Ed Shaffer - Eastport Financial Group

06/23/2026

If you're a business owner, partner or member of a family business, please take a few minutes to hit the link below. Don't let the word "exit" fool you. There's a ton of tangible value in this short article for all business owners, partners and family members. And don't miss the video!!

Most business owners spend years building something extraordinary — and very little time preparing for what happens when the unexpected strikes.

Distress. Disability. Death. Divorce. Disagreement.

These are the 5 Ds of Exit Planning — and any one of them has the potential to derail a business that took decades to build. At Eastport, we work with business owners to develop exit plans that aren’t just about retirement. They’re about continuity: ensuring your business, your team, and your family are protected no matter what life brings.

We’ve just published a new article in our Keel Magazine outlining what each of the 5 Ds means in practice — and the steps you can take now, while conditions are still calm and decisions can be made clearly. If you’re a business owner — this is worth a read.

https://eastportfinancialgroup.com/keel-magazine/business/the-5ds-of-exit-planning-for-business-owners

06/22/2026

I have never met a generous person who regretted it.

I have met plenty of people who regretted not being generous enough. Who waited for some future point when giving would finally make sense. A number they would hit. A season that would feel right.

That moment rarely arrives on its own.

The families I admire most did not start giving once they had extra. They gave while they were still building, because generosity was never really about surplus. It was about who they decided to be with what they already had.

Most financial plans treat giving like an afterthought, something to consider once the real planning is finished. I think that gets it backwards. Generosity deserves to be part of the plan from the beginning, not a leftover at the end.

If you have been waiting for the right time to give more intentionally, I would just gently ask: what are you actually waiting for?

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/19/2026

This week I've been writing about the Fourth Turning, a framework that helps explain the season we are in historically. Today I want to answer the question that always comes next.

So what do we actually do with this?

For families who have built significant wealth, a crisis era is not just something to survive. It is a test of whether the wealth has a real foundation underneath it. Not just legal documents and investment accounts, but a clear sense of why you have what you have and what you are responsible for because of it.

The families who come through seasons like this with their wealth and their unity intact are the ones who used the time well. Who got honest with themselves and with each other. Who had the hard conversations about money and values and what the family was building together.

The Great Depression did not destroy every family of wealth. It destroyed the ones with no framework for what the wealth was for. And it forged the ones who did the work.

We are in a similar season right now. The decisions made in the next few years, about values, about generosity, about legacy, will shape what families look like for the next 40 years.

That is the work my partners and I were called to do. And there has never been a more important time to start.

If that resonates with you, I would love to connect.

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/17/2026

Earlier this week I wrote about the feeling that something significant has shifted in our world. A number of you resonated with that.

I want to share a framework that has helped me make sense of it.

In 1997, two historians named William Strauss and Neil Howe published a book called The Fourth Turning. Their central idea is that history moves in cycles of roughly 80 to 100 years, each made up of four distinct eras. The fourth era is always a crisis period. A season of institutional disruption, cultural upheaval, and eventual reset.

It has happened before. The Revolutionary War. The Civil War. The Great Depression and World War II. Each was a Fourth Turning. Each was disorienting while it was happening. And each eventually gave way to a new era of building and renewal.

Most historians who apply this framework believe we entered a new Fourth Turning around 2008. The signs are consistent: collapse of institutional trust, polarization, economic disruption, and a deep search for meaning that conventional answers aren't satisfying.

This is not a reason for fear. It is a reason for intentionality.

The families who come out of crisis eras stronger are always the ones who used the season well. Who got clear on what they stood for, what their wealth was for, and what they were building for the people who would come after them.

On Friday I'll talk about what that looks like practically. Stay with me.

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/15/2026

Something has shifted. I think most people sense it even if they struggle to put words to it.

It's not just the news cycle or market swings. It's a deeper feeling that the world is in the middle of something significant. That the institutions we relied on are under unusual pressure. That the assumptions most families built their financial lives around deserve a second look.

I hear this from successful people regularly. Not panic. Just a quiet unease underneath the success. A sense that what worked for the last 30 years may not be the complete answer for the next 30.

The families who navigate seasons like this well are never the ones who pretended everything was normal. They're the ones who got honest with themselves early. About what their wealth is actually for. About what they're building that will outlast the uncertainty. About what they want their family to look like on the other side.

That's the conversation my partners and I are here to help you have.

What are you sensing right now? I'd genuinely love to hear in the comments.

