Your Legacy: Do You Really Want to “Telephone It In”?


When you were a child, did you ever play the game Telephone?

The game goes like this.  Players line up either in a straight line or a circle.  The first player begins the game by whispering a phrase or sentence to the next player in line.  Then, successively, each player whispers to their neighbor what they believe they heard.

On and on it goes until the last player is given the phrase or sentence.  At that point, the last player announces the statement to the entire group.  While there is no “winner” in the game, the point of the game is to hear the final message, which usually bears little or no resemblance to what the first player originally said.

The correlation between Telephone and estate-planning is this: People often plan carefully to pass on their financial wealth by executing an estate plan.  But your most important assets are usually not your financial ones. They are your hopes and dreams, your philosophy of life, and your life story. These are central to who you are, yet these precious jewels are usually passed on by word of mouth.  Just like with the game of Telephone, distortions are extremely likely, even with the best intentions.

We have a different, holistic approach to estate planning.  We say that a complete estate plan includes not only planning for the transfer of financial assets, but also includes the recognition and conveyance of your non-financial wealth in the form of experiences, hopes, dreams, and philosophy of life.  We like to call this Legacy Wealth Planning, and we feel it encompasses all aspects of your wealth.  Don’t rely on chance to pass on your most cherished assets; pass on and preserve all your wealth.