Simple Suggestions for Building a Lasting Legacy w/John A Warnick of Purposeful Planning Institute

Good morning, counselor. How are you?

John “John A” Warnick (00:42.55)
I’m great, Chris. Wonderful to be with you.

Chris Tanke (00:45.451)
I am so very excited about our time together today. think this topic on building legacies at last, having some suggestions from a guy that’s been around the block once or twice with this issue is just a marvelous opportunity for us. I very much appreciate you carving out some time for us here at Navigating Abundance to discuss this today. So we met at the personal planning Institute rendezvous a couple of years ago and, and, was during the lunch break, which is actually the best time to be meeting people. And your lovely bride was there and a group of other people. And we sat down at a table and share a little bit about navigating abundance very much in its infant stages. And then you were sharing some concepts that you’re working on as well. and I got to tell you, John, think everybody’s your friend. You’re a very giving person.

I really appreciate our relationship that’s developed through navigating abundance and a little bit about this upcoming book that you’re working on and I have privilege to read some of the manuscript of that. Very excited about that. But you have impacted my life and I know that the conversation that we have today is going to impact others as well. And thank you, John, for investing in us all. I really, really appreciate that. I wondered if you could just share with us audience here a little bit more about the personal planning Institute just a couple of minutes how that began what the purpose of that was There was what three or four hundred practitioners when when I attended in Denver a couple years ago pretty impressive stuff So where did this all come from? How did it evolve?

John “JohnA” Warnick (02:25.816)
Well, it really started 25 years ago, approximately, when one of my clients gave me a little green book called Family Wealth Keeping in the Family. And I read that book and was just, couldn’t put it down. It was the first book that I had discovered that really went deeper into the non-financial dimensions of families wealth. And so it was really discussing the human capital, the intellectual capital, the social and spiritual capitals, and offering a lot of suggestions for how families could strengthen what I would call the family relational fabric. So the client that had lent me that book and asked me to give him my thoughts, asked me to find the author. And I did eventually in a very providential way, find somebody who had retired from the practice of law. And this, this was pre LinkedIn, pre Facebook, pre Google searches. mean, how did you find a self published author from 1994 back in the year 2000?

I mean, the world’s changed so dramatically. It’s so easy for us to find people today. I did, I was led to find this individual who then became a consultant to the family I was working with for five, almost six years. And that five year or so journey with him really changed the professional trajectory of my life.

And in that time, he would say, if you’re going to be in New York City, if you’re going to be in Chicago, if you’re going to be in LA, let me know. I’m going to introduce you to the people who have influenced me. So in the course of five or six years, as I was traveling to professional meetings and client conferences in these major metropolitan areas, I got introduced to about 25 individuals that had had.

John “JohnA” Warnick (04:40.45)
They had been influencers of this man who was having this incredible influence on me. And I learned so much from these other pioneers about how they were breaking out of what had been the traditional mold that we did technical planning in. And so when that mentor, James E. Hughes Jr., the author of Family Well, told me you’re going to leave the large law firm and you’re going to do what I do.

John “JohnA” Warnick (05:09.814)
And I told him, no, I’m going to do what you do, but do it inside a large law firm. I tried for 18 months to prove him wrong. And I really had almost gotten there when we hit the great financial blizzard of 08, 09 and my law firm, I was in a large law firm. They had committed to it. And then they pulled back and said, no, can’t do it now. Come back to us in three or four years. And that’s when I had to tell my wife, Jay was right.

John “JohnA” Warnick (05:38.45)
I can’t do this inside the large law firm. And anyway, that led to the formation of the Purposeful Planning Institute and my kind of jumping out of the large law firm and becoming a consultant. I still do a little bit of lawyering, but mostly today I’m writing, consulting, and speaking. So that’s the story of how Purposeful Planning Institute came about. And it was really founded on a vision that the technical planning that predominates the world of financial planning and the tax planning world, that that technical planning needed to be elevated. needed a heart and soul. And that’s what I thought the mission of the Purposeful Planning Institute would be, would be to help other practitioners in diverse professions learn how they could help families create lasting legacies.

Chris Tanke (06:41.038)
Mm-hmm. Yes, and it’s a it’s an impressive work and Of course you can google it and spend some time on it On the website and see what they’ve developed there. They’ve got a very good podcast there as well Very good resource for you personal planning Institute. Please take advantage of that Now John you came out a few years ago with a handbook on purposeful trusts and legacies, which would be a good parlay into our conversation today as well. But you’re also working on a new project that has yet to be shipped as we’ve talked about. You haven’t pushed it out yet. Describe what that is for us in a moment too, would you please?

