How to flourish in a crisis
Estate Planning

Learning to Flourish, Even in a Financial Crisis

Maybe you, like many of us, have been raised to think that the safest way to live in the working world is to have a good career and a steady paycheck. This financial crisis is challenging that framework for many people. Even if you had a steady job, and even if you still have one, by now you’ve learned how easy it is for that security to disappear overnight. 

A recession can reveal all of our negative thoughts and internal monologues about money. A sad, yet common, attitude is for us to see money as a scarce resource, and income as something that’s outside of our control. Thinking or talking about money can trigger feelings of guilt and shame in many people. 

It doesn’t have to be that way. The truth is, money is a tool that you can access and multiply, independent of anyone else’s permission. And even if you do have anxieties that keep you from seeing how money can be a positive part of your life, that can change.

Other people may react to this period of uncertainty with the same, old-fashioned advice: live within your means and keep 3–6 months’ worth of income in an emergency fund. If you have a secure job that pays you well, and that you enjoy, this is great advice. But, if that’s not what is true for you, you may be looking at this time as a great opportunity to make a shift and create your own financial security. 

Consider this: what if you weren't relying on a check from your boss (or the unemployment office, as the case may be)? 

What if a shift in mindset could change your relationship with money, and set you on track to secure you against economic highs and lows in a way you never even dreamed possible? Or, maybe you have been dreaming about it, but don’t know how or where to start to move it all forward.

A financial crisis doesn’t have to be a crisis for you or your family. In fact, this could be the perfect time to access the wealth of resources currently available to fund your next level of growth. It’s a time to invest in yourself, and to learn to use your gifts, skills, and talents to serve others in a big way. That way, you won’t have to depend on anyone else, including your job, corporations, or the government, to sustain you. 

Whether or not you have a day job, see this moment as a wake-up call. It’s time for you to take stock of your greatest resource—yourself. What can you do that other people can’t? What can you give that other people need? Start exploring the resources within you, and you’ll realize that you’ve found your way of contributing value to the world.

Everyone has something to offer, and that offering goes far beyond just the products or services you give your potential clients. If you use your talents to become a higher earner, you can establish yourself as a leader in your community, and affect change in areas that you care about. You can contribute to the growth of your local economy by employing people, and be part of what helps pull the larger economy out of the rut that it may be in.

Even in the lowest of times, even in recessions, there have been many, many people who were able to forge their own paths and grow their wealth through entrepreneurship. You can be one of them.

Things have been tough for our lives and livelihoods, it's true, but we shouldn’t let this moment go by without considering what we can learn from it. I hope that you are learning about how to be prepared for an emergency when it comes to your savings, investments, and income, but not necessarily in the way we've been taught in the past.

As we go into this brave new world, the most important thing you can have is a high-value skill that is needed and wanted, no matter what. The next step is to create the systems and structures to offer that skill in a way that you can rely upon, no matter the ups and downs of the economy. This is a lesson that will benefit you, and that you can encourage in your family and friends, and serve as an example for your children—raising a new generation of economic and community leaders.

We are in a time when your best investment is in your resourcefulness, and your creativity, and your community. Bring these together, and your family can rely on you and what you've created, and you can trust that your children will be great, no matter what.

If you need help figuring out your next step, please call us, and we can help.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Should I take EIDL?
Business Planning

Should You Take the Loan Offer from the EIDL?

You may have opened your inbox in the last couple of weeks to discover an email from the Small Business Administration (SBA), finally offering you Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) money you applied for a couple of months ago.

Many business owners just like you jumped at the opportunity to get money from the EIDL once the CARES Act went into effect. There was such a rush of applications that funding was seriously backed up, and now the loan offers are coming in. 

So, what’s the offer? 

The EIDL is a 30-year loan at 3.75% interest (with non-profits qualifying for 2.75% interest). While some people are getting a smaller range of options ($1,000–15,000, for example), others have gotten options to choose within ranges up to $150,000.

If you’re one of the business owners who received an EIDL loan offer, you might be wondering what to do next. Should you take it? How can you use it? 

