In today’s episode, I welcome my client, Denva, to the podcast.
When Denva first came to work with me almost two years ago, she was dealing with credit card debt, starting a new job, and caring for her terminally ill mother. She struggled with feelings of shame and insecurity about her finances, especially around debt, but through our coaching work together, she’s completely redefined her relationship with money.
Join us for a financial check-in as Denva walks us through the incredible progress she’s made—like paying off credit cards, overcoming emotional spending habits, and shifting her mindset around debt. Her story is a powerful reminder of the impact that mindset shifts and intentional financial management can have on your life.
If you aren’t sure if financial coaching is right for you, don’t miss this episode! Denva shares insights about what it is like to work with me and her top takeaways from her coaching experience.
Learn about Denva’s financial journey as we chat about these key topics…
- [01:08] What made Denva decide to hire a financial coach
- [09:04] The most notable shifts and changes Denva has experienced since coaching
- [12:25] The role of self-discovery in building financial confidence
- [15:37] How Denva’s mindset about debt has evolved
- [20:30] Intentional spending vs. fear purchases
Tune into this episode of Money Files to hear about Denva’s experience with financial coaching and progress and success she continues to create for herself.
Are you ready to start asking for help with your finances? Apply to work with me, and let’s start working towards your financial goals.
If you loved this conversation about How Coaching Helped Denva Redefine Her Relationship with Debt, check out my episode, The Legacy of Financial Coaching: How Coaching Helped Lynae Invest in Real Estate.
Transcript for “How Coaching Helped Denva Redefine Her Relationship with Debt”
Intro: Hi, and welcome to Money Files. I’m Keina Newell from Wealth Over Now. I work everyday with professional women and solopreneurs to help them get out of financial overwhelm and shame so they can experience more flexibility and ease with their finances. Are you ready to gain confidence and learn to manage your finances intentionally? Tune in and grab financial tips that will help you master the way you think about and manage your finances.
Keina: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Money File. So today I am joined by my client Denva and I always have to make sure I force an A at the end of your name, by the way. I’m like, it is not ‘ER,’ it is ‘A.’
Denva: Love it.
Keina: I cannot have a lazy tongue, but yes. So I have now thoroughly introduced myself, but I’ll go ahead and let you introduce yourself.
Denva: Hi, I’m Denva. I live in Houston, Texas and I’m the assistant professor.
Keina: Do you want to just share how you got into my atmosphere and like where were you? Like what were you experiencing in life when you decided to reach out and book a consult with me?
Denva: Do we want the whole story?
Keina: You can tell as much or as little as you want.
Denva: We have a mutual friend in common.
Keina: Okay, that works too.
Denva: That individual will not be compromised. She just told me about you and then I started to follow you. But really the reason why we started to work together was, I was at this really, I won’t call it a tipping point, but a lot of change in my life. My mom was terminally ill, while I was in the process of changing jobs unbeknownst to me, well I knew it. I applied for a job and moved into candidacy and so I just had to think about making a move from Maryland to Texas, getting my mom’s estate in order, negotiating with my institution. It was a lot of balls in the air and so when we worked, it was really not letting myself use my credit card and fear purchase or anxiety purchase, things like that because it was a real thing, taking all of that feeling and manifesting it in a different way.
Keina: Well I remember when you reached out to me, I don’t think you said it on your consult form, although I thought you said it on your consult form, but I think you maybe said it on your consult. You basically told me you’re window shopping, like I want to work with you Keina, but not right now. Like when it’s a good time. And I’m using air quotes, which you just shared, like all of the things that are going on. You forgot to mention that were also living in Italy. So you were abroad at the time. And I’m curious for you, why you chose to say yes to working with me when you were literally in the thick of so many things. Especially like your mom, you just highlighted like she was terminally ill. I would say like the job stuff, like yeah, I think it was in the background, but I think it was more so like your mom was terminally ill, you were also abroad and in one of those times in life where you’re like, I need to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.
