When Money Gets Personal: Navigating Tough Family Situations

As the first episode in our Caregiver series, we kick things off with an engaging conversation about when financial planning turns personal. While retirement is often top of mind, topics like death, disability, and long-term care are frequently overlooked. Hear real stories and insights on why these conversations matter and the difference they can make when they matter most.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Welcome to the Tyler Show. I'm your host, Tyler Dehan, and I am really, really excited about this podcast here today. Uh, I feel like it's gonna be very timely for everyone that's listening and very evergreen because these are situations, these are topics that are gonna be coming up quite a bit. So I I've been in the financial services industry for over 20 years, and I've kind of noticed a trend. Oftentimes, people really like to talk about the exciting things. They like to talk about investing, they like to talk about what's the the the new stock that's gonna go up 400% next year. Like to talk about portfolio construction and they like to talk about retirement planning. How am I gonna generate all this income to be able to help maintain my uh lifestyle through retirement? So those are the things that a lot of times people really, really like to dive into. They like to talk about it. And oftentimes you might say, hey, you know, I'm thinking about investing in this, I'm thinking about investing in this, I'm thinking about investing in this. And it's a casual conversation that a lot of people have in their office places all the time. What I've noticed in my career is that oftentimes people don't talk about situations that revolve around death or disability. And it's a very, very important topic, and and quite frankly, might be the most important topic that people need to talk about when they're talking about how do we manage these types of situations. So uh we have two guest speakers here today on the Tyler Show, and I'm really excited about because they got fantastic stories around this that can really help people out. Uh, we got our chief marketing officer here, Molly Wendell. Thank you for joining us here today. And joining us from the great state of New Jersey, we got Craig Higgins, who is the vice president of the uh the New Jersey Territory. So uh thank you for joining us here today, guys. Appreciate it very much.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, thanks, Tyler.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Yeah, so as we begin here, as we begin here, I want to start first uh turn it over to Molly here, who's in studio today. So, Molly, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Uh, you know, what are your hobbies? A little bit about your family. Uh, you know, what do you like to do when you're not in the office? And then, you know, very, very important question that I like to ask all of our guests here. Are you a dog or a cat person?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Ooh, okay. Should I lead with that?

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, I hey, whatever you want to do. I'm a dog person. Good. I like it. I like it.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yep. And I know a lot of dogs are named Molly, which is weird.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I don't I don't know. I mean, we have to look into that.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Yeah, yeah. I'd like to think maybe kind of after me, but maybe not. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Whatever you think is best.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah, yeah. So as you mentioned, I'm Molly. I've been here at SIG about 13 years, and I lead um the marketing department here. Um, lead a group of thought leaders who um promote our products, um, our retirement suite of products, which, you know, basically I think sells itself. Um, but one of the other things that we do is we do value add. And by value add, I mean we're trying to provide financial professionals with some extra conversation starters that they can use with their clients to start and have those those awkward conversations. Um so we've been doing that, like I said, for about 13 years now. Um personally, grew up in a small town, Iowa, um, middle of five kids. I like to think I'm the favorite, but um, I don't think that is the case. Um, but you know, very very close family. Um now I'm a wife, mom to three girls. Um, pretty active family. We're out running, cycling, biking, wakeboarding, boating, you name it. We're out there doing it. Except come fall. In the fall, we're watching the bears. Yes. Yeah. Like it. Love the bears. You know, not sure if um I picked them or they picked me, but um, lifelong bear fan, and it's it's taught me a lot of lessons in life, you know. Built character.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

It does build character, patience. Patience.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

That's definitely definitely gives you pretty thick skin.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yes. Yes. You know, I I was I was we were talking a little bit here before um, you know, the cameras went on, and and I'm I'm a lifelong Bears fan myself.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

It's gonna be our year.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, yeah. I I I was I was I was so ecstatic this year that we made made the playoffs and and had that had that playoff win. So that was fun to see. So, Craig, let's move it over to you here. So got a couple of questions to ask you. Number one, just tell us a little bit about yourself, uh, a little bit about your family. What do you like to do when you're when you're not traveling around, meeting with financial advisors? And then a very, very important question for actually I got two questions for you, Craig. First question: what is your favorite New Jersey beach town? And number two, are you an Eagles or a Giants fan?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

