The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unlocking the Guardian’s Gift: Your Guide to Peaceful End-of-Life Planning with Dr. Judy Butler

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

Unlocking the Guardian's Gift: Your Guide to Peaceful End-of-Life Planning with Dr. Judy Butler Theguardiansgift.org About the Guest(s): Dr. Judy Butler is a pastoral psychotherapist, pastor, chaplain, spiritual director, and scientist with a profound commitment to the spiritual wellbeing and psychological understanding of individuals. She is the founder of The Guardian's Gift, where she assists clients in legacy estate planning. Through her unique expertise in both psychology and spirituality, Dr. Butler helps individuals and families prepare for end-of-life matters while maintaining a grounded spiritual foundation. Episode Summary: In this dynamic episode of The Chris Voss Show, Chris is joined by the insightful Dr. Judy Butler, who brings a wealth of expertise in pastoral psychotherapy and end-of-life planning through her initiative, The Guardian's Gift. Dr. Butler shares her personal journey, which inspired her to create a service dedicated to helping individuals and families navigate the complexities of legacy estate planning and end-of-life decisions. As Chris and Dr. Butler engage in a lively discussion, they delve into the importance of telling one's life story, acknowledging trauma, and preparing not only wills but comprehensive plans for the inevitable. Listeners will gain valuable insights into strategic legacy planning and the often-overlooked financial, legal, and personal aspects of preparing for death. They explore the intricacies of creating wills, understanding long-term care insurance, and dealing with family dynamics in estate planning. Dr. Butler emphasizes that discussing death does not hasten its arrival but rather ensures a smoother transition for loved ones left behind. For those intimidated by the thought of end-of-life planning, she breaks it down into manageable steps with The Guardian's Gift, offering peace of mind and clarity. This episode is an enlightening guide towards taking proactive steps in legacy estate planning. Key Takeaways: The Guardian's Gift Planning: Dr. Judy Butler provides a structured process for end-of-life planning through her initiative, facilitating everything from personal stories to military documents. Comprehensive Storytelling: Encouraging individuals to record their life's journey, including pivotal moments and family health history, for a meaningful legacy. Practical Solutions: Offering guidance on legal documents, navigating probate, and long-term care insurance for a seamless transition of assets and wishes. Empowerment Through Information: Emphasizing that knowledge and preparation relieve families from undue stress during emotional periods. Accessible Resources: Options range from self-guided modules to personalized doula guidance, accommodating diverse needs in estate planning. Notable Quotes: "People don't realize is when they don't have their legal documents, it ends up with the state getting involved." "No one's afraid to be dead. They're afraid of dying." "We help people with their legacy estate plans, I help them tell their story." "People think that Medicare will pay for them to be in a nursing home. It doesn't work that way." "Start this journey… it is an overwhelming thing to undertake."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. It's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, the early things that makes it official. Welcome to the big Show. As always, the Chris Voss Show is just the wonderfulest, most awesome show in the whole wide world. I just read Joe Rogan is no longer number one in podcasting.

He's lost like 40% of his audience or something. I don't know if that's a permanent thing, but thank you all for joining us over here. I'm just going to assume the sale on that one. And as always, we bring on the most intelligent people on the show but we we love the guests that we have over here and they're brilliant and we don't platform crazy uh so anyway guys except for me i'm the only platforming of crazy that goes on on this show opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss Show.

Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. So we have an amazing young lady on the show today. Dr. Judy Butler joins us. She's a pastoral psychotherapist, a pastor, a chaplain, spiritual director, scientist, and lover of life. So we're going to have a lot of fun on the show with her. She has spent decades helping individuals and families navigate life's challenges with both a grounded spiritual foundation and a deep understanding of human psychology. She combines her expertise in therapy with her profound commitment to the spiritual well-being of others, creating a space for healing growth and

transformation she believes that every person's journey is unique and she walks alongside her clients helping them discover the strengths they didn't know they had welcome to the show dr judy butler how are you i'm great dang if you don't make me sound good yeah well you know it's your bio i'm just reading it man you're the who kicked ass in life and made a great bio. So give us, Judy, your dot coms or dot orgs. Where do you want people to find out more about you? I'd like for them to go to theguardiansgift.org. It's G-U-A-R-D-I-A-N-S, gift.org.

Also, they can find me on Facebook at TheGuardiansGift. They can find me on Instagram at theguardiansgift. They can find me on Instagram at the underscore guardians underscore gift. And of course, they can always just send me an email and I'll email them back at judyattheguardiansgift.org. So give us a 30,000 overview of what you do there at the company. I help people with their legacy estate plans. I help them tell their story. Everybody loves to tell their story. Chris, do you have a story? Oh, this, this, this, these four podcast audience for 16 years

has been hearing all my stupid stories. I think they know that. I don't know if they, I don't know if they enjoy it at this point or if they're just like, yeah, I want to hear his stories again. No, no. You know, there's always more stories to tell and people don't know everything. So I help people hear his stories again. No, no. You know, there's always more stories to tell, and people don't know everything.