Denva: Yeah, I would say that a few things probably shifted for me. I listened to your podcasts and your podcasts already are mini coaching, like you’re coaching through that. And I particularly listened to and I’ve listened to it since, the episode where you talk about investing in coaching and how much that’s meant for you. And I do have something analogous to that where for my first book, at a point just was like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I need to hire a developmental editor. I need to talk to someone. And so I invested in that. And those two things, hearing your testimony as it were and then thinking back to the past experience where I highly benefited from spending the money, that’s when I was like, okay, I should do this now.
Keina: What did you think you were going to get out of coaching and what did you actually get out of coaching?
Denva: So I thought that I would change all of my best spending habits.
Keina: No, I wanted to interview you specifically because I want people to have like a real perspective of coaching and I think that the work starts with me, but it doesn’t end with me and I want people to know that. So that’s why I’m asking you what you thought you were going to get versus what you did get.
Denva: Yeah. So I thought I was going to be completely out of credit card debt, that and changing my whole mindset. And I think mindset was actually the work that you were doing with me. I think there were, we did look at my budget, we did run some numbers. I have a spreadsheet that I continuously use. I was looking at it today because I was just like, where were my targets? How much am I spending? And so I would say there are so many moments in our time together that I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing. So we were thinking about mindset and thinking about me writing down my wants and journaling about it and also writing as if I’d already achieved them, which was really hard for me to do that work. I had this disconnect. But now being in my new job, I realize how much that kind of thought work matters. And it’s concrete because if you see yourself as worthy, then you can negotiate for more money. So it does have a monetary value. It’s not just bluster and ego.
Keina: I mean, I don’t know if you guys already can hear this so far, but Denva is very highly educated. She has like 18 degrees and when I met her she was, I’m probably not even going to capture it correctly, but she was in Italy in a program where you don’t just get selected like haphazardly to be in Italy and win the Rome prize, like you have to have a scroll and a litany of things that you’ve accomplished in order to win this award. And so I do think a lot of what, like when I met you I was like, oh, I need to be a mirror for this woman because she does not understand, like all of the things that she has taken the time to invest in. She’s a professor, medieval studies, right?
Denva: Yeah.
Keina: Which first off I’m like, you’re a black woman in medieval studies, which one, I didn’t even know that was a thing. Secondly, I’m pretty sure you’re the only black woman and I need you to know that there should be dollar signs above your head. So like, you are prize and you are coveted. But we did do a lot of work in the beginning just like her being able to see, like I wanted her to see what I saw in her because it equates to dollar signs. And if you were listening, you’re like, maybe some of you understand exactly what I’m talking about. And others of you may not understand what I’m talking about. But I think the thing that I see oftentimes with women is that we don’t believe in ourselves and we’re not our own cheerleader in the way that we cheerlead for other people. And while you were working with me, you were also, which goes to the moving and the negotiation piece, you were also up for changing jobs and so you were going to go to a new institution and I was like, we’re going to ask for more money, right?
Denva: Yes.
Keina: So we needed to do the mindset work because yes, I want you to pay off credit card debt, but if I get you to make more money, the credit card debt is going to easily handle itself.
Denva: Yeah, no, you’re right. You’re right. I mean, that was just the one point I was like, what are we doing? And I was like, but I’m going to do it because Keina told me to do it.
Keina: What would you say are like some of your notable shifts and changes that you experienced in the five months we were working together?
Denva: I would say one of the things and anybody who’s interested or thinking about working with Keina, I will say this to you that some of the adages that she has, like your budget is not a budget. Like this list is not a budget. It takes reinforcement. It takes a while for it to get into your body and you know it, like intellectually you might get it, but you might think it doesn’t apply to you. And that was one of the biggest shifts is actually having a budget and not just a list of things or just a list of bills. That’s it. And aligning my spending, which I’m still perfecting. I think this is a living document that it reflects my actual spending. So I don’t have to live in a pretend world where I’m like, oh, I’m not going to spend any money on that.
