Transforming Trauma into Triumph with Alex Love Li: Achieving Financial Freedom & Life Fulfillment

Hey Fit & Frugal Tribe!

What secrets does breaking free from societal norms to live a life of meaning reveal about achieving true financial independence?

In this episode I had the pleasure of sitting down with Alex Love Li, a dynamic life coach and multifamily real estate mentor. Alex is a believer in the power of financial freedom and living life with purpose, and he’s here to share his wisdom and experiences with us.

Join us as Alex opens up about his personal journey, overcoming financial hardships, and discovering his true calling in helping others achieve financial freedom. He dives deep into the importance of mindset, flexibility, and breaking free from societal norms to craft a life filled with meaning and fulfillment.

Alex emphasizes how understanding and transforming our relationship with traumas can lead to personal growth and a deeper way of serving humanity. He also talks about the value of time, the impact of mentors, and why saving time is crucial in our paths towards financial and personal success.

Deeply influenced by "Rich Dad Poor Dad" and "A Course in Miracles,"  Alex Love Li views real estate as a catalyst for global abundance. His vision, driven by Legends Equity Group, is to democratize real estate investment and promote collective prosperity. With an impressive portfolio of over 800 units and raising $10 million for projects, Alex is a testament to what focused, community-driven growth can achieve.

You can catch Alex on his YouTube channel @loveliTV, where he aims to guide others from the Pond Life to an Upstream Life of freedom through financial education.

Tune in to this enlightening conversation with Alex Love Li, where we explore the depths of financial freedom, personal transformation, and the journey to living a life full of meaning and abundance.

Key Takeaways:
Overcoming traumas can lead to personal growth and a calling to serve others.
Financial freedom is not just about money, but also about mindset and flexibility.
Traveling and exploring different cultures can help break free from societal norms and find one's true self.
Building meaningful relationships and giving back to the community are essential for a fulfilling life.
Having a coach or mentor can provide guidance and accountability in achieving personal and financial goals.

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Transcript

[TRANSCRIPT]

0:00:00 - (Alex Love Li): Our traumas are actually designed. When we overcome our traumas, they are our calling of how we can serve humanity. I didn't share this part, but at one point in my life, and it wasn't even that long ago, I lost all of my money. I went into two. I bought two restaurants, and I lost it all. I lost the restaurant. My car was repoed. I lost my house. You know, I couldn't pay for my cell phone bill. Verizon was too expensive. $200 a month.

0:00:28 - (Alex Love Li): Always encourage, never criticize. And so I bring that to my coaching.

0:00:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Fit and frugal podcast. I am your host, Tawny Wynn. You can find me on IG at Tawny stores. I have here with me my friend Alex, who's going to talk a little.

0:00:43 - (C): Bit about what he does.

0:00:45 - (D): Hey, thank you.

0:00:46 - (Alex Love Li): Thank you so much for having me on this podcast.

0:00:48 - (D): It's an honor to be here.

0:00:50 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah. So I am a life coach, and I'm also a mentor in the multifamily space. I invest in multifamily and in real estate in general, and I teach people how to create financial freedom, set themselves.

0:01:03 - (D): Up to thrive when it comes to that.

0:01:07 - (C): Cool. How long have you been here in Vegas?

0:01:09 - (D): I've been in Vegas for about a.

0:01:11 - (Alex Love Li): Year and a half, and I moved here just at the end of the beginning of 2021.

0:01:18 - (C): Cool. Where did you move from?

0:01:20 - (Alex Love Li): So I lived in Peru, actually, the year before that, during COVID I actually lived in Peru. And it's a funny story because.

0:01:29 - (C): I.

0:01:29 - (Alex Love Li): Lived in Florida before that, but I met my wife in this personal development training, and she's canadian, so she's not a us citizen. And when Covid happened, actually, right around that time, I was selling my two houses in Florida so that we can go on a road trip together. So I bought this rv, and it's kind of like a dream for me to travel the country in an rv and live that way for a little bit just to see everything. So we had put a down payment on the rv. We had both houses set to close on whatever morning that was, and she was going to fly back from Canada.

0:02:06 - (Alex Love Li): But she has spent too much time here in the states before that, so they didn't let her cross the border. They're like, okay, well, you can't come.

0:02:13 - (Tawni Nguyen): Back to the States, so she's technically a citizen because the 51%.

0:02:17 - (Alex Love Li): No, we weren't married at the time, so we were still dating, and we wanted to travel the country. I wanted to propose to her somewhere.

0:02:28 - (D): Nice, and she couldn't come back to the States.

0:02:32 - (Alex Love Li): I couldn't go to Canada because the border was closed. They didn't let anybody in. And both of my houses sold. And I called her and I was know is, what time are you getting? Know, I'm going to go pick up the rv that I had a down payment on. I'm going to come pick. You know, I bought a truck, too. I bought a. Yeah. Just so that we can do this whole thing. And so here I am with literally all my stuff in the back of my truck. My dog is in my backseat, and.

0:03:00 - (D): I kind of sat there.

0:03:01 - (Alex Love Li): I didn't know what to do.

0:03:02 - (C): Yeah.

0:03:02 - (Alex Love Li): So we just picked. Life is about being able to pivot and maneuver. I think being flexible and allowing life to come to you is something that.

0:03:11 - (D): I strive to live by.

0:03:14 - (Alex Love Li): And so we were looking, we're like.

0:03:15 - (D): Where can we go?

0:03:17 - (Alex Love Li): We can fly to another country right now. I got a truck. I'm going to lose my deposit on this rv.

0:03:23 - (D): So, fine, lesson learned.

0:03:26 - (Alex Love Li): But the most important thing was, where does my truck go and where does my dog go if we're going to leave the country? So the only two places that were open was the Bahamas, Peru, or Mexico. Those were the three choices that we had. And we had a budy down in Peru, so we wanted to go and visit him anyways.

0:03:43 - (D): And so, know, literally dropped my dog.

0:03:47 - (Alex Love Li): Off at her friend's place in New York.

0:03:48 - (D): So I drove from Florida to New York, dropped my dog off, dropped my.

