155: The One Truth I'll Never Stop Sharing About Finance

Send us a text

Master business finance for free with 100+ video lessons—no gimmicks, no hooks, just valuable knowledge: https://www.byfiq.com/

Most professionals know financial literacy is crucial, yet few follow through.

In this episode, Steve Coughran uncovers why so many start strong but fail to finish—and what it takes to break the cycle. Through real-world insights and hard-hitting truths, Steve shares why there are no shortcuts to financial success, how distractions derail progress, and what separates those who thrive from those who stay stuck.

If you’re ready to take control of your financial future, this episode will challenge you to commit, build real skills, and unlock new opportunities.

Disclaimer:
BYFIQ, LLC is a wholly owned entity of Coltivar Group, LLC. The views expressed here are those of the individual Coltivar Group, LLC (“Coltivar”) personnel quoted and are not the views of Coltivar or its affiliates. Certain information contained in here has been obtained from third-party sources. While taken from sources believed to be reliable, Coltivar has not independently verified such information and makes no representations about the enduring accuracy of the information or its appropriateness for a given situation.

This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any securities or digital assets are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute an investment recommendation or offer to provide investment advisory services. The Company is not registered or licensed by any governing body in any jurisdiction to give investing advice or provide investment recommendations. The Company is not affiliated with, nor does it receive compensation from, any specific security. Please see https://www.byfiq.com/terms-and-privacy-policy for additional important information.

Want to see if you’re a fit for our KPI Kickoff? Check it out here: https://www.coltivar.com/boost

Support the show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We live these realities where life goes on day
after day, week after week,month after month, and we just
think that's the way it isbecause it's always been that
way.
And guess what?
It's all good until it's not.
This is Boosting your FinancialIQ, where I help business
professionals with financialresponsibility to elevate their
careers and run profitablecompanies.
My hope is that you'll applythese lessons to achieve your

(00:21):
greatest ambitions.
Cheers and enjoy.
Lessons to achieve yourgreatest ambitions, cheers and
enjoy.
The one truth I'll never stopsharing is this Financial
literacy will have a majorimpact on your personal and
professional life.
Yet so many people know this,they just struggle to do
anything about it.
So I mentioned at the beginningof the year that I made my

(00:43):
financial pro program that's amouthful, a little tongue
twister there at byfiqcomabsolutely free.
So you could go to byfiqcom,sign up for the financial pro
program, and I assume a lot ofyou who are listening have
already done that.
Here's the deal, though Guesswhat we get to see the stats of
the number of people who startthe program in, those that

(01:05):
finish right or even those thatmake it past level one.
Remember there are six levelsto go through.
After level six, you become afinancial pro.
Now here's my observation and Ican be entirely wrong.
This is just my observation,though, is that people start the
program, they're excited, theywant to increase their financial
literacy, they want to changetheir financial position, they

(01:27):
want a better financial life,and then they get into the brass
tacks of things, which is workright, you have to work, you
have to learn, you have to grow,you have to build skills, and
then, oftentimes, people getdistracted or they look for
another shortcut to get there.
But guess what I can tell youthere's no shortcut.

(01:47):
There's no shortcut to success.
In fact, I used to listen to thepodcast by Guy Raz on NPR.
It's called how I Built thisGreat podcast, if you haven't
listened to it and I used tolisten to it while I would go on
these runs, and so I wasrunning multiple times a week,
and I would listen to a newepisode every single day, and
that was like my treat, right,and what I realized during this

(02:11):
timeframe?
I listened to stories of over ahundred entrepreneurs, from the
founder of Instagram to Nike,et cetera.
All the way down the line, alldifferent types of companies.
And here's the common theme allthe way down the line all
different types of companies andhere's the common theme.
All these entrepreneurs wentthrough hell and back to launch

(02:31):
their business and to make itsuccessful.
I can't tell you of one story.
Maybe you know of a story outthere, but I haven't heard this
story where an entrepreneur islike, hmm, I want to create an
app.
So they create an app.
Next thing, you know, they havea million downloads, they have
all this cash flow coming in andthey strike it rich.
It just doesn't happen.
In fact, if you haven't read thebook shoe dog about Phil Knight

(02:52):
and Nike, it's incredible.
Definitely check it out.
It's one of my favorites.
And in that book, phil Knight'stalking about how he was
constantly running out of cash.
I mean, they were leveragingeverything.
They even went to vendors andthey're like, hey look, I need
help covering payroll, so weneed to change our terms.
And he did all of this in orderto make his business work right

(03:15):
.
So when you hear stories fromthese successful people, they
talk about cashflow, knowing thenumbers, having KPIs and guess
what.
This doesn't come naturally tomost people, but it requires
work.
I've told you this before, butwhen I started my first company
at the age of 16 out of mysister's garage.
I didn't know I was going tobuild it into a multimillion

(03:36):
dollar company.
The sad part is is, when I wasrunning the business, I had no
clue how to read financialstatements.
That's why I'm so passionateabout this, because I left so
much money on the table and Imade a ton of mistakes.
And look, I'm okay with thatbecause I learned in the process
.
But what I'm not okay with isthat my mistakes impacted the

