The Quest for Legitimacy: A Talk with the Author
Jamie Weiner is a psychologist and co-founder of Inheriting Wisdom, a consultancy for high-net-worth families. Jamie works on all the problems that exist behind the money. Co-founder of Inheriting Wisdom with his wife, Dr. Carolyn Friend, he excels in activating families to become high performance families.
Dr. Weiner is the co-author of The Legacy Conversation, a book designed to encourage families to have meaningful dialogues about the impact of money and the importance of intentionality for families of means. He has authored numerous articles and speaks frequently.
Intrigued with the experiences of rising-gen family members, Jamie initiated an ongoing qualitative research study called “The Land of the Giants”. The purpose of the study is to understand what it is like growing up in the shadows of other’s successes.
Dr. Weiner’s experience as a clinical psychologist lends unique insights to his understanding of the complex dynamics existing in families, businesses, and not-for-profits. His expertise with leveraging the human capital that lies in multi-generational, affluent families extends into the family office and business space where a family’s needs and “their business” are often linked and complicated.
Drawing on previous experiences developing programs for Cook County Jail and Mothers Against Drunk Driving has given him insight into a broad range of human struggles.
Jamie is a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute (FFI), He has served on the FFI global board and chaired the editorial board of the FFI Practitioner, an online publication providing comprehensive news, analysis, trends, and research intelligence affecting the family enterprise provider community.
Additional Information at:
Dr. James Weiner: Tamarind Learning Podcast Prep & Recording
August 25, 2022 . 10:54 AM . ID: 642707037
Transcript
00:00 - 00:02
[speaker unknown]
This conference will now be recorded.
00:04 - 00:18
Kirby Rosplock
Welcome to the Tamarind Learning Podcast, I'm your host, doctor Kirby Rosplock, and I'm super excited to have with us today, doctor Jamie Weiner, who's going to share a lot more about his recent book.
00:19 - 00:26
Kirby Rosplock
It's called The Quest for Legitimacy: How Children of Prominent Families Discover their Unique Place in the World.
00:26 - 00:29
Kirby Rosplock
Jamie, it's so wonderful to have you here today.
00:29 - 00:33
Kirby Rosplock
You are so talented in so many different capacities.
00:33 - 00:36
Kirby Rosplock
You and your wife, Carolyn work together.
00:36 - 00:48
Kirby Rosplock
And you also have birthed, this incredible book with the support and collaboration of Russ Hayworth, who's another wonderful Family Business podcast, consultant, and Advisor.
00:49 - 00:57
Kirby Rosplock
And then this book is also rich with a lot of research supported with academics, like Frank Barbera and others.
00:57 - 01:10
Kirby Rosplock
And so, I'm so excited to have you on the Tamarind Learning Podcast today, because this book is a real valuable contribution to the literature of inherited wealth.
01:10 - 01:21
Kirby Rosplock
And, understanding the complex relationship that families have with bringing up, you know, the next generation, and helping them launch successfully into the world.
01:21 - 01:22
Kirby Rosplock
So, welcome.
01:23 - 01:31
Jamie Weiner
Kirby, so wonderful to be able to do this with you, with all respect for all you're doing with Tamarind Learning.
01:31 - 01:32
Jamie weiner
So, thank you.
01:33 - 01:47
Kirby Rosplock
Well, you know, I have to admit Jamie, and I have had the chance to work and many different capacities over the years, including the FFI practitioners, so the Family Firm Institute is something near and dear to both of our hearts.
01:47 - 01:54
Kirby Rosplock
And I commend you for all the work and support you do and continue to do with our study groups.
01:54 - 02:04
Kirby Rosplock
And you know, really supporting, not just the inheritor community, but the adviser community to serving wealthy and complex families.
02:05 - 02:12
Kirby Rosplock
I just, I have great respect, and to have you on today, as a guest, is a real treat for me, So thank you.
02:12 - 02:13
Jamie Weiner
Thank you.
02:14 - 02:15
Kirby Rosplock
Well, you…
02:15 - 02:17
Kirby Rosplock
This is not your first book, right?
