What is Wealth Management?

Episode 9 July 17, 2025 00:40:12
What is Wealth Management?
Trust This with Joseph Seagle
What is Wealth Management?

Jul 17 2025 | 00:40:12

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Show Notes

What good is wealth if it divides a family—or disappears in one generation? In this episode of Trust This, attorney Joe Seagle sits down with Thomas Ruggie, founder and CEO of Destiny Family Office, to talk about what it really means to manage wealth wisely. Tom explains how wealthy families plan not just for money—but for the future, relationships, and even personal values. They explore how a family office works (think of it like a personal financial team), the difference between managing wealth for one family vs. many, and how smart planning can help avoid conflict or confusion down the line.

Tom also dives into big topics like investing in unique opportunities (beyond stocks), preparing the next generation to handle wealth, and why mindset matters just as much as money.

Don’t miss it—tune in to Trust This: Tactics & Strategies wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Who is Thomas Ruggie? Tom Ruggie is a visionary wealth manager, executive, and entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience in the financial services industry. He has built one of the country’s most respected wealth management organizations—comprising an independent Registered Investment Advisor (RIA), multiple wealth management firms, alternative investment and co-investment funds. Exclusive investment opportunities designed to enhance client offerings.

In 2017, Tom launched Destiny Family Office to support individuals and families navigating the complexities of managing significant wealth. His goal: to deliver a single-family office experience within a multi-family office structure. Tom’s journey is one of resilience and determination—not inherited privilege. His success is rooted in hard work and a personalized, purpose-driven approach to client service.

Connect with Tom:
Website: https://destinyfamilyoffice.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/destiny-family-office/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKI_stShu4H5r3job-TjNMg

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#WealthManagement #familyoffice #familymoney #wealthtips

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What's the number one mistake that wealthy families are making with generational wealth that you're seeing out there? [00:00:06] Speaker B: That is such a loaded question. Because there are so many mistakes and obviously every, every family is different. But if I were to say the number one mistake that I see, it's. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Trust this. I'm Joe Siegel, your real estate and asset protection lawyer and estate planning lawyer here in Florida. Today we have the honor of talking with Tom Rugey of Destiny Family Office. He is the founder and CEO of that and this is our tactics and strategies podcast Today, it's not the master series. So we're going to be talking about some real tactics and strategies here that you can think about as you build your wealth. Tom is a visionary wealth manager, executive and entrepreneur with more than three decades of experience in the financial services industry. He has built one of the country's most respected wealth management organizations, comprising an independent registered investment advisor, multiple wealth management firms, alternate investment and co investment funds, exclusive investment opportunities designed to enhance client offerings. In 2017, Tom launched Destiny Family Office to support individuals and families navigating the complexities of managing significant wealth. His goal is to deliver a single family office experience within a multifamily office structure. His journey is one of resilience and determination, not inherited privilege. His success is rooted in hard work and a personalized purpose driven approach to client service. Their website is destinyfamilyoffice.com Tom, welcome to Trust this. I'm glad you're here today, Joe. [00:01:53] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me and it's my pleasure to be here. Look forward to it. [00:01:56] Speaker A: Well, before we get into things, first of all, let's talk about I threw in there family office. So explain to us what a family office does in a multifamily office and the difference between the two. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Yeah, so if you think about a single family office, some names I would throw around is like the Rockefellers. So it's, it's families that the family themselves built up significant wealth. And effectively what a single family office does is it brings on people to manage that wealth not only for the first generation, but for many generations beyond. So for example, locally here to us, you know, the Orlando Magic is owned by the DeVos family, which they're based out of Michigan, but the DeVos family has their own single family office. And that last I knew, which was several years ago, but that single family Office employed about 150 to 170 people just to manage not only the wealth but everything comprehensively for the entire DeVos family. So then trickle that down to a multifamily office. So a multifamily office advisor like we are effectively provides the same sorts of services to high net worth and ultra high net worth families. But you know, we're not talking about families like