In this episode of Beyond Succession, host Leah Tolton is joined by Sandra Pollack, author of Don't Leave a Mess! How to Disaster-Proof Your Family Legacy. Together, they explore why silence is the most common—and most costly—mistake family enterprise owners make when planning for the future. Sandra unpacks how values-based conversations, proactive planning and collaborative advisory teams can prevent disaster and preserve both wealth and relationships across generations.
Whether you are navigating succession, transitioning ownership or just starting to think about your legacy, this episode offers practical hard-earned wisdom for family enterprise leaders ready to move from fear to action.
Transcript
Sandra Pollack: [00:00:00] If you are an entrepreneur, and you love paying legal fees, and you love paying court fees, and you love everybody knowing your business—because once this gets to court, it's public—then don't plan. Don't write a will. Don't do anything. And all of a sudden, your whole life will be a lie, because everything that you've built up—and the control, and the imagination, making the right decisions—will all go down a drain because of not having the courage to have a conversation.
Leah Tolton: [00:00:36] Welcome to Beyond
Succession, a podcast series within the Bennett Jones Business Law
Talks podcast that discusses topics around navigating the
complexities of the family enterprise. I'm Leah Tolton, partner
at Bennett Jones LLP, and I'm a family enterprise and corporate
lawyer; passionate about helping family enterprise businesses
navigate the complexities of governance, succession and
growth.
Before we begin this podcast, please note that anything said or
discussed on this podcast does not constitute legal advice. Always
seek proper advice from your legal advisor, as every situation is
different and outcomes can vary.
Today I'm thrilled to be joined by Sandra Pollack, a thought
leader in family enterprise advising and author of the book
Don't Leave a Mess! How to Disaster-Proof Your Family
Legacy. Sandra specialises in estate planning and family
business transition and brings a wealth of experience in helping
business owners and their families confront some of the most
difficult yet essential conversations about the future of their
enterprises. In her book, Sandra shares a powerful insight: silence
is often the root cause of the messes left behind in family
enterprises. Together we'll talk about why these silences
occur, how business owners can break the silence and the best
practices for planning smooth transitions that honour both the
business and the family behind it.
Welcome, Sandra, to the podcast.
Sandra Pollack: [00:02:18] Thank you Leah. It is truly a pleasure to be here today.
Leah Tolton: [00:02:21] Great. So let's get started. You know, as I mentioned, your book has really quite a catchy title: Don't Leave a Mess! How To Disaster-Proof Your Family Legacy. And you know, I'd like to just build on that title and ask you what in your experience is a common root cause of the messes that are left by family enterprise owners.
Sandra Pollack: [00:02:41] There's many,
but the real, I would say, number one underlying factor would be
lack of communication, which I call the price of silence. That is
when the business owner—usually the one who has created the
wealth—doesn't want to talk about it and doesn't want
to share what is going on with his business with the various
components of his family business enterprise, because of perhaps an
unhealthy money script.
We all have what are called money scripts. I read a book about
this. It's what is our relationship to money growing up? So,
for example: did we talk about it at the kitchen table? Did our
parents not talk about it? Did our parents say to talk about money
is rude? So we think that if we talk about our wealth, it's
rude.
And understanding that money is not a bad thing—if you really
have a deep conversation with someone who wants to be open and
discuss, and you ask them, what's important to you about
money?—and you dig really deep into what that meaning is, it
is more than just the dollars. It is more than the lifestyle.
It's financial security, it's financial independence,
it's legacy for their families. Legacy for perhaps a charity
that they want to support or that touches their heart because of
something that's happened in their world.
And I think that once people understand that the conversation about
money isn't about stuff, but it's about values, not so much
the valuables, that level of comfort becomes a little less awkward
to discuss.
Leah Tolton: [00:04:23] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:04:24] Once you've got
your head around that—and I still am working with a lot of
successful entrepreneurs that look at their net worth, and it could
be anywhere from $10 million to $250 million—and they say,
that's not me. And I say, no, that's not you, but it's
something that you own.
It's kind of like saying, that car is not me, and that house or
that cottage is not me. Absolutely, it's not you, but it's
something that you have built or that you own, and you have to care
for it. Because if you don't care for it, and if you don't
ask yourself what you want to do with it. And 9.9 times out of 10,
when I deal with business owners, the reason why they become
business owners often is because they're unemployable. They do
things their own way. They come up with a better idea that nobody
wants to listen to.
