Words That Resonate

"What does well mean? For family giving, well takes its meaning from the well-being of family, which we capture with the term family flourishing. Families flourish when they help each generation—parents, children, and grandchildren—live their lives, on their own and together, as flourishing individuals. Giving is at the core of flourishing. As the researchers at the University of California–Berkeley’s Greater Good Project have found, people are generally happiest when they have the choice to spend quality time with loved ones, feel gratitude for gifts received, and do something good for others.1 The goal is simple. The difficulties come in reaching it."

"Anything so important to family flourishing is also central to parenting. Many parents recognize that gifts of money or property can affect their children’s growth and development. But family giving extends well beyond money or stocks or bonds or other material things. It involves giving time, care, advice, and love as well as freedom and room to grow. Parenting itself can be understood as a many-faceted form of giving—one that, due to its complexity, requires the capacity for humility and self-forgiveness. Understood this way, parenting and family giving go hand in hand. Giving can support a family’s core work—preparing each generation to be free and flourishing individuals—by helping children feel loved, cared for, and ultimately secure in their own lives and livelihood. It can also complicate that work, because gifts may make recipients feel obliged to or dependent on the giver. As a result, we will continually ask in this book, how can we give and receive in ways to enhance growth and freedom rather than subsidize dependency and entitlement?"

"Parents and grandparents want to help their children and grandchildren become free and flourishing individuals. They want them to be happy rather than to suffer. Likewise, children and grandchildren want to be happy and to grow, remaining connected to their parents but also becoming independent and free. Family giving—understood in the broadest sense and prepared by reflection and communication—can play an integral role in achieving these goals. That is why we wrote this book."

"Focusing on the spirit of the gift gave Adele and Albert the permission to experience the joy of giving, and it helped them see the situation in a deeper way. They turned from these doubts or questions about their gifts to reflection on their family. In particular, they found themselves thinking seriously about (and eventually talking seriously with) their children and grandchildren, their recipients. Who were they, and what did each one need? These questions led to conversations, which gave Adele and Albert an opportunity to share their core values with their children and grandchildren: the values of hard work, giving, and education. They truly were able to give more than money. And their children and grandchildren were more open to receive. Adele and Albert taught us a valuable lesson: As important as giving wisely is, it is all the more important to reflect on recipients and to prepare them to receive wisely. Many times the power of the spirit of the gift reveals itself—or is quashed—depending on the state of soul of the recipient."

"In practice, givers and their advisors often give much of their attention to the mechanics of giving: the strategies, plans, and nuts and bolts of various transactions. All of these mechanics belong to the question of “how,” as in How can I minimize taxes? or How can I protect my assets? Such questions are usually in the service of quantity: getting the most bang for the buck."

"To begin the task of understanding yourself, we encourage you to consider what your wealth truly is. To do that, we suggest you spend a moment reflecting. Make some space in your head and heart to read the following paragraphs and reflect on the thoughts and feelings they provoke. The primary question to consider in this exercise is, What is your wealth really?"

"“Know thyself” is the true starting point for discernment. Everything you think, plan, and do is shaped by your experiences and beliefs. To clarify your thoughts, plans, and actions you must first know yourself. We refer to this process as “clearing your lenses.” It is impossible to see anything—including what is best for your recipients—without clear lenses."

"Here are a couple other related questions to consider: What are your dreams? What are your ultimate aspirations? In a recent study of family leaders with at least $25 million in net worth, researchers asked, “What is your ultimate goal or deepest aspiration?” The most prevalent answer did not involve professional or financial success; rather, it was, “To be a good parent.”"

"To recap, the Delphic Oracle teaches that the first step in giving well is self-knowledge. That knowledge can be gained through reflecting on questions such as, What is my wealth? What really matters to me—and why? and What are my dreams? In the context of family wealth and family giving, additional important questions are, To what degree have I shared my dreams with my children or grandchildren? What do I expect in return for my gifts? and What effect do I really want my wealth to have, now and in the future?"