So I help people tell their stories, and people say, I don't have anything important to tell. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. As a matter of fact, my husband's grandfather, before he passed away, he would always tell these stories. And his wife had gotten to the point where she'd hold up a finger for each one three or four or five times and then finally towards the end of his life he actually told this really neat story about buying a car and my husband looked at his grandmother and she said i've never heard that one before and we were all like wow you mean there's a story we don't know yeah so we help people tell their story you know

we ask things like what was your first kiss chris what was your first kiss my first kiss i don't know i was i don't know it was a long time ago eh yeah my first kiss i think it was someone in elementary school we were playing doctor and nurse back in those days. That's what kind of people did, their kids did. Oh, okay. We'll tell too much, okay? Yeah. But we also found out.

It's probably the reason we don't tell that story, yeah. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I also encourage people to tell their stories. They've had trauma. Everybody has trauma of some to tell their stories. They've had trauma. Everybody has trauma of some sort in their life, something that made them do a double take or ask a different, take a different path in life or ask a different question.

And people are, and maybe I shouldn't tell that. And I'm like, no, that's the very thing you should tell, but let's figure out how to tell it so that it's okay for you and okay for your family. So that's, you know, some of the things we do.

We talk about your first love, your first kiss, your first car. Oh, what about your first car, Chris? Mm-hmm. Yeah. My first car was a Chevy Chevette. It was a real piece of it. What color was it? It was white. It was, you know, my family's poor. I was a real piece of... What color was it? It was white.

It was, you know, my family's poor. I was a broke kid. I had a little job, like 14 or 16. And the floorboard was missing on the driver's side. You had to have a metal plate. And it would constantly fall out of place. And I think one time I almost ripped off my leg driving down the road because I touched the ground for a second. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was just an open hole in the car. It's crazy. I bought it for $450. How do you like that story? Wow, that's neat. That is neat. My first car was

a little red Volkswagen Beetle. I'd pull up to the service station and I'd say, give me 50 cents worth of gas and fill it up with oil. 50 cents worth of gas and fill it up with oil. Some of those old VWs, you had to do it that way, actually. You did. My dad had three of them. He loved VWs.

So we help people tell their stories. And, you know, there's a point in the story where we usually change direction or figure out something or grow up or mature. So we figure that out, too, because those are the wisdom pieces of our life that we want to leave behind for people. So what changed? How did your life change? Do you remember a point in time where you're like, oh, dang, I need to do something different? The 2008 mortgage crisis, yeah, wiped out my empire of companies that we built over 20 years. And yeah, so I didn't really have an option, but it was like, damn, my life has changed.

I got to do something different so i did and then when i was born i came out of the womb and i sat there going it's cold out here things have clearly changed i've got to do something different evidently than just enjoying the warmth of my mom and a free food or something easy easy access to food or something i don't know yeah yeah but you know talking about being born that's cool too and we help people we start out with that part we walk people through their entire autobiography you know where were you born where'd you grow up where'd you go to school who was your favorite teacher your first whatever, life, love, car, kiss, date. But then we get to a point where we talk about health.

You know, in my family, we blame everything on my mama. God bless her soul. The woman has got everything wrong with her. She's got macular degeneration. She can't see out of one eye, and the other one's completely blind. Oh, wow. She got hearing aids. She don't have any teeth.

But my mom is going to be 90 next week. And she's still, she's salty. Good for her. So we blame everything on her. Oh, my back hurts. Mama, this must be yours. Oh, my God. Then we say, oh, my toe hurts.

Dang, Mama, Nana, Grandma, we got that from you. We got that from you. We got that from you. See, mine's the other way around. My mom blames us for everything. Not everything, but she's like, you know, the reason I don't walk right is because, you know, I was a 10.9 pound baby. And I think I was like 10 months. I wasn't coming out of there. Like I said, it was warm in there.

And I'm in the middle of winter right now, and I'm looking to go back, I guess. I don't know. But I'm looking just to hibernate any place warm at this point for nine months. But it's one of those things where my mom's like, you're the reason I lost all my hair, you darn kids. And it's probably true, actually, really, when it comes down to it. So there's that. But you know, the thing about your health stuff that's so important is we do inherit things. We do certain conditions, certain ways of being. And even psychologically, you know, trauma gets passed down in families.

It's true. Generational trauma. Absolutely. And so those things are important to know. So we include that in People's Guardian's Gift. Oh. You know? And when you start talking about health and how much it costs and all that, then we get

into the financial piece. So there's a part in there for that. We ask all sorts of questions about your finances, like your account numbers, pin numbers, passwords, all of that. So you can write it all down so that you don't have to, A, remember it, or they don't have to find it at some point down the road. And you end up playing that game. Now, where did Mama hide that thing?

