7 - Debt Part 1

“Yeah, I don’t see anyone in our family becoming that successful.” - My grandmother

Breaking the Chains of the Past
In this first of a two-part series, Joe Wanner opens up about his early financial struggles and how they fueled his determination to break generational poverty. From being born into a large Filipino immigrant family to being the oldest of six, Joe’s childhood was full of love but short on money—and he didn’t realize it until comparisons with his peers began to surface.

From Payless to Privilege
Middle school and high school exposed Joe to economic disparity. While classmates wore Jordans and received iPods, Joe showed up in Shacks from Payless and $10 gifts. A pivotal moment came at his 8th-grade graduation, overhearing a family member doubt anyone in their family could ever be successful. That moment lit a fire in Joe’s soul—and he decided the legacy would change with him.

Sacrifice and Grit
Joe shares the incredible sacrifices his parents made to get him into a top private school through financial aid. While other students arrived in BMWs, Joe caught two buses before sunrise just to make basketball practice. He recounts how these humbling experiences strengthened his resolve to succeed financially and reshape his future.

Conclusion
This episode is a raw and real look into the early life experiences that shaped Joe’s hunger for financial freedom. It’s not about playing victim—it’s about using the past as power. Get ready for Part II, where Joe dives into the debt and struggles of early adulthood.

If the information in these episodes have helped you in your business journey, please subscribe to the show and leave an honest review.

Chapters
01:46 Growing Up with an Immigrant Mentality
04:56 High School Realizations and Financial Aid
10:11 The Impact of Socioeconomic Disparities
15:17 Overcoming Challenges in College and Beyond

Make a Cold connection with exercise physiologist, sales coach, and much more @JoeWannerOfficial on Instagram

