We were lucky to catch up with Aisha Taylor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aisha, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I worked in Corporate Finance for a number of years, and in that role I worked on a number of projects including strategic finances, managing a budget of $1B, developing the strategy to turn around a division losing $100M / year, and a variety of other projects. However, my personal finances were a mess. It didn’t make sense that I was doing well in my corporate finance career, but I didn’t have a handle on my personal finances. So, I decided to enroll in a personal financial planning certificate program to learn how to manage my money better. As I had success implementing those lessons, I began to teach others what I learned. That passion turned into a blog, and then a finance book, and then teaching workshops and speaking engagements.

However, after leaving my corporate career to pursue full-time entrepreneurship, I experienced an unplanned pregnancy. I didn’t know how I was going to move forward because not only was I no longer working in my corporate career with an amazing income, the father of my (at the time) unborn twins walked out when I was 4 months pregnant after I refused to have an abortion. The emotional weight and fear I felt at the time nearly consumed me, I struggled to find joy, and had a hard time moving forward. My finances began to spiral out of control through emotional spending even though I was a financial educator, with features in major media publications, and I felt a lot of shame. That’s when I realized if I was struggling financially as a single mom with the educational background and experience that I have, imagine how hard it must be for other single moms. That’s when I shifted my financial literacy business to focusing on helping single women who are pregnant or in early parenting to navigate life, motherhood, and finances phenomenally. I wrote the book, Navigating the “Impossible”: A Survival Guide for Single Moms From Pregnancy Through the First Year of Motherhood, to share my story and provide a roadmap to help other women in similar situations to thrive after becoming pregnant and a single mother. I also have a YouTube channel, teach workshops, and speak. I didn’t necessarily have an elaborate plan and I couldn’t have imagined this. I just allowed the Lord to move me, and I’ve been amazed at the impact that has come from this.

Aisha, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My plan wasn’t initially to become an entrepreneur – entrepreneurship fell in my lap. I initially desired a career in Corporate Finance. I have an Undergraduate degree in Economics. I also have an MBA in Finance. I landed what I thought was my dream job out of graduate school, but then it became a nightmare as I experienced workplace bullying. Around the same time this started I had started my blog. I worked on my blog as a way to try to forget what was going on at work. Eventually, it became my exit strategy from corporate.

That wasn’t without its challenges. I struggled with the aftermath of the verbal abuse from my twin’s dad. It caused me to question who I was, whether or not I was capable and worthy. I ended up losing my self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem. I ended up quitting my own business because I needed everything in me to keep going in my personal life. However, it was my faith in Jesus that helped me to get back on track. I restarted my business, and became even more committed to helping these single moms – especially after experiencing an unplanned pregnancy or unexpected single motherhood.

I do this through going to organizations to speak and teach hands-on workshops on finance, building a support system, restructuring your life to support motherhood and pursuing your dreams, developing mental and emotional resilience. I also do advocacy work as well for single moms. Additionally, I work with single moms individually to develop financial plans. I teach Bible Study on YouTube as well on topics to help single mothers to thrive in life and motherhood.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

When I was working in corporate, I had been praying for a number of months for God to help me get out of corporate, and it’s so crazy because I was invited to a network marketing presentation. Initially, I was really angry that I was invited, but I realized it could be a vehicle to help me to get to my goal to exit corporate. So, I ended up building a network marketing business and building my blog. When I got to the point where my network marketing residual income covered my bills, I quit my full-time job so I could fully pursue my financial literacy business and continue to build the network marketing business. I had savings and investments as well. However, I don’t recommend people do this. I think they should have a solid exit strategy and have income coming in that more than covers just the bills. It was pretty stressful and for a period of time I disliked running my business. I did eventually walk away from the network marketing business, but I’m grateful for the time there because I learned so much about life and business. These lessons continue to help me now in this new stage of my life and business.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

As my twins started to get older and when they went to school, I did decide to go back to work. I had been an entrepreneur for so long at that point, so making the decision to do that was hard. However, as a single mom there can be a lot of pressure financially. I realized I was getting out of alignment with my vision for my business because I was so focused on hitting numbers and implementing what coaches said I needed to do to earn the income needed to care for my family. I found myself no longer loving what I did, and I wanted to love what I do. Going to work at an amazing non-profit that allows me to do ministry work really aligned with my values and provides a stable income so now I run my business and focus on what I love to do. It’s funny because it actually makes more now than it did when I was trying to force everything to work.

Contact Info:

• Website: fnphenomenal.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/fnphenomenal
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aishajtaylor
• Youtube: YouTube.com/@AishaJTaylor
• Amazon: https://a.co/d/2JYbIwp