In the kick-off episode of our new show Single Mom Sessions, show host Mia Taylor chats with award-winning author Keisha Blair about her newly updated and expanded book Holistic Wealth: 36 Life Lessons to Help You Recover from Disruption, Find Your Life Purpose, and Achieve Financial Freedom
Award-winning author Keisha Blair is on a mission to teach others that prosperity is about more than just your finances.
Prosperity is also mental, emotional, and spiritual. And combined, these factors—along with your finances—add up to what she has dubbed holistic wealth.
In her book Holistic Wealth: 36 LIfe Lessons to Help You Recover from Disruption, Find Your Life Purpose, and Achieve Financial Freedom Blair dives into this concept in great detail, offering a road map that can be used to find prosperity in key aspects of life.
And more importantly, (especially for single parents) Blair promises that cultivating these strengths will build the mental toughness and grit you need to weather life’s inevitable storms and setbacks. And what single parent doesn’t need that kind of assistance?
In a recent exclusive interview, Single Mom Sessions’ host Mia Taylor sat down with Blair to explore her newly expanded and updated book and discuss how its concepts can be especially useful to help navigate the challenges and hurdlesthat single parents may face.
Read on to learn more about Blair’s five tips and tricks for improving your holistic wealth.
Here are Blair’s 5 tips to improve your holistic wealth as a single parent!
Q. For people who may not be familiar with the whole terminology “holistic wealth,” could you start by explaining what that even means?
Blair: So, “holistic wealth.” You know, it’s so funny, I started this journey on holistic wealth as a single parent and so just to let you know, and the audience known how dear this is to me too, it’s so dear because I started this journey after my husband died, and I became a single mom to two young boys at that time. My eldest was just three years old and I had an eight week old baby. My husband died just eight weeks after I gave birth.
So, for “holistic wealth,” that notion of recovery from setbacks is built into this holistic wealth framework. And so for those of you who probably haven’t heard about holistic wealth before and are wondering, ‘What is this?’ Holistic wealth is a framework that comprises several key elements.
And, of course, as you can imagine, your financial health and wellbeing is a critical part of it and that’s financial independence. But, as well as financial wellness, holistic wealth also includes mental health, your spiritual health, emotional health, and having a life purpose and mission.
Those are critical pieces. As well as our relationships. I talk about that a lot in the book. And it’s supposed to make us more whole and make life more meaningful. And so when we talk about “holistic wealth,” it’s the notion of, “Well, you know what? There’s just not one way to define ‘wealth.’”
And Mia, you and I were talking about that previously, but this is more a wholesome framework from which we can glean more resilient lives, more purposeful lives, and lives filled with more of a mission and purpose, and really giving back to humanity.
So it really does encompass all of that and community and how we interact with each other.
Q. So, I want to dive into the five tips that we can offer our audience today, to begin implementing a holistic view of life and achieve holistic wealth and health over the long term. And one of the first things you talked to me about during our recent discussion was really having a personal mission.
I’m not sure everybody knows what it means to have a personal mission and even how to come up with a personal mission and how you implement it. Can you explain that?
Blair: Yes, absolutely. And it’s so funny, because I remember when I had that initial tragedy and setback. And so many of us have faced that in our lives in one way or another. And so that personal mission that you speak of really does give us that renewed GPS that we need. It points us into this new direction and it really gives us that meaning.
In the book, I lay out a whole chapter on how to achieve your personal mission and how to go about it. And one of the first key steps that I often tell people is, “What are your values in life? What do you really value? And if you were to draw a pyramid and you were to rank them in order of priority what would be the top five or even the top seven and how would you rank them?”
And that really informs your personal missions because it really should derive from your core values. Since, if you value family and community and your life as a mom and your life as a parent over everything else, then that should inform your personal mission and it will inform your purpose and how you should create your goals.
So your goals won’t be in conflict with that. Your goals will be aligned with those values because oftentimes we make goals and they’re not authentic. They contradict, because you know what? We’re making goals because of what society says we should be doing at a certain point in our lives, what we should be achieving right now, where we think we should be going, what should be happening, and really it’s against what’s going on in our personal lives.
