#SYDWAC - $80,000 In Student Debt…

Foreign. Everyone, welcome to start your day. Great. Start your day with the coach. I am your coach. Sean Butner, certified high performance coach. I really say coach way too many times in that opening statement. So I'll work on that. Guys, since this is a live show, so today I wanted to switch it up a little bit and tell a little bit of a story on something that really helped me kind of grow as a person in my life, and that was leaving college and my grad school with $80,000 in student debt, which is the title of this video. So I'm not sure if you've ever been in the situation where, you know, maybe you're struggling to just pay the bills, right? You need to decide, do you pay groceries, do you put gas in the car, do you pay rent, do you pay student loans? And, you know, this all happened during my first gig outside of college, right? And, you know, feeling I grew up like my parents would always, you know, drill in that you go to college, you get a good job, money takes care of itself, you know, you're not destroying your body in it. My dad's a carpenter. He, you know, really did number on his body throughout his life and still has, you know, he still kind of, of reaping all of that right now. Excuse me. And so, you know, we did what, you know, we were told, right? Essentially, me and my brother, like, we worked hard. You know, I went to, to college, I worked my whole time in college, you know, 20 to 40 hour weeks depending on the year and depending on how much money I could or how many hours I could grab. So I worked, I took out student loans, my parents took out student loans, and at the end of it all, I still ended up with $80,000 in student debt. And I tested out of a whole semester of college. So, you know, being the first kid in the family to kind of go through this process, I didn't realize a bunch of different things that kind of got me where I was. But at the end of the day, I had all this student debt and get my first job, student loans become due, and I, for whatever reason, am living at the razor's edge of like poverty essentially, you know, rice, beans and corn. It was my, like, I ate that for like a year and a half, two years, pretty regularly, you know, got it figured out to do like 30 bucks in groceries every, you know, two to four weeks, depending if I got sick of rice, beans and corn, know that type of whole thing. And I felt like I had somehow failed. And I'm not sure if you've ever been in a situation where you're working hard. You know, I was working 50 plus hours at that corporate gig. I was trying to pick up any, like, small odd jobs as I could to just pay everything and, you know, be miserable essentially. And, you know, for a while I'm like, okay, I need to like, figure this out. But you know, the student loan folks, like, calling like, hey, like I'm, I like, you're squeezing blood out of a rock, like, help me out. And the rudeness, the, of the person on the other side of the phone saying that, hey, you're an idiot, you shouldn't have done this. You know, be responsible, you mooch and all this kind of stuff. And just kind of felt more shame and, you know, a lot more anxiety with money and all that kind of stuff. And it was terrible. It was pretty miserable. You know, it's not, you know, so many people. You know, I feel very lucky having the career path that I've had, but so many people will work 80 hours a week, have a partner that'll work, you know, 60 to 80 hours a week and still am in the same boat, you know, And I think that's a huge societal issue that people discount or say that it's somebody's fault that they're there, or sometimes it's just the environment and systems around us, I think. But because you can have people that work incredibly hard and still not be able to make ends meet, that's, that's terrible. And anyways, so I'm going, I'm doing that for a while. Feeling miserable, feeling stressed out, you know, trying to like, paying the bare minimum. And my student loan balance is growing. Like I, I couldn't quite figure that out. But I do did know, having gone to business school, that it was a math problem and if I could take care of the emotions around it, that I'd be able to think clearly and think through the math to turn it around. So I became obsessed with putting every last cent and getting rid of my student debt. And, you know, if I could just pay one extra dollar a month, I would be in much better shape if I didn't do that. And, you know, so I had to have the belief that I could figure it out. I had to, you know, know that I would survive right at the end of this, I could figure this out and be better at the end of it. And, you know, I started to chip away at it. And, you know, there's a lot of things that habit like bonuses at work were a godsend. So it would be thousands of dollars I could just dump into my student loans to start, you know, hitting the interest. So I pay less over time. And, you know, about seven and a half years, I had it all paid off. Right? That's the good thing. Bad thing is, is I didn't invest in a house. I didn't really push in relationships for a while. I didn't want to be in a relationship because I felt a lot of shame with not having all that money and whatnot. And, you know, at the end of it, like, I learned some good money principles. I have. I'm not as anxious about money anymore. And, you know, it. Looking back, there's a time where I didn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. You know, like, I was in this dark space going through it, trying to figure it out. But eventually I knew that I would see the light and would be able to pass through it and get to the end. So that's the message for today, guys, is if you're struggling, you know, sometimes you can, you know, you need help. Maybe you're watching these videos online, trying to find your way out of that dark tunnel and into the light. And I'm very honored. I take it very seriously to be able to help you, because I've been through quite a bit, too. And it's not that I also want to say, like, I don't want to get into this zone where, like, you're comparing, like, bad things that have happened to you in your life, because it could have been a lot worse for me, and I'm very aware of that. And I still feel very fortunate and lucky for the life that I have been able to live and the lucky breaks that I've had along the way that have kept me from being stuck in that zone. And so if that's you, though, just I'm cheering you on. I'm here for you. If you have any questions or need maybe a different perspective or a way to talk through it, let me know. I'd love to either do a video for you or, you know, chat with you in person. It just, you know, through this all through, like, there's other, other things, you know, with my folks and money, but you realize that people are the things that really matter. You realize that, you know, we're all interconnected. We can all help each other out. And you could also still believe in capitalism. You know, I know some people get caught up in that argument, but. And that's a whole side non sequitur thing that we don't need to go into. But, yeah, just want to let you guys know that the struggle is real. You can get through it. You can figure it out. And there's always light at the end of the tunnel if you can work your way through it. So that said, guys, go forth, live with more joy, personal growth and impact in your communities. Sean Butner signing off. I'll talk to you guys.