Where would Dad keep that information? You know, one of the things that when my dad passed away, and by the way, the Guardian's gift is in honor of my father. He died in 2018 after a journey through dementia. I went through hell. I mean, literally went through hell looking after him, dealing with nursing homes, end of life, end of care, all of that kind of stuff. But anyway, after he passed, I had to find his discharge papers. Oh, wow. So the funeral home, he wanted a military funeral.

So I'm like, okay. And the funeral home says, I got to have his DD-214. I'm like, what the funeral home says i gotta have his dd 214 i'm like what the heck is a dd 214 and they're like oh you need to have this so you could have the military funeral so here we go you know a long time ago they had people had these bibles that were big they were like 15 by 25 or something, and they weighed 25 pounds. And everybody would stuff things in that Bible. If you wanted to find something, birth certificate, death certificate, D, life, whatever, it was in the Bible. So, I went to the Bible, and that wasn't where it was.

But anyway, long story short, found the DD-214. But the point is that people think that they might have a will. Maybe they don't have a will. I'll help them get one. But they might think, I got a legal document. I don't need anything else. Well, it's not true. That's not true. So part of the Guardian's gift is we guide people through the legal documents.

Talking about drama mamas, I was talking to a lady the other day, and I said, do you have a will? She said, I had one when I was married to my second husband. I said, really? I said, guess what? You still got one. I said, I wonder what your current husband thinks about your former husband being the executor of your estate.

She was like, oh, i need to change that chris do you have a will i do not hold on my me and my mom signed i don't know if we i think we did sign a will during cova you know early on in the crisis it was you didn't know if you're gonna live or die it was kind of weird you know and so i believe we did do something that made each other executors over us i think we did something for if we get incapacitated because the problem was with with the covid you know you couldn't be with someone when they passed and so i think we did something in a survivorship sort of way or a care if you know i i i think her and i both have a non-resuscitate thing so i think that was in there you know we don't want to come back to this have you seen the place lately i'm just kidding folks it's nice it's really not as bad as we think it is

or not i could be wrong that was positive chris way to save the day on the i mean i did a w i went down and then i went up and then I went down again. Yeah, I think we did that to answer your question. But you didn't answer it because you don't know. That's true. You caught me red-handed. Oh, yeah. Short answer is you might want to get that out and look at it and maybe review it.

So people don't think about that. They think, oh, I did that. Okay, that was 10 years ago, 15 years ago. You do need to check it again. Like this lady, she's had a will with her second husband. I'm like, okay, that's great. But your third husband ain't gonna have the outcome. So let's get it changed. You know, the other thing that's really interesting working in this arena of senior, the senior living, senior dying, whatever you want to call it. You know, people are not afraid of the death. Nobody's afraid to be dead. They're afraid of dying. They're afraid that it's going to hurt and they don't want to hurt.

Also, people are superstitious. They think, oh, if I talk about it, it's going to hurt and they don't want to hurt. Also, people are superstitious. They think, oh, if I talk about it, it's going to happen. No, not necessarily. Guess what? It's going to happen anyway. And you're talking about it's not going to make a difference one way or the other. You know, death is going to come for all of us. And we can either be a hot mess on the way or leave a

hot mess for our families. That's just entirely the way this works. So through the Guardian's Gift, we work to help people tell their story, talk about their health, talk about their finances. But then this thing that we're talking about now is, you know, as part of the finances, how are you going to live until you die? Oh. You know? Yeah. Probably. Yeah.

Probably. People think that Medicare will pay for them to be in a nursing home. Oh, wow. They say, oh, my kids know what I want, or I'll just go live with my kids. No, no, no, no, no, that's not good. So how do you want to live till you die? Do you want to be in a nursing home or extended care or any of that? Most people don't.

And what are your options? So we help people work through that, you know, to figure out what kinds of things can happen, what kinds of options can happen. What kinds of options do they have? You know, the other thing that is interesting is people don't know how much this costs. So, as we're looking at their health, it's what's probably going to happen, you know, if people have strokes that run in their family or they have heart attacks that run in their family, you can look at your family tree and discern that. Then, you know, kind of what might happen to you.

If you have a stroke and you can't communicate or you get dementia and you can't communicate, how is anybody going to know how to look after you? Sure. They're going to look after you the way they want to. Okay. I've got two kids. I don't want either one of my kids looking after me. Wow. I mean, I love my kids and they'll do a great job.

