Decide what wealth you want to build and what your business needs to contribute.

Module 1: Ownership Goals · Milestone 3 of 27

What should your wealth make possible, and by what date? The answer gives purpose to the money you leave in the business and the assets you build elsewhere. It also helps you judge how much time, effort and risk a growth plan is worth.

Milestone 3 connects a dated wealth target to your starting position, ownership direction and the contribution you need from each part of your portfolio. You can keep operating, retain ownership while someone else leads, sell, transfer or preserve options. Retirement and a sale are choices to consider.

Start with your Owner's Scorecard

Use the Wealth section for your five annual targets. Keep your dated assets, debts, ownership information and assumptions in the supporting wealth record.

Download the Owner's Scorecard

Free two-page PDF. Print or annotate it. It does not calculate or score your work.

See your business within your whole wealth picture

Your net worth is what you own minus what you owe on a stated date. Include your business interest, savings, investments, directly owned real estate and other material assets and debts, using a consistent individual or household scope.

Net worth and spendable cash answer different questions. A home can add to wealth without producing income. Retirement investments can have access and tax considerations. A private business can be valuable while much of your wealth and income depends on its continued performance.

Keep four amounts distinct:

Amount	What it means
Enterprise value	The value of the company’s operations.
Company equity value	The value after relevant debt, cash and other claims are accounted for.
Your ownership value	The value of your interest, considering your share and economic rights.
Sale proceeds	What a particular deal would provide after its terms, taxes and costs, including when you receive it.

Count each asset and obligation once. Company cash or real estate already included in business value doesn’t also belong in a separate personal asset row. A mortgage already deducted from property value shouldn’t be deducted again.

Calculate what ownership needs to contribute

Suppose your target is $10 million of personal net worth in five years. In this hypothetical plan, savings and investments provide $2 million and directly owned real estate equity provides $1 million, with no other assets or debts.

$10 million target − $3 million other net assets = $7 million required from your business interest.

That $7 million is the contribution you need. It doesn’t establish today’s valuation, a company enterprise-value target or cash from a sale.

Now challenge an assumption. If other net assets reach $2.5 million, the business contribution rises to $7.5 million. You might investigate what the company can support, reconsider timing or change the saving plan. Recording the effect gives the next decision a specific basis.

Explain the dates, growth assumptions, saving, withdrawals and debt changes behind the outside assets. Money assigned to personal spending can’t also fund investment. If a sale is expected to create those outside assets, don’t count both the full business interest and its sale proceeds.

Use the goals when deciding where money should work

Capital allocation means choosing among uses of money, including capital already in the company. An expansion may increase future cash flow and value while requiring cash, management attention and more exposure to the business. A distribution can support your life or build assets elsewhere while leaving less available for that expansion.

Retaining cash and reducing debt are choices too. Compare expected income, value, risk and demands on your time over the same period and money basis. Recalculate the business and personal assumptions together when money moves between them.

A wealth target can be useful before a current business valuation is established. Identify the missing work, who will help and the next action and date. Leave the full current net-worth total and current-to-target growth incomplete when that missing value prevents a supported calculation. An unknown value isn’t zero.

Build the wealth plan and carry it into your Scorecard

1. Set the destination. Record the amount, date and what it should make possible. State the currency and whether you mean today’s purchasing power or future dollars.
2. Establish the starting position. Gather dated assets, debts and ownership information. Distinguish supported amounts, estimates and unresolved questions.
3. Calculate the required contribution. Show expected other net assets at the target date and what your business interest must provide. Test one consequential assumption with a less favorable case.
4. State your ownership direction. Explain the current choice or options being preserved, uncertainty and what would cause you to reconsider.
5. Connect and review the plan. Reconcile the five annual Scorecard targets with the supporting work. Review all three ownership goals and record a supported next step or reason to continue.

The Net Worth Target Worksheet is the main supporting exercise. It holds the target, assets and debts, contribution calculation and review. A suitable existing personal balance sheet and planning record can serve the same purpose. The Member program includes the worksheet and guided lessons.

The Owner’s Scorecard™ carries the chosen annual targets for Time, Cash Flow and Wealth. Its second page, Market Valuation Target, supports later company-level valuation work. Keep your personal ownership value distinguishable from the company figures. Completing every valuation calculation is not a prerequisite for this goal-setting milestone.

What completion requires

The six requirements establish a plan and its use. One suitable record can support several requirements.

