Marie the floor is yours. Well hello everybody and welcome back to another great episode of playbook and today's webinar as you know is brought to you by NAPFA and Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America and their RIA solutions team. I'm your host Marie Swift and this is my third year doing the playbook series for NAPFA and there are 10 this year and also 10 mindset mastery podcast which I hope you're enjoying. I'm not going to go over in detail all of the remaining or the recorded webinars for playbook in this year because you will find them handily noted at the end of today's slide deck as per usual and I did want to give a big shout out to Stephanie Bogan because she was the last mindset mastery podcast guest that we had on the show and I thought it was just a really great episode so I hope you all caught that or that you will go and find that wherever you get your podcasts it's syndicated everywhere and the topic was called success that's satisfying and so it's all about creating results that are both energy producing and revenue producing. So you'll find all of that on the NAPFA website and I want to get right to today's presentation because I'm excited to hear from Susan Turnbull who I believe most of you know from Personal Legacy Advisors and we're talking about the value of educating clients about non-binding letters of wishes and ethical wills. I've heard Susan present before she's an excellent presenter and I also happen to know that she'll be speaking at the fall conference right Susan you'll be speaking on a different topic so Susan take it away I'm excited to hear from you. All right well thank you so much Marie for that introduction we're going to be getting right into the content here and but I did want to say that if you have any questions that come up as I'm speaking please do type them in Marie's going to keep track of those there will be an opportunity kind of halfway through to have her ask me those questions and then at the end that there should be some time for questions and answers and comments so to the extent we can make this interactive let's let's try that so I'm going to go ahead this this presentation is going to be a combination of me speaking video and also my slides a few slides so I'm going to start right off and dive right into the content and you know what is this thing we're talking about a legacy letter or an ethical will and I want to start right off by saying that I'm going to use those terms interchangeably today you're going to learn a little bit about the history of ethical wills understand where that term comes from but I but just so you know I'm going to be using them interchangeably so what is one of these anyway well very simply a legacy letter or an ethical will is a personal letter and it's written to people who are important to you and it's written with the idea that unlike other letters the intention is that this letter is explicitly written with the intention that it's going to live beyond you and become part of the record of what you want to share in an enduring way what you so a record of your thinking of your values of your intentions because the idea is that you ensure as much as possible that your thoughts and feelings are clear that you haven't left any loose ends at the time that you depart this world and as a component of a state planning it's a vehicle for intentional communication so for for intentional communication to either heirs or successors or trustees so that messages and information that's either personal or practical in nature has a place where it resides side by side with the legal documents and despite the kind of starchy off-putting term that ethical will is and let's face it it is a starchy and off-putting term despite that in the end what these letters are our gifts gifts of yourself and gifts of love and respect that you cared enough or the author cared enough to set down in writing some of the things that were most important for them to say to their audience and to leave something very meaningful and beneficial to those that they are writing so their gifts of love and respect and as such they're also instruments of legacy and the other thing is and I'm going to be covering saying this quite a lot today is that the topic of ethical will to bring that up with your clients is a fascinating conversational subject so now that you kind of know what they are what I want to tell you is a little bit in the history about my discovery of them and how I really got interested in them so I was a freelance writer for years freelance journalist wrote for a lot of newspapers and like you I heard a whole lot of stories from people and I often wondered who else knows these stories and are these captured in any way that's enduring these stories these reflections these thoughts is this very evidence of a person's values who else knows these things and I often thought that well you know if you're going to create some kind of a record of your life that's enduring I guess you have to write an autobiography about 20 years ago I read I stumbled upon this term called an ethical will and I never heard of it before but when I understood what it was when I understood that around 800 years ago or so there was sort of an expectation in the Jewish tradition that fathers write a letter of instruction kind of to their sons what it would mean to live a worthy or ethical life and I was fascinated by this idea and I went and did a whole lot of research I read a whole lot of them and I was moved right away I thought this is such a beautiful and simple idea and that you know you don't have to write an autobiography to capture and transmit and share some of the things that are most essential that you want to make sure you transmitted to the next generations you could write a letter you know you could write an ethical will so what I wanted to do here is to share a couple of examples of old ethical wills and I'm just going to pull up a slide here to show you this is one you may went backwards this is one from around 1190 written by a physician and he was writing to his son he was telling him in this particular excerpt he was talking about money he said there's an olden proverb go to bed without supper and rise without debt defile by borrowing may thy creator save thee from that habit so 800 years ago this man is telling his son to stay away from credit cards and I wonder whether or not you've ever given this advice to any of your clients you know go to bed without eating and and then you'll run and you'll have more money so anyway but you get the idea and then this is about a hundred years ago or so a man writes to his family his children somewhere among these papers is a will made out by a lawyer I hope it's terms cause no will among you it seems sensible when I made it but I am more concerned about having you inherit something that is vastly more important and he goes on to tell them what's more important than what's in my will you each other you as siblings you as a member of this family you as children of your mother and that's what's more important I want you to take care of her and I want you to take care of each other in the event that I am NOT here at the time that I'm not here so my when I