So, I paid off over $174,000 in debt in 2.5 years and THEN my wife and I went on to save/invest over $500,000 in the next 5 years, which we've been able to grow to over $700,000 thereby allowing me to exit corporate America for good and catapulting us into what’s called “lean FI”.
But along the way, we’ve experienced A LOT of loneliness and alienation from some of our friends and family. And I know if you’re watching this, you might be experiencing that as well.
Let me reassure you that, 1) you’re not weird and 2) you’re not alone.
So, to help you with that sense of isolation and possible discouragement, today I want to talk about some specific reasons my wife and I stopped telling our friends and family about our debt free/financial independence journey and how we instead replaced that “outlet” for conversation with a couple of healthier alternatives that have majorly filled that void we felt in wanting to share our journey with those who are closest to us.
Hey friend, it’s Brad Long here with ZeroDebtCoach where we help 5 and 6 figure corporate burnouts escape their nightmare by teaching them how to effectively: 1) organize and optimize their financial lives, 2) eliminate debt and 3) accelerate toward financial independence by starting and growing an online business.
So, you’re on your way to debt freedom or Financial Independence and you’re SUPER excited to share some of your ideas, some of your processes and definitely your wins with friends and family.
But when you do, you’re finding that you’re not getting quite the enthusiastic response you sort of expected and maybe you’ve started to feel frustrated, isolated and maybe even a little resentful.
Like I said before, you’re not alone!
If you clicked over to this video, you probably already know that one of the hardest parts about pursuing debt freedom and then financial independence is the potential loneliness you might feel as you move through the process and ESPECIALLY once you start reaching some of those big goals you SHOULD naturally be so excited to share.
So let’s jump into some of the reasons my wife and I don’t share our debt freedom or FI journey with friends and family anymore.
You’ve probably heard the statistic that 78% of the population lives paycheck to paycheck and would have trouble covering a $400 emergency.
That’s 8 out of 10 people that you and I know, that either 1) just don’t care enough to do something about it or 2) haven’t quite figured out WHAT to do to change their situation.
And, because of their situation, they likely don’t want to hear about your “wins” or even your “struggles” around your journey.
As a financial coach for over the past 10 years I’ve come to see that, no matter how big or small the paycheck, most of the people we know are in some sort of paycheck to paycheck or “behind the 8 ball” type of financial cycle.
And shockingly few people even care about getting out of debt, let alone the prospect of moving on to financial independence.
So, in my experience, basically 8 out of 10 people that you and I know personally just don’t really care about this stuff OR believe that either debt freedom OR financial independence could ever be possible for them.
It’s okay it doesn’t make you crazy for pursuing these goals, you just need to find a support system to help you stay encouraged and to share your wins and your struggles. I’ll share more about how to do that toward the end of the video.
It’s important to remember, you’re constantly battling all the common attitudes and beliefs about money and debt.
Most of the folks we talked about in the last point have one of these beliefs about money.
With this mindset, there’s an almost willful ignorance that you can actually change your mindset and your situation by learning some new skills that will help you behave differently with your money than you do now.
In my opinion this is one of the most dysfunctional parts of our culture. Why is it so taboo to talk about money? I mean, isn’t it something we have to deal with like every day?
It’s been a pretty interesting experience for us that, as we got better at managing our money, we naturally wanted to share our tips, tricks and tools with our network.
But most people are just not open to it. Why? Because it likely reminds them of that frightening statistic they’re a part of, you know that 78% thingy.
And overall, your friends and family just might be irritated by your new found enthusiasm for frugality and your overall debt-elimination or FI goals.
As I alluded to in the beginning of the video, part of my wife’s and my journey to FI was for me to very strategically go back into and then quickly exit corporate America as soon as we reached a very specific financial goal (which I outline in this video, here).
One of the biggest challenges that we successfully navigated was thwarting “lifestyle creep” you know, the tendency to spend more as you earn more.
Our increasing and steady frugality wasn’t met with enthusiasm with some of our friends who knew that our income had increased pretty dramatically.
We kind of got the feeling that they expected us to start acting like “big balla, shot callahs” as our income dramatically increased.
But we NEVER looked at that new windfall of income as a resource to be consumed rather, we looked at is as capital that was ACTUALLY going to go to work for us.
And we just decided that, no matter what, we had to be okay with any apparent dissent from our friends and family because our overarching goal of independence from corporate America was totally worth it.
If you’re in either of these phases (debt-elimination or pursuing financial independence), you’re likely willing to do some of these very sensible things that our culture (and therefore friends and family) would turn their necks sideways for you mentioning them.
Your friends and family may even think you’re making it look “easy” even though we both know it’s not AND that it takes an incredible amount of strategy, focus, planning and discipline to make it happen.
It probably cost us some friendships.
The sad fact is that some people are just not going to be on board with your journey or the decisions you make in the interest of your goal. It’s okay.
It’s part of life and we’ve found that friends can tend to come and go along the way. It’s sad sometimes, but you don’t really have any control over how people are going to respond to your choices.
And at the end of the day, it’s kind of none of your business. So, just be kind, be generous and keep moving forward.
Now, if you’re multitasking, I want you to come back here with me for a second because now I want to share what we’ve gained.
Okay, remember when I told you earlier to stick around to the end?
Now, if this is something you struggle with and you constantly feel isolated about it, I’ve got some great news for you and it’s free.Our private Facebook group, ZeroDebtTribe. It’s a group of like minded people that are all somewhere along this P2P/debt-elimination/on their way to FI continuum. So click the image above and apply to join us. :)
1. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and click the notifications bell to make sure you get our new videos every week.
2. Download one of our free personal finance guides. You’ll learn some of the exact strategies I teach my private coaching students on how to organize and optimize their finances, obliterate debt and move on to financial independence by starting and growing online businesses.
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All that said, let's keep on building your financial acumen and make this your best year yet!
Thanks so much for reading and we’ll see you in the next video post!
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