On today’s legally speaking podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by the wonderful Dr Kimberly harms. Dr harms is an international speaker with 30 years of dental, grief, conflict and transition management experience, she is an award winning Best Selling Author. She was the first woman president of the Minnesota Dental Association, and has served as the national spokesperson for the American Dental Association for 21 years. Dr harms is passionate about challenging societal norms surrounding death and end of life planning.

So why should you be listening in? 

You can hear Rob and Kimberly discussing:

– End-Of-Life Planning Being An Act Of Love, Not Just A Legal Requirement

– Transparent Communication Preventing Family Conflicts After A Loved One’s Death

– Emotional Legacy: As Important As Financial Inheritance

– Confronting Death Openly Helping Families Process Grief More Effectively

– How Personal Resilience And Forgiveness Can Transform Traumatic Loss Into Meaningful Impact

Connect with Dr. Kimberly Harms here – https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-harms-bb524666

Transcript

Dr. Kimberly Harms  0:00  

You don’t want to leave a legacy of confusion. You don’t want to leave a legacy of conflict. You want to leave your family intact. Many, many of us are uncomfortable talking about death with our families or with attorneys. It’s that discomfort. We don’t like to tell our families that we’re going to die. We don’t like to think about a time after we die. We have to get over that discomfort. So it’s procrastination, expense, discomfort, I think, are the main barriers. Just think of it as your legacy of love. That’s what end of life planning is. It’s a legacy of love. And understand that. I think that’s the most important thing you can

Robert Hanna  0:33  

do on today’s legally speaking podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by the wonderful Dr Kimberly harms. Dr harms is an international speaker with 30 years of dental grief, conflict and transition management experience, she is an award winning, Best Selling Author. Was the first woman president of the Minnesota Dental Association, and has served as the national spokesperson for the American Dental Association for 21 years. Dr harms is passionate about challenging societal norms surrounding death and end of life planning. So a very big, warm welcome to the show. Kim, thank you. Thank you so much. Rob. Oh, it’s an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. And before we dive into all the amazing work that you’re doing, we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the legally speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 1010, being very real. What would you rate the hit TV series suits in terms of its reality of the law? If you’ve seen

Dr. Kimberly Harms  1:27  

it? Well, I’ve only seen it once or twice, and all I really know about it is that my daughters, who are both attorneys, love it, and there are very attractive people. So I think that when it comes to just basic attractiveness of the people, probably not in the realm of reality. But I really can’t speak about the legal things, but I would ask my daughters, they love the show, so I could ask them,

Robert Hanna  1:52  

there you go. Fair fair comment. And with that, we’ll give it an informal zero and move swiftly on to talk more about more about you and your journey. So to begin with, you mind telling our listeners about about your background and career journey?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  2:06  

Yes, well, I’m, technically, I’m a dentist. I was, I practised dentistry for 30 years. I was a national spokesperson for the American Dental Association. I was president of the, in fact, the first woman president of the Minnesota Dental Association. So I’ve been very active in dentistry. I have my personal life. I’ve lost my mother and son to suicide, also my nephew, and I lost my husband. So I’m a widow. And what’s happened now? I also lost my ability to practice, because I have thalidomide has affected one hand, and my good hand went out after 30 years of practice. I had nerve damage in it, so I had to stop practising, and so I’ve had to re identify myself many, many times now that I’m a widow, but all alone. I’ve got to look at the next chapter. I’m sitting here between menopause and death, and I’ve got to figure out what to do during this time. So I started writing books about navigating life as a widow, also about what we need to do to graduate from life with honours. I see great. I see, you know, death is, is on one side of that continuum. And I really work with people to help them redefine death. What is death? You know, I think it’s graduating. We’re graduating a life, right? And prepare for it so living well now so that you can die with honours and having your family. Emotionally Healthy when you go

Robert Hanna  3:24  

and thank you for sharing that and giving us a really good, rich overview. And you know, I really admire everything that you’ve done, and I just want to kind of go back to your career as a dentist, because you spent, as you said, 30 years, you know, practising servicing as the national spokesperson for the American Dental Association for 21 years. So tell us more about that. And how did your sort of career get started as a dentist to where it’s obviously gone to today?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  3:51  

