Welcome everyone, and thank you for attending today's session. I'm David Shaw, the publishing director for Family Business Magazine. I hope that you and your fellow family members and your employees are and remain in good health and are getting ready for the holidays upcoming. This is the first in a short series that we're conducting on Fridays the end of this year, and into the beginning of next year that will expand on topics that we addressed at our Family Business Legacy and Wealth Conference, which we held in person in Chicago. Uh, this last September, we'll be addressing a variety of subjects, and I hope that you will find these interesting and informative. Our goal with Family Business Legacy and Wealth is to help owners and shareholders of operating family companies and enterprises and their family offices navigate the complex issues surrounding wealth generation and transfer. I can't think of a better way to start off this series of lunch and learns than a discussion about some of the incorrect assumptions, uh, about wealth, obstacles that wealth can create for the rising generation and more. Some quick housekeeping details. For those of you who haven't attended one of our webinars, um, we welcome your questions. Uh, you can use the ask a question, uh, area, the little bar underneath the video feed, uh, anytime during the event to ask questions or leave your comments. We'll go for no more than 60 minutes today and get to as many questions and comments as we can. Uh, if we can end early, we certainly will. And of course, uh, the presentations you see here will be emailed to you following the webinar, so you'll be able to see, uh, you'll be able to have this for reference. Our speakers today are our friends from Brown Brothers Harriman, uh, Ross Brooke, uh, and, uh, Ben Persky. Ross is the Senior Wealth planner, and Ben Persky is the executive director of the BBH Center for Family Business. Uh, Ben Ross. I'm gonna turn this over to both of you, uh, and I'll be back with questions from the audience. Thank you, David. Thanks for that introduction and, uh, good afternoon to all of you. The, uh, the topic today as it states in the beginning here is the science of be, uh, behind raising, motivated, engage, and a fulfilled next generation. For a lot of the people who join this call, money plays a prominent role in their lives, uh, as does the business. And, uh, one can reasonably ignore the influence that, uh, that it has on relationships about happiness, uh, and how one, uh, conducts themselves in five finds fulfillment overall. So, I am, uh, I am, uh, very pleased to be joined by my colleague, uh, Ross, uh, who has spent a fair amount of time, uh, studying this area over, uh, the last few years. And, uh, I, I'm, I think this will be a great, uh, conversation we'll have. So, welcome Ross. Uh, why don't you take 'em, uh, through kind of what the agenda is today. Thanks so much, Ben. And let me give a quick background of how I got here and how we got here as a discussion point for BBH. So, prior to BBHI was a practicing trust and estate's attorney and I, and when I came over my job, I thought was primarily to talk about taxes, planning, trusts, education around those items. And the questions that I struggled with the most and had the most difficulty answering were the ones that had nothing to do with them. They had to do with motivation, they had to do with work ethic. They had to do with how do we teach the next generation these important things, and what guidance do we give them or not give them to help them lead a fulfilling, thriving, and flourishing life? So, going back to school, really diving into the science behind this and the research behind this became a primary focus of my work over the last few years. For today, we're gonna talk about, um, a few different things. We're gonna start, as David mentioned, with some incorrect assumptions around wealth and its connection to wellbeing or flourishing, and ways that wealth can actually be an obstacle to however we define success. And, and to do that, we're gonna actually have to engage in defining what we mean by flourishing or, or thriving, and what these concepts mean in the grand scheme of, of our own wellbeing and the next generation's wellbeing. We're gonna talk about specific science that relates to finding motivation, engagement, and meeting in one's life. And then we're gonna wrap it up and bring it back full circle with the talk about wealth and, and, and examine what supportive parenting looks like in this environment that both, um, acknowledges and disadvantages of wealth and, and leads in a direction that's going to be the most supportive and productive for that next generation. So, before we get started, Ross, we might just encourage everyone, I believe there's a chat function, which is available. If you have questions along the way, things that you want to hear about, uh, a comment or two, please, uh, don't hesitate, uh, throughout to enter, enter all those things into the chat, they'll get fed to us, and we'll try to respond to them as we go. Perfect. So as I mentioned, let's begin with some incorrect assumptions about wealthy inheritors that the less affluent may have from time to time. And we've seen firsthand, but also I'll acknowledge that the themselves sometimes have these incorrect assumptions. First of all, that wealth equals happiness. There's so many cliches and so many songs and, and, um, uh, just acknowledge that wealth can't buy happiness. But at the heart of it, many of us still believe that there should be an association with greater affluence comes greater happiness. And the science says no, the science says that's not the answer or the path towards happiness or towards a flourishing life, but it's innate in us to believe that, or maybe want to believe that the less affluent, the general public might also view inheritors as seeing everything is easy for them. Their path is carved out, they have their road set for them, they shouldn't have any problems. And it's no surprise to say that that's absolutely not true. There's still struggles at all levels of wealth, high and low, and it just changes the dynamics a little bit. There's a belief in some people that the wealthy just need to find their passion that they have, building off of what I said previously, that they path is set, that everything's easy for them. Well, the one thing, the only job that they have to do is find their passion and then, then that will lead to a flourishing life. And as we'll examine through the next hour or so, it's far more complicated than that. Sometimes there's a misperception that wealth creates laziness or decreases motivation, and I don't think that's true, um, at all. I, but I think that it's an incorrect association that some have between those two concepts. And then some view wealth as just, well, they're lucky. They're lucky in life. And, and whether or not there's truth to that, because all elements of luck of where you are in the situation of life do play a role. The reason it made it onto this list is because sometimes