episode where psychology and finances intersect.
I still have my buddy Emily Baggett, attorney
with Redstone Arsenal, and we're going to continue
to examine how we think, feel, and behave with
our digital assets and how we are going to plan
our estate surrounding digital assets. And with
this being a podcast relating to psychology and
how the world of psychology impacts what we do
with our finances, one of the things that Emily
and I have both seen in practice is individuals
who believe that they have more time. than they
actually do. So many times the financial planning,
the estate planning, and all the other planning
that we know we need to tackle, we tend to put
off, we tend to procrastinate. And I hope by
the time this series of digital assets and estate
planning is complete, that you'll have the what's
in it for me to actually go through with this.
And Emily, one of the things we were just talking
about are those Digital assets that a lot of
folks don't even think about when it comes to
a digital asset. You and I share a similar love
for Legos. And again, no Army endorsement implied,
but let's talk about Lego rewards. It's something
that is there in your digital asset portfolio,
but what do you do with something like that?
Right. With the Lego Rewards, that's something
else. It's another rewards component that you
might have that you could use that, again, at
the end. Say I have the example I used when I
spoke at the financial symposium is I had at
that time $111 in my Lego Rewards account. Well,
since I had that much in my Lego Rewards account,
I was saving up for something. I was able to
use them. But that's, again, if you have something
like that, if something would have happened to
me, that's a pretty sizable amount for the Lego
world. I mean, that could have been used. Someone
could have used. So you have to think about those
things that could someone have used them. Yes,
they could have logged into my account and bought
something from the website. And really, it's
not just about the money, is it? Because let's
say that you and your child. both enjoy doing
this as an activity together for quality time.
And you pass, the child knows that you have something
that is available to you. And this is another
continued source of connection when it comes
to having this ability. beyond the grave to finish
a project with you or to create a new project
with you. So really getting behind the financial
aspect and the psychological aspect tied to that.
But we also don't think about the other online
accounts. So email accounts. Storage accounts,
gaming accounts, professional licenses. You and
I have to maintain our licenses throughout the
years. And what are some of the things that we
might need to cinch up there? But talk about
some of those online accounts that maybe you've
had some personal. experience with. So one of
the things you did mention is we're both professionals.
So I do have to say again that the disclaimer
that states that the views presented, mine are
the speaker and do not necessarily represent
the views of the DOD, my official disclaimer
as an attorney. But one of the articles recently,
when you're talking about some type of professional
licenses is for doctors. They have to have usernames
and passwords potentially, I guess, to get into
their medical records or for, you know, looking
at records at their system. If a doctor passes,
away their practice might have on the records
but the doctor is the one who has to have access
to those records as far as managing those client
records then how does the practice necessarily
get into the records or how does someone else
maintain those records so that is from a different
kind of online and i know that's kind of a business
kind of standpoint as well but I'm not in private
practice anymore, so I don't have to log into
a client system. But thinking about that, if
you log into some type of client system where
you've got to log into clients, you have clients.
I've had folks before that do have client -based
systems because they're consulting or they have
a consulting business. If something happens,
are you going to be able to get into those client
files? Does somebody need to be able to get into
those client files? Email accounts are the same
way. I tell clients a lot of times maybe somebody
doesn't know a username and password, but we
know a lot of times you can reset some of those
things if you have the correct email because
you can reset with an email account. Reset a
password a lot of times. So I always say know
what those email accounts are. I don't game.
I'm not a gamer. But from what I understand,
gaming accounts can be potentially quite lucrative
if you own some of these gaming accounts or something
to do with some of these gaming things. Again,
I don't understand some of the gaming concepts,
but if you're in the gaming world, you want to
have access to those. Right. And now we get into
creative content. When you asked the question
in the financial symposium, how many of you are
influencers? We didn't have anyone raise their
hand, and one of my colleagues actually got on
to me later for not raising my hand, but I don't
view myself as an influencer. I just am passionate
about giving psychology away, giving financial
education away, and this is just a little grassroots
effort in another platform to provide on -demand
financial education. But we had a conversation
just a little bit ago about how sometimes we
fall backwards into an influencer role. And some
of us don't even realize that. So with creative
content, it could be through a blog. It could
be through a podcast. And I'll give a personal
example. My daughter. had this beautiful podcast,
and she was only 15 when she started it, and
it was wonderful. I couldn't wait for the next
episode to come out. She did it weekly, and she
would record during the week. which was also
school happening. And it was great. She had several
followers. She got lots of compliments at school
and in other community settings. And all of a
sudden, she felt so pressured and so stressed
out by this podcast that she just wanted to leave
it. And she closed it all down before Mama Bear
had a chance to download at least one episode
to save for future reference. Like when I'm old
and gray and I just want to sit there and reminisce
about my baby girl and how beautiful of a podcast
that was. And so I wasn't upset with her, obviously.
