Family Business Audiocast | Episode 17 | Jason Ma | ThreeEQ & Michelle Bross | Tresynergy
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About Our Guests:
Jason Ma, the founder and CEO of 3EQ, is at the forefront of mentoring next-generation leaders in family businesses and corporate environments. With over 40 years of expertise in technology, education, and finance, he has established himself as a globally recognized mentor and strategic advisor. Jason’s work is not only impactful for individuals but also plays a crucial role in shaping the legacies of executive and family enterprises. Through his efforts at 3EQ, he aims to guide emerging leaders toward achieving unprecedented success in their endeavors. His contributions extend beyond individual mentorship, as he actively participates in the B20, influencing global policies on work and education. Additionally, he is a respected delegate at the Forbes Global CEO Conference, and a sought-after speaker.
Michelle Bross is a seasoned real estate investor with over twenty years of experience in the market. She is a strong advocate for intentional stewardship, believing it is crucial for fostering lasting change. Through her initiatives, she aspires to empower future leaders and ensure that her contributions have a meaningful impact on society. Recently, she achieved a significant liquidity event that has enabled her to transition her focus towards developing a comprehensive family enterprise. Her aim is to leverage their collective assets for impactful investments and philanthropic projects. This new venture emphasizes financial capital creation, capital management, and the social impact of human and intellectual resources.
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[Transcript]
R. Adam Smith: [Intro] Welcome to the Family Business Audiocast on LinkedIn. I am R. Adam Smith, creator of this audiocast series. As an entrepreneur, investor, founder, investment banker, and board leader the last 25 years, I am fortunate for my many experiences within the family firm industry.
A warm thank you to our live audience on LinkedIn today – and for those listening in the future.
A brief comment on why I created this broadcast: private companies are a passion of mine, having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs, and having engaged for two decades in deals, strategic transformations, investments, and boards, with an array of fascinating family enterprises, family firms, and family offices. I founded this series to offer a useful platform for listeners to hear from veterans, academics, and leaders in the vast family firm ecosystem. Whether you are a family business owner, building, running, or advising a family office, or just expanding your family office activities, I hope these conversations are useful and enlightening. And now, it is time to turn our attention to our accomplished [01:00] guests on today’s episode.
I am pleased to host Jason Ma and Michelle Bross, our guests today and friends. Jason and Michelle, welcome today.
Jason Ma: Thanks for having me.
Michelle Bross: Thank you. Glad to be here.
R. Adam Smith: Yes. So, a few words on you guys. I'm just going to brag for a bit and tell our audience about you. Jason, we’ll start with you. Jason is the founder and CEO of 3EQ, a premier family business focusing on mentoring next-gen leaders in the alternate-worth families and corporate space to achieve unprecedented success. With four decades of experience across tech education and finance, Jason is a globally recognized mentor and strategic advisor, and he's also an active member of the B20, contributing to global policies on work and education. And also a respected delegate at the Forbes Global CEO Conference.
He's actually at a family office conference in Savannah today taking a break. So, thank you for that. Jason's work [02:00] is quite impactful for individuals but also shapes legacies in the executive, and family business, and family enterprise sectors.
Michelle Bross is a mutual St. Louisan and a very seasoned real estate investor with over two decades in that market and recently had a successful liquidity event after which she shifted her focus towards developing a comprehensive family enterprise focused on financial capital, and wealth creation, capital management, and empathizing human and intellectual social impact in those activities. Michelle is an alum of Washington University and is now dedicated to guiding the next generation of her family office and related parties, leveraging those assets for impactful investment and philanthropic endeavors. And Michelle is a strong believer in the power of intentional stewardship for lasting impact, as I know Jason is as well.
We're delighted to have you [03:00] both join us today. So, let's get started. I'm going to have a series of questions and conversations and we can bounce back and forth.
So, Michelle, why don't we start with you? Let's talk about your real estate investing. How did you get involved in that? And then ultimately tell us about the liquidity event, and how did you think about your next steps to build your family enterprise.
