Ep 340: No One Tells You What to Do First: An Operating System for Life's Hardest Transitions with Samina Bari

After her husband Doug's sudden death in 2023, Samina Bari discovered that having a will, a trust, and a team of trusted professionals in place made almost no difference in the chaos that followed. What she needed was not a checklist, but a guide, someone or something to tell her what to do first, second, and third while she was too overwhelmed to think clearly. That gap became the foundation for Farewell, the first life admin operating system built to help individuals and families move through loss, divorce, aging parent care, and other major life transitions with clarity instead of chaos.

Samina joins Melissa Joy, CFP®, to talk about what she calls life administration, the emotional, legal, financial, and practical work most of us postpone because it is simply too heavy to face. She explains how Farewell uses an empathetic AI to meet people where they are emotionally, break large to-do lists into manageable steps, and walk families through everything from locating vital documents to navigating an aging parent's finances. The conversation also turns personal, as Samina shares what she wishes more people understood about supporting someone through the loss of a spouse, and why she wrote Don't Call Me Widow to help close that gap.

What You'll Learn

• Why Samina calls the tangle of legal, financial, and emotional tasks after a major life event “life administration,” and why no system existed to manage it
• How Farewell's empathetic AI checks in on how you're feeling and curates next steps accordingly
• What to expect when gathering essentials like death certificates, and why timing and sequencing matter
• How families can delegate tasks and control what each member can see and do
• Why the planning phase, before a crisis hits, is where tools like Farewell add the most value
• How financial advisors can use Farewell to see client progress and offer more integrative support
• What Samina wishes people understood about showing up for someone who has lost a spouse

About Samina Bari

Samina Bari is the founder and CEO of Farewell, the first life admin operating system for financial advisory firms and their clients. She spent three decades leading more than $40 billion in biotech mergers and acquisitions before the sudden death of her husband, Doug, in 2023 revealed a systemic gap in how individuals and families navigate loss and major life transitions. 

Samina is an Operating Partner at How Women Invest and the two-time Amazon bestselling author of Don't Call Me Widow and I Can, I Will and I Did: Lessons on Life, Love, and Leadership. 

Learn more at saminabari.com and withfarewell.com. 

The previous presentation by PEARL PLANNING was intended for general information purposes only.  No portion of the presentation serves as the receipt of, or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from PEARL PLANNING or any other investment professional of your choosing. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk, and it should not be assumed that future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy, or any non-investment related or planning services, discussion or content, will be profitable, be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation, or prove successful. Neither PEARL PLANNING’s investment adviser registration status, nor any amount of prior experience or success, should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. PEARL PLANNING is neither a law firm nor accounting firm, and no portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. No portion of the video content should be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he/she will experience a certain level of results if PEARL PLANNING is engaged, or continues to be engaged, to provide investment advisory services. A copy of PEARL PLANNING’s current written disclosure Brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request or at https...

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Welcome And Podcast Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Women's Money Wisdom Podcast. I'm Melissa Joy, a certified financial planner and the founder of Pearl Planning. My goal is to help you streamline and organize your finances, navigate big money decisions with confidence, and be strategic in order to grow your wealth. As a woman, you work hard for your money, and I'm here to help you make the most of it. Now let's get into the show.

A Sudden Loss Exposes The Gap

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Samina Berry is founder and CEO of Farewell, the first life admin admin operating system for financial advisory firms and for their clients. Sabina is a two-time Amazon bestselling author and operating advisor for how women invest. She has spent three decades leading $40 billion plus in exits before her husband's death in 2023, which drove her to fill the $20 billion system gap that currently exists. Semina, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Thank you so much for having me, Melissa.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well, I just said a lot. You've accomplished so much and you have a new solution for clients and consumers, listeners like people like our listeners. But tell me a little bit about you and your story before we get into what Farewell does.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Yeah. You know, so I had a very long and robust career in biotech. And so, you know, I was, I, you know, I was toe-to-toe with all of these deals and I, you know, helped orchestrate very complex financial transactions. Um, and, you know, on the personal side, I was like many of your listeners and your clients, you know, I had all of my plans in place. I had my will. I had my trust. I had my trusted team of professionals. Um, but in 2023, none of that made an ounce of difference. Um, in 2023, I lost my husband, Doug, in a sudden accident, in a tragic accident. And none of my accomplishments, none, you know, nothing helped me, nothing saved me. Um, I was utterly lost and devastated, of course. And what should have been a time for me to focus solely on my grief and for taking care of my two young children turned into so much more chaos because I learned in that moment that life doesn't end with the plans. You know, we can have all of those plans and we can be amazingly competent and accomplished, but life has to be lived through those plans. And I realized then that there was no one to really help me. I, you know, I had the plans, but what did what was I supposed to do first, second, third? What had did I have to do right away?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

