Speaker 1: A student loan? What are we calling it beginning May fifth?
Speaker 1: If you have been on default on your loans, like
Speaker 1: it's going to show up on your credit report. When
Speaker 1: you look at the populations that are going to be
Speaker 1: most impact, it's going to be underserved, like minority students.
Speaker 2: But my what I'm confused about is is their Department
Speaker 2: of Education still.
Speaker 1: Over this?
Speaker 3: Yes, it keeps saying that the partner of Education is going
Speaker 3: to start collection starting my fifth I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, what the head of the doe is? The is
Speaker 2: the wrestling lady? That's ok?
Speaker 1: Even hey, the a fan, Welcome to the Brown table.
Speaker 1: We haven't had one of these in a minute. It
Speaker 1: feels like I've been over here just interviewing people I've
Speaker 1: been in like my you know, my podcast host back,
Speaker 1: just getting incredible thought leaders. I do have a couple
Speaker 1: of do you you know, going on iconic radio stations
Speaker 1: and such like that, like so like that. No, but
Speaker 1: I've been preparing very hard for Mental Health Awareness Month,
Speaker 1: which is happening in May. And you'll know, some of
Speaker 1: these like months like they can be a little you know,
Speaker 1: lip service, corny whatever. But because I have had such
Speaker 1: a pivotal year in my own mental health journey this
Speaker 1: past year. So I'm kind of celebrating the year of
Speaker 1: me saying yes to my mental health resources and like
Speaker 1: seeing such you know, great progress. I said, let me
Speaker 1: put together some shows where we can really like look
Speaker 1: at the link between our mindset and our finances, which
Speaker 1: is such an obvious like they're on the same path
Speaker 1: in my mind. Right, So I got some good.
Speaker 3: Pay attention enough I feel like to that, like we'll
Speaker 3: say it over and over and over again, but people
Speaker 3: still want to skip to Okay, so how do I
Speaker 3: get my credit?
Speaker 4: Right's exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's also the hardest thing to coach people in.
Speaker 1: So I've got I'm going to talk to Aga Evans,
Speaker 1: who's a financial therapist. You know that's my boom.
Speaker 2: So okay, good because when I name dropped somebody on
Speaker 2: the show, you know, she's amazing, soon to be what the.
Speaker 1: Way, soon to be cousin.
Speaker 2: She marrying your kid, no having your baby, never mine?
Speaker 1: Okay, long time was here. We did get a little
Speaker 1: bit of t out of her about her dating life right.
Speaker 4: Along the way, like we're supposed to call over her
Speaker 4: little trail.
Speaker 1: Of the uncertainty is not good for my mental health. Okay,
Speaker 1: so let me just keep moving. Asia, who is the
Speaker 1: author of a book that I can't remember the name.
Speaker 1: You're gonna have it right finance. Well look at there
Speaker 1: we go that you. I mean, it's almost like we
Speaker 1: did not plan that. We did not I just literally
Speaker 1: have to sit in here. That's when I know I
Speaker 1: pick a good one.
Speaker 4: She's oh good.
Speaker 1: I've got Asia coming on to Like I did a
Speaker 1: poll on my on brown Ambition's ig just asking folks,
Speaker 1: like what kinds of questions are you having? What's what's
Speaker 1: really like keeping you up at night? So we go
Speaker 1: and talk about that. I've also got unessima. I told
Speaker 1: you I was going to talk to doctor j Blackstock.
Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah, and Ellie, I know you'd be excited
Speaker 2: about that too.
Speaker 4: Yay, Yeah, give me so.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So those who don't know she wrote this New
Speaker 1: York Times bestselling book a year ago called Legacy A
Speaker 1: Black Physician Reckons with Racism and Medicare Medicine. I almost
Speaker 1: did it. I almost remember the whole title. You the
Speaker 1: Good So I interviewed her along with doctor Jessica M. Shepherd,
Speaker 1: who is a menopause and obg YA expert from the
Speaker 1: West post. So we're getting into that interview ended up
Speaker 1: being more about like their mental health because they are
Speaker 1: two such incredible advocates for us, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: like get real with them about and they are both
Speaker 1: like doctor Blackstock is talking about how these you know,
Speaker 1: this huge effort to undo DEI across America. It's impacting
Speaker 1: her business because she's not a practicing physician anymore. She
Speaker 1: has it's a well, it's a consultancy firm, so she
Speaker 1: gets paid to speak and you know, do DEI trainings
Speaker 1: and things like that. So we get into that. It's
Speaker 1: a really good one. I've got the author of Black
Speaker 1: Girls Breathing.
Speaker 2: Jasmine Marine, so she and I So Black Girls Breathing
Speaker 2: is all about she actually runs this incredible network of
Speaker 2: breathwork specialists and she trains them.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about how breath work, which
Speaker 1: has become a really crucial part of my mental health journey.
Speaker 1: This has been the year of it takes more than therapy. Yes,
Speaker 1: So she's gonna we do a breath work exercise.
Speaker 2: She talks about like how it's helping you know, like
Speaker 2: we talk about how how do you like get to
Speaker 2: the root of your like your mental health challenges and
Speaker 2: how it could impact your finances. And it ain't got
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the calculator all, you know, sometimes.
Speaker 1: Like your budget, so we get into that and what else.
Speaker 1: I have so much good stuff. But those are just
Speaker 1: a few episodes. So stay tuned b A for all
Speaker 1: of May. We're kicking off this Friday. When you listen
Speaker 1: to this Friday's episode, we're gonna kick off with Ba's
Speaker 1: Month of Mental Health and joy and fun.
Speaker 4: I love that. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: We need it, yes, definitely. So what's new with y'all
Speaker 1: and Nasima? We haven't seen you since February when you
Speaker 1: joined the Brown Table. I know, I know, got cuter,
Speaker 1: if that's possible.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's it's the headphones that are really doing it,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like they're bringing out something.
Speaker 2: These are my two year olds, by the way, but
Speaker 2: so starning stuff coming down the line. Like I was
Speaker 2: telling you before we started recording, I am going to
Speaker 2: try to navigate a little mini retirement, which I won't
Speaker 2: fully pull away from work, but I definitely won't be
Speaker 2: working as much. More like working, going from working three
Speaker 2: to five days a week to maybe six or five
Speaker 2: or six days a month and navigating that to focus
Speaker 2: on my family and maybe world schooling my kids, and
Speaker 2: what that looks like is you know, using the world
Speaker 2: as your classroom. So for example, a couple of years ago,
Speaker 2: we went to London and you know, we went to
Speaker 2: the British Museum and we talked about the British Museum
Speaker 2: and all the things in the museum and the artifacts
Speaker 2: where they come from. But also it was very interesting
Speaker 2: while we were there the British Museum was robbed of
Speaker 2: a lot of the artifacts, and then we can talk
Speaker 2: about like, well, yes, well actually they stole all that
Speaker 2: stuff anyway, so it's true people getting this stuff back
Speaker 2: and then what that meant and you know, so like
Speaker 2: doing things like that more interact black panther, I know
Speaker 2: what you're talking about exactly, and you know as appropriately,
Speaker 2: no not you wear the black panther. Oh that's the
Speaker 2: real black panther, you know, you know, but it's just
Speaker 2: about me representing you know, anything that says Oakland on it.
Speaker 2: But my dad was a panther ironically, so yeah, wait,
Speaker 2: so remind the b a fan. So you are a
Speaker 2: nurse by trade, hospital nurse. What's the exact title I'm
Speaker 2: a labor and delivery nurse my trade. Yes, I deliver babies.
Speaker 1: You know. My when I had my baby a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, the nurse who saved day as me
Speaker 1: the same day as you.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't you remind me every time? Uh, we have dem nights,
Speaker 2: twin babies, so the same day as you.
Speaker 1: I had one of those those like minim what did
Speaker 1: you call it, mini retirement? I had a mini retired
Speaker 1: nurse who was incredible nurse.
Speaker 2: She's like, oh, that's like twice a month, and I
Speaker 2: just happened to the per day and I was so
Speaker 2: happy because she was the best exactly.
Speaker 1: And you come to work like so happy to be.
Speaker 2: There, like we love what we do. But the burnout
Speaker 2: is really real. Yeah, the job stress is real. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I just saw.
Speaker 3: The study that said that the highest trusted profession in
Speaker 3: the United States is a nurse. Yeah, when you burn out,
Speaker 3: it's you know, that's why people have so much trust
Speaker 3: in nurses. You go above and beyond your working so hard,
Speaker 3: crazy hours, and when you have a good nurse, it
Speaker 3: makes the.
Speaker 4: Entire hospital experience so different. So it makes sense.