read these as I said I thought well this is these are cool these are beautiful these are timeless I can still hear that man 800 years ago when he is that the sense of responsibility he feels for his son to kind of pass on what he feels is important I can still hear him the language is dated but he's saying to me you know I was here too I'm not that different than you and there's maybe something you can learn from me and in fact I did learn something from him so these old documents are very prescriptive there's no doubt those old Jewish documents very prescriptive rule from beyond the grave do this because I told you to to and that particular that old one that I showed that I read to you it's pretty long and it says that the son has to read it once a day which and so the idea that contemporary ethical not controlling like that is not prescriptive it's not intended to be a lecture it's intended to be positive and helpful and you're gonna get get a chance in a few minutes to hear a lot of certain number of excerpts of contemporary documents but when I read it read these old documents I had this like aha moments it actually changed my life changed the direction of my career I thought this is the missing piece of contemporary estate planning because in contemporary estate planning people spend a tremendous amount of time creating legal documents that are don't have any of the sound of their own voice they are only intended to transmit material tangible well that is their function and we have very complex systems to be able to do that the whole idea of what of recognizing that people have more than money that they want their children their loved ones to inherit that idea is kind of an intentional part of the state planning that's not there in any kind of formal way nor is there any kind of a formal way of transmitting with intention some of this intangible wealth of values and emotions and heritage and perspective and wisdom and intentions there isn't any way that that's built in intentionally to the traditional process of estate planning and I thought the ethical will is a way an instrument to do that everybody can understand that it's a it's so simple and it's so logical and it would mean everyone would kind of get it if they knew what what it was and what they could do so I I was really inspired and I thought I've got the skills as a journalist I can ghost write these I can help people do these so I started marketing my services through estate and financial people just like you and eventually I wrote a guidebook and develop some conversation cards for how do you talk about what's important to you sort of doing a lot of presentations and find myself here 20 years later I'm speaking to you which is which is such a privilege and a delight I have to say that right after I had this kind of aha 9-11 happened when so many people went home didn't ever come back did what didn't have the chance to sort of say those final things and so that idea was cemented in my mind there's a place for these in contemporary society and I'm gonna be the one that's one of the people that kind of brings it forward into you know contemporary society so and along the way as I was marketing myself to folks like you I learned a whole lot about your world I learned about how I thought you all only you don't you only dealt with money and legal documents not at all you were in the people business you you need to understand what people's values are what's important to them what some of their histories are what they want their legacy to be you need to do do that in order to be able to give to give them an effective plan and one of the things I like about the idea of an ethical will is that even the idea of it can spark conversations about legacy come fascinating conversations about their histories their families that otherwise a conversation you might otherwise never get into so my goals today that I want to give you a feeling for what these are for these contemporary documents what they stand for the subjects they cover I want you to kind of internalize to really understand why someone would want to do this and I also want you to internalize this yourself I want you to think about how does this apply in my life and in my family because the more that you internalize it the more you imagine it for yourself perhaps right I encourage you to take your to take a stab at writing this yourself the more you'll understand how valuable it is to do it and that you'll be able to speak really with authority about this when you talk to your clients so those are my those are my missions for today and what I want to do now is just let's let's look at some contemporary documents so the first one is this was written by a couple and they oh excuse me I love this phrase words fly away but what's written remains and that was attached to those old documents because isn't that true don't we we hear those those words have impact for us even now so this this first example is from a couple who were creating kind of a complex estate plan they were in their early 50s they had children in their mid-20s and they wanted to give their children a letter that they were all received before they received any distributions from the trust because they they wanted to have their children understand their estate plan in a very very personal context in the context of their values and their personal histories their experiences with money and so forth so they created about a 10 page document and you have his voice there her voice and then at times in the document there are their voices together and I have to say that all these examples are from people that I've had the chance to work with and they've given me permission to share these excerpts so what they wanted to do was to give this letter to their children and this is their intended and they did this give this letter to their children it would start then a dialogue with them that they would have at the time that they also shared the actual legal documents with their kids and that this was intended to be something that they would update as the kids so this is what they this is some of what they said the legal and financial documents may imply our values but what but they do not provide a clear explanation of our motivations or a sense of the path we've taken to get to this point we love you both unconditionally we want you to have a complete picture of our thinking and explanation of the plans we have made the most important matter is not how you've got your money or how you're going to spend it it's about how you're going to spend your lives and what kind of people you're going to be and this couple was very philanthropic and I and I talked to them shortly after they had shared this with their children and they said I just wanted to know kind of how it went and they said you know I don't think there was anything that they read here that we talked about that was new to them these were all themes that we we've been living already but what we've done what we want to do is to create a record of our thinking that they could go back to and refer to and and where we made clear what our values were and be able to share some of the stories that we want to make sure that they heard about some