I'll start with the last question, Tyler. Uh I'm neither. I'm actually a Jets fan. So um building character resilience and building character. That's being a Jets fan. Um, it's it's something I was born into, and I just uh stuck with it. And uh actually, my my son actually asked me, why don't I switch teams? And I had to explain to him, we don't do that, we don't switch teams. So we were sticking with the Jets. Um but uh yeah, so as Tyler said, I'm Craig Higgins. I am the wholesaler here in New Jersey. I cover what we consider central and northern New Jersey. So there is a central New Jersey that's a hot topic here uh when people talk. But I've been with Salmons for 10 years now, working with independent advisors across central and northern New Jersey. And um dog person, I think that's important. Um and then also from a family, and this kind of goes into the story later. I'm sort of from a Brady Bunch family. Um, I have uh my parents were divorced uh when I was very young. So I do have one real sister, we'll call it. And then I have uh six stepsisters. So as a whole, there's seven sisters and me. It is quite an event whenever we all get together, but always a ton of fun. Uh, but for that exact reason, things did get complicated later on, which I'm sure we'll we'll talk about. Um, but uh I'm married, wife, two kids, a daughter, and a son, and they're just fantastic. And and we've had awful weather here the last few weeks. Uh, haven't seen the grass since the middle of January until yesterday. So we're very excited to get it back out and about, whether it's gonna go hiking or to a beach. Um I grew up going to the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk. So it has a special place in my heart. It might not be the nicest beach that everyone thinks, but uh, whenever it's nice out, I always love to get down there with the family, just walk the board, sit on the beach, go on the rocks, play some games and have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Awesome. Awesome. Well, we appreciate you joining us from all the way in New Jersey here today. And so let's let's get started on the topic here, because these are conversations that a lot of times, in my experience, people don't have. Um, it's difficult to bring up. Um, it's around a topic that oftentimes will will create a lot of stress and anxiety. So uh Molly, uh, tell us a little bit about your story and the experiences that that you had kind of going through some of these situations.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah. So my story began about five years ago with an Alzheimer's diagnosis from my mom. Um, you know, she was one of those that she knew something was happening before any of us did. And she would go in to the doctor and, you know, go through all the protocol, and the doctor would say, You're fine. And she would say, That doctor's crazy. I am not fine. Like, I think something's wrong. And you know what? She was right. There was. So we talked about it. We talked about it openly. We joked about it. Um, we knew that there was gonna be certain things that we had to take care of for her. We thought we were ahead of things. We moved my parents closer to us, um, started the started the trust. Um, we did all of that, but then reality hit. At the same time, COVID hit. And it was time to move my mom into memory care, which at that time nobody wanted to take a patient into memory care. And so we were didn't know what to do, so worried. Um, we just really wanted our mom to be safe and cared for. But you know, we're dealing with all these financial issues that we hadn't talked about. Those are the things that we didn't talk about. So we got her in, we thought everything okay, everything's good. And then we got that 4 a.m. call where she passed away. And then six weeks later, we got another call that my dad had had a major stroke. He wasn't able to speak or to move. Um, next thing you know, my siblings and I were standing in the hallway of the hospital being asked about DNRs, POAs, living wills, kind of simultaneously figuring out they're not all the same thing. Um, they're not. Um but we didn't want to be answering those questions at that time, you know. We just wanted to be with our dad.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

