Entrepreneurial Appetite

Your Family Is Your Wealth-Building Dream Team (You Just Don't Know It Yet): A Conversation with LaVaisha Davis

• Langston Clark • Season 6 • Episode 18

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"Your family is your God given guarantee to build wealth," declares LaVaisha Davis in this illuminating conversation about transforming how we think about family finances. As founder of Ell Wess Advisors, Davis brings a revolutionary perspective to wealth building that positions family relationships at the center of financial planning rather than as an afterthought.

The smallest decisions made around your dinner table today could shape your family's financial trajectory for generations. Davis reveals how she and her husband mathematically planned their first business by calculating exactly what their dream lifestyle would cost—including raising four children—and then working backward to determine what kind of enterprise could generate that revenue. This methodical approach to wealth creation stands in stark contrast to the passion-first mindset that leaves many entrepreneurs financially vulnerable.

What truly sets Davis's philosophy apart is the "Family CEO Mindset" that treats relatives as strategic assets with specific roles in a collective wealth-building enterprise. Rather than allowing children to choose arbitrary career paths, Davis advocates for guiding them toward professions that fill strategic gaps in the family's collective knowledge and influence. In her own household, she's intentionally cultivating one daughter for political power—recognizing that political influence represents a form of capital that traditional financial planning overlooks.

The wisdom shared in this episode emerged from profound personal loss when Davis's brother died unexpectedly, leaving their mother without the financial resources to properly handle funeral arrangements. This tragedy became the catalyst for Davis's deep study of how wealthy families structure their affairs to handle both expected and unexpected life events without financial devastation. She transformed this painful experience into a wealth management approach that makes sophisticated financial planning accessible to families who aren't ultra-wealthy through what she calls the "virtual family office."

Ready to transform how you think about your family's financial future? This conversation will equip you with both the mindset shift and practical first steps to begin building wealth that truly lasts across generations.

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Langston Clark :

Hey everyone, thank you again for your support of Entrepreneurial Appetite. Beginning this season, we are inviting our listeners to support the show through our Patreon website. The founding 55 patrons will get live access to our monthly discussions for only $5 a month. Your support will help us hire an intern or freelancer to help with the production of the show. Of course, you can also support us by giving us five stars, leaving a positive comment or sharing the show with a few friends. Thank you for your continued support. What's up everybody?

Langston Clark :

Once again, this is Langston Clark, the founder and organizer of Entrepreneur Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting Black businesses.

Langston Clark :

And today we have LaVaisha Davis, who is the founder of Ell Wess Advisors, and I'm going to start by saying I'm thankful to her because her folks reached out to us to be a guest on our podcast.

Langston Clark :

Her folks reached out to us to be a guest on our podcast, and I didn't tell you this in the pre-conversation before we hit the record button. But the honoring for me is that one of the previous podcasts that you had been on was Ash Cash's podcast, and I'm honored because he is one of the podcasts that I draw inspiration from, and so I appreciate you reaching out to me as somebody who's been on a show that I feel like is a tier above mine, so you bring some value. You make me feel validated in this moment. But even beyond that, one of the things that I'm really looking forward to in this conversation is your approach to thinking about wealth and business in terms of family, and as someone who's been married for years and is really, really intentional about the way I do life with my wife. I'm very much looking forward to this conversation with you, and, since we have Origins as a book club, I always ask the guests to just start off telling us your autobiography and how you became who you are right now.

LaVaisha Davis:

Absolutely, laysen. I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me, and I'm glad that this could be a monumental moment for you and your podcast as well. But my autobiography is, you know, I am a girl from a small town. I'm from Dayton, ohio Originally.

LaVaisha Davis:

I'm the youngest of four children. My mother was a single parent and, as the youngest, you know, you're the one the little bit of the wild child, right, typically I'm not sure if you have siblings, but household of siblings is the oldest, gets the heavy discipline, you know the helicopter parent, while the youngest gets a little bit more flexibility and a little bit more freedom. And that was myself. So I had to kind of go through some hardships to learn more about myself, because it was just a different environment for me, and along that journey I saw a lot of what I wanted and I also saw a lot of what I didn't want. So it just helped me identify what path I wanted to take, not saying that they were the exact ones I was going to stay on.