But if I would have known about this. Before
she decided. to shut it all down, I would have
gently asked for the Instagram password, the
ability to go in there. Now, what teenage daughter
is going to want to give mom and dad their Instagram
password and that type of thing? But it doesn't
necessarily have to be that. It could have been
to wherever she was housing the videos to pull,
which was actually from her phone. And so she
deleted everything because she was just so upset.
It was an impulsive act. And again, that's what
a 15 -year -old, 16 -year -old brain does. I'm
done with it. I'm washing my hands of it. And
it's time to just get rid of it all. But again,
as a mom, I would have loved to at least saved
one of the episodes for future reference. So
that may not necessarily be what people are considering
a digital asset. We think of our pictures that
way, right? We think of photos that are digital
in nature. So why not videos? Why not those other
things that may not have monetary value, but
they have a lot of sentimental value? Exactly,
because you talk about videos. I have a video
of me and my son from when he's probably seven
or eight. And it's one of my favorite things
when I'm kind of down to go back and watch. And
it was just a... We were singing a Taylor Swift
song in the car, having the best time. And, I
mean, I just happened to click the video on that
day and say, we're in a music video. Let's, you
know, jam it up. And, I mean, it's less than
a minute, I think. But it's saved on my phone.
I've saved it to, like, my Google Drive. But
that's one of those things that. I go back and
watch all the time. My son's now 16. So, you
know, you have those like sentimental things
that you do want to keep. And he probably would
be like, Mom, I can't believe don't you ever
show that to anyone. But it's one of those things
as a mom you want. I think about some of the
stories my grandmother told that we recorded.
And we're so glad we recorded those because.
You want those things. They're family history
that you're not going to remember. You think
you're going to remember some of the things and
the way the story is supposed to go. But then
when everybody sits down, nobody remembers how
really it goes because everybody thinks it goes
one way and it's really not. So then it's like,
well, thank goodness we did record it. You know,
but where are those memories? I really love those
memories. I recently found out that on my mom's
side, there's a family cemetery. There is a website
where they keep all of the information on the
family cemetery. I did not know this. My mom
said, yeah, there's a family website. There's
a cemetery that you log in, and there's all the
information on how everything goes. And I thought,
there's a lot of family information on that website.
And she's like, yeah, it goes back. And she started
telling, like. I mean, it goes way back. And
I thought, well, this is really interesting.
I mean, people have things like that that you
don't think about in your photos. It might not
be stored digitally. Where are your photos stored?
I dare to say how many USBs are in this little
Ziploc bag at my house. But, I mean, do you walk
around like me with this baggie of Ziploc bags
of, like, I don't know, but don't touch those.
Those are the photos, the child's photos. All
through his life, they're in that baggie of the
USBs. Because one day, I will get around to organizing
them, I'm sure. But I just know I don't want
them touched. So do you have any of those USB
baggies? Or do you have them on a hard drive?
Those are considered digital assets as well.
Where are those? Where are you storing them?
Well, you heard it here. Even the attorney hasn't
had time to get around to a couple things. So
maybe we don't need to feel as guilty as we are.
But there are some. digital platforms that have
become monetized. I really do believe had my
daughter continued with the podcast, she could
have made some money on what she was doing. I
was very impressed with how eloquent of a speaker
she has become and the research that she would
put into every episode. And I guess the apple
doesn't fall far from the tree. But if she had
become monetized, Emily, What would have been
the appropriate manner to receive the monetary
benefits? I think when you actually do start
earning money from, say, say she put her podcast,
let's say, on YouTube. There are so many people
that do have YouTube videos that maybe they don't
start out or say they do start a podcast. Then
they do start, you know, where they talk about
it on YouTube and they do. start earning some
money off that then you do have to realize that
if there's money coming in off that then you
have to think about well how is that going to
go into the estate plan there is a particular
let's take this for example say you have a dog
and i know we all love our pets i have one that
i love very much Even though sometimes I wonder
about it. But anyway, he's a puppy, an 80 -pound
puppy. But anyway, so you have a pet. Your pet
becomes famous on Instagram because you put pet
videos on there, which this can happen, okay?
