Legacy Letters Every Client Needs, with Blake Brewer

Legacy letters give families the words that outlast any estate plan. Blake Brewer, founder of the Legacy Letter Challenge, joins Alex Kirby to show how wealth advisors can make this practice standard for every HNW client without it feeling heavy or hard to start. If legacy conversations are missing from your client relationships, this is the episode that changes that.

Death can come shockingly fast — and with it, a flood of things left unsaid. All the planning in the world means little if families never hear the words that matter most.

In this episode of Visionary Advisor, host Alex Kirby (founder of Total Family) welcomes Blake Brewer, founder of the Legacy Letter Challenge, an organization striving to help 1 million people write at least one Legacy Letter. Blake’s story began with a life-changing letter from his father after a sudden loss at age 19. Today, he helps families and advisors shift from intention to action, sharing what makes a letter truly meaningful and how to move past the common barriers that keep most from ever writing one.

Drawing from personal experience and decades of coaching, Blake breaks down the emotional and practical sides of legacy work: the value of apology and vulnerability, why timing matters less than getting started, and how simple frameworks can help families connect and preserve wisdom across generations. At Total Family, we see Legacy Letters as essential to legacy—captured, stored, and shared in our FamilyOS so they remain accessible and meaningful for years to come.

This episode offers advisors concrete strategies to move legacy planning beyond documents, building deeper trust and lasting impact.

What You’ll Learn

• Why most people never write a legacy letter, and what moves them to act
• How apology and vulnerability can reshape family relationships
• A step-by-step framework for guiding clients through their first letter
• Why starting matters more than timing or format
• How letters build trust and retention across generations after a loss
• Why advisors are best placed to turn legacy into action

Notable Quotes from Blake Brewer

“I can’t imagine my life without this letter. In the coming days and weeks and months, I never experienced more pain and grief in my life. And my life could have gone a lot of different ways... It was the exact opposite.”

“I believe everyone has a legacy letter in their heart, but getting it from your heart to your mind and then to a piece of paper — easier said than done.”

“The stories didn’t match up. And so this legacy letter is about getting the story right, like leaving nothing out. No, this is how I feel about you.”

Resources

• Legacy Letter Challenge
(https://www.legacyletter.com/)

• Total Family
(https://totalfamily.io)

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I talk to people like, what do you do for a living? Well, I'm the founder of Legacy Letter Challenge. They're kind of looking at me. But I'm like, when I was 19 years old, my dad wrote me a letter that changed my life. And now one sentence, like, oh, yeah, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

All advisors have seen it in some way: an unexpected loss, a diagnosis, a phone call that changes everything. And somewhere in the middle of it, the same realization, there were things we meant to say. Legacy letters are one of those things that everyone agrees are important, and yet almost none of us actually write. Welcome to Visionary Advisor. I'm your host, Alex Kirby, founder of Total Family. In this episode, I'm joined by Blake Brewer, founder of the Legacy Letter Challenge, and the leading voice in America on Legacy Letters. We talk about his story, what makes a letter meaningful, and how advisors can help families take this step without overcomplicating it. Our clients often feel like they have all the time in the world to do this work. Visionary advisors have a big role to play here. So let's get into it. Blake, I'm so excited to have you here. I feel like you know more about legacy letters than anyone. Have you met anyone who knows more about legacy letters than you? No, not really.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

