Secrets to Financial Freedom the Super Rich Don't Want You to Know

Ryan Hanley: Careful, Ryan, we're going to get into clickbait area where they're going to click on the video. College teaches you how to be an employee because that's what it's built to do. So it's serving its purpose because they need employees to come and run their companies. The critical thinking doesn't necessarily happen in every single classroom. I have a master's degree. I know I'm talking about until I got a mentor and he showed me how to make $50,000 a month. And then my life was changed. He had to bend my mind because I did not know it was even possible.

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Ryan Hanley: The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way.

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Ryan Hanley: Hello everyone and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous episode for you. A conversation with Herman Dolce, aka The Haitian CEO, founder of Bellasloan Enterprises, where Herman teaches financial freedom, specifically by bringing the secrets, the tricks, the hacks that multimillionaires and billionaires use around credit facilities to gain financial freedom. How the super rich are using credit facilities and different credit tools to gain financial freedom. He's changing the game, changing mindsets, changing attitudes of everyday people to understand how credit works, what's good credit, what's bad credit, and how we can use credit to get ourselves out of trouble and put ourselves into a place where our money is working for us.

Ryan Hanley: This was an incredible and dynamic conversation. If you are struggling with your financial freedom, if you feel like you're constantly behind the eight ball, you don't know how to set your assets up, you don't know how to set your income, your revenue up, your cash flow, and if credit just scares the absolute hell out of you, then you're going to love this conversation.

Ryan Hanley: Guys, before we get to Herman, I want to give you a huge shout out. I appreciate the hell out of you guys. The audio version of this podcast has been going crazy. We have blasted up the charts in both the business category and the entrepreneurship category, cracking both the top 20 in business and the top 20 in entrepreneurship. We just had our last episode with Tommy Mello go into the top 100 episodes list for Apple. So all of you who are listening on audio, I appreciate you. And those of you watching on YouTube, I love that you're coming here. I love the comments that you're leaving.

Ryan Hanley: Guys, let us know what you think about these guests. Let us know what questions you have. Tag the guests who come on this show. Tag me in your comments so that we can come back in and answer your questions. If anything that Herman talks about, if anything that I say in this podcast doesn't make sense or that you think we got it wrong or that you don't understand exactly how to use some of these tactics that Herman describes, leave those in the comments on YouTube. I always pull those guests in and have them answer those questions as much as we possibly can. And if you prefer, you can always just DM me on whatever favorite social media platform that you have as well.

Ryan Hanley: So if you're new to the show, subscribe. But guys, I just appreciate you for being part of this community. We have so much more content coming out as we push forward with this channel, with this podcast, and just continue to bring you guests with just incredible insights into growing your business and taking control of your life. I appreciate you. My friends, here we go.

Ryan Hanley: Herman, it's great to have you on the show, man.

Herman Dolce: Absolutely, thank you for having me, Ryan. Means a lot.

Ryan Hanley: So I think we all get involved, we all enter the workforce, whether that's starting our own companies or whatever. And financial freedom, even if it's not at the top of a list that we may write down, it's always inside us. This idea of, "I'm working to get to a point where I can then do things I want, choose my projects, whatever." We're all working on that path. Yet so few people actually get there. Why is that?

Herman Dolce: Well, I think that we get caught up in analyzing too much, watching too many mentorship videos, and not actually just executing. We have a lot of people who have smart notepads. They have all the gym equipment. You just have to press play every day and actually do the work. I mean, Nike figured it out 30, 40 years ago. Just do it. And not just do it once, but do it consistently. I have a motto: motivation runs out, discipline must take over. And the discipline just has to happen daily in order for true change to happen in mind, body, soul, or finances.

Ryan Hanley: With Goggins coming out and a lot of these other motivational guys, discipline has become a word that a lot of people are talking about, yet I think every single one of us struggles with it in some capacity. How do we develop, and maybe how do you develop discipline in your own life? How do you make sure that the behaviors that you need to execute to get to the place that you want to be, that you are consistently doing those things?

Herman Dolce: For me, number one, small steps. And number two, writing down everything. If I have a plan or a goal, I'll give you a longer story. In my business right now, we hit a little downturn. I was looking at the numbers with my CEO and we figured out what happened. We were focusing so much on a conference we were having March 2024, which was The Blueprint Summit. So for six months, we were focusing only on it. And we weren't planting seeds and doing other things in other avenues or silos in our business. So now June came around and our numbers are down. Why are our numbers down? Because 90 days ago, we weren't planting seeds. So now we're healing it.

