Episode 105: Using Your Estate Plan To Unify (Not Devastate) Your Family w. Nathan Kavlie & Notesong Srisopark Thompson

This is the final episode in our estate planning series, where we address advanced planning topics like how to divide up illiquid assets (like your house, business, medical practice) amongst your kids, when you need to redo your estate plan, and other considerations that will allow your estate plan to help and not hinder your family after you’re gone.

Justin (01:23):
Hello and welcome to episode 1 0 5. The third in our three-part series of estate planning. I’m here with Nathan and notes, song of note song, and Nathan LLP, founders of thoughtful wheels.com a really innovative and forward-thinking estate planning service that is stayed agnostic. Now doing many, many states in America, I’ll have them describe for just a minute how their business works, and then we’re going to do grab bag hot seat stumped, the estate planning attorney, important things to think about in your estate plan, construction and implementation specifically for physicians and high income professionals. So Nathan notes song, thanks for being

Nathan Kavlie (01:58):
Here. It’s our pleasure. Thank you.

Justin (02:01):
So to kick us off, why don’t you just describe the process? If somebody says, I want to do an estate plan with notes song and Nathan, how does that actually work?

Nathan Kavlie (02:10):
They reach out, right. So one of our big pieces is we’re here. So if you have any questions and that’s, I think the thing is people get nervous and I think it makes sense because lawyers suck and they talk down to people. And so people think they have to like do all this homework before they get ready and then they can talk to the lawyer. So that at least that way they don’t feel dumb. And we really kind of try to tell people to just reach out. So we’ll meet with you by phone or video, if you want. And we’ll explain and answer the questions, talk through our services. We have a bunch of different sort of options, but really it’s sort of, you pick what you want and you you purchase like you would purchase anything else on the internet. It’s sort of weird.

Nathan Kavlie (02:51):
Cause you know, lawyers, it’s usually there’s retainers and there’s all this sort of stuff. Ours is all kind of just like online stuff. Like you’d buy regular things from Amazon or target but better because we’re lawyers. And then we send you a worksheet and we just, you know, we’re here. It’s, you know, the, I think that a big piece of what we’ve tried to do is sort of realizing that some people really don’t like to deal with lawyers, even friendly lawyers that are maybe a little goofy. Some people just don’t want to. And so we’ve sort of built a process that really does let you just go through it all on your own. But knowing that we’re there watching we’re, we’re looking over your interview answers. And if we see that everything makes sense, we leave you alone. And that again, I, we talked on our last episode about sort of the kindness.

Nathan Kavlie (03:39):
That’s one of our kindnesses too. I think as attorneys is like, we don’t require you to meet with us. You don’t have to sit down and talk through stuff. We let you do it on your own, but, but knowing that we’re there the whole time kind of, I don’t want it to sound big. Brother-Ish like, we’re not, but we do. We watch every step of the way and we look over your documents and make sure they’re all correct. And then we send them to you. And so it’s really sort of choose your own adventure, but but we’re always on hand to, to talk to people.

Justin (04:06):
And how are you able to do this in so many different states?

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (04:09):
Well, we partner with local counsel attorneys in states where we’re operating and they’re key to our success. I mean, they’re key to our mission because we’ve corrupt promise all of our clients that a licensed attorney, licensed attorney professional is reviewing their documents to ensure that it comports with their state’s laws. And they’re there I go using a legal, legal word for it. But, you know, just to make sure you have to make sure that your estate plan follows the laws of your state. Each state has tiny little nuances. And if one of those is off, then that part of your will or trust or whatever document that we’re working on for you could be deemed invalid. And so it’s part of our process. It’s something we promise to our clients.

Justin (04:57):
So that leads me to the first of my list of questions here. What if I’m moving? So obviously if you’re a physician, you go to med school somewhere, you move across the country to go to residency, you move again for fellowship, maybe move again for other fellowship. By the time you’re done, you might’ve lived in five different states. First of all, does this matter? Second of all, do I need to update my estate plan along the way? Or is it immediately invalid as soon as I go from residency to fellowship?

