I Am Me, Not One Of Eight

young woman was referred to me by one of the major banks. She was and is the eldest of eight children. She was sent to me because she and her brothers and sisters all were beneficiaries of quite substantial trusts that had been created for them by their grandparents. And, by the way, the trusts were separate so each of them had their own funds. There was a lot of addiction in the family playing out in many of the members. I was assured, however, that she was not one of those in that condition. So I received her in the office and began to talk with her about what she wanted.

“Well, what I’d like to do is to be seen by my trustees as an individual person, not one of eight children. Not only that, but I would like the trustees to listen to me each year about my interests and my goals for the trust so they can help me with that.”

I said to her, “If you’d like to do that, I would be happy to arrange a meeting with your trustees.”

The trustees happened to be elderly men chosen by the grantors. They were, as you will see later, very fixed in their views and their ways.

“Frankly before the meeting I need to know what you’ve done over the years to individuate yourself and differentiate yourself not only from your brothers and sisters but everyone else in the world.

What have you done that the trustees would acknowledge you as a separate person?”

And she said, “Nothing.”

“Well, that’s o.k., that’s fine. I think we need to spend some time preparing you for this meeting and,” I said, “I can assure you that the first meeting is not going to be a meeting in which you are going to achieve any of your goals.” She was very disappointed and asked “Why?” I Am Me, Not One Of Eight | Page 1 | © Hartley Goldstone | Navigating The Trustscape™

“Because these men are likely to have a view of you as one of eight troubled people. They are simply not likely to accept after one meeting that you are not only different from these people, but that they should treat you differently than they treat those people.”

By the end of the meeting, however, they began to look strangely at us.

We had created a problem for them.

“Yes,” she said, “that makes sense to me.”

We had two or three coaching sessions in my office and then set up a meeting with the trustees. We invited the banker who was servicing my client and the trust accounts to come with us.

We arrived at the office of these gentlemen who, as I said, were quite elderly. The wonderful young woman presented herself. She asked the trustees at the beginning of the meeting, “Will you receive me as myself ? Will you listen to me as myself ? Will you suspend your likely thought that I am simply one of eight to be treated the same way? “

And, after nice pleasantries, of course they said they would. We all know they couldn’t. It would be impossible. It was very clear to me after the first few questions they asked after she made a lovely presentation about herself that they had their minds made up. They saw their role as basically babysitting eight lucky sperm club kids all of whom were dependant people and many of them seriously addicted.

By the end of the meeting, however, they began to look strangely at us. We had created a problem for them. We thanked them and left. My client was anxious to have another meeting right away.

“No,” I said, “we need to let six months to go by. Then I want you to come back. I want to coach you some more. I want you to tell the trustees again all the things you told them before, because I promise they won’t remember everything you said. I also want you to tell them what you would like to do with your life.”

So back we went six months later to see those elderly gentlemen again. This time I spoke to the banker before the meeting because I sensed that he was an advocate for my client. To my great delight, we discovered that he had wanted to be her advocate but until then hadn’t known how to treat her individually and differently from her brothers and sisters because he himself had not had any experience in doing that.

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I can see the trustees all sitting around the table at one end and we sitting at the other end. My client made her presentation as she had before. Then she said, “I’d like to tell you what my dreams are, how this trust can enhance my life.”

These old gentlemen started to have wide eyes as she expressed not only who she was but also the dream that she had, which happened to be a sculptor, a serious sculptor, marrying and having a full life, and physically moving away from the family.

At the end of the meeting, the senior trustee, or so he expressed himself to be, said, “I am troubled.” And then, and then only, did I know that she had made an impact.

Some would say that “troubled” is a strange word after all that work.

“No, “ I thought, “if a trustee is troubled, it means that he has a problem that he didn’t expect to have, that his normal means of responding wouldn’t apply, and that he was going to have to do some hard work. So, he said, ‘I am troubled.’”

“Yes,“ I replied to the trustee, “I imagine you are troubled.” And then I empathized with him for about ten minutes.

The young woman sat there spellbound. I had been carefully quiet as I could be in the meeting up until then.

I became in a sense her advocate, expressing to the trustee how powerful I thought her dream was and how lucky I thought he and his co-trustees were that one of these eight was going to have a good life and they could be the means by which that good life in part could be achieved.

And so we left. Again, we didn’t ask for any money.

About two months later I got a call from the senior trustee. He said to me, “We have been sitting here stewing over your client and your presentation. And while we would really prefer to treat all eight people the same exact way, we now realize that we can’t. This young woman is under our skins. Would you arrange for her to come back with you and the banker? Let’s talk about what we might be able to do.”

These old gentlemen started to have wide eyes as she expressed not only who she was but also the dream that she had.

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So we did. The end of the story is that that this young woman did move physically, has become a very, very important sculptor in the area of the country where she lives, married a wonderful man, has a great the marriage, and much of that dream was fulfilled by the trustees providing her the means to live out that dream.

The moral of the story. Had she not decided that she would courageously individuate and differentiate, if she hadn’t done the hard work of establishing who she was in a world of illusion about who she was, then nothing would have happened. But she stepped forward with courage, perseverance and patience. Over time, the trustees were prepared to make a change in their own view of the world because a responsible and mature human being came and asked them to do so.

If a beneficiary sits home waiting for the trustee to change, nothing is going to happen. The beneficiary must be ready to say, “I am prepared for a journey with my trustees in order to educate them about who I am and about my goals and aspirations, so in turn they can come on that journey with me.”

And it is by the beneficiary that the first steps must be taken.

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