Welcome to Getting Rich Together. I’m your host, Shama Bunton. This show was born for my own journey. Coming out of a divorce, I reached out to 50 women to talk to them about money.

95% of them did not want to go there. That’s when I realized we need spaces where wealth isn’t hidden in silence but shared in possibilities. Here, you’ll meet women from all backgrounds, trailblazers, risk takers, visionaries, each expanding what wealth can look like. This is your place to be inspired to discover new pathways and to remember that we rise by building wealth together. Getting Rich Together is a wealth catalyst production.

At Wealth Catalyst, we bring together education, networks, and great opportunities for women to build wealth and change the world. Now, on to today’s show. Today, I am joined with the incredible Madeline Thompson. Madeline, you are a strategic impact partner, executive coach whose work centers around creating meaningful connections that drive transformation. I’m so excited to have you here today as a fourth generation member of the Les Schwab-Tyer family. Madeline, you have done such an incredible job of taking your family’s legacy of a relation-driven leadership philosophy into philanthropy.

Certainly, finding your own donor advice fund and guiding nonprofits is not easy. You have taken on a lot onto your shoulders, including being able to advise and work with other next-gen donors. There’s so much that I’m so excited to have you here today to talk about, but first and foremost, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. What a beautiful summary. Thank you.

You are so welcome. Madeline, we were just chatting before we hit record. You’ve just had an incredible summer. I love hearing about the ways in which your mind and your heart is thinking and developing things with such integrity and curiosity and this desire to serve the world. Before we jump into everything that you’re up to today as an adult, let’s take a moment, turn back the time. I’d love for you to take me back to a young Madeline, someone who’s between eight, 10, 12 years old. Where were you in this big, beautiful world of ours? What was family life around you? What were some of the early money stories you were picking up?

Oh man, that’s great. I’ll take it to around 12. Our family is all based in Oregon. We were in Bend, Oregon. 12-year-old Madeline was an avid baker. I think at an early age, I found out I could easily do that for food. If I made something for someone and had that exchange, that was an instant connection. At 12, I was creating all these different projects in the kitchen, which was the central part for and location for our family. Even at a young age, I think family and business was so integral that it was seamless.

My great-grandfather who founded the company would come over to our house almost every week or we would go over to Prineville to see him and we would share meals. During those conversations, and it’s always interesting as you’re older and you reflect back what you think is normal, is maybe not normal for every family. We would be in the kitchen and talking about anything from school to what we’re doing each day to transitioning to business. Just those conversations and talking about money at an early age was normal and standardized. I learned about the company. We learned about when we go out to dinner, my great-grandfather would quiz us on tipping people and different percentages. I think that active just money was always present, but it was related to the family business.

It was within that container. Interesting 12-year-old. I’m really curious. What did he teach you about tipping? What was the strategy that he was imparting on you? The company was based off of the service industry. Service to him was really important.

He was also a number’s man. He would look at the bill and we would see the total and he would tell us, okay, what would 20, I mean, he’s a generous man. The whole company was built on radical generosity.

He would say, what’s 20% and 18% all these different things to get used to thinking about talking about what service was delivered and then the expectation of giving back based off of that service. To this day, I still like there’s apps now for generating tips or they show it on the receipt, which is just such an interesting thing to me. Probably part of why I ended up in the restaurant industry for a bit. Being young and hearing about business at the dinner table, that is a very unique and unusual set of data points to have in your young brain, especially as you’re in school and you’re learning about math and you’re learning about things with your classmates. But you’re also getting this cool way of being able to have those things have meaning. I think business is such an interesting way of looking at math and the economy and world and the jobs and seeing integrated in business, all these things come together.

It’s such a special and powerful lens. When you were younger hearing about business, were there anythings that business or was it like, man, why is this thing constantly happening? How did your young and juicy and developing brain start to understand what business was?

Great question. All of our brains are a little bit different. I know myself, I’m a relational person, so I focus on people. As we were learning about the business, it was really clear to me and with my great grandfather founding the company, it was all based on, he said, we’re in the business of creating opportunities for people. I think that really instilled in me the fact that if, again, back to the radical generosity, he shared over 50% of profits with employees because he had this deep understanding of what makes a company successful or the people and so who do you want to give the money back to?

