Money And Mortality

A life-limiting diagnosis doesn’t just change a calendar. It scrambles the way people think, decide, and even talk to the ones they love, especially when money and legal choices suddenly feel urgent. We’re joined by Rose Zealand, a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER­­™, Certified Financial Transitionist®, and death doula who’s building a rare kind of support for people facing “dying too soon” and the families around them.

We talk through Rose’s origin story, including why she launched her RIA in a way that honors her dad, and how her work connects the practical with the personal. Rose explains her three-part framework: money, meaning, and mortality. That includes cash flow changes after a diagnosis, using disability insurance and other benefits, tightening up estate planning, and getting incapacity planning aligned with real intentions. Just as important, it includes education on the dying process, space to tell one’s story, and support for anticipatory grief that starts the moment life splits into “before” and “after.”

We also get into what this looks like for financial advisors on the front line. When a long-time client becomes inconsistent, avoidant, or overwhelmed, most advisors were never trained for the behavioral and emotional side of finance at end of life. Rose shares how she partners with advisors in an advice-only, time-bound engagement that reduces pressure, creates clarity, and helps clients feel grounded enough to make informed decisions. We close with a candid reflection on legacy, preparedness, and what it means to truly practice what we preach.

If you want more on Rose’s work, visit deathandmoney.com. 

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Welcome to Real Talk with Life after Greek. We talk about wealth and issues as it relates to individuals in grief, as they navigate finances and the advisors to help them. We help clients in grief navigate financial matters. We also teach advisors how to emotionally and financially work with clients in grief through an unparalleled process. This week's podcast is sponsored by Life After Grief Financial Planning and Life After Grief Consulting.

Launching A Firm To Honor Dad

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Hello and welcome back to another episode of Real Talk with Life After Grief Crest. In this episode, I have a pretty cool guest, and there's going to be a future episode kind of dealing with death and things of that nature. But my friend here, Rose Zealand, she's a unique individual in that she is a death duel, and I'm going to promote her. So she has just got her own firm off the ground. And I'm going to let her tell about her own firm. I'm not going to spill the beans there. But she and I became acquainted as a result of being on a committee for a it was a conference, and we are both certified financial transitionists. So we were on kind of the steering agenda committee for that. So as I came to know the folks that were on the committee, I realized that the folks on the committee were a lot smarter than me. Rose in that spectrum, especially when I started speaking to her. Not that I was intimidated, but I can immediately tell when I'm speaking to someone how intelligent they are. And as I've said too in the past, that I kind of sit back and observe people. And Rose in particular struck me because I knew that I had to have my A game when I was talking to her because of the fact that she is so highly intelligent. And I think that will definitely come out while we are speaking. So Rose's practice is pretty unique and it partners with practices like mine or anyone else's. And I'm gonna let her kind of go into that. In a traditional setting, a practice like mine, I have a client, specifically a client that is in grief, and I build them a financial plan. And within that financial plan, it basically will earmark their investments, retirement, insurance, anything under the sun financially. And that's not necessarily what Rose's practice does. Rose, I'm gonna let you take it from here. I'm gonna let you tell about yourself. And I'm just gonna kind of sit back in awe as I have done in the past.

