John, thank you so much for
joining us this morning.
We're talking about student debt
and student loan repayments.
We know this is going to be happening again.
Man, has this really been a
back and forth deadline we've
been talking about and now it's
really going to happen. We think
that's right. It's been a ping pong
match between we're going to take care
of you and come save your life all the
way back to nobody's coming to get you.
And here's the thing.
All of us have to sit in this for a second.
Everybody's got all these
tips and and and ideas.
We all need to just stop for a quick second.
And we have to choose reality.
We have to sit in this moment and
realize nobody's coming to get us.
We're going to have to pay these
things back and we've got to figure
out a plan for moving forward.
How
do you think we accept that reality?
I mean that is a tough thing.
For so many months and almost
years it's been this back
and forth and back and forth.
How do we really kind of accept that,
move forward and start
to make those payments?
I think the first thing is owning it, right?
It's it's it's like when the divorce
is is final or it's when you get
that diagnosis with your kid.
This is a scary hard thing and you
have to sit in it for a second.
Sometimes you have to get some
other people to sit with you.
And just owned it for three years.
We've been told everything
was going to be okay.
And so people bought homes,
they bought cars,
they did all sorts of financial,
they made all sorts of financial
decisions based on these loans going
away and they're not going away.
And so there's something about sitting in it,
owning it.
Sometimes you got to write
down here's what I've done,
here's the situation I'm in,
and then you got to be about making
the plan for what comes next.
Now that we've accepted that
reality, it is happening.
We know that date is coming up this fall.
How can we pay it off?
What do you think is the best advice
for really starting to do this?
Part of part of this owning reality
or choosing reality is knowing
that money works in only two ways.
You can make more of it or
you can spend less of it.
And I wish there was a third way.
I wish there was, just like the money fairy.
And that's been happening for
the last three years, right?
Checks would just end up in our
checking accounts or in our mailboxes.
Those are over.
And so we have to look at this is,
this is the word that everybody hates,
but it's a word that gives us freedom.
We have to look at a budget.
We have to decide to own
how much money we make,
how much do we have to get another job.
We have to get two more jobs for one year,
two or three years to pay these things off.
And we have to look at
how much we're spending.
And some of us, we have no more margin.
We have no more margin.
And what that means is it's not
just about cutting out lattes and a
trip to Starbucks and avocado toast.
It may mean that we have to sit down and say,
hey, we wanted to live in this city
and we wanted to have this job.
We got to move back home for a year.
We're going to have to get 2 roommates and
we're going to have to live differently.
We're going to have to sell our condo.
We're going to have to rent for a season,
and we have to rent in a different town
because rents are bananas where we live.
This is about a wholesale
reimagining how we live,
and we're going to do that.
We're going to start that
process with a budget.
How much money do we make and how
much money does it take for us
to live wherever it is we are?
I love that you broke
it down so simply there.
Either we need to make more or spend less.
We have to commit to one or the other.
And we're at this point in life
where we hear so much about
people following their passion.
They're doing what they really love.
Sometimes that doesn't always
equal maybe the highest paycheck.
Do you think now is the time
to follow your passion?
Or should we really commit to
maybe making the most money we can?
I cannot think of worse advice
to give any human being.
Then follow your passion,
because passion doesn't always pay
the bills and passion doesn't always
give us the life that we want, right?
And so I think the the,
the if you follow the science of passion,
we are really passionate about
what we're good at and we're good
and what we do often and what we
have great coaching and mentorship.
And often what we're good at is things
that we were made to practice or things
that we had to start at the beginning.
So you may get to following your passion.
I didn't know my passion was sitting
with people who were hurting
until I have walked alongside a
bunch of coaches and I started as
a teacher and then moved into a
higher education Dean of Students.
I didn't realize that my passion
would ultimately be this until
I had years of hard work,
good coaching and mentorship
and a lot of just putting in the
grinding work to pay the bills.
And so right now, absolutely.
It may be the season that you stop,
quote, UN quote, following your passion,
and you find a job that will pay your
bills so you can pay off these debts.
