Our Philosophy | A Builder’s Approach to Legacy

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So,

let's get serious. I am here with the very serious founders of the Bespoke Group,

Matt McClintock and Jonathan Mintz, to explore specifically I have I have a specific agenda for us today why you are

building a multigenerational firm and I want to get into how that philosophy

actually it directly shapes the way that we serve generational wealthers and the

the people that we serve. So there are certain omnipresent norms in the world

of money, right? Like building a company to sell, growth for growth's sake, and

honestly this obsession with short-term results or just just a short-term mindset. And as founders, you have

created a firm that actively challenges these norms. For starters, you're building a firm to outlast you, which I

have heard both of you say. And just as our clients are building legacies that are meant to last out outlast them. And

so this is just one example of how Bespoke is kind of this interesting

reflection or mirror of our clients or any you know I'm open to other metaphors here but this interesting parallel and

you know of course we're not the same as our clients like we are not generational wealth holders. That's not our story. But what we do share is this builder

mindset, this entrepreneurial mindset and the willingness to create something long-term, to chase meaning, and to

prioritize resilience, which yeah gives us a parallel, a point of connection with our clients, and that we are all

building for something beyond ourselves. I don't know that Jonathan and I have really talked about this a whole lot as

much as we've just done it. Um, and uh, so it's one of those things that I think

this is really going to be a great conversation even just between the two of us because Jonathan and I have been friends now for 20 years. We've worked

together for most of that time and um, we formed our law practice together

rooted in that friendship and we had the luxury of we just we had our own small

firm and so we we did what we want. We we did what we wanted to. We did it according to our terms and um you know

we we've always had the privilege of working with clients who just have tremendous amounts of wealth and um

because we've never carried big overhead um you know and you know I know I can

speak for Jonathan but he can also speak for himself. We just don't have big material aspirations

you know um that's just not the way we define success. And so as Bespoke

evolved out of our law practice, for me at least, it was a recognition of my own

um mortality, I think, to a certain degree. And um Bespoke was really starting to be

born during the in the middle of a major medical crisis that my family was having. Um, and so, you know, I think

for me, at least on an unconscious level, there was this realization that one of these days, um, this world is

going to go on without me. And that the clients that we serve, um, they have

tremendous needs that will span generations because their wealth is so, so immense. And I

personally can't be around forever to see that all these things happen. And

the law practice that Jonathan and I had was a great law practice. It was what is often referred to as a lifestyle

practice. Pretty much, you know, work when we want to work, vacation when we want to vacation, great fees, great

clients, the whole bit. But you, you know, that would that could not continue

beyond us. And so as as we got more and more involved with clients, especially

in the Bitcoin space, but even more so, the clients have truly generational wealth and have a generational

perspective of that wealth, which gets into philanthropy and multigenerational wealth structuring, family governance,

family trust companies, things like that. It required us to to think beyond

our our own lifespans, our own career spans, and start to build something that has a has continuity beyond us. And so

that's that's really the I think that's that's the germ of the idea around which Bespoke was was built.

Yeah. And you you have to think about the long term because we're we were

recommending in creating structures that were designed to last up to a,000 years or indefinitely or maybe 365 years. And

so clearly we're not going to be around for 365 years or 1,000 years or

indefinitely. And so it really is incumbent upon us to think about our own

business and what we can do for the long term ourselves, not not ourselves

personally, but the business. I want to I want to kind of give Suna Sorenson a bit of a shout out here, too,

because we met we met uh Suna pretty early on in Bespoke's story. Um, Bespoke

was was going, but it wasn't nearly what it has become. A lot of what it has become has become has grown as Suna has

been part of us. And Suna comes from a background in Swiss finance where the

Swiss financial model is very different than the US financial model. The most um

soughtafter banks and financial institutions in Switzerland are multi-generational family-owned

um institutions, like truly institutions, not publicly traded

companies like the JP Morgans or whatever of the world. um but companies

that have been in families and within a kind of closely held circle of if you

will insiders who operate inside the company and that just creates a very different uh value you know when we're

when we're building for the generations and when when we're building to pass something on either to our own

descendants or our our descendants I would say kind of more writ large through our employees and through the

company through the people inside this building something that they will someday run. To my mind, that just has

such a much just has a much purer feel to it than just every other wealth

management group out there that is um just chasing big numbers, big numbers,

big numbers, hope to get rolled up by venture capital or have an exit or whatever. That just that feels really

artificial to me. And it feels like that, you know, our clients aren't building wealth to then just like exit

that wealth. They're building that wealth to pass it on to multiple generations. They're building that wealth to make the world a better place

as a result of their wealth. And um we seek to embody that with our company as

well. So, do you think that this um kind of pull towards

longer term thinking came from the background of estate planning when you

were just dealing with Matt ers that really did that had you think about

one's mortality? Yeah, I mean for me it definitely um and

not just not just from the client's perspective but stuff that that we saw in our own lives. um you know and just

you know we both Jonathan and I are both parents you know we're both parents of young adults and we see

