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I’m in love…

This is a long love letter, grab a cup of tea and settle in for a few minutes.

Yes, it’s true, I am experiencing the beauty of new love. It’s tender, and a wee bit frightening. I’m not quite ready to share the details, and it feels way too soon after my last relationship but, I’m a lover. It’s my nature.

The truth is, now that my heart is open, I walk around feeling in love most of the time. Not just with humans, but with all of Life.

And, I’ve fallen in love with each and every one of you who has written to share the truth of your current reality and your vision for the future.

My guess is that if you haven’t written in, that I’d fall in love with you too, if you did. (And, please do — I read everything and I become evermore inspired to keep sharing, even when it feels like a stretch for me to do so.)

Your stories of where you are now and what you want to create in your life are inspiring me to serve more widely than I ever have before.

Thank you for sharing them with me.

If you desire to work with me in the future, it’s a good idea to write in, whether you are ready to get started now or you know it will be some time in the future because it allows me to begin to get to know you, which allows us to dive in deeper more quickly and support you with more precision right away when we do work together.

I have three things for you today:

1. You are likely investing your resources in ways that will not lead you to more of what you want in life — now, there’s help.

I’m writing this on my way to San Francisco (now Oakland due to flight delays into SFO this am) for a 24-hour trip to support the launch of what I am calling the most rational book I’ve ever read on how we can invest our resources in the new economy for true safety.

I’m investing the time, money and energy to be in San Francisco for the launch because I know that the investment in tribe-building that comes along with my trip will be worth it — and that’s part of what you’ll come to understand creates real security, once you read the book.

I recorded an interview with the authors, Bryan Franklin and Michael Ellsberg. Here’s where you can hear it.

Read the book and change the way you think about how you are investing your resources, forever.

Check out my personal Facebook profile for some pictures from the day and the event itself.

2. How to become free to be all of yourself.

One of the questions I get asked the most by people who write in is — how did you go from being an uptight legal expert on TV to becoming free to be all of you?

Check out the live Facebook video I recorded this past weekend — on the process of becoming free to be all of yourself — here.

All I want to do lately is share what I’ve learned so you can build your life and income with your eyes and heart way more open than mine were.

3. The support for creating the life and income you really, really, really, REALLY want – not the one “they” want for you.

It’s SO easy to get sucked into creating a life and income you don’t actually want.

The pull toward safety, security and fitting in is strong for most of us, so we find ourselves making choices and decisions that lead to more of what we don’t actually want.

We follow the “leader” (monkey see, monkey do style) only to discover we’ve created a life that doesn’t feel right, dependent on an income that keeps us trapped in that life.

And the pressure to save, save, save so we can retire comfortably later.

Fahgeddabout that. It’s time to wake up.

Please stop waiting for later, and take a step toward getting the support you need to step into the life that’s waiting for you.

Watch the recording of my New Year’s Eve Clarity Call and you’ll hear about and from other people just like you who have done it, stepped into a life of freedom, liberated.

And you’ll learn how you can have my support in doing just that.

I’ve revamped my own income model for 2016 and I’m done with big launches of my products, don’t want this business to be a million dollar business, and I’m narrowing in on who and how I serve until I’ve freed up more time in my other business.

I promised myself last year that I was not going to go down the road of big launches, competition-based models, and enrolling as many people as possible in a short period of time.

It’s a “successful” model that leaves me wanting to quit the business every time. Not sustainable for me and my life. And while I’m fairly good at it, I’ve been committed to discovering a new way.

Yet, this fall I hired a “launch manager” to help me build out my systems so that anyone can sign up for our programs at any time, so I can just focus on creating great new content, and I could feel myself getting pulled into the old model that I had sworn to myself I was not going to get caught up in again.

It’s so alluring.

Blindly, again and again, I built my income model based on what others were doing “successfully” — but each time, I would get to the finish line and find I had created something I didn’t want, based on conditioning I couldn’t see.

This time, fortunately, I was awake enough to understand the road I was heading down wasn’t going to lead me to where I really wanted to go, and if I didn’t make a hard right, I’d be right back in the same place I had ended up in time and again.

So, at the 11th hour, I changed up the plan. I said no to the big launch, the affiliates, the million dollar business, and remembered what’s most important to me.

