#91 Kathi Balasek – Transcript

Louis van der Merwe
Welcome to another episode of Ensombl Advice South Africa. Today I have in the studio with me, Kathi Balasek. Kathi, it’s a privilege to have you here, someone that has managed to shift my thinking in probably less than a 15 minute conversation that we had. I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation. And thank you so much for showing up today.

Kathi Balasek
Hi, Louis, thank you so much for having me on. It is such an honor. And I’m humbled to be here.

Louis van der Merwe
Kathi, you carry this badge of educator, but I would say you are probably the foremost one of these foremost person people to promote grief literacy. And before we jump into the challenges that we have as advisors and how we can challenge the culture to become more grief, literally. Please give me a little bit of a backstory of how you ended up talking about grief.

Kathi Balasek
Well, I didn’t come to it by choice. I was widowed young, in my 30s. I went from wife to caregiver to widow when I was 39. And my husband fought brain cancer and didn’t win. And so what I’ve learned in the last decade or two, about how to go through grief, how a society supports Grievers really propelled me to make make it better for future Grievers. Make it better for widows really challenge a world where we can support acknowledge and value what they’re going through. So that’s where I come from, and being an educator. You know, I was raised by educators. It’s, you know, I believe, there’s a quote says that’s by Henry Adams, it says a teacher affects eternity. You know, my path of widowhood is over. And I went through those stages. But I want to help future widows, I want to help future Grievers. So that we as a society, learn better ways to help them feel acknowledged, accepted and loved.

Louis van der Merwe
You have such a powerful way of working with words. And each one seems so specific and individually chosen. You mentioned now that your season as a widow is over. What was that point where you felt, hey, I’m moving out of widowhood.

Kathi Balasek
So this is what I believe is widowhood is where you are, it’s not who you are. And that label of being a widow is a really difficult harsh word. And it took me a long time to embrace that, yes, I’m a widow. This is what I experienced. This is my reality. And it took a lot of years, Louis, you know, when somebody experiences grief, we go through a ton of emotions. And you know, grief isn’t just death. It’s loss of so many other things. And there is no, up down, right left in order of of handling grief. And when I went through this some key things that really helped me move through this process was to do the grief work, find the best grief, psychologist, counselor, support group, whatever you can afford, and and do the work. Which is really difficult because with the average age of widowhood being 59. Most widows still have kids in the house or they have careers and things like that. So juggling those things, and having the space to grieve really isn’t ideal. But I have a wonderful support system. My family are just rockstars they helped me with the kids. And I did the work. I did a lot of time on my own. I think being lonely and being alone are two different things. And when you grieve, you spend a lot of time distracting yourself so you don’t have to acknowledge the girl in the mirror but Do I really took the time to work on myself, take care of myself, get square with the reality of my life and be okay. Not knowing my future? Because I can’t I couldn’t even imagine it during that time.

Louis van der Merwe
Wow, Kathy, you mentioned the that the difference between loneliness and being alone. And that’s something that comes up quite a lot with the clients that we work with, around this idea of solitude, that it’s not someone that needs to be pulled out of solitude and get in front of the friends yet. They have these requests from people saying, oh, join us for this event, or, or let’s try and make you feel better. Can we talk a little bit about the benefit of solitude versus where we see such society wanting to pull people back into the old way that they had maybe before they became widows?

