JLD: Light that spark, Fire Nation! JLD here with an audio masterclass on your role as a creator of the economy. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Ali Katz on the mic. She is the CEO and founder of three companies, New Law Business Model, Eyes Wide Open Life, and the Family Wealth Planning Institute. All three of these companies are in service to each of us finding our right role as creators of the next economy.

And Fire Nation, today we’re gonna be talking about lessons we can learn over the past 100 years to help us today, what we need to do differently to ensure that we are best positioned for what’s coming, the three things that we should be investing in right now, and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors.

Ali, say what’s up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don’t know.

Ali: What’s up, Fire Nation? So good to be here with you. And I think what most people don’t know about me is that for almost 10 years, I lived with two names and two brands out in the world, Alexis Martin Neely or Alexis Neely, and Ali Shanti. As I was trying to figure out who I was and integrate these two very different masculine and feminine parts of myself. And it took me a long time to move through that journey, but I finally found the one integrated self that I am, Ali Katz. And I’m so glad to be on the other side of it.

JLD: Well, I can tell you I love the fact that you shared a little glimpse of that journey because that’s what we all are on, Fire Nation. We’re on this journey to find ourselves, to find our place in the world, to try this, to test that, to learn from things that we’ve been doing, and of course, to hopefully move forward in a bigger and better way. And as I shared in the introduction, we’re talking about your role, Fire Nation, as a creator of the economy. And Ali is a great person to chat with about this since you believe right now, Ali, that we’re facing the biggest economic crisis we have ever faced. Why is that?

Ali: Well, it is certainly an economic shift. And it’s very likely going to look like a crisis to many people, but it doesn’t have to look like a crisis to everyone. In fact, there’s many people in our world right now who are having their best months ever.

JLD: Yeah.

Ali: That’s certainly the case for me in my business because I was prepared. And so, why I think that that’s coming is if you just look at the economics, if you look at what was happening during the Great Depression, if you look at what was happening during the Great Recession, and you look at the economic indicators, and you look at the reality of what’s happening with COVID, and you look at the reality of what’s happening in the political, not just here in the US, but geopolitically, there’s a lot going on right now, a lot of misinformation, a lot confusion.

Here in the US, 44 million people out of work. The pandemic money is about to run out. We can’t prop up our economy the way that we have been in the past. And so, very many people are going to be looking at a crisis, but it doesn’t have to be a crisis. And if we look back at history, we can make really wise decisions around what to do now to be prepared and have it be, not a crisis, but an opportunity, a shift into a next level of possibility and growth for ourselves.

JLD: Well, Ali, I do love that saying personally, that history doesn’t rhyme, but it sure does sound similar. So, let’s talk a little bit more about that. What can we learn from those economic lessons over the past 100 years that can really guide us now?

Ali: The main indicator that I’m looking at is something called the velocity of money. And the velocity of money is the speed in which a dollar moves over a certain period of time. And when the velocity of money is high, money is in flow. It’s in circulation. And we hear these woo-woo terms of, we have to keep money in circulation, and money is energy. But we don’t necessarily know the economic principle underlying it. And that is this economic principle of the velocity of money.

And if we look at the velocity of money during the Depression, and we look at it now, the velocity of money is at the lowest level, the slowest speed that it has been at right now, since the 1960s. It’s been steadily decreasing since 1999, and we are at the very same levels as we were during the Depression. So, what that means is that people are afraid to keep that money in circulation. And what that means is what are they doing with it instead, especially as all this money is coming into the economy, well, where is it going?

It’s going into the stock market, which is currently not tracking reality in any way. So, the current stock market investments don’t actually match the real value of companies. So, we know that there is an overvaluing of stocks because people are just shoving money there blindly. And we can talk more about that. We can see it in the cost of housing due to speculative housing. A lot of people will shove their money into speculative housing as a safe place to store their money or hopefully earn some income. And then, of course, in the price of precious metals and gold.

So, these are the places that people store money because they think it’s safe to store money there. But what happens is that when people store too much money in these places, the value of those assets is not tied to the actual underlying value of what’s there. And so, that creates a bubble. And then, that bubble pops, and that value is lost. It literally just disappears and no longer exists, and then reinforces the idea that we should not continue to increase the velocity of money. And so, that’s where we are right now, is in a place where people are storing money somewhere that they think is safe, that very likely is not.

