This isn’t about what we know. It’s about what’s getting in the way.
In this episode, Dr. Sev sits down with financial wellness consultant Nia Adams to explore why money can still feel hard—even when you know what to do. They unpack how confidence, beliefs, and past experiences shape financial decisions, and what it takes to move past money shame and follow through.
If you’ve ever felt like you should be further along by now, this conversation is for you.
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Join Dr. Sev’s Wealth Warriors Community for more financial discussions and insights (FREE to join): https://www.skool.com/wealth-warriors-community-1025/about
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The Dr. Sev Talks Money podcast’s mission is to empower women to approach money confidently, reframe their financial habits, and build a future where their money is a tool for opportunity and security.
Through Dr. Sev Talks Money YouTube channel and Podcast, I provide actionable advice and inspiration to help you achieve financial freedom. Join me for one-on-one coaching, group sessions, workshops, or speaking engagements as we journey to financial empowerment together. It’s never too late to begin again—let’s make it happen!
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Nia’s links:
Website – http://www.niaadams.com
Linkedin – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nia-a-0b485b58/
Youtube – http://www.youtube.com/@moneyperspectives
Conference – http://www.thrive360atl.com (September 26, 2026 in Atlanta)
Nia Adams, known as The Coins Confidant, is a financial wellness consultant, speaker, and founder of Perspectives. She helps individuals and organizations move from knowing what to do with money to feeling confident enough to do it through practical, judgment-free financial education.
After paying off $57,000 in debt in under three years, Nia built a nationally recognized platform focused on confidence, behavior, and real-life financial decision-making. She is a three-time author, holds an MBA in Finance, and is both an Accredited Financial Counselor® and Certified Financial Education Instructor. Nia also serves on the advisory board of United Way of Greater Atlanta – Douglas County and is known for creating spaces where conversations about money feel accessible, empowering, and transformative.
Transcript
Today’s conversation is for the woman who feels like I know better, so why am I not doing better? Because let’s face it. You can know exactly what to do with money and still not do it. Not because you’re lazy, not because you don’t care, but because something underneath your confidence, your beliefs, your past experiences, something is getting in the way.
If you are new here I am your host, Dr. Sev, personal finance educator and coach who rebuilt my credit from the 500s to 850 and paid off 39,000 in debt after a late life divorce. And this is our Women on the Move series, where we highlight women who are building, leading, and redefining success on their own terms.
And I forgot my microphone. We’ve been having some powerful conversations in this series about making money, keeping money, and building something that supports our lives. But today. We’re going a little deeper. Today’s guest is Nia Adams. She helps people bridge the gap between knowing what to do with money and feeling confident enough to do it.
Her full bio will be in the show notes and this video’s description, so get comfortable. Lean in and let’s get into it. Nia, welcome to the show.
Thank you. Thank you. I’m happy to be here. You know, this is my favorite topic. Let’s, let’s talk.
Yeah. This is, this is your third time on the show? I think so, yeah.
So let’s jump into it. Right? Um, you call yourself the Coin Confidant Tell us what made that name feel right for the work that you do?
So I actually chose that for a specific reason. Um, as a financial coach, I helped high achieving women and a lot of times, you know, they say it’s lonely at the top. And as you make it up there, it becomes harder to find like-minded individuals. And so sometimes that’s what you need. You need that money f frame that you can come and tell, you know, I, um.
I, I went a little overboard this weekend and know that you’re not gonna have any judgment, know that they’re not gonna talk down about you. Everything’s gonna be just fine. We’re not gonna dwell on it. We are going to see how that affected our money and move on. So that’s really the reason that made me start labeling myself that because most of my financial coaching sessions, they started out with tears because people felt a relief.
In one session, they felt like the weight off their chest. Like, oh wow. Like, you know, like, you just treat me like, okay. Like you didn’t, you didn’t, you know what I mean? And they, they’re expecting that. And so that’s kind of where I got that label from. Like, they feel like they just talking to a friend.
Yeah. Because they’re expecting the judgment. They’re expecting Exactly, exactly. As financial coaches for us to say, how could you do that? And how did that happen? Right. And that’s, that is further from the, couldn’t be further from the truth.
