0:04

Hello and

0:04

welcome to a another exciting

0:07

episode of Bridge the Gap where

0:07

we're balancing life through

0:11

health, wealth, business and

0:11

relationships.

0:16

Hello everyone and welcome to

0:16

another week with that means

0:20

another exciting episode of

0:20

Bridge the Gap is here and we

0:22

have an amazing guest but before

0:22

we get to him, My name is Colt

0:25

get to him get to her. Before we

0:25

do My name is Colton Cockerell.

0:28

And I have my lovely co host

0:28

with me who is putting her hands

0:31

on her head because she's

0:31

embarrassed already by me. And

0:33

that is the illustrious Tricia

0:33

Stetzel. Trisha. Hello,

0:39

Colton. You

0:39

know, it is another amazing

0:42

week. I'm pretty sure that's

0:42

what you started with. It is it

0:45

is an amazing week. Hey,

0:45

everybody, I'm so excited to be

0:49

here. Just as a reminder this

0:49

month on the show, we're focused

0:52

on family and relationships. So

0:52

we're going to talk be talking

0:56

about the importance of family

0:56

protection through estate

1:01

planning. And who better to talk

1:01

with us about estate planning

1:06

than Erin Callahan with the Law

1:06

Office of Erin C Callahan. Erin,

1:10

welcome to the show.

1:12

Well, thank you.

1:12

I'm so excited to be on the

1:14

show. Again. I'm looking forward

1:14

to it.

1:16

Yes. And I'm excited for you to experience the new format. But before you

1:18

experience it, I gotta give a

1:21

shout out to our sponsor, which

1:21

is Sharer McKinley Group LLC.

1:25

All right, Erin, let's go ahead

1:25

and jump on in because we're

1:28

gonna focus something on

1:28

something, we're going to focus

1:31

on something that is very

1:31

important to many families, and

1:34

it kind of gets overlooked. I

1:34

think that when I say that, I

1:37

mean, at the dinner table, people don't really talk about this. And that is if something

1:39

were to happen to you, I you

1:41

still have young kids who are

1:41

still under the age of majority.

1:45

So what happens first, before

1:45

you give me the solution, what

1:49

happens if you go out to a

1:49

lovely dinner with your your

1:51

spouse, and the worst thing that

1:51

won't happen? And you both pass

1:55

away in a car accident or

1:55

something happens? What happens

1:57

to your kid now with the system

1:57

that we have in place in

2:01

America?

2:03

Yeah, great

2:03

question. I mean, you know, the

2:06

S part of it is there's a very

2:06

real chance that CPS could be

2:10

involved. So the first thing

2:10

they're going to do is they're

2:13

going to try to find family and

2:13

friends close by hopefully left

2:17

that with the trust to

2:17

babysitter. And it's, you know,

2:20

easy peasy and no big deal. But

2:20

if they cannot locate somebody,

2:24

they do call CPS. And so there's

2:24

a couple things that I know

2:29

we're going to talk about in a

2:29

little bit that we recommend to

2:31

try to kind of avoid that

2:31

situation from ever happening.

2:35

And so what so what does that look kind of just give me a bit more details there

2:37

like so who is responsible for

2:40

for naming. So again, you're you

2:40

you passed away, you didn't do

2:43

in your planning, who was

2:43

responsible for now saying, Hey,

2:45

your kids will now be in the

2:45

hands of X?

2:50

Yeah, well, if

2:50

you haven't worked with an

2:52

estate planning attorney, and

2:52

you haven't completed a

2:56

declaration of guardianship

2:56

form, your voice is not going to

3:00

be represented. So there's not

3:00

gonna really be that control

3:03

over who that person is going to

3:03

be. So the judge is going to

3:06

look to family and friends, and

3:06

whoever puts up, you know, kind

3:10

of comes forward and wants to

3:10

play that role. You know, if you

3:13

say always, I'm always wanted my

3:13

sister to do it, that's great.

