This isn’t the first time you’ve seen Manisha Thakor on my website. But when I happened to catch her recent Emmy-worthy appearance on the NBC Today Show, I knew it was clearly time to touch base with her again. She has new and wonderful things on the horizon.

Manisha spent 15 years working in the financial services industry, as an analyst, portfolio manager, and client relations executive for institutional money management firms with billions of dollars in assets under management. At the peak of her corporate career she personally built out and ran a $6 billion separately managed account business. Yes, that is BILLION with a ‘B’.

But recently, after five years of traveling around the country talking about the basics of personal finance, it became very clear to her that while many of us are drowning in information about financial management, we are starved for real, usable knowledge when it comes to our personal finances.

“With a few clicks on the keyboard we can call up virtually any economic statistic yet people are feeling more anxiety about their money than ever before. I’ve decided to go on a quest to quite literally find the key to financial peace of mind – and I’m inviting all interested women to journey with me.”

And I’m proud as punch that she credits No Excuses with giving her the inspiration to “lead her dream.”

Manisha says that she feels the reason we feel so much money pain as a society is that we are disconnected from both our money and ourselves. To describe this, she uses the mental image of a tree.

“To me the leaves are tactical financial steps, the branches are our emotions, the trunk is our familial programming, and the roots are our spiritual underpinnings. To date most personal finance advice has focused on the leaves. But if the entire tree is not tended to, it will wither over time.”

Manisha says she’s now on the search for a framework or touchstone that people can use to help guide their financial decisions. She has seen in other messy areas of life (such as food or emotions) how certain frameworks have proven incredibly soothing. As an example, a mantra of hers is trying to eat foods without ingredient labels. Do that and you end up selecting primarily fresh, not processed, foods. Similarly, once you are armed with simple concepts, you can choose to change your outlook on any situation.

“With emotions I remind myself that everything stems from love or fear. These frameworks won’t eliminate problems but they give you something very sturdy to lean upon and help guide your decisions in any situation causing you fear or emotional angst. My goal through this journey, through the collective grove of our money trees is to find the financial equivalent – to find a concept that embodies… MoneyZen!”

In October, Manisha will be ready to launch her new blog called “MONEYZEN: The quest to find financial peace of mind” — once it is launched you will be able to find it at MoneyZen.com. Check back in with her then, and I’ll be sure to remind you that Manisha has led her dream right through to reality.

Manisha Thakor earned her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1997, her BA from Wellesley College in 1992, and spent her junior year abroad studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Oxford University. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder and currently serves as a Financial Fellow at Wellesley College, where she is in residence once a year guest lecturing about personal finance. You can follow her on Facebook: facebook.com/ManishaThakor and on Twitter @ManishaThakor.com