there's a negative connotation to that. There's a negative perception of, of how that plays out in, in interactions with that individual or what that individual wants or who they are. And it's, it's incorrect to do. So. I I, there's a number of quotes about wealth and wellbeing out there. One of my absolute favorites actually comes from a movie and TV star. So Jim Carrey famously said, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of. So they can see that it's not the answer. I love this quote. It's simple, it's direct, it's, it's from somebody who has lived this, who has experienced those things and, and can relate to that. And, and it leaves a very open question of, okay, what is the answer? We're gonna start to skimm that surface of that question today, but it really is only the beginning of going down that road and exploring this really fascinating topic. Hold. I apologize for that. Okay. So I mentioned before that we're also want, we wanna discuss ways in which wealth can, uh, be an obstacle to success, as we're gonna define in a minute. But what wealth often does, as, as born out by the science, is the research and, and our observations of working with high net worth families. It often increases individuals desire to, or perhaps just instinct to compare themselves to other people, especially family members, other family members who have had a great ma, a great amount of success in their life, who have, um, been deemed by the family to be the smart ones, to be the, the, the hard workers. That comparison is natural. It's, it's innate in us to, uh, compare ourselves to those around us. And with successful family members, that is a natural progression of that line of, of reasoning. Uh, Ross, when you're talking about those comparisons, are you, are you talking about it from the standpoint of the people who have the wealth or the people around them who don't? Absolutely both. Great question, Ben. I think it definitely applies. What I was specifically referring to is the family members who don't have the wealth, who are comparing themselves and saying, why don't I have this? Why do I, why is my circumstances different than that family member? And, and wealth does not distribute evenly as, as we see when it passes from generation to generation. Cousins comparing themselves to other cousins when there's a disproportionate number of individuals on one side of the family versus the other, often leads to a mismatch of, of net worth simply because of the way that families divide and, and grow differently, but also from one generation to the next. There's, there's not an equal distribution of wealth at a certain age across all families. Sometimes wealth is withheld, sometimes it's given more freely, and that plays out in, in that comparison naturally leads to, leads to additional thoughts around, how do I stack up against the rest of the family, for better or worse? And it's labeled here as an obstacle because it does become one at times, it becomes a distraction. I apologize, the, okay, we're back on the obstacle. So moving on to the intent, um, intense pressure to succeed and deep fear of failure. So when a second, third, fourth generation sees G one be immensely successful, whether it be professionally, financially, or in any other realm of life, again, going back to that comparison, there is pressure to also follow in their footsteps. They did it. So I need to do it, and I need to make a, a name for myself and exceed that expectation. I have to, um, do better than the previous generation. Combine that with that deep fear of failure, the idea that not only do I need to succeed, but if I don't look at all the opportunities that I've had placed in front of me, I've had opportunities that others don't. Of course, I, I need to succeed, of course, I need to, uh, develop a furthering of this wealth professional success, however, it's defined within the family, and that combination can absolutely become an obstacle. There's also the expectation that there's also expectation that money and wealth should be easy to understand. And the reason for that is some family members will say, well, it's just part of our family. We have a wealthy family. We've had it for generations. I should understand this. I should know about this. As, as a sa as a small anecdote. I grew up on a family farm, and yet I don't have a green thumb around my house whatsoever. So my wife will also often criticize me of, why aren't those flowers growing? You grew up on a farm, you know this. And the answer is no. I, I knew that one specific crop that my father grew. I don't know how, why I'm getting this wrong. I don't know what's wrong with the soil. I don't know what's wrong with my watering schedule, because that's not what I did. Just because it was part of the family does not mean it's innate me to understand it. And wealth is no different. It's a complex subject, both from an academic standpoint of understanding trust, of understanding investments, but also just understanding how operate, how, how money operates and impacts our lives. Going back to the expectation of happiness, it's hard to escape that that money should result in, in greater wellbeing. It also creates links between wealth and self-identity. And that becomes an obstacle because it's easy to associate yourself too much with wealth or to disassociate yourself with wealth. We'll get into that a little bit later when we talk about the parenting support. There's sometimes less resilience in individual when they've had more of their fewer problems and had to face fewer issues in their life, had to struggle less because wealth can sometimes eliminate issues, problems and struggles that others need to work through time. Affluence is a really interesting subject. The, the greater you value your time, the less scarce or the, the more scarce it actually feels to you. So the more you think the your time is worth, the less time you will feel like you have. That becomes an issue because time affluence, feeling like you have enough time in the day to do the things that you want to do is highly associated with wellbeing. And then last but not least, adapt to everything. And we know this in extreme examples when we study lottery winners and see how happy they were immediately before they bought that ticket, or five years later, it's often exactly the same. There might be a huge peak and drop in the middle. Immediately after they win that lottery ticket, they're going to experience immense joy. Um, immense hap immense happiness, but there's a regression to the mean, and that works the other way as well. When something tragic happens when somebody loses sight or the use of their legs or, or some other catastrophe in time, often that individual, those individuals will regress to the mean. And again, five years later, they might be no less happy than they were the day before that tragic event happened. So it works both ways, but that also means in the case of wealth, we are going to adapt to it that individuals are going to get used to whatever level of wealth that they have, and it's