Ken Moraif  

Hello everyone, and welcome to Money Matters with Ken Moraif. And of course, I am your host, Ken Moraif, and this is the show where we try to have more fun than a human being should be allowed to have when talking about all of this boring financial stuff. And this show is going to be no exception, because this time we’re going to talk about the most important inheritance you’ll ever leave. And I’m just going to tell you right now, it’s not what you think most likely. So before we take one step further, let me tell you who I am. I am the CEO, founder and CEO Retirement Planners of America. And we work with people who are over 50, who are retired or retiring soon. And if that’s you, everything we do is specially made just for you. So make sure you go to our website. It’s rpoa.com to get more of our content and more of our stuff. So let me bring on to the into the fray, if you will. Jeremy, so Jeremy, how’s it going?

Jeremy Thornton  

It is going quite well. How are you doing?

Ken Moraif  

It’s going great. I’m anxious to talk about this. This is, this is, you know, one of the things that I think we get bogged down with when we’re talking about money matters, is money, money, money, money, money. And I think, well, today I want to talk about what is the most important is, is it that stuff? Is it money?

Jeremy Thornton  

Is it your car? Is it a house? Is it property? Is it is it my Apple Watch? Is it your Apple Watch? Yeah, I’m sure your children. This is way to get that apple.

Ken Moraif  

This is a coveted thing,

Jeremy Thornton  

your golf or your tennis racket. My tennis racket. Yeah, really?

Ken Moraif  

Matter of fact, yes.

Jeremy Thornton  

Okay, so if it’s not what we think, if it’s not money in the possessions, things like that, what is it?

Ken Moraif  

You know, I think the most important thing that you can leave to your children, your grandchildren, is your values. It’s your morals, it’s your life lessons. I mean, you’ve lived a life, you’ve and sharing that with future generations, your wisdom, right? I think that is probably the most valuable inheritance that you can leave of all. And if you think about it, when you have children, what do you spend your time doing? You spend your time teaching them, you know, what are the important things in life? What are the values and all that? And the problem is that when they die, or when you die, a lot of those things are, I guess, inculcated in your kids. But does it get to your grandchildren and then to your great grand No, so, so leaving it, leaving those is an important thing, I think, yeah, and

Jeremy Thornton  

making sure they know the importance of those things

Ken Moraif  

and how important it is they are the most important things in life.

Jeremy Thornton  

Yeah, yeah, money, possessions aren’t enough. But, I mean, that’s how you pay for things, that’s how you live your life, that’s how you buy food, that’s how

Ken Moraif  

it’s true. But, you know, I’m trying to remember who said this, but somebody said that if you have the right work ethic, the right morals, the right values and all of that, somebody can take everything you own from you, away from you, and it won’t be long before you’ll have it back. If you have the wrong morals, the wrong everything, and you win the lottery and you have $100 million it’ll be gone within a week. Yeah? So it all comes down to, you know, what’s in your heart? What have you grown up learning? What have you been taught? What are your values? What are your morals?

Jeremy Thornton  

Yeah. So, so even if you inherit nothing financially, you have no property to give away or anything like that, unless, or let’s say that you’re the recipient, you can still receive those, those principles, those morals, the way of life, the way you should interact with other people. And that can really be a lasting thing. If you think about you know, how do you basically intentionally pass those values down? What do you need to kind of like do to to make sure that those things are lit.

Ken Moraif  

There’s, there’s actually a very easy way to do it, and it’s that little device that dominates your life. It’s called your phone.

Jeremy Thornton  

Oh, that was a beeper.

Ken Moraif  

You still have a beeper? No, it’s that device that you carry around with you that if you leave without it, you got to drive back 15 miles to go get right. You can’t if you leave it anywhere, it’s like you can’t be apart from it. But this thing can be used to do that. Yeah, so Aren’t you gonna ask me how well?

Jeremy Thornton  

I was hoping that they would just automatically, kind of pay I thought was always listening, and it was just always listening.

