Leave Nothing Unsaid with Jody Noland

In our eighth episode, we join the managing director of our Greenville, South Carolina office, Joel Robinson, as he speaks with author and speaker, Jody Noland. Jody is the founder of the Leave Nothing Unsaid movement. They discuss the power of words of affirmation and encouragement and the impact they can have on those you hold dear.

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The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only.  It is not intended as specific individual advice. The clients’ experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients and they are also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust.

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Transcript

- [Narrator] Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast, Let's bridge the gap between your faith and your finances. At Ronald Blue Trust, we apply biblical wisdom and technical expertise to help you make wise financial decisions. Our goal is to help you leave a lasting legacy. In this podcast, you'll hear inspiring stories, practical tips, encouragement from the Ronald Blue Trust family with special guests along the way. Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast. The information in these podcasts is provided for general educational purposes only. It is not intended as specific individual advice. The client's experience may not be representative of the experience of other clients, and they're also not indicative of future performance or success. Opinions expressed may not be those of Ronald Blue Trust. In this episode, we joined the managing director of our Greenville, South Carolina office, Joel Robinson. As he speaks with author and speaker Jody Noland. Jody is the founder of the Leave Nothing Unsaid movement. They discuss the power of words of affirmation and encouragement and the impact they can have on those you hold dear. Let's listen in now.

- Welcome listeners. Welcome to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast. My name is Joel Robinson. I'm the Managing Director at the Greenville, South Carolina, Ronald Blue Trust office. And I am joined today by somebody that is amazing. Jody Noland is with us today. Jody is a former IBM executive, a mentor, a mom, a small business owner, and the founder of the Leave Nothing Unsaid movement. And let me just tell you, I met Jody because we had an event for our clients in 2021. And the great thing about it was it's rare that you have a client event where at the end of it, you have people possibly crying, some people just singing your praises. And I'm telling you, it was one of the most impactful events we had for our clients just to love on them. I'd have to read some of these quotes that we got, 'cause we did send out a little survey afterwards just to, make sure we get better. The personal touch with individuals was wonderful, very knowledgeable speaker. One person we asked, "What would you do to improve the event?" And they said, "honestly, it was perfect in every way." So I haven't had that said very much in the past, but some people said, I thought it was perfect. And they said, "It really helped us focus on the little things that make a big difference and her teaching us how to be an encouragement and affirm others was fantastic, and it was delivered with such sensitivity and with clarity." So just thinking back on that, it was such a great event. It's so great to have you on the podcast today, Jody.

- Thanks so much, Joel. It was a joy to do that. I love hearing that kind of feedback, but I love knowing just the impact that that experience will have in people's lives and their families and their relationships. So I appreciate the opportunity.

- So from your end of it, how do you feel like you got involved with Ronald Blue Trust?

- Well, I mean, way, way back, I was actually in a mom's prayer group with Ron Blue's daughter. For when my daughter was in high school. So that was my-

- Introduction.

- First introduction, actually I used, we used to go to church with the Blues, and then I was in a prayer group with Karen, but then I was a speaker for Kingdom Advisors last year. And I think a number of Ronald Blue trust advisors heard my talk and reached out to contact me to follow up and put on events for their clients. It's definitely a unique client appreciation event. But one that over and over again, I hear people say just how meaningful it has been to their clients and how often someone will say, we can't believe you did that for us.

- Yes I'll have to say that. That was the first place I had heard of you. I went to the Kingdom Advisors virtual conference and I went to that breakout session and I said to myself, after it was over, that was the most impactful breakout session of the entire conference. And it wasn't about financial things. Was it?

- Nope.

- It's really about helping us steward our resources well, but the resources of our words. So thank you for what you're doing and let's jump into this. Well let me get into this to kind of help people understand what Leave Nothing Unsaid is all about. So tell us in a little brief moment what it is.

- Well my desire is to teach people how to affirm the people that they care about, whether personally or professionally, and especially to do that in writing, I feel as though in our age of technology and instant things and text messages, it's very rare to take the time to put into writing the things that we really appreciate about those that are, that mean the most to us. And so I was inspired quite a long time ago, probably over 25 years ago by a friend who was about to have surgery for a brain tumor. And he wanted to write letters to his three kids in case he didn't make it through the surgery. So that was how God planted the seed in my heart. And it just was one of those things that wouldn't go away over the years. So probably for the last decade I've been, well, I wrote a workbook to help guide people, but then I love to lead workshops to actually take people through the letter-writing process and just encouraging people to learn how to effectively affirm the people that matter most to them.

