485 | Three Rules For Changing Your Financial Trajectory

Chris LoCurto 0:01
Learn to shift your financial trajectory whether in life or business with these three steps that is coming up next

Chris LoCurto 0:19
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto´s show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. On today's show. I've got our own VP of leadership development in the virtual studio Mr. Joel Fortner and also we're also joined by Mr. Brian Alex our Podcast Producer Live all the way from Saatchi Lea Sicily. And we're gonna get something really fun lined up for you today. What is it I actually have no real good idea so I'm just gonna welcome guys guys welcome to the show. Got an idea I've got an idea it's the financial

Brian A 1:06
is also live Joel is live I

Joel Fortner 1:08
can present that's where being listened to though. I'm hopefully Lord willing alive. But still, I'm just recording.

Chris LoCurto 1:18
Yes, yes. When this actually plays hopefully so you're both what we're all three live. How amazing is that? We're all

Joel Fortner 1:24
love it. So this reminds me of a scene from Westling where

Chris LoCurto 1:32
I can't believe your mind you.

Joel Fortner 1:34
It's like we it's like we just cracked the code on live TV or broadcasting. We just figured it out for everybody.

Chris LoCurto 1:42
So just for the listening, folks, because apparently so far this shows just for the three of us right now. That's just what feels like it's just the three of us talking. For those listening. We are first off we always say that we are certified dorks because we are we actually have certifications on being dorks. One thing that we do, Joel and I especially Brian loved it when he was here in the states is that we constantly quote movies. Now, from Brian's perspective, he says we only quote three. But there's more. It's just the three we quote from have great quotes. And one of them is not a movie. It's a TV show. It's the West Wing. And so Katherine always counts down how fast Joel is gonna get to a quote from West Wing, though the West Wing quote of the day. This reminds Meccans in the West Wing.

Joel Fortner 2:33
It's just so difficult because there's so many details, you know, from the show, and they just constantly keep showing up in life.

Chris LoCurto 2:40
That it just crazy, just because anyways, alright, so outside of our entertainment life, Brian, what are we doing today?

Brian A 2:48
Well,

Chris LoCurto 2:51
deep subject trying to get us to disagree on something.

Brian A 2:54
We are, we are gonna get to disagree. You've got that opportunity today, whether you sees it is up to you. But we have another three rules episode coming at you if you have listened. God bless you, first of all,

Chris LoCurto 3:12
listening to this episode.

Brian A 3:16
But we have, we've been playing around with a little format here, a series that we call three rules. And today's is called three rules for changing your financial trajectory. The idea the name of the game is that we're going to get to in just a few minutes, three rules. And we try to have Chris and Joelle disagree, or at least help elaborate or tweak the rules as they would say it so that we can hear some of the ideation that goes into arriving at a certain stance or a certain perspective. I think so let

Chris LoCurto 3:54
me just kind of let me kind of speak into the the goal is for us to Joel and I to give great information. Brian's goal is that Joe and I duke it out and disagree on something.

Brian A 4:06
For the entertainment, I'm here I they can't see me. I've got popcorn, I got my soda. I'm ready to go. Fight, fight fight. Yeah. Well, I totally agree with Joel on that. Well, I totally agree with you, Chris. I'm like, Come on, give me some entertainment.

Chris LoCurto 4:23
The funny thing is, we did have something I think in Bible study or something where I don't remember what was it was just an off like, normal topic. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I slightly disagree with that. Brian wishes he was here right now. So our hope is that we do give you really good information. So what are we?

Brian A 4:40
Yeah, so we're gonna set this up. I'm gonna do a bit of an introduction here. We can make some comments. We'll go to a break, we'll come back and we'll hit the three points but for today, and the idea of setting a financial trajectory, you know, we're coming out of a season, locked down and all of this kind of stuff and, you know, I, I'm thinking about our own demographic, the folks that have tuned in and listened for years. You know, the things that we talked about today may not be so much on the nose, but it's something all of us have to consider, as we get into the three rules that will make more sense. But to set kind of a 30,000 foot view right here, a lot of people, both pre and post pandemic report feeling stuck. This is just from various news agencies, stuck financially unable to make a change to their fiscal trajectory. And I mean, that can feel hopeless thinking, well, maybe I'll always struggle, maybe I'll always just be getting by, I wonder if this new business venture will ever be profitable. And you know, just listen to some of these stats. And again, this may not be our 100% our demographic, but I mean, think about the people listening, that could feel this way, nearly half of Americans feel stuck when it comes to their financial situations. And that's from as a survey from Prudential. And so how many folks there just a question for the two of you how many folks that we run into whether in personal side with next level life or on the business side was strapped planned, or at least concerned? They have financial concerns, and they feel stuck?