Kathi Balasek
Yes. Unfortunately, this fast paced world comes with some consequences. And we’re always propelled to, to go faster and quicker, and grieve quicker, get better, quicker. And you don’t have a very strong faith. Solitude, journaling, writing, imagining, dreaming. I like that. When you grieve, you feel guilty for doing that. And so, you know, I did some pivotal things of, I went on vacation by myself, you know, I remember I went to Hawaii, by myself, my parents came and watch the kids. And everywhere I went, somebody is asking me, well, where’s your husband, or Where’s, and I became this big fat fiver. Oh, he’s back in the hotel room, or oh, he’s, you know, because I make people awkward. And telling the truth to strangers, about what I’m doing. I’m appeasing them, when really solitude is what I wanted time with myself to really think and absorb the magnitude of what this loss has done. And as hard as it is to be like, this is all about me, this is all about my kids. You know, I really tried to remember that. We had to say goodbye to John, in our own way. But he had to say goodbye to everyone. And I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for him. So I think being alone, and finding solitude, finding space is really important to slow down and really, really imagine why am I here? This must mean something. You know, who do I need to be without John, who am I without John? You know, and so you kind of go very introspective. And I found that it’s, it’s a homecoming to my soul. And I’ve learned to find gratitude of how I was raised, the people who’ve supported me how many things and many ways that I can create change to make it better. And it’s been extremely fulfilling. And I don’t think I would have found that if I wouldn’t have had the space.

Louis van der Merwe
In the transition as to work we often talk about when someone gets to the new normal phase, we can look back and we can say these some good even how bizarre It might sound that came from this transition. And and what I’m hearing is that you’re experiencing that

Kathi Balasek
I am I’m experiencing a lot of things and I, I think there’s a a small little tweak, when I can count my own blessings. I can find the silver linings. But when somebody else points them out to me, that’s not supportive. Because I can’t think of any scenario that I wouldn’t choose to have John back. My kids have their dad back, you know, and so, people think they’re trying to cheer you out and trying to point out the good things, but it’s not supportive to the Griever

Louis van der Merwe
We go into this fixing mode and we almost want to fix that person’s pain.

Kathi Balasek
Absolutely, we are culturally trained to cheer people up. You know, we, it’s all this, you know, self love, self help, we want to cheer you up, you know, and grief can’t be cheered away, loss can’t be cheered away. It has to be some growth and introspective inside the person. And that self discovery of finding my next an, even though it isn’t what I imagined, maybe it would be okay to go through that. And what happens when we try to cheer people up, you know, it kind of goes under that category of disenfranchised grief, where we try to justify somebody’s death, or loss, we dismiss it, because we just like, you’ll be okay. You know, when when a parent wants to talk to a child about you know, their choices and how they want to die, you know, the services, the funeral, you know, maybe an adult child is like, No, I don’t want to talk about it, you’ll be fine when you know, and it’s dismissive. And we want to start talking about real life things. You know, grief, literacy is a life skill. It’s not a hack, it’s not a one and done. This is a conversation, I call it a love letter to the world. And it is some of the most important conversations you will ever have about yourself, with your family, at work at business, with clients with employees, and yet, we don’t want to talk about it. And there’s such an energy. You know, if I mentioned I’m a widow, I can clear a room, okay, if people just avoid me, because they don’t know what to say. And they look at my life, and that’s exactly where they don’t want to go. And so we avoid it, we dismiss it, we compare it to our own experience, you know, as soon as somebody shares their grief, we want to make an autobiography about ourselves, right? And we want to say what we’ve experienced. And the problem is, is we’ve got to get square with the person we are and how we are going to face death, any transition, cancer caregiving, an accident, divorce all of these losses. And if you can start planting seeds, with your family, with your clients, you know, of talking about these things. You know, I remember a story, my son, Jesse, who’s now 22. And I said, he was making fun of a song that I listened to all the time, because I love John Denver, and I was listening to sunshine on my shoulders. And he’s like, Mom, that’s so old, you know? And I said, Well, this is the song I want to be played at my funeral. And once I said it, he was out. He’s like, I don’t want to talk about it. Okay. But I planted a seed. And then a couple of weeks later, I got home from work early. And he plays the piano. And you can guess what song he was playing on the piano. He was playing John Denver’s sunshine on my shoulder. And so I planted the seed. And then it turns out his siblings because I raised five, it’s nuts, Louis. All the siblings knew because he told them and so just simply planning seeds of your wishes or how you would like to handle things upon your death or an accident starts and you can relate that to financial planning because we don’t know how to start these conversations unless it’s happened. But the best planners are preparers right? Okay. And if you have this, I call it branding compassion. You know, this should be in your brand. that you have these upfront conversations, and you have the resources in line for widowhood, divorce, caregiving cancer, you know all of these things. And you’ve planted these seeds with clients. And so when you meet with a client, and you can say, I’m not sure if you saw some of our resources on caregiving, but if that’s ever something that you want to talk about, or you have somebody in your family that wants to discover these resources, here they are. And so you start planting seeds, and you become known for empathy and compassion, because they might not be ready to talk about it in a meeting. But trust me, they go look, they think about it, they wonder, and then they want to have these conversations at home. And one of one of the key things that I’m working on right now is some dialogue, for planners to empower their clients to start these conversations. You know, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Conversation Project, but it’s a wonderful company, of really starting these conversations. And so we can get more specific, based on their work on widowhood, caregiving, divorce, and empower people. Because grief, a grief literate society talks about this stuff. You know, in in the States, there was a study with New York Life. And it said, you know, after COVID, it said 71% wanted more open dialogue about loss and grief. So they want to talk about it, they just don’t know how. And as an educator, that’s where I love to help people put those words in their mouth, because we’re not going to sound authentic. Okay, just let that go. Okay, we’re gonna be stumbling bumbling. But we show up and we say something.