This video has a lot of great information for you to consider: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqw9BAxt9Rg&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3jMQKvcUltLrcnKeC6z99XSkttZ12nGlK2qYXc3u6jXYee1KaRMnbCFg0

If you aren’t sure about taking the EIDL, it may be because you aren’t sure how to best use it. If that’s the case, reach out to us and let’s talk. We have resources to support you to use this EIDL money to shore up your business systems.

Most business owners who are ready to create a next level of success need to uplevel the systems that support them, including their legal, insurance, financial and tax (LIFT) systems. That’s where we come in.

We can work with you to evaluate where there are holes in your LIFT foundation that could have left you in a shaky position once COVID hit. Now, with your EIDL resources, you can strengthen your foundation and be ready to thrive, no matter what comes our way. 

If the risks and restrictions about EIDL worry you, remember these resources are here to help you, as are we, so you don’t have to go it alone.  With a low interest rate and 30 years to pay it back, your payment is likely to be under $600 a month. Consider what you can do with the loan over the next year to ensure you are earning at least the payment amount every month over the next 30 years. 

If you decide that you do want the EIDL loan, things will start moving fast. The paperwork comes to you within 48 hours, and once you fill that out, the money could hit your bank account as soon as the next day. That means you’ll be able to immediately use that money to get your business back on its feet, so you can focus on expanding your profits.

If you’d like to talk before you take the loan, give us a call. We’re here to support your wise decision-making process. 

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.

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Do I need disability insurance?
Business Planning

The Basics of Disability Insurance and How It Can Help During COVID

With the risks still posed by COVID-19, we all need to face the possibility that we could get sick, even if we take great care of ourselves through good nutrition, sleep, and exercise. And even if you don’t need to be hospitalized, if you do experience symptoms and test positive, you might have to stay quarantined for enough time that you’d lose income. These risks highlight the need for everyone, regardless of their age or current state of health, to have some form of disability insurance coverage.

You might think you don’t need disability insurance, especially if you’re young and in good health. Hopefully, you’re right. Unfortunately, though, becoming disabled can happen to anyone at any time. This isn’t specific to coronavirus either; it has always been true. 

The Americans with Disabilities Act has detailed specifics on what a disability is, but the most basic definition is that an individual has “A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual.” That can apply to a car-accident or other injury, or a debilitating illness documented by a doctor, including mental illness. 

The sad fact is that, according to the US government’s statistics, one in four 20-year-olds become disabled before reaching retirement age. That makes it all the more important that you consider how to protect yourself with insurance.

And this is very important: you must get the actual insurance before something happens. If you’re already sick, you can’t buy disability insurance to make up for lost income.

So now is the time to make a plan. Here’s some information to get you started.

What Qualifies You for Benefits (And What Doesn't)

Let’s get clear on one thing that applies to the coronavirus pandemic: only medical quarantine qualifies you for disability benefits. That means only medical self-quarantine related to COVID-19, which is verified by a doctor, will qualify you. Socially quarantining to decrease your chance of contracting the virus in the first place won’t qualify you for your disability insurance benefits. Disability insurance also won’t cover you if you lose income or health insurance because your employer has closed or laid you off.

Also, disability insurance is not the same as health insurance. Though your failed health is the reason you’d get access to your disability insurance in the first place, disability insurance will not cover your medical bills. Disability benefits are basically to help you pay housing and food costs. But in a time when you’re dealing with disability, it’s good to have those bills covered while you are focused on healing and self-care.

There are two different types of disability insurance, and knowing the difference will help you save a lot of time.

Short-Term Disability Insurance

Short-term disability insurance normally lasts around 3–6 months, sometimes up to a year or two years. It covers about 60–70% of whatever your salary is. The premiums you pay are often higher than long term coverage, ranging from 1–3% of your annual income. So for someone making $50k a year, it would range between $60 to $125 every month. The percentage depends on what kind of health risks the insurance company determines you have. If you smoke, for instance, the premium will probably be higher, just like with many health insurance policies. If you have a risky job, such as dealing with heavy machinery, premiums will likely be higher as well. A major upside, though, is that payouts usually happen within two weeks, which can be a huge relief in an emergency.

