Live and Leave A Legacy

Will You Leave A Legacy?

In the past week, I’ve had to attend a couple of funerals. One was for a young girl, only 24, killed tragically in a car accident. The other person was someone who was a little older and had cancer and it was expected, but the truth is, in both situations, there’s a legacy that’s left, right? 

As I was sitting at that young girl’s funeral listening to the stories and how she lived and the legacy she left, it really tugged on my heart and on a lot of things I’ve been thinking about just in general. No, she didn’t leave a big financial legacy, but she left a legacy of how she lived.

She passed on a spiritual legacy.

Everyone who talked to her said that she was very joyful. She brought joy wherever she went and everyone who knew her knew how much she loved God. They know how much she cared for people, how concerned she was that each person knew God, and had a relationship with Him.

This is really important to me as well. And it’s been on my heart in the last year.

Living A Legacy

How am I living?

Am I living in a way that anyone who meets me would know how much I love God and would they feel His love for me? 

Would they be encouraged to live their passion and live their purpose, what God put inside of them? 

I am a very big fan of Jeremiah 29:11-13. In paraphrasing, God says, I know the plans I have for you. Plans of good enough, bad to give you hope and a future. When you call me, I’ll answer you. 

I believe everyone was created for a purpose. The question I came away from that funeral is, “Am I living in a way that everyone that I come in contact with knows how much I love God? Knows how much He loves them and encourages them to live?”

 

What Will Your Legacy Be?

On the flip side, I want to talk about legacy too because it’s important. As we sit down with clients all the time that becomes a question. Some people are really concerned that they want to leave their kids and grandkids, a big financial legacy. 

Some want to leave them an inheritance and others don’t seem to mind either way. The truth is each of us is going to leave some type of legacy. We have to decide now what legacy that will be.

Look at a spiritual or emotional legacy as well as the financial and tangible legacies or inheritances that we leave. 

I was recently speaking with a client about the type of legacy she wants to leave and she really wants to make sure she left an inheritance. As we go through the planning process, we always say that we have to look at your income and what you need first, and then make sure we try to safeguard everything for your family as best we can. In this client’s situation, she needed more income, but she was so afraid to spend it because she didn’t want to spend her daughter’s inheritance. 

With just a couple of tweaks, we were able to make sure that she could increase her income now and still leave some for her daughter late. In fact, we do that quite often. 

 

Living Intentionally

There have been multiple clients where we not only make sure that there’s some left for the kids but increase the amount the kids will receive and reduce the amount Uncle Sam’s getting. 

Now, if I asked most people who they’d rather give money to, Uncle Sam, their children, or a charity of their choice, Uncle Sam is never their response. But if we do not plan correctly or if we don’t think about it at all, then we will just leave it. The same goes for our overall legacy. If we don’t live intentionally and live the legacy we want to leave, if we don’t plan intentionally, we will just leave it. If you don’t want to leave your money to Uncle Sam, then live and plan intentionally.

What I gathered from both of these funerals is one was more intentional and was not. 

 

Live intentionally, live the legacy. 

 

You want to leave an intentional legacy to your kids, your grandkids, and to your communities. 

I encourage you to write down the values that you think are important or words of wisdom that you would want people to hear. 

It doesn’t matter how much time you may have. For me, I decided to write these values down because if I was gone tomorrow there are certain things I would want to make sure people heard. 

I encourage you to do the same. 

Do you have any words of wisdom to share with us?

This summer we are doing a multi-part Summer of Service series. This year we have a big focus on legacy, to live the purpose that we have, that God has for us, and encourage other people to do the same.

 

We Want To Hear About Your Legacy

What are your words of wisdom? 

What would you pass to us to any future generations? 

I’d love to hear from you! 

Leave us a message on this blog, on our website or social media, send us an email or inbox message.

Think about what words of wisdom you would give and make sure you’re living intentionally. 

On the more practical side, it doesn’t just happen just because we want it to leave our legacy to this kid or that or if we want it to go to a certain organization.

If we don’t proactively plan, if we don’t make sure that the beneficiaries are designated the correct way, we may unintentionally disinherit grandkids just because the forms were not filled out properly.

Be intentional. 

At Bertram Financial we would be happy to walk you through your plan, making sure that your beneficiaries are correct and go through any other questions or preferences to make sure that you’re leaving the most that you can to your kids or to charity and not Uncle Sam! 

Do you have questions about what type of legacy you’ll leave?

Unsure about your legacy both financially or spiritually? 

I’d love to speak with you! Schedule a call with me. I’d be happy to talk through your plan with you and I’d love to hear about the legacy that you want to leave.