132 | Examples of What’s Possible

One of my favorite ways to motivate myself when working on a goal is to look at examples of other people who have done what I want to do.

Because someone else has done the thing, I know it’s possible for me, too.

We often want to pick out all the parts of other people’s situations that are different from our own and point to those as reasons why they can achieve the thing and we can’t.

But there’s magic in being able to direct yourself to finding the pieces of other people’s stories that are similar to yours and drawing inspiration from those pieces.

In this episode, let’s talk about using other people’s achievements to motivate yourself and look at the things some of my clients have been able to accomplish.

• my experience with using blog posts and stories of other people paying off their debt as motivation during my debt journey
• my client Liz’s experience with simplifying her finances and feeling a sense of relief
• my client Kenny’s experience with reining in his credit card spending, getting control of his finances, and feeling a weight lifted
• my client Toni-Ann’s experience with paying off debt and building her confidence in her ability to manage her money
• my client Alex’s experience with paying off debt, saving money, achieving milestone life goals, and focusing on his priorities

Episode 127: How Liz Simplified Her Finances and Created Peace of Mind

Episode 108: How Kenny Got Out of the Credit Card Debt Cycle

Episode 89: Paying Off $20,000 of Debt in Six Months with Toni-Ann Mayembe

Episode 97: How Alex Transformed His Life and Finances in Less Than a Year

If you’re ready to learn the mindset and strategies to master your money, let’s schedule a call.

You’re listening to Wealthyesque. We are a community of lawyers who believe that true wealth is having control of our time. I’m Rho Thomas, and as a busy wife, mom and former Biglaw associate, I know all too well the tension between the culture of the legal profession and pretty much everything else you want to do in life. That’s why each week, I’m bringing you the information and tools you need to improve your money mindset and manage your money to create true wealth. Because ultimately, it’s not about the money. It’s about the freedom and flexibility the money affords.

Hey friend. Welcome back to the show. I hope you’re doing well and having an amazing day so far. So today, I have a special episode planned for you. We are talking about using other people’s stories to motivate you in your journey. And I have compiled some of my clients stories. So you can just get all the motivation and inspiration as you head into the new year. So make sure you stay tuned for those. But I was looking through some old notes in my notes app. And I came across a note from when my husband and I were in the thick of paying off our debt, where I used to save links to inspiring stories and blog posts about people paying off their debt and building wealth and achieving financial independence. And as I was looking at them, I noticed how different so many of those stories were from my own. In some cases, the amount of debt that they had was many times less than what we had, or they didn’t have any kids or there was some other circumstance that might have made things quote easier for them than it was for us. But remember, and we’ve talked about this before, you can always find pieces of other people’s stories that you can use for yourself, even if they don’t have the exact same circumstances as you. So even though they weren’t in my exact same position, I looked at what they did as an example of what was possible for me. I believe that if they could do it, I could too, especially because many of them also didn’t make as much as I did. So if they were able to accomplish the things they did paying off debt, building wealth, achieving financial independence on say, half my income, I knew I could definitely figure out how to do it to Lucky for you, I work with lawyers and sometimes similar professionals. So it’s even easier for you to see yourself in their examples. My clients are in all different settings within the legal profession and all different stages of life from single to married, with kids just about to start their families, and in big law to mid law to in house. And as I said earlier, this episode is going to be all about their stories, you’ll get to hear from some of my actual clients. You’ve heard them before on some previous episodes, and I thought it would be really impactful for you to hear them share about what they’ve accomplished all in one place. So you can come back to this episode as often as you need to, to remind yourself of what’s possible for you if you just keep going with this work. And if you want to hear their full episodes, I will link them in the show notes for this episode, which you can find at rho thomas.com/ 132. As you listen to the stories, I want you to look at them as examples of what’s possible for you, I want you to imagine being in their position having achieved the same things they did, feeling the way they feel now about their money. What would change for you in your life, if you paid off that much debt or save that much or felt that way about your money? Remember, they are no different from you. If they can do it, you can too. So let’s get into the stories from some of my amazing clients. And let’s show your brain what’s possible for you.

