“If you don’ have a plan in place, someone else gets to determine what happens with your legacy.” Mariah Street
About Our Guest:
Mariah Street, Esq. is a successful attorney, speaker, consultant, and the CEO & Managing Attorney of Legacy Street Law. She provides comprehensive legal business services, legacy planning, asset protection, and business succession planning for legacy-minded business leaders & their families. Mariah has helped hundreds of clients build and protect their business, family and legacy, and has served as legal counsel and a legacy-driven strategist for many notable government agencies, corporations, and non-profits.
Episode Summary:
This episode is powered by God Girls Making Millions
Securing your legacy is about leadership. When you are both a good leader and a good steward, you understand the significance of being intentional about making decisions that will positively impact those tied to you. If you’re a millions-minded entrepreneur, you will want to listen to this episode twice. With the help of my guest, Mariah Street, we created the Entrepreneur’s Legacy Kit for you. Mariah and I share a passion for educating entrepreneurs about the importance of establishing legacy for every area of your life, especially if you have a business. By being educated about actually protecting the bag you’re building, you create an environment where your impact leaves income. It’s time to leverage your business planning efforts to lead the next generation by leaving a legacy. Grab your pen and paper and listen in to discover:
- Why being legacy minded is required if you want a million-dollar company
- How to create your Entrepreneurs Legacy Kit
- The top three mindset shifts you’ll have to make to become legacy minded
- And so much more
Powerful Mariah Quotes From The Episode:
- “You can’t be willy nilly passing your business down.”
- “It starts with a decision – am I going to boss up and fill the role of leader in my life.”
- “If you are a leader, you’re required to be a good steward.”
- “Leaders are anchored into being a leader.”
- “Don’t make arrogant assumptions based on whether you can defy God’s timing.”
- “Money moves when I change my mind.”
- “Your legacy plan must be a living and breathing plan that grows with you.”
Last Book Mariah Read: Never Split the Difference
Favorite Quote: “Seek first God and His righteousness and all things shall be added unto you.” – Mathew 6:33
Tool Mariah Swears By: Bible
How to Connect with Mariah:
- Website: legacystreetlaw.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/legacystreetlaw
- Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariahstreet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/legacystreetlaw
Incredible One Enterprises, LLC is not responsible for the content and information delivered during the podcast interview by any guest. As always, we suggest that you conduct your own due diligence regarding any proclamations by podcast guests. Incredible One Enterprises, LLC is providing the podcast for informational purposes only.
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Mariah Street: The Leadership Of Legacy With Mariah Street
I am so excited for you if you are a God girl who has been looking, without success, for a new community to have those safe, vulnerable, transparent conversations with women who get you because they are you. Go now to GodGirlsMakingMillions.com to learn more and submit your application. I have a treat for you. This interview was so much fire. Fire, first and foremost, because we were talking about two of my favorite topics, like a call smooshed in together in one.
My guest is Mariah Street. She is the CEO of Legacy Street Law. Let me read her bio. In this conversation, she was a spitfire the whole time. Her energy was so high. You could tell how passionate she was about talking about legacy and business succession planning. Mariah Street Esquire is a successful attorney, speaker, and consultant. The CEO and managing attorney of Legacy Street Law.
She provides comprehensive legal business services, legacy planning, asset protection, and business succession planning for legacy-minded business leaders and their families. Mariah has helped hundreds of clients build and protect their businesses, family, and legacy and has served as legal counsel and a legacy-driven strategist for many notable government agencies, corporations, and non-profits. We created something that you didn’t even know you needed. We created the Entrepreneur’s Legacy Kit. You are welcome. Grab your pen, grab your paper, and let’s jump into my conversation with Mariah.
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Mariah Street, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. This is such an honor and a pleasure, as always.
