When a family office runs into a problem that money cannot solve, the issue is almost always family dynamics, and most often, sibling rivalry. The financial advisors inside these offices are brilliant at what they are trained to do. But family relationships are a different discipline entirely, and when they get stickier, even the most capable professionals reach for the phone.
I am the person on the other end of that call. Over nearly fifty years, I have been invited into some of the most delicate situations a family can face. And the single most important thing I bring, above and beyond anything else, is that no one ever has to know I was there.
Why a family office calls me
The reason anyone in a family office contacts me is discretion. Complete, absolute confidentiality. Unless a client chooses to talk about our work, no one will ever know who I have worked with or where I have been. If you have not lived inside that world, it is hard to appreciate how essential that is. These are people for whom privacy is not a preference. It is a requirement.
The advisors who run family offices develop extraordinary relationships with the families they serve. They are trained in the financial structure, the science of it, the beauty of it. What they are not trained in is the intricacy of family dynamics. And there is nothing more sacred in this life than those dynamics. So when things get complicated, they face a genuine dilemma: they want to help, but this is not their expertise, and the stakes could not be more personal.
It almost always comes down to one thing
It gets complicated, but underneath, it is very basic. Nearly every situation I am invited into boils down to one theme, and one theme only: sibling rivalry. The particulars change. There is often significant wealth involved, prenuptial agreements, marriages and the unwinding of them, decisions a family office needs approved. But strip away the specifics and you find the same ancient pattern, playing out between people who happen to have a great deal at stake.
The advisor's instinct is usually right: get people communicating again, help them see the other person's point of view, and get clear on what the actual end game is. That is exactly the work. And it is delicate, always, because people call me when they are in trouble. When people are in trouble, they are distressed. They are not thinking as clearly or feeling as comfortable as they normally would. My job is to meet them there and move them forward.
How you introduce a strategist without scaring anyone
When a family office professional decides to bring me in, the first thing we do together is choreograph the introduction. What you never say is, "We think we need to bring in a psychologist." Do not say that. The moment a family hears "mental health workup," the door closes.
Here is what I tell people to say instead. I have worked as a strategist for most of my life. I am a doctor of psychology, yes, but I am not a therapist. I am a strategist. What I do is look at the dynamics, look at what everyone says the problem is, and then look underneath that to find the solutions, which is tricky, but they always present themselves.
This is strategy, not therapy
That distinction matters, and it is not a matter of semantics. We are not going back over old stories to talk about them again and again. Those are behind us. We focus on what is happening right here, right now. In that first conversation, we had better make significant progress, and we do. By the time people come to me, they do not want to waste a single moment.
My psychology background is what makes the strategy work. When you understand how people think, how they act, and the patterns they repeat, you can help them come back together and get what they need to get done. It is deeply therapeutic in its effect, because people talk through what they are carrying. But the frame is different. There is always an end game.
The same pressure shows up in peer groups like Tiger 21
It is not only families. Organizations built for high-net-worth individuals face a version of the same challenge. Tiger 21 is a beautiful example, created by one man who understood from his own experience of great wealth how important it is to build a safe environment for people at that level.
When you have significant net worth and you walk into a room that is not exclusive to your standing, you become self-conscious. You wonder whether people are talking to you because they know how deep your pockets are. In a group like Tiger 21, you have to meet a threshold to be invited, and you are carefully screened, so you know you are safe. But human nature does not switch off. There is still competition, still ego, still self-awareness. People get tangled up. And when the president of a chapter sees it starting, they reach out, because they do not want it to spread through the group. That is the right instinct, and it is the same work: find the solution underneath the problem, quietly.
Watch the conversation
I recently sat down with Jess Todtfeld to talk through all of this in more depth. You can watch the full conversation here.
What people walk away with
The most beautiful thing people take from this work is a feeling: I am actually okay. They gain insight into how they landed where they were, and the awareness, in their mind, their heart, and their gut, that they can move forward. As a matter of fact, they know they can. And they know they have a resource in their back pocket they can reach out to, because I make myself genuinely available to everyone I work with.
That is the whole point. Not to relitigate the past, but to help capable people, under real pressure, find their footing and their way forward, without anyone ever having to know they needed the help.