02:17 - 02:29
Kirby Rosplock
So you've written other books, including one of my favorites, The Legacy Conversation, But I'm just curious, if we go to what inspired you to write The Quest for Legitimacy.
02:29 - 02:31
Kirby Rosplock
What motivated you?
02:31 - 02:32
Kirby Rosplock
Who is this for?
02:32 - 02:36
Kirby Rosplock
And then tell us more about what inspired you to go down this path.
02:37 - 02:50
Jamie Weiner
So, Kirby, I think the real thing that kinda, got me passionate about writing this book about doing the research was the experience of rising gen family members.
02:51 - 02:54
Jamie Weiner
It really didn't start with, let's write a book.
02:55 - 03:03
Jamie Weiner
It started with hearing all the talk about, “Oh my God, it's entitled Privilege Kids”.
03:03 - 03:16
Jamie Weiner
Not truly believing that that was the real picture, and the beauty of Zoom and everything else, is it really opened the door to being able to interview rising gen family members.
03:17 - 03:32
Jamie Weiner
From around the globe, we interviewed 24 rising gen family members twice. I could tell, every time that they've talked to me, their hope was that they would make a difference for other rising gen family members.
03:34 - 03:36
Kirby Rosplock
That's really inspiring.
03:36 - 03:39
Kirby Rosplock
And I just want to say that ...
03:39 - 03:46
Kirby Rosplock
COVID has been a blessing and a curse really occurs for the majority of cases.
03:46 - 03:58
Kirby Rosplock
But it's in a strange way, when you're gathering research and able to have started these intimate personal conversations through, you know, a platform like Zoom or GoToMeeting or whatever you're using.
03:58 - 04:11
Kirby Rosplock
Um, there's probably something powerful, right, to jump to all different parts of the world to get to connect with these different individuals across cultures and ethnicities.
04:11 - 04:22
Kirby Rosplock
So that's another thing I love about your, your book, is that it doesn't seem totally western centric, so I love that you bring in a broader audience in it.
04:22 - 04:23
Kirby Rosplock
It's more relatable.
04:24 - 04:29
Jamie Weiner
So, one of the greatest moments was having a conversation with somebody in Indonesia.
04:31 - 04:34
Jamie Weiner
Other than the time difference, Right.
04:35 - 04:49
Jamie Weiner
It was 11 o'clock at night for her, and sometime in the morning for me, and Russ somewhere in between, it opened the world and made us really realize that we're all part of this global, global world.
04:52 - 04:56
Jamie Weiner
And COVID was a mixed blessing because it allowed me time to write the book.
04:59 - 05:02
Kirby Rosplock
Well, and for a lot of folks, it was a turning inward, right?
05:02 - 05:06
Kirby Rosplock
It was a period up like, re-evaluating, re-assessing.
05:07 - 05:21
Kirby Rosplock
And you know, I've found that that is, again, gift, we oftentimes, don't stop the business of our chaotic lives, to start to look inward as much as maybe we all need to.
05:21 - 05:23
Kirby Rosplock
At least, I can say that for myself.
05:24 - 05:35
Kirby Rosplock
One of the things I just found, so accessible about your book, is that it was incredibly relatable, and, and your story is felt so genuine and authentic.
05:35 - 05:40
Kirby Rosplock
And that's not, I can't say that about a lot of the books I read in our literature today.
05:40 - 05:54
Kirby Rosplock
So thank you for making it normalized and not putting some of these stories on a pedestal or making them sound so unique, but rather, really relatable.
05:54 - 06:04
Kirby Rosplock
And I mean, I don't know if that was your intention, but it's certainly an outgrowth of something I got from reading through your book, which is for me at real page turner.
06:05 - 06:14
Jamie Weiner
So it really started even with the question we asked, because there's a lot out there about the rising, the next Gen, or whatever you call them.
06:15 - 06:25
Jamie Weiner
But the question we asked was, what is it like growing up with the Land of the Giants and not once did anybody stop us and say, what do you mean by Land of the Giants?
06:26 - 06:28
Jamie Weiner
They knew what we were talking about.
06:28 - 06:31
Jamie Weiner
They couldn't name their Giants and their allies.
06:32 - 06:35
Jamie Weiner
They could talk about their personal experience.
