I’ve been trying to think through our legacy planner, J____’s, comment about how he is Peyton Manning and I am constantly second-guessing him, “running onto the field” and attempting to play quarterback.

As I’ve thought about it, I realize J____ has made a number of suggestions or recommendations to us over the half year or so we have been working together. And, after due consideration, I have (and I should say, Sarita and I have–we have) rejected several of them.

• One of the first, last fall, had to do with creating a DAF–a Donor Advised Fund. As I looked at the pros and cons, at the time, I didn’t see any overriding positive values a DAF would bring. Instead, I saw it would complicate our lives and add extra expenses we do not currently enjoy with our family foundation. So I said, no thanks. Not now.
• S____, our investment advisor, has convinced us that the way banks make their money is on the margin between their cost of borrowing funds and the interest they receive on the funds they lend. “Why not become your own bank?” he suggested. “Turn the dead asset–the equity in your home–into a productive asset.”
     We did that beginning a couple of years ago. (We had paid off our mortgage. We don’t use the funds for any current expenses. Instead, we took out an interest-only mortgage and have invested the funds.)
     After a couple of years’ success in that area, our youngest son asked us why we weren’t doing the same with our mostly-paid-off commercial property as well.
     So late last fall, when we first entered into our relationship with J____, we were days away from being ready to begin the commercial property loan. I mentioned our idea to J____, and he said he thought such a move was foolish. He wanted us to hold off till he had had an opportunity to present his full-orbed legacy plan to us. . . .
     S____ said we were under no pressure to finalize the loan. So we held off . . . until a week ago last Friday.
     We had seen J____’s legacy plan and didn’t see how it created problems for any aspect of S____’s proposal and/or our plan. . . .

I think these decisions on our part may have fed into J____’s displeasure with respect to my supposed quarterbacking. Question is: Is he correct in viewing me as trying to quarterback?

Oh. There may be a few other areas that strike J____ as a form of me “quarterbacking”:

• He likes to have parents talk with him privately about their interests, plans and desires, get all their “ducks in a row,” as it were, and then, after he has completely finished his legacy plan, then reveal to the kids what the parents’ thoughts and plans are.
     I didn’t “permit” him, as it were, to make the “grand reveal.”
     Throughout the process, I kept an open dialog with the kids about what we were thinking and why. (That’s the way I have always tried to live my life with our kids: openly. Why would I change my behavior now?) . . .
     But J____ didn’t like that.
• Our Family Wealth Letter of Intent (FWLOI). J’s normal client produces a letter of about three pages. That was the size of the letter he provided us as a rough draft. –I expanded it to 15 pages. Kind of shocking to him–though in the end he did say it was the best FWLOI he had ever seen.
     It was nice to receive such a word of acclaim. But, somehow, I think it rankled him a bit that I didn’t “follow form.”
• At our family meeting (for the “grand reveal”), he wanted us to read the entire FWLOI out loud. But we had already sent it to the kids months before. They had read it. We had discussed it. Not just once but many times.
     I got the sense he didn’t like that, either. It bothered him that we weren’t following his exact methodology.

Maybe one last thing:

• Also in the family meeting: J____ had a PowerPoint presentation complete with dramatic music and showy graphics. (The entire experience reminded several of us of the opening scenes from 2001: A Space Odyssey–which, as I discovered when I tried to show it to our kids a few years ago, they take as obnoxiously slow-moving and . . . well, you get the idea.) J____ thought this kind of dramatic introduction would . . . –Who knows what J_____ thought?

  Our family, in general, I think, made our . . . lack of interest . . . known. I don’t recall exactly what any of us said or did. But I think we made some MST3K kinds of comments that indicated we would like to “get on with the real meat of the presentation. We don’t need the fancy music and graphics.”
     Somehow, I think that may not have gone over too well with J____, either. . . . Not that he’s said anything, but . . . little, niggling, implicit feelings can lead to major issues in a relationship.

I guess, if I think about it, I can see how these latter issues (kind of minor in the overall scope of things) could feel like “quarterbacking.” These are, as it were, “mid-play” modifications. Kind of.

I think there is a bit of an issue related to control, here.

But concerning the over-all plan: I want (or, at least, I have wanted; do I still want?) J____’s input, leadership and guidance. But I don’t think I want him to have total control! After all, it is my/our/our family’s life that is at stake. Not his. . . .

But whether his claims to be Peyton Manning are appropriate or note, and whether I am acting legitimately as a kind of “team owner” or, instead, more as an interloping, second-guessing, second “quarterback,” I think I can understand J____’s feelings.

So . . .

If I want (as I think I want!) his knowledgeable, intelligent input into our family’s legacy plans, I think I need to figure out how to be reconciled with him.

Maybe if I acknowledge his feelings and mention how I can see why and how he would perceive me in the way he does. . . .

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