From Grief to Global Impact / The One Billion Mission

Sn4 Ep14 | From Grief to Global Impact: The One Billion Mission | Keisha Blair Interview

What if grief wasn’t the end… but the beginning of your purpose?
In this powerful episode of the Life’s Deceit Podcast, Jenelle Simpson sits down with Keisha Blair, international bestselling author, economist, and founder of the global Holistic Wealth movement, to explore how loss, caregiving, and life’s deepest challenges can transform into purpose, impact, and legacy.

After experiencing the devastating loss of her husband and later her father, Keisha Blair didn’t just rebuild her life, she redefined what it means to be truly wealthy.

This conversation goes beyond money and success.

It explores:

• The truth about grief and healing
  
  
• Why success without alignment leads to burnout
  
  
• The hidden crisis of caregiving and emotional exhaustion
  
  
• What “Holistic Wealth” really means
  
  
• How to build a life rooted in purpose, balance, and legacy
  
  
• The mission to impact 1 billion lives globally
  
  

This is not just an interview.
It’s a shift in perspective.

If you’ve ever:
– experienced loss
– felt disconnected from your purpose
– or questioned what success really means

This episode will speak directly to you.


🎙️ About Keisha Blair:
Keisha Blair is an award-winning, international bestselling author and the pioneer of the Holistic Wealth movement. Her work has impacted over 50 million people globally, with a mission to reach one billion. She is the founder of the Institute on Holistic Wealth and host of the Holistic Wealth Podcast.

📲 Follow Keisha Blair:
Instagram: ‪@KeishaBlairHolisticWealth‬


📌 Subscribe for more conversations on healing, identity, and legacy:
[   / @lifesdeceitpod  ]

📲 Follow us:
Instagram: @lifesdeceitpodcast
Website: www.jenellesimpson.com

#HolisticWealth #KeishaBlair #LifesDeceitPodcast #LegacyByChoice #HealingJourney #PurposeDrivenLife

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What if the life you're building isn't about what you inherited, but what you choose to become? Welcome back to Lights Disease Podcast, where we break cycles, reclaim identity, and build legacies on purpose. Before we step into today's conversation, I want to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. The Mirror to the Mic magazine has officially launched into the world. It is now into the world. It is now real. And to every single person, every soul who supported me, encouraged me, believed in the vision, thank you. Truly from the bottom of my heart, you have no idea what you poured into me. I love you. To those of you who have already purchased your digital copies, thank you for being part of this moment. And to those who secured one of the 100 limited edition printed copies, congratulations! You didn't just buy a magazine, you secured a piece of a legacy. Thank you to the support that you've given to me this far. If you haven't yet secured your copy, you can find more details at www.meirtothemic.com or visit us on Instagram at MiretoThemic Mag. Legacy by choice is not about understanding that healing is not the destination. It's the foundation. And what we build after is the legacy. Your legacy intentionally. Today's conversation is a very powerful one, timely and deeply needed in this season. We are joined by Keisha Blair, an award-winning international best-selling author, economist, and the pioneer behind the global movement known as Holistic Wealth. She is the founder of the Institute on Holistic Wealth, host of the Holistic Wealth Podcast, and her work has impacted over 50 million people globally with her mission to reach one billion lives. And we have joined that mission with her. But beyond the title, her work is rooted in something deeper: resilience, grief, purpose, and rebuilding after a disruption has entered your life, after the unknown, the unthinkable has happened. When things happened that you didn't plan for and didn't expect. So please help me welcome Keisha Blair. Keisha Blair, I want to thank you for saying yes to me because I greatly appreciate it. You're welcome. So I did a 21-day Daniel fast. Wow. Starting off the year. Awesome. This one just did that fast. Awesome. Listen, the longest fast I've ever done was seven days. Wow. So when God said do 21 days, I was like, you have to be kidding. Fruits and vegetables, me? Come on. I don't think I can do it. But during that fast, I felt something I've never felt before. Yeah. This was a different type of thing that I felt. There's a lot of things that I felt during the fast, but this one I didn't expect. And something that you talk about grieving. Because I my grandmother was like my mother, and I grieved her. Like that type of pain, I cannot explain it.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

I know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

However, when I was fasting, my fiance says to me, Have you ever lost a friend? Like a friend that's really close to you. And I said, You know what? No. I haven't. And my prayer changed. I started not just praying for my friends, but thanking God that I didn't experience that type of pain.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

