Estate planning is about much more than simply dividing up the money. It’s about leaving a meaningful legacy that can benefit the people and causes you care about.
The idea of planning a legacy and leaving a gift that makes a lasting impression on someone’s life is illustrated in a book and movie titled The Ultimate Gift, which makes perfect family reading or viewing during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
The Ultimate Gift, a novel by Jim Stovall, tells the story of a young man who must undergo 12 specific, life-changing experiences in order to gain an inheritance from his wealthy great-uncle. The experiences are assigned in series of videos left by the great-uncle, and in the end, the young man draws upon the lessons learned from each one to discover the “ultimate gift”: awareness of the superior importance of human relationships. The “gift” also includes a substantial financial inheritance, but the money seems a secondary reward to the life lessons.
The book was made into a movie in 2006 starring James Garner and Drew Fuller. The book and movie often are used by estate planners to emphasize the importance of leaving a non-financial legacy. Though the book may be more effective than the movie (ever heard that before?), the movie offers a great opportunity for families gathered for the holidays to discuss what matters most.
Steve Gammill, a Grand Junction-area estate-planning attorney, says a legacy should closely reflect deeply held beliefs and values. He has a unique way of helping clients explore those values when it’s time to set up a will or trust.
“I use storytelling in my estate-planning practice,” Gammill says. “You can learn what’s important to people by getting them to tell you their life stories instead of just asking them what’s important.”
“I rarely do a trust or a will for a client unless we have gone through one of those interviews first,” Gammill says.
The Ultimate Gift serves as a source of inspiration for Gammill’s unusual approach to estate planning.
“The Ultimate Gift is all about relationships,” Gammill says, noting that the nephew often begins the assigned tasks with a poor attitude but comes out with a sense of growth and accomplishment. “There’s always a piece of positive emotion in each of the stories. Each of those tasks gets closer to a life change for this guy.”
Gammill’s estate-planning process tries to uncover a client’s core values to help guide the actions of the trustee who will administer his or her estate. The centerpiece of his process is a focused interview with clients that goes far beyond what they think is important and gets to the root of what is important to them.
Gammill says he starts by asking clients to draw a floor plan of the one place they consider home and then take him on a verbal tour of the house, room by room.
“You’re going to remember the sounds, the smells, everything that made it your house,” he says.
Some clients who are reluctant to talk soon warm up, and the stories start rolling.
“When we get into it, you can’t shut them up,” Gammill says.
The wide-ranging interviews are recorded and often become part of a family’s history, Gammill says. In the end, the stories reveal the client’s core values that can be reflected in the distribution of their assets and the administration of their estates.
Gammill collected 14 of his interviews into a book titled Swimming in a Sea of Success, and the interviews share a common conclusion about the meaning of a life well-lived.
“Everybody ended up with the same concept: It’s about relationships and what you’ve given back,” Gammill says. “No one said it’s about the accumulation of stuff.”
“That’s what this book (The Ultimate Gift) is about – it’s about relationships,” he says.
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