Wealth of Wisdom

The Top 50 Questions Wealthy Families Ask

Tom McCullough, Keith Whitaker, Tom McCullough

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781119331537
• eBook ISBN: 9781119331520
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Finance
• Index: Business

A critical resource for families managing significant wealth

Wealth of Wisdom offers essential guidance and tools to help high-net-worth families successfully manage significant wealth. By compiling the 50 most common questions surrounding protection and growth, this book provides a compendium of knowledge from experts around the globe and across disciplines. Deep insight and thoughtful answers put an end to uncertainty, and help lay to rest the issues you have been wrestling with for years; by divulging central lessons and explaining practical actions you can take today, this book gives you the critical information you need to make more informed decisions about your financial legacy. Vital charts, graphics, questionnaires, worksheets and other tools help you get organised, develop a strategy and take real control of your family's wealth, while case studies show how other families have handled the very dilemmas you may be facing today.

Managing significant wealth is a complex affair, and navigating the financial world at that level involves making decisions that can have major ramifications — these are not decisions to make lightly. This book equips you to take positive action, be proactive and make the tough decisions to protect and grow your family's wealth.

• Ensure your personal and financial success and legacy
• Access insight and data from leading experts
• Adopt the most useful tools and strategies for wealth management
• Learn how other families have successfully navigated common dilemmas

When your family's wealth is at stake, knowledge is critical — and uncertainty can be dangerous. Drawn from interactions with hundreds ofwealthy individuals and families, Wealth ofWisdom provides a definitive resource of practical solutions from the world's best financial minds.

SECTION 1
THINKING THROUGH WHAT MATTERS MOST

While he was Dean of Religious Studies at Stanford University, one of our contributors (Scotty McLennan) would invite guests to lecture to the university community on the topic, “What matters most to you and why?” His invitees, who were all well‐spoken and accomplished leaders in their fields, regularly reported that this lecture was one of the most difficult – and most rewarding – that they had ever been asked to give.

It is in a similar spirit that we begin this collection: with a focus not on the experts or the answers but on you, the reader, and your questions. Business, wealth, family, and life itself all have a way of drawing our attention away from what matters most to what matters now, from the important to the urgent. The essays in this first section are meant to help correct that natural tendency.

Patricia Angus begins that process with the question, “Are you wealthy?” This question may seem at first blush easy to answer, just a quantitative matter. But of course it all depends on what you mean by “wealth.” She invites readers to think through that question in ways far beyond money, including the impact that each of us has on the world around us.

Scotty McLennan then offers a different way to think through these large matters: engagement with serious literature. He shares several examples that touch upon the relationships between parents and children, meaningful work, and death. He closes with several lessons that he has drawn from decades of such reading as concerns that enormous question, “What are the most important factors in living well?”

The next two essays then focus more closely on thinking through what matters most within the context of significant wealth. Thayer Willis takes on the large topic of legacy: What is it? She offers a path to answering that question for yourself that begins with identifying and clarifying your values and moves to specific ways to speak about your values with your heirs. Building upon this approach, Ellen Miley Perry then offers five lessons for passing on values to children and grandchildren, lessons that concern modeling desired behaviors, telling stories, and attending to the growth of human capital.

In the fifth essay in this section, Paul Schervish introduces readers to the Ignatian practice of “spiritual discernment,” which provides a framework for thinking through – and “feeling through” – the questions facing someone who has resources that exceed his or her personal needs, such as questions about how much to give to charity and how much to leave to children or other heirs.

Finally, for most people, the answer to the question “What matters most?” depends not only on where we are going but also where we have come from. This is particularly true when the context is family. Heidi Druckemiller explores how important stories are – even or especially stories of adversity and loss – when it comes to building a legacy and connecting families across generations. Indeed, such stories might be one of the largest “asset classes” of our true wealth.

CHAPTER 1
Are You Wealthy?

Patricia Angus

If there’s one truth that I’ve learned in nearly three decades of working with many of the world’s “wealthiest” families, it’s that the questions you ask are far more important than the answers you might find. Indeed, it has become clear that wisdom is about asking the right questions, knowing what can be answered, and becoming comfortable with all that cannot. This should come as no surprise, but often in “wealth management,” this truism is overlooked or given short shrift. Further, it is more important than ever to face this reality as we progress through a period of rapidly increasing disparity of income and wealth.