I can't you know I can speak for my kids I see that the world feels different the

corporate world feels very different now than it did even when I was a young adult and certainly it's a very

different world than the stories I heard from my parents and grandparents growing up um and So, I grieve to a certain

degree for the young professionals that are coming up, especially in the wealth management industry. It just feels like

a machine that just grinds up talent and then spits it out and grinds up like

hope and aspirations in search of like, I don't know, quarterly returns, things

like that. And and I and I want I want us to stand for something much more

important than economic returns. I want us to stand for something that um I want

the people in the company to feel like they're on a mission to do something very differently. And um so that's

that's what drives me to do what I do the way I do it. And I think that the the options and the

service like then it kind of uh leads to an industry of of wealthers who are

underserved because um the people within the companies are I don't know options

then become limited. So, can, I wanted to look at a couple specific ways of how

this multigenerational thing like shows up practically from the

portfolios that we build, you know, the tech infrastructure, how we think about technology,

even just just expanding how we think about what a family office model or multif family offices or what they

should provide to um the Bespoke approach like the how to own, where to

own, what like and how and And then also there's a lot right there's a lot of different ways that this shows up. Um

but then also just the investment in human capital. So maybe there's one or

you know maybe there's an area of that that stands out to each of you that you could kind of comment on that I want to

showcase like how um this gives our client clients an advantage um to to

how they it's an edge. It's an advantage um when you think across decades and

across borders. Yeah. So I think it manifests itself in

several ways. First off, having a focus that's not exclusively US. Um the the

world we as Americans tend to take a short-term view. Um a lot of the rest of

the world takes a much longer view. And so when you're investing in parts of

Asia or um Switzerland, other parts of Europe,

you're investing in companies that have been around for many generations. To

Matt 's point, a lot of them are closely held or not not as not 100% public and

so they remain family run to some extent. And it's just a different

perspective. It's a much broader perspective in my experience than what you see here when you focus exclusively

on the US. And it also it gives you the opportunity to look at what's happening

um globally. And so, you know, for us

um having our our fingers on the pulse of what's happening in the world and what that means from an economic and

investment perspective, I think is extremely unusual. It's not something

that you see in this space. Yeah, I think this is one of the reasons that our our background in estate

planning gives us a a truly a different edge. Um, and neither Jonathan nor I

grew up in the traditional wealth management world. Um, I had to I had to do some research the other day to

understand options because it's just not my world. Um, my world is trusts,

different jurisdictions, solving tax problems for families, solving asset

protection, privacy problems for families, and most importantly, solving for generational meaning um when when

families pass on significant wealth into future generations, how do you est how do you establish a sense of

responsibility that goes along with that? And so that's the view, that's the lens through which we view

wealth and that's the lens that that's the dominant lens that through which we

view our world at Bespoke. I mean we didn't set out we Bespoke didn't set out to become a wealth management firm.

Bespoke set out to just to solve whatever problems our ultra high net worth clients had. Um and most of that

that first centered around privacy and to a certain degree asset protection for them. And so that's the lens through

which we we saw our future. And only as our clients

sought more and more services from us that got us closer and closer to the regulatory red line by the Securities

and Exchange Commission. Did we decide, okay, we we need to restructure then so we can become registered with the SEC

and then provide regulated services to our clients. We didn't it it wasn't just like Jonathan and Matt decided, hey,

someday we're going to open up a an RAIA and we're going to be a manage we're going to be an investment management

shop and sign onto somebody else's platform and shill products and that kind of stuff. It's like no, I mean, we

still don't shield products. We're still we're fully independent and we're only a wealth management company because our

clients dragged us in this direction. And so I think because we didn't come in with the bias towards product, we didn't

come in with the bias towards transactions, we came in with a bias towards relationships and creative

problem solving. And it just some of the problems we had to solve just kind of put us on the other side of needing to

register with the SEC. And so that's that's why we became what we have become. It's not like we just sought out

to do that. Yeah, that's a crit critical distinction because we didn't create

products or services and then try to sell those to our clients. Our clients

came to us with needs and we created u services, products based upon those

needs and it's very different. It's a very different perspective. Yeah. And I think that this is where

it's important to highlight that Bespoke is a fiduciary, right? Yeah. I one of the things that

I'm proudest of is when I can either tell a potential client or if I'm on a

podcast or if I'm on a stage somewhere. I love to be able to say that we can be completely agnostic strategic adviserss

to a family. We're no longer practicing law. U I mean obviously we can't forget

everything that we know and so we can still give people perspectives from a from an attorney's perspective as

seasoned attorneys that we are. But because we no longer have an active law practice, we can be totally agnostic as

to what a client does or doesn't implement. We can just say truly with clear eyes and with the best of intentions, we really think you should

consider this strategy or that strategy or this jurisdiction with this type of fiduciary structure. If you do this,

wonderful. We'll be happy to look over your shoulder and help your attorneys do

that for you. If you don't have an attorney, we'll we'll happily facilitate that for you, but we don't get paid one

way or the other. Either way, it's like there's one there's one party that pays us and that party is our client. And so

we we can't take any fees from other attorneys. We wouldn't take them if we could. Um we don't take any fees from

custodians. We we wouldn't take them if we could. You know, we just the the only

party that pays us is our clients. And the only way they pay us is to be their fiduciaries, their strategic adviserss,

helping them manage the totality of their family's wealth. And for me, I really like that because um we don't

have a product that somebody can buy from us and say, "Well, you know,

Bespoke has got this little proprietary thing that we do and you can invest in that proprietary thing." You know, we

can have totally clean hands and we can work with somebody else's adviserss, we can work with their CPAs, their

attorneys, and we just get to be their strategic team. Well, not only that, we are fully transparent in our pricing

model. And one of the things that really really irks me about the wealth management industry is how the lack of

transparency in pricing and how especially if they're offering their own funds or whatever, they're they're

getting paid in certain ways and the client is often unclear as to how

they're getting paid in addition to the the the fees that they know that they're paying.

