Governance | Handling Difficult Family Conversations

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Okay.

So I think that Sunn put it perfectly yesterday when he said that we were going to have a difficult conversation

about difficult conversations. Um but I'm just to to introduce what

we're going to talk about today. I'm here with Jonathan Bespoke Co-founder and Sunn head of asset management. And

firstly I want to explore with you all the psychological impact of creating and

inheriting mass wealth that has on individuals and families. So, that's one

kind of topic I'd like to explore. And then how we successfully navigate the

technical and emotional aspects of wealth transfer. Um, as well as what ongoing intentional and meaningful

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wealth stewardship looks like because it's very much not a box to check. Um,

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but the other thing I would like to say to to step to set up this conversation is that, and anybody listening knows

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this, so this isn't a news flash, but we're witnessing one of the largest wealth transfers in history. And so, of

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Of course, that's going to reshape society in incredible ways. But because of this,

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I think that we really have to challenge ourselves to get into the more difficult, awkward topics related to

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wealth. I mean, wealth or money can be an awkward and difficult topic. Death can be an awkward and difficult topic.

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Um, but they're absolutely necessary to talk about. And so I want to start

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pulling back the layers on um this complex topic that is the relationship

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of the settler and the inheritor. Um settler being the one who is passing on

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and inheritor being the one receiving.

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What do you guys think about that? Well, I would start with SunSune's quote. It is about

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very difficult conversations and historically conversations that didn't take place.

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So, how do we encourage these conversations and in my experience it starts with trust? you know the the

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client or prospect has to trust the professional and

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also in my experience that trust really starts with a lack of judgment and a

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really really curious mind. So, what is it about this client? And we I like the

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question, what keeps you up at night? But but that's really just a starting point, you know, really doing a deep

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dive into relationships with kids and the relationships among the children and if they're grandchildren, grandchildren,

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and the relationships among the grandchildren and their parents and and so really getting into areas that quite

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frankly most professionals just don't. Yeah, I mean I I can build out a little

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bit from that. I mean I think there's obviously a lot of different conversations and you could have all kinds of variations of them. So

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obviously, you know, here we talk a little bit about most people talk about transition as parents to children. There

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can also be transition between spouses. That can be a transition where there's no children or spouses. And so

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transition is obviously inherently an active um situation. And so those

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there's many variables that can then be plugged in and you can take in different directions. And I think if you start just with let's call it a concept

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of family transition and the conversations around that. Um you know I think all families are complicated

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whether there's wealth or not. I think wealth can be a magnifier of all the things that you would see commonly when

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you're raising children or when you know you're in a marriage or a relationship. I mean I think the

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when we talk about generational wealth it's maybe interesting to explore a little bit what's different than let's say just the average journey of of a

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family and I think it's this idea of the lived experience differential is probably some of the widest you could

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imagine so often you have a first generation who's built the wealth often sort of maybe they had a you know

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relatively rough upbringing is a commonality maybe they started very young worked incredibly hard took a lot

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of risks uh got it wrong, got it right, iterated, came back at it and kind of

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had to carve this out for themselves and then for their family as they started family alongside that. Then you have

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either the next generation and again most people who do this type of who commits their life to something like

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that and is successful, they obviously want to pass on a different experience to their kids. Everyone wants to have,

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you know, give a better opportunity than your kids or the ones that came before you. And so these kids live a

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very different life obviously than the primary. It doesn't mean that that's bad or you know either as bad or good.

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It just means they're very different. And within that you you shape different people because we are somewhat shaped by

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our lived experience. And so a lot of the time where Jonathan or myself comes into a relationship that has been

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generational we both created and we have these two very different lived experiences with all the good and the

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kind of maybe the sort of at least the the foundation for potential conflict just because of people coming at things

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very differently. And so I think a lot of those conversations is really about reestablishing that connection accepting

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that there is a differential in outcomes and experiences specifically for the primary. I think a lot of the time you

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have this, oh, you know, my spoiled children, I'm concerned about them and yeah, you know, they don't have my grit.

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They don't have, you know, when I was their age, I was doing X, Y, and Z. And I think that that's, you know, that's

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very natural, but I also think it's not super helpful for the next phase of conversation. And so, I think a lot of

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the time it's really having to Jonathan's bound about there being no judgment. It's really about kind of

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resetting that whole starting point for the conversation. And then you can really actually have much more of a

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practical conversation about what is it that needs to happen. And to Jonathan's point about the lack of conversation, I

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mean this is one of these areas where it is complicated. It is difficult. Um and but you can't let science do silence do

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the talking. You know that that's not going to solve. So you are going to have to as imperfect as the first conversations might be you have to break

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the silence about the wealth, about the expectations. Um and sometimes that takes outside help. I mean again we have

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some experience but there are certain situations where we would bring in an outside counsel who are particularly focused on maybe you know families where

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the where the if the relationship is already somewhat troubled you're definitely going to want to really think

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through how you start those conversations. So again back to the um sort of multiple starting points you know if you have young children and

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you're thinking about starting a conversation that's kind of one scenario as an adviser where you're really

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guiding more how do I think about introducing wealth and then you have families that comes to us later where

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maybe they have attempted some conversations but it hasn't maybe worked out well and now you're kind of dealing

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more with a clean up reset uh perspectives. Yeah. So Claire, it's interesting. I

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think most people have heard the expression shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations. My understanding is

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that means wealth is generated and lost over three generations.

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It's an old saying, Claire, is back in the days when people were wearing fancy tops when they had the money and then they had a shirt sleeve as their only

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outer coating, you know, when they started and that's how they ended up again. And my understanding is that there is a

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similar expression in nearly every culture. And so that tells me that it's not about

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structures. And I mean, as my background as an estate planning attorney, I'd like to think that, oh, you know, we create the perfect structure. When I was

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practicing law, I would create the perfect structure and that would suffice. And structures certainly help,

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but at the end of the day, it's the soft stuff. And unfortunately

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to my earlier point, most advisers just ignore it because it is difficult.

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So I've been as I've been kind of listening to um and educating myself

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about this area, right? like I really liked I I would like I'm going

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to I need to find who this was and credit her. But she was see she's a psychologist that works for family offices and she was talking about how

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like the fact that we use like the word soft like we describe this as the soft stuff, right? Like this is the soft

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side of wealth but really like this is the hardest part. So it's actually the hard stuff. Um and and I think I what I

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wanted to double click on was um communication or the lack thereof. And I

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think that and we were also talking you soon you had mentioned that there are like the the lived experiences and the p

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and the positions that the inheritors and the and the sellers are coming from are just so like are are very different.