It happened because you were human.
Yeah. You were human and we’ve been there, so we have no judgment for you.
Yeah, so you paid off $57,000 in debt under three years. Walk us through what that journey looked like and what it taught you about the connection between confidence and money.
So, first, let me say that I was a trendsetter because one of the things that I did when I was going through that, that journey, is I cut off cable.
But this was before, you know, everybody started cutting cable and going to streaming and things like that. But that was one of my things because I sat and I looked at where I was paying and I’m like, okay, something gotta go. What’s, what’s, what’s leaving? Something got to go. Um, so that’s one of the things I did.
I picked up a second job, so I was working a second job and all the money from my second job was, the whole purpose of it was to attack debt. Um, I don’t care if it was a $5 payment, it was going towards whatever debt I was attacking because it’s not just about the fact that you pay $5, it’s the interest that I’m now not going to pay on that over the life of that loan, that credit card, whatever that is.
So for me. It was kind of inch by inch, little by little, essentially like small steps, big action. Um, and it created a ripple effect. Where it helped me confidence wise with my finances, is it taught me that I could do hard things.
Yeah.
It taught me that even though I might look at something and feel like, oh my God, like, okay.
How am I gonna do this? I was able to do it, and it just really took me, and I’m, I’m not gonna say that I did it perfectly. I had weekends where I got paid and I was tired of being on that financial constraint where I just splurged that paycheck and I didn’t send the money to directly to debt. Um, but then I got back to it and I got back on it.
You know what I mean? So it’s like, yeah. That taught me like, okay, so this, this is possible. It’s more of a lifestyle. It’s not like I have to go on a financial diet to do it like. And that helped me build confidence and, okay, so now let’s look at other things. What other type of financial goals, you know, can I tackle?
And it gave me the confidence to now seek knowledge about other topics that I wasn’t familiar with.
Yeah, I like that because, um, it’s not about the sacrifice. It’s not about living such a sacrificial life that you can’t enjoy it. It’s, it’s maybe a, a, a period of sacrifice.
Mm-hmm.
Because, you know, your long-term goal, but not to the point where it’s, it’s all about austerity.
Yeah. It’s, you know, it’s bringing in balance while you, while you are whiling down that debt, you are bringing in balance. And I pretty much did the same thing as you did. I, I didn’t quite take a second job, but I had a lot of little things that I was doing on the side because all of that was going towards that, that student loan.
Mm-hmm. I still don’t have. Pay. I still haven’t paid it all off.
No, I
haven’t paid all
my student loans either, but
the other day, yeah. But I made a big, big chunk into it. I, I really paid on and by doing all of those extra things. So, you know, whoever’s listening to us just know that, as Nia said, it’s.
The little things that you’re doing to whittle away at the debt or whatever expenses that you have to whittle away at it. It doesn’t have to be this big thing because it may be overwhelming right now when you look at that big number. But what can you do? What are the small steps that you can take?
What are the things that you can do to add a dollar here, $2 here? It makes a difference. So. That leads me to my next question. You talk a lot again about the connection between confidence and financial success. Where do you see confidence breaking down first for most people when it comes to money?
How much time we get so.
Um, one of the things I think that’s really crucial is when it comes to applying for new jobs, applying for promotions, negotiating salaries, something that would be so crucial in your financial goals, you being able to bring more money to the table, bring more money towards your financial goals, but you don’t have the confidence.
To apply for it. You don’t have the confidence to seek that additional funds. You either have imposter syndrome show up. You’re talking yourself out of applying for it. You’re talking yourself out of why would you, you’re procrastinating on putting the application or you just downright never do it.
That’s one way. Another way is because you lack confidence. You are buying clothes or other things because you feel like that. Well, this will make me look better. You know, to impress people that you, you probably really don’t even like these people to be honest. Um, but things like that, it shows up.
Investing you can make. $500,000 a year, but not feel confident when it comes to making big money decisions. If you cannot make a big money decision on your own without second guessing yourself, without having to need 2, 3, 4, 5 opinions without having to have somebody else reaffirm what you are already think.
