Seedlings

Guest Post: The “Someones” and “Somethings” of Multi-Generational Trusts

Why a Trust?  I remember the first client who asked me that question.  I wish I could have shared this excellent piece by my dear friend and teacher, Timothy J. Belber.  With Tim's permission we are posting this piece which was originally posted on Thoughts & Commentary. 

The “Someones” and “Somethings” of Multi-Generational Trusts

by Timothy J. Belber, JD on April 20, 2011

With all the litigation around trusts, beneficiaries and trustees, the question of why bother with one in the first place surfaces loudly. Certainly, there are very smart tax and asset protection reasons for trusts. The unhappiness (read: litigation) is generally not about those things. It goes to a much deeper issue -- the human component.

Ever since the first crusader “entrusted” his bishop with his assets, trusts have centered on a very straightforward idea:

One person (the grantor) gives a second person (the trustee) something to hold for the benefit of a third person (the beneficiary).

Too often the focus is on the “something” rather than the “someones”.

We see the opportunity to act differently arising at the very first design meeting. It begins and ends with a new set of questions to be considered by the grantor and the advisors:

• How would you want to be treated if you were a beneficiary of this trust?
• What do you want the coming generations of beneficiaries to say about you and this trust?
• What are the key values and principles that you believe are critical to success in life?

Questions like these can then be translated into a document that could:

• Begin with a simple statement of purpose or faith;
• Be written in the first person;
• Sound like the voice of the grantor.

Consider this opening language from an actual multi-generational trust:

While from a legal and tax standpoint this Trust must be construed from the perspective that I am the sole “grantor,” my children and their future descendants and families should know that its creation was very much a collaboration of the mutual philosophies and ideals of my wife and partner, and myself. We have deliberated carefully on the purposes we would want this Trust to fulfill. Whether this instrument uses the singular “I” or the plural “we” when it speaks of goals, objectives or intent, I want my children and descendants to know that those expressions echo the thoughts and desires of both my wife and me.

The Trust does not exist as an end unto itself. It is merely the means by which we have chosen to share some of our wealth with our children, and eventually our future descendants. It is a framework to help our family better govern itself, and to encourage our children and their descendants to strive to be the best individuals they can be and to seek joy by living in accordance with the values expressed in this Agreement. We hope that this Trust will remind our children to discover the personal growth and satisfaction that can be realized through sharing our good fortune with those who are less fortunate. We also hope the Trustee will offer positive encouragement and assistance to each beneficiary in their quests, crises and challenges.

Perhaps more about the “someones” and less about the “somethings” in the trust equation would lead to better results.

What do you think?

Timothy J. Belber, JD
Director, Family Wealth Services
The Madison Group
tbelber@themadisongroup.com

Pencils and The Sierra Club

More Lessons from the Life of John Muir

 "God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools"—John Muir

The last leg of John Muir’s "thousand-mile walk to the Gulf" took him from Gainesville (which he described as an “oasis” with many beautiful homes) to Cedar Key, Florida in five days.  On early Saturday morning, September 25, 2010, my father and I made the 60 mile drive in an hour.  Our trip made me wonder how much this portion of the Florida coastal lowlands had changed in the 143 years since John Muir first encountered the Gulf Hammocks and all of the coastal keys near Cedar Key.  What I discovered is a powerful lesson for family leaders who want to make sure their families will flourish for generations.

In his first trip to Cedar Key John Muir found the Gulf Hammocks to be a "watery and vine-tied" land where "the streams are still young."   Muir had to cross vast quantities of Red Cedar along the coastal lowlands of Levy County.  In fact the Cedar Keys took their name from the stands of junipers known as Red Cedar.

On our trip to Cedar Key last weekend the first Red Cedars we noticed were two large trees outside the Cedar Key State Museum.  This museum chronicles the visit of John Muir to Cedar Key in 1868 and the impact of German entrepreneur and pencil magnate, J. Eberhard Faber.

