This past week on Tuesday, at Noon Eastern time, as I quite often do, I participated in the weekly teleconference of the Purposeful Planning Institute. https://purposefulplanninginstitute.com
I’ve been a member of PPI since 2014 and will be attending their annual Rendez-Vous in July in Denver for the fourth straight time. If I could only attend one event each year, this would easily be the one. http://purposefulplanninginstitute.com/rendezvous2017/
Planning Fatigue
This week’s call was about “planning fatigue” and dealt with ideas professional advisors could use to overcome situations in which client families don’t move forward on transition plans as expected, hoped, and required.
Because the entire process is long and complex, clients sometimes lose sight of why they are doing all this work and things can begin to slide, and sometimes never get completed as intended. This can be a huge issue, and PPI is the only organization I know of that actually talks openly about this kind of stuff.
Every Tuesday PPI holds a teleconference, with a host and an invited guest expert. This week’s featured Timothy J. Belber, PPI’s Dean of Fusion, with guest Kristin Keffeler. They’ve collaborated on client family files in the past, which was evident, as they gave plenty of real life examples of situations they faced together.
These PPI weekly calls are all recorded and archived, so even when members can’t make it live, we can always listen to the recording later.
Three Major Classes of Danger
While discussing the problems of not completing a family’s planning work, Belber mentioned the three major classes of dangers that exist when things are not carried out to the end.
“Hmmm”, my ears perked up, “I wonder what these three classes are!”
These three main danger areas, can actually serve as the three major headings that we should be thinking about at every step along the way: People, Assets, and Legacy.
Checklist?
I wrote them down, and immediately wondered if everything could all really be boiled down to those 3 simple elements. The fact that I am writing a blog about it should give you my answer.
In fact, as someone who thinks in lists of 3, I will now incorporate these into an easy-to-recall checklist, but not necessarily just while thinking of “dangers” per se, but as important elements to always keep in mind.
I expect them to become a good PAL of mine and I don’t like it when any PAL of mine is in danger.
People
This one should be front and center, but often isn’t. When we are working with a family to make decisions on “what to do” in an estate plan, tax plan, business plan, or more generally “continuity plan”, I always think about how every decision will affect the people.
(See: https://stevelegler.com/2015/04/12/successful-planning-who-should-be-involved)
Many professionals in this space are specialists in protecting the assets, and they do a great job, but sometimes the people are given secondary consideration (if any).
It should go without saying that when those people for whom we are making the plan are adults, it is wise to seek their input at some point. This is heresy to some, I know, but it is 2017, not 1977.
Assets
This element usually doesn’t get forgotten, mostly because it is the domain of so many professionals in the family’s sphere.
I won’t give this one too much space, save to remind you of one of my favourite expressions on this point.
“We spend too much time and effort preparing the assets for the heirs, and not nearly enough on preparing the heirs for the assets.
Legacy
This one is a bit trickier because it’s less tangible, but Belber also mentioned his way of thinking about this too, and I want to share it here as well.
He noted that your legacy is what others think, feel, and say about you.
If we try to tie a Legacy to People and Assets, exactly HOW you leave those Assets to those People should be pretty important, shouldn’t it?
If you worry too much about either the Assets or the People, at the expense of the other, your Legacy will surely suffer.
Conclusion
Maybe it should be People + Assets = Legacy?
Either way, I have a new PAL. He can be yours too.