Those are ways that confidence shows up, and it’s showing that you don’t have the confidence yet. So that’s why it’s like knowledge is power. I know people say that, but I call BS because mm-hmm. If you don’t apply the knowledge, how powerful was it really?
Yeah. Yeah.
So you have to have that confidence to be able to apply the knowledge that you just learned and know and believe that you have the ability to do it, and you have the power to do it.
You’re supposed to do it, and you deserve that transformation on the other side of doing it.
Yeah. I love that you deserve that transformation. And here’s the thing too, that people need to keep in mind when you make a decision, you can reverse that decision and it may cost a little bit to reverse the decision, but you can always reverse the decision.
Mm-hmm. You can always say, you know what, I’m, I’m halfway there and this is not working. Let me take a step back. Let me detour. So I just want to encourage someone who’s listening now that when you are faced with a big decision, and if you’re feeling like you wanna do it on your own, you don’t wanna hire a coach, but you wanna do it on your own, you think you know what you want to do, that’s okay, but let’s say you do it.
You get halfway there or a third of the way there and you realize, okay, there’s some things, I don’t know, hire a coach. Mm-hmm. You know, and if you hire one and you’re not, you’re not happy, you’re not in sync with each other. Hire another one. Mm-hmm. So, you know, fire that person. Coaches are fireable. Is that a word?
It’s gonna be today. Okay. So I want somebody who’s listening right now to. To try to build up that confidence, and that’s what we’re trying to talk to you about today, is making sure that you build up that confidence, because none of us that are sitting here in front of the microphone, we didn’t just wake up with confidence.
We made mistakes, we did things, and we thought we were right, and we had to reverse. We had to sidestep, we had to retract, we had to do all the things. So I want you to have confidence in whatever decision you’re making, even if you’re confidently wrong. Have confidence in it. And when you realize that there is something I’m doing that is not working for me, either ask for help change direction or something.
Okay.
Can I add to that?
Yeah.
So also the only thing that’s constant is change. So, mm-hmm. I don’t, it does not matter that you made a full plan. Plans change. As different things happen, as adjustments happens, life changes, your plan is going to change, and that’s completely okay. I also have another way that it shows up business owners when it comes to quoting your price and be able to stand firm on your price owning your worth.
That’s a direct way that it’ll affect you financially in your business. Mm-hmm. Um, I have a program called Practice to Profit that I coach other financial coaches in, like building the systems in their business. That’s one of the biggest things that every single person comes in there with. They are doing the work, they’re speaking for free, for exposure after they’ve been speaking for five years, they, they know this stuff back and forth, but they don’t have the confidence to quote and say, I charged $4,000.
And stand on it and stay silent. Don’t over explain it. Don’t backtrack. Don’t offer a discount without anybody asking for it. Stop counting other people’s pockets that they didn’t tell you anything about. Like things like that. Yeah. Because the confidence has to be there in order for it to stick.
That is another whole podcast by itself.
Okay. It’s real though. That’s another whole podcast by itself. It’s real.
It’s
real. ’cause I have had that journey where I was like, okay, I’m going to charge this much, and, and I know my worth. I know I’ve been doing this for many, many years. Mm-hmm. I have accreditations, I have, well, I’ve been to school, I’ve, I’ve done all the things.
Mm-hmm. I’m worth it. I am worth it. So, you know, I’ve had to look back at that and say, listen, this is my price and I have it on the website, and I hear people say, well, oh, that’s kind of expensive. It’s expensive for you, but it’s not expensive for the, for the client that is assigned to me. Okay. Hmm.
Exactly. Because you’re not my client. You’re not my client. You’re, you’re not. So if it’s expensive for you, you’re not my client, I can point you to somebody else. Mm-hmm. Or, or, or, you know, or you know, free or whatever services, I can point you to that. And I always say, I have a lot of free stuff. I have a lot of free stuff on YouTube, on my podcasts, on my social media, but when you talk to me one-on-one, it costs baby.
Okay?
Yes. Like I, it is time, energy, effort, resources, years of credentials, money spent, going to all these conferences for professional development. All of that is what you’re bringing when you show up.
Yeah. Yeah. It, um, Ashlee says here. Freebies won’t free you.
