Stop Waiting for a Crisis: The High-Stakes Blind Spots of Aging, Business, and Wealth

Are you running your life or just reacting to it?

 In this episode of Advice From Your Advocates, host and board-certified elder law attorney Bob Mannor sits down with wealth management expert Joe Mackey of MKD Wealth. Together, they pull back the curtain on the critical, often ignored intersections of family caregiving, estate planning, and business succession. 

Whether you are a family caregiver trying to keep the peace among siblings, a business owner neglecting your personal legacy, or a professional advisor striving to give your clients the best guidance, this conversation is a must-listen. Bob and Joe break down how "ambiguity breeds conflict" and share actionable ways to transition from daily firefighting to proactive, strategic planning. 

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• The Caregiver Trust & Family Harmony: Why relying on "volunteer" family caregivers without clear, legally documented compensation plans is a recipe for sibling conflict (and how to fix it.)
• The Danger of "Dusty" Estate Plans: Why that 10-year-old estate planning binder in your closet won’t protect your family from massive modern tax shifts like the Secure Act. 
• The Founder’s Blind Spot: How successful entrepreneurs flawlessly run their businesses but completely neglect their personal wealth and parent-care strategies. 
• Avoiding the "TikTok" Trap: How to filter out the overwhelming noise of generic online financial advice and focus on curated, personalized strategies for your family's specific needs. 

Don't wait for a medical or financial emergency to force your hand. Tune in to learn how to step out of the daily whirlwind, protect your family legacy, and gain true peace of mind. 

Learn more about guest Joe Mackey & MKD Wealth: https://mkdwealth.com

Host: Attorney Bob Mannor, CELA, CDP

Executive Producer: Savannah Meksto, CDP

Assistant Producers: Samantha Noah, Shalene Gaul

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Joe Mackey

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You're listening to Advice from Your Advocates, a show where we provide elder law advice to professionals who work with the elderly and their families.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome back to Advice from Your Advocates. I'm Bob Manner. I'm a board certified elder law attorney in Michigan. And I'm really excited about today's guest. We got Joe Mackey from MKD Wealth. Hey Joe.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Hey, Bob, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

So, one of the things I want our audience to know is that uh you had invited me to do a panel that was related to long-term care. It turned out a fantastic panel, and and your your financial firm had organized it. But tell us a little bit about MKD Wealth and about you.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, absolutely. So, me personally, I grew up in a small town Indiana, went to Indiana University, home of the national champs in football this year, Co Hoosiers. But I've lived in Michigan longer than I've lived in Indiana. So over 30 years, married to my wife Jennifer for 28 years. We have six kids between the ages of uh 16 and 25. So life is very full and fun. I was in wealth management at another firm in January of 2007. I started MKD with the K and the D. Joined us about 10 months later, and we've been going strong ever since, uh almost 20 years, I guess. And MKD today uh has two partners. So the K and the D are bought out. Nathan Bohanan is now a partner, and we just hired our 15th team member last week. So we've been growing and enjoying building our firm around successful entrepreneurs and helping them think carefully about the wealth they've created and the impact that that wealth is going to have on their family, philanthropy, community while they're here and long after they're gone.

