Short sleeves to Short Sleeves in Three Generations

Ever heard the term “immigrant advantage?” A lot of my favorite influencers talk about this, including Gary V, Wes Watson, and many others. When you come from nothing, you have nothing to do but fight, scrap, and compete, which oftentimes leads to massive success. But the danger comes when the second and third generations are handed the wealth, the financial assets we discussed, with out the work ethic, grit, and experiences that it took to create the wealth in the first place. The first generation came here with nothing. They struggled and saved and ultimately passed on some hard-earned wealth to their kids. This second generation witnessed the struggle and gained the understanding, the knowledge and the wisdom of how the first generation pulled it off, so they’re generally grounded and respect and understand wealth. Then, it goes to the third generation, the grandkids of the first generation. Well, the third generation never saw the struggle that it took the first one to get the wealth. They only saw the comforts and the good times and all the fruits of the labor that their parents enjoyed. So Gen 3, bless their hearts as our Southern friends say, were handed wealth, but they don’t see the process behind it, so they blow it and end up broke again. Short Sleeves to Short Sleeves in Three Generations.

The Dividend Lifestyle is a way to help protect your heirs from themselves. I work with some of the top estate planning attorneys in Florida. Sound, holistic estate and family planning go hand-in-hand with the Dividend Lifestyle. Suppose you have your legacy structured so that your kids and grandkids are getting the human assets and intellectual assets, and you’re doing the best you can to teach them these practices. If you also have the stock held in trust with distribution instructions, you’re even taking that a step further in helping protect future generations from themselves. Especially if you have younger beneficiaries, it’s a no-brainer. You have to work with a highly qualified estate planning attorney to do the proper planning, this is a key component of the Dividend Lifestyle, and this is where the synergies and efficiencies really come together with the taxes, investments, legal and legacy planning, all working together.

Even if the beneficiaries are older, you can set things up in a way where they can’t blow it. A properly structured trust can be drafted to accomplish anything you can dream of. Some of our clients structure their estate plans where the next generation can access and receive the dividends, but they can’t sell the stocks to buy the new electric Porsche they simply must have. They’re only going to get the dividend income until they reach a certain age or until they can prove themselves responsible enough to the trustee, the person responsible for overseeing the assets and making the distributions according to the document that the grantors, the people who funded it, put in place. The trustee is often a family member or trusted third party, such as a law firm or other qualified advisor, to carry out the instructions of the trust. Once the beneficiaries can prove to the trustee that they’re responsible and understand the human and intellectual principles, they can start earning a greater level of access to the wealth. If they’re never ready, for whatever reason, then they can live on the dividends, and they wouldn’t have access to the stock. This can be structured to last for hundreds of years, true generational wealth.