RINGLER RADIO
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Sudden Money / Affluenza
Larry Cohen and Steve Cochran
Dr. Ronit Lami
Newport Beach, CA, Ringler Annual Meeting
2/2/07
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markets that issue structured settlement annuities, including AllState, American
General Structured Settlements, Aviva, The Hartford, Liberty Life, Mass Mutual,
MetLife, New York Life, John Hancock, and Prudential. Now, join Ringler Radio
host Larry Cohen.
COHEN: Welcome to Ringler Radio. I’m Larry Cohen, head of Ringler Associates’
Northeast operations, and thanks again for joining us. Our topics address issues
important to trial attorneys, defense attorneys, their clients, and just about everyone
involved with the settlement industry.
Today we’re bringing the show to you from beautiful sunny Newport Beach,
California, where we’re all attending the Ringler Associates’ annual meeting. And
it’s wonderful to be out here after the cold in New England.
We have another very interesting topic to discuss today. How many of us out there
would really have a clue about managing our finances if one day we came into a
large sum of money? I know it’s a good problem to have, but without guidance
many people, and we’ve seen it in the press all over the place these days, seem to
make the wrong financial decisions, which lead to the evaporation of those funds
and sometimes even bankruptcy.
Many times when people win a large award in a lawsuit or a settlement they don’t
know how to handle it and they don’t know how to manage it. And certainly we’ve
seen it in the event of a lottery winner. So the answer is, instead of taking all of the
money as cash, in most of these cases we’re talking about, the answer in our minds
is a structured settlement, which can protect against people dissipating these funds,
and in the meantime by receiving these funds over time have an ability to
incrementally increase what they’re getting.
Before we talk about our special guest today, I want to introduce my co-host, who
is Steve Cochran who heads up the Indianapolis office of Ringler Associates. He’s
been with us for more than 20 years. He’s got a lot of experience in the area of
structured settlements. And before that he had almost 15 years of experience in the
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consultant near you, visit www.RinglerAssociates.com.
Page 1 of 11
claims arena. He actually entered the insurance field in Chicago at one point. So
Steve, with Indianapolis as your current home, and Chicago where you started, I
guess you must have a little conflict in the Super Bowl coming up.
COCHRAN: Well, at first I did, Larry. But being in Indianapolis for awhile I’ve got my
allegiance to the only one who will win this game.
COHEN: Well, I understand. I understand you’re going to the game, is that right?
COCHRAN: Absolutely. I’m there.
COHEN: That’s going to be real, real treat for you and good luck to the Colts. Let’s
now introduce our special guest. She is Ranit Lami (sp?). Dr. Ranit Lami will be
discussing her work today as a personal growth and development psychologist.
And she specializes in something that’s interestingly called affluenza and wealth.
She’ll be sharing with us her insight on this topic and how through her coaching
various individuals dealing with sudden wealth can really help them manage their
lives and avoid the pitfalls that so many seem to have. Dr. Lami, welcome to
Ringler Radio.
LAMI: Thank you.
COHEN: Let’s discuss the beginning stages of your career. How did you become
interested in this whole arena of helping others deal with these wealth issues?
LAMI: This is one of the things in life that chose you, you didn’t choose it. So when I
actually started, when I was doing my Ph.D., I was looking for a scholarship and I
was introduced to this financial firm, and through our discussion interview they
always had in mind to set up an advisory practice for their wealthy clients. The
owner of the firm is a third generation of money. So his grandfather made the
money, his father managed to lose the money, and he had to create his own wealth.
And through his own experience and working with his clients he saw that you don’t
only have to manage your wealth in terms of financial advice, but also there a lot of
emotions associated with that. And that’s how I got started. So it’s from an article
in the Financial Times we started research and we set up this whole practice. And
it grew and grew. I was working in the U.K. for ten years and now we’ve moved it
to L.A. And now I’m practicing both places, here and there.
COHEN: Great. So you commute back and forth?
LAMI: I do.
COHEN: Oh, that’s great.
LAMI: Yes.
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Page 2 of 11
COHEN: Interesting.
COCHRAN: Dr. Lami, this term of affluenza, which is certainly new to me, let’s if we
can for our audience who are basically unfamiliar with this, can you elaborate on
what this basically means?
