EP70 The Gift that keeps on TAKING

BOL 70

Transcript

[INTRODUCTION]

EPISODE 70

[0:00:13] KC: Welcome to the Business of Life Podcast. My name is Keith Callahan, your host and today, we are talking about the gift that never stops taking and I’m going to dive right in. I guess before I dive right in, I just want to give a shout out to you and let you know that I appreciate you listening all the time and really keeps me going with this.

It’s not an easy thing I’m realizing to do a three day a week show but the feedback, everybody who’s been listening in, the download numbers going up every single week, it really fuels my fire to keep putting this information out there because I know there’s some value to it. I know people are getting something out of it.

So yeah, today we’re going to talk about the gift that never stops taking and what I referring to is the gift of credit, the gift of available credit to us here in this country. I want to start off with a little bit of a story and I guess I’ll do a little preface to this story or just a little note. This isn’t something that I’m bragging about or anything like that, it’s really, I want to make a point here.

So Amy and I recently bought a new home about a year and a half ago. When we went to buy the home, part of the things that you have to do is you have to fill out a credit thing and a mortgage application and all of that. When we went in to fill out the mortgage application, the approval came back and the approval came back, they approved us to get a mortgage with a monthly payment up to $24,000 a month.

So yes, not 2,400, not $24,000 a month. The house that we own right now, the house that we wound up buying the mortgage payment with everything included and it is $2,700 a month. So they approved us for $24,000 and we bought a house with a mortgage for $2,700 and have a planned to actually pay that house off next month.

All right, so I wanted to start with all of that. I figured it might get your attention a little bit but the big piece, it was tempting not to get a mortgage for the $24,000 and again, they’re saying this is

© 2016 The Business of Life 1

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what you can afford. This is what we’ll approve you for because this is what you can afford and that’s the gift that keeps on taking, right?

So many times and so many — I’ve talked to so many people about their finances and so many friends of mine and whenever they’re buying something, it’s based off what they can get approved for. Not what they can afford in their own personal budget but what the bank tells them they can afford, right? I am being slow and deliberately slow with this part and this piece.

If you’re looking for the magic formula that I’m going to give today and this magic thing is not really going to be any of that. It’s going to be simple, it’s going to be basic but I personally believe that the misuse, the emotional purchasing, the misuse of personal finance, the taking on of credit is what actually strips you of freedom in your life.

The finance companies, the companies that are offering you loans, they do not have your interest in mind. Your mortgage broker does not have your interest in mind. They make a commission based off of what type of package they put you in. The bigger the loan, the bigger the commission. I mean it’s just basic, basic, simple stuff.

So I wanted to start bringing that up and looking at your personal finance. Do you have a personal finance plan or is it just month to month, bill to bill and I did an episode about this a few months back and a lot of people really liked it and a lot of people had taken offence to it and I just want to reiterate one of the points that I made in that previous episode.

If you’re not ahead of the game right now with your finances, if you’re an adult, you’re out there, you’re in the world and you’re not ahead of the game, it’s not because you lost a job, it’s not because this happened, it’s not because that happened. We’re not going through the great depression. It’s because of a mismanagement of personal finance.

I know that’s tough and I know a lot of people there’s all types of different things that may have happened in your life but the base, the core of the mismanagement of personal finance is taking on debt and I would challenge you to do in your life, I believe that there’s a few things in life, one of the things that I focus on is what are the big levers?

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What’s the big, big lever, the thing that’s going to make the most difference on the world? Not taking on debt. Except for your mortgage and then paying that off as quickly as you can, but not taking on debt and I know that a lot of times, we’ll get, “Well that’s not reality. I need the car to go make the money and this and that”.

Okay, I get it and I do believe you can have a little bit of leeway there, maybe you’ve got to take the course. The $500 course that could change everything for you but are you being realistic with yourself? Are you being realistic when you have to have a $30,000 car and take on a monthly payment and you’ve been doing this and you’ve had monthly payments for the last 20 years?

I get it, it’s a daily struggle. Not a struggle but I watch my temptations now. I have the ability to sit there and to watch it and to not react to it. I’m really going to hit this hard today because I believe if you take control of this, it is one of those life changing things. It gives you freedom. Freedom is one of the most important words to me in my life.

