Podcast Episode Transcript

Cathy interviews Sara Ecklein, a private, professional fiduciary and founder of Trust and Honor in the San Francisco Bay Area.

[00:03:13] Cathy Curtis: Hi, Sara. Thank you so much for joining me on my podcast, Financial Finesse. This is a topic that I’m really intrigued about as I’m a financial advisor. And I believe you’ve told me that your industry is in its infancy. So, I want to learn as much as I want to share things with our listeners, so thanks.

[00:03:40] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, Cathy, it’s great to be here. Thank you for having me.

[00:03:45] Sara Ecklein describes the role of a private, professional fiduciary.

[00:03:45] Cathy Curtis: Great. So let’s get started with some basics. Can you describe what exactly is a private, professional fiduciary?

[00:03:56] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, so we’re in the state of California. So California is one of few states that has a license, but specifically for private professional fiduciaries that came about, I believe in about 2007.

[00:04:13] Sara Ecklein: Licensing became required in 2009. So that’s where this work has been done for very long. But in terms of licensing, it’s fairly new to the state and we’re one of only few that do have licensing.

[00:04:30] Cathy Curtis: Interesting. So just stepping back, so there’s a distinction here. It’s the private part, right? Because there’s always been corporate professional fiduciaries, is that.

[00:04:42] Sara Ecklein: Yes. And even the term like fiduciary, a family member, a non-professional can be acting in that role. So that’s where we really like to have that professional, the private professional piece in front of the fiduciary name, just making it clear the relationship.

[00:04:58] Cathy Curtis: Okay, that makes sense. And why is it that some states do not have this licensing?

[00:05:07] Sara Ecklein: I really can’t answer that. But California is steps ahead of most. So there’s the National Guardian Association and that I would direct people if they’re looking for a professional fiduciary and they’re not in the state of California, that would be a place to start.

[00:05:26] Cathy Curtis: Okay, great. So tell me your journey to becoming a private, professional fiduciary.

[00:05:34] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, so I came to this work fairly young. My path really started feeling very cold towards serving an end-of-life care. I was with a loved one during her last three days of life, and I just felt this overall sense of calling and leaning into supporting her through the dying process. And so I really considered, I thought I was going to be a hospice nurse. So that’s really where my kind of career began to take shape and form.

[00:06:07] Sara Ecklein: I already had a bachelor’s degree, so it was looking like I was needing to go back to school, and I went and got my nursing assistant license just to get my feet wet. And make sure before going back to school, that would be the right path. And I’m happy I did that because I quickly realized that nursing wasn’t quite the right fit.

[00:06:28] Sara Ecklein: And eventually my path led me to working in a private fiduciary’s office out in Sacramento. And really the rest is history. I fell in love with the work. It really combined a lot of my personal strengths and interests. I really described it as like a head and heart alignment of very engaging work. Every, every client is unique, and there’s absolutely always that piece of being of service and making a difference.

[00:06:56] Sara Ecklein: And of course, there’s always that thread going through every case at the end-of-life care. So even if it’s before someone passes, I work with clients in the planning phase. And so it’s really building the relationship long before they need a professional fiduciary to act. But it’s really supporting families and planning.

[00:07:19] Sara Ecklein: And then of course, I do support clients through that transition, acting as agent for healthcare, also as their trustee power of attorney, and then after they’ve passed, really being the one that’s entrusted to carry out their final wishes.

[00:07:36] Cathy Curtis: This is a major responsibility. It is fascinating to me because that’s, that is a lot of different roles that you take on for the individual.

[00:07:45] Cathy Curtis: It crosses the spectrum. And I’m wondering, so how does a client find you generally speaking?

[00:07:55] Sara Ecklein: For the most part, they’re finding me. They’re either referred to me by their attorney, their estate planning or elder law attorney, or through other professionals like yourself. Occasionally a CPA will send their clients come tax time to me. But for the most part it is through estate planning attorneys is where clients are connected to me.

[00:08:19] Cathy Curtis: Okay. So is your clientele mostly a wealthy clientele?

[00:08:26] Sara Ecklein: Not always. I would say there of course needs to be a certain amount of assets. Otherwise getting connected with the public guardian is usually where I direct people if they really don’t have many assets. But they do need support with managing affairs.

[00:08:43] Sara Ecklein: In the Bay Area, it is hard because middle classes seeming like much larger estates now. But typically, I have a minimum of about $500,000 in assets to engage my services.

[00:09:00] Cathy Curtis: Okay, that makes sense. And then it sounds like you act as a resource for those people who don’t have the asset level, and you refer them to other resources such as the public guardian.

[00:09:16] Sara Ecklein: Yes, absolutely. And a lot of times at that point it might not even be the client themselves reaching out to me. It might be a family member, even an attorney reaching out to me asking, “Who do you know or who can help?”

[00:09:28] Sara shares why and when someone may seek her services as a private fiduciary and what her intake process looks like.  

[00:09:28] Cathy Curtis: Okay. Now, in many cases, family members just take on this role, the roles that you take on, right? So is it mostly single people that contact you, or is it a family member that says, “Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t even know where to begin to do all these things. I need help.” What happens?

[00:09:54] Sara Ecklein: It’s a combination. I do have many clients that they really don’t have any family living. Maybe they never married, they never had children, and now they’re in their eighties and they’re beginning to decline and need some support.

[00:10:11] Sara Ecklein: But I also have plenty of people that have families and are married. And I’m thinking in the situation of planning, I work with a lot of couples where they’re planning in the event that one of them has passed and the other one’s incapacitated. Sometimes they have children and sometimes they don’t. If their children don’t live locally, and we’re seeing this more and more, families are living further.

[00:10:37] Sara Ecklein: That doesn’t really help when you know mom or dad need that hands-on support, setting up bill pay and care management and all of that. It can be really a full-time job.

[00:10:49] Cathy Curtis: Yes, definitely. It really can. Yeah, and, and it’s, in many cases, I’m sure children are busy with their own lives, their own children, careers, and they want the support.

[00:11:01] Sara Ecklein: So that’s, that, and then we’re also seeing divorces and then second or even third marriages and these blended families.

[00:11:09] Sara Ecklein: It can be really helpful to just have a neutral party act in the role of trustee so that no one’s feeling like they’re taking sides or playing favorites. And it can just make things much easier when it is time to administer the trust.

[00:11:27] Cathy Curtis: Okay. So in that case, you do not get involved in the affairs until the trusteeship is triggered, which means someone dies or gets very ill.

[00:11:41] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. Typically, it just depends on the documents, but for the most part it’s at the time of incapacity or death.

[00:11:50] Cathy Curtis: Okay. Depends. Let’s take, I’m gonna just give an example situation. Let’s say there’s a single woman in her eighties, lives alone, is in fairly good health, but is thinking towards the future. Family members have died, and she contacts you and says,

[00:12:11] Cathy Curtis: “I’m not quite sure what’s gonna happen with my health in the next few years. And what can you do to help me make sure my affairs are in order and I’m taken care of?” What would your response be and what’s your process?

[00:12:25] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. When I start working with clients in that phase, I do require that they’re already working with an estate planning attorney.

[00:12:33] Sara Ecklein: Most of them already have, and they are working with their attorney. Their attorney is the one that’s advising them that you really need to get someone in this place. You need to name them in your documents. If they’re not working with an attorney, that’s gonna be my first requirement and step that if they wanna work with me.

[00:12:53] Sara Ecklein: You need to find yourself an estate planning attorney. So in those roles, this scenario you laid out, it sounds like this woman is going to need help, not only with her finances and bill pay and acting if she lacks capacity and is needing support while living. And also needing potentially a trustee if she has enough assets.

[00:13:15] Sara Ecklein: But she’s also going to be needing support with healthcare decision making. So typically, I’m named in all three roles, successor, trustee, durable power of attorney and agent for healthcare in the advanced healthcare directive. So once I have a consultation with a client and we both feel like it’s the right fit, I have a pretty thorough intake process.

[00:13:41] Sara Ecklein: It does include reviewing a draft of their estate planning documents, of course, and getting copies of all signed documents once they have been executed. And then I have my own intake forms that are pretty thorough and in depth that’s not only gaining information from them about the actual trust assets.

[00:14:03] Sara Ecklein: But it’s really gathering information about them as a person. And as a fiduciary, I like to plan in the event of all the scenarios of when I’m going to get involved. And more times than not, I’m getting involved in the event of incapacity. It’s not death. Most people don’t just pass away in their sleep.

[00:14:24] Sara Ecklein: It’s a subtle, slow decline over typically many years. In that situation, I’m really working alongside the client. And supporting them.

[00:14:35] Cathy Curtis: And when you say, just specifically when you say supporting them and working alongside them. So during this phase where they’re still healthy and not incapacitated, do you set up regular meetings with them or touchpoints of some kind?

[00:14:52] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, so I have annual drumbeat that I like to have a check in phone call and just make sure nothing’s changed on their end. I also see it as a time for me to update them on myself and my business. The profession. For professional fiduciaries, we have to be named individually and document as much as I have. A business, Trust and Honor, that business can’t be named in any of those roles that we outlined before.

[00:15:20] Sara Ecklein: Successor trustee, durable power of attorney, agent for healthcare. I think it’s important to continue that relationship and keep them up to date on where am I with the business and also where are. I found that over the years we don’t have that check in. People update their phone number, they move, they even update their estate planning documents, and a lot of times the successor trustee isn’t kept up to date.

[00:15:48] Sara Ecklein: So that’s where I find that’s really crucial and important. And then I really leave it up to the client to book a consultation on an as needed basis. So sometimes, significant change going on in their life, or maybe they’re making significant changes to their estate planning documents. They can always initiate scheduling an hour consultation with me and just going through the changes they’ve made.

[00:16:16] Cathy Curtis: Okay. Now, as far as the licensing, the role you take on is a very personal role. As trustee, it basically gives you complete authority over your clients’ assets and everything. So what kind of, what happens with the licensing? A big background check, all those things. But could you talk to that a little bit?

[00:16:45] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, so we’re licensed through the Professional Fiduciary Bureau. It’s a branch of the Consumer Affairs in the state of California. So our license renews every year, which is I think is much more frequent than most professional licenses. And we have to report how much, how many assets are under management, how much we’re really controlling, and the types of cases and the number of cases.

[00:17:11] Sara Ecklein: So for my practice, I don’t specialize in conservatorships or any kind of court supervised cases. Some fiduciaries that’s really heavy in their practice. So there’s, the bureau really is asking us every year, how many conservatorships do you have? How many powers of attorney do you have? How many probated states do you have?

[00:17:36] Sara Ecklein: How many trusts do you have? And then if you’re managing any funds for those clients, the total of them.

[00:17:44] Cathy Curtis: Okay, let’s talk specifically about managing funds. So in this part I’m really curious about, and I am an investment advisor, a registered investment advisor, and some of my listeners will be other financial advisors and probably will have similar questions.

[00:18:03] Cathy Curtis: Can you actually manage assets, meaning buying and selling securities?

[00:18:10] Sara Ecklein: No, I don’t. I really, my license doesn’t allow for me to give legal advice, tax advice. I’m not a financial professional, so I’m really working alongside a team. Come tax time, I’m working with a CPA to file the trust tax return of the client’s tax return.

[00:18:32] Sara Ecklein: I also am typically working alongside an investment advisor, so they’re the ones that’s really managing the portfolio.

[00:18:41] Cathy Curtis: All right, so let’s take this. This woman, this 80ish woman who did have an estate attorney because she is the one that referred to you, okay? This woman doesn’t have an investment advisor, but she has two million at Vanguard. Let’s say in that case, what happens?

[00:19:06] Sara Ecklein: It depends if the client still has enough capacity to communicate her wishes. Sometimes clients prefer that I continue that relationship and working with the financial advisor of their choosing. If not, if there maybe A) isn’t a preference, or B) I’m fully acting and this person really is not able to communicate their wishes, then I likely will be moving the account to a financial advisor that I work with regularly.

[00:19:35] Sara Ecklein: And I do that for several reasons. One of the pieces is that there is an efficiency to this. And wearing the fiduciary hat, I’m definitely trying to preserve the trust assets. My time does equate to fees. So that’s where, if I’m working with only, if I’m working with a financial advisor and there’s a handful of cases we can go through a quarterly or semi-annual review fairly quickly versus working with 20 different financial advisors, all of my clients choosing.

[00:20:12] Cathy Curtis: So that really makes sense. Okay. In the case of A, let’s say I referred you a client. You have the option to say, “Thank you for referring me the client, Cathy, but I need to run my practice efficiently. And I have a financial advisor that I work with.”

[00:20:33] Sara Ecklein: That is true. I think what helps, the other piece is that, especially with the financial services industry as there’s different types of advisors. And so a lot of clients are working with broker dealers. I find that’s, I end up having a conflict as a private fiduciary because I know that broker dealers are held to a different standard, not to that fiduciary standard that an investment advisor.

[00:21:00] Sara Ecklein: So that’s another reason where my preference is to work with financial advisors that I’ve already vetted and screened and they understand the standard that I’m held to, which private fiduciary are held to the Uniform Prudent Investors Act. We usually just call it the UPI. And so the financial advisors that I work with are familiar with that standard and would be diversifying the portfolio with that in mind and keeping that in mind as I’m acting as trustee or power of attorney.

[00:21:36] Cathy Curtis: Okay, that, that really makes sense to me. I’m a fiduciary advisor, just for example, a CFP, member of NAPFA, which is the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, and need to be a fiduciary as a registered investment advisor. So I would be the type of advisor that you would probably feel more comfortable working with.

[00:22:00] Cathy Curtis: Because I’m a fiduciary. Versus a broker dealer or a professional from one of the big banks, et cetera, that I’m not saying they’re not good advisors, but they are not held to that same standard.

[00:22:16] Sara Ecklein: That’s correct, yes. I recently had a consult, I believe it was last week, and this client really communicated her wish of continuing that relationship.

[00:22:27] Sara Ecklein: What’s great is we’re again working in the planning phase, and so I’m able to make note of that, that this really is her preference, and I’m also able to ask the questions. Look up this, this person’s license, and it’s very clear she is that kind of fee only fiduciary financial advisor. And so that already brings me some level of comfort just knowing that they, they’re held to that same fiduciary standard.

[00:22:53] Cathy Curtis: Yeah. So interesting. And I’m sure I’m not the only financial advisor that this happens to. Because I, like you, I have long-term relationships with my clients, and I get to know them very well. And some of them don’t have family or family they trust, and so they think that Cathy knows me really well.

[00:23:20] Cathy Curtis: She knows all my financial circumstances. She’s the obvious choice to be trustee and healthcare or financial power of attorney. And in my industry, that is a complete, not a complete, no-no. You can do it, but you have to do, you have to form a different kind of business and be willing to be audited every year and lots of regulatory hoops to go through.

[00:23:47] Cathy Curtis: So I’ve chosen not to do that. I do not want to take on that responsibility. So in my case, I many times need to find somebody for this client who wants a person to act in these roles, and it’s been a challenge for me. And so I was really glad to, I forget now how I was introduced to you.

[00:24:13] Sara Ecklein: I believe it was Ruth connected us.

[00:24:16] Cathy Curtis: Oh, okay. And then I came to find out from you the industry hasn’t been around that long, and then it made sense to me. Maybe that’s why it hasn’t been so easy to find somebody.

[00:24:29] Sara Ecklein: With professional fiduciaries, it’s, it is a pretty, there’s not a ton of us. I believe there’s less than a thousand actively licensed fiduciaries in the state.

[00:24:41] Sara Ecklein: So we’re a pretty small profession. That being said, a CPA, an attorney, their license allows for them to act in this role. So it’s not counting those professions.

[00:24:58] Cathy Curtis: Do you think most want to do that work in addition to their core?

[00:25:10] Sara Ecklein: I find more times than not, they’re not wanting to act in those roles for many different reasons. But yeah, trust administration, it is, there’s a lot of practicalities and things are always changing, so I could see more.

[00:25:26] How working with a private, professional fiduciary can benefit clients when it comes their healthcare.

[00:25:26] Cathy Curtis: Yeah. Not only the trust administration, it sounds like you get involved in healthcare. Talk about that a little bit.

[00:25:32] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. I actually think that’s really one of the benefits of working with a professional fiduciary. Our license allows for us to act in this role. From my understanding, like a corporate trustee, they cannot act in the role of agent for healthcare or even power of attorney.

[00:25:56] Sara Ecklein: If someone, this model client you’re describing, a single woman, really very little family or friend support, and she’s needing someone to act in all those roles. She could name a, like a bank. Let’s just use the example of Wells Fargo as her successor trustee. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of who’s going to act in those other roles.

