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My Two Cents<\/a><\/p>\n \n Personal-finance columnist Charlotte Cowles asks the nosy, revealing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about money so you don\u2019t have to.\n <\/p>\n \n Photo-Illustration: By The Cut; Photos: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n Iris Brilliant<\/a> is a money coach who works with a niche clientele: \u201chigh-net-wealth\u201d individuals \u2014 usually those with \u201caccess to $50 million and more in liquid resources\u201d \u2014 \u00a0who feel conflicted about the money at their disposal. More specifically, she helps these people determine how to give that money<\/a> away.\u00a0<\/p>\n And she would know how these clients feel: Brilliant was raised in a wealthy enclave of San Francisco during the \u201990s and inherited money in her early 20s from her great-uncle. She thought about keeping her surprise windfall a secret, but instead she got involved in philanthropy \u2014\u00a0and eventually made talking about money her career.\u00a0<\/p>\n Below, Brilliant discusses the conflicts her ultrawealthy clients struggle with most, why even rich kids should have jobs, and how she coaches people to give away the money they don\u2019t need.<\/p>\n You grew up in pretty wealthy circles and inherited money at a young age. How did that steer you toward this career?<\/strong><\/p>\n I was raised wealthy in the San Francisco Bay Area during the \u201990s tech boom, and my family was new money. I noticed our life changing as my father\u2019s career grew. And as we became part of a more affluent culture, I was aware of this competitiveness in the air. It only grew more intense as my family became wealthier.<\/p>\n In my early 20s, I inherited money unexpectedly from my mom\u2019s uncle. It wasn\u2019t enough to live off of, but it was enough to make me feel extremely alienated from my peers who had debt from college. I could have kept it a secret and avoided it, like many of us inheritors do<\/a>, out of shame and concern for my friendships. But thankfully, I found an organization called Resource Generation<\/a>, which is a national nonprofit that helps young people with access to wealth or class privilege get involved in social justice work. It showed me how to reconcile these different parts of myself \u2014 and taught me that I didn\u2019t have to keep my wealth a secret. Ultimately, I redistributed half of the wealth I inherited. And at present, I live off of what I earn.<\/p>\n I wound up working at Resource Generation as the national organizer for high-net-wealth people. Since then, I\u2019ve become a money coach specializing in high-net-wealth couples and individuals who want support in figuring out what to do with their money, as well as how to talk to each other as partners about resources, power, class dynamics, in-laws, and the endless list of topics that come with access to wealth. More recently, I\u2019ve also started to focus on parenting and some of the fears that the ultrawealthy have around not wanting to raise entitled children.<\/p>\n When you say you grew up wealthy, what did that look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n One of my earliest memories was in kindergarten. We were basically auditioning for spots at this very competitive school, and we were being observed. I remember the adults watching me in a way that was different from how I was supervised normally, and I knew that something was expected of me. Whatever it was, I managed to deliver, because I got into that kindergarten. But it was the beginning of a kind of self-consciousness, a feeling of pressure.<\/p>\n What parents sometimes forget, and what I really try to teach my clients, is that children are constantly comparing themselves to their peers to make sense of the world. I started to notice at a young age whose house is bigger. I had one friend who had a fountain in front of her house, with a roundabout driveway, and I got the feeling of, Okay, this is kind of a \u201cbad\u201d level of wealth. This is too much, too ostentatious. I noticed who had a house to go skiing, and who skied and who didn\u2019t. There were so many class signifiers that I understood to mean that some people were doing life \u201ccorrectly\u201d and some were not.<\/p>\n As my father started to acquire a certain kind of Bay Area status, we started socializing with the tech elite. When you\u2019re spending time with billionaires,\u00a0there\u2019s almost a manic energy. You\u2019re with people who know that they could enact whatever they wanted, so watching them get excited about ideas can be very intense. When I was a teenager, I accompanied my father to a philanthropic conference. When we showed up, they had these buttons laid out on a table where the name tags were. The different buttons had different colors, and you had to choose up to three buttons that you would wear next to your name tag. And the buttons signified different philanthropic causes \u2014 there was Africa, women and girls, climate, all these categories. And I could feel how dehumanizing and weird it was, and performative to put these buttons on. And I remember thinking, I never want to participate in something like this again, but there\u2019s so much wealth and possibility here, so I have to engage with it somehow.