How to Turn $20K Into $2.5M

0:04You're listening to The Vault Unlocked, where the real secrets of success are revealed. Every episode, one founder, one confession, one strategy that created income scale and unstoppable growth. Forget the hype. This is unlocking the code they swore they would never release. The playbook is revealed. The vault is unlocked. The vault unlocked. And today we have special guest Herman who helps people fix their credit, get the funding and then take that funding and invest it into investments that create generational wealth. I'm so excited to have you here today, Herman. How are we doing? I'm doing amazingly well.

0:45Thank you so much for having me on your platform and trusting me. It means a lot to me today. Thank you, Kay. Thank you so much. So for the people that are listening and they don't know who Herman is, why don't we just start there and tell us a little bit of who Herman is. How do you help people fix their credit? How do we even get here in the first place? A quick synopsis. Let's make a long story short. Herman Dulce Jr. I am founder of Bella Sloan Enterprises, named the company after my firstborn beautiful daughter, Bella Sloan. Born in Brooklyn, Philly raised me, went to Temple University, got my undergrad, went to Lincoln University, got my graduate school.

1:23and I got out of school making a whopping$55 ,000 a year and$86 ,000 in student loan debt. And I was like, ah, I didn't make the right move. Um, um, and then I went on a baby moon with my beautiful wife, right. Had an amazing trip. And then it took two weeks out of, I went to Italy, took two weeks out of my time. It was amazing trip. Came back home and I was telling my brother, I was like, dang, I wish I could do this whenever I want. And he said, Hey, unless you own your own, you'll never be free. So he's like, credit thing that you do, you should start charging people for it. I'm like, no, it's really important information.

1:59Everybody needs this information. He's like, no, bro, they're going to pay somebody. They might as well pay you. I got 10 of my friends. I was like, let me fix your credit for free. Took the screenshots, posted them on Instagram and the rest is history. Wow. That just like that. Just like that. Yeah. Of course there's things to fill in the story, but yeah, yeah, no, I get, we're going to go there because we're trying to figure out, you know, this is the whole idea of the vault on lock is figuring that one thing out. Right. And it's either, how did you do that? Or how we actually get the credit fixed.

2:31Right. So, uh, so you started working with your friends, you helped them fix the credit and then you started posting on Instagram. You're just posting the results, posting the results. Success has receipts. Yeah. And then people were like, Oh my God, I need you to help me. I need you to help me. And how many people, uh, have you helped so far today? In the past eight years, we have had 6 ,000 credit repair clients come through. 6 ,000. Wow. And how much funding do you think you've generated? I've generated in the past eight years,$100 million. Wow. So, and I want to be very clear when you say this, you've fixed over 6 ,000 people's credit.

3:16Correct. And you've gotten those same, let's say, you know, those same, not all those 6 ,000, but that same bucket of people up to$100 million of basically of dollars for them to be able to use. To use leverage and create cash flowing assets. That's the goal. How do you do that? Like, how do you fix someone's credit so quickly? So I definitely want to say we fix credit quickly. It definitely is a journey depending on certain people. Sometimes it's three months, sometimes it's six months, sometimes it's eight months, but we take the client through their journey. So there's an educational component that they need to understand because they got into the problem because they weren't educated.

3:53So we educate them on it. We fix their credit using consumer law to fix their credit. And after they're done, it's all about the LTV of the client. Now that their credit is fixed, what's next? What do you need? Well, I would like to get a car. I would like to start a business. Let me be of service to you. So we help the client point them in the right direction, make sure their business structure property, get capital for their business so that they can invest in themselves and their dreams. And what are some stories like, does anyone stick out for you where you actually walk them through this whole journey and just like?

4:26Oh, absolutely. I got one of my clients came in with like a 600 credit score. He had like two collections on his credit report. He had good other stuff. Like he had a couple of credit cards that were good. We got the collections off. We helped him set up his business, LLC, EI, and all that stuff, got the business website structured it properly. We got him his first$50 ,000 in funding. He ended up starting, and this was years ago, he ended up starting a trucking company. And he was one of the first people who quit their job because he replaced his income. And then he grew that to a$2.5 million a year company.