John “JohnA” Warnick (07:23.884)
Yeah, so the the purposeful trust and legacies handbook is really, it’s written for the practitioner, a lawyer, financial planner, gift planner, and it’s, all about how people can create more purposeful legacies and has a lot of innovative ideas in it. But the book I’m working on currently is called the gift of you. And it’s, it’s more about how can we really give non-financial, non-legal gifts to those we care most deeply about and to the causes we’re most committed to. And yeah, I look forward. It’s 13 chapters. It’s going to be a relatively easy read. It’s heavy on stories drawn from my experiences with clients and drawing from kind of publicly notorious individuals who’ve had either positive or negative experiences creating legacies. So it’s all about how do I create a non-financial, non-legal legacy? Certainly the legal and the financial have to be part of an individual’s ultimate legacy. But just like with navigating abundance, there’s so many principles that are kind of non-traditional in terms of coming into this arena and helping family leaders have a more positive, sustainable impact in the lives of those they care most deeply about.

Chris Tanke (09:00.29)
Yeah. Yeah. Very good. We’re going to put up an illustration for you right now, that, you may have seen before if you’ve been following some of our podcasts, but navigating abundance is all about the advance of total family wealth. and many practitioners understand this, John, you’ve talked about this already. This is kind of our spin on it, our approach, but basically your total family wealth is in three categories. Your Ledger wealth, your financial capital, your logistic wealth, your functional capital and your legacy wealth, your family capital. And what you’ve described is a lot of initial focus in being an attorney on logistical wealth concepts, your functional capital of teams and plans and wills and trusts and successions and business planning and all that kind of stuff. But after a while you begin to actually not very long, you begin to realize that you, wow, it’s really about the legacy. It’s about the people. So while we encourage pursuing all three of these things, you have to do it simultaneously. the greatest of these is legacy wealth. And unfortunately, if you’re good, maybe at ledger wealth, maybe you’re not so good at. legacy wealth, or vice versa. So anyway, it’s, it’s a really an exciting, concept. lot of front, frontier work has been done. You’ve been a big part of that. Jay’s been a big part of that. Others as well, but, it’s, it’s kind of our voice to this. We’re trying to come at a fresh perspective of this, maybe simplify it a little bit. And, I really appreciate your, your, belief in our vision.

John “JohnA” Warnick (10:39.831)
And I love those capitals that you’re describing. So ledger wealth, legacy wealth, what’s the third?

Chris Tanke (10:48.878)
Logistical wealth your functional functional capital your advisor teams financial plans business succession plans wills and trusts Maybe even your family office These are the teams of people that make all the rest of this work and they’re valuable real valuable But a lot of people they stop with ledger and logistic They don’t get very much into legacy and we’re thinking no no no no if you’re gonna invest some time At least an equal amount of share should be in legacy, which is what we’re talking about today simple suggestions for a build legacy that lasts and I got to tell you John and ladies and gentlemen I you might not have any idea who I’m talking to but somebody that’s been around the block that’s been a practitioner in these areas to be able to synergize together and then say okay on the basis of all this my background understanding here is some tips on legacy wealth development that you can do and so I just I’m super excited.

Thanks a lot for being here, John. So I’m going to hand over the mic to you. And I might have a question or two along the way. But if you were to kind of coach somebody on some suggestions on building legacy wealth, what have you found that’s kind of like worked or that we should be thinking about as we get out the gates and recommit ourselves to building our family capital?

John “JohnA” Warnick (12:13.24)
Well, I’m fond of saying, Chris, that my greatest teachers have been my clients. And yeah, I’ve been influenced by other great practitioners. But in reality, it’s been the clients that have led me through their life experiences to some of these marvelous insights. So maybe starting out with, we could use a series of stories here to just kind of demonstrate the simplicity and yet the power of what we’re talking about when we talk about the legacy component of total wealth. Let me take you to a boardroom of a private company. We’re on like the 13th floor of a skyscraper in the tech center of Denver. And I’ve been asked to come to this meeting by two financial planners who’ve been working with this particular gentleman who is the CEO of a non-public company that is a major player in the natural gas industry in the US and they told me that they had been working with this guy for two years and they couldn’t get him to commit to move forward and they were they were seeking my help so

We’re in this conference room waiting for him to arrive. I’m seated at one end of this table and it was a table, you know, the square tables that would handle maybe 40 people. And in walks this kind of Haas Cartwright sized Texan. And he sticks his hand out and that vice grip handshake is one of those that, you know, just about took me to my knees.

