Soft Life, Solid Assets: Your 2026 Moneycode

What does it look like to build wealth in a way that actually feels good in your body? In this conversation, we’re unpacking what it means to move beyond survival-based money habits and into something more grounded, intentional, and sustainable. This isn’t about chasing a number — it’s about creating safety, access, and choice in real time. I’m joined by special guest Teneshia LaFaye, financial expert and founder of MzMoneyWorks, as we talk about redefining wealth on our own terms, building assets that support a softer life, and making aligned decisions in a system that wasn’t built with us in mind. If you’ve been craving a different relationship with money — one rooted in clarity, care, and power — this one is for you.

Follow Teneshia on social media as MzMoneyWorks on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube or email her directly teneshia.lafaye@howmoneyworks.com.

Register now for 7 Money Milestones For Financial Wellness Class starting Sunday, March 1st 7pm ET. bit.ly/MMWseries

If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your people! Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me and let me know your biggest takeaway.

If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your people! Let’s keep the conversation going—connect with me and let me know your biggest takeaway.

Transcript

Welcome back, everyone, to another amazing episode of Shape Shift Your Life podcast. We are in February. We are reading the headlines and there is a lot of folks that are maybe looking at the financial crisis or the political climate and a little concerned. So I thought this would be a wonderful time to talk about wealth. And you know, if you know me and you've watched this podcast before, you know that.

I define wealth in many ways. Actually, my last episode was all about New Earth currencies. But today we are going to talk about the bag, specifically about in wealth building. know that that can make folks feel uncomfortable. And I think that the more we scrutinize our finances and we really make a practice out of it, just like we go to the gym, the easier that it becomes.

Many of you listening right now, you have financial goals for yourself, for your family. You may be looking at like, how are you actually going to get there? You know, I've said this before in terms of my own personal story. One of the side effects, if you will, of being an entrepreneur and being someone who started a lot of businesses is means that I haven't worked for a lot of companies that have had benefits packages and K's, IRA's. And so I've had to do a lot.

and the latter part of my life playing catch up.

to build a financial level of sovereignty and security for myself. So today we have an amazing guest named Tanisha LaFay. Tanisha is the founder of Miss Money Works. Tanisha is someone that I met from a dear friend. I've also had the opportunity to work with Tanisha directly. So I'm not giving you any advice that I myself am not using. And so without further ado, welcome Tanisha. Thank you so much, Zakiya.

Sh8peShift YourLife (02:38.446)
for inviting me today to talk about one of my favorite subjects, Yes, get to the bag. So I thought this would be a wonderful way before we kind of talk about the nuts and bolts of this episode to just learn a little bit more about you. think sometimes, particularly for many of us women, folks of color, when we think about money, when we look at financial, think about financial advisors, often maybe we think about.

someone who is in a position of whiteness or who is a man. And we don't necessarily learn about financial literacy from people who look like us. So I thought when I learned your story, I was super inspired by it. I would love if you can just kind of give us the headline version of how you found your way into wealth building and financial education. And most importantly, what really made it personal for you? Gotcha. And you are so right, you know, not to be racist or anything, but just talking facts.

Usually when people think of a financial advisor, they think of a white man. And that's actually true. White men make up most of the financial industry, just like they used to make up most of the real estate industry. But as you can see, that shifted, that women of all types of cultures and racial makeups make up real estate, the majority of realtors. And so now with the financial industry, we're seeing a shift. We're seeing now...

more more women getting into the financial industry. And so we're going to take over the financial industry, which is very important because women, we are about to inherit a lot of wealth in the middle of a great wealth transfer of $124 trillion over these next five, 10 years. So women are going to capture most of that from either our parent dying or our spouse dying. And we women,

want a female to advise us. And so how did I get into it? Basically, I was a senior in college and I had just turned 21 during my summer internship at the newspaper in Memphis, Tennessee called The Commercial Appeal. And I realized, gosh, I graduate college in about eight or nine months to go into the real world and already have a kid, a little boy, and I want to give him a good life. I want to be responsible. So I asked the business editor,

Sh8peShift YourLife (04:57.454)
what should I be doing with my money? I was interning in the sports section, by the way. And he said, I wish I was thinking like you when I was your age. He didn't really, he didn't teach me. I needed a mentor, not a magazine. And so throughout my teens, I messed up financially because I didn't have a mentor, a good mentor. The person I was married to and my mother-in-law were telling me things, but it wasn't the right thing. And so I was following after them doing the wrong things with my money.