It’s the people on the ground. I think for me, it was less about the numbers and more about the story of, okay, here’s where in the business of creating opportunities for people and understanding the employees for true partners. How can you show up and be a true partner to someone and really support them? I think that looking back at where I’m at now, I still really lead with that relational aspect of how can I be a true partner? My brother’s definitely the math brain and we’re only 18 months apart.

I think the balance of the two was always really wonderful, but to me, it always comes back to the people. That’s so beautiful, Madeline. Okay, so you’re no longer 12. Take me now into high school. Was it Madeline in the books, on the track, at a job? Were you changing tires? What were you? What was life like for you in high school? At that time, what is it that you thought you wanted to be in the world? How did you start to see yourself express your early independence and early ideas of self? High school is such an interesting time.

You’re at home, so you’re under the roof of your parents who have raised you, but at the same time, you’re out into this social kind of construct where you’re forming your own identity. And I think for me, I am a perfectionist, overachiever, rule follower. Me in high school, my goal was just to be the best student that I could be. I didn’t miss class. A lot of times I had lunch with my teachers. I was just aware of, I think acutely aware of the fact that always that our family was, it’s a small community, everyone knew our family. So I had this deep awareness of how I showed up in the world, was being watched, which is interesting. And I’ve spoken to a lot of next gens and there’s this awareness that I’m here, I’m in this place with all these other people, but I’m a little bit different. And everyone is, they all have their own stories.

We all feel like we’re being watched in different ways. But I think school was just this, I love the learning. The social aspect for me wasn’t really a thing. I had a couple close friends, but going back to the baking in high school, I was actually working with a pastry chef that we had in our own hometown. So I would go work with her, she would have people come who were opening bakeries and I was her assistant. So I had this beautiful family business tires, pastries, schooling. And so I think it was this always, in my identity, creativity and food was always this connection that made me feel like it was my high school me is I understood there were, I had responsibilities. I knew I’d be in the family business. We were being educated by my parents who were incredibly thoughtful about how to get us involved in the family business.

I felt like the executives and even the employees were like family. So what if they do that? Yeah, that’s a great question. I think for us, it really was family. My great-grandfather had a ranch, we would go hunting with the executives. Each year they had managers meetings and my parents would just bring us. And I’m so grateful for that experience because at very early age, I was eating at a dinner table with the executives and they never made me feel like I didn’t belong, which is so wonderful.

And at the same time, educating us in a way that was accessible when you’re a kid. And I think the business just was built on having a team. So when you were all together, you really felt like a team. And then my dad also worked, so my mom’s a family member. She was corporate side. And then my dad worked in a store and was a store manager and zone manager in the company. So we would go hang out at the store and run around in the tire center and play with all employees.

They would really involve us, eat the popcorn that everyone knows about. So yeah, it was such a unique experience, but it was normal. Yeah. You know, what’s interesting is the word that comes to mind as you’re talking is stewardship. It sounds like there was just this great deal of attention paid to making things feel familiar to you, to making them feel natural, but also the sense of stewarding ethics and integrity showing up in this family environment. It’s really beautiful to hear those sorts of qualities being instilled as a young person and being able to understand the interconnectivity of people and business and relationships. There are so many startups that are being founded and things that are being created with such little connection to the people that they’re serving or the products they’re creating.

They’re so focused on these technical sides of things. And I think sometimes this human spirit and sort of leading from the heart is one of the most magical things that you can’t really teach anybody. You just have to have them experience it, right? And steward that within them. Absolutely. To your point too, it is interesting to kind of see things shift so much because the company was built on people.

And you don’t see that as often. It’s not proprietary sort of thing. It’s just based off of customer service. And it was interesting because my great grandfather had this idea of how he wanted to run a business and create this profit sharing program. And it just so happened what the opportunity that came to him was a tire store. He didn’t have the intention of starting a business with tires.

And so he knew nothing about tires, but he knew about this profit sharing program. So it’s just so interesting to me. There’s luck, but that’s at the same time, it’s what can you do if you just invest in people? And I think we’re losing sight of that a little bit. Oh yeah.

What a beautiful reflection. It also highlights like, you just simply don’t know what’s around the corner, right? If he didn’t know he was going into tires and creating this sort of prolific enterprise and not only impacting families, but also customers and your family and creating all of this, it’s like you just, you never know what life has in store. And so moving into continued unfolding of your life and not knowing what’s in store, you knew a lot of things that were in store, but you also were developing as a young person, getting ready to go into university and starting to think about what you might have interests in studying, right? The things that you might be interested in and exploring certainly with a sense of responsibility, right?