JLD: So much here I want to talk about, Fire Nation. No. 1, that velocity of money being the slowest it’s been since 1960. That is 60 years. This is crazy time. And talking about the stock market, where people are just investing blindly, and how the stock market is just not at all in connection with reality for a lot of reasons. And I do want to circle back there, Ali, like you mentioned. And then, people are storing a lot of their money in housing because they say, I want to put it somewhere that’s “safer”. And then, of course, there’s precious metals, with silver and gold.

So, Ali, let’s go back to this, because with this hoarding that’s going on, with this excess of storage that’s going on, and you mentioning very clearly that the stock market is just not reflecting reality, talk to us about what you mean there, and then, move into what we need to be doing differently right now to ensure that we’re better positioned for what is coming.

Ali: So, the stock market is where you’re buying stock. You’re buying shares. You’re buying interests in a company. And if you listen to Warren Buffett at all, one of the greatest investors of our time, he says you really need to understand the economics of the companies that you’re investing in to see, is this a good company to invest in, because they’re going to be paying dividends, or they’re going to be making profits. Well, currently, the way that people invest in the stock market typically is through a retirement account or an investment fund where they do one of two things.

They either give it to a robo-advisor, who’s making allocations of their investments based on a diversified portfolio that’s based on a certain metric of risk tolerances that you put into a computer and it spits out, okay, here’s the portfolio you should have. And then, that’s invested in for you.

So, as you can already start to see, that’s really disconnected. You don’t know the underlying companies that are being invested in. You don’t know how your money is actually being invested. It’s being allocated through this diverse manner. If you even went into your account, you’d probably have a really hard time figuring out what are the underlying companies that you’re investing in. And it’s the same way when you give your money to a guy.

So, you give your money to a guy, a broker, a financial advisor, who’s going to invest that money for you. Well, here’s what’s actually going on behind the scenes. Typically, that broker – typically, this is not all the way across the board. But typically, that broker is somebody who came out of college, didn’t know what else to do with their life, was really good at sales, or wanted to get good at sales, and became a financial advisor. Because becoming a financial advisor is a great way to earn money by selling things to people that maybe they don’t totally understand, maybe you don’t even totally understand.

And so, the person hires a broker to make these investment decisions for them. The broker, then, gives that chunk of money to a money manager, who is making allocations in the portfolio, again based on this risk profile. It’s the same thing that the robo-advisors are doing. So, there’s tons of money being made here by the financial services industry, oftentimes to the detriment of the people who have their money invested, who don’t even have any idea what they’re being charged, how they’re being charged, how the investment decisions are being made for them.

And all of this money needs to go into the stock market because that’s how the financial services industry makes their money. So, there’s a complete disconnect. And many people – here’s what’s really shocking to me – as I’m having these conversations with people and saying, now is the time to get deeply connected to your resources. That’s the answer here, get deeply connected to your resources. They’ll say things like, well, I can’t move my money out of the stock market because it is in a retirement account.

Well, why can’t you move your money out of the stock market? Oh, because I can’t touch that. That’s actually not true. That is further sign of how disconnected we are from our resources. Or they’ll say, oh, I talked to my guy, and my guy said I should stay in because we can’t time the market. That’s true; we can’t time the market, but you can still actually connect to your resources and decide if you should even be in the market right now.

And so, the answer to all of this is, get connected to your resources. Bring them closer to home right now. If they are in a retirement account, you absolutely can change how your investments are allocated. You don’t have to be in the stock market. And you can bring those resources closer to home so you’re not investing in things that you have no awareness of what they’re doing, how they’re doing it.

You can actually start bringing those investments closer to home and start investing in your local community; in your own business, in some cases; in local business owners in your community; in your children. They might be your best investment right now. But here’s the key. The key is to look at where you have resources invested blindly. Where do you have resources invested blindly?

And learn to understand what those resources are and how you can move them into a place that you understand, that you can feel those resources, that you understand that these resources are yours to control. You don’t have to outsource it to a robo-advisor. You don’t have to outsource it to a broker who doesn’t actually know you or your personal situation or how your money’s being invested, for that matter. And you can reconnect to these resources so that when you are ready, you can reallocate these resources in ways that are truly going to support you and what you are creating here in the world.