Rather than strategizing my webinar to maximize sales, I read everything you wrote the night before and stayed up until 3:30a (it’s when I often do my best work) and created a presentation that spoke directly to what you actually need.

If you haven’t watched yet, you can still do so here.

I made the decision not to enroll as many people as possible, but to limit the offer to a container of just 50 people right now. A container me and my team can handle and serve well and deeply. And we are already half full.

It’s enough. There’s no need to go bigger right now.

What matters isn’t how many people I can enroll, it’s how many people I can love. And right now, I’ve got  room for 50 in my inner circle attention field.

For so many years, my eyes were blind and my heart was closed.

Awakening these parts of myself has been both painful and ever so rewarding.

Coming into true alignment with the life I am here to live, and creating the space to live in my heart and share from the overflow could have been faster, if my own clarity had come sooner.

Of course, it couldn’t come any sooner than it did. We are each in the evolution process of discovering what’s true and that means someone has to take the long, circuitous route there.

I sense that I am in your life to ease the process for you. You are ready to see with clear eyes and to feel with an open heart.

You long for guidance as you step onto the road less traveled and I offer an outstretched hand with the other on my heart, welcoming you.

Welcome.  And thank you for being on the journey with me.

With so much love today and everyday.

Ali

PS — for you skimmers, here’s the three things:

1. Buy the book the Last Safe Investment and  start re-allocating your resources today. Here’s my FB message about it and an interview I recorded with the authors.

2. Check out the live video I made on Facebook: how you can become free to be all of yourself.

3. Watch the recording of the New Year’s Clarity Call before it comes down for good.

But, I don’t want to do it…

It’s Saturday afternoon and I am sitting in the sun listening to the new Wildlight album, the Tide as I consider how I can share the chrysalis of this last week with you in a way that it can support you to take your next step into the thing you are most afraid to do.

Let’s start with fear.

The motto on my first blog was “being afraid and doing it anyway.”  I have had a few advisor type people reach out to me and suggest that I can drop the fear and just come from my knowing now; that I no longer need the fear part.

And while that may be true when I am residing in my place of Oneness, in full observance of all my parts, but attached to none of them, I am not yet quite so enlightened to have moved from an intellectual awareness of that experience into a fully-embodied being. I know Oneness. And, I still live in the duality.

Maybe even more than some, given that I have two completely distinct and fully-developed beings living inside me (if you do too, message me and let me know — I always love hearing how many people are secretly living with multiple personalities like I have, but not talking about it).

I sense more Oneness coming, but for now, my personalities are right here – terrified.

This week, someone showed up that I’ve been seeking for years. And, when he did, I wanted to run. 

Four times now I have gotten to the same place in my businesses — revenue between $900k-$1.5mm, great product/service, great results, but quite heavily dependent on me, not a lot of documented processes or systems that someone could just step into without significant training, a team asking for more leadership, and me not really knowing how to give it in a way that would support the next level of full empowerment.

A few times over the years, I have tried to get to the next level by bringing in a paid CEO who I hoped would just do it for me.

But at the beginning of this year, I finally got the massive hint from the Universe:

“Alexis, this is your path. You are the CEO. Stop trying to hand it off to someone else and lead, lady. Stop distracting yourself with so many relationships, and caretaking everyone, and getting more pets and traveling to events and be the CEO of your company and take it to the next level, so you can sell it, share the wealth with everyone who helped grow it and invest in land where you can have everyone you love live together and work on listening more closely to the Earth and living in alignment with Her guidance and less time on the computer and more time writing books and getting your show going, finally.”

Interestingly, at the exact same time, I was getting a similar message with respect to how I mother. As my daughter has entered her mid-teen years (she’ll be 16 in November), I have been confronted every which way possible with my own mis-matched beliefs, values, and desires for life.

I had raised a mainstream, high-maintenance girl. My inner earth mama was appalled at how I could have done this. And I’ve had to face all the parts of myself that were in conflict, because for an earth mama, I am quite high maintenance myself.

And I recognize now that more than anything I did, it’s more what I didn’t do.

I didn’t share enough with my daughter about my values and I let the media and school share its values with her instead.