Most people don’t have the lanes carved out. This is going to be your path. This is an expectation, but then that can cause both great deals of excitement, but also stress and ambiguity because it’s like, what the heck am I doing with my life?

Oh my God. But as you decided to go into university, what sort of zeroed in on your areas of interest? How did you start to express yourself, right?

Knowing that you were going to be going into the family business, but you’re also Madeleine and this beautiful young woman who’s exploring the world. That’s a great question. Yes. It is that interesting piece of I feel like anyone in the family business, it’s almost like this bowling where you have the bumpers.

And yes, you can roll yourself down, but within certain parameters. And for me, I studied business just as a practicality. We were getting, like I said, outside experience from our family business and education that way.

And so that just felt like that was bolstering it. But at the other end is I’m a creative person and I loved art history. And so that felt like I could use, I would go to business school and walk across campus and explore art history. College is such an interesting place.

Cause yes, you, again, forming that identity is you’re figuring out how do I show up in the world and how really to be a critical thinker. And I think again, I was acutely aware of that, that I had goals that college was important, but I knew it was ahead. And so just using that time and my parents were so wonderful to let us explore because they knew it was coming.

And they think that permission to just show up in the world how you want understanding that it’ll all work out at some point and benefit from that was so wonderful. I was always aware and grateful for the fact that I had the opportunity to go to college because our company was so successful. So then employees gave me this opportunity to open doors to this education. As soon as I graduated, I actually went to pastry school in Chicago, which is what I was looking for to the whole time in undergrad. And to me, it made sense because I thought this is another service industry. What might I learn from this that I can bring back? It’s people centered.

It’s hard labor, which is changing tires is hard labor. And so I thought, okay, this is again, following this in my own lens. So then I moved to Chicago and went to pastry school.

Oh my gosh. Okay, you have to tell me what were some of the most difficult pastries to make? I really want to know what was the challenge? And then what were some of your breakout favorite pastries that maybe you didn’t know you were going to love so much? And then you made them and you were like, oh my God, this was amazing. So great. It’s taking me back. It’s been a little bit so hardest elements. When I first moved there, I was in the summer.

So Chicago, it can get a little humid, not quite like the East Coast, but still humid. And we were doing chocolate sculptures and sugar sculptures. And there’s just this element of performance where you’re putting these pieces together and that any moment, if something’s not the right temperature or balanced, it can all come crashing down. And that was my introduction. And I’m again, a high performer perfectionist. So this, it was a good test for me in the art of letting go of what just, it’s just at the end of the day of sugar.

So you can’t get that upset over it. So that piece, and then it was strictly a French pastry school. So we went through all of these different modules in six months. And I think for me, the one that was most unexpected that I loved was candy making, pat de fouille, which literally translates to paste of fruit. There’s these little gems and tiny pieces of candy that a lot of I would go back to my apartment complex and the people at the front door, I would just give out food again, making connections.

And it was so wonderful to have people try things that they hadn’t tried before and just to see their reactions. So yeah, pat de fouille, nougat, we would make entremets, which are, there’s a very specific construction to it. It’s like a cake where you have a cake layer, you have something that’s crunchy. So which is basically crispy crepe pieces. Almost that crunch element. Yeah. And so you have something like that.

And then a mousse and usually it’s decorated on top, but they’re really colorful, you slice them. It was an art. And I loved that. And again, it’s what I love so much about food. And there’s, it’s so important. And I recognize it growing up, my family having dinner was such a privilege because so many parents now you have two working parents, the act of sitting down and sharing a meal is so important. And so much can happen there.

And whether you’re talking about family business or you’re just connecting with your friends. And that’s what we do here in Boulder. I, my husband and I still host family meals.

And we do it’s our chosen family in Boulder, because we don’t have any family here. And everyone comes together, we share food and catch up on each other’s lives. And those are some of my favorite things. And so with pastries too, it’s just being in that school, being able to share all of these things that I was making with people.

And you can make some instant friends that way. It was such a fun time. And it felt like mine. Yeah. That is so special. And my gosh, I’m eagerly wanting to invite myself over for some pastries.

Anytime. We’ll plan that later. Okay, I’m dawdling off into like pastry land here.

