Family Legacy is More Valuable Than You Think

Thomasina Williams (00:00)
The things that most people care most about, particularly when they’re fairly financially successful, is my family being individually fulfilled, them staying together, being in unity over the longer term.

Strategic Financial Group (01:05)
Welcome back to Navigating in Abundance. I’m your host, Chris Tankey. Today we’re joined by Tomasino Williams, founder of Sancova Legacy Advisors. Tomasino works with families as a strategic thought partner

helping them understand that their most precious assets are who they are, not what they own. Tomasina is a seasoned practitioner and her work is deeply personal, fueled by her own family history. She is on a mission to help families sustain multi-generational legacies of success. Join us as Tomasina shares her insights on honoring the past while planning for the future.

Chris Tanke (01:42)
so pleased to have you with us. Tomasina, thank you for spending some time with our audience.

Thomasina Williams (01:47)
Thank you so much, Chris, for inviting me to share time with your audience. I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Chris Tanke (01:53)
Absolutely, right. And so we have a mutual friend in John Warnick and ⁓ with the Personal Planning Institute and that’s how we kind of got connected and John spoke very highly of you and said Chris you need to have a talk with Thomasina what she’s developed is kind of like what you’re doing there and at at Navigating abundance where we tend to say you have wealth in three different areas that need attention your your ledger wealth your logistic wealth

Thomasina Williams (01:57)
Yes.

Chris Tanke (02:20)
and your legacy wealth and your legacy wealth is your family wealth and unfortunately the way life works and the pressures of business and finances and scheduling and all sorts of stuff it is so easy to say well the legacy wealth a family part that’ll take care of itself and and what a Thomasina is so such an evangelist for as are we to say no no no you can’t do that you have to really be intentional about that.

Thomasina Williams (02:21)
Mmm.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (02:48)
I love what you have on your website. I’m going to read this. It’s very, very basic and very powerful. And you trademarked it actually good for you. Invest in your family like you invest in your business. my goodness. Could you drive that home for us before we get into the body of our conversation Thomasina?

Thomasina Williams (03:00)
Yes, absolutely.

Yes, because if you think about it, your most precious asset is who you are individually and collectively as a family, not what you own. I did a keynote for an organization called the Southeastern Family Office Forum a couple of years ago. It’s expanded beyond that, but they allowed me to do a survey.

of the members of the farm who are primarily from family offices or families directly. And wealth, the money part, was number six on the list. The things that most people care most about, particularly when they’re fairly financially successful, is my family being individually fulfilled, them staying together, being in unity over the longer term.

Chris Tanke (03:43)
Hmm.

Thomasina Williams (03:59)
That’s what people care most about. And somehow we’ve gotten things confused. The word wealth, if you look at the historical meaning of it, it’s really about wellbeing. It’s not about the quantity of our assets,

it’s really more about the quality of our existence and the financial resources that people are blessed to have should really be in service.

in service of the individuals and the family collectively blossoming into their potential. Yet 90 plus percent of what people get is all about the financial assets, because it’s easy, it’s quantifiable. These days you have algorithms that can help you figure all of that out.

Chris Tanke (04:41)
Right, Yeah.

the ultimate value, right? A hundred years from now is the legacy, not your ledger. And, and I, I’m not, I’m not to say that, that, you, shouldn’t be serious about managing your wealth as a good steward, in all that respect, but, for heaven’s sakes, folks start focusing or, I know everybody’s focused on a family, but how about if we, we stepped it up and, and we’re more intentional.

Thomasina Williams (04:48)
Absolutely.

Chris Tanke (05:05)
As we try to deal with some opportunities within our families, some problems within our families, you know, some, organizational structures we could, we could develop that would make our families run smoother, helping kids, find their complete fulfillment. Even if it’s not in a family business, if, that’s your arrangement, but let’s, let’s be intentional about this up. And that’s why I love, what you’re doing. So could I ask.

This is not a common name for legacy advisors. I’ve seen you know financial legacy advisors and I’ve seen successful legacy advisors and I’ve seen Blue water legacy advisor. I’ve never seen San Colva legacy advisor.

