Family Business & Money

Family Business With Purdeep Sangha

So I am super excited to have Julia Chung here, CEO of Spring Planning. We're going to be talking about some interesting topics here, but mainly around the three things that we don't typically associate with money. So we're going to be talking about money, family business, families.
How do you make more money?
How do you plan for it?
So, Julia, welcome to our show. Thank you so much, Pradeep. It's really exciting to be here. I'm glad that you want to talk about things like this. Not everybody actually wants to talk about money. Everybody wants more money. Now we're going to we're going to be talking about all the things that we don't really think about when it when, you know, when the conversations about money come up.
Yeah, well, people think it's this like concrete thing, right?
You know, a lot of times when I talk to people, they're like, oh, well, money.
You know, it's just it's simple. It's concrete. It's like math. And I was like, I always think about in the 90s, there's this big thing about chaos, math and chaos theory. And and all the things that you could do with it. You could even make pictures out of it.
Like, that's really what we're dealing with when it comes to money. It's the super abstract thing. It's not just math.
So how did you get involved in money?
How did you get to doing what you're doing right now?
Well, I I actually had started out going to art school. I was going to be a starving artist and. And then I unexpectedly started a family and I thought, oh, I should learn how to do something. So I took some business administration programs because my mom was a professor of business administration. It was already something I knew really well.
And and I applied at an investment counseling firm and started there just at the front desk, working with people in a customer service basis and just worked my way up through the ranks. And ended up in a senior advisory position, owning my own firm.
Yeah, that's pretty cool. And your firm is well known. So for those of you who don't know, we're both Canadian. I'm on the more of the eastern side in Ontario, close to Toronto.
And Julia, you're in you can say Vancouver, right?
Vancouver ish.
Yeah, Vancouver ish. But for the Americans out there, yeah, Vancouver.
And and Vancouver is a beautiful city, right?
You know, everybody talks about Toronto, but my heart goes out to Vancouver for sure. It is it is. It's a little city, but it's really pretty.
Yeah, exactly. And your firm. So the whole point of that is I know I went on the segue is that your firm is well known for what you do. I've talked to a number of people, especially in the family business space. And that's kind of the realm that we're going to be talking about here in today's conversation is family, families who own businesses, people that have wealth.
And how do they really manage those two areas or three areas that we're going to be talking about here?
But everybody I talked to within the space had amazing things to say about you.
Oh, that's so nice.
So, you know, you're a person I reached out to and I said, OK, I got to get to know Juliet. Because for me, it's important to have good people that know their stuff.
Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Nowhere without a network of people you can, you know, connect with and connect your clients with. Yeah. So maybe you could just give us a quick rundown in terms of how you help people, how you help families and family businesses. Yeah.
Well, my my my business is really built around being a consulting practice. So we call our planning advice only because so much of the world of finance is built around providing very specific like implementation services, whether it's managing your wealth or providing insurance products or doing your taxes or any of those things. Even like legal services, writing up your wills and your documents. We don't do any of that.
And we really focus on what is what is it?
What are we doing to get from whatever point we're at right now to the place that we want to go?
So it's, you know, primarily we call it financial planning in lots of ways, because we use that technical expertise that we have around finances and law and tax and all that kind of stuff to help people get from here to there.
But it's really about taking a look at that big picture and recognizing that in a lot of cases, most of us have these individual experts who are so good at doing the deep dive in their own area.
You know, I'm not going to help put some put some of these tax filing together.
I'm not going to draw up their shareholders agreement, but I'm going to help them think about all of those things in the context of them as individuals and their families and their businesses and really understand how this action over here in this area of expertise connects with that action over there in that area of expertise and how we make decisions within that context while we're still focusing on what our family needs and goals are.
Yeah, that's very interesting. And so you're so I use the term family business or business families. And you and I are both family enterprise advisors, but I'm not a big fan of the term family enterprise. And I that's just my personal opinion, because no one uses it really.