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And I wanted to ask you what you think. What do you think is like the it's not a

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misstep or like the the what is the expectation the unfair expectation that

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a that a settler might have and then an unfair expectation that an inheritor might have that kind of needs to be

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broken down because these individuals have to meet they have to like meet somewhere, right? They have to

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meet in the middle on something. they have to move out enough out of their their world and and enter kind of a new

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place I think to move forward. Yeah. I think I think it's interesting because I think one of the or the sort

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of common conception about this is this like it's an event wealth transition is an event unfortunately someone passed

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away and if you don't speak about it if you have no plan then it is an event and you're just dumping it then it's someone like me or Jonathan who's speaking to

the inheritor and that's the first time they understand that their family has hundreds of millions of dollars and they are now having to make decisions around

it that's not a transition that's like when you don't actually have any plan it's actually a catastrophe

yeah I mean that's generally short sleep to leave. That's generally the recipe um for that type of outcome because it's

not just the sudden overwhelming aspect of having to deal with these complex things. It's really much more about why

wasn't I trusted? Why wasn't I brought in? It's that's much more the softer stuff. I think often when you speak to a second generation inheritor who were not

brought in early, they're like, well, why was I hanging out here in the dark and why did my dad or my mother not

trust me with this information? And so there's kind of like, woohoo, I'm rich. But then there's also like, whoa, now I

got to deal with that. And secondly, why was no one speaking to me about this? What was wow, you know, and if that's unanswered, that

can really grind at a person, you know. Um, wow. And so I think that that's interesting. But I think the I think it's this thing

about you have to think of it as a process. And ideally, again, what I've when we see success is generally that

process started literally when the kids were very small. They were either brought into the family business, had some kind of understanding of

entrepreneurship, maybe they were participating in philanthropy and got some kind of respect for what money can

do and and what kind of the benefit of the life that they were given um from an

early stage. And so ideally this is a much more gradual process that then leads towards teenage and and again

trying to figure out what, what is it that I'm passionate about? How do I want to spend my time? Is that time within some scope of the family business

and/or family office or do I want to do something completely different recognizing that I'm still going to be a

steward of this and there must be some kind of process for me to take some aspect of control and so I think you

know pulling on that idea of of process and event is very important because I think it sets the stage for success if

you think of it as a process. I think when people think of the event, then you're thinking about the lawyers and

the documents and it cannot just be those things. You know, a lot of a lot

of what successful family gets right is that they get that early alignment. And sure, you know, anyone who has a teenage

child, anyone we all been teenagers, you're going to go off and try and find something different. You're going to rail against what is there. But if

there's an early onset of shared values and what what wealth can be, then that

leads to much more constructive outcome. You're building knowledge and habits before they are actually expected to

make big decisions. Claire, you used an interesting word, expectations.

I learned long ago from mentors that not not just in succession planning, but in

life, unexpressed expectations destroy relationships. And unfortunately, we all

have unexpressed expectations every day. And it seems to be incredibly prevalent

among parents and children, especially in the family held business context. You

know, the parents have the expectation that the kids want to be in the family business and the kids never tell mom and

dad that they have the expectation that they don't want to be in the family business. And you have these inherent

conflicts that are never discussed. And so in my experience, it really just starts with communication and open and

honest communication. So, wow. Okay, guys. This I didn't even

this is just unraveling in the best in the best ways. Okay, this word expectation I think first. Okay, I want

to talk about communication because communication is what I want to, why is it so hard? That's my That's gonna be my

second question. But my my first thing that I wanted to say was

okay a little personal story like I remember the first time that a therapist

like asked me what was my expectation like clearly something was happening in my life and she asked me pointed what

what was your expectation and I remember being like

rattled like I remember being like I I didn't have an expectation like I wasn't even aware

that I had an expectation that was playing into a certain dynamic. You did have you did have an

expectation. I know. But I wasn't aware of it. So I'm I guess my what I'm saying is

like before we can even communicate, we have to like understand our ex that one

that expectations are like inc are incredibly human. The idea that we can like will ourselves out of having

expectations is not I. I don't believe is possible. That's my opinion. But when we

can own look at our expectations and and maybe own them or be honest about them and and work with them, then we can

communicate. But so maybe what I think I wanted to just introduce is like the way I think I feel like my like soft entry

into my ability to become aware of my expectations was I used a different word like I called it my hope. I was like,

well, I just this is what I hoped, you know? I hoped this. That felt a little easier to say. Well, but think about,

and this doesn't have to be in the context of parent, children. It can be in any context, co-workers, friends.

Think about the last time you had an expectation of someone and didn't express that expectation. Inevitably,

they don't meet that expectation. And what's the result? You're

disappointed, frustrated, maybe even angry. And yet they had no idea, none whatsoever that

you had this expectation of them. It's not fair to them.

So I guess the idea is not to like it's not that we have to rid ourselves of expectations, but you must communicate

them. Is that your point? Exactly. O open communication and and to

your point, understanding that we all have expectations, understanding those expectations and then communicating them.

So are inheritors. So this is now this is interesting, right? Is like if we're talking about a settler and inheritor

and we are talking about that age difference and I know that this doesn't have this can look like spouse to spouse but in this case that we're talking

about from maybe from parent to child. Are the are the inheritors allowed to

have expectations? Oh, absolutely. We all have expectations. And and this goes to Sunni's point about

if you're not having a conversation about wealth. I mean, most of the time historically, Americans

never discussed wealth. The parents never discussed their level of wealth, what they've done in their estate plan,

any of that. And the kids just kind of learned when to some extent when the

first parent died and then to a greater extent when the second parent died. And that's just the way it happened.

But I mean, it's a recipe for disaster. you. I mean, if you're every statistic

that I've seen says if you're if you receive a lump sum of wealth,

regardless of amount and regardless of the age of the recipient,

that lump sum is gone in 3 to 5 years because it's not earned. It's just

dropped into someone's lap. It's like the the statistics for lottery winning winners are incredibly stark. You would

think if you win a couple hundred million that you would be set for life. No, these people have nothing

after 5 years generally. Not not everyone, but statistically it's gone in

in 5 years because they're just not prepared. They're not prepared for that level of wealth, the responsibility that

comes with it to Sunni's point in terms of philanthropy and every one and their brother wanting something from them.

They're just not prepared. And so if the family hasn't had the conversation, the

kids are in the exact same position. They're unprepared. Maybe to take the I mean, so again,

there's a lot of kind of like negative assumptions about this. I think there's again if you want to step back and

saying okay I'm a family listening to this and we build generational wealth and we might have young teenagers or we

might have you know children coming of age who about to find their way I mean even and even early I would say 10 under

10 years old on the positive side again like when you look at families who are successful at transferring wealth it's

not because they transfer just I mean the easy Jonathan is an expert of how to transfer the money but can you also

transfer the values that goes with the money and that's much more important because you can build the best structures, you can have a good external

team around, but if the family has not managed to transition values alongside with the value of the assets, then you

end up in a place to Jonathan's point where there's not this connectivity that leads to making good decisions

um around whatever it is you want to be a steward, how you want to be a steward of this wealth. Um and but I

would say that that's a risk and opportunity because just as the next generation can be a risk to the

continuing of generational wealth, there can also be the opportunity to enhance it, grow it, take it in new directions

across all areas. And so this idea of stewardship versus ownership, something we keep coming back to. And I think if

you empower the next generation to be stewards of the wealth and what it can

do, not so much you have to be in the family business or sit in the family office, but you know whatever is going

to you know father time is undefeated eventually this person will have the wealth and so it's question you have as

first generation is when and gradually can I build a process that allows them to ideally come in. So

when you look at the big successes, families who doesn't just manage to retain some kind of set level of wealth,

but where the second third generation actually happens to enhance it, it's often when they're brought in

specifically if there's a family business involved, but they're allowed to build something in their vision on that foundation of the first generation.

