Wealth With Intention
Wealth with intention is the concept of aligning a family’s financial decisions, governance, investing, philanthropy, and public presence, with its clearly articulated set of shared values, rather than measuring success only by external markers like career achievement or investment performance. This is at the heart of what’s often called wealth dynamics: the study of how a family’s relationships, communication patterns, and shared values shape, and are shaped by, their wealth over time.
For families, it starts with a facilitated process to surface individual and shared values and codify them into a usable framework.
For professional advisors, it provides the values-based foundation on which governance, philanthropic, and succession planning should be built, rather than treated as a separate conversation from the financial one.
Read the full blog piece, published in Talking Trends online magazine on July 7, 2026 HERE.
How to Build Family Cohesiveness That Lasts
Regardless of their degree of wealth, success, or public recognition, families face a common challenge: staying connected in meaningful, enduring ways across generations. Not long ago, I worked with a large, highly visible family whose patriarch expressed this concern clearly. He said to me, “Your mandate is to restore harmony among my children.” That simple but powerful directive reflects a deeper truth: family cohesiveness does not happen by accident; it must be intentionally cultivated.
In my experience, the cornerstone of family cohesiveness is the deliberate and consistent creation of opportunities for communication and connection. Without these, even the strongest families can drift apart. Life gets busy, individual priorities take precedence, and over time, shared identity begins to erode. What’s required is a thoughtful approach that consistently brings people together, not just physically, but emotionally and relationally.
With this particular family, we implemented a solution that I often recommend: structured family meetings as part of the annual reunion, designed with an eye to both purpose and flexibility. Importantly, the gathering was not solely focused on the family’s business, although it did include structured elements around shared responsibilities and long-term planning, and a session or two updating the family members about the family’s common investments. Equally essential were the fun, social elements: creating space for the informal, unplanned moments that allow family members to reconnect on a human level, and not just in their familiar family roles. These moments often prove to be the most transformative.
Read the full blog piece, published in Inspiration and Insights online magazine on June 2, 2026 HERE.
Building Lasting Family Governance: Creating a Framework for Fair and Future-Proof Decision-Making
Governance is a critically important topic in any family enterprise. The word itself can sound complicated, but when you strip it down, governance is simply about one thing: how we make decisions together.
In family governance, the question becomes: How will we make decisions as a family? More importantly, how do we put a framework in place today, while everyone is getting along, that we agree will still guide us later when disagreements inevitably arise? Because they will.
One of the most valuable things a family can do is establish a structure for decision-making today, while relationships are strong, communication is open and perspectives are collaborative. That’s the moment when people are most willing to create something fair and balanced, something that will work not just for now, but in the future as well.
Read the full blog piece, published in Impact! online magazine on May 4, 2026 HERE.
The Real Inheritance: How Great Families Prepare Their Children for Leadership
Preparing the next generation of wealth for leadership, whether in a family office, a family enterprise, or ultimately as stewards of the family itself, does not suddenly begin in adulthood. It starts much earlier. In fact, some of the most important foundations for responsible leadership can be laid when children are very young.
One of the most powerful lessons in raising children in a wealthy family is also one of the most delicate: helping them appreciate the privilege they have inherited while acknowledging the responsibility that accompanies their privilege. Most heirs did not create the family wealth themselves. They are beneficiaries of the vision, sacrifice, risk-taking, and hard work of those who came before them. Teaching children to recognize this reality early on helps instill humility and responsibility. It also opens the door to conversations about empathy for those less fortunate, and a sense of duty to their broader community.
Read the full blog piece, published in Point of View online magazine on April 7, 2026 HERE.
Prenups: 3 Rules of Thumb
Your family has worked hard to build and preserve wealth over many years, and now your child has just gotten engaged to be married. You don’t want to cause friction with your child’s future spouse, but you’ve seen the statistics and are thinking about broaching the subject of a prenuptial agreement with the couple.
Contrary to popular belief, prenuptial agreements are generally not motivated by a lack of trust or romance. Instead, they are about clarity, fairness, and long-term family stewardship.
Over the years, I’ve seen prenups fail for very predictable and avoidable reasons. Based on that experience, I have developed three simple rules of thumb that may well dramatically improve both family harmony and the enforceability of the agreement itself.
Read the full blog piece, published in Talking Trends online magazine on March 3, 2026 HERE.
Effective Family Meetings
When most people envision a family meeting, they picture a formal gathering where the family patriarch or matriarch sits at the head of the table, dictating agenda items and policy decisions to the rest of the family members. The tone is often top-down, with the implicit expectation that family members will unquestioningly nod in agreement.