And then my statement the previous month was like, friends, you spent a whole lot of money on that even though you pretend that you don’t. So those are two things, but I also think that, and maybe this is kind of the underpinnings of what we’re talking about is learning about your finances and our work together was about self-discovery. And I think that self-discovery is not always aligned with finances or it’s not put in the same breath or conversation as the same as that. But it is self-discovery. And it didn’t feel that way for me because you create like a very soft environment. I was really scared at first. I was like, oh Keina but you create a soft, and this is contradictory, yet firm environment. So just to say this to everyone listening, like, Keina’s not going to like shuck and jive you as my father would say, like, it’s none of that. It’s none of the smoking mirrors or the shucking and jiving, like you might have five minutes of like pleasantries and she’s going to be like, so did you ask for more today? You’re like, gosh darn it, I did not or yes I did. So self-discovery is not an easy thing. And I think working with you allowed for that process to happen in a way that felt not catastrophic, like I had a really black and white thinking about my finances before we started and I remember you made me do this exercise on what does your debt mean to you? And that was very hard for me to do, but I do think it was very important work and still work that I actually should be journaling about and writing about now.
Keina: Sounds like an amazing coach.
Denva: You are. We’re going to give Keina her flowers now.
Keina: Now I’m curious, you were talking about like self-discovery during that process. Like what did you discover about yourself?
Denva: Yeah, I think I discovered what I valued because it was often connected with my spending or what I thought I should value, those two different things. And so I did realize that I will spend money on clothes, I’ll spend money on skin treatments, but I also like to see my friends. I like to go out to eat with them. So all of those things mattered to me. I also discovered how my parents, both of them had very different attitudes towards debt and how much of that shaped my attitude, which was one of no debt. It’s a moral deficiency. You won’t ever get out of this kind of thing and to reshift that was really powerful for me in my relationship to that money.
Keina: Yeah because I’m curious with the journaling exercise that I had you do about, like what you were making that debt mean, like what did you discover?
Denva: I think in terms, it was like self-worth. It had a moral value so bad or good person were attached to that. And we could talk about the history of debt and how that’s construed for different people historically, but in real personal terms, yeah I discovered that I was making it, me being somehow lax and not on top of things, especially for women who have navigated so much. You’ve got the degrees, you have the house, you have the 401k, I’m going to say you, but I am also part of that number. Really value your ability to perform and execute on a high level. And what debt signified to me was I hadn’t executed to the standards which I had executed in other areas in my life. And so it made me feel vulnerable, it made me feel cagey. It made me feel less than even when I was talking to like certain men who talk about like their financial prowess, which it seems like men are more apt to do. So that shift of re-understanding that was important.
Keina: Like we had our consult in January of 2023, so we’re almost like a full two years out, which is fabulous.
Denva: Really?
Keina: Isn’t that crazy? Yeah. Life comes at you fast, you still have some debt left, right?
Denva: Yeah.
Keina: But how do you view your debt now?
Denva: I won’t lie to you and say that sometimes I’m just like, oh , I wish I could just bludgeon this. Although one of my credit cards is now completely paid off. And I’m using that money to snowball on another one and that end is in sight.
Keina: And you paid off your car too, right?
Denva: Yeah, I paid off my car. Well there are two things I should say about this. I see debt now as a series of choices that are neither good or bad, but I’ve made them. So for instance, when I could look down on my credit card I just paid off, I could see where I was adding debt. And so now I just say I’m going to put money towards that because I know that’s a category in which I spend.
Keina: What are some of those things?
Denva: Oh my gosh, piercings. Like so many piercings.
Keina: Oh, you like piercings? I didn’t know you did piercings, that never came up when you were coaching.