Leah Tolton: [00:05:09] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:04:24] They solve a better
solution, or they make a better mousetrap. And so, they have the
courage to go out on their own and create something, and as a
result of what they create, they employ many people. Not only do
they put food on the table for their family, because that's,
you know, number one, but they end up feeding many families.
And I say this because we do not give enough homage to our Canadian
and North American—and actually worldwide—entrepreneurs
in the sense that when they employ someone, they generate something
in the economy. Because that employee, or that person they've
engaged, goes to the grocery store and buys something, and that
money that's being used to buy groceries creates employment in
the grocery store, and it's this chain effect. It really
contributes to a robust economy.
Leah Tolton: [00:05:57] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:05:58] So, quite often they
don't realise the impact of what I would say their guts
are—their courage to build a business—and yet it can
have huge repercussions because of lack of planning. And when I say
lack of planning, I'm talking about proper planning: wills,
trusts, life insurance, pensions. Putting it all together, it could
create a disaster and in many cases can bankrupt and close a
business.
Because in the estate planning world, when you look at your wills,
if you have one, it usually says, I authorise or instruct my
executor to pay off my taxes—pay my taxes, number
one—pay my creditors, number two, and the rest distribute
accordingly.
And yet, if you ask any business owner what do they want to do with
the wealth that they've created, they say, number one, take
care of my loved ones. Take care, my family. Number two, if I owe
anybody money, make sure that they're paid because—
Leah Tolton: [00:06:55] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:06:56] You know, no debt
should live longer than the inpidual who created it. And thirdly,
pay my taxes.
But it doesn't work that way. It's the actual
reverse.
Number two, if I owe anybody money, make sure that they're paid
because—
Leah Tolton: [00:07:04] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:07:05] So having the courage—
Leah Tolton: [00:07:05] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:07:06] To start a conversation—
Leah Tolton: [00:07:07] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:07:08] About values, about
money, and understanding that wealth enables a person to do more
than just acquire things, and it can enhance opportunities for
their children. It can help in hospitals and charitable
organisations.
I mean, there's so much that it can do that all of a sudden we
can move from a place of fear, where we don't want to talk
about dying, to a place where we can talk really about aspirational
thinking.
Leah Tolton: [00:07:38] Yeah. So, you know, I
mentioned in the introduction to this episode, you know, that one
of the nuggets that comes from your book is that, you know, silence
is the root of a lot of these messes that you describe. And
you've touched in your comments here about values. I wonder if
you can speak to why it is that you think that family enterprise
owners remain silent—whether, you know, that's because
they don't want to communicate or because they're not clear
on their values.
Why do they remain silent when the stakes are so high for the
family, for the enterprise they built, for all the people who
depend on that, and all those spinoff effects you're talking
about?
Sandra Pollack: [00:08:16] I sincerely believe
there is a discomfort about the topic of death. People are afraid,
they are fearful. They don't want to come to grips with the
fact that the only thing I can be one hundred per cent certain of
when we deal with our clients' estate planning and family
business transition planning is: death is one hundred per cent
certain.
And I tell my clients that. I can't tell you the date, but I
can tell you that. I can't tell you if your investments are
going to go up or down, or what the exact value is, if your
business is going to continue to flourish over the next twenty-five
years. But I can tell you with certainty.
And I think that we have a fear of coming to grips with our own
mortality. It takes discernment, it takes compassion, and it takes
empathy to bring that conversation to the forefront so that these
families can have comfort saying, okay, if I plan for
it—because if you don't plan for it, it does create a
disaster.
And as I mentioned, Leah, in the beginning, business owners are
very independent minded and creative heroes. I call them my heroes.
And so, they are always thinking about opportunities, and death
doesn't look like an opportunity for anyone.
Does it look like an opportunity to you? I mean, let's talk
about the death opportunity.
Leah Tolton: [00:09:40] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:09:41] However, they're also quite controlling when it comes to making decisions.
Leah Tolton: [00:09:47] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:09:48] And they want to
make their own decisions. And the fact is that if they don't
have the courage—and I say it takes courage to talk about
this eventuality—then everything that they've built up
and everything they've controlled will go out of control. And
we'll end up being, you know, in a situation where the
government wants their taxes, the people that owe them money want
to get paid, the employees want to get paid. Your competitors are
circling around. People that owe you money disappear. And the
people in your life that you want to care for are the last person
on the—call it the food chain—that gets it, if you
don't have the courage to plan for this.
