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Welcome to Financial Freestyle. I’m Ross Mack, and this is sponsored by Vanguard.Welcome to Financial Freestyle here on Yahoo Finance. I’m your host, Ross Mack. Now look guys, no matter where you are in your life, you always got to take the first step to getting to success, and that’s why you’re joining me as I talk to some of the most successful people and uncovering their pathways to becoming successful. Today’s no different. I’m talking to Ashley Fox, CEO of Amplify.Ashley, how you doing? Thanks so much for joining
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me. I am doing well. How are you?
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I’m doing great, man. I, I think you know you and I would go back a little bit, um, but I just want to obviously commend you on wax right now and let the world know you’re crushing it. So thanks so much for being here. Thank you.So tell the world, right? Who is Ashley Fox?
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So Ashley Fox is this beautiful being who is the CEO and founder of Amplify, the merging of the word empower and modify, and we are a fintech startup that revolutionizes how adults and children learn how to build wealth. And so we create financial programs, tools, resources, implement programs within school systems, prisons.Systems that help people build wealth for the everyday person. We also have our membership-based platform called the Wealth British Community, which our members like to call the Netflix of finance where adults all over the world have access to the financial tools and resources. So ultimately our goal is to financially empower the 99% that Wall Street often overlooks.
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Well, I love that, right? And uh, you just didn’t come up with this idea out of out of thin air, right? My understanding is you were once a big time analyst on Wall Street, right? Tell us that big time, right? Walk us through how you came up with this idea and more important.your experience on Wall Street.
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So I actually never wanted to run a business. I wanted to be a profound African American woman who worked on Wall Street. So I went to Howard University, had 4 internships, 3 of them at Wall Street banks, and I realized that Wall Street in New York City is where I wanted to be. And so I graduated Howard in 2010.And I worked for one of the largest banks in the world in asset management. So our job was to work with a team of individuals that helped individuals who had at least $25 million or more grow their wealth, protect their wealth, and preserve their wealth. And so every day I was in the bank accounts of millionaires and billionaires, and I realized that for something we use every single day of our life, why is it not taught in our school system? You shouldn’t have to major in finance like I did or work on Wall Street like I did to really get exposed to this.And when I would go back home to Philly, where I’m originally from, people thought I was rich. So I’m like, you think I have money, we have no real perception of what true wealth is. And I wanted to be able to bridge that gap, to transfer that Wall Street knowledge in a digestible way to give it to the everyday person. And so July 2013, I bid farewell to my Wall Street job with the intention to figure out a way to financially empower those Wall Street overlooked. Now, I did not know how.I did, I did know who and I knew I was going to be the woman to do it and I knew why it needed to be done. And when I thought about creating Amplify, it wasn’t just about money. One of the biggest things I learned on Wall Street was that there was a different mindset of a wealthy person and I wanted to be able to shift the hearts and minds of people despite, you know, where they came from or what they look like or how much money they did or did not have. And I wanted to create something the world had never seen that cultivated a feeling and a shift within. And so when I thought about financial education.Um, yes, we can learn about money, right? So you can have the education, but what good is education if it lacks the inspiration that it needs? And so I wanted to empower people with the education. I think when you’re empowered, you have the information, it creates a change within you, which is where modified comes from. And so for me it’s really about shifting the mindsets, shifting the identities of people despite where they’re from, what they look like or what they do or do not have to show them that wealth doesn’t have a color.It doesn’t have a gender. It looks like all of us, and we all can build wealth. And I created Amplify to bring that Wall Street information to the everyday person who did not learn about it in school, who did not grow up with it, so they come to Amplify to get that information.
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You know what’s interesting for me is I always have this saying that the greatest teacher is exposure, right? I think, you know, growing up in a black household, you know, the grandmama might say, you know, the greatest teacher is experienced. You don’t know the iron hot until you touch it, right? One of the things that you were mentioning was that, you know, you’re talking to people every day who are, you know, multi, multimillionaires, you’re managing their wealth. And so the idea of their relationship with money and how they thought about money really helped propel you to say, OK.Let me actually bring and uncover these secrets to the to the community, like you say, the 99%. So when we’re thinking about, you know, today, right? Amplify, you started it, you say 2013. As a black female fintech entrepreneur, let’s talk about that, right? Like what are some of the obstacles you’ve had to overcome?