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/12/2026

Something I've noticed about estate planning conversations.

Families spend a lot of time on the documents. Who gets what, when they get it, how it's structured. All of that matters.

But the conversation most families never have is the one about why. What the wealth is for. What values are meant to travel alongside the money. What kind of people the next generation is supposed to become because of what they've been given.

That conversation doesn't happen in a lawyer's office. It happens around a dinner table, or on a long drive, or in a quiet moment when someone finally asks the question that everyone has been thinking.

The families who get generational wealth right are the ones who had that conversation before it was urgent. Who treated the wealth as a responsibility before they treated it as a gift.

If that's a conversation your family hasn't had yet, it's not too late. But it is worth starting sooner than you think.

My partners and I would be honored to help you find your way into it.

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/10/2026

Here's a number worth sitting with: $84 trillion.

That's how much wealth is estimated to transfer between generations globally by 2045. A lot of it is moving right now, today, in families all around us.

And most of it will transfer without a real conversation about what it's for.

Not because families don't love each other. But because talking honestly about money, purpose, and responsibility is genuinely hard. Most people defer it. They update the legal documents and call it estate planning.

The families who get this right are the ones who do more than that. They sit down together and talk about what the wealth means. What they want it to accomplish. What they want their kids to understand about it before they ever inherit a dollar.

That conversation changes everything. And there has never been a better time to have it.

Is that a conversation your family has had? I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/08/2026

I want to share something personal today. The real story behind why my partners and I built Eastport Financial.

About 20 years ago, my wife and I were quietly going broke doing normal things. We were starting a family, paying our bills, living what felt like a reasonable life. But every month we were dipping into savings and couldn't figure out why.

A friend handed us Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover. We read it, built a real budget, and within 20 months paid off everything but our mortgage. That season changed how I think about money forever.

Then in 2008 I hit a wall professionally. I was a branch manager at an insurance company and I knew something needed to change. I picked up Dan Miller's 48 Days to the Work You Love and followed it step by step. Journaled. Assessed. Prayed hard.

The answer that kept coming back was financial services. I had spent a year in the industry in the mid-90s and walked away. But this time felt different because I had a different foundation.

That foundation is my faith in Jesus.

I'll say that plainly because I think it matters. My faith is the best thing about me. And when I saw how that faith could be aligned with financial stewardship, how a biblical worldview could completely reframe what money is and what it's for, something clicked that hasn't let go.

Jesus talked about money more than almost any other topic. Not because money is the point. Because how we handle it reveals what we actually believe.

My partners share that conviction. We built Eastport Financial together on that foundation. And I'm honored every day to do this work alongside them and for the families we serve.

Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA®

06/05/2026

We see a version of this story regularly.

A Canadian family relocates to the United States. They have a trusted advisor back home, a good one, someone who knows them well. But once they cross the border, that advisor can't serve their American accounts.

So they start over. They find a US advisor who understands investments but has no idea how Canadian retirement accounts work, what the tax treaty implications are, or how to think about assets on both sides of the border. Important decisions get made in the dark.

This is a real and underserved problem. And it's one of the core reasons Eastport Financial exists.

We were built with Canadian roots and US capability. We understand both systems; the tax structures, the retirement account differences, the insurance gaps, the estate planning complexities that arise when a family's life spans two countries.

We're also building relationships with Canadian advisors so that when their clients move south, there's a trusted partner ready to serve them, without disrupting the relationship that already exists.

If you're a Canadian advisor with clients navigating a US move, I'd love to connect.

And if you're a family living this right now, we understand your situation better than almost anyone.

— Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA® | Partner, Eastport Financial, LLC

06/03/2026

When I pursued the CKA designation, a colleague asked me why.

My answer surprised him.

I didn't pursue it for the credential. I pursued it because I had a growing conviction that I was only helping my clients with half of their financial life.

The technical half, the investments, the tax strategy, the estate plan. I was good at that. But the other half, the why behind the wealth, the values they were transmitting, the stewardship responsibility they carried, that half was going unaddressed. By me and by almost everyone else in the industry.

The CKA training reoriented how I think about every client relationship. It gave me a framework and a language for the conversations I knew needed to happen but didn't know how to start.

Now those conversations are the foundation of everything we do at Eastport.

The credential is just three letters. The conviction behind it is what actually matters.

— Ed Shaffer, CFP®, CKA® | Partner, Eastport Financial, LLC