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Friday, February 23, 2024

MY TWO CENTS:   This is the first edition of MTC since before Thanksgiving last fall…time flies when you’re having fun!! As some of you may have read recently, we have been busy integrating the clients and team members...

Saturday, November 11, 2023

MY TWO CENTS:   I’ve been encouraged to dream over the years. I know that some people find that hokey, or have a hard time getting themselves into that mode of thinking. It was cultivated in me early (thanks, Mom!) and that...

Sunday, October 15, 2023

MY TWO CENTS:   This edition of MTC is going to be pretty short because my wife and I are on our 25th wedding anniversary celebration vacation. This is the first time since having kids nearly 21 years ago that she and I have taken...

Saturday, September 9, 2023

MY TWO CENTS:   In our last edition of MTC back in July, we wrapped up our series on Effective Leader Disciplines. I took the month of August off from writing as an opportunity to refresh and refocus. Now we’re back at it...

Saturday, July 22, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: Today we’re wrapping up our series on executive leadership. As a reminder, we’ve been sharing some insights from Dr. Fred Johnson of Initiative One in Green Bay, WI who defines an executive leader as...

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Saturday, July 8, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July celebration! We had a beautiful, albeit hot, extended weekend here in Michigan that was just right for enjoying the outdoors!! This edition of MTC is episode 3 of 4...

Friday, June 23, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: We began a series in our last edition of MTC in which I was sharing some insights from Dr. Fred Johnson of Initiative One in Green Bay, WI. His thoughts on executive leadership struck me, and I think our readers will...

Friday, June 9, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: We shared some thoughts about the inputs we allow to influence us a few editions ago. If you’d like to check that out, you may find it here: https://www.lcplanners.com/blog/my-two-cents-032223. One of the...

Saturday, May 13, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: We’re in the early part of the 2023 baseball season, which is my favorite sports season of the year. The sound of the baseball hitting the catcher’s mitt or the ball off the bat, the smell of peanuts,...

Saturday, April 22, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: We were working on a building a client’s financial plan earlier this week and noticed that the outcomes of the plan were different than expected. And by different…I mean SUBSTANTIALLY different than...

Saturday, March 25, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: No skirmish, no strength. Know skirmish, know strength. It may seems like a weird way to start this edition of MTC, but I ran across this note as I was preparing and it struck me. As a point of clarification,...

Monday, March 13, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: The first part of last week found Kris (my wife) and me in Scottsdale, AZ at a conference. You’re probably thinking, “Tough life, Scott!” While I was in conference rooms for the better part of two...

Sunday, February 26, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: Maybe you’ve heard the phrase “We’re in this together.” This edition of MTC will be a short one, but I recently was thinking about this idea. With our families and our friends, it’s...

Friday, January 13, 2023

MY TWO CENTS: Happy New Year! How have your first 13 days of 2023 gone so far? On our countdown for the year, we only have 352 days remaining with lots of fun things to pursue and accomplish!! I typically will put myself...

Friday, December 9, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: A couple of Saturdays ago we had the opportunity to host our annual Christmas Wreath giveaway and donation drive. The bright sun warmed up the chill in the air and it was wonderful to see so many smiling, festive...

Friday, November 11, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: I don’t know about you, but this week has been a bit of a whirlwind for me. We hit Friday and I wondered how we got here so fast! In the hustle and bustle of “to-do” lists, events, and...

Saturday, October 22, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: The idea of diligence popped into my head this morning as I was thinking through the challenging times that everyone faces. Family challenges, work and business challenges, relationship challenges, money challenges,...

Saturday, September 24, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: We shared the idea of gaps in our last edition of MTC. After taking a look at some potential gaps we all faced, we encouraged our readers to consider their own gaps and get to work closing those gaps. If you’d...

Saturday, September 10, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: In our work with business owners, we talk a lot about gaps. Most of the gaps we discuss in owner transition planning revolves around three specific gaps: wealth gap, profit gap, and value gap. Thinking about gaps...

Saturday, August 27, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: In our last edition, we discussed the idea of fear and our response to it. I came across a pretty well-known quote by President Theodore Roosevelt in my reading this week and I thought it would tie in well as a means...