- That's great. I feel like letter writing is something that's, it's not the normal course of communication these days. So tell us a little bit about how you help people leave nothing unsaid.

- Well, I think one of the things I try to do is help people understand how important it is. I have countless stories about, just why it really matters and the impact of it. But then I actually take people through step by step, a framework that I've developed. And to me, the heart of it is really helping people figure out how to effectively and intentionally affirm the unique qualities in someone. I often say, when you're inside the jar, you can't read the label. And a lot of times people can't see the qualities about themselves that are so unique and valuable. So what I spend the most time on in a workshop is helping people actually do that, figure out how do you affirm someone? What do you affirm them for? How do you give them examples of how you've seen that in their life or how you might see it in their life in the future? I love to encourage people to write a word, find a word picture that describes the person. But to me that's really the heart of what I'm trying to do is teach people the art of affirmation.

- And you said something when we were together in Greenville and by the way, our clients just, I mean, we had such great comments about the workshop and we'll get to that a little bit, but you said something that I'll say again, and then you can just expound on this. But I think a lot of times you have said, we understand a lot of times what's wrong with us, but we aren't really told too much what's right about us. Talk a little bit about that.

- What I like to say and what I meet believe sincerely is that we're very well versed in what's wrong with us, but not so much in what's right about us. And so that's what I'm really trying to help people do is say to take the time, to tell people these are the things that are right about you. I mean, you look at how hard life is. And especially the last couple of years, there's been so much loss in so many people's lives, whether it's loss of a job, loss of life of a loved one, financial loss, business loss, isolation. And to have something in writing from someone who really matters to you, that reminds you of these are the things that I see in you. These are the things that are right about you. I really feel like it can almost help bring people either to life, back to life, help them grow, restore their confidence.

- And one of the things that we found through the workshop is that, and I'll tie something together here. We help people all the time at Ronald Blue Trust to be really good managers of their money, manager of the, we say resources, 'cause money is one of those things. But as we kind of tied together for our clients before you started your workshop in Greenville, we talked about the fact that our words that we use are a resource that we're given. And so you teach us to help you help us to actually figure out how to do use those skillfully and intentionally. So talk a little bit about some of the pieces of the workshop book that really helped go after that.

- Well, I just wanna affirm what you said about the just it's, we, I talk about stewardship a lot. I know that you all do with your clients about just stewardship of all the things that God's entrusted to us. And I feel like our words are one of those and our relationship or something also to steward, but I know not everybody's watching, but one of the things that is really well received in the workshop that people love about this workbook is I've got a couple of pages of adjectives to help people describe the uniqueness of the people that they love. And that those couple pages, people find so helpful. And so what I encourage people to do when we get to that part of the workshop, I encourage them to kind of go through the list quickly, find the three or four attributes that are the strongest, then try to put those together in sentences that describe either depending on the age of the recipient, either how you've seen those qualities throughout their life, how you might see them in the future. For example, if you're writing to a child or a teenager or somebody getting ready to launch from high school or college, or maybe in the middle, you know, past, present and future. But I feel like that is one of the things that people really love. And then I have a section, I have a number of prompting questions to help people, try to figure out what warms your heart about the person. What do you see that brings them to life? And then I have a number of examples of word pictures that people also find very helpful. So that's kind of the heart of it, but then I've got a couple of other sections, like at the end, I always say, look at the ending of the letter as always remember this. If it were the last time you ever had a conversation with that person, what would you want them to always remember how much you love them? And then if you have like a family motto or whatever, and then I've got a number in the back of the workbook, I have a number of scriptural, blessings and scriptural kind of advice or encouragement to help people do that.

- That's great. It's funny you sometimes I think if you just heard, oh, there's a page of a bunch of words that you can use, but I'm writing one to my son and his 16th birthday is coming up and I wanna give it to him at that time. But those words, there's several pages of them. It's like a couple of them just really captured what I really love about him and that's different maybe than other people. And so it, those words are very helpful on that page. And tell us a little bit about what happens in a workshop, 'cause we experienced it. Our clients had great things to say. Some people said, "Thank you for caring for your clients in this way." And just some really nice things were said, but explain a little bit about what happens in a workshop. And one of the things I want you to kind of point out is like, what are some of the stories you've heard from not just our workshop, but ones you've done in the past.