Liz
I would say that my finances are far more simple and more approachable than they were when we first started working together. I had like I think I mentioned quite a few tracking mechanisms around my money. But the data I was getting from that wasn’t useful. So I would track how much I spent across each of my credit cards or from each account every month. But because I didn’t know what those for the most part, I didn’t know what exactly those numbers represented how much of X category, it couldn’t help me make different decisions or change my behavior. And the longer that you do something, especially something complicated, that doesn’t appear to have a benefit to you, the less likely you are to do it. You have always said to me, the more simple and approachable your finances are, the more likely you are to stick with whatever system you’re using and to make it work for you. That’s absolutely been the case for me. I have consolidated my spending in ways that are easier to track, I have changed how I spend, and on what mechanism to make that easier. And now I not only know it’s easy to track, it’s easy to know where my money is going. But it’s easy for me to set goals and particularly goals around my behavior. Because of that simplicity that I just wasn’t able to do previously.

The simplicity doesn’t come just from the system that you use to track your money. There are ways to spend money simpler, one thing that we worked on for me was, I was spending my two primary means of spending across a variety of categories were a credit card, and from my debit account, and the result of doing that, for me, it’s perfectly fine to spend to assign jobs to different means of your money means to get to your money. But for me, it was usually resulting in my overspending. And I would stand at the register, I think all of us have done like, should I put this on this card? Should I put this on this debit card? Should I put this on this? And you very gently suggested like, Well, why don’t? Why don’t you just put everything you can on the credit card, and then you’ll pay that off every month, which I was already doing. And it’s easier to track that. But it’s also it removes that moment of friction standing at the register, and saying, Okay, what do I do now, and almost sort of tricking myself into thinking that I’m not spending as much money as I thought because I only spend X on a credit card and only spend X on this debit card, and whatever. So that simplicity trickles in to other places and can can be very powerful in other ways. I can’t tell you like the weight, it relieves the time you don’t spend thinking about that dealing with it concerned over it. That’s very valuable to me.

Kenny
I definitely have seen a lot of progress. As I mentioned, I’m checking my finances on a weekly basis, which is something I didn’t do before consistently at all. So that’s been super helpful. I’m still using your your monthly budgeting sheet to keep track of all my expenses throughout the month. That’s been super helpful as well. And I’d say overall, it just kind of speaks to just like this awareness of my money that I didn’t have before. And I remember a few times before we met, when I was using that Amex, there are times in which I would get my work paycheck. And that work paycheck will be less than the balance of what’s on my Amex. So I have an old Amex money each time I got my paycheck. And that was sort of frustrating. It’s like I’m making a good amount of money, don’t have any dependents. And this shouldn’t be I shouldn’t be stressed, like financially, just based on you know how my life is. And finally getting that under control was was really big. Because I’m at the point now where that that Amex balance is consistently beneath the paychecks I get from my job. And that’s been a really eye opening experience. I’m still, as I mentioned, so dining, treating myself here and there. And I’m hitting my goals, and I have money in my account, which is really awesome.

I’m feeling really good. I think I didn’t realize this. But before we started working together, I had this kind of like this weight or pressure I felt on myself. And I think a lot of it had to do with me not knowing where my finances were, and just getting a bit more control on them. And understanding that I make more enough money to hit my goals and to save things has been immensely helpful. And I just feel relieved, overall, I’m not just stressed about, you know, a big purchase comes up, I know I can cover the bill, and I’ll have some money that I’ll save it next month are already having savings to help me offset that expense or that change. So just overall, I’m thinking about money weekly to make sure I’m keeping track of things. But it’s actually not a burden at all. And it feels like because I’m doing that tracking, I have much more freedom over how I can spend.

Toni-Ann
Really, I had a ton of credit card debt because I went through a period where I pretty much was living off my credit cards, someone just be real with you. And accumulated Ooh, gosh, it was like 20, almost $30,000 in credit cards. And I just in my mind, I was thinking I was like I can’t pay all that off. And then on top of that had all these student loans and I just remember coming to row thinking like, this number is so big, like I literally would just like have panic attacks like just thinking about it. I’m like, I can’t do it. I can’t do it. So what I would do is I would just like ignore it and pretend like it doesn’t exist and my rich uncle is gonna come and give me an inheritance and it’s all gonna go away but it never happened. So finally I get to a point where I was like, I have to deal with this like I have to it. That is when you and I started working together and I got some clarity.

