Here's the issue, those people who designed what is it called work-life balance.
I'm convinced those are people who didn't like what they did for work.
Work-life balance, right? Do what you love on the side on the weekends for two days while you come to work, right? Yeah, and then you're in the wrong job. You know, people die in their 20s, their 30s, or 50s, or 60s, no one should be sacrificing the days that they're blessed to get in a space that just sucks the life out of them.
Alison Flam is an author, speaker, and wealth advisor, who has spent nearly 30 years helping
“people simplify their financial lives and build around what matters most to them.”
Today, she's expanding that work through speaking in her books, helping people rise above the chaos, and create lives rooted in meaning and choice. My mission or goal is to give people permission to not follow some diagram or what other people think they should do, but to have the courage to find their light and follow it. And when you do that, the rest falls into place.
Yeah. I've seen two main people die before they ever got to retirement, so I tell people, if you love what you do, and you may not make it to retire for one month a year, or retire for three days, retire doesn't mean that you don't go to work and you take vacation, vacation is different.
Retiring means you turn off everything, and you submerge yourself into a space that just gets you excited.
“Why wait, like so many people don't, and the thing I think that, and today, people forget”
is, it spans the goal, like a super high school, enter their health, it's going to reinvent, it's not over, I'm telling how we're, the living your legacy podcast for those who live, to leave a legacy. Hello, welcome back everyone to another episode of Living Your Legacy Podcasts. I'm your host again, Jason Langen, and we're here during the World Cup fever in Sunny
Miami Beach. We've come out a good time, it's nice and sunny, all the rain is coming on, but yeah, please introduce yourself where you from, and what's good? Well, I'm Allison Fowell, and it's an honor to be here, thanks. So I'm actually from the Northeast, and the United States, like Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania,
but I'm landed in San Antonio, Texas, and that's where I hail from today. Okay, so four seasons down to dry heat. Yeah, we have four seasons, they're all just different levels of heat. Oh, okay, yeah, that's, that's the joke in Asia, I lived in Asia for a while, and they're like,
“we've got three seasons, hot, hotter, and damn hot, right?”
Yeah, pretty much that's in, Antonio, with the flood in between, never seen it.
With the flood in, okay, so yeah, what's your business? I actually, and a speaker, and I write books, and I author, and so my business is really to help others find what lights up their souls so they can live a life meaningful to them. That is the business, the methods of getting the information out is the speaking in the books.
I've also been a wealth advisor for over 30 years, or actually, for 30 years, and I've just expanded into sharing that knowledge. You help people tap into their passions, right? And then help them manage their wealth as they tap in and become successful from those passions.
Well, actually, now I'm a wealth advisor, so I've been a wealth advisor for almost 30 years, and I've expanded into, and I've loved what I do. I water, it waters my soul to help others organize their assets to create a life meaningful to them, but I realized as an advisor, there's a limited number of pool of people that I could help, and I'm still doing that, I love it.
But I've expanded beyond in ways that I can reach more people who have value in what I have to offer, and really helping people know how to rise above the chaos of life.
So they don't blink one day, and their days are gone, and they never got to what waters
their soul, what is meaningful to them, so it's really about making sure that the days you get are spent in ways meaningful to you, and how to rise above everyone pulling at you. Wow. You ever hear the Japanese concept of Eka Guy?
No. No. All right. Well, it's kind of like what you're saying. It's like trying to help people tap into their passions and find meaning, and basically,
it's almost like one of those charts where it's like, you know, the Venn diagrams, right, where you have like, you got your work, you have what you like, or what you're good at, what you're passionate about, and I guess what kind of makes you money, right?
Then like three of those combined, somewhere in the middle there is your Eka ...
I probably messed that up a lot, right?
But yeah, it's a very interesting way. Check it out. Well, actually, what I would say is all of these diagrams and work-life balance and all of this finding stuff, it gets in the way of really being who you are, and I feel like if you find what waters your soul, and you do something that you could do it all day long,
you could get tired, but you don't get drained or exhausted, you are in your zone. And when you do something that waters your soul and lights up your life and can contribute to the lives of others in a way that's meaningful to you and not draining, money will come. Your days will be lived well, and so my mission or goal is to give people permission to not follow some diagram or what other people think they should do, but to have the courage
to find their light and follow it. And when you do that, the rest falls into place. It's crazy because you would think it's much easier than it is to kind of find your passion and do what you love, right?
“Like, you would think that would be the easiest thing in the world, right?”