What like one, which accounts you need to close, making phone calls. There's yeah, what for those of you who haven't been in through it? There is a lot of indignity when it comes to dealing with the death of a loved one or someone you're responsible for. And um, especially for a widow um or someone who's lost a spouse or partner. Um, so so much so much indignity and insult in the process.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

There is, you know, I think indignity is the is the absolute perfect word to use for this. I wish it wasn't. I I wish it wasn't either. And that's what I'm hoping to solve. But you know, in those moments, I had a financial advisor and an estate planner who could really do nothing more than send me a checklist, a PDF checklist. And I have to say, checklists assume an amount of you know, mental clarity. A checklist was the last thing you need when your life has blown up.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Well, I will tell you, just pause there. What I would, as a professional, what I would recommend is not a checklist, but actually like a triage setting and a series of small meetings to tackle where the professional is on the phone with you because you have to call, you have to go here, there, and everywhere. And that requires a lot more white glove service than you can typically get. But um, that would be the best case as far as I'm concerned for a professional to do because yeah, wet list, you are in shock um when you go through a trauma like that. I mean, I can't tell you you you can tell me how it feels, but yeah, no, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

And I think, you know, beyond the financial part of it, there are legal uh you know implications, there are practical applications. There's DMV, there's social security. You know, if you have children, I had two young children, you know, there's children things, there's school matters, there is, you know, there are accounts, there are all sorts of things that you have to deal with in a certain order, in a certain time frame, right, in a certain sequence. Right. And it was in that moment that it was just me and Google figuring this out that I was so angry. And I thought, wow, if I have the resources and I've done everything right and I'm struggling, can you imagine what everyone goes through? It's not just men, it's not just women, it's everyone. Right. And I also realized, you know, my situation was a loss, but I imagine the same confusion and chaos occurs when you're getting a divorce. When you're getting into look up stuff, right? Like, what do I do first? What do I do second? And I realized we have systems and processes within the financial industry. You know, you have your things done for your transactions, the legal industry has it for themselves, the medical industry has it for themselves, the other administrative parts of our lives, whether it's taxes, insurance, all of it, all for themselves. But there's one person in the middle who has to juggle all those balls and orchestrate it and curate and make sense of it. And it's us, it's me in the middle. It is the consumer, the client, whatever you want to call it, who has to make sense of all of it and put it all together. And that's what's missing. We don't have an operating system for us, the people.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Well, and I believe that I talk about this a lot on the podcast, you know, living in the messy money middle, um, Gen X, older

Why Checklists Fail In Crisis

SPEAKER_01 6:44

millennial um people who are many of our listeners. Um, we need better integrative advice, not treating the symptoms, but preparing you for what life brings you. And you're describing, you know, a pivot that no one um should have to embrace, but so many of us are forced to. Um, and, you know, there needs to be a better standard of a care, standard of care, and professionals need more integrative services so that you aren't just like, oh, that sounds like a legal problem. Go call your attorney for that. Or I can't help you there. Like you need somebody that can be sitting in the middle with you, whether you're a co-pilot or kind of, you know, keep you Luke Skywalker, but you've got a Yoda. So um, I think you're really getting to a source of it, a major issue in modern society.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Yeah, you know, I think um you're absolutely right. I and I call I call this whole category life administration, right? It's kind of the emotional work that we postpone because it's full of emotion, whether it's procrastination or denial or whatever. But in pain our pain, it encompasses our, you know, legal, financial, administrative, medical process. But they're all things that we know we should do because that's what responsible adults do. But you know, no one looks at it and says, I can't wait to tackle that paperwork.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Um, but you know, because it's so highly charged. It's it's emotional. Um, and unfortunately, we all deal with it in moments of crisis. And these moments of crisis, some of them are inevitable life events, right? Uh, whether it's marriage, uh birth of a child, a new house, caring for aging parents, um, which I know a lot of your listeners are, you know, we're sandwiched generation.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

