Stop the $10 Trap: The Mindset That Built Wealth

Cedrick LaFleur: [: 00:00:00

See some people say if you leave stuff for your kids they may not appreciate you, appreciate it like you do. That is true. That could happen. However, if you train them in such a way that they learn to appreciate and value things. Guess what, they then will appreciate it just as much as you, and then they will do the exact same thing with their kids.

n, it changes their spending [: 00:01:00

And then it goes, it trickles down from just that car to everything else that they buy now. They appreciate money for what is what it's worth.

Alexa Beavers: Cedric LaFleur is the definition of success, but his story began in not such a successful place at age 18. He was a young father, a student, and working. He was buried in debt, so much so that he was even known by name at the payday loan counter. By 29, he decided that he was done living half a life.

In this episode of Transformation Unfiltered, Cedric takes us inside the mindset shift that changed everything. How he rebuilt his finances, reconnected with what really mattered, and became a whole human leader living in freedom, not fear.

Cedric is a motivational and empowering senior executive with more than 35 years of success across the healthcare, sales and leadership industries.

a chief executive at LeFlore [: 00:02:00

welcome to the show, Cedric. I'm so delighted you're here today on Transformation Unfiltered.

Cedrick LaFleur: Thank you. I'm excited to be here as well and I'm looking forward to a great conversation.

Alexa Beavers: Me too. Especially because we had a little chance to get acquainted before and we did dip into some of the things that were messy in your early life and early career. So why don't we just crack it right open and dive in.

ere here and income that was [: 00:03:00

Okay. And I knew that I had to do something. I didn't know what to do. And I was watching, it was a Saturday. We were living in Palm Bay, Florida, and I was watching TV and a commercial came across and the commercial said. If you're tired of being sick and tired with your finances, right? It was this guy named Charles j Gibbons and he was talking about this book that he had called Wealth Without Risk, and he was given all this information he was gonna be in, he's in Orlando, Florida.

I was like, oh, that's an hour away. And it just resonated with me and I wrote all the information down, called the number set up for me to go the next weekend. And boom, it was like. Man, everything this guy was talking about was like, he had peeked into my window, in my house, into my finances, and he could see what was happening and

we have folks listening from [: 00:04:00

Cedrick LaFleur: Yeah, I mean it was very simple. We really had bills that were piled up. And not enough money to pay all those bills. When you this is back in, in the nineties and, we'd go into a store and they'd say, oh, it's only gonna cost you $10 a month. Oh, it's gonna cost you $12 a month.

Oh, it's $15 a month, it's $20 a month. Right. It sounds great until you have 10 or 20 of those. Those, that adds up. So a lot of money per month. And you don't think about it when you're signing that paper and buying, oh, it's only $10 a month. It's not gonna be that big a deal.

s, right? And I, I remember. [: 00:05:00

Oh, that's Cedric. Hey. Said hey. And I was, Hey, how y'all doing? Like they knew me, but I didn't realize that it was the big, I was the big joke really. Because yes, they knew me because they, I'd been back there, been there before, right? But I never was late. I would always go back and get my title and all this type stuff, and when I got into another crunch, then I would do that.

And after a while, that just became overbearing. And I knew that something had to change. And that Saturday morning when I woke up, it was like God hitting me in the head and saying. Dumb. You need the V eight. You can do something better than this. This is not the life I want for you. So then the commercial came on.

like a failure to my family, [: 00:06:00

It was, you're gonna have to do the grinding work to get out of this mess and change your financial future. And he said it very simple. He said, look, if you get the program and you do the things that I'm telling you to do in here step by step. You will change your life forever. And I will tell you, it did.

I did the hard work. We got out of the, all that debt, we changed some of our insurances around exactly what he said to do. We started investing money to exactly what he said to do and how to do it. And guess what? It changed our mindset first, right? That had to change. That comes first. Because we could get out of debt, but if your mindset is still the $10 a month type mindset, guess what?

