How I Got Out of $100,000+ of DEBT | EP 003

In this episode, Phil shares his journey from struggling with over $100,000 in debt to creating multiple seven-figure businesses. Phil shares about his rough upbringing and how he transformed his mindset to achieve success. He emphasizes the importance of seeing money as a tool, focusing on income generation rather than debt, and the power of investing in oneself. In this episode, Phil will challenge you to redefine your approach to money, seize business opportunities, and relentlessly pursue your goals.

Welcome to The Phil Bohol Show, hosted by USMC veteran, mindset coach, sales expert, self-made entrepreneur, husband, and father, Phil Bohol. On this podcast, we don't just offer strategies — we offer a war cry, a call to arms, a challenge to rise, to break free from the shackles of mediocrity. You’ll learn the raw truth on how to break your limitations, scale your business to 7-figures, and level up every area of your life. Together, we won't just face challenges. We will crush them. Relentlessly.

Timestamps:

(4:31) - Why Focusing on Income Matters More Than Debt

(6:55) - How I Turned Crisis into Opportunity

(8:17) - Breaking the Income Ceiling

(9:42) - A Sales Approach to Debt Management

(13:13) - Going From Sales Pro to Business Owner

(17:45) - Leveraging Your Way Out of Debt

(19:58) - Only Take Financial Advice from the Financially Successful

(22:15) - Every Day Counts

(25:10) - Join Me in Transforming Your Life

Follow Phil Bohol’s Socials:

[00:00:00] Every single day.

Be very intentional with every single day.

You must grow every single day.

Every single day counts.

And make it a point, make it a specific deadline for yourself that you're going to do this, you're going to accomplish this, this is how much money you're going to make by this date and time specifically – and do everything in your power to get there, and be relentless.

[00:00:30] What’s going on you guys?

Today we're going to be talking about how I got out of $100,000 (well, over $100,000) of debt.

And you might be in a position where you have $5,000 of debt, $10,000 of debt, $20,000… 30, 40, 50, 100, 200 thousand… who knows – I've had people tell me they're in $500,000 of debt.

Wherever you're at in your life or your business, just understand it's not as bad as you might think it is.

[00:01:00] And stay with me.

Because when I talk to a lot of people that want to do what I've done in my life: go from broke, broke (third world country, broke, broke) all the way to building multiple seven figure businesses…

How did I do that at the early age of 30?

Well, I'll share with you inside of this entire video of my entire mentality because this whole debt thing is a mental game.

You cannot put money on a pedestal.

[00:01:30] If you put money on a pedestal, debt will always feel like this big bad wolf.

The truth is, I have had to make a lot of power plays in my life that kept me off the streets, kept me from having an even worse life.

And I didn't have the best life coming up, but it could have definitely been worse if I didn't really understand how to make money work for me.

[00:02:00] Fortunately for me, after 10 years old when my parents separated, I had to get extremely resourceful with how I was going to feed myself and how I was going to be able to live any type of good life.

So by 13 years old, I actually started my first business and started making a lot of money.

Even one of the deals I closed at 13 years old was a $5,000 deal.

And that allowed me to get my 1993 BMW 325i in black, at 14 years old.

I couldn't even drive it at the time for about a year.

But again, I built the resourcefulness because of a trial that I went through in my life.

[00:02:30] So I want you to remember that, in order to actually move away from debt.

If you're in debt and you want to get out of debt, you have to remember that it's all leverage.

It's all a game of leverage.

And if you can remember that money is simply just a tool for us to exchange.

It has to go in and it has to go out.

We can't just hold on to it.

Because if you think that money is scarce, then it will be.

[00:03:00] But if you understand that money flows, then you can actually get out of debt a hell of a lot faster.

One of the biggest things that I would recommend that you do is to understand that you probably got into debt for a good reason.

I barely graduated high school, so I can't really talk about student loans, student debt, any of that stuff, but the thing is, it's all the same, right?

You probably took out a student loan because you had a dream.

You wanted to go after the dream.

[00:03:30] You may have wanted to start your own business and you didn't have the liquid capital to just dump it into the business.

So you might have leveraged, a lot of new business owners do that, they go from personal to business.

Maybe you had something in the family happen, where you had to make a decision to be able to take care of the family, and you had to put that on some type of credit or loan.

So just realize there's probably a good reason why you got into debt and to try and not beat yourself up about it.

[00:04:00] For me, I had to change the definition of why I got into debt from “I'm a dumb ass and I didn't know what the hell I was doing with my money” to “I was doing the best that I can with what I got”.