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So I would say most of the obstacles I had to overcome were very internal, right? I did not come from a family of entrepreneurs. Um, I just had an idea and I wanted to change the world. I wasn’t really chasing money. I learned how to build a business that became profitable, but I didn’t do it to make money. And one of the things that happened to me when I left Wall Street, so I had $30,000 when I quit my job and I was so excited, right? I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew I had money and I was going to figure it out.But in the midst of that I lost everything. I got kicked out of my Harlem apartment, maxed out credit cards, negative bank accounts, and I had to move back to my parents’s house in Philadelphia for 2 years building Amplify. But one of the biggest things that I learned about myself is because I thought I was so good on paper, sometimes when you hit rock bottom, the only direction you can go is forward.And one of the biggest things that I needed was to experience that because what it did, it allowed me to understand the people that I served. And so I grew up middle class. I went to college, I worked on Wall Street. I’m making 6 figures in my early 20s, but when you’re sitting there talking to people who’ve never made six figures, people who never got exposed to Wall Street or traveled to the places that I traveled.When I was a financial adviser when I left Wall Street, I was I was actually a little too smart, and I didn’t understand the thoughts, the fears, the doubts, the worries that the everyday person has around money and I found that to be a challenge, and I had to like really lower my expectations on my ability to be able to serve a world because there’s a lot of mental and past experiences that people have gone through that has shaped their mind and their identity when it comes to money. And so in the midst of me losing everything.Um, it also gave me the grit to build amplify, um, but it’s been a challenge just because I, no one tells you how to run a business. I don’t think there’s any school or book that can effectively show you how to run a business. It’s having the mental fortitude to push to create something that is so much bigger.Than you. And I think one of the biggest things for me is that I never did it for money. I found a way to make money to create my own idea, but now I have run a company that helps the world build wealth as I build wealth for my family and the legacy that I’m creating for my family as well.
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I love it. I mean, you really got to ask yourself like, you know, when you, and I love what you said, you started out Wall Street to make money, but now you’re building something that isn’t necessarily about money, it’s about enacting change. And so when you think about where we are, right, to that other 99% that effectively Wall Street is overlooking, why is financial literacy so important and why is what you’re doing soimpactful?
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I think one, when you think about, I learned on Wall Street, there’s two ways to truly build wealth. You can invest in your own idea or invest in somebody else’s idea, right? Now, I’m not telling everybody to go build a business because I’ve been kicked out of places and I’ve been through a whole lot to get to the point of where I am in business, but it doesn’t mean you can’t invest in somebody else’s idea. And when you really think about how we were taught, you were taught to go to school, get the job, and then you get that job so that you could pay back school and then they tell you to buy a house. Like that was kind of the American dream.And then you just work and you get a pension. Times are completely different and you don’t have to rely on just 11 role or one job to give you a stream of income. There are ways that you can effectively build wealth and you cannot work your way to wealth or save your way to wealth. And there are so many people who aspire to have more and want to do more, how are they going to get it done? And so one of the biggest things I always tell people.What does it look like if you invest in the companies you know you use and believe in? There is no stock market without you spending money. There is no company that generates revenue unless they have customers, and we are the customers. And so understanding that the everyday person is the key player on the court when it comes to building wealth in this country and really getting people out of that mindset.That where where where they’re scared or there’s fear or there’s a doubt when it’s like, hey, you can, you can try, but I don’t know anybody and I didn’t see anybody on Wall Street that saved their way to wealth, right? And our clients, if you had a certain amount of money set aside in a checking or savings, it was our job to put it to work and find an investable vehicle to help them grow.Their wealth. And so getting the everyday person to understand when it comes to building wealth, the 1%, they’re not saving money. They’re not keeping their money in cash. They’re putting their money to work. And I think we, we go to work and we work for I work really hard for my money, but why is my money just chilling, right? Like if you have a job description, your money deserves a job description and really start to really focus on paying yourself first and understanding that there is no stock market and wealth in this country unless you are the one spending the money.
