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Why We Owe Our Parents More Than Just a Signed Will with Jared Jerotz · Let's Get Naked

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, I'm Anne.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Let's Get Naked podcast, where we dive deep into vulnerability.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: In this space, we'll explore what triggers us, uncover the patterns holding us back, and discover how to take charge of our own growth.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to dig in, be vulnerable, and face the tough stuff, then buckle up.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: It's time to get naked.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Ten out of 10 people die.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Death has a perfect batting average.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: Death is the undefeated champion.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: And somehow, we act shocked every single time.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: We will spend hours arguing politics online, weeks researching the perfect vacation, months picking countertops.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: But ask people if their parents have a trust, medical wishes, passwords, funeral preferences, or where the damn paperwork is, and you get crickets.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Death is one of humanity's greatest fears, and yet we spend almost no time preparing for it.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: That feels insane to me.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Because if death is guaranteed, shouldn't curiosity be mandatory?
1:04
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not even talking about preparing financially.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean emotionally, spiritually, relationally.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Have you asked your parents who they really were?
1:15
SPEAKER_00: Their biggest regret, what they never healed, who broke their heart, what they're afraid of, what legacy they actually want to leave.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: Because hospice workers keep hearing the same regrets over and over.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I wish I lived true to myself.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: I wish I spent more time with people I loved.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: I wish I had allowed myself to be happier.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: Nobody is laying there saying, I wish I answered more emails.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: And from my Skittles framework, this matters.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Because fear of death may be stealing more skills than death itself.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: How much life are we wasting being afraid of the one thing every single one of us signed up for?
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Today's guest built an entire movement around asking the questions families avoid until it's too late.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Because death isn't the problem.
2:07
SPEAKER_00: Silence might be.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm stripping it all off with Jared Jeroates.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: Jared is a husband, father, caregiver, and the man asking the questions most families are too afraid to.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: He is the founder of Pardon the Question and is on a mission to get families talking, really talking before it's too late.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the show, Jared.
2:31
SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm so glad to have you join.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: I was saying earlier before the show started, um, death is one of my favorite conversations.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: It's one of my favorite topics.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: And I think maybe because it does make people so uncomfortable.
2:44
SPEAKER_00: And I love that.
2:45
SPEAKER_03: No, absolutely.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: I love to live in the awkward.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: I love to live in the weird pauses.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: I love to live in the things that just make people squirm because it makes me feel like there's just room for improvement.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: So much room for improvement.
2:59
SPEAKER_03: For sure.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: Tell me what uh tell me why it sparks your interest so much and why it's something that you felt passionate enough about to put your energy and your resources behind.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously, we don't do that unless there's, you know, real passion that's there.
3:13
SPEAKER_04: Right.
3:13
SPEAKER_04: So a couple of years ago, I was working for a company that provided medical equipment to hospice agencies.
3:21
SPEAKER_04: And with that, it's you're in touch with a ton of different families and you're seeing the chaos that's taking place when someone is now eligible for hospice and they're going home and trying to get all of the right equipment there in time, to the point where you had families where their loved one gets home and within an hour they pass.
3:42
SPEAKER_04: So it's just it's it's chaos, it's crazy, and it's everything.
3:47
SPEAKER_04: So I created a newsletter that really talked about hospice, and it kind of moved into having a lunch with my 80-year-old mom who handed me a file folder with her trust and her will and go, here, it's all taken care of.
4:02
SPEAKER_04: And as we started talking, nothing's taken care of, right?
4:07
SPEAKER_04: What like her wishes, her dreams, how her legacy, what she wants to do with all of her stuff.
4:13
SPEAKER_04: And it just turned into this movement of nobody asks the questions.
4:19
SPEAKER_04: Very few people ask the questions up front to get these answers.
4:23
SPEAKER_04: And sometimes it's super uncomfortable to ask these questions.
4:26
SPEAKER_04: And it's literally just trying to find a way, if it's it's uncomfortable.
4:31
SPEAKER_04: Here's a tool to provide your loved ones.
4:34
SPEAKER_04: You could leave it on their doorstep in a deck of cards with 70 different questions to be asked, and they can pursue as at their leisure, versus reading about it in a book or reading about it in a newsletter, and then also providing all those resources.
4:52
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
4:52
SPEAKER_04: So when those questions do get answered, it's like, you know, I really, what is a power of attorney or what is a medical directive and providing those resources for those people.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: I think people should just rip the band-aid off and have meetings as families and say, like, let's have a let's have an end-of-life uh planning meeting.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And we can all talk about it because I don't think it's any specific age, right?
5:11
SPEAKER_00: It's like it's great if we're talking with our 80-year-olds about it.
5:14
SPEAKER_00: And I apologize for chuckling when you were talking because when you say here's a folder, I think about the exact same thing that's happening in our lives from different people.
5:21
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, we took care of everything.
5:22
SPEAKER_00: And you start looking at it, and it's like, mmm, this doesn't look like everything's taken care of because it doesn't even say what you want done with your remains.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: And and and I don't know what that means.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Like now you're gonna die, and I have to deal with my siblings in a way of figuring out uh, did she did mom say that she wanted to be cremated or buried?
5:40
SPEAKER_00: And one of us will go, oh, well, she said that she wanted to be cremated six months ago, and somebody else will say, Oh, well, she said she wanted to be buried four years ago.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: And like, blah, blah, blah, blah.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: That's a bullshit to bring to somebody else's doorstep because you didn't outline those things, or we were too uncomfortable to have the conversation.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: It's like, I just cannot get my head around the lack of emotional intelligence that we have with people on this planet that can't get their heads around that 10 out of 10 of us die.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: It's literally the only thing that's guaranteed, right?
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I used to say death and taxes are the only thing that's guaranteed.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: Taxes, a lot of people can get out of, you know, do different things.
6:14
SPEAKER_00: So literally, death is the only thing.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: It's the only thing.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's bat in a thousand, right?
6:18
SPEAKER_00: It wins every fucking time.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's no opportunities to outrun it, escape it, any of the things.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And you never know what number you're gonna get, right?
6:26
SPEAKER_00: I if you walk around and you see just a clock above people's heads, you don't know when their time's up, right?
6:32
SPEAKER_00: Could be 12, could be 38, could be 80.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: Like you literally don't know.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: And yet we still don't talk about that.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: And especially if you have kiddos or businesses or things where there's other things involved, it's like, there's no way.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, we had an accounting gal who worked for my husband and I years and years ago.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: And when we started having our, you know, we were in our early 30s and we had, you know, our first business that was really starting to take off and really have some employees and substance and all of the things.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And she said, I will not allow you guys to go travel together on the same plane until you have a trust and a will and other things in place because it's not fair to do to everybody else that's here.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: It's not fair to do to your kids, it's not fair, and and we did, and so we've always had that.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: Now, again, is there room for improvement?
7:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that there is because I don't want to be that asshole that's like, here's my file, everything's taken care of.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: Um, because it is important to say, what do you what is the things that you want to leave?
7:22
SPEAKER_00: The stories, the legacy.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not just about here's my will and my trust.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: It's those other things that it's like, what do you want to have passed down?