06:35 - 06:38
Jamie Weiner
What it's like growing up in this world.
06:40 - 06:50
Kirby Rosplock
Well, Giants means so many things, to so many different folks, and I know you're book, creates an awareness of how they might be your parents.
06:50 - 06:52
Kirby Rosplock
They might be your grandparents.
06:52 - 06:56
Kirby Rosplock
They might be the founders going back generations.
06:57 - 07:03
Kirby Rosplock
And I know that the concept of Giants is something that you've worked with or many, many years.
07:03 - 07:19
Kirby Rosplock
And one of the other things I found interesting about your decision to use the quest is that the quest is really around, you know, the verb or the noun of it means, you know, the hero's journey and, and oftentimes giants are referred to as the heroes.
07:19 - 07:28
Kirby Rosplock
But really, we're talking about this rising gen journey, right, and this expansion of what they're trying to achieve.
07:28 - 07:36
Kirby Rosplock
Maybe you can tell us more about the title and why that connects to that story that you're sharing here.
07:38 - 07:43
Jamie Weiner
So, the title didn't come from them telling us, oh, my God, I'm on a quest.
07:44 - 08:03
Jamie Weiner
The title really came from the research for conversations in the recognition that no matter where in the globe, whether it was in Indonesia, Chicago, or Costa Rica, everybody that we were described, a very similar process.
08:04 - 08:08
Jamie Weiner
There were four phases, it wasn't linear.
08:10 - 08:18
Jamie Weiner
Begin to be open, open up the door, to be being able to suggest there is a path.
08:19 - 08:32
Jamie Weiner
There is a way to, to be able to begin to sort it out, your own personal sense of agency, and be able to figure out who you want to be in the world.
08:32 - 08:35
Jamie Weiner
That's a very powerful world that you grow up.
08:37 - 08:48
Kirby Rosplock
Well, maybe just give us a hint of what those four phases are, so we can start to embrace and appreciate, like, the beginning to the end, and kind of, what is that progression?
08:49 - 08:54
Jamie Weiner
So, I was hoping you'd ask. The first place, we call awareness.
08:54 - 09:00
Jamie Weiner
It's really those beginning moments where you begin to recognize that you live in a world that's different.
09:01 - 09:05
Jamie Weiner
It's followed by a period of, that I call the tug of war.
09:07 - 09:09
Jamie Weiner
You're still involved in your family.
09:09 - 09:17
Jamie Weiner
There's all that knowledge, and some of these families that we're talking to be 250 years old.
09:17 - 09:21
Jamie Weiner
There's a history, 450 years old, in one case.
09:22 - 09:24
Jamie Weiner
And so, there's all of this.
09:24 - 09:30
Jamie Weiner
And then, there's the exposure to the world in their current times, pulled between the two worlds.
09:30 - 09:43
Jamie Weiner
The period, that's probably the most significant, is a period of exploration, where you begin to internalize what it is you were brought up in, but now, you're exposed to an outside world.
09:44 - 09:54
Jamie Weiner
And that's really the opportunity to be able to learn stuff that, over time, has the potential to be brought back to the family.
09:55 - 10:02
Jamie Weiner
Then, the last phase, which is the one that people really struggle with, is beginning to take ownership of your life.
10:03 - 10:05
Jamie Weiner
You feel that it’s you that's running the show.
10:07 - 10:08
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, yeah.
10:09 - 10:27
Kirby Rosplock
I mean, that is that's the continuum right there, that we're all striving for that self-actualization and feeling like we own, kind of our journey and, and maybe we're born from something bigger than us, but then we are complete with ourselves, right?
10:28 - 10:29
Kirby Rosplock
Or content?
10:30 - 10:38
Kirby Rosplock
We started or arrived, and that's, that's, uh, a finish line that never seems to quite ever, its quite passive.
10:40 - 10:44
Jamie Weiner
Yeah, I'd talk about, however, I'm in my seventies.
10:44 - 10:46
Jamie Weiner
You're talking about still being rising.
10:47 - 10:56
Jamie Weiner
The book as really an act of truly finding something that made me feel legitimate, like a contribution to make in the world.