just gonna become the status quo, which makes things more difficult to find ways to thrive and succeed. And so if we can move on to the next slide Before we go, Ross, just on this slide, you did a really good job of, of taking a number of these, uh, these dimensions, if you will, and, and, and pointing them out that, that one might see. And there's two ways that I, I'm imagining a lot of people on the call are, are thinking kind of like I am. One is they're thinking about themselves and maybe they're checking these boxes about, well, how many of these apply to me? Or I can see a family member that has this, this and this going on. We've talked about it. And as, as I go down that list, the, you start with number one, the comparison to other family members. And it, in, in, in some cases, if you're the, you're part of the, a generation that created, uh, a a tremendous amount of value and, and wealth, uh, it's almost as if you, you may feel a little bit shunned by your success, right? Because it, it's, it's demonstrable what it is in the form of a number, and that it's able to buy you things and and afford certain luxuries or, uh, I guess a just a, a different kind of lifestyle. But with that, of course, whether you, uh, whether you received it or created it, having it and, and then the burden of, uh, what you must do, the, the immense sense of responsibility is incredible. And then, well, hey, I mean, it's there. You, you automatically, because you had such success in the creation, you know, kind of how to manage it, right? So, and you should be happy because you're doing all these exciting things. How dare you question who you are and, and, and how this fits in that you're so, you are so lucky. Uh, and then this, this, this, uh, this adaptation, uh, for, for the people who are, uh, attending this, this session as we were getting ready for this and going through the material, this, this, uh, this obstacle of, of adaptation was, was really interesting when Ross and I talked about it. Because many times you talk about adaptation being a great thing, and when, when we work with families and we hear about, uh, what happened before, they created kind of liquidity because they may own a, a very large enterprise and it may not be liquid. And what, what, what they think about things after it's very different because it's, it's more, it's more divisible. It's more expendable when it's liquid. And that adaptation, they say before the liquidity was there, they say, I'm not gonna live my life any differently than what I do now. And then right after all you do is you, you look and you smile when they're telling you that they just went and made a very extravagant purchase that their self two years ago never would've made. And it's, it's in no way judgmental. It's just more of this perception that things aren't going to change when you have it, but when you do it, it, whether or not, uh, it it is intentional. Uh, it changes, it changes your circumstances. And, uh, it's important to, you know, certainly acknowledge that and think about, well, what role will it play for me? And, and of course, uh, will I live it that way? Right. It's a great point, Ben. You know, I go back to the, the biological nature of psychology and what humans are better at than any other species in the world is adapting to their environment. And that's a wonderful thing because it's kept us alive for hundreds of thousands of years. But that's the down part, is that it's harder to appreciate that joy and keep it going and keep that lasting, um, uh, uh, uh, benefit. Mm-Hmm. Quick, quick, uh, question from the audience that might be relevant here, Ross, to the idea of adaptation. Uh, when you had talked about that obstacle or, or the feeling of, uh, oh, that person lucked into wealth, the question here is, is it a bad thing if, uh, the wealth inheritor thinks he or she's lucky? No, I, I would actually think that that's a great thing. I think that it's, well, well, let me, let me caveat that. Uh, like any attorney, it depends. So the answer is on, on the outside that yes, I think that appreciation of the randomness of that, of the luck can be a great thing. There's a lot of research around how, how beneficial gratitude is. And, and it's easier to be grateful for something when you appreciate that not everybody has this opportunity. Hmm. And that's associated with luck. Uh, the reason I wanted, I, I actually myself is because there's also could be a downside to that of, if you only view, I am where I am because I got lucky, and not because I am talented, because I'm trying working hard, I'm doing all these other things, and the focus on everything, that's not luck. That's actually actually your motivation to go and, and try to succeed, put the wealth aside, but overextending that view of everything's just random. And luck can get dangerous, but at the outset to answer the, the individual's question, which is an excellent question. Yeah, I think that's a great thing. There's a, a follow on comment which just came in. I'd rather be lucky than talented. Fortunately. Fortunately, I have a little bit of skill too. So thank you for that comment. Let's go to the next slide and I'll come back with other questions and comments as, uh, they come in. Thank you so much, David. I'll be curious to hear if that person still agrees with that at the end of this session. 'cause I'll, I, I might challenge that ever so slightly, but let's define what we mean by success. We've been talking about success thus far, and we've used some of the words, I've already used them. Happiness, wellbeing, I, I'm gonna use the terms that are, are more specifically referred to in the positive psychology literature, which is thriving and flourishing, which can encompass a wide range of outcomes and situations. But I think we have a general idea of what we mean by that. And, and the focus of this session is to emphasize that the three things that we're really primarily, um, attuned with right here, which is motivation, engagement, and finding meaning lead are the, they're the path forward to a thriving and flourishing life. Now, these three concepts are highly intertwined. As we get into a little bit of the motivation, you'll see how engagement actually is a form of motivation and vice versa. And finding meaning is essential to motivation, but being motivated to find more meaning plays a cyclical role as well. So interchangeably, I think of them as one subset of ideas rather than three individual and distinct, um, categories. I'll also mention that some of this might sound so obvious of, of what to pursue, how to pursue it, why to pursue it. But it, it, it, and, and, and you'd be right. And some of these things are obvious, but they need to be said in part because there are so many false positives in our world that lead us astray, and we think it's the right thing to pursue. We think it's the thing that's going to bring us happiness. We think it's the thing that's going to bring engagement. The worst offender for me is sitting right in my pocket, my phone, and all of its apps, whether