0:03:54 - (Alex Love Li): Car off, and I just bought this truck. So now my dog in my car cost me about $1,800 a month just to park it and to have somebody.

0:04:04 - (D): Watch my dog for two months.

0:04:06 - (Alex Love Li): That's what we were going to do. We didn't know how long Covid was going to last.

0:04:09 - (C): Yeah.

0:04:10 - (Alex Love Li): So we went to Peru and we just loved it. I mean, we weren't in a big city or anything. We were in Pzac, this little town right outside of Cusco in Peru. And literally, it was like a know. It was definitely very third world.

0:04:25 - (D): But being around this, there's a thing.

0:04:30 - (Alex Love Li): About being around people that are making so little and still being able to be happy and then being able to just enjoy the environment. We were surrounded by mountains, and everybody was so friendly and nice and kind. So we decided that we were going to stay longer.

0:04:45 - (D): And we stayed there for about nine.

0:04:47 - (Alex Love Li): Months, nine plus months. And we were actually going to move down there for good.

0:04:51 - (D): So that's where I was in Peru.

0:04:53 - (Alex Love Li): And then when we came back.

0:04:58 - (C): This.

0:04:58 - (Alex Love Li): Is a story that really impacted me, I went to Publix and I saw this 85 year old woman who was my cashier, and I was kind of angry and sad at the same time. I was like, we're in the wealthiest.

0:05:14 - (D): Country in the world, and we've failed our elders.

0:05:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): Five year old working.

0:05:21 - (D): Yeah.

0:05:21 - (Alex Love Li): And, like, asian cultures, we don't really have our parents working at a supermarket or anything. For me personally, like, me and my sister, we take care of my mom, and she's never going to be working at a Walmart.

0:05:36 - (C): Yeah.

0:05:37 - (Alex Love Li): So there's just something that there's a gap somewhere where our society, the way that we've taught people to invest our.

0:05:47 - (D): Money, is just not working.

0:05:49 - (Alex Love Li): And there's so many people there. And I started to see the elderly and Walmart and cvs, like, everywhere, and.

0:05:56 - (D): I was like, I have a know.

0:05:58 - (Alex Love Li): I've created a certain level of financial freedom for myself where I don't have to worry for me and my wife and how come I'm able to do this and they.

0:06:09 - (C): Right.

0:06:09 - (Alex Love Li): So there's just a lack of education somewhere.

0:06:12 - (D): And I committed myself to teaching, and.

0:06:15 - (Alex Love Li): Then when I went back to Peru, I started teaching, and then there was just kind of a calling to come back to the states. So we came back and we decided to move to Vegas, where we had a bunch of properties here, too.

0:06:26 - (C): Yeah.

0:06:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): How did your Peru trip change the relationship? Because you said you met at a personal development conference.

0:06:34 - (Alex Love Li): So it's a training. It's called gratitude training, and it's very Tony Robbins like. Tony Robbins came from a place called.

0:06:45 - (D): Oh, my God, what is it called?

0:06:46 - (Alex Love Li): Lifespring. So these trainings were around for a long time, but it's basically looking at your stories, your limiting beliefs and being able to change those things. So we met in that training program.

0:07:03 - (D): And kind of the rest is history. And we're married now and happy here in Vegas.

0:07:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, it's kind of good because you can actually pick up your things and go, which is. A lot of people don't have that option either. It's because when you mentioned pivot, and I would imagine if it wasn't your wife now, if it's another girl that comes here expecting to be put in a house, in a traditional car, whatever, and they show up and they're like, why is all your things in a sprinter van? That's actually one of my dreams, too.

0:07:35 - (Alex Love Li): I think there's a calling for all of us as human beings to want to just be free.

0:07:39 - (C): Yeah.

0:07:40 - (Alex Love Li): And somehow in our society, we've just trapped ourselves into these jobs that's good.

0:07:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): That you got out of the american matrix for a little bit. That's what I call it, too. There's a lot of other entrepreneurs that I know that are married, and then once they make a certain amount of money, once they've hit their numbers, they're like in Bali right now, they're in Vietnam. And I've looked into dream.

0:08:04 - (Alex Love Li): I think that's the spirit of entrepreneurship, is to break free from this game, this money game.

0:08:11 - (C): Yeah.

0:08:12 - (Tawni Nguyen): And that's really powerful that the 85 year old. How did that change?

0:08:17 - (C): Did that create a sort of fire.

0:08:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): In you to create? Is that how legends was created? Yeah, legends kind of wrap that around.

0:08:26 - (Alex Love Li): Legends mastermind is, I found a legends mastermind, and it is around learning how to create financial freedom through multifamily investing. But it's more than that. We really care about the relationships that they have. So I bring relationship coaches in, I.

0:08:42 - (D): Bring personal development coaches in, and it's a kind of whole life type of thing.

0:08:49 - (Alex Love Li): So, yeah, actually pretty much there was a demand for it. I started doing these calls, and it provided a lot of value for people, and they wanted to know what was next. How did they get more of me?

0:09:01 - (D): How do they get more access to.

0:09:03 - (Alex Love Li): Me, and what can I do to help them? And for me personally, if I can help people save time, that is my goal. If I can just share some of.

0:09:14 - (D): My mistakes and my experiences with people.

0:09:19 - (Alex Love Li): That can shorten the time frame in which they get to where I'm at, then that's what I want to do for people. So there was a demand for, and then I just kind of put it together. Usually I let a lot of things come to me organically, and I just see what the calling is in life, and I respond.

0:09:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): I kind of sense that energy.

0:09:41 - (C): The minute you said you had this.

0:09:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): Responsibility, when you kind of subdued it. And it's kind of funny that we come from an asian culture, and of course.

0:09:54 - (C): I don't know how to explain.

0:09:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): It, but even my parents, they're working because they're choosing to, but we own our businesses, and they're just like, well, if we retire, then we're bored.

0:10:02 - (C): I'm like, yeah, buddy, what are you going to do?

0:10:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): Right?