So you’re coming out of pastry school, you know how to make pastries like a, like a badass. I’m so excited to continue to daydream about this. But then you’re sort of coming back to think about life, right? And having conversations around what the next step of life looks like. At that time, when you returned, was the path clearly laid out for you? Were there a lot of conversations about direction or ideas? You know, how did you sort of look at this next stage of building who you are, and then also coming into this beautiful moment of entering into the family business?

Yeah, it’s, it was an interesting chapter. Because I think, you know, I had this building my own pastry business sort of piece, and then coming back. And we did start to have those open and honest conversations of what does this look like? As my mom was wanting to start to step down and introduce my brother and I, because again, we’re only 18 months apart. But at that point, I’m fourth generation. And there were three other family branches.

And realizing we didn’t have a clear succession plan that was clearing cut and in place. And each family educated, and when educated themselves in their own way, which is completely fine. And when that happened, and we started talking to advisors, we started to have the hard conversations that many family businesses have of what does this really look like for everyone.

And the way that the family was structured and the ownership structure, the best and hardest decision was to solve the family business. So for me, it was this pivotal moment of I’ve done everything right, or that’s in my mind, this is these are the narratives that come up that I’ve unpacked since then. And I think I’m not alone in people who are navigating this is that I’ve done all of these things. And the whole purpose of me doing that was I would get to prove the employees and the executive team, I did all of this, now I get to give back what you gave me, because I was able to go to pastry schools, able to go to college and explore what I wanted to. And then when the opportunity came, I never got that. And at the same time, my life transformed.

Our family lived very differently. We reinvested back into the company. So when the company sold, my life was transformed. And I received wealth that beyond what I thought I ever deserved just by existing. And it felt like I did nothing to deserve it. It was a hard moment feeling like you’re so proud of a legacy and then you don’t get to contribute towards that.

So it was a hard moment. What were some of the important feelings and ways in which you started to unpack that? How did you start to peel back these layers of disappointment or identity, worthiness, and also being so young, right? So that we have to give yourself some grace and love here, which is, you know, these are difficult questions for anyone to have to approach at any time in their life. But certainly when you’re young, there’s, you’re still figuring out your identity, who you are, and you’ve been really building yourself to be this person, right?

And now everything is changing around you. What guidance was provided to you? How did you unpack this for yourself emotionally and intellectually? Yeah, I was through this process.

I found out transitions aren’t linear. I’m five years out and still transitioning and grieving in some ways, but in a healthy way. The best thing that I did is I engaged with an executive coach who had worked with me in our family business. She knew our family history. She knew me. And she gave me the space to, yes, you brought up stewardship earlier, is like, how do I become a steward of all of this? And she brought in that transitioning from that burden and guilt that a lot of people can sometimes feel and showed you’d open the door to opportunity.

Asking the question for myself, what do I really want? Which I hadn’t really done that before. Yes, in some ways, because I was so proud to be, everything that I did, I’m so proud of, but giving that space to figure out, okay, I get to decide how I show up in the world now. And in transitioning from, I felt like I had this shadow that was over me of my great grandfather, how can I compare to this great man who founded this thing? And now I’m holding it. I’m holding his legacy. And it felt heavy.

And I think coming out of that experience, there’s shadows still there, but it’s walking alongside me. And coming out of that was founding my own donor advice fund, because it felt like a way of, this is how I can create opportunities for people, but I can do it in my own voice. And like him not knowing anything about the tire industry, I knew nothing about philanthropy. And they still feel like I have so much to learn, but that piece of knowing, okay, I can do this, I can give back in some way, made all the world of a difference.

Pause for a second. If you’re not already on the Wealth Catalysts sub-stack, you are missing out. Over 20,000 people have subscribed and they are diving into stories, strategies, and money expanders you won’t find anywhere else. Join us today and keep fueling your wealth journey. Check out the link in the show notes.

Now back to the show. As you were working with your family advisors and your coach and piecing things together, what were some of the other things that you had also thought about? Was it, oh, you heard about creating a donor advice fund and it was like, this is it? Or has you considered any other possibilities at that time? What were the dominoes that felt that led you to say, this is the right vehicle or this is where I’m going to spend my time to start to build out legacy and impact? Yeah, that’s a great question.

And I would say that process of figuring that out has been the past five years. In all honesty, my advisor was really wonderful as we were navigating the sale and because I really didn’t know what to do. And they said, we know you, we think this donor advice fund would be a great way for you to show up in the world. And I think for me, it’s just I’m an information gatherer. So I really lean into, okay, we also moved to Boulder at the same time.

