In this LMScast episode, Judy Butler discusses about legacy estate planning and the need of having a thorough plan in place to protect families from hardship when inevitable death occurs.

Judy Butler is an expert in legacy estate planning and is associated with The Guardians Gift. Her area of expertise focuses in offering educational programs and training procedures that enable people and families to proficiently manage estate planning. She highlights the importance of having an honest, humorous conversation while debunking some popular beliefs and superstitions around the subject.

Judy draws attention to the negative effects of not having a plan, including pressure on finances, strife within the family, and rash decisions. When inquired about the more straightforward approach to estate preparation, Judy clarifies that it involves more than just creating a will.

She highlights the intricacy of the procedure by drawing on her own experience, which encompasses legal facets outside of the will, such as healthcare directives and powers of attorney. She explains the comprehensive strategy of the Guardians Gift program, which starts from birth and takes into account finances, healthcare, and ancestry.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program, I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. Her name is Dr. Judy Butler. She’s from the guardiansgift. org. She has a whole learning opportunity and training process around Legacy estate planning, how that works, how that, how to do it well to benefit the family.

We’re going to talk about the subject matter. We’re going to jump in to how she’s leveraging the online world to help with their mission. But first welcome to the show, Judy. Thank you.

Dr Judy Butler: Thank you, Chris, for having me. And I’m excited to be here today.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. It’s great to have you. This is a bit, this is a big topic.

It’s a heavy topic for people. So can you explain at a high level how families and children get into crisis? around inevitable death and, estate planning and the legacy they leave behind. How does that play out when there’s no real planning or it just pops up and there wasn’t really, things are in place.

What kind of crisis happens in the lives of people, when that happens?

Dr Judy Butler: People seem to think they know what’s going to happen, and we do at one level, we’re all going to die, and you’re right, it can be very difficult conversation, it can also be very depressing for some people and people are very superstitious, they think, oh, if I talk about it I’m, going to make it happen, and I’m sorry, but it’s going to happen anyway.

So let’s talk about it. And so I try to make it more light hearted and enjoyable to actually discuss and even funny sometimes what’s going to happen because when we don’t plan and I’ll. 67 percent of Americans do not have a plan. But when we don’t plan, we put our family members into crisis. We actually cause them to have to come up with financial resources physical resources.

We actually have to make decisions that we are not equipped to make because we don’t have the information that we need when a planning. a simple plan can alleviate the heartache, the headache, the family dysfunction, the dynamics. I’ve seen so many families that get into turmoil and they fight over things.

Mom told me this, or dad told me that no, they told me something different. And then it just, it’s a, he said, she said kind of thing. And I just think that there’s a simpler, easier way.

Chris Badgett: So what is that simpler, easier way? And can you talk a little bit about, are we talking about like a will or a lot more than that?

And what,

Dr Judy Butler: is it? It’s a lot more than that. This actually comes out of my own personal experience and life story. And that’s for a different time, but it’s more than just a will. People, a lot of people have a will, a power of attorney, healthcare, power of attorney, and a living, will, and.

Like a lot of adult children, my parents had those things as well, but, and I thought I knew, I thought oh, they got a will, that’s all I need. But when it comes down to what happens from the time a person starts their decline towards death, and this could go for years. And then the actual death, that is a place where caregivers actually spend a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of money, trying to figure things out.

And I was like a lot of adults, I thought I already know what mom, dad want, I just handle it. There’s so many legal parts to it that are not anything to do with the will. And so it’s about knowing how to navigate, how to actually ask the right questions, what resources to look for, and the Guardian’s Gift actually starts people out at birth.

There’s a component of genealogy. There’s a component of health care. There is a financial piece to it where we actually look at what does it cost from the time someone begins the decline to the actual death. Now, death and dying in and of itself is expensive, but it’s really expensive to think about.

In home care, nursing homes, assisted living, and what those things are, how they function, what does that mean, and people really get lost in the weeds when they start navigating that.

Chris Badgett: Couple of clarifying questions. Could you explain the difference between a will, a living will, and a power of attorney?

