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Speaker 1: Welcome the Money and Wealth with John Hobriyant, a production
Speaker 1: of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, this
Speaker 1: is John ho'brian and this is the Money and Wealth
Speaker 1: podcast series on the Black Effect Network at iHeartRadio, and
Speaker 1: this is season three. I want to thank everyone for
Speaker 1: making the last two seasons highly successful and wherever I go,
Speaker 1: you're giving me impact. This is changing your life. This
Speaker 1: episode is going to do just that I'm with. As
Speaker 1: you know, I bring guests on fairly irregularly. They have
Speaker 1: to be truly special, not only what they do, but
Speaker 1: who they are as a human being. Michael Milkin is
Speaker 1: an example of just that kind of spirit that I've
Speaker 1: had on the show called Times. So this gentleman is
Speaker 1: really special to me. We become good quick friends because
Speaker 1: of spirit we just sink of. His name is Greg Fleming,
Speaker 1: So let me get into this because we don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of time. Greg Fleming is the president and
Speaker 1: CEO of Rockefeller Capital Management. I want you to focus
Speaker 1: on Rockefeller as I come back to that in a second,
Speaker 1: but let me tell you a bit about his background.
Speaker 1: They're headquartered at Rockefeller Plaza, appropriately in New York City.
Speaker 1: They specialize in wealth management, asset management, family office services,
Speaker 1: strategic advisory services tied to wealth building. In all full disclosure,
Speaker 1: me and my family are clients of Rockefeller. They primarily
Speaker 1: serve ultra high networth families, institutions, and corporations. The firm
Speaker 1: has about just under two hundred billion. My members are
Speaker 1: right in assets under management at least that's numbers are visible.
Speaker 1: They're the modern version of a Rockefeller family office. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get into what that means in a second.
Speaker 1: He's known as the Wall Street operators operator he's been.
Speaker 1: He was at Merrill Lynch since night where he was
Speaker 1: there since nineteen ninety two, same year I founded Operation
Speaker 1: Hope after the Rodney King riots. He was head of
Speaker 1: Global Investment Banking, co President, chief operating Officer.
Speaker 4: He managed fifty billion there.
Speaker 1: He's at Morgan Stanley and you know he's I think
Speaker 1: he's a board member of Black Rock, Council of Foreign Relations,
Speaker 1: Economic Club of New York. Lectures at Yale Law School. Greg,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited.
Speaker 5: Thank you, John.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here and I've been looking forward
Speaker 3: to this given friendship the U and I have built.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's jump right into this because you have
Speaker 1: limited time, and unlike most of my podcast, I'm gonna talk,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to talk very little. Rockefeller Capital Management
Speaker 1: is a roll up of essentially the Rockefeller dynasty.
Speaker 4: Rockefeller built his wealth.
Speaker 1: You can give a little bit of background on that,
Speaker 1: and he endowed his children with assets and put some limitations,
Speaker 1: some structure about what they could do, how they could
Speaker 1: access it. Really did some family wealth planning, and is
Speaker 1: my memory serves me right, and you feel free to
Speaker 1: correct me. There's no embarrassment here. I'm just going from memory.
Speaker 1: If my memory serves me right. It's like seven generations
Speaker 1: of Rockefeller wealth went through this sort of internal structure
Speaker 1: of them having this family office for the family purposes,
Speaker 1: and at some point they said, you know, we have
Speaker 1: friends who need these same services, we have colleagues who
Speaker 1: need these same services. Let's open it up. And that
Speaker 1: allowed people like me to join the Rockefeller family. Did
Speaker 1: I get that at least partly right?
Speaker 4: You got that.
Speaker 3: I think in all material respects, they're in their seventh generation.
Speaker 3: There are three hundred and twenty five of them alive today,
Speaker 3: John and their seventh generation. It did start with the
Speaker 3: famous John D. Rockefeller Senior way back in eighteen eighty two.
Speaker 3: We have now built a firm, Rockefeller Capital Management, that
Speaker 3: takes care of the Rockefellers, a lot of them, and
Speaker 3: they're an important part of this. Two of them sit
Speaker 3: on our board, David Rockefeller Junior and Peter O'Neil. They
Speaker 3: own a piece of our business. We take care of
Speaker 3: a lot of them, so many of the family members.
Speaker 3: We give them advice like we do to your family.
Speaker 3: But we built a company. We wanted to build a
Speaker 3: company in partnership with them, using their legendary name, but
Speaker 3: we wanted to take care of successful American families across
Speaker 3: the whole country. We wanted to be the firm that
Speaker 3: was the go to choice for families that had created
Speaker 3: real wealth that they were hoping to sustain, like the
Speaker 3: Rockefellers over generations, which is not something everybody who makes
Speaker 3: money thinks about, but a lot of people are worried
Speaker 3: about having it last and taking care of succeeding generations.
Speaker 3: So we wanted to build a firm that took care
Speaker 3: of yes, the Rockefellers, but many more successful American families.
Speaker 3: And the great thing about our country is there's a
Speaker 3: lot of them.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I know justin Rockefeller and I just met
Speaker 1: one of the younger Rockefeller I'm sure great great grandchildren
Speaker 1: when I was in UAE four weeks ago. Couldn't be
Speaker 1: nice or wanted to talk to me about He says,
Speaker 1: he works with you around financial literacy the firm, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to talk to the operation Hope about bringing
Speaker 1: financial literacy into the firm's superstructure, which I was very honored.