Thomasina Williams (05:45)
Sankofa is a wisdom principle and it is depicted as a bird and the bird has its feet facing forward, it has a very long neck and its head is turned backwards and there is an egg in its mouth. And what that symbolizes as it relates to the work that we’re privileged to do with families is here we are firmly grounded in both the realities

opportunities and challenges of today, but we want to look back and honor those who got us to where we are, as well as draw lessons from those folks. Some lessons are things we want to emulate, maybe some lessons are things that we would like to do differently. The egg symbolizes the future. We are also thinking about those generations to come.

And you mentioned the term stewardship earlier. Most families, I think, are concerned about how do we preserve the best of the past, honor that, while people who are here today are fulfilled, but also making sure that there’s something for future generations. some people might encapsulate it as stewardship. But it is certainly what families are seeking to do.

the legacy piece, you know, I believe that we all will leave a legacy. The only question is, will it be a legacy by default or a legacy by design? Which is where the intentionality that you refer to comes from. And you mentioned John A. Warnick, trust and estates attorney who started an organization a number of years ago called the Purposeful Planning Institute.

I’m privileged to serve on the board with John A for, I guess like the last five years or so. And the idea is to help families be more purposeful, to design their legacy rather than to allow things to just kind of happen by happenstance.

Chris Tanke (07:46)
Well, that’s that’s a beautiful thing I you know, I love the the fact and you can you can see this this the Sankova imagery the bird on the website, which is I think a quite a startling image I love that that’s that’s really kind of like directing your philosophy of how you’re you’re you’re working with families you’re thinking of past present and future ⁓ and and and to be able to

Thomasina Williams (07:58)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Chris Tanke (08:14)
help families start thinking in that way, again, with intentionality. Lessons learned from the past, good, bad, or indifferent. What are we doing currently and how are we nurturing the next gen and maybe either our philanthropy and other things that we’re involved with that will outlive us. That’s a holistic view of things and I think that’s really terrific. Might I ask you,

make mention often in your website about the differentiation between family enterprise and an enterprising family. And I love that. think that could you could you kind of like drive that home for people because this is if if ladies and gentlemen if you can grab a hold of this it’s going to also help I think direct your thinking and direct your decision making as you.

Thomasina Williams (08:49)
Yes. Yes.

Chris Tanke (09:03)
you built into your family. So family enterprise versus enterprising family.

Thomasina Williams (09:08)
Yes, and the difference quite simply is between the people and the financial assets, once again. I remind people all the time that even though we focus almost exclusively in some cases on the financial assets, it’s called family wealth. You can’t have family wealth, you can’t have generational wealth, sustain it over the long term without also focusing on the family.

So the enterprise is the collection of the family’s financial assets, whether that be an operating business, family office, family foundation, real estate, whatever it might be, the financial assets. Whereas the enterprising family is first and foremost a family of what Jay Hughes, one of the pioneers in this field, refers to as a family of affinity, a family that wants to be together, to grow together,

over the longer term, irrespective of what the financial assets are. The financial assets give the family the luxury, the opportunity to think big picture. What do we want our great grandchildren to know about those of us who are here today? What do we want them to know about the legacy, about what we did to get this wealth?

what they can do to use that wealth to support both themselves, their dreams, and also to be a resource for others if that’s what they choose to do. Keeping that entrepreneurial spirit, and by entrepreneurial I don’t necessarily mean starting a business, but the innovation, the thought processes around what are the possibilities that this wealth opens up for us as a family.

beyond just taking care of what we might think of as the luxuries of day to day life.

Chris Tanke (11:03)
And that’s kind of an important distinction that Really falls under invest in your family like you invest in your business. It’s Understanding the difference between family enterprise enterprise and family Helps you at least understand your shift of momentum and energy and resources and focus if you can delineate the two I like that

Thomasina Williams (11:22)
And it’s parallel

tracks. I’m not by any means suggesting an either or, it’s parallel tracks. It’s interesting, I had a conversation with someone, a new client just last week. Their wealth advisors have talked a lot about trust and you should have family meetings and it’s all around the financial assets. And when I raised the question about family-ness, what do you want to do as a family?

And then what does it take to develop that? It’s something that the client had not thought about because no one had ever presented it to them. So much is coming at us all about the assets. If you think about it, whether you’re a first generation wealth creator or wealth has been in your family for

10 generations. It all started with the human capital, the individuals. Somebody took a risk. Somebody, frankly, least historically, they did that by starting a business and had support from their families. Even today when people start businesses, generally speaking, there’s some kind of family support in there.

even if it’s just taking care of other responsibilities related to the family So it all starts with human capital and the people part and somehow the more wealth we develop, we’ve kind of gotten away from that and we assume that money’s gonna take care of everything, but it doesn’t, which is why the work that I’m privileged to do with families is to help them do the things that frankly their wealth cannot, which is to have more meaningful

Chris Tanke (12:53)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (13:04)
conversations to figure out how to navigate differences and conflict and how do they navigate generational transitions and other kinds of change.