0:10:05 - (Alex Love Li): That's the trap, though. Your identity becomes your job. So without your job, then who are you?

0:10:13 - (Tawni Nguyen): Our rentals are cash flowing. Like you guys technically don't even have to work. We have all of these things, but I think it comes down to understanding the time because they're so attached to their achievement and their ownership in the business that I don't think they understand entrepreneurship because I kind of told them, I was like, you are an entrepreneur, but you bought yourselves jobs that you decide to stay in and you won't let go of control.

0:10:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): And they're still in it, and they're like, oh, but we're happy here. I'm like, dude, you work so much on some level.

0:10:41 - (Alex Love Li): When people are there and they're at a certain age and that's what they're doing, we just kind of have to let them run their course. But us being younger, we can change this thinking the entire generation can change. And that's why I think us being young and being entrepreneurs, we get to break this chain of attaching our identities to our jobs or a career or to money or our status, and we get to find who we are besides all that stuff.

0:11:16 - (Alex Love Li): And that requires traveling and seeing other cultures and exploring being able to do things. And part of that is you got to break free from the money game in order to do that, because otherwise.

0:11:28 - (D): Wherever you go, you would still bring.

0:11:30 - (Alex Love Li): Your limitations about money to that place.

0:11:33 - (C): That's true, right? Yeah.

0:11:35 - (D): I think it's about breaking free, and.

0:11:38 - (Alex Love Li): That'S my journey, and that's what I want to inspire and motivate people to do. And being on this podcast, if I can do that and land it for one person out here that's watching, then awesome. I've completed my mission being here.

0:11:53 - (C): Yeah. Because when I first started, I didn't.

0:11:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): Really understand the premise of how I wanted to go about with this podcast. And it kind of comes back down to my core values, like the roots, the grassroots reasons why I want to do a podcast past, right. It's about really connecting with people. I taught for about a year. Like, I taught at college. I was a college dropout at 18. So when I went back to teach, I didn't graduate until I was like 30. I did it for my parents because they didn't know I dropped out.

0:12:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): But I found out like six years later, they're like, hey, where's your college degree? I'm like, oh, funny story. I don't have one. I don't have one, right? But I think when I went back to it, I'm like, what is it that I want to do? And what is my mission? I wanted to do something mission and purpose driven and what I'm put on this earth to do. Right? And it's not about the money anymore, and it's more about better quality of life and building holistic wealth. And most people think of wealth as a really tangible thing, which is assets, money, luxury items, houses, cars, and all of those things. But it comes down to, I think my most tangible thing that we have.

0:12:51 - (C): Is relationships and time.

0:12:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's the two things that I think, at the core really means something valuable to me. It's because in my twenty s, I traded all of that for money.

0:13:02 - (C): Right.

0:13:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): I went kind of like not the rat race, but like the anti rat race, where I didn't realize that's what I was doing. I was burning out. I'm like, chasing money in my bank account. I didn't see anyone. I didn't talk to anyone. How would you describe your quality of life in terms of being financially free? How does that have an impact on your relationships?

0:13:22 - (Alex Love Li): I think being financially free, like most people do, think directly right to money. All right, how much money is it going to be? On some level? Yes. You want to have your goal. You want to create enough passive income so you don't have to worry.

0:13:37 - (D): But financially free, that freedom itself is a mindset.

0:13:43 - (Alex Love Li): Knowing that every time you're working towards.

0:13:46 - (D): Something that you're learning and that you.

0:13:49 - (Alex Love Li): Will never go backwards if you learn.

0:13:51 - (D): Like, if you gained knowledge that can't be taken away from you.

0:13:58 - (Alex Love Li): I know that no matter what, I.

0:14:00 - (D): Will not return back to a job.

0:14:03 - (Alex Love Li): Because of what I've learned and what I've been able to create in my life. Even if I lost everything, I would be able to come back strong. A because like you said, the relationships that I've built, I don't think people will let me fail.

0:14:16 - (D): Right.

0:14:16 - (Alex Love Li): I think what I understand about life and about investments and business and all.

0:14:22 - (D): Of those things, I can create something else, and I don't need money to do it.

0:14:27 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah, I didn't share this part, but at one point in my life, and it wasn't even that long ago, I lost all of my money. I bought two restaurants and I lost it all. I lost the restaurant. My car was repoed. I lost my house. I couldn't pay for my cell phone bill. Verizon was too expensive, $200 a month. And when I finally called it quits, it was hard. And I get how money impacts people.

0:14:57 - (D): But it doesn't have to be, like, who you are if you failed. You don't have to take that with it. So I went through a lot of.

0:15:08 - (Alex Love Li): Challenges, and it was really dark time.

0:15:10 - (D): In my life because I was like, what am I going to do?

0:15:13 - (Alex Love Li): I was literally living. I moved down to Florida from New Jersey at that time, and I literally.

0:15:18 - (D): Was living in a room where my bed comes down and the front door can't open because that's how small of.

0:15:27 - (Alex Love Li): A little space I was living in.

0:15:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Murphy.

0:15:29 - (D): Yeah.

0:15:29 - (Alex Love Li): Like a Murphy bed came down and it couldn't even be more than 200 sqft.

0:15:35 - (D): That's how small it was. And I had a 95 pound dog that lived with me.

0:15:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): What kind of dog do you have?

0:15:42 - (Alex Love Li): I got a cane corso.

0:15:43 - (C): Oh.

0:15:44 - (Alex Love Li): So she's big, and she needs space, and I'm big, and I need space, and I'm living in this tiny place. And I was like, I don't see a way out because my credit score was a 400. I was like 400,000 in debt, and.

0:15:59 - (D): I didn't have a job, I didn't have nothing. And.

0:16:04 - (Alex Love Li): From there, I had to really.

0:16:06 - (D): Reinvent myself and change my relationship to money, change my relationship to what other.

0:16:14 - (Alex Love Li): People thought about me.

0:16:15 - (D): I had to put that aside, and.

