Uchechi Kalu | Member Spotlight

Uchechi Kalu’s work as a certified financial planner is informed by her unique perspective as a poet and addresses the disparity that artists, first-generation Americans, and women of color face around financial planning.

For years, Kalu has led individual consultations and group sessions to address the need for financial literacy that she saw in her community. On July 8th, PEN America is thrilled to host her for Financial Anxiety in Uncertain Times, a member-exclusive webinar that will answer writers’ specific questions around financial anxiety. Learn more >>

A former Emerging Voices fellow, PEN America member, poet, singer, and embracer of adventure, Kalu sat down with Membership Engagement Manager Aleah Gatto to outline her journey to becoming a CFP and share how her background in writing fills a niche in the money world that so often gets overlooked.

When did you become a certified financial planner? What led to your decision to focus on helping first-generation Americans and women of color?

I spent the majority of my 20s in Beijing. It was such an amazing experience, and in relation to money, it’s a place where I started to form the philosophies that I have about money: It’s a tool of freedom, agency, adventure, and access to the world. I moved back to the U.S. in 2018 and started working again in 2019. I remember feeling, for the first time, really financially crunched. I was working as a teacher, and when I calculated the numbers, I realized that if I worked another year as a teacher, I’d be paying the state to be alive. That deeply impacted me: to go from a space where I felt this ultimate agency, freedom, and growth around money, and where I really learned about investing and money management, to go back to a country that is so incredibly expensive and has no social safety net. Why are we always being told that we have to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps? I was back in South Carolina, back in my community, and it really hit me.

I think one of the worst things you could be in America is a poor, Black woman in the South. Your resources are so limited and there is no one who’s coming to help you. I thought, “Okay, I don’t see anyone else in the community who’s doing this. I’m going to do it myself.” I got an internship with a company in Los Angeles in 2021, and they hired me full-time a week or two later. That’s when the process of becoming a certified financial planner started. Before then, I’d read a lot of books about financial planning, but to become a CFP you need at least two years of work experience, 4,000 hours minimum, you have to pass multiple state and national level exams—it’s a really rigorous process. You have to go back to school if you haven’t gotten some kind of schooling in it. I had to do all that at once while I was working full-time, and I finished that entire process at the end of 2023. It’s been a really long journey, but in a way, I’m the person that I didn’t have. I do it for the community. I do it for us.

What, to you, is the greatest financial hurdle that writers—especially writers of marginalized backgrounds—face today? What topics can attendees of the upcoming financial literacy webinar expect?

There’s a lot of secrecy around money in the art world, and there are different levels of it. One level is, “How much are you getting paid for that versus me?” There’s also secrecy around how artists are actually making a living. Is it because they’re living off of their art and their expenses are incredibly low? Is it because they have a family member that’s funding their life? Is it because they have a spouse that works full-time with a corporate career? We need to ask these questions because the secrecy of how money actually works with artists is to the detriment of artists.

Another level is putting other people’s activities in perspective. If someone else has a full-on cash flow, then it’s more likely that they’re going to be able to write all day because they have their basic needs taken care of. Don’t compare yourself to them. That’s not your life and not your story. I think we have to be realistic about that.

Another thing that comes up a lot is how to deal with variable income. I do a lot of work with clients around how to create different kinds of budgets to account for the fact that, as artists, you’re going to have different income flow. We want to build a financial system around that variability. Marginalized communities are more affected by this. I’ve seen it in my industry: essentially, if you’re not white or if you don’t have X amount of money, you’re just considered a “charity case,” and it’s so fucked up. You’re really not valued if you’re not white—no one wants to talk to you.

Those are some of the big things, but the main thing that I’ll focus on in the webinar is the emotions around money: having more awareness about money traumas, and how your past influences your present. We’ll also talk about variable budgeting and investing—how to make sure you’re growing for the future.

I want to go back to what you said about expectations that artists have, and about comparing themselves to how other artists and writers live. Can you expand on that?

Financial planning is not just a “personal journey”: It’s unique to your particular set of values and needs. My art is going to be different from your art because of what I value, because of the stories that I need to tell versus what you need to tell. One of the things that I focus on with my clients is honing in on what they actually value. Step out of the American dream: Think about who you want to be while you’re here. I gave an event this past weekend, and one of the questions I asked was, “If you no longer had to chase money, what would you be doing to live a fulfilling life?” That’s what I want you to spend your money on now before you get there (because most people will never get there). Even Jeff Bezos still gets up and works for some crazy reason even though he has everything he could ever need, right? People tend to not be able to stop chasing something. But if we can bring that true fulfillment to where we’re living now, that’s how we make a more fulfilling life. For me, the process of doing financial planning is about life fulfillment and liberation.

There’s also secrecy around how artists are actually making a living. Is it because they’re living off of their art and their expenses are incredibly low? Is it because they have a family member that’s funding their life? Is it because they have a spouse that works full-time with a corporate career? We need to ask these questions because the secrecy of how money actually works with artists is to the detriment of artists.

Your experiences, talents, and interests extend far beyond financial planning. You are an award-winning poet, illustrious singer, and world-traveler, too. What drives you to succeed in so many different areas?

I really love that you asked this question because it’s deeply tied to my own life story. I’m not driven by success. I used to be, and I always find it interesting because my family came from Nigeria and their mentality was, “You can do anything.” It’s a different kind of pressure: The expectation was that we would succeed no matter what. That was a big part of my identity growing up, like, “I’m a person that is good at things. I’m a person that succeeds at things.” I was always chasing “success.” It took me a very long time, and a lot of mental health explosions, to realize that success—there’s nothing inside of it. It doesn’t hold anything. It doesn’t hold you up. Not going to keep you warm at night. What drives me now—although I still struggle with this—is fulfillment.

