The movement of the method.

An estate is a living system: the people in it, the entities and accounts that hold it, and the decisions that join them, all changing at once. Four overlapping circles stand for the parts of a life, and for the four phases we move through to keep an estate aligned with it.

Meet the team

Four phases, one loop

We work in four phases, always in the same order: Discover, Explore, Design and Implement. Each one starts from what the last one found.

Nothing is designed before it is understood, and nothing is put in place without being read again. The estate does not stand still, so neither does the loop.

The Human Wealth mark as a loop of 4 phases: Discover, then Explore, then Design, then Implement, and back to Discover.DiscoverExploreDesignImplement

  1. Discover to ExploreWhat we learn decides what we gather.

  2. Explore to DesignWhat we gather becomes the material.

  3. Design to ImplementWhat we design has to be lived.

  4. Implement to DiscoverWhat is lived is read again.

Discover

Start with the people.

Everyone in a family sees their life a little differently, so we start by listening to each of them. Each adult who wants to takes a short check-in of their own, drawn as their Composition: one shape across sixteen Elements, with no score and no number.

Wellbeing

  • Meaningful Life
  • Satisfying Life
  • Psychological Richness
  • Daily Affect

Resources

  • Capability
  • Financial Security
  • Environmental Quality
  • Social Network

Systems

  • Autonomy
  • Goal Setting
  • Community Connection
  • Engagement

Integration

  • Vitality
  • Self-Efficacy
  • Optimism
  • Resilience

Two people, two shapes.

An advisor can set two members side by side, so a conversation starts from what each of them said, not from what one of them assumed about the other.

You
Partner

Explore

People first.

Then we map who is in the family: the generations, the marriages, the households, and who depends on whom. The estate is people before it is anything else.

Then what they hold.

The trust, the company, the homes and the accounts, each attached to the people who hold it. One record of the estate as it is, not as a statement shows it.

HouseholdHouseholdCompanyHomeBrokerage accountFamily trustFatherMotherBrotherYouPartnerDaughterSonDaughter

Design

Between what you hold and how you live.

With the family understood and the estate mapped, we design the systems that join them, from the portfolio to the trusts. Each system names what it uses and the Elements it aims to improve, so every structure answers to a life.

  • Liquidity reserve

    Uses: Company and Brokerage account

    Aims to improve:

    • Financial Security
    • Optimism

  • Giving plan

    Uses: Brokerage account and Family trust

    Aims to improve:

    • Meaningful Life
    • Community Connection

  • Education trust

    Uses: Family trust

    Aims to improve:

    • Capability
    • Goal Setting

Implement

On the board.

We put the plan in place with your counsel, at a pace the people can carry. Every step becomes an action with someone who holds it, tracked until it is done.

Open 3

  • Open the reserve accountLiquidity reserveAdvisor
  • Write the family’s giving letterGiving planYou
  • Set the trust’s education termsEducation trustAttorney

Blocked 1

  • Value the company sharesWaiting on the appraisalLiquidity reserveCPA

Done 2

  • Done: Gather the trust documentsEducation trustYou
  • Done: Move cash to the reserveLiquidity reserveAdvisor

On the calendar.

Reviews run on a set calendar. A sale, a death or a marriage brings the next one sooner, and the next check-in starts the loop again.

  3. : Review
  6. : Review
  7. A sale: A sale
  8. : Review, brought forward
  9. : Its set month, moved earlier
  12. : Review

ReviewIts set month, moved earlier

Next check-inBack to the first phase

An estate that keeps moving, kept in alignment.

People marry, sell, inherit and grow older. Each turn of the loop reads the family again, so the plan keeps pace with the lives it serves.

Why the people come first

families followed through the transfer of their wealth
3,250
transfers that failed, failed on trust and communication in the family
6 in 10
failed because the heirs were not prepared
1 in 4
failed on a legal, tax or technical error
<3 in 100

Source: Roy Williams and Vic Preisser, Preparing Heirs (2003).

The Elements draw on six fields of research: behavioral finance, positive psychology, cybernetic systems theory, gerontology, subjective wellbeing research and social capital theory. The first model was developed with the New Economics Foundation, and the sources behind each Element are listed in the literature index.

The literature index

Common questions

No. It is sixteen readings drawn as one shape. Averaging them would hide which part of a life is under strain, so we never add them up, for a person or for a family.

Start with a conversation.

Tell us what is changing in your family. We listen first, and tell you plainly whether we are the right office for it.

Meet the team