April 2, 2025 • 33 mins
Ashley M. Fox on Financial Advice, Her Wall Street Journey, Mark Cuban's Bold Advice + More
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up this way?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
But Angela yee, I'm here with my girls Stacy Tisdale
for Wealth Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Happy Wealth Wednesday's everybody woo. We are so excited today
to have the one, the only Ashley Fox on the
show to fill your heads with financial wisdom. We are
so proud of what Ashley has done with her own
life and her own career. She's a former Wall Street
analyst and we were just talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Wall Street already. I'm totally talking about Wall Street.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And she founded Impify, which is an incredible financial education
platform in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And power and Modify yes, Empifi yes.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And she's an HBCU grad and super proud of you
for this. Ink Magazine has ranked you one of the
top five hundred female founders. So we are not messing
around at all. And right off the bat, what the
heck terms up? Where are we right now? So what
are like the top two pieces of financial advice you're
(01:03):
giving the people in this crazy environment?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
So I would say the first thing is breathed, because
this is actually the best time to learn. This is
the best time to learn, this is the best time
to grow. And I always tell people when it's like
when we go shopping on Black Friday and everything's on sale,
we have no problem with all prices dropping and we
go shopping. But what about in the stock market some
of the biggest and best companies prices are dropping, which
(01:28):
means we're getting it on sale. And think about it. Though,
people get so scared of the stock market when it's up,
and it we're scared of it when it's down. So
when do we actually start to invest? And so one
I would say, breathe, this is your time to read
to learn. We're not using emotion. We are operating off
of logic because our family's legacy is way bigger than
any presidential election, any country that we live in. It's
(01:49):
just so much more important. The other thing I would
say is getting the game. This is the time to
really build wealth, like I think about So when I
was at Howard in two thousand and eight, because I
graduated twenty and ten, I watched the stock market crash
from my dorm room TV, and I didn't really know
too much about what was going on because I'm trying
to get on Wall Street. But when I was on
Wall Street, I worked on individuals that had at least
twenty five million dollars, and I watched how they made
(02:11):
money as a result of the two thousand and eight crash,
and I said, I am not missing out on this opportunity.
So when the pandemic happened and the stock market crash,
I went crazy, Like I went shopping in the market
and I was buying some of the biggest and best companies,
and I made a ton of money because while the
market was scared, eventually we survived the pandemic. So just
as much as we've survived every stock market crash, why
(02:32):
won't we survive this stock market crash or whatever's going on.
I don't know how we want.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
To classify it, but it's just volatile.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
When I think about just people like we are one
hundred percent undefeated at life. This can't stop us. This
won't stop us. Let's use this as an opportunity to win,
to grow, to learn, and to build.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, stay with that for just a minute, because we
were talking about how Aerial Investments found that Blacks, even
though they're the largest group of first time investors to
the stock market, the first people to pan excel yes
and the falling market and think about it, a lot
of them are first time investors. We have more responsibilities
taking care of friends and family financially than other groups have.
(03:13):
And it's new to us. A lot of us didn't
have that education growing up in our homes. But you
haven't lost a penny and tell you so.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yes, you only guarantee your loss when you sell. And
I always tell people. Let's say you were to buy
a house for one hundred thousand, right, and then something
happens in the market and the value of your home
drops of fifty thousand. So you bought the house for
one hundred, it dropped to fifty What are you.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Doing with the house staying there?
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Why you lost fifty percent of your money? It's just
why do you want to keep it? You lost money already.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Right, Well, if you sell it, then you really lost money,
right and it could possibly back up.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
So the same thing works with some of the most
biggest and best companies in America. Right, So I think
you guarantee a loss when you sell. But again, the
way I see it is, if it's a company you like,
a company you've researched, a company you believe will be
around the next five to ten fifteen years, why not
just get it at a lower price? Point. And this
is not for getting rich quick by the way people
of color carry but it's and rightfully so though there's
(04:06):
a lot of fear, there's a lot, a lot of doubt,
we have every right to feel.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Like a lot of every right things are a scam
and we have every right.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
But it's being able to understand the language of money,
because if you understand the language and you understand the
stock market, when you buy a stock, you're not buying
You're not buying a stock, You're not buying a price.
You're owning a piece of a business. You are actually
part owner of a business. And interestingly enough, our black
dollar is the reason these businesses exists. We have trillion
dollar businesses in America because we love to shop and
I like nice things. I love the shop, but I
(04:35):
also but I also own some of the companies that
I give my money to. Right you know, you have
to think about it like.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
That and your story I also said there was a
period of time when you really went on.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
A shopping.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I want to hear about that because you're just like
what I love about you is that you know we
follow you on social media. You're always giving advice, but
you're also just like us and I it's easier for
me to look at somebody who's been through some things
that I've been through and came through on the other
side successfully. And now you've learned some things. So talk
to us about that period of time you were doing
well financially.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It was, Yes, So I was on Wall Street, and
every day when I'm on Wall Street, I'm in the
bank accounts of millionaire as a millionaire, so I'm seeing
where they shop, where they live, travel, what they invested in.
And I felt like I was on the wrong end
of the table. And when I would go back home
to Philly, where I'm from, I'm making six figures, but
like I don't have at least twenty five million. And
I just felt like, for something we're using every day
of our life, why is it not talking about school system?
(05:31):
Why did I have to go to Howard work on
Wall Street to really understand how to buy a stock?
You know? And so I always wanted to be a teacher,
though I actually nobody knows that, but I felt like
I had to chase the money. I was chasing the money,
I was chasing the reputation everything, And so I decided
to leave because I wanted to build something that targeted
the ninety nine percent that Wall Street often overlooks. Now,
(05:52):
this was back in twenty thirteen, so entrepreneurship was not sexy.
Instagram just started to kind of get like start to
people started post picture and things like that. But I
felt like something inside of me was like, you are
that girl. You are able to translate this Wall Street
knowledge bring it to these everyday people. But you understand
Wall Street and you understand how they feel. Because I
didn't grow up with rich parents like we grew up
(06:14):
middle class. My family bought stocks because I open their
investment accounts. I funded their accounts. So when I left
Wall Street, I had thirty thousand dollars when I could.
So I'm rich and I'm never wearing stockings again, and
I'm just like, you know, I'm gonna figure this thing out, right,
But I had this idea and I made up this
word right called empify, because I really wanted to shift
our mindset because building wealth is not just about Hey,
(06:35):
let me teach you what a stock is. Because you
have the information on the internet. When you lack empowerment,
you speak into people and not at people, you can
start to change the way they sing it. So when
we think about emplify, it's the word empower. We're going
to empower you to say, hey, if you want to
start with five dollars, we're gonna build wealth with five dollar.
We're gonna have five dollars our way till we get
to a million. But when you start to empower people
and you give them education, it changes them, which is
(06:57):
where modify comes from. So I had this big vision
I'm going to changed the world. I don't know how,
I just know why, and it's gonna be Ashley Fox.
And in the midst of that, you don't make money
every two weeks, and so I'm still traveling. I think
I had just went to Thailand. I die I was traveling,
but I'm still thinking. You know, I'm living the life
of a woman who worked on Wall Street. But when
the money stops coming and you're still spending, the math
(07:18):
was a mathing. So I ended up getting kicked out
my Harlem apartment and I had to move back to
Philly in my parents' house. And I think I needed
that because I was so stuck on I'm Ashley. I
worked on Wall Street like this. It was such an
identifier to me, and I need.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
To think somewhere the money is just gonna serve.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, I just didn't. I don't know if my head
was big, but it was like I was that girl, right.
