Angelina Carleton On How To Create Powerful And Proven Strategies For A Winning Legacy (#139)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Sell My Business Podcast. I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.

This podcast is brought to you by Deep Wealth and the 90-day Deep Wealth Experience.

Your liquidity event is the largest and most important financial transaction of your life.

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Angelina Carleton believes the legacy of every human being can be realized. Most of us are not developing the kind of legacy that allows us to be as happy and as satisfied as we'd like to be. Ms. Carlton, coaches think and speak about creating and completing personal life legacies so that others see a way forward with greater ease. If the path to legacies is inspiring and supported, more people will be able to experience happiness and satisfaction.

Welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast. And as always, I have a terrific guests lined up for you today. So for all you business owners out there, I have a question for you. Here you are. You're working hard towards your liquidity event. You're accumulating your success and your wealth while you're at it, you have your liquidity event.

And now I get to ask my favorite question. Now, what are you going to do for the rest of your life? What's your legacy going to be like? Have you even thought about that? The good news is that's what we're going to be talking about today with our guests. So Angelina, welcome to The Sell My Business Podcast.

Such a pleasure to have you with us. And there's always a story behind a story. Angelina, what's your story? What got you to where you are today?

[00:02:47] Angelina Carleton: Thank you, Jeff. It's a pleasure to be here. So it started actually about a decade ago and the pain point was that I was working at that time as a commercial real estate broker. And I was invited to what I call a six-plated private luncheon. It was at the Lux Hotel in Bel Air, which is a very nice hotel in West LA, West Sunset Boulevard.

But the topic was private prisons. And I didn't realize at that time, that just as the hospitality industry or multifamily has a ratio for price per door, price per room, et cetera. There was a PowerPoint presentation that I was going to sit through for the next hour that would shift my life forever and a paradigm shift.

So what happened was I just was very surprised, not just by the billions of dollars of the opportunity that lay in front of these commercial real estate professionals, whether they were a developer, a broker, a financial planner. But I thought to myself What if I don't want to follow the path of somebody else's business model?

And I looked to the left and I looked to the right and I thought, what if I wanted my legacy to be different? So I went out to my car and I just sat there for a while after the luncheon. And I thought I'm going to look into seeing what resources are available. There's got to be a coach that helps with legacy.

So Jeffrey, as you can imagine, I found coaches that can help individuals stop smoking, lose weight, double their income, and on. But where was the guidance if an individual wanted to create and complete their legacy, where was the support? Where was the encouragement, et cetera? So this was a decade ago.

So today there's much more available. And what I call the public consciousness, even around the word legacy. Financial houses are using it. It's a part of marketing campaigns and on, but back then maybe there would have been some family offices or maybe Deloitte and Touche. Some of those management consulting firms that might have that piece as a part of the puzzle for their clients.

But outside of that, I didn't see it. And I looked through google.com. I looked through YouTube and I just didn't find it. So I thought to myself, okay. I'm going to leave commercial real estate. And I did in 2014. So it took me about three years. I needed to pay off expenses such as a car and a house, et cetera, et cetera, to get myself in the position.

So I wouldn't have to worry about money cause I was basically starting over from scratch and it was a very humbling experience. So in 2014, I went back to school with the Coactive Training Institute. It was the Coaches Training Institute before they renamed themselves. And I did their six months certification and their executive education.

And I just did a lot of work around the coaching industry to understand what are the principles and the fundamentals in order to provide service and to help clients. And then in 2015, I won an award with the LA Biz for being a woman of influence, et cetera, et cetera. But I think at the very beginning, I had to build it from scratch because I didn't see a model that was out there and I didn't always know what I was doing.

It was a little bit of trial and error. Individuals, depending on their upbringing, their values, and even what they value will define legacy, very unique to themselves. One individual, it could be all about being a celebrity, and other individual, it could be all about family, but many self-made successes, they might be workaholics.

And they might not find themselves with a family at age 40 or 50, et cetera, because they gave so much to their work. And so those individual legacy again is going to be very unique and different for them because what they want to achieve, what the dreams are in their heart is going to be very different.

So I think that's been the trial and error piece to figure out how do I be a value to clients because every story is different and every dream is different.