Denva: Yeah I have these over here and then this one, like going to the dermatologist, like getting all the things that I want there. My skincare, everything but clothing, I’m going to give myself a clap. I have really like come back from clothing. I have really like gone into my closet. It’s like you don’t need any of this, you don’t need any more than this right now. You are fine. So those were some of the categories. And then, I mean for the bigger lump sum it was like taking care of my mom and making sure funeral arrangement stuff’s done. And so a part of that is understanding my debt as care. I was providing care for myself and for my family when they needed it the most. And it was, I guess I can say this, it’s a privilege to be able to do that and it’s equally a privilege to be able to pay it off and see an end in both ways.
Keina: Well, I was actually going to ask you, I was like, what? And this is the question I love to ask people is like what opportunities has your debt afforded you? Especially in a society where we think about debt as being good or bad, it can be helpful when we look back at our debt to say like what opportunities has my debt afforded me? And in some ways we’re like, okay, one too many whole food strips, like that may not be something that I’m like happy about, but maybe I did get to go on a really good trip with my girlfriends. Or in your case like you know that you got to celebrate your mom’s life in a particular way. And so ideally would you have loved to have the cash? Sure. But also when you know your numbers, you don’t have to be scared of also taking on debt if that is something that you have to do when you actually have a budget.
And I say that in the sense of like, we could easily flip your budget around and be like, okay, let’s institute a family fund and maybe for the first couple months you use that to pay down some debt. But then afterwards it turns into something that’s building in case you need to take care of someone else or you want to extend this type of generosity. And so you can’t think in that way when you are, I love how you talk about debt almost making you feel like it challenges your moral being. You can’t think about how you can pay off debt and also indulge in the things that you actually want to indulge in if you’re just shaming yourself about being in debt.
Denva: No, that’s a good word. Absolutely. Yeah. You can’t have both. And it definitely created stress in my body. So it had a real psychological and physiological benefits to recategorize that. I don’t know how many people hold onto shame, hold onto anxiety. Even the anxiety of like, where are we going to get this money from? So I think it works on many different levels to reorganize or reorienting it yourself towards debt.
Keina: For sure. I mean money is really, really stressful for people and I don’t think we realize the emotional pieces of money. Even when you were saying earlier in the podcast you said that, I wrote it down, you said like you wanted to be in a place where you weren’t using your credit card, like you weren’t making fear purchases. Can you speak to that a little bit more?
Denva: Yeah, I mean the fear purchase is things that solve you or provide a solve in the short term. And I don’t think those are bad, but I do think awareness around it is the key. So when you step into that space and you know you’re about to buy some shoes because you’re nervous about your future, you don’t glibly do that. You ask yourself some questions before you do it and just recognize, oh I’m about to spend money on this. So this is so mundane. But to say that even now when I go into target, I’m just like, take a breath because you know you’re going to see some candles and you’re going to want all these candles but you need to like reign it in. We’re not here for candles, we have other thoughts for that money. So it’s not a question of oh I can’t have the candles. It’s the question of, oh I actually want to go see Samara Joy sing and so I’m going to shoot that money into something else. But that only comes with awareness and awareness takes time. It’s not just this instantaneous, you have the budget because the budget is a stationary thing and it’s over here. You know you’ve got it with you when it’s in your body.
Keina: We’re going to target.
Denva: Yeah.
Keina: I love that you pointed that out because I mean, I don’t know if people know this about me, but I’m very much a spender. I love to spend money, like maybe if I need to sending fix, I need to go be like an Instacart shopper so I can like go in grocery stores and like spend other people’s money. I even have to talk to myself and recognize, especially like the emotional awareness piece. If I’ve had a really long day and I’ve had limited movement, I can find myself scrolling and I’m like, oh, like let me buy something that makes me feel good in that moment. And because I’m more aware of it, it happens less often. But there are definitely some times where I’m like how did that box get here to my house? I have no idea. I think a lot of my clients would say like that’s one of the things that they’re purchasing decisions have gotten better since they’ve worked with me because oftentimes it’s the things that are going on our credit card that are showing up at our house that are happening because we’re in an emotional state, like you had a lot of life going on while we were together.
