What's Stopping You?

Elaina: Tracy, out of curiosity, if money was not a factor, meaning you could do whatever you want when you want it, how you want it to and not have to worry about the cost of it, what would you do?

Tracy: My mind is going a million and one places, so I would if I didn’t have to worry about money. I think so. I’m really into, and this has been something in the past couple of years that has caught my interest. I’m really into learning about planets. Astrology our energy centers, meditation and things like that. I think I would just go to some serene place in another country and to spend my days looking at the stars and the planets and reading birth charts and probably studying just the different chakras in our body and just really try to be in tune with nature. I would be one of those chicks. I promise you I wouldn’t probably wouldn’t wear clothes, really just have some kind of shirt covering me up. Elaina, I can picture myself.

Elaina: So, you can picture yourself starting a nudist colony? I can’t call you Peaches anymore. I’m going to have to call you Sunshine.

Tracy: Yes, or call me Pebbles, call me Pebbles. Yeah, but I really would, I wouldn’t deal with the city life. I just see myself maybe like beach house. I could see water nearby, but I would really just try to get more in tune with nature and try to help people and just not be living by my watch and deadlines and things like that. So that’s where my mind goes immediately. What about you?

Elaina: I can somewhat relate to that. I don’t know that you want to start a nudist colony or anything. I don’t think Harley gone go for that.

Tracy: Our parties would be jumping. Come on, come on y’all for it.

Elaina: You should have been at Woodstock or something. I really thought about it. And so I’m really focusing on what I want the rest of my life to look like. And so when I thought about that question for myself, of course I’ve always wanted to travel more because I have a few places on my bucket list while I still can have to see.

Elaina: And that’s Italy, France, Ireland and Japan. I don’t care if I go anywhere else for the rest of my life as long as I hit those four places. But money is definitely an obstacle cause it’s very expensive to travel outside of the U S and especially depending on where you go. I know one thing that I would do immediately and that would be, I would officially retire.

Tracy: Yeah, absolutely.

Elaina: I would not work Monday through Friday, eight to five like I just wouldn’t, like that’s just not how I envision my future long-term. So I think if money was not an option and I would probably do more, not only for myself, but I definitely think that I would do more. I know one thing that I would love to do if I had the resources and that would be to create more scholarship programs specifically for African Americans to draw them into the mental health arena, to bring them into this career in helping them get that education and so I did think about that and I thought about some fun stuff outside of traveling and the scholarships because I just always think of what can I do for, for me, but what can I do also to give back.

Elaina: I would buy an Island now. It would not be a nudist colony.

Tracy: You saying that now.

Elaina: But I would buy a private Island somewhere because I would enjoy peace and serenity and not, it would be my way of protecting my own mental health because living in the suburbs or living in the city, it just comes with so much chaos sometimes and I just, I need a break.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: I would rather be on a farm right now. Then in the suburbs.

Tracy: I feel you 100% I think that’s why my mind immediately went there when you said, what would I do if I didn’t have to worry about money? And it was just being in a place where the whole nine to five schedules, meetings, all of that just went by the wayside. And you can just pretty much just relax and unwind and you do things as they come. And I don’t know, maybe that’s an Aquarius thing Elaina.

Tracy: I don’t. To me, I have to have that flexibility. I really, it’s really stressful for me to have to live according to the schedule. So if money I only do it because I have to get paid. If I, if I could get paid and I didn’t have to live by that schedule, it would be awesome.

Elaina: Well, it’s definitely a trait for Aquarius where we really want to do what we want to do when we wanna do it. And so that’s a struggle. Even for my professional career, I, I’m telling you, I’m having the best time of my life as far as being a consultant who works on a contractual basis. That aspect I love because I love the freedom of it. So if I take on a project for a particular industry or a particular company, if I’m not vibing them or it’s not working out, I’m not obligated to stay.

Tracy: And I think that’s why too, why it works for me. Being able to have a job where I’m working from home, that whole commuting and a couple of years ago I was working from home every day and it was beautiful because I was able to, of course I had meetings and things to go to, but I was able to kind of shape my schedule and work when I wanted to. This now having a commute is killing me. Totally get that one day I’ll be brave enough to jump into the consulting world and join you in your, your happiness.

Elaina: Now. I mean it calls with, it definitely comes with with its ups and downs. But I will tell you it was worth it and I wouldn’t change anything about it. But you know, I’m always going to say, well I wouldn’t change anything other than I would want more money. But I.

