Experiencing a Financial Hardship? This is What You Need to Hear...

Sometimes you need to get knocked down to know what your fight is. This one's gonna be a little raw, a little real, a little different than usual. If I'm new to you, my name is Frankie and I used to be extremely bad with money. But before I get to how I turned it all around and how you can too, let me share some grim data to sort of ground this conversation a bit because it is clear that millions of Americans Only 23% of Americans report carrying no debt. 60% of workers say their level of debt is a problem and 19% of workers say it's a major problem. 39% of Americans don't have the funds available on hand to handle a $400 unexpected expense. 48% of households headed by someone 55 or older had nothing saved for retirement at all. And 41% of Americans have not set aside any money at all for retirement. Yeah, pretty grim, right? And this affects everyone. Many of the most successful people or so you would think on the outside, don't have it together financially on the inside. Now, despite being the first in my family to graduate from college, I became a high school English teacher for four years and I earned my master's in education, I have always had one massive flaw. One huge blind spot, money. And it was bad you guys, so bad in fact, I just buried my head in the sand and it felt laughable honestly to even think about getting started. For most of my college and working years, I completely ignored it. I developed an I'll deal with it later mentality and the problem compounded. Eventually it overwhelmed me, it consumed me, it ate at me daily. I began to have thoughts like, I am going to die with credit card and student loan debt and someone else is going to have to pick up my tab. And I wasn't alone by the way. Yahoo Finance previously reported that 25% of American surveyed expect to die in debt. I also had thoughts like these. Well, this isn't a big deal, I bet everybody is dealing with this. But also, why do I feel like the only one having to deal with this? I wish I had someone to talk to, but even if I did, this is too embarrassing. I also thought, I wish I could stop thinking about this all night, every night and just get some sleep. I wish I could find someone I trust to help. And oh, by the way, I'm not getting married or starting a family anytime soon, even if I meet the right person because I can't afford it. I had a financial crisis on my hands. What did I do about it? Nothing, for years. Worse was the side effects. I lost energy and day-to-day motivation. I lost a lot of confidence, most of my confidence. I did my best to hide this, which actually sapped away more of my energy. I became a bit distant from my friends and family, showing up places late or even canceling plans last second. Part of it because I didn't feel like myself, just was one giant ball of anxiety. And the other part of it was because I felt like I couldn't keep up financially with anybody. And eventually I had my first experience with panic attacks. And I don't know why I felt like sharing this all today. I usually make a lot of educational videos. I provide lots of free resources and budget sheets. I talk about investing, money mindset. I crunch a lot of numbers to illustrate bigger points about compound interest. But I've never really dived into what it feels like to be broke, alone, afraid, embarrassed, to lose all confidence, to lose sleep, to become distant and to grapple with anxiety because of this for the first time. But if this is you, this is where I tell you this is exactly what you need to go through. But more on that in a moment. It would be another two years before I finally faced the music, got organized and figured out my net worth as a starting point. And what I found out was upsetting of course, I had dug a negative $75,000 net worth hole at age 32. And that was all that I needed to see to finally address this blind spot head on and aggressively. Finally, I had shed some light on this issue and it was bad but knowing how bad was step one. And honestly, I'm so happy it got as bad as it did because it forced me to face my deepest fear, to look myself in the mirror and finally say one day, today is the day you are going to get your ---- together. If you've read my book, The Money Resolution or watch my videos, you've probably heard bits of my story before so I'm not gonna rehash everything that happened next plus my story is still being told but essentially I spent a year obsessing over fixing my financial life, that's the how. The why behind it, I wanted to fix my situation obviously so that I could fix my life and become me again. And fix it, I did. Day by day, heck, sometimes hour by hour or minute by minute, I was a madman, a crazy person but the good kind of crazy I guess for the first time. I challenged all of my energy and frustration and anger into my mission. My one word mission by the way, money. It's officially the only New Year's resolution I've ever accomplished and I didn't even have a concrete goal. Instead, it became a lifelong mission. It just became my mantra to get good with money and when I did, it was so life changing and eye opening that I vowed to help others do the same. I wrote this book about it, I started this YouTube channel even though I didn't know what the heck I was doing. When I hit record for the first time, just look at that terrified guy. Just like I didn't know what the heck I was doing when I woke up on January 1st, 2018 and I talked to myself in the mirror, probably hungover by the way. All of this is to say, if you're dealing with a financial crisis, it's exactly what you need. If you are on the brink, fight