of our experiences about money and what we felt like it would buy and not buy and they said for us the most important part of the process for us it's a couple was we had to get really clear about what we wanted to say and we especially we got got really clear about our philanthropy and the purposes of our philanthropy and philanthropy is one of the main messages that comes loud and clear through this document so a beautiful process for them and very effective with their children this next example is a man who set up a dynasty trust he'd made a lot of money as a pretty young man he was setting up something where money was going to flow to his descendants for many many generations many of whom would not know him or have any personal connection to him or know anything about the source of the money and as a self-made man that was pretty horrifying to him that people would just kind of get distributions dumped on them at a certain age without any context so he wrote a document in this one of the things he said was what I ultimately want to pass on to you is far greater than financial advantage but a deep appreciation of the collective history and values you carry in your bones this is your true will and he wanted them to know the story about the business the story of his grandparents once that was from China the other set was from Austria he wanted to share their stories about coming to America how he felt as though their values were what had sort of the foundation of what built his business he wanted like the first couple he wanted to share his values about what money he thought what money he could and couldn't buy any express some hope about what he hoped that the money would enable in their lives so for him this felt like he was giving them a different kind of a gift you know not only money but this gift of foundation shared heritage and a and an expression of his values that he hoped that they would honor and appreciate so it was very satisfying for him to create this next example was from a man who traveled a lot and he was his children at the time were middle schoolers and high schoolers and he always had that feeling that you know maybe there'd be a time when the plane wouldn't make it and and he he wanted to leave something that he that the kids would have from him in case that ever was was the case to sort of make sure that he was kind of still there as part of his being their parent and he kind of created a so he shared a lot of his own stories and gave them some words of wisdom and this excerpt is he's talking about ebbs and flows it was for my ninth grade science teacher that I first learned the concept of ebbs and flows he drew diagrams of cycles on the board showing naturally occurring ups and downs I see this in all areas of life in biology in business in friendships and marriages and in society everything has its ebbs and flows and sometimes when things aren't as I'd like them to be it's reassuring to remember this idea and not to jump in and try to force things to change and I'm happy to say that he's still alive he has shared this with his kids who are now in their early 20s and he intends to to you know add to it to change it as they get older but what I love about this is that no matter as a young person this is great advice and I'm sure that from the his children's point of view it looks like their dad's life was all about flow and not about him and he has a chance to say to them it's gonna go both ways for you and it's been that way for me and it's gonna be there for you it's gonna be that way for you and it's okay the other thing that was really valuable for him is to remind himself oh yeah there are ebbs sometimes and you can see that he reminds himself there it's reassuring sometimes when he remembers that you know things quite aren't like it to be it's reassuring to remember this idea and not try to jump in too fast and try to force things to change this guy was a real type a personality be his instinct to try to force things to change he's reminding himself here no sometimes you have to wait and be patient. So again, a gift to his children, also a gift to himself. One of the quickest ways to create a legacy letter, and I should say that those examples that I've just shared with you, are all in the range of like 8 to 10 pages, which is kind of on the long side for a document like this. This is an example of a one pager, and the ethical lows can be all different kinds of lengths, but they generally are average, like between 1 and 20, 20 would be quite, would be very long, because these are letters, you know, they're not autobiographies, they're not long essays, they are letters. So you have to kind of think about, well, what's the tolerance of my audience for a letter? So this is an example of a not only a short one that was on one page, but also a list format. And lists can be when you're kind of giving advice, or sharing wisdom, or sort of, you know, in words to live by, lists can be great, because they're punchy, they can get a lot across them in a short period of time. And this was written by a man in a workshop, the assignment was actually to write 15 things you knew to be true, these are five of the things were on his list. You need to kick off the sheets, busy is good, no one has a lock on a way to do something, there's value somewhere in everyone, a joke is almost always in order. And doesn't this person, this man's, and he's about 70, doesn't his personality come shining through in this? And look at it, it's five, it's five bullets. And, but lists are a really cool way to think about creating one of these things. I know somebody who made a list of all of his favorite movies, and said, watch these movies, and you'll know what was important to me. I know another person who made a list of his favorite songs and included the links to the songs, and said, and for every song, he talked about why it was important to this particular period in his life, what was happening to him, and why this song meant so much to him. That's a really very personal, wonderful, fun, accessible way to think about creating a letter like this. This next one is a letter of wishes to trustees, which is another kind of a legacy letter, or personal legacy document as a non-binding side document to a legal to legal documents. This is written by a couple. With our experience as entrepreneurs, the idea of them taking their educations and starting businesses is attractive. For this reason, we're in full support of using the capital to start a business. Provided there's a well vetted business plan, we feel the decision to start a business should rest with the child, and should be encouraged, even if you are not wholly in support of it. Now, I'm sure some of you have probably served as trustees, or you've certainly heard stories from trustees who say to you, when it comes time to, you know, request from beneficiaries, a common refrain from trustees is, oh, I wish I had a lot more to go on than the bare bones languages in the trust. I don't know kind of what to go on to be able to make these decisions for beneficiaries when they make requests. So trustees really, really, really valuable non-binding side documents, it gives them a chance to sit and stand in the shoes