The Tuesday Project with Heidi Hilzendeger

Welcome to the Leading Lane Podcast for. Real Estate Pros by Real Estate Pros with your hosts, Ashley Frederick and Steven Burch. If you're looking for an honest, authentic and raw perspective, you found it. Welcome everyone to the Leading Lane podcast here with our special guest, Heidi Hills and Dager. Well, I got that right. That's a mouthful. But Heidi and Steven and I actually met almost a year ago in Cabo at a mastermind and we had an immediate connection. We hit it off. I joked that I knew that Heidi and I were going to be friends. Our first day, we were in our swimsuits out in the water getting stung by jellyfish and it was perfect. It was perfect. It was a great day. We connected very quickly and we've stayed in touch this whole time. And Heidi is a wonderful human. Heidi is a realtor, but most importantly, she's here to tell us a little bit about a project that she's been working on and it's called the Tuesday Project. And this has been life changing for myself. I think Steven can say the same thing. And it so amazing. Now, Heidi, from your story, what I incorporate into just talking with my friends and families and clients. So I am handing it off to you to tell us about the Tuesday Project. Well, thanks for such an awesome introduction. Meeting you guys in Cabo was quite a life changing experience. Who else would hop on a boat not knowing each other from three different states and get stung by jellyfish? It's a memory maker for sure. You guys have really challenged me in a few different ways after hearing my story. So I'm excited to share it and I'm glad it's made some changes in your conversations with you and your families and everybody that you guys care about. The Tuesday Project came about for me out of necessity and then after sharing my story, just venting more than anything after life changing events, starting with my husband passing away unexpectedly five years ago, almost five years. It'll be five years on Sunday. And not having a plan in place. He was, you know, 47, I was 46. We were business owners, self employed, had no plans as far as what would happen if something were to happen to either one of us. And just really living life at our new phase of life. We were grand new grandparents, all this great stuff going on and just didn't know where we were going with that. And then having him pass away unexpectedly and not having a plan and then me venting about it like, why didn't we do all this stuff? Why didn't we have this up in order? We were successful business owners. We had all these great little things going on. Why didn't we plan better? And even though we thought we had done some right, made some rules in our lives together, we didn't really do a very good job. We didn't take care of each other at all. So that's where the Tuesday project really came from. I once I got my affairs in order, got everything organized, kind of got his businesses sold off and all those things, then it was time for me to focus on how can I take this monumental experience that I had to go through and help others so that they don't have to. Being 46 years old and being thrown into that is very different than where your parents might be if one of their spouses pass away or if you have young children because your lifestyles are different. You're in different phases throughout that. So that's where this really became a passion project at first. And then you guys challenged me to bring this worldwide. So here we are. Time to get this out there to everybody and make sure that they're aware that they have choices. And there's. There's actually a really empowering responsibility behind it to. To get this done for yourselves and those that you care about. So one of the things that I specifically remember you when you shared this story with us is that you obviously he passed, and then very shortly after, you had to, you know, go to the funeral home and do these different things. But you shared that you weren't. You didn't even have access to the bank accounts at that point. Right. Like, the. The way that things were. I mean, can you elaborate a little on. On what happened there? Sure. We had set up. Like I said, we had several different businesses, and we were trying out different banks. We were in a process of kind of redefining what our. What our dreams and goals look like. So I didn't have access to the majority of our households. I hadn't paid a bill in 15 years. I don't like paying bills. Nobody does. But this girl really does not like that. I paid my business bills. He handled all of the household bills and all of his business bills. So I didn't do any of that stuff. And so I didn't have access to that. Not intentionally not or not. Because I'm a horrible person and he's a horrible person. We just didn't set up our accounts that way. We were going through different banks. We had banks in Arizona that because of the businesses down there, we were looking at setting up our household to be half in Arizona. Half in Bismarck. So we're just trying everything out. And I just didn't have access to any funds other than my business accounts for the day after his death. I couldn't pay anything. Actually on Tuesday after his death, he died on Sunday. On Tuesday I was sitting in the bank offices going, how do I pay these bills? And they're not small bills. The ambulance bills are coming due, you've got your funeral bills, the cremation, all those bills really add up. And they want that taken care of the day of the services rendered. So you're looking at a big chunk of money. Right? And I just didn't keep that kind of cash in my accounts. So here we are. And when the bank looks at you and says, I can offer you a line of credit, you know you're sitting