John “JohnA” Warnick (14:05.78)
And then he releases and walks all the way to the far end of the table and drops this with a heavy thud this five inch thick of set of documents and says, well, I guess you know why you’re here. And I said, well, these guys have told me that you’ve been working on a estate plan for several years now, but you’re at an impasse. You can’t seem to move forward.

And he points to these documents and he says, if you ripped the first page and the last page off of every one of these documents, my family would never know this was my plan. at first that if you rip the first and last page off, my family would never know that was my plan. I was stumbling trying to catch up with that.

John “JohnA” Warnick (15:01.622)
And then I realized what he was saying. The first page likely was the page that had, you know, a description of the family, the beneficiaries. It had his name, perhaps the name, a family name for the trust document. And the last page was the signature page where his name would appear again. But he was telling me that everything between the first and the last page was what we call in the law boilerplate.

John “JohnA” Warnick (15:31.06)
It was, and what he was really screaming was, it’s not my plan, it’s their plan. As in, it’s the lawyer’s voice that’s coming. My family will never know who I am. And so he explained to me that he had spent $5,000 to have these documents scrubbed by his big accounting firm. And they had assured him that everything was legally precise and tax compliant and that he should sign the documents, but he still refused. And the reason he was refusing is he wanted his children and grandchildren eventually to know what he stood for, what were the values that had helped him build this company, accumulate this wealth, and what were his, you know, most heartfelt hopes and dreams for what they would do with the the ledger welt, if I’ve got the terminology correct, that he had created. And so he commissioned me, he gave me permission, and we worked together for two or three months. And I give credit to him. He’s the guy that every one of these great clients that came into my life in this period of time showed me, demonstrated another way. He came up with a concept that

John “JohnA” Warnick (16:59.95)
We called the Trust Compass and it was basically the idea that he didn’t want to trap his family with a document that was built with today’s vision and he knew that if this was going to be a sustainable legacy, it would need to last for at least 50 many, many more years. He wanted it designed potentially to have a perpetual life, but he realized that it would need to be adapted.

And so through his concept of a trust compass, we came up with a process that would allow this document to be refreshed, amended through the use of, in Michigan, you call them trust directors. The rest of the world calls them trust protectors, but this trust protector, trust director would be focused on what mattered most. That was that trust compass. was a series of 10 principles that he wanted to be sure were checked off and honored anytime anyone would come and want to refresh, renew, kind of reinvigorate the legal document. So, what do we learn from this lesson? To me, it is the importance of making sure that your voice is heard. I love that movie, The King’s Speech. Do remember Lionel Logie is the

John “JohnA” Warnick (18:24.788)
speech therapist who helps King George find his voice. And I really think that the practitioners, financial planners, the lawyers, the CPAs, everybody that’s on the logistical side of it, they all need to have one goal, and that is to make sure that your voice is heard and that they capture your voice. And that was the one technique that really resonated with the Haas Cartwright figure I just talked about. I listened to him, I recorded him using a digital recorder, and then I put snippets of that in text boxes where they applied throughout the document. And you don’t have to do it that way, but finding a way to capture your voice so that your heirs know what your deepest concerns and they know the positive love that you have for them. I think that’s the number one most important objective any legacy creator should have. And the second that built on that was another experience that follows shortly thereafter. I had a CPA call me up, Chris, and say, you know, so and so, and this was a client that the CPA and I had worked with for 20 years and he was a very successful businessman and a child of his who worked with him alongside him in the business had gone through a divorce and the child had basically left the company and become a hermit. And now going through a divorce was separated from the company and potentially from life, but was trying to get back into life and was about to go on a trip overseas with a girlfriend. And so the business owner was deeply concerned if the child went down in a plane crash that, you know, so much of what the planning was would go down. Wanted to make sure that that child got a plan.

