Don't Fumble the Handoff

This past week I went to a couple of events in the lives of families I am close to - one was a barmitzvah, a time of joy and hope fro the future, and one was a Shiva call to a family who had just lost a father, a young grandfather buried on his 65th birthday.

Lifecycle events matter - what happens between those events, those markers on the road of our existence matters more. The day to day. the time spent with family and friends. the holidays and the school plays, the beach days and the snow days. Every single day is important. What we do with them is important. Each of us control very little in this world; we can each control how we choose to face, view. That's how we transform ourselves, our families, our businesses into structures, monuments, and legacies we leave behind for the next ones in line. We can be the hand up for them leaving them in position to succeed and maximize their potential; as people, not just economic units.

There is a transformative transfer going on right now. In wealth, businesses, assets sure; above all that is the transfer of legacies created, built, molded. That will impact society in every way possible, for decades to come. We cannot fumble this handoff; taking care of what we are given, what we are blessed with, will determine our legacy to the next generation after that.

Part of the tremendous transition shaping of business and wealth is the enormous amount of boomer owned businesses looking for an exit plan. And they will be selling to younger generations of millennial entrepreneurs that are looking for good cash flowing operations to take to the next level.There can be a lot of beautiful matches in a marketplace full of owners looking to sell and those looking to acquire established businesses. Not every business has to be a VC backed unicorn. As long as the numbers make sense for both sides, and higher interest rates don't kill the deals, expect a lot of this activity. It won't get the headlines of major funding in AI startups, but this will be an incredible liquidity event for many who have built businesses up for decades.

Read this from Penny Pennington :

Creating a business from scratch and building a business that way is the biggest challenge that, in some ways, makes no sense at all to even try. Every founder I've met could have gone into the MckinseyMicroGoogleAppleAmazon gravy train path to pretty much guaranteed riches if they played their cards right. They're doing something different. Why? What drives them to go a different way? It's not comfortable. It's not easy. And the better they do, the harder it gets.

Getting things structured right might be an afterthought - noone goes into business to do paperwork - but it needs doing.

And if your business will require funding, may as well do all you can to put the odds in your favor. How you present and frame your answers makes a world of difference, via Haley Bryant :

Growing your business to the point of it being acquired (or to making acquisitions) is pretty much miraculous - what does it take to get there and what does it take for that process to be as successful as possible? This is what Dror Futter and I will be talking about Wednesday the 28th 10:30 AM EST here : please join us and share your thoughts and questions.

There are multiple paths to accumulating wealth, that's pretty clear. It takes action, execution, discipline, luck, timing, and time. How wealth gets defined is different for everyone - how do you define it?

The transfer of wealth from generation to generation needs a lot of work, especially involving outside service providers and advisors. Transmitting the legacy, what's important to life, how we talk about those that are no longer with us at the Shiva calls we pay, comes down to how we are day after day, with no one else around.

Secure the bag.