I didn’t take her with me enough, to the events, to the land, to the places where my heart and soul most relax.

And it almost got to the point where instead of doing that, I was going to send her to a program, where she would live outside for 10 weeks and have no choice but to connect with the Earth.

Until the clear message was given to me,“Ali, this is your chance. You are her Mother. Say yes to pulling her closer; don’t send her away.  Be there with her, show her, love her, accept her, be the Mother you always wanted.” (As you can see, this voice is much kinder than the ‘Alexis’ voice, but they both truly want the best for me.)

In both cases, the message was loud and clear. It was time for me to say yes to an entirely different level of leadership.

And over the past 6 months that’s exactly what was happened. Today, I am once again (and this time fully) the CEO of the companies that support my work. I am leading my teams, supporting them to grow the companies (and themselves), and growing right along with them. I am leading my family in ways that were not available to me before.

I thought I was leading. And to some degree I was, but it was stunted leadership. I didn’t know how I could be all of me, and lead. But I kept saying yes anyway, and I am being shown, each step of the way.

So, as I’ve stepped into this leadership, I’ve been praying for support, guidance and in my business, someone who could come in and guide me to be the leader I need to be, in the ways I still don’t know how to do it.

Not another CEO to replace me, but someone to mentor and guide me.

This past week, he showed up. After a fit of immense frustration a couple of weeks ago that I couldn’t get the metrics I know I need to be looking at daily to measure the health of my company, I posted in a mastermind group I am part of with a plea “Please connect me with anyone you know who is a metrics genius and can help me to get the metrics I need to run my company well.”

Immediately, a woman I’ve been getting to know online for a while posted back a name, I messaged him, sent him my website URLs and he got on a video with me and told me how many site visitors I was getting, how long people stayed on my site, and the type of person who comes to my site. I was impressed.

Then, this past Wednesday, he got on the phone with me and two team members for three hours and dove into the business. And as he did, I knew he had exactly the skills and experience I needed to guide me.

By the end, he said, “Yes, I’ll work with you. The arrangement will be a revenue share. There’s a lot here that’s really good. And the process is going to be a lot like being pregnant – you’ll be throwing up most of the first trimester, but you’ll love it at the end.” (paraphrase)

Dream. Come. True.

And then, the terror set in.

All of the parts of me that just want to be on the land now, hiking, and growing food, and swimming in the ocean or river, and working out/doing yoga, and reading and writing are impatient. And the gypsy parts of me that are screaming “you’ve been here already too long” even though I promised myself to be here for 5 years when I moved here.

They don’t want this kind of pregnancy. They want a baby, and family, and community, and Earth.

They were NOT ON BOARD.

Ali v. Alexis in a nutshell.

So I’ve been working with them, these terrified, warring parts.  Deep in my Heroine’s Journey, which I am learning more and more about via Sara Avant Stover’s new book, the Book of She.

And remembering…

Deeply remembering. This is the time of integration. Find the both/and here.


My friend Paul gave me an assignment last night. He said, find the answer that gives them all what they want. (Interesting for me to notice that this world that works for everyone, I so want to see created, is on the micro level a world that works for all my parts.)

So, I am. I am saying yes to all of it.

Writing this love letter on the front porch, in the sun. Realizing that I have all the family, Earth and love I want right here.

Giving Ali, my Earth Mama, the nurturing family, home, community, right here in my home in Boulder. Big land in Costa Rica can come later.

Giving Alexis, my Lady Boss CEO, the parameters within which she can work (because without parameters, she would take over everything) and the space to focus during work hours.

And, giving my Creative one (she doesn’t have a name yet), the support to keep the dream of the show alive by moving it forward slowly.

All that points to one thing, be here. Sink in. Drop the idea of going to Mexico for the month of December. Or Costa Rica for the month of February. Or Summit at Sea for your birthday.

Traveling less, being here with my family, and my community. Nesting. Focusing. Coming in.

Be here.

Go deeper.

I hear Her speaking to me.

So, I am listening.

Thank you for witnessing this discovery process.  Writing to you, my readers, has helped me to sort out and clarify some things that weren’t totally clear to me until I wrote them to you. Thank you.

