The Power of Family Storytelling with Jamie Yuenger of Storykeep.

0:00 Hello, welcome everybody to another episode of Arthur's Round table. Super grateful for you joining us today and prior, if you've had an opportunity and very grateful for the family office insights community sharing this with others and we're we're having a lot of fun doing these podcasts and so thank you for paying attention if it strikes you. So with that, a very dear friend of mine, some of you know her, Kristen Albury, she did a lot of work with family Office insights and she's kind of a stalwart in the family office community now. And she's got her own company called Wealth Reimagined. And she's, she shares 2 passions with us and me personally. And that is we're deep into the family office community. And second, she is, she's does a lot of travel writing and a lot of travel.

0:44 And so we've been able to share some recent stories about being in Sicily and Italy and Greece over the last year. And so it's super fun to know her and she is introduced us to Jamie and there's a bunch of folks that have attempted to do what Jamie does. And I'm not being disparaging to them. It sounds like I was about to be, but she's done a a successful job at it. And that is I'm going to let her frame it out for you and give her the history, archiving and storytelling for families and and others that the genesis of the families warrants being put down in writing or on film and and archive for for others to see. Because time flies pretty quickly and we're here only for a short time, right? So Jamie, thank you. I probably just butchered that pretty badly. But if you wouldn't mind telling us the beginning of your journey and how this came about?

1:33 Well, nice to be in conversation. And I, as I shared with you, watched a few of the earlier episodes and was just felt it was refreshing to just watch two people having a conversation and it not being overly polished. I think there's this world we're really hungry for just authentic people and conversations. So I was happy to join you. Yeah, Chris and I met, I was writing some thought leadership pieces and she was my editor and we are currently Co hosting and Co designing A symposium coming up in Amsterdam. And that was of course she was happy to do so because she loves to travel as you mentioned. And although I'm American, I fell in love with a Dutchman and that's part of my story.

2:14 I was. Going to ask you how that happened. Yeah, because you're, you're, you don't have the accent, right. Yeah. So I mean today, you know this day our firm story keep we work with enterprising families and you know as you mentioned, we do obviously have deliverables. But our real, I think when you talked about being successful that we did what we do, I think it came down to listening really well to more and more of the families who were coming to us, who were pretty complex asset owning families, multi generational, multi brands families and realizing that there was sort of this missing component to their lives.

2:54 And that was a sort of what I think of it as like narrative infrastructure, you know, like they they have financial planning, they have ownership, they have governance, but they don't have cohesion and consistency and continuity around the stories, history and relationships that ultimately kind of have like this outsize impact on those other things. And sort of almost, I feel like it's almost the wallpaper like in the room. We don't quite see how much those stories are affecting everything else. So, you know, my own story certainly has influenced my trajectory of getting to this place. I was just in a what I thought was a typical family. But when I was 9, my mom told me I had been born from an affair.

3:38 And later I met my biological dad. And then you know from that experience it. Should be a trend here. Seen a lot of that movie. There seems to be a trend here. Oh, OK. Is that? Oh, I'm just saying we see whether it be in the media or or books that we're reading. I'm just saying a trend for me, I see that in in Iraqi places. Yeah, maybe it's just coming out more, you know, But you know, as you can imagine, to a young person, this is like kind of the shell shocking thing. Nine years old, yeah. Yeah. And I later, when I was like 1718, met my, you know, paternal biological grandmother and learned I was Scandinavian, you know, Scandinavian ancestry.

4:18 And so I really went into this whole moment of identity crisis, as so many people do at that age, but with this extra layer. And because of all of that, you can imagine there was lots of sort of questions around who am I and, and, and what is what is family mean and what is all of this, you know, And so it was a real curiosity and driver for me. And on top of that, I was always really interested in people similar to, you know, Chris Noley, very just like really interested in who is this person and how did they become this, you know, what was the life journey they took? And so I became a trained journalist and documentary maker. But it I was doing that for broadcast and a friend of mine asked if she could hire me to document her father in And it was in that experience that I realized, whoa, there is a huge power in breaking the wall between these two things like professional media making and the private lives of families.

