Memento Mori, it’s not an ‘if’ it’s a when.
Be prepared, so you can relax and enjoy today.
Too many of us are scared to discuss death in case it ‘tempts fate’
We need to move past that, write a will, get things in place to make life a tiny bit easier for those we leave behind.
By having a legacy plan in place, it also frees us to enjoy life in the here and now.
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Hi, Monday the 7th of December 2020 ready to record episode 17.
This week we’re going to do legacy planning. People think it’s a bit pessimistic and a bit doom and gloom to think about death, but it’s the one certain thing in life that we’ll all get there.
More than ever right now in the middle of COVID in December, 2020, it’s really sort of brought it home, our mortality. It’s not going to be a doom and gloom session. Don’t worry. It’s going to be very practical.
My little intro that I’ve started to do each week.
I was thrilled to get a video from one of my friends in America, and it was a video of her grandson reading my book, and I was so thrilled that he seemed to really be enjoying it. And that makes everything worthwhile.
It’s great to see a young reader read in a book. That’s my, my why for doing children’s books is to get kids into reading. I love that I’ve been doing some writing of my own, obviously chipping away, stale. I’ve renamed a baddy this week because I’d realised as I was dictating that having a three syllable name for a buddy is a really bad idea. So I’ve renamed them and I’ll be announcing it in my Patreon group.
I’ve written a fight scene, which I’ve not done before. So that was quite good. Fun. Quite high energy. Another thing I’ve got done this week, apart from caring and seeing family and things like that is getting my website structure ready for next year. I’ve got it all planned out on a piece of paper, and I’ve just got to put it into action now.
So I’ll be streamlined my website. I’m quite pleased about that because it’s been a bit messy for a while. I’ve been meaning to get around to it.
I will get on with the legacy planning, memento mori is basically remember that we all die.
I’m sort of paraphrasing, but we, in the UK especially, the British, are very poor at discussing death and talking about it. Back in the day people had the bodies sat on the table in the dining room. I’m not suggesting that! We tend to have death behind curtains and in cars with dark windows.
We don’t like to mention it, we speak in lowered voices when it comes to death. It’s not something that people like to discuss. I’ve even got friends who won’t write wills because they don’t like to think about that.
‘It’s not time for that yet.’
It’s time while you’ve got your mind, your sanity, your health, midlife is yeah, exactly the time to be writing out your legacy plan, getting your will in place.
Getting a living will in place maybe, especially if you’ve a family history of illnesses that could affect your capability, then that’s even more important. A lot of people plan for death, but not for sickness. And it’s something that, because I’m from an insurance background, I’ve seen firsthand how that can really impact on families.
It’s not a doom and gloom episode by any stretch.
It’s a very practical forward thinking one. I just want to go through some sort of action points really, in case you just don’t know where to start, and the quote that I want to give you to just start. It’s not a direct quote, from Star Trek of all things.
I don’t know if you remember Data, it was a droid. It’s just one of those things that always stuck with me.
He said that he didn’t understand humans because humans were the only race that he could see that worked all of their life to buy things, to pass on to people when they died, for them to sell them.
That really struck home, but that’s what an awful lot of us do. An awful lot of us buy things with the intention of passing them on.
I don’t know if you’ve ever inherited anything, but quite often you inherit a lot of stuff you don’t really want and you just sell it. One thing I would suggest is if you have ever inherited stuff that you don’t like. It’s stuck in a cupboard somewhere, and you don’t really know what to do with it, because it’s got an emotional attachment, but you really don’t like it.
I did this when my Dad died, he left me things that weren’t my choice. They were artwork. He loved art and so do I, that’s why he left me his art, but what I did was sell it.
And with the money I got from that, with the funds from that, I bought art that I like. That is what I consider my dad’s legacy, that he left me, that artwork that I love and the I look at.
That’s a way of handling that if you’re stuck with that one.
In this episode, I want to look at creating your own legacy plan. I’m not a financial expert. My first piece of advice is consult the experts in your area. We’re talking about money, about finances, about things that could be your house, your roof over your head.
It could be a serious amount of money, even though you don’t think you’re wealthy. You may have wealth, that’s hidden in property, etc, that when you add it all up. Also think this might not be used for 20, 30, 40 years, 50 years, you might be worth quite a lot by then.
You might have written a best seller. You might be the new JK Rowling who knows. You don’t know what’s going to happen. And that’s why you need to plan and make sure that if the worst happens earlier than you expect that everything’s in place. So consult experts in your area. Tax is important, I can’t even advise on tax in the UK because tax is such a personal thing. So consult tax experts, solicitors for the legal aspects, obviously, but go and see them or look websites, do some sort of research.
The problem when I get to my book recommendation on this episode is there are so many books that I could recommend, but they are very much local info. There’s inheritance planning in the US but even different States in the US have different systems, so very much consult the experts.
Down to the practicalities of what I’m here to talk about.
Create some computer backups and backups of your documents.
File your financial records and your bank statements and things like that in places that you know where to find them, but also back up.
Make a spreadsheet of all your bank account numbers where the banks are, which bank it actually holds that account.
Because one of the things that happens is when you die, people can’t get access to your computer records. Things like Facebook and Apple and Google and all the rest of it, understandably have very strict security guidelines.
I’m sure you’ve seen the odd headline about, you know, somebody lost their photographs because Facebook block them out or somebody died and they couldn’t get into the Facebook account. It happens. And it’s very, very traumatic for those left behind.
So make sure that whatever plans you’re going to have, that everything is in order as much as it can be. Once you’ve got everything in order and sorted all your files out and got everything written down in the right places, then you can streamline it all.
You can get rid of all the rubbish, it’s good to do that anyway, every few months, if you don’t already.