[00:06:24] Jeffrey Feldberg: So Angelina, that's wonderful, that's a terrific story. And congratulations on the Woman of Influence Award and also congratulations to you because you did something as business owners we do, but most people don't. You stopped in your tracks and you said, hey, I don't like what I'm seeing here. Let me do something for myself. You looked around and you found a problem. No one was really doing it. And so you said, hey, I'm going to be the one to solve this problem. And off you went and here we are all these years later and you've been incredibly successful with it.

So, let me ask you this. I know for our business owners out there, they're listening and they probably haven't spent much, if any time on legacy, we're so busy running the business, maybe dreaming of that big day for the liquidity event. So let's start on the glass half empty side. I usually I'm a glass half full, but start on the glass half empty side.

When you're speaking with successful business owners what would be some of the fatal mistakes that you're seeing them make that you have to step in and help them turn things around that if they knew about this today, life would be so much better going forward.

[00:07:28] Angelina Carleton: Yeah. So I think one of the first things is the internal conversations I'll start there and then I'll move to the external. For the internal problems, the fatal mistakes one of them could be a belief around who am I to do this? I'm not worth it. A lot of self-worth subconscious messages come up and a part of that could be, specifically, if they're self-made either they're gonna be on the side of the spectrum where they're excellent.

And that they've completed so much success before that this is just another thing that they're going to conquer, but on the other side of the spectrum, there is a little voice that can exist in their head of what right do I have because they didn't see a positive role model growing up that embrace legacy, they could have positive role models around finances and sports and health and cooking and other areas.

But if they couldn't see somebody who embodied what it was to take agency or ownership of their life's legacy, then I think that is one of the first fatal mistakes is counting themselves out that what they have to give isn't good enough. And the truth is what they have to give is everything. And I'll share a little story before I give you the second internal problem.

My great grandfather, Herbert Carlton was hugely successful during the great depression. He was an insurance broker. He drove Cadillacs. He had multiple homes. He had staff, et cetera, et cetera. And I asked the question, why didn't I get a letter of his top 10 lessons? The answer is he didn't know number one and number two, maybe he thought it wasn't worth it.

No one would care. It didn't have enough value, et cetera. And then those are the conversations where we can oftentimes count ourselves out. I think number two is what I spoke to you before we started I spoke to you about before we started recording, which was that there's so many blind spots when it comes to okay, now you've it.

And you've had that big liquidity event and now your lifestyle could change. And so I think the second fatal mistake is not looking at all those other qualitative areas of how it's going to affect you psychologically, emotionally, will there be increased loneliness? If you don't have a reason to wake up in the morning and in terms of meaning, one of the things I mentioned to you also, before we started recording, is somebody could have all of their survival needs taken care of, but they still need meaning when they wake up in the morning. If not, it's going to be a whole heck of a lot of emptiness. And only so much can fill that void until they can find the next thing that they can give to. And perhaps that thing that they could give to could be a philanthropic project, could maybe it could be a community project, or maybe it could be something as simple as creating what I call hard cover coffee table book of their life story, their guiding principles, their values. Filling out the depth of who they are in a book. And then allowing that to be passed on to the next generations. If you have the time now, I think that's also, I know you referred to a fatal mistake.

I just think that it leaves a void because when you go the proprietary knowledge also goes with you. And if the schools, whether it's private or public school, isn't teaching some of these important lessons, whether it's the power of compounding and interest or everything I needed to know about people who are zero-sum negotiators or positive negotiate, there's so many distinctions that allowed that business owner to get to where they are, whether it's a family business, not a family business, et cetera, that I think that if one fatal mistake is if they take the knowledge with them and they don't get it down in paper.

[00:10:42] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow, Angelina. So many things are in as you're going through that. And for our listeners, I have to tell you, stop what you're doing. Just stop what you're doing and listen, because Angelina spot on. So, Angelina, I'm going to call it the imposter syndrome. And know from myself one of the first fatal mistakes that you were talking about.

I know for myself after my liquidity event and hugely successful, but I just doubted myself, who am I to you know, say this or that about success.

I mean, I was your poster child of not really having the best post-exit life of not having that meaning and everyone's out working, living their lives, and those Jeffrey sitting at home bored out of his mind, but who's going to feel sorry for me. You have all the zeroes in the bank and you're bored and it's like, get a life, Jeffrey, figure it out because I didn't prepare with what you're talking about and didn't do what you're suggesting.