And Boulder County has the most nonprofits per capita. So I thought, okay, I’m moving into this new community, I have a donor advice fund, there’s going to be all these opportunities. I can, I’m a pretty open person, so I can just connect and we’ll figure it out from there. And so I think the other support was community and wanting to immerse myself and create kind of that team almost that I had at the family business. I ended up working with social venture partners with such as a nonprofit that advises other nonprofits, I’ve engaged with a women’s philanthropy group looking at next gen and finding these spaces and in all honesty, it’s, it’s still kind of lonely because everyone thinks I have this giant team behind me with my donor advice fund. It’s just me, my husband’s my sounding board and figuring out philanthropy, it doesn’t have to be this big thing.

It can actually be pretty simple and it just comes down to connections and asking, what are you passionate about and how can I help? Love that. That’s really roundabout way of answering that. Yeah. And it also just speaks to the general unfolding of our lives, right? With new information comes new questions and new deeper understandings and more change. And in your process, in these last five years, what have been some of your biggest self ahas around your relationship to money? You know, you went through a big shift in transformation of identity, also a shift in transformation of your own wealth, starting to think about the value and meaning for it. Were there any things in the shadow that came out? Were there things over these last five years that really helped you deepen your understanding of yourself through this lens of this new wealth you were stewarding? Yeah.

It’s again, it’s learning and unlearning. I think my parents did a really wonderful job of raising us. And I think me, it’s watching your money story and my parents, I watched us grow into wealth, but it was always within means. I was always conscious of the fact that we had money, but my parents were really focused on how we choose to show up in the world. And money was a vehicle, but wasn’t an identity piece.

And so I think transitioning to where I’m at now, seeing it as a resource and not as a sole identity piece has really helped frame it. I do think that there’s a really big difference in being a wealth inheritor and a wealth generator. So wealth inheritor, it’s this constant struggle of feeling this battle of do I deserve this just by existing? Does it really feel like mine?

And so I actually had to do some really, and still I’m doing this really intensive work to see what is my relationship to this? If I don’t feel like it’s mine, how might I show up in the world? And how can I use this as a vehicle for change and still live my life? It’s understanding that this is a part of my story and people still appreciate you for whether you have money or not. And so I think back to the, for me, it’s balancing we’re allowed to live in Boulder because of this. And so because of that, it’s okay, how can we choose to show up in community and really build out what’s around us? And yeah, it’s still, it’s a constant, to be honest, it’s a constant daily practice.

Yeah, I can understand. And it’s so interesting because coming off of my meditation retreat, it’s like we were chatting, what’s the hardest thing? And really, the hard parts often are keeping your own blinders on, right?

Staying focused, staying in integrity, not just in those moments where you get to be in nature, you get to be in your own thoughts, but to be able to do so amidst humanity and people and preconceived notions, demands, whatever happens externally. I’d love to shift our gaze here to thinking about what you are dreaming and tasting of, speaking of pastries for this next time in your life. You’re at this really incredible young age where, darling, you’re going to be living for another 100 years, right? It’s like there’s, there is so much time here, right?

Time is so rich and available. And so are our interests and the ways of being in the world and how we’re going to unfold. And I’m sure if I talk to you in another three years, everything will change. In another three years, things will be different. But what are the pieces of yourself that you’re currently feeling really grounded around, that you’re anchoring around for this next step in your strategy of giving and philanthropy and living your life?

What a beautiful thing to think about. For me, as I’m still new to the philanthropic space, but I go back to that question of what’s most important to me. And in this space, and knowing the lens that I come from being a relational person is thinking of my hope is to and connect with other donors and inspire each other is what does impact really look like? And true partnership.

And I think that the nonprofit space is just, it’s so interesting and being a donor and navigating the space of the feedback you’re getting is from people who you’re getting money to. So how do you form a true partnership and really invest in seeing them as operating companies, investing in them? And so I’ve been learning about multi-year funding, and that’s just makes so much sense to me because I think of investments, if you make a, what can you expect for your return if you are year after year, reapping and demanding different things and have this pressure of performance versus if you treat it like a true investment and four years is what return can you get in one year versus four years? And seeing, and you can hear I’m still unpacking this because it’s such an interesting space for me of how can we invest, truly invest in nonprofits rather than seeing it as a gift and power with versus power over and leveraging off of each other. Cause I think philanthropies, I was expecting to join in this really big community and philanthropy is very personal, it’s very private.