At age 19 Faber, who came from a family which had made its fortune manufacturing pencils, immigrated to the U.S. and opened a stationary store.  Three years later he founded the Eberhard Faber company and commenced looking for an abundant source of splinter-free wood.  In 1852 that search led him to Cedar Key, where he discovered the vast red cedar stands in Florida’s Gulf Hammock area between the Suwannee and Withlacoochee Rivers.   He bought land and timber rights, organized crews to float cedar logs to the port at Cedar Key, and then shipped those logs to the family pencil factory in Germany.   

In 1858, Faber built a slat mill directly south of Cedar Key.  He began shipping slats instead of logs which greatly improved efficiency and profitability.   The pencil industry in Cedar Key expanded rapidly and a few years later the Eagle Pencil Company built a Cedar Key facility.  These thriving enterprises were a strong inducement to the completion of a trans-Florida railway which in 1861 connected the port of Cedar Key to the East Coast port of Fernandina Beach.  Now the splinter-free slats that would become thousands of pencils could be shipped to the Atlantic and save the time and expense of a trip around the Florida Keys and up the gulf coast.

In 1862 Faber became the first person to establish a large scale pencil factory in the U.S., near the current site of the United Nations.  By the time John Muir arrived in Cedar Key in 1868 the town was booming.

As we learned in The Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf of Mexico John Muir was forced to spend months in Cedar Key recuperating from malaria.  He borrowed a skiff and explored the keys which dot the coast and undoubtedly saw the effects of the massive harvesting of Red Cedars.  It was here that Muir’s vision about man’s role as a steward of nature emerged. 

Muir, who was a professional forester, believed that "forestry is tree farming."   He felt you should harvest timber but always with a view to preserving the long-term viability of the forests.  Faber and the other pencil barons were intent on maximizing their profits.  The red cedar forests of the Gulf Hammocks were being harvested without any thought about regeneration of the forest. 

The story of John Muir’s emergence during the next thirty years to become perhaps the nation’s leading conservation advocate traces its roots to his battle with malaria.  Each day during his convalescence he would retreat into the forests or borrow a skiff to visit one of the nearby keys.  These reflective periods were helping to strengthen his conviction of man’s responsibility to seek to live in harmony with the environment. 

After he had regained enough strength to continue his journey, John Muir left Cedar Key in 1868 and continued his journey eventually reaching Cuba.   Realizing he was still greatly weakened from the malaria, John Muir abandoned his plans to tour South America and instead ended up in California.  He settled in a cabin inside of what we know today as Yosemite National Park.  He became a student of the geology of Yosemite and over the years he would give tours of the area to prominent politicians, business and thought leaders of his day.  Upon meeting John Muir, Ralph Waldo Emerson announced he had finally found the prophet of conservation he had been looking for.  He offered Muir a professorship at Harvard.  Muir preferred to remain in Yosemite and to use his influence for its protection. 

In 1890 John Muir was instrumental in the introduction of federal legislation to preserve Yosemite.  In 1892 he co-founded the Sierra Club and served as its first President.  He would be such a driving force behind the National Parks movement that he is called the “Father of the National Parks.”  He encouraged city dwellers to seek spiritual nourishment in nature and referred to the National Parks as “places for rest, inspiration and prayers.”

In 1898 Muir returned to Florida on a forest inspection tour.  What he saw around Cedar Key had to reaffirm his view of the importance of man’s stewardship of the forests.  Two years before John Muir returned to Cedar Key, a great hurricane had destroyed much of the town and toppled most of what remained of the red cedar forests.  The depletion of the nearby red cedar forests coupled with the destruction of the mills and factories in Cedar Key spelled doom for the pencil industry in that area.  Without the local red cedar supply, the pencil factories in New York and abroad quickly switched to reliance on Western Cedar for its pencil stock.  It took the town of Cedar Key more than seven decades to recover from the economic devastation of the town and the pencil industry. 