I’ve found it useful to help clients understand that they are not alone when they ask questions that do not have simple answers. In fact, many of these same questions have been asked by philosophers, religious thinkers, and spiritual seekers since time immemorial. Nor is it unusual to feel discomfort when facing the fact that there are no simple, and certainly not quantifiable, answers. Coming to terms with this reality is in fact the first step forward in developing a “wealthy” life. Here are some thoughts on this exploration based on my research, readings, and work with clients.

What Is Wealth?

In each new engagement, I ask a series of questions to get to know all members of a family. One of the first questions I ask is, “How do you define wealth?” The responses have been quite enlightening. Only rarely is the answer “money.” I hear words such as “love,” “health,” “family,” and “well‐being.” I hear silence and hesitation and more questions. Even the few family members who answer that they equate wealth with money or material resources quickly elaborate on the definition as they realize that the term encompasses more than that. These reflections can very quickly open up deeper conversations about meaning and purpose.

While the term wealth is often used interchangeably with money, its etymology shows that its origin is in well being, not in material resources.¹ Further, the concept itself has been a subject of inquiry in all the world’s religions, spiritual traditions, literature, and philosophy. I’ve found that asking family members what has informed their view of wealth is critical. For some, the Torah or the Bible provide insights. For others, wealth is deeply connected to a spiritual tradition that might have its origins in Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism, or Buddhism. Most can refer to early childhood messages from their family. It matters far less which tradition is the source, and far more how the individual defines the concept. Whereas professionals and firms in private wealth management today might emphasize that wealth is complex, and use helpful metaphors such as multiple capitals (e.g., human, intellectual, financial, social, etc.), I find that each person must undergo an individual exploration and come up with terms that resonate personally. So, start with “what does wealth mean to you?” and then proceed from there.

Are You Wealthy?

A couple of years ago, I attended a conference focused on the challenges and opportunities of families with “great wealth.” For several days, consultants, lawyers, accountants, and financial service executives discussed how families with extraordinary financial, business, and philanthropic resources could ensure that this “wealth” would last many generations into the future. As discussions veered toward questions of “how much is enough?” and “how can we make sure that our wealth doesn’t adversely impact heirs?” I felt a sense of discomfort that had been growing in me for some time. These questions are not profound. They are also based on implicit assumptions that deserve further exploration. There are moral, ethical, and societal questions underlying the pursuit of ensuring the consolidation of wealth within such a small percentage of the population. I left feeling disturbed and alone.

I took the backseat of a taxi with these questions and concerns swirling in my mind and heart. My silence was broken when the taxi driver pointed to one of the tallest buildings we were about to pass. He then shared a story with me. Some time ago, his son had asked, “Papa, is there a man who owns that building?” The father replied, “Well, yes, I think so.” The son continued, “Papa, do you think that man is happy?” The soft‐spoken taxi driver replied, “I am in doubt,” then asked, “Son, do you think I am happy?” His son quickly answered, “Yes, I think you are very happy.” The father replied, “You are right. I am very happy.”

The taxi driver then proceeded to tell me why and how he was happy and, as he said, “wealthy.” He’d left his home country, where his family had been financially successful, to start over in this new land. He made his living as a taxi driver, sending his two children through college and on to receive Master’s degrees. He stated, “I am a very wealthy man. I have a pillow to sleep on, a beautiful wife of 32 years, and children I love and speak with all the time. I am a rich man.”

I couldn’t have asked for a better antidote to the conversations I’d just left. We p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• SECTION 1: THINKING THROUGH WHAT MATTERS MOST
• SECTION 2: PLANNING THOUGHTFULLY
• SECTION 3: INVESTING WISELY
• SECTION 4: RAISING THE RISING GENERATION
• SECTION 5: MAKING SHARED DECISIONS
• SECTION 6: COMBINING FAMILY AND BUSINESS
• SECTION 7: GIVING WELL
• SECTION 8: SEEKING SOUND ADVICE
• SECTION 9: FACING THE FUTURE
• Conclusion
• About the Editors
• Index
• End User License Agreement