10:58 - 10:58
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
10:59 - 11:11
Kirby Rosplock
Well, one thing I love in your book is you talk about the concept of liminality and you write, “Liminality is the essence of the middle phase of the rite of passage.”
11:11 - 11:24
Kirby Rosplock
And that struck a rail cord for me, because I see that with a lot of families, and a lot of individuals I work with, where they're in a transition phase.
11:24 - 11:40
Kirby Rosplock
They may not even know it, um, but maybe tell us more about what that concept means in your book, and how it fits into the journey of a person who might be born into one of these complex types of families.
11:40 - 11:46
Jamie Weiner
So, probably, the one that everybody would relate to is COVID, was a period of liminality
11:46 - 12:14
Jamie Weiner
There's a period of feeling betwixt and between what we realized with all of the interviews that we did, is that everybody went through a period of filling betwixt and between it is a psychologist's… I'm also really differentiating it from depression and anxiety, and all those clinical terms, in order to make it a normal part of being on a quest.
12:14 - 12:21
Jamie Weiner
The, sort of know what's important to you, figure out, where are you want to be in the world.
12:22 - 12:24
Jamie Weiner
Because there are a lot of options out there.
12:26 - 12:27
Kirby Rosplock
There is a lot of options.
12:27 - 12:34
Kirby Rosplock
And I just, I really like that there was a sense of, like, you're moving, maybe, from one state.
12:34 - 12:40
Kirby Rosplock
I think COVID is a great example of we all kind of know what our lives are like before COVID.
12:41 - 12:51
Kirby Rosplock
And now, we're in this transition phase that you don't really know exactly when it will end, or how our new, normal will look, because we still haven't arrived there.
12:51 - 13:07
Kirby Rosplock
So, I love that as it relates to someone sort of going on this quest for legitimacy, where they might know that they're going through some transition, but they don't actually know what the arrival point looks like.
13:07 - 13:08
Kirby Rosplock
They can't define that.
13:08 - 13:11
Kirby Rosplock
They just know that they're they're not the person.
13:12 - 13:14
Kirby Rosplock
They weren't when they started this, right?
13:14 - 13:32
Jamie Weiner
So, one of the examples I love to tell about, this is a young man, parents had had the talk with him in high school about privilege in the world he was born into, and he went off to college.
13:34 - 13:44
Jamie Weiner
Everybody was talking about what they were going to do to make a living, and he went, oh, my God, I have so many options.
13:44 - 13:47
Jamie Weiner
It threw him so, so powerfully.
13:48 - 13:50
Jamie Weiner
That, he ended up going home.
13:50 - 13:57
Jamie Weiner
It's spending about a year and a half in the home, um, with support from his parents.
13:57 - 14:00
Jamie Weiner
So, that was really the beautiful part of the story.
14:01 - 14:10
Jamie Weiner
Beginning to sort out, who he is, what he wanted to do, and eventually went back to school and got a master's degree, could have gone on and taught.
14:11 - 14:15
Jamie Weiner
That is to begin, to really uses that period to sort out.
14:15 - 14:20
Jamie Weiner
What’s important to him, what he wants to do with his life.
14:20 - 14:22
Jamie Weiner
Little bit more than the idea of a gap year.
14:23 - 14:30
Jamie Weiner
Because it wasn't a planned year, but a year that was really used to gain exposure in just sort.
14:32 - 14:36
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah, and, again, sometimes we can't plan for that, eight?
14:36 - 14:41
Kirby Rosplock
We can't plan for those moments of, “Oh, I need to just step back.” You know?
14:42 - 14:54
Kirby Rosplock
And there's so many great points that you make in the book around, you know, getting stuck, or sort of things that trigger you, right, to maybe have those periods of liminality.
14:54 - 15:02
Kirby Rosplock
But I also really love this section of your book where you talk about how frequently individuals get stuck.
15:02 - 15:11
Kirby Rosplock
And there is a connection to trust, not that terminal entity trust, but the, the relational trust.
15:11 - 15:23
Kirby Rosplock
And maybe you can talk more about why it's pretty common to get stuck in this sort of transition on this journey, and what that meant to some of the people you talk to.