Dr Judy Butler: Absolutely. A will is a legal document that Talks about your assets and what will happen to your assets. A health care power of attorney is a simple legal document and it actually gives someone else the ability to make health life care decisions for you. If you’re not able to make them. An example would be if you went into surgery and while you’re under anesthesia, the doctor comes out and says, Oh we need to give them some blood.

If that hasn’t been decided beforehand, your healthcare power of attorney could make that decision. And of course it’s bigger and deeper than that. People associate it with pulling the plug, so to speak. If somebody’s on life saving measures. Now, a living will is a legal document that actually says what it is you want to happen or not happen about your life and if you were to need life saving measures.

And it’s different than a do not resuscitate, which is something, another legal document that people have towards their end of life. So a power of attorney is different than a healthcare power of attorney because a power of attorney is a legal document that has to do with your finances and handling of your financial arrangement.

Chris Badgett: That’s great. Thanks for clarifying that. And you said, you mentioned the word we earlier, so I was wondering is, it the parent or the child that leads this process or both? Is it, or is it really, are you really focusing on the person, the parent planning for the future?

Dr Judy Butler: Actually Because I’m also a therapist and I’m very, it’s very important to me that we secure the family dynamics as much as possible.

I really enjoy when we can have the adult children as part of the process. Of planning but sometimes senior adults and not always just seniors, but people in general are very private And they are very hesitant to talk about these things with their family members So sometimes an individual or a couple will come and they’ll want to put their legacy estate plan in place And they don’t want to discuss it with their children and i’m I have that conversation with them that at some point, these people, your adult children, are the people who will have to actually follow through with your legacy estate.

So I think it’s important to have the conversation, at least, at some point during the process. Now, some people don’t have they don’t have family members that way. Sometimes I have adult children that come and say, I want my mom or dad to actually talk to me about this, and I’d like to help them, and I’d like for them to get something in place so I don’t end up having to make these decisions later.

So it can be driven by either of the parties that you’re asking about.

Chris Badgett: Can you speak to the the, memory issues that are common Alzheimer’s or dementia and how that factors in and how that affects this, situation when the parent is starting to deal with that and it’s progressing.

Dr Judy Butler: So in the early stages, and of course, my father had dementia and that’s part of my story is. It’s important early on as possible to be able to get these documents and things in place because particularly with a health care power of attorney when. You take like I had to take my dad to the doctor on occasions and I’d have to go with him Because once he was given medication or some instructions for his health care And of course this goes to financial and all other kinds of areas, too I would have to remember those things for him and help him execute those things And if we had it all written down if We had the guardian’s gift.

Then I would have had all those legal documents in place so that when I went to the doctor’s office, I could say, here’s his healthcare power of attorney. And of course they ask for those things these days more than they did when my dad first was diagnosed. But we I would have those documents and the doctors and offices and all the healthcare providers, it makes it a lot simpler for everybody as well as It would have made it easier on my dad because he didn’t have to worry about it.

He would say talk to my daughter. She’s got it. She handles all that. And a lot of adult children already handle it. They go with their families. But having the legal documents in place is just an added extra protection for everybody. That’s

Chris Badgett: great. Thanks for that. And we’re going to get into the guardian’s gift.

In the time capsule in a second and for you out there listening, that’s at the guardiansgift. org. But a couple more questions before we go there. Tell us a little more, Dr. Judy, about your story and, why you were motivated to pursue this what, happened in your situation?

Dr Judy Butler: As I said, Dan had dementia.

And my parents, I grew up blue collar. My parents were relatively poor. Of course, we didn’t know we were poor. Everybody was poor. And so we I grew up that way. And as the, sometimes caregiving falls a lot to the girls, the family, the females, and I was the oldest and I thought, oh this is my job.

I’m grew up knowing that was my job to look after my mom and dad. But it got to a point where. My mother could not physically care for my father. He had begun to fall and he was having some difficulty getting around, and I was afraid, and my mother has a bad back, and I was afraid she was going to try to pick him up, and they were both going to be injured, and I was going to lose both of them.

So it was decided that dad needed the kind of care that we could not give him at home, and that is a really tough decision to make. And so we sought out a facility where they could look after him, but my parents being poor, they had a will and but they had a home and they had cars and they had furniture and their personal belongings.