I've had two conversations today about caring for aging parents with clients.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

So yeah, managing our lives. We're trying to figure out our own. Maybe we have older children, but we have to care for aging parents. Um, and these are all things that, and of course, loss, you know, or illness, some of those are inevitable, right? You know, as we age, things are gonna happen, but we don't want to think about it. And those are our emotions getting in the way, right? Um, it's it's denial, it's confusion, it's avoidance. We don't want to have those messy conversations with family members.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

I mean, there's also a scarcity of time in this stage of life as well. So, you know, like you know when you roll your sleeves up to do an estate plan that it's not gonna be a 30-minute discussion. Um, you know, and if you're making decisions with a partner when it comes to that estate plan, um, you've got to get on the same page in many cases. And and that has its own, you know, challenges. And so so much to think about. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

Well, tell me about how you think things could be

Life Administration And Messy Money Middle

SPEAKER_01 9:32

better. Like, what are you doing to provide I think like most people listening can understand and and we could talk all day about some of the challenges of of um dealing with the administration of loss or divorce, et cetera. But how can we how can we change the status quo?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Well, I think, you know, one is to acknowledge that it's emotions that become the gate or that either prevent us from doing something or encourage us from doing something, right? Whatever the emotion is. Um, so you know, what I've done is I created my product using an empathetic AI, it's proprietary empathetic AI, which does an emotional check-in when you log in. So based on how you're feeling in that moment, it will acknowledge how you feel and curate next steps for you based on number of steps or sequence, but it's something that you can accomplish so that you wind up feeling a sense of accomplishment and it curates things for you. It lives with you, it's very adaptive.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

And so what are some examples of like the things that would be it like kind of tackled within the so um for yeah, so for example, if you've got a whole you've got a whole list of things you've got to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

First, what we do is we we parse it out by weeks, by when must things get done from just a pragmatic standpoint. Then in order to keep you moving, it will pull up if you've got three tasks to do today. Say it's you know, calling, you know, you have good energy. Let's call the social security office for whatever it is. Maybe it's for our aging parent, maybe it's to understand, you know, what can be unlocked for an aging parent. It will pop that up for you and tell you why it's important, what you need to have prepared with you before you make the call. It will give you a voice call script, it will give you an email, it will give you an email script if you need it, and it will tell you what to expect. It will also tell you about how long it should take you to do. So that if you can get it done with that support, encouragement, and guidance, you will accomplish them. And then it gives you an acknowledgement that you've accomplished so you can feel good about yourself. So it encourages you to go on and it will gently ask you, do you think you want to do a little bit more? Now, by doing all of that, we've taken, we've reduced the emotional friction. We've made it easy because we've done all of the steps except for the final actual transaction, but we've done everything for you so that you could be successful and we've saved you all of that time. Nothing is, you're not looking up anything. You're not creating lists, you're not creating scripts, you're not thinking about what am I going to say. It's all done for you so that you can accomplish what you need and feel good about it and maybe be encouraged to do something else. But what farewell does is it takes all of that guesswork, decision, mapping, and sequencing off of your shoulders.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah. And it helps you get to completion so you have that peace of mind that things are done. And also, one of the things I struggled with was I was asking people to do certain things for me. Because we all need help sometimes, whether it's a partner, I didn't have my partner. But you know, in families, we typically divide things up. If we've got heirs, executors, um, you have to divide things up. Farewell allows multiple members of the family to participate. So each person can take things, you can delegate things, you can have access and visibility and transparency to certain tasks. Or, for example, if you're having a conversation with an aging parent and, you know, we know older generations don't want to talk about things and they don't want, you know, know how much money they have. Well, you can toggle accesses on and off. So people only see what you give them access to. Interesting. Overall, it makes it a very transparent, easy to follow accountability process so that plans just don't stall with good intentions.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

So you mentioned the Social Security Administration. Let's use, let's continue the loss of a spouse or loved one.