But it's like I'm now teaching a subject of something
I don't have because I'm not paying my rent. I'm
traveling the world struggling trying to build this business of
which I have no idea what that means. I'm made
an LLC in twenty fourteen. We didn't make money in
m Fox was twenty seventeen, so I'm thinking I'm doing
(07:56):
it right. But it's just I don't know. I didn't
know what I was doing, and so when I lost everything.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Pause right, there is not normal. Try entrepreneurs. You're gonna
feel like you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I still don't feel like what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
You go ahead, and sometimes you can educate yourself on
something and still feel like every day I can't teach
you what it is that you need to do to
run a business success.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
They missed that class at Howard because every day I
wake up and I don't Ninety five percent of my
life right now is something I've never seen before. But
my vision and my belief in Ashley and what emplify
I can do for the world. I mean, Grant, we've
been doing this for a while, so I know we're
really good at what we do. But that's what you
have to hold on to. And it was a point
(08:42):
when I lost everything. It's like I could not unsee
Wall Street wealth. I couldn't un see the billionaire of
bank accounts. I couldn't unsee the yachts in the South
of France. I couldn't unsee those things. And I know
I started and I started to do the Wall Street stuff.
So I didn't get a big guy in France. I
did go to the France. I got, yeah, like, I'm
traveling like our clients, because I've truly believed successfully is clues,
(09:05):
just follow the blueprint. If they're buying stocks. While they
started with one hundred million, I started with one hundred dollars.
They're going to the South of France. Let me save
up my money. And I'm watching all the rich people
go to South France, and I wanted to become that
and I felt like there's no difference between me and you.
I just am not in the right space, and I
feel like you truly build wealth when you invest in
somebody else's idea or your own idea, and I chose
(09:25):
to do both. I knew if I stayed on Wall
Street making the money I was making, which was good money,
if I was there for ten years, I still was
not qualified to be that client. And I knew I
deserved to be that client. I just needed to figure
out the how part. And I think Amplify and the
desire to change the world then led me to figuring
out the finances and making the money. But I also
(09:45):
never started emplify to make money. If that was because
I want to say, on Wall Street, I wanted to
essentially target the people Wall Street did not want to
target or care to target, and I felt like we
all deserved this information, which is the majority. Yeah. So
it was just so much bigger than me. And when
I lost everything, I still held on to like, I
know what's possible.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I also difficult, though, because I know, going from Wall
Street to media and then an entrepreneurship entrepreneurs you're there's
gonna be financial ups and downs. It's just the nature
of entrepreneurship, teaching financial wellness, teaching about money. When as
an entrepreneur you're experiencing the ups and downs. Did you
(10:26):
ever struggle with those contradictions? Sometimes?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I did.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
I remember when I was getting kicked out, people thought
I was a millionaire, and I'm just I would read
articles people would write and I'm just like you. I'm
living at my parents' house for two years, sleeping on
their couch. And but here's the thing though, and I
say this to everybody, regardless of the balance in your
bank account, it is not a direct correlation to who
you believe you'll become. So I would walk and talk
like I ran a billion dollar bus, like right now
(10:51):
on social media, I call myself the billion dollar CEO
because the ashy that got to her first million is
not the ashy that's going to create a billion dollar business.
So I have to train and I dress like a
billion dollar ceo. Am I running my team like a
billion dollar ceo? And so a lot of therapy helped
to Yeah, I was going to I did. I started going.
But the biggest thing, and again, it's not even bout money,
it's about your just your mental your mindset, Like you
(11:14):
have to be so resilient, so focused and not let
the doubts, the fears, the worry because they exist, but
it cannot be the loudest voice in your head. So
I believed Ashley was going to change the world a
lot more than I believed Ashley couldn't figure it out.
And I think to those little wins you get as
an entrepreneur, like the Ink Top female founders, like it
came at the moment where I feel like what am
(11:35):
I doing in my business and it's just like, oh
my gosh, thank you guys, and it just gives you yeah.
And so I still feel it to this day.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So I want to ask you something about what Mark
Cuban said because this went viral. I know you have
to see this stacy where he said at south By
Southwest he was on a panel with Tabatha Brown and
he talked about black women founders right, and he said,
I would tell you not to.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Look for funding.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You have to figure out a way to you sweat
equity to build it on your own, even if it
means starting smaller and slower, because there is a learning process,
and it's twofold. One is learning about your business and
making it loanworthy. Then two is learning the language of
those making loans.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So you know, we.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Already as black women have a huge funding gap. Black
women business owners who apply for funding face a three
time higher rejection rate than that of white business owners,
and only two percent of venture capital funding in the
US goes to female only founding teams. What do you
think about what markubits? Because I saw people arguing in
the comments.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
About it, so mister funded Arlen Hamilton.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So I saw she waited in on it too.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Okay, So interestingly enough, when I started Amplify, the venture
capital thing, it existed because I saw our clients doing it.
But it wasn't like a thing right. I did not
know about venture capital. I didn't I couldn't get a
loan when I was trying to get not get evicted
from my apartment. So I figured I wasn't qualified for debt.
I already had student loans, and for me, I was
(12:57):
just so much bigger and I was going to figure
it out. So I bootstrap Empify to this day because
I didn't know money was accessible. Regardless of what the
stats say to me, you can tell me what a
stat says when it comes to me coming to emplify.
When it comes to me building wealth. Wealth doesn't have
a color. Therefore it looks just like me. I don't
care if you identify me as a black woman. I
am actually Marie Fox is beautiful being in this world.
(13:18):
I'm gonna figure this out. So knowing that I don't
let stats like that or comments like that deter me
from you're gonna want to buy my company. I'm going
to build a scalable business. But I think the advantage
that I had is when I left Wall Street, I
would well while I was there too, I would see
how our clients invested in startups. I would sit in
(13:38):
Harvard Angel investor meetings seeing these cool companies. But the
questions they're asking them, I'm just like, oh, I never
thought of it like that, And so I always just
I remember there's like this woman one time she did nails.
She not to do shoeshine around companies. There was a
woman who didn't nails. I'm like, this is so cool.
So she goes and Fortune five hundred companies and she's
doing nails and I was so fascinated. Room. Everyone said,
(14:00):
you're not in the business of no one ls. You're
in the business of hiring and firing people. And I said, oh, wow,
you are. So Now as an investor, I'm not investing
in your product or service, I'm investing your ability to
hire and fire people. And it just made me think
about what is a scalable business that can be sold
and someone could could win as a result of your business.
And so I've always had that advantage. I've also been
(14:22):
coached by people of all nationalities too, from the people
that are from the coaches, I have, the therapists that
I have the spiritual advisor I because Wall Street was
not a all black thing, right it was, and I
don't see color that way. For me. It's like, if
I have if I need an answer, whoever is the
smartest person in the room, I'm getting the answer from you,
despite what you look like, because I am worth that investment.
(14:44):
And so when I hear things like that, I see
life as a different point because I struggled my way
to build Amplify because I did not know. I now
sometimes talk the founders who don't even know how to
make money, just want to get money for their idea,
which is fine.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But I learned.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
A lot more about my business not having that advantage
of someone just giving me money. Now I can go
and people pitch me all the time to try to
buy my company to get access to capital. But here's
the thing people don't talk about when someone gives you money.
Now they are part on of your business and for
somebody the answers to them. Yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I never investors.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yeah, and I'm not against that because again, if I'm
your investor or, you better give me a return. So
I'm gonna be all in your business rightfully.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
But when I created Emplify like the green and Emplify
represents the heart chakra, like, this wasn't about how do
I make the most money, It was about how do
I help people build the most wealth? So me changing
the world mattered more than my bottom line. It just
so happened that my desire to change the world ended
up becoming a profitable business. So now I can change
the world. I can build wealth, but I can also
(15:51):
create something that helps everybody else build wealth, despite who
they are. So I'm not saying that raising capital or
taking out on I can say that the grit that
you get from building a business from a bootstrap standpoint
is different than somebody who was able to get money,
and it doesn't make them either founder better. I just
(16:12):
feel different. But here's the downside to that a lot
of the problems that I went through could have been
solved if I had.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Money right, it could have been an easier journey.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
But I don't change my story. And now now that
I'm smarter, I like that I went that route because
I wouldn't dare have somebody coming to Amplify to tell
me you better go start teaching cryptocurrency because that's the
thing and it's going to make you more money. When
it's like, no, that's not what I do, that's not
what I want to give the world. But you care
(16:44):
more about bottom line. I care more about closing a
wealth gap, and if we're not aligned with that, then
I can't put you on my cat table.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
What it just made me think of a whole new
term community bootstrapping. Are you noticing that we started a
real estate club and the community actually it's kind of
their own economy. They do deals with each other, and
we work with our group works with lenders and stuff
when people need it. But I'm noticing all these trends
where there's like a meta group of women from New
(17:10):
Orleans who started an investment in entrepreneurship group. They started
almost like a lending circle with each other Are you
noticing that more in our community post administration?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Yes, But I think I think the world is just changing.