Chris Tanke (13:16)
Yeah, that is that is great Yeah, and and this you are absolutely preaching our sermon if you spend some time on Sancovius website or navigating abundance website you’re gonna find a lot of cross pollination It’s it’s it’s great and I I just love how what what what you’re saying was on your heart is on our heart as well so when we talk about

Thomasina Williams (13:16)
You need people for that.

Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (13:38)
You know these the family-ness of Wealth you have also a really nice illustration very simplistic very basic which is which makes it so powerful of the iceberg Could you share that? with our audience today

Thomasina Williams (13:51)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

we all know that what we see on the tip of the iceberg above the waterline, that’s not necessarily what’s the most important. Everybody knows that what sank the Titanic, the unsinkable ship, was what was happening below the waterline, what could not be seen.

And generally speaking, if there is a question around where do we invest our money, what do we want to do philanthropically? And there might be some angst around that. If you’re trying to figure out budgeting, staff, whatever the issue is, it’s only what I refer to as the presenting issue. That’s the tip of the iceberg, what we can see above the waterline.

what we see above the waterline for an iceberg is roughly only about 10%. That generally speaking, 90 % of that iceberg is below the water, out of sight. And so when families are being encouraged by their wealth advisors to focus on family governance, first of all, a lot of families don’t really understand.

candidly what that means. I think all families have some type of governance because all families are making decisions in some way. The goal is to try to get them to be more intentional about that. But if you think about it, it’s still about the structures, about having family meetings, about having a set of family policies perhaps or family constitution. You maybe want to teach financial education.

that’s what we can see. That’s the more, the easy part. You drop below the water line, deeper, what is really driving what is happening above the water, our family relationship systems. It’s like the water that we’re all swimming in, but aren’t conscious of it.

We’re so immersed in our family systems that we’re not conscious of what is going on. And so part of what I do with families is to help to make that implicit explicit, to make the invisible visible so that people can then better manage the relationships. Relationships drive everything, everything. It’s, if you think about the old adage,

Chris Tanke (16:11)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (16:15)
culture each strategy for breakfast. You can have the best strategic plan you want, but if people aren’t feeling it, it’s all for naught. You can have the best financial plan, the best estate plan that you want, but if there’s upset within the family relationships, that plan is only as good as the piece of paper that it’s written on, or the computer that it might be stored on digitally these days.

Chris Tanke (16:42)
Yes. that that’s very beautifully said. And what a poignant point is being made right there. Folks, mean, you know, understand what’s below the surface. You know, everything might be very neat, very, very tidy, very well written, even at least on the surface agreed upon. But

Thomasina Williams (16:52)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (17:03)
But it’s what’s underneath the surface, right? The surface is the issue that is gonna be able to support that and make that work.

the constitution we talk about this sometime in our office and i think it was was it adams who said that that the constitution of the united states is wholly inadequate for an irreligious people ⁓ i think again what it’s it’s whether or not whatever your theological persuasions are that’s what

Thomasina Williams (17:24)
Mmm.

Chris Tanke (17:31)
One of the founders said that wrote the document in other words the documents awesome. It’s brilliant But you know, it’s what’s under the surface that matters if we’re gonna make this work and and I think That’s the point you’re making not that somebody has to be a religious person to make the family work But it’s it’s was underneath the surface. It’s the easy part is is writing out the documents and laying out the game plan

Thomasina Williams (17:41)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (17:56)
The hard part is getting buy-in to it heart to it a teamwork to it And that that’s that takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of And it’s it’s something that we really love to put off

Thomasina Williams (18:09)
It makes us uncomfortable. Humans, by definition, tend to resist anything that makes them uncomfortable. I think about our family systems as context. It’s the environmental context in which everything is happening. If you think about relationships,

Chris Tanke (18:11)
Yes. Yes.

