Wealth Management Sans Spiritual/Faith Assets is Newly Christened Materialism Management

Spiritual Beliefs and Faith, Values and Virtues, Character and Morality, Meaning and Purpose – Are Integral to The Family People Office™

Three Conversations

In our work with Ultra-High-Net-Worth families, Family Offices, and Private Wealth Advisors, one truth has become increasingly clear: the most enduring legacies are not built on financial capital alone, they are anchored in Spiritual/Faith Assets.

In three recent meetings with two fiduciaries and an UHNW client, God and faith became a significant part of each conversation.

My wife and I had lunch with a new friend who has been in the Family Office world for over forty years. During lunch he asked us if we were seeing a more frequent need for the families we work with, to talk or want to talk about faith, specifically men in their fifties and sixties. “Yes, undoubtably,” was my answer.

Over a month ago, I started speaking to a new client. Not your average UHNW client but a man who had started from the absolute bottom and built an empire in his industry. By the end of our second meeting, the discussion turned to his belief in God. He had started thinking more about faith and his relationship with God after suffering a profoundly serious medical issue. Mortality was staring at him right in his face. The perspective of his entire world was now radically changed.

Watching a man of his wealth, power, and achievement, suddenly get a look that caused me to have what I can only describe as an optical illusion. Something very profound in our journey talking about his faith made him diminish right in front of me. I can’t readily explain how my perception changed. He was welcoming and affable from our first handshake, but at that moment, it was as if all that he possessed, and all that surrounded him in his magnificent mansion, simply vanished. It was just him, leaning forward in his chair. He looked at me and quietly spoke the words, “I just want to be happy.”

This week we had lunch with the head of a very large and influential wealth management company. We talked what we were doing with the launch of The Family People Office™. The conversation included the cost of significant family problems and our work building a UHNW Family Risk Management Assessment™. 

That conversation pivoted, they said that in their next iteration of life, they wanted to do something that helped families investigate and experience a deeper spiritual life. Something that touched their lives today but also outlasted them. It was a very heartwarming conversation. Listening to someone who had influence over billions of dollars, and to see how faith and family undoubtedly held priority in her thinking.

 The Family People Office™ and Spiritual/Faith Assets

Wealth Management that excludes or marginalizes Spiritual/Faith Assets would more accurately be defined as Materialism Management. If a family’s Human Capital is not assessed and valued as “Wealth” then let’s rename the Family Office, The Family Shell Office.

If Religious Beliefs and Faith, Values and Virtues, Character and Morality, Meaning and Purpose, were assessed and valued as powerful and precious commodities in each individual family member’s life; and the strength and unity they could potentially produce, if expertly advised and protected, what would the assessed valued of their total Family Capital Portfolio™ be worth?  If we assess the value of all the assets in a Financial Portfolio, why have we not until The Family People Office™, done the same with all the magnificent Human Capital and Spiritual/Faith Assets?

Spiritual/Faith Assets Frames Our Clients Lives

The vast majority of our UHNW client-families and the general US population believe in God.  Their lives are framed by attendance and observance of religious services in places of worship. When we are in their homes they have Bibles, religious books, religious symbols, and art. One client had a life size crucifix mounted high on the main living room wall.

·         Birth – Baptism, Christening, Dedication, Brit Milah (Circumcision), Jatakarma, or other ritual. These are almost always performed by a religious officiant.

·         Coming of Age – Confirmation, Baptism, Bat or Bar Mitzvah, Upanayana, Khatam and others.

·         Marriage – Many couples still opt for a ceremony in a church building, and or use religious officiants.

·         Death – Over 75% of funerals in the USA have distinct religious components in the ceremony, place of and the officiant.

·         Blessings – A small percentage of clients have new homes and businesses blessed.

We realize it is not a place for fiduciaries, either as Private Wealth Advisors or in Family Offices, to talk about what we include in our Spiritual/Faith Assets. However, we see where there are specific areas where collaboration with The Family People Office™ would be advantageous to fiduciaries in their work with UHNW clients. The Family People Office™ works hard to engage with and gain a deep and intimate knowledge of clients Spiritual/Faith Assets.

Spiritual/Faith Assets

The Legacy Forum™ and Family People Office™ are not an evangelistic enterprise. We do believe in what we have defined Spiritual/Faith Assets. When understood and implemented with clients and their families, they are most likely to result in greater growth and stability in their financial portfolio.

