Secrets to Financial Freedom: When You’re a Single Dad of Five with Dwight Heck

On this episode of Chasing Happiness Podcast, we have special guest Dwight Heck. He found Give a Heck Financial while living paycheck to paycheck as a single dad of five kids. Like many of us, Dwight didn’t understand how money worked or the basics of budgeting. Money came in and immediately disappeared, followed by sleepless nights and stress filled with quiet desperation. Instead of asking for help, Dwight kept his financial troubles to himself to avoid embarrassment and judgment.

Dwight has transformed his life through personal finance education and now helps others do the same through Give a Heck Financial resources like podcasts, books, speaking, and financial coaching.

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Podcast Transcript

Secrets to Financial Freedom: When You’re a Single Dad of Five with Dwight Heck

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hey guys, Ryan DeMent from Chasing Happiness Podcast. I hope you guys are having a great day this week on the podcast. We have Dwight Heck and we’re gonna do a little bit of a twist on the introduction. He likes to help people live life with purpose, not by accident, but his brand give A Heck. Dwight.

[00:00:30] Ryan: Welcome to the show.

[00:00:32] Dwight: Hi Ryan brother. How are you

[00:00:34] Ryan: today? I cannot complain. Thanks for coming on.

[00:00:37] Dwight: Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m looking forward to our conversation, especially after the last one we had, which was very eventful.

[00:00:44] Ryan: It so told the listeners a little bit about your background and we’ll get into your journey.

[00:00:50] Dwight: Sure. I’ve been in the financial services industry. This is my 20th year prior to that. I had a computer consulting firm, as well as a retail computer store. I’ve been an entrepreneur all the way back to as early as I guess, 12 years of age. And people made chuckle at that, but I was a paper boy. I was a guy or girl both obviously did that chore.

[00:01:13] Dwight: I’d go out and deliver the paper. I’d have to collect the money. I’d have to make sure that I paid the paper company. For the papers I had to go and have people hide behind a curtain and not answer the door, cuz they owed this little 12-year-old boy money and he couldn’t afford to pay me. So I learned the harsh realities of dealing with customers already at that young age.

[00:01:35] Dwight: And plus my dad was very successful. A seven-figure entrepreneur himself. At that age, I had to start working for him in the summers. I had to learn, that, if you want to stuff in life, you have to work hard for it. I got the basics, a roof over my head food clothing, but anything I wanted outside of that already at that age, my dad would say, you want it, go earn it.

[00:01:57] Dwight: And then as well, We have a family business and you have to work in it. You have to work and your friends can have the summer off, but sorry, you need to come to work. I need your help. And you know what? I think I look back at that time, Ryan in my life. And they think to myself, I was bitter back then as a kid because who wouldn’t be, I wanted to be out with my friends.

[00:02:15] Dwight: I wanted to be at the lake. I wanted to be on the holidays, but it taught me to value. That work and supporting family. And, just pushing forward in life is gonna get you what you want. The only thing my dad struggled with was the balance of the family side. So fast forward to me getting into the computer industry, I graduated in electronics engineering in my country.

[00:02:38] Dwight: I got a, from a technical college. And I started a computer company and I became that workaholic that my dad was, and I, started having health issues over that decade that I was doing it. And part of it was because I didn’t know when to switch it off. I was with my family, but was it with my family and a lot of people today, what I mean by that as we can be present at an event, whether it’s family related or business related or with friends, and are you really present?

[00:03:08] Dwight: Are you thinking about what you should be doing? Are you thinking about the fact that you’d rather be anywhere else? Are you actually happy? Are you present with those people? Are you enjoying the creation of those memories? And I wasn’t and I ended up having some severe health issues. Got into the financial industry.

[00:03:26] Dwight: I was a six figure earner at that time, but yet I was broke all the time. I had more month than money. I was on that hamster wheel of life. I was not living a life on purpose. I was living it by accident because the most simplest things in life that were not taught as children was not being taught to me.

[00:03:45] Dwight: And it isn’t still today and that’s understanding. Close the money that if you are, have a dollar and you’re spending a dollar 20, that consistency is gonna get you behind the eight ball and you’re gonna be in a lot of trouble. You’re not gonna be able to live a life on purpose. So I had the pleasure of having a mentor.

[00:04:06] Dwight: He’s been a mentor of mine now for over 30 years, he helped me get into the electronics industry. He helped me get into the finance industry and so many more other things. And the reason I bring up that to your listeners is that having somebody coach and mentor you, having somebody in your corner that is there for the specific purpose of you to help you and not wanting anything from you is rare, but it is out there.

[00:04:33] Dwight: And I’ve been blessed to have that in my life. So I got into the finance industry. Worked my tail off. Didn’t really like what I was being taught. I fired my trainer after about six weeks. Didn’t like the fact that he was transactional based and transactional based people is somebody that’s just, you’re going into a store, you’re buying something.

[00:04:53] Dwight: You go up to the, till you pay for it. That’s a transaction. There’s no real communication. There’s no real. Building of a relationship in my industry that is prevalent in the world, not just Canada, us north American general, it’s the world. People are always transactional based. You ask yourself, why are, why is that?