What had transpired in the thirty years since John Muir first left Cedar Key is a remarkable lesson about stewardship of natural resources and planning for unexpected calamities.

Surely Eberhard Faber should have anticipated the problem of depletion of the red cedar forests.  If he had studied the history of Cedar Key, he might have learned that just ten years prior to his arrival in the town a hurricane had produced a 27 foot storm surge.  Would you build your mill and factory facility on the virtually flat outermost key if you were aware of what potential destruction a hurricane could pose?  It appears Mr. Faber and the other pencil industry owners either ignored those risks or deliberately chose to exploit the local resources as rapidly as possible.  Mr. Faber died in 1882 and never knew that in another 15 years the profit center he had created in Cedar Key would be destroyed by another “big storm” with no economic justification for rebuilding it due to the depletion of the resource base.

Have you prepared for the obvious risks which could threaten both your financial capital as well as the other dimensions of your family’s wealth?  Have you looked back at least three generations to consider what you might learn from the past about what unexpected threats to your family’s well-being there might be?  Have you sought to warn future generations of your family and what risks are within your horizon of awareness?  Have you engaged in a conversation with advisors whose experiences might have let them look beyond your horizon of awareness and discover threats you haven’t even considered? Have you read books, such as Family Wealth – Keeping It in the Family, which open up a view of both the mistakes and best practices of family leaders from generations ago and share some of the knowledge and wisdom which are foundational to building a flourishing family?

“Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life”--Unknown

THE ILLUSION OF FIXITY

Too much of our action is really reaction. Such doing does not flow from free and independent hearts but depends on external provocation.  It does not come from our sense of who we are and what we want to do, but from our anxious reading of how others define us—Margaret Wheatley

 

In his introduction to the book Synchronicity –The Inner Path of Leadership, Peter Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, makes this remarkable statement:

 

“One of the great mysteries of our current state of consciousness is how we live in a world where absolutely nothing is fixed, and yet perceive a world of “fixedness.  But once we start to see reality more as it is, we realize that nothing is permanent, so how could the future be fixed?  How could we live in anything but a world of continual possibility?”

 

I think that the Illusion of Fixity, a concept I borrow from Senge, is particularly relevant to the world of trusts and trustees. 

 

Too often trusts are viewed as “fixed.”  We accept as an absolute that irrevocable means unchangeable.  Yet, reality suggests that even irrevocable trusts can be changed, either by reformation or decanting, or by what I refer to as a virtual reformation. 

 

What does it take to “change” an irrevocable trust?  Equal measures of creativity, positive energy and unity of purpose among trustees and beneficiaries will accomplish the task.

 

The Illusion of Fixity also applies to beneficiaries and trustees.  Trustees too often fail to view the beneficiaries through the lens of generativity.  Beneficiaries are prone to see the “mote” in the Trustee’s eye while failing to notice the “beam” that clouds their own vision of reality.  We can’t really understand the full dimensions of reality until we consider the possibility that we don’t fully understand our role in the trust world. 

 

Until we attain that level of self-awareness and mindfulness that allows us to escape from the gravitational pull of the Illusion of Fixity, we aren’t likely to go very far in terms of a positive trustee/beneficiary relationship.  If we choose to live inside the Illusion of Fixity we will wander in a labyrinth of fiduciary dead-end streets and blind alleys leading, from nothing to nowhere.  We won’t begin to see the potential for growth in the individuals we serve but instead will regard them as fixed and unchangeable objects, much like the illusion of the goblet in the image above.

 

Did you see the goblet or the individuals?  Is there a Beam blocking your vision?  Are you trapped in the Illusion of Fixity?

 

Choosing Generativity instead of the Illusion of Fixity allows us to visualize the potential in both ourselves and others.  When this fundamental shift of mind occurs, we no longer view ourselves or those we serve as fixed and limited.  We begin to accept the possibility that each of us is endowed with infinite potential for growth.  When we examine life through the lens of generativity positive change becomes as wondrous as the unfolding of the Morning Glory in the first rays of daylight—John A. Warnick

Values, Principles, Virtues or Universal Truths – Does It Matter What We Call Them?