And for covering my friends and just everything switched. Can I tell you on the 17th day what happened? What? Okay, so I was at work and I have a friend in Jamaica who I actually met over the phone. We're just supposed to collaborate together because I do donations, and I needed somebody that I can connect with that I knew the donations were gonna get to. Because I'm not there.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

And sometimes you I mean I've sent stuff to some somebody before who I thought, okay, you know, she's in the church. It's gonna get, it's gonna get to the right people. And it never happened. So I met this friend and she was my publicist in Jamaica. And then instantly from the day we spoke on the phone, three hours we spoke for. We claimed each other. She became my friend. Anything that had to do with donations, donating laptops to schools, backpacks, I could call her and she would make sure it got to the right people. I was at work, and I said, okay, I gotta call Susan. Because it's her daughter's birthday and her brother's birthday, and I would like to send some money so she can do all that birthday stuff. I get a call from Jamaica, and something said, Don't answer, but then another part of me said, answer quick and tell the person you're gonna call back. Right. So I answered and I'm like, hey Mr. Green, how are you doing? And he's like, he just hit me with it. Susan died.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

And I said, What? I said, Susan who? I'm like, in my mind, I'm I'm laughing and I'm like, whatever, you're I don't know who you're talking about, who you're talking about. Then he says Susan Smith, and I collapsed. I collapsed, and I never felt a pain like that in my life. Yeah, you know, and from January till now, I've been in this grieving process. I've been feeling a type of pain that I can't even explain. Everything around me changed, even friends that I used to allow to push me over, mistreat me, yeah, step over my boundaries. Right, right. Now I'm like, I don't have the stomach for any of you anymore.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Because I lost someone and something that was so pure.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

That was so it was, it was like God chose her and gave her to me on purpose. And I can't explain what I'm feeling, but then I said, When you booked your appointment, it was so timely.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

That's unbelievable. That's an unbelievable story. Because Jen, when you reached out to me first to come on the podcast, my dad was deathly ill in the hospital. And I think that's why I missed it because I know I had it, but I was at the hospital by his bedside every single day. And during that time, he passed away, he died. And that's why I didn't get to come on. So look at that no that you went through that experience that was months after, that was probably about six months after. And then the timing of this no, when you need it most, right? Because if it had taken place then that wouldn't have happened yet, wouldn't have happened yet.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

And I sat here, and when I didn't see you come on, I said, Okay, God, she's not coming. I don't know what you're doing, but you're doing something. And then when I I I was I was coming out of the riverside and I went to Instagram and I saw your message, yeah, I would have missed it because I wouldn't, I wasn't gonna go on. Yeah, so you know, I I know that God does things for a reason and he aligns us with people for a purpose, but grieving, I've never experienced grief like this, and it's so funny. My partner asked me, Have you ever lost anybody? And I started praying and I said, God, thank you. Yeah, and I even said to my sister-in-law, I said, I don't understand this fasting is supposed to be me focusing, but I'm being distracted. I have people calling me from different angles with their problems. I feel like I'm obligated to answer, I can't focus on the things I want to do. I'm not even reading the Bible the way that I am supposed to. Yeah, and then I said to her, Hold on. She said, I'm feeling the same thing. She was doing a seven-day fast. And I said to her, What if this fasting is to teach us how to fast? What if it's preparing us for something?

SPEAKER_00 8:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

And when Susan died, God said to me, I prepared you for this. Wow, that's I was so angry. And he like, I'm thinking about it, he's literally said, Are you still going to believe in me? Are you still going to do the work that you've been doing, even with her not a part of the plan anymore?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Grief is painful. It is. And I didn't know how painful it was.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

It's so painful. It's it's like somebody ripping your heart out, and that does not even begin to describe.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Explain it. I can't even, I can't, and you know, I think losing her head has really shown me. Because I remember the last conversation we had, she kept saying, Jenna, you know, say ya star and God have purpose upon your life. And I'm like, and she said, you need to stop letting people, certain people have access to you.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's unbelievable. And I talk about that in the book. I wish I had a copy here just to hold up, but I it's yeah, in another I talk about that in the book because that was one of my realizations with going through grief. You know, I had to implement those boundaries, and there were some people I just could not I could not do that anymore. I talk about toxic relationships. Jen, it's the second chapter in holistic wealth, it's that far up in the book because it's so important. And when you go through grief, you realize that you have so much around you that's fake.