[00:11:27] Angelina Carleton: Yeah, I think what you're referring to, if I shine the flashlight there for a moment is your identity changes. So your identity is here one moment before the liquidity event, then here's your identity after the liquidity event. And I'm going to pose a powerful question of where's the coaching around it?

If not, then you're left as an individual to sort it out all on your head. We're looking through the Internet and that only goes so far.

[00:11:51] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And as business owners, look, we personally, hopefully, we're going to the doctor to get an annual checkup. We go to our accountants for a fiscal checkup, but what are we doing for our legacy checkup, for a mental health checkup? And Angelina that's where you have a big role to play.

[00:12:07] Angelina Carleton: Yeah. So here's the point I'd like to echo regarding what you just said prior to your liquidity event. I imagine you had a team. After your liquidity event. Why not also build yourself a team?

[00:12:16] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And maybe we take it a step further. Why not build a team beforehand that you have an easy transitioned into it instead of starting from zero, no momentum that you go from the liquidity event with your team around you, it just makes life so much easier. What do you think about that?

[00:12:34] Angelina Carleton: I think it's great. And I think what you're also referring to is like an actor plays different roles. You wake up one day and you feel like an actor. What stage set do I report to.

[00:12:43] Jeffrey Feldberg: I know some of our listeners they're saying, come on guys, you know what? I'm going to have this liquidity event. I'm going to get all this wealth. I'm not going to be bored. I'm going to travel the world. I'm going to buy the toys. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. And perhaps you will, but then what's going to happen?

[00:12:57] Angelina Carleton: Yeah. So what I wanted to say regarding that is a lot of the times we have the idea of success as a number. So when I reached $10 million, when I reached $30 million, I think that 30 million is the new standard to be like a high net worth or ultra something right around that 30 million. So I finally got there and that's the number that was success.

So you got there. And now what? And I think that's where there is a beautiful opportunity to start playing with your new definition of success. Let's bring in your imagination. What else would you like to do? If you've been a workhorse up to this point, a workaholic now the sky's the limit it's open and I'm not just referring to a bucket list.

What I'm saying is you get to now define it without the pressure of survival on your shoulders. And so this is where this can get fun I'm coming from the perspective of a coach. So if I were to say, Jeffrey, what would you like? And maybe your first answer is, I don't know. And that's a very honest answer because you've never thought about it before.

I might ask it a different way from another perspective, I might say if you did know what would it be? And the reason I ask it that way is because sometimes people have biases in their own mind that answer's not right. Because someone else like already decided that it's counted out, or maybe I asked the question in another way, and this is where I think the play aspect becomes really important where it's not so serious.

Let's have some fun with it. I might say Jeffrey when you were five or seven years old, what did you want? What was the thing that you always were curious about? And maybe you would say, I wanted to be an oceanographer. I wanted to scuba dive in this location. And so then you start building out a new definition of success.

That brings what I call freedom, fulfillment, and satisfaction.

[00:14:29] Jeffrey Feldberg: I like that, freedom, fulfillment, and satisfaction. And so Angelina let's flip it now. Let's now say, okay, you know what we're going to fast forward here.

We've listened to this podcast. And it's now a few years later, we're getting ready for the liquidity event. We did everything that you said we should, how does life become different for us Angelina when we follow your advice? And we do these strategies that you're suggesting, what's the difference?

Let's contrast that of how it should be versus the way it typically is.

[00:14:57] Angelina Carleton: Sure. So if column A is the existing and column B is the future. I'm going to cast the future vision column B. Okay. Column A, I could say that individual can feel trapped. They can feel frustrated. They can feel disappointed perhaps with the people that around them, if those people haven't grown at the same speed that they have grown, there can be frustration that they're in this new identity, this new role.

Again, I'll use that phrase and they're not finding the strategic alliances that are willing to support them because they're in their own birthday party. They've had success. But maybe they haven't been able to take 50 other people with them. And so I think that is the current state.

Oftentimes it's all those other blind spots we didn't think to look at because we're so busy with that exit strategy that we didn't maybe think about the qualitative blind spots again of other people's feelings and the ripple effect. Because again, those are those what I call those invisible strings like when an interior designer designs a room and it's all the connections you don't see, but when it's right.

When it's not right. It's like discord and chaos. So if I flip it over to column B. I think the individual gets to move from feeling trapped and frustrated to a place of what I just call just pure alignment. And when that momentum is out there back fun just happens. The frustration occurs when they're not reaching their milestones when they're not growing.