John “JohnA” Warnick (20:52.0)
So the question I was asked was, you do, can you put together a plan in the next four or five days? And I said, well, yes, if you’ll have the client’s child call me, I can do it. So I waited and waited and late that afternoon, the call came in and I’m talking on the phone with this individual. And she says, or I asked her what kind of

What kind of trust do want for your children? And she says, well, what did you do for your children? And so I gave her the plan, the essence of the plan that my wife and I had incorporated into our estate planning. And she said, that’s perfect. That’s exactly what I want for my children. And so she thought she had just finished, you know, that was everything she needed to do. And I said, wait, wait, wait, if I do that my trust will become your trust. You want to make sure that the trust that you’re creating for your children is your trust, not my trust. And so, there is a way if you will just do this. Get a pad, pencil or pen and take 30 minutes now and just think if you had one final opportunity to have a very meaningful conversation with your child or children. In this case, she had two. What would you say to them? And then call me back and I’ll use my digital recorder. So I was going to use the same technique with her that I did with the other gentleman. Anyway, long story short, an hour and a half goes by and I’m getting ready to leave.

It’s like seven o’clock, waiting late hoping she’d call and she never did. Finally she calls and she says, do you have it? I said, what? The digital recorder? said, yes. And I popped it on and she talks for like 45 minutes and out of that came 20, what I call nuggets of experiential wisdom. And they were statements like this. The stupidest thing you can do is borrow money on a credit card. know, and there were just and then but the last one that really clinched it for me was never do business with anybody from Dallas or Salt Lake City. And I said, what does that mean? What does that mean? And she says, well, you know, my dad has been highly successful, but he has had

Chris Tanke (23:34.086)
There’s a story behind that.

John “JohnA” Warnick (23:42.222)
two bad experiences, two bad deals that he got into. And both of them were brought to him by people from Salt Lake City or Dallas. And that’s code for don’t do business with people that you don’t know well. So I said to her, well, that’s great, but I would have never known that if you had not explained that. Who’s going to explain that to your kids? And she says, my dad will explain it to them. And I said, well, what if your dad’s not around? Well, then you will have to explain it to them. And I said, well, I would suggest that you explain it to them, but I’m going to do that anyway. If anybody’s interested, if you reach out to me, I’d love to share her, her 20 kind of statements. They’re just amazingly powerful nuggets of financial and life wisdom.

That’s the second point, I guess, that I would offer. Well, two points that will go along with this story. One is that, think about, in addition to passing along that ledger wealth, think about giving the wisdom that has helped you create it, accumulate it, save it, grow it, and benefit from it, use it, put it to use in a very productive, positive way. If you can share that wisdom, a gift of wisdom, and that’s one of the chapters in this book I’m working on, a gift of wisdom is so incredibly valuable. And the second point from her story would be to share that. Yeah, that went into her trust document. It’s a beautiful trust.

But the reality is when she came back from that trip to Europe, she invited her then 17 year old son to come up to the family ranch, which was about 150 miles north up in the mountains. And they got on horseback and for four or five hours, she shared those 20 nuggets of experiential wisdom with her son on horseback. And that

John “JohnA” Warnick (26:06.85)
That’s the other thing I would say. It isn’t enough to put this in writing. It isn’t enough to have a great legal document, a great financial plan. You need to have heartfelt conversations with your children where you explain your whys. And that’s maybe the third great point from her lesson is you need to have whys, deep whys. need there the lawyers will offer four or five kind of common whys for the plan that you’re creating, but you need to explore what are your whys so that this document clearly expresses not just those traditional legal whys, but what your whys are. Another point I would guess I would offer on this Chris is that not every lawyer is comfortable bringing the client’s voice inside the document. So I get a lot of calls from people who are frustrated because their lawyer refuses to bring their voice in. And I’ve got a story for them too. But before I share that story, I just say these ways of creating sustainable positive legacies.

