Welcome to the Holistic Wealth podcast. I’m your host, Kesha Blair wife, mother of three, author of Holistic Wealth and Founder of the Institute on Holistic Wealth. The show will showcase various experts in the key pillars of holistic wealth. Each week, we deliver the best information on how to become holistically, wealthy and live your best life today.
Today, we have a very special guest with us. We have Elisa Udaskin, and she’s the author of āBe A Mench: Unleash Your Power to Be Kind and Help Othersā, and she’s also the founder of CaringOrganizer. Elisa. Welcome to the show. We’re so happy to have you here.
Elisa Udaskin: Thank you.
Keisha Blair: Great. And so I know you had a wonderful journey through your corporate career and then transitioning, you know, to founding CaringOrganizer, and writing a book. And so I just wanted to start out to give the audience a sense of your journey.
Elisa Udaskin: Sure, absolutely. So, as you said, I worked for about 20 years in the corporate world. I started off at Kraft Canada and then, but 13 years ago, the company moved myself and my family to New Jersey in the U S. And then a few years ago, they moved us to Singapore where I led a global team. So, you know, I was doing marketing and leading teams for Oreo cookies and chips, the whole I and Maxwell House coffee and Trident gum, and just lots of fun stuff. So I worked a lot. I loved it. And I traveled all over the world and I met so many people from different cultures and worked with them and it was just a really wonderful life.
Then what happened was we moved back to New Jersey because they relocated the global team. And about six months after we relocated here in New Jersey, I was on a leadership training and back in Vietnam. And my boss called me at like six in the morning and said, Elisa, we just got this announcement. That was a shock. And it was that they were going to be eliminating all the global teams and I was part of the global teams. And so I knew at that point that, you know, my time was up. I came back home to New Jersey and we had to wait a few weeks before we found out what was going to happen, but I really was ready to leave.
I was tired. I was ready to do something different. And so I took a package. I was there for almost 20 years. And, you know, I was happy, but I was of course also sad so that we could get into that a bit later too. It’s just like a lot of mixed emotions with doing that and sort of veering into sort of the unknown, because I always had my identity caught up with being, you know, a global marketer and what I did.
So I took some time and I decided to use all my air miles. I don’t have any anymore, but that I used to have. And for six months I took four different trips. So we get a time to Guatemala, to volunteer with the school, with disabled and physically challenged and mentally challenged children. And I kept on coming back because I had my husband and kids and, you know, did my responsibilities here, but I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do.
And I knew I wanted to help people. I just didn’t know what it was going to be. And so what happened was that that summer, my father-in-law got very ill in Toronto and he passed away. And I observed that so many people reached out to us, but then so many other people, especially if they lived in New Jersey and we were in Toronto or different places didn’t know what to do.
They didn’t want to bother us. They hesitated. And I thought, you know what? I could really, maybe this is the idea, the spark of doing something to help people, help others. And that’s when I developed CaringOrganizer.com, which is a website that has tips and tools and meal schedulers, and lots of tips on really how to encourage people to get over any hesitation they have with tangible, really practical things they can do to help other people during illness or death, things like that.
So then let’s fast forward a couple of years later, or a year and a half. And I had all these stories in my head I had, because I did so much research for CaringOrganizer. I’d spoken to so many people. But all the wonderful things that they did to help others. But also I learned a lot about why they hesitate and that’s when I decided to write the book. So Be A Mensch: Unleash Your Power to be Kind and Help Others, is the book that I wrote and I am now an author. So that’s my story.
Keisha Blair: That’s an amazing story. And there’s so many things going through my head right now, Elisa, because during COVID, it’s so relevant your book. It’s so funny. I was preparing for this interview with you. And I thought about, you know, in the weeks that followed my husband’s death because I had just given birth eight weeks prior. So I was also, dealing with grief and a new baby, and I had a three-year old. And I thought about the people who I still remember to this day. Who did stuff, you know, the meaningful things that you remember a decade or decades later.
And those were the people who just turned up at your door with food, or turned up with buckets of soup and turned up, and you didn’t need to ask them. Right. You didn’t need to ask for help. They just knew they just acted and they didn’t put you through the motion of, oh, let me know what you want me to do help, or call me you if you need anything.