I think we now know. Like if I think about
where the error my parents were raised in, You're taught
to go to school, get a job. You get the
job so you can pay them, you hope somebody, yeah,
and you wait for a pension, right, and that worked
for that generation. Times are different. I mean, you can
make money on YouTube, like I can make money on Instagram.
There's so many ways to create wealth. I'm just all
(17:44):
for you not solely relying on just having a job.
Because I also don't think entrepreneurship is for everybody. If
you would have told me I was gonna go through
what I went through when I left Wall Street, I
probably would have second guessed it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, but I.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Got to a point where I was in too deep
and I knew too much. I couldn't get out. But
it's not for everybody. But I do believe we are
becoming more resourceful. We are not settling, We are trying
to figure it out. We are falling. We are getting
back up because we know we cannot just depend on
a system. We can't depend on our jobs. But the
opportunities are just different now. So I think the world
(18:17):
is I think the pandemic did it a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It did, but because it also made us not have
to fly out for meetings and be able to do
so many things, you know, just over the internet that before,
like even me doing my show from home, we were
never able to do that, but now I could travel,
bring a kid with me, do my show from whatever.
Because that wasn't something that I heart was really trying
to do.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
But even you know, I remember Dominica. Yeah, we did
Wednesdays is locked in Dominica for six months.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
But that was not something we would have done, you
know that.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
To figure it out. So I think when the fire
is put under us, we will thrive.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
That was actually one of our best years. We had
an event. I remember we had an event planned here
in March and then everything got locked down and I've
got locked in Dominica and I'm just like, let's pivot
to a virtual model, and all of a sudden we
could do so much more and we did.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah, we made the most money out at Amplified doing
when the market crashed, like and because of what we do,
we help people create the money else. Yeah, it was like,
we are not going through this crash without me telling
the internet. You better stop being scared and start really
understanding what is happening in America. And that's why they
(19:32):
printed to trillion dollars stimulus checks because they needed you
to spend to give to the companies that are in
the stock market. So what are we doing? How we
gonna win?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
What do you say to people who are like, Okay,
I have money in my savings, but I'm scared to
make a move, and maybe it's not enough money to
say right now, you know, buy a house. So they think, right,
but they just have money, it's sitting in their savings
account and they're like, I just want to hold on
to my cash.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I'll first ask how's that gotten you so far? Right, Like,
I don't know anybody that has saved their way to
wealth or has worked, has worked, has worked their way
to wealth. But I also think it's coming from a
lack mindset. Justifiable, But also let's talk about where that
(20:16):
fear is coming from and who you want to be.
What if we win in spite of our fears. What
if we grow in spite of our fears? Because you
can't live in fear, your entire life. You you are
worthy of building wealth. But just ask yourself, how has
we know so many people that have good jobs, make
good money, own a home, but still aren't wealthy. So
it's like, well, what else are we doing? There has
(20:36):
to be something more. How about we bet on you?
How about you become the investment. You make the investment
in yourself to not do what has been ingrained in
your mind. Because if we really want to get technical,
the banking system wants you to put your money in
a savings account because they take that money and they
loan it to people. They're making money out of a
savings account. There is no America. They need you. They
(20:57):
need you to take out debt, and they need you
to take out loans. That is how America runs. So
of course, but when I if I sit and tell
you what I saw on Wall Street, if our clients
had money sitting in a savings account, it was our
job to work with the investors, the entire team to
figure out how to put that money to work. Why
is it that we are always working for money and
money is our money is not working for us? Just
(21:18):
like you have a job description, your money needs a
job description. Sitting down chilling in a savings account. It
is not going to get you the life that you want.
You're not sitting down chilling when you're working for the money.
So give the money a job, put it to work
so we can start giving you some return on your investment.
Because as the economy shifts, so there's your savings account
interest rates. There was a point where save account interestrates
were cool. But now as rates are going down, your
(21:38):
interest rates are going down. And it's like there are
companies to this day that pay out dividends that you
can get passive income just from owning a stock that
you can essentially live off of over time. But it's like,
we have to start thinking outside of what we were
taught growing up, because if you did not grow up
around wealth, how would you expect to know no one
speaking that language to you. And so you have to
understand if it is possible for a billionaire to build
(22:01):
the wealth that they build, because yes, they might build
a business, but they got to protect their money too.
It's in the stock market the same game that Amplifier
is teaching. It's the same game the one percent place.
So if in fact everyone in the world lost all
their money in the stock market. Why do the richest
people still do it? What makes them any different than you?
You might not have one hundred million, but that same
(22:21):
one hundred dollars is a company you're willing to give
one hundred dollars too, But you don't want to own
the company you're giving your money to. And so it's
really understanding our thought process behind it. And that's what
we have to break.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Down right here. Talk about how now you can invest
in the stock market with just one hundred dollars or
just fifty dollars. They see your company's classified as a fintech.
Fintech really changed the game and made it accessible.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
So I think, yes, so everyone, you could buy a
stock for five dollars, Okay, you can five dollars your
way to owning a piece of a share. And so
when I say shares owning a piece of a company
and they're broken, now I can say, in the error
of me leaving Wall Street, that's when the game changed,
because when I open a brokedge account, I paid every transaction.
Sometimes some of the companies had minimums. It's just different,
(23:07):
which I need people to understand too. Things like stock splits,
things like fractional shares. They exist because retail investors that
everyday person are investing more so, one is getting a
brokerage account. You could open a brokerage account with a
Fidelity or chargewip, It doesn't matter because every company is
gonna connect. You connect the buyer and investment, the buyer
of a stock to the seller of a stock. Opening
a brokerage account and starting with what you can start with.
(23:31):
I think the internet may tell you have to have
this percent. No, if you are scared, that's fine, Well
what are you comfortable with starting with? Because if you're not,
if you're not afraid to spend the money, why are
you afraid to invest the money? And again, but the
other reason too that a lot of people don't talk
about is that the media that is also ran by
the stock market is designed to cause you to be scared.
We're not gonna put on the news, Oh the stock
(23:52):
market is up right now, everybody's making money. We're gonna
put fear in your heart because that's gonna cause you
to click. And I think we have that we can
think about. But all the times the market crash, we
can name all the crashes, but nobody talks about when
the market was up boo. Nobody talks about how long
the market was up before the pandemic actually happened. Right,
it was inevitable. And if you look at just the
history of the stock market, it goes up, it goes down,
(24:15):
but it's up more than it is down. But I
would say too in distinct humans, right, Like you're not
always up every day. You have down days too, right,
And that's okay. And people run businesses and people invest
in the stock market. We all have emotion. It's just
understanding that when you're buying a business, it is not
going to flip your money tomorrow. It took Amazon years
(24:36):
to be a trillion dollar business. Now was a couple
of trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
It took Apple years to be the apple that it
is today, just like it took you years to become
who you are. But it doesn't mean you can't grow
with the companies that you invest in, and you can't
give yourself the time to allow them to grow. I
think we're also in this mindset we gotta get rich quick.
For so long we haven't had money, give it to
me now, and that's when people feel like they're getting scammed.
And not to say that there aren't people that scam.
(25:00):
But it's like, you got to stop thinking you're going
to get rich. When me think about the wealthiest people
in the world, they did not get rich because they started.