They didn’t have stocks or bonds or major assets other than their home. But to go into a nursing home, a skilled nursing facility they could not afford that because it’s so expensive. People don’t realize you can’t just go to a nursing home. Somebody has to pay for it, whether it’s Medicaid Medicare, doesn’t pay for it.

They’ll pay for a few days if you’re sick and you need that kind of care, like for the first hundred days, but for extended care, they won’t pay. So you have to be Medicaid, which is you don’t have any money. And a lot of people don’t realize that, or you have to hire people. My parents couldn’t afford it.

So the only thing that was an option for them was for them to sign their house over. Department of Social Services said you have to sign your house over. So at some point, when he passes and you both pass, they would take the house and sell it to pay off the debt. Somebody has to pay. And my mother was like, no, I’m not selling my house.

I’ve worked my whole life and I’m not going to sell my house. So we had to wait a little bit and get the house put into a trust. And I learned all about trust and how those work but to protect the house so my mother would be okay and then to be able to have social services pay for dad to be in a nursing facility, so it was not the actual death and dying piece.

It was the getting to that part. That was the problem. So I learned all about the legal aspects. I went, I learned all about nursing homes and Medicare and Medicaid and how that works, what they pay for what they don’t and then when dad died. I was exhausted and I was physically worn out from running around, taking care of them.

Mentally, I just didn’t have anything left to try to make those decisions. I was like, we got to plan a funeral. I don’t know. And I’m a pastor. I’m an ordained pastor. So I preached lots of funerals, but this was my dad. And so it was different. And when it’s your own, it’s very, hard to make those decisions when you have no energy left.

So the day that my dad, at his funeral, I stood there. And I thought there has to be a better way to do this. Why doesn’t anybody have all of this stuff together? So I set out, it became my mission, which and I made it my life’s work, my passion, that I would help people. And the way that I figured this out, as a pastor for Senior adults don’t like to talk about death and dying, but they do like to tell their story.

And that’s why we start at the beginning. Where were you born? Where did you go to school? Who was your best friend? Did you have any pets? And I ask all those questions in a very simple format, and we’re going into a different space here but it became my mission to make it simple for people to tell their story, list their genealogy, put all their financial information And their legal information and their health information into a format that somebody like their adult daughter like me or their son has access to be able to make the decisions and help their family.

Chris Badgett: That’s great. Let’s dive into the guardiansgift. org. What was your journey into doing this mission? You have a website now and a process and the time capsule. Yes. Did it start with taking one-off clients and just helping them in consulting or, and how did it evolve into a website?

So

Dr Judy Butler: yes, it did start off exactly as a one off with a legal pad and a few questions. And and people were like why do you need to know that? But I just sat down with people and consulted with them and helped walk them through it and. Then COVID hit because my father died in 2018 right before the pandemic.

So I was doing it from the time he passed until COVID again with a legal pad and a few questions and then COVID and I was like okay, now what? So I had to transition and put it online so that I could not only make it simpler for people, But I could offer more value to people with more questions, more form uploads and all of that.

I looked at learning systems, which is what lifter is and the 1st system that I used was very basic. And but I learned from that. I learned to put the questions online. I learned to put videos online and to make things explainable and easily accessible to folks so that during COVID, they could just sit at their computer and they could actually create their will.

Get their will, their legal documents, tell their story and create their legacy estate. But I knew as we have progressed and grown, there needed to be a better system, a faster system, more elegance, if you will, for people to be able to do it. And I needed it to be simple and fast and straightforward.

And LFTR.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. Tell us more about are you doing the website and everything yourself? Or did you hire somebody to do it? How did you put it all together?

Dr Judy Butler: Yes, to all of it. So again, I started out and I had somebody help me with it. A lot of it I’ve done on my own. And I have again, every time I need some help, I’ll find somebody that can help or I’ll hire somebody.

There’s different agencies that offer. people that you can hire on contract. But when I transitioned and the end of 2023 last year to WordPress, I actually went to WordPress and I thought I need something that I can at least access myself. But it’s time for me now to let it go to somebody who is more proficient and more technical than I am.