Speaker 1: It was his idea, not mine. I mean, a very nice,
Speaker 1: humble guy, not cocky at all. Everybody I've met from
Speaker 1: Rockefeller family has been incredibly gracious.
Speaker 3: Hey, John, just can I expound on that because I
Speaker 3: was struck by the same thing, because I've really gotten
Speaker 3: to know them, and that we're in our ninth year
Speaker 3: here now, so I've gotten to know them in the
Speaker 3: last decade in depth. And the family it consists of
Speaker 3: so many really nice people, and they have a quite
Speaker 3: philanthropic spirit about giving back because the founder John Rockefeller Senior.
Speaker 3: He made all the wealth, and unlike other families where
Speaker 3: you keep the business in the family for generations, he
Speaker 3: sold it. And John Rockefeller Junior, his son, was literally
Speaker 3: the world's first great philanthropist. So they built universities. Spelman
Speaker 3: College was founded by them. The University Spelman named after
Speaker 3: Lauras Belman Rockefeller, John Rockefeller Senior's wife. What they started
Speaker 3: Rockefeller University, where twenty eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded
Speaker 3: in science and medicine, The University of Chicago, Museum of
Speaker 3: Modern Art, Lincoln Center, Grant Teesan National Park, Acadian National Park,
Speaker 3: a lot of Jackson, Wyoming.
Speaker 5: They were the first ones there. They gave a lot
Speaker 5: of that land away.
Speaker 3: They built a hospital in Beijing in nineteen twenty one
Speaker 3: that's still there today.
Speaker 5: That's part of Pee King University.
Speaker 3: So not only did they start with a lot of wealth,
Speaker 3: but they were very focused on giving back. And it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's a family with a lot of nice
Speaker 3: people trying to make a mark in life in our country,
Speaker 3: you know, not just from a well standpoint, but in
Speaker 3: terms of a lot of the other things that matter.
Speaker 1: I of course share this passion of doing well and
Speaker 1: doing good, and doing well by doing good also positive
Speaker 1: love for good capitalism. I have a book coming out
Speaker 1: that's called capitalism. It's called Capitalism for All Inclusive Economics
Speaker 1: in the Future Proving of America, and it goes right
Speaker 1: into this, straight into this debate the country's having, which
Speaker 1: seems to be about either your four or year against wealth.
Speaker 4: And I think it's the wrong debate.
Speaker 1: And all the major employers in this country, eighty percent
Speaker 1: plus are private sector employers. The wealth came from the
Speaker 1: legitimate wealth came from private sector of interests. The philanthropy
Speaker 1: came from private sector interests like Rockefeller. Yes they get
Speaker 1: a tax benefit from it, absolutely enshould. But you can
Speaker 1: give it away unless you made it. And there's other examples,
Speaker 1: clearly other than mister Rockefeller, John Rockefeller, but this is
Speaker 1: a good example. I didn't know the Spellman example at all.
Speaker 1: I'd try to be pretty bummed up.
Speaker 4: Did you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to repeat this again. You said that the
Speaker 1: Leman College was named after John's wife.
Speaker 3: I get that right, Yes, Lauris Bellman Rockefeller. That's where
Speaker 3: Spelman College in eighteen eighty four. And John, to the
Speaker 3: point that you're raising, which is so important because this
Speaker 3: is true of your family and so many of our clients.
Speaker 3: They make wealth and then they want to do good
Speaker 3: things with it. Yeah, and I'm always talking about one
Speaker 3: of the great things about the American economy, one of
Speaker 3: the reasons it's the world's still the world's greatest economy. Yes,
Speaker 3: we have these incredible big companies, but there are thirty
Speaker 3: three million businesses in the United States that employ fewer
Speaker 3: than five hundred people, employing sixty million Americans. Many of
Speaker 3: them are family owned businesses that have been in the
Speaker 3: family for years, for generations. We work with a lot
Speaker 3: of those families and they're trying to build the business,
Speaker 3: hire more people who then get a good job. So there,
Speaker 3: you know, the capitalist machine in the United States is
Speaker 3: critically important for job creation and giving people something fulfilling
Speaker 3: to do in life, for wealth creation, and then giving back.
Speaker 3: And again, as I said, your family is typical in
Speaker 3: our client base of Look, you may be on the
Speaker 3: extreme because you're so focused on philanthropy and so focused
Speaker 3: on giving back, and you know you do that even
Speaker 3: through all of the.
Speaker 5: Messaging that you do.
Speaker 3: But we actually have a group within Rockefeller Capital Management
Speaker 3: that we call philanthropic advisory we demand from our clients
Speaker 3: is so great to set up foundations and to give
Speaker 3: money back to causes that.
Speaker 5: They care about.
Speaker 3: That we have to have a group that provides advice
Speaker 3: to those families and how to do it well, how
Speaker 3: to set it up in a way where if you're
Speaker 3: focused on, you know, one topic, you can build the
Speaker 3: foundation and really go after that topic. Education, the environment,
Speaker 3: you know, you know, economic inequality that our clients are
Speaker 3: going after, you know, so many of the challenging problems
Speaker 3: in society that we have to have a group help
Speaker 3: them set up the foundations so they can spend the
Speaker 3: money that way. Now, there's a lot to be said
Speaker 3: for what you know, the model you describe, which is
Speaker 3: in order to give it the way you've got to
Speaker 3: make it, and by the way, in making it, if
Speaker 3: you build a family business, you're creating jobs that are
Speaker 3: good jobs for people that they can obviously then earn
Speaker 3: their own income.
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. And I'm going to address all.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go on tour this whole year, Greg
Speaker 1: and maybe we'll come and have a conversation there at Rockefeller.