It is an essential Asset Class in our work as a Family People Office™ for: growing and developing personal integrity, building thriving spousal relationships, teaching effective parenting skills, facilitating a positive parent-child relationship, expertly guiding children’s talent identification and character building, family communication, identity and mission and assisting with inter-generational communication and transition to retirement.

Governance, Succession and Financial Education are in our opinion rudderless attempts at insuring legacy if the Spiritual/Faith Assets are excluded from their formation. They are legal structures and educational attempts to secure a purposeful future with soulless words.

Description of Spiritual/Faith Assets

The Legacy Forum™ incorporates the following elements in our definition and description of Spiritual/Faith Assets:

·         Religious/Faith Beliefs (about God and origins) and Faith (my decisions, actions, faith practices, and motivations that flow from those beliefs)

·         Values (foundational moral beliefs) and Virtues (purposeful and practical actions of service to others that are motivated by those Values)

·         Character (my personal conduct and beliefs as witnessed by my external behaviors) and Morality (my values and beliefs that govern right or wrong choices and behaviors)

·         Meaning (my spiritual and/or and psychological sense of purpose as they relate to my actions) and Purpose (my belief that my talents and life have value to positively affect others and the world)

Spiritual/Faith-Based Origins

Across cultures and millennia, the concept of "value" has never been purely economic; it has almost always been deeply theological and connected to God or the gods. From tithing grain in ancient Mesopotamia and Israel, to acknowledge the origin of and thanks for the increase in harvest.

Many of the modern philanthropic foundations of the West, the making, using, and giving of wealth find their roots in religious beliefs. Think for a moment of the names, associations and mottos of hospitals, non-profits, private schools, universities, orphanages, relief agencies, religious orders, mental health clinics, substance abuse rehabs, and on and on. Even Harvard University’s original moto was, Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae ("Truth for Christ and the Church") Today it is simply Veritas or Truth.

In the Judeo-Christian world, Moses, Abraham, Malachi, Job and Solomon in the Old Testament and Jesus Christ and Paul in the New Testament were all integral to the foundation and elements of Spiritual/Faith Assets. The teaching, parables and actions of Christ are still the access points of many in their formation of Values.

The book of Job asks the most fundamental question related to belief and values. Job a wealthy man not only lost his entire portfolio in one day but all his children as well. His friends turned against him. The question, “Who are you when all your wealth and the most important people in your life are taken away? 

Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs, a manual that helps the reader assess character in others, manage human relationships, succession, borrowing and lending, business practices, governance and management of wealth.

Solomon even wrote an entire book that’s central thesis is that wealth without Spiritual/Faith Assets renders it worse than worthless. Destructive. His conclusion was to “Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you die.”  He described wealth without Spiritual/Faith Assets as, “Vanity of Vanities, All is Vanity.” The words of David Green, CEO of Hobby Lobby ring true time and time again.

"Wealth can be a curse and, in most cases, if you drill down on it, wealth is a curse in terms of marriage, children, and things of that nature.” (That is a $14 Billion dollar curse)

Values Identification and Application – Why Going Deeper and Wider Matters

We believe that fiduciaries current approaches in identifying client’s Values, is in our estimation sincere and laudable but wholly inadequate. Using Values cards and motivational interviewing is a meaningful attempt.

The Family People Office™ builds a Family Capital Portfolio™ by in banking Spiritual/Faith Assets as one of five Asset Classes. The intrinsically positive, multi-dimensional data we capture, using tests, motivational and forensic interviewing, peer and expert witness in-viva observations, *Positive Psychology profiles and other methodologies, is invaluable. The expert use of this data to decisions regarding philanthropy, succession, family governance, financial education, can enhance or erode a family’s legacy trajectory. The Values data as it applies to building legacy is priceless.

*The VIA (Values in Action Profile), Approaches to Happiness Scale, Meaning in Life Questionnaire, Hope Scale, GRIT Survey, Optimism Attributional Style Questionnaire, Gratitude Survey and Work Life Satisfaction Survey.

When it comes to Values and beliefs about how to treat others, Pew Research reports over 85% believe that their religious beliefs or heritage are foundational. Almost 80% who have no religious affiliation believe the same. Christ’s Golden Rule of “Do unto others what you would have them do to you” is a 24 carat Virtue practiced Value.