5:35 And I was always, from the word go, felt like this is not just about nostalgia and sentimentality. This is about something much deeper and more powerful. And it took me 15 years, I think, to really fully come to my full power in helping. I think families and family offices understand that they've got something really important on their hands, but they don't always know what to do with it, and they don't always know how powerful it is. But it's something worth attending to. So I feel like that's really where we're sitting at this point is, yes, we make beautiful, powerful films and also online story museums. But the reason we do that, I think is why we've started to have some significant success.

6:25 You know, one of the things that I'm wondering about, because I haven't really seen the actual results of pushback for, for what I, what I'm getting to is that people put off estate planning because it's not a very pleasant topic to talk about, right? And it's got minutiae and it's got decisions you have to make that you made to be, don't want to make right now or you don't want others to hear that you make or, you know, creates conflict in the family. What, what's the tipping point where someone, whether you're pitching them or they've come to you, what's the tipping point that causes them this to say, OK, we're going to actually do this meaningful way? There's at least two I can think of that are really strong and there's probably more.

7:12 One that comes up over and over again is at some point of major transition. It's often post sale, like sort of in a liquidity moment where our identity was one thing and now sometimes overnight practically like what is it and what are we holding on to? And it's interesting that more often than not it's like, OK, yeah, we want to sort of somehow honor and document that business, right or something. But also who are we? Like what it who are we as people and what is our story as a family? So I think kind of like trying to grapple with your identity on that really big moment of transition and or a big leadership transition. So if like from one generation to the next, how do we honor and acknowledge the contributions of, let's say, the older people in the family who have done a lot and then give space for the younger generation, sometimes younger, we mean 50s people in their 50s and 60s.

8:09 Exactly. Yeah, finally matured into taking over. To to also add and evolve, right and and so it can be a that is a big moment. And then the other one, which is like more than obvious is like someone is someone very important is you know about to. Die. Yeah, about. To die, and we probably, and I hear this from our clients all the time, probably should have done this 5 or 10 years ago, but now we're finally getting around to it. The person is still alive and that is in the mix at least 50% of the time. And I, I hope through our good education, let's call it like that, will lessen and people will kind of come come to the table sooner.

8:56 But yeah, those are at least two moments, I would say, where people are really starting to edit. That's interesting because have you had to struggle with somebody who's got the keys to the history timeline and you know, they've hit the senility stage of their life or they just can't remember? Is that that that? Is that been a real challenge? Yes, it's actually one of only 10 questions that we ask when we have like a little bit of a like the first intake questionnaire just so we know who we're about to talk to. And if we take a call is do any of the key storytellers have mental decline? And it doesn't mean no, it just means like we cannot rely on telling the whole story based on this person, right?

9:42 And sometimes, depending on the stage 1 is in, sometimes photos and storytelling allows them to contribute and re, you know, engaging up the storyline, if you will. But that has to be assessed if that's feat, Yeah. And is it fair to ask, is this take, it's probably a function of level of cooperation, right? Does it take a year? Does it take six months? Depends on how incentive people are to get it done you. Know I think that is I'm going to answer that question differently than I think I've ever asked it answered it before, because I think this is an UN going practice. And I feel like that is actually kind of the if I can add anything from from my time, you know, in on this planet. And the purpose and mission we have is to say your family story is always evolving.

10:38 So and there are other voices other than the patriarch, I mean, generally speaking, that are worthy of attending to and caring about and documenting. So the first time you would ever do something like this if you were working with us, generally it is like about a year from very, very beginning to very, very end. But we had this funny problem, Arthur, which kept happening over and over again. And I don't know if you've had this in your life, but like you keep having the same problem, but you never really come up with a good solution. And then through totals, I don't know, like coincidence, like you're not planning on it, you kind of run into the solution. I mean, it is a little bit serendipitous, but I guess you're always looking.

11:20 So one of the problems we always had is we have this film that we've made and then how do we deliver it in an age that is post DVD, You know, people are mostly on their phones. Like how do we wrap our minds around this? And so we started developing something that we now call a digital, a virtual online story museum where a family has that, but they also have, there's many other ways that families think about their own histories and stories. They think about it through individual photos, also shorter clips that are just in their archives. They think about it through their family tree. If you're a global family, you think about the globe and where are things have happened, you know, across place and time.