Thomasina Williams (18:27)
One of the challenges I think we have as human beings, when there is some discomfort, some upset, we actually have a tendency to resort to four different patterns to ease that discomfort. And it’s all about making us more comfortable. And part of it too, frankly, we have a tendency to want to blame other people, to look outward rather than to think about

Chris Tanke (18:43)
you

Thomasina Williams (18:54)
the fact that I am in relationship. No man is an island. People sometimes will use the term problem child. That literally gives me goosebumps because no child was born into the world of problem. No child. Whatever behavior someone might see that they wish was different is behavior that had evolved within a context.

Chris Tanke (18:59)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (19:21)
based upon that child’s relationship or lack thereof with the adults around the child, we all evolve within a context and what is happening within families is happening within a context. I think the other thing that’s so interesting about working with families, people tend to think, it’s only my family that can’t.

keep it together. My family’s having this challenge. Another term I don’t use is, quote, dysfunctional family. I don’t think that anybody is dysfunctional. I think people are reacting in the best way they know how, given their experience and what they know to, again, make themselves comfortable, to try to avoid the discomfort of having sometimes difficult conversations, of recognizing,

my kids have a different political view than I do. How could that have happened? How do I grapple with that? I mean, these are real issues that people are dealing with in their families. How does sibling rivalry developed? How is it that all kinds of challenges happen? Partly, what people don’t appreciate is the family next door, the family down the street.

Chris Tanke (20:16)
Yeah, right.

Thomasina Williams (20:38)
My family, your advisors’ families, we all have challenges. We’re just not talking about it. We’re reacting to the discomfort of difficult conversations. Families are either sometimes too close or they are too far apart. And the opportunities to figure out where is that space, I refer to this giving space and grace,

where we can be in relationship, I can allow you to be who you are, respect who you are, even though it may be very different than my view of the world, and you can do the same for me.

Chris Tanke (21:13)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (21:17)
My family, for example, my youngest brother is nine years younger than I am. I have two brothers in between, three total. My youngest brother, who I’m actually the closest to of my brothers, he grew up in the same two-parent household, but it was a totally different world.

Different experience of my parents because my parents frankly had more financial resources When my youngest brother came along nine years later He had access to opportunities and things that just frankly were not available to me and had a very different experience my father I remember always having at least two jobs at least sometimes three

Nine years later, you know, they’ve actually been able to accumulate some assets with all of those jobs and with the inheritance from their parents. So we are very different in many ways, politically, faith, child rearing, I mean, you name it, but we can still have family prayer every Sunday night, which we do. My family has prayer every Sunday night, even though I have a different view about.

some things related to faith than my family does. So that is where the work is. How do we allow each other to be who they are in their fullness and we be together as a family and leverage all of that brilliance?

Chris Tanke (22:43)
I think it’s just the most beautified dynamic to be able to say we have differences, political differences, theological differences, know, whatever financial differences, whatever that might be. But but in the end, to be able to say as a family, we’re very connected. That tells me that there’s a lot of love and support and honesty, disagreement, but always

Thomasina Williams (23:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (23:09)
acceptance and and you know, and a sense of team on the family even with it in spite of and in some ways, as a result of our differences. I think that’s really a beautiful thing. And if you can get to that point, I think that we all need to be trying to get to that point. Yes, have have a robust dialogue. That’s terrific. But in the end, we are still family. And that’s a non negotiable. I love that.

Thomasina Williams (23:33)
Absolutely. That’s for my family, for many families. There are some families where the assets, frankly, are most important. Or some people for whom the assets are most important. And we have to allow for that. Everybody doesn’t have to have the same worldview in order to love and respect their family and have each other’s back.

It requires work because there are times when you just want someone to do something or be someone who it’s just not who they are. It’s not for them. I think we, one of the biggest challenges is again to allow space and grace for everyone to evolve in their own time. We’re all on different journeys. Even though we may have been raised in the same household, even though we may share the same table at dinner.

we still have different paths. Everyone has to travel their own journey in their own time. I’ll share a quick story with you about that. I shared this with somebody the other day. Again, my youngest brother, I’m very close to, and we were having family prayer. The entire family was on the call, and I don’t know, somebody said something. And usually, candidly, I keep my mouth shut on those calls about certain discussions because I just see it differently. And I, you know,

They know that and I respect their view. for whatever reason, one day I said something about something and I quoted a book that had meant a lot to me, still means a lot to me, one of my favorite book actually, around my understanding of God, of spirituality, of consciousness. And my youngest brother asked, what’s the name of the book?