Speaker 1: I want to audiences large and small. I want to
Speaker 1: say look, you don't have to be It's not about
Speaker 1: black or white, or red or blue. It's about the green. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's not about Republican Democratic. It's about to get it
Speaker 1: done party, not the Democratic or Republican party. And when
Speaker 1: you will wealth, you want to get it done. And
Speaker 1: for folks who I relate to on the left side
Speaker 1: and left with my left hand or right doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: With my right hand left hand, with one of my hands,
Speaker 1: I can reach into the hood to where I grew
Speaker 1: up in South central LA or Competent or wherever, and
Speaker 1: I can see the streets and I can understand their perspective.
Speaker 1: I can also go to the suites and understand their perspective.
Speaker 1: And what I'm trying to do is bridge these perspectives
Speaker 1: and to say, no, you want to become wealthy, you
Speaker 1: want to become successful. I have very wealthy entertainment friends
Speaker 1: who have regular checking accounts, regular savings accounts, Like they
Speaker 1: go and they bank at the bank brands.
Speaker 4: I'm like, what are you doing? No one's ever taught them.
Speaker 1: These are world class people, incredibly successful, incredibly smart, and
Speaker 1: they resent capitalism model because they think they're being intentionally
Speaker 1: locked out. They just don't know anybody in this relationship
Speaker 1: circle who's brought them in and said, hey, let me
Speaker 1: sit you down explain this to you. And so I'm
Speaker 1: trying to with conversations like this to break these silos down,
Speaker 1: because when I meet people like you, I can legitimately
Speaker 1: say you're the nicest person you ever meet. I mean,
Speaker 1: just incredibly kind and gracious and open and reasonable. Please
Speaker 1: tell them the audience Family Office is and what you.
Speaker 3: Do there, and John, before I do that, I just
Speaker 3: want to emphasize what you just said, because that that
Speaker 3: is you know, I love our country and I've got
Speaker 3: three children on my own, and I think with all
Speaker 3: of the challenges that we have, it's the greatest country.
Speaker 5: In the world.
Speaker 3: And an essential component of that is the belief for
Speaker 3: the individual. And we can't have anybody left out of
Speaker 3: this belief that through their own work and effort, they
Speaker 3: can achieve a better position and status in life, for them,
Speaker 3: for the people close to them, for the family they're
Speaker 3: taking care of, and that is that's the bedrock, you know,
Speaker 3: of our society, and we need if we as you said,
Speaker 3: and you and I talked about this the first time
Speaker 3: we met, if that becomes elusive. If we don't have,
Speaker 3: you know, the broad majority of Americans that believe that,
Speaker 3: then it's a problem and we have a big challenge
Speaker 3: in this country. So we have to have a system
Speaker 3: where the individual can say, I'm very smart, you know,
Speaker 3: and you met that.
Speaker 5: I teach at ye Law School.
Speaker 3: I went to Yell Law School, which I had a
Speaker 3: great experience, and I had my daughter go there.
Speaker 5: And I meet your wife went there, right. We talked
Speaker 5: about that.
Speaker 3: I meet so many people that I teach there that
Speaker 3: have come from very challenging backgrounds and taken themselves all
Speaker 3: the way through to Yale Law School, and then they're
Speaker 3: going beyond to run a law firm, to maybe be
Speaker 3: a senator, to whatever they want to be. You know
Speaker 3: that those paths are still there. We need a country
Speaker 3: where the vast majority of people feel like avenues are available,
Speaker 3: and that is a critically important part of our society.
Speaker 1: That's right, and society and audience, please forgive me this
Speaker 1: one last preaching sentence, because I'm just Greg's lit me
Speaker 1: up here. Societies don't create her from the top down,
Speaker 1: the creator from the bottom end.
Speaker 4: When the bottom.
Speaker 1: Does not believe that they play by the rules, do
Speaker 1: the right things stop at red lights, respectful to the elders.
Speaker 4: That is going to play.
Speaker 1: Pay off is a reasonable shot, a success or failure
Speaker 1: on their own merit. They rebail, They say, you know what,
Speaker 1: the system's corrupt. It doesn't no matter what I do,
Speaker 1: I can't get ahead. And without faith and trust and
Speaker 1: honesty and integrity and belief and confidence and joy, all
Speaker 1: intangibles were done and has screwed up. This country is
Speaker 1: as you just said, it's the best bet I've found
Speaker 1: in the world. Let's not destroy the system. Let's reformat it,
Speaker 1: refashion and give it a software of great, give capitalism
Speaker 1: a software of great, and return it to a fruits
Speaker 1: where somebody like John Rockefeller, who wasn't perfect to me,
Speaker 1: get that out of the way, but who that positive
Speaker 1: did more good than bad, who built something up, Yes,
Speaker 1: straight up capitalists, but then gave a lot back. Isn't
Speaker 1: there some huge by the way, is there some huge
Speaker 1: public institution in New York. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: this and get it wrong that John Rockefeller built. I
Speaker 1: want to say Grand Central Station or some crazy thing.
Speaker 3: They gave the land for the United Nations, you know,
Speaker 3: so they gave the land for the United Nations. They
Speaker 3: built as you know, museum a mote in our Lincoln Center,
Speaker 3: Asia Society Rock Center they built, and they built a
Speaker 3: lot of that during the depression, and they were when
Speaker 3: they first were going to build it, they had it
Speaker 3: was a much more diversified funding approach, John, you'll appreciate this.