12:03 So it is a home, if you will, to continue to have that as a practice. I mean, just like if you if you set out an estate plan or if you do any other, you know, kind of governance work in your family. Yeah, you do certain projects, but you kind of always need to reassess and look at them and make sure it still makes sense. Like overtime you do complete something. And I that's one of the things I love about our work is we get shit done. Like you have this idea, but you never did it and you never could do it really on your own. But OK, now we finally captured this story and it's finalized. It's kind of. Daunting. It's totally daunting.

12:45 I find it daunting for my own family. But when you that's the thing of having any professional sit and help you with anything. I mean, I was just talking to someone doing our personal bookkeeping, right? And I'm like, yeah, I could sit there and do all that, but like, I'm not going to do it unless I have an accountability partner. I know. So I think, and with our families stories, even our own personal stories, I mean, try to sit down and write your own memoir. Good luck. Like, it's overwhelming. And I think having a partner and structure and a timetable and frankly, I also feel like anytime we make an investment in something financially, I mean also emotionally, but you're more focused. You know, I think you put it well, accountability partner, someone that's going to hold your feet to the fire and say, OK, you know, we said we were going to do this. You drag, you drug your feet.

13:45 Now what are we going to do? OK, we'll push it out another 30 days, but let's do it right That probably. I have a question for you. Sure. I heard a little bit and hearing some of your own story, a little bit about your dad's story, but if you could document the life story of anyone in in your family, including yourself, who would it be? I've done a terrible job and it's been highlighted to me because my wife has done a really good job of documenting and researching an amorphous history of her family. And her mother was born in Greece and came, my parents were born here and my ancestors were born in Greece. And so I know nothing about my 2 grandparents on either side of it.

14:34 So I would, I'd want to know, you know, were they carpetbaggers? Were they criminals? Were they just, were they, were they people that just had the cojones to say I'm out of here, I'm coming to the, you know, early on in the US, right? That took a lot of nerve. It did. And I do know that on my mother's side of the family, my grandfather came over for a couple years and then went back and got his 16 year old wife, right? We did that sort of thing, right? Or maybe it was 18. It doesn't matter something. It was just, you know, he laid the groundwork and then went back and fetched her and brought her over and did the typical Greek thing.

15:20 So I so the answer your question, I'd like to know more about that generation and it's been cattle the desire to do that has been catalyzed by my wife's work and also us going just this last year and visiting her family in the village in Greece that are still there like wild at. Home, right? Yeah. Spelling fish in the street and pig's head and we'll repair your chair. And it's just like it was, it was, you know, 300 years ago or whatever. Then, you know, it was just raising. Yeah. Anyway, so that that's my answer. I think that's what and I imagine I want, I want to ask you this because I thought Succession was a great series. And I would think that people, aside from the drama and the infighting and how great the characters were evolved, that it would cause people to say there's actually two things, Succession and Land Man.

16:15 Have you seen Land Man yet? I've seen Succession, but I haven't seen Land Man yet. So Succession, I think, just laid out how, man, you really don't want to see how the sausage is made, right? Maybe families, yeah. But land, Man, there was a segment in there when one of the guys that owned the oil company was on his deathbed. And Jerry Jones, the guy that owns the Cowboys, I think I get the name right, came in and did this so impactful dialogue about his life's dream was to be in business with his kids. And he did it. And he and he just. I mean, it was storytelling at its best.

16:56 Yeah. So anyway, I would watch that if I were you. Yeah. Yeah. OK, Yeah, Yeah, it's, it's, it's been in watching Succession and thinking about the similarities and and like total overdramatization of at least the experiences I have with like the families that we've worked with it. It's sort of, yeah. I, I guess I enjoy it on an entertainment level, like just. Entertaining. Yeah. Anything else that's also over, you know, over plate, but you know, fun with the drama out of it all. I, I have to say, I don't, I don't know if this is your experience, but maybe it's just the kind of work we do and therefore who we draw in and who we magnetize.