LaVaisha Davis:

I decided I wanted to go to medical school. I wanted to get a career in a profession that I could be proud of, that I can make my family proud of. But amongst that, or at least along that journey, it just got redirected. So I ended up in more in the entrepreneur realm with my husband, out of support initially, but did end up taking one of the leading roles because that's what he poured into me. One thing about my autobiography is I am a result of my leadership. My husband has been such a monumental person in my life in me discovering my passion, my purpose and who I am, and turning some pain that we went through into purpose, turning some lessons, some failures, some things we've learned into winning, into things that we could use in the future. So, altogether, that is what produces LaVaish a Davis as the wealth manager today and how I strive to help families create, sustain and keep and transfer their wealth?

Langston Clark :

LaVaisha, I'm going to ask a question that I found out, rooted in what I found out a little bit about your autobiography and I bring this up because I'm a Buckeye. I got my master's degree photography. And I bring this up because I'm a Buckeye. I got my master's degree from Ohio State and I know that in Black families, right, regardless of whether or not you grew up with a single parent, you grew up super rich two parents, three parents, blended family or whatever one of the core tenets in our families is get your education.

Langston Clark :

So talk about your Ohio State journey and your decision to pivot and how that has helped shape who you are. And part of me also brings that up because I'm a college professor now, that's my main, my nine to five is being a college professor, and so I got students that come to me all the time and this generation of students you know we talk about Gen Z or the next, whoever's after whatever. We're calling the kids after them as being sort of like pampered and all that stuff. The ones that come to my office are go-getters, right, they're in school and they got businesses. So talk about what that experience was like for you and why that pivot was significant for your journey.

LaVaisha Davis:

You know, and that's why I really enjoy working with that group, although, like you say, the Gen Zers, gen Alphas, the different generations, but they do have this energy of I'm going after what I want by all means necessary, and that was the energy my husband and I possessed way before. We were kind of like before our time and we would probably fit better into this generation than the generation we were in, because that was our situation. We were in college, we were starting businesses, because my husband had this thing about enterprise and ownership that he taught me Ethnic education wasn't. It wasn't encouraged in my household, and not because it wasn't what my mother wanted for us. She was just such a hard worker it was very difficult for her to encourage it. She just didn't have the time and the energy.

LaVaisha Davis:

So me pursuing a higher education was from seeing what I didn't want, though I had set my eyes on Ohio State and I had to take a different path to get there. I couldn't go right out of high school. I went to junior college first in an effort to keep calm and slow, in an effort to keep calm and slow, in an effort to prepare myself for a university because, again, I did not come from a family of college graduates and things like that. So I started in junior college, then went to Ohio State all under a biology major again and pursue a medical career. So that pivot was because when we started businesses and we struggled significantly and we're taking dramatic losses in the beginning I realized I had to earn money.

LaVaisha Davis:

It wasn't just about the business, because we produce, we could go out and market it, we could sell, but we still had zero left in the bank One too many times and it was just like what is happening. We had to learn how to understand cashflow, financial statements, balance sheets, income statements like profit margins. That wasn't being taught. Entrepreneurship wasn't encouraged at the time that we started and I'm not going to show my age here by saying what year that was, but it wasn't, it wasn't encouraged. So we had to learn that, and when I learned it, I realized we cannot be the only entrepreneur struggling with this.

LaVaisha Davis:

Let me set my sight on helping other entrepreneurs with this foundational understanding and what started out is just a means of helping others ended up being a total redirect in career as I focused on it and helped us elevate and helped other people elevate it. I just started to grow with my clients and just grew into the full service of wealth management, starting from basic financial coaching, then into insurance planning, then into investment planning and asset protection planning and just developed over time. So that pivot. Without it, I have no idea where I would be today.

Langston Clark :

And I think sometimes it's. I think it's really hard, especially if you're a first generation college student and even you, being you're the youngest I don't know if any of your siblings went to school before you or you were the first one who chose to go on that path but regardless if you're first gen, being first gen is really difficult and the messaging that we get is being a college graduate is a path to elevating your family and moving the next generation to a better position than you may have been in. Were there any tensions in the pivot, or were you so sure of what was happening, or were you so forward thinking in what was happening that you all had like a very strategic mathematical plan? Y'all did. Did y'all do the math when I tell?

LaVaisha Davis:

you. Okay, this is fun. Let me tell you what even started us from doing the math. We watched a show, house Hunters. You familiar with House Hunters?