Speaker 2: But yes, that burnout, Yeah, it definitely makes her break
Speaker 2: a hospital experience, and especially in labor and delivery, where
Speaker 2: you never forget right when you have a baby. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you're also such so much more than that.
Speaker 2: You have four baby girls.
Speaker 1: I have three. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, unmanifest which
Speaker 1: is still incredible. Three baby girls amazing, And you've created
Speaker 1: this brand financially intentional, and I've as a mom myself.
Speaker 1: I just love I love seeing how you have invested
Speaker 1: for their futures and got some six figure naires already already. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what's that going to look like? So then are
Speaker 1: you living off the have you been investing in savings?
Speaker 1: So you're gonna like partially live off of that, and
Speaker 1: then whatever income you get from financially intentional exactly exactly,
Speaker 1: and then maybe a little bit of commingling of funds,
Speaker 1: like combining some funds and you know, just some.
Speaker 2: Very special person with with who escalated February.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's cousin, you know. Oh no, literally you're going
Speaker 1: to be here. Are you engaged?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Not yet?
Speaker 4: Oh say wait a minute, I'm cool.
Speaker 1: You're cool. Although Ellie, I know I look like a
Speaker 1: news anchor, but my I disassembled my mic stand and
Speaker 1: this is just how it's going to.
Speaker 4: Be, reporting live, making it work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm so happy for you to hear that, because
Speaker 3: I just feel like that is the number one reason
Speaker 3: why high achieving women step away is burnout.
Speaker 4: You pour so much into the work we do.
Speaker 3: So like the fact that you're figuring out a way
Speaker 3: to still do what you love, still make that impact,
Speaker 3: still do the work, but do it in a way
Speaker 3: that works for you, Like I'm all here for many retirements.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 2: And also to be able to spend time with my kids,
Speaker 2: who I actually really like, I really enjoy them, and
Speaker 2: like I'm never First of all, I never even wanted
Speaker 2: to have no kids, So let's start there. I got three,
Speaker 2: and I know I'll be looking at them like where
Speaker 2: the hell these kids?
Speaker 1: I am?
Speaker 2: You know how they say you're your ancestry's wildest dream,
Speaker 2: I am my past selves nightmare baby man, who would
Speaker 2: be appholled We live where DJ's does the excursion of
Speaker 2: the week, like we like the babies.
Speaker 1: But it's true though.
Speaker 3: Because the kids this is the age, like, this is
Speaker 3: the age that makes all of they are so impressionable.
Speaker 4: At this age, this is the age that you.
Speaker 3: Enjoy most and remember most this that young age, Like
Speaker 3: I remember my thought. My memory is always with my
Speaker 3: mom because my dad was always working. He will only
Speaker 3: be home one day week, and that one day that
Speaker 3: he was home not working, of course, he was sleeping
Speaker 3: all day because he's exhausted. So I feel like I
Speaker 3: don't have childhood early memories of like my dad being
Speaker 3: that playful dad that he is now as a granddad,
Speaker 3: I see him as an a whelo with with my
Speaker 3: niece and nephews, how he is with them. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: you know, I never got that experience with him as
Speaker 3: a dad because he was always working right just to
Speaker 3: get of them table. So for you to be able
Speaker 3: to step away for that reason, to be like no, no,
Speaker 3: my girls are gonna remember me this way, it's like beful.
Speaker 3: That is what all of our ancestors have wanted for us,
Speaker 3: I'm sure forever because it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 4: It's such a gift.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited about it.
Speaker 1: So what's the timeline for this many retirement.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm figuring that out, hopefully within the next couple
Speaker 2: of months. Like I was telling you, if you guys
Speaker 2: don't know who Jillian Geschard is, I mean Jillian John's route.
Speaker 1: I used to say her name.
Speaker 2: Jillian John's Root is author of Retire Often, which is
Speaker 2: coming out in September. It's not a plug, but she
Speaker 2: has a retire Often podcast and she's retired several times
Speaker 2: and coaches people through it and so just figuring things
Speaker 2: outgos with her. Initially it was gonna be June, which
Speaker 2: is very soon, but I'll figure it out in the
Speaker 2: next couple of weeks. I'll have to update you. I'll
Speaker 2: know by mid May what my timeline is looking like
Speaker 2: and what my trajectory will be.
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that contract about retire Often list.
Speaker 2: My goodness, I don't know on my radar, No on
Speaker 2: my list. Now billion is the bomb? Like I thought
Speaker 2: everybody knew Jillian in this community. Yeah, yeah, I'm under.
Speaker 2: I'm under this book right now.
Speaker 1: I don't. I'm lucky. I remember, y'all and the fact
Speaker 1: that we don't have a kid a book. My manuscript
Speaker 1: is due today, y'all. I do not know why I
Speaker 1: booked this, but I'm really happy I did because I
Speaker 1: have Literally I have been in my basement since five
Speaker 1: a m. Finalizing the menu.
Speaker 2: Have to Yeah, Oh my god, that the book that
Speaker 2: I wrote. I don't even market it because it's so
Speaker 2: much trauma bond, like so much PTSD. Yay, you got
Speaker 2: another one that I'm enjoying. I definitely, I definitely have
Speaker 2: a big, bigger one and a different one. I did
Speaker 2: it a little bit unconventionally so and it was just
Speaker 2: like my way to get exposed to it. But I
Speaker 2: was just like ooh, I needed yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 2: mind you, it was like an eight week timeline during
Speaker 2: COVID girl, while being a nurse full time, while my
Speaker 2: daughter was in kindergarten and out of school. So I
Speaker 2: ve the way you say kindergarten, kindygarden, How do you
Speaker 2: say that kindergarten exactly as you did, keep going, we
Speaker 2: don't know kindergarten.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 2: And you know, she couldn't read how to do her homework.
Speaker 2: So I would go to work for twelve hours, come home,
Speaker 2: and then and you know, be her teacher, and then
Speaker 2: do it all again. And I was I was fortunately
Speaker 2: the only one to never get COVID on my.
Speaker 1: Unit, and I still haven't gotten COVID that.
Speaker 4: I know of.
Speaker 2: But so I was always working because everybody was sick.
Speaker 2: Everybody kept on calling out six so it's like, can
Speaker 2: you come in? Can you come in? And writing his book?
Speaker 2: So a lot of a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: trauma around it. Jesus deserve many retirements.
Speaker 4: About time you needed one a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, And there's about the stuff happened on
Speaker 2: top of that that like kind of broke up my family.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know it these five years, I mean
Speaker 1: I think everyone's journey, that everyone's got a book. After
Speaker 1: these five years, I feel like, oh for sure, you know, sure, Sorry,
Speaker 1: I'm purshing mine from my body, and it has been
Speaker 1: I needed more than eight weeks. I'll tell you that
Speaker 1: I needed. I think I got this book deal the
Speaker 1: week before the month before I gave birth to more
Speaker 1: Gemini baby. So it's been two years and this is
Speaker 1: the manuscript. So I have all these edits to do.
Speaker 1: But anyway, speaking of Oakland and why you love it
Speaker 1: and you always were up so hard, how excited are
Speaker 1: you for your boy Ryan Cougler? Oh my god, seeding
Speaker 1: in this way, it would have been awkward if you
Speaker 1: were like, who, I don't know. No, For first of all,
Speaker 1: Ryan Coogler is everything.
Speaker 2: He's just like, first of all, he's from Oakland and
Speaker 2: he also went to USC which is my Olmer model
Speaker 2: double time. So you know our ride for Ryan Cougler.
Speaker 2: You know he a little bit younger. If he was
Speaker 2: a little bit older, you know, it would be really
Speaker 2: all talking about younger, you know, when you're in college
Speaker 2: and you like a senior and.
Speaker 1: In the freshman Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 4: He's not even forty yet, y'all. He's up there at
Speaker 4: thirty day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's almost Have y'all seen Centners? Planning to see it,
Speaker 1: like in a couple of hours, so you haven't seen.
Speaker 4: It, I have not.
Speaker 1: Alright, no, scholers, no ready, I've been waiting for this moment.
Speaker 4: It is so freaking good.
Speaker 3: I beloved to everybody I know that you have to
Speaker 3: go see it, like you must.
Speaker 4: We went last.
Speaker 3: Weekend on a date night, and it's well because my
Speaker 3: boyfriend was literally like not trying to do anything. I
Speaker 3: was like, Bay, let's go, let's go it, let's go
Speaker 3: out listen to He's like, no, no, and I was like,
Speaker 3: we gotta go see Sinners.
Speaker 4: Now. His thing is as soon as I see I
Speaker 4: say like I want to go see.
Speaker 3: A movie, his immediate thing is like he's gonna go
Speaker 3: look at rotten tomatoes.
Speaker 4: H that is not that person.