The Big Question - Who Am I?

A major element of our work is profiling the innate talents and character strengths found in five domains. They constitute the essential construction of every individual human being. (Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Social) The discovery of exceptionality in these domains is the prime evidence we look to discover and profile.

These are the same individuals that make up your family and who you will make decisions regarding the: who, when, what, why and how they will inherit your wealth and carry your Legacy forward into the next generation. That is the information we bring to families, fiduciaries, lawyers, and trustees.

One of the ever-present defaults we have observed in many children of UHNW families, is a belief that they will always be secure financially. This often results in a distinct lack of meaning, purpose, and motivation. Failure to launch. Children or adults without a “Why” have to find ways to experience feeling alive.

Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard asked these questions about the meaning and purpose of life. He sounds like one of Gen Z.

Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here? What is this thing called the world? How did I come into the world? Why was I not consulted? And if I am compelled to take part in it, Where is the director? I want to see him.

There are no limits to temporarily producing the satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, high, FLOW and exhilaration of what using and giving to others the very best of what our talents can produce. We use our Life Scene Investigation™ Positive Forensic Profiling™ software and coaching to help the Rising Generation discover their talents and character strengths.

"The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith." Billy Graham

Spiritual/Faith Assets Spectrum

Faith in UHNW families can be observant and deeply held. Their attendance at religious services, giving and practice of faith are integral to how they live, give and all they do. For some it is nominal and influenced by family legacy practices, ethnic diversity, or through marriage where outward conversion is performed by the husband or wife. We have even worked with a family whose adult children only received disbursements from a family trust if they attended the denomination of their parents’ choice. They had to have proof they attended at least twenty-six services annually. The disbursement was in the motivational millions.

We have had clients who were ambivalent about or rejected any faith in a God or anything beyond the physical world. What is important for our Family Legacy Advisors™ to explore in working with individuals who hold these beliefs, is what the source of their values, virtues, morality, character development etc. is.

One of my dearest friends, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, is a well-known atheist. Her intellectual brilliance and family history have resulted in her professional work saving many falsely convicted death-row inmates and others incarcerated based on mistaken eye-witness identification. I clearly know what motivates her to dedicate her life to saving people. She is also very clear of the basis of her values.

The Legacy Forum™ and Family People Office™ are not an undercover evangelistic enterprise. But Faith and Spirituality are integral to our model and work with families. There is a large body of evidence-based research which validates the positive values and importance of Spiritual/Faith Assets in all aspects of family life and legacy.

When we interview clients who wish to apply to The Family People Office™, Spiritual/Faith Assets is part of that process. We need to understand what beliefs influence your views on wealth, marriage, how you parent and raise your children and heirs, what family means, philanthropy, service to others, how you respond to the challenges of life, and the many decisions you make.

We will ask about the importance of faith and values to you personally and to your family. We ask if you will be open to exploring their origins. Values formation and passing them on for your children to evaluate for themselves personally, is of immense importance. We will also challenge you as to how you are modelling Spiritual/Faith Assets for your family. We will advise you on your growth where and when necessary.

If you are observant and faith is part of your lives, or you wish to explore faith more deeply, we encourage you to invite your pastor, minister, rabbi, or other faith leader to be a part of our discovery work with you.

Conclusion

This article has been a longer than I usually write. I will write further articles to expand on this topic.

It is in our view a priority and essential part of The Legacy Forum™ and The Family People Office™. Family legacies live or die when Spiritual/Faith Assets are not deeply understood in our client’s lives and relationships to people and wealth. It is one of the reasons we started The Family People Office™ so we can perform a service Family Offices and Private Wealth Advisors are not equipped or allowed to.

For Family Offices and Private Wealth Advisors: Spiritual/Faith Assets is one of the most powerful and underutilized levers for protecting and enhancing client legacies. We collaborate with fiduciaries to complement brilliant fiduciary and legal expertise with our deeper human and relational work.

If you are a UHNW individual or family leader thinking seriously about the long-term flourishing of your wealth and your loved ones, we invite you to explore this with us.

The Family People Office™ was created precisely for this purpose.

I’d welcome your thoughts in the comments.

Are faith, values, and purpose becoming more important topics in your conversations with clients or within your own family?

For more information or to discuss a potential collaboration: enquiries@thelegacyforum.com | (425) 492-4300.

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