Well, the reason I became a spokesperson and also president is that I have also a public health background. I was commissioned the National Health Service, and so we, because I had a public health background. Legislative issues that occur many times are done in public health speak. You know, public health and private health are very different. So I could speak both languages, basically, and that’s kind of what brought me to become a national spokesperson. But what it also taught me is how to deal with a crisis situation. When a crisis was occurring, especially around the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s there was really a crisis about, how do we treat AIDS patients? Can we treat them safely? Can they come to the dentist safely? All those issues helped me to learn how to deal with a crisis and how to learn how to manage an issue that was it was a difficult or controversial, and so it was really a great opportunity for me to learn those things, and I use that in my in my family life as well. You know, you have to remain calm in the front, you know, in the face of adversity, if someone’s trying to, you know, get to trip you up. You have to remain calm, which also works with clients, your your lawyers that are audience, but with your family as well. My, my kids often tell me that they hated it when I would answer. Their their accusations, or, you know, when they were teenagers and they were getting a little bit upset with me, I could stay calm. So I think that that was probably the best thing I learned from my time as a spokesperson.

Robert Hanna  5:10  

Thank you for sharing that. Kim and I guess, as a end of life planning expert, you really do help people understand the importance of showing love to their families by setting them up with, obviously, a legacy plan. So could you explain to our listeners what end of life planning and legacy planning actually

Dr. Kimberly Harms  5:30  

is? Yes, I focus on building emotional wealth and the emotional legacy that you leave behind. And I think there are four steps to that. The first one is you gotta have get your affairs in order. You gotta have all your documents in one place so your family’s not when they’re going through the grief of your loss. You don’t have to go and find all your documents, or no documents, get them all in order in one place, all my everything I have, my my titles in my car, my will, everything, it’s in one binder so that it can find it that prevents a lot of stress afterwards, also a lot of conflict. 50% of of people go through conflicts around a death, and it might just be, did they die in a hospital or hospice? So get your affairs in order. Have your health care directive there. Have everything in one place. That’s that’s a first step. Second one is get your legacy organised. What is the legacy you’re going to leave behind? Everyone can leave love. People need to feel loved. They need to feel accepted. Your family needs to know you’re proud of them. In my case, because of the suicides, resilience is a big legacy I want to leave behind to my children and my grandchildren. How do you get through tough times? So define your legacy and take steps to leave a good legacy behind. Number three is talk about what happens after you die. Have a good discussion with your family. They need to know that they’re going to grieve. Grieve is normal, but they’re going to survive it, and that you want them to live their life fully, and you want them to be happy when they when after you die, you want them to live a full life and to flourish. And then the last thing is get your emotional affairs in order. Forgive now reconcile while you can and and and apologise if you need to get those things in order now. It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s important to do it now. And I think when you do those things, you have a great chance of leaving your family with a solid, emotional legacy, because the important thing is that your family stays together after you die. You don’t want to leave a legacy of confusion. You don’t want to leave a legacy of conflict. You want to leave your family intact. And that’s what an emotional legacy is.

Robert Hanna  7:30  

Yeah, and I really sort of resonate with that. And you know, I feel like particularly people in busy professions such as the law that are obviously so busy going out there, doing everything, you know, actually having these affairs in order and ensuring, like you say, it’s as smooth as possible, probably not the right words that I’m saying, I think is really important so, and that’s why we were really keen to hold the conversation today, given, obviously, you’ve had so many life experiences and doing so much to help people so they can also be hopefully, you know, deliver that legacy, which, you know, to me, is very important. So let’s talk about the, you know, experiencing of of loss. You know, you’ve been open about the losses you’ve experienced. How did your own experience shape your approach to end of life planning?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  8:17  