okay. And like I knew I was sitting okay. But just having that line of credit, not even, it's not even my money, it's borrowed money in order to pay for these bills. It made me realize that we hadn't taken care of each other properly. We had protected each other's businesses maybe from other liabilities, but we hadn't really thought about what would happen. So then going through this, our attorneys actually talked about that quite a bit, what people should do in our situations. And a lot of times they'll suggest, hey, maybe you have a rainy day fund. That isn't really the rainy day fund. It's your, oh my gosh, what happens now? Because you're alone and you don't have access to cash or you know, it's a, it's a joint household account that whoever is on your, who's ever your contact would have access to that to take care of those types of bills. So that was quite an eye opening day. Very, very traumatic. And yeah, the, the other thing, I mean, we kind of skipped over like why, why call it the Tuesday project. Oh, the Tuesday project. The Tuesday word for our, in our household is more of a procrastination word. It's kind of that, let's set that off for a different day. It's kind of that, save that stuff for a different, for a rainy day. My favorite story is my daughter wanted to go to the zoo. My husband wasn't, we didn't have a really great zoo here in Bismarck at the time. And he want, she wanted to go to the zoo because somebody had mentioned it to her and he just said, hey, we can maybe do that on Tuesday. And I'm thinking Tuesday's a school day, but here we are, you know, and he'd say, Tuesday. And he kind of giggle. And he'd winked at me. And she didn't catch any of that. And, you know, once Tuesday rolled around, I knew we weren't going to the zoo. He, you know, it just kind of stuck. So, you know, like, in the last time he actually used that excuse on me was we were in Vegas at our next home conference. And that fall, we had been at a car show, and I saw I found this beautiful red Jeep that I absolutely thought I had to have. And he's like, we'll save that for later, you know. And then he kind of fell in love with the next home company when we were in Vegas for that conference. And he goes, we really do need to get you that Jeep some Tuesday. You know, an orange Jeep, though. He wanted it to be an orange Jeep some Tuesday, so. And that was the last time that he got to use that excuse or that procrastination method. It was just a good, fun memory. So. And also, estate planning is not something everybody wants to do. Like, nobody wants to talk about it. Our parents definitely didn't talk about it with us. We don't. At 45 years old, we weren't talking about it. The only reason I knew what to plan for him was because my stepdad had passed away prior, about a year and a half prior, and I was dealing with my mom's estate or his estate with my mom. And so we had had some conversations, but we had nothing in writing. Nobody wants to talk about this stuff. It's. We don't want to talk about death. We don't want to talk about. We don't openly talk about finances either. So the Tuesday is the perfect word for procrastination for our family. So I just thought, instead of talking about estate planning, let's change this to the Tuesday project. And then people will ask questions. And it opens that door to really discuss and dive into why we talk about why we need to talk about estate planning. Yeah. Like, I think it's, you know, I think it's a great name because the first time I heard it, I was like, well, what's Tuesday? Like, what's going to happen on Tuesday? And that's kind of where. The way that I think of it, like, what's going to happen on Tuesday? You don't know. You know, like, you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. We don't know what the future is going to hold. And so I think that the title of your project really gives that curiosity to people to Lean in and be more open versus if you were to see on there, like plan for your death. Like, that's not a topic I want to read about or learn about or anything else. Like, I think it's just an easier way to open the conversation. And I love the, that you were able to put that personal touch that, that you know, is a running joke in your, your guys family. So I think that that's great to continue his, his legacy on with that too. So definitely I think that people, you just talk about estate planning and it's an automatic, like, overwhelming feeling. And I do think that a lot of people just think, you know, that'll never happen to me. But the more and more I've talked to people in the last, you know, couple months now, thinking about it, it's, it's actually frightening how many people have nothing in place, whether they have kids or businesses, you know, and I just always ask, like, what if somebody got in a car accident tomorrow? Like, where would your kids go? Where would your funds go? And we've had it in our own family where, you know, there were discussions about where houses would go or who was going to get what house. And it was never in writing. And guess what? It didn't stay with the family. So, you know, it's just a real eye opener as to what can happen. So, Heidi, what would you suggest as far as just first steps? Because it seems so daunting to people. It's very daunting. And the first steps really is just collecting all of your information. It's, it's things that you don't even think about that you, when you're starting to collect the data, it's who's all in your family? Are you a blended family? Are you, I mean, do you have children from a previous marriage? Have you adopted children? It's. Do you have kids that maybe don't have, that are not part of your family that you want to include? Like you want