Mountain Views News, Pasadena Edition [Sierra Madre] Saturday, July 14, 2018

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BUSINESS NEWS & TRENDS

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 14, 2018 

Jeff’s Book Pics By Jeff Brown

FAMILY MATTERS By Marc Garlett


Lincoln at Gettysburg: The 
Words that Remade America 
by Garry Wills 

In a masterly work, Garry Wills 
shows how Lincoln reached back 
to the Declaration of Independence 
to write the greatest speech in 
the nation’s history.The power of 
words has rarely been given a more 
compelling demonstration than in 
the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln was 
asked to memorialize the gruesome 
battle. Instead he gave the whole 
nation “a new birth of freedom” in the 
space of a mere 272 words. His entire 
life and previous training and his 
deep political experience went into 
this, his revolutionary masterpiece.
By examining both the address and 
Lincoln in their historical moment 
and cultural frame, Wills breathes 
new life into words we thought 
we knew, and reveals much about 
a president so mythologized but 
often misunderstood. Wills shows 
how Lincoln came to change the 
world and to effect an intellectual 
revolution, how his words had to 
and did complete the work of the 
guns, and how Lincoln wove a spell 
that has not yet been broken.

Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop 
Believing the Lies About Who 
You Are so You Can Become 
Who You Were Meant to Be by 
Rachel Hollis 

With wry wit and hard-earned 
wisdom, popular online personality 
and founder of TheChicSite.com 
founder Rachel Hollis helps readers 
break free from the lies keeping them 
from the joy-filled and exuberant 
life they are meant to have. Rachel 
Hollis has created an online fan base 
of hundreds of thousands of fans 
by sharing tips for living a better 
life while fearlessly revealing the 
messiness of her own. Now comes 
her highly anticipated first book 
featuring her signature combination 
of honesty, humor, and direct, no-
nonsense advice.Each chapter of 
Girl, Wash Your Face begins with a 
specific lie Hollis once believed that 
left her feeling overwhelmed, unworthy, or ready to 
give up. As a working mother, a former foster parent, 
and a woman who has dealt with insecurities about 
her body and relationships, she speaks with the 
insight and kindness of a BFF, helping 
women unpack the limiting mind-
sets that destroy their self-confidence 
and keep them from moving forward.
From her temporary obsession with 
marrying Matt Damon to a daydream 
involving hypnotic iguanas to her 
son’s request that she buy a necklace 
to “be like the other moms,” Hollis 
holds nothing back. With unflinching 
faith and tenacity, Hollis spurs other 
women to live with passion and hustle 
and to awaken their slumbering goals.

A Tribe Called Bliss: Break 
Through Superficial Friendships, 
Create Real Connections, 
Reach Your Highest Potential by 
Lori Harder 

Lori Harder is a self-love expert 
with over 6 million listeners on 
her Earn Your Happy podcast. In 
A Tribe Called Bliss she shares 
the exact structure she used to 
build her own tribe and grow from 
the anxiety-ridden, unhealthy, 
introverted underachiever she was 
to the confident woman who takes 
risks and leaps out of her comfort 
zone..The benefits of a having a tribe 
are undeniable. Women who have 
strong social circles are living longer, 
happier, healthier lives in comparison 
to those who lack connections and are 
mentally and physically exhausting 
themselves trying to quench external 
desires in isolation.Today, we live in 
an uber-connected era, where anyone 
is able to make thousands of friends 
and participate in their lives with 
the swipe of a finger. Why then, in 
such a connected time in history, do 
so many women feel disconnected, 
confined, misunderstood, defeated, 
or think that success is a solo project? 
The book bridges the gap between 
inspiration and action, providing a 
lasting resource for positive change 
and a guidebook for establishing a 
support tribe. This practical book 
is for the growing audience of 
woman seeking the sisterhood and 
connection they crave so much. It 
encourages readers to examine life 
on a micro level, and Lori provides 
lessons and contextual self-work exercises on how to 
develop the kind of awareness of the present moment 
that is the key to a lifetime of blissful happiness.The 
3 reviews are from Amazon.com


WHAT IS A CHARITABLE 
REMAINDER TRUST?


If you have highly appreciated assets like stock 
and real estate you want to sell, it may make 
sense to use a charitable remainder trust (CRT) 
to avoid income and estate taxes—all while 
creating a lifetime income stream for yourself 
or your family AND supporting your favorite 
charity. 

