Welcome back to Modern Financial Wellness. I'm your host, Jim Grace and I am joined today by Paula Harris, the co founder of WH Cornerstone Investments. Paula is a part financial planner, part dream architect, and even an accomplished cheese maker in yogi. And she's also a TEDx speaker and the author of Rise Up a Widow's Journal, as well as Rise Up Grief Journal. And she brings a very uniquely holistic approach to financial planning. She has four decades of experience and has built a practice deeply rooted in supporting midlife widowed women through what she calls curveball life planning, helping them regain financial peace and personal strength. She serves her community on many boards. And today in this episode, Paula and I are going to explore grief and loss, specifically how becoming a widow impacts financial well being.

I'm so excited to have Paula Harris here today. Paula, hello and thank you for being here.

Jim, thanks for the warm welcome. I'm excited to be with you.

So I want to get into what I think is an extremely important conversation about grief and loss and not just as a financial advisor, how I can help my clients who are going through that experience. I'm looking forward to learning from you in that regard, but just all of us when we're trying to support somebody who's grieving and how we can be better at that. So I'm excited to dig into the details. But before we get into the weeds about that topic, can you tell us a little bit about the founding of WH Cornerstone Investments? You had a past life before, so you weren't always a planner. You know, why did you want to get into the industry in this space and what were your expect expectations about the type of work that you'd be doing? And I'm curious how that maybe evolved over the years.

Yeah. So it's interesting. So my husband Bill had a career, I work with my husband, Bill Harris, and he had a career at State street and he had seen how mutual funds were made and he saw all the expenses and said, I, I can do this better, less expensive. I have to admit he was the real impetus to getting things started. My prior life was in human resources, which I think we've been hearing a lot about human resources lately, ironically. So I knew that people and focusing on people was really important. And I was tired of that role of working with someone else for someone else and wanting to still be in a way of supporting people. And honestly it was at first it wasn't so well thought out and I sort of grew into it.

And so I took my people skills and applied them In a way that supports people on a different journey, not just climate journey, but sort of their whole. I consider financial planning as a whole life. I'm much more of a life planning but not too woo woo with the life planning. But I think our roles are really powerful in helping people see what's possible for themselves.

Yeah.

And did that evolve through the work and starting to get to know your clients? And you mentioned the life planning and the life coaching. When did that come to be in your experience as an advisor and a planner?

So it was pretty earlier on. There's a planner out there named Susan Burns. She's a past chair of the FPA of what is now New England and she lived close to us and so we started to get together and talk a lot and she had mentioned this group called Nasrudin which was a sort of an outcropping of the fpa and I can't say that I ever went, but they would meet up in like, like Estes park in Colorado and it was probably they would talk about the deeper issues. It was a lot of like the George kinder style and I kind of liked that aspect. Never went to it. I think if I actually went it probably would have been a little more than I could handle. So I did a little bit of work with Susan Bradley as well when she was first starting out and I sort of liked this looking more holistically. Bill is more of the like spreadsheet guy and so sometimes he looks at me and he goes, you're just slowing the process down.

So because you numbers don't have to talk as much about people and their lives, you talk a little bit more. So I kind of measured how I did things and I had been drawn to the coaching aspect of things I think for my human resource career. And coaching has become like, you know, has become its own industry and I've. And I. And I don't think that wasn't enough sort of doing it more within the financial planning industry has more teeth to me. And then I've used coaches a lot. So I'm always a student of learning for a long time. Always observing.

That's an interesting. It's a powerful dynamic or that yin and yang between your husband, who sounds like the more quantitative and maybe yourself is the more qualitative makes for what I would imagine is a pretty awesome combination for your clients and the experience that they have in working with your firm.

Yeah, it's interesting. We've just recently asked for Google reviews and the number of people that will say Paula brings This bill brings this. The team brings this. It's been really. It's nice to get that feedback, but it really is different. But it's also a struggle because we do a lot of things together for clients, and how do we be more efficient?

Right.

Time, and we're actually working with a coach right now is like, you can't keep doing this. It's like, it's kind of what's made it our secret sauce.

Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah.

I experienced some of that as well in my practice as we've moved towards kind of an ongoing planning relationship and exploring some of these deeper issues. And it does hold up the quantitative planning sometimes when you're trying to explore deeper meanings of money with. With clients. But at the end of the day, I think what you guys are up to is really inspirational and I can only imagine creates a lot of great outcomes for your clients. So you had mentioned Susan Bradley. So, Susan Bradley, for people who don't know heads, I'm going to butcher this, but I think it's the Transitions Institute.

It's now called Sudden Money.

Sudden Money. So her. She's a big kind of figurehead in this space of financial planning and people going through big transitions. So you talk about losing a loved one and that process as a transition and not a transaction. I think when I talk to people about the types of clients I work with, often that I'm introduced to people who are going through some kind of big life transition, changing jobs, getting married. You know, there's a lot of transitions in life that are very.

They're great, right?

And everybody's happy and joyous, and, you know, there's new opportunities that people are excited about. But losing a loved one is one of these transitions that can be very difficult and challenging for people to navigate. So can you tell us a little bit about that transition and how it is not a transaction? How do you. How do you think about that?