0:16:18 - (Alex Love Li): I went to a conference. If I could give anybody one tip, one advice today is, like, invest in yourself. Go to conferences, because you get to meet people. You get to hear inspirational and motivational speakers and learn something from there. Learn something that you can take away that will change your life forever. So I went to Chris Crone's conference, and that was in Utah.

0:16:41 - (D): And I learned about partnerships, and I.

0:16:43 - (Alex Love Li): Never thought about partnerships in real estate.

0:16:46 - (D): And I was like, wait, so you.

0:16:48 - (Alex Love Li): Mean to tell me that I could do real estate without any of my own money?

0:16:52 - (D): I don't need to put my finances.

0:16:55 - (Alex Love Li): On the line to get a loan. I don't need to get that myself.

0:16:57 - (D): And all I have to do is run the deal. Yeah, I could do that. I know real estate.

0:17:02 - (Alex Love Li): That's kind of how I made it to even being able to buy my restaurants. So I started putting together little real.

0:17:09 - (D): Estate meetups where I teach people about real estate.

0:17:13 - (Alex Love Li): And it was like single family at the time, like, super basic. And one person in the room decided, yeah, I'll invest with you, $46,000. And he put himself on the loan, and we got a house here in Las Vegas, in Henderson.

0:17:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, wow.

0:17:28 - (Alex Love Li): And that house just, like, killed it. We cashed out that thing twice. And now he's in multiple deals with me. He's introduced a bunch of people to me. They've introduced people. So I've grown my real estate portfolio really fast.

0:17:43 - (D): And it was like, I think in.

0:17:45 - (Alex Love Li): A matter of, like, four and a half years, five years, I went from rock bottom having nothing to making about $20,000 a month in cash flow.

0:17:55 - (D): And I was like, wow, if I.

0:17:57 - (Alex Love Li): Can do this, everybody can do this.

0:17:59 - (C): Yeah.

0:18:00 - (Alex Love Li): But it doesn't require the how to do it. It requires a change of mindset.

0:18:06 - (D): The whole thing has to change.

0:18:08 - (C): That's amazing that you're able to share.

0:18:10 - (Tawni Nguyen): Negative. Well, that's close to, like, half a mil, right?

0:18:13 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah, I just actually paid that debt off last year.

0:18:18 - (Tawni Nguyen): How long did that take you? About five years.

0:18:20 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah, five and a half, six years.

0:18:21 - (Tawni Nguyen): Five and a half, six years.

0:18:22 - (Alex Love Li): How did you go about $3,000 a month?

0:18:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): Was it to a debt collector or what?

0:18:27 - (Alex Love Li): So it was a combination of. To debt collection and also to personal loans.

0:18:36 - (C): Yeah.

0:18:39 - (Alex Love Li): I couldn't make a whole payment, but.

0:18:41 - (D): I could make monthly payments. And I think that's what's important, is we make agreements.

0:18:48 - (Alex Love Li): And if you meet up with your agreements, even though you failed your business, I actually created more credibility with my lenders by creating a new agreement and living it and meeting it.

0:19:00 - (D): For five years, I was depositing this trust.

0:19:04 - (C): Yeah.

0:19:07 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because I know that we connected over a lot of philanthropy work, too. Like how you say that it impacted the way you look at people and the things you want to do for people. And I kind of really liked the. Was it on a shirt? I think it was on a shirt. Right. Your guys'shirt that I was reading, and I think it just happened. Yeah, the legend shirt. I think I was just standing there. I kind of spaced out, and I think you or someone that was wearing.

0:19:29 - (C): It stood in front of me, and.

0:19:31 - (Tawni Nguyen): It just clicked, and I kind of.

0:19:32 - (C): Read it, and I was just like.

0:19:34 - (Tawni Nguyen): Holy shit, who is this person?

0:19:37 - (C): Yeah, right?

0:19:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah. So tell me more about the things that you want. Do you see Vegas as a place that you want to spend more time here?

0:19:44 - (C): What do you want to do here?

0:19:45 - (Alex Love Li): Well, I think, first, I love art and creativity and people that are in.

0:19:53 - (D): That space, and Vegas is where people are everything that people do.

0:19:57 - (Alex Love Li): They're mastering know, like, the restaurants, the chefs, the cooks, they're masters at what they do. The shows, these Cirque du Soleil performers, they are masters. They are insane what they can do.

0:20:10 - (D): And just be able to be able.

0:20:11 - (Alex Love Li): To watch and see the type of work that people put into just that.

0:20:16 - (D): One thing, and then just the excellence.

0:20:21 - (Alex Love Li): That goes into all the things that are done in Vegas. I love that energy, and I love that everybody comes. Like, I have friends all the time coming here. I've watched the Michael Jackson show, like, five times just because I love it so much, and I'm sitting there watching people that I bring to the show how much they love it because it's just so great. So I love that energy. And when people come here, it's almost.

0:20:44 - (D): Like they just want to release and be a new version of themselves.

0:20:49 - (Alex Love Li): And so I like the energy here. But, of course, wherever you go, you.

0:20:54 - (D): Can find charitable and meaningful work to do. So, yeah, I think working with the.

0:21:01 - (Alex Love Li): Youth is something that I really want to be doing.

0:21:04 - (D): I want to be able to impact the next generation.

0:21:07 - (C): Youth is under 18, like young adult type.

0:21:10 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah, I kind of don't have an age on that because I have people that I'm mentoring that are like 23. But I think it's a certain, like, before you go and go career in.

0:21:18 - (D): A w two job, I call all of that youth.

0:21:21 - (C): Okay.

0:21:22 - (Alex Love Li): I don't know, maybe somebody's like 30 still doing that. That's fine. No, but definitely under 18 is something that I'm passionate about.

0:21:33 - (D): I'm going to be working with the.

0:21:36 - (Alex Love Li): Foster homes here in Vegas. I have to take a 50 hours class.

0:21:41 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, really?

0:21:41 - (Alex Love Li): To actually be a mentor in there. So, yeah, I'm going to be doing that. And all of my businesses should be everything I do.

0:21:51 - (D): I think about if a troubled teen.

