Are you invincible? No? We must take care of ourselves and our families.

Wow that sounds ominous…are your affairs in order?  Are you in order? What does this really mean? Let me put it to you very simply.

A client and very good friend, as many of my clients become my friends, its a natural outcome of fighting the wars we fight shoulder to shoulder in the same fox hole, defending our turf and taking victories when we can, deflecting disaster all the time, recently unexpectedly had a massive heart attack and did not survive. He was 48 years old, yes young, too young, he had an infant approximately 6 months old, an older son approximately 7 years old, and two older college level boys from previous marriages, and of course his wife.

He was a great man and I will miss him but the message I want to share is two fold.

1. We, as small business owners,  must take care of ourselves. We live under great stress, we work horrendously long hours and we take terrible care of ourselves, and that includes most of us.

My friend drank too heavily and too often, smoked too much, was overweight  and did little to take carer of his physical being. No wonder his heart gave out. It is not a surprise to any who knew him.

But to him he was still invincible, capable of super human feats, capable of running all the time and fully expecting his body to support his mental state of his mind…full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes. Well one torpedo got him….

Simply stated, I will remind you all of what we already know. We must take care of our body if we are to survive the pressure and intensity of small business ownership.

2. Did we prepare ourselves so that our families can survive in the style we would want should this event occur before we anticipate it happening?  Clearly we never anticipate early death as we all live as if we are invincible, but as we get older mortality begins to creep into our thoughts and we may begin to subtly prepare ourselves and make provisions for our families should this happen, however allow me to remind you what  the operative issues are:

1. Do you have enough insurance and the right kind.

2. Have you prepared your finances, your home ownership, your investments, your business so it will provide for your families, if we exit early?

3. Do we have a retirement plan. a plan to educate your children, a plan for your survivors to be able to carry on successfully without your being                        here to support them all?

4. Do you have a plan for your business to continue and to pay your family? Or is it a buy out plan that you have in place?

5. Do you have a will and an estate plan of some sort?

My friend had little of the above…so we will now have to figure it out for him and do the best we can.

Do not make the same mistakes. Granted you will not be around to feel the pain of your own death and the loss to your family, but they will, and you owe it to them to prepare so they can navigate life a little easier as the loss, while irreplaceable, can be made easier or can be very difficult…its your call. This is your territory, your family your responsibility.

Yes, live life at full speed, and damn the torpedoes, but what if one gets through?