I know "down time" is a highly relative concept, but I hope everyone is enjoying summer in your own way.

Assuming (hoping… 😉) that you are otherwise occupied with fun weekend plans like going to the beach, we'll keep this short(ish) and progress from the more practical to the more metaphysical, and you get to opt out where you see fit along the way.

Let's talk about three things:

• Estate planning

• Raising financially fit kids (and families)

• How to process information when you finally accept that knowing, like "for sure for sure," just isn't on the menu.

See, what did I say about progressing towards the abstract?

Thinking about estate planning differently.

If you've had success in life, and you're the planning type (those two characteristics appear to be correlated), I suspect that you have an estate plan for yourself, your spouse, and your various financial interests.

Maybe you're motivated by tax planning, or just setting things in motion in a way that won't leave a mess for others down the line. You probably have a will, a trust of some sort, and things like powers of attorney as well as advanced health directives. That's what "planning" looks like.

(If you don't, please consider this. They say death and taxes are in a rare class of certainties in life. Not facing reality does not make it less real.)

I recently had a conversation with Anne Rhodes and David Haughton on TREUSSARD TALKS. Believe it or not, we’re up to 6 episodes, and I think you’ll want to listen to this one.

Anne and Dave are estate attorneys who now work in leadership at wealth.com, a platform that aims to make estate planning more accessible, more intuitive, and more dynamic (and that’s whether you already have “docs” or you don’t). Anne is the firm’s Chief Legal Officer, just to give you a sense of the level at which she operates.

Full disclosure, I pay for wealth.com so that all of my clients can access to it at no charge to them.

The whole conversation is worth a listen. You can access it in the following places:

• Apple Podcast here

• Spotify here

• YouTube here

Now, being a planner doesn't mean not having blind spots.

Here is a scenario where "getting docs in place" might be mission critical and has nothing to do with your death or anyone’s taxes.

You walk in, only to realize she's not a minor anymore and therefore you are technically not in a position to "make decisions" for her care.

Decisions get delayed while you're petitioning to be granted that authority.

That's not a fun thought experiment.

Not even a little.

But you know what's even less fun?

If that ever happened in real life.

Getting those types of things "in order" when your kid turns 18 is thinking about estate planning differently.

But here is another.

We're going to call it the "Move that Mulch" insight from Dave Haughton.

How do you teach kids unforgettable lessons? You go about it the way Dave's dad did when Dave was a kid.

Dave loved nothing more than playing basketball outside his house.

When it came time to get mulch for his mother's garden, Dave's dad would have the mulch company dump the whole mound of it under the basketball hoop in the driveway.

If Dave wanted to play basketball, he had to move that mulch first.

That's imparting family values.

That's explaining to your kids how the world works.

As evidenced by the fact that Dave tells the story now, that's legacy.

And it has implications for how you think about estate planning more generally.

Again, please listen to my conversation with Anne Rhodes and Dave Haughton here:

Raising Financially Fit Families with Joline Godfrey.

This is part 2, in a sense.

I interviewed Joline for TREUSSARD TALKS a little while ago.

There was so much more to talk about that we decided to regroup and continue the conversation, except this time we did it for her podcast, "Raising Financially Fit Families with Joline Godfrey."

If you want to be intentional with how you introduce the next generation to money and wealth and responsibility (and and and…), I hope you'll listen to this conversation.

We talked about introducing your kids to "big numbers" (because practice is so important in life, and time is valuable in getting that practice early on).

We talked about getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, including complex answers.

And we talked about thinking of life as a movie made up of successive frames. In this context, it's helpful to explain to the next generation that their job is two-fold.

• The basic job is to move from frame to frame while avoiding actions that would be counter to what you want to see in the next frame. Avoid actions that'll make you stumble and land with a finger up your nose.

• The advanced job is to recognize that you can actually stretch the frame, make it bigger, creating room for richer experiences, and making life just more complete and interesting.

But if that's getting too metaphysical for you, here is a simple fact:

Here is my full conversation with Joline:

• Apple Podcasts here

• Spotify here

• YouTube here

Now for the metaphysical…

When Will You Know That "It's Gone Too Far"?

The answer: You won't.

(At least not until it's too late — i.e., when knowing doesn't afford you the privilege of acting based on that knowledge).

Nearly all humans want to "know."

We want to know:

• if the stock market will go up or down in the next six months.

• if (and how) the tariffs will hurt the economy and create inflation.

• if the US dollar will keep sliding or strengthen again.

• what the 2026 and 2028 elections will bring.

• (complete your own list here 🙂)

Our brain is wired to seek certainty.

There is comfort there.

There is also fragility there.

Because that's not how the world works.

That's one of the main reasons why I actually think it's great that regulators tell people like me to remind investors that "past results do not guarantee future performance" over and over again.

Because people let their brains trick them into forgetting this important rule of engagement.

I'm not kidding...

Extrapolating the recent past forward (in a straight line of sorts) is a basic cognitive bias. It's called nowcasting and I wrote about it with Rob Arnott here.

Another central behavioral bias is the "Availability Bias."

Simply put, if something dominates the airwaves, then your brain concludes that it must be true (now and forever in the future). That's why consuming headlines and sensationalist social media posts is so dangerous. It warps your perception of the world.

The correct way to process information is to "update your priors." To move your opinion at the margin and in the direction of the new information (not just loud and often-repeated information), slowly and methodically. For the mathematically minded, they call that Bayes' Rule.

That's hard to do and no fun.

So people hang on to outdated beliefs.

Or they get swayed by the noise of the moment.

None of it is a particularly useful approach to living in the real world.

Accept that you don't know what happens next. Not today and not tomorrow.

Certainty is your brain playing tricks on you.

Thinking in probabilities is uncomfortable…

Get uncomfortable.

But here is one last thing.

Accepting that we don’t know is not an invitation to give up.

Not knowing is not the same as believing that nothing matters.

A friend reminded me of that this week.

We had breakfast and talked about the impermanence of life.

And we came to a simple conclusion. Despite the reality that “this too shall pass,” it is worth choosing meaning over nihilism as we proceed.

If you read on to this point, very impressive. And thank you.

With that, I wish you all a restful and meaningful weekend.

Be well and talk soon,

Jonathan 👋