And “I was making the calls that I could have possibly made in those moments the best way I knew how”.

And all of those things led me from broke-broke to multiple seven figure businesses.

So you have to remember that you have to redefine how you're looking at the story of how you got into debt.

[00:04:30] Cause when you do that, you can reclaim the power of the whole situation.

The next thing I want you to understand is you don't actually have a debt problem.

You don't have a debt.

I don't care if you have $500 of debt, $1,000, $10,000, $100,000, you don't have a debt problem.

You have something even worse.

You have an income problem.

Because even if you learned how to get out of debt, you still need to make enough money to pay down the debt and to also be able to live.

[00:05:00] I mean, unless you're planning to live under a rock somehow and work so all of your money can go towards debt and you never have to actually eat.

Really no way to go about that.

But what I want you to understand is the time that it takes for you to pay down that debt will be based on how much money you make.

So in a nine to five, a lot of people that would ever get to a hundred thousand dollars of debt will spend their entire life trying to pay down that debt.

[00:05:30] But when you have more of an income, that entire life turns into 20 years.

You make more money, in ten years, even more money, five years, even more money, a year, even more money, next month…

So I want you to understand you don't have a debt problem, you have an income problem.

Because let's face it…

If right now you are making, what, $5,000 a month, if that…

But if you were making $10,000 a month or $15,000 a month, would the debt that you see as stressful, as overwhelming, feel stressful or overwhelming?

[00:06:00] If you're making three times the income that you're making right now, the answer is no.

It would definitely not even stress you out because you have money.

Debt's here, more money's here.

But when it's even and equal, that's where people get really stressed out because then it's like you're always constantly playing the money game.

And for me, I was like, I'm kind of done with that whole situation.

But I want you to understand your nine to five job might not be the vehicle that you want to take to get out of debt.

[00:06:30] Because if you're in your nine to five job, and you have to just get promotion after promotion after promotion.

Or, if you're like a lot of companies, you get the promotion, but your raise is only like a dollar or two, or you get a salary increase of like 5,000 more for the year…

Not really going to get you to the next level faster.

Again, you'll get there, but is it going to take you 10 years?

For me, I'm like, let's collapse that amount of time.

So when I was 26, 27 years old (I'm 30 years old now) I had over 100, 000 in debt…

[00:07:00] And this was leading into the global shutdown.

I had a baby on the way, my wife and I were in a crazy major accident, so you can imagine the amount of stress and overwhelm somebody would experience being a new dad, new husband, going into a global shutdown, losing his job, and having massive amounts of debt.

How did I go from that situation to abundance?

[00:07:30] I literally just got my Lamborghini.

So I want you to understand, I don't say these things to flex, I say these things because if somebody like me, that barely graduated high school, that came from a third world country, got a GED, made the most out of his life, and is now here, you can too.

I literally probably started way further back than you.

And if you started way further back than me, then I'm telling you right now, if you capitalize on opportunities and shift your mentality, start making more power moves and investing back into yourself, you're going to be able to easily get out of that debt.

[00:08:00] I promise you that I got a G E fucking D, okay?

I don't know a lot about a lot of things people are educated on.

I'm the least educated person.

But that's what makes me successful because I don't overthink shit, okay?

So, stay with me.

Your nine to five job might not be the thing.

The two vehicles that I would recommend that I took It's two, two steps: sales, business, sales, or business.

[00:08:30] The reason why sales, and a lot of people are like:

“Oh damn… well, I don't really like sales.”

“I don't really like, you know, closing people and stuff or selling to people.”

“I don't want to be a used car salesman.”

You define what sales means to you.

I'm a very chill closer, okay?

I'm very confident in what I do.

But my ability to express to people that I can help them, that's usually why people make very high ticket investments with me.

Because They know how much I care more about them and their situation versus the deal.

I could care less about the deal.

I care more about you and your life.

[00:09:00] It's up to you at the end of the day, what type of decision you make.

So you don't have to be the sleazy salesman…

That's a great way to start earning a higher income, because in commission only roles, there's no cap, right?

In nine to five, you can't work OT, you gotta get OT approved.

You can request a higher pay, you can get a raise, and if you were like me (and I was managing at a fortune 500 company), I literally had to tell people, “Hey, thank you so much for a year of your hard work. Here's a 20 cent raise”.

[00:09:30] You can do that, but again, lifetime to pay down your debt, okay?

