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Your Personal Legacy

Jeff Stemler, CLU, ChFC – Sr. VP Advanced Planning
(Asset Marketing Systems)

“Estate and Legacy Planning is only for the wealthy,” or so many people often think. They immediately focus on wills, trusts and all of the other “legal stuff”. These are essential documents, even if you have a modest estate because ultimately we all have an estate plan – either the one we create ourselves or the one that the State dictates. So if you want to control the distribution of your assets you will need to deal with the “legal stuff”.

However, there is another side of Estate and Legacy Planning – the human and personal side. It’s about passing on your personal beliefs, ethics, and life experiences. We all have those faded pictures of our grandparents or even our great-grandparents. Many of us never met them and they’re strangers staring out from pale photographs. I urge each of you to please take a moment to read the Personal Legacy Statement Guide and think about how much you would have treasured such a letter from your parents and grandparents.

On a personal note, on my 17th birthday, my grandparents came up to me and said they had a present for me. I immediately thought “It’s a car!” No, it wasn’t, it was a letter. A letter from them telling me how proud they were of me and talked about my future and the keys to leading a good life. The keys included being honest, trustworthy, kind and considerate. Among other things they shared their thoughts on God, and their love for my parents and our Country.

I did get a car that year, from my parents, and that car is long gone. However that letter is in my house and our children and grandchildren know their great, and great-great Grandma and Grandad — not as faded photographs but as loving and caring individuals.

Please take the time to give your heirs the precious gifts of your love and wisdom.


Asset Marketing Systems has prepared a valuable guide that you can use to help your clients identify assets to add to their estate. Click here to download the PDF today. Call Asset Marketing Systems to learn about our all-digital Estate Planning software that’s opening more doors and creating more value for advisors.

Click here to download the guide.