Atomic Habits with Kamilah O'Brien

Kamilah O'Brien paid off over $70k in student loan debt in just a couple years and is now a Youtube and Instagram influencer known as The Focused Spender. She shared financial advice and her thoughts and experience with the book Atomic Habits on the Book Insights Podcast:

"You have to pay off debt first before you pay off everything else in your life. My habit was spending, spending, spending and whatever is left might go to student loans. I had to reconfigure everything."

"Atomic Habits explains that if you want your life to change, you don't need a big end goal... You just have to think of what you want to be, claim it, and just start."

"Getting clients out of the mindset that it's too hard is first, and then it's setting up those automatic systems."

"Automate everything. If you want to save money, set up an auto-transfer into savings and then you don't have to think about it anymore. The second you have to think about it you're going to make excuses."

"There's no such thing as being no good with money. It's math. If you make X amount, and have this much in bills, you have this much left over to do whatever else.

"You can do all the things you want in your life, you just have to get yourself together financially first."

"It's a freeing feeling not having to stress about money and being able to enjoy your life without that extra burden on your shoulders."

"If you want to start a habit, you definitely have to be able to see it. You have to make it easy and something that you want to do. It might seem hard at first, but if you make everything super super simple, it's just gonna happen."

"You'll need visual cues and rewards for your new habit so that it's fun and doesn't feel like a burden."