Leave a review to help other dads find the show and become better men and fathers: Leave Review
Today’s guest is Omer Mahmood.
We go deep today talking about:
- Why most family fortunes are lost by the second or third generation
- The overlooked component necessary to give your kids a meaningful inheritance without ruining their work ethic or character
- Rachel’s traumatic near-death experience that led the Marshall’s to focus on meaning, not just money
- How to create family culture that outlasts your lifetime
- Practical steps to build and pass down wealth for generations
Lucas and Rachel are loving parents of three incredible children: Avalynn, Olivia, and Eli. They are authors, speakers, coaches, and co-founders of The Money Advantage, a team of integrated financial professionals operating on a family office model who are dedicated to assisting wealth creators achieve both time and financial freedom. They and their team provide comprehensive services to wealth creators throughout the United States, coordinating strategies in various areas such as cash flow management, business development, investment planning, insurance solutions, Infinite Banking, permanent tax reduction, estate planning, and asset protection. They are dedicated to serving enterprising families who aspire to build enduring multi-generational wealth and establish a lasting legacy that transcends conventional financial success.
Find Lucas and Rachel online at:
Instagram: @themoneyadvantage
Website: themoneyadvantage.com
Resources mentioned:
Seven Generations Legacy
#159. Generational Wealth Without Screwing Up Your Kids - Lucas and Rachel Marshall
===
[00:00:00] A key piece of this that I'll share is that money is a magnifier of your soul. So if you have a lot of money, you can do a lot of good or a lot of bad with that. The idea that take different categories of life and say, if you were living at your best, what would it look like? Right? So that's just your idea.
[00:00:17] Then your values. These three things that you're actually really are how you live your life.
[00:00:27] All right. We're here for the dad work podcast. Uh, again, like every week, I appreciate you guys tuning in. And, uh, today I'm actually really excited because I met today's guest, Lucas.
[00:00:36] Curt: I did not meet his wife Rachel, unfortunately. Uh, but I think we all get along at the integrated Mastermind in Colorado that I've told you guys listeners about over the last couple of weeks. And Lucas and I had a chance to share a car ride together and in like five minutes I was like, man, you talk about the same stuff that I talk about, but you add this layer of like wealth preservation and legacy and long-term like family planning to [00:01:00] it.
[00:01:00] Curt: And it blew my mind because I'm still so new, I would say to family leadership as a legacy play that I was like, I gotta talk to you about this. So first of all, thank you both for coming on because it's like, yeah, I get both of you of course. . So how you doing?
[00:01:12] Lucas and Rachel: Ha ha. Awesome. Great. Thanks for having us. That was an awesome car ride and, um, I have to say being, being that you are a newer Christian in a way gives you kind of a leg up because you have more motivation to, to make changes. Whereas if someone grows up in a Christian home, it can be easier to, uh, be more passive
[00:01:30] Curt: Right. Well,
[00:01:31] Lucas and Rachel: you just think you've already got it figured out or you think you've arrived.
[00:01:34] Curt: yeah. That's so interesting. I, I sometimes catch myself thinking those things going, like, I, I praise God that he's given me zeal for him. And I don't see that often in guys who have been there for a long time and I'm like, okay, I understand. And I'm just, I have to be very careful that I don't overstep myself.
[00:01:49] Curt: Like, why aren't you so excited? Like, this is literally the best thing ever. What, what, what are you doing ? So anyway, I'm, I'm glad that you guys sort of see that in well and are aware of it. And I just wanna give [00:02:00] like real quick intro. I used to do these at the beginning, but that was too formal. So Luc and Rachel, that's, you guys are loving parents.
[00:02:06] Curt: Amazing, by the way. I love that. I have three incredible children and I'm, can you please say their names so I don't bocher them?
[00:02:11] Lucas and Rachel: Oh yeah. Evelyn, Olivia and Eli.
[00:02:14] Curt: That's right. Okay. The first one particularly, I was like, I wasn't sure on that, but you guys are authors, speakers, coaches and co-founders of the Money Advantage, a team of integrated financial professionals operating on a family office model who are dedicated to assisting wealth creators achieve both time and financial freedom.
[00:02:28] Curt: So I'm gonna put the rest of that bio in the show notes at dad.work/podcast. But I just wanna like set the stage for this where I think what we're talking about here is going to be useful for people who need to do some, you know, family office planning and wealth creation and wealth keeping, which a lot of entrepreneurs are not great at.
[00:02:44] Curt: Um, but it's also going to be vitally important for the people who are not yet there. Myself included. I want to know what I should be looking out for. I wanna know some of the basics that every person, every leader, every family should be going over to build and [00:03:00] then keep wealth for seven plus generations.
[00:03:02] Curt: And, uh, we're just gonna sort of walk through your guys' process, but I wanna start us. With a quote that I found which says this, A groundbreaking 20 year study conducted by wealth consultancy, the Williams Group involved over 3,200 families and found that seven in 10 families tend to lose their fortune by the second generation, while nine in 10 lose it by the third generation.
[00:03:23] Curt: So first of all, is that true? And second of all, why does this happen?
[00:03:28] Lucas and Rachel: Uh, yes. That's a great question. Uh, yes, that, that is true. Uh, why does it happen? Okay. So we have something we call the three M's to our process. It's the, the meaning, the mechanism and the money, but most people only think about the money. Then you can go to the next tier down. Maybe they'll do the mechanism.
[00:03:47] Lucas and Rachel: When I say mechanism, I mean, think of like the legal documents, trusts, wills, entities, uh, power of attorney, the thing, the legal structure that would allow you to transfer the money to the next generation. And that's it. [00:04:00] That's, that's most of the population. At most we'll do that second layer. So all that does is transfer assets.
[00:04:07] Lucas and Rachel: It just transfers money. Right. And so. If you add in what we call the, the, the M that's missing is the meaning, right? That's your family culture. That's. And so if you look at studies of ultra wealthy families, those that have passed on wealth more than three generations or at least three generations successfully, and they're still successful and wealthy, then what you find is to a T all of them at some point. in the first, second, or third, third generation said, we've got to stop just focusing on being a growing a business and treat the family like a business and get really intentional about family. And so they start putting structure and in many ways, the principles that apply to business apply to family and vice versa.
[00:04:51] Lucas and Rachel: So they start putting, you know, family meetings and all the structure around how they, um, pass on stewardship and raise the next [00:05:00] generations, future generations to pass on the wealth and to continue to flourish.
[00:05:05] Curt: Wow. Okay, so the, sorry, go ahead, Rachel.
[00:05:08] Lucas and Rachel: yeah, I was gonna say a huge piece of that is that there's a missing. Focus on money being the prime mover, being the key thing that is what should be focused on.
[00:05:19] Lucas and Rachel: I mean, the, even the premise, wealthy families who have money lose the wealth. Well, the problem with that thinking is that wealth is not just financial. James E Hughes Jr, who will. probably mentioned a few times during the show because he's influenced us. So influenced us so greatly talks about wealth being five pieces, five types of capital.
[00:05:38] Lucas and Rachel: There's the human capital, there's the social capital, the intellectual capital, the spiritual capital, and Oh, also the financial capital. So there's all these other four components that are all about the person. And the problem with getting money to pass down to multiple generations is if you just focus on the money, you'll never do it.
[00:05:55] Lucas and Rachel: It's really all about investing in the people and the people's side of the wealth.
[00:05:59] Curt: [00:06:00] Man, I, I love that because at least from my perspective, I hear this as . Money in this case is just a, it's almost like a random piece of the puzzle that shows that focusing on family as a larger whole is the thing that we are missing rather than, oh, look how much money they have, four or five generations from now.