[00:05:12] Dwight: It’s because people aren’t taught how to remember already said they aren’t taught how to understand the rules of the money game. They’re not taught how to understand the rules of relationships and how to build relationships. So after I fired my trainer, I started focusing on what would I. What would I want outta life as a person?

[00:05:30] Dwight: How would I wanna be treated? How would be a person that’s asking, what DT, how did you get into this circumstance what’s gone on in your life? That’s helped you get into a place where you’re on this hamster wheel and you can’t seem to escape and you have more months than you have money and it’s consistent.

[00:05:47] Dwight: You’re making some good cash and, just actually caring and finding out in goal setting and figuring out what do I want? What do I want just for today? Everybody worries about a year, five, 10 years from now, but what do you want for today? What do you want for a year tomorrow? And then back to what I was saying.

[00:06:05] Dwight: And then today, when am I living in the present? And yes, it’s a lot, but guess what? When you start working on yourself, you can get to a point where you live in the present more often than you don’t. And that’s what I ended up doing. I learned how to goals, budget. I learned how to. My clients from the youngest individuals to corporations learn how to plan you.

[00:06:32] Dwight: Just live life on purpose because so many people aren’t living a life on purpose, and then they’re frustrated. They bring that tension home. They go to bed in quiet desperation. They get up in quiet desperation. They live the day in quiet desperation and 99% of failures and people’s lives when it comes to emotional and physical strife is tied back to money in some way, shape or form.

[00:06:56] Dwight: And as the last thing that I’ll finish this off with is that money has. Yeah, we give it personality, right? Money is just a tool to wield, but we’re never taught how to wield that tool properly. And that’s, what’s been my mission with give a heck and and the finance and lifestyle coaching for the last 20 years is to.

[00:07:16] Dwight: People are people they’re not a transaction. Does it mean I don’t do transactions? Absolutely. I do. That’s after I get to know other people and that’s after I understand where they’ve come from and give ’em some advice and direct them to different people, depending on their trauma.

[00:07:31] Dwight: Cuz sometimes it’s their financial traumas cause so many other addiction issues. So it’s been a, it’s been quite the journey I’ve been enjoying. It’s helped me stay level helped. A lot of other people stay a level and I, when I can do it until the last day I take a.

[00:07:46] Ryan: It’s it’s an amazing journey in life, in, in how we actually handle things.

[00:07:50] Ryan: And we’ve become a society to where if you can’t get that instant gratification, then we’re not gonna do the hard work to get to where you need to be. And I had a guest on several months ago and he described it very well. We have campers and we have climbers in life. Campers are the ones that are comfort.

[00:08:09] Ryan: And the climbers are the ones that are willing to go through that pain of change or failure, whatever that case is, but they’re willing to fight for it. And tying that all back into what you’re talking about money is to me is a commodity. It is truly that, but when you ask, unfortunately, younger generations, what’s more valuable time or money nine outta 10 times money.

[00:08:32] Ryan: And they don’t realize time is the most. Commodity that we have because you cannot get it back. Two. The other piece of it is we are limited on the time that we’re on the face of this earth. So you can go file bankruptcy. You can get yourself in debt and you can get your money back, but you can’t get your time back.

[00:08:51] Ryan: And I struggle with that aspect. When I talk to individuals and people in my coaching groups or my coaching sessions to where they think money’s the most valuable thing. And it’s it all boils down to this work ethic. The ability for instant gratification instead of delaying that gratification in working yourself through your process and that’s entrepreneurship in itself.

[00:09:15] Dwight: Absolutely. It is. And it’s unfortunate though that some people live in a world of instant gratification, really let’s really think about this. Constantly drives that in people, everything they see and hear from music to the movies, to television, to their friends and family, wanting to keep up with the Jones or the Smiths next door or a sibling line.

[00:09:38] Dwight: I love it. The sibling. Even you talking about the climbers I coach on that all the time about camping and climbing. I love it. We have a I knew before when we talked, we have a lot of the commonality, you and I, it. At the end of the day, I’d be lying. If I said I never ever had that feeling of wanting instant gratification, I was on a podcast.

[00:09:56] Dwight: I was on a podcast where they were talking about the fact why do you own any like a used vehicle? I, we got into talking about money and budgeting and I said my vehicle, I 285,000 kilometers on it or somewhere around there. And the engine. During the pandemic November, I had to go on holidays.

[00:10:12] Dwight: Two weeks later, it was tough getting vehicles. But if I really wanted one, I have enough connections. I could have gotten a vehicle brand new off the lot. I bought something that was four years old and people go, what’d you do that for? Cause I said, I don’t like a, I don’t like the fact driving off and having depreciation B.

[00:10:29] Dwight: I like the fact that I know I can pay it off in a few. And I don’t need that. It’s a tool. It isn’t, I don’t need to impress the neighbors or my family. I need to get from point a to point B, but at one time I did have that status. I did have that issue I wanted to, and I went through a period of time where I had new vehicle.

[00:10:47] Dwight: I keep it right for a couple years and I get another new vehicle and then it compounds and your pay, you flip one loan into the next loan because, oh, it’s only four or 500 a month or 800 whatever fancy vehicle you get. But at the end of the day, I didn’t need it. Oh, you can write off the payment part of it with your business.