Speaker 3: And then the depression happens and they actually finished that
Speaker 3: project largely on their own, which, despite the wealth that
Speaker 3: they had, was risky for them, and it became this
Speaker 3: defining part of New York City. You know, the philanthropy
Speaker 3: on the Rockefellers goes right through to.
Speaker 5: The modern time.
Speaker 3: There's a neuroscience Institute in West Virginia that was established
Speaker 3: about a decade ago by former Senator Jay Rockefeller, which
Speaker 3: is one of the finest of its kind in the country.
Speaker 3: So they continue to try to do things that benefit
Speaker 3: society at large. But you know, my point is that
Speaker 3: we have the John Hope Brian family. So many families
Speaker 3: that are our clients are trying to do things like that.
Speaker 3: But you know, back to they need to make the
Speaker 3: wealth first, but we have to have a society where
Speaker 3: the vast majority of people feel like they can be
Speaker 3: on that path and make that wealth and it's fair,
Speaker 3: as you said, which is.
Speaker 1: How black family and brown families and women and minorities
Speaker 1: listening to this to know. You make money during the day,
Speaker 1: you build wealth in your sleep. Once you make that
Speaker 1: money to get rich to that contract, take some of
Speaker 1: that riches and turn it into a wealth creation which
Speaker 1: you do it. You only build wealth at night and
Speaker 1: when you're sleep, so you can build enough wealth to
Speaker 1: take care of your own lifestyle, take care of your
Speaker 1: generation follows you, and give something back.
Speaker 4: We need to be philanthropists.
Speaker 1: We need to be building institutions in our communities like
Speaker 1: they have done Rockefeller's family has done, and scale that model. Again.
Speaker 1: I've done this a role. I'm so excited about meeting
Speaker 1: with you in this interview.
Speaker 3: With you five times, but now you led me back
Speaker 3: to it though just there because they're making money at night.
Speaker 3: Let me talk about what we do a Rockefeller Capital Management.
Speaker 3: We help our clients make money at night. They've got
Speaker 3: wealth we have. What our job is to work with
Speaker 3: them on what do they want to do with the wealth?
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: One of the things John, you've asked me about in
Speaker 3: the past is what's the difference between building assets and actually
Speaker 3: you know a you know, generating wealth over generations.
Speaker 5: And a lot of that is about intent.
Speaker 3: You know, are you just you know, earning money and
Speaker 3: building assets and there's not a larger plan, and you
Speaker 3: know you might then spend beyond your means or you
Speaker 3: might be you know, not focused on earning the money
Speaker 3: at night. What we work with our families on is
Speaker 3: what do they want to do with the wealth that
Speaker 3: they either have or still creating. What's the long term plan?
Speaker 3: We help them build the plan. We help them with
Speaker 3: a diversified set of investments that will ensure that whatever
Speaker 3: happens in market cycles, because a lot of people that
Speaker 3: are new to markets, you know, there are things that
Speaker 3: pop up that you know, somebody might want to chase,
Speaker 3: but that may not be the right thing, and it
Speaker 3: may go, John, you and I've lived this over three
Speaker 3: four decades. It may go as fast as it came
Speaker 3: something that looked like a great new product. And so
Speaker 3: we're working with clients on a detailed long term plan.
Speaker 3: They want to get here, you know, they want somebody
Speaker 3: has created a fair amount of wealth in generation one
Speaker 3: through working as hard as you or I have, and
Speaker 3: they would like the generations to be able to be
Speaker 3: educated for free or whatever it is. We work with
Speaker 3: them on the plan to have the wealth sustain and say, okay,
Speaker 3: if you want to have a plan to take care
Speaker 3: of succeeding generations, this is the kind of wealth you
Speaker 3: can spend in your lifetime. This is what's available to you.
Speaker 3: But we're going to build some of this so that
Speaker 3: your grandchildren are attending these schools.
Speaker 5: And the tuition is taking care of.
Speaker 3: So what a family office effectively is It starts with,
Speaker 3: you know, a certain level of wealth in order to
Speaker 3: have the family office. That could be first generation and
Speaker 3: there's still a lot of first generation wealth created in
Speaker 3: this country, or it could be a second or third generation,
Speaker 3: or in the Rockefeller's case, seventh generation. And then there's
Speaker 3: a lot of planning with my team, which is very
Speaker 3: good at this on you know, investments, yes, of course,
Speaker 3: but also taxes. Do you want philanthropy, what kind how
Speaker 3: much you know, if you've created a lot of wealth
Speaker 3: and you're still creating more, how much is going to
Speaker 3: be for this generation and maybe the next one of
Speaker 3: the kids, And do you want to start thinking about
Speaker 3: the generation after that. We spent a lot of time
Speaker 3: working with our families on those kinds of plans, because
Speaker 3: generational wealth is intentional. John Rockefeller Senior had a tremendous
Speaker 3: amount of wealth, but you still could have consumed it all.
Speaker 3: It might have taken a generation or two. But it's
Speaker 3: lasted seven generations for a reason. The reasons lasted seven generations,
Speaker 3: which is a long time and a lot of people.
Speaker 3: And as John said, you called it up front, seventh generation.
Speaker 3: Three hundred and twenty five people alive in the seventh generation.
Speaker 3: So this wealth is taking care of hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 3: of people if that's going to happen over that amount
Speaker 3: of time. They were intentional upfront. They set up trust
Speaker 3: right out of the gate, trusts that are literally one
Speaker 3: hundred years old for succeeding generations. So the money stayed
Speaker 3: in trust. And then John your point, it was making
Speaker 3: money at night. It was invested. You couldn't pull it out.
