Episode 11

Family Wealth Activism: Creating Meaningful Impact Across Generations

Join us as we explain the concept of wealth activism, which extends beyond traditional wealth management by emphasising the importance of sharing wealth, educating the next generation, and nurturing relationships for meaningful impact. The discussion touches on the significance of involving family in wealth decisions, the joy of giving, and the non-financial aspects of wealth such as emotional and psychological dynamics within family groups. The episode also addresses how to handle family dynamics, the extended longevity of family members, and issues like elder abuse.

You can get in contact with David Murdoch on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidsmurdoch/

Or you can reach out to Paxton Bridge

https://www.linkedin.com/company/paxton-bridge/

https://paxtonbridge.com/

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This podcast has been produced by: https://podcastsdoneforyou.online

Transcript
Anthony Perl:

Family wealth activism, creating meaningful

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impact across generations.

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Welcome to Activate Your Wealth.

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In this episode, David Murdoch, the

principal advisor at Paxton Bridge,

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the pioneer of wealth activism, talks

about involving family in your wealth

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journey and creating a meaningful impact.

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Together you'll learn why wealth activism

goes beyond traditional wealth management,

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how to share experiences rather than just

assets, and why nurturing relationships.

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Matters more than accumulating money.

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I'm your co-host Anthony Pearl, and

whether you're a successful business

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owner, executive, or family seeking

to align your wealth with your values,

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it's time to activate your wealth.

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David, I wanna ask you about this term

wealth activism, which you talk to,

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but I wanna understand the role of

family in that, because I imagine that

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it's usually one or potentially two

people that instigator the relationship

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that they have with you, but.

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How important is it to bring

the family into that whole

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concept of wealth activism?

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David Murdoch: Well, again, I, we,

we look at wealth activism as you've

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got, generally you've got financial

success, you know, tick, that's

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great, but what are you doing with it?

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Like, just the importance and, and

also as a comparison, when people

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talk about wealth management, well,

that we can manage the wealth.

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That's, that's, in some respects

we can put that to the side.

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That's easily done.

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We can put some investments.

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The wealth activism component

then sits above that, that

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says, okay, you've got that.

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What are you doing?

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How are you sharing?

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How are you educating?

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What would you like to do with it?

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And that's now and and into the future.

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But I think a lot of it is

this education component that

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sits within wealth activism.

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And for people to understand that,

to get that element of respective

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funds and wealth, they'd say.

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I, I want to do stuff for my family and

friends and community, but what is that?

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What is the purpose as

to why I am doing that?

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And again, it comes back to

this question around purpose.

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And you can throw money all over the

place, but is that giving you some joy?

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It's a bit like when I ask people the

question, who likes to give presents?

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And people go, yeah.

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Who likes to receive them?

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Yeah.

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Well, great.

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Well that's wealth activism.

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You get to do both.

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You get to give and you get, so

you get the, the joy of giving.

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But you also get to have the joy of

seeing the recipient have the pleasure

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of what you've been able to do, but also

for them to come, it's a two way street.

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So part of that utilization of

wealth activism is what am I

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teaching people along the way?

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And some of those lessons may not

always be alert on the spot, but

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can be that reflection in time.

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It's like, wow, I was due to the.

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Generosity and success of, you know, I was

lucky to live in a family that meant this.

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And it doesn't, people get rid of this.

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They think, oh, everyone needs millions,

hundreds of millions of dollars.

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No.

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It can be the simplicity of a, of

just a, a small amount of, how do I

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wanna share part of my wealth along

the way, which is wealth activism.

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And that might be the simplicity

of the kids coming over for dinner.

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And you happen to pay for.

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All the meal and, and the

drinks and everything else,

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like that's wealth activism.

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'cause you're sharing your proceeds

in a way, but you can take it

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to the next level and go, right,

let's take everyone on a holiday.

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And then the next level could be, well

I wanna purchase a house for someone.

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Okay great, but let's lend it to them.

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And so that is using it and it

starts to build its way out.

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But what it starts to do is to bring that

next generation through to understand.

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I was the recipient of something from

the generation above and I received it.

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I wanna do a reciprocal

onto the next person.

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So you get into this circular

motion of understanding that

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was passed through to me.

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How do I, and what can I do to support

my younger generation or, or if you

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don't have a generation below you,

across family or friends or the

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community, there's lots of people that

will never have their own children,

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but they might have nieces, nephews.

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They might not have any of that, but

they can also turn around and go,

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what charity could I be involved in?

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Is there a sporting club?

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Is there a charity that I would

like to be actively involved in?

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To me, that's about wealth activism.

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You're using your wealth for a

purpose that you really enjoy, and

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it brings you pleasure in doing it.

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And being active in it.

