028. How to Found Your Family Office and Build a Legacy

Lifestyle

Jan 3

Want to build a legacy like the Rockefellers?

From family offices to family meetings we’re covering how to build generational wealth to live a fulfilling life now and leave an impactful legacy later. From tips on initiating family meetings and working toward common goals to knowing when to outsource your tasks, you'll learn how to found your family office and manage your wealth like Bezos.

In today's episode, we cover the following:

Birdie and bogey (00:44)

The importance of family institutions in the world of old money (6:10)

What a family office is and how they preserve your legacy (9:52)

Outsourcing tasks to experts (18:15)

Establishing family meetings (22:08)

What should be on the agenda of your family meetings (30:04)

TRANSCRIPT

Amber F. (00:05)
Happy new year, and welcome back to the old Money podcast. It's your host, Amber Frankhuizen. How's it going, rich girls? How's 2024 treating you so far? I hope you had the most magical holiday and new year's day. And in the spirit of probably being incredibly sick of your family today, ironically, we're going to talk all about family. I think it's important. But I'm not talking about family of origin stuff. We're not going into your holiday trauma. We're talking about setting up a legacy now, moving forward with the family that you create, whatever that might look like. So before we jump into it today, let me give you a little quick birdie and bogey. Okay, so I'm recording live. Well, not live when you're hearing this, but live as I'm doing it. Right? Like, let me paint you the picture. I just drove today for 7 hours. Poppy and I came back from northern California visiting my sweet, sweet mom, Rosie. I love her so much. And we are currently in the Lancombe hotel in Pasadena. We stayed here on the way up.

Amber F. (01:10)
I needed like a lily pad because driving all the way from San Diego to northern California is so treacherous. When I was in college, I used to do it all the time, but I used to go like 115 miles an hour in my little race car and make it in like seven and a half hours. And then today it took me 7 hours just to get from Sacramento to Pasadena. And by the way, Poppy's here, if you can hear her in the background. Excuse me. Thank you. Anyway, driving with the dog, I have to stop and make sure she goes potty, gets her exercise, et cetera. I can't even imagine doing it with children. Like, godspeed to all of you moms and dads out there that are cross country traveling on planes, trains, and automobiles with actual human beings. I can barely get myself across the country. But anyway, this is our lily pad. We stayed here for a night on the way up, and we're staying here for a night on the way back down to kind of break it up a little bit. And honestly, this hotel is so old money. Like, it's so amazing. It's so perfect, and it's so nice to dip my toes into just luxury, even just for a night.

Amber F. (02:12)
I'm not even here 24 hours. I wasn't here 24 hours the time before either. But it's just such a good reminder of the way that you're greeted, the way people speak to you, how much service is just being polite and kind and anticipating people's needs. And it's something that I'm really happy that I got to experience on this trip and get to experience often based on where I'm lucky enough to travel to, because that's how I want my business to feel. I want my clients to feel like they're at a four star hotel, five star hotel. That's what I always say. We are like the four seasons of marketing agencies. It's not burn'em and churn'em. We have a boutique agency where we only really work with a few clients at a time because we want to go deep with our clients and build great relationships. I digress. Let me tell you more about the hotel. It's so fancy. It's the best neighborhood. And since I'm with Poppy, that was, like, my number one thing. A great neighborhood to walk her in.

Amber F. (03:05)
And the neighborhood that I'm in. The homes are just these palatial estates. Everyone is like craftsmen and huge lawn, or it's a cottage and a cute little garden, or this spanish colonial, spanish revival style. It kind of looks like the neighborhood in the movie. What's that called? The father of the bride. Is that what it's called, father of the bride? I think that's what it is. You know, with Steve Martin from the whatever. It's like that type of neighborhood. And I just love walking in nice, wealthy neighborhoods. It's just such an expansion moment for me. When I used to live at Wind and Sea in La Jolla, I would run all of the time, and I hate running, but it would motivate me to run up to Camino de la Costa and look at all the beautiful homes and run through bird rock and dream about living in them. Anyway. So that was a criteria number one.

