Wills, Trusts, and Buy-Sell Mistakes You Can’t Afford W/ Griffin Bridgers

If you’ve been punting your estate planning all year, this is your wake-up call. In this episode, I bring in Griffin Bridgers—a recovering attorney who lives in this space—to tear down the myths and get you moving before the holidays eat your calendar. We get real about why estate planning slips to the bottom of the list: nobody wants to think about death, and everybody swears they’ll “get to it later.” Later rarely comes. 

We start with basics that most people still miss: your will’s validity, witness requirements, and why “perfect is the enemy of good.” Get the core documents done, then build the habit of revisiting them as your life changes—because it will. Your family changes. Your relationships change. Your appointees change. Set-and-forget is a fantasy. Review is the job. 

Then we crack open the myths: “The bank has my beneficiary, so I’m covered” (no, that’s not a plan), and “my attorney has the originals, so I don’t need to track anything” (do your people even know how to reach that attorney—or if they’re still practicing?). This is where good intentions die and heirs get stuck. 

Business owners—this one’s for you. Your buy-sell is not a checkbox. It’s a minefield of human behavior, valuation drift, liquidity shortfalls, “I’m done working but still own 50%” scenarios, and spouses who don’t agree with your sweetheart deal. If you don’t define the rules, a judge will. 

Griffin’s core punchline is simple: death is never easy, but you can make it easier. Start with the “who” and the “how.” Review your will, trusts, POAs, and—crucially—the people you’ve named. Educate them on their roles. Create an instruction manual so someone can actually run the playbook when you’re gone. Then get your corporate docs in one place, with minutes and filings current. Organize first. Then review. Then fix. 

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/7ZRs0r_XCVs

As always we ask you to comment, DM, whatever it takes to have a conversation to help you take the next step in your journey, reach out on any platform!

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DISCLOSURE: Awards and rankings by third parties are not indicative of future performance or client investment success. Past performance does not guarantee future results. All investment strategies carry profit/loss potential and cannot eliminate investment risks. Information discussed may not reflect current positions/recommendations. While believed accurate, Black Mammoth does not guarantee information accuracy. This broadcast is not a solicitation for securities transactions or personalized investment advice. Tax/estate planning information is general - consult professionals for specific situations. Full disclosures at www.blackmammoth.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why estate planning gets ignored
• 2:02 Holidays + tax-change urgency vs. real planning
• 5:00 Myth #1: “My old will is fine”—execution errors kill plans
• 6:45 Myth #2: “Bank beneficiaries = full plan” (nope)
• 8:10 “My attorney has it” and other access nightmares
• 10:45 “We’ll do the buy-sell later” and why that’s risky
• 17:00 Biggest failures: family dynamics, info in your head, no playbook
• 23:00 Who vs. How: re-evaluate executors, trustees, agents yearly
• 27:00 Business owners: pull your operating/partnership agreement annually

Transcript

Griffin Bridgers: 0:22

Well then it's time.

Stoy Hall: 0:29

As it's about to be Halloween, right? It's gonna be all of the holiday seasons, and I just crashed everything in the holiday season. So it's always important. Everyone does a checkup, right? Whether we do our financial checkups, our health checkups, checkup with their family, et cetera. But there's one that doesn't get talked about a lot. I know you talk about all the time, Griffin. Um, but. It's the estate side of things with your estate plan, you're, you're checking up on that and it's very important to get that started in, in Q4. So let's dive right into that topic and, and kind of talk about exactly what we wanted to get through. And that is. Why does your estate planning or succession planning, any of those things as business owners and individuals always slip through the cracks and kind of be like the last thing that anyone thinks about in any given year?

Griffin Bridgers: 1:16

I think mainly because it's the last thing you do wanna think about because, uh, you know, death is the last thing on anybody's mind. We all know we're gonna live forever. Or at least in our mind, it's not something we're worried about at any given moment there's much bigger fish to fry. So it's something that's usually not top of mind for the average person. And I think, you know, part of the problem with the estate planning industry is we've, uh, we've cast that reality. In a light of shame. But if that's, if that's what describes you, you're, you're actually in good company. I'm here to meet you where you are today. And yeah, I'm not thinking about it day to day and I do this for a living, so I certainly don't expect you to be doing the same.

