Pathways with Amber Stitt

The Art of Building Legacy: Multi-Generational Wealth Transfer, Motive, & Advisor Relationships With Joe Strazzeri, Esq.

• Amber Stitt • Season 4 • Episode 9

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Put on your family planning thinking caps because you’re about to meet Joe Strazzeri, a tax attorney and entrepreneur who’s helped countless families navigate wealth, legacy, and the power of real family dynamics. 

From building and selling businesses to mastering multidisciplinary teams, Joe Strazzeri brings a fresh perspective to what it really means to lead, mentor, and raise the next generation—without losing sight of the lessons learned along the way. 🌟

In this episode, Joe Strazzeri reveals his approach to collaboration, the importance of understanding motives, and why letting his own kids “fail” early was the best financial lesson he could give. 

Plus: actionable advice for anyone striving to grow—whether you’re just starting out or you’re already building your legacy.

Get ready to rethink mentorship, family synergy, and what it means to truly serve others. 👏

Let’s dive into building real relationships, fostering healthy conflict, and creating pathways for everyone to rise.

📽️ To watch this episode: https://youtu.be/7UrMnTl1L9g 

🔗 To connect with Joe Strazzeri: 

📲 Website: https://strazzerimancini.com 

📲 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joestrazzeri 

📲 Joe's Book, "Motive: Meet the Invisible Guest in Your Wealth-Biased Relationships": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FV2SXLZJ?tag=bk00010a-20&th=1&psc=1&geniuslink=true

📲 Joe's Other Important Website: https://scinstitute.org  

#pathwayswithamberstitt #wealthtransfer #amberstitt #joestrazzeri #strazzerimancini #scinstitute #successionplanning #naifae3 #amberstittmediacompany 

📻 Thank you for tuning in to Pathways!

🔗 Connect with Amber on Social Media:

📲 Be sure to visit Amber's website:

www.AmberStitt.com

🎬 And remember, let's take action today!!!

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Joe Strazzeri [00:00:00]:
Cause now my kids are old enough. They're now meeting with our financial advisor with some seed money and they're having their own meeting. And all I ask is that they meet with me, with them once a quarter. Not so I can approve or disapprove because I hope they fail. I hope they lose money with that little number before they get a bigger number and lose it. I hope they learn the lessons because I don't know about you, but I had to learn my lessons and I'm glad I learned it at smaller numbers than bigger numbers, because now I'm a downside protector, before I searched up.

Amber Stitt [00:00:27]:
Hello and welcome to Pathways e3, a special edition of Pathways with Amber Stitt. The Pathways e3 podcasts were recorded with special guests who were attending and collaborating at the NAIFA e3 conference in Newport Beach, California in September 2025. Let's join the conversation. We are live at e3 and we have Joe with us today, which I am so excited about because we're new friends. We are live at NAIFA. So with a lot of experience running...well, you're gonna have to share a little bit about your background because it's too extensive for me to articulate in one sentence. But I really want to get to the meat of how you see our industry benefiting from mentorship and really having some reciprocating some community. But there's more to the story, so we're going to start there.

Amber Stitt [00:01:13]:
I'm going to have you share a little bit about why you're here, why you're speaking, and then I'll have some more questions for you.

Joe Strazzeri [00:01:19]:
Sure, Sounds good.

Amber Stitt [00:01:20]:
So why are you on stage today here at NAIFA?

Joe Strazzeri [00:01:22]:
Becausee, like you said, I'm a tax attorney. I started out in the construction industry with civil engineering and then I was a general contractor by trade. I hammered nails to become an attorney at 30.

Amber Stitt [00:01:33]:
No way. I didn't know that part.

Joe Strazzeri [00:01:34]:
I am my client. I built and sold two businesses before I was 30, one since. I have personally used a patch of crazy assets. I've got advisors and partners and all the things that you would imagine just like our clients do. But what I'm talking about today, more often than not, the firms do a variety of things, but I spent about a third of my life in legal, financial, and tax technical for the 30 to 300 million client family, about a third of my life in family business conflict and family conflict, usually toxicity where people say they haven't been able to interact with each other in years, or decades. And about a third of my life teaching those two things. Today's conversation, they asked if I'd fill in, not on those subjects, but on building multidisciplinary collaborative teams for that kind of a family.