Becoming A Death Doula CFP

Money Meaning And Mortality Framework

SPEAKER_04 2:40

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And uh I hope I hope I live up to the reputation it just gave me. Gave me a lot of credit there. My name is Rose Zealand. Just last week got the approval from the state of Montana. She launched my registered investment advisory, my RIA. Yeah. It's a big deal. I'm very excited. And the official launch is this coming Sunday. By the time this was released, I will have already been launched. But just a little note about the launch date, which ties into the story and the reason, the purpose, the why behind my work. So the launch date is Sunday, January 25th, which would have been my dad's 65th birthday. He died almost four years ago. And it's really his death, his life and death that has led me to this moment and having this business. My dad died just a few weeks after his 61st birthday. So he died too soon. And it was my experience of his death, my grief, and all the changes that happened in my life afterwards that really prompted me to be right here, right now, and are the screw line story of why my business, Golden Swine Collaborative, exists. I'm very excited to have the official launch date on what would have been his 65th birthday, because it feels like a very full-circle moment in my life and a really beautiful way to honor and tribute my dad. As you mentioned, I'm a certified financial planner. I have a little over a decade of experience in financial services, starting in property and casualty insurance, moving to financial advising with a major burger dealer, working in independent space and now my own firm. As you said, I'm also a certified financial transitionist. And I would assume your audience knows what that is, but just to reiterate, or in case there's somebody out there who's not familiar with it, that is a designation that's available to people who are already established financial professionals, whether it's tax or legal or financial planning, who spend an additional year of training and mentorship learning how to support people who are going through major life transition and all of the cognitive and emotional changes and struggles that people commonly go through when life is turned upside down. So it's very much focused on the human side and the behavioral side of finance. So I'm a certified financial planner, a certified financial transitionist, and I'm also a death doula. And that is the newest credential or experience in my life. And it's a direct result of my dad's death as well. Because one of the insights that I had when my dad passed, and I guess I should say here too, that 20-something years ago I was a birth doula. So I had been kind of at the beginning of life and as an witness to many lives coming into the world. When I was with my dad when he died, with my hand on his chest, as I felt his final heartbeat and felt his final breath leave his body, I just had this moment where I was like, wow, death is almost exactly like birth, just completely different. There's there's a magic to the moment when somebody comes into the world, and there's a magic to the moment when somebody leaves. And I don't know that most people would assign that description to death because it is usually shrouded in hardship and loss and sadness and grief. And that's all very real and true also. But the exact moment of that transition, there's a magic to it for sure. So yeah, experiencing that, reflecting that birth and death were very similar, just completely different is what led me to become a death jewel. And along the way, I kind of had this insight where it's like, you know what, I want to be a CFP death jewel because there's there's gotta be a better way to do money and death. Because culturally, money is a hard thing for a lot of people. Death is a hard thing for a lot of people. And when you put them together and they frequently go together, sure, it can be a really challenging, even traumatic time for people. So I wanted to kind of create a path for that going easier. It took me about three and a half years to figure out what it could look like and what it meant to be a CFP Death Doula. And in the research that I've done, I haven't found anybody else who's doing what I'm doing from the angle that I'm doing it. And I found multiple people who are kind of in your zone of working with people who are widows or widowers or in the space after loss and in the brief space, but not so much the specific focus on being with people who are living with the diagnosis. So my focus is on working with people in Colorado primarily who are in their 40s and 50s, who have been diagnosed with a life-limiting illness or potentially life-limiting illness, and want support with the financial, logistical, emotional, and existential challenges of dying too soon. So it's a very specific market. And understanding that this demographic are likely in the sandwich generation. So people who have either young kids or just you know, barely launching young adult children, as well as potentially taking care of parents, their mid-stride in career, they're really just a mid-stride in life and getting a hand-dealt of a diagnosis that threatens to take their life significantly sooner than anticipated. It's one of those moments that there's life before the moment of that diagnosis, and there's life afterwards. And it can feel powerless, it can feel helpless, but there's still a lot of choice, there's still a lot of influence that people can have in a situation that feels like there's no control. So that's really where I come in. The three focus areas where I work are what I call money, meaning, and mortality. The money side are the practical financial logistical components of the financial dynamics that shift after you get a diagnosis like that. Things like how your cash flow changes, if you're not working as much, so there's not as much income, and how do you recalibrate to that and adjust? How do you leverage existing insurance resources, be it a disability insurance policy, social security benefits, potentially working its comp, depending on the source of the diagnosis, living benefits of life insurance policy? Huge into estate planning and getting really clear on what your intentions are for the people who you love, how you want to take care of them after you're gone. Because that's fundamentally the why behind estate planning is how do you want to take care of the people you love after you're gone. And in capacity planning as well. So making sure the intentions are clarified and that the logistics of the plan match those intentions. This is a quick example of some of the financial side of lives. On the mortality side, it's a lot of education about the dying process and understanding and helping to normalize the physiological changes that they're going through and understand the options and choices that they have as they are living through this diagnosis and this chapter of their life. Non-medical forms of pain control, really thinking about telling their story in a way that they want to be remembered. A huge part of Death Doola work is giving people the opportunity to share the story of their life without judgment, without rules, without, you know, there's just an open platform for somebody to say, this is who I am, this is who I was, this is where I am now. So listening without judgment and a tremendous amount of compassion and capturing that in a way that can be carried on and be told by people who are left behind. And then there's the meaning part of all of this too, of helping people kind of recalibrate cognitively and emotionally to the reality that they're living in now. How do we adjust to what's happening? It's not what we want, but it's what's happening. How do we let that go? How do we let go of responsibility? How do we ask for help? How do we allow ourselves to receive help? What type of unfinished business is out there that is important to the person to try and wrap up? And how far are they going to be able to get in that unfinished business while they still have time to get there? So those are the types of realms that I go into.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Well, I can say that since I've been doing this, I have never met an individual or a firm that is as highly specialized as you are. I'm also thinking back to when I started my firm like you, there was not another firm in the continental US, because I researched it, that specifically dealt with clients that were in a grief situation. That was by design on my part. And as I see forward for you, I have the benefit of looking back to 2017. A lot of the folks that have now shown up in this space, I've met a lot of those folks. And I can't quantify how many of those folks that I've touched and given advice to, but I can say over the years, there are a lot of folks that I have touched, given advice to, or formally trained, do what I do. Um, I absolutely see that kind of going forward for you because again, this is something that I've not seen anybody else do. It's a very unique space.