Joel Fortner 6:19
Yeah, there's a good number, I mean, that we we work with on both sides are lots of leaders that can feel stuck financially, because they are great at making stuff and products and services. But they didn't want to be an accountant. They don't want to live in swim in numbers. And so they don't know the information. But then the emotional stuff starts to play into their decision making and they start to feel stuck. I don't know what to do the same thing on the personal life for a lot of people come through, and they're not sure what to do. They're not sure how to how to leverage their money, they're not sure how to budget their money, control their money, invest their money. They don't come from that background, they've never been taught, or they're in relationship challenges, maybe even in their marriage today, where both people are on different pages. And it's not really it's money that's causing them to be stuck. It's trying to navigate communication in the relationship.

Chris LoCurto 7:12
Here comes a disagreement. Here it is.

Brian A 7:17
I'm writing it down.

Joel Fortner 7:19
It's being recorded, because we're live, okay,

Brian A 7:22
it's being recorded. I forgot we're live.

Chris LoCurto 7:24
Okay, it's less of a disagreement and more of a different perspective. Because I think of who Joel is, when worked when Joel and I are speaking to people, I spend a full week with leadership teams and things like that. So when Joel is like doing strat plan and stuff, Joe's coaching, one on ones, stuff like that. And so one of the things and so this is not a disagreement, this is a different perspective, I'm seeing the frustration of the business owners and leaders that can't get people in the door that are frustrated that they can't hire people that there they don't feel like the like the folks that are coming through stripe, I think keep in mind, you have to have a decent level of success. It doesn't have to be great. It just has to be enough level of success to make it into a strapline event. They're frustrated, the place that they feel stuck is not Oh, my gosh, I don't have money. Oh, my gosh, the pandemic really affected my finances in such a horrible way. Believe it or not, a lot of folks have been able to pivot really well. A lot of our clients have been able to pivot adjust, do things that we teach and do really well through it. The place that they feel like they're struggling is people don't want to work. Like it's just ridiculous to see. Every single client who comes in has the same exact problem. I'm not able to hire good people, like I'm struggling to get good people in the door. We could do so much more if we had good people coming in the door. So I don't know if I would consider that. Like for me. I don't look at their position as stuck. I obviously don't look at our position as DACA we you know, we're we've been debt free for decades. We don't have you know, all its work, but we do too. We're always constantly looking for great people, and we got a solid team. But I don't know if I would consider them stuck. So maybe I'm not hearing it the correct way. But the people that I'm sitting down in a strap plan with aren't coming to the table going I'm feeling stuck financially, they're going I'm feeling stuck because I have money to pay people and I can't get them in the door. And that's one of the things that I'm saying. I don't know if you consider that a disagreement.

Brian A 9:36
No, I you know, and if all we get to guys is better perspective, then I'm content to not have argued It's fine as long as we get

Joel Fortner 9:49
you relented.

Brian A 9:52
All right. So here's some controversial According to CNBC, the be all and To all of truth and legitimacy 77% of Americans report feeling anxious about their financial situation. So even if you're not feeling stuck or blocked, unable to get traction, you probably have some stress about finances and maybe even as you're thinking ahead, where am I going to be next year, three years from now? Am I on the right track? Well, that's that's what we want to deal with today. So I don't want to get too deep into that. I want to jump to the rules, but I know you're gonna feel it. Hit it, hit it hit that you're gonna get.

Chris LoCurto 10:48
That takes me off. Now, maybe 70% of of people who who follow CDC to CNBC, maybe maybe the stat is accurate with CNBC. There. But here's the thing, let's say the stat was accurate. world, you know, America wide, right. When I come into work, I couldn't tell you the number of we're hiring signs. I drive by, you know, just as I was just talking about there was strat plan. You know, and I know Joe's seeing that with companies in all of the next level mastermind groups and all that kind of stuff. I know, he's seeing that there, too. I drive by so many freaking, we're hiring signs. You know, we've got up at the ridge, we I can't get them. The company who delivers fuel, not just one company, but multiple companies, I can't get them to deliver fuel, because they can't get people to come in, get paid really good money to go drive a truck. Right? It's we see it everywhere. And what I do not understand and I don't nobody has been able to explain this to me really well yet. And I haven't figured it out. Where are these people that used to work that used to work and get paid, right? So if the stat is true that 77% of people are feeling financially stressed, or however it was that it said It's shame on most of you, right? Because there's a whole lot of opportunity out there to go and make money. You can go get jobs, you could go work. But I find so many people that just aren't working, they're not really doing that much. They're, you know, job hopping, or, you know, I don't know what they're doing, I guess maybe they're riding mom and dad's couch or something. I don't know, there's my rant on that. Maybe it's the 77% of people who follow CNBC do feel that way. But I'd love to challenge that on of those 77%. How many were actually holding a full time job, you know, and are actually busting it. So there you go. There's my rant. I think with our followers, we probably didn't lose too many right there.

Brian A 12:54
Push back from Joel, before we go to a break.

Chris LoCurto 12:57
Once you're all back, brother.

Joel Fortner 12:59
No, no push back. I'm ready for the rules.

Unknown Speaker 13:01
All right.

Chris LoCurto 13:03
You're experiencing the same thing? I mean, we talked about this, you're getting the same?