I have been looking forward to this conversation. I’m not going to steal your thunder. I’m going to let you introduce yourself in a second but the work that you do that’s all up in my area. I want as many people as possible to understand the importance and significance of creating a legacy and both sides of the legacy. Pass down the recipes but I need you to pass down some cash too because legacy is financial. Before we get all up in and through, take a quick moment and tell everybody who you are in your own words.
I hold a lot of titles. Above all, I’m a believer. A child of God. A daughter, sister, friend, and all that good stuff. I’m also a speaker, writer, consultant, and attorney. I own my own law firm, Legacy Street Law. I am based in North Carolina but I serve clients across the country. I specifically focus my firm on legacy and estate planning as well as Business Law.
On the Business Law side, I will help people create a foundation for their business so that it’s solid. Maybe eventually, if it is a goal of theirs to pass the business down, there are things that you got to have in place. You can’t be willy-nilly passing your business down, and your systems aren’t in place. Your financials and legal is not looking tight. We make sure that you are building a business on a solid foundation.
We will do IP Law as well as intellectual property contracts and business formation, the whole nine. On the legacy and estate planning side, we will do your estate planning. Wills and trust that’s a whole thing in and of themselves. Powers of attorney, your medical and healthcare documents, which are extremely important, as we all found out from the pandemic.
Also, if you have a business, then business succession planning as well. Making sure that what you have accumulated during life, any and everything, is being passed down in the way that you desire it to be passed down. The main goal is to make sure that it’s in the way that you want. We put in place the legal vehicles and tools to accomplish those goals for you. I love the work that I do. I started this firm based on my own personal experiences. My mom passed away at a very young age. She was only 46.
It was traumatic, to say the least, because she was not sick. A lot of people think that we think we are going to live forever, and that’s the nature of life. Death knows no respect for age and financial status. It doesn’t matter who you are. She passed away at 46. I was in college at the time. I was a junior at the time. Most people didn’t have an estate plan in place, and so that means that, unfortunately, somebody else gets the narrative of your legacy, and that person is the government.
State Laws got to determine what happened to all of my mother’s things. Unfortunately, all of that ended up going to my dad. To this day, me or my brother. I have a younger brother. He’s six years younger than me. He was in high school at the time. It was very traumatic for him as well but none of us have seen a penny of her estate. I know that was not her intention.
That’s why I was so excited that we could have this conversation because people take it for granted. I don’t necessarily want this to be all about death but we know we are all going to die. I don’t know if you know but we lost my father unexpectedly. He was rushed to the emergency. A couple of days later, we found out it was cancer, and then a couple of days after that, it was stage four incurable. They said he had days, maybe weeks. Thirty-three days from the day he got rushed to the emergency, my dad is out of here. Similarly, there was no estate. There was no plan. There was no anything.
My brother and I had enough foresight. When he got rushed to the emergency, we had a basic will and a power of attorney directive signed by him when he was still coherent, which allowed us to do many of the things that we needed to do but we waited until the last second. We need to ask people. We need to stop waiting until the last second.
I’m all on the pedestal about legacy, and not just any legacy but a financial legacy. I have these T-shirts that say, “Legacy is financial.” Legacy needs to be financial, go ahead and give them your recipes but can we leave the next generation better than it was for us? That’s what it’s about for me, and that’s why I was so excited that we were going to get an opportunity to have this conversation because we don’t think about it.
On the flip side, my mom was in hospice and was supposed to die many years ago. We did all of her directors. Her funeral is already planned, and all of the things, and she’s still here. My husband always says, “She’s going to outlive us all.” I think that the planning and the preparation are what create the provision for God to make. There’s something to the fact that we went through the process of what it’s going to be when her time does come. In advance, that elongated her life. I don’t know how true that is but that is what I feel in my spirit.
When I think about entrepreneurs, the people who read the show are entrepreneurs. They are millions-minded. They want to make millions of dollars in a year, and hopefully, not to buy the things but to, ultimately, set up some legacy-minded things. Some trusts, wills or business succession plans. That’s what I want us to talk about now.