In other words, growth makes people happy. So if they can reach their milestones and get the cooperation and collaboration of the teams of people that they are working with, whether that's let's say if they've got a philanthropic project. And so that could be their context that our engineering and construction and finance and so forth, because wealth, isn't just, what's in a bank account, but it's also the relationships and the connections that we can call up.

And so I think it's the ability to wake up and know how to align that life purpose and have it very clearly defined. So when I work with a client, it's a three-step process it's defined, develop and execute. And maybe that occurs within a six-month period. Maybe it's 12 months, maybe it's longer, but it's their ability to know that they've put the work and the clarity is there. So they have now the opportunity to invite others in. And so when you are clear on what it is, you want, it's much easier than to understand who's with you and who's not interested. So if somebody is not interested, you just don't keep going back to them, trying to convince them that their values aren't aligned with yours.

And then you move on, you redirect. And I think that's also one of the powerful things when it comes back to coaching again, I call it the locker room conversations. You get it clear first, some people could call it a war room, a locker room. Those are a masculine terms. But it goes to show that when you can have clarity around what it is you want, then the vision that can be achieved is that it's not just peace of mind. It's the personal satisfaction of I achieved that next milestone. I completed that project. It became real because if I circle back to one of the fatal flaws before is people can have a subconscious belief, it's not real for me. And so it's also a very surprising, shocking thing when their legacy can become real to them specifically, how they define legacy.

[00:17:56] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. And what's interesting is I want to go back to alignment. You've mentioned that word a number of times that it really resonates and coming out of alignment, born out of alignment is the F word fun. So get aligned at, and you have some fun. And then you said, for that alignment, we have to define, develop and, execute.

So imagine now I'm a business owner and I become your client. And Angelina I'm saying, okay, look Angelina in the next one, year, three years, five years, ten years, somewhere in there, I'm going to have a liquidity event. But before that happens I want to make sure that I have my legacy intact.

I want to make sure that my post-exit life is going to be fulfilling and is going to have joy. So, can you walk us through, maybe give some examples of the defined development, execute stages of some things that we can be doing on our own coming out of this episode, just to hone in on our skills?

[00:18:47] Angelina Carleton: Sure. I think for defining it, number one, many people don't do it. Learning is easy. Execution is hard. And so I think to define it could be any number of formulas that are out there. I think that there's even a formula regarding it's free on the internet regarding guiding principles. It's I'm going to do this by this time because of this and that's the reason is the last fill in the blank. So it could be something as simple as that, or it can be redefining their mission statement today. So just as we might meet with our financial planner once a year, why do we not also rewrite our mission statement? So who you are today, I bet is different than it was a year ago.

In some ways, it can be the same. Your values might be the same, but as you grow, you're going to become a different person. There's new roles, new identity. You get to become a different person as you grow, especially if you start to entertain this conversation around legacy because it's broad picture thinking as well as long-term thinking.

So I would give that piece of insight for the defined bit. There's also a number of other different elements when it comes to defining there's key characteristics. It's who do you have to be? And how do you have to show up? I'll do a little compare and contrast here.

Who you need to be as a firefighter is very different than who you might need to be a professor. So maybe as a firefighter, you need to be service-oriented. Maybe you need to be patriotic because you love your community. Those are different key characteristics. So perhaps for Jeffrey, who do you need to be to complete your legacy?

Maybe it's coachable. Maybe it's courageous. Maybe it's Committed because again, people, the more skin they have in the game, they're more willing that they are to complete what they started. It's also, the other phrase I have is it's really easy to start a lot of different things, but if I were to ask you how many of those did you finish?

That's a whole other conversation, which I might not ask the client that in the first conversation, cause it's a little direct, but you're smiling because you know what I mean? Yeah.

[00:20:36] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah. Yeah. I know for sure. Listen starting is and finishing are two different things, two simple words, but two different things.

[00:20:42] Angelina Carleton: Two different skill sets and two different areas of identity. Yeah. I mean you could get your stuff. And you could say I'm great at starting things but are you also willing to look in the mirror and say, I'm great at finishing things?