Joel Fortner 13:08
Yeah, they do. It's just it's the same. They're hiring is a major issue and trying to find good people. You know, I just wonder it's like when we say people still, you know, feel financially stressed or stuck. It's like, what a lot of people mean by that, because it may not be their income, it may be all their decision making regarding their income. And it's a because they're not budgeting they're not spending their communication, maybe with their spouse is terrible. They can't get on the same page. They don't know what to do. People feel stuck. This is an emotional thing. Or a lot of people feeling stuck because of all this chatter and talk about, you know, ours, you know, the economy, inflation, potential recession, it's like, how is that playing on, on people and our people, a lot of people just struggling with fear.

Chris LoCurto 13:52
That's a fantastic piece of perspective. So here's our here's our Dave Ramsey plug, go through Financial Peace University. If that's you totally go make right decisions to get your finances in order. All right, Brian, where do you want to go from here?

Brian A 14:07
Well, coming up next, the rules that you need to follow in order to change your financial trajectory.

Speaker 2 14:19
Freedom, it's so powerful,

Unknown Speaker 14:21
I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed,

Speaker 2 14:23
I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there. That had a really big impact on me, that's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard, but it's going to be even better on the other side.

Unknown Speaker 14:40
For me, it was just, it was just very refreshing. And I'm gonna say lifegiving. For me, it really was,

Speaker 2 14:46
you know, I would go to the next level life again, and probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful.

Chris LoCurto 14:54
I want you to ask yourself a question. Could you hear the sense of hope and freedom and their voices too? Just that, I want you to know, that could be you. Look, it's easy to get trapped in old habits, negative thought patterns and unhealthy relationships, it's gonna take some work. But yes, there is hope for you. If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, the same kind of self awareness and freedom that they have, or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to Chris liccardo.com/next level life.

Brian A 15:31
All right, welcome back. Well, here's how we play, I'm gonna read a rule and its associated rationale. And then one of you get to kick it off with an immediate gut reaction. Maybe you love it, maybe you hate it, we need to modify it, whatever fit your perspective and experience, then the other can weigh in agreeing disagreeing. However, more points for the more disagreement, as you know, and the points always matter. Well, getting into Perl number one, they mean nothing, they really mean nothing, really not nothing. Getting into rule number one, I guess we you know, taking some of the perspective from the introduction there, what we need to say is rule number 0.1, something before one is make sure that you're working. And if you're in a state like Tennessee, Florida, Texas, there are jobs to be had. And that is rule number one would be find a source of income if you don't have one. And you know, I think that should go without saying maybe it doesn't. But let's get into if that is already resolved. If somebody's being gainfully employed, working as much as they can, They're busting it. What could be holding them back Rule number one is get rid of the debt, get rid of what's holding you back, this may seem really common sense or a total game changer for others. Maybe it'll take a change of mind for some people here, but you've got to get rid of the weight, you can't move forward, onward upwards, well anchored to your past. What say you gentleman? Rule number one?

Joel Fortner 17:13
Yeah, well, I mean, I totally agree. I mean, it's looking back, I used to not think that way, until, you know, I met Mary Beth and then met, you know, you, Chris, and Dave Ramsey, and all this stuff, and really got into learning how to do money in a much better way. You know, I was the guy who used to always say, it's like, oh, you know, always have a car payment, that's just normal. That's just how that is. It's your training. And it's your mindset of what's acceptable and what's not. But when you get rid of the debt, you all of a sudden have options. And because it's it's you look at analyze your decision making, it's like, well, what kind of decision making gets you into debt. And then if you can't train your decision making, you'll never actually get out of debt. Because you're, you will still want that lifestyle, that you're like, I want this, and I want that, and I've graduated college now, and I deserve this. And I want what I you know, I grew up in my in, you know, a lot of younger people grew up in their parents house, and they were used to that lifestyle that their parents killed themselves in order to have, and that's they don't think about, well, I'm gonna have to start over one day. And it's all this training, that goes into our decision making that holds us back from actually getting solving the debt. Because you have to get to a place where you're willing to actually, you know, sacrifice and say no to a lot of things, because you're really after having more financial freedom and more options. And when you actually don't have that debt, you all of a sudden have a lot more leverage of your money and a lot more freedom, you get to actually do the things. It's just can you get to a place where you can delay that gratification or trying to keep up with the Joneses or keep up with what your peers are doing. And it's being able to really discipline yourself. That is really what I have found to be the keys here in order to actually even follow this rule.