It's a very uh niche thing. I mean, obviously, there's lots of people in the world who write letters, but specifically legacy letters the way that we do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Your story is is really cool. It's it's well documented, but for the people who don't know, can you just give us the they can go find some? You've been on some amazing publications and and good mor was it Good Morning America?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Got to be on the Today Show, and then there's Today Show.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I'm sorry, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Others out there as well. But yeah, we're on a mission to help a million people write at least one well-written, meaningful lasting legacy letter. And never in a million years that I think that I would be doing this. Maybe how you probably never thought you'd be doing total family.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Um, when I was 19 years old, we I was a freshman in college, we took a family vacation to Hawaii. First day there, uh, we decided to go snorkeling. It's me and my dad out in the water. And I mean, I was just like so cool. Like me and my dad. Like, there was nowhere else I wanted to be. Um, I had this, I had a really good dad, not perfect at this time. He was a hospital CEO. Uh, his kind of claim to fame. Um, so he was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons to play tight end, but he played college football with Terry Bradshaw. So they were best friends and roommates. My dad caught Bradshaw's first ever collegiate touchdown pass. Um, my dad was super humble, so hardly ever told anyone that he was Terry Bradshaw's tight end. I told everybody it was uh it was my claim to fame growing up. But there we were out in the water, and we just kept going further and further out. Next thing I know, he's in trouble and he's yelling for help, and I swim over there as quickly as I can. And by the time I get to him, he's underneath the water. And so I dove down, I brought him back up to the surface and began to swim with him to the shore. Some people came and helped me. Um, and they're on the shore doing CPR, and I really thought at any moment he's about to come too. And it was gonna be like the movies where his eyes kind of flicker open, water spoos out of his mouth, and it never happened. And so my dad drowned that day, and so I went from one of the best days of my life to the worst, just like that. And I'm standing there now next to my dad's body. Like, what the heck just happened? I mean, we were just in the water a few minutes ago, and now my dad is gone forever. And so then, fast forward a few hours, and we're back in the condo, and I just called my dad's parents to let them know the news. Um, that was a hard phone call to make to let them know that they lost their son. And called some other family friends and family members and my dad's work and our church. And I go to the back bedroom and I'm sitting there on the edge of the bed, just still in total shock. And my mom appeared in the doorway and said, Blake, I found something in your dad's briefcase, something that I know he was going to give you on this trip. And she walks across the room and she hands me this letter. And so I'm reading this letter from my dad, like hours after he died. And I don't think I've ever heard my dad's voice more clearly than when I read that letter for the first time. And his voice comforted me. I felt a sense of peace, I felt hope. But then I just felt incredibly loved. Like, do not tell me that my dad did not love me. Like he took the time to put it down on paper. And so I can't imagine my life without this letter. In the coming days and weeks and months, I never experienced more pain and grief in my life. And my life would have gone a lot of different ways. I could have left the situation like anxious and maybe bitter or angry at the world, angry at God.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Um, it was the exact opposite. I would say I grew more as a leader, um, grew closer to my family, grew more as a person in the next 12 months than any other 12-month stretch of my life. And I had some professional counselors tell me, Blake, you have grieved this in a very healthy way compared to most people. And I said, Most people don't get a letter like this from their dad. So it was really through that. Um, it's over 20 years ago. But then when I became a dad, uh, I had to write a letter to my kids. And so it was through that process. When I realized how hard it was and overwhelming to stare at a blank sheet of paper and be like, what am I going to write? But I knew I had to finish. And it was one of the most incredible experiences I had writing this letter. And then this letter gave me something to go live out. So through that, it just kind of dawned on me one day like, what if everybody had a letter like this? We can change communities, we can change the world through legacy letters. And so that's where our mission started.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

That's such a powerful story. There's a I feel like there's a reason that it resonates with so many people. And it's really interesting that what that people hear these stories, whether it be one like yours or someone survives a plane crash or something crazy happens, and that they still struggle to find the the space to write the letter. Why do people maybe hear your story? They're like, I'm sure no one disagrees with any of the points that you're making, right? That it is of value and extremely important and special. Why do you think people should just struggle to carve out the time to do this? Or maybe it's not a time frame, just in general, why do you think people struggle?

SPEAKER_01 6:29

So, first of all, I think people, you know, just naturally think they're gonna live forever. Like, I've got time to do this letter. Yeah, it's also just a very emotional thing. Not only are you writing the letter thinking about your dad or your mom, and maybe some pain because none of us had a perfect parent, and so we all have some trauma from our parents, maybe big T or maybe just little T trauma. Yeah. But then also knowing that, hey, I've actually probably caused some trauma, little T trauma, or big T in our kids too, because we have not been the perfect parents. And so um there's maybe fear on how it's gonna be received, and just like with anything, also, like how you know, what do I write? I've never written a letter like this. Um, so what do I even want to communicate? I mean, like, I mean, I believe everyone has a legacy letter in their heart, but getting it from your heart to your mind and then to a piece of paper, um, easier said than done. And then then you gotta you want to write the letter in a way that is received and is ultimately like in their heart.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

I feel like we're both working on this problem in a slightly different way. And I want to maybe just talk about some of the differences of like how we're trying to do some of our legacy letter stuff and how you're thinking about your legacy letter stuff. I don't think either of us know if what the perfect answer is to any of this stuff. Talking about a total family. When we're helping wealth advisors encourage their clients to write letters, sometimes we're just saying you don't have to start with the really tough kind of letter that will change their life. And, you know, we had a gentleman write about the top 10 movies they wanted their grandkids to see before they were 25. And that was like kind of his way of communicating to those grandkids in a way that maybe he couldn't have. So I think like our approach is a little bit more any first step is okay, just like get started. And I but I feel like you have more of a formula that you've developed and honed over doing this amount of work. So would you be willing to just share like if someone is gonna write the one letter, what is the kind that you think they should write?