A Wealth Firm Built On Vision

SPEAKER_01 1:52

And that's one of the things I really appreciate about MKD Wealth is that you guys kind of have the same philosophy as we do, which is about uh education and content, about really helping people understand the different options, understand the landscape. And that's one of the reasons why you put on the workshop that we did, and we had a long-term care insurance specialist there, we had a long-term care replacement specialist there. And the the fact that you put that on really says a lot about your organization, that you're not just about, you know, okay, where's your money? Here's how we're going to invest it. It really is about the big picture for you.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Yeah, absolutely. And many years ago, we had called our initial meeting with a prospective client the unexpected experience, which I really liked. Some marketing people told us that wasn't good for people to, you know, come in and engage us for the unexpected experience. But the reason we called it that is new clients consistently said to us the initial process with us was a very unexpected experience. And the reason why is we don't start with your statements. We're not trying to get those and convince you that what we do is better than what you have in a pure money management standpoint. What we're doing is saying, hey, what's your vision for the future, for your wealth, for your family, the impact you want to have? What are the core values, those lightning rods inside your soul that are never to be violated on the way to achieve your vision? And then once we have great clarity on vision and values, then we set goals. What are the things we need to accomplish in the next 12 months that move you one step closer to your vision, always honoring your values? We get into a cycle of doing that, and every year refreshing the vision, rechecking in on the values, setting new goals, and people actually start to make progress and start to see impact around their wealth. And I think that fits really well into what we're talking about. And I know we're gonna get a lot into it, but anything that people do proactively in the area that you specialize in, where you get out of your day-to-day uh, you know, busy lives and you push back and you go, oh my gosh, I gotta think about the big picture in the long term, not just for me, but also for my aging parents.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah, and that's a great point because it is one of those things that when you talk about personal values, one of the personal values that people have is caring for their parents. But, and I'm not quite up in that age yet that I got to be too worried about this. But I did start thinking, I actually just got back from vacation, and those are the times that I get to do a little bit more deeper thinking. And I started thinking, you know, would my kids know how I and my wife want to be cared for? If we ever get to that point where we need care, would they have an understanding of how the money should be used? How, what options that we have, you know, have we set out those? And a big part of that, because you really don't get to make those types of decisions unless you have some resources, unless you've done proper planning to think about that, hey, there might be a need for some financial resources as part of this. And I think that goes hand in hand with what you're saying is you know, that might not be something that most people are thinking about in their 50s, but year to year, year after year, you're revising that, and people's values change, people's interests change. And that is one of the things that I think would be a valuable resource is realizing that every year we probably need to kind of look at that vision and see if that vision's changed based on the health and status of our parents, the location and situation with our children, and basically the care for ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Bob, you're exactly

Care Planning Needs Clarity First

SPEAKER_00 5:51

right. And as you're talking, I'm playing out scenarios in my mind of current clients that are happening now and experiences in the past. And those are the things I can speak to real succinctly. And there's a couple of things I see. Now, typically uh the clients we serve are at the high end of the high net worth scale or even into the ultra high net worth category. So they have plenty of wealth. It's typically more a lack of clarity and communication, it's not a lack of resources.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

And so some of our clients are in their 80s. You know, we've we've had a client make it to 100 and we've had some pass in their 90s. And so you're you're clearly getting into caregiving situations, whether that's home health care, assisted living, you know, memory care, full-on nursing home, there's all that spectrum of care and all that option. If the aging parent has the resources, but they've not provided any clarity, and then if they have multiple children that are your and I's age, they're gonna create uh difficult circumstances where the loudest voice is probably gonna win, maybe versus the one with the best ideas or the most helpful, you know, has maybe some experience or expertise in it. So you get children fighting with each other and disagreeing. You know, that can be very, very troublesome. And then when I look at my clients that are more like my age, I'm 56. If they're the one very successful, wealthy child. So now we've got an aging parent who maybe doesn't have the resources, who has three, four, or five children, and my client's the one who's worth a lot of money and can pay without any proactive conversations, careful planning, then we also can get into some difficult circumstances because you can have a person who can't afford to pay that has a very strong opinion, but I'm the one who can pay. And so all of that stuff, we if you just you know, it's super important, but it's not at all urgent until it is. And then once it is urgent, now you've missed the window to lean in and have what could be difficult conversations or they could be really good conversations, but if you don't shoot for the proactivity, you don't try to have the conversations on the front end, you're really you know, ambiguity sets the ground, the foundation for conflict and strife. And and you and nobody wants that.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Well, and and that's exactly where I've been going lately. As you know, I represent a lot of folks that don't have that kind of resources, and we have to work with what we have. We also have to work with government benefits and things like that. But one of the focuses that I've had most recently in the last couple of years is people that do have the resources, and we're not so much worried about the money part of it. We're worried about the quality of life and quality of care, and frankly, keeping family harmony and not just family harmony, but actually getting the best results. So

Paying Family Caregivers Fairly

SPEAKER_01 8:54

let's say we have the son or daughter who volunteers to give up their freedom a little bit to take care of mom or dad. And I've seen this uh hundreds of times where uh this is what happens, and there's a little bit of where the person who's volunteering is looking at it as, well, this is my parent, and I'm gonna do this, and I don't expect uh you know sufficient compensation for it. But many of them are giving up on work, they're actually influencing their retirement, their ability to meet their needs in a long-term care situation later. And if they even bring up the conversation of being compensated, uh similar to the way that a stranger would be compensated, or if they were to move into an assisted living or nursing home, there that creates a lot of sort of family strife. Whereas if we just set this up ahead of time and said, okay, if a family member is so generous as to donate their time and their energy towards caring for us, they should be compensated at least as well as a stranger would be, or as we would to pay for a long-term care facility or something like that. Because that is not the case. I can tell you hundreds of times over, it is very rare that the family member is paid comparable to what a stranger would be paid, even for people that have the resources.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, I agree. And that I've had that exact situation and pushed our wealthy clients to pay. You say that's that's what's fair and right. And you know, if you agree that the aging parent should be cared by that sibling, and in absence of that, you would be paying for that care, why wouldn't you pay that sibling to do that? And and just establish a fair rate and do it. You have the resources and it makes sense. But to your point, if you're having those conversations after it started, it makes it way more difficult than beforehand, way before it happens, saying, hey, here's here's what our family agrees to and how this plays out. This is you know, this is what we're gonna