the Rockefellers. We're talking about families that typically have a net worth of say 20 million to 250 million. Our goal is to provide those same sort of services, evaluate everything comprehensively for those families, and again, take care of not only the first generation, but also planning for future generations. [00:03:34] Speaker A: So now a single family office. I know some of them, some that will have their own in house lawyers, they may even have family lawyers who deal with family issues, matrimonial issues, and all those kinds of things. Inside the office they'll have real property lawyers, intellectual property lawyers. Inside the office they'll have wealth managers. They'll have everything under one roof. You, do you work with other law firms outside CPAs and things like, or do you bring a lot of that in house? How do you handle those kinds of things? [00:04:03] Speaker B: No, I mean, effectively. What, what we position ourselves as is, is what I would call an air traffic controller. So we're working with other attorneys, other tax professionals, and other professionals, you know, be it insurance agents, even other wealth advisors or whoever it may be. But as, as the air traffic controller, what we're looking to do is to integrate all of the advisors so that we're all on the same page for our clients. You know, I mean, one thing that happens is a lot of clients, when you accumulate a certain amount of net worth, you're typically getting siloed advice. You have your CPA saying, hey, this is what you need to do for tax planning. You have your, your estate tax attorney saying, this is what you need to be doing for estate planning. You might even have a separate attorney such as yourself, focusing more on liability and what needs to be done on liability. And so really what we try to do is we try to integrate and incorporate a team that is all on the same page, all sitting around the table for the client, brainstorming on whatever that client situation is, what is best from a planning perspective. I mean, real life example, you know, I could be sitting here with a client and have the CPA and attorney involved and I might say, hey, we're thinking about doing this. Which it might be a legal idea. And the attorney might pop in and say, well, that's a great idea, but here's something else that might be a better option for that or supplement that and then the CPA might pipe in and say, yeah, but from a tax perspective, this is what we have to look for. So again, by bringing the team together, we're providing an integrated service that we believe gets better results for the client. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think a lot of people lose sight of that and they think, well, I've got a lawyer and I've got a cpa. That's all I really need. But even if those two are not talking to each other or don't know each other, I've had many instances where I've just, I've told the client before they take action, I go, well, let's talk to your CPA before we do that and save them a significant amount of money that if I had just drafted one document and they had signed it would have cost them tens of thousands of dollars in taxes that they weren't expecting that year. [00:06:10] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Just talking that CPA for five minutes, the CPA goes up. Don't do that. It's going to screw everything up. A lot of people don't think about and have and mo money, more problems. You know, that's. The bigger you get, the more money you have, the more you really need to be doing that. [00:06:26] Speaker B: That is so true. That is, that is just a very accurate statement. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Well, it's not me that was a rapper who came up with that one. But it's a, it's definitely, it's definitely one of those things that, you know, you, you need someone there. The more money you have, the more moving parts you have. You need someone there like an air traffic controller handling. Just the, the communication among everybody. And, and you can get to 20 million sooner than you think. A lot of people don't realize they can get to that 20 million in assets and in value, net value, pretty quickly. [00:07:00] Speaker B: You know, especially, especially if you own a business. Most, most of my clients are entrepreneurial and, and, you know, planning that's necessary for a business owner that might not have a lot of investment assets and might not have a huge, you know, 50 million, $100 million business, but has a 15 or $20 million business, they've got the same needs as somebody that's worth 50 or $100 million. And so that's kind of a missing link that I think a lot of people don't focus on. I mean, frankly, to get a top wealth manager in that example, if somebody has a million dollars, a top wealth manager typically is not real interested in somebody with a million. To get a consultant to help somebody with a business like that, they're typically not interested in a business that size. And so there's, there's kind of this big gray area of somebody that has a 15 to 30 million dollars net worth that could be largely business assets that get, often get overlooked by professionals. [00:07:57] Speaker A: Well, and I think that a lot of professionals miss that too, because While it's a $15 million business and everything's tied up in that business, eventually they may go, they may sell that business to private equity, a multibillion dollar company who says, just throws money at, and suddenly they're worth 45 or 50 million. And this person goes, okay, well Now I've got 45 or 50 million dollars. What do I do? Yeah. [00:08:18] Speaker B: And then, and then everybody's banging their door down trying to get their business at that point. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. Now I've seen it, I've seen it too, too many times. Pool, pool company owners, lawn care companies, you know, they'll tree companies, they'll build these things up. And the regular wealth advisors are just, you know, poo pooing them and. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, You've got a few hundred thousand dollars in the bank and all of a sudden they sell the company for 10, 15, $20 million and they just get this money into their account and they, everybody's. Yeah, all over them. Like, why don't. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Well, years ago, years ago there was a book written called Millionaire Next Door. And I spoke at FICPA recently and I was talking about that. I said, you know, if that same book were to be written today, it would be the, you know, the eight figure person next door. Because again, to your point, the person I think of when I think about this is a client of mine that became a client a long time ago that owns a roofing supply company, is just doing, at the time, was doing extremely well and has built the business up and has built his revenue up and he's become, you know, worth an awful lot of money. But again, he was not the type of person that a lot of top advisors would have paid attention to when we paid attention to him. [00:09:28] Speaker A: Right. And that's, I think that's a big lesson for a lot of people who may be listening to this day. It's like, don't discount that person today who's looking like they're scrambling around there. They could do very well. I mean, just, I remember we started working with some folks years ago when we were just starting out, barely making any money, doing anything. And now, you know, they're like we said, well, you were with us in the beginning. So now you're with us now. We've moved up through the levels of their company, but it's, you know, they didn't ignore us. And I think that went a long way for us. They built that loyalty to us. So we have that loyalty to them, definitely. [00:10:07] Speaker B: Well, it does. And you know, one thing. And again, within our multifamily office, we work with 18 families and it ranges from typically kind of that $20 million level up to 200 million plus. But you know, as a generality, when I'm speaking with somebody that has $100 million, our job really is coming in and trying to organize the mess because again, they're getting siloed approaches. They've got property and casualty insurance issues all over the place. They've got different legal documents, 20 different entities. There's, you know, there's no coordination or consolidation of that yet. As I mentioned, and I'll use that roofer as an example. He was not there yet, but he had all the same problems, he had all the same needs. He had the need to get the estate planning done. He had the need to set up different entities for the different properties that he owned. He had need for succession planning. Again, there's a big gray area where I think a lot of advisors are really missing out on potential business opportunities. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely. When talking about business opportunities, we talked about alternative alternative investment and co investment funds. What is an alternative investment and what's a co investment fund? What are those? [00:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm going to do a shameless plug here. So two weeks ago, myself and some of my team members were in New York City and I was honored and grateful to receive the advisor of the Year nationally from Investment News for alternative investments. So that is a big part of our business. So the way I would define alternative investments is things such as private equity, hedge funds, real estate investments. Those are kind of the typical alternative investment vehicles. And we certainly do. Not only do we do a significant amount of that, but we're probably on the cutting edge of utilizing alternative investments as a larger portion of the allocation for our clients investments. But one of the things that does really separate us is we do a lot of direct investments, investing in pre IPO companies. You know, historical companies that we've invested in are companies like Anduril and Anthropic and databricks. And so the way I look at that is we have the opportunity for qualified purchaser investors to invest in companies like Google and Microsoft and Apple before they were public. And so that's a huge differentiator for us and Part of what we consider to be alternative investments, the co investment fund is really a portfolio that we developed that you, Joe, as an investor, could give us a $500,000 allocation. And we would invest as time, as opportunities present themselves into some of these direct investment options. So we're kind of managing that portfolio for you. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Well, and that's the thing, you know, people always hear about this IPO is going up, or this company is, you know, still private or semi private, and they can't get into it. So they go, well, what can I? And it may be people who are qualified investors, you know, that they could, but they just don't have. They have no idea how to access that. So, you know, getting to knowing just what an alternative investment is, number one, is important. And then knowing people who can do it like you, that's. That's another very key issue there, that a lot of people simply have no idea. [00:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah, and another thing that we've done that also differentiates us is I'm a big collector myself. I've got a. It's all. It's all relative. But to me, I've got a significant sports memorabilia collection. And I've done a lot of writing on how collectibles are actually becoming an asset class for the high net worth and ultra high net worth. Now, historically, you've had art and maybe even exotic cars already kind of falling into that. But now you're seeing a lot of, whether it's sports memorabilia, whether it's couture. I mean, you're even seeing, you know, things. Things such as original iPhones, you know, generating pretty big money at sales, comic books, that sort of thing. So we do. We do a lot of speaking and writing nationally about the integration of what I call passion collectibles into your overall investment allocation plan. [00:14:17] Speaker A: Ah, I never would have thought of that. Interesting. Well, that sort of brings me. So is when we talk about legacy planning, do you think that's more about money or mindset when you're planning for something? [00:14:28] Speaker B: No, Joe, it's both. I mean, money. Money is what I would consider kind of the tactical part, and mindset is more of the vision part. You know, when we talk to our clients, I always talk about kind of the difference between hard data and soft data. So the hard data is, you know, what are. Get us your investment statements, get us your legal documents, get us your. Your insurance stuff, pnc, life insurance, whatever it is, you know, again, pretty much get us everything that you can, hard data wise. And we typically ask for that in advance because we don't generally need to discuss that. We would rather just take the time to go through it. But then the soft data is more of what do you want? What's your vision? What do you want your legacy to be? What do you want? How do you want your children or grandchildren or charitable foundation or whatever? How do you want them to inherit what you've built up? And so again, we don't spend much time initially talking about the hard data. We'd rather absorb that ourselves. But we spend an awful lot of time on what I call the soft data, which really kind of connects to the mindset. You know, again, what's, what's important to you? What, what's your vision? [00:15:36] Speaker A: What's the number one mistake that wealthy families are making with generational wealth that you're seeing out there? [00:15:42] Speaker B: That is such a loaded question. Because there are so many mistakes and obviously every, every family is different. But if I were to, if I were to say the number one mistake that I see, it's really the lack of preparation for the next generation. And most of my clients are first generation wealth. I'm first generation wealth. Not ironically, most of my clients are very similar to me. They tend to be entrepreneurial, they tend to, again, be first generation. And like myself, they also tend to have the mindset that, hey, I've built up enough where I don't have to work anymore, but not only am I working or doing what I love doing, so it's not really considered work, but myself and most of my top clients are probably working harder now when they don't have to, than they were 15 or 20 years ago when they were building things. But using myself as an example, you know, first of all, when you have young kids, I just had this mindset of I don't want entitled kids because again, I grew up with nothing. And I saw and really had a disdain for kids that I thought were entitled. And so that was a big thing for me is how do you not create entitlement with your children? But then now that my children are older now, the big question becomes, how do I help to prepare them for wealth that they're ultimately going to receive, but at the same time, keep them on the path of they need to build their own wealth, they need to travel their own road. I don't want them dependent upon what has been built up. And so I think it, I think it's always difficult to navigate, and I think a big mistake most people make is really not addressing what to do with the next generation. And Joe, I'll give You one other kind of a close second. And that is, I think a lot of families don't understand the conflict that can arise among siblings, regardless of how close they are. I have seen just so many situations where when money comes into the equation, it creates a real disconnect among siblings. And I'm late to the show on this. I'm actually in the midst of watching succession right now. I'm in season four. And although succession is, you know, about an ultra wealthy family, you know, with just tons of wealth and tons of problems, it really is still a good snapshot of the problems that arise with siblings when wealthy gets involved. And. And again, all of this boils down to creating education and helping to manage the expectation of the next generation. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I. Speaking of sibling rivalry, I was in a deposition just last week where I was being questioned in a lawsuit where a disinherited son or grandson, I can't remember which is. Is suing the trustees and the other siblings and everybody because daddy or granddaddy wrote him out of the wheel, wrote him out of the trust. You know, I, when I was a kid, I was a latchkey kid. Parents both worked. I'd come home from school, 2, 3 o'. Clock. That's when the Guiding Light was on. It was a soap opera. Little did I know that watching soap operas every afternoon after school would be some of the best training I would have for my career someday. For what not to do, of what not to do. This is what kids are going to do when, you know, when daddy dies, you know, who's got the will. We always have a saying where there's a will, there's a relative to know in the law that it's actually, that's actually good. [00:19:09] Speaker B: I like that. [00:19:10] Speaker A: So we always, you know, we're always concerned about that and we have a lot of discussions around that. When we're doing estate planning with clients, we talk a lot about the kids and the grandkids and problems they may have. Addiction issues is one that we talk about a lot of people don't think about. And one of the addictions may be spending shopping, gambling. You know, it's not necessarily drugs and alcohol all the time. So, you know, we talk hard about these things and, and it does. There, there are things that people can do, but I think talking to their kids before they die is probably one of the best things that they can do. And then the next thing they can do is having that plan in place, preparing for it, to be ready for it. So it sort of brings us to what does family governance actually mean and why is it so important? [00:19:57] Speaker B: Well, the way I would describe family governance, Joe, is I would describe it as the blueprint for what you would see as the vis for how your wealth is going to be handled, how it's going to be distributed, how it's going to be protected. And I picked this quote up and I picked it up from a colleague of mine that I do some work with and frankly he probably picked it up from somebody else. But the bottom line is you want the younger generation to become stewards of wealth, not consumers of wealth. And the family governance is really putting into place again what this vision looks like, how decisions are going to be made, who's responsible, how the education is going to be handled. And you know, the family governance portion of the equation is really the foundation of everything else that should take place. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Gunderson, he's in his book Killing Sacred Cows, he wrote about the, he talks about the preamble, I believe that the Rockefeller Trust had. This is our vision, this is our family, this is what we want. And having, you know, even building that vision into your documents that are passed down from one family, from one generation to the next, I think is part of that keeping that vision going like that. So how do you help families avoid wealth related conflict across generations whenever that happens? [00:21:24] Speaker B: Well, I kind of mentioned it before, I mean I put myself in the position of being the air traffic controller, kind of moderating everything that that's taking place. But I'll repeat myself, it's a large part of it is building that integrated team to help service the entire needs of the family. And you know, aside from what I've already talked about, I think one of the things that we've done in the last two to three years that we found to be very accretive to our high net worth families is we've brought on younger advisors. And so what we've done is we've positioned these younger advisors to work directly with the children of our families. And you know, the reality is I was about to say I'm 56, I just turned 57 a week or so ago. So I haven't adjusted to that yet. But you know, but I'm, but I'm 57 years old, you know, God willing, I want to be doing what I'm doing for many, many years to come. But, but the reality is, is that I'm not going to resonate as well with a 25 year old or a 30 year old or even a 35 year old as somebody closer to their age. And so it provides a nice platform for us to help our clients that I'm working with, but also to help manage the education and the expectation and also to help with, again, what is the. The patriarchy is the vision for the children. You know, again, to help them forge their own path and make their own way and have their own advisor, have their own discussions. And yet there's still this integration of everything that we're doing together. [00:22:56] Speaker A: That's smart. One of the biggest issues I have when I'm meeting with clients about estate planning, they talk about the. The child has married or may marry someone that the family does not approve of, and they want to make sure that that person doesn't get a. Get hold of anything. And I go, well, you know, we can do some things on our end, but, you know, when you're talking about generational wealth, they really need to also be urging that child or grandchild to go to a family lawyer and get a. An anti nuptial prenuptial agreement. Or sometimes we talk about postnuptial agreements. You've gotten married and now it's like, well, now we need to plan afterward to make sure that, you know, in blended families, we run into that a lot where the one spouse doesn't want the other spouse's children to get everything because they built everything for their children. So it gets very complicated. But a lot of people think, well, I just need an estate planning lawyer. No, you may also need family lawyers to come in here to deal with some things as well. You know, wealth advisors also keep all that. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And to your point, not only for the children, but I mean, I've had in the last probably three to four years, out of my 18 families that were managing on the multifamily office, we've had three divorces and one remarriage, and we actually assisted and again quarterbacked, if you will, the prenuptial for the new marriage. And again, how to handle that among not only the client and his new spouse, but also how to handle it with the two children of the client and how to address all of that. So, yeah, to your point, that's, that's extremely important. And that's. There's so many. And you made this point earlier, Joe, but there's. There's so many ways things that can be done to damage the value of the estate from a liability standpoint, and multiple marriages certainly can be added onto that list. [00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen a lot of divorces just destroy everything that they'd built Together, you know, just. And then they go through a divorce late in life and you're like, why did you bother? You know, just, just don't just stick it out. Stick together. And each of you have your own boyfriends or girlfriends on the side. Just deal with it. [00:25:09] Speaker B: You know, there's the advice. [00:25:13] Speaker A: I've given that many times. I've given that advice many times, unfortunately, to clients usually who are in the villages, that's usually where they are for some reason. [00:25:21] Speaker B: Yeah, we have an office in the villages, so we're, we're all too familiar with that. [00:25:28] Speaker A: How does wealth management and asset protection go hand in hand and where should families start? [00:25:33] Speaker B: Well, they do go hand in hand, but I'd almost say it's almost like two sides of a coin. The wealth management side really addresses how to build, how to protect, and when I say protect, I'm talking about against large investment losses and then ultimately how to wisely transfer. While what the asset protection side addresses is also how to protect, but not regarding the investment loss, regarding things that we've already discussed such as liabilities, legal exposure, personal vulnerabilities, such as divorce, such as substance abuse, that sort of thing. So, you know, the bottom line is if both of these, the wealth management and the asset protection are not properly managed, it certainly can be detrimental to the overall long term plan. [00:26:20] Speaker A: What's the most underrated wealth management strategy that nobody ever talks about? [00:26:25] Speaker B: Well, I think for me, Joe, I think it would be allocation strategy. I mean, we've built a great business, you know, a business from scratch that manages just over $1.4 billion. And frankly, our group is, we're not good salespeople. It's just been built on doing things right. But I think the underlying core of what we do is we've developed an asset allocation strategy that makes sense and completely different, differentiates us from most advisors. And it's somewhat of a bucketing approach. I mean, we effectively have 10 year money which is invested more conservatively. You know, Joe, if you needed $200,000 a year supplemental income from your portfolio, we're running net present value calculations to say how much do we want in pool one so that first of all, your income distributions don't get disrupted. But secondly, and more importantly psychologically, if there's a big downturn in the market, this pool is typically not being affected at all, or at least not nearly as affected. And then we have pool two, which I deem is 11 to 20 year money. And then finally pool three is money that we're saying statistically you shouldn't need this money for 20 years. Doesn't mean to lock it up and put it away where you can't get it. It's a strategy that again, kind of allows our clients to put their blinders on and not have to worry about the day to day volatility of what's going on out there. You know, if a client calls and says, hey, market's down 25%, I can't afford to lose any more money, my response is going to be, Joe, keep in mind, the market's down 25%. What's what in your portfolio? What's down 25% potentially is assets that we're saying statistically you don't need this for 20 years. So we've built in time to let that work itself out, which at least historically speaking, it always has. In 2008, it took two and a half years and that was the worst market loss since the Great Depression. So the strategy works and it creates this kind of this psychological comfort where our clients don't worry as much about the day to day gyrations. And because of this, I have a saying that I use that is strategy trumps performance. And again, what I mean by that is you could look at 10 different similar investments and there could be extreme difference between them in a one or a two year period. But at the end of 10 years they're probably pretty similar in overall performance. But the difference is what mistakes do you make because you get too greedy or you get too fearful and that's when real wealth is lost. And again, that's why I think strategy is so important. [00:29:12] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. If you could give, let's say you've got an entrepreneur and they look like they're probably a year or two away from having their business at a spot where they could sell it and