And I want you to enjoy your life, which is why I'm explaining this to you.

Sales allows you to take that $5,000 a month that you're making right now and make that into 10 or make that into 20.

I don't know if that's going to look good on camera.

20, right?

$20,000 a month, $15,000 a month, $10,000 a month.

[00:10:00] In your mind, if you've never made that amount of money, you'd probably be like, “Phil, you're full of shit. I don't know how somebody like me could ever make that type of money.”

I'm telling you right now, again, from somebody who was broke, broke to making over six figures a month, it's definitely possible.

You just have to believe that it is so that way you can become the person who can and again I have a whole channel about all of the things that you're gonna have to need to focus on and refining yourself to become the person that you need To be to just crush it in life and in business.

[00:10:30] Okay sales.

Get into a sales position now.

Don't make the same mistake that myself and hundreds of thousands if not millions of people have made which is:

Make some money, try to pay down debt, make some money, try to pay down debt.

Don't do that.

Make the minimum payments on your debt.

So that way you can slowly build how much cash reserves that you have, find things to invest into.

[00:11:00] So if you're in sales and you're like, “Damn, I'm doing okay. But for some reason, I'm not confident.”

Learn how to be more confident.

Go take a diving class, go take a skydiving class, become more confident there.

Go buy confidence training, go invest into books, seminars, webinars, courses, coaches.

Become more confident.

You're going to see your money drop, but because you're investing into yourself, you're going to see a 100 percent return.

[00:11:30] You invest into the thing, you make more money.

Let's say that, okay, now you're confident.

And you're like, “But damn, I don't get why people make decisions the way that they do.”

Now you need to understand more human psychology.

So, instead of getting some of that money, paying down the debt, making some of that money, paying down the debt, make the minimum payment on that debt, make more money, and then invest into learning human psychology.

You don't have to go to college for that, guys.

You can literally buy so many books in relation to human psychology,

[00:12:00] Lots of great books.

You can get them from Amazon for like 15 bucks, 20 bucks.

I'm not asking you to spend tens of thousands of dollars to learn these things, but obviously the more you invest with the right people who already have access to that information, the more you collapse time.

But if you want to read books, I have tons of books.

Tons of books about human psychology that can teach you that.

But again, instead of that 20, 30, 40, 50, dollars, I would just keep buying more books to educate myself, invest the time to educate myself.

Boom, I can sell more.

[00:12:30] Which means my income rises, which means I can now at some point pay the debt off completely.

Are you tracking with me now?

You have to commit to taking that path for as long as possible to be the best as possible.

But again, it's not gonna take you a lifetime to pay down the debt.

Maybe a year, maybe two, maybe three, depends on how much you got.

If it's under $50,000 aim for like one to two years.

It shouldn't really take that long to pay down $50,000 of debt.

$100,000, you know, one to three years, depending on how far you push.

[00:13:00] Or how much expenses you have.

If you have a family, if you got kids or not, whatever, there's a lot of different variables, okay?

My point is it doesn't need to take a decade.

It doesn't need to take your life to pay down all of this debt.

So just understand there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

If you naturally ascend from sales pro to business owner, because you start really, really selling, you're like, “Hey, I kind of want to be the tip of the spear. I want to run my own thing.”

If you go business owner route, just understand there is more complexities.

[00:13:30] It's like the difference between having one thing that you are responsible for, which is sales to now having five plus things, sales, marketing operations, admin, logistics, HR, etc. Right?

So just understand if you go into business, your risk increases because now you have multiple skill sets you have to master, but your income potential is much higher too.

[00:14:00] And so when we think about that, again, if you launch the business and you're already carrying debt, you have to make sure that you understand how much emotional control you're going to need to make good business, logical based decisions, not emotionally attached to your debt personally.

That's the only way you're ever going to get through that.

And you have to understand debt money.

They're all just numbers.

They don't mean anything.

There's just a piece of paper that's meaningless.

Money is simply just a tool in exchange for true value.

Say it with me: “Money is simply just a tool that you exchange for true value.”

[00:14:30] It means nothing.

So when you get into business, the thing is you have to have what's called delayed gratification.

Let's say that you're good at sales, you start a business, you have to master the game of sales so you know you can bring in money for the company.

But you're also going to need to learn marketing.

You have to be able to produce eyeballs for your business.

So, if you are struggling getting eyeballs, generating leads for the business, for the company, invest into learning about marketing.

[00:15:00] And then maybe you master sales and marketing, your money doesn't magically just go crazy and you might be in the same spot.