And so they see the business, they understand it, they learn about it, they respect it, but they also think much

bigger because they're living in a different era. Maybe there's changes in technology, maybe there's changes in market, consumer behavior, etc. And a

lot of them reshape businesses and let's say the business is worth 500 million today from first generation. Well, don't

eat the seed corn. So, the first thing is keep it at least that kind of level. But then also, could you do something with

the business that now takes it into another place? And it's not just about the dollar number. It's really more about the journey that comes with being

a successful entrepreneur and having maybe instead of leaning into the fact that this person's going to be

spoiled and spend maybe they're going to have vision and new ideas and maybe there's going to be a confluence of two

different generations that leads to something bigger and better. And if you're a family, that's really what you want to have some outcome around.

There's not going to be a straight shoot to do that. You no one's going to get that right on day one. But building

processes that allows someone to come in and be part of it, but also allows them to start having their own ideas and ownership because I think a lot of the

time where where you have that lottery ticket effect is like Jonathan said, now there's a c now I'm now I have this

trust fund and I just have to write this guy that I need money and then you know 500k gets deposited whatever every

month, every quarter, whatever you know you spend is that's an unhealthy environment. But if you have this idea

of being entrusted with a stewardship of a family business, of a certain level of wealth, of impact in a community, impact

in the world, that's a little bit harder to just spend because then it's like I'm

actually part of something and it may not be what was the starting point of this may not have been what I would have built and my dad's or mother's values

may not be mine, but there is some common ground and then there's me being free to take this to the next phase of

what this family wealth is out and I think that that's the real opportunity. So obviously you want to think about

managing risk and family decision making and internal family problems can be a

biggest risk to you know legacy level wealth. But on the flip side it's also you got to get it right to maintain it.

And if you get it really right you may actually empower someone to go and and live a full life within the context of

stewardship both in terms of dollars and cents but also in terms of impact.

Yeah. Yeah, I think stewardship is a really important word because

when we're talking about this level of wealth, the the the clients often come to us

quite philanthropic. But over the years, I've heard the expression charity starts at home.

And I like to say that there's really three potential beneficiaries of your wealth and you have to select two. One

is family or your intended beneficiaries. The other is the IRS.

The second is the IRS and the third is charity philanthropy. And in my

experience, when when folks understand how you can incorporate philanthropy and you can

actually do more, you can generate more wealth even more wealth to the family if

that's the objective, then even if they start with charity starts at home, they become philanthropic. But

but to Sunny's point about involvement, I think philanthropy is an incredible place to start and really young

children. When my I have two daughters when they were quite young, one of my lawyer colleagues told me what she had

done, which was basically during the holidays allocate $50 or $100 to the to

young children and say, "I want you to give this to charity and help them research charities. help them connect

passion with philanthropy. And I did that with my girls and they are

both quite philanthropic. Um, and I think we started when my youngest was

four or five. So there's no age that's too young. And then as they get older, you

can involve them more and more. But but helping them understand the responsibility that comes with wealth

and the stewardship that comes with wealth. So what I what I'm witnessing you all

build with Bespoke is this framework, right? That that kind of transcends the

the generational disconnect, right? Like you're focused on um bringing the type of meeting

meeting the settler where they are and then pushing that growth mindset but then also read uh reaching the um

inheritor where they are. So there's this ability to transcend. I think the challenge that um a lot of

wealth advisers and managers are having right now because they it's just

understood that a huge challenge is that I mean inheritors are just leaving and not even having a conversation with the

the wealth adviser of their parents. And I'm curious to hear from your perspective like what do you think is

the shortcoming like why why is that? And

how do you think about that? I mean, as satisfactory as it would be to just kind of blame all the other

advice as non Bespoke, I do think that again back to the point of you know the family. So if the family doesn't have

any conversation around it and I'm working with the principal and so you could question whether I'm a

good manager, advisor, for partner to my principal if I'm not helping them bridge this conversation or get this move from

silence into some kind of conversation. But that's a side question. But I think obviously again you end of the day

principal leads and so if they're not willing to have those conversations then eventually again it's going to be an

event not a process and so that event is my principal passes and the next generation or the wife will be

associating me with whatever was there and if that was not particularly well handled then I can understand why they

would want to have their own team and so you know I think that that's definitely one dynamic. I mean I think again what

what has been learned by me is that you're not just managing wealth you are a thought partner to family and ideally

family not just principal and again I think if you are a good adviser and you are fiduciary advisor then you are

trying to have a broader set of conversations than just principal and ideally where principal is also there

because sometimes you can help facilitate difficult conversation um or at least be a part of that team that

that helps those things settle in initially and so I I think it's are you are you managing wealth and setting up

structures and managing day-to-day of a family office or are you helping to

prepare all of the structures but also the people towards the ones who are inheriting this and I think that that's

kind of that's I think is the winning model and I think any adviser who doesn't understand that is playing a very short-term game specifically at the

kind of tipping point where we have a lot of wealth moving generally from principal to spouse and you know in the

current wealth way traditionally the and and then the younger wife or the wife who lives longer and then you have some

kind of intermittent phase where the wife is principled maybe with adult children. And so I would also say that a

lot of a lot of the lot of the coverage of this is often about this nextgen thing which is you know gets headlines

and you can have you know they're spending all their money on avocado toast and kind of all these wonderful memes but most cases actually a wife

scenario. before we manage his wealth where it's the wife who's actually taken over the control of the family office

and she's facing a situation where she you know in our cases they had some knowledge of wealth and some visibility

to it but we're not dayto-day with it. Um and so they're having to learn very

quickly and then often they they're left with the expectations back to that word of next generation because now suddenly

they're the bridge between and you know again if they haven't been involved in building it and haven't maybe filled the

the level of trust with the team that was there initially that can be a very difficult phase and I think that that that piece of transition is very

important as well because that's actually much more common than the you know the parents fly you know take a

helicopter crash somewhere and now suddenly the kids are just left most cases is one one of the spouses that are

left to then be a bridge between and I think that that conversation is also an interesting one and maybe something to

spend a bit of time on some one of Jonathan's principal client is someone who is essentially charged with dealing

almost primarily with next generation and the idea of wealth and I think that that's an interesting area to spend some

time on I will say things are changing pretty dramatically you know if you think back

And so the the mentality among

um boomers and older was the man controlled

finances. The woman, you know, was the beautiful

uh spouse and really was uninvolved. And so for the older generation at least now

and this is changing with the younger generations but for the older generation at least it often means that the

surviving spouse which is the widow you know we tend to die sooner if we're

of equal age or if we're older we die even sooner.