You know, one of our clients, you know, and she had. She had lost her husband and she had gone back to work. And the first day she was back, everybody was like, oh, Mary, we're so sorry. We're so sorry. So sorry. And the next day it was, mary, do you have that spreadsheet ready? And it was, like, done. We addressed the issue, and now we just see you as the same employee that you were. So it wasn't a transaction that her husband died.

She had radically transformed her life, not by choice, and she was a different person. But people didn't necessarily see that. And I think our society doesn't embrace. It doesn't embrace grieving, doesn't embrace loss at all. It's very difficult for people, and so it's easier to sort of sweep it away. Like it's a transaction, you know, it's like, oh, done. You think about a lot of people who were corporate executives when they retire, you know, they were the. They were the person.

And then the next day the phone doesn't ring, and it like, you know, you're leaving was like, kind of a transaction. For you personally, it's a huge transition, but for everybody else, it was like, yep, you were here today, now you're gone tomorrow, and maybe I'll see you someday.

Right.

And I. I think for widows, it is an absolute altering of their lives. A widow, widowers, anyone who's had loss. And you have to find the new. The new normal, the new you, who you are without your person. And it's overwhelming. You know, I have a friend who's going through it now. It's been about 10 months, and it's still overwhelming.

And he was running a big company. She has her Ph.D. and, and is very bright. And she'll say, like, I know I'm smart, but I just. There are days I just can't get this. Like, I. This is so much. And something like, just give me something familiar to do because I can't handle all these decisions and all these words you're throwing at me, like.

But. But she's very bright woman.

Right, Right.

So what is your advice for those of us who are trying to support somebody who's going through the grieving process? You mentioned saying, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Are there things that maybe we should stay away from in terms of communicating with those people? How do we support somebody who's. Who's going through that transition?

Yeah, so there's. I'm going to use the box of Kleenex as first example. I think Kleenex should be around all of our desks all the time. It's an important tool, and it's how you use it. If you have, you know, the widow or someone who's upset about something coming in, and you immediately just throw the box at them, that's sending a signal like, shut up. I can't handle it. Make this go away. You know, having it within arm's reach, you know, in a delicate way, like an offering, is sort of like, I'm here for you.

You, you know, feel free to steal, keep expressing. But here, you might need this because it's not exactly fun to have tears rolling down your face. And I think that sort of when someone shows up in that state, it. You kind of have to put aside, like some of the business things you wanted to do, and you have to meet them where they are. You know, is today a good day? Or, you know, I had lunch with a friend on Friday and she said Saturday was so hard. And she's just like, you know, maybe because we talked about them a lot, which I think is good. You know, you. If, especially if you don't know this person well, please tell me about them.

Tell me about Jim. You know, let them share. Let them share how they're feeling. Are they scared? Are they, you know, what are they scared of? Like, things like that. So being careful not to put words in their mouth too, and let them.

Express themselves, creating a space and let them kind of meeting them where they are, regardless of what that looks like at that time.

Exactly. And you may, and it may end up being two meetings because, you know, you got very little done because you, you listened, but you built trust. And I think that's important. The. When you say the what not to say. So I went through training with. Oh, my goodness. Now Amy Florian.

I don't know if you've come across her. She does compassionate training. She's a widow and she teaches people how to deal with people in grief in the financial services world. And she was the one who really helped me to understand. Don't say sorry, sorry. Are you more sorry than the person who lost someone? You can't be more sorry. So you want to be careful how you say that. And if we look at Facebook or the social media, sorry, sorry.

So sorry. Sorry. Sad face, sad face, prayer emoji. You know what, when, when that doesn't, you know, people are. They do appreciate being recognized, but that doesn't mean anything. There's nothing lasting in that. There's no words that are going to resonate beyond that quick second. So saying something like, you know, please accept my condolences.

I did know, or I didn't know Jim. This is what I really liked about Jim, or if you didn't know Jim, share a story about Jim. And I remember doing that at a wake one day, and it was a woman that I worked with at a nonprofit. It was her mother who died. And so I went through the line and the last person I ended up meeting was her brother, the deceased woman's brother. And I said, tell me something about Patty that you'd like to share. He said, we had a special needs sister and my sister Patty was so good to her. And then he went on and told stories and he lit up.

We went from like a sad moment to a happy moment. So allowing the person to share stories is just wonderful. Because the other thing is people are so afraid of saying the deceased person's name because they don't want to trigger someone. And. And I actually had this conversation last week with my friend. She says, please, even though I react sometimes when you say the name, I'd much rather you say his name because then it says, you still remember him, still share the story. Don't retreat away. And so many people just, they don't know what to do.

So they run.

Right, Right.

That's really helpful. I can only imagine as a planner who focuses on this work, when somebody comes in to see you, it's relatively close to the time of the passing of their spouse. In some cases, maybe not, maybe it's longer. And they're in the midst of this very emotional transition. They've just lost a loved one. But there are certain things that need to get done in a timely manner. You talk about financial triage.

Yep.