7:29
SPEAKER_00: I think it's so important to have those conversations.
7:31
SPEAKER_04: It is.
7:32
SPEAKER_04: It absolutely is.
7:33
SPEAKER_04: And like with with my mom, and that folder was here's a cemetery plot that I bought, but I don't want to be buried there.
7:41
SPEAKER_04: So, okay, we can sell the plot, right?
7:43
SPEAKER_04: Right, and at least recoup some of the money, if not a little bit more.
7:47
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
7:47
SPEAKER_04: But then what do you want to do?
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Right.
7:49
SPEAKER_04: Or where you want to go.
7:50
SPEAKER_04: Yeah um my mom's partner, he passed away back in uh 2020, or uh oh, yeah, well, COVID year.
7:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
7:59
SPEAKER_04: So he was sick with cancer and stuff like this, but um his assets, all of his financial stuff, which his son had access to, on there was one form that had not been signed.
8:15
SPEAKER_04: And he ended up passing the day before they had a notary come to the house to get his signature on this, so his son would actually have access to it instead of waiting for death certificates and all this stuff.
8:27
SPEAKER_04: So the man died 12 hours after signing this form, right, on the couch in her living room.
8:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
8:34
SPEAKER_04: And but if they didn't recognize or find out at the last possible second reading writing this form, it it would all hell would have been broken loose.
8:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
8:42
SPEAKER_04: Like who's paying for all this stuff and where is it coming from?
8:45
SPEAKER_04: Because we don't have the money to bury him, and where is he going?
8:48
SPEAKER_04: And this and that.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's not fair to have other people have to take care of your mess.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, I look at that from that standpoint and I think what a shame that would be if I left my kiddos with this giant mess or a bill that they have to pay or whatever it looks like.
9:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's mine to deal with.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: I want to be able to handle it in such a way where I'm not penalizing the person who has to come behind me and clean this up.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: And if you've lived in this life where you've talked to anybody that's had to clean up somebody else's death mess, you know, not and there's not a single one who's like, oh yeah, it was all in order and everything was great.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, tell me where that person lives because everyone I've ever talked to is like, oh my God, it was terrible.
9:21
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have this stuff in order.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't titled the right way.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: We had to deal with this.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: They didn't sign this the way.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: So it's like having some of the tools that you're putting out is excellent because it is talking about, I'm guessing, the the questions and the things that we should talk about.
9:33
SPEAKER_04: It that's a good that's exactly what it is.
9:35
SPEAKER_04: It's just starting, it's taking the proactive approach of stepping back and breaking this into categories.
9:42
SPEAKER_04: And it can be done over the course of time, but financially, here are 10 questions that you need to ask.
9:47
SPEAKER_04: And those 10 questions will lead down 82 other rabbit holes.
9:51
SPEAKER_04: And then let's talk about medical, because that's gonna happen as well.
9:54
SPEAKER_04: You don't know when you're getting hit by a bus.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:56
SPEAKER_04: Right?
9:56
SPEAKER_04: Or you're gonna get up from a restaurant and have a stroke.
9:59
SPEAKER_04: It happens all the time.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: All the time.
10:01
SPEAKER_04: Right.
10:01
SPEAKER_04: Spiritually.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:03
SPEAKER_04: Like, I'm not necessarily I'm spiritual, but not necessarily the most religious person.
10:07
SPEAKER_04: But my mother-in-law, who is very active in her church, like what does she want?
10:13
SPEAKER_04: What what like what are we doing?
10:15
SPEAKER_04: Who's your priest?
10:16
SPEAKER_04: Who do you want to be at your service?
10:18
SPEAKER_03: Right.
10:18
SPEAKER_04: When you are on your deathbed, what spiritual advisor would you like us to bring in?
10:23
SPEAKER_04: I don't know who that person is.
10:24
SPEAKER_04: And go across the street and knock on the door and ask, but I don't know if that's gonna happen.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, this is where my eight-year-old brain goes when you're saying that.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Here's how we fix it.
10:33
SPEAKER_00: If people don't leave directives for what they want, let's not guess what they would want, let's just do what we would want.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
10:39
SPEAKER_00: Like it's like we're just gonna have a party or we're just gonna spend your money doing, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, or we're gonna do something completely outrageous and let other people see that so that they can go, you know what, that's the alternative, is if I don't spell it out, people are gonna be ding-dongs and do all sorts of weird stuff with, you know, with my final wishes.
10:55
SPEAKER_00: So maybe do go ahead and have that conversation.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, we're pretty weird in my family.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: And so I say to my parents, hey, I see that the documents are not maybe into the standards that I would appreciate them because I'm I'm the executor of the will and I'm the one who's gonna have to deal with all of this.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have the bandwidth in my life to just shut everything down for three months while we figure out paperwork and shit that wasn't signed right or things that weren't in names, or go look for you know, bank accounts and stuff.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna sit down and we're gonna have an end-of-life planning session where we don't just only talk about their stuff, we can talk about my stuff, we can talk about other people's stuff, and we're gonna video record it so that we have it and it's date stamped, and you can say, Mom wants to be, mom wants to have white roses at her funeral, and dad wants to be have his ashes scattered in Costa Rica or whatever those things look like, but then you're actually honoring their wishes.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Instead of now I'm grieving, now I'm arguing with siblings who are also grieving, which we are a bunch of elementary children as it comes to emotional intelligence.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: For sure.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And then you start throwing some money in there, and then you're like, what is the recipe for disaster?
11:57
SPEAKER_00: That that's the recipe for disaster.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: Like you you've watched it happen.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: There's everyone knows someone that has watched that just melt families down.
12:05
SPEAKER_04: It it happens, it happens all the time.
12:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah um, but briefly mentioned so I I'm caregiving for an uncle right now.
12:13
SPEAKER_04: Um, not even a blood uncle, like just part of the family, and it the nightmare that it's been over the last two months of not only caregiving, but finding a notary that will come to a hospital.
12:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's close to impossible.
12:26
SPEAKER_04: Yeah um just because they don't want to have anything to do with it.
12:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
12:30
SPEAKER_04: Because is he really you know coherent and and right of mind and they have to sign their names to it?
12:37
SPEAKER_04: Not an easy task.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
12:39
SPEAKER_04: Power of attorneys that now have to go to, you know, to get access to financial accounts and things like that.
12:47
SPEAKER_04: So another notary with a power of attorney going to the bank, setting up a meeting with the bank.
12:54
SPEAKER_04: Bank says that's not done right.
12:55
SPEAKER_04: Now you gotta go do it again.
12:57
SPEAKER_04: All these little weird things, too, like you mentioned, you know, exes, estrange people, people that come out of the woodwork that you didn't even know existed.
13:07
SPEAKER_00: Money makes people gross.
13:09
SPEAKER_04: It it happened, you know.
13:10
SPEAKER_04: My father passed away back in 2000.
13:15
SPEAKER_04: Um, and I didn't have a very good relationship with him.
13:18
SPEAKER_04: He had he was on his fifth or sixth wife at the time, ended up flying back to Chicago, he hadn't talked to the man in years, had to fly back to Chicago while he's in the hospital bed and make the call to take him off life support.