"The question of how much money you want to live on leads quickly to the question of how much you want to give. When it comes to giving during your lifetime, the basic gift many parents offer to their children is education. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, millions of parents have saved or gone into debt to pay for college. This is the most common form of lifetime wealth transfer, and parents do it because they believe a quality education will help their children lead a better life than they had. In contrast, before the Industrial Revolution, parents would commonly transfer their trade to their children and leave them their tools or their shop when they died.2 Giving a child a trade or an education is a qualitative rather than quantitative gift, which explains why many parents are willing to pay almost anything for tuition. "

"Our overall goal is to enhance life by giving and receiving with spirit. We have now we have seen how important it is to remember that we are all errors of one sort or another. We have also seen the importance of taking into account our recipients, temperaments age and stage of development in the individual cycle of the gift. A key concern that many would be givers voice recipients is, how can I give without undermining my children or my grandchildren work ethic sense of autonomy pride and their own accomplishments? This was the question looking behind worries about his gifts. This question has its twin in a concern that many recipients express: how can I receive from my parents and grandparents without money taking over my sense of purpose in life and making me feeling guilty or dependent? Why is that? It is because in a very basic sense work gets meaning from being useful to others. People work in order to provide a benefit. Sure work might be also may be fun. We all hope to find work that benefits others while also exercising our own talents and giving us pleasure. As a result, work becomes fulfilling to the more skills and abilities we bring to bear and helping others."

"Other thing perspective givers can do is to ask themselves have my would be recipients, find  it not necessarily the right job or their true calling, but rather their own abilities to make them work for them? If recipients are still developing that ability, now may be the time to give them money more directly. Instead, the best gifts for them may be internships or new work experiences. If they are found their ability to thrive in their work – – whatever it may be – – then financial gifts will likely help them pursue that activity rather than distract from it. For what they have found, belongs truly to them —rather than a job, career, or the money or prizes that flow from work. A significant gift will always be like a mentor the question as whether it knocks the recipient out of her orbit or brighten the sky."

"Not Yet Serious conversations between givers and recipients overtime deepen each other’s understanding. Helpful questions include what are your dreams? To what work are you most drawn? What do you need? How can I help you? Sometimes it helps to just pose the questions and let the other party think about them without feeling required to answer right away."

"The task of growing comes down to navigating that boundary between ourselves and the world, to adaption and integration. The same is true for recipients with regard to gifts. If the meteoric gift comes without spirit, education, and preparation – – that is if it is really a transfer rather than a gift – – it will either destroy the recipient’s psychic environment or disintegrate on impact. And either case will it produce growth and enhancement .  Likewise  if the recipient lacks the resilience to adapt to and integrate the gift’s spirit, either the recipient or the gift is likely to disintegrate."

"For example, one young man we knew, truly took the heart that his grandfather was paying for his college tuition. Rather than partying or feeling guilty about getting something that many of his peers did not, he took this gift as a motivation to make the most out of his college education. Each semester he would share the results with his grandfather, not just for his approval, but to talk about what he was learning. As this grandfather did, mindful givers will help to prepare for such success by communicating  with recipients as well as giving them the opportunities to practice integrating smaller gifts into their lives. As ironic, as it may sound good habits, are the key to freedom."

"Grandparents have an opportunity for a special connection with their grandchildren. They and their grandchildren often enjoy a love that is not as complicated as the love between parents and children. Grandparents can give love without feeling obliged to focus on discipline. They are also usually less distracted by the demands of business. What’s more, the kinds of regrets so often felt with respect to their own children are less likely to get in the way of their feelings for their grandchildren. Grandchildren, in turn, can look to grandparents as unstinting sources of love and affirmation rather than as authorities against whose will they must one day test themselves. Grandparents are often in a different position with respect to family giving than parents are. By virtue of their age and reduced needs, some experience) to give. As the contemplation of mortality becomes more real and perhaps more bearable, they also have the incentive to initiate plans and to make gifts. Typically, grandparents have completed the first stage of life, of receiving, and the second stage, of building and achieving their own dreams. They have entered the third stage, of giving back and supporting others. Though they may retain their own strongly held views, they may also be better able to objectively discern the effects their choices have on the future. For example, one grandfather we met was determined to keep the government from getting any of his hard-earned wealth. He was equally determined to tell his children, from beyond the grave, how to spend the money he left them. But when we asked him what effect he wanted his wealth to have on his grandchildren, he stopped issuing pronouncements and started thinking. His grandchildren, he reasoned, “were not fully formed yet.” Therefore, his choices could make a real difference to the kinds of adults they became. He turned to the serious consideration of what to do, not just what to avoid."

