Her maternal grandfather, veterinarian Dr. William Ballard, was one of North America’s greatest dynamic wealth creators. Her father, Frank A. Griffiths, FCA, built a highly successful sports and media empire. Emily herself, along with her brother Arthur and their partners, has been the co-owner of a National Hockey League (NHL) team, the Vancouver Canucks; a National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise, the Vancouver Grizzlies; and a state-of-the-art-arena.

Emily’s professional training, expertise and unique first-hand experience have given her a deep understanding of the benefits of clear, considered wealth and family-business transition planning.

Today, she is passionate about providing guidance to individuals and families for the effective multigenerational management of family wealth and family businesses.

Emily is the author of two excellent books, Build Your Family Bank and Your Business, Your Family, Their Future, which look closely at the core causes of wealth erosion and failed transition plans and offers a set of strategies for building successful wealth transition plans that will benefit many generations.

Standout Quotes:

• "A legacy lifestyle to me is really anything where anyone is enjoying an affluent life based on someone else's earnings"
• "Earning a voice at the table is critically important as the families get larger because not everybody is necessarily around the table making decisions for the family bank but the family council may be elected members to represent different parts of the families"
• "Life is the reflection of the Choices that you make between your Birth and your Death (life is the C between the B and the D)"
• "The choices that you make are going to be a reflection of the decisions that you make, and if you really want to make the best decisions, think about swapping judgment for curiosity"
• “Curiosity can open your eyes to a world of unlimited imagination and infinite possibilities”

Key Takeaways:

• The process of creating the family wealth was infused into the family DNA added in each generation.
• The issue in a legacy lifestyle is enjoying a lifestyle that someone else is earning the funds to afford you, the cautionary note is to watch for the creep of entitlement issues.
• The traditional approach to wealth transition planning including tax deferment and trust funds fail 70% of the time.
• As long as your human and intellectual components are still strong, the Family bank will keep standing.
• Reasons why 70% of families at each generation fail at wealth transition include a breakdown of communication and trust (60%), the unpreparedness of heirs (25%), lack of shared vision (12%), and failure of professionals (3%).
• Earning a voice at the table is critically important as the families get larger.
• Family bank is not a legal term, it's a philosophical term; it's whatever the family defines it to be.
• 5 reasons to put a Trust in place in Canada: Control, Creditor Protection, Privacy, Probate and Tax.
• Research shows that within 7 years lottery winnings are usually gone which is the same with inheritances.
• If you want to make the best decisions, swap judgment for curiosity

Episode Timeline:

• [00:49] An overview of some of Emily's work.
• [02:20] How the initial family wealth was created and sustained through the different generations as part of the family DNA.
• [05:20] Emily explains the clear distinction between Ownership and Management.
• [05:31] Her contribution to the Family DNA of wealth creation is the Role of Stewardship.
• [08:26] The event leading up to the ownership of the Hockey team reflected a sense of commitment to the community.
• [10:30] Emily narrates the experiences that inspired her career choice of a Family Enterprise Adviser.
• [15:35] The legacy lifestyle defined, with examples from Emily's childhood.
• [19:26] The value of work and its role in Family wealth creation.
• [21:11] The concept of a Family Bank is most appropriate for anyone doing succession or wealth transition planning.
• [22:05] The Foundation and Components of the Family bank approach.
• [27:04] Reasons why 70% of families at each generation fail at wealth transitions.
• [39:00] The value and role of tools like trust structures and tax mitigation strategies in the managing multi-generational wealth.
• [45:07] The similarities between inheritances and lottery wins.
• [53:52] Re-Formatting is a change of investment choice and a Redistribution of wealth to philanthropy are not considered a failure of to transition.
• [55:29] A few surprises from her sons influencing the family bank.
• [01:01:14] Emily's letter to her children.