13:33
SPEAKER_04: Ends up all he he ended up moving back into the house he grew up with, or grew up in, um, with his mom, who immigrants from Russia.
13:43
SPEAKER_04: But all the stuff that my grandparents had left phone books, pictures, all that stuff, when it was time to go back to Chicago, bury him again, and then hope that maybe we'd be able to get some of these family heirlooms that I did not know.
13:59
SPEAKER_04: I've got family in Belarus that those are all the names and phone numbers and all the information.
14:05
SPEAKER_04: Went back to Chicago, she had sold the house and was all thrown in a dumpster.
14:10
unknown: Right.
14:10
SPEAKER_04: Every piece of it.
14:11
SPEAKER_04: Like, really?
14:12
SPEAKER_04: Really?
14:13
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, like you could call me, but I mean that's so it's lost.
14:16
SPEAKER_04: Like uh half of my family and my lineage is gone.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Right, history stories, yeah, exactly.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Because someone didn't understand, no one, no one designated this as one who I want to have this, or have somebody come take a look at what's in here.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: None of them.
14:29
SPEAKER_04: She didn't care, and it was just super disappointing that that happened.
14:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and that's kind of you know, so maybe it's this is my own counseling counseling section, this part in the question of figuring out how unprepared I really am, and my wife, like us as a family are, and then realizing okay, someone just needs the tools, someone just needs to list the questions, yeah, where to start, and then you can go take it to run.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I I I really think it's so lovely because I watch as we are throwing up data.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: We know no one has it figured out, and yet no one wants to have the conversations, right?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's like to me, we see that there's a hole there.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: We see that this happens to literally so many people because I've never had someone be like, that was a success story.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Right.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Zero times, exactly zero times that has happened for me.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: So there's this huge hole there to be able to do this, and yet so many people, again, still so scared to talk about it.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: I love the idea of death.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited about it.
15:23
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't bother me when that happens.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: It's like, yes, that was that was part of the assignment.
15:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, mission accomplished.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's leave with our dignity.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's not leave this huge mess where somebody's here cleaning up the cleaning up everything because you didn't handle your own stuff.
15:38
SPEAKER_04: Precisely.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the questions that are in your your pardon the question that you find to be uh most important, or maybe, you know, some of them that are things that people wouldn't necessarily think about?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: What are some of the unique ones that stand out for you?
15:53
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so some of the unique ones is so from a financial perspective, it started kind of with like, you know, how are your finances set up and are you secured?
16:03
SPEAKER_04: It it's kind of moved to what about long-term care?
16:07
SPEAKER_04: Like, what have you thought about the cost involved in case you have to move out of your home and you need additional care?
16:14
SPEAKER_04: It's a r like Medicare doesn't cover it all.
16:17
SPEAKER_04: I'm telling you that right now.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: Right, no doubt.
16:19
SPEAKER_04: Um, and unless you have a long-term care policy of some kind or another, insurance is bullshit.
16:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and it's coming out of your pocket.
16:26
SPEAKER_04: And just to give you a rough idea, about$350 a day for a 12-hour shift.
16:31
SPEAKER_04: So time that's a$10,000 and you're only getting half a day for care.
16:35
SPEAKER_03: Right.
16:36
SPEAKER_04: That's a month.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: Right.
16:37
SPEAKER_04: Um, so that's one, right?
16:39
SPEAKER_04: Like, have you thought about the financial aspect of it if something was to happen?
16:44
SPEAKER_04: Another one from the medical stuff, it's really just checking the boxes to make sure you've got all this that people have thought about it.
16:52
SPEAKER_04: You know, do you uh do not resuscitate or medication?
16:58
SPEAKER_04: Or if you were to be diagnosed with, say, Alzheimer's or dementia, like what does that care look like for you?
17:05
SPEAKER_04: Do you want to go to an assisted living home, a nursing home?
17:08
SPEAKER_04: Is it in-house?
17:09
SPEAKER_04: Who's taking care of this for you or with you?
17:12
SPEAKER_04: To this the spiritual part, like what do you believe in?
17:17
SPEAKER_04: And how can we help you make that happen at the end of life for you?
17:23
SPEAKER_04: To cremation and you is it cremation, is it burying you somewhere?
17:29
SPEAKER_04: Is it taking you on a boat and jumping you in the ocean?
17:32
SPEAKER_04: What are we doing?
17:33
SPEAKER_04: Um, some of the unique ones and the harder ones are hey, are there any relationships that you would like to repair in your life before something was to happen?
17:44
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and those are the difficult ones.
17:46
SPEAKER_04: You know, is there an estranged sister or sibling of some kind or another that you can't even remember what caused the, you know, whatever was to happen.
17:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, the rip.
18:00
SPEAKER_04: You you have no idea, you can't remember, it was stupid, probably to start off with.
18:04
SPEAKER_04: Would you like to mend that fence?
18:06
SPEAKER_04: Do you want that person to know what's going on with you?
18:10
SPEAKER_04: Um, or just family heirlooms.
18:14
SPEAKER_04: You've collected all kinds of bullshit over your course of your life.
18:17
SPEAKER_04: Where do you want that to go?
18:18
SPEAKER_04: Because I'm telling you the vultures will come and start demanding that I'm entitled to that, or I was told I was I get that.
18:27
SPEAKER_04: What do you want to do with it all?
18:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:29
SPEAKER_04: Because I mean, there's a whole trend on TikTok of people taking pictures of what their inheritance is like of all the old crystal and all the old dolls and all the old collectibles that no one wants.
18:42
SPEAKER_04: Right.
18:42
SPEAKER_04: It's going in a trash can or it's going to goodwill.
18:45
SPEAKER_04: What do you want to do with it?
18:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:47
SPEAKER_04: Family history.
18:49
SPEAKER_04: Like people want to know a little bit about family history.
18:54
SPEAKER_04: So, how do we document that?
18:55
SPEAKER_04: And there's a hundred ways to do it.
18:57
SPEAKER_04: You can journal it, I can put an iPhone in front of you, and you can record something about your mom or your great-grandparents.
19:04
SPEAKER_04: Where did we come from as a family?
19:07
SPEAKER_04: You know, how who immigrated to here, and how did we get to this location on the planet?
19:13
SPEAKER_04: It's just information that doesn't necessarily get talked about over Thanksgiving dinner.
19:17
SPEAKER_03: Right.
19:18
SPEAKER_04: A family recipe.
19:20
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
19:20
SPEAKER_04: As simple as a recipe that's been handed down from generation to generation.
19:25
SPEAKER_04: How do my kids get access to that?
19:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: Well, and asking those questions now.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like so many people don't because they're so uncomfortable to it.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe I'm just so used to being the bull in the china shop in my own life because I just don't allow people to do that shit in front of me, right?
19:41
SPEAKER_00: I go in and I'm like, hey, let's get the get you know, get the camera out.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna start telling some stories.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Because when I sit and listen to my folks and my aunties and and uncles and whatever sitting around telling stories about different things when they were growing up, that's gold to me.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Listening to my dad talk about not having running water, right?