Because when you’re deep in grief and you have two babies, you know, it’s difficult, but those people who just turned up, went to the supermarket, carried groceries, or picked me up with their car and carried me to the supermarket, even fill the trolley with me with groceries, because I remember a time, at least though when I was so grief stricken, even picking up an orange was hard. I remember being over a stand of oranges in the supermarket and I could barely reach for one. My friend had to pull the bag and fill it with oranges. For me. I was just so confused. I didn’t know what to do. I was just like, what am I doing? I can’t pick up an orange. And for people listening in, yes, it can be that bad when you’re grief stricken and you’re also weak physically.
So this is why I was looking forward to our conversation because I know you went through a similar situation when your father-in-law passed away. Right? Like it’s so amazing. This is so important.
Elisa Udaskin: Yeah. And so for me, it wasn’t, as I would say, as raw as for you, because I was, I would guess one removed because it was my father-in-law. I was very close with him. But I didn’t have, it was more, I was able to observe a lot and I was the doer. So I was your friend who was doing everything for my husband, his siblings, my mother-in-law, you know what I mean? Like I was, I was like your friend would have been grief-stricken as well, but I was the support. And that’s the role I wanted to ask you something, you know, do you remember recall people who surprised you? Who you didn’t expect to reach out and help like anybody from your community or just long lost friends or anything like that?
Keisha Blair: Absolutely. You know, I think angels come when you least expect it. And I was thinking about that yesterday because I, I find myself thinking back to that time often and you know, the people who stepped in to help when you least expect it. And we had friends in the church and, not necessarily close friends, not necessarily even full acquaintances. And they had different groups, you know, and they turned up in groups. And I was so surprised. They brought food and I was grateful because to be honest, when you have family and friends visiting you daily, which is what happens too. Right? And the first two or three weeks or month, you just want to know that there’s even something there. And there were other people who turned up with flowers, neighbors and things like that. And it was just really, really welcomed.
Elisa Udaskin: We all can do things. We just have to open our eyes and be brave and not worry that, oh, they don’t know me so well. Or won’t it be weird? You know, it’s not weird. It’s to your point when you’re the recipient, it’s just, it’s just welcomed. One of the things that we just did recently is over, I guess it was the beginning of January. I live in Morristown, New Jersey and with COVID a few people started this Facebook group called Morristown Helps. Just an amazing community. We raised money. We did all these things. We did food rotations to the hospital staff. Cause we were hit really hard here in Morris town and this community continues to thrive in terms of supporting our local businesses, supporting people and so on.
So anyhow, what happened was that in January I saw two different posts a few days apart. That people posted in this group. And they were both about fathers, two separate families where the father passed away from COVID over Christmas time. And both these families had kids that were in my son’s high school and both these families needed help.
The demographics of our town is middle high-income and then very low income. And they were both in low income situations and so different individuals set up meal trains for them and a go fund me. And I didn’t know them. I asked my son if he knew either of these two kids and he didn’t know them, he said, this is what we’re going to do. So for one of them, I made a meal and listen, I made the same meal for myself. To be honest with you for my family. Like I just doubled it. It’s so easy to do that. Like literally, like, you know, I don’t understand sometimes when people say, oh, I don’t have time to go. Hello, are you cooking for your family?
Like, I literally just doubled it and I put things in reusable, like containers. And I took my son with me for the one we dropped off. And, you know, I said to him, he’s learning to drive. And I said to him, I’m not sure exactly where this house is. I might have just double parked it. So he took me, we parked. It took a while to find the place, the apartment. It was the back of a house. And when I want, when I came back in the car, I haven’t paused like this in a while. And he looked at me, he said, let’s go, what’s up mom? And I said, you know, they live seven minutes from us. And the house is kind of, I would say, like in shambles a little bit, but you know, like not, I’m not trying to judge, I didn’t go in those, but more just, just to, to say, you know, go to my son, this is why we do it.
They really need our help. You know, we didn’t really talk much more about it. And a couple of days later, he said to me, you know what mom I asked, one of my friends is in the class with the girl at a class with the, with the daughter. So to me it made an impact on my son that he talked about it with his friends.