LaVaisha Davis:

Yeah, we were watching House Hunters at a time when we were trying to just make you know certain decisions in life, not only what we wanted to do, but what we wanted to achieve. What were we doing this for when we would watch House Hun hunters? It helped us start doing the math. One, if we wanted to buy a good home okay, how much is that going to cost us? Two, if we want to have children, how much does it cost to raise a child? Okay. Three, if we really want to live the life that we envision, how much is all that going to cost? We literally did the math and we calculated that our lifestyle that we envisioned, at least, is all that going to cost. We literally did the math and we calculated that our lifestyle that we envisioned, at least the vision that my husband painted for me we would need to make at least a million dollars or more. We were like, okay, then we work backwards. How do we do that?

LaVaisha Davis:

Yeah, on how they decided to start a first business. It was because we literally looked up a list of businesses that we could start for the amount of money that we had that could produce the revenues that we had calculated. It wasn't a passion business. We started a cleaning company. At first there was no passion behind it, it was all because of math. It wasn't until after that we started to do more purpose-driven type of businesses. But initially it was a result of math. We realized it's going to take us at the time $500,000 to raise one kid and we wanted four. And we had those four. We got them now. But we knew the math behind everything that we wanted to do and we just kind of reverse engineered the plan.

Langston Clark :

So this is interesting Tell us how you go from the cleaning business to doing what you're doing now.

LaVaisha Davis:

Okay. So where we started? Like I said, we started the cleaning company and we had some labor issues. That was the biggest thing. We were selling faster than we can employ the people that could actually service the contracts we were closing on. So what we had to do to pivot from there we ended up selling the contracts that we had. So that exposed us to starting a business and selling it. We didn't do it right the first time, but exposed us to it. We didn't do it right the first time, but it exposed us to it. Then, because of that experience, as labor was an issue, we kind of identified other industries that were struggling with those dynamics and we started a headhunting business. After that, with the money that we got from selling the chemical cleaning contract, we started the headhunting business and we did that for five years and we sold that and then we transitioned into hospitality after that and started to get more into restaurants and things like that and built our what we call a private equity portfolio.

LaVaisha Davis:

For me, learning the money along the way from increasing the value of the business to get a higher sales price is what resulted in LS Advisors. It's like, hey, entrepreneurs are so laser focused on their business activity, they don't know how to create wealth from it. They can drive income, which is completely different than creating wealth. They can create the income, but they're not able to create the wealth.

LaVaisha Davis:

We've been able to understand both sides of that and that's why IOS Advisor services so many entrepreneurs is we know exactly where they are, the pain points that they have, what they're experiencing and what we need to do to get them on the right track to actually creating that will. So it was almost like the plan was written. I feel it every day, the divine direction that we receive, because it's just like the way God works through people in our lives, the way he has worked through our marriage, the way he brought us together, how we saved each other. It's like I'm just the vessel and I'm just I'm following some instruction here, some divine instruction we're going to get into the family stuff, but you said something really interesting.

Langston Clark :

You said that entrepreneurs I'm going to paraphrase can be so laser focused on getting income from the business that it's difficult to focus on building wealth with the business. Talk about that shift and how entrepreneurs can make that shift and how you, through your business, help entrepreneurs make that shift.

LaVaisha Davis:

Yes, absolutely. So mostly we decide that our business is our golden ticket, like that's why we pour so much into it. Everything we get gets reinvested back into the business because this is our golden ticket. But what entrepreneurs sometimes miss out on not all, but sometimes is how do you? What does that golden ticket cash in look like? Are you building a business to sell it to get one big payday? Are you building a business to grow in value where you can leverage it or borrow against it to get a big payday? Are you building a business to leave within your family that they can continue with? We don't know how we're going to cash in that golden ticket. So it's like every day we're just focused on the business, getting the revenue up, getting the income up, without the exit in mind. We always thought about the exit, always thought about the exit, and that's what I mean by working backwards.

LaVaisha Davis:

So what we help entrepreneurs do, if we can help you increase the value of your business, we will certainly help you do that, not by operations, but by minimizing taxes. How much can we reduce your tax liability so you can invest more where you could diversify your portfolio? That's number one. Number two how much of your business is supporting your lifestyle, like how much income that you take home is one thing, but how much of your lifestyle is supported by your business, because we can add that in too, so we can know how much income you actually need. So, god forbid, if something happens to your business, the bills can still get paid. We help entrepreneurs protect that business.

