Rewiring Your Money Mindset: A Path to Financial Freedom with Dwight Heck
Are you struggling with financial stress that’s pushing you towards unhealthy coping mechanisms? In this raw and honest episode, I dive deep into the complex relationship between money worries and addictive behaviours, offering insights and strategies to break free from this destructive cycle.
Drawing from personal experiences and years of financial coaching, I explore how childhood programming, social pressures, and generational trauma shape our relationship with money. We’ll unpack the hidden triggers that lead to compulsive spending, gambling, substance use, and other harmful habits when faced with financial uncertainty.
Key Takeaways:
- Understanding the root causes of financial stress and its impact on mental health
- Recognizing the signs of stress-fueled addictions and their long-term consequences
- Practical strategies for building healthier coping mechanisms and financial habits
- The importance of self-compassion and seeking support in breaking destructive patterns
Breaking the Cycle: From Stress to Success
Discover how to:
- Identify and address your personal financial triggers
- Create a realistic budget that aligns with your values and goals
- Develop safer coping habits to replace addictive behaviours
- Build a support network for accountability and encouragement
Rewiring Your Financial Mindset
Learn why it’s never too late to change your relationship with money. I share powerful insights on:
- Overcoming shame and cultivating self-compassion
- Setting achievable financial goals that motivate rather than overwhelm
- Embracing a growth mindset to navigate setbacks and challenges
- Finding purpose and fulfillment beyond material wealth
This episode is a must-listen for anyone feeling trapped by financial stress and destructive habits. Whether you’re dealing with debt, job insecurity, or simply feeling overwhelmed by money matters, you’ll find practical advice and compassionate guidance to help you regain control.
Don’t let financial worries dictate your choices or compromise your well-being. Tune in now and take the first step towards breaking free from the cycle of stress and addiction. It’s time to give a heck about your financial and emotional health!
Connect with Dwight Heck:
Website: https://giveaheck.com
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Chapter summaries:
00:00:02
Introduction to Financial Stress and Addiction
The podcast discusses how financial stress can fuel addictive behaviors and offers strategies to break the cycle. It explores the definition of financial stress, its common causes, and its impact on mental health and relationships.
00:09:15
Understanding Financial Stress and Its Impact
Explores the deep-rooted causes of financial stress, including childhood programming, social pressures, and generational trauma. Discusses how financial stress affects self-worth, decision-making, and overall well-being.
00:18:30
Breaking the Cycle: Coping Strategies and Solutions
Offers practical advice for recognizing stress patterns, building safer coping habits, and implementing financial triage. Emphasizes the importance of budgeting, goal-setting, and seeking professional help to overcome financial stress and addiction.
Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:54:12]
Good day and welcome to Give a Heck. On today’s show, I’m going to have a solo podcast and the podcast title When Money Hurts, How Financial Stresses Fuels Addiction and How to Break the Cycle. Right. We’re going to touch on a lot of different things. May not be as in depth as some people would like, but I want to cover a lot of different topics in regards to financial stress over the next 30 to 45 minutes and show you, discuss with you the different things that can make a difference in your life. Right. So today topic is raw but important. Right. How financial stress can push us toward addictive behaviors is something that is a avoided by people, misunderstood by people, ignored as, as mentioned, people avoid it. So how do we regain control? Right. Whether it’s compulsive shopping, gambling, binge eating, or substance use, financial trauma can trigger coping mechanisms that cost us even more. So let’s unpack how stress works in the brain, how money magnifies it, and what healthier strategies we can turn to instead. What’s the first thing? Well, what is financial stress defined as persistent anxiety or fear about money? Right. I’ll say that again. What is financial stress? It’s defined as a persistent anxiety or fear about money. It drives us in so many different ways that are unhealthy for us, majority of us anyway, because our whole core values and life is revolved around money, money, money, lack of money. Right. Is the biggest financial stress, obviously. And that’s we’re going to focus on, you know, at the end of the day, we’re not here to help people that have too much money in regards to financial stress. They don’t have that. Maybe they have life stresses outside of that, which is a whole different podcast which we can get into because I’ve been dealing with this for 22 years with clients. But regardless, so common in Canada due to that persistent anxiety or fear about money. Right. About financial stress, the high cost of living, have we seen that change a lot? Absolutely. Over the last five years, since the pandemic, you can see the high cost of living has gotten crazy. You can have something that was $100 in 2000 that’s now worth 125, let’s say, or to $145. But yet you’re making the same income. Right. That you made in 2020, in 2025, but yet everything is getting more and more costly. If you’re somebody that actually budgets, you’re seeing the fact that you don’t have any free income, possibly maybe you can’t save any More for retirement. Maybe you can’t continue to pay down debts the way that you were prior and now you have a bunch more debts because you have more days in the month then you have money to use the lines of credit card cards, overdraft to survive, right? So the high cost of living with inflation is eroding and it’s, you know, eroding what buying power we have, right? So if the buying power you had in 2020 is less, let’s say by even 10% than it was in, you know, now in 2025, the buy your buying power is less by 10%, 20, 25, 30, that’s affecting you. And you’re living a life of quiet desperation, wondering what more can I do to get ahead? Maybe you’re somebody that’s never learned how to budget. Maybe you’ve never learned how the inflows and outflows and the rules in the money game and how to not live in quiet