Behind the Scenes of an Estate Planning Podcast

This is how we spend Saturday mornings over here. My husband, Jeremy, is a software engineer, which makes him a very useful editor for an estate planning podcast. Hear me out.

Before an episode of The Death Readiness Podcast makes its way out into the world, Jeremy listens to it from the perspective of someone who doesn’t spend his days thinking about wills, trusts, probate, beneficiary designations, powers of attorney, and all the other things estate planning attorneys tend to talk about as though everyone else knows exactly what we mean.

If something doesn’t make sense, he tells me. If I’ve used a legal term without adequately explaining it, he tells me. And if I’ve assumed everyone knows something that really only estate planning attorneys know, he tells me that, too.

An Estate Planning Podcast Should Make Estate Planning Easier to Understand

I’m an estate planning and probate attorney and I know the terminology. But rattling off estate planning jargon isn’t the test of whether I’ve created a useful podcast episode. The real test is whether someone who isn’t an estate planning attorney can listen to an episode and walk away understanding something they didn’t understand before.

What does a Will actually control when you die?

Why might an asset still go through probate even if you have a revocable trust?

What does a trustee actually have to do?

What happens if your beneficiary designation says one thing and your Will says something else?

What authority does a healthcare power of attorney actually give someone?

These concepts can get complicated quickly. But the people who need to understand them usually aren't estate planning lawyers. They’re parents creating an estate plan, adult children helping aging parents, people named as executors or trustees who suddenly have a job they’ve never done before, and families trying to understand what happens after someone dies.

And sometimes they’re attorneys, financial advisors, and other professionals looking for a resource they can share when a client needs a little more explanation.

Why I Created The Death Readiness Podcast

Estate planning affects incredibly important parts of our lives: our families, our money, our medical decisions, and what happens when we can no longer handle those things ourselves. And understanding your estate plan shouldn’t require a law degree.

On the podcast, I talk about estate planning, probate, trusts, incapacity, beneficiary designations, healthcare decision-making, and the practical realities of preparing for death. Sometimes I interview professionals who bring a different perspective to those conversations. Other times, I take one estate planning concept and break it down step by step.

Either way, my goal is the same: make complicated estate planning topics easier to understand and, more importantly, easier to use in real life.

The Non-Lawyer Test

Which brings me back to Jeremy. This morning, he’s sitting in a chair in our backyard in Royal Oak, Michigan, editing my next episode while two foster puppies sleep at his feet and another dog works on his tan.

It isn't exactly a sophisticated podcast production studio. But having someone outside the estate planning world check in before an episode is published gives me something incredibly valuable: the non-lawyer test.

Knowing estate planning law is one skill but explaining it so that people can actually understand it is another. And if Jeremy stops me and says, “Wait. What does that mean?” I probably have some more editing to do. Just another Saturday morning at The Death Readiness Podcast headquarters.