They just invested in the program, but they want one
stock and that's not how the game works.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, you're right about that, because some people think that, oh,
I got to find this like Unicorn stock, that's that
put me so much money, and I'm gonna invest in this,
and because you hear stories about that, and then you
people think that like oh, if I would have just
invested in Airbnb when it first started, or if I
would have invested in but you did it, you know,
back then, and some things. Also, it is not open
(25:32):
for everybody to get like that first round you have
to get and so even getting into the company of people,
because I also think that when you're surrounded by people
who are of that mindset where you're talking about finances,
where you're talking about investing, that's actually.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Gonna help you.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
As far as having, like you said, community has been
so important, I think when it comes.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
To its keep in mind a lot of people black investors,
it's twenty twenty of investing a lot in stocks. They've
never seen a bare market. So a lot of people, Oh,
my friend bought the stock and you know, I made
one thousand dollars in a week. They thought that's how
the stock market works.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Oh yeah, the game stop. Yeah, yeah like that, but
you know my normal.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It's like same with interest rates. People thought three percent,
four percent, that's where interest rates were. They didn't realize
we were in anomalies, anomally on the stock market being
a ten.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Years or so if that happened.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And now I want to ask this because I have
investments in this, but I've never taken money out.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
How do you know when to do that?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Like that's a question because I feel like we always
talk about like you said, you don't lose until you know,
but when it's up, like, how do you know if
you don't really necessarily like I try not to touch mine,
but I'm like, okay, at some point, like when do
I acccess.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
For sixty thirty ten?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Talk to me?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I think I got all that wrong, because yeah, money
that you're going to need, money that you're going to
need in five years less, you should take out of stocks.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
So I have it depends on the person. I would
say Okay, I'll tell you how I do it right.
Every time I buy a stock, I have a game plan.
Why am I buying this stock? So, for example, I
bought Zoom during a pandemic. I knew it was it
was a right place at the right time. But I
also knew this Zoom was a smaller company, a younger company.
(27:23):
When you know business and there's big companies that exist,
they could eat you alive. But Zoom was at the
right place at the right time. So if you notice,
that's when Microsoft team started to come out like they
were small, but they killed it. I knew the moment
we went back outside it was not going to be
as powerful and the stock price dropped, So I knew
going in. I only wanted to own Zoom for like
(27:44):
a year. It wasn't a long term investment. So I'll
give another example. I invest in Amazon. This is not
a disclaimer. I'm not a financial advisor, but I feel
like I'm married to Amazon till death do us part,
and like don't I don't have a desire to. Amazon
has its ups and downs. They're not perfect, but Amazon
has made me a lot of money, and so I
(28:04):
knew going in. When I'm buying that stock for me,
I'm thirty six, now my age is forty. What is
my portfolio going to do? What is it going to
be able to produce for me? To help me sustain
the life that I want. I am building towards that
share by share, brick by brick to get me there.
Now another thing I do. I go to Paris every
single year. I'm either using points or I'm using stock games.
So sometimes I do sell my stocks, not all of them,
(28:27):
the ones I want to keep, I sell them to
do the things I want to do. Another example, when
I got kicked out of my parents, I mean my
apartment in Harlem. No no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
No no no.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
But when I got kicked out my apartment, I my
stocks are the reason I could build by So I
had to sell my investments to start my business. I
tell people you can sell your stocks to pay down debt.
It's about what am I doing this for. Am I
investing for the retiring? For the long term? Am I
investing so that my child can get a car so
(29:02):
that they can go to college? For me, I know
what my game plan is and my dividend portfolio. I
know how much income I want to produce for my dividends.
I know with my growth stocks what I intend to
do now. I don't always sell all my stocks, all
my shares, but if I want to travel, I will herd.
There was a point in business fast forward, after I
kicked out, I was about to miss payroll, right if
(29:22):
the money wasn't coming in, money was old here there,
I sold my stocks to make payroll. So sometimes my
stocks are also my emergency fund because you can easily
sell a stock and get the cash for it. So
it's really about it. Again, I'm not a trader, and
there are times where you can try to time the market,
but I don't. I'm not trader. I like to buy
(29:43):
a hole. But if I go in with a short
term in mind, I know the game I want to
play and I have those expectations when of it.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
That's what's great. Like I have a SWAB account, but
I have my all my little micro investing apps. That's
my emergency fund. And like Nvidia paid for me to
go to Europlus. Yeah, that's what used those little accounts
as an emergency.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
And that's but again it varies person Again, people do
time the market, so you can try to know when
to sell I don't pay attention.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
To market range and it's not a sure shot.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, I'm not that kind of person. But know what
you want to get out of it. If you've been
investing in, you gotta stop. I had bought stock between
I had lived in Paris for like three four months, Tesla,
Apple and Amazon, or how I survived in Paris. I
went through a business where I was trying to figure
out what was next for Implify. My stocks paid for
my trip. When I was in Paris, I sold like
(30:35):
thirty thousand dollars in my stock, but I had bought
it Wall Street days and so I needed the money
and it killed me because I was up thousands of prisons.
I made a lot of money. But but but it's
like you you invested to make money, It's okay. If
you made it, it's okay. If you sell, you're not
you're selling the games, you're not even selling what you
put in. And I still invested every single month. So
(30:57):
it really depends on the person. Again, you don't have
I have to always time the market. But if you
feel like I want to utilize my portfolio to make
another investment, or I want to go travel, I want
to pay off debt or make a down payment on
a home. That is fine. That is what the market
is for, to help you make money outside of using
your physical labor and time to be able to build wealth.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Tell people about emplify what they would get in terms
of membership and how they can find it.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
So dot com so we are like the Netflix of finance.
We have an app called the wealth Bordess Community App,
which is a membership based platform where adults and now
twenty three countries have access to financial tools and resource.
So all the things we did not teaching, did not
learn in the school system, that's what empathy gives you
inside of our platform. From learning how to invest in
a stock market, plan for retirement, pass down your wealth
(31:44):
life insurance PAAR, and investing all the things I learned
working on Wall Street, I created a company and a
platform that where you don't have to walk into that
Wall Street building to get access to those tools. You
now can come into the Weltbordess community to get access
to that. And so it's a way where you can
have readily available access to education but also that community
environment because our members are afraid you come in. Some
(32:06):
people have never had a broken account, never bought a stop.
But when you see someone on our timeline who started
out just like you getting their first dividend for two
dollars and they're so excited, we celebrate those small wins.
And collectively our members as of today have invested over
nine million dollars, and these are people who started with
twenty dollars. And so we're cultivating a space to say,
I don't care what you look like, how much you
(32:26):
do or do not have, for the mistakes you made
in the past. We're gonna build this together. There will
be a point you heard it here first where our
members will invest one hundred million dollars and these are
people that can't make it to the twenty seven floor
that I worked at work in at JP Morgan and
so really putting people in that position. In addition to that,
we've created programs and school systems. We taught the kids
that came out of Rikers, we taught, We've been in
school systems, prison systems. We've worked with large companies and corporations, municipalities,
(32:50):
providing the financial tools and resources in a easy digestible way,
but also in a way that is culturally relevant, that
meets people where they are because money is a topic
we don't like to talk about. To talk about it,
we're gonna talk about way you're scared, We're gonna talk
about it. We're gonna talk about what we're going to
figure this out. But we are going to be the
number one platform that creates investors, whether you are a
six year old child or you are a seventy nine
(33:11):
year old, because that is the eldest member inside of
our platform. It's never too late to bid wealth. But
the goal was to create something that Wall Street gave
to its twenty five plus million dollar client. As long
as you have five dollars, you go to empify, go
to our wealth. With hiss community app, you can become
a member and really start to build.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And how we can also follow emphifi on social and
your Instagram is at emplify.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
E m p I f y empower at unders or.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Ashley M Fox and come back.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So please amazing, I love it. Please, this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Thank you so much for your time and Happy Wealth
Wednesdays everybody. Yay.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Well
What's up this way?
