It’s about Power and Control!

This is a strange time for the country and thus the world. We have elected as president a man who seems to have won simply with the message that his ability to amass wealth makes him the best candidate. With wealth as the most powerful credential, he has been given license to create policies that will impact not just the United States but the world.

                 99% of us don’t have the resources that #45 has. We have limitations that he has been able to avoid. The greater we have control over our finances, the greater control we have over our lives. When we have a savings there is not the demand that we accept working conditions from an employer that is intolerable. 

 This is a time to make strategic decisions regarding how to build your personal economic strength for you and your family. I am an advocate on building generational wealth. Each generation should support the next generation to do better and be better. 

 That is why estate planning is a piece of the overall wealth creation strategy. It is not enough to build wealth if we don’t create a process on how to protect it and transfer it to the next generation.

 As we know the golden rule and the law of the land is the one with the gold rules and the borrower is servant to the lender. Subsequently we must empower ourselves and create strategies of strength that build options and opportunities to strengthen our families and community.

 Building strength requires a long term strategic plan that includes identifying the goal. If the goal is short term the implementation required is short term.  The long game requires multiple players and multiple approaches. No matter how you feel about them the New England Patriots returning to the Super Bowl this year is an example of a long term plan.

 In building the long game you will have to create assets that work for you even when you cannot work for yourself, protect the assets that you create and pass the assets onto the next generation. We must build for tomorrow today. Deborah Owens, America’s Wealth Coach ™ says when you are in poverty your goal is survival for the day, when you are wealthy you strategize for the next generation.

 Once the goal is created and the values enumerated building the strategy to achieve the goals is not necessarily easy but priority. With the goal in mind to build a family and community that is economically empowered there is strength to withstand oppression. With personal resources you have strength to make decisions of independence. When you have individual or collective strength there is no need to sell your yield to that which is contrary to your values. 

 At this point in time, in this country we see people who are challenged to identify what their values are. We have individuals who are forced to make decisions that may impact their financial future positions based on their political stands. This is a time that has shown what we are made of. We have to suffer the consequences of decisions made yesterday but we can build for tomorrow. 

 As estate planning attorneys we make a practice of focusing on the long game. We however cannot sell today for tomorrow. We must remember that our integrity once lost is not easily replaced. What we sacrifice today may not be easily regained tomorrow. Trust once lost is not easily found. Our dignity once lost is not easily recreated. As Stephen Covey says we must “Begin with the end in mind”.