to collect all that information. Who do you want to include in your estate plan and how are they related to you? So that when you go in to do your estate planning with your attorney or professional, they can include those people. They're not, they may, you may not. You may want to include people that are not traditionally included. So you want to make sure you have all that written down and who they are and how they're affiliated with you. And then from there we go into who would you consider as a beneficiary? Who would you like to, to monitor this once if something were to Happen to you. And then from there we go into the banking and into all of your different accounts. And one of the things I found when I was talking about estate planning or before I even started this project, I have some very wealthy friends that are very big into businesses and have all kinds of moving parts all over the place. And they all had succession planning done in their operating agreements, but they didn't really have a plan for like, their bank accounts and things like that. They knew that the kids would inherit this or all of those things, but they didn't really have their bank account set up properly. So they had all these accounts just like Jerry and I did, but didn't have whose name is on them, who's the beneficiary. There's so many moving parts just in that piece alone. Just going in and sitting down, talking to each bank with a personal banker and saying, how do we have these accounts set up? This is what my goals are at the end game. Are these accounts set up for. Properly, for this, this and this. And every person is going to be different. Every situation is going to be a little bit different. So it's going through the family, the family information, the beneficiaries, and then into your financials and then into your. And that keeps going. It goes into your. What debts do you have, what assets do you have all the way through your retirement accounts, everything like that. And then eventually, once you get through all of that, you want to hit into. Is there any charities that you want to benefit from, your finances or your. Or anything like that? Do you have. I mean, you could go down as low as all of your spare bedding. I have a friend that's really into pet adoptions, rescues, that kind of thing for pets. She would donate all of her bedding at her time. That would all just go to them, because that's always a need that that shelter needs. So you could do something as simple as that as part of your legacy plan. And then finally having your funeral planned and paid for or at least outlined and helping write out the dates of your obituary would be a really helpful event. You know, do you know when your parents graduated high school? When they. I mean, you probably know when they got married, but do you know, any of those big life events or when they got a great promotion that they're super proud of in their career? Those things you may not know, but they, you know, you probably want those memories memorialized in their obituary. So having those already written down makes that process so much easier for the full legacy plan. And I mean, there's so much that, you know, really goes into this. And I know that when you have a workbook, and I'm sure we'll get into that, but that's something that when you gave me that workbook, I was like, oh my gosh, like, how in the world, like, you know, like at the very beginning, it's like overwhelming. There's no doubt about it. But it is the simplest first step, you know, for at least for us that we did, was getting the account numbers, what is the login information, and then being able to continue going down to where it doesn't matter if it is at this bank or that bank or, you know, this Edward Jones or wherever else you have these finances. And let's be real, like, I like when we first started looking at all of this and starting out, like I didn't have a ton of money, like to be able to, you know, say, like, I need an estate. It doesn't matter about money or wealth or anything else to have an estate. What matters is that your significant other or the people that you're going to be leaving behind has access to it. It doesn't matter if there's a penny in there like this, like you still have personal belongings that what you want to be. What are your wishes with that? Like, right. You know, like then he goes into the. The funeral side of things of, you know, do you want to be cremated or where do you want to be buried? Right? Like, do you already have a plot like purchase? Like there's so many different things that you just don't real. I didn't realize that accumulate and continue to compound together and then how quickly it can be to forget that. Oh yeah, I did, you know, start that back, you know, 20 years ago or whatever it's going to be. So I really thank you for that workbook because I was eye opening not only for, for us, but that is something that I gifted over to my immediate family too. Because on the flip side of this is I don't want to deal with all that bullshit. I don't know what you want. Like, I want to make sure that I'm fulfilling your wishes of, you know, when you pass of your memorial or celebration of life. Do you want one? Like, do you want a big party? Are you going to sit me on a great vacation? Like, what are you going to do? But like, those are things, conversations, you. Know, in our situation. Jerry's parents were still here and so we're talking about what kind of funeral we're going to have. I knew it would be a full church service. I knew these things, but I also knew he wanted to be cremated, which that's not something that his parents wanted. They wanted the full casket service. And I'm like, but he doesn't want that. So how do