desperation. I’m here to tell you it’s possible I was that person, right? Have I gone to the valley of despair? Have I been to the roller coaster of life? Absolutely. But I’ve armed myself and worked enough on myself to understand obviously being in the finance, insurance, budgeting, lifestyle game, helping people live intently in a purposeful life, I’ve learned a lot. So I know how to get out of that value to spirit sooner than later. You can get to that point. You just have to be the willing. So you look at household debt, it’s huge. It’s. It’s rocking people to the core. It’s literally crushing people and them not understanding how are they going to take care of this mounting debt, this debt that can be depending if it’s on a credit card, you’re lucky if you’re at 20% interest rate, right? Some people are 28, 30% or even higher. Maybe they screwed up their credit or they’ve used all their good credit up what I’d call a credit, which is at a lower rate. And they’ve had to go to B credit. They’ve had to go to one of these little strip malls or little shops where, or even online. Now people do it and they lend you money at a very high interest rate and they make it sound like they’re helping you out, right? Because you don’t understand all the details of what you’re getting yourself into. So lack of financial literacy, lack of knowing what to do is definitely a problem and why there’s so much financial stress. So at the end of the day, it causes what does it cause your financial stress, that quiet desperation, can’t sleep properly at night, you toss and turn, your brain’s racing. Maybe because of your financial stress, you went to bed and before you went to bed you drank a bunch of alcohol, which does not help our 6 inches between our ears. Maybe you smoked some cannabis, maybe you did a combination of both. And I found is my life has proceeded on that anything can be done like alcohol. Or you could be a person that does drugs. If it’s done in moderation, in your mind’s, in the right mindset, you won’t overdo it, you’ll do it just as an enjoyment thing. But many people today do drugs, alcohol or are addicted to so many things. They can be addicted to social media, they can be addicted to binge watching tv, they can be addicted to sex, they can be addicted pornography. There’s so many different things that we can be addicted today that we do and utilize before we go to bed. That sticks in our brain, right? And we go to lay down and try to have a restful sleep, but our brain is still racing because we were thinking about it. We were never taught how to have a mindset of gratefulness and gratitude before we go to bed. We’ve never been taught how to be appreciative of the fact that, you know, if you’re God fearing like me, that I was alive today, I was given another shot. Yeah, I had these character building moments. What do I need to do or who do I need to talk to? What do I need to learn so that I can flip the switch quicker than later? And it takes time. I’ve been working on this, right? My self development, my personal development game has been going on now since 1993, right? That’s a long time we’re talking, we are 32 years later and I’m still working on me and I get better and better and you can too. You just got to start somewhere. You got to take that first baby step. So again, trouble sleeping is hard. Then you wake up, you haven’t had enough sleep, you’re grumpy or maybe you’re not, Maybe you’re a person that’s good at masking it. You put that mask on after you get out of bed and that quiet desperation is hid behind the mask. You come downstairs or you, maybe you don’t have it upstairs, but you come into the environment of the rest of the people in your house and you’re living a facade. I did that for many years as a single dad raising my kids, put on the Mask to cover up the quiet desperation came downstairs, was around my kids, and I masked the pain that I had inside. And that pain inside would constantly eat at me. Throw up the day. My health wasn’t the best. I go to bed at night the same way until I learned processes that made a huge difference and continue to make a huge difference in my life to move forward. And you can do the same. So you know when you have financial stress? We do. Besides trouble sleeping, what else happens? We snap at our lab ones when really at the end of the day, we got home from work and work sucked. You were treated poorly by whoever. Doesn’t matter if it was a client, a fellow employee, maybe a boss, maybe you’re the boss and, and somebody above you treated you inappropriately, or a client called out and screamed at you, or whatever the case may be. And you come home and you don’t know how to disconnect. And you can’t 100% disconnect from your job, your career, your business is impossible. But you can at least control the fact that once you get out of your vehicle, walk into your house, that is a safe place. You make it a safe place. You make it a place where you know that you’re not going to come in and you’re not going to snap at loved ones. You’re going to have things that are on your mind, but you’re going to focus on the family and you’re going to learn communication techniques with your significant others. So that. Or with. If you’re not, you’re alone, you’re single like me right now, and, and you have friends, family that you can reach out to and, and you can have those discussions about what’s bothering you. But you know, you can compartmentalize it and push it aside temporarily. Right. Instead of bringing that in and puking it all over your loved ones. Right. Maybe it’s jealousy over things that people can achieve that you can’t achieve because they have more money or they have circumstances that are different that you aren’t aware of. But regardless, you can figure it out with help. Right? And how to come home and live a life in your house that’s a safe environment. You avoid bills, mailbox. You go to the mailbox, you want to see that bill and go, oh my gosh. And you set it on the counter. Do you open it up or you get it? Maybe you get emails. You avoid opening that email. That’s an unread email because you know it’s another cost you just can’t afford because at one point in time, as I mentioned, something was $100. Now it’s $125 five years later. Inflation is a real thing, right? And we have challenges and circumstances of what we need to do in order to survive to live life. So one other thing though, I want to touch on too. Don’t feel that. Don’t feel ashamed for your circumstances. So what if your work compadre, your work buddy, your work friends or family are