How To Prepare for Disastrous Times Ahead – Episode 242

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[00:03] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, best-selling author, Kim D.H. Butler. Today’s episode really tugs at the heartstrings a little bit because we’re talking about a real-life case study. And this is to prepare people, families, for terrible circumstances that come up, be it medical situations or whatever things that may come up to really prepare for disastrous times. With that being said, Kim and I walk through these different scenarios. We’re going to help you understand what you can do to prepare yourself, your kids, and how you can create a plan, or better used, a strategy that will help you to

[01:01] be successful long-term. Let’s jump into that interview. Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast. Today, we’re talking about a subject that sometimes tugs at your heart a little bit more. And this subject is definitely around emergencies that pop up in our life and health crises. And it’s actually a subject that we found as we were going through different forums. And here’s the question. It’s a 38-year-old couple and the wife had a stroke unexpectedly. So what should the family do? And we’re going to ask Kim that and we’re going to find out in a real-life scenario, what would be best? Kim, what do you think? Well, it is a great question and definitely something that is good learning for us all because it really all boils down to preparation.

[02:01] And preparation we can do without having a scarcity mindset. We’re not being overly concerned or being unnecessarily afraid by being prepared. And so I’m going to identify four or five or six things, however many come to mind, that would help a family be prepared. And one of them, of course, is the Emergency Opportunity Fund that we always talk about so much. So I’ll just check that one off the list and say that that is an absolute must. It just gives the family so much peace of mind, so much capability for being able to shift gears, hire help, take some time off, you know, whatever it is around the support of the person that needs or that has had the health scare, but also the support of the supporters, right?

[02:48] You know, in this case, the wife has had the issue. Well, that husband’s going to want to stay at home maybe for a while. The children may want to be at home for a while, et cetera. But beyond that, I think it boils down to organization because organization is what keeps a family going and especially financial organization. So let’s say in this case, the wife was the main bill payer and the person that knew the bulk of the family’s finances. Well, if you don’t know things like passwords, where checking accounts are, even simple things like emergency phone numbers, the kids’ school information, the various locations that dollars have to go to and from, you know, a lot of that can be automated these days and hopefully it is in a lot of families

[03:42] because that saves everybody time, but even the automated necessity is of watching it. And so if you’ve got automatic deposits and automatic debits, you still have to keep an eye on that checking account. And if all that information is online, again, where are the passwords? So any work that can be done by a family to be prepared is valuable. And I’ll share with you a game that Dan Sullivan and Babs Smith at Strategic Coach played around this area and it was called The First Hundred Days. And they just said to the team, hey, you know, we travel together. If we both go down in a plane, let’s play a game and see how prepared we can be for the first hundred days. And so they just looked at everything in their business through the lens of

[04:30] the first hundred days and it enabled them to develop systems and document things and prepare so that should that ever occur, either because there is an accident or because somebody dies or what have you, and of course disability and, you know, mental challenges, all those play a role, too, the team was ready. And so that’s really what a family ought to do. Like what’s the first hundred days and that way you make it a game and you make it fun and it doesn’t need to be dreary and you literally go through your life for a hundred days. And the reason you want to go that long is because it helps you think about all the things like, oh my gosh, I sign in on this website. Nobody knows my username and password or oh my gosh, you know,

[05:16] there’s documentation that’s tucked in a file. Does anybody know where this file is? Or here’s the bank or the safe deposit box or the actual safe in the home or the insurance company, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. A hundred days is just enough time for all those things to pop up that you might not think about if you just sat down to make a list. But over the course of the days, they would pop up and then you would be prepared. I love the idea of that game. The first hundred days, that’s that’s got my head scratching. And it makes me think because I have three little kids, it makes me think, what can I do to help them? What, you know, as you think of this, what are some of the things that we can do to prepare to help our kids in case anything like this happens?

[06:01] Absolutely. Well, I think one of them is just to have the discussion on occasion and it has to be age appropriate, of course, of what might happen and what would they want to contribute to? Like what would be important to them? And you could just play it off as like, hey, if if mommy and daddy were to go on a trip for a while, like what does the babysitter need to know? And, you know, for the younger set, you just spend five minutes at the dinner table, writing it down real quick. Or, you know, maybe if your children are on email, maybe there’s a notebook and it has all the usernames and the passwords for the family or, you know, the dog has to get cared for or the dentist appointment needs to get kept or that kind of thing.

[06:48] And, you know, maybe your kids are involved in in some of those things and they can contribute that knowledge. You know, if the kids feeding the dog, the parents might even know not know how much dog food is needed. You know, I mean, there could be things where the kids really know stuff. There’s also an online tool that I want to share called The Torch. So it’s The Torch, T-O-R-C-H dot com. And think about like passing the torch. And, you know, there’s all kinds of legal documents that parents need to have. But The Torch is just designed for the types of things that are not legal. In other words, the kids school, the family dog, the dentist, etc, etc. The insurance agent and having all that information in one place.

[07:33] And it will prompt you to ask the questions that are necessary to have a complete preparation occur, because that would be the worst thing in the world is like, well, here’s the notebook, but I don’t know what to put in it. So this is an online tool, but you can print it out as well. And maybe that will help families. That’s a really good one. You know, as I was going through the comments on this topic here in the forum, one of the things that kept on popping up from the original poster was overwhelmed. And they just felt like they didn’t know where to go. They didn’t have any direction. Is there some simple advice that you can give to someone that’s that’s in the thick of it so that they can get some distance and avoid some of that overwhelm?