Michelle Bross: Excellent. Okay. Well, thank you for having me here today. This is actually my first time to publicly share my story. So, I'm honored. I represent myself and my partner, my husband. We are uniquely positioned for this because he brings his financial background as a CFO and I bring my education as a social worker, and you'll see this woven throughout what we're creating now in our family enterprise.
R. Adam Smith: Wonderful.
Michelle Bross: Yeah.
R. Adam Smith: Thanks for being here. I didn't know that. That's great.
Michelle Bross: [04:00] You're welcome. So, sorry, you asked how did we actually get into the real estate or the liquidity event? Which?
R. Adam Smith: Yeah. Walk us through what you built and what happened at the liquidity event. How did that happen, and then what did you decide to set up after the event itself?
Michelle Bross: Okay. Sure. So, I was actually graduating from Washington University's George Brown School of Social Work and read in the paper about a three-family apartment building for sale. So, I just — how serendipitous this was — and thought that this would be a great opportunity. So, we really started with the three-family, leveraging to a 12, to an 18, to a 30, just so you get the idea of how it went.
So, 26 years later — it was actually not planned, so [05:00] I don't recommend that — but nonetheless, we had an offer to sell. And this was in ‘22. So, it was a great decision, you know, in hindsight, but I did have that moment of, oh my gosh, what are we going to do? So, I immediately searched the internet, and read books, and listened to podcasts, and I was looking for the secret formula. And then we had an impromptu family meeting and asked the kids, and they came up with what would fundamentally be our new investment strategy.
By the way, I have three children, and this was two years ago, so they were 15, 17, and 19. And one said, save it. One said, give it. And one said, let's swing for the fences. So, for all intents and purposes, that's what we did. We now have three investment buckets: the traditional [06:00] for preservation, and this is professionally managed, and then we have our give it, our philanthropy for social impact, and we have the alternative investments that we self-manage, and those are chosen with intention for both social impact and financial return. So, I really give the credit to next-gen for this strategy. And, we've discussed it with them how any one of those by itself would not be a complete strategy, but together is greater than the sum of its parts. So, it's really for that reason that the name of our family office is Tresynergy. “Tre,” meaning “three,” and “synergy,” meaning “working together.”
R. Adam Smith: Wonderful. I was going to ask that next. It's a great name. And, you can see more about her family platform at tresynergy.com. That's great. I see that your husband, Steven obviously, and your mother, Janis, is involved and it's [07:00] really wonderful to see the next-gen, which is how Jason and I met. We were talking about the next generation of family businesses and family offices and how the G2 and G3 are becoming quite a large audience and also lots of different Interests and opinions within the second generation.
I've discussed this within this audiocast series extensively with Ron Diamond, with Angela Robles, which is how I met Jason originally. Also with Christina Wing, Alfredo De Massis, Professor Matt Hughes. We've had some interesting discussions just recently with Massimo Baù. So, this issue of next-generation, I think, is significant and it's also under covered because it's sort of new and people are, I think, tiptoeing lightly around it.
Jason, so you've played a pivotal role in shaping the paths of next-generation leaders with 10s and 10s of clients, advising them on their professional, personal paths. So, how do you tailor your mentorship approach to meet these diverse needs of CEOs [08:00] across Gen X and Gen Z, especially within the context of a family business?
Jason Ma: Yeah, thanks again for this invitation, Adam. It's an honor to be here, especially with my friend and partner, business partner, Michelle.
My philosophy is that, you know, for wealthy families and businesses, certainly we're very goal- achievement-oriented, right? We want to achieve the greatest outcomes possible. At the same time — I call it vertical goal achievement. At the same time, I'm also very big horizontally on how to beef up your mindset, practical soft skill sets in addition to your hard skill sets, and your direction so that the foundation of yourself, your family, your business, depending on who I talk to, would be as strong as possible. That's resilient, that's adaptable, and that's determined in the right direction. You don't want to spend [09:00] a lot of time and energy, you know, kind of focusing on things that's in the wrong direction to begin with.