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I love that, right? We, you know, we work hard for our money, but our money has to work harder for us. And so, you know, the biggest buzz word on social media is generational wealth, right? And I think earlier you were talking about the mindset when it comes to the people that, you know, effectively the 99% and I always talk about it is like in order to build generational wealth, you first have to overcome those past generational traumas. And so like, talk about some of your strategies when it comes to helping a person.Develop a better relationship with money and actually overcome maybe the reason as to why they were ever bad withmoney.
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I think the first thing is shifting your identity. If you did not grow with money, you don’t believe you can have money. If you’re not around money, you don’t believe you can have a lot of it. So one is shifting and changing your environment, being around people who are building wealth. I always say that wealth is like learning a new language. You have to read it, you have to speak it. You have to surround yourself around it and really knowing that you belong in this environment, despite who you are or what you know. The other thing is just letting go of the fear.There’s fears that like, oh my gosh, I’m going to lose money, and it’s like when you think about investing, and that’s what I’m not a trader, so I can’t speak to people who are traders, but when I think about investing, I want to invest in some of the biggest and best companies that America can’t live without, companies that I’m giving my money to all the time and as they’re building wealth, I want to be able to build wealth too. Why can’t we get money with the 1% versus hating the 1% or being mad at them? We can play the.exact same game. So letting go of the fear of, oh my gosh, I’m afraid I’m going to lose money, but how has how has how has what you’ve been doing so far, where has it gotten you, right? I think what got you here won’t get you there. When you think about building a legacy, putting your kids through college, passing down wealth, it starts with the person in the mirror. So if you don’t believe you are a wealth builder, and you don’t believe you deserve money, that’s a conversation that we have to have and thatMight come from what you may see in the news, what you grew up around. Chances are if your parents always told you you couldn’t afford it, you’re probably telling your kids you can’t afford it. But what if you could afford it? What if you can figure out and understand and realize that you have the pen that writes the next chapter in your life? Therefore, what do you want it to be? You write this story, you’re the creator, you have those limiting thoughts that we have to break through. And so I think letting go of that fear and understanding is so much bigger.Then your doubts and your fears, your family’s legacy matters way way more, and you have to start speaking and learning that language despite how uncomfortable it can be.
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I love that. We got to take a quick break, but when we come back, we’re gonna have more from Ashley Fox, CEO of Amplify.Welcome back to Financial Freestyle here on Yahoo Finance, and we’re back talking to Ashley. So Ashley, listen, man, I, I love what you’ve created with Amplify and you know, we’ve been friends for quite some time, obviously following each other on social media and I see you preach a lot about passive income. I need you to break that down for the audience, right? Like why, why should weOne, understand what passive income is and then we go break it down even further and and look at some of the different investment classes that you recommend.
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Um, so when I think of investing in the stock market, right, so just look at it twofold. You can invest in growth stocks. So those are those fast growing companies that make money and put their money back into the business. But then you have those more seasoned companies that are more established where their stock price might not grow as much. And so when you think about the type of investor you want to be in the risk tolerance that you want to have.What is your intention when you’re going into the stock market? And a lot of individuals don’t have a high risk tolerance, but they want to be able to create additional income. They want to soon replace their job’s current income. And so a lot of what we talk about is is creating dividends, creating passive income with dividends. And so when a company makes money from the revenue that they generate.They pay their bills and they share a portion of their profits. There are companies that share 40%, 50%, 60%, 70, 80% of their profits and give it to investors, the everyday person, every month or every quarter. And while you’re not going to get rich quick, you are able to build a sustainable income that can put you through retirement, that can help you replace your job’s income, can help you.Pay off debt, travel the world. And so it’s just giving people the opportunity to understand what types of investments are on the stock market. I think a lot of people just think you can just, you just have to trade, you’re going to make a lot of money, you’re going to lose money. There’s a lot of risk. But some of the biggest and best companies have been paying out dividends for 2030, 40, 50 years.And people are retired with this income. And so dividend income, creating that passive income by investing in things like dividend stocks, you have dividend ETFs, you have real estate investment trusts, allow people to get in, not have to start with a lot of money, but be able to build over time but not have to use a credit score, not have to put in a bunch of work, but still get get that continued passive income.