get, they're going to get a windfall. Yeah. What's one piece of advice to somebody like that? They're just starting to build that significant wealth. What would you tell them before they make that next big move? [00:29:37] Speaker B: Well, I think planning is key and planning in advance of, of a movement like that is key. You know, I've been a member of a coaching program called Strategic coach for over 20 years. And one of the principles in our coaching program is for you to really be effective, you should have a goal of spending about 85% of your time on the top three things that you want to or need to be doing for your business. And so what I always tell people is if managing your own investments and managing your Overall wealth is not one of those top three things. You need to find somebody that is going to be that air traffic controller to help you do that. You know, unfortunately, it's not easy to find. You know, I've coached thousands of advisors over the years through various coaching programs and frankly, just like any other profession, there's, there's great ones, there's good ones, and then there's average or well below average. And it's hard to put your finger on who is the best. So obviously referrals and credentials and things like that are important. But the bottom line is, my advice is if in the scenario that you gave is to hire the right person, hire the right team and make sure you're comfortable with the advice that's being given and then let them run with it. Let them do what they do best. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Now, let's say they've gone through it, they've, they've closed, they've got their money and there's no employment. They don't have to stick around with the company. They've done their exit and they've truly exited. What are some of the issues that you see that those people face after they've done that? Not only financially, but psychologically or sociologically? What have you seen them go through when they do that? [00:31:24] Speaker B: Well, the financial questions are pretty easy. Again, a lot of times without the proper guidance, they haven't done the proper planning. So, you know, one of, one of my best clients and one of my best friends, you know, he was in a scenario where he's had multiple liquidity events, but with the first liquidity event that he had, you know, we, we had the presence and the team in place to, to really do some significant planning that, that created a tremendous amount of wealth. By taking the asset, meaning his business, we're able to, we were able to get low valuation, big discounts and put that in a trust format where we have, due to the liquidity events, it has grown significantly and outside of his estate. But back to what I previously said, if you haven't done that planning in advance, you're a little bit behind the eight ball. And there still is additional planning that can be done after the fact to help things. But the key is to have these conversations before, not after. The psychological side. That's a great question. My experience with my clients is, and I'll go back to the same client I was just talking about, you know, he's had three liquidity events so far, probably going to have another one and never needs another nickel for the rest of his Life, but is in the process of starting a new company to, you know, to build it again, because it's just in his genes, just like it's in my genes to kind of keep on pushing. I have seen a lot of clients out there. I shouldn't say clients. A lot of individuals out there, maybe a couple clients that have had a nice liquidity event. If you don't have that drive and purpose for what's next? Psychologically, it's very difficult because money is fantastic. But as an entrepreneur, you're typically wound to not think as much about the money, but to think about the game, what you're doing and what's fun and what you're passionate about, you know, sitting on the sidelines of $60 million but not having something to drive you. I have seen psychologically be a very difficult situation for people. And so I don't. I don't know what the advice is except the importance of really having something to get you out of bed in the morning and having a purpose. And it doesn't have to be starting a new business. It could be getting involved with charitable organizations. It could be getting, you know, doing things with your family. I mean, there's a lot of different things you can do. But I do find if you don't have that just huge passion that you kind of wither away pretty quickly. [00:33:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I've had clients who sold their companies fairly young, got a few million dollars, and then they come to me after a year or two begging me, saying, please find me something else to do. And I'm like, that's not my job. I can't find you something else to do. And I go, why? And they said, because I can only play so much golf. I'm done. I can only go gambling so much. I'm done. I want to. And really, it's the starting another business or is what their passion is. So they have to find something else they can create and do. [00:34:27] Speaker B: And, Joe, we have very open conversations with our clients in advance of a liquidity event to say what's next? Because if they can't answer that question immediately, that's something that they really need to spend some time on. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we have a client, just went through one, and he is now focused on his charity. Pushing that and doing that. I don't know how well it's going to be or how or anything. But he's having fun with it at least, and he's set for life. He doesn't need any more money, at least for. At least the next two generations are Set. But yeah, he focused on his, on his charity. So I think everybody finds that their next passion somewhere somehow. But it's usually I just want to go start another business. How do your services go beyond just investment management? What kinds of strategic or lifestyle support do you also provide to your clients that people may not expect? [00:35:19] Speaker B: Well, I mean, obviously like we discussed with the alternative investments, the, that, that in, in and of itself is a big differentiator for what we do. But I think as far as other lifestyle things, I mean, I, I just helped a client, which is one of several clients that I've helped with, you know, secure getting this one, getting hours, hours on a jet for the first time in her career. And so we do some of the lifestyle type things. But one of the things that we've done is we've developed a scorecard. And our scorecard looks at 13 areas that are typically pertinent to anybody that's accumulated nice wealth. And again, it's not areas necessarily that we have direct involvement in. So it is looking at what are your charitable inclinations? Where are you from an estate planning standpoint? Where are you from a liability standpoint, planning standpoint? Where are you from insurance's standpoint? Your property and casualty or life insurance? And then of course, you know, as we've addressed earlier, again, in addition to the investments, there's, there's the discussion of what about the generational planning, what about the family planning. You'd be amazed how many spouses are not aware of the overall situation of, of a family. And so we utilize this scorecard not only to do due diligence and to kind of look at where a client or a prospect is now versus where they want to be and thereby having a gap analysis of, hey, this is what we need to address over the next year to get from point A to point B where we want to be. But you know, the scorecard really serves as that function for us. And then I would say just kind of a mindset thing for me is I always tell clients that I want to be the first call. And to me I define that as the first call for anything. It's, and I'm going to say this, and obviously in certain situations, I'm not the first call. But I mean, if there's something to celebrate, I want to celebrate it with you. If there is a problem, I want to be able to provide assistance in solving that problem. I mean, we had a client that had some medical issues that we were pretty significant in getting this client placed with one of the premier specialists in the world for the rare disease that he had. And, you know, being able to, not that we have all the answers, but we have a lot of resources. And so again, we always look to be that first call on, hey, we're thinking about selling our business or we've had this offer. We want to be involved in the integral discussions that are important to our clients across the board. And that's just kind of a core value of at least me personally. [00:38:01] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, speaking of core values, our core value is helping people aspire to a better life. Not our core value, but our mission, our vision. So one question I always ask all our guests as we conclude our time together is who has helped you aspire to a better life? [00:38:17] Speaker B: You know, I couldn't name one. I mean, there's quite a few, the coaching that I've done with Strategic Coach and Dan Sullivan, who founded the company that has been vital in my success from a business standpoint. The person, Frank o', Brien, that, you know, went out on a limb to hire, you know, this, this kid that didn't necessarily excel in school to, you know, to bring them on and take a chance, made a big difference. And then, and then, of course, family is huge. My mom was amazing, a tough mom that, you know, raised me again. We didn't, we didn't have much money, but I was raised to, you know, to do the right thing and, you know, to have confidence but not to be cocky or arrogant. And I think that served me well. My parents were divorced. My dad certainly brought some things to the table, but he also brought some things to the table that helped me of what I didn't want to do. And then, of course, you know, the immediate family, I've had a wife that's been extremely supportive of everything that I've done over the years. I've got two great kids and now I have two amazing grandchildren. And you know, their love and support, of course, always makes things better as well. [00:39:36] Speaker A: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Tom Ruge of Destiny Family Office, destinyfamilyoffice.com I want to thank you for coming on today and explaining all this. And if anybody needs some family office help out there, any of our listeners, definitely give Tom a call. Thank you so much again for coming. And again, Trust this this. [00:39:57] Speaker B: Thanks, Joe. [00:39:58] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to this edition of Trust this. If you got something out of it, please press like and subscribe and give us a five star review to help us reach others who can benefit from this series. Until next time, keep aspiring to a better life.

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