[00:26:20] Cathy Curtis: So your job is very unique in that way. It really is.

[00:26:24] Sara Ecklein: Yes. And I, for me, I love the kind of blend of the work of working from the financial piece and working with the numbers and the administrative side, but also really working with people and serving people. And that healthcare piece. When you’re acting in all of those roles, I find serving clients, it becomes that much more special of a relationship. Because you really get to know your clients very well.

[00:26:52] Cathy Curtis: Can you describe a situation where you had to get involved with the healthcare situation just to illuminate what you do.

[00:27:03] Sara Ecklein: Yes. So I actually started working with a client about two, two years ago, maybe a year and a half ago. Her attorney referred her to me. She was having a medical crisis.

[00:27:19] Sara Ecklein: Going in and outta the hospital, going home, falling, going back to the hospital, getting discharged 20 days later.

[00:27:29] Cathy Curtis: And not unusual that, and this will happen probably to most of us when we get older. Right?

[00:27:34] Sara Ecklein: Yes, hopefully not, but yes. This is not unusual, unfortunately at this point in time.

[00:27:43] Sara Ecklein: And she’s a lot of kind of what you were describing with this model client or sample client. She really has no family and never married, no children, and she really needed to have someone to step in and quickly figure out what’s going on with her medically and communicate with the medical providers. Because memory loss was beginning to be a factor in in her care.

[00:28:10] Sara Ecklein: Thankfully, she had enough capacity to sign documents, name me her power of attorney for both finance and healthcare. And I really hit the ground running for a while. I was, we were meeting a minimum of once a week, if not twice a week. Because she was having a full on healthcare crisis on top of like a financial crisis because her bills were unpaid for about eight months.

[00:28:35] Sara Ecklein: And so I was figuring out what’s going on. Where are the assets? What does she have, what are the bills that she actually owes? What can I argue and bring down and remove fees? And then beginning to work with her team. At that point, she had been placed at an assisted living facility.

[00:28:58] Sara Ecklein: At least her day to day, she was now much more safe than going back home. But it required a lot, and I don’t wanna share too much about her. But I was working with a lot of specialists and going back, asking for medical records. Because she really didn’t have anything and couldn’t really remember what was being advised.

[00:29:23] Sara Ecklein: So it was a lot of working alongside her primary care physician who was wonderful and going back and figuring out and putting the pieces together and getting her a formal diagnosis, figuring out a care plan. Also beginning to work and figure out what is her budget, because at that point her income was very low, and her expenses were just very high because of the medical.

[00:29:51] Cathy Curtis: That’s incredible. Just think about how many roles you took on just in this situation.

[00:29:58] Sara Ecklein: Yes. No, it was a lot.

[00:30:01] Cathy Curtis: Yeah, it was a lot. And this person waited for a crisis. The crisis triggered hiring you, right? Is that the case a lot of the time, or do people hire you long before they get to that point?

[00:30:20] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. And really, so for me, I’m a very young private fiduciary, and I would say that really stands out for me. I’m in my mid-thirties and there’s very few professional fiduciaries in their thirties and forties. I believe the average age is actually over 60 for the profession. Don’t quote me on that.

[00:30:41] Cathy Curtis: That sounds, I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s like the financial advisor, independent financial advisor, although that’s changing. There’s a lot more younger people coming in now.

[00:30:53] Sara Ecklein: Yes. Yeah, so I work a lot with clients in the planning phase because of my age. Obviously, someone who’s a seasoned fiduciary in their sixties.

[00:31:04] Sara Ecklein: If there’s an immediate need, they can do a great job. But if someone is planning and doesn’t need a fiduciary in 10, 15, 20 years, that doesn’t really help the client. Someone nearing retirement. So that’s where for my practice, I work a lot with clients in the planning phase. I really love it because you build the relationship long before services are needed.

[00:31:32] Sara Ecklein: And so it’s a slow progression, and I find that’s a wonderful way of getting to know people, building that trust in those situations. Because typically, as much as we can do planning, crises still occur. And these situations and these scenarios, it’s hard to navigate. But it makes it so much easier if you’ve built that relationship over the years versus someone that you’re just meeting now.

[00:31:57] Sara Ecklein: And we’re still able to do it, but that, building that trust and building that relationship can take time. And if you’re losing capacity and losing memory loss and so many things can be lost and that can be hard for anyone to just accept and understand.

[00:32:23] Cathy Curtis: I think denial is a normal part of that process. I see that all the time with my older clients. Nobody wants to admit that they’re losing their memory and people clinging on to things like being able to drive and being able to go out independently and all those, they don’t wanna give it up.

[00:32:39] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, I see that a lot. So it does make it easier to have those conversations when we’ve known each other for a long time.  

[00:32:49] Cathy Curtis: Let me, let’s segue to your business, like business model. This, I’m curious about this. So it, it sounds to me like you probably have several clients that are years away from needing you full-time.

[00:33:07] Cathy Curtis: Meaning you’re the trustee. All that’s triggered. And in the meantime, you’ve onboarded them as a client. You have developed a way to touch base with them periodically, but how are you paid during that time and is that an issue for someone with a business like yours?

[00:33:27] Sara Ecklein: Hasn’t presented an issue for me yet.

[00:33:30] Sara Ecklein: For me, I really charge a one-time flat fee of a thousand dollars to go through my intake process. And that’s going over what we discussed before, reviewing a draft of their documents. Sometimes I need a few edits on my end, and so I’m communicating directly with their attorney on those changes that I would require and if they wanted me to act in the role of trustee, power of attorney agent for healthcare.

[00:33:58] Sara Ecklein: And once we get through that, and the intake forms are complete, and then I follow up with a consultation to go over any questions that I may have, or they may have. And that, so that all covers my intake process. And I’m really essentially creating a file for clients long before they need me. But ongoing, I really don’t charge a fee unless, I just leave it as you can book a consultation with me on an as needed basis.

[00:34:30] Sara Ecklein: And I would just charge my hourly rate. But that’s really, if the client has capacity and they’re doing well, I’m not, I’m not initiating. That’s really coming from them.

[00:34:42] Cathy Curtis: Okay. That makes sense. And tell me again, how long have you been doing this for?

[00:34:46] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, I’ve been doing this work, I started working in the profession in 2014, so I’m approaching about nine years. And I went off on my own about two years ago.

[00:35:02] Cathy Curtis: Congratulations. That must have been an exciting moment.

[00:35:05] Sara Ecklein: Yes, it was. It was all during the pandemic. But yes, I worked for two well established fiduciary agencies before going off on my own and really learning from just, I’ve had amazing mentors along the way. So that has definitely helped me and in my practice.

[00:35:24] Cathy Curtis: And it sounds like there’s an association too you can use for mentorship roles and things like that.

[00:35:32] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. The Professional Fiduciary Association of California, we usually just call it PFA. That’s a wonderful place also just for consumers to go if they’re looking to find a professional fiduciary.

[00:35:45] Sara Ecklein: You can search based on location, and you can also search based on what service you might need specifically.

[00:35:56] Cathy Curtis: That brings up another question. And the pandemic changed a lot of things. For example, I, most of my clients prior to the pandemic were local clients, and I would see them in person periodically through the year.

[00:36:08] Cathy Curtis: Then the pandemic hit, and of course we all switched to Zoom. And I’m doing most of my meetings over Zoom now. And I also found that clients from other states started to contact me and I was able to take on those clients because it’s so easy now to build a relationship over Zoom.

[00:36:30] Cathy Curtis: Everyone’s used to it. In your case, how does that work for you? Do you still mostly work locally, or have you expanded into a broader audience?

[00:36:42] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, for the most part. Most of my clients are in the Bay Area,. So I’m based in Silicon Valley. I do have a pretty big reach, I think, throughout the Bay Area, going all the way from Marin County, Alameda Contra, Costa County.

[00:36:58] Sara Ecklein: I do have a few clients where they do live outta state. But I will preface it, it’s not really the client who’s still living. I’m really interfacing with a beneficiary that lives out of state.

[00:37:12] Cathy Curtis: Okay, so that’s different. And do you still meet most of your clients in person in the beginning of the relationship?

[00:37:19] Sara Ecklein: No. More and more now I’m doing phone and Zoom consultations.

[00:37:24] Cathy Curtis: Okay, so similar.

[00:37:26] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, similar and definitely with clients in the planning phase. That’s, my whole intake process is it’s all virtual and if clients want me to come out and do a home visit, then that’s something that would be an additional kind of fee in charging an hourly rate for me to come out to the house.

[00:37:44] Cathy Curtis: Okay, that makes sense. And can you describe who your ideal client would be? I know we all have an ideal client, the kind of person that we like to work with, that we know we have the expertise to help. And you probably have one too, and that fits your business model and all of those things. Could you describe that person?

[00:38:07] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, so there’s, I have a few. So, you know, one ideal kind of client is really a couple and they’re working in the planning phase. So I love this because they’re already working with a, typically a team of professionals. Typically, they already are working with a financial advisor. They’re already working with an estate planning attorney, and now they’re looking for professional fiduciary.

[00:38:32] Sara Ecklein: So I’m just one more kind of professional to add to their team and supporting them with their planning. I love couples like that because I find that they’re proactive in thinking ahead, and that’s really where I love to serve. I also am building the relationship and I’m more of a, almost like a consultant in a way. Because again, it’s long before they need me. And I find that those relationships just become that much more rewarding and enriching when they’re over the years and getting to know them and oftentimes their family.

[00:39:09] Sara Ecklein: Whoever that may include. And then I also specialize in an area called special needs trust. We haven’t really touched on that much during, during this phone call or interview.

[00:39:20] Sara Ecklein and Cathy discuss special needs trusts and why it can be helpful to have a trustee who specializes in this area.

[00:39:20] Cathy Curtis: Oh yeah, let’s talk about that now. That’s an important area.

[00:39:23] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. Special needs trust. The world of private fiduciaries is already pretty niche, and then it just gets that much smaller when it comes to special needs trusts.

[00:39:36] Sara Ecklein: There’s different types, and I don’t want to go down too much of a rabbit hole into detail. But what it tells me is that this, the beneficiary of the special needs trust is most likely receiving some sort of public benefit and for whatever reason, whether it’s the family or this beneficiary is about to receive money out.

[00:40:01] Sara Ecklein: We’re needing to preserve that public benefit. Either family can establish the special needs trust. This is called a third-party special needs trust. Sometimes there’s something like a medical settlement and the special needs trust will be established with a court order. That’s typically considered a first-party special needs trust.

[00:40:23] Sara Ecklein: But anyways, that’s an area that I do specialize in.

[00:40:27] Cathy Curtis: So when you say specialize, so an attorney sets up the special needs trust, right?

[00:40:33] Sara Ecklein: Yes. And then I would be named as trustee for that trust. Yeah, so I, my background, I managed public benefits for the fiduciary agency I worked at prior. So I did that for about six years and I really was the point person interfacing with Department of Social Services, Social Security Administration, and really advocating to maximize the client’s public benefits.

[00:41:04] Cathy Curtis: That’s an excellent and important niche to be in. And would you, how big a part of your business is that?

[00:41:10] Sara Ecklein: It’s about half at the moment. For my active cases, a lot of clients will be named as the families for the revocable living trust. So Mom and Dad’s Trust and then their trust will eventually fund the special needs trust. And so I’ll also be named in that.

[00:41:33] Sara Ecklein: It’s hard for me to say, but I get a lot of referrals also for families with disabilities because they’re planning that their child will most likely always be receiving some sort of public benefit.

[00:41:47] Cathy Curtis: So you must have built up a reputation as an expert in this area.

[00:41:52] Sara Ecklein: Yes, I think so. It really, with administering a special needs trust, there’s a lot of rules and you really need to have a good understanding of public benefits and the specific public benefits that the beneficiary’s receiving. Because that’s going to directly relate to how you administer that trust.

[00:42:12] Cathy Curtis: And can you give an example of a mistake a person can make if they don’t know all the rules?

[00:42:19] Sara Ecklein: Oh yeah. A lot of times I have taken over from non-professionals, or I’ve also come in and provided like a consultant or like case management services alongside like a family member who’s acting as trustee for a special needs trust.

[00:42:37] Sara Ecklein: Typically, a big no-no is giving cash directly to that beneficiary. Because that cash would count as income, and then that could jeopardize and they could lose their public benefits. So that’s, I’ve seen that happen a lot. Typically, there’s a lot of expenses that you’re not supposed to pay for.

[00:43:00] Sara Ecklein: Again, it’s always gonna depend on the type of public benefits that person’s receiving. But generally speaking, you typically don’t wanna pay for rent and food because those things would be counted, and that’s what like a public benefit, like SSI for example. That’s the, I find the most restrictive benefit.

[00:43:22] Sara Ecklein: And Social Security would actually cut back or even cut off that SSI. And really, when you’re wearing the hat of a trustee for a special needs trust, part of your duty is to make sure that beneficiary is maximizing their public benefits.

[00:43:42] Cathy Curtis: Absolutely. And that must be tough, I’m sure, and this probably happens to you. A trustee of one of those trusts may, or a beneficiary, the beneficiary of one of those trusts may come to you and ask you for money.

[00:43:59] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, a couple times.

[00:44:01] Cathy Curtis: Yes. And that takes a certain skill to handle a situation like that.

[00:44:07] Sara Ecklein: Yes. So I worked and provided case management services as well at the former fiduciary agency. And that really is a tool that I have in my tool belt with acting in the role of trustee. Because it’s working with the client and really building that relationship.

[00:44:26] Sara Ecklein: It’s hard depending on what the disability is. A lot of times I do work with clients that have some mental illness or cognitive impairment or developmental disability. And they really aren’t able to understand ever the rules of a special needs trust. I do try my best to explain, but beginning to support them, and then sometimes working with the team so that we can all reinforce what those rules are, that’s typically what that kind of looks like in those scenarios.

[00:44:56] Cathy Curtis: Very interesting. One, a segue to long-term care insurance. Do you ever recommend that your clients buy that type of insurance.

[00:45:08] Sara Ecklein: I don’t, because I can’t give financial advice.

[00:45:13] Cathy Curtis: So you consider that financial advice, not help?

[00:45:15] Sara Ecklein: Yes, I do. Yes. I will say that working with clients with long-term care insurance, I can see when the, if that’s a need, how it can really be such a benefit.

[00:45:32] Sara Ecklein: I think what’s hard is now finding long-term care insurance that’s really going to give you the coverage you need. That’s hard. I don’t know if you have any long-term care insurance agents, but I would love referrals.

[00:45:45] Cathy Curtis: I do actually. I’ll send those to you. Yeah, I do. It is a very complicated area and changes all the time.

[00:45:53] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. And from my understanding, they’re cutting back and back more and more of what they’re covering and shortening how much the time that they’re willing to pay and the amount they’re willing to pay. And a lot of policies don’t provide or don’t cover home care, but it’s only assisted living.

[00:46:12] Cathy Curtis: Yeah, it’s just like the whole public benefits arena.

[00:46:15] Cathy Curtis: You really have to dig into the details and understand what exactly the person is buying. And it’s their situation or not.

[00:46:25] Sara Ecklein: Yes. So that’s where like typically when clients are coming to me in the planning phase, like that’s their choice of whether or not they want to do that. I find that usually if they’re working with a financial advisor, which most of them are, that person would be making the recommendations.

[00:46:41] Sara Ecklein: And then if a client is using my services, I’m working with a client now and they’re still alive. It’s too late to get long-term care insurance.

[00:46:52] Cathy Curtis: So it’s effort to get it when you’re older and a lot of people don’t qualify anymore. It’s very difficult insurance to get actually. Let me ask you one last question about what you do, and then I wanna ask you about some of these amazing personal things you do.

[00:47:09] Cathy Curtis: So are you required as a private, professional fiduciary to do continuing education? Just for example, I’m a CFP®. We have to do so many CEs per year, and I’m just wondering about that in your profession.

[00:47:24] Sara Ecklein: Yes. Oh yeah, absolutely. For our licensing, it requires, I’m also a member of PFA, the Professional Fiduciary Association of California.

[00:47:35] Sara Ecklein: That also has its requirements. So yes, we do have continuing education and that comes due just like with our license every year.

[00:47:46] Cathy Curtis: Yes. Okay. Very similar to my profession.

[00:47:49] Sara Ecklein: Yeah. And it’s 15 hours a year and it must include two hours of ethics.

[00:47:57] Cathy Curtis: Yes. Okay. We have the same. Sara, is there anything else that you would like to share with our audience about what you do that I have not touched on?