LaVaisha Davis:

This is so exposed. Sometimes, when we're caught up in the day-to-day activity, we're not worried about the legal structure of it. Like I just wanted to create this business. I just wanted to follow my passion, follow my heart. Whether it's structured correctly is something they can't answer at the moment or is not at the forefront of their mind, so that exposure can lead to your business being taken. So we help fill all of those gaps so you can actually focus on your business with confidence and make whatever wealth is to you a reality. If wealth to you is living on a beach and somebody else is taking care of your business, or if you want expensive toys, if you want to have multiple homes, if you want boats, you want yachts, you want jewelry collections, watch collection, whatever you're into, whatever wealth is more kind with your family, whatever it is, we want to make that a reality, but we have to focus on getting you out of the business and diversify in order to do that.

Langston Clark :

I share this with you in the pre-conversation and I'm having a moment about family right now. I've been married four years. I love my wife dearly. We've been going through some things and when you go through some things with your spouse it'll either tear you apart or pull you closer together. We're like this, we're tight. You know what I'm saying. And I'm the youngest of five kids and in fact on both sides of my family both grandparents I'm the youngest grandchild, so I'm coming in last place and everyone's way older than I am. And you know I've been doing some reflecting lately and I realized that in my generation, on either side of my family, I'm one of two men who has either never been divorced or been able to be married and keep a family unit intact the first time.

Langston Clark :

And I think about you and the way that you talk about your husband. How you all started, you said your husband poured into you and allowed you to bloom and blossom, and then you said something before you all really saved each other, which I think is really awesome. And there's a big part of your business framework, or the framework with how you will operate, that deals in family. But before we get into the nuts and bolts of that. Take us through.

Langston Clark :

What is the day-to-day when you all have a family meeting? Do y'all have family meetings and what do those family meetings look like? How do you all have discussions about just wealth in your household and business in your household. What was the meeting like when you all went back and y'all said, hey, how is it going to cost for us to have this many kids and all of that? What's the framework or the structure or the way to do that? Because I think if we were more intentional in how we had conversations about our money, about our family as a business, that we wouldn't have, at least in my family I don't want to speak for everybody else's in my family, my extended family that people may not have gotten divorced as much or may have stayed together, may have gotten married. You know what I'm saying. So talk a little bit about that and how you all manage that in your union.

LaVaisha Davis:

No great question. I agree. Over 50 percent of divorces are a result of some type of financial stress and they can be prevented if the conversation about money was more open. But for us in the beginning it was very loose. You know, we didn't know, we didn't have any rhyme or reason, we just had this feeling in my heart. That's why I said, when I say a reflection of leadership, my husband was able to have those conversations openly, but now they're a little bit more structured and intentional.

LaVaisha Davis:

So daily for us, when we have our meetings, we're looking at several things. One we are always looking at our investment philosophy. How do we choose to invest and does it need to change based on economic circumstances? It's making sure our investments can survive any economic cycle or can change. So we always talk about that one on one. But when it comes to our children, when they're involved, we get a little bit deeper and this can be.

LaVaisha Davis:

Some people may agree or disagree, but when we involve our children in our meetings, it's important that we understand something about our children, our siblings, ourselves and our family, our parents. We are something called human capital and we are assets in our family, our parents, that we are something called human capital and we are assets in our family and we have lifespans. That's longer now than it once was, and the value that we can create over those lifespan depends on some very critical things. So sometimes we let our children choose their path, when we really should choose the path based on the needs our family has to create wealth. For example, if you don't have anyone in your family that has medical knowledge, legal knowledge, tech knowledge, infrastructure knowledge these are all things that creates intellectual property that can further create the value of your wealth. So instead of letting them just choose freely, we still want to give you a choice, but I need you to choose from these list of items that we need. Everybody just starts moving in their own individual directions. Nobody's working congruently together.

LaVaisha Davis:

So when you start, when we talk to our children and we include them in the family meetings, we tell them that the choices that they have to choose from, why they have to choose from that, what value that's going to be and what it's going to do for our family and their children. In the beginning for them it was like what, what, what, but now our children can freely have these conversations about the path that they're taking and what value they're going to bring to the family and why they're doing what they're doing and what type of investment that is, what value they're going to create. So for me and for us, our family meetings is helping them identify and stay true to what value they're going to bring. It's also about our investment choices and philosophy. We even talk to our kids about our investment choices. They don't we let them feel like low underwriters. Yeah, you got some say-so in it. I mean they do. We take their a piece a little bit, but we include them in those conversations. So money is a free-flowing conversation around here. It's not like a sit-down table meeting all the time. We try to do that as often as possible about once a quarter, but we keep it comfortable when as possible about once a quarter, but we keep it comfortable when we're just in the living room all on the sectional. We talk about investment, income and insurance. Those are our three things.

