The LEGACY PROJECT is a movement to empower individuals and families to take control of their lives and to equip them with the knowledge and resources to live their legacies.
We are a community of like-minded professional advisors, reshaping the wealth and estate planning industries, helping individuals and families live their legacies through conversation and collaboration.
Our Mission
The Legacy Project began with a simple premise: Traditional estate planning simply does not work.
Despite individuals and families having traditional estate planning documents like wills and trusts in place, statistically there is still an overwhelming likelihood that an individual’s or family’s wealth will be made in lost in three generations.
The question is WHY?
We believe that the answer lies in the difference between a traditional “estate plan” and what we call a “legacy plan.”
To understand that difference, we must first understand the difference between your “estate” and your “legacy.” Simply put, your “estate” is WHAT you own when you die (i.e., your property and certain other rights). Your “legacy,” on the other hand, represents the sum total of your life’s existence—it is not just your WHAT; it is your WHY.
Another way of describing your “legacy” is to say that it is a representation of your life’s purpose, which is exactly what is missing from a traditional estate plan and why wealth is so often made and lost in three generations. Traditional estate planning—through its many legal vehicles and tax-planning strategies—focuses solely on the preservation of assets. That is, the preservation of WHAT and individual owns. It fails to incorporate WHY an individual owns those assets. Economists will agree, the value of anything is derived from its application. The dollar in my pocket is worth nothing until I put it to use in some way. I have to give my dollar direction and purpose in order for it to be effective. So, if your goal is to preserve wealth for multiple generations to come, then you must define and preserve the purpose (or WHY) of that wealth, which is what legacy planning is designed to do.
However, legacy planning goes a monumental step further because your legacy is not just something you leave behind when you die, it is something you are living right now. The life you live is ultimately the legacy you will leave behind.
Our mission is to empower individuals and families to take control of their lives and to equip them with the knowledge and resources to live their legacies. In order to do so, however, we must help those involved in the traditional estate planning industry to make the quantum leap over to legacy planning. Instead of talking about “death and taxes,” we should be talking about “life and purpose.”