Nathan Kavlie (05:17):
No, I think it maybe is no the right answer. It’s not in my questions. I know I realized I was so excited cause I had never answer a question concisely. And so I was ready with this. No. And then you asked more follow-up questions in that group. And then all of a sudden I was like, oh shoot, no, your, your plan is not invalid. Every state sort of honors documents that are, that are sort of correctly executed and valid in the original state. So if I move, you know, if I create my estate plan in Minnesota, where I live right now and I do it correctly, and then I move to California, California will honor those documents. Even if the sort of rules of execution are slightly in California there are some sort of best practices and we’re willing to talk through, you know, not willing, that’s the wrong word.

Nathan Kavlie (06:03):
We’re happy to talk through those because again, everything has a caveat. Durable powers of attorney do sort of vary from state to state. And the weird thing with durable powers of attorney is you’re taking them to a bank and banks are important, but they tend to be filled with stuffy bankers. And so if you bring your Minnesota durable power of attorney to a bank in California, they might look at it and be like, well, I don’t know what this looks like, this isn’t our form that we approved. So we do suggest that, you know, sort of we’ll look at it depending on, you know, because many states have sort of adopted this sort of uniform it, this is again, one of those things. I, I had a simple answer and I, and now it’s not simple. By and large, everything stays the same. There’s some best practices and we can talk through, but it depends which state you’re, you’re coming from and moving to. But again, that’s where we’re, we’re here. We’re really excited to sort of talk to our clients about that. Are

Justin (07:00):
There any states, let me just ask this directly. I know Louisiana is weird when it comes to the league, every retape, every, so Katie, I know this is like very niche and only like seven people probably listen to this podcast from Louisiana. But describe that situation. How does it impact estate planning?

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (07:17):
Well, I mean, I just actually was coming this morning about this weird executor or personal representative requirement in Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio. Those are all states that we operate in. So I know those wonky laws, we call them weird. They’re just weird and they’re ancient and they don’t take into account real life. But in those states, Kentucky, Kentucky, and Ohio, your executor and personal representative has to be a resident of that state. If they’re not, the court will deem them invalid. They won’t be qualified. So what is right? What’s the backup plan there? All of the other states have figured this out and they realize, wow, people might be living in a state where they don’t really have close family member of friends. And so there’s a way to lake nominate somebody who is a resident to receive notice like, okay, this person has died.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (08:11):
You need to do these things. So that that representative can then notify the out-of-state executor or personal representative. But in Florida they said, no, it has to be a resident. But what that doesn’t take into account is so many variables decades from now, right? These, these documents, hopefully in our, in our best wishes aren’t going to be operative. They will won’t kick in because you’re going to live for quite a long time after you draft them. So it doesn’t take into account that the person who was a resident at the time that you drafted that in Florida might move, or you might move in which case it completely just throws everybody and everything up in the air. So in those situations and we’ll counsel those clients and say, Hey, here’s the situation, it’s your state’s. But again, here again, this is where you need a professional who is involved and understands the laws.

Justin (09:01):
So if I’ve had clients move to Ohio or Kentucky or Florida, I need to review their estate plan to see if the executor that they’ve named is a resident of the state in which they now reside.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (09:11):
Well, I it’s something that you should definitely consider. I mean, let’s just say that, let’s say that I created, you know, our, our state plan in Wisconsin and my husband, I moved to Florida, but our executors are based in Wisconsin and I die in, in Florida. Then that would, that would not be valid under Florida. Well, no,

Nathan Kavlie (09:31):
It, it, it would go, it’s sort of to the default plan. And I mean, there’s always sort of a backup, right? If you, if it did turn out that you moved to Florida and your executors, weren’t living in Florida, the court would nominate an executor. So it’s not like you’re, you know, your whole plan, wouldn’t fail. It’s hard. Cause that’s the thing it’s like, oh no, no, you’re, you’re fine. But that’s the thing it’s like, and I think this is sort of the crux of like, why, I mean, frankly, this is why we’re here. And I think it’s why we serve an important and important purpose in this, this sort of, because it’s sort of that thing of like, why would you know that like you, and this is that part. I think I want to start a reassure like Justin and your listeners.