\u00a0<\/p>\n Let\u2019s say a new client comes to you. What concerns do they typically bring in?<\/strong><\/p>\n A typical client might be a couple, and one of them inherited tens of millions of dollars and the other one came from a middle-class background. A lot of people are in cross-class relationships. But for the person who married into or partnered into wealth, having access to money doesn\u2019t magically dissolve their own history. It takes a while to catch up with their present-day reality. They might be stuck in their childhood scarcity. Meanwhile, the wealthy partner is ordering all this stuff. They\u2019re living on different planets in the same house. And when you have kids, you have to get aligned: Do we want to be the family that orders takeout every day of the week? Do we want to be the family who cooks? At the end of the day, what matters most is what you\u2019re doing in your day-to-day normal life. What is the quality of your relationships, and what are you prioritizing? It\u2019s not about what buttons you\u2019re wearing at the philanthropy conference.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a very popular opinion that wealthy people who inherit a lot of money and are conflicted about it should just give it away. Like, \u201cOh, if you just give it away, then your struggles and class anxiety would disappear, and you could get a job like the rest of us. Problem solved, and the world is better for it!\u201d Please share your thoughts on this perspective.<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s a kernel of wisdom and truth in that statement. That\u2019s an attitude I also used to have when I was younger. And it\u2019s worth holding onto, especially since there\u2019s a big industry \u2014\u00a0it\u2019s known as the wealth defense industry<\/a> \u2014\u00a0that\u2019s designed to keep wealth in place, especially for inheritors. Family offices, wealth-management firms, investment managers, all of that type of stuff. Their jobs are designed to keep wealth within families. If you are someone like me and you inherited a couple hundred thousand bucks, it\u2019s a much different situation than if you inherit $20 million with a family office and shares in a family company. Maybe you\u2019re going to inherit five different $20 million properties in the future that you\u2019ll have to negotiate with your siblings, and your money came with a whole financial team that you didn\u2019t choose. Sometimes inheritance is extremely complex. I think sometimes we overestimate the wealth holder\u2019s level of agency in deploying resources.<\/p>\n Of course, sometimes we underestimate it as well. There\u2019s always more that wealth holders can do. If you\u2019re an inheritor, maybe you need to have a hard conversation with your parents and stick to your values when you\u2019re working with your financial team. And I strongly believe that everybody should have a job if they can. It\u2019s not out of a moralistic place; I don\u2019t think having a job will cleanse you of your sins of coming from wealth or anything like that. But if you are able-bodied enough to work, it\u2019s really important to try to work for a living and see what it\u2019s like, and figure out what type of work you can offer, and have the experience of working with other people who are living off of what they earn. It\u2019s an important part of participating in the world. For inheritors who don\u2019t work, the level of isolation is extreme. It can take a long time to bring them back to reality.<\/p>\n You work with a nonprofit called <\/strong>the Enough Project<\/strong><\/a>, which explicitly helps ultrawealthy people give money away. Tell me how that works.<\/strong><\/p>\n In the Enough Project, we work with eight ultra-high-net-worth people at a time over a six-month period to help them figure out their lifetime financial needs \u2014\u00a0how much money is \u201cenough\u201d for them? \u2014 and then help them give away the surplus. We support them in understanding how much money they want to move every year and make sure they have the right connections to philanthropic advisers and such. It\u2019s enabled us to move quite a lot of money into the world, which is really exciting. Our cohorts tend to be a mix of Americans and Europeans. We also do one-on-one work with those who have access to about $100 million and up.<\/p>\n Do people ever give all their inheritance away and just live off of their regular earned income?