Herman Dolce: Writing down your goals and then planning little seeds. Everybody says, "I have to lose 100 pounds." It's so big. But when you write down, "I want to lose 100 pounds and here are the five steps I'm going to do it," they're small steps at first. "I'm going to walk 15 minutes every single day, seven days a week." And then 15 minutes turns into 30, into 45, and into an hour. We take on these huge chunks, and then when we fail, it's like, "Oh, it can't be done." It's a huge project. We just have to do it in little pieces.

Ryan Hanley: So writing it down for you, is that journaling? Do you have a system for how you write it down? Because accountability to a fitness coach or a business coach or a mentor, that's why we pay a lot of people. And all that is great and can be very useful. I'm a huge advocate of coaches and consultants. But personal accountability, you still need to have personal accountability. I get very interested in people's methods for how they hold themselves accountable and stick to these things. So what is your process of writing it down?

Herman Dolce: I have several notes apps. I have one for business and one for personal. And I write them all down so I remember. When people used to talk about manifestation and vision boards, I was like, "Oh, that's crazy." But it is true because once it's in my head and then I write it down, it becomes real. Once it becomes real to me, it gives me this sense of, "Well, I gotta get it done because it's on a list and I'm looking at the list every day." Every day before work, every day before my day starts, I'm looking at, "Okay, what do I have to get done?" And when it is unchecked too long, it's my fault. I always take accountability because it's there. I'm like, "Well, why aren't you getting it done? Why is this still on the list? Who do I need? Do I need to talk to my CEO about it? My VP, my operations person? Who do I need to talk to about getting this done?" Because it's on my board to get done. When you write it down, it's kind of like a self-accountability in and of itself.

Ryan Hanley: I'm right with you on manifesting. I've always, I read the first few chapters of The Secret and was like, "Meh, this is nonsense." I had in my head, "I'm a hard worker. I show up every day and work hard. I'll just get the results that I get because I'm going to work as hard as I work." And I was always kind of like, "Oh, with tools and stuff like that." Then I heard, I can't remember the podcast, I think it might have been Annie Fursella, but it doesn't matter, someone who I wouldn't have expected, and they're like, "Man, manifesting changed my life." And I was like, "Oh shit, maybe I've had this wrong the whole time." So I started looking into the concept. And then I found this idea that it's like when you buy a new car. I bought a Jeep Wrangler for four months. I actually hate it.

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Ryan Hanley: I always wanted a Jeep. I bought one. Four months later, I sold it because I hated it. But when I bought that Jeep, I literally saw Jeeps everywhere. Everywhere I went, I was like, "Oh my God, this car. I didn't realize everyone had all these Jeeps. Where did all these Jeeps come from?" And it's because our mind is now focused on that thing because you have it. So even if you don't believe in the universe flow part of manifesting, the whole idea that what you think about every day is what you're going to see and act out in the world makes complete and utter sense.

Herman Dolce: Absolutely. Every single day, I even have my peers. I want to pivot to social media for a second. I follow because they call it a news feed for a reason. I'm following certain entrepreneurs, certain successful people, motivational speakers, business pages. And since I'm seeing it every day, I'm feeding that to myself. It's changing my mindset and my behavior. So when I write certain things down, when I'm reading different suites, I'm feeding myself that. The input is output.

Ryan Hanley: Oh, dude, I couldn't agree with you more on what you just said. One of the exercises that I do with my coaching clients is I'll have them pull up their Instagram feed and scroll through it. And I'm like, "This is a direct reflection of what you're spending your time thinking about." If you like car crash videos and comedians, well, that's where your brain is at. If it's motivational quotes or fitness videos or whatever, that's what you're feeding your brain. If it's negative stuff or angry politics, that's what's feeding your brain. The algorithm is going to spit back on you what you spend time on.

Herman Dolce: Spend time on.

Ryan Hanley: I found that exercise even for myself. Sometimes if I start to see stuff in there that I'm like, "Why is that coming through?" I have to go, "Have I been spending time on that?" Because it wouldn't be feeding it to me if the algorithm didn't think that I wanted it.

Herman Dolce: Exactly.

Ryan Hanley: It can be a wake-up call to a certain extent. The Explore page on Instagram and the For You page on TikTok says a lot about you guys. Definitely take a look at that as an exercise. Like, "Wow, this is what I've been feeding myself." It's only going to give you what you want.

Herman Dolce: 100%. You're 100% right about that.

Ryan Hanley: So let's swing back. Let's take this concept of discipline and being disciplined and start to apply it to the idea of financial freedom, of taking control of our finances. Where does this break down most often for people that are not getting to that place? Where does the discipline break down for people?

