Super Bowl (and Estate Planning) Hot Takes

There’s a tired stereotype that women are “too emotional” to make big, strategic decisions, especially when money, power, or legacy is involved. I've known for a long time how wrong that is, and I've seen firsthand how women tend to be the ones to have to make those tough decisions. Sunday's Super Bowl reminded me of just how wrong that stereotype is.

The Seattle Seahawks are owned by a trust created by Paul Allen, the late cofounder of Microsoft.

Side note: A trust is like a container of assets. You define a trust while you're alive, and you usually have an idea of which assets to put in that trust, and you define the rules about who gets those assets and when. Those rules go into effect after you die. (This all varies based on different kinds of trusts, but this is the general idea.)

Source: Getty Images

Paul Allen's sister, Jody Allen, is the executor of his estate and the trustee overseeing both the Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers. As a trustee, Jody must manage the assets in the trust according to the trust owner's wishes. While the trust details are not public, statements from the family have indicated that Paul’s wishes were for both teams to eventually be sold, and the proceeds should go ​to charity​.

Jody and Paul Allen ran the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation together for decades, since Jody was just 29. So she didn’t step into this role as a novice; she came in with years of experience overseeing billions of dollars, serving in leadership across the organizations they built together, and, just as importantly, with a deep, personal closeness to her brother. When Paul was facing a terminal illness, he had time to think carefully about who should execute his estate and carry out his wishes. Choosing Jody wasn’t just a practical decision. It was both emotional and strategic: someone he trusted completely, who knew him well, and who had already proven she could handle the responsibility.

Side note: these are great characteristics of your chosen executor of your estate, or trustee of your trust(s).

To act as the executor of Paul Allen's estate is not a small, abstract responsibility. That’s billions of dollars, massive public scrutiny, emotional ties, and a lot of pressure on Jody to exercise the right timing, leadership, and judgment.

Speaking of pressure, Jody Allen has been the subject of a lot of speculation as to when she might sell the Seahawks- not only to start satisfying the rules of the trust, but also to satisfy NFL rules that limit trust ownership of NFL teams. Leading up to the Super Bowl, Allen was peppered with questions about whether she'd sell the Seahawks after the big game. Her response was always a calm and clear "our focus right now is only on winning".

Two years ago, Jody Allen made a major, very visible decision: replacing longtime coach Pete Carroll with Mike Macdonald. It was a big change, handled meticulously by Allen. Without drama, and on amicable terms, the team made a coaching transition that paid off. The Seahawks just won the Super Bowl, and that win almost certainly increased the value of the franchise.

Seahawks fans are probably not at all concerned about the value of their franchise right now. I would bet also that Jody Allen was emotionally invested in their win, not just as a business gain. I think she wanted it for herself, for the people of the Pacific Northwest, and for her late brother. That's a ton of emotion tied to the outcome of a sports game.

Sports teams, legacies, and public opinion are all emotional. And yet Allen's job isn’t to protect feelings; it’s to steward value, so that when the time comes, more money can go where it was always meant to go: to charity.

Does that make Allen cold? I think it makes her clear.

How many times have you seen a woman in your family step away from her grief or pain so that she can make a sound decision that benefits the rest of her family? I know I've seen this in my own family, and in others.

Somehow, we still tell women that being emotional makes us bad at money. But I know the opposite to be true, and Sunday's game highlights just one example of what happens when you have emotional intelligence paired with disciplined decision-making. The ability to care deeply and not let that care sabotage the outcome.

Most of us won’t ever manage a multi-billion-dollar trust or sell a professional sports team. But we face smaller versions of this all the time:

• Holding onto a business, a role, or an investment because it “means too much” to let go

• Avoiding a smart change because it feels uncomfortable or disloyal

• Letting identity and emotion quietly overrule strategy

There’s nothing wrong with caring. The problem is when caring keeps us stuck.

Sometimes the most respectful thing you can do, for your future self, your family, or your bigger mission, is to create a little distance and ask a very unromantic question: What decision actually increases the impact here?

That’s not being unemotional- that’s being a good steward, and this is a skill women are often exceptionally good at- when we give ourselves permission to use it.

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