Financial expert Dave Ramsey points out that, because of the higher premiums and shorter span of coverage time, you might want to consider building up a solid emergency fund with 3–6 months of expenses instead. You can consider that personal short-term disability coverage that you don’t have to pay premiums on. But if you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck and can’t foresee saving that much (like 80% of American workers, according to CNBC), and your employer doesn’t offer short-term disability insurance, it is something you may want to consider buying yourself.

Long-Term Disability Insurance

This is the type of insurance that is most important to get, no matter what. This is the type that will last through a long recovery or treatment period. Look for a “non-cancellable insurance policy”, which will keep the insurance company from being able to cancel your policy if you have any health changes. 

Long-term disability insurance may pay you benefits for a few years or until your disability ends. Most policies cover 40–60% of your salary, but ones that pay up to 70% do exist, and you should try to find one. These policies also cost 1–3% of your yearly income, but they tend to be on the lower side than short-term. A major difference between the two forms of insurance is that it can take up to 6 months to see a payout. This means that it’s not the best option for covering costs if you have to go into medical quarantine for COVID-19. 

We recommend that, even if you decide to pass on short-term disability in favor of emergency fund savings (or if your employee already covers it), you should definitely consider a long-term policy to protect your earnings. Remember, though, it will only pay a percentage of the income you’d be taking in otherwise. Make sure you also have health insurance and as much savings as you can get to protect yourself as well.

If you need help weighing your options, give us a call and we’ll be happy to help.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Should I file bankruptcy for my business
Business Planning

Is It The Right Time For You To Consider Bankruptcy For Your Business?

Coronavirus has forced many business owners to face the tough decision of whether to persevere and keep their business going, or to close it all down and walk away. If you are asking yourself this question right now, here are some things to consider before going down the bankruptcy road.

First, bankruptcy is a valid option to consider. But, do know that each moment you spend considering bankruptcy is a moment not spent considering how to turn your business around. Use your energy wisely, get the information you need quickly, and then make your decision so you can move forward powerfully.

Before considering bankruptcy, you should talk with a business coach or advisor who can help you reorient your business model to see if additional capital could help you dig out of the hole you’ve found yourself in. We may be able to help you here. It may sound odd to be thinking about more capital when you are already in over your head with debt, but if you have a good business model, you may just need to look at your business differently, restructure and upgrade the way you are looking at your cash flow and budgeting process.

Often what we see is that a business owner may have a great offer and a strong customer base, but may not have learned how to manage their financial resources properly. If that’s you, bankruptcy may not be the best choice. It would just mean that now you’ve got the bankruptcy on your record (a big disadvantage), and you still have to learn how to manage your finances. If that’s your situation, we may be able to help you turn things around without filing for bankruptcy.

There are two major benefits of bankruptcy. One is you get a fresh start, which you can get without bankruptcy. The other is that any debts that are forgiven in bankruptcy do not result in taxable income to you. In contrast, if you negotiate down your debt, the forgiven debt will be considered taxable income.

But that’s only one small consideration when it comes to bankruptcy. The much bigger consideration is your recovery process after the bankruptcy—whether the bankruptcy will appear on your personal credit report (vs. a business-only bankruptcy), and what you can keep and what you will lose in the bankruptcy.

Most of all, it is very important that you seek legal counsel who will first work to understand your business and your personal goals, and then help you determine your best path forward. Making the wrong choice here could mean that you would lose more than you have to. Please reach out if you are considering bankruptcy, and we will help you review your options.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.

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Who takes care of your kids if you have COVID
Estate Planning

Who Would Care For Your Children If You Got Sick With COVID-19?

The pandemic is causing us to consider a lot of things that we may not have before, even if maybe we should have.

It brings to mind something a colleague of mine shared recently. One unremarkable weekend, she left her small children with a babysitter and headed out to enjoy dinner at a restaurant with her husband. But as she sat there, a thought crept into her head that she couldn’t let go.

What would happen to her kids, she thought, if she and her husband got into a car accident on the way home?

