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    The Voice of the Rising Generation: Family Wealth and Wisdom
    The Voice of the Rising Generation: Family Wealth and Wisdom
    The Voice of the Rising Generation: Family Wealth and Wisdom
    Ebook213 pages2 hours

    The Voice of the Rising Generation: Family Wealth and Wisdom

    By James E. Hughes, Jr., Susan E. Massenzio and Keith Whitaker

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    Avoid "Shirtsleeves to Shirtsleeves" by Finding Your Voice

    Growing up in a family with significant wealth or a family business can often feel like an exercise in silence. What should you ask? Whom should you ask? When? Is it ever right to talk about such things?

    The Voice of the Rising Generation speaks directly to those who find themselves living in that silence, the so-called "next generation." Great wealth or a family business can act like a "black hole," sapping the dreams and aspirations of future generations who feel that they can never measure up to the fortune's founder. This book, written by a psychologist, an educator, and a wise counselor who single-handedly changed the landscape of family wealth, diagnoses with economy and precision the cause of entitlement and dependency. It is not too much money or too few chores. It is the failure of rising generations to individuate, that is, to pursue their dreams, develop their resilience, and find their voice.

    Many books are addressed to parents and grandparents who worry about the effects of wealth on their descendants. Almost alone in the field, this book speaks directly to 20-, 30- and 40-somethings, encouraging them—literally, giving them courage—to meet the challenge of integrating wealth's power into their lives, rather than disappearing into the black hole. Readers will:

    • Come to understand the true causes of entitlement and dependency
    • Identify the psychological characteristics of the rising generation and the challenges proper to its development
    • Clarify their own dreams, work, and vocation
    • Navigate personal relationships and communication within the context of wealth
    • Recognize the special challenges faced when rising is delayed until mid-life.

    If you are a young person who is starting your life's journey and wondering about the effects of parental gifts, trusts, or a family business, this book will offer you questions, reflections, and lessons-learned to help you find your own way. If you are a parent, grandparent, elder, or mentor, The Voice of the Rising Generation can serve the young people in your life as a gift more precious than gold.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWiley
    Release dateSep 9, 2014
    ISBN9781118936528

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      Book preview

      The Voice of the Rising Generation - James E. Hughes, Jr.

      CONTENTS

      Cover

      Series Page

      Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Preface

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      A Well-Known Family

      The Challenge

      The Journey

      Our Approach

      Aids to Navigation

      Notes

      Chapter 1: Setting Sail

      The Black Hole

      Talking about Silence

      Testing the Boundary

      Mentor

      Notes

      Chapter 2: Rosy-Fingered Dawn

      Awakening

      Rising

      Slings and Arrows

      Notes

      Chapter 3: Self-Knowledge

      The Center

      Internal and External

      The Balance Sheet

      Notes

      Chapter 4: Facing the Waves

      Getting Away

      Taking the Leap

      Work

      Relationships

      Communication

      Leaving Ithaca

      Notes

      Chapter 5: The Middle Passage

      The Island of the Lotus-Eaters

      The Middle Passage

      A Forceful Hand

      Self-Advocacy

      Ownership

      Leadership

      Parenting in the Middle Passage

      Questions for Rising on Your Own

      Notes

      Conclusion

      Another Well-Known Family

      Our Journey Thus Far

      Searching for Elders

      Returning to Mentor

      Flying Away

      Notes

      Appendix

      Questions for Reflection from the End of the Chapters

      Additional Tools

      Possible Educational Pathways

      About the Authors

      Index

      End User License Agreement

      List of Tables

      Table 2.1

      Table 2.2

      Table 3.1

      Table 3.2

      List of Illustrations

      Figure C.1

      Figure 1.1

      Figure 1.2

      Figure 1.3

      Figure 3.1

      Figure 3.2

      Figure 3.3

      Figure 3.4

      Since 1996, Bloomberg Press has published books for financial professionals, as well as books of general interest in investing, economics, current affairs, and policy affecting investors and business people. Titles are written by well-known practitioners, BLOOMBERG NEWS® reporters and columnists, and other leading authorities and journalists. Bloomberg Press books have been translated into more than 20 languages.

      For a list of available titles, please visit our web site at www.wiley.com/go/bloombergpress.

      The Voice of the Rising Generation

      Family Wealth and Wisdom

      James E. Hughes Jr.

      Susan E. Massenzio

      Keith Whitaker

      Wiley Logo

      Cover Design: Wiley

      Cover Photograph: Paper © iStock.com/peter zelei; La Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, tempera on wood, 1481, detail © SuperStock/GettyImages

      Copyright © 2014 by James E. Hughes Jr., Susan E. Massenzio, and Keith Whitaker. All rights reserved.

      Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

      Published simultaneously in Canada.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

      Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

      For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.

      Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

      ISBN 978-1-118-93651-1 (Hardcover)

      ISBN 978-1-118-93653-5 (ePDF)

      ISBN 978-1-118-93652-8 (ePub)

      Dedication

      To my Rising Generation: Ellen, John, Natalie, Matt, Will, Alyssa, Ned, Catherine, Nancy-Elizabeth, and Chris; to the Next: Meg, Linnea, Sydney, Merrill, Miles, Ford, Jack, Thomas, Will, and Nadia; and to Jacqueline Merrill, who put her arm through mine.

      —Jay Hughes

      To Jonathan, John, Christopher, David, and Matthew—may you live lives full of health, happiness, and love.

      —Susan Massenzio

      To Kate, Dylan, Mary, Charli, Luke, Matt, Tristan, Cole, and Julia—may your journeys be full of adventure, full of learning.

