The Purpose Rules: The Rules Nobody Taught You | Dwight Heck

Dwight Heck on the rules of money nobody taught you, Give A Heck Podcast

🎧 Listen and Watch Give A Heck Podcast

Rules of the money game are never handed to us — 53% of Canadians live paycheque to paycheque and only 36% have a financial plan. In this solo episode, Dwight Heck launches The Purpose Rules, a three-part series breaking down why hard work alone was never enough and what to do about it.

🎤 Give A Heck Podcast

Real conversations and solo episodes about purpose, financial stewardship, mindset, leadership, and intentional living.

🔍 Episode Overview

53 percent of Canadians are living paycheque to paycheque. Only 36 percent have a financial plan. Insolvencies are at a 17-year high. And the pattern is the same in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and Japan. People are working, earning, spending, and ending up broke. Not because they lack drive. Because nobody taught them the rules of the money game.

In this solo episode, Dwight Heck launches The Purpose Rules, a three-part series inside Pillar 1 (Financial Alignment) of his 7 Pillars of Intentional Living framework. This first instalment is the diagnostic: why the overwhelming majority of people struggle financially despite working hard their entire lives. Dwight shares his own journey from quiet desperation as a single dad of five to building a 24-year career teaching others the rules he was never taught, and introduces The Purpose Rules, a five-step framework for getting off the hamster wheel and living on purpose.

This episode covers three foundational rules: money is a tool, not a boss; know your inflows and outflows; and budgeting is the key nobody handed you. Dwight also introduces a composite couple, John and Sally, whose story carries through the rest of the series.

Part 2, Know Your Numbers, walks through goals, budgeting, and net worth. Part 3, Build the Safety Net, covers protection planning and the savings rule.

📚 What You Will Learn in This Episode

  • Why 91 out of every 100 people face financial hardship at retirement, even after a lifetime of work
  • Why money is a tool with no personality of its own, and who takes over the instructions when you don’t
  • How advertising and buy-now-pay-later products are engineered to bypass your better judgment
  • Why knowing your inflows and outflows is the single fastest way to free up real money each month
  • Why less than half of Canadians budget, even among people who consider themselves financially literate
  • The five steps of The Purpose Rules framework: goals, budget, net worth, protection, and the savings rule
  • Why your past does not deserve eternal loyalty, and how learned financial behaviours get unlearned

📵 Chapter Summaries

[01:23] Intro and Series Launch

Dwight introduces The Purpose Rules series and shares the origin of the Give A Heck brand.

[02:40] The Numbers That Should Bother You

2026 statistics from Canada (BDO/Angus Reid, TD, MNP), the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and Japan showing how widespread financial struggle is across the developed world.

[05:35] The 91 Percent Reality

A callback to Dwight’s December solo episode on the retirement crisis: only 9 to 12 out of every 100 people retire comfortably and financially independent.

[07:47] Rule 1: Money Is a Tool, Not a Boss

Money has no personality of its own. Dwight shares his 2001 health crisis, being told his finances were a “dumpster fire,” and licensing into the industry in September 2002.

[13:38] Rule 2: Know Your Inflows and Outflows

The simplest and most powerful thing Dwight teaches. Clients who map their numbers for the first time free up a minimum of $100 a month, often $300 to $500.

[18:19] Rule 3: Budgeting Is the Key Nobody Handed You

Less than half of Canadians have a budget, even among people who call themselves financially literate. Dwight discusses the hamster wheel of life and teaching his own kids needs versus wants.

[22:17] The Purpose Rules Framework

Dwight introduces the five steps: goals, budget, net worth, protection, and the savings rule, and introduces John and Sally, a couple whose story continues in Parts 2 and 3.

[25:17] The Close

Your past does not deserve eternal loyalty. Dwight shares how to take the first step and where to find help.

🎯 Key Takeaway

Struggling with money is not a character flaw — it is a gap in education. Money is a neutral tool that goes wherever it is pointed, and the two moves that change everything are knowing your inflows and outflows and building a real budget around them. Your past does not deserve eternal loyalty: the habits nobody taught you can be unlearned, starting today.

💬 Continue the Conversation

If this episode resonated with you, here are related episodes to explore:

Directly referenced in this episode — the destination this series works backward from.