SPEAKER_02 10:49

Girl, can you say that one more time?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, when you go through grief, you realize that you have so much around you that's fake, fake, a lot of fakeness, a lot of fakeness, and this is the time where you crave, crave genuine connections, genuine people who mean every word they say, and who can encourage you in a way that you really, really need at that point when you're low, where you're at the lowest, the absolute lowest point in your life. So, can you imagine going through grief? Your heart is being ripped out, you've no idea how you're going to go on, and you have all fakeness around you, all toxic, fake people, and you somehow knew this before, kind you know, but now it comes home so plain. Because then the same people give you these toxic messages even while you're at your lowest. Yes, some of them are still competing, some of them are still it's unbelievable the things that people can do and say, and you're like what on the manipulation, yeah. Like, like, like you can't even stop the competition for like a couple days here. No, no, and it never stops, just heads up, everybody. It never stops, it never stops, and that's why you cut them out because it's not like you know, I I I used to be in the I used to be like, well, you know, like maybe they'll change, they'll come around.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Yeah, no, it's almost like grief now gives you that permission to let them go. Yeah, I feel so much lighter and easy, and it's it feels so much easier. It does chopping it off, it does, and it's it's a perfect example because prior to this in October, God told me you need to let them go. Wow, these are people that are going to bring you down, they have serpent spirits, doesn't mean that they're bad people, but they're not good for you. Yes, yes, and you need to cut them off. And he says, starting the new year, you are going to let them go. And I was like, Okay, how am I gonna do that? Now I have no hesitation. Wow, so it's just interesting the stages of grief. I don't know if I can accept anything less than what Susan gave me from anybody anymore. Yeah, I cannot. I can't, I can't, I cannot accept anything less than the love and the passion and the goodness and the pureness of her heart.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Yeah, and you know, it's amazing that she came to teach you that, you know, like she was a part of your life just to make that clear, you know, just just to make that absolutely clear that this is the standard, and I'm setting that standard in your life.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

That's amazing, and it's almost like now I'm like, she's like, you can set that standard now. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I miss you. I don't understand why you had to go, but yeah, I gotta make peace with it.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I'm glad that you know, those it's so good to be able to have the discussion once there's been because grief causes you to reflect deeply.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yeah, yeah. I'm in, I'm I'm in, I'm in deep reflection mode now. Yeah, absolutely, and more so living my life too. Like, I would make excuses why I couldn't go on vacation, I would make excuses why I couldn't put more time into myself or buy myself something nice. Now I'm like, what why were you doing that? Yeah, enjoy your life, absolutely, every part of it, regardless of what's being thrown at you.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Absolutely, definitely. I mean, that taught me that too. I mean, I've lived a completely different life since then. Yeah, yeah, it really does teach you what's important in life.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

