Please take a look at my article in Family Business Magazine about engaging children early in discussions about family business/family wealth. Over the years in my clinical work as a family therapist working with parents and kids around tough issues such as death, illness in a family member and divorce, to name a few, I’ve come to realize that any topic can be discussed with even very young children if approached in a developmentally appropriate manner. Wealth is no exception. I hope you’ll take the Read more »
Wealth Psychology Consulting
Ethical Wills – A Very Personal Example
Ethical Wills are not legal documents (although the name might have a legal ring to it). These are a powerful way to communicate love, wisdom and values to your children and grandchildren – even if they have not been born yet! Here is the one I wrote; try your hand at writing your own. Ethical Will to: Jeremy & Matthew Savlov Written by: Jeff Savlov – 48 years old Married father of 2 boys (Jeremy-16 & Matthew-13) Written – 2014 To Read more »
Thanksgiving, Family Legacy and Gratitude (Year-Round)
About twenty years ago my grandfather was ninety and I had never heard the full story of how he came to the U.S. My dad had told me some of the saga but he did not know the whole story. I let my parents know how much hearing the full story from Grandpa’s mouth meant to me and we took a plane to West Palm Beach (no big surprise on that location for a former NY Jew) with video camera Read more »
Snow Shoveling & Leadership Development
Winter is approaching and snow will soon be upon us. Last winter my 15-year-old son Jeremy was feeling industrious and decided to make some money shoveling in the neighborhood. We have him pay for his iPhone and the monthly data charges so cash is essential – a great way to combat entitlement and help him understand the value of a buck. I watched out the window as he and his slight and not-so-athletic buddy headed out in over a foot Read more »
Walk The Walk
Just a quick post this month to share a NY Times Article about the Rockefeller family. Through its Rockefeller Brothers Fund they are joining the divestment movement to sell investments tied to fossil fuels and invest in cleaner alternatives. Whatever your personal beliefs may be when it comes to fossil fuels and global warming, the Rockefellers, through this move, are voting with their feet – behaving in a way consistent with their values even if it comes with financial cost. Similarly, in my Read more »
The Emperor is Naked!
In Hans Christian Anderson’s classic, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a couple of shady tailors convince the king that they can make him the finest clothes and that those who are unfit for their positions, stupid, or incompetent will not be able to see the clothes at all. They pretend to dress the king in these “invisible” clothes and he pretends to see them as he surely does not want to seem an unfit ruler. In his parade he marches naked Read more »
Children in the Family Business: Part II
Collaboration between professionals is crucially important for enterprising families. In this month’s Family Business Minute I “walk the walk” as I team up with my colleague from the Family Firm Institute, Tibor Dani, who interviews me on the topic of Bringing Children into the Family Business for his cool, new webcast site Family Businesscast (in his state-of-the-art, green-screen studio in northern New Jersey). Lots of fun! Please take a look and let me know if I applied my wife’s makeup properly. This interview builds on my February 2014 blog post and goes much deeper into best Read more »
Teach Your Children Well
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the folk rock supergroup, offered some pretty good advice when it comes to family business and the next generation with their song “Teach Your Children Well”. Too often I am called into enterprising family situations where the struggles of the next generation are related to a lack of formal plans to pass along hard-won knowledge from the senior generation. While we often think of the stereotype of a senior generation leader who will not let go, I recently encouraged Read more »
Siblings, Family Business and Evolution
Darwin tells us that it is not necessarily the strongest that survive and perpetuate their species but the most ADAPTABLE. Big, powerful lions have been around for one million years but small, crafty chameleons have been around eighty million years. When it comes to sibling relationships the animal kingdom has some pretty interesting examples of selfless cooperation that we humans can learn from. Sea Rockets Sea rocket plants can recognize a sibling (they come from seeds from the same mother Read more »
Women in the Family Business (and Pro Ice Hockey For That Matter)
Shannon Szabados (pictured) recently became the first female to play in the Southern Professional Hockey league (for the Columbus Cottonmouths) and was the first woman to play in the Western Hockey League in 2002 at age 16. She also won two gold medals goaltending for the Canadian women’s hockey team, most recently in Sochi. Click here for the full NY Times article . While one might imagine that her male teammates might give her a hard time and resist the inclusion of women, that could not be further Read more »