Putting Wishes Into A Caregiver Trust

SPEAKER_00 11:07

do.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

This is actually something just as an aside that we've uh been promoting lately, that we call the Caregiver Trust. And the concept of the caregiver trust is where we actually lay out the the terms in the legal document that says that yes, we would want to have family if they're available, or we specifically want this family, or in some situations, we don't want family caregivers, but that if we do, that we want them to be reasonably, you know, appropriately compensated and things like that. I just started this year uh being part of the national group called the Caregiver Trust Attorneys Network. And so that's exactly the concept here is actually laying out those legal terms to make sure that your wishes are followed and you actually have a plan in

Entrepreneurs Need A Personal Plan

SPEAKER_01 11:56

place. But I want to shift gears here a little bit, Joe. Uh a lot of our listeners are actually in the long-term care industry and are small business owners. So I want to talk to you about, you know, you have definitely a passion for working with entrepreneurs and business builders. And so I'd like to shift gears a little bit and talk about that and advice that you have for those that are, you know, own a family business or you know, have our business owners and entrepreneurs.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Yeah, absolutely. Um thanks for bringing that up. And the first thing is most successful business owners have a plan. If you live in the Detroit metropolitan area, you might have heard of something called EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system, or any number of uh pinnacle or gazelles, or there's all these different coaches and plans and systems you can hire to get a strategy for your business to be successful. And most entrepreneurs are successful entrepreneurs are doing a really good job of that in their business. But then when it comes to their own personal wealth and strategy, they have a tendency to neglect that. And you know, it's a it's a function of again of not being urgent. It's important, they kind of sense it. Successful entrepreneurs are typically very busy people doing not just their business, but their family, maybe serving on boards, being involved in, you know, activities they enjoy, whether it's travel, boating, you know, golfing, whatever, and they just don't get around to it. So it applies there in a in a personal sense, and then it applies back to what we were talking about earlier about looking around you and at your aging parents and your siblings and saying, oh my gosh, these strategies of success for my business are also the same at a core, fundamental, philosophical way, super important uh for my family and my extended family. And then also there's a lot of family businesses where mom and dad might still be involved, but they're aging, and there's really some careful planning there because as you know and get into what's going to pay for care and how does that work over time. And and people typically don't know, you know, what does Medicare pay for, not pay for? Medicaid, you know, do you have long-term care insurance? How are assets viewed from the government when it comes to care and all that kind of stuff? There's and we we could spend a whole podcast just breaking down those different things. And the bigger point is finding experts and having a plan, understanding what resources are available and how that's going to happen over time is the real key.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

You know, it's that last sentence I think is is really important to remember that I think that so many successful business owners are so focused on the whirlwind of their day-to-day business that sometimes it's easy to neglect their personal finances and really kind of being strategic about their personal finances. And so, in particular, you know, just kind of making a plan for, you know, you've talked about having some partners that, you know, took a buyout and things like that. Some a lot of times small business owners really haven't thought that through. Uh, this is particularly true of lawyers, but there's probably a lot of different family businesses that they they really haven't thought through uh anything other than sort of you know dying in their business. What's next? And so do you have any advice for those that really have, you know, they've been successful in business, but they haven't always applied those same strategies to their personal life.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Yeah,