So, when I view a family or a family business, you know, Gen Z, millennials, Gen X — think of it this way, okay? Now, for Gen Z, these are primarily high school kids, college, university kids, grad school students, and also young working adults. And I got two of them at home, actually out of my home; they're off my payroll. I have a 26-year-old, 23-year-old. They're doing quite well. Happy, compassionate kids. And then you have the millennials, the Gen Xers, all the way to the Gen X CEOs. And I look at them, what is most important to them in their life stage?
For a Gen X CEO, and I got a ton of them that are very successful, whether they're in investment or run tech companies, et cetera. What they care about is really the next level of business, personal [10:00] advance, career success, if you will, right? That's vertical goal achievement. But they also care about — you know, CEOs, frankly speaking, are kind of lonely at the top. Would they tell the board everything? Not really. Would they tell the spouse or partner everything at home? Things don't work like that. Do family members communicate perfectly with each other all the time? Mother nature does not dictate that.
So, the vertical goal achievement is very important, but also what I call the 4S and 3EQ is just as important. 4S stands for visionary story, which includes the story about yourself, the world around you, the world between your ears, yourself in your world, and your character, which I define as a sum of all habits and choices, as well as the most important thing, and that is your core belief system, right? So, I literally spend the time in shaping people's habits [11:00] and their mindset, as well as their soft skills, you know, kind of critical thinking, communication, leadership, collaboration especially, on top of beefing up subconsciously or consciously their resilience, adaptability, compassion, determination in the right direction.
Now, when you go down further in age bracket, you know, the Gen Xers, millennials, yeah, they care about, you know, their career, business, personal success, family success once they become a parent. And then when it comes to the Gen Z, the high school kids, it's very simple. Most of them, it's about college admissions, right? I was actually a TU fellowship mentor before and Peter Thiel gift $100,000 to a kid to drop out of Stanford, Princeton, Harvard to run businesses. Some of them actually became billionaires and centi-millionaires. It's pretty amazing. They're only around in their late 20s, 30s.
R. Adam Smith: [12:00] That program is growing actually.
Jason Ma: It's growing. It's fantastic. And I did that, and I met a whole bunch of kids here. I was also a chirosociety mentor wrote for Forbes, and in fact, my beat was mentoring young leaders.
Now, going back to the kids, it's different, right? So, high school kids, it's about mostly elite college admissions. For college kids, then it's about your career, first job, maybe grad school, maybe no grad school, different types of professional schools, maybe go straight to work. It's about anxiety, stress management. I joke around, I call it boyfriend /girlfriend management as well, because a lot of kids are being very distracted these days, right? And we're supposed to be in the safest era in history per capita, but yet, mental health is a crisis. So, something's wrong with the picture.
So, vertically, horizontally I'm very big on the 4S and 3EQ. Visionary story, state your spiritual, emotional, and mental state of mind management, your soft skills, as well as their interconnected strategies, [13:00] right? You know, it's kind of like whether it's academic, activity, or business, I go real, real deep and raise your execution ability at the same time. In the meantime, I raise their practical, emotional, social, and leadership intelligence. I call it 3EQ, which is greater than just EQ.
That's my framework.
R. Adam Smith: Okay, so let's talk about young leaders 3.0.
Just maybe each of you, Michelle, what do you suggest? Maybe three characteristics that are ideal for next-generation in today's world when it relates to managing wealth and building a family practice? What are the three things that come to your mind?
And then Jason, what are your three things that come to mind?
Michelle Bross: Jason, if you want to go ahead and dive in, I'll need a second to think about what are my three priorities.
Jason Ma: Sure. Sure. Well, I’m the acclaimed author of Young Leaders 3.0, the book. And in the book, I featured 23 [14:00] exemplary millennial and Gen Z leaders. They were 17- to 24-year-olds back then, a couple of years ago. And today they are a bit older — mid-20s to 30s. And, you know, all these kids went to top schools, right? All the Ivy League schools: Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, even Oxford, et cetera.