So, you know, we found ourselves dealing with um not knowing. Um, we spent five days looking for information. Um fun fact is my dad was a very, very organized guy. We knew that all of his information was on his computer and all of his passwords were on his phone. So we should be good. But one thing we didn't realize is that when your phone dies, you can't put a thumbprint, face ID. Doesn't work. You have to have a password. And we didn't have a password. So, you know, we're we're going through his apartment, we're looking for anything that that can help. We we we we need a break, you know. Doctors are asking us about all his directives, you know, insurance. Um and next to the urn of my mom on the table was a stack of notes um from her funeral. And so we were going through the notes, and I came across a handwritten note that said something like, Hey Tim, I'm sorry to hear about Marilyn. When you're ready, stop down, we'll have a cup of coffee, and we'll go over the plan. Brock. And I looked on the return address and I'm like, Yes, this is it. We found him. Brock was our dad's guy, he was our dad's financial professional. So my sister and I called him up, he cleared his calendar, we were there within a couple of hours. Um it was great. He he knew everything about my dad. Everything my dad didn't want to tell us kids, he told Brock. He knew my dad's lawyers, he knew his accountants, he knew all his financial institutions. Um by the time we left, we had invoked a power of attorney. Um, he actually called the local bank and said, I have two hot mess of a win of women um headed your way. Uh be prepared. They're they're they're they're Tim's girls and and they need your help. Um and so for us, Brock was our was our shining star.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

You know, I uh these types of scenarios oftentimes you know they they they uh it it's tough to go through them, right? But sometimes uh they can be a blessing to other people. And that's something that you did and you created with and you had created the this marketing campaign around having these these conversations. And I I know that in my career, oftentimes talking with uh advisors and friends and family about these types of situations, uh it's difficult to bring up, but you were able to take that experience and create a whole marketing campaign around that that's been wildly successful. So just talk to us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah. So, you know, as we were going through that process, um, I just started to think about all of these questions that that we were being asked and we didn't have answers to, and just started making notes. And, you know, once my dad was stable, I was back in the office. Um, you know, I immediately went up to my boss at Salmons and and started talking about like this shouldn't happen. This should not happen to people. Um, they should not have to be answering these questions when all they want to do is be with their loved ones. You know, we have to do something. So we took everything that I had written down and we created um what we call an ice booklet in case of emergency. And it has everything from medications, advanced directives, insurance, um, vaccinations, um, passwords, um, anything we can think of that a family might need in a time like this. And so we've really been passing those out for the last three years. We've passed out over 50,000 ice booklets. So, you know, that tells me there's a lot of families out there that are in the same spot that we are. And then on top of that, um, you know, I was encouraged to let let's make a campaign out of it. Let's help other people um not have to go through what what our family did. And so we've created two campaigns from that that are filled with materials for financial professionals to sit down and start those awkward conversations with their clients. Yeah. Um, and then help the the client actually start the conversations with their families.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Yeah. You know, I sometimes when I'm not in the in the studio doing doing podcasts like this, I'm out and I'm traveling and doing conferences, and I can tell you the 50,000 number is not surprising to me, even though I just said wow, a few minutes ago. It's not really that surprising to me because whenever I talk about the in-case of emergency booklet in in my in after my presentation, people pick them up like they're mints. I mean, they're they're they're taking them, they're they're putting them in their bag, they're taking them home. And I can tell you personally, you know, this was probably well, it'd be about eight months ago. Uh, I went on a mission trip to to Kenya where I would teach business classes. And before I went, I told my wife, I'm like, hey, you know, I don't know if anything is gonna happen to me, probably won't. But if it does, I I I pulled out the in case of emergency booklet and I said, everything that I have, all the passwords, everything like that is is in here. So you don't have to necessarily worry about you know what do we have, what we don't have. And my wife and I do we do talk about finances, but I being in the industry, I'm the one that usually will will take care of all that stuff. So I mean, you know, the the marketing campaign has even been a blessing to to myself and my family because we we have this just in case something happens, in case of emergency, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:14

That's right. It's kind of like the new American Express card for me. I never leave home without them. Um I carry four or five of them in my backpack at all times. And if I'm out at a conference or traveling with friends, I'm handing them out to everybody. Um, I I would like everyone to have an in case of emergency booklet or something similar. Um, you know, it definitely doesn't have to be our booklet, but something similar. So no family has to go through what we did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

