An Estate Planning Must
WHY EVERYONE NEEDS ADVANCE DIRECTIVES
wishes, and a living will is considered a type of advance directive. If you find yourself severely ill or injured, advance directives help you express your health care preferences if you cannot communicate. WHAT IS A LIVING WILL? While a living will is within the advance directive category, it specifically determines your wishes if you become terminally ill. Not everyone has the same wishes when it comes to end-of-life care, so your living will communicates what medical procedures you would or would not want to undergo if you were either terminally ill or in a coma. Some individuals may only want their life prolonged for a certain amount of time for personal or religious reasons or not at all. A living will helps the medical staff and family follow those wishes. DIFFERENT TYPES OF ADVANCE DIRECTIVES Since it’s a broad category, not all advance directives are limited to terminal illnesses. Various forms of advance directives aim to
help loved ones from having to make stressful medical decisions that may or may not be wanted by the patient. Some forms of advance directives include:
Medical Power of Attorney: A document that names someone who can make health care decisions for you if you can’t communicate Medical Orders: Orders created by a medical professional with their patient’s wishes that are shared with other medical professionals. For example, it could detail a do-not-resuscitate (DNR) order. Psychiatric or Mental Health Directive: A document created by a person with mental illness that details their health care wishes before a possible mental health crisis, when they may not be able to make decisions
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When discussing estate planning, we often think about wills and the disbursement of our belongings after we pass. Yet, there’s plenty to organize, protect, and ensure when we are still alive. One aspect of estate planning we often overlook are advance health care directives, including living wills.
When it comes to advance directives, every adult should consider establishing their wishes as soon as they can. No one knows what the future holds, and it’s best to arrange your health care wishes before it’s too late.
Advance directives are a wide category of written instructions covering your health care
WHAT ARE THE TOP 3 REASONS TO SELL YOUR BUSINESS?
Recently, I was talking with one of my brokers who works with American Business Brokers & Advisors as to how things were going and if he was busy. He told me he was so busy working with business owners who were wanting to sell their businesses that he didn’t have time to follow up with some of his past contacts because of the phone calls he was getting from new business owners who were interested in selling. I knew he had been busy with the number of transactions he was closing, but I had to ask him what he thought was the procuring cause that increased the number of business owners who wanted to sell. His answer was plain and simple. He said there are three reasons his phone is ringing off the hook. • Retirement. He said the majority of the calls he gets are from baby boomers. They generally have been operating their business for 30–40 years and have profitable businesses, but they are ready
to close the chapter on being a daily operator and move on to retirement. It doesn’t matter if they are making $100,000 a year or $500,000 a year; I see it every day, too. He said they are just tired and burned out with the business. • Employees. The pandemic was the nail in the coffin. Finding, training, and keeping employees was hard enough before the pandemic, but after going through the pandemic, it has only gotten worse, and judging by the way things look now, it is not going to get any better. I know this to be true because I have business owners tell me that unless they are willing to coddle and stroke the employees, the employees they have will go down the road and work for someone else. (Oh, by the way, this issue is not just exclusive to the convenience store industry, either. It is across the board).
the United States, politics comes into play. Some states are more business- friendly than other states, and business owners are not dumb; they know where they are wanted and not wanted. Unless you are a large corporation with an H.R. department and finance people who are trained to work across multiple regions and states, it is hard for a small-business owner to work in a state that thinks the sole purpose of the business is to be taxed for the welfare of the state. I know there are several other reasons why the numbers of business owners wanting to sell their businesses are on the rise, but in today’s world, these would be considered the top three. You may want to make an assessment and see if any of these reasons are applicable to your situation.
–Terry Monroe
• Politics. I don’t want to get political, but depending on where you are located in
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