Well, you know, I’ve been down in the bottom of that grief pit just kind of sucking up the mud. And I had some something happened to me that especially after the death of our son, our son was a brilliant engineering student at Columbia. He was he was on top of the world. He was in was a jazz pianist, was in the jazz programme there. He’d been elected to Student Government. Everything was going his way. And he was on top of the world when he came home for Christmas, and then he went back to school, and his girlfriend broke up with him, and he was gone at 45 minutes, that impulsive 19 year old brain just, you know, broke, and so that, you can imagine, our family was just completely destroyed by that. And I had something happen to me that really helped. I was walking out of my dental office one day, and you know, you’re trying to go to go to work. You’re in the zombie phase. You’re like, dead on the inside, you’re trying to, you know, look like you’re normal on the outside, you’re trying to keep going. And my husband’s cousin came up to me, and he was wagging his finger, and he came up to me and he wagged his finger in my face, and he said, Don’t you ever let your remaining children feel that they are not enough, don’t you do that to them. And that made me realise I wasn’t in that pit by myself. When I was in that pit, I was dragging everyone down with me and getting over grief. Processing the grief is a very, very difficult thing. It sometimes takes years, but I was determined at that point that I was gonna fight and kick and scream and claw my way out of that pit. And it’s not easy. It takes some time, but eventually, with that goal in mind, because I think you need a goal, I was able to get out of that pit and live fully in the present. Now I’ve got, I’ve got six grandchildren that I need to enjoy and I can live my life with. Out that shroud. But it took work. It’s been 15 years. So, I mean, it’s taken a long time. Probably took me five to six years after my son died and then my husband, you know, I had to go right back into it again. And I had to realise I’m still here, and if I’m still here, I still have a purpose. And so finding that purpose and in focusing on your goal of getting out of that pit. Don’t wallow in it, because you can. You can stay there forever if you allow yourself to, and it takes time. But I think it’s so important, not only for you, but for everybody around you, and that’s what I’d like to encourage your listeners to understand, if they’re in that grief pit, to just fight, fight, fight, to get out of it.

Robert Hanna  10:38  

Yeah, no, really, tough, you know, but in you know, helpful words given, you know, everything that you have been through, I want to talk about the importance now of going deeper. When you talk about setting up a legacy plan, you know, talk us through how you actually assist families in setting up a comprehensive legacy plan. Well,

Dr. Kimberly Harms  11:03  

I wrote a book called, are you ready how to build a legacy to die for? And the first part of it is building your legacy, all the legacies you can leave, education, faith, you know, art, there’s so many legacies. Love, of course, is the main one. So focus on those important legacies you’re leaving behind and lead them intentionally. Second part is you have to understand that you’re going to die, we’re all going to die, and we have to focus on the fact that, okay, at some point we need to be ready for that. So that’s where we need to get our all of our affairs in order. Certainly the wills and all the things that you do legally need to be there, your health care directive, your will letter of intent, I think, is very important, because you need if you’ve got something that’s maybe a little bit different, you need to explain why you’re doing it. And that will prevent people from thinking that other members, family members, might have had untoward influence if maybe somebody gets a little more than the others, have a letter of intent, explain why you’re doing things. But then I think the other part of the legacy is, I recommend a grateful but not yet dead tour, which is going out and saying you’re thankful for people that are out there that have helped you throughout your life. You know, make make sure people know that you’re grateful for who you are, for who they were, and what they’ve done for you. And I also recommend leaving legacy letters. You know, the first Valentine, most important Valentine, was delivered after St Valentine’s death. So it was a posthumous Valentine. And I think we need to leave posthumous Valentines. I have in my legacy book. I’ve got valentines for all of my family members, my son in laws, my grandkids. I have letters. I tell them how much I love them, how grateful I am for them, and then I send little Valentines so if they don’t remember that I love them when they see that, I put all my stuff together in that one manual, the titles and everything to my car, everything they’re going to need, they will remember how much I love them when they get those Valentines. So I’m just making sure they understand that they were valuable, they were loved, and I was grateful that they were in my life. And I think that is one of the most important things you could do to build an emotional legacy. You can make video tapes, Legacy tapes, talk about your family talk about your background. Books are fabulous. My daughter did a great book of my husband. She had him record kind of his life history, and she made a book out of it. There’s so many things you can do to leave that legacy behind, but most importantly, the people that you leave behind need to have the tools to flourish after you’re gone, even when you’re not there. And that’s a fabulous legacy.