Herman Dolce: Outside distractions. Most likely with people or an environment that are not going where you're going. I have a tagline, it's on my phone, it's called "Audit Your Circle." It's a branding, it's part of my company. I made an LLC about it. What it means is, I wore a shirt one day and somebody asked me what it meant. I was like, "Well, a commercial jet holds 300 people, a private jet holds 15. Everyone can't come with you." So it was very important to me when I started making specific goals. They didn't align with the saying, "The five people that are around me the most." I literally had to start firing people in the different levels of the different circles that I'm in in my life.

Herman Dolce: My parents are amazing, first generation from Haiti. But I wanted to become a millionaire. My parents weren't millionaires. They weren't associated with millionaires. So they couldn't teach me or tell me how to become a millionaire. They were one of the first people I had to fire outside of my financial circle. My parents did show me financial discipline in terms of when I was young. My father used to sit down with me every Friday because he got paid every Friday, and I would have to write out the checks for the bills that were due that week. He was showing me how to balance a checkbook. He was also doing it because when the Nintendo came out for $100, he knew I knew because I saw what he made and I saw what money was left when he said no, he really couldn't afford it. So he had financial literacy. But when it came to time to invest, understand truly what money is and how to multiply it, compound interest, I had to let go of my father in terms of that and start to associate myself with people who are going where I needed to be.

Herman Dolce: Whether you want to become an electrician or an astronaut, you have to start hanging with those people that are in those spaces. They're going to help you reach your goals because they've done it or they failed at doing it. Either way, they can show you the right and wrong way to do it.

Ryan Hanley: I think you just made a really good point and I'm going to expand upon it a little bit and get your feedback. A lot of people get hung up on this "surround yourself with the five people that you want to be like." And they think that it's just a group of five and that you get one group of five. When it's like a bunch of concentric circles that may intertwine or maybe completely separate. Your example about your family is perfect. They showed you one piece of financial discipline, but then maybe you also learn love and compassion from them. My mother's exactly the same way. She's been a receptionist for 40 years for the same company. Her feedback to me when I was growing up was, "Go work for a big company. Get a safe job. Get that check." For her, it was about safety. They never aligned with me because I have a very large risk tolerance. I'm very growth focused. They never suited me. I tried it. I failed miserably. But for cultivating things like love, compassion, empathy, how I relate to people, she's dead smack in the middle of that circle. So it's finding groups of people for the characteristics that you want to improve or grow in yourself. And it's okay for those to be different circles. Does that make sense?

Herman Dolce: Absolutely. It's okay because there's different circles for different things. There's the love and relationship, there's family, there's friends, there's business, there's spirituality. There's different circles for different seasons and different reasons. We have to learn how to manage those. It's not just one circle of five people. There's definitely different levels to this game.

Ryan Hanley: You mentioned before understanding what money is. As much as you can or are willing to, I would love for you to break down that statement and help. I think it's very common that we don't necessarily understand what money is. And I would love to start the next part of our conversation just kind of level setting on what are the common misunderstandings about money and what really is it as it applies to our life?

Herman Dolce: Okay, so there's two versions that I can go into, and I'm definitely going to go to the easy version. The harder version is that the dollar is debt. It's a debt tool. The value of it is not attached to anything. It's imaginary. It used to be connected to the gold standard, but President Nixon took us off the gold standard. We can go down that rabbit hole. But fundamentally speaking, so that everyone can truly understand this in a layman's term, when my mentor was teaching it to me, money is a tool. And that tool needs to be used to make more money.

Herman Dolce: When I was growing up, of course, our parents taught us to exchange time for money. And then when I started learning more about money, that money can do the work for me infinitely. I can send a dollar out into the world, and if it brings me back 25 cents, 50 cents, that's a really big deal. Sounds small, but what if I had $10, $15, $20? My company, when we're showing people, "Hey, you can leverage credit at 0% interest. Let's invest in this business. Let's invest in this real estate. You flip it, you get back 25, 30%. You just made $20,000, $30,000 on a $100,000 investment." May not sound like a lot, but once you're doing that over and over and over again, that's what the rich do. Understand that money is a tool and exchanging not for time, and money can really change your life.

Ryan Hanley: Did you just describe the concept of leverage? Is that kind of what you're breaking down? And could you expand upon what leverage is for people a little bit?

Herman Dolce: Right now, a lot of us, and shout out to all my hardworking people, because it's what we were taught to do, we leverage our time for money. We say to Microsoft, we say to Bellasloan Enterprises, the name of my company, "If you give me eight hours this week, 40 hours this week, I will in return give you $1,000." Nine times out of 10, we can negotiate. That sounds great. "Oh, it's $52,000 a year. Yes, I'll do that." If you're leveraging your time, or I can teach you how to use money as a tool so that you can get back more time. What if we can condense that $52,000 in three months? What if I can get you that in three months by investing in X, Y, and Z, getting a mentor who's done this before? And now in three months, you've made the $52,000. Would you be interested in me teaching you that? Let's leverage the money or credit instead of your time because now you get time freedom back.