Nathan Kavlie (10:11):
It’s like, you don’t need to try to remember, like, I don’t want, anybody’s takeaway to be like, if I moved to Kentucky or Florida or Ohio, then I should worry about my executors. Like, don’t worry about that. Contact us if you move. Right. And we’ll, we’ll say, where are you moving? And then we’ll talk through it. So, I mean, I think, and that’s why it’s like in the, the fun part. I mean, this is why notes long. And I have to think like crazy nerds because, and no time, it’s like no time loves to do a deep dive into the statutes and you see that like, or just heard it because this is just audio and not video, but like her face lights up when she gets to talk through these things and they are important. And but yeah, there’s little nuances, but the, the truth still remains.

Nathan Kavlie (10:52):
If you move you’re, you’re good to go. You don’t need to freak out and you don’t end. This is the other part too, that I think my worry is that so many people, especially physicians are like, well, I might only be in this job for three years and then I’m going to move. And so maybe I should just wait until I get my, I get my forever job. And then I will do my estate plan and that is not like, don’t do that. Do it now. Yeah. Don’t don’t wait. Yeah, Louisiana made a great point. Oh, sorry. No, no, let’s not talk about Louisiana. It’s I love going there. But but it’s, it’s it, there are laws come from the Napoleonic code for brands and the rest of the country comes from English common law. So that’s why it’s, and it’s not like, you know, obviously, cause we’ve, you know, many of us have been to Louisiana. It is not a foreign country. It’s part of our country and you know, legal tender and things, mostly work, but it’s all a little bit weird. And so we’re excited someday we will be in Louisiana, but it will probably be the 50th state that we enter just because it’s swanky and I love you’d love it for that reason. Right. You’d love it because it’s weird in a way that the rest of the country isn’t I

Justin (11:57):
Do, we love and appreciate Louisiana for anybody listening right now. Shout out we’re going there in September

Nathan Kavlie (12:03):
Again. And I can’t wait. I yeah, we,

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (12:06):
You, oh yeah. That’s right. Yeah. So

Justin (12:10):
I want to make a quick plug. So Nathan said, you want to see note song’s face, light up and she’s talking about an executor in Florida or whatever. So if you haven’t subscribed to our YouTube channel, Justin Harvey, YouTube channel, check it out, subscribe, we get you’ll get real time, all the content as we push it out, as well as some other bonus videos and things. So check out the YouTube channel.

Nathan Kavlie (12:28):
Are we going to be on YouTube with this? If you want to be, oh, that’s fine. I just, I probably would’ve worn a cooler shirt, but that’s

Justin (12:35):
Well, I’m wearing a t-shirt this is a safe place. I want to talk about life insurance ownership. So for the physician crowd, who’s probably using a living trust, a living trust to as part of their comprehensive estate plan. What does that mean in terms of life insurance, the owner for the policy and the beneficiary of the policy and how did these ideas interact?

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (12:56):
Well, life insurance is what we put under the umbrella of non probate assets, but there’s still an important consideration for estate planning because and actually this was something I wanted to bring up with you anyway. We have a lot of clients that write in and say, okay, what do I do with my life insurance and my retirement plans? And we give them a speech. But the important thing about that is that you have the option of renaming the beneficiary in the name of your living trust. And what that does is it just, you know, at points, the assets from that life insurance into the trust, and then the trust details, the way that you want everything distributed. The important thing there is that you want to make sure that you update that if anything in your life changes, because as we all know, life is fluid and things change and relationships change.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (13:46):
And especially for folks who get divorced or I don’t, you know, maybe their kids turn rotten or something like that, like really, really, really bad, really bad. It does. One of those like kills from the trenches that, you know, I mean, but the important thing is that you rename the primary beneficiary and the name of the trust, but we always do say you don’t defer to your financial advisors or your financial counselors, because it really depends on where you are in your lifespan to for example, with, we met with my mom’s financial planners and asked if we should do that for her. And and they said, you know, because of where you and your sisters are in your lifespan and your mom, it’s just going to be an extra step for you to have to put it into a trust. So we decided not to do that, but it really just it’s, it’s so case by case dependent. But but again, those are deemed as non probate assets, so yeah.

