Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing: Overview

“Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing,” that’s the subject of today’s ACTEC Trust and Estate Talk.

Counting Down, Counting Up, Flourishing is a four-part special:

• Part 1:  Overview (This podcast)
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4

Transcript/Show Notes

This is Susan Snyder, ACTEC Fellow from Chicago. As President of ACTEC during the 2025 Annual Meeting in March, it was my honor to select our speaker for the Joseph Trachtman Memorial Lecture. Steve Akers of Dallas, Texas was the Fellow who came to mind. Steve has served in many leadership roles in ACTEC, including as President of the College from 2020 to 2021. We will be sharing his full Trachtman Lecture over a three-part series.

Today, Steve joins us to discuss the inspiration behind his lecture and what he hopes listeners will take away from it. Welcome, Steve.

Steve Akers:  Thank you, Susan.

Susan Snyder: So, in the first part of your lecture, you really talk about the scientific background for this lecture. Could you give us a little more detail on that?

Steve Akers:  I got into this because flourishing, wellness, that’s something that we just all are interested in for ourselves. And I think that our clients have an interest in that as well. Some thought that when we get to that point that, yeah, this is just feel good stuff. It really doesn’t matter that much. So, I did some digging into that. And there’s some real science behind this.

There is now a field of positive psychology that was somewhat pioneered by Dr. Martin Seligman. I go through some of that background. We’ll go through some of the studies, some very interesting studies of an army study, a Harvard study, and some neurological studies, things going on in our brain that really impact this. And then I’ll be discussing some of the key concepts of positive psychology. Those are kind of a PERMA, P-E-R-M-A concept. We go through that.

The concept of flow, signature strengths, just some of the key concepts of positive psychology. I really want to get into the science background of this to get to the point that this is not just feel good stuff.

Susan Snyder:  That’s great. For the next part of your lecture, you discuss what’s important to flourishing for ourselves personally. And what do you talk about in that area?

Steve Akers:  With the science background, now we are really interested in, so how do we apply this? Well, why do we do this ourselves personally for this to work? We’re all interested in flourishing personally.

We certainly remember the presentation that Dr. Laurie Santos gave at a ACTEC Meeting. It was back during that Zoom year when we were doing meetings by Zoom. One of the most popular symposia that we’ve had, and certainly not just going off of that, but really digging into from the scientific background, specific things that we can be doing to flourish, and then going beyond that as well, just some various other areas. I end up with 13 different things that we can do to assist in flourishing for ourselves personally.

Susan Snyder:  Once we get a handle on ourselves flourishing, how can we assist our clients as well to get them to focus on that and to help them flourish as they think about their legacies?

Steve Akers:  Yeah, and so we kind of wonder, why all this stuff about flourishing personally? And I go through all that to say, if that’s important to us, it’ll be important to our clients as well. And so, we can discuss ways that we can assist our clients and our clients with their legacies for their children.

We’ll talk about some planning concepts of how we work these concepts into planning with clients, some trust structuring issues, and I actually make reference to some forms that can help with people that have clients that are really interested in these things. And we certainly have these clients. We may have saved them many millions of dollars of estate taxes. But the thing that really drives them is setting up the trust in a way that will really assist their children in flourishing and grandchildren in flourishing in their lives.

We’ll talk about, so what do we do with existing trusts that are already out there? How might they be changed or that we can use them in ways that can assist in the flourishing? And then I’ll talk about this new Delaware Trust Wellness Trust Statute. It is one state’s attempt that for someone interested in these concepts, that kind of off the shelf, you could plug into some provisions in the Delaware Statute. A client could certainly go beyond that as well, but that’s kind of a starting point of a client that are interested in these flourishing concepts and building them into their trust structures. So, helping our clients with their legacies and assisting their flourishing with their families.

Susan Snyder:  All of that is so important. So how do you help us think about the wellness of professional practices?

Steve Akers:  Then we’ll come back to our own professional practices and how do they flourish –– the wellness of our professional practices? And for this, I go through kind of a fun little story of a just very unique, but a very successful business that going through some of the major concepts that they draw out of that business and its business that they kind of look at it of “fans first”. And so, I look at it in the concept of what it would be for our professional practices if we were to really go all in on “clients first”. What would that mean for us? And with some, a few specific suggestions, but really my major part of goal of that part of the podcast is just to get the juices flowing of what it could mean to be really go all in on clients first.

Susan Snyder: Thank you, Steve. You really got my juices flowing, and I hope that applies to everyone else listening. And thanks for providing this overview today. We’re really looking forward to hearing your entire Trachtman lecture beginning next week.

 

You may also be interested in:

Previous Joseph Trachtman Memorial Lecture with Turney Berry:  The Virtues of Estate Planning & Estate Planners Part 1 of 3: Estate Planning—A Job or a Calling?

 

This podcast was produced by The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, ACTEC. Listeners, including professionals, should under no circumstances rely upon this information as a substitute for their own research or for obtaining specific legal or tax advice from their own counsel. The material in this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to and should not be treated as legal advice or tax advice. The views expressed are those of speakers as of the date noted and not necessarily those of ACTEC or any speaker’s employer or firm. The information, opinions, and recommendations presented in this Podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this Podcast is done at your own risk. The entire contents and design of this Podcast, are the property of ACTEC, or used by ACTEC with permission, and are protected under U.S. and international copyright and trademark laws. Except as otherwise provided herein, users of this Podcast may save and use information contained in the Podcast only for personal or other non-commercial, educational purposes. No other use, including, without limitation, reproduction, retransmission or editing, of this Podcast may be made without the prior written permission of The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. If you have ideas for a future ACTEC Trust & Estate Talk topic, please contact us at ACTECpodcast@ACTEC.org. © 2018 – 2025 The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel. All rights reserved.