Yeah. You might not want to have that. So that's how I would answer that bit for defining, I would start out with one insight is what are the three critical actions you can take every day? So for someone like myself, maybe it's, I will get up at sunrise every day. So the day doesn't get away from me regarding my morning routine, maybe number two, it's that I create and it can be interpreted it as I work as a coach.

I could say I'm going to have a positive impact. So I need to write my goals every week. I need to write content. I need to be out there speaking on podcasts. I need to clarify my thoughts again and again because you know who I was maybe a month ago well, I'm different today given different experiences.

And also maybe the third critical action could be something like I say, win-win. So if I look at a new project or a new client or whatever the challenges are, it's figuring out how, and this is a tough one sometimes because we might not like other people, we might want to say things.

And this is where the emotional intelligence piece comes in regarding developing our legacy, because it's, again maybe how you were able to succeed in an industry before maybe this legacy, it's going to be a brand new territory and landscape.

[00:21:57] Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that. I love how you just put those three actionable items. And I suspect Angelina, they may change over time, but you're going to do what makes sense today. Maybe tomorrow you wake up, you say, you know what? Number two on my list, it doesn't resonate anymore is not in alignment with me. Let me put something else in there.

[00:22:12] Angelina Carleton: Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to say about developing your legacy is when I start with what are three critical actions you're willing to commit to and the client really needs to answer that because Jeffrey, you may have heard this expression before. If the coach comes up with it, it's interesting information at best, but if you come up with it, you're going to own it.

So I think a part of it is just offering that space and any coach can do this. It's offering enough space. I call it the space of the Grand Canyon so that the client can show up with their answers.

[00:22:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: When you're talking about developing and I think on the definition side or defining you've given us some terrific examples. Let me take a quick sidetrack on the development side, but I believe it's related and let's just do a quick thought experiment and I'm sure we've all been there where a family member or a close friend, unfortunately, has passed away.

And it's a morbid scene. You have this lawyer in a very cold kind of voice, no emotion, just reading what's in the last will and testament. And perhaps you have family members there that are first, second, maybe even third generation that the younger generation.

And if I'm going to be blunt about it for the younger generation in particular, if there's any kind of assets or capital going towards them. It's just a name. It's just the name that, Jackie is bestowed X dollars and Jacky doesn't really know who that person was and how they got that.

And you walk out and then the family maybe they go out and they spend it foolishly or ways that would literally have that person who earned it just grimace. If they're looking up from above of what's going on.

So how do we prevent that kind of morbid scene, which happens every day in, day out? What can we start doing as we think about developing our legacy?

[00:23:47] Angelina Carleton: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. A lot of estate planning attorneys. It's that divide. And yeah, it is a cold process and I would just emphasize, again, this is where I think coaching is so important. The personal development industry is, gosh, I think business coaches was a $10 billion industry, eight or $10 billion, but technology was something like $800 billion.

So I think it goes to show that there are individuals that will invest in great coaches to help them personally develop. And it is a new thing. It is a new type of relationship where there's another human being holding you accountable. So I think that is my first answer. My second answer is that I think it helps when the individuals can get that hardcover coffee table book.

To not only talk about the story of that individual and how they made their wealth, but also understanding the lessons that they had. If I knew today, what it was, that expression. If I knew then what I know today. So I'm in my forties. Now, if I had known back when I was 20, some of the things. As to even why people told me what they told me, but they didn't fill in the context.

So I think again if somebody is willing to set aside time like I gave you the example of my great grandfather before Herbert Carlson. If he had just set aside one weekend to write out something how valuable that would have been because we don't know what we don't know. So to that generation Z or the millennials in that estate planning attorney's office, I think a lot of the times they just, aren't given the information. So given what they know in the bling society today and Madison avenue, et cetera, they're going to race out there because they're going to say I have access now and I want to be important. So they start feeding their ego. But a part of it is they've perhaps they've never been coached around their own values and guiding principles and how they could show up and the context of the repercussions.

And the other thing I wanted to say with that, a lot of the times with the next generation, there's a pressure on them. We expect you to be contributing members of society. But maybe they don't know how to get from point A to point B. So there's all this expectation of what you need to live up to the standard and not mess it up.

But no, one's taken the time to understand A what it is they need to know because they're not in the business of reading minds unless they're a clairvoyant, but also I think it's that it's inviting them into how they can steward that money better. So there's a very different energy in between here's an expectation or a standard don't beep it up. Okay. And over here, let's invite you into a story. And this story includes how you're going to have long-term wealth, how you're going to steward what you've been given, whether that's external resources or internal resources. And it's just two different energies.

