Blog & Podcasts

“You want to make sure that if something were to happen to you, your loved ones will be protected and taken care of.” - Larissa Steffan

In today’s episode, I welcome Larissa Steffan. Larissa helps young professionals to eliminate debt, build wealth and retire early.

Larissa talks about the investment options that are available and ideal for her clients as they work towards financial security.

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• I started out my adult journey in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is one of the most expensive places to live in.
• It became too much to keep up with the lifestyle at Bay Area, and after putting things into perspective on what my circumstances actually were, I realized that I needed to move.
• I moved out to Idaho, and I started to realize that there were a lot of people living in the same circumstances that I was living in.
• I decided that this would be a great place for me to break into finance and be able to help people out.
• My focus is on investment strategy and retirement strategy, because I find that it's something that people in my generation aren't being really preached to about.
• For people who come to me, I like to try and look at some alternative retirement strategies where they don't have to wait until they're in their 60s to access it.
• There are certain life circumstances that do make the most sense for you to have a life insurance policy because you want to make sure that if something were to happen to you, your loved ones will be protected and taken care of.
• I honestly offer retirement coaching, where we just go over your employee benefits and we start talking about how we can leverage those benefits.
• David McKnight’s book ‘The Power of Zero,’ is a great resource if you want to learn more about the different types of savings account and how they can end up affecting your retirement in the end.

Connect with Larissa at:
https://sites.google.com/ssgincfinancial.com/larissastefcom/home

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“It is that drive for personal excellence, that actually helps you create a life of fulfillment, which ultimately ends up being longer, stronger, and more fulfilling.” - Joe Templin

In today’s episode, I welcome Joe Templin in to the podcast. Joe is an author of a book called ‘Everyday Excellence: A daily guide to growing.’ Reformed physicist, financial planner, startup founder and autodidactic polymath best described as a Swiss Army Knife, Joe Templin has invested the past two and a half plus decades to helping others reach their financial potential as a planner, trainer, mentor and creator.

In today’s episode, Joe talks about the freedom that discipline brings, especially in personal finance.

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• I started college at 13 and studied communication and went to Rensselaer Polytechnic and became a physicist and worked for government.
• I am financial planner, a martial artist, and also studied sales psychology and performance psychology which led me into doing more training and development work.
• I have drifted even further into behavioral economics, and authored multiple books which are very much reflective of the multiple components to knowledge that you need to assemble to properly do financial planning.
• It is that drive for personal excellence, that actually helps you create a life of fulfillment, which ultimately ends up being longer, stronger, and more fulfilling. When we talk about financial planning, it's not cookie cutter, and this is because clients are all very different individuals.
• In personal finance, discipline equals freedom.
• We live in a disposable society in a lot of ways and things have planned obsolescence.
• Having the capability of taking the time to allow things to develop makes people more successful.
• If you choose what feels good in the moment, it creates a downward trajectory overall, and ultimately makes things harder.
• If you choose what is more difficult in the moment, it leads to a better outcome in the long run.
• It comes down to the easy choice or the right choice and just consistently trying to make the more difficult decision in order to increase your excellence factor across all components of your life.
• EASY NOW, HARD LATER vs. HARD NOW, EASY LATER choose hard now...always!

Connect with Joe Templin at:
https://everyday-excellence.com

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“If you look at your credit report as a lender would, you will understand why you need to have good credit score.” - Nathalie Noisette

In today’s episode, we welcome Nathalie Noisette. Natalie is a credit expert and financial strategist, dedicated to providing information for individuals looking to improve their score. She is also the author of a book titled, ‘Converted: Uncover The Hidden Strategies You Need To Easily Achieve Massive Credit Score Success.’

Today Nathalie talks about the relationship between trust and credit, as well as the importance of building a positive credit score.