Why Planning For Death Feels Impossible

SPEAKER_04 11:33

Yeah, it is. And I really appreciate that reflection because when I think about the scope of this work and what could be possible with it, there's the level of impact on the people I work with directly, the people who are in their 40s and 50s and dying too soon. But there's also the potential impact on the financial industry itself and changing the way that financial planners and advisors work with people in this situation. Because here's the thing: I mentioned earlier that culturally death was a really difficult thing for many of us to talk about, to acknowledge, to prepare for, to really sink into what it means to maybe die too soon. Or I think most of us are willing to acknowledge that we're going to die someday. I think most people, yeah, I'm gonna die someday, obviously. None of us get out of this alive. But I think most people are also willing to acknowledge that someday can be any day, because we all talk about the proverbial bus and you know getting hit by the train and whatever. But we tend to be glib about that.

SPEAKER_03 12:35

Right.

SPEAKER_04 12:35

And also not take it very seriously because those things are very, very true. So, what does it mean to actually drop into preparing for the someday that could be any day? Because doing so requires a tremendous amount of courage on the part of the individual who's going there because it's gonna stir up sadness. You think about one of the exercises that we do in Death Door training is this visualization where we're asked to kind of drop into your life exactly as it exists today with the people who you love in it, exactly who you have right now, all the circumstances of your career, your children, your friends, your plans that you're looking forward to, and you're dying. Everything's the same except now you've got maybe three months left to live. And really going through what are the emotional implications of that and dropping in the feelings of getting in that situation and working through it. It takes a lot of courage to do that. And that's what we touch on when we're asked to do things like our estate plan and our incapacity planning. And that's why it's so difficult for a lot of people, because having to face the reality of how sad or angry or heartbroken or hopeless or helpless that they would feel if that were their situation is a huge block to doing it. Because financial planners are just human beings.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Sure. We're humans, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:00

Humans, financial planners struggle with that for themselves as well, even though on a daily basis we're constantly advising people to do their own plans, but we have a difficulty with that as well. And we also have, just as human beings, a lot of uncertainty around how to support people who are in that situation. What do you say? What do you say to somebody who's got stage four cancer where there's no cure or there's no curative treatment? It's something that they can prolong life, but they're not gonna get rid of, you know, I'm sorry, that sucks. There's a lot of things that we're sort of conditioned to say that aren't particularly helpful. What we do as platitudes. And so, yeah, helping financial planners, helping the financial industry as a whole understand how to work with people in this situation, how to work with death and dying in a more compassionate and holistic way. That's one of the things that I hope my work does over time.