Saturday, August 13, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: Our family was on our annual camping trip vacation last week. It’s been a family tradition to spend a week with Kris’ extended family at the state park campground enjoying each other’s company...

Saturday, July 23, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: Wow…this has been a pretty volatile year for our stock AND bond markets! Our readers know that I don’t typically use this media to wax philosophical on the markets or on specific investment strategies,...

Saturday, June 25, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: A friend and I had breakfast a few weeks ago. As always, we got into topics of personal development, leadership, and impact for those with whom we have influence like our families, colleagues, and clients. I shared a...

Saturday, May 28, 2022

MY TWO CENTS: Please allow me to start this edition of MTC with an extra dose of transparency: this has been a hard week to write. Aside from a few days battling a sickness bug, I’m finding it difficult to come up with my...

Saturday, May 14, 2022

Saturday, April 9, 2022

Saturday, March 26, 2022

Saturday, March 12, 2022

Saturday, February 26, 2022

Friday, February 11, 2022

Friday, January 21, 2022

Friday, January 7, 2022

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Saturday, November 27, 2021

MY TWO CENTS: Happy Thanksgiving! By the time you’re reading this you’ve likely already had your fill of turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, and pie. Hopefully, you were able to build wonderful memories with family...

Friday, November 12, 2021

MY TWO CENTS: After nearly 20 years in our first home, our family moved into a different home during the summer of 2020. This home is surrounded by trees and could be considered “in the woods.” The trees are beautiful to...

Friday, October 15, 2021

MY TWO CENTS: In our last edition of MTC, I shared a story about our son’s recent college decision-making process and the lesson we learned about wallowing in “I knows” versus saying “Yes!” and moving...

Saturday, August 14, 2021

MY TWO CENTS: We are in an interesting stage of life…our oldest has graduated from high school and will be heading off to college in a few weeks. This stage and the resultant emotions, celebrations, irritations, obstacles,...

Friday, May 14, 2021

MY TWO CENTS: Since the last edition of MTC, I finished reading another book by Simon Sinek. This one is entitled Leaders Eat Last. Many people know him for his book entitled Start With Why, his viral TED talk on the same topic, or...

Saturday, February 27, 2021

MY TWO CENTS: It’s been quite a while since our last edition of MTC. Some of our readers may not know that I write each and every edition myself. During this dry spell since before the first of the year, I’ve started and...

Thursday, November 26, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: Thanksgiving is typically a season of celebrating the good things in our lives with family, friends, food, and football…GO LIONS!! While those elements will undoubtedly be present for many of our readers this year,...

Saturday, October 24, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: Comma: a punctuation mark (,) indicating a pause between parts of a sentence. Period: a punctuation mark (.) used most often to mark the end of a declarative sentence. Exclamation point: a punctuation mark (!) indicating...

Saturday, September 19, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: In the past, every four years or so, we have noticed the tone of many of our conversations turn to politics. It’s not that folks haven’t had an interest in or concern for politics during other periods of time....

Saturday, July 25, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: …so how do we do that? (Click HERE if you’re wondering “Do what?” because it’s in our last edition.) Systematizing a thing doesn’t restrict creativity. In fact, it consistently...

Saturday, July 11, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: I have a confession to make: writing something that could be of value to you is hard sometimes! These past few weeks have been a particularly difficult time of gathering and organizing my thoughts. In fact, one of the...

Saturday, May 2, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: We occasionally will use MTC to conduct informal surveys and/or requests for ideas or input. Relax…this isn’t one of those times! ;-) In an edition during the fall of 2019, we requested some input for topics...

Saturday, April 11, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: Things aren’t normal. This is weird. Our situation is not ideal. We have an insidious virus taking lives around the world and in our own backyards whose eradication depends in part on us staying away from each other...

Tuesday, March 24, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: While our governor in the State of Michigan has issued a “Stay home, stay safe” executive order that is keeping most of us homebound, the Covid-19 virus does NOT need to keep us frozen in panic and fear....