doing things that you can’t do? They’re going to this special event, they’re going on a holiday for two weeks to Hawaii, they’re going over to Europe, they’re going wherever. But yet they don’t necessarily know the circumstances of how they’re doing it. You’re only hearing the happy, positive side of it. And then you feel ashamed and guilty because you can’t do the same for your family or for yourself. Yourself don’t. At the end of the day, you live your purposeful life. You let them live theirs. Because if you were open the doors of their life and look inside, you may not like what they are showing. It’s. It can all be smoke and mirrors is my point. So back to the link between financial stress and addiction. We’re going to talk a little bit more about that again. I listed some things, but common stress fueled addictions. Whether it’s financial stress, which most stress really at the end of the day, if people are honest, is directly associated with financial stress, right? It just is. It’s the number one cause of divorce, number one cause of friendship breakdown, business breakdown, just life breakdown is financial stress. And people get into. Again, we talked about a. Gambling is huge nowadays. I can jump on my computer and I could spend hours if I wanted to doing online gambling. There’s online casinos and you can get yourself into a world of trouble. Oh, this week I want a couple hundred bucks. I’m gonna do better even next week. I only spent 100 this week I made 200. I’m gonna spend 200 next week or this week and now then I’ll make 400. And then you lose. And you keep on rushing and rushing and running and chasing, trying to get that win again. And meanwhile, you blew the mortgage payment, you blew the car payment. Oh my goodness. Now I got no money for food, so I got to use credit cards, lines of credit, overdraft, right? Addictions can be really crushing lives. Retail therapy, people go out and buy to get that dopamine hit. We talked a little bit about that. People get addicted, mention alcohol, cannabis, emotional eating is A big problem that’s happened in our world over, I wouldn’t even say last decade, probably my whole lifetime. People are depressed, they’re caught in the valley of despair. They’re not happy with their lives, and they will literally start eating. I’ve been there. Emotional eating. I just went through a boat of it again myself. I’m just being straight up and honest with you. I was going through some emotional challenges and I’d find myself at night getting up and I really wasn’t hungry, but I grabbed something and start snacking. And you gain weight. Then you look at yourself and you think to yourself, oh, I’m a loser. Why did I do that? That’s not what you’re supposed to say to yourself. Oh, my goodness. I got caught in this trap of overeating again, depressive eating. What can I do to stop that? What can I do to distract myself when I get hungry? Maybe go and jump on the treadmill, if you have one. Maybe go for a walk outside. Maybe just go outside, do something that’s not the same so that you can stay away from food. That emotional eating crutch that many people have had, including myself. And again, like I said, I go through ways where it comes and goes, but I know how to catch it soon enough. And you can too. Digital addictions. How many people come home and they sit down, you grab one addiction glass of wine every single day. I have clients and know people that do that. They grab a glass of wine or they grab a beer or they, you know, smoke some cannabis or they do, you know, two of them. They drink and they smoke and they literally sit down on the couch or sit down somewhere and they start drew doom scrolling. Not drew doom scrolling. What is doom scrolling? They sit on social media and scroll, scroll, watch video after video, sad, some depressing, some happy, some funny. And they just get caught up in that. And they do it for however length of period of time. Or they game. They play games constantly. Why are they doing all that stuff? Because it’s avoidance behavior of what’s going on between their six inches. Or they’re stressed about their job, they’re stressed about finances, which is directly attributed to the job. Because if they made enough money or they had enough composure, they could leave that job and go find something else, make more money. But that’s not capable for everybody. Not everybody’s capable of doing that, going out and getting and making more money. So they literally get caught up in things which aren’t conducive to growth, to living a purposeful intent for life. So addictions are a real thing. Right. Don’t forget that. And like they say, in times of economic hardship, addiction rates rise. They’ve seen that happen excessively from 2020 to the end of the pandemic. Now they’ve been seeing it again over all the political upheaval that’s going on in the world, specifically tied to actions that are coming out of government in the U.S. right? The U.S. is good. Canadians are good. Europeans are good. People from the UK are good. Our governments need some help. They’re the challenge. They are either our friend one day, an enemy the next. I’d like to have a government for Canada, for you, wherever you live, where you win more than ever than the government that they’re always focused on helping you win and not about, you know, bickering with one another, with other parties, or, you know, just saying offensive, stupid things, which we’ve all been hearing a lot of lately, specifically from one individual. But at the end of the day, you need to understand addictions are a huge problem. And they happen when there is economic hardship, which is going on right now, again, because of what everything is going on with the tariffs prior, with the pandemic prior to that. I could go on and on of the things that have happened that cause economic instability and hardship for people and why they turn to addictions. Again, I’m not judging anybody. I’ve been there. I’m just not there at the moment in my life because I have the ability to understand moderation. I have the ability to understand saying, no, I don’t want that drink. No, I don’t need that piece of food, that cake. I’m not hungry. No, I don’t need to smoke, right? Drink, eat any of that. My mindset is I’m suffering, but I don’t need to make it worse. I’m going to go work out. I’m going to go for a walk. I’m gonna call a friend that. That’ll uplift me. There’ll be things that you can find and can be taught to help you avoid it more than not. So why money stress is hit so deep, right? Money affects our social worth. I just was