I’m honored to have been recognized by Entrepreneur Magazine as one of the 100 powerful women of 2020 who are fighting for a better future. Grateful to be standing alongside the women on this list, and representing the legal industry, which I have been fighting to change for many years. Ironically, my “fight” in the legal industry is to decrease fighting and increase healthy conflict on our planet and in our communities. More love coming through lawyers and for lawyers, please.

I launched New Law Business Model in 2012. It has grown into a company with 45+ supporting staff, and recently made the Inc. 5000 for the 3rd time in a row, with 3-year revenue growth of 154.34%.

The following is an excerpt from the Entrepreneur’s article:

Ali Katz thinks the motivations for lawyers are all wrong. “We’re financially incentivized to make things as complicated as possible,” she says. “The more complex they are, the more we get paid.” She was once part of the problem, but when she opened her own practice, she developed a better way: working with clients as an ongoing adviser, rather than someone who reacts to immediate needs. It helped her head off problems before they began, saving clients money and her time. That was in 2006, and the method has since evolved into New Law Business Model, a training system to help estate planning and business lawyers escape the billable-hour-obsessed model. Revenue will hit $5 million this year. “We’re teaching lawyers to be business owners,” she says. “Part of that is having systems that allow you to meet the needs of clients without being on call all day, every day.”

Visit New Law Business Model to download free resources for lawyers.

When I first became an entrepreneur, I believed success meant earning a million dollars. And I was able to make that happen twice in the space of five years.

After three years, my personal law practice was bringing in seven figures of annual revenue. Then my second venture, an online training company, started bringing in over a million dollars in revenue in 18 months. I had figured out how to make money. But even as I was doing well on the surface, I made some legal, insurance, and financial mistakes that led collectively to a loss of more than a million dollars. 

At the time, I felt as if I’d failed, but I don’t see it that way now. Those missteps helped me learn how to effectively manage my resources and become a better CEO and businesswoman. 

In 2012, I started my current company, New Law Business Model, to train other lawyers to help families and business owners not repeat the same expensive mistakes I made. And today, thanks in part to my own overhauled approach, my business earns over $5 million a year and allows me to lead a life I love. 

Here is what I’ve learned.

Be open about what you don’t know

In law school, I sat in the front row with my hand up constantly, asking questions no one else would ask. But when I went into business for myself, some of that willingness to ask the “stupid” questions disappeared. As a new business owner, I didn’t want to let my lack of knowledge show. 

For example, I knew there were certain financial reports I should be looking at but I didn’t know where to begin. Even after I hired a CPA, I continued to make decisions based on the money I had in the bank, and figured everything would work itself out.

Being open about what I didn’t know and asking her for the help I needed could have saved me $50,000 on my taxes the following year. Instead, I had a surprise tax bill that came to over $100,000, and I had to take out a loan to cover it.

Since that painful, unplanned-for tax bill, I’ve learned that I need to share my income and expenses projections for the whole year with my CPA, at the latest by mid-November. Now, I ask for projections of what I’ll owe in taxes with at least three options for various scenarios that may include accelerating expenses, deferring income, or setting up retirement accounts or other tax planning strategies, so I can get strategic with my tax planning before it’s too late to take action.

Always get agreements in writing

Even though I am a lawyer, I was, early on, often afraid to ask for agreements in writing or thought they were unnecessary. If I really wanted to work with someone, I’d get nervous or insecure when it came time to ask for the agreement, and I’d just keep moving forward without it. Or if I was collaborating with friends, which is one of my favorite parts of entrepreneurship, I thought I didn’t need an agreement because we trusted each other.

My first web product was a site to help parents easily name legal guardians for their kids online. I started working on it with a friend. When I needed to move my project to a different developer, my friend claimed the source code was his and I’d have to buy it from him for another $25,000, even though I had already paid him $25,000 for work completed, because we didn’t have an agreement with a “work for hire” clause in it.

No matter what stage you are at in your business, you need to have two standard agreements on hand: One that you use when you are the provider of services, which you can and should incorporate into your sales process, and one that you use when you are hiring service providers. 