um the surviving spouse is the widow who is now responsible for all this wealth

and may have had very little if any experience prior to their spouse's

death. And so it's really incumbent upon us to help them sort of walk through

that journey because it is really challenging. You know, this

the statistics I just gave you apply to some extent because if they haven't been

involved now there's this massive wealth that they're responsible for and have to

think about in terms of the inheritance that they're leaving to their loved ones. And so it's incredibly complex and

again a lot of people don't pay close enough attention to it. I mean, I

remember as a as a young estate planner,

um, someone telling me, you always have to have your conversation with when you

meet with a couple, the conversation always has to be with the wife because

if you're having the conversation with the husband, the wife is sitting there thinking, okay, when he dies, how does

this affect me? Was there this like because at least my you know my experience as I've been digging you know

diving into these topics is just like the jargon that even goes with this is so

intimidating and like you don't even know what your way into it is at least in my ca like was there a how did you

navigate that learning curve? I mean the language is just also something that you that feels so inaccessible. I'm thinking

from the woman's position because it was as you said like all of this was created by the man for the man. That's

just the reality and then now when it's being transferred to like that's changing and that's shifting but there's a quite the learning curve.

There's still that barrier. Yeah. So in my experience, a lot of

professionals start with an attempt to impress the

client with their knowledge and just lose them because they start, you know, they use the alphabet soup of I mean,

you know, estate planners are infamous for using acronyms that are totally

meaningless to the rest of the world. But there is an expression that I do remember in this context.

Um I don't care about how much you know

until I know about how much you care.

And I think that really rings true. I think most people first and foremost

assume that you have the knowledge. They wouldn't be sitting in front of you um if they didn't think you had the

knowledge. But they want to know that as a human being, you care about them and

their circumstances and you want to do the best job that you can do to help

them in those circumstances. Yeah, just on that point, I mean, I think I think you hit the nail on the

head. I mean like the my industry and Jonathan's industry historically has been all about how can we take family

wealth and turn it into like a business language and how can we have these very sort of all these kind of different

words that you know doesn't really mean anything beside outside of our world and you know there's this saying like you

know if you're an expert you can take the complex and make it simple but unfortunately I think many people didn't bother with that they just thought let

me take something simple and make it complicated and I'm the only one who can explain explain it and so you see that

within that so that is kind there's that trend and there just this again I understand kind of where it comes from because again if you build an industry

of managing boomer male wealth he would associate with boardroom and family

office and all of these kind of terms as this is how it should be this is my reference points they it makes sense to

me you know we have people now we have human capital and so there's this there's this kind of um I think that

framing is there but it's super unhelpful specifically with the next generation or often with the wife in the current framework and so you got to kind

of get rid of all of that. And to Jonathan's point, it's often pretty good to start with saying, "Look, I don't if

I say any word or if I fall into my industry, like

for one, a better word, sort of um their their normal mode of operandi, then

please kick me and I'll get back to actually speaking real language with you about things that matters to you as opposed to something that I think makes

sense because I'm so used to it." And I think that's a starting point. It kind of clears out that there's no stupid questions here. This is serious stuff.

Much of this is not super complicated, but there are some things that are very complicated. And we need to make sure we separate the two and we don't over

complicate what should be simple and that we find out a way to take the complex and make it at least possible

for someone who may not have 30 years of legal experience to kind of understand what are these outcomes, what are these

different solutions, how can I think about them in the context of my reality. And so it's meeting the family where

they're at. Um, and you know, you often have very intelligent people, but they may not be familiar with all the the

terms and and the terminology. And so I think that's the starting point. Let's reset this thing. To Jonathan's

point, this is about them. I'm here to help them make informed decisions. And it's my job as an expert ideally to take

some of this complex stuff and make it relatively simple so that they can see how does this affect some of these outcomes that are important to me. And

then on the flip side, big picture, what is possible? What can I do? Because I think there's kind of a a resetting

and rebuilding when you have a transition. But often our role is also kind of what is actually possible.

Because again for some people some of this wealth can be truly overwhelming. Even if you have been somewhat used to

taking nice holidays and living in nice homes and maybe having multiple homes and at least being able to spend without

thinking. That's one thing. That's the consumption aspect of wealth. But when you sit down and you look at things that

says you got 300 million over here and 500 million over here and 200 million over here, those numbers stop making

much sense. And so then it's like I don't want to lose those things, but how do we do that? And then the second thing

is also what is actually possible what impact could we have? What could we do as a family? What is truly important to

us? And start thinking about how do I scale that up? And I think a lot of the work we end up doing a lot of the time is it's not for me to say what should be

your values and how you want to express this legacy, but it's maybe for me to help you think about what is what is possible with this level of wealth in

whatever direction you want to take it. And that can be super interesting once you get into that phase. But it is a

journey. And I would say the other thing is whether you're very young and get a lot of wealth or whether you're the wife, it can be very isolating. Who can

I trust? to Jonathan's point, the moment, specifically if it's somewhat public that the family has significant

wealth and now you're the one who's the gatekeeper, the one who's sitting on it, suddenly you're not just the wife who's,

you know, hello. And then I want to speak to the husband. No, they want to speak to you because they want to sell you products. They want to take advantage

of you. And some people do come with real good opportunities, but it's pretty it can get very it can change very very

quickly the moment that you are the one who is seen as the decision maker on $500 million worth of wealth. and you

make one or two missteps and then suddenly you start getting very much like who do I trust around me family

external etc. And so I think a lot of I can understand why why it would be easier to just not make any decision at

all. Silence can be a place to hide for a period but there is you know there's no

way to hide from the reality and your decision you are going to have to make decisions along the way and so those

again that's a journey and people come to that very differently. There's no panacea. There's no right way

to do anything. What is panacea? All-encompassing solution. The the

solution. So it requires that we listen. We ask

pointed questions and we listen because the what we hear in response to those

questions will direct us as to how we should recommend or what we should

recommend. And to Sunny's point, a lot of our clients don't know the

possibilities. And it's our job to help them forget about you can't do this because

you're not wealthy enough or you're not this or you're not that or you're not the other thing without limitation. What

would you want to accomplish? And then it's our job to try to help them

accomplish that. Are you think what are you thinking of when you think like that there there are

things that they don't know about that you would want them to that they that they get that they should know?

Well, just how structures can help. There are certain structures, you know, from a tax planning perspective that

provide significant tax benefits. There are certain structures that in my experience provide

are a conduit for better family harmony than other structures. Um there are ways to do that.