In the beginning of that process, where we are going to start to look at the financial aspects of that person's life. Tell us a little bit more about financial triage. How do you think about opening up that process with somebody going through that experience?

So usually by asking her, sort of, we call it sort of what's on fire, what needs to get solved immediately. Because there's usually something. You know, there's been like one situation. We got called in after that had happened, but it was like, how do I pay for the funeral? Like, he's dead. How do I pay for the funeral? This woman ended up having borrowed money from a friend to do that. Another situation is, oh, my gosh, the bank account that his paycheck went into was only in his name. I don't have access to cash. It's like, how the heck do we create cash flow? So.

So there's usually one or two things that need to be done. This was a little bit further on, only maybe a couple weeks. Another client who he was kind of secretive and he had a lot of life insurance policies. Well, the life insurance salesman came immediately to see her and we said, I think we should be here with you. Because immediately he wanted to sell her annuities. He wanted to take all that life insurance money and put into annuities. And it wasn't. He created it as an on fire situation, but it was not, you know, he wanted to deliver like the check at the funeral home to her.

Yeah.

So you, those, there's those type of situations. So figuring out that.

Right.

And then usually that next step is cash flow, like for most everybody is how are you going to still pay your bills? Because for a lot of people, the income doesn't come in. It may stop. Unfortunately, there's a lot of times that there's not life insurance at critical stages that you need it. This was another interesting one. It was a family member and she had gotten the life insurance check, but she was fearful of cashing it because if she cashed it, it meant he was really dead.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

And it was like it took her a long time to even put the paperwork in and then that sort of finality. And that was interesting. That was something I had not thought about. So just when you think you have the situations, like kind of figured out, another curveball comes out. You're like, oh, yeah, done that.

Yeah.

So there's, there's, obviously there's going to be some things that need to happen. You have to pay for a funeral. Your example of checking accounts only being in one person's name, I think is a good advertisement to financial planning prior to somebody passing away, making sure account structures are accurate or appropriate and people can kind of move on with their lives after. But there's, there's things that need to happen immediately and then there's everything else. Kind of moving into this next chapter of life on your own as a widow. I'm curious what your experience and your thoughts are in working with folks who have potentially lived a life for 20, 30, 40 years with a person, developed their financial plans and their plans together, and then waking up one day and having to create a financial plan as an individual.

Right.

And what, you know, how do you start helping people think about what their needs are as an individual as compared to, you know, being a part in a partnership or a couple.

And I think that's going to depend on lots of different things. Obviously just the person themselves. So if she has children, she does not typically think for herself first. She thinks for her children, even if they're sort of young adult children, I'm going to say like 20 something. I think it's a society we have shifted even more so that children are still kind of children and parents eyes in their 20s and 30s, like they're still helping them and doing things that maybe generations before would have stopped, you know, sort of in the late teens, early 20 years. So helping her realize like she's got to take care of her the time is to stop taking care of everyone else and making sure that she's going to be okay financially for the rest of her life, or she's going to be dependent on family. And sometimes that will be like, wait a minute, I don't. I don't want to be a burden to my kids.

So kind of figuring that out. And then there's, you know, patterns of, like, you know, what. We did a lot of things the way he wanted to. Now I'm kind of getting my voice, and I want to do things the way I want to. And so sometimes you'll see that, like, healthier habits will start. Like, you know, we used to have a cocktail every night when we come home from work, and I don't want to do that. I want to go for a walk. So it's like, okay.

Kind of this gaining a little bit of independence I think is interesting. Some people, you know, will want to change locations. Some people won't. Some people will say, I want to stay here. All the memories are here. And others will say, get me out. It was either a sad event or I never liked this place. So there's a lot of differences, but it's.

It's trying to help her understand, like, can she afford it, you know, and how soon is it happening? And I know. I've been reading a lot of conversations on LinkedIn. Some widows. I know there's some will say, the advice that we often give is don't do anything for a year. I still believe you don't want to make rash decisions. And there are people that will say, like, you know, I grieved somebody, he was sick. I have a friend whose husband had Ms. For, like, 20 years, 22 years, and was basically wheelchair bedbound the last 7, 8, 9, 10.

So her grieving has been going on a long time.

Right.

Her ability to move on is a little bit different than someone who somebody had a heart attack and died.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it's kind of understanding the different situations and allowing her to lead, but also guiding because you don't want them to do. Like, I sold everything and I ran away.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's interesting. As I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking about your advice for those of us who are trying to support people and what to say and just trying to meet people where they're at. And I'd imagine I've even seen this in my own practice and dealing with widows or people who have lost a loved one where there is such a wide spectrum of how everybody's going to handle that. So there are some people that it's extremely overwhelming and they don't want to address or can't address anything. And, like, the thought of making financial decisions is just something that they're not prepared to do. And then there are people that you almost wonder if they're grieving at all because they're so on the ball where they're just. They want to get things done. And that taking control of that seems to give them.

Or making decisions and taking action gives them a sense of control. And you're almost wondering, is this the ideal decision you should be making, or are you just rushing to kind of get things done, to kind of make that. That decision? But it seems like, again, the spectrum of how people are going to experience that is going to be kind of all over the map.

