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Why Most Inheritance Conversations Fail Before They Even Start | Ali Katz · The Great Wealth Transfer

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  You are trying to have the conversation with your parents about inheritance, and it's not going well.
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  That comes down to trust. There were so many places that I felt resentment and judgment
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  for my mom, the way that she had raised me. I had anger from growing up in a situation that I
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  didn't think that I was getting the love that I wanted. And today, I would say we have a better
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  relationship than we've ever had before. So the first thing that you need in order to rebuild
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  trust is commitment. Get to a place of acceptance where you can accept your parent or parents
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  exactly as they are. If they can feel that you are coming from a place where you think you know it
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  all, where you think you know better than them, they're going to shut down, gotta push you away.
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  They're not going to feel safe enough to open up. So I'm going to give you three things that you
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  can do to build trust. So the first thing that you need. Okay, so I'm hearing
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  a lot of you have been listening to me, and you're trying to have the conversation with your parents
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  about inheritance and it's not going well, or you're afraid it's not going to go well. And it
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  makes a whole lot of sense, because what I'm hearing is that the way that you are approaching
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  the conversation leads to either they freeze up, they don't want to talk about it, or they push you
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  away and say, nope, no way. Or you are devolving into your childhood patterns that has you say,
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  well, I'm not going to do this. That comes down to trust. And I'm going to give you three ways that
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  you can build trust first with yourself, then with your parents, so you can have the critical
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  conversations about inheritance and their future and your future and have a go really well. So the
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  first thing that you need in order to rebuild trust and trust with yourself so that this
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  conversation can go in a good way with your parents is commitment. And that is a commitment to
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  stay in relationship and a commitment to doing the work that you need to do to really get to a
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  place of acceptance, where you can accept your parent or parents exactly as they are. This takes
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  a great deal of work for you, very likely. For me, it certainly did. There were so many places that I
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  felt resentment and judgment for my mom, the way that she had raised me. She was under-resourced.
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  She didn't have the same healing tools that we had. I had anger from growing up in a situation
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  that I didn't think that I was getting the love that I wanted, and so to stay committed, to be in
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  connection with her and to know that that commitment was likely going to lead to a context
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  where I was going to take care of her for the rest of her life, really took something. And I want
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  to encourage you to do the internal work that you need to do to face the parts of you that are
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  resentful, that are judgmental, that are perhaps projecting fear onto your parents, that you might
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  become them and take full ownership and responsibility for that, so that you can show up
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  with the commitment to be able to say, at some point, I'm going to take care of you for the rest
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  of your life. That is a commitment, and it is no small thing. And until you can say that, they're
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  probably not going to want to open up to you. They're probably going to want to keep everything
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  tight and closed and hidden, or push you away, because they can feel underneath that the
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  commitment isn't there, that you're more committed to holding onto your resentment or your judgment,
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  or your feeling of being burdened than you are to being an actual connection with them and what
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  they care about. And that brings us to the next piece, which is you being able to come from a
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  place of curiosity. Curiosity is everything in this context, because if they can feel that
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  you are coming from a place where you think you know it all, or you think you know better than
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  them, or where you think you're coming from, curiosity because you're trying to find out
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  what's going on, but you're not actually curious about their experience, while again, they're going
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  to shut down, they're going to push you away. They're not going to feel safe enough to open up.