it's a gaming app or whether it's, uh, uh, some sort of newsfeed are designed to give you small hits of dopamine that keeps you coming back for more. My brain thinks I want more of these things. My brain thinks I want to be engaged with Twitter because it's going to constantly give me what my brain finds really at attractive. But those are superfic superficially attractive. And we're gonna get into the deeper engagement and types of, of, of finding meaning in one's life. But at the crux of this entire discussion is that last bullet point. So the senior generations parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, are really critical messengers in helping to shape younger next gen, rising gens lives, and their perception of how to strive for that flourishing and thriving life. They should realize that it's in part what they say to that next generation. The messages they say verbally, but also the actions that they take are even more powerful than any speech or any verbal guidance that can be provided. And so the rest of this session is really devoted to how, what is, what is the correct model of demonstration for when we're talking to and demonstrating to that next generation of, of how to succeed and thrive? And, and in a second, I'm gonna bring up two important concepts, uh, from, from a theory on parenting, but it, it, it is, it is. Well, why don't we, why don't we go ahead and do that and, and jump to the next slide, if you don't mind. So I wanna talk about a concept called wise parenting, uh, which was highlighted by Angela Duckworth in her, in her bestseller book, grit. And to talk about what wise parenting is and the combination of both being a supportive and demanding parent, and why that's important. Let's, let's work our way around this counterclockwise, starting with author, author, author authoritarian parenting. I apologize to that. I can't say it in this afternoon, but, uh, of what, why parenting is not just to talk about what wise parenting is. So with that bottom right corner, we see a combination of somebody who is demanding and unsupportive. And what do I mean by that? An unsupportive parent is someone who takes no interest in what their child is doing, offers no additional skills, qualities, benefits to help them achieve anything but demanding, is asking a lot of them, expecting a lot of them saying, you will do this. Carving out that path for them, but not giving them the resources to go down that path. Neglectful parenting, I think is the worst one on the board here. Neglectful parenting Duckworth defines as not having, um, of not being demanding, but also not being supportive. So completely uninterested in that child's wellbeing, thriving, flourishing life in their future goals, in helping them succeed, not expecting anything of them, and almost treating them as if they're not there. It's neglectful parenting. Permissive parenting takes that idea of being not demanding, but being supportive. So you think of this as the warm parent who has no goals, doesn't help that child thrive or strive for anything in their life that works us right back to what she called wise parenting. That combination of being both supportive, being there for them, giving them tools and resources and helping them along the way, but also by being demanding. And, and I don't think demanding, demanding is her word, I would like to use the word instead. Challenging, challenging that next generation to seek whatever goals to, to strive for their future success. And that combination according to Duckworth, and I completely agree with this, is the best of both when we're talking about pair. So let's jump onto the next slide. And, and these are the two important questions that I think everyone must ask when they're exploring wise parenting. A better way to reframe that demanding category, which I also call challenging isn't, isn't that authoritarian parent who says, you must go do this. It's instead challenging them, challenging them, and asking 'em to rise to the occasion and saying to them, how far can you go? How far can you take this goal? How far can you take this idea? What are you capable of in your life or in this next year or in this single project? It's that challenge. And we're gonna get into why challenge is important later on in motivation. And then the second part is that supportive aspect, asking what tools they need to get to whatever that goal is, asking them, how can I support you? Now, notice that is not saying to them, I'm going to give you these tools. I'm going to give you these resources. I'm going to show you exactly how this is done, and then you're going to follow my steps. It's, it's asking them, what support do you need to get there? What tools do you need? And then, and then helping them develop those tools and those ideas and those resources for themselves. It's teaching them to be their own agent. So Ross, a lot of times we hear from the families that we work with, uh, sort of under the, the same category of the misnomers, uh, about, about being affluent or wealthy, where it's, it, there's this, you made the statement that they're being la they're lazy. Well, the reality is, some are lazy, right? And so, uh, the parenting style of choice that we hear from, from the, from the older generation is they want to be primarily supportive, right? They don't, they don't, they don't want to be demanding, if you will, because if they ask the demanding question, say, Hey, I'm pretty comfortable where I'm at right now. I don't, I don't really feel like I need to do anything. Uh, I'm enjoying just kind of loving life. But the parent is a little bit concerned about maybe they, they are a bit excessive or their, their, their wealth values are inconsistent with, with that of the parents. Uh, they, they, they tend to be a little bit, uh, uh, less driven. Talk through that a little bit. Well, I wanna go back to the idea that we adapt to everything, right? And I think in that situation, the parent might wisely see you saying, child saying to parent, I'm really just enjoying life. I'm living life. This is great. Why, why mess with this? I don't need, I don't need more than this. This is fantastic. We'll be wise to remember, you're gonna adapt to that lifestyle. You're going to adapt to those set of circumstances, and that's going to become the status quo. That's going to feel eventually, like nothing less than that will be painful because it will feel like you're missing out on something, but you're going to want to need, or you're going to need more to raise that level of thriving, flourishing, whatever. And, uh, when we think about it from a economic or financial standpoint or style standpoint, that gets hard to continuously raise that bar again and again and again. The better what we're arguing here is that finding other ways to be motivated, engaged, and find meaning in, in, in aspects of life outside of wealth, but maybe using wealth as a support mechanism, using wealth as a resource to help you in those avenues, that's going to lead to more lasting wellbeing, thriving, flourishing, whatever