Friday, March 13, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: Hopefully, our last edition of MTC helped you take a breath and remain calm. Since our writing of that edition, quite a lot has transpired that may have tested your resolve to live in peace and joy. Three of the most...

Saturday, February 29, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: Please allow me to help you set the stage for today’s edition of MTC. If you’re reading this with any part of the 24 hour news cycle running in the background, please take a second to mute that input. Then,...

Saturday, February 1, 2020

MY TWO CENTS: Happy New Year! Now that we have a month of 2020 under our belt, I hope you’re finding your rhythm of the New Year and are on track toward your highest priorities! The beginning of a new season often brings with it...

Saturday, December 21, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: As 2019 draws to a close I find myself reflecting back on the year. In those reflections, I’m struck by the number of people who have influenced my life so positively. This leads to today’s...

Saturday, November 2, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Have you ever felt like there’s too much to do and not enough time to do it? Or, do you feel like there are competing priorities pulling you every which way? One of the topics that was suggested by our readers for...

Saturday, September 28, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Last week I asked our readers for a favor, and you all sent in some great ideas of items to discuss. Thank you to everyone who submitted some thoughts! Here’s our brief summary list of topics: How to find balance...

Saturday, September 14, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Now that our summer My Two Cents sabbatical is over, I thought I’d launch this fall with a simple check-in message. As I’ve spent some time refreshing my thinking, refocusing my efforts, and renewing my...

Saturday, June 22, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: In prior editions of MTC, I’ve shared thought about the Ted Talk given by Simon Sinek’s entitled Golden Circle. It’s a bit lengthy at just over 18 minutes, but certainly worth the viewing (https://youtu...

Saturday, June 8, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Shhhhh…do you hear that?!? No really…shhhhhhhh!!! [pause] [pause] [pause] Well, that was kind of uncomfortable, wasn’t it?!? In our 100% connected, 24-hour activity, always open, always available,...

Friday, May 24, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: The Memorial Day holiday weekend is upon us. For many, this weekend marks the beginning of summer with family get-togethers, BBQs and picnics, camping trips, and parades. I have many friends and family that have served in...

Friday, April 26, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: As is often the case, a conversation this past week provided some food for thought as I considered our next MTC edition. And, since we’re in baseball season, there’s a high likelihood that this conversation...

Saturday, April 13, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: In the last edition of MTC I shared some thoughts about purposefully refreshing, renewing, and restoring ourselves and our perspectives. Well…we’re back from spring break and I’m grateful to say it was...

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Spring is finally here…YAY!!!! Our family has never taken a spring break trip. This year, our son is traveling with his high school baseball team to Florida for Spring Training. This gave my wife and me an...

Saturday, March 16, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Stages and phases… My wife and I are the proud parents of three active kids that are ages 16, 13, and 10. This stage of life is makes our household a pretty busy place. Juggling kid’s school events, sporting...

Friday, February 15, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: If you’re in West Michigan like us, you’ve experienced the fun and fury of our disruptive winter weather. Since we’re mostly dug out of the snow, warmed up from the near frost bite, and our roads are...

Saturday, January 19, 2019

MY TWO CENTS: Happy New Year!! In our first edition of My Two Cents (MTC) for the year, I typically share some thoughts about New Year’s resolutions and goal setting. As I sat down to begin writing this edition another thought...

Saturday, December 22, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: Most of our readers know that we don’t often discuss traditional financial planning topics through this media. The majority of our writings are related to personal development, leadership, or other topics of legacy...

Saturday, December 8, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: In an article I read recently, the author was encouraging us to consider today’s struggle and stress in a different perspective. Everyone has them, albeit in varying degrees, and we all have a choice about how we...

Thursday, November 29, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: The last MTC was kicking around the idea of maintaining positive momentum in our lives, and it got me thinking about what that really looks like in somebody’s life. What does it mean to actually move toward what we...

Saturday, November 3, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: In our last edition of MTC, we discussed the idea of putting our brilliant ideas into practice. Purposefully choosing to live out our legacy and deciding to keep our focus on ideals that matter most to us. Today, I want...

Saturday, October 13, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: Reading is a love that my grandmother instilled in me early in my life. While I don’t consider myself a voracious reader, I do consider myself an intentional reader. Sometimes my intention is leadership development,...