Herman Dolce: A good mentor of mine gave me an example. He was like, "Is a million dollars a lot of money?" And I was like, "Yes, that's a lot of money." And he was like, "I don't really think so." He was bending my mind. I said, "Well, why not?" He's like, "What if I gave you a million dollars in 30 years? Is it a lot of money at that point?" And I was like, "No, not really." And he was like, "Right." A million dollars is worth in conjunction with time. More money, the smaller the time horizon is. A million dollars in a day is a lot of money. A million dollars in a month is a lot of money. A million dollars a year is a lot of money. But a million dollars over 30 years is not a lot of money. So it's all about how we're leveraging time and money for our time freedom. Because we have a limited time on this planet, and I want to maximize it as much as possible.

Ryan Hanley: I had a mentor say to me very early in my career, "Every successful individual that I know is leveraged to the hilt."

Herman Dolce: Yes.

Ryan Hanley: And I didn't necessarily understand it, so I questioned him. And he came back and explained. What I want to dig into the meat and potatoes with you on is this idea of using credit or other people's money to create leverage in their lives. They're borrowing so that if I can borrow X, but as you described, that X returns me 1.5X on a monthly basis. Well, now I'm not scared of taking on that debt because that's actually producing income. And he said what people who are unsuccessful do is they take out credit and then they buy stuff that doesn't produce any income. And now that credit in the first scenario with the successful people is an asset. And the same credit, it could be the same amount of money for the unsuccessful person, is a liability.

Herman Dolce: Exactly. This is my wheelhouse. This is my favorite conversation about how to leverage it. One of my greatest examples is something that I actually practice. Another one of my lines is, "Success has receipts." I got a $100,000 line of credit from a bank. How a line of credit works to your listeners: you only have to pay the interest on the money. It's not like a loan. A $100,000 loan would probably be $1,500, $1,600 a month, maybe $2,000. It's pretty expensive. But if it's just interest only, I was only paying $700 a month for that $100,000 line of credit if I maxed it out.

Herman Dolce: So I maxed it out and I invested it in my friend's business. He had a trucking company at the time. Remember, I maxed it out. It was only costing me $700 a month. But my return on investment was he was giving me about $20,000 every single month because I bought 15% of his business. 15% of his business yielded me $20,000 being deposited in my account every single month. It was like my first really big investment outside of my home. I was like, "Wow, this is kind of crazy." So I'm netting $14,000 in change. To your example when you said a lot of successful people are leveraged to the hilt, because I was scared to give up a hundred, I'm going to be $100,000 in debt. But my mentor had to bend my mind. What is that giving you? How long did it have to take you to make $20,000 before you made that investment? So now I was like, "Okay, well let me look for another $100,000, another $150,000." I wasn't scared of debt anymore because my parents taught me to be afraid of debt. "Oh, you have to pay it back." But if you have an investment and a strategy that is servicing the debt at minimum, it's a win for you. As long as I was making my $700 back, I was in a great position. But I was making way more than my $700 back. Even if I was just making a measly $2,000 a month, it's a win because I'm servicing the debt and I'm netting $1,500.

Ryan Hanley: Why do you think people are so scared of this? Is it just they haven't been exposed to it? They haven't had a mentor like you had? Or is there something more systemic in the way that we're taught about money that keeps us afraid of making these moves? Because what you just described is exactly everyone who I know that has financial freedom. What you just described is exactly the way they do it. 100%. They're not using their own money. It was funny, I made an investment in a company, a slightly smaller deal than what you did, but similar. And a buddy of mine, we were talking about it. When I told him I used my own money, he started laughing at me.

Herman Dolce: Yeah.

Ryan Hanley: He's like, "Your own cash?" I go, "Well, yeah." He goes, "Why did you do that?" He's like, "That cash could be used for this and this and over." He basically just described the process that you talked about. I'm like, "Son of a..." I'm getting made fun of. So what is it that it wasn't until he said that, even though I'd heard this for 20 years, it didn't click in my head. So why does this not resonate with people? And then how do we start learning about it?

Herman Dolce: I'll give you a less controversial and a controversial response to that. The less controversial response is what you said earlier about it being systematic. As I started growing my business, started my mentorship program, Bellasloan Academy, I'm talking to 20, 30, 40, 50 year olds who truly do not understand money, credit, leverage, or anything like that. The reason why they don't understand it is because they were never taught it. Where were they? The only place they were taught about money is from their parents who don't have money. Where it could have been taught was in schools, and it's not taught in schools.