Louis van der Merwe
It’s amazing how you can turn this into something that we can get excited about. And I can, I can feel the energy in your voice. And I want to talk a little bit about those practical things that advisors can use, you know, you’ve created grief smart advisors. So it’s some way there’s this need to change the way it has always been. And to and to improve that give us a little bit of the story of, of how you moved into that space.

Kathi Balasek
Sure. Well, once once COVID hit, you know, I’m a university professor and I love teaching live and training and, and all of those things. But once COVID hit, I started teaching virtually, and I had a lot more time on my hands. And so I started thinking, Okay, I know I’ve always wanted to do something, my kids are all raised. Okay, I don’t have any more college tuition to pay. Thank you. And I knew I wanted to do something with this. So I started just doing research. And some key people, you know, Brian Korb, Laura Metalia, you know, the work of Susan Bradley, I’m just, I mean, I have mad respect for the people who are doing wonderful work in here. And I saw some gaps. And I saw that, you know, advisors, or widows leave their advisors. Within the first year, that was a huge number. Many women are not, they’re involved in the day to day finances, but not in the long term, which was classic for what I experienced. Okay, I didn’t care. You know, my husband was very capable, and he loved it. But when he died, and I had to meet with my advisor, there were key things that my advisor did just beautifully. And I was so embarrassed that I didn’t know anything about finances. I felt guilty with this new money that I had received. And so I started thinking about all of these emotions, and then my skills that I could sort of, you know, tease out my teaching skills and I thought I could really help advisors relate and lean in and have these conversations with their clients before, during and after loss. So, I, I started just building some curriculum around that. And looking at the data because you know, these wonderful financial planners, we need numbers, right? And so I started finding the data, then looking at the emotional side of grief of how you can meet in the middle because money and grief are taboo. Okay? We don’t talk about it. Okay. But there’s a way to talk about things. You know, if anybody out there listening has ever had a teenager in a car and you say, Well, you know, how was your day? Fine? What you do nothing. Okay, we didn’t ask the right questions. So I built out a program, I call it pace, because our job is to pace our clients, people in life, and it’s preparation, action, communication, and empowerment. And those are the areas that I really help advisors with, of, you know, this empathy thing. It’s, it’s a little empathy. It’s a little compassion, but it’s grief literacy. It is learning the language and being excited. Okay. I mean, imagine going to a foreign country if I came to South Africa, okay. Yes, I’d be able to speak English, but I’m sure there’s other languages that I wouldn’t know. Okay,

Louis van der Merwe
we live in official languages. So you pick the right country,