Speaker 3: That person and if so written tomatoes number is not
Speaker 3: looking like one hundred percent, it's a no. But Sinners
Speaker 3: is damn near one hundred percent for both. It was
Speaker 3: percent for both for both for those critics ready and
Speaker 3: the tomatometer like that is unheard of for a movie
Speaker 3: to get so high in both. That's how I was
Speaker 3: like able to convince him, and we went straight to
Speaker 3: the movie theater.
Speaker 4: I was so excited.
Speaker 1: I treated myself the day after I got back from
Speaker 1: that road trip. The two died that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: forget it about so hard, so stop talking about it, Mandy.
Speaker 1: I got back from this long anyway events, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I went on a Monday by myself to an IMAX
Speaker 1: theater near me, and apparently it's not in every theater,
Speaker 1: so I think I'm lucky to live next to one
Speaker 1: that has it. Oh yeah, but you know, I was
Speaker 1: a little afraid, y'all. I didn't think I liked it.
Speaker 1: I really left the I left the theater so like
Speaker 1: I had just gone through something. I felt so raw.
Speaker 2: I think I was also, you're tired that it was
Speaker 2: intense AF I don't think it's a spoiler to say
Speaker 2: stay through the credits. At this point we all know
Speaker 2: stay through the credits. But I wouldn't have gotten up
Speaker 2: if you had paid me. I was so cemented to
Speaker 2: my seat with just what did I like so much?
Speaker 2: Like the weight and the gravity of it all. I
Speaker 2: need to go see it again.
Speaker 1: And I texted my brother right after and I was like,
Speaker 1: sinners And he's like, what did you think? He had
Speaker 1: also seen the night before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I was like, I don't know that I
Speaker 2: loved it, and it's not because like I think that
Speaker 2: it's almost It doesn't do it justice to put it
Speaker 2: in like the I liked or didn't like a category.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have thought about that movie every hour of every
Speaker 1: day since I saw it, just about I've had dreams
Speaker 1: about it. I thought about different scenes. It was art,
Speaker 1: I mean, it definitely is. Yeah, It's definitely an incredible film,
Speaker 1: a huge film, like a phenomenal film. Am I gonna
Speaker 1: want to watch it? Like you know, it's not gonna
Speaker 1: be my comfort movie. I'll tell you that for free
Speaker 1: and not when I'm having a bad day. But it
Speaker 1: was beautifully done and I.
Speaker 3: Just have never seen a movie that approaches the topic
Speaker 3: in that way, like it's usually you see vampire movies'
Speaker 3: is like oh, monsters versus victims. Ah, Like no, this
Speaker 3: is like so complex and dynamic, like power, oppression, racism,
Speaker 3: Jim Role, Survival of Black Americans in nineteen forty, nineteen thirty,
Speaker 3: nineteen forties Mississippi, like what and.
Speaker 2: Vampires, music, music, musical vampiresm.
Speaker 4: Music, dancing. The cinematography was amazing.
Speaker 2: Michael Jordan's movie Michael Not One.
Speaker 4: But Girl I loved.
Speaker 3: I thought it was incredible in terms of artistic and
Speaker 3: creative expression, the interweaving of like the message around the
Speaker 3: music and black culture, and it being taken by not
Speaker 3: coincidentally a white vampire.
Speaker 4: No white white man vampires were.
Speaker 1: Given to him by a by a one movie or line.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was just it was a lot.
Speaker 4: It was a lot of layers.
Speaker 2: I can't like no spoilers, I know, I was okay,
Speaker 2: I'm really excited.
Speaker 1: I'm really hyped up.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, girl, I think you're going to have a time.
Speaker 1: You going with your booth, hag or are you going? No? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: he doesn't live here.
Speaker 4: Oh well, you're gonna love it regardless. It's definitely the
Speaker 4: type of movie where. Actually I was just talking to
Speaker 4: my friend.
Speaker 3: If y'all don't follow him, definitely go ty Alan Jackson
Speaker 3: on and stuff.
Speaker 4: He does children's books for.
Speaker 3: Financial literacy and also just black fiction children's books like
Speaker 3: by comic books.
Speaker 4: Anyway, he's amazing.
Speaker 3: So I was talking to him and he was like,
Speaker 3: I'm going to see it. I went by myself the
Speaker 3: first time. The theater was empty. He sat in the
Speaker 3: theater alone, okay, and then he's like, I'm going back
Speaker 3: again tomorrow to see it again.
Speaker 4: Like I was like, dang, but I see it with people.
Speaker 1: I really do. Yeah, I'm scared to see it by myself.
Speaker 1: But it's not. But it's scary, but I want to.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about it, like I like to
Speaker 1: get in the weeds. I wanted someone to talk about
Speaker 1: it with immediately, and everybody in the theater was just
Speaker 1: like me. We were all shell shocked and we all
Speaker 1: just left. It was silent. It was like a funeral dirge.
Speaker 1: It was weird.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Okay, see that's not how it was.
Speaker 4: But we left the theater.
Speaker 3: Now, granted this is Miami, so like, yeah, the theater
Speaker 3: going is weird depending our neighborhood you go to.
Speaker 4: But it was definitely a buzzing.
Speaker 3: Everybody was talking chatty like when we left, Wow, so
Speaker 3: it was no. I think it's it's different depending on
Speaker 3: the aura, the environment, the vibe of the theater. You
Speaker 3: see it in what's his name? Ty what Alan Jackson?
Speaker 4: He has a kid's book called.
Speaker 3: Uh, Make your Own Money, How Kids can earn and
Speaker 3: spend it entry big. So if you've got a kid
Speaker 3: I love, then he's great make your Own Money. And
Speaker 3: then also he has another kid's book called Danny Dollar.
Speaker 1: I gotta get Rio that. The other day Rio told
Speaker 1: me he wants to He says he wants to be
Speaker 1: a millionaire. I was like, what have they been talking
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 3: After Danny Dollar Danny Dollars Break.
Speaker 4: It's like the Lemonade Escapade.
Speaker 3: It's a little black boy who has a business to
Speaker 3: sell lemonade and then there's drama, but then he gets
Speaker 3: to meet the mayor and he's the goal is to
Speaker 3: be found a millionaire because he wants to own a
Speaker 3: sports team.
Speaker 1: I love that book. It's so good to.
Speaker 3: Read aloud, Like if you have a younger kid that
Speaker 3: you read aloud to them, or if you have like
Speaker 3: a fourth grader and third fourth grader up that they
Speaker 3: can read it on their own.
Speaker 4: It's like a chat to book. But I love love
Speaker 4: love Tie. He's great.
Speaker 1: Oh the book wrecks are hot. Hey, ba Fam, We're
Speaker 1: gonna take a quick break, pay some bills, and we'll
Speaker 1: be right back. All right, ba fam, we're back. So
Speaker 1: news wise, I am like thinking about my buzzworthy topics,
Speaker 1: and the one that BA fam has been dming about
Speaker 1: the most has been like the student loan. Uh, what
Speaker 1: are we calling it? Come to GMSS? Is it a mess?
Speaker 1: So the latest I had seen was that beginning May fifth,
Speaker 1: you're if you have been on default on your loans,
Speaker 1: like it's going to show up on your credit report. Right.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, the chickens have come home to roost. The
Speaker 1: honeymoon is over. And also this just means there's not
Speaker 1: a presidential election close enough for it to sway votes.
Speaker 1: So they're finally okay with like letting it go. Listen,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, we appreciate you, but I know you kept
Speaker 1: it alive. You tried, you did, I mean you did
Speaker 1: it frisbe in five years now since the pandemic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like what do y'all think? I mean, I feel
Speaker 1: like the only thing you can do is go to
Speaker 1: your student loan services website asap and figure out where
Speaker 1: your loan stand find out where they're all at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: with student loan stuff, it's so complex that I always
Speaker 1: try to encourage people to work with a consultant, like
Speaker 1: a student loan planner or something like that, who can
Speaker 1: really dive in, especially if you have a whole lot
Speaker 1: of federal student loans, who can really dive in the
Speaker 1: back end and just like see like what your best
Speaker 1: options are because that I feel like you can get
Speaker 1: caught up in some mess, especially right now.
Speaker 2: But what I'm confused about is what is their Department
Speaker 2: of Education? Still, like, who's Who's like over this?
Speaker 4: Yes, it keeps saying that the partner of Education is
Speaker 4: going to start collection. Starting my fits, I'm like, what
Speaker 4: which department of the ones?
Speaker 2: Not the one that they dismantles, Like, yeah, I can't
Speaker 2: keep up.