No dis on them. They didn't know. They only knew what they knew. They didn't know it was bad, but it was bad. And so by the time I got in my thirties, I started developing better financial habits. So to get a house, you had to have good credit and you needed to be able to have a certain amount of money saved. so I paid an organization to fix my credit. And then I also started saving money so that I could live a dream, which is to give my children, my two sons, a house.

So yeah, so that was a big shift that helped me financially. And then I decided, wait a minute, I need to teach others. Decided to turn around and teach not just others, but young people. I decided I wanted to start teaching young people so that they didn't have to make mistakes throughout their twos. And my biggest success is my oldest son. He is about to be 33 years old in September and he's had excellent credit throughout his twos. He's almost a cash millionaire.

And it's because I decided in my early thirties, you know what? Let me turn around and teach my kid. And so now I'm teaching my youngest son who's 21 years old and you know, he started out with excellent credit. He didn't have to build it like I showed my oldest. He started out with it, which I can explain that some other time. And now he has his second financial exam. So he's now going to be a financial educator and advisor just like me. And that's another dream come true or a prayer answer.

That congratulations. know we have a lot of parents that are listening today and thinking about some of the different tools that they can start employing to really get their young people on track as well. So kind of going back to this idea that you spoke to earlier about how many financial advisors or the majority at some point were white men. Why do you think more black people aren't involved in using wealth building financial products? I know we're going to talk specifically about the IUL later, but

Sh8peShift YourLife (07:24.206)
Why do you think more folks just don't know about it and aren't really involved? Exposure. You know, in most African-American households, we don't talk about money. Money is not something that's supposed to be talked about. It's like a hush-hush topic. The only thing, only time we talk about money is how much does it cost to get our hair done or a haircut or senior pictures or money to spend on a wedding. But as far as, you know, money to build wealth and financial security,

for most black families, not all, whereas other cultures, have more, you know, more, what is it? Sub... I can't even say the word. Substantive. I can't even say it. I know the word, but for some reason, I cannot say substances. I just cannot. But they have more conversations about wealth. Well, kind of piggybacking off of that, we know that, you know, there was such thing as a black Wall Street. We know that there's numerous kind of black...

communities like Rosewood that were destroyed. We know that there were things like greenlining that made sure that black folks either couldn't qualify for a home loan or had to live in certain neighborhoods. And so there's all these kind of institutional barriers and that really have created financial trauma. Even if those barriers aren't at the same magnitude today, how do you think that kind of psychologically shapes the way our communities even relate?

Well, yeah, we didn't have that exposure anymore of the black businesses. You know, my father was an orthopedic surgeon. So he was telling me that what changed the black neighborhoods is the lawyers and the doctors and the school teachers moved out of the black neighborhoods during desegregation. Desegregation hurt the black community because, you know, we started moving in and diversifying other communities. The role models moved out of the neighborhood.

and other cultures moved into the neighborhood to make money. So like a lot of the businesses that are in the African American neighborhoods are not even owned by African Americans. That's right. I also want to return to this idea that you mentioned earlier around this huge wealth transfer that's happening. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Yes. We've been saying for years that women only make like change on every dollar that a man makes. Right.

Sh8peShift YourLife (09:47.81)
This great wealth transfer is coming of 124 trillion with a T is coming and women are going to be the beneficiaries of most of that money because we're going to inherit it from our parent that dies or our spouse that dies. And women want advice, mostly, most women want financial advice from another woman. And so I'm so glad that more women are coming into this industry. The agency that I work with, the brokerage that I work with,

about half of the advisors are women. And eventually it's going to be the majority, just like with real estate. Women are the majority realtors. Well, soon women are going to be the majority financial professionals. Beautiful. All right. So let's get into some brass tacks because I know that there's kind of some rules and recommendations that people tell you about saving and your emergency fund and getting your credit right. And I'm going be honest, I've definitely been

a single mom and been in a time in my life, thank God I'm not in that place right now, where people would always talk about saving money. And I'm like, I don't have any more money left over in my paycheck. Like my money was literally going to support me and my daughter. So I wonder, and we're going to kind of start small and build it out, but I wonder if you could just kind of share some kind of simple brass tacks. Where do folks even begin on their financial readiness plan?

