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In the lower income and middle class, we've become extremely comfortable with the concept of rehabbing properties and flipping houses. Selecting houses, adding value to them and selling them for profit. When rehabbing a property, most of the “work,” comes before removing one nail. Scoping out neighborhoods, finding the diamond in the rough and determining the after repair value, minus costs and potential profit.

We do all of this work before the purchase is made to decide whether this is a good deal. We do our due diligence to make sure that we are not paying or putting in too much money. We have come up with a process and a system to rehab properties for profit.

Just as we are strategic and decisive in the business of rehabbing houses, we must adopt the notion of rehabbing our lives. We must create our own game, our own rules, and decide what we would like to happen within our community. We cannot leave our outcomes to chance. We can use the same process that we use when deciding to purchase and rehab a property and apply those same principles to adding value to our lives to be prosperous.

We talk about how the Black community is under attack from all different angles. We complain about systemic racism — a lack of fair opportunities to learn, build and grow — being targeted by the police, not being protected by our government and being profiled by our names, our skin color and our hair. The problem is we are playing someone else’s game. Identifying our issues, what and where are we lacking, is our first step. Our complaints, issues and discomfort will be our objectives. We can study our community to identify our strengths and weaknesses.

I started a movement called Middle Class to Wealthy towards the end of 2019 to enlighten and empower people and families to strategically build wealth. The focus is to build wealth in our community through community, education, relationships, goal setting and achievement. I'm taking a holistic approach in strategically creating the conditions necessary to build wealth systematically and repeatedly by working and growing together identifying and strengthening our weaknesses. The key is collaboration and putting together resources to address and correct the issues that plague our communities.

The life we want will not just happen. It will come from planning, strategizing and executing.

I have a preliminary plan.

My Plan

Use mentorship, education and generate passive income to build a wealthy Black community. Leveraging the $1.3 trillion we pour into our economy on consumables. Get paid to consume.

Use our time to:

Educate ourselves and our kids — develop leadership skills.
Learn and then teach leadership skills.
- If you develop yourself, you can experience personal success.
- If you develop a team, your organization can experience growth.
- If you develop leaders, your organization can achieve explosive growth.
Learn ourselves — learn about ourselves and how to better relate to others based on temperaments.
Build, repair and maintain relationships with our spouses/significant other, family, friends, business associates and strangers.
Learn and then teach financial skills — earning, saving, credit, raising capital and investments.

When I look at the financials within this country, as a country we are failing miserably.

Americans Struggle to Make Ends Meet according to a new report from the FINRA Investor Education Foundation.	52%
Americans are struggling to pay for their basic needs such as groceries or housing, a problem even middle-class households confront, according to a new study from the Urban Institute.	40%
U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck according to the 2017 survey, CareerBuilder.	78%
Percentage of Americans without savings according to Bankrate’s latest Financial Security Index.	28%
American adults wouldn’t be able to cover a $400 emergency with cash, savings or a credit-card charge that they could quickly pay off, a Federal Reserve survey finds.	Almost 40%
Average monthly retirement income from Social Security was $1,470. $17,640 per year, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

We have a lopsided society. Why are we working so hard to support everyone else? We must leverage the infrastructure already put in place and paid for by our labor. Tap into these systems that are working and do it for our benefits. We must change how we think and change our behavior so we can get different results.

Helaina Jeannot

Writing since February 2022 · 1 story contributed