Herman Dolce: I think to lean towards the controversial part, we were in a school system that doesn't teach us about money but teaches about everything else that is maybe not necessarily useful when we become adults. I remember at least 40 of the 50 capitals of the United States. I had to do that in social studies. It means nothing to me right now unless I'm on Jeopardy. But I remember also in my high school, even though my dad taught me this at home, we had a financial literacy class where they taught us what a bank was, bank account, open up a checking account, savings. I remember that in high school. I went to a private school and they taught me that. That taught me something. But imagine if they had taught me how to leverage credit, how to start a business, how to start an LLC, taught me about taxes, how important taxes is, and if I just had an LLC I could put my phone in my business name instead of my personal. Little things like that that were not taught.

Herman Dolce: The more controversial part I wanted to say is another social media influencer I watched. He said there's the financial prey and the financial predators. The financial prey, it is not in their interest to teach you about taxes, money, leverage. Because if Bank of America knows that once you deposit $100 in the bank account, they're able to lend out $1,000 at X amount of interest, I'm not going to tell you about that. I just want you to continue to make deposits while I'm making millions off of your back, putting in trust, selling those notes, selling the debt, and they're making millions off of just your $100. It's not in their interest to teach you that.

Ryan Hanley: Right.

Herman Dolce: How to keep the system going. Systematically, we need to have this information in schools as young as possible to our children, to the high school people, to college students. I went to my alma mater, Temple University, and I was talking to the freshman class. I was like, "By the time you graduate in four years, I can give you a blueprint how you can be worth a quarter of a million dollars having a cash net flow of $5,000." It sounded ridiculous to them. But all I told them was, "Now that you're 18, you're able to open up an LLC right now. Then I told them what credit cards to apply to right now. Use them responsibly. In two years when you're 20 years old, you'll be able to get business credit. Those lines are a lot bigger. Those are $25,000, $30,000, $50,000 credit cards. And now you're able to purchase real estate. You're able to go into the NACA program, which is a housing program. Get into the NACA program. You're able to get into a house at 0% down payment, low closing costs, and they'll let you get up to a four-unit."

Herman Dolce: "So now by the time you're a senior in college, I gave you the blueprint to get at least two multifamily units. You're renting out each apartment and you're living for free. And those two units are going to definitely be worth between $250,000 and $300,000. And those rents for those eight doors should be netting you $3,000 to $5,000." I literally gave them the blueprint on how to be financially free by the time they graduate college. They'll have a place to live. They'll have some income. They'll have money to help pay the student loans that they have. They'll be in the position to breathe a little bit to focus on their future because money now is not an issue because you're making three to five grand and your rent is covered. You're living for free. Everybody's mind was blown. Temple has invited me back several times since that conversation. But again, educating them because these guys have a four-year degree and they've never heard of that before. But I put them in the position for the one even before they graduated.

Ryan Hanley: Did any of them follow your plan?

Herman Dolce: Ah, great question. Of the 100 people, maybe three did. Because some of them were like, "Oh my God, I can take my refund check and da-da-da-da-da." I'm like, "Exactly." Because we all blew our refund checks. We thought it was free money, not knowing that you got to pay this back in four years. So they took their refund check. They opened up a business checking account, put the money in a business checking account because having relationships with banks is super important. And they had to apply for credit. There's about three of them that are doing really well in real estate right now. One of them pivoted to other businesses because they just got addicted when they figured out what leverage really meant.

Ryan Hanley: Why out of 100, only three, do you think?

Ryan Hanley: Because remember, we're talking to children. We're talking to 18-year-olds in class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday trying to pass those classes and your psych courses, which you feel is more important at the time. And to be honest, the follow-up wasn't there because those were one-off classes. I wasn't with them all the time. It wasn't part of the curriculum. If it was part of any type of curriculum in grade school, high school, or college, 75 to 80% of the people would execute on it because there was a reason for you to learn the information. It was more important to pass your chemistry class because you're on scholarship. You got to get an A. You got to pass. Then a special guest speaker comes in to talk about something that is not a priority right now. They're thinking, "Hey, I have work-study funding coming in. I have a place to live. I'm living on campus. This is not important right now." They weren't looking five or ten years ahead. They were just looking towards the end of the semester and passing.

Herman Dolce: Imagine what college would be if its purpose was to actually make you successful in the world. It would be amazing. I don't love—I'm not a college hater, but looking at my own college career and just talking to as many people as I have and coaching as many people as I have, so few people come out with tools to be successful. They have knowledge, maybe. They've learned how to learn. Maybe they've learned some discipline. You got to hit some deadlines, sure. Maybe. But an actual game plan to be highly successful in the world? I don't know that many colleges or many college programs, certainly not at the undergraduate level, that do that.

