Matina Agio (https://www.matinaagio.com) is a personal inheritance consultant. Her work inspires a deeper perspective into inheritance - beyond the legal and financial. She provides niche counselling, facilitating her clients- often in midlife, to resolve inheritance-related dilemmas, manage their possessions and create a meaningful legacy.
Through her signature method - THE INHERITANCE MUSE METHOD™ (https://www.matinaagio.com/), she addresses both the tangible and intangible aspects of their inheritance, heritage & wealth. Matina’s clients include art collectors, historic home owners, affluent individuals and family office members around the world. Matina’s experience of living & working in England, France, Germany, Italy, US, Canada and Greece, allows her to address their varying backgrounds.
Standout Quotes:
* "For me, the main wealth of our inheritance lies in the intangible inheritance because it is that which is not vulnerable, and it is that which probably the most influential" - [Matina]
* "A bad experience may turn out to be a very wealthy experience, it depends on how we process that...sometimes we receive good gifts in bad packages" - [Matina]
* "Objects are storytellers, they contain memory" - [Matina]
* "We just give our kids things, but we should give them stories with our things" - [Matina]
* "The value of something to us is always what our experience of it is" - [Matina]
* "Our ownership is a symphony of things put together, and we as good conductors have to master that symphony... so we can have harmonious wealth" - [Matina]
* "It's not what happens to you but what you do with what happens to you" - [Matina]
* "There are people who own a lot of things and experience very little value and then there are people who have very little things and they experience a lot of value" - [Matina]
* "The legacy of someone and the effect that they have in your life can never be taken away... that's the most meaningful part of the wealth that you can give others" - [Matina]
* "Research shows that family wealth is almost never lost due to poor financial decisions, its almost always lost by a breakdown in relationships and communication with co-inheritors" - [Mike]
* "You cannot make decisions without understanding who you are because who you are will affect how that thing will play out in your life" - [Matina]
Key Takeaways:
* Matina describes an "Inheritance Muse" as someone who inspires others in relation to their inheritance. Inheritance can either be tangible or intangible. The intangible inheritance is more important because it is more influential and less vulnerable. It affects our beliefs, attitude towards life, abilities, and self-confidence.
* Since parents are not perfect, sometimes we get good gifts in bad packages, so to understand intangible inheritance, sometimes we have to open our minds and look at what is there and how we can manage it so it adds value to us.
* Describing how she started her work with inheritance, Matina shares her back story; although born in Athens, her family had to relocate to Canada following a political event that made the family unsafe. A key determining factor in her career was the heritage and culture her parents brought from Athens, which influenced her greatly.
* This spurred her on to study interior design and renovation of historic homes and eventually become a cultural entrepreneur. Following the death of her parents, she inherited the home in Athens and had to curate everything by herself and started to work on also curating the influence her parents had on her as part of the legacy for her children.
* Storytelling is the center of Matina's work; using the stories behind objects owned by clients to resolve issues. Parents need to tell stories about their things to their children because it is unlikely for a child to sell something that has a story to it.
* When navigating inheritance and trying to be a custodian of what has been left behind, employing the concept of "Gratitude"