LaVaisha Davis:

Who you build wealth with is not always like blood relation, you know. Sometimes it's the result of other longstanding relationships that you had. What I really just want to encourage people to do is collaborate on a different level If you are, if this is a person that you are doing life with. That's a reason to build wealth together and all you really need to start. I'm simplifying, but for the purpose of simplification we just have to separate it from us as people, as living individuals, and put it in a structure that can survive us like a legal structure. You just need to create a legal structure that you are collectively going to contribute to. The contribution is then going to be redirected into some investment strategy or that illegal structure. We want it to grow in value. We want it to produce X amount of dollars in income.

LaVaisha Davis:

Collectively contributing to that illegal structure that has an investment strategy behind it can be the first start to creating family wealth. That's the first start. You can do this with. You and your wife can create that legal structure separately. If it's you and you're a close brother, something like that, you can create something called a special purpose vehicle. It's really just a separate legal structure. Think about it like a retirement account when you contribute to a 401k.

LaVaisha Davis:

That is a legal structure. That's a trust. It's just administered by a third party and they're governed by a different set of laws in the tax laws, but they're governed by ERISA laws. It's a little different. However, the concept is the same. It's governed. It's a legal structure that is managed and administered by a third party who's responsible to invest and yield a certain return that's supposed to pay you income when you retire for X amount of time. Take the same concept between you and the people you're doing life with. That's it. That's the first step you could do. That's the simplified version. I know it's more. I promise I don't want to be that little 30 second click. That sounded like you know it's easy, but it's just to wrap your mind around. What's the first step? Identify the people, create the legal structure, then go get the professionals to service that legal structure.

Langston Clark :

This has me thinking. I'm somewhat enamored with Condoleezza Rice and you know, black folks sometimes critique Condoleezza Rice because she was worked for Bush, republican this, that or the third. But she doesn't get due credit because one could argue, even though Kamala was vice president, one could argue that at the peak of her power, condoleezza Rice was the most powerful black woman in history because she was secretary of state. So she was third from president. Some happen to listen, some happen to chaney. She was next in line, she was, and basically, if this were like a smaller scale organizational structure, she would have been the vice president or president for external affairs because she did all the global stuff.

Langston Clark :

Ok, I was watching a documentary and Condoleezza Rice was doing an interview with somebody and the guy was interviewing her. She was talking about how she was raised and you know she was raised deep South heavy segregation, alabama, the four little girls that got blown up in a church, her family, all that. She was around, all that stuff. She said when her family would plan a trip. And you got to think back in these days black people couldn't stop everywhere, so there's a lot of logistics. You got to go through the plan. They would have her plan the family trip, she would sit and be in the meeting. She had to go on the map or whatever. She had to choose where they were going to stop. She had to justify why they were going to stop there.

Langston Clark :

All that in a third and I think about look how that and she talked about how that prepared her to sit in the meeting and run meetings at a global level. So the reason why I asked you about how you and your family do meetings with the kids you and your husband and what you're modeling for them, is because those things become large things. I think those things become large things as our children grow into their own or in positions that maybe we can't even imagine that they would be in, and so I was. I'm just fascinated that you would share and that you all allow the children to be underwriters in the investment strategy for the family and that you all allow the children to be underwriters in the investment strategy for the family.

LaVaisha Davis:

So you bring up Yosu because we have one of our daughters that we are purposely pursuing for political power and we underestimate the value of political power. We are not encouraging someone to take that path in our family, encouraging someone to take that path in our family, and we are always on the outside trying to convey a message of what we want and what we need and the needs of our community, when we really need someone with inside influence and that path has to be carved. That political power, striving for political power is something you have to work towards. It's not something you could just plop someone in. I know the administration may be having us thinking otherwise, but it's the purpose. It's to cultivate someone that's going to go strive and obtain political power for our family so we can really make change, and what I mean we should. We have to create the paths for our children, not just let them do it freak for all, because they're always going to choose the fun stuff.