15:24 - 15:29
Jamie Weiner
So in the book, I talk about the 4.5 years I spent working at Cook County Jail.
15:30 - 15:35
Jamie Weiner
Yeah, that's sort of felt like it was the bottom.
15:36 - 15:47
Jamie Weiner
It was really clear on the fact, they created a group, we did some exercise exercises, there was a trust exercise two minutes in.
15:47 - 15:53
Jamie Weiner
One of the guys says, “Are you crazy, I’m never going to trust anybody.”
15:53 - 15:55
Jamie Weiner
The group went, “Oh, it’s so good. He’s being honest.”
15:55 - 16:10
Jamie Weiner
When you think about that, the challenge with trusting and that's true in all the families that we're relating to is trust is an essential ingredient.
16:13 - 16:20
Jamie Weiner
It was something that that's kind of the basis, allows you to be able to have disagreements but still feel connected.
16:21 - 16:21
Kirby Rosplock
Yeah.
16:23 - 16:27
Jamie Weiner
If you don't have that, it's, it's hard to move on from there.
16:30 - 16:30
Kirby Rosplock
It is.
16:30 - 16:32
Kirby Rosplock
I mean, it also shuts you down Right.
16:32 - 16:35
Kirby Rosplock
Your closed off, from a lot of the world.
16:36 - 16:41
Kirby Rosplock
WHen, you're not able to believe or think that there's relationships worth investing in.
16:41 - 17:01
Kirby Rosplock
And no, I know, personally, how hard it is, when trust has been betrayed, or has not you know, not worked out as you had hoped, but you know, if you don't try to continue to build relationships and continue to put yourself out there, it does seem to support your ability.
17:01 - 17:01
Kirby Rosplock
Right?
17:01 - 17:04
Kirby Rosplock
To continue to grow and manifest.
17:04 - 17:19
Kirby Rosplock
Um, tell us more about what you think of when you think of like the Rising Gens journey and the role that culture plays, and how they've evolved.
17:20 - 17:27
Jamie Weiner
So, my favorite story, a story about culture, is we interviewed the woman from Indonesia.
17:28 - 17:36
Jamie Weiner
Like, who was Chinese whole story behind that and like many, she came to the States to study.
17:37 - 17:44
Jamie Weiner
She was given two instructions, one was to come back with an advanced degree, and two was to come home.
17:44 - 17:49
Jamie Weiner
She came home, she spent a period of time helping her father build a new factory.
17:50 - 18:08
Jamie Weiner
The relationships, had, some rocky moments, and so with great pride, night, She came to her father, and she said, Dad, Dad, I think I wouldn't be able to get a job through my own money. And her father’s response to us, which through Russ and I were doing the interviews.
18:10 - 18:12
Jamie Weiner
“I don’t get it, where's my face in it?”
18:14 - 18:16
Jamie Weiner
We're both kind of rocking back and forth.
18:16 - 18:18
Jamie Weiner
What do we mean by face?
18:19 - 18:31
Jamie Weiner
And she explained to us that in her culture being able to honor the patriarch, and to do something shows that respect.
18:32 - 18:34
Jamie Weiner
It's kind of essential to their culture.
18:36 - 18:41
Jamie Weiner
It started a conversation, so it was a good thing in the long run.
18:41 - 18:53
Jamie Weiner
But it was a cultural break moment because she had to experience both individualistic culture of the United States and the culture that she grew up, which we found to be very common.
18:54 - 18:55
Kirby Rosplock
Very common.
18:55 - 19:05
Kirby Rosplock
And I think a great unifier and that this journey isn't alone which, again, I think makes one of your real attributes of your book is that…
19:05 - 19:12
Kirby Rosplock
Again, it relates to many common themes, even across, you know, different cultures, different experiences.
19:12 - 19:24
Kirby Rosplock
There are these sort of repeatable kinds of experiences that individuals growing up in wealthy and complex business owning families tend to experience.
19:24 - 19:47
Kirby Rosplock
I mean, another big discussion point in your book is around parents and how their role, particularly today, right? With helicopter parents and the massive influence of parents, plan and the development of their child. Tell us more about what knowledge could be gleaned from the rising gens understanding of their parents own quest.