So that’s why I went with WordPress, because WordPress is I guess the Rolls Royce, if you will, of hosting and such. But as part of that, I was looking for a learning management system, and there are several on WordPress. But I was impressed with Lifter, because it incorporated It incorporates the commercial piece that I needed to be able to present.

This as a format for purchase that people can buy it, but I also needed the quality That they that you guys offer of how to put the system together How could I put the guardians gift together in such a way? That it flows from one lesson to the next lesson to the next module and that everything is there and simple

Chris Badgett: Awesome.

Tell us more about the student or client experience. Are they working through videos? Are they filling out forms? What’s, in the lesson content?

Dr Judy Butler: So it’s, a mixed bag. When they sign into the guardian’s gift, there is a welcome video. So there’s a little video there. There’s also an instructional video that actually walks them through What they’re going to see, what’s coming up, what they need to do and how it functions.

And then they actually get into what are the forms. They are forms. And I chose formidable forms because Lifter actually said, we work well with these guys. And we looked at some other forms, but they didn’t do again, what I needed them to do as part of this process. They actually, it comes up, a question comes up and they just type in the answer.

Where were you born? And then it also has calendars that you can click on the calendar. This is the date. It has drop downs. It has all sorts of different parts of forms that people don’t normally associate with forms. But they’re very simple to set up and LFTR and Formidable work well together. And so that’s why I chose that.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. Can you tell us more about what the Time Capsule is?

Dr Judy Butler: The Time Capsule is a series of questions or question prompts. There’s also a space to answer or tell your stories talk about your first pet. So the Guardian’s Gift, the Time Capsule piece is that we take all of your history That you do want to pass down your legacy.

You want to pass to your family your life stories and we’ve combined it with getting your will and your legal documents and we help you do that. We provide that as part of the process and then also the planning piece towards the end. Where you actually plan your end of life service. We help you write your obituary.

We, set all of these things up. They’re different modules. So there’s a birth through kindergarten module. There’s an elementary school module, there’s a high school, middle and high school. There’s college and career, and then there’s transitions and there’s adulting. We call it adulting because it’s where you would get your first, you get married, or your first love, or your first car, or your first house, all of those firsts.

And you talk about those things, and then we take you from the beginning all the way to the end, And there’s also an executor’s checklist that helps your family members after you’re gone, put everything in order. They’ve got it. They know what to do. Oh, yes. I need to remember to turn off the electricity.

For this outside light that’s running, or I need to remember to stop the newspaper. So those kinds of things, there’s a checklist for that as well.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. So in the end, like for the student, I would say, do they end up with do they print something out? And have a, it’s basically becomes the plan,

Dr Judy Butler: right?

So what we suggest, of course you’re doing this online and when you complete one of the modules, we suggest that you save it to a flash drive, which we give you this handy dandy little neat flash drive. We’ll send it to you. And we want you to save it to the flash drive, but we also want you to print it and put it into a binder because it’s, I hate to kill trees, but at the same time, it needs to be all in one place.

There’s also where you can upload pictures and the documents. So I asked people to get a copy, make a copy of their will, their legal documents, copy of the pictures, a copy of diplomas and certificates. And all of that goes in the binder. So you end up with an autobiography. But we don’t call it that. We call it a time capsule because a time capsule is something that someone else will open at some point in the future, and they will actually see things that you thought were important enough to go in this container, if you will.

But we also suggest. If you have someone that you can email it to, that you can email it, and you can send it, so you have it on a flash drive, you have it printed out in a binder, and you email it to your executor or an adult child or somebody, and they have it as well. So it’s in several different places.

Chris Badgett: Wow. I love this, I call this an instructional design. I call it clicks and bricks. You’re doing like this digital stuff, but then you have these physical things like the binder and the printouts and the thumb drive. That’s really cool. And it’s so focused on this specific moment in time and challenge of life.

I really admire what you’ve built here. Let’s look a little more where we started this interview around. What, happens if this doesn’t exist and someone were to pass away and there’s no will or living will or power of attorney or anything. And yeah, what happens when this, doesn’t exist?

