Finance is the language of business, and if you could become fluent in it, trust me like, your financial life will improve. This is BYFIQ. Wealth and success come from understanding how finance works in business, and together we'll explore the most important topics to 10X your financial results. My hope is that we can work together soon. Please share and enjoy Happy new year. I'm so excited for you because I have some great news to deliver. It's really important, it's going to add a lot of value to you and it's going to really help you with your financial literacy. I'm not kidding. There's no hooks, there's no gimmicks, there's nothing here. Just hold tight with me and let me explain what I'm about to reveal, because it's a major shift, a major shift in my life and just my approach to the whole boosting your financial IQ platform. So I'll get into that here in just a minute, but let me give you a little bit of context.

I love the holiday season, I love Christmas, I love the meaning behind Christmas and I love spending time with my family. But in addition to that, it's a great time of year for me to sit back and reflect on how the year went and what I want to be focusing on in the upcoming year, and so this year was no different. My clients go into hiding during this time, which is great because they're spending time with their families, so it gives me a chance to just slow down and just to evaluate my life and my business, and that's what I did. I had plenty of time to do that in between, just hanging out with the family and the kiddos and playing Legos and whatnot. All right, so here's what I uncovered during this time.

I've been working on boosting your financial IQ for a couple of years now. I've been working on boosting your financial IQ for a couple of years now, and when I first started this podcast, I had no idea that it would blow up to be what it is today. In fact, my whole thing behind starting boosting your financial IQ was I wanted to put a few episodes out. So then, when people ask me about how to read an income statement or a balance sheet or a statement of cash flows, I can just say, look, I'm not going to explain myself over and over again, just go to this episode and check it out. So I did that and I put out like 10 episodes to start, and if you don't know the story already, at first I got like two downloads and that was my mom and my sister. They're so sweet but seriously like nobody tuned in at first, and so I would record these episodes and I was like I'm going to put it out there. I didn't market it, I didn't advertise it, I didn't promote it, really I just put it out there for goodwill, right. And then the next thing I know, the two downloads went to 10 and I was like huh, okay, and then it went from 10 to 50 and then it grew and then now it gets thousands of downloads every single day from people across the world, which is like such a huge blessing, but it's also a huge responsibility.

So I've tried multiple things. I've tried putting out courses, putting out programs and doing all this stuff and I've had success along the way. But then during Christmas break I was sitting there and I was like what am I really doing in life? I've been successful in my main business, coltivar. That's where I turn around and grow businesses. I've been very successful there, and boosting your financial IQ is really this passion project. So what am I all about?

So at Coltivar, my whole purpose is to elevate the lives of people through better business. At Coltivar, my whole purpose is to elevate the lives of people through better business, but in doing so, in turning around and growing companies, what I've realized is that the biggest obstacle that these leaders face is a lack of financial literacy, and that's why I think this podcast is so important to me and that's why I get up so early in the morning. Sometimes, like, seriously, I kill myself. For the first year of putting this out, I was getting up at like four in the morning. Sometimes, like, seriously, I kill myself. For the first year of putting this out, I was getting up at like four in the morning recording podcast episodes at five, putting together videos during odd hours not to interfere with my main business with coltivar, and it was very taxing. So I created all this content and I put together these programs and I was selling them Right.

So, going back to my purpose, if it's to elevate lives right Through better business and through financial literacy, I realized that I could have so much of a bigger impact on the world by just offering my programs for free. Okay, that's the big news, that's the revelation, which is crazy because when I talked to other people I was talking to one of my mentors just a few weeks ago and I was mentioning this idea and he's like Steve, I don't know if you need to give everything away for free. Maybe just give away your like fundamentals course for free and then you could upsell people into your other program. And I was like, yeah, but that just doesn't really jive well with me. So during break I was thinking, if somebody came, came to me and I kid you not okay, don't take this the wrong way because I feel very blessed with the resources and the success that I've had so far.

But if somebody came to me and said here's $100,000, steve, you could have $100,000 or you could help a million people this year. What would I choose? And I would choose help a million people this year. What would I choose? And I would choose helping a million people, because I just think of all of you who reach out to me through LinkedIn, through email, through the comments on this podcast. That's what fulfills me, that's what gives me fuel to keep putting out this content because, trust me, it takes a lot of time and it's really expensive to put this all together, to put the courses together, to publish it, to pay for the fees, to have this platform hosted. Right. There's a lot of expense to it, but I've realized that I could take my resources and my success from coltivar and I can just give away this stuff for free right To bless people's lives.