Remember that agreements actually protect relationships, whether you’ve never worked together before or you’re close friends, because they require you to be as clear as possible about your expectations and the interests at stake.

Invest in expert help 

Five years after opening my doors, I sold my law practice in 2008 to a lawyer with 25 years of experience. It seemed like he had the expertise to keep things running smoothly. But within six months, he handed the practice back, claiming the client flow had dried up and he could no longer make the payments he’d promised. 

When I looked over the books, it turned out that he had chosen to stop implementing some drivers of the business, like the marketing campaigns which consistently brought in new clients. It was an expense that had been a priority for me, and I realized that as part of the buyer vetting process, it was a key piece of information that should have been communicated. 

I didn’t want to leave anyone in a lurch, so I decided to operate the practice out of my savings for another six months while I transitioned my clients to other trusted attorneys and helped my colleagues find new jobs. 

In hindsight, I should have invested the money to hire the right advisors for my transaction. It probably would have cost between $15,000 and $25,000 to hire a lawyer and a CPA with specific experience in the purchase and sale of law practices.

Thinking I could save money by handling the legal and financial matters myself meant I had to pay $250,000 out of pocket instead making $250,000 on the sale. 

Make money decisions from a position of strength 

In those early ventures, I made a lot of my money decisions from a place of scarcity and fear, trying to do it all on my own, even when I wasn’t the best person for the job. 

Today, my latest start up, which guides people to make “eyes wide open” legal, insurance, financial, and tax (or LIFT) decisions, isn’t earning enough to pay my salary yet, but even so, I’m paying a part-time CFO and a bookkeeper to organize my books and review my financials with me weekly so I know I am not repeating the mistakes of the past. I am also paying a lawyer to customize our terms of service, privacy policy, and our agreement with our members.

Hiring the right legal and financial advisors is just as valuable as hiring someone to run my Facebook ads, design my website, handle my sales conversations or even manage my calendar. I know that I have to be able to see all the numbers clearly to make wise strategic decisions as we grow. 

If you are developing a side hustle or business, be clear on the service you offer and the market that needs it, and make sure you know how to reach your market. Then, go all in on the business end of your business with the LIFT systems to support you. It’ll be an investment that pays you back many times over. 

Overall, my best advice is to spend the necessary time, energy and money to learn about the LIFT (legal, insurance, financial, and tax) aspects of running your business, and hire the right people to be on your team. It is one of the most important investments you can make in the growth of your side hustle or company. 

Take my 20-Point LIFT assessment to see if you have holes in the legal, insurance, financial or tax systems for your business.

Funding Options For Your Small Business Without Ruining Your Personal Credit or Sabotaging Your Business Success

There are many options to fund your business start-up or growth: raising money from friends and family, going the venture capital route, using your own savings, or even pursuing crowdfunding. One option that too many business owners rule out, or make poor decisions around, is using credit to fund your business.

Credit, heck let’s not beat around the bush here — DEBT, yes, that four letter word — can be one of the best ways to finance the start-up or growth of your business.

Unfortunately, there is so much bad information, fear-mongering by financial educators, and inherited shame, guilt and fear around the use of debt that most of us are simply not set up to use it wisely.

And, it’s true, if you use credit to fund your business and you do it wrong, you can ruin your credit score quickly and set yourself back years while you clean up and repair. Or in some cases, you can even take yourself out of the game completely, too scared to get back on the horse and ride again.

But, have no fear, I’ve charted the path for us. I went the long way around, got lost several times, used my trusty magical machete to forge new paths, and all of it so I could circle back to you with all the information about what’s real and true, and what’s not, when it comes to using debt to start or fund the growth of your business.

My Shame, Guilt and Fear Around Using Credit Caused Me To Make Very Poor Decisions

When I first started out in business, I hung my shingle as a solo lawyer, and thought I could just build my law practice out of the revenue I would bring in.

But first, I needed some things in order to bring that revenue in, like a desk, a computer, and office supplies. And I didn’t have the cash to buy those things. So, I used my personal credit card to buy what I needed, not knowing there was any other option.