"Too often, the trust relationship encourages dependency rather than independence. Parents worry about this outcome. And the sad effects are not lost on beneficiaries. We have spoken to hundreds of beneficiaries over the years. We sometimes ask them, “On the whole, has your trust had a positive or a negative impact on your lives?” Over 80 percent of beneficiaries respond that the overall effect has been negative. Some benefit! Again, the trustee can make all the difference in this outcome. The core question is what relationship the trustee will have with the beneficiary. As we show in Figures 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3, in most trusts, the trustee holds a dominant position. The beneficiary makes requests; the trustee decides and disposes. The bigger the trustee gets, the smaller the beneficiary becomes. In other cases, the trustee just rubber-stamps the beneficiary’s request, in effect turning the trust into a piggy bank that subsidizes rather than enhances the beneficiary’s life. In contrast, we recommend that, as beneficiaries mature, the trustee and the beneficiary become more like equal partners, ensuring that the gift in trust promotes the beneficiary’s life and growth."

"How can you lay the foundations for such a relationship? Start by looking for a trustee who can, to use political terms, serve as a sort of regent. Remember, in the early stages of the trust’s life, the trustee will likely be acting for the good of a beneficiary who is not yet mature or able to make his own choices. Doing that well requires a special set of characteristics and skills. As Jay Hughes and Patricia Angus explain,1 this trustee as regent Remembers that her ownership of the trust property is only temporary. Knows how to relinquish power and eventually transition it to the rightful beneficiaries. Focuses on the education of the beneficiaries in order to prepare them for ultimate ownership of or control over the property. Maintains open and honest age-appropriate communication with the beneficiaries. Is responsible to all beneficiaries, present and future, in accord with the trust provisions. Subordinates his interests to those of the beneficiaries. Possesses the necessary skills to do this work well. Earns her authority rather than taking it for granted. Good trustee-regents provide excellent administration and prudent investment of the trust assets.2 But beyond service to the trust assets, the trustee as giver will educate beneficiaries about the trust, its provisions and powers, its assets and the work of investing, and about the financial world that the trustee and beneficiary inhabit. That way the beneficiary will be in a better position to understand and evaluate the trustee’s work and make wise choices regarding the trust and his own life. Beyond serving as a prudent investor and an educator, in the regency, a trustee can help beneficiaries by serving as a mentor.3 Mentorship is a demanding but deeply rewarding relationship. It partakes of something divine. After all, the original Mentor, who appeared in Homer’s Odyssey, was actually Athena, the goddess of wisdom, in disguise. A mentor helps someone undertake the multistage journey to maturity. That journey may involve further education, travel, or inner exploration. It may involve a sort of coaching as the beneficiary faces important choices about school, career, and family life. The existence of mentors reflects the reality that life’s journey involves transitions and that we all do better when someone caring—somewhat at a distance, sometimes even in disguise—offers us advice and counsel along the way. Over time, of course, a trustee’s role as mentor will diminish as the beneficiary completes her odyssey and finds a true home in personal exploration, work, and family. At that point, the trustee becomes more the beneficiary’s partner and representative. Going back to our diagrams about the trustee-beneficiary relationship, the trustee moves to a more equal place. To act as representative of a mature, well-educated, and mindful beneficiary is a role any trustee can be proud of."

"In truth, a regenerative trustee may embody the cycle of the gift more powerfully than any other member of the family."

"No one is born able to discern well. That is because it takes time and experience to develop a rich sense of what is good for yourself and others. Doing so effectively usually takes quite a few hard knocks and disappointments. Also, it takes time and experience to gain the practical know-how that allows you to see how choice A connects with choice B and possibility C. These are all matters of lived experience. That is why discernment is also sometimes called “practical wisdom.”"

"Each family will come up with its own answer to this question. However, we have seen some patterns, both in history and in practice, that indicate several possible roles for successful elders: To tell the family’s stories. To remind family leaders to follow the family’s agreed-upon rules and to reflect the family’s values and goals in the process of governance. To effectively mediate internal family disputes. To conduct the family’s rituals."