Speaker 1: I'm over here. Yeah, I know you have to look
Speaker 1: at the latest. And I was like, I mean I
Speaker 1: feel like I knew what was happening on Friday, but
Speaker 1: now it's been a few days since then, so I
Speaker 1: feel the need to. I think, well, the student loan,
Speaker 1: I mean, the government itself does service some loans. So
Speaker 1: the Department of Education like website, we can post a
Speaker 1: link in the show notes for y'all. Studentad dot gov
Speaker 1: is where you would go to like find out what's
Speaker 1: happening with your federal student loans. But sometimes, like when
Speaker 1: I had student loans, they were serviced by another company,
Speaker 1: So the government would contract with these big loan servicers,
Speaker 1: so I used to have nail Net. Of course, then
Speaker 1: there's like Sally May and not all these big ones,
Speaker 1: so they all service federal student loan debt. And the
Speaker 1: thing is, like, you know how sometimes when you get
Speaker 1: a mortgage, they yeah they sell the debt. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they sell the debt, so it may not be the
Speaker 1: same servicer as you remember. It's just really really important
Speaker 1: no matter. I know. What's confusing, and the unfortunate thing
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't feel like there's a grown up
Speaker 1: at the steering wheel. So we really have to like
Speaker 1: take it on ourselves to go and figure out what
Speaker 1: all we have.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah, there's some good accounts to follow that
Speaker 2: really track it. Like I said, if you just follow
Speaker 2: student loan planner. It's not the stans, just student loan planner.
Speaker 1: And then.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, why am I blanking on the lawyer
Speaker 2: that's also doing student loans? Really tall life skin dude,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tell you a lawyer. Yeah, he's a student
Speaker 2: loan lawyer from he's instilly. The head of the doe
Speaker 2: is the is the wrestling lady.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I can't even right. So the real
Speaker 1: fear among people like ba fam I was just looking
Speaker 1: at the comments is like wage garnishment, which can happen
Speaker 1: if you're severely delinquent. So that means like you're you've
Speaker 1: missed two hundred and seventy days or more of your payments,
Speaker 1: So that's months and months of missing payments, almost a
Speaker 1: full year. So at this point, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: just wage garnishment. It could they can also take money
Speaker 1: from your tax refund yep that you may be owed
Speaker 1: and may not see next come next tax season.
Speaker 2: So social security benefits. We have our our older kings
Speaker 2: and queens.
Speaker 3: Still paying student loans because that's the reality, that's the
Speaker 3: world we live in.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I can say I am very happy to
Speaker 2: have paid them off. At first, I was max. I
Speaker 2: was like, so I had got all these forgiveness programs,
Speaker 2: all of that stuff, And then I'm just like, well,
Speaker 2: I mean like, if they hadn't forgiven them now, I
Speaker 2: would have been in a whole world of hurt. But
Speaker 2: you know, I'm very glad I have no more student
Speaker 2: loans that two hundred and twenty thousand or two hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand that I actually paid off. Congratulations because
Speaker 2: you're so clear and beautiful and you are like, yuh
Speaker 2: name you know how to? I mean like, I don't
Speaker 2: understand how you've lived this many lives and accomplished so much.
Speaker 4: That is wild, girl.
Speaker 1: You deserve that. Retire girl, I bet I.
Speaker 2: Have been moving like I don't think people understand. I'll
Speaker 2: be like, listen, just scirl Instagram. You'll see a whole
Speaker 2: lot of shit you been playing around?
Speaker 1: Nellie? What about you, miss Ivy League? Did you have that?
Speaker 3: I had one small student loan because I did get
Speaker 3: a full ride. I was just that nerdy kid, so
Speaker 3: my scholarship covered all my tuition and stuff. But I
Speaker 3: did have a student loan for my summer study of
Speaker 3: bar program that was.
Speaker 4: Not governed by the scholarship.
Speaker 3: So I did take out a student loan for that,
Speaker 3: but it was a small it was like under seven K.
Speaker 3: So when I graduated, I feel like I was like
Speaker 3: of under student loans. But I did have a bunch
Speaker 3: of credit card debt. That's another story. I did pay
Speaker 3: off the student loans. I do feel like it's really scary,
Speaker 3: Like I have a sister who was dealing with almost
Speaker 3: one hundred thousand dollars of student loan debt, and I
Speaker 3: just feel like we didn't have a lot of guidance
Speaker 3: and she wasn't lucky like me to get the scholarship.
Speaker 3: So it's either especially when you're a really low income kid,
Speaker 3: it's like the low income kids and the high high
Speaker 3: high income earners that kind of cost when it comes
Speaker 3: to college expenses, because like your family either got it.
Speaker 4: They just drop a forty K check.
Speaker 3: And it's fine, or you get a full scholarship because
Speaker 3: your low income and high achieving. But it's the middle income,
Speaker 3: right that just gets screwed end up with stacks and
Speaker 3: stacks on stacks of student loan debt, and it's just
Speaker 3: it's so hard.
Speaker 4: I feel like that's the biggest frustration.
Speaker 3: But my sister was able to get a lot of
Speaker 3: her student loan debt forgiven because she works in higher
Speaker 3: edge so she was able to qualify for the federal
Speaker 3: federal Public Service Loan Forgusness program. But if you don't
Speaker 3: work in public service, obviously that's not an option. And
Speaker 3: there's really not a lot of other types of forgiveness
Speaker 3: out there, like they're not really trying to wipe debt.
Speaker 2: So I do that actually, actually, actually, what I have
Speaker 2: learned is that there are hundreds of long forgiveness programs.
Speaker 2: Public service loan forgiveness is just the biggest one. That's
Speaker 2: why I always defers to like specialists because it's a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff you don't know unless you follow the
Speaker 2: legislation and all of the programs to the t, and
Speaker 2: you know, with other persons with.
Speaker 3: Me with most tax things, that's how it isn't like
Speaker 3: when you look at the exact policies and stuff. But
Speaker 3: I mean, look, it's a it's a good thing that
Speaker 3: so many people got forgiveness because there was a lot
Speaker 3: of a corruption, There was a lot of like lack
Speaker 3: of clarity. There was a lot of fun in just
Speaker 3: things happening with like not being being actually informed about
Speaker 3: interests or how it works, or being told that your
Speaker 3: loan was unsubsidized or subsized when it was unsubsidized. I
Speaker 3: mean there's a lot there were. There was also predatory stuff,
Speaker 3: like people straight up calling my sister her to just
Speaker 3: sign up for defermit, sign up for forbearans, don't worry
Speaker 3: about it, just put it into four burns. Just sign
Speaker 3: up for this. I'll help you do it right now,
Speaker 3: not explaining what does that mean. Because the interest keeps
Speaker 3: a crewing baby every single day. They don't pause the interest,
Speaker 3: so you don't really fully understand. So I do think
Speaker 3: that because of that it was important to do a
Speaker 3: lot of forgiveness. But even still, like I do think
Speaker 3: people are just straight up scared now, and I argue
Speaker 3: in the SEMA like you got to get ahead of
Speaker 3: it because the government can garnish up to fifteen percent
Speaker 3: of your wages.
Speaker 4: They can't.
Speaker 3: They will come for that paycheck, but only right, but
Speaker 3: only if you have not taken any steps to try
Speaker 3: to set up a payment plan or set up something first.
Speaker 4: If you even if you if you do outreach and you.
Speaker 3: Set up something as small as that might be, that
Speaker 3: alone is enough to not put you in the wage
Speaker 3: garnishment category or in any of these other like horrible
Speaker 3: for your credit and things like that, because you're working
Speaker 3: with them. But the problem is so many of us,
Speaker 3: when we have really like a death situation that's really scary,
Speaker 3: we try to do like the Ostrich and like bury
Speaker 3: ourselves up under the sand and just try to like
Speaker 3: avoid their calls, don't reach out to them, try to
Speaker 3: pretend it's not just going to magically go away, Like
Speaker 3: this is one in particular where they're coming down hard
Speaker 3: on it because it's been five years that they haven't
Speaker 3: collected a penny of interest on these loans, and.
Speaker 4: So they're really trying to buck down on it.
Speaker 3: So we just, I just think, just get ahead of it,
Speaker 3: and like Nasima said, if you need help, there are
Speaker 3: certifications and designations specifically for people who are like c SLP,
Speaker 3: which is Certified Student More Professional, not just a rando
Speaker 3: on Instagram, like how can I help you with, you know,
Speaker 3: student Home Professional y'alls.
Speaker 2: And student loan lawyers. The student loan lawyer I was
Speaker 2: thinking about his name is Stanley Tate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Stanley Tait okay mm hmm Yeh's actually helpful if
Speaker 1: you're trying to challenge a wage garnishment, which oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and he has he has done that.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't have student loans removed from your
Speaker 2: your credit and all of that stuff, and it's with you.
Speaker 1: He has taken those.
Speaker 4: They can't.
Speaker 3: They also say that you can't have it written off
Speaker 3: in a bankruptcy.