Then, as the work started coming in, I needed more things, like to hire an assistant, upgrade my homemade website, and hire consultants and coaches to help me figure things out — like how to get hired when people came in to meet with me — that would support my business growth. But, my revenue didn’t justify it.

I felt stuck and confused.

How was I supposed to grow my business without going into debt? I watched a lot of Suze Orman back then, and she said stay out of debt. Then, Dave Ramsey came on the scene and he said never take on any debt, and if you have it, get out of debt as quickly as you can. All the mainstream financial educators I was learning from seemed to be saying I would need to finance the growth of my business out of the revenue I was earning, but I quickly saw that this was not actually possible, if I also wanted to have a life worth living.

I was already maxed out on my time.

If I followed their advice, I would never be able to grow my law practice into a business that would create any measure of freedom for me. Instead, I’d be stuck in the perpetual “practice” working all hours of the day and night, weekends too, and providing a sub-standard service to my clients and not able to parent my kids the way I wanted, with presence and attention.

So, with shame, guilt and fear, I began to take on debt. Because I was uneducated in this area, and didn’t know where to turn for guidance, I made a huge number of mistakes along the way. You can read the gory details of those mistakes here.

You Can Wisely Use Credit to Build Your Business Without Shame, Guilt and Fear

After being in business for more than 15 years, and experiencing the full range — from solo law practice to a million dollar law firm to building multiple million dollar businesses and taking on more than $500k of debt, then filing bankruptcy, and then rebuilding it all from scratch into a thriving enterprise that just hit the Inc. 5000 for two years in a row — I can tell you that credit, when used wisely, is your friend.

Unless you want to remain a freelancer, which is pretty much a perpetual job with no benefits and limited freedom, you will need to invest in technology, team and other infrastructure, most likely before your sales dictate needing any of it. It’s by creating the infrastructure that you create the capacity to make the sales.

If you try to make the sales before you’ve invested in the capacity to deliver, you’re going to find yourself trapped in a vicious cycle of over-promising and under-delivering or working like a mad woman to keep it all going.

If you wait to invest until your sales justify it, you’ll be behind the 8-ball, constantly sprinting to catch up, and it will be very difficult to hire and train people when you are literally working like a crazy person.

So, if you are seriously committed to growing your business with the infrastructure, team and technology it needs to offer a stellar service or product, you’re going to need to put money in before you have it coming out. Oh, and yes, don’t forget what it will cost you to try and test marketing strategies and learn to sell.

And, yes, you’re going to need money to start or grow your business. And, no, you should not use personal credit cards to fund the growth of your business. If you are already using personal credit cards, and your credit score is still good, now is the time to shift to business credit and pay off the personal credit cards.

Using Personal Credit Cards or Sales to Fund Your Growth Will Keep You in a Cycle of Scarcity, Over-Promising and Under-Delivering

Attempting to fund your business out of revenue, or by using your personal credit cards, will keep you trapped in a cycle of scarcity, not enoughness, and constant fear of running out. These types of energies in your business do not lead to success, even if you are able to make some money along the way. You won’t be able to attract the team support you need, or you’ll attract good people and then lose them because you aren’t able to pay them enough or because you are energetically draining to be around due to your constant fear of running out of money.

And, if you’ve ever tried to sell from a place of need, you know how that goes. Potential clients or customers can smell the scarcity, and even if they need what you offer, they’ll find some reason not to hire you or buy your products.

You’ve heard the saying “if you build it, they will come.” Well, it’s really true. If you’ve got something great to offer and people really do need it, invest in building it, and they will come.

The opposite is also true. If you do not have the capacity to serve your clients or customers well, they will not come. Or, if they do, you’ll end up with poor reviews as a result of not being able to deliver.

It can seem like a catch-22. You need to make sales to bring in revenue to fund investments in marketing, team, technology and your own learning. But, you need marketing, team and technology to make the sales.

Bottom line: if you want to build a real business, you’re going to need capital. If you are trying to finance your start-up and growth out of revenue because you are scared to raise money, or use credit, you will always be one step behind.