5:01So I'm really, really excited about that. The second amazing story is actually acquisition. So we got another guy. he actually went through the SBA. So we teach clients how the SBA helps with generational wealth because there's a lot of boomers that are about to retire. So there's a lot of capital that is out there. So we helped him get$20 ,000 on a business credit card. He liquidated it, put that as a down payment. And then he acquired a company that's making$2.5 million a year. And all he had to do was come out of pocket 20 ,000. So these are amazing what we have in our portfolio of income and impact.

5:36I love that income impact. And isn't it interesting, right? And you can all say it all started by just fixing your credit, right? But there's a lot that happens in between there. Let's take a step back and ask the big question, how do people find themselves in this situation where their credit isn't? I feel like if you're relatively educated in the sense of you've gone to school, I mean, they teach you this a little bit. Your parents teach you a little bit about like, you don't pay your credit cards off, right? And you don't want to do that. If you don't, you'll have bad credit. How do people get to a point where they're in such bad credit and basically shut off from financial abilities and capabilities and resources?

6:17Well, okay. There's a myriad of reasons why. Believe it or not, not every parent is financially literate to pass down that information to their children. My father, right? He was financial literate up to a point. My dad knew how to make money and save money. He didn't know how to leverage credit and things like that. Right. So I remember he used to come home every Friday. He's like, Hey, let's pay the bills. And I was like 12, 13 and we get paid every Friday and he would have me write the check. So he's like, Hey, here's a water bill. I want you to write the bill. Here's a gas bill. Here's your tuition.

6:50Right. And I will write it out. And he would show me how he would balance the checkbook. Right. And he also did that because I wanted a super Nintendo though. And he wanted to show me like, Hey, there's no more money in the account. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tell me about budgeting, right? Yeah. Leverage and credit and taxes and insurance. Those things aren't taught in our financial institutions. So as we grow up, we are ill-equipped when we get a$5 ,000 credit card, like, Oh, I'll max it out. Not knowing that hurts your credit score. As long as I make the minimum payment, I can afford it. Those were not really taught about.

7:24And then it goes into a significant rabbit hole and then one thing after another and then they're just sitting there paralyzed paralyzed yeah but you and then you figured out a way to help them because i'm going to assume consolidate that all and then be able to start kind of paying it off down and working on their credit what are some of the things when someone's looking at their credit that uh just to educate you know anyone listening that people are looking at like the the lenders are looking at when it looks at your credit i know there's like how much you owe but there's also there's there's a couple different variables.

7:56Right. I'm glad you said that because I always teach people think like the banks do. So your credit report is your adult report card. So to see like, okay, well, you got an A here and a B here and a D here. So they look to see how much credit card debt that you're in. If you have like a$10 ,000 credit card, right? They don't like you to max out more than 3 ,000. So 30%. Okay. Over that 30%, your score takes a hit. So the credit card debt you're in, the better your credit score is. Having credit that is old is important, right? So I got my first credit card when I was 18. I still have it. So that thing is about 30 years old.

8:32That length of time of having that credit is great too. The higher your credit card limits is, that makes you look responsible to the lending institution, especially when we're trying to get them business funding. Like, oh, you've had this card for five years and it's$10 ,000 limit. You've never been late on it. It looks like you'll be responsible if we give you$30 ,000 on business side. So those little things are what lending institutions are looking at that help us get these massive amounts of capital for our mentees. And this is how you teach your mentees to do this. Correct. Exactly. Financial literacy first before I go give you this double-edged sword of credit.

9:07Yeah, well, yeah, because you're just going to do the same thing you did to get yourself in the same spot. Exactly. Exactly. So how do you help your mentees, your students come and understand that battle? Because that's a subconscious. That's something they were built on. That's something they grew up in. And now you have to change their paradigm. They have to have a paradigm shift and an identity shift. Exactly. That came from a subsidiary of Bellasone Enterprises because the market was telling me, hey, you know so much information because I'm making all this YouTube content and Instagram content.