To many, “integrity” basically means “honesty.”  While integrity includes honesty, it’s much more.  It’s integratedness.  It’s walking your talk. It’s being congruent, inside and out.  It’s having the courage to act in accordance with your values and belief.  Interestingly, most massive violations of trust are violations of integrity — Stephen M. R. Covey

 

Carol and I had the privilege last week of having Charles (“Charlie”) Collier, the Senior Philanthropic Advisor at Harvard, as our house guest.  Charlie had spent a couple of days in Aspen and on his return to Boston spent some time with us.  I invited a small group to gather at our home for a conversation with Charlie.  One of those who drove down from Boulder to spend time with Charlie was Gunther Weil, Ph.D.

 

Dr. Weil has devoted the past twenty years of his life to the understanding of the importance of values in our lives.  He and his colleagues at Value Mentors and the International Minessence Group Cooperative have developed an inventory of 128 values ranging from Self-Preservation, Family/Belonging, Self-Actualization, Generosity, Collaboration, Human Rights, Biodiversity, just to name a few illustrative values.  He went on to extend the work of other values pioneers and to develop a software system that allows an individual to reflect on what matters most to them.  The significance of the Mineessence Group & Value Mentors’ software, and the report it generates, is that it not only measures, in a way that has been scientifically validated, our aspirational values (those which we aspire to live by) but more importantly, our actual values (those values which are actually reflected in the choices we are making daily).  Dr. Weil, and those he has trained to conduct the Value Mentors Process, can help an individual, a family or a business begin to understand where gaps exist between aspiration and action.

 

I took the 45 minutes inventory about two weeks ago and got to spend a couple of hours with Dr. Weil early last week going over the results and beginning to understand at a deeper level why certain activities, decisions, etc. bring such great satisfaction to me.  It was also a chance for me to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m going and to affirm that indeed I’m currently on a path which is consistent with those values which I most deeply cherish.

 

I invited Dr. Weil to come down for the conversation with Charlie Collier because I wanted to connect these two men.  I thought a conversation centered in the intersection between Charlie’s intense study of family systems theory and the work he has been doing as a philanthropic advisor with wealthy individuals and families and Dr. Weil’s values clarification process might be fascinating.  The conversations in our home that afternoon exceeded my expectations and not just because of that intersection.  There were seven other amazing individuals who commitment to collaboration and service to families created an invigorating medley of wisdom and practical experience.  But it is something that came out of the conversation between Dr. Weil and Charlie Collier that I would like to bring to your attention.

 

Dr. Weil shared with us his journey to co-create this values inventory and then gave examples of how it had been used with individuals, families and businesses.  Charlie then shared two marvelous stories of intense and ongoing dialogues he has been engaged in with families.  He carefully protected the location and identity of these families but told us just enough to help us understand the dilemmas which each family and its patriarch or matriarch faced.  The common denominator in these dilemmas lies in the constraints on transparency and intra-family communication which conventional advice and traditional planning have imposed.  Charlie has attempted, with compassion and courage, to assist those senior generation family members to adopt a new paradigm which, if adopted and implemented, would enrich rather than tear at the fabric of their family relationships.

 

Charlie noted that he never uses the word “values” in his conversations with the individuals and families he serves.  He is careful not to advise families what they should do.  Instead he chooses the path of insightful questions and then listens as those he serves find their own answers.  He cautioned us that he feels there is a risk in bringing “values” into these conversations with families.

 

This insight sparked a thoughtful conversation between Dr. Weil, Charlie and several others in which we debated the significance of understanding a family’s shared values or in being able to assess an individual’s core values. 

