How do you change the way you think and feel and behave?

I’m not talking about the “oops!” kind of mind alteration–y’know, the revelatory, slap-your-forehead, “Oh! Of course! How could I have been so stupid!?!” mental shift.

I’m talking about knowing what you need to do–or, even, having a sneaking suspicion that you need to change your way of thinking, but not being able to turn on the light bulb in your brain–i.e., a mind-shift that requires real work. How do you make purposeful, premeditated alterations in your habits of mind, how you view the world, how you think, how you behave?

Legacy planning and estate planning, at its very root, I think, requires this kind of mental change. I mean, if you’re going to do a really good job at writing a plan, it takes more than a couple of hours of casual thinking to work out what you desire to achieve with your wealth; if you have young children: where you want them to go, who you want to take care of them, how you want them to be cared for, etc.; how you want to be cared for if, God forbid, you find yourself incapacitated and requiring long-term care or–forget you finding yourself incapacitated– . . . Suppose your relatives find you incapacitated and incapable of speech or communication: How shall they care for you?

These kinds of questions require some deep and serious thought. And even the most patient attorneys or other professionals–even if you could afford their fees–cannot draw your finessed thoughts out of you in a 2- or even 8-hour interview. And, I dare say, even a week-long retreat dedicated to these matters won’t quite do whatever-it-is you require to come to peace about your true thoughts and beliefs in these matters.

Hey. I’ve been working on my legacy plan–not full-time, but dedicating a few hours a week, on average–for close to three years, now. And, I am embarrassed to admit, my wife and I still haven’t gotten down to business on one of the most important pieces of the plan: the documentation (that would be so helpful to our executors) of where all our key papers are, the list of all our professional advisors, where our safe deposit boxes are and how to gain access, where all of our accounts are–and user names and passwords to gain access, etc., etc. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written already about some tools to help you tell your story (or stories).

I thought I’d share a bit about how I’m doing with my own story-telling . . . and what I’m doing, specifically, to make my story-telling simply happen.

(It’s not easy! You definitely have to decide you’re going to take the bull by the horns and make him move in the direction you want him to.)

But I think it’s worthwhile. Read the rest of this entry »

A homeschooling acquaintance of mine who goes by the online moniker “Prairie Chick” posted a story that inspired me about how to pass on and reinforce family values even among elementary school-age children (let alone older children and adults).

I saw her story on the Sonlight forums. When I asked her permission to share it here, she noted that she had also posted it on one of her blogs, The Prairie Schoolhouse. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been writing about some tools that can help you record your personal, family history.

I recently finished Bill Gates, Sr.’s book Showing Up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime. It’s not a particularly remarkable book among all the books one might read. But it struck me, as I read it: It is one man’s testament, one man’s summation of “lessons from life,” and it’s a good model of the kind of thing parents might do for their children in terms of memorializing family history, values, purpose, and so forth. Read the rest of this entry »

I will confess: I’ve been dragging my feet. Not sure why. But I had to overcome the hurdle.

I have finally “turned on” the Strategic Inheritance Legacy Lounge forum and invite you to join what I hope will soon be a freewheeling and inspirational discussion of all things related to passing on a heritage from one generation to another.

Join us, won’t you?

Thanks!

I read an article this morning that reminded me: Most estate- and legacy-planning professionals ignore philanthropic considerations in their basic planning strategies.

Alexis Martin Neely, for example, notes, in an article printed in the latest Bottom Line Personal, that single adult parents (widowed or divorced, in particular) need to make allowances in their estate plans not only for their personal health care, but also “for the guardianship of any minor children and transfers [of] assets to heirs of your choice while minimizing taxes.”

It struck me: This is the standard mantra of traditional estate planning professionals. For them, estate planning is all about minimizing taxes and maximizing flow-through to the next generation. And it has absolutely nothing to do with larger life purposes, the legacies–the accomplishments–for which donors might want to be remembered. They don’t ask about favorite causes or charities or philanthropic goals they may have. The question simply never comes up.

And so a person who actually might be inclined to make a significant contribution to some effort in which he or she is truly interested . . . simply won’t make the contribution. S/he will “forget” . . . because s/he was never reminded, never caused, even, to think of it.

And this line of thought reminded me of what I heard two or three years ago from Henry Doorn, executive director of the Barnabas Foundation: “What if you were to add another ‘child’ to your estate plan? What if that ‘child’ were a charity?”