I want you to make it simple and implore our readers to connect with you or somebody else who can help them with the state planning so that they don’t wait. I’m going to say this one more thing, and I promise you, folks. I didn’t think that this episode would be all about death but we are all going to die at some point in time. We are all going to go.
I didn’t get to go because I was coming back from Phoenix but a good friend from college died. Her husband didn’t wake up a couple of years ago. We think we have more time. We have no idea how much time we have. If you are an entrepreneur and have your own business, you need a plan. If you are planning to Move to Millions, you need to plan for the succession once you get those millions. Let’s create an entrepreneur’s legacy kit. If there were such a thing, what would be the things that would need to be included in an entrepreneur’s legacy kit?
Let’s start with the things that you are building now. If you think about your business, make sure that you have the solid legal foundations of your business in place. That is essential. You need to have that in place now to run your business so that you don’t get sued. Let’s keep that all the way real. Make sure that you have your contracts depending on your company, industry or whatever it is. There are certain things that you are going to have to have in place.
Make sure that you have the solid legal foundations of your business in place right now.
If you are running your business online, you need to make sure that your website is protected. If you are selling services via your website, do you have your privacy policy in place? Do you have your terms and conditions? Having a privacy policy is required by law. You are supposed to have a privacy policy on your website if you are selling services or products on a site. That’s not even negotiable. That’s not nice to have.
Everybody, go look at your website and make sure you have a privacy policy. If you do not see a privacy policy, call Mariah ASAP. Basic, solid, and legal foundations are in place.
Make sure you have your contracts. If you are working with clients, make sure you have your client services agreement, whether it’s coaching, consulting or whatever it is that you are doing. If you work with vendors, you need to have a vending agreement. If you have a partner in your business, you need to make sure you have a partnership agreement.
All of those things. If you have an LLC, you need to make sure you have an operating agreement. If you have a corporation, you must make sure you have bylaws. All of these things you have got to have in place. If you are an entrepreneur who’s planning on maybe selling your business in the future, there is not anybody buying your business without this stuff in place.
You need to make sure. If you don’t know what you need to have in place, then you need to consult with an attorney to make sure. In each business, there are some things that are across the board that will be the same, but depending on your industry, what you are doing, and what you are selling, those things can be different.
You need to make sure that you are getting advice that is pertaining to what you do and your specific business. I know a lot of people that you work with too have a lot of IP. You are creating a lot of different things. You are creating courses, eBooks or whatever it is that you are creating. You are writing books. Whatever it is, you need to make sure that stuff is also protected.
Put your trademarks and your copyrights. If you have an invention and you are an inventor, you need to make sure you are getting your stuff patented. If you have a trade secret, I liken that to the Coca-Cola formula, something like that where you have a specific secret formula that you want to protect. You need to make sure you have that in place and protected and all of that.
Making sure that you are getting your things trademarked and all of your stuff copyrighted. Making sure that you have all of that in place, for sure. I talked about this earlier. I know a lot of us are might be accidental entrepreneurs, and we start. We are not thinking about some of the foundational stuff. If you need to go back to when you first formed your business, depending on the type of entity that you form, there are certain documents that you will need in a place that govern the way that your business operates.
As I said before, if you have an LLC, you should have an operating agreement. Corporation, your bylaws, and all of that. Moving away from some of the legal stuff. Some of the practical things. I know Darnyelle talks about this in her programs but your SOPs, Standard Operating Procedures. If you are wanting to pass down your business to whoever it is, they got to know how to run it, and your SOPs need to be in place such that somebody can step in.
Let’s say that you don’t even pass away. Let’s say you are in the hospital for an extended time. Who is going to be able to step in and look at the things that you have recorded? Your audio, videos, checklist, all of the things that govern. If they cannot read, listen to all of that, and run your business, then you need to go back and work on your SOPs.
