The Student Loan Podcast Intro (00:02): Welcome to the Student Loan Podcast. Here you'll find practical advice on tackling student loan debt, paying down your higher education expenses And inspiring stories about paying off student loans. We are your hosts, Daphne, Vanessa, And Shamil Rodriguez.

Daphné Vanessa (00:21): Please rate, review and subscribe to the Student Loan Podcast by visiting the Student Loan Podcast on Apple Podcast or wherever you find your podcasts.

Shamil Rodriguez (00:32): This is not professional advice and we speak from our own personal views and opinions.

Daphné Vanessa (00:37): The Student Loan Podcast is brought to you by StartNoo, where you can serve your community and get rewarded with tuition and student loan payments. To check out if Start New is on your campus, visit startnoo.com.

Shamil Rodriguez (00:52): Welcome to another episode of the Student Loan Podcast. Daphné, take it away. .

Daphné Vanessa (00:59): Well, thank you everyone for joining. We're so excited this new year, it's coming up, it's getting close and some people wait until after January, you know, to start thinking about resolutions. But really it's in the fourth quarter of the year that you can really benefit from just thinking about what next year is gonna look like. I know I've been doing a lot more of that type of reflection over the years and it's worked out better. It gets better every year. So are you excited about 2023 Shamil?

Shamil Rodriguez (01:35): I am. I'm looking forward to it. And I think that there's an opportunity for everyone to take advantage of the extension of the loan Pause, which was supposed to go from end or begin your payments in January, but now you have until July. So amazing. With that being said, I think it's a great episode. I'm a big believer in starting off the end of your, starting off your new year, at the end of your, of the previous year. So, you know, use the last core like that you said to ane uh, and if you haven't done so already, cuz we're already in December, uh, then still use the next couple of weeks to get yourself planned out or moving forward in that right direction.

Daphné Vanessa (02:17): Yeah, for sure. So I think the first thing that I would think about just when it comes to student loans is whether or not how I'm gonna use the pause basically, right? So make a decision. How are you going to use the pause? Does, what are the benefits, what are the pros and cons of paying it off, paying some of it or not paying it all, you know? And I think that really is gonna depend on everybody's individual financial situation. So if you have a savings account or you have your emergency fund and it's, and it's filled, you have other consumer debt, I think all of those factors are going to impact whether or not you take advantage of the student loan. Pause. Do you agree?

Shamil Rodriguez (03:09): Yeah, I think so. And just because you may not be able to pay off all of your student loan debt doesn't mean that you shouldn't take steps to tackle some of it. Yeah. So there's still the idea that you can still make progress towards your goal because even if you end up making payments, you know, a couple thousand dollars, by the time uh, it's over, by the time the extensions ends, you're still saving yourself, uh, actually a lot of time, years sometimes, uh, interest loan payments cuz you were paying it down just the principal without the interest being included.

Daphné Vanessa (03:47): Right. As long as you're writing letters to the servicers to let them know about your extra payments. So, you know, servicers don't have the best reputation right now and sometimes they need just a little reminder. So if you are making payments, I'd suggest you write it down, write it down, send them a little note and let them know what's going on.

Shamil Rodriguez (04:13): Absolutely. So I think we should get right into the steps Daphné, so like, once you've decided, um, that you want to tackle your student loan debt, whether you are paying the entire amount off or you're going to just make whatever payments you can without putting yourself in a dire financial situation, um, then you should map it out. What do you think, Daphne? Right? Actually putting something down on paper,

Daphné Vanessa (04:38): For sure. I'm the queen of paper, I think, but yes, paper, writing it down, just having some accountability is always a great opportunity to hold yourself accountable and then maybe even get somebody else involved, right? So I'm going to pay this off by this date. Here's my calendar. You put it in or you put it in your app. For those of you who love the apps situation, and I think that just helps it become more concrete because money, student loans debt, it's already so non concrete since we're going moving away more and more from cash, more from gold, you know, like everything is electronic if you will. So it makes it not feel real, but writing something down, having an accountability buddy, those steps can make this real. And then you're gonna want to find out, well what strategy are you using? So are you using the snowball method, avalanche psychological combination? Are you doing something completely different? Like, like Jennifer's using a one flip of a house to pay, pay off your student loans, whatever your strategy is, go all in on it because nothing should be discounted. It's all towards the same goal. And don't let anybody poo poo on your idea, if you will.