of the grantors. And this is a great example of an intention that's very clear, very strong, but wouldn't be in the legal documents. No lawyer would probably want to put this in the legal document, but they felt really strongly about this is really valuable information for, for a trustee to know. And these last couple of examples are written by parents to share very intimate thoughts and feelings with their kids and their and their heirs. And this is an example of a father, you can tell why he wrote this, you know, I know, I haven't always been the best father. He is writing a letter essentially to say, forgive me. And one of the things that's really beautiful about these documents is that it's a lot easier to say some things in writing than it is face to face, especially the things you feel as though you really want to make sure that they hear from you directly and that they really understand. And there's a beautiful book called The Four Most Important Things by Dr. Ira Biok, and he works with people at the end of their lives. And he said, the four most important things that people need to either say or hear before they die is one of these four things. Thank you. I love you. Forgive me. I forgive you. And when you're talking about what I think sort of the heart of these documents was, which is the emotional piece, the chance, the opportunity for you to share how you feel about the people that you're writing, and to share that in a way that's really enduring, usually people can find one of those four things as something that is not difficult for them to say without question and easily. In this particular case, this man needed to say, forgive me. I don't know. He had three daughters. I don't know if he shared this with his daughters. I don't know. But I do know that the act of writing it was incredibly therapeutic. And if he didn't share it with them, surely he changed his behavior toward them. Surely he had different kinds of conversations with them than he had before. So this last example was written by a mom. This is a really cool story. She had written a letter like this to him when he was three. And all of a sudden he was 30. And she pulled out the letter written when he was three and said, you know, I'm really, this is really cool. I want him to see this. I also really want to update this. And so she kept most of the parts of the letter when he was three and added on to it. And she and this is to talk a little bit about the man that he was now. And some of the things that she wanted to make sure that he understood from her now. And he was the and so this is one of the things that some of the things she said to him. And I should say that this format is she kind of had themes. So she had various subjects that each had headings. And then she sort of reflected on those a couple of paragraphs under each headings. And, and then this is was part of the introduction. You're a wonderful young man with ideas of your own that we have great respect for, you know, as well enough to know that you probably be able to identify most of what's important to us. Even so, the idea of leaving an ethical counterpart to our estate plan is something we think is really important, since we've centered our family life on the values and not the asset. And she he's married now. And she told me that she shared this with him. And that not long after she shared this with him, his new wife came up to her and I know I married him to the right family because he said the same things to me. And I thought that was really beautiful. She also said that she also added in the letter, this line. I share these things, she said to him, not with the expectation that you have to follow them. But because I want you to know what my experience has taught me, and how I see and feel the world. How I feel and see the world. And that to me, is that captures the essence of a contemporary legacy letter or ethical will, the old ones very prescriptive role from beyond the grave, the contemporary ones, their gifts of yourself to be taken in by your audience, however, they're going to take them in, you can't control that. And they're going to take in the messages and the information in different ways at different times of their lives, probably. But that she summed up for me exactly how I what I think of them as a contemporary document. So I just want to go over and make sure that I've covered all the kind of high points about what these are. So you understand that they're not binding. In a court of law, a legal will is always going to hold water on, you know, it's always going to trump a ethical will. But that doesn't mean that what's written in ethical will couldn't, couldn't cause confusion. So it's very important that if you are a client is talking about an element in their estate plan, like, you know, why Johnny got more than Susie, or why you gave all your money to philanthropy, why you set things up the way you did, make sure that your attorney sees that letter to make sure that there isn't anything in it that might cause confusion. So I always say that to people, make sure that you, you know, run that by an attorney, if, if it relates to an estate plan. You've heard a number of examples. And you've heard ones that have been written by individuals, you've heard runs that have written by, you know, by couples, you may have assumed that, well, Susan must be thinking that if you just write one letter once, you know, well, that's not true at all. You might want to write different letters. And by you, I should say I'm talking when I say you, I mean you and your clients might want to write different letters to different people, or sort of a theme in variations, where you write a core letter to everybody, and then kind of individual messages to, you know, different people, depending on who your audience is. And speaking about audiences, I've kind of implied that, well, this must only be written to heirs, family members, or, you know, or descendants. And, but there are lots of people that don't have children, and that doesn't mean that they don't have very important things that they want to say, whether that's to extended family, or maybe to parents, or to good friends, certainly to trustees, any kind of successor, or beneficiary of their philanthropy. There could be any number of types of people who could be audiences for these documents. And people often ask me, well, what's yours? You know, what do you have for an ethical well? Mine is a file of a bunch of different letters, and I write them, I, you know, I write, I now have seven grandchildren, so there's now, I've got a collection going of seven different letters to my grandchildren that I, every year, I add to it a little bit. So there's, there's no such thing as, as a standard legacy letter, as a standard ethical well. And I hope what you're getting at, what you understand is sort of the essence of this, the importance of communication, that it's really personal and intentional. And I also just always just have to make the point that these are works in progress, because if you ever felt like you had to be as old as you were ever going to be, or as wise as you were ever going to be to create a letter like that, like this, do you think you would ever write