And then with the other one, I just made a donation, a small donation, right. Because right now things are tight, but I still felt I can do this. And I made a small donation to the GofundMe for the other family. Now I did not know either family. And I’m so grateful that. People took the initiative to help them and posted about it. Right. Because we can all do things, even if we don’t know people.
Keisha Blair: As you’re talking, I’m thinking about all the ways that we can support each other, you know, especially when we’re at that very vulnerable period where, you know, it feels like the world is coming to an end and it feels like the world is crumbling. And so that’s why I love the premise of your book because you’re right, we have a tendency sometimes as human beings, to say to each other when somebody is suffering through the loss of a loved one or something like that saying, you know, well, call me if you need anything, I’m just a phone call away. Or, send me an email. Or just let me know how you’re doing and really what we’re doing is putting the onus back on the person, suffering to sort themselves out and to reach out to you to let you know when they need help, which is I can tell you having been in that position, not necessarily a good feeling and not necessarily a good thing to do.
So, you know, you read those articles all the time, where it says here are 15 things not to say to someone grieving, or 10 things not to say, right? And, and this is why your book is so important too. And the work you do with CaringOrganizer in terms of the organizing aspect of it and communities being able to come together to organize, to help others. And it’s why I’m so drawn to it. And so Elisa, you know, Are there any lessons from the book that you can share with the audience, you know, in terms of ways to help or what else they can do to help and show this kindness during COVID-19?
Elisa Udaskin: Absolutely. And that’s a question I get often is, you know, with all the fear of the restrictions, the real fear, the real restrictions of not being in person and in contact with people, right. People feel paralyzed. Like there’s nothing I can do. Right. Like there’s really nothing I could do. Well, I would beg to differ because there are so many things that you can do to support others when they’re ill, when someone has passed away, when someone has lost job where you don’t need to be in person, definitely like you said, you can make regular phone calls or texts and with the texts, don’t expect them to get back to you.
You could text them once a week or once every two weeks and say, I’m thinking of you. You don’t need to respond. I’m going grocery shopping on Wednesday, you know, send me your list if you want it. And then the next week I’m going grocery shopping again, you know, or, or, or things like that. Like make suggestions of tangible things that you do.
The other thing that you could do is face time or zoom. People are zoomed out a bit, but if somebody is living alone, And they’re very lonely or it’s really important to have that FaceTime with other people so that they don’t feel alone. And then another thing is you can, or if you’re comfortable and you can order, you can send food to them, Uber eats or delivery from the restaurant or things like this. I’ve done it a lot. You know, my niece was in the hospital. They live in New Orleans and I knew they were in the hospital with her. And I thought, I didn’t know which restaurant to order from. I started overthinking, I don’t know what they wanted. I don’t know what they feel like. You don’t know what restaurant. And then I thought, at least wait a second. I don’t have to make those decisions. But if I send them a gift card to Uber eats or to GrubHub, then they can choose what they want on their time, but they have that card and they can use it. You know, the other thing is with technology, just the messages, emails, you know, things like that.
Just stay in touch with people and don’t hesitate to reach out because you think that you can’t do enough, even small things. It means so much to people you’re so right. Elisa. Cause like, as you’re listing the different ways that people can help, I’m thinking about them and I’m like, well, it seems even a bit easier now to help in this environment because of all the tools and technologies available to us and the fact that you’re right, but there’s so many apps, delivery apps, food apps, you can easily just order something, send it to a different address.
Easily just, you know, order something from the supermarket. If you’re doing your own shopping, add a few extra items and send it to that address. It’s just so much easier now. I mean, even here everything’s gone online. I mean, there’s Walmart before everything’s online Loblaws. Everything. And I’m like, wow, like, as you’re talking, I’m like, this is so much easier than even running around town by yourself, doing the errands, dropping off, picking up stuff like that.
Like now, you just pay a few dollars extra and that’s available. Can I tell you one more example that happened? I haven’t actually really shared this with many people, but. Last August here in New Jersey. I never in my life thought I would have worse weather conditions in New Jersey than when I lived in Toronto, but I do, or I even grew up in Ottawa.