But now it's easier to do marketing and sales now.

Maybe your operation is starting to grow, you have team members, etc.

Maybe you have an operations thing or maybe you have leadership.

Either one could cause your backend to fail.

It can cause your company to fail because there's no structure or there's no leadership.

[00:15:30] So maybe you invest into leadership development or an operations program to learn how to, how to construct your business, so that way it's actually scalable.

Again, maybe your revenues aren't going crazy where you can pay yourself a lot, but it's easier to run and operate the business.

You're buying yourself back more time, more breathing room, so you can stay more in the visionary role.

If you're an online coaching like myself, extremely high profit margins, you might not need to do that.

And I've had a lot of military experience being a machine gunner.

[00:16:00] I understand a lot about order of operations, leadership, everything that has to do with team structure.

So I've never had to actually invest into those things.

But you might, and there's things that I've invested into marketing where it doesn't come naturally to me because I'm not a marketer, I’m just a regular dude.

So I had to invest quite a lot of money into marketing.

You might be really good at marketing, I don't know.

So just understand there's different variables that would cause me to make investments versus you, you versus me.

Okay, stay in your lane, whatever you need, invest into that thing.

Find the gaps in your operating system and your business will grow.

[00:16:30] The thing about business is you have to understand that business is a long game, okay?

And yes, you can make millions.

You can be the first millionaire in your family, in your bloodline.

When you start a business, you can probably do that in sales, but as a business owner, definitely, definitely opportunity there.

If you're like me and you're smart, you go online because you go from 15, 20 percent profit margins with a brick and mortar store to much higher profit margins, 80, 90 percent profit margins.

[00:17:00] Because you're selling your advice, your coaching, your consulting, nothing that actually costs overhead, right?

Depending on your team size, right?

But you have to be patient with the process of becoming a very good business owner and you can't, as much as you want to, build it based on wanting to make money.

Because people will smell that on you, right?

[00:17:30] They're like, “Ah, damn. Phil only wants to do a deal because he wants money from me.”

That's not going to serve you, you might as well stay in sales, or you might as well do something else.

That is not how you build a business.

You have to find a problem in the world that you want to solve and go all in with being the best in the world.

If you follow one of those two vehicles, you can obliterate debt just like I did.

Again, just to make sure everything is absolutely clear, you do what you want.

Not financial advice whatsoever, okay?

[00:18:00] Nothing that I've said in this video is like true financial advice, but that's what worked for me.

Make minimum payments on your debt, learn how to build your income more, put yourself in better positions to go into sales roles or profitable businesses like online coaching and consulting, use that money to reinvest back into yourself until you're making so much money that you can just obliterate the debt.

[00:18:30] I have one of my clients, I think he said he's only in about $20,000 of debt, maybe $30, 000.

And I was like, “Bro, you're literally learning how to make more money online. Why don't we just make you $30,000, $40,000 a month, and in two months you could pay off all the debt? And then the next month you're literally positive.”

Again, what he was been trying to do is take the current cash reserves that he has and slowly start paying down the debt.

And he's just been on again, that hamster wheel.

We don't want to do that.

[00:19:00] So just understand things can move super, super quick, but you have to be smart about this.

You have to think about money, the money game, totally different.

You have to understand that, there's a reason why the real estate gurus in the world, they don't buy all of those billions of dollars of real estate in cash.

They pay a percentage of the property and they carry the debt, so that way they can keep leveraging their money to reinvest back into themselves, into their business.

[00:19:30] And it just keeps building debt, debt, debt, debt, debt.

But you have to understand the money game.

You have to understand that, again, the reason why you probably got into debt was for a good reason.

Don't beat yourself up about it, but now it's time to make very specific decisions and put a game plan together so that way you just follow that day after day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and eventually, your life's changed.

[00:20:00] I never thought that I'd be able to actually get out of debt until I was like 50, if I even made it to 50.

I had this weird mentality.

30, out of debt, back to a great credit score, Lamborghini, multiple seven figure businesses, two beautiful baby girls, happy wife, happy life.

But the only way I was able to get here, was to break down all of the things that my parents have ever taught me about money, all of the things that the world has ever taught me about money.

[00:20:30] Everything that my parents taught me about debt.

The divorce that they had, that scared me for money and debt, obvious reasons.

And I really only started listening to people that made tons of money before I started making tons of money.

So that way I was hyper focused.

I only focused on, “What were people that were making money, what were they saying?”