Shamil Rodriguez (06:12): I think that's really Yeah, no, that's a good, a good point and a good example. Let's not poo poo on anything, right? Uh, poo poo should only be in the toilet.

Daphné Vanessa (06:21): We allowed to say that. Sorry.

Shamil Rodriguez (06:23): Yeah, poo poo is fair. We can say poo poo all we want. I don't know how many times we're gonna say it on this podcast today, but I think I've reached my limit for today, . Uh, but I think it's a really good point to talk about the strategies that you said they're Daphne. So what not, not poo poo strategies, but strategies for paying up your P student loans. Are you going to use the snowball, the avalanche, the tornado method, whatever you guys wanna use as a title for these methods? Psychological, uh, make you feel better method? Look, the goal is to get to the end, but it needs to be something that you feel comfortable.

Daphné Vanessa (07:01): You heard there's a, an, I forgot who, but there are these two guys that have a financial freedom audience, and I forgot the term that they use, but essentially they're reviving the idea of applying zero interest loans or cards towards paying off your student loan debt balance. Have you heard of that?

Shamil Rodriguez (07:26): No, I haven't. I haven't heard of that. Oh, we may have to bring that up for another episode. You

Daphné Vanessa (07:30): Have? Yeah. No, that would be, I would love to have somebody in that space sort of talk about how they did that. Mm-hmm. . But I read some articles about two gentlemen who essentially each debt amount, they would take one loan, let's say, and they would apply for a credit card that's, you know, zero interest for 12 months and they would pay off the loan that had interest and then they would pay off the zero interest loan within the 12 months. And they just did that over and over and over again. Their credit score went up and they paid off their debt eventually. So I found that super interesting. All that to say is that there are lots of different ways, you know, Jennifer flipped a house, um, Pam used her helo, you know, to pay off her student loans. Leslie had, you know, multifamily real estate pay off his student loans, multiple people, the, I forgot her name, the the person who did $10 extra on her payments every month. We've had so many cool people. Yeah,

Shamil Rodriguez (08:37): We, we've had some really good, I just wanna make sure that like we're adding so people can know where to go to like listen to them because we've recorded these episodes and we know these, these folks because we spent so much time speaking to them. But, uh, like the people that you mentioned, Jennifer J. Hammond, she literally paid off for student loans with one flip. So that was episode 68, 8. It's actually one of our top 10, uh, most popular episodes that we have. Um, then there was, who else did you, who else did you mention there? We've had, Leslie

Daphné Vanessa (09:03): Was six, episode six

Shamil Rodriguez (09:05): I think. Yep. So Leslie did it. Um, David Ek is one of our, or one of the most popular episodes where he paid off over $350,000 in student loan debt. Uh, so there, there are plenty of folks there that, um, have used it. Who else did you mention that we wanted to make sure that we bring up there? Death? I just wanna make sure we got the episodes out for people.

Daphné Vanessa (09:24): So many people. But check out, check out our episodes for

Shamil Rodriguez (09:28): All the

Daphné Vanessa (09:29): Creative ways that you can pay off your student loan. There's so many episodes. It's, it's a rabbit hole situation. It's a binging situation.