How Rose Partners With Advisors

SPEAKER_00 14:52

I have a scenario for you. Yeah. And I think we briefly touched on this. I'm going to place Chris Dale outside of this spectrum, but I'm going to give this real life example that I just went through. Again, I'm going to separate myself because my skill set is unique. And so, say that you have a client, and the client that I had, I called him Hugh Breeze, and I brought him up on several episodes. He passed away in November. And the unique situation with him was that we had just got his estate planning done a year ago in November. I had a sense of urgency because of my personal experience that we needed to get his estate planning done, an extreme sense of urgency because I was it for him, basically. And my biggest fear was he was going to be in a situation to where I couldn't give him his own money if he was incapacitated. So that sense of urgency, and I call it a spidey sense, right? Started in August of 2024. And so I was on the hunt to find an estate planner or an agency that could fulfill several needs: power of attorney, executive, personal representative, all of the above. It just dawned on me that one of the existing estate planning attorneys that I was already using for a long time fulfilled all those needs. Her firm would fill in. So his estate plan was done. I believe it was November 26 of 2024. He got in a major car accident in January of 2025. And this is a real life example. And so the attorney had to step in. It was this long process of helping him navigate this window, and he recovered somewhat. And to the point where this was uncharted waters, even for me, was that at that point he wasn't in a death or dying situation. But now you fast forward to October of 2025. He is symptomatic of either lung or heart issues. He goes to the hospital. I call 911 for him, and he goes to the hospital. He's now diagnosed with lung cancer. He doesn't want any extenuating circumstances to prolong his life. And frankly, he doesn't even want to know the degree of the lung cancer. And now for me, with all of this experience that I have, to now jump back into a situation to where I'm caregiving for someone that it was like my parents, very similar situation. Meaning I had to jump back into that situation, which I was emotionally connected with this gentleman for 20 years. Now have to separate my friendship with him to continue my fiduciary responsibility and gather people around him to make sure that he had the best care going forward. He never returned home. And so the estate planning attorney made decisions if he were incapacitated during that time frame and then inevitably found a rehab facility, but it had nursing home things related and it could transition to that. But you take me as a CFP, CEFP, and you transplant me now into this position to where I'm essentially caregiving again, but for a client, because he had no children and he had no one really to make decisions for him other than the estate planning attorney. And I'm going to say that I strong armed him to get this done. It really wasn't a strong arm. He was just like, Chris, just take care of it. And I told him essentially, I can't get you things unless you have this paperwork in place. And he's like, all right, let's just get it done. But for me to take that position and take it a step further, I'm at the rehab facility. He's not getting the best care. And I know his wishes because he and I would talk on a regular basis and he was very vocal about, you know, what he wanted or what he didn't want. And so now I'm in a position, furthermore, to go to this rehab facility and tell them that they're not doing their job and be very vocal about that. And then taking it a step further to getting him a companion that comes every day. I'm not confident that most advisors would be able to step in and do some of those things, nor want to do some of those things. So I'm going to transition now, and I think this is a good transition to how you partner with advisors.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Great question. So I mean, I think you're right in that. And it's it sounds like you had a personal relationship with that individual that we were kind of flipping between both friend hat and financial planner hat. Sure. And there was a an overlap sometimes wearing both hats at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Correct.

SPEAKER_04 19:42

Yeah. And I don't think that there's a single financial planner out there who's doing this work from just the love of the impact that we get to have in our people's lives that doesn't have that sort of messy, unclear line between clients who are friends and clients who are clients. So it can be difficult to distinguish that. But I think it's really important to also, as you did, and to be able to articulate what hat are you wearing and what are you trying to accomplish when you're wearing that hat? And what are the kind of limits of the role that you have in that time? So to your point about how I partner with financial planners, yeah, I think because the way that I've structured my business, I am technically an RIA, a registered investment advisory, but I'm advice only. I do not manage assets, I do not do long-term financial plans, not in there for retirement planning or education planning for the kids. I really am structured a bit more like a coaching contract. I do 16 sessions per engagement agreement over approximately 16 weeks. So it's about a four-month engagement agreement. And my work is really meant to help stabilize a difficult situation and to help a client who is in struggle. So I think what commonly happens is a financial planner has a great relationship with a client. They're engaged, they're regularly saving, they're taking the advice to varying degrees of implementation. And all of a sudden this diagnosis comes and they stop coming in for appointments, or they get combative, or they get really contradictory, where one meeting they want this, and the next meeting they want this. And so their financial advisor feels like they're chasing their tail, running around trying to execute a whole bunch of things really fast with a client who doesn't really know what they want, their behavior is fundamentally shifted. And most financial planners aren't trained on how to or kind of like aren't really grounded in how to work with clients who are going through those types of behavioral changes in that way, or cognitive changes. So because I'm not competition for a financial planner, because I'm not taking clients away from them, because a lot of financial planners right now are getting paid for the assets they manage. And since I don't do that, I'm not gonna lure anybody away from them. But being able to partner with a financial planner to help support a client who's in struggle, to help them have The client regulate and come back to a place of being grounded and being able to make informed decisions and to integrate the experience that they're having, that requires a lot of effort and it's a degree of time that a lot of financial planners may not have to be able to spend with that type of a client while they're also trying to do everything that they do for everybody else as well. So for me to be able to partner with a planner who already has all of the financial information and has done the projections and can really quickly model different scenarios and to be able to execute insurance or trades or whatever the case may be, while I'm communicating back to the planner some of the qualitative things that we're discussing and the reason and the purpose and the focus and what we're doing, there's a really nice partnership there where I'm supporting the financial planner to be more effective at what they do with the client who's in struggle and supporting a client to feel like they are not being pressured or to use your language, strong-armed into doing anything before they're ready to do it. And, you know, I'll acknowledge there's a delicate balance between getting things executed while there's still time to do it, and also not pushing somebody to do things before they're ready or fully, you know, purchased and bought into the idea of what's happening. So that's how I work with financial planners. And I believe that my primary source of referrals will actually come from other financial planners rather than direct marketing people in my demographic of who I'm hoping to work with because I can take such a huge burden off of a financial planner's shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

So is it safe to say that your clients, so to speak, are going to be financial planners, or your clients are going to be the clients of financial planners that are in this life-altering situation or a combination of both?