Ryan Hanley: It's just—I mean, can you—how much Matrix-style information can you download into your head, and then we push you out the back end with a piece of paper? To me, it is not the best way to help these people launch into the world.

Herman Dolce: Careful, Ryan, we're going to get into clickbait. Make sure you—they're going to click on the video. I am very careful with this topic because I do speak at high schools and colleges, and I'm an advocate of education, not necessarily college. So I definitely agree with you on that point. I always say this as an offshoot: college teaches you how to be an employee. That's what it's built to do. So it's serving its purpose. It's built to make employees for the workforce. It's built to build employees for the predators because they need employees to come and run their companies for them. The critical thinking doesn't necessarily happen in every single classroom. So it's interesting. And you're talking to a person who has a master's degree. I have a master's degree. I'm talking about $100,000 in student loan debt. I was making $50,000 as an executive director. I literally was at the top of what I could do in my profession. Maybe $50,000 to $60,000 was my top earning potential until I got a mentor. He showed me how to make $50,000 a month. Then my life was changed. He had to bend my mind because I did not know it was even possible.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah.

Herman Dolce: I don't want to come off again as a college hater. I just think it's marketed in a way that deceives you about what you're going to get when you come out the back. You will be educated. You will know how to hit deadlines, et cetera. You'll have to graduate. But that piece where you come in and say, "Hey, not only can you get this great education, I'm going to help you have semi-passive income flowing in. If nothing else, you'll have money for the bar or to go to the game or the concert." In doing that, they'll learn more. If someone goes through college and has two two-unit buildings, so four units, you learn more from renting to other humans, hiring contractors, dealing with all the stuff that happens—you'll learn more from that in a year than you would from four years in terms of practical, applicable knowledge in the world, unless you're in one of the hard sciences or something.

Ryan Hanley: Right. Yeah, well, listen, Herman, you said something I want to expand upon.

Herman Dolce: I taught a seminar not too long ago. Somebody stood up, and I said, "Hey, who has children?" Somebody stood up. I said, "How old is your child?" "My child's 15 years old." "Excellent. Who has more money, you or your child?" He said, "Well, I have more money." I said, "Are you sure?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Okay, well, how much does your child make?" "Well, he doesn't have a job, so his net worth is zero." "Okay, we established that. Well, you have a job. How much do you make?" She said, "I make $75,000 a year." I said, "Okay, great. Well, do you own a home?" "Yes." "How much is the house?" "$300,000." "Okay, so you're worth negative $300,000. You have a car note?" "Yes." "How much is the car note?" "Toyota Camry, $35,000." "Okay, so $335,000. Student loans, $100,000. You're close to being worth negative half a million dollars, and you make $75,000 a year. I'm going to ask you the question again. Who's worth more, you or your son?" It was like, "Oh my God." I said, "Yeah, you're right. And guess what you're going to teach your son to do? The same thing. So you're going to teach your son to go into debt. The American dream. You're going to go to college—negative $100,000. Get a car—negative $50,000. Then you're going to tell them to get married, get a house." We have been marketed and taught in the American system that we have to go negative first. They're going to give you the money to do that, and you're at 20 to 50% interest with these credit cards. It gets ridiculous. Instead of being taught that same $100,000, let me show you how to leverage it to make $150,000. So we're part of the whole—I hate to use the word scam—but we're part of the whole swindle. That's why it's important. When she came to the seminar, I said, "You see why it's important to teach different things to our children?" Because when I told 18-year-olds that they can be worth a quarter of a million dollars in assets in four years, they were like, "What are you talking about? That's not possible." I said, "Yes, it's very possible."

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. Well, I love that. And I love that you're out there doing that because so much of this is just showing people what's possible. I grew up in a very small, very poor town in the middle of nowhere in upstate New York with two good parents. One was a mechanic on the railroad, part of the union. My mom was a receptionist for, I think, 30-something years, 40 years now. They were always just safe. Join the union. Get the job. Go get a car. Buy a house. It was the standard blueprint that you just described, where you find yourself getting the morsels left over after you've paid all your bills every month. That's supposed to make you happy. For anyone living that life, if you are happy, God bless you. However, the part that scares me is the lack of resilience in that model. We see that when things like COVID happen, or the 2008-2009 crisis, or the dot-com bubble back in 2001. If we're living that high-credit consumer lifestyle, we may be able to get by while everything's fine. But the minute something bad happens, there's no resilience in that model that allows you to sustain. That part really scares me because it doesn't feel like the world is getting any less chaotic, or that money as a broad term is going to become any less complex than it is today. So how can people think about—and we can even target this specifically on what you do around credit—how can someone who is sitting there looking and going, "You know what? Everything Herman described is where I'm at. I am making money, but none of my money is working for me." What can they start to do? What is a concept or a facility? You can even talk about your program or your coursework. What can someone start to do to change this destiny, to put themselves on a path where they're actually leveraging money and credit to help grow their lives and build resilience versus where they are today?