9:41We would like to learn it. So we created Bella Sloan Academy, where we actually teach the fundamentals of credit, of budgeting, of structuring our business so that lenders can give you capital. And then we put them in front of, once they get this capital, sometimes they don't know what to do with it. So then I had to get mentors that are smarter than me in different spaces. Like, hey, if you want to invest in real estate, a t-shirt company, acquisitions, here are the mentors that are really good at it. And you have the capital, go invest in your education and in to do business. And if someone's wanting to, uh, to like join your community or like be part of it, like what, what do they need to know?

10:16Where can they come find you? I'm just wondering. Oh, absolutely. So if you want to follow me on Instagram is Haitian underscore CEO, and I'm a CEO. Um, and if they want to join the Academy and learn more things, they could always check out my YouTube Bella stone enterprises for free content where we love teaching. It's my passion. And if you want to join the Academy, it's only 50 bucks, bellasoneacademy.com. I love that. And where is Herman going now? What's the future look like for you in the business? Oh, wow. So I want to practice what I preach and I want people to see that. So what we've been doing is buying doors and buying hotels because I can't teach and do YouTube forever.

10:55So I'm setting up assets to create cashflow for my lifestyle and things that I can pass down to my children. So it's a lot of real estate that we're doing and buying up different companies, especially in the medical component, because those aren't going anywhere anytime soon. So that's what we're doing with the capital and the cash flow that we've been getting. So you're building long-term wealth, generational wealth through real estate and businesses. And businesses, correct. It's interesting. Why not stock market? So I have some in stock market, probably 15 to 20 % is in the stock market, but I always practice what you preach.

11:38I don't like to invest in things that I'm not well versed and educated on. I have a team that handles the 10, 15 % portfolio. So I handle that. I got another 10 to 15 % in crypto and I got a team that handles that. The rest that I know of, I'm hands-on on it when it comes to real estate and acquisitions and things like that. So you just touched something that I think is very important. And a lot of business owners miss this piece, right? Is you don't need to be the smartest person in the room. You just need others who have the smarts in the room with you. Exactly. Because you just said, I don't need to know crypto.

12:16I got the best crypto team. So it sounds like you've built a real team around you. Leverage. Absolutely. Leveraging other people's knowledge. each so how if someone's starting out and they don't have those uh connections or they're not yet at that level where they can just go and build all these teams do you have any steps or ideas for them that they can just get to that level because i think what you're you're you know you're saying where you're at is kind of the dream of all entrepreneurship right as you got your experts in every one of your categories you're well diversified and you got people who are better at you than yourself in it i mean exactly that's true entrepreneurship right there it all starts with mentorship, right?

12:55So I tell people you're going to pay. You're going to pay with your time or you're going to pay with your money. You have to decide. So if you're just starting out right now, you have to learn before you earn. So there's a lot of free mentors on YouTube University, right? Yeah. YouTube, I like that. You call it YouTube University. A lot of topics that you can dig in and that's when you paying with your time and learning those things and executing on those little tips that they're telling you for free. And then there's a paywall. There's always a paywall after that. Now that you made some money with that free information, invest in a mentor's community because his time is money too, or her time is money too.

13:31And that's how I started. I got some free information. I made some money in my business. I started investing in mentorship conferences, being around like-minded people. And those relationships, literally your network is your net worth. Literally those relationships have continued to build. And it put me in amazing rooms in this amazing podcast. Yeah, I love it. I mean, I love what you said when you said you can either pay with your time or you can pay with your money. Yeah, I agree. And a lot of people choose to pay with time over their money. Yep, yep, yep. And I could tell you even from my experience, and I'm sure you have the same experience too, is that's a hard, hard, hard thing to do.

14:09That's a harder way of living versus paying for access. Yep. Paying for someone else's mistakes. Mm-hmm, yep. It's the short principle by getting a mentor. Yeah, because you can live, you know, it goes to the saying, right? Most people live an easy life, and that's why their life is hard. We're entrepreneurs and guys like you. We live a hard life, and that's why we live an easy life. Easy life, very true. Right? Anything else you want to leave the audience with? Listen, my father taught me an important lesson. I always like to preach it and tell it to people. Audit your circle, right? Because he was one of the first people I audited out of my circle because there's different circles in my life.