How am I supposed to get there if there's no more money left in my paycheck? So I've been there. So learn how to pay yourself first is what I tell people. Most people, before their paycheck even comes, is already spent. You're like, I gotta do this and this. I recommend save something for yourself. Whether it's $5, $10, $20, start saving some of every paycheck because you should not work.

just to give away your money. If all you're doing is paying bills or buying groceries or eating out or paying your car, you're just working just to give your money to somebody else. So at least keep some money for yourself. So some shifts that you can make is claim more allowances in your paycheck, talk to your tax professional. But that was a lifesaver for me because I usually only had about 20 bucks left over every paycheck, even though was an award-winning sports writer in my dream job.

Sh8peShift YourLife (12:08.598)
in my mid to late 20s. When I found out about claiming more W-2 allowances and the fact that that would give myself a raise on my paycheck, I went up to HR and did that. So if you claim more allowances, you should not rely on one income stream. Thank you. Wait a minute. We got to tell them about that again. Tell them again for the people in the back. I've been preaching that. You cannot rely on one income stream. Like I have multiple income streams, so I can never be broke.

because money is always coming to me. Don't rely on one income stream and definitely don't just rely on your job. Because, you know, it used to be state jobs, federal jobs, government jobs were secure. Well, as you can see, they're not. Last time the government was shut down, people that were in so-called secure jobs weren't making money for at least a month and they were feeling desperate. So no job is safe. Third thing, you might be contributing too much

to your 401k for those of you that do have a 401k or a 403b or 457 that you do have that you're contributing to. You should only be contributing to the match. I meet people and the matches might be 3 % or 5%, but they're putting in 10 % of their paycheck. You should decrease what comes out of your paycheck into your employer retirement. It should only be up to the match, especially if you don't have enough money left over in your paycheck to save for emergencies. You should not.

be contributing over the match to your retirement. Beautiful, beautiful tips. OK, so let's get in. And this is something that you taught me, the rule of 72. So can you explain the rule of 72 in simple language and why it's important for wealth building? The rule 72 is a simple mathematical shortcut that tells you how many years it takes your balance to double.

either on your savings account or your investment or even your debt. So all you do is take the number 72 on your calculator, get out a calculator and type in 72 and then hit the division symbol and then hit the number of the interest rate that you're getting. So if you're getting 1 % interest rate, it will be 72, the division symbol, one, the number one, and then the equal sign.

Sh8peShift YourLife (14:25.07)
And that will tell you that that account will double in 72 years. So if you have a savings account that is giving you 1%, 72 years from now, it will double. So if you have, I don't know, $1,000 in there. In 72 years, that interest will make it $2,000. And I don't have 72 years left. That's right. Unless I live to 119. So, and I'm not gonna wait that long for my money to double one time.

So the higher the interest rate you get, the faster your balance doubles. So if you're getting a 6 % interest rate, 72 divided by 6 is 12. So now you see every 12 years, your savings can be doubling. And what if you're getting 9 %? 72 divided by 9 is 8. So every 8 years, your savings is doubling, or your investments. But like I said, the same rule applies to your debt.

The faster the interest rate, the faster your balance doubles. So what has a faster interest rate, your debt or your savings? Your debt. So if your debt is getting a 10 % interest rate, then 72 divided by 10 is 7.2. So in seven and a half years, your debt is doubling. Case in point, your mortgage. If you get a mortgage and you're getting 7%, 72 divided by seven is 10. So every 10 years, what you own that mortgage is doubling.

So if you have a 30 year mortgage, you're gonna end up paying double or triple what you thought you bought that house for. So in layman's terms, if you thought you bought that house for a quarter million, you end up paying three quarters of a million, or maybe even a million for that house or your car. If you're getting a, I don't know, 10%, I've seen someone get a 29 % interest rate on his car, that was ridiculous. We'll just say 10%. 72 divided by 10 is what, seven?

So by the time you pay off that car in six years, you've almost paid double for the car. So that $35,000 car almost cost you $70,000. Or if you bought a $50,000 car, it almost cost you $100,000 because of the interest rate. And the rule of 72 just shows you when you're going to end up paying about double based on the interest rate. So more of the story is get out of debt as quickly as possible.

Sh8peShift YourLife (16:46.05)
don't get high interest debt and get high interest on your savings, which is called high yield. High yield savings account is what people need. So here's the rub with that because people also say if they have a credit card with a high interest rate and people are saying you need to build your credit in order to qualify for more credit, what are some ways that they can kind of offset that? Rule of thumb is that if you want to have excellent credit, the balances on your cards should be zero to 10%.

