Purposeful Planning Podcast

What happens when you finally reach the life you worked so hard to build, and find you don’t quite know how to live in it? In this episode of the Purposeful Planning Institute podcast, host Lauren Ferrara talks with wealth psychologist Dr. Jim Grubman, author of Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations, and clinical psychologist and financial therapist Dr. Huong Diep. They explore the hidden emotional side of wealth. Using Jim’s metaphor of wealth creators as “immigrants” and their children as “natives,” they look at why arriving doesn’t always feel like arriving and the three patterns people fall into as they adapt to wealth. They also discuss how wealth can strain ties to family and community, and why the most valuable thing to pass down may be decision-making rather than money. Huong brings her perspective as the child of Vietnamese refugees and as a child psychologist, covering how to raise resilient kids, how social media affects families, and how to honor your roots while building a new relationship with wealth. They close with the one question every advisor should be asking families, and Jim previews the upcoming second edition of Strangers in Paradise.

What is family systems theory, and why should advisors care? In this episode of the PPI 101 Podcast Series, family legacy coach Steve Legler hosts Dr. Charles Eckhart, PPI's Dean of Family Dynamics, Systems Theory, and Relationships and leader of the Family Systems Theory Learning Circle. Charles traces family systems thinking to its roots in mid-20th-century family therapy, then shows how it gives advisors a new way to understand clients who seem stuck. The conversation centers on three foundational concepts: wholeness and interdependence, or seeing the family as a connected unit rather than a group of individuals; circular causality, the idea that family conflicts have many contributing causes instead of one "problem" person; and homeostasis, the tendency of families to resist change even when everyone wants to move forward. A familiar case anchors the discussion: parents waiting for their rising generation to "show they're ready" before discussing wealth, while the next generation puts off major life decisions until they know more. Charles also offers three practical questions advisors can use to shift into a systems lens, and recommends Nichols and Schwartz's Family Therapy: Concepts and Methods as a starting point for further reading.

In this episode of the Purposeful Planning podcast , host Susan Bradley sits down with Dr. Moira Somers to discuss her book The Fault Lines of Finance: Understanding and Preventing Financial Misconduct. The conversation centers on what Dr. Somers calls "misguided helpers": well-meaning financial advisors, family office professionals, and other wealth advisors who inadvertently cross ethical lines not out of malice, but out of an overwhelming desire to be useful to clients navigating difficult transitions like divorce, illness, or loss. Dr. Somers unpacks how discomfort avoidance, empathic overreach, and a false sense of urgency fuel scope creep, and she offers practical strategies for catching these patterns before they cause harm, including pausing to ask whether one is truly the best-suited person for a task, building peer communities where advisors can safely surface their hardest and most emotionally charged cases, and treating attention to one's own personal life and well-being as an ethical safeguard rather than a luxury. The episode closes with a call for moral humility and moral courage, encouraging PPI's community of heart-centered professionals to recognize their own vulnerabilities and non-negotiables so they can serve families well without losing themselves in the process.

In the premiere episode of the PPI 101 podcast series, sponsored by the Merrill Center for Family Wealth, host Steve Legler sits down with Valerie Galinskaya, Managing Director and Head of the Merrill Center for Family Wealth, to explore what "rising generation" really means and why it matters for family wealth advisors. Valerie explains that the term is intentionally inclusive, spanning anyone from an 11-year-old to a rising generation member in her 60s, and shares research showing that nearly half of ultra-high-net-worth families now share financial decision-making across two or more generations, with limited governance and unclear expectations cited as the biggest challenges. Drawing on real client stories, she outlines a three-part approach to engaging the rising generation, listening without judgment, helping them build relevant skills, and ensuring advisory teams reflect the perspectives of those they serve, while offering practical language advisors can use to earn buy-in from skeptical parents. The conversation makes the case that understanding the rising generation isn't just good practice but essential to serving families well amid an estimated $124 trillion wealth transfer underway through 2048.

In this episode of the Purposeful Planning Podcast, hosted by Karen McNeill, PPI's Dean of Family Stories, History, and Culture, featuring award-winning filmmaker Debbie Brodsky (founder of DMB Pictures) and Dave Goetz (co-founder of Journey 66), the conversation explores why capturing family legacy stories matters for family wealth management, when families tend to undertake these projects (aging founders, generational transitions, milestones, succession moments), and how the deep, trust-based relationships legacy experts build with clients offer a model advisors can learn from. Debbie and Dave share practical skills like genuine curiosity, active listening, comfort with silence, and asking unexpected questions that help advisors uncover the stories, values, and human details that deepen client relationships and support well-being across generations.

