Tag Archives: Wealth

Why African Americans Need to Learn Strategies for Building Wealth?

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This is Black History Month, so I’m focusing this article on African Americans but the knowledge contained herein can benefit anyone.  The wealth gap is widening and African Americans need to learn new strategies for building wealth. “Median black household income was 59% of median white household income in 2011, up modestly from 55% in 1967; as recently as 2007, black income was 63% of white income.” [Source: PEW] It is often said that African Americans are a nation of consumers instead of creators. However, our survival depends on us changing from primarily being consumers to being the suppliers and creators of the products and services we consume.

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African Americans have a projected buying power of $1.1 trillion by 2015. That’s a lot of dough to be distributed. Wealth is not a dirty or evil word reserved for those who are lucky, greedy, or lazy and seeking to take advantage of others!  Wealth is a vital birthright that offers the freedom to make choices that allow us to live joyful and fulfilling lives. Everyone has the right to life in dignity and to pursue their dreams.  

Watching my stepmother get denied medical services at age 85, and watching her toes blacken and almost rot off as she screamed in pain, taught me a very valuable lesson. Poverty is not pretty, spiritual, or dignified. She could not afford the care she desperately needed to live in dignity and I was powerless to help her. It takes money to help those you love, to choose the medical care of your choice, to buy the materials, training, and resources we need to excel in our crafts, to invest in our businesses, to give to charity, to tithe generously, to eat healthily, to travel, to vacation, to be there mentally for our families, or to live in safe and beautiful neighborhoods.

Growing up, I had only been trained how to trade time for dollars, which rarely if ever, builds wealth. At times my father was an entrepreneur, and during those times we worked even harder. I realized that if I kept following that old paradigm I would be destined to end up like those written about in a recent Forbes article, The Greatest Retirement Crisis in American History, which dismally projects that 75%  of those now approaching retirement have less than $30,000 in savings. And, that paltry amount won’t last that long, with the average nursing home stay (God forbid) being around $248.00 a day or $90,000 a year. So for that reason,  as well as, the dollar declining since 1972, and the cost of living projected to double over the next decade, the vast majority of people today are forced to delay their retirement. I did not grow up around wealth nor did my parents talk about wealth or teach me about it. They taught me to work hard, so I know how to do that. They worked hard their entire lives and still only barely eked out a living and died practically penniless.  They could not teach me what they did not know.  They did not know that the only way to build wealth was to have money work for you or people work for you.  That explains why the majority of small black entrepreneurs fail to build wealth either. They are primarily sole proprietors and thus still trading time for money.  To continue to part two, click here.

Warren Buffet advises aspiring wealth builders to have multiple streams of income.  Speaking, authorship, and training is my passion work.  I love doing it! But, I’ve learned that if I stop speaking or training, the income also stops.  I too want the freedom that comes with wealth, to be able to work with populations who can’t afford me, to be able to help my children and grandchildren, and to not have to worry about retirement after raising six children and working over 50 years already. 

Email me for more information about how to bring me in to speak to your group, OR train your employees. Luck has very little to do with wealth, but timing has everything to do with it. What if you had been able to be part of the beginning of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft?  How would your life be different now? You missed them but you haven’t missed them all. Email me to learn more about Talkfusion, a disruptive technology poised to be the next billion dollar brand. I’ll direct you to an on-line presentation that explains it all.

Barbara Talley
To your wealth
barbara.talley@gmail.com

A New Wealth Program is Necessary

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A Reprogramming Was Necessary

It was the thoughts, beliefs, and ideas of my formative caretakers that helped to shape me.  I am grateful for many of the positive lessons.  However some things I had to throw off for they no longer served me.  I had to use my mind, for I learned that my reality was my thoughts and that “as a man (or woman) thinketh so is he (or she).” I had to open my eyes, my mind, and my heart to receive new input. Thoughts of poverty did not serve me well and for that matter no one else around me. I had to think myself out of the Projects where seeing poverty everyday was normal. I had to create a new normal and I did, but so many people I know are still stuck with an impoverished mindset, fearing and hating and needing and craving money all at the same time.  For this reason I felt compelled to write about wealth and programming. It could be the economy but lately I’ve run into so many poor people who desire yet shun or despise wealth at the same time. You can’t have it both ways.  Money is not evil.  It is only currency, the currency to buy freedom, healthier foods, pay your bills on time so that you can have integrity, and to live a life of purpose and passion.

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.
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Are You Programmed for Poverty or Wealth?

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I remember in my early twenties reading a book called the ‘The Magic of Thinking Big,’ In my circles at the time thinking big was being able to pay the rent, buy a suede coat after saving up for months, or just having a job.  My limiting environmental programming had taught me that to want much more was greed, to ask for more than the basics was selfish.  I had to overcome this early programming in order to be successful.

A familiar phrase of the elders were, “The children in Africa are starving.” Their intent was “Be grateful,” for they had gone through much harder times and sacrificed for us to have what little we had. But, the message I heard was, “Don’t ask for much in life.”  Even the church was complicit, teaching that, “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven.”  Their intent was to teach us not to put wealth before God.  The message I got was that I had to choose between God and wealth because it is impossible to have both.

Even as a child I knew that it was impossible for a camel to get through the eye of a needle.  Fortunately I learned later in life that ‘The Eye of the Needle” is a difficult camel passage and a place and not a physical needle.  That changed the message entirely.  To complete the negative indoctrination regarding money, my father would comment regularly when seeing rich people that they were crooks.  I’m sure that was probably his personal experience doing migrant work and growing up in the South.  However the takeaway message confirmed the church’s message, “If you choose wealth, then you are going against God and salvation.”

Who says you can’t have both?  There are so many spiritual teachings that teach us of our power and greatness.  Abundance is also an attribute of God and as spiritual heirs, wealth is ours.  The importance determinant is what we do with that wealth. Do we serve, remain moral and upright, and are we grateful to the point of sharing?  That’s how we measure the value of wealth.

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.