Kathi Balasek
Oh, my word. But you can imagine how debilitating that would be if I didn’t speak the language. And then I also had to help and support people. And there was no, there was this language barrier. So when you can become grief literate, and really set the pace for clients, you learn how to show up with more compassion, more support, and you become known for this. Because I love it when people can lean in and empower somebody else. I mean, let’s raise the bar together. And clients, you know, number one, women refer three one. So if you get one client in grief, that is female, you’re going to this is going to Domino. And sadly, you know, even though widowhood is a gender neutral term, women outnumber men four to one. And so the reality is, is you’re going to have the longest relationship with a woman, and most likely they’re going to be a widow. So I mean, they’re going to be the last woman standing. So it makes complete sense, not only from a compassionate side, but from a business side. You know, I mean, financial planners do things for purpose, and they’re led to do it, but they’re also trained to make their clients money, and make money for their lifestyle that they want. I mean, that’s the reality. I mean, everybody says to me, oh, you’re a teacher, you know, I bet you just love it so much, you do it for free. Now, I wouldn’t do it for free. I think being an educator is one of the most important things in this world. And so if we’re going to raise that, you know, we want society to see planners to see educators. And there’s a value there. So I’m trying to think of the question you asked me because I got a little off track.

Louis van der Merwe
No, it’s a wonderful this transition that we’re moving into and around the value of this advice, right? Were you saying if you’re not putting a vet a price tag on it, you devalue it. And what we’re seeing is that people take it less seriously. They actually don’t want to implement advice that are free compared to advice where, you know, there’s, there’s money on the table. I want to talk a little bit about the time and energy that it takes to maybe dealing with someone in grief. Because in our business, I’ve experienced that. The needs are that much higher, but also you need to kind of gauge when is the right time to offer your services as opposed to when do you need to pull back a little bit? How do you how would you suggest someone go about finding that right? Rhythm of, you know, allowing them some solitude but also our offering services, offering guidance, but also then allowing them enough space.