Shamil Rodriguez (09:37): No, really if you're like looking for inspiration on how to pay off your state loans cuz you're just like, this is overwhelming or I don't know which way to go. Like, there are plenty of people, plenty of ways that we've had on, uh, the show and like how they did it their way. Whether it was like, uh, working extra jobs, living below your means, making extra money. Um, like Dian mentioned, the different, many strategies that you can use to pay off your, your student loans. Um, I think it was who else did real estate? A lot of real estate. We had three real estate folks. So Pamela Keith, she used the HeLOCK to pay off her loans. That was episode 36. Uh, so the list literally goes on and on and on of folks that paid off. We had people that went to medical school that paid it off. But enough plugs about . Um, all the great episodes and resources that we have on the student loan podcast that you can listen to back to DA's point. There are plenty of strategies that you can use that you want to add when you're actually writing down your plan for paying off your student loans in 2023.

Daphné Vanessa (10:38): Yeah. And don't let anybody judge you. You do whichever strategy works for you. So if you are a side hustle, queen or king, then go do your side hustle thing. If you are a live below your means person and you're happy doing it, more power to you. If you are a person who loves real estate, use your passion. So there are so many different ways to do it and there is no one method that is the method for everybody. We're all different and that's what makes this world go round.

Shamil Rodriguez (11:12): That's true. Or other laws of physics, but I get what you're saying, . All right. So now you brought up a good point that I wanna make sure that we touch on, uh, where you said have an accountability partner. But before we get to the partner portion, cause at this point, uh, the idea of one, you've decided that you wanna pay off your student loan debt, uh, or you've decided you wanna make progress towards paying off your student loan debt, uh, then you're gonna pick your strategy, write it, actually physically write it down. I know some people are gonna type it, but I recommend printing out a sheet of paper, writing it down. You can take notes, but at one, at some point write something down. Uh, we've had some good episodes, uh, where payoff plans, how to pay off your sit alone debt where they actually recommend drawing something out and pasting it on like your refrigerator or putting it in your bathroom or in your room so you can see it. Uh, because what we don't want to just see, or actually let's say what we want you to do is have it as a constant reminder versus writing it down, putting it in a drawer and never seeing it again.

Daphné Vanessa (12:17): I love it. And I know Heidi has those debt free charts that are on her Instagram and website where you can download free charts that you print out and they, you color each section as you pay something off. I think it's a super cute concept and it it works very well psychologically for some people.

Shamil Rodriguez (12:39): Okay, no, that's a good idea. I think that's really good to do that. So what do you think about the idea of, some people feel comfortable sharing their, you know, student loan debt journey. Some people don't. Uh, do you think that just a piece of paper would be enough or do you think people should actually have an accountability partner like you had mentioned before?

Daphné Vanessa (12:57): I think everybody is different. You know, yourself. I'm personally the type of person that works better with accountability partners. So yes, I can, as an example, go on a weight loss plan or a workout regimen to get stronger and I'll probably succeed. But if I had a personal trainer, I personally would do better. I would be more consistent. So I'm the type of person that benefits from having an accountability partner, but everyone's different, right? Some and everybody's different on the, depending on different spaces too. In the health and fitness space, I personally am better with an accountability partner, but in the personal finance space, I actually perform better by myself. Just like school work, , school work, I was like, hated group projects. I was like, everybody's gonna drag me down, which usually happens.

Daphné Vanessa (13:55): I wanted to do things by myself because I was just better by myself for academic things. But, um, as I've gone into the workplace, I've actually benefited from team projects, group projects. So I think it just just depends on the space. And, and if personal finance for you, or even let's get more micro, if student loan debt for you is something where you would benefit from having an accountability partner, then get one, you know, make it happen. There are tons of communities you can feel free to, you know, obviously if you're in the start new community, then you have your community there. But use the community that you have available to you to, uh, find an accountability partner. Find somebody who's on the same mentality as you that wants to get rid of debt. Because not everybody does. Some people are like Christmas, black Friday, cyber 12 or whatever other day, spending, spending, you know, some people are into the spending and they don't care that they're in debt. They really don't care. They're just like, it's a part of life. Those people exist. Find people around you that are gonna help you accomplish the goals that you care about.