Speaker 1: Yes, but again, if you have a lord, I'm.
Speaker 4: Working with you.
Speaker 3: There are certain cases of undo hardship that in certain
Speaker 3: cases your situation is so specific to you, don't just
Speaker 3: go on you know, social watch these videos and think
Speaker 3: it applies to you. Your situation is very specific that
Speaker 3: one on one can be really helpful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Studentaid Dot of y'all. That is the Department of
Speaker 1: Education's website. It's just such a you know, it's just
Speaker 1: such bullshit because they wait until the CFPP has been dismantled.
Speaker 1: So that's like the Consumer Protection Bureau, which that protected
Speaker 1: students in the wake of the financial crisis from eight
Speaker 1: who were being taken advantage of left and right by
Speaker 1: these servicers charge fees. You know. Also, you know our
Speaker 1: President Orange himself and his Trump University, you know bs
Speaker 1: that that was also like he was also sued for scamming.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that private school staff. Oh yeah, that for
Speaker 1: profit school.
Speaker 4: Like yeah, all kinds of the history of vier.
Speaker 1: Education being a scam for so many people is there.
Speaker 1: It's a shame. So we have to Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves. And I love that y'all shared some
Speaker 1: additional resources. But the first step is just figuring out
Speaker 1: where your loans stand studenta dot gov and then we'll
Speaker 1: put it. That's where you pull all of that, that's right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And if you don't, if you're like, look, I really
Speaker 3: want to work with somebody one on one and I
Speaker 3: don't have money to hire like a certified person, there
Speaker 3: are some places where you can get free advice for
Speaker 3: your student loans. I know one of them is the
Speaker 3: Institute of Student Loan Advisors, but it makes sure like
Speaker 3: usually it's going to be nonprofit or affiliated with a
Speaker 3: local government agency, because the reality is, I mean, if
Speaker 3: it's not a nonprofit, like, they're gonna have to make
Speaker 3: money somehow from this. So I would say look for
Speaker 3: free advice if you really are in a situation where
Speaker 3: you're like, I can't even pay my loans, how am
Speaker 3: I gonna pay somebody to help me? Not pay my loans.
Speaker 3: I don't have money, So I get that, but don't
Speaker 3: just like quit and give up. Like there's so many
Speaker 3: re resources out there. You just really have to do
Speaker 3: the digging and put in the time.
Speaker 2: And then also I have to say, even if you
Speaker 2: are paying for service, first of all, make sure that
Speaker 2: it's a credible service. But the thing is is that
Speaker 2: you're saying you can't pay your loans. The fees are minimal,
Speaker 2: like a couple hundred dollars. But for example, if I
Speaker 2: would have worked with them before I paid off my
Speaker 2: student loans, it would have saved me eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So I mean, like in the whole scheme of things
Speaker 2: like look at it, oh, really just based on like
Speaker 2: how much interest you paid, just on how I paid
Speaker 2: it off. If I would have strategized it, if I
Speaker 2: would have optimized my strategy, I could have saved eighty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars over the course of the time.
Speaker 1: So that ain't no small change, honey.
Speaker 3: Oh, year's worth the salary for a lot of people
Speaker 3: out there, the salary for a lot of other people out.
Speaker 1: There, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's wild, But yeah, I think I think
Speaker 3: a lot of the confusion right now is also like
Speaker 3: the safe plan, like is it even a thing anymore?
Speaker 1: Like what are the options?
Speaker 4: That's the confusing part.
Speaker 3: So I do think that you can just wrap your
Speaker 3: head around it by going on a studay dot gov.
Speaker 3: Some of it it's not so clear, but you know,
Speaker 3: for the most part, if your income is at a
Speaker 3: position where it's like, okay, first of all, my salary solo,
Speaker 3: my income is solo, Like that's the part that's really hard.
Speaker 3: Then they have the income driven repayment plan, and I
Speaker 3: do feel like for a lot of people that usually
Speaker 3: is going to be.
Speaker 4: A first solid place to start. If you are in
Speaker 4: a situation right now you're like, I don't even know
Speaker 4: how I'm supposed to pay.
Speaker 3: Just start with the day driven repayment plan while you
Speaker 3: start figuring out if there's a better option of a plan,
Speaker 3: because that is directly tied to your income. If you're
Speaker 3: in a low income environment right now, that's going to
Speaker 3: help you at least to make sure it's limited to
Speaker 3: a small percentage of your income, which is already.
Speaker 4: Low as it is.
Speaker 3: So you start there right and then you can kind
Speaker 3: of start getting some clarity and looking for next steps.
Speaker 4: From there on.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's no wonder why HBCUs are having a hard
Speaker 1: time recruiting, especially black men right now. It's a hard
Speaker 1: case to make. I mean, there's definitely still a case
Speaker 1: to be made for why education is crucial, can be
Speaker 1: crucial for your professional journey and to get like you know,
Speaker 1: to get the best access to high paying jobs. But
Speaker 1: it's not the end all be all. I think the
Speaker 1: jig is up, like people are realizing that, but we are,
Speaker 1: Like when you look at the populations that are going
Speaker 1: to be most impacted, like you said, the people caught
Speaker 1: in the middle between the low income and the high
Speaker 1: it's like it's going to be underserved, like minority students.
Speaker 1: So it's more so if you have cousins, you know, siblings,
Speaker 1: younger siblings who are heading into college. Just make sure.
Speaker 1: I wish that I had.
Speaker 2: I got lucky that I was too cheap to pay,
Speaker 2: Like I don't know, my mom told me not to
Speaker 2: like take out student loans for my housing and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, so I only graduated with like eight K
Speaker 2: as well on Elie, But I feel like if I
Speaker 2: had just gotten some counseling even out my own campus
Speaker 2: y before I said yes, and let me re up
Speaker 2: this loan semester for semester. Yeah, I think that, like
Speaker 2: you said, that is so missing, But does it really
Speaker 2: incentive the school to have somebody there to do that.
Speaker 1: That's the whole thing for me.
Speaker 2: What ended up happening was I went to USC was
Speaker 2: private school at that time. You know, I'm old, so
Speaker 2: twenty two years ago, well that was when I graduated,
Speaker 2: so twenty six years ago. It was forty thousand dollars
Speaker 2: a year, and like, they hit me with that bill
Speaker 2: because we fell in that middle that you were talking about,
Speaker 2: Yan Nelly, and my dad was like, I ain't got
Speaker 2: iron the.
Speaker 1: Moss pay this.
Speaker 2: And so I went to the office and I said,
Speaker 2: my daddy said, he's not paying for it, and they
Speaker 2: was like, I said, to tell you, and they said, okay,
Speaker 2: we'll just give you a grant. So I graduated from
Speaker 2: six years at USC undergrad grad school with only forty
Speaker 2: thousand dollars a debt considering because.
Speaker 4: School right that was nursing school or nursing school.
Speaker 1: Nursing school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so after that at the state school, by the gotcha.
Speaker 4: But a lot of people take that on per year.
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
Speaker 4: At that total.
Speaker 3: But you make a good point. You make a really
Speaker 3: good point, Mandy about HBCU struggling. Right now, my sister
Speaker 3: fell out with my sister who is the VP of
Speaker 3: data analytics at Howard University.
Speaker 4: That's right, My sister is doing the damn thing though
Speaker 4: she's about that year mark, kiddos, you know.
Speaker 1: We work hard.
Speaker 3: But so my sister actually recently told me that a
Speaker 3: lot of the data shows and it's not like this
Speaker 3: is some internal thing, like it's very public data that
Speaker 3: the challenge is financial for most students that go to Howard.
Speaker 3: And what you see is that four years. They call
Speaker 3: it a four year degree because most people do a
Speaker 3: bachelor in four years, but a lot of students at
Speaker 3: Howard take five or six years to do that four
Speaker 3: year degree because the finances because personally they end up
Speaker 3: getting like they can't so they pause and they come
Speaker 3: back and they have to extend. So it takes much
Speaker 3: longer because of the finances.
Speaker 4: And that's I think.
Speaker 3: Is a huge piece of this puzzle that even though
Speaker 3: you could you could do all the wiping and forgiveness
Speaker 3: that you want on all the student loans that exist.
Speaker 3: But moving forward though, like what is happening to these
Speaker 3: droves and droves of incoming students that it's not being addressed.
Speaker 3: It's like, Okay, well, we're gonna fix this problem over here,
Speaker 3: but we're not gonna get to the root of it
Speaker 3: when we keep bringing new students into a system that
Speaker 3: is burdening them with that in the first place.
Speaker 1: Hey, ba, fam, We're gonna take a quick break, pay
Speaker 1: some bills, and we'll be right back. Welcome back, bea fam.