Nathan Kavlie (14:46):
Yeah. But I think that’s, again, going back to that idea of phase one phase two or phase one is sort of when you create the plan and where you want everything to go. Phase two is when we have those conversations about the assets. And, and we do talk about you know, life insurance and retirement accounts, because it is it’s and that’s like, no, it’s outside. It’s, there’s never a one size fits all answer because you know, notes on his mom is older. She has three daughters and, you know, so it’s like, anyways, the point is, that’s never, I know. And it’s not that it’s all good. There’s there are different options. I mean, the key though, is that like, and I think I mentioned this in our last, when we were talking in the last podcast, it’s like the, the worry is with life insurance, if you forget to update it and you get divorced and remarried, then bad things happen. So that’s why we suggest that people actually just retitle it to sort of move the beneficiary to the trust. Just does that way. You have one less thing to worry about, but

Justin (15:51):
Yeah. I love the idea of having like a control center, like one place where you can change everything all at once, very efficient and streamlined. And that’d be the living trust. Yeah. It just prevents you from forgetting something or missing something or it’s just one less form or probably many less forms.

Nathan Kavlie (16:06):
Yeah. Cause I think, and that’s the part where I think like, people are busy and I mean, there are some people for like, and I know you’ve, I’m sure you have clients like this. It’s like some people’s hobby is just managing their own assets and like watching it all. And we have those clients too, that are like, well, I want to draft my own deed. And it’s like, Hey, if that’s what you want to do this weekend, it’s like, learn how to draft the quick claim deed, go for it. But we have a lot of clients who are like, I’d rather watch my kids play in the park. How about you draft it? So then we just, you know, there’s lots that you, depending on how sort of deep in the trenches, you want to be

Justin (16:40):
Any other, either common mistakes that you’ve seen or costly mistakes that you’ve witnessed, things that haven’t already been mentioned, but that either you’ve interacted with one of your clients or maybe you’re helping an executor, or maybe just something you’ve heard from a colleague about that you think for this cohort of listeners, high income physicians who probably have families and maybe businesses that would be for them.

Nathan Kavlie (17:03):
Yeah. oh, you go first smelled on, oh,

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (17:07):
Well I was just thinking whatever we’re, we’re drafting the documents. And we’re, we’re talking with clients, you know, even something as simple as naming legal guardians, Nathan and I always, always, always advise best practice, but for late naming legal guardians, for example, a lot of folks will come to us and say, I want to name this husband and wife as cool legal guardians. And we always, you know, talk to them about that because that you could be setting your kids up for a legal custody battle because there’s no guarantees in life. And you don’t know that that couple is not going to stay together. And if your documents say that they go to co-guardians and that couple splits up, then you know, those kids are going to get stuck in a custody battle. So always trying to, and, and that’s the thing I laugh then I love the way Nathan put this. But he said, Nelson, we got professional degrees in worrying.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (18:01):
Yeah. I feel like I have one of those too, actually. I mean, you’re a fiduciary, so you get it. But the thing is, it’s just, we were trying to anticipate worst case scenarios and and again, there’s only so many things that you can predict in life. Like, like the way your kids will treat you or take advantage of you or naming a couple some people do name like co-executors. And I, I strongly advise one of my friends not to do that because of his own experience as being co-executive with his sister who he hates it just, you know, it gets all caught up in a legal battle. And then if you get stuck in a rut who has to resolve it, right. The courts and that costs a lot of money.

Nathan Kavlie (18:45):
Yeah. I think, I mean my not to keep beating the dead horse, but it’s like, I think my thing is people that wait, that’s my, like, when you ask, like, what are the mistakes that people make? The mistake is waiting. People are like that thing of like, well, I’m going to do it when I hit this point in time or I’m going to do it when my kids, I don’t, or when I have kids, I mean, we get a lot of clients that are like, oh, our kids are going to, you know, they’re pregnant and the kids are coming or the first child. And they’re like, should we wait? And it’s like, no, do it now, because now is when you don’t have a screaming potato, like occupying 20 hours of your day. Like

Justin (19:26):
So I was thinking more like a little sack, like a five pound sack of potatoes or a half pound