That’s worse here sometimes because we live with all the trees, forested areas. And so the power lines go down with all inclement weather. So last August, we’re all happy we were living in COVID restrictions, of course. And, we have a huge storm and our power is out. Our power is out for five days and we didn’t have a generator. Okay. And I have to be honest, we have these close friends who every other storm through the years, we’ve always sort of hung in it together. Right. Support each other in each other’s houses, doing things like this, right. To get through this. And they knew from my husband that we were at a power, they had power.
And they were so afraid of COVID and stuff that they didn’t even ask how we were didn’t even ask. I want to take the positive thing. One friend said. Put your laundry outside, I’m picking it up and I’m doing, I said, you’re not doing my laundry. She said, put your laundry outside your door or I’m coming in your house.
I go, no, one’s a lot of masks. Cause we’re not going to get each other’s houses. Should I let her do my laundry? My friend, and then another person who happened to be speaking to an acquaintance was talking to my husband. And the next thing I know, the wife texts me and said, I hear you don’t have power. We do. She said, I’m making dinner, I’m sending it over and I’m doing your laundry. I was like, wow. So when you’re in these different situations, when support would be really appreciated, it’s sometimes amazing the people who step up right. And the others, I would say all I needed from that those other friends who were supposed to be our closest friends was.
Send us a text that we would have for everything else. I’m sorry, I can’t help you out because I’m so worried about COVID. But I just want you to know that, you know, we’re thinking, being nothing because they were probably embarrassed or this or that. So my whole message is it’s never okay to do nothing as uncomfortable.
And there’s so many uncomfortable situations. Like what I just described. Get over yourself. That’s what I always say. Get over yourself. It’s not about you show your support in that case, the friend has ordered and send somebody does not that we needed them to do that, but shown at least a text, a phone call, but nothing, you know.
Keisha Blair: Absolutely. I completely agree. And I’ve been there, done that Elisa. I had people who couldn’t look me in the eye. These were acquaintances, and I had those who just acted like it just never happened. And just, you could feel the awkwardness. You could feel the tension when we were out in mom groups, because remember at the time we were all young moms, right. So they would have their kids in school. I would have my three-year-old and my eight-week old baby. Or like, let’s say by the time that was happening, let’s say he was like three months old. By the time I was getting out again, just to go to the park with friends, and they would completely act like nothing happened, but they would avoid me though.
And they would avoid the eye contact. They’d talk to everybody else and just would not say anything to me because they did not feel comfortable. Probably didn’t know what to say. And so when you said a while ago, it’s never acceptable. I completely agree. And I’m going to say it’s never acceptable to do that. It is horrific and I’ve been there and I feel the same way seeing it now, as I did back then, it is humiliating. It’s embarrassing.
Elisa Udaskin: Yeah. And that’s why I write a lot about, be brave, have courage. These things are not easy. Those other young moms who saw you in the park, You know, it was a scary thing, not knowing what to say to you, feeling guilt, that they had their husbands and they felt so bad for you. It’s too bad that some of them could not muster up the courage just to come over and give you a smile. Right. That’s the thing. It takes a lot of courage to do things that are uncomfortable.
Keisha Blair: Yes, absolutely. It does. And all the time, all the time. No, you’re right. And it’s true. We need to realize it’s not about us. It’s not about our feelings. It’s about the other person who’s suffering and who needs the support and, you know, at least a, so much of what we’re talking about, ties into mental health. You know, as you talked about connecting with seniors on zoom, they’re often alone during COVID and those who are going through loneliness and tragedies and setbacks, that’s all mental health.
And I kid you not, when you have the support and you feel the support and people are kind and helpful, it does wonders for your mental health. It’s amazing for your mental health. And it lets you know, that people care. And that you’re not alone and that you’re going to get through it. And that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel because you have this support group around you and you and your kids are going to be fine.
