How many times have you heard someone say that?  I’ve not only heard it a lot, I’ve said it a lot.  It brings up a great point and one that is very important to consider.  As a Personal Family Lawyer® and Creative Business Lawyer™, I spend much of my time helping families and businesses properly plan for any number of “unthinkable” events.  A colleague of mine recently had someone ask her, “what really are the odds of an unthinkable event happening?”  That’s a great question – it got me thinking about why I do what I do and why I’m so passionate about helping families and businesses plan.

Quite honestly, the odds of an unthinkable event (e.g., car accident, natural disaster, crime, etc.) happening to any one person on a given day is very small.  However, a wise person once told me, “you live like nothing is going to happen, and plan like something will.”  And that is my approach to helping my clients.  Sure, nothing unexpectedly bad may ever happen to you, your family, or your business, but do you want to take the chance that it will and have to deal with the catastrophic outcome because you didn’t plan?  Why do we get car insurance, homeowner’s insurance, and life insurance?  Do we plan on getting in an accident, having our house be destroyed, or dying today?  No, of course not (or at least I hope not!).  We are simply planning so that we, our families, and our businesses will be well taken care of if any of those unfortunate events occur.

In just the past two weeks, two of my friends have lost one of their parents (one his father and one his mother), another friend’s mother-in-law passed away, and another friend told me about his good friend who was in a horrible car accident (the boy passed away and the mother was in ICU).  These situations truly sadden me.  Having a loved one pass on is one of the toughest things we have to deal with.  And it’s even more difficult when they have not planned or not planned properly.  You just never know what may happen.  Please, please take the time to plan and do it soon – for you family’s sake, and the sake of your business (if you own one).