Freebies. Correct. And paying people pay attention.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yes
ma’am. Okay. I like that one. And with that, we’re just going to take a, a quick break while I invite you to join me in my, um, ecosystem. Hey friends, quick pause. If you’re enjoying today’s episode, the best way to support the show is to share it and leave a rating on your favorite podcast platform. And you know it.
Five is our favorite number, and if you’re watching on YouTube, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Thank you. All right, and we are back. So let’s shift away from the confidence, money, connection bit for a bit. So many people get stuck in the gap between knowing what to do with money and not following through, and I’ve being one of those.
Same,
same. Why do you, why do you think that is?
Um, well, I mean, there’s a levels of reasons. You have the systematic reasons that affect us specifically as the underestimated. As I call us, um, and then you have other resource. Some of us, we felt like we’ve been synonymous with struggle. We felt like we weren’t worthy of wealth.
We felt like that that wasn’t something that we deserved and we had to work on that. Then it’s the fear of the unknown. When you don’t know something and you don’t know about it, sometimes it’s hard. And I personally think that education is one of the best weapons against fear. Um, I think that’s really big when it comes to investing.
You have a lot of people who do well, they save well. I’ve had customers who say, save excellently, but they’re still scared to invest ’cause they don’t know about it. It’s a new world to them. Um, you’ve had society telling us that we weren’t supposed to be in those rooms with woke and we weren’t. Supposed to.
So that’s a internal battle that you have to have within yourself. ’cause with starting a business with your financial journey, it’s a self-awareness journey where you will find out the things in you that you are gonna have to work through and overcome that you never realized was sabotaging yourself and standing in your way in.
Going through your financial journey and running a business are two really good ways to really identify those and be like, oh dang. So the call was coming from inside the house. Okay. Like you’ll discover that. So I feel like a lot of those things play a factor with putting those roadblocks. Then you have the intentional, incorrect.
Information, information you have all the smoke signals and the the crazy wires and things that’s being put out there, that’s not completely accurate. That will confuse you when you don’t really know. Also. You have the, the societal, um, money is the root of all evil. More money, more problems. We don’t talk about money.
You know, you keep your stuff to yourself and you don’t talk about your income. Like it’s just so many different layers going on, and you’re still trying to navigate life, still trying to do all the things that’s considered adulting. But how so? I feel like those are just, we could keep going about the layers of things that are in the way that cause people to have that huge gap between the knowledge and the confidence level and just being able to achieve financial success.
Yeah, we need to have a podcast. I need to have a podcast episode or just maybe a chat, a chatting episode with Money Taboos, because there are so many of those that are holding a hostage. Um, I have broken through some of those taboos. I’m sure girl I have.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
Surely. I’m sure there’s still some other ones that are lingering.
Mm-hmm. Um, and, and it would be good to have them out in the open and not just talk naming them, but talking about how we can overcome them.
That’s one of the ways I open up my sessions. Um, I have different questions I typically ask as the start of my sessions to open up a discussion, and that’s one of them.
What money myths have you already proven wrong? And then we open and everybody talks about the different things and how it’s a great conversation starter. When I give sessions, especially if it’s a two hour session, it kicks off a great interactive and engaging discussion because it is, everybody has something they heard growing up.
Yeah, we all have, and, and the beauty of, of social media is that we get, we get exposed to the truth. And then the beauty of social media is that we get exposed to false teachings, you know, so it is the people like you and I who are doing the work, um, with accreditation and training behind us, we have a lot of noise to break through because people don’t wanna, most, for the most part, people don’t wanna do the work.
They wanna hear what’s, you know, press this button. Twist, turn around two times and this will happen. Like the clapper. We don’t teach that. Yeah, we don’t teach that. No, I don’t. So the, the smooth talkers with all those, you know, push a button here and all that. And then five a year later they’re like, oh my God, I’m, I’m in a mess.
And that’s because you listen to them, you know? And then we’re here to clean up the mess. But anyway, I got
Right. That’s, that’s another, that’s another podcast too.
That’s another,
I hope you, I hope you writing this down, you giving your own content.