Langston Clark :

That's facts. They're always going to choose the fun stuff. Now you have me thinking back to a lot of things that my parents didn't know. So I think about my parents as being first generation integrated. So my dad was born in 40. My mom was born in 50. My dad was born up north Buffalo, new York. It was still segregated, even though it was up north. My mom from Chattanooga, tennessee, so it definitely was segregated. She didn't get integrated until she went to college. Around the time integration was happening, 68, she was 18, went to college.

Langston Clark :

They put my brother and I in really good schools, really good public schools, and, for context, my public school was better than the private school. So at my school it was nothing for kids to be going to Penn, going to Harvard, going to um. My best friend went to Naval Academy and I look at, I look at some of the outcomes for the black males in particular, and even though we had good family structure, we had the best schools, the education, educational opportunity that our parents provided for us doesn't match all the outcomes. So my brother has schizophrenia and he lives at home with my mom and grew up the furthest from like a street hood identity but adopted this and in his as a manifestation of his schizophrenia. But even before that, adopted this I'm going to be a rapper, football player, you're going to school with kids. That's going to Princeton.

Langston Clark :

It doesn't make sense, and so I don't think we always understand. Just because you got your kids in the best school, you have to even still be intentional about the direction that we're giving them in terms of the possibilities that are open to them, because if not, like you said, I think we choose the fun stuff. Sometimes we choose the stereotype right, and the stereotypes for us aren't always the ones that lead to the most, the most real and authentic success. So I appreciate you sharing that. Absolutely, you are absolutely correct about that. Man. I'm almost wondering how did you, how did you come to this, to being so very intentional about how you are, are doing and structuring family, what, what was the impetus for the way that you all are doing things?

LaVaisha Davis:

You know that's a. It's a great question to ask after you just shared your story about your brother, because what was the turning point for me from a family review, not just for my husband and my children, but even with my parents and my siblings was the result of losing my brother, I think of violence. He too suffered from different, a different type of mental illness that he didn't want to go get diagnosed, so he didn't, he never had the proper treatment for and was also a golden glove middleweight boxing champion. So that combination was just taken out on the wrong person and he just it resulted in his death. And it was so difficult at that time because my mom again always been a hard worker. So difficult at that time because my mom again always been a hard worker but she didn't have the financial resources to bury her son that she lost unexpectedly her only son. And that was also a lie above for us, because we had already been in entrepreneurship for quite some time, about five or six years by the time that this had happened and we couldn't help at the time. And two things about it my mom, she had to go right back to work because she couldn't afford to take time off and things like that. We couldn't help and they just, but we had all these people. That's what I mean by human capital. How is it that there are eight of us Like and we cannot collectively make a difference? We can't collectively take care of my mom during this time, we can't collectively bury my brother, we can't collectively help with our niece, who was only 10 years old at the time. Now, who has to be raised and have to think about her future financially. Like what is this? And it drove me into studying wealthy families, because those type of unexpected deaths, mental illnesses they thought that happened within those family structures as well. But we have the resources to manage them internally. It doesn't become a GoFundMe, a fresh fry. It doesn't become like this spectacle Nobody has to know that who has mental illnesses because we're able to afford to have somebody privately care for our family members and all of these liabilities that come with those types of situations.

LaVaisha Davis:

When I found that this is what I want, this is what I want, we shifted a lot of things as we started to create our investment portfolio. Where can our family fit in here? That's why I say your family is your God guaranteeing to build wealth. He's giving you the people to bring the vision to life. You just have to find out where they fit. Don't try to push something on venom. You have to find out where they fit, where they can still be successful in their own right individually, but they're contributing collectively. That was by the edges. A light bulb went off. That was back in 2014.

LaVaisha Davis:

And from that moment forward it was our family is a business and everything that we do is just a part of our portfolio. This is a group portfolio because we have multiple generations. That's going to need care. Our parents are going to retire. They don't have any retirement. We have to make sure they're good. We are going to get old. We have to make sure we're good. Our children are growing. We have to make sure they have the resources to go be wealth creators themselves, and so forth. So losing my brother felt painful at the time. It was so hurtful at the time, but I realized his legacy is what drove us to creating something bigger. So we it just. That was the turning point for us, and we've just been moving differently ever since.

Langston Clark :

That's amazing, and this brings me to two concepts that I found in doing my research about you Family offices, this concept of virtual family offices, and the family CEO mindset. Could you give us the rundown of what those?

