Greg: I was thinking of titling this, ‘What’s it Matter,’ or ‘It’s a Small Town,’ things like that, and I’ll get into that later. What I wanted to bring you first was some special content, because Shelby is a special place, and I believe you can accomplish anything from anywhere.

Hayden: The world is a smaller place with all the technology, you can skype, you can have video conferences, and get places quick and easy. Anywhere can be a base.

Greg: The world is so much more accessible, just by what we’re doing now, we can reach out and touch the entire planet. Now what I’m holding in my hand and what we’re going to get to, is Top Secret Estate Planning. I’ve had people wanting to sneak these out of meetings, and say, I want to see this so I can explain it to my family, but I’ve always been really protective of it. Hayden cautioned me before we came on, “are you sure you want to do this?”

Hayden: Well, it would end up in the hands of your competitors as well as clients.

Greg: I don’t look at it that way, it’s freely giving information, that’s what I’m going to do. I think visually, and this is a layout of exactly how passing a home or any other asset, the flow of passing a home or property through probate, deed planning, trust planning, and using beneficiary planning. It shows liens that can attach if you use probate, and how and why that can sabotage and shortcut from Medicaid liens, to creditor liens, to medical bills in the last year of your life that can force the sale of part of your money and property and keep it from getting to the kids. I will post this today and we’ll talk about it a little more here.

But I also wanted to talk about Shelby and Cleveland County. It’s a great place to raise children. One of our big annual events, ‘The Livermush festival’ is going on behind us. We’re going to go eat some livermush later. It’s a great festival, great food, great people, you see everyone you know there. Hayden, you grew up in Cleveland County. You were the home coming queen in (19??), why are you still in Shelby, you have such a big personality, what’s special about Shelby to you? Why be here?

Hayden: It’s home, my everything. I’ve been in every major city in the country more or less. Chicago, San Francisco, Dallas, Minneapolis and on and on. Here in Shelby, when I walk down the street, people I don’t know are friendly. My husband is from New York, he grew up in Brooklyn and still works in New Jersey, and he understands it too. He really misses it when he goes up there, he wants to come back. He’ll always be a Brooklyn boy, the accent, the whole thing but it’s just different here, it’s a slower pace, he loves no traffic.

Greg: I’ve asked this question of you, of myself, of business coaches, and people I work with, ‘How can I or someone else be a leader in an industry or field when based from a small place like Shelby, North Carolina?’

Hayden: You could look at world leaders who grew up in small towns, and they managed to accomplish what they wanted to because they had the drive, they made the plan.

Greg: Let me ask you this. I grew up here, I rode a bus 182, and if you rode bus 182, leave a comment, because I had a ball on bus 182. All the kids did not just sit in their seats. That was the Old Boys?? Friends?? School here on main street, it’s now a town building. It’s the same place my parents went to high school, it used to be the ?? Crest High School.

Hayden: When I grew up in Grammar school, the first few years we had one 1st grade, one 2nd, 1 through 6th, and the library was two shelves in your class room. Everybody had their own two shelves, and I read all the books that were readable in the 1st grade, and I was working my way in the 2nd grade, so I had to go into that class.

Greg: That’s why you’re so smart. Readers are leaders. Anything is accessible now through books, through the internet, and I think you’re right, you can grow something from anywhere. Shelby is a great testament. But I hear people say all the time, ‘Oh it’s Shelby, oh it’s Cleveland County,’ have you heard people say that, as if they’re limited by that? Why do people say that? Or do people say that wherever they are? Do people always find excuses why they believe they can’t do something?

Hayden: I think many people are unhappy, and they blame exterior circumstances outside of themselves for their unhappiness. They don’t feel fulfilled, or that the world isn’t big enough for them here. A lot of them in this area go away but come back, they find out ‘click, click,’ red slippers, ‘there’s no place like home.’

Greg: The grass is not greener on the other side necessarily.

Hayden: They miss what I missed, the familiar faces, the politeness.

Greg: I think we’re too polite sometimes by the way, as Southerners, which puts us at a disadvantage sometimes, in business or whatever, in my opinion. I think you can do anything, anywhere you are on the planet, I don’t care whether you’re in a village in Africa, or you’re in Shelby NC. Obviously some people are born with a belief that they have more or less opportunity than others, accessibility to education and things like that, but whatever you want to do, you can do. Our forefathers were the ones who built the textile mills here. Even when I was growing up in Shelby, this place felt like it was booming. It felt like the land of opportunity. It felt good.