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I love it, right? So, you know, I always tell people when it comes to real estate.You know, a person like, oh, the easiest way to get in real estate is to get a FHA loan and do this, do that. I’m like, no, the easiest way to get in real estate is with a REIT, right? A real estate investment trust and you know, by law, 90% of the proceeds have to be uh distributed to the, the shareholders. But let’s actually break it, let’s let’s break it down further, right? So if I’mLooking to invest in a dividend stock, right? What are some of the things that I should think about when I’m thinking about adding it to my portfolio?
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So one, thinking aboutThe dividend yield. So one of the biggest things I like to tell people, a good, a good dividend yield anywhere between 3 to 7%. If you’re making a 3 to 7% dividend yield, which is at the bottom of a stock chart, that means for every share you buy that company, that’s the income that you’re going to get. When you look at that dividend yield, if it’s over 7, that’s when you want to pay a little bit more attention to the company, their stability. So you want to make sure that company has enough cash to pay its bills, to cover its debt and to pay you. The good dividend paying companies.They have been paying consistent dividends every quarter or every month, not missing a payment, and the great ones increase that dividend income every single year. And this matters when we start to think about certain economic downturns, right? How are companies performing? Were they still paying out dividends during aRecession during a stock market crash. These are things to consider because you want to be able to rely on this passive income. And when you start to think about REITs, REITs are the same way. Now they by law have to pay you, but it’s also making sure that that your income is consistent, the company can be consistent, and they have enough money to sustain their bills as well as you.
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All right, I’m about to put you on the spot. What are, if you don’t have to narrow it down to one, it could be like, what are some of your favorite dividend stocks?
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So
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this is not the audiencethat the audience should do their own due diligence and learnmore.
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So, so I am also 36 years old and I have a very high risk tolerance. And so when I think about when I think about dividends, right, I like to buy companies where the prices have dropped. So like like with the market is dropping, I love to buy companies when the prices are on sale because you can get it at a lower price but still collect that passive income. So companies that I like, let me see. So I also buy grow stocks too, but when I think about my dividend portfolio, I like companies like Verizon.I like O Realty, which is a that’s a REIT that’s been paying out dividends for over 25 years. They pay every single month. They own over 15,000 properties, and they do their best to make sure I get paid every single month. Um, what other res do I have? I have a REIT called AG&C. Now that’s a little bit risky. That is a mortgage rate they pay every month, um, but most REITs and a lot of the companies that I own are literally less than $100 to $200. But those are a couple that I like. I would say about 20% of my portfolio.Is in dividend investments, but I bought realty income in particular when the market dropped with the intention that I want to be able to hold it so that when the price goes back to what it was pre-pandemic, I’m able to capture the price growth but also the income and so when you think about buying dividend investments, your first priority is passive income. The second priority is price growth because it is possible that the stock price can go up and down, but you’re still.Getting your consistent cash flow. And so for me, when I buy my dividend investments, I like the consistent income, but I also like to capture some price growth. I think the older you are, the more focused on reliable, less risky investments. You start to have a lot of those established businesses, but also on Apple too. Now Apple does not have the highest dividend, but it is one of the biggest companies in the world, um, but they do pay out a dividend as well, but I also own them for price growth too.
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Something you said that was very amazing and interesting was that you’re 36 years old and about 30% of your portfolio is dividend stocks, right? How would you recommend, once again, you know, do your own due diligence, but say for a person that is 40, 50, um, or a person that’s 20 years old, right? Like, in other words, kind of what do you think about portfolio construction as you get older?