Speaker 3: It got bigger, and then at some point the trust
Speaker 3: is broken and that generation benefits from the trust, or
Speaker 3: maybe part of it goes to that generation.
Speaker 5: It breaks over to generations. But they did a.
Speaker 3: Lot of planning, intentional planning, so that the wealth created
Speaker 3: by the person who started it could last a long time.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure even he thought it would be seven generations.
Speaker 3: But it's seven generations in counting. And as you said,
Speaker 3: you know some of them justin and others these finance
Speaker 3: you know, younger people who were doing really good things
Speaker 3: in this world. Wealth creation over that amount of time
Speaker 3: is intentional, it's a plan. It's you know, each generation lives,
Speaker 3: you know, according to the means that are available for
Speaker 3: that generation. If you're going to allow the next generation
Speaker 3: to also participate, and it's that famous John Hope Brian's statement,
Speaker 3: make money at night, invest it and let the investment,
Speaker 3: the smart investments build it as opposed to be you know,
Speaker 3: consuming it, you know, and if you consume it, it's
Speaker 3: not there for late.
Speaker 1: By the way, I want to give proper credit if
Speaker 1: you'd like that quote you make money during the day,
Speaker 1: you bill was in your sleep, you can use it.
Speaker 1: But let's give credit to Tony Wrestler, who's a I
Speaker 1: think the two hundred and fifty richest man in the world.
Speaker 1: My business partner friend owns Atlanta Hawks, owns the founded
Speaker 1: or co founder of Aris Management and Apollo.
Speaker 4: He introduced me to you guys.
Speaker 3: By the way, and he's built a wonderful company. Terrific guy.
Speaker 3: And I do remember you telling me that was his quote.
Speaker 3: Although I need to be more careful because I give
Speaker 3: you credit for the quote when I use it.
Speaker 1: That's okay, Doctor King used to tell Doctor used to
Speaker 1: tell his preacher friends he'd hears something he'd like. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, that's a great quote, Joe. I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you credit the first three times. The fourth time is mine.
Speaker 5: I actually he was just getting out. The fourth time
Speaker 5: comes wrong. I remember this one because of the relationship
Speaker 5: you and I have.
Speaker 3: But sometimes I'll say this wasn't me, but I can't
Speaker 3: remember who it is. So here it is, you know
Speaker 3: he Doctor King was smart to just say, look by
Speaker 3: the fourth time, it's a fair game for everybody.
Speaker 1: So there's something you said. There's a number of things
Speaker 1: you said that are positively triggering. But let me so
Speaker 1: let me break something a couple of things down. So
Speaker 1: people are here listening to this and go, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: the money's in a trust.
Speaker 4: Does that mean he didn't trust? Is theirs?
Speaker 1: We're not going to get into John Barcofeler's head. But
Speaker 1: I have a trust, okay, and my trust is so
Speaker 1: that I trust that what I built is going to
Speaker 1: go where I wanted to go and not where somebody
Speaker 1: else decides it's going to go when I'm gone. So
Speaker 1: it's a trust that allows me to direct and structure
Speaker 1: my legacy in any way I see fit and organize
Speaker 1: my assets. There's also tax planning involved with the trust
Speaker 1: and money management. There's tax planning that there are tax
Speaker 1: benefits to philanthropy, by the way, So all these things
Speaker 1: work together.
Speaker 4: So when you're getting when he's built.
Speaker 1: When greg Is and his team are building wealth for you,
Speaker 1: and they're locking up those assets. So when people can't
Speaker 1: take the principle, you don't want to spend the principle.
Speaker 4: If you can at all afford not to.
Speaker 1: You're getting the d You want to live on the
Speaker 1: residual income if you can. So the money is thrown
Speaker 1: off from the investments. You want to find a way
Speaker 1: to live on that. So if you have a five
Speaker 1: million dollar investment pool, maybe if you're lucky, you'll get
Speaker 1: half a million dollars a year and what's called passive income,
Speaker 1: and you live on that and you're not touching the principle.
Speaker 4: A lot of people make that.
Speaker 1: Money in an NBA contract, NFL contract, whatever the thing.
Speaker 4: Is, because all riches is a contract.
Speaker 1: And when the contract ends, if your outflog seeds your inflow,
Speaker 1: you're overhead.
Speaker 4: It will be your downfall.
Speaker 1: So even even making five million dollars a year, if
Speaker 1: that money stops, you still spending three million dollars a
Speaker 1: year or four, you're broke with in a short period
Speaker 1: of time. You've got to have enough wealth that's created
Speaker 1: that's subsidizing the vast majority of your lifestyle. And that's
Speaker 1: what Greg's trying to explain with creating an environment.
Speaker 4: Well that's what John Rockefeller, I believe, was trying to do.
Speaker 1: And everybody who has built wealth, you're trying to create
Speaker 1: a situation where you're not in this ethos. First generation
Speaker 1: makes it, second generation spins it, third generation loses it.
Speaker 1: And that's as old, that's six thousand year old. Doctrine
Speaker 1: is global it is.
Speaker 3: And John, you know, we actually work with quite a
Speaker 3: few athletes helping them plan because you know, an athlete
Speaker 3: might have multiple great careers, you know, like you know,
Speaker 3: Derek Jeter is on our board and is having a
Speaker 3: great business career after his baseball career, but a lot
Speaker 3: of the earnings power for a lot of athletes is
Speaker 3: in those years and there there's a you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of demands on the money during that time. So
Speaker 3: we do a lot of work with athletes where we
Speaker 3: help with planning so that when they retire that money
Speaker 3: is available to them and potentially to their errors because
Speaker 3: of the planning they do during the years when they're
Speaker 3: playing where the paychecks are often now significant. I mean,
Speaker 3: look at what an NBA player can get paid now
Speaker 3: if they're quite good, or even NFL player, any of.