Yeah, most people talk about family business.
So this area of family business and and what you do, what kind of trends are you seeing right now?
Have you seen a shift in terms of planning, like wealth planning and family business?
Yeah, so much. And I mean, there's this demographic shift that we knew was kind of happening where we're having like that baby boomer generation just transitioning into the next stage of their lives where they're saying, well, maybe I want to move on from being the leader of my business or get into those golden years where I'm spending more time with grandchildren and leisurely stuff and that kind of thing.
But I feel like that was accelerated with the pandemic. So a lot of people talk about the great resignation during the pandemic. And if you look at the statistics, we had very strongly a great retirement. There was a lot of people who were just like, oh, right.
Well, I'm hitting the exit button right now. This is just I'm done. I don't I don't have the wherewithal for this. And so I think we've seen that shift just accelerate really, really strongly. A lot of people coming out for planning and saying, hey, you know what this made me think this pandemic experience made me think about my own mortality.
In a very powerful way and, you know, concentrated me into what do I actually want out of my life?
I spent however long in my house with whoever lives there with me. And it made me realize that there's really some stuff that I need and want in my life and there's stuff I super don't. And it just changed perspectives a lot. So people are coming with lots of questions that I think are more lifestyle and purpose centric than they had been in the past. Interesting.
And are you seeing a lot of transitions as well to the next generation?
So many like that's a really big part of it, right?
We're seeing that those transitions happening, like those family members who were in leadership positions who were thinking, well, actually, maybe I don't want to spend the rest of my life behind this desk or on that phone. And I have to figure out a way to get that down to the next generation. Or I saw through this difficult period, my next generation family member really stepping up in a particular way.
And I was like, oh, wow, they're ready. Look at them in a crisis. So this all these combinations of things have created a lot of change for people.
OK, so let's get into this. Let's talk about money.
So what do you typically see when it comes to families, family businesses and money?
Like, what are you do you see some common challenges?
Do you see some common trends?
What are some things that that you need to address right away?
I know we're going to get into the three things we don't typically associate with it.
But for the family business owners out there watching, what are what are some things that are very important for them to know?
Well, I think the key things, the questions that they're at least addressing when they first come in to see me is very often like I have these structures.
And, you know, I've got these business structures, I've got these trust structures or I've got, you know, wealth sitting in real estate or it's sitting in these accounts that have embedded gains or their stuff in different countries. And I'm realizing that it's going to have to move. Something's going to have to move in some particular way, because the next step in my life looks like this, whatever this is.
And this structure in this system doesn't fit for that.
So that's kind of the first concern is often that and then the next one is very often like, how do I transition that money to the next generation?
Of course, there's concerns about things like taxes and that kind of stuff.
But of course, there's also concerns about are they ready for it?
I didn't actually ever tell them how much money there really is or, you know, or or maybe, you know, I have real concerns about whether or not this person in the next generation is going to do a good job with it. Or if it's going to, you know, make them unwell in some way, shape or form.
Or I have some specific desires about how things are going to be distributed between different family members. And I think that one's going to be real upset about how this goes down and all of those things.
So are those the conversations like how do you facilitate those types of conversations, especially when the people that are involved in the transition or transition?
Or transfer wealth aren't even there, maybe in your office?
Well, and that's really the thing that I want to broach first and foremost with these families is we need to find a way to communicate.
And and that that feels really uncomfortable, right?
It's not like I'm going to be like, hey, let's all sit down in my office and you're going to bring out your net worth statement or you're like, hey, kids, this is what's happening now. That feels uncomfortable.
So what's a safe way to do this?
And are the kids ready for that conversation?
And how do we know?
So there's a lot of sort of just getting to know this family member and then getting them comfortable with the idea like, hey, maybe we can introduce another family member and let's have a collective conversation and just getting to know.