And it's complicated. Let's be very frank here. Wills are
not the way they used to be written. Wills are written in legalese,
they can be very intimidating. You have the right professional to
translate it. And, and I mean, you would know that better than I,
because when you ask an estate lawyer, why is this legalese there?
They say, because we want to make it litigation-proof. Could you
imagine? There's litigation, so—
Leah Tolton: [00:10:58] Yeah. Oh, yes I can. Oh, yes I can. Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:11:04] There's
litigation.
If you are an entrepreneur, and you love paying legal fees, and you
love paying court fees, and you love everybody knowing your
business—because once this gets to court, it's
public—then don't plan. Don't write a will. Don't
do anything. And all of a sudden, your whole life will be a lie,
because everything that you've built up—and the control,
and the imagination, making the right decisions—will all go
down a drain because of not having the courage to have a
conversation about how do I set up a plan properly based on what I
want to see happen, what my priorities are, my values and my dreams
for my family, my business, my partners.
Leah Tolton: [00:11:50] Yeah. So, you know,
you've hit on an important point there, and in my role, I'm
often called on to advise business owners when they're talking
about these plans. They're working on a plan to structure how
ownership will look or to transition ownership of their family
enterprise and, you know that I'm a corporate lawyer, so, you
know, as I say, I work on the plans of people who are still alive.
But you're absolutely right. Key components of those plans is
often the documents that deal with what happens on their death. So
they really do need to speak together, and there's a lot of
complexity involved in what should go into any of those
documents.
Can you talk about the challenges that you see in the planning
part? You know, the documents will come together once the plan is
done. Can you talk about some of the challenges you see in planning
for transition of ownership that can lead to those messes down the
line, regardless of what form those agreements take?
Sandra Pollack: [00:12:46] There are a couple
of factors. The first factor is that when you take risks and when
you are successful—we all have to pay taxes. And any business
owner complains about paying taxes. They go: "Oh, again,
I've paid payroll tax, I've paid this tax, I've paid
that tax, I've paid property tax, I've paid income tax, and
now I've got to pay corporate tax."
So they really would like to know how they can arrange their
affairs tax effectively and tax efficiently. And they will do
anything and everything to have some kind of—I don't want
to call it a scheme, but I would say a structure—that will
help them save taxes. And that will catch their attention
automatically. Taxes will.
So what I see happen is that you go to your accountant, you go to
your lawyer, and ask them: "Make me something to save
taxes." But they realise that, you know, the tail is wagging
the dog, because your life is not a tax deduction, your kid is not
a tax deduction.
What is it that you want to achieve? What are your priorities as it
pertains to your family relationships? Perhaps you have a child
with special needs. Perhaps you have a child who has been porced,
or a child who is not very responsible with money, or has a low
level of financial fluency. So what are these issues? And then we
can talk about what it is that you want—and then look at the
tax.
And I often see where they set up a structure without any
connection to the family, to the family issues, the family
dynamics, and the fact that a family is a system. So that's
number one.
The other issue that I see that crops up is lack of, what I would
call, collaboration.
Professionals—whether it's life insurance, estate
planning, investments, legal, accounting—usually work in
their silos. They like each other and they get along with each
other, but they don't share information that can have a
significant bearing on a plan that could make it totally
inappropriate for the wealth holder.
And I think that the difference between collaboration and
cooperation is: cooperation is when I'm nice to everybody and
everybody's nice to me on the advisory team. Collaboration is
when we actually work together and learn, and we take our
egos—our professional egos—and we ever so gently put
them in our back pockets so that we can learn and understand.
Because perhaps an initial recommendation isn't suitable
because of a development that's happened in the family, or a
development that's happened in the industry. Take tariffs, for
example, which seems to be the [thing] that stays. How does that
impact a business and a family business enterprise that has many
different businesses or components?
So I think collaboration is something that we need to do more of in
an advisory way. And there needs to be one person who can keep the
ball moving and keep the ball in motion. Some people call that a
quarterback. I call it more of a coach—and it's a coach
with the client as well as the other advisors—so that we have
deadlines, that we have accountability, and we can actually get
things done.
Leah Tolton: [00:15:58] Got it. So the
challenge then is that people—or professionals, including
both of them in this comment—may look at this from too narrow
a perspective. And perhaps there is a broader range of things that
should be considered in putting together the plan.
And, if the broader range of things is considered and factored into
the plan, then perhaps that will lead to fewer messes down the
line.