Speaker 1: Let's get back to the show. And then they're under
Speaker 1: attack by their own by their own government at the same.
Speaker 4: Time, at the exact same time.
Speaker 1: Let's not have a psychotic spiral, because it's all happening
Speaker 1: all at once. That's the whole thing. It's all happening
Speaker 1: all at once. How are y' all coping it is?
Speaker 1: We're heading into mental health months? This is That's it.
Speaker 2: Like the only thing I'm like looking for or too,
Speaker 2: is like being able to escape the rat race and
Speaker 2: what that looks like for me, Like that's the only
Speaker 2: thing holding me together right now.
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna lie And you're gonna take charge of
Speaker 1: your kids education?
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, So when I did teach for America, they
Speaker 5: taught us in this like super speedy like training program
Speaker 5: they call Institute Summer Institute training.
Speaker 4: So you basically if you do teach for America, you
Speaker 4: don't get the four years to study education.
Speaker 3: Most people just come in and do two years of teaching,
Speaker 3: but they have to give you like a master's in
Speaker 3: education in like four weeks over the summer and then
Speaker 3: you're in the classroom.
Speaker 4: So I know, the really fast like program.
Speaker 3: But one of the biggest things that I got from
Speaker 3: that training program was it's not just apply. It doesn't
Speaker 3: just apply to teaching, But it was this idea that
Speaker 3: as a teacher, there is so much going on because
Speaker 3: you're in a school building that's part of a larger
Speaker 3: school district of many different schools, that's part of a
Speaker 3: much larger state with lots of schools, much larger national
Speaker 3: education system.
Speaker 4: But you're in your classroom. And so what you can
Speaker 4: focus on, which you.
Speaker 3: Should allow yourself to really put energy towards, is what's
Speaker 3: in your locus of control. Anything that is not within
Speaker 3: your locus of control, it is literally pointless, a waste
Speaker 3: of your time, energy resources, mental energy, Like it is
Speaker 3: a waste to even consider it because it's not in
Speaker 3: your locus of control at.
Speaker 1: All, locus. I like that, you know what I.
Speaker 3: Talk with you about, the locus of control thing, because Nasima,
Speaker 3: that's what you're saying.
Speaker 4: Like, like, what is in my logos of control?
Speaker 3: What I do with my time, what I do with
Speaker 3: my income, with my savings, with my network, what I
Speaker 3: do with my daughters in my home and for me,
Speaker 3: it looks similar in Miami, like I don't have kids
Speaker 3: and all that, but I've been spending a lot more
Speaker 3: time with my friends.
Speaker 4: My friend groups are mostly.
Speaker 3: All people of color, all a lot of them are
Speaker 3: LGBTQ I A plus like we it's a pretty diverse mix,
Speaker 3: especially for living in Miami. In Florida, it's rough out here,
Speaker 3: so we have to find each other. We've been doing
Speaker 3: like brunches at each other's places, getting together to do workouts.
Speaker 4: I just did yoga with to with my girls the
Speaker 4: other day, Like we have to.
Speaker 3: I just have to lean on my people because that
Speaker 3: way it reminds me like even though the new cycles crazy,
Speaker 3: even though a lot of these people around us do
Speaker 3: have backwards thought processes and beliefs, but like we got
Speaker 3: each other, and we all we got and we're here,
Speaker 3: like let's lean on that because it's gonna get us
Speaker 3: through these couple of years. Is as wild a is
Speaker 3: it gonna get like your people are all you got,
Speaker 3: And like, for me, I've been doubling down on that
Speaker 3: and just like helping us as I can with what
Speaker 3: I can offer them, which is like, hey, let's sit
Speaker 3: down and help you with your finances.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: I just had a call the other day with one
Speaker 3: of my friends who's like, I'm doing a gig through
Speaker 3: my consulting business with Google. They're gonna pay me six
Speaker 3: figures to do this mentorship program with a lot of
Speaker 3: students doing this Google coming into Google, and I don't
Speaker 3: know what to do with the money.
Speaker 4: I was like, gir, I got you. We're gonna speak
Speaker 4: and I was zom for an hour talk about all.
Speaker 3: Like let's just be there for each other and hold
Speaker 3: each other down, because that's to me always the best
Speaker 3: thing I can do.
Speaker 4: That is in my locus of contry.
Speaker 1: I love it, maloucas my area of control. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, not not my entire computer off my hodgepodge
Speaker 1: of books that they're standing on, you know. I was.
Speaker 1: I was talking to Tiffany recently, Yes, my Tiffany are Tiffany,
Speaker 1: And she was like, I think we're one of us
Speaker 1: was having an off day and I was like, if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for my kids, I think they are like
Speaker 1: a meditation in and of themselves because they forced you
Speaker 1: to just if you do it right, just like focus
Speaker 1: on whatever they're focused on. So that helps. Is like
Speaker 1: actually being on the floor playing for me. But to
Speaker 1: your point you Ellie about community. Oh, one of the
Speaker 1: interviews that I'm really excited about I have Nicky No
Speaker 1: Mickey Kendall, the author of Hood Feminism, which came out
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. It's a great book if you guys
Speaker 1: haven't read it. She's working on a new book that's
Speaker 1: incredibly depressing. We're talking about it and it's like no, no,
Speaker 1: even She's like, I don't know how to find uplifting
Speaker 1: part at the end I thought I would come to
Speaker 1: it's all very dystopian, but it's basically about how the
Speaker 1: American dream is gone. Uh it was a lie, which
Speaker 1: we all know. But towards the end of our conversation,
Speaker 1: she was I was. I asked her. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: what do you think is the answer? Like, how do
Speaker 1: we get through this if you she's predicting civil war
Speaker 1: and all these things. Uh. And she said it's community.
Speaker 1: And she came up with an example of like even
Speaker 1: in like it's going to be hyper local, Who were
Speaker 1: the people in your neighborhood? How are y'all bartering and
Speaker 1: trading skills and you know sharing resources? Who has you know,
Speaker 1: who has something to offer other people? And what can
Speaker 1: you share amongst each other? And by the time I
Speaker 1: was done talking to her, I had a group chat
Speaker 1: going with my two neighbors who like me, attempt to
Speaker 1: garden each year.
Speaker 4: And have varying results at gardening day.
Speaker 1: I was like, no, we're gonna well, since then it's escalated,
Speaker 1: I went and I got. I passed by this restaurant
Speaker 1: all the time where they've they've shut down, and fortunately
Speaker 1: it was a great restaurant. But they have all these
Speaker 1: beautiful like these these big like cedar planting beds, like
Speaker 1: raised garden beds in the front of their restaurant, and
Speaker 1: they're just empty. And I happen to know someone who
Speaker 1: had the email for the owner. Long story short, He's like,
Speaker 1: I'll donate three of our these giant planter beds to you,
Speaker 1: and this community garden project, which at that point was
Speaker 1: a text that I started with my friends. So now
Speaker 1: I have a community garden. And now we've chosen like
Speaker 1: my neighbor who's across the way from me, she's gonna
Speaker 1: put it in her yard. She gets the best light,
Speaker 1: and then we can all access it and we're just
Speaker 1: gonna start planting. We're each gonna like take a couple
Speaker 1: of crops. Yet I've got tomatoes and some herbs, and
Speaker 1: then my other neighbor's doing corn and eggplant. Like we're
Speaker 1: trying to spread it so that we're not all trying
Speaker 1: to grow, Like I'm trying to grow all these things
Speaker 1: and I'm failing at it because I can't keep track.
Speaker 1: And now we can like tend to the garden together,
Speaker 1: and we've got co parents for our plant babies, so
Speaker 1: like if one of us is vacation, the other one
Speaker 1: can show up and like water them or whatever the
Speaker 1: hell you got to do to plans. I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pick off the big caterpillars that try to eat them.
Speaker 3: I love that we need that, and we need that
Speaker 3: that model, Mandy, I feel like that model applies to
Speaker 3: so many other contexts.
Speaker 4: Like I just heard.
Speaker 3: I was watching Instagram content from Delina Meddin. She's a
Speaker 3: good friend of mine. She's also a celebrity makeup artist,
Speaker 3: and she was talking about how within her space, like
Speaker 3: beauty and makeup in that industry the hardest thing about
Speaker 3: trying to tell people to do community and like small
Speaker 3: businesses and like black owned women brands and Latina on
Speaker 3: women brands, Like it's hard because of shipping. The shipping
Speaker 3: and handling is like the most expensive part. Like you
Speaker 3: might order a mescarra that costs her twenty thirty bucks,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, the shipping is like seven dollars,
Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, a third of the price
Speaker 3: is gone to shipping, and you're like, nah, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: just get this on ambagon Amazon. That's so it's so
Speaker 3: hard to like leave. But her message, which I loved,
Speaker 3: I saved her real about this because I was like
Speaker 3: I got to come back to this was like we
Speaker 3: didn't get in our group chat. All the girls we
Speaker 3: all buying the same as Cat, We all buying this,
Speaker 3: you know, buttery skin whatever, were all doing it, So
Speaker 3: why don't we all get in here and go like
Speaker 3: all right, I'm gonna place the order. What do y'all need?