I thought, this morning, “What if we turned that statement on its head? Instead of your favorite charities becoming additional ‘children,’ what if you thought of your children as additional ‘charities’?”

And why would we want to think of our children as “charities” rather than our favorite charities as additional “children”?

Personally: I think it makes sense to think of our children as “charities” because . . . once they are grown, and especially if and as they pass their 20s and become settled adults: what good, really, will our bequests do them . . . or their children?

Yes, for a while, perhaps–while Sarita and I are in our 50s and our children are still establishing themselves in the world and our grandkids are still at home–it might make sense for us to give bequests that could aid them with their lives. But by the time Sarita and I are in our 70s and our own kids are in their 40s and 50s and our grandkids are past college: isn’t it time for our kids to be passing along their resources to their children and grandchildren? . . . So our part becomes more of a charitable contribution to their lives, a “little something extra,” perhaps.

But whatever we give ought not to be some major portion or major addition to their own nest eggs!

Beyond that, shouldn’t we be thinking of the significance of our donations: what our donations will achieve? Will our donations achieve something more important through the lives of our children . . . or through a favorite agency, foundation, or other philanthropic or charitable entity? . . . Especially if and/or as one or more of our children or grandchildren “moves on” to espouse or to pursue causes to which we ourselves are opposed! –Should we donate to them–so they can invest more in their antithetical causes? Or should we donate to the charitable causes that we believe in and let them do whatever they want apart from our support?

[I have one more idea along these lines based on a conversation I had a few weeks ago with a wealthy man I know.]

Is your house big enough? Do you need more room? Will your family be happier in a bigger home?

I think my perspective on this issue was shaped a bit last week by a converation I had with a few members of an American family that has lived and worked most of the time over the last nine years in the foothills of the Himalayas.

*****
As I have intimated in some recent posts in my personal blog, my wife and I spent last week in Thailand with field staff of one of the international charities we help fund.

While there, I volunteered to work on the security detail. As I sat in front of the bookstore they had set up checking people’s ID tags, I stopped a couple of young girls because I couldn’t see their wristbands.

One of them looked at me with a bit more than passing interest: “Are you Mr. Holzmann?”

“Yes.”

She lit up. “We use Sonlight!”

I won’t bore you with the details of that portion of our conversation.

It turns out, they are two children in a family of five kids. They live somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas and move twice a year to live with a certain nomadic water buffalo-herding tribe that has a summer home and a winter home.

Interesting people!

About 10 or 15 minutes after we began talking, their dad came up. And the subject matter of our discussion broadened a bit. I asked him more about their living circumstances and how one lives with nomads. –I had never met anyone from the West who had adopted and/or adapted to such a lifestyle.

For some reason I can’t remember now, at one point, the dad made a comment that has stuck with me: “When we go back to the States,” he said, “I have found that families with five or more kids always seem to have more room to invite us in than do families with only one or two children. Even families with huge houses and just one child: they never seem to have room to invite us to stay with them. But families with five kids–even though their houses are much smaller: they always have room.

“We may sleep on the floor (which is fine with us). But they always have room. The more kids they have, the more room they seem to have.”

My thought: The physical space is rarely the issue. More often, we are limited by the size of our heart.

Indeed, as I was thinking about what my new friend had to say, I remembered our family’s time in southern California 20 years ago.

We lived in an 800-square-foot hovel. I think that’s the right word. It had holes in the outside walls so big you could see daylight through them when it was light outside and, in the winter, the wind would blow the kitchen cupboards open. For the kids to go to the bathroom, they had to walk through every room in the house–from their room, through Sarita’s and my bedroom, through the living room area, through the kitchen, through the back hallway (where the water heater was) and into the bathroom.

All four children–two girls and two boys–shared a single bedroom

And y’know what? No one complained!

In fact, though we owned four beds (two bunkbeds), until just a few months before we moved (when our eldest daughter was about 11 and a half), all four children preferred to sleep in one bed. We used to talk about how they were like sausages in a container. They preferred to share the bed. There was something reassuring about that closeness, I think.

And our kids got along. They were close. Despite dramatic personality differences. Despite the age range. Despite the fact that they spent most of the time together because we were homeschooling as well.

The physical closeness, I think, actually contributed to our children interacting with each other. It helped enlarge their hearts to make room for others.

FWIW. I thought I’d share my thoughts.

And my prayer: May I have a heart big enough for whatever God calls me to . . . unhindered by my physical surroundings!

Find it difficult to be involved with your family? The first step to achieve balance in this area may be to value the goal. Read the rest of this entry »