Nathan Kavlie (19:30):
Sack. Well, in North Dakota, some of the potatoes are pretty big, but yeah. It’s like, don’t wait. Right? It’s like, if, and it is sort of that piece of like stepping up a basic will is better than nothing basic we’ll can name, who is the guardian of your kids. It establishes who your heirs are. It saves money in probate because it simplifies that process. This next step up is a living trust where you can then avoid probate. So it’s like, but don’t wait. That’s the part, like, don’t think that you need to sort of take a mini class on trust in the states before you, you, you don’t need to pre know it, like, you know, sort of like pre yeah.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (20:11):
And nor I, nor do we need, we don’t need your bank account numbers nor do we want them. I don’t want those. But a lot of folks also think, I mean, I, we are looking at I just was looking at an intake form at, you know, an estate planning firm out there. And it was requesting all of this occult numbers and this and that. And maybe for, depending on the situation, but we don’t need that information and you don’t have to prepare that or some that sensitive information to us either. And, and the worksheet that we we’ve worked really hard on is, so it’s like the anti intake form, which is super intimidating. Ours is built to be conversational. It gives you you know, nuts and bolts information as if you’re talking to us on my back porch, right. Sipping on ice and ice tea.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (20:56):
Friday evening, Wisconsin, you hear that Wisconsin. So, but you know, we really have, have worked so hard because the estate planning process is so anxiety provoking. It’s such an awful topic. I mean, who wants to talk about it, but it’s so important. And so yeah, I think Nathan, you said once it really stuck with me when somebody said, you know, it’s now the right time, or should I wait? And you responded with, you know, like any time is the right time. We’re ready when you are. So, you know, just do it, one of the challenges

Justin (21:32):
That I see families try to navigate in some cases, and I’m sure you’ve run into this, this having to do with asset liquidity. So obviously if I’ve got 10 bucks, I want to split it between four kids. It’s $2 and 50 cents a kid, and that’s easy, but if I have 10 bucks and a house, or, and one of the kids wants to live in the house or have a business, and two of the kids want to stay in the business and two of them don’t and we need to somewhat equitably divide and a state, obviously this is very complex and con context is required, but maybe describe some of the questions that you might ask or some of the important things to consider as you’re counseling one of your clients through a situation where there’s a big liquid asset and a desire for equitable bequest.

Nathan Kavlie (22:13):
Yeah. I mean, honestly I think it, I mean, it depends, right? Of course it depends, but it does a friend of mine, like she was going to leave the house to her son and then leave sort of the retirement accounts to the other sons. And then I, we sort of explained like the way that we can actually do it is sort of put language in that sort of says, you know, that instead of the weird part, it, this is the weird part with these documents is that if you sort of dial down on the specifics, you run the risk, that it will have unintended consequences, a couple of decades down the line, you know, maybe you don’t have, like, if you have a house worth, you know $300,000, and then you have $600,000 in your bank account, you have three sons that works great.

Nathan Kavlie (23:02):
Cause you’re like, Senay gets the house. And sons BNC split, the 600,000, everybody gets 200,000. But maybe the house ends up being worth a million. And then the other stuff was just sitting in like a low yield savings account. Right. So it’s like, it really just depends on the details. And then the, you know, and then her circumstance, that son that really wanted the house, he and his wife moved to Portland. And so they don’t want the house anymore. So it’s it. I think it really by and large, we really ended up advising people in most circumstances to just sort of trust their executor because the thing is, is that, I mean, that’s really the issue. It’s it’s, these are sort of terribly weird documents because you’re trying to think through all these scenarios. And so you can imagine these sort of very specific scenarios, but yet you don’t know which one of them will end up being true.

Nathan Kavlie (23:55):
And so, oh, go ahead. Oh, no, I’m sorry. It just to sort of that idea that like the that’s what the executor is there for that the executor and the way that we draft our documents sort of it’s sort of say is to sort of presume that like the executor will gather the beneficiary. So if you’re split everything between your three kids you know, if the house is worth a million and there’s only a hundred thousand dollars in the bank, if the three kids can work out a way to share it then great. But if they can’t, then it has to be sold and split. So it’s sort of and we have it set up, you know, sort of there’s a, we have it, we have that sort of like E-bay function set up into our documents to where it’s like, if there’s like, say there’s the tacky dog painting, right?