That’s so important. We had a situation happen with a client. It was about a year or so ago at this point. She was found in her home passed out, and no one knew how long she had been there. They took her to the emergency. She was in a coma. Completely incoherent for a long time. Family members wanted to close her business. There were none of the things that we should have.
She had been working on SOPs. There wasn’t a very clear operating agreement. There were a lot of things that weren’t right. The family wanted to shut down her business. I’m grateful that she was in our program, and some of the people who were also service providers that helped her reached out to me so that I could get my attorney, who is barred in her city, to step in to save her company.
I don’t know what they expected but now she is alive. She is breathing and kicking. She is getting better and better, and her company is growing because we had enough foresight as a community to make sure that we helped to get some of these things in place quickly so that they wouldn’t shut down her company.
Mariah, what you’ve talked about so far, I want to make sure everybody caught it. We are building for you an entrepreneur’s legacy kit. You are going to need to make sure that your business has a solid legal foundation in place, and there are tons of things that Mariah talked about there. You need your intellectual property protection. You need your standard operating procedures, and we are going to talk about it more. We are going to continue building this kit.
We are talking about legacy but specifically, we are talking about the entrepreneur’s legacy kit and the things that you need to start thinking about now to make sure that your business, all the work you are doing, all of the blood, sweat, tears, hustle, and the grind. I don’t advocate for that but you are out there hustling anyway. That all of that is not for not at the point at which you can no longer operate your business. It doesn’t even necessarily, as we were talking about having to be that you are out of here. It could be that you can’t work, that you could get pregnant and have to go on bed rest or anything could happen. Is your business going to succeed if you cannot be there?
Write this down if you are taking notes. There is no way that you can make the Move to Millions without having these things in place. We have been building out for you this entrepreneur’s legacy kit. You are welcome. We have been doing it for you because we love you that much, and we want your business to make the impact that you created it for. We have got three things in this legacy kit. We have got your solid legal foundation, your intellectual property protection, and your standard operating procedures. Mariah, what else belongs in this legacy kit?
You need insurance, and probably a lot of it, to be honest, on two fronts. I’m going to go both ways. I tell all of my clients this. You all are getting the tee. I tell this in consultations. You need business insurance for your business. That protects you from liability in case you get sued and all of that but you also need insurance from the perspective of if something were to happen to you. It’s similar to life insurance before your business. A lot of people call it key person’s insurance.
I’m not a life insurance agent. I don’t play one on tv. You need to go and seek advice about your specific situation, how much you need, and all of that. You need that for your business because if something were to happen, you don’t want to have to drain your business’ profits and revenue to pay off debts. If you plan on selling it, you don’t want any of that money to have to come out of your business’ pockets.
The insurance is there for you to be able to pass down a business if you would like to. Even if you don’t and you want to wrap things up, that money is going to help your family or whoever to wrap things up without having to pull money out of your estate or whatever. That’s money that could be going to your spouse, to your kids, to your nieces and nephews, to your aunts and uncles, and your siblings. That’s important money you want to keep.
Millionaires and billionaires have mastered the art of keeping money, not just making it. For you all to learn some of these tools and how to keep the money. This is a way that you keep money, having insurance. Insurance is not nice to have in the front. You also need personal life insurance. I will go ahead and put that out there. Especially if you are married and if you have kids, if you have people that are depending on your income, you need that as well.
Having insurance is a way that you can keep your money. Insurance is not a “nice to have”; it’s a “must have.”
You need disability insurance. Health insurance. As you said, a lot of insurance that you need to do this. There are a lot of people who used to work in Corporate America. They left mass exodus. They got fired. They attempted to do COBRA. It was expensive. I’m talking specifically about health insurance. They didn’t do it, and they are unprotected.
The one thing you don’t want is to end up in the hospital and get those hospital bills. It is worth it in the short-term to pay for it in advance and never need it than to need it and not have it. That’s the benefit of having insurance for all of these insurances, which are important. What else is in this legacy kit?