They don’t have to necessarily happen inside the trust or will document. You can create standalone outside the document, letters of love, legacy letters, expressions of this life wisdom. We’ve got about 20 exercises at the Purposeful Planning Institute that I would share with any of your readers. But the one story that for anyone who may be having difficulty getting their voice heard inside of the trust document, this is a story for them. I got a call from a member of the Purposeful Planning Institute who happened to live in Tel Aviv, Israel. And she was an Israeli American and she had a friend in Tel Aviv who was also an Israeli American, a psychologist her psychologist friend had lost both parents and her husband in the previous 24 months. And so she was working with a big firm in New York City on the settlement of those three estates and the creation of a new plan for her. And my friend in Israel said, would you be willing to talk to my friend for a half hour and give her some insights on what she can do? So we have this conversation and I shared with her kind of what that time I called the seven keys or secrets to purposeful legacies. And she then turned it around and said, if there was just one of those that I could ask my lawyers in New York City to incorporate and adopt and I could get it easily, they’ve already created this plan. But if I could do something to get it, to adopt one of these seven, which of the seven would you recommend I asked them to include? And that was an easy question. I said, it’s the power of name. That’s one of these seven keys of purposeful trust and legacies is the power of name. Names have incredible power. And I explained to her that if she could come up with a name that was tied to her most heartfelt purposes in creating this document and then have that name put into the trust with a box that would be a statement of meaning. The statement of meaning might be no more than 30, 50, 70 words. That would be an incredibly powerful way every time that the beneficiaries got a statement.

It would show the name of the trust and that symbolism and that tie between that name and why would be a powerful reminder to those beneficiaries of what she hoped the effect, the impact of her legacy would be. So.

Chris Tanke (30:36.835)
Yeah, that’s great. You know, I mean, I’m hearing there’s a couple things going in my head is as you’re talking about this. One is intentionality. This does just does not happen. If you hope it’s going to happen. You’ve got to get up on a horse and have a conversation. You have to plan this out. You have to strategize it out. That’s really critical. I mean, it’s it’s it’s worth the time and effort. It’s going to take some time and effort and money. Figure out how you want to do it.

But the other thing that struck me here is the idea of having some kind of a pattern or some kind of a process. Just because I have a great intent to do it, I might not be skilled at doing that. You’ve already given us a couple of really good resources. If you have like this ladies, you know, 20 conversation questions or whatever to get these things jump started. I mean, that is so critical.

To be able to know you’re not the first person here. I mean, as I like to say, you know, you’re, it’s wise to learn from your own mistakes, but it’s, it’s absolutely brilliant to learn from other people’s mistakes. So, you know, so we’re all in this together, so to speak, we’re all human beings and, to be able to maybe look at, three or four different approaches that people have taken to that. One of those might work for you. Copy it. That’s fantastic. Yeah.

John “JohnA” Warnick (31:45.538)
love that.

John “JohnA” Warnick (32:03.438)
Chris, let me share the power of this name. So when she called me the next day and sent me her name and the statement of meaning, this is what it was. The Abram Schneider, that’s not his name, it’s redacted to protect the identity of that family. But it was the Abram Schneider, why weren’t you Zusa Trust? And this is what the box said. It said, “your seventh generation maternal grandfather was somebody, Zusa, who was a famous rabbi.” And when he was on his deathbed, he was surrounded by family and disciples. And one of his disciples said, Reb Zusa, why do you cry? You were as kind as Abraham, as wise as Moses. Why do you cry? And he said, children, remember, when I reach the tribunals of heaven, I will not be asked, why were you not Abraham? Why were you not Moses? I will be asked, why were you not Zusa? And so that was the great point of this was she told her son, you are on a path to discover who you are and what the gifts are that you’ve been given by the Almighty and then to go about using those for good among mankind. that the why weren’t you Zusa trust? And so every time that kid got a trust statement, he was reminded that the purpose of this trust was to help him. And her words.

John “JohnA” Warnick (33:56.744)
Literally in that statement of meaning, she’s a psychologist. said to self actualize, you know, that’s the psychological term for discovering yourself, for figuring out your identity, what it is that drives you and it kind of pushes you forward. The other name that I love is the Red Corvette Opportunity Trust. And that was adopted by a woman who wanted to give her children financial skills so that they could manage the trust legacy that she was giving to them. And she said, how wise would it be for a parent to leave their 16 year old, give their child the keys to a shiny red Corvette out in the driveway and say, sweetheart, there’s that car. It’s yours. I haven’t had time to get an insured or get you to driver’s ed, but take it out on I-5 and just see how fast that vet will go and invite as many friends as you want to go with you. she says, as that would be a tremendous invitation for tragedy, I’m not going to entrust you with this financial wealth that I’ve created without making sure that I get you properly trained. So that was the whole purpose of her trust was to prepare them to manage their own inheritance.

Chris Tanke (34:57.568)
What could go wrong?