19:58
SPEAKER_00: Like he's still alive.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: That's savage to think about.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: Growing up in South Dakota on a farm where you have to go outside to a to a you know, a Portageon, which isn't a Portageon, it's just wood, you know.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: You know how crazy that is, how scary that would be as a little child.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: And now we have kids that won't, you know, are scared to go into the trash, take the trash can to the curb in the dark.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my God, we've come so far, but I want those stories.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: I want that history.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And if we're so weirded out and awkward and uncomfortable that we're not willing to have those conversations because it's like, oh, I don't want to talk about death, it's like, I want to talk about death.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about death all the time.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: I want to keep it close.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: Because when I say keep it close, that's the stuff where I live like it is close.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like today's a gift.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: I live accordingly, you know.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: If tomorrow doesn't come, I don't have regrets.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't always live that way.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: I had to have someone that was close to me that died too young, where I want, I went, I wonder how that was for her, because there's all of this unfinished business, there's all of these recipes that didn't get passed down, there's all of the questions that didn't get, there's all of the things where her kids won't know, you know.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: So I do things where it's like, I've written the letters to my kids, I've recorded the videos of stuff that I want them to know.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And also I tell them every single day the things.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't leave riffs that, you know, haven't been, because I had someone who died, you know, from that perspective, where it was like there was something, there wasn't forgiveness there, there were hard feelings.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: And you do forget about what it even was, and then after the fact you have regrets about it.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like, how many of those stories do you have to hear before you realize that you have the power to change that?
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Don't just be another person who's like, oh God, they died too soon.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you no one's guaranteed anything.
21:37
SPEAKER_04: Nothing.
21:37
SPEAKER_04: Nothing.
21:38
SPEAKER_04: It's and it it it allows if the questions get asked to the right people, and if you don't find the answers, it gives you the opportunity to actually find the truth.
21:50
SPEAKER_04: Um in a for instance, so the my father and mother divorced or separated when I was like seven years old.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: And there was a tragedy in his business.
22:04
SPEAKER_04: But it comes out when they were divorced, they didn't have to actually get divorced.
22:09
SPEAKER_04: They were what's it called?
22:12
SPEAKER_04: The marriage was annulled because he was never officially divorced from his first wife.
22:17
SPEAKER_04: Which, all in all, helped my mom and my brother and myself as a family, because he was in a owned apartment building, someone died in the apartment building in a fire.
22:28
SPEAKER_04: He was the lawyers and everybody, the sharks came after him and basically took him out.
22:34
SPEAKER_04: But if it wasn't for that annulment, right, my mom and we would have been completely involved in that.
22:41
SPEAKER_04: But that's not how the history, or that's not how the story was told originally.
22:45
SPEAKER_04: I had to find that out through 30 years later, through someone else.
22:50
SPEAKER_04: It's like, no, wait a second, that's not how it happened.
22:52
SPEAKER_04: He was protecting your mom.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: Right.
22:55
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, okay, that's a little bit different than I have been told all these years, besides all the other chaos and the alcoholism and the other stuff.
23:03
SPEAKER_04: But it like it rewrote history and it gave me a completely new perspective on man, maybe I should have had more of a relationship with him because what he did was actually out of protection of us, not because he was just an asshole.
23:16
SPEAKER_04: Right.
23:17
SPEAKER_04: So weird.
23:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, crazy, but it's that type of stuff.
23:20
SPEAKER_04: And if you don't ask the questions, it's it it never comes out.
23:24
SPEAKER_04: And then everybody goes to their grave believing one certain way that wasn't it's not reality or not the truth.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: I got tired of watching people drag themselves through life half dead from exhaustion, comparison, and bullshit.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: So I built a system that flips the script.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: This book is for the ones who refuse to settle, who know deep down there's more, and who are ready to call themselves out to level up.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: If that's you, welcome.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: You can get your copy of the Life Hack Playbook on Amazon or on the podcast website, let's get nakedpodcast.com.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever heard of a death doula?
24:08
SPEAKER_00: I have.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: So I know many of them.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do you?
24:11
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:12
SPEAKER_00: So will you explain that to our listeners?
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Because my oldest daughter is someone who is very comfortable with death as well.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: And she is the person that's like, we'll come into the houses, you know, the the the kids or whoever the surviving people are can take whatever they want out of there, and then she'll just come handle all of the stuff that people don't have to, whether it's donating or selling and giving the profits to the kids or whatever that looks like.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: But it's like, I don't think people realize that those people are out there.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And especially, you know, we're in Arizona where we have a lot of elderly population here and the kids live different parts of the country, and they don't even realize that there's people that can do those things.
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Or if you need someone to come in and be kind of the referee in your family, if you need someone to come in and coordinate the end-of-life meeting, um, so that you're all, you know, on the same page about what needs to be.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: And and I feel like people also behave better when there's an outside person around, you know.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: So if you have like your siblings and your parents and you're you're not comfortable having that meeting, call in a death doula to have that meeting so that you can actually get the information that you need.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: But will you share more about that?
25:11
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they're they're great.
25:13
SPEAKER_04: I mean, there's it's a growing, I wouldn't say a growing movement, but there are more and more death doulas out there and they get certified and they have to come in and you or you can hire them to come in.
25:25
SPEAKER_04: And it's typically to deal with that end of life.
25:28
SPEAKER_04: Like, so okay, you are I dealt with them in the hospice world mostly, where they come in to your family and they'll manage the end of life wishes.
25:38
SPEAKER_04: Um, but at the same time, they do have all the resources to kind of be that mediator and keep everybody separated.
25:45
SPEAKER_04: They're getting the true information from maybe you know, the person that is about to go um and kind of controls traffic, yeah, and then can also help with all the other stuff because if you don't live there, I mean, what about the four storage units of stuff that you don't know about?
26:04
SPEAKER_00: Shit that you don't want, right?
26:05
SPEAKER_00: Like nobody wants to go back through and look through.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe you do.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
26:09
SPEAKER_04: I I it's just like some cool Superman.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have zero interest in doing that, you know.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: And it's like I I told my folks if there's something that's important to you, then do that.
26:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, my dad gave gave certain things to each of us where it's like, okay, this and a nice note of why that meant something to him.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Excellent.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Now I have that.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to go through China and everybody runs different lives now.
26:29
SPEAKER_00: It's like the last thing I want, it feels like a leash.
26:31
SPEAKER_04: It it and it it becomes that.
26:33
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:33
SPEAKER_04: So these people, you know, Death Doula will come in and kind of help manage all that.
26:38
SPEAKER_04: Um, and and it very incredibly helpful for the families.
26:43
SPEAKER_04: Um, the expense is not that great, but it's one of the best assets out there.
26:49
SPEAKER_04: And there are more, there are some cool people, and there's some of them that have handed or they've created tools too, you know, of just questions to be asked, their own little end-of-life questions in that whole world, or even like pre-dementia, you know, because that's a another animal that we have to deal with.
27:06
SPEAKER_04: And Alzheimer's where people I get the text messages in the morning, you know, that we're being captured and getting locked up and we need to do something about it.