 A CRT is a “split-interest” trust, meaning it 
provides financial benefits to both the charity 
and a non-charitable beneficiary. With CRTs, 
the non-charitable beneficiary—you, your child, 
spouse, or another heir—receives annual income 
from the trust, and whatever assets “remain” at 
the end of the donor’s lifetime (or a fixed period 
up to 20 years), pass to the named charity(ties).

How a CRT works

 You work with us to set up a CRT by 
naming a trustee, an income beneficiary, 
and a charitable beneficiary. The trustee will 
manage the trust’s assets to produce income 
that’s paid to you or another beneficiary. 
The trustee can be yourself, a charity, another 
person, or a third-party entity. However, 
the trustee is not only responsible for seeing 
that your wishes are carried out properly, 
but also for staying compliant with complex 
state and federal laws, so be sure the trustee 
is well familiar with trust administration. 
With the CRT set up, you transfer your 
appreciated assets into the trust, and the 
trustee sells it. Normally, this would generate 
capital gains taxes, but instead, you get a 
charitable deduction for the donation and 
face no capital gains when the assets are sold. 
Once the appreciated assets are sold, the 
proceeds (which haven’t been taxed) are invested 
to produce income. As long as it remains in the 
trust, the income isn’t subject to taxes, so you’re 
earning even more on pre-tax dollars. 

Income options

 You have two options for how the trust 
income is paid out. You can receive an annual 
fixed payment using a “charitable remainder 
annuity trust (CRAT).” With this option, your 
income will not change, regardless of the trust’s 
investment performance.

 Or you can be paid a fixed percentage of 
the trust’s assets using a “charitable remainder 
unitrust (CRUT),” whereby the payouts fluctuate 
depending on the trust’s investment performance 
and value.

 

Tax benefits

Right off the bat, as mentioned above, you 
can take an income tax deduction within the 
year the trust was created for the value of your 
donation—limited to 30% of adjusted gross 
income. You can carry over any excess into 
subsequent tax returns for up to five years. 
And again, profits from appreciated assets sold 
by the trustee aren’t subject to capital gains taxes 
while they’re in the trust. Plus, when the trust 
assets finally pass to the charity, that donation 
won’t be subject to estate taxes. 

 You will pay income tax on income from the 
CRT at the time it’s distributed. Whether that tax 
is capital gains or ordinary income depends on 
where the income came from—distributions of 
principal are tax free.

 If you have highly appreciated assets you’d like 
to sell while minimizing tax impact, maximizing 
income, and benefiting charity, give us a call, so 
we can find the best planning options for you.

 Dedicated to empowering your family, 
building your wealth and defining your legacy,

A local attorney and father, Marc Garlett is on a 
mission to help parents protect what they love most. 
His office is located at 55 Auburn Avenue, Sierra 
Madre, CA 91024. Schedule an appointment to 
sit down and talk about ensuring a legacy of love 
and financial security for your family by calling 
626.587.3058 or visit www.GarlettLaw.com for 
more information.


All Things By Jeff Brown

‘CHASING CORAL’:A MUST SEE NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY 
VIVIDLY CHRONICLES THE GROWING THREAT TO 
OCEANS AND THE WHOLE PLANET

Coral reefs around the world are vanishing 
at an unprecedented rate. A team of divers, 
photographers and scientists set out on a thrilling 
ocean adventure to discover why and to reveal the 
underwater mystery to the world.The film took 
more than three years to shoot and is the result of 
500+ hours of underwater footage, coral bleaching 
submissions from volunteers in 30 countries, as 
well as support from more than 500 people in 
various locations around the world.This elusive 
story may be out of sight and out of mind, but the 
solutions exist all around us. We have launched an 
impact campaign to ensure the loss of our reefs 
does not go unnoticed and to support communities 
in using the film to grow these local solutions. This 
is must see by all of us!

HEALTHY LIFESTYLES


THE MISSING PAGE

Real Life Tips from LIfe's Instruction Manual

YOGIC WISDOM - 

EXPANSION/CONTRACTION


Lori A. Harris

I’ve always seen yoga 
as a way to stretch 
body and mind. 