it? I mean, I think most people think to themselves, maybe next year, I'll finally get it together. You know, I'm not feeling quite ready to do this, you know, maybe next year, I'll know what to say. Well, you know, it's never too early to write one of these, never too early. But one day, it will be too late. And you would hate that day to be too late, you know, when you never have the opportunity to, you know, to do this, what a loss it would be to, to the people who you're leaving behind. And I also made the point that, you know, these are that you don't have control how people are going to take these in, you know, that it's a gift of yourself. That being said, you have to be really careful about what is in them. Because you can imagine an unethical ethical will, can't you? It would be controlling, it would be negative, it would bring up questions that, if you're no longer here, couldn't be answered. So these are intended to be helpful, intended to be beneficial. For the people you're writing, they're not intended to be controlling. If you want to control your heirs or your audience, talk to your attorney about that. Don't do this in a passive aggressive way in a letter like that. That's so unfair to the people who are getting it. So you really have to be careful. And I also shared with you several examples of people who have shared these during life. I think that that's a beautiful, beautiful thing to do. To be able to say, I'm creating this, this is a work in progress, you're a work in progress too, but I want, I want to share some of these thoughts with you. To that, for the opportunity to be able to really create a dialogue, change, change perhaps the kind of conversations that you have. Be able to ask them, you know, have you ever thought about doing something like this? Particularly your children who have children, would they consider doing something like this for their kids? And if you write this to your parents, which a lot of people like to create, write a letter of gratitude to their parents, oh my gosh, what a beautiful thing to make sure you shared with them before they go. You know, if I'm a woman who's in a tent, you would share it with them before they went, but in case you went first. So, you know, think about that. Don't necessarily hide these under a barrel, but also you may need to make sure that in the midst of creating these that you know, people know where to find them. It's terrible to have this be in your computer when you find it. So, either print them off, put them to your legal documents, or make a notice to where they can be found. People often ask me, you know, should I handwrite these or could they be typed? What format should they be in? And I say, well, you could, you could handwrite them and, you know, handwriting tells you a lot about a person. But, you know, people these days are not learning how to read script and not everybody's handwriting is all that legible. So, you, what I recommend is that you have, you type it as well, and you have a transcript that, you know, goes along with it so that you can, people have access, because you hope this is going to last a long time. It's kind of like a letter in a bottle. People don't throw these away. So, they can be fascinating for, you know, future generations. So, I would suggest having them typed. The same thing goes with if you want to create a video record or an audio ethical will. Very valid. A lot of people want to do that. Have a transcript made just because the machine that you created that on, you preserved it on, might not be accessible in 10 years, 50 years, you know. So, but I'm hoping that what's put on a paper doesn't, doesn't ever, you know, doesn't ever disappear. It doesn't ever become, become inaccessible. So, I just want to pause here for questions, and I don't know if any has come, have come into you, Marie. This is a point I'm going to shift gears and talk about, okay, now that you know what this is, how are you going to share it with your clients? How are you going to bring this up? So, I do have some questions for you. So, you talked a little bit about audio and video and transcripts and saving the content. So, it's valid down the road. I know that my grandparents started writing to me when I was little. So, I have their paper letters, and my mom digitized them, and she sent me a thumb drive with pictures and letters, and I, in turn, am duplicating that and giving that to my children. But I wonder if you have any advice about how the financial advisor can participate or encourage their clients so that maybe they could be a part of this process. For instance, I've heard of advisors inviting their clients where they feel like there's an interest or an opening to invite them into their own video studio. Look, we'll set it up in my office, and I can ask you the questions. Would you be comfortable with that? We'll provide a legacy letter or, I mean, what kind of experience do you have around the advisor being a part of this with their clients, and what benefits are there? That's just fabulous. You know, if the client, if the, if the advisor wants to take the time to do that, talk about deepening a relationship. I mean, that is just like a direct line to incredible conversations that really deepen relationships, create really enduring connections between you, and really understand their families and the issues that were within their family. So I just think that's fabulous. I, what I always say to advisors is, you should be the, this should be on your checklist, you know, that every client should at least know about the idea of intentional communication. What do you want to make sure that your loved ones know and understand from you? In addition to what you're going to give them monetarily, what do you want them to know and understand? That's a piece that should never be left out, because that really means a lot to clients. The more that the advisor can understand the answer to that, the better off. In terms of helping the client write the letter, I do not advise that the client, that the advisor gets into the business of helping their client write the letter, because they're very time-consuming and difficult to actually kind of put yourself in a position of ghostwriting them yourselves. But if you want to record their thoughts, give the client the transcript, the client is way ahead of the game in terms of them being able to either put that in a file, not even, it doesn't even necessarily go into a letter. It can be, here's a record of what I said, here's the file, and essentially kind of be a stand-in for the letter. That's great. Or if they want to create a letter, they've got a lot of their own words to use and to jump off from. So if you want to be able to tape them, and you know, I had a firm that had this really cool idea. They talked about, you know, their clients creating, having a portfolio of stories that the, you know, the advisors in the business of building their financial portfolio, while they also wanted to be in the, helping their clients build a portfolio of stories. So every quarterly meeting, the client had the chance to choose a story and pick a story, and they recorded it, and that stayed in the file. They, you know, they gave it to the