Amber F. (03:54)
Criteria number two was obviously finding a hotel that allows dogs. And the Langham is very pet friendly. I will say we're kind of breaking the rules. Poppy is not 35 pounds. That's their weight limit. But she looks felt and cute, so it doesn't matter. And I have to say, too, just businesses that are pet friendly, they're doing it right. I am working with a new real estate developer in San Diego. Well, they're not new. They're like 100 years old, but they're new to me. And their philosophy on pets for rentals is like, yes, we allow all dogs, and our pet policy is not a policy. It's like, how can we make them happy in our home? And it's a huge point of differentiation for them. They get so many people coming to live with them that can't live other places with their pets, so I'm super excited to be working with them. Also very nervous and stressed because I want to do a good job.

Amber F. (04:41)
For know, it's like a first date when you start working with somebody. So just been working on that over the holiday. My point is this. The langham is beautiful. I don't know where I'm going. I'm completely unhinged on this podcast already. It could be the fact that I drove for 7 hours today. Anyway, the birdie is that I'm here at the Langham with Poppy. She's sleeping by the door. I ordered room service. I have my quintessential room service order. I get the same thing everywhere I go. A caesar salad, dressing on the side with seared salmon, french fries, cookies, and mint tea. That is the order. That is my old money order. Super happy, super cozy. It's pouring rain Outside. I'm just Glad we're landed and I'm very excited to make it Home. The bogey is leaving my mother. And just for anybody who doesn't live close to their Parents or their Family and misses them, I always think about that thing of like, you have your heart in two different places and how lucky can you be?

Amber F. (05:38)
But it is so hard to be apart from Family and have it be treacherous to get to them. Granted, I really could just fly up to see my mom, which is like an hour flight, but bringing the dog is special and my mom loves poppy. And so we had a really nice Little Christmas moment together. But just like that, we are heading back to San Diego. And I'm really excited, though, about today's episode because with the theme of family, I really wanted to talk about one of what I think to be the most important rules of old money. Now, as a refresher, before I even started recording podcast episodes, I was trying to figure out this whole old money thing for months, and I spent a lot of time lining out 25, what I believe to be core values of the old money lifestyle. And I'm calling them the new rules to old money. And one of them, number 19, is all about family institutions. Now, family can be a very challenging concept for a lot of people, myself included. I have a very unique family dynamic that's not typical.

Amber F. (06:44)
And I know there are some people out there who have challenges with their family of origin, and they're trying to break the stigmas or the molds or the generational trauma or curses or whatever you want to call it from where they've come from and start a new family that has new identity, new values. I know some people come from very traditional families. I know that some people are trying to. Maybe they're single right now and hoping to have a family in the future. And I don't mean the typical, like husband and wife, two and a half kids in a white picket fence family, for me, is whatever you make of it.

Amber F. (07:20)
And as somebody who has a very unique family dynamic, and I'm also an only child, I really felt for a long time that my family was my friends and my chosen family, and very close with a lot of my chosen family. I mean, I've been so blessed in my life to have deep, deep friendships, and I've chosen to invest in those friendships as if they were family, sister, et cetera. But when we talk about it in the terms of old money, a family institution is about establishing values and tradition that is incredibly important in generationally wealthy families, because it helps to maintain a sense of identity and continuity across multiple generations. But also, you have this added benefit of collaboration. Working together as a family is essential for building and maintaining generational wealth.

Amber F. (08:10)
And many families that are generationally wealthy do prioritize collaboration and communication. However, if you've ever seen an episode of succession, you know it doesn't always go that way. Right? That's a complete, perfect example of terrible communication and horrible leadership, conflicts of interest, all the emotions like succession, the Roy is like a disaster, right? But there are so many successful family generations out there that we could look to, and one of them, obviously, is the Rockefellers. I think it's one of the most established old money names that we would reference. And what's really interesting about the Rockefellers is that for decades, the family was quietly just collecting interest on billions of dollars, their fortune, right? And they were giving away hundreds of millions. Well, recently, what's happened just because of succession? The way that, not the show, but the way that families grow, right?

Amber F. (09:01)
Like, it starts with Grandpa Rockefeller, and then he has kids, and then those kids have kids, and then there's like grandkids and great, great grandkids. Now there's a ton of people to pay. So it's so interesting because the Rockefeller family had previously had this super iconic quote from David Rockefeller Jr. Who said, historically, the goal of the family was preservation of wealth rather than amassing of wealth. But now that the client base is moving to 100, there is a new emphasis on growth. So when he says the client base, he's talking about the grandchildren of all of the people that come from the Rockefeller family. There's a lot of people to support. So they are now focused on growth and growing their fortune, more so than just collecting interest off it and living as socialites or philanthropists or whatever. So that's been really interesting. And the way that they do that is through a family office.