And then I'll have a one to one with each family member and just try to build that safety for them so they can feel like, oh, OK, I can I can talk about this. And I might say something that if all my family members were there, would might hurt somebody else's feelings in the way that I say it.
But I could maybe say it to Julia and she can find a way to capture the theme of it that you're not trying to hurt somebody, but that we're still trying to get from here to here.
So how do we talk about it inside our family system?
And how do we create how do we create the kind of pathway that we need to get from here to here where everybody kind of has their needs met?
And I think within all families, we take shorthand about each other. We make some assumptions.
You know, if you were my brother, it'd be like, oh, pretty. Yeah.
Oh, he's not interested in this money stuff.
Of course, I don't bother him about it. I'll just I'll just take care of it. And you'd be like, wait a minute. That's not me. That's not the person I am. I might not have been interested in money stuff when I was 10 and playing basketball in the backyard, but you've not recognized the person I am today.
And so it's it's hard for us to not recognize that we're doing that within our own families. Right. We always we do that. You take shorthand with people. And so what I try to do is just be that objective person who's able to pull that information out of each person and then find a way to bring it together within the family. So we can actually flesh out what's important, what's really important.
Are we actually heading in the same direction?
How do we need to talk to each other so that we can create a plan that does work and doesn't upset the Alpaca too much?
And how long does that typically take from your experience to create that plan?
Well, it really the financial plan is the answer is always it depends. But it really does.
It really depends on how many people are in the family system, right?
We're talking about how many people are going to be affected because it's like, OK, how many meetings are we going to have?
What's the current prevailing kind of temperature with the family?
Are they in a place where they're like, oh, yeah, like really good. We're all on the same page with how we talk to each other. Everybody in the family's done therapy. I've had a couple of families like that. And that process can take as long as schedules work out, just a couple of months to go through pretty quickly.
But if we have other concerns that will make it harder for us to communicate well, just whether there's lots of people, logistics are difficult or whether there's some real serious problems within the family system. And maybe I would bring in somebody who's like a registered clinical counselor who's going to help us with that communication. That might take longer. You just bring up a really interesting scenario there.
So it sounds like you've had instances where you have to bring in another professional when it comes to communication to be able to bridge some of these gaps, you can say, or relationship challenges.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, I'm not a mental health professional and, you know, there are people, all people have mental health issues at some point in their lives.
And, you know, in a family system, there's a good chance that somebody in a family is having one right now. And that may make it really difficult for them to have a healthy conversation and for that mental health challenge to impact the planning.
And so how do we create that space for getting the planning done while we're protecting all the people within it from the person who's having the mental health challenge to the people who are affected by it?
So what's the right way?
And I think it's really important, you know, like if there's a legal issue to deal with, I'm going to bring in a lawyer because I'm not a lawyer. And if there's a mental health challenge, I'm going to bring in a mental health professional. So let's get into those three things that people might not expect to talk about.
I think you alluded to one of them already, which is the family side, right?
But so what are the three things that people don't expect to talk about when they come in to talk to you?
Oh, the biggest one that I always surprise people about is that we talk about values a lot. And I dig into it pretty hard. Like a lot of times when if you ask somebody who's even thought about this a little bit, they might say, oh, yeah, my values are, you know, whatever this, this and this.
I might have a value of integrity or I might have a value of community or something like that.
And so I say, well, how did you arrive at that value?
What does that mean?
How would you define it?
And then people get a little bit lost. So thankfully, there are some great systems and exercises we can use to really bring that out and figure out what's what is important to me as a person, what's going to be valuable to me. And the one of the systems that I use when they talk about values, we talk about different types of values that fit within different types of activities.
So there's like vision values, which are the things that inspire and motivate us. There's foundation values, which are the things that, like, if I don't have these, I'm just not OK.
Like, I'm not going to be able to move forward in anything at all. And then there's like the focus values. And these are the things like I live every single day. This is this is how I express myself.