But the point about my book is really highlight their lessons learned, their struggles, their failures, as well as their successes in the family, you know, through high school, through college admissions certainly, through college. And it depends on the age when they were contributing to my book. And also talk about early career. And I highlighted really, once again, the habits, the skills that they built, the soft skills, and the compassion, and I kind of keep on going back to the strength of the 4S and 3EQ. And that's a secret sauce right there. [15:00] I mean, I literally have a small army of high achievers out there. I could imagine, right? And today, I tend to be a bit more selective because I got the limit of time.
So, the traits, I would say, if you look at a couple of concentric circles, okay, the core in the mindset and skill sets is your spirit. It's super important, okay? And around that is really your, once again, your resilience or elasticity, your adaptability, agility, especially being able to use AI to augment your human intelligence and keep upscaling and reskilling as well as your wise tenacity in the right direction, with compassion as well. And around that, then you have your four cornerstones of soft skills, right?
And, I literally spend the time with my own students and mentees to hone their critical thinking if it's still not there yet, their problem-solving, [16:00] strategic thinking, a bit of curiosity — you got to be very curious, right? — and then the communication skills. I'm very big on that. One-on-one conversation, listening skills; I teach kids to become better speakers, right? Public speakers. And, first-person essay writing is very important. Reflective. I don't have to teach them expository writing because they learn that from the school, but you got to be able to communicate super well, and critical thinking is hyper-important, and collaborate socially. That leadership skills. It's quite holistic.
So, I find those again and again and again to be the secret sauce. And what I learned is that there's a lot of denial out there, and the worst thing to have is this sort of limiting belief or big ego or big pride that actually ends up costing you quite a bit in the kind of massive or major opportunity losses [17:00] down the line.
Smart investor. One thing that we hate, right, is massive opportunity loss. Why didn't I do that deal? You know? Why did I make that bad decision? Right? So, it's good to reflect and keep honing and compound — it's kind of a compound interest — keep honing your own 4S and 3EQ while trying to achieve the greatest results or outcomes in the key goals in your life stage that's most important to you. And, I help my students to clarify and to, kind of, rock in all the elements. It's very interconnected and 360 and holistic.
R. Adam Smith: I'm glad you mentioned spirit, resilience, compassion. Michelle, that's a good tee-up for you, starting and running a family business with your children, Emily and Anna, and your family. Presumably, it is essential for them to have the spirit to be involved in building the family business, but also in different ways, like you said. [18:00] I like that you have the core of the wealth management effectively, right? You said the traditional wealth, and then building the wealth through alternatives, of course, for greater alpha, and then finally giving away the incremental wealth back into St. Louis or different causes.
So, what are the few traits that you look to instill in your children as part of your business?
Michelle Bross: Sure. I think impact investing is a great way to connect and bring all those characteristics that Mr. Ma was talking about out in them. First of all, I think it's really important to define impact investing for each individual family. So, in simplest terms, what investments you could make that create both positive outcomes for society and financial returns for you. So, that is very broad and can look different for every family. [19:00] And for us, it includes opportunity zones, historical tax credit real estate, and startup investments. And one of the most beneficial side notes to impactive investing is the level of engagement and education conversations with next-gen.
So, I’ve found that that's been a really easy way to connect. For example, if I come home from an angel meeting and we talk about the different presenters and opportunities, maybe there's a new medical device or a disruptive technology, they're immediately interested in many of the businesses and opportunity zones are things next-gen already feels passionate about, like underrepresented founders and inclusive services. So, I can't say that I necessarily anticipated this, but impact investing has been a good point of connection and engagement with next-gen.
