Integrating the Story of the Wealth into the Family Purpose With Samantha Reynolds

[MUSIC] Hello everyone, welcome to FoxCast. You go to source for expert analysis and insightful conversations with the movers and shakers, foremost thought leaders and expert practitioners in the family capital, family enterprise and family office space. This podcast is brought to you by Family Office Exchange, the leading global membership organization serving enterprise families, family office professionals and private wealth advisors. My name is Peter Muszkirowski, CEO of Fox. [MUSIC] The views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of family office exchange. The content is for informational purposes only and any information about commercial products, activity, investments or services does not constitute endorsement or recommendation by family office exchange. Today it is my pleasure to speak with Samantha Reynolds, founder and CEO of Echo Storytelling Agency. Since 1999 salmon her firm have been trusted by hundreds of prominent families and global companies to preserve their legacies in books and videos. In 2005, Sam was named one of British Columbia's top 40 under 40. Under her leadership, Echo has attracted corporate clients such as Microsoft, Adidas, KPMG, Grupo Bimbo, Northern Trust and Louis Laman, as well as personal legacy projects for families across North America, South America, Asia, Australia and Europe. Sam is a frequent speaker and panelist on the topic of how prominent families can use their heritage stories to inspire resilience in the rising generation. She's also a Forbes magazine council member and writes a monthly article on how to use authentic storytelling to drive business results. Sam and her firm Echo are specialist advisor members of Fox and we are very excited to have her expertise and felt leadership within our membership community. Sam, it's a true pleasure to have you here today. Thanks Peter, it's such a pleasure to be here. Well, let's start with a quick background. Can you briefly share with our listeners your personal and professional journey and maybe highlight some of the major events that have shaped and guided you professionally and personally? Absolutely. Well, I just turned 50 and Echo just turned 26 so I've officially been doing this work more than half my life and you know, I always loved to write and I loved storytelling and I was very close with my grandmother. So my story really goes back to having planned and always expected that I would sit down with my grandmother and learn about her life. I was a way at university doing a journalism degree. She was in good health but she did fall and break her hip and I was there when we wheeled her into the OR for a new hip and she came out the other end with a new hip but no memory. The anesthetic was literally like it hit the delete button on her history and that was it. That was my entire she was my only living grandparents. So those were my family roots just erased and I was devastated. I really regretted procrastinating and not getting her story while I had the chance. And in the end I decided to take my tape recorder out because that's the technology we had back then. And I just started interviewing the family members that I still had left and I really fell in love with that process. So when I graduated I hung out my shingle after a few gigs under my belt and just said this is what I want to do with my career. And then beautifully just last week actually one of our very first clients when I first started really the next generation has come around and just hired us to tell sort of the next generation's story. So I've been so fortunate you know over the last quarter century have certainly met remarkable people all over the world. I never did my MBA but I always say I feel like I got my MBA through just sitting in the presence and I'm very witness to so many remarkable success stories and have made hundreds of really amazing relationships over the years. And then many mentors many of my clients have become mentors of mine and then now I find myself being invited to mentor some of the rising gen which is a really beautiful experience as well. And that's a great background and we are talking a lot about this topic of the importance of legacy and stories and history and artifacts and and and heirlooms. I've had a couple of podcasts on this topic of personal experiences like I grew up with a grandfather who was born in 19 00 so he's served in two world wars. I'm originally born and grew up in Bulgaria and I just remember as a kid sitting there and listening to him talk about the who was the mayor of Sofia Bolvieria in 1922 or something like that and what the government was and what the priorities were and of course later on in life after he passed away I was like man I wish I had somehow captured that like who's going to know that at that level of clarity and sort of recollection that he had he passed away at 95. So personally experience kind of the importance and kind of sometimes the regret of not doing it. And I think our entire industry and the space of world management is waking up to the importance of this and so now we're increasingly talking about how important it is to tell the family's story and pass that story down to future generations. So when we talked to prep for this conversation you mentioned kind of the importance and the role of the neuroscience behind sharing authentic stories both stories of success as well as of adversity overcoming adversity. So can you talk a little bit about that and connect it with how you see the significance of the family story throughout their journey? Such a great question and you're right that that the industry is sort of waking up to how critical storytelling is but there's still those for whom it feels too touchy-feely and you know not concrete enough and and so I've been so boyd by all of the research that's come out certainly in the last decade around the actual