You gonna be back in [: 00:07:00

Alexa Beavers: Let's go real slow. Motion real quick. I would love to. Go to the time when you're in that early mindset, the $10 mindset, the mindset that says, Ooh, that's gonna be an easy one. I can just, have the thing. Talk to me about that, because I have been there. I don't know if you've ever, you probably don't face this, but nowadays you get these little popups on your ads and it's gonna be so easy to buy this thing.

And if you just buy it within five minutes, you get this next thing and you can get this thing for half price. It's a similar game. Talk to me about what that was like for you back in your early twenties, probably wanting to show that you were, making it, making the American dream happen.

Tell me more about that $10 mindset.

, my friends have this, so I [: 00:08:00

That mindset is what really gets you in trouble, right? And it really is not just about you, it's about what you're doing. You don't understand yourself yet. You don't understand the why you're in, you exist on Earth yet. So what you're doing is you're trying to fit in with everybody else. You're trying to do the exact same thing.

They say trying to keep up with the Joneses and the Joneses. Can't even keep up with the Joneses 'cause it's too expensive.

Alexa Beavers: They don't know themselves. They're trying to figure out, how do I look the best? And I loved what you just said, that was really powerful. You don't even know yourself yet. You don't know why you're here on this earth.

Cedrick LaFleur: Right?

Alexa Beavers: tell me more about how having that knowledge can move you away from the wanting to impress the guy at the red light to something different.

puts you here on earth, your [: 00:09:00

What your friends think, say, doesn't matter. Not now what someone else says about you or thinks about you no longer matters because you know why you're here. And then you, it's like the light comes on for you and then all of a sudden you start living into that. So once I understood my. Purpose in life and it wasn't to buy all these little trinket things.

a long time ago how to have [: 00:10:00

What he's saying is, keep it in your pocket. But we didn't pay attention to that. I didn't. When my grandfather in, in, when I was in sixth grade, took me to buy a car and he paid $6,000 cash, he had the cash money in his hand and he counted out to the guy. He showed it. He showed me the way, and when we walked out, he says, Cedric, if you can't afford to pay it with cash, you don't need it. As a sixth grader, I wasn't listening to that. And a lot of us are like that. We weren't listening to that type stuff, but your grandparents would teach you save money for a rainy day. We didn't understand they, they didn't go deeper the next level, so we really didn't understand what it meant.

Now I know what it means.

and I'd like to hear what is [: 00:11:00

What. What is the thing that is the double click behind? Don't go for the immediate thing.

Cedrick LaFleur: I don't know that 10 years earlier I was ready to receive it,

Alexa Beavers: Okay.

Cedrick LaFleur: Because 10 years earlier I was 19. 19-year-old boys, we are full of testosterone, we're brass, we're ready to go out and shake up the world. We don't want people telling us what to do and how to do it. We wanna do it our way.

That's just how we are at 19 years old and girls, I'm sure they have the exact same thing. We're grown now, and we say it pretty boldly. I'm grown now. I don't need you to tell me. So I don't know that I was ready to receive it 10 years earlier.

Here's the thing, the beautiful thing and look, you if you're listening and you're not a religious or spiritual person, you don't believe in God.

ne. That put me through this [: 00:12:00

He didn't fool me earlier. What he did was tried me earlier to see if I was gonna fall into these things right, to get me ready for when I was 29. So that I could be prepared to listen. He put all these things in a in, in place, so that 29, I'd be ready to receive it. But 'cause he knew the plans he had for me for later on.

But if I wouldn't have gone through that test, guess what? At 29 I wouldn't have received it either

Alexa Beavers: tell me about some of the tests that you went through on the way to 29, because I bet there's a lot of folks out there that are walking through some tests right now, and they might start to see, Hey, this might be a test. I'm getting ready for something. What are some of the tests now in hindsight that you can see that you couldn't see then?

years old. My girlfriend was [: 00:13:00

I didn't have a car at the time. I was riding a bicycle until my daughter was born, and my sister gave me her old car. But before then, I was riding a bike to work, to school. I was in college. I was riding my bike there. And the test was I willing to do what it takes to be a man and raise a family?