And so we are 100% transparent in our in our in the fees that we charge. We don't

char you know we don't have funds where we charge to manage those funds in addition to charging the client for

assets under management or assets under administration. And I think that's another big differentiator for us. I

want to go back to something that you mentioned which is um well I got I

started thinking about jurisdictions and I started thinking about how our team isn't limited by you know time zones or

we're a global team and there's this very unrestricted um approach to how the team works

together and that also applies again that's where like the mirror thing happens because uh

we our clients have are are working in this way as well. And what I what I mean by that is for I think you know I'll get

more specific. What I'm what I'm trying to get at is that wealth holders right now are really concern wealth holders in

the United States. It's like it you know the political uh landscape temperature

is really hot. People are people are looking for the like there is a reason now for people to look outside of the

United States. Can you talk to me about how Bespoke is set up to support people,

you know, whether it's about currencies or or um trusts existing in certain

location like just talk to me about the kind of global support that Bespoke offers. Yeah, I think one of the cool things

about Bespoke and I mean I think there are a lot of things cool about Bespoke which is why I work here but um the uh

Jonathan and I both worked remotely. We ran a distributed team in another company well before a distributed team

was cool. I mean, it was it was a national team. It was a US-based team, but there were people as far as far east

as Florida and as far west as Oregon, Washington, and all points in between. And so, Jonathan and I kind of cut our

teeth professionally early on. um not only working in a decentralized

distributed team but then running that decentralized distributed team for half

a decade. Um and so it it just became natural for us. It's just this was not a

pivot. Um, and I think it's interesting because, you know, I throw stones at JP

Morgan and Goldman Sachs and places like that, but these places that I mean, they started as a centralized shop in New

York and, you know, kind of they still own New York and they've set up a bunch

of different shops everywhere, but you've got like a whole bunch of like centralized locations. Um, and they're

only now kind of starting to think about, okay, well, what would it look like if we were to be if we were to have

like an international arm or whatever. And even though and even as we interface with some of those incumbent financial

institutions, it's it's interesting for me to hear there's like no communication

between the Swiss arm and the American arm. See, within the same massive massive company, it's like if you got JP

Morgan Switzerland and JP Morgan New York, they have no idea what each other one what what the

other one's doing. It's not a single team. It's it is a single company, but the teams are

all around the world. Yeah. And at this point, the companies are so big, right? Like they've achieved

growth that there is no way I mean, how can you maintain any lines of of Yeah. And JP Morgan is a great company.

I mean, it's and I'm not trying to just cast stones at them, but we just decentralized is I mean, it's it's in

our DNA. And so, it allows us to um and

Jonathan and I both have a very um kind of a broad view from a jurisdictional perspective. We we for years we not only

taught other attorneys how to use different jurisdictions for different strategies, we did that for our own

clients. And so we've always had this very broad global view from a jurisdiction perspective in our law

practice and that gave us the opportunity to resonate or so our

message resonated with clients all over the world. Um because we were doing

offshore strategies that's how we met Suna Sorenson to minding his own business and that's how we met Ally.

They're minding their own business working in a wealth management firm in Zurich. And so it just it just kind of happened naturally. And the while we do

have an office that's a it's a great place to come and it's a great place to be and we love having the whole team

together. It's also really a great advantage I think to allow our team to

live where the team wants to live. Uh to allow our team to cover multiple time zones m I think we cover like 18 time

zones for our clients. Um it gives us diversity of experience, diversity of

background, um different perspectives and it gives us I mean it gives us

credibility. I mean we're we've been a global team since Bespoke started

and it's it's one it's one team. It's a global distributed team but you know

it's like from from Kolkata to San Diego and all points in between um you know

everybody knows everybody. Well Matt and I think we have the advantage having run a distributed company uh with a fair

number of folks nationally. One of the things that we learned during that process, Claire, was the importance of

culture and how I mean, Matt and I can sit here in our offices and preach all

day long, but if if if that culture doesn't emanate throughout everyone in the organization, then we're going to

have problems. We're going to have a lot of problems, especially with a team that's distributed globally. And so,

we're cognizant of that. We spend a great deal of time focusing on culture

and ensuring that our people have the right culture, that they are the right

fit, and that they're going to do everything that they can to serve our clients to the best of their ability.

How do you help clients make those assessments about potential partners or

decisions that they're making about their wealth? In what way?

Well, you're talking about creating uh a world that is Bespoke and um

culture and meaning alignments within the people that have to be strong in

order for a decentralized team to work. There kind of has to be this like common

thread or this this thread. And just in in the within the idea of like how that

reflects If we think about that mirror reflecting onto clients and like h how is that

informing the service?

Well, maybe I'm getting in too heady of his own. No, no, I think I think I follow you here and and and you know jerk my leash

in the wrong any the other direction if I'm going off track here. But um the uh

to my mind it it starts just with a lot of questions because you know coming

from a estate planning legal perspective one of the things that one of my early mentors taught me is you know sitting

down with an estate planner it's a it's a pretty vulnerable type of thing. It's

like you're sitting down with an attorney. Why? Why? It's like what's going on in your life that makes that

makes you want to spend that makes you want to take time of your out of your day to sit here and talk about all this

stuff. It's like there's something there's something kind of that's motivating you to have this conversation

right now. So, what is that, you know? So, why what is it that you are concerned about? What's um there's some

great questions that I try to circle back to which is like, you know, what

not only just what's on your mind? I mean, why are we here? But what's working for you really well right now?