27:16
SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, you're delusional, and we can figure that out, but let's do breakfast first.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:20
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: May I ask you something that that I don't know how to ask this, but I have I have very strong opinions as it relates to end of life and specifically um quality of end of life, right?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Because I think in this society we're very generous with our compassion towards our pets and not so much when it comes to our human beings.
27:44
SPEAKER_00: And I find that to be completely offensive.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's something that really grates on me.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and at some point I'm gonna have to get up off the couch and do something about it on a bigger, like legality type way, because I just think it's disgusting that we live in a society where people will have Alzheimer's or dementia for however long, right?
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Could go dementia could go on for decades.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally for a long, long time.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, to the point where it is just wrecking families.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the money to be able to put this.
28:14
SPEAKER_00: No one, how can you even prepare for 10 years of dementia, right?
28:17
SPEAKER_00: There's no quality of life there.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: But because of the fact that we're not willing to have the conversations and put things in place so that me as a as a regular sovereign being can say, in my will or in my directives, if I am diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia, uh, I want to check out, right?
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And I want to do it with dignity, right?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: And I want doctors to be able to help do that.
28:37
SPEAKER_00: What is your thoughts or positions, if you don't mind sharing that with me, on on what that looks like just for people's rights?
28:43
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're if you want to, nope, I want to live with dementia, then you should be able to do that.
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And that's great, right?
28:48
SPEAKER_00: That I think that's excellent.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: But not being able to offer that to people where you have people doing things that are unreasonable to take themselves out of the gene pool feels outrageous to me because we're not adult enough or emotionally intelligent enough to have conversations.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: What does that bring up for you when I say that?
29:03
SPEAKER_04: Um I'm all on board with that personally.
29:08
SPEAKER_04: Um I think it's you have outside influence to that refuses.
29:18
SPEAKER_04: That like, how can you absolutely do that?
29:20
SPEAKER_04: That's you know, like a suicide note to whatever.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: Who's who you're saying?
29:25
SPEAKER_00: People would say that like that.
29:28
SPEAKER_04: More I would say government agencies or state agencies that just don't want that to happen or they don't want to be associated with something like that, versus going to another country where it's absolutely normal and it's that's your wish, your wish is granted.
29:44
SPEAKER_04: Right.
29:45
SPEAKER_04: Um so I I think it's I I think everybody should have that.
29:52
SPEAKER_04: I think people are afraid that, oh my god, I can't believe that I'm accepting that my loved one wants to do this.
30:01
SPEAKER_04: Right.
30:02
SPEAKER_04: So i if if it was me, that's exactly how I want to go.
30:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:07
SPEAKER_04: I I don't want to, I don't want to be a burden to anybody else.
30:11
SPEAKER_04: I don't want, I want to remember my life for what it is, and I want to have that option.
30:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
30:17
SPEAKER_04: And the fact that those options are limited in our society is outrageous to me personally.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
30:23
SPEAKER_00: I I agree, and I wasn't gonna like kick you off my couch if you didn't agree with me, but I I do feel really strongly about it.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: Not because I want to make the decision for anybody else.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: If my parents decided that they want to live with dementia and they have the funds to be able to do that, great, that's excellent.
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, I I personally am not going to contribute to keeping people alive on dementia.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: And so if the government wants to figure out how to pay to do that, you know, when you talk about the government having uh, you know, strong feelings about that, I'm sure that they do, right?
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Because the people that profit on keeping people alive, skeletons alive, that's what we're doing.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: We're keeping skeletons alive.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and check out Big Pharma and just see who profits on all of that stuff, right?
31:00
SPEAKER_00: They're the ones, the whole medical industry for keeping skeletons alive.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And we normalize that and it ruins families.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Like I have watched as it literally destroys families.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: But then I don't, I again, I don't pay attention to a lot of the stuff that's happening out there.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: So maybe people are making big strides in making this so that it's possible so that each individual could make that choice.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: But we shouldn't have to go to other countries, we shouldn't have to do things that are uh out outrageous measures to be able to take yourself out of the gene pool.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: You know, I I joke around with the kids, like if I ship my pants twice, that's the cue.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Like I didn't, I don't want to be remembered as somebody that is this old frail person that can't take care of myself, that is literally blowing every penny I ever made to keep me alive because it's$15,000 a month, uh, to keep me so doped up on medicines and shit that I can't, I'm not, I can't remember.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: You know how just destructive that is to a family to have people walk in and you don't remember their names or whatever?
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Who would want that?
31:54
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it's unreasonable to, when you're in your right mind, be able to put a directive that says, if this is that way, this is my request.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't have to be like, oh, they got a diagnosis, off them now.
32:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think I think people don't understand that when I start talking about euthanasia and these other words, people start clutching their pearls real hard.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Like real hard.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And again, I would just get curious about that.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: If you're one of the pearl clutchers, your emotional intelligence is elementary and grow up.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: Grow up.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: This is shit that happens, right?
32:22
SPEAKER_00: It's not fair to watch as this literally just destroys people's families because we're not willing to allow people to have their wishes honored in a way that lets them go with dignity.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: And again, the the pet pet to human comparison to me is such an excellent visual because it's like your dog gets to the point where it can't remember what's happening or it's blind or it's shitting itself or it's whatever, and we will give that that creature dignity.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: But but grandpa Bill, uh, you know, he can shit himself for as long as as long as the big pharma can keep him alive and and and make the kids pitch in fifteen thousand dollars a month to do that, make it make sense.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: I just I can't get my head around it.
33:02
SPEAKER_04: You it's three weeks ago, this uncle that I'm caregiving for now in the hospital, about to go into a surgery.
33:10
SPEAKER_04: Actually, he's out of his second surgery, and he is not doing well.
33:15
SPEAKER_04: And his entire wish was to get out of the hospital and go home so he can die in peace at home.
33:21
SPEAKER_04: Because he his bay window overlooks a little lake.
33:24
SPEAKER_04: That's where he wants to do.
33:27
SPEAKER_04: And we had two doctors or two of his doctors in there going, I don't know why you'd want to do that.
33:34
SPEAKER_04: It's like we're giving you medication to fight the infection off, right?
33:38
SPEAKER_04: You could get better.
33:40
SPEAKER_04: And I honestly, I don't think he's getting better.
33:44
SPEAKER_04: I think he's going to require care for the long term, as long as he can stay alive or until he decides that he wants to go.
33:50
SPEAKER_04: But his entire wish was get me home so I can die in peace.
33:55
SPEAKER_04: And there was a fight.
33:56
SPEAKER_04: And I guarantee you, the$150,000 hospital bill that they acquired over the course of the next two weeks, it's it's a business.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: It's a business.
34:06
SPEAKER_04: And it's sad because you couldn't even grant this poor guy his own wish.
34:10
SPEAKER_04: You know, and he was begging, begging to make this happen.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, people begging to die, and then their loved ones around them.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: This is torture.
34:20
SPEAKER_00: It's it's literally just torture.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's because people don't have the stomach to be able to stand up to that, right?
34:27
SPEAKER_00: But you're right.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: That of course the people that are there that are taking the money are gonna go, no, no, no, we can keep you alive.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Where's the quality of life in that?