Friday, September 28, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: I like to travel! You’re probably thinking that seems like an odd way to start our most recent edition of MY TWO CENTS (MTC)…especially after such a long hiatus. And, you’d be right! It is odd and, yet,...

Saturday, May 12, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: Have you ever read anything on the internet and wondered to yourself, “Is that REALLY true?” In fact, State Farm put out a really funny commercial not that long ago that makes fun of the idea that EVERYTHING...

Saturday, April 7, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: If you’ve been a reader of our material for any period of time, you know that I tend to share philosophical thoughts quite a bit. It’s also pretty common for me to share what I’ve been learning as it...

Saturday, March 3, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: In our last edition of MTC, I offered our readers a challenge to consider regarding the goals they’re pursuing this year. How are you doing with identifying the “ONE THING” that you’re pursuing...

Friday, January 26, 2018

MY TWO CENTS: Happy New Year!! It’s hard to believe that the first month of the New Year is almost over. It’s even more difficult for me to believe that our loyal readers haven’t read any new ramblings from me since...

Monday, November 20, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Thanksgiving week here in the States is often filled with food, family, and fun. We often reflect on our blessings with gratitude. And…we should! I was thinking about this idea of gratitude recently, and had the...

Monday, October 9, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Have you ever watched the ripples that happen when a stone is dropped in the water? I was working at my desk last week with my cup of coffee just sitting there waiting on me to partake. I must have bumped, or dropped,...

Friday, September 1, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: It’s hard for me to believe, but it has been more than two months since our last edition of MY TWO CENTS.

Friday, August 25, 2017

Please join us by registering through the following link: https://2017legacygolfouting.eventbrite.com

Friday, August 11, 2017

Please pencil us in for the 3rd Annual Legacy Capital Planners, LLC Charity Golf Outing. More details are coming soon. Sponsorship opportunities are also available.

Saturday, June 17, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: In my reading this week I was reminded of the “Law of Buy-In” in John Maxwell’s book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. His subtitle for this chapter of the book is, “People Buy Into the Leader...

Friday, May 12, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Our last edition of MTC discussed the idea of “purposeful planning” and the “Now what?” question that ensues from that idea. In this edition, we’re going to talk about next steps necessary to...

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: In our world of financial planning, we’re frequently talking about cash-flow planning or goals-based planning. In cash flow planning, our aim is to ensure that current and future cash flow is sufficient to provide...

Saturday, April 1, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Spring is upon us! I’m not sure what the indicator is for you, but for our family the indication is Little League baseball and softball starts. It might be 30°F and snowing sideways with wind whipping across the...

Saturday, March 18, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Later this year we will celebrate the 2nd anniversary of the new name of our firm, Legacy Capital Planners, LLC. We’ve been serving our clients for over 10 years and were moved nearly two years ago to change the...

Friday, March 3, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Obstacles are a part of life. We set a goal, develop a plan, work the plan toward our goal, and then…stuff comes up. That stuff is what we call obstacles. We all know intuitively that anything worth achieving...

Friday, February 17, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Our world has gotten smaller. The ability to travel halfway around the world in a day or two, the ability to talk to a friend or loved one in real-time regardless of their physical location, and the incessant flow of data...

Monday, January 30, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: fiduciary [fi-doo-shee-er-ee] noun: a person to whom property or power is entrusted for the benefit of another. adjective: 1) of or relating to the relation between a fiduciary and his or her principal; 2) of, based on,...

Friday, January 13, 2017

MY TWO CENTS: Happy New Year!! One of the traditions I have with this publication is to encourage our readers to consider goal setting rather than setting New Year’s resolutions. Recently that idea was reinforced for me when I...

Friday, December 23, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: Our family will be traveling during Christmas and New Year’s, so this will be my last weekly rant until the week of January 9, 2017. While I know this will cause many of our diligent readers great sadness and...

Saturday, December 17, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: This morning I was doing some reading in a book entitled The Art of Why by Steve Luckenbach. In a chapter he calls The Moving Walkway, Steve shares some thoughts about self-transformation that I thought our readers might...

