Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Debt & The Failure Mentality

A reader of my blog and newsletter e-mailed me the other day and made the observation that I seem “older” than others in that I advocate “old school values.” For the record, I’m 32…but it got me thinking about the generation I am in.

Well, that just so happen to coincide with a book I recently read about called Generation Debt. Basically, the book goes on about how this is a bad time to be young because so many young people are in debt.

In debt?

Well, I’ll go ahead and “solve” the whole debt problem for the nation’s youth.

DON’T CHARGE THINGS ON YOUR CREDIT CARD THAT YOU CAN’T AFFORD!

It’s that simple.

Have a massive student loan? I sympathize. I really do. I worked full-time when I was in college so that I could minimize my debt. And when I graduated I had $150 to my name, a student, and had a one way ticket to South Korea in search of a job.

A year later, the debt was gone—and that was in the midst of the Asian Financial Crisis that saw a loss of 60% in the Korean currency against the dollar.

How’d I pay it off?

It’s called doing without. I lived like a monk for a year. A small sacrifice to be debt-free.

But I see too may whiners and excuse-makers who want everything and want it now. They don’t think before they buy. And these are the same people who start businesses, find out that owning your own business is hard work, quit, and then whine about how impossible it is to have a business.

And they wonder why they're in debt.

Wake up…stop making excuses. Then, you’ll get out of debt.

I appreciate you letting me rant a little. But now that you know my opinion about personal debt, tune in on Friday and I’ll tell you how I feel about business debt (you might be surprised) and how penny-pinching on marketing can destroy your business (I see it happen all the time).

Tomorrow, I’ll be guest-blogging on my friend Steve Harper's blog. So, catch me over there.

To Your Success,

Carlon Haas
www.carlonhaas.com
results@carlonhaas.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ahhh. Touche and I had completely forgotten about seeing your picture. Wise beyond your years, good for you and my apologies for ageing you.
I'm a little older and will leave that for another time.
Have a Great Day.
Mike Tinling