What do you mean by conduit? Um, so we're big fans of private uh

family trust companies because they give the family much more control. Historically, you had a single trustee

that was the gatekeeper to the family's wealth and that created maybe that worked at generation one, but at

generation two, it started to create conflicts. At generation three, it created significant conflicts. And so

moving away from that model to a trust structure that is controlled by the family. So the family has much more

say than they had historically. Something like that. But I also think the limitation I think even families

that have enormous wealth think well I'm not wealthy enough to do X. You know

maybe it's I don't know something philanthropic. Maybe they're they're passionate about an area that's enormous

and so they're thinking, "I just don't have enough wealth to uh, you know, attack this area." Well, maybe you can

attack that entire area, but you you you carve out a little piece and you attack

that piece, move the needle in some way. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Where do we start, you know, and

what is again what what would you want to achieve if capital was not your

primary constraint and what could you imagine? And then it's kind of like, okay, well, let's work backwards from that into something that we can start

testing and working on. Whether that's building businesses, that's doing impact investing, whether that's

philanthropy, whether that's kind of me in my community or me and my family.

I think it's all it's I want to

this idea right now of like you're asking like what are you imagining? What do you want the world to be? Like what

is your dream? you have the ability to not may you may maybe you can't like solve all the world's problems or maybe

you can't like fulfill the the exact vision of that dream but you you you can like wage some some of that creation and

and I think that for men and and I you know I hate to I I actually don't enjoy

I'm actually not that interested in ma in like like gendering everything but I but I do think that there is a there is

a like a gendered quality to some like I think that men at least and and I'm

acknowledging that I'm generalizing, right? Because there's exceptions to everything and but like men I think are

because we've just been if you think about like socialization and like we've been conditioned for power and I think women have been conditioned

for relation and relationship like and the the reason that I bring this up is because there's just like a fundamental

framework that I think is very common especially for like the boomer women like I'm thinking about my mother. I'm

I'm thinking about these these women who were wives and they and their job was to

keep a home like and and to to then look at them and be like wait hold on you

have this tool where you can where you can create something and like it's literally breaking and trying and

breaking a framework and then try and and a completely new way of of being like three years ago I set out on a

journey to be like I want to understand what I want and what I need. And that was like a like if I were to look

at my I'm calling out my mom right now and be like, "Mom, like what do you want? Like what is your dream? What is

your desire?" Like I think that's a really that's a really hard thing for for a woman to to to to even start to

think about yet fulfill or fulfill. I mean what what I would say is there's

like whether you built the wealth yourself and now you have this moment of realization that you've achieved

something that you've you know you've been battling and fighting for and hoping and wishing around and now it's here or whether it is more like the

inheritor um or divorce for example is is another common path um you know I

think there's this there's some core questions which is kind of like okay how much is enough for you what so what's

consumption you know and again this is you know you shouldn't enjoy it. You know, that's the point of it. But what does that look like? And so

again, if there's 500 million, how much of that do we need to then create the passive income? So you can consume as you wish for ideally long long time

ahead. Then when you do that exercise, you're going to realize pretty quickly even if you have very uh nice and expensive

taste, you like the good life, the wine, the multiple homes, the travel, etc. that doesn't when you have that level of

wealth, it doesn't really to create passive enough income to support most of those things can be achieved without

taking much risk. And I think then the second piece is kind of like okay well cool now we got this in place what else

you know and then the idea of of generational level wealth whether you are inheriting it or whether you built it for yourself is at least when from

kind of my perspective it would be that now I have the freedom to spend my time like I want truly I could not work

another day I could switch off I could go sailing I could do I could go and build another business if that's what I want but I have that choice how do I

spend my time and I think a lot of the time that's that next conversation because then that leads a lot more to

not so much dollars and cents but leads more to values. What is it really you want to spend your time on? There's you know we can make more money but we can't

make more time and so how you decide you want to spend your time that's actually

a pretty good starting point for trying to understand what is important to this person. So if they say I want to be with my kids I haven't had enough time. Well

then you're in a family type thing. How do how do we think about that then? or it might be, you know, I've always been

really passionate about the environment or some particular, you know, whatever it might be, education. Well, how do we

then spend that? And then that spins into those conversations that Jonathan sort of talked about with the philanthropy side. How might we be able

to address this through philanthropy, maybe through impact investing, you know, through different types of

empowerment beyond my sort of core? And I think the idea of what does it take for you to live the life you want in

terms of kind of the spend and then how do you want to spend your time and then when you kind of start pulling back on

that you get to a place where you can at least help direct towards what are some of the things we have to consider and I

would say the other thing that most people have whether they're kind of the inheritor of or whether they build off

there's this thing like I got here I have this or now I have this stewardship and trust on me I don't want to lose it

all and so a lot of the time where me and Jonathan comes into a conversation is that what we solve for first how do

we think about risk how do we put structures in place how do we manage the wealth how do we do these things to make

sure that we don't have permanent loss of wealth and that gives peace of mind and then ideally that helps that person

then to feel like now I can actualize what is it I want to do with my time what is it I want how do I want to be a

steward of this wealth and ideally that is some kind of process again it's not the event aspect and so they have taken

a journey towards it Maybe they have done philanthropy on some level, but now they're going to really scale that up to

something differently. Um, or maybe it's the next generation who has been part of the family business, but very much work

within the lines of whoever built the business first and maybe now is the time to, you know, wash away the lines and

say what if, you know, and I think that that's kind of the journey you would be thinking about.

Yeah. Yeah, I want to highlight something that Sunune said. Warren Buffett said something to the effect of,

"I want to leave my children enough so that they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing."

And I think that's a really powerful statement. You know, you want to give

your intended beneficiaries, whether it's children or whomever, the opportunity to do

what really the what they're passionate about to connect their passions so that they can do anything but not be that

trust fund baby that he described earlier and do nothing. The other thing is we

people with significant wealth generally have complex lives. And invariably they say to us, I want to

keep it simple. And yet there, by definition, it's not simple. It's

complex. And I feel like it's our responsibility

to maybe not eliminate, but reduce to the greatest extent possibility that

complexity so that they can live their lives, that they can enjoy life, they can enjoy the fruits of their hard work

and their wealth as Sunni described. And so, you know, maybe we can't keep it simple because

it's already complex, but we can certainly take away the complexity for them by managing that complexity

ourselves, right? Yeah. There you have to kind of accept that it's a complicated and complex issue. Um, but that you don't

have to be the one to bear bear all of that, that there's precisely there's support that can help mitigate

that reality. Um, is there anything else? Sun, were you going to add something?

I was just going to say the it was when Jonathan mentioned the Buffett quote on this. You know, I think one of

the most common things I see when you speak to someone who's the primary and they haven't maybe spoken at length

about the wealth either with their wife or with um their children, specifically with the children, is this

thing, oh, I don't want to rob them of their ambition, you know, and it's kind of there's a kernel of truth.