So, I often tell people, “Be true to your values, be really authentic, strip yourself bare, and when you look back 10–15 years from now, what’s the legacy that you would have wanted to leave in this lifetime?”
And I know as single moms, it’s hard because we’re so busy, we get bogged down in so many details. Because, you know, the buck stops with us.
But it’s very critical that we set out this framework for our lives to guide that. So we’re streamlining the busyness, we’re streamlining all the effort, because there’s so few hours in a day to achieve what we want to do. And so that’s a good way of streamlining it.
Q. If I were to come up with my own personal mission, would it be something like: “My mission is to be the best mom possible while also giving back to my community and achieving personal success?”
What does that personal mission sound like for parents who are thinking, “That all sounds good, but what is my personal mission supposed to sound like?”
Blair: In the chapter, I give a few examples as well as in the holistic wealth personal workbook which has samples and guidelines.
To get into that here, that would be a good start. What you started off with, which was a general statement to “be the best parent possible and give back to my community” would be where you start. I think, once you write that down, then you’d break it down some more. And you probably want to have maybe four or five things that are in line with some of your goals.
So, let’s talk about holistic wealth. If we’re crafting a personal mission statement using holistic wealth as our guide, absolutely we’re starting with being a wonderful parent, giving back to the community, and then we’re thinking, “Okay, maybe I should put a financial piece in there.”
Maybe I want to put that I retire at, like, this age. And then maybe I’m setting a goal with my relationships.
And you could put parent, but let’s say other relationships—maybe with a spouse, or dating, whatever it is that your goals are, your personal mission should set it out in a clear and concise way so it’s easier for you to then break it apart. And then tease out what the other sub-goals are. And it really adds to your holistic wealth portfolio once you start doing that in terms of what the key pieces are.
Q.What is a personal financial identity?
Blair: This started for me when I became a single mom. I started questioning all my money decisions, even as a trained economist who’s worked at the highest levels. It’s just one of those things that I think we’re all vulnerable to, right? So I started working on this personal financial identity framework when COVID just hit, because then a lot of the women who had read the first edition of the book came back and they’re like, “But I want to know: what’s my personal financial identity?”
So I created this quiz, and it’s on the Institute on Holistic Wealth website. But it really is getting to know your money identity.
Some of us—most of us—we leave school, we graduate, and we go into relationships, we start out in life and we never really thought about what our personal financial identity was. We kind of adapt to those around us, and we pull pieces from, you know, everyone around us who’s significant. And then our own identity kind of falls to the back burner.
And so I often tell people, “No, you know, we need to know what this is. It helps with self-awareness, number one. It helps with self-advocacy, number two. And it helps with self-preservation, number three.”
So, your personal financial identity. There are four key ones. There’s the Minimalist, the Maximalist, the Risk-Taker, and there’s the Anxious Spender.
And, so, once you take the quiz—it’s free—you’ll know almost immediately. And, it’s so good to put in the money piece of your mission statement. Put that there. Put your financial identity and allow it to inform your money goals. Because, you know what? Some of us have different risk appetites. Some of us have different investment approaches and philosophies.
If you’re in a relationship or you’re just going to start thinking about dating again as a single parent, you want to know what your personal financial identity is so you can communicate that. So you can negotiate where you stand or if you’re thinking about getting serious with marriage again or you’re going back into a relationship—”What does that look like for me? What are my money goals?” Like, “I’m not comfortably spending xy on z. But I’m more comfortable doing, you know, something else.”
So it’s very critical for us to have that. It gives us that confidence. And it really helps us be authentic.
Q. What is a “holistic wealth bank account”? How does that apply to life and what does it mean and how does it really help a single parent?
Blair: I remember the days where I would feel so bankrupt in terms of my energy, my strength. Things got so busy around me. I felt like I was being pulled in different directions. And when I sat down to write this framework, I said, “Well, you know what? We could look at our decisions from this framework of this holistic wealth bank account so that we’re looking at all our decisions holistically.” Because, as I stated in the book, we make 50,000 decisions each and every day, and most of them, we’re making them non-strategically.
