The One-year challenge, The Oprah show found some people in debt and gave them each a personal wealth coach for a year.
What do you think happened? Well it was interesting, both families that I saw on the show made enough money to become wealthy.
Both families spent a ton and were basically at a zero net worth.
Meaning if they sold everything they had and paid off their debts they would have zero left.
Well if you make a hundred thousand a year and have nothing left over at the end of it something is wrong and those wealth coaches surely found it.
These people were spending money fast.
The faster they could get rid of it the better.
Family A's wealth coach went in and told them straight, this is going to hurt.
You are going to have to cut this out and sell that and stop doing this and that.
The family looked as if they were going to pass out when they heard it all.
Luckily for them there was a clue that if you are on the Oprah show for debt you must have a problem.
At the end of the year they had them back on the show and basically their message was, we did whatever the wealth coach said to do.
It was hard but now we actually have a financial future.
Family B's situation started much the same, made good money and spent even more.
At the end of the year they where $37,000 more in debt! I nearly fell over, if you get a professional wealth coach and you actually go more in debt something is wrong, very wrong.
It turns out they started doing what the coach said, which was basically sell everything and pay off the 18 credit cards.
Get some money in the bank and curb your spending habits.
What did they actually do? Half a year in the wife stopped talking to the coach in her words, it was too invasive.
Instead they went and spent a ton of money.
This is typical, they start to get ahead and do everything to sabotage their life.
There is an expression in wealth circles, you have to be worth a million dollars before you can get a million dollars.
This means if your self worth is not up to it you will do whatever it takes to stay poor.
Think about it, do you think The Oprah show is looking for failures? No way, they want happy stories.
Some family going backwards $37K is not a good story.
The moral of this story is be nice to yourself but be firm.
You need to be nice because getting out of debt and becoming wealthy is hard work.
You need to be firm because half way does not get you out of debt but likely in a whole lot more debt.
Remember it may seem tough now but it will be a whole lot tougher if you don't get out of debt.