So I told him the name of the book. says, that sounds interesting. I want to get a copy of that. And then he asked his wife to order a copy for him on Amazon, as my youngest brother is prone to do, rather than simply ordering his own copy of the book. Yeah, exactly. I had three of them. But the funny part of the story is the very next day, my sister-in-law is in my brother’s home office doing something.

Chris Tanke (25:27)
Brothers.

You’ve got a lot of experience.

Thomasina Williams (25:41)
lo and behold, she discovers a copy of this book. She opens the book. My brother has had a copy of that book for 25 years. And how do we know that? Because I bought the book for my brother. I told him about the book 25 years ago. I bought a copy for him. I inscribed the book and I included the date.

He’s carried that book around to four different houses over 25 years and never bothered to open it. He opens the book. He finally reads the book and he’s like, my God, I can’t believe you didn’t make me read this book 25 years ago. This would have saved me a lot of heartache. Excuse me?

Chris Tanke (26:14)
Ugh.

Ha

Thomasina Williams (26:29)
didn’t make you read the book? So people have to be ready. When they’re ready, then they’ll I find. Oftentimes people take liberties with their family. They would never do that with a complete stranger. I’ve seen adult children just berate their parents.

Chris Tanke (26:31)
Yeah.

Thomasina Williams (26:49)
In a way, they would never do that to a friend or to an employee or staff member. So, you know, again, we take our families for granted, but I believe that our families are our most precious asset, who we are individually and collectively. And we do need to spend as much time and energy investing in ourselves as we do in protecting our assets if we want to maintain those assets

across generations because God forbid that, you know, economy goes to heck in a hand basket tomorrow and we have another Great Depression. I mean, if you don’t have your family, you’re in pretty bad shape. But if your family can work together, you’ll get through whatever that difficulty is and be able to rebuild the financial well. But it doesn’t work the other way around.

The money’s not gonna get you a close family.

Chris Tanke (27:47)
How do we begin addressing these things? What have you found to be most beneficial?

Thomasina Williams (27:53)
It depends on the individuals or the family. One of the most important things I think to recognize is we can only change ourselves and sustain that over the long term. And even that is challenging in and of itself. You think about how many people try to quit smoking, lose weight, whatever. Our tendency though is to want everybody else to change while we stay the same. So the first thing I…

Chris Tanke (28:10)
Yes. Absolutely.

I like that.

Thomasina Williams (28:22)
And that’s just how we’re wired. We don’t wanna have to do anything that requires work and us being uncomfortable. So the first thing I suggest for people is to think about themselves and what they can do differently rather than thinking about what I want my parents to do or what I want my children to do to focus on yourself.

Chris Tanke (28:23)
Yeah!

Thomasina Williams (28:43)
When I’m working with families and in engagement, what I do is to start by understanding what, why people are seeking support. Is there something in particular going on in the family? Because the reality is candidly, most of us are not very proactive. We’re not that intentional because this stuff makes us uncomfortable.

So understanding what is going on requires talking to everybody who’s involved in the system. I like to go and talk with each individual family member who will talk with me. Sometimes people don’t want to talk and we have to respect that. I’ve had parents say, well, I’m going to force them or I had to threaten so and so. Please, please don’t do that. Think about how do you react when someone tries to force you to do something or wants to threaten you?

It’s not a great way to start a relationship. People will again get to where they need to get to in their own time. So through having conversations with people individually, sometimes in groups, if there’s for example, I’ve had situations where there are a group of young people working in a business, an operating business, so talk to the group as a group in addition to the individuals. I’ve had cases where there’s a family foundation and I talk to the staff or

the VP of an operating business to try to understand the system. Again, we are trained, I think, socialized to look at sort of cause and effect. So and so is the problem. This is the issue. When in reality, when we’re talking about relationships, again, nobody exists in an island. There’s a broader context to whatever the challenges that a family is experiencing.

Chris Tanke (30:21)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (30:28)
And my goal is to try to get a picture of that from everyone’s perspective and then figure out how to help them see how the pieces fit together and their role in that. And then if we want to get to a different place, where is that place and what will it take to get there? It’s a process that is essentially the same in terms of talking to everyone, but where we go from there really depends on the family and what’s going on.