And I think part of what structures around them. I think about a woman that we got called in. It was only a few weeks after, but her husband died on Labor Day weekend. He had been traveling, and he had a heart attack and died. And he was early 60s. And she panicked. And by the time, maybe three weeks later, that we had been introduced to her, the funeral had happened. She had borrowed the money from a friend.

She had sold his car. Like, she was at the point, like, I'm going to start selling the china in my house. It was like, like her. But her family, her sons all lived, like, in northern New England. She was more on Cape Cod. So she, you know, the other thing is not to be too stereotypical, but sometimes sons don't have the same empathy that daughters have. And so sort of like, oh, shoot, Mom's crying. You know, that kind of like, oh, what do we do? Their level of support was probably.

She was a nurse, so like, just. She's a person who supports everyone.

Right.

So she may not have had that structure around her and to help guide. And then you'll see some families that just come together beautifully and they work together, but a lot of people are alone. They don't have other people to rely on. And that's a scary place to be.

Yeah.

Tell us. I know you're involved in speaking to different widow groups. Can you tell us a little bit about the work that you do and some of those support systems that are out there for people who are by themselves?

Yeah, there's. So there's. Oh, and even, you know, the Modern Widows Club has been one that we, we were a national sponsor for three of their conferences. They've gone a little bit more local these days than national, but it was amazing to see all the ways of a widow's life. They were there to support the emotional, the physical, the health. I mean, health is a huge issue for widows. A lot of them really let their health go. They might have let their health go while they were caretaking for someone else.

And so they are vulnerable. I hear a lot people don't want to eat alone, so they don't cook. I think about one client, she's like, unless she went out with people, she was eating cheese and crackers at home. Cause she. It was too sad to cook for one. And that can spiral down quickly, you know, may not get enough nutrition. You might get too much nutrition. Like, you know, it'd be scary that way.

But one of the nice things with groups is you start to build community of people that just get you. And I think that's what's so important. Like, Modern Widows has. Has travel groups. One of the things people love to travel. Who am I going to go with? And to have this sort of, okay, safety net of. Of like, okay, you and I both have had the same situation. We both belong to this group.

We must have some kind of commonality. Maybe we could travel together. You know, I think there's other groups like Camp Widow, you know, where widows go off through an organization called Soaring Spirits. And they, you know, go to be together and have fun. I think that's Modern Widows. Always had a dance party there last night. You know, it's okay to have fun. I think that's a really hard thing for people is to realize that.

Yeah.

And then there's another group that I've referred people to. I've not met. I've talked to some board members. But Wings for Widows, I don't know if you're familiar with them.

I haven't heard about that one.

No.

They're all CFPs that provide pro bono financial support.

Oh, cool.

So I have passed that them along often. I think they're out of Minnesota, but they serve people nationwide. Because a lot of times, you know, the hard part is you can only do so much pro bono work. Sometimes people don't really have anything. From the way a traditional financial planner needs to get paid so we can right our own jobs. It's hard because some of these situations are really dire.

Yeah, that's amazing reference. And we'll make sure we link to all of those. And specifically Wings for Widows. That's. That's a great tip. So finding that community of support. And I'd imagine with. With a widowed community, it's not like an alumni association where we all went to the same college.

I don't know that there's any other experience or group that you know would benefit from. No one, no one really understands what you're going through. And until you've gone through it, right. Even as advisors, I've never experienced that. So I can, I can only understand to a certain point. Right. So finding that community of support and other people that are going through a similar thing, can I imagine being a really powerful experience for a lot of people?

So what we've tried to do is created a rise up community. And I mean I could spend all my time doing these events, but I can only do a few in a year. So we've done I think six or seven Valentine's Day lunches now.

Oh great.

And we bring together, we usually have about 30 to 40 women that come and we pay for lunch that day. And it's to bring people together in community to look across the table at someone that you may not know, but you get to share stories. And we have everyone go around, introduce themselves and tell us their spouses or partner's name and tell us describe one word to describe them. Because I think that mentioning of the name is so important because there's a quote that says no one's ever dead until the last person says their name. And it's a great way of bringing memory together. So I've started to take that Valentine's Day and then I'll do usually a summer soiree and I've started to do one around the holidays. That's great just to bring people together. And what I want to do is like, I'm giving you the space container here for you guys to connect and then you guys go to the movies together, you go have dinner together.

And the other thing that's kind of interesting is just because you're a widow, it isn't equal to, you know, if your husband or your, your partner took their own life, that's different. If it's sudden, that's different. If it's a long illness, that's different. If it's younger, it's like there's within it there's still variations that you. Sometimes you're like, well, yeah, well you had the long preparation time to know, but I didn't. And that. So even finding someone who has even a more similar story or like I was talking to a woman recently, she lost her husband in her 30s and she's like, I was the freak. I was a 30 something year old with kids in school.

And nobody had. Elsa had a father that had died. She goes, nowadays, unfortunately, it's a lot more common, but you know, like, what do you do with the 30 something year old, right. Like people like, ah. And having gotten a modern. What else? I was shocked how many women I've met. I met a woman one day, she lost her husband and her son. It was a car accident.