0:21:55 - (Alex Love Li): Was looking at what I'm doing, would they feel inspired? And if they are, that's my avatar right there. Everybody else, it's like, it's cool. People love what I do. They love the message that I have. But I'm speaking to those teens because I don't want them to turn out to be like the 85 year old lady at Publix.

0:22:15 - (D): So if I can just do things.

0:22:19 - (Alex Love Li): In my life that inspires them, motivates.

0:22:21 - (D): Them, gives them an opportunity, then, yeah, that's like my mission.

0:22:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): Yeah, it kind of sounds like what I say is like, I want to be the person I needed when I was younger. I think I kind of grew up as a delinquent or degenerator or whatever you call it.

0:22:36 - (C): Right.

0:22:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): The people that kind of took really wrong turns and went on their own bumpy roller coaster.

0:22:41 - (Alex Love Li): And look at you, you're doing great.

0:22:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I think it's questionable.

0:22:47 - (C): Right on. What the youth has to offer us.

0:22:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): Is because when I was teaching, like, these 18 year olds, they just have.

0:22:55 - (C): So much love to give, and they're.

0:22:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): Just so structured, institutionalized. Because I was teaching out of Cal State, and they're freaking out because I.

0:23:02 - (C): Taught a semester before COVID hit, so.

0:23:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): I was teaching and going to school during COVID the COVID university had my own five classes, and then I was teaching, too. So we're all panicking together. We're all like, what the hell is going on?

0:23:16 - (Alex Love Li): And how interesting. Like, what kind of institution is put into place where they have teachers that are just as confused as, you know? And then we're supposed to teach this.

0:23:26 - (D): Curriculum that does what?

0:23:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): And it was funny because I was teaching communication studies. It's a hybrid course with public speaking. Public speaking is my fucking greatest fear till this day. I still do a lot of things where I'm speaking in public and on stage and stuff like that, but I'm sweating just as much as I was when I was 2015 when I decided to face that fear.

0:23:44 - (C): And some of these students, they're like.

0:23:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): What should my speech be about? I'm like, just be you. I was like, you teach me what you want to teach me. They're like, oh, there's this whole course of loud topics. So my class was a little different.

0:23:57 - (C): Because I really wanted to show them.

0:24:02 - (Tawni Nguyen): That, hey, you can be an entrepreneur if you want to teach me about day trading or stocks. That's what their speech was about. It was like, some really random stuff. I'm like, what are you passionate about? And this kid, he was just like, investing. I was like, no way. Tell me more. He was like, do you know who Warren Buffett is? I was like, I fucking do. I was like, I have his books. What do you want to teach?

0:24:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): And, like, his whole thing, you can tell his eyes kind of light up and he was talking about things, right? Versus some of the students where they're really shy and they're like, I'm going to teach you about, I don't know.

0:24:30 - (C): Some of the topics, but it's like.

0:24:33 - (Tawni Nguyen): Once they put their heart and passion into it, you can actually feel it. So when you're teaching as a life coach, how do you see that light in others? Do you kind of sense that you're empowering them or by your messages that they're getting empowered?

0:24:47 - (Alex Love Li): So first, I'm like, you, where? I was kind of like a black swan or black goose, whatever it is.

0:24:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): We're the black sheep of eight, the.

0:24:56 - (Alex Love Li): Black sheep, right, of the family. We did not go that traditional route.

0:25:00 - (D): Like, I spent eleven years in college.

0:25:03 - (Alex Love Li): So that's how I was van Wildering in college. I was there for four presidential elections, okay. And I turned out okay. I'm very proud of the person that I've become today. And I think my mom and my dad was still here. He would definitely be as well. So I see everybody that way.

0:25:21 - (D): Like, okay, you're on your journey.

0:25:23 - (Alex Love Li): Even if you're taking the wrong path.

0:25:25 - (D): Right now or my.

0:25:27 - (Tawni Nguyen): You don't know what's wrong.

0:25:28 - (Alex Love Li): I don't know it's wrong. So the first thing about coaching is.

0:25:31 - (D): That I have to remove myself from this coaching relationship.

0:25:38 - (Alex Love Li): Like, my judgment is out the door. There is no right or wrong. You go wherever you want.

0:25:43 - (D): And one, I don't know what movie I watched, but this guy was asking.

0:25:48 - (Alex Love Li): Somebody else about how to be a.

0:25:49 - (D): Good father, and he was like, you're going to mess up. You're going to screw up.

0:25:54 - (Alex Love Li): But if you can remember one thing and you do this more often than.

0:25:58 - (D): Not, then you'll be fine. So the one thing was always encourage, never criticize. And so I bring that to my.

0:26:08 - (Alex Love Li): Coaching because sometimes coaches want to lead people to where they think is best.

0:26:13 - (D): For them, but we have no clue.

0:26:15 - (Alex Love Li): We don't know what's best for them. They got to follow their own path.

0:26:19 - (D): But we can show them.

0:26:21 - (Alex Love Li): We can have them look at themselves like, is this a right decision? You know, everybody is geniuses already. Everybody already knows. There's no need for me to tell somebody how to do something or what they should or shouldn't do because they already know inside.

0:26:36 - (C): Yeah.

0:26:37 - (Alex Love Li): And it's to inspire that spark that you are your answer. And if I can coach people to trust their own instincts and follow their.

0:26:45 - (D): Passion, I think that's life coaching for me.

0:26:50 - (C): Yeah.

0:26:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because I think a lot of times people ask for advice to somebody that they feel is doing better than them. And a lot of times, I don't think they needed the advice. They just needed someone to hear what they're saying. Right. Like, everyone wants to be seen and understood and heard. But a lot of advice, like you.

0:27:08 - (C): Said, there's no empathy in it.

0:27:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): There's no compassion in that person's shoes. I think the person giving the advice is always like, this is what I would do is because they're trying to listen to that for themselves. And I think advice giving is more perspective taking. I don't know what I would do if I was you, but here's another perspective. Like, I can see things that you can't because you're kind of blinded by this dusty layers around your light. Because I think everyone does have a light that you said. It's just kind of dim sometimes. Like, when people go through their darkness, they just need someone else to see their light and kind of give it back to them, kind of reflect that back to them. And I think I learned that the hard way to kind of moving here.