But the point is that a lot of people have kids that are drug addicts or have gotten into some financial situations that are not healthy or they don't make good decisions. Okay. So do you want those kids to be the ones that are going to pull the plug if you're on life support? Yeah. It's really interesting how. Do you find that people still have a hard time planning for this stuff? I know in the field of life insurance or funeral plots, it's hard to get people to talk about this stuff

because they don't want to face that we're not going to be around forever. We kind of enjoy thinking that we're immortal, I think, a little bit. We do. That's what I said. People are superstitious. If I talk about it, I think, a little bit. We do. That's what I said. You know, people are superstitious. If I talk about it, then it's going to happen. We procrastinate. We just do. And we think, I've got time.

I've got time. I've got time. You know, people say about life insurance. I'll say, I don't need it. Not right now. But when you need it, guess what? It's too late. Yeah.

And I guess one of the big things today nowadays is like passwords to get into stuff. You know, I've talked to my mom about my mom's 82. I'm 57. You know, I've overweight. I kind of had some little too much fun with drinking in my life. I've had a pretty healthy run so far, but you never know. I mean, you know, my dog just recently had a great 10-year run, and the last year came down with cancer.

You just never know. Leukemia, too. And it wasn't, you know, nobody gets out of here alive, according to Jim Morrison of The Doors, I think, who said that. So death and taxes are definitely guaranteed in in the world and life welcome to if you haven't figured that out by now i don't know what you're up to but you know these so passwords are like a big thing like you know i tell my mom i'm like you know hey if anything ever happened to me you know make sure you get my bank

accounts you know women tend to live longer than men genetically, their, their disposition to keep the womb around longer in case we need to propagate the species and men, you know, we're always doing stuff that's a pretty high risk to pay for our families. We do the hardest, most dangerous jobs in the world. And, and so, yeah, we tend to die off earlier as men. In fact, we die off on average in almost double digits throughout our life compared to women and then our 50s we really put the hammer down and we go full on we go full out the door and uh yeah and so i don't my mom and i are playing this game since we're kind of the last family standing of who's going to survive the other one she keeps a folder which is kind of a lame folder somewhere of stuff of her stuff but she has no i don't really have a folder or have any sort of

plan or whatever i mean i think i think she was going to pull the plug on me anyway if i got in that situation because you know she you know it's a 10.9 baby as I mentioned earlier Your revenge it's revenge Fucking kid First born drive me crazy and but but no like pass, you know, I'm like, you know Here's here's I have backup guys that can call and come in and take care of cleanup for me There's you know, there's lots of stuff that they can sell off, raise money, give her. And,

but she's like, I don't have any of their phone numbers. I don't have any of your passwords. You know, you're like, just get into my bank account. She's like, I don't even know what banks you bank at.

Right. And so that's kind of a big deal. I mean, cause like a lot of banks and, uh, I mean, you could, I suppose you could go through my credit cards on my desk and my bank cards on my desk and figure some of it out. But, you know, you'd have to figure out where I mean, I suppose you could go through my credit cards on my desk and my bank cards on my desk and figure some of it out.

But, you know, you'd have to figure out where my main accounts are that I utilize and where all the money's at. And then, you know, one of my things is I get a lot of residual money from my books and my YouTube channel and everything else we do. I get, you know, I've often told my family you know hey that youtube money the youtube money what used to be really good i'm like make sure if anything happens to me you get in my bank account that's got the youtube money there's gonna be money coming until probably the end of google into that account and and you know they don't know she doesn't know how to get into that account she's horrible with technology but yeah so I can see why there's definitely a need for this stuff, especially passwords.

I remember we were trying to get into my father's emails. I can't remember what we were looking for, but it was really important. We were trying to get into his emails, and we couldn't get into his emails because we didn't have his password. And so I can't remember what it was we were looking for but it was very important that's that's you know that's again the guardian's gift and we there's a place in there for that part of what we're talking about the fact that people don't do it and you know they're superstitious and they procrastinate and i've got time and not yet. And it's because it's overwhelming.

When you start this journey, it is an overwhelming thing to undertake. And people get into it and they're like, where do I start? So this is a process because this is what I went through. What you're talking about, what we're talking about is what I went through with my father. I actually have it set up so that it asks a question. You get one question at a time and you answer the question and then you move to the next question. And it's just systematic. I'm very scientifically, analytically oriented. And so it's about what is the procedure? What are the steps? So I set it up that way.

And because you don't have one, I'm going to give you one. So just know right here today, everybody listen, I'm going to give Chris Voss a guardian's gift so he can get all his stuff together. I'm going to send it to him and get him squared away. So your mom won't have to worry. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome but you know you don't want your family to have to look for emails and passwords and pin numbers and things after you're gone that's they're going to be upset and so they're really going to pull the plug on you yeah yeah yeah so it's it's amazing

because people say my my kids know what i want. My family knows what I want. Yeah, maybe you told them, but how great are their memories? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. But how many passwords do you have? Yeah, how many passwords do you have? There's the thing of telling them if you want to be resuscitated or not, non-resuscitation or resuscitation clause, what you want them to do. I mean, if I'm braindead, I really don't want you to keep me alive because I've been doing that for 57 years already so far on this podcast.

