124 Who Do You Think You Are?
statement, because of my own ego, the hair on the back of my neck stood
up. I went into an uncalled-for “reaction.”
The answer that came out really shocked me, because I said to
him (after a long pause and much consideration about whether or not
I was going to throw his check into the wind), “To my family, I am worth
a heck of a lot. Some people are born with their own particular trials,
maybe they’re born ugly, or they’re born with certain handicaps, mentally
or physically, and others have to deal with handicaps physically or
mentally that occur after they are born. Your handicap may be that you’re
rich. I don’t think God cares as much about what handicaps we have or
how much we have or don’t have. What I do think he cares about is how
we deal with them.” And I just kind of left it there. Fortunately for me,
a few long seconds (and lots of sweat) later he replied, “You know I was
just thinking the same thing.”
This was one of three impactful events that happened right on
the heels of each other that caused me to ask the question, “What is my
stewardship responsibility to my financial wealth, and when does it end?”
In that quest, I discovered that among affluent
families worldwide statistically 97% of all family wealth, or less than
4%, ever survives beyond the third generation. I felt like all the work I
was doing was in some way for not. I’ve come to learn that the
intellectual ability to structure trusts and other legal instruments to transfer
the family financial wealth has very little to do with the long term result
of sustaining that family wealth from one generation to the other. Once
we value and develop systems that transfer not just the tangible assets,
but the intangible assets of values, character, self esteem, confidence,
wisdom, and charity - those intangible assets that we value more than
money - from generation to generation, then the financial assets have the
greatest odds to survive as well.
The Brower Quadrant and The Quadrant Living Systems are truly
designed to transfer all of a family’s true wealth, not just the financial. It
is very exciting.
There was another event, an intervention of sorts, where I was
attending a workshop on public speaking in Canada. The participants,
were completely unrelated to my industry and had been listening to me
speak. Near the end of the seminar they came to me and said, “Lee, what
you are doing is not just for the very affluent, it’s for everybody. We see
your mission as being one who will share these principles with everybody,
regardless of their current financial situation.”