34:34
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Like I I have a friend who was taking care of her dad for the last couple of years, and he was just dying this slow, painful death.
34:43
SPEAKER_00: And it's we're just gonna keep giving him medicine and he can't do anything, and he just wants to die.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Like he would just say, every every freaking day, he wants to die, he wants to die.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: But he has this heart attack, whatever.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: But they ended up putting in, did a triple bypass or like whatever the hell it was.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: He's 80.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, his skin is melting off of his face.
35:01
SPEAKER_00: He can't shit by himself.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna put in a new ticker so that he lasts longer.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: This is disgusting.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: This is the country we live in.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: This is disgusting.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, you look at big pharma in general and like how much they advertise and how much they profit from things.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: It's like the people that are making you sick are also the ones with the cure.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: They're not gonna give that to you.
35:22
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna try to extort people from as much money as they can and literally just destroy human beings in the process.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: And we're not willing to come together and have a conversation that says, hold up, let's look at this from a logical perspective and say, this doesn't make sense because nobody wants to do that.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Right.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, I have this funny story that I'm gonna share with you.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: So I was talking to my daughter about something, and I said, Listen, if I get to a place where I'm done, and then we still have not figured this euthanasia or this dying with dignity situation out in this country, I'm not gonna go to another country.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm that I'm not wasting energy and all of that stuff.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: I said, what I'll do is I'm gonna put a note on the garage door that just says, Don't come in here.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Just call the firefighters.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go in there, I'm gonna enjoy some last music, put the hose from the exhaust right into my, you know, and I'm just gonna enjoy my last moments all by myself.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: Uh and that doesn't bother me at all.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: And she says, Mom, stop it.
36:15
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What?
36:15
SPEAKER_00: And she goes, I'm not gonna let you go out like that.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: And I said, What do you what are you talking about?
36:19
SPEAKER_00: She says, I'm gonna take you to a rave.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: She goes, When you're done, you just let me know.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take you to a rave.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have the best night of your life.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: And when you're ready to go, you just let me know that that evening, and I'll give you whatever it is that sends you over the edge.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's the kind of daughter I raised.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of daughter I'm proud of, right?
36:35
SPEAKER_00: Because we will not be spending my entire savings account to keep me alive so that I can have some substandard care and somebody that's making$12 an hour wipe my ass, uh, you know, because we want to somehow preserve my life.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: Grow up.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: I mean, oh my God, people grow up.
36:52
SPEAKER_04: And that's what it is.
36:52
SPEAKER_04: Just grow up.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: Grow up.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: It's literally what it is.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: And it's like people don't want to say that.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: People don't want to talk about that because we've gotten into this place in our society where nobody wants to step on anybody else's toes and nobody wants, you know, so everyone's walking around on eggshells and whatever.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: No, we're not doing that anymore.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Grow up.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Let's have the conversations.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: This is ridiculous.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: People should be able to decide how they get to end their lives in a way that is humane, right?
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Like it's humane so that some poor cute firefighter, always cute.
37:19
SPEAKER_00: Those damn firefighters are always cute.
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Some poor cute firefighter doesn't have to come see my dead body in the car, you know, front seat of whatever car I'm driving at that time.
37:26
SPEAKER_00: It's outrageous to me.
37:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it is.
37:28
SPEAKER_04: It is completely outrageous.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly, because we don't want to have the conversations.
37:33
SPEAKER_04: That's it.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Tell me this.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: So I have this question about um, how much chaos would you leave in the morning if you died today?
37:41
SPEAKER_00: And I ask you that, not necessarily for you personally, I ask you that from a curiosities perspective, because I'm certain that's part of the question as well.
37:49
SPEAKER_00: Of people who think that they have their stuff in order.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, start thinking about have I relayed this information to people?
37:55
SPEAKER_00: What would that chaos look like?
37:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, what dishes did I leave in the sink?
37:58
SPEAKER_00: And I don't mean literally the dishes, you know.
38:01
SPEAKER_04: Um when I leave here and get in my car, and if I'm in a horrific accident driving back to California today, it would be a shit ton of chaos.
38:13
SPEAKER_03: Hmm.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: I like that.
38:15
SPEAKER_04: I'm a complete fraud.
38:16
SPEAKER_04: Like, I love this.
38:17
SPEAKER_00: I love this.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
38:19
SPEAKER_00: All right, Jim.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Now we're talking.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about it.
38:21
SPEAKER_04: It would be from an insurance perspective, bank accounts, all the online accounts and passwords that people were where all the photos.
38:34
SPEAKER_04: Um we have not necessarily we've had conversations as a family, but it would be a shit show.
38:42
SPEAKER_04: I don't even know if my family knows what, because I don't want to be buried.
38:47
SPEAKER_04: Like, I I do not put me in the ground, cremation, cool, send my ashes and go get some diamonds compressed and throw it in a necklace or something, or send me to Seattle where they bury me under a tree in a natural deal and just you know, recompose, you know, turn me into compost or whatever.
39:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:06
SPEAKER_04: Like we haven't had those conversations.
39:08
SPEAKER_04: And at 57 years old, I it but this is time.
39:12
SPEAKER_04: This is a my own personal counseling session is this part in the question of how unprepared and how many questions that I have not answered for my family members.
39:26
SPEAKER_04: So I journal vulnerability and I'm documenting, but does anybody know where to find it?
39:33
SPEAKER_04: No.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, here's here's the challenge.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: Here's the challenge.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna accept this challenge as well because it's funny.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: I I joke around about the folder that my mom handed to me of like everything's taken care of.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna cry about some time myself in the month of June, where I'm going to say, Let me just go get my shit together as well.
39:55
SPEAKER_00: Let me just ask that question.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: If everybody woke up tomorrow and I wasn't here, what kind of a shit show would I be leaving them?
40:02
SPEAKER_00: Because I have lived a really outrageous life, and I continue to tell people all the time, um, don't be sad about me, right?
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Say lovely things about me at my funeral, right?
40:13
SPEAKER_00: I've I've I've put my wishes out there to my um to my right hand and I've told her, here's where everything is.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: And we have this joke, and there's funny stuff that's in there.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: I'd love Zach Brown to play at my funeral.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: We'll see how that goes.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: It can be, you know, live or regular music, whatever.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Um, but but you know, I have these these wishes that I have laid out, I've notarized, you know, there's that kind of stuff, but it changes over time.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'm very organized with my attorney and all of the things.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: And every five years I have a reminder in my Outlook calendar that pops up that says, make sure that all of your stuff is listed, that it's titled in the trust and all of the things.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: And yet I still feel like my answer would probably be the same as yours.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Because if my husband and I win at the same time, let's be honest, it my husband doesn't even have to go at the same time.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: No one would know where the passwords are.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: He wouldn't know how to pay the bills.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: Like it would just like okay, so so this is a this is a great, I love having this conversation with you.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: This is a great challenge that I'm going to accept of just carving out a few blocks of four hours at a time, because that's all it is.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: It's just a priority of do I want to hand this mess down to my kiddos where they have no idea.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then anything that I would want them to have, whether it's a recipe or whether it's a story or, you know, whatever those things are, and really get in that headspace.
