If You Don't Have Self Control, You Got Nothing
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. Hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:And remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning everyone, I hope you're on your walk regardless of the weather because if you let the weather control your activity, guess what, you're in for a shock in The UK, especially in Wales. There was a place in West Wales right, somewhere in West Wales I'm sure was. It rained for like sixty days in a row imagine that. Imagine how miserable that is.
Speaker 1:But what are gonna do about it? Can't change the weather so tough shit. Just to finish off this week I've been more on a on a life philosophical voice notes this week, but we're gonna go back next week. I've got a lot of research studies on health and fitness to share with you guys. Some new new research has come out that's really interesting.
Speaker 1:So I'll be sharing a lot more on nutrition and training and fat loss and stuff like that next week, research breakdowns. But today my final voice note this week and this is going to be on topic of this week is, I came across this article, or like study they did and it showed that people were getting into debt for an insta worthy lifestyle. One girl got into £27,000 worth of debt to improve her Instagram. I'm not making her up. This is legit.
Speaker 1:This happened. And this article was like, you know, a year or so ago, she explained there was a fear of missing out, gripped her so bad that on her feed was like perfectly curated with perfect pictures and expensive holidays and luxury cars and outfits to sign handbags that this person went into huge amounts of debt. Then in The UK, it talks then about this like the consumer debt crisis and young people between 18 and 34. A recent study by Credit Karma found that Gen Z as a millennials Millennials collectively spent £400 a month imitating Instagram stars with seven in ten going into debt as a result. Twenty five percent say their debt is hindering long term financial goals, no shit such as owning a house while 31% can't afford everyday essentials and 36% say it's impacting their savings.
Speaker 1:Honest like you like, I'd covered a voice note before, I covered a book called The Psychology of Money, right? The ceiling of social comparison is so high it doesn't exist you can keep going on forever and ever. There was a story about a guy he was born in the slums of India right, literally the slums he wasn't even in the towns, the slums. Probably, you know, the lowest exist one of the lowest existence you can get, right? He worked his way somehow to be in like the CEO of McKinsey at one point, like in 02/2008 something like I was, a massive consultancy firm.
Speaker 1:He was then reported to be worth a hundred million from nothing, hundred million from nothing right. Then he went to jail, right. Why did he go to jail? Well this will happen, he went to a few parties with a few of his boys, he was a hundred million pound guy but he was by he was on the table next to people who are billionaires, they had 10 times more money than him. Guess what he did?
Speaker 1:Oh I feel poor now, they're worth 1,000,000,000, I'm only worth 100,000,000, I need to get it to their level. How am I gonna get it fast? There's no real way to get it fast unless I do dodgy stuff. And that's what he did, started doing dodgy stuff with stocks inside a trade in, got caught, the silly boy, ended up in jail. Right, if a guy from India from the slums can get tricked, trapped into this kind of comparison thing, right, and go to jail for it, what chance do you think we have as normal people who have just not in those extremes we're definitely going to be impacted by it.
Speaker 1:100% we've all done it, we've all done it. I think it's a touched upon it a few days ago like if we're trying to keep up if we're trying to look if we're to compare for one we're going be it's going to be terrible for us. The thing is you can't stop yourself comparing so this is where like some of the advice I hear is a bit shit because they say you need to stop comparing and flat out say that. So what happens is you will automatically compare and then you have to rationalize very fast why that's stupid, that's kind of what you have to do. I even did it the other day I realized one of my favorite authors Ryan Holiday put a post up and he said, it's my 30 birthday so I do in his 30 birthday annual.
Speaker 1:I was like, you're 34, I mean I thought you were way older. How have you written so many books? You're 34 years old. He's written so many books, he's so successful at 34. I was like, wow.
Speaker 1:Like you start comparing quickly as like, there's no point, what's the point? People have been successful at the young age, people have been successful at an old age. And I just wanna touch upon now, look at these four success stories in terms of age. So we start off from the lower ends. We've got Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner.
Speaker 1:He was a bartender until he was 25, right. So he was more on the younger side. Harrison Ford, actor and producer, until his 30s he was a carpenter, right. Let's have a look here so we got JK Rowling Harry Potter author until 31 she was single mom and she was on the door. Then we've got the Zara founder Amnico Ortega until 30 he was a shirt shop helper.