[00:11:05] Dwight: You can do this. You can do that. Yeah. But it’s still a waste. I don’t need to waste money to impress anybody. I need to impress me. I need to utilize things in life that are a positive tool to continue to climb, not to impress others because at the end of the day, how many people are gonna be at my funeral that I was trying to impress.

[00:11:24] Dwight: Let’s be real none. So it may sound harsh. I’m sorry if I’m be, if not trying to get down, you

[00:11:30] Ryan: know, I’m trying to be real. I, I. I love it because ultimately I had another guest on the show and he talked about it and he says, the only way we’re gonna find a way to get better in life is to write our own eulogy.

[00:11:43] Ryan: And when that, when he said that, I was like, okay, I get it. But we gotta go into more detail. And it’s he actually read his on his episode, majority of it. And. It was around what he wanted to accomplish or what he accomplished in life. And that ultimately started him in the process of finding the things he wanted to do in life that were not instant gratification.

[00:12:09] Ryan: There was a lot of work involved, but it, I had never heard that before. So that was a very first time I heard that I did mine in

[00:12:15] Dwight: 2003.

[00:12:17] Ryan: Wow. That’s cool. I mean it, but I got coached. I got coached to. Yeah. There’s not many people talking about it and it’s, it all boils down to one thing is how bad do you want life?

[00:12:30] Ryan: And if you don’t wanna put the work in, in, in time and effort in, you’re just gonna be one of those campers. And the thing that we talk about on the podcast is how hard is it going to be to fix that comfortable life that you’re in versus the new. To me, they’re both difficult because when that comfortable breaks, let’s say let’s use your, as an example, your car the engine blew up with 285,000 kilometers on it.

[00:12:57] Ryan: Guess. You could have gone back and said, Hey, you know what? We’ll just live this life and we’ll see what we can do. And we’ll go buy a car and I have a $400 month payment. No, you decided to make a change and say, okay, I’m gonna find something that is affordable. One and two. I can pay it off in a short period or three pay cash for it.

[00:13:17] Ryan: Most people would just go out and say, forget it and go get a brand new car off the lot and get unfortunately screwed. From it and be stuck with a $500 a month nut in the states, the average new car payment today a as of through may, was $563. Wow.

[00:13:36] Dwight: I didn’t realize it was that high.

[00:13:38] Ryan: That’s almost 600 bucks a month that you’re $7,200 a year.

[00:13:41] Ryan: You’re paying on a car note. And in the states, unfortunately, I grew up in the auto industry, so I keep an eye on all this. There’s a secondary market and I digress of, so individuals couldn’t afford or couldn’t put down enough money to finance their vehicle. So what happens is you have that secondary, or that gap the gap financing that’s out there to where let’s say your car’s 20, your car’s 20, $25,000.

[00:14:11] Ryan: And. It’s not truly worth 25. That’s what you’re paying for. It’s worth 20,000. You can’t come up with an extra 5,000 bucks, so what’s gonna happen. Someone’s gonna put a second on your car, finance you for the $5,000 difference. And then now you’ve got a first on your car and a second on your car.

[00:14:28] Ryan: That industry blew up over this time of COVID and everything so forth and still blowing up. It’s a two and a half billion dollar industry. That’s only been around 18. Two and a half billion dollars. How many,

[00:14:42] Dwight: how many vehicles are on the road today? And I have clients that laugh at me within three, four years.

[00:14:47] Dwight: They’re not, you owe more than the vehicle’s even worse. Yeah. And sometimes it’s even quicker depending on the type of vehicle you buy. So they’re rolling around in an asset that is worth less than it. It’s. Just like a home though. And this could be a whole podcast because I’ve been doing this a home this is my 20th year.

[00:15:05] Dwight: Isn’t an asset. People don’t get that either. Cause if you don’t need, if you don’t need to live in your house and you can sell it and just walk away with the money and still have some place to live, then that’s an asset. But if you’re living in something that you need to have over your head and you gotta repair it and you gotta maintain it and you got expenses, that’s not an asset.

[00:15:25] Dwight: Banks are kind to say your house is an asset because they like that if you default on stuff, they can take it. They get it back. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s not an asset for us. It isn’t. But vehicles, for sure. Aren’t an asset. It’s a rolling depreciating liability going down the road that you have to constantly maintain.

[00:15:45] Ryan: Yes. And it’s gotten so out of control because people during the pandemic had FOMO fear of missing out. And I saw so many stories of people here in the states and I’m sure it’s similar in Canada. You have invoice what the dealership pays there’s back of invoice, which many people don’t understand.

[00:16:05] Ryan: And then now you have sticker and you have MSRP. Most dealerships here in the states were going above the MSRP and putting plus 15 plus 20, whatever they were putting on there, there was no rhyme or reason. And I saw people paying 60, $70,000 for a vehicle that was.

[00:16:22] Ryan: Worth maybe 35 or 40 half.