SPEAKER_01 8:42

Yeah, we developed a formula or an outline and we guide people section by section. So this is what I do full time. We coach them through each section. And so, like the letter you just talked about, like is so powerful, also, like you know, a great a grandfather doesn't write that unless he loves them and cares. So, like there is a little, there's love communicated through that. Like, I will tell you, even before I read my dad's letter, like I didn't even know what the content was. I felt so loved. Like you're just my dad, my dad wrote me a letter. Yeah, like and I I mean, there was no reason to believe that it wasn't gonna be a good letter. Like I knew there might be some people who are like, Wait, what did my dad write? Like they might be nervous.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah, I I think that's probably a lot of people that yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Well, and that's you know, so I told you a little bit about my story, but one of the guys in that time frame of me writing my kid my kids a letter, uh, I meet a guy named Victor Marks, and he gets a letter in the mail from his biological dad. And Victor, he's 25 years old, just got in the Marines. He opens this letter up and says, Dear son. And Victor said he was ticked. He said, Who does this man think he is that he can call me son? Like he abandoned me when I was a child. There's all of them physically and verbally abused me. One of them left me to die in the freezer, and now this guy wants to call me son. No. But here's the thing like Victor, so Victor puts the letter aside. I'm not gonna read this. But then the curiosity got the best of him because everybody wants to know, like, what did my dad say? And so this is the power of the written word in the letter. So he pulled the letter out like two or three weeks later, and he reads this letter, and his dad essentially had had a complete life change and was apologizing to Victor and said, Can we meet? And so Victor goes to meet with him, and long story short, they become best friends. Like, and Victor's life completely changes because of this new relationship with his dad.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Is apology a part of your formula?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Yeah, and I tell people this is one of my favorite parts. So we start with the intro section. Everyone's gonna have an intro section. This would be true of any letter. Um, so like, why are you writing this letter? The second section is the apology section. And I just tell the parents that are going through this, you're about to write some incredible stuff. You don't want there to be anything blocking what you're about to write, just because of the nature of your relationship with your children. Like, like there can be walls that are can be built over time because of things you've said or things that you've done. Um, so let's break down those walls and we can do that with an apology. And so we talk to how to do that well. So for some people, it's just a general apology, and some people they have some specific things they need to apologize for.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

One of my like life rules is that you just never regret apologizing.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

You know, it's so hard sometimes, whether you're in a fight with your friends or your spouse, and it's just like it's so simple. You just need to apologize in your butt like you can't do it or whatever. I do not like apologizing. I know, I coach it, and I do not like doing it. So I love that that's that's in the letter. That's so was that in your dad's letter?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

No, he he okay. So the formula that I coach, like isn't necessarily like there's elements for my dad's letter. It's not like the formula he followed.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

You sort of learned over time that like if you didn't clear the air, if you didn't get that out of the way, then it was blocking in some ways.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

You said Yeah, and then all the research has shown that if you have a parent that apologizes and says and is willing with humility say, I'm sorry, authentically say, I'm sorry, not just I'm sorry because I'm supposed to, but like really say I'm sorry, your children will have more emotional intelligence, they'll be more confident, more successful, all the things. So it's not about being a perfect parent, it's just about being being willing to say I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

And so this is like most people are not getting that though from their parents. Like I recognize that. And so when I'm helping parents write this, I'm like, hey, like you probably didn't get this, and this is gonna be hard to do. Like nobody here is saying that this is easy. Right. I say some people will put this line in their letter. Hey, you might have some things that you need to come talk to me. Like, there's might be some things I've said or done over the years I don't even know about, or some, you know, some stuff you really needed to come talk to me about. And just I want you to know that I'm an open door, like you can come talk to me. And people put this in the letter. And I tell them, though, hey, if you put this in there, you got to be ready. Like they might actually come talk to you. Right. And if they come talk to you and your response is, what? That's not what I meant when I said that. Man, you're gonna shut them down. So you got to prepare your heart to say, Oh my gosh, I had no idea that when I said that when I did that, it hurt you that way. You know, there's so much wrapped up in the apology because you start to you can put expectations on how that person should re respond. Like, you know, like when I apologize to my wife, it's like, I know how she should receive my apology and how she should apologize back. And it doesn't, it never goes the way I but you you get you can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

You can't get on their side of the table. Like it's so funny you say that because I say, like, the first test is can you apologize? And then the second test sometimes is can you not bring those expectations like in your head, they're gonna be like, all is forgiven and da-da-da. And you're such a big person for apologizing, and that and and a lot of times you don't get that. Yeah, and then it's like, how are you gonna handle that now? But those are great, great things to tell people. I I feel like that's like universally helpful. Like, apologize and don't have expectations with what they are going to do with your apology.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