I will talk about business succession for a little bit. There are a lot of moving pieces to this. A lot of this is encompassing some things that we have already mentioned. If you form your company, whatever form that is governing your entity, so your operating agreements, your bylaws, and your partnership agreements, you will want to have a plan in there. There should be some stuff in there about what is going to happen. Should something happen to you? If you are in business with other people, this is especially important because if something happens to you, a lot of people don’t want to be in business with your spouse.
That’s what’s going to happen if you are married or it’s going to go to whoever their next. The thing is to be determined by your state’s loss, then there’s the whole mess. You are going to have to deal with people who aren’t even business-minded, most likely, and it’s going to be a whole thing. On the base level, you need to be thinking about what is your vision for your company. Are you wanting to sell it? If so, then you might be looking at getting in place some buy-sell agreement.
If you are wanting to pass it down, who is taking it over? Who is managing your company after you don’t want to? I will say this too. A lot of people don’t think about this. We think about business succession in terms of when we die or whatever. We mentioned what happens if you are incapacitated. You are in the hospital. You can’t make decisions. Who’s making those decisions? Your documents and things need to outline that but also, what if you want to retire?
You wake up one day and be like, “I’m out of here. This is for the birds. I don’t want to do this no more.”
You are moving on to your next calling. You are moving on to whatever God has called you to do next. What’s the plan for that? You going to need to be at a base level. People always ask me, “What do you do to get started?” Start thinking about those things. A lot of people come to me, and they don’t know, and I’m like, “I’m just your guide. I’m here to put in place your goals and your vision. I need you to come to meet with some vision. I need you to come to me.” That’s also going to determine the legal tools and the vehicles that we put in place.
I need for you to come and be ready to talk about, “This is who I want to leave it to. They are already prepped and prime.” Going into that with the business succession, you need to pinpoint who that person is. I will say this for me, I’m an owner of a law firm and this might be true in a lot of other professional industries too. If you are reading this and you are in a professional field where you have to be licensed like a doctor, therapist, attorney or financial professional, I know for lawyers that the people that you pass a law firm down to can only be attorneys.
I technically can’t pass down my law firm to my children unless they are an attorney. Whenever that happens, I don’t have kids now, but you have to think about these things. That’s where bouncing ideas off of a professional can help because that stuff is going to come out in these conversations. A lot of people think that, “I can pass it down.” Maybe you can’t, though. Maybe you can’t pass it down to your kids.
Maybe your kids don’t want it. We have had these conversations, and my husband does not want Incredible One Enterprises. If something happens to me or if I decide that I don’t want to do this business anymore, he doesn’t want it. He has been very clear about that. As we were going through this process with our own legacy management team and figuring out all of the things that we needed, I had to make some tough decisions. I had to figure out, “What would happen if,” because he’s not interested and seeing it continue.
A big part of ours is making sure that our IP gets to live on. Going through the process of developing, trademarking, and protecting all of our content so that we could license it. Even though Incredible One Enterprises could potentially cease to exist, our content, the Move to the Millions method, and all of our frameworks and methodologies. We have 25 different frameworks that we teach to our clients. All of those things are protected so that they could all be licensed, and other companies could use our stuff to continue the work that we do out in the world.
That was something that I had to think about as a part of my plan, and I wasn’t ready to think about it but it was essential. I want to read something that you wrote. When you put the things in for what you wanted to talk about on the episode, you said, “Securing our legacy is about being a leader, being a good steward and being intentional about our decisions and about understanding that our decisions affect the spheres of influence that are tied to us.” I wanted to make sure that we got to talk about that. This legacy kid is Bomb.com, and we are creating an amazing tool for everybody who’s reading but securing your legacy is about being a leader.