It's time to wrap that up, I think. I'll just put it in my will. Wrap it up. Wrap it up. Come on. But you know, what's interesting, too, about what we're talking about is the money and the accounts and the passwords and all those things. That's really important, too, because, you know, people tell me, they say, I don't want to put this down somewhere because my kids want my money or my family is there after my finances. They're going to take all my money.

And I'm like, yeah, they are after your money. And part of the reason they're after your money is because they've been paying for you as you've been getting older. You know, it costs caregivers tons, millions of dollars. There's 43 million caregivers in the United States. And 75% of those are women. So you're talking about women and living longer and all that. That's true. So understand, a lot of women, a lot of families will take the money out of their own pockets. Oh, I'm going to run the store.

I'll just pick up a few groceries for mom or dad, or I've got to run by the drugstore. I'll pick up your meds, whatever. But before you know it, it ends up being a lot of money. I spent $30,000 one year on my family looking after my mom and dad. And so it adds up. And, you know, people say, my kids just want my money. Yeah, they do. You're going to be dead anyway, so you can't take it with you when you go.

I'm going to have it buried with me That's what my dad said He said I'm going to put a check in there And I said yeah go ahead Put a check in there You know that would be funny You put all your money in there And you put a glass top on it So that your kids can see

That you're burying all your money Like one of those people Who gets buried with their car that's what you do listen those are true stories i know you think then that's not true but those are true stories i have i know i know a guy that his father was very paranoid and he kept a lot of cash i mean hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash around he he first he buried it in glass jars. He put some in some jars and buried it in different places. And then later, he was worried that somebody was going to find it. So he dug it up and he set fire to it.

Jesus. He burned his money so the government would not get it. So the government would. But you can't really get that doesn't really work right but still i mean they get their 50 they get their they get their pound of flesh whether they you know death and taxes ladies and gentlemen that's a teeth but some of the stories that i hear are amazing yes you know some some kids do want your money that drug addict child of yours that's out gonna go out and get a good hit after you're gone.

Or maybe before you get gone. I don't know. Maybe you want them to get a good hit after you're gone. You might. You might. I mean, I want people to throw a party if anything ever happens to me. But, no, you have a good point. I think my mom had a neighbor who had a son who did that to her.

He was an alcoholic, and he ended up cleaning out her thing. I ran a mortgage company for 20 years, and I would see a lot of this throwing the mom into a rest home and seizing all of her assets and stuff. Yeah. And, yeah, pretty crazy. You know, you were saying a moment ago about your dog passing, and that's something that people don't think about as well, is what's going to happen to your pets once you're gone? You know, who's going to look after them and take care of them? Do you have anything stipulated to what happens to them? That's a real important thing.

I kind of have a thing, but I probably need to really stipulate that. So in looking at your website, you have several of these, what you call time capsule options. Yeah. Like a demo mode that people can check. You have a doula, ultimate guidance, privacy, privately guided time capsule, group led time capsule, self-guided time capsule, closer to closure, the talk and a gift card. I'm just giving people a gift card because I'm cheap. No, I'm just teasing. So walk us through some of these different options you have on the website, the doula ultimate guidance. That sounds pretty intense. Oh, the doula is the one that I actually lead people through. That's they can hire me to do that. And I work with people one-on-one, and they get my psychological expertise as well as my scientific.

I worked in hospitals for my first career. I was a lab rat. And so I'm very well-versed in medical terminology and medical practice. So I'm not a doctor. Let me disclaimer, not a doctor, not that kind. But I'm very well doctor. Let me disclaimer, not a doctor, not that kind. But I'm very well versed with that. I help people with the family drama, the dynamics there. And I help people a lot with the trauma that they've had in their life.

How do we tell that story? How do we work through that? So the doula is actually working with me. And then I have some private guides, some people that have expertise that you can actually hire that person, one of them. And both of these, we work with you once a week. Now, when you hire the guide, that's for 13 weeks. And that works you through, it's about 90 days. When you work with me, we work through it until whatever time it takes. So then there's also, you can do it on your own.