Business Credit Cards at 0% Interest Are a Far Better Solution

Credit is a great way to finance your business, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. When you do it the right way, credit is a superior funding source because you do not have to give up equity in your company to get it, and you are in full control of the use of funds.

The wrong way of using credit will max out your personal credit cards, hurt your credit score, stress you out, and make it more difficult for you to obtain credit in the future.

Once you’ve used over 35% on any one of your personal credit cards, your personal credit score will begin to decrease. Once you’ve maxed out your personal credit cards, you probably cannot get anymore credit. And, in some cases, the credit card companies may even decrease credit lines they’ve given you already, starting an ugly cycle of being trapped by debt that you can’t get out of.

The right use of credit to finance your business will maintain or improve your personal credit score, while getting you access to up to $250,000 of “unsecured” business credit, much of it at 0% interest for 6–18 months. Unsecured means that you don’t have to put up any collateral to get it. However, it is still tied to your personal credit score, meaning if you don’t pay it back, it will hurt your personal credit score and you are personally on the hook for paying it back, even though it’s unsecured.

If you have over a 720 credit score, or can get it there using credit repair strategies, you can access business credit, instead of using personal credit cards to fund your business. And, it’s way better to do it that way.

The best part of using business credit cards to fund your business is that you can max out your cards, meaning use the full amount of credit available to you, without hurting your personal credit score, so long as you are making your minimum payments on a timely basis. And, in many cases, you can get 0% interest for 6–18 months per card.

If you are considering using business credit cards to finance your business, don’t go it alone. Instead, watch this webinar on the best way to get the most credit at the lowest interest rates. In the webinar, we’ll explain when and why it makes more sense to work with a trusted business credit card funding company than to apply for business credit on your own.

But, what about business loans, business lines of credit, and corporate credit? Are they better than business credit cards?

Business loans, lines of credit, corporate credit and business credit cards are four very different resources, and each of them important to understand.

Business Loans: typically a business loan is made to your business, through your bank, via the bank itself or the Small Business Administration (SBA). A business loan generally requires you to be in business for more than 2 years, and show good income in your business over those 2 years. If your business meets the criteria, your banker can help you fill out the paperwork for a business loan. Personally, I have never been required to create a business plan or proposal for an SBA loan, though I do know that some business owners have, so talk to your local banker to see exactly what’s needed for your business, if you pursue the business loan route.

Your business loan will be for a specified amount, to be determined by you and your banker. Upon approval of your loan, the bank will deposit the full amount of the borrowed amount into your bank account and you’ll begin repaying the loan immediately, under the terms provided by the bank.

Fundera, a website that helps you choose which credit source to use to fund your business, has a comprehensive write-up of the various business loan rates, through banks, online services and the SBA, here.

I just started talking to them myself so I can understand how they make money helping small business owners, and whether there are any downsides. It seems that they get paid by the lenders themselves, not by you, which is a positive.

Obviously, you will want to find the business loan with the lowest interest rate (or Annual Percentage Rate, known as APR), low or no costs up front, and the longest term for payback. And a service like Fundera can help you do that with minimal leg work.

One item of note already is that they said if you are going to use business credit cards, you would just apply directly through their site. That’s fine if you only need less than $15,000 or so. But, if you want more, you really shouldn’t go it alone.

If you are going the business credit cards route, I recommend you watch this webinar so you understand why it makes more sense to get help when applying for business credit cards. Short answer: if you go it alone, you’ll only get approved for a small amount. With help, you can get between $100,000 and $250,000.

Business Lines of Credit: A business line of credit is very similar to a loan, in that you obtain it through a bank and it will generally have the same requirements as a business loan. The difference is that with a line of credit, you are able to leave the money loaned to you in your account, and so long as it’s there, you will not need to pay interest on the loaned amount. With a business line of credit you only pay interest on the amount taken out of your account to pay for goods or services.

Both business loans and business lines of credit do require you, or another owner or officer of your business, to personally guarantee that the loan or line of credit will be paid back. This means that even though the loan will not report on your credit score or impact your credit score so long as you are making payments, if you do not make the payments, you will be personally liable. If you are personally liable, your credit score will be negatively impacted if you do not make payments, and you would be subject to a lawsuit by the lender and judgment against you to collect payment.