Shamil Rodriguez (15:04): Yeah, I think that's, well, well said. And making sure that you keep people around you that are gonna keep you on track with what your goal is. Uh, so that accountability part, and, and it really, you hit it right on the head. So we've got write it down or decide whether you're gonna pay off your SY loan debt or not, uh, how you want to do that. Then once you've got that visualize in your mind, you're gonna write that down. Uh, you're gonna decide on what strategies and methods you're gonna implement, what your timeline's gonna look like. And then you're either gonna, you're gonna print it out, paste it all over the house, uh, or the room, wherever you wanna do it somewhere. You're gonna see it frequently. And then if you, if your personality matches well with sharing it with, with a person that can keep you accountable, then do, so. This thing, this goes into, uh, another step that I wanna make sure that we cover is picking a time to actually review how you're making on your progress, right? Mm-hmm. . So, um, don't wait until, you know, June 30th to say, okay, uh, I didn't make it or I didn't make it. Right? So you, and

Daphné Vanessa (16:04): Speaking of June 30th, right? Are you even aiming for that deadline? Like right. Setting a deadline I think is something that, sorry, I know I just interrupted you, but setting a deadline is something that , uh, goes hand

Shamil Rodriguez (16:18): In hand. I'm, I'm, I'm definitely gonna post this video, , you'll see reaction. Cause my face poker face is not on. I'm leaving this in the episode. So go ahead, .

Daphné Vanessa (16:29): Whoops. . Anyways,

Shamil Rodriguez (16:32): Hashtag co-host, hashtag married couple. Hashtag known each other for too long. Go ahead, . Way

Daphné Vanessa (16:38): Too long. Um, but yes, no, definitely having, um, a date I think is what I wanted to add to your illustrious point, but please, please continue,

Shamil Rodriguez (16:50): . No, no, no. I love that. You just really just, uh, did a great job of adding value to my point there by cutting me off . All right. Uh, but I, I thought that, you know, it's good to point that out cause I thought that was a presumption in the first part where we said, when you're gonna decide how you're paying off your debt, you know, coming up with your strategy, what your timeline is. But, you know, let's, let's add, make sure your deadline is in there, cuz that's true. I'm gonna, I'm gonna move forward now. How's that sound after ? ?

Daphné Vanessa (17:21): I'm waiting my turn.

Shamil Rodriguez (17:24): . Uh, yeah, so the, the idea there is, uh, deciding, you know, how you're going to do it. Um, and deciding if you want to have somebody who's gonna be your accountability partner or not. Uh, and then now coming up with, you know, check in intervals, right? Like what time are you actually gonna check in to see how you're doing? So you can decide whether or not you're on track, whether you need to adjust, whether you need to scrap the idea, whether you need to come up with new strategies to keep yourself motivated. Um, the ideas of checking in is not just to yay or nay, like beat yourself up if you're not where you want to be or like, um, you know, just the idea is to adjust if needed and if everything's going well, then continue the course. What do you think dne?

Daphné Vanessa (18:09): I think I agree. And making time to assess goals periodically is key to achieving them. So some people remember the Stick IT app. I don't know if that still exists, but it wasn't.

Shamil Rodriguez (18:26): That's a good question. I don't know.

Daphné Vanessa (18:28): , all of my apps have died. But anyways, there was something, I don't wanna say way back when, but it was probably over 10 years ago called Stick It. And it was a website where if you had to lose weight, you would put in the commitment, like on paper in their app there would be a person assigned to you and then there was a risk or reward. So either like $500 goes to a non-profit or you give it to like, I don't know, a a party that you hate.

Shamil Rodriguez (18:59): It still exists by the way. Just add. So it's definitely still there. Stick Awesome. Uh, dot com. S t I C kk.com.

Daphné Vanessa (19:08): Link's not stick anymore?

Shamil Rodriguez (19:10): No, it's just called Stick.