Hayden: Look at the vacant mill buildings around, and look at how PPG came in, the industry boomed, and everything was rocking. A good place to be to start a business.

Greg: In my opinion, we need to stop whining about it. The younger generation, myself included, needs to work and build the industry. That’s what I think.

Hayden: There’s a lot of solar farms around here and Disney.

Greg: How many people do they put to work though? I think the younger generation needs to put it on their shoulders to build.

Hayden: When we grew up, I’ll go back to my grandfather, when he passed away, he was with a company called M and J, it was merchants and jobbers. It was basically small money coming in that they loaned to small businesses and home owners. He retired, then my grandmother passed away and then he passed away, and he was able to leave a small legacy to his children. That’s the way we built fortunes in this country. Father to son, to grandchildren, to great grandchildren. Everyone leaves a little more.

Greg: That’s true, and I think one of the biggest barriers to growth right now is the lack of capital. We have shut off capital to new businesses and individuals in this country. It’s so hard to get a home loan now, or a business loan, it’s ridiculous.

Hayden: From the advertisements you wouldn’t think so.

Greg: But it is, it is, do not think credit does it. If the banks don’t believe in the American people, who does? Do you believe in your grand kids? Of course you do. Do you want to leave them something to help them?

Hayden: Absolutely.

Greg: I do too. I believe in my kids. If I could free up capital, I’d make it available to people in Cleveland County to start new companies, to create new ventures. But in general, capital is not readily available, and you have to make it available.

Hayden: That’s what the Asset Protection Document means to me, because I’ve worked, I pay taxes, I own my home, it’s paid for free and clear, I have a car that if I hadn’t wrecked it would be paid for free and clear. That was early goal in my life, as a young parent was to make sure that everything I invested in was enough to provide my kids with a small legacy.

Greg: But you don’t want to hamstring them with a sense of entitlement either. So that’s the trick, how do you give them a leg up?

Hayden: You teach them to work. My kids did the loading of the dishwasher, they mopped, they vacuumed, they had A week and B week for chores, and they swapped every week.

Greg: My thoughts are, banks aren’t the ones to help your kids and grandkids out to get loans and start businesses, to build new empires, to build new industries. If you look at Cleveland County, it’s not easy, running a law firm is not easy. There’s struggles for production, and marketing, and client relations, and capital is always a part of expansion, and it slows growth.

What you can do is leave a legacy for you kids and grandkids. You can protect the property in your family that you bought, or your parents bought, or their parents bought, or you can also hand down money through trust planning. Maybe you don’t give it to them all at one time, but it doles out a little at a time. Maybe at 25 years old, 30, 35, or maybe you leave it for them when they go to college.

The point is, you can do whatever it is you want to, wherever you are.

So, I’m going to post this visual plan, exactly how I think about Estate Planning, and Deed Planning, and Trust Planning. I’m going to show you something where, I’ve had people try to walk out with this, and I’ve said, “I cannot let this go out of the office okay.” This is really special only because I take the time to put these things down so my clients can visualize it. So I’m going to post this, I don’t care if it’s going to help my competition. My goal is to help you by putting this out there, and being very open with everything we do to help you.

My thoughts are, by putting this out, it will inspire me to do the next thing, and take it to the next level.

You can do anything from Shelby, or from Lattimore, or from Boiling Springs or wherever you want, and you can protect your hard earned money and property, and give your kids and grandkids a better chance to achieve more. My goal is to help millions of people. I don’t say it that much but it is.

So go to mcelderlaw.com and sign up for our e-newsletter, and I’ll send you a really high quality picture of this visual document.

We’ll be back at the conference table next week at noon on Friday.

If you have any questions you would like to ask me about anything discussed in this article you can call me at McIntyre Elder Law at 704 259–7040, or you can find us on Facebook and twitter @LawyerGreg. So leave a question or a comment, I do answer any questions and comments throughout the week so get writing.

Call me if you have any questions:

Greg McIntyre

Elder Law Attorney
McIntyre Elder Law
123 W. Marion Street

Shelby, NC 28150

704–259–7040