B.O.O.S.T. Podcast
B.O.O.S.T. Podcast
Structuring Family Like a Business to Build Wealth with LaVaisha Davis| EP166
What does it mean to build family wealth that goes beyond money? LaVaisha Davis shares how everyday families can structure themselves like a business and manage wealth like pros through her Family Wealth Operating System, led by the “Family CEO.”
LaVaisha breaks down common myths about wealth‑building, shares how families can create their own wealth‑building ecosystems, and offers practical steps for those who feel behind or overwhelmed to reclaim their financial story. Listeners will walk away with a fresh perspective on legacy, leadership, and the power of treating family as the most important enterprise of all.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lavaisha-davis-cepa%C2%AE-27094b208/
Website: https://lavaishadavis.com/
FREE Download “The Family Fortune Playbook”: www.mywealthandlegacy.com
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Announcer:This is the B.O.O.S.T.® Podcast.
LaVaisha Davis:One misunderstanding that most families have is when we imply family wealth, they think that that means we need to have one business and everybody works within it, and now there needs to be a boss and somebody has to report, and it's about ownership, and there's some common misnomers in there. It's not about that at all. You don't have to work in the same business. We just have to be in the business of working together. That's the primary objective, number one.
Kelly Leonard:That was LaVaisha Davis. LaVaisha is a speaker, wealth advisor, and founder of Ell Wess Advisors, a virtual family office wealth management firm that helps everyday families structure their family like a business and manage their wealth like pros through family wealth operating systems, led by the family CEO. In this episode, she shares strategies to tap into new markets. I'm Kelly Leonard, and this is the Boost Podcast.
Announcer:Welcome to the B.O.O.S.T.® Podcast, the podcast created to ignite your business and career potential. In each episode, hosts Kelly Leonard and her guests dive into one aspect of Kelly's signature boost framework, ensuring you get practical, actionable insights, tips, and takeaways to build your brand, optimize relationships, obtain more leads, secure thought leadership space, and tap into new markets. And now, here's Kelly Leonard.
Kelly Leonard:Hi there, LaVaisha. Welcome to the Boost Podcast. Thank you. I'm so glad to be here. Excellent, excellent. And so for folks who are hearing your name for the very first time, tell us a bit more about yourself.
LaVaisha Davis:Absolutely. So I'm LaVaisha Davis. I'm a private wealth manager and founder of Ell Wess Advisors, which is a boutique wealth management firm that focuses on bringing family office solutions to first generation wealth creators, specifically for uh founders or those that have entrepreneurs or successful businesses, but doing it for the first time in the history of their family. And from there, we help people build multi-generational wealth.
Kelly Leonard:Love it. And so let's start with the foundation. How do you define family wealth and why is it so much more than just money?
LaVaisha Davis:Well, that's a great way to start the conversation. I think it's perfect because many of us are operating under a surface level definition, but there's a forensic level definition. So the surface level definition would be wealth is just like an accumulation of your financial assets, right? Like the money, how much you can grow it, how much you can make. But when we are talking about building out wealth that can sustain past the first generation, that's a totally different definition. So the mathematical equation, if we want to say, of what the definition of wealth is, it is four sources of capital. So it is not only the financial assets or financial capital, but it's the financial capital plus the intellectual capital plus the social capital plus the human capital equals family wealth or the wealth of a family. It's totally more dependent on the value of the human capital than the financial capital.
Kelly Leonard:Wow. Okay, that's powerful. And so one of the terms that I know that you often use is family CEO in your work. And so what does that role look like in practice and why is it critical for building legacy?
LaVaisha Davis:Well, the family CEO role is so critical because it requires a mindset shift. You have to now not only see your family as the loving, caring environment that you created, but you got to understand that your family is a business. You are not just mom and dad. Your founder, your co-founder, your president, your vice president, your CEO, CFO. And what we try to get the mindset shift is once you start to see your family as a business and that it can run like a business, someone has to lead it with authority and with intent and with vision. And that's what that family CEO is. And just like any other successful corporation, the CEO is responsible for now building out the rest of the executive team, how to take this business to the next level. So if we want multi-generational wealth, if we want to change the trajectory of our family, we need a leader involved. And that's what that family CEO is all about. Wow, I love that.
Kelly Leonard:You look, you are speaking my language. So, okay, so then what are when we think about, because all of this sounds sounds wonderful, but what are some common myths or misunderstandings that family ha families can have about wealth building and how do you help them sort of rewrite some of those narratives?