17:42 But the families that we have worked with are so unlike the Succession family, right? Or Logan Roy and I, I don't want to say that there aren't matriarchs and patriarchs having a hard time letting go of power and their position and giving necessary space for new leadership in the family. But I think there's so much good intention that's there. But maybe that's just the families that are. Are willing to tell the story because I imagine they're sort of OK. I don't really want to tell the story because if I told the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then it's pretty ugly, right? Why would we want that down on tape?

18:24 Yeah, I think so too. I think I do have to say that in my, I didn't know this, but after like a lot of years working with families now I think families who have done some other important work, like really looking at their governance and looking at how they relate to one another. Having some of these other things, having at least looked into them or put time and energy into them. They're sort of better prepared to take advantage of looking at their story and picking it apart a little bit too. And saying like, is that really, is that really the one story we're going to tell? Or is it more complex? Is it more layered than that? And I'm always inviting families to look at that. Like as simple as what about the people who weren't in the business?

19:12 Aren't they part of this story too? Even if it weren't formal owners or, you know, formal leadership roles, you know, I, it's, it's 2026. So it's super obvious. But like, oftentimes those are women, right? And so it's like we all know who, you know, our mothers and our our wives, how not only maybe they founded and run the company and built wealth themselves, but also if they weren't in that position. I mean, you speak about your wife and it seems like you, you have great tenderness for her, like she's an equal part of whatever success you've had as a, as a, as a couple. So her story is also worth looking into.

19:52 Well, now that you bring it up, so I was going to ask you this because it's, but I've been married and divorced twice and my wife is not really my wife because I'm never getting married again, but she might as well be. And so she has been a huge impact of success in the eight years that we've been together. But the Ben, thanks for saying that. But the the it's got to be complex but like I have. Relation or a stable, let's just say stable relationship with both my ex wives, the mother of my children 1st and the cycle and I didn't have any children and they both had an impact in my trajectory, right?

20:35 And of course one's the mother of my children. Take that. You know, as much as it was ugly during the process, I took it seriously, right? But it has to be, you know, difficult that if you've complicated your storyline like I have, right? It's kind. Of super complex. It's, I think it's, it's, it's so common though, and, and that is one of the things that we talk really candidly with people about in a disc. We have a formal whole discovery phase before we even think about the film. And it's one of it's it's a very important topic which you're like, what are the sensitivities?

21:16 What are the, you know, mishaps, if you will, that we want to not necessarily avoid. Maybe we don't talk about them in the film per SE, but we especially if you have children, right, like you don't want to be speaking on record poorly. Generally speaking, we would not advise that about your ex-wife or your ex-husband when part of the point of that is to share something with your children, right? You like need to honor those relationships and be a mature. Person to. Be able to yeah, to. And frankly, I think there's something really good and healthy for for us, we as individuals.

22:00 I mean, in your position, let's say, if you were doing that, like to kind of reclaim the tone with which and, and the interpretation that you have of your own life story, right? And the value of your first wife and her place in your life and, and the mother that she was and is your children. So there's a there's an opportunity in the mud, you know, of how are we articulating ourselves when we think about it for a future audience? And you know, that struck me because if it was the other way around, for example, my ex-wife might have said some very nasty things about me at the time and my children might have stuck in their head about that.

22:47 But if she had an opportunity to say it several years later, she might temper her comments with more mature take on things or realistic take on things. Or or, God forbid, like gratitude. And I was trying to reverse it to be kind, but doesn't matter. Yeah. Because the same would be true because, you know, it wasn't a very nice, you know, time for either one of us. But despite how much we tried to screw up the kids, they turned out all right. Yeah. Well, I think you know when you're talking, this is a different relationship. This is like a father son relationship. But I think those ones are also can be quite challenging. Comes to mind this this moment where we had finished a film, a very involved film project with a very large family. And the the current living patriarch was sitting in this movie theater with his whole family watching this this film for the first time, which he had taken part in, but he hadn't seen the whole completed piece.

