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James Clear famously said: “Ambition is when you expect yourself to close the gap between what you have and what you want. Entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between what you have and what you want.” Not everyone is ambitious – some people are just happy with what they have or don’t have a large gap between what they have and what they want. And that’s perfectly fine. But what of…

In society, the wealthy often get a bad rap. If you’re a wealth creator, people may view the wealth you have created as coming at the expense of someone else. They may rally against “inequality” – that some people have (a lot) more than others. The fact is that the gap between wealthy and poor is increasing – each one is a reinforcing loop so the rich tend to get richer and the poor get…

Family business succession plans (or the ideas for them that are embedded in the minds of the incumbent generations) are often loaded with assumptions. For example: that the “presumed/nominated successor” wants to join the family business, that they are a like-for-like replacement of the incumbent, that the business should largely keep doing what it does for the foreseeable future. Any robust business (or organisation such as the family that controls the business) should be prepared…

The question “how much is enough?” and its corollary “how much should I give my children?” is one many families ask but very few consider how to go about answering. I’ve gone as far as modelling decades of projected expenditure for a family, and the returns needed to provide for it. To be sure, such a model makes many assumptions, but it’s a starting point and one that does roughly put a family’s financial assets…

Q. My child is not performing in their role in the family business / will use their inheritance to support a cause I despise / wants to take over / doesn’t want to take over / doesn’t want to do what I want. What can I do to bring them into line? A. Since time immemorial, parents have been trying to get their children to do what they want, or follow in their footsteps. Which…

Transition Ready In the early days of my billing business, a prospective customer asked me: “what if I was hit by a bus?” This highlighted to me the dependence of the business on me, and I set about making the business “sale-ready”. That didn’t mean that I planned to sell it, rather that if I ever wanted to, I could, because the business would be worth as much without me as with me. That is…

When taking young children for a long drive in the car, we would regularly hear them ask “are we there yet?” Children quickly become bored and impatient, and don’t always have a sense of time (especially if they are too young to wear a watch). In families, rising generation family members are wondering “are we ready yet?” to take a position of responsibility or leadership within the family enterprise. They have a very keen sense…

Q. My child (age 20) has no interest in joining the family business. What can I do? A. Very sorry to hear that; unfortunately, your options at this stage in your child’s life are far more limited. Any motivation you might provide for them to join is likely to be extrinsic and therefore may not be enduring. I’m going to defer on this question and discuss when to start preparing successors. By the time they…

This is the conundrum of wealth creator parents: they want to raise children to value the hard work that helped them create wealth, but at the same time pass them wealth that means they never need to work. Talk about mixed messages!  In order to actually do this, one would have to live well below one’s means, and/or withhold access for children to the family wealth so that they can live it ‘tough’ for a…

Family philanthropy is the act of a collective rather than an individual. It is rooted in the values of a family, carrying forward its name and legacy, and engaging its members. That makes it about a lot more than just writing cheques. It needs people from multiple generations working together, and that needs to be driven by a purpose and strategy. Two important surveys indicate that this is not happening effectively. According to a global…