So over the break, all right, I got a few messages from people which really, like, impacted me. The first message that I want to share is from lean. He posted this on LinkedIn and he said, quote I've been hooked on a podcast that's been my little companion through so many phases long drives, work days and even those late night college assignments I used to power through. It's called boosting your financial IQ, by Steve Coughran on Spotify, and, honestly, it's a game changer. Who knew learning more about money as a finance major could be this fun? It's light, smart and somehow always leaves me feeling inspired and just a little bit smarter. So, anyways, he goes on and he posts about boosting your financial IQ and I'm like, oh my gosh, like how kind is that? Thank you so much, lean. And if you're listening to this, I just want you to know, like how meaningful that is like to get messages like this.

Here's another one from Anna. Hey, my name is Anna. I stumbled across your podcast on Spotify today and ended up binge listening to several of your episodes. As a sophomore and undergrad, I really enjoyed the way you broke down complex topics, which professors often fail to do, ha ha. Your episode about how, after eight years of studying finance, the most important thing you learned was to focus on cashflow over profits made me think of running a business from a completely different perspective. After tutoring two kids privately for over two years and seeing my clientele grow, I am now considering how to scale my business and I'll keep this idea in mind as I move forward. I'm looking forward to connecting and learning more from your work. Anna, like once again, that means so much to me, just like the impact that it's had on your life. It is truly humbling.

Devin Devin reached out. I love your podcast and books. My goal would be to have a career where I use strategy and finance to create value for businesses. I currently have a degree in finance and an MBA focused on operations and supply chain. Are there any certifications you would recommend as I start my career? And it goes on and on. I mean I get these messages all the time and, like I said, it means the world to me.

Here's one from Sarah. One more hey, steve, how are you? I was listening to your podcast, just came here to say that it is incredible work. I'm learning a lot through your content. Thank you, smiley face. So, look, this is what I want to share with you. Like reading through these comments, reading through these posts, seeing you download the podcast, the courses, the content, like everything I put out there and consuming it and then having that impact your life, that's where I realized that I need to do more. So I put together this letter. Okay, I'm going to read this letter to you. It's on my website, byfiqcom. I'm going to share with you what's on my heart, because this is really important, and then I'm going to tell you how you could get started and what this is all about. Okay, I promise. So I said hi.

I'm Steve Coughran and I've been incredibly blessed in my life which I believe is so true both in the talents and the abilities God has given me and in the opportunities I've had to use them. Yet for much of my career, I've been too timid to share these gifts. I don't know why, okay, I don't know why I'm timid to do it, but oftentimes I am with the world on a larger scale. Early in my journey, I realized a major gap in financial skills among leaders, including myself. At just 16 years old, I started a landscape business in my sister's garage and I grew it into a multi-million dollar company, but I lacked the financial literacy to properly understand my business's financials or leverage key drivers like profit and cashflow. As a result, I left a significant amount of money on the table and missed opportunities to strengthen my financial foundation. I don't want others to make the same mistakes. This includes you, okay? That's why I love that you're listening to this.

Years ago, I started teaching financial literacy through workshops like Boosting your Financial IQ and Strategic Financial Leadership. Both were a resounding success. This inspired me to launch the Boosting your Financial IQ podcast, which has since grown to over a million downloads and become one of the top business financial literacy podcasts in the world. However, I realized that my reach has been limited seat podcast in the world. However, I realized that my reach has been limited. I've played it safe, hesitating to share my love for strategy and finance with as many people as I could. That changes in 2025.

Okay, so here's the big news from now on, I'm making all my courses from boosting your financial IQ completely free. No gimmicks, no strings attached. Right, this is no like marketing ploy, where I'm gonna give you some content it's not my best content and then I'm gonna hook you in later on. Literally, this is my best content. This is all my content here, right? All the courses that I used to charge for completely free. These aren't watered down programs or marketing tools, like I said in disguise. They are better than many of the paid courses out there. So this is crazy, right? Okay, this is my. I'm inserting I'm not reading the letter anymore, but this is. This is wild. Like if I told any of my colleagues or friends this. If I said, hey, I'm making money off my courses, but I'm just going to give that away for free, they'd be like what the heck are you doing? Or they'd say, hey, steve, why don't you give us the money? And then you could do your free thing elsewhere or whatever. Right, but let me just continue. So why give the courses away? I'm reading my letter again.