23:48 His son, who's sort of now the current family leader, family office executive, but his dad's still alive, right, is sitting there sitting right next to each other watching the film and and after things complete, you know, lots of people are crying in the audience. And it's a good. But then the the patriarch turns to his son and says, I didn't realize how we had pushed the value of hard work down everyone's throats so much. And I guess there's also a liability to that. And I heard this story through the, you know, through the memory and lens and telling of the son, right, the family office executive currently leading a family. And I thought, wow, what a liberation actually to say I wasn't necessarily always my dad wasn't always right. He's rethinking something by seeing his story reflected back to him.

24:44 Maybe I can make a different choice and. Going forward to with my kids, yeah, well. Interpret that value in a slightly different way, right? Hard work is great, but yeah, what are we missing out on? Are we missing out on being with our children on the weekends or you know what? However it played out, and I think that's a, that's what I mean by the, the capital of story, like story being an actual asset in families. Because if we are able to use story as a reflection point and a conversation to have new conversations, then that can really change the trajectory of certainly of a family's life, but also business decisions they make, investment decisions they make, how they change leadership.

25:31 It's it's kind of has this outsized impact on everything. We just That one moment can change so much. Yeah, it's kind of a or debriefing, right? On some level. OK, here's how it all came about. What can we learn from it? Yeah. It's an interesting way to look at it, right? Yeah. And I think, you know, what we've found in frankly, becoming a bit bolder with the families that we work with is really, really encouraging them to not make this a reel of achievements and a highlights hit of, you know, successes because it is a very hard thing to relate to. And it's not true.

26:23 You know it and I know it. And I mean, being a business owner myself, I certainly would want my own daughter to go after her dreams and, and build a business that she wants. But also realized, like it took a lot of perseverance, a lot of belief in yourself, a lot of things not working out. And if we can talk about those moments and how we recovered from them, the story of resilience comes through. And that is what we can gift our children. Because inevitably, it had matters. Not how much money you have. Like you're going to be hit in the face with a brick like one way or another.

27:04 You know, I, I don't mean to overstate this, but I've said this regularly is that I think that my kids going through the my divorce cause them to be more ready for the world than they otherwise would have been. Along with everything else that we did. You know, it all come made a contribution as to who they are, but they resilience is the the word I use in conjunction with they've learned how to adjust because life is a series of adjustments, right? And so they've they've been able to say, OK, I get it. That's what happened now what right. So resilience and, you know, think things.

27:45 It's not a it's a windy Rd. it's not a straight road. And so building the ability to recognize that instead of what was me, it's OK, I see what I'm dealing with now. Here's what I'm going to do, right? So they, they, I, they built that, that muscle, I think not just because of the divorce, but it got that. It contributed to that. So they had to say, OK, what the Hell's going on here? And then they became New York City kids. And that also had something to do with it, right? Yeah, having lived in New York for 13 years, I can appreciate that. Well, I'm curious from where you sit, how you see a family story and, let's say narrative interacting with how they.

28:30 Yeah deal with business and deals and, and building a family office. Like what, what do you see? What's your perspective on that? I. Think that if there's a lot of skeletons in the closet that we just don't want to go there. And, and my, I think my initial question was my viewpoint on it is it's kind of like, OK, when is the right time for me to do this? And sometimes it's, if you're willing to tell the story, it's at those inflection points where you're selling or transition leadership and that sort of thing. I don't, I don't know how much I can meaningfully contribute, although I know a lot of these people and a lot of them are my friends. And so we don't really talk about it. I get involved.

29:28 So family offices is they're very little. You can say that you can generalize about them except they like trading. How did you handle this? How did you handle this? How did you handle that, right? And it's more often in the context of business, right? Or kids. So it's business for kids, right and so it's it's like I'm not going to go my friend here in Park City is really interesting. Great friend and do a lot of good stuff for the world. He he this is an analogy, but it's made it may get my point across, but he's not going to do the like he had to buy ATV for his property right.