- I'd be happy to try to summarize that. It's not easy, but you, what I do in a workshop is I usually spend about 20 to 30 minutes kind of talking about why this matters so much. And there are many stories, both on the, how people's lives can be changed. The trajectory of someone's life can change based on encouragement and affirmation, the brevity of life, the fragility of life. So I try to spend a few minutes just kind of helping people understand this really does matter. It's not just something else that we're doing. This is life-changing just much as what you all are doing with clients, with financial planning that it's, it's so very important. Then I actually take people through the process of drafting a letter. And so I explained some kind of dos and don'ts in my mind, things like, don't say these are three positive qualities about you and if you would just fix the fourth, those kind of things. I say, don't apologize in a letter like this, I think apologies are really important. But in a letter like this, I feel like if you put an apology and the person will always go back to that when they're rereading the letter. So I have some tips on dos and don'ts that we go through and then we actually get started writing the letter. So people, choose someone that, they want to write to. And then I take them through section by section. So I start out with the first section kind of asking them to write down just how you would summarize your love for that person and what it's meant to you to be their mother, father, you know, sister, son, daughter, whatever, just a couple of sentences about that. Then we go and then I usually play just like instrumental music when people are writing. And then I always ask for people to share what they've written and in every group, I've been doing this for a decade and in every group, there are some people that love to share. And there are some people that wouldn't share if you gave them a million dollars, they just wouldn't. So, but that is a beautiful thing because it almost is like priming the pump and when the people that are vulnerable enough to share what they've written, it really inspires other people. And so I do that kind of section by section, I spend the most amount of time on the middle section, which is affirming the individual. And like helping them find the characteristics, the qualities to focus on to write examples and that kind of thing. And then again, I give them time to write and then I ask for sharing again. And then the last section, they always remember this section is kind of the closing for the letter. I always encourage people not to compare themselves to other people because as you saw, there are some people that are very net that would just write a few sentences. And there are some that would write pages. But I think sharing is a really important part of what happens in those workshops. But the thing that I'm always touched by is that at the end of a workshop, it's rare for someone who participates not to have a twinkle or a sparkle in their eye because I think what happens to people is they're finally able to unlock and express things that they want to express to their loved ones. But they don't really know how, I'm sure it's this very similar. Like when you put a financial plan together for people, they want to make sure that they've planned for their families, but they don't know how. And so I feel like this is obviously a lot simpler than doing a financial plan, but it's so powerful. And one of the things that means a lot to me is that when people walk away, they've got the workbook, but they've also learned a framework and hopefully they will also understand I can do this and I should do this for the people that matter most. I mean, I've had people say to me, this changed my life. One person was talking about writing to their children, their spouse, their elderly father, and the elderly father, apparently his letter, he read over and over again the last year of his life. And the comment was made like it changed my life and it changed my relationships. I've heard people say that. I've had mothers write a letter to their future daughter-in-law, read it at the rehearsal dinner. And I have this one daughter-in-law that said that it was so affirming to her because usually when people are getting ready for a wedding, parents are focused on their own child. But that her mother-in-law would stand up at the rehearsal dinner and talk about how much she loved and welcomed this daughter-in-law. She said it was the greatest gift she could have ever given me. So that's just another example, many examples of people writing to elderly parents and just not having, I always say eulogize the living, to me it's so sad to go to a funeral and hear great eulogies and wonder did the person ever know that people really felt that way? And then for people as they're aging to take the, I think it's a lot, in some ways, easier for people to take care of the, I have the, will I have this done, but to express their heart, sometimes it is harder. And to help them, to me is I feel like it's such a gift that God's given me to help people with this.

- And I'm drawing all these connections with what we actually do. And you've created a format really for this to be done intentionally, skillfully. And that's exactly what we do when we bring a client in and help them with the tools that we have either put a budget together, prepare for the future, and all the things that come with financial planning. But you said a word that's probably overused today, but impact the impact it has on somebody's life to if they'll just take these and do them. And I think the workshop is like that for our resource of words. And talk a little bit about, and this is more of maybe the negative side of it, but do you have any examples of people that maybe didn't do this and maybe it had an impact that they didn't intend?