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Anyone ever experienced money problems, massive debt, crazy life situations looming over your head, maybe possibly homeless, can't afford your groceries, all the above. Welcome to another episode of today's podcast, Built for the Cold. Too cold for the average Joe. Just right for me and the listeners of this show. Where we're here to eliminate the victim mentality, where it doesn't matter where you come from, if you're kind of born broke, born poor, it's your responsibility that you don't leave that same legacy and you break the chains of generations past. Today starts a two-part episode where I'm going to go into the financial struggles that I have overcome over the last decade. And just even from growing up, different things I didn't recognize or necessarily didn't realize, kind of the position I was in to all of a sudden getting into a top high school where there was a lot of kids that come from families with a lot of money. I personally didn't. And then the part two of this series will go into kind of like what I did in college and my young adult years and just the massive financial struggles I had to overcome. Without further ado, we'll kind of get into it. So when I was growing up, right, I I love my family. My family came from the Philippines, kind of immigrated to Hawaii, and started what I understand from my family history is started working on kind of plantation farms, and that's kind of how they immigrated to Hawaii. So kind of that immigrant mentality of kind of like, hey, we just work really hard. That's where my you know parents met in Oregon, and that started where I where I grew up in my family. So growing up, I didn't really know if we had money or not. I knew my dad worked very hard. He was a teacher, my mom stayed at home. But as you start to have kids and being the oldest of six, I just didn't recognize. I was just I knew I grew up with a family with a lot of love, a lot of um fun and joy in that sense. Parents have always been married, so I was very fortunate to have that. But I just didn't, I didn't know, right? So growing up, I didn't really have a reference for money. I didn't know if we had money or didn't have money. I just knew we could go camping in the summer. And because my grandpa had so many miles for from Hawaiian, we were able to go visit my family in Hawaii and we would stay with my grandparents and stuff, even though it was kind of spread out all over their house, all these different rooms set up into makeshift bedrooms, right? That was just our experience, and we just had a ton of fun. And you don't really know when you're young when you don't maybe like have a ton of money or have a ton of resources, and it starts to you start to become more aware of that. I would say maybe like in middle school or in the high school, right? And so, like, even as an example, I had no idea, but even just to receive like birthday gifts, like our budget or whatever was like five bucks, and I didn't know any different. I was very thankful for the gifts that I got. But as middle school and high school came around, that's when I started to recognize like, oh, we don't have maybe as much as other people, because like I even remember at like a couple graduations, like eighth grade graduations, I just remember like my friends would get iPods and like Xboxes and all that kind of stuff, and I'm like, maybe a ten dollar gift, and which is fine, but it's just all these memories. I'm not saying like I wasn't grateful, but it was just these things where you start to recognize, oh, like money is a thing. Okay. So in middle school, for example, I remember that was when like the Kobe, I'm gonna age myself a little bit, but that's when like the Kobe ones came out, the T-Max. If you guys remember all those shoes, I just remember in basketball, like everyone was talking about the new pair of shoes they were gonna get. And I got the Shaqs from Paylist shoe source, and I was kind of embarrassed that I had them. Or like, I think the best pair of shoes I had was kind of a very like um minimal like Adidas shoe. And that that was all I all I had, and all my friends have the new Nike shocks, all this stuff, and we just couldn't afford those pairs of shoes, and that's when I started to recognize like oh money, right? And then the kids that had all the Jordans and they had all the clothes and they had the warm-up gear, and so that was I was around basketball a lot, and that's where I started to recognize different things. And getting into high school, I mean, kind of fast forward a little bit because that's where I started to recognize some things, but getting into the high school I did, I was very fortunate to go to one of the top private, you know, um, high schools in the state of Oregon, top athletic program, top academic program. And those schools like they cost money. They cost probably, I think I remember at that time, like 10,000 a year. So here I'm kind of having this perspective of like, okay, how am I gonna make that happen? I really want to get into the school, I want to be around the best. And the only way I could do it, we received probably about 95% of my tuition was in financial aid. And that was the only way that I'd be able to make that school. I got like a mini scholarship or whatever, but that's just what the nature was. And so my parents made massive sacrifices, even just to afford whatever minimum tuition we owed. And I'm very grateful for that because it accelerated a lot of opportunities for me. But that was just that was my background. Now, granted, yes, I could have gone to a public school like a lot of my other peers and friends. We didn't grow up in the best area outside Portland, but it wasn't like a horrible area either. It's just like, you know, people don't have a ton of money, which which was fine at that time. But I remember in my eighth grade graduation, one of my classmates, amazing classmate, but her family came from money. Actually, her dad was a very successful business owner and ran oil companies, everything like that. I remember all of our class parties. We would go to what we call, I guess, uh, I don't know if people called it the Barbie doll mansion, but it was this giant like pink mansion that they had, nice cars, everything. And I remember this like it was yesterday. And this is such