Stoy Hall: 1:57

Do you find around this time that people ask more questions around their estate planning or succession planning as well, just because it is the holiday season, they're around their family more and they're trying to do planning for the next year?

Griffin Bridgers: 2:09

Yeah, a little bit. Uh, you know, there, there's often, you know, a saying that some of the best estate planning is done around the Thanksgiving table, um, or sometimes the worst estate planning is done there, but at the same time, more often, um, what I've seen in recent years is that tax law changes. The threat of it has driven a lot of, um, urgency where the concern isn't necessarily about the estate plan itself. It's can we do some, uh, bandaid type of planning now to shore up some benefits we might lose at

Stoy Hall: 2:40

year end. And what would you say to everyone listening right now going, well, should I haven't done my estate plan ever, or I haven't looked at it in 10 years? What do you say to them about like the importance of getting, at least it checked up on around this time? I think the

Griffin Bridgers: 2:55

biggest thing is defining what estate planning means, and everybody kind of thinks, okay, that question goes hand in hand with the bigger issues, which are important, you know, don't get me wrong, but do you have a will? You have maybe a revocable living trust. Have you done powers of attorney in a living will? All of those are important documents, and if you haven't gotten them done, I'd encourage you to look into it. And I think, um, I always like to tell people, perfect is the enemy of good. When you go through that process and get those vital documents done, it doesn't mean that's the end of the road. And the expectation is that your circumstances are gonna change. Your life is gonna change. Your family dynamics are gonna change. And the people you name in those documents, your relationships with them and their own situations are gonna change. So as much as we would love to say that, we can set it and forget it. Uh, the reality is that even if you do the work now and get. The vital documents in place, revisiting them is gonna be very important. So I think the good news for those of you who haven't done it, is that you're really no worse off than somebody who did it many, many, many years ago. And their situation is completely changed, and what they've done is no longer, you know, suitable to their situation. And I think that's the bigger picture of why we're discussing this today, that as much as we would love to just think about death once and get it done, not have to worry about it again. We're, we're still gonna have to, to pull that up every once in a while. And that's a lot of the work I do is kind of creating that habit of, you know, on those rare occasions when you can kind of motivate yourself to, ah, it's like pulling teeth. I don't wanna do this, but I'll give it some attention now. Uh, what, what can we effectively do during those windows of time?

Stoy Hall: 4:41

Yeah, and we'll dive into that deeper as we, as we go. But let's get into segment two, which is my favorite, and that's we're talking about what society and media. Media are saying. Maybe a little myth busting here as we go. So here's the first one, and it kind of alludes to what we were just talking about a little bit, but my will from years ago and is completely fine. I don't need to update anything.

Griffin Bridgers: 5:00

I mean, I, I, I've seen wills of all shapes and forms and, uh, you know, some of them have pages missing. Some of them haven't been executed correctly. And I think the, the, the big picture is even if you have a will from years ago, you may not even know whether it was done correctly. Um, you know, it, it's a common. Outcome. I see. And you know, again, if this is you, you know, no shame. But, uh, oftentimes you might have an attorney or an online service prepare the document. Then it kind of comes home and sit lives in your drawer until you get around to saying, okay, I'm finally ready to sign this. Thing. Let's go get that done. Well, for a will, for example, you have to get it signed in front of at least two witnesses, usually, sometimes even a notary. And more often than not, it doesn't matter what's in the terms of that will, you could have done the best job in the world. To think through and make this a meaningful document. But if you don't have nailed down those two witness signatures and possibly the notary signature even that will you did many, many years ago may not be effective. So it's the small things like that that go into it. And like I said, you know, you could have a will where your, your kids were, you know, infants at the time and you named guardians and you have a comprehensive trust structure for them. And now they're. Adults self-sufficient. They have their own kids you might wanna provide for. Your dynamics have changed at that point and the old will no longer really suits your situation.