- Oh, I have a very personal one of those. My late husband actually was a financial planner and I had just sort of just started to sketch out this material, but I had actually done some workshops for his clients and he believed in what I was doing, but he was diagnosed in 2009 with stage four liver cancer. And his doctor told me that he probably would not live very long. And so I became almost, well, persistent let's say probably went from persistent to nagging, but really trying to encourage him to write letters to his four children. And I asked and I begged and I pleaded and practically stood on my head. I even had this brilliant idea that I would write the letters and he could just edit them, but he didn't wanna do that. And he passed away three months after he was diagnosed.

- Oh, wow.

- No letters written. The day of his funeral, it was after everyone had left our house, it was just family. And one of my stepdaughters sat down next to me, had this big expectant smile on her face. And she said, did dad write me a letter? And she was heartbroken that he didn't. And I was heartbroken. I honestly almost gave up this whole calling 'cause I felt like such a failure that I hadn't been able to encourage my own husband to do this. But a few months later someone asked me for a copy of the workbook and I was able, it was able to help a young mom who was dying of breast cancer, write letters to her two children. And her friend wrote to me and she said, my friend was able to die in peace because she was able to express to her daughters, which she wanted to express. So I realized you can't just like, you can't force people to plan financially plan for their financial future or for their heirs. You can't force someone to do this, but to look in someone's eyes who would just love to have a few words to look at from their parent. It was heartbreaking.

- Well thank you for sharing that I know, that's sort of the hard part of it, but we really enable people and we can't do it for them like you said. But we give them the tools. We enable them to actually have peace of mind on the financial side or have peace of mind on the relationship side for their children or their loved ones. Now talk about other people. In addition, I think some people think this, well, this is just for family, but there's some great suggestions about doing this for other people. What are your suggestions there?

- Oh I would say anyone that has had an impact on your life, it could be a teacher that encouraged someone, it might be a coach. There are plenty of kids that don't have, maybe don't have an active dad in their life, but there's somebody else who's had a significant influence. To take the time to write to that. I've had seen friends write to friends and one woman is actually on, I have a video of her on my website, but she talks about receiving a letter from a friend and it made her want to live up to those qualities that her friend described. So yes, I've seen many. I was just talking to someone the other day about he was sharing that his friends in their seventies were, he was starting to lose his friends. And he said, "I wanna do this for the people that I have the closest relationships with. 'Cause I wanna tell them the impact that they've made on me."

- I think that's such an interesting thing. We tend to think that all we're doing when we meet with a client is we're helping them take their life to the next level and plan well that of course will affect their entire family and their friends. But it actually does something for us too. So we have something inside Ronald Blue Trust called mission accomplished stories. And we love hearing them because it actually solidifies in our mind that this work we are doing is making an impact so that what we're sharing and what we're helping people stay accountable to is something that's really doing a great work across the world. And part of that is we encourage people towards generosity. This is really kind of encouraging people towards being generous with your words. Maybe not just your pocketbook, but your words going forward. And I think a lot of people just talk a little bit about the fact that we have dos and don'ts as well that we kind of communicate to our clients, "Hey, don't do this with your money and do this with your money." But even we talk about things like having a family meeting and maybe trying to take your family, get them all together and not just tell people to be generous maybe in your will as you pass on, but actually include them in the decision-making process while they're living to be generous. Now you're showing your children and maybe grandchildren, how to be generous instead of just leaving money for them to be generous with. And I think that that's what I think is so powerful about the workshop. So talk a little bit about that and what you've seen maybe even more stories. I think people really connect with those.

- They do. And one of the things that I've seen have a lot of impact are people putting together birthday books like asking, many friends to write letters. Recently, I just did that for a friend who was turning 80. And I asked a number of her friends. I asked her husband for a list of people. She didn't know I was doing it, but I got this beautiful book of letters of the impact that she had had and put it together in a scrapbook for her. And 'cause she had impacted my life. And so I wanted to do something to give back to her. And so that was huge. And then I've seen people who have been affirming practices to their children and seeing their children do it back to them. The person I was talking about who said that this process or doing this changed his life. He said that he ended up with his sons both wrote to him. His wife wrote to him and that's why he was sort of talking about just how it had impacted everyone in their family. Because I do think that when you teach your children, I think part of the things people struggle with is maybe they haven't received a lot of affirmation. And so they don't know how to give it to someone else. One thing I do like to clarify, to me, there's a difference between appreciation and affirmation. And a lot of times I think people are more comfortable appreciating. I think they're both important, but often when we're appreciating, it's what someone does for us. When we affirm, we're saying these are the things that I see in you, that matter so much. And to me that's one of the beautiful things is when you've been the recipient of something like this, it does naturally make you want to share that with other people because you see the impact that it has on you and how life-giving it is. And so I've seen a lot of families where it's kind of gone from parent to child and then maybe child back to parent.