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• I came across my credit score for the first time when I was 18 years and had gone to buy a car but was denied the purchase because the credit score was just not there.
• I went home and went into a really deep hole into the internet of what credit was, because I had not made contact with this credit thing before that experience.
• I was able to fix my credit, and then a lot of my friends and people started asking me to help them fix theirs as well, which led to me turning it into a business.
• It is not really just about credit, but also about understanding your needs and lifestyle, and creating a plan around that.
• I like watching how people transform their lives and seeing that gap close.
• Watching my daughter grow up and not have to deal with a lot of the things that I did also became a passion for me working with women especially mothers. I got to a point where I felt like this was something people could do by themselves anyway, and decided to package everything I had done in the last 10 plus years in a book.
• The number one misunderstanding that people carry about credit is thinking that credit really has to do with money at all.
• If you can look at your credit report as a lender would, you will understand why you need to have good credit.
• Every single institution that you have a relationship with sees a different version of your score.
• It makes sense that your credit score may vary depending on whether the potential lender is using the FICO or Vantage Score model.
• The scores from Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax might vary slightly not because of the model that's being used, the data points that are being presented on the actual report are different.
• Credit repair is not like a magic pill that you take and everything goes away, but a way to rebuild trust with institutions.

The best way to keep in touch with Natalie is through:
www.convertedcredit.com
https://www.facebook.com/iamnatnoisette
https://www.instagram.com/iamnatnoise

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“Triple bottom line is investing in a way that you do get profit, but you also look after people and you look after the planet as well.” - Dionne Payn

In today’s episode, we welcome Dionne Payn to the podcast. Dionne is an author, as well as a speaker. She speaks on the topics of ethical property investing, affordable housing, and ending homelessness. She is the CEO and founder of high impact property investments, where they specialize in connecting investors with double digit returns and projects that provide affordable homes, build communities and provide inclusive homes for people with disabilities.

Dionne talks to me about the events that led to get into real estate business, and also highlights the triple bottom concept in ethical property investing.

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• My early life was very much about being part of a church community, and it was lot about service and helping other people which was where I've got my service ethic from.
• At the university I studied pharmaceutical chemistry, and I ended up at the pharmaceutical industry specifically at the natural products chemistry where I ended up doing a PhD in the same field.
• We wanted to buy a property and in the area that we lived at the time, it just wasn't affordable on one income.
• We decided to learn about property with the hope that we'll find a creative way to get involved in property and then be able to purchase our home.
• After our first course, we found a joint venture partner whom we partnered with to deliver a project that was a renovation and a subdivision of a property.
• We delivered on the project and did a couple more projects which were quite small.
• We got involved in a project that even though we did finalize it, I got the motivation to keep going because it was important to the community.
• It was a combination of there being a need for it and a way that we could make money, but also a way to service the community as well as sustainability.
• We haven't always been thinking about sustainability and community, our primary motivation for a long time has been about profit.
• As we progress, what we're seeing is just a bit of a collective shift and a bit of an evolution in the way that we live and think.
• Millennials do seem to be leading the charge by wanting to work for companies that are ethical and investing their money in things that they believe that are going to make the world better.
• As consumers/ investors, we have a lot of power, but sometimes we give away our power because we don't think that we have any.
• The central message in the book, Ethical Property Investing, is that if we exercise that power, we can actually create the world that we want to see.
• Triple bottom line is investing in a way that you do get profit, but you also look after people and you look after the planet as well.
• Our money has to work for us, but investors do want to be investing in alignment with their values.
• We partner investors with developers that have a really great track record and are a lot more risk aware and know how to mitigate them and find creative solutions for them.
• Property development in and of itself is a huge beast, and you need to have people that are committed on all aspects to deliver the outcomes that that you've signed up to deliver.
• Property really has the power to transform lives.

You can connect with Dionne on her social media handles:
Facebook - https://web.facebook.com/highimpactproperty.investments
Twitter - https://twitter.com/hipinvestments
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dionnepayn

The best way to get in touch with Dionne:
Website: https://hipi.global

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“Anytime you get a letter from the IRS, answer it, and if you don't understand what they're saying, ask for clarification.” - Charles Read

In today’s episode, we welcome Charles Read to the podcast. He is the author of three books including Starting a New Business, Small Business Short Course, and the Little Black Book of The Beauty Biz. Charles has also written numerous articles and blogs throughout the years. He is a licensed CPA, and he has held Series 7 in Series 66 securities licenses. Charles has 50 years of financial leadership and experience.

