I have a GIFT for you.

This is a GIFT that you need to give yourself and that you need to make sure all of your friends do as well and pass out. GIFT is an acronym and each letter stands for something important in the process for you to do this planning.

G – GATHER information. What are your options? What kinds of things are you interested in doing for yourself in the event of an emergency and you cannot speak for yourself?

I – INFORM -You want to inform all of those that are going to be part of this process. So you want to tell professionals, that may be your attorney, your CPA, a financial planner, nut it’s definitely the loved ones and those who are part of that process and the decisions with you.

F – FOLLOW THROUGH – you want to follow through. If you don’t follow through on all these things and you just have a general idea, or things are not signed, it may not be acknowledged. And so we want to make sure that we have all of our I’s dotted and all of our T’s crossed. So then we go to T.

T – TELL EVERYONE. Sometimes we put these things together but we don’t tell anybody where these special documents are, so they need to know where they are. Tell them that it is in an envelope on your right side of your desk, or wherever it is in your cupboard, or give them a copy. So we want to make sure that if you have some kind of a medical emergency, you have a decline in your health, you’re not able to speak for yourself, that you’re able to put this gift together which forms a really wonderful program for your friends and family to follow. It feels better for them to know what you want for yourself in a situation where there is an emergency.

So remember to plan that process, and it’s a GIFT to yourself, and it’s a GIFT to others. So let’s go through that acronym again. G stands for gather information. I – inform those that are part of the process. F – follow through on everything to completion. And T, tell everyone where those documents are or give them copies. I want to make sure everybody follows through on this GIFT.