Kathi Balasek
That’s an excellent question. Number one, you have to invest in really knowing your client. That’s first and foremost, you know, developing a relationship, knowing things beyond the numbers about your client, having conversations about their family, their work, their career, where they grew up. You know, women are very rapport driven. They seek connections through commonalities, they want to share more personal information, where typically, it’s not all men and women, but men are more data driven fact fixers, okay. And it’s just a communication style. And some people have more feminine and masculine, some of its together. However, women crave that relationship, because not only do they want you to know them, they want to know you. They didn’t come to you for the numbers, they know you’re good at that. Right. But what’s in it beyond the numbers? You know, how are you empowering them? What resources have you put out for them? Have you made these steps simple and easy and clean? Have you given them a path? Okay? Simplify the amplify, that’s really what they’re looking for. And when you truly know someone, I call it divine listening. Okay, you’ve been appointed to this time with this person. And when you know them, you start listening for what they’re saying, and really what they’re not. And, you know, we had talked about this earlier, where sometimes clients become your grief buddy, they become, you know, just up space to just, you know, really say everything. And it’s very flattering that they feel that safe space. However, in everybody’s mind, they’re thinking, Well, how long should I share this? And you’re thinking, How do I transition into Yes, I hear you, and I care about you. And I need to get these three things accomplished with you today. And that’s like this awkward like, scuze me. Let’s change the topic. And so we start listening to maybe what they’re not saying. And let’s say they’re saying a lot of things about, you know, pressure from children to move on or, or pressure for other people to maybe start dating or sell the house or, and they’ll pretty much phrase it in, like, I’m so sick of people telling me I need to downsize or telling me to do this. And as a planner, you should be saying, okay, they’re worried about their house, they’re worried about their home, they’re worried about decisions of what to do and all of these things. And so we’re pulling this out. And they’ll still go back in that grief. You know, I, I don’t know what to do. I’m just sad and I’m exhausted. I can’t deal with these decisions. That’s a window in well, let’s, let’s talk more about your house. Let’s talk about maybe the home. That even No, you didn’t plan on that maybe you could think about in the future, you know, what’s important to you? You know, is it friends and family is it all of these things and we’ve sort of shifted, okay. And occasionally, there’s clients and people and I mean, I love to talk about my husband, but sometimes I need to, you know, Zipit, okay. And there’s times when an advisor is with a grieving client. And in your mind, you’re thinking, I wonder if they’ve had any grief counseling, I wonder if they have any support? I wonder what you know, and we’re wondering these thinks it is okay. To say, you know, I’m really hearing that you’re overwhelmed, and you’re struggling and there’s some fears, and there’s some, you know, and we connect in the emotion. We don’t connect in the context. Okay. And so, you can do this segue in this conversation and just say, I feel like you’re sounding lost and overwhelmed. And I’m not sure if you’ve ever looked at some services that help people in your, in your same scenario. But I’ve got some wonderful recommendations or resources. If ever you want to take a look at them, I’m happy to do it, and then move on. You know, it’s sort of like when I told my son about the song, they’ve heard enough, okay. And then you go through the conversation, but guess what, that client will go and look at those resources. After the meeting, we create some curiosity. Okay, without saying scuze me, you’re a hot mess, you need counseling, that’s called judgment. Okay. And it’s really important that we stay out of judgment. And we just listen, listen for what they’re not saying. Where we could help and talk about something that really is a financial decision, where we can offer a resource, you know, have you thought about, because specifically widows, we feel guilty for imagining a future without our husband imagining a different financial plan, because I want to honor what we did. And, and yet, when we go home, we’re imagining those and we’re daydreaming about a time and a place when we don’t hurt so much. So planting those seeds, offering the resource, it’s not really so much of a segue. It’s listening and pulling out what they’re not saying. And then we start giving more forward facing feedback. And that’s where hopeless, Okay, hope is a forward facing emotion. And then we start saying, Well, you know, based on what you said, What would you think about moving out of this area? You know, would you like to travel more? Where would you like to see the money, do great things for other people. You know, we all as a society, want to create influence with people, we want to do good and do better and help. And so sometimes it’s just asking the right questions and giving some quality feedback towards the future without pushing to the future.

Louis van der Merwe
That’s such a gentle way. And it strikes me that someone has to have a little bit of experience, but not a ton. But have had to do the work to create a resource to say, here’s something valuable that we vetted, that we know you can trust, that can help you during this time, instead of us spending all of our time on this. Let’s kind of look to the future. And you’ve shared with me in the past that oftentimes, our clients irrespective of the life stage that they’re in, they’re looking to us to pull them into the future and to maybe start dreaming in a scenario where, you know, that person is no longer there. But there could be some, some honor that we can still blend into that future.

Kathi Balasek
Absolutely. I think one of the hardest things for people is they think if they’re making steps forward, they’re making steps away from their person. And, you know, grief is going to be with you for your whole life. Because you loved this person. You know, and it’s not an end of a relationship. It was the end of their life. So, you know, we keep their memory, their life, their stories alive. And most people don’t realize that a Grievers number one thing is that they don’t want the world to forget that person. That’s my number one fear that people will forget what a lovely human John was. And so when I overhear people say things to my children, or me and we hear their his name Amen. spoken aloud. It is the most warm hug of acknowledgment. You know, because many people asked me, they’ll say, Oh, you’re so resilient, you moved on. So well, you know. That’s all I’m choosing to show you. Okay, Grievers still have that downward spiral. I’m in a parking lot with a box of doughnuts, please come Somebody get me. Okay. And I’m just crying. And we just were different. We were grief differently. Daily. You know, and it never goes away. As it shouldn’t. You know, there’s that saying you, I’m trying to think of it right now. People come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime. I feel like John Michael, Bill Asik came into my life for all three. Because it’s shaped my life. And so how can I not acknowledge that and so when, when people are trying to help a Griever, you know, that true empathizer? Just show up sharespace meet in the emotion. Listen, let them talk, share a memory share a story. That’s energy. You know, when you connect, that’s an that’s like igniting a match. Okay, it is an energy. And as people, as planners, as business owners, it is such an opportunity to be a grief leader, and to really start modeling the correct way to respect people who are going through grief. Because there’s no timeline, it looks different every day. I can be very poised and speaking on stage, and then an hour later, crying in my hotel room, because it meant so much. That that’s cathartic. Okay, and when you can meet a Griever, right where they are. It’s cathartic for both of you. I mean, where else can you in your life make a difference? With neighbors, with friends, with family, with employees, with clients? Because I mean, we are, we are in a world in pain. And we’re going to world in in loss. And it’s not just going to take a few people to change and create a grief literate culture. It’s going to have to start with every person knowing that okay, I know how this movie ends for me, everybody dies. Okay, we don’t need to show the trailer. We you know, and so, you know, good teachers backward plan, we think of the end result. And then we backward plan. So if the end result is death for everyone, wouldn’t it make sense to start having these conversations?