Speaker 5: The baseball players.
Speaker 3: But you know that can go from those levels to
Speaker 3: zero pretty quickly, and you want to be ready for
Speaker 3: that on the planning. So we have you know, a
Speaker 3: number of families led by athletes who are typically first generation,
Speaker 3: but we're doing a lot of work with them on Okay,
Speaker 3: let's look at the cash flows. They're you know, they're
Speaker 3: at a very significant level for the you know, the career,
Speaker 3: and then you have the years when you're particularly good,
Speaker 3: right you come to the league, you're maybe there's a
Speaker 3: league you know maximum, but then you have those years
Speaker 3: then the trails off and then this is what it's
Speaker 3: going to look like. So we're just you know, taking
Speaker 3: all that money, you know, find you know, helping with this.
Speaker 3: This is what you know would be a good spending
Speaker 3: plan in the interim, and this is what you'll have
Speaker 3: at the end if we put this in place, and
Speaker 3: you know, and they say, I want to have that,
Speaker 3: And that's really what we're there for, to help make
Speaker 3: sure that we put the plan in place, you know,
Speaker 3: lay out the different options for them.
Speaker 5: It's ultimately their money. They're working hard, they're earning it.
Speaker 3: But they often are quite pleased with the planning process
Speaker 3: because you know, nobody wants to get to the end
Speaker 3: of a very successful sports career now and you know,
Speaker 3: and have the h starting to dwindle down and a
Speaker 3: lot of the principal gone, you know, the ability to
Speaker 3: be the twenty three year old superstar again.
Speaker 5: You know, you got one shot at that.
Speaker 3: So we do a lot of work there as well.
Speaker 3: And then just one other point for you on the
Speaker 3: trust that you raised. This another great point. This is
Speaker 3: how universities set themselves up. They have an endowment. As
Speaker 3: you know, I mean, you're part of a lot of deals.
Speaker 3: They have an endowment. So it might sound like an
Speaker 3: incredible number, it's a billion dollars. But if you spend
Speaker 3: you know, one hundred and fifty million dollars a year,
Speaker 3: it's not going to be so much in you know,
Speaker 3: five or six years. So they limit the percentage of
Speaker 3: the endowment. And I'm saying this for your listeners, John,
Speaker 3: I know obviously you know this. The percentage of the
Speaker 3: endowment that they can spend each year they limited so
Speaker 3: that the principal stays there for the future generations of
Speaker 3: students that are going to be at that university. So
Speaker 3: it's really the same model for you know, a wealthy
Speaker 3: family that wants the wealth to be sustained over time.
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm on the border Clark Atlanta University, which is
Speaker 1: right next to Spilman in the University Center, the youth Center,
Speaker 1: and we have a significant endowment. Now there wasn't always
Speaker 1: the case. And you're right, we spend. We try to
Speaker 1: spend a very small portion of that or allow it
Speaker 1: to be spent. So I say, you wanted to cumulate,
Speaker 1: you wanted to compound it, wanted to build on itself
Speaker 1: and sit there and hopefully you don't have a rainy
Speaker 1: day we ever need to pull the principal. My team,
Speaker 1: I normally don't answer. I normally don't go with the
Speaker 1: scripted questions. I go with my gut and my feeling
Speaker 1: with my interviews. But my team put together, Kevin Bousche
Speaker 1: and others a really good series of questions, and let
Speaker 1: me get into.
Speaker 4: Some of these questions, and then you can answer.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna do two at a time,
Speaker 1: answer whatever one you like. When you first question number one,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do first two of the time. When you
Speaker 1: advise families over time, over time horizons, what patterns have
Speaker 1: you seen attend to or road wealth over generations, and
Speaker 1: what practices most reliably build financial resilience.
Speaker 4: Now hold on to that one for a minute. Number two.
Speaker 4: Rockefeller is a.
Speaker 1: Name associated with legacy wealth in today's economy. What should
Speaker 1: first generational wealth builders understand more than anything of if
Speaker 1: they want to create something that lasts for their children
Speaker 1: and grandchildren. So tackle either one of those you want.
Speaker 5: I'll take them in order.
Speaker 3: The families that have created wealth that's lasted for generations,
Speaker 3: they really do a lot of things that are similar,
Speaker 3: and the ones that don't. Even if John they start
Speaker 3: with the same amount of money, makes some of the
Speaker 3: same mistakes. The ones that fail to do that. There
Speaker 3: are patterns on each side. So the ones that tend
Speaker 3: to you know, accumulate assets and then you know, erode
Speaker 3: to wealth tend to not really have a plan for
Speaker 3: what they want to do over the longer run. They
Speaker 3: also might think this is always going to go on
Speaker 3: and I can always make more. They might react to
Speaker 3: swings in the market, and you and I have seen
Speaker 3: this for so long. Something gets hot and they chase it,
Speaker 3: and then they make a mistake and they lose a
Speaker 3: lot of money. You know, they don't have a long
Speaker 3: term plan that they stick with.
Speaker 5: And then there are.