Extends the retirement-planning thread into the sandwich-generation squeeze.

Dwight’s own reflection on what 24 years of client conversations taught him.

Connects the money-as-a-tool theme to purpose-driven priorities.

A solo episode on unlearning the beliefs that keep you stuck — the same “past doesn’t deserve eternal loyalty” idea that closes this episode.

📰 Pertinent Articles

The framework this series lives inside — Pillar 1, Financial Alignment.

The written companion to the 91 percent statistics discussed in this episode.

Dwight’s own story behind rule one: money is a tool, not a boss.

On the learned beliefs and limiting patterns this series is built to break.

🔑 Key Themes Discussed

  • Money as a neutral tool versus money as an unconscious boss
  • The gap between financial literacy and actually having a budget
  • Generational and cultural inheritance of financial habits
  • The difference between needs and wants, and teaching it to kids
  • Why 91 percent of people face financial hardship, and what breaks the pattern

👤 About Dwight Heck

Dwight Heck is a financial and life coach licensed in Alberta and British Columbia, operating as Give A Heck Financial through Hub Financial Inc. He has been in financial services since September 2001, after pivoting from a career in IT consulting. Over 24 years, Dwight has developed The Purpose Rules, a five-step coaching process, and the 7 Pillars of Intentional Living framework. He is the host of the Give A Heck Podcast, a globally ranked show with listeners in over 85 countries, and the Amazon bestselling author of Give A Heck: How to Live Life on Purpose and Not by Accident. Dwight is based in the Edmonton, Alberta area and is a single dad of five.

🤝 Connect with Dwight Heck

🎧 Listen and Watch This Episode

💭 Final Thoughts

None of this was about making you feel bad about where you are. It was about understanding why you are there. The rules of the money game were never taught, not by parents who didn’t know them either, not by schools, and not by the companies that profit from us not knowing. Your past does not deserve eternal loyalty. Come back for Part 2, where the series moves from what is broken to what actually works.

📣 Call to Action

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📝 Full Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker: That is what most people go through, and I need you to hear me on this. That is not because people lack drive. It is not because they do not care. It is not laziness. It is because they’re playing a game. Nobody taught them the rules to. You would not sit down at a poker table without knowing the rules and expect to win, but that is exactly what we do with money every single day.

[00:00:27] Welcome to Give a Heck. I am your host, Dwight Heck, and for much of my life, lived my life in quiet, desperation wondering how I was going to pay the bills, take vacations, save for retirement, and one day wondering if I would get off the hamster wheel of life and have purpose, a life that most of society lives, which takes us to work, then home, then repeat, and pays us hopefully enough.

[00:00:52] Just to survive the harsh truth that most live with more months than money and have no idea how to live life on purpose, not by accident. This ensures the mass majority are living not just financially broke, however, emotionally and mentally as well. Due to financial pressures and each episode, I will introduce you to thoughts, ideas, and guests that can help you to learn how you too can live life on purpose, not by accident.

[00:01:23] Speaker: Welcome back to the Give a Heck podcast. I’m your host, Dwight Heck, and I’m here to help you live a life on purpose, not by accident. Each week we dive into real stories, raw truth, and powerful conversations that challenge you to give a heck about your life and the lives of others. Today is a solo episode and it is a special one.

[00:01:45] This is part one of a brand new three part series. I’m calling The Purpose Rules, no Fluff, just what you need to know. I climbed out of quiet desperation as a single dad of five with no clue how money worked. My last name is Heck, the brand is give a heck. And this series exists because nobody should have to learn these rules the way I did.

[00:02:12] Broke, stressed, and Guessing. These are the purpose rules. This series lives inside something I have been developing called The Seven Pillars of Intentional Living. Today we are starting with pillar one, financial alignment. Because until your money is working for you and not against you, the rest of the pillars do not have a foundation to stand on.

[00:02:39] So let us get into it.

[00:02:40] Let me give you some numbers that should bother you. They bother me and I have been doing this for 24 years. 53% paycheck to paycheck. That is a 2026 number from BDO and Angus Reid. Not from five years ago. Right now, more than half the country cannot miss a single pay period without being in trouble.