Exit Planning And Family Alignment

SPEAKER_00 15:42

yeah, absolutely. You're you're right, especially in a service business like being a financial advisor, a lawyer, uh, people don't see themselves, you know, having an exit strategy, an exit plan. And it's super, super important to carefully think about what's in the best interest of the business on that side of it. And so at MKD, we always say when we sit around, when the leadership team sits around the table, the most important voice at the table is the voice of MKD. And what we want is for MKD to be healthy and happy because MKD is the golden goose that's laying the eggs that's giving us all a very nice life. Yeah. We're always interested in what's in the best interest of MKD. And then I think that applies too. You say what's in the best interest of the family? And then and if we really focus on, hey, it's it's in the family's best interest that we carefully care for mom and dad, that we're proactive, that we lean into difficult conversations and we have minor and maybe even medium-sized conflicts now, so that we don't have catastrophic battles later. Because I'm a hundred percent sure that you've seen that, I've seen it plenty, where the lack of proactive communication that can be uncomfortable and difficult can turn into fighting in a battle because now you're under the gun. We have to make a decision for mom or dad or both now. We don't have time on our side. Uh, things have happened and they're declining, or there's medical issues, and you know, now we're all fighting and disagreeing, and that's uncomfortable and difficult. And so I think all of that applies.

Questions Adult Children Should Ask

SPEAKER_01 17:27

Years ago, I wrote an article that I intentionally had a provocative topic or or or headline, which was why you should care about your parents' money. Because most everybody that comes in this says, Well, we don't really care about mom and dad's money, you know, we just want to make sure they're care they're taken care of. Well, that's why you should care. And so I have a question for you, and I'm gonna actually put this as kind of as a two-part question. The question is, what's one question you wish every adult child would ask their parents? But I want to actually make that a little bit more nuanced. What's one question you wish every adult child would ask their parents that are business owners? And then, secondly, even if they're not business owners, what what questions you would want you think that adult children should ask their parents?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah, it's a great question. And we help our clients ask their parents those questions. The first thing we do is we say, tell me about your parents. What all do you know? And when I say tell me about your parents, on one hand I mean what do you know about their financial situation, structure, assets, all that kind of stuff. But I also mean tell me about your parents, who they are personality-wise. Do they have an old school mentality where you keep everything from your kids, where you're, you know, a lot of you know, people that come from the greatest generation, they're very private about what they have. Absolutely where as generations wore on, people became more open, more transparent, more vulnerable. You know, transparent, vulnerable, those are not words that you associate with the baby boomers. So having a conversation with them can be difficult. So we strategize on their personality and what they might have, how you might be able to approach them. And one way is to come at it from a positive and very personal to say, you know, hey, mom and dad, you know, we've been going through some planning, we've been working with an attorney and we've got some things set up, and we're kind of leaning into powers of attorney and naming people. And I was just kind of curious, what planning have you done? And so that hopefully would open a conversation where you know they wouldn't just say, we've done that, you know, right? Well tell me more about that. You know, you again with with baby boomers, you might have to be patient and you might have to find ways to ask additional questions like, am I involved in any of it? You know, should I have a copy of it? How can I help? You know, if something were to happen to you, who should I call? Where should I look? There's a series of questions you can ask just to get the conversation started. But what I also encourage is that, you know, that careful listening and using what they say to ask the next question to really try and get the conversation started. And if at the end of the day you're looking at your parents and they are those super private people, then ask them for advice. And maybe through giving advice, they'll share what they have. There's you have to think carefully and strategically about who they are and how you can approach the conversation. The big mistake is to not have the conversation. And Bob, I hear that from clients. People will say to me, Oh, well, my my my parents, they'll never tell me. They won't say they won't answer. I go, okay. Well, if they were gonna answer, what question is it that you just asked? I'll do anything I can to get them thinking creatively about how to open the door, approach the topic, get the conversation started, at least give it a shot.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I think that's really good advice, uh, what you said right there. That was that was really wise.

Why Estate Plans Go Stale

SPEAKER_01 21:08

And the thing about this is that if you said this uh a bit ago about wanting to make sure that you're connecting with your clients every year and updating their vision and making sure that you know the the the goals that they have and their finances still align with those goals. Well, that same thing applies to the legal documents, uh, even to a greater extent because there's changes in the laws. I'm sure that there's also things like that with regard to the financial element, but you know, specifically, many of the parents' generation think okay, well, I went to a lawyer once. We got some documents, I put them on a stealth, they've gathered a lot of dust, and but we're fine. We've done everything we needed because we went to a lawyer once. And the reality with our clients, we want to connect with them every single year, just like uh Financial advisor, just like you do, the are the you know, the wise financial advisors that need to look at it and make sure that this is updated. I'll give a quick example. I was on a phone call this morning uh with uh financial advisors of one of my clients, and the issue was that uh in 2020 they passed this new kind of sweeping change to how we get taxed on retirement assets like IRAs and 401ks called the Secure Act. And that is can dramatically affect the taxes that your kids are gonna pay. And in this particular case, they had a substantial retirement account that was not the the legal documents had not been updated for the the to be compliant with this new 2020 law. So sometimes people say, oh, well, I you know, I went I it wasn't that long ago. I I met with my attorney 10 years ago. Well, 10 years ago, guess what? There's been a major change in the tax law within that 10 years back in 2020. And so, and that happens, frankly, every year there's a little bit of a change. And that's why, you know, one of those conversations is like you say, it's an ongoing conversation. It's not a don't worry about it, son. I've got those documents. You know, they might have been from 1992, but the you know, I've got those documents. Frankly, if they're from 1992 or 2007, they're probably out of date and they probably need to be updated.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Or even or even 2017, to your point, of the Secure Act coming out in 2020. And I agree a hundred percent.