I would love to hear back from you if any of this resonates in your own life, and how you are experiencing moving through it. I read everything you send and appreciate all perspectives.

Love beyond the beyond,

Ali

ut, I don’t want to do it…
Carload of Priestesses headed to the full moon/eclipse gathering 
last week hosted by Dayna Seraye and Courtney Jordan Josie Siegel.

How Can a Million Dollar Plus Business Fail?

As you likely know by now if you’ve spent any time around these parts, I’ve hit the same level in my businesses 3 times now.

I’ve broken 7-figures, time and time again, which for most people would be the ultimate in next level success.

But we all have our easy to get to thermostat and for me it just happens to be a million, million and a half a year in revenue with me keeping about 25-33% of that.

And no matter whether your thermostat is stuck at $5,000/mo or $100,000/year or $500,000/year or $1mm/year — stuck is stuck is stuck.

So for me, a business that makes a million a year plus is fairly simple to get to — not always easy, but straightforward, clear, direct. I know how to do it.

And I want to break through.  Not for the money. I’m plenty happy with how much money I earn personally. My own work with the Money Map takes care of that, no problem.

But I want more support for my work. More time and energy to start my podcast, and write books, and be more of an “at home mom” to my kids.

A million dollar business requires a lot of oversight. It’s a lot of responsibility.

Over the past year or so, I’ve had CEOs in place to run the businesses so I could have plenty of freedom to travel easily, and be with my kids.

But it wasn’t sustainable.  They kept getting burned out. And I had to step back in.

I couldn’t figure out why.

I thought maybe it was me. I was flawed in some way.

And while I am definitely flawed in many ways (perfectly so, of course!), what I have recently discovered — that I now want you to learn with a lot less hassle than it cost me – is that I have repeatedly gotten stuck and burned out because the teams supporting the businesses were not set up correctly.

Phew. That is something fixable.

If you want to check out what it would take to build a team that could support a $5,000,000 business, watch Justin Livingston’s new video and download the organizational chart he shares.

Now, here’s the thing — you MUST watch the video and not just see the organizational chart.

I almost made this mistake and threw my team and myself into a tizzy of “there’s no possible way we can do this” — but fortunately, I contacted Justin and he said, watch the video.

I did and now I am on my way to a big breakthrough.

Check it out for yourself.

I’d love to hear what you think about it after you do. It’s a game-changer, for sure.

Ali

PS — no need to get concerned about my use of the word failure in the subject line of this post. I’ve gotten to the place in my life and businesses that I am “too big to fail”, but not in the way you may think.  My businesses could still fail. There’s no question about it. They are not too big to fail, by any means. My health could fail. My bank account could fail.  But, my internal state is too big to fail.  No matter what happens externally, I have already achieved ultimate success because I love the woman I am becoming in the process.

What Happens When You Choose to Invest

Each and every time I have made a decision to invest in growing my business (or even in my own personal growth), a couple of things happen shortly thereafter.

First … something immediately comes up to make me question my decision. Usually, it’s something that impacts me financially. I’ve seen other folks say that they get impacted health-wise.

This time, what’s coming up is a huge unexpected investment I need to make in care for a family member that just about equals the investment I’ve committed to make in my business. Double gulp.

Of course that immediately has me rethinking whether I can afford to make the investment in my business.

But the truth is, I can’t afford NOT to make the investment. It’s what’s necessary to take things to the next level and I simply can no longer stay where I am.

The second thing that happens IF I maintain my commitment to moving forward, the resources I need show up. Every time.

It’s such a test of trust. And I personally have some big issues with trust. What about you?

So, I’m not entirely sure where the money is going to come from for the big investment at this very moment.

I was going to use some new credit that I had earmarked to start a new business, but now I’m going to be using that credit to pay for my family member’s care so I’ll need to find another source.

What I do know is that it will show up.

I choose to stretch.

It feels so gooooood when I do. Alive. Sure. Knowing I am on path to the next step of growth in my life and business. And I want that for you too.

The key is getting clear on what the next right investment is for you.

Here’s the criteria:

1. It’s the path to the exact next step for you.
(If you aren’t sure of your next step, consider our Money Map program, which will guide you to the exact next step for you based on your Money Map Numbers and Entrepreneurial Archetype.)
2. It’s a stretch.
3. It scares you just enough for you to feel your aliveness.