Speaker 3: Other families like yours. You're intentional at this point in
Speaker 3: your career. You're intentional about what you want to do
Speaker 3: with your wealth already through the generations. So the intention
Speaker 3: is just so important, and the recognition that it's very
Speaker 3: hard to create the wealth. You know, I look at
Speaker 3: so many different people over the years, and you know,
Speaker 3: wealth comes with a lot of hard work in a
Speaker 3: lot of cases. You want to treat that like a
Speaker 3: little nest egg when you get it, and then do
Speaker 3: the appropriate planning, stick to the plan on a discipline basis,
Speaker 3: and allow those future generations to say, John Hope Brian,
Speaker 3: you know, he seemed like an incredible person and I'm
Speaker 3: attending ex University in twenty one seventy where my tuitions
Speaker 3: covered because of him. Yeah, that's an intention upfront. And
Speaker 3: you know there are families that go in the other
Speaker 3: direction and then the wealth is eroded too early and
Speaker 3: they're not able to achieve things like that. So I
Speaker 3: really think that's the big difference there on the first
Speaker 3: generation wealth builders. What I would say is, you know,
Speaker 3: find somebody who's got expertise in this.
Speaker 5: You know, we obviously do. You know, I won't be
Speaker 5: so immodest to say we're the only ones.
Speaker 3: A lot of the tools that John Rockefeller Senior use
Speaker 3: to help take wealth, and it was a lot of wealth,
Speaker 3: but again without great planning, it wouldn't still be here.
Speaker 5: A lot of the tools are.
Speaker 3: Available, and John, you were referencing this before in the
Speaker 3: tax code, you know, there are things you can do
Speaker 3: by putting wealth in trust where that wealth can stay
Speaker 3: protected for generations down the line, as opposed to necessarily
Speaker 3: going through in a state tax, which today is still
Speaker 3: north of fifty percent. You know, if you put the
Speaker 3: wealth into a trust when it's got a low basis.
Speaker 5: You know, we don't have to.
Speaker 3: Go through all the particulars today. There are there's smart
Speaker 3: planning that you can do that's still available. So for
Speaker 3: first generation wealth builders, you know, find the expertise and
Speaker 3: start putting the plan together so that you can protect
Speaker 3: as much of the wealth.
Speaker 5: And by the way, this is the government set.
Speaker 3: These rules up. I'm not you know, these are the
Speaker 3: tax roles. This is all within the tax rules. You know,
Speaker 3: there are ways to take a fortune that's made by
Speaker 3: a family and help sustain it on a longer term basis.
Speaker 3: It does require, you know, you to take assets and
Speaker 3: wealth and take it away from the current generation maybe
Speaker 3: the next one. But that's what a lot of family protected.
Speaker 3: You know, that's what a lot of families want to do.
Speaker 3: You want to do that. I want to do that.
Speaker 3: You know, I've used the example a couple of times.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I feel profoundly about is
Speaker 3: education because for me, education was the ticket and from
Speaker 3: my father and it is still for so many people
Speaker 3: in this in this country. And as I said, I
Speaker 3: go back to Yale Law School, I see some of
Speaker 3: the kids in these classes and they have come from
Speaker 3: a very difficult spot sometimes not unlike.
Speaker 5: Where you did all the way to ye law school.
Speaker 5: And it's all the education.
Speaker 3: So I want to make sure that you know some
Speaker 3: of the wealth that I've created is there for education
Speaker 3: to give the people.
Speaker 5: That are following me. And it could be one hundred
Speaker 5: years from now.
Speaker 3: You know the keys to be able to go out
Speaker 3: and do it on their own. So first generation wealth builders,
Speaker 3: and you know a lot so many of them, John,
Speaker 3: should know that there are tools available for them to
Speaker 3: create a legacy for generations if they want to do that.
Speaker 1: We've got Yes, thank you so much for the great
Speaker 1: that was brilliant and right on target. We get talked
Speaker 1: for another hour. We got six minutes of five minutes.
Speaker 1: But we'll do this again. Let me in with this
Speaker 1: last double set of questions. We got many more. We'll
Speaker 1: come back and do another session on this.
Speaker 4: But as I t of.
Speaker 1: These next questions, I'm going to also give you give
Speaker 1: the audience a personal perspective, and I want the audience
Speaker 1: to think, well, John Brian never makes a mistake. He's
Speaker 1: the financial literacy guru somebo or whatever they call me.
Speaker 1: You know, we've created financial literacy policy under three US presidents.
Speaker 1: It's We've got the building renamed in the White House campus.
Speaker 1: We made financial legency policy for the US. I'm still
Speaker 1: not trying to get it down in the Congress, but anyway,
Speaker 1: but I still make mistakes.
Speaker 4: I still screw up.
Speaker 1: And one of the things I try to really warn people,
Speaker 1: particularly in times like now, is stay away from shiny, bleaning.
Speaker 4: Stuff that says this is easy. Nothing's easy. You're going
Speaker 4: to get this easy quick fast.
Speaker 1: I said, that's almost a guaranteed recipe whatever it is
Speaker 1: for disaster.
Speaker 4: And so here are a couple of questions.
Speaker 1: A lot of people here wealth management, and assume it's
Speaker 1: only for the ultra high net worth individual. What are
Speaker 1: the core principles used by wealthy families that entrepreneurs and
Speaker 1: professionals can apply right now as they're growing and.
Speaker 4: To know this is for them.
Speaker 1: Also, because I build all my stuff, all my companies,
Speaker 1: all my institutions, I build it with the future in mind.
Speaker 4: My institution build it from day one.
Speaker 1: My family office with you is going to be multiple
Speaker 1: times the size of where we are now because I'm
Speaker 1: in my earning period and I'm really a lot of
Speaker 1: people coming to you and they were in their retirement period.