Speaker 2 (00:04):
But Angela yee, I'm here with my girls Stacy Tisdale
for Wealth Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Happy Wealth Wednesday's everybody woo. We are so excited today
to have the one, the only Ashley Fox on the
show to fill your heads with financial wisdom. We are
so proud of what Ashley has done with her own
life and her own career. She's a former Wall Street
analyst and we were just talking about.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Wall Street already. I'm totally talking about Wall Street.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And she founded Impify, which is an incredible financial education
platform in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
And power and Modify yes, Empifi yes.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
And she's an HBCU grad and super proud of you
for this. Ink Magazine has ranked you one of the
top five hundred female founders. So we are not messing
around at all. And right off the bat, what the
heck terms up? Where are we right now? So what
are like the top two pieces of financial advice you're
(01:03):
giving the people in this crazy environment?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
So I would say the first thing is breathed, because
this is actually the best time to learn. This is
the best time to learn, this is the best time
to grow. And I always tell people when it's like
when we go shopping on Black Friday and everything's on sale,
we have no problem with all prices dropping and we
go shopping. But what about in the stock market some
of the biggest and best companies prices are dropping, which
(01:28):
means we're getting it on sale. And think about it. Though,
people get so scared of the stock market when it's up,
and it we're scared of it when it's down. So
when do we actually start to invest? And so one
I would say, breathe, this is your time to read
to learn. We're not using emotion. We are operating off
of logic because our family's legacy is way bigger than
any presidential election, any country that we live in. It's
(01:49):
just so much more important. The other thing I would
say is getting the game. This is the time to
really build wealth, like I think about So when I
was at Howard in two thousand and eight, because I
graduated twenty and ten, I watched the stock market crash
from my dorm room TV, and I didn't really know
too much about what was going on because I'm trying
to get on Wall Street. But when I was on
Wall Street, I worked on individuals that had at least
twenty five million dollars, and I watched how they made
(02:11):
money as a result of the two thousand and eight crash,
and I said, I am not missing out on this opportunity.
So when the pandemic happened and the stock market crash,
I went crazy, Like I went shopping in the market
and I was buying some of the biggest and best companies,
and I made a ton of money because while the
market was scared, eventually we survived the pandemic. So just
as much as we've survived every stock market crash, why
(02:32):
won't we survive this stock market crash or whatever's going on.
I don't know how we want.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
To classify it, but it's just volatile.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
When I think about just people like we are one
hundred percent undefeated at life. This can't stop us. This
won't stop us. Let's use this as an opportunity to win,
to grow, to learn, and to build.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Well, stay with that for just a minute, because we
were talking about how Aerial Investments found that Blacks, even
though they're the largest group of first time investors to
the stock market, the first people to pan excel yes
and the falling market and think about it, a lot
of them are first time investors. We have more responsibilities
taking care of friends and family financially than other groups have.
(03:13):
And it's new to us. A lot of us didn't
have that education growing up in our homes. But you
haven't lost a penny and tell you so.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Yes, you only guarantee your loss when you sell. And
I always tell people. Let's say you were to buy
a house for one hundred thousand, right, and then something
happens in the market and the value of your home
drops of fifty thousand. So you bought the house for
one hundred, it dropped to fifty What are you.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Doing with the house staying there?
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Why you lost fifty percent of your money? It's just
why do you want to keep it? You lost money already.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Right, Well, if you sell it, then you really lost money,
right and it could possibly back up.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
So the same thing works with some of the most
biggest and best companies in America. Right, So I think
you guarantee a loss when you sell. But again, the
way I see it is, if it's a company you like,
a company you've researched, a company you believe will be
around the next five to ten fifteen years, why not
just get it at a lower price? Point. And this
is not for getting rich quick by the way people
of color carry but it's and rightfully so though there's
(04:06):
a lot of fear, there's a lot, a lot of doubt,
we have every right to feel.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Like a lot of every right things are a scam
and we have every right.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
But it's being able to understand the language of money,
because if you understand the language and you understand the
stock market, when you buy a stock, you're not buying
You're not buying a stock, You're not buying a price.
You're owning a piece of a business. You are actually
part owner of a business. And interestingly enough, our black
dollar is the reason these businesses exists. We have trillion
dollar businesses in America because we love to shop and
I like nice things. I love the shop, but I
(04:35):
also but I also own some of the companies that
I give my money to. Right you know, you have
to think about it like.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
That and your story I also said there was a
period of time when you really went on.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
A shopping.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
I want to hear about that because you're just like
what I love about you is that you know we
follow you on social media. You're always giving advice, but
you're also just like us and I it's easier for
me to look at somebody who's been through some things
that I've been through and came through on the other
side successfully. And now you've learned some things. So talk
to us about that period of time you were doing
well financially.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
It was, Yes, So I was on Wall Street, and
every day when I'm on Wall Street, I'm in the
bank accounts of millionaire as a millionaire, so I'm seeing
where they shop, where they live, travel, what they invested in.
And I felt like I was on the wrong end
of the table. And when I would go back home
to Philly, where I'm from, I'm making six figures, but
like I don't have at least twenty five million. And
I just felt like, for something we're using every day
of our life, why is it not talking about school system?
(05:31):
Why did I have to go to Howard work on
Wall Street to really understand how to buy a stock?
You know? And so I always wanted to be a teacher,
though I actually nobody knows that, but I felt like
I had to chase the money. I was chasing the money,
I was chasing the reputation everything, And so I decided
to leave because I wanted to build something that targeted
the ninety nine percent that Wall Street often overlooks. Now,
(05:52):
this was back in twenty thirteen, so entrepreneurship was not sexy.
Instagram just started to kind of get like start to
people started post picture and things like that. But I
felt like something inside of me was like, you are
that girl. You are able to translate this Wall Street
knowledge bring it to these everyday people. But you understand
Wall Street and you understand how they feel. Because I
didn't grow up with rich parents like we grew up
(06:14):
middle class. My family bought stocks because I open their
investment accounts. I funded their accounts. So when I left
Wall Street, I had thirty thousand dollars when I could.
So I'm rich and I'm never wearing stockings again, and
I'm just like, you know, I'm gonna figure this thing out, right,
But I had this idea and I made up this
word right called empify, because I really wanted to shift
our mindset because building wealth is not just about Hey,
(06:35):
let me teach you what a stock is. Because you
have the information on the internet. When you lack empowerment,
you speak into people and not at people, you can
start to change the way they sing it. So when
we think about emplify, it's the word empower. We're going
to empower you to say, hey, if you want to
start with five dollars, we're gonna build wealth with five dollar.
We're gonna have five dollars our way till we get
to a million. But when you start to empower people
and you give them education, it changes them, which is
(06:57):
where modify comes from. So I had this big vision
I'm going to changed the world. I don't know how,
I just know why, and it's gonna be Ashley Fox.
And in the midst of that, you don't make money
every two weeks, and so I'm still traveling. I think
I had just went to Thailand. I die I was traveling,
but I'm still thinking. You know, I'm living the life
of a woman who worked on Wall Street. But when
the money stops coming and you're still spending, the math
(07:18):
was a mathing. So I ended up getting kicked out
my Harlem apartment and I had to move back to
Philly in my parents' house. And I think I needed
that because I was so stuck on I'm Ashley. I
worked on Wall Street like this. It was such an
identifier to me, and I need.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
To think somewhere the money is just gonna serve.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, I just didn't. I don't know if my head
was big, but it was like I was that girl, right.
But it's like I'm now teaching a subject of something
I don't have because I'm not paying my rent. I'm
traveling the world struggling trying to build this business of
which I have no idea what that means. I'm made
an LLC in twenty fourteen. We didn't make money in
m Fox was twenty seventeen, so I'm thinking I'm doing
(07:56):
it right. But it's just I don't know. I didn't
know what I was doing, and so when I lost everything.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Pause right, there is not normal. Try entrepreneurs. You're gonna
feel like you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
I still don't feel like what I'm doing.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
You go ahead, and sometimes you can educate yourself on
something and still feel like every day I can't teach
you what it is that you need to do to
run a business success.