Today Charles talks to me about how he was able to successfully start and run his business, and also provides tips on how to deal with payroll and taxes.

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• After the military, I found out my military experience wasn't valued by business, so I went and got my credentials and then went to work in corporate world for about 15 years.
• Over 30 years ago, my wife Ruth and I, started our business and I'm still running it today.
• I was working as COO for Financial Express, which was a franchise organization that we bought in 1991.
• We later just changed the name and then got rid of the mobile aspect of it and kept going.
• 10 years ago, I sold the accounting side of the business to my partner who wanted more autonomy, and I kept the payroll.
• We're now in exclusively a payroll provider providing services all across the US, to small and medium sized businesses.
• Our biggest unique selling proposition is compliance, and we help our clients stay compliant.
• Our clients outsource their payroll issues to our company because we are the experts with the most experience and knowledge.
• I tell clients not to talk to the IRS themselves, because it's personal and will likely upset them and make them do things they shouldn't.
• The first call from our clients doesn’t cost anything, and that's the nice thing about us as compared to our competitors.
• My book titled The Little Black Book of the Beauty Biz is about all the back-office things that relate to the accounting and payroll.
• 70% of all US businesses misclassify employees one way or the other.
• There are some huge advantages to being an independent contractor and it is important for people to learn all these things about deductibility.
• You can legally deduct anything that is business-related whether you have a receipt or not, you just may not be able to prove on an audit, but that doesn't mean it's illegal.
• The IRS cannot penalize you for a simple mistake.
• Anytime you get a letter from the IRS, answer it, and if you don't understand what they're saying, ask for clarification.
• Send everything certified so that you can be able to prove you sent it when necessary.
• One of the tips as we are approaching April is to make sure that if you've got stimulus payments, they get reported because they are not free, they are a part of your refund up front.

You can connect with Charles on his Social Media Handles:
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GetPayroll/
Twitter - https://twitter.com/getpayroll
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/getpayroll
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxs-_RwC9NgfUcqbwvEaMIQ

The best way to get in touch with Charles:
Website: www.payroll.com
Email: CJR@getpayroll.com
Phone number: 972-353-0000

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“The number one thing that I recommend to anybody who wants to own a business is to just start and then follow the path.” Howard Dekkers

Today, we welcome Howard Dekkers to the Podcast. Howard is a financial and life coach, and he teaches people how to become financially free with a normal job. Coming from an average lower middle-class family in Detroit, Howard worked hard to become a self-made millionaire, and now, his passion is to help others achieve their part of the American dream.

After a successful run in the business world, Howard arrived at what we, at Personal Financial Strategy call “Choice Age”, which is that age at which an individual's passive income stream can support their lifestyle completely, thus affording them lots of choices.

Today Howard talks to me about how he's investing his life post choice age.