- And I love too when you talk about that the impact it has for you, the person who writes it, not just the person who receives it. I mean it's something that is kind of let out of you and how it is when you do something and you thought you weren't gonna be that skillful at it, but then you look at it at the end and you're like, wow, I think this will have a good impact, but it's done something for the writer.

- Oh, it's huge.

- As well as the recipient.

- I used to be surprised at how much joy I'd feel from the participants in a workshop at the end of it. And then after a while I thought this isn't an accident it's because people are so glad to be able to express to the people that matter something that they feel is meaningful. So yeah, it's very, I feel blessed and honored that God's just given me the simple message to share because I have seen it have such impact on people. I feel like it strengthens relationships, heals relationships. It just, the impact is far-reaching.

- Now you have also done some work. I'm sure one of, as you do this and have workshops, one of the groups of people that you come across that this helps is widows and you've done some work with that. Tell us a little bit about that.

- Well, there are widows that have no warning, they might lose a spouse suddenly. Then there are some that have what I call the gift of the long goodbye. If someone has a terminal diagnosis, but I've seen a widow or potential someone that where they know their spouse is dying and they've talked about it. I've seen both husband and wife write letters to the person and read them to them in their last days. One woman who actually I also have, there's a video of her on my website too. But she talks about writing her husband a letter. He was in hospice care and she read him the letter every day for the last 30 days of his life. And she said they had had a wonderful marriage. And she said, what it enabled them to do, as opposed to being sad about the pending separation. It helped them to just be thankful for the many ways that their life together had been blessed. I had one couple that, and I loved to do pro bono work with hospice patients. And I was helping this one woman who is a hospice patient, excuse me. And I had gone to her home and I'd helped her write letters to her children and her grandchildren. And then I gave her husband one of my workbooks and I said, quietly, I said, "you might wanna write her a letter." So he said, "I'll do that." And I finished up and then I about probably about a month later she died and I went to her funeral and at her funeral, they read the letter that she had written to her husband. And then in his voice, they recorded her husband's letter to her. With like background instrumental music I mean, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. It was beautiful. But I think people walked away from that just inspired like, "Hey, does my spouse know how much I cherish them?" You don't, that's why I always say like, don't wait. 'Cause none of us are promised tomorrow. And so I just encourage just, I'm sure it's the same thing that you encourage with your clients don't put off the most important things.

- I was just thinking that same thing. We definitely say that phrase when we're meeting with clients and just to encourage them to take these things and go ahead and do them. I mean, the movement on it is so is where, we want them to get, we wanna get to the point where they are taking these principles. We're giving them, using them in their life, and then experiencing what comes because of that. We've said a lot of times, you don't have to believe the principles for them to work. And it's the same thing if, if you just take this and do it, it's such a great example of doing something that even if you say the same thing to somebody it's not, they can't go back to that and continue to reread it. 'Cause I know you, you have stories of people rereading things and just like, boy, especially when, if that person ends up leaving this earth, now they've got something that are the words. In fact, there's a girl who somebody wrote her father wrote to her when she was 17. And then she just kept that and read it and read it. There's a video on your website about that as well.

- Yeah, it is. It's there's a saying, ink fades, but memories or no, sorry. Memories fade, but ink lasts. And so when it's something in writing, it can be read and reread and yeah, there is there, I've heard so many stories of people who have maybe they've gone off to college or maybe they've lost a parent or a spouse, but they have something from them that they can read and reread. And it's so meaningful whether the person, whether they're just physically separated or they're separated by death. It's a very powerful thing. The other thing I do encourage people though is that sometimes you don't get an immediate reaction. Like one of the things that I say is when you give someone a letter like this, give with open hands and do it out of love, not because you're trying to manipulate or because you're trying to get a particular reaction. Sometimes it may take a while. I had one friend wrote her son a letter and gave it to him the night before his wedding and he didn't say a word to her about it. And she had put her heart and soul in it and she was telling me, oh, this is hard. He didn't respond well. I think maybe in a year or two later he wrote her a letter for her birthday. Excuse me. These are all the things I love about you mom. And so sometimes it takes a while. But I think doing it with the right expectation. As suppose not to what you're gonna get, but just because you love that person and you're right. Using the resources of your words to affirm them will help them.