Louis van der Merwe
And what a beautiful place for financial planners and advisors to be because you can uniquely touch each of those areas and actually help guide someone without them necessarily having to come to you to receive that. Right? They come for something different, they might want investment advice, but they leave with something much more rich and and maybe even some grief literacy. At the same time. What would you say to smaller practices that are trying to incorporate this that might feel that traditionally they’re more orientated, to have conversations around products? And now we need to get involved in someone’s messy life? What are those, like small steps that you would give to a practice owner that maybe once you start changing those conversations a little bit?

Kathi Balasek
There’s a there’s a few key things that whether if you’re small or large, whatever, but I always say start now and build rapport with every client. Get both partners to the table. Okay. And I often hear financial planners say, Well, I asked, you know, I sent an email. Okay, so, the beauty of communication is we have lots of options. We can email we can text we can call we can do And just keep being persistent. And pointing out how much you want to get to know them, how much their life, their family, their dreams matter to you. Okay, and when they show up, I mean, you go all in and celebratory and you follow it up with a thank you note and you remember what we what they talked about. Okay? And so that’s first build rapport with all of your clients and get them to the table no matter what, keep trying. Okay, keep proving that you are helping them beyond the numbers, you want to know them more than a financial statement. Another key thing that I think practices can do well, is to build a community of women. So historically, we’ve not been to the table. And there’s a statistic right now from UBS in in the states that said 23% of women are not at the financial table. Yeah. But yet, they’re still making the household decisions. So build a community of women. And it doesn’t mean you have to go round up a bunch of widows or round up a bunch of divorces. How about we build a community of women? And then let those subgroups find each other? Okay. And, you know, we mentioned Brian Korb and he did some some data on what women widows want in, in a financial literacy workshop, okay, or an event. So you bring all of your women together, they want it short, but they want it consistent. Okay, so they want to know that every other month we’re meeting, they definitely want to know you. They want to know something about finances, and they want to know one another. They want it to be fun, social and light. Okay. people crave connection. And if I could show up to a financial advisors workshop, for 45 minutes to an hour, every other month, that’s doable, and that I get to meet people that might be similar to me, then I’ve made a friend. Okay, because a lot of the financial questions I’m not going to ask you, because I don’t know them yet. And I don’t want to sound stupid. But I could ask somebody else. And I’m not saying that women don’t know, finances, many do. But many have not had enough reps at meetings with a financial planner. And so this is such a wonderful opportunity for you to create a community of women that learn and support one another. Okay. It’s sort of like the difference between reading a book, or else you come to a workshop where you’ve all read the same book, and you know, one another, there’s something better, the energy is better. And so we want to create that. Another key thing that that planners can do right now, is get some resources. Okay. You know, if you have widows, you should be looking into modern widows club. Okay. It is, in my opinion, there’s many great ones, but in my opinion, it’s the best nonprofit organization for widowed people. And they’re up on the research, and they’re doing things all over the world. So I think that’s excellent. Get resources, and start building some things to help clients like, how to buy a car, how to buy a house, what would I ask if I was going to refinance the house? How to Hire somebody for home maintenance, you know, how do I remodel the house, you know, widows, women get taken advantage of, you know, if I say okay, when a widow walks on a car lot, you can just imagine what goes on. Okay. And I’ve been there. I bought I paid too much, but the extended warranty didn’t need it. I didn’t know what I was doing. But I wanted to go by myself. I wanted to do it on my own. But wow, if I would have had a checklist of the do’s and don’ts of how to buy a car. That would have been huge. You know, how to feel safe at home. You know, if I call, maybe like five key things, when you call somebody to check your home, like if you if you need an electrician or plumber, whatever, maybe you have some resources and recommendations if they are in your same hometown. But if you don’t, and you are a planner that that works with people, virtually, you need some checkpoints, okay, of what to ask what not to ask. I did not want to have a stranger now that I was home alone with my children. I didn’t. So I lied, I, you know, I said, I would set my husband’s boots out on the front porch, I would do things to kind of sneak and teach them that I’m not alone. And we get taken advantage of their scams, you know, there’s things that people take advantage of our money. And having an advisor that can build up and be filled up resources and be in the know, of maybe predators, financial scams, things to watch for and really educate their clients is very helpful, because you want to be the best resource on the planet. You don’t want your clients to ask five other people, they need to come to you, first your website, get what they need, make it user friendly, and go because then you become the expert, you’re the go to. And I think the prep work for small financial planning. Advisory businesses, is really where you can invest some some time right now up front. Because we know the end, and people want to talk about it. And if you have resources, it almost gives you permission to invite the conversation. And that’s one of the keys.