[00:48:08] Sara Ecklein: I feel like we’ve covered a good amount. I would be happy if people are interested in potentially working with me or learning more about my services, you can go directly to my website. It’s trustandhonor.co. That’s dot co. There’s no M at the end. And there’s a contact us page so clients can enter their contact information and their unique situation. And I’m always, I offer a 30-minute complimentary consultation.

[00:48:42] Sara Ecklein: If they’d like to book a consult with me, I’m happy to.

[00:48:46] Cathy Curtis: And I’ll add that to the show notes as well. And then what is the name of the association you mentioned earlier in the call? That’s a good resource.

[00:48:55] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, so PFA, it’s the Professional Fiduciary Association of California. And their website is pfac-pro.org.

[00:49:11] Cathy Curtis: Okay, great. Now what I wanna ask you about, this is really fun fact. You completed the John Muir Trail, 213 miles. That’s amazing. When did you do that?

[00:49:28] Sara Ecklein: I actually did it in college. I had no real backpacking experience. I trained with a few friends for a year. We did several small backpacking trips leading up to it, and it ended up being a 20 day.

[00:49:45] Sara Ecklein: And I, it was wonderful. I’m so glad I did it then because getting away completely unplugged. That’s definitely not possible for me at this point in time.

[00:49:55] Cathy Curtis: Yeah, that would be really hard. Did you do it on your own?

[00:49:57] Sara Ecklein: I did it with a group of five people. Yeah, so it was wonderful. All through the High Sierras of California.

[00:50:05] Sara Ecklein: It was beautiful.

[00:50:07] Cathy Curtis: Did you do, what half dome part of that?

[00:50:10] Sara Ecklein: Half dome wasn’t, but actually hiking up half dome, that was the day trip that I did that inspired the John Muir Trail.

[00:50:21] Cathy Curtis: Okay. Yeah, I’ve done half dome twice. I don’t think I’m gonna do that again.

[00:50:25] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, actually when you’re hiking up to half dome, there’s like a junction that says Mount Whitney and 200 some miles from there.

[00:50:33] Sara Ecklein: And so yeah, we all were joking, oh yeah, let’s do it. And then we ended up doing it the next year.

[00:50:39] Cathy Curtis: Yeah, you ended up sevening. That’s amazing. Very. Okay. And then the other fun fact is that you’re a Tango dancer.

[00:50:48] Sara Ecklein: Yes, I met my husband that way. The Bay Area actually has a very active Tango community, so it, yeah, it’s definitely a love and passion of mine and really being embodied and connected is all part of Tango.

[00:51:07] Sara Ecklein: It’s gone away a little bit. It’s coming back, but Covid really stopped our practice.

[00:51:14] Cathy Curtis: No, that’s such a shame.

[00:51:14] Sara Ecklein: Yes, but it is coming back. I’m actually, I’m expecting, so I’m very pregnant. So at the moment I’m not doing much going out and dancing.

[00:51:26] Cathy Curtis: Oh my gosh. Oh, that’s another fun fact. And what’s great is you have your own business so you can probably take some time off, but work through your pregnancy as well, right?

[00:51:40] Sara Ecklein: Yeah, it’s definitely, I’m grateful to have built the business a few years ago. And I’m in a real sweet spot of being home-based and yeah. I’m still able to work and serve with many clients, and I also have an assistant that will be filling in for me by taking a bit of a leave.

[00:52:06] Cathy Curtis: Great. Sara, this has been a really interesting conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time, and I’ll be sure and put the show notes up, so people know how to get in touch with you.

[00:52:17] Sara Ecklein: Wonderful. Cathy, thank you again for having me. It’s been a pleasure.

[00:52:21] Cathy Curtis: You’re welcome. You take care.

[00:52:23] Cathy Curtis: Same to you.

[00:52:25] Sara Ecklein: Bye now.

[00:52:25] Cathy Curtis: Bye-bye.

Cathy Curtis: Welcome to my podcast, Financial Finesse. I’m thrilled to have you here to talk about estate planning.

Patricia De Fonte: Thank you so much for having me. I love estate planning. I’m a big nerd about it, and I will talk about it anywhere to anyone.

Cathy Curtis: Okay, great. Well, I’m sure you’re in the minority about loving estate planning. But maybe you can help our listeners love it too. And so that’s going to be our goal for this podcast.

Patricia De Fonte: I love it. I love it.

Cathy Curtis: Tell us briefly what do you want the listeners to know about you?

Patricia De Fonte: Sure. So, my name is Patricia De Fonte. And I am the founder of De Fonte Law, where my team and I practice estate planning with heart. My hashtags are love is love, families belong together, Black Lives Matter, stop Asian hate, ruthless. Why do you care? You care because when you’re trying to find the right estate planning lawyer for yourself, you have to share values, you have to have a good certain vibe with that person. Maybe you don’t mind telling the person all about your own worries and troubles.

Patricia De Fonte: But you also have to tell the estate planner about the alcoholism [inaudible] You have to tell the estate planning lawyer that you’re really afraid about your mom’s spending habits. You have to put it all on the table. Otherwise, a good lawyer cannot craft a plan that doesn’t just say where your stuff goes when you die, but really takes care of the people that are counting on you now, that would be beyond bereft if they lost you, your death will have a financial impact on them. And things need to be set up properly, so we don’t inadvertently hurt somebody [inaudible].

[04:30] Patricia De Fonte explains what an estate plan is in plain English and what documents a comprehensive estate plan typically includes.

Cathy Curtis: Great. Thank you for that. So, now you’re describing what an estate plan is right there in a few sentences. But I’m going to have you step back in an even simpler language for somebody who always hears this, you need an estate plan. They may even have an estate plan, but they don’t understand it. So, what exactly is an estate plan? And I was talking to you before we started that I wish the word estate could go away because it conjures up English manners and stuff. And it’s not. It’s what you own when you die and where’s it going to go? So, let me let you take it from here.

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah. It’s so much more than that. So, estate planning, from my perspective, I have an LLM in Estate Planning, Probate, and Trust Administration. I went to night school, it’s a master’s degree. It’s a whole big deal. And this area of the law touches on every other area of the law. So, we worry about family law, and corporate law, and intellectual property law, it’s endless. But from your perspective, from a client’s perspective, from a consumer perspective, it’s really just three things. What about me? What kind of documents do I have to put in place to make sure people know how to take care of me if I can’t take care of myself if I hit my head? Or if I slide into incapacity? How do I let people pay my rent, collect my wages, make sure I don’t get thrown out of my apartment, talk to my landlord, call my employer for my disability payments if I’m incapacitated?

Patricia De Fonte: So, what about me, that’s advanced healthcare directives. You can get one free doctor, you can do it for free, do it now. You can Google it. Whatever state you’re in, Statutory Advanced Health Care Directive. Go to it, print it out, fill it out. If you’re confused by it, ask your doctor, they will be so happy to have this conversation with you. Then you just get it notarized and you give it to the people that you love and you tell them what is supposed to happen so that there is no confusion. When it comes to your stuff, it’s a little more complicated. You need a power of attorney, there are lots of different kinds. I want you to do that with a lawyer. And the reason for that is that if you don’t do it with a lawyer, it’ll probably get rejected.

Cathy Curtis: Hmm. Talk about that just a little bit, if you don’t mind.

Patricia De Fonte: Well, imagine being on the receiving end, you work at the bank or you — the bank is a good example. You work at the bank and a person comes in with a durable power of attorney and it’s not signed by a lawyer because most of them are assigned by the lawyer who prepared them. How would you feel? Wouldn’t you be a little bit afraid to give this person the money that’s in the account? You’d probably want to see more documentation, you’re probably going to [inaudible] up to legal. So, then once it goes up to the legal department, that’s a black hole. I don’t know how long it’s going to be in there. So, if you were trying, like, let’s say you’re a married couple, and you’re trying to get into your spouse’s bank account, to get the money to pay the mortgage, you’re locked out. You’re locked out.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. This is such an important point because you’re stressed out at that point in your life, right? The last thing you want to do is deal with paperwork and then you run into a roadblock like that.

Patricia De Fonte: Exactly.

Cathy Curtis: So, that’s such a real-life situation that you just described for people.

Patricia De Fonte: And you know what? You can ask your investor advisor, your bank, your employer, hey, do you guys have a power of attorney that you guys use? Do you guys have permission slips if I hit my head to let certain people and to do certain things? How does it work with your company? How can I do this? Sometimes they have stuff. I know that when I work with clients, sometimes they bring to the signing meeting forms that their financial advisor has provided for them allowing — because their financial advisor doesn’t want our form. They want their own specific form. So, that’s number one.

Cathy Curtis: Right. [inaudible] custodians, right?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah.

Cathy Curtis: Custodians want to use their own form sometimes.

Patricia De Fonte: Exactly, exactly. So, that’s number one, what about me? Number two is, what about my stuff? So, there are basically three ways for your stuff to pass on to someone else after you die. Number one is the laws [inaudible]. What they use as the table of consanguinity. Those are ridiculous words, sounds like a vampire branch. All it means is that in every state, there is a statute that says when you die, this is who gets your money. And it can be a little bit more complicated than that. But there is a statute that says when you die, this is the person or the people who will get your stuff. So, if you do nothing, there’s a plan for you. Oh, by the way [crosstalk]

Cathy Curtis: [inaudible] want it to be that may not be who you want it to be.

Patricia De Fonte: Right. Yeah. That’s just the rule. And by the way, there’s — Well, on what about me, if you don’t take care of this, you might have to be conserved. So, the government does have a plan for you, if you don’t make your own plan. And that plan is hopefully it’s somebody who really loves you and not somebody who just wants to take all your stuff, goes to a court and convinces a judge to put them in charge. Conservatorship, which now everybody has heard about because of Britney Spears. That’s an extreme example, but these things happen all the time. So, if you don’t take care of what about me, Advanced Health Care Directive, durable power of attorney, you might wind up being conserved. And we don’t know what that means because you don’t have your own documents, you don’t leave instructions [inaudible].

Patricia De Fonte: So, what about my stuff? Intestacy, you haven’t done anything. You could use a will. So, now you’re going to say I don’t like what the statute says. I don’t want everything to go to whoever I want my stuff to go to Jordan. Great. So, when you die, that will, and I’m a California lawyer. So, in California, when you die, the will is brought to the courthouse and the judge stamps it, and then anybody who wants to look at it and come and look at it. They all wind up on the dark web, all of them.

Cathy Curtis: It’s not private. That’s a — [crosstalk]

Patricia De Fonte: It’s not private. And so poor Jordan who is thrilled to learn that they are in line to inherit whatever from you, starts getting calls, people start coming around, grifters, everybody’s got their hands out because everybody knows not only that Jordan is going to get something, but exactly what Jordan is going to get. It puts Jordan in a terrible position. Now what if Jordan is terrible with money? Too bad. What if Jordan’s on drugs? Too bad. What if Jordan is receiving Social Services? And now you’ve kicked Jordan into an economic level where he no longer gets his services. Now you’ve ruined his life. So, you really have to be careful when you’re giving people money through a will, that you are really, really thinking about what it’s like for them to receive those assets that way. [crosstalk] At my firm, we just don’t do that.

[11:32] What Patricia De Fonte recommends using to direct your assets instead of a will.

Cathy Curtis: Right. On your website it says you don’t divvy up — You don’t advise people to use a will for doing this purpose. And you just described some very scary reasons why not? Yeah.

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah, they make me nervous.

Cathy Curtis: And so what is your preferred way, and what do you recommend?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah. So, the third way is using a living or revocable trust. By the way, there are other mechanisms. If you have piles and piles and piles and piles of money. There are all kinds of tricky, interesting, irrevocable trusts that you can use that’s way beyond what we’re talking about. We’re talking about the basics. So, a revocable, or living trust is a terrific tool. For a married couple, or for an unmarried couple two trusts drafted correctly. When one partner or spouse dies, that survivor gets privacy, they don’t have to go to the courthouse, all their deceased spouse or partner’s assets aren’t listed for everyone to see. Nobody knows what they’re going to get.

Patricia De Fonte: They also, if it’s drafted properly, they get to do some asset protection planning, right? Maybe they’re nervous about some creditor stuff. Maybe the surviving spouse is a contractor or in a high litigation profession. They get to do some tax planning. We don’t know what Congress is going to do, we don’t know what your local state assembly is going to do, and we don’t know what the voters are going to do that is going to result in big tax problems for you down the road. So, it’s really important to have a document that’s really flexible for that surviving spouse to make really good decisions on the ground when that first spouse dies.

Patricia De Fonte: Now, when the second spouse dies, what we’re really looking at is who are the beneficiaries? And how do we best take care of them? But we also have to think about this poor person who loves you, probably, or is getting paid to do this who is the successor trustee, the person in charge of giving everybody this stuff. We need to make sure that the trust is drafted in a way that it honors them, that doesn’t say the trustee has to give everybody money right away. How about a little holding period? How about a little time for them to marshal the assets, wiggle out of paying any bills that might be doue,deal with that last tax return. Just get their sea legs because you know, it’s probably someone you’re close to and they’re grieving. And they don’t need everybody calling them and yelling at them about stuff and money.

Cathy Curtis: And by law you have time to close an — [crosstalk]

Patricia De Fonte: Yep, you have time.

Cathy Curtis: How much time do people usually take and is there an amount of time that’s not okay?

Patricia De Fonte: I think generally a year-ish. And it would depend on really like, what assets are we worried about? And was everything in the trust? Or are there all the outlying things, but I would say generally about a year. And so I like to draft a trust that says whoever’s getting anything, you’ll get it about a year after I die. Because I want to give my person who loves me and is doing this job for me some time to get organized so that they can do this.

Cathy Curtis: Do you actually put that language in the trust?

Patricia De Fonte: I do.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, okay.

Patricia De Fonte: I do. Yes.

Cathy Curtis: I haven’t seen that before.

Patricia De Fonte: And then when we think about the children, or anybody that you’re leaving really big amounts to, there’s a statistic that says that 33% of people who inherit lose it within three years. Why? Not because they’re dumb. Because people come around, because they’re vulnerable, because they’re grieving because they don’t understand what it means to have that kind of money. So, it’s really important to work with a lawyer who knows about this statistic, recognizes it and sets your beneficiaries up for success. I like to draft a trust — [crosstalk]

Cathy Curtis: I want to step in and just say something here, because it’s not only because they’re grieving, or they get taken advantage of. I don’t think people realize how fast even a relatively large sum of money can be spent down without really thoughtful planning. So, someone in here, it’s 500,000. It’s almost like they think they’ve got millions and all of a sudden they’re quitting their job. I see that happen all the time. Inherit money, quit job.

Patricia De Fonte: Yes. And it makes no sense.

Cathy Curtis: Then they think they’re going to go back to work and they don’t. And before you know what they’ve spent on half of their inheritance, and they’re starting to feel really guilty.

Patricia De Fonte: Yep. Now they’re back in therapy for guilt for not taking care of the money.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. Yeah. [crosstalk] I’m sorry. You work with people to try and prevent that from happening, right?

Patricia De Fonte: Yes, yes. So, our trust contains a provision that says the beneficiary can use money from the trust to pay their CPA, their financial advisor and their lawyer. So, before they start taking out big sums of money, let’s help them build a good professional team, so that they understand what it means to pull money out of the trust which can be a little tax bomb, and so that they understand what they’re doing with the money. And I never like to draft a trust that says, you get your money when you’re — a really typical scenario is 25, 30 and 35.

Patricia De Fonte: Well, what if you’re getting RSUs? What if your company just went IPO, there’s a big tax black eye, and it’s a wonderful thing, but it’s a lot of tax. And then if money also has to come out of the trust, you’re not actually getting to keep a whole lot of that money, you’re going to be thrown into a very high tax bracket. It’s really important to have a trust that says, listen, at certain ages, certain intervals, the beneficiary can pull money out. I generally like to do 15% at first, and then maybe 50% four years later, and then another four years later, you can have the rest of it as kind of a…

Cathy Curtis: Okay. Let me ask. Is this just for young beneficiaries or do you recommend this for…

Patricia De Fonte: Nobody’s ever ready to lose their mother. 50 year olds will quit their job if they inherit $750,000.

Cathy Curtis: Yes, I know. Okay. I want to delve into this a little bit. So, I know you have to have standard language and all estate planning documents, wills, trusts, you know. But attorneys can craft their own documents to a degree, right? And it sounds like that’s what you do. You really thought through your client’s needs and what may happen and you’re instilling language in there — they have to agree to what you’re suggesting. But you have these documents that you’ve crafted yourself with your team to suit each client’s needs. Is that right? I mean, I don’t know if you’d call them customized, but it kind of sounds like it.