Yes. I remember riding in the rain, pouring down, raining on my bike at four in the morning to get to work. I had a raincoat on, but by the time I got to work from my knees down, I was soaking wet. Yeah. But I didn't say was, it's rain, I can't go to work. I still went to work ' cause I knew that, I had a family.

get through this test? Was I [: 00:14:00

' cause we had to have it all right then, we built a new house, so we gotta have furniture in every room. You built a new house, so you gotta have also a new car. You built a new house, so you have to also have this. Those were all tests. We failed those tests. But then when we got to 29, that was the big test, boom,

Alexa Beavers: made you ready to receive the message by then? Do you

Cedrick LaFleur: being broke.

Alexa Beavers: Being broke, being broke for a long enough time.

Cedrick LaFleur: Yes. Not knowing where the money was gonna come from, wanting to change, knowing that there was something else out there. And here's what we said. I said, if white people can learn how to have all of this stuff, how come I can't?

what I said, and that was my [: 00:15:00

But my mindset back then was how can white people have all of this? And then I struggle this way. There has to be a better way. So when that TV commercial came on, that was the better way. Now, I don't know how many times that commercial came on before it hit my consciousness and said, listen to it. I know that Saturday morning it was loud and clear.

Alexa Beavers: So all through, you went through a lot of trials. You had, a girlfriend had teen pregnancy, had to make a big decision to make a grownup decision, become a family. You were doing all the right things. You were, not taking the easy road you were going to school and the rain, all the things you were going to work.

dn't know. And then suddenly [: 00:16:00

Amazing. And I'm, those aren't small things that you all went through.

Cedrick LaFleur: No, they're not. Are major things. And here's the thing that was for us in the nineties today, there are people going through this same same thing as well,

Alexa Beavers: Absolutely.

Cedrick LaFleur: right? And they just need to be ready to step up to the challenge. They just need to be ready to receive the message and know that.

Just because you are in a certain way today doesn't mean you have to always be in that certain way, and just because you come from this socioeconomic class doesn't mean you have to always be in that socioeconomic class. You have to be willing to make the change and take some action, do things differently going forward.

as willing to do some things [: 00:17:00

Cedrick LaFleur: So it was very clear and I actually, I put that in my book million Dollar Beach House, my Journey to An Extraordinary Life. I show the pages that I filled out back then that showed savings account, zero, checking account, zero, investment account zero, retirement account zero. All of those things were zeros, okay?

But then I had to write what my goals were. Okay. And where I wanted to be. So then I wrote those out as well. And I share that in the book so people can see I'm not just talking theory here, I'm talking about stuff that I actually did. So meaning I did the work and then I put together goals and here's where I wanted to be.

I [: 00:18:00

We said, no, we can't go friends going on trips. No, we can't go. We have somewhere else we're going right now. And it didn't matter if they, clowned us or laughed or whatever. We knew that we had a bigger goal in mind and so we are gonna have to say no to some things. No. To buying new cars anymore.

No to a whole lot of things. It was this total mindset transformation.

Alexa Beavers: Did it happen so easy that you could just suddenly start saying no, or were there struggles along the

for the program. But I was [: 00:19:00

And then I got the $200. Boom. I bought the system and I came home and we started, boom, working on a program that same day. We didn't say let's wait six months. Let's do, no. 'cause we were already broke. We, in order to change, we wanted

Alexa Beavers: There was a pivotal moment there. You said something's gotta change and you were there for it.

Cedrick LaFleur: absolutely. Yes.

Yes. And it didn't matter what nobody else was doing. Here's what we were gonna do, and we were in it together. And it just the way we did it and I, I wouldn't change anything.

Alexa Beavers: What's kept you committed over the years to that? It seems like you've continued to grow from there. What is it that kept you committed? You had this mindset, you had a goal, and tell me after

did the work, it changed my [: 00:20:00

Alexa Beavers: So you had evidence? Yeah.