41:24
SPEAKER_00: Shut all your phones off, shut all the noise off, and just sit and kind of think about what mess would I leave for my family tomorrow?
41:30
SPEAKER_00: My family that I say is the most important thing, right?
41:33
SPEAKER_00: We all say, like, my family is so important, I would do anything for my family.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: But you wouldn't carve out four hours and get uncomfortable thinking about what your what your wishes are after you die, or you wouldn't do a simple will online or something so that it's outlined, you know.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a checklist in your things so that people are like, okay, I need this form, I need that form?
41:51
SPEAKER_04: So there's so there's a deck of cards.
41:54
SPEAKER_04: So obviously there's the book, which is brands making new, yeah, um, to kind of walk through people and just provide a visual for chaos that could happen through a couple fictional stories.
42:03
SPEAKER_04: There's a deck of cards.
42:05
SPEAKER_04: So those deck of cards are set up, you know, with each category: financial, medical, spiritual, and just ask questions and how prepared are you?
42:14
SPEAKER_04: Um, there is a newsletter that goes with all of this.
42:17
SPEAKER_04: So each deck or each card in the deck has its own newsletter issue.
42:21
SPEAKER_04: And within the newsletter issue are free downloadable content, checklists, guides, how-tos.
42:29
SPEAKER_04: We're building out resources and a directory for all that other fun stuff, too.
42:34
SPEAKER_04: There's a survey that can be taken, or you can answer like a 40-question survey, and it will kind of score you on like financially, you're really prepared, but end of life, you need to get your shit together.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: You're falling apart.
42:47
SPEAKER_04: Or, you know, just the hard truths in life.
42:49
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, other questions.
42:51
SPEAKER_04: So there's a hundred different ways to do it.
42:54
SPEAKER_04: What you're saying, just as a reminder, especially since we're dealing with a lot of you know, like boomer parents and even older, silent generation parents that still want the newspaper delivered to their house, there's postcards.
43:08
SPEAKER_04: So every question, you know, once a month, they can get a postcard with like, hey, someone wants to know this question with a little baby checklist.
43:16
SPEAKER_04: So it gets mailed to their house and interesting.
43:20
SPEAKER_04: You know, so it's it's just this package to ask these questions.
43:24
SPEAKER_04: If you don't want to verbally do it yourself right in front of them over the Thanksgiving dinner table, you can send a postcard, you can give them a deck of cards, and it starts going through that.
43:34
SPEAKER_04: And it it's just again this program that's growing over the course of time with reminder text messages like, hey, have you done this yet?
43:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, could you could you maybe work with one of the one of like the Hasbro's or something and create a game of life, but it's like the game of death, and it's a Thanksgiving friendly type situation that just kind of makes light about it.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Because I think when you add humor to things, it just takes the sting away from it.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: You know.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: No, because it's like we don't have to sit down and be all maudlin and everyone clutch their pearls about whatever.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: It's like this can be a this can be a normalized thing.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: We should be celebrating.
44:09
SPEAKER_04: It should be.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: Right?
44:10
SPEAKER_04: Like it really should be.
44:12
SPEAKER_04: We in that could be a possibility.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna I'm gonna plant that seed and just say I would play that at Thanksgiving a hundred percent.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: Like we we I just come from a family where even if they're uncomfortable about stuff, I just push my way in.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: I d I think there's gotta be one in every group uh that's willing to talk about the things and is willing to say, like, okay, would we rather have an uncomfortable conversation now, or would we rather have our lives thrown upside down for a year or more?
44:37
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've watched people as it's in probate and just all of these things because we didn't want to ask a conversation when all of the parties are right here and are with it enough to answer the questions that are just normal questions.
44:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've known this since the beginning.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: It's the only thing that is guaranteed, right?
44:54
SPEAKER_04: And it could be five easy questions that answer like 90% of the information that you need.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:59
SPEAKER_04: Or just a starting point.
45:00
SPEAKER_04: But that's the it's it's not having access to those questions, or not even knowing what to ask.
45:05
SPEAKER_04: And that's what it's just laying it out there.
45:07
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the I think that's the biggest thing.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: I think people don't even know what to ask.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: I think they're uncomfortable and they don't even have a place where it's like, how would I even start?
45:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, so like having it be like a game, that's a really good idea.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: The game thing is a really good, get it out in time for thanksgiving.
45:22
SPEAKER_00: Get it out in time for Thanksgiving, because I'm telling you, like instead of the game of life, the game of death.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: And and and again, everyone's like death, and you say the word and it feels taboo, and even coming off my lips, even though I'm completely comfortable with it, I know how that's going to be received by other people because it's like, oh, that makes me feel a certain type of way.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: And so we pull away from it and we don't we don't look at it.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: But it's like, grow up.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like that's that's literally where my head comes when we when I look at people as they squirm about death.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, are you worried?
45:50
SPEAKER_00: Where were I mean where does what does the fear from death come from?
45:52
SPEAKER_00: People don't the unknown?
45:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, what do you think that comes from?
45:54
SPEAKER_04: It's either the unknown or the unanswered questions.
45:57
SPEAKER_04: So I got a text at 4:30 this morning from my mother-in-law that her brother passed away um this morning.
46:07
SPEAKER_04: Which which is crazy.
46:08
SPEAKER_04: Be so I mean, the man was diagnosed with like tongue and throat cancer at the VA, um, getting treatments that just started a week ago.
46:19
SPEAKER_04: Maybe he's been through seven treatments.
46:21
SPEAKER_04: And his he was staying in a hotel up in West LA, close to the VA right there, and his daughter was there, and his significant other was there.
46:30
SPEAKER_04: And this is again, I haven't heard this verbatim.
46:33
SPEAKER_04: This is a conversation from my wife this morning.
46:37
SPEAKER_04: That the daughter um was he said all he wanted to do after the treatment yesterday was watch the Dodger game.
46:46
SPEAKER_04: And here's where my suit is, and this is what I want to be buried in.
46:51
SPEAKER_04: And his daughter was like, What are you talking about?
46:53
SPEAKER_04: Like, you're gonna, this is fine, you're gonna get survived this, and everything.
46:57
SPEAKER_04: Um ends up going to sleep, never wakes up.
47:01
SPEAKER_04: So he chose, like, he knew it was coming.
47:04
SPEAKER_04: I want one more Dodger game, and I'm out of here.
47:06
SPEAKER_04: My mother-in-law is her biggest deal this morning, and I have not talked to her yet the today, but her biggest deal is that I did not get to say goodbye.
47:18
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, no, you did.
47:19
SPEAKER_00: You got to say, yeah, you said goodbye last time you talked to me.
47:22
SPEAKER_04: You were up there, you saw him, yeah.
47:24
SPEAKER_04: Like it's it is what it is, right?
47:27
SPEAKER_04: And then the other family member or his other kids, like, I can't know that he was supposed to live like it doesn't work, and it's the fact that I think we bring it on ourselves 100%, you know, and of like what we didn't do, it's the guilt.
47:41
SPEAKER_04: It is the guilt, that guilt is savage, it is savage, and it's you know, we didn't get to do this, we didn't get to do that, and and that's the whole point of this whole world that I'm trying to create is just fucking do it already.
47:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, come on, right?
47:56
SPEAKER_04: Just ask the questions, or and if there's something that you really want to know, or if it's hard hitting, you know what?
48:01
SPEAKER_04: If they don't answer, that's one thing, but at least you got it off your chest.
48:04
SPEAKER_04: Um, like, you know, what happened to that crazy uncle?
48:08
SPEAKER_04: Or why don't we talk to aunt so-and-so more?
48:11
SPEAKER_04: Like, why what happened there?
48:13
SPEAKER_04: And at least you may not get the right answer, you may not get the answer you want, but at least you asked and it's off your plate.
48:19
SPEAKER_00: You know what just came to me?
48:21
SPEAKER_00: So, right before you and I started recording this, I started recording uh a couple of minis, and one of the things was uh I can't believe that people like cut off their family members based on politics and those kind of views.
48:33
SPEAKER_00: I just I literally can't my little eight-year-old brain cannot fucking compute that.
48:37
SPEAKER_00: Rather than talking about politics and shit like that, maybe when you're together at Thanksgiving, talk about stuff like this and stories and things that you wondered, because there are things that we talk about in our family.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: It's no one talks about what our political views are, what what people think about whatever mainly, because most of us don't give a shit.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: But um, we don't talk about that stuff.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: We talk about stories.
48:58
SPEAKER_00: What did happen with this?
48:59
SPEAKER_00: And then we talk about all of the things that was like, oh, the the weird stuff and the things that people don't know and open it up for curiosity and for conversations.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: But it's like, what a beautiful thing that would be if there's this tool, the cards, the game, the other things where people could have a little bit of a uh, you know, a little courage to be able to ask things because I realize everyone's not as bold as I am where you walk in and be like, hey, mom, what do you want when you're when you're buried?
49:23
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how that's how normalized I think that conversation should be.
49:27
SPEAKER_04: It should be.
49:27
SPEAKER_00: And I and I understand that most people do not come from that place, that people are walking around on inkshells, but talk about that kind of shit instead of what your political views are.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe we keep families together.
49:38
SPEAKER_04: I don't know.
49:38
SPEAKER_04: I'm just coming up with a solution here.
49:40
SPEAKER_04: No, seriously.
49:40
SPEAKER_04: And and it should work.
49:42
SPEAKER_04: And it just the ability, you know, like my kids and their attention spans are pretty darn short now.
49:48
SPEAKER_04: But uh they are curious as to okay, like, where did we come from?
49:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:52
SPEAKER_04: And wait, where are, you know, when you do the the board at school, your G the family tree, you know, for a class project and stuff, and trying to walk through that.
50:01
SPEAKER_04: Um, or those pictures that you bring out, they're all black and white pictures.
50:06
SPEAKER_04: But who are those people?
50:07
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you know, and like half the time, I don't even know who those people are, to be perfectly honest, but that's important stuff.
50:14
SPEAKER_04: Like, that's the stuff that you want to keep out of the storage unit.
50:17
SPEAKER_04: The one little box of old photos from the 50s, or that you're one of your grandfather's, you know, when I say that you're fifth generation native Californian, there's not a whole lot of them that roll around.
50:29
SPEAKER_04: Like a lot of people have moved into California, but like your grandfather grew up at the LA farmer's market, you know, my oldest you you go to, you know, he grew up in an orphanage in LA and he had four or five brothers and sisters, right?
50:46
SPEAKER_04: That you know, that's just cool stuff to know.
50:50
SPEAKER_04: And those are the conversations versus like why are we in this war?
50:55
SPEAKER_04: Why are gas prices so high?
50:56
SPEAKER_04: It's all the stupid stuff that we can't control.
50:59
SPEAKER_00: It's literally the stupidest shit that people complain about.
51:01
SPEAKER_00: It's like, let's connect with one another because it's really interesting to know you know all of the different things about aunties or uncles or why things were the way that they are, and kids learning that instead of glued to their phones where they're not learning anything, anyways.
51:13
SPEAKER_04: And we're exactly going outside to do another TikTok, right?
51:18
SPEAKER_00: God, it's the worst.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the absolute worst.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, what else did I miss?
51:23
SPEAKER_00: What else did I miss in what we talked about, or things that you want people to know about the book?
51:28
SPEAKER_04: Um or uh, you know, I think it's so again, this is a whole package.
51:34
SPEAKER_04: Honestly, it's still it's two years in the making, but it's still fairly new as a complete package.
51:41
SPEAKER_04: Um you know, you can go it pardon the question, Google pardon the question.
51:45
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no spaces.
51:47
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, you will find the newsletter and the Facebook posts and the Instagram stuff.
51:51
SPEAKER_04: You'll find all of it right there.
51:52
SPEAKER_04: Sign up for the newsletter.
51:54
SPEAKER_04: We'll get you the links on how to get the book, the cards, the postcards, the the game coming.
51:59
SPEAKER_04: The game is the game we will design and make that one.
52:04
SPEAKER_04: I love that.
52:05
SPEAKER_04: Um, and it's just again, don't be afraid.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
52:09
SPEAKER_04: And and again, this stuff is super hard.
52:11
SPEAKER_04: And I think my final message is based on just a recent experience of standing over someone's hospital bed, not knowing what they wanted.
52:24
SPEAKER_04: And honestly, I didn't even know how to I've got a hundreds of questions that can be asked, and still not being able to get one of those questions out to ask because maybe I was scared of what the response would be, or maybe was scared of not knowing what they really wanted, or just the realization that, like, hey, we're at the end here, um, and this is the final nail in the coffin.
52:55
SPEAKER_04: Um so it don't be afraid.
52:58
SPEAKER_04: It just do it because it it can enlighten you in so many different ways.
53:03
SPEAKER_04: And it it honestly could it it takes away the chaos, it takes away the crazy.
53:12
SPEAKER_04: And if it doesn't take it away, at least you're prepared that you know it's coming and you can prepare for it.
53:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, don't you find too that like when things are rooted in fear so much, we have all of this fear and we build it up into our heads so much, and then when it actually is, whatever the outcome is, it's always so much easier than whatever it was that we built up into our head in our heads.
53:30
SPEAKER_00: And so from that data point alone, haven't we learned that that's what's sucking all the skittles out of your personal bowl?
53:38
SPEAKER_00: It is.
53:38
SPEAKER_00: Jared read my book before he came on the show, and everyone knows I love that.
53:42
SPEAKER_00: So um, thank you, Jared, for coming on and taking time to talk about this conversation.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: I know that I I get jacked up energetically about it, talking about it, and I know it really bothers a lot of other people, but I just cool stuff.
53:53
SPEAKER_00: But let's all grow up.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: This is cool stuff.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: So uh that's our time for today.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: If something hit stirred or lit a fire under you and you've got thoughts, questions, or a story you're ready to share, slide into our DMs or email Casey and I at ladies at let's get naked podcast.com.
54:07
SPEAKER_00: If you believe in these conversations, help us keep them rolling.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: Follow, follow, share, rate, review, do all the things.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: Catch you next time.
54:14
SPEAKER_00: That's a wrap.