Robert Hanna  13:21  

Yeah. I mean, just really, really well said. And you know that sheer attitude of gratitude that you’re showing, and you know you’re taking the time, aren’t you, to show people that you cared and genuinely loved them with those with all those things that you’re putting together? And, yeah, I just think it’s, it’s wonderful, actually. Okay, let’s talk more about sort of estate planning them, because many people avoid the conversation about that, because it can be quite uncomfortable. So how can lawyers, attorneys help their clients, perhaps overcome this?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  13:55  

I think it’s important. One of the things is, one of the reasons that we do this is we’re in a death denying culture, right? We kind of, sometimes we think that if we plan for our state, it’s going to, we’re going to die sooner. You know, we’re not, it’s not going, it’s not going to affect your death. They’re going to die anyway. It’s not going to affect your death. So, but what it does do is it shows your love for your family, because when you don’t plan, somebody else gets to plan, and they, you know, the state gets to plan, and that might not be what your wishes are, and it causes more expensive, obviously, but also it causes dissension in the family. I mean, as lawyers. I mean, I’m a dentist, and I sure know many, many families that have been destroyed because of failure to plan. And so we need to think of that. We need to think of planning our estate as a show of love for our family members, and that an acknowledgement that we are going to die, but we want to graduate with honours. We want to graduate with things prepared so that our family knows that we care about them and we love them.

Robert Hanna  14:56  

Today’s episode is brought to you by Clio leaders in legal. Tech and the team behind one of the most exciting AI launches this summer, Clio duo is arriving this summer, and it’s already creating a stir built right into Clio manage. Duo uses AI to help you draft emails, capture time, summarise documents automatically. It’s smart, seamless and designed to save you hours every week. Find out more and see what Clio duo can do for your firm@clio.com forward slash UK. Now back to the show. It sounds really straightforward, but I think, like you say, you know, I think we need to have these conversations and to let people know that, you know, we need to be open so we can ensure that these legacies do live on and let to that. Then let’s, let’s get into some of the emotional roadblocks. Because what are some of the most common ones that families face when making end of life decisions?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  15:49  

Well, the first one is failure to acknowledge you’re going to die. That’s, I think, the number one. Second one is they think it’s going to be expensive and and it’s more expensive not to do it for your family. Okay? So it’s, it’s, it’s, it doesn’t make any sense, but, but they think, Oh, I don’t want to spend the money on the lawyer right now. And it’s, it’s a procrastination, really. And again, we don’t like to think about our death, and so now we’re not going to spend money to think about our death. I mean that, that that whole situation gets in there, but again, far more expensive to wait. And you have to think about is, like, prevention. I’m a dentist. It’s a lot less expensive to get get preventive, you know, prevent problems from happening. You have to pay somebody up front to prevent problems from happening, but it’s far less expensive to do that. Same thing when it comes to estate planning. This is a preventive tool. You want to prevent conflict in your family. So think about it that way. The third one it is that when many, many of us, are uncomfortable talking about death with our families or with attorneys, it’s that discomfort. And we don’t like to tell our families that we’re going to die, we don’t like to think about a time after we die, and we have to get over that discomfort. So it’s procrastination, expense, discomfort, I think are the main barriers to having people do this?

Robert Hanna  17:05  

Yeah, no. And again, it all makes perfect sense, doesn’t it, that, you know, it’s and that’s why, sort of, you know, educating, and hopefully, you know, changing the narrative with all the work that you’re doing will help. And I guess, to that end, then how can lawyers guide families through the emotional aspect of estate planning to ensure harmony and unity during these challenging times. Because, as you’ve said, you’ve seen this as broken up lots of families.

Dr. Kimberly Harms  17:29  

Absolutely, I think that first of all, presenting estate planning is an act of love for your family is probably one of the biggest things. Also talking to that we, I have a co hosting a podcast called rethinking death, dot life that that we have to think about our death, we have to come to terms with our death. That’s a tough one for lawyers to talk about. You know, it’s tough for doctors we have, we have podcasts about doctors who can’t talk about death, you know. So it’s really hard for lawyers to talk about it, but I think if they position it as an act of love for their families and a way to prevent confusion and conflict. Because for me, I’ve got two daughters, two surviving daughters, and the worst thing for me would be for them to have a conflict over my estate, I mean, to fight because they didn’t get grandma’s pie pan, pie pan, or whatever, they fight over this most ridiculous things. But again, that combination of grief that they’re already going through and conflict is a bad one, so let’s take care of that now. Let’s have the discussion now, before the grief, let’s prepare your families now, before you die, because it is an act of love for your families.