[00:06:21] Curt: It's like, look how successful that family is. Like how do you do that? Because I, I've read biographies of like, you know, the, the mags from the early, uh, 20th century and it's like some of them go on and some of them just like really don't. And one of the things that we heard in Colorado, uh, about the Kennedy family, I think it was, is you've got all this money, like third richest man in the world, or in America at least, and he's got all these kids who go on to do like, you know, incredible things regardless of your politics running for president, becoming president, whatever else these people do.
[00:06:52] Curt: How do you do that when you hear the stories that like, oh, you can't give your kids money, it just corrupts them. So do you guys wanna maybe just talk on [00:07:00] that idea of like, my assumption for the longest time was I'll just not give my kids anything so that they can suffer through the pain that I suffered through and hopefully get the same result of work ethic and drive and purpose.
[00:07:13] Curt: But I'm learning now that there's a better way. . Do you guys wanna sort of like walk through that and then we'll get more into your guys' origin story?
[00:07:19] Lucas and Rachel: Yeah. Yes. Well, I think that you can go back to a business analogy, right? If you were to take, uh, any famous company that you can think of, a lot of people think of, or, or just any company you can think of, right? And think of the CEO today, and if they were to say, Hey, you know what? We're just gonna.
[00:07:36] Lucas and Rachel: Close our doors, take all the money I'm going to live off of it, and then hopefully someone else figures out how to start up and sell our product all over, right? Like that's, that's, that's the mentality of giving money to your kids is going to corrupt them. You need to start thinking in terms of training the next generation, um, and it's the idea of a community.
[00:07:56] Lucas and Rachel: Um, whether you have like a sports team or a company, both of them are a form of a [00:08:00] community. And in Hebrew, the concept of community implies that the past. The present and the future are very important. Like, actually one of the words for community has that concept embedded in the word. And so the idea being that you, you have to look to your elders to pass on the knowledge and the wisdom.
[00:08:20] Lucas and Rachel: And then the youth are the, um, the future. And then those that are like in their middle age are the bridge between that. And they're, they're the ones making everything happen now. But that, um, our society today says, It's only focused on now, whereas we need to be focused on, we need to have a huge amount of respect for the past, but be very focused on the future.
[00:08:41] Lucas and Rachel: And so very long term thinking. And so the idea to say, well, if I'm going to give money to my kids, I'm going to corrupt them. Well, sure. If you're not raising them to be the right kind of people, if you're not helping raising them to be stewards and training them and passing on your values, then yes, don't, don't give them the money.
[00:08:57] Lucas and Rachel: But. Um, if you look at the [00:09:00] successful families, they just do it in a way that facilitates giving a leg up, not a handout, which is something that we can, um, get into another aspect of this, but the idea that you are, you're giving them opportunities to grow and, and, and to develop themselves, but in a way that is, isn't just like allowing them to be dependent on the money and not really You know, a key piece of this that I'll share is that money is a magnifier of your soul.
[00:09:27] Lucas and Rachel: So if you have a lot of money, you can do a lot of good or a lot of bad with that. It just amplifies your ability to be and act, how you already are acting. And so the, the key piece is that it's not about whether you pass on money or not, it's whether you infuse the character and the values and develop the person and then.
[00:09:49] Lucas and Rachel: When you do develop the person, having that additional infusion of capital just allows them to do even more with that. So imagine you have a child that you're raising to be a wonderful son [00:10:00] and teaching him to be a man. You're helping him to figure out how to be incorporated into the family mission and the family purpose and he believes how he's called to be a leader and you're teaching him how to take responsibility for his actions and be a good, be responsible and be a good steward.
[00:10:15] Lucas and Rachel: Now all of a sudden he says, But how could I do this even better? Do all of those things in his life better if he did have the capital from multiple generations? You that you're handing to him and if you look at it biblically it they even would pass on wealth for many many generations I mean that would be you would get an inheritance and that wasn't just your dad's money.
[00:10:36] Lucas and Rachel: That was your grandfather, your great, great, great grandfather's money that was handed down to the next generation, the next generation, and the next. And they all did it with the intention of the future generations ahead of them that we're going to continue on this family wealth, this building of capital that would continue on during the family line, just amplifying the ability for the family then to live on mission and live out their purpose.
[00:10:59] Lucas and Rachel: If you're to take it [00:11:00] back to the work that you do, right, and helping people with their values. Um. Uh, sometimes people talk about values. It might be your personal values, but in this case I'm specifically referring to like family values, like the, so that in this case the family or the community's value.
[00:11:14] Lucas and Rachel: So just like a company can have our company values, right? So the family have being really clear on what your values are. But then once you have that, then saying, um, how do we. Constantly weave that in to just our normal daily life. And so there's this quote from Justin Whitman Early. Uh, he says, The greatest spiritual work happens in the normal moments of domestic life.
[00:11:34] Lucas and Rachel: And so, like, we think of family teams, the integrator that we went to, they talk a lot about, we talk a lot about family meetings, our rhythms. Um, so routines become the story and culture of our family. So it's, it's, it's not just that we, you can write down your values, you can put them on the wall, but if you're not living them out, then it doesn't really matter, because it's not what you say, and what you teach, it's what you do in practice.
[00:11:56] Lucas and Rachel: And so it really comes down to what, and it's, it's, it's this idea [00:12:00] that sometimes it's, uh, in the Christian world, right? We can think that, um, the spiritual is like, I'm at church and I'm, I'm worshiping God, and Um, you know, I, I feel great. Well, that's a, that's emotions, right? But a lot of our, our, as spiritual and physical beings, and if you think of just eating, right, so our mouth is, um, the way we, we speak, which is when God created humans, unlike all the other creatures, He breathed into humans.
[00:12:24] Lucas and Rachel: Um, but we also eat with it. So, eating, so we eat and we're at the table, we're eating to physically fill ourselves, but also spiritually. And the conversation is around the table. So, um, actually in the Hebrew it says, from all the trees in the garden you shall eat, you shall eat. In the English translation it loses that second eat, but it means to eat physically and spiritually.
[00:12:45] Lucas and Rachel: So, um, What I say all that to say, that the simple basic mundane things of life aren't just physical acts that we're doing. They're spiritual. And so it's those mind, it's the small things that add up to how we pass on [00:13:00] these values to the next generation.
[00:13:02] Curt: I love that. And this is, so I, I'm gonna get more in order in terms of like why you guys are even doing this, because I think that's also curious, like what, what leads you here? Uh, and then maybe work through how you guys are doing it. So I want to give listeners an idea that we're getting there. Um, but I've just had this idea the last couple of days even, that as I look around at, you know, new families, Today, people in our generation, um, you don't often see a long history of wisdom that's following them because, and this is another thing, this is just a great mastermind, by the way.
[00:13:33] Curt: I, I loved everything that went down there because I'm taking all these ideas, but we are basically launching out of the home as individuals and we're not then connected. And, you know, number one, I guess the onus is on the, the child moving out. But at the same time, why would that child want to carry on a legacy from a father and a mother who haven't invested in that child?
[00:13:53] Curt: And so what I'm seeing then is like we all are starting from scratch. Every time we start a family and it's no [00:14:00] wonder we're suffering so bad, it's no wonder we have no idea about like even things like basic nutrition or housekeeping. I just bought a book the other day from the, the fifties. It was this collection of works by a Seventh Day Adventist woman, and she's talking all about the rhythms of family life and how to actually run a household for my wife, for example.
[00:14:18] Curt: And it's like, why was I never taught this? And so I think exactly what you're saying here is we're all little islands divorced from that larger family purpose. And when you've gotta start that from scratch, I can tell you . From my own experience that's really heavy. Like I've had to learn everything from the emotional side of things to my duty and my roles and my responsibilities as a man, husband, and father to then, how do I leave a legacy like this?
[00:14:41] Curt: I feel as though I'm being fed by like a, uh, a fire hose with information. And man, I cannot, like, I am so excited to hopefully have the influence in my children's lives that they start with all of my knowledge and wisdom and then take it further. And I think that's probably what you guys are working on [00:15:00] as well.