[00:16:24] Dwight: I don’t get that. They were doing that here too. My one of my daughters fiances bought a Bronco. He brought it September of 2021. Waited. Finally. Got it. I bought it brand new. Excuse me. He’s gonna turn around now. He, I was just talking to him. He’s gonna flip it and make 20 grand more because the used market industry in Canada is because there’s not enough new vehicles sitting, the lots, the new vehicle’s coming in. Cuz I have friends that, that run two different dealerships. The trailers coming in with cars, they’re already sold. They’re getting backed off and leaving they’re and some of those it’s been a year. I had a friend that’s mad because he got a 20, 21 model of his vehicle.

[00:17:00] Dwight: He been waiting for it finally come it’s 20, 21 and he’s mad at the dealership. I said what do you. You bought it 20, 21. They couldn’t deliver it because of lack of, parts, whatever chips you got it, you got what you ordered. You can be mad all you want, but you either accept the fact and say, ” Oh my gosh, I have gratitude.

[00:17:19] Dwight: I’m grateful. I got a vehicle. Other people have been waiting even longer than me. But everybody just has, they either got a bitch and complain. They’re never happy.

[00:17:26] Ryan: It just sad. Yeah. And they wonder why they don’t get what they want. Your inner has to match your outer. And if it doesn’t a hundred percent, it never does.

[00:17:34] Ryan: The things I’m always thankful for every single morning when I wake up is my family a roof over my head clothes on my back food on my table. Brushing my teeth. I

[00:17:44] Dwight: had people laugh at me. I took somebody through my gratitude exercise and I said, yeah, I have gratitude that I have arms so I can brush my teeth and I can, I can pick things up.

[00:17:55] Dwight: I can play with my grandkids. I can prepare food. I can, I have gratitude for feet and they go, what do you mean? Without I can walk you can’t. Yeah, I can plant myself. And then my legs allow me to walk. Yes. How many people in this planet don’t have that? And people go, oh, I never thought about it.

[00:18:12] Dwight: And it’s not because these people are bad. I used to like that it’s education, it’s knowledge, it’s compassion, it’s caring. And when I talk to people and I coach them, I say, you know what? That’s okay that you haven’t been this way. I had to learn. I’m J and now I’m a vessel. I’m a servant to teach you to help you so you can climb and live life on purpose.

[00:18:31] Dwight: And it, life isn’t as complicated as everybody makes it.

[00:18:34] Ryan: Is it. No, it is not. It’s just a, it’s a shift in mindset and you have to be wi it’s. I boil it down to this is you have to be hungry for life. And if you’re not, if you’re not hungry, you’re gonna stay where you’re at. That’s fine. But you are right.

[00:18:48] Ryan: All the little tiny things in life that we take advantage of, we should be thankful of. One of the things I joke about people, I am very thankful for running water. You can go to many countries around the world and you’re not gonna have running water. Come on. Even my sister lives in a rural part of the state of Washington and she’s on.

[00:19:08] Ryan: She has it well, and I’m even thankful for that, because guess what? Otherwise, she wouldn’t have running water. So when I go up there I’m like, oh God, thank God for your how much water you got in there? I wanna make sure, I can take a shower, and I’m thankful for sure. I’m just so thankful for the little things in life.

[00:19:24] Ryan: It’s, isn’t your

[00:19:26] Dwight: stress less though. The more gratitude you have and grateful. It sure helps. I I suffer from anxiety. It helps a ton, the more gratefulness I have during the day.

[00:19:35] Ryan: And what the thing that comes out of that is when I have a failure in the day, like something goes wrong and it’s gonna, it potentially can set it off.

[00:19:44] Ryan: I have to back up and say, what am I grateful for? And I look at some of the things that I’m grateful for, or I look for something new that I haven’t picked up on in a while and say, oh, I need to be thankful for that. And it’s amazing how it can shift your mindset and get you back into where you need to get, back on the horse to fix that problem, because ultimately that problem potentially could derail us and then everything goes awry.

[00:20:11] Ryan: But if you reset yourself, understand where you’re at. It helps you get over things. The best way I know to describe it is I say this as my joke is I gotta put my big boy pants on and I gotta keep on moving. And the only way to do that is reset your mind and say, okay, it’s time to get over it.

[00:20:29] Ryan: You had your pity party move forward. And you

[00:20:32] Dwight: know what, one of the things that, that I’ve had a lot of success for my own life that I learned and I, educate and coach others about is stop telling yourself that you have a bad day. I never tell myself that nobody hears me say that, they’ll say, oh, you have, you’re going through something or you had something.

[00:20:51] Dwight: Yeah. I had a bad moment. And then that moment, like you said, I have my pity party. I accept it. I coach people. Everybody’s timeframe is different, how long it takes to get outta that pity party. And I have a defined time. I stop working usually if I get into that funk, because I’m not effective. I’m not doing my customers.

[00:21:13] Dwight: If I’m working on their customer file or I’m working on preparing for something, whatever it is, a speech, a talk, I’m not there. I’m not present just like we were talking about. So I time myself out, as a kid, we hate time out as adults. I like timeout. time out. Helps me time, help time out. It helps me check my check, my it’s check and balance.

[00:21:35] Dwight: So I time myself out and tell myself, okay. This is what we gotta do. And I, and listeners I’ll tell you right now. The biggest problem is when people, even if you can get to a point where you say you’re having a bad moment, not a bad day, what do most people do? They go watch depressing crap.