0:27:48 - (Tawni Nguyen): I moved here, like, three months into Covid, right.

0:27:52 - (C): And wasn't involved in the community.

0:27:56 - (Tawni Nguyen): I wasn't in real estate. So I came here and I isolated.

0:27:58 - (C): You know what I'm saying?

0:27:59 - (Tawni Nguyen): So that was, like, my dark stage because, like, lost a lot of money, too. So I'm like, I'm just going to get out of California trying to make it here. And I got here and it was worse because I'm like, now you're in.

0:28:09 - (Alex Love Li): The middle of COVID Everything's shut down.

0:28:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): I came here, I'm like, what am I going to do with my life? And I started having all of those broken foundational layers that was never healthy to begin with. It started cracking, right? Like the foundation of the house. It just started falling apart on me, like health, financial, everything. It started reflecting back to me, right, of the person that I became after all of these years of all these bad decisions. I'm like, holy crap, who am I?

0:28:36 - (Tawni Nguyen): If there's no money or there's no wealth, if there's no tangible things, who am I as a person? And I kind of sat there and.

0:28:43 - (C): I was just like, like, I shouldn't.

0:28:45 - (Tawni Nguyen): Have moved here, but I can't go back because this is an eagle thing. I can't call my parents because I haven't even lived with them when I was in California because I've been out of the house for a long time and I can't go backwards. What am I going to do with my life? Yeah. So I think that's really powerful that you're able to kind of show others the path that they're on.

0:29:04 - (C): How do you feel that you've integrated health into your life?

0:29:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): And do you think a lot of it has to do? Mental health and mindset, is it synonymous?

0:29:15 - (Alex Love Li): It's funny because this is kind of a conversation that my wife and I have all the time. She is very much into the science of our body, and I'm very much into the. You can think your way into it, out of it.

0:29:28 - (D): I'm that, like, what is it called?

0:29:30 - (Alex Love Li): A placebo effect, something, whatever.

0:29:34 - (D): So I do think on one level.

0:29:38 - (Alex Love Li): What we speak, what we think is important to the health of our body.

0:29:43 - (D): So I'm very much about that now.

0:29:47 - (Alex Love Li): I am on the ten x health as well. So I take now the supplements and.

0:29:52 - (D): Different things so that a, my wife.

0:29:56 - (Alex Love Li): Can get off my back about it. And two, yeah, maybe if she believes it strongly, then sure, I'll give it a shot.

0:30:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): The science.

0:30:05 - (Alex Love Li): Meaning like gut health or gut health? Your dna breaks and I don't know, all the toxicity. Yeah, I mean, you take a blast.

0:30:16 - (Tawni Nguyen): Your wife. Can I meet your wife?

0:30:17 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah, totally. She can talk about this stuff all day.

0:30:22 - (C): Yes.

0:30:22 - (Tawni Nguyen): I would love to have her on.

0:30:24 - (Alex Love Li): Have a conversation with her first. She'll talk your ear off about that.

0:30:28 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm going be to like, hey, do you like Joe Dispenza? And she's going to go, oh, yeah.

0:30:31 - (Alex Love Li): I mean, she's Joe Dispenza, like, big fan.

0:30:34 - (C): Oh, cool.

0:30:35 - (Tawni Nguyen): We could probably be friends.

0:30:37 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah, totally.

0:30:39 - (Tawni Nguyen): I geek out on stuff like that, too. I don't think to that level. But there's always curiosity into sciences of how we operate as human beings and how do I become better. And I think one of those decisions happened earlier this year, too, because I didn't realize I was an alcoholic until I was an alcoholic.

0:30:56 - (C): Right?

0:30:57 - (Tawni Nguyen): And I was like, oh, it's normal. And I think May 20 eigth is like my official 100 days of sobriety.

0:31:03 - (Alex Love Li): Oh, congratulations.

0:31:04 - (Tawni Nguyen): It was just like, yeah, thank you. So it was just like a funny thing that I kind of sat and reflected in the last couple of weeks on how my life changed. And I didn't really realize that was part of addiction that nobody talks about because it looks normal.

0:31:19 - (C): We're social creatures.

0:31:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): I go to networking events. It's normal to have a beer here and there, right? But for me, it's kind of all the time. And now I'm like, there's no drink in my hand. What is going on? And it just kind of became like a lifestyle shift for me, and it's just made me so much more mentally clear. So what are some things that you do to keep yourself in the best shape besides the ten x supplements?

0:31:43 - (Alex Love Li): Like I said, I'm a big believer about what you put into your body, what you think about what you're putting in matters. So if you eat something with guilt, it will probably affect you in a more negative way than if I just ate ice cream and enjoyed the heck out of the ice cream. It'd probably be good for my body, I don't know.

0:32:06 - (D): Right.

0:32:06 - (Alex Love Li): But if I'm eating, I'm like, I shouldn't be eating this, and I'm eating it. That guilt part, and I kind of just navigate like that.

0:32:15 - (D): If I'm going to eat something unhealthy.

0:32:18 - (Alex Love Li): French fries or whatever, I enjoy the heck out of it. I'll sniff it, I'll be like, oh, yeah, I'll really enjoy it. That's just what I do. I'm not going to feel guilty about it.

0:32:32 - (D): And my wife's kind of like the opposite.

0:32:36 - (Alex Love Li): She'll feel real guilty about it and.

0:32:38 - (D): Then she'll eat it anyways and then.

0:32:40 - (Alex Love Li): Kind of like break out and whatever. And I'm like, I don't know, just enjoy it instead. I also have quit drinking, so that is weird. Every time you go out and you have a beer and it's like, it's weird not having it in your hands or just be a little looser when you have a drink, something like that. So to actually not depend on that definitely created a big shift in my life. Like, I'll go out with people and.

0:33:14 - (D): I won't drink, and it's cool.

0:33:16 - (Alex Love Li): People don't really like, people are like, some people will try to peer pressure me a little bit, but it's not.