Cedrick LaFleur: absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

Alexa Beavers: When you before the evidence was maybe having that new car, but then having to walk into the payday loan place or what have you, but you had new evidence and it came because of the hard work that you did. Did it feel any different when you had that kind of evidence in your hand?

Cedrick LaFleur: It totally felt different. Be I you started gaining, feeling like you gained power because now I could go to sleep at night and not worry about finances. Now, then I could go to sleep at night and not worry about this bill getting paid. Go to sleep at night and not worry about if we wanted to do something, we had the cash money to do it

Alexa Beavers: So before you were given your power away to get this thing

Cedrick LaFleur: Oh, absolutely.

Alexa Beavers: you gained power 'cause it was your choice and you had the choices all around.

he doors open different, the [: 00:21:00

No bank can come and say, Hey, this or that, none of that. When you own it, man, everything about it is totally different. So I tell people, look at what your car, when you pay off your car, right? You say, yes, I own this car. Now imagine you do that.

That changes generations. See, that car is gonna go down in value, but that house more than likely is going to increase in value. So it's not only changing your life, but it's changing the life of your children and your children's children.

Alexa Beavers: When you think back to your grandfather, giving that advice, and now you're thinking, Hey, I've come to a place where I can make a real difference beyond, just some advice, but I've changed the trajectory of my bloodline here. Tell me what that's like.

tions, building generational [: 00:22:00

See some people say if you leave stuff for your kids they may not appreciate you, appreciate it like you do. That is true. That could happen. However, if you train them in such a way that they learn to appreciate and value things. Guess what, they then will appreciate it just as much as you, and then they will do the exact same thing with their kids.

side line you want to be on. [: 00:23:00

And then it goes, it trickles down from just that car to everything else that they buy now. They appreciate money for what is what it's worth.

Alexa Beavers: And potentially appreciate themselves for the power that they gain. By making those decisions not to be trapped

Cedrick LaFleur: Absolutely. You just said it right there. Trapped you see, because when you spend all your money, you become trapped. I want people to understand you can live life and enjoy life and all this type of stuff. It doesn't mean that when you save and invest, it doesn't mean that you never do anything.

esn't mean higher value in a [: 00:24:00

Alexa Beavers: In alignment with your goals and your mission and who you are.

Cedrick LaFleur: absolutely. Yes. You gotta have, you have to have discipline. Where there's a lack of discipline, there will be a lack of money, where there's a lack of discipline. There'll be a lack of generational wealth happening where there's a lack of discipline. There'll be a lack of everything in your life.

Alexa Beavers: So you've said so many. Important things, and I would love to just take a minute and say, if you were going to talk about how this transformation in your, we'll say right before you hit 30, you made a hard turn, you changed your life and you're changing it for generations to come. What are three ways that decision to take ownership of your.

Financial situation, your [: 00:25:00

Cedrick LaFleur: Yeah. One, that transformation allowed me to one retire age of 50. Okay. That transformation helped me to teach my kids how to better manage. Money their life and have discipline. It doesn't mean that they don't have difficulties or challenges. Okay. 'cause they do. It just means that they understand one how to bounce back from it and they know at a deeper level than I did at their age.

That there is a better way that they can do something different.

Alexa Beavers: You accelerated their maturing a little bit.

appreciate it, you value it, [: 00:26:00

All right? Freedom. I can go where I want to go, when I want to go, and how I want to go. Freedom. I can do what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I want to do it, or not do anything, right? I'm not dependent on going to get this check in order to do this. That's the

Alexa Beavers: from the traps that you were held in before.

Cedrick LaFleur: Free from the Traps.

Yes.

Alexa Beavers: and I think one thing you said really resonated with me is you have to have the mindset. So maybe the original mindset is the trap. I don't know. What do you think about that?