14:48But out of my financial circle, my dad could only take me to a certain level. I wanted to become a millionaire. My dad was not a millionaire. So I had to get into a different circle, audit my circle. And sometimes that's your inner circle. And it really hurts. That's my day one, my day two. I made a lot of money with my day twos and my day threes. I got around different people, surrounded myself with different mindset. And I executed on the information that they gave me and it changed my life. And I've been consistent with that blueprint. I want to speak about that. We're not letting you off the hook because that's so important for any new business owner, really any human that wants to elevate and go to the next level is audit your circle.

15:29Yes. So let's just talk about that for a second. When it means audit your circle, what does that mean to you specifically? So when I first say that, people think of like a broader circle, right? And you've kind of heard this concept before. Or if there are five people in your group that are broke, you're the sixth, right? Yeah. And people don't understand that the people that you grow up with and you have the same mindset with them, you never opened your mind to different thought processes. You'd be stuck in that situation. So it was very important to me to be around people that thought different than me, even have different religions, different political standards, right?

16:03I had to audit my circle to see and learn different things because it allowed me to grow, change my mindset on a lot of things, and even make some more money and more capital. It changed my health. It changed my mindset. It changed my relationship with my wife, my family, my children. It's super important to get out of your circle and to think differently about many, many things. Well, because you kind of indirectly said it. You're the average of your – the saying is you're the average of your five best friends. or I say the five people you hang out with the most with or the five things that you're reading the most.

16:36You know what I mean? Or you're consuming your time, your energy with. And if you don't like the results you're getting, I always say that, then you got to change the thing you're doing because you are a direct reflection of the results. But it's hard. It is hard. It's hard. So let's talk about that because I think it's really important to, it's so easy for people to say, oh, you're the average of your five best friends. Just leave your friends, but they don't talk about how hard it is to actually do that audit. Meaning like writing down and asking yourself, what are the things you want in life?

17:05Not just money. What do you want in relationships? What do you want in your health? What do you want in your, I loved what you said in your faith. I'm just going to say right in your faith, your religion. What do you want in your fitness? What do you want in your family? And then looking at that, and then you got to ask yourself, is anyone around me living that life? And if the answer is no, you have that answer. Right. Right. Discipline and consistency is part of everything you just said, too. And I tell people one of the reasons I'm successful is because I'm more disciplined than you are. Right.

17:35I'll continue to do the thing that I hate to get the thing that I want. So even with my weight. Right. I lost 50 pounds this year. And people like, well, how did you do it? I was like, I did the same thing every day for seven months. I got up, I put a weighted vest on and I walked four miles every single day and I ate the same thing. 90 percent of the time. Blueberries, nuts, protein. And I just did it over and over again. And I use that same discipline when it comes to my business, when it comes to my relationships, because the consistency over time is what makes exponential growth. You said two very important things there, consistency over time, exponential growth.

18:13But you said even before that, which you said discipline and you define discipline. So can we talk about that quickly? How did you define discipline there? Discipline is doing the things you hate over and over again so you can get the things that you want. You've got to say this louder. It's doing the things you hate over and over and over again to get the thing you want. Literally for hundreds of days, hundreds of days, literally 200 and something days, I got up and I put a 20-pound vest on and I walked. Summer, winter, I started January 1st. I hated doing it, but I wanted to be 50 pounds lighter, lighter, more.

18:55I want to make a million dollars more than I wanted to be broke. So I'm on YouTube university. I'm taking courses. I'm taking classes. I'm writing notes. I'm hiring people that are better than me because I'm giving up the money. I hate giving out the money. Right. But I had to do it because I wanted to make a million dollars more. Yeah. So what's the gap? Do you think that people go through, uh, between them wanting? so they want what's on the other end of discipline, but then they have the intention of waking up and doing discipline. But then when it comes to the act of discipline, they stop.

19:31Why do you think that is? Understanding the difference between motivation and discipline is really key. Everyone is motivated. When motivation runs out, I wish this was my line, but it isn't. When motivation runs out, discipline must take over. Yeah. Who's that? Is that Goggins? I think it is Goggins. Yeah, yeah. I feel like that might be. I feel like that's a Goggins thing. Someone yelling at you, screaming at you. While he's running his 18th foul for the day. And when I heard it, I was like, oh, that's it. I'm motivated, not disciplined. Right? So January 1st, everyone's in that gym. It's packed.

