Your Quadrant Living Experience

Read Quadrant Living Experiences

"Why should I grow my business?"Continue
"This is worth more than one can even comprehend..." Continue
"Think of the heartache this has prevented." Continue
"One of the most successful ways I’ve found to teach Quadrant Living is to conduct family vacations with a specific purpose framed around the quadrants." Continue
"...my parents eventually completed a typical estate plan, they never really talked through all of the issues, thoughts, hopes, desires, etc., that they could have while they were alive." Continue

I am a successful entrepreneur. I grew my business from a start-up welding shop in my father's garage to over $75 million. Growing the business was enjoyable and exciting. We had great success and I was sure our model would generate double-digit growth in the future.

Several years ago, I asked myself: “Why should I grow the business? Why do I want a greater net worth? How will it impact my children? Would growing the business only provide greater financial benefits for my children and rob them of the same opportunity I had in growing the business?”

I determined it was not in my family's best interest to continue to build the business. In spite of my abilities and the success we had enjoyed, I sold the business. It was not worth losing my family's ingenuity and drive to grow the business. Although it would provide them a life of luxury, it would rob them the opportunity to create their own identity and self worth.

When I made this decision, I was introduced to the Quadrant Living Experience. Through the planning process, we explored ways I could continue to build the business so that our financial assets would advantage my children without destroying their drive to succeed. We established our family bank, the Empowered Quadrant Bank. Our family bank allows my children access to our financial assets for purposes that will build their character and requires their stewardship and accountability to the family. It avoids dumping financial assets onto them which could destroy their personal drive. Our financial wealth advantages my children without denying them opportunities to develop their own abilities. Through the entities within our family bank, I am working with my children and teaching and training them with the knowledge and experiences I gained while growing the business. In this way they are creating their own success.

We also use our family bank to capture and share our family's other True Wealth assets. These include stories of our heritage, life lessons, how-to experiences and other family assets that can benefit each member of our family now and in future generations.

My four siblings and myself had a nearly three-hour productive and harmonious meeting today. I hope you get great satisfaction out of the work you do because it was truly miraculous for our family. Jim shared many things with us. His siblings are now appreciative of what he knows and does. This is worth more than one can even comprehend when one thinks of what could have happened without your guidance and insights. You are doing multilayered and faceted work. It's a blessing for us to know Bo b and have the confidence in him to go down this path.

Best Jan

We are fortunate we have had Chuck's guidance and many thanks to you. Think of the heartache this has prevented. What a gift to us! We are in a mode of meeting each time Karen is available so that gives structure to it all. She creates an agenda, conducts the discussion and then sends out a follow-up to discussions, decisions, etc., so there is a record and continuity. See all the good things you guys started.

I teach the Quadrant Living [philosophy] to my family and clients so that they will teach it to their families and associates. One of the most successful ways I've found to teach the Quadrant Living [philosophy] is to conduct family vacations with a specific purpose framed around the quadrants. For example, a couple of years ago, we went to our vacation home in Lake of the Ozarks , Missouri , and held a family vacation that had a specific purpose and theme.

That year we wanted to introduce the powerful message of the quadrants in simple terms that my three pre-school nieces could understand. So the theme for day one was “Love & Give” and on day two “Learn & Earn”. Our objectives on that family vacation were to develop leadership, become a high-impact family, discover our dynamic value, clarify who we are, learn to live in the proactive zone of predictable results, and understand that sharing is having more. Now don't get me wrong. We walked, jogged, swam, rode in boats and on jet skis, and did all sorts of activities. But if you ask anyone what they remember most about the lake trip in 2007, it was the time that we gathered as a family and discussed how these four quadrants impacted our relationships with each other, our friends and other family members.

In fact, for me my favorite memory of the whole trip didn't even happen on the trip. When my family first decided to have a vacation with a purpose, I was elected to the planning committee with my mom and my sister, Michelle. Now, anyone who knows me knows that my wife Renee is the trip and event planner in our family. Needless to say, I wasn't really looking forward to organizing this whole event from scratch. In fact, because we were all so busy, we put off the meeting until almost the last minute. So, after a long day at work, I drove the 60-minutes to my mom's house to meet with her and my sister Michelle. I can still remember the three of us sitting at the dining room table, filled with notes, ideas, sample agendas, shopping lists and a seemingly impossible to-do list…then the strangest thing happened.

As we talked about our upcoming vacation, we got excited about the experience we were going to create for the rest of our family. As the creative juices started flowing, we came up with idea after idea to incorporate. And, the next thing you know, we were laughing and enjoying ourselves as we put the finishing touches on the plan for what ended up being an incredible weekend. At that point I realized that it wasn't about the weekend. The real meaning and value came from connecting with my mom and sister that night and creating a memory that will last a lifetime.

So we teach our clients how to set up their own Empowered Quadrant Bank, a conceptual bank—just like the Rothschild's, where they can deposit and withdraw not only their Financial Assets, but also their Core, Experience and Contribution Assets for the present and future benefit of their family.

By Greg Maddox

Fifteen years ago, I began a dialogue with a friend about estate planning for my parents. At that time, my main focus was to avoid estate taxes and maximize the amount of money that transferred from my parents to my family and my brother's family. Although my parents eventually completed a typical estate plan, they never really talked through all of the issues, thoughts, hopes, desires, etc., that they could have while they were alive. When they passed away they left a messy, disorganized estate with poor documentation and very little guidance on how to handle all the details.

My wife and I vowed at that time to do things better than my parents had. Fortunately, the friend who was initially engaged in the conversation about my parents' estate became a Quadrant Living Architect. The process has taken several years—we've had to deal with my wife's family's long-term care and sibling in-fighting issues. However, we've established a relevant family trust and are beginning to build our Empowered Quadrant Bank. We've held very important series of family meetings and now include our two children in continuing the family legacy. My younger son is helping me build a knowledge base of our real estate holdings for future generations. I'm very proud of the Family Mission Statement we created which establishes a philosophy for our family that hopefully will guide us for many generations to come.