And so thinking about how life could have shown up in your bank accounts and on your credit cards, had we not been doing the work together, like I don’t know how many more thousands of debt you could have added if you hadn’t have worked with me. And I think that’s one piece I’ll just star for people is I had someone tell me on a consult the other day, they were like, but Keina let me like get myself together and like be serious before I work with you. I said, well then you wouldn’t need to work with me if you were serious. I think that’s the thought error and the misconception that people have is that they need to get it together versus realizing that working with me, even when things are seemingly crazy in your life, if you can learn to navigate the crazy, then you’ll be fine when it’s calm.
Denva: Yeah, absolutely. It goes back to learning a set of skills and those skills will serve you for your whole life if you continue to revisit them. And revisiting them is like a practice, like you’re Sunday meetings, you’re touching documents, you’re listening to you on podcasts. I think all of those are revisiting the work and integrating it into your life like in a meaningful way.
Keina: I mean like, I will just say this for people listening because maybe they’ll be in shock, I don’t know in a good way or a bad way. But I feel like even when we were working together, because you had to go back and see your mom, you also needed to go to Maryland and we’re also working with the cash flow that you had. I don’t know if anybody knows this, from Italy to the states, they want a couple dollars to get there and you were also like going to interview in Houston, but like there were ways in which it was like we could talk about using debt to be strategic. So yes, you’re adding to your debt, but it’s with thought. And then after the thinking through of the plan, we can also think through the plan of how are we going to pay this off? Because sometimes you may have to leverage debt in order to help you get into a better situation.
Denva: Yeah. And it’s funny to me, but on an individual level, there’s a lot of shame around this, but businesses do this all the time. I’m not advocating that people live their life like a business or consider themselves a business, but businesses think about this, they think about how can I leverage this debt for greater outcomes? And they’re strategic about it and so, I mean if you don’t believe Keina and I just know Fortune 500 is doing it.
Keina: Oh for sure. Yeah. But they’re investing in debt that’s going to provide an ROI. I remember coaching a client once who her husband needed dental work, that’s what it was. It was dental work. And I said, why wouldn’t you put it on your credit card or like, why wouldn’t you like at dental offices they’ll do like a care loan or something like that so it can be, let’s just say it’s 60 months, 0% interest, whatever. And she was looking at me like, why would I take out debt for this dental work? And she was, I feel like she was positioned, I can’t remember all the details correctly, but she was either positioned to let her husband not get the dental work immediately and or like, I will deplete all my savings in order to pay for the dental work.
Keina: And I said, it’s really interesting, you have zero thoughts about your car loan, but you won’t take out a loan to seemingly help your husband make sure his mouth is taken care of, which is like going to impact his livelihood. I just was pointing out for her, regardless of what she decided to do, is that, just like question why we will do one thing and not another because society has taught us like you can take out a loan on your house, you can take out a loan on your car and those things are normalized, but like using debt for clothes is bad. Using debt to invest in coaching could be bad or whatever, like there’s a good category and a bad category. And people, I mean I would argue that some of y’all got car loans that you have no business having, even though society has said it’s okay.
But just getting, I think like you’ve highlighted it already for us it’s like just really being able to shape and question our own thoughts about debt is so important. And it’s important especially if you are in the debt cycle and you want to get out of the debt cycle. Like you do need to do the work to ask yourself like what are my thoughts about debt? And then identifying, like you even said, I could look at my credit card and say like, oh, I like the dermatologist. I like clothes. Like where are those things in my budget so that I don’t have to use my credit card in the future for them. But like, this is a whole piece of work that you have to do and why I discourage you from using lump sums of money to pay off debt because that’s not the answer either. You’ve highlighted it as well, it’s like doing that internal work in the self-discovery is actually the thing that’s going to help you get out of debt even if it means that you pay off debt in a slower fashion.
