I thought I was chasing summits. It turns out I was really searching for a quest.
Somewhere around mile ten in Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains, with a lighter backpack than I carried twenty years ago, it occurred to me that I had been asking myself the wrong question for much of my life.
For years, I measured success by the destinations. The next promotion. The next milestone. Building the business. Growing a portfolio. Reaching another summit. I assumed fulfillment would arrive when I finally got there.
Lately, I've begun to wonder if I had it backwards.
Maybe the destination was never the point.
Maybe the quest was.
Earlier in the week I had stopped by my local book club. We are hardly a gathering of literary scholars, something we admit with a laugh every month, but this month's selection was God in the Woods, a story woven through the history and wilderness of the Adirondacks.
In one conversation, a character asks her sister a simple but unsettling question.
"Do you worry that being born into money has stunted us?"
She goes on to wonder whether having every material need met from birth had quietly removed something essential.
The yearning.
The striving.
The quest.
I found myself putting the book down for a while.
It struck a nerve.
You see, I didn't grow up wealthy, at least not in the financial sense.
Looking back, though, I realize I was incredibly fortunate.
I grew up with freedom.
Freedom to disappear on my bicycle for an entire day exploring Delaware County. Freedom to wander through the woods and swim in Ridley Park Lake. Freedom to fail. Freedom to be curious. My parents didn't know my location through an app, yet somehow my mother always seemed to know where I was anyway. To this day I still don't know how she managed that.
Money was limited.
Opportunity wasn't.
If anything, not having much financially became part of the fuel. It gave me something to work toward. Labor became savings. Savings became investing. Investing became ownership. Ownership created new opportunities. I wasn't chasing money nearly as much as I was chasing progress, learning what I was capable of becoming.
Without realizing it, I had begun my own quest.
Years ago, a close friend shared something I've never forgotten.
After marrying into a wonderful family that had become financially successful through generations of hard work, he found himself wrestling with an unexpected feeling. He appreciated the generosity. He loved the family. But he also wanted the satisfaction of building something himself. More importantly, he wanted his future children to experience that same satisfaction, not because they had to, but because they had the opportunity to.
I understood exactly what he meant.
As parents, that's a delicate balance.
Like every father, I want my daughters to have opportunities I never had.
What I don't want is to accidentally remove the opportunity to strive.
There's a difference.
I'd be the first to admit I've probably leaned too far toward love instead of discipline from time to time. Anyone who has seen how I've raised our dogs probably wouldn't argue. Thankfully, I married well. Katie has supplied enough discipline for the dogs, the girls, and occasionally me (ok, often me).
As I've gotten older, and hopefully a little wiser, I've searched for more balance.
Yes, we travel.
Yes, we take vacations.
But many of those vacations involve backpacks instead of beach chairs. Hiking instead of resorts. Cooking together instead of room service. Projects around the house. Conversations about money. Conversations about responsibility. Conversations about becoming independent.
Not because hardship is the goal.
Because growth usually lives just beyond comfort.
Toward friendships that somehow grow deeper one mile at a time.
Toward conversations that never seem to happen sitting across a conference table.
Toward the quiet realization that the mountains aren't really testing me anymore.
They're teaching me.
The older I get, the lighter my backpack becomes.
Literally.
Figuratively.
Maybe that's what maturity looks like.
Not carrying less because life has become easier.
Carrying less because you've learned what matters.
That lesson has begun to shape the way I think about wealth management too.
For years our profession has focused on building wealth, protecting wealth, investing wealth, and transferring wealth.
Those conversations remain incredibly important.
But lately I've become convinced the greater challenge isn't transferring financial capital.
It's transferring values.
How do we help children become capable before they become comfortable?
How do we prepare heirs for wealth rather than simply preparing wealth for heirs?
How do we preserve the opportunity to strive?
Those are becoming some of my favorite conversations with families.
One initiative I'm especially excited about is the work our in house estate attorney, Marie, has begun leading. Beyond wills and trusts, she's helping families gather around the table to discuss communication, stewardship, philanthropy, family values, and the legacy they hope to leave behind. Estate planning is no longer just about passing assets. It's about passing wisdom.
Because perhaps the greatest inheritance isn't a portfolio.
It isn't real estate.
It isn't even a trust.
It's the values that created those things in the first place.
The desire to learn.
The willingness to work.
The courage to wander.
The discipline to save.
The patience to invest.
The humility to give.
The quest.
As parents, grandparents, business owners, and stewards of family wealth, perhaps our greatest responsibility isn't giving the next generation everything.
Perhaps it's making sure they still have something worth pursuing.
A quest of their own.
Preserve. Grow. Endure. Evolve.
Because in the end, the destination may become a memory, but the quest is what shapes us.
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Dane Czaplicki is CEO of Members’ Wealth, a boutique wealth management firm that offers a comprehensive approach to serving individuals, families, business owners, and institutions. The firm’s goal is to preserve and grow its clients’ wealth to endure over time, while thoughtfully evolving its strategy to suit an ever-changing world. With over 20 years of wealth management experience, Dane and the Members' Wealth team thrive on bringing clarity and confidence to clients' unique situations. He believes everyone needs sound financial advice from someone whose interests are aligned with theirs, and is determined to put service before all else.
Dane received his MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and his bachelor’s degree from Bloomsburg University. Outside work, he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, hiking and camping, reading, running, and playing with his dog. To learn more about Dane, connect with him on LinkedIn.
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