Farewell And Empathetic AI Guidance

SPEAKER_01 13:44

What other things would farewell be prompting you to have on your to-do list when the time is right?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Well, it would tell you, you know, my first question was all right, I need death certificates. Where do you how much do they typically cost? How long does it take? Farewell gives you all of that context. It will tell you it typically costs us this much. This is where you get it from. You can try here or here. And then it's got a built-in API that's local to you. So you know exactly where to go. It'll have the vital records, it will have all of that. It will tell you how many you need and why. It will tell you that some people want original certified documents and other people take digital documents.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

It will also tell you generally who can accept what. So it takes all of that work that you have to figure out on the fly when you're in a moment of crisis and it just lays it out for you.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

That's nice.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

And right, I mean, most of us are not experts in this area because you hopefully only go through it, you know, once, twice, a few times in your lifetime. Um, and so it's just an experience where you like have no idea where to start. Um, so having those resources can be and information can be really valuable. Cause I always see like everybody swooping in, like, let me take over. And in many cases, that that may not be the dynamic that you want to, you know, kind of um, you don't want to give up the keys and have somebody else driving you.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly it. It puts you in control and it gives whoever you get given all access to some level of control. So for you, a financial advisor, um, you know, it allows you to see as my client making progress, where else can I be helpful to them? What else should we consider? It allows you to customize tasks too, if there's something specific in addition that needs to be in there. And I think, you know, the beauty of this really is not in moments of crisis, it's in the planning before. It's in getting every craft before, right? And I'm sure you faced it. I've spoken with so many financial advisors and they all have that same kind of frustration. Oh, yes, I've given them the plan, but they haven't acted on it. I've met with them and they say they're going to do it. And, you know, I just I just can't do anything else. Um it allows you to follow along their pro their progress and give them those gentle nudges when they need it so they are fully prepared. Um, and really the key is also, you know, if you do it, and you know, we just have a, we have like a two-minute, you know, uh check check-in so you can see where you are, how prepared you are, so that you know exactly what to focus on. And we give you a plan to get it done within 30 days. So at least if God forbid someone was hit by a bus tomorrow or had a major episode or even was incapacitated after a surgery, someone would know what to do. It doesn't all live in someone's head with will and best intentions.

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Right. So let's take, let's pick this up and talk about if you're caring for aging

Delegation And Death Certificate Logistics

SPEAKER_01 16:51

parents. I get we're just working with that um, unfortunately, all the time because of our clients' ages where they come to us or even people we haven't worked with before and say, My friends told me you guys would be great because I just figured out that mom and dad haven't filed their taxes for a year. We're trying to get them into um an assisted living facility where they can have more care and support. But we've got these accounts all over the place and we got to figure out like I've got three jobs. I'm trying to be, you know, a child family member, support my parent. I'm now uh need to be a medical expert. And also I have to, you know, figure out all these finances. What can um what do you suggest for people like that? How can you ease the burden in that case?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Well, I I think again, it's, you know, there is no one central place that you can get all of the steps in the order in which you need to do it, other than like a PDF or an advisor. Now, again, you can tell people what needs to be done, but they ultimately need to do it. And that's really what farewell is doing. It reinforces what you're asking people to do on a multitude of areas for their aging parents, but it helps them go through the steps. It actually becomes their guide to getting it done in an easy, clear, educational, and informative, informative manner. So they have the context around it. It's not just a checklist for them that they, I know I need to do it. They're understanding why, they're understanding what is related to it, they're understanding what needs to come first, second, third. They're going to be driven to the resources that can help them get it done. And even if they're not working it with an advisor in that moment, it walks with them. It is highly adaptive to the individual's circumstance. So it allows you to plan for yourself or plan for someone else. If they're looking at, I don't even know where these accounts are. There is a life safe map. It allows them to put everything in one place so at least they can look at things beyond, you know, account statements that might be in file drawers or, you know, is there a safe deposit box here? And what is in that? It's like it allows them to see the complete totality of their parents' lives and sequences all of the steps that they will need to get them into an assisted living facility. It will have an API that allows them to search for everything is right there. It walks them through it in a way that an individual can't. You know, you wouldn't count the time or the bandwidth to do all of that. And you wouldn't be able to touch all of those areas. They're areas that the individual has to do by themselves. And farewell walks with you with a 24-7 concierge, too.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Interesting. When you say a concierge, is that uh, you know, a bot or is it a person?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

