My mission is to empower entrepreneurial families to thrive for generations. The wealth equation is the best tool we’ve got at FO Perspective to show the important perspective that all capital pools (financial, human and relational) matter for building family wealth.
The key question “so what is all this money good for?” is unique for every family. Yet long-term impact is always a part of the answer.
Family legacy is another way that I describe long-term impact.
FAMILY WEALTH = FA(HC + RC)
FINANCIAL ASSETS
And yet Webster’s #1 definition of legacy has little to do with the factors of the above wealth equation.
The definition of “legacy” is:
- A gift by will especially of money or other personal property.
- Something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.
- A candidate for membership in an organization.
So one of my long-term goals is to influence the term “legacy” at Webster’s and overcome the insurance and wealth industries for the family focused definition.
The second definition is much closer to the more important meaning. Legacy is so much more than financial gifts and is really about family culture.
HUMAN CAPITAL
Helpful perspective: family legacy ends up being the behaviours and outcomes of your family members that come after you.
What is the mark they are making on the world? In making their impact, are your future kin using and adapting enduring family values to make an impact?
RELATIONAL CAPITAL
This, to me, is the most beautiful and tangible aspect of family legacies.
It is an ongoing culture of a family that can grow beyond two generations and into what James Hughes calls a tribe.
Seth Godin describes a tribe as “people like us do things like this”.
For you, dear reader, what aspects of family culture, the expressed values long-term through time of family members, have you seen that bound families together through three generations?
Please reply and tell me your rituals! Those rituals and actions are there for the taking and when you see families that thrive for generations, you always find strong family cultures with great rituals.
That, dear reader, is what I call legacy. Thanks for reading.