What do you mean? What do you mean? I.e. like you can have whatever you want. So why would you start thinking about building your own business or you

know going through hardship to become a doctor or have any kind of ambition you know so the fear of you have unlimited resources you don't

have to do nothing you just have to turn turn 21 and you will have $100 million sitting in your trust fund

you know that idea obviously there's a kernel of truth a lot of truth to that concept but I also find it's something

that people often hide behind as a reason for not having the conversation because they again think that silence

is going to be like oh then he's going it's easier and and but what I think

about it is like specifically today it might have been true you know but like today specifically if you have

significant wealth I mean kids are online or their friends are online and if you have a family name and your dad

or mom is a CEO or builder of a business you're going to figure out and you know even even with younger children

sometimes I have conversations like well you kind of go on a lot of really nice holidays and you do have four homes and

when they go to you know birthday party with someone even If they go to a very nice school, they may see some people

who have a home that is like the size of, you know, the outhouse to one of your homes, you know, and so kids are

smart. I mean, I have kids. They will figure out that we are probably not quite the same and they will probably be on that wonderful phone of theirs and

go, "Who are we?" And then they'll be like, "Whoa, why is no one talking to me about this?" And so, I think the whole

there's a fallacy combined with that. If you think you can hide the wealth certainly, I don't think it was ever

true, but you can definitely not do it today. And so that brings you back into this thing. You got to have the conversation and you got to figure out

how to do that. And it's not an easy one, but you know, again, the more you can tie it to what have we achieved, how

did we get here? Because I think a lot of the when you listen to a lot of the people or see a lot of the families who got it right, it wasn't that they were

just let you know, telling you about all my fantastic ideas and why you're not doing the same. If they're true and they

want to show entrepreneurial journey or whatever they might have done in real estate, they also share all the bad

deals, all the problems, everything they got wrong until they got it right. And I think when when you grow up and you

learn about this kind of journey, you can become fascinated with entrepreneurship, which is an incredible, you know, way to spend your

life. It just doesn't have to be that they have to walk your path in entrepreneurship, but they can certainly

learn from your path if you're willing to show both the good and the bad from it. And so again, I think that can start

just like philanthropy to Jonathan's example. I think you can start talking about how wealth is built at a very

young age and involve them in different activities. And I think there comes a time where you then have to set them

free to build something. You know, I normally recommend on the investment side, which in some ways is the simplest

area of starting to talk about wealth. It's kind of, you know, either you bring them into a sort of an investment

committee type environment early and let them have some understanding of and then you maybe have them prepare or they work

with the investment team to prepare something and eventually they prepare something of their own. But there can also be a place where you say, "Cool,

we're going to take what we would call risk money and let you go and manage that." But you have to kind of present

what you're going to be doing with it. So you have to do the actual work. You can't just come and take it and then give it to some guy you made on YouTube

who has a cool idea and oh you have to if you want to be a real estate developer you actually have to go and do

real estate development and you have to lead that project and if it takes you two years to get that property turned around whether you fail or succeed you'd

have learned from it the same if you're going to be investing in global equities or crypto or whatever it might be that you're interested in. Show me you're

doing the work. Take the experience not with me sort of backseat driving. go and do it for a

couple of years, you know, and then let's sit back and look at it afterwards and say what worked, what did not work

and then you can scale that up obviously as you see. So, it's also about giving people a safe space to experiment and

learn and make mistakes whether it's entrepreneurship or investing or decision-m in life in general. you know,

um, this idea of, you know, back to this idea of the differential in terms of lived experience. You would often say

the builder has a lot of resilience because they had to, they wouldn't get there. And the fear is that there's not

resilience in the next generation. But if you never actually make the next generation deal with difficulty,

yeah, of course, the reason that resilience is built through adversity, right? Like that's literally how you

become resilient. So there has to be some level of adversity that's introduced for someone to get resilient.

But yeah, that can be, you know, hard be that's hard that's hard for the builder,

right? Because then they have to relinquish a bit of control and then it's also hard for the inheritor because like they have to feel the adversity. So

it's a challenge for any parents. No one wants to see their kids struggle, you know, whether you have wealth or not. You know, it's never

comfortable to see your your son or daughter sit at the end of the bench in whatever sport they picked up and they never get onto the court and you like

they're there, you know, they're out there on the court every day and you see them struggle and struggle and they don't they don't get the reward and they

put in the work. I mean, no one enjoys that. But when you look back two or three years later and they made it onto

the field or they managed to get up on stage and finally do that thing that they wanted to do, then you know that

that's a real moment of growth for that kid and there's no substitute for that. the you know you can buy all the tutors in the world they're not going to give

them that experience and that level of outcome. Yeah. You know connecting back to

something that S said earlier if you treat the family like a business

you're missing the f family dynamic piece because

a typical business doesn't have the family dynamics that a family business

has. You know the children. So if you think about

um often times mom and dad or maybe just dad or maybe just mom spend an

inordinate amount of time building the business when the children were young and often times there's resentment from

the children because the parent or parents spent more time in the business than they did with their children. You

know, I talked about some the expectations, the expectations about going into the business or not going into the business and what that looks

like. I mean, those are dynamics um that don't exist in a typical

business that's not a family-owned business. And so, it's really critical

that the family one recognizes that and have conversations to address it.

Yeah. I'm just I can't help but think about how this like retrain. I mean this is a different mindset. I think yeah I

think that it it the common way with wealth is to like and just like the common way is like to avoid and not talk

about it. Like if I'm thinking back to like you know the original you know building of wealth and like it's a it's

an incredibly like quiet you know thing that's meant to be kept quiet. So it's

really challenging a new way. Um and that probably doesn't like feel really safe like you know initially.

I think that's right Clara and I think um families

families struggle. I mean one of the things where I said earlier nonjudgmental

curiosity in my experience nearly every family has some type of dysfunction. It's just a

I mean human you can't be a human without it. Yeah. I'm not aware of very many

families that have zero dysfunction. I mean if there's if that's what it's seeming like look behind the curtain.

It's not. Yeah. And so often times these families are embarrassed to talk about

their dysfunction. And so it really requires a high level of trust and and

in my experience sometimes it's conversations that they've never had outside the family. Like the husband and

wife may have discussed it amongst themselves but they have never had that conversation with a third party. And so

you are really opening up a a scary world for them because they are

discussing their family failures if you will.

But in reality, every family has that. Yeah. It's just human. Yeah.

One of the things I find with working with Jonathan, for example, when you speak with a family, because he comes

from the planning side to some degree, you know, it's just like a basic question like what if, you know, if

you're sitting with the husband and wife, it's like what if one of you is no longer here? What does that look like in

terms of like because Jonathan literally has to think about how do we think about roles? Who decides what? how does it

translate to the next phase and these are really unc back to us you know when I said we had difficult conversation

about difficult subjects today that's generally where it starts you know and then so that's like first your own

mortality you know incapacity within two people and then within multiple people

if you load in the next generation and I think you know I think for anyone listening to this with if with the

family again it's obviously a very powerful question but it's one that you never really want to let's get around the table this weekend and talk about

when I die, you know, it's going to be ideally few people who are at that table and there's not going to be a joyous

moment ideally. Um, if you know, at least you can hope so. Um, but it's a

very powerful one because I think there's a piece of mind once you get some of this stuff out. And to Jonathan's point, a lot I mean, I would

say that I actually think it's pretty rare that even couples have had any kind of extensive detailed conversation about

this. I think a lot of the time we may be the first people where they're having that conversation full stop. And then

it's like okay now we're opening up this space where it's safe to talk about these things and maybe initially it is with just one but then it helps them get

ready for the conversation with the second because then we will encourage now to be honest I can draft documents

and we can do things but you're going to need to have that conversation no one else can have that or you can bring them on and we can have all the conversation

together. We can explain what it is you're trying to bring about for you as a family but you're going to need to

have next whoever is the other person. some way it can be a way to facilitate some of the difficult conversations just

because it's impossible to truly build the right kind of structures unless to Jonathan's point you have that that

curiosity and you're actually listening and I think again that's probably one of the issues with our industry historically

is that people are willing to sell product and they don't really want to listen because that just complicates things and so they have this thing that

solves everything and then you don't need to have the difficult conversation and the client is like okay cool that

was less painful than I thought it was going to We assign the documents and I go home with that in my briefcase and put it in a safe deposit box and I have

some spreadsheets that's on a computer somewhere. Job done, right? And the people selling it are like,

cool, I just made some nice money and I didn't have to do too much and the client is like done. I don't have to worry about that again.