science behind you know the power of storytelling because it can serve to sway people you know to the positive effects of it maybe for those who are still on the fence and there is some remarkable research coming out in this field of neuroscience around story. The two that I find the most persuasive one is something we call mirror neurons. So this is this this effect when someone's telling you a story an authentic story it activates what we call mirror neurons which are basically brain cells that fire when we observe someone else doing something or when we hear someone else tell of an experience and what's really important around this is it ignites empathy. So when we're listening to a story we're not just hearing the story when our mirror neurons are firing we're actually living it it's like we're mentally and emotionally living the story. So when we talk about you know the desire to engage you know a younger generation you know meaningfully into a family's legacy storytelling can be really powerful for that empathy and the second is many of us know what oxytocin is what we don't all know is that storytelling actually increases oxytocin. So sometimes oxytocin is described as quote unquote the trust hormone. So we know that when oxytocin is released in the body it actually plays a role in bonding. So we see this a lot in our work where I'll give you just a quick example. We worked with a family for several years and we worked on several legacy storytelling projects and throughout the whole engagement with the family we worked closely with the CEO of their family office as well and there was a pretty significant rift between the patriarch of the family and one of his sons and it was there was a moment not long after the patriarch was diagnosed with Alzheimer's his sons one of the sons the one that had the challenge with his dad his his wife was diagnosed with cancer at the same time and there's a happy ending to that story she's she's still well but it was a very vulnerable time and ultimately we were brought into this family summit and we were permitted to arrange a really intimate series of storytelling sessions with the son and his father and we took a lot of time to think through some really thoughtful questions and it was I still get goosebumps when I think about just what it was like to witness the father sharing aspects of his life he'd never shared with his son and I I could almost visually see the bonding that was happening between them it was remarkable and you know I didn't need convincing but that especially given you know the years preceding that and how challenging it was to see the power of story there was was quite something and in terms of you know your second question I get asked to speak on this so often which is you know why is it significant for families to share their story and we often talk about how stories the bridge from material wealth to meaningful wealth so I know you and I Peter talked about how the rising gen can often in a in a family of significant wealth either over identify or under identify with the wealth And we see that story when given the context to that wealth can really help with just a healthy integration of that wealth story. And it often reinforces that context, you know, why stewardship matters, you know, how the family defines success across generations. And then lastly, we talk a lot about the narrative arc to story as well and how a next generation can step into that story. You know, what's the next chapter, right? Stories don't repeat the same chapter over and over, which can be a loop some families find themselves in. And that's not how story works, you know, there's evolution and growth and it can really give to the next generation this sense that this next chapter is an opportunity for them, not a burden. Yeah, it's really really impactful the way you describe it. And I guess it's also another dimension of this is that there's a delicate balance between kind of sharing enough, engaging enough, and then sharing too much, both among family members and with external constituents, you know, another topic that is rising in the industry. And certainly we've talked about on this podcast is the balance between privacy and having a proactive communication or even PR strategy with the external constituents is the family interacts with or lives among our employees and impacts. So what are your views on how families should navigate this balance and kind of determine how much to share internally as well as externally with the public and employees and other constituents? Mm-hmm, such a great question. And nature of horse of vacuum, right? So in the absence of sharing, story is often filled in for them. So it is a critical question to ask. We always start with kind of the master question of what does this family want their story to do? And, you know, we unearth objectives in families that are unique to them. So in some cases, they're looking to an enterprise family businesses. They might be looking to strengthen, you know, their business culture. They might be looking to build trust with customers and partners. We're working with a large global firm out of the UK. That's a big piece for them. There are as so many as you know, European firms. This one's, you know, almost a thousand years old in history. But what does it mean to be a contemporary company and what does that culture look like? You know, sharing public perception and reputation. You touched on that. That's a big one. So if that's the purpose, that helps us focus on what story to tell when we're looking at what the purpose is. And sometimes it is about supporting succession planning, you know, and next-gen leadership. So the more intentional the purpose, really taking a beat and starting there, the more clarity we can help guide our families that we work with on and what and then how much to share. But some best practices, you know, that we've seen over over the last 26 years is that the founding story