For more episodes go to
BusinessOfFamily.net

Sign up for The Business of Family Newsletter at https://www.businessoffamily.net/newsletter

Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeBoyd

If you feel it's appropriate, I'd so appreciate you taking 30 seconds to Leave a Review on iTunes, I receive a notification of each review. Thank you!

Special Guest: Emily Griffiths-Hamilton.

Sponsored By:

• The Business of Family Newsletter: The newsletter compliments the podcast with subscriber-only articles, bonus content and a great list of book recommendations.

Links:

• Build Your Family Bank | A Winning Vision for Multigenerational Wealth — Fresh & Accessible Guides to Successful Wealth Transition
• Volunteer Role | The Nature Trust of British Columbia — The Nature Trust of British Columbia took on the daunting task of protecting the natural riches of the province by building a treasury of wild natural areas to conserve iconic and important species at risk.
• Book: Your Business, Your Family, Their Future: How to Ensure Your Family Enterprise Thrives for Generations eBook: Griffiths-Hamilton, Emily — Through extensive research and personal and professional experience as a member of and advisor to family enterprises, Griffiths-Hamilton has developed an unconventional approach that looks beyond narrow business considerations to focus on the critical aspect of every family enterprise—the “family factor.”
• Book: Build Your Family Bank: A Winning Vision for Multigenerational Wealth eBook: Griffiths-Hamilton, Emily — Why do 70 percent of wealth transition plans fail? This is the question that Emily Griffiths-Hamilton sets out to answer in Build Your Family Bank, a book that looks closely at the core causes of wealth erosion and failed transition plans and offers a set of strategies for building successful wealth transition plans that will benefit many generations.

Covie is the author of a two-book series based on interviews that highlight success stories of family wealth: the first, Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise (2014), focuses on raising children to be grounded and successful adults amid wealth, and the second, Aged Healthy, Wealthy & Wise (2017), focuses on designing a vibrant and purposeful later life and legacy.

Episode Timeline

• [1:52] How Covie got into family wealth advisory
• [6:12] Ideal clients and what clients are seeking when they come to Ballentine Partners
• [9:00] Looking at the bigger picture when looking at client’s needs and investments
• [13:20] Increased percentage of uptake in trust built client relationships
• [16:18] Patterns when creating investment and wealth management plans
• [19:58] The primary sources of initial wealth for first generation families that Covie sees
• [20:58] Why more money can actually make parenting harder
• [25:34] Next generation success being driven by successes in life and self-motivation
• [27:38] Finding the balance to give children fulfilling lives of meaning
• [33:33] Focusing on the communication of values when discussing shared assets
• [38:12] Inheritor’s guilt for advantages they received and how to counteract that
• [41:55] Covie’s advice to a driven entrepreneur who inspired to be the founding generation
• [45:10] The four success factors Covie believes all successful next generation members share
• [47:50] The role Covie plays in helping families in philanthropic legacy and impact projects
• [55:12] Covie’s belief in wishing for our children to have the confidence to handle the struggles of life

Standout Quotes

• "You do need to have a pretty good degree of self-awareness and being able to look in the mirror as a parent to understand how you might need to evaluate and potentially change your own behavior relative to a child, in order to allow that child to become independent and financially self-sufficient." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [15:12]
• "If you have very little money, it's very challenging. Then as you get more money it gets easier, and as you get more money it becomes harder again. I definitely see that to be the case. I think the reason is, having money, having an abundance of resources essentially, more than you would need, has a way of complicating every single parenting interaction with your child in a way that, to no fault of the parents, might essentially deprive the child of a lesson that they would have learned by default if their family have had less” – Covie Edwards-Pitt [21:31]
• "Content, productive, driven by their inner sense of motivation, grounded, satisfied, passionate in their career choice. That sort of list of characteristics was evident to me because I recognize it all the time in the next gens." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [26:19]
• "Fulfilling lives have as part of them, struggle. Something that the person can think back on as something they have overcome in their life that gives them a sense of pride." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [28:45]
• "Communication is key. Communicating the values and the framework that are driving parent's decisions in a clear, transparent way is very important. I coach my clients to try to think about, what are the types of things we'd like to support? What are the types of things that we would like to help children with, when they reach those milestones in their lives? – Covie Edwards-Pitt [34:39]
• "The most important advice I would give is to say... that your child, when they look in the mirror as an adult... When they ask themselves do I have this job or do I have this responsibility or title because of my name or because of my effort? They can answer, my effort." – Covie Edwards-Pitt [42:09]