LAMI: Sure. So just to let people know, that it’s a new field of psychology, which has
started – actually emerged ten years ago. Due to the fact that in the recent 50 years
or so, due to the industrial revolution, and so on and so forth, there is a lot of
money, affluence, and the possibilities of making money. And what we’ve
observed is that there is – in simple terms, affluenza is when you have unbalanced
or dysfunctional relationship with money. And to give you a more specific term,
it’s how money, affluence, materialism, and wealth affect the individual’s
subconscious mind – and I deliberately say subconscious because people are not
even aware of how does it affect them. How does it affect the subconscious mind
and therefore create unbalanced relationship with ourselves, with others, and with
money.
COHEN: We’ve heard for years the expression money burns a hole in your pocket, if you
have money. I think what you’re talking about is when people come into money,
especially unexpected wealth, and in our case through litigation or settlements, and
even lotteries as we know, they’re not accustomed to managing the money, they’re
not accustomed to having the money. And psychologically what they do with that
money, their ego, their friends, what they’re trying to do is affecting the way they
preserve that money. And what you’re all about is helping them overcome this –
you call it affluenza, it’s almost like an influenza which is almost a sickness or a
disease that people have with money. Is that a pretty good explanation?
LAMI: Absolutely. Yes.
COHEN: Well, tell us about your range of clients.
LAMI: Truthfully, it varies from people who have created their wealth, people who grew
up in wealthy houses and they didn’t create the wealth, people who won in a
sudden windfall, law firms, lawyers, financial advisors, and just – women who are
married into money, children, teenagers, couples.
COHEN: Being in Los Angeles doing your work, do you find that it’s especially a great
area for that affluenza?
LAMI: It’s the capital of affluence.
COHEN: Well, and it seems so with a few other things you know, that’s for sure.
Exactly.
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Page 3 of 11
COCHRAN: I can now understand why my wife insists on doing the checkbook. In your
research and your experience with your clients, what do you find is the biggest
problem when it comes to wealth issues?
LAMI: I haven’t done research, so it’s only my experience. What I see is the – the
problem is how to manage, where in a sudden windfall situation, how to manage
your emotions – the emotions that are coming due to receiving so much money,
especially if you are not used to it. It’s like a dream come true, but emotionally
there are so many things that are there that if you are not careful you are at risk to
lose it. So that’s one thing. The second thing is affluenza. And the other thing is
how do you – when children inherit money, how do you prepare them to be able to
handle large sums of money. Especially at the age of 21 when they get a trust, and
where before they didn’t have an access to money, it’s overwhelming.
I know of a story of somebody who – he was so shocked from receiving this trust
that he donated, he gave the trust up, went to become a Buddhist and at the age of
30-something came back to America regretting for giving up the money.
COHEN: Yeah. Those kinds of decisions can sometimes come back to haunt you. And
it’s important to have that kind of help along the way. Our business is structured
settlements. That’s what we do and our main goal is to protect our clients from
basically spending the entire sum of their settlements too soon. I always make that
claim that it’s not so much that people do bad things with their money or mis-invest
their money. But even with the best of intentions, they tend to spend it sooner than
they ever think they will so that it’s dissipated.
So what’s your opinion about structured settlements, Dr. Lami, in terms of being a
valuable option when faced with all this sudden wealth? Do you find that that’s a
helpful tool?
LAMI: It is. And you know I was – I think that it’s a good solution, but really depending
upon the individual. There are some people that I would say it’s not the best
solution for them. But there are people which I highly recommend that, because
they are more predisposed to losing their money. So for them probably that would
be the best solution.
COCHRAN: I’m sure everybody out there has heard the stories about people coming into
a sudden lot of money sort of thing, and you hear stories how the – stories as far as
them dissipating the funds very quickly, and you hear the horror stories. Is this a
common occurrence and does the affluenza have anything to do with it?