You know, it's so much bigger than just just this letter because we're thinking you start thinking about your like family tree and like your grandchildren and your grandchildren's grandchildren. It's like, okay, what if you're the one in your family tree that starts the one it says, hey, we're we're a family that apologizes, we're a family that's like it's gotta start with somebody. Healthy families, like that's what they do. They do the some of the hard stuff like that. I mean, someone's got to go first.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

And so what else is in there besides the apology?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Yeah. So the next three sections, we're answering some questions. The first one is um, how do you really feel about me? That's where we're communicating unconditional love. Like, I think about my children. Like, I my children know that I love them, right? Like I tell them, and there's no way that they can fully comprehend the depth of my love for them. Like Alex, your children do not know how you really, but the more like you go tell them right now, and they still fully wouldn't understand it. Um, but the more that they can understand it, um, the better off they're gonna be. This sexual letter is really helping them try to understand that. You know, have to take a lot of sentences through that. Um, but we don't want to assume anything. Like, like one dad, he signed, he was writing his letter and he was with a group of people as like a corporate team. And he was kind of like, Man, I don't know if I need to do this because I tell my kids that I I love them and they know. And this guy, I he I think I know they're a good family. But then he started going through the process, and then he's like, Okay, I get it. I could not wait to finish, could not wait to give it to him. Well, then on Christmas morning, he gives his three sons and his daughter their letters, and they opened it up, and of course, his sons, they're adults, they love to read from their dad how much he loves them, how proud he is of them. But then it was his daughter, 31 years old, young mom. And she goes home that night and she calls back. Dad's gotten to bed, so she gets mom on the phone, and she says, Mom, this is the best Christmas that I've ever had in my life. And mom says, Well, you know, we love hosting you everybody at our house. She goes, No, mom, it was dad's letter. I did not know how much dad really loved me. I assumed he loved my brothers more than me because he's always hunting with them and fishing with them. But now I see how much he loves me, and this has brought closure to my life. And I asked her dad, I asked Kent, I said, Kent, did you have any idea your daughter was um having those thoughts? And he said, and he was heartbroken to learn this. And he said, Man, I had no idea. He said, The truth is, Blake, we spent twice as much money on her as we did the boys. And so he was telling himself a story. I spend a lot of money on her. I love her. And then she was like telling herself a story, and her story, like the stories didn't match up. And so this legacy letter is about getting the story right, like leaving nothing down. No, this is how I feel about you. The next section of the letter is I'm proud of you. We don't want our children wondering what makes us proud. And it's not what they've done, but it's really who they are. And so focusing not on the outcome, but on character and their effort, because what we affirm, that's what they're gonna repeat. They're all asking this question, like, Who am I? So, you know, this section of the letter is really talking about their identity. And then the next section of the letter is I believe in you. Uh, and so it's like life is gonna throw you some curveballs and you're gonna mess up. Like, I know that my kids are gonna disappoint me, but man, I'm gonna believe. Like, I see where this is going. It's it's good. Like, there's a good outcome and you're gonna make it. I believe in you. One guy told me not too long ago, and he said that his grandfather grew up telling him, uh, the seeds of greatness are in you. And he would tell them over and over. So he grew up like, Hey, the seeds of greatness are in me. I begin to internalize, like, there's a difference growing up with someone telling you that versus like, there's some people in my community that are being told, Hey, you don't, you're never gonna amount to anything. Like, like you're in an accident, you're not even supposed to be here. Like, that's really hard to overcome. I don't want my kids to overcome that. I want them to know, like, hey, I'm the wind in your sails, like, man, you're gonna make it.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

It's really cool. In your process, they should be giving it to their loved one, right? Yeah, and they do is there an age that you're like, do it at this age?

SPEAKER_01 18:12

We say any age, any stage, any situation. So we've had, I mean, there was a lady on a call, uh, she was like 90 years old, and she said, Um, I feel like I'm getting close to the end. And I don't have something down. I was like, Yeah, maybe. And uh we we've had some uh young guys, uh young moms, like regular newborn. And like when when we were pregnant with ours, I started the letter and I had something done because I'm like, they're not promised to have me. Like, I know when my last day is gonna be. I've got to have something written down because they're always gonna know, like, what did dad think about me?