Reviewing Roles And Updating Documents

SPEAKER_00 23:36

And when we meet with our clients, the minimum we meet with our clients is once a year, and a lot of our clients are two and three times a year. But every time we meet, there's three to four pages in our slide deck that are a summary of your estate plan because we all know that book that you got, the binder that we got from the attorney, is three to four inches thick, right? And nobody's gonna crack that open and flip through it, right? So, what we do is we take the decisions that you made out of the book, because a lot of the book is just the the legal language around the decisions. So, what we do is is we pull that up. And you know, if you were with me, I'd say, hey Bob, here's who you chose for a personal representative, here's who you chose for power of attorney for healthcare matters, for uh legal matters. If you have children under the age 18, who's you here's who you chose for guardians? Hey, are those people that you put in those important slots, the trustee of your trust, are they still mentally, physically, and emotionally healthy? And you still have a good relationship with them and do you still believe in them as the right choice? So if you're looking at that once a year, that's the first thing. Then the second thing is, yeah, we're coming and saying, hey, based on your estate plan and changes recently, you know, we think this is important. And an another thing that's come up recently with thinking about ultra-high net worth families that have over 30 million of net worth, if you have a large IRA 401k, that can be a horrible, horrible asset because if it's a part of your estate and it gets taxed, you have a taxable estate, right? That money has to come out after tax, you can wipe out 50-60% of the value of that estate taxes and income taxes. And so just to your point, and the advisor you talked to this morning, planning around those things, you can avoid that, but you've got to stop and take the time and work on your life sometimes rather than just always living in your life. And that's you know, really, really important.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I want to give one quick example for those listeners that are, you know, heard that and they say, Yeah, that kind of makes sense, but I I, you know, I still trust my daughter as the person probably if you're married. My guess is you probably listed your spouse as the primary and your daughter's actually the secondary. But what now if you're 90 or 80, or unfortunately, we're seeing people who can get dementia at younger and younger ages. I have several clients that are in their 50s that have dementia. What if your spouse is no longer capable of that? You better update those documents because it's gonna be so much harder for that daughter that you trust to be able to step in. If their parent, or if your spouse is the primary and they're listed as the backup, you know, every time they do a transaction, they're gonna have to prove that they're the they're the correct person. Or we could simply just update that document to make sure that we have the proper person listed, instead of, you know, of course it's appropriate to put your spouse if if that's uh the right in your situation, but as you get older, that may change, and it's another example why you really do need to look at these and update them uh frequently.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I agree.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

I have another question that I thought would be interesting and you'd have some unique insight on. What

Financial Blind Spots And Info Overload

SPEAKER_01 27:01

are some financial blind spots people have right now? I think there's so many things going on. You know, when we were younger, there was a lot of information, but now there's a lot of mixed information. Like no matter what topic you're talking about, you could probably get 20 very adamant opinions on the same topic. And so what do you think are some of the financial blind spots right now?