Sandra Pollack: [00:16:20] I think you've
summed it up, Leah. And the other thing is that each of us, in our
own respective professions, have what I call professional bias.
Right?
So I look at it always from a risk and liquidity point of view in
the world that I'm in, because I've seen where businesses
have had to be sold because there was not sufficient liquidity to
pay estate taxes.
A lawyer will look at it more from an organisational point of view,
a tax point of view, perhaps creditor protection. An accountant
might look at it from tax. An investment advisor might look at it
in terms of increasing the value of the portfolio—which may
or may not be tax efficient, depending on whether it's
corporately held or personally held.
And I think that we all have our biases. We have to recognise them
and be open to suggesting that maybe this isn't the right
recommendation, given the current set of facts and the priorities
of the client.
Leah Tolton: [00:17:12] Right. So, based on
those comments and your response to my previous question, it seems
that these challenges that could lead to messes could be viewed
from a number of different angles.
And you referred to having the role of a coach—of someone who
will coordinate and who will create accountability and structure
for that collaborative team. Is it typical that you would get to
one response, or could there be a choice of options or structures
that might work for a client, that they might have to think about
and consider?
Sandra Pollack: [00:17:43] Well, I think when
you're building your advisory team, Leah, it really depends on
that right-fit inpidual.
And I think that there are four qualities that you're looking
for if you want that person to move the ball along to completion.
That person has to be—besides having a profession, being good
in whatever respective profession they practise in—I believe
they have to be alert, they have to be resourceful, they have to be
responsive, right? Getting stuff done. And they have to care. They
have to care.
Leah Tolton: [00:18:18] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:18:19] We are so
overwhelmed sometimes that sense of empathy is so integral. And it
takes—and not everybody wants it, not everybody wants to, you
know—
I have some professionals that say: "Sandy, really, all I want
to worry about is the financial statements, the performance of the
business, guiding the client. You want to get into the other
factors? Fabulous. And then tell me what I need to do."
Leah Tolton: [00:18:39] Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:18:40] I think that,
that's good. At least you know what you know.
I've had situations where I've actually taken an accountant
and a lawyer out for lunch to talk about some issues in the family
that they were not aware of.
Leah Tolton: [00:18:51] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:18:52] And, all of a sudden they went: "Oh my God, now I understand why he's not—"
Leah Tolton: [00:18:56] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:18:57] — proceeding
with this particular strategy or with this tactic or this
tool."
And often we work around it. And I recall one situation, which was
a client that was contemplating putting a family trust and he was
so reticent, so reticent, because of a situation with—I
don't know—a second marriage. And, you know, it can get a
little complex—
Leah Tolton: [00:19:18] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:19:19] —with the second and third marriages, the accountant was a phenomenal accountant. The lawyer was phenomenal. He's talking about spousal trusts and all these things, and as soon as he mentioned "spousal trust," my client got a little wiggly in his chair, because that meant that, "Oh, leave everything to your wife—number three—and then when she dies, your kids will collect it." And that's not what he wanted. Especially, you know, we're onto marriage number three. So we went out for lunch, and I said, "You know, think of it as a seesaw. There's control, right? And then there's tax."
Leah Tolton: [00:19:50] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:19:51] And so you can leave a little tax, leak out the tax a bit when they die. You could use life insurance to cover the tax.
Leah Tolton: [00:19:58] Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:19:59] Put a little more
flexibility in the trust. So the spousal trust was mixed.
Okay?
They established a family trust, but we also looked at all his
assets—both personal and corporate—and were able to
look at it in terms of what percentage he was leaving to his four
children versus his spouse.
And he really wanted to make it somewhat equal—twenty per
cent—so that it didn't look to his third wife that
everything was being left to the kids. And we actually helped him
comprise a letter to his spouse and a letter to his four children
about his lifetime, which he wasn't comfortable
sharing—You know, the struggles that he had coming to Canada
and starting with very little. And then also telling his third wife
how important she was in his life, and how much he loved her, and
why he did his will this way—so that there wouldn't be
estate litigation. And, you know, no accountant, no lawyer, no
financial advisor even suggested it. And I put this away—this
is just a placeholder—because the will that you've
created today will more likely be revised in five to eight years
than not, because—
Leah Tolton: [00:21:07] Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:21:07] Tax legislation changes—
Leah Tolton: [00:21:08] I agree.