I do this? Or when can I do [: 00:27:00

Or why do I want to do this? So I think about to things totally different, right? And see when you go buy something now and you can just walk in and say, I want this. Sometimes this is gonna cost this. I didn't ask you what the cost was. This is what I want. That's a different type of

feeling.

Alexa Beavers: Are free. You're not constrained by a price, by a rule, by a system, by, by an idea that I have to measure up to that person or that person.

Cedrick LaFleur: Yes, absolutely. Right now you wanna, if you have an opportunity to save on something, boom. You want that. Okay. If you have the opportunity to no, lemme say a different way. You don't necessarily want people to charge you the top price for everything. Okay. And that's fine.

f water. Okay, so sell it to [: 00:28:00

The reason why lot people suffer from a lack of self-confidence sometimes is because of decisions that they've made in the past.

Alexa Beavers: Can you more about that? Tell me more.

yeah.

Cedrick LaFleur: Yeah. So when you have a lack of self-confidence, it sometimes the decisions you made early on is going to impact that. So you go into a store to buy something.

Because you don't have the FI finances for it, so you gonna have lack of self-confidence. So now they can sell you anything.

So you see, oh, $200 a month, we can do that for the next 17 years, it's gonna be $200 a month. And because you have a lack of self-confidence and you don't have the money, $200 you can afford.

So guess what? Now you gonna do that? 17 years, you gonna buy that car that's gonna be finished in about 10 .

and so I think that's a big [: 00:29:00

Cedrick LaFleur: Because I know where I came from, so I think for me, that's what impacted that. I know where I was and I know where I don't wanna be anymore. I've been poor, I've been rich. I don't wanna be poor, right? That's gonna impact my decision. It's like drawing a line in the sand. Okay. And with anything, any person, right? Anyone that's listening, they understand once they go through something and they say, that experience was bad, I don't want to do that again. Guess what they're gonna do, everything they can do to never go through that again.

ng with people who are there [: 00:30:00

Alexa Beavers: You don't have to stay there, and it starts with a mindset, I think.

Cedrick LaFleur: Starts with a mindset shift, right? You have to take responsibility to the guys out there who are listening. It's your job, your responsibility to take charge for your family and say no more. If the family, the two adults in the relationship are not on the same page with finances, it's never gonna work. ' cause one's gonna be a spender, one's gonna be a saver. And if they don't change their mindset together. It's never gonna work. You're never go, gonna go to the next level.

Alexa Beavers: Talk to my independent people for a minute. Some folks aren't attached. So what advice would you give those that, that are unattached and happily but would still wanna make a shift in their life like you did?

s say. Directionally, here's [: 00:31:00

Don't listen to, I'm talking to the ladies right now. Don't listen to your girlfriend saying, girl, let's go to that Beyonce concert. When you don't have Beyonce concert money. Don't listen to your guy. Friends say, Hey, let's go play golf. Let's go hang out here. Let's go do this here. I hear some people say they spend a thousand dollars, $700 in a weekend drinking.

What is that gonna do for you? Nothing. You can be taking that money and putting it up in an investment for the future, right? So whether you're married or you're single, it's the same philosophy. If you want to go to a higher level, you have to start doing high level things. You can listen to Beyonce on YouTube.

It's gonna be the same music, right? Until you get to the point where you can afford that, right?

Alexa Beavers: And then maybe going to that concert would be even sweeter. 'cause you wouldn't have the guilt about borrowing money to get there.

LaFleur: Absolutely, because [: 00:32:00

And look, I don't have anything against Beyonce. I'm just using her as an example. Okay. It could be Gar Brooks, . The point is. Don't spend your money going do those things when you don't. You really don't have the money to do that.

If you have the money to do it, go right ahead and enjoy yourself. Okay.

Alexa Beavers: But don't make choices at the expense of your greater power.

Cedrick LaFleur: Don't make choices at the expense of the greater power of your next level. You'll have time, you'll have plenty of time to do those things. Trust me. From 29 to 35, we didn't go anywhere. We didn't buy stuff, we didn't do anything and all this type stuff. How many of you would love to be retired from your corporate job at the age of 50?