[00:21:52] Dwight: They listen to depressing music. They listen, whatever I put on a good book. I’ll listen to a good podcast. I’ll, I’ll put on uplifting music, I’ll get up and I’ll just walk around. I’ll go jump on my treadmill. I do something to change my state between my six inches between my ears. And I’m not telling you I’m perfect.

[00:22:11] Dwight: I’m telling you I work at it because the climb is worth it being cap sucks. And it, there’s point in times in all our lives that we’re. All of us even today in my life, but that a camping can still be effective. If it’s done correctly, I know the climb is still in my visuals.

[00:22:29] Dwight: It’s still between, it’s not in my blinders. It’s in my visual. Camp I move on. I learn things that I can do to change my state, that change my associations, who I communicate to, who I listen, who I watch, and the list goes on and I’m not sitting here trying to preach at anybody. I practice this stuff every moment of every day.

[00:22:51] Dwight: And the simple things like telling myself and telling others that I don’t have bad days change was one of the biggest shifts in state of my mindset.

[00:23:02] Ryan: But the biggest thing you’re doing is addressing it and that you’re not perfect. And that’s, that could be a whole nother podcast because we could talk about that because a lot of us, and I say a lot of us, however, you wanna define it, we do not take it head on.

[00:23:19] Ryan: A lot of people live in the past and let the past define their current day and their. And they wonder why they’re not getting anywhere in life or things are not changing. It’s always woe as me. And if you continue to let that past define you. That’s all you’re getting. We could go into the whole secret universe.

[00:23:40] Ryan: You’re in, or you’re outer. There’s so many things to talk about, but it ultimately is what you put out today is creating your future for tomorrow and five minutes from Tom, Tuesday. But if you don’t start changing your mindset that I’m defeated, or my past is defining me for today, you’re going nowhere in life.

[00:23:58] Ryan: You’re gonna be that camper. And it’s. I don’t get why people don’t understand that piece, that a little work into your current day, shifting your mindset. Like you said, changing, having a horrible day to a bad moment and shifting that mindset is much easier than you think. If you keep on doing it and you’re not gonna be perfect, cuz none of us are.

[00:24:20] Ryan: But at the end of the day, if you start working at it slowly but surely and not giving up on yourself, things. And you,

[00:24:27] Dwight: what does our society do when people live in the past passes? A lot of people don’t get the difference between anxiety and depression. Anxiety’s a future driver, depression’s the PA.

[00:24:38] Dwight: So they get depressed and they’re stuck on that hamster wheel and they go talk to their doctor who has his stuff going on. And what does he do? He writes you. Yep. Or he shifts you off to a specialist with their challenges and they write you a script or send you to a professional to talk to that listens to you.

[00:24:57] Dwight: And you have no, and again, I’m not against that industry. I have a lot of friends that are psychiatrist psychologists there’s effective ones, but there’s a lot of UN. Of people in that industry, just like my industry. There’s a lot of ineffective people and here let’s put a bandaid on it, take this medication.

[00:25:15] Dwight: I have somebody in my own family, one of my kids suffering that in the medical industry over medicated her. And she’s my oldest. And it caused a lot of challenges for her that now she’s gonna have for the rest. Being overmedicated. What if all she would, and unfortunately as a dad, I can’t coach her.

[00:25:33] Dwight: It’s almost impossible. Yeah. If she could have a mentor that would teach her those little small baby steps, so listeners, everything stop stops. in your life being bad. When you start taking positive baby steps, you can’t just all of a sudden, people will take a course, an online course that I’ll talk to, or they’ll grab a book or they’ll listen to, a podcast and they’ll get a little morsel of information that maybe can help them with their lives.

[00:26:01] Dwight: And they expect that back to that instant gratification. Now, not necessarily for materialism, but for their mental mindset, it takes time. You’re gonna ski. You’re gonna trip part of me. You’re gonna skin your knees. You’re gonna get back up. You’re gonna always reevaluate. I’m constantly, always reevaluate my associations.

[00:26:19] Dwight: And again, associations aren’t just who I talk. So what I read, what I watch, what I’m doing and I’ll go, why didn’t I catch that a year ago or a month ago when I reevaluated, cuz I don’t always wait a year. I reevaluate. And it’s a humbling moment to have to, give myself a mental slap and go, like what am I doing?

[00:26:40] Dwight: Yes. I know better than that. My point is I’m human all right. I fall back. I get up and I.

[00:26:47] Ryan: And we all make those mistakes. It’s that old adage of it’s not giving up, it’s getting back up and moving forward. And most people just give up when they can’t get that instant gratification. I don’t know if we talked about it on our call, but I, we might have, I was coaching a gentleman and I say, gentleman, he’s young, he’s probably early twenties.

[00:27:05] Ryan: He’s working his nine to five job. He has a great idea for his, for a business. And he started a side hustle. But he thinks that side hustle should start generating the millions of dollars, outta the shoot, without having a business plan or understanding how it’s gonna go to market. And just so many questions, I asked him and he’s look at you.