Dr Judy Butler: The first thing that happens is if you don’t have legal documents they, the estate, and some people don’t think they have an estate, but they do it may be small but, we still have assets. It will go to probate when these things go into probate, it can take 18 months to years for this to be settled, depending on what a dispute is, if there is a dispute, but even if there’s not a dispute, the state, whatever state that you’re living in decides who gets to handle the estate.

The state of North Carolina, which is where I am, will select someone and most often they’ll select, if it’s a husband or a wife, they will select that other one. But say one of the parents has passed and now this is the other parent that’s has just passed. It could be some person that you don’t know comes in and says, Oh, there’s a nice estate.

Let me petition the courts. to be the person in charge and they have to provide some, information. It’s called a letter of testamentary and they go before the court to petition to become the person who handles the estate. It can take again a long time. Families get into quarrels about things.

Who’s going to get the clock? Who gets it? Surprisingly, you don’t think people are going to fight about those things, but they do. And if it’s stated in the guardian’s gift, then there’s a picture of it. And you say, this is who I want to get it. But if it’s not there, their family fights, people get into arguments that last for generations.

And sometimes they don’t even remember what the argument was about. 10 years later it becomes very expensive. It becomes you have to hire an attorney necessarily. If there is a dispute some of the major celebrities surprisingly have not had wheels. Let’s see the guy that was, The black panther.

Chris Badgett: I know you’re talking about I don’t know his name.

Dr Judy Butler: Okay, he did not have a will but he had He has a spouse a significant partner and there’s been a lot of legal stuff And so the again that it’s you’re already upset You’re having to deal with these emotions about losing this person that you love dearly and now all of a sudden you have to go into court and Fight about stuff because there’s no will there’ve been a lot of major celebrities that didn’t have wills that they would have their estates would have benefited from had they had those things in place.

Chris Badgett: You mentioned earlier that you came from a blue collar background. And you told your story. How is the experience different on either end of the spectrum? Let’s say somebody dies with very little assets and somebody moves on with leaving behind significant assets. How, do we think about that wherever we are in the spectrum?

Dr Judy Butler: People think they tell me a lot. I don’t have anything to leave anybody, but you do you have your stories You have your life stories if you don’t have any physical assets But even for people who are blue collar like my family as I grew up We had a house even you know, you had a car. There are some things that need to be taken care of a friend of mine few months ago and she did not own a house and she was never married and she had no children.

But what happened was she didn’t have a will. And so her friends were, calling and they said we know that you talked to her about this and you, she expressed some of her wishes. So all of her friends were trying to pull together to Create a ceremony, an end of life ceremony. What’s going to happen to her body, and her ashes, and what and so you have to piece it together at that point.

But there are things, even if you feel like you don’t have anything, you do. What’s going to happen to you, your body, when you die? What’s going to, who’s going to pay for the funeral? How is that going to happen? They can’t just stand you in the corner that the state of the United States doesn’t allow that.

And what’s going to happen, just simple things like that, what’s going to happen to your, clothes? You have things. I don’t care how poor you think you are. Even someone who’s on the street, they have sometimes a grocery cart with stuff in it. And I’m not saying that they necessarily need the guardian’s gift, but they have stuff.

Chris Badgett: Can you speak a little bit to the other end of the spectrum? If there’s a lot of assets stocks, bonds, real estate, People

Dr Judy Butler: who have money and who have a lot of assets tend to think that all they need is a will or they have beneficiaries. Now the thing about insurance, it’s important for people to know, is if you have a beneficiary, that is the person who will get whatever they’re a beneficiary of.

If it’s insurance or whatever. And that’s different than leaving things in a will in your estate. So that’s a different legal fault. But people who have lots of stocks and bonds and things like that, they can actually, a lot of that can be consumed in probate. And a lot of fees and things like that will be charged.

You have to hire somebody. And again, it gets into that. battle in the family. It creates dissension where family members fight over certain things. And so what you intend to leave to someone if you have a lot is sometimes consumed just by the process, which is really pretty awful. Where if you could actually have everything set up ahead of time and how it’s going to be handled.

