The Brower Quadrant

Where’s Your Wealth?

If someone asked you, Where’s your wealth?, how would you respond?
If you immediately thought about your bank account or house, you’ve got it all wrong!
(And if you pointed to your heart or thought about your children, you’re only partially right.)

The time has come to see the concept of wealth—and your contribution to the world—in a whole new light. Welcome to the Brower Quadrant.

Take a moment and try to evict the term “financial planning” from your mind. Let go of the numbers and actuarial charts and graphs you typically relate with estate plans. Forget about terms like trust, tax, insurance policy, power of attorney, and so on. Erase that dollar sign from your head. See if you can start with a clean slate so you can then adopt a new definition for this idea of “wealth.” Ready?

The Four Questions

Now think about the following four questions, answering an honest yes or no:

Do I have a healthy relationship with those I love, meaning I can communicate with, and express appreciation for, them openly and effectively on a regular basis?
Do I have a method for sharing my skills with family members?
Do I have a functioning plan that ensures my legacy and life’s work will endure and leave a lasting, positive impression on the world?
Do I have a dedicated team of advisors and/or mentors helping me achieve my vision for financial success?

If you answered No to any of these questions, then the Brower Quadrant is especially for you.

The Quadrant Living Experience begins with you and what is most important to you and, perhaps, never ends. Remember, planning is an evolutionary, always improving process.

For more information on this planning process, click here

The preservation and empowerment of long-term family wealth is based on the education and behavior of each family member. It is a dynamic process that must be re-energized in each successive family generation. We believe that the most important “assets” a family possesses are its individual members. The family’s Financial Assets are tools to support the growth of the family’s Core, Experience and Contribution Assets. Each family member needs to recognize the relative value of each asset and act appropriately in order to optimize each asset.

Congratulations on taking this step in building your road map to an ever-increasing understanding and optimization of your “TRUE WEALTH.” No matter how large or small your estate or income level, you can take the steps towards optimizing the True Wealth within your family.

Let’s get to know each category of the Quadrant Living Experience.

What are the outcomes of identifying your greatest True Wealth Assets? Four chief things:

CLARITY: Clarity brings Energy! Think about it. When your family, you r employees, your team members, etc., have clarity about where they are going - they have increased energy. When they understand the why and the how of where they are going, they have even greater energy. With greater energy comes greater results.

BALANCE: Top notch engineers know that to increase speed in race cars they must have balance. They must eliminate the “wobble.” When we are balanced in our Core, Experience, Contribution, and Financial assets, we eliminate the wobble. Consequently, the outcome of Balance is Velocity! You do more in less time.

FOCUS: If you have clarity and balance you understand what matters most. That allows you to focus on those activities that generate the greatest results. You don’t waste effort on activities that may be important but are not essential to achieving optimal results. The outcome of Focus is Accuracy! You achieve more with less effort.

CONFIDENCE: With clarity, balance, and focus, you can’t help but have increased confidence. Lack of confidence makes you a repellent. Radiating confidence makes you an Attractant! With increased confidence, the law of attraction takes over, attracting greater relationships, opportunities and experiences.

Core Assets

This is perhaps the most overlooked Core Asset that you possess—the unique gift bestowed upon you that you, in turn, have the privilege of sharing with the world.

But this is only one sector of Core Assets. Family members and personal friends are Core Assets. These are the people who will stand by us, the people with whom we share our greatest triumphs and tragedies, the people who are “there for us.” We don’t choose our families, but we do choose that circle of friends, mentors, and go-to people who help us get through the tough times and with whom we share our transcendent moments. We are wired to want to be with others, to form bonds of love and security. It’s part of our nature and we honor it when we take time to recognize the depth of the relationships we are privileged to create.

Religious faith, ethics, values, and heritage are also part of your Core Assets, as well as health and peace of mind. In all, think of Core Assets as the traits and characteristics that make you, well, YOU. They are the very features that define you as an individual.

The following questions will get you thinking about your Core Assets, and how to identify them.

When you think of your family – who are they and where are they from?
What are the most important factors that define your family origins?
What impact did your parents have on your life? Grandparents?
What is the economic background of your parents and grandparents? What did they do for work?
What did you find unusual or unique about your family when you were growing up?
In what ways are you now like your father/mother?
How did your parents choose your name?
What is the earliest event in your life you can remember?
How does it feel to be a parent?
From your perspective now, what are your family’s life-priorities?
What was your nickname? Who gave it to you and why?
Who were the significant people, relatives and friends, during your formative years that have most influenced the person you have become and why?
What were the major influences on you growing up?
Who were your mentors?
Is spirituality or religion an important part of your life? Describe the important aspects of your spirituality or religion. What impact has this had on you?
What values are important to you?
Who or what most shaped your personal work ethic?
Which of your virtues and passions would you most like to pass on to your children?
If you had unlimited time, talents, and resources, what would you choose to do?
If you only had thirty days left to live but had perfect health, unlimited energy and money, what would you spend your last thirty days doing?
What do you perceive to be your unique talents?

Experience Assets

When we talked about Core Assets, we were considering those abilities and gifts intrinsic in us—those capacities with which we were born or to which we gravitate simply because of who we are. By contrast, Experience Assets are those we develop over time: skills, knowledge, techniques, systems, and even the networks of people with whom we establish bonds of mutual support. If the Core Assets are intrinsic to us and part of our very nature, Experience Assets are extrinsic—we acquire them in life. But these Experience Assets only have value—become capitalized—when we first capture them and then share them with others. Experience Assets include both good and bad experiences, and each family member is empowered when these assets, are shared.