It is so hard. You've got parental pressures, you've got societal pressures, you've got monetary pressures, and all these things, telling you no, you can't, like you said, it's almost like you're not good enough to do that, or it's all these people are scared, people are worried. And yeah, there's just so many things.
And I call that noise. And I tell people, get put earbuds to all the noise, and it's about, you know, nowadays I even see like I've got a son in college, and they were expecting him to pick his major, like when he's applying. I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So what I encourage people to do and what I hope I can give light to is that you're not supposed to know, it's a point of discovery, that it's more what you don't like, start
knowing what you don't like, what environments don't feel right to you, and what gets you excited, and when you stay open to discovery, then what happens is it's not failure to leave a job. Your relevant of title, your relevant of dollar amount, does this water my soul?
“Does this give me energy or does it derail me from things that are important to me?”
And when I say to rail, it's even just like if I'm sitting here with you today, but my mind is somewhere else, like I'd rather be somewhere else, then this is not where I belong. So when people find themselves doing something just for a dollar or just for this or just for that or, you know, you've ever agreed to something, and then you're like, oh, really, I agree to that.
So it's about knowing where you get the, and find, if you know you're getting that it, then it's time to discover your next phase and to constantly evolve and that you're
always in the making, and even me as a successful advisor 30 years, I'm ready to expand.
There's more to me than what I do as an advisor. I love what I do. I'm keep doing it, but now that I'm an empty nuster, I have more time to expand my wings even beyond, because the key thing is, and it's very interesting, people think that they have forever, and forever is not realistic, because they don't have forever.
They have a finite number of days, and they don't know when their time is up. It's pushing it back, like, oh, I'll do it after I've achieved this and that, then I can do that, right? Yeah. You're always a retirement man or whatever.
Yeah. You may never get to that. I've seen two main people die before they ever got to retirement. So I tell people, if you love what you do, and you know, you may not make it to retirement a tire for one month a year, a retire for three days.
Retired doesn't mean that you don't go to work, and you take vacation, vacation is different. Retiring means you turn off everything, and you submerge yourself into a space that just gets you excited. But why wait, like so many people don't, my dad died when I was four years old. My mom took her life when I was 15 years old.
So I was orphaned at 15. Yeah. Sorry, you're there. Well, thank you.
“The experience is my experience, and it's not good or bad, you know?”
It just is what it is, and we all have experiences. That experience taught me that tomorrow's are not promised.
That even though my dad and my mom love me, they couldn't always be there, my dad couldn't
be there for my mom. She died, you know, when I was four, she died when I was 15. All of these people, your parents telling you this, boss is telling you to this, everyone is passing through. You're just passing through.
We do not know when our time is up, our parents are passing through, our children are passing through. Who said you're supposed to have an expectation that you live to 80? I grew up with the expectation, my dad died at 38.
I was four.
I had not yet been tainted by this perception that you're supposed to get a lot of years. So because I experienced death so early, the blessing in that, which I hope everyone can get from, what I'm here to give today in this episode is that when you believe that you have a certain number of days to you, you waste the ones in the middle, you waste a lot of them. I have spent my whole life just trying to get it all in before my time is up.
And when it's not a sense of urgency, it's not a negative thing. It's just I just want to get it all in in the season of my life that I'm in. I just every season when I was four, when I was five, when I was 10 or 15 or 30, and now I'm 57. So yeah, you know, it's just about getting it all in before my time is up in a way that's
meaningful and powerful and getting it all in may mean a day of rest where I just puts
it around the house and never take a shower and eating my popcorn.
Or it could be that, you know, there's something really passionate about that I want to do. I want to spend time with my kids. I want to travel to different places. So I just get it all in before my time is up because I don't know when it will be up.
Yeah, I guess one of the saddest things is seeing someone who's lived the life of regret, right? Could it shoot a wood up, right? And they're just now at a point in their lives where I've just like, it's too late. Their body can't do what their mind wants to do or yes, it's too late.
And I, it is my hope for everyone watching the episode and everyone who, the whole purpose I'm, reason I'm doing this is because I don't want anyone to feel like it's too late. I don't want anyone to waste any day's they're given. And what you value is waste and what I value a waste are two different things. You know, it's what's meaningful to you.
And so if you're not doing something meaningful to you, it's time to move on. And what's meaningful to me is different than what's meaningful to you. You know, and it's not about being who you see on all these episodes, it's about knowing what's possible and finding what you connect with and a tool or an idea of how you can find your light and realizing that there's no such thing as mistakes and there's no such
thing as failures, there's no such thing as success because you're always evolving.
And if you're always evolving, then it's who you're going to become next and you know,
“what else do you have to offer the world?”
