I paid my taxes this year, and I’m happy about it. That may sound strange, but a tax bill means you made some money. This episode starts with a quick, practical tax lesson: why the system is built to reward home ownership, what you can and can’t write off, and why the part of your home or car you use for business is a very different thing from the whole house or the whole car.

Then we go deeper, because wealth is a mindset before it is a number. Self-esteem and confidence are not the same thing. Self-esteem lives on the inside. It’s how you see yourself, and it grows in homes where you’re loved and in communities where you see people who look like you leading. Confidence is built on the outside, from competing at a high level and winning. You can have plenty of one and very little of the other.

I share what I’ve seen in my travels about how history and environment shape both, and why so many of us who are brilliant and competitive still carry wounds that make us suspicious of each other’s success. Before you heal, you have to deal. My mother told me she loved me every day of my life. That gave me a foundation no one could take. It’s okay if you don’t like me. I like me.

A listener asks how the One Million Black Business initiative can help generate cash flow, and I use a neighborhood barbershop to show how a business can make money while its owner is asleep. When you’ve got the power, you don’t need to prove it.

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