you have those conversations when there's different beliefs in that family or different things? How do you have that conversation in a non hurtful way and where they're not being excluded and not getting what they feel is the best thing for their son as well. So having all that done early and I mean I imagine if we just started this when we were 20 years old or even 30, when we first bought our first business and kept it up to date every year and let it grow with us as we grew, how much easier this would have been. And that's where I think the biggest value is with some of the younger generation where they're just starting out, graduated college or starting, they're buying their first home or their first car, starting to get married, have children. If they can start this then and create that habit going forward, if something tragic does happen later on, they're covered, they'll feel confident and the biggest thing there is they'll be able to grieve. Not being able to grieve because you're knee deep or neck deep into that process because you have no choice. There's a lot of have to's that have to happen. You don't get to grieve till that's all done really. So it's, it would be nice to be able to just breathe through that process instead of jumping to, from one thing to the next. Sure. And, and you know, the thing that really stuck with me is death is not if it's when you know, like it's, it's going, it's going to happen, it's going to happen to all of us. And it is an uncomfortable conversation. But you know, at least the, the different deaths that I have been around and you know, members of families, greed comes out, right. The people grieve differently but then greed follows that. And you know, I do think that to be able to help protect your, your significant other or who, your beneficiary, whomever you're going to be leaving these different things to and your wishes, you know, people that are left behind, they're already going to be emotional. And when you add these addition additional emotions on top of grieving and greed, you're, I mean, like who knows what in the world is really going to be happening with that? And so you know, making sure that you, you work with the people around you, the ones that you love, to be able to have an understanding and in writing to protect their wishes so that you can hopefully eliminate as much of that or at least eliminate your trauma drama to being a part of that, because it's clearly written out. So can you give me, let's give them a little bit of rundown like in your, your workbook that you have. Like, I know that we went over the kind of the, the high level of different things that they should be doing, but what is in that workbook? What is your program that you have? Like, give me, give me the download on that. So my program, the Tuesday Project, starts out with a right now an in person seminar or even a zoom seminar like this. I tell my story, I share what's going on, why I think this is so important and how everybody can benefit from this process. And then I have a workbook that is up for sale still in beta process. So like the one that you have is completely different than the one that I have now. It's grown. It's about 40 pages right now and it's about to be 45. So yes, it's very daunting. It's a, it's a big chunk of work and it's going. So what I've found is people don't like that big chunk of work. They don't stick with it. It gets overwhelming. It gets shoved in a kitchen drawer. And we talk about it in a year later when I ask them, hey, how's that going with your, with your planning? So I've created a program where I'll touch base with you based on what your needs are, if it's every week or every two weeks. So I can stay on top of that, make sure that you're getting through your work if you have any questions, who you should be contacting, those kinds of things. So each I've broken the workbook down into eight sections and it's basically just like the high level that we talked about earlier. First up is your. Who's your family? How are they related to you? Who do you want to include? Is there anybody that you don't want to include? That's the really big eye opener is that if you don't want somebody included, it really should be noted in your plan to eliminate any further aggravation down the road. And also it's harder for them to contest your plan after you're gone if it's in there already. So who do you want in there? Who you don't want in there. That's all part of that first section. The next section, we move right into who are your beneficiaries, and we talk about what is a beneficiary, what's going to happen, and those kinds of things. Should it be a family member that's a beneficiary? Should it be your spouse? Should it be somebody that is completely unrelated? Is it somebody that can handle what you have going on? In my case, I have the bank that I am most familiar with and do the most work with. They are the ones that will be the personal representative and handling my estate. We have a small family. I have one daughter and grandson. Jerry has a sister. I have a sister and a brother, none of whom would be able to wrap their eyes, their head, their hands around this whole mess of stuff that we have and that I've kept going and all those things. So for me, it was. And also very strong personalities between a couple of my. The aunts and my daughters. So to just alleviate some of that stress, if something were to happen to me tomorrow, the bank would handle that. I have a representative there that handles that. So a trust department. And so they'll toss out all the rules and stuff like that of my estate. So. So just having those conversations and then also having those conversations with your family. So they are aware, My