LaVaisha Davis:So one misunderstanding is that most families have is when we imply family wealth, they think that that means we need to have one business and everybody works within it, and now there needs to be a boss and somebody has to report, and it's about ownership, and there's some common misnomers in there. It's not about that at all. You don't have to work in the same business. We just have to be in the business of working together. That's the primary objective, number one. Number two, families tend to tie to ownership. Like I have to own this, so my business, my real estate has to go to my children. That's how we're going to maintain ownership, and that's how we're going to create wealth. But there's a big difference and a significant difference between legal ownership and beneficial ownership. We can still have something that benefits us without us trying to fight over who owns it. And the last part I think that really holds us back, things that tend to uh some things that people have misconstrued is the time horizon we should be thinking about. Uh, we tend to be very short-sighted because of everything that's robbing our attention right now. So we're caught in the daily dynamics instead of the wealth dynamics would have to go in a much longer time horizon. So some traditional financial planning will be centered around where the timeline is retirement. I just want to have a comfortable, confident, secure retirement. Uh, but that's a totally different path than if you say to an advisor like myself of I want to build multi-generational wealth, well, then the timeline is continuity.
Kelly Leonard:Yeah.
LaVaisha Davis:There, it's infinite. It's not about how I can have a confident retirement, it's about how long can we make this last over at least three generations. So when someone says short-term in traditional planning, they may think five years. But short term in our planning is 25 years. And long term, they may think that's 20 years, that's retirement, but long term in our planning is a hundred years because we're trying to embody and plan for three generations. So time horizon, ownership, vision, the all of these things play into our ability to see a little bit deeper and further and beyond our own personal needs and start to think about other people and how to embody the family or get them involved at least.
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Kelly Leonard:And so I know it's really easy for folks to hear what you're sharing and perhaps think in terms of a business enterprise, but you're referring to the enterprise of the family. So it could be that mom and dad are traditional W-2 employees, but the good the vision and the goal is even inside of whatever you're called to do, whatever your your work is, is the goal of which is for the family to still have a CEO of the family. The family's not necessarily a, I don't know, doesn't have an EIN number per se, um, but it's operating as if it is an enterprise. Is that what you're saying?
LaVaisha Davis:No, I'm actually saying the opposite. The family does have an EIN. Um, what I'm saying is we want to separate our income engine from our wealth engine. Okay. How we make money is one system, and we do need to create a totally separate legal structure that's for us to preserve and grow our money.
Kelly Leonard:Ah, okay. So I'm glad I asked that question because I'm I assume that if I had the question, other people who are listening may have the question too. Yes. Okay, so that that's it. So again, it could be that mom and dad are traditional W-2 employees, but then separate and apart from that, there is a legal enterprise or entity that is the family, like b family business wealth creation, this wealth generation engine that's operating behind the scenes to create this multi-generational wealth.
LaVaisha Davis:That's absolutely correct. Because most of the time anything that we do personally is tied to us personally, and we all have expiration dates. So we have to create a system that doesn't have that expiration date. Got it. And survive beyond us. So we call it separating our operating business since we serve more founders and entrepreneurs, but we separate the operating business from the wealth business.
Kelly Leonard:Got it. Okay. And so you talk about creating wealth-building ecosystems within families. And so what does that look like? And how can our listeners begin building one today?
LaVaisha Davis:Yeah, so that's exactly what I'm talking about. That ecosystem is that legal structure that's going to represent where you preserve and grow your wealth. And the first step that anyone can take, because I don't like to express this like all advisors think this way. Um, there is a certain type of wealth management solution that you're seeking. So, what we offer is something called a family office structure. So, for those that aren't familiar with that wealth management style, it's because it was designed that way. It was initially preserved for those that are worth $100 million or more, and to have a set of professionals focusing all of their expertise on their financial plans. Now, of course, that's it becomes expensive to employ all of those professionals, or there's a value to it, but there is a cost with that. So the first step that most people can do is start to build out that advisory team to provide them that same type of solution to give them what we call like a decision center. Most of our financial decisions are we're winging it. We're just basing it off of fragmented information. We're basing it off of things that our friends and families have heard or our readings or our social media content, whether we structure it to be positive or whatever the case may be, but we're it's it's pieced together versus having a place where you can see your financial position from all angles and make an informed decision. So the first thing you can do is, hey, I need to build an advisory team that can build this decision center for me. That's it. And if we don't have an advisory team that can do that, that's problem number one. That's why it goes from uh rags to riches to rags again. Right, right. The word tells us where there is no counsel, the people will fail. But in abundance of counsel, there will be victory. So if you want financial victory, you have to seek counsel.