Stoy Hall: 6:27

Absolutely. This one's a fun one because everyone loves banks and, uh, this is probably for the older generation.'cause they, they just trust the bank with everything. But, and all be all, here's the next one. The bank has my beneficiary, so I'm covered. I don't need, I don't need a will or, or estate stuff. They've got my beneficiaries.

Griffin Bridgers: 6:45

Well,

Stoy Hall: 6:45

couple

Griffin Bridgers: 6:46

issues with that. One, do you truly know that they have your beneficiaries? Um, you know, if, if you're used to working with bank personnel, you'll know how often they can make mistakes. And how often you can tell them to do something and they never follow through on it. So you may think they have your beneficiaries, but without confirming that first and foremost you don't necessarily know and, and again, too, this becomes an issue where if they have your beneficiaries, maybe that's not the suitable recipient. I think sometimes there's a difference between picking and choosing different assets to give to people versus looking at your balance sheet as a whole and saying, okay, I want a certain dollar value. Or percent to go to these people? Well, the two concepts don't marry up well, especially when you start using beneficiary designations and you're losing opportunities for a little more thoughtful planning around that and what that entails. So, you know, they, they sound good on paper, but they're not always the best when working through. The estate settlement process. Not to mention, whatever your bank has, doesn't necessarily apply to all the other assets you have proactively.

Stoy Hall: 7:55

I was just about to say that. Yeah. What about your car, your other assets? That, that, that's not always gonna be there at the bank, just because you have it written down for this account does not automatically, uh, include everything else. Um, as a former attorney yourself, how about this one? My attorney has it on file, so I don't, I don't need to keep copies myself.

Griffin Bridgers: 8:13

Well, your attorney might have your documents on file, but, uh. Do your loved ones know that the attorney has those documents on file? Do they know how to reach the attorney? And importantly, is the attorney even still practicing? You know there, there's all sorts of situations where recovering attorneys like me have left practice and usually I make sure my clients have the original'cause. If I'm not there anymore, who are they gonna call? Now I have a firm behind me that they can call up, but you know, there's lots of solo attorneys out there who have retired and you have no idea what happened to your documents. They may have sent a letter but may not, may have gone to the wrong address or whatever. In some states, like here in Colorado, they've shorted up where when you're retiring, technically you can. Send a will to the Secretary of State and they store it and keep a record there. But if you don't know about that, um, you know, access is a huge issue. So just because you think your attorney still has it, doesn't mean they necessarily still do.

Stoy Hall: 9:10

And this one's not on topic. Just my own question here is how long do attorneys need to keep things like that? Like how long is the record holding for I a will or a trust or something

Griffin Bridgers: 9:21

like that? I think it varies by state. And a lot of attorneys will say, okay, we will store your documents, but every seven years or 21 years or whatever, we. Revisit this and reach out to you. And I think the issue is, yeah, if you've moved, the attorney can only send something to last known address. And I know at least in Colorado, like I said, you know, there's a backup procedure where if you're an attorney in that situation, I can't find my client. Um, I can't get them. Their last will here, we'll send it to a secretary of state or a court. Where, you know, we last knew the client to live, and even then courts are kind of getting overwhelmed by the amounts of Will, so they don't always take'em anymore either.

Stoy Hall: 10:01

Interesting. Interesting. Hmm. Yeah. I, I assumed it goes state by state states, like, like dog. Mm-hmm. Things. Yeah. Alright. Last one. In, in this segment, and this one is interesting because, and I'm gonna prelude it with, I actually have told clients like, Hey. We'll handle the buy sell at a different time and it's just because of the information on hand. Uh, a lot of overwhelming moving parts. You just kind of have some, sometimes start the business. So whatever you're gonna say. I'm also on the side that I've done this before. So this one is saying, we'll handle the buy sell later for our business. Let's just get going and operational. What do you say to that?