And I respect that cause everyone’s different. And so for me looking forward is thinking of how can we look at this as a collective and really make these partnerships mutually beneficial. And I’ve done it in perfectly, I’m still learning, but it’s this beautiful space and the need is greater now more than ever. And then also looking at other donors, next gen’s coming into the philanthropic space. Where’s their place and what are they passionate about? So for me, I love the next gen philanthropic space of people who have resources and figuring out their own place and identity, but also looking at these partnerships and what can we learn from each other? I love that in your experiences as you’ve been building this new cohort of peers, if you will, you know, people who are these next gen’s who are also looking at impact and similarities. Have you noticed sort of any differences and maybe the languaging of the next gen versus maybe how your parents talked about it? You know, like, are there, are there different ideologies or things that you’re sensing from this next generation that is inspiring you and also maybe different from the way we’ve historically thought about philanthropic giving? That’s another great question.

It is different. I think me being a millennial, I watched my parents work in the same industry for 20, 30 years. And so there’s this piece of, I think, a sense of responsibility and dedication and caring for family. Your job was to secure your family and less question of what is your passion. And so I watched and a lot of my friends and their parents where this question comes into what work can you do? What better work can you do if you’re alignment with what you’re passionate about? And I think there’s this conflict a little bit of the shoulds of I should be working harder. I should be on this trajectory working up the ladder and we’re finding out the workplace really isn’t that way. I think conversations are back to that question of how do I show up in the world and what do I envision for the world? And so I think those are a lot of drivers of the choices we make in the workforce and in philanthropy.

So it’s beautiful. And in the next gen two, it is a little bit of conflict of if you’re within your family, there are some confines of this is how things are done. This is what you’re brought up with. But this is what I’m passionate about and how can I show up? And in some foundations, you might be interested in climate tech, but your great grandfather doesn’t even know what that means. And so how can you I think it’s creating space for these conversations, the critical conversations to occur on how might and there’s more interaction between generations now more than ever. So what might we learn from each other, you know, honoring where we’ve been honoring those stories, but also honoring the different new lenses that are coming into place because there’s so much energy and care and creating space for both and then figuring out how do we move forward?

Wow, that’s really powerful. It’s clear you’ve spent a lot of time looking at your values and how it really pertains to the way you show up. And I love how you said investing in these nonprofits, right? Not just here, I’m going to cut a check and feel divorced from the money, but how am I really creating a longer term investment? As you look at the rest of your portfolio outside of philanthropy, how are the other ways seeming your heart always seems to be leading with what’s powerful and important and impactful and values driven? How is that lens shaped the way in some which you’ve looked at addressing the rest of your non philanthropic portfolio?

Absolutely. Yeah, it’s it’s been an interesting journey because I think back to when we started investing, my great grandfather would say he saw investments and philanthropy is two separate things. He said, why would you change your investments?

You make more money, then you can give more. And I think we’re finding out now impact investing is really, really carrying a lot of momentum. And the next gen events I’ve been to that’s been a heavy focus of where you put your money matters.

And I think we’re finding out in the world now that there’s evidence that’s true. So I have an amazing team of advisors where we’ve looked at my portfolio and made selections based off of I want my investments to reflect my values. And it turns out it can be profitable.

Will it be the most profitable? No, based off of different decisions that I’ve made. But that’s what’s important. It’s again, like how do you want to show up in the world? And I don’t fault anyone for how they decide to invest or give.

We all show up differently. But for me, it’s having that alignment has been really wonderful because they say practice what you preach things. It’s it feels nice to do that.

And I feel like I have such a wonderful team that’s willing to look at that with me. And it’s a continual conversation because I think ESG and the different parameters that we look at how we evaluate companies and all of these different pieces is ever evolving. And it’s hard to navigate at times. And it also feels like there are so many new ways of investing that keep coming up. There are new kinds of information.

I remember when I first heard about people investing into startups through their donor advice funds and all these different ways of being able to create impact, create returns. And I feel like the rules keep changing and there keeps becoming like more information and ways to do things. And so certainly having an incredible team by your side, both at home with your partner and then also your professional team is so incredible. Do you ever sit down and how just when it comes to these conversations at home with your husband, and you guys are also now it seems potentially talking about your family business now when your interests right in the realms of your giving or your investing and certainly your own business, right?