Daphné Vanessa (19:12): Oh, okay. Fan C on

Shamil Rodriguez (19:14): C. Yeah. So they're still there. I do remember this app. It does work. Um, just like any tool, if you want it to work and you know, and you can incorporate it in your life where it's not managing your life, but you're using it as a tool, as a part of your life, then you have great success with it. For sure. It was

Daphné Vanessa (19:30): Good. Does it, since you're checking, does it do other things besides working out?

Shamil Rodriguez (19:35): Uh, yeah. People can use it for saving money. Um,

Daphné Vanessa (19:38): Oh,

Shamil Rodriguez (19:39): Providing social media. Oh, cool, cool. Um, you know, uh, finding their dream careers, uh, it's really like whatever you're, you're going through for them.

Daphné Vanessa (19:48): They start off with the Jim Rats niche, but they've outside of Jim Rats too.

Shamil Rodriguez (19:54): No. Yeah. If you, if you go on their website and like, this is great for people to check this, this tool or many others right out there, uh, that allow for you

Daphné Vanessa (20:02): Competitors. Now

Shamil Rodriguez (20:03): You're right. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. This is not an endorsement. Uh, we are not getting anything for this. We're

Daphné Vanessa (20:08): Not affiliates. We don't, we don't, we didn't even know they were still alive. Guys. You

Shamil Rodriguez (20:12): Know what's great? I am a big fan of sharing resources and tools that actually work, you know, through our personal experiences. So that was one, that was a good one. I forgot. I totally forgot about that app. I haven't used it in a while, but it was a good one when you,

Daphné Vanessa (20:25): So much weight. I feel like I remember how much weight I lost when you were my accountability partner. I need new friends, guys. I'm accepting applications for

Shamil Rodriguez (20:35): . Shail. Wow. Lu I'm just gonna move outta the screen.

Daphné Vanessa (20:41): Kidding here. I just aged myself. I'm trying not to age myself, but, um, no, I, I remember how, how much it worked like it worked so well. Just the weekly check-ins. Basically the point of us bringing that up was the fact that you checking in periodically to say, in that case it was weight, but in this case it would be maybe on a monthly basis, how much has gone towards your student loans, how much has gone towards your emergency fund, whatever your goal is for the New Year's resolution. It's nice to have a monthly check in at minimum as you get towards your annual goal. And then I was gonna add something that's related. So there, there are different opportunities to have accountability partners as people, but one interesting thing that I've watched over the years is how people use social media to be their accountability partner. I found that very interesting. It's almost the equivalent of when blog to post their income statements. Do you remember that? When people would be

Shamil Rodriguez (21:46): Like, I do you know that Yeah, yeah,

Daphné Vanessa (21:48): Blog, my blog made this much money and blah blah blah, blah. So I find that very interesting. And just another way, if that's your personality, you respond well to large amounts of people publicly seeing your financial information, then social media maybe for you.

Shamil Rodriguez (22:07): Yeah, that's a good point. Uh, no, I mean social media for me as an individual. Cause I just wanna like, share the other side of that view. Uh, when it comes to social media, it didn't work for me in a lot of ways where I like try to like hold myself accountable there. Cause I could just like not check it anymore. Like if I just stopped checking it, then I wasn't being held accountable. Uh, but I think, uh, it's a really good idea. What does work for me in that whole social concept still is like group chats, right? I think I find that as a really good one where you, yeah, I like updating group chats cuz it's personal, but you still have other people that are likeminded. Um, those work really well for me. Like I was surprised at how well they work for me.

Daphné Vanessa (22:49): Yeah. Shout out to Hadassa, who used to be my running group chat accountability group.

Shamil Rodriguez (22:54): Yeah. Okay, there we go. Uh, so if we're giving a shout out, you know, what, are we allowed to, we have somebody on the show, huh?

Daphné Vanessa (23:01): Sorry, I don't think we're allowed to shout out people. Are we allowed to?