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

You know, people write it once for the first time. And my goal is my mission is help you write at least one, but then people write right again, especially the younger your children are. Like, as they get older, you're gonna write another one and then another one.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, you know, it's it's just so interesting to like the the medium of of writing to your kids. Because I think I hear a lot of parents are like, I text my kids every morning, and all that stuff is great. We haven't had the communication, you know, we haven't been able to do that before. So it's cool to to do that stuff, but and the writing of it just sort of forces you to be a different level of thoughtful about it, and it also just kind of seems to me like in the day and age that we're in of just people not hearing each other arguing, you know, like just the negative discourse that is constantly back and forth, just the be able to complete the thought and like give it to someone and let them receive the thought in a way. If you were writing to like a pen pal or something, like you read some of those old letters and they're just like they're just really nice, you know, the way that like people are talking to each other. And I also think like our approach, I write letters to my, you know, we have that spot in our family OS where you can store these letters. And so I write letters to my kids on their birthday, and my three-year-old has a birthday coming up in a week, he's gonna be three, and I'm like, I'm like trying to figure out like what I want to say to him. Obviously, I'm not gonna give him the letter. I actually got him like a goalie hockey goalie mask because he's a lunatic, so like that will probably be more well received for a three-year-old, but it's it occurs to me that even if he's not processing it as a three-year-old, he's going to get the version of me today. And next year he's gonna get a different version of me, and the following year is a different version of me. I think there's something really cool about that in the letters, too, in that they serve as like a time capsule. I had this old mentor, he would say, like, like journals are time capsules, where if you go back, you know, whatever, break break up with a girlfriend or something, you know, you go back and like read your journal from whatever you're like, it seemed like it was the worst thing that ever happened to anyone in their entire life. And you're you're writing with the passion of the moment, or the sadness of the moment, or the what, or the excitement of the moment, that when you go back and reflect on it, like if I wrote about my breakup with a high school girlfriend now, it would be this like rational, but in the moment you capture like all the all the visceral stuff. So so are you okay with people wanting to write more of these letters? And are you okay with more different formats? If for you, is it like all letters are okay?

SPEAKER_01 21:50

For one, I encourage people to to write more. I want to say as much as you can, but it's not gonna hurt, right? Right. And so I have to feel you know, if I'm in front of A crowd who's never written one. And I started talking about hey, you know, writing one every year. It's like, oh, I gotta write one every year. So there's like this fine line of like putting more pressure on. Let's just focus on the first one. Yes. Um, yes. But absolutely, like um, you know, every like there's a guy at um similar to what you just say, like there's a guy in Tulsa where I live, and he was we were talking worked for an oil and gas company. He said, and my company, if we don't document it, it did not happen. And I was like, hmm, it's kind of like a legacy letter. Like, this is a way to document, hey, this is how I feel about you right now. Yeah, in this moment. In this moment, yeah. And it is interesting to go back and read these letter letters and some of the advice that I shared with my kids like three or four years ago. That's funny that I was giving them that advice, and it's really good advice. Like, because I need that right now. Like, I'm I'm you know, preaching to myself right now.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

For us, you know, legacy letter has some certain parts into like we want, you know, someone to share and to know like how much they really loved and proud of and believe, but you know, outside of that, are there's some like documents and things like I think it's pretty neat. Like this isn't within a legacy letter, but to share your family's story and or share your story. Like, yeah, um, I wish I had more of that for my dad, to be honest. Um, I wish he had written more about some of the stories. Um, and I have a lot of questions uh on some of those things, but I and so one of the things I've had to grieve is my having an adult relationship with my dad. Like I didn't get that. Um, and so like I didn't even know there were some questions that I would ask now as an adult, and I didn't didn't even know to ask them then.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

You think your parents uh have so much more figured out than they do, and you don't realize no one really has it figured out. And and one of the things we talk about with people is showing some of that vulnerability and uncertainty to your kids in these letters and in your stories is actually really cool because they also are feeling that, you know, what whether it's like, okay, dad is running this successful business and doing all these things and blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, maybe when he took the leap to start the company, he he was riddled with fear and doubt and worry and all this stuff. And talking about that perspective, too, I think is really, really important, some of that uncertainty because we have a tendency to look at these people who are older than us and wiser than us, and they're like, Well, it was so clear to them, you know, from day one. And we just hear more and more stories of kids wanting to ask their parents, like, how did you know that mom was you were supposed to propose to mom? You know, it's like these normal questions that it seems easy now that you've been married to mom for 50 years, that it all worked out or whatever, but like there's probably times when you weren't sure too. And so I feel like that vulnerability of it all too is something that you can capture in a in a way that'll help people.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