We’ve identified Flo Podcast. I’m going right there. So how do you help people move past money, shame, without letting them off the hook for making real change?
Well, the first thing I’m always gonna say, and anybody who’s ever seen me or in their podcast anywhere or speak will know the next three words. I’m gonna say, give yourself grace. Mm-hmm. That, to me, is always the first step. A lot of times we allow the shame, the um, fear of judgment to stop us from even taking that first step.
And starting to even see what we need to even do in our financial journey. So allowing yourself to make mistakes Google the wealthiest people in the world and the money mistakes they make. Because if you can find me somebody who never made a money mistake, you got a liar and you should run and turn the other direction.
And you probably should block ’em too because they, they full of it. Everybody makes money mistakes and I want us to normalize it. Because that’s just a part of it. Because unless you have somebody who’s done everything that you’re trying to do and who’s talking to you and showing you like, okay, when you go down the street, it’s gonna be a red house, then you make a left.
If you don’t have that and you’re creating a mold, you got the chisel with the. The block of ice and you creating the sculpture yourself. How are you supposed to do that perfectly? Essentially, you’re giving an expectation and putting the pressure on yourself that’s impossible to achieve. So sometimes just having that conversation and talking through that can help ’em make some real revelations like.
You know what? You’re right. Like, and then the next thing is when you talk about as females not being able to have accounts until 1974, not even being able to have credit till 1974. So how were the people who taught you supposed to become experts in enough time to make you an expert? It’s again, unrealistic, um, to have those such expectations.
So I think that sometimes we have to. Stop thinking about where we think we should be. Mm-hmm. And what we think we should have, and creating these stories and expectations of ourselves and start to think more about what we’ve done. Right. So another thing is I have a signature framework that I use when I work with my clients and we don’t touch money to the third step.
Yes.
The first step is proclaiming your MVP status. So what do you do? Well with money? Instead of starting off with where you messed up, let’s talk about the things you do well. So, okay, maybe you do have a low credit score, but are you at the point now where you’re paying your bills on time every month?
That’s huge. And that’s a great money habit to have. So maybe you don’t do everything right with money, but let’s now see where your good habits are, and that’s a good confidence builder to be like, oh dang. I guess I wasn’t that bad, you know, as I thought I was. ’cause a lot of times we make it, we’re our own worst critic and we make it so much worse in our head than it really is.
So those are just a couple of ways that I have like conversations and walk people through being able to own that. You, you made my, which, which, that’s the second step in my process is act. Okay, let’s, let’s deal with the mistakes and oh, it is what it is. What we gonna do about it? What we gonna do about it though?
So,
yeah, la lamenting about them is not the end of the process.
Yeah. It’s, they’re, they’re normal. And I wish I could tell you when we finish and your, your finances are looking great, that you’ll never make a mistake again and you’re never fumble again. But it would be alive. I told you that. ’cause you’re still gonna make another mistake.
I still make mistakes.
Okay.
That’s just a part of what it looks like. It’s like this. Yeah.
Yeah. I
think Six Flags. Magic Mountain.
I, I just made a decision about something and I was like, man, why did you do that? Because I was still caught up in what I thought I knew, forgetting how would I coach a client and, and I had to step back.
How would I coach a client with that? And I’m like, I would not tell a client to make the decision you just made Severine. But you know what? I reversed. I said, okay. I, I got caught up, so now I’m on the right track. So,
yeah. Because at the end of the day, you’re human.
Yeah.
None of us is bionic. I know we use ai, but we’re not ai.
So
Yeah.
AI make, if you got AI out here making mistakes and hallucinating how you supposed to be? Perfect.
Okay.
AI can’t even get it. Right. And they a computer and they all have making mistakes.
Yeah. So if someone listening feels like they’re falling off the track and financially, what is a first mindset shift?
Because, because we talked before about not starting with money. Coaching should never start with money. It should start with up here, up here, the head. Mm-hmm. And so what is the mindset shift they might need to, to have or, or take before they even touch a budget or a plan?
Um, I would say that you’re not alone on an island.