 Through a dynamic 
mix of breathing and 
postures, yoga improves 
circulation just as much 
as it improves mental 
perception. And further, yoga in its totality offers a 
philosophy for living that embodies powerful spiritual 
principles. One of the laws of nature within this 
philosophy that holds true is the principle of expansion 
and contraction.The world and consciousness-- in 
essence (and reality)- is ever expanding. Aside from 
the universe, our knowledge expands, population 
expands and awareness expands. We must grow, 
create and explore more. When we live according to 
our own expanding nature, the world is our oyster. We 
are open to possibility and opportunity. We are open 
to new experiences and wisdom from unexpected 
sources. This paves the way for increasing love and 
compassion and embodiment of an open heart. In this 
approach, what we are open to often comes to us with 
ease. Consider the level of acceptance and connection 
with others living from this point of view.Now, 
consider the flip side, existing in a state of contraction. 
It’s understandable that some self-protection may be 
warranted, but this state, taken in a prolonged way, 
keeps the world small and contained. It can often bring 
feelings of isolation and separation. Emotions of the 
small-self dominate and self-seeking runs riot. There’s 
little room for new awareness, higher consciousness 
or joy.How would you proceed into a loving nature of 
expansion? Would it be possible to begin to expand 
your body first? Expand your breath first? Breath 
is life and the body is a temple. So, absolutely yes! 
Get ‘unsmall’ with yoga. Find joy and possibility in 
meditation. The choice is yours and the change can 
begin anytime you’re ready.Begin your journey by 
inquiring about starting a yoga practice or giving 
your current practice some new juice. Do join me for 
my ‘Nourish Yourself From the Inside Out’ half-day 
Yoga Retreat. It’s Saturday, July 21, 10:00 am - 2:30 pm, 
held at the Monrovia Canyon Park cabin. Email me to 
sign up: keely@keelytotten.com and see details on my 
website: www.keelytotten.com.

Namaste, 

Keely Totten

Yoga & Meditation Teacher, A Practical, 

Expanding Being

NO NEWS IS NEWS

In my twenties, I was an activist. I marched, I 
blocked, I shut down. Somehow, fortunately, I 
was never arrested. Looking at the news now, 
many of my friends and colleagues are suffering. 
While I don’t always agree with or like what I see, 
I remember that the journey is long and the road 
has many twists and turns. I once expressed my 
frustration that it was taking so long to dismantle 
apartheid. My friend Minna Agins, born in 1908 
and died in 1989, reminded me that there is no 
deadline if we want to work for justice and freedom 
our unwavering commitment was required. Some 
of my readers are experiencing significant pain and 
concern over events reported in the news lately. 
There have been difficult times in the past, and we 
have survived. The lesson of history doesn’t always 
have to be a fearful one.

 Do you want to do the work? Your work doesn’t 
require you be on social media spreading and 
spewing negativity. What is your work? How 
are you making things better? Are going to write 
a check to an organization you believe in and 
support? Are you going to volunteer your time 
to a cause? Perhaps your work is on social media 
creating and sharing thoughtful analysis and 
proposals. Maybe you can organize action steps to 
engage your community in an issue that concerns 
you. My friend and her children have written letters 
of support, raised money with lemonade stands, in 
addition to marching and protesting. It helps them 
feel that they are contributing. Worrying doesn’t 
mean you care. 

 Does watching the news upset you? Stop 
watching it. You can help yourself and community 
by maintaining a healthy, controlled mental state. 
Limit the number of minutes you invest each day 
in consuming news. If 
you are honest and aware, 
you’ll notice that radio 
and television news isn’t 
new. There are only a few 
minutes of new information 
broadcast, and the remainder 
is people talking about that 
tiny kernel of fact. “Here’s 
John to tell about what Shelly 
just said a minute ago...” I want to suggest to that 
you don’t need that. You are fully capable of hearing 
and analyzing the day’s events. 

I invite you to experiment. Choose an increment 
of time and limit your news consumption to 
that amount and observe your emotions. Ask 
yourself some questions, “Did miss out on learning 
something important?” and “How do I feel, now that 
I am listening and watching the news less?” Finally, 
invest that newfound time in something that brings 
you joy. Do something to help someone else. Let me 
know what happens.

 Lori A. Harris is a lawyer and gratitude coach. 
She loves helping people live enriched fulfilling 
lives. Wouldn’t you like to do that? Learn more at 
Gratitudetrain.com.

-- 

Lori A. Harris

Creator of the Gratitude Train App, available in the 
App Store and Google Play

GratitudeTrain.com

Gratitude, get on board!!!


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