30:10 And there's a bunch of models available or manufacturers, he's not going to go do the research on which he's going to ask his friend which one did you buy? And then that's what he's going to do. So, and he's not going to go do you know, buy the magazine and compare the details and spend any time all that nonsense, he's going to say, which one did you end up buying? And do you like it? OK, I'm going to go buy that one and it's over. Like it takes 3 snickets, right? So that's kind of the, the, the intersection that I see is people are asking how did you handle that? Right? You were, you were presented with this fact pattern. And so how did you handle that? And it's it's those those insights are super valuable because aside from somebody who has not done it, you found somebody who did do it and lived through it and the good and the bad as results.

31:03 To answer your question, I don't hear it that often about how did you tell your origin story right? Yeah, yeah, I think. It's an awareness thing, Jamie. I think it's. Probably an awareness thing and I think I'm I'm, I'm just 43 so I feel like I have a long enough runway. How you do I'm I'm? I only know that because of my 6 year old, right? By the way, just for the audience, that is a meaningless apparently. Like yeah, I don't even know what my child's generation is called Alpha and. It's become an uncool thing for somebody like me to do, yeah. So thank you so good, but I'm 43, so I'm and I feel like I have a long enough time and certainly enough passion to say you guys are missing out and you're missing something really critical. And even if you're not thinking about it and you're super smart, it doesn't mean that it's not potentially really, really effective and helping you do what you're trying to do better without as many headaches.

32:08 And I know it's hard because relationships are hard. You know, it's difficult as finances and deals and all that can be to put together. I totally appreciate that and those professions. But we all know how hard it can be to reconcile with a loved one. I mean, I, I know that deeply. I'm sure you do too, Arthur. And so I'm not saying that's always the work that's in front of you when you're doing this kind of thing. But I think reflecting, meaning making, giving space for another person to speak and really be heard and seen, these are pretty much the hardest things that we do in life. But they're necessary because we know that finances without relational and meaning context are eventually going to rupture.

33:00 We say that over and over and over again. I mean, if you go back to the Succession series example, everything is basically on the verge of blowing up all the time because these relationships are like just a landmine, right? And so I don't think that story and history and narrative can save everyone all the time. But I do think that families and individuals that have enough foresight and leadership to realize that their relationships and how they tell their story, either formally or, you know, informally, that is a, it's a critical factor. And yeah, that's preceptually what we're going to be exploring at the symposium that that Chris and I are hosting is just that. It's really interesting, I think that as often as the case doing this, there will be a beneficial byproduct that wasn't the intent.

33:59 But as you mature in business, it could be one that, for example, a lawyer might state planning lawyer, say, you know, you're not quite sure who you want to do have this role in your estate plan. And the reason is because you've got a severed relationship or a problem with that relationships. I, I, I'm not sure. It's kind of a, not a very Direct Line, but you know, they might suggest, well, why don't you go through the storytelling and maybe you can help resolve it, right? It's a good little bit of a stretch, but I also think that, you know, when I think about things, I always often think about them in a commercial sense, right? So where's the business development come from? Seems like state planning lawyers would be a natural. Has that been helpful to you?

34:48 Maybe could be, I would say a smart family office executives and family office leaders, family enterprise advisors and consultants. Those are the folks and actually really smart wealth advisors who think more holistically. That is sort of who seems to understand how the puzzle pieces go together and to us being a puzzle piece in the mix. Yeah, I think, I think what what you were getting at, I mean, there's an interesting example sort of similar to what you were sharing, but there's a family who was going through a major leadership transition from G2 to G3. They came to us in the midst of that transition.

35:29 And even though they had everything in place, the ownership and arrangement in the legal documents and everything, like they couldn't really move as a family and they couldn't decide and get behind one of the five cousins to become the new leader of the company. And it seems kind of like how is one thing related to the other? But I think we can all appreciate that sometimes one part of the story, whatever it is, we don't realize how it's connected to something else, right? And So what was happening is there was a major part of this family's history that they had never talked about, that they had lost all of their money after World War 2 when all the Japanese Americans were put in internment camps. And then they had bounced back from that, but they never talked about that.

36:18 And then the 2 male leaders of the family in the business stayed in that position. And there was just a lot of kind of like things we don't talk about go on. And it made it very hard for them because of sort of these branch difficulties and dynamics between the two branches to get behind one leader. And once that history part was unlocked and the children who are in their 40s and 50s could look at their fathers and say, wow, they lived through so much and they they invested so much to keep this company going. They literally lost everything. Are we really going to sit here and, you know, not try to really come to a solution together?