Patricia De Fonte: So, I think it’s really important to say this, we use drafting software. And I think it’s critical for attorneys unless they are at a very large firm, to use drafting software, and good drafting software. The reason for this is that the law is alive. There might be a case in a bankruptcy court in Fresno that has a direct impact on the way that we draft gifts and estate planning. So, the software company that I use, they have an online community forum, they’re constantly doing education. When a new case comes out, we get a memo. And then when they update the software, they send us an email and show us where in the software it was changed and what that means. So, we stay abreast of the law. If you talk to a lawyer, and they say, oh, I have my own forms, well, how many people work for you? And they say, no one did not work with them. It’s just not a good idea. It’s not a good idea. And the software is expensive, but it is the cost of doing business. It’s an investment.

Cathy Curtis: Okay. What percent of estate attorneys do you think use drafting software?

Patricia De Fonte: I would say a huge percentage use drafting software, a huge percentage.

Cathy Curtis: All right. You’re saying that’s a red flag if they don’t?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah, unless it’s a really big firm where they actually part of the team is tasked with that type of work. They have paralegals and junior associates, who it’s part of their work to keep up with the law and making [inaudible].

Cathy Curtis: So, in other words, don’t hire a solo attorney that doesn’t use drafting… I mean, I know you [inaudible] but it sounds like that — [crosstalk].

Patricia De Fonte: I think it’s a good bright line rule.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, okay. Be careful.

Patricia De Fonte: I wouldn’t do it.

Cathy Curtis: Okay. So, I’m going to step back one minute, and we’re going to revert back to what is an estate plan. So, part of it is the me stuff, part of it is what I do with my stuff. And the me stuff has more to do with when you’re still alive. You want your health care plan, and you want someone to take over if you can’t take care of your own finances. That’s the me part, the durable power of attorney, and that health care… What’s the name of it now, health care proxy?

Patricia De Fonte: The Advanced Health Care Directive.

Cathy Curtis: Advanced health care, okay, those. And then the stuff is, you still do a will, right? Even though you don’t use it as…

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah, you do.

Cathy Curtis: You still have a will and a trust, and that designates what happens with the stuff and also who does that for you too.

Patricia De Fonte: [inaudible] in charge. Right, exactly.

[20:36] The importance of choosing an executor or trustee you can trust to manage the distribution of your estate according to your wishes. 

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. One question about what you’re saying about a will not being private, which it’s not, it’s public, and a trust being private. So, there are certain protections in the public process because there’s court of law, checking off all the boxes, right? In a trust, there’s really nobody supervising that executor. So, how important is it that you pick somebody that you really trust?

Patricia De Fonte: I know, I know. It is so much fun, the first meeting with clients because they have to fill out intake forms. And in my firm, before we even really look at those forms, other than cursory, we’re asking tell me about yourselves, your parents, we want to hear about about your siblings, who do you love, who do you trust, who’s in your life, who’s the inner circle, who are your people. Oh, let’s look at your list of stuff, [inaudible] your stuff. And then towards the end of the meeting, then we start talking about, well, who’s in charge in various scenarios. And sometimes, again, we put that together, and then we say, okay, now we’re going to look at that document that you filled out, where you took your first stab at who should be in charge of different things.

Patricia De Fonte: So, many times I look at that document, like who are these people that you neither love nor trust? Oh, that’s my cousin. They’re a hedge fund manager. But while we were talking, I realized, they don’t know me, they don’t know my children, they’re not… I thought because they were money, people, that they’d be the perfect person. But once you explain that, there will be a lawyer, that the trust can pay for that, that they’ll have help, that what they really need at core is to be a really decent human being that I trust completely, who’s going to do things in my best interest because of our relationship? And if you don’t have that person, then we have to talk about a private fiduciary, then we hire a professional who, with errors and omissions insurance and you know, all of that. So, we make sure that we have that correct person.

Cathy Curtis: Right. Because it really is a private process. There is nobody telling you you have to give that 50,000 to Aunt Mary. You just do it because that’s what the deceased person [inaudible].

Patricia De Fonte: I mean, if you don’t do it you’re going to get sued. Once you die your trust is supposed to be given to everybody who’s named in the trust, all of the beneficiaries, all the charities, all the people.

Cathy Curtis: Who is responsible to do that, though?

Patricia De Fonte: The trustee.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. Who’s…

Patricia De Fonte: But generally if someone has died and nobody’s doing anything, people will start… If they don’t do it, someone will go to the courthouse and say, well, clearly, there’s no trust. I’m going to open a probate. So, there are ways to force the issue to flush the document.

Cathy Curtis: Okay. But I still think it’s really important to drive home, you have to choose somebody that you trust and also probably detail-oriented. Although if you write the trust right, you can let the executor know they can hire people to help them, right. And you probably make that really clear. Because most people are so busy, and they have to take care of an estate and it’s hard. I’ve done it in my family, it’s a lot of detailed work. And I do detailed work so it’s easier for me. But not everybody… [crosstalk]

Patricia De Fonte: Let me tell you about my favorite. My favorite, favorite provision is the ancillary or special independent trustee. So, your person is happy, they’re doing the work, they’re working with the lawyer and the CPA and the financial advisor. It’s all happening. But then, let’s say your kids start going crazy. They start showing up at Thanksgiving demanding their money, they’re on drugs, different things are happening. So, your person, your successor trustee might say, you know, I’m happy doing all this technical work, but I can’t deal with these kids. They can not only hire somebody to do that, but if you hire someone to do it, you’re still ultimately responsible.

Cathy Curtis: Right. Right.

Patricia De Fonte: In the trust I draft, you can appoint someone to take on the fiduciary obligation for that task. So, let’s say that all of a sudden the beneficiary is on drugs. Well, that’s really a difficult scenario. You want a professional who knows how to deal with that. And so you do that. Or maybe they’ve had something happening in their own lives, and they just need to reel back. Like, oh, it’s all been going great. But now I have to take care of a sick family member. So, for six months, I’m handing this over to someone else. There have to be pressure release valves in the documents because if the worst thing happens, you die young and your children are very young, this trust can go on for decades.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. How many trusts do you think have all of those different clauses and think through all those different scenarios that could happen?

Patricia De Fonte: I wonder, I do see a lot of trusts that were drafted by other lawyers. And I always say why didn’t you go back to that lawyer? Most of the time, it’s the person is retired, right? And they don’t have these provisions. It is kind of a new wave of thinking. I also see in the older truss, a lot of you get your money when you’re 25, 30, and 35, which is very old thinking, we don’t do that anymore. We let them pull it out. If you’re fine, and you’re not on drugs, and you’re not — if you’re okay, then you can pull out up to this amount of money. We never want to give somebody money if it’s going to hurt them, either financially, or like, physically. We just don’t want to hurt somebody with money.

Cathy Curtis: Right. It sounds to me that you really get to know your clients. So, can you just describe, someone hires you, what is the process like? They don’t have an estate plan? Let’s say they’ve not done any estate planning. They have beneficiaries on their IRAs, but that’s about it. What happens?

Patricia De Fonte: Yes. Can I jump — I just want to jump back to number three, which is what about my kids and then all due process. Okay. So, the third part of estate planning we did, what about me, what about my stuff, the trust, what about my kids? It is very typical for a lawyer, and you’ll see this on any DIY form and you’ll see it in the statutory forms that you’ll have in various states, you’d name the children and put their birth dates, sometimes social security number, [inaudible], and then the names of the guardians and their home address and their phone number. We established that will is a public document, it’s going to wind up on the dark web, bad people are going to get their hands on it.

Patricia De Fonte: Here in California, we don’t have to provide that information in the will, we can use a side document. It’s not permitted in every jurisdiction, but in ours it is. So, at my firm we have — it starts out at six pages. Who are the emergency contacts? Because your children might have to go live with someone else if you’re incapacitated. Guardianship is not only about death. And then who’s in… So, we want to list emergency contacts, who are very short-term and we want to list who are the guardians in the event of a long-term incapacity or death. And then education, religion, firearm, social media, other really important family members, other people who carry your stories. Who are the people that you don’t want your kids around ever? Maybe it’s your ex, maybe it’s their other biological parent, and you have sole custody.

Patricia De Fonte: We have to provide all this information because just you writing it down, doesn’t make it. So, a judge is always going to step in and look at the situation on the ground and say what is in the best interest of these children? You may have chosen Pat and Chris and they were perfect. But at the time that you are no longer available, Pat and Chris are getting a divorce, or Pat has three DUIs or Chris’s parents is living with them, and terminally ill, it’s basically a hospice. So, we’re not putting children in that home. So, you really have… Or maybe the person that you like doesn’t look good on paper. I’ve worked with clients where they wanted the children to live with a family member who had lupus. Well, it doesn’t look good on paper. So, we wrote pages and pages and pages about she has her own children. We are well aware of her diagnoses. We know, without saying, we know the other brother looks better on paper, we don’t like him for this.

Cathy Curtis: This is amazing. Okay. So, you do… [crosstalk]

Patricia De Fonte: That’s number three; what about my kids?

Cathy Curtis: You don’t — Yeah, that’s so important, number three. Okay. You’re saying that the will does not have to be the document that names the guardian of the children?

Patricia De Fonte: In California. In other states, I don’t know.

Cathy Curtis: And that is really good to know. Because like we said before, it’s public knowledge. And there’s all kinds of really personal info on there. And instead, what is this doc… Is there an official name for this document?

Patricia De Fonte: There is not an official document that you have to fill out. My firm, just… When I had my estate plan done about 10 years ago, the lawyer gave it to us and I wasn’t an estate planning attorney at that time. I thought oh, this is so nice. And I just thought it was difficult. I just thought that’s what everyone did. And then I started my firm, got the master’s degree, started my firm, and nobody was doing it. And now all of my friends are doing it because I keep giving my form to other lawyers saying, oh, did you know about this? Do this, I didn’t invent it. It’s not proprietary to me. It’s wonderful. Do this. And what’s really fun about that document is that it keeps growing.

Patricia De Fonte: So, I work with a therapist. And now there’s a paragraph about access to mental health. I work with a family whose child has come out and said, I’m transitioning. Great. Now we have language about that. So, every scenario…  I had a client who’s stepmother dragged them into a cult. So, our paragraph on the client’s feelings about religion, do we want religious instruction, we don’t, this, that, there’s a whole paragraph about pseudoscience that he wrote, and then it’s so many other clients, it resonates with them. So, it can really be if you just write from your heart, you can just do that, you can do this one on your own, just have it notarized.

Cathy Curtis: Be interesting to see what other states do this. I’m going to have to look that up. So, one small technical question, which ties into what we’re talking about. So, you do do a will and a trust, someone dies, does that will become a public –min the public domain?

Patricia De Fonte: It will.

Cathy Curtis: Always?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah.

Cathy Curtis: So, it really is important to pay attention to what you put in that document and no personal… Social security number, oh my gosh.

Patricia De Fonte: Madness.

Cathy Curtis: And as little personal info as you can in, other words, and do most of it in the trust instead.

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah. Hi, my name is Patricia. I’m married. I have two children with my spouse, I have no other children. I have a trust. And then eight pages of technical instruction from the probate [inaudible].

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. Okay. Can you just see all… And then this is probably happening for decades, people combing the newspaper for who died and what public documents can I look for, blah, blah, blah.

Patricia De Fonte: One of my professors told the story of his mother in rural Alabama. Every Friday, one of her girlfriends would go to the courthouse and get all the wills that had been lodged that week with the county state. And Sunday after church, they would sit around and talk about who was getting what and who left so and so out of their… Because everybody knew everybody.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, my gosh.

Patricia De Fonte: Oh, yes.

Cathy Curtis: People’s worst…

Patricia De Fonte: This has been going on forever.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, yeah.

Patricia De Fonte: And it used to be harmless gossip over brunch. It’s not harmless gossip over brunch anymore. Now it’s dangerous. Now it’s dangerous.

Cathy Curtis: Interesting. Okay. So, you sound like a really good estate planning attorney.

Patricia De Fonte: I’m a really happy, enthusiastic estate planning attorney.

[32:44] How to find an estate planning attorney you can trust and who is well suited to your needs and objectives.

Cathy Curtis: So, let me ask you, someone needs an estate planning attorney, what is the very best way, and smartest way to go about finding one?

Patricia De Fonte: I love this. If you have a really good financial advisor, they should have a really broad team of estate planning lawyers that they work with, lawyers who work with different types of clients and have different types of specialties and expertise. And so that’s a great place to start, is talk to your financial adviser and really tell them what you’re looking for. What kind of experience you want to have if you don’t have a really great financial advisor? Sometimes if you have a wonderful insurance person, they can also, they should also have good connections.

Patricia De Fonte: Ask your most organized friends. Ask the people in your life who really, really have it together, who have an estate plan, who have a financial advisor, who don’t DIY their insurance, they probably have good people for you. So, now you’ve probably got a list of names. I really like using your personal network so you get a flavor of, okay, who worked with who and how did it work? And then go online and take a look. Then start booking some calls. And you really, you don’t need to talk to the lawyer for more than 15-20 minutes. Because what you’re looking for is that feeling. And then you want to ask them about their process. And then there’s some questions that I want you to ask all of them all the time.

Patricia De Fonte: The first thing I want you to ask is do you use software? And I talked about that earlier why that is so important. And if they don’t, how do they make sure their documents are up to date? The next thing I want you to ask them is about other practice areas. It can be a big red flag if an estate planning lawyer, because remember, estate planning touches on so many other areas of the law. And it’s huge. There are not that many areas of law where you can get a master’s degree. That’s how epic and serious this can be. So, we want to be very careful that we’re not working with someone who does estate planning and bankruptcy and family law and real estate and on and on and on and on. Some firms see estate planning as a profit center. Oh, you buy the software, and tippy tappy, tippy…documents and money. No, that’s not estate planning. It’s just infuriating.

Patricia De Fonte: So, you really want to work with somebody that really dedicates their practice to this. It can be fine if they also… I have wonderful colleagues who dedicate part of the practice to real estate, because they’ve been doing this for so long and they’ve worked with so many real estate investors that they also know how to do the LLCs and they also have a broker’s license because it made sense. Or they also do bankruptcy because they worked with so many people who have gone through that. And so there can be natural add-ons. And you just want to ask, why do you also do that? How does that tie into your practice?

Cathy Curtis: Right. Can I go back one thing on the documents again, the software?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah.

Cathy Curtis: If they don’t have the software, and you should ask how are they updating your documents? But how often are the documents updated? Isn’t it only and this is something I don’t know, isn’t it only when the client comes and says, I need to make a revision, can you update… [crosstalk].

Patricia De Fonte: So, those are two different things. So, you want to make sure the law firm that you’re working with has the most up-to-date documents. That their documents are right up to date [inaudible] of the law today for you.

Cathy Curtis: Right. And that’s how [inaudible].

Patricia De Fonte: Now, if things change after you sign, that’s why estate planning is not a one and done, you have to keep coming back. Every three years, you have to come back and say how are we doing? How’s it looking?

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. And also has anything changed that [inaudible] that you need to update, or you need [inaudible]. Okay. Good. Thank you. Sorry, I just wanted to clarify that.

Patricia De Fonte: So, we want to ask about software, we want to make sure they’re not doing a bunch of other different types of law, we want to make sure we have a good vibe. And we definitely want to talk about how much time are we going to spend together? My firm, four hours. Not all in a row, nobody wants to be in a four-hour meeting. But there should be a really long meeting where the lawyer learns a lot about you and you’re really not learning anything. You’re just wondering, why don’t they stop asking me so many impertinent questions?

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, that’s hard.

Patricia De Fonte: We can’t stop because we have to get to the bottom of everything, we need to know all of it.

Cathy Curtis: Do you warn them that it’s going to be a four-hour brain dump.

Patricia De Fonte: No, no, no. No, we don’t do four hours all at once. I can’t be in a four-hour meeting.

Cathy Curtis: Okay, good.

Patricia De Fonte: No, no, no. No meetings should ever be more than two hours. There should be a really good long, at least 90-minute substantive meeting about the lawyer getting to know you and your people and your staff and your philosophies. The lawyer should always send you drafts of every single document you’re going to sign. A lot of them will just send you the summary of the trust, because I swear to God, they think you don’t understand the documents. You understand the documents just fine. I promise you. If the lawyers get to drafting documents, they should be really good at explaining them to you and you should be able to read them.

Cathy Curtis: And if they’re really good draft, they’re probably in more plain English than a lot of them.