30 % is the most that you should have, but to have excellent credit, the balances that you carry should be at 10 % or less. And usually creditors want to see that you have two to three trade lines. And you you got to pay on time, so put it on autopay. Like I said, only use a small fraction of it. So credit is a game. It's for people that don't really need it. But for some reason, people that really need it abuse it. They max it out.

They use 100 % of the balance, 50%, which, like I said, it should be less than 10. You know, good credit, you can have 30, but have excellent credit and 0 % interest rates, 10 % or less is what the balance should be. And we actually have debt relief programs for people who've gotten in trouble with debt. And when you say we, do you mean your company or? Yes. It's my company has a debt relief program for people that.

have gotten in trouble. Like they have 10,000 or more in debt and they just, can't afford their payments. So we have a program for that. Okay. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? I'm sure someone's listening, like, how can I learn more? Should they just reach out to you? They should reach out to me because like I said, it's, everyone's needs are just so different and so specific and there's so many different variables. So there's no one size fits all.

All right. So we'll definitely make sure that folks can reach you after the show. OK. So let's get into this really, really cool financial product that I just learned about probably in the last five years. It kind of took me a while to come around to getting one myself called the IUL life insurance. And so I know many folks listening out there may have life insurance, may not have life insurance. I know a lot of my artists are creatives, they're artists, they're

Sh8peShift YourLife (19:06.036)
solopreneurs like myself or maybe folks who work in startup who again maybe don't have jobs that have a 401k, have a matching program. They've, like me, I went out and bought a life insurance policy and then I opened up an IRA account. Can you talk about some of the cons of kind of what traditional life insurance policies are in the IRA?

And then we'll get into how the IUL, what it is and how it can help offset some of those challenges. Okay. So term life, usually get it through your job and it's usually like equal to your, to what you make per year. Or it might be times one and a half. So if you make 50,000 a year, then you'll have like 50,000 in life insurance or maybe 75,000 in life insurance. And you can buy extra. You can have money come out of your paycheck for you to have like a hundred thousand or a quarter million.

But as soon as that job ends, you no longer have that policy. So that's why I'm working with a lot of city employees that they can't take it with them. For the hall, lease, they could not take it with them. So now they're meeting with me in their 60s trying to get life insurance. So when you get term insurance, eventually the term is going to go away either because you only had it on your job or because it was a 10 or 20 or 30 year term.

And so at the end of those 10, 20 or 30 years, it's going to be renewed for a higher, higher premium every single year until it gets to be so expensive that you can't afford it. So I've seen where people have a term policy and they think that is whole life because the agent that sold it to them said that it's guaranteed to age 95. So what that means is, is guaranteed renewable every year for a higher interest rate.

into the age of 95 without going through underwriting again. But you're guaranteed to drop it by the time you're 75 because the premium will be so ridiculous, like a thousand a month, you know? And so I get people that call me about their dad or their mom because that happened to them. And so now they cannot afford it. So there's a lot of 60, 70-something year olds out there that don't have life insurance because they only had it on their job. Or they got a term policy.

Sh8peShift YourLife (21:24.462)
But then that term got to be too expensive after the 10 or 20 or 30 years. And then there's the whole life policy. Whole life is good, but it only gives you interest up to whatever the insurance company says. So if the insurance company says, the economy is bad this year, we're only going to give you 1%. You know what? The economy is really good this year, but we're still only going to give you 4%. So whole life gives you a low interest rate.

I mean, inflation is three percent or higher a year. So what is one to four percent going to give you? I mean, it's good that you're saving for retirement. So as I said before, only contribute up to the match. Number one, all that money is going to be taxed in the future. So you should have something. You should have part of your retirement that's not going to be taxed. So if you're participating in a traditional IRA or 401K or a four three B or 457 or a thrift savings plan.

TSP, all of those accounts are tax deferred, which means deferred into your future when you withdraw the money. And so the pitfall is you're going to be taxed in the future. So we share, you know, I teach financial literacy and so we teach the three different tax boxes. There's tax now, which is your paycheck and your stocks and bonds and mutual funds, your savings accounts at the bank and credit union. Those are taxed now. You're taxed on the interest every year.