[00:15:00] Curt: Is, is that anything to add to that before we jump in?
[00:15:02] Lucas and Rachel: I do want to add to that. I think that it's not our parents fault. I first want to say that. I mean, when you look at the culture as a whole, our culture as a whole says focus on yourself. Yes, you're starting over. Your mission is outside the home, you know, get a degree, have an income.
[00:15:21] Lucas and Rachel: Do your own personal, I, me, financial planning. Get yourself established so you personally can retire and have an income stream. I mean just the entire messaging of our entire culture is based on I am important. Family is like this side piece that doesn't even really exist. And so when we look at those of us in our generation that are starting over with this idea of wow we really want to make a difference for future generations.
[00:15:49] Lucas and Rachel: We need to lean on past generations. It almost does feel foreign because we are so encouraged to not rely on the wisdom of our, of our parents and go seek out new [00:16:00] wisdom ourselves. Like, as if new wisdom exists and God doesn't know what he's doing for decades and, and centuries and millennia before and that no, nothing valuable started there.
[00:16:10] Lucas and Rachel: I mean, that's really, I mean, egotistical and really prideful even just of us to be able to say, we can't learn anything from past generations. Now, should we start on their shoulders and move ahead and continue evolving and continue progressing knowledge? Yes, absolutely. But I think there's this key piece that we need to first say, it's not our parents fault.
[00:16:28] Lucas and Rachel: They were in that culture as well. They didn't maybe necessarily know how to. Draw on the wisdom from their parents and grandparents and great great grandparents and pass that on to us And maybe they didn't speak it directly but we can change that tide and change that culture by recognizing that God is a God of generations and He has wisdom from the beginning of time that continues to exist now and we can then step into Doing the best thing for our family and it's countercultural.
[00:16:55] Lucas and Rachel: It's extremely countercultural and yet if there's enough of us doing this [00:17:00] How amazing will it be for? Our, I think this is just so cool to think about, our great great grandchildren who could look back and say, my great great grandparents loved me, they never even met me, but they did all of this for me, so that I could be able to start ahead.
[00:17:17] Lucas and Rachel: Like, how cool would that be if we had that to look back on?
[00:17:21] Curt: Yeah, no, that, that's absolutely true. And one of the things that Jeremy said on my podcast before, he is like, we wanna raise our kids to be good parents. It's like, oh man, that just like punts it so far into the future indefinitely. And my own personal end of life vision is just sitting on a rocking chair on a big, you know, veranda somewhere and looking down and seeing like a hundred great grandkids running around loving each other because of the work that I've done here.
[00:17:44] Curt: And this is very much emotionally and spiritually work, but I, I love adding this element now of the finances. But this is, so I've been purposely not asking Lucas, even though like he alluded to it. And then I read in your stuff, I was like, the origin story sounds pretty traumatic here. Uh, and I, I would love to [00:18:00] sort of start there before we get into like the steps and some of the things that people can be doing actively to set themselves up for the future.
[00:18:06] Curt: So would you please walk me and us listening through why this became such a thing for you guys?
[00:18:12] Lucas and Rachel: Yeah, uh, I think I'll let Rachel take over in a second here, but uh, with the birth of our second daughter, um, shortly after she delivered, Rachel started, we had some, there was some serious complications and Rachel almost died. Uh, sometimes, I want to say this part because sometimes she leaves some of the details out, but the significance of this, she, uh, didn't just almost die, she lost eight units of blood, which is basically all the blood in her body.
[00:18:42] Lucas and Rachel: And so if it wasn't for, I don't know, 10 or 11 specialists and the blood supply, she, I mean, it's a miracle that she's, I mean, she lost consciousness. They, uh, the surgeon said to us after one of them said the next day, he said, uh, I've been doing this for 40 years. I don't remember most patients. I only remember the really [00:19:00] bad ones and I'll unfortunately never forget you.
[00:19:02] Lucas and Rachel: And so that really hit how close she was to not being here. Um, so, I'll let her actually tell the story, but she doesn't oftentimes really give it the full impact, so. And I think sometimes the reason for that is just that, I mean, you have to have a way to move on past a really, really scary situation. And I think sometimes that's why I leave off some of the details, but, um, so we had been married quite a long time.
[00:19:29] Lucas and Rachel: We had one daughter, and we, we decided it was time to start. Having more kids, we, our first daughter was seven, and we said we need them to be still growing up in the same life, life together, same family, and not have completely different generations. And so, pregnancy was going really well, and at the end there was a lot of concern for the baby, so we had to deliver a little bit early, they induced labor, and the labor itself was super quick, and super, um, forceful, and pitocin, and all of that with no pain medicine, that [00:20:00] was super challenging.
[00:20:01] Lucas and Rachel: But then... As soon as she, the baby, was fine, then all of a sudden my placenta wouldn't detach. They were trying to remove the placenta, they had to take me back for surgery, and then during surgery is when I lost. It's just eight units of blood. They put me on a transfusion, they were pumping blood back in, they said it was just flowing right back out.
[00:20:20] Lucas and Rachel: They did all of these measures to try to stop the bleeding, it just wouldn't, wouldn't stop the bleeding. And so I went into something called DIC, which was my clotting factor was lost that was needed to stop the bleeding, but it's because little, little clots were forming all throughout my body and the platelets were being used up there.
[00:20:39] Lucas and Rachel: So it was a platelet. Disorder because of the trauma and the significance of that was really that I Had a 50 percent survival chance through that and if I didn't or if I did make it there was a high likelihood that I would Have tissue damage in my brain my heart my lungs my kidneys [00:21:00] all of that tissue because of the little small clots that were happening and so They, um, the only way to correct that was to put me on this blood transfusion and they kept exchanging the bags of blood and then they moved me into a recovery room as they were coming out of the corner around, around the corner from the operating room.
[00:21:23] Lucas and Rachel: I fell 45 minutes. So all of this I didn't know because I'm You know, either under anesthesia or unconscious. Lucas, though, is trying to be mom and dad to a brand new baby girl in the delivery room, wondering what in the world is going on. I'm gone for four hours. During that time, he's getting one message that, Hey, your wife is basically, uh, bleeding out and we can't stop the bleeding.
[00:21:49] Lucas and Rachel: He gets another message an hour and a half later that, um, It was more like six hours. It was six hours total, but he gets another message like, An hour and a half later that, well, we stopped the bleeding, but [00:22:00] it's worse. And he's just having this moment of really realizing it's possible she's not going to leave the hospital.
[00:22:09] Lucas and Rachel: And he's having to think through, what if I have to tell, Our older daughter, who's clearly able to understand all of these things. Her mom isn't here anymore, and what am I gonna do? How am I gonna handle a baby? I mean, this was just something, we never went into the hospital thinking that this was a reality.
[00:22:23] Lucas and Rachel: And, and really for me, it was always, I mean, as a mom, you always have this concern, like, well, what if something happens to my kid? What if they get hurt? What if they get injured? But I never, ever, ever had a thought, like, what if I'm not here? As a parent. And so that really brought us into this new way of thinking.
[00:22:41] Lucas and Rachel: I recovered super quickly, like miraculously fast. God was all over my healing journey and my healing process. I only spent, um, less than a day in ICU and then 24 hours after delivering them. baby. I'd gone through surgery, gone through unconsciousness, gone through an ICU stay, 24 [00:23:00] hours after delivery, I'm back in the recovery room with my baby girl.
[00:23:03] Lucas and Rachel: Of course, I'm like anemic and super, super weak and all of that, but I mean, that was really, really fast to come out of ICU and no damage at all to any of my whatever, all of the, all the tissue that they were concerned about. But really what happened from that point is we realized, look, we've been in the financial space for a long time.
