Q&A: Complexities of Intergenerational Wealth
We sat down with Marlis and Kjartan Jansen at Graddha about this topic. Excerpts from our interview:
What are the situations that gen-one families are dealing with when coming into sudden wealth?
If you have recently come into wealth, you might be still trying to figure out how to navigate it. With first generation wealth creators there's such an opportunity to set a tone for the ensuing generations. A lot of times, families in generations three and four are playing catch up, because they're trying to pick up pieces from generations past. They're trying to create better relationships in the wake of that. For first generation wealth creators, they have such an opportunity to set the tone for the family going forward. In Jim Grumman's book, Strangers in Paradise, his paradigm is that creating wealth is like going to a new culture where you don't know any of the customs. That's really true. First generation wealth creators didn't grow up with it and they are learning as they go, and dealing with all of the attitudes and all the things that they grew up with in terms of attitudes about what it means to be rich, or what it means about you if you are. There's a lot of process that they're navigating unconsciously while they're still working really hard and trying to give their kids the best life they can give them. It's a complicated process. You can bring mindfulness to it, and also a process that is step-wise and actionable, so it's not overwhelming, so then they can relax and be excited about their wealth. Sometimes, it's hard to be excited because there's something shameful about it to begin with.
How should families navigate through some of that process of making difficult decisions?
If you have recently come into wealth, you might be struggling to make difficult decisions while trying to plan financially. Oftentimes, families try to make important decisions without first identifying their underlying purpose and values. It’s a good idea to start with a workshop to get them together (under non-COVID times in person, whereas today, it's a little bit different) where they discuss some critical things that they often don't think they share anymore. It's wonderful to see how many families really light up when they discover that they actually share three to five values. They walked around for possibly years thinking that they haven't shared anything because they were focused on their differences. It’s good to see what is shared and spend some time on communication styles, which is incredibly important, and show how different styles express themselves differently. Make sure that it's all forward-looking so that the past isn’t dug up. Once you've gone through that, having what seemed like a difficult conversation before seems less difficult because it's not mirrored in the past with “then you did this and you said that, then you remember that time when that person was so horrible, etc.”
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