Then there's tax deferred or tax later, which I just said your retirement accounts, the traditional IRA, employer 401k, 43B, 457, thrift savings plans. Those are gonna be tax later. And then there's tax never, where you are never taxed. And that's the Roth IRA, the Roth Individual Retirement Account, and the IUL, the index universal I. So you need to have your money in the three different tax buckets. But most people just have it in two.

tax now, your paycheck and your bank account, and tax later, your 401k, B457, TESP, and the IRA. But you need to have a tax never bucket. Also, you don't have access to the IRA or the 401k until you're at least 59 and a half, or else you're gonna get penalized. You're gonna get penalized 10%, and you're gonna be taxed for accessing the money. You're gonna be taxed either way. Whether it's you're 40 years old or you're 60, you're still gonna be taxed.

Sh8peShift YourLife (23:48.782)
Well, on top of that is a 10 % penalty if you're not at least 59 and a half. OK. Wonderful. So we set that up. So now we're going to transition into this financial product again that I learned about relatively recently a few years ago called the IUL. And we're going to kind of do a slow breakdown of this. I do want to give a disclaimer. We are not giving financial advice formally for anybody. But as I said, this is a product.

that I have worked with, specifically with my daughter, and I'm vouching for Tanisha. I should say that. But obviously, people do your own research. OK, so let's talk about an IUL. What is an IUL? Who is it for? And how does it function as a wealth tool, not just insurance? First of all, we have to say it is life insurance. So the number one function is it is life insurance.

But I do love it because it has a flexible premium. For instance, if, you know, I usually like to ask the person, how much do you want to save long-term for your future? Because the IUL has cash value that's credited every year based on the performance of the index without the losses of the index. So if the index is negative, like it was in 2008 and 2020 and 2022, the clients don't get any of the negatives. But if the index is doing great, the client can get that.

up to a certain cap. So I love that about the IUL. The money's grown with the market with no market losses. And so it's saving money for their future. It allows them to be their own bank so they can give loans to themselves and pay themselves back. Because if they don't pay themselves back, it won't continue to grow because you keep taking from it. You need to, if you're going to take from it. My oldest son got an IUL about eight years ago. And so he pulled out money for the down payment and closing costs on his house recently.

So it allowed him to be his own bank. So let's say the person said they wanted to save $100 a month. But let's say when times are great and they get a raise and they're like, I can afford to save $300 a month. Well then with that IUL, they can bump it up to $300 or $500. And all that extra money goes to the cash value. If they're in hard times, they lost their job, for instance, then they can drop the premium down to a minimum.

Sh8peShift YourLife (26:08.238)
which might be like 25 bucks a month. So like during COVID, there were people that lost their job. And so we were able to help them either stop making payments or a lower payment. And we were also able to give them money. Like, hey, you you got like 30,000 in your cash value. Would you like 10 of it? So yeah, so that's what I like about the IUF. The fact that the money is growing tax free and you can access it tax free and then also is growing with the market.

without market law. And it's permanent. Like the term policy, the term policy is not permanent. Eventually you're to have to be shopping around for life insurance in your 60s or 70s. OK, so I just want to repeat back what I heard for folks that may may not be following along. So an IUL number one is a life insurance policy. It is a whole life insurance policy that is not contingent upon.

a job, you have it, you have it with you, and you have it for the duration that you set it up for. So that's the number one benefit. The second benefit is unlike traditional life insurance that only gives you a benefit when you die, this policy actually gives you a living benefit, if you will, that

based on how much your policy is, the amount of payments that you make and how you fund it. And we're going to come back to funding it because people might not understand that, that you actually can pull money out while you are alive and as you use the term and be your own bank. And you gave your son, used your son as an example of someone who paid into the policy for eight years and was able to pull money out of that account that goes against

the principal or goes against the amount of the policy, would assume. And then they can pay that back or not. There's no penalty. It just reduces the amount that they would have access to. Their benefit of this policy is that it's tax free. So it doesn't matter if you're 59, if you're 62, 65, my daughter's 20, you know, it doesn't matter your age. You can pull money out as money is available.