JLD: Fire Nation, answer the tough question. Where are you right now invested blindly? And those are some scary places. Those are some scary things because you just don’t know what’s happening when you’re invested blindly. So, how can you, like Ali shared, move them to a place that No. 1, you understand, that you can see, that you can feel, that you can touch, that you can breathe, that you can smell. That’s where you want your personal resources. And then, think about how you can reallocate that stuff because, Fire Nation, in a lot of situations, what better investment can you make than in yourself?

Like when you are really looking to grow as a human being, grow as a business, grow as a person, how can you invest in yourself and make those things happen? And Ali, one thing that I want to talk about after the break is what it means to be a creator of the economy, because this is something that you’ve really gone deep on. So, Fire Nation, don’t go anywhere because as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors, we’ll be talking about that.

So, Ali, we’re back, and as I teased before the break, you have really dived deep into becoming a creator of the economy. What does that mean for Fire Nation? How can they take part in that?

Ali: So, it’s very important. Remember, we were talking about the velocity of money. This is actually the one thing that we, individually, can impact in our own personal lives and in our local economies, is the velocity of money. So, you can become a creator of the economy by increasing the value of your services and how you offer your services in a way that people want to utilize your services at a higher value than you may be receiving for those services right now.

And when you do that, when you increase the value of your services, and you start earning more income, I want you to earn that income and then, as a creator of the economy, not blindly invest it in something that you don’t understand that’s gonna be used for later. Instead, I want you to be investing it in the other services that people in your local community are providing, or in your online community are providing, services that are going to make you a better person.

Exactly what you’ve been talking about here. The services that are going to support you with your internal healing, for example. Many of us are here to do some big internal healing work, the services that are going to support your physical body, your well-being. So, for example, right now, I invest $2,000.00 a month to work with two different trainers. What they do, physical trainers, is they get me in my body four times a week, moving my body.

It is a critical piece of self-care for myself that allows me to hold a much bigger container. It allows me to serve a lot more people. It allows me to make a much bigger impact. If I was not paying out that $2,000.00 a month, well, first of all, I wouldn’t be supporting two different people who are then able to keep the velocity of money going in their own communities.

But I also wouldn’t be able to bring in as much resource as I’m able to bring in because the reality is, is that bringing in a lot of resources, serving people at a really deep level requires us to engage in the ultimate self-care. And that requires investment. And you are so worthy of that investment, especially when you’re making that investment to increase your ability to impact and serve at a higher level.

JLD: I love so much about what Ali is saying here, Fire Nation. It’s critical that you are really understanding this process. No. 1, you’re earning income for providing actual value, providing the best solutions to real problems. And then, you’re not just doing the old Donald Duck thing, where you’re being the Scrooge, and you’re just taking all of that “gold” or money, or whatever it is, throwing it into a safe, locking the door, and just going swimming in it every once in a while.

No, you are investing in services in your community. We’re talking both local and online. There is great opportunities there. And I actually have a great example to go along with yours. It just happened to us recently, Ali, is we have this amazing artist that lives right in our community here in Palmas Del Mar, Puerto Rico. His name is Gustavo. He’s a great dude, and he’s very skillful. Well, guess what, him, like a lot of people, have been struggling a little bit because of everything that’s going on. And some people are a little nervous about where their next paycheck’s coming from or people have lost their jobs, et cetera.

And so, here you have this guy, this artist, who’s amazing at what he does. But man, he may not be able to continue doing that line of work because of situations. But I love this guy. I know he’s done great work at my friends’ houses. We brought him in, and we’ve given him this massive project in our house on this huge wall. And he’s gonna be able to go for the next month and a half and provide an amazing piece of art for myself and Kate that we can enjoy in our home, not to mention, he has a 6-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl. And he has a wife, and he has a family here.