<\/strong><\/p>\n It is very rare. I don\u2019t think any of my clients have given away all of their inheritance during our work together. Which isn\u2019t to say they won\u2019t at some point in the future. A lot of people are scared that if they give away too much, they\u2019re not going to have enough money to meet their needs for the rest of their lives. And I\u2019m often telling them that they\u2019re going to be okay, and that they will probably feel better if they give away more.<\/p>\n I know you\u2019ve also been part of a group that helps families whose wealth has Nazi connections reckon with that fact. That sounds extremely challenging.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Hour Before Dawn<\/a> is a project I started for my own personal understanding, being a Jewish person who moved to Germany a year and a half ago and who\u2019s partnered to someone with Nazi heritage. I have Holocaust history in my ancestry. The program is for European wealth holders who suspect or know that their family wealth is in some way connected to either the Nazi regime specifically or \u2014 we\u2019ve broadened it recently \u2014 to fascism and European colonialism. We offer support in doing family research and family business research, as well as in creating a reparative giving plan. We\u2019re moving money to address histories of forced labor. We\u2019re also moving money into Jewish culture-building across Europe, and Jewish-Palestinian alliances, and toward organizations that preserve and fight for democracy across Europe.<\/p>\n How do you help young people at odds with their parents \u2014 or parents at odds with their adult children \u2014 about how to use their money?<\/strong><\/p>\n I try to support parents in building trust with their kids. If you fundamentally don\u2019t trust your children, you\u2019re in for a lifetime of struggles. As with any conflict, you have to try to understand what it\u2019s really about. For example, your adult daughter is getting married and you want her to sign a prenup. Is it because you fundamentally don\u2019t trust her fianc\u00e9? Is it because you don\u2019t want to lose control of her? Is it because you carry your own history of being exploited by people for your wealth? Is it because she\u2019s never had a job and you\u2019re worried about the gender dynamics in the relationship? When you boil it down, there is always some valid issue. Parents want their kids to lead healthy, happy, meaningful lives. And adult children want to be trusted. They want independence. They want to lead a happy, healthy, fulfilling life as well. Ultimately, we have the same goals, but we have really different ideas of how to get there.<\/p>\n When you\u2019ve got this type of conflict, it\u2019s about helping the opposite sides understand each other. And then it\u2019s about making sure the financial systems themselves support that vision. If you\u2019re telling your 25-year-old daughter that you trust her, but then you\u2019ve created a trust fund that micromanages what she\u2019s allowed to spend that money on and when she\u2019s allowed to get it, then you\u2019re communicating to her financially that you don\u2019t trust her. You\u2019re giving her mixed messages. I\u2019m not saying the answer is to give every child unlimited access to resources. But consistency is key. I also encourage inheritors to demonstrate to their parents that they are working on their financial literacy so that they can gain their parents\u2019 trust.<\/p>\n Can you give me some examples of mistakes that parents make when they pass along wealth to their children?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the most common mistake is pretending your family is middle-class when you\u2019re not. That is gaslighting. That\u2019s misinformation. It is profoundly confusing. Of course, don\u2019t go telling your 10-year-old your net worth. But once your kids are teenagers, telling them about your financial status is not going to create entitlement. It\u2019s actually not telling them that creates entitlement. Because if you don\u2019t acknowledge that your family is extremely wealthy, your children might assume everyone can afford to go on international trips every year and fly business class. That level of ignorance and na\u00efvet\u00e9 will negatively affect their peer relationships.<\/p>\n Another mistake is rewarding children behaviorally with gifts. That\u2019s something I personally experienced, and it is a guaranteed shopping addiction<\/a> waiting to happen. I got a Beanie Baby for every little good thing that I did when I was a child. And let me tell you, I had a lot of Beanie Babies, and a lot of shopping-addiction issues I had to work through. A lot of rewards are well intended, but as children get older, it can become a form of financial manipulation. Like, \u201cI will pay for your college, but only if you go to this college and not that one.