I had a luncheon conversation in Toronto with one of Canada’s top tax attorneys. I asked, “What’s more important the hard, math side of estate planning or the soft, emotional side of estate planning?” Quickly and unequivocally, he answered that it was the soft, emotional side of estate planning that was more important and that one can always hire a “calculator” to crunch numbers. What’s it all about? Number crunching should only support what clients are truly trying to achieve. Are we leading planning conversations by asking the right questions and helping clients understand what is really important? I hope you find this “challenging” WSJ article thought-provoking.

The WSJ article can be found by clicking here.

From the article: “As a personal finance expert, I give advice on how to maximize wealth. At the end of my mother’s life, I realized there’s a more important question: What is our money for?  I have spent much of my career as a personal finance expert preaching how to save more, spend less and minimize taxes. It made me realize that I had book knowledge in a situation that demanded street smarts. Not much discussion of financial planning is geared toward how to take care of other people and how to make it possible for them to care for you. The people who reach out to me for advice want to talk about optimizing rates of return and navigating market risks, about Roth conversions and when to claim Social Security. I had always been right there for these discussions, but now this sort of strictly financial maneuvering seems to miss the most important question: What’s it all for?”