So turning it over to Craig, you've been waiting patiently here. Uh, you you have a similar uh story uh that you went through uh just recently. So just tell the audience a little bit about your story and and and maybe some of the lessons that you learned from it.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Oh man, it was um intense. So uh unlike Molly, whose mom knew there was a problem and the doctors said she was fine, I had the exact opposite, where my father said everything was fine, but everyone else was telling him he wasn't fine and that things needed to be done, and he just didn't want to have that conversation, didn't want to believe it. Um but you know, the spoiler alert is he's also in memory care right now, um, 73 years old, and he's been there for just under two years now. So it hit him young, as people say. Whenever I tell the story, people say, wow, he's young. Um, which is just goes to show you you can never be uh too early, you know, to be prepared too early. Um so it I get a lot of my brain goes many different ways when I start telling the story or talking about it because so much happened in what seemed like a little bit of a time, but it was probably the the most impactful six months of my life. Um so it all goes back to sort of similar uh to Molly with COVID. Um, my my father was taking care of my stepmom. And you know, leading up to this, everyone like my father always you know would mix up names of people because we, you know, seven sisters, as I said before. So he would call one sister by a different name. And we just thought, oh, it is what it is. He's just confused. Um, but he was a very detail-oriented guy when it came, he was a project manager, he worked for the government. Uh, he has notebooks and pads of every bill he's paid every month, like a separate ledger. I mean, he was detail-oriented down to you know, the the minuscule details. Um, but then uh during COVID, no one wanted to go visit them because no one wanted to get my stepmom sick and and you know, could have something happen. So we all sort of stayed away. And we thought we were doing the right thing at the time. Um, but I in hindsight, it was probably the worst decision we could have made because we would have caught things sooner uh than what happened. So when my stepmom passed away um three years ago, um, I would say soon afterwards, my father, who was this strong individual who seemed to have his act together, quickly just I mean, quickly, um went off the rails. But I just want to double back to those in case of emergency books, by the way. What I love about them is not only is it a great place for people to consolidate all their information, but it's not overwhelming. It is such an easy place to start to get all that information into one place. And it doesn't feel like a chore. It's a lot of things that if you're filling it out for yourself, you would know about it. So I all I often hand those out. And what's nice about them is, and I probably uh is that there's barely any salmon's branding on them. It is truly a value add. Um, I always tell people the only thing that's salmon's related is the embossed logo, but more importantly, there's a place for your business card as the advisor to go in the back of this. Um, and funny story is I met with a group of advisors and we went through the encase of emergency books, and they wanted 50 for the office. So they're 50 of the 50,000. And I said, okay, and there's a group of advisors that are going to use them. So I sent them out, and maybe about three weeks later, I was in the office and I was waiting to speak with one of the advisors. And another advisor from the office was walking his clients out. And he said, Before you go, I want to give you this. We give this to all of our valued clients. It's this. And this advisor didn't know who I was or that they were the Sammonson case emergency books. This is a case of emergency book. He said, We're gonna you're gonna fill it out, we're gonna go through this the next time to make sure everything's documented and organized. And and the people were they they loved it. They're like, oh, this is great. We're gonna go right away. Um, so it's just it it's probably the smallest um booklet that's going to have the biggest impact in your life and and for your clients' lives as well, and beneficiaries and everyone involved.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

Um just tell us a little bit more about about about that whole scenario and and maybe what are what are some of the lessons you learned?

