How Jim Built His Book of Business Inside a BigLaw Firm Using Networking That Works for All Rainmaker Lawyers

Ali Katz:
The reality is, we can't continue to grow at the rates we would need to continue to grow in order for everyone to hoard their money and earn money on their money on their money on their money successfully. It's a model that doesn't actually work economically or ecologically.

Ali Katz:
If this is your first call overall because you literally just joined us, I do want to welcome you and let you know that this call is a bit different. And part of the reason for this call is to get you more comfortable and confident with just being in the conversation about death. It's a huge part of your job is to be in the conversation about death with people in your community in a way where they feel so comfortable with you that they want to work with you. They want you to be their lawyer. It doesn't matter how much or how little you know about all the strategies and all the techniques.

Ali Katz:
And the part that's often overlooked in our industry is getting you to a place where you're just so comfortable with talking about incapacity and death that people want to work with you because they want you to be the person that's going to be there for their loved ones when they can't be. And at the end of the day, to me, that's what it means for you to be a Personal Family lawyer. Sure, we teach you how to put in place all the bibbly bobbly do's that, you know, make a plan more than just the four, you know what I'm calling the four must have documents. I've been talking about those four must-have documents since 2009. Everybody now knows there's four must-have documents. Susie Orman's selling them for $200. Trustandwill.com is selling them for $600. Dave Ramsey sells them through mama bear forms for $150. You've got to go beyond that. You've got to go beyond that.

Ali Katz:
And so, yes, as a Personal Family lawyer, we give you all of these additions to your service, like kids protection planning and family wealth legacy interviews and letters to the fiduciaries, and all of the things that actually will make a plan work. So, family wealth inventory, the ability to keep all of that up to date over time. But at the root and the heart of it, what's it really about? What's the purpose of the documents that you're creating? What's the purpose of the kids protection plan and the family wealth legacy interviews and the fiduciary letters and the family wealth inventories? It's so that you can be there for your client's family and help them with as much ease and grace as possible through a time of grief. And that means that you need to get really comfortable talking about incapacity and death. And what's really cool is that when you do, people just want to work with you because it doesn't matter how smart you are, it doesn't matter how great your documents are. It matters that they know that you're gonna be there and that if you're not there, that you have a plan for them as well. Because one day you'll die, too. So what I wanted to share with you is carrying on from this idea of die with zero and how you might be able to start even helping your clients to incorporate that into their thought process. The idea that maybe estate planning, maybe life and legacy planning, let me take out estate planning. Maybe life and legacy planning isn't just about helping people pass on what they have when they die. Maybe life and legacy planning is really about helping people make the very best use of their resources while they're living, and then whatever's left pass on that when they die. And maybe you can begin to help them get their hearts around the idea of dying with zero because they've passed it all on already while they're living. And how cool would that be if they didn't wait to pass it on until they died? And I think that this is one of the problems that I always had.

Ali Katz:
With estate planning, and I always was in this question of, like, why am I doing estate planning? Is this the thing that really makes a difference in people's lives. And I know some of you struggle with that as well. If you're asking that question, I believe that you're actually seeking a deeper purpose associated with this work. And I've spent my lifetime in this question of what is the deeper purpose here? Because I sensed it. I sensed that there was a deeper purpose, but it took a lot of question on my behalf. Dark night of the soul even for me to really be able to understand it. And in fact, it even took me raising my children and now having them be 20 and 23 and experiencing death in my life to really understand. All right, there is something deeper, y'all.

Ali Katz:
And it is this idea that we can be helping our clients not just to pass on what they have when they die, but to make the very best use of their resources during their lifetime, and maybe even by the time they die, have gotten to a place of such security with their families that maybe they've passed all on. I mean, look, it's the ultimate Medicaid plan. Give it all away, but do it in a way where you know you're going to be taken care of because that's what has everybody so afraid, right? Well, I can't give it all away before I die because then I won't have it. Well, what if you knew that you were going to be well cared for by the people you love such that you didn't even need it? Because they're using it. Because they're using it in their most creative years, in the years where they can do the most with it.