Amber F. (09:52)
So a family office is actually like a business that supports the growth and management of the wealth of very wealthy families. So, for example, the Rockefellers, it's not like Grandpa Rockefeller and know third cousin Janie are managing the investments. They hire ceos, cfos, investment advisors, financial teams, lawyers, tax accountants. All of these people work for the Rockefellers. They work for the family office. They're employed, they have an HR team, they have payroll. They're all employed by the family office. So think of it kind of like a venture fund. You think about this all the time. In Shark Tank, for example, Mark Cuban owns an investment company.

Amber F. (10:35)
He invests in a whole bunch of different companies. Maybe some of them are through Shark tank, maybe some of them are like the Dallas Mavericks, whatever it might be. But he has a team of people that work for him, managing everything that goes on in that business. So in a venture capital fund, you would do the exact same thing, right? You raise the money and then you invest in startups, and you're going to have the finance team, advisors, leaders, people with experience in the space, you hire these experts to make sure that the investments are as successful as possible. And in a family office, it's the exact same thing. Your family office, you come to the table with, okay, I inherited $500 million and I need to do something with it. You cannot just leave cash there, because cash on its own is not going to grow and beat inflation. It's not going to allow you to continue to do more things as you grow your wealth. So you might have your family office invest in real estate and businesses, in securities, right?

Amber F. (11:30)
Like stocks and companies, bonds, all that kind of stuff. Hedge funds, you might invest in private equity, you might have somebody managing your philanthropy and setting up your foundations, all that kind of stuff. So there's a ton of stuff that can be done within a family office. And I've actually worked with a lot of family offices before, because in real estate development, you have to pull money from a lot of different investors, right? So you might have institutional investors, which are companies that raise funds to invest in real estate, and then sometimes there's a family office around and they're like, hey, I want to get on, on this kind of deal, or maybe I want to build a yacht or I want to build a building.

Amber F. (12:07)
And they'll be an investor in a project, and they're treated just like a regular company would be. Honestly, sometimes they're as formal, if not more so, than the institutional investors, because you want to be taken seriously in the game. But sometimes they're just homies, and their investment advisors are just great to talk to people, the normal people that like their job and get to work on real estate projects with them. So again, a family office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for wealthy families. Typically, you need to have at least $50 million in investable assets, but honestly, a lot of times it's a lot more.

Amber F. (12:45)
Or they'll have family offices that manage multiple families monies together. So you could have, like, each family has $30 million in assets, or one family has 30,000,001, has ten, whatever, and they pool the money together and they do a multifamily office. But still, you have your CEO, your CFO, you have your tax advisors, all those types of people, because your money has to get moved, it has to get invested, and it has to get managed. It can't just sit around. So, actually, three of the biggest family offices in the world are actually all from the United States. And if I let you think about it for 2 seconds, you'd be like, oh, duh. But the order of them actually surprised me, because the number one biggest family office is the Walton Enterprise. That's the Walmart family. They were established by late Sam Walton, who founded Walmart, and they manage $224,000,000,000 in assets. Like, when I looked at this number, I had to count the sections of zeros.

Amber F. (13:43)
I was like, okay, that's a million. So, yeah, that's a billion. Okay. And this family office manages the wealth and philanthropy and personal business of multiple generations of the family. And just like, I love this. Just like a regular company would have, like, a mission statement or an investment thesis, theirs is that they focus their investment on diversity, inclusion, and belonging. So that was really interesting. The second biggest family office is called cascade investment, and this is the multifamily office of Bill Gates. They have 14 offices across the world, and they invest in industries like gas extraction, agriculture, and financial market sectors. So this is not me going off on my conspiracy theory rant, but yes, very questionable investments for Bill Gates, and just keep your eye on that.

Amber F. (14:34)
Anyway, they manage his wealth of up to $170,000,000,000. But note on this one, I said it was a multifamily office of Bill Gates. So I'm not exactly sure if it's his multiple family members or multiple other families that have invested with him. But just an interesting note, because number three is Bezos expeditions. That's the third largest family office. I don't need to tell you who owns it, even though I know, you know our boy Jeffy B. And Lauren Sanchez. To be. Oh, to be just Lauren Sanchez. Do you think she'll change her name? Lauren Sanchez Bezos. Lauren Bezos. I really think she should keep Sanchez. I think that's kind of like a power move, and it fits her anyway. Jeff Bezos single family office.