Shamil Rodriguez (23:04): Not This is not still podcast. Uh, co-founders, co-host. This is, uh, where show some good stuff. And you know what, uh, Jay Oliver Perry, who's in one of my, uh, accountability groups, um, has the j j Oliver Perry show. Go check him out. Anyway, uh, back to our show, ,

Daphné Vanessa (23:23): Random Plugs . Um, but no, the social media thing is interesting. I think it didn't work for, I don't, I never tried. Let me be honest. I never tried. I spent five years not even logging into Instagram. So I'm the worst example. However, the reason why social media didn't work for me is I don't have the habit of logging into social media. I almost need somebody else to log in for me, which today we do have. So if you see us posting, we have people helping.

Shamil Rodriguez (23:52): But for accountability purposes, ,

Daphné Vanessa (23:56): It's not me, but I'm here though on the podcast though. This is actually me not a virtual reindeer.

Shamil Rodriguez (24:03): It's not like deep fake. We're not, we don't have like a video of you from the past and we're just like moving your lips, .

Daphné Vanessa (24:10): That's gonna be scary.

Shamil Rodriguez (24:13): All right, so what's the next step? Daphne, what do you got for us? This is good. I think this is good.

Daphné Vanessa (24:18): Well, I I wanna talk about mindset for a little bit just because I know that for me personally, mindset was a limiting, uh, almost a barrier for me for accomplishing a lot of things. And as you craft your goals and everything, you can put things on paper, you can have accountability partners, but sometimes your own mindset is what's really holding you back. Like, maybe do you believe that you're that person that can be financially free? Do you believe that, that you're the person that can graduate from college debt free with money in the bank? Do you believe that you're that person that will wake up tomorrow and be in your dream career? Do you, you have to believe those things and you have to feel it, and it has to be real to you. And there are so many tools to accomplish that vision. It's really a personal endeavor.

Daphné Vanessa (25:17): Um, and if you're having trouble crafting that vision, I'd suggest certainly like a mindset coach like Nicole, she was a great mindset coach for me. Um, Nicole Stealings, you guys can check her up. And I think you need a mindset coach sometimes to get you into a space where you're willing to accept that you will accomplish certain things. I personally was only able to realize that mindset was my block after multiple years of documenting, having accountability systems in place, et cetera, the same goal for multiple years and it not happening. And then with a mindset coach, I was able to break through and accomplish goals that I've had on my, um, new Year's resolutions for years. So I think having the right mindset is incredibly important, especially when you're breaking habits, because it's one thing to say, this is the goal, it's another thing to break that goal down into little steps of what you're going to accomplish each month.

Daphné Vanessa (26:21): And then in another step to say, okay, for each month, what are the habits that I need to have in place to accomplish those goals? And what mindset do I need to have to make those habits real? Right? You have to believe that you're that person that is debt free. You have to believe that you're that person that is going to walk out of the June 30th, 2023 deadline and be like, extend, don't extend. Mm. Doesn't matter to me. I'm debt free. You know, like, you need to be able to believe that it's real. It's the first step. And I thought all of this stuff was so woo. I was like, please, you know, Caribbean people, we, we a little on the harder side, I would say. Um, but it's real. I don't know. It's real

Shamil Rodriguez (27:07): . I think you're hitting onto something that makes sense, uh, where what I like to say is that it all starts from within, right? Like it all starts in your mind. If you, you know, we can, I can give you as many bumper sticker quotes as I can think of, right? But they're all hitting on the same point, which you just said. If you've got a limiting belief, if there's something that's holding you back, the reality is where you are today is no accident. So if you don't have what you're looking to achieve, that means that there must be something in your mindset that needs to change in order for you to have different results. It doesn't just happen by mistake. Uh, so Daphne, you're 100, 100% spot on. Uh, it all starts from within your mindset. Uh, and so if you don't have an accountability partner or if you, you know, if you can't, uh, get on board with a coach, there are great books and resources out there.

