I’ve recently had a hint of success in my life. Like, no joke it’s only a smidgeon of success, probably can’t even really claim it as “success”. And it definitely wasn’t an overnight success. After about 15 years or so working in pretty boring, bureaucratic corporate banking jobs; a year and a half spent (heavily) on a graduate degree; and a fortunately-timed purchase and subsequent sale of a primary residence, I have finally paid off nearly $200,000 of student loans and credit card debt. As popular personal finance radio host Dave Ramsey encourages people to say “WE’RE DEBT FREE!”.
It really does feel like an accomplishment. A game changer. But of course, I’m not rich. All I am is out of debt. Maybe I make a bigger deal out of it than I should. But believe me. It does feel great. And I plan to try to avoid using debt to finance pretty much anything in the future. And I plan to use this opportunity to continue the meager success I’ve had. I’m going to break out of the old traditional corporate lackey track that I’ve felt locked onto. I’m going to celebrate being debt free. How? By giving myself this blog. And to get good at this, I’ll need to reinvent myself. I’ll need to make sacrifices, aim, and be disciplined and persistent.
“Neither borrower nor lender be.” said Shakespeare (in Hamlet). Benjamin Franklin said something similar. I believe them. Bankers are pesky. And greedy. This blog is my gift to myself for getting the bankers off my back. I rarely ever called my banks. I did once or twice to ask for lower interest rates on my credit card. Didn’t work. Apparently I was a nearly 20% per year kind of risk. Sheesh. But even though I rarely ever called, the years that I spent stressed out about my finances led me to curse the banks with pretty seething anger. These poor bankers had no idea that I was throwing them shade from the comfort of my own home.
I got a graduate degree and paid for living expenses during my twenties. I put bar tabs on my credit card. I went on trips. I bought TVs, video games, and movies. I ate too much restaurant food. I know what some of you are thinking. And you’re right! I made stupid careless decisions with my credit cards. It could be argued that I made stupid careless decisions by getting a graduate business degree too. This was a phase of my youth (college and the first half of my 20’s), no doubt about it. Was I a naive kid? You bet. Could I have done better? Been more disciplined and focused? You bet. One very important lesson for people to learn is that your actions have consequences that you have to live with.
I doubt that the system will change, but it seems like the consequences aren’t discussed enough in society about what could happen if you use too much credit card financing, or too much student debt financing. Maybe the banks or schools should force more discussion about that. Maybe parents should communicate with their kids more to really dig in and understand where their kids’ heads are at. Make sure they’re taking it seriously.
There’s the sink or swim analogy of childhood. It is actually quite dark and painful to hear about people you grew up with dying in their 20’s or 30’s. But it happens. Life is beautiful, but it is fragile, and surviving (ethically) is all that matters. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. Most of the time it could be traced to a poor decision or two. Other times its just bad luck. I think that before too long, it’ll become clear also that savvy business people have gotten a bit too savvy about profiting from young people’s drive to survive. The cost of college tuition is not declining. The amount of student loan debt outstanding is not declining. And the amount of delinquent student loan debt also is not declining. It’s a real tough concept to get comfortable with, but a college degree may not be worth the price of admission. But I digress (a lot. In case you haven’t noticed).
Back to the title of this post … no matter what you do in life, you won’t succeed without sacrifice, aim, discipline and persistence. I believe these are things that helped me climb out of a very scary debt situation; and I believe these are the things that will help me be successful at blogging or pretty much anything else I set my sights on.
Sacrifice. Once I realized that the financial trouble wouldn’t just go away, I knew I would have to eat a huge humble pie, and tell friends that I couldn’t go and do fun things because I couldn’t afford it. This can be painful. You don’t want to miss out. You do want to build relationships. But I imagine the pain of missing out doesn’t hurt as much as bankruptcy hurts. So you make some sacrifices. You give up some things that you like. Recognize that you’re declining invitations because your well being is more important. Recognize that you’re making this sacrifice in one area of your life to improve in another area of your life. Maybe your friends can see what it is that is more important to you than them. Maybe this is embarrassing to you. Maybe this feels like you’re giving up too much info, betraying your strategies or philosophies. Or … maybe this is just you defining who you are, and how you hope to stand out. This recognition should sorta feel good.
Aim. Find a target that will open up a path thru the challenges you’re facing. For a long time, I thought the end of my path thru my challenges was (ironically?) banking. That’s the corporate career path I chose. You know what else I was aiming at? Starting a family. And I knew that I would have to get serious about paying off my debts if I wanted to be a good husband and father. The vision of raising a stable family is some motivating fuel, let me tell you. Banking did actually aide me in paying off my debts … probably about 60% paid off thru banking compensation, and the other 40% paid off thru capital gains on our primary residence. But I want more, and I think I’ve now found new worthy challenges (the fact that I’m now debt free allows me to be more selective with the challenges) and I’ll need to find a new target to open up a path thru the challenges.
Discipline. Just don’t get swayed from your path. Have discipline. Stay focused. Stick to your rules, and your routines. I used to think budgeting was for nerds. What a dummy I was. My efforts to fit in and do cool stuff were careless, and they put me nearly $200,000 in debt. So I budgeted. I developed my own spreadsheet to keep me disciplined, focused, and organized. (The spreadsheet is basically a check register, a bill checklist, and a tool for keeping track of spending and debt balances. Want a copy of my spreadsheet? It’s very simple, and I’ll gladly give it away. Use the contact page to let me know you want a copy, and I’ll gladly send it.)
Persistence. This might be the most important part of this post. The first thing that pops up on Google defines persistence as “firm or obstinate continuance in a course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition”. How good would you be at something if you just gave up due to difficulty or opposition? Success doesn’t come easy. There are 7 billion people on this planet and most of them at least want to be successful, and a lot of them (say 500 million? 1 billion?) are working really hard to be really good at something. So you’ve got to compete with them, and that won’t be easy. How do you do it? You just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Persistence has gotten a lot of attention from various scholars and accomplished toilers over the millennia it seems. I can think of so many good quotes about persistence:
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”
“Fail forward.”
“You pooped in the refrigerator! And you ate the whole … wheel of cheese? Heck I’m not even mad; that’s amazing.” Wait, what? How’d that last quote get in there. Sorry folks. (great movie)
Grit! Grit didn’t make it into the title of this post, but maybe it should have. But it’s sort of the same thing as persistence, no? Maybe just a bit toothier?
So anyway, I’m working on reinventing myself. I want to be a good blogger, a consultant, a public speaker, an author, maybe some day a business owner/operator. And I’ll keep trudging positively in that direction. Hopefully some day it happens.