Amber F. (15:18)
Bezos expeditions operates the largest ecommerce store. Duh. The firm manages Bezos personal wealth, which is over $100 billion, and his investments and invests in early stage ventures, late stage ventures, and seed stage companies. Now, I was hearing on group chat, they were talking about Jeff Bezos going on Lex Friedman's podcast. I have it on my to listen list, but I haven't listened to it yet. But he's talking about some of the things that he's investing in now, like all of his space stuff. And the way that he explained how he is investing in that is kind of like when he started Amazon, he had the benefit or the privilege of the fact that the Internet existed and that online payment processors existed. So because those things existed, he could build an online bookstore. It's kind of like if you have the train tracks laid across the country, you can drive a train and move your product. It's kind of like, okay, we get to use the benefit of the things that were laid before us.

Amber F. (16:15)
So he's saying with the blue Earth fund, that he's laying the tracks, basically, of the infrastructure that's going to support all of the things that are going to happen in space long after he's gone. And I just think that is so interesting. And isn't that a way to think about legacy? Because if he's the guy that lays the train tracks across the US, I'm quoting in my air quotes, that you can't see, again, just like he's doing that to space. I mean, that is legacy, and he's thinking beyond his own mortality, which is exactly what this conversation is all about. So, again, on family offices, there's a lot of stuff that they do in the family office, right? They do wealth preservation, retaining your wealth. They do legacy planning, which is protecting your family's finances for generations to come, and also giving support to the family when dealing of the loss of grandpa bezos or whatever. Right? They also do strategic philanthropy, which is a giving strategy that's obviously going to make sure that you're putting the money to good use, but also taking advantage of any tax benefits.

Amber F. (17:18)
They can also do household management. So that's like running your different households, your house in New York, your house in Aspen, your house in Florida, whatever it might be, setting up businesses. So business structuring, like knowing when to sell it, when to merge, when to have separate ones, et cetera. And then of course, you just have like a personal CFO who manages all your day to day finances. Right? So with all of those things, that takes a lot of different people that manage this all for you. So you have wealth management, tax planning, somebody's filing your tax returns and doing your real estate structures and making sure that your real estate management is done well. You have trust in corporate services. I mean, I'm talking about a family office with so many people supporting the operations of just building the wealth and maintaining the wealth of one family. And that's such a huge game changer.

Amber F. (18:08)
It's something that I've been thinking about a lot for myself. We talked about this earlier in a different episode of I have this old way of thinking. I don't know where I picked this up or why this is my default mode, but I feel like I have to do things on my own all the time and I have to take care of everything. Everything falls back on me. Like, I have to do all this work. It's so hard. And the reality is that is my own limiting belief. That is a crutch, a thing that I have. And it could be from the hyper independence that I had to establish as a child to take care of myself. And that's carried with me. But the reality is all of our families, no matter if you're Jeff Bezos or you're Warren G. Oh my God. Not Warren G. Warren Buffett. Okay. Oh, my gosh. Rip. Charlie Munger, by the way, Warren G. Might have a family office. Might have had a family office.

Amber F. (19:02)
I have no idea. My point is, any family out there needs support to get shit done. If you are trying to white knuckle your way through life and get everything done on your own, you're going to be your gardener, your tax planner, you're going to be your business associate, your CFO, you're going to be your full time chef. There's only so much capacity that we have as human beings to do all the things. And so I'm really looking into outsourcing. And I'm going to do a whole episode about how to figure out what you can afford to outsource and what you should do on your own. But long and short of it is you are responsible as an adult to take responsibility of the things that matter to you. Like I always say, nobody's going to care about your money more than you care about your money. So if you just outsource all of your shit to a financial planner and say, oh, I'll just pay them the 1% fee, you're going to end up losing so much over time. And Jordan, I still have your letter.