Brian A 19:05
Yeah, Chris, is that possible from a business perspective as well, or just

Chris LoCurto 19:11
getting? Getting rid of the debt, getting rid of the debt 1,000% We've never had debt in the plumbing group. I've been debt free for decades. And I have helped so many businesses, and not only not only that, but I mean, I remember the very first church that we went into 20 years ago, is it longer than that? Well, maybe not that long, but close to it and just help them to actually handle their finances and get their their congregants to go through and get their finances straight. And I remember when I was leaving Dave's cheese 10 years ago, that that church had gotten everybody in the church, the congregation and the church was 100% debt free. So it's not just you know, this this concept of you have To have debt and debt is your friend is so ridiculous. And people just literally, there's a lot of people who are listening to this right now going Well, Chris, you just don't understand you're just, you know, you drank the Kool Aid, I have sat down with businesses that are using millions of dollars of debt to, in their mind make millions of dollars, right? They sit down with their plans. And like, Chris, you don't understand, look at what we're doing. We couldn't do this. Without the millions of dollars worth of debt, we couldn't do this, we couldn't do this. And then I sit down there with them. And I go, let's watch this. Let's start making this adjustment, start taking this much out of your profit and pay towards this debt and this here. And then when you make this buy, it's okay, keep go ahead and keep using your debt. But watch what happens in this amount of time, you're now doing the same thing fully funded with cash, and now all the profit years. And as I show it to them, they're like, Yeah, but that'll take me five years, right? In in five years, look at how much more cash how much value your company will be worth, than doing it the way you're doing it today. And then they're like, oh, my gosh, I've never looked at it that way. I have done that with so many businesses. And it's just always amazes me how many businesses sit down and just go, Chris, you don't understand. Okay. Well, we're debt free. You know, when COVID hit, we didn't let anybody and a lot of companies did not most of our, almost all of our clients that have been following the things that we teach did not let people go, they did a great job. They transitioned well, they pivoted, they made smart decisions. So for all of those companies out there that are saying it can't be done. I'm sorry, that's just not correct. It can't be done the way you want to do it. But there's a smarter way that allows you when things go ridiculously bad, which things continue to do that, you're in a better position, you can do more, you have like Joel said, you have more opportunities. Debt robs you of your opportunities, when you don't have debt and you have cash, you can do stuff with it. So that's the way we've been we've, you know, I've always run all the businesses, you know, debt free, and they do well.

Brian A 22:09
I love it debt robs you of your opportunities. Well, we'll put Well, all of you know, all of you too. I was, I was in the military, once upon a time in the Navy back when we had ships with sails and oars, and

Chris LoCurto 22:28
all of that big drones that they beat.

Joel Fortner 22:32
Like one Viking

Brian A 22:35
ramming speed. Yeah, it was just like that. That's how I remember it anyway. And so if we're going to build a little analogy, I'll use a naval one just like weighing an anchor, okay, you've got to set your sails. And before you get some traction, so that when the wind is blowing, you've got those opportunities. And so that's rule number two. Getting into the second one here is to give every dollar a job, put a name on it, put every one of the dollars to work, right. Because many times people shy away from dealing with the debt or not tasking every dollar with a job because of fear. They, I know this was true for me when I carried debt, I didn't want to sit down and look at the real situation. And so I didn't look at the debt, I kept adding to it. And I didn't want to get down to the budget, just like you're saying, you're taking these businesses through a process of actually analyze and say, in a couple of years, you could be debt free, this would all be profit, and you could change dramatically the trajectory of your business. So yeah, this seems like the logical next rule. But guys, what say you give every dollar a job and put every one of them to work?

Chris LoCurto 23:53
Yeah. I think this is going to be the finished piece promo show. You know, one of the things that Dave says which comes from was it Larry Burkett, or was it John Maxwell, maybe you'll remember Joe is give every dollar a name. Same kind of concept. But the job what you're pointing out is give every dollar a job right? If I do not spend time looking at what I have coming in and assigning it a job, I want you to go pay for my rent, I want you to pay for fuel, I want you to pay for insurance, I want you to pay for groceries. When I do not assign a task a job I name however you want to put it to that dollar, then what tends to happen is I spend everything I've got and then some. So let's go back to in the front side of the show when Joe Joe was pointing out, you know, people are feeling stuck and things like that, or I'm sorry, when I was putting on the CNBC quote, When Joe was pointing out, you know, maybe they're making plenty of money. They're working hard. The problem is, is that they're spending everything that they've got. Can't get more common sense than this. If you make $100, and you spend $100, you have $0. There, there's no trick there. There's nothing you can do to fix that you can't change that. It doesn't it, you know, for so when people are making money, and they're surprised that they're constantly broke, and they're surprised that they can't, you know, they can't get ahead and they can't afford to pay for, you know, a transmission that one out or whatever. And they don't sit down and use common sense with their dollars. You just don't get to be surprised. Let me say it another way, if you make $100. And like most Americans, and I'm old on this debt, so this has been a long time since I've looked at this debt, but I believe most Americans spend for every dollar they spend $1.10, or dollar 20. I think I can't, I can't remember. And again, maybe Joel, remember that stat. But let's just say you're spending $1.10 For every dollar that you make, so if you make $100, and you spend $110. Where are you? Where are you? Where's the point where you get ahead? Where's the point?

