What To Do When You're Broke

Welcome to the Charged Life. This is Brendan Burchard. Five important strategies to follow when you're broke. Now, in this episode, I'll be cheerful as usual. You came here because this is the Charged Life. But by no means am I lacking sympathy for the reality of lacking money in life. So I get this. If you're in that position where you're broke, I have to tell you, keep your head up. I know it's hard. I know it's difficult when you still have dreams and you want to accomplish so much in your life. But the bank account, you know, says there's no hope. That's a difficult place to be in. I've certainly been there, if you know my story. At the beginning of my career as a writer and a trainer, I immediately went broke. I mean, really broke. And unfortunately, I was living in San Francisco at the time. And, you know, a place where, at the time, you know, a burrito was $9. And so it was difficult. And I grew up in an economically depressed Irish mining town in Montana. It was under difficult circumstances. So I've been around in a lot of parts of my life, from my career to my childhood, in a place of lacking funds to. You just live a good quality of life and chase dreams. And I just share all that because I'll be cheerful here. You're here for the charge. But I want to let you know I understand. And it's difficult. And that's why I think this is an important episode. If you're struggling financially, it doesn't matter if here you are with a nice house and a car and kids and everything. But honestly, you've got those four or five credit cards and you're actually drowning in debt when everyone else sees you doing supposedly good on the outside, or you're in a place where you're just starting out and you know, you graduated college or you graduated high school and now the credit card debt or the house or the mortgage or some bad decision has left you lacking in money. Either those situations, these five things are a must. You must pay attention to them. And if you don't, you only dig yourself further and further into the hole. They're important. Number one, when you are broke, do not lie. Don't lie. Stop lying to yourself. And that's what we do when we're broke. When we're getting painted into a corner and we're concerned and all of a sudden we're in debt, we just, ah, it'll get better. And you keep doing the same spending behavior, or you lie to yourself and Say, well, you know, something will come along, something will change. You know, fate will turn my corner and everything will be fine. But that's usually not true. And what you do is you avoid the harsh realities of life that you don't like. But let me tell you what, avoidance is a great short term strategy to find comfort. But avoidance is also a great long term strategy to guarantee misery. So do not avoid this situation. If you are in financial despair, do not pretend it doesn't exist. I did that. I've had friends do that. Millions of our readers and followers and commenters over the last decade and have in some way commented about this at a point in their time. What do I do, Brendan? What do I do? What do I do? And the first thing is, don't lie. Face it, be real, be honest and go, oh, my gosh, you know, people might not know it, but I'm broke. I need to face this reality. Because if you don't face this reality, you can't fix this reality, right? Don't face the reality. You can't fix. The revenue has to be something that you take into real consideration. Go. Okay, it's time to deal with this. I've kind of been month and month and month and month, and here we are. You know, I knew I was broke six months ago, but I haven't changed any behaviors because I'm scared to face it. Face it, my friend, or you will not change it. It is the most important thing. Stop lying to yourself. When it's bad, you got to call it bad. You can't let hope or optimism just say it'll get better. Because that's what people do. And then they dig themselves further and further and further into pain. Don't do that. That's why number two is so important. Take immediate action. I mean immediate. Soon as you realize you are in financial trouble, it's immediate swift SWAT team time. It's time to sit down, go through that credit card bill, go through those bills that you owe everywhere else. Itemize everything. And be honest, what am I spending? Right? This isn't just about, say, do a budget. I'm like, itemize everything and then be ruthless. Cut it out. You don't need that cable subscription. You don't need that subscription over here for the $49 music thing you signed up for four years ago and never use. You need to be ruthless. You need to start axing expenses immediately. That is what I mean. Take immediate action. Don't be like, well, I can this one. I kind of like it. I'll Keep it. No, axe everything. Go down to the simplest survival terms, right? The simplest survival terms. The stuff that you need, right? If that means for your small business or your career, that means you need the Internet. Okay? The Internet, okay. But even the Internet you can get down at a local coffee shop, perhaps where you live. I don't know where you're at. But consider do I need that bill? You need to axe everything when you're in a lot of trouble. Just axe it all. Don't worry, you can add it later when you back to financial abundance. But now it's like everything. I mean, literally do a cleaning house of all expenses. I mean, you need to be honest and be like, yeah, you know, I know I can go out with my friends and drop that $50 on sushi, but don't. Because if you don't take immediate action to change that spending behavior that got you in trouble the first place, you're never going to get out. And it has to be like cold turkey on spending. I mean, you can't be like, well, I'll whittle away over a period of months. I'm talking go in and obliterate expenses, literally. If you're broke. That's what this video is about. You're broke now. You got to obliterate people. Say, well, Brendan, you're just telling people to, you know, live a harsh life. I'm like, yeah, you're in trouble. Let's get honest. If you are in trouble, you need to obliterate expenses. You need to itemize everything. Cross it out, cross it out, cross it out. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it. You need to go down to the minimalist survival if you're going to get on track sooner than later. And I want to really tell you that because what people do, they can't do it. The short term pain is too much. But I'm like, look, the long term payoff is worth it because I promise, if you'll just axe everything to the utmost expense that you can now still do what's responsible, right? Still pay the bills, that you can still take care of your family at the utmost of ability. But do not be extravagant in any area, right? Cut everything out that you can because you can always add it later. I wish somebody just looked me in the face and just said that, Brendon, just cut out everything right now. Everything. You can add it back later, brother, but right now you're in trouble. Don't like, well, I'll slowly cut things out over a period of months. Nope, that's just widening the length of time it's going to take to course correct. You need to take immediate action like a SWAT team. You need to be appropriately hard on yourself and be like, okay, I'm going to stop doing this, right? I don't need that new pair of shoes when I'm out. I don't need that. This fancy dinner, I don't need this. Just go Spartan, baby. I mean strip it all down. Itemize SWAT team that I'm going to say it over and over and over and over again. You must take immediate action immediately. Now if you're broke, because I can't believe how many people today are wandering around broke but they're still buying nice stuff. They're still buying luxury goods. They're still subscribing to 15, 20 things because they're avoiding that. They're so much in pain that they're avoiding the credit card statement. They're not even looking at it. They're avoiding everything that they can and not getting real. They're still tipping too much when they go out. They're doing everything that they can to create a falsehood that's only digging them deeper. You need to take immediate action. Then number three, you have to verbalize this. You have to ask for help. If you are broke. You have to discuss it. Because the longer you tell yourself the internal lie and don't seek external help, the longer you're going to, this thing's going to continue. It's going to be a pattern for you. So you have to tell your spouse, honey, we have to have a talk. We're broke. You have to go to your parents and be honest. Mom, dad, I screwed up. I'm broke. You need to tell the team. You know what? We are in a harsh situation. The business right now. I'm going to have to make some cuts. You have to take immediate action and you have to ask for help. What else could we do to generate some revenue? You ask your team, even though that feels so vulnerable. But you know what's the worst place is to lie and then lay them all off one day and they had no input on how to improve the business and now they can't afford their mortgages because you weren't honest earlier and now you're living at your parents house again because you didn't ask the people around you, what else do you think I could do here at this job? What else do you think I could do in this marketplace? What else could I do to add some value here? Right? That's the secret you got to be asking for a lot of help when your back is against the wall. Even if it's just for some ideas, you know, it doesn't mean ask for help for a handout though. That might be part of it, depending on where you're at. But it could just be like, hey, I'm in this financial situation, a person in my situation, what else do you think I could do? What else do you think I could do? Do you know anything? Are there any opportunities? Do you know any better jobs? Put it out there, man. If you're not going to put it out there, no one's going to suddenly raise their hand and go, hey, let me throw you this life raft. No one sees you drowning, you drown. You got to call for help. It's necessary. Does that mean swallowing your pride? You're dang right it does. But look, if you're going to let pride drown you from a life that you deserve to live, you got to reassess what's more important, your ego or your ultimate long term life experience. I say sacrifice the ego by asking for help so that over the long term you can feel strong and bold and confident and have abundance and wealth later on. But you have to be willing to ask for help. Then what's so important? This is going to suck. You're going to hate this one. It's going to be so awesome how much you're going to hate this. You have to save 10 or 20%. Now look, if you won't save 10% when you're making 100 bucks, don't think 10 years from now when you're making 100,000 or a million or 10 million, you'll save 10%. That's what people always think, well, one day I'll save. No, you need to start saving right now. Matter of fact, isn't the truth. The position you're in right now is because of a lack of a decision to save responsibly and appropriately years ago. You got to change this mindset. You need to start paying yourself first. That means when you get any money, 10% minimum goes into savings or intelligent investments immediately. And the only intelligent long term investment, as you know, is the S&P 500 index funds. They're the only thing to beat the market. When they ask Warren Buffett, what would you tell your family to do with all the money you're going to leave them? Put them in index funds because it's the only thing that beats the market. So if you're investing great, at least minimum, do it. There no other investments if you're at that level. Or B, just put it in the savings account, right? But you've got to save it. I mean, 10 bucks on 100, do it, then pay the bills, then do everything else. But you got to start putting away right now. Now. I mean, it's like people used to know to create a rainy day fund now because people are living in such luxurious lifestyles way beyond their means. A rainy day fund. I mean, people are facing, not a rainy day, they're facing a tsunami of bills because they didn't live responsibly. They felt entitled. They felt like, well, they should live like everybody else lives. Because I saw it on mtv, because I saw it on the news, because I'm reading enough. Everyone has, you know, you know, $500 watches and $200 shoes and $150 $300 jeans. So why shouldn't I? You shouldn't because you're broke. You know, there's no, there is no harm, no foul in buying your clothes from Goodwill, you know, Macklemore, go