Sandra Pollack: [00:21:09] —relationships evolve. And sure enough—
Leah Tolton: [00:21:12] Yeah, your family—
Sandra Pollack: [00:21:12] —family situations evolve. And sure enough, what was relevant seven or eight years ago might not be relevant today. And that's another thing—making sure that there is a review when there is a change in a personal or business situation.
Leah Tolton: [00:21:29] Mm-hmm.
So you refer to a couple of interesting tools in your book. You
talk about a family business playbook, and you've also got a
list in your book that, you know, you refer to—allowing
people, or if you use it, it would allow people to sort out the
pieces of the puzzle.
You talk about a puzzle, you talk about a playbook.
Can you speak a bit about how those tools might be effective in
order to get people clear on what it is they want to accomplish and
how they share their wishes with their professional advisors so we
can come up with the best possible result?
Sandra Pollack: [00:22:02] There—That's, that's a two—
Leah Tolton: [00:22:04] Start with the playbook. Start with the playbook and what—how we could, how we could work with that.
Sandra Pollack: [00:22:08] So let's start
with the business playbook. So the business playbook is: what
happens if I don't wake up this morning? What happens if I get
hit by a Mack truck and they don't peel me off and send me to
the hospital and fix me up, but basically I am not around anymore?
What happens to your business?
What do you want to see happen to your family? Are there family
members involved? And so, providing—I guess asking good
questions to what happens if, and who should they go to—all
of a sudden makes the business owner understand that although he is
the puppeteer, right? Managing everything—when he is not
around, it's important to have a replacement.
Just like when you go to New York and you go to a Broadway show,
there's an understudy. Well, the business needs an understudy.
It might need a few understudies. You know, when you think about
the whole cast—I'm just thinking about that off the top
of my head—but I think it's important to realize that you
have to ask yourself: who will take care of this? Identify those
key people, what their roles are. Are there ways that I can assure
that we can keep them, right?
And we can talk about strategies like—I call them golden
handcuffs or velvet handcuffs—for some key people. So maybe
they understand that they're compensated and they don't hit
the exit buttons.
Are there family members that need to be groomed? Is there a family
rule book, family business rule book on, you know, compensation,
exiting? We help our clients design those based on their values and
visions and how they want to see things happen.
How do they prepare their heirs for the wealth? You know, lottery
winners—that statistic about lottery winners is so true. If
they don't have the tools, usually it does end up getting
dissipated in a very short period of time.
So that's on the business side—to make sure that you have
an exit plan, not just if you retire, but an exit plan if
you—
Leah Tolton: [00:23:58] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:23:59] —involuntarily retire.
Leah Tolton: [00:23:59] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:24:00] Because you're
no longer around. So that's number one. Then there's the
stuff, which is the holdings and the wealth and everything, and
that is what I call a family desk reference that we have designed
for our clients. And that's the list of important things:
who's my lawyer? Who's my accountant? Who's my doctor?
Where, you know, where is the ownership, the title or deed of the
house? Where are my insurance policies? Where's all this stuff?
You know, who's our investment advisor? Who are our key
people?
So that you don't have somebody going through
files—whether it's paper files or going through computer
files—and I've seen this happen more often than not, not
knowing where the password is, and then all of a sudden you're
locked out.
So I think that there's two things. If it's a family
business enterprise, it is very important for the business owner to
have that kind of disaster plan just in case—and review
it—because people come and people come off.
And then for estate planning, a family desk reference. So, and it
doesn't have to be 100 percent complete, but if eighty per cent
of the things are there—my goodness.
The grief when you lose a family member—
Leah Tolton: [00:25:09] Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:25:10] Grief is something
that we are not prepared for, and everybody that I have
met—every human being that I have met that has had a
loss—their grief journey has been so unique that you
can't just say, "Oh, you know, there's the five stages
of whatever."
No, that's not grief. Grief comes in waves. Grief can be
numbing. Grief can be unprepared.
I had one client who passed away and his spouse said to me—it
was in a partnership—"Am I not getting a paycheque, like
deposited into the bank account? Is he not—is his paycheque
stopping?"
She had no idea. She thought, even though he was an owner of a
business, he should continue to get his paycheque, not
understanding that there were millions coming to work—
Leah Tolton: [00:25:52] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:25:52] —to this
inpidual for the value of the business then. And this person was
going to receive a cheque in the millions.
But that's not what she wanted. She just wanted the
reassurance—
Leah Tolton: [00:26:00] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:26:00] —of paycheque—
Leah Tolton: [00:26:01] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:26:00] —to paycheque,
that's going into a joint account.