Patricia De Fonte: Exactly, exactly, exactly. I think it’s a scam if you get a document that has no headers and is single spaced. What is that? I can’t even read that. My eyes just close, it’s just depressing. So, you want to make sure you’re going to get full drafts of all the documents and an opportunity to meet with a lawyer to go over them. And not, here are the drafts, let me know if you have any questions. How rude. Of course you have questions, but you don’t even know where to start. At my firm, what we do is we highlight the parts that we really want you to look at, the personalization. And you know, start out easy. Did we spell all the names, right? Does this…

Patricia De Fonte: When we talked about what’s supposed to happen if you’re in a coma, did we get the flavor? Did we talk about your Catholicism the way that you wanted it talked about in your Advanced Health Care Directive? Did we talk about that, and we want to go over all that in the meeting, and more. We’re going to take you right through the documents and say, this is what this document does. Here’s who you put in charge. Now let’s look at all the responsibilities. Now, let’s go back to the person, is that person? Does that feel good? Okay, good. We’re done. Forget that we even did that next [inaudible]. You don’t have to hold on to it forever, but you have to hold on to it during that meeting. Right?

Patricia De Fonte: Then we let clients sign their documents, either online or in-person with a notary. So, they have that option. And you know, we’re still in the time of COVID. Many of my clients have very, very young children, a lot of older people have a lot of health concerns, they don’t want a notary in their house. I’m sure the notary is fine, but the notary goes from place to place to place to place. We don’t know what happens in these places. So, online notarization is a really wonderful tool. There needs to be a third meeting. And the third meeting is, okay, you signed your documents.

Patricia De Fonte: Now, you have this trust, and it says all your stuff is going to go to this person, you have to put your stuff in that trust. How do you do that? So, you need written instructions, your lawyer should have made you before you met with them the first time provided a full list of all of your assets. You need that list, because at the end, after you sign your document, you’re going to use that list, and you’re going to check off, oh, I put that in my trust, I put that in my trust and it’s going to make you feel [inaudible].

[40:11] Cathy and Patricia discuss some of the most common mistakes people make with their estate planning documents.

Cathy Curtis: Let me make a really clear point here that estate planning attorneys don’t necessarily do that for you, right? And they can’t do that in some cases. So, this is a step that I know gets missed because I see it with clients, they don’t put their accounts or whatever in their trust after they leave the attorney’s office.

Patricia De Fonte: You know, some firms, especially firms that work with elderly clients, they do, they will work with the clients, and they’ll get this done. My clients are younger and what I’m afraid of is if I don’t force them through this meat grinder, if I don’t make them do this, and then follow up with them relentlessly, to make sure they did it, that a few years out, they’re going to buy a house, they’re going to open a new bank account, they’re going to get a new job, and they’re going to forget, they’re just going to forget about it completely. So, another way that I like to build some structure around that is we send copies of the certification of trust, which is just a little short document that you signed under penalty of perjury, and it’s notarized. It says here’s the name of my trust and here’s the date that I signed it, and I’m the person who created it. Just very simple document.

Patricia De Fonte: And your financial adviser can use that, your insurance broker can use that for your casualty insurance, your life insurance broker can use that who give it to the CPA, also, because they see all your stuff every year. They get to see every single account that you have. And they can say, look, you own all these things as trustee, but not this one checking account at the credit union. Why is this? You need to call your estate planning lawyer. And so we write to all of our clients’ advisors, with permission, and provide this document and also a copy of the funding instructions that goes asset by asset by asset type, to provide really robust instructions.

Cathy Curtis: [inaudible] what happens if you don’t fund your trust? It’s called fund your trust, putting stuff in your trust. What happens if you die?

Patricia De Fonte: Well, if you haven’t changed the beneficiary designations on your bank accounts, whoever’s listed there gets the money. If you haven’t changed the beneficiary designation on your life insurance policy, and it’s still your ex spouse, guess who gets the money? They do. They get the money. If you forget about real estate, there are petitions that you can do your person, your successor trustee, the person who’s in charge of your stuff after you die, they can approach the court and say, Your Honor, they forgot to… But the problem with that is okay, it’ll eventually go where you want it to go to the person you want it to go to. Stressful, super expensive, and it doesn’t avoid a really expensive court process where there are all these legal fees that come out to tens of thousands of dollars, just by statute. It’s really, really wasteful.

Cathy Curtis: And time consuming, right? These things don’t…

Patricia De Fonte: Really time-consuming. Really, really time-consuming. So, I think it’s critical to work with a lawyer who’s going to spend three or four — about four hours with you, learning about you, teaching you about the documents, showing you how to make sure that your trust has everything in it that needs to be in it. And then there should be follow up. We send our clients, I think there are nine emails that go out after that final meeting, don’t forget about your digital assets. Don’t forget to share your best health care directive. Here’s a quiz for your digital assets. Here’s how… Think about sharing. There’s four different levels of sharing. What’s comfortable for you, how do you want to do it? And remember, you have your documents on paper, so you have to take care of those, and you have them electronically, so you gotta take care of that. And then we follow up every year. It’s just automated. [inaudible] is everything, okay? Call us if you are not done putting your stuff in your trust and call us if there’s been a change.

Patricia De Fonte: We offer every three years, we want to see you for free for one-hour. That’s how paranoid we are. And we catch things all the time and I want to talk about what we caught. Clients came to me, they just wanted to make a couple changes, because she had inherited some beautiful [inaudible]. Okay, fine. We’ll talk about that, but I have my agenda that I want to do first, and it turned out, how are your parents? Oh, my mother, she’s going to pass away, she was doing some estate work, she gave me $500,000. I said where’s the money? I don’t see it in your account, I don’t see an account on here with that money in it. Oh, no, we put it in this other account. I said, but that’s your stuff. Why is it in his? So, we cleaned that up. They were underinsured because their house had increased a lot in value and they hadn’t been doing their insurance audits. There were like two or three other things that we caught that have nothing to do with the documents.

Cathy Curtis: You check on that too, the insurance levels?

Patricia De Fonte: Well, I ask them, when is the last time you talk to your broker? And they say, oh, probably not since the last time we talked to you. I’m like I told you, here in the Bay Area, you have to talk to your broker every year because property values go up. Oh, we forgot. Okay. But you got that email telling you to do it. So, we know that life is busy and hectic, and it’s easy to forget. And so we really feel a responsibility to our clients to create a lifelong relationship.

[45:28] Patricia De Fonte shares some of the biggest misconceptions people have about estate planning based on her experience.

Cathy Curtis: That’s wonderful. That’s really, really great. I want to talk to you about some typical perceptions of people and estate planning. One is, people think it’s very expensive and I think that’s one reason that people put it off. Right? They think they’re just paying to get some documents. And I hate to say it, some attorneys, that’s what they do, they give the document and not a lot of personal attention and follow-up and all those things. You get that big giant binder that no — I don’t know, if you do those big… Do you have to do a big giant binder? Is that… Okay.

Patricia De Fonte: We want a big giant binder because whoever’s in charge, if you’re not in charge, they need it. They’re going to want one big giant binder that they can throw on a lawyer’s desk and say, what do I do? It’s not good if your whole estate plan is just trapped on your laptop. Nobody knows that it’s there, they don’t know how to get to it. Even if they can now they’ve printed it all out. But it’s a mess. You want this.

Cathy Curtis: A binder.

Patricia De Fonte: You want a big binder.

Cathy Curtis: Okay, I love it.

Patricia De Fonte: A big colorful one that’s easy to spot.

Cathy Curtis: That is good.

Patricia De Fonte: I had clients, their lawyer gave them documents in a manila envelope, the originals, didn’t scan them, just handed them the originals. They moved, and they could not find their documents. They had to redo everything in an emergency situation so that they could close on a house.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, dear. [crosstalk] And so how long do you keep client… Well, it sounds like you don’t disengage from your clients.

Patricia De Fonte: I do officially and legally disengage. I am not obligated to call my clients every time there’s a change in the law. Because otherwise that would be my whole job and I would go insane. But I do offer them as a courtesy, every three years I will give you, with me, one hour of my time. As the firm founder, I will give you one hour with me because [crosstalk] I love you and I want to take care of you.

Cathy Curtis: Is that something you actively engage about? Like three years, you send them an email… [crosstalk].

Patricia De Fonte: Yes, [inaudible] right to them. Yep. We chase them.

Cathy Curtis: Okay, good.

Patricia De Fonte: Because we worry.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, back to this misperception about hiring an attorney.

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah, let’s talk about it. Okay. So, if estate planning is about what about me, what about my stuff, what about my kids? If you think about what about me, you’re an adult at 18. So, estate planning is not always 500 pieces of paper in a giant binder. Sometimes it’s somebody’s graduating from high school, they need an Advanced Health Care Directive. They need a durable power of attorney and maybe they need a little will. Because they have some things, they have some nice things that have been given to them by their family. Right? And it was just going to go to the parents and it’s just some stuff, it’s fine. You can just do that.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, talk about that, that parents can’t get access to health care records after what age?

Patricia De Fonte: I know definitely after 18. I don’t know if it’s sooner than that. I know I’m blocked out from my teenage son’s at the pediatricians from some things already.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. So, they need that advanced care directive.

Patricia De Fonte: Yes. You absolutely. Everybody, 18 years old, it should be part of graduating from high school. Here’s your diploma, go sit with that lawyer, do your Advance Health Care Directive. Yes. Yeah. So, really… So, it’s not just for rich people, and it’s not for old people, and you don’t have to wait until you have a baby. It’s for everybody. And if you are a single person, you don’t have that other person who’s automatically going to go out and hustle and make more money if you become incapacitated. You don’t have that automatic other. So, you really need to create a plan that’s not just the documents. Work with a lawyer who’s going to help you figure out, oh, if I can’t work, then what happens? Well, let’s talk to your financial advisor. I’m sure she’s already talked to you about disability insurance, but let’s really push that button now. Let’s get into that.

Patricia De Fonte: If you’re an unmarried couple, you guys are legal strangers. If you don’t have documents, one of you is living in the other one’s house, the homeowner dies, I don’t know where you’re going to live, probably not there. Family might throw you out. You have to protect yourself, you have to protect each other. And that starts whether or not you have kids, whether or not you have money, and whether or not you have a house. Because people always think I have to be old, rich, own real estate, or have a baby. Sure. Those are all natural triggers. But no, you don’t. And I work with a bunch of absolutely lovely, proactive, single people who want to really feel in control and know that if they hit their head, if they’re in an accident, they know that the right people are going to step in and take charge.

Cathy Curtis: Yep. Okay. And you’re talking about a subject that’s near and dear to my heart. So, I wouldn’t mind spending a few minutes on this, single people in estate planning. Because I work with a lot of single women, that’s kind of my specialty. And one of the challenges that comes up is if they’re not married, they don’t have children, they’re an older adult sometimes so a lot of relatives have passed on. Maybe their parents are gone, and they feel a lot of anxiety, sometimes shame, all these different emotions around the fact that they don’t have, right away, specific people that they want to give their stuff to, and it creates so much anxiety. How do you counsel somebody through that process?

Patricia De Fonte: It’s really difficult. Refusing to talk about it in the first instance, because clients will come to that first meeting, and they just want to talk about who’s going to be in charge and all this stuff. And I just say, I have no idea who any of these people are, I don’t know what your stuff is. So, you, please let me do this the way that I do this so that I can understand.

Cathy Curtis: Your process.

Patricia De Fonte: And then you can shorthand everything. And then you can tell me that Francine is in charge, and Joseph gets everyday because right now I have no idea who they are. For all I know, they’re your two cats. I don’t know. And so really getting them, you know, tell me about — Tell me about your parents. What was it like growing up with them? Do you have siblings? Have they passed on? Are their nieces and nephews? Who’s the inner circle? Who are your closest friends, who do you spend time with? Who do you spend the holidays with? Really getting to a point because very often people will say I don’t have anyone. It’s incredibly rare. It’s really, really, really rare that people don’t have anyone. But because they put this… [crosstalk]

Cathy Curtis: [inaudible] they have to give to relatives, that they…

Patricia De Fonte: No. No. So, I was thinking more of like who’s in charge, right? And they always think about, I always ask, well, so what do you do with your time? Where do you hang out? Are you involved with nonprofits? Where did you go to school? You know, what’s the fabric of your life? What’s important to you? Because who are you going to leave your stuff to? Your family. You either like them or you don’t. You don’t have to leave your stuff to your family, you either love them or you do not. Or they’re rich and you don’t care and so you don’t have to do that. Your friends, you could change a friend’s life, you could pay off their student loans, you could eliminate their terror of dying without enough money, you could leave your friends money and say we always said we were going to take that cruise to the South Pole, go do it. You can do whatever you want with this money, but go to the South Pole, right? And take a picture of me with you.

Patricia De Fonte: And then charities, charitable organizations, religious organizations. And when we get to that part of the meeting, I’m saying, so you know, you talked about this person and that person, and we talked about these charities. So, that’s kind of like, there’s the bubble. Now, let’s talk about your house, let’s talk about your car, let’s talk about your stuff. Let’s talk about the cash. Let’s talk about your retirement account. So, we’ve kind of got the people, and we got the stuff and let’s start matching things up. And then we need to go fast, because otherwise the wheels start spinning. No, but maybe this, that… I’m like, no, no, we don’t do 4.2%. We’re not going to do that.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. Okay. Let me go back to the beginning question, because sorry, I messed up a little. The first time you were talking about who’s going to be your executor, successor, trustee. That’s a biggie, and you were describing, you find out who their…

Patricia De Fonte: Who the people are.

Cathy Curtis: People are and then you get to where does this stuff go? Because both…

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah. But within who the people are, that’s also who’s going to be in charge? And who’s going to get all this stuff? And that’s what I want to know. Oh, your best friend, she have kids? Because you probably love your best friend’s kids. I love my best friend’s kids like they’re mine.

[54:42] What to do if you don’t know who to appoint as executor of your estate.

Cathy Curtis: Well, let me give you — Let me just ask you one other. So, what if they truly cannot come up with somebody that they would trust and know would do it? Because you know, a person appointed as an executor doesn’t have to say yes, right, because [inaudible]. Do you ever recommend that people hire independent fiduciaries and does that work?

Patricia De Fonte: I have had exactly one client pull the trigger on that. I’ve had lots of clients interview them, but I’ve had one client do it.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. Okay, so…

Patricia De Fonte: But one thing that does come up is, and it’s funny, because I’ve worked sometimes with, like a little group of friends and they’re all naming each other, and not necessarily giving each other their stuff, but they are relying on each other. Often what we’ll do is we’ll say okay, so Francine is going to be the successor trustee. And you know, the trust has language, she can have this independent special ancillary person to do things. But you know what? If she just can’t deal at all, if she doesn’t want to do it, she can appoint a private fiduciary. So, at that point, I’ve died. She’s sitting with the lawyer, the lawyer will have, a good trust administration lawyer will know about your private fiduciaries; [crosstalk] can introduce Francine to a few, and she can pass the baton.

Cathy Curtis: [inaudible] down the road.

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah. Well, she’s not… Yeah, you just kick it down a little bit, but you have to ask them, are you okay with this? Are you okay if name you and then when the time comes, you can pass the baton. And so as people are because often that’s where there’s all of a sudden, real money to deal with this. Because there’s a life insurance policy, right, that just all of a sudden, there’s all this liquidity and the lawyer’s happy to deal with it and the fiduciary is getting paid and it’s all very real. Because it’s hard, especially if you’re 40 or 50, you could have years and years and years. And who is this private fiduciary? And what if they die and [inaudible] stressful.

Cathy Curtis: It is stressful. So, I am asked often by my clients to take on this role, right? And you know I can’t. It’s [inaudible] 100% conflict of interest. But they trust me, I know every single detail about [inaudible] I mean, it makes sense. Right? I would be the logical person. And so I have had to come up with ideas for them that I tell them no I can’t. So, this comes up for me a lot. Who ends up being…

Patricia De Fonte: It’s common.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, it’s a tough one. So, I’ve done online searches for independent fiduciaries. I haven’t nailed that area yet at all.

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah. There is the Private Fiduciaries Association of California. They have a website. And you know, they come in different flavors, because also we kind of don’t know what the issues are going to be. Especially if it’s a private fiduciary in the event of an incapacity, like sliding into dementia. You want someone who knows how to navigate that. Which is very different from liquidating an estate and handing out money. [inaudible] completely different skills. So, I like the idea of let Francine figure it out. Let Francine work with the lawyer to find the right person for whatever that scenario is going to be.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. And you put a clause in the document saying that Francine has the ability and the [inaudible].

Patricia De Fonte: Yes.