Chris Tanke (30:47)
Hmm.

as you said it can be uncomfortable at times it can be I Mean it’s gonna have the whole gamut of human emotions. It can be Quite probably the the greatest thing you’ve ever done if you’ve made some progress in certain areas with with a child or with your parents Yeah, you know, it’s it’s a

I’m trying to wrap my brain around…

Even the process of dealing with family relationships, the scope is so large and the need is so significant and the time is so short, it’s very difficult, I think, to to prioritize where you need to begin.

with being encouraged or enlightened by a book or even a podcast such as this. Yes, maybe we can create a spark, but ultimately

Thomasina Williams (31:45)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (31:47)
Don’t really people need a coach to do this? Don’t they need somebody to prod? Yeah.

Thomasina Williams (31:51)
I believe so.

Most people do, first of all, because they’re not familiar with what even the work is. I mean, if you think about it from top athletes of

any sport you can think of to top corporate executives, global companies to Silicon Valley startups. They all have coaches. the more elite the performer, whether in some kind of entertainment or whether in sports or whether in the corporate world, the more elite, the more likely they are to have multiple coaches for different things.

Chris Tanke (32:25)
Mm-hmm.

Thomasina Williams (32:27)
because we can’t see what we can’t see. I don’t know what I don’t know.

So the way it depends, some people wanna dive in, some people just wanna dabble their toe. I actually just had a conversation last night with a new client about my proposal for their first family meeting with me. They had been doing family meetings on their own, but they haven’t gotten to where they’d like to get to. And so the way that I’m starting out is with what I call setting the context.

Chris Tanke (32:50)
Hmm.

Thomasina Williams (32:59)
First of all, we start out with meeting agreements. How is it that we want to be in relationship with each other in this particular conversation? Then I’m setting the context. Again, I context is what is often missing. So there is a piece around what does it mean to say that we are an enterprising family of affinity? Like break that concept down into some tangible

aspects and how that might relate to this particular family and the work that they want to do together. That might include everything from the family taking the time to figure out family values. The way that I like to do it is each individual figure out what’s important to them. Then if there is a couple, the couple figures out what’s important to the couple.

and then those couples or branches come together as a family collective. Many people will do values work in our field by having people do what’s called a card sort. Just give people a list of words and they pick words. I find candidly that that’s not always as impactful as I think is helpful. The reason you do this work is because you want to get clear about what are our guiding principles here.

It’s, is your wisdom principle, is Sankofa gonna be on that list? Is stewardship? Because when it comes to then making some of these difficult decisions about allocation of resources, about when something doesn’t go quite the way we thought it should, how do we deal with this upset as a family? You resort to those values. They need to be something that you live. And so there are number of different ways to do that.

Many families also take the step of developing a family vision statement. Particularly if you have significant resources, you can have a vision statement even for your philanthropy or for your wealth. What do we want to do with this money? And then what do we want to do together independent of the money? Why do we want to stay together as a family? Is it just to leverage the financial assets or is there something here

about being a member of the Tanki family that’s really important that we want to preserve, we want to build on for future generations. So there are a whole host of things that go into that piece. The second piece I think that’s important for families to think about in terms of context and getting started is to understand this concept of family as emotional system. It’s getting into another piece of who are we? How do we…

make sense of the world, how do we make meaning, and then how do we interact with each other? What are we doing now and what’s our aspiration? And then we kind of work through those pieces. And one of the things I love about this work is every family is different. Every family is different. You’re in different places. Individuals within the family are in different places, different stages of life, not just parents, children, sometimes

They’re blended families. Sometimes there are age differences where some might be married with children and some might be single or some might be married but have no interest in having children. All of those pieces add to a complexity that lends itself to being more intentional, being more purposeful so that everyone feels a part of the family even though they may have some differences.

Chris Tanke (36:40)
Hmm.

Thomasina Williams (36:41)
about

different things. I still know this is where I belong.

Chris Tanke (36:44)
I love that. You know, it there’s some guiding principles with navigating abundance. One is that, you know, you don’t know what you don’t know. I don’t know what I don’t know. I learned something new every day. Even if I thought I learned it before. I love the story of your brother. The book was in his library for 25 years. I love that.