As much as we love our pets, at the end of the
day, they're property. So your pet's property,
but you're making money off your pet. But this
pet has become very famous as this Instagram
star, and you've got brand deals for the pet.
because he gets all kinds of stuff, which ultimately
you do. So you have to think about those things.
That's got to become part of your estate plan.
Do you need then someone? Obviously, it's going
to go in your will, but at the same time, this
is another component of estate planning. Do you
need a digital executor? And what I mean by that,
do you need someone that's got to handle the
online component? only, potentially. And that
is now becoming the kind of next wave as far
as some of the digital stuff, as far as folks
that do have a lot of online content. For the,
what I would say, influencers, obviously some
of our famous, famous folks in the world, I'm
sure they do have folks that are going to be
digital. Because you've got to know how to get
to some of these websites, how to make sure that
their image is not being, or their likeness is
not being used in an improper manner. All those
different things, and that is where you have
to think about those things as well. I know we
talk about it on a smaller scale, but that's
where you have to think on a larger scale. What
if you do have, you do get to a larger scale
where you're looking at, okay, you have an Instagram,
you've got a YouTube. You've got brand deals.
I mean, it might be something beyond what you
want to leave to, say, your child to figure out
or, say, I think of these wonderful people that
can cook that have maybe a cookbook or they've
started a little cooking show or whatever. There's
all kinds of things that you could have started
out that just was a hobby that now has really
come into something, a hobby that has turned
into something that you're making money off of.
And in the legal world, the terminology that
attorneys love to use is digital intellectual
property. So this is money. This is a cash. So
let's think about maybe the recording artists
who they continue to make royalties on so many
downloads of their music. It's the same concept
with blogs, with other maybe even online courses.
There are folks who make their careers, make
their living based on creating. online content
for whether it is for dod or it's for a private
company or for it's for a continuing education
company this is intellectual property that could
continue to bring in dividends for your family
so it's definitely worth noting for the audience
what are your family members into What are they
doing? And then I even think of the child stars,
like I think of Full House and I think of Candace
Cameron Bure, right? She has, from a kid to an
adult, continued to do well with her career.
But in today's world, I mean, that was our generation,
but in today's generation now, it is a lot of
intellectual property that is digital in nature,
and it's the same concept. There could be fans.
members where this child is the true star of
the blog or the podcast or the streaming video.
And I'm sure there could be some legal battles
between family members if something goes awry
with that child and parent. So that's just another
thing to consider. And so you use the terminology
digital executor. Can you tell the audience what?
That is, and how to access a digital executor.
Well, in the same role that you have an executor
that would be in charge of your will that says
the executor is the person after you pass away
that handles everything for you, that person
is going to be the person that handles everything
digitally for you. So say you do have anything
online. Say you do have a domain name or a website.
You do have anything that has to do to deal with,
say, your Taylor Swift, anything to deal with
how you're going to be getting your money off
your music because she re -bought some of her
albums, I think, anything with that, anything
to do, like I mentioned, with the likeness, making
sure nobody is using your image in an improper
way. All of those things, however, your official,
what is the official Instagram, if there's still
going to be posts being made, how is that going
to be done? All of those different things, how
is that going to continue? You have to think
about that. How do you want that to continue?
You have to leave. How is that avenue going to
go for you? How do you want that to go? The big
one I think that honestly I still think is he
still goes today. I think of Elvis. I mean, Elvis
still lives on. I mean, some people think Elvis
is still alive. But you have to think. Elvis,
I mean, we're now on, you know, Priscilla managed
it, then Lisa Marie, and then now we're on her
daughter is kind of managing things now. So we're
now moved on generations. There's still probably
going to be components of that that still has
to be managed digitally. So we're generations
down the line, but there's still components of
him that need to be managed digitally, probably.
And that, when you think about that, I mean,
that's in a trust. You have to think along those
kind of lines. So now we've gotten into immortalizing
digital assets. What a great way to end this
portion of this series. Make sure you stay tuned
to hear the last episode on digital estate planning.
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