Herman Dolce: I want to piggyback on something you said, Ryan, before I answer that question, because it made it even scarier for me. We all know the concept of it's not what you make, it's what you keep. Can you imagine if you make six figures a year and after you pay all your bills, you have maybe $1,500 left or $1,000 left a month? You're giving 40 to 60 hours of your time every week for $1,500 a month. You're thinking, "Oh, I make $100,000 a year." No, it's what you're keeping. You're giving all this time for what's left over after all your bills are paid. That's kind of scary. In terms of what somebody can do, the first thing I want to say before I talk about coursework is that you need to first learn what money is, how it's created, how it's generated. I tell people all the time, YouTube University is absolutely amazing. There's a lot of free information on there on truly what money is. Robert Kiyosaki's *Rich Dad Poor Dad* is a textbook everyone should read to really understand what money is. Now, I'm going to say this out loud to be clear to any of the listeners: everybody is not an entrepreneur. It's not meant for everybody to be an entrepreneur, but everybody needs to be an investor. Everyone. Your money needs to outwork you. It's just how it works. Thankfully, I was blessed to start a business that did really well so that when my parents retired, I'm able to take care of them. I watched my parents do the whole 401k and Social Security thing. Both of them separately are making about $2,000 each from Social Security and their pensions and their 401k. No more than $2,500 in 2024. So thank God my parents live with me. That's why it is important to understand investing—whether it's in the S&P 500, whether it's investing in your mind, whether it's investing in buying a business, whether it's investing in buying real estate. You have to invest your money to outbeat COVID, to outbeat bad times, to outbeat inflation. Also, do not—and this is something so simple—whenever we get raises, we increase our lifestyle. No. The more money you make, the more money you should invest. You're making $100,000 a year, but you're driving a $30,000 car. That math doesn't make sense. Just because you got the VP title and now you're making $200,000 a year, you don't need to upgrade from a Camry to a Lexus. Stick with the Camry. Invest that difference in stocks or bonds or something that's more comfortable if you don't understand money. But if you go to YouTube University, you start investing in certain mentorships, financial literacy mentorships like Bella Sloan Academy, where we teach about credit, we teach about funding, and we have different speakers that come on. Tonight's class at 7 p.m., we're going to be talking about trusts and asset protection. I have assets, and I got to put them in a trust so that they're protected and can be passed down tax-free to my children. These are conversations you need to have. I know a lot of listeners have a house. When you pass away, there's going to be up to a 50% transfer tax if it's paid off, that your children would have to pay. Since they don't want to pay the 50%, someone's going to come in—the predators are going to come in and buy it off your children. The asset you worked 30 years to build is gone, all because you didn't have the education on what a trust is and moving your property into a trust. It's not about what you own, it's about what you control. Now that your son controls the trust, they can move that tax-free to them, and now they control it. Now we're talking about generational conversations.

Ryan Hanley: I love that you just brought that up because one of the things we talk about on the show and I try to talk about as much as I can is generational thinking. So much of the day-to-day friction or pain that we feel is this next-moment mindset. Just what do I have to do the next moment, the next moment, the next moment? We never take or schedule the time to pick our head up and go, "Okay, what do I need to do a year from now? What do I need to do 10 years from now? How do I make sure my kids are taken care of as much as I can take care of them? How can I make sure that my kids are set up so that they can then teach their kids?" It's just the next moment. So when you're working with someone or you have a student, is it scheduling time? Is it a specific process? How do we start to think out into the future and go, "Hey, maybe I do need a trust. Maybe I do need to put this business I started in my garage into an LLC." What is the actual tactical process of planning this out into the future?