[00:27:22] Ryan: And I said, let me tell you something. I’m an eight year overnight success. And I say that loosely. You wanna know why I,

[00:27:29] Dwight: I chuckle on that too, because I hear it all the time. Yeah. Oh, you’re so

[00:27:34] Ryan: lucky. yeah. And you know what? I’ve got two failed businesses that almost put me into bankruptcy. Prior to this, I worked in corporate America for almost 25 years.

[00:27:43] Ryan: Corporate America taught me how to be fat and happy. Never taught me how to fish. So guess what? I failed at my first two businesses. I had to reinvent myself and understand what I wanted to do in life. I didn’t wanna go after the G word, as I say, greed, because the first two businesses were all about money instead of finding a passion monetizing.

[00:28:03] Ryan: And going after what I really wanted to do. And he thinks that since what he sees and what I put out is just easy peasy, lemon, squeezy type of thing. I tell him it’s not, there’s nothing easy about I, what I do. And he goes your podcast seem to be effortless. Excuse me, effortless. And I. I’ll be very upfront and honest with you.

[00:28:23] Ryan: It is a struggle with the podcast because they’re my passion projects. I have day jobs that I have to do and balance all this out. And there is sometimes I don’t wanna get on camera and on an audio and put a podcast out, cuz I’m damn tired, but I have guests scheduled out till 2023 and I’m gonna make sure that every single guest gets to put their, his, or her message out to our listeners cuz ultimately.

[00:28:48] Ryan: We’re not touching one or two people. We wanna touch thousands of people every single day. And this is how you do it and it’s not overnight. And I explained to ’em, I don’t know if you know this or not, but average podcast that’s less than a year old. Do you, how many downloads do you think they get per episode?

[00:29:04] Dwight: Oh goodness. I don’t even know

[00:29:06] Ryan: less than 20. Less than 20 minute load. Yeah. So when I started doesn’t surprise me when I started this podcast and my other pod, my other podcast is four years old now. And that’s a whole nother game. This podcast is only roughly seven months old. When I started, I was getting 22 and I’m like, oh, I’m ahead of the game.

[00:29:22] Ryan: And I slapped it on pod match and we’ve gone from 2223. Now we’re in the hundreds and now we’re starting to push into the thousands and it’s. It took a lot of work. It’s seven months of grinding it out with this pod with this podcast to understand where it’s at and there’s so much more can be done and there’s so much more I can learn, but I don’t pretend to know it all.

[00:29:47] Ryan: I know very little. Having guests on, like yourself helped me grow from a podcast perspective. I’m looking for a mentor like you, you spoke about earlier, haven’t found one yet. And you say they’re out there. I agree. There’s mentors out there that, that don’t want anything back in return.

[00:30:04] Ryan: Unfortunately, I haven’t found a mentor that doesn’t want something back in return. I’ve been looking, but I can look harder. I just haven’t had enough time. Cause I got my plateful with other things. So that’s one of my goals on this time off that I’m taking is to find a mentor and see if I can find that individual that can help me take it to the next level.

[00:30:24] Ryan: Yeah. And see

[00:30:26] Dwight: the mentor I talked about. That’s been friends of mine for 30 years. We go through where we don’t communicate. He doesn’t necessarily mentor me in the fact this is what you should do with money. This is what you should do. He gives me ideas and then he supports me. He communicates, again, not as much as we used to, the mentors that I have that are of.

[00:30:46] Dwight: I guess an effective mentor where they’re teaching me strategies and steps. Yes. They want something right. They’re not working for free. I can’t expect them to it’s been tough cuz I mentor people. So with my financial in lifestyle, coaching business, in my own country. So in two, the two, the provinces I’m licensed.

[00:31:06] Dwight: I do everything I talked about for free for my clients, with the expectation that at the end, there might be a transaction and a sale and I get a commiss. Outside of that. I have to build people because time really is elapsing for all of us. And if I give too much of my time away for free, then I’m taking it away from the customers that will pay me that help me pay my bills.

[00:31:29] Dwight: That help me continue to save for retirement, help out my kids when they’re of the five. Which happens quite frequently, more than people realize the younger generations need help. It just, it is what it is. I needed help at one point in time, magnify how much they need help because they, they have even more of a struggle.

[00:31:49] Dwight: They even have more of a mental demand on that instant gratification and bottom line. I’m just pushing forward. I’m doing whatever. Help people and finding good mentorship, like I’m in the process of hiring somebody because I wanna magnify my speaking business. I’ve been speaking on stages in the finance world for the last 20 years off and on doing workshops, doing financial strategy sessions to groups of 40 to groups of hundreds to thousands.

[00:32:20] Dwight: But my real passion is to get up on a stage and talk to people about what you and I are talking. Has nothing to do directly to do with mindset. And I know that I’m struggling and weak in that area. And last year I paid somebody and I worked with them. Now I’m hiring somebody else to do even more stuff because I find even a mentor or coach has a expiry date.

[00:32:46] Dwight: if that makes sense. They, we haven’t, I haven’t expired dating with my clients and people. I work. So I’m looking at, I just interviewed a few people. I just had another call with a with a fabulous lady that I’m gonna end up hiring to help me level up my speaking and course creation program.