I got a card that said congratulations. Your loan is now paid off my husband saw and he was like, What’s this? And I’m like, oh, yeah, I was just like, paid off some stuff. And he was like, oh, and I could just see him be like, okay, like, you got it. And then yeah, another letter come in when I am. Because I think I was telling you like, I didn’t want to look at my student loan balances, because I was like, Oh, my God is just too much row. And then when I looked, it was like one that was like, super low, like, I could pay it off in like a month. So I paid it off. And I got another letter that was like, congratulations, you paid off your loan. And I showed it to my husband again. And he was like, Okay, so like, now he like, don’t ask me no questions, bro. Like, none. And he’s like, she got it she’s doing her thing, which is great that he has all this confidence in me, and I have confidence in myself. But then sometimes, like, you know, I get crazy with Amazon during Black Friday and, and Lightning Deals. So I have to remind myself, like, you’re good with money, you’re not going to do all these little things. And just, you know, do it, throw it all away after you spent all this time at row. But I think that was another big one is having confidence in myself. And then my husband seeing you know that I can I got it and I’m handling it very well.

Alex
I would say that I think the biggest takeaway for me was kind of like what I was talking about before creating that, you know, that emotional detachment from money, and looking at it more like a tool. When we first started speaking and working together, I felt almost trapped by money. You know, I felt like I was doing things that I didn’t like to do professionally for money, I felt like I had a responsibility to myself or my family to earn a certain amount and to do things with that money. And it became very overwhelming. And so one of my biggest things is really starting to take a look at what are my goals? And what does financial freedom mean to me. And that was I think, the biggest takeaway for me, but, you know, I made a list of a couple of things that, you know, were some really great milestones for me that, truthfully, I kind of put on the backburner, and I treated them as long term goals were and never really considered them to be short term goals, because I didn’t really feel like I had a handle on my money. So just kind of going down the list of things. Last year, I bought a home, which was a huge opportunity for me, as part of buying the home, I was able to make some really great home improvement projects through some goal setting that we did, I was able to pay over $20,000 in student loans, which was another huge goal for me, I was able to save about $30,000 and create an emergency fund something that the concept was very foreign to me other than reading about it in articles, I didn’t know what that meant. I was able to buy an engagement ring and plan a party. And you know, as of recently starting to plan a wedding. And so these were some really huge, life changing experiences that I had, that I can really only attribute to, you know, the time that we spent working together.

I feel like I’ve been able to accomplish a lot of the goals and bring a lot of them to the forefront and prove to myself that you know, money is the tool and something that I can use to accomplish those goals. It’s something that doesn’t control my life. It’s something that helps me control my life. And in terms of the student loan payments, you know, I think that that was a huge win. For me, just looking back on it. Because strategically, I thought that the best thing for me was to put all of my money and into my student loans and to live on the bare minimum. And just like a lot of those articles and stories that you read, knowing that, you know, that wasn’t really how I wanted to live my life. And I allowed student loans to be at the forefront of my priorities. So things like buying home, proposing getting married, things like that, like huge personal accomplishments, you know, I let fall by the wayside before we started working together. And to look at the list now and just see the things that I’ve accomplished in the ways that I’ve been able to strategically create assets for myself and decrease liabilities. It’s been huge, really huge for me, and I think it’s given me a new sense of confidence in terms of looking at how I spend my money, how strategically I spend my money, and then also, you know how I prioritize my happiness.

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I hope you enjoyed hearing those stories from my clients. And as I said before, come back to this episode as many times as you need to to inspire yourself and remind yourself of what’s possible for you. Look, the same things that they have achieved are available to you too. All you have to do is decide that you want it. And I’ll help you. Make sure you’re on my waitlist, so you’ll be the first to know when a spot opens up. Just head to rho thomas.com/waitlist to sign up. Alright that is it for this week’s episode. Come connect with me over on social media. You can find me on LinkedIn, rho, Thomas, and Instagram at I am rho Thomas. Subscribe to the show and leave a review both of which help more people to find it. And please think of a friend or two who could use this information this inspiration and share this episode with them. As we close out friend, I pray that you take the information you’ve learned here, apply it in your life and open up to the realization that wealth is available to you. As you do that consistently week after week, you’ll continue to take steps to regain control of your time, build wealth, and live the life of freedom and choice you deserve. Happy New Year.