Do I have freedom? And the more freedom I have, the more choice I have. The more choice I have, the more good I can do in the world, the happier I can be, the better husband I can be, the better parent I can be, the better friend I can be, the better philanthropist I can be, the better mentor, the better leader and it all comes from freedom.

And when we’re chasing all of the shiny objects, we’re chasing something that is an empty promise. It’s going to make you feel good for a certain period of time and then you’re going to want the next thing that you need to make you feel good again. What we need to do, what we need to stop, where we need to draw the line is making a personal decision that we’re not going to give into the temptation for stuff because we feel like it’s going to make us feel good.

The stuff is cool. You can do all the stuff when you can afford all the stuff. If you’re taking a loan for the stuff, you can’t afford the stuff. All right, I might be getting a little bit, “um, um, um.” Listen, I am saying this with so much love. I am saying it with so much compassion. I am saying it from somebody who has gone through this road themselves, right? From somebody who is very tempted to get the five or six thousand dollar a month mortgage because we could afford it but I didn’t need it. It wasn’t going to make me happier.

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What my wife and I focus on and what we’re really digging our self into when we’re getting deeper and deeper and deeper into this is I want all of my happiness, I want all of my self- esteem, I want all of my self-worth to come from the inside out. I want to spend the time working on loving myself because if you can’t, if you’re not — here’s an important thing to remember. If you don’t remember anything else from today’s podcast episode, if you’re not happy without the thing, you’re not going to be happy when you get the thing.

Let me rephrase that or repeat it: If you’re not happy without the thing, you’re not going to be happy when you get the thing. It could be the spouse, the kid, the job, the new car, the new house, the vacation, the whatever it is. We’re spending time focusing on the wrong things as a society. As a society, we’re chasing all the bright shiny things and friends, we are the most unhappy society in history. That’s a really vague statement but it’s crazy.

We’re unhappy, we’re unhealthy and it’s simple. It’s because we’re chasing the wrong things. Again, there’s nothing wrong with those luxuries but if you’re happiness, if your self-worth, if your self-esteem is built on them, if you’re sapping your own freedom because now you have the car payment and you have the credit card debt and you have the huge student loans, you have the big mortgage and you have all these stuff and you’re trapped.

If you’re in that situation, one of the simplest things to do, the most important thing to do is to just stop. Maybe you need to sell the car, maybe you need to trade it in, maybe you just need one really good dependable car in the family and someone else in the family has a beater. So just circling back with all of that, it’s simple. Its two, two very simple concepts and simple philosophies and that first concept, that first philosophy is you are not going to find happiness by taking on debt.

It’s going to be the gift that keeps on taking more and more from you and what its taking is it’s sapping your happiness. It’s sapping your freedom right away from you. It’s taking it away and the deeper piece to that is, I believe as adults, as human beings in this world, it’s an emotional and spiritual stability piece if we’re continuing to reach out and look for the next fixes that we think are going to bring happiness to us.

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It’s a drug, it’s going to bring you temporary happiness and then the crash is going to be a lot worst or maybe we don’t crash. Maybe we keep buying more and more and more and getting further and further and further into debt, paying more and more interest. Think about it. Interest is you taking your hard earned money and giving it away.

If you pay cash for a car, you don’t pay interest. You have the value of that car and you pay for it. You have an equal exchange. When you take on credit, you’re paying somebody else to use their money. The more credit we take on, the more of our hard earned money just goes away. Gone, nothing to show for it.

So kind of a morbid episode. A little bit firm, a lot firm, listen, just think about it in this simple way. There are a few big levers in your life. There are a few things that if you make the decision to do it, it’s going to have a huge impact on your life. Not taking on debt, is one of those levers because it gives you freedom.

In this country, at this time with what’s available to you, all the information, all the education, anything you need to become a success is available to you. It’s at your fingertips. Hard work, hustle, education, continuing to better yourself, you can do it or you can go the other route. I’ve spent a lot of time going the other route.

I will tell you it created stress, it created anxiety, it created depression, it created a low self- esteem. The Joneses may look good on the outside but trust me, they’re not happy on the inside. One more point about debt, there’s good debt and bad debt. It’s really, really simple. Good debt is any debt that makes you money.