is certainly among enterprise family businesses is a really important one to share. It's family businesses are sitting on so much emotionally resonant story that that non-family-owned businesses have to hustle. And sometimes we're hard to craft. So there's a real advantage there. Family values, you know, what principles of guided decision making. That can be really powerful. Certainly moments of resilience, you know, times when a family made tough calls for the good of the business. And then stories that humanize family leaders, you know, make them relatable. So building that emotional connection, you know, certainly helping employees that aren't family members feel they're part of a larger story. We always counsel against oversharing personal and private details that don't relate to the business. And, you know, there can be a little bit of a risk of what we sometimes call hero worship. So cultivating, you know, too much kind of emotional story focus on the family's identity, you know, when the family, when the business is much bigger than the family, that's delicate as well. Those are great insights. And I look forward to us delving in and getting to some of the practical insights and recommendations you have for our listeners, which will do in a moment but first we'll take a quick break. I'm Mindy Kalinowski early, Chief Learning Officer at Fox. Fox continues to innovate and how we engage with members. Since launch, the E-learning initiative has been incredibly well received by the Fox community. E-learning is accessible to our members where they can learn at their own schedule based on their own pace. In addition to the family office design course, we're developing new courses focusing on advisor development and the rising gen. Check out our new E-learning platform. It's just part of how Fox evolves to help you on your journey. Welcome back everyone. I'm speaking today with Samantha Reynolds, founder and CEO of Echo Storytelling Agency. And we are delving into the world of family stories, their significance, how they help strengthen the bonds and connections and engagement within the family as well as build bridges and engagement with the family's community and other constituents. And so let's talk a little bit about some of the practical tips and hacks that you've developed over your, I think you said 26 years of running this great company. So one practical tool you mentioned you developed and you use with your clients is a list of questions rising gen members can ask of their elders when they have the opportunity to have these storytelling conversations and sessions. So can you tell us about this list and kind of what are the top questions on it and what are kind of the best settings or approaches to asking them? I love this question and I do have I do have three absolute favorite enduring questions. And we also keep a we keep a list of top 10 and I'm happy to email those you know anyone who wants to reach out to me. I'm sure you'll share my email address. But the top three I'll share with you. And in terms of you know your second question maybe I'll address that first because where we ask these questions I think I think that is really important and that's going to be different you know for every family. Certainly we see a lot of families gather at annual family summits. So those can be really intentional times to do this work where you know there's one generation asking the questions of another. We've seen also this be so meaningfully done when families have traveled sometimes in place of of an annual summit that might happen the same place every year. They might take a different approach and hold a family gathering at a location that's really meaningful. So we had a family that we work with do this recently in the small town in Italy where the family patriarch was born and just the rush of stories that you know the wellspring that flowed from that connection to place was really meaningful. Sometimes we see this work you know best done more intimately so not necessarily the setting of a large family summit but more intimately maybe just between two people you know the matriarch or the patriarch and and a grandchild with some photos you know going through a photo album. So setting does does matter. My top three questions the first is what do you hope we never forget. So this question is such a gift you know it invites elders to to really even if they haven't even if the family hasn't taken the time to name their you know core values those values will start to flow you know when this question's asked and some of the defining experiences that they want preserved so it it it really gets to the heart you know behind the wealth. So that's that's my that's probably my favorite I would say you know all silence is golden so you know ask the question and and be patient and brave in the silence because you know the person asking the question will find that more is filled in the longer they are patient and wait you know follow ups might be you know why is that important to you and when did you learn that lesson. A second question I love and this is a real invitation to vulnerability and shared learning and this is what mistakes did you learn the most from and it's a really important one it's a real gift to the rising gen. It normalizes risk taking it's all about resilience and it's also you know we don't take our lessons with us right why why would we not take a moment and and share those right gift those those harder and lessen so so that's a really a really beautiful question and then and then another question I love is what are you still building or wrestling with. And one of the reasons I love this question is, it creates space for ongoing growth. So it doesn't place our elders in the past tense. Even if they're like your grandfather was 95, it invites and lays the groundwork for this expectation that there's intergenerational partnership, rather than this sort of baton pass that's followed by