 

Near the end of the dialogue Charlie acknowledged that while he does not use the word “values” in his work with his clients, that his approach in does fact deal with the core values his clients hold. However, he prefers to use the word “principles” to describe what is important in a person's life. In Gunther’s view, principles inform our choice of values, morals and ethics, and that by assessing and understanding our actual core values, not simply our avowed values, we gain insight in the underlying principles and world-views that inform them. On this basis we can make grounded and informed decisions that are in alignment with our values.

 

I realized as I listened to both sides of this dialogue that the word “values” can provoke very, very strong reactions, both negative and positive.  The word “values” has become so politicized so there is a risk that it can lead us into what I will describe as a “red state, blue state” state-of-mind in which defensiveness or solidarity trump, depending on whether you happen to be ideologically aligned or at cross purposes with the person you are sharing this conversation.

 

If there is danger in the word “values” it isn’t intrinsic to the word or concept itself but rather in the judgmental frame of mind it can incite.  To illustrate this point, Dr. Weil may not have shared some of my most deeply held values but in his discussion with me around what matters most to me he was able to do so in a non-judgmental manner.  His intentional curiosity around why these values mattered so deeply with me allowed me to revisit the experiences and stories that have affirmed the importance of these values in my life in a very “safe” way.

 

What has been your experience?  Is there a danger in discussing “values”?  Should we use a different term?

The Five Pillars of Purposeful Planning

"I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states.  I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly." —Martin Luther King from jail in Birmingham, Alabama

On Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at noon EST my friend, Geoff Davis, co-founder of Unitus, one of the world’s leading microlending NGOs, will share his journey from a driven business executive to a compassionate philanthropist.  Please be in touch with me if you would like to listen and participate in this call with Geoff.  I will gladly share the call-in information with you.

Geoff asked me what I had discovered about the Five Pillars of Purposeful Philanthropy.   In a few hours of reflection late this evening, clarity finally came to me around what I consider to be the Five Pillars of Purposeful Philanthropy.  I’d love to ask each of you to reflect on each of the pillars and to share with us examples of how one or more of these pillars have contributed to the joy of your philanthropic journey.

Pillars of Purposeful Philanthropy
 

1) We believe in the paradox some call an abundance mentality-- by sharing and giving our lives are made richer 

2) We make the world a better place each day, one step by purposeful step.  Vision and compassion are the keys to our purposeful philanthropic journey--a journey which takes us from being mere checkwriters to being purposeful philanthropists.

3) We marvel at the interconnectedness of mankind and the interrelatedness of all cultures and communities.  There can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is finally peace and joy for you too.

4) We enhance and empower our fellowmen through purposeful gifts.  We resist any impulse which would demean or create dependency.

5) We recognize that a shared philanthropic journey creates not only compassion but also resiliency and a commitment to purposeful self-sufficiency in the next generations of our family.

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”  —Albert Einstein

Your Real Work

“If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.” - Albert Camus

Frances Collins, the pioneering scientific leader of the Human Genome Project, in his book The Language of God shares with us an overview of the  complexity and yet incredible simplicity of our genetic code.  The human genome is a four letter code.  If it was read at the rate of three letters per second it would take thirty one years of day and night reading to get through the 3 billion letters of man’s hereditary code.
 
 
If you printed the text of your personal (DNA) code on regular 8” x11” bond paper with a normal sized font…and then laid those full pages on top of each other, the stack would be as tall as the Washington Monument.  While we have discovered this map that governs the growth of your physical body, we haven’t produced a formula to distill from your DNA what your purpose in life is.

As Collins studied the similarities and dissimilarities between humans and all other species on the planet, he was amazed at man’s unique altruistic tendencies and the moral code which is found across all cultures.  He found there are four unique traits which distinguish homo sapiens from the other species: 1) the awareness of right and wrong; 2) the development of powerful language skills; 3) an awareness of self; and 4) the ability to imagine the future.  I boil these down to Choice, Communication, Purpose and Vision.