37:01 So it seems like the leadership question of business succession is about one thing, but it was really tied to this undergirding of this other thing. And once that was unlocked. They connected the dots. Unanimously get behind one of the cousins, you know, and feel good about it. So I think we all sort of can, I think people can relate to this. Like there is there are parts of our own narratives and stories that when you kind of understand one thing about what happened in your past, it links to something else that was unexpected. And that's why we can never say, oh, we guarantee that if you go through this process, your whole family will be healed and you will figure everything out because we don't know where it's all going. We just know it is generally worthwhile and it will bring something unexpected, generally positive, like we're not going to enter into doing work with the family if we think we're going to do harm.

38:01 We have encountered those scenarios and we say this is probably not good for us to go there, but when there's a certain amount of openness, so much can happen. Yeah, I could totally see that. I also, I think, and again, it's just me met thinking about the barriers to commercial success, right is there's I know so many things about so many families that nobody ought to know. And I'm not talking about criminals. I'm just, there's some of that, but the but it's I imagine that's a big barriers is deciding to embark on this journey to tell the story.

38:51 You'd have to have an overriding desire to make sure that your heirs and your family have the archived information and that that desire overrides whatever you're not going to disclose or feel your risk disclosing that you don't want anybody to know about. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think what what you're talking about is 2 things. It's desire and courage, and I think you do have to have an overriding desire. There's skeletons. In everybody's closet. Let's just call here. It is. Yeah, exactly. And I think it takes courage. I think it takes immense, true, honest to God leadership to say I want something more important and bigger for my family than my fear of whatever.

39:35 Like The thing is. And it can be very real, but I think it is about having a long view, which not everyone has. I have a side of my wife's family who is 7th generation bootleggers. Still active. Well, I mean they're in the the the alcohol pist front of the chair. Yeah, but that's think about that 7 generations back. They were you're doing all the stuff that, you know, we saw in all the all the movies, you know, the prohibition and everything. And every time we see them, I get another little tidbit of. The horror of what happened with between the families right and.

40:18 I think I I love that you bring that up because I think the other part of this work that is actually so much fun for me and for our team and also for families is like, there are also all these wild, amazing stories and there's so much joy in it too. Like, yeah, I mean, we've been talking about like, yeah, you know, narrative power and blah, blah, blah. But like, it's also just, Oh my God, Dad, tell that story again, you know, or just wanting those. There's something about those little shiny Nuggets that give us some kind of idea of who we are, you know, and what we came from. And I mean, for your, for your, for your wife. It's like, oh, I'm sort of part of this funny, amazing, kind of offbeat lineage of bootleggers.

41:03 I mean, some part of that is in her, right? And it's probably also a little bit of the part of why you love her because like there's sort of that rebellious, you know what, you know, it's just, it's, it's these little flecks of, of truth told through story. And I think that's why we love to hear stories about people in our family and what they do. And I didn't say this at the beginning, but everything is about storytelling. Everything. Yes. And so I know that sounds hyperbolic, but you get my point. Like when people come in, because we see thousands of applications, we see hundreds of pitches, and the people who succeed are the ones that actually have a legit business.

41:50 But if they can't tell the story, it doesn't matter, right? It does not matter at all, right? And you could have a legit business and tell the story and you'll succeed. And you can have a not so legit business and do a good storytelling and succeed. But if you have a either way on, if you can't tell the story, you're toast. It's over. Well, and I think that you just, you just hit the nail on the head, Arthur, because when families are in business, enterprising families, they have a story to tell and who is their audience? They're errors. So if they're trying to sell the concept, you are essentially trying to sell it to your loved ones, right?