clients, and it also stayed in the file of the advisor. So which is exactly the idea you're talking about, Maureen. I just think it's great. If you, if you all, if you are inspired to do that, go for it, because no one else probably is going to do that. What a gift to them. Yeah, I'm just imagining, my family works with a wealth management firm here in Leawood, Kansas. If my kids walked in upon our passing, and not only did they get our financials and the money, but they got a thumb drive with everything that we wanted them to have. So just another way for the advisor to build a connection with the next generation, and to have shown that extra concern. I'm wondering around, I like this idea of the portfolio stories, and my father right now is in his late 80s. He's not doing well health-wise, and so he's using something called StoryWorth, StoryWorth.com, to actually, when he could write before his hands started trembling, he was writing them and submitting them, and they're saving them, and they'll print a book at the end. But now he's recording them, because that's about all he can do, is speak to his iPhone and upload with someone's help. But do you know of anything else that would be a facilitation tool beyond the StoryWorth platform, or the advisor getting involved? There are other online platforms where you can, and I, at the tip, the tip of my fingers, I don't, I can't tell you what they are, in terms of other sort of places that you can, with intention, record stories or drop in written documents. And some of the, some of the advisors on the call may be able to come up with some of those faster than I can, but I know they're out there. I'm very familiar with StoryWorth, but, which is, you know, produces a book at the end, as you know, which is really neat. But there are other, there are other companies out there where you can drop in, you know, pictures and stories and music and all kinds of stuff. And it's all, it's all the same thing. And I welcome it and celebrate all of that. one of the reasons that the letter form appeals to me is that it's not digital. And, or that if it is digital, as I said, I think it should be transcripts transcribed also. And that I like the old fashioned quality of it, that it is as intimate, you know, as a letter. But all these other things are also getting at the very same thing, which is that you want to be known by the people who are coming behind you. You want to be known. I mean, everybody, nobody wants to think they're going to disappear from this world having not left a trace of themselves at all on anyone's hearts or on anyone's mind. No one wants to feel that way. I don't want to skip too much Q&A now, but I'm curious about other tools. And then we'll have this be our last question. And folks, if you have other questions, keep them coming. And if you have tools and resources, I'd love to see them in the question box right here. So we'll have another pause in just a minute after Susan delivers a little bit more of her presentation. And we have a little bit of extra time left at the end. But Susan, I wanted to mention that I Googled Beyond StoryWorth, and I came up with something called LegacyStories.com, Tree of Life Legacies, TreeofLifeLegacies.com. And PBS has something called the StoryCorps.org. And so there's gotta be some inspiration there. Yeah, and also EverPlans. I forgot about EverPlans, because they do have built into that functionality. They also have a place where you can leave personal information. Yeah, I'm a user of EverPlans too for my own kids in a document vault and wishes and instructions and just making it easy for them. Everything is going to be right there. But I also wanted to say that I ordered some of your products, the workbook and the conversation cards. I don't know what you call them, but they started conversations with my husband's father, who was passing away due to old age. And we sat for many days around a card table, and instead of playing cards, I would open the conversation deck that I got from your website, and I would ask my father-in-law a question. And it was quite remarkable. That's wonderful. I know, the stories that I hear about people that use those cards, they're so simple and they're just magic, so. Well, why don't we go through the eBet? Let's go through the rest of your presentation. We'll see if there are any more questions that come in. That's great, okay. So then the question is, okay, where does this fit then with what you're doing? And so I say that anytime that you are talking about their estate plan, that this would be when you're talking about what they're giving to their loved ones. And I have a slide coming up about that specifically, but anytime you're in a conference, a conversation where you're either talking about their estate plan, you're talking about trying to understand their family's situation, what their goals are for the very long term. And also anytime that you've got a little bit of extra time with your clients and you wanna just have an interesting conversation to be able to say to them, I just heard about this really cool idea called an ethical will or a legacy letter. Have you ever heard of this? Have you ever done anything like this? And have you ever received anything like this once you explain to them what it is? You're gonna have an instantly very interesting conversation so whether it be at a quarterly meeting when you're looking for something interesting to talk about or you're really kind of examining their kind of long-term goals for what they want for their planning, this is a fascinating topic to get into. But what I wanna do now is just share a screen where this is what I think the heart of a conversation of a conversation around long-term plans or estate plans could start from. And, cause I love this question. I think this is such a powerful question in talking about legacy or talking about their long-term goals and their long-term visions for their money and for their family is to ask themselves this question. For you to ask, for them to ask themselves, you to ask them, what do you have to give? What do you have to give? What do you want to give? And I'm talking about giving in the very largest sense of the term. It is a very powerful question. And the way I see legacy is that the legacy, your legacy is the lasting influence of the gifts that you give, all the different kinds of gifts that you give, both during and after your life. And when it comes to traditional planning, this is where that question of what do you have to give, oftentimes it starts here and oftentimes it ends here. Well, I have to give financial assets, I have tangible property that I have to give, that I want my children to get from me. But look what else people want their children to get from them. Love, a set of important relationships, values. They want their children to have a sense of their history, their shared heritage, some stories, to know some of those family stories. They want them to have some of the benefit of their wisdom and their perspective. And some of the greatest gifts that people give to their loved ones is clarity. The clarity of their intention around their planning, the clarity of their feelings toward their children, toward their