Oh, geez.

Yeah, yeah.

Who understands that, right?

Former coworker lost his wife in a car accident while they were on vacation in California.

Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Just like tragic, tragic stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. So we mentioned before, you mentioned before how there's this triage process. There's things that are on fire that need to get done up front. There's this kind of ambiguous rule of thumb of not making any major financial decisions for a year. But that seems to be kind of dependent on the experience that the individual is having. And some people may be very comfortable, you know, making some decisions for themselves much sooner than that, or maybe it takes a little bit longer. As we're talking about these community of, of support and finding people who can understand what you're going through and give you an opportunity to connect and get out and have fun. And do you find that women who.

Or men who go through that process and find these communities of support, are they more able or better prepared to make the financial decisions as they're getting some of that kind of community support and connection? Do you see a connection between those two things? Just curious.

That's a good question. I would say anybody who can, I think community gets you out of your head and into your heart. And when you are alone and isolated, you're in your head a lot and it becomes very easy to spin. And I think this happens to all of us in all types of things, and you're not getting that reality check of like something else. So I naturally would say yes. I think that being in community, because you can say, you know what, I was having this issue and someone goes, I dealt with that. So you're not trying to figure it all out on your own and getting paralyzed with like the number of decisions. So I would say that the community's a very important deal.

I was with another friend and she's like, oh, I have all these widow friends from church now. And like, you know, and I observed it one day coming out of church when another widow that I know approached her, hey, want to get together for coffee? And I was like, oh, this is like so awesome to see. Because I remember this woman was in absolute basket case when her husband died. And on Facebook, there were a couple of us that would be like, did you see her post today? I am so worried about her. Like, is she gonna make it, like, really sad? And today she's out. She's reaching out to others. So I was like, okay, that's a good sign.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

So I'm curious from your perspective, when you are working with a client who is having a difficult time. I'd imag. Money becomes less important for a lot of people. Whereas what I mean by that is, is it difficult? Or how do you impress upon people when they do need to make some financial decisions or make some changes to support themselves moving forward, where nothing seems as important anymore? And I don't think I'm asking a very good question, but do you follow?

I think, you know, it's sort of like, I've just lost the love of my life. What does money matter? Kind of like.

Right, right. Yeah.

I mean, there's. There are people who are in happy relationships and everybody's alive and well, and money doesn't matter.

Right.

It's difficult to kind of impress upon people that they need to make some decisions or changes to kind of improve their financial lives. But I'd imagine when somebody loses somebody, it's like, what. What's the point?

Point, Right.

Yep. It can go. It can go either way. Except thinking about another conversation. This woman's going to come into some. Some money, and she want. He was always a good steward of money, so she wants to be a good steward of money. Like, I need to honor how he earned this money and how he.

We used to bless people with this money. Like, I need to continue that along. So, like, okay, I. I need to be responsible. I. I would say more people probably are more. I would say on the responsible side, like, not just that I've kind of given up. I've seen like, oh, my gosh, kind of this branding sprees.

Like, you know, how do I make myself feel better? I'm thinking about another friend whose husband died while the kids were still like, late high school, early college. And she felt guilty that he died. I mean, he was sick. It wasn't her fault or anything, but she let, especially her daughter, like to spend. She. It was like her way of, like, alleviating the guilt of her husband's dying. It didn't help the daughter. The daughter ended up becoming addicted to drugs and now is clean.

But it. It wasn't helpful. So we have to. This is balance of, like, I think we have to sometimes show the mirror. Like, I know you really want to help this person, but in general, as human beings, we need to have pride, responsibility. You know, we have to earn things. If we're always given them, don't appreciate them, and sort of help guide people along a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's interesting. I. I'm working with a single woman right now who lost her father. So a little bit different. Not a widow, but her inheritance, a little burdensome. She felt a lot of pressure because her dad took money seriously. Her father was her financial planner and tried to impress upon her how serious money was. And you have to pay attention to these things.

And it became a little burdensome for her, a little overwhelming. She wanted to make sure she honored her father and did the right thing, but she didn't know what. What that meant. And we were just talking the other day that she. We kind of laughed about it, but she was spending a little bit more than she probably should be. And she. She admitted to some emotional spending.

Right.

Just kind of made her feel good, but just acknowledging that and talking about, is this really serving you? Do you need that shirt? Did you have to go out to dinner? Kind of talking through those things seemed to be helpful, but everybody kind of experiences that a little bit differently.

No, it's true. And actually thinking about a woman in the community who I got connected to through the senior center, who. Who has a lot of fear around money but distrust around people. And she was an only child, parents are deceased, and still has kept accounts. This is from the best of what I've been able to learn, because she won't share a lot. Since the 90s when her father died, she's kept the accounts and been too fearful to do anything. And they were basically like cash accounts that had. At a brokerage house that had fees on them, and they've just eroded away.

Wow. Wow.

Because of her fear of being able to do anything because her father, you know, said, you should do. Be cautious where. And she's. There's something deeper going on as well, but it's very sad to see she can't get. She can't help herself.