"The effects of the elders’ retelling of family stories brings us to the second gift that elders within your family can offer: to remind family leaders of the family’s agreed-upon rules, values, and goals. Put simply, as an elder, you keep the rest of the family honest. Families often fall into habitual patterns and let important insights or practices languish. Elders, with their experience, serve as the family’s memory, keeping past agreements and decisions alive. Sometimes just asking family leaders open-ended questions is enough to get the family as a whole to connect their values with their choices."

"The third gift that elders offer to families is to mediate family disputes. Whether in ancient tribes or in modern industrialized societies, human beings look to their elder statesmen to mediate conflict. Usually these elders help the parties take the dispute out of the frame of established alliances or legalistic processes so that matters can be tackled more informally and directly. Playing such a role effectively requires scrupulous attention to boundaries, confidentiality, and trust. Age helps because it brings with it greater experience in the world and the ability to remind conflicting parties to look to the big picture, the issues that really matter. It takes a special elder—and a special family—to allow for this sort of mediation."

"Peabody’s lifetime practice of conversation with recipients, and teaching them through that conversation, laid a sound foundation for his freer bequests. Today, you may feel reluctant to inquire too closely into your children’s or grandchildren’s financial affairs. Parents who have sought to become their children’s friends may feel especially hesitant to appear to be telling them what to do. That said, we believe Peabody’s example suggests that beginning such a conversation around lifetime gifts can be seen not as telling but rather as teaching and listening. Once recipients receive a true gift, it is their prerogative to do with it what they wish. But that prerogative does not preclude you, as a giver, from sharing your advice beforehand and asking for some account afterward. Doing so may lay the groundwork for making even freer gifts in the future. Good habits, after all, are the key to freedom."

"Letting Be Let’s revise, then, our starting point about gifts and freedom. At first glance, people say that gifts should be free. On reflection, we say that gifts should promote freedom. The promotion of freedom is compatible with and even requires some degree of control."

"Fair versus Equal, Separate versus Together There are some core practices to mindful giving. Among the most important of them are to reflect on yourself, your principles, your values, and your dreams and to try to understand recipients, who they are as individuals as well as their principles, values, and dreams."

"What do we mean when we talk about flourishing? In Chapter 1, we shared our view that families flourish when they help each generation—parents, children, and grandchildren—live their lives, on their own and together, as flourishing individuals. To make this point more concrete, in working with many families, we have identified three major elements of family flourishing. These include a sense of lineage, the experience of joy and fulfillment, and a focus on future growth. These three elements reflect the reality that families are always in a process of growing from the past, in the present, toward the future."

"They observed that they really did want to do what was best for their family. But they also wanted to enjoy their own lives as individuals. In fact, they felt sure that one of their greatest strengths as a family was their shared belief that their commitment to each other justified their hope of enjoying individual happiness. What a wonderful belief! So we asked them how they might demonstrate that commitment. We helped them come up with a promise, made to each of them by the others: “I will help you in your own journey of happiness, and I hope that you will help me in mine.”"

"Such steps take time and many discussions, perhaps heated ones. But if you pursue them, they will increase respect among the individual members of your family. The key to success in this approach is for members of your family to hold two core commitments: to your family as something more than the individuals and to each other’s personal quests for happiness. For the family with the pot, a shared promise and a focus on flourishing served as a bridge to practices that encouraged enhancement and growth rather than subsidy and entropy. They can do the same for other families, too."

"Once you are clear about your values, you can be more purposeful about the task of sharing those values with others. Think about the various things you may mean when you say that you want your children to inherit your values. It may be that you want to instill your values in your children. Such instillation implies helping your children develop good character, a process that takes many years and much habituation. It may be that you also want your children to develop their own values. That implies wanting your children to lead authentic lives, which requires a period of searching, questioning, and clarification of their own most important beliefs. The two processes can go hand-in-hand: good character provides the foundation from which one can freely pursue and develop sound values. How can you help your children or grandchildren develop good character? We have already commented on how closely related family giving is to parenting generally. One of the things that we frequently tell families is that the key to being a good parent with wealth is to be a good parent simply. Doing so takes time, attention, patience, and humility. Helping children develop their own values also takes time and patience. And it requires a healthy dose of communication. Respect for values, as a gift, means respecting your own and others’ values. Your children and grandchildren may not share your beliefs. Communication makes it possible to respect each other as reasonable people while perhaps disagreeing about beliefs. It also makes it possible for you to see and trust the character of your children and grandchildren even if you question or even dislike their values."