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I think the older you get, the more you’re dependent on income, right? So right now, me being 36 years old, I’m gonna see a whole lot of stock market crashes. So I’m ready for it. I’m not frightened. I’m excited for it. It gives me the opportunity to buy things at a cheaper price point. The older you are, the more you want to protect your money, you want to preserve your money. So when you think about when you’re young, so like in your 20s or your 30s, maybe even in your 40s, you want the growth stocks, right? Because growth growth.Stocks, you can you can more than double your money have that potential to do that because a company is a faster growing company. When I think about companies like a Realty Income or a Verizon or an AT&T, right? These are older, more seasoned. Their stock prices are not about to double in price, right? And maybe something might happen in the economy, but I highly doubt it. These are your more seasoned borne companies where they say, hey, investors,I know when you buy our stock, we’re not going to grow a lot, right? We we’re not the fast growing companies anymore. So instead, because we can’t give you a lot of price growth, we want to share our profits with you. What that does to an investor, it gives you a peace of mind of knowing that an established consistent company can can take care of you on a consistent basis paying out passive income. Now, you might not get that 1,000% return or doubling your money because that’s not why people typically buy dividend stocks, and that’s definitely why they don’t buy REITs. They’reMy job is to focus on that passive income. So I think once you’re gonna hit that 50, 60 year mark, you want to really start to shift your portfolio to more things like bonds or dividend stocks, um, so that you’re relying on consistent dependable income. Right now at 36, I’m not dependent on my portfolio. I want to make as much money as I can, but I’m also willing to watch the market go up, watch the market go down, because I’m I’m more of a long-term investor and I have a bigger time horizon because I’m a lot younger.
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So what’s your view on the market right now? If I’m sitting at home, I never invest it. Uh-huh.What’s your view on the stock market
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currently? So this is interesting because I tell all the members inside of our wealth for this community app, this is not the time to be scared, this is the time to go shopping.When you think about Black Friday, right? You have no problem when the entire store is is on sale. Everything is red inside of the store, but when we see the stock market is red, we get scared. The way I look at it is the best time to go shopping is when the market is down. The best time to learn how to invest is when the market is down. This is not the time to be scared, this is the time to play offense. And when you really think about a lot of people who are brand new.We are afraid to invest in the stock market when it’s up. Oh, it’s too expensive. Now the prices are down. I’m afraid to invest because the prices are down. The timing of the market and what goes on in the economy does not have to dictate when you start building wealth. The best way to win a championship is to show up to practice and to play the game. So you have to get in the game, learn. Now, I’m not telling you to put all your money in the market, absolutely not, but you have to start and consistently build and under.understand that there are large reputable businesses that are not taking a hit because they’re bad companies, but because of where we are in economic times and where the economy is going, but it doesn’t mean you’re not going to come out of this. And just based off of history, the average stock market is about 10%. So while yes, the market could be down, the market is actually up a whole lot more than what it is down. So this is the time to learn. This is the time to get everything on.And sale. This is a time to be aggressive, to play offense, and to be excited about it. Like I, I get so excited when the market drops. It’s because I learned so much. But even just think about the pandemic. Like we were scared during a pandemic. There was, there was fear during a pandemic. We didn’t know what was going on. There was uncertainty, but a lot of money was made as a result of the market dropping during a pandemic. Same thing with the 2008 crash. So take advantage of the opportunity.That things are on sale, and if you’re not trying to get rich quick, you have the opportunity to grow with companies as we get out of the economic downturn that we are in and might continue to go through.
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I love the advice. As we get ready to wrap up.Let the audience in the world know what’s next for Amplify.
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So we have a lot. So we have our parent investing boot camp inside of our wealth community app, so you can go to Implify.com. There’s a lot that I’m focusing on when it comes to showing adults how to build wealth, but also how do we properly pass it down and build wealth for our children. We have our premier, one of our most exclusive programs, the Reed Accelerator, showing individuals how they can start investing in real estate with less than $200 and consistently building that pass.Of income. We have a lot of uh virtual events happening, in-person events. We have our WB weekend. There’s a lot and so my biggest thing is to get our members into a space where they feel safe, where they feel confident, but as during a time where there’s so much uncertainty, we are going shopping in the stock market. Our members have invested collectively over $9 million and I know we’re going to hit 20.this year, despite what’s happening in the presidential office, despite what’s happening in America. So whether it’s our Reading Accelerator, our Welter Community app, our WB Weekend that we’re having, there’s a ton of things that are available for people and we have a lot of free resources as well. So if you just go to amplify.com, you can see everything, you can learn, you can grow, but now is the time to build, um, and I’m excited for what’s to come.
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I love it. I love it. Well, listen, I just want to say thanks so much for joining. Ashley, uh, you’re doing remarkable things and obviously, uh, you know, we, we’re peers in this space of trying to help, you know, educate and bring Wall Street to Main Street, so I just want to thank you. But that’s it for this episode. Make sure that you tune in next week for a new episode of Financial Freestyle here on Yahoo Finance.
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This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services.