Every established business should have a business line of credit to back it up, once it is able to qualify to get one.

Business Credit: Accessing business credit via business credit cards can get you the most funding, at the least cost, in the shortest amount of time. But it’s only the right path for funding IF you are clear on how you are going to earn money by selling your products or services within the 6–18 month time period you’ll have zero percent interest. After that, your interest rates can get extremely high, even over 25% in some cases.

Once you have identified your market and you know they want your products and services (ideally because you’ve tested the market), you can use business credit to fund marketing investments and build a sales process, knowing you can repay the credit through sales as a result of your marketing and sales.

The best part of using business credit is that you can use as much credit as is given to you without putting your personal credit score at risk, so long as you are making your minimum payments on time. Business credit card companies do use your personal credit score to determine whether you qualify for credit, but then do not report the cards on your credit report.

If you are deciding to use business credit, while you can apply to obtain business credit on your own, if you want to get the most credit possible, you should not go it alone.

But, if you only need or want a small amount of business credit, you could just apply on your own for the business credit cards of your choice. You should be able to obtain between $2,500 to $15,000 on your own, with some cards at 0%. If you want more than that, watch this webinar.

Corporate Credit: Corporate credit is credit issued to your business that does not have to be guaranteed by you as the business owner. All three of the other types of credit written about here, do require a personal guarantee by you, as the business owner. This means that if you are able to get corporate credit, and your company is not able to repay the credit extended, you would not be required to pay back the debt yourself. So long as corporate formalities of the corporation were maintained, the lender could sue the company, but not you personally, and the lender would be limited to a judgment against the assets of the corporation, if any.

Corporate credit requires a strong Paydex score. Your Paydex score is like a personal credit score, but it measures the credit worthiness of your business, not of you as an individual. Building a Paydex score can take some years, and requires you to take several steps that indicate your company’s creditworthiness. Read this article to learn how to establish and then increase your Paydex score.

Making wise choices about how you choose to fund your business are oftentimes make it or break it in business. And, unfortunately, there’s a lot of “noise” out there about why you should never use credit, scaring many people away from the best funding sources available.

When used wisely, credit is the best resource for funding your business, and the financial educators who say you shouldn’t use it are saying it because they think you aren’t smart enough to use it. Prove them wrong. Get educated. Get wise. Claim your sovereignty. You are enough. There are enough resources for you. And, you deserve to have a life of freedom and do the good work you came to do.

If you do not want to borrow money, take risks, or learn to handle the financial reality of a business, there’s no shame in having a job and taking the “safer” route of getting a steady paycheck. In that case, it’s true, you should not use credit because your income is not in your control. But, if you are building a business with a service or product you believe in, business credit really is your friend.

Go here to watch the webinar on how to get up to $250,000 of business credit for your business. And, after you do, if you have any questions, join us in the Eyes Wide Open Tribe Facebook group, where I help you make choices about how to create your life and business, awake, aware and on your terms.

Documenting the lineage of my names is an honoring of all the parts that live inside me. Plus, a letting go and a welcoming of the integrated whole.

I’ve written extensively about the history of my names — Alexis Martin Neely to Ali Shanti — and what they represented over time from an identity, personal growth and transformation perspective.

And, I wrote here about how I came to discover and reclaim my one true name, Alexis Katz.

Then, when I was getting fingerprinted for my legal name change, I had to write in my new full legal name.

I wasn’t expecting it to happen then. I thought I had time. But, instead, I had to make this quite big decision on the fly, without much thought.

Would I keep my married name, and the name of my children, “Neely” as my middle name?

I closed my eyes, took a few moments of prayer, asked for guidance and received it.

What I heard is that, it’s time to fully let go of Martin and Neely.

And I remembered my Hebrew name, given to me at my Bat Mitzvah ceremony in Israel.

Alizah. Of course. It means joyful. My mother’s middle name is Joy. A connection to her. A further connection to my lineage. And, of course, shortened to my already nickname, Ali.

I typed it in to the form.

Alexis Alizah Katz.