And when you owe nobody anything,
when you've created some boundaries
and your motherinlaw isn't telling
you what you're going to do for
Thanksgiving and Christmas anymore.
And you've created some boundaries
and your friends aren't telling you
how you're going to spend your money
or what you're doing with your time.
And you don't owe anybody any money,
nobody,
then you can do whatever it is that you want.
Then you can take that pay cut
and follow your passion.
You can move across the country and
live with three people in a one bedroom
apartment to follow that dream.
Then you can do that.
But if you owe people money,
you're going to have to work and
pay those bills.
And let's talk about some of those
boundaries you were suggesting.
A calendar may really be the simplicit
simple thing that you need just by
having a calendar to help you achieve
some of those debts that you owe
and and pay some of that off and and
really make some forward progress.
Why do you think a calendar
could be key to this?
We live highly unintentional,
unintentional lives, right?
Even I do this for a living in this morning,
I was up here at 6:00 AM for a work thing,
and then I went to a breakfast,
and then I came back for some media.
And then I've got work.
And then after work, I've got this.
And I got to pick up my son.
And then my daughter's doing this thing,
and suddenly it's going to be 9:00 tonight,
and I'm going to collapse in the bed.
I'm going to wave to my wife and go to sleep.
We live highly unintentional lives.
And So what I want people to do,
if you're married, get with your partner.
If you're not,
get with a couple of friends and sit
down and look at your calendar and I
want you to wipe the whole thing clean.
Wipe it from the moment you wake
up until the moment you go to bed.
Wipe it clean and start with the things
I have to do to be whole and well,
the things I have to do to eat to
take care of my four walls, right?
I got to have my home and my transportation.
I want you to take care of those
things and then begin adding in.
What kind of life do I want?
And what I found With parents especially,
they realize we don't have
to do baseball and travel,
soccer and horseback riding
lessons and violin this season.
We're just going to do one
thing and suddenly thousands of
dollars flow back into the house.
Not to mention time to go drive Uber
for six months to pay these loans off
or get a job early in the morning,
driving to work a little an hour earlier
and picking people up on the way.
Whatever you got to do.
But I want people to look at their
calendar and let's take back our calendars.
Let's let's become more intentional
about our lives that we're leading.
And then what we're going to find
is we're going to find money.
We're going to find different
ways to do life.
We're going to find avenues towards
really hard decisions like, hey,
I think I need to resign from this job.
I think I need to move or I
think I need to ask for a raise.
But it all starts with sitting down and
saying what kind of life do I want to live.
Sounds freeing to me to be able to say just
wipe that calendar free and move forward.
As we kind of wrap up here and think
October really is fast approaching,
we've turned the calendar to August.
Now just what's some advice on
how to not get overwhelmed.
We've just had this back
and forth for so long.
You know, send us out here with
the message on on how to just
take that first step forward.
I wish there was a cool
tough guy way to do this.
I I was born and raised in Texas
and so I always try to find the
toughest guy way to do something,
but I haven't found it here.
Here's the best and easiest solution
for entering into hard seasons.
I carry a small journal with me.
It's right over here in my bag
and when I get overwhelmed or I
get scared or something pops into
my head like this is the end.
Or if this doesn't happen,
I literally write it down and
get it out of my body and I look
at it and I demand evidence.
Is this true?
Is my wife really super mad at me?
And if she is, did I cause that?
Or are my kids really thinking
about how what a terrible dad I am?
No, my daughter's 7,
she just wants to get to the next day.
So I write these things down.
So as you enter into this season
and you start to get scared,
but I don't know how I'm going
to pay my bills, write that down.
I'm scared about paying my bills.
And then demand evidence.
Do I have enough money?
What do I need to do to get there?
And it takes it out of our bodies,
in this, this cyclone inside of us,
these anxiety alarms,
and it puts it out on paper.
We can then create a plan
to move forward
and then we'll have that
freedom from that debt,
which sounds so great right now.
John, thank you so much for joining us.
We appreciate your time.
Come back anytime to 12 news and
it's a very hot feeling. Thank you.