Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Redfish, Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise podcast. Our focus is to deliver information that helps you become healthy, wealthy, and wise. This podcast is sponsored by Redfish Capital Management, the views and opinions expressed here and do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of SCF securities, Inc, or any SCF related entity. This material is for general information only and is not intended [00:00:30] to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual securities offer through SCF securities, Inc. Member FINRA, S I P C investment advisory services offered through SCF investment advisories Inc office at 1 55 east Shaw in Fresno, California, SCF securities, Inc, and Redfish Capital Management are independently owned and operated. SCF is not associated with other podcasts. And the messages contained within. Brad [00:01:00] Murrill and Redfish Capital does not offer legal or tax advice. This material is not intended to replace the advice of a qualified tax advisor or attorney please consult legal or tax professionals for specific information regarding your individual situation now for your host, Brad Murrill.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Redfish, Healthy, Wealthy and wise podcast. This is Brad Murrill, and I wanted to talk to you today about something that's a little bit different. And I know I've mentioned this in the past and I've probably done a couple podcasts on it in the past, but I think it's very important. This has nothing to do with the markets today. This has nothing to do with investing, but it does have to do with your family and with your money. And so what I'm gonna talk to you with today is about power of attorney and why that we at Redfish always suggest that you have these copies done by an attorney and have them on file, both paper file and digital. So to tell you how I kind of came about this is some of you may or may not know many, many years ago when I was a seminary student part of the training and education that we got was to be a chaplain.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
And so I went ahead and took those classes. And and then the, the next part, after you take all the, the book learning classes and things like that is you actually do rounds as a ch as a chaplain. And the seminary that I was at had an association with Memorial Herman in the medical center and Memorial Herman in the Houston medical center at that time. And I think it probably still is, was the number two level one trauma hospital in the United States, basically because of the life flight helicopters and everything like that people were brought to this hospital for pretty dire situations. And so there were, I believe there were three of us that in advanced on then to do rounds at this particular hospital. And so we were getting our assignments kind of a funny story. We're we're sitting around the table and they're handing out the assignments and they turned to the person that was two seats over from me.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
And they said, Hey, you know, you are gonna be responsible for being at the front desk and tell when they come in welcoming people to the hospital, da, da, da. And I was like, oh, that sounds really kind of easy. And then they turned to the next person they said, and you are gonna be welcoming people to the cancer ward. So when they get there, they're gonna be scared. They're gonna be nervous. You're gonna introduce 'em around and everything. And I went, okay, well, this is kind of cool. What's gonna be my assignment. They looked at me and they said, we're gonna assign you to the shock trauma in ER wards. Pretty much the people that you see are gonna be dying and, or dead <laugh>. And I was like, excuse me, I, I, I want, you know, wait a minute, this didn't seem right.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I became really, really nervous because these kind of situations are just very nerve wracking. So I'm telling you all this because of my experiences at the hospital. So I'm not talking about the medical situations that we were dealing with, obviously in the shock trauma, the head trauma and in the ER, we got some horrible nasty accidents, gunshots, you name it. And these were sudden and not planned on medical emergencies. So what I, what I ended up seeing was not just in dealing with the families of the person of the patient. It wasn't just the medical situation, but there's a lot of decisions that have to be made. And what I witnessed during all of my time at Memorial Herman was the amount of angst and the number of fights and arguments folks. Some of these fights got physical, real physical. We're a lack of better word, a brawl between family members.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