you wanna call it. And that's, that's the long-term goal, helping, helping that next generation see that and understand that is a difficult task. You're using your years of wisdom to try to relay that message on and hoping that it succeeds. But Let's get spec. Let, let's, let's move from the conceptual into the reality, which is that in some cases, the, the next gen, if you will, is already on the couch, and they're very content with their very relaxed lifestyle. And, and we, we should be very clear here, uh, careers that aren't necessarily entrepreneurial and aligned, if there's, if this is a business owning family with that family's business is not considered in the category of, of lazy. I mean, there are lots of people who choose to take on differing career paths and find, you know, passions in life, uh, that, that make them really feel fulfilled and will and driven, uh, you know, kind of have that purpose, which are fantastic. This is just the person who is uninspired and uninspired to become inspired. What what do you do in those situations? So I would focus on one of the things we're gonna talk about in a couple slides, which is boredom. Boredom is the antithesis, or I'm sorry, boredom is just going to be the overwhelming feeling that is going to encompass their lives at some point. You're right, maybe they're really enjoying spending that time on the couch right now, but when we think back, you referenced working with business owners or, or other wealthy individuals who say that they're not going to adapt to the new situation, but they do. That person on the couch is going to become bored. Maybe it doesn't happen to everyone. There's an exception to the rule. Sure, you can point, you can point to somebody who has just enjoyed their lifestyle, but for the most, for most of us, it's going to become a life of boredom and, and status quo. And that's fine, especially with an affluent lifestyle. They can keep that going, but it's a missed opportunity. It's a missed potential to find a more fulfilling life. And that's a good segue to talk about different forms of motivation and how to, well, you know, to use your example, get them off the couch. So three forms of motivation. I argue that it's ultimately the responsibility of the rising gen to find their own reasons to pursue, uh, to pursue engagement and seek meaning in their lives. But what are the source of this motivation? Like I said, we're gonna talk about three different ones. The most basic, and, and often psychologists will map out motivation on a spectrum. We're gonna pick three points on that spectrum this afternoon. But the, on the all the way on the left, the most basic form is carrots and sticks, or rewards and punishment. This can come from external sources or internal sources, and by external sources. Think of your boss, think of your parent, think of your, your spouse saying, if, if you do X, you will get y If you, if you do well on this report, a, a, a teacher, right? If you do well on this report, you're gonna get an A in this class. That's an external carrot can work the other way with sticks or with punishments. If you do not hand this in on time, you're going to fail this class. If you do not, if you do not hand in that report, you're go not going to get the promotion this year. But sometimes we can start to internalize that. So I can say, well, no one's telling me to go to the gym, but if I don't go to the gym, I'm going to actually give a real world or perhaps a just perceived stick to myself. If I don't go to the gym, I can't have dessert today. If I don't go to the gym, or if I do go to the gym, I'm gonna get an extra piece of pie. Basic things we're all very familiar with. Can, can, like I said, can be, uh, external from, from other sources. So parents, grandparents, colleagues, family members can all influence others using the source. Or as we start to move up that spectrum, internalize it. The problem with carrots and sticks is that it's very temporary in increasing motivation. It can be very effective for a very short period of time, but like all of the things we adapt to, you adapt to those carrots and sticks, and they become less effective. You care less about those rewards and punishments if that same trick is used over and over and over again. The one exception to this is around the work of habits. There's a lot of great work, uh, a lot of great science on how habits changing habits can be effective at, at, um, influencing your life for the better. But over time, if you repeat those sources, if you repeat those, um, elements of motivation, I gotta go to the gym, or I'm not gonna get that piece of pie. I gotta go to the gym or I'm not gonna get that piece of pie. That becomes in time a habit. Your brain, I'm not a neuroscientist, as you can tell, but your brain literally rewires itself to say, this is what I do. It makes it easier for you to get over that hurdle of something that's hard to do, and eventually it becomes more attractive. Some people feel bad then after a certain period of time, they don't go to the gym, they feel guilty, they, their brain tells them you didn't do the thing that you were supposed to do. So this is as most basic level, form of motivation. But Ben, I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna put you on the spot. So when I, when I combine that wise parent and carrots and sticks, what do you think that looks like? Good question. Well, so I, I, I think about the, the couch potato example and how some of the, uh, the re the causes of that activity may be through enablement, which is, is being, uh, you know, uh, offered by the parent, be it, well, we're going to give you this environment where you don't have to pay for things or you, you get a, an extraordinary amount of money where you don't feel it necessary to go out and take responsibility for earning your own, uh, income of any kind. Uh, and so, uh, a stick, which is, you know, the, like the technical term would be negative reinforcement is just a removal of something positive is you start to, you say, we are gonna start to withdraw that, uh, that allowance or stipend or whatever that benefit may be over a period of time. Uh, it's important that you start to take on responsibility for some independence. And I just, uh, I will reflect it. There was a recent, uh, conference for people who work with families that I went to, and there's a, uh, a someone from the O'Connor group who works with addiction, and she was talking a lot about how the, these kinds of, uh, enabling behaviors, kind of like those carrots, if you will, uh, just because they become part of the rewiring can, can stifle maturity and emotional development in the next generation. And so, you know, a wise parent looks at what are the things that I am doing that that is, is causing certain behavior in my next generation? And you're not, to be clear, this is not an intent to manipulate, is just really taking inventory of what am I doing? What is my role in, in, in supporting the behavior, whether positive or negative is occurring. Yeah, I think that's, that's