My dad died two years ago and I would trade all my wordly possessions just to hear his voice again.

We used to talk every day.

And, when we found out he was ill, I was tempted time and again to pull out the digital recorder on one of his visits, to create a permanent record, but I never did.

I just couldn’t do it.

He was fighting so hard to save his life and had I asked for the recording, it would have meant acknowledging death was near.

By the time it couldn’t be denied, he was in no condition to share his hopes, dreams, stories or insights.

I had to satisfy myself with a message he’d left me on my cell phone voice amil.  Again and again I played the message - "Lex, it’s your dad."

You can imagine my devastation the day the message was inadvertently erased. I’d trade just about everything I have to hear his voice again.

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Now that tax time is over, it’s time to start planning for next year.  I don’t know about you, but I made a huge error and did not do any proactive planning last year. That meant I wrote an unncessarily large check this week.

I won’t make that mistake again.

I did learn a hugely valuable lesson I want to share with you.

It’s this.

If I want to have the mental energy to take care of my family, run my business, and be as successful as I want, I MUST have a Trusted Team of advisors who support my vision and know enough about me and my personal situation to provide ongoing guidance and support throughout my life, rather than just triage in an emergency situation.

As a business owner that team includes, not only a legal advisor, but also my financial advisor and my tax advisor.

My advisors can’t really help me if I only talk with them on an as-needed basis.  They are really only "needed" in a crisis situation.

But, where they can be of most value to me and increase the likelihood of my business and personal success (and decrease the likelihood of costly errors, like the tax error I made) is when I share my long-term vision as well as my shorter term 1 year, 3 year, and 5 year goals so as a team they can make coordinated planning recommendations to me.

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It seems as if the Universe is giving me all sorts of opportunities to share with you the value of a relationship with your Personal Family Lawyer™.

Imagine you are picking your child up from school, you get pulled over and you get arrested, taken to jail, and you don’t know what’s going on or what to do.

There was some traffic thing that you thought you had cleared up, but the police don’t seem to think so and when your spouse frantically calls the office of the lawyer who handled the traffic thing for you, the receptionist is rude, won’t even give you the name of the lawyer who handled your case, and tells you that your file has been closed and shipped off to storage, so she really can’t help.  Sorry!  And, she practically hangs up on you.

Your spouse doesn’t know what to do or where to turn.

But, thankfully, she remembers, "wait a minute, we have a personal family lawyer, I’ll call Martin Neely & Associates."

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I’ve directly experienced what the movie the Secret shares with the world, which is that we manifest what we focus on in our lives.  And, if you are able to dream it, you can do it.

It’s been proven to me time and again.

I dreamed of graduating first in my law school class well before I ever went to law school.  I dreamed of practicing in a renovated old building in the center of town and and bringing back the idea of the Personal Family Lawyer, even though I couldn’t see how to do it because there was no proven model for me to follow and the building I wanted to practice in housed a chiropractor.

And now I dream of teaching other attorneys who also want to make a real impact in the world and holding Family Wealth, Health, and Happiness events around the country with speakers like Jack Canfield, Jim Rohn, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love - my new favorite book), Loral Langmeier, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Susan Sarandon educating you to not only pass on your financial wealth to your children, but to also pass on your emotional, intellectual and spiritual wealth and to use that wealth to make a difference.

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