I got into an accident last year. I used to be a moped driver, which I started when I went to China. I got hit by a car in Los Angeles. It was my first near-death experience where I saw my life in slow motion. It made me realize that we’re not here forever. So as long as I’m here, I ask myself, what are the things that I could be doing and not be afraid to die in that moment?

When it comes to writing or singing, or when I’m in new cultures, or even with work—usually when I’m facilitating a group experience—in these spaces, I’m experiencing why I was meant to be here. It’s so opposite from our society: We’re supposed to be driven by money and success and stuff like that. Sometimes I experience a lot of emptiness because I’m also a product of my society. I’m also a product of my family and my culture where fulfillment is not that important.

As a poet, you were a fellow in last year’s Emerging Voices cohort. How does your background in poetry intersect with your financial planning services?

I think my background in poetry is why I take a very emotional, philosophical approach to financial work. The analytical side is that you have to run the numbers, you have to create the spreadsheets and do the strategy and all that. I do that, but it comes after a process of really getting to know oneself. It’s not separate. The poetry I love to read is poetry that explores the knowledge of oneself, or the knowledge of ourselves together. One of my favorite poets is Larry Levis. He was so good at peeling back the layers of himself, getting really real. Louise Glück and Ada Limón are also amazing at that.

We have something that we call our “money story,” which is our set of beliefs and ideas that we tend to hold onto about money. Behavioral psychologists have found that that’s developed between the ages of 5 and 15. It’s at that young age that we’re already establishing why we feel stressed about money, why we feel anxious, what we’re driven by, what we’re afraid of. Again and again in my work, going back to those small stories of, “What do you remember when you were five,” elucidates why people are making the decisions that they’re making, or why they’re driven by what they’re driven by now. Art gives me that lens to see the world in this way, to value those small things, and to know that a poem can be about one small moment that meant everything.

For me, the process of doing financial planning is about life fulfillment and liberation.

What subjects do you focus on in your poetry? Are you working on anything currently?

The main subject that I’m exploring is around Blackness and identity as it moves from location to location. I grew up in between worlds. I’m from a 90% Black town in South Carolina. I grew up around people that looked like me but were not exactly. A very first-gen experience is when you’re in your community and you’re not American enough, and when you go back home to your other community, you’re not Nigerian enough. I remember going back to Nigeria for the first time—I think I was seven or eight years old—and realizing that being an American meant something. People had this space between me and them—even my own family, because I was American. My identity as a Black person then transmutes again in another environment. In China it changes again. I’ve had this unique experience of my identity being changed depending on the people that are receiving me, although I look the same to myself all the time. I find it trippy because, at least in the U.S., we have these really clear narratives: if you’re Black, you’re this, and if you’re white, you’re this, and this is how you’re meant to move through the world. Once you enter the rest of the world the rules are different. I find this to be fascinating.

I’m writing my first book of poetry and it’s about the Biafran genocide—this is a civil war that happened in the ‘70s in Nigeria—that both of my parents survived and that shaped the lives of the Igbo people, which are my own people. I read Half of a Yellow Sun when I was in college and I remember being like, “Is this historical fiction? I’ve never heard about this.” It was like I blew the lid on a family secret. It made me question who my parents are and how the war shaped them. The book’s throughline is my own story navigating Blackness across these different domains.

I’m really interested in a concept I’m calling a “guardian martyr.” It’s similar to a guardian angel. It’s this thing that protects you. There is so much genocide and war in our family stories: Who are the people that had to die in order for your family line to live on? You see a World War II movie and the friend gets shot in the neck but the grandfather lives to tell the tale. I’ve been curious about whether my family has had this guardian martyr: this person that died instead of my dad in the war, and our relationship to the people that died and whether they are somehow carving our path as the evil people that lived.

What’s unique about art is that there’s an assumption that there’s not that much money in it, that the currency can be recognition, instead. But you can’t live off of recognition.

What advice would you give to PEN America’s community of writers and writing professionals about financial literacy, writing, advocacy, or pursuing one’s goals?

Get clear about what you need to survive. What’s unique about art is that there’s an assumption that there’s not that much money in it, that the currency can be recognition, instead. But you can’t live off of recognition. Most people want to be an artist for the entirety of their lives. Figure out how you can do that and what help you need to make sure that you can create a sustainable life for yourself, where you also feel very proud of how you’re doing it. Understand your personal values. Run your own race. Become confident.

This society—it’s venom. It’s designed so that we compare ourselves to other people. In terms of pursuing your goals—this is one of the reasons why I talk to a lot of first-gen’s in particular—don’t live someone else’s life. There’s that period of my life that I wouldn’t change when I was living in Asia and pursuing different professions. It got me where I am and I have so many lived experiences from it. But I also know that a big part of it was that I felt very afraid to live my life on my own terms. I felt afraid to pursue art. I felt afraid to go out and build a business. I still felt like I needed to be the good immigrant daughter. It took me a long time to realize that there was nothing in that, that I had nothing to prove to anyone. I’m in a place in my life where I’m still working on all of that. Especially having a near-death experience taught me that this is not anyone else’s life. It really is mine. I can’t live someone else’s dream.

Uchechi Kalu is a Nigerian-American writer and financial planner based in Los Angeles. Her work explores the shifting nature of Blackness, Americanness, and Africanness across borders, shaped by her experiences living on six continents. A 2024 Paris Olympics Poetry Fellow, she recently performed at Théâtre de la Ville – Paris. Uchechi is writing her first book on the Biafran War and her family’s migration to the U.S. She has received support for her work from PEN America and the Nawat Fes Residency in Morocco. She holds a B.A. from Princeton University and enjoys learning languages, indulging in Bollywood movies, and hiking in L.A.