Joe Strazzeri [00:02:22]:
Because most of those families have hodgepodged together, or they have one company that has put it all together. But naturally all that advice goes one direction. So how does a family put together that kind of a team? And if you've got an independent financial advisor that's not a bank or a warehouse, how do you get that advisor to head up a team of best in class where they don't argue with each other and they don't make you be the ping-pong ball going back and forth. But how do you hear what I might call, President Lincoln at the time had a cabinet of adversaries where there were people who had different opinions, who all spoke together and then came to a better solution than they could have otherwise. So that's what I'm talking about today.

Amber Stitt [00:02:58]:
When did you start seeing the need to talk about the family dynamic?

Joe Strazzeri [00:03:01]:
About 20 years ago, we ran into the fact that the successful families had two things in common. Families who intergenerationally transferred wealth had two major pieces in common. One, they had fabulous relationships with their advisors where they got to the advisor not because the advisor said, "I've got something to show you or sell you," not because they wanted to do another thing, but because in the downtimes and the uptimes, they were talking to the advisor earlier than the disaster, earlier than the high point. And hence the long-term financial return was less about what to invest in, or the return on investment, but instead about the relationship with the advisor. Number two, Roy Williams, a good friend of mine, used to say it was about trust and communication within families to get generational wealth. He's that guy that did a study on 70% gone, the first generation, 90% by the second. I would leverage from that and he was a good friend of mine, God rest his soul.

Joe Strazzeri [00:03:51]:
I would leverage from that that there's an invisible guest at everybody's table that is this motive that families don't see. There's motives within advisors, there's motives with different advisors, motives within family members, motives for themselves, usually based on a misunderstanding of underlying fact and a misunderstanding of actions that were reactions and a lack of attention until it was a problem. So between those two things, it became what was important. And in the family side, the suffering that happens for affluent families within their family relationships based on money used as control, or money used as access. Or the fear of not having. The fear of having. "How do I not ruin my children?" "How did I get my dad to see me as still doing?" That dynamic caused a rift in the family that the person who created the wealth never wanted.

Joe Strazzeri [00:04:41]:
So we took about 3 years studying the best in the country that worked with that, to find some commonalities. And now we teach it.

Amber Stitt [00:04:49]:
Okay, so then, this is coming out in a new book that you have, this framework, we'll call it.

Joe Strazzeri [00:04:54]:
There's my book called "Motive" and suggesting that it's the invisible guest. It does talk about motive itself. The understanding, like I just said.

Amber Stitt [00:05:01]:
Is it not always negative?

Joe Strazzeri [00:05:03]:
No, motive doesn't have to be negative. Look, you have a smile on your face right now. That has a motive behind it. Are you doing it for the camera? Are you doing it because we had a great time as we said last time? A little fluff of the hair? Or do you do it because you're having a good time? Are you enjoying what you're doing today? I can make all sorts of assumptions about that smile that might be right, or might be wrong. And I might base my next action on that. That becomes even more nefarious when I might have a frown on my face. I might have a frown on my face because I just thought of something that was said 3 days ago by somebody and I just got it.

Amber Stitt [00:05:34]:
Yeah.

Joe Strazzeri [00:05:34]:
And it has nothing to do with this at all.

Amber Stitt [00:05:36]:
Sure.

Joe Strazzeri [00:05:36]:
But then it changes our dynamic. Can you imagine having that with your advisors over the biggest decisions you have to make? Can you imagine it with your family members misunderstanding? So there's a section on motive. There's a section on choosing and getting chosen. Most people don't know when they're being chosen, or they're choosing advisors and what that dynamic is. How do you vet strategies? How do you vet advisors? And how do you steward to make sure you're vetting every year? If I work with you and you're my financial advisor and we're 5 years in and your life takes a turn, shouldn't I know that? Would it change the advice you're giving me?

Amber Stitt [00:06:11]:
Sure.

Joe Strazzeri [00:06:11]:
If also you ended up learning something new and you had the expert in the country that joined your team, that would also change our dynamic. Next is the idea that our family synergy, or my family synergy, shouldn't be about alignment, where I create rules so my kids have to do something.

Amber Stitt [00:06:26]:
Sure.

Joe Strazzeri [00:06:27]:
Our industries are great at us making money by putting limitations and not showing us the exploration. I'm 62 years old. I don't want anybody to control my stuff.