John “JohnA” Warnick (35:21.386)
And she had another paragraph on the opportunity that came with it. But that these are creative, simple ways that these clients, I didn’t come up with these names. These are names that ordinary people thinking deeply with intentionality, as you suggested about what they really wanted to accomplish. What was the most important? If you stripped away all the legal reasons and financial reasons and tax reasons, what was it, was most important and they got to the heart of it. Each of these individuals, both women by the way, but I would say I’ve had some men come up with powerful names too.

Chris Tanke (36:01.972)
Yeah, you know, it doesn’t have to be complicated to be impactful. As a matter of fact, usually complications will hurt impact. It has to be simple. has to be basic. But it has to be powerful and encompassing. those two trust names are great illustration of that. Yeah, for sure. I think that there is work. There is complexity of figuring out an estate plan, especially if it’s of a dynastic nature for sure. But still what’s going to be remembered are three or four phrases. That’s what’s going to drive everything. when I was in ministry, my big problem every Sunday morning is I had like four hours of stuff I wanted to share, only 25 minutes to give it. The hard part was winning down the complicated into something that’s going to maybe life change, with that opportunity to have before the congregation whether it’s ministry or whether it’s a trust building, it’s the same concept is that we’re looking for life change. And that means that it doesn’t have to be complicated, but it is going to take some work to winnow it down and say, what is really on your heart? I love that. Hey, if you had 30 minutes to have a conversation with your family, what would you tell them? That’s what we’re talking about. And that’s, that’s a profound thing that can be done on a legal pad.

And then of course it can be codified and it can be, you know, set apart into a trust document to make it work, but that’s some great advice there. Really good. You got any more stories?

John “JohnA” Warnick (37:43.214)
I’d like to close with one. This goes, this kind of encapsulates all of it. To tell the background of this, about 2007, I was speaking to a group of about 150 lawyers at the annual meetings of the American College of Trust and Estate Council. So that’s the preeminent trust and estate lawyers in the country coming together. And I was speaking about something that I called value-centric trust and it was this concept of bringing the clients kind of values into the planning process. And when I finished my speech there was time for questions and one of the lawyers from Chicago who since has become a dear friend and a member of the Purposeful Planning Institute said, you’re suggesting that if we bring this kind of human element into the estate planning process that this will change the outcomes. And I said yes. And he says, do you have any empirical evidence to support that? So, you know, this is a valid question for legally trained minds. What’s the evidence? You know, because we’re always doing things on precedent. We need to have a precedent before we adopt a new path. So. I quickly responded, well, there’s this research and I gave him the Williams Impressor research that’s out there and there have been other studies since about the importance of, know, doing work with your family and preparing the heirs. And then the inspiration came to me because he said, because if what you’re telling us is really got this impact, this will be revolutionary.

And that was what triggered this thought. said to him, you’re absolutely right. This is revolutionary. In fact, I forgot this traces back to George Washington. And I saw it kind of everybody suddenly their heads come up, you know, traces back to George Washington. I said, I’ve studied Washington’s handwritten will. It was about 31 pages and he special ordered stationary from Philadelphia that came three or four months before his death. There’s correspondence from Martha that he… there were pages of handwriting all over the floor around his desk as he was putting this together, but there are four what I call purposeful clauses in Washington’s will, and this is the one that I want to close with. He had no blood kin, I mean descendants. He had stepchildren and step grandchildren. His closest blood kin were five nephews that would survive him. And so this is the gift he made to each of his nephews. And he starts out by naming them and saying, each to choose in the order in which I’ve named them, one of my swords or Kuto. So a Kuto is a rounded saber.

Before you scoff at a gift of swords, understand that in Washington’s day, a sword was kind of the highest symbolic representation of the stature, the power of an individual. And so some of these swords were given to him by kings, by royalty in Europe, and some were from important battles that he had been involved with. And then he says, each to choose in the order in which his name and to hold this sword with the following solemn injunction that he will never raise it except it be in case of self-defense or in the defense of our nation and her liberties and the latter event that he would prefer falling with this sword in his hands to the relinquishment thereof. Now in about 75 words, Washington electroplated those swords with purpose and meaning. And that’s the final, I think I want to close with this purpose and meaning. It’s so in this intentionality, it’s so important that you seek for purpose and meaning in what you’re doing. Washington found a way to imbue those swords with purpose and meaning. And so I’ve imagined what did a nephew do with those swords?