While this approach may work in some contexts, it misses a crucial element that transforms family meetings from a simple check-in into a meaningful, dynamic conversation. The real power of family meetings doesn’t come from unilaterally imposing decisions but from creating a safe space for open, transparent and multidirectional communication.
Through years of experience in facilitating family meetings, I’ve come to the core belief that every voice in the room must have the opportunity to be heard. Let me be clear: I’m not saying that everyone necessarily gets a vote or has veto power. These considerations depend on factors like age, role, and the specific governance structure that your family has chosen. But everyone should have the opportunity to speak. This is non-negotiable. When family members feel that their perspectives are valued, even if they don’t have the final say, it builds trust and fosters a stronger sense of unity.
Once Upon a Time
When we talk about family wealth, the conversation often begins and ends with money. Yet the most enduring aspects of family wealth have very little to do with financial capital. They live in our values, our stories, our sense of responsibility to help those less fortunate, and the way each generation adapts as it identifies with the family’s culture.
Teaching those non-financial essentials doesn’t always require a formal curriculum. In fact, it’s often most effective when lessons emerge naturally, beginning when children or grandchildren are very young and evolving in age-appropriate ways as they mature.
Read the full blog piece, published in Impact! online magazine on January 7, 2026 HERE.
Family Dynamics in Estate Planning
My key takeaway to address family dynamics for families who are designing their estate plan is that fair doesn’t always mean equal, and equal doesn’t always mean equitable. Just because you want to treat your children equally doesn’t mean it’s the best approach for everyone involved. If circumstances dictate that one child requires more support than another, consider finding an equitable solution that acknowledges and respects the realities of each child’s (or grandchild’s) situation.
Moreover, and this is something I cannot stress enough, have the difficult conversations while you’re still alive. Sit down with your children, explain your thought process, and give them the opportunity to ask you questions. While you’re alive, you’re the referee. You can guide the conversation, clarify your intentions, and head off potential misunderstandings. After you’re gone, the referee is gone, and all bets are off. The last thing you want later is for your children to feel that you never liked them, trusted them or that they weren’t treated fairly.
Read the full blog piece, published in Point of View online magazine on December 2, 2025 HERE.
Bridging Generational Divides
One of the most critical challenges facing multi-generational families today is creating alignment when different generations have fundamentally different points of focus. This disconnect is particularly evident in how families approach impact, sustainability, and the deployment of capital.
The senior generation often thinks in terms of two distinct pockets: their investment pocket and their philanthropy pocket. This compartmentalized approach has worked for them for decades, and they see little reason to change. On the other hand, younger generations have an altogether different approach. They want to utilize their wealth to make the world a better place, and they don’t particularly care whether they pursue that goal through their investments or their philanthropy. For them, it’s all part of striving toward the same mission.
This fundamental difference in outlook creates a disconnect that can undermine family cohesiveness and engagement.
Read the full blog piece, published in Talking Trends online magazine on November 4, 2025 HERE.
Including In-Laws in Family Governance
The question of whether to include the spouses of children or grandchildren in family meetings and family governance systems is one that frequently arises in multigenerational families. These relatives, often labeled as “outlaws”, present both a challenge and an opportunity for families trying to build a lasting legacy.
When it comes to family business operational discussions, there may well be portions of family meetings where spouses who aren’t actively involved in the business need not (and perhaps should not) participate. However, when the conversation turns to family values, identity, and legacy — the heart of what defines you as a family — the involvement of your in-laws is not just beneficial; it’s essential.
Consider this crucial point: these “outlaws” are the parents of your grandchildren. If they are excluded from participating in discussions about your family’s core values and legacy, how can these critical concepts be effectively passed down to the next generation of your family? Their exclusion risks creating a gap in the family’s value chain, undermining the very continuity of identity that you are working so hard to ensure.
Read the full blog piece, published in Inspiration and Insights online magazine on Oct 6, 2025 HERE.
Defining Your Family Legacy: Much More Than Documents
Family Legacy isn’t just what you leave behind. It’s what you build together.
The families I work with who do this well understand that legacy work is ongoing work. It’s often messy. It requires patience, intentionality, and the willingness to have conversations that might feel awkward at first. But when families commit to this process — when they prioritize stories over spreadsheets and values over valuations — they create something that lasts far beyond any financial inheritance.
Your family’s legacy is waiting to be written. The question isn’t whether you have one — you do. The question is whether you’ll be thoughtful and intentional about shaping it, or whether you’ll leave it to chance.
Read the full blog piece, published in Impact! online magazine on Sept 3, 2025 HERE.