It's like what what is one thing in your life that is just I mean, you feel like you're just crushing it. And then, you

know, how can we amplify that? You know, how how can we do more of that? And then

if there's something that's not optimal in your life right now, or if there's something that keeps you up at night,

something that you're concerned about, what is that? And why is that the thing?

Of all the things, why is that the one that bothers you the most? And then how do we mitigate that? And then um I tried

to set the stage early on in the conversation that this is a relationship. This is not a transaction.

We Jonathan and I did not have a transactional estate planning practice. And the very nature of a family office is it is relationshipdriven.

And the the stronger the relationship, the more likely it is that we can

anticipate and then solve for the family's most significant needs. But I would say, okay, well then let's okay,

let's fast forward 6 months, a year, 2 years, whatever. Pick a timeline, pick a

time horizon, and then look backwards. what needs to have happened along the

way for you to feel like this is just a really productive meaningful relationship to you. And so

it just kind of forecasts this notion that if we're going to be working together, we're going to be working together closely and that it's going to

be iterative. We're going to learn a lot as we go. And that whether you're dealing with estate planning or you're

dealing with wealth strategy design or you're dealing with um portfolio design and implementation or you're dealing

with philanthropy objectives or family governance objectives, there's not a prescription that you can just take and

get it filled and that's going to solve your problem. It's iterative. It's relational. It it continues to evolve

because the landscape constantly changes. And so that is the that is the problem that Bespoke is designed to

address or that's the reality that Bespoke that steps into. Yeah. Claire, Matt and I are fortunate

in that we we both have decades of experience having these conversations. And so I think I think for us it's

relatively easy. Um but I to answer your question, I think if a prospect is

talking to any one of our staff, they'll they'll find several commonalities.

They'll find curiosity, they'll find authenticity,

and they'll find a desire to serve and do what what is in the best interest of

the client. And I think to every one of our team, that's what the prospect will

find. And I don't think you can say that of other folks in our industry.

Yeah. I think this is something that I mean it it literally does keep me up at night

thinking about this kind of stuff because one of the one of the things that's really on my on my mind a lot is

as Bespoke continues to grow I mean we've grown we've grown rapidly the team has grown rapidly we've grown

our client base continues to grow and all those things are validations that we're doing we're doing things

differently we're doing we're doing the right things so I think we're we're I think we're seeing success as a result of those things. But what the thing that

probably keeps me up at night the most is how do we how do we

like institutionalize these values so that in a world without Jonathan in a

world without me um that this that this company

stands for these values and that to be in this to be in this company it

therefore means that you have these values that you embody these values and it's not that you embody my values or

Jonathan's values. use. It's like the the culture that we are building that we

want to build. It's like how do we how do we hang on to that as we as we grow

uh as our team grows in increasingly diverse ways, as our client base grows,

as our economic success grows. How do we how do we really hang on to that core of what we're all about? And it's that

that's that's one of the things that really weighs on me. Yeah. And I'm thinking about how it's

really easy to kind of talk that talk, right? Like you hear maybe founders or

executives talking about how important culture is, you know? How can I say it without it just being

I mean, that's the thing. It's like, you know, it's like I don't want it to sound like just platitudes.

It's like and I suspect every founder says that they don't want it to sound like platitudes. And so, again, it's like,

but I think that, you know, Jonathan and I are middle-aged. you know, we're the founders of this company. And so I think

that because our age, because of our background in estate planning and our

our view towards legacy anyway, I think that probably predisposes us to be somewhat melancholy sometimes about

these things and say, okay, well, you know, in a world that this project is

continuing on without us, how do we set it up for success so that when the next

generation of leadership is leading this company, they're taking it in the direction that it goes but that it's a

that we have somehow inspired their leadership into the future right but here here is that mirror

literally so clearly right is like Bespoke is also on a journey to support I mean this is a real question that

families are asking themselves how do we instill the values of the family in our children in our inheritors and that

exact same we like Bespoke is also on that journey to figure that out that's a Great observation, Claire,

because that is that is the probably the biggest challenge that our clients face

because I mean, you're right. I mean, in many cases, we are a mirror of our family of our clients family story

because with very few exceptions, our clients are the first generation that built meaningful wealth. And so they are now

dealing with these questions about okay well now in their in the terms of their wealth they've built economic success

that will transcend into future generations and what will that what will the next generation of inheritors do

with this with this legacy. Now um it's

it's one thing to say well we're just going to bind them with handcuffs and they can only live our vision forward

and if they deviate from that vision they get cut off or they get booted out or whatever. Like that's not what

successful families do. What successful families do is they say, "Well, we built something and now we are handing that to

you and hopefully leading you along the way to help you understand the

opportunities that this wealth can bring, the responsibility that this wealth can bring, not just the

responsibility to yourself and to the family, but to our community as well and to the causes that we care about." And

you're right, Jonathan and I built Bespoke from zero. It was an idea that

started on the whiteboard behind me. And so it's like it we took it from zero to

one. And hopefully we've got many more years together doing this and building this and growing this. But along the

way, what we've also seen with families is wealth transition, legacy transition

doesn't happen well if all the decisions get made in isolation

and then someday there's this big ta-da moment where there's a handoff and the family is trying to understand what the