Have you paused to reflect on the marvel of both your uniqueness as a human being and your   potential for leaving a legacy and making a difference because of those four unique attributes of Choice, Communication, Purpose and Vision.  Please consider the importance of finding your purpose and vision, or what the 13th Century Sufi philosopher, Rumi, calls The Real Work.

The Real Work

There is one thing in this world that you must never forget to do. If you forget everything else and not this, there's nothing to worry about; but if you remember everything else and forget this, then you will have done nothing in your life.

It's as if a king has sent you on a journey to do a task, and you perform a hundred other services, but not the one he sent you to do. So human beings come into this world to do particular work. That work is the purpose, and each is specific to the person.

You say, "But I spend my energies on lofty enterprises. I study jurisprudence and philosophy ... and medicine and all the rest." But consider why you do those things. They are all branches of yourself... . Remember the deep root of your being.

An Antidote for the Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Three Generations Proverb

Hearing the stories of prior generations is like someone who is standing on top of a globe.  His vision is limited by the horizon.  When he hears the stories of prior generations it is like he is able to move to the side of the globe and see to the bottom.  The importance of this is that in the cycle of life we will find that truth is one eternal round.  Our future descendants are sure to pass through cycles which our ancestors have experienced.  While the road may be paved with asphalt instead of gravel or dirt, our path and the treks of our descendants 
will pass through the same plains of adversity and valleys of despair.  If we are forewarned of the perils of the journey by the preservation of the personal and life histories of prior generations, it will be like a light shining on a dark path that will not only illuminate the obstacles ahead but give us the conviction that we too can safely navigate our way   - John A. Warnick

My mentor, James E. “Jay” Hughes, Jr., the author of Family Wealth – Keeping It in the Family, has warned us powerfully about the cultural proverb “Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves in Three Generations.”  Jay first learned of this proverb in Asia where it is known as “Rice Paddy to Rice Paddy in Three Generations.”

Is there an antidote for this proverb which will allow family wealth to become a positive, rather than corrosive, influence in the lives of next generation family members.  I’m convinced that one of the inherent dangers in intergenerational wealth transfers is that the “money” gets disconnected from its “meaning.” 

How can we make sure that the meaning of money is a positive story?  How can we make sure that our wealth transfer planning is denominated in positive emotional currency?  Those are questions I will tackle in future postings.  But today I want to share with you one antidote which I believe might be a powerful and sustaining influence in the lives of the next generations of your family: the practice of preserving one’s life history.

Another friend and mentor, Scott Farnsworth, co-author of Like a Library Burning, explains that when an individual dies without having preserved their life story it is like a library burning.  Civilization was set back centuries when the great libraries of Alexandria and Rome burned.  Unfortunately, too many people don’t stop to contemplate the fortune in wisdom, insight and life-lessons they have amassed.  That personal wealth will only become family wealth when it is preserved and shared. 

Have you begun the process of saving and sharing your life wisdom and story?

There is a history in all men’s lives    - William Shakespeare

Don’t Put Off Your Opportunity to Leave a Purposeful Legacy

In The Music Man, Professor Harold Hill warns: “You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you’ve collected a lot of empty yesterdays.”

I recently read the account of a man who after the passing of his wife was cleaning out her personal effects and found an unopened item of clothing she had purchased nine years earlier on a visit to the East Coast.  She apparently had been saving it for a special occasion.

The husband shared this story with a friend and concluded, “Don’t save something only for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion.”

The friend was deeply influenced by that wisdom and reported: “Now I spend more time with my family. I use crystal glasses every day. I’ll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket if I feel like it. The words ‘someday’ and ‘one day’ are fading from my vocabulary. Now I take the time to call my relatives and closest friends. I’ve called old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I tell my family members how much I love them. I try not to delay or postpone anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives. And each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day. Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.”

