Have you ever seen the movie Entourage? The gist of the movie is this: the lead actor is an up and coming movie star and he’s got four buddies that are helping him get there.

One buddy is his manager.

Another is in charge of public relations.

Another is in charge of his confidence.

And another is there for unshakable moral support.

Throughout the movie you can see that it’s his team that helps him keep everything together and become successful.

Now, while I’m suggesting you need a public relations manager or a manager, there are some people we should all have on our team to get the most out of life.

The Five People You Should Have on Your Team (Estate Planning Lawyer Edition)

Why do I call this the estate planning lawyer edition of the people you have on your team?

Because, quite frankly, your team should probably be bigger than just these five people.

The people on your team that I’m talking about all have one goal in mind for you: to allow you to live a great life, leave a great legacy, and provide for your family for generations to come.

These are the five people you should have on your team:

1. financial planner;
2. life coach/business coach;
3. accountant;
4. confidant; and
5. estate planning attorney.

To find out why these people should be your team you’ve got to listen to the show.

Question of the Day

If you could be any kind or any superstar, like any kind of star actress, actor, you know sports athlete, I don’t politician maybe if you’re into that, who would wanna be? And why?

Cheers,

Christopher Small

P.S. After helping dozens of families set themselves up for an awesome life and an amazing legacy, I can tell you if you don’t have these 5 areas of your life covered right now you are exposing yourself and your family to a lot of heartache.

P.P.S. Figuring out where to start and taking the first step is the hardest part of creating your family wealth plan. Here’s my best advice on where to start and how to take the first step (without needing an estate planning lawyer).

Who am I? I’m a Kirkland estate planning attorney who enjoys helping people get rich and live forever. This isn’t a job for me, it’s actually something I enjoy. And it’s my pleasure to share this stuff with you.

Five People You Should Have on Your Team (including Estate Planning Lawyer) Transcript

Hey everybody, and welcome to episode seven of The Rich Life Lawyer Show.

I’m your host, as always, Christopher Small and I’m excited to be here with you today.

I’m excited to talk to you about the five people you should have on your team and no I’m not saying about your basketball team, I’m not talking about your bowling team, I’m not talking about your work team. I’m talking about your personal team, it’s like a, like an entourage, right? This is who you should have surrounding you in your life, in your personal life, to really make sure that all of your stuff goes the way that it should.

Let’s just dive right into these, alright?

Number one, financial planner.

You need to have a financial planner. Even if you don’t invest a lot of money with them, it’s really helpful to have someone who’s basically trained and has a lot of expertise in money and have money works and how psychology works around money. You know, what the best tactics and strategies are for maximizing your wealth and generating wealth because that’s what it’s all about.

You can literally make your money work for you. You can make while you’re sleeping, you can be making money. And your financial planner can help you do that.

What I will say the one when it comes to a financial planner and maybe I’ll give some advice about each of these positions on your team that you’re looking for. You know, just like attorneys, not all financial planners are created equal.

Not all of them have the same motives, they definitely don’t all have the same style so take the time to find someone that you’re comfortable with and I would recommend that you maybe give them a test, right? You go in there and you tell them that you have fifty thousand dollars, what should they do? Okay?

If they dive in and start telling you all of these, these things that you need to buy, right? All of these stocks or mutual funds or whatever, if they just dive right into that, they’re probably not the right person for you.

What you want that your financial planner to say is, “I don’t know yet. I need to learn what your goals are. I need to learn what’s important to you. I want to learn when you want to retire. I need to learn how much cash you have and reserves right now. And I need to learn all of these things.”

That is the sign, at least the first step of a decent financial planner, is that they’re going think about you before they think about how they can make money off of you. So, that’s number one.

Number two, the second person you need to have on your team, is an accountant.

And you know, I guess if you’re not making a lot of money, if you don’t have a house, if you’re not itemizing your deductions and things like that, maybe you don’t need an accountant but I would say that even in that circumstance, you can still have an accountant on your team without spending a lot of money because they won’t doing a ton of work for you.

But again, it’s really nice to have someone that you can go to and ask questions that has an expertise in an area that you don’t that can have a dramatic impact on your life like money, alright? That they can talk about what kind of deductions you can or can’t take or should be taking or should consider taking given your financial circumstance.

For example, you’re making, if you end up making a whole bunch of money in a year and you are looking at some financial hit, some tax hit, there’s some things that you can do before the end of the year to reduce that tax burden. And an accountant can tell you how to do that.