wealth means when they're reading a will or they're reading a trust and it was never modeled for them and they never

had a part they had never never had a chance to participate in the decision-m process. And so a lot of what we really

try to do is continue to bring continue to expand the circle of people here

inside Bespoke who have visibility to our thinking. Why are we thinking that? We try to be really transparent about

that to the extent we can be and at least diffuse some of the decision- making authority, diffuse autonomy so

that as this thing grows, whether it's client relationship managers, people in the marketing team, people in the

operations team, people in the investment team, they feel a sense of ownership and stewardship of what they

are also building within Bespoke. I mean, this is an example of how

we are growing without the same usual limits that a company would have or with without those legacy processes. And I

think that what's coming to mind as I listen to you is um

uh mentorship, right? Like there's this unspoken mentorship kind of environment

here. And I think that's what I mean we're seeing that happen now with

families who are I mean I don't know if it's the right mentorship is exactly the word that of what they're doing but

we're seeing more and more specialists coming forward who are studying the psychology of wealth and that are coming

into families and helping guide those those uh interpersonal dynamics teaching communication right like and I and I

think family too there's right there's G2 G3 G4 and for the the one for the the

wealthers that have some examples of inheriting ahead of them. Meaning when

G3 looks at maybe how G2 did it, I guess, or how G2 looks at how G1 did it.

Um, I think that families are seeing, oh my god, G2, none of those siblings are

talking to each other anymore. None of the holidays can come. So they they're seeing like th this something has to

change. And and I think that's happening right now. I think that families and you know are really hungry to start talking

about the hard stuff. Yeah. Well, and this gets back to this idea that um you know a lot of wealth

management companies have achieved success in one in one interpretation of

success. They've they've achieved financial success and they've and many many of them have achieved tremendous

financial success and they've got very powerful brands. But one wonders, again,

I've not I've never been inside of one of those, but one wonders about the culture inside of there. And is it a

meat grinder for people um who

want a deeper sense of meaning? You know, one of the things that you and I, you know, you know, you and I have

recently had a conversation with um a fellow up in Brooklyn, had brunch with him and um he had kind of come up in a

traditional wealth management perspective uh in a in a large company,

multi multi-billion dollar global wealth management company um providing really

um sophisticated financial services to ultra elite families. But this person,

this guy that we were having brunch with realized that what that that he no

longer had the same definition of success that the wealth management firm had. The wealth management firm

was, you know, my interpretation was largely kind of growth at all costs or or growth irrespective of

like a moral center necessarily. That's not I don't that sounds harder than I mean than I mean it to be but it's like

those like morality and and and values

like unquantifiable values that didn't just didn't really factor. And so he found himself at odds with some of the

investment decisions that he was being called on to make to invest in things that could have great economic returns

but were but were actually but but like culturally corrosive in his in his

perspective. And so he he drew the line. He he had to leave that company because

despite the economic success and there was great economic success but despite that there was something more there was

something more important than just making the number go up and for the

families that we get to work with and for Bespokeas well there is so much more than economic returns there's so

much in fact the the most important part of wealth I think is not measured economically and that is the

cohesiveness of the family, the cohesiveness of the family culture, the cohesiveness of a sense of meaning. And

again, that's not that G1 has to transfer their sense of meaning, their

definition of meaning through the generations, but there's no denying that there's part of that DNA that then

morphs into the next generation and the next generation and the next generation. And so I think the successful families

and the successful companies are the ones that not only can transfer the economic success through generations,

but also to transfer the sense of meaning and purpose and a deeper sense of value that you can't really quantify,

but that um is the bedrock of the culture and at least in the family context that

I think that meaning often is is manifested in philanthropy and involving

doing younger generations in philanthropy um early getting them involved in the in what the family is

doing from a philanthropic perspective and um I mean I've I've seen countless times

how children who are younger than the clients think should be involved in

philanthropy can be involved and and are successfully involved because you can

carve out a an area a small amount and say let's figure out a charity your

charities or cause or causes that you want to support with this small amount of money and give them the opportunity

to learn about philanthropy and see how it works in the bigger context of the family's wealth. And you know for us

this is another huge differentiator because we actively encourage our

clients to be philanthropic. Fortunately, our clients generally come to us um philanthropic, but we actively

encourage it. And um even though it's in our our best financial interest to not

encourage philanthropy because we lose those assets, that's not what we're doing. We're telling our clients, give

more, support the causes that you believe in. oftentimes we have to help them connect the dots as to you know

their their um their passions and

philanthropy but it's a big part of what we do and I think um it's one of those areas that

that drives the greatest sense of satisfaction for our clients.

Why is it so important for builders and inheritors

pe people people why why is it important for people to talk to their children

about this about the level of about wealth and why why is that so radical or

why does that feel radical when maybe maybe it's not and and yeah So Claire, his historically

families never discussed wealth. And I think what would happen more often than

not is the the the next generation was unprepared. Unprepared

uh mentally, unprepared from a from a money management perspective. They

didn't have the tools to succeed. I think I'm a a born educator. I mean, I

love I love teaching law school. I I love teaching

and I think life is about teaching and for families to be successful it is

teaching the younger generation how to be successful and often times that has

to come from mom and dad. But what if mom and dad simply don't know?