Amber F. (19:57)
I will answer it about should we be paying our financial advisor? And there are pros and cons in different situations. We'll go through it all. My point is this, if you care about your money, you are going to need to be the one that is in charge of it, and you can absolutely get help for it, but nobody's going to pay closer attention to the dollars and cents than you are. Same thing with raising your kids. You can get a nanny, you can get a babysitter, but you cannot outsource the raising of your children to other people. It just doesn't work that way. Again, I already talked about Paris Hilton on an earlier episode, but I am so bothered by the way that she was portrayed on that show. And I don't mean that way that she was portrayed, I mean the way she must have signed off on that. And I think it's crazy how she was showing herself being so wrapped up on her, quote unquote, responsibilities when they were things that she could have opted to do later and instead be bonding with her baby.

Amber F. (20:49)
I'm so confused. Let me know your thoughts on Paris Hilton. Anyway, talking about outsourcing. So the whole point here, when you're looking at things that you're going to want to do to help move your life along, help you achieve your goals, is that there are experts out there that can help you do things better than you can do them. And I think a lot of people have a lot of ego about the things that they oh, I could file my taxes on turbotax. I'm sure that you could, actually. I know that anybody could. It's very easy. But working with somebody who's an enrolled agent and can help you with managing multiple businesses and tax advantage strategies and doing it for you so that you don't burn hours and hours of time trying to do it on your own, there's, again, a tipping point of when it makes sense to invest and help and when it makes sense to do things on your own. If you enjoy gardening and it lowers your blood pressure, and you get to get your fingers dirty in the mud or whatever.

Amber F. (21:41)
And that brings you joy. Go garden. Don't outsource it. But if doing something like cleaning your baseboards makes you feel like you have a broken back, maybe you could spend your time doing something more productive, generating income instead of scrubbing your baseboard. So that's my rant on outsourcing. We'll come back to that later on another episode, and also, we'll talk about financial planners and things like that as well. But today, the point actually, very long road to get here. But the point, actually, of this whole episode is family meetings. And I actually saw a really cute TikTok of some kid, like, coming back from boarding school that was like, family meetings are greater than everything. And it's like such a vibey TikTok. I'll repost it on old Money podcast, Instagram. Excuse me. And it's like them flying in to the big city. They get dinner, they're in a boardroom, and they're having a family meeting. It's like a mom and dad and two young kids.

Amber F. (22:37)
They look like they're sub 25. And that, for me, is what triggered this whole thing. Even though Justin and I have been doing this as a family since we first started dating, to be honest with you now, again, I want to say, if you are not married, if you are not partnered, if right now your family is, you get it, girl. Like, make this family meeting happen for you. If you have kids, you might want to include them in some of these conversations as well. I think a family meeting with children when they're old enough to have group discussions and learn decorum in a meeting, I think that's really important. I'm really grateful that Justin is as stoked about my crazy ideas, or this one might have been his, actually, but he's just down to do this with us. We're both super ambitious, goal oriented people, and I will tell you, it hasn't always been easy. The first time ever that we were going to go do a family meeting, we made a thing of it. And I do recommend doing this, especially when it's new.

Amber F. (23:35)
We were like, okay, let's go to born and raised, which is this great restaurant in San Diego. We're going to sit upstairs at the bar, get some champagne, some snacks, and let's plan out our next year. This was in like, 2021, I think. And it was like, right at the end of the year, we're going to plan our year together. And I'm like, yes. This is so expansive. This is so great. We're going to talk about everything we're going to achieve this year. All the places we're going to travel to. We sit down, we order some champagne, like, Justin gets a drink, whatever. And I start talking, and Justin looks at me, and his eyes are so big, and he's, like, gritting his teeth. He's like, shut up, shut up, shut up. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? I'm like, why are you not enjoying our family meeting? And just so happens that as we're sitting at this bar planning out our year, I think we're going to talk about all the places we're going to travel.

Amber F. (24:22)
No, the girl that had sat right next to him at the bar, you guys, was a girl that he had dated before. And the way that it literally took all the wind out of my sales and his, of course, he's like, we're not having any conversation this girl could possibly overhear. And we literally just stared at each other. I literally remember just sitting forward on that bar being like, are you fucking for real right now so much. We're having a family meeting. And of course I was, like, all miffed and irritated, and it just ruined the vibe. So, listen, if it doesn't go right the first time, just know there's hope for you as well. Like, you can do this. But I can also imagine that a lot of people out there are thinking, like, okay, my partner is not going to want to do this with me. Like, good fucking luck, Amber. And here's what I have to say to that again, you can go at it solo, and you can also ask your partner by thinking about for yourself what this might look like before you even approach it. So for me, having these family meetings, when I envision them, they're loving, they're productive. It helps us get aligned. It helps us achieve our goals faster. We're closer afterwards.