Alexis Katz.

Ali Katz.

That’s me.❤️🙏🏼

And, now, for those who are curious, the details of each of the pieces …

I was born Alexis W Martin. W because my mom wanted Whitney, but my dad thought it was too pretentious. So they settled on just W for my birth certificate.

1999: I married Todd Neely and became Alexis Martin Neely. As her, I graduated law school, started my own law practice, authored a best-selling book 📚 and became a family, financial and legal expert on TV 📺.

2009: I sat with Ayahuasca 🌱 and saw a vision of the 🌎 I wanted to live in, and how Alexis Martin Neely’s “success” was a contradiction to that world. So I began to reject her, and what I had created as her, becoming simply Alexis Neely in the process.

Then, Ali Shanti showed up. 😳 She was the antidote to Alexis Martin Neely. The inner conflict, outwardly expressed. Inside they the two were at war. Orange and green (spiral dynamics), reconciling. 🧠🤺🤼‍♀️💔💗

2019: all parts have now been heard and felt and seen and met. 💥The war has resolved into a clarity of the integrated One that is me. 🔥 And a singular name that fully represents the integrated whole that is me.

Welcome, Alexis Alizah Katz. 🙏🏼

💪🏼🙋🏼‍♀️ Alexis. My birth name. Meaning: helper/defender.

🥳 Alizah. My Hebrew name, given to me at my bat mitzvah in Israel more than thirty years ago. Meaning: joyful female.

🧝🏼‍♀️Katz. My father’s original birth name. The root of my lineage. Meaning: priest(ess) of justice.

🧚🏼‍♀️😻Ali Katz. My name in the public, used as a sign of affection by those who know and love me, representative of the various parts made into a whole. Meaning: fun, playful, light and free, but also serious and real. Meow. 🐱

Alexis Alizah Katz. A stand for the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

I contribute to this world, first and foremost, by understanding what I have inherited (both the shadows and the light of my inheritance), what I have come into this world to heal within myself, and then choosing to live into what’s most in alignment and integrity, even when it’s hard.

Next, by teaching lawyers to return to the heart and soul of their work as trusted advisors and counselors to families and business owners ready for enlightened estate planning, I am supporting a culture shift from a financial incentive for unhealthy conflict to providing aligned support for those who want to use the reality of their future death to create a legacy of connection and love now.

Using my own million dollars of mistakes in business as a driver, I guide business owners to total confidence with the right legal, insurance, financial and tax (LIFT) systems and support, with aligned advisors on their team supporting them.

When I’m lucky, I get to guide families to mine the gifts of their inheritance and to create their legacies now.

Finally, I share my life and journey openly and in service, as I awaken into my own sovereignty because we need the stories of those who have walked the path before us to guide us home. ❤

I had been living with multiple names, split identities, for several years when my one true name came to me during a profound experience with psilocybin on a permaculture farm in Costa Rica.

I shouldn’t have even been there. I was supposed to be at a friends 40th birthday party in Northern California, but spirit had clearly guided me to stay in Costa Rica and travel to this permaculture farm instead.

While I was there, I was clearly guided to a name that would reconcile the dis-integrated parts of me into one integrated whole representation of the me that I wanted to be.

But, I wasn’t ready to give up the other names, so I held this name close to my heart, not knowing if I would ever live it out in the world. Until now.

Now, I’m ready for integration, and to support the parts of me that don’t want to be lost or forgotten in that integration, I’m sharing the story of how it all came to be.

Discovering My Roots, My Lineage

I was at the Envision Festival in Costa Rica, giving a talk on our distorted relationship to money, and how we can fix it. After my talk, I was supposed to leave, but I got a very clear message from spirit that said “stay, and listen to Stephen Brooks talk. He’s got something for you.”

So I stayed. And, as I listened, Stephen spoke the dream of community that I had long held. Families living on land, growing our own food, easy access to clean water, the more beautiful world my heart knew was possible.

Then, I heard another message from Spirit. Go talk to Stephen’s parents. He had grown up in Miami, where I had grown up.