Or even if you don’t want a family member to handle it, you can hire a bank, can take care of your assets for you and your your will and be the executive of your estate, or you could hire an attorney. So there are different ways to handle it. It just depends on what you have, how it’s tied up. Even a business Chris, like you, a business owner who What happens to your part of the business when you pass and have you made arrangements for that?

So if you own a business what’s going to happen with your business? So there’s a lot more to consider But it’s still the same process on the top end of the economic spectrum as it is on the bottom end.

Chris Badgett: Thanks for that can you speak to the the legal aspect where let’s say somebody creates their time capsule and or I guess one question there is like a will you can just write on a piece of paper, I believe, and it’s still like a will.

It’s their signature. But at what point is where does the legal aspect come in terms of. Having an official will and living will is that something to be done with a lawyer and that kind

Dr Judy Butler: of thing? As part of the guardian’s gift we offer it and when you buy into the guardian’s gift you get a what you get those four legal documents You get a will you get a health care power of attorney a power of attorney and a living will so that’s part of the process You’re right And in saying you’re correct that you can just write out on a piece of paper and sign it.

However, if anybody at all comes along and says. I’ve got a piece of paper, too, and I’ve got it, and then another person comes, so it’s very easily to dispute that’s a legal will. The thing about a will that’s important is not only Filling it out and signing it, but having it notarized that is your signature.

So there is a notary on there and also having it recorded in the local county or state wherever that you live so that it’s recognized. That’s really important. So that if it’s on a piece of paper, yeah, And sometimes that, that works okay, but that’s really sketchy, and I could fill out one and say Chris Badgett left me all of his money and his cars and vehicles and everything.

Yeah, that could be disputed very easily.

Chris Badgett: What’s the the time difference in general? You said something where there’s no No, plan is, goes into probate and that can take up to 18 months or longer. What’s, if you have your time capsule and all your ducks in a row and your plan, how long after the end of life does it take for all that stuff to settle out compared to probate?

Dr Judy Butler: Oh, compared to probate, you can settle that out in just a few months. It depends on the family and it depends on the assets and what has to some things are timed if there’s stocks and bonds and those kinds of things. But let me stop right here for just a second and, just say, let me make a disclaimer.

I am not an attorney. Okay, I have the things that I’ve learned and that I’m passing on today Are things that I’ve learned and I’ve learned from attorneys, but I am not an attorney. So I do want to make that clear however as part of the guardian’s gift We also partner with trust and wills and so we have that is set up where you get a legal bonafide, if you will document and those are actually notarized and they are recorded.

So, yes I did need to make that clear.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Thanks for putting that, the legal disclaimer in there. Side question for those who are inspired by your journey as a subject matter expert who was passionate about a topic. You have a great TED talk on YouTube. I saw it. It’s on your website too at the guardiansgift.

org How does one get a TED talk?

Dr Judy Butler: Oh, a lot of work. It’s just you have to you have to make an application to the TED area that you want to, go to. The best way to do it is you just you make application to a lot of different ones. Because they’re in rotations and you have to.

I had to go through, it took me about a year to get my talk together to figure out how to do the application and to go through the process. And I had a coach that actually coached me through that.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And that, video is on the homepage of the guardians gift. org. I recommend you check that out.

Dr Judy Butler: Yeah, I did that at Purdue University. Let me give a shout out to Purdue.

Chris Badgett: All right. Awesome. What how would you describe the impact you’ve been able to make on the, in the world with your work here?

Dr Judy Butler: First of all, for me it, it, actually sits in my heart that. This really matters and people tell me all the time when they understand what the guardian’s gift is because I had somebody tell me recently I didn’t, I thought it was about being the guardian of a person and it is that way.

You are the guardian of your legacy for your family. You’re not a legal quote unquote guardian. But it, makes me so satisfied to know when somebody comes to me after there’s been a death in the family and they say to me I did not know this about my dad and he never talked about these things.

And here are all his stories. Or when somebody comes to me and they say, I wish I knew more about X, Y, Z for my mom or my dad. It’s just gratifying when somebody opens up the guardian’s gift and the pictures are there, the stories are there. They don’t have to find the legal documents. They don’t have to look all over and make decisions about what kind of song or scripture or story is to be told or read at the funeral.