talking to somebody that was talking about the fact of. Had a call earlier where they talked about the fact of, you know, the person saying, well, people are doing this and this and that. They’re going on these trips, they’re going on all these different adventures. And, you know, I want to do the same thing, too. You know, you need to be able to help me do that. And we need to work together and make this happen. Well, it’s not always that simple, right? Your social worth around the people you work with, the people you associate with, even an extracurricular things that you do as an adult should not define you. Your social worth isn’t whether or not they have a brand new car in the driveway and yours is 8 years old. So what? Look at it this way. Car is designed to get you from point A to point B to get family or yourself to an event or to work or whatever the case may be. Maybe school, right? It’s a tool. Good. They got a brand new vehicle. Do you know what their bills are like? Are they living with payment? Itis. Everything they have is a payment. Nothing’s owned and their payments equal their paycheck. Oh, wait a minute. Remember we talked about inflation? Things get more expensive all of a sudden. Food gets more expensive, utilities are more expensive, living life’s more expensive. And they got that 580, $800, a thousand dollars car payment every month. But their social worth, because they value their worth of what other people see based on materialism. Bigger house, nicer car, fancier clothes, the list goes on. What do you define yourself by? Ask yourself that. Right. We have so many things that we look at and want to show to the world as a facade so that we have social work that people will like us, people will love us, who we are, what we stand for. Excuse me, what we stand for. So we’ll continue on some of the core issues when we’re talking about people and their, you know, their ability to reflect the social worth they want to feel to others again, buying stuff, doing things we can’t afford. Happens consistently for many of us. I’ve bought things that I couldn’t really afford. Right. I was at a point in my life, spent money on a course, spent money on this, spent money on that. And the fruition of the result of what I thought I was going to get wasn’t long term. It was an instant dopamine hit. And then after the fact, my depression or my anxiety came back and I didn’t end up really getting out of that, what I deserved to get out of it, yet I spent the money. Where did all these issues come from? These core issues? A lot of it is childhood programming about money. The money monsters that are taught to us. When we come into the house and you hear the whispering, mom and dad don’t want to talk about money. They don’t talk about it with one another, let alone sharing it with their children and or they’ll hear bickering about money because somebody spent money. And the other person said, oh, you shouldn’t have done that. We can’t afford it. We got this and that and the other, per the person that spend the money, instead of saying, yeah, you’re probably right, because they’ve never learned communication skills with one another, they snap and go, well, I, you know, I work hard, I deserve this, I deserve that. That all happens. Do you ever experience that? Right? Childhood programming. So you’re a young child growing up and then you go and become an adult and you get into your own relationships. You don’t know how to communicate, you don’t know how to talk about money with your significant other or with the kids because people avoided it. Was I perfect at it? Absolutely not. But I do have the memories of raising my kids where I did teach them things obviously age appropriate about needs and wants. Is that a need or is that a want? Is that something really we need? Oh, we need this, right? Is it really a need? And we’d have those discussions, right? No, a brand new, I don’t know, whatever brand new pair of pants, when you have three pairs already or five pairs or 10 pairs and, well, they’re new in style, doesn’t matter, right? We can’t afford it. We can’t justify, here’s our bills, here’s our running cost of what it costs to live. And of course, age appropriate. Again, you can sit down with somebody that’s 13, 14 years old and say to them, this is what our bills are. This is what we bring in. This is what we have left over, right? May seem shocking, but where do they get their knowledge from if not from their parents? The schools don’t do it properly. Colleges, universities don’t do it properly. And society, they sure the heck doesn’t do it properly. And teaching our children about the rules of the money game. So they’re programming around money is very sheltered. And they, you know, that pattern of behavior continues on to that generation, then the next generation, because people aren’t honest about money, right? Talk to your children, talk to your significant other. Have those conversations. If you aren’t sure how to do it, reach out to me. Just go to giveaheck.com book an appointment with me. Let’s have a talk. No cost, no obligation. Let’s have a conversation. Let’s see how I can potentially help you, right? If I can’t help you, no harm, no foul. You’ve got a little bit of information. I’ve got to meet somebody new. You’ve got to meet somebody new and we can move forward. Right. Again, core issues of social worth. Again, money is a marker of success. This person we talked about that has a better, nicer car than me, nicer house, nicer clothes, whatever, maybe they got a fancier lawnmower, I don’t know. You know, at the end of the day, it’s just, it’s light. Social pressures are real when it comes to financial stress, fear, scarcity or survival. Why is that a social pressure? Why does that have to reflect your social worth? Well, you look at the fact of maybe your industry, this is the pandemic, has laid off 300 people, right? And you’re fearful of being that next person. So you got that scarcity mindset of, you know, not having enough, enough savings, enough credit to survive. If you don’t have the savings, you’re worried about your survival, your family survival and getting ahead. All that is very stressful. Right. I know people get tired of hearing that. But budgeting can certainly help you through all the challenges to get a clear focus on your life and why, you know, your numbers aren’t lining up. What can you do? What things are you paying for monthly that are really not a need, but they’re a want that can get pushed to the side and you can utilize that money to continually move forward to win the money