Ali Katz:
And so the Die with Zero is more about helping people to live their best life with their resources, which is fantastic. And I'm proposing just another addition which is not just about living your own best life, but really supporting the family resource ecosystem and really you as the advisor that can help to strengthen the relationships that people have, because really those are the most valuable resources.

Ali Katz:
And so through the life and legacy planning process, you can help your clients to strengthen their family relationships so that they can confidently pass on those resources.

Ali Katz:
Not just spend them all, but pass on those resources to the next generation.

Ali Katz:
While they're living, where they can be grown and used. So all of that to say, I did my first talk, beginning to integrate this concept and I want to share it with you. It was down in Costa Rica. I was invited to speak at an investor conference for investors who are all investing in a VC fund that is called Lionheart. And Lionheart is a VC fund that is only invested in companies that are committed to increasing the resilience of humanity. So I knew that this was a group of people that I wanted to speak to. If I'm going to be doing any kind of private one to one work, which I do very, very, very rarely these days, but if I'm going to do it, it's going to be with people that are investing in companies that make humanity more resilient.

Ali Katz:
So that's very aligned for me. And it's interesting, and I think this could even be helpful for you. I was actually invited to speak at two different events at the same weekend, and I had to choose between them. And one was an event that was all entrepreneurs, and they would have been the perfect candidates to buy our LIFT program and be in the Eyes Wide Open membership. And then this other event was for Lionheart Ventures, which is just these investors who are investing in companies that make humanity more resilient. And while I would have made more immediate money from going and selling LIFT to a bunch of entrepreneurs, I didn't do that because I realized I could reach those people through Facebook ads, but I couldn't reach the people that would be at Lionheart other than by getting in person with them. And so you might be in a position where you're choosing between multiple options of where to show up. And remember that when, if you have that choice, there's certain people that you can only meet by getting in person with them.

Ali Katz:
Prioritize that. If they're the people that you want to be serving, do what you need to do to get in person with those people, because you'll make the relationships that you just, you can't run ads to them. Right. And then whenever you can get in front of people through social means, social media, or running ads, you can do that. Like, get it. Do not resist getting in person. Every, almost every life changing thing that's happened in my life from a business or life perspective has happened because I stretched outside of my comfort zone to get in person with the people I needed to get in person with.

Ali Katz:
So I went, I got in person, and I did this talk for the first time. And at the end of the talk, somebody who could become one of my most important clients came up to me. He's the son of a multi, multi, multi, multi, multi, multi billionaire who's done some really big things in the world, some of which I don't agree with, but nevertheless, he's gathered many of the resources and his son wants to inherit them in a way where he gets to make change, where he gets to use those resources for good and I can't imagine a human that I would be more excited to work with than that human, because he's a 29 year old who's in his heart and wants to grow up so that his parents will trust him to receive the resources that they have. So this was the talk from generational wealth to regenerative wealth. So I began the presentation when I got my chance to speak, helping people to, first of all, anchor in to a meditation. It was about three minutes where I had them close their eyes and to put up their right hand. And maybe all of you can do that now, actually close your eyes if you're not driving a car. And put up your right hand.

Ali Katz:
And in your right hand, you are envisioning a future reality that is bleak. A future reality when we have experienced environmental collapse, perhaps the world is red and barren. Nature has receded. And so just seeing that reality for a moment, it is some of what climate change experts are heralding. It is a reality that could occur. So now put that hand down and put up your left hand and envision a world that is full of nature, full of people working together in harmony, growing food, raising children, living in communities that are healthy and that are whole. And this is in your left hand. And now take that vision and bring it in and hold it to your heart.