Robert Hanna  18:38  

Yeah, I love the way that you frame that, and I guess a big part of this must also be emotional intelligence. So how can lawyers, who often perhaps focus on the technical and legal aspects of estate planning, you advocate for a more compassionate approach? So how can lawyers incorporate emotional intelligence into that practice,

Dr. Kimberly Harms  19:01  

I think, to understand the discomfort and to present, I think that when you present it as legacy planning, rather than estate I think legacy has a different term, and also to change the word legacy to that emotional part, let them know it’s not just the money, it’s the emotional legacy. And if you can work the emotional part into the estate planning part. When you’re giving, for instance, when you’re giving presentations, I’ve been, you know, some presentations made by attorneys about estate planning, and they basically just talk about the money, many times the ones that I’ve been to. So I’m sure there’s many out there that are doing this emotional work now, but the ones that I’ve been to, it’s all about the money, right? Yeah, and, and that is important. But many people my age think, well, you know, I’m just, I’m going to leave them money. They can manage it. I’m just going to leave the money they can work it all out later. And they’re not thinking that that’s a difficult thing to do and might cause conflict. So I think bringing up when they’re making the presentations and. Estate Planning presentations, bringing up the emotional component and the love that they’re showing to their family as part of that estate planning presentation, and then talk about leaving a legacy, for instance, the legacy letters or legacy videos. I mean, kind of incorporate that touchy feely stuff into their estate planning presentations. And I think you’ll get a lot more people in there, and there are many, many books out there that will help with that?

Robert Hanna  20:21  

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I guess we should. We should talk about your your book. Then on that note, you know, are you ready how to build a legacy? Die for was a number one bestseller on Amazon. Love it. Yep, love it. And Barnes and Noble. So it was also named one of the most inspirational book for 2024 by Pacific Book Awards. So what do you hope for readers to learn from diving into your book?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  20:45  

I really my mission, okay, my mission as a widowed, you know, survivor, loss, losing a son, losing mother, with all the things I’ve been through, my mission is for people to understand that the like that are, everything that we go through, everything that we go through, is completely useless unless we can pass on what we’ve learned. And so I’d like for people to quantify in their brains all the things that they’ve learned in their life, and find ways to subtly pass that on to the next generation, because we can help make as one generation, we can help make the other generation stronger. And so doing you it. The first part of the book is on building legacies. There’s 15 different legacies, lots of stories, people from many cultures. My favourite is Rwanda. Rwanda, when you talk about resilience, I have 65 libraries in Rwanda, and they are the they are the resilience and forgiveness experts. The second part is on death and dying. We need to come to terms with death is something that’s going to happen to all of us. We can’t escape it. And let’s come to terms with this. Let’s think of it as a graduation. We talk about how people perceive death, and it’s very different across the world. And then the last part is that list everything you need to know, the list of all the things you need to get together, to put together in that in that legacy binder, including legacy letters, Legacy love letters, along with the titles of your car and your in your healthcare directive, and all of those things. So it’s a, really, it’s a comprehensive book on what we need to do before we die.

Robert Hanna  22:06  

Yeah, no. And I highly recommend folks go and go and check that out. And you touched on it there. But I want to talk a little bit more about the libraries, because you, you know, have co founded 65 I think Eric harms Memorial libraries throughout Rwanda. So you know, how did the initiative come about, and what impact has it had? Oh,