Tracy: We never have enough of that.

Elaina: I would want more money no matter how much money it was. Knowing that money does not determine my happiness. However more money could relieve some of the financial burdens and stress that I have. You think about, you have mortgage, car insurance and medical bills and life insurance policies, groceries and utility. All of that is adds up to be a lot and having to think about college tuition. And so though all those things create a certain amount of stress, like my anxiety begins to take over when it was like, man, I need to get her, make sure she stays interested in stuff so she can get some scholarships. We need some grants. We need to make sure that we are able to do this cause I want her to have the future that she deserves to have. So that just added stress and it’s like boy, if money, wasn’t a factor she can go whatever school she was qualified to go to.

Elaina: And I get a lot of people be like, well money shouldn’t be that important. But if you really think about our culture, our society, there’s not a whole lot you can do when it comes to fulfilling your dreams that wouldn’t have a financial consequence. If you want to travel the world, that’s going to cost money. If you want to go to college, it’s going to cost money. If you want adequate healthcare, that’s going to cost money. If you want a nice place to live, go to school in a good school district, all of that costs money and it creates a lot of stress and anxiety and for some depression because you constantly are worried about those things or you feel like you’re digging a hole deeper.

Tracy: Yeah, it goes back to that saying, you know, people always say money can’t buy you happiness. And money’s the root of all evil but and all of it is true.

Tracy: You can’t really determine or base your happiness on money, but at the end of the day a lot of necessities money is needed at that point we were talking about college, that was a conversation I had with Mekhai cause we’re, you know, he’s graduating this year, we’re looking at colleges and I was trying to explain to him undergrad, a lot of people may not agree with me. Undergrad is all about starting and committing and finishing. You may not even know until you’re close to graduating what you want to major in. But at this point all, most universities are the same. I haven’t gotten gotten denied a job yet because I didn’t go to Princeton or anything like that. So why put yourself in that financial debt? I have a certain name on your resume. So we are factoring in not only distance from home, all colleges offer the same thing, but we’re factoring in this school is asking for $30,000 a year. Is it really worth it? It is. A lot of decisions are based on that whole financial piece and you really have to take it into account. Yeah. I would tell you that I know the topic started off with if money wasn’t a factor, and I will tell you the cost for higher education in this country is absurd.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: It truly is absurd, especially when you think that most graduates are not even going to graduate with a job, with a salary to pay off student loans.

Elaina: What kind of racket is that?

Tracy: Yeah. I had to go back to school. I had to get my masters. I graduated. My undergrad was in communications. At the time I thought I was going to be a reporter going to PR. At the time you look at the salaries they’re making at best 20 well, this is years ago. I don’t know what the salary is now, but during that time it was like I’m committing to a twenty thousand twenty five thousand dollars a year job and I have student loans and things I need to pay back. I had to go back and get my master’s degree. And at that point when I was looking at things I wanted to major in, I factored in what’s the most amount of money I can make without going to medical school or law school. And so I could be able to pay back all of this. And that was a huge factor.

Tracy: Money really did factor into what I was going back to grad school for.

Elaina: There are just certain things that I know that I want to experience, and I don’t want money to always be at the foundation of if I do something or don’t do something. And I think for such a long time I have not done the things that I wanted to do because it was worried about money. How do you still make sure you’re okay and everything’s made. So like even for me when we take a small vacation, like, cause if I don’t go to work, I don’t get paid. So that’s a big thing that I have to consider. So if I, what I decided to give myself a vacation, there’s no income coming in during that time period. And so I have to make sure that my are paid for the month that I’m gone for the month that after that.

Elaina: So then that’s one less thing that I have to worry about. I have to be very mindful of it, but I don’t want it to hinder me. Does that make sense?

Tracy: Yeah, it does.

Elaina: And I think a lot of the times, and it’s not even the, even if money is not the driving force behind why some of us are not doing the things that we truly want to be doing. The question is, and what is getting in the way? What is keeping you from going back to school to get a degree? What’s keeping you from taking that weekend girls’ trip what’s keeping you from taking the honeymoon or you’ve been married for 20 years that you never experienced. What stopping you from doing those things? What’s stopping you from, it’s just one of those things where it’s like what? What is getting in the way of us being able to pursue the things that we truly want to do?

Elaina: Do we really know what we want to do?