LaVaisha Davis:

are. Yeah, so I'll start with the family CEO mindset. It's exactly what I just described Recognize that your family is a business. Everyone is earning income, everyone has expenses, everyone pays taxes, everyone has a financial need of some kind. You are in the business of growing in value. How can we collaborate? How can we collectively work together to work in growing our value? That's the family CEO. Think about what a CEO does for an organization. They optimize the current resources that they have to bring a vision to light that's going to grow in profits. Ok, so I help create our practice and grow our bottom line. Think about what a CEO does and you can do that and be that for your family. It is what differentiates millionaires and billionaires.

LaVaisha Davis:

The family had been a coin previously, at least historically, about the Rothschilds who created this wealth command center. That's what the family office is. This is a wealth command center that has every financial professional you need your attorney, your investment advisors, your accountants, tax strategists, estate planning everything you need there in one command center servicing your wealth. It is laser focused on just your financial needs monitoring your investments, making sure your taxes don't stay low, making sure that the wealth transfers to the next generation, making sure the legal structures are in place, making sure they are administered properly. Year in and year out. There's annual things that need to be done. That concept has allowed wealth to stay within certain families for multiple generations, multiple hundreds of years, just because they have a group of professionals focused on the wealth.

LaVaisha Davis:

The virtual family office allows for that same concept. Now they were able to hire these employees. That's what focuses on them, but what the virtual family office is more of, I, we coordinate these professionals to focus on you. So that's our role. We're like your wealth quarterback. You're the wealth creator. We're the wealth quarterback. We coordinate all the necessary professional services. The wealth plan to activate it as you can get in a plan, whether it's aggravated and implemented and executed is a whole nother thing, but that's what the virtual family office does, and the family CEO can either outsource that service or you can be the CEO that coordinate those professionals, as Leo.

Langston Clark :

So, essentially, you've taken, you've made what the billionaires, the super rich, super wealthy families have and made it accessible for more people to be able to access that.

LaVaisha Davis:

Absolutely, because the thing about it this is what I say. This is the analogy I use to help describe wealth. Now, I always have to set the disclaimer. It depends on what generation you're a part of, if you understand this or not, but for us, you know, when we make our Christmas list and we have our toy that we want and we get that toy on Christmas more Right, you get the toy that was on top of your Christmas list. You open it that I want to play with it right now. You're going to power it on and it doesn't turn on. You're like what? And when you turn it over, what does it always say? What does it say on the back? You know I want the toy to turn on.

Langston Clark :

Well, yeah, with the batteries, you ain't got no batteries.

LaVaisha Davis:

Batteries not included, right yeah, like that's what wealth is. Wealth is that toy that you wanted, but the professionals and the ongoing planning that governs the 80 is the batteries. Without the batteries, wealth is not self-perpetuating. It needs to be fitted, it needs to be cycled, it needs to be serviced, it needs to be managed and it needs to be administered. Who is doing that If that's not happening? If that's not happening, wealth is not happening. That's what family CEOs need to. If you are really about creating multi-generational wealth, not a legacy. It's a difference. Legacy is the long lasting impact. Wealth on lasting resources, got it? You want to create multi-generational wealth? Somebody has to stand up and say, hey, I am going to run my way, I want to create my wealth team, I'm going to manage my wealth team so I can make sure my family really gets to experience financial success.

Langston Clark :

What are your thoughts when I think about? Ok, let me tell you about this book because you know I told you we have origins as a book club and there's this book I'm reading called the Givers, and it's about philanthropy. It's about big, big philanthropy and the book was written like 2017. So it's old now, but what's interesting about the book is that 2017, like with the authors writing about these philanthropists were doing in 2017, we see the impact of that right now politically, economically, all of those things. And it just blew my mind the way in which wealth through philanthropy shapes policy, shapes narratives, shapes even ideologies among common people because of narratives that get put out there. So I'm wondering, from your perspective, as someone who has built wealth and helps other people build wealth, what are your thoughts on philanthropy?

LaVaisha Davis:

I'll measure it up like this Wealth is not measured by the things that you see, the toys that someone has, the clothes that they wear. It's more measured by how much money you give away. Philanthropy is the tax haven for impact. You can make the biggest impact and receive the biggest tax benefits through your philanthropy planning, and it does become a point in time where you do. You can't have too much money. I'm invested, I've invested. I expect everything I can expense To who much you've given, much is expected. Now it is time to give back. So your wealth can truly be defined by your philanthropy activity.