You know, what, and this is what I believe everybody thinks, well, someday, I'm going to make $200. And then I will pay back all of those $10 extra that I spent. And here's what we know, for a fact, as people gain more money, what's the first thing they do is, in fact, most raises are immediately spent on new cars, new purchases, right? So if you get a raise, you get all jacked up excited, and then go spend that money, you go into further into debt? Well, I don't know. I don't know how to make it more common sense. Right. And again, it's you know, Brian, if you ask the question about the businesses, again, it's the same concept. We live, I live in our accounting, you know, the stuff that Joe's team get feeds me, as far as information, Katherine, Heather, all of that stuff. I live in the accounting, making decisions on what we can do, we just hired four new people. I think, Joe, I think that's correct. Because we had money to go and hire four more people, right, we're still looking for one more. And I live in that place of going, I can do this, pay people make purchases, do the things that we need to do to run the business and out of the money that is ours, that belongs to Heather and I we actually give a portion of that back and profit sharing, because it's there. And we you know, we we share that with the team. So that's my take on it, Jojo of it.

Joel Fortner 27:56
Yeah, totally, totally. I think some of the things you can see in your examples, Chris are, you know, it's how you're making decisions. You know, it's really I'm going to use the word maturity and immaturity. I mean, it just is. I used to be very immature in my decision making with money. And but I had to get better information. But I really had to tame Joel, in order to say, hey, that's gotta wait, you've got to not do that. Because that's the thing. It's like, you know, it's like I was leading people through Financial Peace University years ago in Washington, DC area. And I was leading people through that have a bachelor's on debt, a master's on debt and a law degree from a DC University. And combined debt was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of dollars. But it's that man, but went on here, and I'm killing it, and I'm making it, I'll then go back and pay off this $750,000 worth of student loan debt, that you're not looking at yourself at 35 saying, What am I going to be willing to sacrifice in order to have the money to actually now go pay that because now I'm 35. And I want what I want, and I want to drive but I want it and I want the house to be what I want it to be. I'm not going to go live in some piddly place. It doesn't cost me anything.

Chris LoCurto 29:14
How much credit card debt would they normally have? Because obviously they're adding debt as they go along. Right? Yeah,

Joel Fortner 29:20
yeah, they'd have a lot as well. And so it was just like, man, it was such a massive hole to dig out of but, you know, getting control of your money is what this rule is all about. It's looking at what you're making and actually assigning names, giving it clarity, putting in boundaries and controlling what's actually coming into your household or into your business. And it's putting structure structure is good in life and in business period. Without it It's chaos and then fear and worry comes in. So when you can actually you know, learn Okay, here's the money that's coming in. And now let me break out every single thing of where money needs to go include Putting those line items that say, Hey, this amount is, is going to be $100 A month or 200 bucks a month is going to go in the budget to save for a future vehicle. Because this one's not going to last for 80 years, or I'm going to want something different or, or if but we have to be able to it's again, I keep coming back to kind of a theme for me in this conversation is, yeah, but it's that Yeah. But Joel, I don't want to put $200 to pay for a car that I may need in five years. Yeah, I want to go do this thing that I want to do now. And it's like, you know what, I totally get it. I absolutely get it. You can do that with your money. It's your budget. But look at the risk that you're assuming when you need that new transmission, or you need that new vehicle. It's being able to discipline ourselves is such a key,

Chris LoCurto 30:55
I think is so good. And you know, what's going through my head is how many people because we hear this? Well, you don't understand, though I only make $26,000. Well, you don't understand. This is my such well, you don't understand. We've been there. I literally so I grew up poor. There was one time in our life, we were rich, and it was for a short period of time. And we went right back to poor, right. We were the ones getting the government cheese. Which by the way, there was a time decades ago, it actually tasted really good. We were the ones that the church would leave groceries on the front porch, right? So I grew up in that situation, when I was 18, I could get credit cards, I went ballistic, I immediately went out got Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and didn't realize I paid minimums on my cards and didn't realize that you were back in those days, you're supposed to pay American Express off completely didn't do it. I only I sent them a little like I'm like there's no word says the minimum I'll just send them 25 bucks, gotta take it away from me inside of a VHS store. If how many of our listeners can remember what that was, you know, like a blockbuster only. It was VHS. And I was so embarrassed at 19 years old, I think I was. And I was just like, You know what, this is stupid. And so immediately, I'm like, I'm not living this way. I'm not doing this, I thought I had all this freedom. And I was gonna use debt to my advantage because we grew up poor. And look at this. And I mean, it was an immediate shift. And for me had to get solved that problem. But I mean, I worked multiple jobs, to get out of debt. I worked multiple jobs to, you know, hours and hours and hours, just saving everything I could to pay off debt to when I had my first mortgage, which, again, it's a debt, you know, got that thing paid off within a handful of years, I think it was four or five years, working multiple jobs. It wasn't until after that, that I actually started making really good money. So like, as Joel is using the example of folks that are, you know, $750,000 in debt, and somebody's going well, I can't relate to that. I've only got, you know, 100,000 or 200 or 45,000. Those people make lots of money. And they have lots of debt, right? So it's not like it, it's different for somebody else. Because the numbers change. If you're making bad financial debt decisions, you're gonna be stuck no matter what no ifs, ands or buts about it. Yep,

Brian A 33:21
love it. I love the perspective guys, the emotional part, the maturity part. And just the the decision making part and willing to suffer a little bit if you can say it like that in the in the short run. So that long run and we're talking about trajectory, we're talking about destiny changing, you're gonna have to sacrifice a little bit in order to get there.

