A CRITICAL ELEMENT OF EFFECTIVE ESTATE PLANNING involves exit from family businesses. Surveys find over eight-in-ten owners regret having sold within twelve months of the transaction, which stems in most cases from failure to have aligned business realities with personal aspirations, financial risk protection, and developing clarity among family members. Since complexity and implicit expectations change as business owners age and wealth accumulates, reality-based protection involves consistency in strategies and tactical steps, including Buy-Sell Agreements/ Life Insurance/ Tax minimization/ asset risk avoidance/ and clear concepts for maintaining life balance when allocation of time & energy will no longer be daily focused on the business. “Industry studies regularly show that nearly 50% of all businesses succumb to Death, Divorce, Disability, Distress, or Disagreement (the five D’s), any of which can happen to a business owner.” DCG have decades of experience in family Estate Planning, including positioning for business succession or sale. Call for courtesy consultation. [EXIT PLANNING INSTITUTE]

AWAKE IN BED, ANNOYED YOU CAN’T FALL ASLEEP? Consistent studies suggest that “wakefulness isn’t the biggest problem, it’s your reaction, and trying to force the narrative will only make it worse. Psychologists suggest: Get up, leave the room, and do something else.” While sounding counter-intuitive, the technique is called Stimulus Control, a cognitive behavioral theory for insomnia contending that the harder we work at falling asleep the more frustrated and alert we become, so waiting and clock-watching creates more stress – precluding ‘sleep pressure’ (the biological drive which makes us sleepy) from building, while allowing our brain to associate the mattress with frustration. Other points: (1) Keeping the room dark is not helpful, so turn on a lamp for comfortable lighting; (2) A blue-enriched screen light may interfere with sleep, plus phones & laptops can pull us into work & messages. At least watch something you enjoy; (3) Have your robe, slippers, blankets and activity (book, magazine, art supplies, etc.) ready in advance. “Sleep isn’t something you can will into happening. It’s a physiological state, not a behavior you can perform on command.” [TIME]

WHAT PEOPLE ‘THINK’ was recently researched by getting volunteers to respond eight times daily to 14 days of random app prompts. Volunteers were western, educated, financially comfortable, between age 20 – 70. Results suggested four categories of ‘Thinkers.’ (1) Over half were ‘WORRIERS’ – concerned about world events, politics & social issues; (2) ‘DOMESTICS’ – were mostly focused on practical household matters, movies, books & TV stories, and were highest in their degree of unwanted or intrusive thoughts about therapists, aches & being overwhelmed; (3) ‘BODILY THINKERS’ – focused mostly on mind, body & work-life balance, thinking about hobbies, games & art; (4) ‘WORK-HARD, PLAY-HARDS – whose minds are largely split between work and leisure, with highest income and happiness scores, and key words describing their thoughts mostly about relaxation, presentation, flight, projects & gym. [THE GUARDIAN]

CRITICAL POLITICAL PERSPECTIVE: “THE SOCIALIST MONSTER HAS AWAKENED, as downwardly-mobile whites joined by 1st and 2nd generation immigrants (many from failed social states) now form 85% of the Democratic Socialists of America. Together they are re-energizing the decades old messages of Establishment Democrats: destroying norms & traditions/ deliberately dividing Americans by race/ implementing ideas like Critical Race Theory, Open Borders, no cash bail/ defunding police/ scapegoating ‘white-privileged’/ and openly embracing antisemitism. ‘By any means necessary’ was a Democratic mantra over a decade ago – hatching phony hoaxes to warp elections, like the Steele-dossier and Hunter Biden Russian laptop farces/ labeling Conservatives as irredeemable, deplorables & garbage/ harassing Administration officials whenever seen in public/ encouraging the George Floyd and anti-ICE demonstrations & deportations. Latest strategies now include dismantling the constitutional order by campaigning to abolish the Electoral College, pack the Supreme Court, and admit two new left-wing States. The DSA movement is merely the logical culmination of years of boutique radicalism within the Democratic aristocracy.”

THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK:

Roughly half of men over age 50 have an enlarged prostate (BPH) which is the leading cause of waking up two or more times during the night to pee, when the growing prostate narrows the urethra and irritates the bladder. Other major causes are consuming caffeine after 2:pm, alcohol within four hours and other fluids within two hours before lying down, since the bladder needs time to empty. [MAYO CLINIC – LIVIUM HEALTH]

THE CURRENT FEDERAL TAX STRUCTURE increasingly places nearly the entire tax burden on top 1/10th of 1% of earners; the bottom 80% fund around 3% of annual payouts to government workers, industrial complex, bankers, military & contractors, along with education, teacher unions, NGOs, and varying political grift. According the Congressional Budget Office, around 20% of married couples with highest income average 42 hours per week working, compared to 25 hours for couples with lowest income – those voters who are supporting the Democratic Socialist agenda and beating the drums about making the rich pay “their fair share.” [PETER ST ONGE]