Speaker 1:Andrea Bocelli the singer unbelievable he's got a really good voice like I wish I had that voice like if you listen to my voice yesterday how bad is it? Like I know it's the worst you've ever heard but like honestly I have tried guys I just don't know what's going on my jeans don't let me sing. He was 33 piano player at bars. Mary Kate and Ashley, May Kay found until '45 sold books blah blah blah. Then you've got Ray Kroc McDonald's found until '52 sold paper cups and milkshake mixes.
Speaker 1:Then you've got as well the founder of Walmart who was I think was 52 as well when he started it. So there's these people, that you know later on in life they've eventually turned around or become the success story you hear about. And I think it's important that when you look at comparison, you can't look at age and that's what's happening with younger people. Go in, there's so many successful people at my age who've done so much more than I have. And then because they panic, go, well, need to, if I can't get the actual success, need to actually look as if I'm living my best life.
Speaker 1:And then we'll go into debt and go on holidays and buy these things for Instagram. And then actually down the road it's worse because you end up with loads of debt. You end up being like a fraud really. It's like you're not really happy, you're not living that lifestyle. The quickest way to be more secure in your life is to reduce your lifestyle expenses.
Speaker 1:Like you don't need to be spending extravagant amounts. If you are in debt and stuff, obviously the first thing is to go out of debt. I was in like, this is a true story. Let me just say to you my story about my debt, to show that you you can take risks and it pays off sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't. When I first started rugby warfare, so you go back now when I joined when I went to university.
Speaker 1:So I had no debt when I joined my university. They gave me a £500 student credit card I just didn't have a clue about what it was. My mother and father didn't have the cash to like help me through uni. So we had to just, I just go off what I got. Obviously, as a student, you're spending loads of money, you end up, you spend all your money early, then you go on credit card debt and you spend that, right?
Speaker 1:That's gone and the student accommodation is really expensive. And then what happens is people are always going out, didn't they? So I was going out, they're always buying new clothes. So what I did was go and get debt, had to go and borrow my money. I remember once I went into town and I opened up four different bank accounts in the same day just to have a student overdraft.
Speaker 1:So I went into Santander said, Yeah, don't have a student bank account, can I open an account? And they're like, Yeah, are you sure you're going to the one? I said, No, nothing. I'm going my primary account opened an account, gave me a deposit of £1,500 straight away, went across the road to Barclays. They gave me £200 cash on the spot as my overdraft, genuine.
Speaker 1:Then I went I already had HSBC. So And I went to NatWest. And this is all in the same square. Like, you probably would have seen me going in. I went to NatWest, they gave me a thousand pound overdraft.
Speaker 1:What else did I have an overdraft off? I can't remember what it was. Anyway, you get into debt because you wanna wanna fit in the new, you need to be able to live. So I got into low loads of debt, credit card debt creeping up. Then I started rugby warfarin university.
Speaker 1:And then I was like, right, I need money to buy some stock and all that stuff. And then that goes in and then you know it takes years for that to pay off. I remember once I had to reset one of my exams because I just didn't, in second year maybe it was, one of them I didn't, I don't know what happened I just completely messed it up. I had to reset it, but I had to pay to reset it. So had to borrow money again to pay it.
Speaker 1:And then by the time, the interest rates are mental on credit cards, by the way. And then you end up taking like payday loans out to pay for stuff. It was like a shambles to survive. Was literally, I don't remember, I'm not saying this to you like, it's like just most, this is the untold story of student life. The untold reality of more students is they have to get into loads of debt to survive university then you get all the uni debt on top.
Speaker 1:Eventually like big risk taker taking on more debt, got a job obviously you know you don't really be able to pay you can't really live because your money goes to pay your rent and you have a bill left over. Then if you pay all your debts off then you've got no money to live and then you're young and obviously you want to make sure you're living your life. I get it. I racked up a huge amount of debt and especially when I took business risk at the start like you're looking up to like 50 grands worth. And then yeah, like you know, that comes from just trying to maintain a lifestyle that is not maintainable and just being able to take a step back and think of it, you know, the reality is if I kept this up just to fit in I'm gonna be in a real world of pain moving forward and later on in my life.