SPEAKER_04 23:46

No, it'll be the clients of financial planners who are living with the diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Gotcha. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:52

I could see a future world someday where my client is the financial planner and they're paying me to help them do the work directly in kind of consulting capacity, but that's not how I'm structured at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Gotcha. Okay. And wanted to just make sure of that clarification because I have received some questions in terms of that, specifically in some of the training that I have done for some folks. And so, again, that's a very, very unique aspect. And I think it's a huge offer for a financial planner. I think when you had dimension it said that maybe don't have the capacity to do it. And I'll venture to say there's some folks that don't want to do it as well. And so the capacity, maybe not the right skill set, knowing your own kind of weaknesses and opportunities, but have a good heart and still want to do the right thing and maintain the client structure. I'm not one to curse, but that's a huge, that's a heck of an offer to help someone. And I'll refrain refrain from cursing on the podcast. But I can just think of so many folks who have had a client that was in a life-altering situation. Actually, it was my first consulting client. He had no idea what to do. He had no idea, kind of expectation-wise, you know, how to work with the client. And it was just for him to have a situation to where he could get some information. And your engagement is great. I think 16 weeks, if I'm not mistaken, is a great engagement because you get a lot of information. The client and they can feel a lot better as much as they can be in a life-altering situation. So the wheels are spinning. And as I'm looking down to, I didn't tell you this, but I was taking notes. And so, I mean, it's huge. It is absolutely huge. And I can also think of some advisors who chose to opt out. You have to know your own strengths and you know what your limits are. And opting out, I wouldn't necessarily say is a bad thing, but if you're going to opt out, opt out and make sure the client has a safe place to land.

Grief Work After Death And Collaboration

SPEAKER_04 26:04

Correct. Exactly. And I think like putting the way that I work with financial planners in the same category as a CPA or an attorney or a coach is a good way to think of me because I'm an augment to the team. And any one of us who's done financial planning for a long time knows that we don't do this in silos. Unless a financial planner is also a CPA and or is also an attorney, those are things that we don't do. We don't give tax advice, we don't give legal advice. And we just don't. So we partner with people who do. And we kind of work as a team to support the client in this holistic way. I am somebody who exists on that team who brings a really unique skill set and perspective to support the work of everybody else on the team in the unique way that I do without taking away from the importance of anybody else on the team. We're all essential players. And I think to that end, my business team was golden thread collaborative. And the reason why I chose collaborative is the recognition that we all know the phrase it takes a village to raise a child. But the truth is that it also takes a village to exit the world. So a big focus of my work is making sure that my clients have a village. And if they're not coming to me with that village already established, of friends and family members and caregivers and advocates and medical teams and like financial professionals, I have a team of collaborators who I have personally vetted, who are like-minded and like-hearted who are ready to fill in those gaps and support that client in that sort of a village team approach. So that nobody has to do this alone. Nobody should have to go through this experience alone. And the more wagons we can circle around ourselves when we're in a difficult situation like this, the better off we're gonna be. So that's a big part of my work as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

I think it's interesting, and I'm gonna be a little selfish here. Yeah. It's interesting since Stubreze is what I call that gentleman, my client, I have learned so much after we did his estate plan. And I I could say I've probably been doing what I'm doing for 21, 22 years. And in the last year and a half, I have arguably learned as much about the transition of someone doing their estate plan and enacting the estate plan and transitioning them through the death process than I have learned, arguably, about almost anything in my career. It was huge, it was very fast-paced, and you had to think on the fly and just figure some stuff out. And you gain a lot of information from that. And from that, I've met some very, very good people. And I attribute that to being vocal about that experience with the client. So you're in that camp. I think the timing was very, very well. Actually, my client passed away on the Wednesday that we were in the conference together.