The following questions will get you thinking about your Experience Assets, and how to identify them.

What were the significant events during your formative years that have most influenced who you have become?
What did you do for fun? What do you do for fun now?
Did you have any financial, career, or business goals as a child?
What traditions are important in your life?
What level of formal education did your parents and grandparents complete?
Through what level of school were you and your siblings educated?
Where did you go to school? How was education paid for? How has this impacted your life?
How did you start your business/career and how did it get where it is today?
What would you say were significant turning point in your professional business life?
What do you like least and what do you like best about your business or professional activities?
What professional milestones have you yet to accomplish?
Do you think of yourself as being in any particular social class, and if so, which one? Why do you say that particular class?
Here are some hints and ideas on how to capture family knowledge and experience

Contribution Assets

Contribution Assets relate to the manner in which you give back to society—not only with money in the form of taxes and charitable donations, but with your time, energy, relationships and experience. The Quadrant System helps you not only organize these assets, but to also instill in your family your passion for supporting specific social and civic causes. Properly structured, Contribution Assets will add tremendous value to your Core, Experience and Financial Assets for generations to come.

The following questions will get you thinking about your Contribution Assets, and how to identify them.

To what extent has volunteerism, community involvement, and charitable giving been part of your personal and family’s life? In what areas?
What impact has your volunteering and community involvement had on you?
Do you donate time, advice, or lend your name or endorsement to groups or efforts? If so, please describe your involvement.
To what group(s) do you make your major contributions and why?
What has been the most meaningful charitable gift you have made in your life?
Why do you make charitable gifts?
How did making the gifts and their effectiveness make you feel?
How do you determine the amount you will give?
What has been the outcome of gifts you have made?
Who would you consider to be the greatest example of a philanthropist you know? Why?

Financial Assets

Financial Assets are the assets most people are familiar with from traditional estate planning. They are those tangible assets like money, stocks, retirement plans, trusts, personal and real property, and businesses that insure financial independence, provide for family legacy, and enrich political and social involvement. But Financial Assets rarely survive the third generation because our society places emphasis on the wrong assets. We get so caught up in the money game. On top of that, we don’t have a system that focuses on the capture and enrichment of our Core and Experience Assets. Financial Assets are the means, not the end, when it comes to moving all of our assets to . . . and through . . . future generations.

The following questions will get you thinking about your Financial Assets, and how to identify them.

Were you particularly poor or wealthy growing up? How did that make you feel?
What attributes allowed your parents to accumulate their wealth or lack of wealth?
Who or what has most shaped your ideas about financial wealth?
How did you first learn to manage your money?
How has your management of money changed?
How have you invested your money? What types of investments have provided you with the best return? How did you make the decisions to invest?
What happens if your investment performance fails to meet your expectations?
Do you consider yourself “financially secure?” What does this mean for you?
What do you think is the most important thing money can give you? What can’t it give you?
How do you decide how to manage your money, and use it for different purposes?
What type of advice regarding your finances do you seek?
If money were no object, what is the one thing you would most like to do or purchase?
What are your financial goals for the future?
How prepared will your children/grandchildren be to wisely handle Financial Assets?

How do I capture family knowledge and experience?

Tiger Woods is considered one of the world’s greatest golfers. He has earned millions of dollars by winning golf tournaments and by giving endorsements. If Tiger Woods were to offer you his golf clubs and trophies, or his golf swing, which would you take? His golf clubs and trophies would make nice conversation pieces in your home; but, his swing would allow you to make a few million dollars of your own. Using his swing you co d buy your own golf clubs and earn your own trophies.

The possibility that you will receive Tiger Woods swing is remote (although you can buy his video game!). But, you and your family members have activities, experiences, stories, knowledge, and events that if captured, maintained and shared co d advantage current and future generations—both personally and financially. This knowledge should be captured, maintained and shared in some form of family knowledge repository.

Items that can be integrated in this repository include the following:

Special “How To” knowledge possessed by family members. This includes how to develop an investment portfolio, how to create a web site, how to paint a room, how to make Grandma’s special cookies, etc.
A list of hobbies enjoyed by each family member for sharing and teaching other family members.
Resources found to be useful to family members including internet sites, advisors, books, etc.
Genealogy records and histories of family members, both those deceased and alive.
Systems used by family members to achieve success in various areas including speed reading systems, physical fitness programs, earning college credits while in high school, etc.
Stories and photos of family events.

The repository should be maintained in a format and location that is accessible to most family members and should be updated regularly. The repository could take the following forms:

A box
A binder
A file drawer
A computerized folder
A CD with all information organized in documents or files
A family web site

We suggest you capture and record family knowledge and experiences based on the following three categories:

Family Ancestors: include genealogical information and histories of family members who are deceased.
Living Family Members: include pertinent events, activities, accomplishments, etc. related to living family members.
Family Knowledge and Wisdom: include information on hobbies, occupational knowledge, health and diet strategies, Financial Asset management strategies, etc.

Capturing this information allows all family members to:

Remember what happened,
Take pride in and become motivated by family members accomplishments,
Gain new knowledge to make life more fulfilling.

As you implement these steps, you will identify additional strategies and systems to optimize your family’s True Wealth. This process of self discovery is a natural and powerful result of all your efforts. Also, be aware of the byproducts that evolve from participating in these Quadrant Living activities. Byproducts are ideas and results that come from working toward a specific objective. Often these byproducts provide results of greater value than the original objective you were seeking to achieve.

I wish you the best as you travel the road toward optimizing your True Wealth.

Lee Brower