- Well, you've mentioned this, but I wanna kind of go back to it. So there's appreciation that is sort of general. And it's like, "Hey, great job." And then there's appreciation that's specific. It's like, "Hey, I noticed how you did this, and boy that was really key to this being a successful event or whatever." And I really do think that affirmation actually is a level above even those two. Where the specific is probably more meaningful to the person receiving it. But the affirmation piece. Can you talk any more about just how you kind of came up with those words as you were developing this, this really does take it to a different level.

- That's a good question. I mean probably I remember reading the five love languages many moons ago. And one of the love languages that they talk about is words of affirmation. But I don't, that's a good question. I'm not sure exactly how I focused in on that. Other than I think the idea of focusing on someone's character, about character qualities, like the essence of the person who they are. To me, that's kind of what I really encourage people to do because we don't hear that very often. No, I know even when I was at IBM when I do an appraisal, I would always try to affirm the person in addition to you made your quota or because it's easy to say like how you performed, but when the year ends and a new year starts, you're back to zero. Whereas if someone, if you're reinforcing the best character qualities in a person that just keeps on and it really, it carries people through some very difficult times, I think.

- Yeah. And I think I, one of the strongest things, I think too, as I watched some of your videos as well, and I think you said this during the workshop is that the people that read the letter, they find themselves wanting to live up to what's being said about them in the letter. I mean, how powerful is that? Because you're affirming all these great character qualities or good things about them. And the interesting thing, the parallel we, I keep seeing here is when we have people actually do the things that we're asking them to do. And we try to help them graciously hold them accountable and have difficult conversations when we need to. But we know at the other end of that, that if you do these things and you stay disciplined and you kind of stay away from the don'ts and do the do's that we're asking you to, we know that the impact on your life is gonna be far beyond just for you and maybe your spouse, but your children. I mean, it's like this legacy you're leaving. And yet again, we come back to a parallel where they get to hold this letter and you even say this, and I think on your website, it's like, it outlives you like your legacy is something that outlives you and are you leaving something that is going to encourage throughout time or something else?

- I love the picture of like something dropping in the middle of some still water where you see the rings, the ripples go out, because I do think that's what affirming, especially in writing can do. And the impact that you can have from generation to generation, you know, a grandparent may affirm their child and it might change. Our words are powerful, both positively and negatively. I mean, you can hear a lot of people tell stories about, I never forgot when someone said this to me and it crushed me for most of my life or someone said, "I see such potential in you. I see such ability in you." And it changed that difference, but you could sort of think about it and think about you talk about the ripple effect of our words. We might be inter influencing generation to generation. And someone might change us with the words that they speak over us. And then we can carry that on to either our own children or people that are in our world. So it really is a powerful and lasting practice.

- That's great. So, Jody, one of the things that I'm sure happens, you have all kinds of people that come to these workshops. And one of those groups is widows, and I know you have a special place in your heart for widows. And one of the things I wanna tie in here is that widows hold a very special place in our heart. We serve quite a few of them and I think we do better than anybody out there. And I know there's quite a few spouses that are still living that say I'm with you guys because I know my pretty good chance. I'm gonna go first as the husband, she's gonna be left here without me at some point. And I know that you're gonna take good care of her. That's I we've heard that many, many times, interestingly enough, in our industry, there's a stat out there that's in the 70 percentile of clients actually leave their advisor if their spouse passes away. And a lot of times that's because the advisor didn't connect them. Didn't actually include the spouse during the time that they were helping them. And that could be two over 20 years, but we try to get the spouses together. We want to hear from both of them. And so they hold a really special place in our heart that also helps us serve them really well if for instance, their spouse passes away. So talk a little bit about, trust is a very big thing. And part of the reason people leave is 'cause that trust is left. Or it wasn't there maybe even to begin with. So talk a little bit about serving widows through the Leave Nothing Unsaid as well.