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  And so you want to bring real curiosity to the connection, like not just about what they have,
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  that about your relationship. But why does it feel strained between you about ways that you might be
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  still carrying childhood patterns that have them see you as a teenager? Somebody that maybe isn't
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  trustworthy with money, right? So if you listen to my podcast episode with Keith, when we sat
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  down with his dad, and I really recommend that you listened to it and we sat down with his dad, the
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  very first thing that we needed to bring was curiosity about him, about what matters to him. But
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  why did he earn all of this money in the first place? How did he feel about it? He told us he was
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  worried and that he liked worrying. That was surprising. Who would have expected that? He would
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  have said he liked worrying. So then I got to get curious about that. Oh. What do you like about
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  worrying? Oh, it helps me to feel like I'm responsible and I'm doing the responsible thing
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  and I'm taking care of our family. Oh, so the money was really to take care of your family, and we got
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  to follow that line down with curiosity in service to connection. And that's ultimately what
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  you're looking for here is connection, because this conversation that you're going to have with
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  your parents has to be from a place of connection. If it's not from a place of connection, they're
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  not going to trust you. And so that brings us to the third piece, which is collaboration. Ultimately,
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  what you're doing is you're entering into a collaborative conversation. And so what could be
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  really helpful here is for you to look back at your childhood, look back at your teenage years,
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  look back at the places where you would have wished that they were collaborating with you,
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  where you would have wished that they were treating you differently, where you would have
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  wished you were in it together. You wanted a team together, and you could have produced that result
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  as a teenager. Now bring yourself back to that teenage self from your adult self
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  right now, and look at how you would have wanted it to be, and see if
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  you can now bring exactly that to your parent. See if you can actually swap the roles
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  and recognize that what you really wanted back then and what you want now is collaboration. You
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  couldn't produce that result as a teenager. You're at the effect of what was happening in the
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  circumstances, but that's no longer true for you today. And the more that you can recognize that
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  you are an adult now, give yourself the parenting you did not get that you probably really
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  wanted and bring that forward now from the most adult place that you absolutely can, and recognize
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  that you are entering into a collaborative process with your parents about your whole family
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  wealth, all of the resources that together you can actually do something with in a good way
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  for their benefit. That's when everything begins to shift. So if you can really
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  get to a place of commitment, you're going to stay in this process. You're going to stay connected.
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  You're going to keep working through what you need to work through, you're going to do it with
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  curiosity about their experience, about your own experience, and you're doing it in service to
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  collaboration. Because when you can collaborate together, you can create a life truly worth living
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  for them, for you, your siblings, your whole family. You get to step into your right role as
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  steward of your family resources. And it's not going to come from judgment, resentment, or
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  burden. It's truly going to come from a place of accepting them exactly as they are. Recognizing
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  your role as a leader of the family, and keep leaning in from the place of
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  commitment. I know you can do it. Keep reaching out, because every time you do and share with me about
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  what's going on for you, it helps me know what else do I need to share with you so that you can
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  step into your right role as a steward of your family wealth. And it is so critical for us to be
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  able to do that right now, because we are in the midst of a meta crisis, all these different crises
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  happening at once. And what's going to determine how we make it through is who we're doing it with.
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  And if you can be doing it with people that you love, starting with your parents and recognizing
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  that we have a lot of resources at our disposal, we don't want them to be lost. We want to be able
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  to use them to create the future that we want. And you are in a pivotal role when it comes to that.
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  The better we're going to be able to fare together. So keep showing up. Keep bringing me your
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  comments, your questions, your thoughts, your curiosities, and we will keep navigating this
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  together each step of the way. Thank you for being here. If you're not already subscribed, please do
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  subscribe and feel free to share this with a sibling, a friend, maybe even a parent to let them
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  know that you're showing up. You're doing the best that you can and you want to stay in connection
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  while you do it. This isn't just a thought experiment or something that I've made up without
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  testing it. This is all created from real world experience with my own mom, and today I would say
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  we have a better relationship than we've ever had before. Certainly I still have Situations come up
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  where I feel afraid or protective, and she does as well. And yet we stay in connection through it
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  and as a result, we're able to create together. We are both living our best lives, and I want that
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  for you too. And I know if she can do it, you can do it as well. My name is Allie Katz and this is
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  not legal, insurance, financial and tax advice specific to you. This is for information, education
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  and entertainment purposes only. And yet, I hope that you use it in your own family. And when
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  you're ready for specific legal, insurance, financial and tax advice, you want to make sure
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  that you hire the right advisor and that you know the right questions to ask. Come to my next
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  masterclass. It's linked to the show notes. It's free, and I'll lay out the specifics for you of
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  exactly what you need to know about the legal, insurance, financial and tax matters for your
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  family so you can be your own best advisor and hire the right support. Okay, I'll see you in the
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  next episode.