back. Nobody is going to fight this fight for you. Commit today because you can't fix your future in the future and look, I don't care how corny it is. Talk to yourself in the mirror or journal about it. I don't know but either way, ask yourself some difficult questions like, can I do better? Do I want more? Am I doing enough for future me? Do I know enough to be successful? Do I feel financially fit? All right, here's the positive end to this huge first chapter of my finance story. I reached a massive milestone last month. I honestly didn't really intend to share this but when I did reach that milestone, it got me reflecting on everything, this whole journey. So maybe that's the reason I'm talking about this today. So here you go, full transparency, my full net worth reveal, which I've never actually publicly revealed here on my YouTube channel. I'm gonna do it by actually sharing this that I posted on my Instagram the other day. Three years, one month, 10 days. That's how long it took me to go from negative 75,000 to positive six-figure net worth. If I can do it starting with zero money know-how, anybody can. How did I do it? Relentless learning and doing one small thing a day. Money doesn't have to be complicated or scary to tackle. If you are where I was, you can change your life. Commit, set goals, read, surround yourself with good people and get resolved. Flex emoji, money bag emoji, up arrow emoji. The best part, finally feeling free to live fully. Okay, it's actually the better sleep. Plus it gets easier from here, or so I hear. You can do this too, with the dramatic periods in between. Because this is dramatic, you guys. Not just my transformation, but what this transformation represents. I made a commitment to myself and I followed through. And I hope I'm evidence that anyone can do it. And if this isn't you that I'm describing, but you aren't where you wanna be financially, just set a goal, a real tangible goal, and get after it every day. It is never too late to change your financial life. It's never too late to get resolved about it, to get out of debt, to make up for not contributing to your retirement accounts enough, to build up an emergency fund or save your first $10,000. I'm actually gonna let you know how you can access my course about saving your first $10,000 for free at the end of this video. But here's a little secret about getting resolved. It doesn't have to be January 1st to set a resolution. You can set a 365 day resolution any day of the year. And honestly, I was as nervous to hit record on this one as I think I ever have been, because it takes a lot of guts to be this vulnerable with yourself and other people. But these are some of the thoughts I needed to hear when I was 18, 21, 22, 25, 30, 32. So I'm hoping that some of this is what somebody out there needed to hear today. And I don't know if this video's gonna land with many people or how many people are gonna watch this far, but when I set out to write my book to share my story with people, I made a commitment that kept me motivated. I said to myself, if this book reaches one person and hits home and changes one person's life, the dozens upon dozens of hours I poured into it will have all been well worth it. I have the same mentality, by the way, every single time I hit record. If this video helps just one person, it was a success. Let me know if that was you. Okay, actionable takeaway time. I actually say sleep on this video and some of my thoughts and sit with some of your own, but then tomorrow morning, tell yourself today's the day and commit. Not the day after tomorrow, tomorrow. And if you watch this all and still feel awful about your financial situation, trust me when I say a financial crisis is exactly what you needed. If it doesn't make sense now, it will when you look back. It's the hardest of times that make us the strongest. Other people coast their entire life, but you, you still have a story to tell. You can still be the hero in your story. Obviously I just turned a major chapter, six figures net worth, but I might only be one chapter ahead of you. So subscribe and let's continue the journey together. And if you haven't checked out my first book, check out the money resolution over on Amazon. If you think you're gonna get some value out of this and you wanna support me. But now I'm gonna do something that I haven't done before. First down below, I'm gonna pin a comment with a code that would get you 50% off my save money resolution course and a link to that. But I'd also like to offer free access to five of you. If you want full free access to that course, the first one I've ever made, just let me know by replying to my pin comment down below and I'm gonna get in touch with you and get you hooked up with a code for 100% off. The goal of the course again is to help you save your first or next $10,000, but the principles to get you there are going to apply to you if you're also working on paying off, let's say $10,000 in debt. Email frankie at themoneyresolution.com if you don't hear from me down in the comments below for some reason. And finally, maybe the other reason for this video today is I just watched the golden globes last night and it was incredibly inspiring to watch Chadwick Boseman win his first ever best actor award. So this one goes out to him, hence the quotes on screen. Congratulations, Chadwick, you will be missed. Wakanda forever. Thank you guys as always for watching. My name again is Frankie, and I'll see you motivated people in a few days on the next one. Or if you just want more free content from me, consider checking out this video next or that one, definitely that one. Thanks.