Speaker 4: Well, I'll get it all. We split you all paid.
Speaker 3: We're paid out just like a dinner or a bunch
Speaker 3: of a birthday event. And then we split the shipping
Speaker 3: and handling so it's a couple bucks each instead of
Speaker 3: each one of us placing a separate order. And then
Speaker 3: we can actually use Amazon less or have the goal
Speaker 3: aspiration within sight to eventually not use it. And I
Speaker 3: just thought that was so powerful because, like you said, Mandy,
Speaker 3: like you so simple, It seems so simple, right, it's just.
Speaker 1: It, that's other people for help.
Speaker 3: Yes, And we all already doing a lot of this
Speaker 3: stuff anyway. We just got to like unsilo the way
Speaker 3: we do so we all doing stuff in silos like
Speaker 3: why why?
Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly what I was about to say, Like
Speaker 2: then we have to kind of question, like when did
Speaker 2: we give from this community model that we all have
Speaker 2: used to know into like these hyper independent like structures
Speaker 2: where it's just like you and maybe one other person
Speaker 2: or you by yourself.
Speaker 1: Especially for black.
Speaker 2: Women, I don't know, like that's been shoved down our throat,
Speaker 2: like independent women, you can do it yourself, you don't
Speaker 2: need nobody. All that kind of stuff like where did
Speaker 2: this hyperindependence come from? When we know like everything has
Speaker 2: traditionally been rooted in that village structure, in that family
Speaker 2: and community structure. It's almost like it's intentional. Oh, it's
Speaker 2: quite lucrative for companies if we're all buying one of everything.
Speaker 3: Right well, and politically, yeah, when we think about what's
Speaker 3: going on with politics right now, the world, the way
Speaker 3: things are moving, it sounds a lot like what's in
Speaker 3: alignment to these ideas of like self sufficient, yourself, up
Speaker 3: for yourself, do for your own, worry about yourself, and
Speaker 3: it's like.
Speaker 1: There's not enough for us all. We must all protect
Speaker 1: our own.
Speaker 3: Yes, you're off it, because then it affects your mindset
Speaker 3: and roots into thinking that like.
Speaker 1: We're coming for yours. It's only yours, and they're coming
Speaker 1: to take it, and.
Speaker 3: I can't be thinking about nobody else. And it's like wait,
Speaker 3: if we actually take a step back and like reflect
Speaker 3: on the bigger picture, the only way is to do
Speaker 3: that super hyper local, community driven stuff, because at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, when you do find yourself completely
Speaker 3: in a siloed doing things for yourself by yourself, that's
Speaker 3: where the frustration sets in that's when you don't see
Speaker 3: yourself making any progress.
Speaker 4: That's when you start to get negative and that negativity festers.
Speaker 3: It's like, nah, that's not that's not what brings It
Speaker 3: is not what brings peace. That's not good for your
Speaker 3: nervous system. Like that's not what Like that's why we
Speaker 3: have so much anxiety.
Speaker 1: Honestly.
Speaker 3: So I just I feel like I am with you
Speaker 3: on this, Mandy, if I want that model to like
Speaker 3: apply to all other aspects, all these other aspects of
Speaker 3: our life, to our finances, what the stuff we shop for,
Speaker 3: get groceries, like all this stuff, because I'm like, one
Speaker 3: of the biggest things I've been trying to do.
Speaker 4: Is reduce the plastic that I use.
Speaker 3: And it's so hard because every time I go to
Speaker 3: a supermarket, everything's in plastic, little kate little plastic things.
Speaker 3: Everything's bagged up, individual rat plastic, and I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 1: Gosh, it's hell about it. Europe too. I didn't realize.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize.
Speaker 2: Like even when I go to the grocery store, when
Speaker 2: I get produced, like you know, people put everything in
Speaker 2: a little back. I don't do that, Like I just
Speaker 2: group everything together and then I have a bad one.
Speaker 2: But everything in Europe is like package like that. But
Speaker 2: I don't know if you guys know, but there are
Speaker 2: these like like fire communities. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: guys follow, you know, the campi Fi Steven Bauer like
Speaker 2: he has created like these communities in like the Florida
Speaker 2: and Georgia areas where it's supposed to be a collective community.
Speaker 2: So you know, there's one community lawnmower, there's a community
Speaker 2: center that everybody goes to and shares everything and cooks
Speaker 2: mills together, you know, co opting parenting situations, co opting education,
Speaker 2: like all of these stuff. So these houses are built
Speaker 2: in a subdivision or they bought like a block, right,
Speaker 2: but everybody in there has this like covenant that this
Speaker 2: is a community and this is how and we are
Speaker 2: sharing in all of these resources. And it's very financially intentional,
Speaker 2: very community minded. It's not very diverse right now.
Speaker 1: But but it can be.
Speaker 6: It can be so, but it's just because we don't
Speaker 6: know what we don't know, right and so a lot
Speaker 6: of this stuff has been happening in other communities for
Speaker 6: a long long time, but unfortunately we haven't had access
Speaker 6: to that information.
Speaker 1: So you know, that's why our platforms exist. I can
Speaker 1: already hear people who are thinking, I've tried, but I
Speaker 1: don't have that kind of neighborhood. I don't have those
Speaker 1: kind of neighbors. What would y'all say to that, that
Speaker 1: fear or that.
Speaker 2: I guess always we always, you know, we're experts at
Speaker 2: the naysayers and the and the doubters and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. I think it comes with the territory,
Speaker 2: But I think it's it's about exposure, right. The more
Speaker 2: you see something normalized by people who look like you
Speaker 2: or have shared experiences as you, the more you know
Speaker 2: it's possible. So we just got to keep on leaning
Speaker 2: into these messages and keep on sharing, like we share.
Speaker 1: So that people know that they can do that.
Speaker 2: And I always share my story to the fullest, Like
Speaker 2: you can hear about my divorce, my bankruptcies, my foreclosures,
Speaker 2: my failures, my domestic violence, like all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: and say like if she could do and shit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know the body that you didn't promote because it
Speaker 1: was so traumatic. See, it doesn't have all of that
Speaker 1: stuff in there, so you.
Speaker 2: Know, oh wait, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna write that
Speaker 2: book you Gotta bring Coffy reds Foot Feminism by Niki Kind.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, I'm gonna. Oh, I think you'd
Speaker 1: like it a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so important because it does address all like it's
Speaker 3: a disc service to only post what you've accomplished and
Speaker 3: not all the adversity that you had to overcome to
Speaker 3: be to be a success.
Speaker 4: Story, because at the end of the day, it makes
Speaker 4: everybody think, oh, Okay, here's a goodie, go to app
Speaker 4: No it's not.
Speaker 3: It's not that, And that's the only way to actually
Speaker 3: do it in a way that serves everybody who watches
Speaker 3: your content to know the real deal, to know what
Speaker 3: actually happened and the whole picture, not.
Speaker 4: Just the social media pretty parts, right, because that's that's important.
Speaker 3: But I really, honestly, I do feel like if you
Speaker 3: live in an area that's not really like, that's not
Speaker 3: designed like that, just go a little bit further out,
Speaker 3: like it's for example, in Brooklyn, like where I grew up. Honestly,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie in Bushwick. It probably wouldn't have
Speaker 3: worked necessarily unless it was a very specific group of
Speaker 3: like families, because once I started growing up Bushwick started
Speaker 3: changing so much and gentrification hit hard. So I would
Speaker 3: see people and then like a couple months later, they
Speaker 3: wouldn't live there anymore.
Speaker 4: I'd be like, wait, what's going on? All they sold?
Speaker 4: They left? Oh there's you know this new business took over.
Speaker 3: The bodega is now a bakery. And it's like it
Speaker 3: would change so fast it was hard to get a
Speaker 3: sense of like that community. I still feel like if
Speaker 3: you go a little bit further out, like five Boroughs.
Speaker 3: While it's a little far to go from Brooklyn to
Speaker 3: the Bronx or whatever, even that is enough to find
Speaker 3: people that are serious about Like if it's a Facebook
Speaker 3: group for like the Five Boroughs no spend, like you know,
Speaker 3: no trying to like do no spend where like oh,
Speaker 3: you know, we have this uh stroller, our babies doesn't
Speaker 3: need it anymore instead of like you know, putting it,
Speaker 3: throwing it outside or putting it in the garage.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, the buy the buy nothing groups, that's huge.