Dr. Kimberly Harms  22:25  

my gosh. Um, there’s a when I was, I was, was a grief counsellor, and one of the things I learned during that time is, it’s called wardens task, task of mourning. So when you’re going through grief, the things you need to do to get through the grief. And I have that in the book to include in some of the letters to help people get through grief. The first one is accepting the law, so accepting when my son died very, very difficult thing. Secondly is processing the grief, which can take a long time. Everyone’s different with that. Third one is coming to terms with your new reality. And then the last one is where the libraries come in, and that is finding a spot, finding a way to honour that loved one in your heart. Now, I’m a little bit of an overachiever. You don’t have to do 65 libraries in Rwanda. You could just come to terms in your own heart. You don’t even, you know, you don’t need a bench. You just need to come to terms. But that has really helped me to come to terms with the death of my son and now my husband, my son, loved libraries. He loved he was a Latin scholar. He just loved classical literature, and my I had a friend who was on the board of books for Africa, and after Eric died, she said, you know, why don’t we do a library in a Memorial Library in Rwanda? Because Rwanda is the symbol, to me, of resilience and forgiveness. When you take a look at the genocide they have, they’re just the most amazing people and the best grief counsellors in the world. Because we started doing libraries in Rwanda. We started with seven, and now we have 65 including four law libraries, comprehensive law libraries, donated by Thompson Reuters for the lawyers in Rwanda. And if any of your listeners are attached to any African countries, you can get a donated Law Library donated to that country for a minimal amount of money. It’s, it’s just amazing that Thompson Reuters does this, and it really gave me first of all, they’re the best grief counsellors. They embraced me over my grief, yet they had lost their entire families, or I have a group of women who were, intentionally, you know, infected with AIDS, you know, during the genocide and and may some of them, you’ve had children, you can imagine the horror that these people went through, yet they have learned to forgive, to reconcile, because they wanted their children to have a better life than them. And so these 65 libraries are serving, you know, 350,000 books all over the country and computers. And it is a joy of my life to be able to go there and visit these libraries and visit the people that it’s impacted. And I feel then that, you know, it’s my son’s legacy, and it gives me great joy to provide a legacy for him.

Robert Hanna  24:56  

Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know that the work you’re doing is in. Incredible. And I guess, given your your background in dentistry and leadership, how have you found any connections between healthcare, legal, planning and end of life discussions?

Dr. Kimberly Harms  25:12  

Well, I think they’re they coincide, especially as we get older. You know, doctors don’t like to talk about death. In fact, in my husband’s case, he was in the hospital, but he wasn’t getting better. He wanted to die at home. But I was thinking about, you’re going to get better if you’re in the hospital, but no, he wanted to die at home. And so we had that discussion. We had the talk about hospice. Hospice is so important, and I think the best thing you can do in the legal profession is to encourage getting that health care directive done so that you have control over how you die, and then when you do that, you prevent the conflict that, many times, occurs in families, because you allow someone either to die at home or to die in the hospital. For instance, in my husband’s case, he did not want to go back to the hospital. He did not want to get intubated. He might have lived another week or two if he’d been intubated, but he didn’t want didn’t want that. And when that discussion came about in my family, it was we just said, you know, this is Jim’s decision. He has a health care director. This is what he wants. If you don’t have that in place, then there’s, there might be questions or arguments within your family, and you might be accused of, you know, killing grandma because you brought her home, and so the hospital, and that’s what she wanted. So I think the best thing the legal profession can do is to really help their clients have those end of life directions completed, so that your family will have less conflict over your death.

Robert Hanna  26:38  

Yeah, I think that leads nicely onto what I was going to ask next, really, which, what you’re referring to there, which is all around that transparent communication, you know, the importance of that, I guess, in sort of strengthening family relationships when it comes to legal planning. Is there anything you would add to that, from a transparent communication

Dr. Kimberly Harms  26:57  

perspective, or any tips? Absolutely, you know, especially in some in some cases, maybe a specific family member might have done a lot of caretaking at end of life. That’s a pretty common thing. There’s a caretaker at end of life, and maybe you don’t want to give the caretaker money to take care of you right away, because then there’s taxes, right so there’s some tax issues there. So many families will provide an additional amount for a caretaker in their will. And so I think unless you can be transparent and have that letter of intent where it says, I’m going to leave Mary additional money, because, really, to compensate for all the time that she spent with me, that really helps the family understand where that came from, rather than thinking Mary’s, you know, taking her more than her fair share, Mary has some undue influence, or barely talk them into it. Those are such important things. To leave legacy letters, to leave letters of intent, to really explain to your family why you’re doing what you’re doing, so that after you die, at least that’s your voice that’s being used, and you’re not going to cause a dissension within family members. Because, I mean, how many you know how many lawsuits take place because family members feel that someone has undue influence. I mean, it’s just a terrible thing, and then it breaks families up. So do whatever you can to explain your wishes before you die. And I really recommend the five wishes programme, which is a more of a comprehensive list of what you want to have done. I think you have to purchase it. There’s a nominal fee for that, or any state, as you know, any every state has their health care directive that you could just get on the state website that will work as well, but, but the more information you give, I think, the better before you die. I also have a friend who whose mother was passing away. They knew she was dying, and she had a lot of property in her name, and because they were afraid to talk about her death, they didn’t do anything to secure that property in the transition. And so after she died, it was a mess because, and they could have done it, they had time to do it, but because they didn’t want to admit she was dying, she didn’t get it done. So get that stuff done before you’re dying. You know, you can prevent all that stuff. Get it done now so that you’re not doing it at the last minute. And all those, all those concerns, are not going to be expressed. Get it done while you’re young and healthy. And if you are older, and you are, you do have healthcare concerns, even more important to get it done

