The Sudden Wealth Podcast

In today’s podcast, we talked to a Virginia Asher, who is a Senior Financial Planner at a trust company called TrustBank. She also has a master’s degree in Advanced Financial Planning. She helps people with financial literacy.

In this episode, leadership coach Bob Mason talks about the importance of developing leadership skills for supervisors and managers in your workplace and how that relates in a family.

In today’s podcast, we discuss Ann Perry’s book The Wise Inheritor: A Guide to Managing, Investing and Enjoying Your Inheritance. We cover the importance of teaching your children well for multigenerational wealth transfer and discuss the effects of consumerism on our children. I also talk about how being the “perfect” consumer and trying to fill the inner emptiness with products is not a viable lifestyle for teaching your children by example and about how gratitude and routine are beneficial to changing our mindset so we can ultimately make better decisions and help with how we model our values for our children.

In this episode, you'll learn three key insights about family legacy wealth transfer. First we talk about how to meet with families to discuss their legacy and wealth transfer and why an holistic approach is important, as well as family dynamics and traditions and incorporating new family members. Second, we go into the importance of mindset surrounding your business if you want to pass it down to the next generation and how your attitude as an owner will affect your plans for the future and how to keep from “poisoning the well.” And third, we discuss how understanding family legacy plans requires more than just paperwork and how this type of wealth transfer is more nuanced than just basic measurable results which is what lawyers usually focus on (was probate avoided, taxes).

This episode is quite a bit longer than the previous ones. This episode includes business coach Barbara Murphy-Shannon. She asks me some questions that led to insights about what often goes wrong when kids receive significant inheritances, and what can be done about it. First, I mention that people with lots of money often are suffering. Suffering from lack of purpose, isolation, and being taken advantage of. They want connection. But meanwhile, many advisors who claim to help people with financial windfalls are using that as a marketing ploy. There is a disconnect. Second, Shannon asks me what would have made me prepared for my inheritance. I listed four key things:

1. If my father and I had had an understanding about aspirations for the family. If we had a family mission statement, for example. Something that gave me a sense of purpose.
2. If there were agreement or common values.
3. If there were legally enforceable documents that would have protected the money while I was adjusting to the new reality.
4. A system for implementing all of this. Including a mentor or advocate to help me after he died.

In this episode, you’ll learn three key insights that I believe are critical to protecting your wealth and setting yourself and your family up for long-term success. First, we all need an escape hatch so we can grow beyond the mediocrity in our lives. The idea of an escape hatch is to get a different perspective and create space so you can grow and make your life better. Growing up, this was playing music for me. Now, it’s travel. Second, an escape hatch is different from escapism. If it leads to bad problems, it is not healthy. Third, a financial windfall serves to change our context even though we have not personally changed. That’s where the danger comes. As Eminem raps in 8 Mile (and I totally botch this quote during the podcast): “Wish I could be the daddy that neither one of us had; But I keep runnin' from somethin' I never wanted so bad.” The escape hatch helps to give some breathing room and see other possibilities and to become a newer and better person. So, you can actually accept and appreciate what you have.

In this episode, you'll learn three insights. First, we discuss Step One from my upcoming book. The step is to stop settling for old behavioral patterns that are no longer useful for you. Second, we discussed the Codependency Triangle of Persecutor, Victim and Rescuer. Third, we all adapt to our circumstances. But adaptations are not always healthy. A child in a dysfunctional home can adapt by taking drugs and stealing. But those behavioral patterns are not healthy or useful in the long run.

In this episode, Michael Zolno shares what it was like to grow up with parents who were Holocaust survivors. They and their friends all had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result  That impacted Michael's ability to manage the money he inherited from them. The theme of the discussion is that we all come to the situation of sudden wealth with our own circumstances. These circumstances can drive us to make financial decisions that we later regret.

In this episode, you will learn two insights. First, it is common to have intense emotions after a financial windfall. Second, Sudden Wealth affects a person'sidentity. And we tend to resist anything that requires us to change our identity. So, that results in poor financial decisions.

Here are the insights you'll learn in this episode.

First, a person who experiences a financial windfall will be in an emotional transition for up to five years.

Second, if you’ve had a financial windfall, you need the help of a professional (such as a CFP or attorney) who is ALSO a coach and can help you through the process.

Third, Michael Zolno mentioned the importance of community. For people experiencing Sudden Wealth Syndrome, it would be helpful to be connected to a community of others going through the same thing. And for advisors, it would be helpful to be around others who can help you become a better coach and advisor to people with Sudden Wealth Syndrome.