And he is now gonna be able to do what he should be doing. And we’re able to take money that we’ve been earning doing what we do in the online world, and providing value, and now give it to the community, allow this individual to not maybe have to relocate to somewhere else to continue his craft or take a different line of work because he is not able to keep doing those things. And listen, I’m not gonna lie. When Kate looked at me when he told us what it was gonna cost, because it’s a huge project.
And she’s like, that’s a lot of money. And I’m like, I know it is, but think of it. Is that a lot of money just gonna be great sitting and “molding” in one of our bank accounts right now, just not doing anything, because it’s not our last X number of dollars. It’s just gonna be added to the money that we currently have right now that’s not being used either. It’s our total savings. But Gustavo is gonna use this tomorrow to feed his family, to go to a restaurant and then support that restaurant that he maybe was not gonna be able to support because he wasn’t having that kind of income.

So, that’s what I love. So, anything you want to add to that, Ali, before we move on to three things that we should be investing in right now?

Ali: You got it. You nailed it, and I am so glad that you have that exact example of how we are creators of the economy and how we impact the velocity of money. In order to do that, in order to be able to do that and to be able to do it in a way that feels safe to you, you really have to be clear on what is enough for you. And too many of us are not living in connected to reality – in connected reality of what is enough. Our culture is so focused on more, more, more, and that we’re gonna create safety for ourselves by saving more, more, and more.

Our whole financial services industry is based around this model, and we need to break free of that by knowing truly what is enough so that we can create our own stability both at a level of that emergency savings, that’s important to have enough. But it’s actually not that much when you know the equation for enough, which is to know that you can earn what you need, when you need it, on demand. And that comes from investing in your services and increasing the value of your own services, knowing how to offer those services in a way that has people who need your solutions, want your services.

And all of us can do this, all of us can do this. Gustavo, even as an artist, he’s doing it. He’s doing it and now he’s got the income that he needs for a month and a half so that again, he can participate in his role as a creator of the economy. So, that’s the first thing.

The second thing is, I want you to look at not just your own resources, but your whole family’s resources. This includes your parents. This includes your adult children, if you have adult children. This includes your siblings. It is time for us to get into close conversation with our whole family, no longer thinking about the idea – I’m an estate planning attorney for many, many years. I train estate planning attorneys, as you might have heard.

And the old idea of inheritance is that we save up all this money so that we make sure we have enough money at the end of our lives. And then, when we die, it gets left to our kids. Well, what if we could start to just shift that whole model completely, and we realize that the true inheritance happens while you’re alive. Your true legacy happens while you’re alive.

And if you get to do business with your family using the whole what we call family wealth of resources to see that these are collective resources for the family. And you don’t have to wait until somebody dies. You can actually start seeing those resources as your family’s collective resources now. You’re going to be able to create much more security and safety for the family as a whole.

And as the junior generation, the ones with the earning power, we have a responsibility to build a lot of self-trust, and then bring that self-trust to our parents so that they know they can trust us to not have to wait until they die to pass what they have to us, but instead, they can get what I call karmic reward by creating collaboration with our parents while they’re living.

It’s a big journey. It is one of the most worthwhile journeys you can have. And you can start by helping your parents to look at what they have in the market or in speculative housing, or in gold, because if they lost half the value of what they have, they might have to move back in with you. And before that, now is the time to talk to them about it.

JLD: I love you, Mom, but I love you where you’re living right now.

Ali: Yes. And Mom needs to know that in order to really build trust between the generations, Mom needs to know that no matter what happens, you’re gonna be there to support her. You’re gonna be there to take care of her. You’re not going to let her age out in a nursing home and die alone. Our parents really need to know that we are here for them, that we are going to be there for them, and that we are going to really make sure that they are taken care of. And that will allow them to invest in us now, rather than them needing to hoard all their resources until after they die.

JLD: Look at your whole family resources. Ali has made a ton of a great point, but that’s one that I actually want to double back on because so few people actually do that. You don’t look at the whole family resources. And I loved how you put that phrase, Ali, true legacy happens when you are alive.

And I want to go on a little bit of a side rant here. It’s kind of funny because as you were talking, I remembered that last time you were on Entrepreneurs on Fire, I actually shared a little bit about this. But this was like 1,500 episodes ago. So, it’s been quite some time, Fire Nation, since you’ve heard me say this, if ever.

But I remember watching this Jerry Seinfeld skit. And Jerry Seinfeld gets up there and says, hey, my kid came home from school today and looked up at me and said, Dad, all the kids on the playground on telling me that we’re rich. Are we rich? And Jerry looked down at his son, and he said, I’m rich. Like, I’m rich. You’re not rich.