(03:57):
lives of people that I trulylove and care about, and I'm not
okay with that.
That's unacceptable.
As leaders, we have a fiduciaryresponsibility Not to become
nerds right, doing debits andcredits and understanding the
IRS tax code but we have afiduciary responsibility to
understand the story behind thenumbers, so then we could take

(04:18):
action, focused action, so we'renot wasting people's time doing
activities that aren't going tohave a big impact.
That's our responsibility andit takes work.
So when I say this is the onetruth, like I'll never stop
sharing, it's that financialliteracy will have a major

(04:40):
impact on the quality of yourfinancial life.
That's why I give away so muchof my content for free Over a
hundred video lessons.
You know how much time andmoney that took to produce this
program.
I made it all for free becausemy mission is simple Empower the
lives of 10 million people ormore with financial literacy.

(05:00):
So, getting into the financialprobe program, going back to
that, and I look at the stats,like, you start this program,
which is great, right, a lot ofyou start this program.
A lot of you make good progress.
My concern is for those whostart the program and then they
go off to the next thing.
It's like the shiny objectsyndrome.
Right, you start something andyou see something over here that

(05:23):
seems more appealing and thenyou switch gears.
Well, guess what?
It'll be very difficult to besuccessful if you keep doing
that.
I think I've shared this analogybefore.
But imagine if I start playingthe violin, I have, like no
musical talent.
Okay, I got a guitar years agoand didn't really work out that
well, I just haven't put thetime in.
I guess I should say, let's sayI'm like all right, I want to

(05:46):
learn how to play the violin andI take lessons for a month and
then a friend tells me about thepiano and then I switch over to
the piano for a couple monthsand then I see another friend
playing the drums and I'm like,ooh, that's kind of cool, and I
start playing the drums.
Well, guess what?
I'm going to suck at all ofthem, and that's what we tend to
do.
Sometimes I'm guilty of thesame thing.
That's why I'm so fanaticalabout this.

(06:06):
But you're never, ever going toget good at something If you're
constantly switching.
And there's so manydistractions out there.
There's so many people talkingabout how to get rich and all
this other garbage.
Well, guess what?
Get rich quick, get poor quick.
And especially the youngergeneration people reach out to
me and they're like Steve, giveme advice.

(06:27):
Like I want to make a bunch ofmoney.
How do I do that?
I'm like go work hard, go buildskills, go get a ton of
experience.
That's how you do it.
Trading, crypto, getting intoreal estate Sure, there's going
to be a few of you who may getlucky with that, but you could
go to Vegas and get lucky too.

(06:48):
I was at a basketball game theother day with my kids.
We love basketball as a familyand the same kind of thing is
true here.
It's like you shoot a basket,like somebody shoots a basket
and they make it.
They shoot another basket, theymake it.
They shoot another basket andthey make it and you just assume
that's just the reality, likethey're going to make every shot
and then they miss a threepointer and it's like, oh my
gosh, what the heck.

(07:08):
And the same thing is true withlife.
We, and the same thing is truewith life.
We live these realities wherelife goes on day after day, week
after week, month after month,and we just think that's the way
it is, because it's always beenthat way.
And guess what?
It's all good until it's not.
And I found myself in similarsituations, like you're going,
and you're going, and you'regoing, you lose a job, you miss
out on opportunity or lifesmacks you in the head.

(07:30):
That's the worst time to go outthere and to build skills.
You have to build skills now.
So I'm so fanatical aboutfinancial literacy because I've
worked with so many CEOs and alot of these CEOs are in their
forties or fifties and they'relike, wow, steve, I wish I would
have learned this stuff back inschool.
I wish I would have met youfive years ago.
I wish I would have done this10 years ago, whatever it is,

(07:50):
but it's this regret that theydidn't build skills early on and
they didn't start earlier.
So guess what?
Yeah, going through a hundredvideo lessons is tough, and
Netflix is probably so much moreappealing than a bald guy like
me talking about finance with amarker in front of a whiteboard.
But here's my promise to you Ifyou build better skills, your

(08:13):
life will improve.
Now, what's in it for me?
Like nothing's in it for you.
If you build better skills,your life will improve.
Now what's in it for me?
Like nothing's in it for me.
You go and take the financialpro program.
Like sure, I care about yourwellbeing, but like what does it
benefit me?
Why am I so fanatical aboutthis?
The reason why I'm fanaticalabout this is because I actually
care about you.
I care about you and I careabout people.
I love people and I want peopleto be successful.

(08:35):
So that's my clarion call todayis just do the hard things, do
the hard things.
Netflix will always be there.
Your social media Facebook,instagram, tiktok, whatever you
indulge in will always be there.
But it's all about buildingskills.
It's all about building skills,and these skills will take you

(08:56):
to incredible places.
That's my promise to you.
All right, I hope you have afantastic week and until next
time, take care of yourself.
Cheers.