Your Life Is Your Most Important Asset.
You’ve spent years building businesses, wealth, and opportunities for your family.
We help successful families, business owners, and professionals simplify complexity by bringing tax, legal, investment, and insurance planning together into one coordinated system.
Less fragmentation. More confidence.
The Cost of the Silo.
You built your business, your wealth, and your life by focusing on what you do best.
As complexity grows, so do the moving parts: Tax. Legal. Investment. Insurance.
Managing them separately creates friction, consumes time, and pulls you into details you were never meant to manage.
Meanwhile, cracks emerge. Opportunities are missed.
The cost isn’t just risk. It’s distance from the life you’re trying to build.
We Understand Your Time Is Valuable.
You have important demands on your time: your family, your business, your experiences and the things that make life meaningful.
There is never a convenient time to think about tax planning, corporate structures, shareholder agreements, family governance, wills, life insurance strategies, estate planning, etc.
We help make these complex decisions clearer and easier to move forward with.
So you can get back to what you would rather be doing.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.
A 60-Year Family Legacy of Protecting What Matters Most.
For over 60 years, we have helped families, business owners, and professionals navigate complexity with one goal:
Make their lives easier.
Through curiosity, creativity, and deep expertise, we help clients simplify decisions, protect what matters, and move forward with confidence.
Core Value:
How can we help?
Core Objectives:
- Make clients’ lives easier
- Be the best at what we do
- Integrity in all things
- Maximize client confidence
The Blueprint Process
Design a Plan
Build the Blueprint
Most planning is done in silos, with the client left coordinating communication and concepts across advisors.
Tax, legal, investment, and insurance strategies are often built independently, even though they constantly influence one another.
When nobody sees the whole picture, things get missed.
- Cracks
- Opportunities
- Confidence
The Blueprint creates visibility across the system so clients and professionals understand how every piece works together.
Step 1
Discovery
Many planning processes begin with forms, questionnaires, and data collection. They should begin with understanding what matters most to you. Your goals. Your priorities. Your definition of success. Our Discovery process is designed around a simple principle:
How can we help?
We focus on understanding where you are today, where you want to go, and what information is actually relevant to getting there. No unnecessary homework. No lengthy reports that never get read. Just a clear understanding of your goals and the foundation for better decisions.
Because before evaluating strategies, everyone should understand:
- Where you are?
- Where you want to go?
From there, every recommendation is measured against your goals.
Step 2
Data Validation
Not an exhaustive financial planning exercise. Only the information relevant to your goals and planning priorities.
We gather and verify the data needed to ensure the Blueprint and financial model accurately reflect your current situation.Where appropriate, we work directly with members of your advisory team to collect supporting information, reducing unnecessary homework and making the process easier for you.
Because the quality of the output depends on the quality of the inputs.
The result is a reliable foundation for better analysis, better decisions, and better planning outcomes.
- Accurate information.
- Clear understanding.
- Better decisions.
Step 3
The Blueprint
The Blueprint brings clarity to complexity by helping clients and professionals see how every piece works together and how decisions in one area can impact another.
Included within the Blueprint is the Crash Test, a live financial model used to stress test strategies and evaluate opportunities across tax, legal, investment, and insurance planning.
Looking for:
Cracks
Risks, inefficiencies, and vulnerabilities.
OpportunitiesStrategies that accelerate goals and improve outcomes.
The result is a clearer understanding of the system, the trade-offs behind important decisions, and greater confidence moving forward.
- Build the picture.
- Test the system.
- Make better decisions.
Step 4
Implementation
Strategies, recommendations, and opportunities create little value if they never move beyond discussion.
We coordinate professionals and drive implementation so opportunities move forward and nothing gets missed.
Using project management software, clients and their advisory teams can track progress, understand responsibilities, and see how each step connects to the next.
This creates visibility, accountability, and removes the mental burden of trying to coordinate everything yourself.
- Clear priorities.
- Visible progress.
- Better execution.
What Would Happen to You and Your Family in the Event of a Crisis?
Have you tested your financial backup system and your support team to determine your readiness in the event of a crisis?
Our Work Goes Beyond Insurance
We help clients bring structure to complexity: integrating tax, estate, and corporate strategies, planning for succession, and managing risk with intention.
The goal is simple: create clarity, protect what matters, and move your financial life forward.
Meet The Principals
Joe Sheehan, CLU, ChFC
Founder & Chairman
Joe Sheehan founded Life Design Systems on a simple philosophy: help people define what an extraordinary life looks like for them, then build the systems and professional team that give them the greatest chance of achieving it.
Joe Sheehan, CLU, ChFC
Founder & Chairman
Joe Sheehan founded Life Design Systems on a simple philosophy: help people define what an extraordinary life looks like for them, then build the systems and professional team that give them the greatest chance of achieving it.
After entering the insurance profession in 1966, Joe experienced the loss of his sister, brother, and both parents within a relatively short period of time. Those experiences profoundly shaped his perspective, reinforcing that life is about far more than money. It’s about relationships, purpose, health, personal growth, and making the most of the time we’re given.
At a time when much of the financial services industry focused on products and sales, Joe chose a different path. He believed that if he focused on helping good people solve their most important problems, success would follow. Rather than beginning with insurance, he began with people. He spent his time helping clients gain clarity about where they wanted to go in life, what was truly important to them, what might be holding them back, and how they could become the best version of themselves.
Joe believed that once someone was clear on the life they wanted to build, every other decision became easier. His role was to help clients design the systems, habits, relationships, and financial foundation that would support that vision.
That philosophy became the foundation of Life Design Systems. It demonstrated that an extraordinary career could be built by putting people’s lives ahead of products and supporting them in achieving what mattered most.
Joe is a Founding Member of CALU and has served on numerous boards supporting professional excellence and charitable organizations. Outside of work, he enjoys personal development, golf, travel, fitness, film, and spending time with his wife, Mary Frances, their children, and grandchildren.
Jake Sheehan, CLU, TEP, FEA
Managing Director
Jake Sheehan is Managing Partner of Life Design Systems, where he helps affluent families, business owners, and professionals navigate increasingly complex financial decisions.
Jake Sheehan, CLU, TEP, FEA
Managing Director
Complexity is inevitable. Confusion doesn’t have to be.
Jake Sheehan is Managing Partner of Life Design Systems, where he helps affluent families, business owners, and professionals navigate increasingly complex financial decisions.
Known for transforming complexity into clarity, Jake developed The Blueprint and The Crash Test—visual planning tools that integrate tax, legal, investment, and insurance strategies into one coordinated system. By helping clients and their advisors see the complete picture, they can identify risks, uncover opportunities, and make more informed decisions with confidence.
Jake believes great planning is about more than protecting wealth. It is about using every appropriate strategy available to help clients achieve their goals more efficiently, minimize unnecessary tax, and maximize the opportunities their success has created. His role is to challenge assumptions, explore possibilities, and ensure no opportunity is left unexplored.
His philosophy is simple: How can we help?
Whether coordinating professionals, simplifying complex decisions, or identifying advanced planning strategies, his goal is always the same: to make clients’ lives easier so they can spend more time focused on their businesses, their families, and the lives they are building.
Jake holds the Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU), Trust and Estate Practitioner (TEP), and Family Enterprise Advisor (FEA) designations. He serves on the Board of Directors for CALU and contributes to the STEP Membership Committee. Outside the office, Jake enjoys mountain biking, skiing, hunting, golf, and spending time outdoors with his wife and four children.
A Private Conversation
Private. Considered. Personal.
Share your details to begin a confidential conversation with our team and we will respond with the discretion and attention it deserves.