Griffin Bridgers: 10:36

I mean, I think it's a good approach. There's only so much you can do at once, and I think the more you can give your attention right now, the better. But, um. It, it's a double-edged sword because if you decide to do a bunch of stuff now your documents plus your buy sell and you're willing to just skate through and say, okay, um, just check the default boxes on the buy sell just for the sake of getting a document done. It may not fit your situation and buy cells are for better or worse, a lot more complicated and there's a lot more. Um, choices that go into that, then a lot of clients give credence to. So being thoughtful about that process, even if it means perhaps waiting until a later date, can sometimes create a, a better outcome. Now note, I'm using terms like better and not best, you know, in some situations it's just hard to know. I mean, everybody is in a race against time, and I always cite, uh, I, I forget which coach it was, uh, who said, um, we didn't lose. We just ran outta time. And that's really the outcome for most estate plans. It's just maximizing the time you have on this earth to get as much pre-planning as you can done. And you know, for better or worse, sometimes you just run outta time.

Stoy Hall: 11:48

Let's couple that new segment being your point of view, where we get to dive into your brain even more. So I want to hit upon the buy, sell stuff too. Um, as business owners, when we have partners, that's usually when the buy sells come into play. The most. You said it's. Potentially more complex than uh, uh, you know, your normal will and trust. Why is that? Why is there more complexity when it comes to a buy sell? Because mostly when everyone thinks of it, they're like, oh, if I die or get disabled, like, you know, you give my family money and you get shares. Like it's simple, right? Mm-hmm. Talk to you a little more of the complexities that go.

Griffin Bridgers: 12:23

Yeah, and I think really the, the issue I see oftentimes is whether you even know you have a buy, sell to begin with. There's different forms of entities, and especially if you go to an attorney and have them draft up like an LLC operating agreement or a partnership agreement, sometimes there'll be buy, sell language baked into that and it'll be the defaults. And if you just received the document and said, oh, this looks good and checked it off, and you and your business partner signed, then you may need, may not even know what's in there. So that can come as a surprise to begin with. Uh, the other issues tend to be that, you know, there's triggering events in a buy sell and being thoughtful about those is important. You, you know, you mentioned the death, disability, things of that nature, but, you know, obviously death is clear cut, but disability, how do you define that? Uh, you could even have a retirement or termination for cause and without Cause. What do you do if, um, you have a partner who one day says, Hey, I'm just gonna quit working. Because I own 50% of this, you still have to keep paying me. Um, if the buy sell doesn't address that, guess what you're going to court to figure that out. So, you know, it's really thinking through those, uh, issues of human behavior where, um, your business partner you trust, but you don't have it clearly mapped out. Sometimes trust and outcomes aren't worth coloring in between the lines. It's better to map this out in advance. You brought up the,

Stoy Hall: 13:46

the most important part about buy sells and it's the not easy stuff, right? Disability can get complex, but kind of can be more clear cut. Obviously death is very clear cut, but those nuances that happen in partnerships, right? Mm-hmm. People change as things go. We all are changing and adapting and, and growing into our own self, but you add now zeros to that. You add age to that, you, you add life experiences and I think there's a lot of opportunities there that people don't think could happen. Agree. Could pop up. Yeah, I don't wanna work, and you're still gonna make the business run and operate, right? Mm-hmm. Or, you know what, and, and some of these I'll see is I, I want my spouse, I want someone else involved even more heavily, right? Yep. Or I wanna leave it to this person. Even though that even the typical buy sell typically doesn't have that some I've seen where the partners are like, yeah, we'll just leave it to our state. It's fine. They'll, they'll take care of it and run it. One of'em doesn't like the other spouse, one of'em doesn't like the other's child. Uh, you, you know, all the plethora of things. So it's very important that everyone listening, like you actually ask all those questions. Mm-hmm. You either have an attorney ask those questions, uh, you know, you just walk through with your business partner planner like me, or or Griffin coach, like you guys, like doing that is so important because those questions you won't think of,'cause you're excited, you're getting your business going, you're thinking about all the optimism and all those good things. Mm-hmm. And it's our job to come in and be like. Great. Love that. What if, what if, what if, what if?