Yeah. Yeah.

You've written two books or created two journals. Can you tell us a little bit about those? Why is journaling so impactful and powerful and in your. From your perspective?

So the. The idea came about. I studied with Jack Canfield, who is the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul. And I was like, oh, I'm gonna get together. I know so many widows. I'm gonna get to have these Widow stories. I'm going to create like the Chicken Soup for the Soul widows kind of version because I think sharing of stories helps people. Well, I got one person to say they was willing to share their story, and I was like, all right, this is way, way too hard.

But I am a huge collector of inspirational quotes. I've studied with Tony Robbins and Jack Canfield and just a personal development person. So I just started saying, you know what? I'm going to pull together inspirational quotes. And I think when you reflect on an inspirational quote, you get some insight. And what better way than to do it in a journal? So I created the. The widow's version first. And it's 10 stages of sort of when you lose a. Lose someone.

Know, starting off that suddenly single and this grief has no timeframe. And then how do you deal with money? How do you deal with faith? Like, there's. So there's quotes on those topics. And then you start to get to the point where you're. You're moving forward and then you're sort of on your own. It was a great quote that I love that sort of like, and she got pushed off the ledge and she flew. And I. So it's been interesting.

Some people have just told. They tell me different ways they use it. Some people will start at the beginning and just keep going. And I do suggest at each chapter, some writing prompts, some people will doodle. Some people will just read it and not actually write anything. But what I think journaling does is, again, I said this earlier, it gets you out of your head into your heart. And people will say, I'm bad at journaling. It's like, there's no good or bad.

It's just putting something on paper. And I deliberately didn't put lines on the paper. And despite a couple people saying, why aren't there lines? Because you get to write upside down, you get to write sideways, you get to make a flower like it isn't meant to constrain you. Because how you express in journaling to me is how you express. And it's been super helpful. And one of the nice things one woman said to me, I have a chair in my kitchen, my TV's there, and every day I sit down and your book is on the little table. And I have my coffee and I look at it and it's so special. And it's been really helpful.

I gave the grief so because it was one for widows, a lot of people have grief. So whether that's a widower, you've lost a child A spouse. I mean, a sibling you lost, a pet, you. You have a cancer diagnosis. That's a loss, that's a grief. So I created the second version, which is, you know, for general grief. And I gave it one to a widower at church the other day. And he's like, I really like your book.

He's a little different, but, you know, he's like something that tangible to help people get. Get through. And you know what I like. I like about books in general is they last. You know, it's not like you gave somebody. I gave you some soup. It's gone. Everybody wants to do something practical, like, I'll bake a bread.

I'll, you know, bring you cookies, and you don't really want to eat at that time anyhow. And then the other thing, that's big, people all want to send flowers, and flowers become a really big burden for people who've had a loss because they die. And it's another thing to take care of, and it's a remembrance of death. So what starts out as beautiful, like, becomes a burden. And so being sensitive to that, you know, if you want to do something, maybe you do it in a couple of months. But at the time, all these flower.

Arrangements and an extra lasagna or Super.

Yeah, yeah.

Very thoughtful and generous, but I think even I've been guilty of that, maybe not thinking about the impact that you have by giving those gifts.

And I got a tip from somebody recently that said, I never write my sympathy card until after I've been to the services or a month later. And I'm always the one like, oh, my gosh, I have to tell them right away how I feel. And a woman at church, her sister didn't wake up last week. She was a month shy of her 60th birthday, and she just didn't wake up. I mean, very sad. And so I didn't know her, but I've heard lots of stories about the family. And so I went to the funeral, and it was so much easier to write the sympathy card after I heard the eulogies. And there were six priests there.

It's like, six priests don't show up, you know, for a dignitary, usually. So it was like, this is this woman that I know happened to work in the church, so her family was known to a lot of people. But it makes it so much easier to then take stories you heard and share them back in the card and make it more meaningful.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's beautiful. So you've talked about financial triage and the Things that are on fire, needing to get done. We've talked about these communities of support. We've talked a little bit about what to say or not to say or even just now, you know, what, how do you want to give a gift in that moment and being a little bit more thoughtful about the impact that you might have on the, the receiver of that gift. Are there anything, is there anything that you want to mention from a financial planning perspective? Not to jump into the quantitative, but are there kind of tips, rules of thumb, a process that you want to highlight that. That people should be thinking about after they lose a loved one?

Yeah, and I'm. I'm guessing most of us do a lot of this, but really changing beneficiaries and getting your own estate plan updated, I think are a big deal. And I mean, again, the proverbial bus can come for any of us at any time. So, you know, another gentleman at church, he. His wife died in October, and he just kept saying, I want to be with her. Every day I wake up is one day I'm closer to her. And he died last month at 80. But still, it was like, oh, my gosh, that was pretty quick.