Chris LoCurto 33:44
Yeah, and let me just say, the passion, you know, if I sound excited, if I sound frustrated, it's because we've watched so many families get hurt, and people struggle like crazy. So it's not a judgment on all of our listeners who have debt. It's not going hey, you're just stupid. It's going there's a better way and my gosh, if you'll just trust us, if you'll just trust us. That's the passion that's coming out is when people do change and especially military folks, by the way, which have a different you're pointing that out, they get out of debt faster. Because one discipline is a big thing, but also they have better opportunities, you know, housing and stuff like that. One you just

Brian A 34:29
get into debt faster to get away faster to yes for former military I mean, they are targeted, targeted. And you're you know, like you're you're saying as soon as you turn 18 A lot of these guys I was one went into the military signed up when I was 17. As soon as I turned 18 I was in and targeted and got a bunch of credit cards and got a bunch of debt. Just like just like you did, but when they turn on that mechanism of self discipline, willing to sacrifice buys in the short run to win in the long term, they can get out and so can you. If you're listening soak in you Financial Peace University is a great tool to use if you're needing that inspiration and somebody to walk through that process with you. It is a fantastic tool. So that said, put a cap on rule number two coming up next, the third rule you need to follow in order to change your financial destiny.

Joel Fortner 35:31
Hey, it's Joel Fortner. Here, I'm the vice president of leadership development on Chris's team and I oversee our Next Level Mastermind business coaching program. Most business owners and leaders lack a clear path to succeed in business. They question whether the making the right decisions if they're focusing on the right things to really grow their business. If this is you, you need a coach in your life. coaches help you make better decisions, navigate uncertainty lead more effectively, and grow your business without sacrificing your life and your family. In their first year, our clients typically see an average of 67% increase in gross revenue and an average of 138% increase in net profit and regained hours of time. Our clients stay in the program for over three and a half years simply because of the results they get. So if you're ready to run your business at the next level and see the growth you've been wanting, then visit Chris accardo.com/mastermind. Again, Chris accardo.com/mastermind today

Brian A 36:32
and welcome back guys, here we are rule number three, don't Donta we've had we've had we've had great discussion, great perspective, very little abrasive, you know, aggressive. I'm looking for disagreement, but I'm happy this is fine. We've got some good perspective here out I'll be satisfied with this so far. We'll see what we can do here. This one. We've got a little bit more nuance here. Hopefully more room to push and shove. We're inviting pushback. That's what we want. The other day, I told Joel to push back at his own peril. This is what we want. We want push back.

Joel Fortner 37:15
So I pushed back on Brian shirt, because I thought he said a peril. And I was like, What are you talking about apparel,

Brian A 37:21
apparel, American Apparel. Apparel may not be apparent to you. But this is what we're talking about today. Rule number three. So you've removed those anchors, you've weighed anchors, you set your sails easy start to get some traction you're moving. But what do we do to pick up a little momentum? Is it time for a second job, change jobs, and we've got an episode coming up in the next couple of months about changing jobs. How do you know when to quit? When to start something new. Maybe it's time to launch that new business side hustle, new product? Maybe you need to deliver pizzas at night. You know, whatever that looks like that kind of thinking. Here's rule number three, gain some new momentum and fast track the progress you're making. What do you guys think?

Joel Fortner 38:09
Yeah, I Well, I agree with that. And just from personal experience and helping a lot of other people. I remember, when I finally got just pissed off enough about my financial situation, I was standing in Mary Beth's apartment. So Mary Beth's my wife, for those who are listening who don't know that. I was standing in her apartment, and I was a single dude living in Tullahoma, Tennessee. I had great income. I had a super low mortgage that I was paying. And I was paying off. Also, my stupid BMW that I bought was the dumbest one of the dumbest financial decisions I've ever made. Because I had a paid off ultimate and decided I really want to get a BMW because it was my dream car. And it turned into kind of I love the car. But it was kind of a nightmare car because of the payment I was now living in. And I'm standing in her kitchen, wondering where's all of my money. And I finally got pissed enough. And when I'm my personality type is that when I'm done, I flip a switch. And I'm like, now I'm done. Now I'm ready to do the thing. Whether it's kill something or go and create something, once I'm there, I'm there. And that emotion is powerful because I make the decision. I'm done with this. Now I went home and roughed out a super easy budget for me, started getting money under control. I paid off the BMW and I'm super fast amount of time Mary Beth and I stopped going out and spending as much on expensive dates, which was great for her because she was always concerned that obviously she would never be with this guy because he doesn't do money correctly. And she got herself out of 10s of 1000s of dollars of debt. And now she's attached herself to this new boyfriend that's not very smart with money and says the things like I'll always have a car payment and so once she saw that change in me that was hope for her and nothing it's ever been the same with money as I got out of debt cut off the credit cards cancel them it was all this intensity and emotion to be like I have to now switch this and now all of a sudden I've got a whole bunch of money which then I started you know now in the future could save up for an engagement ring and all that kind of thing and pay cash for everything and then funny enough Mary Beth's she's like it's funny enough I literally sold my that home and Tullahoma I sold it the day before we got married. And we literally got married debt free at No, we rented a place up in Montego, Tennessee, and started debt free. We cash flowed her master's degree after that everything was cash flowed. after that. It all came from that intensity and the emotion and the momentum that you're talking about Brian. But that's