[00:23:23] Lucas and Rachel: We've been believing in the power of life insurance. We have it. We talk about life insurance with people all the time and this idea of insuring in case you die, you have this death benefit to pass on to your kids. And we had an estate plan. We had what we thought was all packaged together, but we really had the realization that if we were not here, our children at the time, like Brand new newborn baby and 7 year old have no ability to take what we've learned in our life and apply that.
[00:23:57] Lucas and Rachel: They're just going to get money and they're going [00:24:00] to hopefully use it well and hopefully not turn out to be, you know, squander it, waste it, spend it all up in 6 months. Hopefully not turn out to be terrible people. What kind of, what kind of parenting is that? And if my parenting requires me to actually.
[00:24:16] Lucas and Rachel: be there for my whole life, which I hope that I am. What if I'm not and how can I, right now today, make sure that I'm doing everything right now in this moment that's not just living well and having a good culture because those things are extremely important. But how can I make sure that I've written down the things that are extremely important for them to know and then set up an entire system for people to step in and take care of them and have the tools that I need.
[00:24:44] Lucas and Rachel: That I know that I want to get to my kids so that they know what to do and it's not a guessing game So that was really the huge learning that came out of that experience
[00:24:54] Curt: Man, , praise God. , that's so, I can't, yeah, I'm just, I'm thinking of Lucas sitting there like, [00:25:00] brand new baby, uh, can't be nursing. Uh, you know, you've got the other child and then it's just like, oh, by the way, um, you might be leaving here alone. Like, oh man, that was a harrowing experience. So, like, , I mean, I almost wanted to just be like, what did you, what were you doing Lucas?
[00:25:15] Curt: Like, were you staying calm? Did you have support around you? Like, how did you, how did this alter you either in the moment or moving forward in terms of how you operate Now, I.
[00:25:25] Lucas and Rachel: Yeah, well in that moment I was A lot of praying, a lot of pacing. I remember, you know, my mind started to go a lot of, it can go a lot of places in an event like that. I remember thinking, um, yeah, how, how would I tell our oldest daughter that they're, and then I just stopped myself and I was like, okay, but it hasn't happened yet.
[00:25:47] Lucas and Rachel: So I'm, I'm just going to have faith and believe that, you know, that she's going to live. Um, obviously accepting the fact that it's. That's not a guarantee, but I just was like, well, it hasn't happened yet. So there's no [00:26:00] point in like Dwelling on an event that hasn't happened But yeah, it was I was by myself.
[00:26:06] Lucas and Rachel: It was all I think it that you they wheeled you out of the room I don't know. It's at 9 10 o'clock at night. So it was basically through the night. I texted a few people But I just was mostly trying to take care of the newborn our daughter and praying and just a lot of waiting. It seems like forever. Uh, that's probably the longest night of my life.
[00:26:25] Lucas and Rachel: So, um, so that, so out of that though, like Rachel said, I think the, the change was, um, not was for us, we just had a lot of conversations about, okay, it's great that we had put this estate plan in place before, but we need to rethink all these things and have a much more thought out. Plan for our kids, but it wasn't just about the estate plan.
[00:26:52] Lucas and Rachel: It wasn't for the what if The way we approached it was how do we want to live our life, right? And [00:27:00] then let's assume That nothing outside it like we have a normal lifespan and we get to live our full life Let's write out all the things we'd want to do with our kids how money would Specifically around money how we would use the money And what life would look like from now until we reach, say, I don't know, 80, 90, 100, whatever.
[00:27:22] Lucas and Rachel: And, uh, however long, however long before we graduate. And, um, and then let's write down how we want the money to be used from that perspective. And then, if we're not here, by the way, great, it, it's now captured. So I think we, we kind of flipped it around and said, well, we're not trying to... I mean, yes, this, uh, event happened and, um, it motivated us to do this, but we didn't want to just write it all for like, well, just what if let's talk, how do we want to live our life?
[00:27:52] Lucas and Rachel: Like, how do we, and that's what drove us. We, we didn't have the words that time, but family culture, the idea, we started seeking out how do we change [00:28:00] the culture of our family? How do we make our home environment where our kids want to be here? They want their friends to come over. And when they get older, they.
[00:28:09] Lucas and Rachel: Want to still come back home. They want to be around us all the time and how do we create that? And so we didn't even call it family culture, have this concept of family culture. We just like that we didn't have words for it. We just knew the result we wanted. And so that's how we, that's ultimately what led me to finding family teams and meeting you at Integrated.
[00:28:26] Lucas and Rachel: Um, I wanna share one other piece on that real quick because I, I, I think I hesitate sometimes to share how, um, and how scary our story really was because of this reason. I don't ever want anyone to feel like I'm saying, Hey, look, bad things happen. They will happen. You got a plan because of this negative, super scary, fear inducing moment because living scared is not a recipe for living well.
[00:28:54] Lucas and Rachel: And that's not what we want to be running away from. What it really did for us instead [00:29:00] was gave us the ability to understand the power that we have right now, not thinking, Oh, hey, I just have to, you know, I'm just going to take today as it comes and tomorrow we'll get to the important things. And, you know, 40 years from now, probably I'll have left a legacy at that point.
[00:29:16] Lucas and Rachel: You right now, if you have breath in your lungs and you have a love for, Your children and you have something you want to share with them, you have a legacy right now. And I think that was the realization that we had that was you have power. Let's make sure that you use it to the greatest capacity to do the greatest good for the longest term ahead of you using today and making today matter.
[00:29:38] Lucas and Rachel: And I really just want to say that because it's not about being scared. It's about exactly what you said, the opposite of that, which was, okay, this really scary event happened that woke us up to this reality that we have power today. Not. Just maybe in the future
[00:29:52] Curt: Yeah, yeah. No, it's, it, that's exactly what I was thinking about, that positive spin on it. 'cause it could have been like, yikes, and now I better do [00:30:00] everything 'cause it might happen again, or something terrible might happen. But I love that being like, oh, it's just like an awakening. I actually have everything I need right now, but I was almost asleep at the wheel in a sense, because you just don't know.
[00:30:10] Curt: You're, I think like distraction's such a huge issue today. I think that's one of the enemy's, like, number one things is like, if I just keep you distracted and thinking about nothing, then you'll never think about the higher things. Um, but I, I, I almost wanna like take us off the rails just to, for a moment here.
[00:30:23] Curt: Um, and ask just a question that I've got personally, but I, I want to get back to what does it look like? Actually implement all you're talking about, because I've got some tools that I use personally and that we've used and also have an interesting story about, um, you know, something that I've got from my father.
[00:30:38] Curt: Um, but the question that I wanted to ask just selfishly is like, how has this impacted your parenting relationship with that second daughter? And I'm also curious about, you know, have a third child as well. Um, so there must have been something in there just because, um, for us, when my oldest was born, uh, Natalie had to go into similar sort of situation, just like kidney issues.
[00:30:59] Curt: Um, [00:31:00] not, I shouldn't say similar situation, but she was removed from the picture for a long time in the first week or so of, um, parenting. And so that has always been a bit of like a, it, it, it didn't allow that initial bond to happen and we've had to work really hard to make that. So I'm curious if something like that happened or was it just like the, such a 24 hour short period so to speak, that it didn't impact?
[00:31:22] Curt: Like how do you guys see your relationship with, with the kids now after this?
[00:31:25] Lucas and Rachel: So good. Do you want me to talk first or do you want to Oh, well, like, this is the dad part. I don't know if there, I don't know if there was a, uh, specific with any partic one particular child as much as, well, actually. So there's a little bit more to that story. Um, so, uh, 20, so the next night, She comes, she's out of ICU, comes into the room, um, I hadn't slept by this point, basically almost two days, and so I was pretty tired, so I was in the room waiting for them to bring Rachel, I didn't know when she was going to come, so I started to fall asleep, people started, all of a sudden nurses started coming [00:32:00] in the room, and so I couldn't really sleep, and so when Rachel got there, she's like, well, I've got everything I need, the nurses can help me, I don't really need you right now, why don't you go home and get some rest?