I can’t stress this enough to everyone listening, how important this is. I’m loving this conversation because to be honest with you, since we’ve been recording the podcast, This is the first time I’ve gotten to delve deeply into this topic. Not necessarily talking about the book, but talking about my experience and, you know, from this mental health perspective and everything that we’re talking about, just moving into switching gears a bit, one of the things I also experienced, which I guess a lot of young moms would have experienced this too, was, I kept questioning all my money decisions. And so, you know, I came up with this framework and it’s the personal financial identities framework. And during the first lockdown during COVID readers came to me because, they wanted to know how to identify theirs and really know how to harness the strengths of their personal financial identity.
And so there’s this free quiz now, that I’ve developed and guests have been coming on the show and they’ve been. Sharing with the audience, their results and their thoughts on it in terms of their daily lives, even with their spouses and families. And so I’m eager to hear your results and your thoughts on it and how much it resonates in terms of your personal life.
Elisa Udaskin: So my results were Anxious Spender.
Keisha Blair: And does that feel like you, does it feel like what you’ve been experiencing with your relationship with money?
Keisha Blair: Definitely, you know, I did think about it. I think it has a lot to do with my upbringing, but then also with leaving the corporate world. So like two different things, you know, when I grew up, I grew up in, definitely a middle class upbringing, but my mother was an immigrant to Canada. She came to Canada when she was 10 and her, her parents were Holocaust survivors. And so they basically not only lost their family, like my grandmother’s, four children and wife were killed. And then my grandmother’s all her older siblings, but they came with nothing. They had to build everything.
Keisha Blair: Oh my gosh. And you’re saying, so their siblings were killed?
Elisa Udaskin: Yes, but my mom and my aunt were born after. Grandfather’s second marriage. So he had a wife and four kids who were all murdered. And then he met my grandmother after they were liberated from the concentration camps and they started a new life.
Wow. So growing up, like my mom and my aunt, when they first came to Canada, you know, their parents shared a room, right. What I’m saying is shared a room. I don’t mean just the two girls. I mean, the family, you know, like, I mean, they lived in very tight quarters and they always knew the value of money. Right. And always worked really, really hard and all that. And so when I was growing up, my mom, like I always say that she was like counting pennies. And, there were different times that my dad was working or not working. My mom was a housewife, there were three of us. And, you know, I remember powdered milk. I remember times when things were tough, then the eighties came eighties and, you know, we all felt like we were living in the highlight. Right. You know, so then I had my career. So I think I always had that. The Anxious Spender is sort of in me because of that, you know, my father also grew up very, very low income and how to work his way up.
And so I think that I always sort of had a bit of that. I would say baggage, but then when I was working in, like I said, for 20 years in corporate and marketing and traveling everywhere, You know, flying around with business. I spent more freely, I would say definitely because of, you know, I had more money and I was making a good income and all that. However, I still was careful. I wouldn’t say that I never spent without thinking about it, if that makes sense. So even I just didn’t have to worry so much about money, but then I went from making a really healthy salary. Like I said, traveling all over the world, going on trips, doing all these things. To like, boom, nothing starting my own bit social business, which really, you know, is tough using a lot of my savings.
And then of course I live in the U S now, so having to pay for healthcare, right. And insurance, which is a fortune. So that anxiety about money just came creeping up or roaring, I would say. And worrying about it a lot. And so I made, I made some decisions because I wanted to pursue writing the book.
I wanted to pursue doing these things. And so I decided that I was going to cut back versus going for a big corporate job again. And so I cut back on quite a few things that I don’t miss. Like for instance, if anybody could see me now, I call myself a silver Fox, but you could just say, I have gray hair now I stopped coloring my hair.
I stopped going to the salon to color my hair and I cut off my hair and. I love it. You know, like I just, I don’t miss that, but if I did, I wouldn’t have chosen that, you know, like stopped having house cleaner every couple of weeks, I do everything myself. So those were the trade-offs that I was comfortable making.
We haven’t gone on a family vacation in years, but we don’t miss anything. If that makes sense. Like we have done so much traveling when we lived in Singapore, you know, I’ve still, my kids have gone away with, on things, but I don’t know, I’m comfortable with the trade-offs that I made.
Keisha Blair: I love that. I love your story. And especially as it relates to the Anxious-Spender, Elisa, I just love it. And with your story and your history and with your family’s story, I just love it. It’s amazing. It’s one of the more powerful stories that I’ve heard on the podcast so far, I have goosebumps and I can totally relate with it so much.