Cathy Curtis: …to be able to do that. I think that’s so key. Yeah. Okay. I want to segue to how you work. So, you do the trust and deal with the house and the taxable assets. How do you coordinate in the client’s retirement accounts in the designated beneficiary situation? You look at that whole picture, right?

Patricia De Fonte: We look at everything.

Cathy Curtis: Okay. All right. Because that’s tricky and it’s so important.

Patricia De Fonte: It’s so important. So, as I said, before, we send all of our client’s advisors copies of this certification of trust, for the beneficiary designation changes. And we talked to every client about the life insurance, and we talked to every client about because… Let me back up. So, when you have the stuff that’s going to go in your trust, you can absolutely transfer your pets, your pants, your pots, your real estate, easy. Your intellectual property assets, fine. Some things you just cannot own as a trustee, you just can’t, by law. You can’t own your retirement account as a trustee. And usually, when you have a living trust, you’re not owning your insurance policy as a trustee, you’re just owning it as a person. And then you name a beneficiary, often the beneficiary is the trust, not always, but often.

Patricia De Fonte: Retirement accounts are special and tricky and difficult. It depends. And your lawyer really has to spend time with you to figure out who’s going to get this money. And it can be, sometimes it’s obvious, it’s my spouse, and when I die, it’s my kids. But if it’s not obvious that way, then you really have to look at the current strange laws that are in place and figure out who is this going to be best for. Who can I help the most with this money? And for clients who have charitable inclinations I really like using a retirement account because there’s no taxes paid by the charity. They just get the money, it’s clean, and it keeps them out of the trust. Because remember everybody who’s a beneficiary of the trust gets to see the trust.

Patricia De Fonte: And if you start saying things in your trust, like I want 20% to go to the SPCA, and the other 80% to Francine. I don’t know, Francine’s very busy today. The trust can force — No, let’s say that France is in charge and the person who’s going to get all the money is Jordan. So, there’s the SPCA and Jordan. The SPCA can force Francine to sell every pillowcase, every knife, every fork, every spoon in that house, and get it all the way, like distill everything and monetize every little thing, and then split it.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, wow.

Patricia De Fonte: It’s horrible. The SPCA is a powerful organization, but they have to do this. And that’s why you see those estate sales. That’s why you see them. If you want to leave money to a charity and your trustee, either leave them a specific dollar amount, or you give the trustee very clear permission to say, when I die, let people who love me into my house, you choose who they are, let them take stuff. Anything that people don’t take, donate it. You can donate my car if it’s not easy to sell. If I have a business, you figure out if it’s worth selling, or you just shut it down. Let the trustee do whatever it is that they need to do without having to monetize everything. Because once you get charities in the mix in a trust, they have an obligation. They are required to push for every penny.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. They’re not being greedy. It’s just what they have to do.

Patricia De Fonte: No. Yeah, they’re not trying to be unreasonable.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. No, that makes total sense. Okay. Stepping back on that, it is still fine to give percentages to family members?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah.

Cathy Curtis: It’s this charity…

Patricia De Fonte: It’s a charity that’s the problem.

Cathy Curtis: Fascinating. Okay. Okay. And what about people who say, I just want to give my IRA to my estate? Can you do that?

Patricia De Fonte: You can, and a lot of people do. And let’s go back to, like, the classic nuclear family, right, it’s going to go to my spouse, but if I die, then I want everything to go to my children. Right now, that’s complicated. It used to be that you could leave your retirement account to a baby. And when that baby grew up, they would start taking the money out, whatever their required minimum distribution age would be at that time. The laws have changed dramatically. So, now, a younger person only has 10 years, 10 years from when they become an adult, to take that money out. So, now, putting it through a trust, just… There were mechanisms that we used to use that made sense.

Patricia De Fonte: Now the mechanism that we use, if we’re trying to protect people from the perils of inheritance, if we’re trying to protect people from liquidating a retirement account, and spending it all in a frenzy, it has to flow through the trust. But there are all these sometimes negative tax consequences. It is a sticky, tricky area. If you have large retirement accounts, you might want to think about having a completely separate trust just for those accounts. And you really have to think about the beneficiaries. You really… Because if you already have these massive life insurance policies that would take care of your kids, maybe the retirement accounts can go to your siblings who don’t have the money that you do. [inaudible] different way to think about retirement accounts now.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, it’s a… [crosstalk].

Patricia De Fonte: Or you can just keep changing it. As life changes, you just keep changing.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, yeah. So, and as part of your practice, do you help people work through that new wrinkle of having — [crosstalk].

Patricia De Fonte: What I do is I spot the issue. If they don’t have a financial advisor, I make them, I drag them to talk to a few people. And I think they really do understand that we spent these four hours together over six to 12 weeks. I want to see you every three years, and I’m here if you run into a snag related to your estate plan, but there’s so many things I can’t help you with. And the law is alive and Congress is crazy and this is a lot of money. And you might feel like I can do my own investments. It’s beyond your investments, you have to have an advisor.

Patricia De Fonte: And what if you’re in a couple, and you’re the one doing it, and you die, your surviving spouse, they’re lost and vulnerable. They don’t have someone to turn to. They don’t know how to find a financial advisor. So, I really do push my clients to interview and start some kind of a relationship with someone, so that if and when things start happening, you have your person, and someone that you can turn to with all this crazy stuff that comes out of DC. Not to mention, if you’re in California, it’s even worse. And if you’re in San Francisco, it’s even worse. So, you really need that person who has the overview of everything and can tell you oh my gosh, this article came out you better call your estate planning lawyer. Oh, my gosh, I read this, you better call your CPA. Or I want to see you.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, this brings up a really good point. I am sure that you get asked all kinds of questions from your clients about things that you do not do.

Patricia De Fonte: Oh, yeah.

[1:05:06] Patricia De Fonte shares additional questions you should ask any estate planning attorney you’re considering engaging.

Cathy Curtis: Especially because you’ve got your fingers in everything, right? You really are talking about every aspect of their finances. But if you’re not an investment advisor, you’re not a CPA, you’re not a… So, what are the most common things that the listeners should know that estate planning attorneys do not do, and that they…

Patricia De Fonte: Yes. Yeah, we’re… Okay. Another thing that I want you to ask when you’re interviewing estate planning lawyers is, do you have a large professional network, people you know really well that you refer your clients to for other things that you won’t be able to help me with? If they don’t say yes, just walk away, because you might think you have it all handled, but it’s complicated. You might need a real estate lawyer, a family law attorney, you might need umbrella insurance through a broker, not DIY, you might need a financial advisor, you might need a money coach, you might need an organizer, you might need somebody who is a Medicare specialist. It goes on and on and on and on. You might need an intellectual property lawyer, you might need a corporate counsel, because you created a business on LegalZoom. That’s not allowed at my firm. No, we don’t do DIY anything here. We pay other people to take care of us.

Patricia De Fonte: So, you really do need an advisor. If your lawyer gives you a referral, say why this person. And your lawyer should be able to say, oh, because when you said this, or I see this in your asset profile, and when I send you the email of tips on the questions I want you to ask that person, I’ll put it in there. And you can even forward it to them. If you really want to look for a well-connected lawyer, because estate planning clients need so much, and we say estate planning lawyer, we tend to stay in our lane. We do estate planning, but we really can’t talk about all the other things. And we can spot an issue like, oh, I’m not sure about your insurance, I want you to go talk to a professional because it just doesn’t feel right that you have been doing all your own insurance, and it’s at all different companies and you’re not sure how much it is. And even if you knew how much it is. I don’t know if that’s enough, because I don’t know anything about insurance.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah. By the way, it’s similar for financial advisors. I can give only so much advice about estate planning, and then it stops because I am not an estate planning professional. Same with tax advising. I can do tax planning and I do. I know a lot about the tax law, but I don’t do tax preparation. So, everything is really, really specialized. And thankfully, there are a lot of specialists out there for people to utilize.

Patricia De Fonte: I really like thinking about building a team, creating a team. We all have a team. Whether it’s your hair, nails and makeup team. Whether it’s the team that helps you get your kid to and from school and soccer, like you know, that mom’s squad that everybody has. You’re grown, you’re 18 and up. If you need to have a good insurance person, you need to have somebody to talk to you about money, you should have a lawyer that you know so that maybe you’re going to have a landlord tenant issue.

Patricia De Fonte: Well, if you have a really good estate planning lawyer, they’ll know somebody, because they have to know real estate lawyers who know all the landlord tenant lawyers. So, we’ll get your issue, narrow it down for you and bring you to that person. We can be your hub, just like your financial adviser can be your hub. We’re going to help. And we’re all friends with each other, and we all talk all the time, and we learn from each other. So, whatever it is that you bring to your financial advisor, I’m eventually going to hear about it over lunch, and it’s going to help seven other people.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, very good point. So, this has been so really interesting to me.

Patricia De Fonte: So much fun.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, so much fun. You’ve given out so many gems. Tell the listeners where you are, how you can be notified if they need it, and all [inaudible].

Patricia De Fonte: Sure. Yes. And if I could, so here I am. I’m an estate planning lawyer and I’ve got a pie. And this is a little glass of champagne [inaudible] and I have this necklace, which is the apple pie tree of life. So, when I was little asked my dad, what happens to us when we die. And he said don’t worry about it. We just walk past the sun, pass the moon until we get to the apple pie tree. So, all of my clients, all my branding, here’s the pie on the binders, all my clients receive a pie. I wear my necklace almost every day.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, my God, they receive a pie?

Patricia De Fonte: Yeah.

Cathy Curtis: Where do you get the pies from?

Patricia De Fonte: Three Babes.

Cathy Curtis: Oh. Oh, I love Three Babes.

Patricia De Fonte: Three Babes. Yes.

Cathy Curtis: Oh, that’s great. [crosstalk] When do you give them the pie? First meeting, second meeting, when they get [inaudible].

Patricia De Fonte: After signing because you’ve done all the hard work, we did your estate plan, you cleaned up your insurance, I made you stop using your stupid LegalZoom LLC and get serious. Like, you had to go ask the guardians if they would do it, you talk to your parents, like you’ve done so many things. I have tortured you 18 different ways. But you haven’t felt it because everybody at my firm we deliver with heart. Right? So, it’s all been very sweet and nice. But we know it’s hard and so we always finish with pie. And you get the binder… [crosstalk]

Cathy Curtis: Were you delivering pies during COVID? Or did you — You didn’t see clients during COVID, did you?

Patricia De Fonte: No. I do not see clients at all.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, okay.

Patricia De Fonte: Most of my clients have babies, so we do not get together.

Cathy Curtis: So, you ship the pies?

Patricia De Fonte: Babes ship the pies. Yeah.

Cathy Curtis: Yeah, okay. Great.

Patricia De Fonte: The Three Babes. My law firm is called De Fonte Law. If you ever meet a De Fonte, they are either related to me or married to someone who is related to me. So, I’m easy to find.

Patricia De Fonte: So, you can always just Google De Fonte Estate planning and I pop right up. I do a lot of workshops, so you can find me on Eventbrite and on Facebook. Come to a workshop, come learn with me. Maybe you hate the sound of my voice. Maybe you could just go one more hour and really dig into some basics. And we’ll talk more about low cost options and how to find a lawyer and like international issues. We can dig into that kind of stuff. De Fonte Law PC where we practice Estate Planning with Heart. Thank you so much for having me here today. I love talking about this stuff.

Cathy Curtis: I know. It was fantastic. Thank you so much.

Patricia De Fonte: Thank you.

Cathy Curtis: Okay, take care.

For more information related to this episode, please visit the show notes.

Hi, I’m Cathy Curtis. Thank you for joining me on my podcast, Financial Finesse. Lately on the podcast, we’ve been talking a lot about awareness, mindfulness, and creating space for what’s most important in our lives. I think these topics are so important because of how they relate to our finances, and specifically, our spending habits. When we’re not aware of where our money’s going, it’s easy to get off track when it comes to budgeting and long-term financial goals. So, in this episode, I want to focus on a few strategies to keep yourself on track that don’t involve traditional budgeting. Instead, they’re going to require you to be more self-aware, mindful of your spending, and intentional with where your money goes.

[01:37] #1: Identify Your Values to Reach Your Financial Goals

The key to better budgeting is to make it feel less like deprivation and more like prioritization. Understanding your core values, financial and otherwise, and aligning your spending with them can be really motivating. And when you feel more aligned, it tends to lead to greater fulfillment and better habits.

Here’s a few suggestions to align your new budget and spending plan with your values.

• Create a financial plan that emphasizes your goals, whether that’s early retirement, buying a house, or taking a long, expensive vacation.
• When you’re estimating costs, it’s always better to be conservative. Everything always costs more than we think it will.
• Link your spending to things that you value. This may require some self-reflection work, but it will be really worth it.
• Use visuals to maintain your motivation. Pop some pictures up on the wall over your desk or create a vision board on Pinterest.
• Revisit your goals regularly.
• Give yourself grace and a chance to rework the numbers or try again if you fall off track.

[02:47] #2: Budget for Your Future, Not Your Past

According to a recent Bank of America survey, 64% of Americans say their spending habits have changed since the pandemic started. In addition, 46% of affluent Americans have been getting their financial lives in order during the last 12-18 months and expect to reach their key financial goals a lot sooner than they thought they would.

That means that many of us not only changed how we spend our money, but we also developed more financial discipline during the pandemic. I think it’d be fantastic if some of us could maintain those money habits we developed, let’s face it, when we had fewer options. And creating a spending plan that reflects those habits can be a great way to keep the momentum going in the right direction.

Remember that small consistent actions over time often lead to the best results. And if you start to revert to your pre-pandemic spending habits, that’s okay. We’re only human. But here are some tips for getting back on track if that happens.

• Print out a copy of your plan and post it somewhere that it’s visible to you, so it stays top of mind.
• Track your spending. It’s something that none of us like to do, but it really does help. You can use apps like Mint.com, or there’s another one called YNAB that people like.
• Try the envelope system. This may seem really old fashioned, but it works. Take an item, whether it be clothing or dining out, and put the cash that you have budgeted to spend on it in the envelope. When the cash is gone, you can’t spend any more until the next month.
• Leave the credit cards at home. Well, that’s easier said than done because now you can pay with your phone. And who is going to leave their phone at home? No one. Try paying with cash or using your ATM card whenever possible so that you’re not buying on credit.
• Walk away. If you’re tempted to buy an item you don’t really need, simply leave the store, walk around the block and think about it. I’ll bet nine times out of 10 you won’t buy the item.
• Reward yourself each month that you stay within budget. Reward yourself in some small but significant way, for example, indulge in a nice lunch out, get a pedicure, order a glass of wine with a meal.

[05:06] #3: Get Your Shopping Habit Under Control

Here’s an area that I’m going to talk about, and it’s clothes shopping. But everybody has budget busters. Mine happens to be clothing, so I’ve developed a bunch of tips for myself to keep my habit under control. And I think you’ll find them useful whether you clothes shop or not.

• Number one. Try very hard to intentionally schedule shopping trips instead of spontaneously dropping into stores just to see what’s new.
• Number two. Don’t shop when you’re lonely, tired, frustrated, anxious, or bored. When you’re emotional, you tend to make bad decisions.
• Avoid shopping immediately after a setback or a major victory. Again, emotions.
• When the adrenaline kicks in, you know that feeling when you catch yourself in a shopping frenzy. Leave the store before you buy anything. Focus on centering yourself first.
• Number five. Don’t let friends, shop owners, or salespeople convince you that something looks great on you when you know it doesn’t or you don’t like it or it’s not your style.
• Decide what you need in your wardrobe and make a list. Take the list with you when you go shopping.
• Number seven. Before you buy anything on sale, ask yourself whether you would buy it at full price. How many of us have gotten in the sales trap?
• Number eight. Think quality, not quantity. Not only will the item of clothing last longer, you’ll love it longer. And this is a great way to save money on clothing over the long term.
• Stop rationalizing. You really do not need a whole new wardrobe because you got a new job or because you now work at home.
• Number 10. Buy things that you’re going to wear now, not for a far-off occasion or event that may never happen. Who wants to have something hanging in their closet for two years without getting to wear it?
• Number 11. Buy clothing for the way you live now, not for the way you wish you were living. For example, buying fancy dresses when you never go to fancy parties.
• Number 12. Avoid buying one-off pieces of clothing that don’t go with anything in your wardrobe. We all have those.
• Don’t buy clothing in the wrong size thinking you’ll lose weight or have it taken in. Although I have to say, having a good tailor is worth its weight in gold if you do find something really great, and you can have it taken in. Either that or buy yourself a sewing machine.
• Fourteen. Try shopping with cash, not credit cards. It’s much easier to set limits.
• Fifteen. Limit the number of trendy items you buy to just a small percentage of your wardrobe.
• I love this one. Number 16. Think number 10. Everything you buy should be as close to a 10 as possible. It’s a great visual.
• Realize that a new dress, skirt, blouse, piece of jewelry are not going to make you more beautiful or change your life, unfortunately.
• To help make better buying decisions, analyze your wardrobe to understand what your favorite go-to pieces are. What are the common themes?
• Home in on what colors and styles look best on you to limit your choices. Remember all those women that did colors for side work? It was kind of fun.
• Instead of going shopping with girlfriends, do something else like going for a hike, to a museum, or out to lunch.  
• Twenty-one. The one in, one out rule. And if your wardrobe is really large, you may want to release two or three pieces for each new one that you buy. Added benefit, somebody else gets to wear your discarded piece of clothing and enjoy it.
• Think like an economist and analyze cost per wear before buying.
• And lastly, track your clothing and accessory spending to hold yourself accountable.