Brian A 40:50
not possible with businesses. Is it Chris?

Chris LoCurto 40:53
No, not at all. And it's only possible for John Marybeth. Nobody else could ever do this. Yep,

Joel Fortner 40:59
yep. Right there. You don't bring a motion into business at all ever.

Chris LoCurto 41:05
That's right. Yeah. The softball spike. Oh, gosh, good inside. So what I'm going to say works both personal and business. I think when you listen to Joe's decision, it was a common sense decision. It was a he's an Anna Joel Fortner just said pissed off on the air. I love it. I don't even think I've ever heard Joel Fortner, cuz he just said pissed off. That's fantastic. Is that a customer? No, no, no, no, I'm just I don't even never heard you say pissed off especially on the air. That's for sure. I love I say it all the time. Well, we live we are live. I didn't realize when I moved to the south. So. So here's the thing, I think two things one, Joe just covered the, you know, busting your butt. I, there's one of the fastest things that we did was sell crap. People don't want to get rid of stuff. Oh, my gosh, you've got money sitting there, sell it, get rid of it, you know, and make right decisions like stuff that doesn't matter. You know, if you've got something that is an incredible emotional attachment, then I would probably you know, I'd question that. Why am I so emotionally attached to this thing? Is it something that I should be emotionally attached. But there are times when you look at stuff that you have around the house, if you started selling that stuff, you would be amazed at how much money you would make. And sometimes selling your car is the right thing. Because you have so much on it. Like what we've advised people in the past is you can sell your car for 25 grand get rid of, you know, a lot of the debts and then take a smaller loan for a $5,000 car while it's still debt. Yes, but it's not a $25,000 loan. It's a $5,000 loan. We're working on this, get this thing going get rid of it, right? sell stuff. Take many jobs. Yes, absolutely. When it comes to business, it's the same kind of concept, right? You have to understand if you are sick and tired of being behind and always having the business debt, then you've got to start asking the question, what are you going to do differently? What are you going to do to get rid of this debt? Take a look around? Do you need everything that you own in the business? Do you need everything that you have? You know, I've helped some people look at an expansion on their business like Chris, there's no way I can possibly do this without buying more land putting up a building? Really? Can. Is there any empty buildings in your town that you can go rent for a while? Yeah, but that'd be money down the drain.

While you're making lots of money not paying for that mortgage? Oh, wow. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, go rent something for right now. If this expansion is going to work, take the profit, put it in a new building and pay cash for it. Right. But there's plenty of people even with business, Brian, you know, I mean, there was a time we went there. We're selling old computers. We're like, well, we don't need this. Let's sell stuff. Let's get rid of stuff, right? We've got stuff here. Let's pull some money back into the business. We didn't need the money. We just didn't want the stuff sitting around. And we couldn't do anything with it. So yes, you can do it with business apps think and literally, you just have to get to a place where you ask yourself how tired I am. How pissed off Am I with my current financial situation? Am I done being you know, being stressed out? You know, the things that stress me out when it comes to finances in our business? Is making bigger decisions. Ooh, can we do that? Can we do something different and it doesn't stress me out. It's a you know, when I'm looking at the leadership and I'm going Hey, guys, you know, we have money, you can go hire more people. Go hire more people. Our question is, you know how many not we can't afford anybody else. We can't do anything else. We can't pay for this thing. So when you have money, you have options, right? You can do stuff with it. So yes, you can absolutely do it in business, you've just got to get to the point where you're, you're tired of it, you're done being this way, you don't want to do this. And so for example, we're looking to build and, you know, up at the ridge and bring the business up here. And everything that we are doing is within our wheelhouse, can we afford to do this? What's it going to look like? What's it going to cost us there's no debt going into it, there's not even a consideration. If it gets beyond what we can afford or believe that we should pay for something. And our goal is not to go ridiculous. But our goal is to, you know, make a nice place up here to bring retreats, and hopefully the next level leadership live event and strap plans, the next level lives and all that stuff. It's within what we can do. That's it, period, nothing is going beyond that. There's not even a consideration of well, if we just want got a big loan, we can build a whole bunch of stuff right now, you know, and be done with that, and then just pay off the loan. Nope. If we can't afford it, we're not doing it. It's interesting to see where we are with inflation, it's interesting to see where we are with the potential downturn.