 

To your eyes (and heart) wide open life and business,
Ali

How to Handle Haters With Eyes (and Heart) Wide Open

I knew it would happen, but I didn’t think it would be so intense so quickly…

I’ve always had a polarizing personality and over the last several years decided to stop hiding from that and instead step into it fully.

During the analysis of my decision about whether to file bankruptcy or whether to keep working a business model that required me to suck as much money out of the marketplace as possible so I could pay back $500,000 of debt (not a way I was willing to live anymore), I had to face the reality that if I decided to go bankrupt, I would one day be derided for that choice.

My decisions would be torn apart and I might even be villain-ized.

I decided to do it anyway.

I decided to ruin my reputation, kill my brand and withdraw into a two-year journey into “who am I if money is off the table?”

What I discovered in that space not only transformed me, but it allowed me to discover a truth I had suspected, but hadn’t actually lived, which I now understand as the path to financial liberation.

As a financially liberated being, money no longer rules your life.  It’s a tool and nothing more. – Tweet It!

How much money you have or how you have chosen to use your resources is no indicator of your worth.

Money is a tool to use to do as much good as you possibly can in the world by living in alignment with the truth of who you are and how you want to be, your personal money map number and your entrepreneurial archetype.

As I went through the journey to my own financial liberation and dropped the old paradigm ways I was raised in and by, I became available for relationships, community, connection with my kids and myself. Those connections simply were not available when I was working 12-16 hours a day to hoard as much as I possibly could so I could one day be financially free.

I broke free and there’s a lot of people who not only don’t like it, they have decided they full on HATE me and have made it their job to try and make sure as many people know it as possible.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been hated before, but it’s quite the powerful experience.

For years, I avoided it. I did everything I could to be liked by everyone.  And, I was quite successful at it. But it was so damn unfulfilling because there was a way I compromised to keep from pissing people off.

So I decided to stop and face what I was most afraid of, again. (I used to be most afraid of running out of money, so I faced that. Then, I was afraid of living alone on a farm with my kids, so I faced that. And, now, it’s time to face not being liked, and even worse, being hated.)

Facing my greatest fears and diving in has time and again proven to be my most direct path to liberation. –  Tweet It!

So, here it is.

The thing I’ve feared (for eons perhaps), villainized and hated.  They hate that I’ve filed bankruptcy, that I allowed my CA bar license to lapse for three years while I chose not to take on private clients or practice law.  They say I’m a horrible parent.  That I’m in an abusive relationship. I’m ugly, not aging well and … I’m sure there’s more. I’ve stopped reading.

Through this experience of facing my biggest fears and diving in and being willing to he hated publicly, I have learned that I am okay if not everybody likes me, I feel sure it’s pulling me into an even deeper experience of life and I’ve learned how to handlehaters and why I’ll even welcome them in more in the future, even though it hurts.

How can you turn around the experience of being hated publicly into a positive growth experience instead of something to hide from and do everything possible to avoid?

First and foremost, see it as an opportunity to really look at the decisions you’ve made and the way you are appearing from other perspectives.  I read some of the negative things people write about me so I can take in and digest what’s true and as Nicole Daedone says, “poo out the rest.”

Try to read what people write about you that is disparaging with an open heart and mind, feel their perspective and see where there might be truth. Can you learn and grow from their perspective?

Once you’ve taken it in, let it go.  I’ll admit it, this is hard, but it’s a powerful practice because life is all about letting things go and not holding on to what’s yours.

Sure, some of what a hater says might be true, but it’s not all true — master the part of your mind that is drawn to the negative again and again and retrain it to take that energy and fuel it into creative pursuits and endeavors you can control.

This is a powerful practice you can use whenever anything disheartening is happening.

I used it first when I was being audited on my 2005 taxes. I was devastated, in tears, beating myself up for two days.  Until I decided to harness all that energy into building my business because I could control that. So each time I felt that energy of despair and self disdain, I asked myself — what can I do now that is within my control?

And I did that. Within a year, I had built another million dollar business impacting thousands of people with that energy. Far better than crying in my soup. Oh, and I handed the audit off to my accountants and it resulted in a no-change, no additional taxes due.