Saturday, December 10, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: Facebook…LinkedIn…Twitter…Instagram…Google+…YouTube…Flickr…Pinterest…Snapchat… My head spins when I think about all of the different social media platforms!...

Saturday, December 3, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: So far in this series of MTC editions, we’ve shared some ideas on love, joy, and peace. This week I’m going to wrap up with some thoughts about patience.

Saturday, November 26, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: Last week’s edition of My Two Cents was focused on the idea of joy. Amidst all the food, family, and football, I hope you were able to make your Thanksgiving week a joyful time! Some people really enjoy the...

Saturday, November 19, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: In the new My Two Cents series that launched last week, we shared some thoughts about the idea of choosing to love rather than just feeling love. This week, I wanted to tie something into our forthcoming Thanksgiving...

Saturday, November 12, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: Phew…let’s all catch our collective breath!! This presidential election cycle has been one of the most contentious and ideologically divisive of my lifetime. The pundits tell us that there have been others...

Saturday, October 8, 2016

MY TWO CENTS: Learning and teaching with intention!

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Thank you to everyone who participated in the 2nd Annual Charity Golf Invitational! With your help, we were able to raise over $4,000 to assist Partners Worldwide in their efforts to end poverty. Check out our Facebook page to see all...

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

TWO CENTS WORTH: What level of peace and perspective can you gain when the noise around you is made quiet? Let's make sure that we're being intentional about what noise we allow in our lives!

Monday, March 7, 2016

Last week we announced the rollout of our new website (www.lcplanners.com). As always, please be sure to let us know if there are areas for improvement or additional information that you’d like to have available at our site. We...

Thursday, March 3, 2016

In the realm of investment advice, value is defined by what you receive from your advisory relationship that meets or exceeds your expectations. For most clients, it has much less to do with pricing or investment performance, than it...

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Monday, March 16, 2015

As individuals, the Legacy team members are involved in causes important to them. Those causes range from local civic involvement, church organizations, kids' sports functions, and other charity work. When we think about what it means...

Monday, March 9, 2015

We're firmly in the middle of tax season and our friends that prepare taxes are looking forward to April 15th almost as much as a kid looks forward to Christmas. Since we often get questions about taxes, we thought sharing a quick...

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

As the stock market resurgence continues, investors are reawakening to the performance benchmarks of their mutual funds to see if their fund choices are drawing every ounce of gains that have been produced over the last couple of years...

Monday, March 2, 2015

In this week’s edition of MTC, we’re going to share a bit of a philosophical idea. This may seem a bit strange to our newest readers to see these ideas in a financial planning firm’s communication, while our long-time...

Monday, February 23, 2015

Retirement income…the #1 discussed topic at Legacy Capital Planners! Most people are either building toward a point at which they hope to feel comfortable stopping their active income, or are already living in retirement with...

Monday, February 16, 2015

We made it…the Legacy Capital Planners, LLC website is live and ready for use!! Please feel free to click on the link below to take a look. www.lcplanners.com This has been quite a project for us, and we’re excited to...

Monday, February 9, 2015

Since we have the opportunity this week to participate in what has been turned into a “Hallmark” holiday, we thought we could share some thoughts about Valentine’s Day in this edition of MTC. In Roman times, young men...

Monday, February 2, 2015

BREAKING NEWS…Legacy Capital Planners has a new Grand Rapids office! After 5 years at our prior Grand Rapids location, our firm growth has brought us to the place of needing additional space. We just took possession of the new...

Monday, December 15, 2014

You may have heard statistics or evidence that multitasking can actually make people less efficient. Actually, in many cases that’s true. Generally speaking, multitasking decreases the level of knowledge and understanding in a...

Monday, December 15, 2014

Choosing a financial advisor is tough. There are generally a lot of options so how do you differentiate the crème de la créme of advisors who you can really trust to manage your hard-earned money? Why don’t you test...

Monday, December 15, 2014

Money is just one of those things that sometimes brings people as much pain as it does pleasure. As the economy in an up cycle of the recession, things are looking better but just the thought and uncertainty of an unstable economy is...