Foreign hello out there in Boomer Banter land.

And welcome to this edition, episode 216 of Boomer Banter.

And today is Martin Luther King Day.

And not only is it a federal holiday recognizing their service of Dr.

King in moving the issues of civil rights and voting rights into the national discussion, it's also a day of service today.

Two thirds of the country is experiencing extreme, extreme cold.

Southern California is suffering from weather that's inflaming terrible wildfires, and North Carolina, of course, has been trying to recover from all of the damage from Hurricane Helene.

So as we talk today about sharing your legacy and and values, take a moment to think about how you might be of service today.

This would be a really good day to check in on someone and let them know that you care.

I do have a new microphone today that I got at PodFest this past week, and hopefully the sound is good.

Certainly leave a comment if there's a problem with the sound, but I'm hoping it's even better than it was before.

So the guest that was scheduled for today is not going to be joining us.

I still want to talk about finances and legacies, and I'm looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you today.

I've had just a couple of hours to put my thoughts together, but I talk about and think about this kind of stuff all the time.

So here goes.

I was blessed to have a father who loved to share stories of family history and lore.

He also shared lessons about finances.

He would say things like, pay yourself first, turn out lights when you're not using them.

Invest for the future.

Have a plan.

I may not have always listened, but I remember his stories and his lessons.

And I have boxes of writings that my dad put together and articles that were written about him, which is also part of his legacy.

So take a moment to think about your own life.

What are you prepared to leave behind?

It's not just about having a plan.

It's about making sure your loved ones know the stories, the values, and the practical steps to carry them forward.

But here's the catch.

Creating that kind of legacy means more than drafting a will.

It is about trusting the right people to guide you, like a financial advisor who understands your goals and making intentional choices about how you want to save and spend your money today.

And in this episode, I want to talk about why trust is critical in financial planning and explore some ways you might leave behind priceless stories for the next generation.

So let's get started.

Welcome to Boomer Banter, where we have real talk about aging well, my name is Wendy Green and I am your host and each week I publish the Real Talk About Aging well newsletter.

Each edition contains nuggets that you can learn from and and implement immediately.

So to sign up for this valuable newsletter go to Bitbit ly Navigate Aging.

So as you know, this month of January we are on the topic of financial literacy.

And like many of you, I have worked and said saved and spent.

I got my AARP membership and I wondered if I have saved enough to age well for however long I have.

Hopefully maybe another 20 years.

And about five years ago I signed up with a financial planner mainly because I wanted to know what I needed to do to be in the best financial shape I could be in and what I needed to do once I started to draw down from my savings, you know, those required minimum distributions.

Have you all started to draw down from your savings?

It's not easy.

All of our lives we've been taught to save.

Working with a financial advisor that you trust to listen to your goals and to work with you to live the life you want to live can make this transition easier, which is the perfect segue to our sponsor.

So one of the things I appreciate about my financial advisor, Melissa Bain is her holistic approach to financial planning.

Melissa makes sure my accounts at Greenwood Capital work towards my goals and match my lifestyle as an independent registered advisory firm.

Greenwood Capital is a fiduciary and that means that they they have my best interest at heart.

So I want to share also that as a sponsor, Greenwood Capital has compensated my business for this testimonial and and for more information about how they can help you make a financial plan and they are in like 40 something states, go to greenwood capital.com but what I really want to talk about today, since financial planning is not my area of expertise, is leaving a legacy.

So if you look up the term legacy, it does refer to a financial legacy, something that you might leave as far as money or personal property and mention all of this in your will.

But it also means something transmitted by an ancestor.

So let's think about some of our ancestors.

What are some of the ideas, values, behaviors and beliefs they have left you?

If something really stands out for you, drop it in the chat.

I would love to see what some of the ideas and beliefs and values that you've been left.

But in episode 184 I talked about the power of perspective attitudes about aging.

I did not know my great grandparents.

My grandchildren have had the amazing opportunity of knowing their one of their great grandparents, my mother, they saw My mother remarry at 88 years old.

She did not give up on the idea of love simply because she was older.

They know that she continues to try to get in some exercise and walking every day, even at 94 years old.

If you ask her today, she will tell you she is old, not just older like I like to refer to myself.

I don't refer to myself as old, even though in the literature they say that over 65 is old, old.

I see myself as older.

But my mother does see herself as old, and she's comfortable with that perspective.

She's lived a long life.

She continues to enjoy reading and spending time with family and socializing in small groups because hearing is a challenge and she is living a perspective of aging that is comfortable for her.

My father passed away 15 years ago.

My children remember him.

He was a curious, passionate, creative and intelligent man.

He did leave a legacy of financial security for my mother.