And so I feel like there's this perception that success means you have to have a certain amount of money or a certain title, but you have people with money and titles that are taking their lives that wake up and realize that, you know, they're going to die in the company they work for all these years is still going to be there. And the thing I think that today, people forget is they matter.
Like you matter, I matter. We all matter. And if you spend your time watering your soul and doing things that get you excited, your contributions are more meaningful, you will find the people who need what you have to offer.
You will repel the ones that don't not everyone has to agree, not everyone has to like what you have to offer, but just be true to who you are and discover who you are.
I never thought I'd be doing this when I was 30, actually when I was 15, I never thought
I'd be a weld advisor. It was because I was willing to let go of a path I took to find something that can expand me into things that get me more excited. I guess also with the advent of AI, we're supposed to be tapping into our passions more, right?
That's the idea.
“They're like, okay, no one's going to be working, right?”
Everyone's going to be just getting checks, right? So that they can buy the goods that whatever robots are making and selling, but you're going to be able to do what you love people. That's the bill of goods that they're trying to sell us, right? Yeah.
And I just think that that's a farce and it's all about internal. And it's all the chat and all this AI, it has a place to make things more efficient, but it shouldn't replace who you are and who you want to be. It's not about tapping into your passion, it's about watering your soul. It's about expanding, learning, growing, doing something that gets you excited.
So what's the difference between tapping into your passion and watering your soul? It's about living in a way that's meaningful to you and meaningful isn't always one emotion. There's this thing, I guess they're studying being happy and there's all these people, it's all about being happy, it's not about being happy.
It's about having a life that's meaningful to you.
“And if you've never been sad, how do you know what happy feels like?”
It's not about one emotion and it's not about always watering your soul means that you are expanding your soul, it means that you're doing something that gives you energy. And it's multifaceted and it's taking experiences you're exposed to and it's not, it's about not being afraid to experience things to discover what gets you excited and what
Gives you energy.
And there's this thing that you've got, and here's the issue, those people who designed what is it called work life balance, I'm convinced those are people who didn't like what they did for work. Right. Right.
And that's, when they're saying, hey, I'm giving you this paycheck to not do what you're passionate or what water's your soul, right? They have to sell you once again that false narrative of saying, hey, work life balance, right?
“Do what you love on the side on the weekends for two days while you come to work, right?”
Yeah. And then you're in the wrong job. Yeah. And so like my employees and I am an employer and you know, when I have a job that I'm posting and I'm hiring for, I make it very clear that I'm looking for someone who what
gets them excited, that job provides. And if you just want to come work for me for a paycheck, you're not being hired. Yeah. You know, because I want someone who is passionate about what they're doing and it gets them excited and what gets you excited is going to be different like it's me excited.
So my staff are in their perfect spots and they always laugh because they like found like
it just so happened, they were putting their perfect spots, but it didn't just so happen. I ask them what gets them excited, you know, what do they love about they were doing now and what do they don't like about what they're doing now, like before I hired them. Yeah. And I assessed, did what get them excited is what I have to offer?
“And if that's not a match, then they're not a good candidate.”
Of course. And if they ever outgrow their positions, then I want them, if I can't, if that position can't grow into where they want to be or where I need them to be, then I want them to find their next space. Because, you know, people die in their 20s or 30s or 50s or 60s, no one should be sacrificing
the days that they're blessed to get in a space that just sucks the life out of them. For sure.
I always curious of how they fill some of these jobs and like the government that are
paper pushing and all these like bull, like boring, meaningless jobs. It's like, wow, how do you feel those positions? And that's because you find them boring and meaningless because they don't get you excited. I have clients who love it. They love the fact that they can come in, they can complete a task, they've got a beginning
and an end. They're making sure people get a social security check, they're making people, sure, they get their food stamps or making sure, you know. I guess that is a different kind of mentality in mindset of the organization and just the, yeah.
You know, like everybody needs something different and that's their space. If it grounds them and it gives them peace and then they can lead and those kinds of jobs, you leave your work at the job, right? It doesn't overflow, you know, everyone is different and honoring that everyone's different.
“And I'll never forget when I left being a university chief of police to actually being”
insurance agent and start in the financial services, leaving a very nice salary job for 100% commission. But it didn't water my soul. I thought, oh my god, I'm 27 years old. I've been a chief of police for like five, six years.
I was an EMT before that I loved being an EMT. And I kept getting promoted and I became a chief and I was good at it. But I just thought, this is not how I want to live my life, this certain elements of it. It's not what I want for how I want to live my life. And I need to free that job for someone who does want to live their life that way.