As I spoke to Norman, Stephen’s dad, I found out he had gone to Miami Beach High, the same high school as my dad. So I asked him if he had known William Martin.

“William Martin!” he said. “I didn’t know William Martin, but I knew Billy Katz! In fact, we were very, very good friends.”

Billy Katz had been my dad’s original birth name. William Samuel Katz. But, he had changed his name as a young man, to his stepfather’s last name, Martin, in an attempt at connection and love. He ended up hating his stepfather, but he kept his name.

Upon hearing that Norman was close with my dad, not only as a teenager, but also via a reconnection in the years before my father died, I knew I would change all of my plans to leave Costa Rica, so I could stay and attend the Roots Gathering, hosted by Norman and Stephen on their permaculture farm, Punta Mona.

Roots Gathering. It was as if my father was the voice of spirit speaking to me. Maybe I would go to the Roots Gathering and find my roots.

That’s exactly what happened.

While I was there, I decided to take some psilocybin mushrooms I had brought with me. As I was walking through the jungle, it occurred to me that THIS was the life I wanted. Simple. Free. Nature.

“Why aren’t I living this life?” I wondered.

Oh, right, my work, my kids, their dad, the money I needed to support them. They wouldn’t want this life and it wouldn’t be fair of me to abandon them.

My next thought was a strange one.

Part of Me Wanted to Die, But Not All of Me

“Hmmmm, maybe I should fake my death, give them the insurance money, and I can live out the rest of my life here.” I played it out in my mind for a while.

But, of course quickly discarded the possibility, realizing I’d never be able to keep quiet.

In having the thought, though, I realized that some part of me wanted to die.

Something in me wanted to die. I wanted to die.

As I confronted the parts of me that wanted to die, I connected with the part of me that wanted to live.

Yes, something in me wanted to die. But something in me also wanted to live!

I asked myself who I would be if I let the parts of me that wanted to die go, and from that day forward only lived the parts of me that wanted to live.

Who would I be if I became the woman I wanted to be?

The answer came: Alexis Katz. You would be Alexis Katz. And, you would go by Ali Katz. That’s your name. That name is the name your father was born to; it’s your inheritance and your legacy.

“Alexis, It’s time to live who you are.” But, I wasn’t actually quite ready. It would take 3 more years of living through the dis-integration to be ready for my identities to fully integrate.

My Name is Alexis Katz. But, You Can Call Me Ali. Ali Katz.

As I felt into this name, it seemed to meet all of the parts of me that I was becoming.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my work with the true meaning of inheritance and legacy would deepen significantly and make taking this name even more meaningful.

Upon learning more about the name Katz, I discovered it’s been said to be the oldest surname in the world, and all who are born to it are Priests. Perhaps this is the reason I feel so connected with the Priestess part of myself. It’s something I plan to explore more now that I’ve taken back the name of my lineage.

Three years ago, I wasn’t ready to give up my other two names, and so I decided I would hold the name Alexis Katz close to my heart, keep it for myself, and not live this name in the world.

And, over the past several months, it’s become clear that I am ready now to give up the split identities, let go of my other names, and integrate, fully.

This became ever more clear after Adam Roa, Ryan Fontana and Matthew Ayriss (the crew from the Art of Choosing Love) really saw me in our creative immersion process, and suggested that the essence piece they were creating with and for me was a tribute to my father.

So, on this day, Father’s Day, I honor my father, and my lineage, by releasing all old identities that no longer serve, and stepping into my one true name: Alexis Katz. Ali Katz, to those who know me well.

If you’ve had a journey with your own identity and your names, I’d love to hear about it. Please do share.

My father led me to this name. His spirit guided me to a journey in the jungles of Costa Rica to re-discover my name, my integrated identity, the truth of all of who I am.

It would take more than 3 years for me to be ready to say yes to stepping fully into it. And, once again, it would be his spirit guiding me.

Last Fall, I did a creative immersion with Adam Roa, Ryan Fontana and Matthew Ayriss (the creators of the show the Art of Choosing Love). We did it in service to them creating a 2-minute “essence” video for me. I had no idea what it would be, and I think going into it, they didn’t either.