And if I could add another important thing to [20:00] consider, especially for next-gen, is that impact investing is broader than financial, and an investment of human and intellectual capital can be very impactful. So, for example, my oldest daughter is a peer tutor. She's also working in a nonprofit lab where they're prototyping a walking cane and a wearable vest for the visually impaired. And she's planning a volunteer conservation trip to Peru this summer. My second daughter, she's studying to be a social worker. And my son is planning a mission trip to Nicaragua to bring clean water to a village.
So, this is all impact investments of their human and intellectual capital. So, I have really found that this is a great way, at their ages, to connect and bring those virtues and values together. And truly, there's endless ways to structure impact investing for a family, [21:00] beginning with what you feel passionate or inspired by that can bring both benefit to society and a return on your capital, especially when you broaden the definition to include human and intellectual capital, which can be an especially meaningful way to engage next-gen.
R. Adam Smith: Right. Now briefly, as a family office, as we know, family offices are expanding dramatically, especially in the US, typically a bit more than the rest of the world, but there seems to be a significant expansion in philanthropy and family offices given the cultural trends and just the desire to follow the best leaders out there, right, with the billionaire giving pledge and the, you know, the next-gen of Amazon and the Gates families, et cetera.
So, when you think of philanthropy, are you giving away through grants — I see in your website there's some application for grants — or are you using a 501(c)(3) structure?
Michelle Bross: [22:00] So, I knew I wanted to donate some of our proceeds and I knew I wanted to set up a family foundation. So, that was the first thing we did after the liquidity event. So, this gave us an immediate shared purpose as a family and also a formal structure then with next-gen on the board of directors.
R. Adam Smith: That's good. That makes sense. Maybe, talk a bit more about the family activities on the real estate side. Do you see that as one of your core assets going forward since you're from there? Because there's such a huge market to invest in real estate right now and also to know the industry, do you feel like you're going to stay connected to real estate or expand out to other alternatives?
Michelle Bross: Well, I definitely am drawn to real estate because that's what I have experience with, but we are trying to diversify into other things and also want to take the kids' leads on setting up what they might be interested [23:00] in in back. So, we sort of have moved from the owner-operator to the owner-investor, so it can be much more fluid in that way, what our interests are and then, you know, transition into other alternatives that they may be more interested in.
R. Adam Smith: Okay, that sounds good. I want to stay with you for a moment on the next-gen and talking about legacy. So, one of the first articles I wrote in the family business community was on legacy with FamilyBusiness.org and it was really interesting to look at the data and the opinions of legacy and what it actually means, because legacy can mean different things to different people, right? So, from your perspective, as a new family office and thinking about, you know, what it means to involve your whole family, what does legacy mean to you for your platform?
Michelle Bross: Well, thanks for asking. This has actually been the bulk of my work over the past two years. We created a [24:00] three-decade succession plan. So, just for context, I'm 50. So, that means for the next 10 years we'll pilot, then the following 10 years we'll co-pilot, and at that point next-gen will be 27 to 31, so they'll have degrees and outside experience and they can choose to join if they like, and then our final transition would be into the advisor role as next-gen is ready.
R. Adam Smith: That's wonderful. And—
Michelle Bross: I could share a couple strategies.
R. Adam Smith: Yeah, a couple strategies on legacy. And, do you define legacy as maybe in terms of the order? Like, does wealth come first, or is it more sustainability, or is it more impact on society, or just like a combination of everything?
Michelle Bross: I've tried to incorporate all of those in. So, as I mentioned, the foundation was most important in where we started. Then secondly, we [25:00] set up shared and separate funds for next-gen, and this is an intentional family harmony play. As the board of managers for the family LLC, they'll make investments as one, but also then have separate funds to invest individually. So, if there's something they're personally passionate about or they choose to start an operating company, they would have that option.
And then, the third strategy was to intentionally incorporate multiple options of engagement so that they could choose a different level of involvement. For example, they can be an employee, they can be a committee member, or they could be advisory, but there is not a requirement that they do have to join. However, I would say that our immediate strategy is focusing on human intellectual and social capital, knowing that that lays the foundation for regenerating financial capital.
