Family Wealth Matters

Dyslexia is NOT a dirty word

If you've ever met my daughter, you know that she is one of the most amazing athletes you've ever seen.

She once did cartwheels all the way down the strand in Hermosa from 8th street to 21st street.

Her body has natural muscle definition and strength that I'd be unlikely to cultivate even if I worked out every day for a year.

She can just about do a front flip from standing.

Generally when someone is highly gifted in one area, it means difficulty in other areas.

That's certainly the case for me.

I'm a great business thinker and big picture strategist, but when it comes to organizing the details of my home, I'm quite challenged.

Well, my daughter's challenge is reading.

Turns out, she's got some form of dyslexia.

And, you might think I shouldn't be writing about it in public ... it's something that should be hidden, dealt with privately, kept a secret.

I say that's crap!

Enough is Enough Already!

I remember a time when I would freak out every time I had an unexpected expense.

Emergency wisdom teeth extraction during law school -I stressed out for days about how I'd pay for it.

Plumbing fiasco in our new house -I chewed my nails to the quick wondering what I was going to do.

Minor damage to my car that wasn't worth going through insurance -I'd have a knot in my stomach as I paid the bill.

You get the picture.  I'm sure you've experienced it yourself.

Maybe you still are.

The good news is that I don't stress out about that stuff anymore, even though the expenses have gotten MUCH bigger.

Most recently:

broken arm, school tuition due, orthodontist, new glasses, educational testing and therapy, summer camp, just to name a few.

But, I don't worry because I've realized that it ALWAYS works out.

Not one time that I stressed out did that stressing help me in anyway.

Just the opposite.

The tension of my stress and fear leaked out into my relationships.

You know what it's like to be around people who are really driven by fear.  It doesn't feel good.

And, it didn't.

Today, I am aware that it's much better to view unexpected expenses as blessings that teach me to create more.

I've Got Fans!

I was out at dinner with a good friend of mine for her birthday and she had invited a friend of hers.

We made our introductions, I mentioned I was a lawyer, she asked me what kind and I told her.

She put two and two together and realized I am the Alexis who sends out the weekly Family Wealth Secrets email and she was so excited to meet me!

She said she loved my emails, looked forward to getting them and that they'd helped her through some tough times.

Wow!

It was confirmation that I'm on the right track.  I really am impacting people's lives in a positive way!

And, while I'm internally driven to do this regardless of the reaction from the outside, it still feels great to hear that what I'm doing really does have meaning to someone other than just me!

If what I've been writing has been impacting you, let me know. I'd love to hear from you.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be sharing with you some of the people who inspire me.

I've been meeting so many people who are truly following their hearts even when doing so appears to be a crazy decision, at least from a financial perspective.

I know their stories will inspire you as much as they have me!

Mommy Guilt to the Max

If you are a mom, you know just what I'm talking about.

What I wonder is, does it ever go away?

My son, Noah, broke his arm this week when him and his sister were jumping on the bed at their dad's house.

I spent the night in the hospital with him; it turned out he needed surgery.

And, yes, for those of you who have known me a while, it was his other arm (he broke his left arm 18 months ago after walking off the bleachers at Kaia's gymnastics class and needed surgery on that arm too!)

I can tell you this, it's much easier the second time around.

And, I can also tell you that when your child breaks his arm two times in two years, social services pays you a visit.

My advice if it ever happens to you is to stay calm and be understanding. The social workers are there to protect children, they aren't blaming you and so long as you've done nothing wrong, don't worry about a thing.

The only part I couldn't understand is why they had to send the social worker to interview us in the hospital at 4am!  I had finally gotten to sleep and in he comes and made me wake up Noah to tell him how he'd broken his arm.

How to Know What's Essential

Last week I shared with you that I am getting ruthless with my schedule.

I am limiting what I say yes to so I can focus on what's most important in my life.

And, the Universe gave me even more of an opportunity to do that last week when my son, Noah, broke his arm.

I spent about 24 hours in the hospital with him because it wasn't just a normal break - this one needed surgery.

And, during that time, I was able to eliminate most everything off my plate.

There were a few essentials that I had to get taken care of and I did - no problem.

So, now, when I sit down to work on something I do so with a new filter.

This filter allows me to focus on only what is truly essential and let go of the rest.

I ask myself "would I do this if Noah was in the hospital?"

If the answer is yes, I know it's an essential task and proceed. If the answer is no, I find something that's a yes, do that and let go of the non-essential task.

Think about how you might apply that to your life and see what falls away and what else you've made room for when you let go of all the crap.

Copyright 2007 by Alexis Neely. This article may be copied and used in your own newsletter or on your website as long as you include the following information:  "Written by Alexis Neely, mom, writer, speaker and personal family lawyer. Alexis will inspire you to more wealth, health and happiness each and every day so you can share your greatest gifts with the world.  It's all on her website. 

What Would You Do With a Four Hour Work Week?

I just finished reading a great book that I recommend you pick up even if you aren't striving for the four hour work week, called - you guessed it - the Four Hour Work Week.

Read it yourself first and then share it with your teenage and adult children.