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Anthony Perl: And it is really interesting

'cause I wanna pick you up on that

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because I think that a lot of people,

when they hear the word activism,

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imagine, you know, a bunch of people

standing with placards saying, you

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know, we want this, give it to us now.

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Yeah.

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And it's not about that, is it?

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No, I mean, it's,

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David Murdoch: part of it is about, I

wanted people to rattle the cage a bit.

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Like, you know, I, I'd shake it a little

bit to say, you've, you've got politics.

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What are you doing with it?

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Like share it with the people

around you have some fun with it.

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You've worked really hard, or you've

had some really good investments,

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like spend it on your mates and

your family and your friends.

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In the scheme of things, again, it's, it

doesn't have to be huge amounts of money.

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It might be on the basis that you

just take a few mates out for dinner.

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Okay?

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It cost you a thousand dollars.

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Wow.

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Really?

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But how good was it that you.

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People start to move away from

their friends sometimes, like the

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importance of friends going out and

supporting each other in certain ways.

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If you financially have the

capacity to do that, who cares?

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Like your mates know who you are,

so enjoy it along the way with them.

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Have some fun.

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Like I know people, some people

go an activist, you mean you,

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you, you are anti something.

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Right.

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Yeah.

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I'm anti you hanging on to all of

this success and either keeping it

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for yourself or or leaving it to a

point that you've gone too far past

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the point where you can enjoy it.

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'cause your health is declarant like that.

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That's what I get frustrated about.

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It's like, you've been really successful.

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Let's.

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Let's spend along the way and, and you

get the joy of spending, but you also get

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the joy of the recipients like they learn.

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And those, as I said, those opportunities

where people, you've got this limited

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amount of time and to, to go and have a

meal with someone is the greatest joy.

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Sometimes it can be just the two of you,

and it just gives it an opportunity for

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a one-on-one conversation that you may

not have had for a long time because

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you've been busy, busy, busy, busy.

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And it's like, and it goes back to

that query about suing soon, soon.

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Soon.

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Soon can sometimes be never

because you've delayed it all.

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Oh, I'll get to that tomorrow.

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Get that tomorrow.

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No, no, let's do some of this now.

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Because if you drift too far

away from certain people, it's

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very hard to get them back.

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Like relationships are so important,

and that's family and friends.

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You've gotta nurture them.

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You can't just expect people to always

be there just because, oh, I'm so and so.

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It's like, nah, you,

it's a two way street.

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Marriage friends.

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Children, it's a two way.

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You, you cannot expect it all to be one

way, and just because you are the bloke

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or the girl with all the money doesn't

mean that you can sit back and wait for

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them to roll up to, to engage with you.

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To me, it's about you've

gotta, let's enjoy it.

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And again, it's not

always the dollar value.

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It's not about I can,

I'm gonna spend the most.

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It's not about the money, it's about where

and how you wanna spend your time and

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your resources along the way with people.

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Anthony Perl: What you say about

relationships is so important, isn't it?

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Because often you find that

people that put themselves in a

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situation where they have money.

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Almost want to be revered for it.

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They want people to, you know, come

crawling as if they're the, you know, yep.

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Near the king or queen,

and they should to be

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David Murdoch: bowed down to, and, you

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Anthony Perl: know.

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Yeah.

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And, and it's interesting, isn't it,

how that needs to be thought of in both

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ways because people to understand that

they have money, how uncomfortable it is

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for someone to have a conversation with

them about money if they don't have it.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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And look,

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David Murdoch: and, and this is one of the

challenges with some of the family groups,

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some, some of the younger generation,

they go, oh, I don't wanna be known.

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Don't, don't label me

as one of those people.

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Like I, they, and this is where this

generational issue is starting to happen.

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Where the younger generation

going, uh, I, I don't wanna be

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known as a, I don't know, some.

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Wealthy family, Warren Buffet, right?

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He's one of his family group,

probably, you know, or Zuckerberg,

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do you know what I mean?

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People go, oh, I don't want

to, I don't wanna be known.

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That was dad.

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I don't wanna be known with all of that.

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And I'm just using that because

those guys are Elon Musk.

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Some people go, I, I would not want to

be, have the surname Musk, because it

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just has connotations for various people.

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So that younger is saying, yes,

I've got everything, but I want to

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be doing something more with it.

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I still, and again, this is a personal

belief, those personal friendships

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and relationships far more valuable

than me being able to sit around a

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table and sit there and go, well,

I've got a million bucks in the

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bank and I can do whatever I want.

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I would rather be in a position

that I can sit around with.

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Four or six close mates and have a

beer and a bloody steak together,

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and I've got nothing left.

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But those guys, they're helping me on

that relationship and being supportive.

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To me, that's far more valuable than

not having that available to me.

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But with money in the bank,

like that's my personal view.

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Now, some people don't agree

with that, and that's okay.

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Like I, I don't mind, but to me, this

is what wealth activism is about.