And that was one of the interesting things that I look back at my life, and my father was very successful. He’s been a lawyer pretty much his entire life. He was a multi-millionaire. He still is. But the biggest gift that he ever gave me was literally not giving me money. I had to go and get an Army scholarship and go to college on the ROTC bill. And then, I spent eight years as an officer in the Army.

And then, I got out of that, and I had built a little nest egg on my own to start, eventually, Entrepreneurs on Fire, this business. And that here I am, eight years in, and the pride, Ali, that I feel from completely creating my exact what I have right now from what I put in for work over the years, that pride, it can’t be taken away from me because I was handed nothing. And yet, my dad was there for me. He supported me. He gave me great advice. My mother, the same. But they weren’t gonna be like, here’s a couple hundred thousand dollars, go make some mistakes and go do it.

No, they were like hey, we’re here for you. You can move in if you fall on hard times, but you’re gonna go and you’re gonna do it on your own because you’re an adult here. And I look at that gift. And now, I can’t wait for the opportunity to repay them for that, if and when that ever does need to happen in the future. And I love how you make that point, Ali, where you have to let your parents know you’re there for them if stuff does happen, because that’s the stage of life that a lot of our parents are kind of moving into. And just having that sense of security is so critical.

So, you went over those three things that you believe that we should invest in now. Ali, bring this home for us. Wrap it up in a bow. What do you really want to make sure, with everything that we’ve been talking about today, that Fire Nation needs to make sure that we walk away with from this conversation?

Ali: We need to walk away from this conversation with getting reconnected to your resources. If you have any money that is hidden out of sight from you right now because it’s for later, it’s for retirement, it’s for your parents’ retirement, it’s time to get reconnected to those resources and bring them closer to home. Understand how you can shift where they are invested right now, if you don’t understand it, into things that you do invest.

In my family, we moved my mom’s whole retirement account right now into cash equivalents until we have a better sense of what’s going to happen. And then, we will reallocate those resources appropriately once we really know. So, that’s No. 1.

No. 2 is you’ve got to understand this equation for enough for yourself so that you can create that stability for yourself. Build that self-trust, and then begin to build trust with your parents. Super, super important. And then, what should you be investing in right now? Your resourcefulness, your creativity, and your community, whether that’s local community, online community, both is most ideal, but more than ever, we are going to need community.

We are going to be needing each other. And your investment, and your resourcefulness increasing the value of your services and the ability to bring people into those services and serve them really well. Your creativity, your ability to creatively use what you have to create something from nothing, and your community. No matter what happens in the economy, these are the things that cannot and never will be taken away from you. These are always your best investments. So, make them now.

If you have access to governmental stimulus funding that’s coming in, take it. This is the best money we are ever gonna see in our lifetimes. Take it and invest it in increasing the value of your services and your ability to earn the income that you need so that you have that stable enough no matter what.

JLD: Reconnect with your resources, Fire Nation. Please keep in mind the story that Ali shares of her personal trainers. Please remember the story of Gustavo, my artist. These are the ways that we can improve the velocity of money in our world, in our communities, both online and local. And it’s critical that we do just that.

So, Ali, how can we find out more about you? How can we connect with you? What call to action do you want to give Fire Nation?

Ali: Two of those today. The first one is eyeswideopenlife.com is the home of my work on you knowing what you need in order to build your life and income awake, aware, and on your terms. Everything we’ve been talking about today.

And then, if you’re a lawyer, and you want to serve families and/or business owners in a new way, with these kinds of matters, family connection, understanding investments, understanding how to build a sustainable business, helping people to be able to do that in your community and increase the value of your services significantly while being a full creator in your local economy, you can find me at newlawbusinessmodel.com.

JLD: Fire Nation, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you’ve been hanging out with AK and JLD today. So, keep up that heat, and head over to eofire.com. Just type A-L-I in the search bar and her show notes page will pop up with everything that we’ve been talking about today as well as our previous episode, which was a while ago, but you’ll enjoy it. It was great content. And again, you want to make sure to check out eyeswideopenlife.com.

And Ali, one more time, what was that URL for the lawyers?

Ali: Newlawbusinessmodel.com.

JLD: Ali, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we solute you. And we’ll catch you on the flip side.