And even though my colleague is an estate planning lawyer herself, and she had a will at home naming guardians for her kids, she didn’t have a definite and clear answer that provided the comfort she wanted. Her will was in a vault, and her named legal guardians lived thousands of miles away.  It was that thought that spurred her to take action, not only for her own family, but to create tools and resources for others as well. 

If you’d like to read the book she wrote as a result of her own discoveries, it’s called “Wear Clean Underwear: A Fast, Fun, Friendly—and Essential—Guide to Legal Planning for Busy Parents” and it’s the best-selling book on legal planning for families. We’d love to send it to you as our gift. Simply CLICK HERE TO GET THE BOOK.

One thing you’ll discover in the book is that even naming a legal guardian in your will is often not enough to keep your kids out of the care of strangers, or someone you wouldn’t want, if something happens to you.

Chances of COVID-19 Infection in the Family

If you are young and healthy, it might be hard to imagine that you won’t be there to care for your kids. But if the COVID-19 pandemic is showing us anything, it’s that even a healthy person can contract a serious illness that leaves them incapacitated and unable to care for their children. 

If there is more than one adult in the house, that may alleviate  some of your worry. While naming  legal guardians for your kids may feel especially urgent for a single parent, parents with partners aren’t off the hook. You should take precautions though, especially since there are high infection rates among people who live in the same household. 

A professor at the University of Florida has found a more than 19% chance that someone else in the household of a person infected with COVID-19 will also contract the disease. Researchers estimate the average incubation time is about four days and could be infectious for up to two weeks. That means it’s not outside the realm of possibility that you and your partner could both contract the illness, possibly at the same time.

An Easy Way to Find Guardians for Your Children

Even if you never contract COVID-19, you are of course still human, and vulnerable to accidents and other dangers that could separate you from your kids—either temporarily or permanently.

Last week we referred to one way to handle parental guilt: naming temporary and permanent legal guardians for your children. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to give you a guilt trip right now! But I am encouraging you to take action if you haven’t already, and I’m going to show you a very easy (and free!) tool to use to get you started.

Go to this website right now and name guardians for your children in a legal document, and then have it reviewed by us. When we review your legal document (or, your will if you already have one), we can discuss who would care for your children in the immediate term if something happens to you, even on a short-term basis.  

And, if you are having a difficult time deciding who to name as legal guardians for your children, we can even help you make the right decisions. 

Officially answering the question of who will care for your kids if you can’t—even for a short time—is one of the best things you can do right now. It is a real, concrete way you can protect your kids during this scary period of time. We’ve made it as easy as possible for you to get it done quickly, so you can have peace of mind that your kids’ future is secure no matter what happens.

If you need help with the process, please do give us a call and we’ll be glad to walk you through it.

Proper estate planning can keep your family out of conflict, out of court, and out of the public eye. If you’re ready to create a comprehensive estate plan, contact us to schedule your Family Wealth Planning Session. Even if you already have a plan in place, we will review it and help you bring it up to date to avoid heartache for your family. Schedule online today.

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Making good choices during the hard times
Business Planning

How To Make Better, Faster Decisions During Uncertain Times

When there’s a blow to your business, especially an unprecedented world event like the pandemic we are living through, you might feel paralyzed and unable to make a move. But when problems crop up, you as a business owner can’t afford to freeze. Or fight, or flee, for that matter. Freeze, fight, and flee are the three most common responses to trauma, and they are reactive states that can sneak up on us before we even know what’s happening.

So, step one to making it through every challenge is to start to get to know yourself, and how you respond to trauma—do you freeze, fight or flee? Make a note for yourself, so that you can see it when it happens.

Often there are ways out of a bad situation that can actually put you in a better position than the one you were in before. Sometimes the best you can hope for is to keep the damage to a minimum. Either way, the first thing you need to do when you are faced with challenges and uncertainty is to get your head on straight. 

Here are some suggestions of how to look at your problems in a way that will keep you moving forward rather than frozen with indecision, fighting for your life, or running for the hills.