SPEAKER_02 21:12

Well, the I mean, I I'll just the lesson I learned right away, and and this would be for for everyone, is you gotta have that uncomfortable conversation. Because no matter how uncomfortable you think that conversation is going to be now, uh, I will tell you the scenario that you will go through later on is 100 times worse. I um yeah, uh it's it's difficult to talk about some of the things that happened. Um so with my father, what when my stepmom passed away, he started, we just kind of thought everything was grief related. Um, because he never really dealt with anything like this before in his life. Um and he came to the point, he said, I would like to move and I I want to be closer to you. And we're about a half hour north. And I said, Okay. And he just said, Can you help? I said, Okay. I mean, he just didn't know what to do anymore. He like he his bank he was confusing his uh bank card with his driver's license. And so uh he thought that there was someone in his house all the time. And he said, There's people there, you just can't see them. And I said, They're ghosts. And he said, No, not ghosts, just people you can't see. And he said, I don't, I don't like them. So he was sleeping in his car in our driveway. He would wake up in the middle of the night, get in his car, and go in our driveway and sleep in his car in the driveway because he didn't want us to be uncomfortable. And if he wasn't doing that, he would go to a rest stop uh on the parkway and sleep in his car in the parkway. And he was doing this uh apparently for weeks before he told us. And again, we try to have that conversation, try to get him to the doctor to get some. We knew that he didn't need to be diagnosed. Like it was clearly dementia or some type of, you know, uh, I'm not a doctor, but um, something that was affecting uh his brain. You take him to the doctor, and the doctor said, you know, are you I we gave the doctor a heads up beforehand of, hey, this is why we're coming and this is what we think the issue is. So inside the meeting uh with the doctor, she would ask him things like, Are you, you know, how are you doing? Are you are you sleeping okay? And he said, Yes. Are you, you know, are you anxious about anything? Nope, I'm fine. And me, I was in the room with him, but I didn't want to embarrass him because he's my father, right? He's a guy that raised me. He's guys building houses. He was I I so I didn't want to step on his toes in front of there. And then afterwards, I followed up with the doctor and I said, So, you know, what do you think? And she said, Well, we didn't have this conversation in front of him, so I can't be prescribing medicine. She said, If we can't talk about it in front of him, since you don't have a power of attorney, uh, you we've he's we gotta have that conversation with him in the room. And then it was a we never had the conversation because I couldn't get it back to the doctor. Um, just he wouldn't go back. Would not, I mean, we tried and tried and tried. Um you know, fast forward, um he again he thought his neighbor was in his house. So he went to the police department um and told him his neighbor was in his house and stealing his garbage cans. So I was driving as I do for work, and I got a call from Tint Falls Police Department where I live and where my father, his townhouse was. And they said, Yeah, are you Craig Higgins? And I said, Yes. What's good? Is everyone okay? And they said, Well, you are you Dave Higgins' son? I said, Yes. And they said, All right, well, he came in to us because um he says neighbors stealing his trash and moving the trash cans around. I said, Okay, um do you need me to come home? And they said, Yeah, we need you to come, we need you to come. So I got there about 45 minutes later. There's three police cars, 12, 12 officers. Uh, the entire neighborhood is out and about looking at him as he's talking. So it turned out is uh he went to the police department, said that his neighbor was messing with his trash cans, and all he wanted to do was take care of his sick wife, and the neighbor wasn't letting him. And as I said before, my stepmom passed away. So they they came over to to check on her as well, and they said, Look, can we can we see her? And they walked in the house and he had a picture of her, just a framed picture of her, tucked in with a blanket. And he was saying, Here she is. See, she she's resting right now. Um, and and they and they said, Well, there's clearly an issue, Craig. And I said, I know we're we're working on it, but it was one of those things where we didn't have the conversation, not everyone was on the same page, so it was very limited as to what we could do. Um but all this to say, it was so far, this was extremely stressful. Um, not just on me professionally, you know, here, but but personally. Uh my wife is one of the most understanding and caring people I know. But because we had no support and there was no plan in place, it it did take there was a strain on the marriage, I'll put it that way. I mean, everything great, everything's fine, but it was a very difficult time. Um, because you never knew when my father was going to just show up randomly, be sleeping in our driveway. Um it it was it was difficult. Um and it really came to a T when uh one night he showed up at our house at about eight o'clock as we're