He took it home, the sword he had chosen, and he probably put it above the fireplace mantle and probably put the inscription of the 75 words or so out of Washington’s handwritten will. And when family and friends would come into the parlor, he would point to the sword and share the story, the words from Washington. And the effect of that was that of the five nephews,

John “JohnA” Warnick (43:00.958)
Four of the swords selected by them are today housed. Two are always on display and two are in permanent storage and they alternate, but they’re at Mount Vernon. What happened to the fifth sword? Those four swords stayed in Washington’s nephew’s bloodlines for six and seven generations until they were given to Mount Vernon. What happened to the fifth sword?

It ended up in an estate sale. There was a grandson of one of the nephews who died, leaving a widow and two young children and an insolvent estate. And so there had to be an estate sale. And that sword was the most valuable asset in that estate sale. The eventual purchaser of that sword was J.P. Morgan. And that sword today is in the State Historical Museum in Albany, New York.

John “JohnA” Warnick (43:57.762)
But were it not for an untimely death, I think that sword would have made it to Mount Vernon too. The point here is that when you capture deep heartfelt purpose and meaning and find a way to imbue it in the structure that you create for your legacy wealth, it has a lasting sustainable impact. And that’s what we should all be shooting for.

Chris Tanke (44:26.416)
And here we go again, an item, 75 words sets basically the direction of generations for families. this doesn’t go back to the, the oil baron that has 560 pages on his desk again, right? it’s, it’s bringing it down. It’s simplifying, but it takes some thought. but you can do this. You can start, you can, you can craft this because it’s already inside of you. You just got to get it out.

John “JohnA” Warnick (44:45.676)
Right.

Chris Tanke (44:56.866)
And how valuable that is again, you know so much The kids inherit a lot of money. Well, that’s wonderful great but if if you really want to prepare them to to steward it These the kind of simple thoughts that have to be infused in their hearts and minds and you can do it You really can do it. Wow john, we could go on and on. This has been fantastic One thing I’m going to ask is will you come back when your book, The Gift of You, is about to be published or is published? Can we talk about that in particular? You’re willing to do that?

John “JohnA” Warnick (45:32.386)
I’d love to. I’d love to. Yeah, it would be awesome. And we’ll bring more stories from that book when I do. Yeah, that’d be wonderful.

Chris Tanke (45:42.457)
Yeah, that’s great. I know you’re I know you’re rounding third base sliding for home here pretty soon. So that’s it’s that’s quite a project. That’s for sure. So that’s a very exciting thing. I can’t wait to have it on our reference material on our website. I’m waiting. I got a space spot right there ready for you to put it in there. So we look forward to that as well. So John, we’re going to have contact information, of course, in our show notes. We always do that. Any other closing comments or things that you want to say?

John “JohnA” Warnick (46:13.87)
I would just say I’m so grateful for Chris. love anyone who’s working with Chris has got an incredible resource as part of their logistical capital. He’s deeply committed to this and he has, as you’ve heard, he has a lot of wisdom and he has this unique gift to be able to crystallize, distill and apply.

So take advantage of Chris, listen to him and let him guide you.

Chris Tanke (46:48.687)
Well, thanks, John. The check is in the mail. We appreciate that. So somebody want where can they find you if they do you have a website or something if you’re interested? I know that you’re picking and choosing who you want to be like almost a conceller to at this point.

John “JohnA” Warnick (46:52.238)
Okay.

John “JohnA” Warnick (47:06.828)
Well, I would say if they want to learn a little bit more about my work, they can go to the Purposeful Planning Institute. So http://www.purposefulplanninginstitute. to hear, for me to hear from you and I really, everything that I offer, I’d love to share for anyone that listens and something resonated and you would like to explore it, reach out to me at John A.

johna at purposefulplanninginstitute.com

Chris Tanke (47:45.626)
and you’re gonna have to wait in line because I’m the first one that’s going to wanna look at those twenty questions and their principles that that lady uh… shared on horseback and you have that i think that’s an incredibly cool offer I’m gonna get my copy as well i hope you all do as well john a wonderful i knew it’d be great every time we talk i feel like i leave a better person and uh… I appreciate you in my life and uh… yeah it’s it’s it’s been great I’m glad that uh… I wandered over that lunch table couple years ago it’s been who knew right what was set in motion very very neat hi thanks my friend okay bye bye and that

John “JohnA” Warnick (48:17.07)
Thank you.

Great.