LaVaisha Davis:

And you mentioned something about how it shapes political narratives, how it shapes ideologies. A lot of our perspectives, as it revolves around education, medicine, was all funded through private foundations, which are philanthropy activity. You can invest through impact and make a return, change narratives. All of these different benefits, change narratives, all of these different benefits. So philanthropy is also a key component within the family office structure that needs to be managed and sought and reviewed Like this needs to be brought to you. Most people don't know what they can give away and how to do it. They have no idea. So philanthropy for us is a not only us personally, but also professionally within our firm, is a huge component to the Wellcome Plan.

Langston Clark :

Yeah, here's. Here's another thing I want to get your thoughts on. There's a lot in the news right now and I guess there has been for maybe the past 10 years, maybe a year or so about cryptocurrency, and you know Trump's folks are talking about, you know, bitcoin reserves and this, that and the third and all of that. Just what are your thoughts on cryptocurrencies?

LaVaisha Davis:

That's an asset class of digital assets. Some people are already invested in that Our personal investment philosophy as well as our professional investment philosophy. It doesn't have a lot of digital assets in it, and that's just me being completely transparent and honest. Is it something that I think is going to become a larger consideration in the future? Possibly, but we'll just keep the eyes on that. It's a supply and demand, just like any other asset class has publicly traded it Supply and demand. I don't like to get into when it's the demand, because that's the emotional buyers or the emotional sellers. I like to get into it when it's just a supply, vice versa. I just like to watch the trends and find a great entry point, like if there comes a time that it looks like we need to get into it, we'll evaluate it at that time. But I really don't have an opinion on the digital assets because it's not a large asset class that we use either professionally or personally.

Langston Clark :

So I mentioned a book that I'm currently reading and, as I mentioned before, the podcast has origins as a book club, and so I'm wondering if you could share with us a book, maybe, that you're currently reading, or a book that you've read that has inspired your journey as an entrepreneur yes, around the time, the same time where I would say I started to study more wealth families, this book I it just blew my mind.

LaVaisha Davis:

I mean it just it really it had me angry for a second I was angry and then, once the anger came down and I was able to strategize but it's by Dr Claude Anderson, it's Black Labor, white Wealth. That book single handedly made me realize the economic power that we have, but we're starting so far behind. It made me out of catching up that I personally felt like I had to go catch up. The average net worth of a black household is about one hundred and eighty three thousand. The average net worth of a white household is about one point one million thousand. The average net worth of a white household is about one point one million.

LaVaisha Davis:

And when I wanted to find out the discrepancy, like why that was, it was because of planning. It was the type of investment planning they received. It was a type of asset protection planning they received estate planning. They received. It literally was the planning.

LaVaisha Davis:

It wasn't the amount of income that touched each other's hands, right, hey, throughout our lifetime. That's why I say your lifespan has value. Over a fraction of your life, over 40 years, the average income of $40,000, about $2 million will touch your hands. It will touch it, but what are you going to do with it? How are you distributing it? Like, what is it that all? What type of planning are you getting behind it? So that book made me recognize the economic disparities and as I was studying with families and seeing what they were getting, that created that discrepancy. It was just like full fledged Like. Ok, add that on to like the hurt I was already feeling For Boots and my brother. It was like this big life changing moment for me. It was like this big life changing moment for me. But at that book I would encourage anyone who was trying to change your perspective, trying to make a mindset change.

Langston Clark :

I would encourage anyone to read that book. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. I also want to give you an opportunity to talk again about your business, how you can help folks out, how you can help folks build wealth, keep wealth and think about family in a more strategic and maybe dynamic way. Tell us again a little bit about the business, how we can find out about how to get your services, how we can follow you on social media and just stay in touch with what you're doing.

LaVaisha Davis:

Absolutely so. Our firm is LS Advisors. We're based here in Atlanta and we help entrepreneurs or even the family CEO. If you decide to step up and take that role, we help you centralize and maximize and optimize the resources that you have to convert your income to wealth. One thing we do is a full wealth assessment Most of the time. Most people don't know where they stand financially. They don't know how much you're paying in taxes. You have no investment strategy for life.

Langston Clark :

Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you liked the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Give us five stars and leave a comment.