SPEAKER_00 27:24

Yeah, and you know, it's funny, as you were saying that, you're taking some of the words out of my mouth around confusion because there's so much information. And I know it sounds silly, but I'm gonna use something my golf swing. I had some issues. This I play a lot of golf, I've been playing for a long time. I had some issues this summer, and next thing you know, I'm looking at Instagram reels of all these people with all these opinions who've never met me right and have no idea what my current golf swing looks like, the issues I'm facing, if it's you know, here, there, whatever. But man, I'm going, oh yeah, I'm trying this. And and as I'm trying all these different things, it's getting worse and worse and worse. And that's the issue today with social media is this absolute glut of information that has no relationship to your specific situation. Somebody's not coming through TikTok and saying, Hey Bob, tell me about you and your wife and your family and your life and your parents and who you are and what you have. They're just coming in a very short period of time with a dogmatic proclamation that you should do this and only this and everything else is wrong, and this is the right way to do it. And it's uncommon. I wouldn't say it's common. I mean, there's enough of it that you know I can talk about it. People coming to me and saying, Well, Joe, shouldn't I, shouldn't I do this? Shouldn't I do this? You know I heard on the you know, it's like, oh my gosh, no, what you should do is slow down and carefully think. So I think the that is, it's interesting to say the blind spot is too much information. And it's also that none of it, none of that information is curated to your specific situation. And that's the real key that I think people need to really slow down and carefully think about. So that's kind of a a broad, you know, I I think that's an answer that's very indicative of uh today's TikTok and AI world. And then the other piece would be something you said earlier. People think they have things in place. They did something in the past and they think that's okay for today, not realizing that not only do people change, but your memory of who is in what slot is probably a little shaky. And then laws that you don't even know about have that apply to you have changed. So all those things, it's a blind spot to not be checking in regularly on the decisions that you made in the past to see if they're still appropriate. Oh, and the other the other thing I forgot to mention is your situation has changed. And here's a really big one. The entrepreneurs that we work with predominantly are founders. We do have some second gen, but a lot, a lot of founders. And you started the business 15, 20 years ago, and you had nothing, and the business was worth nothing. And in fact, you went the other way, almost went broke a couple of times. Somewhere in the midst of that, you had a couple kids, you got an estate plan. Now your net worth is 10 million or 100 million dollars. And yeah, that estate plan you did back then, that is not gonna cut it anymore because your situation has changed dramatically. So that's another blind spot, thinking you did something in the past that's appropriate for today, and it's absolutely not.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

That's that's really good advice. And I do see that frequently where people have a sort of run-of-the-mill kind of average plan, and yet their finances are not average at all. And, you know, it does actually take a bit of convincing that they shouldn't just have your you know, run-of-the-mill estate plan when when your finances are somewhat complicated with the business and with retirement assets and maybe a second marriage or you know, things like that. So I think that's very good advice about how the people's personal situation changes, but it changes slowly. It's like watching your kids grow, right? You don't recognize how much they've changed, but then you see somebody that hasn't seen your kid in in five years, and they're like, oh my goodness, they've grown up so much. Yeah, absolutely. So, Joe, I want to wrap things up.

Planning Mindset And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Uh, I really appreciate you being here today. If the listeners remember just one thing from today's conversation, what would you want that to be?

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Planning. Working on versus in. A lot of entrepreneurs have heard that and they get it and they've done great work. If you only ever work in your business, you're not going to get to where you want to go. You have to pull yourself up out. At MKD, we spend five days a year with our leadership team off-site working on our business. When our clients come visit with us anywhere from one to four times a year, they're they're spending incredibly valuable time working on their lives. And they're doing that in a fiduciary relationship. So we are a fee-based firm. I don't need your investment assets to work with you. We do manage, you know, a majority of our clients' money, but we also have clients that just pay us a fee to help them do what's in their best interest, which is working on their life, creating a vision for the future, constantly renewing and updating that, setting core values for themselves associated with their wealth, creating 12-month goals, and then being in a position of accountability and responsibility around those goals to keep that person or that family moving towards that future vision. And so that, you know, that's my passionate plea to everybody as I take what are called clarity breaks on a regular basis is get out away from all of the confusion and the flow of life and everything that's happening, and create space and time to think about what matters most and make sure that you're making decisions today that are going to put you where you want to be tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

Well, Joe Mackey from MKD Wealth, that was a really great conversation. I really enjoyed it. What is all the ways that people can get a hold of you?

How To Reach Joe And Subscribe

SPEAKER_00 33:49

Yeah, absolutely. Our website is real simple. It's www.mkdwealth.com. My email address, equally simple, Joe at MKDwealth.com. Our phone number 248-418-5100, or feel free to give me a call on my cell phone or text me at 248-207-9735. Bob, thank you so much for having me on the show today. I really enjoyed our time together. I know we've worked on some clients already and together, and I and I look forward to doing more of that.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Well, thanks, Joe. And for those listeners, if you enjoyed this conversation, you want to know about all of our future podcasts. We come out about every other week. Don't forget to subscribe anywhere that you listen to podcasts to advice from your advocates, and we'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

Thanks for listening. To learn more, visit ManorLawgroup.com.