42:31 And you have to do it in even more, almost more persuasive ways, because these people know you, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly so. There's got to be some authenticity there, yeah? Funny, yeah. Yeah. So talk about the the, what do you call it? The comfort zone I'm struggling for the work symposium. Yeah, yeah. I, well, I'll just say it's an Amsterdam on May 11th and 12th, 2 days primarily for family office executives and families themselves. So the point is to have families in the room with other families. They'll be North American, they'll be European, as well as other places in the world coming together to look at. OK, what is the place and power of story in my, my family, right, and, and my family's business or family office. And like I said, like I've been in this industry for 15 years and I always really felt that that conversation about story being continuity capital, if you will, but that was like always on the periphery.

43:47 And being an Aries and being a first born child, I was like, I'm going to carve out space for this in this world for the vanguard families who are interested in doing this. I want to make a space for that. And so that's what Kristen and I partnered on her being a journalist and also a lover of travel and food and wine, that we would not make a conference, not, I don't know, make something where people are presenting and selling something, but really a place for intimate conversations because that's really what it is, a structured environment for that and to see what kind of magic happens in the room when you do that. So we're having, for example, a speaker who he has a very, very famous family member who we all know.

44:32 But when I interviewed him, he was really interested in the stories of another family member and his family. And he told me all about those stories. And he's going to come and speak about just that kind of fact like that. We sometimes we have these origin stories or, you know, the original story of wealth or whatever. But what if, what about the value of these other stories to, to our family's culture and identity? So it's kind of telling that with the hook of his very famous family member, but to get the juices flowing. So that's what it will be, along with a Dutch themed dinner where we will have Dutch families who have been in business for 330 years.

45:18 So there's AI, don't know if you're familiar with Geneva or Geneva. It's a Dutch spirit. And the Decauper family who's been making it for 330 years will be making a Dutch cocktail for us, and they'll be cheese and all kinds of story infused parts too. That's what this Zoom is. So that's who it's for. It's for family office executives and family members to come and be in conversation and reflection around those things. So it's it's somewhat obvious and a little pedestrian, but I'll tell you that, you know, we hold these our pitches on Zoom where somebody's raising money for a fund or a company.

46:04 I'm not trying to suggest that we're so smart that people come on and they pitch and what we recommend, and it's surprising how often they don't think about it, is that when you're doing that, there's always a barrier between the people pitching and the people who could potentially invest in terms of the storytelling, first of all. And then, OK, of course this person wants me to invest in his company. He's it's, he's the company or she's the company. We always recommend that they have somebody come on, almost one or two people, even if it's for 5 minutes, who's already invested in the company, especially if it's a peer like a family office and just come on and say, hey, This is why we voted with our checkbook and that makes all the difference.

46:58 Well, I have to tell you there will be 3, what we call them Story Keep families, the three families who have worked Story Keep who will be there sharing about their journey, not as a pitch, but just really like this is their experience, you know, challenges that's. Perfect, because they'd rather listen to them than you. Yeah, always, always. And so I was, I mean, I have to say, I'd literally jumped up and down when I heard that the first family who've worked with for many years was going to be coming with three family members. And because, I mean, they live on the East Coast, it's like it's not California, but it is a trek to come, you know? And it's like, wow, they really care enough and they believe in the power of this.

47:41 And they've had this incredible experience that they are flying to Amsterdam. Don't be too surprised. What's? That. Don't be too surprised. I think I'll always be perpetually kind of like grateful and optimistic about it. But yeah, I know there's something about not bootlegging, but bootstrapping a business where you're always sort of delighted that other people believe in what you're doing. Totally, Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm running out of time, so I apologize, but we have to wrap it up. Maybe we can get some share some information with us where we can get some people to come that might be good candidates for you. We'll we'll put a questionnaire out. It says if you have dark side of your family don't apply. Only if you're willing to talk about it. Yeah, I'm happy to share the links. I mean, if you go to storykeep.com, there's a on the top navigation is about the symposium, but I'm happy to share.

48:39 We also have like a brochure that sort of goes through more the value of coming and yeah. We'll send it out. We'll send it out to the the group if you like. Happy to that'd. Be lovely. Thank you, Kristen. This has been so, yeah, amazing. Thank you, Jimmy. Really appreciate it. Nice talking to you and I hope to stay connected. For sure. Yeah, my pleasure. Look forward. To it. Bye, bye, bye. Thanks. Everybody.