Now [: 00:33:00

Alexa Beavers: And that started. Too long ago in the grand scheme of things because you made a big choice and you stuck with it.

Cedrick LaFleur: Absolutely.

Alexa Beavers: Cedric, here's your the question I ask everyone that's on this show. This is a story about transformation and this is a real story of personal transformation, generational transformation.

What advice would you give to somebody 15 years earlier ahead of us in life, in their careers knowing what you know today?

Cedrick LaFleur: Yeah. So the vi advice I would give someone 15 years earlier is this when you're in your career, that you're gonna make a lot of money when you add it up over all the years. Okay? Take advantage of that. Invest in your company's 401k. Because it's not for the company, it's for you.

t's free money you're giving [: 00:34:00

You increase it, okay? You, let's say you get a pay raise every year from your company, right? Take part of that pay raise and invest it. See, you've already lived without that money, so you don't even know what it is to live with that money, right? So take the money before you start seeing it. And increase your investment every year, right?

If people work for a Fortune 500 company and you're making six figures, there's no way you shouldn't retire. At least as a millionaire, maybe a multimillionaire, but at least as a millionaire, there's no way you should, if you're making six figures in that company.

Alexa Beavers: It starts with a choice though. Choosing to invest in yourself to give the long game and not give into those immediate kind of things that seems so important at the time.

to temptation. When you get [: 00:35:00

I wanted to retire at the age of 50 because I wanted to live my life. And I knew that I had a whole lot more to live. And now I can go off and do the things that I really want to do and enjoy. Right now I've been retired for eight years. I'm 58 years old. I've been retired for eight years.

Let's think about that.

Alexa Beavers: Yeah, you had the freedom to do it. You had the freedom to choose because you made some big decisions early on. Yeah.

en I retire and three months [: 00:36:00

Alexa Beavers: It's a heartbreaker.

Cedrick LaFleur: It is a heartbreaker, right? So if you discipline yourself now, you will change things for later. And look, folks, I know some people will say, so that's hard to do because I have kids and I have this, and I have that.

I understand. I had all of that as well. But I wanted to make a difference in my life and I wanted things to be different. So I changed my spending habits, I changed my discipline, I changed the way I think. And when you change the way that you think, you change everything else. John Maxwell says in the book how do successful people think?

He said, the only difference between successful people and unsuccessful people, and that's in any category in your life. Just the way that they think.

d someone that does a lot of [: 00:37:00

Cedrick LaFleur: Thank you very much and thanks for having me on the show. I'm an eight time visionary author. This is the boy who had to be forced to read one book in the fifth grade. Now I've written eight books and I have a deal to do 30 and we are. We are rocking. Okay, so I can be found on Facebook.

Just my name, Cedric LeFleur. Just look me up. Our LeFleur Leadership Institute on both of those pages are on Facebook, on LinkedIn. Again, it's my name. I'm Cedric LaFleur. And my website is LeFleur leadership institute.com. And we are in a business of helping. Build best in class leaders. We work with organizations to do this.

intentional and we are about [: 00:38:00

I'm not the talk, talk about it a hundred times, guy. I will have a dream. I'll get up the next morning and I will take action on that dream. I'll be sitting right here right now. A thought will come to my head about something and I will put it into action right away. So if you call me, be ready to take some action.

Okay. That's just how I operate.

Alexa Beavers: I have loved your story and this is transformation unfiltered. You've been completely unfiltered, which I greatly appreciate, and I think a lot of people will identify with your story. The other thing that really stood out to me was, this is about intention. You set your intention, you shifted your mindset, and you.

Took some action and everything unfolded from there. So I really appreciate the way you ended that story because it really is illustrative of everything you said, taking your intention and turning it into action. First, you have to recognize whether you're in the driver's seat of those intentions or is it's something else.

with us today. Folks, if you [: 00:39:00