absolutely right. I'll add in there that I, I think wise parenting also finds the right balance between the relationship of whatever carrot and stick is offered and the reward and, and, and the reward and punishment and the goal of what they're trying to achieve, setting really low goals, but punishing severely if they're not met, feels wrong, feels out of balance, feels authoritarian. Um, setting really high rewards for low demands also feels off. It's, it's setting the wrong message. So a wise parent finds that balance. Let's go on to the next, um, form of motivation. And many of you have probably encountered a concept called flow and, and what we're gonna actually label this as intrinsic motivation. So picture that spectrum again, of the, the range of different forms of motivation. We talked about one all the way on the left hand side, which was the carrots and sticks. Go all the way to the right hand side. The most extreme form of motivation is intrinsic motivation, motivated to do things because you want to just because, just because you enjoy them, just because they're fun, just because that you identify with and that there's no other source that is influencing you to do it or not do it. You just want to, and most of the time we can picture what famous researcher, how emmi high labeled as flow as being that time or that that element when time stops, when you're so engaged in an activity that the world around you disappears and five hours feels like five minutes, that flow is one essential for wellbeing. It's highly linked to wellbeing. People who are happy people are, who are thriving in their lives, to use a term from earlier, have element of flow. There's something in their life they look forward to that they en engage in. They have found. The other important thing about this is that flow channel that's over on the right hand side of your screen. So the, the, the I importance of this chart is that flow doesn't just happen with any activity, even if it's somewhat fun. What you need is a proportionate amount of di difficulty and skill. She sent me high usually of tennis, and I think that's perfect to, to, um, explain this a little bit more. If, if I'm, I'm very, I'm a very mediocre tennis player, so on my skill level, it's closer to the low rather than the high pick. Roger Federer, although retired, retired, I'm still, I'm sure he's still pretty good. If I played in a match against him, my anxiety level would be through the roof. That challenge is so difficult. That's no longer fun. I'm over in the anxiety category on that bottom right hand corner because I'm not able to match my skill with the challenge in front of me. For him, he has the exact opposite feeling. His skill level is so high, and the challenge of playing Ross Brook is so easy, that's just boredom for him. So finding that right balance, finding that partner when you're playing tennis, to use that example again, who is challenging you and you're engaged with the score is close. You feel like you're involved in every play and every point is up for grabs. That's when you find flow. And the reason I that's so important to dive into that is because notice the, the, the direction of that channel, it, it channels up into the right. As your skills increase, your difficulty must increase as you get more involved challenges, you also must improve your skill. This is the key to engagement, to finding things that you actually lose time over. That, that, that, that the world stops. It's finding that right level of challenge, but understanding that it's not stagnant. It's always going to evolve, and you have to evolve with it, helping that next gen find these things and then more importantly, understand how to use it to their benefit and how to grow with it is what a wise parent might do. Great. So, uh, let's just for sake of time, although we could spend hours on flow, and there's an entire book called Flow, uh, that I highly recommend. Let's move on to the third source of, of, uh, motivation. So the third source is that alignment of goals and values. And this is where we find more of the meaning. This is, this is the most, I think, important form of motivation. And it's right in the center of that, of that, uh, spectrum that we talked about. It's, it requires a lot more attention and energy than carrots and sticks, and probably more than finding flow as well, but it also offers the greatest potential for lasting impact. The key is to identifying, uh, and aligning your goals and values and using them to find meaning are asking two questions over and over and over again, which is what matters to you. And why does that matter? Why is that important? Understanding your values and what we're gonna call your character strengths is essential. And this is where it gets more and more difficult for a younger generation, because when you're in your late teens, your most of your twenties, maybe even your early thirties, you're building what some psychologists called identity capital. You're figuring out who you are, what you like, how you operate. There's numerous tools to help individuals go down that path. One of them that I, I, I highly recommend exploring with regards to character strengths. What are you good at and what do you identify with? And, and who are you is called the Via VIA character strengths. There's lots of free assessments online to help start that conversation, but knowing who you are and how you operate is the key to this entire, um, this entire form of motivation. It's that alignment of goals and values, which again, might change over time and recognizing that is going to evolve and change, just like that flow diagram is important. But what wise parents can do is one challenge that next group to think, what are my values? What are my strengths? What are my goals? And asking them why. And then when those answers or at least some suspect answers are generated, support them in pursuit of that. Okay, so, so, so Ben, back to you again, a wise parent goals and values, thoughts around what that looks like or, or what it, what it doesn't look like when that's misaligned. We've, we've seen a lot of examples throughout our careers, uh, perspective on when you see this, when you see that alignment, goals and values, where does your, where does your brain turn To? Well, so in the misalignment, it can often be, I've developed a track for you. Again, this isn't a family that owns a business. You are going to do this. I have already carved out what your future is going to look like for you. The next gen says, no, I'm not really interested in doing that. That doesn't feel right to me. It's not what I care about. There's an outright rejection breakdown in relationships. Uh, things start to fall apart, and then you, you, neither of you end up winning, uh, because the, you know, the, the ultimate desire of the elder generation and the next generation just don't work out. Uh, on the flip side of that, uh, it more of a listening conversation around, uh, with the next generation, what is it you care about? What interests you, right? So there, it's the