Today’s topic is wills.
So, I’ve been thinking about my will for a long time. I have to say, I really enjoyed the process of both thinking about it and writing it. I thought about what I want to be left after me. Who I care about and how I want to influence their lives after I pass away. It’s been great. I’ve thought about friends, I’ve thought about family, I’ve thought about my role in their lives. I also researched wills and looked at historical wills for the last chapter of my book, Payoff. Aside from the fact that it’s an enjoyable process—and I hope that you are also able to take a joyful perspective and not an unjoyful perspective on wills—I want to point out a couple things.
The first is that some people use their will as a way to end a discussion; meaning that they use it to end an argument or pay a debt. Essentially, to have the last word. Imagine a lawyer reading your will to your beneficiaries. There’s no way they can argue with you. I can see why it is appealing, but it’s a really bad strategy. I would say that if we need to resolve something with people in our lives, we should do it while we’re alive and they have a chance to respond.
The second thing is that people use wills to settle scores. For example, in Payoff I wrote about a guy whose wife hated his cigars. So, he left her his fortune in yearly installments on the condition that once a year on the day of his death, she would go to his lawyer’s office and smoke a cigar.
The worst approach of settling scores is among kids. Imagine you have two kids and one of them needs money more than the other, or one of them has been kinder to you, or one of them has treated you better in your old age. There’s a desire by people to use the will as a tool to make amends. The sad reality is that this creates friction between the kids. Imagine that Kid A was nicer to me than Kid B, so I leave more money to Kid A. What will that do to the relationship between them? Most likely, Kid A will feel more loved and Kid B will feel less loved, even if the difference in the amount I leave is very small. Their chances of benefiting from their sibling relationship, moving forward, will be vastly diminished.
To end, here is my recommendation. Imagine you have two kids and one of them has a greater need for money than the other one. Should you leave more money to the kid who needs more? My recommendation is no. Instead, do the following: Leave a letter to your kids telling them that you love them both very much and that their relationship is incredibly important to you. Remind them that they’ll have each other for a long time, and you want their relationship to be as strong as possible. Explain that your will is set up to allow the two of them to decide whether one should get more than the other. But if they can’t come to an agreement, everything will be divided 50/50.
Why is that a good strategy? It says that you love them both the same. It says that you care about their friendship, and you want them to go into the negotiation in a way that maximizes their relationship. That’s the important thing because, really, you want your kids to be there for each other throughout their lives. If they find their own solution to dividing your assets, it doesn’t say anything about your love for them. It says something about their relationship with each other. It’s not a signal of your love.
Wills are unbelievably important. Please try to make yours and try to enjoy the process. Think of it as a way to create something better after you are gone. Not to settle a score, have the last word, or force somebody to smoke a cigar.