[00:03:08] 67% of Canadians say they plan to cut their spending this year. Sounds responsible, right? But here’s the part that got me. Only 36% of Canadians have an actual financial plan. TD released that survey in January, 2026. They called it the money map gap. People know their priorities, but they do not have a plan to get there.

[00:03:35] They are cutting, but the they are cutting blind. And Canadian insolvencies hit a 17 year high in the first quarter of 2026. A 17 year high homeowner insolvency volumes rose more than 11% in a single quarter. That comes from MNP Canada’s largest insolvency firm. That is not a blip, that is a pattern. Now, my American brothers and sisters do not think this is just a Canadian story.

[00:04:05] 20 to 46% of American households have zero retirement savings. Zero and 50% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved for retirement. The average social security benefit is roughly $1,959 a month. That is not enough to live comfortably in most cities, and you know that. And for my international audience, because I know you are out there, this show reaches listeners in over 85 countries and the United Kingdom.

[00:04:39] 40% of working age adults are under saving for retirement across Europe. Roughly one in three working age adults are in this same position. In Australia, women’s retirement savings trail men’s by 20 to 30%. In Japan life expectancy is near 85, meaning many retirees are living 20 to 30 years beyond 65 without savings that were never designed to last that long.

[00:05:09] These numbers are not from one country, they’re from everywhere. Canada, the United States, the UK, Europe, Australia, Japan. The pattern is the same. People are working, earning, spending, and ending up broke, not because they’re lazy, not because they do not care, because nobody taught them the rules of the money game.

[00:05:32] And that is what this series is about.

[00:05:35] If you listen to my solo episode last December, the 91% retirement crisis, you already know where this road ends. If nothing changes, if you have not heard it, the link is in the show notes and I encourage you to listen. It is one of the most research episodes I have ever done. But here’s the short version.

[00:05:59] Think about a room of a hundred people. Walk in and look around. 15 of those people will not make it to 65. They’ll be gone before they ever see retirement. 20 of them will retire, but live below the poverty line, relying on social assistance. Another 15 to 20 cannot retire at all. They are all broke and they’re still working.

[00:06:24] Walk into your local Walmart, your local grocery store. Look at how many seniors are working there. Not because they’re bored, because they have no choice, and of the remaining 45 to 50 who do retire, they retire with varying degrees of instability. Maybe they have some savings, but not enough. Maybe there are one medical bill, one car repair, one bad month away from being in real trouble.

[00:06:54] Out of that entire room of a hundred people, only nine to 12 are going to be okay. Nine to 12 people retire comfortably and financially independent. That is it. That means roughly 91 of every hundred people face some form of hardship, dead broke, struggling, or barely getting by. I did a deep dive into those numbers.

[00:07:17] Canada, the United States, the UK, Europe, Australia, Japan, and the picture is the same everywhere. The rules of the money game are not being taught and the numbers prove it, but that episode is about the destination where people end up at 65 today. It is about the journey, the daily rules that determine whether you end up in the nine or the 91, and the first rule is one that almost nobody talks about.

[00:07:47] Rule one, money is a tool that is all it is. Money does not think, it does not make decisions. It does not wake up in the morning and decide to ruin your day. It sits there and it does whatever the person holding it tells it to do. A hammer does not swing itself.

[00:08:07] A car does not drive itself and money does not spend itself. It is a tool. It goes where you point it. The problem is that most people never learn to be the one giving the instructions. Instead, they handed that job to somebody else without even realising it and who took over. Let me tell you, advertising, the entire advertising industry is engineered to make spending feel urgent and necessary.

[00:08:37] Limited time offer. You deserve this. Buy now. Pay later. Every message is designed to bypass the part of your brain that says, wait, can I actually afford this? They do not want you to think. They want you to feel and then act on that feeling. Credit products, credit cards, lines of credit. Buy now, pay later services.

[00:09:02] These are designed to feel like solutions when they’re actually accelerants. One purchase on a credit card feels manageable than another. Then the payments layer on top of each other, they compound and suddenly there are more days in the month than dollars. Sound familiar? I know it does because I have lived it and I have sat across the table from hundreds of people who are living it right now.