It just people, it allows people to grieve in a healthy way and people come back to me later and they’re just so grateful and it just, it makes me happy. This is a passion for me. It just makes me happy.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. What what’s the best way for somebody to get started with the guardian’s gift?

Dr Judy Butler: The very best way is to actually send me a message. Either I or one of my team members will give you a call to talk about what it is you want to accomplish. Because we’re not here just to sell something. We’re not here just to do that. The whole point is to make sure that nobody else goes through what I went through with my family.

So it’s about that. So we want to map out the strategy. We want to hear your what is it you’re concerned about? Are you concerned about what happens to your body? Are you concerned about the clock? Who’s going to get it? Are you concerned about stocks or bonds or what is your concern?

What is your fear? And let us help you figure out what the best way to go about this is.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. Definitely go to the guardiansgift. org. And I wanted to ask you one more tactical question as we land the plane here from your story earlier. You mentioned coming from a blue collar background with your, parents house.

If they move into the state funded Retirement, they, the state would take the house and the cars to pay the bill. But you mentioned a trust as a, as something that could happen with planning. Can you just explain for those unfamiliar with trust how, somebody in that situation could, work?

Dr Judy Butler: You have to decide how you want to handle the trust. The trust is just a container. If you think about it as, a bucket, It’s just a bucket, so to speak, that you put things in. There are limited number or not of people who actually can put their hand in the bucket to take something out.

So you get to decide what the bucket looks like and what goes in the bucket. That’s the trust. So there’s all different kinds of trust. You hear about people very wealthy people who have Trust funds. And one of the best things that I know about trust is that for somebody who has a disabled child. Let’s say, and they are at the point where they’re in their last years of life. They set up a trust fund to take care of this disabled person.

So the monies are there. The money is just in this bucket, if you will, and they have somebody who is the trustee. Designated that’s the person who can reach in the bucket and take out and they can take out. To make sure that the disabled person is taken care of. You know pay their medical bills make sure they have a place to live food clothes all the day daily living necessities. But a trust is just a container and you can put Most anything in a trust. But there’s a lot of legal pieces that go with that.

And again, I’m not an attorney, but you can set up a trust to put the house in. You can put stocks and bonds and things in a trust and you can put jewelry and furniture. You can put all sorts of things in a trust and you can designate then who gets to be the trustee.

Chris Badgett: Thanks for Claire.

Thanks for clarifying that. And there’s so many nuances to this whole thing. I’m so glad that you’ve built the project at the Guardian’s gift. And I love how it’s not just about assets. It’s about stories and, experiences that are part of this whole process and planning ahead for all that. And it’s a big topic in some ways.

It’s a taboo topic that people don’t want to talk about or feel uncomfortable talking about. So I love what you’ve assembled here. Go check out the guardians gift. org. Any other ways to connect with you or any other resources you want to point people towards?

Dr Judy Butler: They can, of course, send me an email.

They can, and the contact is on the guardians gift. org, but it’s Judy. At the guardians gift dot org. Just send me an email. And there’s a ton of resources. The problem is for people when they go as a caregiver, you go on the internet. You Google something or look up something on the internet, it becomes very overwhelming.

So be sure that the first place that you look, is in your local community. People don’t realize what resources are available locally. A local church or synagogue or mosque they typically will have things that are very helpful. There are hospice homes typically have resources available. Look for a therapist in your area that specializes in grief, counseling, or family dynamics.

Those are some areas look locally 1st and and then look in your state and then expand out as you go. Don’t just go on the Internet and look at something that. Could be a scam or not that’s that’s just out there. Caregiving. com is a good one. AARP also has a lot of resources available and points you in the right direction if you’re going to look for those.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s groups. Are very good. Also,

Chris Badgett: Dr. Judy, thanks for coming on the show and thank you for being a shining example of creating a positive impact in the world with your work and leveraging technology and tools like WordPress and lift your LMS to help on your mission. Really appreciate all you’ve shared today and I wish you all the best in the work that you do.

Dr Judy Butler: Thank you, Chris.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS. Go to lifterlms. com forward slash gift.

Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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