Griffin Bridgers: 15:17

Yeah. And value and liquidity are two huge other huge issues that you know, that hey, you and your partner may agree, oh yeah, we're gonna give each other a sweetheart deal, but your estate may not agree. Your spouse may not agree to that. You're gonna end up fighting. Or you, you do this when the business is young and you think it's worth 500,000, then one of you dies when it's worth a hundred million. If you've never updated that value, you're in a bad situation. If the value is updated and you don't have the liquidity to buy out a partner, that's its own issue too. You're hamstring the business then.

Stoy Hall: 15:48

Absolutely. And then the business fails and no one wins. So that's not a great thing either. Alright. What are, where do you see the biggest failures, um, in some real cases you've dealt with when people are either doing a succession planning or, or doing their estate planning? What are some of the biggest failures you've seen?

Griffin Bridgers: 16:04

I think some of the biggest failures are a failure to appreciate, um. The assets and the dynamics of the family. Um, you know, we're talking about business interests. So, uh, again, we get that are you active in the business versus are you sitting back and waiting for a paycheck While both owners are there, they're willing to put in sweat equity and crank all the profits back into the business. Well, once one of you is gone, that dynamic changes. If there's not a buyout, if you want this to pass on as a legacy asset to your heirs, well guess what? They're gonna wanna see some return from the business, and if they're not, they're gonna want to come and blow things up. So keeping that in mind is very important that, um, oftentimes an estate planning is really a projection of the way you would do things, whereas you fail to appreciate how others might do things and how they might respond. So beyond that too, I think one of the biggest failures is just, um, not doing the heavy lifting. Like if you have a business, uh, where are the accounts? Who co-signs? How can you access the vital information? What lives in your head that you know and can quickly access to do your job day to day and run the business that someone stepping into your shoes is absolutely not going to have and is gonna take hours to piece together on their own, assuming they even can

Stoy Hall: 17:24

agree. I agree to those. What are um. So now everyone's listening going, oh boy. Um, I got a lot to think about. I'm feeling a certain way. Right? Mm-hmm. Like with that anxiety, which is a good thing, by the way, people. Yep. But what are some, I guess, practical things that people can think about and go, okay, now I need to get going, right. I need to, I need to, mm-hmm. Start now. What would be that like first step or two steps that they need to do now that

Griffin Bridgers: 17:49

they're listening? Well, I mean, I think the biggest thing for me is, yeah, you can visit a professional to get the documents done, but it helps to think a little bit in advance about what you actually want to do. Oftentimes you'll have clients come in and say, okay, we want estate planning. Okay, great. If you've given any thought to what your estate plan looks like or who will benefit, who's in charge of carrying out your instructions? And uh, the answer is often no. Um, what do your other clients do? And it's funny'cause you know, this is something that you can truly own. Uh, but a lot of people passively participate and say, okay, it's up to my professionals and advisors to make those decisions for me, or to make suggestions that really then end up passing as decisions. And ultimately this is something for you to be proud of, your legacy. And, you know, for better or worse, it's something where I think mindset is the most important starting point. If anything, it's not something you have to do. It's something you get to do, and I think a lot of people just don't act because they don't think they deserve that good of a legacy, which I'm here to tell you today, you're wrong. You deserve to leave a great memory of your time on Earth. And even if you want to do that, um, that legacy is eroded by your failure to do the work now. So. Even if it means eating the elephant one bite at a time, that means, hey, doing little steps now aggregates and is better over time than just waiting and trying to maybe get motivated to do everything in one swoop and then forgetting it for 20 years and never touching it again and again, as we mentioned at the beginning, having that be probably as bad in some cases as having done nothing to begin with.