[00:09:30] Buy now. Pay later. Let me be honest with you. Buy now, pay later. Sounds like a favour. It is not a favour. It is a business model. They profit from the fact that most people do not know how to pay it off later and when you cannot pay it off, what do you do? You use more credit to fund your life. The snowball grows, the stress grows, the sleepless nights start, and suddenly you are living what I call quiet desperation, wondering how you got there?

[00:10:04] Wondering if there is a way out lying awake at night doing mental math and never coming up with a number that works. I know what that feels like. I lived it. In 2001, I personally went through a journey of severe health issues. And what did that do to my life? Well, it affected how I was going to move forward.

[00:10:32] So I literally was approached by somebody in the beginning of 2002 and said, you know what? We know you’re having health issues. We know also that your financial life is a dumpster fire. And they did use that words because they were a close friend of mine. It hurt, but it was also a shock to my system.

[00:10:55] And I sat for weeks, maybe it was months, it was so long ago already before I reached out to them and said, Hey, I wanna learn more. I want to talk to you about this. And over the period of time of a, a matter of weeks, I literally got licenced in the industry and started in September of 2002. And 24 years ago, I decided I wasn’t gonna look back. I was gonna learn the rules of the money game, and I started forward from there. The issue is, is that once I started learning all this information, I had to apply it, and I had to get over my own inadequacies, my own stresses between the six inches, between my ears, and realise that I truly needed to understand the inflows and outflows of money.

[00:11:50] So to keep it short, it took a while. But I learned the processes because I knew if I was going to be in this new industry of finance and insurance planning, I need to be able to teach it to others. But I need to also be doing it myself effectively to ensure that I can say with all confidence, this is what I have experienced.

[00:12:13] This is what I am experiencing, and this is how it’s changed my life, and continuing to change and evolve my life. So from that moment on, I kept on learning more, reaching out to people again, picking people’s literal knowledge, their brains, to understand more about the rules of the money game. And it wasn’t just about the rules of the money game that I needed to learn.

[00:12:39] I needed to learn how to put a system in place to make it palatable, make it easy for people to digest so that they could actually feel confident and comfortable. Though they may have felt or may feel uneasy, it was something that they would feel confident to work on with me so that I could help them too, live a life on purpose and not by accident.

[00:13:04] That is why I teach this now, not because I read it in a textbook, because I lived on the wrong side of it for years, and I know what it costs, and I do not want you to pay that same price if you do not have to. So that is rule one. Money is a tool. It goes where you tell it to go, but if you do not know where it is going, someone else is deciding for you and that someone else does not have your best interests at heart.

[00:13:33] They have their own, which brings us to rule two.

[00:13:38] Rule two is the simplest thing I teach, and it is the one that changes people’s lives the fastest. Know your inflows and outflows, what comes in every month, what goes out every month. That is it. When you know those two numbers, you have power, real power. You can make decisions based on reality, not on guessing, not on hoping, not on closing your eyes and praying.

[00:14:05] The payment clears when you do not know them. You are blind and blind spending is how people end up in the red without understanding how they got there. Now, does knowing your inflows and outflows mean you never go into debt? No. I want to be real about that. Sometimes we have to live in the red, a house, a vehicle.

[00:14:29] These are two things that more often than not require financing. Most people cannot pay cash for a home. Most people cannot pay cash for a car, and that is okay, but here’s the difference, and this is important. If you know your inflows and outflows and the payment fits inside your budget and you can see a light at the end of the tunnel to pay it off, that is a conscious decision.

[00:14:57] That is you using a tool on purpose. You are not being used by it. You bought within a reason, within reason for what fits in your life, and you can see the finish line that is completely different from closing your eyes and signing on a dotted line because the sales person made you feel like you could afford it.

[00:15:19] It ensures you do not overspend. It ensures you buy within a reason for what fits in your budget. And here’s the part that surprises people. It still allows you to save for other goals, an emergency fund, a family holiday, your kids’ education, retirement. All of that becomes possible when you know your numbers.

[00:15:42] When you do not know your numbers, you are always living with more days in the month than money, and that is a terrible way to live. I have been there, I know in 24 years of doing this work, sitting down with families, individuals, couples, single parents, just like I was. I can tell you this. When somebody maps their inflows and outflows for their first time, they free up a minimum of a hundred dollars a month minimum, and many, depending on how driven they are to live intentionally free up 300 to sometimes as high as $500 a month.

