When I was a child, I watched cartoons on Saturday morning, as I suspect many of us did.  My siblings and I would watch cartoons, and if we were lucky, Mom and Dad would not be in the same room when Saturday morning cartoons were over, and we could keep watching TV until our parents intervened.  Often we would only get a few minutes into the next show, but it meant I became familiar with TV shows my parents would know better: The Beverly Hillbillies, Hogan’s Heroes, Mr. Ed, and Bewitched seemed to be the ones I remember best, although I Dream of Geanie was also in the mix.

I still remember the theme songs from these shows, and I sometimes quote the theme songs when discussing estate planning.  Bringing in references to bygone pop culture and shows can bring a little levity to a weighty topic like estate planning.  Since we are planning for death and what happens after death, estate planning can be a dark and very sad topic.  I try to make the process a little bit of fun, and I take one of my guiding business philosophies from a star of Saturday morning cartoons: Mr. Bugs Bunny, who taught me the great truth: You can’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive.  I do realize it was Mel Blanc saying the line, but since Bugs Bunny had a carrot in his hand when he delivered it, I will credit Bugs Bunny.

Of course, I do take my job seriously, and I prepare estate plans that are firmly rooted in the law, comply with legal requirements for enforceability and validity of the plan, and reflect what you want.  I just try not to take myself too seriously, and have a little bit of fun with the estate planning process.  There is a place and time to be light hearted, as there is a time and a place to be more serious and reserved, but the planning process is usually where we can have a bit of levity involved.  Certainly when someone passes away, I am less quick to joke and more serious in offering condolences and trying to help comfort a grieving family.  However, when we are planning for what seem to be events that will happen in the distant future, we can have some fun.

 

Most People Tend to Appreciate My Approach

My wife likes to remind me that people don’t care as much about how much you know or how much you can teach them, but rather they remember and care about how you make them feel.  This isn’t to say that I can make people feel good, but do a poor job of preparing an estate plan, as I do need to prepare a proper, legally binding estate plan.  I do prepare estate plans that comply with the necessary legal requirements and properly reflect what a client wants to have happen.  I do find that having a little fun along the way helps the process go more smoothly.

Talking about death and dying and planning for such events isn’t exactly the most comfortable topic.  Everybody seems to know they will die, but nobody thinks it will be any time soon, and most people aren’t completely comfortable talking about death and dying.  I can talk to people about their children, my children, and the shared trials we face. My middle daughter turned 16 this month, and I have had many discussions with my clients about her learning to drive, getting ready for, and taking her driving test, and how life looks with a teenage driver.

I usually comment that my two daughters are better drivers than I was at that age.  I seemed to take the speed limit as a starting point and a challenge when I was 16…speeding was kind of what I did as a teenager.  I have since learned that is not the best approach, but when I share stories like this, I can get a client to laugh and relax into the meeting.  A relaxed meeting tends to produce better discussions and more open and honest discussions about an estate plan.  Having a relaxed, open, honest, and somewhat fun discussion about estate planning helps me gain more insight into what a client wants to do and what is important to the client.  All of that helps me write an estate plan that works best for you.

 

Apparently My Approach Isn’t for Everyone

Not everyone shares the affinity I have for my approach.  Several years ago, I had a person who came to meet with me, we will call him “Bob” (not his real name) for purposes of this story, who did not appreciate my attempts to make the process a bit humorous.  Bob told me that I was “not taking this serious process seriously” and that I “could not be trusted to be a serious person for serious matters.”  I can understand what Bob was saying, and I did shift how I tried to discover what Bob wanted to do in the estate plan, but I discovered that Bob was quite sure they knew more about everything related to estate planning than I did.

To Bob, the meeting we had was more about the prospective client testing my knowledge to see if I was capable of representing them.  I decided not to work with Bob, as I could tell we were not on the same page in how we approached the estate planning process.  It became pretty obvious that if we had worked together, the relationship would not have been a good one between me, as the attorney, and them, as the client.  Instead, it was better for us to part ways before we got involved in the important process and legal matter of estate planning and had unnecessary conflicts along the way.

 

Working Together Is The Best Way

In my approach of taking my job seriously, but not taking myself too seriously, there is room for individuality.  We can laugh and joke together the world time, or we can just start off light hearted and move into more serious discussions.  Not everything is, or needs to be, a joke, but we can have some fun and get your estate planning done the right way without being too serious or dour along the way.  If you would like to see how we can get your estate planning done while having a bit of fun, click the button below and we can get started together!