Amber Stitt [00:06:35]:
Yeah.

Joe Strazzeri [00:06:35]:
I don't want to raise my 24 year-old and my 20 year-old that they have to have somebody in charge of their stuff all their life. How do I teach them so they can be in charge? That's what I want for Sal and Maddie. Instead of creating this alignment stuff, which is rules, or tools for rules, how do I create a synergistic relationship in our family about how we do? How do I get my son to say, "Hey dad, I'm going to be a lawyer, but like you said the other day on my side thing, can we start to learn how to build together? You used to do that. That's how you build your wealth. Should I become a general contractor, or should we develop land together?" That's a wonderful conversation to have with a 24 year-old and to tell them, "Hey, for your first thing, let's do a fourplex and we'll grow from there." And then lastly, the one ingredient that most high net worth families, the creator of that wealth. Not the balance, but the creator, they walk uphill with a bang of rocks on their back. And most of the people I talk to feel, "I would give half of my wealth if somebody would just carry 3 of my rocks."

Amber Stitt [00:07:31]:
Interesting.

Joe Strazzeri [00:07:31]:
And they also say, "The missing ingredient, as I look at my family, they're fabulous, they're dynamic, they've done well, but they all want to take care of themselves first and other people next." And that's true for 99.5% of the people in the United States. And it's a very common mental health practice. But I deal with the top half of 1% of all Americans. And that person who created it has an "others first" mentality. Their joy comes from taking care of others. Often they're misunderstood servant leaders and the words like "Narcissist," "Type A," and all those other negative things, and the thing that's not true about that is they're doing it to serve others.

Joe Strazzeri [00:08:11]:
It appears like they're in control for themselves because they're balancing all of their people's needs. They're looking down one or two generations saying, who's the next one that doesn't want power, doesn't want wealth, that wants to serve the family.

Amber Stitt [00:08:25]:
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Pathways. Please consider giving us a like and subscribing to the channel. Your support goes a long way towards helping us bring you more compelling content. Remember, let's take action together! Now let's jump back back into the conversation! Obviously, it's not that easy to look within your family and figure out who's ready, who's coachable, who's maybe the skill set you can teach some of the practices. I imagine there's a lot of turmoil. Some of these kids are not going to show up like you're saying they're looking...

Joe Strazzeri [00:08:58]:
Some will volunteer, some won't. Often it's your daughter-in-law, or son-in-law that shows up because remember the person that created it wasn't running towards wealth. And I know that because all my entrepreneurs, because we handle 50 or 60 of them a year, they're not running to wealth because they passed their number a long time ago. They're running away from something.

Amber Stitt [00:09:13]:
Yeah.

Joe Strazzeri [00:09:14]:
The people in their life have nothing to run away from, so they don't have that, if I was to quote a Rocky movie, "The Eye of the Tiger."

Amber Stitt [00:09:22]:
Yeah.

Joe Strazzeri [00:09:22]:
And that's what they're looking for is an eye of the tiger, the drive.

Amber Stitt [00:09:25]:
Yeah.

Joe Strazzeri [00:09:26]:
But to serve others which will serve the family.

Amber Stitt [00:09:28]:
And it's interesting, I mean there's probably this perception of where people might be a little angry that someone's more successful. You know there's probably this perception of that top 1% that's just you're seeing so much of it.

Joe Strazzeri [00:09:40]:
And the other thing is, too, the one that creates the wealth never had anybody show them how to run this. They know how to run the business. But how do you run the family of affluence? How do you train them? What do you do? You want better for them and all of a sudden you're like, "Oh my God, I want it better. But did I deprive them of the drive?" And that's why I say often daughters-in-laws and son-in-laws come from less and have that drive.

Amber Stitt [00:10:03]:
Yeah.

Joe Strazzeri [00:10:04]:
And let's say I'm the wealth creator because let's say I do that as well. Are my kids standing in my shadow or have I found a way that they reached an age that I started to have them have their own life? And I'm not trying to be metaphysical about it. And all the rest.

Amber Stitt [00:10:17]:
Sure.

Joe Strazzeri [00:10:17]:
Let's face it, driven servant leader entrepreneurs cast huge shadows. Huge shadows. How do you find that success for the next? And I don't mean, "I need to make an impact," and, "I need to be meaningful." That stuff that belongs to no high net worth family at all. That's not what we created from you go to be impactful. Just step up and work.