Amber F. (25:29)
It's for connectivity and bonding. And also, it's like, helping us practice better communication. But there might be people out there that are like, I'm in meetings all fucking week. I don't want to meet with you. There might be people, like, I don't want to be in a meeting, period. That's not my vibe. And when you ask your partner, what I would recommend is that you approach it with, hey, I know this is out of the ordinary, but I'd like to try something new. I'd like to have a family business meeting. And then you need to share what you believe. The perceived benefits would be. And I think especially when you're trying something new, like, you get to go first, you get to have the olive branch set up. The first one say that this is something I'd like to do together. I'd like to eliminate as much friction as possible. So when can we do this that works for you? Can I make it special?

Amber F. (26:14)
Obviously do it. Not when somebody's hungry. Do it, like after dinner. Maybe you go out to a special dinner, like we tried to do. I think it's important to approach it in a way that if you have somebody that might be resistant to it, you're anticipating that with love and acknowledgment and then making it easy for that person to participate.
But it is important that you have a partner that's going to participate with you in these things. Because although this can be intimidating for some or uncomfortable for some, and you need to be respectful of where your partner is at, I really believe that to have a productive partnership, both people need to be in it. And it doesn't have to be a scary five hour long meeting. I recommend doing it, I don't know, like monthly, quarterly. If you're starting, maybe it's every other week. Here's a huge tip. You need to set a time and have a time limit. I don't recommend going more than 90 minutes on a family meeting. Okay. Put it on your calendar for sure.

Amber F. (27:14)
Again, make sure that it's after dinner or at dinner so nobody's hangry. I kind of recommend not drinking alcohol. I think it's better to be just clear minded for this and get it done. Take it seriously. Like, you are the CEO of your life. You and your partner are co ceos of your family. So I think it's good to just get through it, have an agenda, take notes and structure it, right? 100%. Things are going to move and groove as you have different family meetings. It's not like there's the same agenda every single time. When you start, you might have conversations about, I don't know, what your family values are, or maybe you're having conversations about the purpose of the meetings or big picture planning or anything like that. Maybe you're just setting some ground rules and expectations. You're getting buy in. Here's the biggest thing, is that you. Well, I think there's two biggest things.

Amber F. (28:04)
Number one, you don't have to solve everything in one meeting. Okay. Like, not everything's going to get resolved in a meeting. Not everything is going to get figured out. That's why you have regular meetings. To come back and continue to work on it. And also, this is not an emotional dumping moment. This is not your family therapy. This is not your marriage counselor vibes. This is not bringing your problems to the table and being like, here's all the things you're not doing in the household. This is a business meeting. This is about goals. This is about working together. This is about achievement. And I just also want to say again, if you have a partner that's resistant to this, I think it's okay to lead by example and be respectful where your partner is at, meet them where you are.

Amber F. (28:44)
And I really hesitate when this is a hard conversation to have. But the amount of success that you have is directly in correlation to the number of uncomfortable conversations you're willing to have. That's what Tim Ferriss says, and I totally believe it. Also, the best way to throttle the growth of somebody else is to try to force them to change. So it's a delicate balance. And I think you need to continue to voice what would work well for you, and we'll talk about what this could look like. But for me, I think when we talk, know, I'm not trying to get as rich as Jeff Bezos, okay? But I am trying to make an impact on this world and leave a legacy and enjoy my family life and build something with my partner. And I really believe that is the crux of why we're trying to build generational wealth, right? Whether we have children, whether we give it to charities that we believe in, our godchildren, our nieces and nephews, we're trying to also live a good life now and leave a legacy later.

Amber F. (29:40)
So that's why I think family meetings are so important. Because if you're not having conversations about the things that matter to you and your partner, how are you guys going to ever know what you're working towards? You could be on two separate parallel paths, like moving in the same direction, but when two people, or more than two people are working towards a shared common goal, I mean, the results are just exponential. Right? So anyway, let's talk about what could be on the agenda or what should be on the agenda for a family meeting. Okay? There are some things that are must for me, and everything else is a flux in flux. So let me tell you what's a must. When you're opening up a family meeting, it must start with highlights. Three highlights. Each person participates in this, and it could be appreciation that you're giving to your partner. It could be things that you're grateful for. It could be highs of the last week or the last month or whenever it was since the last time you met. It could be celebrating shared wins. It could be anything positive.

