“You will want to plan and design your own legacy or it’s not really yours and won’t serve you well. Estate and legacy planning documents are just pretty pieces of paper if they’re not strategies that actually assist you and your family,” said Lisa McCurdy, Author, Estate Attorney and Entrepreneur.
You don’t have to wait until you’re retired to plan your legacy because we leave behind much more than assets. We express our values in daily choices yet few of us codify our family goals and aspirations. The pace of daily life is intense but the process doesn’t have to be static or end with a bunch of contracts. It’s exciting to think about how you want your family to move through the world and make those decisions really stick.
Lisa became a family caregiver for an aging uncle, without warning in her twenties, long before she became a mother. Lessons from that 8-year journey ultimately shaped her career. And inspired her to evolve traditional estate planning into something much more personal and dynamic. Now, she spends her time helping families plan their living and long-term legacies.
Create a Family Mission and Vision
You may have developed mission statements in your career or volunteer service, but your family can have a set of guiding principles too. Lisa explains the process needs to include everyone and you can even adapt the questions for younger children. “When developing a family mission statement and vision, even the five-year-olds have an idea about how they want their families to be regarded in the community.”
Lead with Your Shared Values
Although family dynamics can break when it comes to the execution, Lisa explained family members tend to align on what’s important to them. “Even young people understand values at a particular level, especially if you provide them with a list from which to choose.” Brilliant!
Documenting your family vision doesn’t have to be daunting, nor does it have to happen in one conversation. The process can be very iterative. She said, “if you give kids an assignment to choose their top three values or guiding principles by themselves, it’s always enlightening for families when they come back together, and have all said something similar in their own way.”
Plan Regular Family Meetings
Life’s pressures can lead to disconnection within our families. And as our kids get older, they can also become disengaged. Too many commitments, and managing exhaustion often forces us to protect what little time we may have for productivity. But a family meeting can elevate and demonstrate the importance of regular connection and active listening.
Lisa said, “It may look like your teenager isn’t thinking about family, but they truly are. They’ve absorbed lessons they might not articulate or feel like they have a platform to do so. I’m a believer in starting those conversations early with family meetings. They don’t have to be big ominous discussions; they can be around the dinner table or during a celebration. Bring up a topic. No heavy decisions need to be made but opening the dialogue on a regular basis can be very meaningful.”
Listen to All Stakeholders
You and your partner, if you’re partnered, are key to guiding this process but consider who your other stakeholders are. It can include your parents or other relatives in addition to your children. Lisa said, “If there’s a couple, we’re hearing from both spouses. If we’re working with multiple generations of the family, we also want to hear from the quiet ones that don’t necessarily feel like they’re invited to the party, but always have something to contribute. When families can come together and focus on common vision, then you can focus on individual legacies. Both living legacies and lasting legacies make for stronger families and more successful plans.”
Create an Agenda
Where do you invest? What do you sell or preserve for others to enjoy? How do you decide what causes to support with your time or money? All of that can become part of your plan. When I asked about the underpinnings of a good family meeting agenda, Lisa suggested having a theme for each gathering.
She said, “The focus could be philanthropy. For example, ‘we are collectively going to donate X.’ Or ‘let’s come together and look at organizations that support these types of causes.’ You can also discuss what types of causes to support.”
Choose a Regular Rhythm
Lisa recommends a frequency that keeps your plan contemporary through an ever-changing climate. Yet still providing enough time for people to marinate on discussions between meetings. “Meet at least annually but a few times a year would be ideal because the conversation can focus on a variety of different things.”
Teach Your Kids Stewardship
Lisa explained, “Each individual can give $19,000 a year to as many people as they’d like without filing a gift tax form. So, another opportunity I recommend to parents is to choose an amount, perhaps it’s $1,000 for a teenager. Then divide that $1,000, or whatever the level of gift may, be into 3 pockets. Ask that child to think about a cause to give one third to. And to think about what type of financial advice or investment information they’d need to be a good steward for another third. And then how they’d spend the final third on something that brings them joy.”
Instead of everything feeling so theoretical, you can give your kids some homework to put planning into practice. She added, “Give that child the year to decide so gift in January, and then by December, you will learn so much! They may have absorbed your manner of budgeting, and you didn’t even realize they were listening.”
Embrace the Process as Part of Self-Care
Lisa said, “we speak about both ‘living legacy’ which are the actions you take every day and impact you make while you’re here. We also discuss ‘lasting legacy.’ Those strategies and plans that will survive you and impact generations you may never even meet.”
When I asked Lisa, what self-care means to her she said, “It really means taking control of the life that you want to design for yourself. And the community you want to design for your family. More broadly, what’s truly enriching and meaningful is to make sure you’re well taken care of mentally and physically, in the most fulfilling way.”
Many thanks to the talented Lisa McCurdy Esq.!
Document your needs with Lisa’s Legacy on Purpose planning journal, and learn about her businesses The Wealth Counselor and Defining Legacy Group. Follow her great adventure on LinkedIn and Instagram.
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About Lisa:
During Rotary Year 2018-2019, Ms. McCurdy served as the first African-American and fifth female President of the Rotary Club of Washington, D.C. She also serves in various leadership roles within several other philanthropic and community organizations.
Ms. McCurdy is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center and the University of the District of Columbia. While at Georgetown University Law Center (GULC), she was published and edited articles submitted by law professors and practicing tax counsel in her position as Lead Articles Editor of The Tax Lawyer, a collaboration between GULC and the American Bar Association.
She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband, Raymond. and Heracles the Wonderdog. Their son, Robert, lives in New York City.