Tracy: Yeah, and yeah that’s a really good point. You look at it. We were talking about what would you do if money wasn’t a factor. I brought up the whole the meditation piece and studying birth charts and planets and things like that. One thing that I know that I’ve been trying to do is bring it a little piece of that throughout my week. Lord knows I don’t have enough time to do anything else with everything that’s on my plate, but when I see that there’s, Oh, there’s a astrology class being offered on learning about Uranus and things like that. I’m a nerd. I, I really get off on things like that, so maybe I’ll sign up and take the self-pace class where I’m getting a little bit of something that I want to kind of break up the monotony and doing things that I really don’t want to do or things that I have to do with things that I enjoy doing.

Tracy: So maybe it’s looking at where are some areas in life where you can kind of blend those things in and pieces until you could do it next level. Like you really want to, even the big trip you were talking about the trips that you and Kai have been taking. We’ve been doing the same little small trips. I think the last, well I guess it was biggest trip was last year when I went to Mexico, but I want to go to Hawaii Mekhai got a chance to go to Japan. And that kind of spurred thoughts in my head like, okay, I want to go to Japan. It was never on my list, but now it is. But.

Elaina: Look, Peaches getting mad. Like why I can’t go?

Tracy: So, taking those baby steps where, okay, maybe it’s me planning ahead. If I know I want to go to Japan or you take one of those next level. I know I can’t just say January, okay, in August I’m going to Japan. Maybe it’s okay in 2022 I’m going to Japan. Let me start preparing now. So.

Elaina: I want us to all be able to get to the point where it’s like, you know what? That is something that when I think about how I want to live my life and the things that I want to do for myself, this is on the list. Now I want to figure out how do I make that happen because it’s interesting because a couple of years ago I was talking to one of my cousins and her and I were both in this space and it was with right before I made the decision to go back to school.

Elaina: She was actually, we didn’t even know at the time that she was actually contemplating the same thought if she wanted to go back and in this conversation, she shared that with me and I said, Oh my goodness. I was just contemplating the same thing and I said my first two degrees, so it was a bachelor’s degree in and a master’s. I said, those were all things that I did to put food on the table. Not that I don’t enjoy what I do, I enjoy what I do, but do I love what I do? Not necessarily. Like, it’s cool, it’s good, I’m satisfied. But I said, this next one, I want it to be something because it’s truly a my heart to do. And I said to her, I said, think about when we were little girls, what happened to those little girls that just used to dream of all the things they wanted to do and all the ways that they wanted to live and the places they wanted to see.

Elaina: And I said, those little girls have to stop being little girls. And they became mothers for her she’s a wife. I said, we put everybody’s else’s needs above ours, we had to do what we had to do to provide for our families. And I said, but now at the age, you know, I’m in my early forties and I was like, you know what? Yes, I still have these responsibilities, but now when I make decisions, I can make decisions that are solely based on what’s going to bring me joy, what’s going to bring me happiness. Because if it’s not bringing me joy, happiness, I ain’t doing it.

Tracy: Yeah.

Elaina: And I don’t feel pressure to do it. I’m not doing it. I think that’s the reason why I choose to stay single because I don’t want nobody coming here interfering with how I envision what I want to do. Like I don’t want to have to take somebody else in consideration. And you’ve heard me say that before. Is it selfish? Yeah, probably. But I’m okay with that.

Tracy: And it can’t be selfish if that’s your choice. I think that’s what people miss or they confuse. Everyone has a choice and my choice may not look like your choice. I may not look like her or his choice. So it’s not selfish. It’s just what you want.

Elaina: Harley thinks it’s selfish cause she thinks that we should just let the world love us and we should love the world and we’re robbing everyone of this great experience. That’s not narcissistic at all. is it? No, but it’s only a joke. People, please hit me up. I’m not interested. I promise you I’m not. I just hope that we can all just get to a place where we are honest with ourselves and say this is the life, whatever this is that I want to live and how I want to live it. And we start making decisions based on those things and then we can figure out how to make those things happen.

Tracy:  Yeah.

Elaina: Alright everybody, well that is going to cover it for today. We want to thank you all for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure you check us out on copequeens.com and we also have our new shop and so you can go and check out some of the merchandise that we have available and we can connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

Tracy: Get some swag guys.

Elaina: Do people still say swag? Okay. Boomer.

Tracy: It was the perfect opportunity for me to throw that in there.

Elaina: Bye everybody.

Tracy: Bye.