      —Keith Whitaker

      To Anne D'Andrea, the fourth author of this book: Without your support of our collaboration, this book would never have arisen. Thank you.

      —From all of us

      Grow up, then, my Telemachus, grow strong. . . .

      Your dreams, my Telemachus, are blameless.

      Odysseus to Telemachus

      —Joseph Brodsky

      Preface

      Before you set out on a journey, it is always a good idea to have some idea of where you have come from and where you are going.

      We three authors come from sharing the joy of writing a previous book, The Cycle of the Gift: Family Wealth and Wisdom (Bloomberg, 2013). That book was directed primarily to givers within families with wealth, inviting them to a process of self-reflection and self-understanding. One of its clearest messages was that all of us within the world of family wealth—wealth creators, spouses, siblings, and advisers—need to attend much more closely to the recipients of these gifts, to their dreams, their development, and their resilience.

      The reception of The Cycle of the Gift only added to the pleasure we felt in writing it. One participant in a meeting we convened in New England expressed what we had hoped would come from that book better than we ever could: I received a copy of it as a gift from my adviser, he said. I read it, and I immediately gave a copy to my mother. He went on: Once she had read it, she sent copies to my three siblings. Reading it prompted a wonderful family meeting, such as we had never had before. Besides gratifying our all-too-human authorial egos, this response showed the cycle of the gift in action. It captured our dream that our book would bring families together to give and receive true gifts of spirit and not just transfers.

      Still, while emphasizing the need to understand recipients, The Cycle of the Gift was addressed primarily to givers, parents, and grandparents. In it, we speak about recipients, generally younger members of families, but we do not truly speak to or with those younger family members. The present book aims to take that next step.

      What holds these two books together is their shared focus on the core concept of human capital. This is a focus heralded in Jay Hughes's Family Wealth (Bloomberg, 2004 [1997]), as far back as its first edition, which was published two decades ago. It is a simple point, but, like most simple points, it bears repeating. Family after family whom we know focus their efforts, attention, and communications on only one of the five sources of capital available to them—their financial capital. Their human capital, which is itself the foundation of their intellectual, social, and spiritual capitals, largely goes neglected. And yet if we know anything in the field of family wealth, we know that the neglect of human capital is the ultimate cause of the dissipation of financial capital and the dissolution of families. Conversely, the cultivation of human capital strengthens family bonds and supports the preservation and growth of financial capital (not to mention intellectual, social, and spiritual capital). The Cycle of the Gift and The Voice of the Rising Generation explore and implement these basic truths. We hope that their ideas and practices benefit your family as much as they have benefited the many families from whom we have learned so much.

      Acknowledgments

      As authors, we would like to acknowledge our colleagues, clients, friends, and family members with whom we have discussed the challenges of the rising generation and from whom we have learned so much. Also, we would like to give special acknowledgment to Reta Haynes, the Haynes Family Foundation, and the Hemera Foundation for their generous support of our research and writing. Any insights found herein are the shared bounty of our friends; any infelicities are our own.

      Introduction

      A Well-Known Family

      There once was a young man with a very successful father. His father came from a prominent family, but by his own industry and wits he, the father, had risen to become one of the most famous leaders of his time.

      As a result, the young man, his son, grew up revering his father's name but not really knowing him as a person. As he became a young adult, he felt unsure of himself. He doubted whether he could ever accomplish much in the world, especially when compared with his father.

      Luckily for this family, the young man's mother—who endured years of loneliness, far from her ambitious husband—remained a rock of constancy. And both the son and the father undertook long personal journeys to overcome their distance from each other. After many toils, the father returned home and repaired his marriage. The son underwent his own struggles, and when he at last reunited with his father, he did so both as a son and as a man of his own.

      This is not the story of one of the many families with whom we have worked over the years—though, with a few changes here and there, it could apply to quite a few of them. It is the story of The Odyssey, the epic poem composed by Homer almost 3,000 years ago. The Odyssey recounts the wanderings of the hero Odysseus as he struggles to return home to the island of Ithaca from the battlefield of Troy. It also tells of the struggles of Odysseus's son Telemachus, who leaves home and goes on a quest to find his father and himself. All along, Penelope, Odysseus's wife and Telemachus's mother, endures a siege of unwelcome suitors, hoping against hope for the return of her husband and son.

      The Challenge

      Though Odysseus is a king and his family possesses great resources, The Odyssey is not primarily a story about wealth. It is a story of the human condition, and as such it speaks directly to the challenges faced by families with wealth and without it. It speaks especially to the challenge of the rising generation.

      After years of consulting and research, we believe that we have some insight into the central challenge facing families with wealth. It is not a matter of finance. It is not a legal problem. It is not something to be resolved through the application of more, better, or faster resources. It is a human challenge, the challenge of overcoming the silence and finding the voice of the family's rising generation.

      We will have much more to say about what we mean by silence and the rising generation. But, in the spirit of giving voice to the rising generation, we would like to begin by sharing words that we have heard from young family members themselves, in talks we have given to groups of families or in family meetings we have facilitated, words similar to these:

      I'm grateful for all my parents have done, but I sometimes feel that everything is done for me. I don't really have a voice. How can I find my own way and grow to be a happy, independent, man (or woman) of my own?

      I've started on my own path, but I also find myself being pulled back home through all sorts of financial or business arrangements. What are ways to keep to my own course and still remain connected with my parents and larger family?

      "Everyone tells me to pursue my dreams. But

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