So you definitely want an accountant on your team.

Third, you want to have a coach.

And this is maybe gonna sound kind of weird but like a life coach or a business coach. Somebody that is going to push you to get better, hold you accountable to do the things that you wanna do so that you can actually do them.

You know, and you may say “Why do I need coach? I don’t need a coach. I’m doing great. I know what I’m doing.”

And I guess what I would say is, you know, Michael Jordan has a coach. Rory Mcilroy, if you’re a golfer, he has a coach. Phil Mickelson, he has a coach. Let’s see, Marshawn Lynch, he had a coach, right? Edgar Martinez, he had a coach. He probably has a coach now.

What you’ll find is the people that achieved the most success in their lives, and I define success not by money but by living their dreams and doing what they want tend to have someone around that helps them get there. Either by literally coaching them, teaching them strategies and things that they can do to get to where they wanna go and also just by holding them accountable and being the one that’s there to say, “Look, you’re being lazy. You need to pick it up and go do these stuff.”

You needed that person in your life.

The fourth person that you need to have on your team, is a confidant.

I refer to this as like a mastermind partner or partners or group. This is the group that you can go to and you can talk about what’s going on in your life. You can talk about your dreams. You could talk about your failures. You can talk about your successes. And they’re gonna be there to listen, to support, to give advice and they’re going to be there to lift you up too, alright?

So the person that, or the people that are part of this group for you, these confidants, typically you want them to be where you wanna go, right? Or you want them to at least match your success level, right?

There’s nothing worse than going, I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced this before, something’s happened to you, you’re really really excited about it or you get an idea, you’re really excited about pursuing it and you go tell someone and they rain on your parade. They point out the negatives or they say, “I don’t if that’s gonna work. You know, what happens if you fail?” That kind of stuff. Those people, you don’t really want those kind of people in your life.

You want the kind of people that are going say, “That is amazing!”

You know, you get a promotion. They’re going want, you’re going want the person that’s excited for you for that. You know, you can decide to go on pursue your passion, you’re going want someone that’s going be excited to help you do that.

Yeah, they may make sure that you don’t fall on your face, like you don’t forget a critical element to be successful, but they’re going to be there to support you not to drag you down. That’s number four.

Number five, last but not least, you want to have an estate planning attorney, on your team.

And maybe that’s a little selfish. Maybe that’s a little, a little self interested here but I would be saying that even if I wasn’t one.

Just like I just, I just told you out of four other people that you should have on your team and there’s a reason for that, right?

The reason is that at the end of the day, I am doing everything I do, I’m even sitting here in front of this video camera talking to you because I want to protect my family and I want to do everything I can to convince you that you need to protect your family too.

The reason for that is that, that’s why I’m here, right? I’m not here to become rich, I’m not here to, I don’t know have a lot of fun, oh well that’s cool, but at the of the day I want to know that my kids are gonna have great lives, that my grand kids, when I have grand kids some day, they’re going have great lives and I want to know or I want to do everything I can to be a part of that success.

That’s what estate planning attorneys or good estate planning attorneys can do for you. They can help you set that up so that when you pass on, whenever that is, your family’s taken care of.

They can also help you set it up so that you can enjoy your family in your life while you’re here, alright? There’s a certain level of safety, a certain level of comfort that goes into knowing that everyone is protected.

And I can also help you find some of those other people that you need as a part of your team if you want. Because, I’ve had to find them for my own team. So, I know, I know sort of, some of the things that you need to look out for and some of the way that you can go and find the person that’s right for you.

Alright so, that’s it, you put those people on your team, your success is going to like (whistle) right, right up. The way that you’d live your life is going to become even better than it is now.

Maybe you think this is the best it could be, it can always be better, always be better, just push yourself. So, that’s it for today.

Let’s see, question of the day, if you could, you know, so I talked a little about athletes, a little bit. If you could be any kind or any superstar, like any kind of star actress, actor, you know sports athlete, I don’t politician maybe if you’re into that, who would wanna be? And why.

How about this, if you could change places with them for one day, who would that be and why. I just want to hear that. As always if you have questions, I have answers at Twitter, @richlifelawyer on Twitter, and Facebook.com/richlifelawyer. We’ll get you there. Use the hashtag #richlifelawyershow so I can find those questions and I’ll answer them for you. Have a good one.

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