a defining moment in my life that she had showed up to our graduation wearing like, you know, very nice dress, like very nice, expensive pair of shoes. And I didn't pay attention to it at all. I actually only knew of it because I actually overhear a conversation at my grandma's house for like you know, the eighth grade graduation dinner. I just graduated, all this type of stuff. I'm headed to this private school because I was able to get a bunch of financial aid. And I overhear this conversation between my grandma and my dad. To this day, if you both are listening, I don't know if you even possibly remember having this conversation. And I'm not holding this against you in any means, it's more of just a defining moment. I remember overhearing the conversation you both were having. So they were talking about my classmate who came from a lot of money, how much you know her dress was, her shoes possibly were. And I just remember my grandma making a comment to my dad being like, Yeah, I don't see anyone in our family becoming that successful. That is when the dream started to never have to think or worry about money and chase a lot of success that's defined a lot of who I am today and what I'm striving for. And or striving toward, I should say. And I just remember that moment in time, it's just like it's so crystal clear. And I just remember my dad being kind of just nodding along with my grandma, and I'm just like, yep, that buck stops at me, my friends. And that is what motivated a lot of the I guess the chase for material things, but not just the material, just like financial success. I wanted to be that person, and I always I was jumped, we always grew up just being able to like we had good family experiences, but the programming, the subliminal programming was like, we can't do this, we can't afford this, we we can't afford this. I constantly had that in the back of my head growing up, and it started to become more and more and more prevalent as I went to a high school that was a private high school that cost 10,000 a year for students to go to. And a lot of these kids that I all my classmates came from money, went to a lot of their homes, like beautiful homes, tons of nice cars. Even when you know everyone got their license or whatever, they're all showing up in like new Mercedes BMWs, and uh I had to take the city bus. And and I just remember, I just remember different moments in time when I had the the financial aid and taking the bus, like probably about I would say 45 minutes to school. When I actually was playing basketball in high school and made it to the JV2 team, we had to practice at six in the morning. I would no joke, I would legitimately wake up at 3 30 in the morning so I could catch the bus right around, I think it was like 4 15 or something like that, take two different buses about 45 minutes or so, right, to get to the high school in time by right around like 5 30, 5 40, because otherwise, if I caught the other bus, I would be late. So that way I could be at practice at 6 a.m. And that was just my life. And that I didn't think much of it, but it started getting harder. And when I saw all my friends and everyone else like getting their licenses and driving nice cars, and I'm here stuck taking the city bus everywhere, very inconvenient. It definitely hit my self-image quite a bit. And no, granted, I know some of you are probably listening to this like, oh, poor Joe, like, hey, you chose to go to that school, you chose to be around in that environment, like moo hoo. Like, I get it. I understand. There's people that have way worse off scenarios than I did, but it was just my perspective putting myself in that environment. It made me so uncomfortable. But it was this mix. It was like, yeah, I was like embarrassed that I'd have to take the city bus. But at the same time, it actually like now looking back at it, it really inspired my dreams to be like, I'm around the nicest facilities in sports in high school. I'm around very successful, wealthy families whose kids were my classmates. And it started just to really form that dream for me. So I'm thankful for it now, but it was very hard back then. I couldn't see that then. Because I even remember this moment in time where we're getting our school books, right? And the kids who received a lot of financial aid also got financial aid on help for their school books, and they would give us a pink slip. And I was one of the only kids that got a pink slip. And I just remember kind of walking around, and I just like felt so embarrassed that I'm one of the very few students that's walking around with this pink slip just to pay for my books because we couldn't couldn't afford much else. And it was a very defining thing. I was like, man, do I feel like I don't belong here? It was very uncomfortable. And I just know, like, every everyone was wearing the designer, you know, jeans, the designer jackets, like all the guys had the newest Jordans, you know, all this Nike stuff. Because I the the son of actually um the founder of Nike, Phil Knight, his son actually went to our high school, so very big, like you know, Nike high school. And that's kind I was around the basketball program. That was um where I noticed just a lot of discrepancy between even the fact I couldn't afford to be part of like any AIU or private training or private coaching that all my peers that made the teams had gotten. And the only reason I made JV2 my sophomore year was just because I just worked so extremely hard, even though all I had to practice was in the Oregon rain outside on a rusty basketball hoop. That's all we had. And so I just remember not being able to do that, even like I was a little embarrassed to tell people the real reason why I couldn't get my license at 16 wasn't that I couldn't take the test. It's not that I didn't want it, it's that I wouldn't be able to afford the gas and the insurance that my parents were going to make me pay so that I could use the car to go to school. So I didn't get my license until my senior year. And I just remember like a lot of the conversations with your classmates, like everyone was like so excited at 16 to be able to like now. Granted, I went to a very wealthy high school. So I know this isn't everyone's experience, but when all your other friends are getting like their new car and like have their