3:17

But the judge doesn't have to

3:17

follow that the judge is going

3:20

to, you know, decide what's in

3:20

the best interest of the child,

3:23

and they might not have all the

3:23

information available. Also,

3:27

another concern is, if you if

3:27

you're kind of like on a second

3:31

marriage, and that kiddo had a

3:31

biological parent that maybe

3:35

just isn't in the picture, or,

3:35

you know, maybe they just

3:38

aren't, you know, going to be it

3:38

has to be pretty severe. But you

3:41

know, maybe they're not capable

3:41

of being a parent, you need to

3:44

have that kind of backup plan in

3:44

place.

3:47

So important.

3:48

So Erin, is it

3:48

different in each state? So I

3:54

know you talk a lot about the

3:54

state of Texas and the way we

3:57

see things here, most of our

3:57

listeners are in Texas, but not

3:59

all of them. So is it different

3:59

state to state? Yes, so

4:04

absolutely. So unfortunately,

4:04

our legal system is very unique,

4:10

and every single state is

4:10

different. So like, just for

4:14

example, in California, they

4:14

typically call it

4:16

conservatorship. If you think of

4:16

kind of like the Britney Spears

4:19

situation, it's similar. She had

4:19

to have a guardian over her

4:23

because she didn't have

4:23

capacity, but that was called a

4:26

conservator and a

4:26

conservatorship in California.

4:29

And here in Texas, we typically

4:29

call it guardianship. And so

4:34

yeah, so it does change wildly.

4:34

And same if you have a will if

4:37

you have your will done and

4:37

Arizona and maybe you know, I'm

4:40

not saying that in Arizona, this

4:40

is the requirement but let's

4:43

just say they only had one

4:43

person sign that will then you

4:46

could have issues with

4:46

presenting that here in Texas

4:48

where we require two or

4:48

sometimes in Texas, if you take

4:53

your will elsewhere, they might

4:53

require three and so yeah, it

4:57

varies wildly from state to

4:57

state. So if y ou move we are I

4:59

always recommend seeing an

4:59

estate planning attorney.

5:02

I think there's so many before

5:02

we get oh, sorry, Colton, before

5:06

we get too far down the road,

5:06

because you guys speak the same

5:08

length, same language, and I

5:08

don't speak that language. What

5:11

is considered a minor in the

5:11

state of Texas?

5:15

Yeah, well, I

5:15

think that's a really good

5:18

question. So I mean, legally, of course, it's somebody that's going to be under 18. But the

5:20

reality is, we probably don't

5:23

want 18 or 20 year olds making

5:23

significant decisions. When it

5:27

comes to assets. You know, we

5:27

really like to make sure they're

5:31

a little bit older, a little bit

5:31

more mature, you know, 25-30, I

5:35

personally am a fan of kind of

5:35

doing like a half and half doing

5:39

kind of like, let's just say you

5:39

have $100,000 to leave that, you

5:42

know, 50,000 at 25 and 50,000.

5:42

At 30. You know, that way, they

5:46

have a little bit of time? How

5:46

responsible are they going to be

5:49

with that money? Okay, they did

5:49

good will, you know, give them

5:52

kind of like the second half? So

5:52

that's a great question.

5:55

The crazy

5:55

thing is you never I mean, you

5:57

got to make that decision today.

5:57

Right? You, don't you you can't

6:01

predict the future. So I want

6:01

to, I'm gonna tie off the

6:04

guardianship. And there were so many things. First, the free Brittany epidemic that we had,

6:06

whenever that happens,

6:09

believable. Second, I mean, I'm

6:09

all about states having power.

6:12

But man, you would think there'd

6:12

be some kind of system where

6:14

everything that important that

6:14

everything is working together,

6:18

but tying it all back around. So

6:18

in order to protect your kids

6:23

from something happening, and

6:23

you're out of the picture, and

6:25

you know what's best for them,

6:25

and you're the one that's going

6:27

to decide where they're going to

6:27

go, you need to obviously talk

6:30

to an Erin, Erin Callahan

6:30

person, an attorney, but also to

6:35

a estate planning

6:35

attorney, somebody who focuses

6:35

have on this, like most of the time,

6:38

not somebody that does like

6:42

business law and bankruptcy,

6:42

and, you know, Family Law and

6:46

Estate Planning, you want

6:46

somebody that's, you know, only

6:49

doing, you know, estate planning

6:49

and probate.