Okay, so those are my tips to try and rein in a clothing shopping habit or another habit that you have. Things that you buy too much of.

[09:34] #4: Find Your Personal Style to Reach Your Financial Goals

This next part I’m going to talk about also relates to clothing, and it’s developing a personal style, which can really help to not buy in quantity and things that you never wear. Because a lot of women buy things that they never wear. They hang in the closet with the tags on.

So, here’s some tips to identify your style.

• Go into your closet and pull out pieces that you wear over and over again. Maybe even put them on a separate rack. This gives you really strong clues about how you like to look. And at the same time, if you have time, set aside stuff that you haven’t worn in a year.  
• Get inspired. Go through magazines, tear pictures of outfits that appeal to you. Go on Pinterest and pin things. And you’ll start getting an idea of what you’re really attracted to.
• Tip number three, revisit your routine. What are you doing now? What’s your life like now? Are you working at home? Are you dining out with friends? Did you join a new gym? What is your current lifestyle? And our lives have changed, so this could look completely different than it did two years ago.
• Here’s a great tip. It’ll cost you money, but it will save you money. Hire a professional stylist. If you find it really hard to go into that closet and do it, have somebody else go in there and help you. I’ve done it. It’s great. And it’s a lot of fun too. You can also employ somebody to help you shop. I think it’s worth it. This is sometimes. Where it’s worth it to spend the money.

All right, there’s how you’re going to figure out your style and save some money that way.

[11:17] #5: Go on a Decision Detox to Reach Your Financial Goals

Another way to keep yourself on track financially and reach your financial goals is to give yourself a little bit of a break. Sometimes it’s difficult to stick to good habits, and it may be because of decision fatigue. When you get there, your ability to consider the long-term impact of a decision goes out the window.

So, there’s nothing wrong with you if you have trouble accomplishing your goals. It just means you may need to go on a break. So again, here’s some strategies for reducing decision fatigue and boosting your mental energy.

Number one, anticipate routine decisions. Do you find yourself wasting time on similar decisions every day and get really bored with them? Like what to wear, or what to eat for breakfast, or what to eat for dinner? The fewer decisions you make earlier in the day, the more energy you’ll have for later.

So, the solution is to plan. Choose the outfit the night before, plan your meals on Sunday night. Paying bills. So automation is key here. Put all your monthly bills on automation and also your transfers, like transferring to an emergency fund or retirement savings or even to your financial goals account, like if you’re saving to buy a house. Automate everything.

Another tip: set healthy boundaries and learn to say no. This can sometimes be referred to as people-pleasing. If you tend to agonize about how to respond to invitations or requests, this is tiring. And what it really means is setting healthier boundaries. It’s totally not easy. So many people suffer from it. But it can save you valuable mental energy.

There’s a great book about this called Essentialism. And I highly recommend reading it. It will get you focused and thinking about what’s most important.

Another tip, and we talked about this within the clothes shopping area. Avoid making decisions when you’re tired, hungry, stressed, etc. When you’re feeling emotional, just don’t make any decisions. It’s just not good. You’re in survival mode, and you’re likely to make a bad decision. So instead, spend a few minutes meditating, go for a walk, take a few deep breaths, connect with a friend.

Tip number four. Designate times to check email, texts, and social media. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to do this, but I think it’s so important. We’re bombarded all day long with communication. And it’ll surprise you how much more you can get done when your phone isn’t distracting you. Even just turning off the pings and dings that you get when an email or text comes in could be really helpful.

Number five, don’t be afraid to delegate. Just because you can do it all doesn’t mean you have to. Our time and energy are finite. So sometimes reaching your goals means asking for help. And it can be at work, at home, in your financial life. Wherever you feel like you could delegate and afford to delegate it, do it. It’ll bring you more joy, it’ll be worth it.

So, there you have it, my five strategies for making better financial decisions without creating a traditional budget or tracking your spending. And if you want to go deeper into these strategies and create a spending plan that’s aligned with your values and financial goals, please visit curtisfinancialplanning.com/resources and download The Happiness Spreadsheet, a fresh inspiring approach to budgeting.

And as always, I’m available at Cathy@curtisfinancialplanning.com. And please look at my website, curtisfinancialplanning.com. Thanks for listening. See you the next time.

Cathy Hi, Nichole.

Nichole Hey, Cathy. It’s good to see you.

Cathy Welcome to Financial Finesse. It’s great to see you too.

Vanessa Yeah, I’m so happy to be here.

Cathy Yeah, it’s been a couple of months in the planning, but I’m glad we connected. So, Nichole and I met by serendipity. She was looking for professionals, right? Financial advisors that work with women to support her clients if they needed it. Is that right?

Nichole Yeah, exactly. I was looking to build up my own referral list of women who are working in really powerful ways to support my clients. And I work with women who are working on, you know, learning to live in powerful ways. So, I met you, I found you on the internet, and I really loved your website. And I was like, I want to talk to that lady. So here we are.

Cathy The power of a good website. And good SEO.

Nichole Yeah.

Cathy You Googled and found me, and so I’m very, very grateful for that. So, to get into today a little bit. I want to bring up your website tagline because that is, some of the things you do are so interesting and so important to living a more fulfilling life. And your tagline is: Present. Embodied. Empowered. Because your life is worth showing up for. And I’m sure you took a lot of time to pick those exact words.

Nichole Yeah, well, I labored over them many sleepless nights, actually.

Cathy I’m sure. I know that it’s, just to come up with the right words, to really let people know what you’re about is not an easy task.

Nichole Yeah.

[04:57] What it means to be present.

Cathy And one of the words that really resonates with me, and I want to talk about, is present. Being present. That present word, and which I’ve had so many people tell me live in, why don’t you live in the moment, be present. And personally, I find it really hard to do that. I find myself looking towards the past or worrying about the future. It usually involves worrying too.

Cathy That’s the problem. Because I think there can be positive spins on revisiting your past in the future. But a lot of it can be worrying, which is not good. And I want to ask you, what do you, what is it to you to be present? And do you think it’s hard to reach that state?

Nichole Yeah. That’s such a good question, Cathy. And I have a few answers. So, is it hard to be present? Yes. And no. So like, right now, for example. Can you just feel your feet touching the ground? And can you feel the feeling of your feet touching the ground, or the floor? Probably, unless you’re sitting outside.

Nichole And so right now, you can be present, feeling that present moment feeling of your feet connecting with the floor. So in that sense, it’s pretty simple. Or it could be that like, oh, I just touched my hands together. And like, oh, yeah, my fingertips, feel my fingertips. So that’s bringing me into the present moment. And that’s really useful, because as you know, and probably lots of the women who are going to be listening to this, it’s so easy to not be present.

Nichole And so that really is the next part of your question. You know, how do we get there? And is it easy to stay there? And I think, you know, we live in a world where our attention is commanded by so many things all at the same time. Whether it’s, you know, the mothers who are listening, are thinking of their various children and all the things that they have to be tracking to take care of their family. Or maybe it’s the businesswomen out there who are like, oh, well, my direct reports need to get to me about these things. And I need to go talk to my supervisor. And all of these things.

Nichole And so we’re constantly tracking so many things. And then with the advent of technology, which is great that we can be here. But let’s say, you know, we pick up our phones, for example, and we just scroll and scroll and scroll. What it’s doing is it’s overloading us with information. And, you know, that’s in addition to just the normal things that we would be attending to just because we’re living our lives. And so, when there’s so many things commanding our attention, we’re really not present. We’re not here. We’re not feeling our feet on the ground.

[07:58] The importance of being more present in our daily lives.

Cathy Okay. I know that feeling your feet on the ground is a metaphor for it. But why? Why is it better to be? What benefit do you get?

Nichole I mean, sometimes people say like, I don’t want to be present because I don’t want to have to feel my feelings. And that’s a really legitimate reason for not wanting to be present, especially if you are dealing with anxiety or stress or grief. Like, they’re uncomfortable feelings. So on the flip side of that, the question is, so what’s the value of being present? Well, think about all the beautiful moments of life that we miss because we’re so busy thinking about the future, or we’re so consumed fretting about what went wrong in the past.

Cathy Or looking at our phone. You should be looking at the beautiful forest, not thinking, oh, that would be a great picture.

Nichole Yeah. And what comes to mind is this. I don’t remember where I saw this. But it was this image that I saw on social media, and it was this picture of a big crowd. And I think it was this crowd was watching either a competition or a race, or maybe they were watching an important figure pass by. Everybody was taking pictures. And then there’s this one, and they’re all facing looking. I don’t know what it was that was going on over here. And then there’s this one woman in the foreground of the picture., and she’s just there.

Nichole And I thought, wow, that image is so telling of all these people are busy taking pictures of it. And being with it. Or, for example, when I was in Paris a couple of summers ago, I went to the Louvre. I remember getting to see the Mona Lisa, which is this just divine, like masterpiece of artwork. And everybody was taking pictures. And I looked around, and there was like me, and maybe like one other person who were actually just looking at the Mona Lisa. Because of the way it’s set up, we only had like, five minutes, and then they usher us out so the next group can come in. And so, I think of like those, those divine masterpiece moments of life.

Cathy Yes. And they’re in there everywhere. My husband, I don’t know how he, he has learned this art of being in the moment and being present. When we travel, he doesn’t, guess who takes the pictures? I do. And, if I can’t think of any other way of not being in the moment, it’s always thinking you have to take a photo of something. He doesn’t. He just takes it all in. And when we’ve traveled in groups. And I’ve noticed, that’s always the case. There’s some people that that’s all they do is take pictures, and others that just soak in every moment. And I’m always very envious of the people that just soak in every moment.

Nichole And I don’t want to dismiss taking pictures, because I’ll tell you, I took lots of pictures in Paris. But you get the point. And I just want to add one more thing to this part that feels really essential, is it’s not just about being there for the beautiful moments. It’s also about being there for the difficult moments. So, if I’m, let’s say in a moment of grief, if I’m choosing to be present with my grief, it’s more likely that I will go through a full and complete grief process, allowing that grief to actually heal.

Nichole And then to also really connect with, for example, what is it that I’m missing? So, if it’s the loss of a loved one, by being present with the grief, but also being present with the love that we had for that person. And so it allows us this, this present moment, awareness, this cultivation of being in the present. It allows us to have a richer relationship with our lives. So whether it’s feeling grief and sadness, or joy and pleasure, by being there, we’re really there.

Cathy That makes so much sense to me. And that’s really different from living in the past or focusing on the future. That’s truly experiencing, not shoving down the difficult emotions that come up at certain parts of life. Yeah, yeah. So, when you work with women, do you recognize right away if that is their issue? Or do most people that come to you not struggle with that?

Nichole Yeah, that’s an interesting question. So a lot of women have already determined for themselves, like, yeah, I really struggle with being present. I’m really distracted by the past and really anxious about the future. So they’re able to self-report like, yeah, I’m needing help with this.

Nichole And then other women, you know, when they come in, they’re not maybe as able to articulate exactly that. Often, they’ll report things like struggling to feel their feelings or feeling anxious about all the things that they need to do. And so that, to me, will often signal we might need to do some work around building a new relationship with the present moment. So how can I support them in learning to be with the experiences of their lives as those experiences are rising?

Nichole And sometimes that does include saying, yeah, I think these emotions might be a little too big right now. Let’s put them on hold and come back to them. And maybe just start with basic level mindfulness. How to begin to feel the sensations of the body or the breath or whatever it is that’s appropriate to them and where they are.

[13:39] How to manage anxiety through mindfulness and acceptance.

Cathy Okay. So, I’ll give you a good example. I’m in a mastermind group with some other advisors. In fact, we just met this morning. And one of the women was talking about this exact thing, how anxious she’s feeling. And you were describing some of the women and their struggle. She’s a mom and a business owner. You know, working with clients and juggling all these things, just came off a vacation, is feeling overwhelmed.

Cathy So, let’s just roleplay. So let’s say I’m that woman, which I have to admit, that happens to me. Because I am a business owner. And I’m not a mom. I’m not a mom. But being a business owner is like having a baby. Continually. And I told you that I’m struggling with this anxiety that I’m never doing quite enough. That’s a typical thing for me. Am I doing enough for the people that are relying on me in my life? And what are some tools to overcome that feeling and become more calm about it? And then do something about it, but in a really calm way? Reasonable way?

Nichole Yeah. Well, often what I really like to begin with is just recognizing that anxiety is there. And so oftentimes, what I noticed is that people come in, and they say, I’m anxious, and I want it to go away. And I say, yeah, I totally support in building, in growing tools and resources to support you in alleviating the anxiety. But we also want to spend some time exploring just the simple fact that it’s there.

Nichole And so this, this acceptance is a really important piece of the work that we do. And so, okay, so anxiety is here. Well, how is it showing up in your life? So, I might ask you to identify, you know, what are the ways that you notice anxiety showing up in your life? How is it affecting you? And so we’d begin to unpack it a little bit. And as I then get to know you and get to know, like, what are some of the stressors in your life or some of the things that are causing or exacerbating the anxiety. From there, we would work together to then grow or do practices or cultivate different tools that would help support you in managing the anxiety or in learning how to work with it.

[16:15] How Nichole’s training in somatic experiencing helps clients alleviate the effects of nervous system trauma.

Nichole Also a big part of what I help women with, in addition to doing a lot of work in the mindfulness realm, I’ve also been trained in a modality called somatic experiencing. It’s a modality that has been designed to alleviate the effects of trauma on the nervous system. And anxiety is a very, can be a very, can be a source of trauma, as well as result from trauma, and it can be very uncomfortable. So what I would also be helping someone like you do is, you know, explore ways of creating our nervous system regulation.

Nichole So looking at like, what are the bigger questions of your life that’s leading to the anxiety? What are the conditions of your life, where maybe there’s not enough resource, where maybe we need to build and grow more resources? And then bring in this element of nervous system regulation to support your nervous system in navigating what’s occurring in your experience? And then also, you know, this is where some of the coaching would come in. Is like, how do we ask some of these bigger questions that may be in the direction of, are the things you’re doing in your life ultimately supportive of a better quality of living? And do some decisions need to be made about how life is being lived? Or how work is being conducted? So, you know.

Cathy There’s very many disciplines, isn’t it? It’s not, this is not simple, in black and white, and it’s very individual.

Nichole It’s very individual. And what I’d say is it’s simple, but it’s also complex. It’s simple in the sense that it doesn’t need to be this big, massive undertaking of radically restructuring your life. It’s simple in the sense that it begins by asking the question, you know, what is happening in this moment right now? How am I relating to it? How is my nervous system responding to this?

Nichole But it’s complex in the sense that it might lead to a lot of deeper questions. And my hope is that as we dig into these deeper questions, that the women that I work with really become willing and interested in exploring deeper answers.

[18:28] Why Nichole believes meditation is key for building a life that feels useful and manageable.

Cathy One way that I found that I get present is through meditation. I’d imagine that’s one, a powerful tool that you use. In fact, I read on your website that you do a Monday morning meditation session, right, is that true? You can log in, yeah, I want to do that.

Nichole Yeah. And everybody’s welcome. It’s free. I do it by donation. And it’s Monday morning at 9am. And I’m happy to send you the link.

Cathy Yeah, please do. And so, I love being led in meditation. I do do it on my own. It’s one of the commitments to myself. I’ll do it for at least, even just five minutes. I don’t care how little, I always feel more grounded after I shut, you know, slow down my breath. The thoughts are flying around, but I do manage to have a few moments of peace. And it feels so good. Just that short little moment of peace is a big deal.