Open the six completion requirements

1. Set your wealth target and date. State the chosen amount, calendar date, purpose and money basis, connected to your time and income goals. Preserve any income calculation and its assumptions separately. A withdrawal-rate formula isn’t required and doesn’t establish spendable income from your total net worth.
2. Establish what you own and owe today. Record a dated, usable starting position, including your share of assets, material debts, sources and estimates. Count each amount once. Current business valuation may remain an identified estimate, range or explicitly unresolved item with missing work, responsible person and next action/date. If unresolved, label full current net worth and current-to-target growth incomplete. Missing ordinary asset, debt or ownership records that prevent a usable account still require work.
3. Show what each part must contribute. Reconcile a target-date scenario for other net assets and the required personal business contribution. Explain growth, contributions, withdrawals, debt changes, dates and compounding periods. Keep targets distinct from expected outcomes. If outside assets already cover the target, record the surplus without forcing a positive business requirement. Challenge one consequential assumption with a less favorable case and show its effect. Keep known gaps and next work visible.
4. State how you intend to use ownership. Explain your current direction, why it fits and the relevant uncertainty. If undecided, name the options, working assumption and question, event or date for reconsidering it. Identify necessary agreement or specialist input. A named successor, family member, co-owner or buyer isn’t committed without evidence. A final sale choice, universal advisor meeting or legal implementation isn’t required here.
5. Bring the plan into one Scorecard. Reconcile Years 1–5 to actual dates and the supporting wealth record. Preserve a longer main goal separately and show the five-year stepping stone. Keep Current in the supporting record, targets distinct from estimates and company values separate from your personal interest. Include other material assets and debts in the support and explain adjustments to the totals. Address arithmetic and known conflicts with Time and Cash Flow; identify business feasibility still to test. Keep the original Scorecard format.
6. Review and decide what happens next. Hold a dated review of available evidence, target, ownership direction and challenged assumption. Record the conclusion and supported next action, responsible person and date, or reason to continue. Set the next quarterly review. Returning owners use the latest quarterly review and consider material changes since then. Your own review counts before the formal rhythm exists. A future invitation, draft AI note or unexamined figures don’t establish use.

Review the 0–3 score and evidence test

0 (Not Started). You haven’t established wealth goals or worked through the core ideas in this milestone. There is no documented wealth plan to review.

1 (Learning). You’ve worked through the three teaching lessons, or can demonstrate equivalent understanding. You can explain how your personal net worth, business ownership and future income fit together, and distinguish a target from an estimate or forecast. You haven’t yet started substantive written work on your wealth plan.

2 (In Progress). You’ve started substantive work on your starting position, wealth targets or ownership direction. One or more checklist requirements remain incomplete, or the plan is prepared but hasn’t been reviewed to decide what happens next.

3 (Installed). All six checklist requirements are complete. You have a dated wealth target, a usable record of your starting position, explicit assumptions about what the business and other assets must contribute, and a current ownership direction. Your Scorecard connects those goals to Time and Cash Flow. You’ve reviewed the plan against available evidence, recorded a supported next action or reason to continue and set the next quarterly review. A business valuation still to be established can remain explicitly unresolved under the checklist’s rules. The goals are in use; reaching the wealth target, proving the full growth plan and committing to a transaction are later work.

Verify the evidence: open your Scorecard, supporting figures and latest review. Show the target and date, what you own and owe, the required business contribution and how the wealth should support your life. Identify estimates and valuation questions, the assumption you challenged, the decision and follow-through. Someone else should be able to follow the work without relying on your memory.

You choose your score. Keep AI, peer and coach assessments separate. Suitable existing work counts; evidence you haven’t examined remains unreviewed. A checklist percentage doesn’t calculate the score. A business shortfall can coexist with a complete and honestly reviewed goal plan.

Return to the goals as your information improves

Review Time, Cash Flow and Wealth together quarterly, and reconsider the full destination annually. Return sooner after a valuation, ownership decision, material asset or debt change, or a change in your life.

Module 2: Expand Knowledge develops Owner’s Value, Market Value and Transaction Value. These examine keeping your interest, the market’s view of the business and the terms of a specific deal. They are three views of the same asset; you don’t add them together.

Bring that evidence back to the same Scorecard. It helps you compare what you have with what you need, and judge the consequences for income, time and effort. A current estimate and a required future value should remain distinguishable.

Explore the idea further

• How Ultra-Wealthy Families Manage Their Business Assets, episode 416. Brandon Henry connects ownership expectations, family decisions and the business’s role within broader wealth.
• Designing a Business You Never Want to Sell, episode 475. Matt Paulson explores choices about keeping a business, investing elsewhere and spending time.
• Capital Allocator · Three Lenses of Value · Noble Aim

Choose your next step

Start the work. Use the same Scorecard for all three Ownership Goals milestones. Keep your dated starting position and supporting work with it.

Download the Owner’s Scorecard

Review the wider picture. The Ownership Assessment helps you consider this milestone alongside the other ownership capabilities, identify evidence still to review and choose useful work. Start the Ownership Assessment.

Work through it with support. The 90-Day Boardroom Blueprint connects your ownership direction, numbers and decisions in your first usable Owner’s Playbook. You can explore the program directly when you’re ready for guided work. Explore the Boardroom Blueprint.

← Milestone 2: Cash Flow Targets · Module 2: Expand Knowledge →