Ali Katz:
Hold it to your heart. And know that with what I'm about to share with you today. And you can come back and open your eyes and know that with what I'm about to share with you today, you can choose the left hand path. You can choose to use your resources in a way that will contribute to a world where we live in harmony, where nature thrives. It's not too late. It's not too late. And it does require us, perhaps, to make different choices than we've made up until now, because we're at a point where we need to step into our power as creators, rather than just letting this right hand path happen. And so what I'm going to take you into today is a process of asking the questions that get to be asked to be able to empower you to make the choices that lead into this left hand reality.

Ali Katz:
And I believe that one of those ways that we do that is when we make this shift from generational wealth to regenerative wealth. And if we have any concerns about how much the world can change, we can just look at ancient Kemet or Egypt, where they once lived, with a belief that you can take it with you and will need it in the afterlife. And I was just in Egypt not so long ago, and this was one of my big awarenesses and takeaways was like, oh, wow, this is the birthplace, or some say this is the birthplace of civilization. And there was a time when they buried their servants and their belongings with the royalty when they died, because the royalty would need those things in the afterlife. And what kind of a culture did they have when they believed you can take it with you, right? Now, there was a change over time, and we began to shift our belief around that you need to take it with you into the afterlife. And instead, we came to see you can't take it with you. So that first started to become a popular saying after this book. Children's book was written in 1841, and then there was this play in 1936,38 timeframe starring Jenny Stewart.

Ali Katz:
And so just think about what changed. What changed when we began to recognize, you can't take it with you, you can't take it with you. And so we can see that our beliefs about what we do with our resources at death impact a lot, culturally, tremendous amounts.

Ali Katz:
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Ali Katz:
So here's some of the traditional principles of generational wealth. That there's a patrilineal inheritance. The eldest son inherits wealth from his father. That's how it used to be with. You could inherit titles and social status. And in many cultures, you had to stay whatever you inherited, right? If you inherited a title or social status, that's what you were.

Ali Katz:
You didn't change that. Family legacy was all about preserving families reputation and influence in a family business or trade. You didn't go out and do your own thing. You just did what your dad did. The continuation of family businesses or professions, just that was by default. Marriage wasn't about love. It was about the consolidation of wealth and power. And back in the day, very traditional principles of generational wealth.

Ali Katz:
There wasn't estate planning. There wasn't wills or trusts. There was handshakes. There was understandings. There was common law, but there was no estate plan. You just did what always was done, and everybody knew what that was. So then things shifted, and they shifted into the reality that we're in really right now, which is also shifting again. The industrial revolution came, and all around 18th to mid, 19th to 20th century, all of a sudden estate planning began to happen, and we began to have family offices, and we began to have a shift toward, instead of just this patrilineal line of inheritance, equitable wealth distribution among all of the kids, and then also giving away resources to charity, but always at death, estate taxation became a thing.

Ali Katz:
So now we need to plan around estate taxation. When I first started, in practice, the estate tax exemption was only $675,000. So we had to plan for that because everybody was going to be subject to it. Of course, we have these diverse investment opportunities now, and so these are the modern principles of generational wealth that we are all living within. Education and awareness of an emphasis on financial literacy, although still not doing a very good job for the most part, but certainly better, right than ever before. More people are more financially literate than ever before. And fortunately, a lot of the financial literacy is indoctrinated. Financial literacy that is coming from a financial services industry that doesn't necessarily have the best interests of the people that it serves in mind.

Ali Katz:
And that is a problem that we get to work with and around, because it's passing on an inheritance itself. It's passing on an inheritance of scarcity and survival, and that you must hoard all of your resources so that you have enough in the bank to earn passive income, earn money on your money on your money on your money to be able to take care of yourself until you die. But that's what's actually creating the reality that could lead to the right hand scenario of an extraction ecology. Because the reality is we can't continue to grow at the rates we would need to continue to grow in order for everyone to hoard their money and earn money on their money on their money on their money successfully. It's a model that doesn't actually work economically or ecologically or relationally. So we've got to do something different, but we don't really know what to do. So what I propose is that we begin to think about making this shift to regenerative wealth, and that we apply a permaculture model to investing. Starting with yourself, especially for all of you lawyers, you are your most important resource and you can always earn more money.

