An inheritor with every material advantage imaginable feels stuck and vaguely guilty about it. Meanwhile, across town, a founder preparing to sell her company realizes she has no idea how to talk to her adult children about what the sale will mean for them. Families in situations like these tend to share something surprising: their paperwork is in excellent shape.
While the more tangible aspects, like the estate plan and trust documents, appear to be in order, what’s often overlooked is the conversation about what the family’s wealth is truly for and who the family wants to be in relation to it.
When the human experience of wealth goes unexamined, it continues to operate in the background, shaping identity and decisions in ways nobody consciously chooses. Often, even the best-designed structures can fail the family they were built to serve.
Before any family-wide conversation happens, each person should work through questions of meaning on their own. It’s best to start with who they are in relation to the wealth and what they believe the family stands for.
Phases two and three broaden the work from there and ask the vital questions needed for the sale to feel rewarding for both parties. You can read about both in this article.
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