Arthur Gordon shared this story from his youth: “When I was around thirteen and my brother ten, Father had promised to take us to the circus. But at lunchtime there was a phone call; some urgent business required his attention downtown. We braced ourselves for disappointment. Then we heard him say [into the phone], ‘No, I won’t be down. It’ll have to wait.’
“When he came back to the table, Mother smiled. ‘The circus keeps coming back, you know,’ [she said].
“ ‘I know,’ said Father. ‘But childhood doesn’t.’ ” A Touch of Wonder (1974), 77–78.

Have you been putting off spending quality time with those you care the most about or expressing thanks to that mentor, teacher, or friend who made a difference in your life?

What can you be doing to leave a Purposeful Legacy to your loved ones and to make a difference in the world you will someday leave behind?

 “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”-- Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Protective Power of Meaning - Part 2

The Chinese Meaning of Money

George McDonald observed that “it is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the soul of another” (George McDonald Anthology, Geoffrey Bles, London, 1970)

Everytime I read the words of George McDonald I am reminded of this powerful lesson which a Chinese-American friend of mine shared with me.  During lunch one day he surprised me with this question:  “Do you mind if I ask you some very personal questions?”

“Not at all,” I replied with a growing sense of curiosity over where this turn in the conversation was taking us.

“I’ve shared with you a little bit of my Chinese heritage and my feelings about the importance of family.  But let me ask you a few questions about how you, as an American, view money, gifts and inheritance and then I’d like to contrast that with what I was taught the Chinese view is.  So tell me, what does money mean to you?”

I was somewhat disarmed by the question.  A number of concepts raced through my mind.  “Well,” I replied, “it really can mean or represent a lot of different things.  For instance, money is a medium of exchange.  It is the way I buy goods or services.  But it also represents power and status.  On the negative or dark side it represents control and dependency.  And perhaps at the highest level it means opportunity, stewardship…”  My voice trailed off as I thought of the powerfully positive ways in which I had seen some of my wealthy clients put their money to use.

“That is such an American definition,” my friend chuckled gracefully.  “Now would you like to learn how the Chinese view the money which they receive as a gift or inheritance?” 

“Oh, yes.  Please teach me.”

“In China, when we receive an inheritance we view it as the life energy of the person who has given us that money or property, whatever it is.  It represents all of their love, toil and experiences.  In fact, in a way it not only represents the culmination of their life’s efforts but it is an extension of the opportunities, successes and sacrifices of all of their ancestors.  So when we spend some of our inheritance, it is to us as if we are spending the life energy of our ancestor(s).”

It was in that moment that I first began to understand that there is another meaning to money which could dramatically change the way inheritors and trust beneficiaries regard the wealth they receive.  Is there another paradigm around the meaning of money you can share with us?

The Protective Power of Meaning - Part 1

One of the most important lessons I have learned in that graduate school of life we call professional experience is that there is an emotional currency associated with every large gift, will or trust.  Whether a gift has meaning and purpose helps determine whether that emotional currency will be positive or negative.

How do we overcome the sterility of a legal form, or the almost myopic focus on tax savings, so that wealth transfers become purposeful gifts?  Meaning and purpose are the electroplating that can protect a gift from the potentially corrosive outcomes of sterile wealth transfers.

Recently I heard a grandfather complain about the mega-birthday parties his grandchildren were experiencing.  What is a mega-birthday party?  That is one of these 3 to 5 hour extravaganzas where 25-30 youngsters show up with presents to celebrate your child or grandchild’s birthday.  This grandfather’s question was “what can I give my grandchild which will stand out from all of those presents and won’t just end up at the bottom of the heap in the toy closest?” 

My first thought was of another grandfather I know who hand-crafted a rocking horse for each of his grandchildren.  The creativity of design and loving craftsmanship imbued this gift with that protective power of meaning.  Long after the grandchild outgrows that rocking horse it will retain its meaning and most likely will become one of those cherished heirlooms that is preserved and handed down to another generation.

Do you have a story to share with us about the importance of meaning?

Do you have an idea of how we can assist our clients put the protective power of meaning to work in their estate planning?