silence. And it's subtle, but it's really powerful. And there's follow-up questions. I always encourage things like, do you think there might be a role I could play in that? What's still unresolved for you? We have a saying at echo that inheritance is what you leave with people and legacy is what you leave in people. So those are real, those are our powerful questions and the answers are certainly those that wedge right inside the heart. Yeah, amazing. And I actually, great, great questions. And I wanted to quickly double click on the last one, which connects to this other concept that we've talked about here. And it's talked about increasingly in our space. And I think in general, as people consider aging, healthy aging and transitions and successions in all contexts, but certainly we are focused here on the context of enterprising families. And that concept is the fact that so little attention is being given still to what the purpose is of the elder who's passing the torch after that event. And the way things are developing with science and longevity folks are living a lot longer than, you know, in the past and therefore have a lot of kind of healthy elder age to put to work and to purpose. And not engaging them on the topic is actually sometimes, not often, the source of many of the challenges with successions and kind of failed transitions or challenging transitions because people think of that succession event sort of as if the life and purpose of the elder person sort of ends with the succession and what it doesn't. So I guess an extension of your question is what the elder generation wants to or still is passionate about what wants to do and wants to achieve and giving them a person purpose in life is important and neglected, I think, in space. - Absolutely. Well, and it's something that comes up so often, you know, when we're asked to do commemorative books, you know, memoirs and biographies, there's this resistance often because it's like, "Well, I'm not done, you know, I might be 80, 85, 90, but my story's not over." And we're right alongside for that, you know, of course it's not over. We talk about memory insurance, right, about this sense of ensuring against, you know, something unexpected and so it's a relief to everybody that the memories are in the vault, but we talk about books as first editions, you know, and or videos, you know, as this, in five years and 10 years, you know, we'll add a chapter. So that's a really important, it's, again, there's nuance, but it's, yes, I agree that I've seen it where it can contribute to disharmonie and I've seen it where it can contribute to family harmony as well. - Wonderful, wonderful. And you mentioned obviously books and other tools you deploy, but let's take a more holistic view. Like what are some of the modern, especially technology enabled tools and resources that you would recommend to families that help them with their sort of effective both communications and storytelling within and outside the family and to achieve what you call this memory insurance sort of outcome. And of course, we live in the age of where AI is emerging now and we wonder what that would be, contributing to this whole thing, but what are some of these tools you think are most useful? - Yeah, absolutely. So, so we, when we are doing books these days, it's not uncommon for us to, you know, embed codes into the books so that they're, you know, you can scan the book and a video will pop, you know, into your phone of, you know, the person whose story it is, you know, sharing their story and videos. So even, even integrating technology, you know, into the printed work that we do the books and beyond books and video, we're increasingly being asked to build custom, sort of semi-custom digital environment. So private family websites for clients to house stories, media, timelines. For some families, significant families, you know, building out pretty significant digital archives for them that live online. Very password protected is, you know, very gated, obviously is critical. We have a partnership that we're just sort of underway through another client of ours with a company in California that produces hologram memoirs. So this is also just phenomenal to me where you can, you know, ask thousands of questions and have them sort of in the bank so that, you know, after someone's passed away, you know, future generations will be able to ask questions and have, you know, a life like three-dimensional ancestor pop up and be able to answer these questions. It's certainly already happening in the corporate sphere and the prices are coming down, which is more accessible as well. And then, you know, this is just something that, I think it's not necessarily high tech, but we're increasingly also being asked to create video letters of wishes. So these are non-binding, you know, more context for people's decisions and directed to trustees, just, you know, around values to complement. All the other binding documentation they leave behind, but it's a piece that, you know, when we've done this in the past, you know, it certainly is something that future generations will go back to. - These are great, great tools and really, really helpful. What, let me, since we broached the subject, what do you think, me talking about holograms, which is pretty out there, what do you think the impact of AI is gonna be on this space? - You know, it's interesting. Like, it's so funny, Peter, a year ago, I was meeting with a client in San Diego whose company's very much in the AI space and I've known him for a long time. We've done lots of work with his family and he asked me and I said, full stop, our families do not want us to use AI. I had just been in St. Louis with, you know, a family we work with and we, you know, we're not even permitted to send interview files, you know, audio files, you know, using, you know, any technology, like everything's so gated and I said, that's what our, that's our promise to