\u201d Or, \u201cI\u2019ll pay for your wedding, but only if you let me invite all of my business buddies.\u201d Again, that instills a sense of mistrust that will be really harmful to your relationship long-term.<\/p>\n The last mistake is not talking about money in general. Every person should understand how to budget and how to invest. Even if you know your kids won\u2019t ever need to budget because they are that wealthy, it\u2019s important to teach them anyway, because budgeting is also about delayed gratification and moving toward a goal.<\/p>\n On the flip side, what are some mistakes that you see young inheritors make with their money?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n A big mistake inheritors make is keeping their wealth a secret from the people they\u2019re in serious relationships with and from their friends. That secrecy creates shame. Everyone can have their own personal policies about how to talk about money and when, but you do need to talk about it.<\/p>\n Another mistake that young inheritors make is only being friends with other wealthy people. I think life is much richer and more valuable when we have a diversity of perspectives in our lives. And people really miss out on amazing relationships by limiting themselves to only being friends with people similar to them. Sometimes this was never modeled for them \u2014\u00a0their parents only hung out with people at the country club or whatever \u2014\u00a0but the majority of the world is working-class, so it\u2019s actually very easy to meet people who aren\u2019t wealthy. I also encourage people to widen their hobbies. If you\u2019re only friends with people who ski or people who like going wine tasting, maybe get involved in another local organization. Broaden your interests, meet people who share them, talk to them, and work on those relationships.<\/p>\n What if people don\u2019t feel like they can relate to you because they think you\u2019re too rich to understand their problems?<\/strong><\/p>\n I think the best way to have people not want to be your friend, as a wealth holder, is to lie about your wealth. First of all, it\u2019s really obvious. I promise you, they already know. They know because you order appetizers every time you go out to eat and you don\u2019t even think about it. They know because you take Ubers home. They just know. If you can talk about it and become someone who\u2019s trustworthy in having conversations about money and about differences, that\u2019s how you can make and keep friends who aren\u2019t exactly like you.<\/p>\n Okay, speaking of appetizers, who pays for dinner? Where is the line between being generous and treating people in a way that might offend them?<\/strong><\/p>\n I could write a book of all the mistakes I\u2019ve made eating out with friends. Paying the bill at a restaurant is one of the most complex social dynamics<\/a> imaginable. I think it boils down to consent. It\u2019s about direct communication and transparency. Assuming someone always wants you to pay for them is not great. Sometimes you just have to have an awkward conversation: \u201cHey, obviously you know that I have money. I see that you\u2019re working two jobs while we\u2019re in school and it\u2019s difficult. I would love for us to just have a policy that anytime we go out to eat, I pay for it, but I want to know how you feel about it, and I don\u2019t want that to negatively impact our friendship. What do you think?\u201d It\u2019s also important to stress that you do not look down on the person who can\u2019t pay. Sometimes there\u2019s shame on the receiving end, which is something that took me a really long time to learn.<\/p>\n But please, if I could just leave you with one thing, it\u2019s this: If you are wealthy, do not ever send a Venmo request for something that costs under $50, minimum. Don\u2019t nickel-and-dime people. It\u2019s obnoxious. I knew someone who would send me these Venmo requests for $2 coffees. And I was like, \u201cI know you\u2019re wealthy. This is just rude. What are you trying to prove?\u201d<\/p>\n Email your money conundrums to\u00a0mytwocents@nymag.com<\/a> (and read our submission terms here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"My Two Cents Personal-finance columnist Charlotte Cowles asks the nosy, revealing, sometimes uncomfortable questions about money so you…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[177],"tags":[3500,832,79,18,19,17,825,3501,234,235,3122,3499,3700],"class_list":["post-648347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-advice","tag-budgeting","tag-business","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-money","tag-my-two-cents","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance","tag-philanthropy","tag-power","tag-relationships"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117131281632561938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}