19:49 - 19:51
Jamie Weiner
What a great question.
19:52 - 20:06
Jamie Weiner
You know, first of all, a lot of times, the periods don't understand that they're perceived as giants. So they don't quite get what the experiences for the rising gen growing up in their world.
20:07 - 20:13
Jamie Weiner
Yeah, um, there's a magic moment that can happen.
20:14 - 20:37
Jamie Weiner
When parents reveal their humanness, were the giants become mortal and where they can describe, because no kid growing up, sees a moment in an adult’s life, they don't see all the struggle that it took to get there.
20:37 - 20:38
Kirby Rosplock
Hmm.
20:38 - 20:44
Jamie Weiner
And, um, no Richi is a major character in the book.
20:45 - 20:47
Jamie Weiner
His father is from India.
20:49 - 21:02
Jamie Weiner
He was a little bit luckier because his father's successor, his growth, kind of happened at the same time. But in contrast, as somebody who we interviewed who grew up in a family that was 250 years old.
21:02 - 21:10
Jamie Weiner
The founder is a historical figure. The history, is powerful.
21:10 - 21:22
Jamie Weiner
To see that there are rocky moments in that history, that everybody had to struggle and get through them is a liberating experience for somebody rising up and growing up in that culture.
21:25 - 21:41
Kirby Rosplock
I think that's great, incredible, powerful insight and again, the journey of the parents are whoever created wealth, and significance and a family if it's not experienced by the rising gen…
21:43 - 21:44
Kirby Rosplock
It’s not that it's discounted.
21:44 - 22:05
Kirby Rosplock
But it's not proportionately appreciated because they didn't live it and so that lived experience for a family member coming up is incredibly connected to maybe how they think about their parents or the wealth or businesses in their family or the prominence of their family.
22:05 - 22:09
Kirby Rosplock
And it's important to unpack that to right size.
22:09 - 22:12
Kirby Rosplock
Right, because there's so many matriarchs and patriarchs.
22:12 - 22:21
Kirby Rosplock
I've had the privilege to work with who either feel misunderstood, miss appreciated or quite honestly, conflicted.
22:22 - 22:33
Kirby Rosplock
I spent too much time, right, focused on building wealth and now, I have to spend so much more time focused on loving my children, or participating in their lives.
22:33 - 22:37
Kirby Rosplock
Are being more of an active participant in the community.
22:37 - 22:53
Kirby Rosplock
So, again, I see this firsthand, and I love that you talk about that parents own journey, vis-a-vis the rising gens journey and, and why that is a really important relationship, right, to unpack.
22:55 - 22:56
Jamie Weiner
Yeah, so.
22:57 - 23:09
Jamie Weiner
Having grown up in a family with a prominent father, not a wealthy father, but my dad was a Rabbi, he was a central figure in the community.
23:09 - 23:18
Jamie Weiner
There were a couple thousand people at his funeral. The conversations we never had.
23:19 - 23:25
Jamie Weiner
My father came from Germany, went to Palestine.
23:25 - 23:28
Jamie Weiner
It came on a boat he had to go through India.
23:28 - 23:34
Jamie Weiner
Those stories were never told, there was never the opportunity for me to make him human.
23:35 - 23:41
Jamie Weiner
So, this is something, I feel is tremendously important.
23:45 - 23:46
Jamie Weiner
Just makes a difference.
23:47 - 23:48
Kirby Rosplock
It does make a difference.
23:48 - 23:52
Kirby Rosplock
And I, I love that you added your story to your book.
23:52 - 23:55
Kirby Rosplock
I mean, it's hard, right?
23:55 - 23:59
Kirby Rosplock
It's hard to write about your own personal experience.
23:59 - 24:02
Kirby Rosplock
But, boy, for me, it made me appreciate you.
24:02 - 24:02
Kirby Rosplock
As an author.
24:02 - 24:07
Kirby Rosplock
As a peer, as a writer, as a researcher, so much more.
24:07 - 24:09
Kirby Rosplock
Even having more insight, too.
24:10 - 24:11
Kirby Rosplock
How this whole journey.