There's the self-guided version. You can just do that. And that's the one I'm going to give you. I'm going to sign you up for that and send it over to you. There's also a paper version, a book. If you want to actually purchase, it's very inexpensive. It's only $143. And you can actually just sit down and write. Some people don't want to do technology. They just want to write it out. So the group led, those are online, some of them, but I'm actually

going to be doing a group starting in April with a group in Hillsborough, North Carolina called the Snow Approach Foundation. And just a shout out to Teepa Snow. She's a world-renowned speaker about dementia and brain change. She's awesome. So I'm going to be working with that group over there, and I'm going to be doing a group with them for 13 weeks. Oh, wow. I like this because, you know, this is stuff that me and my mom talk about. And she's like, we need to sit down and go over, you know, this, this final folder. And I'm like, the morbidness of it is, is I really hate, I, you know, I'm, I've always been someone who's

been able to make their own money and do their own thing through life. And I'm not, I I've told my, I have, I have a sister in a care center who's MS that's younger than me and I'm like just leave everything to her so she can get taken care of but evidently it's not that easy evidently I'm gonna have to you know set up a set up a caretaker situation if I survive my mom where I'll have to take care of my sister and my mother of course has all this menagerie of, what is it called, something of attorney, power of attorney. She has these things that are over my sister because she oversees her care.

She makes sure she gets her Medicare and Medicaid and manages all this stuff. And it's really insane. Medicare and Medicaid ask for proof that she's been that she's disabled every year and you're like she has degenerative ms and dementia and she's been in care centers for seven or eight years i don't i don't think she's standing up and walking out anytime soon people but you know they make you prove it because yes they do i don't know it's insane and if you don't answer the letters my mom showed me this if you don't answer the letter you know then they they take away your care and so this is really important if you're a caretaker so you know my mom's been

really concerned about whether or not i'm up to the task now i've built you know i've built companies all my life had hundreds and thousands of, had hundreds of thousands of employees. Not hundreds of thousands, thousands of employees. And hopefully I can run taking care of somebody at the end of life. But I guess we're going to find out one way or another. Maybe, I don't know. Well, here's my piece of advice for you today. Set up a trust. You need to do that right away and go ahead and get, you know, whatever.

If you have life insurance, instead of it paying for your funeral, God bless you, you know, have it go to your trust for her. Have it set up so that the trust is such a way that it will take care of her. Because if there's just money left in an account somewhere, medicare medicaid they will get them they're going to say we want you to pay first and then we'll pay so they want you to use up your money first and then yeah but if you put it into a trust you're going to help protect it you need to do that yeah i definitely do my sister had to do that she saved up a bunch of money from disability for getting a mess on the job and then and then she had to burn through all that money before she could step on to thing but yeah it's a whole you really have to know these things and my mom of course didn't

want to know these things and she had to learn all the she had to learn all the menagerie of navigating uh health care and navigating these these you know my sister's been in several of these care centers navigating medicare medicaid whichever it is see i don't even know which one it is it's like and i know there's a difference between the two and how they operate but you know if i have to take care of her i have to take care of my sister you know it's going to be a it's going to be a pretty good job thankfully i work my own sort of business and hours where I can probably balance that. I don't have to show up

9 to 5 at any given job. So I have more free time. But yeah, I've got to know what's going on because if I don't know what's going on or where anything is and where money is to pay bills and keep things going, yeah, it could be a deal. And the same would be for my mom. I really do need to pay bills and keep things going. Yeah. It could be a deal. And the same would be for my mom.

I mean, I really do need to sit down and give her my password. She can't have the only fans password, but she can have the rest. I don't know what that means. I just had to do an only fans callback joke. Okay. So,

you know, this is the stuff that we're talking about is hugely important. And it doesn't have to be morbid. You know, we're not morbid today. We're kind of laughing and joking. Yeah. You know, we're having a good time. Yeah.

So I would encourage people to go ahead and pay for your end-of-life service. Go ahead and take care of that. That is a huge thing. That is a pain in the rump-a-pump-pump to sort of figure out once they're gone. If my dad said, I don't really care, you do whatever. And I'm like, ah, okay, but I have to do whatever. So go ahead and do that. Go ahead and figure out what do you want? I know you're going to be gone. You don't really care, but you know, what do you want don't make your

family have to figure it out yeah and yeah you made me refocus on this because you know i've been feeling the greatest lately i i haven't been dealing with winter at all well this year and i don't know you know you never know i could be my it could be something why don't we cover to talk about that you guys offer your packages and the help that you do. Obviously, there's various time capsule options. What is the privately guided time capsule as opposed to the group-led time capsule? So the privately guided, you hire one of my guides, Legacy Coach, and they actually work with you through via Zoom or Google Meet, whatever works best, and work with you one-on-one for the 13 weeks. And so, it's more private. You

don't have other people. The groups are things that we lead, I lead, they lead, and it's done. And there's a lot of different people. It's like today, if you had several people on this call with us or on this podcast with us, we would all be available to talk, sort of a panel, if you will. But in the group situation, it's like a class online. There's still get the same time capsule course you still get the options of recording all your story your health information your financial your legal all those things and as i said we do the group online two or three times a year depending on how things fall for me because i usually lead those or i'm going to lead a group in person. We're going to actually go over, like I said, to the next town over and we'll have several families, different families in the group doing it all at the same time. And that's a fun way to do it too. Even though it's not as private, you hear other