I understand it is an incredibly, highly stressful situation when somebody is dying and they need to make a decision quick, and the family has to decide together what they're gonna do. And some of the families want something. And some of them don't, you've got the stress of everything that's going on. You've got the suddenness of everything that's happening. And then you get these explosions that take place. So it's already a nasty, horrible situation, which is then compounded by the fact that we have to, people have to make these decisions. And that's when I became a big proponent of having all of our clients, we make sure that they have power of attorney in place. So the power of attorney in place simply is a document that you write that says, if I am not capable of making a decision, my spouse is not capable of making decision.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Oftentimes, do you know what happens in car wrecks? There's two people involved. Oftentimes who's gonna make that decision on my behalf. And if you have multiple siblings, it, it just can get bad. You'll have to trust me on this, cuz I've just witnessed it more times than I can count by having this power of attorney in place. You have made the decision on who the doctors can turn to in a time of emergency, where they need to make a decision. Now it's written and it's done. What that does is alleviates the family stress. Please don't get me wrong and say, oh, well, my family then will never fight. No, that will happen. Especially when someone's making a decision, but at least you have taken the proper steps to make sure there is a decision maker that has been written down. I maintain a copy here at our office.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
I make sure that the person who is writing it obviously has a, a copy, both paper and digital and the person who has the power of attorney, both paper and digital. The other thing that we recommend is that the is the digital copy is to keep it on the cloud, to keep it somewhere in an email that is accessible so that you can just pull it up right there, right then. And right there, talk to the people that are involved. The second part of the power of attorney situation is that we always wanna make sure that you have a power of attorney. It's really, it says for business, really. I want you to think of it as a financial power of attorney. So when someone is incapacitated and they have a, a life, you know, outside of the ho the hospital, you still have bills that are going on.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
You still have accounts. You still have things that need, you will need to have access to the financial records. Well, as you many years, I spent also doing financial giving financial advice at a bank. And so people will come in and say, hi, look, my mom, my sister, whoever it is, they're in the hospital. And I need to ask and there's nothing we could do. They get upset. But I, I was, I would always try to explain. There is nothing we can do without the piece of paper that says we can, can, no bank will let you do that. If you have this power of attorney, the financial power of attorney in hand, all you have to do is take it to the bank and you show it to them. You then will have access to the checkbook, to the account so you can pay the light bill so you can pay the car loan, whatever it may be in that particular circumstance, you're able to handle it because you took, you had the foresight to have this done ahead of time.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
So again, here at Redfish capital, I think it's critical that everyone has these power of attorneys in place. We really strive hard to make sure all of our clients have this written out. It's not the most fun thing to discuss, but it is something that needs to be discussed and it needs to be in place. The process is rather simple. Attorneys draft these all the time. We have a relationship with an attorney that we use, and that's just a part of the, the, the fee that we are already paid. So it's not coming out of pocket if you're the client. So it's a, it's a thing that I think that everyone should have in place. I was dealing with a similar circumstance here just this week with some clients and that we're taking, we're making sure that they have everything in place and they didn't have it.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
And I'm, I'm not gonna say I'm shocked, but I am surprised at the number of people who don't have this. We had, we're going through this with, with one client. And I had a the notary who's in a business next door come over. So she could notarize these forms and she's listening to what we're discussing on the way out. She goes, can you gimme your card? I have three kids. I just had my third and they hadn't done it. And, and, and it's, it's just something that everybody should have. And so it, I felt it was important enough for me to come out and do a really quick podcast and just remind the listeners, if you have, if you haven't done this, or maybe you haven't done it in 20 years, it's been a while. You need to make sure that these are lined up and that people have a copy.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
One other quick story that I thought was kind of interesting regarding the, the powers of attorney when we were at the bank the person who wrote the POA was hospitalized. They put a copy of their power of attorney in the in a safety deposit box <laugh>. And so the person who was supposed to be receiving the power of attorney came in and said, oh, well, it's in my mom's safety deposit box. I need to get in it. You, you can't <laugh>, they don't, I'm sorry, you can't because you didn't, you have to have that available. So please make sure that it's available. Hence I was saying, keep a paper copy as well as a digital copy where it will be accessible. So I just thought this was some really critical data that I wanted to get out there. As a reminder, if you haven't done this, I strongly suggest that you get this done again. I end the podcast the same way every time for all of you out there who listen, I really do appreciate who follow us on Twitter and Facebook and, and receive everything that we do online. Thank you so much. And for all of the business that you've given us, we're just really, really blessed. And, and we thank you. Y'all have a great day.