heirs, toward whoever they're writing. That gift of clarity, so important. You know the mess that people get into when intentions aren't clear. Someone passes away, their intentions are not clear. Someone passes away, their feelings are not clear. And those kinds of, you know, the implications of that lack of clarity can sometimes resonate for a long time into many generations when clarity is not there. And of course, the greatest gift that people have to give while they're still alive is their time. And I think that this lens of what you have to give is just a really interesting one in terms of thinking about long-term planning and thinking about how people are spending their time, the rest of their time here. And where the ethical will fits in here is that the ethical will is one of the ways that they pass on everything that's here on the right side. Of course, just one of the ways, because we're talking about a brief letter. The ways that people, the things that people talk about, the ways they live their lives, the evidence of what's important to them, that's largely how people pass on their values, their wisdom, their stories, their love. But to be able to have a concrete record that's gonna live through time and resonate in a deeply personal way, letters that are intended specifically for specific people to pass on these things, that's the power of a letter. And so to give the gift of clarity of intention, the clarity of your feelings, to express those in a letter, and to share some of these other aspects of a person's intangible will, that's really the purpose of the ethical will. And this is really a revelation for a lot of people to think that they maybe never thought about this, that they could write a letter like this before. And so it can be just a revelation to people like, oh, that's really simple, I could do that. Or, oh my gosh, maybe I've done something like that already a little bit when my daughter, when my child went off to college or was born. A lot of people have done something like this before that they can relate to this, or maybe they've received something, as Marie just said, that she's received something. So clients are gonna react in different ways to the idea. And some clients are gonna say, this is a great idea, and they'll be very enthusiastic about it. And they'll want your support in doing it. Others are gonna say, well, it seems like a good idea, but I don't know if I'm quite old enough to do this, or maybe I'm not that good a writer, or gee, I think maybe they already know this, or I certainly wouldn't wanna lecture them or pretend I know more than they do. So great idea, but I don't really know whether it's for me. And that's gonna be a reaction of a certain number of clients. And when I hear that as objections, what I say to people is, think about somebody who's passed away, who you love very much. Do you ever, are there ever times you wish they were still here so you could ask them things about their life? Do you ever wonder what their life was like when they were your age? And everybody can say, of course. I can think of a lot of questions I'd like to ask my dad or my grandmother, et cetera, et cetera. And so I say to them, well, would you ever have wanted that person to have decided that you wouldn't be interested in getting a letter from them? That you would have said, well, I'm not that good a writer or I don't have time or I'm not old enough or I don't have anything to say or I don't think you'd be interested. Would you want them to make that choice for you that you wouldn't want that letter? I don't think so. You'd never want them to make that choice. So what I say to people is, don't make that choice for them. Of course they're gonna be interested and you don't have to make it long. It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to sound like it's written by a professional writer. You can say these things better than anybody else can. So don't get in your own way. Don't get in your own way. Start with something and start with something small. And I do want to show here that I do have some things that in terms of bringing up this as a conversational topic, that I do have some props for you to use. And the guidebook that I wrote about creating a step-by-step guide for creating an ethical will is a great conversational prop, either to have on your desk or in your lobby for people to take a look at. It tells you right away what it is and then it's a brainstorming tool for helping you think about how to do it. So it can be a conversational prop for you. You can also give it to your clients as a gift, as a takeaway and a way for them really to get started. It does open up, gives you lots of ideas, lots of prompts, lots of examples, so that it feels really comfortable to then be able to kind of narrow down what it is you want to say. And then on the right-hand side of the conversation cards that Maureen was talking about, 12 cards, each very simple, open-ended prompts that really get people thinking about, well, what is important to me? What have been some of the seminal experiences of my life? What are my values? And so these are all things you can get on my website. But I also just want to, as I'm wrapping up here, I want to say, you know, I've discovered that it can be daunting for people to think about what they want to say, because there's a lot you could say when you think about, you know, you want to make sure your loved ones know and understand from you. That, you know, that could be a good-sized answer, and that can overwhelm people. And so what I always say is, let's start with something really short, one or two pages. You can always add to it or change it as you go forward, when time and inspiration allow, but don't not do it. Let's put something down. And I do a lot of client presentations. I do a lot of workshops, and that is one of the main things that I emphasize, and I give them this template. I share this with them, that here's a way to get started with something that is of universal value to anyone of any age and of any age to receive. And that if you just do things to express gratitude, you know, to say, share, what have they given you? How have they enriched your life, the people that you're writing? And then to share a bit of wisdom, and what I suggest here is the list format, you know, three things, just three things, and I'm gonna punch list. Three things your life has taught you that you know to be true. And then have the opportunity to bless the recipients. You know, what are your hopes for them? What's the one most important thing you wanna say to them? And if you just did those three things, gratitude, wisdom, and blessing, you've got a beautiful, beautiful, timeless letter that anybody would value receiving, and you'd feel really good writing. And then for people who do want to explicitly use the ethical will to talk about money, give context to the money, again, you can use this three-part structure. Let's share the story. What's the story behind the assets? Why do they exist? Where did they come from? And then your values, what have you learned about money? What's your definition of success? What do you know money can and can't buy? And then again, that blessing piece. What are