So you, you do have to sort of urge people to, like, take care of those things and, and getting, you know, if you, you know, a lot of people are older, I don't think life insurance is necessarily a big deal, but, like, do you have to retitle things? Do you. Does it, you know, do you need to let go of a policy? We, we had a widow in her, like, late 50s, early 60s, and this life insurance person was brutal and convincing her she had to keep this whole life policy despite the fact that she didn't need it. And he was abusive about things. And she was so scared at the time, she didn't know what to do. And finally she found out months later that he was doing this to everyone they went to college with. And she was like, I knew things didn't feel right, but it's such a balancing act that we have as the advisor, to sort of point out things that need to get taken care of, be gentle, not to throw people under a bus that maybe are predatory. But when we really, you know, we would say, like, we don't like to be pushy, but this is a situation we're going to be pushy.

Yeah.

And you bring something up. I've talked a lot about fiduciary financial advice and financial planning on the podcast, and I think it's probably worth noting here that you are a fiduciary and a lot of life insurance agents are not right. So and not to say that there aren't a lot of amazing life insurance agents, but they have a financial incentive to push financial products. So the agent that you mentioned that wanted to deliver the check and put that immediately into an annuity, he's financially incentivized to do that. And that is something to be aware of when you're looking for resources and support in these challenging, difficult moments. You know, thinking about who's best suited to help you through those, those periods of time and looking for advisors and planners who are fiduciaries and have to put your best interests up front and are willing to tell you things like you don't need this life insurance policy anymore is really, really important. So I just wanted to kind of make that point of clarification tangentially on this one.

That person that we ran into that time was also selling cars part time. So I think you have to look and say okay, is this person a full time professional in or they're doing this as a side for whatever reasons. I think when you're working with someone who's a fiduciary, they're always investing in their learning and their knowledge and their growth and we're not usually having side hustles that you know to really make the ends meet. So you have as the consumer you have to really be aware like yeah, this isn't, this may not be the right person.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So changing beneficiaries. I just wanted to touch on that. I've seen that in my own practice where somebody came to me and wanted to see if there was anything that we could do to help them out because their spouse passed away and it was a second marriage and he never changed the beneficiary and his policies. And unfortunately that's a legally binding contract where supersedes the will and any estate planning that they did and the ex wife wouldn't give the money up and it was financially impactful and there's nothing that we can do. So it's really critical as you mentioned, if you're in that situation where you lose a loved one to to get some updates met made to beneficiaries, your own estate plans and documents probably sooner rather than later.

Yeah, we had a situation where we had gentleman had been widowed twice and he was married for the third time. He's much older in life and so we're trying to understand all of the family members and all that and there's a name on beneficiary well, it turns out it was his second wife and it was like you hadn't mentioned this name and it was still there as a beneficiary. So, yeah, it's a, it's a big deal.

Yeah.

So, you know, and then making sure bank accounts, brokerage accounts all get taken care of. And the hard part is, you know, you tell people and, you know, we offer to, we will go with you. We will do things here in our office. We'll make those phone calls. But sometimes they just don't do things. And that's either before a situation happens or after it's a big deal.

Which gets back to kind of a common thread or theme through the conversation, which is finding support.

Right.

Getting the support that you need.

And.

Finding people who can help you navigate a really difficult situation.

Right.

Both from a numbers and updating the documents standpoint, but also the emotional side and making sure you're creating the space for yourself and doing the journaling and doing the grieving in the way that you need to, to kind of move forward. It can be really, really impactful.

And I can tell you, and I have, I feel like I have similar vibes. You know, we're going to take that extra care of that client. But for those people who, like, there are advisors out there that are just sort of like, they are that transactional advisor. Like, oh, sorry that happened. Don't worry, deary. We'll take care of things. You don't need to worry. And they kind of marginalize either the man or the woman.

But, like, you know, we are smarter than you. We'll take care of it. Like, no, you should have a relationship with someone who meets you where you are and helps bring you along, but doesn't, you know, belittle you and make you feel like you're not smart, that you don't understand things. Picking those right support people are very important and that's across all industries.

Yeah, absolutely. As we wind down, is there anything else you want to share with us? Whether it's related to your work, some of the organizations you're a part of, Anything we missed that's really critical that we should share. For folks, before we let you go.

One thing became a little bit of a passion. I did a TEDx talk last year and it's called Low Tech. Love the power of the handwritten note. And I have two superpowers. One is giving great hugs and two is writing handwritten notes. And I think that I would say this when I go to the Modern Widows Club, and I would say if anyone wants a hug. And people would line up to get hugs, which was really special. This handwritten note, taking the time to write a thoughtful note to someone, whether it's grief or it's thank you, it is a long term gift, you know, and that that recipient can choose to save it for a long time or let it go.

And in my talk, I share some stories about those letters that have become gifts for me. But it's when someone's grieving and you share a story about their special person and they can go back and read it in the middle of the night, five in the morning, when they can't sleep, that's a really powerful thing. So when people just send that prayer hand emoji, that in my opinion, doesn't get you off the hook for having that human to human connection. And I think our world needs more human to human connection these days. And finding being that person that provides it and finding that that community of people that want to be connected I think are so important. So I would encourage people to watch that and write a note.