Kelly Leonard:For sure. Wow. Okay, and so to that point, because oftentimes, you know, a confused mind does nothing. And so for families who feel perhaps behind or maybe overwhelmed, what's one powerful first step? I now I know you you probably gonna say the decision center and fine, build your but but what can they do? Perhaps maybe it's a second step, because I'd imagine you would probably say that that's the first step. What first step can they take, or additional step can they take to reclaim their financial story and start building with intention?
LaVaisha Davis:If I could be direct, there is no additional step because that also leads to an implication that this is a DIY situation. It's not a DIY situation. It is absolutely impossible to build multi-generational wealth by yourself. So the first, that's why I say the first step you can do is source your advisory. You don't have to take steps right away. Interview, talk to, conversate, get in the rooms, whatever that may look like of assembling that advisory, but that has to be the first step. So you someone can give you a blueprint, some clarity, a path without it's not a DIY situation. We are in dire straits right now when it comes to at least our particular community to get in front of or at least make it past the starting line. We're so far behind the starting line with intent, like it's not 100% our fault, but we have a hundred percent opportunity to change that.
Kelly Leonard:Yeah, no, and I definitely appreciate your your you know, it is not, it's not a DIY because if it was, you would we wouldn't be you like you would already be there, right? So let me ask the question a little bit differently. If someone realizes that, okay, you know what, I need that advisory, sort of that structure the advisory uh group, that council, multitude of counsel around me, what is the question or what is one question that I should ask someone? Because you also mentioned something about perhaps interviewing people and finding who. So, what is a question I might ask someone who I'm considering to be a part of my advisory team?
LaVaisha Davis:Great question. So the one thing I would ask was what type of advisor are you? Because there's three different types of advisors. So, number one is a more product-oriented advisor. They are just providing you a solution that's tied to a financial product. It may be able to help you eliminate debt, it may help you grow your investments, it may help you secure your legacy. There may be something but it's tied to a financial product. There may be an investment advisor where their primary expertise and objection is to grow your investments. Just to make sure you never run out of money or something like that. The last type is what we consider like a holistic advisor. One who is completely reviewing your financial picture from every perspective: legal, financial, tax, estate, wealth transfer, and building you a plan based on the position that you're in, and then can provide active stress testing or scenario-based planning that says, hey, if this happens, this is what becomes a threat or a weakness or a strength, et cetera. If this happens, this is how we will make sure we survive that. Because when we're talking about multi-generational wealth, there's things in there we can't control. Political changes, um, economic changes and cycles that it goes through. So your plan is not to put it on the shelf and forget. It's something that needs to be adjusted, maybe pivoted. So your your advisor needs to be able to either provide that for you or assemble the team that can help do that for you. So that's a great question to start with. Just tell me what type of advisor you are.
Kelly Leonard:Awesome. Love it, love it. And so if folks are interested in tapping into your firm, your advisory firm services, what's the best way for them to be in touch with you?
LaVaisha Davis:Absolutely. So the first way I like to, I am on every platform through my direct name just to keep it easy. So it's just Levasia Davis, and I'm sure you'll have the spelling somewhere, but that's in LinkedIn, that's Instagram, that's Facebook, etc. You are always welcome to go to one of those platforms and click the link in any of those bios if that is something that works better for you. You can also join our community at mywealthandlegacy.com. And that's where you can go and actually download a free ebook about becoming that family CEO, that mindset transformation that you need to make. And from there, um, you have the opportunity. If you are prepared to take it a step further, um, you know that you have the resources, you know that you have the capability, you have the mentality already. From there, you can actually schedule a time with us and we can see and you can apply to see if you can work with our firm if it's a best fit, if it's time to actually take your family to the next level. So mywealthandlegacy.com is where you go for that community and that ebook. But please feel free to connect with me on social media platforms if we uh have some baby steps we have to take.
Kelly Leonard:Awesome. LaVaisha. Thank you so much for your time. Definitely appreciate everything that you're doing to create this multi-generational wealth.
LaVaisha Davis:Absolutely. It's been my pleasure. And thank you for the great questions. That helps. I'm sure that brings some additional clarity to the listeners.
Kelly Leonard:Absolutely.
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