game so that you have the ability to get out of debt, to save for your kids education, for your retirement or whatever you want to accomplish. Again, goal setting ties directly to budgeting and I help people with both as well as lots more in regards to lifestyle coaching. So, you know, generational trauma we did, I just touched on that. You grew up poor, right? So you grew up poor, you never had anything yet hand me down clothes. You literally went, you know, you didn’t get to do anything with your family because money was so tight. There was no vacations, but yet you got to go to the park. You got, you know, there was no vacations, but yet you got to go to the lake for the day. Right. It’s how you look at things, right? Yes. A vacation, going to somewhere exotic, going to the US going to Europe, uk, wherever. Right. Is exciting. But at the end of the day, when I was, my kids were younger, we couldn’t afford to take vacations, we couldn’t afford to do things. So I took them to the park lot once in a while we’d, you know, get to go out to a movie, right. I, I justify and budget for it or we go a few hours south of where I Live and we go there, have a zoo, we go to the zoo. Or we’d go to the amusement park. It only be there for two days. It’s all I could just fire afford raising five kids. And at the end of the day they seen that. So they can go one of two ways. You can have growing up low income or watching parents struggle like they watched me initially, even though I had a good business, didn’t mean that there aren’t financial pressures right at the end of the day. Right. So you need to realize that, that growing up low income, when they become adults, they can do one or two things. They can become a spendaholic and spend money on things they shouldn’t. Maybe you couldn’t afford to buy your daughter a lot of clothing and now they go out and they spend stupid amounts of money on clothing. I’m talking from real life. I understand that. I see that within my own family structure and in other family structures, so. Or that low income mentality where we used to go to thrift stores when my kids were really young and we go to secondhand stores. I’d say to them we got 100 bucks, we can go to, you know, the retail store here. You can spend 100 bucks and get one, maybe two shirts or we can go to the thrift store and you can get five, six pieces of clothing. Well, I have one adult daughter who has some of my grandkids, but she has no problems doing that, right? She has no problem in, in going to a thrift store to find things because of her ever growing family. It was the same as me. Whereas I have another child that’s the exact opposite. They wish they would have had more. So now that they have money, they buy lots of right. Retail therapy. It is what it is, right? So it can happen both ways. You can have kids watching that struggle and then they grow up and they go one way or the other. Either that or they’re going to be very mind conscious, money conscious or they’re going to be conscious that they didn’t have a lot and they’re going to use the money they have to make themselves feel better because they feel like they can justify because they never had it growing up as a child. So that’s a big challenge. We have so many other challenges that the younger generations are facing as well. You know, real, real hard talk. Most today’s children aren’t going to be able to afford to buy a home at the rising costs of living in cities. Like two most expensive. Right? Two of the most expensive in the World. Actually, Toronto or Vancouver and Canada are actually more expensive to live than places in the US or Europe. Around the world, these two cities, the rising cost of living and owning a home is almost impossible. More and more people are moving to more economical, cheaper provinces in Canada or if you’re in the States and moving to cheaper places in the US have friends doing that all the time. Where in one place the house is worth, let’s say a half million dollars, in another place in the US it might be worth 200. The same in Canada. Right. There’s a huge difference between wages, affordability, and living in different places that you live. So depending on where you’re listening to this from, you know, I can relate. I can understand that. The real talk though, about money, right. We’re going to talk about a few scenarios and just to make you think, right, See if any of these sound familiar. I’m going to read these out. Someone maxes out their credit cards from online shopping, not because they want more stuff, but because it temporarily soothes their anxiety. Retail shopping therapy, right? Temporary. Really want you to trigger on that word, temporarily soothes their anxiety. Does it really? A man gets laid off and starts drinking more heavily, not out of joy, but out of shame. Doesn’t take man out of their put woman. Doesn’t matter. I know women that, that are, are alcoholics, just, just as many as men. And they feel stress and shame because they lost their job or maybe their, their job had to cut back in their hours. And they feel shame that they can’t support their family. So they’re trying to mask the pain they have inside because they’ve never learned the tools to understand their life monsters, their money monsters, so that they can actually communicate and work through those challenges and not let them drag them down into the valley of despair. So does it happen all the time? Unfortunately, people drink to cover up their shame, their embarrassment, their anger, their frustration because they don’t know any other tools or no people they can talk to or utilize to help them, you know, climb and stop being camped and on that hamster wheel of life and feeling trapped by a job. So a young man, a young woman trapped in student debt, turns to gambling apps for just one big win. I touched on that a little bit. I hear about it all the time. Oh, I won last year. I won a thousand dollars on a scratchy or I won, you know, $500 on, on at the casino, right? And I’m gonna chase that. I’m gonna get that because I need to pay off my student loan. I Need to get ahead. I need to be able to save for retirement. But all, all they’re thinking all this in their head, by the way, and they’re thinking to themselves, all that payment every single month, if I could get rid of that payment, I’d just be, life be so much better. Guess what? You get rid of that payment and it just gets absorbed by other things in your life. If you don’t have a structured goal, breakdown of what you want to achieve in life and a budget to go along with it. Right. Everything