Nichole Yeah, yeah, I think meditation is a really key component to building out a life that feels useful and manageable. I know for a lot of people, meditation or getting started in meditation is really challenging. And I think there’s a lot of misconceptions in the meditation world that like our minds should be totally calm and clear. My take on meditation, after many years of my own practice, and many years of working with students, is that it’s not so much that the mind needs to be clear. And that if it’s not clear and calm, you’re doing something wrong.

Nichole It’s more that in the practice of meditation, even if thoughts come, can we just practice bringing the attention back to what’s real. Maybe you’re focusing on that sensation of the breath. Maybe you’re feeling your feet on the ground. And so, we’re just practicing building that strength and capacity of the mind to come back to the present moment and come back to the present moment.

Nichole And I think the net result for many people is that even though there might be thoughts, many people, myself included, have that experience of feeling more calm and restored through that ongoing cultivation. And then there’s also just the breathing, the diaphragmatic breathing. Breathing in and breathing out does actually help create a little bit more calm in the nervous system.

[20:51] Nichole explains the “right” way to meditate.

Cathy Oh, it does, just simple breathing alone. I so agree with you. Well, I’ve read enough books about meditation and articles about it and practiced it enough, where I forgive myself if I don’t reach that perfect moment of Zen. Because it is hard to get there. For me, it’s enough that I actually sit. And I feel, I’m happy about that. I’m not beating myself up over doing it.

Cathy And I really believe that’s the way that you have to go into anything like that. It’s like building muscle, you know, you don’t go to the gym and get big muscles, it takes a lot of hard work. It seems to be very simple. And the reward is so great to have more peace of mind.

Nichole Yeah. And one thing that I say to every person that I work with when we start is that there’s no right way, and there’s no wrong way. There is just simply the opportunity to be curious about what’s happening in our minds, and to be willing over and over to come back to that present moment. And then over time, most people find that it does yield a greater sense of overall well-being.

Cathy And it brings you back to the present, like looping back to our original discussion. What a great way to bring you back right into the present moment. If your mind is wandering, if you get control over your breath and your mind, you get right back there. It’s an amazing tool.

[22:24] The relationship between being present and having presence.

Cathy So, and another thing, reading through the work that you do, you also talk about presence. So being present and having presence. And I imagine they’re related. Because how can you really have presence if you’re not in the moment. That would be kind of a powerful way of being present. I’ve always thought and admire people that walk into a room, and you feel them. They are confident, or they’re standing tall, or whatever it is. And I think that’s part of your practice, too. Talk about that a little bit.

Nichole Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think of mindfulness in three ways. Initially, it’s a practice. So I practice mindfulness, I practice being present. And then it becomes a state. So the more I practice states of mindfulness, or sorry, the more I practice the practice, I experience more states of mindfulness. Or states of being present. And over time, when people practice enough, it becomes more of a trait. So they just have that general quality of presence about them.

Nichole And like you said, like, we all know that we’ve all had that experience, or we all know that person where we walk into a room and we’re like, they’re just so present. They’re just so, like, there’s a quality of real presence about them. And I think some people just have that very naturally. You know, like some people just are really talented at sports, people just have that quality. And then other people through practicing mindfulness and practicing cultivating ongoing states of being present. They cultivate that trait. And it is, it’s very much that quality of like, they’re just, they’re there with you. Like the kind of person that maybe when you’re talking to them, you really feel them with you.

Nichole Or, or I think about a lot, especially, you know, in the work that I do with women. Many of the women that I work with have either some history of abuse or trauma in their background, or maybe they’ve lived with chronic sickness or illness. And so they are not as embodied physically in their body anymore. So there’s maybe some way or, through the stress and anxiety, there’s maybe some way that they have, maybe not fully, don’t live in a fully embodied way. So in some disconnection, either emotionally, spiritually, or physically.

Nichole And so what we’re doing is working together to help them create that sense of presence. So that sense of like, really being there and showing up in their own lives or really occupying the ground that they stand on. Like, oh, here I am in my body. And obviously, this is an ongoing cultivation. And you’re right, we don’t have that experience from the very beginning. We grow it over time.

Nichole But just like you, in your own work, have developed a certain acumen, you have developed a sense of really knowing what you do. I think it can be kind of saying like, that sense of presence is that knowing I’m allowed to be here in my life. Knowing I’m allowed to take up space. And then choosing to take up that space in a way that acknowledges yes, here I am.

[26:00] How to cultivate more presence and truly connect with others.

Cathy Yeah. What a powerful thing for women in particular, who, many of us didn’t learn how to own our own space when we were going through life. It is kind of like an alien concept in some way. I’m sure the training, the combined training that you have with somatics and then the mindfulness is really important to that helping women, especially that have experienced physical trauma or illness or whatever, into having, developing that presence and feeling good in their own bodies.

Nichole Yeah, they’ve been extremely helpful. I think primarily, they’ve been helpful in the sense that, through these same modalities and practices, I have actually cultivated more presence in my own experience. Now that allows me to be really present and available to them. Have you ever had that experience or that feeling when you’re in the presence of someone who just has a lot of presence, like someone who’s really there with you? And have you had that feeling of feeling strangely at ease, or sociable, or like you matter, because they’re so fully there with you?

Cathy Exactly. That’s the quality I admire most about people like that. You feel like you’re the only person in the room. They’re paying attention to you. They’re listening. They’re not looking over their shoulder for the next person. You’re connecting. It’s really powerful when you meet someone like that. It’s not that common. And they tend to be better listeners because they’re okay with not doing all the talking. That seems to be part of that person as well.

Nichole I think being really present definitely aims, or yields, like being a good listener. Or a better listener.

[27:55] Nichole’s personal journey that led to her becoming a mindfulness coach.

Cathy Yeah. Tell us a little bit more. I’m curious myself on what your personal journey was in getting to this place of being a mindfulness coach.

Nichole Yeah, that’s a really thoughtful question. And thanks for asking. A journey it has been for sure. So I’m now in my mid 40s, and I started on this, I’d say the first real moment of inspiration, I think, really struck when I was probably in adolescence somewhere. I think there was just this, like, very early sense in me of just seeing the harm that was caused in society and family and culture when people weren’t present. And really, whether it’s, you know, seeing people who were harmed through other people’s addictions or people who were harmed by other people’s just unavailability, just not physically being there.

Cathy Yes. Workaholism.

Nichole Yeah. And I think what I saw from a very young age is a lot of harm and grief are caused by not being present. And so, and then I think that paired with I had a very strong like call to spirituality from a very young age. Like, I think I was like, 10. And I was like, Mom, will you please take me to church? And she’s like, ugh. But, okay.

Nichole And that was what I knew of spirituality. And over time, what I found later in my teens, when I was in my late teens, I was much more drawn toward Buddhism. And more like, historical European, like wisewoman spiritual traditions.

Cathy Where were you exposed to that? Because I wasn’t. I was raised in a Catholic environment, and I wasn’t exposed to other religions very early.

Nichole You know, that’s a really good question. Where was I exposed to it? I had an aunt, who, she was really into yoga. She taught yoga throughout my childhood. And then my mom, she actually was really good at, she had a very diverse friend group. And I remember going to like spiritual channeling events and like, weird, strange stuff. So that really planted that. And my grandmother was also, she was reading books about, like, past life stuff. So it was just in the air.

Cathy Yeah, all the women in your life.

Nichole All the women in my life. Yeah. There was also a lot of, you know, like, Judeo Christian influence, as well. And in my early childhood, so I had a lot of just influence in a lot of different ways. I have, my mom is one of five sisters. And they all have very diverse and different spiritual beliefs. So that was my imprint from a very young age.

Nichole And then so, by my late teens, I think what I realized, I found myself very drawn into Buddhist practice. There was also, you know, I think the reality why a lot of people go in the direction of spirituality or meditation, in my case, is there’s a lot of suffering. And there was also, you know, I experienced a degree of, you know, difficult experiences in my childhood and teen years. And I saw, you know, kids I grew up with getting into drugs and alcohol, and that just didn’t feel like a very good option for me.

Nichole And so I went pretty heavy into a meditation practice, and throughout my 20s, that really grew quite a bit. I found myself going on meditation retreats at a pretty young, early point in my 20s. And they lived, I lived in a community of people where we were all engaging in some spiritual practice. I had the privilege of traveling to India several times in my 20s and 30s.

Cathy Did you practice yoga there when you went?

Nichole You know, surprisingly, I didn’t actually do much yoga. I was doing more practice at Buddhist monasteries in Bodh Gaya, which is where, was known for the Buddha to have attained enlightenment. Bodh Gaya is up in northern India. And then I spent, I’ve traveled a lot through Thailand going to Buddhist monasteries. It just, it really, like the fire was lit, and it raged powerfully in my life for a lot of years.

Cathy Did you do your travels on your own?

Nichole I did most of it on my own. I did a fair amount of it with other people. But it was all like my own inspiration, my own desire. And then, you know, there is a, I think, another stretch in my 20s, where I experienced some pretty challenging life experiences. And I knew that my meditation practice was such a refuge.

Nichole And so in my later 20s, I actually dove in even more deeply. And I lived at a Buddhist meditation center for many years—not many years—for a stretch of time.

Cathy And that’s more communal living, right?

Nichole It was more communal living. Yeah. And then even at one point, I spent a year and a half traveling. This is in my early 30s. I spent about a year and a half doing extensive ongoing retreats to just continue to deepen my practice.

Cathy I am like, surprised to hear this. I’m so glad I asked you this. I had no idea. But you know what, I’m not surprised. Because you have that presence we were talking about. You really do. Even though I haven’t met you in person, I feel it over Zoom.

Nichole Thank you. That’s a really, that’s a lovely reflection. But to wrap up the response to that question, how did I get to this point of coaching? You know, I think, you know, when I moved to the Bay Area, there was the big question of what am I going to do for work? And I actually moved to the Bay Area right on the heels of this year and a half long meditation sabbatical. And there was this question of what am I going to do for work?

Nichole And I thought, well, I know how to teach because I’ve worked in teaching capacities. I know how to facilitate because I’ve been facilitating groups all of my 20s. And I know meditation, and I know mindfulness. And so I first landed a really fantastic opportunity at UCSF to teach Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which I’m still teaching many years later.

Cathy I saw that on your website.

Nichole Yeah. And, and then from there, I pursued the somatic experiencing trauma, trauma therapy training. The two then really solidified in how I work with women, I really integrate the two. So that has led to, you know, just a lot of opportunities to facilitate programs, where I’m teaching trauma awareness skills, as well as mindfulness skills. And a lot of my initial early clients came out of my MBSR programs.

Cathy And now, what does that stand for?

Nichole Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.

Cathy Okay.

Nichole Yeah, sorry, I didn’t clarify that earlier.

Cathy Oh, no, that’s okay.

Nichole And so very, not to say unintentionally, because I certainly, like, had aspiration and ambition. But very organically, I’d say this practice of coaching has, it’s just grown very organically. And it’s grown very much from my love of these disciplines and my love and deep commitment and passion for supporting women in their own growth and awakening. So now I do one-on-one coaching and counseling and mindfulness work, but I also do a lot of group programs. And that’s really like my love. I mean, I love doing one-on-one work, don’t get me wrong. But I love group programs a lot. And I have a few of them happening.

[36:00] The group coaching programs Nichole offers clients and newcomers.

Cathy Tell me. Describe a group program and what a day would be like, if they are a couple of days, or a day, or?

Nichole Yeah, most of the group programs that I teach are either six or eight-week programs. So we meet weekly for a few hours. And then one, for example. So one is the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction classes where we meet every week. And I’m, you know, walking them through a curriculum that I didn’t create myself. Jon Kabat-Zinn created it, and I teach it through UCSF. But there’s another curriculum that I have created, which is more of a trauma awareness and mindfulness-based program for women who are wanting to go through kind of their own healing and awakening process.

Nichole And so we’re looking at mindfulness practices through a trauma informed lens. And then another one, which I’m really excited about, which I’m going to be launching in the fall. It’s called purpose and presence. And it’s geared more for entrepreneur, entrepreneurial women, or just high achieving professional women who are wanting to learn just self-regulation skills, mindfulness skills, emotion regulation. But to also use these to explore, what is my purpose? How do I be of service in this entrepreneurial or professional capacity in a way that’s in alignment with what feels right and true? But also utilizing their powerful skills and their, the things that they know and do really well in the world?

Nichole And one of the things that I hear most common from women who are working in these capacities is like, I feel overwhelmed, I feel anxiety. I feel like I need to constantly be good enough for constantly achieving. And so what I’m hoping will yield from this is women who feel in alignment and in integrity with their work and their values, and feel that sense of presence, but also feel very connected to their purpose.

Cathy Yeah. Because you know, it’s very human to have those feelings of anxiety. It’s common and there’s nothing wrong with you if you have them. If you can learn to manage them, think just how much more joyful whatever you’re doing will be. That’s extremely valuable. That sounds, your programs sound really wonderful.  

Cathy So if someone wanted to reach you, let’s share your, whatever you would like to share. Your email, your website, are you on social media, do you have a Facebook group? Any of those things, and then I’m going to ask you one more question after that.

Nichole Yeah, sure. So um, you know, the usual social media suspects. So you can reach me on Facebook at Presence Mindfulness Coaching and Counseling for Women, or on Instagram, it’s @presencemindfulness, or my website is presencemindfulness.com. That said, I actually have a new website in the works, which should be released in August, and it’s going to be NicholeProffitt.com. But my current website will direct over to the new website when it’s up and running. And then as far as email, you can reach me at nicholeproffittpresence@gmail.com.

Cathy I’ll include all of these in the show notes, which I’ll post on my website, so people will know where to go. Okay, so I have one last question. If a woman has never done any kind of like, if this is all new. It’s so common now. But what if you’ve never even tried to meditate or get mindful at all? What do you recommend would be a first step?

Nichole Yeah. That’s a great question. Well, I have new people come into my programs all the time, who have never done anything in the way of mindfulness or meditation. But they just have that sense that they need to try it. And I love, so I love working with people who’ve never done this before. You know, one way to begin is, I like to do what I call a meditation walk or a mindful walk, which is just to take a walk through your neighborhood. And what I recommend you do is just take a stop every 10 feet or so and just stop and look around. See what you see. Hear what you hear, feel what you feel. Feel your feet on the ground, take a breath, and then take another, you know, 10 to 15 steps, and repeat that.

Nichole So feel your feet on the ground, take a breath, see what you see. And what I mean by that is like really see it. Not just like, oh, yeah, I know what that fern looks like. But like, no, really see it, the colors, the shapes. Hear what you hear, oh, I know, it’s just a car, but no, what is the sound? What’s the sound of the car, and so on. And feel what you feel. What is the feeling of delight, joy, relief feeling like?

Nichole So that’s a beautiful place to start. And I also really, I say to allow them to keep it simple. So five minutes. And for some people, five minutes can feel like torture. I remember in the early days of my meditation practice, in my like late teens and early 20s, sitting down for five minutes felt like torture.

Cathy It is a long time when you’re just sitting there.

Nichole And all you have to do, all we have to do is just note that in these five minutes, you don’t need to do anything. You don’t need to be anywhere. You get to be here with your breath, feeling the inflow, feeling the outflow. And then in five minutes, you can go back to what you’re doing.

Cathy Right. Great, thank you. Those are two perfectly powerful tips.

Nichole And I promise you it, the torture diminishes over time. At one point in my practice, when I was really like just exclusively devoted to meditation, I was sitting for about two hours at a time.

Cathy Oh my gosh, I was going to ask you that. How long do you sit for now?

Nichole You know, these days, my meditation practice is really varied. It depends on the day, it depends on what’s going on, how my body feels. Some days, I’ll just go on a mindful walk. Some days, I’ll do a practice outside where I sit with my eyes open and I see what I see, hear what I hear, feel what I feel, etc. And then other days, I’ll do a formal meditation practice where I’ll sit anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes.

Cathy Oh, gosh, that must be, that must feel amazing when you open your eyes.

Nichole I mean, this is, I just want to normalize it. Like even for me, I’ve been doing this for years. It’s still challenging sometimes. And that’s the point. It isn’t so much that we want the challenge to go away as, can I grow the ability to be with the challenge? So if grief or sadness come up, the idea is not to always feel happy. But can I grow the capacity to be with the grief or the sadness as equally as the joy and the happiness? Which is why we call this a practice. We are constantly practicing.

Cathy Right. You’re never done.

Nichole Yeah. We’re always growing, we’re always learning, and we’re always practicing.

Cathy Okay, well, thank you, Nichole. I totally enjoyed this conversation.

Nichole Yeah. Cathy, I just want to say thank you so much. I’m so grateful to be invited on, and I’m really excited to do some work together.

Cathy Definitely, Nichole. You have a nice weekend.

Nichole You, too. Take care. Bye.