And I think a lot of the times those conversations aren't had, because A, we don't see how valuable they are and B no one did it for them. So in other words, if Herbert Carlton had a positive role model regarding legacy, he would have known, hey, I should have set a weekend aside or 6 or 12 months and got some of these stories and knowledge together so that my kids, their kids, and on can have a reference point.

And not only that, let's say in the hardcover coffee table book, they get to add a chapter. Each family member can add a chapter. I mean, this is available to anyone, whether they're above $30 million or they have less net worth. This is like a middle-class family could take personal agency with this idea.

[00:26:56] Jeffrey Feldberg: You know, Angelina, what's interesting as you're talking, what's going through my mind is we don't have to just wait until we're no longer here for this to happen. We can create family rituals. I mean, we do it at Thanksgiving. We do it during the Holiday Season. So why not create a family ritual and it can start with us today.

We'll be the first generation that does this, but we're actively sharing it with the family. So around the dinner table, just a regular, plain old dinner, nothing special, no holiday, no celebration. Hey everyone today I was thinking about my legacy. You know, I'm doing this legacy book, legacy chapter.

Here's one of the things that I'm going to be putting in. What do you think about it? And we talk about it as a family and everyone grows up together with that. And then the children, when it's their turn, they're adding to that. But what's nice about that when unfortunately we all have to move on to the next chapter, whenever that is.

And when that happens, these things, aren't a surprise. Everyone knows it has already family lore, but it's just down in writing anyways for that to be there for us.

[00:27:51] Angelina Carleton: Yeah, So let's say we go to the gym once a week or three times a week. Why not set aside an hour a week or two hours a week and focus on that legacy. It's a new concept, it would be a new muscle, a new ritual, a new best practice. But I always raise the question of why not. That's the first thing I wanted to say in response.

And the second is I think every time we are able to talk about it, it normalizes it. So it feels less oh my gosh, it's so foreign. And outside of my reality, if we go back to identity and roles again when we talk about it more and more. And so I also, I shared with you, I have a podcast and I ask every guest that comes on to my podcast and you're welcome to be a guest also, I asked. They would like their legacy to be because a part of the magic is when they verbalize it when they speak it because it almost like surprises themselves. Sometimes I've received emails and other social media messages after a podcast. And it was like, wow, I didn't realize that even speaking, it had an effect on me.

[00:28:45] Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, I love that. And for one of the things that you mentioned, if you read my mind of, okay, let's talk a little bit about the execution part and you're saying, hey, you go to a gym a few times a week. Maybe you can start doing this once a week, once a month. Here's something for the audience to think about.

Why not as a minimum, bare minimum. You celebrate your birthday every year, while on your birthday. Why don't you make the one-time a year as a minimum, where you're talking about your legacy or what you're putting in the legacy book or your story. But Angelina talk to us now because I know our listeners are saying, okay, Angelina, you talk a great story and it sounds really good.

But I'm too busy, even if I had a coach. I, I don't even think I could do your homework because I'm just way too busy doing my things. Practically speaking, Angelina, how long does this take on a weekly or a daily, monthly, quarterly basis? What are we looking at to work with you build out our legacy, get this like a fine-tuned engine that's just running all year round?

[00:29:41] Angelina Carleton: Yeah. So I typically work with clients once a week, but when we have a discovery session, I call it designing the alliance. So it's up to them, how often they would like to meet and speak, whether that's over Zoom or phone, et cetera, et cetera. All of that is designed to meet, with their goals. And the speed of which it's important, if they receive a health notice and they know they've got a year left, that's a very different legacy plan than somebody who's incredibly busy, maybe they're at that final chapter of the liquidity event.

And they've got, 13 plates that they're juggling in the air. I would just point it back to priority and I'd asked them, why does it matter? So if I go back to that, fill in the blank statement, even if it's just a guiding principle of, I will do this by this time, because of this reason, I would have to know in terms of skin in the game, why is this important to them?

If they haven't bought into the idea that their legacy matters, I may or may not be able to convince them. It's very interesting in the last year there has been, like, there've been, I think about a couple of people on my street alone that have passed forward to the next life to heaven, whatever.