You’re probably on a continent. Like, because there’s so many people there with you. They couldn’t fit on a country, they couldn’t fit in a city, they couldn’t fit in a county. You’re more so on a continent. It probably like Africa, like the biggest continent. Yeah. Um, so, ’cause sometimes for me personally, when I was going through eviction or like foreclosure and bankruptcy, all the things.
I felt like I was on an island. I felt like I had to struggle and go through this alone. I felt like if I told somebody else I would be a burden upon them, and so I kind of suffered in silence throughout my process because I was thinking that it was just me. So understanding that it wasn’t just me and finding out that other people didn’t get the same knowledge that I didn’t get, and other people were making the same struggles that I was struggling with.
To me, it helped me. I feel like, oh, like, you know, it’s just, it’s kind of like giving yourself that relief and kind of clearing some of those stories that we create in our mind and we create, um, about this process and about money because we are real good for creating some stories in our head, man. Okay.
That don’t exist, that we don’t even have any factual data to back up. We just be making up stuff. Um, I don’t know why we do it, but we do it
and, and we build on it. You know, we, we see one, we create one scenario
because we can’t have together, and then we just add on.
We correct on, so we just pile on, you know, it’s like, well, I think this might happen, and if it happens.
This will happen. And, and before you know it, you are maybe under the sheet with a pillow, with, you know, with a blanket over your head. Don’t wanna face the world because, and now you just coordinate,
created a scenario that doesn’t exist.
Yeah. So I feel like that’s one of the first things in understanding and grasping that it is normal, normalizing it.
I like, and I, I know people sometimes feel like, what normalize wrong? You’re not normalizing wrong, you’re normalizing that nothing’s gonna be perfect. Like nobody’s perfect practice only makes progress. And that’s the goal. Progress is the goal. That’s, that’s it. As long as you making progress and you’re better than who you were.
Look at who you were a year ago. Look at where you were five years ago. Look at where you were 10 years ago. If you’ve progressed in that time, stop and give yourself your flowers. Stop and give yourself. We, we focus a lot of times on the things we haven’t achieved, and we’re like, oh, I haven’t did this yet.
I said I was gonna do this, but I haven’t did it. But what have you done? Yeah. What have you accomplished? What have you not really said and thought about and looked at to say like, oh dang, I guess I did do that. You know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah. And, and that’s where, uh, and I’m not trying to sell coaching here, but that’s where coaching helps.
Yeah. ’cause I’m always a cheerleader. Yeah. And my may be, I’m, I’m the number one cheerleader to the point where they’d be like, well, I started hearing you in my head. I said, very good. The transformation is complete.
Yeah. Take that
with you.
We tend to be emotionally attached, and I say this all the time, we’re emotionally attached to our decisions.
We’re emotionally attached. Our money. Yeah. And somebody who comes in and they can see things that we don’t see because we are like this when it comes to our decision. Mm-hmm. We’re tunneled vision and somebody coming in as a coach. They have no ulterior motive about what decisions to be made. Exactly. Their goal is to help you make the best decision.
So, you know, if you have, if you don’t have a coach, even unofficially get somebody who can or join a community, um, or of people who can help you just kind of think through things anyway, so. Uh, what habits or systems have you seen matter more than income level? Because really this, this is a good question here.
Okay. If, if the, the habits and systems that matter more than the income level. When it comes to long-term financial stability,
the first one I’m going to say is delayed gratification.
Mm-hmm.
We, even though we may not have grown up in the microwave society that the younger generations are, I feel like we’re adapting pretty well.
Yeah,
I feel like, you know, if you get a little irritated when your Amazon Prime is not there in two days, I, I feel like that you have, you have transformed into the micro ’cause we know shipping was not two days. We, we, we cannot think of something and get it in an hour like we can now. And I feel like adapting to that has, is the reason why people wanna just push a button or they wanna just, you know.
Do things like that. So I think that that’s one of them adjusting to being able to wait the time between wanting something and receiving it and understanding that some things are gonna take time, like yeah. You know, so I don’t wanna call it a layaway state of mind. I’m not sure what you wanna call it.
Another one I would say is if you have people on your timeline, on social media that cause you to feel any type of envy or cause you get ’em off your timeline.
Yes, yes.