[00:33:03] Dwight: Cuz I’m stuck in a rut. I sometimes it’s hard to get over ourselves. You know what I mean by that? Oh yeah. So I’ve been in a process for a year creating a course. I’m stuck cuz I got all these other things. Like you mentioned, I got so much on my mental plate that it’s starting to overflow.

[00:33:19] Dwight: Sometimes I need to sit back and go that’s a weakness. Who can I find? But it’s hard. Like you said, it could be hard to find people it’s almost impossible to find somebody that’ll do it for nothing. Like I have coaching calls with people, even with yourself. I do it. I do, I’ll have calls with people an hour or two hours for nothing.

[00:33:39] Dwight: And I’ll give ’em the basics. But once they expect more than the basics, Then I’ll say them, I understand where you’re coming from. You’re trying to get on your feet, but meanwhile, if I give every weight thing away for free, then I struggle and fall backwards myself. So I do, I had, I’ve had calls with people from the UK, from Australia, like I don’t automatically, I know some people will just to have the first hour, they want a thousand dollars or $500 or whatever.

[00:34:06] Dwight: And it’s that’s unrealistic. How are you? You’re always segmenting and taking out the middle class and poor that. To help. And you’re only working with the people that have some disposable money like that doesn’t help either. So I always give away time to people, and then there, there is the odd case where I have, I’ll be honest with you that I’ve just, I’ve continued to help them and not charge them because my heart strings.

[00:34:27] Dwight: Or just I like, I feel bad for them cuz I’ve been there. I’ve been that person. Their story has to be really good though before I’m giving them away my stuff for free. But it does

[00:34:38] Ryan: happen. You. Oh, by all means. We have a nonprofit that we do that with, but I’m not looking for a mentor to do it for free.

[00:34:45] Ryan: I’m looking for the right mentor that brings the different skill set that I have. Am I willing to pay for it? Yes. But so far, like you said, most of the people that pitch themselves as a mentor, they want a thousand, $2,000 front and it’s what do I get for your $2,000? That’s, and then when I ask that question, they get.

[00:35:04] Ryan: It’s oh, I hate that. I hate that if you can’t, if you can’t give me an elevator speech in 30 seconds of why I should pay you $2,000, you’re not my mentor. You’re not somebody, I’m not looking some for some fly by night type of people. And then I can’t remember the name of it. They reached out to me, is it kingdom or something?

[00:35:23] Ryan: There’s something out there going along. It’s something around biblical it’s kingdom, whatever. I don’t know what it’s called. But anyhow, they basically is this networking of individuals that are supposed to be Christians and they reach out and they said, Hey, we want you to be part of this and we’ll do all this and we’ll do that.

[00:35:39] Ryan: And we’ll help you with this and help you with that. And then I said, so how much is this kingdom gonna cost? The guy got a little upset. And I said, I’m just being honest because I get plenty of people asking to be my mentor. But when it comes down to it, they want all this tons of money front, but I don’t get any I don’t see any return because you’re not telling me anything new that I don’t know already.

[00:36:01] Ryan: And it’s not that I’m trying to be a know at all. It’s it just seems like they’re snake oil sales people, and it’s yeah, you got, they gotta elevate

[00:36:08] Dwight: you. They got, they, they can’t. There’s so many composers out there, composers. Yeah. That claim to do this and that they’ve accomplished nothing.

[00:36:16] Dwight: They haven’t been through the school of hard knocks like you or I and I a hundred percent agree I’ve so this person that I’m looking at hiring and I’ve challenged her numerous times, I’ve had more than a couple calls with her. Her discovery calls are usually half hour. Our first one was like an hour and 45 minutes because we just wow.

[00:36:33] Dwight: Gelled. And I’ve asked her numerous. She basically told me when we negotiated on the fee, why did we negotiate? Because she understood where I was coming from. I am a finance guy. I have a defined thing of money, and I understand the value of time and money. And she basically, the last time I communicated a few days ago, she says, I promise you, and it’s gonna be a contractual writing.

[00:37:01] Dwight: Not just, handshake, verbal word of mouth, whatever, and she said I promise you that from this point to this point, I’m gonna do whatever it takes in between. Even if you throw something else at me, the end result is what I’m promising you. If it takes extra stuff that we’ve forgotten, I’m gonna do it for you.

[00:37:17] Dwight: And I said, perfect. That’s what I wanted. I want somebody that’s gonna go that extra mile. And realize that for certain people that they’re gonna coach or mentor, they’re gonna make a tremendous amount of money because it won’t take a lot of effort. And then other people they’re not gonna make as much because it’s gonna take some more effort.

[00:37:35] Dwight: Why is that important? Because then they’re doing it because they have a passion to serve. They know they need to make money to survive and pay staff. Cuz she has a staff of people that develop and do stuff for her. But she also knows that bottom line, the more she serves me. The more, I’m gonna tell others, especially when I love connecting people.

[00:37:55] Dwight: So correct. That’s the, it’s hard. It’s so hard to find people like that. And I’ve been struggling myself, Ryan. So I get where you’re coming, listeners. If you’re having that challenge, you’re not alone

[00:38:05] Ryan: And it’s it’s tough and we’re gonna have to wrap this up cuz we’re going long here, but it.

