Why Estate Planning is Easy and Legacy Planning is Hard

Death is finite and unavoidable, so to some it is easy. One moment you are alive and the next you are no more. Planning for that inevitable moment for a person is the job of estate planning attorneys and financial advisors, with the appropriate documents filed and tucked away, securing the transfer of that person’s assets and property. But a person’s death does not define a person’s legacy – their life does.

Every person wants to be remembered as being the best person they could have been in whatever capacity they chose to live their life. To reach their full potential, a person needs to acquire a team around them, advising them as to the necessary steps to reach their legacy goals. If an individual attempts to do it on their own, they risk the possibility of running out of time or thought out steps and simply acting on instinct rather than intentions. A human’s ability to act beyond simple animal instinct is what makes us stand apart from other species. But a person that is left to their own devices may subject themselves to the consequences of their unintentional responses to their circumstances.

See Daniel Scott, Why Estate Planning is Easy and Legacy Planning is Hard, Forbes, September 26, 2018.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.