And I started finding the patterns and I realized that the people that were giving me guidance before about paying down debt, they were in debt.

[00:21:00] You know what I mean?

It's like if somebody is out of shape or they're fat, and then they're like, “Hey, so this is how you just drop body fat percentage. This is how you, this is how you do a thing. This is how you drop weight at the gym.”

It doesn't really translate well because why aren't you that lean?

If somebody's broke and they're like, hey, this is how you make money.

I don't know if I would trust you, bro.

You're broke.

You're asking me for money all the time and now you're giving me money advice, right?

[00:21:30] We take advice from our parents because they're our parents, but they're in debt.

So does it make sense to listen to our parents who are in debt?

On how to get out of debt?

Absolutely not.

I started shifting all of the things I was allowing as inputs so I could change my output.

So I only listen to people that have walked the path that I want to walk.

And that served me a lot because then when I heard the rest of the world, I was like, hmm, well, they said not to do that.

So if I want to move forward in my life, I can't listen to you, who does not live the life that I want to live.

[00:22:00] And if you do that, you might offend some people who are trying to help you out.

But again, you have to ask yourself, would you trade places with them?

Would you trade your life for their life?

And if the answer is no, don't listen.

That's the biggest thing.

And if you do that, it's going to help you stay hyper focused.

And again, every single day, once you build a plan, the plan is super simple.

Not financial advice.

Pay the minimum on that debt, invest back into yourself to learn how to make even more money.

[00:22:30] Keep reinvesting back into yourself, the most profitable stock in the world, until the amount of money you make far exceeds how much debt you have, and obliterate it after that.

Remember that.

That is a simple path that I have taken.

And to become the person who can make a lot more money again, that's why you have to keep investing time, energy and resources back to yourself.

[00:23:00] Can't tell you how many books, how many audibles that I've had and I've invested into so I can keep learning and learning and learning so I can apply, apply, apply, apply.

If you do that, in a matter of one, two, three years, shoot, even three to five years, you could be completely out of debt depending on how much you're carrying right now.

And if you get to the point where your belief in yourself just absolutely skyrockets, the craziest part is you get to a point where you're making a million dollars a year.

And it's just It's crazy to believe that I used to struggle for a 20 bill.

[00:23:30] I used to struggle with, “Well, how am I going to pay for gas? How am I going to pay for food and gas? How am I going to get to work that pays me nothing so I can live, barely?”

To not even be worried about money at all whatsoever.

Do you understand that?

If somebody like me can make it, you can too.

The difference between me and you is right now I'm sitting here and I'm saying that it's possible.

And in your mind, you might be thinking it's not.

[00:24:00] I didn't come from a first world country, I came from poverty.

And maybe that's what gives me the edge to like hustle, hustle, hustle.

But if you're willing to adopt that, you can change your life.

You can live a beautiful life.

You can give your family a beautiful life.

But you have to understand the path is simple, it's not easy.

The path is simple, just like I laid it out in this video, so I'd watch it again.

But it's not easy.

So I want you to remember that, that it's totally possible for you.

[00:24:30] Set the battle plan.

Every single day, be very intentional with every single day.

You must grow every single day, every single day counts and make it a point.

Make a specific deadline for yourself that you're going to do this.

You're going to accomplish this.

This is how much money you're gonna make by this date and time specifically.

And do everything in your power to get there.

And be relentless.

And if you want to fast track everything, go sales or business depending on what you feel comfortable with.

[00:25:00] But again, I would just get super uncomfortable and get comfortable being uncomfortable and just keep pushing yourself past your perceived limits.

And you're just going to absolutely crush it.

And if you need more of these types of different inputs in your life to just start completely changing how you're looking at life and take control of your life, stay plugged in with me.

And I'm just going to share with you everything in my life that's ever worked for me, because for me, I live a beautiful life.

[00:25:30] I have a beautiful family.

I get to give them everything that they could ever want, that I could ever want to give them, and I get to show them experiences people like us were never supposed to experience.

The guy from the Philippines was never supposed to have a Lamborghini.

The guy in the Philippines was never supposed to have a beautiful family.

The guy from the Philippines was always meant to be broke.

But I decided that wasn't the story I wanted to live anymore.

And everything changed, once I decided to change.

Alright, so stay plugged in.

[00:26:00] Tell me your battle plan.

Let me know what you're actually putting into place, dates you're committing to, times you're committing to.

Be extremely clear and let's get after it.

I'll see you in the next one.

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