Speaker 4 (08:22):
They missed that class at Howard because every day I
wake up and I don't Ninety five percent of my
life right now is something I've never seen before. But
my vision and my belief in Ashley and what emplify
I can do for the world. I mean, Grant, we've
been doing this for a while, so I know we're
really good at what we do. But that's what you
have to hold on to. And it was a point
(08:42):
when I lost everything. It's like I could not unsee
Wall Street wealth. I couldn't un see the billionaire of
bank accounts. I couldn't unsee the yachts in the South
of France. I couldn't unsee those things. And I know
I started and I started to do the Wall Street stuff.
So I didn't get a big guy in France. I
did go to the France. I got, yeah, like, I'm
traveling like our clients, because I've truly believed successfully is clues,
(09:05):
just follow the blueprint. If they're buying stocks. While they
started with one hundred million, I started with one hundred dollars.
They're going to the South of France. Let me save
up my money. And I'm watching all the rich people
go to South France, and I wanted to become that
and I felt like there's no difference between me and you.
I just am not in the right space, and I
feel like you truly build wealth when you invest in
somebody else's idea or your own idea, and I chose
(09:25):
to do both. I knew if I stayed on Wall
Street making the money I was making, which was good money,
if I was there for ten years, I still was
not qualified to be that client. And I knew I
deserved to be that client. I just needed to figure
out the how part. And I think Amplify and the
desire to change the world then led me to figuring
out the finances and making the money. But I also
(09:45):
never started emplify to make money. If that was because
I want to say, on Wall Street, I wanted to
essentially target the people Wall Street did not want to
target or care to target, and I felt like we
all deserved this information, which is the majority. Yeah. So
it was just so much bigger than me. And when
I lost everything, I still held on to like, I
know what's possible.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I also difficult, though, because I know, going from Wall
Street to media and then an entrepreneurship entrepreneurs you're there's
gonna be financial ups and downs. It's just the nature
of entrepreneurship, teaching financial wellness, teaching about money. When as
an entrepreneur you're experiencing the ups and downs. Did you
(10:26):
ever struggle with those contradictions? Sometimes?
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I did.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
I remember when I was getting kicked out, people thought
I was a millionaire, and I'm just I would read
articles people would write and I'm just like you. I'm
living at my parents' house for two years, sleeping on
their couch. And but here's the thing though, and I
say this to everybody, regardless of the balance in your
bank account, it is not a direct correlation to who
you believe you'll become. So I would walk and talk
like I ran a billion dollar bus, like right now
(10:51):
on social media, I call myself the billion dollar CEO
because the ashy that got to her first million is
not the ashy that's going to create a billion dollar business.
So I have to train and I dress like a
billion dollar ceo. Am I running my team like a
billion dollar ceo? And so a lot of therapy helped
to Yeah, I was going to I did. I started going.
But the biggest thing, and again, it's not even bout money,
it's about your just your mental your mindset, Like you
(11:14):
have to be so resilient, so focused and not let
the doubts, the fears, the worry because they exist, but
it cannot be the loudest voice in your head. So
I believed Ashley was going to change the world a
lot more than I believed Ashley couldn't figure it out.
And I think to those little wins you get as
an entrepreneur, like the Ink Top female founders, like it
came at the moment where I feel like what am
(11:35):
I doing in my business and it's just like, oh
my gosh, thank you guys, and it just gives you yeah.
And so I still feel it to this day.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So I want to ask you something about what Mark
Cuban said because this went viral. I know you have
to see this stacy where he said at south By
Southwest he was on a panel with Tabatha Brown and
he talked about black women founders right, and he said,
I would tell you not to.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Look for funding.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
You have to figure out a way to you sweat
equity to build it on your own, even if it
means starting smaller and slower, because there is a learning process,
and it's twofold. One is learning about your business and
making it loanworthy. Then two is learning the language of
those making loans.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
So you know, we.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Already as black women have a huge funding gap. Black
women business owners who apply for funding face a three
time higher rejection rate than that of white business owners,
and only two percent of venture capital funding in the
US goes to female only founding teams. What do you
think about what markubits? Because I saw people arguing in
the comments.
Speaker 3 (12:30):
About it, so mister funded Arlen Hamilton.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
So I saw she waited in on it too.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Okay, So interestingly enough, when I started Amplify, the venture
capital thing, it existed because I saw our clients doing it.
But it wasn't like a thing right. I did not
know about venture capital. I didn't I couldn't get a
loan when I was trying to get not get evicted
from my apartment. So I figured I wasn't qualified for debt.
I already had student loans, and for me, I was
(12:57):
just so much bigger and I was going to figure
it out. So I bootstrap Empify to this day because
I didn't know money was accessible. Regardless of what the
stats say to me, you can tell me what a
stat says when it comes to me coming to emplify.
When it comes to me building wealth. Wealth doesn't have
a color. Therefore it looks just like me. I don't
care if you identify me as a black woman. I
am actually Marie Fox is beautiful being in this world.
(13:18):
I'm gonna figure this out. So knowing that I don't
let stats like that or comments like that deter me
from you're gonna want to buy my company. I'm going
to build a scalable business. But I think the advantage
that I had is when I left Wall Street, I
would well while I was there too, I would see
how our clients invested in startups. I would sit in
(13:38):
Harvard Angel investor meetings seeing these cool companies. But the
questions they're asking them, I'm just like, oh, I never
thought of it like that, And so I always just
I remember there's like this woman one time she did nails.
She not to do shoeshine around companies. There was a
woman who didn't nails. I'm like, this is so cool.
So she goes and Fortune five hundred companies and she's
doing nails and I was so fascinated. Room. Everyone said,
(14:00):
you're not in the business of no one ls. You're
in the business of hiring and firing people. And I said, oh, wow,
you are. So Now as an investor, I'm not investing
in your product or service, I'm investing your ability to
hire and fire people. And it just made me think
about what is a scalable business that can be sold
and someone could could win as a result of your business.
And so I've always had that advantage. I've also been
(14:22):
coached by people of all nationalities too, from the people
that are from the coaches, I have, the therapists that
I have the spiritual advisor I because Wall Street was
not a all black thing, right it was, and I
don't see color that way. For me. It's like, if
I have if I need an answer, whoever is the
smartest person in the room, I'm getting the answer from you,
despite what you look like, because I am worth that investment.
(14:44):
And so when I hear things like that, I see
life as a different point because I struggled my way
to build Amplify because I did not know. I now
sometimes talk the founders who don't even know how to
make money, just want to get money for their idea,
which is fine.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
But I learned.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
A lot more about my business not having that advantage
of someone just giving me money. Now I can go
and people pitch me all the time to try to
buy my company to get access to capital. But here's
the thing people don't talk about when someone gives you money.
Now they are part on of your business and for
somebody the answers to them. Yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
I never investors.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yeah, and I'm not against that because again, if I'm
your investor or, you better give me a return. So
I'm gonna be all in your business rightfully.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
So.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
But when I created Emplify like the green and Emplify
represents the heart chakra, like, this wasn't about how do
I make the most money, It was about how do
I help people build the most wealth? So me changing
the world mattered more than my bottom line. It just
so happened that my desire to change the world ended
up becoming a profitable business. So now I can change
the world. I can build wealth, but I can also
(15:51):
create something that helps everybody else build wealth, despite who
they are. So I'm not saying that raising capital or
taking out on I can say that the grit that
you get from building a business from a bootstrap standpoint
is different than somebody who was able to get money,
and it doesn't make them either founder better. I just
(16:12):
feel different. But here's the downside to that a lot
of the problems that I went through could have been
solved if I had.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Money right, it could have been an easier journey.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
But I don't change my story. And now now that
I'm smarter, I like that I went that route because
I wouldn't dare have somebody coming to Amplify to tell
me you better go start teaching cryptocurrency because that's the
thing and it's going to make you more money. When
it's like, no, that's not what I do, that's not
what I want to give the world. But you care
(16:44):
more about bottom line. I care more about closing a
wealth gap, and if we're not aligned with that, then
I can't put you on my cat table.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
What it just made me think of a whole new
term community bootstrapping. Are you noticing that we started a
real estate club and the community actually it's kind of
their own economy. They do deals with each other, and
we work with our group works with lenders and stuff
when people need it. But I'm noticing all these trends
where there's like a meta group of women from New
(17:10):
Orleans who started an investment in entrepreneurship group. They started
almost like a lending circle with each other Are you
noticing that more in our community post administration?