[00:32:09] Lucas and Rachel: Because the little couch they give you in the delivery room or whatever, the cover room, wasn't going to be very comfortable. I was like, just go home and get some sleep. I know I almost died, but please don't sleep. So I go home and I get about six hours of sleep. And then I wake up and there's a text on my phone that our oldest daughter, a friend who was watching her, that our oldest daughter was very sick and I had to come get her.
[00:32:29] Lucas and Rachel: She was vomiting and diarrhea. So I go get her. No more detail. And I'm thinking that, okay, that, you know, this is going to be... Uh, yeah, like a day or two, she'll be fine. And then it just didn't, it just got worse, so I had to take her in. Ended up taking her to the ER. Uh, and they had to put fluids in her. And, um, so.
[00:32:48] Lucas and Rachel: It was rotavirus, it was not anything I think it ended up being, I don't remember, a week or more, that Rachel ended up having to go to a friend's house. And stay there with the baby. And I was with the oldest daughter. And [00:33:00] we actually had a really good bond. I mean, out of that, it wasn't a great time. But we had a good bonding moment with my oldest daughter.
[00:33:06] Lucas and Rachel: And, um, prior to all of this, our daughter was, you know, in school. One of us would take her to school in the morning. One of us would come pick her up. And she was gone probably, I don't know, nine to eight. 8 to 10 hours. It went from like 9 hours a day down to like 8 hours, down to 7. Either way, the point being is, we were both, we were way more busy, we had way less time.
[00:33:25] Lucas and Rachel: At this, she was set, turning 7 and starting to be much more influenced by her friends, uh, at school. More interested in hanging out with friends than spending time with us. And so, we just got much more intentional about family. We, not long after that, pulled her out of school, started homeschooling, and our oldest daughter would...
[00:33:44] Lucas and Rachel: Started making comments like we don't get enough family time. I'm like, what do you mean? That's all we do is family time. So, um, we just huge shift. It was a huge shift for us because we just started really spending a lot of time as a family and Realizing that hey, we were [00:34:00] we were so focused on one area of our life and they they were very separate the family from work there was no integration and And, and even to a fault on the business and the working versus, um, focusing on our family and our, and our, and our child at that time and now our second child.
[00:34:18] Lucas and Rachel: So with, with the birth of the second child, I think we, um, started heading in that direction of integrating family and work and spending a lot more time with our children. I would say to, it wasn't, I didn't have a problem bonding at all with the second daughter even. I feel like it was a desire even more to bond with her because I'd missed that really critical period.
[00:34:40] Lucas and Rachel: I mean, it was just very challenging. Our goal was natural birth, you know, skin to skin contact right away, delayed cord clamping, like all the stuff that was like, let's be as natural and as, you know, as, bonding as possible was our goal and everything was kind of ripped away from our ability to do that, from my ability.
[00:34:59] Lucas and Rachel: Um, but I [00:35:00] think I said something to Lucas at that moment and I said It's been really hard to miss the first 24 hours of her life and he said that's what's given you the ability To be here the rest of her life. It was just it was so cool that he recognized that and I mean, I think That's just more of a micro moment.
[00:35:17] Lucas and Rachel: But in the macro, I would say especially just watching Lucas step into being a dad of intention and really a lot of intentionality and looking at the kids and And training them and teaching them and spending time with them and really investing in them has been huge as a result of that experience. I think it was just even more of a value on children.
[00:35:38] Lucas and Rachel: I mean, we definitely had a, so we were married five years and we had first daughter, seven years till the second daughter. And that was a super scary experience. We, I knew that there was more children for our family. And then it was just very challenging to navigate that over four years from the time that she was born and figuring out, well, how do we do this?
[00:35:58] Lucas and Rachel: How do we grow a family with that [00:36:00] in our background? Like, is this something that's risky for us in the future? Should we not try that again? Do we need to adopt, foster care? Like, it just, none of the answers seemed really clear. But, um, we just at one point both felt together like it was time. And we now have a third child.
[00:36:14] Lucas and Rachel: And that delivery experience went amazingly. So, I know there's a redemption through that. It was, it required a lot of faith of walking through that third pregnancy and realizing... Life is not guaranteed. And yet at the same time, I don't, we don't want to make decisions out of fear. And I think that's allowed us to not only value children and value our lineage and value having a family and investing in that family tremendously.
[00:36:39] Lucas and Rachel: And especially I've seen it all over you.
[00:36:41] Curt: that's very encouraging and also incredibly courageous to go through with a third when you, maybe at times, I mean, I would have, I would've been like, well, he could die in a few months when the delivery day is like that. That was that on your mind ever of her
[00:36:57] Lucas and Rachel: actually it was. So, um, we started celebrating the [00:37:00] biblical holidays and so Rosh Hashanah actually has this key piece, which, um, we just. Had Rosh Hashanah, but we celebrate ours a week later because of our other daughter's birthday and we have conflicting birthday party plans but there's a key piece of that that is like Recognizing that during that like that span of the year you may live or you may die and that's really not up to us and I remember last Rosh Hashanah was right before we got pregnant with our third And, I mean, right before, like, less than a month before, and just realizing that if this is a piece of our future, that that is something that we have to say, I don't, we don't know how it's going to turn out, but we're going to trust that this is the next step that God would lead us on, and we're going to be okay with whatever the outcome is.
[00:37:45] Lucas and Rachel: And I think that was just a huge amount of surrender, and a huge amount, yes, of, um, yeah. Yeah. Well, another, I mean, we had, multiple other people saying, yeah, you, you shouldn't have another child, not doctors, but um, [00:38:00] family, family. Um, well, actually the, the doula that helped us the first few times she was even skeptical.
[00:38:07] Lucas and Rachel: He's like, I don't know. Um, so yeah, it was a lot to, to overcome, I guess, to have the faith to say, Hey, I'm trusting God that, that, um, we can do this and have another child.
[00:38:20] Curt: Yeah. Wow. Very courageous. I love that. Thank you for sharing all that. I know that's not, , not what we're planning on talking about, but I just couldn't not ask. Um, and I do wanna now get into sort of more the, the nuts and bolts of practicals. What guys can actually be doing with their families, and by guys I mean, um, mother and father of a family unit.
[00:38:36] Curt: How can they be putting this all together in a way that is actionable, that creates that culture now and also into the future? And I just want to, you know, let, let me just pretend that I know the tiniest thing about this by just sharing the very minimum about what we do. Um, I, I've got this document that I call the in case of document, and it's just in case I, you know, get hit by a bus or whatever.
[00:38:56] Curt: Um, but in that there's very logistical things that [00:39:00] I have given to my wife. Here's where the money is, here's how to access it. Here's who to call, here's whatever you might possibly need. Here's where the passwords are. Um, and then I include things that are more personal, which are like a letter to my wife.
[00:39:13] Curt: If I had one thing that I wanted to say to her, what would it be? Well, it's gonna be here because she's gonna see that as the last thing that I leave to her. Same with each one of my kids. So they've all got a letterer. . Of what I hope for their lives. And then I'm kinda like, well, I hope they, I hope they listen to my podcast , because then they learn a little bit more about like what's important to me.
[00:39:30] Curt: Maybe they can carry that on. But I've also done things like in that letter to them, I've written down a book, like a, a book list. Here's what I think you should probably listen to. Here's, you know, the men in my life that I want you to go to for advice. And so like, I think about this because my father died, you know, eight, nine years ago now.
[00:39:47] Curt: He was 50 just happened outta the blue. And so I'm sort of been faced with this for the last eight, nine years, and even earlier this year, I had what for me was quite a scare with some blood tests. And I just brought me face to face [00:40:00] with the fact that, you know, just because it feels bad to me to not be here doesn't mean that that means God's plan is bad, bad if I'm not.