6:52

That is a really good point. I'm glad you made that. But just want to make

6:54

sure our listeners understand in

6:57

order to be protected, you're

6:57

saying that they need a

6:59

declaration of guardianship to

6:59

protect their kids in case

7:02

something were the worst would

7:02

have happened to them and their

7:04

spouse, correct?

7:05

Yes. So it's a

7:05

separate form, that we're able

7:08

to do that in Texas, you are

7:08

also able to make that

7:10

designation in your will. It's

7:10

about 50/50. It's just one of

7:15

those kind of like preference

7:15

things. But yes, you need one or

7:18

the other, you need to make it

7:18

in your will or you need to have

7:21

a separate form. Okay. Nice.

7:21

Yeah. And we recommend, like a

7:25

couple other things, too. You

7:25

know, I always recommend to my

7:29

families that they kind of have

7:29

like a kiddo dossier. And we

7:33

actually recommend this to pet

7:33

owners as well, is kind of

7:36

having like a one sheet of like,

7:36

all about your kids, like, what

7:40

medication? Are they on? Who's

7:40

their doctor? You know, where

7:43

are where are the local family

7:43

members, if you're going out on

7:46

a date, you know, this is the

7:46

kind of stuff you need to, you

7:49

know, share with a babysitter,

7:49

you know, what do they need,

7:52

like, every night, you know,

7:52

maybe, you know, your kids are

7:55

so young, and they have that

7:55

like, you know, stuffed animal

7:58

and they're not going to go to

7:58

sleep without it, you know, it

8:00

needs to be on there. Anything

8:00

that's going to be critical. If

8:04

something happens, it needs to

8:04

be kind of on that sheet if that

8:07

are allergic to anything, you

8:07

know, anything that is, is life

8:11

saving, or you know, going to

8:11

make that difference in their

8:14

day to day it needs to be on there.

8:16

And that's my

8:16

dog wants to sleep in my bed.

8:19

Yeah. I mean,

8:19

maybe I probably wouldn't put

8:22

that on there. Just because, you

8:22

know, I know that's true,

8:27

Trisha.

8:28

I think that again, you're you're making all these great, you're making up

8:30

questions and having amazing

8:33

answers to them. I love it.

8:33

That's another great question

8:35

that you brought up to answer

8:35

yourself. And that's fantastic.

8:40

This is this. Luke and Rose

8:40

actually talked about pets. I

8:43

mean, I don't know what's going

8:43

on. You brought it up Trisha,

8:45

Family, family

8:45

and relationships. They're part

8:49

of our family. It's real.

8:52

For those that don't know, me and Erin work together, she's she's great. And

8:54

I pick on her. So I'm not being

8:57

mean, I promise. So Erin, you

8:57

actually had a great little

9:00

segue earlier, and we kind of

9:00

cut it off. You talked about

9:03

will so you can use guardianship

9:03

or declaration guardianship. And

9:07

that also is in the wills. How

9:07

important is it now that you're

9:10

protecting your kids? How

9:10

important is it to make sure

9:12

that your estate is now going

9:12

where you want it to go?

9:17

Yeah, I mean, I think it's like even more important, important after like,

9:19

COVID. It's, it's something that

9:22

we're seeing, like a huge uptick

9:22

in families, you know, wanting

9:26

to go ahead and have that plan.

9:26

And I think the hard part is,

9:32

it's like that thing on the to

9:32

do list that can get moved to

9:34

the next day, and the next day,

9:34

because there's no timeline,

9:37

right? There's no due day until

9:37

it's too late. And so what we

9:41

try to do is just help families

9:41

come up with a plan that's kind

9:45

of specific to their family and

9:45

their interests and their goals.