your hopes for them? What's the one most important thing that you wanna say to them, and what perhaps, or do you hope that the money, the impact of the money will have in their life? So again, this doesn't have to be long, but before you've covered some things, it would be of great value to the people who are gonna be receiving it. The bottom line is, put it on your checklist. Along with these other things in our estate planning, every client should at least know what this is, and you are the person to introduce it to them and to encourage them to do it. I do have this handout, which you can download. If you can print this off and give this to clients, it's an overview of what this thing is called an ethical will, and some Q&As there to answer people's questions. So as I close here, I just wanna read you this quote because this sort of knocked my socks off when I read it a few months ago. This is by Jim Collins, the management guru, in his latest book. He said, in the first two decades of the 21st century have taught us anything. It's that uncertainty is chronic, instability is permanent, disruption is common, and we can neither predict nor govern events. There will be no new normal. There will only be a continuous series of not normal episodes defying prediction and unforeseen by most of them until they happen. And when I first read this quote, I thought, oh, this is such a bummer of a quote. And then I thought, well, no, actually it's probably always been this way. It just kind of just right now feels particularly uncertain. And what struck me about this when I read this is that what it makes me think about is, okay, what are the people coming behind me? What are the people coming behind your clients? What do they need in a future like this? What do they need to thrive? What do they need? What do they need to survive? And what do they need to thrive? And part of the answer that I came up with is a foundation, a foundation of feeling like they're attached to things that are larger than they are, transcendent things like family and values and relationships. And in an ethical way, you communicate those transcendent things. To me, that's part of what will help future generations survive and thrive in a world that is going to be very uncertain. And lastly, I just wanna close by telling you this, that the legacy that you help your clients create, you know what? It's part of your legacy. And when I think about, what do you have to give your clients is besides your attention, that's the most important thing you have to give your clients, but you also have the opportunity to give them a new way of looking at things, a new way of looking at the purposes of their estate plan, a new way of thinking about what do they wanna make sure that their loved ones receive from them? What do they have to give both tangibly and intangibly? That's an incredible gift. You're giving the opportunity for them to think about that and to create a legacy, the legacy they wanna create and the legacy they create becomes part of your legacy. So thank you very much for your attention. Really enjoyed having you. And I'm hoping that there's maybe a few more questions. We have just a couple more minutes left, I know. We have one observation slash idea and one more question. So along this line of never too early to start communicating all of these blessings and gratitude and hopes and dreams to your, for instance, your children, start an email address for the child when they're born. And then when something moves you, email that note while you're in the presence of that beauty. I'm a first time grandmother, so I'm thinking gotta do that. That would be an easy way to do it, right? So that's a great idea. I really like that idea of capturing something at the moment that you think of it. Because oftentimes you have think of something and if you don't capture it a day later, you're thinking, what is it that I forgot? So that's really, that's a really good advice, yeah. And then Susan, around the tools that you have, you have the conversation cards, you have the workbook, there's a wealth of resources on your website, which is. Yes, you know what? Yeah, let me share my screen again because I did have a final slide. So this is my website, my contact information. I do have a guidebook about ethical wills. I also have a guidebook for creating an expression of donor intent for people that have set up a philanthropic instrument that others are gonna be taking over. And then the conversation cards, I do love to do client events, either Zoom or live to inspire clients themselves to take steps here. And then I do trainings for advisors and I also do coaching. So I don't ghostwrite these documents anymore for people, but I do have coaching clients, people that I work with to be their accountability partner to actually get it done. Well, then you actually answered the last question, which was around how you could support the advisor or their clients through client events. You mentioned that lightly before. And I know that one of the RAs that I'm working with in LA, I was talking about what she's gonna do to communicate to her clients. And she said, oh, have you heard of Susan Turnbull? And she's gonna be leading a webinar for my clients. And what a wonderful way for the advisor to be bringing this authority, this gift of what you know to their clients, where the advisor doesn't have to know it all. They can just share their own story on top of what you're sharing. So I'll just leave us with that. And Susan, if there's any last words of wisdom, I'll give you the final word and then we'll say goodbye. Okay, well, I just really appreciated this. And my only words of wisdom are that you're in such a unique position with your clients because you are at the intersection of what's practical and profound. And you can talk to them about things that maybe they're not talking to anybody else about. And one of them is this whole thing about legacy. What does it really mean? It's a hard idea to get your arms around. But I hope I've given you some concrete ways that you really can help your clients have conversations about that with themselves and with you in ways that really may end up having not only an impact on the estate plan, but certainly on their lives. So I really applaud you for what you do. I think you're in just an extraordinary position with your clients. And I think it's really important, beautiful work that you're doing. Yeah. Last comment and then we really will say goodbye from Lindsay. This was wonderful. I did an ethical will with a client last year during a difficult time with her children. And I'm so glad I did it, exclamation point. Couldn't cap off this webinar with anything better than that. So we'll see you all next month where we begin our next trilogy, which will start the online presence, SEO, social media portion of our year. So this concludes our client conversations, having deeper, more meaningful communications with your clients. All the archives, you know where to find them on napa.org. Thank you for being here. And thank you, Susan. It was really inspiring. Thank you.

Marie Swift

webinar

educating clients

non-binding letters of wishes

ethical wills

legacy

values

wisdom

intentions