Right-Fit Clients
Rising Gen
If you’re a second-, third- or even fourth-generation member of a self-made family, life holds a unique set of challenges.
Enterprising Families
Owning a business together can be a magnifying glass on top of normal family dynamics.
Affluent Families
The kids – now emerging adults – are stepping into a phase of finding their own identity and freedom.
Rising Gen
If you’re a second-, third- or even fourth-generation member of a self-made family, life holds a unique set of challenges. From the outside world looking in, it all appears easy, even dazzling. In reality, the bright light of the family’s financial success can cast a persistent shadow over your own light.
As adults, we naturally frame our life aspirations in the context of what we saw and experienced growing up. However, for those of us who grew up in a family where a parent or grandparent achieved tremendous financial success, that framework is replaced by an unreachable bar. The idea space around us is so big; it’s as if the money and the success were actual people seated at our family dinner table.
In our experience, every individual has a Big Idea inside of them. The flicker of greatness is there, ready to flourish. It just needs the oxygen of invitation. In our process, we first help you learn who you are separate from the money story of the family. Ironically, by separating your self-identity from the family-identity, you’ll actually find greater support from and connection to your family over time.
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Our Thinking Partnership helps you to capture the sparks of aspiration that already exist within you. We guide you to discover, refine and connect with your natural talents and wisdom.
From within the safety of our Big Idea Lab, you’ll begin to recognize the power of your own thinking. Meanwhile, you’ll have the tools and coaching support to hear beyond lingering narratives about risk or fear. You’ll start to form your own very personal and vibrant definition of what it means to be a creator in your own right. You’ll see that your innate voice is infused with creativity, intellect and passion. And that your passion can actually be the fuel source for the pragmatic deployment of your Big Idea.
When your Big Idea starts to concretize, we create an action plan to illuminate its full potential. For many of our clients, this is transformational. In the past there was an underlying struggle of living a duplicitous life – half spent in the rooms of wealth and privilege and the other half spent out in the world with friends and colleagues. Finally the halves become a greater whole. When you’re ready to deploy your Big Idea into the world, you can embrace the resources of your family as a carefully directed fuel source for influence. Finally, your heritage and your independent self are integrated into the whole of who you’re meant to be in the world.
For many, this integration is truly liberating. It frees up all the frozen energy that has always been inside of you, dismantling the previous traps of limited thinking. You’ll find yourself integrating your pride for self and family in a manner that never seemed feasible. Indeed, you will Claim your flame.
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Enterprising Families
Privately held family businesses are the backbone of the world economy. As any family member who has ever worked as a part of a family business will attest, they can be both an incredible place to spread your wings and have impact, and they can also be remarkably complex and confusing. As families and business inter-mix, all of the roles that family members play - founder, son or daughter, shareholder, president, board member, beneficiary, mother, to name just a few - only serve to increase the complexity of relationships and decision-making.
Owning a business together can be a magnifying glass on top of normal family dynamics. It can become a wedge that works its way into relationships, or a ladder for self-leadership. How can individual family members explore their individuality while also staying connected to the family enterprise system? And how can the family enterprise support both the freedoms and the alignment the family members often crave?
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While complexity may be inherent to the nature of a family enterprise, the noise and confusion that families often feel - and that sabotage engagement, forward movement, and the enjoyment of being a family - are not. Just like any skill, families can learn to become owners, leaders, and shareholders together, decreasing the noise and confusion and increasing enjoyment and connectivity. With the right process and the appropriate scaffolding to support their success, family enterprises can become resilient enough to transition through many generations, supporting both the success of the family and the enterprise.
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Affluent Families
When we meet a new family, there’s often a key shift in play. The kids – now emerging adults – are stepping into a phase of finding their own identity. Yet just as they begin to stretch and individuate, the family wealth can cast a shadow over their individual growth, bonding them back to permission and approval.
In essence, the wealth creates ties to the family just when it’s most important for emerging adults to find their freedom. Meanwhile parents are grappling with the age-old questions: what to disclose and when, when to say yes vs. no. And most importantly, how do you communicate all of this in a manner that enhances family unity instead of creating discord, and that motivates heirs instead of entitling them. The combination of factors creates a confusing landscape; one for which families of wealth often lack positive precedence.
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Wealth is a magnifying glass on top of normal family dynamics. It can become a wedge that works its way into relationships, or a ladder for self-leadership. How can individual family members explore their individuality without separating from the family system? And how can the family system support both the freedoms and the alignment the parents often crave?
The families we meet wish to explore this uncharted territory, and create an intentional landscape around these powerful issues. However, most have never found a forum to hear themselves think and explore these issues deeply – and to do so at three key layers: individually, together as a couple and then as a family system.
We begin by looking at the family outside the context of wealth. If it all went away, who would you still be as humans in relationship with each other? What are the core values, mission and vision that bond you separate from wealth? And how can these same beliefs come full circle to illuminate and influence your wealth’s full potential?
When parents haven’t had a forum to answer their own lingering questions, the questions themselves become a barrier to progress. That’s why, in our process, we interview each stakeholder separately (mom, dad, adult children) as well as mom and dad together. We offer a cadre of concrete tools and guided processes. These include building a Wealth Purpose Statement around the newfound clarity of the parents’ vision. We also design a custom Wealth Decision Tree which becomes a simple, clear filter for yes/no decisions around the sharing of family resources.
During this process, the family begins to feel the potential for integration between family dynamics and wealth dynamics. The process itself ensures that every stakeholder has a voice. It likewise honors the fact that, at the end of the day, the parents own certain fundamental decisions around what to disclose and what to give.
Once inside our Family Alignment process, parents begin to see the possibility for harmonic integration of heart and pragmatism. The Wealth Purpose Statement and Wealth Decision Tree become antidotes. The family transitions from mystery and lack of a clear vision, to the liberation of a documented process for communication and decision-making.
Throughout our work, we step in and celebrate both the natural points of family alignment and the red flags of discordant beliefs. We believe that families are systems, and in order for systems to be adaptive, they have to be able to handle some amount of messiness or even chaos. We further believe that the chaos itself can be a catalyst for building out the adaptability of your family system. We coach you to use your messiness as fuel for transformation and resilience.
Overtime, you’ll find our Thinking Partnership becomes a touchstone for growth and progress. You’ll have both a methodology and a coach to navigate the inherent push/pull of family member autonomy versus family togetherness. Each of you and all of you will be able to embrace the need to individuate while having the common fabric that weaves you together; together as a family with wealth.
Importantly, we offer leadership through a lens of collaboration with other family advisors. Families are inherently complex and wealth increases complexity. No single firm can serve all facets well. We actively collaborate with your existing and potential new advisors in service of your family’s greatest good.
Ultimately, through our work, wealth becomes a resource that can facilitate your kids’ thriving. It’s a place where each of you and all of you can indeed, Claim your flame.
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