Case Study.

A mother to two young children, self-employed and ten years into a portfolio consulting career,
Beth had no will, no power of attorney and no documented medical wishes. She had some scattered investments and pensions and her critical documentation was stored amongst a lot of paper that could be shredded.

With 6 week’s notice of a significant medical event, she engaged The Ultimate Exit to ‘get sorted’.

The Day.

We spread out across a boardroom table in the conference room of a country pub. Agreeing priorities early, we worked through them so that by the end of the day, we had:-

> Collated all significant documentation, certificates and references to ease probate and financial administration of her estate.

> Simplified household admin onto a single A4 “handover” sheet

> Written a communication plan, making sure her loved ones would receive the news with care and compassion, exactly as she wanted it framed

> Outlined clear steps for her funeral, all carefully tailored to reflect her wishes and include those special to her

> Planned meaningful conversations with those close to her to invite them to play special roles in the funeral and in the lives of her spouse and children to ensure that they would always feel supported and so that her children would continue to get to know her through those who know and love her

> Captured her financial queries/wishes which she could ‘copy/paste’ to her financial advisor

> Made decisions for her will and gifts in sufficient detail to take it to a legal advisor to be formally put together

> Spent significant time considering how to communicate her own passing to her young children, finding ways and words that they would understand

> Ensured some burden was lifted from her spouse, who would be in turmoil of a sudden and traumatic death with young children

The Document.

Immediately following this day, Catherine captured all of these wishes and actions in “Beth’s Ultimate Exit Plan”.

This was delivered as a Google doc, split into logical sections, with tables of information, chunks of instructions for people to follow in the event of a life-changing illness or her death, and then a finite list of specific actions for Beth to undertake now to finalise the plan. Some of the actions were administrational. Many were to have meaningful conversations with people and to invite them to play a special role for Beth post-humously.

The “Doing”.

For the following four weeks, we had regular calls whilst Beth worked through her action points

  • for accountability to maintain momentum

  • for support to debrief on recent conversations

  • as a sounding board to rehearse for imminent conversations

  • to ensure that the document was updated and remained clear

Turning to life.

The goal was always clear for Beth, to focus on her ‘exit’ sufficiently to be able to turn fully again to life.

Having completed the actions and finalised and stored the document, she could do just that. In her testimonial she talks about the process, the challenges and the elation she felt going through it. Due to the sensitive and personal nature of Beth’s video testimonial, it is available by request, below.

What our clients say

  • "It's been really quite a fun day actually thinking about what I would like to happen at my funeral and importantly how I would communicate my death to my family. These are hard to think about but also, it's not impossible and we've managed it today."

  • "Catherine manages things extremely head on, but with great compassion, care and carefulness. Her balance between dealing with the practical aspects and the personal and spiritual aspects: how she manages those two is absolutely superb."

  • “Over the course of today, I've just been kept very carefully on track as I've been navigating the emotional and psychological aspects of planning for my own funeral and my own death as well as dealing with the practical aspects. And it's been brilliant.”

  • "I can honestly say it's been uplifting. I feel like a burden has been lifted from my shoulders and I'm not even sure how long it's been there. So yeah, I would recommend this experience. In fact, I couldn't recommend this experience more."

  • "It's everything that I said captured and presented back to me better than I said it myself. She's managed to sift through things that seemed confused in my head and make sense of them. I've got a super clear plan of what I actually need to do now."

  • "There's a possibility that I need to be planning for my funeral. But if it is the case that I don't need to at that point, I've planned for my funeral, whenever that does occur! It is so uplifting, to think like, 'Okay, I don't have to worry about this anymore.' "

  • "Catherine has captured it absolutely amazingly and I'm just so grateful because it's such a difficult job to do that with sensitivity; a hard job to do with patience and the ability to just organize someone else's brain when it's at it's most sensitive.

  • "I've actually really enjoyed the process and I've really enjoyed working with someone who's just so open hearted and understands every dimension that you're trying to manage when you're writing your 'Ultimate Exit Plan'. Thank you, Catherine"