I can relate to everything in so many ways, because as I said, my mom is an Anxious-Spender too. There’s a story, a real fulsome history behind that too, that too. I’d have to get into on another show, but it’s quite similar to yours in terms of her family’s background and all of that. You know, just these insights and the way that you mentioned your various moves and with the traveling and how you’ve cut back. And I think those things are really life lessons that people are learning and no matter what your financial identity, it’s such wisdom and learning in that, because you also mentioned the trade-offs.
And even when you left cooperate America and decided not to go back. Right. I just wanted to touch on this because so many women come on the podcast and they’re like, I left my corporate job and I did not look back. Even if I had to make sacrifices, it was well worth it. So can you just expand on that point? Cause you didn’t go back and as you’ve said, you’ve made trade-offs, you’ve made cutbacks and so. Was that just like a conscious decision that, you know, you just wanted to switch your lifestyle a hundred percent?
Elisa Udaskin: Okay. So anybody who knew me back when I was working, thought I was just living like the most amazing life. And a lot of it was really good, really good, except that after all that traveling, I don’t want to sound ridiculous, but it was business class. I’m going to sound ridiculous. But I still was like 23 hours because at one point for seven months, I commuted between Singapore and New Jersey plus in between that taking trips to like South Africa and Mexico and Brazil and stuff like that, because we relocated our team to New Jersey, but I negotiated that with my kids, I wanted them to finish the school year in Singapore. So I agreed to go back and forth. So it might sound to my friends and people thought it sounded so cool. However, I ended up having all these back issues, Keisha, like I never had back issues before it, all of a sudden I come back and Just, you know, being really, really tired and all the issues. And I gained a lot of weight because I ate so much all the time. I didn’t sleep well. So basically I just really needed a rest in the beginning. And, I think that my first reaction was I want to try something different and I didn’t want to go back to it.
And I just want to try something different and see if I was going to be happy with it. And I knew it would come with trade-offs and I figured those out along the way. I didn’t sit there and say, okay, I’m not going to go back to corporate America and I’m going to try to bootstrap doing this social business and this book and not make any money.
The other thing is that this all coincided when my daughter was in the first year of high school. So grade nine and 10 are freshmen here, and my son was a grade seven. And I cannot tell you how amazing it has been from going from the mom who does not know the names of the parents for the play dates because my husband did everything like being around for my kids, but through the high school years, so amazing because they go through so much as teenagers.
And so I could just be very flexible and just nurture them more, you know? And so my husband and I kind of traded roles, you know, and we just had to cut back on a lot of things and I’m just happier. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t, I was really happy, but I also always knew I wanted to try something different with like, I called it like, you know, chapter two of my life.
Keisha Blair: Yeah. I’ve been there, done that. You know, when you said, you turned up and do the play dates and they only knew your husband. And you didn’t even know the teachers. That was me. And that was heartbreaking. And you know why it was heartbreaking for me too, because I was at the place where, when my husband died, I had made a pledge that I always have to be there for them. You know, I remember the days because you know, I’m remarried, but I remember the days where it was just me and them. Right. And then, you know, life happened and the career happened again and everything snowballed and here I was caught up in this where yeah, I’m turning up at school. Nobody knows you’re the mom, they’re used to my husband, so I absolutely can identify with that. And, you know, and as mothers, that’s very difficult. That’s a very difficult road.
Elisa Udaskin: Absolutely. Yeah. The word balance is so fraught with lots of different things, but, you know, for me, I would definitely say it was always worked first, always. Like I thought I was like so great because I would have dinner with the kids, but then I would work after. Like I was just always working and I loved it. Right. But I love what I’m doing now, too. So it’s just, you could explore different things. And if I didn’t love anything, don’t get me wrong. There’s lots of ups and downs on this journey too. Right. A lot as, you know, you know, writing a book, self-publishing the whole thing, but it, but it’s pretty good.