daughter's very aware, that this is who she's going to call. And I had that conversation with her as I was doing my will and trust setup while I was setting up Jerry's estate so that we could just do it all in one call. But having those conversations at that time, and then the next step is moving into your financial. And all of your assets. And assets are anything of value to you. So it's your home, your cars, any collectibles, any jewelry that you want handed down. In my family, we have a set of dishes that came over from Germany that are handed down to the family members. My aunt just inherited them. So I asked about them over the Easter weekend here, and she got those. And I get a nice little picture from Germany as well. So we have all that stuff that's coming down eventually. And just what is an asset to you is really different from what I might have and what you might have. So what that looks like. We collect all that information. We also go in and talk. We want all of your bank accounts are there, and then are there digital assets? So like your Facebook passwords, your email passwords? All of that stuff's very important as well. When Jerry passed away, he had A several businesses, but he ran all through one email. I had his email address and I had no passwords and I had some of his logins. He had a yellow legal pad that had all that scribble on there. No rhyme or reason. They were just like randomly throughout different corners of that paper. I had to guess. Thankfully I had access to his email so I could reset his passwords for everything as long as I could figure out what his username was on a lot of the stuff, you know, and with businesses, it's pretty consistent. It's usually the email and then a password for your login. Right. So digital assets, what, what accounts are, where's all of your information at? Do you have digital photos that you want saved or things like that? Because if we don't know about them and somebody doesn't know what you're. That that's an asset that you have in holding, they can't go grab that. So just what all your digital assets are and then, then what are your liabilities? What are your debts? Do you have a car loan? Do you have a mortgage? Do you have land in three different states that somebody might not know about? Because that does exist. Just little things like that. Do you stand to inherit anything from anybody? In my case, you know, my grandma just passed away. We all inherited a little bit, so that, that had to go into my estate. And then also, do you like. And also like, are you a part of a life estate for somebody else? We were life estate holding holders for his parents. So when he passed, that automatically transfers over to me. Well, I, that wasn't. Didn't feel good for all of us, so that I had to transfer that back over to them after the estate was settled. So there's all those little things that you would want that they need to know when they create your will or your trust. From there, we move into liabilities, retirement plans, all those. You have those in place. So some of that stuff, we just break this down into little chunks so that when you go through the plan yourself and it's not, it's very manageable, after that, we can move into legacy. And what do you want done with your pets? Charity of charitable organizations, and then your funeral arrangements. Then after that it's just maintaining that, updating every year, picking a date that you want to update that every year. And really instead of eating the entire elephant all at once. Right. Like what you're doing in your program is yes, you can take the workbook and try to accomplish it all yourself, but what you're offering is Assistance to be able to chunk it down and put it into manageable bite sized pieces. I kind of almost look at it like getting a homework assignment from you, right? Like, okay, here comes IBN what I got to do and better go ahead and do it. And then the great part of that is now that I have somebody that holds me accountable. Right? Like you are there you are. Not that you don't care about me, I don't mean it this way, but like you're not biased about any of my decisions that I'm, you know, putting together in this. You're truly there on informational purposes, walking us through the step by step to be able to have a collective plan and have the people of everybody that needs to be affiliated or you know, be able to reach out to like you have a whole organized packet that literally it's a, I, I call it a hit by a bus plan. If you know, if I get hit by a plane like tomorrow, like here you go, this is what you do and good luck and just make sure you throw my phone away. But you know, like, like it's so, it's so great to be able to see these emails come through. It's not scary. It's not this big black cloud that comes through my email box. Like it is super easy. I know that the what is coming behind it is true, intentional and genuine help that you want to make sure that people do not experience what you went through because we all know that it's going to be a win versus an F. So. Right. It is definitely that. And highlight here I'm working on is an online course so you can log in to a dashboard and do the work. So it won't be just an email campaign. After a while there'll be a full dashboard that you can log in. I can't store it because I, you know, I'm not an attorney or an accountant or a financial advisor. I can guide you to those professionals when you need them and have you prepared so that when you walk into them and you don't have to get the packet from them and then go back and get a packet from your financial advisor and maybe you have an accountant so you now you have to get a packet from them. What information do they need? It's all there. They