Chris LoCurto 46:05
It's interesting to see, you know, the housing markets, when people are going ballistic, getting into debt, thinking that everything is going to be fine. You know, they they've gotten out through bankruptcy or whatever. And then things turn, and they realize how painful it is, how stressful it is, how difficult it is on their relationship, their marriage, you know, all that stuff, they don't think about those things. They just think, Oh, we got the stuff that we wanted now. And again, pointing back to something Joel talked about at the beginning of the show. We so want more we want what our parents had it took them 30 years to get it, we want what other people have around us. And they're the ones that are willing to go bust it. And you know, work multiple jobs. And so we just put ourselves in these stupid situations and don't count the cost. Now one last thing I will say, because I don't want this to sound like a confusing message. Because one of the things I do push back on is the hustle concept. Not hustling. I think everybody should find a time that they're hustling for something, if there's something important to go out there definitely go after it. The concept that I push back on is this constant concept that you have to be up at four o'clock in the morning, going until 10pm at night and you're not spending any time with your family, your wife, your kids have forgotten your name, all in the name of money that I pushed back on like crazy. So you know I did that doesn't mean I don't think you can't go out and hustle. That's not what I'm saying. It doesn't mean I don't think you shouldn't go out and spend some time busting it. What I'm saying is, is when you're losing your family, this is a really stupid concept, right? You've spent too much time hustling. Now let me turn that on the Hey, get out of debt, there is a level of time that I really believe you should pull the family together and say, Dad is gonna go bust it, Mom's gonna go bust it, we're going to do some stuff to get completely out of debt. Because when we are out of debt, we're going to have way more options and opportunities. And we can do whatever we want to at that point. So we're going to bust it working multiple jobs, we're only going to do so many hours a week. And then we're going to spend our family time together. And you know, make sure that you're covering your bases. But I do believe that that is an opportunity for you to go get rid of a ton of debt. I have not had debt for decades, I can do whatever I want to, I can pick up and go somewhere, I can go on great vacations, I can buy stuff I want to. And I spent time busting it getting debt free. So I just want to make sure that message is not confused.

Brian A 48:44
Yeah, that's great. As we start to kind of wrap up here, I want to underline the emotional element. I mean, that that, for me is kind of the takeaway, just listening to you guys talk because we started with the idea of people feeling worried, anxious, stuck, frustrated with where they're going. And you know, both of you kind of highlighted that, that sense of decision making, you know, and the idea of bringing that emotion to bear on your decisions and using it in a positive way. I love that there is hope here. And you know, so so much of the time we look at, okay, emotions come after the decision making, and they can follow that and this is this is a great way to illustrate that just in what we've been talking about today, but dumping the debt, the things that are weighing you down, you know, learning to discipline and emotionally discipline ourselves with the spending and then from those things, there is some momentum emotional energy and and you know, just like Joe, you were saying about how you took that anger of I'm just I'm sick of being stuck here. And you channeled that towards and just like you Chris I remember your story. You No, I was there 20 years ago and, and I remember that hustle in order to knock it out because you're tired of it, holding you back and you're tired of feeling stuck and frustrated and worried all the time. And, and but then there's a joy, and a freedom rush. And just a liberation that comes after that it is possible that you can go from stuck and feeling broke, to liberated and free and gaining momentum towards the financial destination, the financial trajectory that you want, if you will follow these proven steps love it guys,

Chris LoCurto 50:40
and go through Financial Peace University, get your butt in it. Just, you know, if you're telling yourself you don't need it, you do. It's just like next level life. Every single person needs to go through every person needs to go through Financial Peace University make it happen.

Joel Fortner 50:56
Yeah, well, well, final thought hear from me is is that if if you learn and you practice managing $20,000 $30,000 $40,000 of income, if you learn to practice managing that will you will then be ready for 100,000 or 200,000, or 500,000 or more. I think it's a good way to look at it is that we're practicing learning how to do money, and many of us did not come from that background. And a lot of that practice is the practice again of managing ourselves. And being able to really tame that those selfish desires that we have will make all the difference.

Chris LoCurto 51:43
So true. So true. Good stuff. All right, gentlemen, thank you for joining me again. I appreciate it. Great job. Great discussion, folks. Hopefully, this has helped you today. And hopefully you are hearing our hearts. Again, everything that we do is in an attempt to help everybody we can as many people as we possibly can. So hopefully you are hearing if some of this stuff is hitting you and you're just like, Well, I still like my debt. I still like okay, that's fine. Maybe just test out the things that we're talking about. Maybe just give it a try. You know, maybe just try a little bit and see what happens. What we can promise you is we're on the other side of that and have been for quite a while and man it is a joy. So take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, change your financial trajectory, and join us on the next episode.