Yeah. I did that three decades ago. You know, it's in a drawer somewhere. It looked really nice leather bound and but

in reality you've sold zero. And so I think again a lot of the time when we start the conversation like yeah actually we may need to dust that whole

thing off and have a look at it again and then have these conversations in the setting of the reality today. Um, but I

can assure you that when you know, as much as I would like on the asset management side to think that our clients just love what we do on the

investment side and all the values created there, I'll tell you that I think they go to bed at night and what

the peace of mind they get from knowing that the planning is sold and that there is governance, there is a pathway to the

people and things I care about is going to be taken care of if touchwood something happens to me. I don't think I

don't know how you put a value on that in dollars and cents. I know I can do it on a spreadsheet in my side of the house, but I don't think you can do it

on the other side. And so I think again the multi-family office business is built the other way around. It's really about the financial product and I can

get you special deal access and you know all this cool stuff. But if you look at all these surveys that are out there,

most families be like, "Cool, we have enough private equity deals coming into our funnel, but what we really want is

someone to sit down actually have a conversation about how we speak to our kids about the wealth or how do I get my

house in order if something was to happen to me and that's less well served in the space today." And in

part, Bespoke is kind of built around the concept of how do we put that out there in the world so that there are

people can get answers to these difficult questions. Going back to what I the question that I

asked early on, you know, what keeps you up at night? Those are the things that are keeping folks up at night. You know,

maybe they're concerned that a child is a spendthrift or maybe drug or alcohol addicted. I mean, that that's

reality and wealth tends to exacerbate those issues. And so, how do we address

them? Yeah. I thank you for bringing that up again because I was going to ask you

earlier like again there are so many ways to have this conversation which we outlined in the beginning but like part of I think

there's also there's a area of this right we we spoke about like how you have those conversations with your kids like

very early on but like there are also cases where like that didn't happen and and now there you know that and that it

just didn't happen good or bad it just is and there has to be like you know a different approach there so like you

know yeah how do you meet meet the you know there are different circumstances where people are in different positions

um and I think yeah take you're going to have to take a different approach right if somebody's dealing with children who

are you know maybe even in their 30s or in their 40s and like it I don't know that you can kind of like have those

start having those the same conversations well another expression when's the best time to plant a tree

20 years ago when's the next best time today Now, so you can only you you take the family

how you receive them and you can only obviously we can't go back in time and

have these conversations that didn't take place, but we can start now. We can

certainly start uh you know with a relatively gentle

entree so to speak, but start having those conversations. Yeah. I love the idea of like I think

there's not even just in this area, but I think it's a lot of times people think it's just too late, you know, and it's

It's never too late. There's two things that I wanted to ask before we have about 15 minutes left. Um, the

first was that I I heard a story from a woman actually that I was speaking with this summer and she was talking about

how her friend was in a position where her spouse died and she received this

money and she really doesn't like like the wealth adviser was selected by the

husband and it was a relationship that the husband had and like the woman had always kind of had a bad feeling about him. She didn't want to work with him

and then she was coming to her friends and being like I really don't want to work with him but like I don't know how

to break up with my wealth adviser and like I feel bad about it. I feel guilty

about it. Like how I just think that that's actually pretty common. Like is it okay to do that? Like how do you

do that in a way that feels good or feels okay? Well, yes, it's absolutely okay. And I

think this goes back to the point I made earlier in terms of at least historically the relationship between

the wealth adviser and the client has been with the husband. And so

if if the wife has no relationship with that advisor,

why should she stay with him or her? Yeah. Yeah. Also I think it can be an additive

thing. So again a lot of the time we do manage in collaborative settings with existing advisers and you know again

like as much as you can want to paint other advices or like the wife I can understand why that might be the knee-jerk reaction but again there's

also a power and some continuity specifically if there's a family business piece or maybe complex assets and so I think in some places it's just

back to that thing about how do you want to spend your time and how are you going to be a steward of this if there's part

of the existing team that are not really going to be part of that well then there's a decision to be made and people can go on and they've probably collected

their fees and done well and you know they will go out and do other things and there might be a place where maybe we have to reshape the relationship maybe

there's a narrower role or a different type of role um and maybe you want to bring some new fresh eyes and ears in

and I think there's nothing wrong with that but again it shouldn't be like again back to the the process and the event thing it's very rare that if you

just tear everything up just because that you end up in a good place um and

so that is maybe a saying that like okay over the next couple of years we're going to be shifting away from the the

family office to a stewardship stewardship vehicle and I want to be much more about impact and philanthropy

than maybe building new businesses and that's very different human capital you need in that and then it's like who in the family is going to play these roles

where are the gaps who are who are aligned who have capabilities that can complement what the family is going to

be doing and again if the answer is not in the old team then inherently you got to make a change and yeah it's it's okay

to cancel the contract these are professionals they should act professionally Sometimes that's a little difficult, but

when you're in but when you're in the let's just say we often handle a lot of that when you have a client that comes

in and says, you know, look, I entrust you guys to map out my new framework. I

mean, again, some people don't necessarily want to have that conflict and maybe sometimes they shouldn't need to have that conflict and then it's on

us to go and say, "Look, my friend, this is one of these scenarios where the team does not need you on this bus anymore

and you're going to need to go off and do it." and there's a legal terms of agreement of how that happens. And by all means, we wish you well. Um, and you

know, again, that's just part of life sometimes. Yeah, I always am refreshed to hear the

like flexibility in the way that you all approach work. I think that it's yeah, very simple to just be like, oh, we do

this, we don't do this, we don't do this because and it's a lot harder to be like, oh, receive fully like what a

person or a family is coming with. Look at it and then create solutions like for that because everybody's situation is

different and I think that's yeah it's incredibly r rare hence our name Bespoke but I'm always refreshed when I when I

hear that come out in our conversations the last thing that I want to kind of round out this conversation with and

then of course if there's anything that you want to add or feel like was missed we can do that um but is and I've said

this to Sunn before Jonathan and I might have mentioned it in one of our conversations but we are we have been