Denva: I just listened to your podcast on that, which was really helpful again to me because I had this moment in looking at my budget and that’s why I had the sheet open again because I even thought, like I see my spending shifting. And so do I want to take the entire amount of money that I used on the American Express to pay off this other thing or do I want to take $50 less out of that and put it into something so I don’t see myself scrounging for things at the end? But those are I think very important questions. And it’s also a question of care for yourself. So lump sums achieve something. But on the flip side of that, maybe you’ve already said this, it sometimes comes at the expense of other things. So I know that this person on Instagram who is all about like getting out of debt so quickly and to the degree that she just eats ramen and things like that.
Keina: She looks raggedy.
Denva: That’s like trash dieting.
Keina: Yeah.
Denva: Like at some point you are going to flip out and you’re going to like have caviar or it’s going to be a big, big thing that happens for you. And so the moderation matters and you deserve the moderation. You deserve to have things, that while you’re doing this work give you comfort and joy. We’re not here to and I think your work does this beautifully, sacrifice ourselves, put ourselves under so much toil To somehow make recompense or make penance in more religious terms for what we’ve done.
Keina: I just love your vocabulary. I know that’s not why we’re here. But even while working with you, I’m like, how do I spell that word? I’m going to look it up. But no, you’re completely right but I just wanted to highlight for everyone, this is why I had to ask her to ask for more money. She knows words that we don’t all know or use in our everyday language when talking about debt.
Denva: Just start doing it.
Keina: I’m curious, and I don’t even know if you’ll have anything to say to this, but with your mom’s passing because she passed while we were working together or right after?
Denva: Yeah, while we were working together in March.
Keina: Oh yeah. It was early while we were working together. Because I know that was also one of the reasons you came to me as like wanting to handle her estate will. I have another client, we actually talked about this, but like how did you going through this work help you manage your mother’s estate?
Denva: Yeah, I’m still doing it because I did not know that I had to file taxes for her. So I actually need to write that on my to-do list. But I think it allowed me to make smart decisions but also not have anxiety over them. So the ticket back home, the expenses for the funeral, I was really able to think, how can I do this in a way that is really loving her legacy but also understand what she wanted and all of those things and execute. And I didn’t feel any guilt over saying, okay, yep, this is going on the credit card, this will be paid off but we’re doing this because we need to do it. She has to be buried. And it gave me the confidence not to be indecisive, be in a place where, can we do this? Can we not do that because for me at least that creates a lot of internal turmoil, which allows me not to make other decisions? I get decision fatigue. And so when I was able to do that and I’m not saying I just put everything and was cavalierly.
Okay, this, this and this. This is what we want to do and also one of the important things that we had, I think we might have already started doing this, but I’m not sure, was even thinking further out about different steps after this moment. So I felt taken care of. It wasn’t like I’m getting all of this debt and I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. I’m acquiring this, I’m choosing to and there is and will be a plan in place to handle it.
Keina: I mean I know with my other clients, they actually both lost parents while we were working together and it was like also just having the space to grieve, with like finances not being the looming thing. I would say whether it’s happening in cash or it’s happening on a credit card, like if you are also going into grief with financial anxiety, it’s an additional layer. And it’s one of those things where I wanted to ask you about it because I don’t think people think about how does this work serve me now and how does it serve me in the future? I mean, you were in a unique situation where your mom was like terminally ill. But the one thing I know is true is like we all have an expiration date. And so like we’re going to, like I’m watching my mom right now, she’s actually the caregiver for my grandmother.