So that I can find what gets me excited and where my talents are valued and where I can, I can have more autonomy and be who I want to be. And I stumbled across New York Life and I life securities insurance doing insurance.
And I'll never forget, he said to me, at first I thought, in insurance agent, like I've
got a master's degree in administration, undergrad in economics and communications. I mean, like insurance and he said to me, you can be anything you want in this position. Yeah. But we are a life insurance company first. And I said, what's life insurance?
And he said, it's the power of a pen to put money where it needs to be, this day, it needs to be there. I called a family member, I said to dad have life insurance, they said it lap six months before he died. I knew right then in there, that's exactly where I belonged.
And I would have never discovered it if I didn't have the hotspot, which is yet as Jewish hotspot. But that's to say that even though I was good at this other job and I kept getting promoted, it wasn't how I wanted to live my life, I just stayed open and I knew what I didn't want in my next career.
But I knew that I wanted something that watered my soul. And I knew right then in there that that's where I belonged. And I've done that for almost 30 years, it'll be 30 years next year. But I also have discovered that there's more I have to give. And there's a limited number of people I can serve in that role.
And I'm still doing it. But I wanted to expand and do the books and the public speaking and get the word out. Because my clients have told me and people I've interacted with, oh my God, just the way
You see the world helps me rise above the chaos.
Well, there's an infectious energy that you put out.
You know, I could see that you're just so passionate and you're just like, you just want people to live, you know, because I wanted to live before their time is up and we set work for them, not their parents, not their friends. You know, when my son said to me, mom, I'm not like you, I don't want to go to college. I don't know what I want to do, but I want to do something more hands on.
“I got a big market for you, the Asian mom market, you know, and their Asian sons, right?”
Yeah. And their father's Asian, my ex-husband is Asian, and so he's like, I don't want to be like you. There's a lot of break dancing Filipino nurses out there, right? That are just, you know, break dancing towards the the files or whatever, and it's like hmm,
think you're kind of in the wrong position. There are in the wrong position, and I told my son, I was so proud of him for understanding that my track isn't his track, and that I just want him to find where he belongs, and he stumbled, and he just didn't heat down, he's a combo welder, and he loves it. He is in his zone, he's got his hood on, he's doing his, well, I mean, he is just in his
glory, and he's good at it because he loves it. And so he keeps getting jobs and more pay and all this, but he loves what he does, but he knows it's going to be relatively short-lived because of the physical endurance on it. But my other son who's often college, you know, he, same thing, it's like, I don't really know what I want to be, like, I don't have the direction, I said, that's good.
I didn't know either, and they forget that, you know, they've seen me as this wealth advisor, and this, you know, powerful woman who does all of this, but I said, you know, it took me five or six occupations to figure out and find my light, and I said, you know, you
go discover, use college to discover, figure out, and you can always change your mind.
Don't stay in something because it was a path you chose. I have clients who chose to be an attorney or this and that, and when I work with them, they're just like miserable, and they're trying to find light outside this, well, why
“are you spending 40, 80 hours a week doing something that sucks?”
Find something else, you know, and I think the courage to just, you know, realize that you matter is really important. That is very important, so you do matter, right? And thank you for being here, but how do people find you? So they can find me by going to Alice in Flam.com, and it's Alice in one L, L, L, I, S,
O, N, Flam, F, L, A, U, M, dot com, and you can find the books I've got some books going to print. I love to speak on corporate and association platforms. I do a three day intensive where it's a virtual live workshop, anyone in the world, they can come, and it's really about sanity at the top, rising above chaos, and creating a
life that's meaningful to you for the days you're given. All right. Well, thank you so much for joining us here, and thank you guys for joining us. If you guys want to tune into her episode, which will be airing in a few months, but yeah,
she's had this amazing childhood being the EMT growing past that and just finding and discovering,
living from a bad situation, finding the silver lining in that, and just saying, hey,
“you are worth it, live your life to the fullest, right?”
And yeah, if that interests you and it should, right, tune into her episode, it's amazing. I can't wait to see you there. I have one more thing that really helps you get through all this chaos and life events. When you understand that you're just passing through, you're just passing through life. We don't know when it's going to end.
You realize that experiences are just experiences. They're not good. They're not bad. And it's up to you. You have the power to choose and the power to what you want to do with it.
And that's everyone's power if they are willing to find it and use it. Amazing. So, thank you so much for joining us here, and thank you guys for joining us again, and we'll see you next time on the Living Your Legacy Podcast. Cheers, everyone.
Cheers. (upbeat music)