I want to ask you a question though. Who would you say you were before you experienced grief?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Yeah, so I was the person who was climbing the cooperate ladder, was hell-bent on being one of the top 10 leaders in the organization by 30. I had my milestone set out, and I was going to like chop them off of the block one at a time. I was just deeply driven, deeply ambitious. Like I, you know, there's still some aspects of that there. But, you know, I felt like at that time my identity was carved out with my career. You know what I mean? It was so bad that I was on this track. Like I wrote about it in the book. I was on this fast track to becoming an executive by 30. I was handpicked by the deputy minister who's next to like the prime minister to be one of the top 10 or top 30. And I was on that track, and I was hellbent. And then grief happened, and my husband died. And this was eight weeks after I had my second child. So that was just like, you know, legs cut off. That was like, okay, I'm stopping in your tracks here because that's not where we're heading, that's not what I've cut out for you. I felt like, you know, God was clear. And at that point, even then, it was hard. I struggled with it. Because all my friends were doing it. And everybody had those goals around me. And I was like, well, what goals do I have now then? Like, what am I going to do? Like, just sit and you know, I don't know. And I remember because I was on, you know, I was on Matt Leave, and I remember going back. And my boss said to me, you know, when he realized the change in me, he said, we want the old Keisha back. Where is the old Keisha? We want her back. And I didn't say this to him verbally, but I thought to myself, well, she's gone. Yeah, she's no longer here. Like, I can't bring her back. Because I'm now changed, I'm transformed. And even though I thought those thoughts at that time, I didn't even fully know what that meant. But I know that old Keisha was gone. And, you know, it was after I took the sabbatical and all of that that I wrote about that it became clear that this path of holistic wealth was the path that I was supposed to be on, with talking about this tragedy and helping others through it and allowing everyone to realize that our identities and that striving, that achievement isn't everything in life. That our wealth isn't just the money we have, or the success, or the accolades, it's our relationships, it's having those Suzanne's in our life, it's having that standard in our life, it's having the boundaries, the purpose, the spiritual growth that you spoke about. That was it, and you can imagine as a trained economist, and I've been, you know, like you know, we don't really, you know, when we look at how the economy is doing, how a country is doing, we're not looking at those things, we're not measuring any of that stuff, we're just measuring hardcore financial indicators, right? We're measuring GDP, growth, what are fiscal anchor, structure of the economy. We're not looking at any of that stuff, but yet still, that's what makes each and every one of us thrive after setbacks and become resilient after setbacks. I mean, you're good as long as you don't face a setback, but who doesn't face a setback? Who doesn't go through grief? Who doesn't lose a loved one? It's all of us, every single one of us is going to reach there. So that was just to answer your question. That was who I was before. And then when I saw what God did in my life afterwards, and even after, as you said, removing certain people, then I've come full circle to realizing, and when I see I see how he shows up in my life to make sure that his purpose will be done. I'm just blown away. I'm really just blown away because really, and as I wrote in the book, each one of us has that purpose, and it's rarely tied to our job descriptions and our job titles, it's rarely tied to how much money we have, even though we think it is. It rarely is tied to any of that because we know that once you know there's a purpose for our lives, it has to be fulfilled. And if we listen and we drop everything and we get rid of the naysayers, the voices that shouldn't be in our lives, then we'll have a better chance at living that purpose. So all of those, you know, revelations came to me too as I went through the process and had time to reflect like you did.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

It's so funny that you said climbing the corporate ladder and how God will take our setbacks that we call them setbacks, but he doesn't call them setbacks and use use it to elevate us and bring us to our purpose.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Because as you said that, I was in the corporate world. I was the girl who stayed at work till 2 a.m. in the morning.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

I remember one time we had a big deal to close, and life is funny. One of the girls who I was working with decided that you know what? I want to go away. So what I'm gonna do is go on short term medical leave. So I was like, okay. I got it. I got your back. And I took care of everything by myself. Wow. And what I did was, and I regret doing it. But also opened my eyes. I went home. I made dinner for the kids, made sure my family was good. Took a shower, packed a bag, and guess where I went?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Where?

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Went back to the office.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

And I worked straight back to the next day in the night. Because I wanted to prove myself. I'm capable, I'm strong, I'm smart, I'm reliable.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

COVID hit. My grandma passed. But when COVID hit, something happened. I don't know what it was. But purpose. I really saw my purpose. And I wrote my first book. When my grandma passed, I wanted to rip every single book off the shelf. I blamed myself for her passing away, not realizing that God was making room.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

So that I could bloom. Because I was too busy, like you said, people pleasing, the naysayers. I was worrying about them when I should have been worrying about the calling that God has on my life.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Because we're too busy worrying about what other people are going to say or how they're going to feel.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

About our truth. Exactly. About what we experienced.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

So those things that we call setbacks are like an awakening. It's like a little push that he gives us and says, It's time to wake up. You've been sleeping for too long.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

This is what I have for you.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Oh, yeah. Definitely.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

And then he created a beautiful life for you, even though you were grieving. The loss of a husband and a newborn.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

To be honest, I don't know how I would manage or what I would do, but I but I know for sure that I'll pick up the pieces and try to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:00

Do you think Holocaust wealth was something you created or something you needed to survive?

