Hello! I hope you’re having a great week. I am. I just got back from a little vacation where I had my first ever hole in one!

It was a pretty cool experience. My first one ever.

But that wasn’t the cool part of the trip. The cool part was getting to see and experience and talk to people of all different walks of life from around the world.

And it got me thinking a little…

I don’t know if you remember this or not, but a few weeks ago I sent out a message about how I’m funding the college education of my kids.

The responses I got were very interesting.

Some people wanted to know more.

Some people wanted to know if I was trying to sell my solution.

And some people were panicked to the point of sending me articles and then unsubscribing from my emails.

It’s that third group that I want to talk about today.

For ALL of us, we’ve got something we care about that puts us in the third group.

Might be politics. Might be religion. Might be money. Might be education.

The way we end up in this third group is easier now than ever.

We have a point of view and we want to be right, we BELIEVE we are right, so we seek out other people, news organizations, articles, and other sources that promote our point of view.

Pretty soon the only thing we hear is from our point of view and authored by people with our point of view (particularly when it comes to information about opposing points of view and how bad/crazy/dangerous they are).

Before you know it, you are so entrenched in your point of view that anything challenging that point of view isn’t just disagreeing with you but actually challenging your very existence.

The easiest place to see this today is politics.

No matter your political affiliation there are organizations that exist not to provide you with a well rounded, thoughtful analysis of issues, candidates, and challenges facing the country, but to get you more entrenched to certain viewpoints that someone that isn’t a part of the group is written off no matter what they might say.

It happens to me when I hear someone is from Missouri. As a KU grad I immediately have distrust for them (okay, said with a little bit of sarcasm – a LITTLE).

The worst part of all of this is that YOU are the one hurt by this.

YOU are the one missing out on potentially helpful information.

YOU are being intellectually lazy by not continuously allowing your views to be challenged and being open to new information.

And YOU are missing out on the kind of life where you aren’t afraid of new things coming your way but are instead intrigued by them.

Now, to bring it full circle, let me tell you what this has to do with estate planning.

Estate planning is all about legacy. It’s about leaving your mark on this Earth. It’s about affecting the people around you.

It’s about living your best life.

When you shelter yourself from new information you maintain a certain level of security and safety psychologically, but some day you are going to look back and wish you’d done things a little differently.

Maybe, instead of waiting, you try that today?

Sincerely,

Christopher Small
CMS Law Firm LLC

P.S. It wouldn’t be a good newsletter if I didn’t suggest you set up a time to talk with me about estate planning if you haven’t already. So, if you haven’t already talked to me about estate planning and want to, click here to schedule a time for us to talk. Cheers.

P.P.S. If you believe you are one of the people I’m referencing in this newsletter, please understand I’m not trying to poke fun of you or call you out or anything like that. We ALL have these qualities and we ALL need to work on this. It was just a time for me when I experienced it first hand. I appreciate you!