R. Adam Smith: Yes, that makes sense. We have some people on the call that are [26:00] very focused on the impact side and lifestyle side beyond just the wealth itself, such as Nicholas and Alexander and Ruby and Ernest. So, it's great to see you here, and I know that the pursuit of legacy that goes beyond wealth is really essential to many of our clients and friends and families.
So, Jason back to you. One last comment before we go to potentially having a question from the audience. It was interesting to look at the Tresynergy web page and the matters that Michelle was talking about in terms of working together, right, because we were just talking about your trip to the Redwoods and how the analogy really stands out, how the Redwoods work together with their roots, which is something a lot of people don't know, and it's not as obvious with how massive they are.
So, maybe talk a bit more about unity within the family businesses that you consult and what works the best in terms of creating that collaboration.
Jason Ma: [27:00] When it comes to working together, in fact, Michelle and I, we’re a great example in working together. If you don’t mind, Michelle, I'm going to share some insight. And Michelle learned about my existence through some family office circles and she was kind to reach out to me. Ended up that I've been mentoring one of her children, which is such a blast for quite a bit. And out of that, we developed trust and we got to know each other, and she knows that I'm also building another very exciting tech company because I've been in tech for 40 years. I just overlaid that repertoire with my early decision college admissions, a life, career, executive coaching on top of that, adding to my repertoire. But I've always been a tech guy as well. And she and her husband got very interested and decided to invest in my own tech company.
So, here we are. We're actually working on two very important [28:00] projects together. The most important is really to groom her oldest next-gen, and number two is to be part of the team that helped build my tech company. And I run into these type of situation as well. For example, another one is one of my good friend. He's a Fortune 300 tech CEO, and without his company in the semiconductor ecosystem, let's just say that our devices don't exist. And I mentor their only child for three years, and ended up that we became very good friends. And he also, it's a major investor for my tech company. So, we work together like that. And what I find is that in families, in family offices, it's really all over the map in terms of what their needs are, what their wants are. Sometimes I have to clarify for them.
At the end of the day, I do keep in mind in addition to the short, medium term, on the long term, it's very important is that [29:00] what can I do to enhance their family legacy, as well as to enhance their family businesses, right? It does well, again, for me to participate. And what can I do to sort of enhance the matriarch, patriarch, the family CEO legacy, while I'm coaching, mentoring their next-gen, preparing their next-gen for greatness down the line, whether it's high school, college kids, or a 53-year-old CEO that comes to me and say, Jason, kick my butt, you know? Optimize and maximize me. I get that as well. So, it really depends.
And, I myself am quite adaptable based on what their needs are. And, it’s so much fun. It's very private as well. I would never tell you who my private clients are unless I have, you know. So—
R. Adam Smith: Wonderful. So, we're finishing up soon. I'm just going to open up to the audience. If any of you have [30:00] a question, I will choose one of you if you can go to your iPhone or the settings to raise your hand, then I will pick you and bring you up on stage for a question.
So, let's give a moment for any of you to have anything you'd like to share.
Okay, Nicholas Tyszka from Chicago. Wonderful to see you. Thank you. If you can go off mute and comment or ask your question, that would be great.
Nicholas Tyszka: Alright. So, Jason and Michelle, I guess I would just start by saying that this is obviously really great stuff today. You know, for Adam your audience, I'm an attorney in Chicago at Handler Thayer where most of our work is certainly focused on family offices and their businesses. And that's the perspective from which, you know, I come to you today.
While Jason's book, you know, is about Young Leaders 3.0, there is also another 3.0 book making its rounds right now in family office circles. And, you know, [31:00] that would be the book by Dennis Jaffee and Jim Grubman about Wealth 3.0 that came out last summer. And obviously, there's a lot of talk in that book about how service providers need to be upping their game and doing a better job to serve the families that are at the center of family offices and family businesses. At the same time, recently another law firm, or Eddie Marshall from Dentons has talked a lot about how there are difficulties defining family offices. We may be failing these families.