And if I know that about me and then I can learn that about my other family members and then we can get together and talk about, well, us collectively as a family would agree that if we didn't have this foundational value of, say, financial stability that comes up a fair bit or intimacy, just being able to share and trust each other, if we don't have that as a family, we're not even be able to have conversations.
So that's something that's helpful for me to know to help bring the family together around the things that we're talking about. So I very often take them through this process where we do that individual values assessment and then we do a family values kind of process coming to agreement.
What are those family values?
What do they mean to us?
And a lot of families are like, we're going to talk about money at some point, right?
Because, like, that's why we brought you in and we've actually been talking about money the whole time, because money is inherently emotional.
It is an abstract concept, right?
It's a piece of paper, some coins, some numbers on a screen. It's not a real thing. It has the value we assign to it. And not only that kind of like currency value, it's got the value of meaning for us as individuals.
And so that's why money so hard and business is so hard within family members, because it has a meaning and has a cultural meaning in the context of your family culture. And we need to know what that is in order to know how to make decisions about it as a group.
Yeah, I think what you just said is so critical and so important because we have this perception, a lot of people and even the founding generation, for example, they don't want their kids to be entitled. When you talk about money and people say money corrupts, the point that you outlined, I think, is very important. It's not necessarily the money. It's the meaning of the money.
It's the values that people hold when it comes to money. For some people, it's power. For some people, it's influence. For some people, it's contribution, helping other individuals. For some people, it's safety. For some people, it's meaning. And so identifying what that is underlying is so important.
And I can't thank you enough for bringing that up because that is so critical for just any human being to understand because I see so many people running towards money, not understanding what it is that they want once they get the money. Because once they get the money, there's so many people that get confused and they're still in that same position. They're striving towards having the money.
They're desperately doing everything that they can to get the money. And I've seen families fall apart, just like I'm sure you have, because everybody's going after the money. But they have the money and they're still feeling the same. And they didn't realize what the underlying... Or worse.
Yeah, or worse. Now they've destroyed family relationships. So this is interesting because it sounds like the conversation around values allows you to have a more effective alignment and structure for people to get on the same page, to talk about, then I'm assuming the more tactical aspects. Absolutely.
Because if we say, if we as a family have agreed that we've got the same foundational value of financial stability and we've got a focus value of community, and then we know if we're making a decision about our money, then we have to first secure the financial stability in order for everybody to just feel okay. And let's create that first.
And then the next thing that we're doing, what are we doing with our money that creates community, whether it's within our family or outside of it?
And how do we define that?
And I am thinking of a specific family, actually, because those are two of their values that we worked on. And so when they're making decisions about how to use family assets or even individual assets, they really connect with, oh, well, that's a community thing. That's something we do as the community of our family. These family events we do two or three times a year are really important.
So we're going to put money towards that. Or giving to charity is really important. So we're going to make sure that our foundation gets this much of it. The business we're building has to have a strong community within and outside of it as well. All of those things have to be connected.
Now, do you find that it's easier when families come in already knowing their values, if they do, and being aligned?
Like, are those conversations easier than families that don't?
Yeah, even if they have some sense of it, it's so much easier, right?
Because they are already aligned, like you say. So we're already we're starting from the same kind of playbook. But lots of families don't have that. And you can have an individual in a family who's got this set of values. It's super different from this individual set of values.
So it's like, well, where do we find agreement?
Right. Where do we find a place where it's like, OK, my value is being met, your value is being met, even though these are very different.
Yeah, very interesting.
So what's the next thing that people don't really associate with money or when it comes to planning?
For money?
Relationships for some reason, which is really interesting because because really, when I ask people about it, like what their struggle is or what their concern was, it's never because it's like, gosh, these taxes are so confusing, even though they kind of are. But that's not the biggest concern. It's you know, this is getting in the way of the conversations I'm having with my spouse.