Find Your Inner Calm

There are a lot of outside voices who claim to be experts, and who claim to know how you should conduct your business. Some of these voices could be helpful, and others could be harmful, but if they’re coming from many directions at once, you’re not going to be able to tell the difference. With every piece of bad news or new demand placed on you, your body reacts. Every demand on your attention, and every rush of adrenaline, is taking away from the energy you could be using to solve the problem that is in front of you.

Bruce Lee said, "There will be calmness, tranquility, when one is free from external objects and is not perturbed.” If you are taking in negative voices and the 24-hour flow of news, notifications, and speculation, you will never have the mental space to consider your options. First and foremost, stop watching the news. Then, get the book The Art of Contemplation by Richard Rudd, read it and breathe. Finally, carve time out for yourself daily to breathe, pause, and remind yourself what really matters. Your inner peace is paramount, and must come before anything else.

There will be residual emotions and thoughts that remain once you’ve switched off your television and digital devices. Acknowledge them, don’t fight them. If you fight them, they’ll just fight you back, but if you just let them be, they’ll lose their power over you.

Once you’ve shut out those outer and inner voices, do something that relaxes you. When all else fails, you have the best relaxation tool built right into your body—breathing. Fill your lungs with oxygen with a nice, deep breath, and you'll clear your mind that much faster.

Get Support You Can Trust

Do not sit alone with your problems. Reach out and ask for help. Not all help is equal though. Reach out to a mentor, advisor, or guide who has possibly been where you are and made it through. If you don’t have anyone like that in your life, reach out to us. We serve as a trusted advisor and guide for many of our clients.

Whatever you do, do not reach out to people who will simply reinforce your freeze, flight, or fight response. Do not reach out to people who have not done what you want to do, or been where you want to go. They will not be able to help you.

You must reach out to objective advisors who can help you with logic, intelligence, foresight, wisdom, and experience.

Break Down Your Problems

Imagine you have a large, heavy bookcase that you need to move from one room to another. How would you get started? If you’re like most of us, you’d start by taking the books down from the shelf. Then you’d consider the size of the door or hallways you’ll need to pass through, and whether it means you’ll have to take the shelf apart as well. Is one person ok to carry it, or do you need to call a buddy? And once it’s in its new location, how will you re-shelve the books?

You have a lot of choices when you tackle this problem. The worst choice, however, is to just try to pick up the whole bookcase, full of books, and start trying to move it into the other room without a second thought. You could throw out your back, break your foot, or get knocked on the head by the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

That’s what you’re doing when you try to solve a big problem on your own before thinking it through.

When you are facing a problem, you need to consider every step that needs to be taken to solve it. That will help you figure out what resources you’ll need to reach your goal, and what small decisions you’ll need to make along the way.

Focus On What You Want, Not What You DON'T Want

Race Car drivers are taught to not let their eyes stray from the track. Looking at the wall around the track can end in a high-speed crash. Whatever picture you have in your head right now is what you’ll move toward.

Vision really does matter. 

Obsessing over your revenue, for example, is limiting your thinking to one short-term goal. Enriching the lives of your customers and employees with your products and company culture is a vision, which your short-term goals support (possibly including the one that you are fixated on). If you keep your eyes on the finish line, you’ll be able to more easily see all of the smaller maneuvers you have to make to get there.

Remember Your Resources

Lastly, remember that you have a network who is there to help and support you. Once you’ve taken some time to quiet your mind and collect your thoughts, you can choose who to listen to. Call on your mentor or mentors. Don’t wait to do this. You need help before you feel comfortable asking for it, so ask sooner rather than later. 

And of course, remember that we are here to be your advisor as well. If you are having trouble determining your path forward in the face of a challenge, we can help you lay out your options and define your goals, so you can make more agile and wise decisions. Don’t put off calling us when you need to. We’re here to help.

We offer a complete spectrum of legal services for business owners and can help you make the wisest choices on how to deal with your business throughout life and in the event of your death. We also offer you a LIFT Your Life And Business Planning Session, which includes a review of all the legal, insurance, financial, and tax systems you need for your business. Schedule online today.

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