And he also left writings and pictures and lessons for all of us.

Shortly before he died, he called us all together.

He had decided to go off dialysis, which meant that his body would shut down in three to five days.

He wanted the opportunity to tell us all that he felt he had lived a good life and that he loved us.

He shared some stories with his usual sense of humor and showed us so much courage as he made this final decision.

That was a powerful legacy.

But some people may not be comfortable with sharing their legacy in a big family meeting like that.

They might be more comfortable writing their story as a legacy to leave for their family.

And there are numerous ways to do this.

There are online programs that will send you prompts, and you can write your story, you know, over the span of a year or something.

And then they will send you a final document.

But trust me, this exercise of writing your story takes time.

If you don't want to go the online route, you can start by collecting stories.

You can record stories on your phone as they come to you.

You can write them down in your journal as you remember them.

If you have siblings or close friends that have known you for decades, ask them what they remember about your time together.

And when you leave a legacy story, think about this.

You're leaving a gift to the next generation.

You're leaving a gift of your experiences and the values you've lived by.

You're leaving the gift of love by sharing how much the people in your life have meant to you.

You're leaving the gift of lessons that you may have learned from previous generations.

And you're leaving a gift of gratitude by sharing the challenges and opportunities that made you who you are today.

So that's one way you might choose to leave a legacy beyond your financial legacy.

In episode 120, Roadmap to Purpose with Anna hall, we talked about purpose and how it gives our lives meaning as we age.

I certainly was not a perfect parent.

Are any of us perfect parents?

But one of my purposes as a parent was to provide a sense of family for my kids, even when we did not live near any family and their dad was not around.

As a way to do that, I always made sure we had family dinners and I developed family traditions around birthdays and holidays.

It's so interesting to me to watch my kids continue those traditions and they've even expanded on them.

So I feel like I role modeled the sense of family, the importance of that as one of my values and that has continued on as I'm aging.

My purpose to Boomer Banter is to model aging well through my episodes, my guests, our discussions in the Boomer Banter and Boomer Believer membership groups, and in our private Facebook group Boomer Banter.

What's next?

I also believe my purpose is to model for my children and grandchildren that aging simply means getting older.

It does not mean done.

It means staying active and healthy and curious.

It means maintaining my relationships and adjusting as necessary when those relationships change.

So finding your purpose is part of your legacy as you share that going on with your family and your friends and your heirs.

And finally, we can leave a legacy in the work that we do.

I'll have a huge catalog of episodes and stories that my children and grandchildren will have access to whenever they want them.

I don't expect that they will listen to many of them, but you know, maybe they might find some of them interesting as they're trying to figure out who I was and what made me tick.

But for those of you who are not podcasters, your work may be in your community through paid work or volunteer work.

You may have a passion for making a difference and find ways to give back.

In a very early episode, episode number 54, Barbara Shaiman talked about living her legacy through social entrepreneurship.

Barbara grew up as a child of Holocaust survivors and is working to break down barriers between generations and groups to help us understand each other better.

Having some sense of financial stability is an important way to leave a legacy for our heirs.

Whether or not we have money left over to leave them.

We want to have the resources to maintain our own financial support and independence.

With this episode, I hope I have inspired you to think about leaving more than just money or property.

Leave the gift of love and values and memories that will be a lasting legacy.

Links to all of the episodes I mentioned in this podcast will be in the Show Notes as well as in the very valuable Boomer Banter Real Talk About Aging well newsletter which you can get by going to Bitbit Ly Navigate Aging.

You want to sign up so you don't miss anything that comes out once a week on Thursdays.

And as always, I have a recommendation for you for a podcast group that shares my philosophy about aging well and they focus particularly on nutrition and exercise.

Their show is called Fit strong women over 50 and they have created a whole community called Becoming Ellie E L L I and you can find their shows there, you can find challenges there, recipe tips, all kinds of fun stuff.

So go to becoming ellie.com and check out their show.

Okay, next week, final week in our literacy series for January and we will be talking everything you didn't even know to ask about Medicare but probably should know.

My guest will be Tim Hanbury.

He wrote a book called the Medicare Blueprint and we'll focus on a high level because everyone's needs will be different.

But making the right choices for your Medicare coverage can save you or cost you money and health coverage.

So stay tuned for my conversation with Tim next week.

And one final thing.

Thank you again to Greenwood Capital for sponsoring this podcast.

Greenwood Capital is an independent registered advisory firm providing wealth management, investment solutions and financial planning to clients in 23 states.

Thank you so much for sharing your time with me today and I hope that you have a wonderful today and a wonderful many wonderful tomorrows.

See you soon.

SA.