Shamil Rodriguez (28:01): Like, if you're a person that wants to like both of this journey on your own, I do recommend, like Daphne saying, to find someone to talk to that can help you see the forest if you're too close to the tree, so to speak. Mm-hmm. . Uh, so, you know, keep that in mind. I know a lot of cultures, um, can really get away from like Daphne saying Woo stuff for, you know, self-help. I don't know how somehow that became a negative word for some people in certain cultures, but, uh, personal development is core to your success, uh, long term. Uh, and so this, this only applies to that as

Daphné Vanessa (28:34): Well. Yes. And I also wanna credit Leslie episode six, um, for talking about mindset in this space, because he brought that on early on and he was actually another person that helped me identify that mindset was a block for me for accomplishing certain goals.

Shamil Rodriguez (28:51): Shout out, this is a shout out episode today. So back to back to all this, I mean, this all also applies to other parts of your New Year's resolutions, right? Let's not, let's not get away from the idea that what we're doing is basically helping you come up with a plan and a strategy that you can implement and some tools that you can actually use to hold yourself accountable, whether it's yourself by printing it out and putting your plan in a place where you can see it every day, right? So it's yourself holding your own self accountable, uh, or whether it's like using the app like Daphne had mentioned, or using social media or using a private group chat with people that are like-minded that wanna achieve a similar goal. All of those ideas are just ideas that we want you to implement now or start to pro start that process now in December before the new year begins, so that when January comes, you're not starting off and now trying to figure out what's going on. And then every day that passes by, you're like, oh, I got this feeling that like, I had this great goal on the first, but now it's the third and now it's the 10th, and now it's the 14th, and now it's the 21st, and I still don't have any progress towards my goal. Whereas if you do that now before you hit the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and you're like, oh yeah, my plan's already in place, like I've already set myself up for success.

Daphné Vanessa (30:08): Yep. So what are the steps that we take from here? So what you want to do is first decide, of course, you want to decide, and you have to believe in your decision, believe in yourself and decide once you've made that decision, you have an amount, you know what the date is, you know when you want to accomplish your goal, you're going to reverse engineer the steps that it would take to get there. So let's say your goal is by the end of 2023 to pay off $20,000 in student loan debt or your entire balance, you would then break that step up into microsteps and put monthly at minimum check-ins so that you can understand how close you're coming to accomplishing your goal. And in those monthly check-ins you put on your calendar recurring invite, what the micro habits are that you need to implement to accomplish that goal.

Daphné Vanessa (31:01): So I would like to pay off $12,000 in student loan debt by next year. That means each month I need to pay off 12 a thousand dollars. And for the a thousand dollars that I'm paying off, the steps that I'm going to take to generate an extra a thousand dollars are a side hustle that generates $500 a month and then saving another $500 a month in expenses. So reducing my expenses by 500, and I'm taking that extra thousand dollars each month and applying it directly to my student loans. And you check yourself with your accountability partner every month to say, all right, it's January 15th. Did I stop spending the extra 500 check? Did I make the extra 500 gigging, DoorDash, whatever your side hustle is, check. And your accountability partner says, good February. Did you do the same thing? Maybe, maybe not. Your accountability partner is there to help you get there.

Daphné Vanessa (32:01): Did you exceed your goals? Awesome. You may get there more quickly. So the check and accountability is a wonderful opportunity to actually make, come, make your dreams come true. Really is is what what you're doing, you're forcing yourself to make your dreams come true. And if you see that despite having an accountability system, despite having reminders, despite doing everything, you're still not accomplishing your goals, then I would seriously consider understanding whether you have a, a mindset, um, I don't wanna say issue, issue sounds so negative, but I would consider thinking about how your mindset is impacting your ability to deliver on those goals. And you can do that through coaching or self development, personal development on your own, whatever your your style is.

Shamil Rodriguez (32:51): Yeah, I think that's a really good summary, Daphne. So for more information on today's episode, visit the podcast.com/eighty. That's the solo podcast.com/eighty.