doing bed with the kids, and he's knocking on the door loudly, which is he's very anxious, he was very nervous about something. And so I opened the door and he said, They're coming. They're coming, they're trying to get me. They know where I am. I think they followed me here, they're gonna come. And so my daughter, who's 10 at the time, said, Who's coming? Who what's going on? And I said, Dad, okay. Clearly he was he was anxious. I said, You are safe here. Let let's let's keep you here. Let's I sit up uh in our there's a playroom that's also has a large couch on it. I said, We're gonna stretch up here. I need you to sleep. I don't think you've been sleeping. You're gonna be safe here. No one, no one is here. We have locks on the doors, we have shades, everything's fine. Just please sleep here. Uh, but honestly, the damage was done. I mean, at this point now, he's freaked out my kids. They think someone's coming for pop pop. They're gonna follow him to our house and they're gonna do something to us. And so we were trying to reassure her, but uh for about six weeks she would sleep with us because she was anxious that people were coming. Um, so he left in the middle of the night. I don't know why. He got up and left. Um, and then uh a lot of other things happened throughout this, but we eventually did get him into a facility that had independent, assisted, and memory care. And we got him into the independent side um begrudgingly. We set it up. We told him it they gave us one month free. We went to Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist and we we got all furniture in there, set it up. It was very comfortable for him. That way he didn't have to move anything. It wasn't very a stressful thing for him. And then after the incident that happened where he called the police on his neighbor, um, I said, Dad, you you can't stay here. You've got to try um where we're set up at. You got to give it some time because this is not, you don't feel safe here. And if you don't feel safe, you're not gonna be comfortable, you're not gonna, you're not gonna sleep, you're not gonna rest. So we we got him to um the independent place. He was living in independent care. And but then the hallucinations started there again. And all through this whole time, I'm having side conversations with family members. We're talking about what's happening, and and what you find when you go through something like this is that a lot of people have ideas, but no one wants to take action. A lot of ideas, a lot. Why don't you do this? You should do this. This would be a good idea. And I would tell people, I love that idea, you could try it because I can't. I you like, you know, I was the the one voice he was hearing, and it wasn't it wasn't working. So I needed other people. I had to get the family involved. Um, and it got to the point where people realized there was an issue and were getting involved. But through all this entire process, and I wasn't thinking it, right? Like shoemaker's kid has no shoes, I wasn't worried. I wasn't thinking about power attorneys, I wasn't thinking about wills or trusts. I was just trying to get him safe and in a place. So then when the next thing happens, we were really behind the eight ball. Uh, so as, and I know I'm all over the place, and I apologize, um, but this is how my life was for six months all over the place. Um it all came to a head when um he went to my my one sister brought him over to her house, and he said to her, um, I don't feel safe there anymore. I think my neighbor's trying to kill me, and I might have to kill him first. And that's when a lot of people started taking it serious. Leading up to that specific conversation, uh, people were telling us, family, friends, he's not that bad. He's not bad. You know, you're gonna take away his freedom. And and I what I tell people now looking back is he wasn't free then. He was in a prison, he was miserable, he was uncomfortable, he was sad, he wasn't eating.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Um these stories I think resonate with a lot of people that are probably listening right now. Yeah, have gone through um situations uh where you know they've had a had to deal with uh with a loved one. Uh there there's two questions I'd like to ask both of you. Um the first one is for somebody that's listening today, uh maybe they haven't gone through this yet. And and and and and it's a yet, right? It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of of when for a lot of a lot of people. But what would you say? And I'll and I'll turn this over to Molly real quick. What would you say to somebody that says, hey, you know, I'm talking to my parents and they say they got everything under control? What what would you what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Prove it. I would ask your parents to prove it, sit ask them to sit down, show you the documentation, or meet with a financial professional, let them go through the plan with you. Um these conversations are awkward. I mean, Craig Craig hit on that. They are. Um, and there's no there's just no good way around it. But it's better to have that awkward conversation now than to not have the conversation and go through some of the chaos that both Craig and our families went through. So definitely I would say make sure that they can prove the plan.