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• I was born in Detroit, Michigan and when I was three, my dad moved us to a suburb of Detroit.
• Two streets down from me is where all of the wealthy people lived and one thing I noticed of every one of these homes, is that either or both of the parents owned the business.
• From a young age, I thought that the only way you could become a millionaire was by owning a business.
• After high school, I had an accident where I cut off my finger and it was totally a wake-up call for me to go to college and get my bachelor's degree in business.
• I opened my first business at 28 and I kept opening up other businesses. I ended up making millions of dollars from selling my last company which took me 20 years to build.
• One of the things my father told me when I was a teenager was to save and invest 10% of every one of my paychecks.
• I was making a lot of money but was spending it all, and it wasn’t until when I was in my late 30s that I started saving and investing 10% and up to 20% of what I was earning.
• My savings grew to over $2 million and then I sold my company for millions of dollars, and it was at that point that I didn't have to work anymore.
• I decided that I was going to put a PowerPoint presentation to teach my children and their friends how to become multimillionaires.
• As the numbers grew, I decided to put an online course together and now I have a seven-module seven- hour course, where I teach people everything they need to know to become multimillionaires sometime in the future.
• My first business was advertising which led me to another business, international cash card, which was a telephone cover index that I sold 10 years later, to the biggest newspaper in town.
• The number one thing that I recommend to anybody who wants to own a business is to just start, and then follow the path.
• The other end of it is that you have to start your monthly financial freedom plan as soon as possible.
• You definitely do not have to go to college to run a business.
• I teach a concept called Money mindfulness where I show people how they're spending their money right now versus how much is coming in.
• I show these people how to be money mindful because they were never taught.
• Most people think that they have to save a million dollars, but the reality is that they don’t. They just need to understand how to take advantage of compound interest and doubling.

You can connect with Howard on his social media handles:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/howard-dekkers-baa3727
https://howarddekkers.com/

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“A life coach is not necessarily a business coach, but business coaches absolutely need to have the life coaching aspect.” - Bernadette Boas

Our guest in today’s episode is Bernadette Boas. Bernadette is the author of a book called, ‘Shedding the Corporate Bitch Shifting: Your Bitches to Riches in Life and Business. She's also the founder and president of Ball of Fire Inc which is home to both Ball of Fire Coaching‒ a coaching, training and speaking practice; and Ball of Fire Media‒ a media communication and publishing firm. Both firms are dedicated to helping individuals optimize their personal and professional development.

Bernadette shares with us her journey and the events that led her to start a coaching business.

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• I started working at Burger in an early age and by the time I was in college, I already had a corporate job.
• My core role in those earlier years was consulting in retail and technology, which ended after being fired by my mentor of 12 years.
• When I left corporate, I automatically knew I wasn't going back and I started a consulting practice in 2008.
• Even with the 2008 recession, I had a full docket of clients. In that period, I found that there was a lot of confidence loss and personal growth loss where everybody started playing the victim as opposed to the victor.
• Based on my own experience, I thought that I would be much better not only consulting, but also coaching businesses and the business owners.
• I went into a self-discovery journey and found myself looking in the mirror and seeing this very nasty corporate tyrant.
• I just decided that I needed to start not only coaching, but also wrote a book to teach other people that they don't have to be anything but themselves to be successful in business and social life.
• Sometimes people go through life and never look inward, so they never discover their role and responsibility to an outcome.
• Everyone has to discover themselves, and then have to confront what they like and don't like, then they have to make decisions as to what they want to share out of their lives.
• I recognize that as good as a consultant and a business coach, what people deal with and struggle with is their mindset.
• It is critical that people be accepted for exactly who they are, and they learn themselves and what they need to do about it.
• A life coach is not necessarily a business coach, but business coaches absolutely need to have the life coaching aspect.
• My job as a coach is simply to ask questions, to listen to understand, and then help them answer their own questions and make their own decisions and guide them through their own challenges.
• My view about the great resignation is that it is forced and not voluntary, and is due to circumstances that have made people take a second look at what what's important in life.
• The great resignation could lead to the loss of expertise and intelligence due to many people who are leaving and moving out of the economy.
• People get to a point where they start to question what's really important in this world and in life.
• The great resignation has accelerated the uprising and growth of small businesses which is absolutely fabulous.

You can connect with Bernadette on her social media handles:
https://www.facebook.com/shifttorich

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“When you have a vision board, and when you have targets that you've set for yourself, you and your partner are unstoppable.” - Janine Bolon

Today we welcome Janine Bolon to the podcast. Janine has written 11 books and currently teaches 15 online courses. She is also a veteran podcast host and her podcast is aptly titled, ‘The Janine Bolon Show’. She mainly talks about money, solo partnership, writing/authorship, and how to hold on to your sanity.