tal we have really like the language that we have been using in this episode has been incredibly like family focused

and I think that you know part of this part of this like changing in generations and and in the wealth

transfer is like that people are come and and you just founder like the founder culture like there's just a

world where people are are entering into significant significant wealth and they're single and they're individuals

and so I want to make I want to include them in this conversation because they also it is also important for them to be

thinking about um or there I I I I absolutely do not mean to be telling them what they need to be thinking about, but I know that they are thinking

about values and how to reflect that and inheritance structures that apply to them as well. How can what would you say

to kind of shape maybe some of these topics for an individual? Well, we use the the term family quite

broadly. So, family can be your your blood, but it it could also be the family that you choose that has no blood

relation whatsoever. And so more often than not, folks have at least some

family that they're interested in leaving something to. But then also philanthropy, I mean, here's where

philanthropy really comes into play. And and fortunately, um, as I said before, most of our

clients come to us quite philanthropic, and it's incumbent upon us to really help them connect their passions with

philanthropy. But even for folks who who aren't philanthropic, you know, I said

what your choices were earlier. And in my experience, most people don't want

to enrich the IRS. They would rather uh be philanthropic than just have their

tax dollars go as they go. And so helping them understand that and then

you know figure out a plan to be as effective as possible with their

philanthropy because I tell my clients it's really easy to give away money.

It's easy to give away a lot of money. It's very difficult to give away a lot of money effectively.

Yeah. Uh I think it was Carnegie who said something like it's uh it's more difficult to give money away intelligently than it is to make it in

the first place or something along those lines. And I think that's certainly something that we see specifically if you have clients who are not about

putting their name on a building somewhere for a big check. I mean I think then then you are really dealing

with almost the same as what I do on the asset management side which you're kind of vetting you're building you're

negotiating you're setting up outcomes or the framework for outcomes at scale

over often very long periods of time and I think that that again like if you don't have children maybe then that can

be a real way of spending time pursuing value and creating a real difference of stewardship. So I actually

think that is a pretty interesting conversation that you know people think like oh let me just write a check to

some charity but I think like again that that's often where that can be a very interesting way to spend the period of your life really about your community

around something that is very important to you and figuring out how your wealth can have a role in that ideally beyond you but also ideally while you're still

alive. I think a lot of people talk about this philanthropy thing as when I die but that's definitely an interesting piece to it but again you can have very

meaningful life and ideally you help I mean for us we really want to ideally work with the client from as early as possible so that whatever comes beyond

them has been framed by them and that ideally we built a lot of this framework around it while they were alive and they

got to enjoy and see this activity and I think that that's again why it's such an important piece of the conversation

again it's part of that process versus the event outcome but yeah the earlier you can start shaping that and again

just like most things you know we've we we learn about yourself as we live our lives and if you gone through that

transition there's often a phase where you're experimenting with who am I now and you know what does that look like

and what's important to me truly and you know you may have suffered you know personal loss because you lost someone

who you really cared about you spent most of your life with and so that can be a period of time and then you start refinding yourself and some people find

themselves within philanthropy some people find them within a new career or some new activity that they enjoy

um some reconnect to family maybe and you know all of those things are you know that that should be part of the

journey um back to that point about now you can spend the time like you want to spend then you know that's a big

question and you may not have the answer and that may change over time as well so I think the other point about having flexibility

flexibility when you're building the initial framework and the sort of starting point is very very important

but if you think that that solves then there's like now is day one of this new

framework and And you know the world changes, the life of the people change, you know markets change, the tax law

changes, you know what is important to this family as they age is is super

important. So it never stops. It's like a constant puzzle. But obviously if you don't get the right foundation in the first place, then you

set yourself up for problems. And again, I think that that starts even much earlier for the wealth builder, which is how do I build a family that has

resilience that has some shared values and that has some connection to stewardship of the wealth. And I think

if you can achieve those things, then you don't go short sleep to short sleeve um in most cases. But I think the moment

that those things are not in place, you can have the greatest planners, the greatest advisers all around you, but

somewhere along the line, you're going to go and turn that wealth into, you know, a large fortune into a small

fortune into nothing and in a pretty quick uh space of time. And so again, I

think for any any family or any individual who listens to this, it's really about starting to think what is

possible. What would I like to see? not so much about the negative outcomes, but about the positive outcomes. What is

possible if I take on this project and I don't just stay silent, but I actually

start having those conversations with the people that I want to involve with my legacy, with my stewardship.

Yeah, it's interesting. Many of our clients, most of our clients are incredibly private.

Some of those clients want absolute anonymity and yet they're incredibly

philanthropic and they are rewarded by that philanthropy. And so, you know,

philanthropy can and should be rewarding. So, to Sunny's point about doing it during your lifetime as opposed

to just, you know, at death. A lot of historically, a lot of philanthropy was done testamentally or a part of planning

at death. But we encourage our clients to be philanthropic during their lifetimes because they can then

enjoy the hard work that they're, you know, and the difference, the impact that

they're making, not just with their wealth, but their time and their energy, even if it's anonymous. And so, you

know, putting the structures in place to to make that happen, to allow that to happen, it's um it's really rewarding

for us to see the satisfactions that our clients achieve through that

philanthropy. Of course. All right. Is there anything else that

you feel like you wanted to say on this topic? I I think we covered a lot of

ground. Again, I would say obviously think about risk and often that's where professionals um Bespoke could be one

comes in and can solve some of that. That gives that peace of mind. But I think you know if you're sitting out there thinking about these subject

matters, reach out, have a conversation about it, but also think about the positives. I think a lot of a

lot of the reports and a lot of the media coverage of the wealth transition or whatever you want to describe it as is always about the negatives of what if

you get this wrong, you know, the fear factor aspect. And I actually think it's much more interesting. Just like any

family, you hope that your children will go out and do good stuff in the world and that they will have a fulfilling life. Well, if you can put, you know,

half a billion dollars behind them, that comes with some risks and some temptations and some things you need to

prepare them for. But it also could be an incredible thing for them to start at that level that you didn't start at. And

you shouldn't be resentful of them because they get to start at that level. But you should also make sure that

they're prepared and they understand why they start at that level. And I think that, you know, the earlier you can start that process, the more you can

avoid the event of the inevitable and then you have some stranger talking to your spouse and your children about

wealth and about what's going to happen next. And hopefully you pick that stranger well or the relative stranger

well. Because if you didn't, well, then you just set them up for, you know, really bad experiences. and what you

hope was going to be your legacy or be like something that was going to protect the people you cared about could turn

into be the complete opposite of that and no one really wants that. But again, it does have to it has to be addressed

at some stage and ideally early. Yeah, I would just add that it is a process. It's it won't be solved in

one conversation with advisers like us at Bespoke and it certainly won't be solved in one conversation with your

intended beneficiaries. It will will require multiple conversations probably over a prolonged period of time but it

needs to it needs to start. Yeah. Communication. We got to talk

about it. You got to talk about it. Thank you.

Thank you Claire. Yeah. Thank you Claire.