Stop following them. Um. I know comparison is the thief of joy. And you know, it’s, I could give you a couple of nice, beautiful, uh, poetic sayings, but the reality is you’re human and sometimes you’re gonna see people online and you’re going to be envious of their lifestyle that you think.
They have.
Okay,
because let’s, let’s be real, let’s be real. As, as someone who makes content, you’re not seeing half of what goes into that content, that some work. Um, so I would say those two things are really good ways to help you kinda come off of that, um, and help you start building good habits. Now, if you wanna get into like, things to do, of course, I’m gonna say saving and investing are huge.
And a lot of people are like, oh, well. When do I start saving? When do I start investing? When do I, can I do them at the same time? And you might hear people say different things, but I’m a firm believer that don’t wait till you finish one thing. Because if you are paying off debt and you’re focusing on paying off debt and you’re not saving any money at the same time, what happens when an unexpected expense comes?
Because at the end of the day, life is gone. Life,
yeah.
What the girls say at the end of the day, the day going end. So. You know that life is going to come and it’s going to bring a expense, especially when you least expect it. So you wouldn’t want to derail all your hard work because to have that happen while you’re like, have a real momentum in your debt repayment journey, and now you have to charge on this card that you just paid off is very discouraging.
It can shift your momentum and your entire financial journey and it can cause you to feel like, damn, you know, I took one step forward and three steps back. So it’s important to save at the same time. Even if you only saving $5, you’ll be surprised how fast it follow up. So, and then lastly, ’cause I don’t wanna talk too long as you can say, I can keep going.
Consistency. So as you start to build good habits and delete your bad habits, you want to work on doing it consistently. And consistently does not mean seven days a week. Consistently means more times than not. So as long as if I counted 10 days more times than not, you work towards this goal that’s considered consistency and that’s considered progress.
And you working towards your goal. And as long as you keep doing it, you’ll get there.
Yeah. Yeah. Those small habits compound
that man, I, I could tell you
they do, they do compound and, and before you know it, you’re thinking,
I give example,
yeah.
I’m decorating my office. We going slow. All we have now is a plant, gimme some time.
I’m literally doing one piece at a time because that’s what my budget told me. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. Before you know it, your, your thought process changed and you’re, you don’t even realize. And, and another thing that we don’t talk about often enough is the people we surround ourselves with. Oh,
that’s a good one.
That’s a real good one.
Because, um, when we surround ourselves with people, you know, we, we, we went through college together. We went to high school together, and we, we go to vacation every summer. We all go to vacation as a family. And every summer we. You know, or every Christmas or whatever it is, we, we have these traditions that we do, and now you are not in the same financial position, but you’re continuing the traditions and so you are putting yourself in a hole.
Meanwhile, you don’t know what their financial situation is, and sometimes it takes one person in the group to speak up and say, you know what? I can’t afford to do this anymore. Or I wanna change our plans to, to something that’s not as expensive, and you’ll be surprised how many others in the group may be in the same position.
So surround yourself with people who are amenable to listening. To things like that, making changes and not so rigid in this is what we always do. And because a lot of them are suffering, they won’t tell you, but they’re suffering financially. You know, change people who are, who don’t have the same outlook as you, no matter how many years you’ve been friend friends with them, you may wanna look at how much distance do I wanna put?
You can still be friends, but how much distance do I wanna put, uh, between me and them because their thinking is corrupting me and believe me. Think other people’s thoughts corrupt us. You’ll hear yourself thinking things, saying things, and you know, where did that come from? The crowd you’re in, the books you read, the videos you watch.
So, so, you know, and that’s something again, for, for, for us to consider is who am I, who do I have close association with? And how is this helping or hurting my growth? How is this helping or, or hurting my finances? So, so with everything that we’ve talked about today, just consider these things. And again, we’re not trying to impose our thoughts on you.
We’re just wanting you to think about these things because I have seen when changes happen when we disassociate associate ourselves. From friends, sometimes family members. Okay? Mm-hmm. Or from them. And, and then we see, we start thinking a different way. Because if you even think about the, the, the millionaires, if you are associated with someone who is a millionaire, their mindset is different.