[08:24] Absolutely. And it’s a tool that has been around forever. And it’s just the gratitude game. And so somebody that’s in a situation like that, they need to be writing down at least three things, if not maybe more like 10 or 20 things that they are grateful for every single day. And I don’t say this lightly. I lost my mom when she was in her mid 50s and I was 30 something. I know what that’s like. She had an illness that kind of overtook our family for a bit of time. And so I know how difficult that can be. I know what it’s like after she passed on to go in and clean out her closet. Well, my dad is still, of course, totally living and capable and what not. So it is so important still. Even in the face of that, to be grateful for things,

[09:14] to find things that you’re grateful for. And, you know, I use the word things, but I don’t really mean material things. I mean anything. It could be spiritual things. It could be metaphysical things. It could be relationships. It could be experiences. We just need to focus on that that we’re grateful for. And it does not mean that we’re not spending some time with this person as they’re dealing with their problems. Sometimes, though, helping the person, you know, let’s say like in this situation with the stroke, you know, hopefully maybe this woman is able to talk. Maybe she’s not. Doesn’t matter. You can help her look to things that she can be grateful for also. And sometimes you really have to dig to find things that you’re grateful for.

[09:59] But I promise. And again, this comes with experience. I promise that if you will dig and find those things that you are grateful for, you will absolutely be able to turn things around sometimes, not only just mentally and like get over the overwhelm, but you might even turn things around physically because somebody that’s grateful, somebody that is focused on working towards being happy and finding the good, they’re actually going to be healed quicker. I mean, there’s all kinds of proof for that. I completely agree. You know, I want to tell about a specific circumstance that happened recently. Last summer, one of my friends, his wife unexpectedly passed away. You know, you wouldn’t expect it.

[10:49] They were early 60s, both healthy. And he wakes up in the morning and there she was. She had passed away in her sleep. And it was very overwhelming for him and the entire family to the point where, you know, he he didn’t want to leave the house for a while, but he said something. And I was talking with him a couple of weeks ago that really opened up my eyes. And as we were talking with another mutual friend, that friend had ordered pizza for the family. And my friend in the conversation said that act of sending us pizza to eat allowed me to be with my family. And he was so grateful for that. And it made me think how incredibly blessed we all are. And if someone is going through something like this,

[11:46] maybe one of the best things we can do is help another person. And that way, it’ll prepare us for when we have a tragedy like this happen. Absolutely. In fact, it’s been shown that the act of helping another person can lift your own situation up as well. So while in this case, it was the friend that had a family intact that was helping the family that wasn’t intact. But sometimes maybe it’s the un-intact family that can choose another family to reach out and help with. And I mean, I’m kind of twisting your tail there. And I certainly don’t mean to be. But giving of help, giving of time is so beneficial that it really does so much good for us, the giver as well. And so, yeah, if you’ve got a situation where you’re struggling

[12:39] and find a way to give, if you’ve got a situation where, you know, somebody else is struggling, then give. That’s the solution. And the time doesn’t have to cost anything. You know, sometimes it’s, you know, like a pizza dinner, or maybe you bake something and take it over or what have you. Or maybe it’s you just sit and listen. That is so true. Sitting and listening is one of the most valuable things that we could do. You know, Kim, this is a touchy subject. It’s tough for people because none of us want to have to go through something like this. But as you mentioned at the beginning of this episode, we need to prepare. We need to be organized. And if we take those steps now, then it will help us

[13:22] to overcome the shock, overcome the grief and to actually be present through the moment. And it’s going to be tough. It’s going to be hard. But we need to go through that experience and it will make us stronger people. Absolutely. And if you can do it with gratitude, even though there might be tears and there might be screams, if you can turn as often as necessary to find something to be grateful for, it will make that process in your life, that particular period of your life, end up being a blessing and a good thing and something that you can be grateful for. Even though there’s a particular part of the family that has died, you know, maybe a literal death, maybe it’s another type of death.

[14:15] You know, the particular activity can no longer be done or what have you. There can still be good there. There can still be gratitude there. And I know it seems difficult to do, and yet it’s so totally worth it. And it will help everybody when that gets done. Yeah. So for our listeners, because this is a touchy subject, one thing that you can do is if you are in the thick of it right now, you can send an email to Kim Hello at Partners for Prosperity dot com and ask, hey, what should I do? Or maybe you’re just trying to figure out how to put together a game plan. Send that email to Hello at Partners for Prosperity dot com. And I’m sure Kim is going to be loving to help out and provide some of that insight.

[15:01] Absolutely. In fact, during the 2007 and eight challenge and 09, that’s the way I got through it was to give and give and give to every single one of our clients that I got on the phone or that I helped via email. That got me through our challenge as well. So, yes, I love the emails. Please bring them on. Happy to help Hello at Partners for Prosperity dot com. Thanks for taking the time to spend your day with us and listen to this. And we look forward to having another conversation, another podcast episode with you next week. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you. Visit us at Partners for Prosperity dot com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.