can photocopy the pieces that they need. You can give them a copy of it. If you do it digitally, there'll be PDF fillables on that dashboard for you so you can do it all online and save it to your, your account. And so it'll be very cool once it gets really rolling. We're still in the beta testing phase there, but, you know, it's just getting this program rolling for everybody. My. I really want to make an impact that this is important and it really affects those that you care about more than it affects you. You're just doing a little bit of homework to make a really big impact on them. Sure. And so, like, I just want to recap, like, you do this in person, so I could hire you to come out and let's say for my family, that would be a great Mother's Day gift. Right. Hey, mom, here you go. I don't think that'd go well, so I won't be doing that. But I could hire you to come out and do it with, you know, my, my company or those who that I want to join. Right. You'll do it via Zoom, like what we're doing basically right now. Right. And here a couple months ago, we all were at a national franchise and you actually were on stage doing your, like, sharing your story and going through these tips and you actually shared some of the content as well. So you're on stages and being able to do talks and workshops as well. Then now you're eventually going to be having a dashboard. So I think there's no excuse. And let's not forget the emails. Right. The breaking it down, there's no excuse at all. Like, there's so many different methods that you can, you can reach out and ask for help and she will be able to guide you through all of those. I think one of the cooler benefits that has come up organically for me is I have commercial buildings that I lease out and one of the vendors there or one of my tenants, actually, we've made a pact that we are going to offer this to his employees. And then I've had another group that has asked the same thing. So it's just think of it as a benefit to your, your employees or whoever works for you or your organization that you're a part of. If it's a, you know, like a charitable organization that you're part of, then you want, hey, I want these people to maybe consider me as an organization. To have somebody like me come in and just talk about this and how they can do that would be. Is a great benefit to those organizations as well. It's not even just that I'm here to preach to you to get this done. There's a benefit that you can offer to other people as well. Absolutely. Yeah. I think it'd be Great for like, if there's associations that are listening or other groups, you know, to have Heidi come in and give a presentation. You know, I think that part of the battle is just starting the conversation. So, you know, if you can get, you know, have Heidi guest speak at any events, I think that that would be fantastic. So people start to think like, oh, this does, you know, really happen or maybe we do need to get our shit together. I mean, last week alone, you know, a 38 year old that we know passed away on vacation and classmate of mine died in his sleep, you know, and you just hope and pray that they had everything in place. I think it's a great opportunity for people to just start to get the ball rolling. So Heidi, where is it best that people can find you or contact you? The most updated place right now is on Facebook. It's the Tuesday project. I'm in beta version on a Tuesday Tuesday project.com site. So Facebook would be your best bet. The Tuesday project is right there. You can find me there or at. Heidi moves you on Facebook as well. Awesome. Well, I greatly appreciate you, Heidi, for sharing your story. I know that I've heard it multiple times, but each time that I hear you give your story, there's always something else that I pick out that resonates with me. So I greatly appreciate you taking the time and sharing your story with us. I'd like to share two things, if you don't mind. Yeah, the first one was the big eye opener for you, Steven. It was talking about probate and what that actually costs when you're not prepared. And remember, we were. My husband, I should say, was a serial entrepreneur. He liked to try things, move things around, all that stuff. We spent just under 15 or I spent just under $15,000, 19 months and 23 days to close out Jerry's probate. So that was the big passionate push behind this. I'd like to save everybody that type of fees. And then the last thing just that really resonated with me. It was something that was on the back of the funeral home thing when I was there that day planning out my husband's funeral was that pre planning is really truly the most loving thing. You can leave your family. And that after that, you know, that sat with me for a while. And I'm like, we didn't pre plan anything, let alone a funeral. So pre planning is just something that should happen every single day for your family. We do it. We packed our lunches. Right. Why don't we plan some of this stuff? Great point. Well, again. Thank you. Ashley, do you have any last words or anything? I'm just excited, Heidi. Every time, like Steven said, I learned something new. I took a couple other more notes, things I need to do. But I'm excited for the digital course. And as you know, I'm hopeful to get you to speak here in the near future. Look forward to it. Thanks, you guys. This is so much fun. Yeah, we'll have to do another one. Maybe we will. We should. All right, thank you, everybody, for, for listening. And tune in next time if you've. Enjoyed today's episode, please, like, subscribe and share with others. Stay connected. For more genuine insights and strategies to boost your real estate career on Facebook or check out our website. We'll see you next time.