lanyard, and like, oh, I'm in I got my license now, I got my parking spot on campus, and everyone's super excited about that. It starts to wear on you a little bit that you're one of the few that doesn't have it, right? And that's where I just remember that sinking in, even for like activities for the like retreats and different class events we would go on, like I would need financial aid just to be able to like afford that and ask the school for help, which I'm so grateful for. I really am, but it just it really impacted my self-image a lot back then because I was like, man, like just constant reminders that I have limited resources, I don't come from money, and I just felt like this underdog this whole time. And man, I remember this moment because I already talked about kind of my track success right in the past um podcast where I was like dismissed and discounted and ever until my senior year, where I started three varsity events and then became one of the top 400 runners actually in the Portland metro area that year. That year, I didn't have money for track shoes. And um, because I had earned a spot on the team, not just that, but different varsity events. Um, coach actually gave me a brand new pair of Nikes. And I was like, Oh, like how much do I owe you for this? He's like, No, keep them. Just a brand new pair of shoes, just pulled them out again. And I was like, I was so grateful. I was so thankful for that. And I just all the people that poured into me like that, I'll I'll never forget. And they gave me an opportunity, even though I didn't I didn't come from much. So I was just I was so extremely grateful because I didn't even have money to go visit colleges. Like when everyone's going on again, remember, I know this isn't everyone's experience listening to this, but when you go to a school where there's a lot of kids that come from money, like college visits, everyone's visiting all these different colleges, like traveling everywhere. Oh, I visited this school, visited this school. Hey, did you decide like that was the normal conversation? And I'm sitting there saying that, oh, I I'm not visiting any schools, I'm just applying, and I'm too busy with track, I'm too busy with my grades. When in reality, I just couldn't afford to go anywhere. So that's where I went to um Marquette in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with no no previous experience or visits. I just I just went and that was that was my um experience. So um I actually almost didn't even attend Marquette because it was gonna cost a significant amount of money. I think at the time it was like you know 40,000 a year to go to Marquette, which is just very expensive. Already not being coming from a lot of money. I was fortunate enough to actually get enough scholarships and with some student loans actually kind of paid my way um through college where I didn't we didn't have I didn't have a big college fund from my parents. Like my college fund was just a couple thousand bucks, then went to like my laptop, my plane tickets to go there, and kind of the rest was on me. And I I'm not mad at my parents for it. Um, I think it really just gave me a huge chip on my shoulder that I wanted to prove the world wrong, that just because I don't come for money doesn't mean I'm not gonna be successful. Because I know a lot of people that take the victim mentality of like, oh, well, I don't come for money or this and that, oh, I can never be that. Like, no, that's completely up to you. And I want to be an example of that. That when you see the different things that we've been able to accomplish, right, as an example, accumulating the last couple of years, making over a million bucks in personal income, right, and being able to do that because I'm not a victim and I never played victim. And it's only going to increase from there, especially with some recent connections I've made, covers of different magazines coming out soon. Like there's so much there that I want to share that's possible for you if you just don't believe the thoughts of where you come from, right? And I just remember this is where I'll end this for today, and we'll continue kind of into my college years and young adult years. But I just remember when I went to Marquette and I got into that school, right? I got into a program that it's like a 1.4% acceptance rate into the specific program I got into. So I figured out some way because my parents were like, we're not gonna be able to afford it. Like you're gonna have to go to Oregon State or Oregon one of the state schools. And I'm like, I'm gonna figure out how to go to Marquette because I got into this program that takes you know 14 students out of a thousand applicants. I'm going. And I figured out a way, even though it was extremely uncomfortable. And my move-in day, because everyone, like you know, move in day, all these you know, college freshmen look forward to their parents come, they help them move in, all this kind of stuff. It's always an event every year. My move-in was jump on a commercial airline for the first time flying by myself with two suitcases, landing, taking a city bus in a city I've never been in before, getting off at the wrong stop downtown and having to walk all the way because I just I was just so lost. And then I moved into my dorm with my two suitcases, and that was it. Didn't have a car, none of that. And that was my experience moving into college, just because didn't have a lot of money and just did what I had to do. I kind of almost feel like sometimes it's like I'm not gonna compare it at all because I know there's many of you that are listening to this that are possibly immigrants or have immigrant family and move to the United States with not much. And that's kind of how I felt when I moved from uh Oregon to Milwaukee, Wisconsin to go to school at Marquette. So I'm gonna continue it from there in the next episode, but I just want you guys to know like as we continue this, you are not a victim of your background, where you come from, your circumstances. You can decide at any moment in time that you can stack those chips on your shoulder, right, and allow it to drive and fuel you to different levels of success wherever you want to take it. So we'll see you on the next one and we'll continue this one section on overcoming massive financial struggle and debt.