Amber Stitt [00:10:37]:
Yeah. They often say bring the spouses together and planning. At what point do you bring the kids in and sit across the table from them.

Joe Strazzeri [00:10:43]:
Scott Fithian, a friend of mine who God bless, passed away, along with Jennifer Tolman, wrote the book "Other Side of the Table", and she helped me write "Motive", actually. It's the Bible for advisors of high net worth. How do you sit on the other side of the table? What is it like to do that? How do you bring those spouses together? Your question, though, is when do we bring children in? And it has a twofold answer. When does an advisor invite children? But when do parents start to invite children? My kids, when they were very young, I said, "I will match every dollar you save until you go to college. I'll stop matching at that point. But whatever your high water mark, you save in college to you graduate from whatever grad school or not, whatever that high watermark difference, I will do five times the amount in your first piece of real estate."

Amber Stitt [00:11:28]:
Ooh.

Joe Strazzeri [00:11:28]:
But it has to go to a rental real estate piece. I wanted to teach them how to save early and then how to know that they had something that they earned in investment. So I invited them at a young age to be involved in their own. The amount of money they save is a rounding error in our lives, but to them, it's huge. And they know they earned part, yes, some was given, but they earned. So if I'm an advisor, I would say teach the family how to invite the family early and then as an advisor, be invited to the table. Because now my kids are old enough. They're now meeting with our financial advisor with some seed money and they're having their own meeting.

Joe Strazzeri [00:12:06]:
And all I ask is that they meet with me, with them once a quarter. Not so I can approve or disapprove, because I hope they fail. I hope they lose money with that little number before they get a bigger number and lose it. I hope they learn lessons. I don't know about you, but I had to learn my lessons. And I'm glad I learned it at smaller numbers, than bigger numbers, because now I'm a downside protector, before I searched up.

Amber Stitt [00:12:27]:
I like that. I'm just kind of waiting to feel like, "How bad was it? Okay, not too bad. It's great. We can turn this around." Oh, that's so good. So everything you've shared has been helpful. But if we're going to have listeners say, okay, whether they were here at e3, or they're listening, they have never met you. But they turn off the podcast.

Amber Stitt [00:12:45]:
What do you want them to start thinking about today? Maybe they're not high net worth, yet. Maybe they're on the come up. What do you...a little inspiration, but something that they can execute. What do you think?

Joe Strazzeri [00:12:54]:
There's two parts. One, we talked about the next generation. If you were to take the time to take your spouse and go for a walk on the beach and give an hour to what is it that we want for them and what example are we setting for them and what opportunity are we giving them to be successful, so they have to struggle, but they get success. They have to struggle but they get success. They struggle, they lose, they have to pay their penalty and get success. And if a couple did that a couple times a year and said, "Are we intentionally helping our kids run and become their own success, not dependent on ours, or to stand on our shoulders."

Joe Strazzeri [00:13:31]:
The second part is am I interacting with my advisors and being a good parent to my advisors, Am I giving them the best I have when I show up to a meeting? Am I prepared? Am I letting the advisor go deep and dig into me? I'm going to let the advisor be my cabinet of adversaries, or do I have a bunch of yes people?

Amber Stitt [00:13:51]:
Yep.

Joe Strazzeri [00:13:51]:
How do I cause conflict amongst my advisors that's healthy in front of me. So we get new innovative ideas. So I'm not constantly bringing them ideas and I don't hear from them until when they want to sell me something. I hear it bad, or good.

Joe Strazzeri [00:14:05]:
And they feel that being in front of me is rewarding even if there's something bad because I reward them for coming. And then we bring the team together and say how do we do it? And then how do I bring my non-controlling spouse into that adversaries? And how do I teach my children the same? That's what I'd want to do.

Amber Stitt [00:14:21]:
Love it. Well, thank you for carving out some time before you hit the main stage.

Joe Strazzeri [00:14:25]:
Thank you, Amber.

Amber Stitt [00:14:26]:
Thank you so much, Joe.

Joe Strazzeri [00:14:27]:
Thank you all very much.

Amber Stitt [00:14:29]:
Thank you for joining us for this special edition of Pathways e3 recorded at the NAIFA e3 conference in Newport Beach, California. Join us for more insightful conversations with the experts and leaders of their industries. Until next time, keep taking action on your unique path!