And developing your own practice. What are some of those conversations like at home now? And how are you seeing some of these parallels with the food around the dinner table? Yeah, it’s so true. I love that word that you said partner.

I mean, it’s true partnership. Sorry, just a second. Excuse me. Is, yeah, pacing it all. We, when we first started dating and have those conversations of this is what my life looks like, we’ll probably be moving back to bent.

This will be what it is. And he was okay with that to shifting to selling a family business and asking ourselves how to, you know, and it seems like such an opportunity at the time, but in the moment it felt like such heavy responsibility of how do we want to show up and what do we want to do? And he’s done, he’s so wonderful and grounded and it’s how we choose our partners is a reflection of how we respect ourselves. So I chose a man that is, is of the highest caliber and I feel really lucky to, because we navigated a lot of heavy things together. And we do talk about what’s important for us each day as we partner together, understanding as in our relationship, I have a lot more money and the identity piece that King comes sometimes come from that. And for me and I, it’s, it’s, he’s in the climate tech space. And I think he set his ability to show up and explore those world, that world and not worry about providing for the family and our business.

He’s, he’s just done such a good job of being that support. And we are asking ourselves, we’re debating whether we have kids or not. If we don’t have kids, what do we do with all of this? And the idea is that we want to spend down the daff.

We will. What other ways might we invest in our community is that angel investing, especially with him involved in climate and the current administration and funding cuts, like where might we support there? And so our conversations are really interesting on how do we use what we both bring to the table? And where do we decide though to partner together and where, what’s the yours mine and ours? Because there are different things that we keep separate and keep our own identities. Not everything is merged, which I like.

I like having my own independence. He has us, we have the same team of advisors, but our meetings are separate. They’re different. Because at the end of the day, we’re two individuals, but we’re really conscious on what we choose to partner together.

And it’s a long roundabout way of explaining that. Oh, that’s just beautiful, Madeline. I love hearing about the conversations at home. I think that it’s one thing to be thinking about things on your own. But if you are partnered, decisions are collective and they have a lot more weight and they can go a lot further when both people are on the same team. And so like those lines of communication and having similar values and looking at strengths, I think is just such a beautiful foundation for long term growth and individual and together. As we near sort of the end of our conversation, I love to ask two final questions. The first, we’ve talked a lot about stewarding capital and how to show up with the highest levels of integrity and values and partnership and collaboration and such honorable, beautiful things. But my question has to do with something that’s a lot more fun and a little bit more maybe with a little more levity, which is Madeline, what have been some of your most favorite ways ever to spend your money?

What have been some fabulous things that you have just so enjoyed in spending your money? I love that. We talked about our family dinners that we host here in Boulder. Our home is my safe space. So having the opportunity to create the home that’s warm and inviting and that people love to come to and that we love to be in is, I love. It’s just been such a gift and each time we come back home from traveling or being where we are, I just feel like I can breathe easier. So that’s, I love our home.

It’s so great. And the other pieces just travel. My husband and I, we, whether it’s a road trip or international trip, our dogs come with us a lot of times staying at a motel six or a really nice hotel abroad. It’s all the adventures and it’s really comes down to for me and just spending money on memories that you’ll hold forever and the fun stories that come out of it. I just, I adore and love and we’ve had so many of those and we’ll continue to do that. So investing in that is worth every penny.

I love it. And good chocolate. I’m very picky about food. So I, we do spend, I love our farmers markets investing in that investing in good food and serving good food. We’ll never leave. I love that. And the final question is the women of this community who tune in, we are always so eager to support each other. I would love to know what are you calling in right now? What do you need support in and how can we continue to really fan your flames and see your vision grow brighter?

Yes. Community is everything. So for me, as you’ve seen, it’s, I’m still in the exploration phase and this can be a really lonely space. And I think I’ve found after five years, I found the connections and communities. And so I’m always looking for that meaningful connection.

If someone is navigating a similar space, whether they’re in a family business, navigating their own place in philanthropy, how they want to show up in the world, whether it be in the family operating company or the foundation, having a safe space to have that conversation is unique. And I always love to connect. I’m still in exploration. I’m still forming my community.

And I’m excited about that. Wonderful. Madeline, what a gem it has been to chat with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your spirit, your vision, all the great things you’re up to. I am grateful to know you and appreciate your story. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Getting Rich Together. My hope is that you leave every episode feeling more inspired, more powerful, and more connected. Until next time, remember, you have everything it takes to create wealth on your terms.