Speaker 4: Way.
Speaker 3: My brother's wife, my sister in law, she recently joined
Speaker 3: the buy nothing group for the Five Boroughs and she's like,
Speaker 3: you don't understand, this is amazing. Little things, little things
Speaker 3: like a little toy that she saw on there. There
Speaker 3: was like anybody who can come by and pick it
Speaker 3: up is yours.
Speaker 2: I just got bikes, I've gotten everything, bikes, strollers, and
Speaker 2: I've given away the same thing, like and then you
Speaker 2: I find somebody that like pass down my kids clothes
Speaker 2: to like that means everything versus.
Speaker 1: Like giving stuff to the good will, Like.
Speaker 4: Right, it's a girl.
Speaker 3: A lot of my sisters, they all of my sisters
Speaker 3: have children except for me, every single one of them.
Speaker 3: When they've gone through the process, they will bag up
Speaker 3: all the clothes from their youngest and pass it down
Speaker 3: to the next sister who just had a baby, so
Speaker 3: that there's not this constant we have to go out
Speaker 3: and buy a whole bunch of new stuff for this baby,
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of It's been a lot of hand
Speaker 3: me down stuff. And I feel like there's sometimes when
Speaker 3: I'm in certain certain environments, bougier kind of groups, there's
Speaker 3: this ick, like it gives them this ick to think like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: I'm buying my my stuff new. I don't know, child,
Speaker 3: that's what they want you.
Speaker 2: To wash your machines, Like those clothes are probably cleaning
Speaker 2: and the clothes you're getting off the rack, honey.
Speaker 3: But that's also how they want us to think, because
Speaker 3: that way, the more Amazon prevails, the more the more new,
Speaker 3: brand new new stuff, and it's so bad for us
Speaker 3: in so many ways.
Speaker 4: So I just feel like the more we.
Speaker 3: Can go in the opposite direction, the better it is
Speaker 3: for us in all these aspects of our lives that
Speaker 3: we're talking about, right, like the environment, your finances, your
Speaker 3: mental health, your feeling of connectedness to your community.
Speaker 4: There's so many things. Just that small interaction.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: My sister in law was telling me she left school
Speaker 3: and she routed her drive back home to stop along
Speaker 3: the way at the house of this woman and the
Speaker 3: buy nothing group where she could pick up the little
Speaker 3: toy for the baby. And when she stopped by, she
Speaker 3: had a quick, just a ten minute chat with this woman.
Speaker 3: They had a cute little conversation. She got the toy,
Speaker 3: she was like, thank you so much, and that little thing,
Speaker 3: just like that little interaction that normally wouldn't happen, she
Speaker 3: would just go straight home, right, It just uplifted her spirit.
Speaker 3: That day was so much better. She made a connection.
Speaker 3: She met this woman. She stopped on a different route
Speaker 3: on the way home, like These are the tiny little
Speaker 3: things throughout life that cause life can just get so grueling.
Speaker 4: It's like day in and day out them and not
Speaker 4: any of it. Oh and then we get so unhappy.
Speaker 3: And these tiny little things to change up your day
Speaker 3: can make a big difference on how your mindset, like
Speaker 3: how you start to feel, how you think, and it's
Speaker 3: all up here of course, but just even just that joy, bro,
Speaker 3: we need a little bit of that joy back in
Speaker 3: our lives.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Amen. Well, I think that's a wonderful message
Speaker 1: for be a fan. Like I want to hear about
Speaker 1: your community gardens. I mean, like also your struggle gardens,
Speaker 1: because I think the real real like me, And what
Speaker 1: no I spoke about with Mickey was like how people
Speaker 1: want perfection in their communities, like even you, you know,
Speaker 1: put the asterisk with the campfire, dude, and like you
Speaker 1: know it not being diverse listen, like it's going to
Speaker 1: be imperfection everywhere while we try to figure it out.
Speaker 1: And you know, I think conflict is gonna come with
Speaker 1: I think, you know, interpersonal conflict, Like we're all gonna
Speaker 1: get the more we lean into community, the more we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to anticipate there's gonna be conflict. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get through things together and learn how to.
Speaker 1: And I think that that friction is what people have become.
Speaker 1: It's not even about like the money sometimes or you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I don't want it to deal with people.
Speaker 1: I don't want to and like what if people are
Speaker 1: like what if they are inconvenient to me? But I
Speaker 1: think that's a muscle that we need to be working
Speaker 1: like that is what community is putting yourself maybe a
Speaker 1: little bit out of your way or out of you know,
Speaker 1: doing something inconvenient for the good of the community. And
Speaker 1: that's like a mentality anti consumerism to me that I'm
Speaker 1: excited to like model for my kids and for myself.
Speaker 1: And I'll keep you out posted on the garden and
Speaker 1: we'll let you know how it goes. If you'll be
Speaker 1: like we're fighting over the tomato hall, like who knows right?
Speaker 1: If well Kanie messes up the corn, we're all gonna
Speaker 1: like ouster, I'm getting it'll be fine.
Speaker 3: But they use the model too, because like I do
Speaker 3: feel like we have the model interacting with other humans
Speaker 3: that we don't you know, like yeah, kids nowadays is
Speaker 3: so stuck to the iPad. It will stuck to the phones.
Speaker 1: Like they don't know how to interact out.
Speaker 4: And interact with other people. Your child will see you
Speaker 4: doing that.
Speaker 2: All this is I ill myself to interact for twelve
Speaker 2: hours in the car.
Speaker 1: I admire you. I'm gonna clap let's clap it up
Speaker 1: for that girl. It was a tour de force. But
Speaker 1: by the end of it, my little five year old
Speaker 1: he was reading books by himself and continuing that, like,
Speaker 1: it really does make all the difference. It's so goddamn hard.
Speaker 1: But I also feel like, well, I didn't have these kids,
Speaker 1: so it's up to me.
Speaker 3: But also you didn't have I've had when you were
Speaker 3: five years old in the car with mom and dad.
Speaker 1: Like I used to spend a lot of time with them,
Speaker 1: Giga pets, though they only did like three things what
Speaker 1: I could think. They got the Pokemon game Boy. I'm
Speaker 1: like that had like one level. But I was sad.
Speaker 3: But we got to go back to all that. Listen,
Speaker 3: the simplicity of it having in the car, having books car.
Speaker 4: We can do it, y'all, we can can't.
Speaker 1: We can do it, but you know, for the emergency
Speaker 1: times you keep those headphones in the ema and you
Speaker 1: keep them ready for the car in the car all rights.
Speaker 1: Thank y'all so much for joining me on the brown
Speaker 1: table today. Thanks for getting me out of my book cave.
Speaker 1: I'm about to go back in it.
Speaker 2: The clock is ticking, so I got to pick up
Speaker 2: those children. This girl's two forty.
Speaker 1: I gotta have the rest of the manuscript done in
Speaker 1: two point one hour or so. Oh, let's go. You
Speaker 1: got this, you got it. I'll eat later, all right,
Speaker 1: ba fam. Until next time, please stay tuned for all
Speaker 1: the fun content that I'm planning for mental health May
Speaker 1: and yeah, just thank y'all. Where can they find y'all?
Speaker 1: Y'a Ellie and Nsima? Where are you at?
Speaker 4: I'm helpful?
Speaker 3: Am I sspe helpful? And you can get a both
Speaker 3: mind your money book dot com?
Speaker 2: Yay, yes, and I am at financially intentional. We'lltly on Instagram,
Speaker 2: but look up Nesima, google me, you'll find me.
Speaker 1: You have a future. I feel like and like like
Speaker 1: voiceover work. I feel like you.
Speaker 3: That's that's good, that's so true.
Speaker 4: You have.
Speaker 1: AI now like close my eyes because it's twelve different people.
Speaker 2: You could Trindy Garden, Inky Garden all right, you go
Speaker 2: have the good time that sinners.
Speaker 1: I want to know what happened. I want to know
Speaker 1: how you like it? Oh, yes, for sure? All right
Speaker 1: bye everybody, Okay va fam, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: listening to this week's show. I want to shout out
Speaker 1: to our production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless
Speaker 1: leader for idea to launch productions. I want to shout
Speaker 1: out my assistant Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping
Speaker 1: me put the show together. It is not a one
Speaker 1: person project, as much as I have tried to make
Speaker 1: it so these past ten years. I need help, y'all,
Speaker 1: and thank goodness I've been able to put this team
Speaker 1: around me to support me on this journey and to
Speaker 1: y'all be a fam. I love you so so so
Speaker 1: so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, make sure you're sign
Speaker 1: up to newsletter to get all the latest updates on
Speaker 1: upcoming episodes, our tenth year anniversary celebrations to come, and
Speaker 1: until next time, talk to you soon. Ba bye