SPEAKER_03 29:05

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

And it just happened to be that we were doing an expertise statement with another speaker. We were going through that exercise, and my whole expertise changed as of that Wednesday. And then since then, you know, you and I got on a call. Then I met, well, this was someone that I've already known, but they had transitioned. She's on a podcast, Child First Trust, talking about folks that do not have children.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

Are you talking to Maddie?

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yes. Yeah. I was talking to Maddie. And so that was one of the notes that I took. And so I don't have to make that introduction now. So talking to her about that, and I'm just like, man, that would have been an easier process for me as an advisor to have that availability too. And as I'm writing a book, or actually the draft is finished. I don't know if I had said that to you. So this season is kind of dedicated to the launch of my book. But there are folks that I have met and I have experiences that I write about that would have made my life easier and inevitably the process for a client easier. And so I'm appreciative to meet you and everything, you know, all the knowledge that you have. I'm excited to kind of partner with you kind of going forward as well.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I feel the same, Chris. And I think what I find so intriguing about your work is your business name, life after grief, right? And just naming it, calling it what it is, and bringing it to a central part of the conversation. Because I think that there's another piece there that grief along with death and money is also a difficult thing for people to deal with and talk about. And when, you know, my clientele, the people who have the diagnosis, grief conversations and grief recovery and grief support are typically focused on after the loss. But there's a lot of grief in the room when you have the diagnosis as well. Because your life has just changed. And when there's a major change, there's usually grief associated with it. So working in that capacity to support people who are grieving in an anticipatory way about what's coming. And then also being able to make the transition to working with the people who are left behind, understanding that they're going through a grief process as well. That's a whole other realm where financial planners are, again, just humans and may or may not be well positioned to deal with that. And so the service that you're doing of working with clients directly, but then also teaching other financial planners how to be more skillful and effective at working with people who are in grief. Grief being a perfectly normal, natural and healthy physiological response to loss. It's a hard place to be. And again, it's another thing that we avoid. So the way that you're supporting people is truly revolutionary and so necessary. And a great continuation because, again, you know, looking for partnerships and people who I'm interested in collaborating with long term, my primary work is with the person who has the diagnosis and may be dying. And I provide some limited support for survivors. I call it the Epilob service for like the first six months after death to be able to have some initial support through the estate administration process, the trustee process, just initial grieving, kind of reprocessing the death, giving people an opportunity and a safe place to talk about what's going on. But there's a lot of financial work that needs to happen after a death as well. Everybody's estate plans need to get redone. Insurance needs to get revisited, bank accounts retitled. There's a lot of work, and that's not my zone. And so being able to partner with financial planners who I know and trust to be able to work in a holistic, compassionate way with people who are in grief is really important to me. So I'm excited that you exist. I'm excited that the network of people who you have trained exists and to know that that's growing capacity within the financial planning Arena.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Sure. Awesome. Yeah, I'm I'm thinking about a thousand things right now. One of which the connection with Maddie Roach. So she will be on a podcast this season. Which is cool. I had no idea that you both knew each other. What else you got for me?

SPEAKER_04 33:21

I'd ask a self-reflective question if you're willing to share a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 33:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

So one of if you're gonna ask me about myself.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

So one of the things that we commonly see as professionals, you know, that axiom that the cobbler's kids have no shit.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

So just out of curiosity, if you died tomorrow, what kind of a position would your family be in? Both from a logistical perspective, but also from the how you have communicated and prepared for an any day.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