And I think it goes to what we were talking about earlier with multiple letters, because there's some things like that that I would I'm not gonna share with my kids right now because they're too young. Um as they get older, like I would write about those things, or I could um write about them now, but not necessarily give it give it to them now.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Neither of us are talking about financial or legal things. The idea of like having your affairs in order, right? To me, certainly legal documents, assets, all the stuff needs to pass. No one wants to pay taxes, we get all that, but it feels like legacy letters should be part of having your affairs in order, right? And it doesn't seem like it's totally part of the process. They have some words like ethical will, and people will be like, Oh, they have this, but nine out of ten lawyers are like, You have a will, you're good, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Well, I can speak from my personal experience because my dad had life insurance, and so financially we were taken care of. Like my mom, stay-at-home mom, she didn't have to go back to work, we didn't have to sell our house, like we were good there, and I'm so grateful that he did. Number one, like I understand the dad, like, oh my gosh, like what what would have happened if he hadn't had that, right? Because, like, man, that would have been really tough to grieve his loss, and also all these other things. So, I know the value of what that life insurance was. I can't even put a price tag on the legacy letter. Like, like, um, to have that letter, because that letter is really what carried me through um emotionally and mentally. And then, you know, there were things that I read then that I applied and uh affected me then, but then you know, five years later, 10 years, 20 years later, I go back and read the letter, and there's things that impact me differently, you know, as I've aged, and they still influence me to this day. Like there's been times where I have gotten off track of what I said my life purpose was, and I'm anxious and stressed out about some things. And I go back and read my dad's letter, and I'm like, all right, my and my dad got me back on track. That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

It it's the you can never step in the same river twice idea, you know. If you've ever gone back and, you know, you're talking about a letter, but sometimes for me it's like a book, or ever you read, you like go back and reread some pages in a book, you're like, This is life-changing. Why did I miss this before? And it and it's actually just like, no, you're just changing. And the part that resonated with you when you were 25 is gonna be different when you know you're running around with a dad of your dad of four, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yep, those are all the four behind me. Well, and some of those pictures only three. Okay, that picture, there's four.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, there's a book, John Rockefeller's 38 letters to his son. Did you ever hear this book?

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yeah, and then Roosevelt has uh wrote some letters to his son, isn't it? But anyway, what about that book?

SPEAKER_00 27:54

No, I mean, I just joke around that like John Rockefeller's probably really busy, you know, like he had time to write 38 letters. We can't we can't get one out of just in tongue in cheek, but it's cool to read the letters because he's writing now. Some people say that it's like fake and it's stage, and I, you know, I don't really know. I'm just gonna work under the assumption that it's not. And he's writing to his son John. He's like, John, you were in a bad mood today. Some of it is like, you know, titans of business advice, and then some of it is just like a dad talking to his son about how to get through some of this sort of stuff. And I I loved the idea of like the body of work building up over time because once you at least like our data shows that once someone writes one letter within 30 days, four out of five times, they write another one. So that first one's really hard. And it's like kind of like it's hard to start working out sometimes or getting back into shape or whatever. But then the momentum can build in the other direction where now the pressure's off. You're like for me, the ski the way scarier thing would be waiting till I was 90 and trying to put everything I ever wanted to say to my kids in a letter. Yeah. Like that would stress me out. But the idea of you being able to be like, oh, I I did want to write about being a good friend. So I'm that's like its own letter. I'm gonna write that one like today, or whatever, or whatever moves you, like to write it and just to make this like a practice, I think is is something that is so healthy. Have you ever had someone regret like they come to you and they're they're like, that was a waste of time. I regret writing my legacy letter. Has that ever happened? Uh it hasn't happened to me yet. You know, it hasn't happened to us either.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

I have had some people come to me that said, Hey, we're having some issues with our daughter. She's in college, and this guy told me, he said, Man, my wife has already written a letter to her and it backfired and it like it didn't go over well. So, like, I'm a little bit nervous to write another letter. Yeah. And I said, Well, I don't know what your wife put in that letter. Um, because I didn't help her write it, but let's go through this outline and then you don't have you don't have to give it to her, but like, let's go and you know, let's go through this and then tell me what you think. And uh, so we walked through our process and he felt pretty good about it. And then he gives it to her. A couple weeks later, I get a message from him saying my daughter got the letter, and uh, she was in tears. And um we hugged and we cried together. And then he messaged me again a week later saying my daughter was um, she came back home for Sunday family dinner, and she hasn't been home for family dinner in years. She's like, our family's back together. Um he did not regret writing that letter. Oh, and then she wrote him letters. Uh, when she graduated from college, she wrote her mom and her dad uh some letters was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

Yeah, we've not had anyone regret it either. Why do you think wealth advisors struggle to embrace their role in legacy?