- Sure. Yes, and you're right. Widows do have a special place in my heart since I am one. And I understand just that feeling of vulnerability, couples, everyone has different roles, but I'd say probably in the majority of situations, the husband probably is maybe has had more of the financial leadership. And so I love that you're focused on that because actually one of my COVID projects was I wrote a book for widows that I'd always wanted to write, to combine practical advice and spiritual encouragement and some humor. But the issue about finances is not a funny thing. And it's been interesting, like one of the chapters in my book for widows I wrote was called the gift of the Long Goodbye. And sometimes, I don't know what the stats are of how many people know their spouses passing versus it comes suddenly. But for those that do know that somebody has a terminal illness, one of the things that I really encourage is on both sides of things for the spouse who's sick and the spouse who will be the surviving one to take the time to put in writing, their feelings so that they can be read and reread. I think it helps so much with the grieving process. To have something tangible that they can look at and reflect on. And then also for the one who's left to not have regrets of saying, "Wow, I wish I had told my spouse how much they meant to me." But, I just know from personal experience that especially if you're a trusting type, that there are, it's hard to imagine, people that would take advantage of somebody who was a widow or an elderly person, but it's reality, it happens. And so I love the fact that, that you all focus on, nurturing that relationship all along. And I think that's what drives me with Leave Nothing Unsaid is the idea of nurturing relationships. And it breaks my heart when somebody loses a spouse suddenly and they haven't had that closure. That's why I tell people, don't wait to write letters to the people that matter because you don't know how long, none of us know, teach us a number of days that we might gain a heart of wisdom. I mean, only the Lord has our days numbered. And so that's why I'm so grateful that you all offered this for your clients because when somebody's at the end of life, it's so hard to get a letter written, they might be heavily medicated or just mentally foggy or whatever. But I love that you care about your clients, not just telling them to caring about their financial side, which is huge. But also caring about, let us offer this for you so that you can, just have that security and peace, knowing that you've expressed to the ones that matter most. Why they mean so much to you.

- And that brings to my mind too, the fact that we've heard so many times from clients that unfortunately have lost their spouse when they come in that first time, if they've been clients for a while, they realize that they you need time to grieve. And, and the financial piece, if it's not an issue because you've taken care of it, how much less you have to worry about and you can focus on just grieving the loss of that 'cause it's significant. Well, let me read a couple things that our clients said about the event and we do try to have private client events that really are just for their benefit, their benefit relationally, their benefit of course financially. But this is very different than financial, but it is a resource that we're trying to help people steward well, but they said it really happened with just such a great personal touch. They love the fact that you were so knowledgeable about it's a lot of good things said about you and your presentation. They said it was so great to learn how to express my love to other people because it's in us. We just you kind of help us do that well, and it says a letter is something they can keep enjoying over and over. And then I've already said this one, but I just think it's so neat to have a client say, thank you so much for caring for us in this way. And it was funny. We had one person who was invited to the session you gave. I think it was the Tuesday afternoon session. And she was so surprised because we introduced you and just let you go for 90 minutes. And it was great. And a lot of good things happened and she said, "Oh, I thought this was gonna be like five minutes on how to write a letter and 45 minutes on a pitch about you guys." I said, "Oh no, no, we're, we're just here to, to really love on our clients in this way." And it was received extremely well. So we really appreciate it. I'm so glad you being part of it and certainly would encourage other people to do it in our other offices as well.

- It's my honor. You know you're called to do something when you get more passionate about it as the years go on. And I love, I just love seeing the light in people's eyes when they do this. And I love maybe I don't ever know the specifics, but just knowing the impact that it'll make on those that they love.

- I'm sure there's quite a few stories out there that we could tell if we knew 'em.

- Someday.

- Well, thank you so much for being with us. It's been great to reconnect and I know we'll be doing that in the future too.

- Well, I appreciate you. And I appreciate Ronald Blue Trust for believing in this message.

- Thank you, Jody.

- [Narrator] Thank you so much for listening to the Wisdom for Wealth for Life podcast. If you're looking for financial advice, please contact us. Please visit ronblue.com. That's ronblue.com. Thank you for listening. And please subscribe to wherever you listen to your podcasts. Trust and investment management accounts and services offered by Ronald Blue Trust incorporated are not insured by the FDIC or any other federal government agency, are not deposits or other obligations of nor guaranteed by any bank or bank affiliate and are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of the principle amount invested.