Scrapping Generational Wealth for Generational Impact
March 1, 2025
The act of committing to, building and accumulating assets to pass to the next generation is commonly called generational wealth. Which is on the list of catch phrases these days, and has been for the last 10 years or so. Many who desire this status are focused on getting there. However it is fueled by a scarcity mindset and the accumulation of wealth has no next step. Simply stated, many just want to call themselves wealthy. As we've posed the question before, what good is wealth without a purpose or direction for it? Ask Elon Musk what good his wealth has done for him? As he constantly gets into culture wars with strangers on Twitter, publicly has disputes with many of the mothers to his children and Sam Altman of OpenAI has recently called Musk "insecure."
Wealth building for most is just a score board. With a number that may or may not mean something tangible. Working to build these assets is a good thing, but must be directed toward something other than giving it to the next generation. What if this next generation does not have the capacity to handle it, use it properly, and not end up on the back of some yacht, snorting it all away.
Money, wealth building - these are all tools. Meant to be used for something. If they aren't, its the equivalent of a man storing tools in the garage "just because." Those tools are too, designed for a reason. A good question to ask ourselves is what problem does money or building generational wealth solve?
As we know when we die we do not take it with us. I once subscribed to the idea of generational wealth but have since redirected my efforts to - "generational impact." I cannot say I can coin that term but it is what I believe is the meal ticket to a good life and success. For my generation and those that follow. Where the center piece is raising good children that run good adult lives.
Where our actions matter. Where character is what we build and keeps rewarding us now and later. Being people of kindness, service, love, support, strength and virtue. Yes, building assets and wealth are good, but cannot be the only thing we stand for. Character, while it cannot be measured by a chart or graph, means much more. It is a way of being. A way of living - built up one act at a time, one day at a time. With only the purity, humility and heart behind these acts. No charts. No dollar signs or red and green arrows. When you build a name for yourself based on how you treat others.
Elon Musk is a great example when you give the wrong person that much wealth - it just makes them more of who, or what, they already are. When I think generational impact, I think of the story of President Harry S. Truman.
Truman was from a small Missouri town. Farm land mostly. He wasn't overly impressive. He wasn't tall, strong or good looking. He was average. He failed at business, several times. He did not graduate college. But entered politics, despite failing at everything he tried. Truman had good character and would lead as a Senator and later a two-term president with that stainless character. Much of what is missing with the current President...
"Since childhood at my mother's knee I have believed in honor, ethics and right living as its own reward," Truman would share. Truman didn't just fail at business, when we say everything, he even failed at the jobs he had and so, he struggled. To earn money. To advance his career. As a Senator he was paying off business debts he had carried for fifteen years. He did not take a bribe, he did not perform paid speeches and on special assignments, covered his own travel expenses rather than use tax payer money."I was taught that the expenditure public money is a public trust," Truman would say. The same attention was given to funds that Truman was responsible for managing, saying, "no one has ever received any public money for which I was responsible unless he gave honest service for it."
For as long as money or currency has been around, corruption, bribes, have all been part of the game. Truman came from one of the most corrupt states in the United States at the time. He would write to his wife Bess, "looks like everybody in Jackson County got rich but me. I'm glad I can sleep well even if its a hardship on you and Margie," (their daughter) "for me to be so damn poor." In a time, just as any other, even today, its easy to take the money and run. But not for Truman. Building wealth was not in his sights. However, building impact was.
Separately, Truman would write to his daughter Margie, "from a financial standpoint your father has not been a shinning success, but he has tried to leave you something that (as Mr. Shakespeare says) cannot be stolen - an honorable reputation and a good name. You must continue that heritage and see that it is not spoiled." Generational Impact. Thank you Mr. President. What an inheritance to leave behind. A track record of service, honor and right living, and that being its own reward. What assignment to leave behind to your heirs, to the next generation; for them to finish the job. To keep carrying the torch. To take it further than we couldn't. Sure anyone can leave money behind. But can anyone leave purpose? Meaning? A path to living the good life? Generational impact - continue that heritage and see that it is not spoiled.