"For a family, there may be quite a lot. According to sociologist George Marcus, a family name or reputation may, for a family of dynastic wealth, be its most enduring and powerful asset: “The value of a family name, on which a descendant can trade in various ways, is the most adaptive resource of a family/business formation, sustaining the external image and reviving itself in any later achievements of family descendants.”8 A 1970 Gallup study of the Rockefeller family came to a similar conclusion: “Here is a family whose vast wealth might be expected to generate envy, jealousy, and hatred; but instead it is seen predominantly by now as a dedication to public and humanitarian service for the good of mankind.”"

"Lineage, then, is a key corrective to entitlement. A sense of lineage helps people avoid feeling cut off from the past and the future. It gives them a feeling of place and of worth within that place. Whether rich or poor, when we discover our lineage, we discover our sense of being gifted. From that sense comes gratitude and the desire to pay forward the gifts we have received to benefit others. If you give your descendants the gift of lineage, you are not saddling them with constraining traditions or stories. You are freeing them to receive and give gratefully. And you are freeing yourself by knowing that you have mindfully prepared for their resilience, growth, and freedom."

"That said, very few wealth holders pursue this plan of giving philanthropically rather than to family in the principled way that Carnegie did. Carnegie’s vision of the cycle of the gift (grounded in society) is only one possible vision. A different view (grounded in family) is that we all receive good things from our parents, even if our parents are very poor, as were Carnegie’s.6 These good things—whether character, skills, knowledge, or material resources—help us, the recipients, do well in life, including perhaps grow wealthy. As our parents age and pass away, we cannot simply give back to them. Instead, most people feel a desire and obligation to give in turn to their own children, including sharing our dreams and some of the realization of those dreams, in the form of wealth. The stance for giving to family members and the stance against giving to family members each arises from a different version of the cycle of the gift."

"That said, very few wealth holders pursue this plan of giving philanthropically rather than to family in the principled way that Carnegie did. Carnegie’s vision of the cycle of the gift (grounded in society) is only one possible vision. A different view (grounded in family) is that we all receive good things from our parents, even if our parents are very poor, as were Carnegie’s.6 These good things—whether character, skills, knowledge, or material resources—help us, the recipients, do well in life, including perhaps grow wealthy. As our parents age and pass away, we cannot simply give back to them. Instead, most people feel a desire and obligation to give in turn to their own children, including sharing our dreams and some of the realization of those dreams, in the form of wealth. The stance for giving to family members and the stance against giving to family members each arises from a different version of the cycle of the gift. The critique of family giving articulates real concerns. Still, even if our heads incline us to Carnegie’s argument, our hearts move most parents and grandparents to leave more than a modest allowance to our descendants if we can. Also, the critics seem to assume that family giving cannot be done well. As the previous chapters have shown, we believe that mindfulness and resilience can help parents and children integrate wealth more positively into their lives and families. By sharing this mindfulness, we hope to help wealth holders align their heads with their hearts more completely than these critics’ stern approach allows."

"The Family Tree This alignment comes from keeping the spirit and the cycle of the gift in mind. It comes from families’ reflecting on themselves and their values. It comes from honestly seeking to understand recipients and to develop their resilience. It comes from engaging in a process of discernment about how gifts may enhance lives rather than subsidize status."

"This is the answer to our initial question about the importance of spirit to family flourishing: giving and receiving materialize the spirit in our families’ lives. And that is what our journey has truly been about: the enhancement of life through spirit. These final reflections on humility and hopefulness, thanks and mindfulness bring us to the boundaries of family giving and hence locate family giving within the context of a larger life. The many gifts we have received, and our thankfulness for them, point us toward sources and a world that extends far beyond our families. Being humbly thankful for and mindful of that larger world, in turn, allow us to give our families what they need to flourish. Families do not invent the spirit of the gift; the spirit of the gift makes our families what they are. True discernment about the goals and limits of family giving highlight the excellence at work in it and so encourage us to take it all the more seriously.."