So if I have a rental property and the monthly payments on it is $2,000 a month but the monthly rent is $4,000 a month, that’s good debt. Real simple, right? Your house is not good debt. It’s sort of one of the biggest misconceptions. “Oh, but it always goes up in value.” Guess what? It’s not going up in value for a long time.

We went up so far for so long and over the last 10 years, you would have been in most markets in the United States. You would have been much better off renting for 10 years. “But yeah, I am

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paying down my mortgage, this and that,” yeah, well renting would have been half the price for the same type of property. The value didn’t even go up, it actually went down.

So rambling a little bit there but good debt versus bad debt. Listen, all in all with this, one of the recommendations I’ve recommended this before, check out Dave Ramsey’s stuff. Go ahead, check it out, I’d love to hear what you think about it but yes, stop receiving the gift that keeps taking from you and that gift that keeps taking from you is credit.

All right, have a beautiful weekend. I’m going to put a smile back on my face and I had a smile on my face going to this entire thing and part of the Business of Life Podcast, right?I want to be bringing the stuff that is going to help you live a better life and sometimes, we have to face reality. Sometimes we have to face the music. Sometimes we have to face the decisions we’ve made that have led up to this point and the things that we need to change.

All right, peace. [FINAL MESSAGE]

[0:16:19] KC: Hey, Keith here, and today I have a free gift for you. Listen this free gift is a list of the 12 most influential books that I’ve ever read. These are the books that have helped me to create the mindset, learn the philosophies, learn the skills to really create this big, beautiful, life that we’re living now.

I read a crazy amount of books, I really do. I’ve probably read thousands of books and these are the top 12 books that – they’re the ones that I go to, they’re the ones that I work with over, and over, and over again. They are highlighted, outlined, dog-eared. And I put this list together for you because I want it to be a shortcut.

I don’t want you to have to – you don’t have to go out and read the thousands and thousands of books. These are the 12 that I highly recommend. I have a detailed review for each book, explaining why I recommend them, why I like them, when I worked with them in my life, what part of my life they helped me to improve.

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So I put this together for you, and made it super each for you to get this list. All you have to do is send a text to the number 33444 and then in the body of that text, type in “12books” with no space. So that’s the number “12books”. Again, send the text message to the number, address it to 33444 and then type in “12books” as the message and just send that. And that’ll get you setup to receive those top 12 most influential books that have had the biggest impact on my life.

[SPONSOR MESSAGE]

[0:18:23] KC: Today’s episode is brought to you by our sister podcast, All About Beachbody Coaching. So All About Beachbody Coaching really allows us to do this podcast without having all those annoying commercials in the beginning for you. So All About Beachbody Coaching, the Beachbody business that Amy and I run, actually funds this podcast.

So yes, it does cost money to run this podcast, we do not charge you anything, we don’t throw in commercials or anything like that, it really is, it’s funded by our business and by our other podcast, All About Beachbody Coaching. And for me, I’m just eternally grateful for this opportunity because it’s allowed me to really create the life that I love to live.

It’s given me the opportunity to do what I want, when I want, with who I want, and even deeper than that, it’s allowed me to help others to create the same for themselves. It’s allowed me to help hundreds of other people become part time or full time Beachbody coaches, to leave that corporate 9 to 5 job and create passive income in their lives.

And really there’s nothing like that. It’s cool when you have success, it’s so much more rewarding when you help others. So I mention this or a few reasons, the first reason is, that’s actually the way that I work with people and mentor people. I don’t do anything outside of Beachbody coaching because I know that it’s such a powerful life changing tool.

So if you’re curious about working with me, interested in working one-on-one, interested in creating the type of life that you wanna live, I suggest swinging over there. The other reason is, even if somebody’s just curious, like you’ve heard about Beachbody, you know there’s a lot of Beachbody coaches out there. Maybe some of them you get a little annoyed with.

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It really dives into what this business is really about, which is life transformation. So if you’re just curious, swing over there. And then the other piece is, if you’re really considering becoming a Beachbody coach, I highly, highly recommend you listen to that first.

Alright, much love guys. Again, that is the All About Beachbody Coaching Podcast, our sister podcast.

[0:20:50] ANNOUNCER: Thank you for listening to the Business of Life Podcast. Apply what you learned today and you’ll be one step closer to creating the life you love to live.

[END]

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