people's story. You hear what they're dealing with or what and they have some information that helps you figure, well, God, if they're doing doing that then maybe that'll help me with this problem so it's just a good way to actually learn different ways of doing things and handling things oh i i really like this idea because this is something where everyone's getting older around us and and it's time to really nail this stuff down like i say i, I have different bank accounts that get forever money as long as Google's still in business and my book still sells and that seems to not slow down. So yeah, it's something where I want that money to pay for stuff. And my mom has one of those things that she's talked about for decades where

she wants to pass in her home and she has this specialized insurance that brings caregivers in it's supposed to fund the caregivers and boy am i banking on that because i i really i mean i i believe you should pass in your home my grandmother passed passed in her home. I think most of her family did. And it's home. No one wants to die in a hospital. I mean, I've seen that, and it's not, I don't know. It's just, you're not home. And that's basically it.

And she deserves that, right? And so, yeah, I'm hoping that what she has in place is definitely going to take, but I'm going to have to activate it and call up some insurance company and be like, my mom paid you. Give her what she needs. Yeah, you've got to be able to know all this stuff. So that's, yeah, and that's one of the things that I tell people when I'm working with them is that you need long-term care insurance is what it's called. Okay. And it's actually, you should get it probably a long time before you need it.

You're at an age where I would say, Chris, go get some long-term care insurance. Are you trying to tell me something? No. Is there something you know about me? Have you seen my x-rays? I have a joke about that. But anyway, yes, you need long-term care insurance. But all long-term care insurance is not created equal.

So you have to know what it is you need and what it is when you don't know what you need to. You need it, of course. You know, what kinds of options are available? And you need to not just go buy the first thing that you run into. It's kind of like, heaven help me, God forbid, attorneys. I love attorneys. They have a great place. But every attorney has their own bias. So you go to one attorney and you go, I want to protect my mom's assets. Well, you need to create this and this and this. And you go to another attorney and they're like, this is how you do

it over here. You need to actually have the kids get the deed ahead of time. And you go to a different attorney. You can come up with as many different ways to do estate planning as there are attorneys out there. So you just have to know that every attorney has their own bias. There's lots of different kinds of long-term care insurance. You need to know that too. So I would just suggest that you go ahead and get it. If you're 55 or 60, go ahead and invest in long-term care insurance because once COVID has come and is never going away again, the insurance companies made some changes because they really got hit hard

with people needing long-term care insurance. So it's a little more difficult to get it now than it used to be before COVID. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It seems like everything's getting harder and more expensive and everything else.

And yeah, you've got to, you know, I have pulled the plug insurance, health insurance or something, pull the plug end of life insurance. So it's basically just get them out of here. They call it the just get them out of here insurance. Just get this. Let's end this whole mess and call it a day. Insurance. I think that's what mine's called. Yeah, just kick the plug out. And no plug. Insurance. I think that's what mine's called. Yeah, just kick the plug out.

No plug for you. I think that's how mine's working, so we'll see. But you're right. We should check into it. We should know what's going on. Because if you don't, I mean, let's talk about, I know we're going a little long here, but what's the downside of this? I mean, what does it look like? You've probably seen some bad case scenarios where you end up making your loved ones suffer more because they're trying to figure out how to take care of your dummy who didn't fill out the paperwork and get prepared. And so now you've

just created more of a burden on your family on top of you passing or being in sort of care situation. Absolutely. One of the things that people don't realize is when they don't have their legal documents, then what happens is it ends up, well, you're going to go to probate regardless. But if you go to probate without your legal documents or will, then what happens is the state that you live in gets to decide the federal, the judiciary, a judge, will decide who gets to be in charge of your estate. Who's going to be the executor? Or the state that you're in will actually appoint an attorney. Somebody doesn't even know your family.

And they will discharge your estate. And so then they get a bigger cut because they're doing that. So you have to know that probate, when you go to probate, it could end up in court and it could end up in all sorts of legal battles. who hasn't come to see mom in about 100 years shows up and says, I want the grandfather clock because she promised it to me 10 years ago. Wow. And everybody, okay, but you're not getting the grandfather clock because I'll sue for it. And so then there gets to be more drama, drama mama. And all these legal battles happen.

Things get, you know get taken or moved about. Instead of having a very nice process where there's an executor, and as part of the guardian's gift, there's an executor section after someone has passed, how to guide, go through all this. And it's what do you do? You need to file, actually, in the newspaper. You put an ad in there and say, anybody out there has a claim against the estate? Let me know so we can pay it.