Speaker 1: I'm in my own arning periods was a different mindset,
Speaker 1: but you build it. I built my stuff for where
Speaker 1: I'm going, not where I am or where I came from.
Speaker 1: Number Two, you've seen markets in boom times, crisis and recovery.
Speaker 1: When markets are noisy, What is the framework for staying
Speaker 1: discipline and how do you help your clients navigate the uncertainty?
Speaker 1: These two questions in any way you want to attack them.
Speaker 3: Well, that's the two things i'd say here. One is
Speaker 3: I've been at this now for thirty eight years. There
Speaker 3: there are always challenges in the market. There are plenty today.
Speaker 3: Almost every point in my career, people feel like today
Speaker 3: seems worse than it's ever been. The reality is there's
Speaker 3: just always a lot of challenges. I mean, I've lived
Speaker 3: through so much. I was the president of Merrilyn during
Speaker 3: the credit crisis. We had to sell it. Lots of
Speaker 3: things happen all the time. It is a big little
Speaker 3: world with a lot of human beings pushing in a
Speaker 3: lot of different directions, and things happen, and you know,
Speaker 3: look at the world that we're in today. But that's
Speaker 3: generally been the case. You know, one of the things
Speaker 3: I joke about is you know a lot of people
Speaker 3: will talk about the good old days. The reality is,
Speaker 3: whenever you live, there were no good old days. There
Speaker 3: were challenges no matter when you were alive. Like it's
Speaker 3: only through the lens of history where we're like, well,
Speaker 3: that seemed like, you know, the good old days, but
Speaker 3: there were a whole set of challenges in those days
Speaker 3: if you actually live them. So you've got to do
Speaker 3: exactly what you just laid out, John, which is there's
Speaker 3: going to be things happening in the exogenous world. There's
Speaker 3: going to be all kinds of different market moves and shocks.
Speaker 3: You want to get professional advice, if your first generation,
Speaker 3: you want to get professional advice. One of the greatest
Speaker 3: things having professional advice does is putting a plan in
Speaker 3: place and sticking with it and staying away from things
Speaker 3: like what you said, John, this is going to make
Speaker 3: you wealthy really quickly. I've got something that you can't miss.
Speaker 3: There's so many of these lines that I've watched over
Speaker 3: the years. These are all openers for stay away from it,
Speaker 3: don't do it. You want to have a plan with
Speaker 3: somebody who does this for a living and who does
Speaker 3: it all the time. And then you want to stick
Speaker 3: with that plan and let because the professionals their job
Speaker 3: when things get difficult, like in the beginning of twenty
Speaker 3: two or you know, whatever is happening today, is to say, wait,
Speaker 3: we've got a good plan. We can tweak it at
Speaker 3: the margin, but we don't want to change it.
Speaker 5: They are paid to do that.
Speaker 3: It's just like anything else you go for advice on,
Speaker 3: you generally want to take the advice of the professional
Speaker 3: who's doing it all the time. You tee that up
Speaker 3: perfectly because it's always going to be volatile.
Speaker 5: I never do an interview.
Speaker 3: It's rarely, you know, if I go on TV or
Speaker 3: I'm doing a podcast or something, or I'm giving a speech,
Speaker 3: rarely is it against the backdrop or I don't have
Speaker 3: to say. I have to think about what's going on
Speaker 3: all the different things that are going on in the
Speaker 3: world that are creating volatility. You know, my team's like, well,
Speaker 3: they might ask you about this and this. There's never
Speaker 3: a time when they say there's nothing they could ask
Speaker 3: you about because.
Speaker 5: The world is always volatile.
Speaker 3: So you want to have the professional you want to
Speaker 3: put in place of plan with them, and you want
Speaker 3: to stick with it.
Speaker 4: So we could talk forever.
Speaker 1: I'm going to respect your time and let you go
Speaker 1: and make some more money so we can have some
Speaker 1: time to talk about how to pass the wealth on.
Speaker 1: I would like you to think about when we come back,
Speaker 1: not I don't want. I don't want you to think
Speaker 1: about the questions. I'm going to ask you now that
Speaker 1: we've done this together. Your brain and your heart are
Speaker 1: so interconnected for good. Think about what you think this
Speaker 1: audience would love, would benefit from hearing, and let's have
Speaker 1: that conversation. You are a decent, caring, thoughtful human being,
Speaker 1: and as the CEO of Rockefeller Capital Management, that gives
Speaker 1: me great hope and belief and trust that your team
Speaker 1: feels the same. It's a guy who works you name Outlaw?
Speaker 4: Is it Outlaw? Yeah? What a great name. Another great
Speaker 4: human being like I really.
Speaker 1: Just and all the women who are there, because I
Speaker 1: haven't mentioned any females names, but there are a lot
Speaker 1: of women there I've met. Also, the place is very diverse,
Speaker 1: and thebversy on your board of directors and even think
Speaker 1: about that. Thank you very much for this time, Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us for money and wealth, and I hope
Speaker 1: the Oddan's got half of the encouragement in wealth of
Speaker 1: knowledge that I have from sitting with you. Michael is
Speaker 1: in Michael and Michael. The Michaels are lucky to work
Speaker 1: for a guy that's as humble and strong as Greg Fleming.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us on Money and
Speaker 1: Will John.
Speaker 5: It was a pleasure. It's great to see you. Thank
Speaker 5: you so much. Okay, take care.
Speaker 1: All right, God bless Money and Wealth with John O'Brien
Speaker 1: is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For
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