In this episode of the Purposeful Planning Podcast, host Andy Stubblefield sits down with Buddy Thomas, founder of the Super Plan Family Wealth group of companies and PPI's newly appointed Dean of Financial Advising and Wealth Planning, to explore how 40+ years in the profession led him to reframe wealth as the fusion of love, wisdom, and money. Buddy shares the story behind his "family fiduciary" concept, why coordinating specialists around the human side of a family matters as much as the technical side, and how AI is accelerating the need to fuse EQ and IQ in advising, offering candid takeaways for advisors navigating where the profession is headed.

What is the other 95% of your foundation's capital doing while the 5% does the giving? In this episode, Courtney Joyner-Gage sits down with Lauren Sercu, co-founder and managing partner of Sorensen Impact Advisory, to trace the Sorensen Impact Foundation's journey to a 100% mission-aligned portfolio — replacing over 30 investment managers while pursuing market-rate returns. Lauren breaks down the continuum of capital from pure philanthropy to catalytic and market-rate impact investing, shares practical first steps like values-screened direct indexing, and explains why grant dollars remain irreplaceable for the work markets won't fund. She also offers hard-won advice on facilitating family values conversations across generations. Her parting challenge: your capital is already making a statement about what you value — the only question is whether that statement is intentional. NOTE:This podcast is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalized advice from Sorenson Impact Advisory. Nothing discussed in this episode constitutes a recommendation, offer, or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Certain statements made during this episode are forward-looking in nature, including descriptions of anticipated investment outcomes, expected portfolio characteristics, and potential benefits of specific strategies. SIA believes such statements are based on reasonable assumptions, but forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain and actual results may differ materially from those described. Undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. The discussion of tax-loss harvesting describes a potential feature of direct indexing for investors with taxable accounts. Tax outcomes depend on each investor's individual tax situation and cannot be predicted or guaranteed. SIA does not provide legal or tax advice. Please consult a qualified legal or tax professional before implementing any strategy discussed in this episode. Tax-loss harvesting involves the realization of losses and does not guarantee a net tax benefit. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, including the possible loss of money invested. Past performance and past investment decisions described in this episode are not indicative of future results, and it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy discussed will be profitable. There can be no assurance that investment objectives will be achieved. Registration with the SEC does not imply a certain level of skill or training.

In this episode of the Purposeful Planning Podcast, host Andy Stubblefield sits down with Jeff Savlov and Garrett Wells to explore what it really looks like to collaborate through conflict in complex family systems. Drawing from a real-world engagement involving a strained trustee-beneficiary relationship between a mother and daughter, Jeff and Garrett reflect on the challenges of stepping into a high-stakes collaboration as new partners navigating emotional tension, unclear expectations, and evolving client needs. Together, they unpack themes of ego, economics, and expectations, highlighting the importance of humility, communication, role clarity, and staying within one’s expertise while serving families in moments of transition. Through honest reflection on both the successes and disappointments of the engagement, this conversation offers practical insight for advisors seeking to collaborate more effectively across disciplines in support of families and their long-term well-being.

In this episode of the PPI Podcast, host Steve Legler sits down with Dr. Ed Shapiro, former longtime CEO and Medical Director of the Austen Riggs Center and author of Finding a Place to Stand. Dr. Shapiro walks through what makes Riggs unlike any other psychiatric setting — an open campus, intensive psychotherapy, a therapeutic community, and real roles in the surrounding town — all built around the conviction that patients are competent adults who can take charge of their own lives once they find the language for what they've been carrying. The conversation then turns to the families PPI members serve. Dr. Shapiro unpacks the "designated patient" — what PPI founder John A. Warnick calls the "designated difficult one" — and explains how significant wealth can quietly stall the development of agency in rising-generation heirs, why behavior is best understood as communication rather than something to simply suppress, and how a sibling "family champion" is often the one who first reaches out for help. For advisors, he offers direct guidance: don't try to fix the family, resist the urge to call a break when emotions spike, and recognize the red flags that signal a family's struggle has moved beyond consulting or mediation into territory that calls for deeper clinical work.

What role do mistakes play in effective advising—and how can they become a catalyst for deeper learning and better outcomes? In this episode of the Purposeful Planning Podcast, Kathy Wiseman and Natalie McVeigh explore how missteps in systems work, client referrals, and family meetings can serve as powerful opportunities for growth. Kathy shares her personal journey of reframing mistakes, emphasizing transparency, clarity, and the importance of helping clients build their own problem-solving capacity rather than over-functioning as advisors. Together, they discuss creative approaches to engaging families—from experiential exercises to rethinking meeting dynamics—and offer a fresh perspective on what defines success: not perfection, but the creation of curiosity, openness, and possibility within complex family systems.