[00:40:09] Curt: Like his plan is so much more infinite and wonderful and eternal that I don't have to be like, oh no, fair God you didn't let me participate for 80 years. Like I, it is so much bigger than me. And I think that was forced into me through this sort of harrowing experience at the beginning of the year. But I only say that to get the super basic set of the way.
[00:40:27] Curt: So if you guys just want the basics, that's a cool play to start. But I want to hear the system. I wanna hear what you guys encourage people to do, how you walk them through this. What is important from maybe the first step. And then what I loved about this is like the money stuff. You guys don't even talk about that until like the fourth, fifth, sixth step.
[00:40:43] Curt: It's, it's down the line. So I'm just gonna open it up to you guys, however you want to take it. I might jump in here and there. Uh, but can you walk us through how guys can make this applicable to their lives?
[00:40:52] Lucas and Rachel: Yes. So the first, the first thing is what we call the family guidance system. So we have somebody, or a family, uh, [00:41:00] define their ideals. So these are not necessarily things you even are living now. It's more of like, what you, it could be. And some of it you could be doing, some of it you're not, or you're not fully doing it.
[00:41:11] Lucas and Rachel: But it's, it's defining, like, in a... I don't know. People talk about their ideal life. But the idea that take different categories of life and say, if you were living at your best, what would it look like? Right? So that's just your ideals. Then your values. These have to be things that you're actually really are how you live your life.
[00:41:28] Lucas and Rachel: Um, so a lot of people say, well, I value this thing, but, um, if you aren't living it, then it, it isn't really your value. So your values are a little more specific. And, um, so having your ideals, having your values, and then. Having your, um, the family's mission, which we see more as, um, you have a family vision, which is where you want to get to, and then the mission being how you're currently living now, so the mission could, we don't see it as like a static thing, like right now, the seasonal life, it could be very seasonal, and so for us, you [00:42:00] know, with our family mission, a lot of it centers around in the house, and how do we bless people in our house, because, well, So we don't want to constantly be running around and outside of our house when we have young children.
[00:42:11] Lucas and Rachel: Um, so that mission could look a lot different in 20 years. But right now, it's in the house. And so, so those four components, ideals, values, mission, and vision. Because once you have that clarity, um, even if it's just a personal, even if you just have your personal values and you had no family and you had money, and you're like, well, how do I make investing decisions?
[00:42:29] Lucas and Rachel: Well, if I know what my values are, then I can align. The money aspect with those things. So, and even more so with a family and making decisions around how you spend your time, all your resources. And Rachel mentioned the five capitals, uh, types of capital. So having those defined allows you to then make, makes it very easy to say what to say yes to, and what to say no to.
[00:42:52] Lucas and Rachel: Which then also unites the family really around a shared purpose. Because the family is a thing that's definable, not just [00:43:00] a collection of individuals with individual goals and individual achievements. It's really something that you can do together, and that brings the family together. Yeah, and then the next step is family culture.
[00:43:11] Lucas and Rachel: So once you have those things, now it's how do you start creating rhythms that bring and infuse that into your daily life. Um, and so, so one of the things we did is, which, uh, We printed out our family values and put it, it's at the end of our di in our dining room, at one end of the table. We created a family logo, so we kind of branded, we did the idea of family branding.
[00:43:35] Lucas and Rachel: We created a family logo and that sits at the other on, on both ends of our table have these plus a bunch of family photos. We, um, created a family photo wall. So we went back. I have about six generations of family photos. Um, and we've created a, a family history wall. It's got, I don't know, 80 some photos.
[00:43:54] Lucas and Rachel: And, um, so we, we kind of, and our dining room and our living room are right, kind of all [00:44:00] together, one big room. So it's, it's, um, we have a lot that we can point to on the wall and talk about with our kids. So we can also point to our family values and say, Hey, uh, when a kid is living out one of the values, say, Hey, that's really great.
[00:44:13] Lucas and Rachel: You're, you're doing this. And if they're not, we say, Hey, we're marshals. We do this. But, um, obviously you don't want to take this to an extreme and say like, uh, well, we value, being, uh, bold. So, you're not a marshal if you don't go out and greet everyone when you're in a public place. I mean, like, that wouldn't be a great way to values have to be something that, like, for us, it's things like trustworthiness.
[00:44:33] Lucas and Rachel: Um, something that is a character issue. It's a spiritual, it's something you can't measure in the physical. It's not a personality trait. Yeah. Yeah, not a personality trait but something that is like a positive um, thing. Like being trustworthy or contributing. Um, um, being respectful. Right. These are all things that like, no, everyone should do these things.
[00:44:54] Lucas and Rachel: Not, not like, um, being outgoing. Right. That, that would [00:45:00] be, not everyone's going to be outgoing. Uh, not that we shouldn't grow in that, but anyway. So the point being, we can point to it. We can have a lot of discussions around that around the table. Um, the other one was, um, family meetings. We started doing a weekly family meeting.
[00:45:13] Lucas and Rachel: We started doing, um, um, family, a family day. So taking a day of rest, um, so a lot of this coming from family teams. That's where we, as we just started trying to figure all these things out, we started implementing more and more things and figuring out what works for our family. But it really was, how do we weave in the family guidance system into the family culture?
[00:45:37] Lucas and Rachel: And, um, when it comes to money, our oldest daughter, uh, when she was, when did she start her business? Three years ago. So she was Seven. When she was seven or eight. No, eight. We helped, we, she started a, a cookie business. She sells cookie dough in the neighborhood. And we told her, we, you know, we're not going to give you an allowance.
[00:45:57] Lucas and Rachel: We need to figure out how to contribute and provide value to [00:46:00] others. So, like, obviously there's things that we provide for her, but we're like, if you want spending money, you need to figure out how to contribute. So you can either start a business or you can do things above and beyond what's expected of you in the house.
[00:46:11] Lucas and Rachel: So you can find things that we're willing, mom and dad are willing to pay you for that isn't expected that you do on a regular weekly basis. And so she started a business. Um, and we helped her with that. And so it's, it's not just her on her own, but we, we help her with it. And, and so that was one way of trying to say, Hey, we, we value contribution and we value, um, providing value.
[00:46:33] Lucas and Rachel: So how do we teach her about that? How do we teach her about money? Not just like, we're going to just going to give you money. So, but we'll help you. And so, um, that was one of the ways that we, Talk about our family values and, and, and teach it to our kids. Um.
[00:46:47] Curt: Can I interject real quick? Okay. So that, that's wonderful, and we're trying to do a similar sort of mindset around that. My son's God is paper. . Root. I've been talking to him about businesses he can start. And so that's definitely in the same vein, which is, [00:47:00] yeah, there's stuff you can do above and beyond, but I'm not just going to give you money for existing.
[00:47:03] Curt: That's not how it works. And I want to teach you certain things about the world. But I'm also curious, um, if you are teaching her particularly at this age, um, if she was, what is she? 11 now.
[00:47:16] Lucas and Rachel: She just turned 12.
[00:47:18] Curt: Okay. So what are you doing to teach her how to manage that money? Because this is something we're doing. I'm using sort of like profit first personally.
[00:47:26] Curt: Um, but I'm curious if you guys have any thoughts about how you're actually teaching her now that she's making money. Like, again, like I said at the very beginning of this, entrepreneurs were great at making money typically, but keeping it spending at all the rest of that kind of stuff is not always the same skill.
[00:47:39] Curt: So how are you guys talking to her about that?
[00:47:41] Lucas and Rachel: So, uh, let me share one piece real quick before I answer that, because the reason that family culture is so important in leaving a legacy is that you can just write down all the things that you think are important to your family, and if you just write them down and you don't live them, you're not going to actually infuse them into your kids lives.
[00:47:59] Lucas and Rachel: They're going to be like, [00:48:00] oh, mom and dad wrote me this amazing letter about all these values. We didn't do that. So, um, that's why culture is really important. Culture is something you're always going to be working on. And some of the things that Lucas is sharing is not something that we say, well, you have to have your, you know, all these things in your life.