However, you'd like to frame it. And I wonder to myself, did they know it was coming? Did they plan for it? Because if they're just gone it's very interesting. I walked down the street And they're not there anymore. They're not walking their dogs. It's very sudden. So I think it's also, it goes to the idea of our immortality.

Sometimes we think we're going to live forever because we get so caught up in the excitement of the chase. And so when you refer to, they just don't have time. I would say it depends on their priorities. If they want to make time, this is one of the best decisions and investments that they can make.

[00:31:09] Jeffrey Feldberg: And I suppose Angelina, we do more to avoid pain than to get pleasure. So for all our listeners out there, I want you to picture in your mind. You're miserable after your liquidity event and a gazillion years from now, when you pass on whatever that looks like, you just have your family. They're not cohesive. They don't know who you are. It's just a mess.

[00:31:29] Angelina Carleton: Biggest pain point is regret. Because the separate from their feeling frustrated and trapped when they have everything and then it becomes a question around courage. Can I now do this? And a part of it is if they have a belief system around it's not important. No one else around me thinks it's important.

I have to be the pioneer. Do I want to be the pioneer? So I think those are some of the questions that come up, but if they can understand that they need to be the positive role model, perhaps in their family, their lineage, their line, their community. Cause no one else is doing it. That can also be an incentive.

But if you want to talk about pain points, I think it's that regret piece of I could have done better. If there is family involved, a part of the equation that I hear from clients is I don't want them to be stressed out when I'm gone. So I'm going to do everything I can to put the puzzle pieces in place so that they are well taken care of. And that's not just financially. That's also the emotional piece.

[00:32:23] Jeffrey Feldberg: So true. And for listeners, let me ask you this question. If something's important to you and if family cohesion and your legacy and just your own mental health, your own livelihood, if you can't find an hour a week to invest in yourself, then I think there's some bigger issues on the table there, Angelina, because it's such a little time for such a big reward.

[00:32:45] Angelina Carleton: Yeah, I just wanted to add another piece about the execution, but I think this is where this is what I call accountability around guiding principles comes up or just accountability around their legacy. This is where it comes up. So this is where all of the messages and the fears and the beliefs and journal and worth and who has the right to what, and this person and that person and all the voices in their head.

This is where execution gets really exciting because every time somebody reaches a new goal, it changes them for the better. And they get to trust themselves more. So it's not just, I trust myself for the liquidity event. It's I trust myself with my legacy and it's a brand new conversation. It's congratulations, here's a plane ticket to a place you've never been before.

Ready.

[00:33:27] Jeffrey Feldberg: I love that. Now, speaking of legacy, I know you have your podcast Design Your Legacy, and I know offline, you're sharing that. You've been working on a book, share with us what that's all about the podcast, and I hope I'm not putting it out there too early with your book of what you're working on with your booklet.

What's that looking like for you?

[00:33:43] Angelina Carleton: Let me answer that question in two ways. I would say with the podcast, I start out the introduction that today's wealth is two-thirds self-made. And so I bring on a variety of speakers from many different walks of life and income levels because we have this idea that just because somebody is successful in one niche in their life, one area, then they must know it all in every other area.

And that's not always true. And a part of it is they might delegate, they might trust other people's opinions, but I think it's also important for them to be exposed to a lot of different things so that they're not blindsided. And maybe it requires them to be open-minded. But one of the things I've been fascinated about regarding the podcast and the YouTube channel is 80% of the listeners are aged 40 and under.

And 80% of those individuals are male. So that tells me that young people are interested in the subject because if again, private and public schools, aren't having enough of these deeper wealth conversations,

[00:34:37] Jeffrey Feldberg: Pun intended. Love it.

[00:34:38] Angelina Carleton: Then they're going to be searching for this knowledge and however, the format it's delivered.

And so I would say that is my goal with the podcast and to have a variety of guest speakers so that when somebody is coming into new levels of wealth. They can see a perspective from a lot of different people compared to feeling alienated and lonely. I would say with the book, I think one of the, so I have about 10 ISBN numbers from Canada and it's taken me quite a few years because I tried to distill not only how to make these ideas very simple, but also how to make them practical because I've read other legacy books and they're fantastic.

They're great. But I need it to be practical because theoretical somebody can go. Yeah, I agree with that theory. And then they do nothing.