24:11 - 24:15
Kirby Rosplock
Like we all experience it on some level and you know.
24:16 - 24:26
Kirby Rosplock
The other thing, I mean, just going jumping into another part of the book that I loved was, you know, how, how does one reconcile being part of, of a family?
24:26 - 24:31
Kirby Rosplock
But maybe not part of the family enterprise, or the wealth creation or the story?
24:32 - 24:40
Kirby Rosplock
And how that, that sort of disconnect and reconciliation process is unique and different for each, each person.
24:42 - 24:47
Jamie Weiner
So one of the stories that is pretty central to the book is the Story of Rishi.
24:50 - 24:53
Jamie Weiner
Rishi went off to college, he did some entrepreneurial things.
24:54 - 24:56
Jamie Weiner
He was asked to come back and help his dad.
24:56 - 25:01
Jamie Weiner
He spent five years working with his dad, went off to graduate school.
25:03 - 25:07
Jamie Weiner
His dad bought many businesses, (he) came back home, there was one in trouble.
25:08 - 25:21
Jamie Weiner
And, and, as a result, he has spent a year in the business, went off to the World Cup, came back and got an e-mail and was fired by his father, an e-mail.
25:22 - 25:26
Jamie Weiner
So, the original plan was that he would be heir apparent.
25:27 - 25:39
Jamie Weiner
And, for a number of reasons, he stopped talking to his dad for a couple of years. Knocked on his dad's door, which I think was pretty heroic, his dad, almost in tears.
25:40 - 25:43
Jamie Weiner
Said, “I'm so glad that you did this, I would never reached out.”
25:44 - 25:52
Jamie Weiner
So Rishi now has a role where he's still communicative about the enterprise that he has gone on to.
25:54 - 26:10
Jamie Weiner
Professor, has gone on to doing training, he’s building, his separate life here, and, um, his siblings, still in the role of potential heir apparents.
26:11 - 26:14
Jamie Weiner
And you can feel the tension that exists.
26:17 - 26:23
Jamie Weiner
He wants to be there for his brothers, but he also understands the value.
26:23 - 26:25
Jamie Weiner
Of being a little bit more on the outside.
26:27 - 26:32
Jamie Weiner
There are financial considerations and all that other stuff that go with it, of course.
26:33 - 26:57
Kirby Rosplock
And it's it's a really major awareness factor that several family members reach, where either they, you know, figure out maybe they're not the fit, so that the powerful disappointment that probably Rishi went through, I love that part of the book and the idea that his father sends like an e-mail.
26:57 - 27:01
Kirby Rosplock
So, just cool and devoid of anything personal.
27:03 - 27:06
Kirby Rosplock
To let them know that his, his services are no longer needed.
27:08 - 27:15
Kirby Rosplock
I mean, it's very relatable where family and business don't necessarily mesh.
27:15 - 27:31
Kirby Rosplock
You know, seamlessly and family members who are really successful, often cite and have a very strong, deliberate, and harsh business side of them. But when it buts on to family members, it's, you know, can be unsettling.
27:32 - 27:42
Kirby Rosplock
I love how you use that story to show how this actually prompted his quest, his journey to finding his own, you know, his own self, like what, What was gonna drive him.
27:43 - 28:01
Kirby Rosplock
Um, and I think there's always that tension: were families who were either born into families with operating companies or significant wealth, are trying to figure out where they define themselves with relationship to them as those entities and, and sometimes they get sucked in, right?
28:01 - 28:14
Kirby Rosplock
They get sucked into having to play a role but they're really, always frustrated disappointed or disenfranchised that they didn't start to seek their own their own path, um, outside of it.
28:15 - 28:37
Jamie Weiner
What I really love about the story is you can feel Rishi’s father’s desire to want to sort it all out and make a connection and it's very important. But he also was brought up in a culture where, where the expectation is that there is a certain power that the patriarch has.
28:40 - 28:45
Jamie Weiner
We kept finding that different stories was a chapter about women.
28:45 - 28:50
Jamie Weiner
There are three stories about women that kind of highlight that as well.
28:51 - 28:52
Jamie Weiner
Um.