It is a bot, but it is a highly empathetic bot. And it is a proprietary um AI that I created to be especially gentle and sensitive to the emotions that come with this, to the fact that people are overwhelmed. People are experiencing a range of emotions. So it becomes

Caring For Aging Parents Without Chaos

SPEAKER_00 20:05

your your guide, your friend. You can you can type to it or you can talk to it because I recognize people learn and absorb information differently. When I was going through my grief, I couldn't read anything. My, you know, my grief brain had taken over. Yeah. Nothing was sticking, but I could, I could hear people. And so I was really sensitive to make sure that I offered two options that people could, you know, have the comfort of being walked through something with a gentle, guiding voice that was non-judgmental and that was sympathetic and empathetic.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Yeah, I think when people go through major life transitions, there is so much unexpected lack of empathy in both processes and people. But also, you know, as we were preparing for this conversation, Semina, I think we both talked about how people are uncomfortable with messy, difficult moments in life. And because of their discomfort, it gets even more awkward than it would, or you know, there's a lot of avoidance and conversations and assistance, and also just, you know, those indignities we are already described. Um, and so the approach with both empathy, incrementalism, triage of what needs to be doing done now soon later, recognizing that like taking small batches is much more likely to be successful because if you just get a 25 um checkpoint list, you're just gonna be exhausted and be like, I can't, I'm just gonna go to bed. Um so all of those can be true.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah, absolutely. And and you know, the discomfort with grief and um these moments is what I wrote about in my book, Don't Call Me Widow. Um, and that was really the gateway for me developing farewell, because you know, I I know that society is uncomfortable with this, but you know, unfortunately, loss is inevitable. We don't Want to think about it, but it's inevitable. Um, and so the more prepared we are to be able to move through it in whatever way, the better. And I think that's why so many people go through losses. And they, every single person I've spoken with, hundreds over the time I've been developing, everyone has said, Oh, I wish I had this because it was a nightmare. And it's a nightmare because once people go through it, no one ever wants to go through it again. But guess what? It will happen to them or their loved ones, to them or their spouses, to their friends, to their family members. So if we keep on ignoring it and not come up with a solution that bridges that discomfort, we're gonna continue to live with the definition of crazy. We're repeating the same pattern of chaos. And that is whether it's divorce or aging parents or a remarriage or a loss or an illness diagnosis. Um, so I've taken that discomfort and I've respected the emotions that come with it. And I've built farewell to reduce all of that emotional charge and to respect those emotions so that people can be successful in whatever journey they are planning for or will have to execute against. And that's what the word farewell comes for. The word farewell means journey safely. These are all journeys in life, whatever they are. And my goal is that everyone journeys safely, well, calmly, has peace of mind, and leaves a legacy of calm, not chaos. People can breathe that sigh of relief and have peace of mind that their families are taken care of. Um, and so the emotional recognition, I think, has been the one thing that's been missing in all of the transactions in our life, right? It's brutal, it's paperwork, and it's all very transactional. But we are humans. And if we don't acknowledge that emotions cause us to procrastinate, they cause us to avoid, they cause us to be confused and overwhelmed, it's still like banging your head against a wall. So I've really respected that. And that's really where I hope that farewell will be able to be an empathetic guide and partner to helping people execute what needs to be done that they don't want to do.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Can you tell me um just a little bit stepping back from farewell? Um, just because you are so skilled at telling your story, um, you have two books, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Um, both Don't Call Me Widow and what's your other book? My uh my first book is a memoir, I Can, I Will, and I Did. Amazing. So Lessons on Life, Love, and Leadership.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Well, we'll include both of those links in show notes. But I wonder, since you are so generous to share your story, um, if you would share just a few thoughts about um outside of the technology, what you hope people that go

Grief, Identity And How To Show Up

SPEAKER_01 24:52

through um the situation you did with the loss of a partner, what you hope they could know or understand with, you know, you being here not too long in the future from that moment in time of loss, three years later. Um, what do you hope that people know and understand that you don't think we get right in kind of conventional wisdom?

