Welcome to Straight Talk. We at Legacy Legal and Family Legacy Trainings appreciate your enjoyment of our weekly insights on Building a Legendary Life and Creating Lasting Wealth and Legacy.
Over 3-5 years I have been transforming, creating, and crafting a message that transcends the transactions we do every day and the focus simply on rules of estate tax. Recently I prepared a talk to give in the Toastmasters group to which I belong and I want to share that talk here today.
The glitz, the glamor, the grandeur. Building a legendary life. A life filled with prosperity, money and good values. It’s what we imagine. A life of our hopes and our dreams. It is who we can be and what we can create. It’s about the choices and decisions we make today. Not tomorrow. Not some unknown distant time in the future that we cannot grasp, but today, when it counts, where every moment, every day, every month, every year. Every action. Everything we do. Counts.
We can have a legendary life. Front row center of the Coronado playhouse, 4 feet from the stage. We can feel the energy of the actors. We can see the precision of their body movements. We look at the focus in their eyes as they dance balancing a bottle on their heads.
We can have a legendary life with financial and legal security in our jobs, business, and wealth in values, beliefs and traditions. My name is Rich Gaines. I have advanced training in tax law. I have had a 28 year career as a tax attorney and the best part is my wife and I have twins, they were born on April 15th. That was the universe giving me a clear message as to my destiny. How about you? Are you clear on your legendary life and the steps to make sure that it will work, be honored and protected?
Building a legendary life where life stands for leadership, inspiration, financial fortress, and excellence.
L is for Leadership. Leadership comes in different ways and different times. Leaders as business owners, as parents and grandparents, leaders amongst friends, leaders of men and women.
I was raised to be a leader. It just didn’t seem like it at the time. I started snow skiing when I was 6 years old. There we were, my father, brothers and I standing in front of the main ski lodge. My father pointed to an area and said go up there. That is where your ski school is. With skis and poles in hand I start trudging up the mountain. I get about halfway and I look up and all I see is a mass of people. A jumbled mass of confusion. I lost sight of where I was and where I supposed to go. I was confused and I was scared. So I turned around and headed back down to find my father and regain my bearings. When I got back down my father and brothers had left. Gone skiing. I was alone. I waited hoping that the next person coming down the slope would be my father so I could get to ski school. I sat on a lumber pile in front of the main ski lodge hoping, praying crying, that the next person coming down the mountain would be my dad.
Not one person came up to me and asked me if I was alright. Not one person asked if they could help. Not one person came to reassure me.
When I look back on that story and I ask whether I would have become a leader I would have said no. But from childhood experiences come adult lessons. And what I learned from that experience was self-reliance, determination and perseverance. I developed an undeniable spirit. I learned that sometimes we just lose sight of where we are going and we have to turn around and reset our perspective. I learned that as leaders sometimes we have to walk alone.
I is for inspiration. That deep seated feeling that exists inside every one of us. That yearning. That drive to make an impact. That desire to be greater than we are. It’s that feeling of gladness you get when superman rescues Lois Lane from the earthquake. To be powerful, strong, to make a difference. It’s that feeling you get when David meets Goliath and he overcomes.
F is for financial foundations. What good is it if you make money and spend money and end up with nothing. Like the old saying goes, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep. There is a simple and often told principle that you have to live within your means. So simple yet so many don’t won’t or can’t. We all have struggled with money at one time or another and I can tell you that I finally took to heart the idea that the only way to wealth is to pay ourselves first and not only to pay ourselves first but to make sure that we don’t touch the money we put away so at the end of the day we will have something to show for our efforts.
E is for excellence. Aiming to be the very best. Excellence is a state of mind. A commitment so when we engage in an activity if we don’t succeed we know it must be due to a lack of skill, knowledge or training. When we engage in an activity and we don’t have a 100% commitment then if we fail to succeed we won’t really know if the failure was due to a lack of commitment or a lack of knowledge, skill or training. A 100% commitment can give us excellence in our life.
Building a legendary life means taking the right steps and doing the right actions. Are you ready to take those first steps to soar to your greatness? Are you ready to do the right actions and build a legendary life? You do want to build a legendary life don’t you? I know that each and every one of you has it within you to build a legendary life. I can feel the energy buzzing inside of you eager to open the doors to a new and exciting journey of your hopes and dreams.
I know that sometimes life happens and there will be emergencies to take care of but just think of the possibilities, the reward, the riches of what you can achieve not just for yourself but for your children, your grandchildren, even your great grandchildren.
Break the shackles that bind you, cast away the doubts. Don’t let anyone stand in your way of building a legendary life.
Our vision is for business and families to be financially and legally secure to create lasting wealth. Our mission is to build, protect and preserve wealth and legacy for generations. To do these things we need to have business prosperity, good financial foundations, a tax fortress and personal power.
Thank you for being a part of our Straight Talk community. We educate, transform and inspire business owners and families in enhancing the way they think and talk about wealth in money, values, beliefs and traditions. What is your Legacy?
We welcome you to share your ideas and thoughts.