[00:35:18] Jeffrey Feldberg: Practical and perhaps easy to understand, easy to integrate and just put it into a life to take us there. And for our listeners out there, we talk a lot about this in 90-day Deep Wealth Experience.

In fact, Angelina, we were talking about this offline when we're starting the Deep Wealth Experience before we even begin, we talk about your legacy. We talk about the post-exit life, because I know for myself, it was a huge blind spot. And I share this before in other episodes, my biggest mistakes, some of my biggest mistakes in life came after my liquidity event, not before came after my liquidity event, because Angelina, I didn't have somebody like yourself to coach me and give me best practices along the way of what not to do and what to do.

[00:36:01] Angelina Carleton: Cause it's a brand new landscape. Yeah. It's like welcome to Kansas and it's flat and it's wide and there's clouds up above for 10,000 miles everywhere you look. Whereas before, when you did the liquidity event, you knew the framework, you knew the industry, you knew what was expected. Okay. Now that's done, welcome to Kansas.

[00:36:16] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And it's just a whole new world out there. And speaking of new worlds, we're starting to bump up against some time here. So I get to ask my favorite question as we begin to wrap up this episode. And so we're going to do another thought experiment and Angelina, I want you to think of the movie Back to the Future and in the movie you have that magical DeLorean car.

It can take you back to any point in time and for our thought experiment it's tomorrow morning and Angelina, you look out your. And there it is. The DeLorean car is waiting for you. The door is open, you hop on in and you can now go back to any point in your life. Maybe it's Angelina as a young child, a teenager, an adult, whatever the case would be.

What are you telling your younger self in terms of, hey, Angelina, don't do this, or here's some life lessons want you to do that? What does that look like for you?

[00:37:05] Angelina Carleton: I would say that we all have the energetic power to redirect, and sometimes we can stay too long in a position, a territorial landscape where we're trying to change something that we can't change. And the best investment of overtime is just to do a redirect. But at that time we might not know that those options are available to us.

[00:37:26] Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. So can I say, maybe go with the flow? Don't try and go upstream. Just run with it. Am I getting that?

[00:37:31] Angelina Carleton: I would say it has to do with being able to have what I call the 5,000-foot eagles view and to detach. And from that higher vantage point, being able to then ask is this something that I want to continue to invest my time in, or do I find another open door? Humans can get very attached to things.

We can get attached to cars and assets, et cetera, et cetera, or a relationship or whatever that thing is. And we forget that there's 10 other open doors that are available to us.

[00:38:03] Jeffrey Feldberg: Taking a setback, detaching, reassessing, and then perhaps going in a different direction, which was probably the direction all along. We should have gone. I think that's some terrific advice and Angelina for our listeners out there. If they want to reach you online, what would be the best place?

[00:38:18] Angelina Carleton: They could visit my website, designyourlegacy.com. I think you'll probably included in the show notes.

[00:38:24] Jeffrey Feldberg: We will have for our listeners. It'll be so easy for you to be a point and click over to the show notes. We're going to have all of Angelina's links, but her website. So that's the best place to reach Angelina.

[00:38:33] Angelina Carleton: Sure. Or to send us an email. The general email is info[@]angelinacarleton[dot]com. And since it'll be in the show notes, I won't spell it, but I invite any of your listeners to feel free to send me an email and I'd be happy to chat further and talk about their legacy and explore it further because there are people that do care about this subject.

I think it matters for the individual. It matters for their lineage and matters for their community. And it matters for the world that we can create for the better tomorrow.

[00:39:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well said, and on that note, Angelina, thank you so much for taking part of your day and spending it with us on the, Sell My Business Podcast. And as always, please stay healthy and safe.

[00:39:09] Angelina Carleton: Thank you so much.

[00:39:10] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

[00:39:13] Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

[00:39:23] Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

[00:39:28] Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

[00:39:34] Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

[00:39:50] Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately.

[00:40:12] Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

[00:40:22] Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

[00:40:36] Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even.

[00:40:54] Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

[00:41:21] Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

[00:41:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

If you're not on my email list, you'll want to be. Sign up at www.deepwealth.com/podcast. And if you enjoyed this episode of the Sell My Business podcast, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews help me reach new listeners, grow the show and continue to create content that you'll enjoy.

As we close out this episode, a heartfelt thank you for your time. And as always, please stay healthy and safe.

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Your liquidity event is the most important financial transaction of your life. You have one chance to get it right, and you better make it count. 

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