[00:38:12] Ryan: It’s tough to find that, but if you’re willing to put the time and effort in back into what we talked about earlier, it all works out, but you have to be persistent and consistent, and there’s gotta be some patience in there. And on this journey of being an entrepreneur or a human being, I’m the last person that talks about patients because my patient.

[00:38:34] Ryan: Over the years have been, has been, I’ll be honest, crappy, and I’ve wanted to get things like going ASAP. But now that I’ve learned this journey that I’ve been on and the changes that I had to do in reflection of who I am in what I needed to become, my patience has gotten a lot better. But the other piece of it is I’m willing to look at my faults and say, okay, you’ve got some faults.

[00:38:57] Ryan: Now, what are you gonna do about it before I would be embarrassed or I wouldn’t want to talk about ’em now I’m open and honest and talking about ’em because I think, I don’t think I know it helps me grow as a person because I’m sharing how I feel, but what I need to work on, but it also puts me on the clock cuz when I, the more people I tell, the more people know and the more that, that story’s gonna come back and then I can say I’ve evolved and I can work on things and show people that, and that for me is progress because I’m willing to.

[00:39:26] Ryan: My faults out there. So other people understand that I’m not perfect. You’re not perfect. They’re not perfect, but guess what? We all can work on it and get better and life gets better. Yeah.

[00:39:37] Dwight: Vulnerability is key. And, you talked about the fact of what’s the word you use now?

[00:39:42] Dwight: Sorry. You talked about the fact that patients well, patients, what is patients involving a lot of times it’s comparison. I became impatient or I become impatient and want things quicker because I’ve got that comparison game. I want my more listeners on my podcast. I want more sales on my book.

[00:40:00] Dwight: I want more of this. I want more of that. It’s always comparison to back what we talked about, wanting what Smiths and Jones happen and have yep. And I’ll spend, or do things that I shouldn’t have done. And then all of a sudden I’m impatient and then it creates anxiety and it just, it’s a, it’s like a steam roller.

[00:40:17] Ryan: And it’s a, it’s that hamster wheel that you talk about, and we’re all chasing, this pie in the sky. But if you sit back and try to figure out and we’ll wrap this up, but this is where I wanted to end goals. If you don’t have goals that are, succinct, dated and ended. And when I say ended as in, if you accomplished it or not, because it’s very to the point, and I don’t like to use smart goals, even though.

[00:40:40] Ryan: That’s a great analogy. It’s all about what works for you. One of my goals is I wanna get to a thousand downloads of this podcast per episode by December. And when I said December, it’s not that to me is not definitive enough. And I got pushed back on that from a couple people that are my inner circle.

[00:40:57] Ryan: Put a date out there, put a date. So what did I do? I picked the middle of the month because I know if I wait till the end of the year, my downloads go down because people are out not doing stuff. So I picked December 15th, 20, 22. I want to have a thousand downloads per episode. I put it out there and there we are, but that’s life.

[00:41:17] Ryan: And if I don’t accomplish it, okay, I’ll go look at it and see what I can do, but I’m putting it out there because that’s what I.

[00:41:25] Dwight: Oh, a hundred percent. You have to look at stuff and analysis of goals, whether you use a smart process. I talk about it in my book. Why do I talk about it? People don’t even know the simplistic nature of setting any goals, or any processes. And at least it’s something they can Google. Google how you set a goal using smart and they can start on it. But yeah, without goals being measurable it’s really hard. I look at the same sort of things. This is what I wanna accomplish. And then I belong to a couple masterminds.

[00:41:57] Dwight: We work together every two weeks and we keep each other on, in sync, on track. We help each other become accountable more so to ourselves. Oh, you said you were gonna do that two weeks ago. Why haven’t you done it, right? Yeah. It’s not about putting people on the spot to be mean. It’s about, do you really want it?

[00:42:14] Dwight: Then why did you say you were gonna do it and you didn’t do it? And I’ve been caught, this is my second year on one of their masterminds and it happens and I just, I’m honest, vulnerable, and then they help you through it. Oh, what’s going on mentally for you. Let’s see if we can help you get past that roadblock so that you can complete it the next two weeks.

[00:42:30] Dwight: So it’s about who we associate with and then the processes of doing what’s right for us. As you mentioned, when it comes to setting.

[00:42:39] Ryan: Amen to all that. And that’s great. Dwight, we’ve been we’ve been rambling and talking about some great conversations. I’ve loved this. Gotta wrap it up though, but how can everyone get a hold of you?

[00:42:50] Dwight: Best way to reach me is go to my website@giveaheck.com. That you want there, you can reach out and find out about me in regards to anything that I do from speaking to my book, to coaching bottom of the, just above the fold on the first screen, you can find out all my social media to connect with me.

[00:43:10] Dwight: That’s the best way to go to give act.com.

[00:43:13] Ryan: Awesome. We’ll put that in the show notes too, and link it there. So people know how to get ahold of you. Dwight, it’s been a pleasure. This has been a great conversation, healthy. What we need to do is once I can get myself situated on my other side of my podcast, chasing financial freedom, love to have you come on there and talk some more and get really into the nitty gritty on the financial side.

[00:43:35] Dwight: Sounds great. I appreciate that, Ryan. Thanks for having me on.

[00:43:38] Ryan: Thanks.