Conscious Money Challenge: Know How You Are Invested

If you have money invested in the stock market, whether through a retirement account or a straight brokerage account, I challenge you today to find out exactly what your money is invested in and make a conscious choice about what you are supporting in the world.

If you aren’t sure how to do this, grab your last account statement (or go online) and find the 5 letter code that indicates where your money is invested. Then, type that into Google and review the breakdown of holdings. For example, AGTHX, the Growth Fund of America, sure sounds nice, doesn’t it?

But, if you look a little closer …

After typing AGTHX into Google you will see that if you are invested in what they call the Growth Fund of America, you are actually investing in Phillip Morris (the tobacco company that hid data on nicotine’s addictive properties), EOG Resources (fracking), and Amgen (a company accused of suppressing a true cure for cancer to promote it’s own bottom line — unverified).

The process often goes like this, a new employee is told, “We’ve set up a 401k for you, now you need to pick your investments.”

The employee looks at the options offered, and picks something that looks safe or that has a positive sounding name such as “Growth Fund of America.”

Most employees simply don’t know any better. So the first question for all of us is, “Do I want to stay blind or am I ready to wake up?”

And if you are ready to wake up, the next logical question is, “Am I really desiring to support big tobacco, fracking and big pharma? Or do I want to do something else with my money?”

We can take control by not investing blindly just because we want that “safe” 5% return for our retirement.

What will retirement be like anyway if we are living in a world without clean water (fracking), where we cannot get access to our own natural healing (big pharma), and where lying to addict people is considered acceptable (big tobacco)?

We vote with our dollars, but not just through what we buy, but also with HOW WE INVEST. Using robo-funds, or financial advisors who only care about their own commissions or getting your money under management, or simply ignoring it because it’s too complex, is not conscious investing.

How to Continue Your Family Values for Generations

Most of us want to make a mark in the world. That’s a big part of what gives our lives meaning. And whether or not we have children, our history and stories can be a unique and irreplaceable gift to our families. With just a little effort, we can preserve our family values for generations to come.
 
It can be difficult to pass on our traditions and our values, however, especially when we feel no one is listening. Too often, by the time younger generations care about life lessons and stories, the older generations are gone or their memories have faded.
 
In the “old days,” life’s lessons were passed along orally or by hand. But writing things down takes substantial time and effort, and let’s face it, not all of us have the patience or the penmanship for it.
 
But today, video technology makes preserving our family values easier than ever. Using a camera, computer webcam, or even your cellular phone, you can preserve your values and stories for your family. All you need to do is list what you’d like to talk about, then get the camera (or microphone) rolling. Here are some things you can talk about:

• Generations that came before you;

• Your childhood and immediate family;

• Funny stories about you and other family members;

• Family traditions;

• Family values; and

• Lessons you have learned about yourself and the world.

Work-Life Balance: A Personal Perspective

Pick up the latest copy of just about any business magazine, and you’re likely to find at least one article on work-life balance. Employers all over the country are talking about how to retain employees, particularly millennials, by enhancing work-life balance. But the conversation really can’t stop or start with employers.  It must start with you.
 
For the next two weeks, use a tracking calendar to track all of your waking time. It’s easy to do this using a google calendar that you set up specifically for identifying what you spend each hour of your day doing.
 
Then, at the end of the week, identify how much time you spent on self care, how much time you spent on family, and how much time you spent working. 

You’ll quickly be able to see where you might be out of balance.

While it may be counter-intuitive, investing in your self care first, family second and work third, is the equation that will keep you happier at home and at work, which ultimately translates to a more positive bottom line for you and your employer.

If you are out of balance, first and foremost, take personal responsibility by using a time blocking calendar to block time each week for self care.
 
This may mean putting time on your calendar for exercise, medical and dental appointments, pampering, and play.
 
Block this time and keep it as sacred as you would a meeting with your boss, or one of your co-workers or clients.
 
Then, block time for family activities. And notice what you have left over for work.

If you find that you cannot realistically complete your work in the time you have left over, consider having an honest and direct conversation with your boss (or yourself, if you are the boss), about how you can get more support.
 
Knowing what you want and asking for it are the first steps to taking personal control of your circumstances and creating the life you want, and it gives your employer the opportunity to have you doing your best work and retain you as a team member they want for the long-term.
 
How does this tie into estate planning for your family?
 
Proactively planning for death is one of the best ways we can come into alignment during life. We support you to make the most of your life by guiding you to face the reality of death through our estate planning process.
 
Your real wealth is not just your financial wealth, but includes your most valuable non-renewable resources, time, energy and attention. Through our planning process, we can help you reclaim what really matters.

Clean Burials: New Mushroom Suit Removes Body Toxins

If you have ever wondered about the impact your body will have on the environment when you are gone, you are not alone. Traditional burial and cremation both present significant environmental challenges.

When traditional burial is used, embalming fluid—typically a formaldehyde cocktail—is injected into the body to delay decomposition. While these chemicals achieve the desired effect (preserving the body, particularly for viewing by family and friends), they remain in the body after burial and may seep into the soil.

Cremation, on the other hand, comes with its own set of environmental concerns. The non-profit Funeral Consumers Alliance of Southern California reports that “an average of 28 gallons of fuel” is used in a typical cremation, releasing ”approximately 540 pounds of carbon dioxide.”

Recognizing the lack of eco-friendly options, two designers created the Infinity Burial Suit and related products. The handcrafted suit is made from infinity mushrooms, developed by the designers to quickly decompose body tissue and excretions, as well as industrial toxins. The company which sells the suit suggests that “[t]he cultivation process promotes acceptance of and a personal engagement with death and decomposition.”

While it can be difficult to think about death and the decomposition of our bodies, the fact is that we will all die. Once we come to terms with this, we can become proactive in arranging things our way. Accepting death allows us to plan our own funeral/burial and plan a legacy of love for our family after we’re gone.

Writing Your Life Story

How often do you wish you knew more about your family? When we’re young, we don’t necessarily pay attention to the stories our elders tell us. Later in life, we often become interested in knowing who and where we come from.

We want to learn more about what makes us who we are, and we may even become interested in genealogy. Unfortunately, for many people, the resources that were there when we were younger have become faded memories and the people who could fill us in have already passed on.

A new idea by the website FamilySearch makes recording memories easier than ever for younger generations.

A common life lesson is to take large tasks and break them into smaller parts to make them achievable. FamilySearch has taken the task of writing your life story and broken it into 52 discrete parts that you can do once a week for one year. When you’re finished, you’ll have captured the memories your loved ones will value and created a true legacy for your family.

The questions posed on this website will allow you to catalog many things about yourself, such as the following:

• The basics about you, such as your full name, how you got your name, where you were born, and where you grew up;

• Information about your immediate and extended family, including memories of your parents and the work they did;

• Important genetic information that could be helpful to your descendants, such as unusual genetic traits and medical conditions that run in your family;

• Information about family traditions and how you spend your holidays;

• Your memories about your schools and your friends;

• Information that you have learned about yourself and the world, such as your greatest strengths and challenges, as well as your life philosophies; and

• Funny stories you remember, such as fads while you were growing up and tales about pets.

You can even add pictures. FamilySearch makes it easy to store your life story online, so your family can access it easily.

We believe capturing your values, insights, stories and experiences is so important, in fact, that we incorporate Family Wealth Passages into our estate planning process through a “Family Wealth Legacy Interview” with every plan.