opposite of the couch potato, uh, issue. You're, you're encouraging 'em to share the things that are, that pique their interest, uh, that, that you, you, you sense some excitement around it and then you foster it. And so I'll tie it back to the carrot and the stick in the beginning, right? It's, there is a, uh, there, there's a, a description which is offered by the next gen of something they care about. The elder generation says, if you wanna do that, why don't we think, figure out a, a way that I can support you with that. Maybe I will give you some risk capital. You know, if you come up with a good plan around how to deploy it, uh, or introduce you to people in a network, give you some kind of support system that enables you to chase that vision, which ultimately then gets you into the flow, right? Uh, or the next gen into the flow where they find that channel, they say they really are leaning into it, they're so excited. It's something that they've really been passionate about. You've given them, them that support, and they're running as fast as they possibly can. That's the perfect alignment. Yeah, I think that was very well said. As we're gonna leave the subject of motivation and with it, the subject of being demanding. And, and, and we have two slides left and we're gonna focus on support. I just want to, to wrap that up. I just wanna mention, I think of the demanding parent as asking two questions and with balance of which one they're going to ask or, or maybe statements, I should say. The first one is, I expect you to blank. You are a member of this family. I expect you to fill in the blank with work hard. Um, try, you know, build a successful career, find ways to thrive. I, I expect you to come home or at curfew on Fridays as, as broad or as narrow as you wanted to find it. But the second one is, I challenge you two. And so I said that earlier, but I want to emphasize it again because I think it's really important. When I think of demanding parents, they're not demanding in that they are expecting it's their way or the highway as much. And that does, that does occur, and it's, there's a time and place for that. But as much as I'm going to challenge you to get everything out of what you have and who you are, and that's the demanding parent that often thrives with their child. But now let's turn to the last few sides, like I said, for that support. If we have a wise parent, not only are they demanding, demanding of their children, they're, they're, they're, they're challenging their children, but then they're showing a certain level of support. So what does that look like? They're giving them knowledge, autonomy, and respect. They're giving them a little bit of a leash. They're giving them the resources of, I can teach you the knowledge, but I'm not gonna tell you how to do things yourself. I'm going to give you the background. You go figure it out. I'm going to give you autonomy. You're going to be able to make decisions. I'm going to respect your decisions. Because otherwise, if I don't, if I'm going to question everything you do, that's not true autonomy and going to backfire, I'm gonna give you a bit of a safety net. I'm going to let you fall. I'm gonna let you fail because you are going to learn something from that. I'm going to help you identify and focus your strengths. We just talked about character strengths. On the last slide, I'm gonna emphasize the process of learning, not just the outcome. Did you, did you get the right answer? Yes or no? That's not it. It's show your work on a math test, right? It's showing how you got there. It's, it's, it's examining. Um, do you know who to ask questions to? Do you know how to figure something out when you have no idea what the answer is? Promoting mastery, giving them confidence saying you are, go find the thing you're good at. I'm going to help you find it. I'm going to give you some support. You are going to develop the skill. So at the end of the day, you can walk away saying, I'm great at this. That is more powerful to, to furthering their motivation, helping them find that meaning, and most importantly, engage with whatever activity that they choose to pursue. Then basically anything else that I'm talking about here, fostering realistic optimism and a growth mindset. Realistic optimism is something's going to get better. You're, you're, there's something to look forward to down the road, but it's not unrealistic. It's not. Maybe next year we'll have, we'll, we'll, we'll double the size of our business unless that's realistic. Unless you, you see a path forward to that. It just becomes wishful Hoping, and wishful hoping often leads to disappointment. So realistic optimism of finding what you can believe in, why you can have that future outcome and looking forward to it. And then last but not least, they also encourage making connections and finding a place of belonging. We work with a colleague here, her name is Ellen Perry. She works with family dynamics, and she has a phrase that I love of broadening the tent, making the family tent as large as possible to let people in, because a key to thriving and feeling engaged and finding meaning in one's life is the connections you have or your children or your grandchildren have with others. Not just family, not with is just with friends, not with colleagues, but so many different circles of life. Finding ways to help that next generation make those connections is absolutely key. But let's turn to the last slide, because all mentioned on that previous slide are applicable across the board at all levels of affluence, at all levels of wealth. We've started this session by talking about ways that wealth can become obstacles to that thriving environment. And this is absolutely true here as well. So when we talk about supporting the affluent child, when we talk about supporting with wealth in mind, there's different things to take into consideration. Providing that financial literacy and education becomes really important. We talked about before that, uh, there's, there's some perception that you should just know how money works. You should just know how trusts work, and that's not true at all. So providing those resources so they feel engaged with the wealth, they become stewards of that wealth essential, helping them recognize that wealth is part of their identity, it is, is also important, but it can't be too big and it can't be too small. Some, some inheritors turn away from the wealth entirely. They have friends that know they're wealthy and they have friends that don't know they're wealthy, they're leading two lives, or they've turned away from an entirely and thumbed their nose at it. Those, to me, sound like exhausting ways to live. They sound like there's also a lot of conflict that will build up over time, but going the other way and seeing yourself as only a wealthy person is also going to lead to trouble down the road. Picturing wealth as part of your identity is to, to me, and I think a lot of the research backs this up equivalent to how do you view yourself? Do you view yourself as