[00:16:21] That is money that was always there. They just could not see it because nobody showed them how to look.

[00:16:30] I know personally, when I did my own budget, when I first got into this industry, it was a giant mental and an emotional wake up call because I was making a six figure income. I was doing fairly decent, but then when I had my health scare and couldn’t work for a while, I didn’t understand my inflows and outflows and my savings went extremely fast because I did not control my spending.

[00:16:57] I was spending like I was still bringing in income. But guess what? I wasn’t. If I had had a budget, if I had understand the rules of the money game prior to getting in this industry, I would’ve been better off. So not knowing about money and how it flows, the inflows and outflows, it caused me a lot of emotional and mental stress.

[00:17:20] Probably slowed down my recovery as well. At the end of the day, once I started in this industry, learned how powerful budgeting can be, and understood, oh, this month I’m gonna be a little bit behind. Oh, next month though, I’m gonna have a little bit extra. So that’s okay. As long as I’m utilising in this month that I’m gonna be a little bit behind and it’s based all on needs, not wants, that’s okay.

[00:17:45] Sometimes that happens. But I could foreshadow forward the next month and the months after and see what months I would have some struggles, and was there things I could do to control those struggles and live a more purposeful intentful life. And there was, and I promise you, it’s there for you as well.

[00:18:05] So rule two, know your inflows and outflows. It is simple, it is powerful, and it leads directly to rule three, which is the skill that holds everything together. The one that was never properly taught to most of us.

[00:18:19] Rule three is the one that ties everything together and it is the one that was most neglected in your education. Budgeting. Less than half of Canadians even have a budget that comes from the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. Less than half, and here’s the one that really got me. Among people who call themselves highly financially literate, half of them do not have a budget that comes from the credit counselling society.

[00:18:51] People who think they are good with money, who would tell you they know what they are doing. Half of them have never put their numbers on paper. Budgeting was superficially taught. If it was even taught at all in school. I was never taught it. My kids were not taught it properly, and I would wager that most of you listening right now, were not taught it either.

[00:19:15] Maybe you saw a unit in a class somewhere, maybe a pretend budget for a pretend person, and then it was never mentioned Again, that is not education. That is a checkbox. Not knowing the rules, not knowing the processes of how money works. That is what gets us caught on the hamster wheel of life. Go to work, go home, get paid, repeat, always chasing and never achieving.

[00:19:43] That is what most people go through, and I need you to hear me on this. That is not because people lack drive. It is not because they do not care. It is not laziness. It is because they’re playing a game. Nobody taught them the rules to. You would not sit down at a poker table without knowing the rules and expect to win, but that is exactly what we do with money every single day.

[00:20:11] One of the most powerful things I’ve ever learned, and I was never taught this either, was the difference between a need and a want. When I learned it, I started teaching my kids young. I would take them to the store and we would talk about it. Do you need that or do you want that? What happens if we buy that today and next week the power bill comes out?

[00:20:35] Those conversations matter. They plant seeds. Does it always stick? I’ll be honest with you, out of my five kids, maybe two budget, they do not always share those things with me. But here’s what I know. If you plant a seed, it can blossom later. It may not blossom today, it might not blossom this year, but it is in there and it is never too late.

[00:21:02] To give a heck about building out your financial knowledge and ensuring that you and your family are going to be okay. Most people inherit financial habits from their family, from their friends, from their culture. Survival mode becomes normalised, living paycheck to paycheck, avoiding financial reality, denying that there is even a need for change.

[00:21:28] These are learned behaviours. They are passed down from generation to generation, and they will keep being passed down unless somebody breaks the chain. I talked about this at length in my December episode on the 91% crisis, the generational patterns, the shame, the procrastination. If you want the deeper version of that conversation, go listen, it is one of the most important episodes I have ever recorded, but the point for this today is this not knowing how to budget.

[00:22:02] It is not a character flaw. It is not something to be ashamed of. It is a gap in education and gaps can be filled. That is what the rest of this series is about, filling that gap.