Securing your legacy is about being a good steward. Securing your legacy is about being intentional about your decisions and understanding that your decisions affect the spheres of influence that are tied to you. We got to pull on that. I’m talking about how it hit me when I read it. I know I’m a leader. I’m a good steward but I didn’t connect the dots the way that I did when I read that.
If you are focused on legacy, that means that you have decided that your leadership skills are going to win over your fears, doubts, and even your disbelief that one day you are going not to be here. Whatever the things you have been telling yourself, you’ve decided that leadership is more important if you focus on securing your legacy.
I wanted to make sure that I pulled that out so that we could talk about leadership and the role that leadership plays in legacy because it’s important because that goes in the entrepreneur’s legacy kit. It’s a leadership plan. Let’s talk about leadership for a little bit. I’m going to leave it to you to talk about it, and I’m going to add it to the list.
I’m glad you read it because I thought about it too. I felt like I was in the spirit when I wrote those things. The way that you said it hit me. I feel like you have decided to be a leader above all things. Above all, your fears. It starts with the decision, “Am I going to boss up and fill the role of leader of my life?” A lot of us think that we are not leaders.
Even if anybody in here was not an entrepreneur, you are still a leader because you are a leader of yourself. If you have a family, you are the leader of your family. If you have friends, you have all spheres of influence. It doesn’t matter what the sphere is. It could be anything. If you’ve decided to do that, then you are required to be a good steward.
Even if you’re not an entrepreneur, you’re still a leader because you’re a leader of yourself.
We are building out the entrepreneur’s legacy kit. I have no words. I don’t know if you remember what Mariah said before but in case you don’t remember, this is the Darnyelle version of what Mariah said. If you are a leader, then you are required to be a good steward. Put the credit card down, Anna Mae. Some of you all need to stop. That was good. Something else I was looking at, you said we need to know the strategies of how to keep the bag. Something that our counterparts have mastered, and it’s time for us to get on the same page. That correlates so nicely with this. If you are a leader, you are required to be a good steward.
You are required. If you are not willing to steward over what you have been called to manage while you are alive, what’s happening? What’s going on? That is not the trait of a leader. A leader does not back down. They are very resolved. Leaders are very resolved in the mission of whatever it is that they are trying to do. They are anchored in it. They are going to do whatever it takes. It doesn’t matter how much time, how many resources, and how much money.
They are going to find a way to make it so that whatever it is that they have been called to do in this season, whoever they have been called to manage or to lead in, the people that they are learning over are taken care of no matter what. You are compassionate in that way. A leader should be that. That’s a form of servanthood. Being compassionate about what you have been called to manage in this life.
I love that legacy is predicated on leadership. You know how you know something but you don’t know it, and I heard you say it or read it and I’m like, “That is so good.” I want everybody to start looking at being a leader differently because if you consider yourself to be a leader, and if you run your own business and grow your own company, you are, in fact, a leader. There is responsibility. You have a fiscal responsibility to be a good steward so that those that are going to be here when you are not are not paying for the decisions that you did or didn’t make when you were supposed to be leading.
Let’s go back through our entrepreneur’s legacy kit, so we can see if there’s anything that we missed. We are going to start with a solid legal foundation and have all of our contracts, privacy policies, terms, and agreements, operating agreements, vendor agreements, and partnership agreements. We are going to have intellectual property protection for our trademarks and our copyrights.
We are going to have our standard operating procedures. We are going to have all the insurance, business insurance, key person insurance, life insurance, and health insurance. We are going to have a business succession plan and figure out the succession plan for our business by asking ourselves, “What is our vision for our company?” We are going to have a leadership plan. Is there anything else that needs to go in this entrepreneur’s legacy kit?
You guys need a personal estate plan. You need a personal estate plan. I don’t care who you are. Get it done. Stop playing around. I’m sorry but this gets me so fired up every time. We talked about being a leader. A leader doesn’t say things like, “My family is going to take care of it when I’m gone, so I don’t need to do anything.” A leader does not say, “I feel like I don’t have anything, so I don’t need to plan.”