Nathan Kavlie (24:40):
Like the dogs playing poker, but it’s an original or something. Right. And it’s worth a lot of money, but there’s a lot of money. Like the kids can like essentially bid on it. It’d be like, well, I want the dog thinking. And then the other kid’s like, well, I want it. And maybe, actually it isn’t even an original. Maybe it’s just like a $5 reproduction, but it’s like, dad’s dogs playing poker, poker painting, and everybody wants it. And they essentially then get to bid on it and maybe they end up bidding up to like $50,000. And so then that becomes the value of the painting and it sort of offsets against their share. And it’s not like we kick the can down intentionally, but the weird part, and this is that thing. It’s like the more detail you try to put, it’s like, like, are you really sure that your kids really want to take over your family business? Like if they do that’s great. But I think yeah. Do things sounds like some

Justin (25:31):
Of the best estate planning you can do is cultivating healthy, open communication amongst your family and building in the trust that is required for an ultimate equitable distribution.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (25:46):
Well, but you know, that’s the thing. I think one thing that I’ve, I’ve observed a family that I, I know very, very closely actually very close friends of ours, but they have family meetings every year, once or twice a year. And so brilliant. It is, it is because there is a significant estate involved, but everybody is involved is welcome, including the in-laws. And so everybody gets to be part of this meeting that everybody groans about. We got it, you know, they got to do it again. And I hear about that, but they haven’t it’s open communication. So everybody knows what’s there what’s bubbling. Maybe what kind of investments are happening, but there’s, it’s, it is such a gift to this family because they’re having conversations that are gonna prevent fights in the future. And there always will be right. There’s always going to be like, well, I feel like, I think they said this, but everybody was there.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (26:41):
And then you have what you have five who said, well, no, I’m pretty sure that dad said this. So I think really keeping open communication and and really talking about these things with your family members you know, depending, again, it depends on the situation. Sometimes some of your private information you don’t want to share with family members that, you know, might be a little bit more contentious, right. But just be open and talk to your family members about it. So, I mean, I, even for Memorial day, we have a tradition of going to my husband’s family’s graveyards, you know, they to go see the ancestors and his dad tells a story of, okay, this is great grandpa Thompson, who came to Wisconsin and stuck the thing in the ground, a homestead act but tells us the whole story. And as we were there, my 10 year old says to me, well, mom, are you going to be buried in the Catholic cemetery? Because you’re not Catholic. I said, I don’t know. I don’t, I don’t know if that’s allowed, but I don’t want to be buried anyway. I want to be cremated. So we’ve normalized this Thom. Versation where growing up for me, I couldn’t even say the D word, but again, it’s just, it really comes down to, I think having conversations that, that make it sound like these are just, just in case plans and I want to talk to you about it. So you all know,

Justin (27:59):
Definitely people listening to this who think holy cow, this is an amazing idea. Are there any resources or anything that you can point toward, whether it’s a book or a paradigm or something that we can add it in the show notes, by the way. So this will be APM success.com/ 1 0 5. Anything that comes to mind immediately. Yes,

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (28:16):
Actually I wait, gosh, I have so many face lighting up. So this is, this is the nurse notes on coming out because like the healthcare directive has been my baby. Only because you know, it’s such an important document. All of these are important documents, but just being a nurse, having been in that backup, backup, backup healthcare agent role for my dad when he passed away, which was awful. But, you know, even in his passing, I learned so much from that experience and how he planned for that. But I’ve got great resources for you and I’ll send you links, but if they’re conversation starters, starters, this is what it’s really all about because a lot of people also have parents that don’t have this setup. And so how do you, how do you say to your parents, like you’ve figured out what you’re going to do with your stuff. And it’s just such an uncomfortable topic, like who wants to bring it up, but I will send you all sorts of resources, Nathan, anything you would add? No,

Nathan Kavlie (29:16):
I didn’t. You did,

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (29:19):
But yeah, no,

Nathan Kavlie (29:22):
I think it’s a great idea. Yeah.