Key Takeaways

• Think of a client relationship and services provided as a much larger conversation about the client and what they hope to achieve as a whole
• The ways to recognize patterns when creating investment and wealth management plans for ultra high net worth families
• Ways in which parents with substantial means can still raise well-rounded children
• How success in the next generation can be different as it is more about the inner sense of motivation and satisfaction
• Why it’s important to allow children to struggle to attain a fulfilling and contented life
• The communication involved when managing shared family assets
• Inheritors will often find a true sense of purpose when they develop their own sense of contribution and passion in life
• Having family constitutions and clear frameworks for inheritor’s to truly feel they deserve their position
• Covie’s four success factors she has found all successful next generation members share

For more episodes go to
BusinessOfFamily.net

Sign up for The Business of Family Newsletter at https://www.businessoffamily.net/newsletter

Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeBoyd

If you feel it's appropriate, I'd so appreciate you taking 30 seconds to Leave a Review on iTunes, I receive a notification of each review. Thank you!

Special Guest: Coventry (Covie) Edwards-Pitt.

Sponsored By:

• The Business of Family Newsletter: The newsletter compliments the podcast with subscriber-only articles, bonus content and a great list of book recommendations.

Links:

• Wealth Management | Ballentine Partners — Ballentine Partners is a client-centric investment and wealth management firm dedicated to integrity and independence.
• Book: Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Lessons from successful and grounded inheritors on how they got that way — At a certain level of wealth, money makes parenting harder, not easier. Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise breaks new ground in the field of raising children amid wealth by hearing the success stories: real-life children raised with wealth now grown into happy, healthy, and productive adults.
• Book: Aged Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Lessons from vibrant and inspiring elders on how they designed their later lives — There is much about aging that we can't control. But there is much more that we can. Nationally recognized wealth advisor Coventry Edwards-Pitt applies the success-story format of her highly acclaimed first book, "Raised Healthy, Wealthy & Wise" (2014), to one of today's most pressing issues: how to age well--given our increased longevity--and ensure that our later years have a positive rather than negative impact on our families.

Join Mike Boyd on The Business of Family Podcast as he interviews members of some of the world's most interesting families about how they pass knowledge, resources, values and wealth to the next generation.

• Family Constitutions and annual letters
• Family meetings and retreats
• Succession planning
• Stewardship
• Family Office investing
• Multi-generational wealth creation and preservation
• Enduring companies and familes
• Family enterprise
• Human, Intellectual and Financial Capital

I’ve been fortunate enough to meet some extremely successful families in my travels and gleaned insights from how each are shaping their legacy.

Many will tell you that it’s the human, intellectual and spiritual capital that makes them successful for generations & that financial capital is simply a function of their success in these areas.

If multigenerational families and businesses fascinate you too, subscribe now to The Business of Family Podcast.

I hope you enjoy sharing this learning journey with me and would greatly appreciate any feedback, resources or referrals you have to offer.

https://twitter.com/MikeBoyd/status/1277889154601201664

For more episodes go to
BusinessOfFamily.net

Sign up for The Business of Family Newsletter at newsletter.mikeboyd.com.au

Follow Mike on Twitter @MikeBoyd

If you feel it's appropriate, I'd so appreciate you taking 30 seconds to Leave a Review on iTunes, I receive a notification of each review. Thank you!

Sponsored By:

• The Business of Family Newsletter: The newsletter compliments the podcast with subscriber-only articles, bonus content and a great list of book recommendations.