See, I told you guys that Rose was smart. So she's putting me on the spot, and I think she's already read into my vulnerability. So she's already she's no, you're asking that question because she knows that I am going to answer. If something were to happen to me, if we're gonna talk about financially, because this is a financial podcast, my family would be taken care of. I could not stand a situation to where I went through all these struggles financially as a kid, knowing what happened in my family, specifically some of the decisions that my father made to have my family destitute. And destitute is a wide range, right? But my family would be taken care of financially. From a logistics standpoint, as I am very, very detail-oriented, and probably Amory hates that aspect of me by this point. But logistically, my practice would continue on. And it took me a long time to figure out or find a firm that could step in in the event that something were to happen to me. That would be very, very important to me. I'm not going to go into too much detail about my estate planning because you know that's a little bit personal, but the estate planning aspect is really no different than the detail-oriented process of me. And so I have preached to my friend Hugh Brees what I wanted him to do, and he allowed me to do that, and I practice that. And so I think that's the kind of the end result of your question. Am I practicing what I preach? And the answer is absolutely yes. I don't want anybody making a decision for me if I'm in a state of incapacity. I don't want to put that stress and I don't want to put that burden on my wife. That decision is mine, and that decision is mine alone. I know firsthand the stress that comes along with that because my mother and father didn't have a formal estate plan, but my mom vocalized to me that she did not want to be artificially kept alive. My dad, in being married to her, wanted to keep her artificially alive. And I stepped in and I said, Dad, that is not mom's wishes. Again, I don't want any back and forth with anybody. In that capacity, I've made clear-cut decisions. And through the estate plan, I expect those decisions to be honored. They have to be honored, actually, legally, they have to be honored. But that aspect is very important to me to do things and to preach what I have done for clients for a long time. Because my father had this saying, and this is mentioned in my book, which is ironic. He would always say, Do as I say, but don't do as I do. He would tell me the right things to do, but not necessarily do them himself. And my two boys, and I talk about them a lot, are an ultimate reflection of me. They are my legacy. And if I am giving them advice that I'm not following, then I'm a hypocrite. And so that doesn't go for anyone else other than Chris Dale, because I have a certain standard that I live by. And beyond that, my legacy is them and the tools and the things that I give them. And I can tell you that I'm giving them a lot of financial tools. And I'm not talking about giving them dollars. I'm giving them financial tools that I learned with a lot of emotional baggage. And so one of the things that I've done for them is I've really taught them the X's and O's of money, what that looks like, how to budget, you know, effectively. And my boys are 12 and 10 and they have that skill set. And then I transitioned them to the electronic piece of that. I was old school and wanted them to be able to count money, go to the store and say, if, you know, I gave a$20 bill and the bill was, you know,$10 and 11 cents, how much money are you supposed to get back? You should be able to do that math in your head, regardless if you're good at math or not. And so then I was at a confident point where they could transition and they have an app that they use. It's called Greenlight. And man, it just blew my mind. I can transfer money into their account. They can also invest in the market. And we invest and we talk about it. And then they're all like little tutorials that teach them about investing, credit versus debit, budgeting, future budgeting, inflation, stuff that would take me light years to carve out and teach them. And they're not going to get that stuff in school. So it's things like that. It's a legacy. And when you talk about building wealth for future generations, this is a situation to where I have an opportunity to create wealth for my future generations. And I'm not necessarily just talking about, you know, four or five generations having$2. They have the tools to do whatever they want. They have the knowledge now to do what they want. Now it's their decision whether they manage their own money well or not, but they have definitely have will have the tools. And it's cool to say that I had an imprint on that. You know, arguably my dad had an imprint on that too. Good, bad, or indifferent. He was the one that kind of started that for me. And now I'm extending that because I have all this other financial knowledge. And it's cool to kind of see that. So I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_04 39:11

Yeah, it does. Thank you for sharing that too. So what I'm hearing from that is you share that story and kind of augmented in the background a little bit because this morning I was actually listening to the episode where you talked about finding out about your dad's infidelity the day that he died. So having that background and understanding the way that you grew up with money and how it was a struggle and the narratives that it created in your life, and the way that you saw your mom struggle to make ends meet for your family, and you making a very conscious decision that that was not going to repeat, that that pattern and legacy stopped with you. And it was going to be a different story for your family. So the value and importance you see in not just the financial security and the dollars and cents, but also the empowerment around the money as well. And knowing that you're raising children who have literacy with money and understand it from a young age and know how to interact with it in a healthy way and have a healthy relationship with money, which is something that a lot of us struggle with because very few of us are taught how to do that. The fact that you're teaching your kids in a very purposeful way is the exception, not the norm. And it tracks with the profession that you have that you would do that as well. But there is that deeper root and that reflection in your own upbringing. And I think so often we become who we are because of or in spite of our parents. And, you know, I hear flavors of both the because of and the in spite of in your story and the way that you're doing things differently for kids. So yeah, that's a beautiful way that you're intentionally going about that.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