0:33:20 - (D): Even a big deal for them.

0:33:22 - (Alex Love Li): It's just like ourselves, our own psychology around it. So I haven't drank in like three years. It's been really great because also when I drink, at least other things that aren't very smart, either I spend a lot of money or I do some other dumb things.

0:33:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): You go on like a bender. What was it called, a binger or a bender? What is that? Prop?

0:33:45 - (Alex Love Li): And you feel like crap the next day. Why put yourself through it?

0:33:51 - (D): And then I also don't eat meat.

0:33:54 - (Alex Love Li): I love animals.

0:33:55 - (D): So for me, if I did eat meat, there would be a lot of guilt attached to it, even though from.

0:34:04 - (Alex Love Li): What I remember, it tastes really good. And I used to love steaks and.

0:34:08 - (D): Things like that, but now I just don't, and I feel pretty healthy. And then, of course, I think exercising.

0:34:17 - (Alex Love Li): Is always a big part of it.

0:34:19 - (D): Keeping yourself active, because as we get.

0:34:22 - (Alex Love Li): Busy in life, the first thing we.

0:34:24 - (D): Put aside is our exercise.

0:34:28 - (Alex Love Li): We don't have time to go to the gym, we don't have time to work out, and then we just kind of let ourselves go, and it's harder to even get back into shape and.

0:34:35 - (D): Get back into the gym. So working out definitely got to make.

0:34:40 - (Alex Love Li): Some time for that.

0:34:41 - (D): And I'm a big believer in coaches.

0:34:44 - (Alex Love Li): And mentors, so I have myself a personal trainer that keeps me accountable to go to the gym without my personal trainer. I try to go back to the gym so many times and it doesn't work.

0:34:54 - (Tawni Nguyen): Oh, really?

0:34:55 - (D): Yeah, because, a, I'll go to the.

0:34:57 - (Alex Love Li): Gym and I'll work out, and I'll probably just work out the same parts. Like, I'm always working out, like bicep and chest, and then it's like, that's it. It's like every day is Bicep day, and I never do legs. Women are the opposite. They're, like, always doing legs and stuff. So working with my trainer, I actually complete my workouts because half the times I'll be like, I'm too tired for this now. I'll just stop. I'll stop halfway if I went by myself.

0:35:23 - (Alex Love Li): So having a coach, having a mentor.

0:35:25 - (D): I think, will always be able to take you beyond what you would do by yourself.

0:35:30 - (Alex Love Li): Like, we let ourselves off the hook way too much.

0:35:33 - (D): So I think it's important to have a coach, have a mentor, and that's.

0:35:36 - (Alex Love Li): Why I strive to be the best.

0:35:39 - (D): That I can be.

0:35:40 - (C): Yeah.

0:35:40 - (Tawni Nguyen): How long has your plant based journey been?

0:35:44 - (D): 20 years.

0:35:45 - (C): Yeah. Like pure vegetarian.

0:35:49 - (Alex Love Li): I'll eat fish on and off, and.

0:35:51 - (D): I'll eat eggs, but I won't eat.

0:35:54 - (Alex Love Li): An actual animal, red meat, something, even.

0:35:56 - (D): Chicken, I won't eat.

0:35:57 - (C): Okay. I share some of those values.

0:36:01 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm like 80 20 plant based. But I eat mainly, like, fish, too.

0:36:04 - (D): Yeah.

0:36:05 - (Tawni Nguyen): Like salmon. Shrimp I have mainly every week tuna here and there.

0:36:08 - (C): Yeah.

0:36:09 - (D): So that's cool.

0:36:10 - (C): And maybe every couple of quarters I'll have a steak.

0:36:15 - (Tawni Nguyen): You know what I'm saying? The only time I eat a really good steak is when I'm camping. It's just something about being in nature with a cast iron.

0:36:24 - (Alex Love Li): Oh, God.

0:36:25 - (Tawni Nguyen): You become like this little creature of habit and it just tastes so much better or something like that. I think that's my guilty pleasure.

0:36:32 - (C): It is.

0:36:32 - (Alex Love Li): It's the taste. It's the taste. It's nostalgia.

0:36:37 - (D): And can we also break from those types of things?

0:36:43 - (Alex Love Li): Because we have those relationships to money.

0:36:45 - (D): We have those relationships to love, like.

0:36:49 - (Alex Love Li): How we trust in relationships. Oh, my God. I was at this mastermind this weekend.

0:36:55 - (D): And somebody was like, you get your.

0:36:57 - (Alex Love Li): Heart broken, and at some point you just get tired of having your heart broken. You just won't do it anymore. I'm not going to let you break my heart. And that's like, what he said. And I was like, oh, my God. All right, well, what type of relationships do you want to have with people?

0:37:11 - (D): You're always going to be keeping this.

0:37:14 - (Alex Love Li): Distance away from people, and it's never going to amount to nothing truly meaningful if you don't give it a chance.

0:37:20 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm hearing that's like a really harsh projection of trauma.

0:37:24 - (D): It is, of course.

0:37:25 - (Alex Love Li): And everybody's got trauma. Everybody's got money trauma. Everybody's got relationship trauma. But can you break from that, from.

0:37:33 - (D): The past and give this a new chance?

0:37:36 - (C): Yeah.

0:37:37 - (Alex Love Li): That's the challenge for us. And the personal development training that I.

0:37:42 - (D): Was talking about is neuro linguistic programming, which is NLP.

0:37:47 - (Alex Love Li): And that's the type of coaching that I do. I trained in that I have certifications in it. Like, I went through a lot going through that.

0:37:54 - (C): Yeah, that's amazing.

0:37:55 - (Tawni Nguyen): I can't wait to hear more about that. Because I think the people that says I can't give love a chance or something, again, it's trauma. But I think since I started my healing journey, too, because I was those people, I'm not even going to try to lie. I was those people where I was so armored up until I kind of realized it's all a protection where it's like, false sense of security that you give to yourself by not opening your heart to others.