Herman Dolce: I'll give you an example. Let's get specific because I know that's what you need. I had a client come to me in debt. Saw me on Instagram. "Oh, you got millions of dollars in funding and you're invested in all these businesses? How so?" As we're having these conversations, there's somebody that's living paycheck to paycheck and they just can't do that. Not only do they not have money, they also don't have time because they have to work a double and a triple. So they don't have time to go on YouTube University right now, Herman. Then we have the conversation about sacrifice, because I'm pretty sure we can find time. The first thing I talk about is taxes. Taxes are our biggest bill. That's another project I have with you. I ask, "What's the biggest bill you have?" "My mortgage. My kids' daycare." I say, "No, it's taxes." Taxes save 30% of your income on the low end if you're a W-2. So let's help out with these taxes. The first thing I want everybody to do is go get an LLC because that will help you with pass-through and help you with taxes. The second thing I tell them to do is—we were taught, especially in my community—to adjust your I-9 or W-2 when you first got the job to take as many deductions out so that in January you get a big refund check of $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, depending on if you have kids. For three months on Instagram, everybody's on vacation and life is great from January to April. I tell people, the first thing we're going to do is adjust your W-2s. Talk to your tax professional. The money that you are giving to the government to hold for you at 0% interest is a crime. That's the first thing I want you to do. Talk to your tax professional so that that $2,000, $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 that you're giving to them—no, you're getting it all during the year. Just by adjusting your taxes, now you're going to be making an extra $200, $300, $400, $500 per paycheck or per month that you're receiving. You're going to use that money to first pay off debt. I do a class called "How Do You Pay Off Debt Without Getting a Second Job?" Everyone shows up to that class. They're like, "That sounds really interesting." Adjust your taxes. Now you're making up to $1,000—I've seen people do up to $1,000 back. Now you're paying down your credit cards because that's 20% interest. You're killing that debt. Instead of paying the $100 minimum payment, you're paying $1,100. Now you're killing the debt in three months, six months. Now that that credit card debt is paid off, that $1,100, you're going to put it on your car note. That's $400 or $500 a month. Now you're paying $2,000 towards that car note. Within two years—I'm just giving an example—you're out of significant debt. Now, what's the next plan? Remember I said everybody doesn't have to be a business owner, but everybody has to be an investor. You just freed up $2,500 now. 90 days, I want you to save it because you need a nest egg for an emergency. Then after that—and this is a long-term plan, none of this stuff is overnight—that $2,500, now I want you to start investing it. Whether it's in courses, whether it's in mentors, or whether it's in a safe S&P 500, putting in insurance policies, whatever you want to do, start investing that money so that it can grow because you need to outbeat inflation. Those are the minimum steps that everybody can do. Today's Wednesday. On Monday, talk to your tax professional. Go to your HR department. Those are the first steps you can do to start to free up your money, free up your mind, and free up your time.

Ryan Hanley: Herman, I could go all day with you, man. I love this stuff. This is incredible. Dude, seriously, this is the way that you're approaching this. I love how you obviously understand the context and perspective, but you also have a humility to it. It's such a great delivery. I'm thinking to myself, "Shit, I haven't looked into a trust. Damn it." It's one of those things. Dude, I love it. I absolutely love it. So people who are dialed in here want more of you, want to connect deeper with you. Where can they go to both just connect and follow you, but also I know you have some program and some coursework. How do they get deeper into your world?

Herman Dolce: You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok. I am @Haitian_CEO. There are a lot of scam pages, but it's a verified page. You can find me there where I have these types of talks and conversations. I talk to the camera every single day at 6:30 a.m. I'm posting the information. On your way to work, while you're brushing your teeth, I want you to get a 60 to 90-second clip of some gems that you can do. You can find me on YouTube at Bella Sloan Enterprises. Bella Sloan is the name of my firstborn daughter, a beautiful seven-year-old girl. I have long-form videos there. Remember, Instagram and TikTok are just short information. I go live often where I do hour or hour-and-a-half classes to talk about this, and all of that is free. I want to give you free information first. I want you to execute on that free information. When it works, guess what you're going to do? You'll be like, "Oh my God, I went to Bank of America and I was able to refinance my car from my personal name to my business name. Now I have a paid-off car on my credit report. That looks super sexy." "Hey Herman, I went to that credit union that you told me to go to and they gave me $10,000." Excellent. I want you to have receipts of the free information. If you're interested, I have a mentorship called Bella Sloan Academy. It's subscription-based, only $50 a month. We meet every single Wednesday night where we talk about credit, we talk about funding, and we bring special guests on every single month to talk about different things to expand your mind. Last week we had somebody come on to teach people how to buy businesses. It's one thing to start a new business, but what if I showed you how to buy a cash-flowing business that's already making money, already has its taxes, for only 5% down money out of your pocket, and the SBA will pay the other 95%? If I did that for you, would you be interested? Sounds like a salesman right here. That's only $50 a month. We have people doing it. Again, tonight we have the trust person coming on because now that I showed you how to buy a business, that business has to go in the trust because it's got to be protected from litigation and from taxes.

Ryan Hanley: Yeah. I love it, dude. I love it. Guys, dial in on Herman. This has been tremendous. I appreciate the hell out of you, and hopefully we have a chance to chat again. This was incredible.

Herman Dolce: Thank you for trusting me on your platform and for talking to your viewers. Thank you.

Ryan Hanley: Let's go. Make it look—make it look—

[End of interview]

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