Ken Moraif  

So no, no, no, no. How do you do it? Well, what you do is you get your iPhone, you put it on the kitchen table, and then you and your spouse sit there and just talk to your children, talk to if you. Generations and spend 15 or 20 minutes telling them a little bit about your life story, your life lessons, why this is important versus that. What? What are the most important values that you have? What are the, you know, the work ethic, things that you have, and you know, everybody has ways of saying things that kids remember forever. Yeah, you know, for example, my dad said you always sweep the corners. Okay? So I remember that. So when I’m you know what he meant by that is, you don’t just sweep part of it and then the corner lifts undone. So I always make sure I sweep the corners. So when I’m playing tennis, for example, with the ball machine, and I pick up all the balls afterwards. If there’s a ball sitting over there, I go get it right, because that’s a ball that needed to be picked up. I, you know, sometimes I go on the ball court and there’s like, four or five balls left there, and I thought that person was not taught to sweep the dang corners,

Jeremy Thornton  

absolutely right. Somebody

Ken Moraif  

else, right. But you have sayings, right? You have ways of phrasing things, and there’s no way to pass those on, but other than to record them, and that little device that’s the bane of all of our lives can actually be the device that enables maybe one of the most beautiful

Jeremy Thornton  

things you can do. Yeah, it can enable something good. Yes, it doesn’t have to necessarily be a bad thing. You know, this remind kind of reminds me of people used to do that anyway through letters. They’ve been right

Ken Moraif  

Exactly, yeah.

Jeremy Thornton  

And now, you know, nobody’s text messages aren’t being written out and recorded for posterity or anything like that. You’re texting back and forth, and it’s all very immediate and kind of top of the dome. But people, when they wrote, you took measure and you took time, and you thought out what you were going to say, and you did all of that so and it was, it wasn’t scripted. It just flows. Yeah, that’s

Ken Moraif  

exactly right. And people have passed on, you know, recipes. And, you know, in the past, people wrote these things down for future generations. This is not a brand new idea, yes, but with our with the lives we have today, and everything racing and all that we don’t take a moment to stop and do that. And, you know, think about how wonderful it would be if you could watch a video of your great, great, I’ll say great grandparents, you know, like who grew up in 1850 or something, and they basically shared with you what was going on in their life and their beliefs and their values and all that. I mean, think about how incredibly valuable that would be to you, to be able to watch them and see them and hear them talk to you. I mean, that would be such an incredible thing to be passed down, and it’s free. You just talk extemporaneously. Yes, you know, there’s no you don’t have to have a script for it. You don’t have to have anything. Yes, you know, once the conversation starts, it flows, yes.

Jeremy Thornton  

And, you know, tell stories about childhood and how you grew up, and why you’re doing, what you’re doing, and what kind of driven and I think it’s really important to talk about hardships

Ken Moraif  

because and how you overcame them, yes,

Jeremy Thornton  

and because, you know, when people are looking to the past, it’s not because things are going typically speaking, it’s not because things are perfect and going exactly as they plan. They want to look upon somebody that’s lived a full life. How did they overcome the things that they went through, and look for those. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. They want to see a commonality of, okay, how do I overcome this thing? Okay, yeah, they didn’t have iPhones or digital world, but they still had problems. Human Nature doesn’t change.

Ken Moraif  

Yep, life comes with challenges, and how you overcome them. It all comes from, you know, your character and the lessons you’ve been taught. And you know, for example, I don’t know what was happening in the 1860s but whatever was happening back then, or in the 1900s during the early during the Depression, you know, how we dealt with the adversities of life back then, and the strength that we showed that’s something that a young, you know, 10 year old child can watch and gain a lot from so to me, that is the most valuable thing that you can leave to your the future generations.

Jeremy Thornton  

Well, how So, okay, it’s on my phone. I’ve recorded this great, wonderful message I want to leave down to my descendants. Now, what do I do with it?

Ken Moraif  

Well, storing digital assets is the subject of a different podcast that we will have on how to pass on your digital assets to future generations, but there are ways that you can do that and make it available in the future. So ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you enjoyed this podcast as much as we enjoyed making it for you. I hope you had more fun than a human being should be allowed to have when talking about all this stuff. And make sure you go to our website. It’s rpoa.com and when you’re there, enjoy our content. Sign up for our seminars. Make sure you visit with one of our retirement planners. We’ve got lots of stuff there, all for you. And make sure you like and subscribe as well. So thanks for watching, and we’ll talk soon.