LAMI: It’s a difficult question to answer if it’s a common occurrence, because we mainly
hear what’s going on in the news, and that’s how we form our view. In my
opinion, I don’t have a yes or no answer. I do believe that there are people who
have the tendency to lose that more than others, especially those who have never
been involved with money. Affluenza has a lot to do with that, because one of the
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Page 4 of 11
– some of the symptoms is that whatever you have is not enough, so you want to
have more and more. And then uncontrolled spending is part of affluenza. And
then wanting to – when you emphasize external. So all of a sudden you win a lot of
money, when you didn’t have then you want to show to everybody that I’m worthy,
I have, I can be part of the elite group. And therefore you are not careful with your
thinking. First what’s controlling you is the emotion of having lack of money and
now you want to compensate that, and you just want to spend and spend and be
approved. So basically it comes down to a deep feeling of insecurity and lack of
worthiness, that thinking that having money will give me that sense of security and
worth and, therefore, spending without thinking.
COHEN: Yeah, and it’s really given rise to what we always term the nouveau riche, you
get this money and all of a sudden you want to run with the big dogs, as they say,
and sometimes you make some bad mistakes.
Recently there was in the news, and it was all over the country, about a Powerball
winner, I think in West Virginia, who won an ungodly sum of $113 million. And
then because of a series of circumstances, obviously influenced by affluenza, he
lost the money, he lost it all. Crazy situations. Somebody died in his family of a
drug overdose. He had money stolen from him. Burglarized. It was like if an
accident could happen he had it happen to him. Is that the poster child of what
you’re talking about, this crazy activity that accompanied this sudden wealth?
LAMI: Yes. That’s what I’m talking about.
COHEN: Well, what could he have done differently? What do you think someone in that
position could have done differently? He was predisposed, maybe even
psychologically, to do the things that he did in terms of losing it. Sometimes I
think, and you tell me, people don’t think they deserve the money and oftentimes
dissipate it because they shouldn’t have it in the first place.
LAMI: Absolutely. Very good point. A lot of that, it’s what’s in our subconscious, that
we don’t even know that exists when it comes to money. So just to answer your
first question about what people need to do – the first thing is there’s a lack of
awareness regarding the emotionals that manage this situation. So what I usually
say is for the first six months, and even longer, just do nothing, really do nothing.
If you have emergencies to take care of in regard to money, then handle them first.
But then do not touch your money, take the time to learn about what is it that –
your lifestyle that you want to have, your future goals. Are you going to carry on
working, not carry on working? Really, this is the time to find the right advisor, a
lawyer, a financial advisor, and a therapist or a coach, and just really examine
what’s going on. Have a plan, and after that start to take actions to implement the
plan. And the third step is obviously monitoring your investments. But the initial
thing is to do nothing.
COHEN: Yeah, take some time?
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Page 5 of 11
LAMI: Take some time to process. Really, it’s so important.
COCHRAN: Kind of step back and just take a deep breath before you proceed.
LAMI: Because there’s so many things involved. Family will come and ask for your
money, you don’t know how your feelings are, if you have kids to manage with
regards to their education and the future security. Do you want to stop working?
Don’t you want to stop working? Do you want to live somewhere else? There’s so
many things to consider, especially with large sums of money, that the best thing to
do is – and everybody’s going to approach you, you should invest, you should do
this, people will advise. Do not – just really take time off. That’s the best thing to
do.
COHEN: You know what’s interesting, when you go in to buy a lottery ticket, for
example, and we all do from time to time, especially when the prize is so big.
COCHRAN: Really.
COHEN: They give you a choice. They say, do you want the lump sum or do you want
to take it in pieces through an annuity? And I’m a big believer that, because
obviously we sell annuities, but I’m a big believer that an annuity process, by
getting it in pieces, could really help people overcome some of these crazy things
that they do with their funds, and that would be a big help to everybody.
COCHRAN: Right, what should people that get a large sum in a lawsuit or lottery or
what have you, what really concerns should they have when they come into this
money?
LAMI: How not to lose it, probably. It’s true, and how to best invest it. They need to
consider their future goals. Like, all of us have dreams – if we have this amount of
money, what we should do. So really get clear about that and see how you can
make it happen for you. Now, the other thing is, and probably this is to do with
structured settlement, is to learn about yourself – what is the best route for you to
take. Whether it’s you know how to manage a whole sum of money, or whether
you find a way that you use monthly some of the money.