Stoy Hall: 19:36

Right. Point you just made about like the mindset and, and the, the emotions behind leaving your legacy. Something that we hear about all the time is one cost, duh, that comes up all the time. And two saying, I don't even have enough assets or anything to have a legacy. What, what do you say to that? I got some thoughts on that, but what do you say to that when people say the one of those two things? Well, I mean.

Griffin Bridgers: 20:01

No matter how simple you think your situation is, um, you rarely leave a simple outcome for your heirs. And I, I've really started to spend a lot of time on, even if you have a couple major assets, there's things that you can shore up given your time on Earth right now that are gonna make things really easy. So, just because you think your situation is simple, because you have the head knowledge to step in at a moment's notice and settle everything. That doesn't mean somebody stepping into your shoes would think the same. So the more advanced work you can do now to say, okay, I think my situation is simple. Can I. Give that simplicity to somebody else, um, the, the better off you're gonna be. So really, I, you know, that's how I've started to reframe estate planning is that yeah, if just because you think it's simple doesn't mean somebody can step into your shoes to do that, but you can make it simple for them. And, you know, my tagline has become, death is never easy, but you can make it easier.

Stoy Hall: 21:02

I love that, love that tagline.'cause it's not easy. Um, been through it with my mother and my grandmother recently and it's like there are so many moving parts, even though we had plans put in place. Mm-hmm. There's still so much that needs to be done, both physically, but also emotionally.'cause you're grieving. Yep. Right. Like that's the part. Me as the, as the one who is dying. I don't think about it all the time, is like, yeah, I think it's simple. But then you add in this, the stress, the anxiety, the, the grieving and things get complicated pretty quick. Agreed. Pretty quick. Uh, based upon your knowledge of everything that's moving parts of this year, is there anything people need to prioritize or think about changing, um, prior to December 31st of this year?

Griffin Bridgers: 21:43

Well, I think the good news is we've gotten a, a reprieve from the tax side. So if you are in that high net worth strata where you are worried about making lifetime gifts and trying to shore those up before year end, you have a little more bit more wiggle room now. Now we have a permanent, uh, estate tax exemption that's gonna go up to 15 million. In 2026, it's gonna continue to be indexed for inflation from then on. And most importantly, there's no looming sunset where it's guaranteed under law to go down by one half or something at some point in the future, like we thought was going to happen at the end of this year. So. We don't, we no longer have that urgency. So now you can be a little bit more intentional about planning without letting the text hail wag the dog. So I think there are still compelling reasons to do good planning. Now, obviously the planning for death. Is vital. Uh, making sure you have documents that address what's gonna happen at your passing and even creating a plan that you can easily update in the future. And we talked about wills. A lot of people now use revocable living trust. So even if you have a will, maybe a good idea to. To pivot to that type of plan because that witnessing requirement and everything I talked about, in most states, you don't run into that with your revocable living trust. It's much easier to change its terms or even completely replace the instrument keeping the same trust name, even maybe with just a notary signature, so it creates a little bit more flexibility. In your planning moving forward and a a vital component of any estate plan, I always like to say we're answering two questions. Who and how, but who is at the center of that? How means nothing without addressing who. So I think it's important to revisit maybe even annually, the people you name to different roles in your documents. You've got executors under your will, but you also have trustees under a revocable, revocable living trust. Agents or attorneys, in fact, under powers of attorney to make decisions for you. Pulling those out and figuring out who they are and giving'em a second look and saying, Hey, is this person still suitable? I think it's vitally important'cause oftentimes we'll have a, a friend from long ago we've named and we've since had a falling out with them. We don't like them anymore. They're posting some goofy stuff online and we don't trust them to handle our family's money anymore. So, you know, really thinking through those types of relationships, I think is important. And then making the right updates to your documents to change those roles around as needed.