After the immersion, they left to travel the world, and we reconvened this past May in Vancouver to film.

When I got to Canada, I didn’t know what we would be filming, but I knew we would only have 8 hours to figure it out and get it done.

Upon arrival, Adam told me we’d be filming a letter to my dad. A tribute to all that he meant to me and the conflict he caused within me, and that I had 30 minutes to write this tribute.

“30 minutes?!?” Jeez louise, okay.

I better get to writing then. And, of course, it would be a letter to my dad because honoring him, and my lineage, is what it would take for me to be ready to step into my one true name.

The first draft of what I wrote is pasted below, in full, unedited. It gives more of the context of what ended up in the final shoot.

Dear Dad,

I’ve inherited a lot from you. I watched you make your life choices from a place of survival, scarcity, blame, and an unwillingness to take full responsibility for your life, while at the same time trying your best to instill just the opposite in me and Courtney.

I watched you go to prison for taking from others to support yourself, and our family. And I watched you justify your actions based on a belief that you had to earn your livelihood that way because you were neglected by your parents, not raised right and that you had a right to take from others who weren’t as smart as you were.

I watched you live the life of a con artist, and I saw how it ate away at you, even when you pretended it didn’t. I knew when you died so young, at just 58, that you were giving us a gift of seeing the results of those choices.

You left me a legacy of questioning my value, and a constant wonder and worry if the work I did in the world was truly meaningful or if I was just really good at selling things, like you?

My inheritance has been to wonder: am I a con man just like my dad? And to constantly question the motives of others.

I inherited your beliefs in scarcity and not enough, and turned those fears into multi-million dollar businesses that I wanted to believe helped others, but I wasn’t really sure.

As a result, I turned my back on all of it, so I could discover what was more true, constantly asking myself who I really was, why I was here, and what was mine to do.

I came to recognize that my inheritance was the key to finding the answers to those questions. Your legacy is not the survival mentality and actions that have rippled through our family for generations, but my willingness to use the privilege and opportunity you gave me to find the truth of myself beyond them.

My terror that I would be just like you caused me to surface what needed to be healed in me, to heal our lineage, from this choice-making and decisions based in a survival mentality, and win-lose dynamics, perpetuating an economic reality in which there could only be winners and losers.

I learned to tell the truth, to trust my heart, to only create from a place of win/win and ultimately to thrive — not from need or greed, but from a desire to give everything I could — in service to creating what Charles Eisenstein calls and I have seen as the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

Thanks to you, I know that compassion is the key that will shift the trajectory of humanity.

Compassion for ourselves, and the inherited belief patterns that are so hard to see, and digest, and forgive and heal.

Compassion for others who may have forgotten who they are, why they are here, and what’s theirs to do, and still be playing out the old ways.

Compassion for the pain that you and so many others suffer when choices are made based in fear, instead of love.

I honor you for the pain you must have suffered to be living so out of alignment and out of integrity with your own truth.

And, in this honoring of you, I serve others to see how their own inheritance of survival is playing out, to know and appreciate their privilege — even if it was created from a lineage of harm — and to accept the opportunity and responsibility to heal so we can create a future in which we can all thrive together.

So it turns out I did inherit a lot from you dad, and that, yes, you were and still are my hero. I may have never acknowledged that before, so today I do. Thank you. I love you.

With love, Alexis

Through the creative process, Adam asked me to edit down what I wrote twice, shortening it each time, for the sake of the length of the video and to take out any words of intellect, keeping just the emotion.

I deeply appreciate the thought and care that Adam, Ryan and Matthew brought to the creative process. I’m still amazed at what they were able to pull through me in such a short time. And how integral they were to my seeing that it was time to take my name.

What was perhaps lost in the editing process was the fullness of the understanding of inheritance, legacy, privilege and responsibility. And the questions and reconciliation I believe many of us are going through today. I hope both the video and the written words that originally came through serve you to look at these questions in your self.

So today, I say a full yes to my lineage, to my inheritance, to the legacy I am creating, and the work I am here to do in the world. Welcome, Alexis Katz.

Immense gratitude to all those who have played a role in this becoming.