Ali Katz:
Not everybody can. Right off the bat. Some people need to invest in increasing the value of their services. Some people need to even increase in having a service. Now you might need to invest in some healing work in order to be able to go out in your community and start talking to people about the service that you have, about the gift that you have to give them, that might be what's next. And when I say healing work, I mean the work of whatever's in the way of you talking to people in your community about what really matters, talking to people in your community about incapacity and death from a place of care, because you actually care that much. Now, some of you do care that much, but you've got some blocks in the way that has it overwhelming for you to go out into your community or relationally, you don't know how to do it. You need actual therapeutic, somatic healing work, which is nothing to be ashamed of, it's just the reality.

Ali Katz:
And that's where you start investing so that you can be in a place of resourcefulness and creativity, no matter what happens in the economy out there. And perhaps you begin to take smaller financial returns on the money that needs to earn money on its money on its money, because it's actually what's better for us all. If you can invest in ways that are not extractive. And if you can live an ethos of enough by knowing what enough really even is. And if you can begin the process of open communication and start thinking about and talking about and planning for your death now by having open communication with all who will be impacted. Now, most people will have a hard time having those conversations without a facilitator. You are that facilitator. You are that facilitator. Your family wealth planning process is the process of facilitation.

Ali Katz:
It's already done for you. Your presentations are your opportunity to facilitate those conversations in your community. Consider the possibility of dying with zero and divesting yourself of your financial resources and instead dying rich in relational wealth. What would need to be true for you to be willing to do that? Who in your family would you need to trust more? What would you need to do in your own relational reality in order to create the intimacy and trust so that your parents would feel comfortable dying with zero because they know you've got them? Invest in people with your resources, not just your blood family, but people that are in your community that deserve and need your investment and support them to learn through mistakes. And because this was for a presentation of investors, I told them to forget about passive income, stop trying to generate passive income and chasing every get rich quick opportunity that there is or every investment that there is to create passive income, and instead remain creative throughout your life, knowing that you will make more. If you do that, you will make more. Now, you don't have to have all this money hoarded in order to have it invested. Earning, earning, earning, earning which is not sustainable. Instead, remain creative in a way that allows you to keep serving and earning what you need when you need it, on demand, in alignment with your values. And circulate your resources. Circulate your resources. Stop hoarding. Now, some people are hoarding because they don't know how to circulate their resources in a way that's safe. And you can help them with that actually. But that might mean that you need to learn how to do it first.

Ali Katz:
You might need to learn how to put in place agreements yourself. Funny enough, you might need to learn how to invest in people and be the kind of leader that you want to be in your community first yourself. Great. Do that. It's worth it. And keep focusing on serving, serving, serving, serving. How many people can you go out and talk to every week, just from your heart about incapacity and death? And have they thought about it? And have they thought about what will happen? And some of you just are not having enough conversations about this. And then I just reminded them about the outdated models that do continue, or beliefs that continue to operate, including pass it on when you die, including don't talk about it.

Ali Katz:
Including the idea of modern capitalism, expecting growth to continue as it always has. The belief around self protection, prioritizing my own individual well being over that of the collective, the Lone Wolf syndrome. I need to do it on my own. The use of tax strategies that save taxes but don't improve the community. And there's more. And then what we did is we had everybody get into groups of three and share what was the one thing they would do, taking away from this talk? What's their one takeaway that they would take action on in the next week or 30 days when they got back home. And that's where many people said, ask Ali how to do it. Which, if I was taking on clients, would have been the open door for, for me to, great. I would love to show you how to do it in a family wealth planning session instead. I didn't do that. But the son of the multi, multi, multi billionaire did come up to me afterwards and had a conversation with me. And so now we will begin to enter into a conversation about how I can best help him to step into his own adulthood around these issues and begin to approach his parents eyes wide open. And it might start with his own estate plan. He's married, he has his own resources.