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Craig, anything you'd like, anything you'd like to add to that?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

I would say not only prove it, but we need to know exactly where certain documents are. And that for me, and and this is how I was talking to Molly at one of our sales events and or one of our meetings, and this is how this all came up. And I said, Molly, you have no idea how thankful I am for that marketing campaign. And you know, it's one of those things I always share with advisors, but when I really needed help and really needed to organize things, um, it was referring and looking back at our marketing pieces because yes, everyone has access to Google, but that is extremely overwhelming. Um, everyone has AI, extremely overwhelming. And I needed to start in little bites. So, yes, I would say, prove you know, my you know, mom and dad or whoever prove it. I need to see these documents, but more importantly, I need to know exactly where every type of document it is. Like my father was in the military. I needed to know about his discharge paperwork. I never thought about that, but that was listed in the salmon's uh value add piece that quarter. Uh powers attorney, you know, wills, things like uh, I mean, just um Social Security information, you know, website access, all that. So, yeah, prove it. I mean, in case of an emergency book or where your will is is a good place to, you know, to start. But I I would reference our campaigns for what else you need, because there's certain things that I didn't even think I would need, but I'm so happy that I had one concise place that listed everything I should have to make things easier. Um, so yeah, definitely prove it, but double down specific documents that you may, because I I needed discharge papers and I was able to get them. My father was able to realize where they were. But if I asked him two weeks later or three weeks later, um, I don't think he would have known where they were, and I don't think I could have found them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

And you know, the the the documentation is so important. And I've and I've been across the table with a lot of advisors and a lot of clients where you know have family members that are thinking, well, this is the way that we think that mom and dad want this to go, and then uh turning over to the other side of the table, and somebody has a completely different idea of the way they think mom and dad want this to go. And so you're right, Craig, you know, having those difficult conversations early it can be can be very, very helpful. Second question I want to ask both of you here, and then we'll wrap it up. So the second question is since you've been in the financial service industry, and I'll start with Molly here first. Since you've been in the financial services industry, what is what is the biggest lesson that you've learned?

SPEAKER_00 34:44

Everybody needs their own Brock. So if you remember, Brock was the our financial professional for our family, that really came through for us. Um, you know, being a financial professional is more about uh just transactions, right? It's about relationships. Brock just didn't manage my parents' investments in the good days. During our family's darkest days, uh Brock helped uh my parents' kids uh survive. And I think they would be pretty happy about that. And he didn't have to. He just did because it was the right thing to do. So I would say be a Brock or find your Brock.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Craig, what you've been in the financial services industry for for a while as well. Uh, what would you say your biggest lesson that you've learned uh in your career here?

SPEAKER_02 35:40

Uh I would say don't assume anything. Don't assume that your parents' financial I mean, Brock sounds like a fantastic advisor, but you know, don't assume uh maybe that their financial advisor is doing all that and organizing it because you might find out, unfortunately, that nothing was organized or nothing was put together. Um so I would say don't assume. And then also you're not alone. I I think um, you know, we when we talk to financial advisors, you know, every client's getting ready for retirement. Everyone wants guaranteed income or everyone wants, you know, to grow with risk protection, but everyone's gonna need help later on too. And I just think you everyone's going through it, and it's just one of those things that whether they're going through it now or going to be going through in the future, I think it helps to talk about it or to even bring it up. Um I was I had a call last week from a colleague who's at a different company, and he called me and he said, I gotta talk to someone about this. And I know you went through this. And the day before, they just put his mom into a memory care facility. And Tyler, you said it before, you know, people are on different different pages. He thought it was a good idea, but his sisters didn't. And they never really had that conversation. So I would just say, Yep. Um, don't assume that you're fine that that one financial professional is doing it for your parents. You know, get involved. And then also, you're not alone. You're not the first person to be asking those questions or going through it. Um, so there's definitely resources out there to use.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Circling this all back around it. First, first of all, I just I I really appreciate both of you guys coming on today and sharing your story. Um, you know, I I think it's a blessing to people that are listening here today to hear your experience and what you learn from it. And I think it's it's definitely going to help people um as they try to navigate these very, very difficult things. And as I said at the beginning, uh oftentimes in my career, I've noticed people really want to talk about portfolio construction, they really want to talk about investing, they really want to talk about retirement income plan. And and these are the topics that are difficult um but are critical. They're very, very, very, very critical. And having a plan in place, having those conversations with your siblings, even though they might be uncomfortable, uh, can can really lower the stress and the and the anxiety level when when kind of know, all right, the plan isn't gonna go perfect, but we know that we got a plan. And I think that that can be very, very important. So I just want to I want to thank both of you guys because I think your your stories are very powerful and they're gonna be a blessing to the people that listened here today. So I just want to say thank you on that.