How to Get Back Some Power When You’re Feeling Powerless
By Allen Davis, CFP and Lou Davis, Davis Financial Group
Harry and Sally wanted to talk about the future. It wasn’t their own future, actually. It was the country’s. They felt sick at heart about what is happening in the United States—and powerless to do anything about it. More often than ever before in our over 20 years as Financial Planners, our clients have been expressing similar feelings.
That wasn’t why Harry and Sally originally asked to meet, however. They wanted to talk about the stock market and its potential impacts on their retirement nest egg. But before we could get to that, they couldn’t help pouring out some even darker fears.
That’s when the conversation turned to legacy.
In the face of a changing and chaotic political climate, many people feel they’ve lost a sense of agency. Financial planning can restore at least some of what’s been lost. That’s because your legacy is completely under your control.
A Financial Planner’s job, in part, is to understand what you want your legacy to accomplish, advise you on how to maximize your resources and eventually transfer them wherever you choose—whether it’s to your children and grandchildren or/and for the welfare of the world.
There are several parts to setting up a legacy plan. The first is structure: What are the “containers” (such as a trust and/or an insurance policy) where your legacy funds are kept? When will your beneficiaries receive them, either before or after your death? A financial planner can help you determine the optimal structure for your legacy, often in consultation with your estate attorney and accountant. Once you’ve chosen that structure, it usually stays in place.
But the content of your legacy is never locked in and, more importantly, it’s completely under your control. It gives you back (at least some of) your agency by empowering you to address whatever you care most about. Moreover, you can change the contents of your legacy as the world or your own priorities change. Planning your legacy is a way to stay engaged in the world. It’s a statement of the values and beliefs you care most deeply about, even if they change over time. Harry and Sally took comfort in the idea that they’d be both passing on resources to their kids and grandkids as well as assigning part of their estate to local non-profits and to the national causes they’d always care about, like Planned Parenthood and the American Cancer Society.
When you feel overwhelmed and grief-stricken by what’s happening around us right now, your legacy gives you the power to assert your beliefs.
About Davis Financial Group
Louis Davis and Allen Davis are registered representatives and offer securities, investment advisory and financial planning services through MML Investors Services, LLC, member SIPC. Supervisory Office: 330 Whitney Avenue, Suite 600, Holyoke, MA 01040, Tel: 413-539-2000. The Davis Financial Group, LLC is not a subsidiary or affiliate of MML Investors Services, LLC or its affiliated companies.