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yeah, it was something I needed to survive. So I I I created it and unknowingly, but I it was that um healing path for me. And I walked the journey before I ever wrote one word of it. You know, so when I took my sabbatical and I was on that one-year journey, um, I lived the holistic wealth principles. So I've walked it, I've lived it. I didn't even know at the time what it was. I had the time to get up and meditate at 3 a.m. every morning, and I'd wait to hear his voice, and I would stay there in anticipate anticipation, and I would hone those skills to listen and to decipher his voice and to know the difference between his voice and something else. And I took the time to hone that. That's the spiritual part of holistic wealth, and it's amazing how he led me and guided me. Like every decision I would wait in anticipation to hear. And then that's a spiritual part of it. And then there was the other part where I spent so much time in nature. Like, as you know, Jen, we just launched the holistic wealth retreat in Jamaica, and that's where I spent Pause there. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

Thank you. When I seen it, I was like, okay, I need to go here. Congratulations. And I'm like I said, I'm gonna say it again. God had a reason for me reaching out to you, and he had a reason why we had to meet now. If I tell you years ago, I said to my partner, Jamaica needs a retreat house.

SPEAKER_01 26:07

Really?

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Yes. And I said, when I do my first event, I'm gonna do retreats, and the first country that I'm going to is Jamaica. Wow. So when you said it to me, and then I seen it, I was like, God, what are you up to? So, congratulations to you because Jamaica needs it, not just for people to come in and travel, but the people there need it. They need somewhere that they can go to and get the wellness that they need because you neglect it. If you don't know it, what are you gonna do? We don't know it. No, I'm just learning this. I'm just learning this as an adult now, taking care of myself.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Yes, and a lot of what we think is healing and wellness isn't. You know, it's not just hanging out at the spa. It really just isn't. Because what I've learned through walking this journey and my research is the reason why this was so healing was because of the elevation and why it, you know, it's so far up. It's 3,000 feet above sea level, where your nervous system heals your lungs, your brain. There's science behind it. And there's a reason why some of the most famous temples and mosques, and these places are all highly elevated. They're not stuck in very densely populated urban areas, they're way above. Normally on mountaintops or in mountains, on mountainsides, hillsides, where you can breathe fresh, clean air. You're basically in the bowels of nature, and your nervous system begins to heal there in minutes of being in that environment, just being in the environment. And when I was there during my sabbatical, I did not even know this stuff. But I knew that there was something different about this place, and I knew there was something in the environment, in how it felt being in nature, like the blue mountain range that we have in Jamaica is is is it's it's unbelievable for the range of species of birds, of butterflies, of endemic species that can only be found there. Nowhere else on earth has these things. So imagine when I'm there, I'm eating farm to table jen because it's on a one-acre property where you have fruit trees, herbs, vegetables, and I could eat farm to table for days without having to buy anything. Because it has the acki, it has the breadfruit, it has the colour, it has the mint leaves, it has everything. Everything. And I'm eating farm to table, so I'm my body is being nourished, my mind is being nourished, I'm in the bowels of nature, I'm in, you know, 3,000 feet. I didn't even realize I wrote in the book that it was 800 feet above sea level, only to realize afterwards it's 3,000 feet. I didn't even realize it was that far up. And this is just the foot of the Blue Mountain Peak. This isn't even climbing it yet. This is just the foot. And I kid you not, everything about the location, the environment is just there for healing. And you don't have to do anything else, you just have to take advantage of what's around you. So it's unbelievable, Jen, that the first time you reached out to me, like none of that was in place. Because we only released, we only, you know, started, you know, having guests in December 2025. We only started that then. And then when people started, like three days after we put it up, we released it. We got bookings. We were so surprised, we weren't even ready. When we got the first booking, we were like, oh my gosh. Like we thought everybody would ignore us, and nobody would even like three days. We had to scramble to make sure everything was. We just thought, yeah, we just put it up. Of course, nobody will book. We'll have months before anybody books. Three days. And then people started saying, Well, you don't have enough rooms. So, like, you know, so it's unbelievable how the journey happens. And if if you were to tell me, Jen, when I went to do that sabbatical, that place would be opened up for healing for other people. I would have told you no. Like, really? No. But now it is. And people have been going there and they've been reading the book because I've made copies available for free for people who book, and they've been posting them on TikTok and everywhere, and some of them have gone viral. One got like 2.5 million views on TikTok, and it's been unbelievable. It's just like, you know, just God saying, watch me. Just sit back. I've got it all figured out, you know, and it's unbelievable that I can sit here and honestly say that. Like it's it's just been a journey that seemed to have been carved out, and I was just kind of just walking the journey and just, you know, bringing, I was just the vessel because it was just all there. So it's unbelievable that when we listen and when we obey and not get bogged down to what society's dictating and what people are saying we should be doing or who we should be.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Especially when you know deep down it's just a mismatch. Like you, I was, you know, as I said, I was on the cooperate treadmill and I did my hours like you. I mean, at one point I was flying around with a prime minister on his plane and writing his briefing notes for him. So like we pulled 24 hours when he was meeting with world leaders. He met with President Trump, he met with President Z, like every world leader you can think of, and every business person you can think of that, you know, like, and I was on those trips writing those briefing notes, flying around, you know, and that that was good, but of course, that led to a certain amount of burnout, and again, something drew me back and said, you know, like that's great, but this is the path you should be on, and so this is the path I'm on, and it's been unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