9:49

So that if something were to

9:49

happen, then they have that, you

9:54

know, it kind of takes the

9:54

weight off their shoulder to

9:56

know that they're not going to have to worry about those things, but it does take time.

9:58

As you know, it is something

10:02

that is an investment in your

10:02

future. And you know, you have

10:04

to give us all that information.

10:04

We can't do it without your

10:07

participation. And so we

10:07

understand everybody, you know,

10:12

often can get in a busy season

10:12

of life. But, but yeah, it is

10:16

really important to have those

10:16

basic documents, you need to

10:19

have a will for sure. You know,

10:19

some people tell me Okay, well,

10:23

like when do you not need a

10:23

will, right. And so I definitely

10:28

have counseled people before

10:28

that, you know, don't have any

10:30

assets, don't have a car, don't

10:30

have a house don't really have a

10:34

bank account, you know, if

10:34

they're 18 years old, then they

10:37

probably don't need a will at

10:37

that point in time. But they do

10:41

need other documents, you do

10:41

need to make sure that your you

10:43

know, medical power of attorney,

10:43

your healthcare directive, your

10:48

HIPAA authorization, all those

10:48

key medical documents are in

10:51

place, whether you're 18 or 89,

10:51

it doesn't matter.

10:56

On those those

10:56

documents, you know, as you

10:58

started talking about that Erin,

10:58

and I've heard you say in the

11:01

past, that if you don't have

11:01

those documents in place, and

11:05

even if you have a young adult

11:05

living with you, alright,

11:11

someone who's in their 1920 21

11:11

years old, you don't have access

11:16

to their medical records unless

11:16

you have documents in place.

11:20

Exactly. So it

11:20

is. And so we saw a big issue

11:24

with COVID, we had a lot of

11:24

families were hostile, where

11:27

families aren't able to go into

11:27

the hospital, they're not able

11:29

to verify identity. And by law,

11:29

once you turn 18, your parents

11:35

no longer like you're an adult,

11:35

you know, it's like true hashtag

11:38

adulting 101, for sure. And so

11:38

we always recommend that if you

11:44

still have kids living at home,

11:44

or not, but you're still active

11:48

in their life, like very active,

11:48

then you need they need to have

11:51

healthcare documents in place,

11:51

so that you can at least help

11:55

them if something does happen if

11:55

something unfortunate happens.

11:58

So yeah, so we recommend those

11:58

four, those three healthcare

12:00

documents that I you know,

12:00

listed previously, and then a

12:04

financial power of attorney as

12:04

well. And then, so Colton,

12:08

you're talking about the the

12:08

guardianship form, just like you

12:12

do that for minor children, you

12:12

also do that for yourself. And

12:15

it's to prevent against the

12:15

Britney Spears situation. You

12:18

know, Britney didn't have that

12:18

document. I don't know exactly

12:20

what it's called in California,

12:20

because I'm not licensed there.

12:23

But she didn't have that. So she

12:23

didn't get to pick who her

12:26

guardian or conservator in her

12:26

situation was. We do that for

12:31

everybody so that they get to

12:31

actually pick who that person is

12:33

for themselves. So not just for

12:33

your kids, but who do you want

12:37

it to be for you? And so yeah,

12:37

and then, you know, another

12:41

thing is, you just don't know,

12:41

like, if you had a kiddo that

12:44

was missing or hurt, like with a

12:44

power of attorney, you have

12:47

access to information faster,

12:47

that you're not going to have

12:51

to, you know, the police aren't

12:51

gonna have to issue a subpoena,

12:53

you're not gonna have to go

12:53

through all of the legal aspects

12:57

when you know, somebody is hurt,

12:57

or, you know, missing or, you

13:04

know, just kind of like your any

13:04

type of like, legal issue, you

13:07

have more power because you've

13:07

been appointed agent.

13:10

Yeah, love it.

13:10

And we have about a minute left.