In today’s episode, Janine discusses her journey that saw her get into teaching people about personal finance. She also talks about the importance of having a vision board when working towards your targets.

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• I worked in the pharmaceutical industry and then later dropped out of corporate America and went to teach, because I love being able to share as well as learn from my students.
• I noticed that as we got to the end of the semester, the grades would really start to drop, and after talking to the students I found the reason was because they were running out of money.
• I started teaching the freshman class about money, and that is where the 60/40 principle was born.
• I then ended up teaching their parents about personal finance and then moved to teach 11 to 16-year olds.
• When I started moving around I began looking into the audio space and started doing audio blogging.
• I've taken over seven different podcasts and shoved them into one show, and that is why there is such diversity in the content that comes out of The8gates, which is my company.
• I was taking the advice of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, about replicating yourself, and anytime I saw automation that allowed me to replicate I did that.
• Technology opened up so many things to different types of people, and now is a wonderful time to be an entrepreneur, and to learn.
• If you ever get a little too negative about life, just go listen to a podcast and learn how people out there are doing amazing things.
• One of the things I like to recommend to people who do have a solid strong income, but yet they have anxiety is, to dig deeper and find if that's something they can actually address.
• I'm a very practical teacher, and I always want to make sure that you walk away with at least one thing to do next.
• I believe in vision boards because it helps calm that mindset, and it's just really a matter of what step do we take next.
• When you have a vision board, and when you have targets that you've set for yourself, you and your partner are unstoppable.
• With finances, everybody's going to have a different target, because everybody is in a different situation, which is why we have to go through so much training.
• With the great resignation, we're coming out of schooling institutionalized programs that are no longer working.

You can connect with Janine on her social media handles:
https://www.facebook.com/janinebolon1
https://www.instagram.com/janinebolon/channel/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janinebolon/

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"I believe that personal finance comes down to three main fundamentals which include Learning how to earn more money, learning how to spend less money, and learning how to invest money intelligently” - Alan Lazaros

Today we welcome a special guest to the podcast, Alan Lazarus. Alan is the founder and co-host of Next Level University, which is a global, top 100 self-improvement podcast, and they're now approaching 900 episodes. They reach over half a million people in more than 120 countries.

Allen holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration. He's a professional speaker and business coach and consultant specializing in helping businesses maximize their growth, impact and profitability online. He's inspiring, motivating, and educating others on what it really takes to get to the next level.

In today’s episode, Alan will be discussing personal finance and how people can achieve better financial outcomes in their lives.

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• My mom gave me the best lesson that I'd ever heard which was, aim high, and you'll have choices.
• At 26 years I got an accident which messed me up mentally, emotionally and spiritually and had me contemplating my life and my choices.
• Now I've got this North Star that I wear around my neck which is my guide.
• You can't see the stars during the day even though they’re always there, but sometimes it takes the darkness to see clearly that which you simply could not see within the light.
• I was contemplating my life, and I saw two stars I'd never seen before, Tony Robbins’ TED Talk and Bronnie Ware’s book called ‘The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.’
• That’s how I got into business coaching and consulting and what fulfills me now is maximizing my own potential, helping others do the same, and helping them improve the quality of their life.
• You’re not going to be fulfilled if you're if you're chasing the dreams of other people.
• I help people improve their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
• I believe that personal finance comes down to three main fundamentals which include learning how to earn more money, learning how to spend less money, and learning how to invest money intelligently.
• One of the reasons why I think people struggle so much to be successful in every area is because they're thinking linearly in an exponential world.
• 1% growth can compound like crazy and if you don't understand that, you're not going to make decisions that are long term.
• You can play now and pay later, or you can pay now and play later.
• You get paid in proportion to the difficulty of the problems you solve because your intrinsic value is different than your economic value.
• To earn more money, the first facet is you should learn how to do the things that the world desperately needs.
• The second facet of earning more money is working to be good at what you do in statistical comparison to other people in your field.
• The third facet of earning money is positioning yourself in such a manner that it will be difficult to replace you.

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