We’re stressed, we’re anxious, we’re too busy, you know, we’re pulled in all these directions. And so this is what this framework helps us to do. So think of each decision as an addition or a depletion to your holistic wealth bank account. And if you do that, it puts so much more gravitas to what we’re doing, even in the midst of making those tiny decisions.
It becomes like, “Whoa, if I do this, these are the ripple effects.”
So, you know, saying no when you have to say no as a parent. I think that the word “no” is like an asset to this metaphorical bank account that we have, because we can’t do everything that we want to do. And so there are certain decisions that act like compound interest in our bank account.
And there are certain ones that just deplete us, make us feel bankrupt. And as single parents? I know my days in early widowhood, that helped me so much. It was just practical for me on a day-to-day basis.
You know what? As a single parent, I can’t carry a cooked meal to the PTA meeting or I can’t do this. Maybe I’ll be able to stop at the supermarket and buy something though. But I don’t have the time to do all of this.
So that helps in terms of this decision framework around how we can think about our decisions.
Q. What does that mean for a single parent to have financial resilience? And what does “resourcefulness” have to do with it?
These are two critical concepts that I also hashed out more in the expanded and updated book because I felt like it needed more space, more room—especially as it relates to single parents.
So often we encounter these setbacks. And when we think about “financial resilience,” it’s that ability to bounce back from a financial setback. And now when I train students at the Institute on Holistic Wealth, I actually tell them to plan for two setbacks per decade. Because, with what we’re seeing with COVID, you can see with high inflation, with job losses, people getting Long COVID, it’s just a lot. So, if we plan for two setbacks per decade, then when we look at our holistic wealth portfolio and look at what enables us to become financially resilient, then we’re looking at what we have in place and whether it’s enough.
So, for instance, a life insurance policy helps us to become more financially resilient and helps our family in the case of an unplanned situation. Having passive income streams or investments. All of that helps us to become more financially resilient. And so when we think about “financial resilience,” what we should be doing is, each time we make a financial goal or a financial decision, the question is: “Will this make me more financially resilient or not?”
And it’s unbelievable that, once you put that lens on it, you’re thinking, “You know what? I’m making decisions each step of the way to make me become more financially resilient.”
As a single parent, that’s huge. Because it’s unbelievable when the buck stops with you and you’re responsible for everything—there’s no other salary, it’s just yours, there’s no other investments, it’s just yours. So we have to safeguard what we have. And we also have to make sure that we’re building on that, making our portfolio more resilient to setbacks. The more resilient you become, the more able you are not only to build on the wealth that you have, but just bounce back really fast. And that’s so critical.
We’ll talk about “financial resourcefulness” just to answer that other part. And the two are so intertwined, but it’s just thinking about the tools that keep you resourceful. So when we think about “resourcefulness,” we’re thinking, “Okay, what can I draw down on?”
The emergency fund is one of them that makes us resourceful. We don’t have to go into debt if we’re faced with an emergency. And it also makes us more resilient, as well as those sources of income—the passive sources, the investments, and just our network in general makes us resourceful as well. We can tap into our networks, we can tap into different areas, different skills that we have make us more resourceful. And that’s why it’s critical to have these key pieces together. It really is. And it’s unbelievable how organized we have to be, but it’s something that’s so needed.
Q.What is a holistic wealth portfolio?
Blair: In the new and expanded version of the book, I also put in this extra chapter on the holistic wealth portfolio, because I feel like we had all these pieces there, and there’s so many tips and strategies. And how do we pull that all together underneath one heading that we can have? That we can refresh in a tangible way?
So that’s the holistic wealth portfolio. And it starts with the beginning of our conversation down to where we are now. All the critical pieces should be there in terms of the mission statement. And you can even have your money mission statement under that we spoke about—the money pieces, all your goals, all your values. And there are, of course, different aspects. Like the relationship aspects, how you’re going to care for your mental health, so your self-care portions, dealing with any unresolved issues like money trauma.
It’s unbelievable how much we have to attend to the core aspects of our lives that we don’t think about often, but they’re necessary.