13:12

And I want to hit on this

13:12

because you also kind of touched

13:15

on a little bit, how much more

13:15

important because a lot of our

13:18

other people listening are business owners. And they actually, you know, they they're

13:20

a blended family, right? They,

13:23

they have kids from probably

13:23

multiple spouses. So what does

13:28

that look like and how much more important is to make sure that your house is in order? You get

13:30

your wills, power of attorneys

13:33

Yeah, it's even

13:33

more important. And I think

13:33

all that together? that's probably one of the big

13:36

misnomers out there. You know,

13:39

we have a lot of blended

13:39

families. I'm from you know, my

13:41

husband, I have two

13:41

stepdaughters. So I've been

13:44

through it myself, it's

13:44

completely different. We have to

13:48

use more complex planning tools.

13:48

Because we want to protect not

13:53

just the kids, but the spouse.

13:53

So it's not as complicated if

13:56

you ultimately don't

13:56

particularly care what happens

14:00

to your assets, if you want to

14:00

give everything to your spouse.

14:02

And if they get remarried and

14:02

the money goes to the new

14:05

spouse. If you're fine with

14:05

that, then you don't necessarily

14:07

have you know, any extra

14:07

concern. But most of the time,

14:11

people want to make sure it goes

14:11

to the spouse and then to their

14:14

kids when the spouse passes

14:14

away, or a second spouse.

14:17

So, Colton, I

14:17

know you said we only have a

14:19

minute, but I know we have 30

14:19

seconds left because I have my

14:22

timer on. One more question.

14:22

Erin, how important is it as

14:27

business owners to make sure

14:27

that we have all of these

14:30

documents squared away because

14:30

we have a business?

14:33

Yeah, it's even

14:33

more important because you don't

14:35

want to put your spouse through

14:35

a complex probate. You want to

14:38

make sure that you've got

14:38

everything lined up for them and

14:40

you're using password managers

14:40

and you're organized and you

14:44

know you have a will and you

14:44

address the who's going to get

14:47

the business and and Tricia, if

14:47

there's multiple owners, you

14:50

they really need to go like run

14:50

to an attorney's office. mean

15:00

that's okay. Just just just find

15:00

an attorney as fast as possible.

15:04

In the future we're gonna talk to a business attorney about that specific

15:06

thing. So I mean, that's that's

15:09

spot on. Look at show you're

15:09

like for what's it called

15:11

foreshadowing that for whatever.

15:11

But anyway, we are close to that

15:16

mark. Erin, thank you so much

15:16

for being here today. It's

15:19

always a breath of fresh air

15:19

whenever I get to talk to you

15:21

and see you so thank you for

15:21

being here. Trisha. Same goes.

15:26

thing.

15:27

Yeah. Aaron, thank you so much for being here, my friends. I can't wait

15:28

to spend some time with you in

15:33

person. I know. I know. All

15:33

right.

15:41

No, he's not invited.

15:43

I met separately,

15:43

Trisha. Oh, okay. That's fine.

15:52

All right. Thank

15:52

you again, Erin, and tune in

15:54

next week for another exciting

15:54

episode of Bridge the Gap while

15:57

we we will be focused on family

15:57

and relationships for the month

16:01

of May. Next week we'll be

16:01

talking with Kade Pierce Colton.

16:06

He is a youth

16:06

pastor. So it's gonna be very

16:09

interesting.

16:10

Thanks again for tuning

16:10

into this week's podcast. Don't

16:12

forget to subscribe and share

16:12

this podcast with the most

16:15

important people in your life.

16:15

Colton Cockerell with Sharer

16:18

McKinley Group, LLC is located

16:18

at 820 South Friendswood Drive

16:21

Suite 207 Friendswood, Texas

16:21

77546 phone number to

16:24

281-992-5698. Securities and

16:24

investment advisory services

16:27

offered through NEXT Financial

16:27

Group, Inc. member FINRA/SIPC

16:29

Sharer McKinley Group is not an affiliate of NEXT Financial Group, Inc.