Ali Katz:
So it might be that that is the rite of passage that begins. And so then I would co counsel with a lawyer in LA to be able to do that plan for him. And I would take him through a family wealth planning session. Even though I don't do that anymore. I would still use that as the opener. Even though I'm not going to do the plan, I would still use that as the opener. So I want to pause there now and just see what you've taken from today.

Ashley:
Hey, Ali.

Ali Katz:
Hi, Ashley.

Ashley:
How are you doing?

Ali Katz:
Great, thank you.

Ashley:
I just started your program and I just think it's really encouraging to have you come on early on and just be encouraging about different ways to think kind of outside the box about different opportunities. And just looking at it from a historical perspective is really important because you really do need to learn what didn't work in order to improve for your family going forward. And that's something that is a passion of mine, both personally and professionally, is that we have the opportunity to do a lot of good for other people. And I just found that you're. This was just really encouraging at this point.

Ali Katz:
Oh, good. Oh, good. I'm so glad.

Ashley:
Thank you.

Ali Katz:
Okay, anybody else?

Lizette:
Hi, Ali. This is Lizette. I'm not on camera because I'm walking in the street.

Ali Katz:
Okay, great. Thank you. Lizette, welcome. Sure.

Lizette:
Thanks. So I'm in New York City, and what I'm taking away is what you mentioned about the medic, this being the best form of Medicaid planning, because Medicaid planning is a huge thing in New York. And I know my grandmother utilized that strategy of kind of giving everything away so that she could qualify. And it's just good to hear that, that, you know, is a good and possible strategy. And the long term care insurance route that I've been, been in my universe recently, that, you know, people in their sixties especially, should be looking at long term care insurance. And, you know, so, yeah, the Medicaid planning portion, for sure.

Ali Katz:
Thank you.

Ali Katz:
Yes. I used to be challenged a bit by Medicaid planning. Like somehow it was like taking something. And what I realize now is that with this Die with Zero model, it can actually be really regenerative and really supportive and really supportive to the family as a whole. When you're putting it in this greater context of it not just being about qualifying for Medicaid, it's actually about how do we use all of the family resources in the most optimal way for the whole family, because there's been so much trust built and that way we get to make sure that mom and dad are taken care of in the way that they want. And I'll be honest, mom and dad don't want to go into a nursing home, y'all. So we do need to start thinking about other ideas as well and start talking to mom and dad about, well, what do you want? What do you want? And you're the facilitators of those conversations. I am so glad that you are all here.

Ali Katz:
I'm so glad that you take the time to attend this call that's, you know, a little esoteric, but ultimately about the most important stuff. And I think it is the stuff that truly fuels you to do the thing that we are all here to do together. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Allison and Ariel, thank you for the inspiration for this call and for being here as well. Okay, everybody, thank you so much. Bye bye for now.

Ali Katz:
If you love that episode as much as I did, and you love this conversation about how estate planning can be so much more than just about helping people plan for what happens after death, and really looking at the big picture of how we utilize our assets during life and helping your clients do the same, as we collectively make this shift from thinking just about generational wealth to regenerative wealth, so that we can support with humanity thriving on this planet for the future and not facing the reality of extinction, but really doing something so that we can continue to evolve, continue to grow in harmony, living here in a way that really works. Then I hope that you will take the next steps in joining us by going to newlaw.co/show.

Ali Katz:
That's newlaw.co/show.

Ali Katz:
And get on the path to PFL by starting the process of talking with a law business advisor who will help you look at where you are now, where you want to go next, and map the path with you so that you can build your law practice into a business you love and make a truly meaningful impact in the world. There's more than 33 million families just here in the United States alone who need Eyes Wide Open legal counsel from our Personal Family Lawyer Firm leaders. And we'd love to support you to get on the path to PFL and help the people in your community in an entirely new way. Go to newlaw.co/show, and I'll look forward to seeing you on the inside.