So it's—you know, you really have to look at a
two-pronged... and there's a complexity threshold.
Lastly, I'll mention this: as we journey through life—and
when we're young, Leah, we can handle lots of things:
corporations, holdings, trusts.
But as we journey, what I'm seeing demographically is this
shift to: "Okay, so we pay a little tax—"
Leah Tolton: [00:26:25] Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:26:26] "—but how
do I make things simpler?"
Elegant simplicity. And elegant simplicity requires strong
collaboration among your professional advisors.
And the fees that you pay will more than offset the taxes, the
family relationships that are broken, the litigation and court
costs.
I think people have to realise that sometimes professional fees are
an investment.
Leah Tolton: [00:26:53] Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:26:53] And not with the
right professionals—and they are your partner.
And I think that sometimes some people become so fee-sensitive, and
they look at it as not wisdom or advice. And maybe it's because
they're not with the right professionals. I don't
know.
But I think it really—it behooves me—that if you have
the right people at your planning table, it truly is an investment:
of simplicity, peace of mind, saving taxes, and most importantly,
family clarity and harmony.
Leah Tolton: [00:27:23] Right. So, what is the one thought that you would like to leave with people today?
Sandra Pollack: [00:27:30] I want people to think of their planning with the following question.
Leah Tolton: [00:27:34] Okay.
Sandra Pollack: [00:27:34] And we're going to change one word to another. When is the best time, Leah, to plant a tree?
Leah Tolton: [00:27:40] Now?
Sandra Pollack: [00:27:40] Twenty years ago.
Leah Tolton: [00:27:42] Well, right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:27:44] So when is the best time to start your planning? It's not necessarily when you have millions of dollars in the bank account.
Leah Tolton: [00:27:50] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:27:51] It's twenty years ago and if you haven't done it twenty years ago, then let's get it done today.
Leah Tolton: [00:27:55] Right.
Sandra Pollack: [00:27:56] And that is the one thought I would encourage people to reflect on—to have the courage to pick up the phone, even if you're not sure where to begin. Just call one advisor you feel you can trust, someone you believe is competent and genuinely cares about you.
Leah Tolton: [00:28:11] Mm-hmm.
Sandra Pollack: [00:28:11] So that you can at least start. It's kind of like Monopoly. You know, you're at GO, and then you roll the dice—well, go to GO and collect your $200.
Leah Tolton: [00:28:21] Yeah.
Sandra Pollack: [00:28:21] Go to GO and start your plan.
Leah Tolton: [00:28:22] Right. So, you know,
one of the questions I was going to ask you, and I know I said that
was the last thought, but this I think ties in with this point is,
you know, when is the best time for family enterprise owners to
break the silence?
And I think the answer would be. twenty years ago, or ten years
ago, or five years ago, and when's the best time? If you
didn't do it, then it's now. And what I often say to people
is, I don't want you to get overwhelmed with how many of these
complex legal pieces there are to fit together, including all of
the insurance and tax and investment things that you've talked
about.
But you know, what I say to them is very similar to what you say to
them, which is. Just start, start somewhere with someone and
we'll figure out how all those pieces fit together. So I think,
you know, you and I would have the same closing comment to make to
people.
Sandra Pollack: [00:29:10] I would agree. It's too bad that we don't live in the same city because we could do a lot of work together.
Leah Tolton: [00:29:15] Yeah, well, maybe in the future we'll find a way to make that happen.
Sandra Pollack: [00:29:21] Fabulous.
Leah Tolton: [00:29:22] Sandy, it's been a pleasure to speak with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your insight with us. I will remind our listeners that your book is entitled Don't Leave a Mess! How to Disaster Proof Your Family Legacy, available on Amazon, that's where I got my copy and I'm sure that if you found this podcast interesting, you will find even greater depth of insight in the book and I commend it to you. Thanks so much, Sandy.
Sandra Pollack: [00:29:47] You are most welcome. Thank you, Leah.
Leah Tolton: [00:29:51] Thanks for joining me
on this episode of Beyond Succession, a series within the
Bennett Jones Business Law Talks podcast.
Make sure to hit the follow button on whatever platform you are
listening from so you get notified whenever we release new
episodes. Also, don't hesitate to reach out if you have any
questions about challenges or issues that you are facing in your
family enterprise. Take care. I'll catch you in our next
episode.
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