Louis van der Merwe
Like you’ve been saying you’re planting the seed, you’re opening the door. And what I’m taking away is that you’re empowering them, you’re not saying let me do this for you, where oftentimes, I see that approach to say, uh, we’ll just help you, we’ll just do it for you where this, what you’re saying is that let’s empower that person, let’s give them the resources, so that they can, can do this in a safe space, so that they can build the confidence and they can actually, that gives them a bit of momentum when it comes to maybe more big ticket decisions, where we say, Oh, now the stakes are bigger, but you’ve built up some confidence already in other areas using our resources.

Kathi Balasek
Absolutely. You know, if we do something for everyone, we don’t create influence. We just create compliance. And, and people comply. And it comes from a point of sympathy and pity I’m so I’m so sad for you. You know, let me do all of these things for you. How about these are? These are three things that I’m going to do, they’re going to support you. These are three things I want you to ask a family member or friend to do? And how about you start creating a list just a brainstorm of all the things that you’re thinking about. And when you come back in my office next time, we’re going to categorize these two, what’s essential, what is just organization and what’s like a longer, you know, sort of the Susan Bradley, you know, topic of now sooner than later. And but that organization and seeing key points in a roadmap, and a timeline respects people’s agenda, their space to grief. They’re busy already. And so they have a plan, and they have a plan forward. And that’s the key word.

Louis van der Merwe
Kathy, I must share a story with you were going through my transition straining we started using the decision free zone which you just mentioned creating these areas of now soon and later, to help someone when they’re overwhelmed and they need to select what do we do now? What can we park and what can we get to when our time and energy allows. And at the time my daughter was still just learning how to walk and she had these three little buckets that she was carrying around and I started using this analogy with clients and they would start talking about the buckets. They now bucket this bucket and We can actually, we can be a little bit more creative with how we approach this choppy topic in a gentle way, but also in a supportive way.