Well, they'll get help. They'll get help from people like Matt and me and and what we do at Bespoke, but ultimately

mom and dad have to say, "Yes, I want to sit down and have a conversation with my kids." But it's hard. It's really hard. Um

they call this the soft the soft stuff. This is the hard stuff. Yeah, I know it is. And um I've got two

thoughts on this. I mean, one I think is I think families with significant wealth have a tendency to take it just have

have a tendency to think that they can just take it for granted that the kids will kind of get it by osmosis by kind of seeing how mom and dad deal with the

money and they'll just kind of get it um by osmosis. Um so I think that's

probably the if I'm being if I'm being critical I think they are it's it's

because the parents are actually scared and maybe a little bit lazy. They don't want to have the difficult conversations and so they say well my kids are just

going to see it. they're just going to I'm going to model that for my children. So, why should I tell them when I can show them? But I think the I think the

truer part of that I think the truer side of this is that it requires a very high level of humility and vulnerability

um by the by the wealth builder. Uh it it takes a it takes a willingness to

kill the ego to a certain degree and say, "Look, um yeah, I worked really

really hard. Probably means I made some sacrifices that I might have regretted."

I mean it it might have meant that I wasn't there as much as I could should have been or maybe I took advantage of

certain situations or whatever. It's like you know so maybe there's a sense of guilt behind the wealth but also it's

a Matt er of just stepping back and saying what do I believe about wealth?

It's like do because a lot of the people that we deal with all they know how to do is build wealth. It's like they've

been they they built a company, they they grow that company and it's and they didn't build that company to become

economics economically successful because they sat around naval gazing wondering

what this world is all about. It's like no, they're cranking and they're cranking 80 hours a week. They're cranking 100 hours a week and they don't

even have time to slow down. And so they don't even a lot of times they don't even know why they do it. They don't know why they have the wealth. That's

all they know. And and congratulations, it's worked. Um, and now you know when

they hit their 40s or 50s or maybe even older, especially by the time they have a family that's saying, "Wait a second.

This I'm about to leave. I I I'm now in a position to enrich my family beyond

far more than I was a ever given. And my family will not have had the the

benefit, if you will, of having to of having to build that. You know, they just received it. I built it. And so I

think there's a there's a lot of soulsearching I think that families go

through that that wealth builders go through. And a lot of what I think Bespoke can do is is engage with them on

that soularching. That's not that we've got the answers, but maybe we've got some of the questions um and give them

the ability to sit with those questions and and maybe for the first time think about what what does wealth mean to me?

I mean what you know maybe I actually can play a role in my community um that's bigger

than me and maybe part of maybe part of what I leave my kids and future

generations is a better world whether it's socially environmentally

economically from a spiritual or religious perspective whatever it is it's like maybe there's something bigger

than me maybe there's something bigger than my family and that Um, and that may

be part of how I can pass the culture of wealth through to my family is by

showing them it's not all about you. It's not it's not all about me. You

know, with this wealth comes a level of responsibility and how do we live that forward in a way that's true to who we

are and true to our values. And a lot of times it takes discovery, vulnerability, and a guide uh to ask them what what are

your values and why are those your values? Yeah. And this is where education comes in because many times people don't

realize what the possibilities are. And so our wealth strategist role is to help

them understand those possibilities but also to help them get past constrained

thinking because most of us think we can't do something. We don't have enough

time. We don't have enough money. We don't have enough this or that or the other thing. And so forget all that.

Forget all those con constraints. You know what does a perfect world look like to you? And then how do we accomplish

that or get as close to it as we can? Yeah. I mean, my god, limiting beliefs are incredibly difficult to separate

from um regardless of how much money you have. I'm also thinking about kind of the can

of worms of that. It's it's a can of worms that has opened a can of

uncertainty. Jonathan and I at the start of this conversation before I clicked record were talking about uncertainty and I

think both of you are in a position to kind of tolerate the discomfort of of uncertainty

as we said before because of the nature of your background with estate planning like you're forced to look at the well

the the realities that that this ends one day and and we don't know what happens next right so there's a tolerance

that is a certainty yeah yeah but the uncertainty of what it is and I think what happens between here there and what

happens on the other side. Yeah. And uncertainty is incredibly difficult to tolerate. I've been spending most of my 20s trying to figure

out how to learn how to tolerate, you know, discomfort and uncertainty to get to become more resilient. But yeah, it

it kind of now full circle moment helps me see why why we're really addicted to

the short-term thinking, right? is because it's it's a lot easier to like stay in the grind of the dayto-day and think only by the week than to kind of

like zoom out and be like, "Oh, wo, like I'm not going to be here one day." And then what the heck is all of this for if

I'm not going to be here one day? Exactly. Exactly. But that opening that you know. Okay. So

for so so Okay, so here's my question. I'm going rogue now. I've I've I've haven't looked at my notes for a minute.

Claire goes beast mode. I don't know about that, but I'll take it. Uh, but um,

for somebody I I I know that people are hungry for more.