COHEN: Well, the other thing is, in looking for these sources of help, it’s who of you
trust. And you really – I’m sure that part of the process is finding someone that has
your best interest in mind, rather than simply trying to guild their own lily. And
this is a big problem with a lot of these people who get this money. They’re
besieged by friends, advisors, the phone calls never stop, and it’s really – that’s, I
think, what you’re talking about. It takes some time and really identify the true
friends that you have.
LAMI: Absolutely. And really be careful whom do you choose to work with.
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Page 6 of 11
COHEN: We’ve discussed the sudden windfall situation, but there are a couple other
things that we have involved – wealth founders and wealth inheritors. Can you
elaborate a little bit on what these mean?
LAMI: Sure. Wealth founders is the group of people who’ve created the wealth. Usually
Type A personality, and they have their own issues to deal with when it comes to
wealth management issues. Their biggest challenge is how to transfer their wealth
to their kids, how to educate them to be able to manage their money. How to raise
healthy kids in an affluent society. And often the relationship they have with their
kids because there are absent a lot of the time. So this is the Wealth Founders
Group.
The inheritors are those who grew up within a family with a lot of money, and their
issue actually because they haven’t created the money. Therefore they haven’t
developed a good enough self-esteem. They often have problems to keep a job.
They confuse love and relationship. Do people like me because of who I am or
because of the money I have? They don’t have the motivation to progress and
achieve in life. And sometimes they need to be pushed. And it’s a challenge for
them to create something on their own. They’re always in the shadow of their
parents. And also for them there is a lot of guilt sometimes, because they haven’t
created the money, so I’m not worthy enough. I have such a successful father or
mother, so who am I? Sometimes they are forced to go in a certain direction that
the parents have decided, so that they cannot find their true desires and their true –
their path in life. And all of these things are at play.
COHEN: That’s a lot on your plate to deal with. (inaudible) these people. There are a lot
of things –
LAMI: Trust issues also, has a lot.
COHEN: A lot of things can go wrong. It’s obvious that we need people like yourself to
really help us out. Let’s take a short break right now, and when we come back,
we’ll speak to Dr. Lami about what the future holds for a lot of her clients and
maybe even for some of you who hopefully will come into some money along the
way. OK, we’ll be right back.
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COHEN: Welcome back to Ringler Radio. I’m your host Larry Cohen, and I’m joined
here today by my co-host Steve Cochran who hails from Indianapolis and hopefully
the winner of the next Super Bowl, and Dr. Ranit Lami, personal growth and
development psychologist who specializes in helping those people who come into
what we call sudden money. And she deals with the concept of affluenza and
wealth, which is an intriguing topic.
And Ranit, what advice can you give to our listeners out there who have recently
come into money? And by that I mean any of the lawyers or the people that
typically listen to our broadcast and the claimants. A lot of times when they’re
handling cases for their clients – you said it before. Oftentimes we’ve had lawyers
say, well, let the client who’s a young person today – let them get the money at age
18 or at age 21 in some big lump of money, which is a tremendous disincentive for
them to move forward in their lives and allows for a lot of those dissipation issues.
Whereas our recommendations are typically to take the money in pieces over time
so that if they really make mistakes early, they’ll be able to recover and have the
money for the long term. What advice do you give folks out there who have gotten
money like that when you have to deal with those issues taking big sums of money
versus over time sums of money. How do you deal with that?
LAMI: In my profession it’s a little bit of a process for, first of all, each individual and
their own circumstances, so I really don’t have a generalized advice. If you are
talking about a young person, like you’ve just described, then obviously structured
settlement would be a good answer, at least until a certain age and then therefore
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Page 8 of 11
maybe to leave the option to get the rest of the money later, once he has proven has
seen that he is able, or she is able, to handle the money. So probably that would be
the ideal solution.
Someone who has no education, has never been into money, no background of
money in the family, then probably structured settlement would be a best solution
of the rest of their lives.
Someone who is an entrepreneur by nature, then probably it won’t be the best
solution for them for the rest of their lives. So I always say people need to learn to
know their relationship with money and how they relate to money, and most of us
do not know the impact that money has on us. So just – my advice, go and talk to
somebody before you do anything – even your lawyer. Just try to get as much help
and advice as possible.