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Yes, But I think I think the world is just changing.
I think we now know. Like if I think about
where the error my parents were raised in, You're taught
to go to school, get a job. You get the
job so you can pay them, you hope somebody, yeah,
and you wait for a pension, right, and that worked
for that generation. Times are different. I mean, you can
make money on YouTube, like I can make money on Instagram.
There's so many ways to create wealth. I'm just all
(17:44):
for you not solely relying on just having a job.
Because I also don't think entrepreneurship is for everybody. If
you would have told me I was gonna go through
what I went through when I left Wall Street, I
probably would have second guessed it.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, but I.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Got to a point where I was in too deep
and I knew too much. I couldn't get out. But
it's not for everybody. But I do believe we are
becoming more resourceful. We are not settling, We are trying
to figure it out. We are falling. We are getting
back up because we know we cannot just depend on
a system. We can't depend on our jobs. But the
opportunities are just different now. So I think the world
(18:17):
is I think the pandemic did it a lot.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
It did, but because it also made us not have
to fly out for meetings and be able to do
so many things, you know, just over the internet that before,
like even me doing my show from home, we were
never able to do that, but now I could travel,
bring a kid with me, do my show from whatever.
Because that wasn't something that I heart was really trying
to do.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
But even you know, I remember Dominica. Yeah, we did
Wednesdays is locked in Dominica for six months.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
But that was not something we would have done, you
know that.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
To figure it out. So I think when the fire
is put under us, we will thrive.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
That was actually one of our best years. We had
an event. I remember we had an event planned here
in March and then everything got locked down and I've
got locked in Dominica and I'm just like, let's pivot
to a virtual model, and all of a sudden we
could do so much more and we did.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Yeah, we made the most money out at Amplified doing
when the market crashed, like and because of what we do,
we help people create the money else. Yeah, it was like,
we are not going through this crash without me telling
the internet. You better stop being scared and start really
understanding what is happening in America. And that's why they
(19:32):
printed to trillion dollars stimulus checks because they needed you
to spend to give to the companies that are in
the stock market. So what are we doing? How we
gonna win?
Speaker 2 (19:39):
What do you say to people who are like, Okay,
I have money in my savings, but I'm scared to
make a move, and maybe it's not enough money to
say right now, you know, buy a house. So they think, right,
but they just have money, it's sitting in their savings
account and they're like, I just want to hold on
to my cash.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
I'll first ask how's that gotten you so far? Right, Like,
I don't know anybody that has saved their way to
wealth or has worked, has worked, has worked their way
to wealth. But I also think it's coming from a
lack mindset. Justifiable, But also let's talk about where that
(20:16):
fear is coming from and who you want to be.
What if we win in spite of our fears. What
if we grow in spite of our fears? Because you
can't live in fear, your entire life. You you are
worthy of building wealth. But just ask yourself, how has
we know so many people that have good jobs, make
good money, own a home, but still aren't wealthy. So
it's like, well, what else are we doing? There has
(20:36):
to be something more. How about we bet on you?
How about you become the investment. You make the investment
in yourself to not do what has been ingrained in
your mind. Because if we really want to get technical,
the banking system wants you to put your money in
a savings account because they take that money and they
loan it to people. They're making money out of a
savings account. There is no America. They need you. They
(20:57):
need you to take out debt, and they need you
to take out loans. That is how America runs. So
of course, but when I if I sit and tell
you what I saw on Wall Street, if our clients
had money sitting in a savings account, it was our
job to work with the investors, the entire team to
figure out how to put that money to work. Why
is it that we are always working for money and
money is our money is not working for us? Just
(21:18):
like you have a job description, your money needs a
job description. Sitting down chilling in a savings account. It
is not going to get you the life that you want.
You're not sitting down chilling when you're working for the money.
So give the money a job, put it to work
so we can start giving you some return on your investment.
Because as the economy shifts, so there's your savings account
interest rates. There was a point where save account interestrates
were cool. But now as rates are going down, your
(21:38):
interest rates are going down. And it's like there are
companies to this day that pay out dividends that you
can get passive income just from owning a stock that
you can essentially live off of over time. But it's like,
we have to start thinking outside of what we were
taught growing up, because if you did not grow up
around wealth, how would you expect to know no one
speaking that language to you. And so you have to
understand if it is possible for a billionaire to build
(22:01):
the wealth that they build, because yes, they might build
a business, but they got to protect their money too.
It's in the stock market the same game that Amplifier
is teaching. It's the same game the one percent place.
So if in fact everyone in the world lost all
their money in the stock market. Why do the richest
people still do it? What makes them any different than you?
You might not have one hundred million, but that same
(22:21):
one hundred dollars is a company you're willing to give
one hundred dollars too, But you don't want to own
the company you're giving your money to. And so it's
really understanding our thought process behind it. And that's what
we have to break.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Down right here. Talk about how now you can invest
in the stock market with just one hundred dollars or
just fifty dollars. They see your company's classified as a fintech.
Fintech really changed the game and made it accessible.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
So I think, yes, so everyone, you could buy a
stock for five dollars, Okay, you can five dollars your
way to owning a piece of a share. And so
when I say shares owning a piece of a company
and they're broken, now I can say, in the error
of me leaving Wall Street, that's when the game changed,
because when I open a brokedge account, I paid every transaction.
Sometimes some of the companies had minimums. It's just different,
(23:07):
which I need people to understand too. Things like stock splits,
things like fractional shares. They exist because retail investors that
everyday person are investing more so, one is getting a
brokerage account. You could open a brokerage account with a
Fidelity or chargewip, It doesn't matter because every company is
gonna connect. You connect the buyer and investment, the buyer
of a stock to the seller of a stock. Opening
a brokerage account and starting with what you can start with.
(23:31):
I think the internet may tell you have to have
this percent. No, if you are scared, that's fine, Well
what are you comfortable with starting with? Because if you're not,
if you're not afraid to spend the money, why are
you afraid to invest the money? And again, but the
other reason too that a lot of people don't talk
about is that the media that is also ran by
the stock market is designed to cause you to be scared.
We're not gonna put on the news, Oh the stock
(23:52):
market is up right now, everybody's making money. We're gonna
put fear in your heart because that's gonna cause you
to click. And I think we have that we can
think about. But all the times the market crash, we
can name all the crashes, but nobody talks about when
the market was up boo. Nobody talks about how long
the market was up before the pandemic actually happened. Right,
it was inevitable. And if you look at just the
history of the stock market, it goes up, it goes down,
(24:15):
but it's up more than it is down. But I
would say too in distinct humans, right, Like you're not
always up every day. You have down days too, right,
And that's okay. And people run businesses and people invest
in the stock market. We all have emotion. It's just
understanding that when you're buying a business, it is not
going to flip your money tomorrow. It took Amazon years
(24:36):
to be a trillion dollar business. Now was a couple
of trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
It took Apple years to be the apple that it
is today, just like it took you years to become
who you are. But it doesn't mean you can't grow
with the companies that you invest in, and you can't
give yourself the time to allow them to grow. I
think we're also in this mindset we gotta get rich quick.
For so long we haven't had money, give it to
me now, and that's when people feel like they're getting scammed.
And not to say that there aren't people that scam.
(25:00):
But it's like, you got to stop thinking you're going
to get rich. When me think about the wealthiest people
in the world, they did not get rich because they started.