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Yeah, I think um, thank you for that. I I think it really goes to the fact that we as a society are uncomfortable with death and loss. Um and we often say and do things that fit a script because we feel that we need to. And I admit I too was one of those people. I didn't say the lot of things that I regret. Because we don't confront it because it's just too heavy. Um, and I think if you take the time to acknowledge your discomfort and put yourself in the other person's shoes and think about how things are received, not just what you're saying and doing, but how do you think they will receive it? Um, I think that can go a long way to have that level of compassion and acknowledgement. And that's really why I wrote my my second book, Don't Call Me Widow. It's meant to be a very light read. It's a practical guide on what to say and not say and what to do and not do when someone has lost their spouse. And I focus on spousal loss specifically because it's a very different kind of a loss. It's a loss that you you lose yourself with. It's not the loss of your own.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah, it changes your identity completely.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

It's changed her identity. And as I was telling you, uh Melissa, you know, I had dreams. I was with my husband, and it's now 25 years. I've never never, you know, you you develop such a partnership and such a symbiosis with the person you're hopefully happily coupled with. Yeah. Uh, but you lose a part of yourself and your identity and your hopes and your dreams and your sense of self. And that is so it's it's a multiplicative loss. And people don't understand that. And I want your listeners to know that also widow is an incredibly demeaning word. It is, it's its roots trace back to Sanskrit and old English. And it means to be destitute and essentially to be done and put on a shelf. And that's why we conjure up these images of, you know, hunched back little old ladies wearing gray and in a corner. That's not who we are. We are society that lives longer. I will tell you, I am not done. You know, I, you know, don't ever put me in that box. So, you know, it's a matter of respecting those emotions and moving, acknowledging and moving your own discomfort aside and thinking for a moment, what would you want someone to do for you? Because people had that discomfort, but then like push it aside and don't want to think about it and can't put themselves in that situation.

SPEAKER_01 27:45

Yeah. I think that's really well said. And I appreciate just appreciate you sharing. Um, because not everybody, we don't always get the opportunity to hear um from people experiencing the loss and pain of loss of a spouse. So um, thanks for being real with us in this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Thank you.

Where To Find Farewell And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Where can people find more about farewell and you? Um, tell me a little bit more for those that are hearing um, you know, that you're speaking their language. Where can they find you?

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Yeah, absolutely. Um, well, uh there's a bit about me on fair with farewell.com. Um, and there is seminaBerry.com. I'm also on LinkedIn, uh, LinkedIn Semina Barry. Um my books are both available on Amazon. Um, and I will say, you know, for someone who may be going through it or maybe there's an illness or um, you know, or or a community person who's experiencing the loss of a spouse. I've had many people say they bought the book, uh the Don't Call Me Widow book and hand it out to their friends or mail it to their friends. What a great idea. It creates more of a circle of care and it's a different type of don't be weird with me.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Like I'm, you know, like I'm not broken. Like, here's how you can talk to me. I but that that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

It is not a grief book. And I don't want people to think it's a grief book. It's a self-help book, really. Yeah. It's how can I show up better? Because one day I will need that kind of support too.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

Well, and I think you and your team have created a um discount or a user link for listeners of the podcast. So we'll make sure to include that in the show notes as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Thank you. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Well, it's a pleasure to talk with you today, Samina. Congratulations on all of your hard work. And I agree, you are definitely not put in a corner. You're um you're really uh repping empowerment and um identity and doing the hard work and helping others too. So kudos on that.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Thank you so much, Melissa.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Thank you for listening to the Women's Money Wisdom podcast. If you found value in this episode, the best way that you can support the podcast is to forward an episode to a friend or leave a review. Go to ProPlan.com and the podcast link to get all the resources and links mentioned. This presentation by Pro Planning is intended for general information purposes only. No portion of this presentation serves as a receipt of or substitute for personal investment advice from Pro Planning or any other investment professional of your choosing. Copies of Pro Planning's current rent and disclosure brochure and form CRS discussing our advisory services and fees are available upon request or on our website platform at PerlPlan.com. The information that we share is meant to educate and inspire, not serve as personalized financial advice. Everyone's situation is unique, so be sure to consult with your own financial professional for guidance that fits your life. And just so you know, the opinions shared in this podcast are Melissa's own and those of her guest. They don't necessarily represent any organizations with which Melissa is affiliated. For more important disclosures, please go to our webpage at proplan.com.