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If you've had some success,

what are you doing with it?

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But share some of it with

people, like the joy of giving.

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He's one of the greatest joys.

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And as I said, it doesn't

have to be huge amounts.

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It can literally be asking someone to come

over for dinner and you cook them a meal

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and you get to spend some time with them.

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And you just do that around

whatever it is and you have a

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few laughs and how good is that?

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And it's not about the dollars.

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Anthony Perl: It's funny how

those little moments can matter.

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We just celebrated our wedding

anniversary not that long ago, and.

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I think we probably mentioned

on the podcast, I'm building a

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house at the moment, so Yep, yep.

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Money's going into that.

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We didn't want to do anything too much

and we just went to the local pub and

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had a cocktail, and it was just that

being able to take an hour or two

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out go and in the, in what was the

local that we hadn't been to before.

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And, and just enjoy an hour at,

had to laugh because the bartender

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actually, I don't think he'd

ever made a cocktail before.

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So even though they had it on the menus,

so he actually said to me afterwards, he

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said, I've never made this one before.

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Tell me if it's any green.

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And I wasn't.

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It was all right.

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I'm not normally a

cocktail drinker anyway.

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You saying

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David Murdoch: should getting

it simple and just had a

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beer and make it easy for it.

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Yeah,

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Anthony Perl: I was gonna say, I

should have just had the straight

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whiskey instead of having it

mixed with whole bunch of things.

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But it was about the moment, it wasn't

about whether we went out and had

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some lavish three course meal and a,

you know, Michelin star restaurant.

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Yeah, that's what I mean.

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I agree.

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It was the little things and, and that

was, that made more of a difference than

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if we'd have done a whole bunch of things.

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We could have given each other cards

and lavish s and all that sort of

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stuff, but it would've been sacrificing

things in accordance with that.

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And that's where it is getting

that balance, as you say.

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But also it comes from having meaningful

discussions with the family so that

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you are all set the expectations as

well as to where you're going to be at.

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Yep.

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David Murdoch: Because of life.

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I mean, again, it, it life

is to be enjoyed and surround

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yourself with people that you.

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Like, like just if, if you don't get on

with someone, don't keep spending time.

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Like it's just, I really reckon that's

really very simple, like surround

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yourself with people you like to spend

time with and, and, and it's hysterical.

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You just have a ball together.

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And, and I, and I think you really

need to nurture those, and I think you

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start to appreciate that probably a

little bit more as you get a bit older.

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Only also because your kids

get less demanding of you and

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you start to move into this.

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Period where you can enjoy.

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I mean, you mentioned

your wedding anniversary.

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It's at my 30th wedding anniversary this

year, and we're actually going away.

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It's the first time we've been

away that for more than two nights

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in 25 years, we've got four kids.

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And it was just not

possible for us to do that.

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Like it was just, and

that was our priority.

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We, we put a priority of our children

first and we didn't wanna put that onto

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a third party to look after them if we

wanted to, wanted to go away for longer.

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So.

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We're taking that opportunity this

year and I'm basically living what

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I keep saying to our client base

who we appreciate that they continue

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to engage with us, that I've gotta

live the what where messages and

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which is wealth activism and it's

enjoying life and spending some money

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on the people that I care about.

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And so we've got five weeks away and

I've got probably a week with other

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people 'cause my wife's doing a swim.

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Most of the four, five weeks, four

weeks of it will be just the two of us.

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And I can't wait.

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It's gonna be unbelievable.

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And it's been awesome.

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We haven't been away for that length

of time for, as I said, for 25 years.

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So, you know, again, that's

what wealth activism is to me.

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And we've had to delay certain

things and, and that's okay.

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Like I'd rather do the trip as we spent

some time together than something else.

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But that's a choice we've made.

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Anthony Perl: And you bring up an

interesting point as well, that it's

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all about family dynamics as well.

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Isn't that It's, that has to

be, play a key factor in the way

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the whole thing is addressed.

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It can't just be one

person making the decision.

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Correct?

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David Murdoch: Correct.

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And, and look, for some

families, it's never gonna work.

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Like you say to them, would you

like to go away for a week together?

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I go, you've gotta be joking.

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I couldn't spend more than a, you know,

a meal could be, you know, long enough.

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Okay, well that, but that

also then raises an issue.

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Because what's that gonna

be like down the track?

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Like no one lives forever.

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So there will be a scenario

that will roll through.

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Therefore, we need to

address some of those issues.

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Now, we may not come to an answer, but

we need to at least get them on the

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table to determine what some of the

steps might be and how certain people

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may react in certain circumstances.

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And so again, part of that

is about wealth activism.

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What are we gonna do about

this and how do we continue to.

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Cascade and enjoy.

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Look, sometimes you can't get a square

peg in a round hole end of story.

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It's just that is a really long term.