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I will say um how much I appreciate the profession. Um, you know, I talked about my dad's life insurance. Now all of a sudden my mom had more money than she'd ever had in her life. She was really nervous somebody was going to swindle it from her. And so Jody Wingrove becomes her financial advisor. And uh Jody, great guy, trusted, really became the most important man in my mom's life outside of family. Wow. I became friends with him. I've gone down to Austin and Sata's house before. And so I'm so grateful for for Jody. And then Legacy Letter starts. I did when we started Legacy Letter, to be honest, I had no idea that we'd be partnering with financial advisors, but some advisors like taught us dude's like, oh my gosh, do this for our clients. And so it's pretty neat for me because I'm just really grateful for this for the profession. And I've I've told some people before, uh, man, advisors are like the unsung heroes of our country because behind every great family is a great financial advisor that's helping them with the finances and all that stuff. But also, there's things that they know about the family that nobody else knows.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

But they become this trusted advisor. And so there is absolutely an opportunity to go a step further. Cause it's like, yeah, who else um is going to introduce people to total family if not for their advisor? Like all the families need total family. All the family write a legacy letter. And we are helping families outside of the advisor, but most people, it's it's because of their advisor who's saying, hey, you need to write this letter. And so it's just this incredible opportunity where it's it's bigger than the money. And I would say the people that we do work the most with are these advisors who are just great people, right? Like who want to have impact, uh, have a purpose-filled life. Um, they see the opportunity, they see their clients and they care about them. Now, what happens is when they do things like Total Family and they do things like Legacy Letter, like they get a return financially. Like they're like there's maybe spending some front end, maybe spending some time, maybe what it feels like some awkward conversations that they're not used to, but they kind of lean into it, and next thing you know, it's like, okay, that was worth it. I'm so glad I did it.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Yeah, yeah. I think about because they are uncomfortable, and I understand it's like this is you know, to the extent, like you're not gonna be Blake after you do one legacy letter, right? You've done hundreds of thousands of them, so you're not gonna be Blake, but we tell them advisors have three jobs in legacy. You tell me what you think. Number one is the catalyst. So we don't really feel like anyone else is bringing it up to your point. Like you're not your primary care physician, isn't gonna say, Oh, you should, I mean, oh, you should write a legacy letter. And by the way, you're you know, three pounds heavier, right? So be the catalyst, be the person who says, the advisor who says, Blake, do you think about legacy ever? And how do you think about it? And if we had some tools or some exercises, or is that something you want to spend time with over the over the years? Whatever. So be the catalyst to accountability. Like if someone says, Hey, you know what, I do want to do legacy stuff, but new season of Stranger Things just came out, and like I'm really gonna hunker down this weekend or whatever, six months later, one year later, bringing that back to the forefront. Hey, you told me you wanted to document some of the family history. Hey, you told me you wanted to write a letter to the the kids. I'm just bringing it back to the surface. Is this our time to do it? Accountability is two. And then three is the integration of what you're learning into whatever the estate plan, the financial plan, the insurance plan, you know, whatever. To me, learning this information about your clients makes you a better advisor to them. And we have never uh never once had a, you know, because our client, the the clients in the system, they do things like values and and and purpose statements and roles and family history. Not once have they ever said, I'm uncomfortable with my advisor knowing my values. I'm uncomfortable with my advisor knowing the top roles in my life. Now, the advisors don't see the contents of the letter. So I understand maybe you if you're gonna write a private letter to someone, you don't want anyone else to see it. That makes sense to me. But the advisors that are like, I'm not sure if the client is comfortable with it. It's like they are, they want you to know them so that you can help in the situation that you're talking about. So, what do you think about those three jobs?

SPEAKER_01 35:56

Oh, yeah, I love it. I totally agree. I mean, you're already talking about the thing that is the most uncomfortable for people to talk about is like how much money they have. Right, right, right. Yeah, you've already crossed over that. Uh so if you go, if I go there with somebody, it's like, you know, we can let's talk about everything now.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, and and as you said, like like in terms of this being like in it in their best interests from a business standpoint, whether you're doing a legacy letter through our platform and it's getting delivered at a later date or something, or you're doing a legacy letter with Blake and they're handing it to you at Christmas, it's like why did you decide to write this letter, mom or dad? And they're like, Oh, it's Jody, our wealth advisor. I told you that he's an amazing person, and he made us write that. He like really encouraged us to write this letter. And by the way, if you ever want to talk to him, he's a really special guy and he's been helping our family for a long time. Like, what a powerful introduction to the rising gen and inheritors when so many advisors are struggling with that specific area.