our clients is privacy. Like, never will we use AI. Fast forward, you know, half the clients I talk to now are asking us, you know, what is our AI policy? They're leaning into it, they're intrigued, you know, how can we harness it? While still, you know, holding to the privacy promise that is critical for all the families we do work with. So, Jerry's still out, you know, we are using AI, you know, just to expedite some parts of our process for clients that permit it. I think there's huge opportunity. I really do and I think, you know, I think in two or three years, we'll have even more expectation, you know, on us, we're certainly fast tracking hires, you know, into our firm that are specialists in this space. I think for, in our space, it will be this delicate balance between, between privacy and harnessing something that, you know, serves needs that we couldn't, we couldn't imagine. A year ago. So, let's do it. Let's do a follow up podcast interview in a year. Yeah, certainly, it's happening. It's underway, absolutely. Yeah, it's definitely a topic worthy of an entire podcast or several. I mean, we have, we are still some fairly emerging and futuristic sounding conversations where, you know, some of our members and clients and families are working on kind of capturing the knowledge and wisdom and the work of their patriarchs, matriarchs and other elders into AI models and avatars and, and I'm sure it kind of sounds crazy right now, but I'm sure in a year, it would be probably the reality we live and we'll be able to ask and have conversations of sort with people who might not even be here anymore. So, it is, it is an amazing space and I appreciate your foresight into it and I'll look forward to speaking about that. Now, obviously we could talk a lot more on this topic, but we are kind of running close to the end of the episode. So, before we wrap up, let me close out with the same question to ask, oh my guests on this podcast. Like many of us in this space, you're dedicated to serving the needs of enterprising multi-generational families and helping them deploy and develop their family capital in all its forms and obviously with the work you do that goes way beyond financial and even human capital, it goes into spiritual, intellectual, social capital of these families. So, in your view, why is family capital the way we describe it? Important, what is the significance and impact? of family enterprises, family businesses, family philanthropies, etc. on our economy and society. You know, I feel so privileged to have been doing this work for so long. And, you know, one of the outcomes is having seen, you know, having seen patterns and, uh, and having seen upturns and downturns, you know, we, we were in business, you know, over the 2008 recessions, certainly over COVID, you know, the trade challenges, you know, of the last six months. And, and we do work, you know, we do work with, you know, very large global companies that, uh, you know, are, are publicly traded that aren't, uh, enterprise family owned. And, and we work with equally as large companies that are. And I see a real difference, you know, the resilience and values based, I guess orientation or culture that I see, you know, in the enterprise families, those businesses, the sort of stewardship over short-term profits and just the stability, you know, the decisions that I see being made. And we're so, again, I feel so privileged to be often, you know, around the table with, you know, the, the key decision makers. And I hear them make these decisions with legacy and relational capital in mind, you know, not just market and economic trends. Whereas I'm around the table with, you know, the CEOs in the other companies and it's panic, right? It's full-fledged. Um, you know, they are beholden to shareholders and the stock market and it's, um, it's a totally different trajectory. You know, there's, um, more leverage and, and they're just, it's more stress in the, in the economic downturns for sure in those environments. And so we see a lot of, you know, whiplash for those employees in terms of, you know, employee, you know, programs that are, you know, frozen, sort of overnight. Whereas in, in the, you know, family owned space, again, there's this sense of we're in this and we have the capacity to weather this. And if it mattered before this crisis, it still matters. And more often than not, we see that sort of stability. So I would say that's, you know, in the interest of all of these employees or citizens right of our world. And I would say they see a really positive outcome. And, and so then do their families that, that ricochet effect is really positive and stabilizing. It's a wonderful way to, to describe it. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this important question. And thank you for all your expertise and cumulative experience of the last 26 years of doing this important work. We look forward to working with you and, kind of spreading your wisdom and knowledge throughout the Fox community, which our members need, that expertise and wisdom very keenly right now. And even beyond the immediate Fox community with channels like this podcast, thank you for contributing your, your time and knowledge with us. Oh, my pleasure. It was a real honor. Thanks so much, Peter. Thank you for listening to this episode of Foxcast. At Fox, our vision and purpose is to unlock the vast potential of family capital. And we do that by providing enterprise family members and family office professionals, the knowledge, connections and resources that enable families to thrive across generations. To learn more about Fox and the wide variety of educational programs, networking opportunities and practical resources we provide, please visit www.familyoffice.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to Foxcast on all major podcast platforms. We look forward to having you tune into future episodes of Foxcast. And until then, goodbye and be well.