Robert Hanna  29:16  

now, yeah, absolutely, it’s, it’s take action, right? This, this is important. And I think if you, if you get it done, get it out the way, then you know, like you say, it just prevents so many issues and hopefully makes things as smooth as, of course, possible. And I guess you know, couple of final questions where we look to close and it’s around, you know, those open conversations about death. But particularly, you know, I know you encourage having open conversations around death and end of life planning resulting in sort of more hopefully emotional stability and well being after the loss of a loved one. Um, can you tell us more about

Dr. Kimberly Harms  29:51  

that? Yes, I think that. First of all, I plan. I call it future planning, because, you know, my I have one daughter, one of my lawyer daughters, Gary. Easy to talk to. The other was like, Oh, Mom, I don’t want to think about your death, you know. So I, you know, we have different personalities. So I talk at Future Planning, and I tell them all about what my plans are, where all my things are in the binder. This is a this is a combination for the safe. This is refined. Everything’s going to be in there. And, but I also think they talk with my grandchildren about my death, because my grandchildren were affected by my husband’s death, and I saw the pain they went through. And of course, they’re going to grieve for me as well, but I tell them how much I want them to flourish. I want them to be happy, the way they honour me is to be happy after I die. And I know this works, because a couple of months ago, I was sitting with my little eight year old Heidi, at the table, and she looked up at me, and she goes, Nanna. And I said, Yeah, Heidi. She goes, Well, if what happens to pop up happens to you? And I said, Well, you need to fight to if I were to die. And she goes, Oh, yeah, Nana, if you were to die. And I go, okay, Nana, you have a question, Heidi, what’s your question? She said, Well, you were to die, can we still go on a Disney cruise? Yes. In fact, what I did. I said, Yes, I want you to go on a cruise. I want you to go to Disney, where I want you to have fun. I want you to flourish. And what I what I’m doing now is I’m taking a little bit of my my legacy, my financial legacy, and I’m putting it towards a family vacation after I die, just to just to let them know I want them to go and enjoy themselves after I’m dead. So I know it works, and I know she’s healthier and she’ll be faced my death better than if I hadn’t talked to her about

Robert Hanna  31:24 

Yeah, and it’s tackling it head on, isn’t it, but in the in the right, in the right fashion, like you’ve just shared there. And what a beautiful moment. And I guess what would be your you know, one piece of advice you could share for those thinking about end of life planning,

Dr. Kimberly Harms  31:38  

I want you to just think of it as your legacy of love for the next generation. Just think of it as your legacy of love. That’s what end of life planning is. It’s a legacy of love. And understand that. I think that’s the most important thing you

Robert Hanna  31:51  

can do. Yeah, really well said, really good words. And I guess if our listeners want to know more, or indeed learn more about your career or get access to your book. Where’s the best place for them to go? Feel free to share any websites, any social media handles. We’ll also share them with this episode for you too.

Dr. Kimberly Harms  32:07  

Well, you can find my book on Amazon or Barnes and Noble. It’s, are you ready? How to build a legacy to die for by Dr Kimberly harms. You can go to my website, Dr Kimberly harms.com or you can listen to our podcast, rethinking death dot life.

Robert Hanna  32:22  

There we go. Well, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the show today. Kim really enjoyed learning from you, so from all of us on the legal speaking podcast, sponsored by Clio, wishing you lots of continued success with indeed, all the great things you’re getting up to. But for now, over and out. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode. If you like the content here, why not check out our world leading content and Collaboration Hub, the legally speaking club, over on Discord. Go to our website, www.legally speaking podcast.com. There’s a link to join our community there, over and out.