken care of. I know a lot of people say that money doesn't make you happy and we can debate that, but you, you know, it definitely can make you feel better and take some stress out of your life.

So if you're thinking about financial coaching, the name of my program is your CFO. You're the CEO of your family, of your small business or your whatever it is that you're doing. I'm just your partner. I'm just your financial partner. I'm your CFO in [00:46:00] our work with you to get to a better spot. All right?

So thank you all for reaching out for the spreadsheet. I'm gonna wrap up now. Thank you for shy town tuning in. I I really appreciate that. And if you figure out any more questions that you have about this, leveraging your credit to build wealth conversation, definitely DM me on LinkedIn. You can DM me on Facebook.

I'd love to answer those questions. And hey, we can get together and meet and figure out a solution for your situation. But until then, Eric, signing off peace.