And when, because that’s, this is where, what we know, this is the level. Let’s back up. There’s not the level that we know. Okay. Because, and there’s nothing wrong with that. This is, this is what I know from the experiences that I have, the teachings that I’ve ex uh, discovered. This is what I know. And then I meet someone who thinks.
Mega buck. They think, uh, you know, they have no problem charging a hundred thousand dollars for a session. They have no problem. And I’m thinking, woo. And here I am charging a thousand. Ooh. Now, if you associate with them and you see where they’re coming from, you see what, what their thought process is, not necessarily you gonna charge a hundred.
Oh. But now you start seeing value. You start thinking in terms of not cost of the service you’re offering, but the value of the service you’re providing. You start seeing things a little bit differently, and when you do that, you, your mind will be elevated. You will grow, I promise you that. All right.
Completely agree completely and utterly agree.
Yeah. So what do you have going on right now that. We can support.
Oh, what do I have going on? No. So what I have going on is called the Thrive 360 Conference. It will be this year in Atlanta, September 26th. Um, this is our second year, and this is a holistic viewpoint of financial wellness.
So the theme this year is thriving through every season because as we know, a lot has been going on. Um. Mind, body and bank account. So this is not a financial education conference like you’ve probably ever been to before. We got yoga. We’ll be starting off with yoga. We’ll have Zumba. Um, we’ll do different panels.
So we have financial panels, we have mental health panels, and we have. Thrive panels. So those different sessions are about things to help you thrive. Side hustles. Last year we did using AI to book your travel. Things that will help you thrive. So not only telling you, oh, don’t do this, don’t do that. We’re helping you do good things so that you can thrive financially, physically, mentally.
As a whole. So I think it’s amazing. Um, it’s an all day event. It is for one day, uh, 10 to four. And the response we got last year, um, people thought that I had been booking conferences for years and I’m like, no, this, this is the first one. But they left. They said they didn’t feel overwhelmed when they left.
Um, it’s a lot of activities and interactive, um, things even in the open areas. So that you can kind of get a pallet cleanse if you are not a financial person, it’s hard for you to go and sit and just listen to money, talk after money talk after money talk. Yeah. So we want to put you in an environment that’s more comfortable.
We don’t hold it at a hotel. It’s typically a very nice venue so that you can feel comfortable to come in. And then we have other things there. I think it’s an amazing event. Of course I’m biased, but we got rave reviews from everybody who attended last year. So. That’s one of my big focuses that I am working on.
And then I’m a speaker and consultant, so I work with different organizations to help them, um, elevate performance, reduce turnover by bringing interactive and engaging financial wellness solutions. So if you have a organization, a university or community bank looking to elevate their financial wellness, definitely look, look, have them look me up or share my information.
Yeah. Awesome, awesome. So I’m gonna ask you where can they find and stay connected with you? Um, is, uh, thrive 360 atlanta.com or ATL.com, the best place? Or do you have another place that you’d like for them to connect and stay connected with you?
So, to stay connected to me here on YouTube Money Perspectives, as well as Instagram, Facebook, um, on LinkedIn, it’ll be Nia Adams.
Um, so typically I’m pretty active. I’m my dm. I’m pretty much on, you know, as a business owner. I’m on most channels, but that’s where you will find me at. Or, you know, I’m my website, nia adams.com. First name, last name.com. So that’s the best places to find me.
All righty. Well, Nia, thank you so much for, uh, joining us today.
What we talked about today doesn’t always get said out loud. It, it doesn’t.
No, it doesn’t. And it’s, it’s not just about knowing what to do with money. It’s about feeling confident enough to act on. The knowledge that we’ve gained, and if that confidence has been shaken by past decisions, which we know it will be by life, by things not going as planned by that doesn’t mean we’re stuck.
It just means there’s another layer that we need to address. So Nia, thank you for creating a space where people can have these kinds of conversations without judgment, and for reminding us that progress is still available no matter where we’re starting from.
Absolutely not
a problem. And Savvy Squad don’t just sit with what resonated today.
Take one small step, one shift, one decision that moves you forward. So until next time, take care of yourself and your money.