You know, you spoke about positioning yourself so you can know if it's truly God's voice. First, I want to say I'm proud of you that you didn't just sit in grief, but you allowed God to enter your life completely during that time. Because a lot of times when you're going through grief, you block out even God's voice. Yes. And then you get confused with is that me talking? Is that the devil talking? Am I crazy?

unknown 33:49

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

And that's why we have to sit with ourselves and really get to it. Because you know what I did, Jen, and I said this in the book. When I decided to go and give up everything, I packed, like, I literally packed what I had in a 40-foot container and headed to Jamaica. Like, I packed up my life. I gave a ton of stuff away that I had in that house. I rented it out to this lovely young couple with a family, a young couple with a young baby at the time, and I packed my stuff in a 40-foot container. I'll never forget it. It was in the middle of winter, it was in January. The 40-foot container was outside of the house in Canada, and I gave away so much they just packed up what was left in it. I didn't even know what was what I was carrying, but I had to shed all of that stuff to figure out the meaning of life because we get distracted by the stuff, and we get distracted by the things that we hang on to that are material, and I shed all of that and then went there with that 40-foot container. Can you imagine going to clear that 40-foot container and then freaking and then unpacking it with a young baby? That's what I did, and when I look at that journey, I'm like, how did I even have the energy to do that? But I was so determined that I had to find the answers, I had to heal, I was in too much pain. It was unbearable. So I packed up my life, my entire life. Left all that I knew around me, the friendships, everything. I didn't have any friends down there. I mean, not that, you know, like I had I had left for so long. Like I there was just I had family members, which was good. But I packed up everything and and I walked that journey and I realized luckily, you know, I rented the home, the home was mortgage free, so I didn't have to worry about that part. And we had planned for this, we had meticulously planned, and that's why even when I talk about holistic wealth, I still say you need that financial stability. So don't get me wrong, that's still very, very important. Yeah, to have that financial stability means that you can take the time you need to heal, you can make the decisions you need in life to heal. So that part was taken care of. So I just needed to, so that's how the framework came together, that holistic wealth framework. And all of those pieces were in place and kind of really reinforced each other. And that's when when I came back to Canada after that one year, that's when it dawned on me. Like I wrote this viral article. When I came back, I wrote the viral article. My husband died at age 34. Here are 40 life lessons I learned from it. And that article went viral. I had no idea. It was, I I didn't know, like I it was the most vulnerable thing I had wrote up until that point. And it really took a life of its own, and that's what led to the first edition of the book, that viral article. But that's basically how the holistic world framework came about. Because there were so many people too that told me, Jen, don't go. Like, how can you pack up your life and go to Jamaica? Who does that? Like, look at the life you have. Are you crazy? You're going to regret it. Like, I heard that more than I heard go. I think my brother and a few family members were the only ones who were said, listen, yes, do it. Everybody else said, No, you're crazy. You're you're just like out of your mind. But if I didn't do that, I wouldn't be able to teach this. I wouldn't be able to pass this on. I wouldn't be able to look back on it and say, look at this big thing that I did. That was like, you know, like many people wouldn't have, you know, probably thought, even thought about doing that. But we wouldn't have had this framework out in the world and the whole whole holistic wealth movement. You know, April is global holistic wealth month, April 9th is Global Holistic Wealth Day, Jen. We wouldn't have any of that. We wouldn't have had any of that had I not walked this journey. So, as I said, like I'm still in amazement that, you know, this all worked out this way, but I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that this is how it turned out and the impact that it has had on so many lives. Like, we've surpassed 300 million. I mean, it's been a long, hard trudge. I mean, you're talking about 17, 16 years of work gone into this. So it's not an overnight thing by any imag, you know, like it's it's been 17 years of work to get this far.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