Do people say, not leaders, “My family will take care of it when I’m gone?”
You would be surprised at what I hear.
I know you would know because that’s what you are talking to people about all day, every day. That’s cray-cray.
“I need to get to a certain place before I do this.” I shared my own personal story. At what point are you going to decide to get your stuff in order? When are you going to decide to get that in place? You are not promised tomorrow. Please stop thinking that you do. You are making arrogant assumptions about God’s time.
I’m sorry for all of your edges that are no longer on your head. You said they are making arrogant assumptions based on God’s time.
You are trying to put your own feet in God’s shoes as if you know when something is going to happen. People always are like, “I will do it when I do this.” It’s like, “What happens if you don’t do that? What if the X thing doesn’t happen, then what?” You are still at the place where you were. We are talking about being a leader. If something happens to you, let’s talk about your family. If you care so deeply about your family and what you are a leader of, then why are you leaving it up to chance as far as are, if they are going to be taken care of, should something happen to you?
That’s irresponsible. I can tell you this because I have been on the other side of that, where my mom did not do the planning, and I love my mom. She was my best friend. I wish to God she would have sat down and done an estate plan for real. I know she would have wanted money to go. I was in college at the time. She would have wanted some money to go to my college tuition. This was before I went to law school. She knew that I wanted to be an attorney. I have wanted to be an attorney for a real long time. She knew my dreams of being an attorney.
I knew she would have wanted some money set aside. She was big on education. She was a college professor at a college. Education was extremely important to her. I know she would have wanted that. I know she would have wanted for me to have a down payment for my first home. I ended up buying a house. I know she would have wanted some seed money for me to start my business.
If you cared that much about your kids and even your spouse to make sure that they aren’t freaking struggling, when something happens, they are already grieving. Don’t make it harder. Are you kidding me? The leader does not do that, and I will say this. A lot of people think too that a state plan is something that you get in place, and you said it and forget it. It’s not.
An estate plan is something that you set in place and forget about it. It’s a living and breathing plan that grows as your life does.
It is a leaving and breathing plan that grows, breathes, and shrinks as your life does. The point that you are trying to get to doesn’t matter. Please divorce yourself from that thought immediately because the plan that you put in place now is probably not going to be the same. Even three years from now, your life could change. You could have more kids. You could have kids. You could get married or get divorced.
Somebody that you name in the plan potentially, something could happen to them. You have to make sure that all of the things aren’t the law changes you. Sometimes I have to contact my clients and be like, “This law changed. It impacts your plan. Let’s sit down and strategize so that we can make sure that it’s still accomplishing the goals that you have set out to accomplish.”
Please get it out of your mind that you need to get to a certain place in your life or your business to do a business succession plan. You need to think now, “What do you want?” It will change. That’s why you need to have a good relationship with an attorney. Like you, as a business owner, you should probably have a good relationship with a bank. You need to have a good relationship with the people.
Let’s add professional relationships.
You need to have good relationships with the people that you bank with. If you need some money, you need a loan or whatever, then they know your face. You sit down with them. Even if it’s annually, you go and make an appointment with the person who you have made a relationship with. They are there to work for you anyway, so make sure that you take advantage of them.
Do that. This is the benefit of having a good relationship. An attorney is supposed to be a trusted advisor for you. I pray that each of you that are reading that you find that person as part of your financial and legacy team so that you can go to them when your life, the law, and family dynamics change.
Whatever the case is, you can go to them and say, “This happened. Can we sit down and talk?” I’m more than willing. I love it when people are involved in their legacy. I love that because I’m like, “Let’s sit down and have a conversation.” I genuinely want what is best for the people that I work with, and I pray that you all find a trusted advisor that is going to do the same for you, and you should as you should.