She has dementia and my mom is like managing her bills and has been managing her bills. But like I think about for myself even like, okay, my mom and dad, they’re like going to be 70 and 75, but those roles potentially reverse at some point in time. And so me being financially confident and that doesn’t even mean all knowing, like you just said, I don’t even think I realize you need to file someone’s taxes. But like me missing pieces won’t hopefully rattle me if I’m financially confident because I know I can figure it out. But when you’re not financially confident, you’ll get rattled. And who knows what decisions you’ll make versus just seeing like, oops, okay, I missed this. Life happens but I can still figure it out. And also back to you talking about it being like a moral kind of implication. It’s not going to make me feel bad about myself. It’s just something that I missed.
Denva: Yeah. And I think our work together, and you haven’t asked me this, but so through our work together, I had to file taxes because I was thinking about taxes. My husband worked in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. And we’ve lived in Maryland, but I worked in Delaware. And so at one point the tax thing was stressing me because I knew we were going to sell a house and probably buy a house. When you gave me the name of a tax accountant, I was just like, absolutely. And so I built it in my budget for us to save for that work. He told me how much it was going to cost and I just saved for it because it’s that ease of mind of being able to understand that you will find a way and also you don’t have to find all the ways. Like it doesn’t have to be you that does all the work. This is a tenuous one but makes me think back to when you had me do a budget, like a dream budget. I was like, no, I don’t need all this money. I don’t even know what I would do with this money.
Keina: I know what you would do.
Denva: Let me tell you, at first it was really difficult. It was very uncomfortable. And now maybe once every two months I look at it and I’m like, ah man, I’d like to make that amount of money because I would like to able to all of these things.
Keina: Yep. You know I’m still gunning for you to make more money. I’m like, you being a professor can be a side hustle, but it’s alright. I got time. The years are young.
Denva: The years are young. It can happen.
Keina: And I know how to get to you through our mutual friend. I’d be like, excuse me, what’s she over there doing? How much did you charge for that? You said you took an honorarium. It was a hundred dollars. Give it back. Give it back.
Denva: Give it back. Get something else.
Keina: Well, is there anything else that I should have asked you that I didn’t?
Denva: Yes. This is a very leading question, so you couldn’t have asked me this, but I think like, do you see more coaching in your future? Like do you think the coaching is done and like it’s never truly done, but I do see myself like one more go, one more session, one more, like we have unfinished business that we should get together and pray about. I need someone to be like, no, you’re going to do it. It’s uncomfortable. I put this out because I’m just thinking about it now. And it might help people who are listening. This idea of being nice has plagued me for so much of my life and I think it sometimes has hindered me from going for what I want. And so one of the things that, again going back to Keina’s like is soft but firm is that nice doesn’t come into the equation. You can be kind, you can be generous, but if you know your worth and that is sometimes quantified by money, then you don’t feel as if you have to cower into this subservient position of niceness and not get what you want.
Keina: That’s why we started our off air conversation about how much more money she’s going to make.
Denva: I’m hiding now.
Keina: And speaking, I mean, Denva and I talked a lot about her making more money. Mainly because like I know, when I’m working with clients I’m like, I can hold a vision for you and I can see you in places that you can’t see yourself in and that leaves space for you to be like all squirrely and up in arms about your debt. But I know what’s going to happen in a year. What’s going to happen in six months? And even while you were working with me, I was like, I had you reach out to somebody and ask. It was another professor. I basically was like, you need to ask him how much money he makes or how much he was able to negotiate and she was looking at me like I was crazy. But it’s like those are the money conversations that we also have to have because I think that we’re scared to talk about money and then when we think we have to talk about money, we think we’re only talking about how much debt are you in or how much money are you making? So I wanted her to have information even on like, hey, ask them if they had a relocation package. Just like get all the information that you can, that’s going to impact you financially.
Denva: Yeah. That was helpful.
Keina: Alright. Well thank you so much for coming on my podcast. I appreciate it.
Denva: Thank you for having me.
Keina: Alright. Until next time, I’ll chat with you guys later.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to Money Files. If you’re ready to take the next step to reach your financial goals, head to www.wealthovernow.com/appointment and let’s get started.