People are hungry for meaning and purpose. Young people are hungry for meaning and

purpose. And so for the person listening to this who has spent many years on that grind

that you were describing, like been on that grind, likely something has happened in their life, as it did for

you, where a challenge has presented, somebody has a health issue, like something larger has probably caused

them to slow down for a second and think a little bit differently or go, "Whoa,

uh, I want I I want this to mean something. What are what are like some

of the first what's something you would say? Like what would you say? What would

what's one of the first questions you would ask them or the first thing that you would you would say or that you want

them to know because it's this is a whole new chapter, right? Especially as I said for that person who's like been

on the treadmill, been on the grind. Yeah. I mean, I kind of get back to one

of the things I said previously, but by the time they find us, they know what we do. And so, but they've reached out and

say, "Okay, why why now?" You know, what's what's going on? Because to your

point, um, something has prompted them to say, "Wo." And in that moment, they

reached out to us and say, "Okay, great. What is it about? What is it about this

idea that you had that made you decide that you wanted to call us? Um what do

we need to know? How can we how can we help? What's on your mind? And we just start from there. No, now I'm having

this moment of realizing like I have been working in this environment now for almost for about for three no three

years that I I actually just remembered that I have been that until working here

and also like it's not just this it's also like my my moving to a bigger city like me being around people who like pe

I'm in an environment where curiosity is this like natural state and I just

remembered that that I have not experienced that my like a like to for

somebody to really sit even if you're going to dinner with a friend or you're you're catching up with somebody, do you really sit do do is somebody really

sitting there and looking at at them and going and asking like a oh no actually how are you like actually

or wanting to know why actually asking that there's this idea that like if you ask if you bring

I'm remembering this uh this um this is from back in days when I when I

lived in Chicago but there There was this woman that I had worked with and she was talking about how there was like this central concern that you're having

that is is floating floating with you or it's not leaving you and it's kind of obsessive and it's circling. If you ask

that question why seven time like you you work with somebody it's seven layers

of why you get to like the root of all the distress and it's just one and it's just why.

Yeah. So my mentors talked about childlike curiosity. So if you if you've been around young kids, they often ask

why repeatedly. But why? But why? But why? But why? And it's that same

curiosity, the same trying to understand the why. Why are clients doing what

they're doing? Why are they building this wealth? What drives them? Why? Why?

Why? Claire, one of the things that you said, I mean, it

also kind of makes me sad sometimes to think that um

I think that I mean, maybe this is just my idealistic

thinking, but I do think that most people want to be kind of called out

into the depths of being known. And I think that there is a I think that there

is a plague of superficiality that we often succumb to that somebody

asks you how your day is, you say fine, you shrug it off, whatever. Well, actually, it actually actually sucks. And here's why. And I think that a lot

of it is driven by ego. We don't want to be vulnerable. We don't we don't want to be seen as weak. We don't want to be

seen as vulnerable. We don't want to be taken advantage of. We don't want to be exploited. Um, maybe we've been taken

advantage of in the past, maybe we've been exploited in the past, maybe we've been hurt in the past. And so we put this veneer

that is this veneer of superficiality. And that carries that carries forward

into every relationship and certainly into wealth management relationships. Um because it's like you want to because we

often here in the west we often um seem to determine somebody's worth as

a human by the size of their balance sheet. And it's almost like there's often an inverse correlation between

one's wealth and the depth of their humanity. Um but at the same time that's also not fair to people with wealth.

People with wealth also want to be seen. They want to be known. And I don't care how wealthy they are. I don't care how

successful they have been in economic terms. There are things that they are scared of. There are things that they

that keep them up at night. Um, and as you and I were talking about this recently, Jonathan and I have talked

about this a lot through our company, money doesn't money doesn't solve your problems. It changes your problems. Um,

it solves it solves some problems, but it it completely creates a new texture to other problems. And so there are

things that even the wealthiest people on the planet are worried about. And

unfortunately for a lot of people with tremendous wealth, the veneer of superficiality gets thicker and thicker

and thicker because they don't want to be taken advantage of. Everybody's got their hand out. Whether it's their

pastor, their priest, their rabbi, whether it's their family, whether it's

people who got have got the best investment deal ever for them or whatever. It's like they they they put

on a they put on a coat of armor and they hide behind that coat of armor. But inside that coat of armor is a tender

person who has fears and they have hopes and they they have things that they believe in. And what we get to do is we

get to try to don't try to we don't try to pierce that armor, but we try to bring them into a

relationship where they can feel like they can start taking off the armor and actually say, "Okay, wait a second.

These people actually do care about the answer to my

to the question. It's like they actually don't have any skin in the game if I do

a thing or don't do a thing. It's like they don't really care. They can't sell

me estate planning services. They can't sell me a fund. It's like they nobody

else is paying them. It's like wait a second. I can actually be okay taking

off my coat of armor around these people and then knowing that they're on my

side. they can be the ones who help protect my back while I'm out in the

world. And so I think that I think that everybody wants that. I think that people with significant wealth

are no different than that. But um again, the wealth has created a higher

level of um suspicion I think for them for the

reasons that I've said. And um and so a lot of what we try to do is,

you know, in a in a very patient and hopefully loving way, just kind of let

them feel like they can disarm themselves around us. Um

let us nonjudgmental way. Yeah. Safe space is what we call that.

Yeah. Yeah. And everybody wants that. I mean, that's not like a that's not like a woke Matt er who you like that's like

not like a millennial snowflake thing. It's like no, that's a human thing. It's like um I don't care who you are. I

suspect that everybody I think everybody wants to be known and um and and there are plenty of

people who don't uh there are plenty of people who aren't who aren't comfortable with that. Yeah. And and they're not our clients and

that's great. That's fine. Um, but again, if they want to be kind of called out to this deeper sense of adventure

about what is what is my what is the story about my wealth? What is the story

about my family? What is the story about my legacy? Then that's, you know, we're here for that story. And and that's what

Jonathan and I have done for decades now.

big wows on that response creating space for just the the

difficulties. It's really it's a lot easier to kind of ignore all of this stuff. But you typic typically something happens in your life that the you know

universe or nature whatever it is something happens where it kind of forces you to slow down and there's often a catalytic event. there's

often some type of event like that. And but I'll tell you again, a lot of how we have built Bespokeand the way we

and I mean one of the main reasons why we built Bespokeum and the way we've built Bespokeis because we can be

patient with the client's journey like that because we're calling them into a deep journey that is often very um

disarming as I alluded to earlier, but can be intimidating, can be scary, can be uncertain.