comes back to understanding the rule of the money game, understanding numbers to avoid these circumstances. That person has a student debt, can they pay it off? Well, first off, you have to know exactly what they bring in for money. You have to know what their needs and wants are, break it down on a budget and, and actually figure out maybe they can double their payments. Oh, we got rid of some things in here that are wants that you pay for, but you really don’t utilize. You’re just throwing that money out the window. That’s what proper budgeting does. Finds the holes in your boat and teaches you how to plug them permanently so that you can move forward. So this person wouldn’t have to have that necessarily have that addiction to trying to gamble on apps or going to the casino. They could actually look at their numbers and understand where they are today, what they can do over the next months. So now all of a sudden, maybe they can double up their payments on their student loan, get it paid off faster. All this stuff and all these processes do something that most people don’t have competence. They don’t have certainty in their lives. They don’t have intent of what they are going to do to win the money game, to win life, to live a life comfortable. You don’t have to be wealthy to be comfortable. You don’t have to, I’m telling you right now, you can figure out how to live a life based on your values, your core values of what you want, just with some effort, with some time, right? And putting together the right things. I know people that are wealthy and miserable. I know people that are wealthy and happy, but you’d never know they were wealthy because they don’t let wealth, they don’t let money control them. Did they have to go through hard times to get to that point? Absolutely. I hear their stories, I communicate with them. I understand that, you know, unless you won the lottery or you got a massive inheritance, anybody that’s wealthy outside of those two categories has had to go through some challenges. Right? Majority of the people have to do that. So there are not weak people, right? People aren’t weak. They just have so many things going on. They just don’t know how to deal with the different challenges that they’re going through. And they’re using survival mechanisms slash addictions to cope, to mask their pain, their hurt. Once that runs out, the next day comes around, they go back to the same thing and it becomes a vicious hamster wheel effect, right? Addictions going to work, go home, addictions get paid. Maybe you’re using that for, you know, gambling. You’re using it for whatever. You don’t have a firm budget, you don’t know how to pay. If you’re going to be able to pay all your bills, but you’re going to go buy that addictive thing that you want. You’re going to do that addictive thing that you want when really in reality, if you had your numbers, understood you, if you had proper lifestyle coaching or communication, you’ll be able to start feeling better about yourself and changing your life and removing addictions from your life permanently. But again, one day at a time. I’m not saying this is easy. It’s a baby step at a time. But over time, right, these mechanisms, these addictions you’re using will backfire on you. They will destroy your. They can destroy your career, your marriages, your friendships, your trust and respect that you get from others, right? Just think about that. Do you have, Are you, are you this person that I’m talking about? And you don’t have a lot of people that want to hang out with you or the people that do hang out with you are all in the same boat. Misery likes company. That’s what they say. I’m telling you, avoid that misery. Change your associations with family and friends that are uplifting you, that are stuck the same as you. Because if you stay with stuck people, you’re going to stay stuck. I’m sorry to say that. Just. It is what it is, right? It rubs off on you. You hang out with successful people, people that are moving forward. Maybe they’re not at the level of success of wealth, but successful in the sense of their lives are in order. They got structure, they live with purpose. Those are the people you need to associate with. Those are the people that can help you lift their, lift your life up. Those are the people that can understand and empathize because guaranteed they’ve been where you’re at. They just are farther along on the journey and left that behind. And now moving forward and not being camped and climbing in life. So we’re going to go through a little bit of stuff here, things that I’ve talked about already a little bit. But, you know, something that you can actually, actually use to break the cycle of that stress you’re feeling, that financial burden, that crippling, you know, quiet desperation that keeps you up at night, right? Makes you wake up in the morning in the same way. So you need to start to learn to recognize these patterns. You don’t want to wait till you hit rock bottom. And here’s how you can shift the pattern so again, recognizing it. Some people like to journal. If you’re that person nowadays, you can. There’s so many apps you can use to immediately journal on your phones or you can do like some people, they. They literally have the old, you know, notebook and they journal, journal some of the patterns you go through. And, you know, when I feel this way, I tend to. So when I feel depressed, stressed, angry, sad, I tend to pour myself a drink. I tend to gravitate to social media. I tend to open up that gambling app. I tend to sit down and binge watch five, six hours of TV and drink and smoke while I’ doing that, right? Try to identify the triggers. When I feel this way, I tend to do that because then when you visualize or have to write it down or type it in your phone or on a computer, it makes your brain realize that you’re trying to figure out the truth of why you are where you’re at. Your brain does not understand the difference between the truth and a lie. You need to tell it. What is the truth? What is a lie? What are you hiding? Right? So. And track your triggers, right? What, what’s triggering me is today payday, right? Is it because I’m lonely? People I know around me or a person, I went on social for a few minutes and they’re out with friends and they’re out having, you know, you know, fun. They’re going out having cocktails or going out for a meal, they’re doing whatever, and I wasn’t invited or I don’t know how to invite myself along or become part of that friend group is always happy and joyous when really, in reality, you don’t