for it, right? Go thrift shopping, whatever it takes. But do not live beyond your means. And don't forget to start saving, otherwise you're going to be in trouble. The last piece. And you already know this, I know you're like, geez, dude, this is harsh. But somebody needs to tell you to take the situation seriously because sometimes it's so easy to avoid. And that's why this last piece, retool. Retool means what new skills do you need? What do you need to master for that next level for you? Let me give you an example. The best thing I did when I, I was dirt poor, I was in a situation where I owed thousands and thousands of dollars. I was, I mean, tens of thousands. I was in a really bad position and I had no revenue, no money coming in at all. It was difficult. You know, my then girlfriend was buying me groceries. I had to move into her apartment. I mean, it was nothing. I'd already couched surf with friends at that time. They were tired of me. You know, I can't tell you how many blow up mattresses I lived on at that time. It was a rough time and luckily I believed in my ability to figure things out. I had a confidence, I was facing what was real. I was stripping down all my expenses. But I was also asking, okay, what new skills I'm going to have to develop to either grow my business or B, get a new job. Like what's relevant now that's going to help me I stopped pursuing hobbies, and I started saying, what are the skill sets needed to make money at the time? For me, that was learning online marketing. That was learning to put my message out there. That was learning, you know, copywriting. That was learning the functional aspects of doing what I do as a writer and as a trainer online. I had to figure those things out. I studied everybody. And my question wasn't, what are they doing? They look so good. I was like, what do they do to make money? Like, what kinds of products do they create? How do they sell it? What's sales psychology? As an entrepreneur at the time, I had to learn the things. I don't know what your career is, but you better identify the skills you need to develop to go to the next level of your career. Right? You need to start learning on the side. Spend as much time. Like, you need to stop leisure time. Stop watching Netflix. Cancel Netflix. You need that money. No more leisure time now. You need training time, learning time. Everything must shift to learning from leisure. Everything. You need to go in a hard SWAT team. What new skills can I learn right now? What new competencies? Learn, learn, learn. What's everybody else doing in my industry or career that I could follow or that could implement? What's the masters here doing? Learn and learn and learn and learn. You can go to Barnes and Noble and get the books and just sit there and read them and get a glass of water, right? You don't have to buy it. Just go sit there. You need to learn. Retool for this next level for you. It's very important to be doing that while you're broke. People think, well, I'm broke now. I'll wait till it gets better, and then I'll get a better job, and then I'll start learning. No, no, no. You need to learn now. You need to stop your expenses to the utmost ability and learn now, my friend. Save now, my friend. Like, do that now, my friend. I know it's hard, and I know you want to just avoid it. I know it sucks. And I know sometimes you're mad at yourself. And you know what? That's okay, too. Lots of people say, well, Brendan, you know, I just. I'm mad at myself. I'm like, oh, that's cool. Okay, be mad at yourself for 10 more seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Done. You're done. You were mad at yourself. You had the appropriate amount of guilt. Now believe in your ability to figure things out. You figured out things in the past, too that sucked, and you came through it, you will survive this situation if you address it appropriately. And you keep believing in yourself. You keep looking for new ways to add value. Ask for help, retool. You can figure this out. Watch my other videos on YouTube about dealing with money, handling money. Watch my other videos on YouTube about how to add value. Watch those two videos to get a little bit more sort of training on this, inspiration on this. But believe in your ability to figure things out. You can still have confidence when you're broke. And confidence doesn't mean ba ba ba, look at me. It says I will figure this out. I believe in my ability to figure things out. And you will. You will believe and trust in yourself. But take appropriate action right now. You can do this. Trust in your ability to figure things out in the short term and it's going to be difficult, but by facing it now in the long term, you'll get back on path. You'll get back to living the charge life. Hey my friend, it's Brendan. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Do me two favors. Number one, subscribe to this channel so that you continue to get updates every time I release new training for you. And and number two, if you would like to get ahead a little faster in life, what I'd like to do is give you my 10 steps to achieving anything 10 times faster. So if you have a big goal, a big dream, a big mission in life and you just like to achieve it faster, what would you need to do? You know, this is exactly what I keep next to my computer or next to my bed. And every time I have a big dream, a big goal, I, I open it up and I kind of use this as my checklist to get ahead faster. Because you and I both know if you're going to be more effective or more productive or you are going to achieve your goals and your dreams faster, you're going to have to switch your perspective a little bit on achievement itself. You're going to have to adopt new thinking patterns and habits. You're going to have to have new daily rituals and habits. And your entire approach to learning and skill development must be better. So in order to help you do that, go to brendan.com 10x that's Brendan B-R E N D O n.com 10x and you can download this guide for free. Just tell me your name and email. I'm happy to email that to you for free. The same guide I use to achieve any goal or dream faster. Thanks for tuning in. Until I see you next time, go out there every single day, single day of your life. Live fully, love openly and make your difference today.