You can decide what’s important, there’ll be certain things that are really important to you, but won’t have any impact on anybody else. Or they really aren’t important, and you don’t even need to think about them so you can sideline them straight away.
So that’s already getting organised.
Decide what’s important to you.
By definition, that’s probably the things that you want to ensure in the right places and are organised, but accept that some of the things that are important to you won’t be to anybody else.
Don’t get precious about it.
Get access to systems, there’s a Google system. I don’t know if you know about it, if you have a Google mail account, you can set up access for someone else in the case of your death or your illness, if you can’t access it. That’s really helpful, it basically means that your ‘person’ will have access to your Google. You can put a spreadsheet of all your instructions or your copy of your will or whatever in your Google drive. So that that person then has access to your Google drive and can access your plans and see what your intentions were.
I would also get a hard copy. Anybody who is in your will will need a hard copy of it anyway, right?
Your will, which is so basic, but so many people don’t do it. In the UK, especially if you’ve got children, it’s really important to have a well-written to ensure your children go to the right people, if anything does happen.
Again, it’s not doom and gloom, this is just practical planning to be less stress on you. So you don’t have to worry about anything.
The last thing that you want your family to do, just have to struggle. And they’re going to struggle enough if something happened to you. So make it as easy as possible for them to manage things on your behalf.
Speak to your loved ones and let them know what your plans are, let them know what you would like them to do.
And at that point you’ll also discover if there’s any red flags for you that you think actually, no, I don’t think they’re the right person to do a particular task.
Think about investments. What investments have you got? Who are you going to leave them to? Are you going to continue with them?
This might be an opportunity that you actually think you need to revise all your financial plans and you might want to invest in different areas.
It’s not selfish to look after your money and look after you and think of you first, that isn’t selfish while you’re going about this process.
If you’ve got a business, you’ve probably got process maps and project plans, business plans, etc.
I’m amazed at how many people don’t, especially entrepreneurs and solopreneurs that don’t really have it written down. It’s in their head and your intentions for that business and your business ethics, things like that might not be written down.
And you might think, ‘Oh, I’m not going to bother. I don’t want to. It’s too much stress.’
Think of the stress that you’re leaving for someone else.
If you worked really hard to build up your legacy, and it might be that you’ve got a business where you support other people, they might be reliant on you.
You may give to charities that you choose. Things like that.
All of that is something that you need to include within your legacy plan for your business. So sit down and really work out what will happen.
If for example you were too ill to work, what would happen to your business?
It might be that you do need to create some process plans. On a piece of paper with a photograph in your Google drive, or it might be a fully detailed spreadsheet. What can be really helpful is to actually record a video.
If you’re doing a task, that’s something that helps if you’ve got a VA as well.
It’s really helpful that you record the process, then that’s there in case you ask someone else to do the job.
It might be just keeping a list of your contacts. If something happens to you, who do you want to know? Who do you need informing? Who holds your wealth, who holds your bank account, but also maybe a list of friends that you want informing, you know, it’s not unreasonable to want others informed.
Do your family know who you work with and who you’re friends with?
There’s a lot to think about, and that’s all I wanted to come to.
Really, just to think about it.
Memento Mori realise that we do all die. It’s not a bad thing to plan for it.
You don’t obviously want to plan for your death, but you certainly want to plan for when it happens.
When it happens, what will happen to your legacy, to things that matter to you?
Another thing I’m doing, and this sounds a bit too far for some people, but I’m quite enjoying the process.
I’ve got a book, that’s a hard copy book, and I’m writing in it, all the stories of things that I own.
I’ve got things that I was left, inheritance pieces from my grandparents, from our parents and things I’ve bought that are important to me that I want to pass on.
I’m writing the story about those things to pass on with them. So the people who inherit them know the background and the provenance, if you like. I have made it very clear that whilst it’s important to me, it’s totally up to them if they sell it or if they keep it.
But if they do keep things, I would like them to know the stories behind them.
As you know, I’m addicted to getting people to write their story. So many people don’t, many stories are tied in with artifacts. If we don’t tell the story of those artifacts, that history is lost.
With the black lives matter in summer, many people have stressed the importance of knowing their history and it’s important to people. If you’ve got things that are in your history and your story, please write that down and pass them on and tell those stories and include it in your legacy planning.
Don’t stress about it. Don’t think that you are tempting fate.
Just get it done, get all your files in order.
Get your will written and then relax.
Move on. Have fun. Yeah. Enjoy every day, because every day is a total blessing.
We are so privileged at the moment to be here, able to do what we do.
If you are struggling to get organised, get your file structures, or even where to start, I’m more than happy to chat with you. This is what I coach people in, organisation.
If you want a one-to-one conversation where we go through your filing structure or whatever else and get you organised, I’m happy to do that.
My book recommendation, which I mentioned earlier, is very difficult.
So do your own local research.
The three books I have chosen:
Memento Mori, by Paul Koudounaris. It’s a coffee table book as I call it, a picture book. Yeah, it’s about death and it might not for everybody, but I will include the link in the show notes.
The other two books are very much about life, two books that have massively impacted my thought process in the past year.
They’re so educational, they’re just wonderful.
Sapiens and Homo Deus, both written by Yuval Noah Harari.
They’re amazing. They just really make you question life and what’s happened, humanity, knowledge and geography. There’s just so many things included in there that gives you a real joy for life and a real boost to your understanding of what humanity is all about.
I’ll include those in the show notes as well. I hope you’ve enjoyed this sort of reminder.
Legacy planning is not a bad thing. Everybody should do it.
It’s a stress management tool for your people who have your things after you’ve gone. So think about it, let me know what you’ll be doing to get organised and to get your well-written.
And if there’s anything in this that struck a chord with you, I’d like to know. So drop me a note in the comments and thanks again. See you next time. Bye.