Sh8peShift YourLife (28:20.556)
and you can utilize it without having to pay taxes on it. And then the other benefit is you're able to benefit from the increases in the market, but you're not penalized. You're not going to see, you know, your insurance policy tank, if you will, if there is a financial catastrophe like we're kind of in or nearing right now, there's kind of a baseline interest.

that you are going to get. And I don't know if you said this, but in that interest rate tends to be higher than a high interest yield savings account. Did I get that right? You should have a high yield savings account for emergencies. You should have it so you can easily access it because trying to get to the money in the life insurance cash value, you may not get it for five days. So you have to fill out paperwork and they will get it to you in five to seven days.

But if you have it in your high yield savings account, you can get to it that day. So you should have both. should have both. Like I said, if people think they need access, then you need a savings account. Okay. That's a good clarification. And I want to go back to this idea of funding the account. Can you explain that? Yeah. So you fund it based on your budget. So if you want to save $200 a month or $500 a month, that's what you fund it based on. And the death benefit could be based on that.

You know, like what's the most death benefit I can get for 200 a month or 500 a month or a thousand a month. You decide your death benefit. I mean, based on the premium you want to pay or you'd be like, this is the death benefit I want. And then let the insurance company tell you how much you should pay. And then meanwhile, you can overfund it. Like, you know, like the insurance company might be saying 200 a month, but I can afford 400 a month. So that extra 200 a month goes straight to the cash value.

So essentially, if you had a lump sum of money that you wanted to apply towards the amount of the life insurance policy, the more you front-funded or front-loaded, it would decrease the amount of time that you have before you can actually start pulling money out. Is that correct? If you over-fund it, like put more money than the insurance company is asking for, then year one, you have access to funds. But again, if you're trying to access funds in year one,

Sh8peShift YourLife (30:36.352)
should have a savings account to do that. This is more of a long-term strategy. You should not put a bunch of money in there and want to take it out. I mean, you could, but it kind of defeats the purpose. That's right. The only way I see doing that is if you're flipping houses. If you're flipping houses and instead of putting the money in the bank, then you may want to put it into the IUL.

You know, because it's protected from taxes, creditors and lawsuits, and it gets you a better interest rate than the bank. The only way the bank's going to give you a good interest rate is if you lock your money up in a CD for six months, a year or whatever. But don't just take my advice and run with it, because I would have to actually know your situation to make the proper recommendation. And it does not cost anything to sit down and meet with me. Beautiful.

So overall, you've seen the IUL be a financial product that you have benefited from directly and has also benefited your family in their road to financial freedom, home ownership, et cetera. Yeah, like it helped me like with my house when I needed two new AC units, because when you have a two story house, you have two units. And so I went to the bank and I was just, you know, I don't know, making a deposit.

And I was telling the teller like, yeah, I got to get two new AC units. And she's like, we can give you a loan. And I'm like, that's OK. I can give myself a loan. So I just called up my life insurance company and I asked them to send me the money and they sent me the money in a few days. And I was able to get my AC units and I asked them, is it better to withdraw the money or should I take out a loan? And they said, because I'm overfunding my policy, I can just withdraw it.

because in a couple of months, what I took out, I'll have put back in in deposits. So they told me to just make a withdrawal. So I made a withdrawal. what about someone that's listening that's saying, well, hey, why not just keep my money in a high interest yield savings account? Why block it up, if you will, in an IUL? I already have life insurance. Yeah, well, like I said, it's not locked up. I was able to get access to it in a few days, and my son was able to get access to it to invest down payment on the house. So it's not locked up.

Sh8peShift YourLife (32:51.15)
and there is a benefit to having a high yield savings account, I think your emergency fund should be in there. You know, just in case you have to flee town, you know, from a hurricane or, you know, whatever, you just never know. You need to have access to a certain amount of money. For some people, that's three months of living expenses. For some people, it's six months. Well, some people, it's 12 months. I personally don't think you need 12 months just sitting in the bank, but you know.

at least three months sitting in the bank that you can easily access. So there are benefits to having money sitting in the bank is convenient. It's like right there when the emergency hits. But do you really need like 50,000 sitting in the bank when it could be getting a higher return inside of an investment account or an IUL? That's important for everyone to work with a financial professional that they know, like and trust. That's right. And don't try to figure it out on your own.

So you see an IUL as kind of a step after, I just, cause there's folks listening who already have decent credit, they've established a credit history, they've built some level of emergency fund. Maybe they have an IRA or 401k, maybe they don't, but this is another tool that they can kind of combine the benefit of retirement, being their own bank and life insurance kind of all wrapped up in one.