[00:48:14] Lucas and Rachel: You don't have to have a photo wall with 80 photos of your family, six generations. Those are more so ideas that we're sharing that we're saying we value our heritage and we want to do something that's going to be valued by our posterity, by those who come after us. And so this is how we're modeling that for her.
[00:48:31] Lucas and Rachel: Our kids. So, that's just a key piece that I wanted to bring in, why culture is important, but on kids and managing money, we are using a similar model for our daughter. So, she's always, always, always, from the very beginning when she started getting birthday money, I think when she was like four, we said, okay, you get to save some of it, spend some of it, and give some of it.
[00:48:50] Lucas and Rachel: So at the time we put it in jars, she could see all the money, and then by the time it was too much in savings to keep in the jar, then we opened a bank account for her, but now [00:49:00] everything she makes, so she has the cookie business, that's revenue that comes in, right, and then she still has expenses that she has to pay, and after those expenses she has her profit.
[00:49:08] Lucas and Rachel: from the profit. She then saves 40%. That goes straight into the bank. She doesn't get to use it at all. I just had to remind her the other day that it's still her money because she was like, well, I don't get it. I'm like, yes, but it is yours. And that's why we show the show you the bank account statement, the savings account, the balance, how much you've added to it, what it's growing by every single month when she gets a statement.
[00:49:28] Lucas and Rachel: So that money is growing 40 percent over in savings. She gets 50 percent to spend and 10 percent goes straight to giving. So when she looks at a hundred dollars of income that she just made that's profit, she already knows, well, hey, I'm gonna get to spend 50 of that on whatever I'm choosing. And so that's a huge Uh, it's almost like a forced system that they can learn, they can memorize, they can do even before they might understand the value of savings, or they might have a personal decision to save something long term, and then we've also distinct, had a clear distinction that saving [00:50:00] money, in a savings account doesn't mean you're saving that up for, um, buying, I don't know, what would, a dog or something that, like, it's not saving for a future expense.
[00:50:09] Lucas and Rachel: This is saving for your future and it's also saving for investment capital if you want to start another business. So if you want to go start an ice cream business and you need to get a big industrial ice cream maker, you have the money to buy that because this is in your savings, not because you're saving for another expense.
[00:50:24] Lucas and Rachel: So it's all age appropriate. It's not something that you can teach how to balance a checkbook when they're A lot younger, but it is important for them if they have spending money, they can either look at how much they've already spent and know what they have left, or they can write down on a ledger, I've spent 10 and now I still have 40 left.
[00:50:40] Lucas and Rachel: So it's basic math, but there's a lot of financial principles that you can teach really, really young. Yeah, the idea of an opportunity fund. So that long term savings is viewed as, she doesn't have to handle emergencies right now, but eventually, you know, as an adult, emergencies, but for her it's just the opportunity aspect of it.[00:51:00]
[00:51:00] Lucas and Rachel: So what's some other opportunity? Is it, is it buying something that you can make better and sell it? Or is it starting another business? Is it investing, but that's what that money is for. So it's, it's the idea that you're, you're not just saving so that you saving for a rainy day, you're saving, it's, it's a phrase we call net investable income.
[00:51:17] Lucas and Rachel: So like, if you're always saving a percentage of your income. Right? As your income grows, if you're thinking, if you're acquiring assets that produce income, your income's increasing, but you're saving a percentage of it. So then that means that the percent that you can then turn around and reinvest to then grow, it's like a self fulfilling cycle.
[00:51:35] Lucas and Rachel: And so the idea being that that money is for opportunities. And so it causes them to start thinking about, Hey, what's this other, other things I can do, or what's the next, um, as I get older, um, you know, maybe selling cookie dough is what I want to do the rest of my life. You know what? What's that next opportunity?
[00:51:50] Curt: knows? . I, I love that verbiage by the way. The Opportunity Fund. That is awesome. I've never heard it say like that, so I'm just gonna start thinking about mine like that. Um, and I know I've, I've sort of hijacked this and [00:52:00] I, there's so many steps left. Uh, we will give people, obviously the link and all that kind of stuff to go find this.
[00:52:05] Curt: There's a document that I'm looking at, it's like a step by step. We'll try and get through it in the next like eight minutes-ish. Um, and so anyway, it, with those constraints, , would you walk us through sort of next steps, which I think maybe love letters and then Gorilla Glue relationships.
[00:52:19] Lucas and Rachel: I can just walk through the whole thing super fast, is that it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you want to add in anything. So there are three steps in the meaning category, which is first, always, most important to think about the meaning of your legacy. So we've talked about family guidance system, which is how you're navigating decisions in your family, what your family culture looks like.
[00:52:35] Lucas and Rachel: Then we do talk about writing love letters, and specifically, love letters to your kids that they will receive when you pass away. So, it, very similar to what you're talking about, um, In this, like a legacy letter, you're writing something that is what they need to know before they're finding out about assets available to them.
[00:52:53] Lucas and Rachel: Before they're finding out about, um, Oh, this person said this and this person said this is really what mom and [00:53:00] dad said about what's most important to do and specifically, why, why, why you did what you did. Um, a lot of estate plans are just legal documents and no one knows about them and then someone dies and no one knows anything, why anything was done, it just is.
[00:53:16] Lucas and Rachel: And so, that is the, and now you can expand that. We've done, in our family now, we write letters on every birthday to each of, each of the family. Everyone in the family writes that person on their birthday a letter. And so, but, but at a minimum, just for legacy purposes, having a letter that explains why you did what you did.
[00:53:33] Lucas and Rachel: And with that, then that takes us over into the mechanism category, which there's three steps of that and then three steps of money. So in the mechanism category, we're talking all about the boat or the estate plan that transfers your legacy from one generation to the next. So that's why it's a mechanism or a structure.
[00:53:50] Lucas and Rachel: And within that structure, you need relationships that will help you continue your legacy past you. If everything's just on your own shoulders, you'll never be able to continue. Create a legacy. So this is [00:54:00] not only relationships like with God and yourself and with your spouse, with your kids, but also contingent relationships like a trustee, guardian, power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney that are going to be infused within your estate plan.
[00:54:12] Lucas and Rachel: And these are just decision makers that will carry on your wishes after you're here, after you're gone. Um, and then there is, I'm going to jump ahead to step six. That's your estate plan itself. And that is really the legal structure that will be put in place with an attorney. And before that is step five, which we think is one of the, it's almost like the linchpin, if you will, of the whole system, because this is a guidance system, or it's a structure that goes with your legal plans that really makes them come alive or gives them spirit to help them help children and your trustees that you designate to be in charge of your financial assets when you're gone.
[00:54:50] Lucas and Rachel: It gives them exactly the tools to know why you did the planning, what you want the money to be used for, what your value system was, and this document can be as short or as [00:55:00] extensive, as extensive as you'd like it to be. It's not legally binding, but it informs your legal trust. So if you think about it, a lot of people when they do estate planning bake into the legal document a lot of very specific or fixed aspects, and oftentimes too what's very common Is that a trust will say, give them money at age, you know, 18, 25, 30, whatever, just specific ages, don't money.
[00:55:26] Lucas and Rachel: And so what we did when we redid our estate plan is we wrote our trust to say that basically the trustee has complete discretion to do anything for the benefit of the beneficiaries. And then everything's spelled out in our memorandum of trust. So our memorandum of trust, um, as long as you, and this is why the trustees is called a trustee, right?
[00:55:44] Lucas and Rachel: You have to have complete trust in them. Okay. Um, but the idea being that we, we want to keep the money in trust. So the money doesn't get, doesn't get distributed. It stays in trust. Now there's, there's tax or, you know, asset protection reasons. That's not [00:56:00] important. What's important here is that the money stays in trust and then.
