Would You Rather: Give Generational Wealth Or Generational Health?

At our gym FitTown Jupiter, we’re doing some remodeling…always. Just like home ownership, the projects are never-ending. I’ve been recently chatting with contractors and salesmen to pick their brain and gather quotes. One of them congratulated me on owning the business and owning the buildings. “What a great asset to be able to have in your family and pass down to your children,” he said to me.

I told him how good God has been to us, and didn’t think much more about the comment until later. Here’s a pro-tip: Anytime someone tells you how lucky you are, stop and think about how lucky you are. And thank God…always. So I stopped, and started thinking.

Owning a business and owning the buildings they inhabit is a really fortunate position to be in, but I thought about what the business actually is. To me, it’s way more than a business. It’s a place where people come to transform their lives. It’s not just 12,000 sq ft of commercial property, it’s a place where someone can walk inside and completely change the trajectory of their life and their family’s lives.

While it’s great that my brother Andrew and I can pass down our business and buildings to our kids, I’m way more excited about passing down what’s inside those buildings. Sure the generational wealth created here is notable, but the generational health created here is remarkable.

At this point in my life, I’m in a prime position to witness how generational wealth and generational health have transformed my family. My dad was once-upon-a-time a teacher at a college prep school in New Jersey. He got into real estate and forever changed the path our family would be on. My parents have now built wealth in owning real estate that will support generations to come after them.

But what’s so amazing about watching my parents now, is that they teach their grandkids with the same fervor they taught Andrew and I. They never let a teaching moment go. My dad jumps at every single chance to join one of their sports practices or games. My mom takes every opportunity to teach them about art and creating things with their hands. They show their grandkids what it means to live healthy and active lives.

When it comes to passing down generational wealth to your kids, there are tangible and intangible things you can gift to them. The tangible things you can pass down are money, businesses, investments, and assets like real estate. The often overlooked but more important things to pass down are intangible. These are things like financial education and literacy, budgeting and spending habits, and values around money.

There are the tangible things my parents will pass down to their family, but there are also so many intangible things they’ll pass down too. This is what I want to make sure I’m also passing down to my kids. Intangible things like values, habits, and education that are around wealth, but moreso around health. I want to teach them about the grocery market, before we start talking about the stock market.

When your health starts costing you a lot of money towards the back-end of your life, the intangible habits around health begin to get very real and tangible. All those days you chose to overwork yourself for money instead of doing health and spirit-fulfilling activities have added up in an unfortunate way. A lot of people are forced to spend their wealth on health, when they thought they would be generously passing it down instead.

The investment into the intangibles is always a hard sell to ourselves. We want to go make money, and see the rewards as we bring it home to our family. Every good habit loop has a cue, action, and positive reward. Without those visible rewards, the actions get tougher to do.

My son Dylan has taught me a ton about how investing into the intangibles with him, can very tangibly move him across the autism spectrum that he’s on. I’ve seen how my presence with him has completely transformed the way he acts around myself and others.

“Presence” has transformed us both so much that it became 1 of the 10 Spectrum Mindset elements I write about in my book, “Spectrum Mindset: How to Leave Behind a Black-and-White World For a Life of Endless Possibility.”

I wrote in the book, “Giving your kids ‘presence’ is a much greater gift than giving your kids ‘presents’.”

Teaching generational health goes far beyond just taking your kids to the gym with you. It’s making sure they know what it means to live a healthy life physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s equipping them fully with the tools they need.

Every time I pick up a new book, I think about how that book will affect my family. When I do a nutrition coaching course, I think about how it will apply to the members of my gym family and my family at home. I’m always thinking about how learning is never just for myself, and it’s something that can be passed down to those coming next.

I hope my blog posts and my book can be that to you. I hope they fundamentally shift the way you go about parenting and leading others so that you leave an impact on the people that are closest to you.

As you grow, you’re helping those behind you grow. Work on your habits and values around health and then pass them down. They will get caught by others whether you want them to or not.

-Coach Tony