know that a social media post isn’t necessarily valid proof that they’re happy in their lives, but it triggers something in you. It triggers that loneliness, right? And things that really. It sucks, right? So you need to recognize those patterns. When I’m feeling this way and I jump into addictive things, is it because I’m lonely? Is it payday? And I know that everything’s going to be gone, right? Because the bills are going to take it all away and I still don’t have any extra money. What’s causing you to run toward those addictive personality traits, right? Part of me, addictive things that, that can come up because they’re ingrained already into our personality or maybe it’s something you just started. Build safer coping habits. What did I say earlier? Go for a walk, right? Maybe it’s running on the treadmill, maybe it’s going to the gym, maybe it’s yoga. Maybe you’re into boxing. I have, I know a lot of people that are into the martial arts. They go there and it helps them with their six inches between your ears. My one daughter goes to the gym every day because it helps her cope with her own life demons, right? Because when you work out it creates positive endorphins and it creates things within your mindset and helps you feel good about yourself. So those are some of the things you can use to build safer coping habits, right? When you’re feeling down, instead of going to that addictive drugs, alcohol or gambling for an example, you go and do something that’s healthy. It’s exercise related. Maybe it’s just going on a hike, going outdoors, going walking around the block a few times. Who knows? Call somebody. If you’re a person that’s addicted to shopping, call somebody, have a conversation with them. Somebody that you know that’s not going to be a person that’s going to be the same as you and go, oh great, let’s go to the store, let’s go. Oh, they got all these sales on. Let’s go. Buy, buy, buy, buy, buy. No, associate and communicate with somebody that is different than that. You don’t want to hang out and associate people that have the same addictive personality issues and challenges, right? So safer coping habits. Learn who you can communicate with. Learn who you can call up or text or whatever and say I just need you to listen. The next time it’s I need you to listen and I need some advice or I need you to listen to me, right? And I need you to give me advice as well. Or I just, you know, whatever the case may be, find that person that you can talk to, right? To help you through this stuff. So again, another thing that gives you that dopamine hit that you get from, from alcohol or cannabis or you know, doom scrolling, whatever the case may be. Music, I love music. Don’t listen to the pressing music though. That’s an association as well. Music, what you watch, it’s not just the people. When you’re sad, do you associate yourself? Do you have a playlist called I’m sad? Do you have a playlist that says I’m depressed? I don’t care what you call that playlist. But if all it’s doing is playing sad, sappy music, it’s just going to enhance your personality, where you’re at, where you’re feeling, how you’re feeling, and it’s just going to drive you to addictions, right? Oh, I’m gonna listen to this sappy music and drink, drink a bottle of wine. I’m gonna listen to this sappy music and I’m gonna get, you know, I’m gonna go out and smoke a. Smoke some drugs. I’m gonna do whatever, maybe I’m gonna do both. And then I’ll sit there and I’ll feel sorry for myself as I listen to that singer or that band sing depressing things about their, you know, about the world, about life. And I’m just gonna feel worse. And then I’m gonna. Eventually evening is gonna be over and I’m gonna start this over the next day and the next day and the next day. So watch what you listen to. Music can be empowering. It empowers me. Laughter, right? Maybe watch some comedy. Maybe hang out with somebody that makes you laugh. Or maybe they make you feel free to be that comical person you are, that jokester you are, and you make them laugh, which makes you laugh. Whatever the case may be, laughter is a great dopamine hit along with good music. Sleep. Sleep’s a number one and most important thing. I can tell you that you need to have number one. Without a good night rest, you wake up feeling all over the place. It’s hard to be grateful. It’s hard to have gratitude. It’s hard to push forward in life in a positive way when you actually do not have enough sleep. I’ve had the pleasure of having a couple different sleep experts on my podcast over the last four years. One of them is a doctor out of the us, a national expert that talks about how important sleep is and how you can change things within your sleeping environment, which some of them I’ve implemented. And it’s helped me get a better sleep, right? Things that you can utilize to make it so that you have a good 6, 7, 8 hours, hopefully at least 78 hours of sleep so that you wake up refreshed, that you can take on the day and the challenges and your body’s not physically exhausted. And your mind, because again, addictions can keep your mind racing even when you do fall asleep. Addictive things like drugs and alcohol can keep your mind racing all night, right? And if your mind’s racing all night, even if you do fall asleep, you’re not achieving good quality sleep, REM sleep or deep sleep where you actually heal and you relax and your body is able to, you know, recuperate. It’s able to again heal and you wake up and you, and you have a better shot at the day when you get more sleep. Nature, we talked about that. Going for a walk, listening to the birds. Maybe you’re lucky enough to have a friend you can go walking with that will be that person. You can, you know, kill two, two birds with one stone and they can listen to you and be your, your confidant and you can discuss things together and they make you feel good. Plus you’re out in nature, plus you’re feeling good, you’re on the hiking path or whatever the case may be. Maybe you’re just walking in your walk paths around your city, right? Nature can sure help when it comes to, you know, coping with the things going on in life and avoid addictions. So again, financial triage. The last things we’re going to talk about. Focus on what you can control. What can you really control? Well, budgeting. Know your numbers without shame. Goal set. What are your goals? I want to pay off debt. I want to save for vacation. I want to save for kids education. I want to do this, have all these, I want these goals and then apply them in order of what is really important