Amber F. (30:38)
I do this in my team meetings every Monday at AF marketing we have our weekly team meeting and we start the week with personal and professional best. Everybody gives a highlight of their professional achievements of the last week and then personal. And it is so important to start a meeting on the right foot that way. That is actually something that I stole from the traction model of operation system. It's called the EOS system. Great book. I definitely recommend it if you own a business. Anyway, the reason it's so important to start with highlights and appreciation or gratitudes is because it really sets the tone energetically and also connected. Like to connect with your partner right away and you're going to be like, oh, I don't have anything right away. Okay, if you're coming to this meeting, treat it like you would your job.

Amber F. (31:20)
Come prepared to the meeting. Do your homework, be ready. Okay. At the beginning of your starting to do family meetings, you might have different types of meetings. You might have like an annual overview meeting where you talk about your goals for the year or your travel plans like I was telling you Justin and I tried to do. You might talk about family planning. You might talk about when different things are happening in your lives. That might be one type of meeting. You might have like a quarterly overview where you sync schedules or talk about projects or investments you're making. Anything like that.

Amber F. (31:55)
But typically what I recommend is that at the last meeting, obviously it's hard to do on your first one, but at the last meeting, pick together one topic that you're going to focus on and the topics could be we're going to focus this month or this week or biweekly on finances. We're going to look at our investments, we're going to look at when we're moving or how we're giving our money to charity. Maybe we're looking at big purchases, budget reviews, travel. Maybe we're evaluating our relationship and our closeness and looking at ways that we can improve that and setting new systems in place. You could have all of these different conversations, but you are allowed to bring your points to the table. I would say limit it to one to three, but pick a topic of focus for each meeting so that you have clear focuses and then you can do the next two things. These are also musts. Okay. Rocks. Rocks is another thing I got from the EOS system.

Amber F. (32:49)
Rocks are anything that are getting in your way of achieving your goals. So, for example, if you guys are having a conversation about relationship closeness and you're saying, hey, I'm trying to spend at least three days of quality time with you after work, but unfortunately, there's Monday night Football, Thursday Night Football, you play pickleball on Wednesday, and then you're out drinking on Friday. And Tuesday is the only day that works. The rock is having enough time scheduled or having enough time available in order to meet that goal. And that might mean, okay, maybe three days a week isn't achievable right now. Maybe we look at one day a week and one weekend day. I'm just giving a stupid example right now because calling it out as a rock is not putting it on the other person. Like, you're so busy, you're always out, you're doing these things. It's like the rock is the schedule. The rock is something else.

Amber F. (33:42)
It's not the person. Okay, so rocks are calling out the things that are in your way that are in the way from you achieving your goals. The other thing that I think is super important to include are takeaways or action items. So any decisions that were made, I say write them down for sure and then make sure that you put deadlines on them. So, for example, if you guys are talking about house projects, hey, we just moved into this new house. It needs to be repainted. We need the plumber here. We need to do this and that. You split it up. Who's going to do what then you figure out who's going to delegate to what people, or if you're going to figure out how to do it on your own and then put deadlines in place. I treat my whole life like a business, like, I take my life seriously because I deserve to. My life is important. The things that I do matter, and I want to hold myself to a high standard to make sure that my partner gets the best out of me. So, yeah, 100%, we set deadlines, I make sure that I get them. Also, as I mentioned, always set your next meeting objective.

Amber F. (34:39)
Decide together the things that you're going to talk to each other about in the next meeting. And then here's another must, is you have to finish with positives again. You can finish with things that you're looking forward to in the next time period until you meet again. You can give recognition or appreciation or a compliment to your partner you could talk about. I really liked that we talked about this topic today. I feel good about the decisions we made, but you have to finish with positives and put it on your agenda like positives, you have to call them out and both people participate in that. Now, again, delegating, I think is super huge to having successful meetings because if you try to figure out everything on your own, you might get burnt out. So figuring out who is doing what in your household and what you can outsource might also be a great meeting to have. I would say what's the most important thing for you to spend your energy on? Not just your time, but your energy.