Kathi Balasek
Absolutely, because, you know, decisions. We all have to make decisions. But I think an opportunity for, for financial planners is to paint the picture of some choices. And do it in a timeframe where we’re, we’re starting with just would you rather do A or B? You know, let’s, let’s condense some of the choices, let’s make it a little simpler. You know, they’re in the grief fog? You know, let’s just, do you want to start with this topic, or that your simple empowering clients to have choice. Okay. And then as, as the time goes, we start to broaden their horizon of choices. And then they’re starting to imagine that they have choice in front of them not decisions. And that is empowering. And so often, we go in, I hear this from advisors a lot, well, I have to get these three, I have to get this done, I have to have these conversations, really decide as an advisor, especially those first few meetings with a brand new greeting client? What can be solved through email? What could be sent to them? What could we do that just as a one page or takeaway, and really focus on listening, learning, helping them kind of picture what maybe this first month might be. But so many people gave me like a big book, like, whether it was my tax person, or you know, a state attorney or whatever, they just gave me a big dust collector, there is no way I’m gonna go home and read this, I don’t want to, you know, I don’t have the time to. And learning, this is not the time for me to learn. Okay, and so it’s really important to just meet them where they are. Okay. And, you know, when, when we think about a decision free zone, we also think about, it needs to be a judgment free zone. And I get asked this quite a bit in conventions, or when I’m speaking of, well, I knew these clients before, and they didn’t have that great of relationship now. And now that I’m working with one of the surviving spouse, you know, I feel like they didn’t really respect each other prior. That’s really none of our business. Okay, and here’s the thing, when somebody grieves, and they’ve lost somebody, you’re not dealing with the same person anymore. You know, when I lost my husband, I’m not that girl anymore. Okay, and to really stay out of judging a relationship of choices of things that you might know about your clients have zero relevance moving forward with a brand new widow. And it’s really hard to control that unconscious thinking. And to not go there, because we want to fix it, we want to help. And it’s really important if we’re going to empathize at any level, that judgment isn’t a part of that. And when it’s grief, we judge it, because grief is exactly where we don’t want to be. And so we’re truly just judging ourselves. And it’s a very hard concept to stay present with that client right in front of you. And I encourage people all the time to have some trigger, where you find your mind drifting, whether you are wearing a rubber band on your wrist and you snap it to get back, whether you have a sign that only you can see that you would glance to, but to really say, am I focused? Am I showing that I’m listening? You know, or am I worrying about picking up my child and in you know, at soccer practice and what’s for dinner and because We have a ton of windows open in our mind. And it is so hard to show up for an hour for a grieving client, and for financial professionals, you know, compassion fatigue is a real thing. And how are we taking care of advisors? How are we investing in taking care of their mental and emotional health when they need to show up? I think that’s a key piece missing in, in financial in the financial industry, and in HR, of what are we doing for people who are on the front lines of this very bad news. And we have to show up and be present. And I think it’s an opportunity for us to acknowledge how difficult it is, who is doing it? And how are we supporting them? Because I meet with advisors when I coach them, and I’ll say, Well, how many, you know, clients who are widows? How many meetings do you have a day? Oh, about four or five? How can you possibly meet with five widows back to back. I mean, it’s emotionally draining to be present, has nothing to do with the grief. It’s just emotionally present, emotionally draining. And we can do better. We can have the financial industry, make some shifts on how they’re truly helping their people, nurturing their people, and really normalizing and making grief literacy important. And acknowledging how difficult it is to show up and give them some tools.

Louis van der Merwe
This wonderful concept of the health of the helper, which I think is predominantly in the therapy space, when you talk about counselors where they have relationships with people that can help them train, and I want to thank you for creating this platform where you are supporting advisors, but at the same time challenging the profession and moving this forward. I’m mindful that we could talk for days about this and your your passion is enthusiastic. Kathy, thank you so much for being here today. What is the best place for people that are hungry to find out a little bit more of what you’re doing and what you can offer? Where should we send them?

Kathi Balasek
Send them to my website. It’s Kathi Balasek dot com. And you can find all of the things there and my social media and everything there and I would just challenge you and encourage you to give me some questions. Okay, there’s no judgement. I’m not here to judge you. I’m here to help you. Help you be the best rock star advisor that you can for people when they truly need it.