That's amazing. And I actually, I lost a friend earlier this year in his 40s. He died suddenly. And I listened to the TEDx or watched the TEDx talk. And hearing you talk about that now, I think I'll, I'll have to commit to writing some notes to his, his wife and his mom just to let him know that we're thinking about him. I'd encourage everybody to do that as well. I know when I've received handwritten notes, it happens so infrequently. Just the fact that you get at something tangible and know that somebody was thinking about you can be a really powerful experience.

You will, you will change their day and then you will just be all that more connected to your friend too.

Right, Right.

Thank you for sharing.

Beautiful. Yeah.

So, a few last questions. We've mentioned a few different professionals and books. Is there anything specifically you'd recommend for people to check out who lost a loved one? Books, websites, other resources? Maybe we haven't mentioned yet, podcasts that cover the topic. Anything in particular that comes to mind?

Yeah, there's a lot of podcasts out there. There's a woman named Kim Murray. I think it's widow, 411. She lost her husband who had a business, two young, younger kids. She does some great writing and she has a sort of a kit that someone could buy to like walk them through all the things that need to get done. Kim's great. I've talked to her a bunch of times. Met her at Modern Widows.

There's a number, I think it's Krista St. Germain. I think she's the widowed mom. There's a brave new widow. There's another widow podcast that I'm blanking on, but there's a lot of podcasts out there for widows that are good and a lot of them are younger. There's some great people. There's some young. There's a.

There's another one that I haven't listened to enough, but it's kind of definitely geared towards the younger woman. And she's, she's pretty raw. Can be a little edgy too.

And I'm sure just putting it out there.

No filter out there. I'm going to share a book that just I've been now shared it twice, Donna Ashworth called Wild Hope Healing Words to Find Light on Dark Days. And a friend just gave it to me and I just sent it actually to a client that's going to get it today who lost her husband to be five years ago but had lost a friend on July 3rd. And you know, still grieving is fresh and like this book will help. It's just one of those, you just open to a page and it's like, oh, that was meant for me today. I have another one, but I'm not remembering the name that. Okay, they're super helpful if anyone wants to know that one. It starts with somebody named Re and I.

They can reach out to me when.

The light bulb goes off if you let me know. We're going to link to everything that came up in the episode in the post that we put up on the website modernfinancialwellness.com we also have a resource database that catalogs all these books and podcasts and anything that's referenced in the episodes. So we'll have all that stuff up there.

I do have a widow's resource like four pages on my website as well.

And why don't you mention that? That's a good segue. So how do people reach you and Cornerstone.

Yep. So our website is whcornerstone.com and we have a resource page that has a ton everything from an after death checklist to sort of thinking about things if you have a diagnosis and you know, death is coming to after death to yes, widow support going forward. And then another other fun thing that I do is called Wisdom Wednesday and I have a YouTube channel where I since the pandemic, for five years now, I've been putting out a positive message on Wednesdays. Yeah. Trying to Take the fear out of the world, try to get people to think for themselves and provide hope.

Well, we all need more of that. So between the work that you do, your commitment to this segment of the population that's dealing with such a challenging time in life, we're so grateful to have you here to share your experience and your expertise. Expertise. So I encourage people to go out and check out the website, check out Wisdom Wednesdays on, on YouTube, social media, LinkedIn. Are you around the Internet, all those places?

And Facebook, Instagram and I'm still on Twitter slash X.

Awesome.

Great.

Last question. This being a show about financial well being, I usually talk to people about what financial well being means to them. I'm curious your thoughts when you hear the term financial well being, what that means and has it changed over the years as you've done this work with this population of clients?

Yeah, well, to me financial well being is, you know, you have enough money to do something that you want to do on the spur of a moment. So you're not sort of living that hand to mouth. You've done the work to build your nest egg and that you can take advantage of opportunities. Having worked with more widows, I hear from a lot of them take the trip. I wish I traveled more. So for me personally I am starting to, I'm at that balance of like, you know what, I am still saving but I'm going to enjoy more. So this past year had a lot of big trips in it and I am learning to spend my money a little bit more on experiences and realizing like, yep, I will keep saving but I'm going to enjoy life now. And I think too much of a.

Too many people think we'll get to retirement, then we'll enjoy life. No, life is meant to be enjoyed all along the way.

Yeah, finding that balance, that's great. Awesome. I think that's a great way to wrap up. Again, thank you so much for your time, Paula. It's been great to know you and connect with you and learn more about your practice and I think we do have very similar vibes. So it's awesome to have you here and just very grateful to know you. And again, thanks for, thanks for being here.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you for creating this community to allow us to connect and bring like minded people together so that we can all lift everybody up and support each other.

Well, I appreciate that. It's my pleasure. Thanks for listening everybody. Till next time, check out modernfinancialwellness.com and wherever you pick up podcasts, whether it's YouTube or Spotify or wherever else. If you wouldn't mind subscribing or liking or sharing, we'd appreciate it. And we'll we'll see you all soon. Thanks again. Thanks again for listening to this episode.

A quick note, although I do hope that the information that we talked about was helpful, in no way is anything discussed on the podcast to be taken as specific financial advice. Please consult your own advisors and do your own research when you're making important financial decisions.