[00:22:17] So those are the three rules. Money is a tool, not a boss. Know your inflows and outflows and budgeting is a skill that ties it all together, but knowing the rules and playing by them are two different things. You need a plan and most people do not have one. Remember that TD number, only 36% of Canadians have a formal financial plan.

[00:22:42] That means 64% are winging it and winging it is not a strategy. Winging it is how you end up in the 91%. Over 24 years of coaching families and individuals, people from all walks of life have developed a process I use with every single client who sits down with me. I call it the purpose rules, five steps, and if you follow them, you will stop living by accident and start living on purpose.

[00:23:15] Here are the five steps. Step one, set your goals, your top three priorities right now, not 10 goals, not a wishlist. Three, what matters most? Step two, build your budget. Map your inflows and outflows. Find the holes in your boat and plug them. Step three, know your net worth assets versus liabilities. Where are you right now in the black and white?

[00:23:43] Step four, protect what you are building. Life insurance, living benefits. The conversation nobody wants to have, but everyone needs to have because one bad day should not erase everything. Step five, the saving rule. Save 20% if possible, minimum of 10%, and budget and live off the rest. In episode two of this series, I’m going to walk you through steps one through three goals, budget and net worth, the same way I walk a client through them when they sit down with me for the first time.

[00:24:19] And I’m going to introduce you to a couple named John and Sally. John and Sally are in their forties, $40,000 in debt. No life insurance have not had a real holiday in over a decade. Camping and fishing are about all they can manage. They came to me thinking their situation was hopeless. It was not. Their story is going to show you exactly how the purpose rule works in real life.

[00:24:47] That is episode two. And in episode three we finish the plan steps four and five, protection planning and savings rule. How to make sure that everything you build does not disappear because of one bad day, because that is the part most people skipped, and it is the part that matters most when life hits hard and life will hit hard.

[00:25:13] It is not a matter of if. It is a matter of when.

[00:25:17] This episode wasn’t about making you feel bad about where you are. I want you to hear that clearly. It was about helping you understand why you were there. The rules of the money game were never taught to most of us, not by our parents, because they did not know them either. Not by our schools, because the curriculum barely scratches the surface and not by the companies selling us credit products because they profit from us not knowing.

[00:25:45] But here’s what I know. After 24 years of doing this work, of sitting across the table from people who thought their situation was hopeless, of watching people go from barely surviving to actually thriving. I know this for certain, your past does not deserve eternal loyalty. The learned behaviours, the habits, the money, mistakes, the shame.

[00:26:11] They do not get to define your future unless you let them. And starting today, right now, listening to this, you do not have to let them. If this episode resonated with you, do me a favour. Share it with somebody who needs to hear it. A friend, a family member, your partner, somebody you know who is stuck on that hamster wheel.

[00:26:35] The link is right there. It takes two seconds. And if you were sitting here thinking, I need help. I do not know where to start. I have been on this hamster wheel for far too long and I do not know how to get off. Go to giveaheck.com. Work with me. Let us have a conversation. That is what I am here for. If you are in Alberta or British Columbia, I can help you with the financial products and full financial planning.

[00:27:04] If you are anywhere else in Canada or anywhere in the world, I can offer life and financial coaching. Either way, we start the same place. We start with your numbers, your goals, and your plan. You can also pick up my book, give a Heck, how To Live Life On Purpose and Not By accident at giveaheck.com forward slash book.

[00:27:29] It is the longer version of my story and the principles behind everything I teach. You can also find it on Amazon. Come back for episode two. That is where we stop talking about what is broken and start building what works. I’m going to walk you through the first three steps of the purpose, rules, goals, budget, and net worth, the same way I do it with my clients.

[00:27:54] No theory, just what you need to know and remember, it is never too late to give a heck.

[00:28:02] Thank you for taking time outta your day and listening to Give a Heck if you find value. I’d appreciate you sharing with your friends and family so they too can learn how to live life on purpose, not by accident. So you do not miss the next episode. Please subscribe on your favourite podcast platform and please also post a review.

[00:28:23] I look forward to reading your comments. This has been Dwight Heck. If you want to check out other podcast episodes or today’s show notes, please check out my website. giveaheck.com, and until next time together, let us all strive to give a heck.