So there's one thing that you had mentioned in regards to teaching my kids about money. So one of the things that I did not get growing up, because I was always running because I was scared of being in a destitute situation, is when you go and you do something and you accomplish something. Let's just say when I became a CEFT, and the natural course is you stop and pause. Not my natural course, you stop and pause, you reflect, and you congratulate yourself for it. That was not my norm. My norm was, okay, well, you get this, you accomplish this, you keep moving because the bottom could fall out. You never know when the bottom could fall out. It wasn't until I taught my boys, and again, when I say I, this is a combination of Anne-Marie and I, taught our boys to take pause in your accomplishments. And it was very hard for me to do that, but I saw them doing that. And I had to start doing that for myself. And it was very hard because there was something that was very foreign to me. They'll accomplish something, and because they have their own source of funds, they work even at their age. They'll stop and segregate money and say, I'm gonna save for this goal or I'm gonna reward myself this way. And I'm like, man, that is pretty cool to see that they are rewarding themselves. And so now when I accomplish something, I have to reward myself and I want to reward myself. And it's a complete change in mental philosophy for me because I honestly felt that maybe I didn't necessarily deserve the reward, or I had to keep going. It wasn't even a check mark. It was just something in the course of my life I had to just keep going because I was running away from something else. And so you learn a lot through raising kids. I'm very fortunate because I have two very, very good boys that are teaching me arguably as much about life as I'm probably teaching them. And so that's fun. That's a fun dynamic to be able to reflect on. And so this is a kind of a funny story. So as I'm gonna finish this book and it has its launch, I am already thinking about what I'm gonna do to reward myself. So we went to look at, well, I went to go look at something with my brother. I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna do that. And then I'm just like, well, I would really enjoy something that had a family component to it, something that we could all enjoy. And so I'm in that realm, but I'm already thinking about it ahead of when this is gonna be done. And honestly, before that would have been the last thing on my mind. It would have been just finishing this book and going on to the next episode of whatever else comes my way. But I'm already in that mode and I'm thinking about it of enjoying this ride and this journey. And that's all because of my boys. That's awesome. But thank you. Thank you for asking that very introspective question, even though you knew that I was gonna answer it.

SPEAKER_04 43:48

It's always interesting to hear people's responses to that. And they really vary and they're very wide in responses.

SPEAKER_00 43:54

So as I've heard as well. So cool. What else have I not allowed?

SPEAKER_04 44:00

you to speak about that was a pretty big one i wasn't expecting that one i appreciate you sharing i guess the last thing or just kind of as we kind of come to a close here my website is a great place to learn more about my business and my work my philosophy my focus is at deathinmoney.com calling it what it is that's easy yep if anybody who is listening is in a situation of being too young to be dealing with a big scary diagnosis i do have a a form on my website to inquire about my services it's just uh kind of a quick intake to understand where you are and I'm here and for financial planners out there who are listening who have younger clients who are dealing with a big scary diagnosis and there to support you as well. So I'm looking forward to having this business in the world. I've kind of used a birth and labor and delivery metaphor for this whole process is the the conception of the idea was three and a half years ago and it gestated for a really long time. And it wasn't until January of 2025 that there was enough clarity on what I wanted to do and how I was going to do it. And that was by working with an extremely talented business coach. Can I give a shout out to my business coach? Sure you can absolutely it's Joetta Johnson. She's the priestess of finances for business. Oh okay so if anybody's in the market for a unique approach to business coaching I endorse her. So yeah she helped me bring it into clarity and that was kind of like when hard labor began and then working through the launch and now you know the delivery has happened when I got the approval from the state of Montana to go. And now it kind of feels like I have this uh you know wrinkly, squirmy, unformed, highly dependent thing in my hands that's also while completely dependent on me, also its own entity. So I'm excited now to see how this entity that I brought into the world grows and how it takes its own form and the direction that it pulls me. And as you know with kids you can't control them. You can influence but you can't control they are their own things. I'm excited to see where this business goes and how it transforms and how its own personality is expressed and with the influence I'm able to have but not the control. So here we go.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Awesome well I'm excited for you very excited for you. So the information that you had just shared it will be in the notes section of this podcast. I'm gonna make sure and as any guests you're gonna be highlighted on here in how to get in contact with you. And I appreciate you being on so um yes I learned a lot probably have 10 lines of notes here already. So in the spirit of the podcast again anyone that's listening there is going to be a launch of my book at the end of April and there will also be information how to join the launch list. There's a lot of exciting things and I'm actually going to be given a training in advance of the launch which is based on my experience with Mr. Hugh Breeze a very unique experience. For any friends family members or colleagues please feel free to pass this episode on along with any others that you feel the need.

SPEAKER_01 47:06

Cheers be well thanks for listening to our podcast if you are a client and are looking to work directly with Chris andor our firm head on over to LifeAfter Grief FP. That is life after grief FP. The FP is for financial planning. If you are an advisor looking to emotionally and financially work with your client in grief or if you are a client looking to get your advisor's head in the game head on over to lifeaftergriefconsulting dot com. That is lifeaftergriefconsulting dot com. Any related information referenced in this week's podcast will be located here in the podcast section