0:38:17 - (Tawni Nguyen): But in the last maybe year or so that I've learned to just let everything go and just kind of surrender right to the higher power of who I am and who the universe wants me to be, that's when I fully stepped into my power and accepted that I am this being that's attracting things to me that are not hurt, that are not pain, or all of these betrothals that we kind of. The lies that we tell themselves of what people we perceive them to be, but they're not really right.

0:38:43 - (Tawni Nguyen): Not everyone's here to hurt us. And I never was shaped that way. I was always conditioned to always protect myself and all of those things.

0:38:50 - (Alex Love Li): I think it's super important for us to shift our relationship to traumas.

0:38:55 - (D): Like, our perspective around traumas. Like, traumas are not, like, gonna hurt.

0:39:01 - (Alex Love Li): They're not there to just hurt you. Because God said, hey, you don't deserve it. It's literally, if you want to have a loving relationship, if you want to be financially free, you're going to have to have all of these things that.

0:39:14 - (D): Show you where those things are not right.

0:39:16 - (Alex Love Li): So they're lessons for you. They're showing you where love is not. But you have to look at it and take full accountability for everything.

0:39:24 - (D): Like, I was the one that generated this relationship. I had a thinking of something which.

0:39:34 - (Alex Love Li): Created the results of this relationship, or created me not having money and having no money.

0:39:38 - (D): In my bank account, there is something.

0:39:40 - (Alex Love Li): That you can own up to that.

0:39:42 - (D): You didn't do right or that you.

0:39:44 - (Alex Love Li): Did that made it happen.

0:39:46 - (D): So shifting that instead of carrying those.

0:39:50 - (Alex Love Li): Traumas and using the traumas as an.

0:39:52 - (D): Excuse not to do something anymore, using those traumas as learning devices.

0:40:01 - (Alex Love Li): I want to go after even more because I.

0:40:03 - (D): Failed at it, instead of because I failed.

0:40:06 - (Alex Love Li): Now I no longer want to ever do it.

0:40:08 - (C): Yeah.

0:40:08 - (Alex Love Li): So we have to change our relationship.

0:40:09 - (D): To those things and that's it.

0:40:11 - (C): Yeah.

0:40:11 - (Tawni Nguyen): Or just because you failed, now you have to do better because there's more people that you can help along the way.

0:40:17 - (Alex Love Li): Our traumas are actually designed when we overcome our traumas, they are our calling of how we can serve. Like, when I wake up in the morning, this is a quote by Marion Williamson that stays with me always is. Every morning I wake up, I ask.

0:40:35 - (D): Myself, okay, I got to remember that.

0:40:39 - (Alex Love Li): Today I am going to contribute to.

0:40:41 - (D): The healing of the planet.

0:40:43 - (Alex Love Li): And if I forget that that's what.

0:40:45 - (D): I'm doing, then I forgot why I'm even here.

0:40:49 - (Alex Love Li): Everything that I do is an alignment.

0:40:51 - (D): To am I contributing to the healing.

0:40:54 - (Alex Love Li): Of people, of humanity?

0:40:56 - (D): And if I can be here, if.

0:40:57 - (Alex Love Li): I can say yes to being on a podcast and sharing this, then awesome.

0:41:02 - (D): I'm doing it.

0:41:04 - (Alex Love Li): Every time I have an interaction with another person. Here's my opportunity to do it.

0:41:11 - (C): Yeah. Wow.

0:41:14 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm still marinating.

0:41:18 - (Alex Love Li): It took a while for me to realize that this is my calling, that.

0:41:23 - (D): All of the traumas that I had.

0:41:26 - (Alex Love Li): Around money, around love, around all of that, is designed for me to use it to tell a better story, to be able to share and inspire others to keep going, to keep pushing forward.

0:41:38 - (C): Yeah.

0:41:38 - (Tawni Nguyen): If you can rewrite your own story like others can, too.

0:41:41 - (D): Yeah.

0:41:42 - (Tawni Nguyen): I'm kind of glad our path kind of aligned into this conversation, too, because I didn't know how much we actually had in common until now.

0:41:49 - (D): Great.

0:41:50 - (C): Oh, wow.

0:41:51 - (Tawni Nguyen): That's crazy. Yeah. I just want to acknowledge you. Is there anything else you would like to share? You shared some really powerful stuff today that I'm still reflecting on. I know I'm going to be thinking about this for a while, too.

0:42:03 - (Alex Love Li): Yeah. One last thing I would say is, I think the most powerful thing to be able to remind people is, and this is cliche, but it's deep, which is we all don't have infinite amount of time. If we can remind people of how important time is, then everything else is about saving time.

0:42:23 - (D): Financial freedom is about time freedom, and.

0:42:28 - (Alex Love Li): We all have a finite amount of it. So anytime that when you go from point a to point b, if you.

0:42:33 - (D): Can take a shortcut, do it. If you can find a mentor to help you do it, shorten the lessons, shorten the mistakes, and get there quicker.

0:42:44 - (C): Yeah.

0:42:44 - (Tawni Nguyen): Because you can make more time. No, you can make more money, but you can't make more time.

0:42:49 - (C): Yeah.

0:42:49 - (Tawni Nguyen): Most people understand it backwards, right yeah.

0:42:52 - (Alex Love Li): And don't exchange time for money so easily.

0:42:55 - (D): Right.

0:42:56 - (Alex Love Li): That's the value of everything we teach is in alignment to that.

0:43:00 - (C): Yeah.

0:43:00 - (Tawni Nguyen): So thank you for sharing your most valuable resource with me. Today is your time.

0:43:04 - (Alex Love Li): You too.

0:43:06 - (D): Thank you.

0:43:06 - (C): Yeah, thanks.

0:43:07 - (Alex Love Li): And for all of you guys watching, thank you for your time.

0:43:09 - (Tawni Nguyen): All right, thanks for tuning into the fit and frugal podcast once again. I am your host, Tawni Wynn. This is Alex. You can find him on IG at Alex Lovely.

0:43:17 - (Alex Love Li): Right, at Alex Love Li.

0:43:20 - (C): Cool. Thank you. See ya.