and then apply that with your numbers, your budget, right? So the budget basics are the number one things for financial triage. Talking to a financial coach like myself, right? Somebody that can help you understand how you can pay off debt, how you can still move forward. After we review your goals and discuss them and we work on that, we build that financial roadmap to success to you living an intentful, purposeful life, right? Not living a life accident where you feel helpless and are driven to having that addictive personality which is slowly eating away at you and your life stability. There’s lots of free resources as well that you can look up things. You know, you don’t feel like communicating with me about this or you don’t know anybody in your community or where you live and who to communicate. Look for free resources. In Canada, we have, Canada has a financial consumer agency. You can look up them, you can Google it and actually look up some resources on how to get your financial house in order. So again, I think the best thing though would be to find somebody that you can trust to communicate, to get that coaching. It’s pretty hard for people to self teach themselves through YouTube or Googling stuff, reading articles, because you can read it, you can understand the information. But can you implement it without being directed? Can you implement it without having a financial roadmap laid out by somebody or somebody that you can call up and say, hey, I’m stuck here or I don’t understand this and that person such as me can help you pass that mental hump to continue to strive to have an intentful, purposeful, driven, non accident driven life, right? So at the end of this, you know your brain is neuroplastic, right? It can be rewired. Don’t ever think you’re stuck. Don’t ever believe in that old dogs can’t learn new tricks mentality. That is garbage. You can learn till the day you take your last breath. I know I am right. It took you a long time to get where you’re at. The habits that you’ve developed, whether it’s learned behavior from childhood, from those around you, your parents, or whatever the circumstances, maybe it’s something that happened in your young adulthood through a bad business dealing or bad career or a bad investment, who knows? But those habits that you’re currently stuck in, you can unlearn them. I’m telling you, you can unlearn them. It’s going to be not easy, but it’s not going to be hard either. It’s going to take something called consistency, right? And action. You need to take action. You need to have belief in yourself and you need to be consistent on moving forward every single day. If you have a day that you fall backwards, acknowledge it, lick your wounds, put a band aid on the wound and move forward, right? Don’t get caught up in the fact that you are stuck forever because you are not. You literally have so many options and so many choices in life, especially if you’ve made it this far through the podcast. You know, there’s somebody like me that helps people do this every single day. And I’ve, I’ve lived it myself. The things I utilize and teach and that I educate, things I talk about. In my book, I lived, I still live, and I continue to live. The only difference is I never want to be camped again or caught for long periods of time in the valley of despair or in quiet desperation or living with a mascot and not being my unique self, not being truthful to myself, the person I look at in the mirror. You can be that person that looks at yourself in the mirror and like what you see. It just takes some effort. It takes some time. It takes some support. It takes you changing your associations. It takes you looking at life differently and realizing and accepting that you have some issues and you want to change them. So I look forward to talking to you guys again. I know I close off my podcast all the time with if I was going to give you one last closing message, what would I tell you? You are worth it. You are somebody that deserves to have intentfulness in your life, to living with intent, to living with purpose, to living with compassion for yourself first and foremost in order to do any of this, if I haven’t, I should have said it more. You need to love yourself. You need to forgive yourself. You need to give up shame, you need to give up all the things that have been holding you back. Those life monsters, those money monsters. It takes time. The first thing you need to do is address the the fact of whether or not you’re the willing. Are you willing to change? Are you willing to go through some uncomfortable times to live a purposeful life? Right? My book, Give a Heck how to Live Life on Purpose and not by Accident is a life journey that I’ve gone through. And some of it I still get caught. I go into the valley of despair or quiet desperation. But again, I’ve learned through hard effort, through many years of self development to learn specific processes, to collapse time frames to get people to the place where I’m at sooner. So why is a coach, why is somebody that can mentor you important? Because if it took me 30 years of personal development and struggles and to get to where I’m at now, right? If I can collapse that time frame to you for you and a half, was it worth it? Maybe half of that. Maybe five years, maybe three years. Maybe you’re a go getter. Maybe you are easily able to change. All I know is that if you don’t try and don’t start today, you will be stuck on that hamster wheel of life for the rest of your life because you won’t know any different. I appreciate you being on the show. I look forward to our next conversations, our next guests that I’ll have on Give a Heck. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the guests I’ve had on over the last few hundred. Well, not few, pardon me, 240 some episodes. Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the Give a Hack podcast. I really appreciate it if you could share it with others. Go on and subscribe to it on your favorite platform. If you’re watching it on YouTube, subscribe to my channel please. It affects the algorithms and allows my show to be distributed to more people. When the algorithms understand that people like the show they’re subscribing, they’re liking the actual podcast episode itself. Their comments. It helps get it out to more people. Please share this episode, your family and friends. Thank you so much for trusting me. And remember, no matter how bad it is or how bad it gets, you too can learn how to give a heck about your life. I’m here for you. Reach out. Have a fantastic rest of 2025.