They don't understand why it is that I have to track every penny or, you know, or, you know, I want to I want my kids to have all the opportunity in the world, but I don't want them to become entitled. I want to have deep connections with my grandchildren. I want to stay connected with the people in my community. I'm going to miss my business when I retire. This is my life.
Like all of this is about relationships. Yep.
And have you seen through this process?
So family comes in, they're talking about the plan, what that looks like.
Do you see that relationships actually get stronger or do they go the other way?
Most of the time they get stronger. And because if they're even willing to go through a process like this together, I think they're coming from a place of strength. There's a lot of families who would not be able to come to the table on this at all. So that's that's a win. Showing up is winning.
You're already better, even if you kind of get kind of partway through the process and you're like, yeah, this maybe isn't for me. You've won something because you've aligned something you said to your family members. This is important enough for me to spend my time on. Got it. That means you're important and that it makes such a big difference.
So there are some families that come away from a process like this and there's some disagreement. There's families that come away from a process and we don't manage to check all the boxes for everybody. But we've checked enough.
And again, just showing up for people, saying it's important. It makes a huge difference.
So when a family comes in or so someone comes in and says, OK, well, they're looking to get what are they looking for at the beginning?
Are they looking for a plan?
Are they looking for a strategy?
Are they looking like what?
What do people come to you for?
Usually it's like all the answers. I'm just I'm just confused about this. It's usually confusion.
It's like, OK, so I heard this from my lawyer and that from my accountant and that from my business manager or my coach or, you know, and then my family said this and I'm the person in the middle of all of these people and I'm the one that has to make the decision. And it's really hard. And I don't know how to weigh these out.
I don't know which one's more important because this person who has this expertise is like, well, obviously this is the most important thing, which to them it would be right, because that's where they concentrate their brain.
But what is it to you?
And that's it's really hard. It's finances have not become less complex over time and business hasn't become less complex. It seems like everything humans do, we just like add complexity, a good time or something. And so to unravel that and to know that you're making a good decision that is focused on what's important to you is really, really hard.
So you'll often we'll start with one major thing that's kind of top of mind, whether it's like I really want to retire or my kids are having kids or, you know, it's ready. It's succession time or any of those things or even, you know, I have terminal cancer and I might be dying in a couple of years. It's usually trigger stuff like that that has people coming to me.
But we talk about everything else. So you see that most of the planning is based on an event, not necessarily, hey, we need to do something here. In terms of proactive planning. Yeah.
I mean, most of the time, people feel pretty confident that they've got things. It's just really until, you know, you run up against something where it's like, oh, wait a minute, this is really important. And I'm not getting what I need. That's usually the point. They'll come to someone like me because, you know, I've learned a lot of companies in Canada that do things the way that I do.
So, first of all, it's hard to even find somebody to do this. And because of that, too, it's not widely known. So I think a lot of people are really only finding out about it when it's like, this is urgent.
OK, so I just want to clarify for people who might be watching or listening, what do they get when they work with you then?
Like, what's the end product?
The end product is really a big picture down to the small picture. I usually will. There's always going to be like a book. You get like a book out of it. For families, we'll often get like a couple of books about their own value system and then, you know, like some some plans for like what the next steps are.
We've made an agreement within our family that we want to do this, this, this and this. And so there's like an explanation of that, why we're doing it and an action plan. A lot of times there'll be individual financial plans for each person. So they know what they need to do in order to achieve their goals. And those those plans are often kind of fifty to a hundred pages long.
They can be very big. But but they try to try to encapsulate it in a small action list. But usually, like at the end of the day, you're coming up with an action list.
OK, I know which direction I'm pointing my ship. I know who to talk to next. And I know what I'm going to say to them in order to get where I'm going.
That's really interesting because it comes back to something that you talked about before when you talked about confusion and helping people get through that confusion, because I always go back to what I call the four C's in terms of what we what we find and what we help people with. And the confusion, it kind of aligns with that first part, which is clarity.