Thomasina Williams (37:09)
He’s lugging it around the country. True story. You

can’t make that

Chris Tanke (37:14)
That is fabulous. But so sometimes, you know, you’re finally, as you said, you’re ready to know what you don’t know finally. But, but, you know, the other principle is that, navigating abundance, or, Sancova legacy advisors, it’s about a team sport. You don’t do it on your own, right? Professional golfers that have big entourages and who would have think it’s just a golfer. They’re hitting a ball.

Thomasina Williams (37:29)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, Right, right.

Chris Tanke (37:36)
Some of these golfers have eight or 10 professionals that travel around with them on the jet everywhere they go. They’re psychologists, they’re sports trader, they’re nutritionist, a couple of different golf pros, they’re putting instructor. It’s incredible, but that’s what it takes to achieve at the ultimate level. so for everybody watching, you know, I think that at least what you’ll take from this is that first of all, I would suggest, start thinking about

Thomasina Williams (37:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (38:02)
The value of your legacy wealth understand that 90 % of the work that needs to be done perhaps is actually underneath the water. I love that illustration. I think that’s really great. invest in your family, like you invest in your business and don’t go it alone. you know how, whatever you’re comfortable with, you’re going to get a lot further if there’s some sort of coaching going on. We all do.

Thomasina Williams (38:13)
Yes.

Chris Tanke (38:26)
We all need somebody that’s better at this than we are, that can prod us onto excellence. That’s just how it works. That’s how human beings work. do you have any closing remarks for us as we bring this down to a draw? What? Can you encourage us? Is there hope? Okay.

Thomasina Williams (38:43)
is always hope. There

is always hope. I get teased by my brothers around that. My mantra, keep hope alive. Otherwise, why get up in the morning? We can’t give up on each other, because at the end of the day, your family is the most important thing. And there may be people out there who are saying, yeah, but Thomasina, you don’t know my family.

and the issues I’ve had in my family. I don’t know your family, but I know human beings and we’re all kind of wired the same biologically to protect ourselves. And the key is the willingness. Are you willing to do the work on yourself? Are you willing to have a family member from whom maybe you’re estranged? You reach out, they say no, and you just keep trying. So.

My parting comment would simply be that to remember that your most precious asset is in fact who you are individually and collectively as a family, not what you own. And so if you’re going to spend all this time and effort, which you should, investing in growing, protecting your financial assets, fantastic. Also at the same time, put some effort into investing in

developing, cultivating your family relationships.

Chris Tanke (40:01)
The fact that you will never be done accomplishing all that you love to accomplish in your family doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be beginning. What’s important is progress, right? ⁓ You know, you eat the elephant one bite at a time. This is an elephant conversation that we’re having for many families, but you need to start chomping along the way. that’s really, think, being a good steward of the opportunity is let’s just start making some progress and bringing some

Thomasina Williams (40:10)
Yes.

Chris Tanke (40:27)
others into our lives that might be able to coach us how to do that. think that’s so very, powerful.

Alright Thomasina, somebody would like to connect with you and learn a little bit more about Sankova Legacy Advisors, what you all can offer, how would they go about doing it?

Thomasina Williams (40:43)
The easiest way is to simply go to our website, is developfamilyleaders.com. Developfamilyleaders.com. There they’ll find a link to my LinkedIn page so they can look at a little bit of my history there. And I’d be happy to continue this conversation with anyone who’d like to reach out.

Chris Tanke (41:06)
Thank you. This has been just a lovely conversation. And I appreciate you giving us some resources and some things that we can we can consider books that we can purchase.

Thomasina Williams (41:14)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Tanke (41:15)
Thomasina, thank you so much for spending some time with us. I was very delighted that you would accept our invitation. And I know that that people are going to get a lot out of listening to you. And hopefully for years to come as we have you on our podcast series. So so God bless you. Thank you so much. And we appreciate you in our lives and look forward to our continuing relationship with you. So

Thomasina Williams (41:37)
Absolutely. Thank you very much, Chris. I enjoyed the conversation, appreciate the invitation, and look forward to continuing the conversation offline.

Chris Tanke (41:44)
Amen.

Strategic Financial Group (41:47)
Thank you for joining us for today’s episode of Navigating Abundance. If you found this information useful or helpful in any way, let us know in the comment section below. If you’d like to see more content like this and follow our podcast, you can find us on all major podcast platforms. If you’re interested in working with today’s guests, you can find their information in the description of this podcast. If you’d like to know more about Navigating Abundance and how we may help you or find more resources related to what we do, you can find those at navigatingabundance.com.