I've been fortunate enough to achieve financial success, but I've reached a crossroads. Keep these programs paid and accessible to thousands who can afford them, or make them free and potentially impact millions of lives. For me, the choice was clear. True fulfillment comes from helping people transform their lives through financial literacy, not from adding more zeros to my net worth. This decision is also my way of giving back to honor the God who has shown me grace and given me the drive to love and serve others. End of letter.

All right, so that's the transformation that has just occurred over Christmas break. All right, and that's my gift to you. That's what I want to offer to you. So you could go to byfiqcom, which stands for boosting your financial IQ, and there you just click on the button to get started and you sign up for the program. You could download the app so you could follow the program and take the program through the boosting your financial IQ app. You could do it on a tablet, you could do it from your computer, from any device throughout the world. There are over a hundred video lessons and there are also quizzes to reinforce your learning.

So here's the cool thing, because I want you to be motivated to finish this program and I'm super committed to your success. So to reward you and to give you recognition for finishing this program, because it's a huge feat, right? This program is everything I've learned from studying finance through school, through my CPA, through turning around companies, through being a CFO. This is all my knowledge, right here. So, to certify you, here's what you're going to get when you finish the program.

Number one a digital certificate of completion so you can showcase your achievement and you could brag, right, you could post it on your LinkedIn, you can hang it on your wall, whatever, but you'll get a certificate of completion a big deal. Number two you'll get a personalized engraved achievement award. Okay, you have to cover the cost. I can't give away everything for free, but we're going to make you this engraved award. It's going to have your name on it. It's really cool. You can put it on your bookshelf or you could put it in your office to get recognized by your peers, right, just to show, hey look, I busted my butt to finish this program and you should have something nice like this.

Like I said, you have to cover the cost, because I'm already offering the program, for the next thing is you're going to get a listing in our certified financial pro directory. Okay, which is going to be huge. You'll get eligibility for our SFL accelerator and you'll also get exclusive access to private events. Because here's the deal, like I know, if you finish the financial pro program, if you go through all the exercises. If you complete the case study, then that just tells me that you're motivated, that you're ambitious, and those are the people that I want to surround myself with, and those are the people that I want to provide additional support to, and that's why, when you finish this program, there are huge perks. Okay, so that's it All right, there's like I said, this is not a marketing program where we hook you in with free content and then we hold back the best stuff to upsell you later, all right.

Instead, this program includes our top quality content and it's all for free. Now, what would mean the world to me is that, if you find this to be valuable, to share it with other people around you, because I'm just thinking all right, you're listening to this, but maybe your brother, your mother, your sister, your cousin, your friend, your high school buddy, whatever in your circle of influence, may also need access to better financial skills. So what better place to go than boosting your financial IQ? Like I said, over a hundred video lessons, and this content is better, I would argue, than almost all the paid content that is out there, which is going to be very disruptive, which will probably make some people very upset, but for me, my mission is to educate millions 10 million people to be exact when it comes to financial literacy millions, 10 million people to be exact when it comes to financial literacy. So that's my gift to you.

Happy new year. I wish you all the best. Thank you so much for being a fan of the boosting your financial IQ platform. Please share this news with everybody. I mean, this is huge. This is all my blood, sweat and tears and capital that I've poured into this platform and I know it's crazy just making it free, but seriously, I care about you as a person and I want you to be successful. I want you to avoid a lot of the mistakes that I made early on in business, and finance is the language of business.

All right, and if you could become fluent in it, trust me like your financial life will improve. You don't have to have any financial knowledge to get started. All right, I keep it very simple and then I build upon each concept and, like I said, you could take this from any device, right? That's it. Like no gimmicks, no other motivation behind this. There's no like treachery or deceit. It's literally just like free, and that's why I'm like excited, but I'm also like a little nervous to do this. I'm like, wow, what am I doing? I'm like crazy, just like giving this away. But thanks for being a fan of the show and I can't wait for all the changes that will roll out in 2025. And just for all the people that will have access to this moving forward. All right, until next time, take care of yourself. Cheers.