COHEN: Just like in most things with our own lives, I think that our relationship with
money and how we treat it changes over time. Maybe when we’re a little younger
we think we’re entrepreneurial. We can take this money and make it grow because
we’ve got these ideas. A little later we learn that maybe we should have been a
little more prudent. And I think this constant learning – and hopefully that’s what
you’d help with – to really begin to understand who you are would be helpful.
LAMI: Correct. That’s the first step.
COHEN: That’s good. One of the other things is the ego that every individual –
everyone has an ego. But at the same time, there are things like privacy concerns
for people. When they come into money, some people like to flash it out and show
that they’ve got it all, but on the other hand, sometimes it’s prudent to not be so
forthcoming with what you have because of a lot of these privacy issues that get
involved.
I had a client – a lady once in Texas who got a lot of money, went into the bank,
and everyone in the bank had known she had gotten this money. So we actually
direct-deposited it from the life company into another account so she wouldn’t have
this issue because everyone in the bank, especially in a small town, they know.
And they all came calling. In fact, she had four car dealers coming to her door to
see if she wanted to buy cars. So confidentiality and some of those issues are
important. I think you probably tell people don’t be so keen to broadcast what
you’ve got.
COCHRAN: In your dealings with your clients over the years, have you seen an actual
results, or positive results, from your clients? And what’s been the feedback from
them as they come back to you?
LAMI: Actually, we’ve seen great results. I can’t share because of confidentiality but I
do get e-mails and letters.
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Page 9 of 11
COHEN: You can tell my story if you want. I’ll let you. That’s OK.
LAMI: (laughter) – and letters and gifts and thank-yous. And we didn’t know how much
we didn’t know about ourselves and about our relationship with money. And just
to give an example, there was – I can share it because it’s out of the States – a guy
from New Zealand who was a lawyer. I don’t know if it’s a structured settlement,
but it’s an affluenza issue that – he was a lawyer, educated, he wanted to have
control over his money, wanted to release his trust. He didn’t want to have a trust
anymore. And he wanted to take the trustees to court. And through the work
we’ve done together, we managed to resolve that without going to court. So with
the right guidance and with the right learning and family learning about themselves,
they managed to get the trustees together and to solve the issue without court and
he got his freedom – his financial freedom. And now he’s managing his own
money and he’s happy.
COHEN: Exactly. I’m sure you’ve helped a large number of people with this issue of
wealth and how to handle wealth, and we really appreciate you being on the show
today to share some of these issues with us. We’re structured settlement people.
That’s what we do. And we really believe in that as something that really
piggybacks on what you’re talking about, giving people the opportunity and time to
take the money in the most appropriate way so that they don’t lose it, because
ultimately, that’s the saddest thing of all, when moneys that have been obtained by
these folks is gone to soon. So anything you can do to help is appreciated very
much.
Thanks all of you for listening. I’m Larry Cohen, once again, and we have – I want
to thank our special guest host, which is Steve Cochran –
COCHRAN: Thanks, Larry.
COHEN: – form Indianapolis, and thanks for joining me, Steve. It’s great to see you
again. And Dr. Ranit Lami, our very special guest, for joining us today to discuss
this very interesting topic. And Ranit, if someone wanted to get in touch with you,
how would they do that?
LAMI: Google search Dr. Ranit Lami. (laughter) But I can give – I have website. It’s
affluenza-and-wealth.com.
COHEN: Affluenza-andwealth.com. Great. I’m looking forward to looking into that
website myself.
LAMI: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
COHEN: Thanks once again, and if anyone wants to contact me, I’m Larry Cohen and
we’re at the Ringler Website, RinglerAssociates.com, and we’ll lead you to the
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consultant near you, visit www.RinglerAssociates.com.
Page 10 of 11
right place to get the answers to any of the questions you might have about this or
any other show. In the meantime, I want all of you to go out and have a great day,
and thanks for listening.
ANNOUNCER: Thanks for listening to Ringler Radio. Ringler Associates, experience
counts. Since 1975, Ringler Associates has provided the finest structured
settlement services to injured parties and their attorneys. Ringler Radio is made
possible in part by the life markets that issue structured settlement annuities,
including All State, American General Structured Settlements, Aviva, The
Hartford, Liberty Life, Mass Mutual, MetLife, New York Life, John Hancock, and
Prudential.
END OF FILE
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