They just invested in the program, but they want one
stock and that's not how the game works.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Yeah, you're right about that, because some people think that, oh,
I got to find this like Unicorn stock, that's that
put me so much money, and I'm gonna invest in this,
and because you hear stories about that, and then you
people think that like oh, if I would have just
invested in Airbnb when it first started, or if I
would have invested in but you did it, you know,
back then, and some things. Also, it is not open
(25:32):
for everybody to get like that first round you have
to get and so even getting into the company of people,
because I also think that when you're surrounded by people
who are of that mindset where you're talking about finances,
where you're talking about investing, that's actually.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Gonna help you.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
As far as having, like you said, community has been
so important, I think when it comes.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
To its keep in mind a lot of people black investors,
it's twenty twenty of investing a lot in stocks. They've
never seen a bare market. So a lot of people, Oh,
my friend bought the stock and you know, I made
one thousand dollars in a week. They thought that's how
the stock market works.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Oh yeah, the game stop. Yeah, yeah like that, but
you know my normal.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
It's like same with interest rates. People thought three percent,
four percent, that's where interest rates were. They didn't realize
we were in anomalies, anomally on the stock market being
a ten.
Speaker 1 (26:25):
Years or so if that happened.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
And now I want to ask this because I have
investments in this, but I've never taken money out.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
How do you know when to do that?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Like that's a question because I feel like we always
talk about like you said, you don't lose until you know,
but when it's up, like, how do you know if
you don't really necessarily like I try not to touch mine,
but I'm like, okay, at some point, like when do
I acccess.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
For sixty thirty ten?
Speaker 4 (26:51):
Talk to me?
Speaker 3 (26:52):
I think I got all that wrong, because yeah, money
that you're going to need, money that you're going to
need in five years less, you should take out of stocks.
Speaker 4 (27:01):
So I have it depends on the person. I would
say Okay, I'll tell you how I do it right.
Every time I buy a stock, I have a game plan.
Why am I buying this stock? So, for example, I
bought Zoom during a pandemic. I knew it was it
was a right place at the right time. But I
also knew this Zoom was a smaller company, a younger company.
(27:23):
When you know business and there's big companies that exist,
they could eat you alive. But Zoom was at the
right place at the right time. So if you notice,
that's when Microsoft team started to come out like they
were small, but they killed it. I knew the moment
we went back outside it was not going to be
as powerful and the stock price dropped, So I knew
going in. I only wanted to own Zoom for like
(27:44):
a year. It wasn't a long term investment. So I'll
give another example. I invest in Amazon. This is not
a disclaimer. I'm not a financial advisor, but I feel
like I'm married to Amazon till death do us part,
and like don't I don't have a desire to. Amazon
has its ups and downs. They're not perfect, but Amazon
has made me a lot of money, and so I
(28:04):
knew going in. When I'm buying that stock for me,
I'm thirty six, now my age is forty. What is
my portfolio going to do? What is it going to
be able to produce for me? To help me sustain
the life that I want. I am building towards that
share by share, brick by brick to get me there.
Now another thing I do. I go to Paris every
single year. I'm either using points or I'm using stock games.
So sometimes I do sell my stocks, not all of them,
(28:27):
the ones I want to keep, I sell them to
do the things I want to do. Another example, when
I got kicked out of my parents, I mean my
apartment in Harlem. No no, no, no.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
No no no.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
But when I got kicked out my apartment, I my
stocks are the reason I could build by So I
had to sell my investments to start my business. I
tell people you can sell your stocks to pay down debt.
It's about what am I doing this for. Am I
investing for the retiring? For the long term? Am I
investing so that my child can get a car so
(29:02):
that they can go to college? For me, I know
what my game plan is and my dividend portfolio. I
know how much income I want to produce for my dividends.
I know with my growth stocks what I intend to
do now. I don't always sell all my stocks, all
my shares, but if I want to travel, I will herd.
There was a point in business fast forward, after I
kicked out, I was about to miss payroll, right if
(29:22):
the money wasn't coming in, money was old here there,
I sold my stocks to make payroll. So sometimes my
stocks are also my emergency fund because you can easily
sell a stock and get the cash for it. So
it's really about it. Again, I'm not a trader, and
there are times where you can try to time the market,
but I don't. I'm not trader. I like to buy
(29:43):
a hole. But if I go in with a short
term in mind, I know the game I want to
play and I have those expectations when of it.
Speaker 3 (29:50):
That's what's great. Like I have a SWAB account, but
I have my all my little micro investing apps. That's
my emergency fund. And like Nvidia paid for me to
go to Europlus. Yeah, that's what used those little accounts
as an emergency.
Speaker 4 (30:04):
And that's but again it varies person Again, people do
time the market, so you can try to know when
to sell I don't pay attention.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
To market range and it's not a sure shot.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, I'm not that kind of person. But know what
you want to get out of it. If you've been
investing in, you gotta stop. I had bought stock between
I had lived in Paris for like three four months, Tesla,
Apple and Amazon, or how I survived in Paris. I
went through a business where I was trying to figure
out what was next for Implify. My stocks paid for
my trip. When I was in Paris, I sold like
(30:35):
thirty thousand dollars in my stock, but I had bought
it Wall Street days and so I needed the money
and it killed me because I was up thousands of prisons.
I made a lot of money. But but but it's
like you you invested to make money, It's okay. If
you made it, it's okay. If you sell, you're not
you're selling the games, you're not even selling what you
put in. And I still invested every single month. So
(30:57):
it really depends on the person. Again, you don't have
I have to always time the market. But if you
feel like I want to utilize my portfolio to make
another investment, or I want to go travel, I want
to pay off debt or make a down payment on
a home. That is fine. That is what the market
is for, to help you make money outside of using
your physical labor and time to be able to build wealth.
Speaker 3 (31:17):
Tell people about emplify what they would get in terms
of membership and how they can find it.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
So dot com so we are like the Netflix of finance.
We have an app called the wealth Bordess Community App,
which is a membership based platform where adults and now
twenty three countries have access to financial tools and resource.
So all the things we did not teaching, did not
learn in the school system, that's what empathy gives you
inside of our platform. From learning how to invest in
a stock market, plan for retirement, pass down your wealth
(31:44):
life insurance PAAR, and investing all the things I learned
working on Wall Street, I created a company and a
platform that where you don't have to walk into that
Wall Street building to get access to those tools. You
now can come into the Weltbordess community to get access
to that. And so it's a way where you can
have readily available access to education but also that community
environment because our members are afraid you come in. Some
(32:06):
people have never had a broken account, never bought a stop.
But when you see someone on our timeline who started
out just like you getting their first dividend for two
dollars and they're so excited, we celebrate those small wins.
And collectively our members as of today have invested over
nine million dollars, and these are people who started with
twenty dollars. And so we're cultivating a space to say,
I don't care what you look like, how much you
(32:26):
do or do not have, for the mistakes you made
in the past. We're gonna build this together. There will
be a point you heard it here first where our
members will invest one hundred million dollars and these are
people that can't make it to the twenty seven floor
that I worked at work in at JP Morgan and
so really putting people in that position. In addition to that,
we've created programs and school systems. We taught the kids
that came out of Rikers, we taught, We've been in
school systems, prison systems. We've worked with large companies and corporations, municipalities,
(32:50):
providing the financial tools and resources in a easy digestible way,
but also in a way that is culturally relevant, that
meets people where they are because money is a topic
we don't like to talk about. To talk about it,
we're gonna talk about way you're scared, We're gonna talk
about it. We're gonna talk about what we're going to
figure this out. But we are going to be the
number one platform that creates investors, whether you are a
six year old child or you are a seventy nine
(33:11):
year old, because that is the eldest member inside of
our platform. It's never too late to bid wealth. But
the goal was to create something that Wall Street gave
to its twenty five plus million dollar client. As long
as you have five dollars, you go to empify, go
to our wealth. With hiss community app, you can become
a member and really start to build.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And how we can also follow emphifi on social and
your Instagram is at emplify.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
E m p I f y empower at unders or.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
Ashley M Fox and come back.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
So please amazing, I love it. Please, this is awesome.
Speaker 3 (33:45):
Thank you so much for your time and Happy Wealth
Wednesdays everybody. Yay.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Well
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