Speaker 1:You have to have the coverage to say no, no, I'm not gonna do it anymore. I'm not gonna go out and spend £200. I'm not gonna get new outfit every time I go out. I'm not gonna spend ridiculous amounts on Deliveroo. I'm not gonna spend money on stuff I don't need.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to fall into consumerism traps. And if you can say no to a lot of those things you will be out of that trap. But yeah I mean going back to the main point of this is that people are spending cash to kind of make their Instagram look good. The net, the end result is so bad because it can cripple your life. If you're not strong minded and you in a sense I'm lucky that I didn't ever, I've never burst under pressure, right?
Speaker 1:That's a natural trait I've had. I'm not saying I've worked for it. I just something I've never had. I've never panicked in a bad way. I've never had panic attack.
Speaker 1:But that's not something I've worked on. I'm just very lucky to have it. I know some people that have had panic attacks, can't go to sleep. They're keeping them up at night. That death and stuff is keeping them up at night and not being able to sleep just so they can go on a night out again with a new outfit for a picture on Instagram and then people will think they're awesome.
Speaker 1:Do know I mean? Like what's going on? So what is the lesson here Scott? Why are going on with us again? Well, the lesson is, we're going into the weekend, we're going into the summer, So there's gonna be now people thinking of need to go on holiday, need to look good all time Instagram, need to get pictures of me out in new outfits all time, la la la la la.
Speaker 1:Nobody cares for one, right? So don't fall into this trap thinking people care. They just don't. So don't even spend money on what people think. And you get a lot more satisfaction and you feel more grounded in your own life when there's not so many external forces controlling your actions.
Speaker 1:So if you don't have all of these debts you gotta pay, and don't have all of these social influences you feel like you gotta fulfil, and you start paying a debt off and then that goes and you got no debt anymore or it's under control, and you're getting pulled by nights out all the time or just trying to keep up with the Joneses on Instagram, you feel more yourself. Like you feel grounded, you feel secure, feel good, right? And there's no better feeling than being able to say no and not get pulled in those directions, right? I'm telling you, the day you cut off those things pulling you, oh my days, honestly, it's so good. And that's why I think like say no is the main thing and being able to say no and living with four more is a real superpower these days.
Speaker 1:Like four more is a big thing, obviously, like the fear of missing out drives us to insane decisions that we just do for the sake of the of the weekend and we're like, Oh my God. In the week you're fine. In the week you're like, Yeah, I can do it. I can stay in, I can eat healthy, I can go to the gym, I can read books, whatever. Guests of the weekend is like, you know, the chimp takes over completely.
Speaker 1:We have to be able to control that. We have to the way that we control is by practicing, say no to a few things in the weekends and being able to have self control. Self control is the gateway into all other virtuous things like if you if you don't have self control how can you have wisdom? If you don't have self control how can you have the virtue of justice? If you don't have self control, how can you have moderation?
Speaker 1:Right? How can you have those without self control? You can't. You need self control is the main thing you want to be working on. But the way to work on self control is actually put yourself in the arena and actually test it out.
Speaker 1:You won't win all the time, but you'll win sometimes. And then once you win sometimes you can win more and more and more. And once you master self control you'll be the master of yourself which ultimately then gives you way more joy, satisfaction and happiness than the perception you wanna put out to the world that you're living an unbelievable life but in loads of debt. Yeah. I'll end you with that, guys.
Speaker 1:But on a brighter note, England versus France. England versus Scotland today, 8PM. Who am I supporting? I'll let you guess who I'm supporting. I'm gonna be there in the pub watching the game.
Speaker 1:I I advise you a lot. If you don't like football, just get into it. Just get into the vibes. It's good. It's happy.
Speaker 1:Good stuff. Hopefully, we see England with us in the final or something like that. But, yeah, have a good weekend, everyone. I hope you enjoy. If you're using the macros app or your total members testing it out, make sure to use the macro planner to give yourself more allowance on the weekend and simp happy days even if you go over, that's fine.
Speaker 1:You've you've at least accounted for it. And, yeah, hope it a good week we started we go again on Monday so hopefully this week's voice notes slightly different to the usual hopefully been helpful but we're back with research studies and real sciency stuff next week and, that'll be good but enjoy yourself and have a good day. And that's it. Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Galf Lear. Hopefully you understood something I said.
Speaker 1:I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today. I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday. I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website.
Speaker 1:What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today. Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy, and your life will change.
