Legacy on the Line: Overcome Blind Spots to Grow and Transfer Your Wealth - Hardcover

by Andrea Baumann Lustig (Author)

A powerful guide to crafting a legacy that lasts for generations

In Legacy on the Line: Overcome Blind Spots to Grow and Transfer Your Wealth, sixth-generation wealth adviser and Managing Partner of Fischer Stralem Advisors, Andrea Baumann Lustig shares 30 years of insights working with families to help build and transfer wealth. With the largest wealth transfer in history--$124 trillion--underway, many families risk losing their legacy not through lack of resources, but through unexamined beliefs that quietly undermine their financial future.

This book reveals 10 common blind spots that sabotage legacy planning--convictions so deeply held they go unchallenged, often leading to missed opportunities, increased risk, and unnecessary costs.

Inside the book:

• How emotional loyalty, fragmented advice, and overconfidence can prevent you from getting the strategic guidance you truly need.
• Why chasing returns, ignoring certain assets, or delaying planning can sabotage long-term growth and financial security.
• How silence around your intentions, lack of philanthropic strategy, or fear of change can fracture your legacy and limit its impact.

Perfect for everyone ready to take control of their financial future and prepare a legacy for their children and grandchildren, Legacy on the Line is a powerful resource offering you the agency, confidence, information, and direction you need to write your own story.

Front Jacket

Across the United States, families are entering the largest wealth transfer in history, with an unprecedented $124 trillion projected to cross generations through 2048. Yet even affluent, financially-sophisticated households are unprepared. Many assume they have the right advisors, plan, or understanding of family intentions. But as Andrea Baumann Lustig demonstrates in Legacy on the Line, the greatest threats to a family's legacy aren't just the obvious ones like investment risk and taxes, they are the blind spots people don't know they have. These deeply held, but often incorrect, beliefs about money, advisors, investments, heirs and philanthropy can limit growth, increase risk, fracture families, and jeopardize even the most well-intentioned plans.

Drawing on three decades of serving affluent clients, Legacy on the Line provides a structured approach to wealth management and transfer. It shows readers how to evaluate their advisor relationships, strengthen planning and communicate effectively with heirs to build legacies rooted in clarity, intention, and resilience.

Through real-life client stories, Baumann Lustig reveals how the wealthy often sabotage their own plans -- relying on unexamined advisor relationships, sidestepping inheritance conversations, and overlooking the emotional heart of legacy. Legacy on the Line helps families rethink these habits and build a more intentional approach to wealth--one that reduces conflict, deepens connection, and helps create lasting impact across generations.

Written for high-net-worth baby boomers, Gen Xers, and small business owners navigating the complexities of wealth transfer, Legacy on the Line speaks to both those managing their own assets and the advisors who guide them. This practical guide exposes the myths that derail even sophisticated families and offers the clarity and direction needed to align advisors, protect hard-earned wealth, and build legacies that preserve values across generations.

Back Jacket

PRAISE FOR legacy on the line

"With the largest wealth transfer in history underway, this book could not be more timely. My former student, Andrea Baumann Lustig, draws on decades of experience to illuminate the blind spots that derail even the most sophisticated families. This is a very useful resource for anyone determined to build and transfer their legacy."
--BURTON G. MALKIEL, Author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street

"Blind spots can cost you as much as market volatility. This book shines a light on what many investors overlook--and how to fix it. If building and protecting your legacy matters to you, these insights are indispensable."
--STEPHANIE LINK, Chief Investment Strategist, Hightower Advisors and CNBC Contributor

"Building a legacy takes more than good markets?it takes strategy and planning. This book is a must-read for anyone serious about protecting their future."
--JAMIE DINAN, Founder and CEO, York Capital Management

"For generations, we reminded customers that ?an educated consumer is our best customer.' Legacy on the Line brings that same wisdom to wealth stewardship--empowering families to see what they've been missing and protect what truly matters."
--MARCY SYMS, President of the Sy Syms Foundation and TPD Group, a multigenerational succession planning company

Author Biography

Andrea Baumann Lustig is a Managing Partner of Fischer Stralem Advisors, a wealth management practice within Hightower Advisors. The sixth generation in her family to lead a wealth management firm--her great-great-great-grandfather founded Banque Levy in France in 1810--she has been recognized as a Forbes "Top Women Wealth Advisor: Best-In-State" for five consecutive years.