But if you don't know all those things, then there's no deed to the house. My daughter just bought some property and there was a house on there and there was no will and there was no deed. They had to go back and recreate some of these things. So the process goes on for years for some people. Wow. Wow. That's, I mean, you don't want that. I've seen that legal fight from children and it's over stuff.

I think it's pretty morbid. I've seen, I've seen kids fight over 20 or 30 grand and and grab grandma kick her out of her house so they can seize the house and the equity in the home and throw her in a care center and you know they're never going to visit her yeah and i've seen evil shit like that like we need to have the will changed or the title changed over because you know we're throwing grandma in the in the rest home and she's got assets you know i'm just like seriously you're throwing away your mother for 20 or 30 grand like i think that's like you know it's not a lot of money people really really comes down to it but some people think it is

and it's not you know for the woman or man who put up with your diapers and your poo-poo for several years or however long it is i never had kids to you know up with your diapers and your poo-poo for several years or however long it is i never had kids to you know clean up your mess and and carried you through your life you know i i have a saying with my dogs i you know my dogs and my family and i've had four huskies and i have a saying you know i i carry them through the first 10 years and they carry me or they carry me for the first through the first 10 years and i carry them through the last several years or whatever it takes so you know when people always say to me oh oh it's sad that you know your dogs are costing a small fortune now and you have to do all this

cancer stuff and i'm like we had a good run for 10 years and they carried me so now it's my turn and that's kind of how life works folks so your mom listened to all your stupid shit and your dumb stories and your stupid stuff that you do. And she loved you anyway, in spite of it all. So at least you could do it. Try and make her exit the best or any parent, really, when it comes down to it. I'm glad we had this discussion. It'll be interesting to see this. And I don't know, maybe I'll become, I'll talk about more on on social media and on the podcast because this is important where you know we have what the largest

baby boomer generation still retiring and still going into the thing so there's still a huge amount of people that need to take care of this stuff and yeah if you don't have a will if you don't have stuff set up you know the the government takes a large portion i think half at least right i don't know it depends on what the estate what the size of the estate you know the larger of course the more money they get and there have been a lot of you know movie stars and people like that who don't have this podcast podcast stars that don't have it i'm amazed so i know one that's going to get it so i i'm going to give it to him but anyway

well i'll look forward to checking it out and all that good stuff and blab about online after final thoughts as we go out judy tell people how they can onboard the.org, all that good stuff that you want people to find you on the interwebs. Yeah, just look me up on theguardiansgift.org and, you know, send me a text message, send me an email, just chat.

You know, there's a free version on there you can go look at, a module that says this is a demo module, check it out, Do it. If you've got questions, just ask, please. Just ask. The more you know. Yes. That sounds like that.

I should have that. Do, do, do. The more you know. Yes. Thank you for coming to the show, Judy. We really appreciate it. Oh, thank you for having me. This has been a blast.

Thank you. You've been great to chat chat with a lot of fun we have fun joking about death because i mean marcus aurelius said it best meditations death smiles at us the best you can do is just smile back absolutely memento mori folks it it really helps embrace it it is what it is uh it's you know i i like to either one of my favorite lines is from the movie no country for old men and there's a part in there where he goes and visits i think his uncle his granddad and he says the line you can't stop what's coming that's vanity and it's true you know we can all be a little vain or think we're immortal sometimes and I'll live forever and

There's plenty of time like you say and things happen, you know car crashes, you know But we just saw a plane land upside down in Canada. It's it's January 20. It's February 2025 people if you're getting that reference we have people that like watch the show ten years from now and they go what it's cool That never happened and you're you have to say you have to date everything that's why we don't give out pricing on amazon anymore because they're like it's not it's free on amazon now it's like that was 20 years ago that we reviewed that like it's amazing the comments we get and but this is important to take and nail this stuff down folks i know it's a little it feels a little bit morbid and odd to think about your death and your passing but you know think about what you're leaving behind for your family and you know it's hard enough that they're dealing with the loss of you you know they're probably

celebrating clicking glasses and throwing champagne he's finally gone that's how my kids would be um we're finally rid of him ding dong the witch is dead but no i mean you know they're they're dealing with pain they're dealing with loss i mean you know they're they're dealing with pain they're dealing with loss they're you know they're upset you know i i hate that they're starting that grief process that i hate so much and you know you don't need to complicate their lives anymore make it easy on them eh make it easy on everybody everybody share do a family thing well judy thank you very much for coming the show and hopefully we've helped some people prepare better for the future and make everyone's lives easier.

Thank you for having me. Thank you. Thanks, Ron, for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, LinkedIn.com, 4chesschrisfast, chrisfast, one of the TikTokity, and all those crazy places. Watch for us.

We have the new logo, too. I should put a plug in. We have the new logo on the Chris Voss Show show and we'll be having some merch available soon be good to each other stay safe we'll see you next time that should have us