Stoy Hall: 24:15

Yeah. And he dove right into the actionable steps. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna steal that and say the first actionable step is to review. Your documents, review who's involved, like you had said, between power of attorneys, executors, trustees, you name it. And another step there is not only to review who they are, review it with them so they know their role. I've seen it a lot where they don't remember their role. They didn't remember that they were gonna be that person. Right. Um, especially if you did this 10 years ago or five years ago, or you're young. Some of us don't know what that role intent en entails. I would take it a step further too and educate them on what it means. Right. Some people just say, I'll do it. I'll take care of you no matter what. But they don't know what it means to be a trustee or an exec. Mm-hmm. And those roles are not easy and, and in some states I would, I, let me back up. I'll let you answer this, but I believe in some states they're required to be paid too, to be in those positions between some estates. And if you don't tell them that, you don't tell your family that there's gonna be another RIF there as

Griffin Bridgers: 25:18

well. Exactly, and I think the documents we've talked about so far are ones you need to lean on an attorney to do things like wills and trust and powers of attorney. For the most part, those are gonna be directions to another attorney or a judge or a court. But there's a lot you can do in terms of. Interpersonal communication and making your wishes known, for example, instruction manuals. And if you really wanna deepen that relationship with your attorney or an advisor, it's a matter of, okay, I, I, I, I've done the work here to get the base documents in place. I wanna take things to the next level now. So what can we do here to make sure there is no question about what somebody's authority is or what they need to do. Or the timeframe or Or where the skeletons lie so they can jump in and do the job instantly without delay.

Stoy Hall: 26:06

Yeah, absolutely. What would you say business owners must review, right? We just talked about individuals a little bit, but what should business owners review right now and what should be their first step once they've done the review?

Griffin Bridgers: 26:19

I think really business owners, it helps not only with your buy sell, but if it's separate, your company agreement, your partnership agreement, to pull those out every year and just give them a fresh look. And I know it's light, it's not light reading, it's not fun to do. Um, so we, we live in an age where any attorney should be competent to provide you a summary of, of what that says. You know, really the drafting attorney should have done that up. Front. And if they haven't maybe asked, Hey, are you willing to do this? And you know, for better or worse, a lot of'em can run up through an AI search engine nowadays if we're being real. And then, you know, update things, you know, supposedly as they should. Um, but I'd say making sure you are comfortable with the current governance structure. I think with business owners too, compliance becomes a big thing that depending on your form of business and the state you're operating in, uh, you know, you have Secretary of State. Filings, but you also have meeting minutes and things of that nature that might be required under law. Making sure those are up to date and part of your corporate file and organization I think is important for any business owner that, um, you know. In terms of all these governing documents we've talked about, perhaps the simplest question is, do you know where all of them are? We talked about where your will is located, but is there a central file for a business owner or the secretary of a business to pull out everything, be able to provide it at a moment's notice? Often the answer is no. So sometimes it's just a matter of, okay, we're gonna get. Our stuff together this year and focus on making sure we have a comprehensive guide of every document that affects how we run our business and govern it and make sure it's in the same place, you know, whether it's in paper or store digitally or both. So anybody you know, whether it's us, a partner, a, an advisor, or somebody after our passing can look under the hood and know exactly what's going on.

Stoy Hall: 28:17

I love it. I absolutely love it. And that would probably be the best next step for everyone. Absolutely. Just first get organized and put it all together. Mm-hmm. Then do it right and that it's gonna take time. Don't, don't get me wrong, we all go through these as well. Like it takes time to find it. Yeah. It takes time to remember where to put it and then to write it down to be like, okay, this is where all our stuff is. Yeah. So all of you listening, that's a very good step. Just get it organized, put it together, then the next step, go on and, and to review it. Yeah. Griffin, I appreciate you and for those, we're gonna leave a little teaser because the next episode that he is on that comes out in December, has something really, really amazing and interesting coming out that he's been working on. So fun teaser means you have to come back to get to the next episode, but I appreciate everything that you do both for our industry and and for bigger ones like that. So thank you again and uh, we look forward to the next one. Looking forward to it. Thank you everyone.

Black Mammoth: 29:26

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