And so all the key pieces of holistic wealth, there’s a wonderful diagram in the book that shows the holistic wealth portfolio. It’s kind of in a doughnut and it shows all the key pieces. And once you disaggregate them, it’s easy to then try to build it out.
And, of course, if you need help, I’m always here. And that’s the work we do at the Institute on Holistic Wealth. And that’s what I’ve been training people to do to help others with. So it’s a valuable tool for single parents who are stretched, who are under the gun almost every day of their lives to have this pulled together nicely.
We can assign a resilience score to it so that you know how well you’re doing and how you can weather any storms and setbacks. And so, you know, we talked about some of the key pieces in there that we look at having—like your life insurance policy in place, your emergency savings, how much you want, all the key pieces, your investments.
And all of that’s aligned with your core values, aligned with your mission, your goals. Everything is 100% unique to you.
Q. If you are a single parent and you do want to have that part of your holistic wealth portfolio, which is investing, do you pay off your debt first? Do you invest and pay off your debt at the same time?
Blair: I would say absolutely don’t wait until you finish paying off that debt. Do not wait. Start today in building up your investments. Start today, because it’s such a long-term horizon in terms of returns on investments. And over time, there’s compound interest. We don’t want to lose out on any of those benefits by waiting. And I often say to people, “You know what? It’s your investments that make you wealthy. It’s your investments that make you more financially resilient.”
And so if we were to wait, for instance, until we pay off debt, then we’d never reach that point. Because what could happen is you pay off the debt, and an emergency happens or something life-altering happens. And God forbid you don’t have any emergency saving funds. You don’t have a saving fund, you don’t have your investments in place, and then your world shatters again. You’re back at the wall. You’re debt-free, but you have nothing, you have no cushion.
So you want to have that cushion. You always want to maintain that even if it means you’re using a strategy where you’re paying off your high-interest debt, right? But you’re still leaving some to invest. And, so look at all the debt and parse it out.
I remember, Mia, on my podcast when you said you have your different jars and your different funds. Look at the different jars. Look at the different debt that you have. Make sure your high interest debt is being managed and paid down. But then also channel some to your investments. It’s something extremely important that we do.
Q. How can parents engage with the Institute on Holistic Wealth? Can an individual take lessons from the Institute on Holistic Wealth? Do you have to sign up for a full course?
Blair: The Institute was born out of this desire to deepen everyone’s experience with holistic wealth and help them achieve holistic wealth. So there are courses there. We spoke about money trauma. We spoke about the personal financial identity piece. And those are different courses available on the Institute’s website. And there are other courses there, for instance, like our signature program, which is the Holistic Wealth Consultant Program. And, of course, there’s a membership platform. So you can become a member of the Institute and get access to free resources.
And it will also help you to then, on a day-to-day basis, live a holistically wealthy lifestyle. But those are the key pieces of the Institute.
Q.Is there one final piece of advice you would give single moms who are listening today? Whether it’s about, you know, just recovering from trauma or applying holistic principles to their lives, it’s possible to do all of that, right?
Blair: It is possible, absolutely, with being intentional. And, you know, I often say holistic wealth is intentional by design. We have to get very, very intentional. I remember when I started on this journey, I got so intentional that I gave up everything for one year. I went soul-searching. I’m not saying that’s what everybody should do by any means. But I’m just using that example to tell you how intentional we have to be.
We have to carve out this space every single day for ourselves to make those critical decisions in our lives that’s going to help us, that’s going to propel us forward. And it’s getting very intentional. So think about that holistic wealth bank account again. And let’s see how we can get intentional about filling up your store, filling up that holistic wealth bank account and making those decisions that really act like compound interest.
So, whether it’s lifelong learning, gaining a new skill, watching a side gig, doing something that’s going to fill us up over time, and that’s going to have ripple effects across a number of areas of our lives. It’s going to make us feel more empowered. It’s going to make us feel more whole and like we’re doing something to enrich ourselves and our families and it’s unbelievable once you get intentional, how everything starts to change. So it’s a followed place.