I guess to me—
R. Adam Smith: He likes to say “business of families,” right?
Nicholas Tyszka: Well, yeah, the business of families, family businesses, family offices. I guess my question to you both would be is how can we serve you better? Right? From where you sit, where are service providers overall failing these families and what could we do, you know, to make your lives [32:00] easier, better, happier, more profitable, which then allows you to be more philanthropic, all of those things? So, that would be my question to you both today, I think.
Michelle Bross: Okay, that's a tough question, and just to be fair, we did not get here alone, and advisors have played a significant role in this transition and development for us. Our family advisor is Rich Wolkowitz of Xylogenesis. I know he's been a guest on here before and he's wonderfully insightful. In addition, we've leaned on a business attorney, a state attorney, a wealth manager, and of course, as Jason mentioned, our next-gen mentor. So, I really don't have anything to fault.
I've interviewed multiple managers and advisors, so it was finding that personal connection and then someone I could just ask the questions to and be honest with and could, sort of, articulate what I was trying to do. [33:00] So maybe, I don't know that it's a fault of the service provider, it's just that people need to make the connection with who they can and not be afraid to, you know, to ask and really find that advisor that can help them zoom out to zoom in.
Jason Ma: Right, I like to augment what Michelle mentioned. I thank you all, you know, those that are trusted third-party advisors in different domains that help solve different types of problems, right? Because there's always a complicated set of problems to solve in family businesses, in family offices.
One encouragement that I would have for all of you, because I see this all the time, right? One of my expertise is really deep pragmatic strategic pattern recognition. And one pattern that I've been recognizing over the past half a decade is that I get invited to speak quite a bit in all these family office summits and investor summits and CEO summits, right? And, you know, especially wealth managers, MFOs, et cetera, [34:00] are great in helping enhance your client family's wealth preservation, maybe a bit of wealth enhancement, safe tax, et cetera.
But I could assure you, one of the most powerful things to do, and I don't mean to kind of pat myself on the shoulder, but imagine if everyone involved from the principals, the leading-gens, the next-gens, the family office executives in the family business, or the corporate business executives, everyone gets more productive, everyone's happier, everyone's more connected, more joyful, better relationships at home. And, you know, you're actually more productive.
It's like compound interest, right? You stack on over it, then you're gonna get a lot more productive, get a lot more things done, you're happier, you have more time to enjoy a movie with your loved ones, right? And, one of the founders, Steve Forbes and I, we know each other. In my LinkedIn profile, you see his picture. You know, me and him [35:00] in a profile picture.
And I also know the Wealth Acts co-founders. Yeah, Wealth Acts, Forbes, Bloomberg — they publish a billionaire index and all that. And one of the Wealth Acts co-founders said, “Jason, you’d be the perfect outsource to chief mentor or chief mentoring officer in family offices or families,” right? Because these guys, they don't tell you. They’re too embarrassed or too prideful, the ego's too big. They don't tell you, but they need help, you know? So, the soft side, the mindset, the spirit, like what Adam also mentioned, it's hyper-important, in addition to tangible. So, the intangible is just as important.
R. Adam Smith: Wow, thank you for that guys. That was wonderful, and great to have Nicholas comment. It's been wonderful to be here today. Thank you for joining, Jason and Michelle. It was really wonderful. I hope you enjoyed it today.
Michelle Bross: Thank you for hosting us. Yes, definitely.
Jason Ma: Yeah, thanks.
Michelle Bross: I appreciate the conversation.
Jason Ma: Yes, it's been a blast, Adam. [36:00] It's fantastic. I think, five more seconds, I think, think in terms of better peace of mind, better relationships, better joy, in addition to your wealth.
R. Adam Smith: I like that. That's a great way to sign off. This is Adam Smith, wrapping up today. Stay tuned for the next episode of the Family Business Audiocast online.
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