Inheritance

Are you planning to leave your loved ones with anything when you die?

I’ve had conversations about leaving an inheritance with many different parents, and I often hear (even from my CPA, who seems to make a healthy salary) that they’re not leaving their kids with much. No one wants to leave their kids feeling like they don’t have to do anything after they’re gone.

Nick and I with our pastor Jordan and his wife Jessica. They co-founded our church 11 years ago and we had the honor of serving ice cream to the congregation at the anniversary party a couple of weeks ago.

Then I think about what “much” means. For some, being left $50,000 is meaningful, while others may feel that $5,000,000 constitutes a true inheritance. For still others, none of the above would move the needle.

But what is an inheritance? For me, it’s both a tangible and intangible gift a parent leaves their child—something that can be used to help build their life in a meaningful way after the parent has passed.

As a parent and business owner who thinks often about my eventual exit from both roles in day-to-day operational capacities, I’m focused on saving enough for my future when I’m no longer actively parenting or running a company. I also think about what I want to leave my kids when that time comes.

Sugar Hill Creamery and Brooklyn Delhi, two companies founded by husband/wife duos, will be launching a special, limited edition flavor for Diwali this month! It will be available from our Harlem stores and on Goldbelly. Chitra, the company’s founder and CEO, and I are in the Goldman Sachs program together but this partnership was in motion well before we were accepted. Over the last couple of months, it’s been great getting to know her and hearing how she and her husband are building the company so their children’s lives are only edified and not smothered by it.

I never want to leave them so much that they feel they don’t need to work. We all need good work in our lives. By good work, I mean doing something that helps a person live out their values and, hopefully, their interests. I realize that not everyone is fortunate enough to do this—perhaps because they have yet to identify those passions and interests, have yet to figure out how to reverse engineer their passions and interests into a livelihood, or simply do not enjoy working. Whatever the case, I know for certain that one of the inheritances I want to leave our children is a model for how to make a life working with purpose from their passions or interests.

As Nick and I plan for the next 10 to 15 years, thanks to the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses (10KSB) program, which has set my wheels spinning about the future, I’m thinking about other inheritances I want to leave them as well. The decisions we make in the next decade or more will impact this outcome

Images from my recent field trip to JFK to tour some new projects I'm working on in the near future.

One recent exercise in the 10KSB program was to explore our relationship with money. Here’s a LinkedIn post my business advisor wrote and shared with us on the topic. Nick and I have spent time this week exploring our money stories and how they inform the financial decisions we make for our future selves and our children. From our conversations, I’ve learned that our money stories—mostly shaped by our earliest memories of money as children—are outdated yet completely rule how we engage with it.

Reflecting on both Nick’s and my money stories, I am working through what else I want to leave our kids—beyond the model for purposeful work and our ability to care for ourselves without relying on them when we get older. I’m hoping that whatever we decide to leave will be meaningful to them in more ways than one.

I’d love to hear if you think about these things and what you’d like to leave behind in lessons, legacy, or luxury.

With gratitude,
Petrushka

P.S. If you’re a small business owner reading this who’s interested in growing their business, consider attending a 90-minute virtual workshop offered by the 10KSB program on October 20th. It will offer strategies for accelerating your business’ growth. Even if you don’t apply to the 10KSB program, this workshop alone can help give you the jumpstart you need towards the growth you’re looking for.