And what we find with our clients and people that we work with is everybody is looking for some kind of clarity, which then allows them to have some kind of control because it's hard to have control if you don't know where you're going. And then that control then leads to confidence. And ultimately, what they're looking for is that certainty.
So it sounds like you're taking them through that exact same process in terms of ultimately giving them some kind of certainty for correct me if I'm wrong, not just wealth, but their family alignment as well. Absolutely. I feel like I steal your three C's because it's pretty much it is it's it's the same thing.
It's it's that exactly clarity and control and confidence is what we all want in many aspects of our lives. And it's it's you know, it's easing that anxiety. Decision making is really hard and life changing decisions are really big.
And so how do people feel when they when they go through the process, but then they come out on the other end?
Oh, we ask them all the time and I've been I've been hoping to find something different, but it's always the same people say peace of mind. Every time I'm like, I'm starting to feel cliche. I can find it. It's always a piece of mind. That's what they're looking for. Right. Yeah.
Yeah, I can totally see that. So we did we talked about the two things people don't typically associate with money or wealth planning.
But I think we kind of alluded to maybe the third, but maybe what is the third?
And and is there something that we missed out on that aspect?
Well, I think we've been talking about it the whole time, really. It's it's family.
You know, we've got we've got our values, we've got our feelings in our relationships and then we've we've got family. And and I think it's important to remember that family is not only the family of origin that you were born into, but for lots of people, it's the family we choose. And and that's you know, that's the thing.
Well, it's a human being. So we want connection. We want community. We want family. That's the kind of thing that helps us feel really successful in life. And a lot of times, you know, we've got a lot of feelings about money and and how harmful certain things can be when it comes to money and family. We try to keep them really separate.
And so even though in some ways I think it's and I think you think it's very obvious that it's about family for a lot of people, they're they're like, oh, no, well, my money is over here. And my business is over here and my family is over there. But the thing is, is like between that is still you and the whole reason you're doing any of this is because of these people.
So we want to make sure we have that connection.
Yeah, that's really interesting. And you keep bringing up these key points here, because one thing that stood up for me as you were talking about that is. The family that you're born into, then the family that you choose. Because it from our experience, when we work with families, there's there's you can say, I shouldn't say alignment allegiance.
But this this feeling that because you're born into a family, that's the family that you have to pay loyalty to. But then you have your own family or extended family or whatever it may be. And there's sometimes there's that conflict or a lot of times there's that conflict between the two.
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, I think as humans, we'd love to have the origin family be the one that is healthiest and tightest.
I mean, that's that's a really great safe feeling. Doesn't happen for everybody. But it doesn't mean that we don't have family.
I mean, I know that's a really big theme in the LGBTQ community, chosen family, because a lot of those people have lost their families and it's and it's really important that we all have the opportunity to create the families that we need. Interesting.
And you know what?
I don't know if you do watch that TV show Yellowstone.
No, I haven't. Yeah.
Well, my wife and I started watching it a number of weeks ago. We got hooked on it. But it's it's it's you know, this whole dynamic between business, family, legacy. And then you bring on other people and other family members. It's actually really interesting to see. But it's all about this allegiance to the original family. Right. And and people wonder, like, OK, it's been like over a hundred something years.
Why are we continuing to operate that same way when those individuals that created that type, that value system or whatever it may be, aren't even around?
Like, it's a little bit outdated. It is. But it's really common if you think about it. So I'd like to think of each individual family as a culture. Right. And when you think, you know, we're from Canada and and I think we're both children of immigrants. And so we know what it's like to be members of two cultures at the same time or even three.
I've got I've got I've got three different cultures and and that's what happens in Canada. And it happens in North America all the time. We were constantly in Canada. We call it a mosaic. And it's a really beautiful thing. And it is about honoring all those all those source cultures and bringing in new ones and welcoming them with open arms.
And I'd love to see families do that as well, because families grow by adding people.
You know, it stops being a family when you don't add people. And so for adding people, we're changing our culture. And we should be doing it in a way that's really thoughtful and mindful.