Amber F. (35:35)
So if you have investing issues, budgeting issues, you need to book travel, you need to buy a new car, you need to do house projects, you have kids to raise. What can you outsource? You could probably outsource travel because obviously there's people that can do it way better than you can for planning a vacation. They do that all the time. Help out for investing. You get some help from a fiduciary if you need some help getting going on that kind of stuff, or an asset allocation review, kid responsibilities, maybe you have a babysitter that helps you. But you say, that's where I want to spend my time. That's where I want to spend my energy. I'm not outsourcing that all of the way. So another big point of contention in families is just there's not enough time to do everything. How are we going to achieve all of our goals? Well, you do it with help. Again, if you want this to continue, you got to praise, praise, praise, praise, praise, praise all day, baby. You got to give a lot of positive reinforcement. You got to give appreciation for participating.

Amber F. (36:32)
This is my biggest thing for myself right now, too, is just like I usually just word vomit what I want to say. I don't even think about how it impacts other people. I do this all the time. It's one of my worst habits. I am getting really careful with my phrasing. So saying things like I'm noticing or this is coming up for me. I hear what you're saying and really using I statements instead of you statements. So starting sentences with things like, I feel sad when blank or I get upset when I hear you say blank. That kind of helps the other family member or partner understand how you feel without feeling attacked. It's 90 minutes. You can be empathetic and respectful and try your best for 90 minutes and then end it at 90 minutes. By the way, don't let it go over. Business meetings are always on time. When you think about, really your family, institution, I want you to think about what that means for you and how much impact you can have in your life. And again, getting on the same page as your partner or your kids or your larger family is so important for having the life that you desire.

Amber F. (37:36)
You deserve to have the life that you desire, whether that's traveling to where you want to go or retiring when you want to retire or whatever it might be. But I really think when you think about having a family meeting at home in your living room like a clipboard, it seems kind of drab and sad. So I'd really love for you to think about it in this expansion way. Look at the TikTok that I'm going to post on Instagram. I'll post it today when this episode drops. And think about what an upgraded family meeting would be for you. Like think about your ultimate future self running a family meeting when you are in your high rise boardroom in New York City and you fly your kids in from boarding school. Or maybe you're going to have a family summit out in Aspen. During the winter, you're going to go skiing in the morning. In the afternoon, you're going to spend a couple hours working on what mom's business goals are, or dad business goals, or where Johnny's signing up for his.

Amber F. (38:30)
I don't know, he's signing with Ford models like Brooks from Salt Lake City, whatever it might be, right? Where are we traveling? Where are we going to school? What are our priorities? What galas are we going to this year? Are you going to premiere at the debutante ball? It does take planning and it does take consideration for families of that magnitude to execute on their lives. And it should for you as well. That's what it means to really live richly and intentionally. And setting up a family institution where your closeness is important, your values are important, your traditions are important, and that it's not just about generating wealth, but generating legacy and identity about how your family impacts others, how they impact the community, and how you impact each other.

Amber F. (39:12)
So with that being said, I would love to know if you run any family meetings in your household, what your agendas look like. If this inspires you to ask your partner, let me know. If you have any sticking points with that, questions about that. Let me know how this goes for you. It's the beginning of the year. It's 2024. It's a perfect time to start something new. It's a perfect time to try something new. And you know that saying. It's like if you try the same thing over and over again and expect different result, that's the definition of insanity.

Amber F. (39:44)
If you want a different result in your life. If you want an extraordinary life, you have to do extraordinary things. I think this is a great example of something that's relatively painless to try looping your partner in for support and putting a family meeting on the calendar so that you can get aligned on your goals and amplify your impact more quickly than you would ever thought before. With that, thank you so much for spending your time with me on this episode. I'm just here on a mission to make us all rich girlies. That's all we want. I want to go travel with you. I want to have all of our friends in high places. And by the way, we need friends to travel with, right? So if you're getting rich and you have a friend out there that you think should get rich too, will you take two second of your time to support the podcast and send it to a friend who you want to live your wealthiest life with? That would mean the world to me. And if you haven't yet done so, please take a second to rate that's leaving the Stars review. That means leaving me my love language, some words of affirmation, and subscribe. That means clicking the little plus button. I'd be beyond appreciative.

Amber F. (40:46)
Thank you so much for all of your support. Thank you for being here as I build this podcast and this community and all these rituals like 2024 is our year. Let's go get it. Talk to you guys on the next episode. Bye.

Resources

Read Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman

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