And so we've got all the time in the world. we you know we don't have a we don't have a thing to sell. We have

relationships and people can enter into those relationships with us and then the the journey takes the direction that the

journey takes on the time on the timeline that the client wants to take it. So when we had our law practice,

everything that we did was fixed fee, projectbased, never had the clock running because we didn't want this

artificial construct of a ticking clock sitting between us and a client

conversation. Um, we would say, okay, what's the problem that you're trying to solve? How big is this problem? Why is

that the problem? How do we discover different ways, different tradeoffs? And

then they would at that point they would actually then pay us a fixed fee to implement those solutions. And those

those engagements usually lasted 6 months, sometimes 12 months, sometimes 18 months, but they were usually

somewhat bound in time. But um now but as the the more we started working with

clients with the kind of wealth that we deal with now at Bespokewe realized that that even that even that type of

relationship felt a little bit too transactional and it also you know we

also clearly had a vested interest in persuading somebody to implement a

certain strategy or not implement that strategy because we were getting paid to implement the strategy. Now we don't get paid to implement strategies. We we

don't care if you implement strategies but um we can say okay well if you want

to enter into a relationship you want to enter into a story you want to enter into a discovery with Bespoke let's

start that process let's start that journey and you know because we're fiduciaries to you because we don't sell

any products because we can't implement legal strategies because we can't do we don't do your tax returns there's

nothing there's nothing extra you can pay pay us to do. You can pay us to be

your strategic adviser or the person who holds your shield in battle. Um that's

what we do for people, but it's your shield. You tell us how to hold it.

Earlier you said um that you said that

what did you say? say it was something about how you weren't measuring success by um by the numbers and that you

actually measure success um yeah in a very different way. So, I was

I was going to ask how you It's kind of a complicated question

because each individual's version of success or what they picture, right? Like when you take them along on that

journey, it's going to look different because it's a different person with different different circumstances. But what are kind of the common or the

through line when you picture success for your client? What are what what is that? What are you picturing? That's a

question for both of you. Love that question.

And ultimately they have to right like they're on a journey to finding to finding that and imagining that and

picturing it and getting really specific and having a partner help them kind of make that a reality.

But I do think there are some truths that that you picture for them on their behalf. Absolut absolutely I'd say so. And it's

just it's what what's making me struggle is that's kind of difficult to measure but it's things like confidence. I mean,

do they really step into do they really step into now a new sense of peace, a

new sense of confidence, um, and maybe a new sense of invigoration,

u, if that's the right word, or a new sense of vigor around their wealth. um not like hey just number go up but I'm

thinking of a I'm thinking of a client that was our I think it was our second client inside Bespoke who um has a

tremendous amount of wealth and grew up with very humble circumstances and came into this wealth in in a very surprising

way and because of this person's background they were not comfortable

still in many in many respects are not comfortable with the idea of tremendous wealth but they have tremendous wealth

and um seeing that person's journey, this is this is a client that Jonathan

has really been at this person's right hand for years now, but seeing them step into what's possible with with that

wealth, not what's possible in terms of consumption and luxury and spoiling

future generations, but what's possible in maybe

making a significant ificant difference in the lives of people who are disadvantaged or have been taken

advantage of or exploited. Um, and really watching that journey and

watching that person go from sitting in Jonathan's office here in our office and

um, starting that journey and having no idea like a deer in the

headlights about just not even being able to process the magnitude or the

reality of that wealth. And then through a over a course of years and this is a

journey that is that is ongoing but over a course of years realize that wait a

second um no this isn't just necessarily money for me to go buy private jets or

yachts or luxury homes or whatever. It's like no I'm actually going to make the

world a better place to the best to the best of my ability and Bespoke has been that person's

um amplifier I guess guide to to find

the cause, find the mission and then embark on that mission with a tremendous

amount of resonance. And so it's it's stories like that. It's that's that those are the journeys that I see in

clients lives where they go from this deer in the headlights look um of

something that's just really bothering them that sometimes they can't even put their put their finger on it for a long

time and then stepping into the realization the appreciation of that

wealth and now the sovereignty to create a story to

create the sovereignty to write the story about that wealth. It's like the wealth in some cases wealth happened to

them and now taking something that happened to them and owning it and

shaping the story around that. That's one of the things that gets that's the most exciting thing that I get to see in

the lives of clients. Yeah. To me, you're describing um empowerment, becoming empowered.

Yeah. And it's just and we just get to take them on that journey. We just get to be on that journey with them.

To your earlier point though, Claire, it's different for every client. So, you know, there's it's there's not a script

that we follow. We everything we do is based on the client's goals and objectives, but oftentimes it requires

helping them understand the possibilities. Getting back to the, you know, no constraint thinking and also um

educating them as to the different ways that they can accomplish whatever it is

they're trying to accomplish. All right. Well, thank you both so much. I really I appreciate I appreciate appreciate the conversation. Um, and uh,

here's to a generational mindset.