In the Four Hour Work Week, author Timothy Ferriss says he believes "life exists to be enjoyed and that the most important thing is to feel good about yourself."

Yes, yes, yes! Thank you Tim.

I think at some level everyone feels this way.  And, yet most of us get so caught up in the daily drudgery of going to work, paying the bills, watching the news, and keeping up with the Joneses that we forget what enjoying life really means.

One of the first exercises in Tim's book gets you back in touch with what you really want out of life.

How much different would your life be if you really knew what you wanted out of life and you were working towards that?

Think about what you want for your kids - isn't it that they work towards something in life that brings them true joy?

What are you doing to help them discover that?  Are you discovering it for yourself first?

The Meaning of Life is ...

I just got finished reading a book you should go out and pick up right away - it's called the Four Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss.

And, while I don't know if I'll ever actually work only four hours per week, it has helped me to think a lot more clearly about how I want to spend my time.

I'm clear now that I need to offload as much as I possibly can that takes my personal time so I can spend my time working on my book.

It's going to take me a while to do it, but it feels great to be clear about the next steps I need to take.

Here they are:

1. Finalize VIP membership programs for law firm so I can stop seeing new clients and focus the time I give the firm on my existing clients.
2. Oversee website re-deployment so we can move off of expensive and unnecessary hosting service.
3. Hand off Law Business Secrets to partner.
4. Find partner to take over Kids Protection Planning Kit. (email me if you are interested in a great business with a huge potential upside - you must be creative and very familiar with the internet).

Offload, offload, offload and protect my time so I can do what has meaning to me and not what I just get sucked into because I didn't really think about the impact to what I really want out of life.

What is Family Wealth Anyway?

For the past several months now I've been sharing my Family Wealth Secrets with you, but haven't had a real clear definition of what Family Wealth is, exactly.

I do now.

Family Wealth is "The whole wealth that is passed on from one generation to the next, encompassing your financial, human, intellectual and spiritual capital."

When passed on with intention, a family can maximize it's Family Wealth across generations, as has been done by the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds, names that have become synonymous with wealth and well-being in America.

When Family Wealth is not intentionally considered, it is typically lost within three generations, giving rise to the proverb that crosses cultural lines - shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.

In your culture it might be:

• Clogs to Clogs in three generations
• Barn Stalls to Barn Stalls in three generations
• Rice Paddies to Rice Paddies in three generations.

The shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves phenomena is the same regardless of culture because the pattern is universal.

The successor generation (your children or maybe even you) that enjoys the benefits of affluence is often not motivated to work as effectively as those who created the Family Wealth.

In my experience working with parents I can see that most parents are not giving these issues much thought until it appears to be too late.

When I meet with parents of young children, they are universally idealistic about their children's future potential.  They are optimistic that they will raise their children with their values and that their children will absorb those values.

Yet, most have no plan, no structure, no system in place for ensuring that happens.

Years go by and their sweet little babies turn into surly, rebellious, lazy, unmotivated teenagers and young adults.

I was one of these myself for quite a long time.

Want to Be in My Book?

Last week I promised to share with you a strategy for dealing with self-limiting thoughts, but it's going to have to wait because I've had a bit of a breakthrough and it's far more important to share that.

I was looking through some files on my computer and came across a document entitled "What Do I Want My Life to Look Like Today."

It's dated May 18, 2006.

And, it lays out a daily vision that is remarkably similar to my current lifestyle.  I specified what I wanted to do each day in a normal week.

On the last line, I wrote: "I want to spend the majority of my time creating – sharing my ideas with the world."

It is with greatest of all pleasures I report that I now spend a great majority of my time creating and sharing my ideas.

My updated vision is that I will spend all but the smallest amount of my working time creating and sharing my ideas.

I'll report back next year on how I'm doing.

Why not take a few minutes right now to write out the exact vision of how you'd like to spend each of your days.  Be bold.

If you sit down to do it and your mind gets cloudy, recognize the cloud as a ball of fear and the cloud will dissipate.

You Lost Your Job - Now What?

Two friends contacted me this week to let me know they'd lost their jobs and to ask my advice from a legal perspective.

Both were surprised by my answer, I think.

You see, I don't believe there's a legal solution for every problem. In fact, just the opposite, I believe that the law offers very few solutions for most people.

Sure, there are some situations in which you should absolutely talk to a lawyer after you've lost your job.  I'll share those with you next week.

In most cases, bringing in a lawyer is NOT the right answer.

Here's what I recommend you do before you contact a lawyer.

1. Be grateful for the new opportunites that are about to come your way.  You've heard it before ...

As one door closes, there's another one swinging open.  If you are standing there pounding on the closed door, you'll completely miss the open door behind which lays the opportunity you've been waiting for.

In my opinion, contacting a lawyer is likely to keep you pounding away on that closed door.

2. Examine why you lost your job without looking for others to blame.

As an employer, I can tell you that I will bend over backwards to keep employees who bring enthusiasm, joy, skill, dedication and effort to their job.

With conscious thought, ask yourself if you really Were bringing all of you to your job?  If not, the Universe gave you a huge gift by ending it for you.