Justin (29:24):
I want to say two more questions and then we can wrap this up. I’m curious from a and I don’t know if this is like way too hypothetical. Just you could stop me in my tracks, but from a proposed legislation standpoint and household exemption and portability right now it’s, you know, you can pass 12 million bucks to your kids totally. In plus without any federal estate tax implications. I’ve heard talks that that might come way, way, way down, which is a big deal. I remember this was again, right at the beginning of my career, the year that George Steinbrenner died, it was 2010, I think, or it was, it was like the, the one year where there was no cap. And so the entire Yankees passed to you know, whatever to the heirs, without federal income tax on the value of the franchise, which was a funny little idiosyncratic circumstance historically. But we could easily go from a place where, well, not many people that I know have $12 million sitting around to a lot of people that I know have a million many clients who are professionals and working for a few years quickly accumulate assets. And so planning around this ceiling, all of a sudden becomes perhaps more urgent. So can you describe a little bit about the way that you think about that or would encourage others to think about that? If that’s, as that’s like a thing on the horizon?

Nathan Kavlie (30:44):
I mean, I, it’s weird. This is one of those pieces where I feel like I don’t want to put it. We don’t know what’s going to happen. And so to sort of try to game the system ahead of time feels to me, I mean, it’s fun. I get that. We like to talk about it, but I don’t.

Justin (31:02):
No, there’s nothing that people should be doing right now is what

Nathan Kavlie (31:05):
You’re saying. Well, and the thing is, I guess my worry again, is that this will be another thing where I’m like, I’m not going to do my estate plan yet because there’s uncertainty about the state plan. And that’s, that’s my real worry is like, I guess that’s the thing that I feel like is really, it’s what worries me about these conversations. Because I think if, if there’s a dramatic shift in, in sort of the, the caps and stuff, there will be a response, but let’s not try to sort of build that in yet. And certainly I don’t want people to wait on it because they’re worried that that might change. I mean, I think, you know, again, especially if you have kids, I mean, whether or not you, I mean, nobody wants to pay extra taxes, right. But it’s not the end of the world, like better to get your plan set up and then forget to update it after this changes.

Nathan Kavlie (31:53):
And maybe there’s some income tax that gets pulled out before your kids as trusts get set up. But the other mechanism is that all this money goes to your kids. And then when they’re 18, they get all of it because you didn’t get around to setting up your trust and then your kids blow it on hookers and booze. Right. It’s like, that’s like in the bar, it’s like, it’s, there’s a, there’s a risk there’s there there’s risks everywhere. And I think the bigger risk to me is still that people just don’t get it done. That’s the biggest

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (32:24):
And for, and we can point to celebrities, right? They’re all of their stip estate planning or lack of is in the news prince. You, right. He died in 2016. So five, yeah, five years ago, his estate plan is not wrapped up yet because he didn’t even have a basic wealth. And they’re looking at seven to $8 million of legal fees. And there’s still somebody in Denver. If the last I heard who’s in prison, who said, he’s the love child of prince and therefore should be, oh yeah, I keep up with this. I keep up with, but, or the, you know, the the CEO of Zappos he didn’t have and his, his dad and brother they’re caught up in just trying to be established as as financial agents to get access to his account, Chadwick, Boseman. I think I mentioned that on our, our talk, Justin, but his wife has to pay up to $45,000 in probate fees in California to establish that she’s his rightful heir.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (33:14):
I mean, it’s just, you know, and this actually, this is a really good segue back to, you know, what we talked about before is that just don’t wait, just do it. But also with, with us, we’re, you know, Nathan and I are kind of old fashioned, too, we’re up on the technology, but we love more than anything talking to people and we want to talk, you know, talk by phone. I get so excited and we’ve lately gotten a rash of prospective clients. Who’ve written to us and said, hi, I just want to introduce and juice myself. Isn’t that great. I know I did too. And I miss that the most is that we don’t get to meet people in person. But the best, this is the next best thing. And thanks to the pandemic, everybody’s kind of used to virtual chat. So w when I meet people, it’s always like, oh my gosh, hi, hi, hi. So that’s what we want. Give us a call and, you know, we’ll help you figure out what you need.