Make changes that feel appropriate.

being hated

One of the things I saw from what my haters wrote is that it was time to reactivate my bar license. I let it lapse by not submitting my CLE because I wasn’t practicing law or taking on one on one clients in anyway anymore, I needed to cut my expenses and this was one expense that simply didn’t make sense.

And, now that I’m back in the world of business, to avoid any confusion and now that money isn’t as tight as it once was, I’ve reinstated my bar license. Why not? All I had to do was an additional 2 credits of CLE and pay my dues. So I did. I wouldn’t have done that without the negative reflection. And maybe now I’ll even start to work with people one on one again. Maybe.

I’m even considering whether there is some benefit to paying back the debt I discharged in bankruptcy and if that’s the best, most responsible use of resources, when I do have an extra $500,000 on hand. I have no requirement to do so, but if it serves the message and mission more than using that money for something else, I’ll do it.

I won’t do it to quell the haters and not even because I think the banks who invested in me deserve or need the money back; I’d do it if that’s of greatest service to the world.

Here’s what my experience is of when I’ve “hated” in my own life (and it’s certainly never been to the extent these folks hate, so maybe it doesn’t apply), but when I’ve hated anything in the past, I was actually attracted and energized to what I thought I hated and secretly (it turned out) I really wanted what I thought I hated.  I wonder if it’s the same for you.

How does all this help you to build your life and business awake, aware and on your terms?

Ideally, you’ll stop compromising any part of yourself to avoid being hated or even just to make sure you are liked by as many people as possible. Instead, perhaps inquire into the possibility of what would you do if you weren’t afraid at all about being hated, but instead saw it as an opportunity for more impact?  It doesn’t mean you have to act on it, but just asking the question could be a life-changer for you.

Leave a comment and let me know what you think, even if you hate it.

What to Do When Your Company Won’t Make Payroll

bunniesBuilding two businesses at the same time is not something we would recommend to anyone. Both businesses are growing more slowly than they otherwise would as a result. One, on the brink of death.  As of now, we do not know how we will make payroll for the next month.

As Craig frequently asks “how do you chase two bunnies without losing them both?”

With the Eyes Wide Open business, we serve creative visionary entrepreneurs. With New Law Business Model, we serve lawyers.  Two bunnies.

So why are we doing it?

Because we love both of these darn bunnies, the people who work for them and the people they support.

Tonight we were out to dinner with one of the greatest online entrepreneurs we know and he asked the question that every smart entrepreneur asks when they hear about what we are doing — “why don’t you just focus on the lawyer business? That’s clearly the smarter financial choice.”

Yes, it is. But, neither one of us has ever been primarily motivated by money. And, our hearts won’t let us just drop Eyes Wide Open, even though it’s really hard right now to chase both these bunnies.  We love to support entrepreneurs up to great things in the world.

As a result of a challenge with our merchant account, and a big overhead because we’ve built a team so Ali can focus on what she’s best at and give up running the business and doing all the work herself, Eyes Wide Open is struggling to make it’s next few payrolls.

In the past, Ali would just whip out her credit card or dip into the line of credit to save the day, but that’s no longer an option.  And no one else is swooping in with big bucks to do it. So, it’s time to get resourceful.

It’s sure easy to think about throwing in the towel when it gets hard like this. But, we see it as an opportunity for innovation. And the truth is that it’s provided a tremendous chance for the Eyes Wide Open Biz Dev Manager, Danielle, to step up and show us all what she’s got.

So we’ve cut our payroll to the bone, eliminated all non-essential expenses and Danielle’s been charged with innovating an offer or two that can bring in enough income to get the business through 11/27 when the merchant account releases funds again and the money from the Nov. 1 LIFT Live Implementation launch hits the bank.  Her limitation is that the offer cannot involve Ali’s time and all payments must run through PayPal so the money gets into the bank and the business can make payroll.

So, in the name of innovation, if you subscribe to the Eyes Wide Open newsletter (enter your name and email in the box up there in the right column) watch your email inbox very carefully over the next week for an email giving you the chance to get in on something that will never be offered again (Craig and Ali don’t even know what it is for sure), that will help you tremendously and will bring us the revenue to make payroll.