Yeah, so the IUL is, you know, very convenient, having life insurance and the tax-free money for retirement or for a business. Also, if you qualify, can have long-term care benefits. They can pay you a monthly allowance if you need someone to help you with activities or daily living. Or if you're diagnosed with cancer, heart attack, stroke, allysis, paralysis, anything major happens to your health, you can get to the death benefit of the policy. And we also have some term policies that do that too.

if you get cancer, heart attack, stroke, or whatever, you have access to the death benefit. I was talking to a cop this morning and I was telling him that when I meet with him and his wife, who's also a cop, on Thursday, that they may want to consider having the term policy with living benefits, because they're both in their 60s, early 60s. So if one of them gets cancer, heart attack, or stroke or something in the next, I don't know, 10 years, they can get to the death benefit of that term policy, but still have the permanent IUL over here.

Sh8peShift YourLife (35:13.496)
They still walk them until they die at a hundred or whatever. So you may want to have both the term would live in benefits for in case something happens to your health. And then that goes away because you spent it. You spent that hundred grand, 200 grand on your health, but then you still have this permanent policy or you may just want to have that permanent IUL. It does everything, but just know that if something happens to your health, you basically spent up your policy.

on your health scare of 200,000 or whatever. Everyone is different. Don't try to DIY, do this yourself. I know there's folks that are listening to this today who are like, but I have a retirement plan. I've got the matching. I've built my emergency fund. I've established credit. Some of those folks are homeowners or not.

And then there's other people who are like, wow, I'm over 30, I'm over 40, maybe I'm over 50. And I haven't really started this process yet. And I feel like I'm behind and I really don't know how to catch up. I'm wondering like what you would say to them and how you work with folks that maybe feel like they're kind of playing catch up, but without triggering fear or shame or scarcity and really kind of.

allowing them to still feel inspired that there are still things that they can do. I recommend they get on my classes because we have seven money milestones. Milestone number one is financial education. So once they're more educated, that actually helps people because people are scared when they're coolest when they're in the dark. But when they have financial education, then they see it's not so bad. So I definitely recommend they should get in my classes on Sunday nights at seven o'clock.

Also part of financial education is working with a financial professional to see where you're at and to make recommendations to get you where you want to go. So that is just very important. And, you know, we sit down with people, doesn't cost them anything. Milestone number two is proper protection. Life insurance is the foundation of any financial plan because if someone dies or has a critical illness.

Sh8peShift YourLife (37:18.466)
that can really mess up the family's finances. And so that's very important. Life insurance is the foundation. Milestone number three is that emergency fund. You gotta make sure you have an emergency fund so that you don't go to the credit cards with the high interest rates. So milestone number four is the debt. Get out of debt, because more than likely it has a high interest rate. Number five is your cash flow. Do you have money left over or are you just check to check? So you need to have multiple income streams.

So milestone number six is building wealth. You should have a retirement account, but all your eggs shouldn't be in one basket that you're going to be taxed on someday. that, you know, that you might have that for, but you're going to be taxed on it one day. And I think most people need a pension. So we also set up pensions for people. So if you just came into some money or you just left your job or you're still at your job, we can help you put your money into your own private pension.

which is an annuity. An annuity gives you a guaranteed income for the rest of your life. And then milestone number seven is your estate plan, which is a trust. And you don't have to be rich to have a trust. A trust is just documents that make sure that your family doesn't have to go to probate court and just waste their time and money on probate. So you might have a will, but your family still has to go to probate court because to have the judge review the will.

But if you have a trust, it bypasses probate court. And so that's something we help people with, is the seven money milestones, which begins with financial literacy. So if people get on my classes, I tell my story of how I didn't have it all figured out. Remember I said I messed up throughout my 20s with finances? And then in my 30s, that's when I decided, okay, that's when I need to do better so I can get us a house and all that.

and I decided to teach my children and other people's children. And now I teach people of all ages. Lately, I've been teaching a lot of people in their 60s. And one thing, March of last year, there was a woman in my class that was 60 years old. And there was a slide that shows how much you should be saving per month to have a million dollars based on your age. Well, 60 is the last one on there. It starts with when you're 20, 25, 30. And every five years, you have to save almost double. So it got down to 60.

Sh8peShift YourLife (39:36.182)
$8,500 a month is what you need to save for retirement. So when she met with me, she didn't just sit in class. She decided I need to get on her calendar. So she met with me and she's like, I don't know when I'm going to retire. I don't know, $80, $85, I have no idea. So by meeting with me, she realized that she said when she saw that slide, it scared her. didn't scare her off. Thank God. And so I met with her. She didn't even need to save $1,000 a month.