So with families that are adding new people, we're often returning to that values process that I talked about, getting that around it and then bringing in this new person or this new person and saying, so how do we welcome them in and what are they adding to our family values and how might that alter or adjust or improve our definitions and how we make decisions through that lens is just so important to keep our families in flux in that way and to be welcoming.
Yeah, you know, that's a really great point, because there's a huge difference between families, let's just say, a core family. And if they are accepting of other cultures and how amazing that becomes versus families that are very trying to let's just say protective and they exclude other individuals, especially from and not even they might be the same.
You can say background, origin, ethnicity, language, whatever it may be, but there's still that protection mechanism.
And then, you know, God forbid someone that it's a completely different background, different skin color or language, it's taken to a completely different level. How often do you come across that with families when if there's.
I'm just going to say people coming in from extended families or different origins or whatever that looks like, does that complicate the process or do you see that it's fairly simple to get through those hurdles?
Well, I mean, I'm used to it. It's something that that I really like doing. I think people have questions, you know, again, most of the families I'm lucky enough to work with, they're going through the process because they want to. And and so they're they're a little bit more open to to a lot of different ideas, I think, than families who didn't show up at my door would be.
But but it's always a question, you know. So if it's, you know, if I'm starting off talking to founder generation and mom and dad or, you know, brother and brother and sister and sister or whatever, they're there always.
I'm always asking the question, are we bringing in your children's spouses?
Are we bringing in the grandchildren?
Who's coming to this?
And they're like, oh, right. And very often, like, well, maybe we should just start with the children, the ones I'm directly related to. And I'm OK with that. We can kind of start there. But I'm like, OK, yeah. But we have to build a process for when we're bringing in the next people and what we're talking to them about and how we're how we're including them.
Because if you alienate a child spouse or another family member's spouse, you're alienating that person. Because that's who they chose to be in their family. And you're telling them that they're not OK.
Yeah, I can see that that's where the therapy comes in, right?
Where the therapy, the therapy is needed.
So, yeah, absolutely. I think it's tough enough being in a family as it is. Absolutely. And then you add money and then you add on planning. It's a completely different ballgame.
And then, you know, when I talk about cultures, too, like when two spouses come together, they're coming from different family cultures, even if they have the same background or ethnicity or even like group of the same town, everything looks exactly the same. But like your parents might have been the type of people who were like, hey, you only live once and we're going to spend it all while we're here.
And my parents might have been the type that are like, oh, my God, this is a very precious resource. And we're counting all the change and, you know, carefully unwrapping presents and folding up that wrapping paper and saving it for later. That's my family. But but other families are really different. Right.
And so, you know, we all think that how we were brought up is normal and until we find out it's not. And then and so when we enter into a relationship with our spouse, we think that our approach to money is normal. And so we have to find a way to integrate those cultures.
Yeah, very great point, because I've stopped using the term normal whatsoever, because for me, I've figured out there's no such thing as normal. I go towards more unhealthy versus unhealthy now. And I think that's that's kind of my baseline, because it's basically, yeah, if you see a family that's operating from a healthy perspective, it's helping everybody. If it's unhealthy, it's definitely hurting or hindering.
So you brought some really great insight into into our conversation here. So I want to thank you.
If people want to get a hold of you, if they're like, hey, you know, we want to talk to Julia to get whether it's wealth planning or just have conversations, like you said, and and get over some confusion, where would they go?
What's your website and where can people connect with you?
Go to spring plans dot C.A. and and we're right there. There is a contact form that says wait list at the top because we just want to try and manage our flows so that I work less than 24 hours a day. And if you just fill out the form, they will get in contact with you.
OK, awesome.
Well, Julie, I want to thank you for providing such great wisdom here. Definitely going to have you on again, because when it comes to money, families, business and planning, you know, there's there's always a lot of challenges there. So thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.
OK, take care until next time.