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That may not be that we need

to be financial advisors.

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We actually may need to introduce what

might be a psychologist or some other

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family dynamic specialist that looks

at and covers some family dynamics that

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may have been bubbling away for years.

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And it's not a single conversation.

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And so again, we look at it on that

basis that there's a point where

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we need to draw the line and say,

we do think we need to bring in a

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specialist for you for this reason.

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And being quite open about it and

say, this potentially will come

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back to cause some issues for you.

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And we think it's important that

we address some of that whilst

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everyone's in this realm at the moment.

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And again, that takes time and money, but.

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Depending on how people want

to address that, some of 'em

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will go, I wanna address it.

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It'll be what?

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It'll be okay.

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Anthony Perl: And I think that's the

thing isn't you've gotta encourage these

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healthy, uh, correct s amongst the family.

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David Murdoch: Yep.

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And again, as we said, there is,

people have in family groups,

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there's drug, alcohol, gambling,

you know, mental health issues.

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No family's perfect.

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Everyone's got challenges

in their families.

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I don't think bearing your head in the

sand is the right answer, but sometimes

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that's a choice that people make.

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But let's try and support people

in that basis and, and potentially

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bring in the appropriate professional

specialists because they're available.

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It's just a matter of sometimes

acknowledging the fact that

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there's an issue and we need

to get something sorted out.

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And that, again, may not

always be a financial decision.

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And that's why there are

some circumstances where.

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That's all good to have all the financial

stuff sorted out, and that's when we

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talk about purely the financial side

could be just the pure wealth management,

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but there's all these other issues

on the other side of the equation of

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the emotional, the psychological, the

relationships that occur within the

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family groups that needs to be addressed.

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I see that as part of our role

to support people in that.

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Not always have all the answers.

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Anthony Perl: Just summing all of this up,

it's so important that people grasp this

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concept, that activism is more than the

management and yes, that that is the a key

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differentiator for people to understand.

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David Murdoch: Absolutely.

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As I say, we see wealth activism as a

tier above wealth management because

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we can do that, and that is one aspect.

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Great.

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You've got a good broker,

you've got someone else that

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can manage all that money.

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No problem.

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I can put it into some term

deposits at the bank and.

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You can just leave it all on the bank.

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Well, that's managing the mate.

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You may not be doing a really good

job, but it's still managing it.

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That's wealth managed.

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It's all these other things that

people need to understand, like it

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really is, it's the family dynamics.

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And again, I think one of the challenges

is with people living longer, that that

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is causing not so much a challenge,

but, but people are, it's not uncommon.

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I've got some mates that their

parents are in their nineties.

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They're still getting around pretty well.

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Like it's amazing.

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You hear these people when

they're 105 and they go, wow,

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they've got an 80-year-old child.

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Do you know what I mean?

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Because generally it's probably females.

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Predominantly they're at that age

bracket, but they probably had

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children when they were 20, so their

child is 80 or 85, who they've got

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probably 50 or 60-year-old children

who have their, you know what I mean?

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You got that four generations.

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It's quite amazing.

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Again, how do you look at all of that and

how do we deal with all of that together?

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Because one of the other things I wanted

to raise in that, in that dynamics around

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that is, and the cascading of assets

through to people of wealth activism

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is also this challenge unfortunately,

that does occur is elder abuse where

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some family groups are going, no, no,

no, just you just give me the money now.

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It's like, mm-hmm.

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That's not the way we like to do.

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You know what I mean?

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But some people will do that.

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But there's also those balances that

we need to get people to understand

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that again, we need to apply the face

mask first to you before we start

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supporting others and that not occurring.

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And that's also as we get the breadth of

what we're doing within wealth activism,

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potentially we can try and start to

understand some of those dynamics

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to help support what that may need.

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And again, some specialist advice

that could be brought into that.

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In that area.

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So that's just another area that,

again, it starts to highlight what is

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happening for someone along the way.

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Anthony Perl: Thanks for tuning in

to the Activate Your Wealth podcast.

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For more information about how to

get in contact with David Murdoch

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and the team at Paxton Bridge.

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To learn more about wealth activism,

take a look at the show notes.

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There's plenty of information there,

including details of the website and

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all the social media channels to follow.

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David.

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This podcast has been produced

by podcast Done for You.

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I'm Anthony Pearl reminding you to

subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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About the Podcast

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Activate Your Wealth
with David Murdoch, the Wealth Activist®

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About your host

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David Murdoch

I am passionate about helping my clients activate their wealth. Success can’t be left to chance. At Paxton Bridge, we’ve developed Wealth Activism, a philosophy that establishes a firm foundation upon which we build personalised wealth activation plans for our clients. This foundation is under-pinned by three core pillars - money mindset, asset management and intergenerational wealth - which are critical in helping us bring people together as they transition to ‘more life, less work’.