So she thought she had to save 8,500. She doesn't even need to save a thousand a month. She's doing better than she thought. And she'll be able to retire in the next 10 years. Whereas before she didn't know when she'd be able to retire. So it's good when you're scared, just like when you were a little kid and you were scared. Hopefully you didn't just tremble by yourself scared. Hopefully you went to an adult that loves you. Well, same thing here. You don't have to feel scared or ashamed of your finances. Go to a financial professional that you know, like, and trust so that

that person can help you not be scared anymore. Thank you. That was really that was a ton of advice right there. I hope everybody was taking notes and with all of those steps. And again, you'll have a way to join Tanisha's classes if you want to go deeper. So kind of going back to that example, we talked a lot about kind of the structural shifts and the actions that folks can make. What's the mindset shift that you think all of us need to adopt as it relates to

wealth building in 2026. Stop thinking about how you're going to spend your money and start thinking about how you're going to save it and double it and grow it and leave a legacy. So, you know, you should not work just to pay bills. You should not work just to give your money away. I mean, to me, that's slavery.

Yeah, that's deep. Okay, so we're going to wrap up. One, I want you to let folks know how they can stay in contact with you. Let us know all of your handles and information. Again, I'm also going to put this in the description of this podcast episode, but just let us know how we can stay connected, how we can join your classes, learn more about some of these products that you've talked about and just

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one affirmation that you'd like to share as a final closing. Sure. I am Ms. MoneyWorks on all the platforms. That's MZ MoneyWorks. And so you can go on Facebook and find me, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok and see my posts and my helpful videos. I would love it if you go there and like it or follow it and, you know, love my posts. And if you want to meet with me, just send me a DM and I can send you my calendar to get on my

calendar and I would say there's a quote that I've heard said different ways but basically you may not come from a rich family but you can make sure that a rich family comes from you and so that is exactly what I'm doing with my sons you know I'm making sure that they're wealthy and well-off because I was a teen mom and people counted us out and they were wrong and so I'm just so proud of the kid that I had in high school who's almost a millionaire

in his early thirties. And so now I'm teaching his little brother, my youngest son, how to be a millionaire by his face. So yeah, so you may not come from a rich family, but make sure rich family comes from you. And Zakiya, I thank you so much for thinking enough of me and your audience to bring me on here to talk about one of my favorite subjects, which is how money works and how to get it working for you and not just working for money, but get it working for you.

Well, shout out to my dear friend Mahasin that connected me to you. And I know we've had several conversations with my daughter and her father about really how to set my daughter up for success. And I think, and I feel like I'm starting late. I'm be honest. I wish I would have started earlier, but never, never too late. Also just really want to encourage parents.

who are listening to this, no matter what age your child is, you know, the reality is we're we may not be able to rely on social security and retirement and the way that our parents generation did. I know that both my parents are retired and they have pensions and those pensions came connected to their jobs. I know that I don't have that and I know that the federal government, you know, could go either way. so.

Sh8peShift YourLife (43:52.45)
When it comes to our communities, we are really going to have to take generational wealth building into our own hands. And I do believe that it's products and tools and literacy like this that are going to help us get there and to know that we're ever level that we're at to just start somewhere. You know, wealth building is a long game. think we're so sometimes we can get so caught up in the scarcity mindset or the kind of tick tock. want it all fast, fast, fast.

We look at reality TV, we look at people on television and we think, they made money so fast. But the reality is pretty much every billionaire that you're looking at right now came from wealth, including Donald Trump. These folks maybe furthered the wealth that they had, but someone helped them out. And so we're staying on the shoulders of those who came for us, but we're also contributing to the wealth of those who will come after us.

And we're going to make a difference in that way. So thank you so much, Tanisha, for sharing your journey, your story. Please reach out to Tanisha. They are the truth. I can vouch for them myself. Thanks, everybody, for tuning in. I will see you next time. Until then, keep shifting. Bye.

Sh8peShift YourLife (45:05.816)
Thank you for tuning in today, Shapeshifters. Your presence means the world to me and I deeply appreciate you being here. If something resonated with you, don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Leave a comment and spread the love by sharing with others. Until next time, keep shifting.