20:07Yeah. January 31st, the 6th, April. Yeah, like I love how you say it. It's not even. I've been a gym guy my entire life. It's like January 17th. Wow. It's like, I'm telling you, it's over. It's the first two weeks of January, and then it's done. And then February, it's like ghost town. And then by April, everyone's like, oh, I forgot I made that plan. Maybe I should go. Summer's coming. And then it's crazy. It's actually crazy. The second part of it that changes, Michelle Obama said this one time because she had a fitness thing. That was her thing when she was in her first term. and they asked her, they was like, how are you so fit?

20:45You're the first lady, most powerful man in the world. And she said, and you're waking up four o 'clock in the morning to do the things you need to do. And she said, well, let me ask you this. You had to interview me today, right? She said, yes. She's like, did you brush your teeth this morning? And she's like, of course I brushed my teeth this morning. I'm about to meet with the first lady. She's like, exactly. You had a goal today, right? And there's some things that had to be completed. They had to be completed. You had to brush your teeth and take a shower before you got here. The things that you don't want to do, they have to turn into have to's and not options.

21:16I have to walk four miles a day. It's not an option. It has to happen or the rest of the day doesn't go well. I have to do my content schedule that Kay gave me homework with or the rest of the day is not going to. It has to happen. We have to stop making things that are optional for our success. They have to become mandatory. I love it. I love it. I get it. I get it. I just, I'm still feeling the people that are listening and going, but there's that gap still, right? Cause we can say all the things you're saying, but then there's the act of doing it. And, and I think it goes maybe deeper of having either that chief aim or for you, it sounds like you've just made a decision.

21:58You made just like a conscious decision of I'm going to, I, in order to live the life I want, I'm just going to accept that most of my day is going to be painful. Right. Again, you know, in, in, indirectly, right. Like doing the hard thing, AKA eating the berries. It's there. It's not fun eating berries. They're good, but they eat them every single day, the same food every day. But it seems like you've made that conscious decision. Like I know where I want to go. And I know that this is the path to get me there. So you're not wavering your vision almost. It's like I can see it. I know what I'm going to do.

22:36I'm going to get there and I'm going to achieve it. Yeah, you're going to teach it. I heard this line on the internet the other day. If you want to know how disciplined you are, just look down at your stomach. Right? Oh, God. I was like, wow. And Nike said it best. Just do it. I mean, at the end of the day, I listen to Goggins. We can listen to Roland's and every other speaker out there, but you just got to do it. My why is bigger than my laziness. Yeah. Your why is bigger than your laziness. I love what Eric Thomas says, right? You want it more than you can breathe or something like that. He says, I love that.

23:16I think it's fantastic. So it sounds like you're a man of discipline. you've you've made your expertise in helping other people really become disciplined in their financial literacy in their financial world and then once that happens you give them access to opportunity to dollars that they can invest in and then from there it's up to them on what they do and how they go from there absolutely is that what i'm hearing changing lives that's exactly what we're doing that's exactly what we're doing and mindset has to change first before anything else is i could fix your credit a hundred times you'll ruin it a hundred times i can give you a hundred thousand in funding but you'll probably blow it but until you have discipline and you have to change your mindset on a lot of things you're always going to be going full circle and it's possible no matter who you are no matter what situation i just want to make sure if you're listening to this no matter what you're thinking no matter how hard you think it is or what you're going through or how high those walls are, it is possible.

24:18Correct. I am first generation immigrant. My parents do not have a high school education. First making$30 ,000 a year when I got out of college. Then I made$55 ,000 a year and I'm literally$200 ,000 in debt. When I got married, I didn't have a job. I was an unemployed social worker. I am proof that it can be done. And that's Yeah, I absolutely love it. Harman, it's been a pleasure having you here. I think it's amazing what you're doing. I think right now, especially I just hate to say, but like in the United States, like there are a lot of people in this situation where they're living off credit card debt.