I'm glad that you said that because you know, people would look at you and be like, well, Keisha Blair, she did it. Look at all the work she did, look at her book. But this wasn't, I went to sleep and woke up and this just happened. No, this is you putting the time and energy into yourself. This was you silencing the noise and doing what was best for you and allowing yourself to shed so you can step into your purpose. Yeah, things won't just happen overnight. You gotta allow yourself to turn off the noise, even if it's the people that you love, if they don't understand that you need to do what's best for you and figure out what you need and what you're supposed to do, then guess what? We have to learn to grieve those people too. They may not grieving people is also letting them go.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

And I learned that too. Yes, we may have had great times together, but I gotta grieve you so that I can release myself.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

And you said something else that's so powerful, and you know, I never knew how important it was, but you said holistic wealth isn't optional, it's essential. Why was it important for you to bring this message to platforms like mine and to millions of people's life?

SPEAKER_01 40:56

Yeah, honestly, Jen, when I say it's essential, it's life-saving. It's life-saving, and there's so much in it that's biblical. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't since I've been walking this journey, I've been getting insights and revelations about how biblical it is. Like even the last podcast episode I did for the Holistic Wealth Podcast, talking about the biblical part of having multiple income streams, so that when there's trouble in the land, you can thrive and still survive. This is biblical. This is Ecclesiastes 11, verse 12. This is Solomon saying, the wisest and richest, you know, at the time saying, you need to have seven to eight, and it was spelled out seven to eight. So incomes to it. So that's when there's trouble in the land. And so when I tell you it is essential, it's biblical, and there's so much biblical in there, Bible-based. Like it's unbelievable that when I wrote it, I wasn't even, there were things that I didn't even know. But I just had these revelations, and because I was so tuned in, as I said to you before, I was just like, it was almost like the spirit within me saying, write this. This is what it is. So many people fall through the cracks because they're not implementing holistic wealth principles. And whether it's our physical health or mental health or emotional, spiritual wealth, as you can tell, Jen, we have high rates of suicide. 66% of people who are financially successful don't feel fulfilled in life. That's almost 70%. And you can round it up and be like, yes, 70% of people. So all of these pillars of holistic wealth are essential because we have high rates of depression, loneliness, burnout. So even if we say, okay, well, we've covered the finance piece, it still does not prevent us from literally dying. Like I also, you know, spoke about this in the Holistic Wealth expanded and updated edition of the book. That when my husband died, he made a life and death decision at his desk at work. So he was also very driven, ambitious. He's a CPA, and he had a ton of core because he had a lineup outside of his office the night he died. People asking him to check his work, colleagues at work, because he was so good at math that they all wanted him to check their work. And he said, you know what? I'm going to sit. He felt the pain in his abdomen, quite likely. That's what the doctors said. And if he had just gotten up and run at that time straight to the hospital, he would have been alive. But he waited, he felt the pain and he waited to check their work. And he did everything. And then came home. And then by then the tumor had burst open, it had erupted. And it was a rare tumor. So by the time he got to the hospital, the doctors just didn't know what to do. They'd never seen anything like it. It was so rare, only one in one million people get that illness. So when you're up against time, and time is of the essence, and doctors are confounded, there's nothing that can save you at that point. And as we go back to where we were in the conversation, Jen, when we spoke about work and the workplace and putting your everything in it. There are over 400 million people making life and death decisions at work, each and every day. This is every single day. And most of them are making those decisions not knowing the full extent of what's going on in their bodies. Like my husband didn't realize he was at death's door. So he should get up and run. You can imagine this is why holistic wealth is essential. Because if we're prioritizing our health, our well-being over, let's say, a job, the workplace, right? Then we're not seeing those effects in our lives, in our communities, in society writ large. This is why it is essential. And even as an economist, you know, like part of the work is getting countries, companies, organizations to see that this is how we have a resilient workforce. We're not going to have a resilient workforce if everyone burns out or people start dropping down dead, right? We're going to be resilient when we can take the time to be able to care for ourselves in the way we need to care for ourselves. So that's why that message is crucial. This isn't just hairy, fairy, good stuff, feel good stuff. This is essential for lives. Like lives are at stake unless we can get this message out.