a tall person or short person? Do you view yourself as somebody who has blonde hair or brown hair? It's a fact. It is something of who you are. But every time you look in the mirror, you don't think about that adjective. You don't think, am I taller? Am I short? And who does this play? How does this influence who I am? It plays a role in certain aspects of your life. Acknowledge them. Don't shy away from them, but don't them make them who you are. Active storytelling is essential for one, for stewardship of wealth, understanding of the family story, understanding the family business. That's nothing new. You've probably heard that a million times. Where I'm going to challenge that ever so slightly is that I don't think a lot of families do a great job of encouraging that next generation to include themselves in the story. Where do you fit in? Where is your story going? Everything in the family history is important to how you got here, but now it's time to write your chapter. Help them understand that they have to pick up the pen and tell the story from their perspective. If they're still developing that identity capital, it's gonna be tough for them. But the earlier that message is conveyed, the better they'll be at it. Over time, back to luck. Fostering that humility and appreciation of luck, acknowledging it's there, recognizing that part of life is just happenstance and circumstances. It fosters gratitude, it fosters humility, but it also fosters an appreciation of, of, and an ability to savor time I talked about already, but it is the most valuable resource we have. We're all under the same 24 hour clock. Appreciating your time, building your time, affluence not only creating time, but creating the time for the things that have meaning to you is the easiest path to wellbeing. Acknowledge failures. Don't think that just because there's wealth there, it's going to lead to no failures, no struggles, no hardships when they happen. Say, that's okay. That happens to all of us. Treat it as a learning experience. Regression to the mean is something to avoid. The best way to try to avoid it. To some degree it's impossible. But to the best way is to emphasize variety. Find new challenges. It goes hand in hand with that Last thing. Do hard things. Find ways to challenge yourself. Ask yourself or ask that next generation, what are you going to do with this? How are you going to be the best that you can be that's going to lead to the best source of engagement, motivation, and meaning that you can possibly foster in that next generation? So, four minutes left. I apologize we didn't give more time for questions. We, we have quite a few of them, but I'm gonna try and summarize and go to the ones that I think we can address quickly here. Um, at first, some age questions. Are these concepts, do they apply equally when the child is 5 15, 35? Or is this primarily for teens and above some of these concepts? It, it, unfortunately it doesn't. I used to think that all concepts in psychology were universal. I think it absolutely does not, these become more prevalent at, in your teens and your twenties, especially when we talk about that identity capital. That doesn't mean there's not great work you can do around financial literacy of, of, of much more basic concepts at younger ages. Mm-hmm. At teaching things like motivation at teaching, things of how do you engage, how do you find what you like? It, it, it, it evolves though, really in your teens, twenties and continues to evolve every decade thereafter as well. And there's a component of this, David, that where the, uh, particularly in the early years, uh, children when they're too young don't know quite, uh, quite how to cope with failure all that well. And so there are, it's, it not necessarily, uh, helpful to do it in a dramatic way. It needs to be more measured in order to help them. But the more that they can get comfortable with the concept of failure and embracing it rather than fearing it, the better off they end up being, uh, later in life. Hmm. Okay. And this is a more specific one. At what age do you, and, but it's relevant to this, and at what age do you feel children are at a responsible age to truly understand the wealth they have? This questioner has said, we've saved for our children's future, and yet they have no idea of this nest egg and that it's been built. We want them to be responsible adults that take the initiative to go to college, get a job, et cetera. Any advice on the right age to let 'em in? I, I think it's no surprise that I'm not gonna pick a specific age. What I am going to say is that it bite in bite-sized chunks that can be applied when you have a younger child find elements of wealth. Often we use philanthropic giving as a, as a platform to talk about it, but find small elements of wealth and see how they react. When you see a mature response to those little nuggets to start with, you can build on that. But until you see that, don't push it. Don't go too fast, but also don't wait too long. Okay. Here, here's an, uh, an interesting one, and I don't know if you can address it in a minute, but, uh, this one is, I'm the president of our family owned company, but our owner is not a wise, parent, parent, what can I do? So what, what happens when you're the recipient of unwise parenting? Wow, you are absolutely right that, that a minute's not gonna solve that Talking about it. So to it might, my quick summary would honestly be people who are, are, are not living that brand of parenting, need to be exposed to the benefits of why that matters, of, of the negative outcomes of not choosing to go down that road. And the positive outcomes of how much more individuals can thrive and flourish to overuse those concepts that I talked about throughout the day with the benefit of wise parenting. That's, that's where to start the conversation and it really needs to be a conversation. Excellently said, there are other questions. I will make sure that Ben and Ross, uh, see those questions. They can follow up with you, uh, separately on those. I thank you for all of your questions as always. Um, this has been a really terrific session. Um, for those of you who have asked, uh, Ben and Ross will share this presentation, and if you need other resources, that was a question, what other resources are available, I'm sure they will share those as well. And replays of this webinar, we'll be available on our website and on the Brown Brothers Harriman website for you to share with your family members and maybe your unwise, uh, parents. So, uh, I would like to say thank you again to, to everyone. Thank you Ross and Ben. And, uh, I'm just gonna make a quick note here. Uh, our next lunch and learn is December 16th, two Fridays from now. And we're gonna be looking at tax planning and what you need to be thinking about in a changing and environment. With that, I wish you all a tremendous weekend. Thank you for joining us today. We will see you soon.
The Science Behind Raising a Motivated and Engaged Next Generation
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