SPEAKER_01 37:09

Well, you've got that, you've also got um referrals. Um, like people don't really talk too much, like, hey, who's your financial advisor? But you start, you know, something like Total Family, you start doing some of these types of things, or write a legacy letter, like that comes up in conversations. Like, well, how did you know to do that?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

My advisor, who's your advisor? Like, that's that's how these conversations happen in referrals, and it also just gives you confidence whenever you're meeting with that first client. Like, you know, like you know, or a potential client, like you know that you're gonna bring value to them and help them.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

I feel like when with with some of these financial advisors, they just need to do it a couple times, or trying to just get them to take a little action sometimes because the bar is not as high as they think. You know, people have no outlet to do this. So you don't have to, like when you're talking about legacy, you're talking about legacy letters or whatever, these people like if you were to take Blake's course and follow Blake's framework, you would probably do this exercise with your client or with a group of clients. And the first time you did it, you'd be thinking, I don't know if that went as well as I wanted to. And every single one of those people would be like, that was the best hour I've had in my entire life. Like the bar is so low for this work. Like it makes us like look and feel good all the time. Like, how many times have you felt like you had a bad session in legacy letters? And you have 10 people walk up to you, like saying, This is the most useful hour of my life.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Well, yeah, you know, when we started this, I started five years ago, you know, I had all kinds of insecurities. Like, who am I to help people write this legacy letter? And so as I began helping people write the letter, though, I got lots of great feedback. And maybe it's because of what you're saying, like the bar is really low. Like, like I'm helping people, like no one else is helping them um do this.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

If you were just like giving maybe uh some quick advice to a financial advisor around legacy letters, do you think introducing this to a client in a one-on-one setting and being there while they write it? Is it a group setting where you're kind of teaching the class in a workshop format? Like what seems to be the most accessible way for people to just dip their toe into something like this? Aside from obviously everyone should go to a legacy letter challenge and and look at Blake's work and read read his story. But if if you were just an advisor who is like, you know, looking to dip their toe in, what what would you say?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

I mean, we have I advisors who you know bring this up in the one-to-one conversation and they start to ask those questions and you know, what would you want to say? You know, what would you want to write in your legacy letter? And the advisors we work with, they have all access to our program. And so they're they're either hitting play and together they're watching our videos. And so the advisor is not having to teach how to write the write the like like we're teaching a date, they're just introducing it. But we do a lot of the the client events, and so um I will say that those are really fun to be able to put a date on the calendar and say, whether it's virtual or in person, and say, hey, you know, Tuesday afternoon on you know, March, whatever date we're doing this event, like I want you to come. Or there's something about putting a date on the calendar as well and saying, hey, we're gonna write our legacy letter. And there's a bunch of other people in our community and other clients that are writing the legacy letter, and we're gonna do it together.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

It's like a workout, you know. It you don't, you're just like, I don't know if I want to write the letter right now and get up and it's cold and like, but then it when you're done, it's like a workout too, where you feel this like I don't know, like it like a euphoria of like, I can't believe I just did that. Don't you agree with that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah, oh yeah. Well, and I would say also for the ones we work with, like I tell our advisors, like, just leverage my story. We've got some videos, like three minutes, like playing story, you know, people like a letter, like because I, you know, I talk to people like, what do you do for a living? Like, well, I'm the founder of Legacy Letter Challenge. They're kind of looking at me like what I'm like when I was 19 years old, my dad wrote me a letter that changed my life. And now one said it's like, oh, yeah, that's pretty cool. Like, even something like that.

SPEAKER_00 41:31

Do the advisors, I mean, we want the advisors to go through our stuff. Like, do you tell them to write their own letters too?

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Advisors? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We try to help our those advisors write their letter first. Now they don't have to, but I think they come with more confidence to their clients when they can say, Hey, look, I've written this letter.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Blake, thank you so much for sharing your story with with the world for making this, just bringing this to people's attention. I know that you're gonna get to a million legacy letters, and then you're gonna stop, right? You're not you're gonna pretend that'll be enough.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

Man, we'll go, we'll go for as long as we can until the whole world has done it, man. We're not stopping.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

Yeah, I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for for coming on Visionary Advisor.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

Man, thanks for having me on, Alex. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 42:23

That's it for Visionary Advisor. Thank you to our guest, Blake Brewer, and to Total Family, whose Family OS software is helping advisors do legacy better. If you're a fan of Visionary Advisor, please subscribe and share it with another top notch wealth advisor like yourself. We'll see you next time on Visionary Advisor.