28:53 - 29:02
Jamie Weiner
I just think it's part of, what if we could make a difference, it would be so powerful in the long run.
29:02 - 29:07
Jamie Weiner
It would make business and making business decisions easier as well.
29:09 - 29:10
Kirby Rosplock
It is, It is.
29:10 - 29:25
Kirby Rosplock
And, again, another thing I love about what you did at the end of your book is you provide a whole list of questions, right, to spark conversation around your, you know, your different phases.
29:25 - 29:29
Kirby Rosplock
Awareness, tug of war, exploration, and ownership.
29:29 - 29:43
Kirby Rosplock
And I just wonder if families started having more of these conversations, and we really started to unpack some of the conflicting feelings or the different viewpoints.
29:44 - 29:45
Kirby Rosplock
Would we be in a better place?
29:45 - 30:00
Kirby Rosplock
Could we actually bring wholeness, to you know that the person is going through this journey and trying to figure things out, but also the footprint that they were launched from could also help them appreciate?
30:00 - 30:07
Kirby Rosplock
That they're not going to be exactly like the journey that the parents went through, our prior generations.
30:07 - 30:23
Kirby Rosplock
So, I'm really grateful because not only is a great book and has tremendous insights, great examples and stories, and then the research that you tease out about these sort of kind of pivotal steppingstones of the individuals quest for legitimacy.
30:23 - 30:30
Kirby Rosplock
But I just, I love that you gave us opportunities to expand and make it our own conversation around these issues.
30:31 - 30:35
Jamie Weiner
I really hope that those questions of the book would be, kind of be a bridge.
30:36 - 30:50
Jamie Weiner
They would take people who are reading the stories, reading, the content, to beginning to think about their own self, and find themselves beginning to think about: So, what does this mean for me? What do I do?
30:51 - 30:58
Jamie Weiner
Maybe even from the beginning to look for other experiences, that would help them on the quest.
30:59 - 31:03
Kirby Rosplock
Well, that's probably a good, start to A steppingstone to a closing question.
31:03 - 31:18
Kirby Rosplock
Which is, if you were to leave our listeners viewers with just a few ideas either that you share during this podcast or things maybe we missed from your book, what would you want to leave our listeners with today?
31:20 - 31:28
Jamie Weiner
So, probably, the one that I didn't talk about it much, is in all those stories, there was this tremendous sense of isolation.
31:29 - 31:33
Jamie Weiner
There was this sense of, Oh, my God, I'm doing this, suddenly, who, they have nobody to talk to.
31:35 - 31:39
Jamie Weiner
And, um, you and I know.
31:39 - 31:46
Jamie Weiner
And I know the people listening need to know, you can have conversations with other people.
31:46 - 31:51
Jamie Weiner
And you can open up, and you can kind of see that your experiences.
31:51 - 32:07
Jamie Weiner
Oh, my God, this is just me, is a huge aha moment because of your group of people listening left with the sense of there are other people out there going through this. Even that might make a huge difference.
32:09 - 32:23
Kirby Rosplock
Well said, I couldn't agree with you more, and, being able to share what you've learned, or what you're experiencing, or the questions, or pain that you're still trying to sort through, can be very liberating, right?
32:24 - 32:49
Kirby Rosplock
And can unlock, sort of pain points are things that you didn't even know you were carrying through life when you just honor them and accept them. And not that you can make them right necessarily or fix it, but that you at least own up to what all comprises your worldview and sort of where you're trying to get to.
32:50 - 33:01
Kirby Rosplock
So, I love that you brought the isolation piece because this podcast, your book, it's really intended to connect with people to help them, further their journey.
33:02 - 33:04
Jamie Weiner
Well, thank you for the opportunity, Kirby.
33:05 - 33:07
Kirby Rosplock
Jamie it is always great to see you.
33:07 - 33:11
Kirby Rosplock
Always great to have you as a guest on the Tamarind Learning podcast.
33:11 - 33:27
Kirby Rosplock
To read More, to find out how you can purchase jayne's new book, which by the way just came out July 2022, please you know, click on the attachments to this podcast and we hope to have you back soon again Doctor Weiner.
33:29 - 33:30
Jamie Weiner
Thank you, Kirby.