[00:56:03] Lucas and Rachel: We, uh, clearly spell out within, with very good guidelines, but also leaving it completely to the trustee to make discretion because maybe we can't foresee something happening. So we don't want to say, well, only for this degree in college, but we also don't want them, like, just living their whole life in college, just living off the trust money in college for 50 years, you know.
[00:56:22] Lucas and Rachel: So, but we give guidance, though, that, um, and a lot of it talks about even, like, giving money back, um, or paying it all back or some of it back. to the trust for future generations. Um, but again, it's all to the discretion of the trustee to decide what makes the most sense and what's going to benefit the family as a whole.
[00:56:40] Lucas and Rachel: So, we just get very clear guidance. And so that is much different than the standard of state planning, which is we'll just dump money um, on them. And so, so that, that I think covers the the state planning piece and then there's finally money. Which is really the fuel that you can put into your legacy. It [00:57:00] allows your legacy to go further and have a greater impact, but it's not where you start.
[00:57:03] Lucas and Rachel: So once you have the meaning set in place, and you have the structure in place, now it's time to think about the money and the financial resources, really from a generational perspective, not just how do I make sure I have everything I need during my lifetime, but how do I have the most to pass on to my kids, and the most family owned assets as well.
[00:57:21] Lucas and Rachel: So how are you thinking about maximizing the dollars that you have today to not only Do the most good for yourself and enjoy during your lifetime, but also have the greatest legacy to leave behind and so that's really Thinking about money from a seven generation lens Then we talk about how to do family banking which is a key piece of having accessible capital for the family to be able to invest in the members of the family and Have that be perpetual and replenishing.
[00:57:48] Lucas and Rachel: So it's a tool that you're able to use to say here's a a fund or an act a pool that you can access and use so you don't have to go get financing to start your very First business when you've not been vetted before [00:58:00] and you don't necessarily have a track record, but we the family Believe in you and oh, hey, by the way You need to develop a business plan bring that to us in order to get the capital And you need to show us how you're going to repay And we need to believe that this is going to be a useful endeavor and that it's going to develop you and it's going to benefit the family money And we don't think your business plan is quite sufficient, so let's mentor you so that we can help you get that business plan to something that we would be able to invest in, and now let's go ahead and invest in that because we believe in you as a family member.
[00:58:30] Lucas and Rachel: And you didn't quite fulfill on what you said you were going to, so let's restructure the next deal. In a way that will be successful for you and for the family. So there's just so much Packed into the idea of family banking because you have capital to invest in the family and you have a tool for accountability Which is what's really missing In often leaving a legacy where you just hand out an inheritance That's a one way street whereas family banking allows you to have this two way interaction That you're giving and receiving back with this benefiting the family [00:59:00] and the person Coming back to us giving a leg up but not a handout.
[00:59:04] Lucas and Rachel: So it's Um, Hey, we're, we're going to provide you these resources, but it's not just a handout. Um, there's an expectation that it's going to be stewarded and there's accountability to help them. And that's what you see with families, um, like the Rock, the Rockefellers, there's six generation now, I believe.
[00:59:21] Lucas and Rachel: And there's hun, um, hundreds of, of cousins that get together several, three times a year to decide how they're going to, um, how they help each other, but they also decide on giving family money to someone to start a business or. Um, to help them in whatever, maybe it's going to college, and that, that is decided at these family meetings where they meet, um, I think it's three times a year now, and they've been doing, that's how they've been able to keep the money going, is they didn't just dump money on the future generations.
[00:59:47] Lucas and Rachel: They keep it in trust, and then they have those that are able to control, they have very defined rules for giving money out to family for things that would be beneficial to help the [01:00:00] family members flourish. And then the last step really is family office or family office model. And so a family office is a structure that has a lot of professionals all helping one family accomplish their financial goals and it's all connected.
[01:00:13] Lucas and Rachel: It's integrated, which I love that word that is even part of the mastermind that you guys met at. Um, but this idea that my cash flow. system or my cash flow strategy complements my tax strategy, which complements my estate planning strategy, which complements my business strategy. And it's all connected rather than saying, well, the CPA said this, but the, uh, the attorney said this and it's conflicting.
[01:00:38] Lucas and Rachel: And then you're trying to figure out, well, how do I. And another type, is the types of growth methodology, norms of well being, and how to achieve and So if all define it as a growth strategy, which specifically speaks to that you want to live a destination type of
[01:00:48] Lucas and Rachel: life. That's usually only accessible to the ultra wealthy that have Multiple hundreds of millions of dollars and we instead take that down to those who are building wealth and allow them the opportunity to Have a [01:01:00] team of professionals that are all on the same page that talk with each other that have a team a coordinated or a coordinator for that family office model that is then Helping to be the liaison amongst all those professionals so that they can have the benefit Of having a coordinated financial strategy that really can accomplish their goals most effectively and efficiently
[01:01:20] Curt: Wow. So good guys. This is such a wonderful thing. The meaning, the mechanism, the money, the nine aspects of all this, it just like, it fits so perfectly and I think I am particularly joyous about it because I see what we do on sort of the meaning level here. And to see that as the foundation rather than like, I should probably talk about that somewhere.
[01:01:42] Curt: Uh, it's just, it's glorious. Like it is actually, I, I think this is probably just the way to do this and I'm, you know, whatever, and I'm not a financial person at all, but it, it looks and feels and, and seems so right from what you're saying here. So I wanna make sure that the listeners can find out how to do more of this.
[01:01:58] Curt: Listen, you guys, I know [01:02:00] you've got lots of content as well and presumably course or something to walk people through this. Where can people go to do all of that?
[01:02:07] Lucas and Rachel: You want an answer? Well, we have, uh, if you go to seven generations legacy.com, some, there's a free, uh, guide you can get right now that will all be replaced soon. We have a book coming out, a course and some, a coaching program to, to that is coming out in probably, I don't have an official day date, but I would expect.
[01:02:27] Lucas and Rachel: Within the next month and a half. Yeah, sometimes the next four to six weeks we believe should be out. So, um, so, but if someone goes there and signs up, they would get an email once everything comes out. But they can also go to the money advantage.com. That's our main website. That's the, the existing company.
[01:02:40] Lucas and Rachel: 'cause before we created all this, we were, we were already entrepreneurs in the wealth industry. Um, and that is our, our, our company, our brand is the Money Advantage. Um, seven Generations Legacy is the service that we came out of this life event and that we've been discussing. Um, really has birthed this whole new service and direction we're taking our company, so.
[01:02:59] Curt: [01:03:00] Amazing. That's super exciting. Okay, well, I will put all of that at dad.work/podcast if you wanna get those, or I'll put them inside the show notes, wherever you're listening right now or on YouTube. Thank you so much, guys. This has been a ton of fun. I really appreciate this.
[01:03:12] Lucas and Rachel: Well Kurt, I just want to give huge kudos to you for the whole idea that you're really focusing so much time and attention on those key elements of building a great family, because honestly, that is the kind of thing that creates Great humans, great relationships, great people that we can depend on in the generations to come.
[01:03:31] Lucas and Rachel: I mean, our kids are going to be tomorrow's leaders of our country. They're going to be the people that we depend on. And if we can have people like you really being able to invest in that culture piece and really making sure that that is very strong. I mean, that's just so, so amazing. So thank you for that work that you're doing.
[01:03:50] Curt: Yeah, no, thank you for that encouragement. And I love seeing it like that, the culture piece. I just logged that away because it's like, that is exactly what we're doing. So thank you very much for saying that, and, uh, [01:04:00] hopefully talk again soon.
Sign up to receive email updates
Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast.
Leave A Review – The Highest Impact, Lowest Cost Way of Supporting the Show
Are you enjoying this podcast? Do you want to say thanks, and help more fathers find this episode? Please leave a review for the Dad.Work podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Ping me at curt@dad.work or on Instagram @dadwork.curt and send me a link to your review and I’ll give you a shout-out on the podcast!