I didn’t know when we started this conversation that we were going to give entrepreneurs the game. We literally created the entrepreneur’s legacy kit. There are nine things in the legacy kit. This is amazing. I’m excited for those of you who are reading and will read back to this episode over and over again. To figure out what you need to be thinking about now, I’m big into being proactive instead of being reactive. When it comes to legacy, you absolutely need to be proactive and not reactive. Here’s your opportunity to literally start working through this pseudo checklist that we created for you in this episode to make sure that your legacy will lead or that your leadership will create a legacy, either way, you want to do it.
We all want our legacy to lead. We have decided or it has been decided for us, that our son has set. I want my legacy to lead for my family, for my future babies, and for my future grandbabies. I want them not to have to figure out what they are going to do now because I had enough foresight and vision to decide in advance that I was going to leave them. One of my biggest dreams is that when my children, and even my grandchildren, turn eighteen and they are at that crossroads and trying to decide, do they go to college? Do they start a business?
What do they do? Do they get a trade? What are they doing? Whichever option they choose is completely funded because of Darnyelle. Whichever one. If they choose to go to college and, let’s say, they get a scholarship, then they can take that money, and it’s their first house or that’s seed money for their first business.
If they decide they don’t want to go to college, they want to be an entrepreneur like me, whoever I am to them, there’s the seed money for their first business. There’s a trust that has already been established that has guidelines and parameters because I led with my legacy so that I could determine for them how they would use my legacy to go to the next level. This is so good. I almost don’t want it to end but I know that we do have to start to round things down. You said so much, powerful. Anything else that we didn’t cover that’s important for readers to know about their legacy kit?
I mentioned it, but I would say make sure you have a legacy team. You need to have your life insurance.
I’m going to add that. We put that as per business professionals.
Your life insurance agent, estate planning attorney, and business attorney, sometimes could be the same people. I do both, so you could find that in the same person or maybe you have different people. It doesn’t matter as long as you have both and then your CPA. You need to make sure you got a good relationship with a good CPA or a CFO or financial team, whatever.
Potentially, a certified financial planner. If you are looking to build generational wealth during life, they could help you create a real plan surrounding your goals. Some of those people. I might be leaving some people off. If you are in real estate, make sure you got a good real estate broker. You know all of that.
We talk about this all the time. There’s a comprehensive list somewhere of all of the things that they need to think about. Before I let you go, I got to ask you our closing questions to round out our time together. This has been fabulous. I’m so excited for our readers because they have a plan that they can start working on. What is your favorite quote?
My favorite quote is, “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
I love Matthew 6:33.
That’s my anchor scripture.
What’s the book that you read that has made a difference as you continue to move your business to millions?
I have read many. Two, I would say. I’m a cheat but I’m going to say two. The one is Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It’s a book on negotiation. If you are a business owner, you have got to pick that book up. It is so life-changing with any of the conversations you have in business with clients or any person. It’s very helpful. It helps in your personal life as well. The last book that I read that I loved was Clockwork by Mike Michalowicz. He also wrote Profit First, in case you all know. I love all his books but I love that. It’s about making sure. It’s systematizing your business, and that helps with the legacy entrepreneur kit. If you are looking to make sure that your business runs without you, get Clockwork.
That’s a great book, and then what’s the one tool you swear by?
The Bible for guidance and anchoring. You need something to anchor you, for sure. For me, that’s the Bible, Jesus Christ, and then also therapy.
You are a cheater. Take all these extra latitudes. It’s all good. I love both of them. What I love about that is you got to start us on a whole another episode that because you have Jesus doesn’t mean you don’t need a therapist. I love that you recognize the difference and that you have both. This has been an absolutely amazing conversation. Thank you for coming and imparting to our readers and adding so much value.
I love watching you shine out in the world. I love what you are up to. I even love having had an opportunity to participate in your journey. This has been great. Thank you so much for being here. We will make sure that people can connect with you and find you, especially if they don’t have an attorney on their own legacy team. Thanks again for hanging out with us, and we will see you guys again soon.