Justin (34:05):
I want to wrap it up. And I thank both of you for your time and expertise for the last few weeks sharing with our APM success audience. I’m curious if there are any anecdotes or stories or things that you’ve encountered or yeah. Cause you know, in the space where you interact and this is similar to my job, it’s a very intimate space with the clients that you serve and being able to see significant vulnerability, significant moments of like emotional, you know, circumstance or love or hatred, or just, you know, there’s a lot that you, as a total stranger, get to witness about a person that most of their friends probably, I mean, in some cases, literally nobody else knows or can see. So in some kind of way without, you know, violating your,

Nathan Kavlie (34:54):
I was going to say like

Justin (34:55):
Without violating confidence can you maybe just give us a little flavor for some as, as attorneys, an instance that stands out to you where you kind of got to see something really special with a client that just sort of left a mark on you.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (35:09):
I can think of one, but can you think of one make sense?

Nathan Kavlie (35:14):
I mean, I think, I guess several, I don’t know. Well, no time, that’s the thing notes song is the one that really, I think is better at this. I mean, for me, I just, I, when I come back to are the people that are really excited, that sort of say like, wow. I mean, honestly one of our clients had that didn’t suck. And that has become like my like motto for our organization is like that didn’t suck. So I mean, people, you know, when people get it done, it’s again, that weird thing it’s like, everybody knows, everybody knows that you need a will. Right. It’s just like, everybody knows that. Like, and that’s the weird thing is like, I mean, it’s like, we don’t need to educate people. Like you need a will. It’s like, we just need to tell you, like, get it done.

Nathan Kavlie (35:53):
Like that’s the part. And so when people do get it done, they, they get really excited, which is really neat to share because when I was doing lending, I mean, it’s like they own real estate work. It’s like, you know, you just like, wow, you have a, like a 30 year debt, you know, all this stuff. But people get really excited when they have it done. And they really like that whole notion of like peace of mind. It it’s real, like there’s a sense of accomplishment. I think it actually helps. So I’m, my husband is a marriage and family therapist, but in a weird way, like, I think I, I certainly don’t do what he does or as much good as he does, but I think this helps a lot of marriages because usually there’s one spouse that is like, we need to get this done. And then there’s the other spouse it’s like I just don’t. And so I think we get to, we get to help people’s families on so many levels, like a peace of mind way like reducing friction and getting things checked off. But do I have a, if I had a specific thing, I wouldn’t share it, but this does, I mean, it, it, it really is sort of like a thousand points of light thing where it’s, it’s really, it’s been hugely rewarding to actually be able to help people like this.

Notesong Srisopark Thompson (37:08):
Well, and I think I don’t know, it’s weird. Somebody, people are shocked when they hear that. I w I’m a nurse that went to law school, right. They seem to be complete opposites, but thoughtful wills has become something that I think has really brought both of those careers together. And I miss nursing. I miss bedside nursing more than anything, more than anything. And so I get to, as a production guru of, of our law firm, I get to get in touch with clients and say, oh my gosh, I love the final wishes that you wrote. That was so thoughtful. And I think that’s really what it comes down to is when people are really thoughtful about the process and deciding who they’re putting their, their life’s hand, you know, putting their hands their life into their, these people’s hands. It’s my way of being able to give TLC it’s my bedside care in our law firm. So yeah. Yeah. And we get to help. We get to help get those wishes. Perfect.

Justin (38:04):
It’s a beautiful thing. And something that my wife and I, I remember sitting around the table with our, like, you know, our four month old at the time who was like, you know, it was like, all right, I guess it’s time. We gotta, we gotta get the guardian. So he might as well do the whole thing and going through this, like, so under what circumstances, you know, Justin, do you want me to pull the plug or, you know, whatever the sort of, and it was to soberly sit with that question is it’s, it’s jarring, I’ll be honest that I’ve like helped people kind of through this tangentially as a financial planner but stare it in the face. It’s it’s jarring. So I’m grateful for the valuable service that you provide and the way that you make it as easy as possible. And I thank you for your time today

Justin (38:44):
On PM success. Thank you for having us.

Speaker 5 (38:47):
Thanks so much, Justin.

Justin (38:50):
If you liked what you heard this week, head on over to APM success.com, where you can find more content and free resources to help you build a successful career in anesthesia and pain management. If you want to leave a review in iTunes, that also really appreciate, thanks for using some of your valuable time to join me today on APM success.