Keisha Blair: That’s amazing. And that’s great. And I’m happy for this. You know, because lots of women are listening in and as you know, women, you know, have suffered through COVID-19 with loss of jobs and they’re thinking about, yeah, they’re thinking about their next steps. They’re thinking, what are the trade-offs now? And what’s more beneficial to me for my lifestyle, you know?
Elisa Udaskin: So I think we’re at this work, many of us can really take that decision and, you know, that goes back to that holistic wealth being the trade-offs, like money. But you know, there are other things that make us holistically wealthy and your book, Holistic Wealth was amazing for me because that’s how I started looking at my life was holistically. I wasn’t and my holistic wealth, I didn’t have happiness in there. I really didn’t have my happiness in there, you know, and being there for my kids and accomplishing goals, like writing a book, it’s not all, altruistic by any means. I’m not altruistic, there were things for me in there too, but you know, I love your book and looking at your life holistically, as opposed to just looking at it that you need to make money. And that’s, I mean, that’s what I used to think. I used to think that my success was my title at work and I was money I made. And I still have a hard time. I’m still have a bit of that, but like, I have to be honest, I still have that, but I stopped myself and I’m like, okay, no, that’s not what I want. It’s hard not to measure myself against that. Because I have for so long.
Keisha Blair: Yes, exactly. And society and the norms and everybody else’s and you know, you go on LinkedIn and you see that being celebrated and so it’s hard not to, you know, it’s for the same, it’s the same for me. And I’m sure for a ton of other people too, it’s just like, yeah, we have to reframe and. That’s why I’m on this mission to help people reframe, because I found that after my husband, we had the life insurance policy. Yes, we had investments.
So money wasn’t a problem, so to speak. But I realized that the things that made me feel happy and worthwhile, like those relationships, the people who supported me, my mental health, at least on my physical health, you know, feeling healthy and strong and eating right. My spiritual health and being able to meditate and pray.
Those were the things that really got me through it too. I mean, yes. I didn’t have to worry about being broke. I didn’t have to worry about where our next meal was coming from, but those are the things that build resilience and it helps you feel, you know, like you can get through anything. And that’s why I want to help people reframe their thinking on that too. And I mean, you know, you’ve shared some amazing tips and strategies on the show today, so I’m so happy that you were on the show. And so can you tell viewers, I mean, the audience where to get your book, your website and social media?
So my book is Be A Mensch: Unleash your Power to be Kind and Help Others. And my name, I’ll just spell my name out. Its Elisa, E L I S A and then UDaskin. U D A S K I N. And you can purchase my book in both ebook or paperback from Indigo, Chapters, Amazon, or really anywhere where you buy your books. And you can follow me at Elisa Udaskin on social media. And then I have my website is CaringOrganizer.com. So there you go.
Keisha Blair: Thank you for joining us this week on Holistic Wealth with Keisha Blair. Make sure to visit our website keishablair.com where you can subscribe to the show on iTunes, Spotify or via Rs so you will never miss a show. While you’re at it, if you found value in this show, we’d appreciate a rating on iTunes or if you simply tell a friend about the show that would help us out too. Are you a member of the Institute on Holistic Wealth? If not, what are you waiting for? Go to Institute on Holistic Wealth/memberships to choose your membership plan and join as a member. You get so many perks, free worksheets, advice coaching, and a memberās workshop to design an intentionally designed life. Do you need to figure out your life purpose? Take the Build Your Life Purpose Portfolio online self-paced course. Are you struggling with all your money decisions? Take the free financial identities quiz and then take the personal financial identities course. Did you recently suffer a breakup job loss or experience the death of a loved one? Take the Holistic Healing online course. Do you need an overall plan to achieve holistic wealth? We will help you figure out your Holistic Wealth Blueprint and of course, if you want to start making money by helping others achieve Holistic Wealth, become a Certified Holistic Wealth Consultant. Regardless of what career you’ve got, the Institute will show you how to increase your income and walk in your purpose. The sooner you join the sooner you start to achieve a more holistically wealthy lifestyle and you’re going to want to stay for a very long time so go to Institute on Holistic Wealth/memberships to join. If you haven’t read the book yet pick up a copy of the award-winning best-selling book Holistic Wealth: 32 life lessons to help you find purpose prosperity and happiness